#push in terminal blocks

[staff]

A message from a few of the trans staff at Tumblr & Automattic:

We want trans people, and LGBTQ+ people broadly, to feel welcome on Tumblr, in part because we as trans people at Tumblr and Automattic want it to be a space where we ourselves feel included. We want to feel like this is a platform that supports us and fights for our safety. Tumblr is made brighter and more vibrant by your presence, and the LGBTQ+ folks who help run it are fighting all the time for this, for you, internally. 

A few days ago, Matt Mullenweg (the CEO of Automattic, Tumblr’s parent company) responded to a user’s ask about an account suspension in a way that negatively affected Tumblr’s LGBTQ+ community. We believe that Matt's response to this ask and his continued commentary has been unwarranted and harmful. Tumblr staff do not comment on moderation decisions as a matter of policy for a variety of reasons—including the privacy of those involved, and the practicalities of moderating thousands of reports a day. The downside of this policy is that it is very easy for rumors and incorrect information about actions taken by our Trust & Safety team to spread unchecked. Given this, we want to clarify a few different pieces of this situation:

The reality of predstrogen's suspension was not accurately conveyed, and made it seem like we were reaching for opportunities to ban trans feminine people on the platform. This is not the case. The example comment shared in the post linked above does not meet our definition of a realistic threat of violence, and was not the deciding factor in the account suspension.

Matt thereafter failed to recognize the harm to the community as a result of this suspension. Matt does not speak on behalf of the LGBTQ+ people who help run Tumblr or Automattic, and we were not consulted in the construction of a response to these events.

Last year, the "mature" and "sexual themes" community labels were erroneously applied to some users' posts. An outside team of contractors tasked with applying community labels to posts were responsible for this larger trend of mislabeling trans-related content. When our Trust & Safety team discovered this issue (thanks largely to reports from the community), we removed the contracted team’s ability to apply community labels and added more oversight to ensure it does not happen again. In the Staff post about this, LGBTQ+ staff pushed to be more transparent but were overruled by leadership. The termination of a contractor mentioned in the original ask response was for an unrelated incident which was incorrectly attributed to this case. We regret that the mislabeling ever happened, and the negative impact it has had on the trans community on Tumblr. 

Transition timelines are not against our community guidelines, and weren’t a factor considered by the moderation team when discussing suspensions and subsequent appeals. We do not take action against content that is related to transitioning or trans bodies unless it includes violations of the Community Guidelines.

When it comes to the experience of trans folks on Tumblr encountering transphobic content, and interacting with bigoted users, we understand and share your frustrations. Tumblr’s policies, and Automattic’s policies, are written to ensure freedom of speech and expression. We prohibit harassment as defined in our Community Guidelines, but we know that this policy falls short of protecting users from the wider scope of harmful speech often used against LGBTQ+ and other marginalized people.

Going forward, Tumblr is taking the following actions:

Prioritizing anti-harassment features that will empower users to more effectively protect themselves from harassment.

Building more internal tooling for us as Staff to proactively identify and mitigate instances of harassment.

Reviewing which of the tags frequently used by the trans community are blocked, and working to make them available next week.

We’re sorry for how this all transpired, and we’re actively fighting to make our voices heard more and prevent something like this from happening again in the future. We know firsthand that having to deal with situations like this as a Tumblr user is difficult, particularly as a member of an already frequently targeted and harassed community. We know it will take time to regain your trust, and we’re going to put in the work to rebuild it.

We appreciate the space we have been given to express our concerns and dissent, and we are thankful that Matt’s (and Automattic’s) strong commitment to freedom of expression has facilitated it.

We will continue to fight to make Tumblr safe for us all.

— This statement was authored by multiple trans employees of Tumblr and Automattic.

[rfyu]

you catch sight of him again at the bus terminal - that cute boy from your tutorial last year who you’d almost been foolish enough to think you had a chance with. that was until you’d realised takashi mitsuya was just that nice to everyone - the soft smiles that crinkled up the corners of his pretty eyes, the quiet concern, the witty conversation.

devastating. 

humiliating, even.

the whole day so far has felt like it’s been leading up to something, and you guess this is it. it’s nearing the turning of the seasons, so the sky is heavy and the air thick with the promise of an oncoming storm. the cold metal of the bench brands ice against the back of your legs as you’re pushed into it by the masses of people waiting for their buses - late, as usual - your view entirely blocked by heads and backs and tote bags. so it almost feels like fate - the way the wind picks up, the crowd momentarily shifts, and your eyes land on him. 

your first thought is, damn, he looks exactly the same. all things considering, it’s not the most intelligent thought given it’s only been seven or so months since your breakup - nota bene, the submission of the group project - but he does have a tendency to reduce your neurological function to near-zero levels. and it’s not like you haven’t seen him in the months between; you’ve faithfully watched his stories with a carefully calculated timing that conveys the utmost nonchalance. and though you now know far too much about the food he likes, his design wips, his friends, cats, and motorcycle (a suzuki gsx400fs currently in for repair), you’ve never worked up the courage to text him, to the dismay of your friends who’ve faithfully put in hours of unpaid labour brainstorming the perfect opening lines with you.

but there’s something different about finally seeing him in person again. cameras really don’t do him justice - they don’t capture the way he holds himself with easy confidence, the elegant messiness of his silver-lilac hair in the wind, the calm set of his pale grey-violet eyes. the way he’s always so well put together, in clothes and action and speech. the silhouette of his sharply cut coat, the light glinting off his earring, the way the clouds seem to part and sunlight forms a crown on his head as a choir of angels descend.

bad. this is really bad, because you’re still down bad, and he’s beautiful in the way the moon is - addictive, dominating your sky, impossible to take your eyes off…

at least, that’s until he senses your gaze on him and glances in your direction. you look away so fast you hear something in your neck crack, feigning a casualness you don’t feel at all. 

this is fine.

you’re panicking; heat’s rushing to your face despite the biting cold. you can’t help it - you peek back at him, just for a second, and lord up above but he’s still looking at you. and then he gives you his perfect smile, the soft one with the crinkled eyes and the little tilt of his head, and you have never been more grateful to see your bus pull up in your entire life as the crowd surges forward and cuts off the tenuous connection your extended eye contact had formed between you.

there’s still a few empty rows near the back of the bus that you make a beeline for, slipping into the seat closest to the window and pulling your bag onto your lap. there’s music playing, just barely loud enough to hear over the rumbling of the engine.

if you like piña coladas / and gettin’ caught in the rain …

you’re lucky you got to sit down; at the rate people are pouring through the doors, there’s going to be a lot of people left standing, and is that takashi mitsuya? getting onto your bus, gaze searching for empty seats, gaze finding you? 

it’s disgraceful how unabashedly you suddenly wish that he’ll take the empty spot next to you as he weaves his way in your direction, your entire body tingling with anticipation - but as he moves towards you and then decidedly past you, you mournfully conclude that’s too much to hope for. at the end of the day, you really don’t know each other that well. he probably doesn’t even remember your name.

the thought makes you a lot sadder than it should.

why’s he on this bus? where does he even live? you’ve never thought about it (lie, you have, you’re just not good enough at stalking to find out - though you assumed it was the student accommodations), but surely he doesn’t take this route. surely he doesn’t need to go to the same station as you. surely there’s not another part of your lives that overlap.

it’s only once the bus starts moving and you rest your head on the rattling window pane that you realise he’s sitting right behind you. after some adjusting - with your chin in your hand and your gaze on the gathering darkness outside - you can clearly make out his reflection in the cool glass if you turn your head the slightest bit. 

how does he manage to look so beautiful in a bus window? and at an ordinarily unflattering angle, too? how insane are you for putting this much effort into catching another glimpse of him? (you’ve probably broken the scale of measurement.) but there’s just something about him that makes you weak - that makes your heart flutter and your knees wobble - that makes you stoop down to levels you have never gone to before. 

takashi fricking mitsuya will be the death of you. 

the bus jerks to a stop, banging your forehead against the window hard enough to leave a bruise and unequivocally bringing an end to your humiliating, down-bad behaviours.

that's it. you’re going to suck it up. you’re going to lock in. you’re not going to pine after a boy who you spent two entire tutorials working with, who doesn’t even remember your—

“sorry, do you mind if i sit here?”

you turn, and the bus accelerates in tandem with your heartbeat. 

i’m the love that you’ve looked for / write to me and escape…

“it’s just my other seat’s directly under the air con,” takashi-fricking-mitsuya says pleasantly, “and it’s already cold enough in here.”

your mouth moves automatically before your brain does, giving you a few extra seconds to catch up. “oh, yeah, of course, no worries.”

perfect delivery. chill, friendly. you should turn off your brain more often.

what the hell.

he drops into the seat beside you with far more elegance than any single person should possess. “yn, right? i remember you from last year.”

“yup, yeah, i - remember you as well.”

as if you could forget him. the seats are small; you can feel the warmth of his body, mere inches away from yours. he’s not crazy tall but his legs look insanely long, even folded up - at least next to yours. you need to say something more.

“um, that was a pretty good unit.”

good. great work. you formed a passable sentence. 

he does his smile again, eyes crinkling. “yeah, definitely. you can really feel the difference when the chief coordinator actually wants to be there - there’s so much more thought that goes into its organisation.”

you find yourself smiling back, an automatic reaction whenever you’re around him. “though the first assignment really shouldn’t have been a hurdle.”

“i didn’t mind that so much as the fact it was a quarter of the grade.”

“that’s the thing with humanities units,” you shrug. “you get fewer assignments, but they have much higher weightings. it’s a lot more spread out in science.”

“i’d much rather make one good video essay than have to memorise - i dunno, layers of the stomach - and have to submit five different things every week.”

“shall we agree to disagree, then?” 

“you probably enjoyed memorising the layers of the stomach,” he accuses.

you laugh. “there’s only four, so it’s really not that bad.”

“what’s your major, anyway?” he asks, tilting his head at you; a lock of hair falls into his eyes. “was last year’s unit your elective?”

you’re doing physiology; he’s doing fashion designing. the conversation continues from there - straying from uni, to interests, to a story about one of his childhood friends involving a near-stolen bike and a case of mistaken identity that’s got you cracking up till you can’t breathe. and to your surprise, it’s all so easy. you’d forgotten how well you get along with him. you almost feel stupid for not reaching out earlier, but as usual, you’d gotten too caught up in your head about it all. takashi-fricking-mitsuya, you realise now, would be a great friend.

there’s so much traffic that it’s another forty-five minutes before the bus finally pulls into the station. you grimace as the doors open, sending a biting blast of cold air and sprinkling rain into your face.

“can we just stay here?”

“you want to loop all the way down to the sea?”

it’s enough motivation for you to grudgingly struggle to your feet and swing your bag over your shoulder, body complaining after having been cramped up for so long. you follow takashi across the platform to the steps leading down to a tunnel that cuts across underneath the railway. he’s walking way too fast; it’s his long ass legs, you’re sure of it. it’s raining lightly outside, but the wind rakes the water across your face like shards of ice no matter which way you bow your head.

“you good?”

he’s slowed down to let you catch up - no, he’s walked back to you - despite the buffeting of the wind and the murderous droplets of water. oh, takashi. even though you’re supposedly now ‘chill’ and ‘just friends’, your stomach still does a little pirouette.

“i’m good,” you grumble. “just this weather.”

he hums in agreement, walking decidedly slower beside you as you pick your way through the crowd and down the slippery steps to the tunnel. you both breathe a simultaneous sigh of relief as you get out of the rain, brushing off the droplets from your clothes. there’s no opportunity for conversation in the crowded space but you stick close together anyway. you’re half expecting him to turn onto another corridor that leads up towards the train, but he doesn’t.

guess we’re both taking a bus again.

most people have cleared off to the trains by the time you struggle the short distance to the end of the tunnel. you take in the set of stairs soaked in rain, the biting air, and the puddles on the winding pathway up towards the road. 

“well, this is great,” you say. your shoes are going to get soaked.

and then it starts bucketing.

out of nowhere, the skies open up, and rain comes tumbling down like the sky’s reuniting with the earth as a long-lost lover. it’s deafening, and so thick you can barely see through it.

takashi elegantly strings together a set of curse words you’ve never heard in that particular order before. “why did you jinx it?”

“i did not!”

“you don’t happen to have an umbrella, do you?”

you roll your eyes. “no, i’ve just been subjecting myself to this for fun.”

“i dunno - some people enjoy that.”

“you seem to think very lowly of me.”

(“i don’t,” he says quietly.)

you eye the curtain of water plummeting from the heavens. it eyes you back. there’s nothing to it.

“well, i guess we’re just gonna have to go for it,” you say, inhaling sharply.

“huh? no, wait—”

you sprint out from under cover, and the rain hits you like a bucket of ice, instantly sticking your shirt to your skin and chilling you to the bone in a way that snatches the breath from your lungs. you tuck your chin to your chest and power up the stairs, limbs trembling. oh my god, i hate this. i’m gonna get sick. i’m literally going to die.

“wait, wait, wait—” takashi calls from behind you, yelling over the rain, and of all things he’s laughing as he catches up to you - and then suddenly the rain stops.

you look up and halt abruptly, your heart missing several beats. takashi’s shrugged his jacket off and is holding it above your heads; water streams off his hair, down his face and the contours of his body, where his white shirt has obligingly turned transparent and clings to the muscles of his torso. 

“i got you,” he says, voice low next to your ear.

his presence, his proximity, his body heat. you’re going insane. you’re going feral, blood rushing through your head and joining the thundering of the rain. thebonly ‘chill’ thing about this is the weather because it feels like the entirety of your body is alight, drowning in fire, and you have never felt so un-chill about something in your life. every nerve ending, every cell, every atom. you’re poised to implode.

“let’s run,” he offers, and you do.

you don’t know what sets you off - maybe it’s the image of how you must look, him holding the coat above your heads, you with your face scrunched up, heads bowed against the rain as you sprint up the slope - but once you start laughing, neither of you can stop, even when you reach the shelter of the bus stop. you collapse into the side of the stop, struggling to catch your breath. 

“it’s really not that funny,” he gasps.

“it kinda is,” you return - but your laughter dissolves fairly rapidly into coughs as the wind suddenly picks up with a passion. you shiver, arms uselessly wrapping around yourself in an attempt to save your dignity (wet, clinging shirt) and possibly your life (freezing to death).

takashi’s positioned between you and the wind - not by design, you’re sure - but it’s not helping much either way. you shudder again and hunch forward, a stray gust blowing rain into your face. as you blink the water from your eyes, you feel a heavy weight drape over your shoulders.

“takashi, i’m fine—”

“you’re obviously not, so just - don’t,” he says amusedly as he pulls his coat tighter around you, and you try not to think about his hands on you, or the way his scent and warmth envelops you.

he’s focused on adjusting the collar around your neck with careful precision, so you have ample time to study the droplets clinging to his eyelashes, the locks of wet hair falling into his eyes, his flushed cheekbones, the slope of his nose and jut of his chin, his lips—

“when’s the next bus?” you blurt, tearing your gaze away. get it together.

he glances up over your shoulder, leaning forward a bit. “um. twelve minutes.”

“what?” you say, hoping you misheard over the rain. 

“twelve minutes.”

oh, good lord.

“i’m going to die,” you say, horrified. “i can’t survive another twelve minutes in this.”

“doesn’t look like we have a choice,” he says grimly.

there’s a moment of quiet dismay. 

“well!” he says, with an attempt at cheeriness. “since we’re captive here, i might as well bounce off a couple of ideas for that project with you, if you don’t mind.” 

“i’d love that,” you say miserably. 

luckily for you, it’s genuinely interesting. takashi’s not the type to stay silent about things that matter to him - something you were quick to realise after working with him last year - and that extends to what he creates. his current project’s focused on sharp cuts, statement pieces, and blaring, accusing colours - red, green, black, white. 

“political fashion,” he tells you. “clothes that really say something.”

unfortunately for takashi, his professors aren’t too pleased with what he does have to say, and he’s ruffled more than a few feathers in his department. characteristically, it only spurs him on to do more. say more. go bigger. he's sweet, but he doesn't take things lying down either. 

“to be honest, i don't even know if they'll let me submit this one,” he says frankly. “but i'm gonna make a fuss either way.”

it certainly helps that he’s a genius with fabrics and cuts and shape language, and after some convincing, he shows you a few of his finished pieces on his phone as you huddle together, unsuccessfully shielding the screen from the rain. 

“you’re going to go big,” you tell him. “you've already won a few competitions, right? it's only a matter of time before people take notice.”

“i hope so,” he says. “i'm definitely going to do my best.”

you don't doubt him for a second. 

the white noise of rain fills the brief silence between you as another load of people trickle in to join you underneath the meagre protection of the shelter. takashi opens his mouth, closes it; considers you for a moment, head tilted, and then the words rush out.

“y'know, i really think you should model for me sometime.”

“oh, of course,” you say sarcastically, laughing it off, until he holds your gaze for a moment and you realise he’s being serious. dead serious. you've never backtracked so fast in your life. “oh, no, i don't think i'll look good in—”

the words spill out of his mouth, one after the other. “that's literally my job. and you'd probably look good in a trash bag so there's nothing to worry about. i have to work on my fashion photography anyway. might as well be with someone pretty.”

your heart stutters, stops, restarts. you must’ve misheard him over the rain - not one, but two compliments.

“what was - huh?”

his ears are flushed, probably from the cold. “i said, might as well be with someone who works pretty good with me.”

“oh. yeah. i’ll consider it.”

you really shouldn’t be getting your hopes up this easily. pretty? really? (though he undeniably did say you'd look good in a trash bag. surely he was just being polite.)

the rain’s lessened a bit over the course of your conversation, but it decides to pick up again with a vengeance, as if it's got something to prove. you've never been out in weather like this. there's no build up; it's coming down so hard and fast that the road in front of you, completely devoid of the bus that should be here soon, starts looking more like a river. the wind buffets the rain along the surface of the asphalt in wild patterns. 

“this is insane,” takashi yells through the downpour.

you pull a face at him in agreement due to lack of faith in your vocal projection skills, feeling goosebumps settle over your skin despite the weight of takashi's jacket over your shoulders. perhaps you should put your arms through it, but that feels a little pretentious, like you’re taking ownership of it. that’s girlfriend behaviour - something, horrifyingly, you’re not.

the train's arrived and a steady stream of people are adding to the crowd already under the shelter, shaking out their umbrellas uselessly amidst muttered curses. you're not usually fazed this easily - but what with the lurking anxiety of the many minutes left for the bus to arrive, the horrific weather, and the crowd inexplicably crushing you, you're slowly losing it. takashi mouths an apology as someone shoulders past and shoves him backwards, his side knocking into your chest, your back hitting the cold glass of the shelter.

his body. solid against yours. for a moment you're sure you've never felt so warm in your life. but the brief giddiness that courses through you is wholly overshadowed by the tight space you've been cornered into, by no fault of takashi's. the frigid air freezes your airways as you struggle to heave in another breath. it's suffocating. agonising. you need oxygen. 

and then takashi's arm lifts up to rest on the glass above your head, forcibly creating a small bubble of space around you, his body acting as a wall against the rush of people. he's got a small tattoo on his hand. a rose and stem. your eyes follow the neatly inked lines before they disappear out of your line of vision.

you exhale. 

“you okay?” 

when you look up at him you realise your faces are mere inches apart.

you can feel his breath fanning on your face, the warmth radiating from his body, count each droplet of rain on his eyelashes. he seems to realise it at the same moment you do, eyes darting up to yours, but for some reason neither of you move.

step away, you think, but he doesn’t. and you don't. like a strange magnetism is holding you in place, gluing his eyes to yours like he can’t look away either. every nerve ending in your body is firing, locking your knees; you're trembling. that stupid song's rotating just one verse around and around in your head—

and gettin' caught in the rain

you're sure he can hear your heartbeat even over the rain with the way it's thundering in your ears. his body frames yours against the shelter, trails of water dripping from his hair to trace his face, from the rise of his brow to the curve of his cheek to his lips, slightly parted as his breath comes out in uneven puffs—

don't goddamn look at his lips, idiot, but your brain's caught up a moment too late. your face burns as you wrench your gaze back up to his eyes. surely he didn't notice, right? but the look on his face steals the air from your lungs all over again. his pupils are dilated; eyes wide, uncertain as they hold yours, flickering, wanting, but even so it feels inevitable when his gaze unmistakably drops to your lips. oh, god help me. it's taking every ounce of self control to not surge forward and close the gap between you and jump his bones, but it feels like you're barrelling towards that anyway. his face and neck are flushed, eyes hooded. the space between you has shrunk even further; your lips part, his head tilts, your lashes flutter, and the bus pulls up at the stop in a shower of puddles.

“oh,” you say stupidly. “the bus.”

“yeah. the bus.” 

it’s a small comfort that he seems even more dazed than you. he’s just - standing there. in the middle of a late summer storm. staring at you like you’re the only thing in the world. and it’s flattering and your heart is still galloping in your chest and once you get home you’re going to half-believe you hallucinated this entire thing (because there is no fricking way you nearly kissed takashi fricking mitsuya in the rain - what is this, a romcom?) but you really do need to actually get home in the first place.

“i should—”

“the bus,” he says again, and comes to his senses enough to move backwards a little - to drop his arm from above your head and twist his torso away, giving you as much space as he can. “you should get on the bus.”

“i will. i am.” you’re focused on maintaining basic dignity as your arm presses firmly against the warmth of his chest in your attempt to squeeze past him. you’re getting on the bus, and then you’re crashing out. 

you blame the delay on your takashi-induced brain freeze, but it’s only once you’re free of the crowd and one step away from boarding the bus that you realise what’s wrong - he’s not behind you.

you twist around, coat swinging on your shoulders. “you coming?”

“oh, no, i’m taking the train to a friend’s house,” he calls back. you open your mouth to protest but he’s already adding, “the next one’s in two minutes; i’ll be okay.”

he’s taking the train. he’s taking the train? so he was waiting with you this whole time just for you? he chose to be outside in this ghastly weather when he could’ve been halfway home by now?

“any reason why yer floodin’ my bus?” the bus driver barks irritably, and you register the unfortunate fact that you’ve been standing stock still in the doorway like a fool as the rain washes rivlets of mud down the steps around your sodden shoes.

takashi looks a bit too amused as you blunder out an apology and stumble onto the bus, head entirely muddled. there’s barely standing space left, let alone any seats, so you’re resigned to being suffocated between a crush of drenched and irritated people. and it’s only after the bus pulls out of the station - after takashi gives you a smile goodbye before ducking back out into the rain again - after you twist your head to watch his figure receding into the distance until he’s inevitably blocked from your view - that you realise his coat still hangs from your shoulders.

[instagram: (4) messages from mitsuya_tkshi]

takashi :) (19:14) home yet? (19:14) warm? (19:14) dry? (19:14) alive?

you (19:22) what level of double texting is this

takashi :)  (19:22) using simple arithmetic id say prob lvl 2

you you reacted :thumbs-down: to ‘using simple arithmeti…’  (19:23) i got home 10 mins ago, hby?

takashi :)  (19:23) still in train 😟

you  (19:23) free u omg  (19:24) also i just realised i still have ur coat im so sorry i didnt give it back 😭 completely slipped my mind (19:24) i was a bit all over the place

takashi :)  (19:24) dw, me too (19:26) i’ll be on campus tmrw we can get lunch too ☺️

you  (19:30) sounds good!

takashi :) (19:32) !!!!!

you  (19:32) !!!!!!!!!!!!!

takashi :) (19:32) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!@#$z5ty

you (19:32) ???

takashi :) (19:33) ?? who knows. (19:34) see u tmrw then :))  (19:34) and u can get back to me about the modelling too if you’ve thought abt it 

you  (19:35) oh nah there’s not much to think about, i’d love to

takashi :)  (19:35) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

you  (19:35) stop. (19:35) (!!!!!!!!!!!!) 

you stare at the screen for a few moments longer until it becomes clear that the conversation’s over, at least for now. you need a hot shower, and you really need to lock in on a lab report, but there’s only one thing on your mind right now. you put down your phone, bury your face in your hands, and - finally - crash out.

takashi fricking mitsuya might certainly be nice to everyone, but something tells you that a near-kiss in the rain is probably a bit more than just friendly - and not only that, but rather than ignoring you for the rest of the semester, he actually wants to see you tomorrow?

maybe you’re not insane. maybe you weren’t hallucinating. maybe you weren’t reading into things.

maybe you do have a chance.

i've got to meet you by tomorrow noon / and cut through all this red tape / [...] you're the lady i've looked for / come with me and escape

in my head they're very chill at lunch very nonchalant the whole jazz, but things get a lil, y'know, when he offers to show you what you'll be modelling for him...

based entirely on very real occurrences in my life

general taglist open - leave a comment or ask !! @revyuu @fushiguruuzzzz

© rfyu. all rights reserved. do not copy, translate, repost, or feed my work into ai.

[scoupsakakitty]

hiii i love all of your works! 😍 can I request a svtx14thmember, where the reader gets mobbed in the airport and how the members reacted and protected her during the situation. this would mean so muchhh, thank you! And Happy Carats Day! <33

Under Their Wings / Seventeen x 14thMember / angst

Y/N had never minded the crowds at the airport. After years of being in Seventeen, she had gotten used to flashing cameras, fans screaming their names, and the occasional chaos. But today felt different.

From the moment they landed back in Korea, the energy in the air was overwhelming. There were more people than usual, their voices blending into an indistinguishable roar. Security was there, but even they seemed to be struggling with the sheer number of fans and reporters pushing their way forward.

Seventeen was used to it. They had their usual formations, naturally gravitating toward each other, their practiced steps keeping them in sync. Y/N, as the 14th and youngest member, was always tucked safely between them. But today, the moment they stepped out of the terminal, something went wrong.

The crowd surged.

Y/N barely had time to react before hands reached for her, the pressure of bodies pushing her from every side. She stumbled, feeling herself being pulled away from the group. The warmth of her members was gone in an instant, swallowed by the chaos.

"Y/N!" Joshua’s voice cut through the noise, sharp with panic.

She tried to move, to reach for him, but the weight of the crowd pressed in, making it impossible. A hand grabbed at her arm, another at her backpack, yanking her in different directions. Her heart pounded. This was different from usual. This was too much.

And then—

A strong grip wrapped around her wrist.

"I got you." It was S.Coups.

Before she could even register his presence, he pulled her toward him, shielding her with his body as he maneuvered through the chaos. His other arm was up, blocking cameras from flashing directly in her face.

"Move! Give her space!" His voice was commanding, the leader in him coming out in full force.

But the crowd wasn’t relenting. If anything, they were getting more aggressive.

And then the others were there.

Hoshi and Jun pushed through first, their arms forming a protective barrier around her. Jun was murmuring something in Mandarin, his voice calm but firm, while Hoshi’s expression was fierce, his usual playfulness replaced with worry.

"She’s shaking," Jeonghan said, slipping through the gap and immediately placing a hand on her back. His usual soft demeanor was gone, replaced with cold anger. "We need to get her out of here. Now."

"Hyung, she almost fell," Dino’s voice came, tight with frustration. He had been right behind her, trying to reach her when the crowd surged. His fists clenched as he glared at the people still pushing forward.

Mingyu and Wonwoo, the tallest of them all, moved next. Mingyu placed himself directly in front of her, an immovable shield, while Wonwoo was at her side, his usually indifferent expression dark with irritation.

"Back off!" Mingyu barked, his deep voice cutting through the noise. He wasn’t often angry, but when he was, it was terrifying. The crowd hesitated for just a moment.

DK and Seungkwan flanked her other side, their arms lightly gripping her shoulders. DK, ever the sunshine, looked anything but happy, his jaw tight as he kept his body angled toward her. Seungkwan, usually one to handle the press with a smile, was scowling.

"Y/N, are you okay?" Woozi’s voice was softer, but the tension in it was unmistakable. He wasn’t physically shielding her, but his eyes were scanning every movement around them, making sure nothing else happened.

"I—" Y/N tried to speak, but the overwhelming feeling of everything—the noise, the pushing, the hands grabbing at her—was too much. She felt her throat tighten.

Vernon, who had been silent up until now, suddenly pressed a hand against the back of her head, tucking her against his shoulder.

"Breathe," he murmured. "Just breathe. We got you."

And she did. Inhale. Exhale. The warmth of her members surrounding her made the chaos feel more distant.

The security team finally got control, pushing the crowd back. It was only then that they managed to start moving forward.

Minghao was beside her now, his arm looped through hers, his presence grounding.

"This was worse than usual," he muttered, his voice edged with frustration. "What the hell happened?"

"Someone must’ve leaked our flight details," Jeonghan answered, his voice laced with annoyance. "That crowd wasn’t just normal fans. Some of them were just—" He shook his head.

"Crazy," Seungkwan finished for him.

They finally made it to their van, and as soon as the doors shut behind them, the weight of everything hit Y/N at once. She hadn’t realized how tightly she had been gripping onto S.Coups’ sleeve until he gently pried her fingers off.

"Hey," he said softly. "You’re safe now."

She exhaled shakily. "That was—" She couldn’t even finish the sentence.

Joshua handed her a bottle of water while Woozi reached over, squeezing her hand once before letting go.

"You don’t have to talk about it now," Woozi said simply.

"But you do have to eat something when we get back," DK added. "No arguments."

"And rest," Minghao said firmly. "No scrolling online, either. I don’t want you seeing whatever videos are already going up."

Y/N nodded, but then winced slightly as she moved her wrist. She glanced down, noticing the red marks and scratches forming along her skin. A sasaeng had grabbed her hard at the beginning, their fingers digging into her wrist with enough force to leave bruises. The skin was already irritated, and she knew it would turn into a darker bruise soon.

"Y/N," S.Coups frowned, immediately noticing. "Who did that?"

"One of the guys in the crowd," she murmured. "He grabbed me pretty hard."

Jeonghan’s face darkened, his eyes flashing with anger. "If I ever see them—"

"Let’s get home first," Woozi interrupted, his voice tense. "We’ll put some ice on it."

Y/N nodded, still feeling a little overwhelmed. But as she looked around at the faces of the thirteen boys she called her family, the panic slowly faded.

They had her.

They always had her.

[orellazalonia]

The Side That Noticed

Summary: After being kidnapped, you resist at first by giving them the silent treatment, wary of your captor’s friendliness. However, their subtle kindness, attention, and respect slowly chip away at your defenses; leaving you questioning where you truly belong.

Disclaimer: ANGST, Mentions/Alludes of Kidnapping aftermath.

Word Count: 2k+

Main Masterlist | The One You Don’t See Masterlist

They didn’t come in with threats. No electric shocks. No screaming demands. Just a door that opened with a soft click and a chair across from yours.

The man who sat across from you wasn’t in tactical gear. He wore dark slacks, a black sweater. Not unlike someone who might’ve passed you in the Tower lobby. He smiled like he already knew the answer to the question he hadn’t asked.

“You were with the Avengers for how long?”

You didn’t answer. You moved your gaze back down, not even looking at him.

“Certainly long enough to know where the mission reports were stored. Long enough to predict patterns in deployment rotations. Long enough to keep the Tower from burning down with its own disorganization.”

He leaned forward slightly. Not threatening. Not close. Just… present.

“But not long enough,” He added, “for any of them to remember your birthday.”

That made you flinch, just slightly. And he noticed. You hated that he noticed. He didn’t press the moment though. He didn’t need to.

“They talk about being a team,” He continued after a pause. “A family. But families don’t let people like you walk out the door unnoticed.”

You clenched your jaw. The silence between you curled tight.

“You kept them alive more times than you probably realize,” He added, tapping the table once. “And they never even learned your name.”

Still, you didn’t speak. And still, he didn’t stop.

“That report you corrected on Sokovia’s evac timeline?” He said. “Saved twenty-seven lives. And that comms system update you suggested but didn’t get credit for? We used it. Works better for us, too.”

You looked up at him then, and he smiled like he’d won something.

“You were never invisible,” He said. “Just standing in the wrong light.”

Even though you didn’t grace him with a response, he didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he presented you with a terminal. No shackles. No threats. Just a system full of flaws you could fix with one hand tied behind your back.

You didn’t touch it the first time it was offered. You stared at it with your fingers curled tight in your lap and your spine straight, refusing to lean forward. The screen glowed a soft blue. It was familiar, not unlike the ones you'd sat in front of back at the Tower. But here, it felt wrong. Even if no one had tied you down, it still felt like a trap.

So you said nothing, did nothing. And they didn’t push.

The man, he hadn’t given his name, only offered you a shrug and stood. “Suit yourself,” He spoke, easy. Like this was your choice.

When he left, the door clicked closed again. No lock that you could tell, but you knew better.

The next day, they brought coffee. The kind you always got back at the Tower, from that place three blocks over no one else ever remembered. It was stupid that they got it right. It was also… unnerving.

“I figured you were probably tired of the protein bars,” He had said casually, placing the cup down like it was nothing. “Not everyone likes being caged with nutrition paste.”

You stared at the cup in silence then looked away.

“You’re not a prisoner,” He said simply, like it was obvious. “We’re not interested in forcing anyone to work with us. But we do value skill.”

He gestured at the untouched terminal. “And you? You’ve got more than most of them ever realized.”

You’ve yet to give him a proper response, not even blinking at him. Yet, he took the silence in stride.

Before he left, he glanced back and said, “You’d be surprised how many people here were overlooked first.”

That night, you stared at the terminal for three straight hours. Not because you were curious. Not because you wanted to help them. But because… what if it was true? What if all the things they said were things the Avengers just refused to see?

However, you still didn’t open it.

The next day, they brought a chair with better back support. It was stupid. It was small. It was intentional.

“You always sat weird at your desk, looked uncomfortable,” The man said, not unkindly. “Thought you might want something a little better.”

That was the first time something in you cracked, not all the way, but enough to where you looked at him. Really looked at him. And you hated that he was right. You hated that someone had paid attention.

That night, you hesitantly approached the computer and opened the terminal. You didn’t touch anything at first, more so just reading, scrolling, looking. You found various files, patterns, and outlines you could’ve made better in your sleep. And a part of you itched to fix them. You told yourself it was curiosity. Just that and nothing more.

The next day, he didn’t ask you anything. Didn’t comment or show any indication that you finally did something. Imstead, he just handed you a pastry with your coffee. The one you always got on Tuesdays.

“Did you know we used to intercept intel before it even reached your department?” He asked casually. “We'd look at the files and laugh sometimes, because they were such a mess until you rewrote them.”

You didn’t laugh, you just stared. But something in your chest twisted, low and tight. Because you remembered working late and alone. Always alone doing something whether it was reformatting, correcting, or smoothing over data others had fumbled only to watch someone else get all the credit or your work to go unnoticed.

And now, someone finally acknowledged it. They weren’t cruel. They weren’t threatening. They were kind. Kind in the way people are when they want you to stay, not when they want to break you.

And maybe that was worse. Because part of you started wondering, if being good meant being invisible, forgotten, alone…

Then maybe being bad meant finally being valued.

Even if the warmth they offered was manufactured, it was still warmer than the silence the Avengers left behind.

And so, you told yourself the terminal was just a distraction. That fixing their data was no different than solving a crossword in a waiting room. You weren’t joining them. You were… coping. Keeping your mind sharp and staying sane.

But soon enough, someone left a stylus beside the terminal, one of those nice ones that were weighted and smooth and happened to be the kind you always preferred but never let yourself buy. You didn’t even ask for it, but they left it anyway without expecting anything in return.

A few days later, another face showed up. A woman this time, younger than you expected, with dark curls pulled back and a quiet, dry wit.

She brought you a small stack of files.

“You don’t have to look at these,” She said, grinning as she laid them out beside your coffee. “But if you do, we might actually stop getting our drones blown up every time they try to cross Stark-issue fences.”

You raised a brow. “You’re assuming I want your drones to survive.”

She smirked, leaned against the wall. “Honestly? That’s fair. But I figure you might be tired of pretending you’re not three times more efficient than half the people who used to ignore you.”

You blinked. Slowly. But didn’t reply.

She didn’t push. Just winked and walked away. You came to realize her name was Maren. She started dropping by daily. Sometimes with questions. Sometimes with snacks. Sometimes just to talk.

She never asked about the Avengers, never brought up your past either. Instead, she talked about books. About music. About her annoying roommate before she joined the organization.

You hadn’t realized how long it had been since someone just talked to you without needing something.

Soon enough, others followed. People started greeting you in the hallway. Saying your name. Remembering it.

One day, a nervous, red-haired technician peeked into your space and handed you a soldering tool.

“You mentioned the other one was misaligned last week,” He said. “This one should be better. Also- uh, your breakfast order’s on the counter. Hope I got it right.”

You blinked at him. You hadn’t even realized he’d been listening.

It wasn’t much. None of them fawned over you, but they saw you. You’d spent years in the Tower as a ghost in plain sight. Yet now, for the first time, people paused when you spoke. They remembered what you liked. They asked how you were.

You hated how easily you started to relax. How good it felt to be called a peer. How you caught yourself looking forward to the next day, the next problem to fix. Not because you agreed with their side, but because they asked you like you mattered.

One evening, you stood by a long window looking out into the dark. Rain blurred the horizon, city lights distant and soft.

The man from the first day stepped up beside you, hands in his pockets.

“I don’t expect loyalty,” He said. “Not from someone like you.”

You didn’t respond.

“But you don’t owe them anything either.” His voice was calm and level. “Not after how they treated you.”

You swallowed.

He didn’t press. Just patted your shoulder gently and walked away. And yet, the silence that followed wasn’t empty anymore. It was quiet. Comforting. Like something inside you had finally stopped being so tense.

Maybe you hadn’t chosen this side. But this side had chosen you.

And in all honesty, you could still leave. That was the truth. They hadn’t locked the doors. Hadn’t chipped you. Hadn’t twisted your arm behind your back and made you sign anything in blood. You weren’t a prisoner here, not exactly, and that unsettled you more than any chains would have.

On some nights when the hallways were still, you would sit on the edge of your cot with your shoes on, fully dressed, and staring at the door. You’d check your pockets. There was always a keycard. Yours. Allowing unrestricted access to almost every level.

They hadn’t taken anything. Not your autonomy. Not your mind. And that was the part that made everything worse. Because the question echoed over and over:

If you’re free to go… then why haven’t you?

You told yourself you were gathering intel. You told yourself you were playing the long game. You told yourself you were buying time, waiting for the Avengers to reach out, to realize something was wrong and to bring you back.

But they didn’t.

There wasn’t a ping nor a whisper. You bet there wasn’t even a raised eyebrow. And that little crack inside your chest… widened.

Maren still showed up most mornings. She started leaving jokes on sticky notes under your coffee mug. Sometimes crude. Sometimes clever. Always personal. She knew your humor now and you knew hers. She also knew when to talk, and when to stay quiet.

Meanwhile, the others greeted you by name. They made space for you at the long table during planning sessions. They asked for your thoughts and they listened. Sometimes, they even debated you, and you didn’t have to raise your voice to be heard. You felt like you actually mattered for once, like you were someone worth paying attention to as well.

And that made you start wondering: Was it really so wrong to want to stay where you were respected?

But then you’d go back to your cot and remember everything they’d done. The files you’d glimpsed. The agents they’d taken down. The systems they were dismantling. You hadn’t helped with anything directly. At least, not yet. But… you were here. And that meant something.

Didn’t it?

You still told yourself you hadn’t chosen a side. You were just… drifting. Floating in a quiet current no one else seemed to notice.

But some nights, you would stare at the ceiling and feel it. The undeniable weight of the truth:

You could have left on Day 1. Day 3. Even today. But you didn’t. You haven’t.

And that, more than anything, frightened you. Because maybe it wasn’t that you couldn’t escape. Maybe it was that, deep down, you weren’t sure you wanted to.

Because this place made you feel more real and alive than anywhere else ever had.

Taglist: @herejustforbuckybarnes @iyskgd @torntaltos @julesandgems @maesmayhem @w-h0re @pookalicious-hq @parkerslivia @whisperingwillowxox

[clementineinn]

everglow, a head full of dreams

abstract: after a long interpol liaison assignment overseas, Y/N finally returns to the BAU. the day is filled with warmth, laughter, and homecoming — but for spencer reid, there’s an ache that can’t be ignored any longer. he’s loved her from the moment before she left — and now that she’s back, he knows he can’t keep it buried. not for another second.

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader (usage of Y/N)

genre: fluff

note: i love yearning, slow burn spencer, so bear with me as i continuously churn out these fluffy stories. honestly not too sure how i feel about this one, maybe i'll continue the story? idk. i'm not really liking how it turned out but it might just be because i've reread it too many times, but i just wanted to post it bc i'm having writer's block!!!! kinda struggling with my writing rn, UGH! but anyways, as always, please enjoy, even though i just went on a pessimistic rant lol.

It was late morning, and the bullpen at Quantico hummed with a quiet, restless energy — the kind that filled the air when something was about to happen, though no one quite knew what.

Sunlight slanted in through the high windows, striping the desks in warm gold and shadow. The low murmur of conversation drifted through the space, broken now and then by the faint clatter of a mug being set down, the rustle of papers, the soft mechanical hum of the printer across the room.

Hotch had sent out a clipped message that morning — unexpected.

Conference. 10:30.

No urgent case file attached. No coded pre-brief from JJ. Nothing from Garcia’s terminal. Just that — cool and spare. Enough to spark curiosity like static.

Now, ten minutes before the hour, the bullpen had begun to subtly shift — that unspoken way the team always seemed to gather when the center of gravity tipped toward something new.

Coffee cups in hand, files forgotten, they found themselves orbiting naturally toward Spencer’s desk — the usual center point in moments like these.

Morgan leaned one hip against the edge of the desk, twirling a pen between his fingers. Emily settled nearby, her chair tipped back just slightly, one boot hooked around the leg. JJ arrived with a soft thump of her file folder, setting it down before crossing her arms in curiosity. Garcia, bright-eyed and colorful, perched on the corner with a rustle of fabric and the faint vanilla-sugar scent of her latest perfume.

And in the middle of it all — Spencer sat, cardigan sleeves pushed to his elbows, a familiar fountain pen resting idly between his fingers. His notebooks lay open before him — unscribbled, forgotten — as his gaze drifted, unfocused, somewhere far beyond the present conversation.

Above them, the second-story mezzanine stood quiet. No sign of Hotch yet.

The bullpen breathed with waiting — something in the stillness, in the shifting glances, in the undercurrent of soft voices and quiet anticipation, as if the room itself held its breath for whatever would come next.

Garcia, bright-eyed and luminous in a swirl of violet silk, leaned one hip with theatrical flair against the edge of Spencer’s desk, mirroring Morgan’s easy stance. In one hand she held a paper cup, its pale surface scattered with tiny pink hearts, steam curling lazily from the lid like the last breath of a spell.

“I’m telling you,” she declared, eyes wide with certainty, “this is definitely about new equipment. Or tech upgrades. Maybe he’s finally letting me overhaul the databases.”

Morgan let out a low chuckle, stretching back in his chair with casual grace, arms folded across his broad chest. A slow shake of his head, eyes gleaming.

“Come on, baby girl — Hotch wouldn’t be this mysterious over hard drives.”

Emily smirked over the rim of her coffee cup, shoulders relaxed, dark lashes catching the late-morning light.

“Maybe it’s a new recruit,” she mused, voice teasing. “Or budget talks. Or... mandatory wellness seminars.”

A collective groan rose from the little circle.

“If it’s more wellness training,” Rossi intoned dryly from his perch nearby — the morning’s Washington Post still folded under one arm — “I’m transferring to cybercrimes.” But the faint, knowing glint in his eyes gave him away.

JJ shook her head, blond waves falling over one shoulder as she gave a rueful smile. 

“He wouldn’t pull us all in just for that.”

Spencer listened — or seemed to — gaze flicking now and then to Morgan, to Garcia’s flurry of color, to Emily’s grin over her coffee. The low rhythm of voices surrounded him, bright and familiar. He heard each word, each teasing lilt — but it was as though the sound reached him through a thin layer of water, slow and distant.

Because beneath it all — beneath the warmth of the room, beneath the soft tap of heels on tile and the rustle of paper — his thoughts circled, always, to her.

Even now — especially now — everything seemed to spiral back to her.

How many months since she’d left? He’d counted them at first, marked the weeks in the margins of his calendar, tracked deployments and return dates like a ritual. Eventually, the numbers blurred — but the ache never dulled.

He caught himself doing it still — absent, distracted in moments like this — wondering what city she was in now. Whether she was safe. Whether she missed them.

Whether she thought of him.

A familiar weight settled in his chest — low and constant, the shape of missing her. He smoothed it down the way he always did, fingers tightening briefly on the pen.

At that moment, Garcia’s voice rang brightly through the air:  “If this is a team restructure meeting, I swear I will riot. Peacefully. In glitter.”

Spencer blinked — half-smiling despite himself. Without looking up from the pen, he murmured softly, voice low and dry: “I’m fairly certain the Bureau has policies against both glitter and riots.”

Morgan let out a low chuckle. “See? Even the good doctor’s ready to shut you down, baby girl.”

That pulled a faint, crooked smile from Spencer — the corners of his mouth lifting, then fading.

Garcia pressed a dramatic hand to her chest. “So much logic in one room. It’s exhausting.”

The conversation drifted on — light, easy.

Spencer leaned back in his chair, gaze resting somewhere beyond the curve of the room — past the windows, past the moment.

“Where is Hotch, anyway?” Morgan asked, glancing toward the mezzanine — one brow lifted, voice curling with curiosity.

The question hovered in the air — unanswered — as the little circle fell into a brief pause.

And then —

The elevator chimed.

Soft — an ordinary sound, easily lost in the low hum of the bullpen — but in that moment, it seemed to echo just a fraction longer than usual. A faint, suspended note, bright against the stillness.

No one moved at first. No one looked.

And then — footsteps.

Measured. Unhurried. The familiar cadence of heels on tile — a crisp, rhythmic sound that drifted through the open space with almost hypnotic clarity.

It was a sound they all knew — had known. A sound that once threaded through their days so easily it hardly registered at all.

Until it had been gone.

And now — now it returned — unmistakable.

Spencer’s breath caught.

Before he quite realized it, his gaze lifted — drawn instinctively across the bullpen, past the edge of his desk, toward the entryway — toward the source of that sound.

And there — framed in the soft wash of light from the corridor beyond — she stood.

For a moment, the entire bullpen seemed to still. The air shifted — the edges of the room blurring faintly, as though the world had drawn a breath and forgotten to release it.

She moved forward — unhurried, composed — the easy grace of someone who had walked this path a thousand times before.

Her hair — soft, undone, loose in a way that seemed both effortless and deliberate — brushed her shoulders in a gentle wave. The delicate planes of her face caught the light — the elegant slope of her nose, the soft curve of her cheek, the fullness of her mouth touched with the faintest flush of rose. Her lashes cast fine shadows against her skin.

And her eyes — God, her eyes — quiet and clear and steady, the kind of gaze that could both undo and anchor a man. There was a knowing there — something older, softer, as though she had seen too much and still chosen gentleness.

She wore simple, perfect lines — a fitted black knit top that framed her collarbones with spare elegance, sleeves pushed just past her wrists. Slate-gray slacks, soft in their drape, skimming long legs with easy movement. Black low heels, no louder than a sigh against the tile.

No badge, no blazer, no ostentation — just her.

And in that moment — her presence filled the room more fully than any arrival could.

The hum of the bullpen seemed to fall away — voices dimming, motion pausing, as if drawn into the quiet gravity of her entrance.

Spencer’s breath caught — sharp in his chest — and for one fragile second, he could do nothing but look.

She’s here.

She tilted her head faintly, one brow lifting in the subtlest tease — mouth curving with a flicker of amusement.

“You guys always this jumpy in the mornings?”

For a single breath — no one moved.

It was as if the air itself had thinned — caught somewhere between heartbeats.

Then — the spell broke.

A bright, delighted gasp: “Oh my god — Y/N!”

Garcia was the first to move — coffee nearly forgotten, her cup teetering dangerously on the edge of Spencer’s desk as she flew forward in a whirl of color and perfume.

Before anyone could so much as blink, she had Y/N wrapped in a fierce, breathless hug — arms tight, voice bubbling over.

“You didn’t tell us—!”

Emily was close behind, laughter rising as she caught Y/N’s other arm in a quick pull, drawing her in.

“How long— when— what—?” JJ’s voice chimed through the tangle of greetings, her smile wide and bright as she reached in mid-hug, the words tumbling over themselves in joy.

And then — Morgan.

A deep, familiar whoop split the air as he strode forward, easy grin wide, hands outstretched. Without hesitation, he swept Y/N off her feet — a half-spin, effortless and exuberant.

“Look who’s back in the big leagues!”

The bullpen rippled with warmth — the sound of it filling every corner.

Even Rossi — leaning back against the edge of a nearby desk, arms folded with casual grace — let a rare smile soften his features.

“It’s about time,” he said, voice low but warmly sincere.

The bullpen bloomed with joy — wide and irrepressible, the kind of warmth that filled a room from the inside out. It wasn’t forced. It wasn’t polite. It was the deep, unguarded welcome reserved for one of their own — a missing piece returned to its place.

Voices overlapped, laughter spilling into the air. The small crowd folded around her in an instant — hands reaching, arms pulling her close, greetings tumbling over one another in the rush to be heard.

Everyone — except Spencer.

He stood more slowly — as though the very act of moving had weight. His legs felt strangely unsteady beneath him, breath caught somewhere in his chest. A wild, heady thrum of blood rushed in his ears — the rhythm of a heart that couldn’t quite catch up to the moment. For one long second, he couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. His mouth opened, then closed again — words crowding his throat, too many all at once, none of them enough.

She was here.

Not an echo through Garcia’s screen. Not a line of text in a quiet after-hours message. Not a passing update on some distant, classified case.

Here.

And for one dizzy, breathless beat — all he could do was stare. As though the very sight of her might dissolve if he blinked too fast — a trick of the light, too fragile to trust.

She glanced up — mid-hug with Garcia, arms still looped around her friend’s shoulders — a bright laugh just beginning to bloom at the corner of her mouth.

And then — her gaze caught his. Across the distance, across the bright scatter of voices, the blur of motion — her eyes found Spencer’s.

The shift was immediate.

Something in her expression gentled — softened at the edges, the brightness folding inward to something quieter, deeper. A warmth that seemed to bloom from beneath the surface. Her smile changed — not the easy grin she’d offered to the others, not the familiar humor of old camaraderie — but something softer. More fragile. The kind of smile meant for only one person in the room.

For a heartbeat, maybe longer, the space between them narrowed to nothing at all.

The background dissolved — voices falling away, color blurring at the edges. The bustling light of the bullpen dimmed to a quiet hum — as though the world itself had drawn in its breath, suspended between one moment and the next.

Just her. Just him.

And in her eyes: something unspoken.

I’m here. I came back.

Spencer’s heart wrenched. The force of it nearly staggered him.

He couldn’t look away.

Before he could so much as move — before breath returned to his lungs — another figure stepped into the frame: Hotch. Calm, composed, steady as a metronome — dark suit sharp against the light, file tucked under one arm. He came to stand at her side — his presence as grounding as it had always been — and with a faint nod, addressed the gathered team.

“Agent Y/N,” he said, voice low but carrying, “has officially requested reassignment back to the BAU.” A pause — the barest flicker of something like approval in his eyes — then, evenly: “She’ll be rejoining the team, effective today.”

For one suspended second — stillness. A collective breath.

And then — the room erupted.

“Finally!” Garcia all but squealed, hands clapping together, her whole face alight with joy.

Emily grinned wide, shaking her head with mock outrage. “And you were going to let us find out like this?”

JJ let out a bright laugh, bumping shoulders with Morgan. “Unbelievable. You’re sneaky.”

Morgan crossed his arms with a wide grin. “About time. We were getting boring without you.”

Even Rossi’s low chuckle threaded through the air: “Welcome home.”

Hotch, unmoved by the sudden swell of sound, allowed a small lift of his brow — the faintest suggestion of a smile — before turning his gaze toward Y/N once more.

“It’s good to have you back,” he said quietly.

But Spencer barely heard it.

He couldn’t move. Couldn’t tear his gaze from hers.

As though some small, stubborn part of him feared that if he blinked — if he looked away for even a second — she might vanish once more into the space between then and now.

The day unfolded like sunlight through an open window — slow at first, golden, weightless — then all at once.

Outside, the early hours of spring had burned away to a mild, sunlit morning. Bright ribbons of light stretched long across the floor, spilling in from the tall windows, catching motes of dust in the air like tiny, drifting stars. The warmth of it soaked into the bones of the old building — rising from the tile, softening the edges of desks and chairs, gilding stray papers and forgotten coffee mugs with an amber sheen.

And within it all — threaded through light and shadow alike — there was something more.

A hum. A charge. The quiet, unmistakable thrum of happiness — of something righting itself after having tilted off balance for far too long.

She was back.

And with her — the whole rhythm of the day seemed brighter, lighter.

Laughter rose more easily. Conversations wove through the air in fluid threads. Even the usual shuffle of agents passing through the halls seemed softened — as though some unseen weight had lifted from the walls.

For Spencer — it was almost too much.

Too much brightness after too long in the dark. Too much warmth against the old familiar ache that lived in his ribs.

But he breathed it in all the same — heart unsteady, gaze drawn toward her again and again — as though some deep part of him still feared this might all dissolve if he dared look away.

Everywhere she moved, the team seemed to orbit her — drawn instinctively as if by some invisible current.

Wherever Y/N stood — at her desk, by the break room, pausing near a file cabinet — small constellations of conversation formed around her, shifting and bright.

JJ had practically whisked her away into the break room first — one arm looped through hers, mock-stern, laughing. “Alright — details. Now. We’ve been in the dark for months.”

Morgan kept appearing — popping around corners, leaning casually in doorframes — grinning wide, voice rich with teasing questions: “So what do those top-secret types eat for breakfast, huh? Bet it’s not the powdered eggs they give us here.”

Rossi, ever composed, had stepped in with a quiet smile — fingers curling easily around the handle of the old glass carafe — pouring her coffee as though it were ritual, timeless. “Thought you might want the real thing,” he’d said, eyes warm.

Garcia swept in and out like a breeze — a box of cupcakes balanced in one hand, her phone in the other — declaring to anyone who would listen that it was now an unofficial welcome-home party, and she expected attendance.

And Emily — bright and laughing — finally caught her in a loose side hug, her voice low and warm against the hum of the room: “You look good. International life suits you.”

Spencer lingered nearby — his notebook open in front of him, pen resting between his fingers — though the last entry on the page trailed off mid-sentence, the ink gone dry twenty minutes ago.

He hadn’t noticed.

She was here.

Not a name in passing. Not a quiet message on Garcia’s screen. Not a blurred update buried in Interpol case logs he shouldn’t have checked so often. Not a digital echo, a secondhand scrap of her voice carried through someone else’s words.

Just — here.

Breathing the same air. Moving through the light. Smiling — real, present — no longer half a world away.

And he — he could hardly breathe around it.

The bullpen seemed to glow at the edges — bright and diffuse — as though the sunlight itself had shifted toward her, drawn in quiet orbit by the warmth of her presence. It spilled across the floor in long, drowsy ribbons — catching the glint of polished nameplates, skimming across the soft grain of well-worn desks, gilding the corners of open files and stray paperclips with delicate threads of gold. Dust drifted lazily in the beams — small, weightless things that turned and tumbled as if the very air had changed its shape around her.

And through it all — winding between light and shadow — the low hum of voices moved like music. Familiar. Intimate. Soft with happiness. A language made not of words, but of glances and smiles and the deep, unspoken ease of being home again.

Spencer caught fragments of conversation as they wove past him, his gaze straying again and again toward where she stood — framed by the others, light in her hair.

“Yeah — Interpol Liaison Assignment. Mostly Europe. A lot of long-term cases, international consults... more airports than I care to remember.”

Her voice — the sound of it — sent a fresh ache through his ribs.

“It was good work,” she added after a pause, voice dipping quieter, smile softening. Her gaze drifted for a moment, something wistful in her expression.

“But…” A breath. “…I missed this. All of you.”

Across the circle, Morgan grinned — arms folded, voice warm with easy affection.

“Well — our gain,” he said. “You kept climbing the ladder — now we get to brag about you.”

Y/N laughed lightly. “Not much ladder left to climb. I just wanted to come home.”

Home. The word twisted something in Spencer’s chest.

He hadn’t spoken to her yet — not really.

Just that one glance — in the doorway, in the hush before the others had rushed forward — the quiet pull of her gaze catching his across the room. A single moment — fragile as spun glass — now tucked carefully away behind his ribs. Since then, with the bullpen alive around her, voices bright, old rhythms rekindled — he had kept to the edges. Watching. Wanting.

Too much, too soon — the ache of it caught behind his breath, impossible to name.

At one point, Y/N stepped out of the break room — a fresh coffee cradled between her palms, steam curling soft and white into the sunlit air. She moved with that same easy grace — loose-limbed, quietly self-possessed — a familiar rhythm that made Spencer’s chest ache. Without seeming to notice, her path angled toward his desk — a pause, a breath of stillness in the bright hum of the room.

Their eyes met. This time — it lingered. A second. A little more. Something deeper passed between them — not loud, not declarative — but certain all the same.

“Hey,” she said softly, voice warm — low enough that it seemed meant for only him.

Spencer looked up — breath catching, heart kicking against his ribs.

He opened his mouth — found it dry. He swallowed — forced a breath past the tightness in his chest. “Hey,” he managed, voice quiet. “Welcome back.”

Her smile tilted — slow, fond, something in it that caught and held. “Thanks.”

She looked — for one flicker of a moment — as though she might say more. Her gaze lingered, lips parting —

But just then, Garcia swept through the room in a swirl of bright fabric, trailing a thin tangle of ribbons in one hand, announcing something about cupcake displays — and the moment scattered like leaves in a breeze.

The ache settled deeper in Spencer’s ribs — warm and heavy, like sunlight pooling in a place long starved of light.

He knew this day was for them — for all of them. For the team, the laughter, the easy folding back into old rhythms. It wasn’t the time to pull her aside. Not yet. And yet —

The hours drifted by in waves of brightness — voices and footfalls and the soft hush of papers moving beneath careful hands — and all through it, he found himself looking up without meaning to. 

Again and again — as though the very air in the room carried her shape.

The sound of her laugh — low, rich, colored by something softer now. The shape of her voice weaving through conversations — a thread of familiar music. The curve of her mouth when she teased Morgan, the glint in her eye when she nudged Emily mid-joke. The easy tilt of her head, the slight catch of her hair at her shoulder as she moved.

The bullpen seemed to hum at the edges — bright with a different kind of light — as though her return had altered the very current of the space.

And Spencer — he remembered every version of her.

The sharp, brilliant one who could outthink anyone in the room. The quiet one, thoughtful between cases, always half-smiling over the rim of her mug. The steady presence by his side on late nights when the hours blurred.

And this — this new version now — was both familiar and new. Wiser. Sharper at the edges. But still — her.

And he — he was still him.

Still caught somewhere between the wanting and the fear — between the pull of everything unsaid and the weight of years carried alone.

The words pressed at him like a tide — slow and relentless.

I loved you before you left. I love you still. I waited.

But for now — he only watched.

The day drifted into late afternoon — the kind of soft, golden hour when the light slants lower and time seems to slow. 

Sunlight stretched long across the floor, warmer now — honeyed gold pooling between the desks, casting soft-edged shadows across the walls. The hum of conversation had quieted to something looser, more languid — voices dipping, movements slower in the mellow light. 

Files had been filed, coffee cups rinsed and set in neat rows along the counter.

JJ glanced at the clock with a reluctant sigh, gathering her things. “Henry’s got soccer this evening,” she said, looping her scarf around her neck. “But I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

Morgan slung his bag over one shoulder, lingering a beat longer than usual. “You sure you don’t want a ride?” he asked. “Gym can wait.”

Y/N smiled, warm. “I’m good. I’ve got a few things to finish up.”

Emily and Garcia hovered nearby, coats in hand — exchanging a glance that held more than a little protest.

“We could stay,” Garcia offered brightly. “Help you settle in — cupcakes and admin, a perfect pairing.”

Y/N laughed softly, shaking her head. “Go — really. I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

Even Rossi, coming down the stairs from upstairs consults, paused with a glance toward her desk — a thoughtful nod.

And so, slowly, the bullpen began to empty — not with the usual rush of closing time, but with the unspoken warmth of a day well-spent, a missing piece restored.

And Spencer — he stayed, notebook still open before him. A file untouched beneath his hand.

But he wasn’t looking at the clock, nor at the quiet stacks of work still waiting. His gaze drifted — again and again — toward the far side of the bullpen. Toward her. He’d told himself it was to finish organizing some paperwork — but his stack of files remained exactly where it had been for the past hour. 

Y/N lingered after the others — a quiet, steady presence in the glowing hush of the near-empty bullpen. She moved with an easy rhythm — unpacking, resettling, reordering small pieces of her space that had been left behind. A drawer sliding open with a soft scrape. Papers shuffled into neat stacks. The quiet click of a pen against the rim of a ceramic mug.

The last spill of sunlight caught at her sleeves, gilding the fine movements of her hands, weaving a soft glow along the curve of her shoulder, the slope of her cheek.

And still — he stayed.

Spencer’s gaze drifted to the clock.

He could leave. He should leave. The hour had tipped toward evening — most of the building hushed now, shadows lengthening at the edges. But the thought of walking away — of leaving her to this space alone, on her first day back — pulled sharp beneath his ribs.

A quiet weight pressed into his chest — insistent.

So he hovered ��� notebook still open, the pen unmoving between his fingers, resting forgotten in the waning light.

Waiting.

Finally — after what felt to Spencer like an endless moment stretched thin with wanting — Y/N glanced up from her desk. A loose strand of hair had fallen near her temple; she brushed it back with an absent, graceful motion, fingertips trailing lightly against her cheek.

Her gaze lifted — slow, searching — and found him across the quiet bullpen.

Something in her expression softened — a warmth blooming there, quiet and sure.

Her smile unfurled — slow at first, as though drawn from somewhere deeper — the curve of her mouth lifting, high and soft at one corner, deepening into that familiar shape that never failed to undo him. A glimmer of mischief danced at the edges. The faintest hint of dimples appeared — fleeting, delicate — like a secret only just revealed. And then — her voice, low and warm, the words wrapped in that smile: “Are you waiting for me, Doctor Reid?”

The sound of it — the shape of her smile as she said it — struck him with such sudden force that he almost forgot to breathe.

Color rose to his ears — swift, helpless. He opened his mouth — faltered for half a second — then gave the smallest, surest nod.

“Yes.”

Her smile deepened — slow, knowing — the kind of smile that lived somewhere between affection and tease, the kind that could warm a man to his bones. Her dimples ghosted faintly at the corners, eyes bright beneath the soft spill of late afternoon light.

“Well,” she said — voice low, rich with quiet amusement — “if you help me put these away…” She tipped her head, letting the smallest pause hang in the air, just enough to draw him in. “… we’ll both get to leave faster. Sound fair?”

He was on his feet before thought could catch up with motion — breath quick in his chest.

“Fair,” he said — and even he could hear the faint, uneven edge in his voice.

Together — side by side now — they moved around her desk. Small, familiar motions — but softened somehow, slowed by something neither of them spoke aloud. They sorted through scattered files — fingers brushing the edges of well-thumbed pages. They slid books into place along low shelves, the gentle scrape of spines against wood the only sound between them.

Now and then — unintentional, but inevitable — their hands touched. Barely there at first — a passing graze of fingertips. Then again — the soft press of knuckles, warm skin meeting skin for a breath too long to be entirely accidental. Each contact sent a bright flicker through Spencer’s nerves — sharp, electric, as though every inch of him had tuned itself to her presence.

The quiet between them thrummed — not empty, not strained — but full, vibrant beneath the surface. Companionable. Steady. And beneath it all — something more.

When the last binder clicked softly into place on the shelf, Y/N exhaled a quiet breath — one of those small, wordless sounds that seemed to settle into the room like a finishing note. 

“Done,” she said, straightening with a little stretch — shoulders rolling back, arms loosening. She reached for her coat and bag, fingers brushing along the back of her chair as she gathered the last few things.

Spencer stood where he was — pulse thick in his throat, heart thudding hard enough that it seemed to echo in his ears.

The soft light had deepened around them now — long bands of gold stretching low across the bullpen, casting the floor in warm, drowsy glow.

She glanced at him — smile tugging faintly at her mouth. “Still keeping me company?” she teased gently, voice soft beneath the hush of the near-empty space.

He swallowed — words tangling.

“Of course,” he managed — and then, after a beat too long: “Didn’t want you to be the last one here.”

Her smile deepened, the kind that caught at the corners of her eyes. “Chivalrous,” she said — voice warm, amused. She slipped her coat on, the fabric falling clean against her frame, and adjusted the strap of her bag over one shoulder.

Spencer forced himself to breathe.

She moved toward the edge of the bullpen — glancing back once with a quiet tilt of her head. “Come on, Doctor,” she said lightly. “I’m officially calling it a day.”

His feet carried him before thought caught up — steps falling into an easy rhythm beside her as they crossed the room together. The hush of their movements echoed faintly in the open space — the last few murmurs from elsewhere in the building fading into quiet. 

At her side — so close now, every breath filled with her nearness — Spencer could feel the words pressing harder against his ribs. It had been building all day — rising with every glance, every soft word, every brush of her hand. He could feel it now — like a storm gathering just beneath his skin — sharp, bright, impossible to ignore.

And yet — beside him, Y/N seemed unaware — or if she noticed at all, only the faintest trace: the way his voice caught, the way his gaze drifted and returned too quickly.

She glanced up at him as they walked, brow lifting ever so slightly.

“You’re quiet,” she said softly — a question folded beneath the words.

He swallowed, pulse kicking hard.

“Just… tired,” he offered — voice thinner than he meant, pulse still racing beneath his skin.

She let the words drift for a beat, then smiled — soft, easy, gaze warm beneath the fall of her lashes.

“Yeah,” she murmured, voice low. “Me too.” A pause — her smile tilting slightly, something quieter beneath it. “But… I’m really glad to be back.”

The words settled into the air between them — warm, certain — and somehow it made the ache in Spencer’s chest bloom all the sharper.

They reached the elevator.

She pressed the call button — the soft chime rising in the quiet hallway, a bright sound against the hush.

Spencer’s breath caught — the weight of everything unsaid closing tight around him. He couldn’t hold it much longer.

The doors slid open — slow, smooth, with a soft mechanical sigh. They stepped inside, just the two of them now, the space small, quiet, close.

Spencer’s pulse pounded in his ears — hard, relentless, as though the very beat of his heart might give him away.

The words pressed higher in his throat — sharp, breathless — no longer some distant ache, but a rising tide he could barely contain.

Next breath. Next second.

He wouldn’t be able to hold them back.

The elevator doors closed — a hush of metal against metal — sealing them in.

The soft whir of machinery faded, leaving behind a silence so complete it seemed to thrum in the air between them.

They stood side by side — two familiar shapes cast against the brushed steel walls — the lines of their reflections blurred and mingling in the dim light.

The quiet pressed close — thicker with each passing second — as if the very air had shifted, grown heavier, charged with something unspoken.

Neither spoke.

Neither moved.

A breath held — stretched thin, trembling at the edges. Spencer’s throat worked. His chest rose, breath shallow and uneven. 

The words clawed their way higher — fierce, unstoppable — scraping at the back of his throat with each beat of his racing heart.

He could feel his hands trembling faintly at his sides — useless to stop it now.

He stared ahead — eyes fixed, jaw tight — knowing he was standing on the edge of something he could no longer step back from.

The ache had risen past longing, past reason — to the bright, unbearable verge of action.

Now, the thought pulsed through him, urgent, wild. Now, or not at all.

And then — impulse overtook thought.

Before he could second-guess himself — before logic could drag him back — Spencer moved.

Hand darting forward, fast, breathless — and pressed the small red button marked EMERGENCY STOP.

The elevator gave a soft shudder — a low, mechanical sigh — and halted mid-floor.

Stillness swept in — sudden, absolute.

Y/N blinked, the movement catching her off-guard, and turned toward him.

“Spencer?”

Her voice was quiet — touched with confusion, the faintest edge of surprise. Her brows drew in softly — a furrow between them, delicate and unguarded — as her gaze searched his face. Her lips parted — as though to ask, to steady the moment — but the words seemed to catch before they reached the air.

The shift in the room — in him — was too sharp, too immediate. Something was happening — something rising between them like a current — and she could feel it now.

The nerves in the air brushed against her skin — light, electric — pulling at her breath, at her heart.

He turned to face her fully — heart hammering so violently it felt as though it might tear free of his chest — nerves raw beneath skin that had gone too tight, too thin to hold any of it in.

Her brows were still faintly drawn — gaze searching, lips parted — the air between them charged and trembling.

“I can’t—”

His voice broke, the first word catching sharp against his throat.

He swallowed — breath ragged, chest rising too fast — tried again: “I can’t not say it anymore.”

Her eyes widened — something in them catching and deepening — but she said nothing. The moment held — bright, unbearable — as though the space itself had narrowed down to a single, burning point between them.

And then the words broke loose.

They came in a rush — raw, breathless, tumbling past restraint — too fast to stop now, too sharp to soften:

“I loved you before you left.”

His voice shook — low, frayed, as though dragged from the deepest part of him.

“I thought maybe— maybe if you were gone long enough, I’d move on. Forget. Or… or at least learn how to live with it.”

A harsh breath — head shaking once, fierce, broken.

“But I didn’t.”

Another breath — sharper now, ragged edges rising beneath the words: “I couldn’t.”

The confession twisted out of him — building, breaking: “I asked Garcia for updates every week — every single week — until even she started looking at me with pity.”

His hands had begun to shake — fingers flexing, useless at his sides.

“Every day, really— some days twice, three times— I just— I needed to know. I needed to know you were safe.”

A breathless laugh — hollow, aching:

“I made her hack into the Interpol Liaison logs. I knew what cities you were in even when I wasn’t supposed to. I memorized the dates of your deployments, your rotations. Every time you flew out — every time you landed — I knew.”

The words were tumbling faster now — heat rising in his face, in his chest — years of longing and restraint fracturing at the seams.

“I thought about you every morning,” he gasped, voice trembling. “Every night. Every time my phone buzzed I thought — maybe it’s her — maybe she’ll call—”

A sharp breath — and then the last broke from him, hoarse:

“I—”

But the words choked off, chest too tight to finish.

He stood trembling — gaze locked on hers — every muscle pulled taut, breath coming fast and uneven.

He had said it.

Finally.

All of it — ripped loose, bare and bleeding in the open space between them.

And Y/N —

She stared at him — lips parted, breath catching audibly now — as though the weight of what he’d given her had struck too deep to move. Something burned behind her eyes — deep, bright, unspoken — rising to the surface, fierce and fragile all at once.

The air between them cracked — the moment stretched to the breaking point — breathless, unbearable.

Her eyes — still locked on his — shone now, wide and burning, mouth parted on a breath that never quite formed a word.

And Spencer —

Something in him finally snapped.

A surge — a reckless, all-consuming need — rose up from somewhere deeper than thought, deeper than breath — a force that obliterated everything but the aching pull of her standing there before him.

He moved — fast, unstoppable — hands catching her shoulders, dragging her hard into him.

And then — his mouth was on hers.

No hesitation, no gentleness — just a crash of lips to lips, heat and breath and desperate, reckless want.

The force of it sent her stumbling back — but even as her spine hit the cool steel of the elevator wall, Spencer’s hand came up fast — cradling the back of her head, fingers threading through her hair to shield her from the impact — as though some fierce, protective part of him couldn’t bear for her to feel even the smallest hurt.

A faint gasp broke from her lips — not from pain, but from shock, from breathless surprise — from the wild, consuming heat of him.

And then — he was kissing her again — harder, deeper — no space, no air, nothing but this.

He swallowed the sound with his mouth — not daring to stop, not daring to let a single inch of space fall between them now that he had her.

His hands tangled in her hair — fingers twisting in the soft strands, pulling just enough to tip her face up beneath his — mouth slanting harder against hers, teeth grazing, lips parted wide.

Her hands came up in a rush — fisting in the front of his cardigan, dragging him closer — as though she would climb inside him if the laws of the world would only allow it.

Breath collided — hot, uneven, hungry — between kisses that deepened with every ragged pull.

Her lips — soft, swollen, trembling beneath his — moved with him, against him — gasps breaking loose only to be caught again, swallowed whole.

Their noses brushed — the angle of her jaw sharp beneath his palm, the shape of her mouth opening wider for him, breath shaking between every frantic meeting of lips and tongue.

Teeth caught — hers sinking sharply into the soft swell of his lower lip — not enough to break skin, but enough to tear a low, wrecked sound from deep in his chest.

A sound he didn’t know he could make — half gasp, half growl — ruined, desperate.

And then he was gone.

A surge of heat shot through him — blinding, primal — and in the next heartbeat, he slammed her harder against the wall — body pinning hers in full, no space left between them, the sheer force of it dragging a sharp gasp from her mouth.

But not pain — never pain — only shock, only wild, breathless want.

And he swallowed it — devoured the sound with a bruising kiss, lips crashing to hers again, open and hungry and without mercy.

The heat between them flared — burning now — a helpless, relentless tide.

His hands slid down — hard and possessive — gripping her waist, her hips, fingers digging in tight enough that he could feel the shape of her bones beneath the fabric.

Tighter — closer — more.

If he could have dragged her through the wall, he would have — anything to close the impossible ache of distance that still lived inside him.

She was gasping now — broken, high little sounds spilling between them — breath catching in her throat as her fingers clawed into his hair, fists tightening until the roots burned.

Every pull, every desperate grip only feeding the fire in him — pulling a fresh, wrecked sound from his throat.

Her head tipped back, mouth opening wider beneath his — trembling, hungry — letting him kiss her deeper, harder, until he was half-mad with the feel of her lips, her teeth, the breath she couldn’t catch.

“Spencer—”

The sound of his name — wrecked, high, barely shaped — shattered what little remained of his restraint.

He caught it with his mouth — crushed it — swallowing her voice in a kiss so deep, so savage it stole what little air remained between them.

Tongue sliding against hers — breath ragged — teeth scraping — hands everywhere now, sliding up, curling into her back, gripping her shoulder, burying again in her hair — anchoring her to him as though the sheer force of need alone might collapse the years they’d spent apart.

Their noses bumped, dragged sideways, breaths tearing loose, uneven and wild —

More.

He couldn’t stop.

He wouldn’t stop — not until he’d kissed her so deeply, so completely that the ache in his chest finally broke apart beneath it.

Not until she was gasping against his mouth — trembling in his arms — her nails dragging down the back of his neck with helpless, reckless need —

Not until there was nothing left of either of them but this — lips and teeth and breath and years of longing, burning wild and bright between the steel walls of the elevator.

Time fractured — the small space between them burning, pulsing with a heat neither could withstand.

It wasn’t a kiss.

It was everything.

Every unspoken word. Every sleepless night. Every breathless moment spent wanting and waiting and knowing they could not have — until now.

Now, the dam had broken. And there was no going back.

When the kiss finally broke — if it could even be called a break — it wasn’t by choice.

It was because neither of them could breathe.

Because lungs burned and chests heaved and their bodies trembled so violently it was a wonder they were still standing.

Spencer’s forehead dropped to hers — too dizzy to hold himself upright — breath tearing ragged from his throat.

Her hands were still tangled in his hair — trembling, clutching — and her face, flushed and wet, tilted helplessly up to his.

They were both shaking — wrecked — skin damp with sweat, tears mingled where cheeks brushed, lips swollen and raw from the sheer violence of what had just passed between them.

Neither could move.

Neither could speak.

They stood there — locked against the cool steel of the elevator wall — heartbeats crashing wildly in their chests, breath gasping against each other’s skin.

Spencer’s hands were splayed against her back — fists still curled in her top, holding on as though if he let go for even a second, the world itself might split apart beneath them.

Her breath hitched — a high, shaking sound that caught in her throat.

Slowly — slowly — she dragged in a trembling gasp of air.

And then — voice so faint it barely rose above a whisper, broken and wrecked in the quiet space —

“Maybe…”

Another breath — another tremble — her cheek brushing against his, damp with tears, mouth still parted, lips flushed and swollen beneath the faintest catch of a breath.

“… maybe we should… get out of here…”

A soft, dazed sound slipped from her throat — a ghost of a laugh, breathless, half-wrecked —

“… before Garcia starts wondering why we’ve been stuck for twenty minutes.”

The words barely reached him — muffled, distant — lost in the blood still roaring in his ears, in the breath he couldn’t catch, in the wild rush still hammering through his chest.

For a moment he could only stare — blinking, dazed, heart crashing.

And then — the smallest breath of a laugh broke loose from him — sharp, wrecked, awed — as if he couldn’t quite believe any of this was real, couldn’t believe the feel of her still trembling beneath his hands.

The sound tangled with his next breath — jagged, uneven — as he leaned in again, lips brushing hers once more.

Not a kiss — not quite — just the barest press — soft, aching, impossibly full — as though he needed to feel her again, needed to be sure she was still there beneath him.

“I don’t care,” he whispered — voice hoarse, torn, shaking with the force of everything still rising in him.

And neither did she.

At last — with fingers that trembled faintly — Spencer reached out, releasing the small red button beneath his hand.

The elevator gave a soft jolt — a faint hum rising as the emergency stop disengaged.

The car began to descend once more — slow, smooth — but neither of them moved.

Not yet.

Spencer still stood close — chest barely lifting with shallow breath, hands resting at her waist, fingers splayed wide, reluctant to loosen their hold.

Y/N’s hands lingered in his hair — fingers soft now, slow, unhurried — as though neither of them could quite bear the thought of breaking the fragile space between them.

His forehead still leaned faintly against hers — breaths mingling in the small hush of the car, both of them flushed, damp with tears and sweat, trembling in the aftermath of something too large to name.

When he finally drew back — just barely, just enough to see her — his eyes were dark, soft, shining with a rawness she had never seen in him before.

Open — utterly unguarded.

Voice low, hoarse, still uneven:

“I missed you.”

The simple truth of it struck through her like a blade — sharp and bright, pulling a soft, helpless ache from her chest.

Her lips parted — breath catching — before her own voice broke free, quiet and full:

“I missed you, too.”

Spencer still hadn’t moved.

His hands remained at her waist — fingers curled tight, thumbs pressed deep into the sharp curve of her hip bones, as though if he loosened his grip by even a fraction she might simply slip away again.

She could feel it — the heat of him through the fabric, the strain in his hold — the faint tremor still running through his fingers.

A breathless sound caught in her throat — half a laugh, half a sigh — lips curving faintly despite the wreck of her heart.

And then — something shifted.

Spencer’s breath hitched — chest rising too fast — eyes flickering down to where his hands still gripped her. 

As though, in that moment, the full weight of what had just happened — the recklessness of it, the years of want breaking loose — crashed into him all at once.

The flush rose quick and high in his cheeks — the faintest spark of his old shyness rising beneath the wreckage of want.

Fingers trembling harder now, caught between holding and releasing, apology and need.

When he finally spoke — voice barely a rasp, breaking at the edges: “I don’t want to let go.”

She drew in a soft, uneven breath — heart thudding so hard it hurt. Her smile faltered — not fading, but shifting — something deeper flickering behind her eyes, pulling the breath from her lungs. Fingers still tangled in his hair, she leaned in just slightly — enough that her forehead brushed his again, lips near his ear.

“Then don’t,” she whispered — voice soft as breath, shaking with truth she couldn’t swallow.

For a moment — the smallest space of time — neither of them moved.

His hands remained tight at her hips — knuckles white — her body held fast against him, the tremble in his fingers betraying just how much he was still drowning in it.

Her breath broke against his neck — warm, damp, trembling.

And still — no part of him wanted to let go.

Not when it had taken this long.

Not after what had just passed between them.

The air hummed with it — that fragile, golden hush — both of them caught, undone, too lost in the aftermath to break away.

The soft chime broke through the quiet — a bright, sharp sound — followed by the slow, mechanical hiss of the elevator doors sliding open.

Cooler air brushed in — a sudden shift, a reminder of the world waiting just beyond.

Both of them blinked — as though surfacing from somewhere too deep, too far beneath the moment.

Spencer’s hands loosened at her hips — reluctantly, fingers still trembling.

Y/N let out a breathless little laugh — half dazed, half bright — voice low and warm against his ear.

“Well,” she murmured, lashes lifting as she glanced toward the open doors, “I guess we can’t exactly live in here.”

That tugged a rough, unsteady breath from his chest — something between a laugh and a groan, eyes dragging over her face like he couldn’t quite stop.

“I wouldn’t mind,” he managed — voice still wrecked, hoarse — but the faintest curve pulled at the corner of his mouth.

She grinned — still breathless, still flushed — one brow lifting, teasing soft and easy between them again.

“You’re going to get me into trouble, Doctor Reid,” she whispered, fingers brushing lightly against his chest as she eased back a fraction. “And it’s only my first day back.”

He huffed a quiet laugh — wrecked, bright-eyed — and stepped with her toward the open doors.

Together — breathless, still too close — they finally stepped out into the hall.

The world beyond the elevator was quiet — hushed, late — the light cooler here, shadows long against the floor.

But something had shifted between them — something that could never be pulled back now.

Spencer’s hand hovered at her lower back as they walked — not quite touching, but near enough that the heat of it ghosted against her spine.

Y/N glanced at him — lips curved, eyes still bright with everything unspoken.

“You know,” she said — voice low, teasing — “if anyone saw us right now…”

She trailed off — the grin in her voice unmistakable.

Spencer huffed a breath — half a laugh, half a groan — hand finally giving in, fingers brushing soft against the small of her back.

“Then I guess,” he murmured — eyes catching hers, dark and soft and wrecked — “they’d finally know.”

Her heart flipped — sharp and warm.

The teasing faltered, just for a breath — replaced by something deeper, something older and more certain.

She smiled — slow, bright — and let her hand slip into his, fingers twining there like it had always belonged.

They walked in silence for a few steps — breath still too fast, skin still tingling — neither quite ready to let the moment fade.

Then — quiet, low, voice still rough from everything he couldn’t say — Spencer spoke:

“Are you hungry?”

She looked at him — brows lifting faintly — that familiar spark rising in her gaze.

“Starving,” she whispered.

His mouth curved — soft, wrecked, utterly undone.

“Come over,” he said — no hesitation, no fear now. Just truth. Just wanting. “I’ll make something.”

Her fingers tightened in his — smile deepening — voice warm as the new light between them.

“Okay,” she said.

And together — hand in hand — they kept walking down the quiet hall, toward whatever waited next.

[artymcartist]

I CAN FINALLY POST THESE BC THEYRE BOTH DONE Genuinely fuck you Aiden why was coloring you so HARD

Ramblings that I promised on twitter

The world was flat when they spawned into it, he and Aiden were completely alone. They spent years creating the world together before Aiden started going haywire.

In their original timeline, Lukas and Aiden went through a blue portal they found while out adventuring and were erased from that timeline, becoming admins on the other side. That timeline completely collapsed in on itself.

Their memories of their old lives were wiped, but they retained their intelligence and personalities.

They developed a way to allow the world to continue generating in chunks outside of the areas they had already built, to simulate a seemingly endless world. They don't really explore these chunks and witness some of the errors [giggling bc of the 2 stray savanna trees we found in the jungle]. Aiden starts going haywire, Lukas notices but initially brushes it off. Eventually he goes too far and they battle, resulting in Lukas taking Aiden's powers and locking him in bedrock at the bottom of the world.

He's absolutely devastated to have to do this. His only friend, gone. He can't even bring himself to visit him down there. A command block periodically spawns food in for him down there.

The rift appears for the first time days after this event, caused by a glitch in the terminal space. A timeline where Romeo stays behind, where he's supposed to die. Lukas reaches in, feeling an immediate reaction, but pushes through and pulls Romeo into his world.

The reaction was his powers breaking, binding to his journal. He still maintains a fraction of them without the journal, but he must keep it on his person to be able to use them. Some things he completely lost, like the ability to fly and execute commands just by thinking them. He adopts an elytra after this.

[jaeyunluvbot]

this love

genre/tags 𝟅𝟈 exes to lovers, joshua x reader, also partially mingyu x reader

word count 𝟅𝟈 10.1k

part one

NOT PROOFREAD

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

Joshua stepped off the plane, the cool air of New York sweeping over him as he entered the terminal. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but something about the bustling energy of this city felt like it was pressing in on him, in a way that was both exhilarating and overwhelming. It wasn’t the first time he’d been here, but this time felt different. There was a strange weight to the air as though the city itself was carrying something he wasn’t prepared for.

The hum of conversation, the footsteps of hurried travelers, the flashing billboards just outside the windows—it all felt so vibrant, so full of life. And yet, beneath the excitement and the rush, there was a quietness to his heart, a tug in the back of his mind.

This city reminded him of you.

He shifted the strap of his suitcase, moving through the crowd. Bright lights, hurried people, and the constant motion—the life of New York was contagious. But it wasn’t just the city’s pulse that caught him off guard. It was the way everything about it seemed to echo the parts of you he had loved so much.

You had always been like the city to him—full of energy, always moving, always chasing the next thing. Your smile, the way you carried yourself in a room, the way you could command attention without even trying. That’s what you had been to him, a force of nature that made everything feel brighter.

And now, just stepping into this city, he could almost hear your laugh again, see the way you’d look at him with that mischievous smile, eyes lighting up like you were always in on some secret. He could almost feel your presence in the air around him, but it was a presence that hurt now, a sharp reminder of what they had lost.

Joshua let out a slow breath, trying to ground himself. “You’re not here for her, Joshua. Don’t go looking for her.”

It was pointless, he knew. You had your life, and he had his. There was no going back, not after everything. You were in New York now, though, living in the same city he was. He didn’t want to think about that, didn’t want to dwell on the possibility that they might cross paths again. The city was huge, the chances of seeing you again were slim to none.

Still, it seemed like fate had a way of pulling the two of you back together, no matter how far apart you’d tried to stay.

He pushed through the terminal, his thoughts spinning as he made his way to the taxi stand. The whole business trip had been planned months ago, and it had seemed so clear-cut then—a professional trip to oversee the opening of a new office, a straightforward task. But now, with New York sprawling before him, he couldn’t help but feel the weight of the past bearing down on him.

He stepped into the cab, the engine rumbling to life, and for a moment, he closed his eyes, trying to block out the noise of the city. New York had always been a dream of yours, hadn’t it? The energy, the endless opportunities. And even though their paths had diverged, it was impossible to forget that part of hyourer dream was still alive in this city.

But the cab was moving now, the streets of New York unfolding before him, and with each turn, each new block, Joshua felt something tug at his chest. A sense of familiarity, a longing he couldn’t fully explain. The city might be full of strangers, full of business and distractions, but he couldn’t help but wonder: could it ever really feel like home again?

He let out a long sigh and glanced out the window, forcing himself to focus on the purpose of the trip. But the more he tried to push the thoughts of you away, the more they seemed to take hold.

And this time, he wasn’t sure if he was ready for what might come next.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

Joshua had spent the last few days wandering the streets of New York, letting the city become his guide. He walked for hours, sometimes aimlessly, sometimes with a purpose, just to get a feel for the pulse of this place. He’d taken a few cabs, gotten lost a couple of times, and explored neighborhoods where the air smelled different from what he was used to. It was all part of the process of settling in, of finding his way in a city that, despite being filled with people, felt strangely isolating.

He hadn’t gone near your neighborhood, not yet. He had promised himself he wouldn’t. Too many memories tied to that area, too many things that still felt fresh and raw. And he assumed you still lived with your parents, living your life, doing what you always had. There was no reason to go looking for a ghost of the past when he had his own life to rebuild.

But even as he tried to avoid the places that had once been familiar, he couldn’t help but feel that pull. It was New York, after all. A city of millions, yet somehow, it always seemed to bring people together, whether they were ready for it or not.

It was on a lazy afternoon when he wandered into a department store, aimlessly browsing through a few racks of clothes, that he saw you.

He didn’t notice you at first—just a flash of movement in the aisle. Then, his eyes caught sight of the way you laughed, the way you tilted your head back as you chatted with your friends. That laugh. It was unmistakable, like a sound from another life that had been buried deep in his memory. But it was real. It was here, right in front of him.

Joshua froze.

For a moment, the world around him seemed to blur. The lights, the busy customers, the gentle hum of conversation—it all faded as he focused on you.

You looked so different. Yet so much the same. Your hair, now a bit longer than it used to be, caught the light as you moved through the store. Your smile was still bright, infectious, that same twinkle in your eye he used to adore. But there was something else—something he couldn’t quite place. You were glowing, like you had grown into yourself in a way he never imagined.

Time had done something to you, something he hadn’t expected. You were still the girl he once knew, but you’d grown, matured in a way that took him by surprise. You had become someone else, someone so much more than he remembered. It was as if the city had worked its magic on you too—turning you into something even more radiant than before.

His breath caught in his chest, and for a moment, he didn’t know whether to move closer or to turn and leave. But before he could make up his mind, you laughed again, your voice cutting through the air, and his heart seemed to skip a beat.

God, how long has it been?

Two years.

He hadn’t expected to feel this way—hadn’t expected to feel like the time between them had been nothing but a blink. But here you were, standing in front of him, and for a moment, he wondered if the world around him had shifted in a way he couldn’t understand.

You still hadn’t noticed him. You were too busy with your friends, your back to him as you flipped through some clothes on a nearby rack.

Joshua’s gaze lingered on you for just a little too long, and then, as if his body was on autopilot, he took a step backward, moving quietly toward an aisle to the side. He wasn’t sure if you’d even seen him, but in that moment, he couldn’t bring himself to interrupt.

He wasn’t sure if he was ready for this, not after everything that had happened.

As he walked away, his mind raced. You were still here, living your life in a way he couldn’t quite grasp. You had moved on, just as he’d tried to. But seeing you now, in the light of the city, so full of life—it made everything feel as if it hadn’t changed.The city, the memories—it was all there, wrapped up in the image of you standing in that store, looking so different and yet still so you.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

The first few months in New York had been tough. Moving back in with your parents at twenty-six hadn’t exactly been the picture of independence you'd envisioned for yourself. After leaving California—leaving him—you’d felt like a shell of yourself. Work had been the only thing keeping you afloat, a routine you clung to like a lifeline. Wake up. Go to the office. Come home. Repeat.

But even the most rigid routines couldn’t keep the ache at bay. The nights were the hardest—quiet and heavy, full of thoughts you’d tried so desperately to avoid. You’d wonder where he was, what he was doing, if he ever thought about you. Those first few weeks, it felt like every corner of your mind was occupied by him, by the love you had lost, by the life you’d imagined that had unraveled in an instant.

Then, your friends had found out you were back. Friends who had known you since you were young, who remembered the girl you were before Joshua, before California. They refused to let you wallow.

They dragged you out of your parents’ house, insisted you join them for brunches, walks in the park, late-night karaoke sessions that left you laughing so hard your sides hurt. Slowly, they helped you piece yourself back together.

You started to remember who you were.

Now, two years later, you hardly recognized the girl who’d come back to New York feeling broken and lost. Your job as a PR agent was amazing, the kind of position you’d dreamed of when you first started college. The cushy salary afforded you a beautiful one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side, decorated with warm, neutral tones and little pops of color that reflected your personality.

You’d finally found stability. Confidence.

You’d grown up in ways you hadn’t anticipated. You understood now that Joshua hadn’t left because you weren’t enough or because you’d done something wrong. He simply hadn’t been ready. And that was okay.

That realization had been a turning point for you. Letting go of the bitterness, the insecurity—it had freed you to focus on what really mattered: taking care of yourself.

It didn’t mean you didn’t miss him, though. There were still moments—quiet, fleeting—when something would remind you of him. A song you’d danced to together. The scent of his cologne on someone walking by. A fleeting image in your mind of his warm smile, the way his voice softened when he said your name.

But now, those memories didn’t hurt quite as much. They were a part of you, yes, but they no longer defined you.

Standing in your apartment one evening, you looked out at the city lights, the skyline glimmering like a promise in the distance. This city had seen you at your worst, but it had also witnessed your transformation.

You were happy here.

For the first time in a long time, you felt like you were exactly where you were meant to be.

Vernon had been the first friend to find out you had moved back to the city. Your parents, worried about you, had called him after you’d locked yourself in your room for an entire weekend.

“I heard you were back,” he’d said casually, as though two years of silence between you hadn’t passed. “We’re getting bagels tomorrow. No excuses.”

You’d tried to decline, mumbling something about needing to rest or having work, but Vernon had simply said, “Eight a.m. Don’t be late,” and hung up.

That was Vernon for you—low-key, no-nonsense, and always there when you needed him, even if you didn’t realize it yourself.

That breakfast had turned into weekly meet-ups, then spontaneous hangouts, and eventually, him reintroducing you to the rest of your childhood friends. He never pushed, never asked you about Joshua unless you brought it up first. Instead, he let you heal at your own pace, offering the kind of quiet, steady support that only Vernon could.

“Look at you,” he said now, leaning back in his chair as you both sat at a small café near your apartment. “Living your best life. I’m so proud.”

You rolled your eyes but couldn’t help smiling. “I wouldn’t say I’m living my best life.”

“You’ve got a great job, your own place, and you’re killing it out here. Don’t undersell yourself,” he said, raising his iced coffee in a mock toast. “To the comeback queen.”

You laughed, clinking your glass against his. Vernon had a way of making everything feel lighter, easier. He’d been your rock when you didn’t even know you needed one, and for that, you were endlessly grateful.

“You know,” he said after a pause, a teasing glint in his eye, “you might actually be ready to start dating again. Or is the thought of Tinder still too terrifying?”

You groaned, throwing a sugar packet at him. “Don’t start.”

“I’m just saying,” he said, dodging the packet with a grin. “The Y/N I see now? She’s ready for whatever’s next.”

His words lingered with you long after you parted ways.

Whatever’s next.

You hadn’t let yourself think about that much—not about love, at least. You’d been so focused on getting your footing, on becoming the version of yourself you were proud of. But now, as you walked back to your apartment under the glow of the city lights, you wondered.

Maybe Vernon was right. Maybe you were ready.

You just didn’t know that "next" was closer than you thought.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

Vernon had been annoyingly smug when you finally agreed to go on a blind date with one of his friends he’d been raving about ever since you got bacl.

“You’ll thank me later,” he said with a wink, earning an exasperated eye roll from you.

Now, sitting across from Mingyu in the softly lit restaurant, you begrudgingly admitted Vernon might have been right.

Mingyu was handsome in that effortless way that made you feel a little self-conscious but also oddly flattered. Tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed in a crisp button-down, he radiated confidence without crossing into arrogance. And his smile—warm, easy, and ever-present—had you forgetting about the nerves that had crept in when you first arrived.

“So,” Mingyu said, leaning forward slightly, his elbow resting on the table. “Be honest. Did Vernon have to bribe you to agree to this?”

You laughed, swirling the wine in your glass. “No bribe, but I did consider faking a work emergency.”

He chuckled, the sound low and genuine. “Fair enough. I almost bailed too. Blind dates are…a gamble.”

“A gamble?” you teased. “I’ll have you know I’m an excellent dinner companion.”

“Clearly,” he said with a playful grin. “But I think I’ve won the jackpot tonight.”

His compliment caught you off guard, and you felt a warmth creep up your neck. It wasn’t just his words—it was the way he said them, with an ease and sincerity that made you believe him.

The conversation flowed effortlessly after that. Mingyu had an endless supply of stories from his time as a chef, from disastrous kitchen mishaps to the joy of creating dishes that made people happy. He was funny, intelligent, and attentive in a way that felt refreshing.

For the first time in a long time, you weren’t thinking about the past. You weren’t analyzing every little thing, wondering what might go wrong. You were just here, sharing a meal with someone who made you laugh until your cheeks hurt.

As the waiter cleared the plates, Mingyu leaned back in his chair, studying you with a curious expression.

“You know,” he said, “I don’t know what I was expecting when Vernon said he had the perfect person for me, but I think I underestimated him.”

“Oh?” you said, raising an eyebrow. “What did he say about me?”

He smirked, taking a sip of his wine. “That you were smart, driven, and a little intimidating—but also one of the kindest people he knows. I think he was underselling you.”

You felt a flutter in your chest at his words, but you pushed it down, keeping your tone light. “Vernon does tend to exaggerate.”

“Not this time,” Mingyu said softly, his gaze steady on yours.

And just like that, you realized something. You weren’t thinking about Joshua. Not his laugh, not his smile, not the way he used to make you feel.

You were here, in this moment, and for the first time in years, you let yourself believe that you deserved this.

Deserved to be happy.

Deserved to move on.

As Mingyu flagged down the waiter for the check, you found yourself smiling, a quiet contentment settling over you. Maybe Vernon was right. Maybe this was exactly what you needed.

And yet, although you'd let the past go, part of you wondered if the past would ever let you go.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

Joshua had barely touched his food.

The dinner meeting was productive—great, even. The new branch’s partners seemed reliable, their strategies aligning seamlessly with his company’s vision. It should’ve been a win, but his focus kept slipping.

Maybe it was the restaurant. Too nice, too cozy, too intimate for a business dinner. Or maybe it was New York itself, refusing to let him breathe without conjuring up memories of you.

He sighed, pulling his attention back to the table as the others laughed over a shared joke. He forced a polite smile, nodding along when necessary. When their meal wrapped up, he rose from his seat, buttoning his blazer.

That’s when he saw you.

At first, he thought his mind was playing tricks on him again, the same way it had been since he arrived in the city. But no, it was you—standing just a few feet away, radiant in a sleek dress, your laugh lighting up the space around you.

And then his gaze shifted to the man beside you.

Tall, broad, effortlessly charming, the stranger was leaning in close, saying something that made you laugh again, your hand briefly resting on his arm. Joshua felt like the air had been knocked out of him.

“Joshua? You coming?” one of his colleagues asked, snapping him out of his trance.

“Yeah, I’ll be right there,” he said quickly, his voice tight.

He watched as you and the man—your date, he realized with a pang—moved toward the door. He hadn’t intended to follow, but as fate would have it, both groups converged near the exit.

You froze mid-step when your eyes met his.

“Joshua?”

Your voice was calm, but he could see the flicker of surprise in your expression. The man beside you turned, curious but unbothered, as though meeting exes was just another Tuesday.

“Y/N,” Joshua managed, his tone polite but strained. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Same here,” you said, your voice steady. You glanced at Mingyu and gestured toward Joshua. “This is Joshua, an old friend from college.”

Joshua’s stomach twisted at the casualness of your introduction. Old friend? That’s all he was to you now?

“And this is Mingyu,” you continued, motioning to your date. “He’s…we’re—”

Mingyu, ever the gentleman, stepped in with an easy smile. “I’m her date,” he said, extending a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Joshua shook Mingyu’s hand automatically, the words catching in his throat. Date. Of course. It wasn’t like he had any right to be surprised—you had every reason to move on. But knowing that didn’t make it easier to hear.

“Nice to meet you,” Joshua finally said, forcing a smile. “I hope you’re enjoying the city.”

“Oh, I am,” Mingyu said, glancing at you with a grin. “But I think Y/N’s making it better. She’s been showing me around a bit.”

Joshua’s chest tightened, the casual intimacy between you and Mingyu cutting deeper than he expected. He looked back at you, searching for something—hesitation, discomfort, anything that would tell him you weren’t as unaffected as you seemed.

But you stood there, poised and calm, as though seeing him was nothing more than a passing encounter.

“Well,” you said, your voice light, “we should get going. It was good to see you, Joshua.”

Before he could respond, you turned to leave, Mingyu’s hand resting lightly on your back as he guided you toward the door.

Joshua stood there, rooted to the spot, the noise of the restaurant fading into the background.

You looked happy.

That should’ve been enough for him. But as he watched you walk away, laughter floating back toward him, he realized with a sinking feeling that it wasn’t.

It never would be.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

You refused to let Joshua’s sudden appearance rattle you.

The encounter at the restaurant had been startling, sure. Seeing him again after two years—looking as polished and composed as ever—had stirred up something you weren’t ready to name. But you had worked too hard to get to this point, to rebuild your life into something you were proud of.

So, as you slid into the cab with Mingyu, laughing at his exaggerated complaint about how hard it was to hail one in the city, you made a silent promise to yourself: Joshua Hong would not take up space in your mind tonight.

Or ever, if you could help it.

“Okay, so,” Mingyu said, his eyes sparkling as he glanced at you. “What’s next? Dessert? A rooftop bar? Or are you secretly a karaoke queen?”

You laughed, grateful for his easy charm. “As tempting as it is to traumatize you with my singing, I vote dessert. There’s this amazing bakery a few blocks from here.”

“Lead the way,” he said, grinning.

The rest of the night passed in a blur of laughter and conversation. With Mingyu, everything felt effortless—like you could be fully yourself without fear of judgment or expectations. You liked that about him. He was warm and steady, the kind of person who made you feel safe in his presence.

And maybe that was why you found yourself saying yes when he asked if you wanted to meet up again later that week.

The weeks that followed were filled with moments that reminded you how much you had missed this—dating, being open to new experiences, letting yourself feel hopeful about the future. Mingyu wasn’t just a distraction; he was someone you genuinely enjoyed being around.

He took you to hole-in-the-wall restaurants that became instant favorites, spent Sunday mornings wandering through farmers' markets with you, and made you laugh until your stomach hurt with his terrible jokes.

Eventually, somewhere between late-night conversations and stolen kisses, you became his girlfriend.

And you were happy.

Joshua, meanwhile, became a ghost of your past—a name you rarely thought about, a memory that no longer haunted you. You assumed he had left the city not long after you’d seen him. After all, New York had never been his kind of place.

Whatever his reasons for being here, they didn’t matter. Not anymore.

Because for the first time in years, you felt like you were exactly where you were meant to be.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

The holidays were always a busy time for you, but this year, they felt especially chaotic. Between work deadlines, planning Thanksgiving dinner with your mom, and finding the perfect gifts for everyone, your calendar was packed.

You were standing in the kitchen, helping your mom prep a pie crust, when she broached the subject.

“So,” she said, her tone casual but laced with intent, “I ran into Joshua the other day.”

Your hands froze mid-motion. “Oh?”

“Yes, at the market,” she continued, as if she hadn’t just dropped a bomb on you. “We chatted for a bit. He looked well, but it turns out he doesn’t have any family in the city for the holidays.”

You had a sinking feeling about where this was going.

“I was thinking,” she went on, carefully avoiding your gaze, “it would be nice to invite him to Thanksgiving. I mean, it’s not right for anyone to be alone on the holidays.”

You placed the rolling pin down and turned to face her. “Mom...”

Of course, it’s up to you,” she added quickly. “We wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable. But, you know how much we’ve always liked him. And it’s been years, hasn’t it?”

You sighed. She wasn’t wrong. It had been years, and you were pretty much over it—or at least you thought you were. Seeing Joshua at Thanksgiving wasn’t exactly on your holiday wish list, but you couldn’t deny that the idea of him spending the day alone tugged at your heart.

“Okay,” you said finally, though the word felt heavy in your chest. “He can come.”

Your mom beamed. “That’s my girl. It’ll be fine, I promise.”

But you weren’t entirely sure you believed her.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

Later that evening, you sat across from Mingyu at your favorite café, stirring your coffee with a bit more force than necessary. You’d been mulling over how to bring it up all day, and now that you were here, the words felt tangled in your throat.

“What’s on your mind?” Mingyu asked, his gaze steady and warm.

You took a deep breath. “Okay, so... there’s something I need to tell you.”

He leaned forward, his expression curious but unconcerned. “Go on.”

“My family invited Joshua to Thanksgiving,” you said, watching his face carefully. “He doesn’t have family here, and they felt bad for him. I agreed because I don’t think anyone should be alone on the holidays, but... there’s something you should know about him.”

Mingyu’s brows furrowed slightly, but he nodded for you to continue.

“He’s not just an old friend from college,” you admitted. “He’s... my ex. We were engaged, actually.”

The words hung in the air between you, heavy with history and meaning.

Mingyu’s expression shifted, but not in the way you’d feared. There was no anger, no jealousy—just quiet understanding.

“Okay,” he said simply.

“Okay?” you echoed, unsure if you’d heard him right.

“Yeah,” he said, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “It’s all in the past, right? You’re with me now. I trust you.”

Relief flooded through you, but there was still a flicker of guilt in your chest. “I just didn’t want you to feel... threatened, or like I was keeping it from you.”

Mingyu reached across the table, covering your hand with his. “You’re telling me now, and that’s what matters. Besides, it’s Thanksgiving. Everyone deserves a little kindness.”

His words warmed something in you that had been cold and uncertain all day.

“Thank you,” you said softly, squeezing his hand.

“Of course.” He grinned. “But if he tries to steal the last slice of pie, all bets are off.”

You laughed, feeling lighter than you had in hours. Mingyu was right. It was all in the past.

But as the holiday approached, you couldn’t quite shake the feeling that this Thanksgiving was going to be... complicated.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

The smell of roasted turkey and freshly baked pies filled the apartment as you smoothed the last wrinkle from the tablecloth. The dining table, though modest in size, had been extended and covered in a cheerful autumn-themed runner. Plates and glasses were set with precision, every detail curated to make the space feel warm and inviting.

Your mom bustled around the kitchen, peeking into the oven and adjusting timers. Mingyu, ever the professional, was by her side, chopping herbs with practiced ease. Despite being a guest, he had slipped into the role of sous chef the moment he walked through the door.

“You’ve been running around all day,” Mingyu said as you adjusted the throw pillows on the couch for the third time. He set down his knife and gave you a pointed look. “Go get ready, Y/N. We’ve got it from here.”

“But—”

“No buts.” He grinned, hands lightly pushing you toward your bedroom. “You’ve cleaned, cooked, and stressed over every detail. You deserve at least twenty minutes to make yourself look even more stunning than you already do.”

Your mom chimed in, nodding her approval. “He’s right, sweetheart. We’ll take care of everything out here.”

Reluctantly, you retreated to your room, shutting the door behind you. A soft pink sweater and your favorite jeans were laid out on the bed, simple but flattering. You took your time brushing out your hair and adding a touch of makeup. When you stepped back out, feeling refreshed and put together, Mingyu looked up from the stove.

His face lit up instantly. “Wow.”

Your mom glanced over her shoulder and gave an approving nod. “You look lovely, honey.”

Heat crept up your cheeks as you muttered a shy thank you. Mingyu walked over, brushing his hands on a kitchen towel before cupping your face for a quick kiss. “You’re perfect.”

Before you could respond, the doorbell buzzed. Guests were starting to arrive.

The apartment filled quickly with the sounds of laughter, conversation, and the occasional clink of glasses. Your family filed in one by one, hugging you tightly and marveling at how wonderful everything looked. You moved between the kitchen and the living room, greeting each person warmly and ensuring everyone had what they needed.

You were setting down a tray of drinks when the doorbell rang again. Straightening your sweater, you opened the door to find Joshua standing there.

He looked a little nervous but composed, a bottle of wine in one hand and a small bouquet of flowers in the other.

“Hi,” he said with a soft smile.

“Hi, Joshua,” you replied, stepping aside to let him in. “Come on in. It’s good to see you.”

He handed you the flowers, his fingers brushing yours briefly. “These are for you. I wasn’t sure what to bring.”

“They’re beautiful. Thank you.” You gestured toward the kitchen. “Put the wine on the counter. Dinner’s almost ready.”

Joshua nodded, his gaze sweeping the apartment. “This place is really nice.”

“Thanks.” You smiled, trying to keep the interaction light. “It’s cozy, but it works for me.”

As he moved toward the kitchen, you turned back to greet another family member, letting the warmth and bustle of the evening carry you along.

Dinner was a lively affair. Plates were passed around, stories were shared, and laughter filled the room. Mingyu, sitting beside you, charmed your family effortlessly, joking with your cousins and complimenting your mom’s recipes.

Joshua sat a few seats down, mostly quiet but polite. You caught him glancing at you occasionally, his expression unreadable. You made a conscious effort to focus on the conversation around you, refusing to let his presence unnerve you.

At one point, Mingyu leaned over to whisper in your ear. “You’re amazing, you know that? This is perfect.”

You smiled, leaning into him slightly. “Thank you for helping. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Across the table, Joshua watched the quiet exchange, his chest tightening at the ease between you and Mingyu. He tried to focus on his plate, on the stories your uncle was telling, but his mind kept drifting.

The night continued with dessert and coffee, the energy never waning. When it was time to clear the table, Mingyu and your mom insisted you sit and relax. You ended up on the couch with your cousins, reminiscing about childhood antics and laughing until your sides hurt.

Joshua stayed on the fringes of the gathering, helping your dad with the dishes and making polite conversation.

As guests began to leave, Joshua found himself lingering near the door, unsure if he should say goodbye now or wait. Mingyu was by your side, his arm casually draped over the back of the couch, and you looked completely at ease.

When you finally walked him to the door, he hesitated.

“Thank you for letting me come tonight,” he said, his voice low.

“Of course,” you replied, offering him a small smile. “I hope you enjoyed yourself.”

“I did,” he said, though the evening had been anything but relaxing for him.

For a moment, it felt like he wanted to say more, but instead, he nodded and stepped out into the night.

As you closed the door, you let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding. Mingyu appeared a moment later, wrapping an arm around your shoulders.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you said, leaning into him. “I’m fine.”

And you were—mostly.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

Joshua closed the door to his apartment, the sound of it clicking shut echoing in the quiet space. He dropped his keys onto the counter and set the bottle of leftover wine he’d brought onto the kitchen island. The place was spotless, minimalist to a fault, but instead of feeling inviting, it felt cold. Impersonal.

He exhaled deeply, tugging at the knot of his tie and shrugging off his blazer. For a long moment, he just stood there in the dimly lit kitchen, his thoughts swirling.

The evening replayed in his mind, each moment sharper and more painful than the last. You, laughing at Mingyu’s jokes, your head tilted back in a way that made you glow. Mingyu’s hand brushing your arm, the way he leaned in to whisper something that had you smiling, cheeks warm with affection.

Joshua hated how easy Mingyu had slipped into the role he used to play—the charming boyfriend who could make your family laugh and feel at ease. It had been his place once, his hand in yours under the table, your parents shooting him approving glances, your little cousins climbing into his lap without hesitation.

He thought he’d prepared himself for this. He’d been the one who left, the one who’d walked away from you, convinced it was the right thing to do. He thought time and distance would dull the ache, make it easier to accept that you had every right to move on. But tonight had proved him wrong.

Dropping onto the couch, he leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, head in his hands. He hadn’t expected it to hurt like this. The sight of Mingyu fitting so seamlessly into your world felt like a punch to the gut.

He’d been in Mingyu’s position once. He’d cooked with your mom in the kitchen, teased you about being a perfectionist, earned your dad’s trust and your siblings’ affection. He thought back to the countless holidays he’d spent with you, surrounded by warmth and laughter.

But he wasn’t that man anymore. He was the outsider, standing on the periphery of a life he no longer had any claim to.

The apartment felt stifling now, the silence pressing down on him. He rose to his feet, pacing the living room. He glanced at the window, the city lights twinkling beyond the glass. This city was supposed to be a fresh start, a place to build something new. But it only reminded him of what he’d lost.

He grabbed a glass of water and sat back down, staring into the distance.

What hurt the most wasn’t just that you were happy with someone else—it was that you seemed at peace. There was no bitterness in the way you’d looked at him tonight, no lingering resentment. You were kind, warm, even friendly. You’d moved on, and it was clear you’d grown stronger because of it.

And him? He still felt like a man stuck in the past, haunted by what could have been.

Joshua leaned his head back against the couch, closing his eyes. He knew he had no one to blame but himself.

But that didn’t make it any easier.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

It’s a quiet evening, one of those rare nights when both of them have the evening off. You and Mingyu are sitting together on the couch in your living room, the soft hum of the city life just outside the window. You’re curled up next to him, but there’s an unmistakable tension in your posture. You’re quieter than usual, your gaze drifting off, lost in thought.

He glances at you, noticing the subtle shift in your mood. He pauses the movie you were watching, turning to face you.

“You’ve been quiet tonight. Something on your mind?”

You don’t respond immediately, fingers absently fidgeting with the hem of your sweater. The weight of everything—your past with Joshua, your present with Mingyu, and everything in between—feels like it’s weighing down on your chest, carving a hole into you. It’s been a while since you had thought about Joshua, but the holidays had stirred up old feelings you thought you’d buried.

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately... about everything.”

He shifts beside you, his expression gentle but serious. He knows something’s off.

“About us? Or... something else?”

“About him.”

His heart skips a beat, but his face doesn’t show it. He nods, giving you the space to say what’s on your mind.

“I thought I was over him. I really did. But sometimes... I don’t know. A small part of me... it still feels like I might always love him in some way.” You look at him, eyes filled with guilt. “I don’t want it to affect us. I love you, I really do. But... sometimes I wonder if it’s something I can truly let go of.”

There’s a long silence, the weight of your words hanging in the air. He takes a deep breath, trying to process it all, before speaking softly, his tone steady.

“I know you’re still healing. And I know that your feelings for him were real. That love was real. I’m not asking you to forget him.” His voice remains calm, understanding. “What I want is for you to be happy. Whether that’s with me, or... if you feel like you need time to figure out your feelings. I just want you to do what feels right for you. I want you to be true to yourself.”

You look at him, surprised by the gentleness in his voice. You thought he’d be angry or hurt, but instead, he sounds like he’s trying to help you find peace.

“But what if you’re not enough? What if a part of me always holds onto him? That’s unfair to you.”

He squeezes your hand, leaning in closer. His eyes are soft, full of affection and care.

“I’m not asking for your love to be something it’s not. I don’t need you to love me like you loved him. I just want to love you in a way that helps you heal, not keep you stuck in the past.”

Your eyes are glossy now, tears threatening to fall. You want to give him everything, but the weight of the past still clings to your heart, keeping you in limbo.

“I don’t want to lose you,” you whisper. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

He gently cups your face, brushing away the tear that escapes with his thumb. “I’m not going anywhere. Not unless you need me to. But I also want you to be happy, whether that’s with me or without me. I love you, and I want what’s best for you.”

Your heart aches hearing him say that. You know he loves you—you can feel it in every touch, every word. And yet, you also know you have to face what’s buried deep inside of you. The part of you that’s still tied to Joshua, whether you like it or not.

You lean into his touch, your voice barely above a whisper. “I need time. Time to figure out what I really want... without rushing. I don’t want to make any decisions when I’m not sure.”

He nods, his expression a mixture of sadness and relief. “Take all the time you need. I’ll be here. But don’t feel like you have to rush to figure everything out. Like I said, I’m not going anywhere.”

You look up at him, a deep sigh escaping your lips. You know this isn’t going to be easy, but you feel a sense of comfort in his words. Whatever happens, you have time. Time to heal. Time to understand what you truly want.

And for now, that’s enough.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

You step into your favorite coffee shop, the one where the walls are lined with shelves of old books and the scent of freshly ground coffee always seems to settle into your soul. It’s a comforting place, a spot you’ve spent countless hours in, both alone and with friends. And today, you need it more than ever.

Vernon’s already sitting by the window when you arrive, his signature half-smile lighting up as soon as he sees you. He waves you over, and you drop into the chair across from him, your hands absently playing with the edge of your sleeve. You know he’s been watching you for a while, noticing the subtle shift in your mood, the way your thoughts seem to be miles away lately.

“Okay, talk to me,” he says, his voice warm but insistent. You can see the concern in his eyes, even if he’s trying to keep it light. “You’ve been off lately. And I can already guess why.”

You try to shrug it off, but it feels like a weight in your chest. You haven’t told anyone, but the moment Joshua had walked into your life again, even if it was just for one night, everything you’d thought you’d moved on from felt so much more complicated.

“I don’t even know where to start.” You take a deep breath, feeling your chest tighten as you speak. “Mingyu’s been so understanding, but I can’t stop thinking about Joshua. It’s like… like part of me is stuck. I love Mingyu, I do, but… I don’t know. There’s still a part of me that will always care about him. Maybe I’ll never stop loving him.”

Vernon watches you quietly, his gaze steady. You feel like he’s already figured out the direction this conversation is going, but he doesn’t interrupt. He just lets you talk, lets the words spill out.

“I feel like I’m betraying Mingyu just thinking about Joshua. But I also feel like I’m betraying myself if I don’t face it, you know? It’s just... so much.”

You pause, your voice faltering a little. Vernon leans back in his chair, eyes thoughtful. You know he’s been your friend for years—he’s seen you through the ups and downs, the heartbreaks and the happy moments. He knows how important it is for you to be honest with yourself, even when it’s hard.

“I knew something like this was coming,” he says quietly, his tone almost too calm. “You never really let go of Joshua, did you?”

You bite your lip, not quite able to meet his eyes. “I thought I did. But maybe... maybe I just buried it. I don’t know. Seeing him again made me realize how much of me was still tangled up in those feelings.”

Vernon’s eyes soften, but there’s no judgment in his gaze. “It’s not a bad thing, you know. Loving someone doesn’t just vanish because time passes. But it also doesn’t mean you can’t move forward.” He pauses, his fingers tapping lightly on the table. “It’s not about forcing yourself to stop loving Joshua. It’s about figuring out what you want. Whether that’s with Mingyu, or by yourself for a bit, or... I don’t know, maybe with someone else. But it has to come from you, not from what you think you’re supposed to do.”

You feel like the world just got a little clearer. Vernon always had a way of cutting through the noise, of getting straight to the heart of things without overcomplicating them.

“I guess... I just need to decide what makes me happiest,” you murmur, staring down at your coffee cup as you swirl it absentmindedly. “But what if I don’t know what that is? What if I can’t make a decision without messing everything up?”

Vernon leans forward, his eyes intense, but his voice soft. “You can’t avoid it forever. But you can take your time. Don’t rush it, Y/N. You’ve been through a lot, and you don’t owe anyone an answer right away. You just need to listen to yourself, and the answer will come. It’s okay not to have it all figured out right now.”

You nod, feeling the tension slowly ease from your shoulders. Vernon’s words are a relief, even if they don’t make everything clear. They give you permission to feel, to not have to have all the answers just yet.

“You’re right,” you finally say, the knot in your stomach loosening a little. “I guess I’ve been trying to avoid the truth for so long that I didn’t realize it wasn’t about fixing everything, but about understanding it.”

Vernon smiles, his usual playful grin returning. “Exactly. And remember, whatever you choose, I’ve got your back. No judgment.”

You let out a breath, grateful for the simplicity of his support. You realize, with a little more clarity than before, that the road ahead doesn’t have to be so overwhelming. You don’t have to force any decisions. You just need to take it one step at a time. And no matter where you end up, you’ll have the people who care about you, like Vernon, guiding you along the way.

“Thanks, Vernon,” you say softly. He grins and lifts his coffee in a toast.

“Anytime.”

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

The next few days pass in a blur. After your conversation with Vernon, you feel a sense of relief, but that clarity doesn’t come overnight. It’s not that you’re afraid of the truth—it’s more like you’re afraid of facing it too soon, of rushing into something without fully understanding what it means.

Life moves forward, and in a way, so do you. You throw yourself into your work, meeting with clients, attending events, living your life. Mingyu’s presence in your life is steady, reassuring, and kind. There’s a warmth between you both that feels so natural, so comfortable. You laugh with him, share quiet moments, and everything about your relationship with him feels easy.

But then, you catch yourself sometimes, still thinking about Joshua.

It’s not the first time you’ve had moments like this—where you catch yourself remembering how things used to be between you two—but the frequency is different now. They’re more frequent, and the moments are sharper, clearer. And, each time, it’s like your heart beats a little faster in those quiet moments when you catch yourself missing him.

It’s not even about wishing things had worked out the way you wanted them to. It’s not about regret. It’s about the way he made you feel—the way he understood you in a way no one else ever did.

You remember the quiet, cozy nights you spent together, the way he’d laugh at your bad jokes, how he’d rest his head on your shoulder during long drives, the way he could always make you feel like everything would be okay, even when everything was falling apart.

And you start to realize something—those moments, those memories, the way he made you feel—are still alive inside of you. They're not just memories of a past life. They are a part of you.

As you sit on your balcony with a glass of wine, the city lights twinkling below you, your phone buzzes. It’s Mingyu, asking if you want to meet for dinner tomorrow. You smile at the message, heart light, and yet, when you go to type a reply, you hesitate.

For the first time in weeks, a thought crosses your mind that you can’t shake. Am I really letting go of Joshua?

It doesn’t feel like guilt, not exactly. But it does feel like something is missing, like you’re trying to keep moving forward, but a part of you is still looking back. And that part isn’t easy to ignore.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

Then, one day, after a busy meeting, you find yourself walking past a café you and Joshua had always gone to when you’d visited the city. The memory comes rushing back in a flood—his laugh, the way he’d always get extra whipped cream on his coffee, his habit of teasing you about how you always had the most ridiculous requests at the counter.

You pause outside the café, suddenly overwhelmed. A wave of nostalgia swirls through you, soft and lingering, like a shadow of something that once was. You let out a breath and step inside, the familiar scent of coffee beans and pastries filling the air. You sit at the same table you used to sit at, sipping your own coffee. For a moment, everything feels like it’s frozen in time, as if nothing has changed.

And then it hits you. The sudden realization doesn’t come with panic, or regret. It’s more like a quiet understanding, a subtle truth you’ve been avoiding.

The truth is, you still love him. Not in the same desperate way you loved him before, not in the frantic, consuming need to have him back in your life. But there’s a part of you that’s never really let him go.

The thought doesn’t sting like it used to. It’s not even painful anymore—it’s just there, settled into your chest like a permanent mark, something that’s been carved into you. It’s a love that’s glowing in the dark of your heart, a faint, steady light that’s always been there, even through all the changes and the years that have passed. It’s a mark you didn’t ask for, but one that you’ve learned to live with. A love that, despite everything, will never truly leave.

You don’t waste any time. The moment you make up your mind, you know you have to talk to Mingyu. This isn’t fair to him, and you can’t keep carrying the weight of these feelings without being honest.

You find him in the small restaurant he likes to go to when he needs a break from work. It’s quiet, and there’s a warmth in the air from the soft glow of the hanging lights. The kind of place where the world feels a little slower, and it’s easier to think.

He looks up from his coffee as you slide into the seat across from him, his eyes lighting up for a moment before they settle, sensing the seriousness in your expression. He doesn’t need you to say anything for him to know that something’s on your mind.

“I’ve been thinking,” you start, your hands fidgeting in your lap. “About us.”

His brow furrows, but he nods slowly, waiting for you to continue.

“I can’t... I can’t keep doing this to you. I feel like I’ve been unfair. I’ve been holding on to something that I should’ve let go of a long time ago, and it's not fair to you."

Mingyu looks at you, a quiet understanding in his eyes. “Y/N...” he murmurs, reaching out to rest his hand on yours. You don’t pull away, but his touch feels different now—timid, careful.

“I still love him,” you say, the words tasting bitter and raw as you say them out loud. “I thought I was over it, thought I could move on, but... he’s still there, in my heart. I don't know how to explain it, but I can't ignore it anymore."

Mingyu’s expression doesn’t harden. If anything, there’s a tenderness to the way he listens to you. He knows you better than almost anyone. He knows that you don’t make decisions like this lightly. But there’s a sadness in his eyes too, a kind of quiet hurt that makes your heart ache.

“You don’t have to apologize,” he says softly, his thumb brushing over your hand. “I... I knew something like this would happen, Y/N. I knew the moment he came back into your life, you’d be torn. I guess I was just hoping... hoping that it wouldn’t matter, hoping I could be enough.” He shakes his head a little, like he’s trying to laugh it off, but there’s no humor in it. “But I get it. I really do.”

Your heart breaks a little, seeing how much he’s trying to hold it together. But you know, deep down, that it’s the right thing. Mingyu deserves someone who can love him completely, without any lingering doubts about the past.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” you say, feeling a lump form in your throat. “You’re amazing, Mingyu. You really are. But I can’t keep pretending that I’ve let go of Joshua when I haven’t. And I can’t keep you in limbo.”

Mingyu takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. His hand squeezes yours one last time, and then he lets go. “I think we both know what needs to happen. I care about you, Y/N. More than I ever thought I could. But I want you to be happy, truly happy. And if it’s not with me... if it’s with him, then you have to go after that.”

You stare at him, your heart aching as you realize how much he’s letting go of. “I’m so sorry,” you whisper.

He shakes his head, smiling softly, but there’s a sadness there too. “You don’t need to apologize. I knew what I was getting into. And I meant what I said... I want you to be happy. Even if it’s not with me.”

The weight of the decision sits heavily on your chest. But at the same time, it’s a release. You’ve made up your mind, and you’ve made the choice that feels right—no matter how much it hurts.

Mingyu stands up then, offering you a last, lingering look. “I’ll always be here for you, Y/N. Always.”

You nod, but the words feel stuck in your throat. You watch him leave, knowing that you’re walking away from something good, something that could have worked... but it’s not the thing.

And now, with a clear heart, you know what you need to do next.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

After breaking up with Mingyu, you feel a weight lifted, but at the same time, there's a gaping hole in your chest, a kind of emptiness that’s hard to fill. You never wanted to hurt him, but you also know that you can’t keep running from the past—especially not when the past is currently in your city.

You try to keep yourself busy, focusing on your work, keeping up with your friends, but every so often, your mind drifts back to that night at Thanksgiving—the way Joshua looked when he walked in, how his gaze kept shifting between you and Mingyu, the quiet distance that grew between you two in the hours after.

It’s been a few weeks since then, and you’ve thought about reaching out to him more than once. You’ve wondered if he’s still in the city, if he’s still staying in that empty apartment. You wonder if he’s moved on, if he’s forgotten all the things that used to matter to both of you.

One night, when you’re heading back home after a long day, your phone buzzes with a message. You don’t recognize the number at first, but when you open it, your heart skips a beat.

Hey, it’s Joshua. I know it’s been a while. I’m in the city for a little longer than expected, and I was wondering if you’d want to meet up for coffee?

Your fingers hover over the screen, uncertainty flooding your chest. You’re not sure if you’re ready for this—if you’re ready to face him and untangle all the feelings that have been buried for so long. But then, you remind yourself: you’ve already made your decision. You’ve made peace with Mingyu, and now, this is just a conversation with someone who was once everything to you. It doesn’t have to mean anything more.

You take a deep breath and type out your response.

I’d like that.

The meeting is set for the next day. It’s a cozy little place, the same place you used to go when you’d sneak away from high school for coffee and talk about your dreams. You arrive early, sitting at the table near the window, watching the rain softly tap against the glass. The café is quiet, and the smell of fresh coffee fills the air.

You see him before he sees you—his broad shoulders, his walk, that familiar way of running his hand through his hair. When he spots you, his expression softens. His eyes look tired, but there’s something else there, something you can’t quite place.

He sits down across from you, offering you a small smile. You can’t help but smile back, despite the tightness in your chest.

“You look good,” he says, his voice low, almost hesitant.

You nod. “So do you.”

The silence stretches between you two, both of you unsure how to navigate this conversation. There’s so much history between you, so many unspoken words. The years spent apart have changed you both, but there’s still a familiarity in the way you look at each other.

“I... I didn’t know how to reach out,” he admits after a while, his voice quiet, the weight of his words heavy. “I wasn’t sure if you’d even want to hear from me.”

You take a deep breath, leaning back in your chair. “I didn’t know if I was ready to hear from you either.”

He looks down, clearly grappling with his own feelings. “I’m sorry for how everything ended,” he says, his gaze meeting yours. “I thought... I thought I was doing the right thing, but I see now that I wasn’t.”

The apology hits harder than you expect. You knew it was coming, but hearing him say it out loud brings back everything—the hurt, the confusion, the unanswered questions. You’ve spent so long trying to piece it together in your mind, and now, hearing it from him, it feels both relieving and painful.

“You don’t have to apologize,” you say, your voice steady. “We both made mistakes. I’m not angry anymore, Joshua. I just... I had to move on.”

As you sit across from him, your heart heavy with memories, you find yourself reflecting on everything that’s led to this moment. You feel the weight of the past, the good and the bad, the love that once felt so natural, so easy, but also the pain of it falling apart. Your fingers absentmindedly trace the rim of your coffee cup as you consider what to say next.

“You know,” you say softly, your eyes meeting Joshua’s, “this love we had... it was both good and bad. There were so many great moments, but then there were times when it hurt more than I could handle.”

Joshua’s eyes are searching yours, his face filled with an emotion you can’t quite place—hope, guilt, maybe a little bit of both. He doesn’t interrupt, just listens, his gaze never leaving you.

“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about us,” you continue, your voice steady but soft. “And sometimes, love just... doesn’t work out the way you want it to. You can try to hold on, but sometimes, you just have to let it go.”

You can see his face change, but there’s no anger, just understanding. He knows what you mean.

“And I did,” you add, almost whispering, “I had to let it go. I thought that was the only way for me to move on, for me to heal. I didn’t want to keep holding on to something that was only hurting me.”

Joshua nods slowly, his fingers fidgeting with the handle of his cup. “I get that. I do. But... you don’t have to let go forever. Sometimes, when you let someone go, they come back to you. If it’s meant to be.”

There’s a brief silence, the words hanging between you both, heavy with meaning. It’s almost as if time slows down for a moment, allowing both of you to understand the full weight of what’s being said.

“That’s the thing,” you say, your voice quiet but resolute. “I think I had to let it go... because I had to learn to let go of the past. But now, looking at you... looking at us, I’m starting to realize that maybe it’s true. Maybe when you really let go of someone, when you give them space to grow, they can come back to you. And it doesn’t erase the pain or the mistakes, but it’s a chance for something new, something different.”

Joshua’s eyes are softer now, the tension that had been in his posture earlier slowly starting to ease. “I don’t want to rush anything,” he says, his voice low and steady. “I’m not asking you to forget everything that happened or pretend it didn’t hurt. I just want a chance to show you that I’ve changed. That I’m not the same person I was before.”

“I know,” you say, nodding slowly. “And I’m not the same either. But maybe, just maybe, this time... this love can be something better. I’m not sure what it looks like yet, but I’m willing to find out. I think, for once, we’re both in the right place.”

There’s a quiet understanding between you both, a silent agreement that neither of you wants to rush. The love you had, the good and the bad, the way it glowed in the dark and left a permanent mark on your hearts, is still there. But now, it’s different—more mature, more thoughtful.

And for the first time in a long while, you feel like maybe, just maybe, things could work out. The past doesn’t define you anymore. You’ve both grown, you’ve both learned, and if it's meant to be, the love will come back to you—stronger this time, in a way that it couldn’t have before.

As you sit there, staring at him, you realize that sometimes love doesn’t just fade away—it evolves. And when you’re ready to accept it for what it is, and what it can be, it might just come back to you. Maybe not the way it once was, but with something new.

Joshua leans forward, his hand gently resting on yours, and you feel a familiar spark. It’s not the same spark you felt years ago—it’s warmer now, softer, more knowing.

“You’re right,” he says, his voice low but steady. “This love has always been ours. And I’ll wait, however long it takes. I’m not going anywhere. Hell, I'll even fill out a permanent transfer application at work."

You smiled once again, taking his hand fully in yours, "We'll figure it out."

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

author's note 𝟅𝟈 yall i literally cooked so hard with this one, lowkey made myself emotional while writing it.

masterlist.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Zuck’s gravity-defying metaverse money-pit

Tomorrow (Oct 31) at 10hPT, the Internet Archive is livestreaming my presentation on my recent book, The Internet Con.

Think of everything that makes you miserable as being caught between two opposing, irresistible, irrefutable truths:

"Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops" (Stein's Law)

"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" (Keynes)

Both of these are true, even though they seemingly contradict one another, and no one embodies that contradiction more perfectly than Mark Zuckerberg.

Take the metaverse.

Zuck's "pivot" to a virtual world he ripped off from a quarter-century old cyberpunk novel (reminder: cyberpunk is a warning, not a suggestion) was born of desperation.

Zuck fancies himself an avatar of the Emperor Augustus (that's why he has that haircut) (no, really). The emperors of antiquity are infamous for getting all weepy when they run out of lands to conquer.

But the lachrymosity of emperors has little causal relationship to the anxieties of tech monopolists! Alexander weeps because he just loves a good conquest and when he finishes conquering the world, he's terminally bored. That's not Zuck's problem at all. When Zuck attains monopoly status, his company develops an autoimmune disorder, as his vicious princelings run out of enemies to destroy and begin to knife one another.

Any monopoly faces these destructive microincentives, but tech is exceptional here because tech has the realtime flexibility and speed that brick-and-mortar businesses can never match:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

Sociopaths with tech monopolies are worse for the same reason that road-rage would be worse in a flying car: adding new capacity to indiscriminate self-destructive urges turns ordinary car crashes into low-level airburst warfare:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

The flexibility of digital gives tech platforms so much latitude to break things in tiny increments. A tech platform is like a Jenga tower composed of infinitely divisible blocks. The Jenga players are the product managers and executives who have run out of the ability to grow by attracting new business thanks to their monopoly dominance. Now they compete with one another to increase the yield from their respective divisions by visiting pain upon the business customers and end users their platform connects. By tiny increments, they increase the product's cost, lower its reliability, and strip it of its utility and then charge rent to restore its functionality:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/24/cursed-bigness/#incentives-matter

This is the terminal stage of enshittification, the unstoppable autocannibalism of platforms as they seek to harvest all the value created by business customers and end users, leaving the absolute minimum of residual value needed to keep both stuck to the platform. This is a brittle equilibrium, because the difference between "I hate this service but I just can't stop using it," and "Get me the fuck out of here" is razor-thin.

All it takes is one tiny push – a whistleblower, a livestreamed mass-shooting, a Cambridge Analytica – and people bolt for the doors. This triggers the final stage: the "pivot," which is a tech euphemism for "panic."

For Zuck, the pivot got real after a disappointing earnings call triggered a mass sell-off of Facebook stock, history's worst one-day value incineration, which lopped a quarter of a trillion dollars off the company's market cap:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-19/dramatic-stock-moves-of-2022-led-by-meta-dive-nordic-flash-crash

This was when the metaverse became the company's top priority.

Now, in my theory of enshittification, the step that follows the pivot is death: "Finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

Many people have asked me about the conspicuous non-death of Facebook! That's where I have to fall back on Stein's Law: "Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops." Facebook can't continue to annihilate value, alienate its workers, harm the public, hemorrhage money in support of a mediocrity's cherished folly forever. Can it?

Admittedly, it sure seems like it can. Facebook's metaverse pivot has thus far cost the company $46,500,000,000. That is: $46.5 billion. That's even more money than Uber torched, seeking to maintain the illusion that they will be able to create monopolies on both transport and the labor market for driving and recoup the billions the Saudi royal family let them use for the con:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/11/bezzlers-gonna-bezzle/#gryft

Don't worry: the Saudi royals are fine! They cashed out at the IPO, collecting a tidy profit at the expense of retail investors who assumed that a pile of shit as big as Uber must have a pony under it, somewhere:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/19/fake-it-till-you-make-it/#millennial-lifestyle-subsidy

Uber has doubled the cost of rides and halved drivers' wages, using illegal gimmicks like "algorithmic wage discrimination" to squeeze a little more juice out of the nearly exhausted husks of its workforce:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

But Stein's Law hasn't been repealed. Drivers can't drive for sub-subsistence wages. Do that long enough and they'll literally starve: that's what "subsistence" means. We lost a decade of transit investment thanks to the Uber con, at the same time as traditional taxi drivers were forced out of the industry. Uber can't be profitable and still pay a living wage, and the fantasy of self-driving cars as a means of zeroing out the wage-bill altogether remains stubbornly, lethally unworkable:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Which means we're at the point where you can get off a commuter train at a main station and find yourself stranded: no taxis at the taxi-queue, no busses due for an hour, and no Uber cars available unless you're willing to pay $95 for a ten-minute ride in a luxury SUV (why yes, this did happen to me recently, thanks for asking).

As more and more of us are exposed to these micro-crises, the political will to do something will increase. This can't go on forever. "Don't use commuter rail" isn't a viable option. "Walk three miles each way to the commuter rail station" isn't viable either. Neither is "Pay $95 for an Uber to get to the station." Something's gotta give…eventually.

"Eventually" is the key word here. Remember the corollary of Stein's Law: Keynes's maxim that "markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." Sure, anything that can't go on forever eventually stops, but that is no guarantee of a soft landing. You can't smoke two packs a day forever – but in the absence of smoking cessation, the eventual terminus of that habit is stage-four lung cancer. Keep hammering butts into your face and your last smoke will come out a crematorium chimney.

Zuckerberg hasn't merely blown a whole-ass Twitter on the metaverse with nothing to show for it – he's gotten richer while doing it! In the past year, his net worth increased by 130%, to $59 billion, thanks to an increase in Facebook's share-price, driven by investors who stubbornly remain irrational, keeping the Boy Emperor solvent long past any reasonable assessment of his performance.

What are these investors betting on? One possibility is that the rise and rise of Facebook's share-price represents a bet on technofeudalism. Since the Communist Manifesto, Marxists have been predicting the end of capitalism. That end seems to have come, but what followed capitalism wasn't socialism, it was the return of feudalism, an economic system where elites derive their wealth from rents, not profits:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

Profit is the income you get from investing in capital – machinery, systems, plant – and then harvesting the surplus value created by workers who mobilize this capital. Capitalism produces massive returns for its winners – in the Manifesto's first chapter, Marx and Engels just geek out about how productive and dynamic this system is.

But capitalism is also a Red Queen's Race, where the winners have to run faster and faster to stay in the same place. Capitalism drives competition, as other would-be winners pile into the sector, replicating the systems that the current winners are using and then improving on them. This is why the prophets of capitalist end-times like the FBI informant Peter Thiel say that "competition is for losers."

Capitalism's "profits" stand in contrast to the feudalist's "rents." Rents are income you get from owning something that other people need to produce things. The capitalist owns the coffee-shop, but the feudalist owns the building. When a rival capitalist opens a superior coffee-shop and drives the old shop out of business, the capitalist loses, but the rentier wins. Now they can rent out an empty storefront in the neighborhood everyone's coming to because of that hot new cafe.

Feudal and manorial lords also made their fortunes by extracting surplus value from workers, but these rentiers don't care about owning the means of production. The peasant in the field pays for their own agricultural equipment and livestock – control over the means of production is necessary for worker liberation, but it's not sufficient. The worker's co-op that owns its factory can still find the value it produces bled off by the landlord who owns the land the factory sits on.

The jury's still out on whether American workers really see themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires," but America's capitalists have a palpable, undeniable loathing for capitalism. The dream of an American "entrepreneur" is *PassiveIncome: money you get from owning something capitalists and/or workers use to create value. Digital technology creates exciting new possibilities for rent-extraction: a taxi-operator had to buy and maintain a car that someone else drove. Uber can offload this hassle onto its drivers and rent out access to the chokepoint it created between drivers and riders, charging all the traffic can bear. This is feudalism in the cloud – or as Yannis Varoufakis calls it, cloudalism.

In Varoufakis's Technofeudalism, he describes Amazon as a feudal venture. From a distance, Amazon seems like a bustling marketplace of manic capitalism, with sellers avidly competing to offer more variety and lower costs in a million independently operated storefronts. But closer inspection reveals that Amazon is a planned economy, not a market.

Every one of those storefronts pays rent to the same landlord – Amazon – which determines which goods can be offered for sale. Amazon sets pricing for those goods, and extracts 45-51% of every dollar those sellers make. Amazon even controls which goods are shelved at eye-height when you enter the store, and which ones are banished to a dusty storeroom in a distant sub-basement you'll never find:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/14/flywheel-shyster-and-flywheel/#unfulfilled-by-amazon

Zuck's metaverse is pure-play technofeudalism, Amazon taken to the logical extreme. It's easy to get distracted by the part of Zuck's vision that will convert us all into legless, sexless, heavily surveilled low-resolution cartoon characters. But the real action isn't this digitization of our fleshy wants and needs. Zuck didn't spend $46.5B to torment us.

The cruelty isn't the point of the metaverse.

The point of the metaverse is to rent us out to capitalists.

Zuck doesn't know why we would use the metaverse, but he believes that if he can convince capitalists that we all want to live there, that they'll invest the capital to figure out how to serve us there, and then he can extract rent from those capitalists and start earning "passive income." It's an Uber for Cyberpunk Dystopias play.

Zuck's done this before. Remember the "pivot to video?" Zuckerberg wanted to compete with Youtube, but he didn't want to invest in paying for video production. Videos are really expensive to produce and the median video gets zero views. So Zuck used his captive audience to trick publishers into financing his move into video. He fraudulently told publishers that videos were blowing up on Facebook, outperforming boring old text by vast margins.

Publishers borrowed billions and raised billions more in the capital markets, financing the total conversion of newsrooms from text to video and precipitating a mass extinction event for print journalists. Zuck kept the con alive by giving away (fewer) billions to some of those publishers, falsely claiming that their videos were generating fortunes in advertising revenue. These lucky, credulous publishers became judas goats for their industry, luring others into the con, the same way that the "lucky" guy a carny lets win a giant teddy-bear at the start of the day lures others into putting down $5 to see if they can sink three balls in a rigged peach-basket.

But when we stubbornly refused to watch videos on Facebook, Zuck stopped spreading around these convincer payouts, and precipitated a second mass-extinction event in news media, as the new generation of video journalists joined their predecessors in Facebook-driven unemployment. Given this history, it's surreal to see publishers continue to insist that Facebook is stealing their content, when it is so clearly stealing their money:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

Metaverse is the new Pivot to Video. Zuckerberg is building a new world, which he will own, and he wants rent it to capitalists, who will compete with one another in just the way that Amazon's sellers compete. No matter who wins that competition, Zuckerberg will win. The prize for winning will be a rent increase, as Zuckerberg leverages the fact that your "successful" business relies on Facebook's metaverse to drain off all the value your workers have produced:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/18/metaverse-means-pivot-to-video/

This can't last forever, but how long until Zuck's reality distortion field runs out of battery? That's the $46.5B question.

The market can certainly remain irrational for a hell of a long time. But the market isn't the only force that regulates corporate outcomes. Regulators also regulate. Europe's GDPR is now seven years old, and it plainly outlaws Facebook's surveillance.

For nearly a decade, Facebook has pretended that this wasn't true, and they got away with it. Mostly, that's thanks to the fact that Ireland is a corporate crime-haven with a worse-than-useless Data Protection Commission:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

But anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. Facebook has finally been dragged into EU federal jurisdiction, where it will face exterminatory fines if it continues to spy on Europeans:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/07/luck-of-the-irish/#schrems-revenge

In response, Facebook has rolled out a subscription version of its main service and its anticompetitive acquisition, Instagram:

https://about.fb.com/news/2023/10/facebook-and-instagram-to-offer-subscription-for-no-ads-in-europe/

For €10/month, Facebook will give you an ad-free experience across its service offerings (it's €13/month if you pay through an app, as Facebook recoups the 30% #AdTax rents that the feudal Google/Apple mobile duopoly extracts).

But this doesn't come close to satisfying Facebook's legal obligations under the GDPR. The GDPR doesn't ban ads, it bans spying. Facebook spies on every single internet user, all the time. The apps we use are built with "free" Facebook toolkits that extract rent from the capitalists who make them by harvesting our data as we use their apps. The web-pages we visit have embedded Facebook libraries that do the same thing for web publishers. Facebook buys our data from brokers. Facebook has so many ways of spying on us that there's almost certainly no way for Facebook to stop spying on you, without radically transforming it operation.

To comply with the GDPR, Facebook must halt surveillance advertising altogether. There's no way to square "spying on users" with "you can't surveil without explicit consent, and you can't punish people for refusing."

And of course, "not spying" isn't the same as "not advertising." "Contextual advertising" – where ads are placed based on the thing you're looking at, not who you are and what you do – is hundreds of years old. Context ads underperform surveillance ads by a slim margin – about 5% – but they're vastly more profitable for publishers. That's because surveillance ads are feudal, controlled by rentiers like Facebook, who own vast troves of the surveillance data needed to run these ads. Traditional ad intermediaries (agencies, brokers) took 10-15% out of the total advertising market. Ad-tech companies – the Google/Facebook duopoly – take 51% out of every ad dollar spent.

Eliminate surveillance ads and you torch their feudal estates. Facebook will always know more about someone reading a news article than the publisher – but the publisher will always know more about the article than Facebook does:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

There are rents under capitalism, just as there are profits under feudalism. The defining characteristic of a system is what happens when rents and profits come into conflict. If profits win – for example, if productive companies beat patent trolls, or if news publishers escape Facebook's rent-extraction – then the system is capitalist. If rents win – if investors continue to bet large on the metaverse as its losses pass $50 billion and head for the $100 billion mark – then the system is feudal.

Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. The question isn't whether the platforms will eventually become so enshittified that they die – the question is whether they will go down in an all-consuming fireball, or whether they'll go down in a controlled demolition that lets us evacuate the people they've trapped inside them first:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/09/let-the-platforms-burn/

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/30/markets-remaining-irrational/#steins-law

Image: Diego Delso (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Puente_de_las_cataratas_Victoria,_Zambia-Zimbabue,_2018-07-27,_DD_10.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

[humidcitrusgrove]

Okay...

as it says in the description.

Yesterday, I got up did some Tumblin with my account @steamedtangerine (a seven and a half yo. account)-many of them vintage scans of architecture (one was an upbeat Peanuts comic). I went to work, came home tired after 10p. (EST), and tried to log-in upstairs with difficulties. When I hand typed the log-in, I got smacked with a big notice saying my account was terminated. I checked my email and saw no notice saying what this was about or any explanation as to why this occurred. In fact, the last notice was a new follow (many of them lately have been blanks or underdeveloped garbage with no activity in over four months with other redflags present) close to 6pm. So, somehow in that four hour period, I was axed.

Was this a glitch? Was it an AI matter? Was it a hack (if so, who posted what under my name to hurt me?)? Was it a brigaded attempt to take my account down? Did I block too many accounts? Did I report too many of the shady pornbots who had crappy video links to sites other than those like Chaturbate or Onlyfans?

I have sent in a request into the matter and I have made a post on Reddit about it. I am now using this new alt-account (never thought I'd ever have to make one of these) to reach out to other accounts to do me a big, solid favor. Some time back, accounts like @nemfrog and @moviesludge had been arbitrarily removed. I sent out DMs to other accounts that had supported these accounts in the past, and they reached out (along with me) to contact staff and support to examine and re-instate those accounts (I think I did with @nemfrog)-which, luckily, worked.

I am asking accounts like @mortifiedandawesome , @feed-the-crows , @moviesludge , @7wo7rees , @nycewell , @obviouswar , @memory-thought , @peculiarist , @vor765wm , @bitter1stuff , @donnerpartyofone , @nemfrog , @baskiet , @wee-toe , @hirokuthegoblin , @maa-pix , @donecant , @candont , @instamatik , @thatsbelievable , @lesser-known-composers , @brunothegrape , @roguetelemetry , @ursaminorjim , @eternalistic , @hokeoutsider (no I haven't forgotten about you), @artoftcbaldwin , @slcr303 , @ceevee5 , @beelzebunny (you-uh-still alive there? Kind of miss ya!) @snappingthewalls, @contac, @multifacetedwitch , @spockvarietyhour , @cosmicretreat , @fatmagic , @motherpussbucket , @gameraboy2 -and so, so , so many others (I'm sorry If I've forgotten, my head has been pounding heavily for hours lately) to just take ten minutes out of their time to send staff and support a message requesting they look into and examine closely my account steamedtangerine and please reconsider the termination so that my account will be restored whole and full.

I promise if restored I will (probably) be better, nicer to new accounts and lighter on the block button (maybe-unless this termination is a fine example of why I should do it more), and stop theorized too much about future conspiracies by shady imperialist sickf!cks (well...we'll see about that).

So, if you can stomach a few more years (months!? -sadly I heard the CEO of WP has been acting-well, he's been acting a little funny in the head lately) of me posting ugly gifs, outdated vintage imagery, cheap smut, old pics of Detroit art, and political bluster, then just do me this big favor to push for me to be restored (do an internet seance if you have to just to resurrect this ghost blog) and get steamedtangerine back up and running.

[beaviu]

𝜗𝜚˚ ⋆₊ LOVE iN THE AiR — NOT very nonchalant

⌗ masterlist :: next :: prev

The terminal was already buzzing with fans when yn turned off her phone and clocked in for her shift, the kind of hum that made even experienced flight attendants brace themselves. A quick glance at the crowd confirmed it: the loyalist — the world’s biggest band — was flying commercial today.

Yn wasn’t a fangirl. Or so she told herself.

“Gate B, have fun,” the gate manager said with a smirk, handing over the tablet with passenger check-ins. Yn groaned as she made her way up to the gate, a high pitched scream erupted from near the windows

And there they were.

All five members of the loyalist — sunglasses on, hoodies up, but unmistakably gorgeous and wildly famous — pushing their luggage carts through a growing crowd of fans who had clearly cracked the code on their travel itinerary.

Security tried to keep the masses back, but phones were everywhere, flashbulbs popping like fireworks, people shouting out declarations of love or just trying to get noticed.

Yn rolled her eyes but kept her composure. This wasn’t her first celebrity rodeo.

As the band approached the check-in desk, flanked by two alert managers, yn cleared her throat and said flatly with a professional tone, “Names?”

One of the members, Heeseung — the lead singer with the bambi eyes — pulled his sunglasses down just a bit and grinned. “Hey. We’re The Loyalist.”

“I know,” Yn deadpanned, typing quickly. “I meant full names. For boarding.”

Heeseung chuckled, the others laughing at him behind his back. Fans were chanting now, and someone had started crying just by being in the same breathing radius.

“Lee Heeseung.”

Click. Type.

“Next?”

“Park Sunghoon.”

“Mm-hmm.”

They all glanced at each other as yn methodically worked through them, unfazed, not even glancing up. No questions, no selfies, no “I love your music!”

“Okay, you’re all checked in,” yn said, finally looking up. “Gate opens in twenty minutes. Please don’t block the boarding zone or engage in crowd control. That’s not your job. That’s mine.”

Leehan blinked, impressed. “You’re kind of... intense.”

“I’m just trying to do my job,” yn said giving them a polite smile, picking up the intercom. “Next group in line, pls let’s move!”

As they walked away, still being swarmed by fans, one of the managers leaned over and said quietly, “That was the most efficient celebrity check-in I’ve ever seen.” Giving her a little thumbs up and smile before running away trying to keep the swarm of fans away

As the gate settled and the noise died down, yn let herself steal one glance at the band and unintentionally locked eyes with Heeseung, who just happened to look back at the same time — and winked.

Yn turned back to the desk, unimpressed on the outside, but her heart did a little chaotic drum solo on the inside. Just as she was checking her reflection with a pocket mirror her two bffs had just arrived. “My oh my would u look at that. You two are LATE” she says emphasizing on late. “we love u..?” they both say giving her an apologetic smile. “yea yea cmon now” she says rolling her eyes at their faces.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ . ݁₊ ⊹ ݁˖ . ݁ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ . ݁ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ . ݁₊ ⊹ ݁˖ . ݁ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ . ݁ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 — taglist :: @heesexual74 @urmomssneakylink @gweoriz @lovenha7 @naevisringring @t1iqaa

>ᴗ< authors note — hii sorry for my very rusty writing skills but hey at least it got the job done💔💔. But as always the taglist is always opened for anyone who wants to join!!!

[thisapplepielife]

Written for @steddie-week.

Reach Out and Touch Someone

Day #7 - Prompt: Free Space | Word Count: 1500 | Rating: T | CW: Language, Alcohol | POV: Steve | Tags: AU, Wrong Number, Right Person Trope, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Meet-Cute

Steve dials the number messily scrawled on the scrap of paper. He’s nervous. He’s always nervous when he has to stick his neck out and make a move on a girl these days. 

Yeah, he did the first bit of legwork and got her number out at the bar last night. But he's fumbled the ball and failed enough times, Robin's loving, but accurate, "you suck" burned in his brain, that he's always leery to try again. He should be used to it by now, but it’s still uncomfortable and awkward, every goddamn time. If his friends weren't all fretting about his emotional well-being from being so terminally alone, he wouldn’t put forth half the effort anymore. 

He has Robin. He has his cat. He's happy. 

It rings three times before he hears it connect, “Hello?”

It’s a man’s voice, and he hesitates for just a moment, “I’m looking for, uh, Lyla?”

“Sorry, man. Wrong number.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I must have misdialed,” Steve says, a different kind of embarrassment. But this is one he can handle easier, for sure. So he pushed the wrong button somewhere along the way. His eyesight isn't the best thing he's got going for him.

“No worries, man,” the other guy laughs, seemingly carefree about being bothered.

They each disconnect and then Steve reads, and re-reads, the number before dialing again. More carefully this time.

It rings only once before it’s connected.

“Still me, dude,” the familiar voice relays, still light and friendly.

“Wow. I’m so sorry. Clearly, I was given a fake number. That's embarrassing,” Steve laughs, because this is more embarrassing than misdialing. He's uncomfortable and mortified to admit that this girl just didn't want him to call her. Even if he's only admitting it to a stranger.

She should have just told him no. He hates that she didn't, for her sake, too.

“Shitty move,” the other guy answers.

“Yeah, well. I'm sorry I bothered you. Again. I promise to cross-check any future numbers against yours before dialing, just in case.”

The guy laughs, "Well, now. Don't go to any trouble for my sake. Honestly,” and he doesn't sound put-out at all, “don’t worry about it. She clearly didn’t have the balls to just, be, like, honest. That sucks.”

Steve laughs, maybe if she'd had balls this wouldn't have happened at all. Most men feel more comfortable just saying no, he thinks, which is sad but true. He swings both ways, and maybe he should take this as a sign to lean the other way for a while. See if that works out any better for him. 

It probably won't, but he could try.

“There goes my big weekend plans,” Steve teases, uncertain why he does it, even as the words tumble out of his mouth. He needs to hang up the phone and let this guy get back to his own life.

“Dude. That's a problem I can solve. I’m gigging tonight. You have to come. Let me entertain you.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Whatever. I want to. Just show up. It’ll be a great story, will it not?”

It would be a great story. One he could even tell Robin to convince her he’s living a little, “I don’t even know your name. What if you’re a serial killer or something?”

“Yep, that’s me. Vicious killer,” the guy laughs, “I’m Eddie, man. And I’m a fucking ball to be around. You’ll want to take me up on this awesome offer. We’ll all be down at Hellfire Club around eight. Show up. If you think we’re murderous, you don’t have to follow us to any secondary, secluded locations.”

Hellfire Club is literally two blocks from Steve’s apartment. He's been past it countless times, but never inside. It's always dark. Like it's not even open, making him unsure about what kind of bar it is, it's so nondescript from the outside. Not to mention the name is a little intimidating. He'd half-convinced himself it's a BDSM club. 

But, now that he's been invited, he could just walk down and see what’s the what, “How will I know which guy you are?”

Eddie laughs, “You’ll know. Trust me.”

Steve has a hard time trusting anyone new these days, but Eddie seems friendly enough. 

Steve realizes he must have been quiet for too long, because Eddie starts talking again.

“I’ll have on a badass battle vest. Look for that. You'll see me. It's impossible not to. I promise.”

“Okay,” Steve agrees, even if he’s not sure what a battle vest even is.

“Now, are you going to tell me your name, or will that just be a surprise?” Eddie asks.

Steve laughs, “Steve. I’m Steve.”

“Well, I’ll see you later, Steve.”

Steve stands in front of his closet for far too long, trying to find something to wear that doesn’t look too nerdy. He assumes Eddie's cool. He sounded cool, and Steve may have been cool in high school, but these days he just keeps his head down and goes through life, content to be fairly unnoticed. He finally settles on a black t-shirt. Basic, classic. Timeless.

Boring. 

But that's a risk he's willing to take.

He walks down the street slowly and arrives around eight-thirty. The windows are still all blacked out, tinted to the point he can't see anything inside. There's just the neon sign with the Hellfire Club over the door.

When he pulls open the door, he's in a hallway that's painted all black, with a bouncer at the end, stationed at a door. Steve kind of wants to turn around, flee, but he doesn't. He's already here. He might as well at least see. Robin will kill him if he chickens out.

He gives his ID to the bouncer, and is directed down a staircase. He really hopes this isn't a sex club. 

It's not.

And as soon as he crosses the threshold into the bar, yes, he knows Eddie instantly. He’s gotta be the one on the bar, pouring shots directly into various mouths. Steve knows he could turn around right now and this adventure could end. But watching Eddie laughing and prancing up and down the bar with flourish, clearly having fun, makes Steve want to go up and meet this guy.

Steve takes an open seat at the end of the bar, kind of out of the way, and just watches Eddie work the crowd.

The bar is blaring It's Raining Men and Eddie is playing up the song, big time. He's not a stripper, at least Steve doesn't think he is, but he's working the crowd for tips, absolutely. He keeps handing them down to a curly-headed guy, who keeps stuffing them into an overflowing jar.

Steve's pretty sure this is a gay club, or at least queer friendly. Maybe he has found a place for himself, something that's been right here under his nose, all this time.

When Eddie finally jumps down off the bar, Steve watches him work the rest of the room.

The other guy comes over and takes Steve's order, and he doesn't quite have the same flourish, but he's efficient and confident with a bottle and jigger.

"Name for the tab?" he asks, shaking the drink Steve had picked from the list.

"Steve," Steve says, and the guy looks up and meets his eyes.

Surely not. This doesn't feel like this is Eddie. He is wearing a vest, a red plaid one, but the other guy also has a denim vest on, full of patches.

"Eddie?" Steve questions, needing to make sure.

"Gareth," the guy says, "that's Eddie," he clarifies, pointing at the one Steve had correctly clocked as Eddie to begin with. "You're his wrong number guy, right?"

Steve nods. He supposes that's what he is, "Yeah. That's me. Loser in love."

Gareth laughs, and it makes Steve smile.

"That's our specialty here, you'll feel right at home," Gareth teases.

"Glad to hear it."

"I'll tell him you're here," Gareth assures, "he wasn't sure you'd come."

"That makes two of us," Steve admits, and Gareth smiles as he finishes shaking Steve's drink, putting it down in front of him.

"On the house. First-timers to Hellfire drink free," Gareth says, and then he's walking away. 

Steve's eyes follow Gareth across the bar, watching as he taps Eddie on the shoulder, leaning close to his ear, pointing right at Steve.

Eddie looks, meets his eyes, and Steve raises his hand, giving him a small, little wiggle of his fingers.

A huge smile spreads across Eddie's face as he bounds in Steve's direction.

Eddie's quickly right in his personal space, squeezing both of Steve's shoulders, greeting him with a smile, "Welcome to Hellfire."

Steve smiles, liking the feeling of Eddie's hands bleeding through his t-shirt, warming him.

Eddie lets go, and Steve misses the feeling already, but Eddie stays. Sliding onto the stool next to Steve, "I'm glad you came."

And Steve's completely honest as he answers, "Me too."

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @steddie-week and follow along with the fun!

Notes: If you're too young to remember it, reach out and touch someone was the slogan/jingle for Bell System telephone company back in the day. So, that's where the title comes from, as a play on the wrong number phone call trope.

[twistedheartsclub]

Bride of the Mariposa Male X Female Reader

⚠️ Warnings: emotional manipulation, coercive control, forced engagement, grooming, isolation, obsession, possessive behavior, physical intimidation, psychological abuse, implied captivity, trauma response

New York City, 1926. A city in bloom—jazz clubs pulse through the night, Prohibition pushes liquor underground, and women are starting to wear red lipstick and short skirts, but power still lies in a man’s pocket and a woman’s beauty. It’s the Gilded Cage era—especially for a girl like Y/N.

The train whistled through the bitter morning like a wounded animal. Steam rolled across the platform in ghostly swirls, swallowing the scuffed shoes and wool skirts of passengers with places to be, people to become. Among them stood Y/N, clutching a worn carpetbag with trembling fingers and trying not to cry.

She’d never seen a train up close before. Not like this. Not with a ticket in hand and her mother’s muffler wrapped twice around her neck to block out the late winter chill. It smelled like iron and coal, the air thick with soot and possibility.

She was leaving. Really leaving.

Behind her, the snow still clung to the fields of her small town like a second skin. Her father had kissed her forehead before she left, coughing into a rag as he handed her a folded five-dollar bill—“just in case.” Her mother hadn’t come to the station. Too proud. Too heartbroken. She’d just pressed a brown paper lunch bag into Y/N’s hands that morning, filled with hardboiled eggs and dry molasses cookies. No goodbye, just a firm nod.

And now she was alone.

Nineteen years old, too thin from rationing food in winter, her boots patched twice, and the only thing new she owned was the pair of silk stockings Ruby, the neighbor’s oldest, had smuggled back from the city last summer.

New York City.

Even the name sounded like a dare.

She boarded the train with hesitant steps, careful not to look too curious. She’d practiced pretending to be confident in her bedroom mirror for nights before this. Raised her chin, softened her lips, told herself that just because she didn’t have fine things didn’t mean she wasn’t worth something.

The train jolted as it began to move, and Y/N took her seat by the window, breath fogging up the cold glass. She stared out as the station fell behind, the little town shrinking until it was just a shadow of wood and smoke. Her chest hurt, but she swallowed it down.

There was no room for tears now. Not when she had to be brave.

The journey took hours.

She watched farmland turn to factory towns, watched chimney stacks multiply and rivers thicken with barges. She read the old letter of employment from a cousin’s friend, promising her a place to stay “for a week or two” and maybe a chance at a job in a fabric shop near 38th Street. It wasn’t much. But it was more than what waited for her at home.

Her fellow passengers were a parade of strange accents and finer coats than hers. Some women traveled in pairs, painted lips and bobbed hair, laughing like they didn’t care who listened. Y/N watched them from behind the veil of her bonnet, studying the curve of their confidence, wondering how long it would take her to become one of them—or if she ever could.

When she fell asleep, it was to the sound of train wheels thundering like distant war drums. She dreamed of city lights, of silk gloves, of a world where her name meant something.

She arrived in Manhattan just before sunset.

Grand Central Terminal was like something out of a novel. The ceilings arched higher than a cathedral’s. The walls gleamed. The floor was marble—marble!—and people moved like they knew exactly where they were going.

Y/N stood in the middle of it all, heart pounding, suitcase clutched to her chest, and for a moment, she couldn’t breathe.

I’m not supposed to be here.

No one looked at her. No one cared that she had no money. No one stopped to ask if she was lost.

That was the city’s first lesson.

Still, she lifted her chin and walked. Slow at first. Then faster. Her cousin’s address was scrawled on a paper folded in her shoe for safekeeping. Her plan was simple: find the apartment, find the job, send money home. Be good. Be invisible.

But New York had other plans.

And so did the man who owned the building where she’d soon be staying.

The apartment was smaller than she imagined.

It belonged to her cousin’s friend Irene—a war widow who worked nights at a laundry press. She was kind but tired, and made it clear Y/N could only stay a week, two at most. The room was barely big enough for the narrow cot and chipped mirror, and the window overlooked a brick wall that swallowed the sun before it ever touched the floorboards.

But Y/N was grateful. She said thank you after every cup of tea, folded the blankets neatly each morning, and washed her stockings in the sink at night. She kept her voice soft, her steps lighter than moth wings. She didn’t want to be a burden.

Every morning, she dressed in her best skirt and coat, pinned her hair up with trembling fingers, and walked the streets of Manhattan with aching feet and hopeful eyes.

“Are you hiring?”

That phrase lived on her tongue.

She tried everywhere: sewing shops, bookshops, diners, even an elevator girl post at a grand hotel, but they took one look at her—too timid, too country, too plain—and told her “No.”

Some said it kindly.

Others just sneered.

She rationed her coins like a miser. Ate a boiled egg for breakfast and nothing for lunch. By the fifth day, her stomach was a growling void, and her shoes had rubbed raw circles on her heels. But worse than the hunger was the shame—this crushing sense that she didn’t belong here, that New York had made a mistake letting her in.

That night, Irene left a cup of soup on the table and quietly asked, “You’ve got somewhere to go soon, right?”

Y/N nodded. Lied.

She went to bed with the taste of salt on her lips and knew she’d have to make a choice.

The next day, Y/N wandered farther west, past where the proper girls walked, past the rowhouses where jazz floated through basement windows and cigarette smoke curled in silver rings.

She sat on a stone stoop to rest her feet, too tired to cry. That’s when she saw her.

Ruby.

She was everything Y/N wasn’t. Red lips, crimson dress, heels that clicked like power. Her coat was fox fur, and her eyes had seen things Y/N couldn’t name.

Ruby clocked her from across the street and crossed over like she owned the pavement. She stood in front of Y/N with a raised brow.

“You lost, sweetheart? Or just new?”

Y/N stood too quickly, stumbled. “I—I’m looking for work.”

Ruby laughed, full-throated and unbothered. “Aren’t we all.”

There was a pause. Then, a curious tilt of her head.

“You’re pretty. Not city pretty—good girl pretty. I know someone who likes that look.”

Y/N blinked. “Likes it?”

Ruby grinned and took a drag from her cigarette. “Ever heard of the Mariposa Building?”

She hadn’t.

Ruby nodded up the street. “Come on. You look like you’re starving. Let’s get you something warm and talk about your future.”

And somehow, Y/N followed. Maybe it was the hunger. Maybe the way Ruby’s voice had the same lull as bedtime stories her mama used to read.

Maybe it was the part of her that was tired of being invisible.

The Mariposa Building was beautiful.

Spanish stone and carved balconies, heavy with ivy. A grand red door, polished brass fixtures. Inside, the lobby looked like something from a silent film—gold wallpaper, dark oak, perfume in the air.

It didn’t feel like danger. It felt like magic.

Ruby explained it all over coffee and a buttered roll Y/N hadn’t the courage to ask for. She said there were rules—strict ones. Clean linens, painted lips, soft voices. They didn’t take just anyone. But if Y/N behaved, if she learned quickly, she could be useful.

“You don’t have to spread your legs if you don’t want to,” Ruby added, eyes glinting. “There are men who’ll pay just to look at something soft. And girls who rise fast.”

Y/N flushed. She wanted to say No, to stand up, to walk out.

But her hands trembled, her stomach was full for the first time in days, and she had nowhere else to go.

“Okay,” she whispered.

Ruby smiled

Y/N stood by the postbox for a long time that morning, fingers cold around the envelope. She’d written the letter on borrowed stationery the night before, sealing it with shaking hands and the scent of fresh ink.

Dearest Mama,

I found work in a dress shop not far from Central Park. The hours are long, but the women are kind. They even said I might learn to sew properly if I keep at it.

I miss you. I miss Papa. I hope his cough has calmed some. I’ll send money soon. I promise.

It was a gentle lie. Polished and sweet like everything she tried to be.

She dropped it into the box with a whispered amen, and turned her back to the truth.

That she wasn’t working in a dress shop.

That she was being trained in the art of pleasing powerful men.

That she now lived in the Mariposa Building.

The training was slow. Not cruel. Not yet.

Ruby was her guide. She took Y/N under her wing with surprising warmth—part big sister, part sharp-mouthed protector. She’d pulled her into a room on the third floor, showed her a closet bigger than the bedroom Y/N once slept in, and tossed her a silk robe.

“First thing’s first, kitten—we fix that face. And that walk. And for heaven’s sake, stop apologizing every time you breathe.”

Ruby gave her a bed. A space in the closet. The first pair of heels Y/N ever owned.

She taught her how to hold a champagne flute like it weighed nothing. How to paint her lips without smudging. How to smile just enough, but never too much.

Y/N practiced her voice in front of the mirror.

“Would you care for a drink, sir?”

“Whiskey? Or would you prefer something sweeter?”

She was to serve beverages. Light conversation. Play hostess, not harlot—not yet. Ruby told her the building’s owner preferred girls to come into their roles slowly. Said it was “better that way.” Said the man liked to watch them bloom.

Ruby’s room—their room—was at the end of the third-floor hallway. Grand ceilings. Velvet curtains. A chandelier that flickered when it rained. Two beds, pushed apart. Mirrors everywhere.

At night, Y/N would lie awake while Ruby lit a cigarette on the balcony, city sounds pouring through the window—jazz horns, shouting men, the lull of bootleg trucks arriving at the back door.

Ruby talked about the men like they were types of wine.

“The loud ones tip the best. The married ones come back the most. The quiet ones…” She’d pause there. “…those are the ones you need to watch. Especially if they smile too little.”

Y/N tried to hide how much she flinched when Ruby said that.

She was learning. She could serve drinks. She could smile. She could let them brush her fingers if they were polite.

And when she took her first folded bill from a guest—just for pouring his scotch with a soft “yes, sir”—she wept quietly into her pillow that night.

It wasn’t shame.

It was relief.

Because tomorrow, she would send a package home. Sugar, medicine, and a ten-dollar bill.

But on the fourth evening, as she adjusted her new earrings in the mirror, Ruby looked up and said:

“You’ll meet him soon. Rafael.”

Y/N blinked. “The owner?”

Ruby’s lipstick paused against her mouth. “Yes. He only speaks to the girls once he’s sure they’re ready. And you?”

She looked her up and down. “You look like a saint about to fall.”

And far above them, in the penthouse drenched in gold and mahogany, Rafael De La Vega stared at her name on a guest list and murmured,

“Bring her to me soon.”

It had been a week.

Y/N had learned the rhythm of the building—when the guests came, when the music started, when the air thickened with perfume and smoke. By now, she could balance a tray without shaking. She could pour scotch without spilling. She could smile while her chest ached with the weight of silence.

That night, Ruby had left with a client, and Y/N had been paired with another girl—Marianne, older, sharper, always chewing mint leaves to hide the scent of gin. Together, they swept the lounge after the men had left, picking up stray cufflinks and lipstick-stained glasses. The lights had been dimmed. The jazz record still spun softly in the corner, cracked and slow like a lullaby left to rot.

Y/N was bent over the fireplace, dusting ash from the marble, when she felt it.

A presence behind her.

She turned—and froze.

A man stood in the center of the room, half-cast in shadow. Tall. Dark hair combed back with effortless arrogance. His suit was black, his tie blood-red. But it was his scent that hit her first—spice and smoke and something warmer beneath. Something male.

Her heart jumped.

Where had he come from? Why hadn’t she heard the door?

He didn’t speak at first. Just watched her.

Y/N straightened slowly, cloth still clutched in her hand.

“I—I’m sorry, sir, the lounge is closed for the night,” she managed, voice soft but steady.

His lips curved—just barely. Then he stepped closer.

“I know,” he said, the words heavy with a Spanish accent, low and smooth like honey warmed over fire. “But I saw something. And I wanted a better look.”

Y/N blinked. “Something?”

“You,” he said simply.

Her breath caught in her throat.

He was too close now, and still not close enough. His eyes were impossible to read—dark as stormwater, but glittering like they held secrets. He reached out—not to touch her, not yet—but to trace the air near her cheek, as if he wanted to memorize her shape.

Then came the test.

“Do they only hire broken things here?” he asked, voice suddenly cool. Detached. Cruel.

The words hit like a slap.

Y/N flinched, her throat tightening. The tears rose fast and sharp, unwelcome and burning, shame curling in her gut like smoke.

She didn’t answer.

Didn’t dare.

He tilted his head. Studied the way her lashes quivered, the way her breath stilled, the way her lower lip trembled just enough to reveal how deeply the words had landed.

Then, without warning, he reached forward—fingers firm but careful as they cupped her chin. His skin was warm. Commanding.

He leaned in until his lips hovered beside her ear, and whispered—

“Lo siento. I only wanted to see if you’d cry.”

A pause. Almost a breath of regret.

“You’re very good at pretending not to.”

Then he stepped back.

The warmth vanished. His hand dropped. The spell broke.

He didn’t give her his name.

He didn’t offer help.

He simply turned, walked into the shadows beyond the hallway—and disappeared.

Leaving Y/N standing alone in the silence, heart pounding like a trapped bird, cloth still in her trembling hands.

Three nights had passed since the man in the dark suit—the one who had spoken cruelly and touched her gently—vanished from the lounge without another word.

Y/N hadn’t seen him again.

But she’d felt him. Every time she walked down the hallway alone, every time she bent to clean a glass or pin back her hair, she half-expected to look up and find him watching. The memory of his voice haunted her—the lilt of his apology, the warmth of his fingers on her chin.

She hadn’t told Ruby. Or anyone.

But it didn’t matter.

Because the Mariposa was a hive of silk and secrets—and nothing stayed hidden long.

That evening, Marianne had insisted on a girls’ supper out.

They walked to a bistro a few blocks away, a narrow little place hidden behind velvet curtains and stained-glass windows. The kind of place where men brought mistresses and women came dressed in furs that weren’t really theirs.

Ruby lit a cigarette before they even sat down, exhaling through a grin. “Come on, kitten, let’s make you blush.”

Y/N sat between her and Marianne, stiff in her borrowed coat, while the others ordered gin and vermouth and called the waiter darling like they owned the world.

“I’m fine with water,” Y/N said quietly.

“Still pretending to be pure?” Ruby teased. “Saint Y/N, patron of all nervous girls.”

Y/N smiled but didn’t answer. Her stomach was too tight for drink, too nervous for laughter. She picked at her roasted chicken while the girls sipped liquor and exchanged stories about clients with gold teeth and cold hands.

But then Marianne leaned forward with a smirk.

“So,” she said, slowly twirling her wine glass, “our little dove got a visit from him, didn’t she?”

The table quieted.

Y/N blinked. “From… who?”

Marianne’s grin widened. “Don’t play dumb, sweetheart. Señor Rafael. You were cleaning the lounge alone with me, remember?”

Y/N’s cheeks flamed.

She hadn’t known his name. Not for sure. Not until now.

Ruby whistled low. “Damn. He usually waits longer.”

Another girl leaned in—Lottie, sharp-chinned and sharper-tongued. “You didn’t know that was him?”

“I—I wasn’t sure,” Y/N stammered. “He didn’t say.”

They all laughed.

“Oh, baby,” Lottie purred, “he never says. He waits to see if you’ll ask.”

“Or tremble,” Marianne added.

Ruby leaned over, eyes gleaming with mischief. “Well. You passed the test. He never goes near a girl unless he’s interested.”

Y/N’s heart skipped.

Interested?

“But…” she began, her voice smaller now, “why would he…”

“Because you look like something soft he could sink his teeth into,” Ruby said, then softened her tone. “He’s not like the others, Y/N. Rafael chooses. And when he chooses…”

Another girl—Nina, quiet until now—spoke for the first time.

“He doesn’t let go.”

The laughter dimmed.

Y/N swallowed. “What do you mean?”

Nina’s eyes didn’t blink. “He’s a widow. Came from Spain after his wife drowned. Three sons. All kept out of sight. No one sees them except the nanny. And he barely sleeps in his own house. He lives in that building like it’s his church.”

A pause.

“They say he’s looking for a new bride.”

Y/N’s mouth went dry.

“They say,” Marianne added, lighting another cigarette, “he’s already picked her. He’s just waiting for her to stop being scared.”

Ruby smirked. “Or innocent.”

Then the teasing began.

“Oh Y/N, you’ll look so pretty in white!”

“Think he’ll give you a ring or just keep you barefoot and pregnant?”

“Señora De La Vega has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

Y/N flushed scarlet, hands clenching her napkin in her lap.

“I’m not—He just spoke to me once,” she whispered, mortified.

Marianne laughed, clinking her glass. “One time is enough. That’s how it starts. He watches. Waits. Makes you feel special until you forget how to breathe without him.”

Ruby leaned in close, her voice low and warning. “Just be careful, dove. He doesn’t court like an American. He claims.”

And as they returned to their drinks and chatter, Y/N sat silent in the swirl of perfume and smoke, her cheeks burning, her thoughts spiraling.

Señor Rafael.

A widow. A father. A man with too many shadows.

Looking for a bride.

And somehow—God help her—he had looked at her

One month passed, and Y/N had slowly melted into the velvet-draped rhythm of the Mariposa.

Her mornings began with steam and powder, her days with trays and whispers, and her evenings with low laughter echoing down the halls. The once-terrifying walls had become familiar now, the gold fixtures less blinding. She walked in her heels without stumbling. She spoke without stammering.

Most importantly, she sent home money every Thursday—folded in envelopes with crisp, polite letters. She never told her mother the truth, only that she worked in a fine establishment, serving wealthy guests, and that the girls were kind. That they laughed a lot. That she was safe.

It wasn’t a lie. Not exactly.

And Ruby had become her dearest friend—her sister in silk.

Ruby called her baby dove now, and teased her for everything: her handwriting, her blushing, the way she said please like it was a prayer. The girls often joined in.

They’d call out, “Oye, Señora De La Vega, your husband’s away—time to misbehave!”

Y/N would groan, hide her face behind a teacup, and Ruby would cackle like the devil herself.

But with Rafael away on what the girls called a “business trip”—though none dared ask what kind of business—Y/N had been able to breathe again. She slept better. Her shoulders relaxed. No sudden appearances. No cruel words laced in compliments. No eyes that stripped her down and whispered mine without moving his lips.

She almost forgot what it felt like to be watched.

The night before it all changed again, Ruby had gotten drunk.

They were alone in their room, sprawled on the velvet chaise. The rest of the girls were out entertaining or sleeping off headaches, but Ruby had popped a bottle of stolen champagne and insisted they celebrate—“Your first month, dove! That’s gotta count for something.”

Y/N had only sipped hers. Ruby downed the rest.

And as the golden liquid disappeared, so did Ruby’s mask.

“I was sixteen,” she said, staring at the ceiling, voice strangely quiet.

Y/N turned, startled. Ruby didn’t speak of the before often.

“I was selling myself on the corner of Eighth and Gansevoort,” Ruby went on, almost dreamily. “No coat. Just a borrowed scarf and a pair of heels too big for me. I was hungry. My jaw hurt from smiling so much.”

Y/N listened silently.

“And then this man pulls up. Rolls down his window. He wasn’t even old. Looked… gentle. He asked me if I was happy. Can you believe that? ‘Are you happy, sweetheart?’ I laughed in his face.”

Ruby swallowed hard, the tips of her fingers trembling.

“He said he could give me a room. Food. Heat. A place where I wouldn’t have to beg anymore. I thought he meant love. I was stupid.”

A pause.

“Two days later, I was in the Mariposa. That man—he was Rafael’s lawyer. Rafael didn’t even look at me for the first week. And then one day, he did.”

She turned her head to Y/N and smiled, soft and sad.

“He doesn’t choose often. But when he does… you don’t leave.”

Y/N didn’t sleep well that night.

It was meant to be her day off.

Y/N had risen early, tied her hair in soft waves, and laid out her nicest modest dress—the one she saved for moments that reminded her of who she used to be. She had written to her cousin, promising they’d meet by noon, and was just stepping into her shoes when the door flew open.

Ruby stormed in, wild-eyed and breathless, her robe slipping from one shoulder.

“Dove,” she gasped. “You’ve gotta dress quick—Señor Rafa is coming back today.”

Y/N froze, her fingers curling around the shoe’s strap.

“What? I thought—”

“Lucy’s sick as a dog. Can’t even stand, let alone serve. You’re the only one off today who knows how to do the front greeting. You have to fill in.”

“But I promised—my cousin—”

“Send a message,” Ruby snapped, already dragging open drawers. “Tell them it’s an emergency. That you’ll come another day.”

Y/N opened her mouth to protest—but stopped.

Because Ruby was right. You didn’t say no to a man like Rafael. Not when he called for something. Not when he came home.

She sat down hard, pulled off her modest shoes, and began changing into her silk uniform with numb fingers. Ruby knelt beside her and fixed her lipstick with the tenderness of a sister.

“Deep breath, dove,” she whispered. “He hasn’t seen you in weeks. He’ll want to know what he missed.”

Y/N scribbled a note to her cousin and handed it to a courier.

Then she stood at the mirror.

By the time the clock struck ten, her hair was pinned, her perfume was light, and her hands had stopped shaking.

Señor Rafael was coming home.

And this time… she was ready.

Y/N kept smoothing the hem of her dress. Again and again, until the silk threatened to wrinkle. Her hands were too cold, her cheeks too warm, and she kept repeating the same thing in her head like a hymn:

What the girls said doesn’t matter.

He’s never touched you improperly.

He hasn’t done anything… wrong.

And it was true, wasn’t it?

Señor Rafael had only spoken to her once. He hadn’t kissed her, hadn’t summoned her upstairs, hadn’t cornered her in the lounge with unspoken demands. He hadn’t asked for her. Hadn’t claimed her.

Maybe the girls exaggerated. Maybe he wasn’t the villain they all made him out to be.

Still, her stomach twisted as the hour neared.

He arrived three hours late.

The Mariposa seemed to still when he entered, the air charged like before a storm. The doorman bowed lower than usual. The elevator boy fumbled the brass gate. And Y/N—stationed at the reception parlor in her finest day-uniform—felt her lungs tighten as the gilded doors opened.

He walked in with a slow, commanding grace. His coat was black cashmere, one gloved hand tugging it off his broad shoulders as he stepped forward. The scent of him—spice, wood, smoke—moved faster than he did, curling in the room like a lover’s hand across bare skin.

But it wasn’t just him.

An older woman walked beside him. Slender. Regal. Her silver hair was swept into a chignon, her black dress embroidered with subtle threadwork only visible in the light. She didn’t smile. But her eyes—sharp and dark, like polished obsidian—mirrored Rafael’s exactly.

Y/N barely had time to lower her gaze before they turned toward her.

They spoke in Spanish. Low. Quick. Intimate.

Y/N pretended to be occupied with the guest log, though her eyes kept darting upward, her ears straining to catch words she didn’t know. She could feel the woman observing her, could feel Rafael’s heavy gaze slide across her like a match along the edge of dry parchment.

The woman murmured something.

Rafael chuckled. Low and deep. Then nodded in agreement.

Y/N swallowed hard.

They were coming closer.

She drew in a breath, turned, and lifted her chin as she’d been taught.

“Good afternoon, sir. Ma’am,” she said, voice light, pleasant. “Welcome home.”

The woman didn’t answer. But she tilted her head, still studying Y/N like a relic behind glass. Rafael, however, offered a smile—slow and smooth.

“Señorita,” he said softly, the word thick with meaning. “How gracious of you to greet us yourself.”

“I’m happy to offer a drink,” Y/N replied. She turned to the tray beside her and carefully poured two glasses of amontillado from the crystal decanter, willing her hands not to tremble.

When she offered the first glass to the woman, she took it without a word. When she held out the second to Rafael, his fingers brushed hers.

On purpose.

Slow. Deliberate. Skin to skin, a fraction too long.

She flinched—just slightly.

His eyes held hers for a beat too long.

Then he took the glass, nodded his thanks, and turned to go.

They walked away. Their steps silent. But Y/N stood frozen, her heartbeat like a drum beneath her ribs.

Only when they were gone did she exhale, knees threatening to buckle.

Later that evening, Ruby would barge into the room and say,

“So? Did you see her? His mother. And you know what that means, don’t you?”

Y/N would shake her head.

Ruby would smirk.

“He’s showing her what he wants. She approves, dove. And now… you’re not just a pretty girl anymore.”

“You’re a potential bride.”

“Would you stop?” Y/N snapped, her voice trembling.

Ruby blinked, lips parted mid-tease. “Dove—”

“No more jokes. No more ‘Señora De La Vega this, bride that.’” Y/N’s hands balled at her sides, her chest rising with shallow breaths. “It’s not funny. It’s not a game. I’m not like you—I didn’t come here for this!”

Her voice cracked. Tears burned at the edges of her lashes.

Ruby’s grin faded, guilt flickering across her face, but Y/N didn’t wait. She grabbed her coat from the hook, yanked it over her shoulders, and stumbled toward the hallway.

“Y/N—wait, I didn’t mean—”

“I just need air,” Y/N choked, already halfway to the staircase.

The moment she stepped out onto the sidewalk, the cold kissed her cheeks like home.

It was dusk, the sky painted in bruised blues and purples, the lamps along the street just beginning to hum with golden light. Taxis roared past. A woman laughed too loudly on the corner. Somewhere, a saxophone wept.

Y/N kept walking.

Her heels clicked unevenly. She didn’t know where she was going—only that she needed away from the velvet walls, the whispers, the games. Her heart felt too full, her head too loud.

She missed her father’s radio humming on the windowsill. Her mother’s rough hands braiding her hair. Her little sister’s letters with pressed flowers hidden inside.

Maybe this had been a mistake. Maybe she wasn’t made for this life.

She found a small restaurant tucked beside a laundromat and ordered the cheapest thing on the menu—potato soup and buttered bread. She sat alone in a back booth, fingers wrapped around the chipped mug of weak coffee, and cried without letting the tears fall.

Just enough to feel hollow.

Just enough to feel real.

She returned to the Mariposa after dark, coat pulled tight around her.

The halls were quiet. The girls were busy or gone, and only the soft hum of the elevator filled the silence. Her heels barely made a sound on the marble.

She rounded the corner—

And smacked straight into someone.

Hard. Solid. Warm.

She gasped, stumbling back.

“I’m so sorry—” she began, eyes low, voice breathless.

Her gaze caught on the lapels of a dark wool coat. The scent hit next—familiar, dangerous, unforgettable.

Rafael.

He didn’t speak. Not at first.

He looked down at her—eyes sharp but unreadable—and reached forward.

His fingers caught her wrist.

“Shh.”

Y/N froze.

She could barely lift her gaze. Her lip trembled, and she cursed it, cursed how raw she must look. She didn’t want him to see her like this. Not when her chest was cracked open. Not when everything inside her felt wrong.

But he didn’t scold.

He pulled her forward.

And to her shock, his arms folded around her.

Strong. Controlling. Careful.

He held her, just long enough for her pulse to betray her.

“Come,” he said, his voice low near her ear. “Let’s talk privately.”

Y/N should’ve pulled away. She knew that.

But instead, she nodded.

And let him lead her down the hall, past the girls’ wing, to a dark, unfamiliar door at the back of the building.

The door to his private study.

His private study was nothing like the rest of the Mariposa.

It was darker. Warmer. Shelves lined with books in three languages. A fire crackling low behind an iron grate. The walls smelled of aged leather and cedarwood. Heavy curtains shut out the world.

Y/N stood in the center like a girl dropped into the belly of a forest.

Rafael shut the door with a quiet click.

“Sit,” he said, gesturing to the velvet settee near the fire. Not a command, not quite. But not a suggestion either.

She obeyed, folding her hands in her lap, trying not to shake. The heat from the flames kissed her legs through her stockings. She focused on it. Grounded herself in it.

Rafael poured two glasses of something amber. Not wine this time. Stronger. Sharper.

“I don’t drink,” she said softly.

He smiled, half amused. “You will learn. But not tonight.”

He took the seat beside her—not across, not away, but close. So close his thigh brushed hers when he leaned back.

“Why were you outside so late, mi pequeña?” he asked gently.

Her breath hitched. She hated how soft his voice was. How careful. It made her want to cry again, and she didn’t know why.

“I just… needed to clear my head.”

He nodded slowly, sipped his drink.

“I imagine it must be overwhelming. All of it. This city. The girls. The eyes.” His gaze flicked to hers. “Me.”

She flushed. “It’s not that.”

“But it is,” he said, smile faint. “You’re a sweet girl. You came here for your family, didn’t you? Not for luxury. Not for lust. You came because you love them.”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

Rafael leaned forward, setting his glass down on the side table. His fingers brushed her knee as he did. Not hard. Not aggressive. Just… lingering. Like he was claiming the space between them without asking for it.

“I admire that,” he said quietly. “Too many people mistake sacrifice for weakness. But not me. I see the steel in you.”

She glanced down at her lap, swallowing hard. “You don’t even know me.”

“But I want to.”

That made her look up.

He smiled again, this time more tender. His fingers moved from her knee to her lower thigh, resting there. Heavy. Warm.

Y/N shifted slightly, but he didn’t move his hand.

“I want to understand what makes you cry, mi flor. What makes you dream. What makes you run.”

His fingers traced small, lazy circles just above her stocking seam.

She tried not to flinch. She focused on the fire. On the way the embers pulsed like a dying heartbeat.

“Tell me,” he said, voice softer now. “What would you have done, had life been kinder to you? If you could’ve had anything?”

The question threw her.

“I… I don’t know. Maybe… I would’ve been a teacher. Or maybe I would’ve opened a little bakery. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere warm.”

He nodded slowly, pretending to listen with the air of a man used to peeling people open.

His thumb brushed the inside of her thigh.

“And do you still want those things?” he asked, tilting his head. “Or has the Mariposa changed your mind?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I just… I’m tired.”

His touch slowed. Almost like a lullaby.

“You don’t have to be tired anymore,” he murmured. “Not here. I can give you peace, Y/N. Comfort. Warmth. A life where you never have to beg or run or ache again.”

She looked at him—finally looked.

His eyes burned in the firelight.

He means it, she realized.

But not because he loved her. Not because he cared in the way she needed.

No. He wanted her because she was his now. In his building. In his chair. In his reach.

That was his version of care.

Possession, cloaked in kindness.

And still—she didn’t move.

Because part of her wanted to believe it.

Two weeks passed like smoke.

Ruby apologized first. She came into the room with a small tin of butter cookies and guilt in her eyes, saying, “I shouldn’t have teased you like that, dove. I forget how new your heart is.”

Y/N had hugged her tightly, nearly cried. “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have run out like that.”

They hadn’t spoken more of it. That’s how things worked at the Mariposa—emotions were left under pillows and dusted away with powder.

But Y/N hadn’t stopped feeling Rafael.

Every hallway seemed to pull her gaze toward a shadow she couldn’t see. She would pour drinks for guests and swear his stare was on the back of her neck. He never called her back to the study, never touched her again—but the silence spoke volumes. And it made her dizzy with nerves.

Then there was his mother.

La Señora had begun appearing more frequently—sometimes with tea, sometimes with cryptic smiles. Once, she brought Rafael’s sons.

Two little boys, dark-haired and polite, their coats buttoned up to their throats. They spoke broken English but laughed freely. The older one asked Y/N to read him a book. The younger one clung to her hand like he’d known her in another life.

“Mamá?” he asked once, and Y/N had almost choked on her breath.

She’d looked up, startled, only to see La Señora watching silently from the other room. That same unreadable expression—calculating, cold, curious.

“You have a gift,” she had said, Spanish accent thick around the English. “They like you. That is rare.”

Then she left Y/N with the boys in the Mariposa’s private quarters—where only family and staff were allowed.

Y/N didn’t know what that meant.

But it felt like something being stitched behind her back. Something tight.

Tonight, however, was different.

The girls had dragged her out again—but this time, they didn’t dress her like a sweet little dove.

They made her look like a woman.

Ruby had curled her hair and pinned it up loosely, tendrils falling like whispers across her bare shoulders. Her dress was black velvet with sheer sleeves and a dangerously low back. A slit carved up the side, revealing the softness of her thigh. She wore heels that made her hips sway and painted her lips a shade of red she’d never dared to wear.

“Now that,” Ruby purred, “is how you turn sin into silk.”

Y/N tried to laugh, but her heart thumped too loud.

They took a car to a hidden lounge downtown—a party hosted in a Prohibition-era speakeasy draped in smoke and jazz. The password was whispered at the door, and once inside, the world changed.

Cigarette girls in feathers passed flutes of contraband champagne. A jazz singer crooned from behind a velvet curtain. Men in vests and suspenders watched them like foxes waiting for the henhouse to empty.

The girls scattered like stars, but Y/N stayed close to Ruby, feeling eyes trace her as she walked.

She didn’t know if it was fear or power crawling up her spine—but she liked it more than she wanted to admit.

For the first time in months, she didn’t feel like Rafael’s.

She felt like herself.

But across the room, in the dark corner booth hidden beneath the balcony—

A pair of dark eyes never stopped watching.

Señor Rafael De La Vega swirled his untouched drink in a crystal glass, legs crossed, face unreadable.

He hadn’t been invited.

He hadn’t needed to be.

And tonight—tonight, of all nights—he would see what she looked like when she forgot to be afraid.

Y/N had almost forgotten what it felt like to be light.

The music lifted her. The air was thick with perfume and smoke, but for once, her head wasn’t spinning from fear. She danced with Ruby—both of them laughing, spinning like girls too young to know better and too bold to care.

Y/N didn’t care about the slit in her dress. Didn’t care about the way the men looked at her. For the first time in weeks, she felt happy. Real, reckless, glittering happiness.

Until a pair of unfamiliar hands slid around her waist from behind.

She froze.

A voice slurred near her ear, warm and heavy with gin. “God, you smell like peaches.”

She turned, startled.

He was tall. Handsome in a careless sort of way. Young, but his eyes were already too empty. She’d never seen him before. His tie was loose, and his breath stank of whiskey.

“Don’t be shy, sweetheart,” he grinned, reaching again.

She stepped back fast, her heart dropping.

“No—”

But then everything moved at once.

The man was shoved—hard—into a table.

Glasses shattered. Laughter stopped.

Two other men, suited and silent, came out of nowhere and grabbed him by the arms, dragging him back into the dark with all the ceremony of a thrown-out stray.

Y/N stood frozen, her chest heaving, shock coursing through her limbs—

And then she saw him.

Señor Rafael.

Standing where the drunk had been. Unmoving. Staring straight at her like he’d stepped out of her worst dream.

His hair was perfectly in place. His tie was a blade of red silk. But his eyes—

His eyes burned.

Y/N’s heart dropped to her knees.

She turned, breath caught, and pushed into the crowd. Her body moved faster than her thoughts, shoving past dancers, slipping past murmurs.

Run. Just go. He’s not supposed to be here.

She was nearly to the exit—

When a hand clamped down around her upper arm.

Hard.

She yelped, spinning.

His face was too close now, his voice low and vicious.

“You should be home.”

The words slithered between his teeth, soft but venomous.

Y/N’s eyes widened. “I—I didn’t know you were—”

“I didn’t ask for excuses.” His grip tightened. “I asked why you were here, looking like that. Letting men touch what isn’t theirs.”

She gasped, fear crackling like static through her chest. “Rafael, please, I—”

He changed his hold fast—her wrist now, not her arm—fingers digging in like iron.

“You’ll speak when I let you.”

And just like that, he was pulling her.

Through the doorway.

Out into the bitter night.

The cold slapped her, but his touch burned hotter.

He said nothing as they stepped onto the empty street behind the building, a quiet alley slick with rain and silence. His men hadn’t followed. No one had.

He stopped only once they were far from the music, far from help.

And when he turned to face her, his jaw was clenched.

“You disobeyed me.”

“I didn’t know,” Y/N whispered. “I didn’t mean to upset—”

“You didn’t know?” he cut her off, incredulous. “You wear that dress. You paint your mouth like a whore. And you think I wouldn’t come for you?”

Her throat closed. Tears began to gather, but she blinked fast.

“I didn’t go with anyone—”

“You danced. You let men touch you.”

“I didn’t want—he grabbed me—”

“And what if I hadn’t been there?” he snapped. “What would’ve happened then, mi flor? Would he have taken what’s mine?”

She trembled.

“I didn’t know I was yours,” she said softly.

Silence.

Then—slowly, cruelly—he leaned in.

His nose brushed her cheek.

His voice was a whisper in her ear.

“You’ve always been mine.”

The days that followed were slow and tense, as if the entire Mariposa held its breath.

Y/N hadn’t seen Rafael since that night outside the party—but his shadow clung to her. Every time the elevator doors opened. Every time someone in a suit passed her in the hall. Every time she wore something he might disapprove of.

She kept her head down. Poured drinks. Smiled politely. But inside her chest was a storm—frantic, sharp, unrelenting.

She couldn’t sleep.

And worse than anything was the quiet fear pressing against her throat like a secret no one wanted to name.

It finally broke one night in the lounge.

Y/N sat curled up on a velvet settee, surrounded by the girls, their laughter like a shield. Ruby was painting her nails red. Marianne was reading aloud from a gossip column.

Y/N said it softly. Too soft at first.

“I don’t think he likes me.”

The laughter dulled.

She looked up, nervous, lips trembling. “Señor Rafael. He… he was angry after the party. Really angry. He said things. Scary things. He dragged me outside—”

Marianne raised a brow. “He’s just dramatic. You’ve seen how he gets.”

“I don’t think this was the same,” Y/N whispered. “He called me a whore. He said I was his—”

“Oh, he said that to Eliza too,” one of the girls interrupted, waving it off. “You remember her, right?”

The others looked at each other blankly.

“Eliza?” Ruby echoed, frowning. “I… don’t.”

“Exactly,” the girl said, smirking. “She cried a lot. He liked that. Then she just… left. Or maybe he sent her away.”

Ruby reached over and grabbed Y/N’s hand.

“Don’t listen to them,” she said gently. “They don’t know what they’re saying.”

“I want to go home,” Y/N whispered, voice cracking. “Maybe I should just… leave.”

Ruby didn’t answer.

She just held her hand tighter.

That night of the party

The car ride was silent. Rafael sat beside her, too close, staring straight ahead. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. His jaw clenched.

Y/N tried to speak. “Please, I didn’t mean—”

“Shut up.”

His voice was low and cold. Like a man strangling a snake in his throat.

“You little ungrateful thing. After everything I’ve given you. A roof. Food. Safety. And you sneak out like some cheap tramp and embarrass me?”

She whimpered. “I didn’t—”

“You parade around like a prize, like something I don’t already own. You think you’re clever? Think you’re untouchable?”

Tears spilled over her cheeks.

“I didn’t mean to—please—”

“You don’t get to mean anymore,” he snarled.

When they reached the Mariposa, he didn’t let the driver help her out.

He yanked open the door, grabbed her by the arm, and dragged her through the back entrance. No words. No patience.

He pulled her through the hallways, past locked doors and mirrors that watched her cry, into a private bathroom near his quarters.

Then he threw the door shut behind them and pointed to the sink.

“Wash your face.”

She hesitated.

“I said, wash it.”

She did. Her hands trembled as she turned on the tap, scrubbing off the makeup with cold water and rough cloths until her skin burned. The red lipstick, the smoky eyes, all of it wiped away like sin from silk.

He stood behind her in the mirror, arms crossed.

“You don’t need to paint yourself to be beautiful,” he said harshly. “You just need to remember who you belong to.”

When she turned around, eyes red and lips raw, he looked at her like something he’d both broken and made better.

Then—without another word—he left.

Left her standing there.

Alone.

Wet-faced and trembling.

Scared, and more trapped than ever.

Y/N had grown quieter.

It was the kind of quiet that settled behind the eyes, where it couldn’t be soothed with perfume or powder. She moved through her routines like a doll on strings—perfect posture, painted lips, folded hands. But inside, she was fraying.

Everything in her ached.

She didn’t want to be looked at. Didn’t want to be touched. She flinched when the phone rang, when Rafael’s name was whispered, when the girls laughed too hard and the shadows felt too deep.

Her sleep had become shallow and restless. She woke often, sweaty, confused, half-dreaming of cold water and Rafael’s voice hissing through her ears.

“You belong to me.”

One afternoon, she confessed it.

She was sitting in the corner lounge while Ruby and the other girls passed a bottle of gin around, teasing each other in their velvet robes. Ruby had just finished curling Y/N’s hair when she looked up and said, soft as snow:

“I think I want to go home.”

The room fell quiet for a beat—then erupted in a chorus of clumsy amusement.

“Home?” Marianne blinked. “To what? Cold soup and colder floors?”

“Dove,” Ruby laughed gently, stroking her cheek, “you’re just tired. He’ll calm down. He always does.”

Y/N forced a smile. But inside, something folded closed.

They didn’t understand. Maybe they couldn’t.

Rafael hadn’t just yelled. He’d changed. Something about that night—the fury in his grip, the way he’d humiliated her, dragged her, ripped her apart with words—left a wound that hadn’t closed.

And no one noticed.

No one cared.

That night, long after the others had fallen asleep, Y/N slipped from bed and sat at her little vanity table in the dark.

The streetlight outside flickered through the curtains, casting pale lines across the floor like prison bars. She pulled out her nicest stationery—the one she reserved for letters home—and carefully lit a single candle.

Then she began to write.

Dear Mama, I hope you and Papa are well. I hope the money I sent helped with the medicine and the stove. I hope the garden is blooming, and Mary’s school is going alright. I don’t want you to worry. But I think I’ve made a mistake coming here. I’ve stayed longer than I should have. I thought I could help. I thought I could handle it. But I’m not sure anymore. This place isn’t what I imagined. It’s beautiful, yes—but it’s not safe. Not for me. Don’t come for me. I’ll come to you. I’ll be on the first train I can manage. Please have the kettle on. I miss you so much it hurts.

—Y/N

She folded the letter with trembling hands and tucked it into an envelope. Kissed it shut with dry lips.

She didn’t sleep.

She stayed at the window the rest of the night, staring at the horizon, waiting for the sun.

Tomorrow, she told herself. I’ll mail it. I’ll pack what I can. I’ll disappear.

The next morning, Y/N rose early.

Too early for the other girls to notice. The halls of the Mariposa were still, hushed in a velvet kind of silence, the kind that clung to the walls and made her stomach twist.

She dressed plainly—no makeup, no perfume, no heels. Just a soft wool coat, her oldest shoes, and the smallest bag she could carry.

She told herself she could do it.

That she could slip out. That maybe, just maybe, she’d reach the train station before anyone even knew she was gone.

But halfway down the grand staircase, a voice stopped her like a blade through the spine.

“Señorita.”

Y/N turned slowly.

La Señora De La Vega stood at the base of the stairs, composed as ever in a steel-gray dress and pearls. Her hands were folded in front of her. Her face gave nothing away.

“I was just—I have an errand,” Y/N stammered, clutching the strap of her bag. “One of the girls—”

“La mentira,” La Señora interrupted softly. The lie.

Y/N’s breath caught. “I—”

“I don’t blame you for wanting to leave,” the older woman said, slowly climbing the steps toward her. “But you must understand. My son does not share what he intends to keep.”

Y/N's pulse raced.

“I’m not a thing.”

“No,” La Señora agreed. “You are his. That is worse.”

Y/N flinched.

La Señora reached the landing and looked her over with cold precision. Then she gestured down the hall.

“The kitchen is waiting. Deliver the tea set to the blue salon. Señor Rafael will arrive later this morning. Make sure the fire is lit.”

A test.

A leash.

Y/N opened her mouth to protest, but La Señora’s gaze sharpened.

“You will do this,” she said, final as death. “Or you will not leave at all.”

The salon was empty when Y/N arrived—cold and dim, the curtains drawn, the fire unlit.

She moved through the motions like a girl half-dreaming. She set the tray down. Polished the porcelain. Arranged the sugar cubes just so.

She was being watched. She felt it in her spine.

She knelt before the fireplace, struck a match with trembling fingers, and lit the logs until the flames rose like whispers.

She told herself:

Tonight. I’ll leave tonight.

When the others are asleep. When the hall is quiet. When no one is watching.

But just as she stood, brushing soot from her skirt, she heard the door creak open behind her.

And everything in her stilled.

Rafael.

He stepped inside without a word, gloved hands tucked behind his back, gaze locked on her like a wolf scenting blood.

There was something in his eyes.

Something deeper than fury.

Something possessive.

He didn’t blink.

Y/N’s heart skipped, throat tightening.

“Señor,” she whispered, dipping her head like she was supposed to.

But he didn’t answer.

Didn’t move.

He just stared, as if he already knew.

As if he'd read the letter. Heard the whisper of her footsteps on the stairs. Smelled the fear she tried to hide.

His gaze dropped to the bag near the tea tray. A tremor ran through his jaw.

Then his eyes returned to hers, slow as a blade.

“You were going to run.”

Not a question.

Y/N took a step back.

And Rafael took one forward.

Y/N’s hands curled into fists at her sides.

“I wasn’t running,” she said—too fast, too soft.

A terrible lie.

Her voice betrayed her, cracked and uneven, eyes flickering toward the abandoned bag near the tea tray like it had turned into a noose.

Rafael’s lips twitched. Not into a smile. Something darker. Sharper.

“You were never a good liar,” he murmured.

She stepped back again, heart pounding now in her throat. “I—I just wanted to get some air, I needed—”

“To escape?” he interrupted, stalking toward her.

She turned quickly, trying to put distance between them, darting to the other side of the salon—but the room wasn’t built for running. It was velvet and marble and nowhere to hide. Her shoulder brushed the curtain as she reached the wall, trembling.

But he followed.

Like a predator who’d grown tired of the hunt.

And when he caught her arm—caught it, not held it—his grip was bruising.

“Y/N,” he said lowly, breathing her name like a warning, “I know I’m not good at… communication. Or romance. I was never taught softness. But that doesn’t change what I feel.”

His hand moved to her waist, dragging her closer, eyes burning.

“I want you,” he said, almost reverent. “I knew I wanted you the moment I saw you—standing in that lobby like something the city forgot to break.”

She flinched as he leaned in, and—

He sniffed her.

A slow, shuddering inhale against her neck, his lips grazing her skin without touching.

Y/N froze. The air around them felt poisoned.

“You smell like innocence,” he whispered. “Like rain and linen and belonging.”

She shook beneath his touch.

“I can give you anything you desire,” he breathed. “Silk. Jewels. A home with my name. All you have to do is love me back.”

Her eyes filled.

Her voice cracked, barely audible.

“I don’t love you.”

His entire body went still.

Something behind his gaze—his mask—shattered. Just for a moment.

Then his jaw clenched.

And his hands turned to iron.

She tried to pull away.

“No—no, Rafael, please—”

But his grip tightened—

And he shoved her.

Hard.

Y/N fell to the floor, the rug scratching her palms as she hit the ground with a muffled cry.

She scrambled back, heart in her throat, tears burning her eyes.

Rafael stood above her now, chest heaving, a strange mix of rage and desperation clouding his features.

He ran a hand through his hair like he didn’t recognize himself.

“I didn’t want to scare you,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “But you won’t listen.”

“You’re hurting me,” she whimpered.

“I would never hurt you!” he snapped—and yet the echo of her fall still rang in the room. His voice dropped again. “But you’re making it so hard not to.”

She curled in on herself, shaking.

“I could lock the doors, you know,” he said softly, kneeling beside her. “No one would question it. You’d stay. You’d learn to love me eventually. Women always do.”

His fingers reached for her face—but she flinched, and that made him pause.

He exhaled slowly.

Then he stood.

And walked to the door.

“You’ll stay here until you’re ready to be mine,” he said coldly, hand on the doorknob. “I’ll have your meals brought up.”

He didn’t wait for her to speak.

The door closed behind him with a click.

Locked.

The silence after the door locked was worse than the fall.

Y/N sat curled in the corner of the salon, her knees to her chest, the taste of panic still sharp in her throat. The fire had burned low to coals. The once-beautiful room felt like a cage now—every velvet cushion, every gold frame, every silk curtain now pressed in like a weight on her ribs.

She hadn’t even cried.

Not yet.

She was too stunned. Too afraid that any sound might bring him back.

The windows were too high to reach. The latch on the door—secure. There was no keyhole, only a sleek brass knob she couldn’t pick or rattle open. She checked every possible exit, fingertips brushing the edges of shelves and vents as if they might open like secret passages from a fairy tale.

They didn’t.

She was trapped.

Dinner came on a silver tray hours later. One of Rafael’s silent men brought it in without a word, set it down, and walked out before she could even ask a question. She didn’t touch the food.

She couldn’t.

She lay on the settee with her coat still wrapped around her like armor, her eyes open, unfocused, the fire casting strange shadows that stretched like fingers across the rug. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Her mind wouldn’t quiet.

He shoved me.

He said he wanted to lock the doors.

He said I’d love him eventually.

That last one made her stomach twist worst of all.

Not because it scared her—but because some part of her still wanted to believe he wasn’t a monster.

She didn’t sleep. Not really.

The hours passed in blurred pieces—moments of blinking at the ceiling, of curling tighter into herself, of whispering names from home like they were lifelines.

Mama. Papa. Mary.

Tomorrow, she promised herself.

She’d find a way out. She had to. Before he came back.

But morning came first.

And so did he.

The door opened softly. No knock. Just a quiet turn of the handle and the whisper of his shoes on the rug.

Y/N sat up fast, startled. Her heart began to pound.

Rafael stepped inside carrying a single teacup in his hand. Steam curled from the rim, sweet and sharp.

He looked… different.

Still composed. Still elegant in his dark vest and white shirt, sleeves rolled just enough to show his wrists. But his eyes were softer now, rimmed with something almost like regret.

“I brought you chamomile,” he said, voice low. “You didn’t eat.”

Y/N stared at him from across the room. She didn’t speak.

He stepped closer, then stopped halfway.

“I shouldn’t have pushed you.”

Silence.

“I was angry. I’ve never been good at… restraint. Not when it comes to things I care about.”

She finally spoke, voice hoarse. “You locked me in.”

“I had to.” His tone sharpened. “You were going to leave me. After everything I’ve given you. After everything I feel for you.”

“I’m not yours.”

“But you are,” he said gently, almost sadly. “You just haven’t accepted it yet.”

He placed the cup on the low table. Sat on the arm of the nearby chair, watching her.

“Y/N,” he said, and her name sounded almost holy on his tongue, “I’m not asking for perfection. I just want your love. I’ll give you anything you want. Jewels. Freedom inside the estate. My name, if you want it. Just don’t run from me.”

She felt tears rising, tried to hold them in.

“I’m scared of you.”

He exhaled, stood again, and came closer.

This time, when he knelt before her, he touched her cheek with fingertips softer than she remembered. It was a touch meant to soothe.

But she flinched anyway.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” he whispered. “You only have to be mine.”

Y/N didn’t speak. She couldn’t.

Her throat was tight with too many things—fear, grief, disbelief. She sat frozen on the velvet settee, hands curled into her lap like she could hold herself together by sheer force.

Rafael was kneeling before her again, eyes never leaving her face.

“I want you to marry me,” he said softly.

Her breath caught. Her stomach turned.

“I’ll bring your family here,” he continued, smoothing her hair behind her ear. “Not to the Mariposa—but close. A little house. Safe. Comfortable. Your father could see a proper doctor. Your sister could go to school. Your mother wouldn’t have to clean or sew or work another day in her life.”

Y/N’s heart stuttered.

He knows.

Of course he knows. He read her letters. He knew everything she cared about.

“You’d see them often,” he whispered. “Whenever you like. I’d make sure of it.”

His hand lowered—brushing the top of her thigh now, slow, almost thoughtless. A possessive kind of touch. One that made her flinch just enough for him to notice.

He smiled anyway. Soft. Patient.

“All you have to do is say yes.”

Tears slipped down her cheeks.

Her voice was a whisper.

“I don’t want this.”

“I know,” he murmured, and somehow, that made it worse.

Because he knew—and still asked. Still cornered. Still offered her the only thing she’d ever wanted in a poisoned box.

Her family safe. Her father well. Her sister happy.

All she had to do was give up herself.

His hand lifted to cup her jaw. His thumb brushed a tear from her cheek.

“I’ll be good to you,” he promised. “Better than anyone’s ever been. I’ll never let you go hungry. Never let you feel worthless again.”

He leaned in.

Close enough to steal her breath.

“I’ll worship you, mi amor. Every day. But I can’t do it from a distance. I need you beside me.”

Then he kissed her.

Soft. Careful.

The kind of kiss that might’ve been sweet, if it didn’t feel like a trap.

Y/N didn’t kiss him back at first—but when she did, timid and unsure, trying not to cry harder, he pulled her against him like it was a victory.

Like her trembling lips had sealed something sacred.

His arms wrapped tightly around her waist.

He held her too close, like he was afraid she’d vanish.

When he pulled back, his smile was childlike. Bright. Sickeningly pleased.

“You kissed me,” he whispered. “You said yes.”

“I didn’t,” she started to say, but the words never made it out.

He kissed her forehead.

And with uncontained joy in his voice, he whispered:

“Mama will be happy to make wedding arrangements.”

The ink felt heavy in her hand.

Y/N sat at Rafael’s grand mahogany desk, the scent of fresh lilies in a vase beside her, and wrote the letter he dictated—gently, patiently, with a hand on her shoulder and a smile she no longer trusted.

Dearest Mama, I have wonderful news. I’ve met someone here in the city—a good man, kind, generous. We’re engaged. I know this is sudden, but I promise you, he’ll take care of me. He wants to take care of you too. We’re arranging for you, Papa, and Mary to come live nearby—he’s found a lovely little house outside the city. You won’t have to worry anymore. Not about rent or medicine or food. We’ll be together again. Safe. Happy.

I hope you’ll be proud of me.

All my love, always— Y/N

She didn’t remember signing it.

She just remembered his voice—low and warm—telling her how proud he was. How perfect her words were. How beautiful she looked when she did what was right.

The dress fitting came the next day.

White. Modest. Perfect.

Silk that whispered when it moved, sleeves that hugged her wrists, neckline high and proper. The kind of gown meant for a bride too gentle to fight, too soft to run. The seamstress called it a dream. Rafael called it divine.

Y/N only stared at herself in the mirror, pale and trembling.

She didn’t feel like a bride.

She felt like a ghost.

She needed Ruby.

But Ruby had changed.

She still worked the lounge, still painted her lips and laughed too loudly—but she no longer waited up in their room. She didn’t curl beside Y/N in bed like she used to, didn’t braid her hair or tease her gently while they whispered in the dark.

Now, Ruby was quiet around her. Distant.

Jealous?

Y/N didn’t know. She wanted to ask. But every time she tried, Ruby would wave her off or change the subject, always with a brittle smile and downcast eyes.

And so Y/N turned to the only person who seemed willing to listen.

His mother.

La Señora received her in the garden, a gray shawl over her shoulders and a book resting in her lap. She never smiled warmly, never offered affection—but she did look at Y/N. She saw her. Measured her.

“You are frightened,” the older woman said plainly.

Y/N looked down. “Yes.”

La Señora nodded as if she expected that.

“My son is… intense. But he is loyal. If he gives you his heart, he will never take it back. That can be frightening. But it is also rare.”

“I didn’t choose him.”

“No,” she agreed. “But you are chosen. And you will have comfort. Wealth. Protection. Your family will be safe.”

Tears burned Y/N’s eyes.

“I want to go home.”

La Señora shook her head gently. “Home is coming to you. You must stop looking behind you, niña. The life ahead is yours now. Make it yours before it makes you small.”

The letter from home came three days later.

It was full of joy.

Her mother’s handwriting wobbled from excitement.

Y/N, we’re so happy. So proud. He sounds like a dream. A man who wants to marry you and help us? That’s a gift from God. We’re packing already—your father cried when he heard the news. We’ll be there in a week, just in time for the engagement celebration!

Love you always, my sweet girl— Mama

Y/N held the letter in her hands like it was made of glass.

She should have felt joy.

Instead, she felt like the walls around her had grown teeth.

The engagement night shimmered like a dream Y/N hadn’t asked to be in.

The ballroom inside the Mariposa had been transformed. Cream-colored silk draped from the ceiling in soft folds, like clouds stitched into place. Hundreds of candles flickered along gold-rimmed sconces. Crystal glasses clinked beneath chandeliers that caught the light like falling stars.

A live string quartet played music she didn’t recognize—Spanish, elegant, old. The kind of music made for ballroom shoes and secrets. The kind that made her stomach twist.

She was dressed in white satin, modest but graceful, her hair pinned up in delicate curls that brushed her shoulders. Around her throat sat a single strand of pearls. A gift from him. Her lips were stained rose pink. Her smile was paper-thin.

Her family hadn’t arrived yet.

She’d asked one of the maids twice. Got no answer either time.

Rafael had noticed her worry and drawn her to his side.

“Stand with me,” he said, low into her ear. “They’ll come. For now, let them see you. You belong here.”

And so she stood beside him—his arm curled protectively around her waist—as guests filtered through the hall. Businessmen. Diplomats. Women in velvet gowns. Foreign voices and old money filled the room like perfume. Laughter echoed under the music. Champagne poured endlessly.

Y/N smiled when people congratulated her.

But her hands were cold.

The doors opened just before midnight.

Y/N turned at the sound, heart in her throat—

Her family.

They entered carefully, overwhelmed but radiant. Her mother wore a navy gown with lace sleeves and tears already in her eyes. Her father stood straighter than she’d seen in years, clean-shaven, in a new suit that fit just right. Mary, bright-eyed and still holding on to childhood, wore a soft yellow dress and clutched a bouquet.

Y/N’s chest cracked open.

She ran to them, tears spilling over now, arms wrapping around her mother’s shoulders first. Her mother kissed her cheeks, both of them crying softly.

“You did it,” her mother whispered against her ear. “You did so well. Good girl.”

Y/N swallowed the sob that threatened to rise.

Her father’s arms around her were gentle, proud. He didn’t speak—he didn’t have to. The look on his face, a quiet mixture of awe and relief, anchored her like nothing else could.

He was alive. He was well. Mary smiled again.

They were here.

And they were safe.

Later, when the band quieted and the lights dimmed to gold, Rafael stepped beside her, took her hand, and addressed the room with a warm, practiced voice.

“I have loved this woman from the moment I saw her,” he said, kissing the back of her hand. “She has humbled me. Softened me. Given me hope. Tonight, I ask her to wear this—”

He turned to her.

A velvet box opened in his palm.

Inside was the ring.

Not gaudy. Not flashy.

It was a vintage Spanish design—an oval-cut diamond, clear as starlight, set in delicate gold vines that curled into tiny roses along the band. It sparkled like frost beneath candlelight, quiet and eternal.

A promise.

Y/N stared at it, trembling.

Then slowly, she let him slide it onto her finger.

It fit perfectly.

Her smile trembled. Her hands were shaking.

Tears threatened again—but she caught the look on her father’s face from across the room. The peace there. The gratitude.

She couldn’t fall apart now.

She would do this.

She would love Rafael.

If that was what it took to keep them safe—keep them well—then she would find a way to love him. Even if it broke her in the process.

Because this is what she had always wanted, wasn’t it?

To provide. To protect.

And now… it would all come true.

@cutelittlesugarfairy @lilyalone @alebrasil0101 @amanduhh1998 @bananaasfordewin

[fearfulfertility]

INTERNAL AFFAIRS INCIDENT REPORT

DRC Internal Affairs Division

Date: [REDACTED]

Subject: Internal Audit - Quota Breach - Case File [REDACTED]

To: Director [REDACTED]

From: Inspector [REDACTED]

I: Audit Trigger

This audit originated from an anomaly flagged by the Compound Oversight Unit following a routine cross-comparison of mortality curves, biometric telemetry, and average fetal volume expansion across paternity compounds in FEMA Zone 5. Paternity Compound 144, in particular, demonstrated a statistically aberrant rise in surrogate experience [REDACTED] collapse, a condition only observed in gestations over 18 fetuses. While the facility’s internal reports claimed average pregnancies between 8 and 11 embryos per surrogate, biometric logs suggested fetal counts ranging from 18 to 23 embryos per case.

Due to the severity of the physiological strain such numbers would imply—and the lack of official documentation acknowledging it—a Level 2 Integrity Audit was ordered. The Internal Affairs Division performed an unannounced sweep of all surrogate biometric records, insemination logs, and surveillance data from Cycles [REDACTED] to [REDACTED].

What followed revealed not only systemic concealment of lethal overloads but also willful obstruction motivated by personal psychological deviance.

II: Surveillance Analysis

Biometric data recovered from Wards 3B through 7E indicated that surrogates began exhibiting rapid and extreme abdominal distension by Day 11, surpassing known volumetric thresholds typically seen by Day 17. Skin tension diagnostics showed redlining stretch marks and dermal fissures in [REDACTED]% of all recorded subjects. In multiple cases, respiratory compression and full [REDACTED] subluxation—typically observed only after Day 30—were logged as early as Day 19.

“We knew something was off when they were too big to move before the second week. One of them just looked like that blueberry girl from Willy Wonka or some shit. But the logs said 14 embryos, so we assumed it was just edema.” - Employee GS-144-217

Footage recovered showed numerous surrogates experiencing aggressive fetal growth and abdominal distension, with growth rates in Ward 6C indicative of at least 23-25 embryonic masses. Two surrogates suffered multi-organ [REDACTED] before a team from the Compound Oversight Unit could intervene, though all fetuses were successfully delivered via cesarean.

“We knew something when we saw the guys from Ward 2. We were blimps compared to them, and they were twice as far along as us. I mean, I can literally see my belly growing!” Surrogate, later determined to be carrying quattuorvigintuplets (24)

Despite this, the internal logs submitted to the Archive Management Unit recorded all affected surrogates as having a “successful delivery with standard expiration.” The discrepancy was manually edited at terminal station 144-T12-OP47—registered to an Insemination Operations Unit employee named [REDACTED] (Employee ID IO-144-611).

III. Device Failure & Impact

Each MNAIS unit in Ward Blocks 3–7 had suffered [REDACTED] desynchronization following an outdated firmware push. Rather than delivering the standard 8-12-embryo load, units programming applied a multiplier to its quota and began injecting up to 24 fertilized embryos per cycle, with no error code generated.

Employee IO-144-611 discovered this failure within three days but refrained from submitting a maintenance report. He manually edited implantation records to match quota expectations, falsely logging a randomization formula (6–11 embryos per surrogate) across all documentation streams. Employee IO-144-611 then overrode the automatic alert system from the local Postpartum Command, which would ultimately log surrogates giving birth to higher fetal quotas than inseminated with.

His actions delayed DRC response for 41 days, during which:

42 surrogates suffered [REDACTED] rupture before Day 28, [REDACTED] overload, or uterine [REDACTED], necessitating emergency C-sections. No fetal fatalities.

17 surrogates expired mid-labor after undergoing compound [REDACTED] due to displaced [REDACTED], necessitating emergency C-sections. No fetal fatalities.

3 surrogates, against all medical prediction, reached Day 33 and birthed successfully, but ultimately expired post-extraction. No fetal fatalities.

26 surrogates still gestating, average 19 embryos per individual.

IV. Behavioral Profile – Employee IO-144-611

Subject: Employee IO-144-611 Tenure: [REDACTED] Position: Regional Implantation Supervisor Clearance Level: Tier II – Override Authorization Security Clearance: Revoked as of [REDACTED]

Following confrontation and seizure of his local system access logs, Employee IO-144-611 was detained and subjected to a Tier III Psychological Assessment. During this evaluation, the root of the concealment was uncovered.

Psychological Findings:

Employee IO-144-611 exhibited a previously undiagnosed paraphilic fixation classified under Government Code [REDACTED]: Macrophilia, a pathological sexual arousal in response to abnormally large bodies or bodily expansion.

Upon exposure to the visual data of overloaded surrogates—particularly those carrying between 19 and 23 fetuses—Employee IO-144-611 demonstrated elevated oxytocin and dopamine levels, a flushed dermal response, and sustained pupil dilation.

Under questioning, he confessed:

“I couldn’t report it. If I said anything, they’d shut it down, recalibrate the racks, lower the numbers again. You don’t understand. They were… monumental.”

He further admitted to deliberately withholding service requests for malfunctioning implantation equipment, specifically the Multi-Nozzle Accelerated Implantation System (MNAIS) units, which had developed a systemic fault causing them to implant +[REDACTED]% above calibrated embryo counts.

V: Displincary Response

1. Equipment

All MNAIS systems in Paternity Compound 144 were ordered offline for 24 hours.

Software rollback and integrity checks were completed under the supervision of IT Command.

Ward 3B was closed to all personnel below Grade-D rank, and affected surrogates were contained to minimize public awareness.

2. Actions

Psychological Services Command has formally reclassified [REDACTED] Employee IO-144-611 as Class-A Deviant – Mentally Compromised via Paraphilic Obstruction.

Archive Management Unit has censored relevant administrative records.

Public Affairs Division has disseminated a press release to DRC-approved news channels, citing [REDACTED] as the cause of the shutdown for Paternity Compound 144.

Facility Operations Command has transferred any personnel who raised professional or personal concerns about the citation. 

[REDACTED] Employee IO-144-611 detained to Isolation Cell 6E. 

3. Recommended Process Updates

Expand psychological screening to all Grade C employees and below. 

Recommend quarterly psychological deviance evaluations of Grade B employees and below.

Implement full biometric auto-logging for all surrogate embryo counts—disable manual override across zones.

Closing Remarks

Employee IO-144-611's indulgence in personal gratification resulted in unsatisfactory delays to our facility's operation. Proper procedures have been implemented to prevent further disruptions and ensure that fetal quotas are adequately maintained. 

[Report prepared by Inspector [REDACTED]] 

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

Sending...

Sending...

Sending...

Read...

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

Date: [REDACTED]

To: Deputy-Director [REDACTED], Security Office

From: Director [REDACTED]

Subject: Internal Audit - Quota Breach - Case File [REDACTED]

Deputy Director,

Following my review of the [REDACTED] file, I would like to register my formal dissatisfaction with how Inspector [REDACTED] handled this matter. While I acknowledge the necessity of enforcing procedural transparency, the inspector’s decision to escalate the MNAIS malfunction as a containment emergency rather than a potential breakthrough reveals a worrying lack of vision.

To put it plainly, the equipment failure at Paternity Compound 144 resulted in spontaneous fetal yields well above the current national minimums, with documented gestations ranging from 18 to 23 embryos—many of which progressed past Day 25 with surprisingly high internal cohesion and containment. Had Inspector [REDACTED] exercised creative initiative, the anomaly could have been reframed as a pilot overcapacity trial rather than triggering a full-blown mechanical audit and unnecessary decommissioning.

Such a rigid interpretation of oversight policy has compromised a unique opportunity for data extraction and jeopardized our ability to scale gestational loads in future cycles. This shortsighted compliance fanaticism is increasingly common in mid-tier personnel and must be corrected.

Accordingly, I recommend that Inspector [REDACTED] receive formal censure and retraining through the Training & Development Unit for failing to recognize the strategic potential embedded in abnormal conditions. Our agency requires flexibility under pressure, not reflexive alarmism.

On a separate but related note, I would like to approve the personnel reassignment request for Employee IO-144-611. Despite his classified psychological profile, his unique enthusiasm may prove operationally useful if adequately directed. I am authorizing his immediate transfer to Site [REDACTED], where he is to assume the role of Supervisory Insemination Officer. In the correct environment, they are an asset and IO-144-611’s tendencies are no longer a liability.

Please liaise with the Facility Director [REDACTED] at Site [REDACTED] to ensure the transfer. 

This matter is now considered closed from my office.

Regards,

Director [REDACTED]

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

New Soul 3

Warnings: age gap, Auggy being a mean mean man, other dark elements. As usual, be mindful of your content consumption.

Ft. August Walker

I also beg of you to leave me some tuppence in the form of a comment and/or reblog. You are cherished!

Enjoy, my loverlies.

You focus on not moving. It’s hard to keep from squirming as turbulence shakes the plane and the seatbelt light flicks on. You buckle up and the plane shakes. You slap your hand down on the armrest, clutching a sleeve instead. You squeak and fold your arms over your middle as the man next to you growls. 

Despite yourself, you can’t stay out of his way. 

As the rattling winds continue to batter the airplane, you bring your fingertips to your mouth and chew nervously. You close your eyes and focus on keeping your breaths even. You jostle in the seat and bounce off the man’s arm. His low rumble is scarier than the unwieldy weather. 

The light blips off and the pilot reassures you over the speaker. You keep your belt down up as the stranger unclasps his own and sighs. He leans his head back and closes his eyes. You hope he sleeps. It would make you less nervous if you couldn’t inadvertently annoy him. 

He tries. You can sense the tension roiling from his large figure. He grips the armrest, then stretches his fingers, then squeezes again.  

You only just recall the movie playing on the tiny screen as the credits roll. You exit the playback and pull out your headphones. You can’t focus on that right now. 

You sit back and the man’s elbow brushes you as it overhands the plastic rest. You ignore it and lean into the wall of the plane. It’s chilly. You strain against the seat belt and try to make yourself small. He taps his fingertips and huffs. 

The man on his other side snorts and snores, unbothered by the world around him. You envy that passenger. On your best days, sleep is a tall task. 

You turn your head and do your best to block out the rows of people, yawning, chattering, coughing, and all of that. Only seven more hours... 

✈

The plane lands but your destination is still far away. You don’t stand right away. You can wait. You’d rather be the last off than get in that man’s way again. You’re more relieved to be away from him than to be back on the ground. 

At last, he sidles out of the row. You wait but the passenger in the row behind you waves you out. You’re not rude enough to refuse.  

You come out into the aisle and reach up to grab your bag. You edge it out of the compartment but you’re unprepared for the weight. You nearly drop it, saving it from crashing down though not without knocking into the man’s back. You cringe as he grunts. 

You wait. He doesn’t say anything. He just keeps going. You exhale and follow a few paces back. You go down the ramp and come out into the bright terminal. Free... sort of. 

There’s still a maze laid out between you and dorm. Customs, a taxi ride, and check-in. You have it all in your head but the more you try to keep it all in order, the more of a mess you become.  

At the customs counter, you drop your folder as send a splash of papers across the floor. After gathering them up with the last of your dignity, you’re let through and the next obstacle awaits you. You could try the underground but a taxi is more direct and less crowded. So you think. 

You go outside and find the pavement crowded with new arrivals and departures; some waving for a cab, others hurrying in with their bags. You’re stuck in the shuffle, hidden in the bodies as you try to flag down a ride of your own. 

You push through the horde and try to find somewhere sparser. Somewhere you won’t be trampled. You see a black cab and flail desperately as you run up to it, your bag tumbling around behind you. Before you can reach it, the door opens and you collide with the man’s suitcase, your own rolling free of your grasp. 

Oh no. What are the chances?

The man keeps his hand on the door and sneers down his nose. He collapses the handle on his bag as the driver comes around to take it. He shoos the man and points to your fallen suitcase. 

“Ladies first.” He snarls. 

The driver nods and grabs your bag before you can react. As he tucks it into the trunk, you’re seized by your elbow and directed over the curb. You catch yourself on the door and glance over your shoulder at the large man. 

“You heard me.” He growls and shoves you. 

Your arms give out and you hit the seat. You barely drag your tangled carry-on in behind you as he sits without waiting. You just manage to get out of his way as he does. 

“What are you doing--” You squeak, confused. 

“You're in my way,” he snarls and turns his head slowly.  

“I-- I’m sorry--” 

The drive gets in and you choke on your words. The man leans forward and pauses. He gestures to you. “Where?” 

The blunt question makes you flinch. You don’t know what to do. At least he isn’t taking you somewhere strange, still, you don’t think you should be giving out your address.

He sighs and snatches your bag, sliding free the folder as it peeks out from the open zipper. He filters through it and pulls out a paper and reads of the dorm building address. Shoot. 

“Yes, sir,” the driver replies and eases out into the line of cabs.  

[hl-obsessed]

✨💎 a yuzu grows in brooklyn by @stylinsoncity

(M, 67k) harry is a recent implant in new york and a young chef opening a restaurant called yuzu. louis, a music teacher and broadway lover, has been around the block for a while. in a city that's so fast-paced, they're slow to catch on to each other.

✨ You Took My Heart By Surprise by @loveislarryislove

(T, 39k) There is reason to believe Prince Harry’s life is in danger. After a failed kidnapping attempt, Louis is assigned to guard Harry around the clock. He is the best at what he does, but he has a tendency to not get along with clients. Louis and Harry start off on the wrong foot, but it soon becomes clear that neither is at all what the other expected.

~*~*~

Queen Anne met Louis’ eyes. “While your file documents many remarkable accomplishments, it also contains a number of early terminations. Why is that?”

“It all depends on what your priorities are,” he said slowly. “If your primary concern is protection, I’m your guy. If you’re looking for someone polite…” He shrugged. “I don’t generally try to be rude, but social graces aren’t what I’m being paid for. If someone values being sucked up to over being protected, that’s their problem.”

“You seem quite well-mannered,” Anne said, frowning.

Both Nick and Louis snorted at that. “You’ve only known me for ten minutes,” Louis said. “Give it time.”

✨ Put It On Me by @stylinsoncity

(M, 15k) Harry's bachelor party doesn't go as planned.

✨ so many birthdays (that I missed) by @tofiveohfive

(NR, 11k) Louis doesn’t know nearly enough about science and the cosmos to explain how every atom in his being stands to attention; how his body immediately knows who he’s bumped into.

It’s somewhat underwhelming when the first word he hears out of Harry’s mouth after twelve months is, “Oh.”

AU inspired by Julia Michaels’ Into You

✨ No Place I'd Rather Be by @iamasphodelknox

(E, 39k) Harry's had a crush on his stepfather's friend for six years. A small crush. A tiny crush.

Honestly, if you don't look at Harry's dozens of poems about Louis Tomlinson, the crush is practically infinitesimal. They haven't even had a conversation.

But then a car wreck prompts them to finally have a conversation.

Christmas works its magic, Harry pines, Louis fonds, and they just might make it.

✨ The Places I Share With You by @iamasphodelknox

(M, 7k) Five times Louis comes home to Harry and one time he's ready to welcome Harry home.

The process of Louis and Harry finding home in each other.

Sequel/Coda/Epilogue to No Place I'd Rather Be.

Primal and Divine by WordsInBloom28

(E, 33k) Embarking on a mission to save his pack, Louis is pushed to the brink after his friend is killed in a dangerous forest. Awaiting the graces of death, Louis is saved by a peculiar healer who lives alone in the woods.

Throughout his healing process, Louis forms an unlikely bond with the healer and, with it, a life of serenity. His body grows stronger and his heart grows fonder, allowing love to take root.

In order to protect his new found peace, Louis and his companion work together to fight against the evil that threatens to take it all away.

It was always you by @defences-down

(T, 1,3k) It's their first Christmas living together, and Harry has been trying to figure out how to talk to Louis about his feelings for weeks.

He could never have expected what would happen next.

Ideal: An Advent Fic by @iamasphodelknox

(M, 40k) All Louis wanted was some god-damned time to write his novel. He didn’t expect to move his and Liam’s entire production of a Christmas variety show to a small inn in Vermont just before the holidays. He didn’t expect to save Niall’s inn. He didn’t expect Liam to fall in love. He definitely didn’t expect to fall in love himself. And he certainly didn’t expect it all to feel so much like a Christmas movie.

Oh hell. There’s a lot of things Louis didn’t expect.

A White Christmas au, complete with drama, fluff, choreographed dance numbers, and idiotic boys falling in love. Just your typical Christmas fun.

Frankincense-ational by @londonfoginacup

(T, 31k) Harry Styles works at the Hillsyde Library with his friend Zayn and best mate Niall. It’s December, which means Christmas, which should be the happiest month of the year…

Except Niall just broke up with his boyfriend, Zayn needs to let up on the rules a little, and the library is getting their fire alarm system replaced, which means that for the next few weeks there are going to be firemen patrolling the library ‘looking for fires’ while the system is down.

Harry almost hits one of them with his car right off the bat - and of course he’s the hot one.

Happy Christmas, here’s to many more.

Is that a candy cane in your pocket? by @kingsofeverything

(E, 4,8k) Louis accuses Harry of shoplifting. Harry was definitely not shoplifting.

They work it out.

Close To You by yourgorgeouscolors

(E, 5,7k) “You’re lovely,” Louis rasps out. He feels so close to Harry in a way that's different from the other intimate sex positions they’ve tried. He can see Harry, feel him all over. Feel the way he’s clenching down on his cock as he adjusts. He can feel Harry’s hot breath prickling his skin, and can feel his body everywhere. Each point of contact feels like a zap of electricity.'

Or, Harry and Louis try a new sex position.

Listen To Your Heart by @chloehl10

(E, 35k) Are you kidding me right now?

I… No? Louis frowned, feeling angry now. It wasn’t fair, he knew that, but at the same time, he couldn’t help his feelings. It felt like this had been brewing for weeks, and this was it. Give it a rest, Harry.

Why are you such a brat? Why can’t you just be happy for me for once?

You think I want to hear about you kissing James? Really, H? There’s things I just don’t need to know, okay? I’m your best mate, not your fucking relationship advisor…

***

Louis has always been comfortable being Harry’s one and only. When Harry starts to branch out, Louis has a hard time letting him go.

Harry is very lucky to have someone who listens to what he has to say, despite the fact that he’s deaf. He’s finally feeling like he’s coming into himself, but Louis seems bothered by his newfound confidence.

(do you think it's easy) being of the jealous kind by @the-larry-way

(T, 0,8k) Harry is mad and Louis isn't exactly sure why.

(or Louis comes home smelling of another omega and Harry is near heat and jealous)

Make a Dime Go One Hundred by screwstyles

(E, 18k) “Hey, Haz,” he says, encouraged in equal parts by the weed and the cocoon they seem to have created around themselves. “Do you think you could trust anyone enough to have full control over you?” he asks into the night, hoping his sentence won’t break their bubble. It doesn’t, if the way Harry’s eyes meet his is any indication.

“What do you mean?” Harry’s voice is barely above a whisper, rough from the singing they had done earlier. Louis wants to keep this memory forever.

“You know, if someone wanted to, uhm,” he coughs, “to tie you up, or blindfold you.”

-

Friends to Lovers AU: Harry volunteers to help Louis experiment with bondage. Things don’t go exactly to plan.

✨ Chestnuts Roasting... And All That by @elsi-bee

(M, 47k) Louis is apparently the only person at his new job who is single as can be. It’s not a big deal to just tell his new colleagues that he has a boyfriend, right? Until he has to make this imaginary boyfriend magically appear at the office holiday party. Cue fake relationship antics with a certain someone who is more than willing to play along.

Linger by @yourpricelessadvice

(E, 136k) Louis has a truckload of painful memories and a custody arrangement where a family could’ve been. The last thing he’s looking for is a new relationship.

Harry has accepted that he’s not made for relationships and isn’t interested in getting burnt again.

It’s a good job they’ve both got meddling friends.

° ✨ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ✨ °

more recs | recs masterpost

° ✨ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ✨ °

[angerydome]

Not reblogging from the OP because somehow over the course of three years, either no one has fact checked this, or OP has blocked everyone who’s tried.

https://www.reuters.com/article/fact-check/electric-cars-taken-off-french-roads-due-to-contract-termination-not-battery-fa-idUSL2N2N60XA/

The logo on the cars shows that they are from “Autolib”, a fleet of electric cars used in a car-sharing scheme in Paris and the surrounding suburbs that was launched in 2011 and had 150,000 active users who could take out the cars when they needed.

As reported by Reuters here , Parisian authorities ended the Bollore group’s contract to operate the Autolib electric vehicle fleet in June 2018 due to financial difficulties. Persistent issues with cleanliness, problems with parking and booking as well as competition from other modes of transport such as Uber pushed the service into the red, with cumulated losses of 293 million euros expected by 2023.

French media reports here , here and here which show pictures of the cars lined up in a field like those in the social media posts, explain that the termination of the contract meant that Bollore had to remove its 4,000 vehicles from the Paris region to Romorantin-Lanthenay, 200 kms (124 miles) south of Paris. Bollore sold the cars, most of them going to two companies, Autopuzz, which resells the cars throughout France, and Atis Production.

On claims about soil pollution risk posed by the cars, Paul Aouizerate, head of Atis Production, told France Info here “Our vehicles are properly stored. The firefighters are aware, the construction site is well organized. All the batteries have been removed and the connectors are isolated.”

He added that the cars were not going to a junkyard. Autopuzz told France TV Info it is reselling the cars to buyers across France at a rate of 50 per month (here).

I am once again begging people to actually fact-check anything that shows you an image and makes an unsourced claim.

It’s not that hard, I promise.