#chapter five: secrets uncovered

[i-get-obsessed-fast]

Family | Criminal Minds

.・゜✭・. Spencer Reid x F!Reader .・゜✭・.

Summary: under unexpected and intense circumstances, the team uncovers you and Spencer Reids biggest secrets- your relationship and the baby on the way.

A/N: sorry for the wait!! I wanted this chapter to be perfect and hopefully it is! Lmk your thots<3 xoxo

BYR(b4 u Reid): kind of suggestive, use of y/n, child abuse, mentions of blood, and hospitals. | lmk if I missed anything<3

read the first half to understand a bit more -> Oh Baby | Criminal Minds

The weekend passed quickly, uninterrupted by work, a rare occurrence, but one that gave you and Spencer the chance to just be with each other. Wrapped up in blankets, tangled together on your couch, the two of you spent most of the time talking about everything and nothing.

Spencer had been at your place since Friday night. The only time either of you left was to grab some extra clothes and a few belongings from his apartment, bringing them back so he wouldn’t have to leave again.

“I’ve been thinking.” He murmured, his voice low and thoughtful. You were nestled against him, your head rested on his chest, fingers lazily intertwined.

“You’re always thinking.” You teased

He huffed a quiet laugh “Yeah, I am.” He paused for a moment “I want us to move in together.”

That made you lift your head, searching his face “Don’t you think it’s too soon?”

Spencer didn’t hesitate “I think moving in together is probably going to be the last thing we’ve done to soon.” You thought about that for a moment “That’s true.”

His grip on your hand tightened just slightly “I just— I want to be with you, and I don’t feel comfortable leaving you here alone.” His voice was quieter now, but there was something heavy in it.

“Spencer, nothings going to happen to me.” You assured him

He exhaled, but it didn’t seem like it made a difference. He still looked at you like the thought of you two being apart even just to sleep was something he couldn’t bear.

You softened “Alright.” You murmured, “If moving in together is what you want, then I want it too.”

His head tilted down to look at you, a slow, relieved smile pulling at his lips “Yeah?”

You nodded “Yeah, but it has to be somewhere new, somewhere we choose together.”

“Of course.” He quickly agreed, pulling you closer “So when do we tell the team?” You asked, he hummed in thought considering the best timing

“I think we should wait until you're in your second trimester, but for now, we could at least tell them about us,” he says

You let out a small laugh “I’d rather just hit them with everything all at once.”

Spencer shook his head with a fond smile “Of course you would.” you shrugged “might as well get it all over with at the same time, right?”

“If that's what you want, then we’ll do it that way. I just don't think I’ll be able to hide it any longer.” He admits

“You know,” you started biting your lip as you laid your head back down on his chest “Penelope told me the team already knew we were…” you trailed off feeling awkward “We were what?”

You rolled your eyes “That we were sleeping together. She said it was obvious.” He let out a small laugh “Well I think Penelope’s crazy.”

“She is.” You admitted with a grin “But she’s probably right, we were terrible at keeping things lowkey. I honestly wouldn’t doubt they somehow found out we started dating the night we made it official. I don’t think they’ll be to surprised with that news.”

Spencer shrugged “Well if they do know, they won’t say anything until we confirm it. So at least we can all just pretend for now.”

You nodded, amused “Yeah.”

“What time is it?” Spencer asked, you sighed glancing at the clock “Time to get up.”

He groaned clearly not wanting to leave the comfort of you “Five more minutes.” You smiled shifting to look at him once again, your fingers threading through his messy hair. His eyes fluttered shut at the feeling, completely content.

You couldn’t help yourself, you leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his lips.

Morning breath don’t matter. Spencer could never be gross to you, and you knew he felt the same.

“Come on.” You coaxed “I’m starving. If we hurry, we can grab breakfast on the way in.” Spencer cracked an eye open, feigning offense “You're choosing food over staying in bed with me?”

You nodded, grinning “Right now, yes.” You kissed his cheek before smirking “Shower together? You know… to conserve water. I’m very environmentally conscious.”

Spencer huffed a laugh “Oh, So thoughtful. I suppose I’ll help your noble cause.”

You giggled as you both got up, making your way to the bathroom. . .

By the time you stepped into the bullpen, coffee in Spencers hand and a breakfast sandwich in yours, Dereks suspicious gaze was already locked on you.

“You two ride together?” he asked, brow raised. You took a casual bite out of your sandwich “Yeah, he's on the way.” Derek hummed knowingly “hmm. Alright.”

As he walked away, you turned to spencer, grinning “You think he suspects anything?”

Spencer didn't hesitate “Of course he does.”

You shrugged. “Oh well, I'm gonna talk to Penelope. Talk later?” he nodded “Be safe.”

You snorted “She’s just right there.” you tell him as you walk away towards her door

You knocked on Penelope's office door, relieved to see her already settled in “You may enter.” she dramatically called

Closing the door behind you, you barely had time to sit before she grinned “How was your weekend? You and the good doctor disappeared. The group is talking.” She wiggled her eyebrows

You rolled your eyes but couldn’t help smiling “It was good.”

Penelope gasped, leaning in “Really? How good? Spill.”

You kept it simple “We talked… and he finally asked me to be with him.” she squealed “That’s adorable! So, are you guys having this baby?”

You nodded “Yeah. He’s excited, I am too. But we’re waiting until I'm past my first trimester before telling everyone.”

Her hand flew to her chest “Oh, my heart! I feel so special knowing this.” she lowered her voice “Are you telling JJ and Emily?”

You shook your head “Just you and Spencer for now.” she nodded “Right, right.”

You sighed, feeling a wave of gratitude. “Thanks, Penelope. I'm really glad I have someone to talk to about all of this.”

She reached out, squeezing your hand “Always, sweet pea.”

You stood, ready to head out, but Penelope hesitated “Wait, one last thing. I was thinking… How are you going to keep working in the field?”

“JJ did it.”

“Yeah, but JJ doesn't do as much field work as you.”

You shrugged “I guess we’ll figure it out.”

She gave you a pointed look “I just don't want you getting hurt.” you gave her a soft smile “I know.” you assured her “Thanks, P. Talk later.”

As you stepped out David caught sight of you, smirking “Someone’s looking better than last week.”

You played it cool “Told you guys, just a stomach bug. A weekend off did the trick.”

Rossi nodded, then subtly tilted his head toward Spencer, who was at his desk “That, and some time with him, huh?”

You rolled your eyes “You guys are crazy.”

But you didn't deny it.

They’d have their confirmation soon enough.

˚୨��⋆｡˚ ⋆

The past two weeks had been exhausting. Squeezing in house hunting between cases, late nights, and early mornings. It felt nearly impossible to find time, but you and Spencer made it work because it wasn’t just about finding a house, it was about finding a home.

As the both of you pulled up to the Victorian house, you exhaled “Hopefully, this is the last house we ever have to look at.”

Luckily, you and Spencer finally had the chance to tour this house together. With your hectic work schedules, and to avoid drawing any more suspicion you had both been viewing homes separately.

You looked out the car window, even in the dark the house stood beautiful. It had charm, history, and character, exactly what the two of you had been searching for.

The both of you stepped out of the car, eyes scanning every inch of the home with quiet appreciation “It’s beautiful.” you murmured

A woman approached with a warm smile “Hello! Spencer Reid, and Y/N Y/L/N?”

“That’s us,” Spencer responded, the both of you stepping forward to shake her hand “Thank you for meeting us at this hour.” Spencer politely said “Our work schedule is… unpredictable.”

“I completely understand.” The realtor assured “I’m happy to accommodate. This house was built in the early 1900s, passed down through generations, but recently, the family found themselves unable to keep it.” There was a hint of sadness in her voice but she quickly brightened “Shall we go inside?”

The moment you stepped through the front door, it felt like stepping into a different time. The natural wood floors creaked under your feet, the rich paneling carried stories of the past, and the fireplace, grand and inviting, felt like it belonged in a home meant to be filled with love.

“How many bedrooms?” You asked, wandering into the living room, already picturing a life here.

“Four.” She answered “All upstairs. Perfect for a family.”

You turned to Spencer “Four seems like a lot of space.” He tilted his head, the way he always did when he was thinking “Not really.” counting on his fingers “One is ours, one is for the baby, one can be a library.” he smiled as he said that “and the last… for another baby.”

Your eyes widened “Okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I just found out I’m seven weeks. Let’s focus on one baby at a time.” You laughed

Spencer only shrugged, as if the idea of another child was already a certainty in his mind.

You continued exploring, making your way upstairs, and the moment you stepped into one particular room, something inside you clicked.

It wasn’t the biggest, but it had a large, beautiful window overlooking the quiet neighborhood. Soft moonlight filtered in, painting the space in a glow that made it feel warm, safe, and perfect.

“This is it.” You said, taking it all in. Spencer’s hand found yours, his fingers threading through like second nature. You looked up at him. “This would be our babies room.”

He didn’t say anything right away. Instead, he took a slow glance around, and you could see it, him envisioning the nursery, picturing you both painting the walls, him struggling with a screwdriver as he attempted to assemble the crib, you teasing him for overanalyzing the instruction manual.

He could see your child taking their first steps in the living room below, and could hear laughter throughout the entire house. He wanted it, he needed it.

“Is this the one?” He finally asked, locking his eyes on you “I love it. A lot.” You nodded

A smile tugged at his lips as he pulled you into him, embracing you in a secure hug “I love it too.” your arms wrapped around his waist as his hand came up, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear before cupping your cheek, his touch lingering.

“We should put in an offer right?”

“Absolutely.”

Determined, you both headed downstairs, ready to fight off anyone who might try to take this house from you guys.

After filling out the paperwork, the realtor smiled “I’ll call you in the next few weeks with any updates from the owners.”

“Thank you.” you said, shaking her hand “Really, thank you.” Spencer echoed, his grip firm but grateful

You didn't want to leave. You wanted to stay, to imagine furniture placements, to map out the future in your mind. But Spencer opened the car door for you, waiting patiently as you slid into the passenger seat. He quickly made his way to the driver's side, but before starting the car, he turned to you.

“I can see us here.” He said softly, his gaze lingering, you met his eyes, your heart swelling “I can too. Playing in the yard, reading a book under the tree…”

A small smile tugged at his lips as he reached for your hand, pressing a kiss to your knuckles. It wasn’t just affection, it was a promise. A silent vow that he would give you this home, this future, this life.

˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

You and Spencer were sat in the waiting room of your doctors office, waiting for your first official prenatal checkup.

The last visit had only been to confirm your pregnancy, a whirlwind appointment where the doctor estimated you were around seven weeks along. Now, at ten weeks, the reality of it all was settling in. And with it came nerves, fear, even.

You had read online that the first trimester was the most nerve-wracking. The uncertainty of it all made your chest feel tight.

“Y/N Y/L/N.” a nurse called Spencer's fingers immediately tightened around yours as he stood, guiding you forward. The two of you followed the nurse down the hall and into a small exam room.

“The doctor will be in shortly.” she said with a polite smile before stepping out.

You sat down on the exam table, exhaling “I’m nervous.”

Spencer didn't even try to pretend “Me too.” your stomach twisted “What if something’s wrong? What do we do?” the question left your lips before you could even stop it, your mind already spiraling through worst-case scenarios.

Spencer's hand moved up and down your arm, in slow, soothing motions. “Let's not think about that, okay? Everything is fine.” He tried his best to push aside his fear to be strong for you

You nodded

“If anything happens, I’m here.” His eyes locked on yours, filled with quiet determination.

“okay.”

The appointment went better than you could have hoped. Relief washed over you the moment you heard the rhythmic thump of your baby’s heartbeat. Strong and steady, exactly as the doctor assured you, several times, because Spencer had insisted on triple checking.

“Is there anything we should be looking out for in the next few weeks?” Spencer asked, the doctor chuckled “First-time parents, right?”

You both nodded in unison.

“You’ll know if something feels off, mom.” She said reassuringly “And Dad, just be there every step of the way. Give her massages, help her relax. You two are going to do great.”

Spencer gave a polite nod, but it was clear he still wanted more information. “Thank you.” He said, though his expression remained contemplative as the doctor stepped out.

As soon as the door closed, you turned to him “I need to hear the heartbeat again. We need one of those at-home monitors.”

He nodded immediately “We can get one.” No hesitation, no questions, just unwavering agreement.

After leaving the doctors office, Spencer took you out for food. The two of you sat in a booth at a small diner, waiting for your orders.

You stirred your milkshake. “You know, since I’m ten weeks now, that gives us about two weeks to figure out how we’re going to tell the team.”

Spencer leaned back, considering. “I was thinking… since we found that house we both loved, when we finally get accepted for it, maybe we can have a cookout and just tell them there.”

You grinned “That’s actually a really good idea, a house warming party with a baby announcement.”

He looked pleased with himself.

Your excitement grew. “We have to get that house now. My baby needs that room with the gorgeous big window.” you dramatically say

“We’ll get it.” He promised, reaching across the table to squeeze your hand.

Spencer had always been thoughtful, but lately, it felt like he was operating on an entirely different level. Whatever you wanted, he was already one step ahead, ready to make it happen. It was like you unlocked some primal instinct in him, the need to protect, to provide. To make you feel like the most important person in the world.

And, truthfully, to him, you were.

“Spencer.” You spoke his name softly, drawing his attention. His eyes flicked up from his coffee “Yeah?”

“Thank you.” Your voice was steady, but full of emotion “I’ve never felt like this before. No one has ever made me feel this special. I know our situation is different from tradition, but you make me feel like none of that matters, you make me believe everything is going to be okay.”

His expression softened, something tender flickering in his gaze “You make me feel like everything’s going to be okay too.”

You smiled “I can’t wait for us to be in our home, together.”

˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

The next day after your appointment, you and the team were called in before the sun even had a chance to rise. It had to be serious, Hotch never called anyone in this early unless it was that urgent.

“We’ll be on our way.” Spencer said groggily into his phone as he sat up on the bed, there was a pause before Hotch responded, his tone pointed “We’re?”

Spencer’s eyes widened in panic “Oh no, I meant I’m on the way. Sorry sir, I’m just half asleep.”

Hotch didn’t buy it one bit. “Reid, just make sure you and Y/L/N get here soon.” The call had ended before Spencer could say anything else. He sat there mouth slightly opened in shock.

“I think Hotch knows.” He muttered, glancing at you “Yeah, I wouldn’t doubt it after that slip up.” You teased, rubbing his shoulder reassuringly “It’s alright.”

The two of you hurried to get ready, grabbed your go-bags, and rushing out the door

By the time you arrived, the entire team was already gathered in the briefing room, including Garcia, which meant she’d be traveling with the team. You always loved when she did. JJ stood at the front, briefing everyone on a case out in Los Angeles.

Children were being kidnapped. Held hostage for days before being found again, alive, but barely. Most were so traumatized they couldn’t speak or even remember what happened to them.

Scanning over the photos, your heart clenched. These were people’s babies. Your throat tightened at the thought of what these parents must be going through. The fear, the helplessness. Your eyes stung.

A gentle touch under the tables startled you. Spencer’s hand found yours, squeezing lightly. He didn’t say anything, but you knew it was to comfort you.

You blinked rapidly, forcing yourself to stay composed.

Hotch’s voice cut through the room. “Wheels up in thirty.”

Everybody nodded, absorbing the severity of this case. “This is sick,” Emily muttered as she flips through the files. “Yeah.” JJ agreed, pressing a hand to her chest “These poor kids.”

Morgan clenched his jaw “We’re gonna get the bastard that’s doing this.” He was determined.

“Hopefully.” You whispered, pushing back from the table. You needed air.

On the jet, your nausea hit full force. You pressed a hand to your stomach, trying to keep yourself together.

“Here, Drink some water.” Spencer handed you a water bottle, his expression tense. “You're supposed to stay hydrated.”

You smiled despite the queasiness “Thank you.”

Across from you, Emily raised an eyebrow “That’s really sweet, Spencer.”

“Just trying to help.” he awkwardly smiled but quickly made his way back to his own seat, avoiding everyone's eyes.

Garcia leaned close, whispering in your ear “Lover boy isn’t very good at hiding things.”

You chuckled softly. “He’s just worried. I don’t think he cares at this point.”

Closing your eyes, you tried to rest, but it was impossible.

David’s voice pulled you back “Rough morning?”

“Yeah, went out last night. Just feeling sick from all the drinks.” You lied Morgan snorted “you? Going out?”

“Yes.” You shot back “Don’t be jealous I didn’t invite you.” He smirked “The more I learn about you.”

Unfortunately thought David wasn’t done “Who’d you go out with?”

“Just some old friends.” You shrugged, hoping he’d drop it, he just nodded, thankfully.

You shifted, suddenly hyper-aware of Hotch watching you. His gaze was sharp, calculating.

He knows.

They all probably do. Who were you and Spencer kidding? You were surrounded by the best profilers in the country.

At the Los Angeles police department, you all set up quickly diving into work. The weight of the case, combined with your exhaustion, made it hard to focus.

“Agent, are you listening?”

You snapped back to reality. Hotch was staring at you expectantly.

“Sorry, I-I got distracted.”

His expression didn't soften. “Now is not the time to be distracted.”

You swallowed hard, nodding. “I know, it won't happen again.”

“You're coming with JJ and me. We’re interviewing the most recent victims' parents.”

You straightened “Got it.”

Spencer watched as you walked away, his jaw tight. There was nothing he could do, but he was grateful you were in trusted hands.

Interviewing the parents was brutal. They sobbed, pleading for their twelve-year-old son to come home.

“Please.” the father begged “Tell us you're close to finding whoever is doing this.”

Hotch’s voice was steady. “We just got here, but I assure you, we’re working as fast as possible.”

You leaned forward gently. “Has your son ever mentioned any adults he trusted? A teacher, a coach, a counselor maybe?”

They thought for a moment before the mother spoke. “He saw a school counselor every two weeks.”

JJ frowned. “Do you know their name?”

The parents shook their heads.

“We only found out about it a month ago.” the father admitted. “The school never told us.”

Hotch’s expression darkened “They didn't notify you?”

“No.” the mother said. “We thought it was odd, but it seemed to help him, and maybe he didn't want us to know.”

Back at the station, Garcia worked fast, digging through school records. It didn't take long to connect the dots, two school counselors, both men in their late forties, working at different schools but targeting kids the same way.

“That has to be it.” Morgan said

Hotch nodded “We have addresses. Move now.”

He started assigning teams. “Y/L/N, Rossi, and JJ, you're with me. Prentiss, Morgan, and Reid take the second location.”

As you checked your vest and gun, spencer stepped in front of you. “You can't go.”

Your brows furrowed. “Spencer-”

“I can't let you go.” his voice was firm, but there was desperation in his eyes. You exhaled sharply. “Spencer, we don't have time for this. There are kids who need us.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“What's going on?” Hotch’s voice cut in. You hesitated, searching for an excuse. But spencer beat you to it.

“She’s pregnant.” he said without hesitation

Silence.

Hotch’s eyes flicked to you, he gave a small nod. “Stay here.”

And just like that, they were gone.

You watched as they left, feeling betrayed. Spencer hadn't even given you a choice.

“He did it because he cares,” Garcia said softly. You shook your head “he picked the worst possible moment. This is my job, and I'm still capable.”

She just gave you an apologetic look

You sighed and sat down.

It had been thirty minutes. No updates. No calls. Nothing.

The silence was suffocating, and every passing second made your anxiety climb higher.

“I should go.” You said suddenly pushing up from your chair, Garcia’s head snapped up, eyes wide. “No, you shouldn’t. Hotch told you to stay.” She reminded you firmly

You bit the inside of your cheek, restless “I can’t just sit here-”

Before you could finish, Garcia’s phone rang, cutting through the tension. She answered immediately, and as soon as she did, the color drained from her face.

“What?” You demanded, stepping closer.

Garcia swallowed hard “okay, okay. We’ll be there.” She said into the phone before looking at you with terrified eyes “Spencer’s been shot.”

The words barely registered at first. It was like she had spoken in a language you didn’t understand.

“What?” You choked out, shaking your head, but she nodded “We need to go now.”

For a moment, you couldn’t move, the room felt like it had tilted slightly, but you snapped out of it, instinct kicked in and you grabbed the SUV keys without another word.

Garcia gave you the address of the hospital, and you barely remembered the drive. Your hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly your knuckles were white.

When you finally arrived and rushed inside, the first thing you saw was a team of EMTs pushing a gurney through the sliding doors.

Your breath caught in your throat.

Spencer.

There was so much blood, his skin looked pale, almost ghostly.

Your heart dropped, the world around you blurred, and muffled as if you were underwater.

You moved without thinking, trying to get to him, but someone grabbed you, holding you back.

“Let me go!” You struggled, twisting, trying to break free, but the grip was firm. You turned, frantic, only to see Hotch standing there. He was saying something, his lips were moving, his expression serious, but you couldn’t process a single word.

Everything was too fast and too slow all at once.

Tears ran down your face as you stood frozen, helpless, watching Spencer disappear down the hall.

˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

Hours had passed as you waiting in the waiting room for any updates on Spencer, every hour feeling longer than the last.

The nurse had came by an hour or two ago with a small update informing that things were going well in surgery and he was expected to pull through but your mind wasn’t letting you rest, worried that anything could go wrong any minute.

The waiting room felt suffocating, and no matter how many deep breathes you took, the anxiety wouldn’t settle.

Most of the team had drifted off to sleep, curled up in the uncomfortable hospital chairs. But you couldn’t. Every time you closed your eyes, your mind played worst-case scenarios, refusing to let you rest.

“How are you feeling?”

The voice startled you, and you turned to see Hotch taking the seat beside you.

You blinked, not really sure how to answer that question. “I’m fine.” You answered

Hotch studied you for a moment before speaking again. “How far along are you?”

It took you a second to remember that little argument you and spencer had before he left, you couldn't believe you were upset with him and now he was in surgery.

“Ten weeks.” you softly say “Almost in my second trimester.”

Hotch nodded, a small hint of a smile crossing his face. “That’s wonderful.”

“Yeah.” you softly smiled “Spencer’s the father,” he said but he wasn't asking, he said it like he already knew, which of course he did, and you were sure everyone else definitely already knew too.

You looked down at your hands, as you nervously twisted your fingers “Yeah.”

Hotch didn’t hesitate. “You two are going to be great parents.”

The certainty in his voice made you smile. “I hope so.”

Before he could say anything else, a nurse entered the waiting room. “Spencer Reid?”

You were on your feet instantly, Hotch right beside you.

“He’s out of surgery.” The nurse informed you two. “Everything went well, and he should be waking up soon.” A breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding finally escaped. Relief flooded you so fast.

“Go. Stay with him.” Hotch gave you a reassuring look. You nodded, already moving. “I’ll call when he wakes up.”

The nurse had led you down the hall to Spencer’s room. He was lying peacefully on the bed, his face pale but his chest rising and falling steadily. The sight of him, alive and breathing, almost brought you to your knees.

The nurse gave you a small smile before stepping out, leaving just the two of you. You sat in the chair beside his bed, your eyes never leaving his face.

He looked so beautiful.

Minutes had passed, and then an hour. Finally, Spencer stirred. His fingers twitching against the sheets before his eyes fluttered open.

“Y/n?” His voice was groggy. “I’m right here.” You whispered, reaching for his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

His eyes locked onto yours, and his brow furrowed. “I’m so sorry.”

Tears pricked your eyes. “What? Why are you sorry?”

“I shouldn’t have- at the station, I shouldn’t have made that decision for you.” His voice cracked, and a tear had slipped down his cheek.

“Spencer.” You whispered, letting out a soft laugh. “I don’t care about that anymore. I’m just happy you’re okay.”

Of course, only Spencer would wake up from surgery apologizing. He was the kindest, most selfless person you knew.

“Where’s everyone?” He asked, his fingers still curled around yours “in the waiting room. Do you want me to get them?”

He shook his head “Not yet. I just want it to be us for now.” Your heart swelled “Okay.”

He shifted slightly, wincing, then looked at you with pleading eyes. “Lay with me?”

You hesitated. “Spence, I don’t want to hurt you-”

“Please.” He whispered “I just need to feel you close.”

That was all it took for you to carefully climb onto the bed beside him, mindful of the wires and IVs. His arm wrapped around you as best as they could, his warmth seeping into you.

You rested your head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. “Spencer.” You murmured, he hummed in response, his fingers tracing soothing patterns along your arm.

“I love you.”

There was a pause, and then his arm tightened around you. “I love you more.”

You tilted your head to look at him, and he was already smiling. “So all I had to do was get shot to hear those words?” He teased “I’d get shot a million more times if it meant hearing you say it again.”

You let out a small laugh. “Well luckily for you, that won’t be necessary. I’ll tell you every day. Every hour, if you want.”

Before spencer could say anything, your phone rang.

You glanced at the screen and saw your realtors name. Spencer raised an eyebrow “You should answer.”

You sighed, debating it, but Spencer gave you a small nod so reluctantly you answered.

“Hello?”

“y/n! I was just calling to tell you that the owners want to continue moving forward with you and Spencer! You guys got the house!”

Your mouth fell open slightly, and you looked at Spencer in shock. You were excited and happy but after today, nothing could make you more happy than just being in Spencer’s arms.

“Oh.” You breathed “That’s…that’s great.”

“Isn’t it?” She beamed “Unfortunately, Spencer and I we are away right now.” You inform her

“That’s no problem! Once you’re back, we can move forward with the paperwork.” You nodded even though she couldn’t see you. “Sounds good.”

After a few more exchanges, you hung up.

“Wow. Talk about timing.” Spencer softly chuckled, you smiled tiredly “I know.”

“This is good, though, right? We got the house.” He said sensing you weren’t as excited. You nodded, but your focus was on him “Yeah, it is. But right now, I don’t care about that. I just want you to recover.”

He grinned “I will. Now I just get to recover in our dream home… With my girlfriend.”

You wrinkled your nose “Girlfriend sounds weird.” You admit to him. “What would you prefer?” He asked smirking, you shrugged. “I don’t know.”

But you did know.

His fingers brushed your cheek, his touch featherlight. “I’d marry you right this second if that’s what you wanted.”

Your breath caught.

“But,” He continued “You don’t deserve to be asked in a hospital bed. You deserve something romantic. Something perfect.”

You curled into him, holding him as close as you could.

“Then I guess, I’ll just have to wait.” You whispered, Spencer smiled pressing his lips to your head “Not long.” He promised

You and Spencer spent the next few hours in each others comfort, neither of you saying much. There was something comforting about the silence, about just being together after everything that happened today.

Then, as expected, there was finally a knock at the door.

“Come in.” Spencer called, his voice still a little hoarse.

The door swung open, revealing the entire team. Penelope, Derek, Emily, JJ, Rossi, and of course Hotch. Each of them were holding some combination of flowers, balloons, and gift bags.

Spencer let out a soft chuckle as they all piled into the tiny hospital room, barely fitting. “Sorry for the wait, guys.” He said, his fingers still loosely tangled with yours.

“Hey, man, it’s alright.” Derek said, setting a bouquet down on the table. Then he smirked. “Understandable you wanted some alone time with your girl.”

Spencer’s face immediately turned bright red, and you couldn’t help but laugh.

“You really thought you could keep that from us?” Rossi teased, raising an eyebrow.

“We called it, we knew it.” JJ added, exchanging a look with Emily.

“This is somehow both surprising and completely unsurprising.” Emily said with a smirk. “Though, I am personally offended you didn’t tell us the moment we found out you were pregnant in the restroom.”

Derek’s eyes widened “Wait, you guys knew before?”

“Of course.” JJ said, shrugging. “We just didn’t know who the father was, but you know we had our suspicions.” She shot Spencer a pointed look

Spencer, still red-faced, shifted slightly in the bed. “Well. Uh-”

“Oh please!” Penelope cut in, grinning “I knew everything.” She bragged

The entire room erupted into laughter, the teasing only growing as everyone started sharing their theories, their suspicions, and all the little ways you and Spencer had definitely not been as sneaky as you thought.

“Like earlier on the jet, I knew you weren’t sick from drinking.” Rossi added with a knowing smirk

“Yeah, I should’ve figured something out then.” Derek sighed, shaking his head “I knew you weren’t a party girl.”

“I think the lesson learned today is that y/l/n and Reid are horrible at keeping things quiet.” Hotch said with his arms crossed a small smile showing

You groaned, embarrassingly hiding your face in your hands. “Okay, okay, we get it. You laughed, thoroughly embarrassed “We’re never hiding anything again.”

“Good.” Rossi said, looking pleased.

The teams teasing quickly spiraled into playful arguments, bets being placed on whether the baby will be a boy or girl, and a heated debate over who would be the babies favorite.

“I mean, lets be honest.” Derek smirked “It’s going to be me.”

���Excuse me? Its obviously going to be me.” Penelope said rolling her eyes

You laughed, shaking your head as the bickering continued.

Spencer had squeezed your hand, and you looked up at him both of you clearly grateful for the family you have and now the family you get to share with your little one. . .

I just want to say thank you all for the nice comments on the last chapter, I'm so glad a lot of you loved it sm<3

I also want to clarify, I am not a realtor nor ever been pregnant so if anything seems off or doesn't make sense, I'm sorry. lol.

Tag list :)

@coraline-jones353 @sleepysongbirdsings @alastorssimp @we-flower-fan @eg-dr3amer3 @bondwithme-murderstyle @cheriesbucky @criminallyvenomous @justlivinginadaydream

Don't forget to check out my other works<3 Here

[marcyvamp1re-blog]

pt.4 SILLY LITTLE BAT

pairings ⸺ Yandere! Platonic! Batfamily x Anti-hero! Fem!reader.

synopsis ⸺ In a Gotham steeped in darkness, Bruce Wayne confronts a past resonating with secrets. As he uncovers the identity of an enigmatic antiheroine, he will discover hidden truths that will stain his legacy. Blood, a symbol of betrayals, intertwines with his fate, revealing that darkness dwells within him as well.

warnings ⸺ Dark Themes, Dead, Religion, murdering,Disturbing Content, Unhealthy Obsession, tw.noncon, Discrimination, Street Fights, Gaslight, Violence, Blood, LGBT Content, Child Abuse, Kidnapping, Implicit Sexual Content, Mental Illness, Addiction, Torture, Corruption, Isolation, Trauma, Phobias, Paranoia

Chapter guide! Pt.1 Pt.2 Pt.3

A/N — English is not my first language—Spanish is— I took a long time because I went on vacation, I wasn’t inspired, I had a lot of things to catch up on, and blah blah blah. The good thing is that I brought part 4, and just so you know, there are about four or five more parts of the story, maybe more.

I'm dirty, infinitely dirty,

this is why I scream so much

about purity.

Bruce sat on the edge of the bed, feeling the weight of the memories and the silence that now inhabited that room. Every corner of that space reminded him of his daughter's presence, a presence that had been fragile and ephemeral, like smoke disappearing between fingers. He looked at the diplomas and trophies on the shelves, those small proofs of her effort and dedication. He caressed them with the same reverence he used when going through old photographs, searching for something, anything, that would tell him he had done enough, that he had been a good father.

But he only saw the same emptiness in her eyes that he had known since childhood. She resembled him more than he would have imagined. In her dull gaze, in her absent smile, he recognized the same pain that had accompanied him after his parents' death. He realized, almost bitterly, that this darkness was an inheritance, a shadow he had left in her without realizing it.

Bruce ran his fingers over an old photo from her first birthday after losing his mother. That day, Alfred had secretly taken her to Metropolis in a desperate attempt to give her some happiness. But even at the amusement park, where laughter and noise were contagious, her face remained a vacant mask. She wasn’t really smiling, as if something inside her knew she would never have the normalcy that other children enjoyed.

With a heavy sigh, Bruce rested his head on the pillow that had been hers, wanting to cling to the scent of his daughter. But there was no trace of her aroma left. Alfred, in an act of rigor that Bruce couldn’t understand, had eliminated any trace of her, perhaps trying to close a wound that Bruce was unwilling to let heal. He had reproached Alfred for hours and hours for erasing that last vestige of his daughter. But Alfred’s look, serious and filled with silence, told him what he already knew: maybe he didn’t deserve to keep those memories because he had failed to protect the person he loved most.

He closed his eyes, sinking into the pain of each thought that emerged from that dark room. Everything reminded him that, somehow, he was responsible for his daughter's disappearance, as if his own shadows had consumed her. In his mind, images of what he could have done differently began to surface, a parade of possibilities where he was a better father, more attentive and less blind to her suffering.

Suddenly, Titus and Alfred the Cat entered together through the door, coming in silently, as if they understood the weight of that moment. Titus approached Bruce, resting his massive head on his knee, while Alfred the Cat jumped onto Bruce's lap, purring softly. Bruce petted the dog and the cat, finding in them the only comfort that seemed left to him. His voice trembled when, in an almost delirious tone, he confessed to them:

"Maybe I’m the real killer here. What kind of father lets his daughter get lost in the dark? What kind of monster was I that I never saw her pain? If she’s dead… if my little girl has left this world… then I am the only one responsible."

He paused, breathing heavily, as the words he wanted to suppress escaped his lips in a bitter and disturbing whisper. "Sometimes I wish I had… had stopped her mother. If she hadn’t been… if I had raised her from the beginning… I could have saved her from so much pain."

The words, though spoken in a barely audible murmur, weighed heavily in the room. He caressed the pillow, almost pleading for the past to change, for every mistake to be undone. The cat purred softly, as if understanding the pain Bruce was trying to stifle deep in his chest. Titus looked at him with eyes full of loyalty, without judging him, but not offering the redemption he desperately sought.

"I would give anything for a second chance," he whispered, his voice broken. "I would give my life to undo every moment that made her drift away. I would give anything to see her smile again, even if it were just once… even if it were just to tell her how sorry I am."

The house was silent, and in that instant, Bruce understood that there were no words, no time, no strength that could change the past. He was trapped in an abyss of guilt, with only shadows and memories now haunting him, reflecting his own empty and broken face.

Finally, he could no longer contain himself. Feeling the emptiness in his chest, tears began to fall onto the pillow, soaking it with his pain, as if the weight of his own guilt slid out in every sob he tried to stifle. His face was buried in the memory of his daughter, lost in the pain that tormented him with an intensity he could no longer bear.

It was then that Damian entered, dressed as Robin, with his katana stained with a dark red liquid that could be nothing other than blood, with a sharp and direct arrogance, breaking the silent mourning of Bruce. Coldly, he looked at his father and pronounced, almost with disdain, "No matter how much you cry like a whore, Y/N won’t come back."

Bruce looked up, surprised and hurt, but before he could respond, Damian continued with the same hardness. "While everyone was out in a gang like a bunch of lowlifes and came back empty-handed, I found something you didn’t even bother to look for while lying here like a cheap whore." Damian looked at him with a mix of disappointment and reproach, as if he couldn’t understand how his father had let so many signs slip by.

"Did you know? I had a relationship with Ivy, that old woman who had the indecency to date my little sister while being an old hag. Plus, she worked as a waitress in some bar wearing little clothes to survive. Like some common bitch. And the last time, she was seen in the subway, with a strange man with psychiatric crazy vibes... surely another one that slipped away while you were lying here." Damian’s words were blows to Bruce, each revelation a testament to how much he had let slip away.

Damian continued, each phrase laden with resentment and questions. "Why did she have to work? Why did she, the daughter of the renowned multimillionaire Bruce Wayne, the masked hero of Gotham, have to depend on a miserable paycheck that didn’t even cover the end of the month? And the subway, father, did she really have to take the subway like any unknown person in this city?"

Bruce looked down, unable to respond. Each of those questions was a dagger reminding him how far he had been from understanding his own daughter. He had ignored, or perhaps never wanted to see, the sacrifices she made to survive, the paths she took in search of something he had never given her. Now, with Damian's words filling the silence, Bruce realized he had condemned his daughter to the same fate he was trying to combat on the streets.

Damian watched him, his gaze cold and critical, as the room filled with a tense silence. For the first time, Bruce understood that perhaps he was never the hero he thought he was, and that in his attempt to protect everyone, he had failed to protect the one who needed him the most.

Bruce felt anger bubbling inside him, intensifying with each word that left Damian's lips. "How dare you come in here and say that? You weren’t a brother to her, you weren’t there when she needed you the most," he shot back, his voice echoing in the room like dark thunder. The image of his daughter intertwined with his rage, each contained tear now fueling his fury.

Damian frowned, unrestrained. "That's how I show my affection; you should be used to it," he retorted disdainfully, recalling that moment when he arrived at the mansion, he had stabbed Y/N with his katana. "I did what I had to do, and I don’t have to accept your reproaches. Everyone failed Y/N, even you."

"Don’t try to blame others for your own failures!" Bruce shouted, frustration filling every corner of his being. "You weren’t there, Damian. You can’t always hide behind your arrogance."

Damian crossed his arms, his defiant attitude unbreakable. "And what if I wasn't? At least I didn’t hide behind a mask of sadness. Better stop reproaching me and listen to what I have for you." He stepped closer, pulling out a half-open old cardboard box. "I brought you a gift."

Bruce looked at him suspiciously. "What is it now?"

"I went looking for Selina, but she slipped away like a scared kitten," Damian said, mocking the situation. "A waste of time, but I found Ivy in Arkham. She said little about Y/N, which annoyed me, so… well, here you go." He opened the box slowly, revealing Poison Ivy's head, the fresh blood still dripping from the edges.

Her face, once beautiful, was now serene, with pale skin and a touch of green that evoked her connection to nature. Her normally vibrant red hair now fell messily around her face, while her eyes, closed forever, seemed almost at peace, as if she had found a breath in the chaos she once inhabited.

Bruce felt as if the world had stopped. There was no horror in his gaze, only an emptiness where anger and sadness collided. "What have you done?" he murmured, his voice barely a whisper, but resignation permeated every word. The life of his daughter, the decisions he had made and what that meant now overwhelmed him.

Damian shrugged. "She was a monster, just like all of us. What matters is that now you have something tangible, something you can show."

"What kind of family are we?" Bruce let slip, feeling defeated. "This family is a failure."

"Oh, so it turns out we’ve been a family all this time?" Damian replied, scornful, but his tone was less certain.

Bruce closed his eyes, feeling the discomfort of the situation. "Take me to the apartment where she lived," he said, his voice enigmatic and cold. It was a request that resonated with the gravity of what he had lost, an echo of what he had failed to protect. As Damian looked at him with surprise and a hint of concern, Bruce knew that the truth he would face in that place was beyond any form of redemption. The darkness that had invaded his life was about to be confronted, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready for what he would find.

As Bruce and Damian prepared to leave, Titus and Alfred the Cat watched them from a distance. The dog remained alert, his ears perked, as if he could sense the tension looming in the air. His instinct told him that something grave was about to happen. Alfred, with his wise and sharp gaze, seemed to share the same unease, his eyes fixed on the men who were heading toward the dark fate they had chosen.

As Bruce and Damian headed for the door, Titus stepped forward, his expression a mix of concern and determination. It was as if he were trying to convey a silent message, a call to reason that his owners could not hear amid their emotional turmoil. Alfred the Cat, with his elegant stride, approached Bruce and rubbed his head against his leg, seeking comfort for the hero who seemed on the brink of losing himself even further in the darkness.

Turning around, Bruce felt a pang in his heart. He looked at his animals, those innocent beings who had always been there to offer him companionship, and realized that they were aware of what was about to come. In a world where violence and betrayal lurked around every corner, their departure was the beginning of something much darker.

With one last look, Bruce found himself in Titus's eyes, reflecting a mix of loyalty and worry. It was as if the dog knew that the decision they were making would not only affect them but would also drag others into a chaos from which they could not escape.

Damian, impatient, had already crossed the threshold, but Bruce paused for one more moment. "I’m sorry," he murmured, although he was not sure to whom he was really addressing: whether to the animals who looked at him with eyes full of wisdom or to himself for the path he had chosen.

However, it was already too late to turn back. With one last glance at the room where it all began, and at the animals who looked at him with concern, Bruce stepped into the dark world that awaited them, unaware that soon, everything would get worse. The air was charged with ominous anticipation, and the feeling that tragedy loomed over them like a shadow, deep and inevitable.

You lay on the bed, your body still heavy from the forced encounter, thoughts fluttering in your mind like butterflies trapped in a net. The room was enveloped in an unsettling gloom, the air thick with a tension that could not be ignored. Beside you, he breathed with a calm that contrasted with the whirlwind inside you. There was no name, no face to remember; it was just him, the one who had kidnapped you and made you his own, a figure who had taken your life and distorted it at will.

As you stared at the ceiling, the silence became a mirror of your thoughts. Rage and hatred toward your family surged within you, feelings that had once seemed so distant. They didn’t understand you, they hadn’t been there to protect you, and now, in this strange intimacy, you found yourself wishing to be with him more than with them. Confusion engulfed you; on one hand, there was a part of you longing for affection and acceptance, while on the other, there was a strange pleasure in the situation, a desire to escape the life that had caused you so much suffering.

Despite everything, you missed your mother. Her laughter, her hugs, the way she always knew how to calm your fears. But that maternal figure was slowly fading from your memory, drowned by the anguish of betrayal and loneliness. You found yourself trapped between the desire to remember the good and the hatred toward the past that had brought you here.

As the room remained silent, a dark and almost self-destructive impulse took hold of you. With trembling movements, you picked up a sharp object and pressed it against your skin, feeling a sting that was both physical and emotional. In that moment, you thought about the irony of your situation: you had lost control of your life, and in seeking an escape, you chose to hurt yourself.

The duality of your feelings was heartbreaking. On one hand, you yearned for freedom, to reclaim your identity and the love that had been taken from you. On the other, there was a part of you that felt alive in this new relationship, a twisted connection that kept you captive. The internal struggle manifested in every thought and every action, revealing the complexity of your situation.

You remembered moments from his life, the wounds he carried, and the pain he had faced. Had Bruce ever been so lost, so filled with sadness that he had to do the unthinkable to feel something? The idea that the man you admired could also have been vulnerable struck you like a revelation. You wondered if he had ever cried in solitude, questioning his place in the world, if he had ever felt so trapped in his own life.

As you touched your stomach, an old pain resurfaced. There, beneath the skin, was a scar, a reminder of the time Damian had hurt you with his katana, an act that had been both an attack and a cry of desperation. The brush of your fingers over the wound, although healed, still brought memories of suffering and betrayal, a deep connection intertwined with the pain you felt now. The scar was a metaphor for your life: a wound that would never fully heal, a reminder that pain is part of your existence.

Tears fell more forcefully as you thought about how your family’s decisions, rivalries, and chaos had influenced your life. Bruce, with his constant struggle against the shadows of his past, was a reflection of what you could have been: strong, determined, but also broken and lost. In that moment, you felt just like him, entangled in a cycle of suffering and confusion.

You allowed yourself to cry, feeling that perhaps in that vulnerability there was some freedom. It was a relief, an act of resistance in the midst of the oppression that surrounded you. As the outside world faded away, the pain of the scar became a reminder that, despite everything, there was still a part of you yearning to break free, wanting to escape this darkness. And amid that sadness, one thought grew stronger: perhaps, just perhaps, there was a way to find your path again.

The man let go of your cheek and, with a casual gesture, lit a cigarette, the smoke dancing in the air like shadows in the dim light of the room. His eyes, fixed on you, had a dangerous intensity. "Do you see this?" he said, exhaling the smoke slowly. "Now you are stained, like Gotham. You’ve been in the mud, and it’s your duty to clean yourself up. This is just the beginning."

He looked at you with a twisted smile, an expression that mixed amusement and dominance. "You have to understand that you can’t escape from what you are. The city is a reflection of yourself. And like Gotham, you too need to be purified." With a sudden movement, he offered you the cigarette. "Smoke. It will help you forget the tears."

You hesitated, but his eyes challenged you, a clear message that there was no room for denial. With a mix of fear and despair, you brought the cigarette to your lips, feeling its bitterness touch your tongue. "Don’t make me repeat myself," he said, his voice a cold whisper. "I want you to feel the poison, just like the city does. You are part of it now, and you must accept your role."

The pressure of his words overwhelmed you, each syllable a reminder of your distorted reality. "But why me?" you stammered, feeling desperation twisting inside you. "Why do I have to be part of this?"

"Because there is no choice," he replied with disdain. "There never was. Every day, every decision you made has led you here. Weakness is not an option. Look around you; Gotham has no place for the weak. If you want to survive, you need to get your hands dirty. And believe me, there is a lot of blood to clean up."

Your heart raced as you inhaled the smoke, the burning filling your lungs and leaving a feeling of emptiness. "What do you want from me?" you asked, feeling the power he had over you strangling you.

"I just want you to accept your new place. I want you to understand that in this world, death and destruction are inevitable. There is no redemption for the stained, but you can try to fix it… in your own way."

He trapped you in a dark cycle of thoughts, where each of his words echoed in your mind like a terrifying echo. You knew he was playing with you, manipulating your emotions. "If you don’t clean yourself, you will suffer the consequences. And if you cry for her again, I promise you will pay for it," he said, tightening his grip on your arm.

As the smoke dissipated into the air, the feeling of being trapped became more palpable. You found yourself between acceptance and internal struggle, but deep down, you knew you had to find a way out. However, the darkness around you grew more intense, and each of his words was another chain binding you to this fate you had not chosen.

The air thickened as he exhaled smoke, the room filling with a gray fog that seemed to reflect the chaos in your mind. He looked at you with an intensity that overflowed with obsession, a strange mix of affection and dominance that enveloped you. Despite the tears running down your face, you felt no sadness or fear. You had passed the stage of terror; now you felt strangely alive, almost liberated in your pain.

"My dear," he said in a soft yet authoritative voice, "you must not see this as a punishment. It is a purification. Gotham needs someone who understands its pain, and you are the chosen one." He leaned closer to you, his hot breath on your skin. "You are like a spark in this darkness, and together we can illuminate it. You just have to let the poison flow through you. With each tear, you are cleansing the city."

As he held you, the contact between the two of you was electric, and a part of you began to understand his madness, the way he had woven his dreams of greatness and purification through your own desires for belonging. "Did you know my mother was in Arkham?" he continued, as if sharing a special secret. "She was stained too. In her mind, she fought demons that no one else could see, just like you now. And look where she ended up: trapped in her own memories, in her own shadows."

The revelation hit you. A fragment of pain resurfaced, intertwining with the new knowledge. "What… what happened to her?" you asked, your voice trembling. It wasn’t sadness you felt; it was curiosity to know that story that had remained hidden.

"She got lost in the darkness of Gotham, just like everyone else," he said with contempt. "But that doesn’t have to be your destiny. You are stronger. My mother let herself be consumed by her madness, but you… you can take control. Let me guide you."

You fell silent, contemplating his words. The tears continued to fall, but now they were just a part of you, a manifestation of the internal struggle. You knew you were trapped in a dangerous game, but there was something in his promise of power and control that began to seduce you.

"So cry if you need to," he said, caressing your cheek with a touch that was both gentle and threatening. "But don’t let those tears weaken you. Every time you feel the urge to cry for her, remember what you are. Remember that the city needs someone like you to cleanse it of the filth."

"How can I do that?" you asked, feeling the echo of his words resonate in your mind. "How can I clean something so deeply rooted in darkness?"

"With determination," he answered firmly, his eyes shining with a mix of fervor and madness. "You must learn to see the beauty in chaos. There is power in pain. With every action you take, with every decision you make, you will be purifying Gotham of its own decay. And I will be by your side, guiding you. Together, we will be unstoppable."

As you absorbed his words, a strange sense of purpose began to take shape within you. Although his love was perverse, there was something in his vision that resonated with you, as if you were destined to fulfill that role. As the smoke from the cigarette faded into the air, so too did your fears, leaving only a cold and clear determination: you were going to take control of your destiny, even if it meant losing yourself in the process.

"No! I don’t want you to go!" shouted little Y/n, clinging to her mother's handbag with the desperation of someone who knows something important is about to slip away.

Her mother, a blonde woman with a tired gaze, let out a sigh of impatience. Y/n couldn't quite remember her face, but she knew it hardened at the tug on her bag, and without thinking, she pushed the girl, causing her to fall to the ground with a dull thud. Y/n looked up from below, her big eyes reflecting a mix of fear and pain.

"Stop being silly, Y/n," her mother murmured, struggling to hide the tremor in her voice. She leaned down, trying to smile, but the coldness in her eyes betrayed her. "You know I have to do this... for both of us. Everything I do is for you, even if you don’t understand it now."

The girl nodded slowly, but inside, she felt the truth—that repeated phrase was just a curtain. She knew there was something broken in her mother, something she was too young to fully comprehend but sensed in every harsh gesture, in every bitter word that hung in the air. Something that made her feel alone, even when they were together.

Her mother straightened up, adjusting the bag as if it weighed tons. She raised a hand in a mechanical farewell, and without another word, she left through the door without looking back.

Days passed in a haze of silence and dry tears. Y/n had no idea how much time had passed since her mother left, leaving the echo of her footsteps as the only reminder of her presence. Hugging herself, she spent the nights waiting for some familiar sound that never came.

When she finally opened her eyes, she realized her surroundings had completely changed. She was no longer at home; she was sitting in a cold, unfamiliar room, with gray walls and flickering lights dimly overhead. In the distance, she could hear whispering voices.

"How is it possible that someone left such a small child alone?" It was the firm, serious voice of a man. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she distinguished a police badge on the man's uniform. It read Commissioner Gordon.

Next to him, a red-haired woman spoke in a low voice. "Dad, you can't be sure. Maybe it was just a lie. You know how her mother was: a history of psychiatric hospitals and drugs at home. How do we know she didn't make up the story about Wayne?"

"Barbara, we have evidence that doesn't lie," Gordon replied coldly, his tone tinged with disdain. "We know the paternity test is real."

The girl felt the world sway around her. She listened to every word and felt each comment like a dagger sinking deeper into her chest. Those adults, figures of authority and trust, spoke of her mother as if she were little more than a mistake, something despicable that had left scars on her life. Sitting there, hidden behind a wall and hugging her knees, tears returned to her eyes, a mix of sadness and a terrifying understanding of what it meant to be alone in the world.

"Do you really think someone like that should have had a child in her care?" Barbara said from her wheelchair, her tone full of contempt. "She was probably just looking for easy money, manipulating everyone she could."

Commissioner Gordon frowned, clearly uncomfortable. "Barbara, that's not fair! Even if she didn’t lead the best life, she was still a citizen like anyone else, and she had the right to rebuild her life. No one is perfect."

From her corner, Y/n tried to cover her ears, but Barbara's words were impossible to ignore.

"I can't believe it, Dad. How could anyone in their right mind have left a child in the hands of that woman?" Barbara said with a cold, almost poisoned voice. "Someone who clearly had drug addiction problems and who was in and out of psychiatric hospitals. I bet she didn’t even know who the real father was."

Each word made Y/n's chest tighten even more. Her mind screamed silently: Stop! Please stop saying that about her! Her small hands trembled as she remembered the moments she had spent with her mother. Her mother, who although had those dark days and her brusque manner, had fed her, tucked her in, and cared for her as best as she could. Despite her mistakes, she had been her mother, and that was all Y/n could understand.

But Barbara’s words kept filling the room, like a storm of resentment. "I don't know how Bruce can even be involved in something like this. That woman was a burden to everyone. I can't imagine anyone worse as a mother."

Y/n squeezed her eyes shut, wanting to block it out. It's not true. She’s not bad. She took care of me. We didn’t have much, but she always tried to be there for me. But no matter how hard her thoughts tried to silence the pain, Barbara's words left deep scars, increasingly difficult to heal.

As Y/n remained there, her tears already dry, her thoughts twisted in her mind like threatening shadows. She heard the echoes of Barbara's cruel words and Gordon's, and a silent resentment grew in her chest, almost like a slow poison. She tried to remember the good moments with her mother, but the dark thoughts seemed to drown them out. She was good, she was good... No, you can't say that about her... But those same thoughts tangled with hate and confusion, and the pain grew stronger.

Suddenly, everything turned white. The walls, the voices, the cold metal chair beneath her legs... everything disappeared into a blinding void that enveloped every corner of her mind. And then, there was only her, standing in that white abyss, with a strange weight on her shoulders and in her hands.

She looked down and saw a white armor, shining as if made of shards of moon and shadow. It covered her body completely, with firm, polished plates that fit like a second skin, protecting every part of her. The gauntlets were solid, with sharp and detailed edges, and in her hands, she wielded two katanas whose blades reflected that void like deadly mirrors.

The design of the armor was imposing and terrifying. The helmet resembled a bat, with long pointed ears extending upward, and a dark V-shaped visor that barely revealed her eyes. The lines that ran across her chest and arms formed the silhouette of folded wings, as if that bat awaited to unfold at any moment. The chest was engraved with fine black details, resembling veins radiating dark power. In the center, a small emblem in the shape of a black teardrop contrasted with the radiant white of the armor, like a mark of pain and sacrifice.

In the dim light of the void where she stood, Y/n felt the weight of the katanas in her hands as if they were extensions of her own being. In that moment, the white armor fit her like a comforting embrace, a reminder of the power she now possessed. She looked at herself in a non-existent reflection, feeling that every part of her being was ready to act, to reclaim what she had lost.

With a tremor of emotion and a palpable obsession, she held them to her chest, hugging them tightly. Words flowed from her lips, laden with a burning, almost manic desire: "Soon you will be mine... I will go home. I will be my little girl again."

The echo of her voice resonated in the white void, vibrating with the intensity of her longing. In her mind, an image formed of a home, a place where shadows no longer lurked and where her mother, though imperfect, would be able to embrace her once more. The idea of being together again, of transforming her pain into power, filled her with a fierce determination.

"I will come back for you," she whispered, her voice choked with a mix of tears and a crazed smile. "Nothing will stop me. I promise." The choked laughter turned into a murmur of echoes, resonating in the abyss like a sinister promise, as the world around her began to fade again, leaving her alone with her obsession and her new identity.

In the silence, whispers began to rise, soft at first, but increasingly insistent. One word repeated, muted yet burning, like a spark in the shadows.

K

e

r

o

s

e

n

e

The word reverberated in the void, growing more intense, like a kind of dark mantra. And when Y/n could barely bear the weight of those voices, one final phrase emerged, chilling and final:

"Death is the ultimate prize."

You walked through the halls of the old apartment block, your white armor shining in the dim light, like a bat defying the embrace of the night. The echoes of your heels resonated, a dark song reverberating in the solitude of the worn walls.

Your figure, sculpted in gleaming metal, was a silhouette of elegance and mystery, as you hummed a forgotten melody, slipping between the shadows like a whisper of the forbidden. Each step was a heartbeat in the silence, a chilling reminder that there is still life in abandonment.

The portraits on the walls watched you, empty eyes that seemed to come alive, as you moved with the grace of a specter, a macabre dance of light and shadow at dusk.

The doors, worn and creaking, whispered secrets of past stories, and you, guardian of those forgotten tales, advanced fearlessly, seeking what was left behind.

You were an enigma, a reflection of the lost, a shadow walking, dressed in white, in a world clinging to its demons, where the past and present intertwine in a lethal embrace, and the night waits, eager for your return.

You paused before the door of one of the apartments, its frayed wood opening like an abyss, a dark invitation that defied logic. The silence became thick, almost palpable, and the echo of your humming faded, leaving a void that swallowed the darkness.

The threshold awaited you, a portal to the unknown, and a cold breeze, laden with whispers, caressed your skin like a lost lover. Inside, the shadows seemed to come alive, a palace of echoes and laments, where time had woven a web.

Your heart raced, a mix of adrenaline and challenge, as you gently pushed the door. It creaked in protest, like an old ghost, and when it opened, revealed an abandoned world, furniture covered in dust, with withered memories.

The remnants of a past life crowded every corner, and a scent of decay floated in the air, but something more, a glimpse of presence, urged you to enter, to explore the hidden. You peered in, and the dimness embraced you, as if the apartment claimed you as its own.

Each step on the creaky floor was an act of daring, and the walls seemed to murmur forgotten secrets, stories of betrayed loves and lost souls. In the center of the room, a dark, diffuse, and shadowy figure formed among the shadows, like an echo of your own existence, a reflection of what could have been.

You stood still, breath held in the abyss of the moment, the half-open door, a threshold to your destiny, and the silence, now laden with promises, stripped you of fears, leaving only the certainty that in that space, you faced the echoes of your own darkness.

As you advanced, your eyes fixed on a dusty, worn wooden box resting on the small dining table. Something about it drew you in, as if it held a dark secret. You approached and, with trembling hands, opened it. Inside, horror was revealed: the head of Poison Ivy, the green hair still vibrant, a gaze frozen in time. You didn’t cry, but a slight tremor coursed through your body, a mixture of surprise and disdain for the brutality that had taken place in that space.

"Normally you enter through the window," you murmur to the air, with an ironic smile on your lips, as if addressing a presence you hoped would appear.

And then, as if the night itself had responded to your call, Batman emerged from the shadows, his dark figure silhouetted against the dim light coming through the window. The air became tense in an instant.

"Who are you?" he asked, his grave voice resonating with a mix of distrust and anger. "What are you doing in the apartment of Bruce Wayne's daughter?"

You laughed, a laugh that echoed in the empty room, filled with irony and knowledge.

"His daughter?" you mocked, your eyes shining with a mix of challenge and amusement. "So Y/n is your daughter. Isn’t it curious how things intertwine in this city?"

The silence grew heavy, and you felt his gaze intensify, evaluating every word you had spoken. He knew you had crossed a line, but the revelation had ignited a spark of playfulness in you.

"How do you know who I am?" The question slipped from his lips, but there was no fear, just an unsettling curiosity.

"Gotham has its secrets, Bruce. And I, like you, am part of this darkness. The identity of a hero or heroine is just a game of shadows, and in this game, you and I know how to move between the lines."

You stood firm, the tension between you palpable, as the echo of laughter still resonated in the air. Batman's figure, always imposing and enigmatic, seemed to waver at the revelation that in this dark labyrinth, he was not the only player.

The tension intensified, and Batman took a step forward, approaching you with an intense gaze.

"How do you know about my daughter?" he inquired, his voice brusque, each word laden with frustration. You remained firm, crossing your arms, letting the silence settle between you.

"Oh, Gotham speaks, even in whispers. The city has a way of revealing what heroes prefer to hide," you replied disdainfully. "Your life, your secrets, are more exposed than you think." He frowned, anger crackling in his eyes.

"What do you know about Y/N?" he demanded, his voice low and threatening, as if waiting for you to throw down a challenge.

"I know you didn't want her. That you left her in the shadows while you dedicated yourself to your personal crusade," you replied, irony dancing in your tone. "That girl grew up without a father, and you, the great hero of Gotham, preferred to be a myth."

Rage etched itself on his face, but there was something more, a hidden pain surfacing behind the armor of his anger.

"It's not that simple, and you have no idea what I've done for her," he retorted, his voice tense, each word like a blow.

"Really?" you asked, flashing a mocking smile. "What have you done? Cut off her partner's head, the only person I love, just to extract invalid information? What a great father."

An uncomfortable silence settled between you, as the air vibrated with unspoken emotions.

"You are not one to judge me," he declared, his voice tense. "You know nothing of what I've sacrificed."

"Maybe not, but I know enough about the void you've left," you replied, undeterred. "And I know Ivy was there for her. You, the hero, vanished while others took on the role of father."

The anger shone in his eyes, but there was also a spark of recognition. He observed you, assessing the courage that led you to challenge him.

"And who are you to come and point fingers? A lost anti-heroine in her own struggle?" he shot back, his voice laden with contempt.

"I am what Gotham needs," you replied, confident. "A reminder that even heroes like you can fail."

The discussion turned into a power struggle, both of you clinging to your truths, while Poison Ivy's head remained a sinister reminder of the choices you both had made.

Suddenly, Batman's fury exploded like lightning in the darkness. Without warning, he seized you by the neck, lifting you with surprising strength. The air became scarce, and the pressure on your throat made you feel vulnerable, although the mockery never left your expression.

"Where is Y/N?" he demanded, his voice charged with rage and desperation. The shadows moved around him, intensifying his figure, which seemed more monster than hero at that moment.

Despite the iron grip, you kept your gaze fixed on him, challenging him, feeling the adrenaline pulse through your veins.

"Are you that worried about her whereabouts?" you replied, a mocking smile barely hiding your disdain. "Maybe she's hanging from a hook in a slaughterhouse, who knows? That would be an ironic twist for a girl who grew up in the shadow of a hero, don’t you think?"

His eyes narrowed, anger and helplessness battling within him. You leaned in closer, feeling the pressure on your neck, but that only fueled your defiance.

"Don't laugh about this!" he roared, tightening his grip slightly. The fury in his voice was palpable, but something deeper kept him on edge.

"Me? Laughing? You, the great Batman, scared for your daughter's life?" you shot back, never breaking eye contact.

The tension was becoming unbearable, but there was something fascinating about the game you were playing. He was caught between rage and fear, and you, in your shadowy game, fed off his anguish.

"Do you know something? You're losing yourself in your own legend," you continued, while he held you in the air. "I'm sure you once dreamed that she would have died in that alley with her mother."

In that instant, something in his expression changed. The anger slowly faded, giving way to a deep concern, though he still held you firmly.

"I warn you," he whispered, his eyes locked onto yours. "If you lie to me, I won't show mercy."

You laughed again, though the risk was imminent, as your heart raced.

"And what will you do?" you challenged, your voice trembling but resolute. "Threaten me with your dark past? I'm here because I know the truth, and I do not fear your shadows."

Bruce's patience evaporated like smoke in the heavy air of that apartment. With a sudden movement, he hurled you towards the table, the impact resonating with a crash that reverberated through the walls. Your katanas slipped to the floor, leaving you defenseless. The furniture creaked under your weight, but adrenaline kept you alert, your instincts sharp.

You quickly rose, shaking your head to clear the confusion, while the anger on his face transformed into determination.

"I don't have time for your games, Kerosene," he shouted, stepping forward, ready to fight. "If you know Y/N, tell me!"

You steadied yourself, smiling defiantly as you positioned yourself, preparing for combat.

"Do you really think you'll throw away the only one who can help you?" you replied, feeling the pulse of challenge coursing through your veins. "I'm offering you a chance to know the truth, and you choose to fight. Very typical of you."

With a swift movement, he lunged at you, throwing a direct punch. You dodged, making an agile turn, but the atmosphere became a whirlwind of force and speed.

You charged at him, hitting him in the side, feeling how his tense muscles responded to your attack. It was not just a physical fight; it was a clash of wills, an explosion of repressed emotions.

"You’re an idiot if you think you can scare me!" you yelled at him while he tried to immobilize you. You twisted and managed to sidestep him, landing a blow to his jaw that made him stagger.

Bruce quickly regained his footing, his eyes blazing with fury. He advanced again, his movements precise and calculated, while you played with speed and agility.

"Stop!" he roared, his voice echoing in the enclosed space. "I just want to know where my daughter is."

"And I just want you to stop living in your hero fantasy," you replied, with a defiant laugh as you dodged another attack. "The truth hurts you, Bruce, and you prefer the fight over facing it."

The exchange of blows continued, the sound of fists colliding and the creaking of breaking furniture filling the air. The room became a battlefield, with the table as the central stage of your struggle.

Bruce, with a mix of skill and strength, cornered you against the wall, but instead of giving up, you seized the closeness. With an agile movement, you pushed him back, making him lose his balance.

"Are you going to keep this up? Destroying what’s left of this city?" you said, breathing heavily but not yielding. "Or are you going to listen to what’s really at stake?"

His eyes were now inches from yours, the fury and frustration of his search fueling the spark of the battle. Both of you were willing to fight, but deep down, you knew there was something deeper at play than just physical strength.

The battle continued, becoming increasingly intense and violent, like a whirlwind of unleashed fury. You launched at him, landing a blow that hit his chest, but Bruce responded with a punch that made you stagger; the force behind his blow was terrifying. The rage emanating from him was palpable, and with each attack, both of you took the struggle to a new level.

The apartment walls vibrated with the thud of bodies colliding and furniture being dragged. The sound of shattering glass echoed in the air as you crashed into a table, breaking it into pieces.

You got back up, a piece of wood in hand, and threw it at him. Bruce dodged it, but the fragment smashed against a lamp, exploding into a million shards. The light flickered before going out, plunging the place into an unsettling darkness.

Both of you moved like shadows through the chaos, and sweat and blood began to mix, the air filled with a metallic smell that only intensified the battle. Bruce landed a punch on your jaw, and you tasted blood in your mouth. You didn’t stop; with a cry of defiance, you responded with a series of rapid blows, each one stronger than the last.

You darted to his side, using your agility to hit him in the ribs. The impact made him stagger, but before you could capitalize on the opportunity, Bruce spun around and kneed you in the abdomen. The air escaped your lungs, and the sharp pain made you fall to your knees. However, you didn’t give up.

With renewed determination, you got up and threw a direct punch to his face, hearing the crack of his skin upon impact. Blood spurted from his lip, and the fact that you had hurt him only fueled his fury. With superhuman strength, he pushed you back, slamming you against a shelf, which gave way and collapsed on you. Books and personal items scattered across the floor, covering the place in even greater chaos.

But there was no time to stop. You rose amongst the debris, feeling the adrenaline pumping through your veins. With a leap, you charged at him again, landing a blow that left a mark on his face. Rage and pain intertwined in the air, and both of you were on the brink of madness.

The room had turned into a battlefield, with blood staining the floor and walls. The apartment’s decor, once a refuge, lay in tatters, as if Gotham itself had decided to yield to the brutality of your confrontation.

Bruce, with his determined gaze locked on you, lunged at you again. Both of you were exhausted, but the fight was a necessity, an uncontrollable impulse that kept you standing. His fists and your movements were a wild dance, and amidst the chaos, both of you knew that the outcome of this battle would not only define the present but also seal your fate.

You charged at him, landing a direct blow to his stomach, and when he bent forward, you took the chance to hit him in the face once more. Blood spilled from his nose, but he countered with a knee strike, and the impact resonated in your bones.

The fight continued with increasing ferocity, the room transforming into a wreckage. Every blow exchanged resonated like thunder, but it was the moment when Bruce landed a punch to your side that made you fall to your knees again, gasping for air. The pain was intense, but there was no time to lament; rage and frustration drove him to push onward.

Seeing the opportunity, Bruce lunged at you, and with a rough movement, he lifted you off the ground, holding you by the neck and raising you into the air. You struggled, feeling the pressure increase, the air escaping your lungs. The room blurred around you as you began to lose control.

"Tell me where Y/N is!" he shouted, his voice echoing in your mind like a refrain of desperation and fury.

You were on the brink of passing out, your eyes clouding, but amidst the confusion, you managed to maintain lucidity, though it was becoming increasingly difficult. Bruce's hands were like a yoke around your throat, and the feeling of suffocation intensified with every passing second.

The pressure was unbearable, and you fought to free your neck, to breathe, but it felt like trying to break chains of steel. Your hands struck his arm, but he wouldn’t relent, becoming more focused, more desperate.

Finally, with a titanic effort, you managed to reach your helmet, and in a twist, you pushed him back, but the pressure of his grip was too much. It was then that, in a last-ditch attempt to free yourself, the helmet slipped off your head, falling to the floor with a dull thud.

The light of the apartment filtered back into your vision, and it was at that moment that Bruce, seeing your face, stopped dead in his tracks, the expression of his fury transforming into horror.

The face before him was not just an adversary; it was a reflection of his own daughter. The reality crashed against him like lightning.

"...Y/N?"

A/N ──── I WANT TO EMPHASIZE THAT YES, WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN THE DOCTOR AND Y/N IS REAL. And yes, it's necessary; you'll understand why by the end. Furthermore, Ivy's death has always been planned. In the next chapter, a female character will appear who, I warn you, will be a victim of the Waynes, and the scene will be a bit graphic and very grotesque.

I want to add that this chapter is very, very, veeeery weak because I’m very tired, not very inspired, and dealing with other things. I’ll try to do better for the next one and bring you a chapter of better quality.

And a warning for those on the taglist: if you’re already on it, please don’t ask me again and again to add your name because I end up getting confused and repeating names.

Also, there are some that I can’t add for reasons I don’t understand.

If you requested to be on the taglist before and you're not, please ask me here or send me a message; I don’t bite.

Feel free to ask me anything if you’d like.

Take a bath!

Tag list! ◇ — @amber-content @toast-on-dandelioms @feral-childs-word @sweetconnoisseurgardener @victoria1676 @toasted-cat18 @nosyrobin @beeaskewwrites @yandere-enthusiast @telltaletoad @dhanyasri @vanessa-boo @m3vl0vesu @jellypotato66 @midnightgrimoire @cherryxxxxyoongi @plsfckmedxddy @h0neysiba @mybones537 @erikasurfer @sheepintherain @pix-stuff @yan-rai @uniquecutie-puffs @arlandvery @theblonde777 @alishii

@maicenitas @ti-girl1226 @vanilliona @chickenwings435 @thedramabrotherss @bat1212 @imnotdumbimstupif @somebodyrandom-613 @aelxr @jsprien213 @lovebug-apple @zenychwan @starsdotalk @holylonelyponyeatingmacaron @misdollface @clementinesyummy @bunbunboysworld @lunaluz432 @meowmeeps @adeptusxia0 @mettatons-number-1fan @fairygardenprincesss @nervousalpacalady @mottysith

@redkarmakai @the-rouge-robin @twismare @wizzerreblogs @beeboopneep @mistfire1999 @delfinadolphin @expctron

Inspiration: @acid-ixx with his Again & Again series, @gotham-daydreams ' work, @i-cant-sing 's work and @klemen-tine 's work, be sure to check them out!

[ri-writes-if]

Intro

LINK | 6 chapters, ~360K words (last updated 30/05/25)

FOUND A TYPO/BUG? | PATREON | PUBLIC BONUS CONTENT | DISCORD | PLAYLIST | PINTEREST | PROGRESS UPDATES | SNEAK PEEKS | SNIPPETS

In the underworld kingdom, where demons fight for survival against the abyssal monsters, you are just an Oracle. In the distant past the Oracles were at the top of the demonic hierarchy, but those golden days are long gone. You did what you were most afraid to do and now sit under arrest in the royal palace.

When the Abyss sends you a vision of a terrible disaster that will happen in the future, you make an inevitable “deal” with the Sovereign to try to change the future and improve your abilities, not only to become stronger and learn more about the coming disaster, but also in an attempt to achieve mind stability. 

However, what has been happening to you since you received the vision makes you think that you are already slowly but surely losing your mind. 

Will you be able to maintain your sanity and help others protect the kingdom, or will you become just another name in the long list of Oracles gone mad?

This is a free to play interactive fantasy story with a heavy focus on friendship and romance (with strangers to lovers or enemies dynamic). The story is rated 18+. Content warnings: violence, death, loss of sanity, trauma, avoidable sexually suggestive/sexual content, and more (the full list is in the demo).

Customize your Oracle: pronouns, traits, and appearance. Choose your full ✨ demonic form. ✨

Build friendship or romance with five different characters. (Allo and ace routes available.)

Learn more about the Oracles’ past and what truly drove their royal clan into ruin. Uncover the secrets of your abilities. Chat with the Abyss?

Decide what you do for fun. Do you sing, dance, paint, play a musical instrument, or write? 

What you did cannot be undone. Your reputation forever ruined, how will you handle the public’s new attitude toward you? 

Maintain your sanity. Depending on your choices, you’ll either move closer to loss of control and madness or further away from it.

Decide what fate awaits you. You’ll have to make an important decision that will open two very different paths for you, influence the plot’s progression, and your relationships.

Will the victory be sweet?

✨ Vezriel, The Sovereign (m / f)

Vezriel seems a perfect ruler: they’re smart, calm, patient, know moderation, and always put demons’ well-being first. But you’re not so naive as to think this is their real face—many secrets lurk under the golden shell of the nobility. You never thought of meeting them in the past, but now spending some time with them is inevitable. Perhaps you will find out what lies beneath their mask?

They have dark brown skin, long curly black hair, and black eyes with pale white flecks. Tall and of strong build, Vezriel cuts a robust but elegant figure, usually dressed in beautiful robes.

✨ Osara / Osaron, The Heir (f / m)

Vezriel’s only child and heir, O is their Chief Counselor, and they have a consistently good reputation. Their character reminds of their parent, though O is much more cold and reticent. Nothing seems to touch or shake their emotions, despite the known long list of ex-lovers. You don’t need their attention, but the circumstances have put you right under it. What will you make of this opportunity?

They have warm brown skin, long wavy black hair, and silver, almost white eyes. O is tall and strong, their expression impassive most of the time, which makes them rather intimidating and unapproachable to some demons.

✨ Lazarus / Lazaris, the General (m / f)

L rose from the bottom of the ladder and made a name for themselves, though judging by old rumors, their clean background wasn’t always so clean. They’re charismatic and popular but keep others at a distance—everyone except their friends… and you. L treats you especially well, but you’re not foolish enough to blindly play their game. What do they want from you?

They have beige skin, short/medium-length wavy blond hair, and golden eyes. Many small and big scars can be seen on their hands. L is tall and has a strong build. Despite their high station, they seem friendly and laid-back.

✨ Ashmedai, the Royal Healer (f / m)

Ashmedai was sent to observe your condition after the incident and to help you with mind stability if needed. They performed their duties without showing any displeasure or impatience no matter how you behaved. Ash is secretive and reserved, and you guess their restrained temper is connected to the dark rumors surrounding them. Will they open up to you?

They have pale skin, long straight black hair, and bright red eyes. A large scar runs on the left side of their face, from their forehead along their eye and to their chin. Ash is tall and slender.

✨ Azarias / Azaria, the Royal Musician (m / f)

Ash’s younger sibling, Az somewhat resembles them in appearance, but their characters couldn’t be more different. Az is bold, humorous, and fickle. They know everyone—and everything about everyone—and enjoy a special favor from the Sovereign, which has allowed them to retain their place in the royal palace for many years. You’re concerned about their peculiar attention to you because there’s no reason for it—you two have never met before. Or… is there a reason after all?

They have pale skin, long white hair, and black eyes with narrow silver pupils. A tattoo of a snake with flowers curves around their neck. Az is tall and lean.

[satinestales]

❝paint me a heaven of love with your bloodied mouth❞ | qimir x reader, ch1

pairing: qimir x fem!reader!yord's sister

summary: You were never confident about the retreat mission on Khofar, always fearing for your safety and that of your friends. Your worst nightmare comes true when a mysterious masked man kills your brother. Driven by grief and rage, you launch a desperate attack, which leaves you unconscious. You wake up, surprisingly unharmed, on the stranger's home island. Consumed by anger and a thirst for revenge, you set out to avenge your brother, only to uncover secrets you never imagined.

warnings: MDNI!, english is not my native language, violence, major character death, mentions of blood, mental illness, smut in upcoming chapters, enemies to lovers, vulgar language, angst n comfort

a/n: planning for this to be a mini-series, around five chapters, and for the idea I have to thank @ladysw01 . Hope y'all like this one too, and also stay tuned for he turns me scarlet pt2, it's in the works!

now playing, when it's cold i'd like to die by, moby

Shadows loomed, their rough forms twisting in the dim moonlight, filtering through the dense canopy above. The forest floor was a maze of roots and underbrush, but you navigated it with the agility of a creature born to the wild. Sweat poured down your face, stinging your eyes, blending with the fear that clawed at your heart.

You felt it—the tug in your heart, tearing at its edges. You experienced it once before and hoped you’d never have to again. But now, it was back, and far worse than ever. You dared to imagine what might happen but quickly dismissed the thought. He was your only family. You couldn’t let it happen.

Your breath came in ragged gasps as you sprinted through the oppressive darkness, the hum of your ignited lightsaber a solitary beacon in the gloom. Branches whipped your cheeks and tangled in your hair, but you pushed on, driven by the urgent sense of danger thrumming through the Force. You had felt it, a disturbance sharp and sudden, a vision of your Yord in mortal danger.

"Yord!" you screamed; your voice swallowed by the infinite, uncaring wilderness. Your steps faltered as the sense of dread intensified, leading you closer, ever closer, to the source of your terror.

Bursting into a clearing, you slid to a halt, your heart crashing at the sight before you. Yord was hanging mid-air, his feet dangling uselessly, held above by a dark force. The stranger you heard so much about, stood before him, one bloody hand outstretched, the other resting at their side with an eerie calmness.

Your eyes were only glued on the man and your brother, dangling in the air. You failed to see Master Sol and Mae standing close by, both standing there in shock, not daring to breathe.

Before you managed to move or cry out, in a fluid, almost nonchalant motion, the stranger twisted their wrist. Your heart stopped. A sickening snap echoed through the forest, and Yord's body went limp, his lifeless form flung aside with a casual flick, landing in a crumpled heap against the base of a tree.

Numbly, you stared at the lifeless body, discarded like a ragdoll, as if he meant nothing. No tears left your eyes, but you swore you couldn't feel your heart beating, as if it had stopped when your Yord’s did. You didn't know how long you stood there, staring at the person who once made you laugh and helped you become a better person. His soft laugh, his insistence on following the rules, and his desire to please others—all gone. He had taught you how to read. Now, everything was gone. His laughter faded into the darkness along with his heartbeat.

You felt like you heard faint voices in the background, but all your focus was on Yord's empty eyes.

It was Sol, shouting your name, desperately warning you to move. But no matter how hard you tried; you were frozen in place. The shock and grief had paralyzed you. Then, out of the corner of your eye, you caught a glimpse of the creature in the mask. The small flicker of its movement shattered your paralysis, and a surge of anger erupted within you, erasing all other thoughts. The need for vengeance overtook your grief, fueling your every breath and heartbeat.

It all happened like a fever dream—foggy, with only a few clear fragments. You heard a scream, unable to tell if it was yours or someone else's. But you didn't care. Your legs moved on their own toward the stranger, your eyes fixed on his dark, long waves of hair.

Your lightsaber slipped through your fingers, the weight of it suddenly too heavy to hold. Your arms seemed to move of their own accord, rising toward the sky as if reaching for something beyond grasp. The air crackled with a threating storm, ear-shattering roar that drowned out all other sounds. In that moment, you locked eyes with the stranger, fear etched deeply into their features, mirroring your own uncertainty.

Time slowed to a crawl as lightning split the sky, casting an eerie glow over the scene. The thunderous boom echoed through your bones, shaking you to your core. The stranger's expression twisted in horror, as if they knew something you didn't, something that would change everything.

Then, as swiftly as the storm had gathered, darkness enveloped your senses. Your consciousness faded into the cool embrace of the moss beneath you, leaving behind unanswered questions and a lingering sense of dread.

*· . ✶

As you woke up, cold air embraced you, raising goosebumps across your body. Your head pounded with such intensity that you considered it might explode, while your arms trembled in lingering unease. You slowly lifted yourself up on your elbows, trying to figure out where you were and recall anything that had happened.

Your head throbbed painfully, your legs were covered in bruises, and your hands were wrapped in bandages. Confused, you tore them off, only to reveal deep burns etched like tree branches from your palms down to your forearms, resembling thunder silhouettes in the sky.

You had no memory of what had happened, until you spotted your lightsaber next to the mouth of the cave you found yourself trapped in. Yord.

Yord.

Yord was dead. Your brother was dead. My brother's dead. Dead.

Your heart sank into your stomach, and suddenly, you found yourself lying on your side, vomiting beside your makeshift bed. Your hair fell like curtains around your head, your eyes fluttering shut. The reality of your Yord’s death was almost too much to bear. Thoughts swirled chaotically; you wanted to scream, cry, and even trade places with him. Emotions blurred together in your mind, but one stood out starkly: anger. It surged within you, painting your vision red. You yearned for revenge, for the murderer to suffer, to experience the agony you felt in that moment.

You didn't dare count how long you bent over, vomiting on the cold cave surface. The bitter taste of vomit mixed with your salty tears woke you up, pushing you to pull yourself together and look around. You struggled to breathe and see through your watery eyes, so you reached out through the Force. Finding yourself in a small cave on an unfamiliar island, surrounded by a wild ocean, you caught sight of a shadowy figure. A dark force enveloping their silhouette.

Your heart skipped a beat as your eyes flew open. There he was—the one who had taken Yord’s life. And now he has brought you here. Was it to end your life as well? To make you suffer? But you were already in agony. Doubt lingered whether he could intensify the pain any further.

You reached out through the Force again, seeking a clear vision of the target's location. You saw him taking slow, deliberate steps, carefully navigating around sharp rocks until he reached a shore where water brushed around his ankles. Following his trail from your current position, you discovered a path that would lead you to him.

It took you minutes to find the strength to get out of bed, ignoring the messy curls in front of your eyes and the dirty clothes from the previous night. Grabbing your lightsaber, you made your way out of the cave. Trusting your intuition, you followed the stranger's path, mentally preparing to face him. Fear wasn't in your heart—only fury and grief. You wanted to see his head separate from his body.

The trail was longer than expected, but you didn't stop once you reached your target. He swam peacefully in the calm water, his back facing you. His long, wet hair draped over strong shoulders marked with scars. You watched as he ran his hand through his hair—the same hand that had killed Yord and torn your family apart. Anger surged within you; your fury fueled by the simple sight of him.

He sensed you; you could feel it. Your anger was loud enough for the entire galaxy to hear, and you wanted him to hear it the loudest. Without thinking, you began walking towards the water, lightsaber ignited, ready to strike.

You focused solely on him—his strong back and raven hair. He didn’t even turn to face you, though you knew he could feel all your emotions. He remained motionless, confident that you wouldn’t attack. Or at least, he thought so.

Lifting your lightsaber as you closed the distance, the water now up to your hips, you struck his back. The stranger was slow to react, barely managing to block your attack. Your lightsaber grazed his shoulder, leaving a scorching scar. Realizing he was wrong about your intentions, he moved quickly in the water, turning and twisting your arm until you dropped your lightsaber, just as he had done with your brother. He pressed you against his chest, his hands gripping your arms, but before he could strangle you, you drove your elbow into his ribs, pushing hard until you heard a crack.

He released his grip to catch his breath, giving you a few precious seconds to summon your lightsaber from the depths of the water. As it returned to your hand, poised to strike, you felt the stranger's hands clamp down on your shoulders, his fingers digging in fiercely. The pain seared through you, his nails tearing at your flesh. Taking advantage of your vulnerable position, he seized your lightsaber and snapped it in half effortlessly, as if it was a mere stick. You watched in disbelief as he threw the broken parts into the deep ocean behind you, leaving you stunned. Before you could react, he swiftly wrapped one arm around your neck while the other pinned your hands behind your back, pressing his body close against yours.

"Not the morning greeting I was hoping for," he purred against your ear, his arm tightening around your windpipe, robbing you of breath. You felt a strange sensation in your stomach as he pressed closer, the warmth of his body making you shiver involuntarily. It was unsettling, making you feel nauseous.

You fought back, struggling to break free from his grasp, but with each attempt, his hold on you tightened, leaving marks on your neck and wrists. You fought against the tears threatening to fall, overwhelmed by feelings of helplessness and humiliation. You yearned to threaten him, to make him scream for what he had done to Yord and to you.

But you couldn't move an inch, forced to endure his deadly grip on you. You felt his breath tickling the hair on your neck, his damp, bare body pressed against your back, his hand crushing your wrists together.

“Do you remember me?” he asked, his voice low against your ear, his nose pressing against your cheek. You felt his smile as you struggled to breathe and move, fighting against his overpowering grip. The fury surged through you even more intensely, his mocking tone fueling a desire to scream out in defiance. How could you not? You saw him twist your brother’s neck and you were certain he was about to do the same thing to you.

As if he could read your mind, which he likely could, he chuckled softly to himself.

"Not from yesterday," he murmured into your ear, his arm around your neck loosening slightly to allow you to breathe, yet he did not release you. "We met a few days ago, in my shop. You were there too." he continued.

You resisted the urge to struggle against his grip, realizing you had no other choice but to listen. Attempting to calm your anger, you unwillingly focused on his words. You recalled visiting the suspect's shop a few days earlier—a place with a man with long, greasy black hair and an odd voice. Uncertain of where he was leading with this revelation, you listened intently.

"So lost in your own selfishness that you didn't even recognize me?" he mocked, twisting your wrists to inflict more pain, as though hurt you didn’t recognize him. Then, the realization struck. He had been there all along, pulling the strings and mocking everyone. Mae's master. The stranger beneath the mask. Yord's killer.

"You—" you choked on your words, barely able to speak. You recalled visiting the apothecary in the days before, noticing him as the new face in the city. He had pretended to be new, and you had enjoyed his company, visiting him several times. A wave of humiliation washed over you, and you sensed that he felt it too.

“That’s right,” he whispered into your ear, his hands briefly leaving your body before firmly gripping your waist and pressing you against the nearest rock. Finally, you got a clear look at his face. In the darkness of the previous night, you hadn't seen him clearly, and moments ago, you hadn't cared. Now, his gaze met yours directly as he pushed you against the rough surface, leaving your hands free, hanging by your side. You had the freedom to strike him, to fight your way out, but you remained still.

He allowed your eyes to roam over him. You scanned his high cheekbones and sharp features, framed by dark waves, curtains to his deep dark eyes. Pink, full lips, and set above a clean mustache. Your gaze then fell to his visible collarbones, adorned with salty droplets.

He was undeniably beautiful, and you felt sick you didn’t even try to deny it. He looked like a fallen angel, someone straight out of religious legends you would read about.

He savored your shocked gaze, but what intrigued him more were your thundering thoughts. Inside your mind, thoughts clashed and screamed over one another, leaving no room for silence or clarity. You instantly recognized his intent from his intense stare and tried to block him out of your mind. But it was too late. He effortlessly stripped you bare, reading you like a mythical book.

"You're scared," he uttered with total seriousness. You struggled to comprehend how he could read you so easily and attempted to use your powers to cloud his thoughts. Yet, after years of suppressing them, you failed once more. “Not of me. Of the Order.” He tilted his head, a gesture that suggested surprise at what he had uncovered.

"Get out of my head," you hissed at him, delivering a punch to his chest, but he didn't even flinch. The water was cold, and the chill in the air only worsened it. The only warmth came from his body—and from another place you tried to ignore.

"You lie to yourself," he added, ignoring the punches to his chest and the barrage of curses you hurled at him. "The Jedi were never your family. You live in delusion." He looked down at you, a hint of pity in his expression.

“You killed Yord,” you cried out, feeling his grip on your waist loosen.

“He was never your brother. Not really.” His words struck you like a blow, and in a surge of rage, you punched him in the chest with all your strength. He stumbled back, the warmth of his grip vanishing from your waist, leaving you both separated and gasping in the cold air.

You stared at him, eyes wide with uncertainty, unsure of your next move. You watched his chest rise and fall, strands of hair falling over his forehead. Fear gripped you, worried that he had seen through you, revealing memories you wished to forget.

"You lied about who you were. You murdered Jedi like they were cockroaches. My brother!" you screamed at him, tears threatening to spill as you fought to hold them back. You slowly made your way back to the shore, ignoring his presence following in your footsteps. The wet pants clung to your body, making each step more difficult than the last.

As you reached the shore, small rocks stabbing at your feet, you heard him speak.

“Then why did he never consider you as his sister.” His voice was cold and low, monotone with no emotions on the surface. Your movements stopped, listening as he made his way to the shore as well, standing just a few centimeters away from you. Your chest hurt like someone was pinching the flesh of your heart.

You forced yourself to turn around, facing him and his ethereal beauty. There he stood, bare before you, vulnerable and exposed. You tried to focus on his words, your heart sinking into your stomach.

"You heard me." He tilted his head, taking a small step toward you. His eyes locked onto yours, unwavering. "You know I'm right. Ever since you became Padawans, he kept you apart. No matter what you tried, even resorting to tricks just to see him, he always pushed you away. Following rules that made it harder for you to be together, like the Order meant more to him than you did. You were just a little girl, and he chose duty over your bond." He continued, every word a fuel to your anger. But now you weren’t sure who the anger was meant for.

“Shut the fuck up!” You raised your voice, stepping down to him. “You don’t know anything. You’re a Sith! A murderer! You don’t know anything about me or my life.’”

"Except I do." He allowed you to approach, keeping you within arm's reach. "You think things changed after you both passed the trials and had more freedom. They didn't. He feared you. He feared your power. An empath, right? The most dangerous ability one can possess. Even the Order feared it. With one emotion, you could overthrow everything overnight. They couldn't trust you. Not even your own brother could."

You lunged at him, aiming a punch at his jaw, which connected solidly. He stumbled back, a red mark blooming on his cheek. However, all you received in return was a smirk on his lips and the sight of him licking a drop of blood from his lip.

"That's not true," you replied, your voice stinging with anger. "They knew about my abilities, but no one feared me.”

You heard a laugh coming from him, lifting up his head, staring you down.

“Why do you keep lying to yourself?” He stepped closer, his breath almost brushing your face. “You knew they wanted to be rid of you from the moment you began showing signs. Master Sol? He distrusted you the most. Yord feared you. Jecki was too naive to form her own opinion and just listened to the elders.”

“Stop,” you failed to form a normal sentence, not knowing what to do or how to act. You were scared he was right. You didn’t want to admit it to yourself.

"Last night, when you attacked me, I took you before they could wake up," he confessed, gently brushing his hand over yours. You stared at his chest, too ashamed to meet his gaze. "What do you think will happen when they discover you used forbidden power? Do you believe they'll spare you when you're already hanging by a thread?”

He is right.

No.

He’s a liar. A murderer.

But he’s right.

"Kill me, and return to your naive trust in them," he urged, leaning closer with a mix of pity and understanding in his gaze. "Or stay here and let me help you."

You failed to notice that your hand was in his, unsure of how long he had been holding it. Your gaze remained fixed on his chest, searching for any hint of deceit or manipulation, but you found none. The weight of uncertainty bore down on you, and you wished to crumble, to disappear and never resurface again. Lost, confused, dizzy, you were paralyzed, uncertain of your next move.

“They’re my family.” You whispered, mostly to yourself.

"A real family wouldn’t betray you," he whispered back, his thumb tracing small circles on your palm. You felt the anger within you slowly melt away, replaced by an unfamiliar, strange sensation.

Raising your head slowly, you met his gaze, surprised by the softness you found in his eyes. Before you could gather your thoughts or resist, a waterfall of tears began pouring from your eyes, and the only arms there to catch you were the same ones that had stopped your heart just a few hours ago.

[driedposies]

“My little Nepenthe,”

Series synopsis: The looming threat of the Death God Koschei and the High Lord of Autumn allying has those of the Inner Circle fretting about the consequences on Prythian. However, the heir of the Autumn Court, Eris Vanserra, proposes a deadly machination of deceit to bypass laws and suspicions to remove his father from the board—a show of wooing and manipulating a reason for murder. You, the second eldest Archeron sister, still dealing with the repercussions of your mortal changes and manifesting gifts, agree to play the partner in Eris’s wicked schemes of usurpation. As you pretend to fall for the heir who always manages to get under your skin, you uncover more than just a male of arrogance and entitlement. Sometimes, even the best playwrights change the script in the production's final moments. And nothing makes a performance more exhilarating than a little behind-the-scenes romance. 

Current word count: 35.8k

CHAPTER ONE: And The Dark Awaits Us All Around The Corner

⋆｡°✩ Nightmares plague your every night, even after a year after your mortal changes. Grappling with new instincts and powers threatening to escape, you wallow in silence, until you were presented an opportunity to leave your glamoured cage. A ball in the Court of Nightmares appeared an exciting change of fleeting liberty—and, a chance meeting.

CHAPTER TWO: Let Your Branches Fork My Veins

⋆｡°✩ You receive a letter after a gift exchange that sends you on a witch hunt.

CHAPTER THREE: I Feel Them Drown My Name

⋆｡°✩ A prophecy has been dreamed, and a plan has been made. Trust the fox and kill a King.

CHAPTER FOUR: I Would Die Inside If You Ever Stopped Nurturing Me

⋆｡°✩ As you settle into Autumn, another secret is torn from you. But after a breakfast with the Lady Autumn, you realise Eris is not all thorns and callouses.

CHAPTER FIVE: The World Was On Fire (And No One Could Save Me But You)

⋆｡°✩ A week has already passed since your arrival at Autumn, when your scheme is challenged in the form of a revel.

CHAPTER SIX: You're Lost At Sea, Then I'll Command Your Boat To Me

⋆｡°✩ The High Lord of the Autumn Court calls for a family dinner. Eris learns the art of vulnerability.

CHAPTER SEVEN: Have You No Idea That You're In Deep?

⋆｡°✩ With the Summer Solstice on the horizon, you're made to confront more than your worries about this coup. Instead of running away from what you are now, you begin to accept the things you once feared—including the bond that's made a home in your soul.

[thetidesthatturn]

Tides of Fire and Gold Masterlist

Pairing: Pirate OT8, Captain Kim Hongjoong x freader

Synopsis: In the lawless waters of the Crimson Expanse, fearsome pirate Captain Kim Hongjoong commands The Halcyon, a ship whispered about cautiously in taverns and cursed in rival ports. With his sharp mind and even sharper sword, he has built an infamous reputation, leading his crew through storm and slaughter, in search of the mythical Isle of Gold.

During a ruthless raid on a rival clan’s galleon, Hongjoong captures more than just treasure—he takes a young female pirate trainee, who refuses to bow even in chains. She is fierce, stubborn, and born of the enemy, but there is something about her that stirs the captain’s curiosity…and his caution.

The girl, raised among cutthroats and secrets, has her own reasons for wanting to stay aboard The Halcyon. As she navigates life under Hongjoong’s rule, her loyalty begins to waver—not out of fear, but fascination. With every passing tide, she uncovers fragments of a buried truth: about her past, her clan, and the real reason Hongjoong seeks the Isle of Gold.

But the sea is never still. Betrayal brews among the crew, ancient magic stirs in the depths, and she must choose where her allegiance lies: with the man who should be her enemy, or the destiny she never asked for.

Will love and vengeance survive the storm, or will both be swallowed by the tide?

🏴‍☠️

Warnings: violence, graphic descriptions, eventual sexual content/references, abuse, alcohol use - list is not exhaustive, read at own risk

18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI

This is a work of fiction and all characters are not based on reality

CREW ROLES & VISUALS

TAGLIST

Chapters updated every Friday

CHAPTER ONE - THE CAPTURE

CHAPTER TWO - THE UNDOING

CHAPTER THREE - THE GIRL BORN FROM FIRE

CHAPTER FOUR - TO THOSE WHO DARE

CHAPTER FIVE - BREAK THE WALL

CHAPTER SIX - THE BLURRED LINE

[pascaloverx]

HAUNTED (+18)

Summary: You awaken from a two-year coma to find that Detective Lois has been eagerly awaiting your recovery, believing you might have witnessed something crucial to catching a serial killer. What you didn’t expect is to learn that she suspects your doctor of being the murderer—and even more shockingly, it appears that you are married to him. Now, you must uncover your lost memories and find out who Charlie Mayhew truly is to you.

Author's Note: Yes, I'm writing another fanfic featuring Nicholas Alexander Chavez’s character from Grotesquerie. The characters belong to the universe created by Ryan Murphy in the series Grotesquerie (2024). This fanfic will include violence, strong language, and adult content. It will portray the character Charlie Mayhew as a doctor. I hope you enjoy the fanfic, but there's nothing certain about its future. If you like this fanfic, please interact, leave comments. This author will be grateful for any interaction. Minors should not interact with this chapter, be warned.

THREE FIVE

© credits for the owners of the pictures used. they don't belong to me. credit is not mine for the pictures.

FOUR (+18)

Days passed, with you avoiding Charlie as if he were a disease. The truth was that his mere presence already unsettled your mind. You needed these days to reflect, allowing yourself to leave the guest room only when he was at work, taking your meals in secret. Mary helped you avoid your husband, though she always advised you to talk to him.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, here you were—facing Dr. Charlie Mayhew while he used an exercise bike, wearing a tank top that revealed his strong arms. Sweat glistened on his body, an almost provocative scene. "What are you plotting, Dr. Mayhew?" you said aloud, watching him exercise in the middle of the house. He was doing it on purpose—obviously.

"I see you've returned to calling me Doctor—such progress. If you must know, I’m simply enjoying my day off. Exercising to keep my body in shape, the very same body that once greatly satisfied my wife. You know, the one who now seems to prefer ignoring me over taking advantage of it..." he says playfully, as if trying to seduce you while also grumbling.

"Your body? Is that how you plan to get my attention?" you say, feigning indifference, as though his attempt to distract you with his physique is failing—though, in truth, it’s working all too well. You remain standing in front of the guest room door, dressed in your nightgown, noticing that neither Mary nor Ed is anywhere to be seen. Charlie, still pedaling on the exercise bike, has his back to you, his posture emphasizing his toned rear, which you can’t help but eye almost hungrily.

"It used to work, I’ll admit I’m resorting to extremes. And just so you know, Mary and Ed are off today. It’ll be just you and me the entire day. In case you were planning to hide away like a frightened little mouse," Charlie says as he steps off the bike, approaching you while using a small towel to wipe the sweat from his body.

"You did this on purpose, didn’t you? Is our marriage now about disrespecting each other’s personal space?" you ask, slightly irritated, nearly pouncing on him in your frustration.

"What marriage, mi amor? You see me as an enemy, as the villain in your story, not as your husband." Suddenly, the air grows heavier as you stand mere inches apart, your eyes locked on each other, the tension between you almost tangible.

"Are you asking for a divorce, dear husband?" you ask softly, your voice calm. Charlie's breath brushes against your face, the scent of his sweat acting like an aphrodisiac, stirring something deep within you.

"What other option do we have? Stay married while playing cat and mouse? You avoid me, and I pretend it doesn’t affect me? Will you spend the rest of your life thinking your husband is a monster and hiding from him? All of these options are a waste of time and emotional energy," Charlie speaks so rationally, though his expression betrays his words. It’s as if he’s daring you to consider the possibility of ending it all.

"It feels like we’re just going in circles around each other," you murmur, exhaling a heavy breath you hadn’t realized you were holding. You close your eyes slowly, feeling the weight of what ending your marriage would truly mean. It’s a thought that has crossed your mind before, yet there’s an ache in your chest at the idea of stepping out of Charlie’s life for good.

"Tell me honestly, would you feel at peace if I left? If I were no longer your husband?" he asks, stepping closer, his tongue slowly wetting his lips. It’s almost as if he’s testing your reaction to his proximity, studying your every move.

"There will be no peace for me until I truly know who I am," you reply, locking eyes with him, though now with a growing desire stirring within you. Your hand grazes his muscled arm, sending a visible shiver through him. He leans in closer, tilting his head as if seeking permission in your gaze. Slowly, deliberately, he tugs down the neckline of your nightgown just enough to bare your shoulder, his eyes darkening as he watches your response.

"And until you remember who you are, will I need to quit my job and dismiss Mary and Ed just to have a proper conversation with you?" he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your shoulder, his gaze flicking to you from the corner of his eye as if gauging your reaction. A shiver courses through you, but your fingers find their way to his damp hair, gently caressing it.

Charlie's kisses trail from your shoulder to your neck, his warm breath brushing against your skin, sending a cascade of sensations through you. "So you admit you orchestrated this to force me to interact with you?" you manage to ask, though your focus falters with every brush of his lips. When his mouth lingers near your jawline, you realize rational thought is slipping away, overtaken by the pull of what you're feeling.

"I admit it—I wanted you with no distractions, no escape. I was desperate," he confesses, his voice low and laced with vulnerability. His lips travel softly over your cheek, grazing the bridge of your nose and the corners of your eyes, each kiss more tender than the last. His hands, warm and deliberate, trace the curve of your body, sliding your nightgown higher with a slow, intoxicating purpose, as if savoring every inch of contact.

His hands grip your thighs tightly as he slowly pulls them away from your face as if he's analyzing your reactions. "I'd be lying if I said I hadn't dreamed about this exact moment the entire time you were unconscious. However, if you're not comfortable, we can call it a day. As long as you don't ignore me again, that will be enough for me," Charlie speaks as if he were holding himself back from exploding with desperate to have you. He rests his head on your shoulder, looking up, his expression seemed like the perfect mix of lust and insecurity. At that moment something awakened in you, the notion that he might actually be sincere, at least about his desire to have you.

"You settle for so little," you mutter, waiting for a reaction from him. Charlie then lifts his head, staring at you for a few moments. His fingers caress your face with a certain firmness, passing his fingers under your lips. At some point his thumb slipped between your lips and you bit it lightly, then sucked on Charlie's finger as you stared at him.

"You're playing with fire, mi amor," Charlie says, kissing the corner of your mouth, as if he were teasing you. You turn off any inhibitions that would keep you from attacking Charlie's lips. Honestly, whether or not he is who Detective Lois is looking for doesn't really matter at this point. Your soul seems to be thirsting for Charlie Mayhew's presence, not just near you but within you.

"Burn me with your fire, Dr. Mayhew," you whisper. Charlie's eyes grow dark, his lips attack yours in a fervent, messy kiss. He sucks on your tongue as he tightens his arms around your waist. The kiss almost takes your breath away but leaves you so hot. You use your hands to grope his chest, while you cling to him. The kiss breaks as Charlie starts to kiss your neck passionately, nibbling your skin while his hands start to caress your breasts through your nightgown. At first, the gentle way his fingers played with your nipples through your nightgown sent a shiver down your spine. He seemed to grow impatient, as if he wanted to feel your skin against his immediately. Then he lifted you up with his arms, making you put your legs around his waist and hold on tight to his shoulders so you wouldn't fall. He placed you under the kitchen counter, placing his body between your legs. Quickly, he began to take off the nightgown you were wearing.

"See my beautiful wife, naked beneath her nightgown as if she knew I would be extremely pleased to see her like that," Charlie speaks as he runs his fingers over your naked body, ending up holding your ass with both of his hands, squeezing it tightly as he brings you closer to him. You who are studying every detail to memorize Charlie Mayhew's touch and taste. You pull his hair back, holding the strands firmly, going hungrily to Charlie's lips and kissing him. He bites your lip as he tries to match your pace during the kiss. You take your hands out of his hair, and start to pull down his shorts and underwear.

"I see that my wonderful husband was really right when he said I should take advantage of his body," you teases him as she watches his cock spring out of his underwear. Charlie gives you a kiss, as he moves towards you, using his hands that are no longer on your ass, to spread your legs wider. As his tongue explores not only your mouth but also your neck, his fingers enter you without hesitation. His fingers, going in and out quite quickly while your pussy squeezed them, you ended up moaning from the pleasure of feeling the pressure of his fingers in your pussy.

"An eternity could pass, but being inside you will still be the best feeling of my life," he murmurs, gently biting your ear while talking against it, giving you goosebumps. You then grab his hand before he can put his fingers inside you again, and with a thirsty look, you try to tell him that you want his cock. He then holds your thighs firmly, separating your legs with precision and then thrusts his erect cock inside you. You let out a loud moan, the feeling of him fucking you is something you weren't prepared to feel. He kisses your lips softly as he slowly thrusts his cock in your pussy that is already wet. You hold on to him as you feel him move in and out of you faster and faster.

For a moment it was as if an animalistic instinct took over him. You close your eyes tightly, reveling in the feeling of being taken by him, while your nails scratch every possible part of his body. For a moment, you drag your ass forward to increase the proximity of your body to Charlie's. He seems to want to see your face, moving your hair away from your face and pulling your face with his hand, kissing your lips once more. However, his hand goes down to your neck and and hold it there firmly. For some reason, the feeling of being lightly suffocated by him feels extremely satisfying. The more he pressed his hand against your neck, the more horny you became for him.

You were so wet that his cock was fitting perfectly inside your pussy, the synchronization of your bodies was almost surreal. Your only regret was not ripping off the damn tank top Charlie is wearing. With each thrust you feel yourself getting close to cumming, feeling your breath leaving you as he squeezes your neck in a strong way, taking you to the limit. You grind on Charlie's cock, making him groan heavily as he cums inside you. Even so, he continues to thrust his cock inside you while your pussy is sensitive from feeling him cum hard, until you cum too.

You two are a mess, dirtying the kitchen counter. Charlie lifts your head slowly, kissing every part of your face gently. "I think we should go take a shower wife. What we just did here certainly made us sweaty," Charlie says as he catches his breath after the sex you had. "You'll have to carry me," you inform him, feeling loose in your legs. He kisses your neck and then carries you to the bathroom in your room, where you bathe and have a second round.

Afterward, everything seemed normal. Charlie and you shared your bed again, following a day spent together during his time off, complete with him preparing dinner for the two of you. The next morning, he woke early for work, leaving a kiss on your cheek and informing you that Mary and Ed would be at your service.

You woke up feeling invigorated, determined to seek answers while also embracing the peace that being with Charlie seemed to bring. A few hours later, after getting ready, you set out to visit Detective Tryon. Ed accompanied you there, and you felt no fear of Charlie discovering your visit to Lois, as you had resolved to extend a measure of trust to both of them.

"Mrs. Mayhew, to what do I owe the honor of your visit to my workplace?" Lois asks, lighting a cigarette as she settles into her chair. You find yourself in her office, surrounded by officers, inmates, and suspicious individuals.

"I came here to understand why I am considered a suspect in your investigation," you reply quickly, remaining standing. Detective Tryon looks you up and down before exhaling a puff of smoke, seemingly pondering your words.

"You’ll need to follow me to a room where I can show you the answer to your question," Lois says as she stands, gesturing for you to follow. Curiosity gets the better of you, and you trail behind her as she leads the way to a room at the back of the precinct.

Upon entering the room, you are met with paintings depicting crime scenes, eerily similar to those you had once seen in Charlie Mayhew's office. Each artwork bears the same hauntingly realistic and morbid tone, sending chills down your spine.

"What do these paintings have to do with your suspicions?" you ask, bewildered by the connection between yourself and these brutally realistic depictions of crime.

"Well, Mrs. Mayhew," Detective Tryon begins, her tone grave, "I must inform you that these paintings are of your authorship. Not only that, but you need to understand that they depict actual, unsolved homicide cases. And you painted these works before the murders depicted in them occurred. This has made you a suspect. Moreover, all the victims were, at some point, connected to the hospital where your husband works. Many were even his patients."

Her piercing gaze settles on you, and the weight of her words sends your mind spiraling. You glance at the paintings again, confusion thickening as fragmented memories resurface. Images of your past flit through your mind—your quiet painting room, where you used to work with calm precision. Suddenly, you recall painting the image of one of the murdered women, her lifeless form rendered in vivid detail.

What strikes you as bizarre is that your reference seemed to be a photograph—one that was pinned to a bulletin board in front of you. The realization stirs something deep within, but a sharp pain in your head interrupts your thoughts, slicing through the memory like a blade. Dizzy and disoriented, you close your eyes tightly, the room spinning around you. Detective Tryon calls your name, her cigarette dropping forgotten to the floor as she rushes toward you. But it is too late. Your body goes limp, and you collapse to the ground, succumbing to unconsciousness.

[quartz-kilsviken]

Written in the Runes

Chapter 1

➸ Synopsis: Ekko, your mischievous yet endearing local troublemaker, trails a wealthy academy student from the topside. When you end up with the student’s satchel, you find a notebook filled with intriguing magical research. Unable to resist, you embark on a quest to uncover the secrets of this mysterious scholar.

➸ pairing: jayvik x reader

➸ word count: 3,649

➸ tags: Slow Burn, yearning, eventual smut, not canon compliant

➸ notes: This is going to be an eventual Jayce/Viktor/Reader romance. I want a boyfriend and I want my boyfriend to have a boyfriend. The goal is for this to be an incredibly slow burn. Timeline might differ slightly to the show, and I’m making shit up as I go. I don’t understand LOL lore or magic, nor do I want to. You can also find me on AO3 Quarts_Kilsviken :)

➸ Next Chapter Link- Pt.2

For centuries, art has served as a means to capture moments otherwise lost to time. It functions as a time capsule, preserving not only events but the emotions felt by the artist. Families fleeing war, yet pausing long enough to capture the image of a single flower—the delicate curve of its petals, the vivid color stark against an ash-covered ground. A mother, imparting forgotten magic beneath the soft glow of firelight, a pale blue shimmer in the child’s wide eyes. Runes etched into the dirt, knowing they can be erased in an instant. These fragments call to you, urging you to remember moments you’ve never known. Moments your mother never had the chance to share with you.

As your pencil glides across the thin paper, you wonder if, one day, someone will look back at your captured moments. Will they find meaning in the images of waves crashing against the dock and sense the longing that fills them? You doubt it. The flimsy paper will likely disintegrate into dust within a few years. Still, you continue—perched atop a warehouse roof, waiting for the familiar ship to arrive. These moments are yours, the sunrise painting colors across your pages unseen in your home.

With a long stretch, you stuff your sketchbook into your bag and begin the familiar descent down the side of the building. The cool breeze from the water seeps deeper into your jacket as you approach the ship. After a minute of waiting, the cold settles into your bones and you decide it’s far too frigid to remain outside any longer. Avoiding the eyes of the workers, you slip up the ship's ramp, hurrying down into the cabin.

“Got anything good today, Khal?” you call out, trying to suppress a wince as you hear the loud thump and the string of curses that follow. The yordle emerges from behind a stack of crates, rubbing the top of his head.

“Ah, damn it, I told you to stop coming in here. Couldn’t you wait another five minutes?” Khal mutters, continuing to gather various items from the crates, placing them carefully into a large black bag.

“I’m doing you a favor, really. Now you won’t have to make the trip outside. It’s windy today, Khal—you might get blown away,” you tease. He glares up at you, unamused by your joke as you stand over the bag. Realizing he has what you want, you try to smooth things over with your most innocent smile. “Seriously, you don’t have to thank me for going the extra mile. But if you do—”

“Sorry, kid, no magic stuff today.” He shakes his head, zipping the bag shut with a snap. “They’ve been cracking down at the borders. Rumors of a new drug shipment coming to the docks are making it impossible to get anything in.” Khal sighs, sensing your disappointment, though it’s clear he’s frustrated with the situation as well. “Look, I managed to get some paint from Noxus for you and the kid. I know it’s not what you were hoping for, but—”

You cut him off with a tight hug, leaning down to wrap your arms around the furry little man. Though he doesn’t return it, when you pull away, you spot the faintest tug at the corner of his mouth, trying to suppress a smile. “You’re the best, you know that?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Now get out of here before the enforcers start their rounds.” You grab the bag, tossing it over your shoulder. With a quick farewell, you make your way away from the water.

As you enter the Lanes, the cool breeze morphs into warm, acrid smog. Your feet instinctively know the route home, staying in the shadows so no one catches sight of the bag hanging from your back. You push through the door of the familiar shop, relieved to unload the weight of the bag. Benzo looks up at you from behind the counter as you make your way over. With a grunt, you hoist the bag onto the table,

“You know, Benzo, I should get hazard pay for this. My back’s gonna be shot by the time I’m thirty, I swear. Should start saving for an early retirement,” you joke.

“You’re already robbing me blind with what I pay you, little lady. Anyone give you trouble on your way back?” Benzo peers at you over the rim of his glasses.

“Nah, not today,” you say, hopping over the counter and tossing a few items onto the shelves. “With all these new trade precautions, I bet most people don’t think it’s worth the hassle anymore.” You wrinkle your nose at a rusty pocket watch, trying to decide if it’s even worth trying to sell. Benzo sighs and settles back in his chair, apparently leaving the rest to you. You continue sorting through the shelves, but something’s off. No, scratch that—a lot is off. You stop mid-motion, eyes darting to the now-empty display. “Were we robbed?”

It takes him a second to figure out where you’re looking, and when he does, he chuckles, clearly unbothered. “Nah, some academy kid cleared out the display a couple hours ago. Ekko made a killing off him.” You knew you’d never have enough to buy even one of the items, but it still stings to know they’re gone.

“What would an academy kid even want with magic artifacts?” You bite the words out, too sharp, too bitter. You immediately try to reel it back. “He probably doesn’t even know what he’s got—just hoarding them to show off to his rich friends.”

Benzo shrugs like he’s heard it all before. “You know the drill. We don’t question customers.” He takes a beat, then adds, “But if it helps, the kid seemed pretty knowledgeable.” That makes you feel a little better, though not enough to erase the empty, hollow feeling in your chest. The case sits vacant, mocking you.

Suddenly, the door slams open with a crash, followed by a flash of white hair as the little whirlwind zips across the room. Before you can even react, the kid darts through the back door like he’s on a mission.

You can’t help it—you burst out laughing at the sight of Benzo, stone-faced, staring after the boy. With a quick swipe of your hand, you snatch the paint from the now empty bag, slip through the door, and head after him. Listening carefully, you figure he’s made it down the stairs to his room. You knock softly before poking your head inside. Ekko’s in the process of shoving something under his bed, looking incredibly guilty. When he sees you, his face lights up with a giant smile. The kid’s clever, but not great at hiding things.

“I’ve got something for you, little man,” you say, leaning against the bed. You wave the paint palette in front of his face, teasing him, but snatch it away before he can grab it. “If you want it, you’re gonna have to tell me what’s under there.”

Ekko starts pacing, looking like he’s weighing his options, then stops, squints at you, and says, “You have to promise you won’t tell Benzo.”

You put on a mock-serious face, tapping your chin. “Depends. Did you kidnap someone? ‘Cause I’m not sure I wanna be an accomplice to kidnapping.”

“No,” Ekko says, a little too quickly, his eyes darting nervously under the bed.

“Fraud?”

“No.”

“Murder?”

“No.”

You chuckle and shake your head, finally giving in. “Fine. I won’t tell Benzo.”

Ekko resumes his pacing, looking oddly pleased with himself. “Okay, so this guy comes in earlier today. Buys a bunch of fancy stuff—the kind we usually keep behind glass. He’s got a ton of money, I’m talking a lot.” He pauses, grinning. “Obviously, I charged him double.” He snickers to himself, then continues. “Anyway, I was curious, so I followed him.”

You shouldn’t have been surprised, but somehow, you still are. You stare at him, rubbing your forehead. “Ekko, really? Benzo said he’s an academy student. You followed him all the way topside?”

Ekko avoids your eyes, and you already know the answer. “Ekko.”

“No one saw me, I swear!” He glances back at the bed, stalling. After a deep breath, he adds, “Okay, so the guy put his bag down to grab his keys, then went inside—probably too distracted with the rest of his stuff to remember he left it behind.”

You gasp. Without thinking, you dive under the bed and, sure enough, pull out a satchel. You immediately regret your earlier promise. “Ekko, what if there’s something valuable in here? If he gets enforcers involved and this is going to be the first place they look.”

Ekko waves a hand dismissively. “Come on. Think about it. He came in for a bunch of illegal stuff. He’s not going to risk it. Plus, he’s loaded. Whatever’s in that bag, he can buy it again.”

You look at the satchel again, hesitating for a moment. Then, curiosity wins out. You pat the floor next to you, and Ekko eagerly plops down beside you. You pop open the bag and dump its contents onto the floor in one smooth motion. Ekko dives into the mess with excitement, while you start inspecting the items. It’s a mess—books, pens, random junk. Exactly what you’d expect from an academy student.

Ekko picks up a wallet and flips through it before remembering that he already cleaned out the guy’s coin. Losing interest, he starts to toss it aside, but you snatch it up before he can. It’s plain, brown leather with neat stitching—nothing special, but maybe it’s worth a little something. As you dig inside, your fingers catch on a student ID card. It’s scratched up but still in decent condition. You flip it over, and a pair of big eyes stare back at you. The blurry picture shows a young man, maybe in his early twenties, with a wide, gap-toothed grin. Handsome, you think, not at all who I imagined. You slide the card back into place and shove the wallet into your jacket pocket.

Ekko’s rummaging through the rest of the bag, clearly unimpressed by the contents. You laugh at the face he’s making and, still grinning, grab the paint you’d dropped earlier. “Khal said these are from Noxus. Definitely worth a lot. So, don’t let Mylo use them to paint middle fingers on Jericho’s stall.”

Ekko snickers, jumping up to stow the paint away, tossing the pens he grabbed from the bag into a drawer with a careless flick. He starts cramming the rest of the bag’s contents back in, and you look over at him, an eyebrow raised. “Do you mind if I, uh, borrow your stolen bag?”

Without missing a beat, Ekko flashes you a sly grin. “Sure, but just so you know, that officially makes you an accomplice now.”

You can’t help but laugh as you leave Ekko’s room and wander down the hall. By the time you collapse on your bed, the exhaustion hits you like a wave. Dock runs only happen once a month, but they require staying up all night—leaving right after sunset and staying until the ship docks at sunrise. It used to be so much easier—endless nights that never seemed to take a toll. But now, as your joints creak and protest, you feel like a 23-year-old who’s already past their prime. You glance down at the satchel, chewing the inside of your cheek. You’ve already gone through it—hell, you dumped its contents all over Ekko’s floor. So why the sudden wave of guilt?

You decide to be more careful this time, taking things out slowly. The first item is a crumpled piece of paper, which turns out to be a grocery list. You set it aside with a sigh and reach for the next thing: a hardcover book, dark blue canvas, its corners fraying with age. The moment you touch it, you can tell it’s old—the scent of it, the brown tint of the pages. The text is foreign, some language you can’t quite place. Maybe it’s from overseas? Curiosity gnaws at you, but you set the book aside and move to the next.

This one catches your attention immediately. The cover’s worn, but it’s the script inside that makes your heart beat a little faster. You flip through the pages and realize it’s a grimoire. Runes cover every inch, some familiar, others completely alien. How did he get his hands on this? Sure, he’s rich, but something so detailed, so rare? There’s no way it would’ve come from Piltover. The heat of anger burns through you, a deep, familiar ache that’s almost like grief. He’s carrying around a book that details the same magic your family nearly died for. But is it really just anger? No, it’s something else. The pages seem to hum, drawing you in, much like your mother’s paintings once did—pulling you toward something. Your past? No… not this time. It’s something else entirely.

Finally, you pull out the last book from the satchel. It feels heavier, like it’s carrying something more than just weight. You run your fingers over the hammer etched into the cover, studying its details before opening it. Inside, it’s filled with messy notes and diagrams, all jumbled but with a clear purpose. This is it—this is what he’s been working on. He’s trying to harness magic.

Though your body is screaming for rest, you can’t bring yourself to put the book down. When you finally glance at the clock, it’s already 5 AM, but you’re still lost in the pages. You’re hooked—caught in the madness of it all. It’s brilliant. Insane. Revolutionary. And completely, utterly terrifying. His scrawl is all over every page, his signature tucked into the corner of each one. Even though this is clearly just one of many notebooks—a fraction of his larger body of work—it all makes perfect sense. Harnessing arcane energy through crystals. Capturing raw, chaotic magic and transforming it into a usable, practical source.

It’s clear he knows what he’s doing, but there’s something missing in his understanding of the arcane itself. His notes drip with frustration, especially where he’s tried to decode the runes—almost every page filled with scribbles, crossed-out lines, and half-baked theories. It’s as if he’s so close, yet there’s a final piece that eludes him.

And then it hits you. You might be that missing piece.

You’re no scholar, and you certainly aren’t a genius, but you know more than most when it comes to the arcane. You’ve lived it, felt it, and you can see the gaps in his research—things that could be the key to unlocking it all. Maybe you could help him. You feel the weight of the possibility, the urgency of his discovery. It’s world-changing. The visions he’s drawn out on each page show the immense potential for how this technology could revolutionize not just Piltover, but the Undercity, too. His research could bridge the gap between the two worlds, completely reshaping everything in its wake.

But as the minutes slip by and your eyelids grow heavier, you realize your body can no longer keep up with your racing thoughts. The words on the page blur into one long stream, and before you know it, your head tilts to the side. Your hand slips from the notebook as sleep finally pulls you under, the weight of your thoughts fading into the quiet dark.

You’re stirred awake by a quiet knock on your door. “You dead in there?” Benzo’s voice filters through, soft but insistent. As your mind clears, you realize your bed is strewn with the contents of the stolen satchel. Panic flickers for a moment before you shove the books back into the bag, tossing it under the bed just as he softly cracks the door open. Benzo stands in the doorway, glancing over you with a raised brow.

“You look like death,” he says with a tired chuckle. “How long you been sleeping?”

“Uh...” You glance at the clock. It’s already 6 PM. You wince. “About thirteen hours.”

He rubs his temples, sighing. “Get cleaned up, then come watch the shop for a while. I’ve gotta head out with Vander.” The fatigue is clear in his face, the lines around his eyes deepening.

“What happened? Is he okay?” You start picking out clothes, your movements automatic as the weight of the situation begins to settle in.

He exhales sharply, dropping down onto your bed with a heavy sigh. “Vander’s fine. But the kids... well, they’ve stirred up some serious trouble. You missed all the fun. Yesterday there was an explosion and a chase topside. And today? Enforcers barging in here looking for four kids. They tried to rob a rich academy topsider, but things went sideways. I heard the whole side of the building got blasted off, and now the Enforcers are crawling all over the Undercity.”

Your stomach drops. “Was anyone hurt?”

He glances at you, his expression softening. “No, thank the gods. But the building—turns out it was the Kirammans’ place. What was in there? I don’t even want to think about it.” His gaze sharpens. “The kids will be fine. Vander and I will handle it. But they need to lay low for a while. Knowing them, though, that’ll be a battle.”

You nod quietly, though the weight in your chest only grows heavier as he exits your room. After a quick shower, you find yourself behind the shop counter, brown cloak draped loosely around you, trying to mask the weight on your shoulder. The place is eerily still, save for the hum of your own racing thoughts. Your eyes stay fixed on the door as you wait, the uneasy silence pressing in.

When the door finally opens, it’s Ekko who walks in, looking surprised to see you behind the counter instead of Benzo. His usual brash energy is subdued, and he leans against the counter, avoiding your eyes.

“Bet you already heard what happened,” he mutters, picking at some invisible spot on the counter. “Vander’s really upset with us.”

The weight of his words hits harder than you expect. For all the bravado Ekko tries to show, you know how deeply he feels. You reach over, ruffling his hair, offering what little comfort you can. “Hey, little man, it’s gonna be okay. Everyone makes mistakes. I get why you did it. Vander and Benzo, they’ve made their own share of screw-ups, so they have plenty of experience fixing them.” Ekko gives a small, grateful smile at that. “Go get some sleep, alright? Things’ll cool down by tomorrow.”

Just as you finish speaking, the bell rings, and Benzo reappears, starting to lower the shutters. Before he locks the door, you move to slip out. “Get some rest, you two. I’m heading out for the night.”

Ekko gives you a tired wave as he heads for the back. Benzo, however, doesn’t take his eyes off you.

“You know,” he says, arms crossed, voice low, “I can’t stop you, but I’m still gonna tell you—it’s a bad idea. Enforcers are everywhere. There’s fighting on every corner.”

You both hold eye contact for a long beat, but he lets out a resigned sigh. “No arguing with you, is there? Go on, get out of here.” He opens the door for you, and you catch him off guard with a quick hug before slipping out into the night. His grumble follows you as the door clicks shut behind you.

The streets are a war zone. Enforcers litter every corner, and the air is thick with tension. You move through the Undercity carefully, staying in the shadows as much as you can, until you reach Piltover. There, it’s quieter, and for a moment, you feel a strange kind of relief.

There’s no sign of enforcers from atop the large buildings, but as you crouch to catch your breath, the sight in front of you makes your chest tighten. From this angle, calling it an explosion doesn’t even come close. The place looks like it’s been torn apart. A sinking feeling settles in your gut.

It makes sense the building looks abandoned now—who would stick around in a wreck like this? But then you realize it: you came here without a plan. What was your angle? Strut in, say you’ve got stolen research, and hope for the best? Ridiculous. Still, you’ve come this far. You suppose it wouldn’t hurt to get a bit closer.

With a deep breath, you sprint across the gap to the next rooftop, landing lightly and pausing to steady yourself. And there they are. Two figures, barely visible in the wreckage, illuminated only by the faint glow of a lamp. One is scribbling on a chalkboard, broad shoulders following the movements of his writing. The other holding a book in one hand and gripping a cane in the other, standing a step behind him. You squint, trying to make out the messy writing, but the shadows blur everything.

Just then, they turn—though you know they can’t possibly see you. Still, a chill runs down your spine, and you freeze, watching them move through a door, disappearing deeper into the building.

That’s when it hits you—the pull. The whispers, soft in the breeze. The tug in your chest. Every moment, every choice, has led to this. The memories flood back: your mother’s hands glowing with magic, her soft voice teaching you. Benzo, taking your hand as he led you from the ruins of your home, offering you a new place where you could rebuild, and with it, the hope that you could be more.

And now you’re here.

You feel the wind, the pull drawing you forward. Without thinking, you leap.

[misshoneyimhome]

What’s up, buttercups! 🌸

Chapter twelve… and things are definitely getting a little more heated, huh? 😏 I feel like we’re finally stepping into a space where we can turn the tension up and play with a bit more spice—so I’m super curious to know what you think 🙈

Just a quick note: I’m currently going through some personal stuff and juggling a busy work schedule, so if I’m a little slower with updates or replies, please know I’m doing my best and still pouring as much heart as I can into this story 💕

As always, thank you for being here. I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. Happy reading! 💕

Tropes & warnings: inexperienced!reader x Auston Matthews, meet cute, strangers to friends, fake relationship, language, 18+ smut: tied up, oral sex (f receiving), edging, fingering, unprotected penetrative vaginal sex, cumshot

Word count: 7.8k Chapter one ; Chapter two ; Chapter three ; Chapter four ; Chapter five ; Chapter six ; Chapter seven ; Chapter eight ; Chapter nine; Chapter ten ; Chapter eleven

➼｡ﾟ

Chapter twelve: a royal game of chess*

::

“Dearest Toronto Readers,”

A royal game is underway—and we’ve all been invited to watch.

Last night, beneath the glittering chandeliers of the gala, our King and Queen moved across the ballroom like seasoned players on a chessboard. Each glance, each lingering touch, calculated and deliberate. Together, they silenced the rumours. For now.

But behind every flawless performance is a motive. And behind every motive? A truth begging to be uncovered. Are they reigniting something real—or just preserving the illusion long enough to win the crowd back?

The Queen looked radiant. The King looked smitten. And yet, the whispers still echo: are they lovers, or just loyal allies in a crumbling campaign?

What we are witnessing is no simple romance—it’s a royal game of strategy.

White strikes first. And checkmate is coming.

The only question that remains: will it be a win or a loss for the crown?

Yours always,

The Benchwarmer”

_

Saturday –

The sun filtered through your curtains like it had no respect for boundaries—soft and golden, spilling across your bedroom in a mocking warmth that made everything feel deceptively calm. It painted gold across your sheets, lit your skin with something too gentle, too romantic for the weight tangled in your limbs.

There was a heaviness in your bones that sleep hadn’t touched. You blinked against the light. Your mouth was dry. Your body sore in that deep, secret kind of way—your thighs still trembling faintly, the inside of your elbow tender where his grip had lingered a second too long. Your skin prickled with the memory of his touch. Your throat? Dry from all the words you hadn’t said. From the ones you had swallowed down instead of speaking out loud.

But it wasn’t just lust curling under your skin this morning. It was confusion. Shame. And something worse—something quieter and harder to admit. That slow-blooming ache behind your ribs, that whispering feeling you’d tried so hard to ignore.

Because last night hadn’t been fake. Or performative. You hadn’t been playing a role. You had wanted it. Wanted him. Badly. Recklessly.

And now, the only thing worse than what you’d done… was how much you wanted to do it again.

Your hand groped through the tangle of sheets until it found your phone, half-buried near the edge of the mattress. The screen was lit with unread messages, notifications blinking like warning lights—like your life was trying to catch up to you faster than you could catch your breath.

Of course, the group chat was already on fire.

Jess: okay WHAT THE FUCK is going on. i thought you guys were like??? cooling off??

Maya: was last night cooling off?? bc from where i was standing it looked VERY on.

Jess: pls tell me the gala wasn’t just for PR or do i need to text Auston and ask myself??

You let your head fall back into the pillow with a groan, phone hovering above your face, the screen too bright and your thoughts too messy. You typed. Deleted. Tried again. Your fingers felt clumsy.

You: idk what’s going on. it’s a mess. we didn’t plan any of that.

The typing dots appeared immediately.

Jess: you okay tho? like actually okay? or are we breaking into his condo later?

Maya: say the word and I’ll bring wine and a crowbar.

You smiled. Barely. But it was something. You loved them. Even when everything else felt like quicksand, they were solid ground.

You: I’m fine. Just tired. It’s a lot.

You peeled yourself out of bed with the kind of sluggish determination reserved for emotional hangovers. Limbs heavy, skin too sensitive, like you’d been rubbed raw inside and out. You padded into the kitchen in an oversized tee, arms crossed over your stomach like you were trying to hold yourself together.

The apartment was still. The hum of the fridge. The faint creak of floorboards underfoot. The way the light cut across the floor in stripes. You didn’t bother turning on music or the TV. Silence felt deserved.

You moved through the morning like muscle memory had taken over: toast in the toaster, egg cracked into the pan. The sizzle felt too loud in the stillness. Coffee brewed behind you, and the smell was grounding—dark, bitter, real. You wrapped your hands around your chipped constellation mug like it might warm more than your palms.

And there he was.

Auston.

The memory crashed into you, sudden and vivid. His hands. His mouth. The way he’d whispered your name like it meant something. The tension in his jaw before he kissed you. The way he looked at you like he didn’t just want you—he needed you. The hallway. The silence that followed. The taste of him still blooming on your lips like an aftershock.

You shook the thought off and forced yourself to eat. Tiny bites. A sip of coffee. Another. But you could still feel it—last night clinging to you like a second skin.

And then your phone buzzed again.

Mum calling…

You considered letting it ring out. But something told you that wouldn’t make anything easier, so you answered on the third ring.

“Hi, sweetheart!” she chirped, far too bright. The tone that always meant she was about to bulldoze through whatever objection you had lined up. “Just checking—do you want the roast, or should I do salmon instead? Auston strikes me as a roast man…”

“Mum,” you interrupted, already wincing. “We might need to… rain-check dinner.”

A beat. Then her voice sharpened with suspicion. “Rain check? Why?”

You exhaled slowly, setting your half-eaten toast down. “Things with Auston aren’t as great as they might seem. It’s… complicated.”

There was another pause. Longer this time.

“Oh,” she said finally. “So, what?”

“What do you mean so what?” you snapped, the words tumbling out too fast.

“I’m not cancelling dinner,” she said flatly. “Your siblings are finally coming. Do you know how rare that is?”

“Mum—”

“Don’t ‘Mum’ me. I’ve already cleaned the good glasses.”

You rubbed a hand down your face, eyes closed. “Can we just wait until this makes more sense?”

“Nonsense,” she replied. Her tone was calm. Cutting. Unyielding. “If he’s going to be in your life, he should be in our lives. And if he’s not? Well… then we’ll know, won’t we?”

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The call just ended with a half-hearted “don’t stress the Yorkshire pudding,” though you both knew she already had.

Sink or swim. And you were already half under.

And not even two minutes later, another message appeared.

Stephanie: Hey, girl! Game tonight and the girls are going. You in? Also… you looked fucking hot last night.

You read it. Twice. A third time.

You wanted to say no. Wanted to crawl back into bed, bury yourself under the duvet, cry about things you weren’t supposed to feel. Put on a movie and forget. Let the world spin without you.

But something tugged. A thread that hadn’t snapped yet. Something small and stubborn and painfully alive.

You didn’t respond immediately.

You just stood frozen in the kitchen ten minutes later, one hand around your mug, the other bracing against the edge of the counter like it could keep you upright. The silence buzzed louder than any playlist could’ve. You were surrounded—by noise, by pressure, by people asking for answers you didn’t have. A mother who wouldn’t bend. Friends who were trying to understand. Stephanie, already halfway out the door in heels and a grin.

And then, the one you couldn’t pin down.

Your phone buzzed again.

Auston: You coming tonight?

The question was simple. Innocent, even. But the weight behind it pressed into your ribs like a thumb.

You stared.

You: not sure. Steph just asked.

His reply was instant.

Auston: Kay.

So simple. So casual.

But your fingers hovered over the screen. Your breath caught. Your heart did that flutter again—that impossible stutter that had nothing to do with PR deadlines and everything to do with the way his voice had broken last night. The way he’d touched you like he’d needed the confirmation that you were still his to reach for.

And maybe this wasn’t about optics anymore. Maybe it never had been.

Maybe this was just about you. And him. And the dangerous, unstoppable thing blooming between you despite everything it could ruin.

And maybe… just maybe… you weren’t ready to walk away.

Not if he wasn’t.

_

The media scrum was already forming by the time Auston stepped onto the familiar white Leafs logo in the centre of the dressing room. He moved like he always did—purposeful, confident, with the easy poise of someone who had been here before and knew exactly how to play the game.

Reporters had their phones raised, recorders clipped to lanyards, some already half-shouting questions as he approached the backdrop. He tugged on the collar of his quarter-zip, gave a subtle nod to the team’s media manager, and settled into position like a seasoned actor hitting his mark.

This part had always been the easiest.

He liked the spotlight. Never said it aloud, but he did. He liked the control of it—the ritual. The way a question could be spun. The way he could shut it all down with a single smirk or shrug or “we’ll take it one game at a time.”

Today was no different. In fact, it was almost too quiet.

“Everyone’s looking forward to the game, Auston—feel like the chemistry’s starting to click again?”

“Can you talk about what’s been working so well on the power play?”

“Four wins within two weeks—what’s changed for the group?”

Nothing about you. Nothing about the photo. Nothing about the gala or the rumour mill or the very public, very dramatic week he’d just come out of.

Auston answered smoothly, firing off practiced lines without hesitation. Something about momentum. About the boys gelling. About staying focused.

Not one question veered off course.

The plan was working.

The Benchwarmer had done its job—redirected the public eye with just enough flair to turn chaos into curiosity. The media, once frothing at the mouth for personal drama, had backed off. No one wanted to be the one who poked the bear. Not when the Ice King had returned to form on the ice. Not when a single wrong question could get them frozen out.

Auston’s eyes scanned the group, already calculating the end of the session.

He liked this version of control.

But as he offered one final answer and stepped away from the microphones, something still tugged at him. A weight beneath the surface. A restlessness.

Because even if no one else was asking about you, even if the cameras weren’t zooming in anymore—he was still thinking about you. About the way you looked last night. 

He shook it off. Tugged at his sleeve. Made his way toward the tunnel where the rink waited, quiet and cold.

The media hadn’t asked. But that didn’t mean the questions weren’t there. And right now, Auston had more of them than ever.

_

The lights inside the arena always felt different on Saturdays. Sharper. Hungrier. Like the whole building was conspiring to expose every flicker of emotion, every lingering glance, every thread pulled too tight. The electricity didn’t just buzz—it pulsed. And tonight, it felt like the walls themselves knew that secrets were sitting close to the glass.

You slid into your seat beside Stephanie in the players’ wives and girlfriends’ section, your movements smooth and automatic—like muscle memory had taken the wheel while your mind kept looping through the past twenty-four hours. You moved with quiet grace, the kind born of long practice: spine straight, ankle crossed, coat draped over your shoulders like soft armour. Your outfit was intentional—tailored jeans, a plum knit that hugged just enough, a glossed lip touched with defiance. Not for attention. For control.

Control was your anchor tonight. Not charm, not flirtation, not even the polished version of yourself you’d once wielded like a blade. Just poise. Just enough polish to say: I’m here. I belong. I’m not breaking.

Stephanie nudged you lightly in greeting, her smile easy and warm in that effortless way she had. Within seconds, she was chatting behind you—boots admired, weekend plans traded. The laughter that followed sparkled like champagne. It felt comforting.

And you had to admit—being around them felt natural. The girls. The partners. The inside jokes and quiet eyerolls. The practiced grace with which they moved through wins and losses, spotlight, and silence. Somewhere along the way, you’d found a rhythm with them. A softness. It didn’t erase the storm inside you, but it dulled the noise.

So, you smiled. You leaned in when someone cracked a joke. You nodded along to talk of spa days and travel plans. And for a moment—just a breath—it felt like you belonged.

Then the lights dimmed.

The crowd stirred, like the air had changed direction. The low murmur thickened into something denser. Charged.

And then—he appeared.

Auston fucking Matthews.

The way he emerged from the tunnel was almost cinematic. Helmet down, shoulders rolled back, body language casual in that way only born from absolute confidence. Stick resting in one hand like a sword he didn’t need to brandish to be feared. His stride purposeful, his gaze focused—but you knew him well enough to spot the shift. The way his jaw clenched a second too long. The flicker of his eyes mid-shift in momentum. The subtle tilt of his chin, searching.

And then he found you.

Just a glance. Brief. Surgical. But it cut clean.

You didn’t smile. You didn’t offer anything. You kept your lips soft, your expression unreadable.

And in return, he gave you the same. It was all part of the performance now. The grand illusion.

The game kicked off with that same intense pace that always came with rivalry nights. Leafs versus Oilers. A little extra tension in every check, every whistle. Each near miss elicited sharp gasps from the crowd, and you clapped when it was expected, leaned into Stephanie’s shoulder when she let out a half-laugh, half-groan after a puck clanged off the post. But your attention? It never really strayed.

Like always, Auston was magnetic on the ice—commanding the play with that effortless rhythm that made him impossible not to watch. There was a precision to his movement tonight that bordered on aggressive, but it wasn’t careless. It was sharp. Focused. Like the game had sunk under his skin and he was playing not just for points, but for something more.

Still, not once did he look up again. Not for almost two periods. Not until the second intermission.

He skated by the glass near your section with deliberate ease, his stick resting lazily against his shoulder, posture unbothered. And yet, when his eyes finally flicked up—just for the briefest moment—they landed on you like he’d been holding his breath the entire game. Like you were the exhale.

And for one suspended heartbeat, you saw it. Not the distant, calculated mask he wore for the world. Not the cool indifference you’d both agreed to perform. No, this glance was something molten. Heavy with everything you weren’t allowed to name.

And then it was gone.

Buried. Erased. Like it had never existed.

The third period came and went in a blur of adrenaline and tension, and when the final buzzer blared, signalling a narrow 4–3 win for the Leafs, the entire section erupted around you—clapping, cheering, standing. Stephanie let out a squeal, bouncing beside you with glee.

“God, I hate how nerve wracking a one-goal win is,” she said, eyes wide with a mix of stress and excitement.

You nodded, forced a smile—small but convincing—and tucked a stray hair behind your ear, not trusting your voice to say much more. You didn’t know if it was the adrenaline of the crowd or just the echo of that look he’d given you, but your hands were trembling slightly where they gripped your coat.

And then Stephanie turned toward you with that knowing grin, like she already had the next move planned. “Come down with us?”

You blinked. “Where?”

“Locker room hallway. Just for a second before we head out. Everyone’ll be there and Micthy really wants to say hi.”

You hesitated for a moment, but then you surprisingly found yourself nodding, and followed her.

The hallways backstage was colder than you remembered—sterile and echoing, fluorescent light bouncing off too-clean floors. Players’ family members, friends, team staff and media techs milled about with the kind of casual buzz that always accompanied a win. The air was thick with sweat and body spray and the faint static of proximity to fame.

You kept your smile pleasant, your posture smooth. Exchanged hellos. Shook hands. Someone handed you a glass of sparkling water and you took it even though your stomach felt too tight to drink. You engaged in a brief chat with one of the MLSE community liaisons about the upcoming charity skate. You asked the right questions. You said the right things.

Right up until you didn’t. Because that’s when you heard it.

A voice you recognised immediately, even though it had only ever spoken to you in the most passive-aggressive tones. The brunette from yesterday morning in Auston’s doorway. 

“I mean, come on. Why would he even bother with her?” she said, laughter simmering beneath her words like poison. “She’s… forgettable. Just some glorified assistant playing dress-up and craving a good fuck. Cute enough in daylight, I guess. But honestly? She’s just using him.”

The words landed like splinters—small, sharp, precise.

You didn’t move. Didn’t turn. But your entire spine pulled taut like a drawn wire, shoulders locking into place. A single glance to Stephanie confirmed that she’d heard it too. Her jaw clenched, but she stayed rooted beside you.

But then you heard another voice. Deeper. Closer. Sharper.

“Why do you have to be so mean?”

It was Auston. His voice didn’t rise, but somehow it silenced the entire hallway.

“Just because she’s actually kind,” he continued, each word slicing clean. “She’s smart, and she actually gives a shit about people. She shows up. She works her ass off. She’s funny. And she’s been through a lot of shit.”

You felt your breath catch—held it like a secret against your ribs.

“She’s not just a good fuck.” He let that line sit for a beat—long enough to stun. “She’s everything you’re not.”

The silence that followed was dense. Immoveable.

So, when you finally turned your head—slowly, carefully—your eyes found him immediately. Standing just past the doorway, one glove still on, hair damp and curling at the ends, cheeks flushed from effort and fury. His chest rose and fell in sharp exhales, but his eyes… they were soft. And locked entirely on you.

And for one long, staggering moment, it was just you and him in that hallway. Everything else—the brunette, the girls, the media staff still folding cords—faded into a blur of white noise.

You didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to. A moment suspended in glass.

And then, without another word, you turned back to Stephanie. Smiled. Said something light about traffic. Let your voice float above the tension like nothing had happened at all.

If you looked up the word mess in a dictionary, it might as well have come with a photo gallery of your face beside Auston’s, each of you frozen mid-glare, mid-glance, mid-smirk. Nobody knew what was going on anymore. Not the team. Not the coaches. Not even the women in the wives and girlfriends’ section who usually had everything figured out before it even happened.

Stephanie had stared at you with the same look a dog gives a squirrel crossing the street—confused, mildly betrayed, and a little worried you were about to do something reckless.

Because you didn’t fold into Auston’s arms after the win.

You didn’t beam with pride. Didn’t run into his orbit like some predictable PR storyline. You clapped. Smiled. Said something about traffic. And that was that.

But the confusion wasn’t theirs to untangle. It was yours. And his. And the tangle had only grown tighter with every move he’d made.

Because Auston didn’t play chess like a strategist. He moved with instincts.

First, he’d asked for space. Backed away just enough to make you question if he even remembered what the plan was anymore. Then—jealousy. Cold and sudden, when you’d been spotted with Ryan, and Auston had looked at you like you’d betrayed some silent oath.

Third move? A brunette. Beautiful. Model type. Seen leaving his condo the next morning, looking smug and satisfied like she knew the mess she’d walked into.

Fourth—cold again.

Fifth, he’d shown up and dropped the words in love like it meant something. 

Sixth, he’d ruined you in a hallway. With just his mouth. Like he was trying to etch his name into every nerve ending you had.

Then he froze again. Like he hadn’t just shattered every part of your carefully constructed control.

And now tonight, he’d defended you like you were the only thing in the world worth protecting. His voice calm. Sharp and deadly. Like he meant every single syllable. 

It was too much. Too inconsistent. Too everything.

And so, before you could let the night end, before you lost your nerve and let things slip back into the murky silence of maybe-later and we’ll-talk-soon, you sought him out.

The carpark was quiet, save for the low hum of a nearby floodlight and the occasional distant thud of equipment being loaded out. He was standing by his car all alone, half-lit, half-shadowed, tugging at the sleeves of his jacket like he didn’t know what to do with his hands. He looked up the second he heard your footsteps.

You stopped a few feet from him.

“We need to do something,” you said, your voice calm and steady. “Because this isn’t working. My mum still thinks you’re coming to dinner. She hasn’t caved.”

Auston exhaled, jaw tensing. “So, tell her I’m not.”

“That’s not the point,” you snapped. “The point is you keep doing this—One minute you want distance, the next you’re showing up talking about love and dropping to your knees like we’re… something.”

He crossed his arms. “And you? You haven’t exactly been consistent either. Besides, that was the point, right? For you and your career.”

You laughed once—low and bitter. “Oh, come on. You get to defend me in front of your fling like you’re my boyfriend and then go back to ignoring me? It’s not just about my career, Auston… it’s about me and how you treat me.”

His brows furrowed, but he didn’t speak.

“You act like you don’t care,” you continued, “about any of it. The media. The sex… I’ve given you parts of myself… I’ve trusted you. But you just act like you don’t give a fuck... and then you say things like falling in love. You give me a fucking orgasm in a hallway, and then you ghost me the next day like it didn’t happen.”

He flinched slightly at that.

You stepped forward, heart pounding. “And tonight… what the fuck was that? What am I supposed to do with that? You stood up for me like I mattered. And now you’re just standing here again—silent.”

“I don’t know what to say,” he finally said, voice low. Honest.

“Of course, you don’t,” you breathed, tired. “Because you only know how to speak when it’s about hockey. Or when you want to get a girl into bed.”

That one landed.

His lips parted slightly, like he might defend himself. But nothing came out.

You shook your head. “You want to know the worst part?”

He looked at you.

“I was actually starting to like you…”

_

“A post-game sighting. A locker room hallway turned battlefield.

Tonight’s Leafs win wasn’t the only headline—our Ice King made waves off the ice, too. Witnesses caught a tense exchange with the brunette (yes, the one last seen leaving his condo) and a not-so-subtle jab aimed at our Queen.

But what froze the hallway? The King’s reply.

Sharp. Unfiltered. And dare we say… protective.

Was it love or loyalty? 

Matthews wasn’t alone—Marner, Nylander, and Rielly were all in view. No one interrupted. Though Mitch reportedly smirked like a man who already knows the ending.

So, we ask: was this chivalry… or checkmate? - The Benchwarmer”

_

The moment you stepped inside your apartment, you had to pause. Just breathe.

You shut the door behind you with a soft thud, pressing your back against it like it was the only thing keeping you upright. The weight of the night pressed down hard—your lashes still damp with fury, your fingers curled into your palms like they were trying to hold something back. The air in the room felt too still, like even the walls were holding their breath.

You tilted your head back against the wood, eyes fluttering shut as your heartbeat pounded behind your ribs like a second voice screaming through the silence.

Because one minute, you’d been arguing with Auston in the carpark—half-conversation, half-meltdown—and the next, his hands were gripping your waist and he’d pushed you back against his car like it was instinct. Like he couldn’t not touch you.

His mouth had crashed into yours—urgent, unrelenting—biting the words right out of your mouth before you could finish them. And you’d let him. At first.

You’d kissed him back like you needed it to survive. Like maybe it was the only way to finish the sentences that always got stuck between you. There had been teeth, heat, the scrape of his hand against your spine as he tried to pull you impossibly closer. Your hands had twisted in the collar of his coat before shoving hard at his chest.

“Don’t,” you’d snapped, breath ragged. “Don’t act like that fixes anything.”

He hadn’t listened. Not at first.

Instead, Auston had leaned in again, grabbing your wrist when you tried to turn away. You’d pushed back. He held his ground. 

But you’d shoved harder. And that time, you’d broken free, and you walked away. You didn’t look back.

But now, standing here in the quiet of your apartment, your pulse still thundered like the fight was unfinished. Like it hadn’t really ended at all.

“Fuck,” you whispered to yourself, your voice shaking as you finally peeled your coat from your shoulders and let it drop to the floor.

But you barely had time to take a step further into your apartment before there was a knock. A single, deliberate knock making you freeze.

Slowly, you turn around like the air had thickened around your legs. You hesitated at the door, heart threatening to claw out of your chest as you opened it.

Auston.

He stood there without a word. No expression. No smirk. No flicker of anger or apology. His face was blank—cool, unreadable—the kind of calm that came just before a storm.

He didn’t say anything, and you didn’t either.

Not right away.

The silence between you crackled once more, electric and impossible to ignore. And when you didn’t shut the door… when you didn’t slam it in his face or tell him to piss off… he stepped forward. Into your space. Into your home. Into your line of fire.

You took a step back instinctively, heart tripping over itself.

The eye contact never broke.

He closed the door behind him, slow and sure, the soft click of the lock a sound that echoed far louder than it should have.

“Aus—” you tried, your voice catching halfway up your throat.

But he cut you off.

“Think you can play me like that?” he said, voice low and steady. Too calm. “Yell at me in a fucking parking lot, say your piece, and then just walk away like you won?”

You stared at him; throat tight. “I didn’t win anything. That wasn’t—”

“No,” he interrupted again, stepping closer, his presence eating up the space between you with unrelenting precision. “No more talking.”

Your breath hitched. He was close. So close you could smell the sweat still clinging to his skin beneath the faint hint of his cologne. So, close his energy was wrapping around you like a net—tangible, thick, impossible to escape.

You opened your mouth again, but nothing came out.

And that made Auston smile. Just the faintest twitch of his lips. Not smug. Not cruel. Just controlled.

He leaned in, slowly, his mouth brushing the edge of your ear, breath hot and unforgiving.

“Guess I need to remind you who’s in charge,” he murmured, making you shiver.

Because he wasn’t asking. He was stating. 

Your heart stuttered as he pulled back, his eyes raking over your face with the kind of hunger that wasn’t just physical—it was emotional. Raw. Ravenous. He looked at you like he could see right through the mask, past the coat of control you’d worn all night, and into the core of whatever it was you were trying so desperately not to feel.

But still… he didn’t touch you. Not yet at least.

He just stood there—so close the heat radiating off his body made your skin tighten, so still it made your breath catch. Waiting. Watching. Letting the silence stretch like a thread between you, delicate and dangerous.

He was waiting for your next move.

For you to back down. To run. To say something sharp and sarcastic that might give you back the upper hand. But you didn’t. You couldn’t.

Your eyes flickered away for just a second, instinct kicking in to look anywhere but at him.

But he wasn’t having it.

Auston’s hand came up, not rough, but firm. He cupped your jaw, tilting your face back toward him with a kind of command that didn’t ask—it told.

“Look at me,” he said, low and steady.

You did.

“You wanted me to teach you about sex,” he continued, voice dark and even, like every word was laid with velvet and steel. “About pleasure. About what it means to actually feel something.”

He leaned in, just enough for your noses to almost touch.

“Well…” His eyes flicked to your mouth. “Here’s a lesson for you.”

Your breath hitched, lips parting, but before you could say anything—before you could even form the thought to speak—he kissed you.

Hard.

Not hesitant or questioning, but with intent. Like he’d made up his mind the moment you walked away in the carpark.

His hand slid to the back of your neck, fingers threaded through your hair as he tilted your face toward him, deepening the kiss until it stole every ounce of breath from your lungs. The other hand found your waist, pulling you in so tightly your chests collided, your curves fitting into the sharp lines of him like they’d been carved that way—like you were meant to bend around him.

Your fingers fisted the fabric of his shirt, not to pull him closer—he was already impossibly close—but just to hold on. To ground yourself against something solid. Because that was what he felt like. Solid. Unmovable. Unrelenting.

You didn’t know how long he kissed you like that—just that at some point, between the short gasps and the quiet, desperate noises leaving your throat, he started to walk you backward. And you let him.

You let him back you through the small corridor of your apartment, bumping into the edge of the couch, knocking your hip into the counter, never once breaking the kiss. You let him reach down, lift you by your thighs, and carry you toward your room like he already knew the way.

By the time your back hit the edge of the mattress, he wasn’t even winded. He looked at you like a man possessed—eyes dark, chest heaving just slightly, his own shirt half off, hair a mess from where you’d tugged it.

But he still wasn’t done.

Not even close.

He looked around briefly—calculating, focused—and then his eyes landed on the belt looped through his dress trousers. He pulled it free in one swift, fluid motion, the sound of leather sliding against fabric sharp in the quiet.

“Lie down,” he said, voice low and calm. “Arms above your head.”

You did.

Not because he asked. But because you wanted to.

He climbed onto the bed after you, trailing his fingers up your stomach as he pushed your shirt further until it bunched just above your eyes, soft cotton darkening your vision and exposing your body all at once. You were left in nothing but your lacy knickers, bare and waiting beneath him. Your arms extended above your head, and he took the belt and looped it around your wrists—firm but not cruel, enough to bind you, not break you.

“Keep them there,” he murmured. 

And then—he began.

It started slow. Almost sweet. A brush of his lips against your hipbone, the trail of his fingers skimming down your ribs. Then his mouth—hot and wet and patient—moving across your stomach, your thighs, avoiding the places that ached the most with infuriating precision.

He teased you like he had all the time in the world. Like every moan from your lips was a victory. He kissed and nipped, tongue dragging across the edge of your panties, lips pressing against your inner thigh in a way that felt reverent and maddening.

“So, you didn’t like it when I turned you into a mess with just my mouth…” he whispered in a low growl. 

When his fingers finally touched you—just the pad of one dragging over the damp lace—you whimpered, hips twitching upward.

But he didn’t give in. He pulled away.

Again.

And again.

“Fuck, Auston,” you gasped, tugging at your restraints instinctively, hips lifting in search of something—anything.

But he just chuckled darkly, eyes full of wicked amusement.

“You’re not ready yet,” he said, breath warm against your core. “Not until you ask.”

He slid your knickers off slowly, delicately, like unwrapping something too precious to rush. And then he looked up at you, mouth hovering just inches from where you needed him most.

“Tell me what you want,” he said, voice like gravel.

You squirmed. “You.”

He didn’t move.

“Tell me what you need.”

“You,” you whispered, breathless. “Please.”

A moment of silence. 

“Good girl…” he murmured, and then he dove in.

His tongue was ruthless, confident, tracing over you with devastating precision. He mapped your body like he already knew the coordinates, like he’d studied every reaction and memorised each one. When you moaned his name, his grip on your thighs tightened. When you bucked your hips, he pinned them down, flattening his tongue and dragging it in tight, deliberate strokes until you were shaking.

And just when you were teetering on the edge—his fingers joined in.

The stretch, the pressure, the pace—it was almost too much. He worked you open slowly, carefully, coaxing every sound from your throat, every plea from your lips. He edged you with expert cruelty, pulling back each time you reached that cliff, only to bring you right back with his mouth and his hands and that dark, endless look in his eyes.

You begged. You swore. You writhed beneath him, wrists straining against the belt, head thrown back as wave after wave of pleasure built, crested, and then retreated just before you could tip over the edge.

He was playing you like a pawn—but he knew the board, and he knew the game. In just a matter of weeks, Auston had learned your body better than you knew it yourself. Every gasp. Every twitch. Every unspoken plea. He read you like strategy—like instinct.

He pulled back slowly, leaving you flushed and breathless, your body humming from the teasing, your chest rising and falling like you’d just run a marathon.

Without a word, he stood to undress completely—methodically, purposefully. The way he shed each layer felt deliberate, like he was shedding the tension too, the confusion, the noise. Just him now. Just you. Nothing else in the room but heat.

“You think you can be good for me?” he murmured, voice low and rough as he knelt back between your thighs, one hand stroking along his own length, slow and firm.

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Your mouth was open, but no words came.

He smirked, just a little—dark and knowing. “Mm. I think I need a little more than that.”

And then he slid your leg up, anchoring your ankle to his shoulder, his body pressing forward until you felt the weight of him aligned with you—poised, patient, inevitable.

He entered you slowly. Torturously slow. Like he wanted you to feel every inch, every inch of him reclaiming every inch of you.

Your breath caught as he pressed into you, inch by inch, his grip tightening just slightly on your thigh where it rested against his shoulder. There was nothing rushed about it—not in the way his hips moved, not in the way his eyes stayed locked on your face, watching every stutter of breath, every flicker of emotion.

It was unbearable. It was perfect.

The first full thrust made your back arch off the mattress, a low, involuntary sound tumbling from your throat. He was deep—so deep it felt like something inside you was being rewritten.

He held there for a moment. Let the weight of it settle. Let you feel him. All of him.

And then he moved.

He started slow—almost maddeningly so—like he was still studying you, testing the limits of what you could take. Each roll of his hips was deliberate, calculated, as though he was savouring the way your body reacted to him. The slight arch of your spine, the shallow gasp that slipped through your lips, the tremble in your thighs that betrayed just how badly you needed more.

But it didn’t last.

The composure frayed, the control slipped, and then he was moving—harder, faster—each thrust hitting deeper, rougher, more purposeful. It was like something cracked inside him. Some last thread of restraint unravelled, and in its place came this need. This hunger. He wasn’t just fucking you—he was claiming you. Showing you exactly what happened when you pushed him. When you walked away.

When you made him feel.

Still, there was nothing cruel in it. It wasn’t about hurting you—it was about making you feel everything. Every inch. Every intention. Every flicker of emotion he still didn’t have the words to say.

One of Auston’s hands slid up to your throat, his palm pressing lightly, thumb brushing the underside of your jaw in a gesture that was more grounding than it was dominant. The other roamed—up your thigh, grazing your hipbone, mapping the soft curve of your waist, until he settled just beneath your breasts, his fingers spread wide to anchor you beneath him.

The belt still held your wrists above your head, tight but not painful, leather biting faintly into your skin. Your shirt was bunched just high enough to obscure your vision, forcing you to feel everything else more acutely. The slick sound of skin on skin. The pant of his breath. The way his name tumbled out of your mouth like a vow and a curse in one.

“Fuck,” he groaned against your neck, his voice fraying at the edges. “You drive me fucking insane.”

You moaned in response, helpless beneath him, the tension inside you building so tightly it felt like your body might snap.

“You think I’m cold,” he murmured, his lips brushing the shell of your ear as his rhythm slowed—just slightly, just enough to make you ache. “You think I don’t feel any of this.” His hips rolled into you hard, and you cried out—“does this feel fucking empty to you?”

You couldn’t answer. Couldn’t even breathe properly.

“I see the way you look at me,” Auston grit out, voice rough and laced with something darker. “Like you want me and hate me all at once.”

His hand slid back up to your throat, tilting your face with gentle but firm insistence, even though the bunched fabric still blocked your sight. You couldn’t see him—but you felt him. Felt the heat of his breath, the intensity of his stare searing into you like a brand.

“You can’t fucking hide from me,” he growled.

Then suddenly, he pulled out.

You gasped at the loss, your body twitching from the emptiness, your thighs trembling. His hands let go of your throat and leg, lowering it from his shoulder as he leaned back—just far enough to watch the sight of you spread out, wrecked, and waiting. He inhaled sharply, gaze raking over you like you were something holy and ruined all at once.

“Look at you,” he muttered, more to himself than to you. “Such a fucking gorgeous mess.”

And then he was back—thrusting into you again, hard and sure, without hesitation. Your entire body jolted, a ragged sound tearing from your throat.

“This pussy,” he snarled against your ear, his rhythm brutal, “belongs to me.”

You sobbed his name, legs nearly giving out from beneath you as he moved with punishing purpose, one hand gripping your hip to hold you in place, the other slipping between your legs.

“Aus—” you cried. “I’m gonna—”

He stilled inside you instantly, pulling back just enough to make you sob again.

“You’re gonna come,” he growled, voice sharp, “when I say. Not before.”

A smack landed against your inner thigh—sharp, just enough to sting—and you gasped, pleasure and frustration knotting tight in your belly.

Then he fucked you again—harder, deeper—until the bed creaked beneath both of your weight, the air thick with ragged breaths and low curses. When his fingers circled your clit again, there was no more teasing. Just relentless pressure and perfect timing.

You were unravelling fast, every nerve ending alight.

“Are you close?” he rasped, barely holding on.

“Yes,” you whimpered, “Yes—God, yes—please—”

“Then come for me,” he commanded, the words like a spark against the tinder.

And you did.

You broke for him. Completely.

Your whole body arched, pleasure surging through your veins like wildfire. You called his name with a desperation that wasn’t just a simple release—it was a wave coming crashing over you.

Auston groaned, hips jerking once, twice—and then he pulled out, his body trembling as he jerked himself onto the skin of your lower stomach, coming undone above you.

He stayed there for a heartbeat longer—kneeling between your thighs, chest heaving, his head dipped low as though he needed a second to collect himself. The air between you was thick, pulsing with heat and something far more dangerous than lust.

His hands, which had just moments ago commanded and claimed you, softened as they moved to your wrists. Fingers steady, he untied the belt slowly.

He didn’t say a word.

Instead, he brought your hands to his mouth without a sound—kissed the inside of your left wrist first, slow, and steady, then moved to the right. 

Your breath hitched, chest rising and falling unevenly, a rush of warmth stinging your throat as you tried to ground yourself in the silence. 

You slid your shirt completely off and sat up slowly—still blinking away the blur from where the fabric had been tugged over your eyes. Your vision sharpened, found him in the low light.

He was watching you.

Not staring. Not inspecting. Just… watching. 

You didn’t say anything. Neither did he.

Eventually, you stood and padded barefoot to the bathroom, the air still thick with heat and something unspoken. You cleaned yourself up in silence, running warm water over your hands, dabbing gently at your skin with a cloth. You caught your reflection in the mirror—hair messy, lips kiss-bruised, eyes tired but alert.

You barely recognised yourself. But not in a bad way.

When you stepped back into the bedroom, you found him lying there like it was the most natural thing in the world—stretched out in your sheets, bare from the waist up, one arm draped across the pillow where your head would go. His eyes found you instantly.

He had made himself comfortable. He hadn’t even asked permission. He didn’t need to.

You crawled back into bed without a word. Slid beneath the sheets and let your body settle into the space beside his. Close, but not touching.

Still, the quietly wrapped around you both like a second blanket—thick and tentative, but not heavy.

And then, in that gravel-soft voice of his, he spoke. Low.

“We’ll join the dinner tomorrow with your family.”

There was no question in it. No hesitation. Just a statement. A certainty.

You turned your head toward him, startled by the confidence in his tone.

He didn’t look at you when he said it. Just stared up at the ceiling like he already knew this was the next step. Like it had been coming all along.

You didn’t argue. Didn’t ask why or what this meant or how the hell you were supposed to explain it to your mother.

You just breathed. Slowly. Deeply. Then let your eyes close.

_

“Dearest Toronto Readers,

Moves have been made. Pieces shifted. The scoreboard may show a win, but this city knows better—this is the calm before the storm.

Our Queen arrived at Saturday’s game dressed not for show, but for war. Polished, poised, unreadable. She sat among the royals like she belonged there—because she does. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes, but it didn’t need to. Presence is power, and last night, she made hers count.

And the King? He dominated. On the ice, yes—but off it, too. Not with charm, not with subtlety, but with something sharper: a defence so direct, so cutting, that the whole hallway seemed to still. A warning disguised as chivalry. A claim disguised as concern.

But was it love? Or something more dangerous—pride? Possession? A desire to maintain control of the narrative he once walked away from?

For now, the Queen holds her ground. But this isn’t the end—it’s a pause before the play resumes. And while the Ice King may have protected his Queen this time, we’re left wondering:

Is he back for good… or just buying time?

Every fairytale ends in fire or triumph, and black moves next.

Yours always,

The Benchwarmer”

[deliciousangelfestival]

Unexpected Trip

Character: Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader

Summary: Some people think you're too good for Bucky, who they see as just a nobody. Little do they know the backstory of both of you from 5 years ago.

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Thank you to everyone who has read this chapter. Leave a comment and Reblog, please. I'd love to hear your thoughts. ❤️

"Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you!" The cheery chorus filled the sunny garden as friends and neighbors gathered around. Balloons bobbed in the breeze, and the table was adorned with a colorful array of treats.

Your son, Tommy, was wide-eyed with wonder at the commotion, his little hands clapping together with glee.

You knew he was too young to remember this day, but the joy on his face was enough to make every moment worthwhile.

Bucky, your husband, stood beside you, a proud smile on his face as he watched Tommy's excitement. "Can you believe he's already three?" you said, leaning over to Bucky, who nodded, his eyes never leaving Tommy.

"I know, it feels like just yesterday we were bringing him home from the hospital," Bucky replied, his voice tinged with nostalgia. "Time really does fly."

As Tommy blew out the candles on his cake, the guests cheered, and Bucky wrapped an arm around you, pulling you close. "I'm so glad we decided to have this party," he said, planting a kiss on your cheek. "Even if he won't remember it, we will."

You smiled, feeling grateful for this moment of togetherness. "Me too," you said, watching Tommy's delighted face. "Here's to many more birthdays filled with love and laughter."

As you, Bucky, and Tommy were lost in your own world of celebration, the neighbors, known gossips of the neighborhood, couldn't resist whispering among themselves.

"I heard she got promoted to become the Director," murmured Mrs. Jenkins, a woman known for her keen interest in everyone's business, her eyes darting over to where you and Bucky stood.

Mrs. Thompson, a perpetually nosy neighbor, chimed in eagerly, "Wow, I knew she's a career woman since the first time I met her." Her voice carried a tone of admiration mixed with a hint of envy.

Standing nearby, Mr. Wilson, a retired gentleman with a penchant for spreading juicy tidbits, leaned in conspiratorially. "And she has a perfect house-husband," he added with a knowing nod in Bucky's direction.

The fourth neighbor, Mrs. Patel, a woman with a sharp tongue and a love for scandal, couldn't resist joining the conversation. "I don't want to sound rude, but she's too good for Bucky. He's just a nobody," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

Mrs. Jenkins leaned closer, her eyes widening with exaggerated shock. "And guess what?" she whispered, drawing the others in.

"What?" Mrs. Thompson asked eagerly, her curiosity piqued.

"I heard a rumor that Bucky used to be a driver, like a courier," Mrs. Jenkins revealed,l.

Mrs. Patel gasped dramatically, her hand flying to her chest. "Omg! And he met Y/N? He hit the jackpot!" she exclaimed, her eyes widening as if she had just uncovered a scandalous secret.

Mr. Wilson chuckled, shaking his head in mock disbelief. "I think in Bucky's previous life he saved a universe," he joked, adding to the whimsical nature of the gossip.

Meanwhile, you and Bucky remained oblivious to the whispers behind you, too engrossed in Tommy's joyous laughter as he played with his friends. Bucky had his arm around you, pulling you closer, unaware of the drama unfolding in the background.

Little did the gossiping neighbors know, they were 10% right, at least when it came to the part about Bucky saving someone.

You see, Bucky wasn't just a nobody. He wasn't just a regular driver. To be precise, it all goes back to five years ago.

5 Years Ago

You had just arrived in Russia, alone and shivering from the cold. This wasn't a holiday trip; it was for business.

Unfortunately, your luck had run out, and you were the chosen one sent by your less-than-friendly manager, who knew the bid was a long shot. You were the scapegoat.

It wasn't until you were on the plane, reading the documents, that the truth hit you like a ton of bricks.

Shaking with cold, you reached for your phone and dialed your colleague. "Is there someone to pick me up at the airport?"

"You've arrived? I almost forgot. I suppose someone should be waiting for you. Check to see if there's a sign with your name at the exit gate," came the reply before the call abruptly ended.

"Huh?" You couldn't believe it. The company had tossed you out like yesterday's news, leaving you stranded like a lost child in a foreign country.

"I swear, if I had a lot of money, I'd buy the company's shares and fire every single one of them," you grumbled to yourself, dragging your small suitcase behind you toward the exit gate, uncertain of what awaited you.

As you approached, you spotted a person holding a sign. You gathered your resolve and approached them, saying, "Hi, it's me."

You finally took a good look at the person holding your name sign. He was pretty tall and muscular for a driver, more suited to be a bodyguard.

With a swift motion, he crumpled the paper and tossed it into a nearby trash can. When you finally caught a glimpse of his face, you couldn't help but think, "Damn, he's fine."

He pointed towards your suitcase. "Is that all?" he asked, his voice firm but not unkind.

"Huh? Oh yeah," you replied, momentarily distracted by his good looks.

"Follow me," he said simply, then turned and walked ahead.

You hurried to catch up, feeling a mixture of confusion and intrigue. This wasn't the welcome you expected, but you followed him nonetheless.

After a quick walk, the two of you stopped in front of a black BMW. The design of the car felt straight out of the '90s.

"Get in," Bucky said, opening the backseat door.

You complied, noticing that your driver seemed to be a man of few words. "Um, what's your name?" you asked as you fastened your seatbelt.

"Bucky. Bucky Barnes," he replied, his eyes scanning the surroundings as he started the car.

Then, glancing at the rearview mirror, he added, "Always watch your back."

"What? What do you mean?" you asked, a hint of unease creeping into your voice.

Bucky shifted gears and increased the speed. "Just in case," he said cryptically, his focus on the road ahead.

You couldn't shake off the feeling of mystery surrounding Bucky. As the car smoothly glided through the streets of Russia, you couldn't help but wonder what kind of business you had genuinely stepped into.

Bucky glanced at you through the rearview mirror as the car continued its swift journey through the city. "You came here without knowing anything?" he asked, his voice serious.

"I knew that other countries also put a bid on this project," you replied, trying to keep your voice steady despite the growing unease.

"True," Bucky acknowledged. "Do you know what kind of representatives the other countries sent here too?"

Your voice turned into a whisper, barely audible over the hum of the engine. "Not like me?"

Bucky's eyes flicked to the side mirror, noticing a few cars trailing behind them. " And they've arrived too," he confirmed, his grip on the steering wheel tightening slightly.

Feeling a surge of panic, you turned around to look out the rear window. "Oh, shit," you muttered under your breath.

There was a group of cars following behind you both, and their windows opened. Someone appeared with a gun pointed at your car.

Bucky shifted gears again, the car picking up speed. "Don't bite your tongue, Miss Y/N," he said calmly, his focus unwavering on the road ahead.

You swallowed hard, your heart racing as you realized the gravity of the situation. The cars following them meant trouble; you were right in the middle. Gripping the door handle tightly, you braced for whatever was to come, grateful that Bucky knew what he was doing.

The chase was like something out of a movie, but the fear gripping your heart was all too real. The car Bucky drove was bulletproof, a small comfort in the chaos unfolding around you.

"KYAAA!"

Yet, despite the safety of the car, you couldn't shake off the primal fear that clawed at your chest. This was the first time you had ever found yourself in such a dangerous situation, and the adrenaline surged through your veins.

"Oh god, oh god," you muttered, your voice filled with panic as you clutched onto the door handle, your knuckles turning white.

Bucky, on the other hand, remained surprisingly calm. His hands moved expertly over the steering wheel, navigating through the narrow streets with precision. "Hold on tight," he said, his voice steady despite the chaos outside.

You could hear the sound of gunfire, bullets ricocheting off the car's armored exterior. The world outside seemed to blur as Bucky weaved in and out of traffic, the pursuing cars hot on your tail.

"What do we do? What do we do?" you pleaded, your heart pounding in your chest.

Bucky glanced at you briefly, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "Trust me," he said cryptically, before reaching for a button on the dashboard.

With a click, the back of the car transformed. Panels shifted, revealing an array of weapons hidden within. Your eyes widened in disbelief as a gun turret emerged from the rear of the car, whirring to life.

"Oh my god!" you exclaimed, both terrified and amazed at the same time.

Bucky didn't hesitate. He maneuvered the car expertly, aligning the gun turret with the pursuing vehicles. With a press of a button, the turret unleashed a barrage of bullets, hitting the cars behind you with precision.

The sound of metal tearing and tires screeching filled the air as the pursuing vehicles swerved and crashed, their drivers no match for the firepower of Bucky's car.

You watched in awe and horror as the scene unfolded behind you, the adrenaline still coursing through your veins. "I can't believe this," you whispered, your eyes wide with disbelief.

Bucky remained focused, his eyes scanning the road ahead. "Welcome to the world of high-stakes business, Miss Y/N," he said, his voice calm despite the chaos around you.

As you both sped away from the gunfire, the intensity of the moment left you breathless. The adrenaline coursing through your veins made you wonder how Bucky could remain so calm, and how his car seemed to be designed for situations like this.

"Bucky, are you really just a driver?" you asked, your voice filled with astonishment and curiosity.

Bucky, focused on the road ahead, replied without missing a beat. "Most of the time I work as a getaway driver."

"What?!" you exclaimed, unable to hide your surprise.

Bucky glanced at you briefly, a small smirk playing on his lips. "I have a few skills up my sleeve," he said cryptically, his eyes returning to the road as he expertly navigated the streets.

You panted heavily, trying to catch your breath after the intense chase. "Huff... huff... I have to win this damn bid. I almost lost my life. If I win, I will demand a promotion, and for you too, Bucky."

Bucky chuckled. "Thank you," he replied, his laughter mixing with relief as the moment's tension dissipated

Bucky glanced at you, a glimmer of admiration in his eyes. "You know, Miss Y/N, I'm impressed," he said, his voice tinged with respect.

You looked at him, surprised by his words. "Impressed? Why?"

"Because even though you were scared out of your mind back there," Bucky explained, gesturing vaguely to the chaos that had just unfolded, "you still have the drive to win this bid. That takes courage."

A small smile tugged at the corners of your lips, touched by his words. "Well, I don't want to go through all of this for nothing," you replied, a hint of determination in your voice.

Bucky nodded, his expression serious. "I understand. And I believe you have what it takes to succeed."

As the car continued on its journey, you felt a newfound sense of confidence swelling within you. Despite the danger and the unexpected twists, you were determined to make this business trip count. With Bucky by your side, you felt like you could take on anything that came your way.

"Thank you, Bucky," you said, gratitude evident in your voice.

He smiled, a reassuring presence beside you. "Anytime, Miss Y/N. We make a good team."

And at that moment, as the city lights blurred past the windows of the car, you knew that this business trip would be far more than just a bid. It would be an adventure, with Bucky as your unexpected ally.

🚗

After you won the bid, you demanded a meeting with the CEO and threatened to sue the company if you weren't promoted.

Asserting your worth, you stood firm, and the CEO eventually relented, granting you the promotion you rightfully deserved.

As you stood in the office, your evil manager and colleague before you, the air was charged with tension. They both wore expressions of surprise and disbelief, clearly caught off guard by your sudden assertiveness.

"Good afternoon," you began, your voice steady and firm. "I requested this meeting to inform you both that your employment with this company is terminated, effective immediately."

The evil manager scoffed, a hint of arrogance in his voice. "You can't do that. You're just a new employee."

You met his gaze, unwavering. "Actually, as of today, I've been promoted to a position where I have the authority to make such decisions."

The lazy colleague chimed in, who answered your call at the airport. Her voice laced with disdain. "This is ridiculous. You're letting power go to your head."

You shook your head, a steely resolve in your eyes. "No, this is about accountability and integrity. Both of you have demonstrated a lack of professionalism and ethics that is unacceptable in this company. And you make me go alone knowing that the trips was a high risk."

The evil manager tried to argue, but you held up a hand to silence him. "There's no need for further discussion. Your actions have consequences, and now you're facing them."

With that, you handed them their termination letters, each neatly printed with the company seal. The evil manager's face turned red with anger, while the evil colleague's eyes widened in shock.

"This is unfair!" the evil manager shouted, his voice filled with outrage.

You remained calm, unfazed by his outburst. "It's the consequences of your own actions," you replied firmly.

Othrr colleague tried to plead for another chance, but you stood your ground. "I'm sorry, but this is non-negotiable," you said, your tone resolute.

As they gathered their things and left the office, the weight of their absence felt like a burden lifted from their shoulders. You watched them go, feeling a sense of relief and empowerment.

🚗

One day, the memories of Russia tugged at your heartstrings, and you found yourself longing to return, this time for a personal visit to see Bucky. With determination, you booked a flight and arrived at his apartment.

Bucky greeted you warmly, a smile spreading across his face. "Miss Y/N," he said with genuine happiness.

"Bucky," you replied, matching his smile. "I couldn't resist coming back to see you."

You smiled, feeling a rush of excitement and nervousness. "I wanted to thank you," you began, gratitude filling your voice. "For everything. You were there for me in Russia, and I couldn't have done it without you."

Bucky's expression softened, his eyes reflecting genuine warmth. "It was my pleasure. You showed courage and determination. I was just glad to be a part of it."

"I wanted to ask," you continued, gathering your courage, "if you would consider coming with me. With my promotion, I have the opportunity to lead new projects, and I can think of no one better to have by my side."

Bucky's eyes widened in surprise, clearly caught off guard by your offer. After a moment of contemplation, a smile slowly spread across his face. "I would be honored," he said, his voice filled with sincerity. "I believe we make a good team."

Bucky smiled warmly, a glint of excitement in his eyes as he grabbed his car keys and jacket. "To celebrate, let me pay for tonight's dinner. My treat," he said, his voice filled with genuine enthusiasm.

You couldn't help but feel gratitude and happiness at his offer. "That sounds wonderful." you replied, a smile spreading across your face.

That's how the love story between you and Bucky started.

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⮞ Chapter Five: Captain Disco's Last Stand Pairing: Jungkook x Reader Other Tags: Convict!Jungkook, Escaped Prisoner!Jungkook, Piolet!Reader, Captain!Reader, Holyman!Namjoon, Boss!Yoongi, Commander!Jimin, Astronaut!Jimin, Doctor!Hoseok, Astronaut!Hoseok Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure, Thriller, Suspense, Strangers to Enemies to ???, Slow Burn, LOTS of Angst, Light Fluff, Eventual Smut, Third Person POV, 18+ Only Word Count: 16k+ Summary: When a deep space transporter crash-lands on a barren planet illuminated by three relentless suns, survival becomes the only priority for the stranded passengers, including resourceful pilot Y/N Y/L/N, mystic Namjoon Kim, lawman Taemin Lee, and enigmatic convict Jungkook Jeon. As they scour the hostile terrain for supplies and a way to escape, Y/N uncovers a terrifying truth: every 22 years, the planet is plunged into total darkness during an eclipse, awakening swarms of ravenous, flesh-eating creatures. Forced into a fragile alliance, the survivors must face not only the deadly predators but also their own mistrust and secrets. For Y/N, the growing tension with Jungkook—both a threat and a reluctant ally—raises the stakes even higher, as the battle to escape becomes one for survival against the darkness both around them and within themselves. Warnings: Strong Language, Blood, Trauma, Graphic Injury scenes, Jaded Characters, Smart Character Choices, This is all angst and action and that's pretty much it, Reader is a bad ass, Survivor Woman is back baby, gardening, terraforming, some mental health issues, survivor's guilt, lots of talking to herself, and recording it, because she'll lose her mind otherwise, fixing things, intergalatical politics, new characters, depression, body image issues, scars, hate for Disco music, morally grey people, will this make us look bad as an organization?, questionable character choices as well, strong female characters are everywhere, cynical humor, bad science language, honestly all of this has probably had the worst science and basis ever, I researched a lot I promise, let me know if I missed anything... A/N: This was so much fun to write. Give me some good lore and characters and I'll eat that shit up. Sorry for the lack of good romance so far, but hopefully you guys will think the wait was worth it.

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Aguerra Prime hung in the void like a mirage—too beautiful to trust. From orbit, it looked almost like Earth on a particularly clear day: swirls of deep ocean green wrapped in cloud-white, kissed by sunlit blues that shimmered as the planet slowly turned. But the illusion unraveled the moment you touched ground. The air had weight to it, a faint chemical tang that clung to the back of your throat, even after filtration. The oceans stretched endlessly across the surface, glistening with promise, but anyone with half a brain knew better than to get too close. The water was alive and teemed with native microbes and corrosive compounds that could dissolve human skin in minutes. Rainfall could be fatal without proper shielding. Even the soil, rich and dark in places, had to be treated before anything could grow.

Still, people adapted. They always did. Within a few short decades, colonies had pushed back against the wild terrain. Engineers built water purification towers along the cliffs. Bio-domes and coral crete cities rose along the coastal ridges, each one a careful balance of technology and caution. Life took root—hard-earned, and always on the edge—but it took root all the same. They called it New Oslo, this particular stretch of civilization: a sleek, functional city curved against the curve of a jagged coastline, looking out toward a horizon that always seemed a little too still.

And it was here, on the outskirts, that the cemetery lay.

Jemas National Cemetery sat on a plateau just above the mist-line, where the sea was visible only as a silver suggestion beyond the hills. The wind moved constantly, sweeping over rows of white stone markers in gentle, unhurried waves. The markers were all the same shape—rectangular, unadorned except for names and ranks and dates—but each one told a story that someone, somewhere, still carried.

The sky that morning was a low sheet of gray, the kind of cloud cover that blurred the light and made everything feel quieter. The ground was damp from a night of cold rain, and the air had that heavy stillness that comes after weather—when nature pauses to catch its breath.

A small crowd had gathered. No more than thirty people stood near the front rows, dressed in dark coats and muted colors, hands tucked into pockets or clasped together in front of them. No one spoke. Even the children, if there were any, kept quiet. It wasn’t the kind of silence that demanded reverence—it was the kind that happened naturally, when grief was fresh and shared.

At the center, just beneath the main flagpole where the banner of the New Oslo Coalition fluttered at half-mast, a wooden podium had been set up.

Yoongi stepped up to it with a practiced stillness. He didn’t glance at his notes—didn’t need to. His eyes moved over the crowd, not looking for anyone in particular, but acknowledging each of them all the same. He took special care not to lock eyes with her uncle, or anyone else on that side of the field.

“She was twenty-nine,” he began. His voice was clear but soft, carrying without force. “Bright. Focused. Asked too many questions. Always wanted to know why before she said yes. The kind of mind you build missions around.”

Some people nodded. Someone near the back exhaled sharply but didn’t speak.

“Y/N was one of our best crewmates. When the Hunter-Gratzner was greenlit, she was one of the first to volunteer. Not because she wanted the recognition—but because she believed in the work. In exploration. In reaching farther.”

He paused, the wind nudging the edges of his coat.

“When the ship went down on M6-117,” he said, “we lost more than a vessel. We lost a crew. We lost civilians. We lost her. And no speech will ever make that okay. It shouldn’t. This isn’t closure. It’s a marker—a place to say we remember.”

Behind him, the flag caught the wind again, the fabric snapping softly.

“But we continue,” he said. “New Oslo grows. The program moves forward. And we carry them with us. Not just in memory, but in mission. In the work we keep doing, because it still matters. Because they believed it did.”

He looked down for a moment, then stepped away without another word.

There was no music. No twenty-one gun salute. Just the sound of the wind moving through the grass, and the occasional shuffle of feet as the mourners broke apart slowly, each of them retreating at their own pace. Some walked past the headstone and placed small tokens—stones, flowers, folded notes—on the cold white marble. Others stood for a moment longer, eyes closed, lips moving in silent conversation with someone who was no longer there.

And then, gradually, the crowd thinned, until only the marker remained, fresh in the ground, surrounded by the soft hush of wind.

The Gabril Space Center was a monument to ambition—New Oslo’s gleaming centerpiece. All glass and chrome, it stood out against the overcast sky like something conjured, too sleek for a world still fighting to call itself home. Inside, the vast atrium echoed with quiet movement: engineers pacing between briefings, analysts buried in screens, the ever-present hum of filtered air and low voices carrying through the open space.

Mateo Gomez moved with purpose, his steps measured across the polished black floor. The heels of his boots tapped softly, the sound swallowed quickly by the high ceilings. Security nodded as he passed, not out of obligation, but recognition. He was someone here. Not at the top—but close enough to knock on the door.

To his left, a news feed looped silently across a wall screen. The headline crawled in red across the bottom: President Speaks at Hunter-Gratzner Memorial. Above it, the feed cut between slow-motion clips—Y/N laughing as she tumbled weightlessly through a shuttle bay, sunlight catching in her hair, then Yoongi shaking hands with the president in front of a somber crowd. Mateo didn’t look twice. The footage had been everywhere for days. You couldn’t walk a corridor without catching her face, mid-laugh, frozen in time. Grief, he was realizing, had become ambient noise in this building. No one talked about it directly, but it was in the way people walked, in the silence that lingered between conversations, in the exhaustion behind their eyes.

Yoongi’s office was at the end of the administrative wing—glass walls, high windows, and a sweeping view of the southern launch pads. The sky beyond was dull and featureless, just layers of gray pressing down over the concrete runways. He was alone when Mateo entered, seated with his back half-turned, watching the muted broadcast play across the mounted screen behind his desk.

Mateo stepped inside without ceremony and held out a slim folder.

“I thought the speech was good,” he said.

Yoongi didn’t turn right away. His hand reached back, taking the folder without looking. He flipped it open, scanning quickly.

“I need authorization for satellite time,” Mateo added.

Yoongi’s voice came without hesitation. “Not happening.”

Mateo’s jaw tensed. He wasn’t surprised, but that didn’t make it easier. “We’re funded for five Nexus missions. I can get Parliament behind a sixth—if we make Y/N’s recovery part of it.”

Yoongi turned a page, barely reacting. “No.”

“We’re getting hammered out there,” Mateo said, stepping forward. “Protests at the gates. Parliament’s dragging their feet on the new appropriations package. The Starfire crew’s threatening to walk unless they get better answers from us, and Cruz—Valencia Cruz—is done playing nice. She’s been fielding calls from half the Intercolonial press.”

“We don’t need a PR stunt,” Yoongi said, still not looking up. “We need results. Nexus II is targeting the Sundermere Basin. We’ve picked up energy signatures—unexplained. Possibly artificial. That’s where the focus is.”

“We can do both,” Mateo said. “Two objectives, one launch. All I’m asking for is eyes on the crash site. A few hours of satellite sweep. It won’t interfere.”

Yoongi finally looked up, pinning him with a sharp glance. “It’s not about interference.”

“Then what?”

Yoongi leaned back slowly in his chair, arms folded across his chest. He didn’t speak right away.

“If we so much as point a satellite at that wreck,” he said finally, “we’re rolling the dice on a media firestorm. If the images get out—and they always do—and if she’s... visible? Intact, partially intact, anything remotely identifiable? That’s headline footage from here to Earth. And we lose control of the story the second that happens.”

Mateo didn’t flinch.

His voice dropped to something low and steady, but the heat behind it was unmistakable. “So that’s it? We just look the other way? Let her rot on a dead planet because it's easier for NOSA’s public relations team?”

Yoongi’s response came hard, like a reflex. “She’s not rotting, Mateo.”

He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, gaze sharp but tired. “You know the sand on M6-117 acts like a thermal buffer. Once she’s under, the surface temperature plummets. Radiation drops. Wind scours the top layer clean. She’s probably preserved better than anything we’ve ever brought back in a sample container. But that’s not the point.”

He rubbed a hand over his face, exhaling through his nose.

“If someone gets footage—anything, even grainy—of what’s left of her... charred, exposed, half-eaten—do you understand what happens next? That becomes the image. Not her work, not her dedication. That.” He tapped the desk once, firm. “And then it won’t just be about Y/N anymore. They’ll turn on us. They’ll ask why we greenlit a civilian-led mission without making sure access to Shields wasn’t shut off sooner. Why the automated course correction failed. Why NOSA sent their golden girl into what’s now being called an ‘unmapped danger zone’ by half the media outlets out of EarthGov.”

He stood abruptly and walked to the window, voice flattening as he looked out.

“They’re already lining up hearings in the Science Oversight Committee. NOSA’s funding is getting picked apart by three subcommittees. The EU bloc wants our Sundermere data classified until they’ve ‘evaluated its economic potential,’ which is code for: 'we want a piece of it.’”

Mateo’s mouth tightened. He’d heard some of that too—leaks coming from the Earth-side delegation, whisper campaigns starting in defense circles. Even the South American Consortium, which usually stood by NOSA, had gone quiet.

Yoongi kept going. “We release one image of that crash site, and the narrative shifts. It stops being about science. It becomes a political mess. Parliament will freeze funding. The Americans will yank their comms array support. And don’t think for a second the Lunar Coalition won’t swoop in to take the Sundermere Basin off our hands.”

He turned back, face lined with the weight of too many choices. “We don’t just lose Y/N. We lose everything.”

Mateo didn’t speak for a long time. His jaw was tight, his breath uneven like he was trying to wrestle something down inside himself before it came out the wrong way.

Finally, he said, quietly, “She was everything.”

Yoongi didn’t respond. He stared out past the desk, past the room, past everything. Mateo kept going, his voice lower now. The heat had drained out of it, leaving something heavier—guilt, maybe, or shame.

“She wasn’t just a solid astronaut. She was the astronaut. Everyone wanted her on their crew. She stayed late to double-check other people’s numbers because she didn’t want anyone getting hurt. When the Gratzner protocols started falling apart mid-flight during test flights, she didn’t panic—she rewrote them in real time, while the rest of the crew was trying not to pass out from pressure drops.”

He shook his head once, eyes distant. “She was the best botanist we had. Not just because she could ID a plant by sight—on three different planets—but because she remembered every soil variant, every gas pocket, every light-cycle condition that might screw up a grow. And then on top of that, she took flight training so she could back up a pilot in an emergency. Who does that?”

Yoongi said nothing, his jaw working like he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite get it out.

Mateo watched him. “She respected you. You trained her. You went to bat for her when she got passed over the first time. And when the Gratzner crew got shuffled last-minute, she didn’t hesitate—she switched assignments with you. So you could stay back and stabilize Nexus scheduling. She did that for you.”

Yoongi’s shoulders tensed slightly, barely perceptible—but it was there. Outside the office windows, the fog hadn’t lifted. It moved in slow currents over the landing field, softening the harsh outlines of the launch towers. Launch Pad 4 stood at the far end, silent, skeletal, waiting.

Mateo’s voice dropped further, now close to a whisper.

“She’s still up there. No body. No grave. No closure. Just a name on a rotating wall display and a headline that gets smaller every week. People walk past that screen like it’s just background noise. Like she’s already fading out.”

Mateo let out a quiet breath and gave a small, lopsided smile—one of those half-formed expressions that came with memory.

“You remember French Fry?”

Yoongi blinked, caught off guard. He turned slightly, eyes narrowing in thought. “The support drone? The one Dr. Nguyen built to assist with nutritional diagnostics?”

Mateo nodded. “Yeah. The one that kept trying to back itself into the convection oven.”

Yoongi let out a low, almost reluctant chuckle. “Right. Quinn said it was fitting. Said she named it after Y/N because it was brave and always in the wrong place.”

Mateo smiled a little wider. “She wrote that letter to engineering—pretending to be French Fry’s lawyer. Filed a fake complaint against the entire culinary systems team. ‘Negligent appliance zoning resulting in repeated suicide attempts.’ She even cited precedent. You laughed so hard you snorted coffee all over your tablet.”

Yoongi looked down and gave a small shake of his head. “I made her rewrite it three times. Just so we’d have copies.”

A flicker of something softened his face—nostalgia, grief, maybe both—but it faded almost as quickly as it appeared.

“She’s not forgotten,” he said, voice tight at the edges.

Mateo studied him. “Then stop acting like she is.”

Yoongi turned back to the window, arms folded tightly over his chest. The fog outside had thickened, curling around the perimeter lights like smoke. The towers stood still and sharp in the distance, black shapes against a washed-out sky.

Yoongi’s shoulders shifted—barely—but Mateo caught it. He knew the signs. Something had landed.

“She was my friend too,” Yoongi said, finally. His voice was quiet, but there was no doubt in it. “I watched her go from a kid who couldn’t even lock her pressure collar without double-checking the diagram, to a mission lead who had half the command wing checking their math twice because she was just that fast. That sharp.”

He paused, looking down at the floor like the memory was playing out there in front of him.

“She wasn’t just ahead of the curve. She was right. Consistently. The scary kind of right, where people stop arguing even when she’s the youngest one in the room. Not because they’re giving up—but because they know she already figured it out.”

He looked up again, met Mateo’s eyes—really met them—for the first time in a long while.

“And yeah,” he said. “I owe her. I didn’t ask her to take my place. I told everyone I was going, locked the schedule myself. But she knew. She always knew when I was lying, even when I thought I wasn’t.”

He let out a dry breath, more exhale than laugh.

“Somehow, she talked that stone-faced bastard Osei into signing off on the reassignment behind my back. I didn’t even know until I found the note in my locker. All it said was, ‘I trust my crew more than you trust yours. I’ve got this. You’ve got work to do here.’”

A flicker of something passed across his face—pride, maybe, or just the hollow ache of being known too well by someone who was now gone.

“That was her,” Yoongi said, voice quieter. “Always a step ahead. Always taking the harder hit if it meant sparing the rest of us.”

Mateo started to say something, but Yoongi held up a hand—not to cut him off, but just to finish his thought.

“I’m not being cold,” Yoongi said. “I’m being realistic.”

He exhaled, rubbing his palms together like he was trying to keep them from shaking. “Nexus II is barely holding. EarthGov’s budget committee is sharpening knives. Half the Parliament’s ready to gut interplanetary funding if it means buying more leverage back home. We’ve got maybe one window left. One shot at Sundermere before the politics close in.”

He gestured toward the fog-draped launch field outside, where the towers sat dark and skeletal.

“That crater isn’t like the rest of the planet. Wind systems don’t match surrounding patterns. The thermal shifts, the power readings—we’ve never seen anything like it. Eastern ridge is lighting up magnetically. We’re seeing what could be frozen permafrost below the crust—something wet down there. And the biosigns from the last probe? If those weren’t just sensor ghosts, we could be sitting on proof of subsurface life.”

He turned back to Mateo, the weight in his voice unmistakable now. “You know what that means. Terraforming viability. Real colonization. Not domes. Not provisional crews hoping the bioraptors don’t punch through the fences at night. Actual reclamation.”

He looked tired. Not the kind of tired that came from long nights, but the kind that came from too many decisions like this one. “We can’t afford to screw this up. We lose this shot, and M6-117 goes dark. For good. No follow-up. No second wave. Just another failed world buried under bureaucracy.”

Mateo didn’t move. He didn’t argue. He just spoke, calm and deliberate.

“I’m not asking you to risk the mission, Min.”

He stepped closer, closing the gap between them—not confrontational, just steady.

“I’m asking you to write her in. Quietly. Secondary objective, folded into the atmospheric sweep. No flags. No fanfare. Just one pass over the Gratzner wreck. If we get nothing? Fine. But if we see anything—something clear, something dignified—then maybe we give her family more than a looping photo and a footnote in the archives.”

He let the silence hang for a beat, then added, gently, “We’re not chasing ghosts. We’re just trying to finish the story. Close the chapter that never got an ending.”

Yoongi sat back down slowly. The motion looked deliberate, like every joint had to agree to move.

He tapped the armrest once, then stilled.

The quiet that followed wasn’t tense. It was thick. Heavy with memory. The kind of silence that only came after too many years spent carrying too many names.

Mateo didn’t press. He’d known Yoongi long enough to understand his rhythms. He didn’t rush decisions. He let them settle. Let the silence test their weight.

Outside, the fog pressed harder against the windows, thick and unrelenting. The field lights cut through it in faint, useless beams—small cones of visibility swallowed by the gray. The launch towers sat still in the distance, silhouettes fading at the edges like ghosts.

Inside, the soft flicker of the memorial screen lit up the far corner of Yoongi’s office. The same reel, still looping.

Y/N drifted across the frame, weightless, laughing—caught mid-spin inside the Gratzner’s jump bay. Her hair floated around her like silk in water, her limbs relaxed, fluid, untethered. She looked effortless. At ease. Like she belonged up there. Like space had always been hers.

For a second, Mateo forgot where he was. She didn’t look like someone they’d lost. She didn’t look like a name carved into polished stone. She looked like the version of her that used to barrel into early-morning briefings, still half-wired on caffeine and a new theory about bioreactive algae in thin atmospheres. Tablet in one hand, no fewer than four open windows of data stacked across it. Half the time, she was already arguing the point before anyone else had sat down.

She never waited to be asked. She never needed permission.

She just moved—with purpose, with momentum—and dared the rest of the room to catch up.

Then the image on the screen blinked away.

Her official portrait replaced it: eyes forward, hair pulled back, lips in a neutral line. The uniform was crisp. The Coalition flag blurred in the background like a watercolor made of shadow.

Remembering the Crew of the Hunter-Gratzner.

Mateo stared at it. The screen. The text. The way it tried to tidy her into something easy to mourn.

It felt false. Not a lie—but not the whole truth either. Too polished. Too clean.

He could still hear her voice, and not in a nostalgic, far-off way. It was clear. Immediate. Frustrated and full of fire.

He imagined if it had been Jimin Park left on that wreck, or Armin Zimmermann. Y/N wouldn’t be standing in an office, tiptoeing around politics. She’d already be halfway down to satellite ops with a backdoor login and a hard case full of signal boosters.

She’d have that look—mischievous, sure, but dangerous too. Like she knew exactly how many rules she was about to break, and had already decided they weren’t worth following.

And she’d smile, that crooked, knowing smile, just before she said it:

“Fuck bureaucracy.”

Mateo exhaled a breath that was somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. He didn’t mean to smile, but it came anyway. It was small, worn at the edges, but it was real.

Because that was her. All of her.

And the truth was, she wouldn’t have just gone after the data—she’d have dragged him along with her, even if it meant putting both their jobs on the line. And he would’ve gone. Without hesitation.

Because she would’ve done the same for him.

And that, Mateo thought, was the point. That was why this mattered.

Behind him, the silence stretched a few seconds longer—until Yoongi finally spoke.

His voice was quiet. A little rough. But steady.

“Go for it.”

Mateo turned, not sure he’d heard him right.

Yoongi didn’t look away from the window, but he nodded once.

“Have April Borne take a look. She’s smart. Discreet. Doesn’t scare easy.”

He paused.

“Get the orbital pass scheduled. Quietly. If there’s a clean window, I want her running the image enhancement—no chatter, no metadata tags. I want to know what condition Y/N’s in before we even think about next steps.”

Mateo nodded. Slowly. He didn’t say thank you. That wasn’t how they worked.

Yoongi leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath, the kind that had been sitting in his chest for hours. Maybe days.

Mateo turned toward the door, ready to move. But he stopped just before stepping out, his hand hovering near the panel.

“Min,” he said quietly, glancing over his shoulder, “this doesn’t change anything about Sundermere. We do the work. We follow through.”

Yoongi looked up, met his eyes.

“I know,” he said. “But we don’t leave her behind if we don’t have to.”

Mateo gave a small nod, then walked out.

Behind him, the door slid shut with a soft hiss. The memorial reel began again—Y/N caught mid-laugh.

April Borne leaned back in her chair, the tension in her shoulders barely easing as she stretched. It was late—closer to early morning, really—but the satellite ops floor was still lit, still humming with quiet, steady life. The room was mostly empty now. Just her, two unmanned desks, and the soft thrum of servers overhead.

She turned her attention back to her screen.

A new work order had come in. That wasn’t unusual. NOSA’s satellite grid ran constant, and last-minute data requests came through all the time—environmental sweeps, storm modeling, orbital drift corrections. But this one was flagged priority access, and the requestor name gave her pause.

Gomez, Mateo.

Her brows pulled together.

It wasn’t that unusual to see an exec’s name on a late pull—especially someone with Mateo’s clearance—but something about it felt… off. Not wrong, exactly. Just heavier than usual.

She scanned the attached coordinates.

Virelia Planitia.

April Borne leaned forward, eyes steady on the screen as she keyed in the coordinates. She spoke the name aloud without thinking—softly, to herself.

“Virelia Planitia.”

Her voice barely rose above the background hum of the satellite control center. The name settled uneasily in her chest. It tugged at something. Familiar, but not quite present. Like a dream half-remembered or the tail end of a story you weren’t supposed to hear.

She frowned, tapped a few commands into the interface, and dragged the scan window to cover the last ten hours. High-res sweep. Shadow filters on. Wind distortion compensation running. She hit ‘execute’ and waited.

The feed loaded slowly—one frame at a time, each one rendered from hundreds of kilometers above the surface. The first image came into view.

April straightened a little in her seat.

The terrain was flat, dry, and empty. That harsh, burnt-red shade she’d come to associate with M6-117. At first glance, it looked like a thousand other scans she'd run. But then the structure emerged—off-center, slanted slightly, one edge half-swallowed by windblown grit.

She leaned in.

The main habitat shell was still there. Warped, battered, but intact. One of the secondary units had collapsed entirely—just a heap of buckled alloy. The solar arrays were bent at sharp angles. Two were missing. The comms rig looked fried—its base blackened and skeletal.

But even from this distance, something about it looked wrong.

April’s fingers hovered over the keyboard as she stared.

And then it clicked.

She knew this place.

Not personally, but in the way everyone at NOSA knew it—through internal reports, redacted footage, and that cautious silence that always settled in when the Gratzner was mentioned. The crash site. Y/N’s mission. The one they stopped talking about once the press coverage turned invasive.

Why the hell was Gomez pulling visuals on it now?

She adjusted the contrast, enhanced the light angles, and let the AI sharpen through the wind smear. More images filtered in. No movement. No heat signatures. No visible wreckage outside of what she’d already seen.

And no body.

No gear. No emergency markers. No personal effects scattered on the sand. Just the cold outline of a structure long abandoned.

April checked the coordinates again. Ran a depth overlay. The sand patterns showed recent shift, but nothing major. A few centimeters of coverage at most. Enough to bury light debris, maybe, but not a person. Not if they were still out in the open.

She felt a slow chill settle in her chest. There was nothing here.

No proof of life.

But also… no proof of death.

She saved the clearest frames, tagged the metadata, then paused—hovering over the folder name before clicking ‘Secure Archive.’ Just clean, time-stamped data. No notes. No assumptions.

Then something stopped her.

April blinked. Sat back slightly. Let the frame reload.

She rewound the sweep by ten seconds, held her breath, and froze the feed at the right angle. One image, high-altitude, but clear enough. She zoomed in—slowly, carefully—until the detail sharpened.

Solar panels?

She frowned. That wasn’t unusual by itself, not on a planet littered with old equipment and failed expeditions. But these… they were intact. Fully mounted. Angled just right to catch the light. And clean.

Not just visible through the dust—clean. Polished. Reflective.

Her stomach tightened. That didn’t track.

M6-117 was one of the worst environments NOSA had ever sent people into. The storms didn’t come in seasons; they came constantly. Fine red grit moved like static electricity, clinging to everything. Even low-orbit observation satellites picked it up as visual noise. Nothing stayed clean there.

But these panels—wherever they came from—weren’t just clean. They were in good condition. Better than good. Better than possible.

She leaned in again, squinting at the feed.

No scorch marks. No structural collapse. No wind shear damage. No burn-off. And most of all, no way in hell they should be anywhere near the Gratzner wreck.

The geology teams had placed their equipment miles to the west, near the old settlement edge. These were nowhere near that. These were close—too close—to the coordinates of the crash site.

She checked the registry again. No update. No new deployments logged. No ops schedules submitted. No teams down there. Nothing on file.

Her hand hovered over the mouse. The air felt suddenly too thick in her lungs.

It didn’t make sense.

Not unless…

A cold sensation moved across the back of her neck. Not fear, exactly. But a kind of awareness. The sharp-edged kind that told you, with absolute certainty, that you’d just stumbled into something no one meant for you to see.

“Oh God,” she whispered.

The words left her before she’d even registered saying them.

Her hand went for the phone. She knocked it off the cradle in her hurry, caught it before it hit the floor, then slammed it back onto the desk and jabbed in the code for internal routing. Her fingers felt clumsy. Cold.

The line clicked.

“Security,” came the voice on the other end, flat and bored.

“April Borne,” she said quickly, her breath not quite under control. “Satellite Control. I need Dr. Mateo Gomez’s emergency contact. Right now.”

There was a pause. The kind where someone checks credentials before pushing the big red button.

“Yes,” she snapped, “him. It’s urgent.”

As the operator responded, April barely heard the words. Her eyes were still locked on the image. On those panels. On the sunlight reflecting off metal that should’ve been buried beneath half a meter of dust by now.

She didn’t know what she was seeing.

But it wasn’t nothing.

And whatever it was… it hadn’t happened by accident.

The line crackled once, then went quiet.

April stared at the monitor as the call transferred. Her knee bounced beneath the desk. She didn’t even realize she was doing it.

There was a pause—three rings, four—then a tired voice answered, low and groggy.

“This is Gomez.”

April straightened in her seat automatically. “Uh—Dr. Gomez? This is April Borne, I’m in Satellite Control. Sorry. I know it’s late.”

There was a beat of silence. She could hear the shift in his breathing, that sudden tension that hits when someone wakes up mid-sentence and knows something’s wrong before you say it.

“You’re calling from SatCon?” he asked, voice already sharpening. “What’s happened?”

April swallowed. “You… you requested a sweep over Virelia Planitia. I pulled the footage. I was just running it through standard filters, but something came up.”

He was fully awake now. She could hear movement—sheets, maybe. The dull thud of feet hitting the floor.

“What kind of something?”

She hesitated—not because she didn’t know how to explain it, but because part of her still wasn’t sure she believed what she’d seen. “There’s solar paneling near the crash site. New-looking. Clean. Fully intact. Reflective enough to bounce a glare off the satellite lens. That’s not standard equipment for that zone. I double-checked against our infrastructure maps—there’s nothing logged for that sector, and the geology team didn’t build that close to the wreck.”

“Any activity?” he asked. “Movement? Heat signatures?”

“No. Everything looks dead. But the panels are positioned perfectly. They’ve been adjusted. Recently. They’re too clean for anything natural to explain it.”

The line went quiet again for half a beat.

Then: “You didn’t tag the data?”

“No. Just stored three clean frames to a secure archive. No labels. No flags.”

“Good,” Mateo said. “Stay there. I’m going to call the director. We’ll loop you back in once we’ve figured out next steps.”

He hung up before she could respond.

Mateo was already halfway into a clean shirt, one hand pressing his phone to his ear as he paced across the narrow strip of carpet in his quarters.

Yoongi picked up on the second ring.

“It’s me,” Mateo said. “Wake up. We’ve got movement at the Gratzner site.”

There was a pause on the other end. A sigh, maybe. But not confusion. Not disbelief. Just that heavy exhale Yoongi gave when he knew a night was about to get longer.

“I’m listening,” Yoongi said.

“She caught something on the last sweep—clean solar arrays, set up near the wreck. They’re in active orientation and fully intact. Way too clean to be left over from the crash.”

There was a short silence, then: “You sure it’s not leftover equipment from geology?”

“Already checked. Placement’s wrong. Too close. And it doesn’t line up with the last terrain integrity scans. She’s good, too—didn’t tag the frames. Kept it quiet.”

Yoongi was quiet for another second.

Then: “Loop her in. I want a direct line. No chatter. No routing through the board.”

“I’m already on it.”

Mateo hung up, grabbed his tablet, and keyed in the SatCon line again.

April answered on the first ring, breath caught somewhere between relief and panic.

“Dr. Gomez?”

“April. I just got off with the director. You’re cleared to send the frames. Full-resolution, no compression. Direct to me, then back it up on an external drive—don’t touch the servers again until I give you the go. Understood?”

“Understood,” she said quickly.

“I know this is probably not what you expected when you signed on,” he added, voice a touch softer now. “But you handled this the right way. We don’t get a lot of clean threads in situations like this. You just gave us one.”

There was a pause on her end. “Do you think she’s still alive out there?”

Mateo didn’t answer immediately.

“I don’t know,” he said finally.

Thirty minutes later, Mateo Gomez stood in the center of NOSA’s mission control floor, surrounded by quiet urgency. The room was dim but alive—screens flickering, feeds updating in real-time, the soft clicks of keyboards like rainfall on glass. A satellite image of M6-117 glowed across the central display, the barren red landscape stretching outward around a single, unmistakable structure: the Hunter-Gratzner’s crash site.

Alice Saxe, Director of Media Relations, stood just behind him, arms folded, heels echoing as she paced.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” she muttered. “Please. Tell me I’m looking at an old sweep or some kind of glitch.”

Mateo didn’t respond right away. He just turned back toward the monitor, pointing.

“Panels have been cleaned. Adjusted for sunlight. This isn’t weather. You know that.”

“Dust storms on M6-117 don't clean—they scour,” Alice said. “If the wind had hit those arrays, they'd be torn to shreds or buried. Not gleaming.”

Yoongi Min stepped closer, still in his travel jacket, his face unreadable. He hadn’t spoken since entering the room, but his silence was the kind that pulled everyone’s attention without asking for it.

“How certain are we?” he asked finally, voice low and steady.

“Ninety-nine percent,” Mateo said. “We cross-checked the coordinates. The battery Y/N removed from the Gratzner on Sol 17 was logged dead, but this panel—this entire array—has been relocated and is drawing ambient current.”

Yoongi stared at the display wall, eyes locked on the satellite footage. His jaw tightened, but he didn’t speak. Not yet.

Mateo stepped forward and tapped the screen again, bringing up the enhanced overlay. “Look at this,” he said. “This isn’t erosion. This is structure modification. The H-G’s been partially disassembled. You can see where the supports were moved. That’s not decay. That’s work.”

Alice, standing just behind them, stopped pacing. Her heels had been a steady rhythm of tension, but now she went still.

“Someone’s there,” she said, voice quiet.

“Or was,” Mateo replied. “But whatever this is—it’s recent. That site’s not dead. It’s active. Or it was, at least, in the last seventy-two hours.”

Yoongi’s brow furrowed. “That old cargo hull from New Mecca—the one that dropped signal last year. Could she have found it?”

“We thought about that,” Mateo said. “And maybe she did. But if she’s using it, it’s not for communication. There’s no distress signal, no coded pulse, nothing on open channels. Our guess? She stripped it for power. Kept what she needed to survive and stayed dark. She’s rationing.”

Yoongi’s mouth opened slightly—he was about to say something—but Alice beat him to it.

“If she’s alive,” she said, stepping forward, her voice low but urgent, “if Y/N is actually alive out there, someone on Nexus II needs to know. Her cousin’s on that ship, Yoongi. You know that.”

Yoongi turned to her, his tone calm, but threaded with steel. “We’re not telling them.”

Alice stared at him, eyebrows raised. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m dead serious,” he said. “We keep this contained.”

“For how long?” she asked, incredulous. “Until she runs out of food? Until someone leaks the satellite footage and the public gets there first?”

“They’re eight months out from New Mecca,” Yoongi said. “Ten from reentry. We hit them with this now—with this? We don’t know what that does to the crew. To him.”

“They already buried her,” Mateo said quietly from across the room. “Held a private vigil in the observation deck. And now we’re going to rip that away from them—with no rescue window? No extraction plan?”

He looked up, meeting Alice’s eyes. “Jimin Park’s been holding that crew together since day one. He’s not just her friend, Alice. Her uncle adopted him after she brought him home. They’re practically siblings at this point. You think he won’t try to reroute the mission himself?”

Alice looked between the two men, then back at the screen where the crash site stood frozen in grainy satellite stills. Her arms slowly folded across her chest.

“So we just let them believe she’s dead? Again.”

Mateo didn’t answer, but his silence said enough. Yoongi took a breath.

“We hold the line,” he said. “Until we know she’s stable. Until we know this isn’t a glitch. A mistake. Or worse—something we can’t fix.”

This time, Alice didn’t argue. Not because she agreed, but because the logic—cold and cruel as it was—held.

She rubbed at her temple and nodded once. “Parliament’s going to eat us alive. I spoke to Oversight this morning. Image data clears internal review in twenty-three hours. Once it does, it’s public record.”

“Then we get ahead of it,” Yoongi said. “We don’t let this leak through the back door. We put out a statement. Brief, clear, controlled.”

Alice looked at him flatly. “Right. Something like: ‘Dear people of Aguerra, you know that young pilot we gave a state funeral? Turns out she’s alive and living on protein paste in a desert crater. Oops. Love, New Oslo.’”

Mateo didn’t laugh. Neither did Yoongi.

The tension in the room didn’t allow it.

Mateo’s eyes were fixed on the satellite feed again. The structure sat quietly in the frame, unchanged and unmoving—just a tiny silhouette against endless red. A single, skeletal lifeline in an ocean of dust.

“This wasn’t supposed to be possible,” he murmured. “We reviewed every survival scenario. Every thermal failure point. Ration shelf-life. Physical trauma after impact. We mapped it all. And still…”

Still, she was alive.

Yoongi moved toward the chair by the wall, where he’d dropped his jacket earlier, and slid his arms into the sleeves.

“I’m going to Helion Five.”

Mateo looked over, confused. “Why?”

“She has family there,” Yoongi said. “Her aunt and uncle emailed me last night saying they were going to see them. They’re hosting a memorial tomorrow—small, just close relatives. They don’t know what we found. I’m not letting them hear about this from a newsfeed. When they get back here they need to be prepared to face the news.”

Alice’s tone softened. “If she’s alive, they’ll be relieved.”

Yoongi paused at the doorway. His voice was lower now, almost flat. “Relief depends on what we find next. All we’ve got are images—no movement, no signal, no confirmation. If she is alive, then we’ve got six weeks of rations left to work with. Maybe less. And that’s not accounting for muscle atrophy, radiation, psych strain. A year in M6-117’s gravity at surface level... even if she’s standing, she’s not strong.”

Nobody responded.

The weight of it pressed into the room.

The monitors kept humming. Soft alerts blinked on screen—routine, irrelevant. And yet the atmosphere felt anything but ordinary.

Mateo finally broke the silence. His voice wasn’t loud, but there was something in it—something fragile and steady at the same time.

“Can you even imagine what she’s been through?” he asked. “What it’s like waking up to that sky every day. Knowing no one’s coming. Hearing your own breathing and nothing else. Watching the light change and wondering if that’s your last sunrise.”

Alice didn’t respond. She just stared at the image, arms still crossed. Her jaw was clenched tight.

Yoongi followed Mateo’s gaze back to the screen. He didn’t speak right away. When he finally did, his voice was quieter than either of them had ever heard it.

“She thinks we gave up,” he said. “She thinks everyone walked away.”

He didn’t look at them when he said it. He just stared at the image—at the wreck, the clean panels, the threadbare hope they’d uncovered far too late.

“And she’s probably right.”

No one corrected him.

No one even moved.

The planet’s surface shimmered through the thick, dust-streaked viewport like a mirage, a fluid illusion of red and gold under the hard light of three suns. M6-117 had never just been a planet—it was a crucible. A punishing, relentless force that didn’t care about the limits of human endurance. It didn’t roar. It didn’t lash out. It just endured, and made you suffer for trying to do the same.

The wind outside never really stopped. It howled sometimes, hummed at others, but it was always there—scraping sand against the Hab walls like claws against a coffin lid.

Inside, things weren’t much better.

The air recyclers wheezed rhythmically in the corner, fighting a losing battle against the heat and the grit. Everything smelled faintly of copper, sweat, and the unmistakable tang of fried wiring. Every square inch of the Hab was claimed by something—wires, taped-together filters, stripped-down equipment, makeshift solar controllers, and the skeletal remains of old repairs that had failed just long enough ago for her to stop cursing them daily.

And cutting through all of it, like some absurd joke the universe refused to stop telling, was Vicki Sue Robinson.

“Turn the Beat Around” blared cheerfully from the corner speaker. The volume had long since stopped being adjustable—another casualty of the power surge two weeks ago. The computer, apparently, had decided that disco was essential for morale.

Y/N sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by the chaos. Dirt smudged her cheeks and collarbone. Her jumpsuit, once standard-issue and crisp, had been patched so many times it looked like a quilt. Her hair was pulled back into a crooked, low bun, strands slicked to her forehead with sweat. She was pale beneath the grime, hollow-eyed and hollow-cheeked, but awake. Alert. Still breathing.

The camera was on, its tiny red light a familiar companion. She looked directly into it, her face unreadable for a long moment.

Then she spoke.

"I'm gonna die up here."

The words were delivered flatly—no drama, no fear. Just fact. A statement she'd repeated enough times to wear smooth.

She paused, then gestured vaguely toward the speaker, where the disco beat continued its unforgiving march.

“…if I have to listen to any more goddamn disco.”

Her voice cracked slightly, and for a second it was hard to tell if she was about to laugh or lose it. She went with sarcasm.

“Jesus, Captain Marshall,” she muttered, leaning back against the wall and closing her eyes briefly. “You couldn’t have packed one playlist from this century? It’s like being trapped inside a time capsule designed by someone’s dad during a midlife crisis.”

She opened her eyes again and tilted her head toward the camera. Her mouth curled into something that could’ve been a smile, if not for how tired her eyes looked.

“I’m not turning the beat around,” she said dryly. “Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

The music played on, oblivious to her suffering. And for a while, she let it. Just sat there, letting the thumping bass fill the silence she no longer had the energy to fight.

Her gaze drifted around the Hab. The exposed wiring. The jury-rigged cooling coils. The last two nutrient packs, stashed carefully in a corner and rationed down to sips and guesses. Everything here was improvised, fragile, a monument to survival one piece of duct tape away from collapse.

Her tone shifted when she looked back at the camera again. Softer now.

“You know,” she said, brushing a dirty hand across her forehead, “I used to hate noise. Back on Helion Five, I thought silence was peace. I'd take long walks just to get away from everything. Loved the stillness—the wind across the glass domes, the sound of my own footsteps. It felt clean. Safe.”

She exhaled through her nose. It wasn’t a laugh exactly, but something close.

“Now I’d give anything for a little chaos. A toddler screaming at the top of their lungs. Some teenager blasting synthpop out of a cracked speaker on the transit line. My Aunt Rose laughing way too loud at one of Uncle Sean’s awful cooking puns. Jimin calling me just to argue about who’s faster in a sim run. I’d take any of it.”

Her eyes glistened slightly, but she didn’t blink. She wasn’t going to cry. Not today. Not yet.

“But no,” she added with a half-hearted shrug. “Instead, I get this. Captain Disco’s Last Stand.”

She waved toward the speaker, now cycling into another painfully upbeat track. It might’ve been Bee Gees. She honestly couldn’t tell anymore. It all blurred together.

“Thanks for that, Cap,” she said, voice cracking just enough to be heard.

For a while, she didn’t move.

Y/N just sat there, her arms draped loosely over her knees, fingers slack, her body sagging under the weight of heat and fatigue. The music played on in the background, cheerful and relentless, as if completely unaware it was serenading a graveyard.

Her face hovered somewhere between disbelief and resignation—eyelids heavy, mouth drawn tight, eyes glassy but dry. Like she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or scream, and had settled instead on stillness.

Eventually, she exhaled through her nose. A slow, weary breath. The kind that didn’t relieve anything but bought her one more second of not falling apart.

She straightened a little, not with purpose, but out of habit. Pushed her shoulders back. Wiped at her face with the back of one dirty sleeve. Sniffed. Brushed a clump of red dust off her jumpsuit—pointless, really, but it made her feel slightly more like a person.

Still not crying.

“Anyway,” she murmured, her voice rough but steady. She cleared her throat. “Guess I should get back to it.”

She glanced to the small diagnostics tablet lying on the crate beside her. One of the few pieces of equipment still fully functional, thanks to two days of rewiring and one desperate bargain with a soldering gun.

“Filters are holding at sixty-three percent. And the east panel’s… yeah, losing charge again. It dips below thirty, I lose the A/C circuit. Which means no airflow. And considering it’s been climbing ten degrees at dusk every cycle—”

She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to.

She looked up at the camera again, her gaze settling on it like she was seeing through it, not just into it.

For once, she wasn’t performing. She wasn’t trying to document for science, or for protocol, or even for the off chance some bureaucrat in a clean uniform might review the footage someday. She was talking like the way people do in the dark, to themselves, when they need to say something out loud just to believe it.

“I know no one’s watching this live. Not anymore. I stopped pinging outgoing signals after the relay failed on Sol 117. Probably should’ve done it sooner. No point wasting power on a message no one’s receiving.”

Her voice caught, just a little, but she pushed through it.

“I know it’s all getting logged somewhere. Maybe. If the system hasn’t corrupted yet. Maybe it’s already lost. Maybe this is just talking into the void.”

She shrugged faintly, the gesture brittle.

“But if you’re watching this someday... if you’re here, and you found this place—first off, congrats. You made it farther than anyone ever expected.”

She hesitated. Her gaze drifted toward the speaker again, where the music was cycling into another track—something fast, with horns, absurdly upbeat.

“And second... turn the music off. Please.” Her smile was thin, cracked at the corners. “Do that one thing for me.”

She didn’t laugh. It was too dry for that. But something about the absurdity, about the sheer persistence of disco as a background to slow starvation, made her eyes crease with irony.

“Seriously,” she said. “You survive a crash. A storm. A breach. You figure out how to repurpose three dead batteries and a solar sled with two legs and a dream. And your reward? Is nonstop seventies dance hits and a broken coffee machine. Just... poetic.”

The camera light continued to blink, silent and impassive.

Y/N leaned forward slightly, fingers brushing the panel beside the lens. Her expression didn’t shift much, but her eyes lingered.

“I don’t want to die here,” she said finally, her voice low. Steady. “But if I do... just let it mean something. Let it matter. Not in the reports. Not in the mission logs. Just... to someone.”

She hovered there a moment longer. Like part of her still thought maybe—maybe—someone was out there watching. That someone might say something back.

No voice answered.

She reached out and tapped the switch.

The camera blinked off.

The silence that followed felt heavier than it should have. Not total, not complete—disco still played, faint and fuzzy through the corner speaker. But it no longer had anything to talk over.

Outside, the wind moved across the open plain, dry and sharp, dragging the planet’s endless red dust in slow waves across the wreckage.

Inside, Y/N pulled herself to her feet with a small grunt. She cracked her neck, wiped her palms on her thighs, and moved toward the power grid diagnostics. Her fingers worked on autopilot, adjusting output thresholds, checking the panel logs, splicing a broken wire.

The work was hard. The air was thin. The gravity pulled harder every day.

But she did it anyway, because surviving wasn’t something you did all at once. It was something you did a little at a time.

And that was exactly what she did.

Y/N sat hunched over the workstation, elbows braced, head bowed, the soft mechanical hum of the Hab wrapping around her like a half-remembered song. It was the kind of ambient noise you stopped noticing after the first few days—until it changed. And then, you couldn’t unnotice it. Every now and then, a subtle click or muted groan would echo through the walls. Nothing critical, according to the diagnostics, just thermal shifts or aging components settling in their housings. Still, every sound tightened her chest for half a second, her eyes darting upward, ears straining. Alone out here, you learned to take every anomaly personally.

Outside the small viewport, M6-117 lay still and inhospitable. Just more of the same: a rust-colored expanse, baked flat and cracked like old pottery, broken only by distant ridgelines that shimmered faintly in the perpetual twilight. The sun didn’t really set on this planet—it dimmed, sulked low, and hovered just below the edge of the horizon in a long, bruised dusk. The sky was always the color of dried blood.

She rubbed the side of her head, trying to ease the throb pulsing just behind her right eye. The recycled air was running too dry again. She could taste it—metallic, sand-scrubbed, stale. The CO₂ scrubber was overdue for recalibration, but she didn’t have the right calibration beacon anymore. It had corroded, probably during the last atmospheric pressure swing. So instead, she rationed deeper breaths and kept going.

On the desk before her, a battered old map lay flat beneath two metal clips. She'd found it weeks ago, buried in the remains of a modular crate in the collapsed outpost 11.3 kilometers south. Miraculously intact. The paper was faded and fragile—yellowed along the folds, edges torn like old lace—but the lines were still there, hand-drawn in black ink: contour lines, elevation notations, faint topographic notes in a steady, meticulous script. Whoever made it had cared. Had known this land in a way she still couldn’t.

Her fingertip traced a route from her current position—just north of the crater shelf—toward the ridge to the east. The terrain didn’t look too bad on paper. But out here, paper didn’t always mean much. The ground was deceptive. Soil crusts looked solid until they weren’t. The wind could strip visibility to nothing in seconds.

Her other hand flipped open the small, leather-bound notebook she carried with her everywhere. The pages were crammed with field data: raw numbers, scribbled gear checks, half-legible sketches of terrain and stars, and messy calculations that had been corrected and overwritten a dozen times. It looked more like the workings of a mind unspooling than a logbook. Her handwriting, once neat and looping, had degraded into tight, utilitarian scratches.

She found a blank page and murmured under her breath, “Let’s try this again.”

The sound of her own voice startled her a little. It had been hours—maybe a day—since she’d spoken aloud. It was easier not to. Words hung around in empty rooms too long when no one was there to catch them.

“If I head east,” she said, pencil moving across the page, “should reach the base of the ridge in seven hours. Eight if the dust is soft again. Nine if I hit another sink pocket. Oxygen reserves—”

She did the math aloud, letting the numbers ground her.

“One tank, plus a quarter from the spare. No margin for a second night, not without overclocking the cooler again. Battery’s still inconsistent. Can’t trust the sled.”

She paused, glancing at the solar charging sled leaning half-dismantled against the wall. It had started losing efficiency after a microburst sandstorm two weeks ago, and she hadn’t yet figured out whether the issue was solar array degradation or a faulty power regulator. She’d tried bypassing the controller last night, but the patchwork wiring sparked too easily.

She scratched out a quick packing list on the edge of the page: oxygen tank, regulator, ration pouches, the repaired water canister, signal flares, analog compass, a pair of makeshift coolant bands she’d fashioned out of gel packs and copper wiring, and—if she could get it working—the sled.

Planning helped. It gave the hours shape, gave her something to press her thoughts into. Numbers didn’t lie. They didn’t shift when you weren’t looking, or twist on you like memory did. If the numbers worked, you had a chance. If not, you didn’t. Simple as that.

She leaned back, rubbing at the back of her neck. The collar of her undersuit itched with salt and static from the Hab’s dry air. She hadn't bothered to look in the mirror above the tiny sink station in days. She knew what she'd see—skin dulled by stress and recycled air, hair matted and wild, eyes too bright from too little sleep. Vanity was the first thing this planet had taken from her. She didn’t miss it.

Her gaze drifted back to the map. Near the bottom, half-obscured by age and sun-bleached discoloration, a name had been scrawled in faded ink: Rexlin Crest.

She whispered it out loud, just to hear it. “Rexlin Crest.”

It sounded like something out of an old explorer’s journal. Solid. Permanent. Like it had been here long before she arrived and would remain long after she was gone.

Her thumb brushed the paper’s brittle corner.

“Whoever you were,” she said softly, to the unseen hand that had drawn the lines before her, “you got to know this place. Maybe even beat it, for a while.”

She imagined someone else sitting here, maybe in the very same fold-out chair. Same hum of the air system. Same relentless sun through the viewport. Were they alone, too? Did they make it back? Or had the sandstorms swallowed them whole?

“I wish you’d left instructions,” she added, a faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

She leaned forward and began jotting again—exposure zones, possible shelter along the ridge, estimated elevation gain, minimum safe battery levels. It was half engineering, half superstition. But it filled the hours. And hours were the only thing left she could control.

Outside, the dimming sky dipped another half shade. Inside, the Hab’s shadows lengthened, stretching like tired limbs across the metal floor. This was always the hardest part of the day—the shift between false day and false night, when the silence didn’t just fill the room, but seemed to press against it.

She drew in a deep breath, held it, then slowly exhaled. One more note, small, in the bottom corner of the map:

Leave before the light shifts.

She closed the notebook carefully, fingertips lingering on the weathered cover. Then she folded the map along its deep creases, treating it like something sacred, and laid it down next to her gear. The fabric of the Hab rustled faintly as she moved. The cooling unit kicked into a new cycle behind her with a tired groan.

She stood, joints stiff, shoulders tight. Reached for her toolkit. Time to check the panel. The ridge wasn’t going anywhere—but if she wanted a shot at reaching it, she had to be ready when the light changed.

Outside, the landscape remained as it always was—still, brutal, and indifferent. M6-117 stretched outward in all directions like the surface of an open wound, cracked and scorched beneath the punishing glare of three pale suns. No clouds. No movement. Just an endless sprawl of rust-colored dust, broken occasionally by fractured stone or the bleached bones of abandoned equipment. The air shimmered faintly at the horizon where heat rose in silent waves, distorting the already-barren view into something dreamlike and unstable.

There was no wind today. Just heat. Dead heat—the kind that didn’t blow or shift or give you something to brace against. It simply was, sitting on the world like a weight, pressing down into your chest until breathing felt like work. The kind of heat that crawled under your skin and stayed there, baking you slowly from the inside out.

She stepped out into it anyway, ducking around the side of the habitat module with practiced caution. Her boots crunched over sun-baked soil, each step kicking up a faint puff of red dust that drifted lazily before settling again. Even that small motion was enough to start sweat rolling down her back, sticking her shirt to her spine. Her limbs felt heavy. Gravity here wasn’t much higher than Earth’s, just enough to matter. Enough to remind her that everything—every task, every movement, every breath—took a little more than it used to.

She made her way toward the east solar panel, squinting against the glare as she approached. It wasn’t broken—if it had been, she’d already be dead—but it was underperforming. Again. Dust built up too quickly. Static charge in the atmosphere made it cling like ash. She brushed it away with slow, circular strokes of a microfiber rag, then crouched to check the diagnostic panel. Her fingers hesitated a moment above the interface before she keyed in the recalibration code. The converter was still lagging on transfer rates. Not much. But enough to matter over time. Everything out here was a slow bleed—energy, oxygen, patience.

When she was done, she stood slowly, wiping the sweat from her brow with the crook of her arm. Her sleeves were crusted with salt. She paused for a moment, letting her eyes sweep the horizon. Still no movement. Still no sound, except for the occasional creak of thermal expansion from the Hab behind her. M6-117 wasn’t hostile, exactly. It didn’t try to kill you. That would imply intent. The truth was worse—it simply didn’t care. You could live, die, scream into the dust until your voice broke. The planet would stay exactly as it was. Unchanged. Unbothered.

Back inside, she sealed the hatch and let the air cycle through the filters. Not that it helped much. The interior of the Hab was hot and stale, thick with the scent of sun-baked plastics, dried sweat, and decaying soil packs long past viability. She shrugged off her jacket and dropped it over the back of the chair before sinking into it, the old cushion wheezing faintly under her weight. Her body ached in that deep, marrow-level way that came from living on a world that didn’t want her.

The map was still open on the desk, just where she’d left it. Paper warped slightly from the ambient humidity, corners curling upward like they were trying to peel away from the surface. Her gaze drifted across the hand-drawn contours, finally settling on a single label: Sundermere Basin.

A crater. Large. Deep. Possibly ancient. It was one of the few locations flagged for potential hydrological activity back before the surveys were abandoned. Some even believed it once held standing water—maybe briefly, maybe seasonally. She didn’t know. No one ever finished the scans. Budget cuts, changing priorities. Then silence.

She leaned back, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying to push away the growing pressure behind them. It didn’t help. Nothing helped anymore. She rolled her head, neck cracking, and turned slowly toward the small camera perched above the workstation. The red light was still on, but she had no way of knowing if it meant anything—if the logs were storing, if the system was even linked to a satellite that still functioned. If the storage drive had corrupted two weeks ago, she could be speaking into a void.

Didn’t matter. Speaking helped.

She cleared her throat, voice rough and low from disuse. “Alright,” she said. “Time to start thinking long-term.”

She looked back at the map, her finger tracing slowly across the crumpled surface to a point just past the eastern ridge. Her touch was deliberate, like she needed the tactile sensation to make it real.

“Next NOSA pass is Helion Nexus. It’s scheduled to run a survey arc through this sector on its way to Taurus One.” She tapped the crater. “This is the basin. It’s thirty-two hundred kilometers away. Give or take.”

The number hung there. It wasn’t just a measurement. It was a judgment. A reminder of the scale of her isolation. Of the odds.

“Presupply missions are already underway,” she continued. “Which means a Sandcat unit should be there by now. Sitting tight. Synthesizing fuel. That’s the pattern—establish the route, prep the surface, load the caches before the main ship swings through. If it all goes well, they’ll start feasibility studies for a permanent outpost.”

She went quiet for a moment, eyes fixed on the crater.

“That’s my shot.”

Her voice dropped.

“If I can get there—if I can leave a signal, something visible, big enough to catch on orbital imaging... maybe they’ll realize someone’s still alive down here. Maybe they’ll come back.”

Her finger hovered above the basin on the map—just a moment longer—then pulled back. No decision was ever final out here, not until you started walking. She rolled her shoulder with a quiet wince and pushed up from the desk, joints stiff from hours of stillness.

In the far corner of the Hab, under a tarp stiff with dust, Speculor 1 lay half-buried in red grit. Its frame had caved slightly on one side after the last seismic tremor—a subtle one, barely noticeable at the time, but enough to shift the drone’s weight off its stabilizers. Now it sagged like a carcass, picked over and hollow. She’d stripped it weeks ago for parts—rotor assembly, drive stabilizer, the nav panel wiring—but she’d left the battery.

Because batteries were a pain in the ass to pull, and she hadn’t needed it. Until now.

She crouched beside it, letting her knees pop. Her legs protested the bend. The casing had expanded from heat cycles, and the bolts had gone stiff with corrosion. She ran her hand along the edge, feeling for weak points. The metal was hot, even in shadow, and rough with pitted oxidation. She grabbed the wrench from her belt, tested a bolt. It didn’t move.

“Of course,” she muttered.

She braced her foot against the frame and pulled. The bolt twitched—maybe a millimeter—but didn’t give. She exhaled, lips tight, and tried again.

It took her almost forty minutes. Not because the work was complicated, but because her hands kept slipping, blisters reopening under old calluses. Sweat dripped into her eyes, stung her skin, soaked the back of her shirt until the fabric clung like wet gauze. She didn’t yell. Didn’t swear loudly. Just let out the occasional breathy grunt of frustration. Anger took too much energy, and there was no one here to hear it.

When the battery finally came free, it did so with a groan of metal and a jolt that nearly knocked her off balance. She sat back on her heels, panting, the heavy unit cradled in her arms. Still warm from residual charge. Intact. She turned it gently, checking the leads.

Not ideal. But salvageable.

She stayed there for a minute, elbows resting on her knees, catching her breath. Her hands trembled slightly from exertion. Not fear—just tired nerves and low electrolytes. The battery was heavier than she remembered. Or maybe she was just weaker than she wanted to admit.

She looked over at Speculor 2—the only other drone with wheels still turning. It sat near the maintenance bench, hooked up to a cracked solar panel, the whole machine leaning slightly to the left like it had given up on holding itself level. But it powered on. Most days.

“Where the hell am I gonna fit this?” she muttered, dragging the battery toward it.

The movement kicked up a cloud of red dust that clung to her pants and got into the creases of her skin, even through the fabric. She coughed once, throat dry, and wiped her face with the inside of her sleeve. The battery landed with a dull thud beside the chassis of Speculor 2. She’d figure out the wiring tomorrow.

By the time the third sun dropped below the horizon, the sky had cooled from a harsh white to a dull bronze, then to gray. But the heat didn’t leave. Not really. It just shifted, pressing in lower, heavier. Like the planet was exhaling slowly, watching to see what she’d do next.

Inside, the Hab was quiet—only the low hum of the systems cycling and the faint rasp of dust against the outer hull. She sat again at the workstation, flipping a stained towel over her shoulders before leaning into the console. Her skin was raw from salt and grit. Her back ached. Her eyes burned.

She pressed record on the feed. The red light blinked to life. It was muscle memory now, not protocol. She hadn’t logged a formal report in days. Maybe longer. She didn’t even know if the feed was transmitting. Could be filling corrupted drive space, could be echoing out into dead silence.

Didn’t matter. Talking helped.

“Alright,” she said. Her voice came out scratchy, lower than usual. She cleared her throat, tried again. “Time for a reality check.”

She pointed to the map, where the basin was still circled in smudged graphite.

“Problem A: both Speculors were built for short-range runs. Recon missions. Surface scouting. Thirty-five kilometers max before recharge. Maybe thirty-seven if the slope’s good and the wind isn’t punching me in the teeth.”

She raised one finger.

“Problem B.” Another finger. “The basin’s just over thirty-two hundred klicks away. That’s... fifty days, give or take, assuming nothing breaks and I don’t drop dead in the middle of nowhere. I’ll be living in the Speculor. Eating, sleeping, breathing in something the size of a food truck. Life support in that thing is a joke. Maybe twelve hours of clean air if I run it lean. One day if I’m lucky.”

She paused, then gave a dry laugh. It barely registered in the room.

“Problem C...” She held up a third finger. “If I don’t re-establish contact with NOSA, none of this matters. I could hike all the way there, build the biggest damn signal tower on the planet, and no one will even know to look. They’ll fly right past. Too high. Too fast. And I’ll be just another piece of debris down here.”

She dropped her hand, rubbing her eyes. Her vision swam briefly—fatigue or dehydration or both. The light from the screen painted the side of her face in a sterile blue glow. It made her skin look thinner than it used to.

“So,” she said finally. “Overwhelming odds. Minimal gear. Rations running low. Life support at half-capacity. No comms. No backup. And I’ve got one ride held together with salvaged screws and electrical tape.”

She stared at the screen. Her reflection hovered faintly there—sunburned, sharp-jawed, eyes sunken from sleep deprivation. Hair tied back in a rough knot, wild at the edges. She didn’t look like a hero. She looked like someone surviving one day at a time.

She smiled—barely—and it cracked her lip.

“I’m gonna have to figure this out,” she said, voice quiet now. “No one’s coming to save me. So I’m gonna have to save myself.”

She hesitated, then nodded once to herself.

“Let’s hope Helion Prime’s tuition wasn’t a waste.”

She reached forward and ended the feed. The screen went black. The silence filled the room again—settling in the corners, humming through the walls. Out here, even silence had weight.

The next day unfolded in fragments—sweat-slicked hours, bruised knuckles, half-coherent muttering. A blur of motion stitched together by urgency and the dull ache of too little sleep. She moved on autopilot, her thoughts always two steps behind her hands, like her brain was being dragged along by the sheer momentum of necessity.

The first sun hadn’t fully cleared the jagged horizon when she was already outside, kneeling beside Speculor-2. The rover's shadow stretched long across the cracked dirt of Virelia Planitia, thin and sharp in the early light. Her fingers were stiff from the cold night, trembling faintly as she tightened the final brace holding the new power core in place.

The rig was a mess. A Frankenstein hybrid of salvaged components and wishful thinking. The battery from Speculor-1—ripped from its corroded chassis the day before—had taken nearly all her strength to move. She’d hoisted it onto the frame with gritted teeth and every ounce of leverage she could muster, her arms shaking from the effort. The thing wasn't designed for this kind of integration. It sat like a tumor on the side of the rover, cables sprawling out like veins, half of them stripped and re-soldered under poor lighting with tools that had started to wear down months ago.

She’d fashioned a harness to hold it in place—carbonfiber strapping from the remains of a collapsible cargo rack, lengths of shock cord cut from an old deployable tent, and a few tension hooks she’d yanked from her spare EVA gear. It wasn’t pretty. The whole thing groaned and flexed when the rover shifted even slightly, like it resented being alive.

“Stay put,” she muttered, adjusting one of the final tension straps. Her voice was hoarse, not from emotion, just disuse and dust. “Seriously, just... stay.”

She pressed a knee to the rover’s side to brace herself as she pulled the strap tight, fingers slipping against grit-caked metal. The battery shifted again. She swore under her breath, louder this time, a raw edge sneaking into her tone.

The wind was picking up—dry, abrasive, and sharp at the edges. It rolled across the plain without mercy, lifting trails of dust that swirled around her boots and vanished before they went far. The air here had no moisture, no softness. It scoured.

By late afternoon, her knuckles were scraped raw, and the sun had climbed to its punishing apex—one of three that would cross overhead before the sky dimmed. Heat radiated off the rover in shimmering waves. Her shirt clung to her back, soaked through, and her lips were cracked from breathing through her mouth too long. But she kept going. Adjust. Recheck. Re-secure.

When she finally cinched the last strap into place, the sun had already begun its slow descent toward the western ridge, and the second sun’s orange glare had started to stretch the shadows thin again. Her fingers twitched with fatigue as she stepped back, watching the way the harness held. The load sagged a little on the left side. One of the bolts bowed slightly under pressure.

Not ideal. Not even close. But it was holding.

“For now,” she murmured.

She reached out and patted the side of the rover—more instinct than comfort—and let her hand drop to her thigh with a sigh. “Ugly little bastard. But you better run.”

The cabin was hot when she climbed in. Heat trapped inside all day had turned the interior into an oven. She sank into the pilot seat, the worn padding creaking beneath her, and braced her forearm on the side console as she powered it up. There was a long, silent beat where nothing happened—then the interface flickered to life, dim and uneven. The main screen coughed out a few lines of static before stabilizing. A soft mechanical hum kicked in. The motors weren’t exactly happy, but they were responding.

“Come on,” she whispered, coaxing the throttle forward.

Speculor-2 jerked like it had been startled awake, lurching forward with a sudden, uneven groan. The wheels rolled—then caught, then rolled again. One of the rear stabilizers squealed in protest. The entire chassis shuddered under the added weight of the rigged battery. But it moved.

It moved.

She clenched the steering grip, steadying the throttle as the rover crept forward across the flat plain, carving a slow path through the red dust. Every jolt sent a new symphony of rattles through the hull—loose bolts, worn bearings, stress fractures singing in metallic protest. She listened closely, eyes narrowed, memorizing each sound. Anything unfamiliar could be a warning.

But the battery held. The patched-in solar array, still streaked with fine dust despite two cleanings, managed to feed just enough power to keep the system balanced. The charge monitor bounced around like it couldn’t make up its mind, but it didn’t dip below the red.

No grace. No stability. But forward was forward.

A thin smile ghosted across her lips. Not triumph—there was nothing glorious about barely functioning equipment and jury-rigged systems—but it was momentum. And in a place like this, that was as good as hope.

Later that evening, after she'd parked the Speculor under its tarp and run another systems check just to be sure, Y/N walked the half-kilometer out to the crash site.

The wreckage had settled into the dirt like it belonged there now—like the planet had accepted it as part of the terrain. The ship’s hull, once white, was sun-bleached to a dull bone color, panels curled back like torn paper. Most of it had been stripped, either by her own hands or the wind. Scorch marks painted the ground around it, long since faded into rust-stained soil.

She didn’t go there often anymore. Not because it was dangerous. Just because it meant something—and meaning was heavier to carry than tools.

Still, some days, when the horizon felt too wide and the Hab walls too close, she came out here. Not to mourn. Just to remember what it felt like to have been someone else.

She sat on a slanted piece of hull that still had a little give under her weight. The heat from the metal bled through her pants. Her boots scraped at the dirt, and for a while she just watched the sky deepen from orange to a bruised violet, then finally into that strange navy-black that came before the second and third suns disappeared completely.

Once it was dim enough, she pulled the laptop from her pack and propped it against the bent edge of the hull. The screen flickered to life—slowly, with a faint whine from the boot-up cycle. She'd almost cried the first time she got it running again, weeks ago. Maybe she had. It had been dead weight until she repaired the charge ports, using copper wire and a tweezed fragment of circuit board from a defunct comms unit.

The power came from a cluster of solar panels she’d scavenged from the abandoned settlement ten kilometers south. Hauling them back had taken three full days. Fixing them had taken ten more. Half the cells were cracked or warped, the regulators burned out, the housing warped from heat exposure. She wasn't even sure how she’d managed to make it work. Some of it had been trial-and-error. A lot of cursing. A few sparks. But it held charge now, enough to trickle into the battery bank and bring dead things back to life.

Like this.

She tapped through a few folders, fingers moving carefully over the half-working keyboard, until she found the show she'd been watching in scattered fragments—Star Trek: Voyager. She pressed play.

The familiar theme filled the air through tinny speakers, the orchestral swell strange against the wind-hiss of M6-117. The sound wasn’t great, but it was enough. She leaned back against the wreckage, pulling her knees up, and watched Captain Janeway lead her crew toward another impossible decision.

“Try commanding a starship on four hours of sleep and a protein bar, lady,” Y/N muttered, half-amused. Her voice cracked dryly at the edges, and she swallowed, reaching into her pack.

Dinner was half a ration pack—lukewarm reconstituted noodles and synthetic soy crumble that smelled vaguely like salt and old rubber. The texture was off, as always. Too soft in places, too dry in others, like someone had tried to guess what food was supposed to feel like and missed by a few critical steps. She forced herself to take slow, mechanical bites, chewing each one longer than she needed to.

Her stomach wasn’t making this easy anymore. It had started pushing back over the last few weeks—tighter, more volatile. There were mornings when even water sat wrong, heavy like ballast. She didn't have a fever, and the diagnostics hadn't flagged anything catastrophic. But she could feel the change. Fewer calories going in. Less energy coming out.

She could see it in her body now, too. The way her suit gaped slightly at the hips, where the seal used to be snug. The hollowness in her face when she caught an accidental glimpse of herself in the corner of a screen. Not thin in the graceful, movie-star way. Just diminished. Like something carved down over time.

She set the food aside, half-finished, and pulled up her shirt, squinting down at her side in the low light. The scar was still there—prominent and angry-looking even now, though the skin had flattened some. It curved beneath her ribcage, a long, uneven slash she’d stitched herself in a feverish haze after a jagged piece of support strut caught her during the initial crash. It wasn’t pretty. The lines weren’t straight. The knots were uneven. But it had held. No infection. No rupture. The skin had taken to itself again.

She ran two fingers over the edge of it. The flesh was still tender in the cold, the nerves tingling oddly when she pressed too hard.

“That’s healing,” she said to no one, voice low and scratchy. “Kind of.”

She let the shirt fall back down and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, palms running slowly through what was left of her hair.

It wasn’t much.

She’d tried to salvage it in the early days after the explosion. Most of her eyebrows had vanished in the flash. So had a palm-sized patch of scalp near the crown of her head, and the smell of burning hair had haunted the Hab for weeks after. She’d used her utility scissors to cut away the worst of it—everything charred or melted or singed down to the root. What remained was jagged, uneven, and brutally short. It didn’t lie flat. It didn’t style. It just existed. A mess of stubborn strands over pink skin, some of which she wasn’t sure would ever grow back.

She hated it. She looked like a scarecrow.

She scratched absently at her thigh, grimacing as coarse body hair caught against her nails.

“What genius decided razors were against regs?” she muttered, mostly out of habit.

Her legs were a thicket now. Her arms too. Every inch of her seemed to have sprouted an extra layer of insulation in protest of her hygiene situation. She felt like a mossy rock.

She sighed, rubbing her eyes. “I’m one inch away from full Sasquatch.”

It made her think of Aunt Rose, who used to offer to wax her legs in the kitchen while they watched cooking shows. And Uncle Sean, who’d just laugh and ruffle her hair and say, “Body hair’s normal, French Fry. You want to look like a seal, that’s your business, but you don’t have to.”

They were good to her. Always had been. Steady. Quietly dependable in the way that mattered.

She hadn’t thought about them much in the first month. There’d been no room for it—every second had been triage, assessment, raw survival. But now that the routine had calcified into something functional, their faces came back more often. Sometimes sharp. Sometimes like shadows through frosted glass. She wondered what they thought. If they still hoped. Or if she was just a ghost to them now—an old photograph with a candle beside it.

She picked up the food pack again, poked at the congealed noodles, then sealed it up and shoved it back into the storage bin. Her appetite had already checked out.

The episode of Voyager finished in the background. She didn’t look up as the credits rolled. She just sat there in the fading light, the glow from her laptop screen painting faint blue lines across the jagged piece of ship hull she’d made into a bench.

Above her, the stars were starting to break through the dark, scattering wide across the planet’s quiet sky. Most of them were unfamiliar, sharp and small and cold. But one or two... maybe. Maybe they were part of the same sky she used to look at from her aunt’s back porch, drinking tea with her feet up on the rail, the dogs barking at shadows.

She hadn’t cried in weeks. Maybe longer. There came a point where your body conserved water the same way it conserved power. You just stopped trying to let anything out unless it was essential.

But she felt the ache behind her ribs anyway. The shape of a feeling too big to hold and too vague to name.

Eventually, she shut the laptop, packed it carefully back into its sleeve, and stood. Her knees cracked as she straightened, and her lower back screamed in quiet protest. She adjusted the scarf around her head—not out of vanity, just to keep the dust from settling in the still-healing patches—and started the slow walk back to the Hab.

Each step left a deep print in the soil behind her, but the wind would smooth those out by morning. Nothing lasted out here. Not even footprints.

Inside the Hab, it was quiet—the kind of quiet that wasn’t really silence but the low, constant hum of life support systems doing their best to impersonate normalcy. Fans cycled air through tired filters. The waste processor made a dull clicking sound every thirty seconds. Somewhere behind the walls, a motor groaned softly as it adjusted temperature output for the night. It was familiar, if not exactly comforting.

Y/N moved slowly, her boots whispering across the metal floor. The overhead lights were set to 20%—just enough to see by, not enough to strain the system. Her muscles ached with that heavy, systemic fatigue that never fully left anymore. It lived in her bones now. She paused to stretch her lower back before settling into the chair at the workstation.

The console screen flickered to life under her fingers, casting a cool blue light across her face. The reflection that looked back at her from the glass was... hard to recognize. Her cheeks were hollowed out, skin raw in places from sun exposure. The bridge of her nose and both temples had started peeling again, the result of another week spent outside under UV levels that would’ve made Earth’s OSHA teams scream. The synthetic lotion in the medkit was nearly gone. She was rationing that, too.

She leaned back in the chair, staring at the blinking red light on the camera.

Routine. Just another status update. She told herself it mattered. Maybe not to anyone watching—if anyone was watching—but to her. Keeping the habit meant something. It created shape in the otherwise formless days.

She adjusted her posture, cleared her throat, and pressed the record button.

For a few seconds, she didn’t speak. She just sat there, fingers laced in her lap, jaw tight. Then, quietly, she muttered, “You’re still talking to yourself, Fry. Not exactly the behavior of someone thriving.”

Her mouth curved, almost involuntarily—a crooked smile that looked more like memory than mirth. It didn’t last long.

She exhaled slowly and glanced down at the table, collecting her thoughts before bringing her gaze back up to the camera.

“Status update. Night 87. I think.” Her voice was hoarse, dry at the edges, but steady. “I’ve managed to extend the Speculor-2 battery duration by about 65 percent by wiring in the power cell from Speculor-1. It wasn’t clean. None of the mounts matched, the leads were corroded, and the charge regulator had to be… mostly invented. But it’s holding.”

She paused, running the back of her hand across her mouth, then winced when it scraped against cracked lips.

“Downside is the thermal exchange. Running the internal cooler now drains half the extra power I gained. Every cycle.” She looked away, toward the corner where the cooler’s fan ticked unevenly. “If I use it, the system runs hot but safe. If I don’t… the cabin gets hot enough to start soft-cooking me by hour thirteen.”

A beat passed.

“I mean, it's not an immediate problem. I won’t roast in my sleep or anything. But it’s going to get ugly if we’re dealing with consecutive heat days and I’m trying to recharge at the same time.”

Her tone had flattened, practical now. She was just stating facts. That’s what this had become—an endless balancing act of systems management, each choice eroding something else.

“Speculor-1’s gone,” she added, more softly. “I stripped the last viable parts this morning. I left the frame propped against the comms array, like a monument to engineering failure.”

She gave a weak snort, then coughed again, one hand bracing against the table as she waited for the tightness in her chest to ease. Her breathing had been getting shallower. Not dangerously so, just... noticeable.

She reached for her water ration without thinking but stopped halfway, hand hovering over the canister.

Too soon.

She let it drop back to her lap.

“Saving that for tomorrow. If the panels charge well enough overnight, I’ll allow myself a full sip. Maybe even warm it. Celebration-style.”

Her lips twisted in something like a smile, but it never reached her eyes.

She sat still for a long time after the log ended, her hands folded loosely in her lap, eyes unfocused. The hum of the Hab filled the silence around her—a low, rhythmic pulse of recycled air, processor clicks, the faint ticking of heat exchange coils trying to keep everything within the margins of survivability. Background noise, constant and impersonal, like the slow breathing of a machine too tired to do much else.

There was always grit on her skin now. A fine layer of dust that got into everything no matter how careful she was. It settled into the folds of her elbows, clung behind her ears, made her scalp itch even under the scarf. She’d stopped trying to scrub it off completely—there wasn’t enough water for that kind of luxury. She just managed it. Like everything else.

She leaned forward, elbows on the edge of the desk, and stared into the dead console screen. Her own faint reflection looked back—blurred, colorless, a sketch of a face half-swallowed by the glass.

And, not for the log, not for the record, just quietly, like saying it aloud made it feel more real, she said, “I miss hot water.”

She closed her eyes briefly, picturing it—steam rising from a shower stall, the sting of water too hot on cold skin, the way your shoulders drop when it hits just right.

“And cold fruit,” she added, her voice barely more than a breath. “Like, right-out-of-the-fridge cold. Cherries. Grapes. That sound they make when you bite down.”

Her throat tightened for a moment, unexpected.

“And I miss showers where your skin doesn’t come off with the towel,” she finished, trying to laugh but not quite making it. It came out as a rough sound, not bitter exactly, just dry.

There was a long pause. Then, quieter still:

“I miss people who answer back.”

She let that hang there. Not dramatic. Just true.

Her hand hovered over the stop button, thumb resting against the worn edge of the key. She hesitated, then pressed it.

The little red light blinked out, and the screen dimmed.

For a moment, she stayed where she was. The seat creaked as she shifted her weight, the movement small and deliberate, like even gravity had become something to negotiate. Finally, she pushed back from the workstation and stood, careful not to knock into the table or clip her hip against the nearby crate. Everything in the Hab had its place. Every inch was accounted for. You learned quickly not to waste space—or motion.

She made her way toward the back, her steps slow, the floor groaning faintly under her boots. The cot was wedged between the emergency stores and the last of the sealed rations. The mattress was thin, uneven, and smelled faintly of rubber and something sour she couldn’t identify anymore. But it was where she slept. Where she rested, anyway.

Sleep was a loose term these days. There were hours when her body shut down, yes, but real sleep—the kind that left you rested, unaware of time passing—that had become rare. Now it was more like dipping in and out of a shallow tide. Just enough to stop the worst of the fraying.

She sat on the edge of the cot and pulled off her boots with slow, practiced movements. Her socks were stiff with sweat and dust. She peeled them away and flexed her toes, wincing as the skin pulled against cracked patches along her heels.

When she finally lay back, it was with a low groan, her spine clicking against the pad as she shifted to find the least uncomfortable position. One arm rested across her stomach, her fingers drifting automatically to the line of the scar that curved beneath her ribs. The skin there was firm but raised, the texture different from the rest of her. She rubbed it absently with her thumb.

Another part of her patched together with whatever was on hand.

She stared up at the ceiling, where she’d memorized the path of every exposed wire and panel line weeks ago. Her eyes traced them now, one by one, like a bedtime ritual. It gave her something to follow. Something that stayed the same when everything else was falling apart.

Outside, the wind started to pick up, a soft scrape of dust brushing against the outer shell of the Hab. It sounded like fingertips across the hull. Like something just barely there.

She didn’t close her eyes for a long time.

When she finally did, it wasn’t sleep that took her—at least not at first. Just stillness. Just a pause between one breath and the next.

And eventually—after five hours of turning, thinking, listening—her body gave in.

And she slept. 

The next morning, she drove.

The speculor's suspension jolted her in waves, the frame creaking with each dip and shift across the uneven terrain. The windscreen was streaked with red dust and micro-abrasions that caught the light, scattering it in soft bursts of glare that made her squint. She blinked behind scratched goggles, trying to keep her eyes on the faint path she’d plotted three days earlier.

The red plains of Virelia stretched out in all directions, an endless, cracked expanse of oxidized clay and powdered iron. Everything was sun-bleached and raw. The land had a scabbed-over look, like it had once been wounded, and then just… never healed. Every kilometer looked like the last. Monotony baked under three suns, broken only by the slow crawl of the rover and the faint, rhythmic thrum of its motor.

Speculor-2 groaned and bucked over a rocky patch. One of the stabilizers complained—a metal-on-metal screech that made her wince—but the system recovered. She tapped the console gently, like soothing a skittish animal.

“Easy,” she said, voice raspy with dust and disuse. “One piece at a time.”

The only other sounds were the distant pop of heat-stressed metal and the occasional whisper of wind dragging itself across the dry ground. It wasn’t silence, not quite. Just the kind of quiet that made every small noise feel bigger.

She’d been driving since before first light, watching the stars fade out one by one until the sky turned that strange pale gold that passed for morning here. Now, sometime before local noon, with the second sun beginning to crest, she spotted something.

A flicker. A flash of color on the ridge ahead.

She blinked and sat forward, eyes narrowing. At first, she thought it might be a trick of the light. A lens flare. But the shape held as she got closer—sharp-edged and irregular against the clean lines of the hill. Not natural.

She stopped the rover at the base of the rise, letting the engine idle as she stepped out, boots landing in the soft dirt with a puff of dust. Her knees cracked when she stretched. Every joint in her body reminded her how little rest she’d had, how little fuel she’d been feeding it. She ignored it.

The shovel came off the gear mount with a soft click, slung over one shoulder like second nature. The climb wasn’t far, maybe twenty meters of loose gravel and packed sand, but by the time she reached the top her thighs were burning, her breath coming in short, dry pulls.

There it was.

A flag.

Faded almost to gray, the edges torn and flapping weakly in the breeze. It was anchored into a low mound of hardened earth. Not part of any official outpost, at least not one she recognized. But unmistakably human. Fabric didn’t just appear out here.

Her chest tightened—not in fear, but something adjacent. Something closer to proof. She hadn’t seen a sign of another person in over three weeks. Not since she left the crater rim and started moving inland. She knelt beside the mound and reached into the pouch on her belt, pulling out the small, battered cam recorder and clicking it on.

“Recording,” she said, more for the log than for herself.

The camera’s indicator light blinked green, steady.

She turned the lens to face her, sweat glistening on her brow, dust streaked across her scarf and cheeks.

“Good news,” she said, voice rough but lightened with something close to wry humor. “I may have found a solution to the cabin heat issue. It’ll require mild radiation exposure, one highly questionable engineering decision, and—if I’m remembering my protocols correctly—a violation of at least six interagency regulations.”

She turned the camera toward the flag and the mound it was planted in. Just below the surface, partially embedded in the soil, was a weather-sealed data tag.

She wiped it clean.

RTG: DO NOT EXHUME.

Her smile faded a little. That part wasn’t a surprise. She’d guessed it before she even climbed the hill.

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator. An old-style power source. Still warm. Still dangerous. Still working.

“I know, I know,” she muttered under her breath as she gripped the shovel with both hands. “‘Don’t dig up the big box of plutonium, Frenchie.’”

She hadn’t thought about that line in years.

It had come from her old heat systems instructor back during training, a no-nonsense ex-NASA engineer with a voice like gravel and no patience for theatrics. The man had stood at the front of the lecture hall with one hand on a scorched titanium shell and told the entire room, “You crack one of these open, you don’t get second chances. So unless you want your great-grandkids glowing in the dark, you leave it buried. Say it with me: Don’t. Dig. Up. The. Box.”

They’d laughed at the time.

Now, crouched on this godforsaken hill under a sun that never quite knew how to set, she wasn’t laughing.

She drove the blade of the shovel into the ground. The soil fought her. Hard-packed, sun-baked—more like concrete than dirt. She worked in a rhythm, short and precise, trying not to waste energy. But even with the right technique, it was brutal.

The first strike jarred up her arms. By the third, her shoulders burned. By the fifth, her elbows throbbed like she’d been lifting freight by hand. She ignored it. Kept digging. Sweat trickled down her spine beneath the base layer of her suit, pooling in the small of her back, sticky and irritating. Her hands ached inside the gloves. She was breathing hard now, each pull of air dry and metallic in her throat.

On the seventh strike, she heard it.

A dull, unmistakable thunk.

Her body stilled, shovel frozen in place. She crouched quickly, heart pounding in her ears, and set the tool aside. Carefully, deliberately, she brushed away the remaining dirt with both hands. The loose grit clung to her gloves, sticking in layers, but eventually a smooth surface came into view.

There it was.

Compact. Cylindrical. Still intact.

The casing of the RTG was streaked with heat scoring, but otherwise unblemished—no cracks, no corrosion, no obvious compromise. It looked almost new, like it had just been placed there yesterday instead of god knows how many years ago. The outer shell had a faint metallic sheen, broken only by tiny vents and the faint lettering along one edge, still visible through the dust.

It looked like the nose of a missile. Sleek. Purposeful. Designed for function, not comfort.

She crouched beside it, one hand resting on her knee, the other hovering inches from the surface. Her chest rose and fell in steady, shallow breaths. She didn’t touch it.

“RTGs,” she said quietly, more to herself than the camera now tucked into her chest rig, “are great for spacecraft. Reliable power, no moving parts. Efficient thermal conversion. And if they stay sealed, they’ll run for decades.”

She paused.

“But if they crack…”

She didn’t need to say the rest.

There was a reason they buried these things when missions went sideways. A reason they marked them with durable warning tags and logged the coordinates in deep-storage government databases.

Radiation leaks. Long-term exposure risk. Inhalation vectors. Cancer clusters. Soil contamination that lasts longer than recorded history.

She sat back on her heels, just looking at it.

“That’s probably why they marked it,” she murmured. “So some other unlucky asshole wouldn’t stumble across it and decide it looked useful.”

A short, dry laugh escaped her lips. It was closer to a cough than anything resembling amusement.

“So naturally,” she said, shaking her head, “here I am.”

She took a long breath, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. The silence stretched. The wind picked up slightly, just enough to stir the edges of the flag still fluttering weakly behind her.

“As long as I don’t break it,” she started to say, but then stopped herself. Her expression twisted. She looked down at the generator again.

She shook her head, muttering, “I was about to say, ‘everything will be fine.’ Jesus.”

The words sounded ridiculous even to her.

Fine had left the conversation weeks ago.

With one last breath, she leaned in, testing the RTG’s weight with both hands. It didn’t budge at first. The casing was half-set in packed dirt and clay, and whatever mounting system had once held it had partially fused with the soil. She braced her boots, adjusted her stance, and heaved.

It shifted—slightly.

Then more.

She worked at it in short bursts, alternating between shoveling out more earth and trying to lever the generator upward without putting too much strain on the shell. Every motion was deliberate, her eyes flicking constantly to the casing for signs of damage—any hairline crack, any hiss of escaping gas. Nothing. Just the soft scrape of metal against dirt and the strain of her own breath echoing inside her helmet.

When the RTG finally came loose from the earth, it shifted without warning.

She stumbled backward, almost losing her grip as the full weight of it landed in her arms. Forty kilos, maybe more. Compact, deceptively heavy—built that way on purpose. Layers of shielding, composite housing, enough thermal insulation to keep the core from turning a useful tool into a long-term death sentence.

Her boots slid slightly in the loose grit at the top of the hill. She bent her knees, catching the shift just in time, and steadied herself with a soft grunt. The muscles in her arms screamed in protest. Her lower back joined the chorus a few seconds later. She sucked in a breath and readjusted her grip, fingers aching through the gloves.

She didn’t say anything. Didn’t curse. Didn’t make a joke.

There wasn’t enough energy for that anymore.

Step by step, she started the descent.

The hill was steeper than she’d thought. Not a lot, but enough. The weight threw off her balance, every movement a negotiation between gravity and her own diminishing stamina. Her boots punched into the clay with each step, dust puffing up around her knees. The sun—two of the three now overhead—glared down with white intensity, stripping shadows, bleaching the world into dull, washed-out tones. The third sun was still climbing, pale and distant, but it would join the others soon enough.

Her breath rasped in her throat, shallow and fast. The heat inside the suit was building. Sweat pooled in the bend of her elbows, the back of her neck. Her cooling band had long since given up trying to regulate anything. She could feel the flush in her cheeks, the dizziness sitting just behind her eyes.

Don’t drop it.

She kept repeating that in her head.

Don’t drop it. Don’t trip. Don’t set it down too hard. Don’t jostle it. Don’t crack the casing. Don’t end your life in the middle of nowhere with your name on a future cautionary PowerPoint slide.

By the time she reached the base of the hill, her legs felt like rebar. Her hands were shaking. She staggered the last few meters to the rover and let the RTG down as gently as her body would allow, placing it on the reinforced cradle she’d rigged earlier—originally designed to hold water tanks, now hastily reinforced with struts, clamps, and a frankly insulting amount of duct tape.

She took a knee, head down, catching her breath. Her chest heaved. Her arms hung limp at her sides. A strand of hair, wet with sweat, stuck to her mouth and she blew it away, eyes closed.

When she finally climbed back into the driver’s seat, the heat inside the cabin hit her like a wall. She groaned softly and pushed the door closed behind her, sealing the oven shut.

The temperature inside was pushing into the red. The insulation helped, but not enough. Her shirt was gone—discarded somewhere on the rear bench an hour ago. Her undersuit clung to her in damp patches, soaked through. Her hair was plastered to her head in stringy clumps. Every breath she took tasted like metal, stale air, and dust. Her ribs ached from carrying the weight. Her hands were trembling again.

She sat behind the controls for a long moment, staring ahead through the sun-drenched windshield. The landscape beyond wavered in the heat—red plains shimmering, horizon pulsing faintly like the planet itself was breathing.

Her expression didn’t change.

Then, finally, she reached up and wiped her brow, flicking sweat off her fingers with a motion that was more ritual than relief.

“I’m still hot as hell,” she said, voice rough, barely louder than a whisper. “And yes… technically, I’m warmer now because I’ve just strapped a decaying radioactive isotope to my power cradle.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the cargo bay, at the shadowed outline of the RTG now secured in place.

“But honestly?” she said, facing forward again. “I’ve got bigger problems.”

She leaned toward the dashboard, opened the glovebox, and pulled out a small black data stick—Captain Marshall’s personal drive. The one she’d told herself she wouldn’t touch. Not unless things got really bad. Not unless she needed something—anything—to take the edge off the silence.

She slotted it into the console port with a faint click.

“I’ve gone through every file,” she muttered. “Scans. Reports. Debrief footage. Personal logs.”

She scrolled quickly, flicking past folder after folder.

“And this…”

She tapped on a music folder. Her brow furrowed.

“…is officially the least disco song he owns.”

She pressed play.

A moment later, the opening beats of Hot Stuff by Donna Summer burst through the cabin speakers—bright, bouncing, unapologetically alive.

She didn’t smile. Didn’t laugh. Her expression didn’t move at all. She just put both hands on the controls and started the rover forward, the electric whine of the motors joining the steady thump of bass.

Outside, the Hab shrank behind her, its white frame slowly swallowed by heat shimmer and distance, until it was just another shape in the desert.

The camera on the dash was still rolling, recording without commentary.

It caught her face, lit in flickering fragments—sunlight, dust, and 1979 optimism bouncing off the console.

She didn’t say another word.

She just kept going.

The satellite images scrolled slowly across the wide display at the front of the press room—high-resolution feeds pulled from a string of polar-orbiting relays. On screen, M6-117 stretched out in every direction, a vast red wasteland under three pale suns. In the middle of that emptiness, one small machine—Speculor-2—crawled forward, dragging a faint trail through the brittle dust behind it. The vehicle looked impossibly small. Fragile, even. But it moved with purpose.

In the rows of press seating, reporters leaned forward in their chairs. Some were scribbling notes, others just watching—expressions caught somewhere between fascination and dread. The silence was tense, broken only by the occasional click of a camera shutter or the low hum of tablet microphones still recording.

“Where exactly is she going?” someone finally asked—a woman near the front, eyes sharp behind rectangular glasses. Her voice carried the brittle edge of disbelief. “She’s… alone. That’s not protocol.”

Up on the small stage, Mateo sat behind a long table, facing the media. His posture was tight, both hands clasped together like he was bracing for impact. His suit, once crisp, now bore the signs of long nights—creases at the cuffs, tie knotted slightly off-center, dark shadows under his eyes. Behind him, a small display showed the current rover position and its trajectory plotted across the planet’s digital terrain.

Alice stood just off to the side, arms folded across a slim tablet, her stare fixed on Mateo with a kind of practiced intensity. He could feel her watching—waiting to jump in if he veered too far off-message.

Mateo cleared his throat. “We believe she’s conducting a series of long-range mobility tests,” he said. “She’s been extending the duration of each excursion, likely to assess rover endurance under load. We think she’s preparing for something longer.”

“To what end?” another reporter asked. “Why leave the habitat at all, if it’s functioning?”

Mateo exhaled slowly. “To re-establish contact. That’s our current assessment. We believe she’s aiming for the Helion Nexus pre-supply site—roughly 3,000 kilometers from her current location. That location would’ve had a reinforced communications relay. If she found the right maps in the nearby settlement... it makes sense.”

A pause followed. Then: “She’d risk her life to send a message?” The voice came from a CNN correspondent in the front row, skeptical and direct.

Mateo nodded. “That’s the problem she’s facing. She’s entirely alone. No signal. No uplink. From her perspective, we’re gone. Making contact isn’t just important—it might be the only way she survives.”

“But what would you tell her—if you could?” another reporter asked. “Keep going?”

Mateo hesitated, eyes flicking to Alice. She didn’t say anything. Just held his gaze for a moment. His voice was quieter when he answered.

“If we could talk to her, we’d tell her to stay put. We’d tell her help is coming. She just has to hold on.”

He paused again. Then added, “We’re doing everything in our power to bring her home alive.”

The room murmured. Pens scratched across paper. Someone whispered into a phone. Alice’s jaw clenched.

As soon as the cameras cut and the lights shifted, she was already moving—her heels sharp on the tile as she caught up with Venkat in the corridor outside the press room. Her voice was low, fast, and tight.

“Don’t say ‘bring her home alive,’” she hissed, eyes darting toward the passing cameras. “You’re reminding the world that she might die. That’s the opposite of what we’re trying to do.”

Venkat didn’t even slow down. “You think people forgot?”

“I think they didn’t need it underlined,” she snapped. “You asked me for notes, and I’m giving them to you. Mateo was… fine. ‘Meh,’ if I’m being honest. And yes, I am trying to make the world forget that there’s a very real chance Y/N Y/L/N is going to die alone on a dead rock. That’s my job.”

Venkat gave her a sideways glance. “A lot of conviction for a PR position.”

Alice rolled her eyes. “I’ve got two ex-husbands, both of whom I’m still paying alimony to, and neither of whom could hold down a job if it were duct-taped to their chests. Conviction is all I’ve got right now.”

“Hard to believe you walked away from either of them,” Venkat offered lightly.

She cut him a look sharp enough to leave a mark. “I left both of them. Don’t test me.”

They walked into the executive briefing room together. The mood inside was quiet but strained. Several department heads had already gathered—some flipping through reports, others just sitting, staring at the large monitor on the wall that still showed Y/N’s rover inching across the Martian plain.

Yoongi looked up from the head of the table as they entered. His face was unreadable, his posture relaxed but not at ease. He tapped a stylus against the table once, then again.

“Don’t say ‘bring her home alive,’” he said, voice dry. “Not helpful.”

Mateo dropped into the seat beside him with a sigh. “I know, I know. But I’m not a news anchor. You shove a mic in my face and expect precision, you’re gonna get a few stumbles.”

“No more Mateo on television,” Alice said from the doorway, making a quick note on her tablet. “Duly noted.”

Mateo opened his mouth to protest, but whatever he was about to say vanished when April entered, flanked by a junior aide and carrying a stack of printed briefings, slightly curled at the edges. She moved fast, a little out of breath, and started distributing the documents down the table.

“She’s seventy-six kilometers out,” Yoongi said, already flipping through the first page. “Tell me that’s a typo.”

April shook her head. “No, sir. It’s accurate. She drove out from the Hab in a straight line for almost two hours. Then stopped for an EVA—likely a battery change or cooling swap—and then kept going.”

“Seventy-six kilometers?” Creed said from the back of the room, chuckling. “Are we doing a father-daughter update now? Where’s the SatCon lead?”

“She is the lead,” Mateo replied, sharper than necessary. “April’s the one who found the first visual confirmation Y/N was alive. She’s running point on this.”

Alice shot Creed a glare that could've stripped paint.

“Just asking,” Creed muttered, holding up a hand.

Yoongi didn’t look up. “April. Is this another systems test?”

April hesitated, flipping through her own notes. “Possibly. But if something goes wrong that far out… she won’t make it back.”

The room went quiet.

Yoongi rubbed his eyes, jaw tight. “Did she load the Depressurizer? Or the Reclaimer?”

April shook her head slowly. “We… didn’t see that. Not in the window we had.”

Yoongi’s head snapped up. “What do you mean, you didn’t see it?”

“There’s a recurring satellite gap,” she explained quickly. “Every forty-one hours, we lose visual for seventeen minutes. It’s orbital. We’re adjusting for it, but that’s what we had.”

“Unacceptable,” Yoongi said flatly. “I want that gap down to four minutes. Less, if possible. Use every tool we have. Trajectory, relay orbit, blindspot hopping—whatever it takes.”

April blinked, surprised. “Uh—yes, sir. I’ll—yeah. I’ll get it done.”

Yoongi flipped another page in the brief, the paper whispering under his fingers. The room was quiet—oppressively so. The only background noise came from the low hum of the ceiling projector and the occasional creak of someone shifting in their chair.

Across the table, Alice stared at her notes but wasn’t reading them. Her lips were pressed into a thin line, her pen unmoving above the page. No one had spoken in over a minute.

On the wall, the satellite feed continued its slow, deliberate loop—Speculor-2 creeping across the surface of M6-117, a single tire track the only sign it had ever passed through.

Yoongi leaned back slightly in his chair, arms folded, eyes still fixed on the screen. He didn’t speak right away. When he did, his voice was quiet, almost conversational.

“Let’s assume she didn’t load the Depressurizer or the Reclaimer.”

A beat passed.

“She’s not headed to Helion Nexus yet. But she’s thinking about it. She knows that’s the only place with a shot at communication. Probably found the old nav data in the settlement ruins. She’s working up to it. Probing range. Testing reliability.”

He turned toward the far end of the table.

“Marco, what’s the earliest we could land a presupply package at the Nexus site?”

Marco Moneaux looked up slowly. The Jet Propulsion Lab director looked like hell—collar unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, eyes glassy from lack of sleep and too much caffeine. He ran a hand through his graying hair before answering.

“With current planetary alignment, launch windows are limited,” he said, voice raw. “Best-case, we’re looking at two years. That’s if everything goes right and we start building now. And construction alone would take at least twelve months.”

“Six,” Yoongi said, flatly.

Marco blinked. “That’s not how orbital mechanics work.”

“Six,” Yoongi repeated. “You’re going to tell me that’s impossible, and then I’m going to give you a stirring speech about the ingenuity of JPL and how lucky we are to have the best minds in the solar system. And then you’ll sit down with your team and start doing the math.”

Marco let out a slow breath, the kind that came from years of losing arguments that turned out to be winnable after all. “The overtime budget’s going to be a bloodbath.”

“I’ll find the money,” Yoongi said. “We just need the schedule.”

Across the room, Creed shifted, his arms crossed, jaw set tight. His usual smirk was gone.

“It’s time to tell the crew,” he said.

Mateo looked up sharply. “We agreed—”

“No,” Creed cut in. “You agreed. You talked, Alice nodded, and I didn’t have time to get a word in. But I’m telling you now: this is bullshit. One of them has a sister out there, and she’s alive and fighting, and they don’t know. That’s a hell of a thing to ask a crew to live with.”

“Her cousin needs to stay focused,” Mateo said carefully. “They all do. They’re still in descent planning. We tell them now, it’ll fracture everything.”

“They’re not robots,” Creed said, voice rising just slightly. “They’re not going to fold if we’re honest with them.”

“We’re not there yet,” Yoongi said, quiet but firm. “We tell them when we have something real. A trajectory. A payload manifest. A launch date. Until then, it’s just a burden.”

Creed leaned back in his chair, arms still folded. He didn’t look satisfied, but he didn’t argue again. Not yet.

At the head of the table, Yoongi turned back to Marco. “Six months.”

Marco gave a slow, resigned nod. “We’ll do our best.”

Yoongi didn’t look away. “Y/N dies if you don’t.”

No one spoke after that.

The Hab had started to feel more like a jungle than a research station.

Potatoes grew in every corner now—lined in shallow bins, sprouting from hacked-together troughs, wedged into plastic storage drawers with holes drilled in the sides for airflow. They clung to the walls in hanging bags of soil and insulation wrap, their leaves stretched greedily toward the panels of grow lights overhead. A dozen different containers buzzed with tiny pumps and improvised irrigation systems, everything patched together with old tubing, leftover fasteners, and a prayer.

It smelled like damp earth and warm plastic. Not unpleasant. Just persistent. Like the place had stopped pretending to be sterile.

Y/N knelt in the middle of the chaos, a serrated knife in one gloved hand, gently pulling a plant from its bin. She worked slowly, methodically, fingers careful not to damage the roots. Once it was free, she used the blade to slice through the clumped soil, separating the plant’s young potatoes from the main stem. Some were no bigger than a thumb. Others had grown fat and knobby, streaked with red dust and tangled with hair-thin roots.

She set the largest ones aside and began cutting the rest into seed pieces, each chunk still bearing one or two pale eyes. They’d go back into the soil in a few hours, restarted for another cycle.

She moved with practiced rhythm—precise, calm, almost ritualistic. These plants were the only reason she was still alive. There wasn’t room for mistakes anymore.

Across the room, the camera sat perched on its usual shelf, its red indicator light blinking patiently. She’d left it on standby for the last few days, waiting for something worth recording.

Wiping the back of her hand across her cheek, leaving a streak of dirt behind, Y/N stood, walked to the table, and hit the record button.

She perched on the edge of the workbench, still holding one of the potatoes in her hand. It was lumpy, coated in clingy soil, but she turned it slowly for the camera like it was something rare. Something fragile.

“It’s been about eighty sols since I started this mess,” she said. Her voice was steady but low, worn around the edges like fabric left out in the sun too long. “These guys were the first thing I planted once I stabilized the water filtration. They weren’t supposed to work this well.”

She gestured toward the rows of bins and hanging planters.

“I’ve got over four hundred healthy potato plants now. Not bad for emergency rations, right?”

A small, tired smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“The smaller ones go back into the soil,” she continued, holding up one of the cut seed pieces. “The bigger ones? That’s dinner. Or breakfast. Or lunch. Depends on when I remember to eat.”

She held up the full potato again, this time more like a toast. “Locally grown. All-natural. Organic, Hexundecian potatoes. Can’t say that every day.”

She let the potato drop gently onto the pile beside her, her expression sobering.

“But…”

Her voice trailed off, the weight behind the word doing most of the work. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, hands clasped loosely in front of her.

“None of this matters,” she said finally, “if I can’t make contact with NOSA.”

The sentence landed like a dropped tool—loud in the quiet room.

She stared at the lens for another beat, then clicked the feed off.

Turning back to the table, she swept the dirt aside with her forearm and unfurled one of the maps she’d been revisiting every day for the last week. The surface was creased and frayed, the ink faded in places, but the terrain lines were still visible, along with the handwritten notations she’d scrawled in the margins over the last few weeks.

The map wasn’t paper. It was synthetic weave, coated in resin. Durable. Meant to last.

She spread it out like a gambler laying down cards in the final round of a bad hand. She'd traced this same route twenty times. Calculated elevation gains. Wind direction. Potential shelter zones. Solar charge patterns.

None of it added up.

“Come on,” she muttered, fingers tapping the edge of the map. “There’s something I’m missing.”

She scanned the familiar routes, her eyes jumping between landmarks—Sundermere Basin, Ridgefall Bluff, the old survey trench near Solvent Crater. Her handwriting wove through the terrain like a nervous heartbeat.

And then she saw it.

Two small words, printed in faded ink near the bottom corner: Thessala Planitia.

She froze.

Her eyes locked onto the name, her whole body still for a moment as if afraid she might break the spell by breathing too loud. Then, slowly, she leaned in, her hand brushing across the label like she needed to confirm it was real.

“Thessala Planitia…”

The name echoed in her head.

Buried in one of the briefing files—early mission studies, pre-expansion data. There’d been a fallback relay planned there. A testbed for the old drone network. If anything was still intact…

She straightened, dragging the map closer, scanning the terrain for possible access routes. The soil there had been flat. Storms had hit it, sure, but the area was geologically stable. The signal loss might’ve just been a relay failure.

Her breath caught.

“I know what I’m gonna do,” she whispered, her voice sharper now—not confident, but charged with urgency.

She pushed off the table and grabbed the nearest notepad, sketching out a quick overlay. Her fingers moved fast, scrawling numbers, plotting arcs, connecting points across solar window charts and terrain profiles.

The plan wasn’t clean. It wasn’t safe. And it sure as hell wasn’t official.

But it was something.

And that was more than she’d had an hour ago.

She moved across the Hab in a blur, checking charge levels, opening storage crates, reviewing consumables. Her hands were shaking, but her movements were quick, practiced. The kind of urgency born from too many days of waiting for a sign and finally, finally getting one.

In the corner, the camera blinked back on, recording her again.

She didn’t notice.

She was already halfway to the rover.

April leaned forward over her console, elbows digging into the edge of the desk, her eyes fixed on the satellite feed streaming across her screen. A soft pulse of red sand flickered in the top corner—M6-117’s weather signature. Below it, the rover moved.

A tiny dot on a huge, empty map.

Speculor-2 crept along the surface like it was tracing the memory of a path no one else could see. The feed lagged every few frames—just enough to remind her how far out the signal had to travel. But the movement was steady. Deliberate. She watched it update, frame by frame.

“She’s moving again,” April called over her shoulder, her voice tight. Not alarmed. Just tense, like a violin string pulled one notch too far.

Mateo was already halfway across the floor by the time the words finished leaving her mouth. He didn’t bother with the usual preamble—just leaned over her shoulder, squinting at the data. His tie was askew again, and there was a faint shadow of stubble along his jaw. Sleep clearly hadn’t made the cut last night.

“Where the hell is she going?” he muttered, dragging a knuckle along the edge of the screen as if that would help clarify things. “She hasn’t deviated from her heading in almost two weeks. No course changes, no sign of instability… And now she just shifts south?”

April tapped in a few quick commands, the camera feed adjusting. The map zoomed out, giving them a wider view of the rover’s path—long, straight, precise. Until now.

“Maybe she’s rerouting around something,” April offered. “An obstruction, maybe? Subsurface instability?”

Mateo shook his head, eyes narrowing. “Out there? That whole stretch is Virelia Planitia. It’s flat as hell. No rock ridges, no sand traps, no canyon shelves. We scouted it top to bottom back in the ‘42 survey.”

He fell quiet mid-thought, his brow furrowing. Something flickered behind his eyes.

Then—without a word—he straightened.

“I need a map,” he said suddenly, already turning toward the door.

“What?” April stood quickly. “Wait—what kind of map?”

“A big one,” he called over his shoulder. “Topographical. Uncropped. Now.”

April followed, catching up as they exited the SatCon control room and made a sharp turn down the hallway. They pushed through the breakroom doors, startling a junior technician in the middle of stirring instant coffee. He blinked as they barreled past him.

On the wall behind the vending machines hung a poster-sized map of M6-117—glossy, tourist-style, with color-coded regions and labeled basins. A leftover from a team-building event. No one took it seriously.

Until now.

Mateo strode straight to it, yanked it off the hooks in one sharp motion, and laid it flat across the nearest table. The tech made a protesting noise behind them.

“I’ll replace it,” Mateo said distractedly. “Promise.”

He pulled a pen from his pocket—a half-dried Sharpie with a frayed tip—and clicked it with one hand while holding the map with the other.

April was already beside him. “Hab’s at thirty-one point two north, twenty-eight point five west.”

Mateo made a small black X on the map with a practiced flick. Then he traced a line with the side of the pen, dragging it along the same route they’d seen on the satellite feed—first the original heading, then the sudden veer south.

He paused. His hand stopped.

The pen hovered just above a name printed in small, faded text.

Thessala Planitia.

His expression changed.

He looked down at it for a moment, then stepped back from the table like it had spoken to him.

“I know where she’s going,” he said, and now there was a flicker of life in his voice—sharp, focused, like adrenaline had finally replaced exhaustion.

April leaned in, frowning. “Why there? It’s barely mentioned in the archives. Wasn’t that one of the early relay fields?”

Mateo was already walking again, muttering to himself.

“She found something,” he said. “Or she remembered something we forgot.”

“Mateo,” April called after him, “where are you going?”

“To requisition a vessel,” he said without looking back.

“Requisition a what?” she blinked.

But he was gone, disappearing through the far doors.

April stayed behind, staring down at the map on the table. The line he’d drawn still shimmered faintly with fresh ink, curving down toward the unexplored southern edge of the old communication corridor. For a moment, she just stood there, trying to piece it together.

Behind her, the technician finally spoke, still holding his coffee cup like he didn’t know whether to drink it or set it down.

“Who was he talking to?”

April didn’t look away from the map.

“I honestly don’t think he knows,” she said.

The suns were relentless.

All three of them hung high in the sky, casting the landscape in a harsh, overlapping glare that bleached the colors from everything and made the horizon shimmer like liquid glass. Heat rolled off the planet’s surface in thick, invisible waves, distorting the air above the red-gold earth. M6-117 didn’t just radiate warmth—it seethed with it, pulsing beneath the cracked crust like something alive and indifferent.

Speculor-2 crested a ridge slowly, its patched-together suspension groaning in protest with every dip and jolt. The frame rattled, bolts ticking against their housings, panels humming with vibration. A warning light flickered on the console and died again—just long enough to remind her that nothing in this machine was built to last this long, or go this far, under this kind of heat.

Y/N kept both hands tight on the wheel, thumbs hooked around the inner grips. Her fingers were sunburned despite the gloves she wore inside the cabin—dry, peeling, red at the knuckles from weeks of constant exposure. The inside of her suit felt like a second skin now, stiff with dried sweat and dust. Every movement was deliberate. Careful. Muscle memory guided more than thought at this point.

She squinted through the scratched visor of her helmet, adjusting the glare shield with a flick of her wrist. The hill dropped steeply in front of her, and beyond it—partially buried in the sand—something metallic caught the sunlight.

A glint. Small. Angular. Manmade.

Her breath caught, just for a second.

She eased off the brake and nudged the accelerator, coaxing the rover down the slope. Loose gravel crunched beneath the tires, kicking up fine red dust that clung to the undercarriage like ash. The descent wasn’t smooth, but the rover held. She kept her eyes locked on the object ahead, refusing to blink, as if it might vanish if she looked away.

A glint in the sand didn’t mean anything. Not necessarily. The desert was full of wreckage. Half-buried relay towers, crumpled drones, abandoned survey rigs—all slowly dissolving into the landscape. Most of them were long dead. A few had power cells that could be salvaged. None had been what she needed.

But this one—this thing—was different. It had shape. Intent. Angles that didn’t come from natural erosion or careless debris drops.

Her pulse thudded in her throat as she approached.

If it was what she thought it was—if the signal booster inside was even half-functional—then maybe, just maybe, she could finally reach someone. Send a ping. Even a basic carrier wave. Something.

And if it wasn’t…

Then she would’ve spent the last three sols pushing this machine farther than its power specs could tolerate, rationing food she barely had, gambling what was left of her energy reserves on a hope stitched together from half-legible maps and half-forgotten notes.

The rover bumped to a stop at the base of the hill, its shadow long and flickering on the cracked ground. She sat still for a second, one hand resting against the center of the wheel, her other already reaching for the suit’s outer seals.

She didn’t let herself think about what came next. Not yet.

She just sat there, the heat pressing in from every side, watching the metal shape glint quietly in the sand.

Then, slowly, she opened the hatch.

Mateo pushed through the double glass doors of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory facility on Aguerra Prime, his steps quick and clipped, boots echoing off the polished tile floor. The lobby was sleek—steel beams arched overhead in clean, geometric symmetry, and the walls glowed faintly with soft-panel lighting that pulsed in rhythm with the environmental systems. The air smelled like ionized metal and coffee. People moved with purpose, heads bowed over tablets, quiet conversations unfolding in pockets of motion.

Marco Moneaux was already waiting near the reception hub, leaning slightly against a rail, one foot bouncing with contained urgency. His white lab coat was creased around the elbows, and his badge hung slightly askew from his lanyard. When he spotted Mateo, he straightened immediately, crossing the floor in three brisk steps.

“Mateo,” he said, extending a hand. His voice was hoarse, as if he hadn’t spoken in hours—or had been speaking for far too many.

Mateo took it firmly, giving a nod instead of wasting breath on greetings. Both men knew the situation was too tight for small talk.

They fell into step without instruction, heading down a wide hallway flanked by tall windows. Outside, the manicured edges of the campus gave way to open, sloping fields. Beyond that, rows of solar arrays shimmered under Aguerra’s twin moons. Herds of deer grazed in the distance—engineered wildlife released to test the long-term viability of the terraformed perimeter.

Neither man looked out the windows.

Inside, they passed knots of engineers and research assistants moving between labs—some glancing up briefly, most too focused on the screens or equipment in their hands to notice the urgency that trailed them like heat.

As they turned a corner, Mateo asked the question that had been eating at him since he left orbit.

“What are the odds Y/N can get it working again?”

Marco didn’t answer right away. He exhaled through his nose, scrubbing a hand through his graying hair as they walked.

“Hard to say,” he admitted finally. “We lost reliable telemetry in ’97. Battery degradation, most likely. Last signal showed grid instability in the comms array. And it took a beating during the eclipse event. Radiation, dust storms. You remember—that wiped out the prototype colony near Terminus Ridge.”

Mateo nodded. “Barely.”

Marco glanced sideways at him. “Just for the record, it lasted three times longer than any of our best-case simulations. Not that I’m defensive.”

Mateo gave a dry, humorless smirk. “Nobody’s pointing fingers, Marco. If Y/N found it and it still has a frame to stand on, that’s a win. I just need everything you’ve got. Every record. Every system map. And I want to talk to everyone who was working the array back then.”

“They’re already here,” Marco said, tapping the badge on his wrist. “As soon as we got confirmation of the rover’s course change, I put out the call. Took some favors, but we pulled a few out of retirement. Not all of them are thrilled to be back.”

“Doesn’t matter if they’re thrilled,” Mateo muttered. “They’re here.”

Marco didn’t argue.

They reached a reinforced service door at the end of the corridor. It slid open with a hiss, revealing the garage—more a hybrid workshop and restoration bay than a storage area. Industrial lights hung low from the ceiling. Tables were littered with open toolkits, diagnostic gear, spare parts. A team of engineers in cleanroom gear moved among the equipment, focused and tight-lipped.

In the center of the room, covered by a heavy fire-retardant sheet, stood something massive.

Mateo slowed as he approached.

“This the replica?” he asked, eyeing the draped silhouette. The outline was unmistakable—angled, precise, deeply familiar.

Marco nodded once. “Built from the original schematics. All internal systems match phase one spec. Obviously we couldn’t rebuild the quantum banks without violating half a dozen containment laws, but we ran full diagnostic simulations on the rest. Guidance. Thermal. Comms. Power draw. It all holds.”

He stepped forward and pulled the cover back in one motion, revealing the spacecraft beneath.

Prometheus.

It gleamed under the harsh lights, a mosaic of matte plating, reinforced glass, and composite shielding. Its two primary sections—the large lander and the smaller Pioneer-class speculor—were connected by an exposed conduit spine that had once bristled with telemetry dishes and stabilizers.

The moment the sheet hit the ground, the room seemed to go quieter.

Mateo stepped closer, his expression unreadable. For a long time, he just looked. Not at the tech, or the wiring, or the damage estimates. He looked at the shape of the thing. The idea behind it.

Prometheus wasn’t just a machine. It was a symbol—of intent, of failure, of hope held a little too long in too many hands.

He exhaled, the weight in his chest shifting as he reached out and let his fingers brush the cold edge of the hull.

“Prometheus,” he said, almost under his breath. The name sat heavy between them.

Marco didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

Around them, the engineers watched silently. No one moved to interrupt.

Mateo stepped back, his mind already running again—calculating transmission lag, estimating power loads, cross-referencing timestamps from the satellite data.

“She’s betting everything on this,” he said. “And I think she’s right to.”

Marco gave a slight nod. “Then so are we.”

Mateo turned to him, jaw set.

“Get your people ready. I want diagnostics running on every subsystem we can simulate by the hour. If there’s even a flicker of life left in that array—if there’s anything Y/N can wake up—we’re going to meet her halfway.”

The sand on M6-117 wasn’t like sand on Aguerra Prime. It didn’t shift or drift like ocean-dunes or kick up in satisfying clouds when you stepped through it. It behaved more like talcum powder laced with metal filings—dry, clingy, corrosive. It coated everything. Her boots were already buried up to the ankles, the fine red dust swallowing the seams and grinding into the joints like it was trying to unmake her gear piece by piece.

Y/N stood still for a moment, catching her breath, feeling the wind rasp against her suit. It wasn’t a howl, not like Earth storms. It was subtler—more like static moving across bare skin. Just enough pressure to sting, just enough to remind her that if she stood still too long, she’d vanish beneath it.

The grit had worked its way into the folds of her gloves. Her hands were dark with oil and dust, the fabric ground smooth in places from overuse. Every finger flex sent a tug of pain down her forearms. Muscle fatigue had long since crossed the threshold of discomfort and settled into something quieter—something meaner. Constant, background. A presence she’d stopped trying to fight days ago.

The rover, Speculor-2, sat parked near the base of the rise—its chassis darkened by days of exposure, its rear wheels half-embedded in a shallow depression. It hadn’t been able to handle the slope. Even with reinforced tread plates and the bolted-on stabilizers she’d installed from salvaged struts, the incline was too sharp, the gravel too loose. It had choked out a few meters from the base before sliding back down in a slow, deliberate shrug of failure.

So she went the rest of the way on foot.

The shovel clanked dully against rock as she hauled it behind her. It dragged a long, narrow trench through the red powder—like a second shadow. She was too tired to carry it properly. It didn’t matter. She just needed it there.

The object she’d seen from the ridge—barely more than a glint through the glare of the triple suns—had pulled her in like gravity. At first, she thought it was another old relay node or maybe one of the early colony drop-capsules, the kind that had scattered debris across the southern hemisphere during the first failed expansion push. There were plenty of those. Too many, honestly. Ghosts of optimism gone stale.

But as she dug, the shape began to shift.

Not a cylinder. No external dish arrays. Not a capsule either. The angles were wrong—too square, too deliberate. Her breath caught when her shovel struck something beneath the dust: a sharp clang, metal on metal, followed by a hollow thunk that seemed to echo in the silence far louder than it should have.

She froze, hands tightening on the shaft.

Then she dropped to her knees and started clearing it by hand, pushing sand aside in fast, desperate sweeps. Her gloves caught on the edges of heat-scarred plating. The metal was warm to the touch, even through insulation. A low panel came into view, then a section of grating, a stabilizer fin warped out of alignment. The hull was charred in places, a mosaic of soot and impact scoring.

And then—partially hidden beneath a layer of red grime and sun-bleached streaks—she saw it. The outline of a nameplate. The letters were too faded to read clearly, most of them worn smooth by wind and time. But the shape, the placement, the size—she didn’t need to read it.

She knew.

“Please,” she murmured, voice cracking through the filtered mic. Her lips were dry. She didn’t notice. “Please let this be it.”

She sat back in the dust, resting her hands on her thighs, heart thudding hard enough to shake her vision. A sharp exhale left her lungs like a pressure valve had opened. She didn’t smile. Not yet. But she didn’t cry either, and that felt like progress.

The shape of the lander was mostly intact beneath the sand. Time had tried to bury it, but it hadn’t finished the job. She traced a line down the edge of the hull, checking for structural faults—any sign that it might collapse the moment she tried to move it.

So far, it looked solid. Scarred, yes. But solid.

She stood, her joints protesting. Everything ached. Her back. Her legs. Even her ribs. She pulled the tether rig from her back harness—a bundle of couplers, salvaged webbing, and what remained of Speculor-1’s rear axle assembly. It was barely a system, but it was hers. It had worked before. It would have to work again.

She dug around the base of the lander, loosening the packed soil just enough to wedge in the rig’s anchors. Sweat dripped down her spine beneath the inner lining of her suit. She ignored it. Her fingers worked quickly but carefully, avoiding the weakest points of the frame. One wrong move could shear the tether. Or worse—destabilize the whole thing and trap it again, just out of reach.

When the last hook snapped into place, she gave the line a slow, deliberate pull. It groaned. Everything groaned these days.

But it held.

She exhaled.

The second sun was just beginning to dip, its wide arc casting long shadows across the ridge behind her. The third—smaller, colder—peeked over the distant horizon, turning the dust into glinting embers. Her suit’s internal temperature had spiked past safe thresholds at least an hour ago, and her visor had started fogging despite the airflow unit. She’d wiped it clear three times already. Her gloves left streaks across the inside of the glass.

She climbed into the rover one limb at a time, slow and deliberate, like someone recovering from surgery. Her muscles didn’t respond so much as comply, reluctant and stiff from exertion and exposure. Her gloves trembled slightly as she gripped the hatch rail, shoulders aching beneath the strain of low oxygen and long hours in thin gravity.

No sudden movements. No unnecessary ones, either.

There were rules for exhaustion like this. You moved like everything was made of glass. Because if you dropped yourself now—if you fell, if you slipped, if you overextended—you might not get back up.

Inside the cockpit, the air smelled like hot plastic and sweat. Her breath fogged the inner edge of her visor for the fourth time that hour. She twisted her head slightly to wipe it with the back of her glove, but the smudge only smeared. Visibility was good enough. It would have to be.

The rover’s engine groaned to life on the third ignition cycle. It coughed, stuttered, then caught—a low, wheezing hum beneath her boots. She exhaled shakily. Part relief. Part preparation.

Her hand moved to the throttle.

As she eased it forward, she felt the slack in the tether vanish—then tension. The custom rig stretched and flexed, cables pulling taut with an audible snap. For a second, nothing happened. Just the sound of the engine and the wind scratching at the hull like dry fingers.

Then the rover lurched, tires clawing at loose sand. The rear axle let out a groan like a dying animal.

Behind her, the lander moved.

Not much—just a few centimeters—but she saw the shadow shift in her rearview, saw the line of red sand behind her deepen as the metal hull began to drag through it. A gouge formed, long and deliberate, the weight of the spacecraft carving its own slow scar into the Martian plain.

It followed her like a reluctant pet. Heavy. Damaged. But willing.

She didn’t look back. Not yet. She couldn’t afford to see how far there was to go.

Her eyes stayed on the way forward—on the faded twin tracks she'd made on the way up, etched into the dust with the same dogged desperation that had brought her here in the first place. They weren’t perfect lines. They wobbled, meandered slightly, climbed and dropped with the terrain. But they were hers.

And they led home.

She pressed her gloved palm against the control panel. The warmth of the rover’s systems buzzed faintly through the material, a small pulse of life she clung to like a heartbeat. Her own pulse echoed back—too fast, too shallow. Her suit pinged her vitals. She muted the alert.

The suns were shifting overhead. The largest of the three had already begun to dip low, casting wide, ochre shadows across the plain. The second sun lingered higher, still burning cold white through the thinning sky. The smallest—the one that barely deserved to be called a sun—hung at the edge of the atmosphere like a memory.

She didn’t sleep that night. She didn’t log any journal entries, didn’t record a status update, didn’t talk to the onboard assistant. There wasn’t anything left to say. Not yet.

She just drove.

One hand on the wheel. The other bracing the tether release, just in case.

The land was mostly flat, but the surface shifted more than it looked. The rover bucked now and then, hitting shallow ridges or spots where the ground gave under the weight of two machines. Each time the suspension rocked, she reached up to steady the makeshift coupling. It creaked. She listened closely for the sound of failure.

When the power dipped below twenty percent, she stopped. Set the panels out. Killed every nonessential system—cabin lights, redundant sensors, everything except the nav core and the battery buffer. Then she climbed out, boots crunching over grit, and walked the length of the tether.

The rig was holding. Barely. The rear axle—originally not meant to support any load at all—was beginning to warp under the repeated strain. A hairline fracture had formed near the secondary bolt plate. She tightened what she could. Reinforced with spare composite tape. It would get her to the ridge. After that, she’d be on hope and inertia.

Back in the cockpit, she stared at the charge percentage while chewing a protein tab she couldn’t taste. Every tick upward felt like watching rain fill a cup—too slow, too fragile. She closed her eyes. Let her breathing slow. Didn’t fall asleep, but drifted somewhere soft and blank, just long enough to make the next stretch survivable.

When the panels hit 31%, she powered up and moved again.

The last five kilometers were the worst.

The terrain turned patchy—intermittent shelf rock and shallow drainage troughs that the rover’s nav AI kept flagging as hazards. She ignored the warnings. Manually overrode the terrain bias. This far in, the rover trusted her more than it trusted itself. She appreciated that. But only barely.

The Hab finally came into view after a slow crest over the last ridge—a pale dome against rust-red nothing, distant and still and strange. It looked smaller than she remembered. Fragile. Like someone had left a plastic toy in the middle of a battlefield.

She exhaled.

Behind her, the lander rattled as it shifted slightly, the tow rig flexing under a final jolt. It was still there. Still dragging its way home like the last survivor of a war.

By the time the Hab came into view—just a pale, sunburned dome on the horizon—the rover was running hot. The dash had been lit with a persistent yellow warning for the last twenty minutes: Thermal Load Approaching Limit – Power Efficiency Reduced. Not critical. Not yet. But close enough that the hum of the cabin fan had taken on a wheeze, and the heat exchanger sounded like it was breathing through a straw.

She guided the rover up the final slope with the same deliberate care she’d used for every kilometer since dragging the lander loose. The rig held, barely. A shudder ran through the chassis each time the terrain shifted beneath the load. She could feel it in the pedals, in the wheel, in her wrists.

At the perimeter, she stopped. Just outside the airlock’s sensor field, far enough to keep the lander’s mass from triggering the external motion alerts. The rover hissed softly as it idled, then fell quiet as she powered down.

Engine. Vents. Cabin systems.

Silence.

Not the peaceful kind. The kind that screamed in your ears after too many hours of mechanical noise. A silence that made her feel like the air itself was pressing inward. Heavy. Expectant.

She didn’t move. Not at first. Her hands stayed on the wheel, knuckles pale where the gloves stretched over them. Her visor was fogged again—smudged from the inside where she’d wiped it too many times. She stared through the distortion at the blur of the Hab’s outline, heart thudding a little too fast in her chest.

Everything in her body was buzzing: overworked muscles, caffeine-depleted nerves, the dull throb in her knees from sitting too long and the low-level dehydration she hadn’t had time to address. Her fingers tingled. Not from cold. From the sheer effort of not falling apart.

Eventually, she forced herself to move.

She braced a hand on the seat frame and pushed up. Her knees didn’t want to cooperate. They locked, then gave in stages, like gears trying to find their teeth. She stepped out into the heat with a grunt, boots landing in the loose sand with a dry crunch. The air hit her like opening an oven door.

The sun was high—well, one of them was. The second hung lower, casting odd twin shadows across the ridge. The third hadn’t risen yet. It would soon.

She turned, slowly, to look at what she’d dragged home.

The lander sat half-sunk in the dust behind the rover, its hull streaked with soot and oxidized grime. Decades of wind had scraped the paint to near-nothing. The serial markings were mostly gone. Its panels were warped, its undercarriage twisted from the pull of the terrain. But it was intact. Whole, in the way things that shouldn’t still exist sometimes are.

She stepped closer and rested one gloved hand against the side of the frame. The metal was hot through the suit, radiating heat back at her like it still remembered the stars it once launched through.

It was real. It was here.

She stood like that for a moment—long enough for her breathing to even out, long enough for the noise in her mind to slow. She didn’t cry. She was too dry for that. But there was something in her chest that uncoiled a little, just enough to make room for relief.

Then she turned, eyes narrowing against the light, and headed for the Hab.

The outer airlock hissed as she stepped inside. Cooling systems kicked in, the rapid shift from Martian heat to artificial climate control leaving a faint sheen of condensation on the inside of her visor. She stripped out of the suit by habit—one latch at a time, slow, steady—and hung it on the pressurized rack. Her undershirt clung to her spine. Her hair was matted. Skin cracked at the corners of her mouth.

She didn’t stop to wash. Not yet.

Instead, she grabbed the roll-out solar blankets from storage—folded, dust-sealed, stored under a bench where no one had expected them to ever be used—and carried them back out through the lock.

Outside again, she worked quickly. The sun had shifted and the temperature was climbing. She moved in a circle around the lander, unfurling the metallic sheets like a protective cocoon. They were reflective on one side, dull on the other—meant to deflect excess thermal load and redirect radiant heat away from sensitive equipment.

Here, they would buy her time. Time before the old machine started cooking from the inside.

She staked them down using stripped rebar, hammering the rods into the soil with the butt of her shovel. Dust clung to her sweat, turned sticky at her collar, itched under her sleeves. Her arms burned from the repetitive motion. Her breathing was shallow again.

But she didn’t stop until the job was done.

Then—and only then—did she step back, strip off her gloves, and sit down hard in the dirt beside the rover. She tipped her head back, eyes closed behind squinting lids. Her lungs filled with hot, dry air. Her limbs felt too heavy to move. Her heart beat slow and hard in her chest.

The real work hadn’t started yet.

She’d have to inspect the RTG housing. Set up containment protocols. Verify the generator’s thermal output, make sure it hadn’t been compromised during burial or the tow. If she ruptured it, there wouldn’t be time to run.

She’d need shielding. Power routing. Cabling. Isolation foam. Diagnostics.

She’d need her hands to stop shaking.

But for now, for just a few minutes, she sat in the red sand beside the machine she had unearthed from half a lifetime of dust, and listened to the wind roll across the plains of M6-117.

Taglist: @fancypeacepersona @ssbb-22 @mar-lo-pap @sathom013 @kimyishin @ttanniett @sweetvoidstuff @keiarajm @sathom013 @miniesjams32

[midnightsun-if]

DEMO — Chapter One: Part One [34K Words] — 11/12/23

FAQ || PINTEREST || SPOTIFY || DISCORD

Aurelian Academy, the pinnacle of evolution within the supernatural world; the first landmark to be erected after the Dark Ages— the time when supernatural races still lived within the shadows of the mortal world.

You’ve been prepared to go for your entire life— all one hundred years of it. Being the youngest child of a ruling vampire clan didn’t give you much choice in the matter. Going to Aurelian meant taking the next big step in your immortal life regardless.

Will you be able to prove yourself to your parents? To your siblings? Will you be able to uncover the mysteries that surround the ancient school?

Or will everything vanish as the midnight sun approaches?

Create your character. Customize your name, potential nickname, gender (male/female/non-binary), sexuality, appearance, and hobbies. (Note: The MC is a Vampire and is 100 Years Old.)

Choose from 3 Classes— Charmer, Shadow-Kin, or Warrior.

How does your character feel about humans? Are they simply ants that you don’t bother with? Potential allies? An intriguing conundrum?

Do you enjoy the modern world? Or do you miss the simplicity of the past?

Romance 1 of 8 potential romances.

Explore Aurelian Academy and uncover the secrets that litter the ancient halls. Just make sure you don’t miss class while doing so.

Koda Kingston — [He/Him] — Bear-Shifter — He’s a mass of muscle and warmth, eyes filled with good humor and overall joy. Might not have a lot going on upstairs, but he’s definitely got the spirit. [Male MCs Only]

Scarlett Voltaire — [She/Her] — Vampire — Cold as ice, ruthless to any that oppose her, with a flair of heated contempt at the people who annoy her, Scarlett is the middle child to the oldest ruling family within the vampiric race. [Female MCs Only]

Cyrus/Cyra Aurelia — [He/Him or She/Her] — Phoenix — Heir to the Eclipse Throne; they’re the eldest child of House Aurelia, Founders of Aurelian Academy. They’re the pinnacle of what an heir should be: dutiful, strong-willed, and loyal above all else.

Quinn Grant — [He/Him or She/Her] — Wolf-Shifter — An individual that’s been whispered about within the halls of your home; a prospected mate in the event that both your warring families wish to unite. Now that you’re meeting them, you may be able to see if that’ll ever become a reality.

Caden Randall — [He/Him or She/Her] — Phantom — Appearing on a random night five years before, they’re not exactly what someone comes to expect when thinking about a phantom: scared of their own shadow, fretful, and a complete neat freak. They’re tasked with ensuring your stay at Aurelian Academy goes smoothly.

Sloane Addams — [He/Him or She/Her] — Wolf-Shifter — A wolf-shifter without a pack, disgraced in the deepest way possible, they don’t seem to be that overjoyed at the prospect of attending Aurelian Academy, but that doesn’t mean they’re not set on proving themself and finding a pack once more.

Blake Herrera — [He/Him or She/Her] — Demon-Hybrid — Your best friend (and potential FWB). With a flirtatious air, a rebellious spirit, and an affinity at finding trouble, they’re a demon that takes a bit to get used to.

Reginald/Regina Presley — [He/Him or She/Her] — Human — A scholarship student to Aurelian Academy; the first of many that may be attending. With a thirst for knowledge, along with a devil-may-care attitude, they’ll try their best to fit in. Of course, that’s easier said than done. As they’re the first human to ever be admitted as a student.

PINTEREST (OTHER) || MALE ROS FCS || FEMALE ROS FC || FAMILY FCS || ROS SKIN TONES

[girlfromthecrypt]

Such Happy Campers is an interactive horror/romance novel made in Choicescript.

DEMO / COG FORUM POST

status: demo consists of five chapters + prologue, currently at 147.192 words, last updated on July 15th.

You are an employee of the Cloverleaf program. Your job is to organize and oversee their seasonal vacation for kids from low-income backgrounds and troubled homes. This summer, said vacation will be hosted at the rustic Camp Solace, a cabin campsite situated right next to the picturesque Lake Solace and flanked by acres of woodland.

Camp Solace is idyllic, calm and far removed from the bustle of civilization. 

V̵̲̂e̶̝͆ŕ̸͍y̷͎̏ ̷͚̎f̵͈̀ā̸̦r̵̀͜ ̸͓͘r̴̜̂e̴͉̕m̵̺̎o̷̢̓v̶̒͜è̴̘d̴̳̐ ̴̀͜i̵̡͊ñ̷̘d̸̼̀e̷̪̽ȇ̵̯d̴̜͒.̷̰̚

It'd take you quite a while to reach the nearest town in case of an emergency…

Ý̷̭ö̸͎́u̷̘͗'̴̘͘d̸̛̰ ̶̢̐ḇ̸̌ẻ̸̦t̴̝̅t̷͚̒e̷͓͑r̸͔̿ ̷̱̆m̸̜̔a̸̳̍k̵̰̍ě̸̖ ̸̦̚s̷̛̺ṵ̴̔r̵̘̅e̸̝̽ ̸͈̑n̴̡̛o̶̬͑t̶̺̊h̸͖̋i̵͎̽ṅ̵̜g̸̗̽ ̴̹̿ḧ̵̘́ā̷̦p̸̖̎p̵̻̑e̴̗͌n̵̡̒s̶̜̈.̶̥͂

But you're not alone in this! Working alongside you are Basil Laurier, the free-spirited scion of the wealthiest local family, Anita Merrick, the smart but skittish university student intern, and the Malak siblings, both skilled and experienced teachers. 

Now go take care of those happy little campers.

Customize your MC’s name, appearance, outfit and apartment!

Be a good camp counselor and protect the kids in your care!

Romance a charismatic heir, a chronically sleep-deprived psychology student, a temperamental musician or a reserved martial arts instructor!

Get to know your team and form lasting friendships!

Uncover the lakes long-forgotten secrets and save Camp Solace from the horrors that are slowly closing in on you.

TW: mentions of bullying, toxic past relationships, troubled childhoods, mental illness. Non-graphic.

[sweatervest-obsessed]

Discretions and Devotions

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

WC: 1.2k

A/N: Decided to make this a mini series, in terms that the chapters will be short, but still entertaining since the idea of this makes me giggle. (Gender Neutral Reader btw)

Part 1: Hangovers and Hickies

Supervisory Special Agent Derek Morgan was on the case.

Obviously, something was going on between you and Spencer. That much he could deduce. But to what extent? For how long? 

Since he needed these questions answered, he would require backup from his favorite girl.

“Enter and be known.” Rang out from behind the door when Derek knocked on it. He swung the door open and closed it behind him.

“Babygirl. Put your detective cap on.”

Garcia swiveled around in her chair and raised an eyebrow.

“I think Y/n and Reid are sleeping together.”

Garcia’s eyes lit up. “What’s your proof.”

“Well, Y/n came in today with a hickey and was completely hungover. Then Spencer brought in McDonald’s and Dunkin as a hangover cure—“

“They could’ve just texted one another Derek, you know that he’s completely smitten and would’ve just taken it upon himself to cure their hangover…”

He shook his head. “Let me finish. Then Y/n said that it was Reid’s fault that they ‘were like this’. Plus, both of them are wearing scarves or sweaters with neck coverage…” 

Garcia's mouth dropped open. “No…”

Derek nodded and crossed his arms. “And Reid started blushing because of whatever Y/n said, but then ran away before I could ask him any questions.”

“Oh, so they’re sleeping together.” Garcia nodded along with Derek.

“Exactly, but they won’t say anything about it.”

“I love you, but no. If this was the first time, why would they want to talk about it at all, but….If this has been happening for a while then it’s a secret. And I always uncover secrets” Penelope stood up, and all but stomped out of her bat cave and down to the bullpen, where you were feeling much better, having eaten some greasy foods to combat the headache.

“Where’s the fire?” You looked up as you saw Garcia headed over to you.

“Are you sleeping with Reid?”

“Woah. First off. Don’t go screaming that question in the middle of the bullpen.” You crossed your arms. “Second, who said I was?”

“You’re deflecting. So it’s true?”

You rolled your eyes. “Pen. I said that it was Reid’s fault I was drunk last night. But that’s where that ends. One of his papers just got nominated for some award and we went out to a bar to celebrate. I’m a good friend. And then, somehow, I had a bunch to drink, which caused me to flirt with some guy, and then take him home and uh….he went a little crazy with the whole hickey thing so…” You raised your eyebrows. “Can I give you any more information to give to Derek or is that enough.”

“Hm.” Garcia's lips twisted slightly as she looked you up and down, trying to decide if you were telling the truth.

“Garcia I love you but can you profile me at a different time, I have a consultant call in five.”

She sighed but nodded. “This isn’t over.”

“I didn’t think it would be.” You grumbled and turned back around to your computer.

————————————————————————

You were able to avoid conversations with Garcia and Morgan for the rest of the day, which was nice considering you didn’t really want to talk about your sex life in the bullpen for anyone to hear.

Especially since the opposite party would be within earshot.

But that didn’t stop Garcia and Morgan from trying their damndest to get you or Reid to talk. At some point during the day, you were sure you saw Derek corner Spencer into a closet, which ended poorly since clearly he was not given the answers he wanted when you saw Spencer walk by earlier with a smug look on his face.

You decided to leave about half an hour earlier since you came in early. It worked out nicely and you were able to enjoy the walk to the subway by yourself, listening to your music and enjoying the fresh winter air.

The peace was interrupted when someone sat directly next to you causing you to look up with a pissed-off look on your face, that quickly melted into something a lot happier.

“Hey, you. I thought you were going to stay late today.” You smiled up at him and kissed his cheek. He shook his head and took your hand in his.

“I was but then getting chased around by SSA Tweedle Dee and Technical Analyst Tweedle Dum made me want to leave as soon as I could. Then I decided on it when Derek cornered me in the bathroom. Plus you left early and I’d rather spend time with you.”

Your eyes widened. “The bathroom?”

Spencer nodded and rolled his eyes.

“They’re persistent, that’s for sure.” You grumbled. 

“Well, considering how long it took them to figure out that the possibility of us being together was real, I think we’ll be okay.” He murmured, kissing your hand.

“Those two could leave no rock unturned and still find nothing but sand.” You snorted. 

Spencer laughed and squeezed your hand.

“I mean.” You sighed. “Today was a close call. Not that hiding is a bad thing or anything, like I know we’ve talked about it a lot, but still sometimes I get worried about if we’re ven doing the right thing or—“

“You’re starting to sound like me.” Spencer laughed softly, cutting you off. “But I get it. We slipped up.”

“We?!?! Excuse you. I think you mean you slipped up. You went a little crazy on the neck there Spencer.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“I could slap that stupid grin off of your face Doctor Reid.” 

The two of you looked like two good friends, maybe something more if an eagle-eyed observer was searching for it, but nothing more. It was a science the two of you had perfected in case you were spotted together by someone from the team, or really anyone that was willing to snitch to them. 

“I don’t think we’ll be able to cover for much longer though. If Derek suddenly remembers how good he is at his job then we’re fucked.”

“Royally.” You agreed and rested your head on his shoulder.

The two of you sat like that for the rest of the ride, only moving to get off at your station.

You and Spencer took your time walking home, even though it was cold out. The sun was shining, which was rare enough as it was, which made you feel a bit better. Eventually, you made it back to your shared apartment where Spencer put in the code to get you both into the building.

You and Spencer were a minimal PDA couple, not because your relationship wasn’t very well known, but because neither of you felt the need to be overtly touchy with one another.

But today, with the sun, and the enjoyment of the fact that Spencer was home earlier than promised got to you. And before you entered, you kissed him softly on the lips, enjoying the feeling.

This was your fatal mistake since at that exact moment, one Emily Prentiss drove by and saw the whole thing. 

[teriri-sayes]

Reactions to The Light's Chapter 406

Brief summary: Cale eavesdrops on the enemies' conversation. The twins follow the traces.

==========

If last chapter was the background setting setup, today was the setup for who would be participating. With Hinpa gone, his sacrifices quota was passed on to two of the newest guides. Their conversation confirmed that tonight would be the Night of Pleasure.

Cale found out that the GoC cult were planning to betray the hunters from the beginning, and that GoC themself would descend in Primordial Night, probably to stop the birth of the omnipotent god the hunters wanted.

There was also the fact that New World was becoming a real world, and Cale speculated that this had something to do with the souls of real people being brought into the game. After all, how did GoC's powers work inside the game if the game world was not slowly becoming real?

The twin wanderers were hot on the trail, and they talked about another wanderer coming tomorrow. The three strongest wanderers in the Five-Colored Blood were called the Three Emperors, and it was said that the Third Emperor would be coming to Primordial Night soon. So the twins planned to destroy the place before the Third Emperor arrive.

Lastly, there were two users, a man and a woman, who were also heading to the Primordial Night. The man was a famous streamer with the username "Crazy Attention Seeker", and he planned to uncover the secret behind the disappearance of the Roots of the Beginning every last night of the month by diving into the canyon.

Normally, as a user, he would die and respawn in another area, right? But a flag was raised. 🚩

The laughter of Crazy Attention Seeker spread in all directions along with the desert sandstorm. But it could not reach the jungle beyond the canyon, nor the holy land. Of course, it did not reach Cale either. Cale did not even know who Crazy Attention Seeker was. So what no one expected, not even Clopeh Sekka, was that a great legend would be created today. Cale did not know.

Great legend, you say... So Cale would accidentally make his debut in New World in someone else's livestream? 😂😂😂 And the viewers would witness him fighting the wanderers (he planted that flag several chapters ago) and the GoC cult (FoD and SEW's conversation also planted this flag)? 🤣🤣🤣

Dang, that would be three 🚩flags raised... 🤣🤣🤣 Oh yeah, there was also the chapter title "Night and Light." Cale would definitely be the "light" here. Given that he was already a god of light something in Aipotu, I guess Caleism would soon spread to New World. 🤣🤣🤣

Ending Remarks Cale about to debut in a livestream soon! 😂 Next chapter would be Cale searching for a record of the purification ritual. But frankly, I'm more excited for his livestream debut. 😂😂😂

[pxnsneverland]

Something Immortal | Biker!Austin Butler x OC (part 1)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13

plot summary: In the gritty underbelly of a city ruled by werewolf biker gangs, Austin Butler reigned supreme as the ruthless leader of his pack. A man of unwavering ferocity, he lied, killed, and stole without remorse, living by a code of violence that defined his kind. Yet, even Austin harbored a secret weakness – his childhood friend Bonnie Barlow, the one woman he had loved in silence for years. Bonnie's father had once been part of Austin's gang, but after his death, she fled the treacherous world of the werewolves, unable to stomach the endless cycle of crime and brutality. For five years, she remained a fugitive from her own nature, until a fateful night when her life took an irreversible turn. Freshly released from a two-year prison stint, Austin returned to his pack, reveling in the debauchery of their den. But his revelry was cut short by a frantic call from Bonnie, pleading for his aid. Rushing to her side, he uncovered a grim truth – in a desperate act of self-defense against her abusive boyfriend, Bonnie had taken a life, awakening the dormant werewolf within her. As the next full moon loomed, she would undergo her first agonizing transformation, a fate she had always dreaded. Defying the pack's ruthless code, Austin sheltered Bonnie, guiding her through the excruciating metamorphosis that tore through her body each lunar cycle. In the depths of her torment, their bond rekindled, blossoming into a love they had long suppressed. Nights of shared laughter and reminiscence gave way to stolen moments of tenderness, their connection deepening with every passing moon. Yet, their newfound bliss was a fragile thing, forever threatened by the harsh realities that governed their world. For Bonnie was branded a deserter, her very existence a betrayal in the eyes of the pack. If Austin's treachery was uncovered, retribution would be swift and merciless.

pairings: biker!austin butler x oc

word count: 2746

warnings/notes: violence, mentions of murder, gang activity

Chapter 1: The Alpha's Return

As Austin pushed open the heavy oak door, the overwhelming cacophony of sound hit him like a physical force. The deep bass of the music thrummed through his chest and reverberated in his ears. The mixture of sweat, alcohol, and cigarette smoke assaulted his senses as he made his way into the dimly lit bar. Flickering lights hung haphazardly above the scattered tables and stools, casting shadows that seemed to dance with the rhythm of the music. In one corner of the bar, a group of men gathered around a pool table, their voices loud and boisterous as they cheered on their game. In another corner, a couple was engaged in a heated argument, their voices rising above the din of the bar.

Jerry Thompson, known as 'The Butcher' for his towering stature and imposing presence, immediately spotted Austin from his perch at the bar. Jerry's muscular arms were adorned with intricate tattoos that seemed to come alive with each movement as he stood up to greet Austin. His leather jacket emitted a low creaking sound as he moved, adding to his intimidating aura. With sharp eyes constantly scanning the room, he appeared to be assessing every person and potential threat.

"Austin!" Jerry bellowed with a wide grin, revealing his crooked teeth. Austin returned the gesture with equal enthusiasm and they met in a brief but firm hug, both happy to see each other after so long apart.

"Ace of Spades!" Jerry exclaimed, slapping Austin's back with a hearty laugh. The impact sent vibrations through Austin's body and he couldn't help but grin at his friend's exuberance. His booming voice echoed throughout the dimly-lit bar, drawing the attention of the other patrons. Heads turned, conversations paused, and eyes widened as they caught sight of the alpha in their midst.

"Still got your sense of humor, I see," Austin replied with a smirk. Despite the weariness in his voice, his piercing blue eyes sparkled with a fierce determination that radiated authority. He let his gaze wander around the room, taking in the familiar faces of his pack members and noting the new ones who had joined in his absence. The gang had clearly grown in numbers'.

"The pack's missed you," Jerry said, his deep voice barely audible over the pounding bass of the music. He motioned towards a back booth where a few burly men sat hunched over their drinks, their eyes gleaming under the dim lights. Jerry's eyes darted around the dimly lit room, his body tense with unease. He leaned in closer to Austin, his voice dropping to a low murmur. "Things haven't been easy since you've been gone; a few of the newer guys, they don't respect the code... or you."

Austin straightened up, his gaze sweeping over the assembled group. The tension in his posture was palpable as he issued a silent challenge. "Name them," he demanded, his voice laced with authority and steel.

Jerry seemed to hesitate for a moment, his gaze trailing away from Austin’s intense stare. He let out a deep sigh, the weight of the situation evident on his weathered face. Finally, with a heavy hand he pointed towards the corner of the bar where two young bikers were shooting pool. Their boisterous laughter filled the room, oblivious to the fact that they were being talked about.

“Those two. Dal and Jimmy.” Jerry’s voice was rough and gruff, barely audible above the rowdy crowd. “Think they can run things their way. They’ve been challenging your rules ever since you left.”

Austin’s piercing gaze followed Jerry’s finger and then slowly moved to focus on the two men in question. They seemed hardly more than boys really, their matching leather jackets and cocky attitudes giving off the impression of overgrown pups trying to mark their territory. The sight of them sparked something in his chest - a cold, calculated anger that had him clenching his fists at his sides. “I see.” His words were sharp and clipped, void of any emotion except for a simmering rage that only those who knew him well could detect. With a determined stride, he pushed past Jerry and made a beeline towards Dal and Jimmy who were still engrossed in their game of pool. The tension in the room felt palpable as all eyes turned to watch Austin approach the group of challengers. Austin's body visibly trembles with a mix of rage and anticipation as he approaches the oblivious duo. His broad shoulders square up, ready for a fight, while his icy gaze pierces through them like a sharp blade. The laughter dies down around them as they finally notice the Alpha's approach.

Dal, a lanky man with a scar running down the side of his face, meets Austin's stare with a smug smirk that exudes defiance. Jimmy, shorter and stockier with a wild mop of red hair, takes an instinctive step back in fear and quickly averts his gaze under Austin's intense stare.

With a voice full of authority and malice, Austin addresses them. "You got a problem with my rules?”

Dal's smirk twists into a snarl as he leans back against the pool table, crossing his arms over his chest in challenge. "Our problem ain't with your damn rules, Butler," he spits out Austin's title with contempt. "Our problem is with you.”

The pool stick falls from Dal's grip with a loud clatter as he stands, his eyes blazing with anger. "You've been locked up for two years and now you think you can just waltz back in here and reclaim your throne as alpha?" He takes a threatening step forward, his voice dripping with disdain. "We've managed just fine without you, Butler. Who's to say you're still the strongest?"

"Is that a challenge, Dal?" Austin's voice pierced through the dim bar like a shard of ice, freezing the air around them. His crystal blue eyes glinted with a dangerous intensity as they locked onto Dal, who could feel his heart rate quicken under the alpha’s unwavering stare. The muscles in Austin's arms bulged as he stood tall, crossing them over his broad chest in a show of dominance

Dal shifted uneasily, almost feeling physically pinned under the weight of Austin's intense glare. The smirk on his face vanished, replaced by a fierce determination that hardened his features. Meeting Austin's gaze head-on, he squared his shoulders and spoke with a steely resolve, “Yeah, Butler. It is."

Without warning, Austin lunged at Dal with such ferocious speed that he was nothing but a blur. The crowd's hushed gasps were drowned out by the sickening thud of Austin's fist connecting with Dal's face. A fresh cut on his lip oozed blood as he lay sprawled on the ground, his body trembling with pain and shock.The air in the room seemed to thicken with tension as Dal slowly rose to his feet, wiping the blood away with a shaking hand. His gaze locked onto Austin's, filled with a fiery defiance. Without hesitation, he launched himself at Austin, their bodies colliding in a flurry of fists and grunts. But Austin was a force to be reckoned with, easily overpowering Dal with his brute strength and merciless blows. Each punch landed like a sledgehammer, causing bones to crack and skin to split. The smell of iron permeated the air as blood spilled, staining the floor beneath them. Dal was no match for Austin's relentless assault. A thunderous left hook knocked him off balance, leaving him dazed and stumbling. Before he could regain his bearings, Austin charged at him like a raging animal, slamming him back against the pool table.

Pain exploded through Dal's body as he hit the hard surface, gasping for air as if his lungs had been crushed. He struggled to focus through blurred vision, gazing up at Austin who loomed over him like a giant. With one final burst of strength, Dal tried to push himself up off the table, only to receive a brutal kick to the gut that sent him crashing back down. As he lay there, helpless and defeated, all he could taste was blood and defeat in his mouth.

Austin stood over him, chest heaving and fists clenched. His ice-blue eyes were alight with a victorious glint as he looked down at his conquest. The crowd parted in silence, every pair of eyes glued to the spectacle. Austin’s gaze shifted from Dal to the onlookers, his expression stern and unwavering. His voice rang out clear and commanding through the silence, “Let this be a lesson to all of you - I am your alpha, your leader...and I will not tolerate disloyalty or disrespect in my pack.”

He cast a final glance at Dal, then turned towards Jerry who had been watching the scene unfold from the sidelines. The Butcher's face bore a grimace of satisfaction; he approved of what Austin had done. Austin slowly walked back to him, the crowd parting to make way for their leader.

"Painful but necessary," Jerry muttered as he draped an arm around Austin's shoulder, "hopefully this little display of power will keep them in line."

Austin simply nodded his agreement, keeping his gaze fixed ahead. However, his mind was a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions. He knew that he had needed to assert his authority but the violent encounter left a bitter taste in his mouth. He hoped that no other member would dare to challenge him; he didn't want to shed any more blood of his own pack. But he would stand his ground and uphold order, no matter the cost.

"Well, that was a helluva welcome back party," Jerry chuckled and slapped Austin on the back. The two walked to the exit, their imposing figures outlined by the dimly lit bar behind them. Austin didn’t respond; his thoughts were elsewhere – on Bonnie Barlow. How would she react to tonight's events? Would she be afraid of him...or for him? As Austin sat in his cell, thoughts of Bonnie consumed his mind. She had been his only source of comfort during his time in jail, and now that he was out, she still lingered in his thoughts. It had been five long years since he last saw her, and he couldn't help but wonder how she had been and what she was up to now. Memories of her petite figure and expressive eyes flooded his mind, stirring a mix of emotions within him. Remorse for the mistakes he made and an intense yearning to see her again. His heart clenched at the reality of his situation. He wasn't just a man – he was an alpha, a werewolf. And Bonnie? She was the quiet beauty who had found her way into his heart, and then fled from the violent world he inhabited. Even as he craved to have her back in his life, Austin couldn’t help but acknowledge the bitter truth. The world he ruled with an iron fist was no place for someone as delicate and empathetic as Bonnie.

With a troubling thought gnawing at his mind, Austin abruptly shrugged off Jerry's arm and strode out into the cool, crisp night air. His heavy boots crunched with each step on the gravel path as he made his way to his motorcycle. The machine stood there like a ferocious animal lying in wait, its metallic body glinting in the moonlight.

"Hey, where you off to?" Jerry called after him, but Austin did not even spare a glance as he pulled on his leather gloves and climbed onto his ride. His mind was too cluttered with thoughts of Bonnie, bittersweet memories that brought both solace and a haunting pain.

The engine roared to life beneath him, a low growl that reverberated through the peaceful night. With one last look at the bar where his pack was still celebrating their leader's victorious return, he revved the engine and tore off into the darkness. The wind whipped against his face as he raced down the deserted roads, slicing through the quiet stillness of the night. He welcomed the chilling gusts, hoping they would blow away the weight of remorse weighing on him. But no amount of speed or distance could erase Bonnie's image from his mind or ease the ache in his heart. His thoughts kept returning to that fateful day five years ago when Bonnie had left.

She had vanished into the ether, leaving behind a void in Austin's life that he couldn't fill. No call, no text, no warning. One day, they were holding each other at her father's funeral - her tears staining his shoulder and his arms wrapped tightly around her. The next day, she was gone, taking all traces of herself with her. Austin searched high and low, calling every number he had for her and knocking on every door he could think of. But she had disappeared without a trace, leaving him feeling lost and alone. Weeks turned into months, which turned into years. The uncertainty of not knowing where Bonnie had gone or even if she was still alive weighed heavily on Austin's mind and heart. He would wake up from nightmares, drenched in sweat and trembling, his thoughts consumed by visions of Bonnie being hurt or in danger. As much as he wanted to protect her like he did when they were younger, he couldn't do anything if he didn't even know where she was.

The soft purr of his motorbike echoed through the stillness, offering him a strange sense of tranquility as he veered down onto the dirt path that led home. Austin’s cabin, nestled in the secluded wilderness away from town, was as rugged and unyielding as he was. A shabby structure with weathered timber walls and a roof so worn it seemed to blend into the overcast night sky. Sliding off his bike, Austin crossed the threshold, stepping into the austere living space. Minimalistic and practical just like him. A stone fireplace dominated one wall, its hearth filled with charred logs from a fire long gone. The rest of the furniture was plain and functional - a worn-out couch, a small dining table, and his bed tucked into an alcove.

He shrugged off his leather jacket and made his way to the worn-out armchair by the fireplace, sinking into its familiar comfort. Pouring himself a glass of whiskey from a dusty bottle, he stared at the golden liquid swirling within. Each drop mirrored years of torment and solitude that had gradually gnawed away at his soul. Drinking was not his means to drown the pain; instead, it was more of a ritual – an acknowledgement of his broken spirit and an attempt to numb the hurt festering within. The air around him crackled as he struck a match and brought it close to the dry logs in the hearth. The fire leaped up instantly, hungry flames lapping at the wood while releasing whispers of smoke into the air. Austin watched the dance of the fire, his mind lost in the glowing depths as he sipped from his glass. The warmth of the Scotch spread through him, a perfect foil to the cold emptiness he had grown accustomed to. The silence of his cabin was only broken by the sporadic crackle of the flames and the quiet hum of woodland creatures outside. This solitude was his sanctuary and yet it was also his prison cell.

The tranquil silence was broken in an instant by a shrill ring that made Austin jump. He quickly realized it was his cell phone, a device he hadn't heard from in what seemed like ages. His fingers fumbled for the familiar weight in his pocket, almost forgetting it had been there this whole time. The screen displayed ‘Unknown’ as the call persisted, daring him to answer and reveal the identity of the caller. Who could be reaching out to him, someone he had not seen at the bar? With a deep breath, Austin pressed accept and brought the phone up to his ear.

"Hello?" His voice came out rough and hesitant.

"Austin," said a soft voice on the other end.

Instantly recognizing the voice that had haunted his thoughts for years, Austin's heart began to race in his chest. The drink in his hand suddenly felt like a lead weight, and he carefully set it down on the small wooden table beside him. His fingers trembled slightly as he tightened his grip on the phone, as if it were the only thing anchoring him to reality.

"Bonnie..."

Stay tuned for part 2!! Click HERE to view!