#the amount of plot and emotion contained in something so small

[whumpster-dumpster]

I love you, flash fiction. I love you, short one shots. I love you, 100-word drabbles. I love you, 50-word dribbles. I love you, six-sentence fics. I love you, three-sentence fics. I love you, ficlets. I love you, minifics. I love you, microfics. I love you, short stories 💕💌💝

[roseghoul26]

König x fem!Reader

Synopsis: After a long day, König offers some much-needed “stress relief”. Tags: Title From A Sabrina Carpenter Song, Bed Chem - Sabrina Carpenter, Edging, Not Beta Read, Fem Pronouns For Reader, Bit Of A Size Kink, Porn No Plot, Vibrators, Fingering, Cunnilingus, König Lifts His Mask The Tiniest Amount To Eat You Out, Scar Kink(?), Is That Even A Thing, Doggystyle, Safe Sex, German Is A Fun Language, Kissing, Cuddling Author's Note: My four-and-a-half years of German classes are finally coming into use (but I’m nowhere near fluent, so correct my mistakes lol). Also contains descriptions of what I imagine König to look like. Everyone is free to their own interpretation. Also I'm like a year too late for this but whatever lol and this one is just pure porn guys, so... do with that what you will Explicit content, minors DNI

You felt ridiculous. 

Desperate. Anxious. Ridiculous.

Pacing across your small room didn’t help, your frenzied state unending. Anxiety hammered your heart, your stomach twisted in knots, and your hands ached from tensing them so much. Your breathing wasn’t much better, coming and going in quick huffs of air; you felt like you were going to pass out. 

You were a goddamn soldier, a ruthless mercenary; you shouldn’t be acting this way. You’d faced down the worst of humanity and came out victorious; the idea of König coming to your room shouldn’t render you so… timid. 

You’re not sure why you took König up on his offer for “stress relief”. He’d seen how tense you were all day around the base, the reason for that feeling long since forgotten, your words clipped, muscles tensed. It wasn’t an unusual emotion for you, but he’d never offered his assistance. 

Until today. You weren’t quite sure what changed.

A shiver went down your spine when you remembered his voice as he whispered, large frame pressed up close against yours, but not close enough to touch. “Let me help you, Schatz,” he’d said, and you were certain if you could see his face, there’d be a smirk on his lips. You wondered if he knew how you felt about him. 

Desperate to be rid of the tension in your body, and desperate for him, you’d agreed. It wasn’t until you’d reached your room that it sunk in, what you’d agreed to. It wasn’t that you regretted it, far from it, but now your stress levels were even higher than they were before. 

You wouldn’t lie and say that you hadn’t hoped that something like this would happen. You’d had the biggest crush, which sounded so juvenile for someone like you, on him since the moment you’d signed on with KorTac a few years ago. 

And how could you not? He was tall, almost intimidatingly so, with a broad build to match. And the muscles weren’t all for show, just as deadly with his body as he was with his weapons out on the field. You remember the first time you’d watched him take down someone with his hands, a memory that had ingrained itself into your dirtiest dreams. 

As for the rest of his appearance, you weren’t quite sure. He’d never taken off his “mask” (a shirt, you’d later come to find out) in front of you, even when on jobs together. You never pried, though, respecting his need for privacy. And besides, you didn’t have to see his face to know that he was the most stunning person you’d ever met. His eyes, baby blue, yet torturously haunted, were all that you needed to see to confirm that. After years of only seeing them, you’d gotten good at reading them like you would facial expressions. 

Too caught up in your thoughts, you nearly tripped as your foot caught on the edge of your bed, a small, dingy thing. A mix of a sigh and groan left you, as well as a soft curse as you shook your hurt foot. Glancing at the small LED clock beside your bed, the time read 9:26.

König hadn’t given you a time when you asked, only a teasing, “Tonight.” Which meant, that at any moment, you’d hear him knocking on your door.

Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe this was all a joke, a cruel one at that. Maybe he knew about your infatuation with him, and this was his response. Deep down, you knew König enough to know that he wouldn’t do something like that, but your anxiety-riddled brain couldn’t think rationally right now. 

Before disappointment could set in, there was a surprisingly gentle knock on the door. But to you, it sounded like two gunshots had just gone off in the room, your ears now ringing in response. 

A soft gasp left you, and you swore your heart stopped. Taking a second to take a deep breath, you fixed your hair as you walked to the door, suddenly worried about your appearance. Your hand shook as you grabbed the handle, time seemingly slowing as you opened the door.

There, just like he said he would be, was König, his body damn near filling the entire doorframe, the tiniest bits of light from the hallway sneaking in. He was dressed down, which made sense for the time of day, so it shouldn’t have come as such a shock to you to see his bare arms. He must’ve been feeling particularly cruel, to be wearing a tight, black short-sleeve shirt instead of his usual loose long-sleeves. His hands were shoved into the pockets of some black sweatpants, and it almost felt wrong to see him like this. 

And as his eyes widened the tiniest amount, you realized that he, too, had never seen you in loungewear. Wearing a tank top and some sleep shorts, you might as well have been naked with the way his gaze roamed over your body, setting your body alight. A part of you wondered if this was the first time he’d looked at you like this, or if your attraction hadn’t been as one-sided as you believed. 

You weren’t quite sure what to say; you both knew why he was here. So instead of making a fool of yourself by attempting to talk, you took a step back, wordlessly inviting König into your room. 

As he stepped in, you watched as his head moved around, taking in his surroundings. Your room wasn’t much, but it was a step up from the shared room you had when you first joined. There was a bed, a full size at most, the headboard pressed up against the wall, with standard-issue grey sheets. A nightstand sat beside it, with the LED clock, and a lamp that currently struggled to fight against the darkness of the night as it poured through the lame excuse of a window that resided at the top of the wall. A few other pieces of furniture, a dresser, a desk, and a shelf, were each in their respective spots, leaving not a lot of free room.

So, as König walked in, your room felt incredibly small, nearly suffocating. It didn’t help that every time you saw König your breathing turned labored, which wasn’t the best thing to happen to you out on the field. But your years of suppressing your desires had trained you well, able to put on an impression that you were unaffected. 

“Do you want this?”

You’d barely heard König, your heart thudding too loudly. He had turned to face you, hands still in his pockets, a casual stance. But his eyes told a different story, hooded with lust, and boring into you. 

Swallowing, you failed to notice the way his eyes zeroed in on the action. Nodding your head was the only thing you could do, never feeling so certain bout something in your life. But you were nervous. What if you disappointed him? What if this wrecked what relationship the two of you had? What if this was all still a joke?

You hadn't expected König to have moved so that he was right in front of you. Was he always this tall? Towering over you, you felt his fingers, free from their usual gloves, grasp your chin, forcing your eyes onto him. A strangled noise died in your throat at the action, but he felt it, and you watched his eyes crinkle in the corners. He was grinning. 

“Use your words, Schatz.” The endearment, although in a foreign language, made you melt. You weren’t entirely sure what it meant, even after hearing it before, but he said it so sweetly that you didn’t need to know what it meant to feel its effects. 

Your heart was fluttering now, your brain fighting between feeling anxious and exhilarated. König must’ve detected this inner battle of yours, something softening in his gaze. The hand holding your chin moved to your wrist, grabbing it loosely enough so that you could pull away if you wanted to, and he slowly pulled your hand up until it rested on his chest, palm flat against his left pec. 

Once the shock of touching him subsided, you were confused as he watched you expectantly. You went to try to speak but were subsequently silenced by König as he shook his head, pressing your hand down harder. It was then you could finally feel beneath your fingertips his heartbeat, much too fast for the casual stance he had earlier. 

He was just as nervous about this as you were.

He let go of your wrist once he saw you felt it, but you didn’t pull your hand away, quickly gaining confidence knowing you weren’t alone in your nerves. “I want this, König.” You were pleasantly surprised to find that your voice was steady, not even the tiniest bit hoarse. I’ve wanted this for a long time.

Pleased, you could also detect the tiniest bit of relief from him, uncertainty playing a part in his nervous behavior. But that was quickly washed away when his authoritative demeanor returned; you’re not sure why you expected anything else. In every room he walked into, he demanded respect, to be listened to. Followed. Obeyed. You just never thought that it carried into more intimate moments. 

You certainly weren’t complaining. Not when you could feel arousal pool in your gut, a pleasant warmth that flowed through your entire body. Not when every word he spoke made you shiver, his accent thick, voice pitched lower. And now that your nerves had died down, all that was left was excitement, which nearly made you just as jumpy. As he brought his masked face close to yours, you swore your breathing stopped; it almost felt like the anticipation you’d feel before a kiss.

But his destination wasn’t your lips, although his eyes did flick down to them momentarily. No, he stopped before they could connect, mask and all. Resting his head against yours, which took a bit of bending on his part, you felt two warm hands begin to trail down your body, starting right at your collarbones. 

You watched as his eyes trailed over your face, gauging your reaction. When he was met with nothing but desire and want, his touch grew more certain, yet he didn’t pick up the pace. His fingers continued to drag down your body until you wanted to push them down to where you wanted. Something told you that that wouldn’t go over well, but you had to admit you were curious to see what his reaction would be. 

You chose to just shift in his grasp instead of trying to force his touch lower, hoping he’d get the message. You knew he did when you heard him chuckle, a sound that always made you weak in the knees, now especially. “Patience.” 

You could detect the warning well enough, but you couldn’t bring yourself to listen to it. “Please, König.” You didn’t care if you were begging. All you could think about was how close he was to giving you what you wanted. 

Another chuckle left the Austrian, but this one sounded more cruel. “You are going to have a long night.”

Before you could even think about his words, he was effortlessly sweeping you off your feet, hands having found their way to the back of your thighs. Insticinvly, your legs wrapped around his body, but you knew he didn’t need the extra help, and you also knew that he wouldn’t drop you. With a surprised laugh, you hung on as König carried you over to the bed, eyes never once leaving your face like he was enraptured by it. 

Unfortunately, the walk to the bed was brief, and before you could get comfortable in his arms, he was depositing you onto the bed. So much for not dropping you. It didn’t hurt, no, more surprising than anything, the breath briefly getting knocked out of you. The cheaper bed groaned under the weight, rusty springs a godawful symphony of noises, but you paid them no mind. 

Hungry eyes watched you from the foot of the bed as you moved up towards the headboard, back resting against it. Once you were settled, König stalked over to the side of the bed, his movements nothing but predatory. Yet oddly enough, you felt safe. You both trusted each other enough to watch over the other while out on the field and so you felt that same trust here. Deep down, you knew that if you were to tell him to stop, he would, no questions asked. Yet you knew you probably wouldn’t need him to. 

But he didn’t sit down, rather moving to the nightstand beside you. Your dazed state quickly dissipated once he started rummaging inside of it, but you were too late to do anything. With burning cheeks, you watched as he pulled out a pink device, which looked comically small in his hands. 

You wanted nothing more than to bury your face in your hands and pray for your demise, yet you were stuck in place once his attention returned to you. You just knew he had a shit-eating grin on his face, and if you weren’t so mortified about him finding the toy, then you would’ve made some comment to wipe it right off. 

Finally, König sat beside you, the vibrator still in his hand. With his other, you felt his touch return to your calf, featherlight, and leisurely making its way to the waistband of your shorts. “You use this a lot?”

“König…” Your voice wasn’t as assertive as you’d have liked, coming out more as a breathy whine. 

“Answer my question.” His hand stopped moving, stopping right at your knee. No matter how you shifted or squirmed, he didn’t move.

With a deep sigh, you tried to ignore the embarrassment you felt when you nodded your head. You then remembered his words from earlier. “Yes,” was all you said, but that seemed to be enough for him, as he continued his ascent with his fingers.

But his tormenting wasn’t done there, as after a few seconds you heard him speak again. “What do you think about?” This question came quieter than the first like he was sharing a piece of gossip, not asking you to reveal your deepest fantasies. 

You. 

The word was on the tip of your tongue, yet you couldn’t bring yourself to say them, to admit to him. How you’d dreamed of moments like this. How you’d imagined him touching you, fucking you, devouring you. So much information was on the verge of being spilled, and you were scared of it happening, too many what-ifs floating in your brain to keep track. 

But any attempt of holding back your words disappeared when König’s hand retracted, and you found the words stuttering out of you, desperate to feel him again. “I think about you, König…” You nearly felt out of breath after, your chest heaving for air, your cheeks now on fire. 

König, much to your surprise, didn’t seem taken aback by your words. Instead, you watched as his eyes darkened even more, which seemed like an impossible feat. “I thought as much,” his voice sounded more like a growl, and you fought the urge to press your thighs together. “And what do I do, when you think of me?”

Now that the cat was out of the bag, you felt less embarrassed about speaking. You were further encouraged when his hand settled on your thigh, pulling lightly at the hem of your shorts. “I… I’ve thought of you using toys,” you glanced at his other hand briefly, “your fingers. Your mouth.” The last one came out more like a whisper; he’d have to take his mask off in order for the last one to be true, and you both knew he wasn’t doing that. 

By the time you had finished speaking, he had reached your waistband, fingers dipping beneath it to brush against your skin. He hummed like he was truly thinking deeply over your words. “In that order?” If it was meant to be teasing, you couldn’t tell. 

Words died in your throat as you struggled to speak, your newfound confidence nonexistent. König, thankfully, took some pity on you, realizing that this was all a bit much. “Would you like me to take care of you?”

That you were able to respond to. “Please.”

An appreciative groan reverberated through his broad chest. “Sehr gut.” You weren’t certain what he was saying, but the infliction sounded like a praise, and your body responded as it would if it had been spoken in a language you knew.

You expected him to continue speaking, so imagine your surprise when in one strong tug, he tore your shorts off your body, before throwing them somewhere in the room. You heard an audible gasp from him when he saw you were completely bare underneath, completely exposed to him. You watched his hands flex from where they hung in the air, momentarily taken aback, his restraint pulled tight. 

He recovered quickly, blue eyes obscured by black irises now staring at you. “No underwear?” It was a redundant question, yet he asked anyway, wanting you to admit to it. Sheepishly, you nodded, your reward being a low chuckle. “Gott, you are trying to kill me.”

That was the last thing he said before he was settling at the end of your bed, right where your feet sat. His unoccupied hand grabbed your ankle, pulling your legs apart so that he could settle between them. With both thighs resting on his shoulders, you could no longer close your legs, unless you wanted to suffocate the man between them. You doubt he would complain, though. 

His face was inches from your center, and you could feel the heat radiating from him with each breath he took. His eyes had left your face, now drinking in the sight before him, and you could tell he was pleased with what he saw. Quite pleased, if the groan he let out told you anything. 

“So wet already,” he murmured as if he was surprised. You had little time to feel any sort of embarrassment, before two wide fingers ran through your folds, collecting the arousal there. You watched, then, as he brought his fingers below his mask, and you were able to fill in the details as his eyes fell shut with a hum of appreciation. 

Very much distracted, you’d momentarily forgotten about the device in his other hand until the unmistakable buzzing noise filled the air. Your breathing was labored as you waited for his next move, where he would touch you next. You, luckily, did not have to wait long to find out, as those two fingers returned, this time working to spread you open. His eyes finally shot up to yours, his desire evident, and there was an unspoken question in the gesture. More?

You would take all that he could give you, greedily. If he gave you scraps, you would take scraps with a thankful smile. If he gave you a goddamn meal, then you would savor every moment, every drop. With a shaky smile, you gave him a nod, not needing to use your words this time. 

The first graze of the toy over your clit made you jump, eliciting an amused shake of König’s head. “Relax, Schatz.”

And you tried. Taking a deep breath, you went through the breathing exercises you were taught when you first enlisted. Either it was thinking about the breathing exercises, or the exercises themselves, but you found yourself relaxing a bit, your muscles not as wound up as they once were. 

So when König once again pressed the vibrator against the bundle of nerves, you still jolted. Not out of shock, but because of the pleasure that action brought. And instead of pulling away like last time, he kept his hand in place, making you squirm. 

Soft whines and gasps of air were heard from you, hands fisting the sheets beside you. You wanted to hold on to him, but you were worried that once you grabbed on, you wouldn’t want to let go. “König…” you moaned, trying to express just how good he was making you feel. Every nerve in your body tingled, that unmistakable tightness growing in your abdomen. You weren’t close, but you didn’t think it would take long with how worked up you’d been waiting for him. 

The hand holding you open ascended, your back arching into his touch as he dragged his fingers over your stomach, your ribs, before encapsulating one of your breasts in a large, warm hand. “Du bist so schön,” he murmured, a glint of something in his eye. It quickly turned mischievous, though, when you just nodded along, his words meaning nothing to you. “Du hast keine Idee, was ich sage.”

When you neither confirmed nor denied his observation, he laughed, much to your confusion, but you were too caught up in your pleasure to care much. “Oh, Schatz.” It almost sounded patronizing, something that shouldn’t have gotten you as worked up as it did. Another plea of his name tore from your lips, the pressure in you building and building. 

Glancing down between your legs, you were surprised to find his eyes already on you. A squeeze of his hand had you keening, König making a noise that almost seemed proud. “So responsive. Nur für mich.”

What could you do besides nod? Even if you could understand him, you doubted you’d be able to process his words. And besides, hearing him speak his native tongue was always a treat, so hearing him like this was melting you, another thing setting your body alight. Your thighs were beginning to shake, something that did not go unnoticed by the man between them. 

“König… fuck, just a lil’ more…” You failed to see the plan he was formulating, your eyes screwed shut as pleasure overtook you. That tension was becoming unbearable now, and just on the verge of snapping. Your hips rocked and twisted, your fingers cramping with how hard you were gripping the sheets. You were on the edge, just teetering. All you needed was a little push, and-

The sound of silence was deafening as König turned the toy off, setting it on the bed beside you. Your eyes flew open, nowhere near expecting him to pull away just as you were about to cum. It would’ve been embarrassing, the frustrated noise you let out, but all you could think and feel was your waning orgasm. You went to try and finish yourself, but a strong hand caught your wrist before you could move. 

“König…” you warned, pleaded. Like sand, you could feel your release escaping through your fingers. “Y-You said you would help me relax.”

“You are distracted, nein?” 

It was true, your mind was far from the stresses of the day. But a new stress was building, one that was being caused by him. “König-”

“Lay back down.”

You hadn’t even realized you’d sat up, and with a sigh, you sunk back against the pillows, hoping he didn’t see the way your cheeks darkened at the way he commanded you. You could feel yourself continue to come down from that delicious high, body still strung tight like a string on a violin. König played you so well, that you doubted it would take long for you to reach that precipice again. But would he give you what you wanted, or continue to dangle it above your head, just out of reach? You both loved and hated the game he was playing, but your patience was bound to run out eventually. 

He settled in between your legs again, both hands empty this time. A few minutes passed, König lazily tracing his fingers across your bare legs and stomach, truly letting the embers of your previous orgasm burn out.

After what felt like an eternity, he began to drag his touch inward, making you gasp lightly. Like he did before, you felt him pass his fingers through you. The stimulation was almost too much, but it was the best thing you’d ever felt, a soft whine leaving you. That whine turned into a moan when he pressed a digit into you, aided by your arousal. 

He wasted no time in working his finger in and out of you, setting a slow yet intense pace. Your previous decision to not hold on to him quickly fell apart, desperately reaching down to him. There was a second of surprise before he gave you his other hand, your fingers immediately locking with his. It was a startling difference, the innocent gesture of handholding versus the way he was making you see stars with every crook of his fingers. 

His fingers were wide, much wider than yours, so the stretch burned when he added a second. He gave you a moment to adjust before moving, murmuring soft words of praise. “Gutes Mädchen,” he purred. “Gott, look at you, taking me so well.” Each word was enunciated with a thrust of his fingers, pulling noises from you you didn’t even know were possible. 

As amazing as his fingers felt, you need more. Wanted more. Glancing down at König, you gave him as wide eyes as you could, and he seemed to get the message. “You want more?” Upon your fervent nodding, he shook his head teasingly. “So greedy.”

For a moment, you were convinced that he wasn’t going to fulfill your request. That was until he pulled his hand away from yours, reaching for the base of his mask. Your heart damn near stopped when you realized what he was doing, and with a shocked gasp, you shut your eyes, unsure if he wanted you to see. 

You felt him pause, the rustling of fabric ceasing, before his voice rang out. “Look at me.” For the first time since you’d met him, you’d heard his voice clearly, not muffled by his mask. 

Cautiously, you opened your eyes, still partially convinced that this was a test of sorts. All of those worries disappeared when your eyes landed on him. His mask wasn’t fully off, not like you expected, and a part of you was relieved. You don’t think you were ready for that. 

Instead, it was pulled up just past his mouth, revealing most of his lower face, and any image you’d created of him in your mind was immediately forgotten, replaced with the sight in front of you. He had a wider jaw, with a decent amount of stubble adorning his cheeks. His lips were full, the top smaller than the bottom, and pulled into a small smile that made your stomach erupt into butterflies. He was, without a doubt, one of the most handsome men you’d ever laid eyes on, and this was only a part of his face.

But what stuck out to you the most, and would stick out to anyone who saw him, was the large scar that cut upwards on the right side of his upper lip, disappearing under the mask as it continued. The rest of the skin had healed together, except for on his lip, where, similar to a cleft lip but smaller, there was a gap, exposing a sharp canine. It was like his lip was turned up in a constant sneer.

You had no idea how he got that scar, and knowing the job you both did, it was probably quite traumatic. But the scar, alongside the rest of him, had desire churning so strongly in your gut that you nearly felt ill. It felt almost too good to be true, yet here he was, in between your legs, staring at you like you were the best thing on this forsaken planet, his hips grinding against the bed as he pleasured you. 

“Hallo, Schatz.” You were entranced by the way his lips moved as he spoke, and he noticed it, a cocky grin now on display. God, the effect that smirk had on you was immediate, his smugness immeasurable when he felt your body react on his fingers. “You know how to make a man feel good.”

You managed to roll your eyes, not wanting to bolster his ego that much, making König laugh in response. But his playful mood was quickly replaced by one of pure desire, moving forward until you could feel his warm breath hit your center. His fingers had resumed their motions, that tension once again building in your abdomen. It felt stronger this time like your body was punishing you for not allowing the tension to release last time. 

Not once did his eyes break away from yours, not even as his tongue flicked out to taste you, and you could feel his smile, never once dropping. He did it again, this time nudging your over-sensitive clit, making your hips buck. Letting his mask fall on your body to keep it held up, his now free hand splayed across your lower abdomen, keeping you in place, unable to escape the onslaught of pleasure. 

Even quicker than before, you found yourself careening toward that edge, your nails digging into König’s arm, likely leaving marks. His name replayed like a chant on your lips with each crook of his fingers, each flick of his tongue, every suck from his lips. You couldn’t see him any longer, your head thrown back against the pillows.

“König… please.” You almost didn’t want to tell him you were close, afraid of him taking your release away from you again. But you figured he didn’t need you to tell him to know, with the way your thighs shook and walls fluttered around his fingers. You felt him smirk again, a sense of dread washing over you at its implication. “Please, König… let me cum.”

Forcing your head back down, you watched as he considered your plea, and for a second, you thought you were in the clear. That was until he pulled his mouth away, his lower face glistening, that smirk still there, before the mask fell back down. His fingers pulled away next, groaning when he watched you clench around nothing.

Frustrated was nowhere close to how you felt, tears now prickling your eyes as yet another orgasm was withheld. The torture was delicious, yes, but you were going to lose it if you didn’t get to cum soon. You’d wanted this for so long, to fall apart under his ministrations, and you were tired of waiting. Your voice wavered as you whined his name, but there wasn’t anything either of you could do now, as you felt that almost high fade away again. 

With a defeated sigh, you let your head hit the pillows again, your legs sliding off König’s shoulders. You didn’t get to relax long, though, before his accented voice hit your ears again, unfortunately muffled. “Roll over.”

Without trying to hide your displeasure, you complied, glaring at him as you turned. You hoped he couldn’t tell how excited you actually were, fighting back an eager smile. He chuckled from behind you as you settled on your hands and knees, trailing off when he took in the sight before him. “I will ignore that attitude. This time.”

As you thought over the implications of this time, you felt König stand, followed by the sound of rustling fabric, as well as the crinkle of plastic. Something stirred in you at the fact that he came prepared, meaning he wanted this as much as you did. You’re not sure why you still believed he didn’t, but the reassurance was nice, to say the least. 

Glancing over your shoulder, you managed to catch a glimpse of him, the sight making you nearly snap your head back around. Nearly. He had shed his pants, his black shirt rising enough to reveal a pale, muscular abdomen, created from years of intense labor and exercise. He radiated power, and a part of you wondered if that translated into more intimate aspects like his authoritativeness had. Would he be rough with you? Or would he be more ginger, like his touch had been for most of the night; not gentle, but not on the verge of hurting?

You would take either way, as long as it was him doing it. 

“It is rude to stare.”

His tone was teasing, yet it still pulled you out of your shameless ogling. Caught red-handed, an almost sheepish smile appeared on your face. “You can’t blame me when you look like that. You’re a sight, König.”

For the first time that night, König seemed at a loss for words, staring at you like you’d grown a second head. If his mask was still pulled up, you figured you would see his lips struggling to form words, and, if you were lucky, a blush creeping up his face. It was a beautiful image in your mind, one that made you smile harder. 

Clearing his throat, König shook himself out of whatever daze he had been in, and you pocketed his weakness away for later. Checking you for any last-second hesitations, he let the rest of the clothing on his lower body fall away, effectively shifting the power back into his hands. And despite yourself, a small noise left you at the sight, further stroking his already massive ego. 

As to be expected for someone of his size, he was large, and painfully hard, if the hiss he let out told you anything. He was proportional to his hand as he took himself in it, stroking himself a few times, but you knew you’d struggle to hold him in yours. Just like the rest of his body, he was pale, with an almost purple tip that leaked precum. 

Turning your head back around before you lost your nerve, a few seconds passed before you felt the bed creak again, assumedly to put on the condom. One hand pressed between your shoulders, wordlessly pressing your face and chest into the bed. His other hand grabbed your hip, pulling your ass against him, another small noise leaving you when his cock pressed into you. You let him maneuver you as he wished, surprised with how much you were enjoying him taking the lead during this. 

“Ready?” His voice sounded relaxed, but the fingers digging into your hips told a different story. Still, the sincerity of his gesture made your heart thrum happily.

“Yes.” You’d never been more ready for something. 

A strangled moan tore from your lips as he pressed in, obscured by the mattresses your face was currently being pressed into. Tangling your fingers into the sheets around you, you could do nothing but take him as he sheathed his length into you, inch by inch. Time seemed to slow, your breathing ragged, when it wasn’t interrupted by noises of pleasure. 

The pain wasn’t as bad as you initially thought it would be, and for a moment you were thankful that König had worked you up so much. But that tension returned again, König still not fully in you yet. A whimper of his name had him stilling, an almost painful-sounding breath leaving him as he steadied himself, using every ounce of restraint to keep going slowly. 

The words tumbled out of you then, unable to stop yourself. “I-I can take it… please.”

“Scheiße.” The expletive was not unknown to you, nearly turning smug with the fact you made him lose control again. And just like before, he was quick to put you in your place, any comment dying on your lips when he bottomed out with a sharp thrust of his hips.

You swore you saw stars, unable to make any noise besides a soft oh. König, trusting that you were telling the truth, didn’t wait to give you time to adjust. He set a brutal pace immediately, hips snapping against yours with a slick noise. You could cum just from this alone, still so worked up, and König knew this.

The hands on your body shifted, wrapping around the front of your body and lifting you effortlessly until your back was pressed against his chest. He wasted no time tearing off your shirt, groping and toying with your breasts as he continued to thrust up into you. His voice was like gravel as he spoke, his covered mouth speaking right in your ear. “Du fühlst- Gott, mein Schatz.”

Even though your brain was hazed with lust, there was one thing that stuck out to you when he spoke. Never before had he added the word “mein” before calling you Schatz. You had no idea what it meant, but it certainly sounded like an English word you’d been dying to hear from his lips. Mine.

“Yours?” You knew you were probably connecting dots that didn’t exist, but the idea of being König’s was too appealing. 

König stuttered in his movements, an absolutely sinful moan being pulled from him, a sound that nearly pushed you over that edge. “Smart girl,” he spoke while regaining his breath. “Cum for me, mein Mädchen.”

That was all you needed, reaching your release the hardest you’d ever had in your life, the relief you felt immeasurable. Your head threw back to his shoulder, and because your eyes were screwed shut you couldn’t see the way he stared at you with awe. Every muscle tensed and then released, causing you to go slack in his arms, your nerves buzzing with pleasure. 

Your ears rang too loudly to hear him groan your name as he felt you cum, and a few more thrusts of his hips was all it took to reach his own end. The sensation of him spasming inside of you rode out your waves of pleasure until it became too much. König, thankfully, seemed to realize this, and he pulled out of you, then easing your limp body to the bed carefully. 

Completely blissed out, you didn’t feel as König got off the bed, nor know how much time passed before he returned. All you knew was that suddenly the blanket was torn out from under you, before covering your bare body.

Even though every muscle in your body didn’t want to work, you forced yourself to sit upright and watch the large man, who was currently in the process of getting redressed. “You’re not staying?” You didn’t try to hide the obvious disappointment in your words. 

König stilled at that, turning to face you slowly. “Do you want me to stay?”

“Of course.” The words came out so easily, so honestly, that you nearly startled yourself with your honesty. 

Something like relief sagged his broad shoulders, and before long he was back beside your bed. You let him lay down first, as he did take up more space, before settling yourself in the crook of his arm. Well, it was more like you were half lying on top of him to keep from falling off the bed, but neither of you were complaining. König certainly wasn’t, his eyes crinkling in a poorly concealed smile. 

A few moments passed in silence, simply savoring the afterglow and the feeling of being in each other’s arms. Then, “Are you relaxed now?”

You snorted at that, lifting your head to look at him, shaking your head lightly. Fondly. “I suppose I am,” you agreed. “Though I am gonna be sore tomorrow for… other reasons.”

It was König’s turn to laugh now, the sound lighter than you expected. “I hope you are not expecting me to apologize. You were the one who asked for it.” You merely shrugged your shoulders in response, knowing he was right, but not wanting to give him the satisfaction of verbally admitting it. 

Every part of your body wanted to lay back down, but you had a different idea as you continued to observe König. He tracked every movement of your eyes, and you could see his brow furrow in confusion. Before he could say anything, though, you were speaking, so quietly you wondered if you had merely thought the words.

“Can I kiss you?”

And for the second time that night, König was at a loss, blinking at you like a deer in the headlights. But it seemed he’d already made up his mind, nodding lightly, the mask creasing with every movement of his head. 

Letting the blanket fall off you, you were quick to straddle his abdomen, eliciting a gasp from the Austrian. Tentatively, you let your fingers reach for the hem of the mask, scanning his eyes for any hesitations. When you were met with none, you flashed him a gracious smile, before pulling the cloth up right to his nose, not going further than he had before. 

His hands, which had fallen to his side, now ran up your thighs, before settling on your waist. Blue eyes danced across your face and your body, not able to decide which sight he liked better. You were quick to keep his attention on your mouth, though, as you planted one of your hands on his chest and leaned forward.

Taking your other hand, you let it trail up his neck before settling on his lower jaw, his stubble tickling your hand. He shuddered under your touch, lips parting in a soft gasp. Even with everything the two of you had done tonight, this felt the most intimate. 

When you pressed your lips against his, you couldn’t help the smile that tugged yours when he made another audible noise. A part of you wondered how long it had been since he’d been kissed, been touched this softly. If he’d let you, you’d remedy that. Gladly.

You kept the kiss short, but it promised more to come. Setting the mask back down, you pressed one last peck to his covered lips, unable to help yourself, before laying your head on his chest, keeping any comment about his fast heartbeat to yourself. “I hope you know I’ll be getting my revenge,” you said instead, hoping he didn’t realize it was just another way of saying you wanted this again. 

“I am looking forward to it, Schatz.”

Translations:

Schatz - treasure (term of endearment)

Sehr gut - very good

Gott - God

Du bist so schön - you are so beautiful

Du hast keine Idee, was ich sage - you have no idea what I am saying

Nur für mich - only for me

Nein - no

Gutes Mädchen - good girl

Scheiße - shit, fuck

Du fühlst- Gott, mein Schatz - you feel- God, my treasure

Mein Mädchen - my girl

[smileycarat]

delulu thoughts: joshua ver

joshua x reader

a/n: looks like i’m going to do a mini series of my delulu thoughts for each member, lmk if you are interested in being tagged? this one is more of an imagine than a headcannon? idk it’s more plot based haha, expect this one to be random

best friends to lovers trope?

joshua is just so…*sigh*

this man is just so dreamy and kind and aND AND

i for some reason get childhood best friends vibes from him, or someone that you have a deep and long past with

he’s just someone who has overall been there for you for the longest time, and yes he’s an idol now and all the more busy, but he will always make time for you

the realization that came to you regarding your feelings was one day that you were feeling down

joshua was there for you, as always, and doing what he does best which is give you advice and to comfort you

he sat next to you on the kitchen floor, and after you had calmed down enough, he asked you if it was okay if he could hug you

that is how you ended up on his lap, which was not something new to you due to your long lasting friendship

but his words of soft encouragement and the way he rubbed your back and petted the crown of your head felt so endearing

it was easy to get lost in his arms as he continued to do the soothing gestures and would occasionally murmur into your hairline how much you meant to him followed by a soft kiss there

you both had never shied away from affection, so one again, this wasn’t something out of the ordinary

“you carry too much weight on your plate sometimes, how long have you been feeling like this?” he would whisper into your hair

“for a while now”

he pulled back slightly to look at your face, and his lips turned down slightly and his eyes softened at the sad expression on your face

“you can always count on me to help you carry that weight” he says as he wiped your tears with his thumb

“but it’s not yours to-”

“no, i want you to be able to come to me for anything”

his gaze was so sincere and that overall brought a new wave of emotion causing you to wobbly smile at him through a new set of tears

that was the day that you realized that joshua meant more to you than the longtime best friend he’s always been to you

things continue as normal as they can be with your newfound realization

you both still meet up for lunch every other weekday, depending on if he’s free and if he can meet you during your lunch hour at your workplace

he always brings food with him, don’t even try arguing with him about it

the receptionists are already very familiar with his presence at your workplace as he greets them with a smile, and they can’t help but swoon

as he meets you in your office, you hastily clean up your work area as he takes containers out of the bags of the meal he brought

will open your containers for you and prep them with all necessary sides and utensils

also always brings a straw for you that he quickly plops into your drink that he opened for you

it’s not an abnormal sight for someone to walk into your office to drop off something and see him feed you the first bite of his food with his chopsticks

he just likes to take care of you

when at the bar, he will watch the bartender to make sure your drink gets done correctly and that it’s safe for you

yes he’s listening to you ramble about your day at work, but he’s keeping an eye on your drink

you both often take sips of each others drinks

will often pull you to his side and wrap his arm around your shoulders as you converse with friends

the members are used to your displays of affection, so forehead kisses are not at all new to them

what is new is the small kiss joshua places under your ear after a good amount of drinks

and then the few more that joshua places on the corner of your lips as the night progresses

soonyoung has to be pulled away when he gets noticeably excited

fans also knew about your existence as one of joshua’s long time friends

however they do have a field day when pictures of you both grocery shopping surface

in one of which joshua is pictured pushing a shopping cart while you read a list

in another picture where you’re laughing at an expression joshua pulled

and then lastly there’s a video where joshua pecks you on the lips after you toss in what is known to be his favorite snack into the shopping cart

you both never publicly confirm anything, but you are featured more often in the background of his instagram posts with members

fans particularly loved the one photo he posted at the end of a series of multiple random photos

you were on the last slide holding one half of a popsicle stick, and you were looking at the ground dejectedly where the other half of your frozen popsicle was melting

he captioned the post “summer favorites ❤️”

taglist

@fandems

[avalost]

All Things Burn Clean

fandoms: Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Pillars of Eternity characters: Tristian, Durance rating: T warnings: This work contains plot spoilers for BOTH games. Also, Durance is Durance.

summary: In a strange place, two priests meet by a fire. Their discussion turns to faith -- and it reveals that the trials they've faced in their journeys are oddly similar. (3274 words)

notes: For Durance, this takes place after the second Watcher vision, when the Watcher has spoken to him about seeing one of the symbols on his staff dying. For Tristian, this takes place after you receive The Varnhold Vanishing quest, but before the Baron/ess travels to Varnhold to investigate. At this point in their timelines, neither character knows the full truth about his own situation, and each has some (wrong) assumptions.

I mostly just wanted Durance to meet Tristian and call Sarenrae a whore. :)

Read here or on AO3!

-----

There are parts of the mortal experience that are… unpleasant. Some are obvious – I will not trouble your imagination with them now. Some are more benign, but bothersome still. The brief sensation of falling, for instance, as one drifts to sleep. A twitch; a jolt of fear; then equal parts relief and irritation as one burrows oneself again in the covers, wondering why such a thing happens at all.

But for one mortal, a host of emotions followed. Guilt. Sorrow. Regret. Long-honed instinct moving muscles that were now useless, trying to turn in midair, to open his wings. The stark reminder that those wings had been taken from him, disturbing the peace of that pleasant place between sleep and wakefulness where it was possible to forget for a time.

Only this time, the sensation of falling did not stop.

Tristian was hurtling through the air. His stomach lurched into his throat. Wind whipped his hair. Panic crashed into his consciousness, driving the air from his lungs.

There was something screaming in his ears. Were his eyes open, or squeezed shut? Sarenrae –

As suddenly as it began, the feeling of free-fall was gone, replaced by the pressure of something solid and silty against his palms and his knees. The impact had not come. He panted shallowly, his mouth gone dry, his ribcage heaving. Forgetting dignity, he let his limbs go slack, collapsing to his stomach. Every bit of solid ground beneath him was a blessing. His fingers dug into it gratefully; it felt like dirt.

His eyes drifted open. Only black greeted them, no different than when they had been shut. Pushing himself to his elbows, he swiveled his head around, straining to make out any shape, but the darkness around him was complete. Looking down, he curled his hand in the dirt. He could not make out even the outline of his fingers.

He blinked, and blinked again. He rubbed an eye with the back of his hand. There was nothing.

An echo of his earlier panic returned to him, and, like the tide drags in the flotsam, a new thought came with it.

Nyrissa.

It was her way to speak to him in dreams. Perhaps it was convenient for her to do so, or perhaps she enjoyed taking advantage of one of the countless things his strange mortal body now required. He had learned quickly that, no matter how he tried, he could not forgo sleep to avoid her.

Before, she simply waited for him to fall asleep, then invaded his dreams. It was a cruel new trick, to tear him from his bed like this. And it must have taken a significant amount of magic to transport him to… wherever he was now.

And she’s taken my sight. First my wings, now my eyes. What more can she cut from me?

What have I done to displease her this time?

Tristian lay his head back down, resting his forehead on his curled fist. Any moment now, she would appear and gloat, and rage, and list his transgressions. At least he would be spared the sight of her face; a small blessing.

He could not say how long he lay there in the dirt. His own ragged breathing seemed so loud. Time stretched. A discomfort started to form somewhere in his back. And still, no one came.

After a time, he began to feel foolish. Once again he opened his eyes, and once again there was darkness. He pushed himself to his knees, then to his feet, reaching down to brush off his robes by touch. Something at the edge of his vision caught his eye, a spark, a glimmer –

He spun. A fire! A fire, far in the distance, and he could see it!

An incredulous laugh burst from him, a strange sound that died quickly in the black silence. He turned all around, searching for anything else, but there was nothing; no shapes, no shadows to make out in the unending black. He looked up. If there was a sky here, it was devoid of stars or moon.

What is this place…?

Tristian turned back to the fire, unwilling to let it out of his sight. He reached into his pocket and, to his relief, his fingers closed around his carving of Sarenrae. The familiar curves of the wood radiated a gentle, comforting warmth. He drew it out and whispered a prayer of gratitude.

There was no answer.

He was alone.

He sighed. Perhaps Nyrissa waited for him by the fire. But there was nowhere else to go.

-----

The fire was ringed with fallen logs. As Tristian approached, he saw not a nymph, but a man sitting hunched, staring into the flames. Long, oily brown hair cascaded from the stranger’s head; an unruly beard struggled against the leather cord trying to contain it; the robes he wore looked as though they had been pulled from the fire, blackened and singed. The man’s face had not been spared whatever misfortunes had befallen him – the skin was cratered, pock-marked with the remembrance of some affliction. It was disquieting to see the firelight dance across its uneven surface.

Tristian’s footsteps slowed, but too late. The stranger did not move, but his eyes jumped sharply to meet Tristian’s. There was something predatory in that gaze. “Whose hand dragged you here, then?” the man asked, his voice rough.

Where was Nyrissa? Was this stranger one of her servants? She had forbidden Tristian from speaking of her to anyone… No, it was too dangerous to assume. Lies fell so easily from his traitor’s tongue now. “None but my own,” he said, “though I am unsure where I am, or how I came to be here.”

“Hmph. That makes two of us, then,” the stranger grunted. He turned his attention back to the flames as they licked at the firewood. “But it seems that fire still burns here. And in time, all things burn clean.”

It was not exactly an invitation, but it was cold in the darkness, and the warmth of the fire was hard to resist. Cautiously, Tristian approached a log and sat, keeping a fair distance between himself and the stranger.

The man made no move to stop him. From here, Tristian could see sweat beading liberally on his forehead, trickling down his temples, collecting at the tip of his nose. Had he been sitting by the fire so long? Tristian shivered, and held his hands out to warm them. As he did, the stranger’s keen eyes roamed over him once more, taking in the wide sleeves of his robes and the carving of Sarenrae that he had laid in his lap. “You call yourself holy, then?” he asked.

Tristian hesitated. Once, the answer would have come easily. Now… The stranger’s questions were benign enough, yet somehow they dug under Tristian’s skin. The silence hung between them, expectant. He chose his words carefully. “My name is Tristian. I am a priest of merciful Sarenrae.”

“Merciful!” The man barked a laugh, grating and unpleasant. “Mercy… Mercy is far from the gods’ minds.” He shifted, propping a hand on his knee, looking thoughtful. “Sarenrae, you say? Not one I’ve heard of. More gods out there than knees to knock together at their altars... Could be there’s one that doles out mercy. Could also be another whore, and leave you on the side of the road with naught but the breeze to caress your cock.”

Tristian stammered. Everlight, forgive this man his words, and grant me the patience to –

“Though from the look of you, you’ve never been far from this Sarenrae’s teat. Never been tried in the fire.” He stuck the end of his staff into the fire and shifted the logs, making a plume of sparks rise into the darkness. Where had that staff come from? Tristian was sure he had never taken his eyes from the stranger, yet his hands had been empty.

The staff was a sinister thing, its wood so black it looked burned, inlaid with symbols glowing molten orange all along its length and decorating its head. He withdrew it from the flames and laid it across his lap.

It was as if the man had been incomplete without his staff, but was now whole. The staff, the robes… Realization washed over Tristian. “I did not catch your name, nor which faith you follow,” he offered.

“I follow no one, whelp, and you’d be wise to do the same. Forge your own path. Face your own demons. Look them in the eye, so you know them as well as they know you.” The stranger’s gaze bored into Tristian.

“I meant no offense! I just meant – your staff, and your robes… I thought those were the robes of a priest.”

The man looked down at the staff resting across his knees. His eyes followed its length, eventually fixing on one point – one of the glowing symbols, a circle made of twelve smaller circles. One of the circles burned brightly; the rest were dim, flickering like fading embers. “Aye, they were.” His voice went quiet. “Once.”

And in that quiet, there was pain. Nearly imperceptible, but an eternity spent listening to mortals’ prayers and ferrying them to their destinations had honed Tristian’s ear. Sometimes, a prayer did not address a god. Sometimes, a prayer did not ask for help. Sometimes, a prayer was a single word, said quietly to a stranger near the fire.

“Did something happen?” he asked gently.

The strange man flinched. His brows drew down, every bit the predator once more, and for a moment his grimace showed yellowed teeth. “I am a missionary, a priest of Magran. I walk her path. I submit to her trials. I wield her holy flame, and give its gift to any I find deserving… or needful.”

Magran…?

A goddess Tristian had never heard of. When the man said he did not know of Sarenrae, Tristian thought he must be from a remote land, perhaps Tian Xia or Arcadia… but where could he be from, if the place had gods that not even a deva knew? And when Tristian asked about this goddess, the man growled as if the question prodded at a deep wound in him.

“It sounds like a hard faith to follow,” Tristian said.

The man grunted appreciatively. “Not for the faint of heart. The road is long, and I have walked it a long time.”

“I do not know of Magran, but perhaps that isn’t a surprise, as you have not heard of Sarenrae. Still, Magran must be pleased to have a servant so devoted to her.” Tristian watched him.

To his surprise, the priest did not bristle that time. “Hah! She is a fickle bitch. She does not want devotion. What she wants is someone who can withstand the heat of her loins.”

Tristian coughed. “You are… free with your words when you describe her. You do not think it will provoke her ire?”

“Hmph. She is the goddess of trials. Let her come. There is nothing she could do to me that she has not already done.”

There it was again – that glint of pain. “What has she –”

“What do you know of devotion, anyway?” The priest snarled, spittle flying from his lips. He turned to face Tristian. “How far would you go to follow your Sarenrae’s path? Would you walk into fire, if she asked it of you? Would you walk into ruin?”

Would I –? “I…”

“As I thought. You watch yourself. The gods use us, then cast us away when we are no longer of use.” The priest turned his gaze back to his staff.

No longer of use…

The silence, the unbearable silence, greeting his every effort to reach the divine. The weight of his limbs. The cold so deep within him, cold like he’d never felt before…

“But you know this.”

The priest was looking at him knowingly, studying him. Something of his thoughts must have shown on his face. He bit his own tongue, cursing his carelessness, then spoke cautiously. “It is… possible to… to lose the grace of the gods. And if that happens, then – then one must pray for their forgiveness.”

“Is that what your goddess teaches you?” The man brayed a laugh. “Mercy, forgiveness… Magran does not deal in such petty currency. Not like your Sarenrae. Have you managed to pray your way to her forgiveness, then?”

“No.” Barely above a whisper, slipping from his lips before he could stop it. A plea of his own. A prayer.

The priest continued to watch him, eyes skewering him, peering past the mantle of lies he shrouded himself with. His single word had tumbled forth from beyond that shroud, and as more words poured out, he did not stop them. “I disobeyed her. I acted rashly. I should have called the others, but I wanted to do it myself. I wanted the glory for fixing it, me and no one else. I wanted her – her warmth…”

“And the trial was not what you thought. The trial was not a test of your abilities, but your nature.”

“I was so foolish… If only she would hear me. I would never disobey her again. I would do exactly as she asked, everything she commanded, if only…”

“Mercurial, they are. Even if you do all that she asks…” The priest heaved a sigh like a bellows. “You can do all she asks, and she’ll still cast you out.” His voice was quiet again.

“No. That cannot be. There must be a way –” Tristian shook his head desperately, but the priest was not looking at him anymore. He stared into the fire, but he hunched down, and his eyes had grown distant. “Is that… Is this what happened to you? You were cast away? By your – by Magran?”

The silence lingered between them, broken only by the crackling of the wood. The priest spoke slowly. “I did all she asked of me… Me, and the others. Twelve of us. We crafted the bomb from fragments of our very souls… Yet when we sought to feel the warmth of her approval…” His finger traced a symbol on his staff, the symbol made of twelve circles. “There was nothing but silence.”

“You did all she asked? And she punished you still?” Terrible cold came over Tristian. “Then… there is no hope for me.”

“Do you walk the path of your goddess, or do you merely prattle her words?” The priest’s voice thundered like the crack of a great log splintering in the flames. Tristian jumped. “When you see the trial for what it is, you throw yourself on the ground and grovel?” He drove the butt of the staff into the ground so suddenly that beads of sweat flew from his scowling face. “I did not wallow, when Magran stopped speaking. I set out to show her that I am worthy. You must show your Sarenrae that you are equal to the challenge she has given. Show her you are a man, not some whelp, and you are worthy of her womanly heat.”

“I – I cannot! I had no choice! I was – imprisoned. Threatened. I had to do as I was told, or never feel Sarenrae’s light again…”

“Is that all? And it broke you?” Contempt filled the man’s voice. “If the one you pray to gives you fire, you must walk through it. Burn for her, so that nothing can burn you again.”

Burn for her… Tristian had been created from Sarenrae’s light. Once, that light had been all that he’d known. Her realm was suffused with it, and even when he roamed beyond its bounds, a fragment of it lived in him. When Nyrissa took his wings and extinguished that spark… He was so cold. So heavy. Each dawn he prayed for Sarenrae’s deliverance, and each prayer was met with silence. And so he had followed Nyrissa’s orders, stacking his transgressions one upon another, building himself a profane tower to climb back to Nirvana…

And still, he was afraid. He feared to face his goddess, to know her wrath. None were beyond redemption before Sarenrae, but the shame of what he had done in Nyrissa’s service – he feared that it would burn him alive before he could ever be redeemed. Yet this stranger’s words... If the one you pray to gives you fire, you must walk through it. Could he walk through the fire of his disgrace to stand before the Cleansing Light? Could he burn for her? Would her sacred flame reach the cold place within him, and warm it once more?

Tristian was trembling. He breathed in, and his lungs expanded gratefully, unfurling like wings. He felt weightless, dizzy.

The strange priest had turned away, and busied himself jabbing the end of his staff into the logs to stoke the fire once more. Its light played across his features, outlining him against the black nothingness beyond. A priest of a goddess unknown to Tristian. Uncouth, irascible, but… wise. With a tenacity that Tristian had rarely seen in mortals. Surely his goddess had not severed his link to her for a few unpleasant words. Why, then…?

Tristian exhaled. “You are right,” he finally said, “more right than you know. If Magran is the goddess of trials, then she could not ask for a more devoted servant. You see my trial clearly, when I did not. You follow her tenets with such determination, despite her silence. I will pray to Sarenrae for you. I will pray that your path leads you to Magran’s light once more.”

The priest fumbled with his staff, nearly dropping it into the flames. He caught it ungracefully, and when he turned to Tristian, his face had shifted. His brows eased, smoothing the creases of his face, and he looked startled. For several moments, he said nothing, his mouth opening and closing again. “Hmph,” he finally grunted. “Her light… I hadn’t thought… It is strange, that her road has led me into the dark…”

“She gave you a task, and you fulfilled it,” Tristian pressed. “I do not pretend to know the will of the divine, but I cannot see why she should forsake you for that.”

The priest was watching him with keen interest now, but there was a hunger in his eyes that had not been there before. A hunger for connection, for answers. For the first time, Tristian saw him clearly. That hunger was burning him up from the inside, buried deep within him, in the same place where Tristian had nothing but a cold dark emptiness.

He helped me. Perhaps I can help him… “Could it be that you have already completed your trial?”

“Completed my…” The priest clutched his staff so tightly his knuckles went white. “No. It can’t be. If the trial is complete, then the road…”

Nyrissa. The thought returned like an insistent tide. No, I do not believe this is her interference. However… He spoke carefully. “Sometimes… there are complications, with the gods. Obstacles that deafen them to our prayers. Sometimes, we must take new paths to return to their grace. Unexpected paths. Perhaps… the road you are on now is such a path. I hope it leads you to Magran, stranger.”

The priest held Tristian’s gaze for a long moment. All traces of the predator were gone from his eyes. He looked somehow more whole, more… mortal. “...Durance,” he finally said. “You may call me Durance. You have been more honest than most, Tristian. You have… Hmph. I hope… May your trials reveal the truth to you.”

The fire crackled quietly in the darkness.

[samtheowl96]

I was reading this with a very screwed up brow. I am absolutely baffled. I'm not sure if it's -better- than HOTD, but... everything else?

Look, I read, A LOT. Mostly fantasy. I love the art form that is writing. And as a fellow writer, it is a lot of work and takes skill. He wasn't always a good writer; if you've read his earlier works, you know what I am talking about. Ouch. Robert Jordan has his... misgivings, yes, but he is a *good writer* and WoT brings a lot to the table. He kept writing and kept trying and eventually, somewhere along the line, the stars aligned and WoT began. Though I don't know if we can forgive him the slog ;) ;). The story and world contain complexity with the wheel weaving many interlaced plots and each time you read it, you catch bits you hadn't previously. You know what's redundant in fantasy? Oh, look, two kingdoms are clashing, and the orphan is going to become the heroine and save us (perhaps they're even secretly royal). Wait, what about this one? Damn, another small village heroine setting out to defeat an encroaching malicious entity. Oh and the map is shaped like England. In both stories.

Well Rand -is- in a way that "orphan" but he is more than that. He works really really hard to try to unite people. He tries to get people to see their common humanity, set aside their differences. He prioritizes schools and I think if I remember correctly, libraries. He wants to preserve our knowledge should he fail in his task. While dealing with PTSD and Light knows what else. His actions have reasons behind them and he goes through small personality changes continuously throughout the books that amount to some very large changes. We -see- his growth and his struggles with that growth. He is human. And I think that is something R.J captures well. How can you not want to capture what it is to be human when you've seen war?

It's about friendship and love. Heck, writing about a polyamorous couple (even though it is, as always, yet another common polyam trope), is really forward for the time he wrote this. There are quite a few elements that were forward.

It's about mental health, misogyny, and toxic masculinity, and the struggles that come with those. Each character has their own experiences with these. Not many fantasy books I've read talk about PTSD and men and emotions in the way he does (look at how he writes about saidin and saidar).

There's also a Trans Character Lite (tm)??? That's a big thing.

I really enjoy the diversity of characters and cultures. It isn't yet another fantasy series with mostly white characters. Related to that is how he handles the perception of time and how everything is connected. While he was in the military, he came into contact with several different cultures and he weaved his experiences and perceptions into the story. (Though I do not claim to know how well he did that/how culturally sensitive he was).

You know what makes a story really strong and is essential? Relatability. If the reader cannot relate to the story or the character(s) or the world or anything, it is not a good story. I find a lot of relatability in WoT.

And this is all very different depending on if you're looking at his works through a "today lens" or a "when it was published lens". The two are different times & cultures. A change in cultural context does have an impact.

I could go on.

But yeah okay I guess WoT is utter ass and boring and just Yet Another Fantasy Series, blah blah blah. What do we know? Sorry, my bad.

(What I've said is pulled from my memory and impressions, so I apologize in advance if any of it is not 100% correct. I have a cat on my lap that is sleeping and trapping me.)

Not gonna say anything on the writing comment but everything else said here is baffling to me. Doesn't bring anything new to the genre? It's a story that's been told dozens of times before? People don't come to WoT for the story? Just tell me you've never talked to a Wheel of Time fan before in your life

For context these tweets were in response to someone saying they wish WoT got as much buzz as HoTD

[peachsayshi]

Entangle (Part 1)

Geto Suguru x Female!Reader x Nanami Kento; Gojo Satoru (mentioned); Ijichi Kiyotaka (mentioned). 

Summary: everyone is captivated by Gojo’s pretty new wife including the two sorcerers that work closest to him - but after the honeymoon phase ends, Geto and Nanami know how much you’re being neglected.

A/N: I will not let go of this idea - so consider this an AU where Suguru doesn’t go evil and winds up teaching at Jujutsu Tech. There is a small plot, but I just needed an excuse to write this threesome. (Part 2 is the extra smutty smut) I hope you enjoy it! hehe (comments are appreciated as always) [MINORS & AGELESS BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT]

TAGS: dub/con?; dom/sub undertones; manipulation; touch starved; spit kink; grabby hands all over the place; cheating; mention of past emotional abuse/trauma; corruption kink; voyerism

You pressed your lips together in a firm like, watching the sales rep swipe the numerous expensive clothes through the register while her co-worker bagged the items. The price increased with each beep, and all you could do is mindlessly tap the black credit card between your fingers impatiently.

Wasted potential.

Those two words that you overheard Gojo mindlessly babble to his best friend had you simmering in a bubble of irritation. Sorcery didn’t come naturally to you like the rest of your family, and that phrase was shoved down your throat for the most part of your life - something that your husband didn’t know.

When you were child, you were placed on a pedestal due to the immeasurable amount of cursed energy you possessed. Your family favored you above everyone else, wanting nothing more than to see you flourish. Those were years of bliss because they showered you with affection and pandered to your every word, all because they viewed you as a walking divinity. 

However, over time they realized that you were erratic and untrainable when trying to use your cursed energy, destroying everything in your path as you barely managed to contain your powers. They didn’t care what kind of physical toll it took on your body, shaking their heads in disbelief by stating how “shameful” it was that the vessel possessing your “glorious” abilities was “so incredibly weak”.

You were ostracized by your community the minute they saw how invaluable you were and began treating you differently by stripping away any admiration they had for you. That emotional pain seared into you as a child, understanding that nobody loved you for who you are but only for the abilities that you potentially possessed. 

From then on your family handled you as if you were porcelain doll catching dust on a shelf, only pulling you out for display as a pretty face that they could present to the rest of their community on their own terms. They would brag about the strength you wielded without actually showing a single demonstration, dangling you in front of their peers to glorify their lineage.

This is how they preferred you: silent and obedient, doing little to remind them how much of a disappointment you actually were. That’s when you began closing yourself off, become more reclusive and introverted while realizing that you only had yourself to rely on.

Your life had no meaning until the proposal.

When Satoru Gojo, the strongest jujutsu sorcerer, approached your parents requesting your hand in marriage, everybody was stunned.

“Why would this be a surprise?” he teased, eyes glued to yours from across the living room. “I can sense her from miles away. Combine that with her beauty, and I think I found my perfect match…”

You family hesitated, not wanting to release you from the their chains just yet. After all, you were still prized in their eyes even if on a superficial level. Your powers weren’t something they would easily bargain, not even to the only living member of the Gojo clan.

Your future husband changed their minds with a dowry that swayed your already wealthy family into saying yes. Within a matter of minutes, hands were shaken while words were exchanged and you watched yourself being parceled from one person to the next.

You were married within the month.

Gojo maintained a safe distance at first, giving you the chance to acclimate to the grandeur of his home and finding comfort in his company. You got to know his students and friends, but still had a hard time making any real connections with anyone outside the marriage. Gojo was infatuated by you, but seemed more interested in your capabilities than anything else and had a natural charm that melted your heart. Soon, his advances became less platonic, swaying you with kisses and caresses until you finally found yourself consummating this arranged union.

One night after making love while tangled in each other’s arms, your husband brushed his lips over your own and whispered:

“You should let me train you.”

You froze, your heart nearly stopping at the thought of reliving some of the worst days of your life. You were terrified of giving up your control by tapping into the unpredictable energy coursing through you. You had to shake away the ghosts of the innocent lives lost, concluding that for the sake of yourself and the people around you, you would politely decline his request.

Satoru’s disappointment paired with his sudden disinterest in you.

The marriage that you found yourself blissfully romanticizing turned cold after only three months.

Satoru allowed you to live freely in his home, binding you to his name as a way of keeping an eye on you. He rarely spent any time with you alone and sporadically would share the bed with you at night. His way of showing affection was by handing you his platinum credit card before kissing you on the temple and stating that you should buy yourself something nice whenever you grew restless.Throughout the entire experience you didn’t complain, finding yourself tolerating the unfortunate circumstances that life gave you. Your marriage was a sham and not the escape you prayed for.

You were just trophy for somebody else to parade around at their convenience.

An overwhelming sadness overcame you as you handed over the credit card to the sales lady. Her eyes widened at the charged amount but she tried to play it off, while two more staff members showed up in assisting to carry the packaged bags of designer purses, clothes and shoes that you purchased.

“Thank you for shopping with us! We hope to see you again soon!” the lady politely bowed.

You forced a smile before replying, “thank you for being so helpful today…”

You exited the department store with a heavy weight on your shoulders, your stomach twisting with dissatisfaction as a reminder that nothing in this world would make up for how hollow you felt.

***

“I don’t know why you’re telling me any of this...” Nanami sighed, arms crossed over his chest as he fixed his gaze outside the window watching the cars drive by. 

An amused smirk twitched Suguru’s lips, he glanced over to the man beside him watching Nanami process the information he had just relayed. 

“You asked why Gojo bothered marrying her in the first place and I gave you an answer,” Suguru calmly replied. “Just so you’re aware that it wasn’t all for nothing...” 

“If she’s not interested in honing her skills then why does he still force her to stay?” the blond haired sorcerer pressed, a look of annoyance flickering across his face. “We are all quite aware with how miserable she is...” 

Suguru narrowed his gaze, unable to stop the grin from spreading, “you like her don’t you?” 

Nanami blinked once, then twice before straightening his back and clearing his throat. His shoulders tensed but he neither confirmed nor denied Suguru’s question which only validated the black haired sorcerer’s assumption that his co-worker was enamored by you. 

“Don’t confuse my empathy for something else,” Nanami managed to mumble, but the lack of conviction in his words spoke volume. 

Suguru chuckled noting the subtle pink that highlighted the tips of Nanami’s cheekbones. You somehow managed to captivate almost everyone the minute you entered Gojo’s life. There was no denying that those closest to the sorcerer found your presence fascinating.

For somebody who had the strength that outmatched almost everybody around you, you were extremely docile and timid. 

And for whatever reason, that only made the blood rush between Suguru’s legs.

Lucky for him, his best friend was keen on sharing all the inside information about the privacy of your marriage. 

Satoru had expectations that weren’t fulfilled. When he realized that you weren’t going to offer the part of you he truly wanted, he grew bored of your relationship. Suguru knew that Satoru was only in love with the idea that you represented to him: a breathtaking sorcerer with the power to match the one who could channel infinity with his fingers and viewed the world with six eyes. 

Satoru had a problem with saying every little thought that crossed his mind. Suguru was pretty sure that his best friend sensed you earlier today when the two of them were conversing, which meant that you heard your dear husband claim you as “merely a pretty face with wasted potential.” 

Even though Satoru found himself a partner who he deemed as his “true match”, the man showed little interest in cherishing this sacred marriage since you didn’t consider yourself his equal. Suguru found that gap in your union interesting because it gave room for somebody else to intervene. 

Suguru knew that Satoru wouldn’t care if you chose to sleep with anybody else. It’s unfortunate really, especially since Suguru was the only other person who knew just how much of a delight you were in the sheets. Satoru left no details to the imagination, taking his sweet time to worship and pleasure your body while leaving you speechless as you unraveled underneath him.

Suguru questioned why your husband felt compelled to disappear at night to find company in the arms of other lovers while his perfectly beautiful wife slept all alone in her bed. He often thought about tarnishing your elegance, curious to know what it would be like to watch you break.

Suguru never denied his interest in you but found it intriguing that he wasn’t the only one who was keen on involving themselves in your relationship. He’s been paying attention to how often Nanami visits you nowadays, with his co-worker always making up some excuse about checking in on behalf of Gojo’s request. 

Such a vulnerable situation right at the tip of his fingers; one that he could easily manipulate at any given notice. 

“I’m sure there’s more to it than just empathy,” Suguru continued, arching his brow as he turned his neck to face the blonde. “You’re not the only one that considers her, you know? Isolated in that big house with nobody around...especially at night...” 

Nanami clenched his jaw, pushing his frames up the bridge of his nose as he met Suguru’s dark eyes. 

“You and I both know we don’t have much in common,” Suguru proceeded his voice dropping to almost a whisper, “but in this situation it seems like our interests have aligned.” 

Nanami hummed, “there’s not much we can do about that, is there?”  

“If you say so,” Suguru replied with a shrug, “it’s sad that Satoru would easily disregard her. Sometimes he acts like a spoiled child. Meanwhile, she spends all her time mindlessly blowing his money because there is nothing else satisfying her. I’m sure if the right opportunity presented itself, she wouldn’t deny having some company around...” 

Nanami pursed his lips, reading between the lines of Suguru’s words. The two of them sat in silence for a while waiting for the other to consider the proposition that hung in the air. Ijichi turned the corner, the map on his screen indicating that he was only five minutes away from the department store where the group were meant to pick you up to drive you back home. 

Nanami couldn’t explain why he was suddenly so gripped by you, an innocent siren drawing him in and plaguing his thoughts more often than he would like to admit. Just the thought of you alone could get the man hard within seconds, and he often found himself desperately needing to relieve the strain between his legs. 

“If an opportunity did present itself,” Nanami finally spoke, “what makes you think I would be interested in partaking?” 

Suguru raised one brow, slightly taken aback by Nanami’s question. 

“Because at the end of the day you’re still a man,” he teased, “why deny yourself the chance of getting exactly what you want?”

***

The backseat of the car was cramped.

To your left is your husband’s gorgeous best friend and on the opposite side your husband’s equally handsome subordinate. Gojo spoke highly of both men, regarding that Suguru was not only smart but incredibly loyal, while Nanami’s cold personality came hand in hand with a conscious heart.

You felt small between them as broad shoulders and muscular thighs took up most of the space around you. The lack of room made you terribly aware of their proximity every time you accidentally brushed against them.

The car ride was silent at first until Suguru lured you into a conversation that had you second guessing your thoughts and stammering over your words. You weren’t sure why he suddenly began playfully teasing you, but it only resulted in you growing nervous next to him.

He asked you about your day, and what you picked up on your little shopping spree - each question laced with a slightly condescending tone, but you were forcing yourself not to read into it.

Nanami remained quiet at first, appearing to distract himself by taking in the view of the outside. You were hoping he would interject to deter the black haired sorcerer from focusing all of his attention on you. However, when you glanced over to catch Nanami’s eye, you were met with the sight of his perfectly angular jaw instead.

You were starting to feel hot with Suguru now pressing the frame of his large body up against your shoulder, looking down at you with wicked eyes and trying to hide a sly grin.

“You seem a little off today, is everything okay?” he whispered, upturning his brows as he gazed sympathetically into your eyes.

Your throat tightened, and you clenched your hands into fists hating how that one small gesture was enough to crumble your insides. You were alone for the most part, with no close friends or family who you could turn to. You knew that Suguru wasn’t doting on you in anyway, but even just the sliver of false care managed to get the adrenaline pumping in your veins. You felt those dark irises pierce into you, nearly forcing you to catch your breath as you were unable to look away.

You shook your head, “I-I’m fine…”

“You sure?” He cooed, before dipping his head down to brush his lips against your ear. “I’m sorry about what Satoru said earlier,” he murmured in a low voice, “he tends to run his mouth without thinking.”

You froze, your heart thumping wildly in your chest as you found yourself glancing up ahead to Ijichi driving, completely ignorant to the scene unfolding in the back.

“I don’t…I don’t know what you’re…”

“Little piece of advice, sweetheart….” Suguru interrupted, placing a firm hand over your knee and giving you a gentle squeeze. “Don’t play dumb - your husband can’t stand it, and neither can I.”

You shifted in your seat, hoping that the subtle movement would brush off his palm.

Was there a reason that this man was choosing to push your buttons? Did you say something to him to instigate this behavior? Or maybe, this is your husband’s idea of putting your own faithfulness to the test…

“What goes in my marriage is none of your business as far as I am concerned,” you bit back, a flicker of annoyance highlighting your face which only made Suguru glow with amusement.

“Your husband and I don’t keep secrets from one another,” Suguru reassured, watching the conviction fall from your face. “Take my words as friendly advice. Satoru didn’t marry you because he wanted an obedient little housewife, and yet, that’s all you’re turning out to be…”

The heat rushed to your cheeks with every muscle tensing from his wicked words. Tears pricked your eyes, not out of sadness, but frustration as you were growing tired of what everybody else seemed to be expecting from you.

Why was he bringing this up? In front of Ijichi?! In front of Nanami?!

“You have no shame,” you blurted, folding your arms over your chest as you attempted to lean away.

Suguru rubbed small circles on your knee with his thumb, his expression shifting to soften his features. “I’m not trying to upset you…”

“Leave her alone,” Nanami mumbled under his breath, catching both your attentions when he spoke.

A glint sparkled in Suguru’s eye but he merely carried on his conversation.

“She’s a tough girl,” he egged on, “If she makes Satoru nervous, I’m pretty sure she can handle herself around us…”

Your eyes widened but Suguru’s statement caused Nanami to angle his body towards you, curiosity masking his sharp features.

“What are you talking about?”

Suguru’s hand was still on your knee, only this time he began gliding his palm up and down your thigh like he was already familiar with your body.

“Keep your guard up, Nanamin. Rumor has it she has the ability to control the minds of sorcerers and curses, including her powerful husband. She can have us on our knees if she chooses. Isn’t that right?”

Your mouth went dry, the space around you closing in and you felt dizzy breathing in the cologne of the two men by your side. You looked up at Nanami from under your lashes, meeting the eyes of the blonde haired sorcerer and noticing a heat pooling in those warm hazel orbs.

“I haven’t-that’s not…” you stammered, forcing yourself to get a grip to explain yourself. “I have never been successful at it.”

A whisper came from your left, as if it was the devil tempting you to confront your sins.

“But you have done it, right? Tapped into the mind of somebody else? Controlled their thoughts, their movements, their powers…”

Suguru’s sensual voice sent a shiver down your spine exposing a darkness from within him.

“Yes,” you admitted through gritted teeth. “I don’t have the capabilities of wielding it. It…it takes a toll on me…and the ones I…the ones that I…”

You inhaled sharply, an image of dying and decayed bodies at the forefront of your mind - the sacrifices who continue to haunt you and remind you of what you did to their lives for the sake of your extraordinary gift. Goosebumps ran up and down your arms, thinking of the nightmares that poisoned your mind until you felt a gentle caress brush your cheek that made your eyes flutter back to the present.

The touch came from Nanami, whose soft gesture contrasted the tension that  strained along his jaw and neck. 

“Hey, it’s okay…” he soothed, his focus flickering to Suguru who gave him a nod of acknowledgement. “You don’t have to explain yourself…”

“Satoru doesn’t realize how good he has it with you...” Suguru pressed, an unspoken message transferring between the pair. “He doesn’t like taking no for an answer, which is what you did when you declined to hide the most unique part of who you are. The part of you that we can all understand...”

You felt Nanami circle his fingers around the back of your neck, his thumb stroking the nape as he nodded his head in agreement to what Suguru had to say. 

“Don’t take his absence as anything else other than him being stubborn…” Suguru reasoned, “Three months is a long time to carry on this tantrum of his. A long time to leave you in the lurch…”

“Has it really been that long?” Nanami whispered, his deep voice making you squeeze your thighs together and trapping Suguru’s hand unknowingly. 

“When was the last time your dear husband conversed with you? Shared a meal with you? Spent the night with you...” Suguru wondered, “...we are ashamed watching him leave his ravishing bride all to herself…” 

You sighed, subconsciously relaxing your shoulder blades as you melted underneath the attention of both men. You still couldn’t quite grasp that you were being seduced by your husband’s closest confidants, fighting against your morals in wanting to stop them and your petty desire to punish Satoru for treating you so cruelly. 

“Always so quiet...” Suguru stated with mild irritation, firming his grip around your thigh as tugged on one leg to spread you for him. “Are you really just going to let us take advantage of you like this?” 

“Watch how you speak to her, I won’t repeat myself,” Nanami sternly interjected, prompting Suguru to shoot him a glare. 

As formidable as Suguru looked in that moment, Nanami appeared unmoved by his superior. He wanted to protect you from Suguru’s obvious attempt of crossing boundaries that would upset you,  but you acknowledged that Nanami wasn’t resigning to the situation playing out before him. 

“You’re lucky we have a gentleman in our midst,” Suguru addressed you while refusing to tear away his eyes from his blonde haired counterpart. “I can’t say the same for myself...” 

“Don’t confuse my respect for decency,” Nanami snapped, gently squeezing your neck as his fingers traveled underneath your jaw. He held your face, delicately turning your head to his side. He studied you like you were a work of art, making your chest rise and fall with each breath before adding onto Suguru’s list of questions. 

“When was the last time your husband kissed you?” he posed, while his thumb outlined your bottom lip. The dazed expression on your face only feeding into the ravenous desire rattling his brain. 

“We-uhm...we haven’t been intimate in a while...” you murmured shyly, blinking back your confusion as you were trying to adjust the reality of what was happening. 

You knew you were allowing yourself to be manipulated, but you desperately craved the attention. When you felt Suguru’s hot breath brush against the side of your neck to peck you, all ounce of fight physically left your body.

You used to love these moments with Satoru, where he would study your body in ways that no man ever did. When he stopped showering you with affection, you found yourself starving with nobody to feed your hunger. 

Nanami dipped his head, the tip of his nose sliding over your bridge. His lips ghosted over your own, a twitch lifting the corner of his lip as he hid a smile. He pressed his mouth onto yours, taking in your breath as he parted your lips with his tongue and gliding it over yours. You found yourself arching against Suguru’s shoulder, your hands reaching to hold Nanami’s jaw as his own fingers slid to ring around your neck. 

You whimpered and Nanami swallowed the cry that escaped you. The man knew he had let go of his moral thinking the minute you wedged yourself between the pair, but now that he’s finally managed to taste you on his tongue he knew there was no turning back from going along with Suguru’s attempts. 

The black haired sorcerer laughed at your pathetic reaction, shaking his head in disbelief by how easily the circumstances worked out in his favor. His best friend did a fantastic job of leaving you with an insatiable need but your submission was driving him up the wall. He could see something bubbling inside you and the urge to peel back those pretty layers is strong. He knew there was more than this fake persona that you have been fronting over the years.

“Geto-san finds your obedience unfavorable,” Nanami spoke to interrupt Suguru’s thoughts, when he pulled his lips away from yours he saw the way you pouted in obvious disappointment. “...but I think there’s a charm in your need to comply.” 

Suguru arched his brow, patiently waiting to see what Nanami would do next, knowing that his co-worker was putting your training to the test.

“Be a doll, and keep your mouth open.” 

You nodded your head, abiding Nanami’s authoritative command and lewdly circling your mouth in a sphere, your tongue hanging just above your lip as Nanami brought his hand to the back of your head to grab your hair. He positioned his mouth just above yours, keeping your neck slightly arched before proceeding to spit, watching with lustful eyes as a string of salvia dripped from his lip onto your tongue.

“Swallow.” 

You pressed your mouth together, garnering Suguru’s attention to focus on your lips and the way your neck bobbed as you followed through with the dirty act. 

A heart melting grin spread across Nanami’s face, a smug look highlighting his expression as he pressed a chaste kiss on your lips. 

“Atta girl.” 

Suguru’s arm snaked it’s way up your chest, gripping your jaw and turning you to face him again.

“You would just go along with anything we say, hmm…” he bantered nonchalantly, watching the spark of irritation glow in your pretty stare. “In that case, I might as well indulge…”

He cradled your face his palm, leaning in for a kiss. You adamantly refused to part your mouth but then you felt him dig his fingers into your skin before pressing his forehead against yours and locking that heated gaze onto you.

“I want your tongue.”

Nanami kissed you with controlled experience, stirring the flame sparking in your lower belly as you found yourself suddenly aroused. Suguru, on the other hand, was hungry. He practically suffocated you, taking in all your breaths as his worked your tongue. He wasn’t afraid of making noises, exhaling grunts of approval as you moan in return. By the time his lips left yours, you could practically see stars in front of your eyes.

Distracted by the dark haired beauty before you, Nanami used the opportunity to slip his hand underneath your skirt. He kept your legs spread wide enough for him to trace the band of your underwear, outlining the v-shape upward until he was met with a tiny string that hugged your hips.

His bulge pressed against his pants and he lifted up your skirt to take a peak at the high cut thong. The man knew you had expensive taste, wondering just how much you splurged on this pathetic excuse of an undergarment. His index finger traced over the lace material decorating the front of your pussy, brows furrowed as he pondered what he would be met with if he slipped his fingers underneath the material.

Unable to resist his urge, Nanami tugged your panties aside to see your dripping arousal and a shaky breath escaped him.

“Fuck, she’s wet…” he announced to Suguru, as if you weren’t painfully aware of the vulnerable state you were in.

“Why am I not surprised?” the man replied, this entire time holding your stare as one his large hand reached to grope your chest over your clothes.

Nanami dragged his middle finger between your wet slit, while Suguru squeezed your breast. The blonde spread your folds with two fingers, noticing the way your pussy fluttered before his eyes as he licked his lips with anticipation.

You felt like there was no air around you, barely able to gasp with one man exploring what was between your legs while the other fondled you without any consideration. This was getting way out of hand, and you reached to grab Suguru’s white shirt in an attempt to push him away.

However, a tiny whine escaped you instead of words as Nanami pushed one of his digits to feel you from the inside.

Suguru sucked his teeth, “do you hear yourself?” he quipped.

Nanami pumped your cunt leisurely, the squelching sound of your wet pussy loud enough for everyone in the vehicle to notice. You replied with a sensual “mhmm”, blissed out of your mind as Nanami stretched you deeper by inserting another finger.

“Filthy slut,” Suguru scoffed, slipping his tongue back between your lips as he continued his make out session.

“She feels so fucking good,” Nanami breathed, his smooth words pouring out of him like honey.

Suguru broke away from the kiss to meet your neck, sucking and licking the spot slightly below your jaw to leave a mark in place.

“Tell me how you touch yourself,” Nanami cooed, returning your focus back to him as he slowed his movements against your cunt.

“I don’t…” you admitted, embarrassment flooding through you. “I’ve only ever done this with my husband.”

Both men stopped what they were doing. For a minute you watched as dark and hazel eyes stared at you before making eye contact with one another.

“Never?” Nanami asked for clarification.

You nodded to confirm.

Suguru shook his head in disapproval, “oh, sweetheart…don’t tell me you’ve been neglecting yourself…”

Ijichi cleared his throat, making all three of you snap your heads to face the front of the car.

The image was something to behold, your lips swollen from kissing both men. Your skirt bunched up, panties tucked aside with Nanami’s thick fingers buried inside you. Suguru’s hand still kneading your left breast, his lips buried in the crook of your neck as his narrowed gaze darted at the man who had the audacity of interrupting just as things got interesting.

“We’ve arrived,” the driver spoke, his trembling voice an indication of his awareness to what’s been going on.

Nanami slipped his hand away, fixing up your panties and skirt as both bodies detached themselves from you. He immediately opened the door to step outside with Suguru following suit, leaving you trembling with anticipation in the middle seat.

You drew in a long inhale, assessing the electricity sparking over your entire body. Your conscious snapped back to reality and you stepped out of the car on shaky legs from what transpired. Your head was spinning, the image of Nanami and Suguru casually collecting themselves almost a blur.

Nanami ordered a blushing Ijichi to drop off your shopping bags to the back entry of the home and mentioned that they would take care of it later. Meanwhile, you had already began approaching the front steps to enter your humble abode.

The two men stood by your side as Ijichi drove off, both of them watching you fumble with the keys in your hand as your tried to unlock the front door.

“Don’t you have the house to yourself?” Suguru questioned, his tall body leaning against the frame of the door.

You paused, the key only halfway in as you hesitated.

“My husband will be back later…”

Nanami scoffed, “that almost sounded believable.”

Suguru couldn’t help but chuckle and you wished that the ground would swallow you whole at your horrible attempt to save face.

“Sweetheart, you don’t have to pretend. We can see right through you. Nanami and I are inclined to finish our conversation, but if you prefer spending the rest of your night staring at the wall hoping for your husband to come home…” Suguru pressed, shrugging his shoulders carelessly.

You twisted the key between your fingers, your heart violently beating against your chest as your squeezed your thighs just imagining the possibility of being tangled in their strong arms.

Even though you knew better, an unfamiliar voice lingered in your subconscious, bending you to give in to your immoral needs. You were exhausted of trapping yourself in this passive role, completely at your wit’s end of watching everybody in your life trample themselves all over you and leaving you to pick yourself back up.

You straightened your spine, lowering your shoulders as you elegantly glanced between both men.

“My husband welcomes you both into his home with open arms,” you spoke, turning the handle as you stepped over the threshold and leaving the door wide open for the two gentleman. “He would be thoroughly disappointed if he found out I turned you away.”

Suguru and Nanami watched you strut indoors, their eyes taking in the movements of your swaying hips and ladylike posture. The two of them returned their attention to one another, their devious plot unfolding pleasantly before their eyes.

“Shall we?” Nanami asked, adjusting his tie as he shifted his eye back to the inside.

Suguru cocked is head towards your direction, high off the thrill of his cat and mouse game.

“After you,” he politely gestures, before following Nanami’s footsteps then quietly shutting the door behind him.

***

TAGS: @pensivespecter @ekaterinatepes @komorebi-duende @mrsmorgenstern @shuxjodie @jelly-jellx @nanamikentcs @rosenkow @hatake-uchiha @damn-geto @lollipopd @mikasackrmann

***

Entangle (Part 2)

[st0rmyskies]

On Sex Scenes and Characterization

Alright, so this morning I'm laying in bed and doing my usual useless social media scroll and come across this on the tw*tter.

And this slapped me right across the face.

Because believe it not, I disagree. I argue that you can actually learn more about characters by seeing how they fuck. And you've got a fucking rant/smut writing advice essay incoming because it's Monday and I've consumed more than my recommended daily limit of caffeine so I moved on to wine at like 2pm.

CW: The following contains advice on using sex scenes in writing as a method of characterization and will contain highly suggestive but non-explicit snippets from my own writing, which contains Linkshipping, although not exclusively; there's a lil Malink hiding in there, too. I'm also not going to touch on dubcon/noncon in this discussion, although it will be mentioned in passing, as well as brief mentions of homophobia. I'll make a whole 'nother post about dubcon/noncon if there's interest and specific questions.

Disclaimer: I'm no expert. I haven't studied lit in any institution of higher learning. My word is not law. I have, however, written nearly 300k of smut in the last two years, so I've got some experience under my belt. I'm not interested in debating writing principles or terminology and shit like that, so don't bother coming into my inbox with that baggage, it'll only get lost on the carousel.

Under the cut for length and snippets of mature writing.

Action scenes are great for characterization in some ways. They can really showcase how a character operates under pressure, how they react in the face of fear or uncertainty, and whether they respond to violence with brute force or by more cunning methods. Do they lament their lack of strength? Do they vow to get better and then, later on in the narrative, are able to overcome that same enemy by making good on their word? Entertaining, sure, but without thousands of words of set-up or previous interactions, you're somewhat limited in how a free-standing action scene can build interpersonal relationships. In my opinion, this is not so for smut writing.

Sex scenes are quite rich in possibilities when it comes to developing both individual characters and relationships, and the amount of subtext in such scenes is nearly limitless. Noncon/dubcon aside, sex is usually a mutual decision to bare oneself intimately to another person and make oneself as vulnerable as it gets, both physically and, in many cases, emotionally. Even in a case of PWP (porn-without-plot), how your characters interact with one another will set a general tone of whether they know each other well, whether they've been together before and know the other's preferences or are totally flying blind, if they fit together like a pair of gloves or go together like fire and gasoline.

I really, really love demonstrating characterization through sex scenes, so here's a non-comprehensive list of some things that go through my head when I write these sorts of scenes.

Approaching the Act

I usually start by considering how the characters view the act they're about to partake in.

Are they really open to and excited about the prospect of getting it on with one another?

Does one of them have reservations about the act? If so, do they voice that uncertainty, do they bottle it up inside, or do they throw caution to the wind and plunge in headfirst?

Is this something that one character or the other views as just a "duty" of their marriage or partnership, or something expected of them because of social or societal standards?

Once you have some idea of where each character is coming from as they approach the scene, you can decide how they'll be changed by the end of it: whether they're pleasantly surprised at enjoying the act, whether they feel validated in their expectations of the emotional outcome, or whether they experience no emotional effect from the situation at all. This is just a small set of examples of how much your character's response to a given sexual encounter can say about them as a person.

Character Alignment in Sexual Situations

You can do an even deeper dive into a character's psyche by examining how they align themselves in a given scene with regards to being the more dominant versus more submissive party. And I'm not talking about BDSM exclusively, although it's handy to use some of their terminology. For those of us not so familiar with some of these terms, let me break it down for you.

The dominant partner is usually the one who directs their partner or leads a scene. They are generally the one seen as being "in control," although my opinion is that in a healthy relationship both partners have equal control over every encounter.

The submissive partner is the one who is led during a given scene. They're the one receiving the attention of their dom, or being guided versus taking orders to perform certain acts.

Whether someone is more dom or sub in the bedroom doesn't necessarily equate with how they are in other aspects of their life. Sometimes your highfalutin boss figure or someone who has a demanding job as a decision-maker (Doctor Hyrule) really likes to be told what to do in bed. Sometimes your meek little quiet characters (Paya) like to be the ones to hop on top and make demands about their ride. This can add an entirely new and fascinating layer to what might otherwise read as a flat character.

Now this does NOT equate to top/bottom terminology, and there's a whole hell of a lot of discourse on what that even means. My opinion is this:

Your top is the character who gives pleasure. It's commonly seen as the "penetrative" role, although not everybody enjoys that sort of thing.

Your bottom is the one who receives pleasure, be that via penetration or some other fun method(s).

Keep in mind, too, that many identify as vers/switch, which can impact your decisions for your scenes as well. If you typically write a character being dominant and have them submit to just one person, for example, that says a lot about their level of trust in that relationship or devotion to that one person.

Show and Tell

When it comes to characterization through smut, the basic principle of all good characterization still applies here: Show, don't tell. And sex is a fantastic way to show how a given character treats others, and how they think about themselves.

For my dominant characters, I consider things like:

Are they demanding, demeaning, or debasing their sub? Does their sub like that or not? Does your dom even care if they do?

Do they take a more gentle approach, especially with first-timers? Are they hesitant, halting, checking in every few lines?

Are they an inexperienced dom, so wrapped up in their own head that they forget to check in and need a wake-up call midway through? Does that stem from a place of being worried about their sub's happiness and comfort, or being more worried about how they're being perceived?

And for my submissives:

Are they heart-in-their-throat nervous, or are they confident that they can take whatever their dom dishes out to them? If the latter is true, it is because they feel like they have something to prove?

Are they a pliant sub who surrenders all control immediately, an eager-to-please sub who takes an active role in the scene, or are they fighting back to make their dom really put their money where their mouth is?

Do they ask for what they want, or do they only take whatever their dom demands or suggests? Even your submissive party might have preferences or requests, and whether they ask for them with confidence or would rather crawl into a hole than voice it aloud can say so much about them as a person - and about their trust in their dom.

Whether it's your characters' first time or their fiftieth time - or their fiftieth time that feels like the first time - every encounter is automatically laced with incredible subtext. It's up to you as the author to capitalize on that opportunity to give new insight to the discerning reader and make your work that much more immersive and worth the readers' investment.

Consider, too, how amazing first-time sex scenes can be written. There's a whole host of emotions going through your virgin's head, be it an "It's about time!" attitude, an "I can't fail at this too" approach, an incredibly nervous "My partner's so hot ohmygodwhatdoIdo" or even a very curious and coy "I've never done this before, can you... can you show me how?" I feel like that alone deserves its own post, honestly.

The Big D - Dialogue

Finally, your dialogue can be both incredibly sexy and incredibly revealing. Both what your partners say to one another and what your POV character says in their own head gives us a lot of information about them. Your characters' internal language is an incredibly powerful tool for characterization on its own.

Take a look at some of Legend's internal dialogue in a recent first time Legend/Hyrule scene I'd written:

Words all rushed to his throat too quickly — wait stop you don’t have to let me shower again quick hang on aren’t you tired I don’t know if I’m ready — and instantly died there as Hyrule did something that made another pathetic sound waver in Legend’s chest. Great, this was their first foray into oral and Hyrule was going to think he sounded like a weanling goat during sex, but gods damn if Legend couldn’t string together a coherent sentence.

Here, Legend is so worried about what's going on in his head that he can't even focus on what's happening in the present, or whether he's even enjoying himself. Even if I hadn't mentioned that this was one of their first times, I bet you'd have been able to correctly guess that on your own.

We learn a lot about Dark, who we haven't previously known a whole hell of a lot about, in one of Twilight and Dark's first times in LMTCOY. Let's look at some of their dialogue:

“We shouldn’t…” "Uh-huh." "I-I'm still on the clock, you know." Dark made a low sound against the front of Twilight's throat. He didn't care. "What if— hah… What if somebody comes in??” "I locked the door on my way in." Despite his protests, Twilight had been the one to yank Dark up onto the bar by his collar, and he was the one in a position of control. His shirt hung open, exposing him to Dark’s lips and teeth, and he arched at the drag of painted nails down his chest and stomach.  “We shouldn’t,” Twilight tried again as Dark’s lips traced along the side of his neck.  “You used that excuse already.” Dark’s tongue teasingly flicked the hoop that dangled from Twilight’s ear.  “I don’t have a condom,” he managed to choke out. “Wanna try it without?” Dark's eyes were bright in the low light of the barroom. “I don’t mind.” 

We've learned more than a few things about both characters here in just a few lines. Dark has enough foresight to lock the door and give them some privacy at Telma's Bar, which insinuates that his choice to not bring protection along isn't just borne of forgetfulness. Later on in the same scene, we discover that Twilight's "we shouldn't" is nothing more than a weak protest he thinks he's supposed to make because of his internalized homophobia. In fact, we really don't see Twilight smiling or laughing much in this series outside of his moments with Dark.

Finally, let's look at Time's internal monologue and a little dialogue during his recent LMTCOY scene with Malon:

Time's skin burned where Malon's nails bit into his thigh, warning him to stay still. Someone was making pathetic, bleating sounds, and her lips over his made Time realize that shit, that was all him. “There you go,” she murmured in that sweet, singsong way of hers. “That’ll keep you distracted.”  Oh gods she left him like that, she left him like that and was pushing his knees up to his shoulders, shifting his weight [...] and sinking down over him and Time felt helpless, for the first time in a good long time, helpless to the woman he adored, to the wife didn’t deserve— “Malon,” he croaked, his tongue heavy in his mouth.  "Shhh..." Time weakly kissed the finger she laid against his lips. She didn’t come into focus until she’d leaned in close to his face.  "You be good, and I'll let you know when I'm finished."

In context, this scene represents a huge departure from what we've come to know of Time in the LMTCOY series. He's normally dominant and in a top position, and in this scenario he's willingly handed over all of that control to Malon, which speaks even more to his character than it does to hers. We also see how easy and confident Malon is in this situation, insinuating that this isn't their first encounter like this.

Listen, I could go on forever about characterization through smut writing. It's a really rich format for showcasing both individual characterization and exploring complex relationships. PWP has its place, but integrating smut into your other writing can give you the opportunity to explore a whole new side of your characters that we might not otherwise get to see. How explicit you get with that exploration is entirely up to you and your comfort level!

[sweetjekyll]

Damaged ─ Chapter 3

pairing: Oh Sehun x OC Reader (Nora) // implied Johnny Suh (NCT) x OC Reader (Nora)

genre: Exo Planet AU, Lucky One AU, Power AU, Alien AU, Futuristic / sci-fi AU, Romance, Angst, Action, Science, Military-ish rating: 18+ chapter warnings: implied consensual smut, mentions & descriptions of death, parental loss, grieving, C-PTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder), depression, anxiety, alcohol consumption, toxic parenting, physical violence, cursing, kidnapping, human trafficking, political corruption (Please read carefully the warning tags in the masterlist and those at the beginning of each new chapter to avoid any unpleasant misunderstandings.)

word count: 8.1k

↳ Main Masterlist ↳ Damaged Masterlist Chapter 2 | next

A/N: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read the trigger warnings before reading this chapter as it is heavily surrounded by coping with loss, grief, and other heavy themes that the characters talk about for plot purposes. With that being out of the way, thank you to everyone who reached out to give feedback about naming the Reader, I hope you like “Nora” as the name that I picked for her.

⟶ To my dear readers: feedback is highly encouraged and important! as it gives me motivation to write with more passion, knowing that you like what you are reading. Please LIKE and REBLOG so more people can find this and read it. ❤ My askbox is always open for questions or to chat ❤

Enjoy! ❤

Location: Exo Planet, Elyxion City

Your feet felt heavy as you made your way outside of the Dome, one or two steps behind Taeyong and Jaehyun. You were lost deep in thought and tuned out their hushed conversation, unsure of what emotion your body was feeling after absorbing so little information, yet of grave concern. Your feet carried you across the spacecraft landing field until you halted suddenly; your nostrils smelled something in the air, fresh and earthy… clean and pure. It didn’t feel dry and burning your nostrils like when you landed on the ground.

Your pupils were drawn to look up at the sky, grey clouds were progressively shielding the ground from the sun's scorching presence. You closed your eyes and inhaled a deep breath, your lungs expanded and you felt goosebumps all over your body, all troubling thoughts and burdensome emotions were forgotten. The sound of your name from your friends made you reopen your eyes and look at them, unaware of the small smile gracing your features. “Can you smell that?”

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Jaehyun tilted his head to the side as he and Taeyong approached you once again. The leader sniffed the air too and just shrugged, not knowing what to say to the odd question. You were acting a little weird, to be honest.

“It’s about to rain. I haven’t smelled the rain like this in... such a long time.” You quickly explained, unable to contain the tiny excitement in your tone. You used to love the scent of oncoming summer rain when you were a child, the amount of times you were caught up in a rainstorm while out playing in the park with you parents were very few. You were too little to remember if the two of them had been happy back then, but for just a moment you wanted to believe they were. The flashback and excitement lasted for a short time, as a soft rumble in the sky reminded you that you needed to depart from your home planet. The nostalgic feel which initially comforted you, now carried a painful reminder of everything that you had been experiencing for the past few days.

“I don’t like piloting during rainstorms,” Jaehyun said when he noticed your smile fade away, then playfully hit the back of his hand on your upper arm, intentionally drawing a glare from you. “Wanna take my place?”

Taeyong's eyes widened briefly and he pointed a finger at you with a warning. “I know there are no speed limits in space, but if you make me feel sick again like last time—”

You just chuckled, shook your head and put your arms around both of your friends' shoulders, guiding them back to the spacecraft. “Don’t worry, guys, I won’t do crazy maneuvers... too much.”

It didn’t take long for the Neo spacecraft to alert the EXO base of their departure; many eyes were fixed on a hologram screen as they watched the visitors leave the base from a security camera. Junmyeon let out a barely audible sigh when he redirected his attention to the members currently present in his office.

“Are you sure it was her?” Minseok asked doubtful, eyeing the redhead with a crease on his forehead.

“Didn’t you see the resemblance?” Chanyeol scoffed, his back was slouched back on a chair by the desk. “She’s a spitting image of Eran.”

“That, and this,” Junmyeon picked up a tablet from the desk and tapped the screen a few times, “the DNA matches Eran’s. Nora Skyler.” The footage of the security cam was replaced by the results of the blood test they ran as soon as the three Neo Tech's arrived at the Dome. “Her blood also matches the one in our database from when she was a child.”

Sehun stood silent in the back with Jongin next to him, his eyes were transfixed on the girl's picture from one of the cameras. Now that he looked at her image more carefully, he noticed a light bruise right under her data, two other cam pictures had been associated with the blood results of the girl's colleagues, including their names. “What did you tell her?” Sehun had already asked before thinking it over, hesitation and anxiety flooded his chest, his heart picked up pace.

“Only what she needed to know, nothing else.” Junmyeon tapped the screen of the tablet again as he continued to speak with a note of sadness and sympathy. "I gave her the box with the necklace and the key... She didn’t take it well and blamed us for not saving her father."

Jongin couldn’t help but step forward, protesting in disbelief. “But it wasn’t our fault! You should have told her the truth.”

“Jongin, we've been over it, you can’t let yourself get worked up like this. Besides, it was her father. She’s allowed to grief and feel pain.” Minseok tried to be a voice of reason and placate his team member before Jongin's emotions got to his head. “Even if it means blaming us for his death.” The blue haired man clenched his jaw after hearing those words, then stepped back with a single nod of agreement. He could get carried away sometimes, more often than he would’ve liked to admit, yet he had his members to remind him when to think more rationally.

Suho resumed his briefing after glancing at each person present in the office. “I sent Baekhyun to pick up Chen, D.O. and Lay, they should be back soon. Yet, before that, I need to inform you that those NCT guys asked about Ronan.” The picture he had hidden earlier reappeared on the screen with a swipe of his index finger. “I forgot to turn the screen off, so when they came into my office they saw him. The leader, Taeyong, asked if we had any information on his whereabouts.”

Sehun felt the blood in his body freeze, the already present anxiety caused his body to begin shaking lightly after he saw the image on the screen. The goosebumps raising the hairs on his skin felt like flying debris piercing through his body, he could smell and taste the blood; the vivid memory of the pain he went through made his head spin fast as if he were experiencing it all over again. Sehun felt bile rising in his throat, the room felt too small and he needed to get out. He forced himself to tear his pupils away from the image of the Collector and burst through the door of Junmyeon’s office, leaving behind voices calling out his name as his feet carried him to the closest restroom available on the floor, then he stepped inside and shut the door clicking the lock in place.

“Sehun? Come on, open the door,” he couldn’t tell whose voice was talking to him, his mind was spinning too fast as he frantically paced back and forth the bright room. His breathing was shallow and his chest felt like it was closing in on itself, meanwhile his stomach burned with sickness until he couldn’t take it anymore. Sehun’s right shoulder collided with one of the bathroom stall’s doors and he doubled over the toilet, retching and vomiting. “There, there... it’s alright now. You’re safe.” A comforting hand stroked up and down Sehun’s back as he struggled to regain his breathing. With blurry eyes, he reached out to grab some toilet paper, wrapped it around his fingers and then cleaned his mouth. Sehun couldn’t help but scrunch his nose at the sour aftertaste in his mouth and the burning in his throat, he looked over his left shoulder to see Junmyeon standing there with worry written all over his face. He thought that, as ridiculous as that bright red hair looked on the leader, it made him relieved to see him. Junmyeon had never witnessed Sehun in such distress before, or any of the other members; the color had drained completely from the younger man’s face, he knew that what happened that day on the field messed him up pretty bad. “You should go see Doctor San.”

Sehun straightened back to his full height, he flushed the toilet and walked past Junmyeon to the sinks. “Oh yeah? Do you think Doc’s got some magic pill to make me forget what happened last week?” He cautiously eyed the door and saw that the lock had been forced open, but quickly looked away as he placed his hands under the faucet; a sensor picked up his presence and water began flowing immediately. Sehun splashed his face a couple of times and rubbed his eyes with the feeling of cold water, trying to get rid of the images haunting his mind. He rinsed his mouth and spit it out in the sink, then took a deep breath afterwards while leaning his hands on the grey marble of the counter.

Junmyeon had worry written all over his features, his pupils were fixed on Sehun’s back. He crossed his arms and shifted his weight from one leg to the other, he couldn’t bear to see him suffering like that anymore. “I’m serious. I’m taking you to him myself, right now.” He stated with a stern voice, leaving no room for discussion when Sehun looked back at him through the mirror, a mix of doubt and disbelief on his features. “You asked for time alone to heal and we gave that to you because we care about you. I care about you, Sehun… And now I see that I made a mistake thinking you were going to be alright on your own.”

“It’s not your fault…” Sehun sniffled and broke the intense eye contact. “All I really need is more time—“

“Not alone,” Junmyeon retorted firmer and stepped closer to Sehun, he placed one of his hands on his shoulders and prompted him to face each other. “We are one, a team. We cannot function if one of us is unwell. It puts everyone at risk when you start hiding your inner turmoil from us.” 

As right as those words were, they stung so hard and hurt to hear to the point Sehun felt the physical need to distance himself from the leader. He pushed away Junmyeon’s hand and took a few steps backwards. “It was my fault and you know it.” He hissed through gritted teeth, anger overtaking his expression meanwhile his eyes welled up with more tears. “I made the wrong call and people paid for my mistake! How could you have trusted me to lead a team on a mission?!”

The sight of the youngest being in such a distressed emotional state was heartbreaking. The way his voice trembled when he spoke and faded out brought tears to Suho’s eyes too. His arms untangled and he shook his head slowly as his chin lowered. “We didn’t know it was a trap,” he tried to sound as steady as he could, but ultimately failed. “You did everything you could.”

Sehun furiously shook his head in disagreement. “No, not enough…” The room got quiet afterwards, except for Sehun’s soft sniffling. “I’ll go meet with Doctor San.” He beckoned towards the door as both of them rubbed their cheeks, trying to get rid of the evidence proving they had been crying in a public bathroom. Junmyeon nodded a few times and carefully stepped closer to Sehun, wrapping his arms around the younger man’s body. Sehun stood still for a moment until he felt Junmyeon’s warmth from the embrace, then his arms raised instinctively to return the gesture and he tightened his grip. “Thank you…”

Location: Neo Zone, Neo City

The landing docks were void of personnel when your ship landed, the heavy rain had picked up once again while you were gone from the planet. “People in the slums must be drowning from so much rain.” You commented, after making sure you switched everything off in the cockpit with your co-pilot.

“Remember when the sewers overflowed?” Taeyong added with a scrunch of his nose.

Jaehyun groaned with a shake on his head in disgust. “Yeah, don’t remind me… The smell reached Paradise City all the way from Pandora’s district and stayed like that for weeks, until they could fix it.” The sole thought of it happening again made his stomach churn in disgust. Neo City was truly the dirtiest of New Zone’s jewels when you’ve experienced it from all points of view.

The memory brought you a flashback of your mother since that is the district she lives in, farther away from the center of Neo City. You remember her calling you years back and begging you to find her a new living accommodation because she couldn’t – and still can’t – afford a new place. You couldn’t afford it with the little pay at the beginning of your career back then, so you tried to reason with her that you couldn’t let her stay with you either because your employers would never allow it. She didn’t know, of course, what she knows now.

“Whatever, it was nasty,” you blurted out all of a sudden and checked your holopad for work notifications. “Don’t we have to get back to a mission? Someone needs to take Doyoung out of that lab for a couple of hours or he’ll go mad.” You headed for the exit, ramp already lowered to the ground but you were hesitant to get out under the pouring rain.

“I’ll take care of it, but first…” Taeyong patted you on the back and nodded his head towards the entrance to the tower, a silent challenge among the three of you. Without even thinking twice about it, you bolted down the ramp and across the rooftop, soaking in the rain and running towards the heavy metal doors. Jaehyun was right behind you and soon was Taeyong too; you heard their laughter and couldn’t help but smile yourself as you swiped your holopad on a panel by the doors, thus opening them and hurrying inside, sheltered from the rain and the cold wind.

Taeyong ran his hands wildly through his blonde locks to get rid of the water droplets. “You can both retire for the night, go have some dinner with the others if they’re still in the common room. I’ll handle the paperwork.”

“Are you sure?” Jaehyun asked with arched brows, one hand in his hair doing the same as his leader, to which the other guy just nodded in affirmation.

“Hey…” You spoke softly before parting your ways, downcast eyes as you struggled to find the word to express your gratitude towards them for being by your side through such a difficult time. “Thank you… For today.”

Both of them nodded with comforting smiles. Neither of you had to say anything more, you knew each other well enough to understand the silent words being shared among you. “Come on, let’s go grab some food.” Jaehyun patted you on the back and snaked his right arm around your shoulder.

The rest of the evening was wrapped up in a blur, you ended up in bed and, before you knew it, were engulfed in a heavy slumber and slept through the entirety of the night. To your surprise, you woke up early in the morning feeling well rested. The trip to your home planet must’ve drained you to the point where it shut off all your usual overthinking whenever you laid down in bed. You quickly rubbed your fingers over your eyelids and then peeked from under the covers a tired glance at the digital clock on the nightstand. About thirty minutes before your alarm would go off. There was no point trying to catch a little bit more sleep, because you would either spend the time obsessively thinking about what you could’ve done differently in your life to stay by your father’s side, or you could pretend you were okay and focus on the things you had to work on today as part of you job. 

Yet you felt incredibly empty and lonely the moment your thoughts went back to your father, then followed the anger you directed towards your mother and memories of when you blamed her for the loss. Grief can hit people differently, you are well aware of it, yet despite that there was no way to refrain yourself from having all these terrible thoughts. Were you right to blame her? It wasn’t your mother’s fault that your father passed away… She wasn’t to fully blame, at least.

Ronan. 

And just like that, your anger was redirected to an old target. He must’ve been involved with your father’s death somehow, you just needed to find out how. “Exo…” You whispered the word, brows furrowing as your mind replayed images of yesterday’s meeting. NCT might have lost their window of opportunity to catch the criminal, but Exo may have information on his whereabouts or other of his illicit activities. You were slowly connecting the dots…

“Are you serious?” Johnny gasped softly and tilted his head to the side, eyes scanning around the common room as he chewed on his breakfast. For a moment his expression turned incredulous and then scowled as if the food tasted bitter, when in fact it was caused by your theory.

“Hey, don’t look at me like that, I’m just trying to make sense of all of this.” You fixed your pupils on his from across the dining table, then relaxed your features as you checked Jaehyun’s reaction too. He seemed to be more inclined to believe in your theory. “Look, it’s very simple, Ronan is wanted by many galactic authorities, NCT and Exo being just a few to mention. My father died on the job during a mission– which Exo would not disclose the details of–”

“Because it was a military operation, just like we have ours and we can’t just tell others what we do for a living.” Johnny interjected, making you bite the inside of your cheek in annoyance. He was usually an understandable person, but he wasn’t agreeing on your points for this specific argument. 

“But what if they came close to him– too close, and Ronan fought back? Just like we did a few nights ago.” You were so adamant to make him understand what you were trying to say, but he wasn’t having any of it.

“Nora, listen to yourself.” Johnny rubbed his fingers on his eyelids to ease the headache you gave him. “How do you even plan on confirming this theory? What happened to you in that alleyway and what happened to your father are two completely different things, okay? We’re talking about thugs attacking you versus a missile blowing up a spacecraft. It’s not the same.” It was your turn to look at him in disbelief, too stunned to retort.

Jaehyun felt the air stiffen around the table and shifted forward in his seat, elbows leaning against the flat surface and intertwined his fingers. “I was there with you and I know what I saw on the screen, but…” The glare you sent him made him pause and tread carefully with his next words. “We don’t know what exactly happened to him, even if they told us he was killed by a missile. It could have been anybody else and we might have just entered Suho’s office while Ronan was on display, completely unrelated.”

You lowered you head knowing they made valid points, yet you still felt it in your guts that you were somehow right. You were barely hungry before, but now lost all appetite after hearing what your friends said. You heard them call out your name while your eyes were set on an unimportant spot on the table, then a soft touch on top of your hand which made you immediately retract it and stand up abruptly. Curious eyes of other NCT members scattered around the common room turned to your little group, not knowing what was happening.

“I have work to do.” With that as your excuse, you turned on your heels not wanting to hear any more of their arguments and left the common room.

You headed straight for one of the offices on the lower floors, knowing you would be able to spend some time alone and work out your thoughts in peace. What Johnny and Jaehyun said struck a nerve within you. You knew that they were right as much as you could have been… Although, for some reason, you truly thought that by saying your thoughts out loud to your friends, it would make you feel better, that it may relieve the pain and the stress you were going through. It didn’t, it made you feel worse.

“How do you even plan on confirming this theory?” Johnny’s question rang in your mind as you were sat in an empty office, eyes glued to a holographic screen displaying an image of Ronan on a blank wall. Your right hand made it’s way in the pocket of your pants and fished out the little container that your father left you. The metal felt cool against your fingertips as you opened it. You let the Exolite crystal and the cylinder key fall in the palm of your left hand, eyes glued on them and pondering again “how do I plan of confirming my own theory?”. The answer was, in fact, in the palm of your hand. You needed to go back to Exo Planet to find more answers to your questions, but the Council would never let you leave the planet for your own private revenge agenda. They were civil enough to allow you a visit on your home planet for a couple of hours, nothing more.

A swoosh of the sliding door to the office startled you out of your thoughts, eyes looking up in alarm at whoever intruded your silence, but then quickly calmed down after seeing Taeyong. He glanced at the hologram with a picture of Ronan as he approached the table you were sat at, then he sat down too in an opposite chair of yours. “Backtracking on our leads?”

You made quick work of clasping the cylinder key to the necklace carrying the crystal and put it around your neck, tucking it inside your sweatshirt. “Every time we miss to get him, more people disappear into thin air never to be seen again.” Your voice came out low, the subject of this conversation was too painful to talk about, even months after finding out why Ronan was such a dangerous man. 

Human trafficking, both men and women. The victims had little to no background, untraceable, no family or relatives to look for them, no personal belongings to tell their story. The pattern was always the same, but Neo City was definitely too big and had several hundreds of millions of people living throughout all of its districts. That is a massive concentration of Neo Planet’s collective world population.

Taeyong sighed tiredly while leaning back in his seat, eyes closed as he run one of his hands though his blond hair. A glance at his expression was enough to tell he barely slept after your failed mission at capturing Ronan. Deep down inside, you still blamed yourself for that. “He’s been so elusive, always a step ahead. There has to be a connection we failed to make with all the kidnappings that have happened this month alone.”

“It’s a stretch, Taeyong. We don’t even know if hundreds of people on this list were even taken by him.” Your chin motioned to the holo-screen as you spoke, while possible missing person’s cases scrolled slowly by Ronan’s picture. There was a pattern that NCT started keeping track of, majority of the missing people were fairly young, between their late teens and their thirties, few just above it. Everyone seemed to be relatively healthy, in shape too…

Neo City’s laws were extremely strict despite the vastness of its residing citizens. Everyone needed to be registered in the planet’s database for them to be able to live and work in the city and its districts. Numbers are easier to keep track of, or so say bureaucrats. Almost everyone on the planet has a residence authorization. As far as you knew and were aware of thanks to your line of work, getting in and out of the planet was impossible without being profile first by planetary authorities. When people go missing, the digital system knows, that’s how NCT comes to know it too and keep record of each case.

“We know that it’s an inside job,” Taeyong added as he let his hands touch the desk you both were sitting at. A smaller user interface appeared, allowing him to go through the files on the holographic screen displayed on the wall, then appeared the details of the men you fought a couple of nights ago. “Mercenaries, we’ve dealt with them before in the past. Never meet the clients in daylight, only in the streets and no more than a few minutes. Easy and fast to disperse.”

You gasped, lips slightly parted as you leaned forward in the chair and looked between the screen and Taeyong. “Ronan, what if he’s a courier rather than a client then?”

“Could be. I’ve already had an extensive conversation about this with Doyoung over dinner last night.” You both couldn’t help but snort at the way he phrased it, his eyes rolling in annoyance when you raised your eyebrows curious about it. “He’s got his whole theory that there is more to this than it meets the eye.”

“Well, yeah, obviously,” you jokingly added and threw your arms up in the air dramatically, stretching the knots in your back. “I’m dying to hear this theory.”

“It’s about the toxins which killed the mercs, and the tech involved too,” he proceeded to explain, clearing the screen of what it was displaying to open a blank canvas to write on, all from the comfort of his seat at the table. Taeyong wrote some words, names, drew lines and intertwined them with circles and arrows. “Doyoung says that whoever controls the mercs, they must have impossible-to-access information, unless they have a certain amount of power and influence among the… high ranks.” He lowered his voice when he said the last part, although you already knew he mean corrupt politicians and other high ranking government officials. “Names, workplace schedules, bank accounts, medical records… Anything you can think of, these people have access to it. They have access to unlimited funds, control black market affairs, buy and sell anything they want.”

“They would have enough funds to pay for their own customized kill switch,” you alluded to the toxins which killed the mercenaries you fought, feeling a headache rapidly building in your head. “If any of this were true, do you realize the amount of effort and time it would take to bring down all of the people involved in this?” Of course he knew, that is why he thought Doyoung sounded ridiculous to him at first, but after finding out that the thugs were aware of NCT’s involvement in their business, they needed to tread carefully. For all they knew, someone on the Council might have been behind the leak of information.

“This goes beyond Neo Planet, Nora…” The exhaustion in his voice was clear and he needed to rest so bad, but there was a subtle worry in the quiver of his voice. “Whoever Ronan is working for, they take people from Neo City because it’s easier to get swept under the rug. I’m starting to think that stopping Ronan wouldn’t actually stop the trafficking. And beyond that, who knows who else is involved and from which planet.”

“It’s a start, an effort we have to make.” You encouraged, or at least tried to. As absurd as Doyoung’s theory sounded, it may have as well related to your father’s death… “I spoke with Johnny and Jaehyun about… something.” Taeyong averted his eyes and scratched the tip of his nose. So they must have spoken to him after you loft in a hurry, you figured. “Look, I know how it may sound, but if we’re in way too over our heads, maybe so happened to Exo as well and my father paid the price with his life.”

There was a long moment of silence between you, after which he began nodding slowly. “It could be connected, but they wouldn’t tell us, so… I wouldn’t exclude it, yet I wouldn’t jump to conclusions either, for your sake.”

A week passed without any progress on the research the 127 unit was heavily focused on. The team split in smaller units, those who went out scouting Mad City for more mercenaries who may be in contact with Ronan, and those who stayed at the headquarters going from case to case, going over and gathering details they might have missed. You were among the second team, mostly working alongside Mark, and thankful to be successfully avoiding the one person who upset you the previous week. Each passing day you were growing more restless and desperate for information, for the truth which you would not find among dead ends behind a computer screen.

“Dude…” Mark closed his eyes as he spun around his office chair and rested his head on the back of the seat. “If I don’t get off this computer for a moment, I’ll go blind. Or worse, crazy.”

You eyed him from beside him, your body slumped over your own desk in your seat, although you had given up looking at the files way long before he did. “Shouldn’t you be like, I don’t know… getting ready to celebrate your birthday tonight?” With your hand under your chin supporting your head on top of the desk, you extended one of your legs and gave his office chair a gentle push, without much resistance the tiny wheels beneath the chair legs carried him further away from his computer.

He whined and groaned before he scooted back close to the desk and started saving whatever little progress he made on the research. “Are you coming?” You debated whether to stay silent or straight up decline the invitation, as you weren’t feeling it, but he didn’t give you much choice either as he playfully send a virtual invitation card to your computer, making you snort. “You have to, I need someone to save me from Haechan if he takes too many shots before midnight.”

A party didn’t sound so bad, but you were mentally and physically exhausted, moreover, you were scared to drink anything and let yourself feel all the emotions you’ve been repressing for the past week. “Yeah, sure. I can’t miss the sight of you kids making fools out of yourselves.”

The night at the club was bearable, you knew you could control yourself as long as you didn’t drink any alcohol. There was no need to dress fancy, a pair of high waisted black pants and a snug crop top were enough for a casual club downtown. Mark was dancing somewhere in the distance with Haechan and Jungwoo, others had yet to arrive at the scene. Nights like these were rare, unless you were working under cover and tailing someone. NCT’s line of work allowed little to no room for nights out, yet sometimes you were granted time off for special occasions and fewer requests. 

By 2 a.m. you grew incredibly tired of being sat alone at the bar sipping on your second cocktail, the blue-ish liquid slowly made you feel lightheaded, in spite of the fact that you promised to yourself you wouldn’t drink tonight. You tried to let yourself loose, but it just wasn’t the right moment for you, yet you didn’t want to let down your friend either. Someone touched your right shoulder and, driven by impulse, you were ready to turn around on the barstool to fight off the hundredth creep who approached you, but then you calmed down as soon as your eyes met Johnny’s.

He sat down and ordered himself a shot of whiskey and then a beer. Neither of you spoke, just exchanged brief glances. After the way you left things off, he knew you needed some time to work on what you were feeling. Of course he hated that, he was the kind of person who would always voice out the things that bothered him and looked for a mutual way to resolve things. But you? You were one hell of a stubborn girl. Maybe that was also what attracted him about you. You always had a complicated relationship with him, trying to stay friends although you crossed that line multiple times and almost paid for it. There was no room for romance in your field of work, you both almost lost your job, yet they needed you more than they could afford to let you go, your skillset was too valuable.

A second beer for him and a third cocktail for you as you let your foggy brain wander with a stream of thoughts one after the other, until neither made any sense. Halfway through your glass, you set it down and pulled on Johnny’s sleeve to get his attention, then he turned his ear towards you so he could hear what you had to say. “You know what? You were right,” you slurred slightly above the sound of the music.

He looked back at you and then averted his gaze, shaking his head slowly. “It’s the alcohol talking.” He said back to you, jaw tensing under the intensity of your gaze.

“Possibly, but it’s the truth.” You insisted, then dropped the conversation. It wasn’t an outright apology from either side, yet it was something.

Johnny had a deep frown on his face, his eyes were staring at you in such an attentive way, he could have almost fooled you that the alcohol didn’t have any effect on his mind after the whiskey and the beers. “Hey, look at me,” he called for your attention as he leaned in your direction from the barstool. Your intoxicated brain barely had a moment to register the scent of liquor from his breath once you found his plump lips so close to your face in that moment; you found yourself gasping for air and felt a chill run through your body. “Just tonight?” He pleaded, his pupils dilated as he only focused on your expression and the little reactions you were doing unknowingly.

“Johnny,” you mumbled his name while slightly shaking your head and his eyes immediately looked at your lips. He couldn’t hear you, not with the music playing so loud and the bass thumping in both your eardrums. “You know we can’t.” You told him, hoping that it was loud enough for him to hear and avoided his gaze immediately. You let your fingers close around the glass of your drink and bit your bottom lip in frustration.

The man let out a long sigh through his nostrils as he leaned back in his seat, yet he kept his gaze fixed on you. It took a moment but he nodded slowly, then Johnny took a long swing of the remaining liquor in his glass and placed it down on the counter. He opened his mouth as if to say something while he stood up next to you, yet no words were said, all he did was lower to your height and he placed a chaste kiss on your cheek, followed by the sound of your name. “Good night, Nora.”

You squeezed your eyes shut as you cursed internally and, before you knew it, you were holding him into place with your hand clutching onto his leather jacket. You turned around on the stool and tugged him down to have his right ear right in front of your lips. “Just tonight.”

You were overcome with guilt and regret as you watched Johnny sleep so peacefully in his bed. You cared about him a lot and didn’t want to hurt him or use him the way you did tonight, you’ve been thinking about leaving for days now and an opportunity presented itself. You needed to leave the planet and this was the best way to do it, although you didn’t think it’d be through him. As careful and as quiet as you could manage, you slipped from under the covers and got dressed in your clothes, then sat down on the mattress once more. You quickly slipped off the smart watch from your left wrist and very gently clasped it around Johnny’s wrist, right above his own smart watch. You made sure that it synced up with his vitals and then left your holopad on his nightstand. The reason why you did that was because the NCT headquarters would’ve been immediately alerted of your position if you made your way out of the building and consequentially, out of Neo City and off the planet. You didn’t want them to chase you and obstruct your plan to return on Exo Planet.

Johnny took in a deep breath and stirred in his sleep, making your heart leap in your chest. It was close to 4 a.m. and you couldn’t waste any more time, you couldn’t risk him waking up and catching you getting rid of your tracking devices. “I’m sorry,” you whispered softly as you placed a gentle kiss on his forehead. It was never meant to work out between the two of you, no matter how much you repeated to yourself that you cared about him. You got up and left his bedroom in darkness. The living room was dimly lit from a floor lamp in a corner, so when you saw the front door to the apartment slide open and a drunk Haechan staggered inside making a bit of noise, you panicked and cursed yourself for taking too long to leave.

“Nora?” He croaked out your name in confusion, but immediately after he grinned while pointing a finger towards you and the door to Johnny’s bedroom. “You– is he–?”

“Sleeping! Shhh!” You hissed in a panicked whisper and hurried over to Haechan to put a finger up to his lips. He must’ve been drunk off his ass to not even be able to utter a complete sentence. “Come on, let’s get you to bed…” You could only imagine what Mark must’ve been like after celebrating his birthday last night well into the early hours of the morning. You snaked your right arm behind his back and around his waist, throwing one of his arms on your shoulders for support, then directed him towards his bedroom, hushing him along the way while he kept giggling. 

“Naughty…” Haechan mused when you helped him lay on his bed. He kicked off his shoes before you had any chance to help him and just watching him wordlessly as he grasped the bedsheets and rolled away from you, wrapping himself up like a burrito. He mumbled something resembling a good night followed by light snores. And he too was out for the night, now was your cue to leave.

You headed up to your room and packed a small bag with as little necessities you thought you may need in a duffle bag, anything that wouldn’t be too inconvenient to carry. You changed into some black clothes and pulled the hoodie over your head. In less than fifteen minutes you were out of the building and into the streets. You planned it during the past week, already knew where to head for transportation and had some currency to pay for the clandestine transport off the planet. You just needed to get there fast before they realized you were gone.

You barely managed to catch the metro headed towards Mad City. Once sat down, you couldn’t help but lean against the window and look out, all the bright and colored lights of the place you called “home” for many years of your life made you feel nostalgic, as if you were already gone. There was something about the way you felt toward the city, something that made your insides clench hard and ache painfully. Your stomach made you nauseous from the alcohol you had consumed that night and your rib cage felt constricted; an involuntary sob made it past your trembling lips before you squeezed them into a thin line to stop yourself from crying, yet the burning sensation behind your eyes betrayed you. The internal conflict you were going through was tearing you apart, yet you knew that your heart was winning over your mind. Emotions over logic. You straightened yourself as your fingers closed tighter around the duffle bag straps you were carrying, until your knuckles turned white, then you threw your head back on the backrest of your seat, eyes still looking out as the train made its way in the sky and through the buildings.

Your last wish before leaving was that your friends, people you grew to call family, wouldn’t hate you for leaving them.

Location: Exo Planet, Elyxion City

Doctor San gazed at Sehun awaiting to hear about his mental health, the redness in his eyes was evident just like the dark circles around them; they’ve been at it for the past week and the younger man simply wasn’t allowing himself to talk about his night terrors, or the demons that had been chasing him in his sleep. Was he sleeping though? Yes, but it wasn’t pleasant… Rather, the use of sleeping pills that the doctor prescribed to him made his nightmares more vivid and terrifying, to the point where he would wake up with difficulty, drenched in sweat with his heart racing in his chest.

Sehun was sat in the doctor’s office in the medical bay of the Dome. A pretty neat room, void of any colors, except for monochrome greys and blacks with a desk opposite the main entrance door, a few chairs and an exam table off to the left side. He let his eyes wander to the right, where another work station was filled with vials, label he couldn’t understand and papers filled with some sort of research and documentation. “The pills made it worse,” he admitted after a while of silence to the other man. He was extremely jaded of fighting his inner turmoil by himself, knowing he was losing epically, but it was even harder to let somebody in to help.

Doctor Moo San, a man in his late forties and with a long career in the medical and scientific fields, sighed with perplexity. “Sehun, you have to understand that a wound of the mind cannot be healed through the sole use of medications, it’s a long process where you have to open up and talk about your experiences. You went through a very traumatic event, near death too. It scarred you even more than anything else the Guardians have been through before in your life.”

“Even more than already losing three other Guardians?” He retorted with a provocative question. He didn’t mean to act so impulsively and let his tongue run loose. Continuous lack of sleep, improper rest and an unhealthy diet threw him so much off balance that he barely recognized himself as a functioning person.

Doc’s slightly agape lips pursed after a brief moment of shock, his pupils wouldn’t budge from Sehun’s features. “C-PTSD, I fear. Complex post-traumatic stress disorder,” he repeated and proceeded to explain it when he watched Sehun’s expression deepen into a scowl. “You have repeatedly suffered traumatic events throughout your life, a life you were thrust into and grew up in since your childhood. I watched closely all of you, you’re the youngest along with Jongin, although you’re the one who suffered the most. The head and the heart are connected, when they take too much in and don’t process it in a healthy way, they… stop working.”

Sehun sniffled softly and brough up one of his hands to rub his face over his mouth, then closed his eyes to rub his eyelids, as if that would alleviate any of the stress and headache he had. “Well, what am I supposed to do?” He looked back at the doctor sat across from him, behind his desk, hoping to hear a new solution to his problems, yet he was met with further disappointment when Doctor San shook his head slowly.

“I’ve already spoken with Junmyeon about this, and we both agree that it’s best if we remove you from active duty for professional therapy.” A loud scoff of disbelief left Sehun’s throat, eyes wide. Had he not been sitting down in a chair, he would’ve staggered back until he hit or knocked off something around the office by accident. Actually, he would’ve ran out the room altogether to go speak with Junmeyon. But as he was sat in that chair, which suddenly became too uncomfortable to sit in, he began adjusting his posture, until he stood up anxiously. “Sehun, let’s not rush to arms but talk this through, it’s for your own good.”

“By removing me from my own duty as a Guardian?” He unintentionally raised his tone as he voiced his protest. “You can’t do that!”

“Your impulsive behavior and lack of self-awareness will only further damage the team while out on another mission. We can’t allow your self-destructive actions to affect the rest of the members.” The words were harsh and brutal, but they were truthful, which hurt even more.

“So I’m damaged and need to be put to the side?! Like an object?” He exclaimed out of frustration, unable to say anything else.

“That’s not what I said–” Doctor San retorted as he stood up from his seat, trying to placate Sehun, although it was in vain.

“But it is what you implied. I can’t do my work anymore because I’m unstable.” He paced back and forth until he heard the door to the office slide open, the swoosh produced by the motion was enough to distract Sehun from the argument he was having with the doctor… At least until he redirected his anger towards his newly arrived leader. 

Junmyeon’s red hair was back to black, more natural rather than the contrast of the red he was forced to dye it to after losing a bet against Chanyeol. His scrutinizing eyes quickly moved from Doctor San to Sehun a couple of times, after which he deduced that his younger friend didn’t take well to the news about being temporarily removed from duty. “What’s going on?” He tried an indirect approach, although Sehun didn’t take the bait.

“You went against my back and took me off duty?” The words stung in Junmyeon’s chest, he could hear the pain in his voice as Sehun felt betrayed. 

Junmyeon crossed his arms over his chest and planted his feet on the floor, trying to ground his resolution to help Sehun on his way to heal from his trauma. “We already spoke about this, you didn’t make it easy on me. You wanted time to heal? Now you have it. All of us will be here to help you, but after the last week of observing you on the training grounds, we all see that you’re spiraling and need to be helped now.”

They were right, Sehun knew that and admitted it to himself, the hardest part was facing it from someone else’s perspective without getting defensive about it. He tried his best to do it on his own – he really did – but he needed to realize it could harm his brothers in the process. He could continue to blame himself for what happened on the day that Eran died, but he couldn’t bring himself to irrationally hurt the other Guardians mindlessly. His shoulders slumped as he allowed himself to calm down from his outburst. He nodded in understanding. “What do I have to do then to heal?” He sounded so broken and exhausted.

Both Junmyeon and Doctor San smiled comfortingly after hearing that question. “Of course, it cannot be done overnight, but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It requires commitment to regular visits with a trauma therapist– don’t worry about it, I will arrange with Miss Cho to come work with us again.” The name rang familiar to Sehun, until he remembered that some of the other Guardians worked with her in the past too, particularly when they were younger. Him too at some point, but it was too long ago to remember the details. “You will only be able to get back to work once you’ve made progress and if Doctor Cho and I give you a thumbs up, understood?”

“Yessir,” the young man nodded and looked back at Junmyeon, feeling a sense of security from him. This was going to be a good step forward.

-> Damaged Masterlist 

– Chapter 4 

[shinkun]

bloom: part 1/2 (18+)

aizawa shouta | eraserhead x student!reader

[ read part 2 here ] 

word count: 3.4k

genre: alpha/omega, omegaverse, m/f, afab reader, student/teacher, smut with little plot

A late-blooming student finds herself trapped in the school, yearning for someone to ease her unfamiliar, painful urges.

warnings: 18+, smut, oral, fingering, cunnilingus 

notes: Hello, just as a warning, this is my first time in many years posting any written work so I'm pretty rusty and self-conscious about it (please be gentle!) Also - my first time doing any form of a/b/o, so I hope it's okay! 

Aizawa just released something feral in me that made me want to write a lengthy, lusty fiction about him.

This is Part 1 of 2 of this fiction. I wanted to see if there was any reception or interest in this piece before sharing the final part.

All characters are 18+. Reader is a mature student presumably finishing her final semester of school, or attending an extra year.

Anyway, please enjoy!

- - - - -

Aizawa gave a hefty groan, pinching the skin on the bridge of his nose. A nagging stress entered the back of his mind as he proceeded to the opposite side of the door. 

When your classmate had cornered him in his office earlier, wailing about how “Y/N doesn’t want to come out! She said she feels too sick to go to practice!” He already knew what he was in for. 

“Alright, I’ll go see what's wrong…” Aizawa nonchalantly replied, waving the boy away. “Go outside and start without her.” He commanded, not letting him get another word in. The student gave a compliant but nervous nod before exiting the room. 

The professor let out a sigh, perking his ear up to the door. He hesitantly raised his knuckles up to the surface, knocking on it with little force, but enough that it could be heard from the other side. He held his breath for a moment. A sweet, tantalizing scent crept from beneath the barrier between him and his student. 

“Don’t come in!!” Shouted a voice laced with panic in reply to the knock. 

“Don’t worry, it’s me.” Aizawa said, lowering his palm to the handle of the locker room. He didn’t need to speak his name for you to know. He was patient, letting you bask in the silence for a moment. The scent emitting from the room made a couple beads of sweat roll down the back of his neck, but he was able to shake it off. 

“I can’t let you.. see me like this…” Your tone was shaky and barely audible, but he’d caught it. 

“I can help you.” He persisted to push the handle downward. 

The bond you’d grown with your teacher in your three years at UA was strong and trusting. You knew that any advice he was willing to offer you would be right. He was always right. You were happy to have a mentor so willing to sacrifice his time and listen to you when you needed it, and this was no exception. 

Aizawa delicately pushed the door open, only an inch into it before the odor was able to escape, already knocking him back; angelic, rosey scents filling his nostrils. Saliva pooled underneath the back of his tongue as he took the fragrance in. He shut his eyes and let out another soft huff before propping the door open with one foot. He could sense your panic rising as he shuffled forward. 

“...I promise you’ll be okay.” He assured you, his hand curling around the frame. He continued to stay cautious and non-threatening, making sure you had enough time to prepare for his entry. 

“I don’t want you to see me so..” you hesitated, attempting to stiffen a cry building up in your throat, “..weak.” The word rolled off your tongue like it was filth. 

Aizawa entered the room, seemingly unphased by the aura of hormones that was now engulfing him. He gently let the door slide closed behind him, carefully locking it for any students that dared to interrupt them. A small but caring smirk graced his face as he looked before him. 

He saw you curled up in the back corner of the changeroom, sitting on a bench with your knees tucked into your chest. You held the bunched up top to your gym uniform, hugging it to the flushed skin of your torso for safety, your chest covered only by a tightly binding sports bra. You sunk your head down, trying not to make eye contact with the teacher as he proceeded forward. He gingerly perched himself on the bench next to you, leaving a comfortable amount of space, before bending forward to look at you.

“Hey..” His hair curtained around his face as he leaned forward, softly cupping the opposite side of your face in his hand.  He pulled your head over to look at him. The unexpected touch made you squirm, squeezing your eyes closed, but you refused to fight his caress. “You’re the strongest person I know.” His thumb massaged your cheek up and down. Your bottom lip quivered, still attempting to fight the surge of emotions that were coursing through you as you finally met his gaze. Your eyes brimming with tears, making your vision blurry, as you continued to choke them back. It was simple, but his words meant a lot. 

You and him both knew that you had a complicated relationship with your femininity. You saw it as a burden, getting in the way from people taking you seriously. You blocked it out in any way you could, to reflect a more intimidating, headstrong persona. Focusing on close-combat studies and fighting techniques, convincing the staff to let you wear the boy’s uniform, attending all the extra curricular sporting events - the reason you were even here on a weekend to begin with. It wasn’t just a means of coming off as adrogynous though, you genuinely enjoyed these things. 

“How can I be strong if I’m...” You looked away, afraid that admitting you were an Omega out loud would somehow make it worse. You didn’t want to come to terms with it. 

“...C’mere kid.” He removed his hand from your face while straightening up, leaning his back against the wall behind him. His arm raised, placing it on your shoulder to pull you into his chest for a gentle embrace. 

You’d been close to Aizawa before, but never anything like this. Playful jabs here and there, sarcastic shoves in the hallway, there was even that time he had to step in to use his binding cloth to stop you from beating on some punk that made fun of your quirk - but this tender feeling he was sharing was a whole new territory. 

You took it in, allowing some of the pent up tears to escape from your eyes. A quiet sob forced itself out of your throat, your body vibrating with each cry. Aizawa rubbed your back, slowly, carefully, letting you bask in the feelings. The fear that you had reverberated throughout the room was beginning to subside, and he could tell. You laid against the man in silence for a moment, the heavy thumping of his heart lulling your anxieties. You breathed in gradually, putting your sniveling to rest, but as you did, you noticed something off. 

A flush of red emanated from your face as your nose raised slightly gravitating toward Aizawa’s head. A waft of strong musk filled your senses. It was savory, and heavy, and…“Hnghh.”  A breathy sigh escaped your mouth as your hand gripped the fabric of the teacher’s shirt. You had little control over your next movement, stretching forward to nuzzle your face against his neck, taking in as much of the aroma as you could. Now that you’d let your defenses down, Aizawa's dominant atmosphere was beginning to encapsulate you. 

“Whoa there.” He let out a chuckle but continued to let you explore, eventually expecting this kind of reaction to his presence. He gracefully shifted his hand, placing it above your hip, both to keep you stable as you moved, and to give him the pleasure of being able to embrace the smooth, supple flesh. 

“I’m...sorry..” You said, beginning to retreat from him as the realisation of what you were doing began to sink in. “Oh, oh no.. I’m sorry..!” Your heart fluttered as you pulled back to your safe spot on the bench. 

He gave his head a shake and continued to give you your space. “No need to be sorry.” He assured you, scratching the back of his head. His voice was tender and dreamy to your ears, it sent goosebumps down your arms. Suddenly sitting in a lecture just to listen to your teacher’s dark, gritty voice rant about hero politics sounded appealing. Admittedly this brief embrace made the resistance to act on his urges much harder than before, but he persisted. 

Suddenly you let out an aching gasp. You pulled your body toward yourself, your arm reaching around your abdomen as you felt that intense pressure building up inside your gut again, tinges of pain and aching threatening your core. You’d felt this earlier when you had the room to yourself. It made you hot, your breath beginning to pick up as your body reeled in a feverish sweat. You didn’t want him to see you like this and now that your guard was down, it was taking control. 

“Hurt…. it hu..rts..” You managed to spit out. Shouta cocked his head to the side.

“Is this your first time..?” He planted his hand on your back once more, making sure you knew his company was welcoming. All you could do was let out a quick nod. You squeezed your legs together, feeling an intense heat present itself in your center, your gasps becoming more hefty and impossible to contain. 

“Wow, a late bloomer.” Aizawa strategically pondered for a moment, “Well, I should go inform Recovery Girl of how you’r-” 

“..No!” You cut him off before he could finish, a tremble in your voice. “Please, can you...” Embarrassment took over causing your speech to trail off, your arm shakely reaching out and clenching around the sleeve beside his hand. Your desires were continuing to take hold and Aizawa’s scent was becoming more and more irresistible as time went on, “..can you help me?”

The edge of his mouth curled up into a smile, disguising itself behind his shield of dark locks. Just as he’d expected. 

Now, this wasn’t his first time dealing with a student in heat. Although the population of Omegas was on the lower side, there had been a few students in his years of teaching that had to get medicated and sent home for a few days to deal with their inflamed, unpredictable hormones. And professors, especially Alpha professors, were instructed on the responsibility of containing those natural urges and how to offer students help when they were in their most vulnerable state. 

He did genuinely want to help. Seeing your pleas to get rid of this nasty heat made his heart ache and he didn’t want to deny you the option for any outside aid, but he knew you would place trust in him and he was willing to offer it. 

Without answering Aizawa leaned forward. He curled his other hand up behind your head, letting his fingers trail through your hair to embrace your scalp. Immediately a shiver fell down your spine as he bent over you; first planting a kiss on your forehead, then he trailed downward, peppering a couple kisses on your tear-stained cheek. The weight of your head cradled into his hand as he continued, his mouth trailing down the length of your neck, his tongue messaging down the length of your skin. Your breathing increased as you let out a cute whimper, your core pulsated. He then paused just above your shoulder, letting in a deep inhale. Your scent was enchanting, sweet, and made his head spin. He dared to let his teeth graze that special spot, smirked, and then placed one final peck there before abruptly pushing his mouth against yours. You immediately felt a rush of heat rise into your stomach as his lips collided with yours. They were so soft and experienced, but juxtaposed by the rough facial hair that scraped against your chin. 

Even though it was you who’d requested it, you were having a tough time wrapping your head around the order of events that lead you here. Finding it difficult to reciprocate the kiss, he began to ease his tongue inside your mouth. Your eyebrows raised, but eyes remaining sealed shut as the twitching muscle explored your mouth, the roughness of his flesh against yours causing you to feel slick drip between your thighs. 

You pulled your mouth away releasing an overwhelmed heave, a string of saliva still leaving you connected to the man. 

His eyes furrowed, a worrying expression plastered his face making sure you were okay. 

“..I forgot to...breathe.” A rosy tint burned your cheeks before you both let out a small chuckle that eased the tension. He then placed his forehead against yours.

“Keep going..?” At this point he was probably too far gone but he thought he’d at least give you the false sense of reassurance. 

Despite the flustering heat that Aizawa stirred into you from his kisses, the pain in your curve was urging on to the point of becoming unbearable. Your hands trembled but quickly grabbed his chest to pull him back into the embrace. He took this as a ‘yes’ and fell back into the deep kiss, proceeding to cup his hand around your left breast. He kneaded the bosom in his hand before trailing his mouth down your neck once again, this time pulling and suckling at the skin, leaving playful little bites - but not enough to bruise. His hands trailed down to the edge of your bra. You bit down on your lip as he yanked it upward and over your head. 

A nearly inaudible “Wow..” escaped from his mouth as he leaned back to take your figure in, not sure if it was meant for your ears to hear. Your defenseless upper half was paler than usual and coated with a perspiring sheen due to your sickly urges.

“Don’t stare..” You grumbled, refusing to meet his eyes as his hand regained its place against your chest. He was shocked you were able to contain them within the bounds of a thin fabriced sports bra all the time, let alone while they were aching and swelling from your heat. You did a very good job of keeping it that way. 

He smirked once more before lowering his head, taking the erect pink bud between his lips, lapping his tongue over it again and again. You shuddered as he sucked it into his mouth, his opposite hand fondling the other. But no matter how much he kissed and caressed your shivering body, it wasn’t satisfying the heavy hunger sweltering in the pits of your core. “Please..” You whined above his head, frustratingly clenching your fingers into your palms, “Mister Aizawa, please...I can’t wait anymore.” 

Aizawa pulled his mouth away, nuzzling his face between your chest for just a moment before raising back up. 

“Soon.” He simply but firmly stated, pulling his binding cloth above his head and tossing it to the floor, making sure it wouldn’t get in the way. 

He then bent down, wrapping his arm around the calves of your legs and pulling them onto the wide bench. He moved his own leg over the opposite side of the bench so that it was now in between him. 

“Now,”  he looked as you impatiently quivered, trailing his intense stare down your body, “What’s the damage?” You let out an offended huff at his wording, but held your complaints in. You figured any sort of noncompliance would lead you to a one-way trip to the medic. 

Shouta really didn’t need to ask, but your fluster enticed him even more. The bottoms of your navy gym uniform had a dark patch stained through them long before the moment he’d entered, by this point it had traveled down your legs. 

“Looks like we’re gonna have to find you another pair of those, huh?” He reached forward tracing his hands around the edges of the waistband before pulling the sweats down. You shifted as it tickled your sides. He then tossed them to the floor alongside his equipment. 

Your hands reached up to cover your face as his gaze pierced through you. No matter how desperate you were to get some relief, you still couldn’t get past the vulnerability of being sprawled out in front of him like this, let alone, someone actually known for having a deeply intimidating stare. 

He tenderly pulled one of your hands away, taking it in his own. This was the first time you’d really noticed how big his were in comparison, cupping around your delicate digits. He closed his eyes, leaving a few tender kisses inside your palm before deeply inhaling the aroma radiating from your wrist. He let it go and looked back, his palms now resting on your thighs, pushing them apart with a surprising amount of ease. You aligned yourself on the bench, propping your back against the wall. 

Aizawa bowed over your lower half, leaning into the heat pulsating between your legs. He hadn’t even touched you before your heart began to race, your breath trailing close behind. Your anticipation for him made his heart melt but he couldn’t resist dragging this out for as long as he could. He wanted to make your first heat special for you - memorable - even. 

It wasn’t long before Aizawa’s mouth was trailing up the length of your leg. The closer he got, the more unbearably hard it was to not just let his primal instincts take over and ravage your pretty, little entrance with his aching cock. No, Aizawa. He cursed at himself for even thinking that. 

Shouta’s tongue danced up your thigh before hitting the edge of your drenched panties. He left soft little nips with his teeth in your thigh, leaving you breathless, before kissing the fabric. He nudged his nose against the surface of it, prodding your sensitive core before letting his tongue fall down its length, intentionally heaving his hot, eager breath against you. You let out a loud gasp that left you clutching your mouth. He smiled once more before taking the edges of the fabric between his fingers and pulling them down, finally revealing your throbbing, leaking pussy. 

“Oh, sweetheart…” He sighed into you, sharing a few more kisses before sliding his tongue through those tender, pink folds. You cocked your head back gently scooching your hips towards him, your humiliation suddenly masked by your intense lust for the man. 

Aizawa took in all the senses surrounding him. The delightful squeaks you made as he trailed his muscle along your slit, the delicious distinctly omega flavours that drenched his mouth, the way you convulsed and your knees buckled every time he slid his lips or nose against your sensitive, budding clit. He then pulled your legs over his shoulders, giving him more leverage to dive into you.

You reached your hand out as your gasps deepened, he looked up from you inquisitively before reaching his out in return. You laced your fingers between his, yearning for that simple grasp. You held on to it as a form of security, giving soft squeezes to the man every time it was too intense, or a loving stroke of your thumb against his skin when it was just right. 

He narrowed his focus back on you, slowly bringing his other hand to your slit. While his tongue massaged your pulsating pearl, he sank two fingers deep inside your entrance. Unsurprisingly your hole was ready and more than willing to accept them. The amount of slick you’d produced was evident enough. You bit down on your lip and let out a whimper as he now began pumping you with his fingers alongside his mouth, your natural lubricant gliding down his hand.

Earlier you’d tried doing the same, attempting to satisfy your intense craving with masturbation alone, but it was never enough. Nothing felt like enough. But Aizawa’s fingers reached parts that you couldn’t, curling and prodding that sensitive area, hiding toward your stomach.

“God..” Your eyes rolled back as you bucked yourself against him, but you still yearned for more. “S...Sensei..” He could see you getting close, your little hand clenching in his own as he rhythmically persisted, your breaths more shaky and sporadic. “Shou..ta..!!” He loved the way his name rolled off your tongue, his cock twitching against his leg from the sound of it. He pulled his hand back and plunged his long fingers even harder and more vigorously, this time including a third. You let out a little shriek while he basically drowned amongst your tiny folds, his fingers driving into you at a steady cadence. He felt as your plush, sensitive walls tightened around his dexterous touch, quivering as you climaxed before him.  

You gulped hard trying to let your mind catch up to your body, releasing a steady pant. 

“That was great, kitten.” He gave your thigh one last kiss before raising up. “...You did so well.”

[phecdasolar]

Nobody asked and I don’t care

Here’s my Cole au feat. my copy-pasted discord ramblings:

So Cole gets turned into a ghost during season 5, and then one season and a holiday special later he’s back to being a good ol’ human yeah? And he’s happy because he doesn’t have to worry about dying to water or going intangible at the worst times. Life is good — for the most part of course let’s be reasonable they face danger every Tuesday.

And then they get a mission and everything is going about as well as you’d expect and then — Cole gets knocked off the Bounty during a fight. (Wait which season was it, the uhh, vermillion warriors one? The oni one? Idk) Now, logically he could just airjutsu his way back up but for plot’s sake let’s just say the baddie got him in the head and so he’s disoriented and doesn’t realize he’s falling until he hears the others shriek his name and he has a split second to widen his eyes before—

Crunch-

What seems like an eternity later, Cole slowly comes to, and hears the sound of sobbing next to him, and a hand carding through his hair. He stirs, and there’s gasps as he slowly sits up, hand slipping slightly in something.

Opening his eyes he sees the team surrounding him, faces pale and eyes wide in shock. The hand falls from his hair and he absently recognizes it as Nya’s. He looks around, rubbing the back of his head.

“What happened? You guys look like someone just died.”

He chuckled at his joke before stopping when he noticed no one else was laughing with him.

“Okayyy… guys you’re really starting to freak me out, what happened?”

Slowly, Lloyd stepped forward, wary and still pale from shock. What he said next made Cole’s breath hitch and he felt as though his heart had stopped.

“Cole… you died. We found you with your neck snapped from the impact of the fall… you, you were dead for a good ten minutes before we found you..”

Static filled his head. Vaguely Cole recognized the substance his hand slipped in to be blood. His blood. He barely registered the concerned “Cole..?” before he was scrambling away from Nya, emptying his lunch on the pavement.

Dead. Cole had been dead. But then 15 minutes later, he came back. And there wasn’t a mark on him that implied otherwise.

So Cole and the others have realized that Cole… can’t die. At least not permanently. After the initial shock, Cole tries to act laid back about this, he laughs it off and says that it just lets him takes more risks while fighting to which both Nya and — surprisingly — Zane, slap him upside the head while Lloyd lectures him on how being immortal doesn’t mean he can’t be careful.

And then, nearly a week later, it sets in.

Cole is immortal. He can’t die. He can’t die. And the implications of that just about break him.

That night finds him on the deck of the Bounty with Zane, curled up and crying into his gi as the only other member of the team who shares his fate whispers soft comforts into his ear.

It is a small comfort, when they will both eventually outlive the rest of their family, but a comfort nonetheless that they’ll share this pain together.

Secretly, selfishly, Zane is grateful, for at least now he won’t be alone.

———————————————————————

Feat. me laughing at my friends suffering bc of this au @lebirbybitch love ya sis <3

Also another fun fact, though it might not be fun for you guys lol — in my science class the other day we talked about what would happen to you in space without any protective gear and there was a considerable amount of continuously expanding until you, ahem, explode. So, more possible trauma for the lad aha <3

BUT ANYWAYS like I mentioned in one of the screenshots this is just like,,, the prologue for the actual AU

Said AU contains:

Immortality

Villain redemption

Time travel fix-it

Adoption

QPR (Glacier obvi~ UwU)

ANGST™️

Fluff™️

eMoTiOnS-

Running away from your feelings

Running away from your inevitable doom at the end of time

Changing your name so people don’t get suspicious that there’s two of you running around (Brook!Cole my beloved <3)

Your pissed off nindroid partner chasing your arse down through time bc you decided to steal 3 priceless relics that have the potential to end the world and yeeted yourself 3,000 something years into the past to prevent the horrific trauma that happened to you and your friends from happening again and then catching up to you and beating said arse before essentially having an emotional breakdown bc how DARE you just up and leave like that I know you’re going through some stuff rn but you promised we’d be in this together, no you idiot I don’t care that I still had PIXAL and Morro with me I want YOU-

…

anyways-

More screenshots of me tormenting my friends w/ this au feat. the beloved @im-a-mint

(The last one is technically Mint yelling at me bc of another au I mentioned almost immediately after I told them ab this one but it makes me feel powerful so up it goes <3)

Bada bing bada boom that is all I have the energy to talk ab rn it is late and I have to wake up early tomorrow

If you have any questions literally ANY please please please please PLEASE send in an ask you can be anon for all I care JUST PLEASE SOMEONE ASK I WILL GLADLY TALK ABOUT THIS

[guiltycorp]

Coming up with various genshin scenarios in my head made me think about how it’s both super fun but also frustrating to know so little at this point in the game.

Unlike soulsborne games, we can expect clarification in the future, so it’s not enough to be like oh well it’s supposed to be ambiguous, because as far as we can tell there will be a specific answer sometime down the line, and there are often already hints to what that answer is.

In this way, our canon-adjacent creativity is vaguely controlled by the narrative, and it’s a very unique experience for me personally since we have to wait so LONG for new main-story bits and world-building content... 

A lot of fic and fanart avoids dealing with those important story parts by focusing entirely on emotional and interpersonal relationships, but even those often require us to come up with our own versions of the yet untold story. Not just ‘what will happen next’, but also ‘uhhhh what’s happening NOW?..’

So when we come up with stories and visuals, we have to make writing decisions that the actual writers of the game are so slow to do.

Like, when even our main character is actively hiding what they are without having the excuse of amnesia... They consistently avoid telling anyone about their backstory or basic character details before coming to Genshin’s world.  Just some of the things that regularly came to my mind while playing or drawing fanart - 

Main siblings - came to this world with a purpose or randomly fell down on their way someplace else

Paimon - lost her memories or hides her real nature on purpose

Khaenri’ah - militant and aggressive nation or entirely sympathetic or a mix of both (tbh I was weirded out by the amount of fic that overly focuses on how ‘sinful’ and bad it must have been)

Cataclysm - Traveler, just ask Somebody Old about it already please 

Teyvat - most of the world or a small part of it and what’s up with it in general

Celestia - having its reasons or destroying countries for the hell of it

Archons - having a say in the order of the world or not

Visions - totally cool and harmless or insidious tracking devices which enslave their bearers, and how are they given out

Gods - their own type of elemental beings or a power tier 

Abyss - 100% evil entity or a part of natural order

Varka - gone on an expedition to the Abyss/Khaenri’ah or someplace else

Abyss Order and the Fatui - related in some way or not

What’s ‘sin’ and ‘sinners’ actually, like, within the context of the game? Is it just living without an Archon or... 

Existence of magic other than elemental energy and alchemy (like teleporting, time traveling...)

Now that I think about it, a lot of these may count among ‘necessary to keep vague for future turns of the story’, but with Inazuma being so self-contained and giving us a negligent amount of relevant lore about the Cataclysm and Visions (which were the whole main point of the starting arc so arghhhh) I’m getting more antsy before Sumeru. If it’s necessary to keep some story points from the audience because you’re going for more impactful reveals in the future, how about doing at least something to eventually reach that future lol If Sumeru will be another similar self-contained story only hinting at things that have already been hinted at, then that’s a definitely weird path for the writers to take. Considering artifact descriptions and various implications it should be a huge lore dump full of various revelations about the main plot and some of introduced characters, but I’m not so sure anymore.  At the same time in case it doesn’t go anywhere... It would continue providing us with lots of freedom when it comes to canon fan interpretations. Maybe that’s the whole point. Personally, I already have numerous problems with Genshin’s moral compass and approach to writing story quests, so I’m quickly warming up to the idea of this lack of narrative progress.  I’m mostly interested in Kaeya and Diluc, and frankly we don’t really know either of their motivations for sure because these are dependent on knowing what their respective factions are like (aside from their loyalty to Mondstadt). For example Diluc’s torture habits and consistent obsession with purging evil and ‘sin’ could turn out to be a warning sign of some kind (zealotry, excusing Celestia’s genocidal aggression or something), or it could be just like, a part of his character aesthetic. Dude is just this serious about protecting his city and that’s all. Kaeya’s relatives could be behind the Abyss Order or they could be another faction entirely who’re less radical (or MORE). Crepus could have been colluding with the Abyss Order or the Fatui or both or neither. Naturally all this matters in the context of their relationship, right? And they each already know most of all this stuff! They might not know full information about each other, but some of it for sure. And it’s clearly influencing their actions, too.  But whenever we write or draw something we just have to keep guessing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

[omiscurls]

Yooo if you write for zhongli can you do a ‘Zhongli with a easily excitable S/O’ fluff? Thank you!

sparks

a/n: hii!! i do, and of course i can! hope you enjoy <3

plot: head canons with the reader being easily excitable

contains: zhongli

warnings: none, pure fluff!!

zhongli

well, he’s a stoic person, and always thought he liked to surround himself with people alike.

let’s not forget he once thought humans were exhausting and unneeded altogether, and even though that phase is long gone, and he learned how to form connections with humans, it still takes him a while to warm up to each and every one he meets.

(take hu tao for an example, he still can’t stand her)

what made all the difference when it came to you? well,

zhongli’s eyes moved from the big sightseeing attraction in front of the two of you to your face, as you squeezed his hand a little harder.

“scared, are you?” he asked softly, a smile lingering somewhere on his expression. your face turned to his, the widest of grins adoring your cheeks, happiness glistening in your hopeful eyes, your arm swaying slightly, taking his along.

“no” you giggled, shaking your head. “i can’t wait!”

as he watched the curve of your smile widen beyond his expectations, he felt his chest swelling with a weird feeling. pride, was it?

no, he knew pride far better. pride made the world seem smaller beneath him, pride brought the feeling of being better along, and in that moment he seemed oh so small when compared to a smile as ethereal as yours.

the feeling was way more selfless than pride could ever be. it made his knees tremble like fear would, made his heart rate speed up like adrenaline, made him want to keep you to himself just like possessiveness would.

it motioned these parts of him he had long forgotten. the tickle in his stomach, the swell in his heart, the childish rising of emotion all throughout his body. he hadn’t had felt the feeling in so long, he barely recognized it.

would he put the label “love” on it? no, it was an overused word, far too basic and unfitting for the indescribable fullness that was becoming almost too much to bear.

he had to do something. 

so after making you seriously worry about him by lagging for a good minute, he sneaked one arm around your waist and pulled you closer to his side, leaning down to kiss the top of your head. 

“what was that for?” you laughed, but he just shrugged. 

“just the magic of the moment” he explained shorty, his usual calm and collected voice covering the wave of emotion he was experiencing internally. before you could say anything else, the line to the rollercoaster newly set in the harbor moved. 

“look, it’s our turn!” you exclaimed, jumping slightly on your tippy toes, before dragging him to the machine. 

“oh” was all he managed to voice, looking up at the construction.

considering the height of the damn thing, he was becoming slightly worried about the general safety of your entertainment of choice, and had to swallow down the initial fear, but seeing your excitement, how could he not get in? 

overall, your energy comes off a contrast to his lack, but if anyone else ever dared voice their doubts about how the relationship between the two of you would work, zhongli would be SURE to quiet the person down with the loudest “you really want to go that way?” glare they had witnessed in their life. 

he finds comfort in the way you smile, and the amount of happiness you hold often makes him forget about his own worries. 

so to answer the initial question, he himself isn’t sure how he ever “warmed up” to you, because however cheesy it sounds, it was like an arrow pierced his soul through and there was no way of getting it out - but he preferred it that way. 

he hopes you never decide to cut him off from the energy he so adores, but even thinking about that is horryfing enough. please don’t. 

your daily reminder that requests are open [here]

[venhedish]

I'm not back from my hiatus, but @jaytwosday made a post earlier asking for fic recs and sorta turned my whole shitty day upside down by mentioning me as one of their favorite authors (among a list of MY favorite authors).

So, with that in mind, here's a lil wincest reclist full of works that remind me in one way or another of my own writing (and/or the writing of the other amazing authors on the list – @hathfrozen, rivkat, killabeez, paxlux, and astolat): Five Broken Promises, by @lovetheirloves Words: ~4.3k Summary: Sam made Dean so many promises. My Notes: Standalone getting-together fic from one of my favorite AU 'verses. Achey, breaky perfection. Stupid Sam, noble Dean. A beautiful mess of feelings.

Love Letter, by whereupon Words: ~4.9k Summary: It's almost fall and Sam hasn't said anything about leaving. My Notes: First time. Car porn. Angst. Hot, empty highways.

Almost At Home, by @balefully Words: ~24.3k Summary: Sam graduates from high school in early June in rural Tennessee. He and Dean start the summer with an all-nighter of celebration; the day after, while both fight hangovers, John calls to assign them their first hunt by themselves. They go to northern Virginia to investigate the homicidal ghost of a dangerous escapee of a high-security prison and mental institution whose MO is beheading people with an axe while wearing a filthy, grotesque bunny suit. Then throughout the long, happy summer, as they move around tackling a series of minor hunts together, John's absences grow longer. Sam and Dean explore their relationship as it burgeons into something they've both been craving and which neither of them regrets. My Notes: I forgot to rec this one at the time I read it (was on vacation), so I've forgotten some of the finer details. I know it was an instant fave, though. It was perfectly paced and the level of mutual pining made me feel so many shrimp emotions.

I'll take my chance on a beautiful stranger, by fleshflutter Words: ~3.9k Summary: N/A My Notes: POV from one of Sam's pre-law classmates at Stanford while their small group of students spends winter break in a ski town. Dean happens to be there hustling cards. They don't expect to run into each other. Very good. I'll Have What He's Having, by gekizetsu Words: ~3k Summary: Dean messes with Sam until Sam can’t take any more. Dean shouldn’t do that. Or maybe he should. My Notes: Cracky prankfic where Dean decides to recreate *that scene* from When Harry Met Sally to bother his poor innocent brother. Contains one my my favorite dialogue exchanges in any fic ever.

taste of grave in the mouth, by @fallcolorspringrapid Words: ~3k Summary: Sam puts the gun down on the bed and presses his palms on his thighs to hide the shaking. “I need you to put your gun in my mouth,” he says, voice surprisingly steady, “and not shoot me.” My Notes: Queerplatonic gunsucking. Basically made me hold my breath for ~3k words. Made me feel weird (affectionate). Dark and a little unhinged in just the right way. A depiction of Sam and Dean as seen through the kind of dream-like Fuller-edit horror show lens that lives in my head.

almost rosy, by @shiftylinguini Words: ~5.2k Summary: Dean used to do this for Sam, when he was small and Dad was gone. When no one else was there. When their mom was in the ground instead of down the hall, and Sam had Dean and Dean had―memories, of someone doing this for him. Maybe. It's all shaky before the fire. Maybe he just made that bit up.

Or, in the aftermath of Mary coming back, Dean takes stock of how they're doing. My Notes: I'm so soft over this one. Absolutely beautiful coda post-BMOL-Sam-torture story about Dean washing Sam's hair. I want to burrow into this fic and live there. Toes the line between romantic and QPR gorgeously.

howls in my bones, by @weefaol Words: ~22.7k Summary: When John gets a call to investigate a series of grisly animal killings, he drops Sam and Dean at an abandoned cabin two towns over. The boys find ways to keep busy — playing cards, watching movies, chopping wood — but with a howling winter storm on the way, there’s nowhere for Sam to hide his illicit feelings for his older brother.

As the lure of desire threatens to devour him, Sam must learn to face the wolves that lurk outside and the monsters within. My Notes: Sad and sweet, a thousand big feels that won't go away. Excellent first-time weecest.

Easy on the Clutch, by yourperiphery Words: ~32.5k Summary: In a shit town in New Hampshire, Dean teaches Sam to drive. My Notes: (The link for this one takes you to a Mediafire download page for the PDF of this fic. afaik it's not hosted anywhere online anymore.) Perfect teen longing and tension and sexy achy moments. The amount of times my stomach clenched reading this is frankly embarrassing. (I also HIGHLY recommend the podfic of this story, read by houxvertetbruyere.)

Second Map of the World, by candle_beck Words: ~13.9k Summary: They're on a lucky streak, and then Sam does something ill-considered, and the plot thickens. My Notes: An all-time fave. Perfect from beginning to end. Made me tear up. Solid af metaphors and shit. I don't even know what to say besides OOF.

[valwentinefics]

Freedom - Helmut Zemo X F!Reader

Plot: You broke into the raft to reunite with your imprisoned lover Helmut Zemo, no longer caring what your old friends the Avengers would think of you.

A/n: This is short and pretty uneventful. I’m not that big of a fan of it but I wanted to get something out. Don’t worry I didn’t forget about y’all, I’m just a bit off schedule right now!

Warnings: Guns, mentioned helicopter crash

The plan was simple on the outside but made of so many complicated variables that it made your head spin. Despite the headache you got just by thinking of it, you knew you had to go along with it. You had to get him out. Before you would have scoffed if anyone were to tell you you would fall in love with Baron Helmut Zemo, you would have burst into laughter if someone told you that you would betray your friends' trust and use your influence as an Avenger just to get him out. But love is a strong emotion that changes a person, just like betrayal and longing. You felt them all deep inside your body, threatening to spill out in the form of tears and screams, yet you somehow managed to contain them despite the struggle. 

You could imagine the looks on your former friends' faces when they found out who was behind the ingenious breakout of the criminal, the disappointment they would feel, the betrayal that would fill their thoughts as they wondered what went wrong with you. They believed he was bad and so they had him locked up. In your mind he wasn’t the criminal they described, they didn’t know him as well as you did. They didn’t understand his emotions and reasonings that in your eyes justified his actions. Because of this you couldn’t bring yourself to care about how the others would feel about your actions. They didn’t matter. The second Bucky had Zemo sent to the raft after he had deemed him useless to the fight against the Flag Smashers was the second your comrades were against you.

The halls were empty as you marched down them, the red flashing lights and blaring alarm indicating an emergency filled your senses, but you didn’t care. You had tunnel vision in a way, the only thing that mattered to you was Zemo and being back in his arms. It was pitiful how easy it was to divert attention away from the area where his cell was. All it took was a helicopter crashing into the opposite side of the building, a few bribes, and the use of Friday who had listened to you easily due to your close friendship with Tony before his passing to replay old footage on the security cameras. You had expected to meet more resistance as shown by the the guns held in each hand and strapped to your back, but instead there was no one around. It was almost disappointing.

The sound of other prisoners shouting at you to help them managed to be audible over the sound of the alarm. You didn’t pay attention to them despite their pleas, they weren’t who you were looking for. You approached the cell with the least amount of movement, looking to the bed where a man sat reading silently as if the chaos wasn’t bothering him but you could tell from the clench of his jaw he was starting to get annoyed. Luckily, you were there to put an end to his suffering. Putting a gun you held into its holster, you reached into the pocket of your pants, pulling out a key card you had stolen on your way in and pressing it against the scanner. The red light turned to green and you opened the door, making Zemo look up from his book with a curious glance. 

“So it was you who caused all this commotion, liebling?” He closed his book and sat up. “Now the question is, are you here to free me, or for another reason?” 

“I’m here to free you of course.” You smiled at him, resisting the urge to run over to him and press your lips against his, craving the feeling of his kiss that always soft but managed to be filled the passion that a rough one would contain.

“I doubt your Avenger friends were too happy when you told them your plan.” He stood up, stretching his arms. His comment made you scoff, causing him to tilt his head. It was a gesture he didn’t seem to aware of doing but it made you feel soft and happy whenever he did. You loved all his little mannerisms, they all made him himself. 

“They don’t know.” You explained, grabbing your bag off your back and pulling out a uniform for him to put over his own clothes. You doubted you would encounter anyone, but it was a precaution. If anyone didn’t look too close at him he wouldn’t be recognized. You had also arranged for someone to bring in a corpse that looked close enough to Zemo to give you both some time where you weren’t being hunted down by the governments of the world to get to your safehouse where you would live peacefully, but that wouldn’t come until you were both long gone.

“Oh really?” He hummed, taking the uniform from your hands, you felt a spark just from the brush of his hands against your own. “It seems as if I’ve corrupted you schatz.” he said teasingly as he put on the uniform over his prison clothes, knowing he wouldn’t have the time to change properly from the way you were tapping your foot.

You grabbed his hand and turned around to leave when he pulled you back into him, grabbing your face within his hands and pressing his forehead against your own in a tender gesture of affection. “Ich Liebe dich.” He muttered his love for you before giving you a small peck on the lips, pulling away with a soft smile plastered on his face. “Let's get out of here, shall we?” 

You handed him the gun you had placed in your holster earlier, still holding one tightly in your hand, the cold metal pressing into your skin. There was no turning back now, you were a criminal now and enemy to your friends. However, you found out that inside you didn’t care. You didn’t want to turn back to your former life because now you had Zemo, the man you loved more than anything. The sacrifice you were making for him and the way you would miss your now former friends paled in comparison to the way you felt for Zemo. You would sacrifice even more if it meant you would get to have a happy ending with him.

You nodded. “Yes, lets go.” You held his hand tightly as you left the cell and into the flashing red corridor of the raft, freedom awaiting you both. The freedom to love each other without fear or being ripped apart or judged. The freedom to belong completely to each other. What greater freedom could there be than the freedom to love him freely?

[mandoalorian]

I Believe In Love [Maxwell Lord x F!Reader] — Twelve: Family

Summary: When you find your calling to leave Themyscira, you venture out to the World of Man with intentions of helping and healing a very specific person’s relationship with his son. You’ve heard his voice before, but only in dreams. You’ve felt his pain and anguish and you’ve never been able to relate to anything more. But things don’t come easy for you, and they certainly don’t come easy for him either. [This series contains spoilers for WW84 and is my interpretation of what happens after the movie ends].

Warnings: THE FINAL CHAPTER! very emotional, new beginnings, bullying mention, poverty mention, abuse mention, allusions to pregnancy.

Word count: 3000>

REBLOGS APPRECIATED.

Masterlist 

Previous - Chapter Twelve - Epilogue [coming soon!]

“I don’t know if I could do it,” Maxwell sighed, pacing around in anxious circles. He looked different, in his denim jeans and khaki-green cable knit sweater. It made a change from the oversized powersuits he once donned. Alistair was sat at the dining room table, colouring in, and Max was having a nervous breakdown about getting his haircut. “I’ve had the blonde in for so long.”

You smiled, running your fingers through his shaggy and unstyled hair. When it wasn’t perfectly coiffed, it was wavy and glossy, and smelled distinctly like the freshest green apples. “It’ll be okay. Think of it as washing away all the terrible things that went on in the past and starting anew. Like… turning over a new leaf.” 

You made a very good point. Maxwell knew he had to suck it up and just do it. It would be okay. He didn’t have to be Max Lord anymore, and he didn’t have this television persona to live up to. His main focus now was just being a father, and that’s all that mattered. All he needed to be, was himself. Maxwell Lorenzano.

“Daddy look!” Alistair smiled, waving around the piece of paper he’d spent the morning drawing on. It was stained slightly from his breakfast, and crinkled in the corners for where he’d applied slightly too much pressure when colouring, but all-in-all, it was perfect. Maxwell took the artwork and looked closely at it. Another typical family portrait of you, Alistair and Max. But this time, Maxwell was doting brown hair, and it reminded him of his younger days when he was first starting out as a businessman. “This is how you’ll look when you come home from the salon!”

“Wow Alistair, I love it!” Maxwell praised, unable to contain his grin. He held the portrait to his face and showed it off. “What do you think?” he asked you. “Do you think I’ll look good with the brown hair?” 

You giggled and nodded your head, before pressing the palm of your hand flat against Maxwell’s chest and brushing your lips against his. “You’ll look so handsome, I’m sure.”

“Ew!” Alistair cried, pulling the paper from his father’s hand as you kissed him softly on the lips. The curve of Max’s nose nudged against yours and he laughed at his son’s reaction.

“Alright,” you said, pointing your finger. “You better go. Don’t want to miss your appointment.”

Maxwell nodded and took a deep breath. “I’ll see you in a few hours.” he announced.

The second Maxwell left the house, your stomach began to twist. You’d been living at Lord manor for a month now but truthfully, it felt like a lifetime. It felt like you had always been there. You were adjusting to your new life pretty well, but this morning sickness that you had started to get was an unwelcome experience. Amazon’s never got ill, so this was brand new to you, and you weren’t enjoying it one bit.

You rubbed your stomach and took a sip of the glass of water that you’d been nursing. Sliding down to sit next to Alistair, you watched as he finished his drawing, adding a few final perfections. Once it was done, you hung it to the refrigerator and praised him for his hard work.

“Ali, why don’t you grab your shoes and we’ll have a walk down to the Smithsonian?” you smiled, grabbing your jacket that was hanging over the kitchen door.

“Ooh! Is there a new exhibition?” He enquired curiously, hopping onto his feet and fastening his shoe laces.

“I don’t think so,” you admitted sheepishly. “I have to go meet with some friends.”

Taking the bus was a new experience for both you and Alistair. Joe, Maxwell’s driver, would normally drive Alistair around to and from places. But not today. The bus was slightly smelly and the seats were sticky, but by the looks of it, Alistair was having the time of his life. He pointed out the window, grinning, and talked to you about all the different D.C. landmarks the both of you passed as you were driven into the city centre. He might have only been six years old, but that was six years of living in the world of man. You’d only been here for a month, and so Alistair could teach you a lot. 

Driving past the park, Alistair gasped, and shuffled into your body. “That’s the park where we first met,” Alistair pointed. You narrowed your eyes as you took in the sight of tall green trees and shrubbery. He was right. “Do you remember that day? You were wearing an awesome superhero costume like something out of my comic books. And you wore a tiara, and I asked if you were a princess. And you scared my bullies away, and helped me look for dad.”

“I remember.” you smiled, ruffling Alistair’s dark hair.

You remembered asking Alistair what his father looked like, and the only thing the boy could say was ‘strong, cool, and the best dad in the world’. Counting your lucky stars, you were so thankful you had found your forever family. You had come so far from that moment.

“Did you ever tell daddy… about those bullies in the park?” Alistair asked you hesitantly, his voice suddenly small and timid.

You pulled off him and looked him in the eyes. “No. Why?”

Alistair paused for a moment and glanced back out the window. “I was afraid he’d be disappointed in me.”

Your heart shattered in your chest. “Ali,” you said quietly, tears threatening to prick your eyes. “Your father could never, ever be disappointed in you. You know that, yes?”

Alistair nodded his head silently.

“He loves you so much,” you continued. “And the whole bullying thing… I think he’d understand better than anyone else.”

You remembered all the visions you had of Maxwell, even seeing him as a child at one point. You remembered him wearing rugged clothes that were too small for him and how he was picked on for his broken shoes. 

“Really? You think so?” Alistair asked.

“I know so,” you confirmed, pressing a kiss into Alistair’s hair. “Those bullies will never amount to anything if they continue doing what they’re doing. But you are so much better than them. Stronger. Your power lies in your heart, and in the truth, and in love.”

Alistair smiled. “You’re a real hero, aren’t you?”

“We’re all heroes.”

————

Yourself, Maxwell and Alistair loved trips to the Smithsonian. Diana always organised special access for the three of you, to go after hours when the entire museum was empty. Alistair was admiring the fish in the aquarium, when you noticed Barbara and Diana, and waved them over.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you today.” Diana smiled.  

“It was sort of an impulse thing,” you explained. “Uhm, actually, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

You pulled Diana to one side and left Barbara with Alistair. “Remember how you said ‘I owe you one’, since I like… got your girlfriend to renounce her wish and kinda helped you save the world by destroying the second dreamstone?” you grinned, trying to hold back a laugh.

Diana rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. “What are you plotting?”

“Max has been… worried, to say the least. We’re going to have to sell Black Gold and it’s a real shame because-- he worked so hard on it. We have some money and well, I haven’t exactly ran this by him yet but I was thinking about investing what we do have into the Smithsonian. Just like what Maxwell promised to do in the first place.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Diana sighed. “The gemology department is doing just fine.”

You shook your head, your smile only growing. “No Di, that’s not what I was getting at. How would you feel about… expanding the gemology department?”

“I’m not quite sure I follow…”

“I’ve heard Barbara talk about how there’s a lack of space to facilitate all the rocks and stones the Smithsonian keeps bringing in. She has a real fear that the entire paleontology department could be shut down and replaced with something else.” You sighed, running your fingers through your hair.

“That’s true…”

“So what if we use the Black Gold building as an extension for the Smithsonian, and have it specialise in all these fancy rocks and gems and stones. We could transport everything over and then we could utilize the leftover funds that Maxwell has, to keep all the palaeontologists and geologists employed. Hell, with a whole new building, we could even create more jobs for people. It would also mean that we wouldn’t have to fire Max’s old employees and-- Oh Di, I just know Max would love it. He really does have a passion for gemology. And his son, Ali… he has an interest too.”

“So I heard,” Diana rolled her eyes, but, to be frank, she liked what you were getting at. An expansion wouldn’t exactly be a bad thing… “It’s a big responsibility though, and it seems you haven’t even spoken to Maxwell about it. You would get funding from the Smithsonian as an institution, yes, but… it would still be Max’s business. Do you really think he could handle that? After what happened to his last business?”

“He’s smart,” you assured her. “And he’s a good businessman. He knows all these things I couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Last time he just got unlucky. But this, this could really be something great. We have the building, and the passion, and enough money to get started. Please Diana… I know you could make this happen. Please.”

Diana spent a moment pondering the possibilities before shrugging her shoulders in defeat. “Alright,” She sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

You grinned and squealed excitedly, wrapping your arms around your half sister and squeezing her tight. “Thank you Di!” She laughed and rubbed your back before you pulled off her. “Oh, and Di… there’s one more thing.”

Diana tilted her head and gazed at you with fresh bewilderment. Looking around the museum to make sure no one was around to hear what you had to say, you leaned into the Amazon and whispered a confession you’d been keeping to yourself for the past month. 

————

Maxwell sat in the chair and frowned upon seeing his reflection in the mirror. “What can I do for you?” asked the stylist as she smacked her lips on a piece of gum. Max wasn’t sure if he could really bring himself to do this, until he remembered your words. This was ‘turning over a new leaf’-- a new start and fresh beginnings. 

“Uh, a trim please,” Maxwell requested before taking a shaky exhale. It was now or never, he just had to take the leap. “No, that’s not everything,” he sighed. “Could you perhaps take the blonde… out of my hair?” The question left his lips with an air of unsurity. Could one even do that? Take the colour out of hair?

“You want the colour stripped?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest. Maxwell supposed that was one way of putting it.

“Yes, I do.” he confirmed.

The stylist processed Maxwell’s words for a moment before shrugging her shoulders. “As you wish.”

As the stylist wrapped Max’s shaggy golden locks into foil, he closed his eyes. He’d come so far since the whole dreamstone debacle. His whole life had been a rollercoaster of up and down events but now, finally, things were evening out for him -- in the best way possible. He’d fallen in love and secured his family and home. The only thing he was mildly worried about, was the issue with Black Gold. But he knew that he’d somehow figure it out, especially now that he had you by his side to help him.

He’d always seen himself as an independent man. He fought hard to be as successful. He escaped his hometown, his abusive father, he ran away from poverty and was discriminated against by upper class white businessmen who told him he could never amount to anything. He proved all of them wrong. Because now, he had everything he could ever want. He didn’t need stacks of money or material possessions when he had you and Alistair. Maybe he wasn’t as independent as he once thought he was. Maybe, just maybe, he liked the company of others. He liked having you and his son around.

In his fight for wealth and success, he’d lost everything that mattered the most. But most importantly, he had lost himself. Maxwell swore that he’d never let that happen again.

As the stylist removed the silver foil from his hair, Maxwell nervously anticipated the result. His once bottle blonde hair was now a chocolate brown colour, and it reminded him distinctly of his youth. Max couldn’t help but feel like he looked younger, and he wasn’t going to complain about that. 

He just hoped you liked it as much as he did.

————

“I just don’t understand why mommy is taking so long,” Alistair grumbled as he and Barbara waited outside the ladies restroom. “And why did auntie Diana have to go into the toilet with her?”

Barbara stifled a laugh. “You’re inpatient, just like your dad.”

Impatience must’ve run in the family because you were sitting on the toilet seat, tapping your food as anxiety flooded your body. You didn’t expect to be this nervous. You’d wanted a child for so long -- in fact, your whole life to be exact. But now that there was a chance of it actually happening, you were beyond terrified. Maybe it was the fact Maxwell didn’t know about your symptoms, but you knew better than to feel alone. You were never going to be alone.

“How long left?” you asked Diana, who checked her wristwatch. It was an antique from the early 1900’s, something very special and something she kept very close to her heart.

“It should be ready now.” she told you, handing you the stick you had just peed on.

“I don’t want to look.” you squirmed, covering your face with your hands.

“Wow,” Diana hummed, her jaw parting slightly when she took in the results. 

“Wh-- what is it?” you asked, nervously.

“You’re pregnant.”

————

When Maxwell came home, you were shocked to say the least. His brown hair was absolutely gorgeous, and it suited him better than you’d expected. The deep shade was identical to the colour in his sparkling eyes. Jokingly, he tossed his hair and you let out a laugh.

“I was right,” you giggled, running your fingers through his locks. “So handsome.”

“I love it daddy!” Alistair cheered.

“Thanks buddy,” Maxwell grinned. “I like it too.”

Taking a deep breath, you took Max’s hand and pulled him into the living room, shutting the door behind you. It was quiet in there -- the perfect place to tell Maxwell your news. It had been a nostalgic day, and even standing in the living room reminded you of the time Max first brought you home. 

“Is everything alright?” he asked you, slightly concerned. But your warm smile soon eased him. You felt the need to wrap your arms around him and envelop him into a hug. Max had taken a big step today, and you were proud of him, but now it was your moment. It was now or never.

Harnessing every ounce of confidence within you, you took his hands and looked him in the eye. “Max, I’m pregnant.”

Max’s brown eyes widened and he was completely lost for words. “I-- you-- you’re--”

“Yes.” you smiled, taking his hands and placing them on your stomach.

His shocked expression turned into an elated grin as he processed the good news. “You’re really--”

“I am.” you confirmed.

You didn’t think you’d ever seen Maxwell so happy in your life. He wrapped his arms around you and held you so tight, like he was afraid to let you go. He swore in that moment he would never leave you, or his growing family, ever again.

This was it for him.

This was the start of Maxwell Lorenzano’s new life.

————

THE END.

————

Author’s Note: “I won’t cry” she says while sobbing into her Google Docs document. Thank you all for reading I Believe In Love. It’s a story I have wanted to share with you since I saw WW84 in the theatre, and I just can’t believe it’s finally over. This fic will always have a special place in my heart. The themes and plot points mean so much to me, but not only that, I’ve had the most amazing feedback on this fic and I will honestly cherish that for the rest of my life. I poured my heart and soul into writing I Believe In Love and it honestly one of my biggest comforts. I want you all to know that an epilogue is coming and if you have any requests for these characters I have created, feel free to send them my way. I adore my Amazon Goddess!Reader and I would absolutely love to continue their story at some point in the future. If you’ve followed me on this journey over the past four months, all I can really say is thank you. I love you so so much.

————

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I Believe In Love taglist: [in the replies!]

[captainsimagines]

To Topple A Giant || Chapter Five

Summary: You had made it your mission to destroy even the smallest evils. When the opportunity arises to finally take down your own family after years of gaining their trust, you reach for it. And so does Steve, the man who represents a symbol of everything you hate.

Pairing(s): Steve Rogers x Reader || Avengers x Reader

Part 5 of 10 ~ Mini-Series

Warnings: This story contains mature themes and discussions such as extreme canon violence, strong language, emotional angst, mentions of Endgame deaths and recoveries, sexual situations, and emotional/physical abuse. All trigger warnings will be listed before the chapter. This is purely fanfiction.

Warnings in this Chapter: mentions of male masturbation and boners (lol); strong language; references to suicide, murder, and drug smuggling; abusive parental relationship; mentions of child death in a second flashback; dry humping (smut); 18+ only please!

Word Count: 16,500+

A/N: damn that chapter warning list was a trip to write down lmao

~

Westview, 2023, 1:32 pm

     An uncomfortable silence spread throughout the parked vehicle, daring either of you to take the first step. No one commented on the glares boring into your soul as you drove through the town or how heavily the three of you got patted down by the authorities right outside the state line. You figured it was completely justified - still a little insulting to a bunch of Avengers who literally saved the world three weeks ago. 

With a loud gulp, Bucky was the first to kick open his door and get out of the car. You glanced at Steve from the driver’s seat, biting your lip with a slight quiver as you went over the speech you practiced earlier today. Simple enough, and not too damning. 

Steve’s leg bounced rapidly a few more times before he too kicked open his door, leaving you in silence. You pulled the car keys from the ignition and took in a deep breath. Your legs were numb, the anxiety washing over you in uneven cycles. It was now or never. 

“Wanda, it’s us…”

Her grief seemed to emit from every crack in the sidewalk, every weak beg escaping the townspeople’s throats, every sound from the inanimate objects her powers had continued to turn from gray to red… to green… back to gray. She was crouched on the property, weeds brushing against her black pants and leaving their mark, mascara smudged with each new wet streak. 

Bucky unzipped his jacket, eyes wandering over the deserted plot of land as Wanda tried to control her sobs. She had already caused enough damage, both physical and psychological, the possibility of more government involvement looming over your heads. He carefully walked toward her and wrapped his jacket over her shoulders, all be damned as he held her and began to tear up himself.

“Wanda, you’re okay. You’re safe. We’ll get through this,” Steve sighed, still keeping a respectable distance from her in case she were to run. But you knew her better - she was all out of fight. One fight after another and yet she still lost her love. 

“I did something really bad,” she sobbed, eyes locked on the spot where Vision had just disappeared. Again.

“No, you didn’t know what you were doing,” Steve declared, shocked by the unexpected scoff from Bucky. 

“Save it, Steve. She may not have known in the beginning but she does now. She still did it.”

No one dared correct Bucky or argue with that logic because if anyone knew about causing harm with absolutely no intention, it was obviously him. Taking responsibility - that was the best course of action. 

Once you heard of a radioactive disturbance in a small town just outside the state, the team almost retired completely. So soon after defeating Thanos, so soon after Tony’s death, so soon after Natasha’s death - the team left it up to the proper authorities this time around. 

But the second you watched the broadcast of Wanda’s fantasies, the sitcom her powers were conjuring, her giving birth to her children… all you could do was wait until she opened the barrier. 

“I still did it,” Wanda said, her upper body beginning to rock back and forth as her fingertips brightened with red tendrils of magical grief. 

You shut your eyes and willed yourself not to cry. You had done so much crying these past few years and you were oh, so tired. You couldn’t possibly take another beating. 

“Hey, hey. Look at me,” Bucky spoke, gently turning Wanda’s face and placing both his hands on her cheeks, mindful of the metal appendage he had forgotten to cover with his glove. “You already did it. It can’t be undone. But you can come with us and grieve properly.”

Wanda reached up and placed her hands over his, tears spilling from her eyes faster now. 

“Let us help you grieve.”

This wasn’t an unexpected goodbye. Wanda knew that. She had just voluntarily given up her husband and children - anyone would crumble from that sort of devastation. But now she had been given a proper goodbye, a somewhat proper closure, and the chance to accept it. “Okay.”

You and Steve remained frozen in place even after Bucky helped Wanda stand. Almost as quickly as you thought it, your feet had a mind of their own. You stood next to Steve, taking in the weed infested, rectangular plot of land - the remnants of Wanda’s fantasy still fresh and creating a tiny, refreshing tingle in the middle of your chest. You looked over at Steve and smiled sadly when you saw him inspecting the area as well. 

“They would have had a beautiful life together.”

Steve’s breath hitched as you finished your declaration, looking over at you and nodding slightly. 

“If I had the chance, I would have wanted a nice house with some decent air conditioning. Some weird, front yard garden where I could plant random flowers. A dog that dug them up and acted like it didn’t do it.”

You giggled, thumbnail between your incisors to try and disguise the wider grin forming. Steve kept speaking. 

“Maybe a kid or two. Never actually checked if I could even have kids after the serum.”

You dropped your hand from your face, your attention completely on him now. 

Steve sighed and kicked a rock over to the other side of the property. “I would have wanted a giant, king-sized bed. With ‘his’ and ‘hers’ towels. And every once in a while we would accidentally use the other one’s toothbrush, a secret we would take to the grave.”

Steve wasn’t even looking over at you as he said this. It was like a one-sided confession, rhetorical, not needing an immediate response or expression in return. And you couldn’t believe he was just saying this in front of you - you of all people - the same person who rolled their eyes whenever Steve struggled to comprehend a modern topic or argued with him when he was in one of his moods. He had been distant the last few weeks after returning the stones, only ever noticing you when other people were around to carry a conversation. 

The tingles in your chest were starting to disappear as the plot of land gave its last few magical rumbles. 

“Steve?”

Steve bowed his head, hands in his pockets and breath steady. “Yes, they would have been very happy together.”

You stared at the back of his head as he slowly walked back to the car.  

Present Day, 2025, 8:10 am

     The amount of times you reminded yourself to wake up early as you were drifting off to sleep last night was perhaps more than the number of sheep you had ever counted in your life. A quick reminder here and there as your mind got clogged with pointless information, the number eight behind your eyelids all throughout the night. 

And you did it. In the early hours of the morning, knowing Steve would wake naturally in about twenty minutes, you tip-toed out of bed to use the bathroom. Acting completely normal in case he did in fact hear you before your grand plan - an easy escape route if he decided to repeat his horrible morning ritual on you. But he was such an old man, getting older, losing that serum’s boost. This Steve, Steve who refused to call any movie made after 1945 ‘old’ because he literally didn’t get the chance to see them premiere - yeah, this Steve, was passed out like he had been hit by a truck. 

Bladder empty and teeth brushed, you quietly opened the bathroom door and peeked through. He still lay there on his back, wrapped tightly in his blanket, breathing steadily, and face completely unprotected. 

Could you die? Probably. Would this payback be absolutely satisfying? Hell yeah. 

You grabbed the biggest of your pillows and fisted the corner tightly, twisting it a couple times for a better grip. You signed the cross quickly before lifting the pillow above your head and bringing it down to Steve’s face. 

Steve’s eyes snapped open and he immediately sat up, “WHAT?”

His eyes flew around the room rapidly until they landed on you, angry and challenging.

“Payback!” you yelled, lifting the pillow high again for a second hit. But he reacted quicker, grabbing a pillow himself and swinging it toward you. It slammed you in the torso and practically sent you flying. You landed at the edge of your bed, mouth open in shock and racks of laughter bubbling deep within your chest. You stood quickly and hit him repeatedly, trying your best to also block his counterattack. 

He reached for your hip and pulled you in his bed, rolling the two of you over so he was straddling your hips. He brought the pillow down several more times before accepting your plea of surrender. 

You threw the pillow back to your bed and pouted, “Not a fair fight!”

Steve scoffed, “You caught me off guard! You had all the advantages!”

You shuffled beneath him and froze, hips stuck in a lifted position as you were too embarrassed to move them back down. “Jesus, Steve! How do you even sleep on your stomach with that thing?”

Steve furrowed his eyebrows as he inspected your face and body, looking down at the two of you before he noticed the way he was pressing into your inner thigh. He scrambled off you, a blush spreading from his cheeks and all the way down his chest. He cupped himself and turned away, quickly shuffling for his suitcase and pulling whatever clothes his flustered hands grabbed. He was also repeatedly apologizing. 

“Steve, it’s okay. It just… startled me, is all.”

Steve cleared his throat a couple times before pacing around the room in search of his toiletries. 

You just sat back on your elbows, watching him scurry like a chicken with its head cut off. It was rather amusing. 

“I’m gonna - gonna, take a shower. Uh, I’m sorry again.”

You smirked at the super soldier, “Steve, I’m not mad. It isn’t like I’m new to that kind of thing.”

Steve blushed harder, “But I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

You shrugged your shoulders and dipped lower into his sheets, grabbing and lifting them higher. You snuggled deeper, “Still.”

Steve could feel the speed at which the world rotated and he shut the bathroom door behind him. He leaned against it, breathing deeply until he had all his inhibitions back. 

He didn’t know what was more embarrassing - reacting the way he did or you seeing him react the way he did. It wasn’t like the two of you hadn’t seen each other in awkward situations, some borderline lewd. There were plenty of missions that involved heavy flirting with the targets, undercover work in depraved settings, missions where nasty magic was involved and concocted a multitude of inappropriate visions. Hell, everyone had already seen each other naked. It was completely normal, a trustworthy environment, and sometimes necessary. 

As much as he wanted to give into the feeling and award himself some proper alone time, he refused to act upon it. He would regret it later once the stress pushed down harder than usual, but it just wasn’t appropriate in his right mind to masturbate with you in the other room. 

Why did he have to be such a good and honorable man?

He busied himself with washing his hair and scrubbing away any evidence of sleep from his face. Steve liked sleeping on his stomach, face smooshed in the pillows and arms extended to his sides. It allowed for more comfortable movement, more ways to stretch his hips, just overall comfort for his massive shoulders. Less pressure on the lungs, too. And unlike the enthusiastic yet almost mean accusation that he couldn’t possibly enjoy that position because of his… well, his dick, Steve would choose that position over sleeping on his back any day. But that morning, his body had decided to betray him in more ways than one. One, he was open to attack because he was on his back. And two, whatever dream he was having caused his morning wood to seem larger this morning.

He had washed up quickly, more time spent out of the shower where he fixed his hair and combed his beard. He thought about shaving it for the rehearsal dinner or wedding, but it gave him a more rugged look - like he was all tough and no funny business. As ridiculous as it sounded, the beard allowed him to lean into the criminal act easier, build a fake personality that already had your father eating out of his hand. 

Opening the bathroom door and having to face the music, Steve was almost certain you would continue to tease him. But you were already munching on the breakfast you had ordered, shoveling hash browns in your mouth as you swiped the mouse through pages and pages of intel. You didn’t even look up as he crossed the room to grab a pair of pants he had forgotten to pick up during his quick escape. That settled his nerves almost instantly and he was dressed and settled next to you soon after.

You worked in silent cooperation for a long while, handing each other files and passing phone calls like you had during every other mission before. Except now it was more comfortable, pleasant, and kind - the soft sounds from the television in the corner, the humming of the desktop, the soft hums of recognition whenever you two showed each other something. You didn’t even bother with what happened in the morning, if it really was anything at all, because you honestly found it normal. You were more focused on the conversation you had last night. 

Steve had offered to kill your father if you seriously couldn’t. Just thinking about his offer caused your stomach to turn. Because yes, you wanted him dead. You wanted to snap his neck in ten different places and feed him to scavengers. You wanted to steal his business from under him and tear it apart, bit by bit, and keep him alive long enough to see you do it. You wanted to see the look in his eyes when you revealed that you double-crossed him. And as the day inched closer, the overwhelming feeling of shame pushed down on your shoulders and swallowed your mind. Once your father was dead, you and Steve would never find true peace. His men would always follow you, probably take you down at the local coffee shop you and Peter frequented. 

The thought of dying in front of Peter caused a lump to form in your throat. No, you wouldn’t do that to your friends. You couldn’t do this to Steve. 

But you had to. Because even though your life will never be yours after this mission, you had to save the countless others your father was sure to touch and ruin. 

But was your life ever truly yours?

Steve’s voice pulled you from your clouded mind. 

“Huh?” 

“I asked if you wanted the last piece of fruit.” 

You looked at Steve then at the small piece of watermelon in the bowl, then back at Steve. He had a pen in between his teeth, one eyebrow cocked, and slightly puffy eyes due to the beer heavy sleep he had last night. You looked away as quickly as you could and stared back at the fruit, tears pricking the corners of your eyes. 

Ridiculous, you thought. Just looking at Steve had flustered you, squeezing your stomach in pleasurable pulses you hadn’t felt since high school. “No, no. You can have it,” you said, hoping your voice wouldn’t crack. 

Ridiculous. 

Steve watched you with a funny smile but he took your word and scooped up the last piece for himself. 

No, you thought again, this man will not give me freaking butterflies. 

It wasn’t like it was odd. Steve had you flustered countless times before, but it was never quite as tingly as it was now. You suddenly wanted to facetime Wanda and rant about these weird feelings; you wanted to curl in on yourself and squeal; you wanted to -

    “He’s what?”

You sat on your knees and leaned over the back of the couch, chin resting on your folded arms as you watched Steve pace around the common room. He was tugging at his dress shirt repeatedly, desperately trying to attach cufflinks without additional help. Sam sat right beside you, in the same position, snickering each time Steve cursed under his breath. 

“He’s nervous,” Bucky smirked, arm holding out Steve’s tie for the past five minutes. Steve had paced beside him various times already, completely oblivious. 

Steve groaned and readjusted his collar, snapping his head toward the three of you. “I’m not nervous.”

“You’re sweating buckets, man,” Sam pointed out, one of his hands discreetly opening up his camera and switching to video. 

“What if she doesn’t like me?” 

Bucky threw his head back and cackled, choosing to grab Steve and steady him to finally put that damn tie around his neck. “Same old, Steve. Can’t accept that a dame would ever possibly like you back.”

“Hey, Steve don’t worry about it,” you started, shooting Steve a sympathetic look. Steve glanced back at you, expression swiftly changing due to your kind tone. “... when I was in high school,-”

Steve released a loud grunt, rolling his eyes and stepping away from Bucky’s hands. 

Sam rolled over and clutched his stomach as he laughed, pulling you into him. The two of you shook from your laughs together. 

“Guys,” Bucky warned, reaching for Steve in a ‘grabby’ motion. “Give him a break.”

Steve reluctantly stood beside Bucky again, head tilted upward as he tried wrapping the tie back around his neck. 

None of you heard the entrance of Thor and his brother, too busy with bullying, laughter, or moderating. 

“Did we miss all the fun?”

You shot up from the ground, kicking Sam away as you rushed across the floor and stumbled over the rug. “Thor!”

You rushed into his arms and he gripped you tightly, swinging you around and loud laughter matching yours. 

“Now, why wasn’t I greeted in a similar manner?” Loki questioned, crossing his arms over his chest. 

You pulled your face from Thor’s shoulder, “Oh, you want this too?”

You jumped back onto the floor and were about to jump into Loki’s arms, but he held his own out, stopping you. “It’s too late. It’s not the same.”

“Piss baby,” you quipped, rushing behind Thor for protection when Loki’s mouth dropped in surprise. 

“Can everyone stop what they’re doing real quick and tell Steve his date is going to go well tonight?”

You rolled your eyes at Bucky’s favor, but he just raised his eyebrows, challenging you to disobey the order. 

“The Captain has a date? Are they okay?”

Loki and you shared a comical gasp. 

Steve gaped, “Now, what in the world does that mean, Thor?”

Thor raised his hands in defense, “I’m just asking if she truly knows what she’s getting herself into! Don’t try and tell me she has no idea who you are.”

Steve was back to groaning nonstop. Bucky threw his hands up in the air, “I ask one thing of you guys. One thing.”

You stomped over to Steve and ripped the half-tied tie from his neck and smoothed down his collar. You patted down his shoulders and the front of his shirt, and gripped his shoulders to straighten his back. 

“Now,” you smiled up at him. The breath caught in your throat for a second, the blue of his eyes shining under the ceiling lights and the pink of his cheeks spreading slowly. You let out a tiny sigh, heart fluttering faintly from the small grin he was giving you. He looked so innocent, a renaissance subject created from light oils, signs of true aging showing in his forehead. “Whatever date you got planned, she’s gonna love it.”

Steve relished in the feeling of your palms pressed against his chest for a few moments before he nodded at your declaration. He stepped back and smoothed down his shirt. “Wish me luck?”

A chorus of ‘good luck’s sounded as Steve found his keys and shared a goodnight hug with Sam and Bucky. They both jokingly reminded him to use protection. 

You watched Steve leave, a newfound bounce in his step as he walked away. Your words had been so simple, so cliche, and yet he had dropped any visible nerves as he walked out the door. You weren’t the best motivational speaker, that was for sure, but the proof of at least an ounce of motivation was there. Maybe your words held a hidden meaning. Maybe.

You thought about him picking up this random woman, wine and dining her, kissing her cheek as he said his goodbyes at the end of the night. It was somewhat adorable to think about, but also weird.

Before you could dive more into the strange feeling, Thor’s voice sounded. 

“Should we order pizza or chinese?”

It’s like that snapped you from your trance, because next thing you knew you were back to your playful self, sprinting across the room and into Loki’s arms. 

     You cherished the slight, pleasant churn of your stomach as you watched him happily munch on the fruit. 

Okay, it was normal to have a tiny crush on your mission partner. God knows how many times you wanted to jump Thor’s bones whenever you were undercover together. A crush was normal, completely natural and expected. 

Except you had never gotten so much sane joy from a simple question of whether you wanted the last piece of fruit. 

You blinked a few times and shook off any trace of overthinking devils, grabbing at random files to occupy your mind for a while. After about fifteen more minutes of comfortable silence, you spoke.

“So, we think Ramirez is gonna get straight up murdered?”

Steve snorted, filing through a pile of papers Torres had delivered this morning. “I wouldn’t put it like that, but sure.”

“But it’s just a theory at this point. We can’t just go in guns blazing without enough proof.”

“And if there is proof? Do we protect him? The original mission was to arrest all four men.”

You groaned, “I don’t know. He’s never done me wrong.”

“Personal feelings aside, Y/N.”

“Ugh, fine. But I’m not gonna be happy about it.”

Steve squinted at you with a playful smile. “You’d rather just arrest the bad ones, huh?”

“Obviously what Ramirez is doing is illegal and it’s horrific to think of what might be happening behind the scenes on his side, but either he’s serious or he’s been putting on this good guy act for his whole life.”

“Leaning towards the first option?”

Shrugging, you leaned toward your computer screen and scrolled through the massive list of emails. “It’s what my gut tells me, but ehh.”

There was one random email from Maribel, but random only meant coded. Reading it over a couple times, humming to yourself in concentration, you finally cracked the code she was trying to send. 

“Maribel says Ramirez acquired some land in Mexico… lots of it.”

Steve looked up from the files, “Any significance?”

“It’s probably for growing the products.”

Steve quickly typed key words that would alert him of any new transactions in the past few months.  “Who’s on the title?”

“Just him. And his oldest daughter. My father must know, right?”

Steve leaned back in his chair, releasing a heavy sigh as he thought about what this could mean. “Ramirez acquiring more land means more of Ramirez’s product. A three-way partnership would be split unevenly if he utilizes the land.”

“Make sure Bucky alerts us of any business my father might have with realtors authorized to work in that area.”

It functioned like this for another hour, the two of you sharing bits of information every ten minutes or so. 

“Torres sent us an update on White.”

You rubbed at your strained eyes, “What does he say?”

Steve’s eyebrows raised, “That he’s been in the country for much longer than his passport says.”

You stood from your seat and rushed to look at the same screen Steve was reading from. “He traveling under a fake name?”

“Customs says he returned to Germany,” Steve stated, highlighting a paragraph on the screen for you to easily read. “Four weeks ago.”

It was your turn to snort out a laugh, “Oh, he’s so setting up an alibi.”

Steve nodded in agreement, “Looks like it.”

You slapped his shoulder lightly, voice raising an octave. “Look at us! Piecing together the puzzle!”

“We still got a few more pieces to attach before you go getting all cocky.”

You chuckled and decided to take a break. You speed walked over to your bed and plopped down, the mountain of pillows already relieving your tense muscles. “Hey, has my sister’s plane landed yet?”

Steve glanced at you quickly before pulling up Bucky’s morning emails. “Uh, landed about an hour ago.”

“She at the estate?”

He shrugged, “Torres hasn’t sent an update. Just her profile, hold up.”

You waved him off, a nonverbal way of telling him you seriously couldn’t care less. “I haven’t spoken to her since I joined you guys. You don’t gotta give me her origin story.”

“That long?” Steve questioned. 

You placed a pillow beneath your head, body horizontal and facing Steve. “We were never that close. I’ve got tons of half-siblings. Most of them were adults when I was born, anyway.”

With just a few words exchanged, Steve realized he had just stepped through your metaphorical door of reminiscing. So he stood to lay in his own bed, the simple action of giving you attention enough to keep you talking, he hoped. “Were you alone a lot? Growing up, I mean.”

You watched as Steve also placed a pillow beneath his head, “There were always kids around. Kids of the maids, cousins, neighbors.”

“A full house, sounds like.”

“Yeah,” you mumbled, a small smile forming as you thought about old friends. “I remember this one time, we all ran into Ramirez when we were trying to get to one of the playrooms. But he grabbed me quickly and told me to not go in there.”

“Was it a threat?”

You grinned at his protective tone, “No, it was a warning. There were some really bad men in the other room. It was me and a few other girls. He told us to run back to my room and lock the door until he came to get us.”

Steve couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation as to why Ramirez joined the drug game. Sure, the function and presence of cartels had changed drastically over the last forty years, but it didn’t explain why he remained involved. In the eighties, the drug game was highly televised and spoken about, but the cartel violence was not as strong. Nowadays, and not even you could give a proper explanation, the violence was astronomical and basically advertised as something to expect when visiting certain countries. This was the mob game now, freaking Al Capone or the goddamn Godfather, absolutely meant to frighten whoever dare join or leave. For Ramirez to still be one of the big players even with that many internal changes, to be a good person in the middle of such hell, didn’t make any sense. 

“He protected you.”

You clutched the pillow closer to your chest, the memory a good one even if it was weird. “Oh, yeah. Those guys he was warning us about were no angels.”

Steve gave an awkward smile, “I feel like I know more about your childhood than you know mine.”

“I’m all ears if you wanna tell me about little, asthmatic Steve Rogers.”

He raised his index finger at you, “Hey, I was more than just my asthma.”

“Oh, excuse me. I totally forgot about your scoliosis.” 

The pillow under his head was now flying across the small distance to your face. You shrieked and sent it back. 

“Stop bullying!” Steve laughed.

You shielded your face in case he decided to continue the pillow war. “What? I’ve got my health problems, too! I just don’t have the serum to help me out.”

But he didn’t throw it again. He repositioned himself on his back and placed both hands beneath his head, gracing the ceiling with a grin. “I remember this one time, Bucky and I were around eleven-years old, and I had this really bad asthma attack. Bucky just freaked out. I was choking and he was just holding me, screaming for help -”

You blinked, “This is really depressing, what are you-”

“-and! Bucky threw himself into a full-blown panic attack. So we were both choking on air, but I was starting to laugh at him freaking out, which only made him choke harder. We ended up throwing up.”

You were silent at the end of his short story, mouth open in a wide smile. “I don’t know what else to say other than that was one of the greatest stories I’ve ever heard.”

Steve rolled over, a literal twinkle in his eye. “See? Don’t interrupt me before I get to the good parts.”

This simple moment catapulted the realization that Steve hasn’t spoken to you this much in two years, to the front of your mind. In these past four days, you had spoken like you had never stopped, like it was never awkward, like you two seriously didn’t need another person in the room to simply converse about what you wanted for breakfast. Yet here you were, more words exchanged in the past four days than you ever thought possible. 

After the fallout, you didn’t say one full sentence to him for seven months. Seven months. He hadn’t attempted a conversation with you either, but you actively avoided him like he was infected. Hell, he even moved out of the compound and into his own apartment to get away from you for most of the day. After your forced reconciliation, the awkward apologies, you still didn’t force any open conversation. But it was easier, lighter, and most conversations involved mission information. 

Talking this much now was so easy, so simple, like you didn’t need to force the comfort - there was already full comfort, a sense of community with this man. 

He was so different from when he insulted you while you were packing, annoyed by the fact that you pried too much. And now you were prying into his childhood and him yours without a lick of annoyance on either side. 

“We both had eventful childhoods, didn’t we?”

“What, with both of us in the middle of a war?” Steve asked, a genuine look on his face.

“Guess our wars never really left us, huh?”

There was a knock at the door. You weren’t expecting Torres again today. Steve muttered ‘room service, maybe’ under his breath as you went to open it. You were startled to find Scott standing outside, two massive suitcases in his hand. 

“Oh my god, I forgot you were arriving today!”

Scott scoffed, “Am I not as important as your other friends?”

You laughed and helped him inside, “Stop! You’re one of my favorite bugs!”

“Ha ha. Very funny. I’ll leave right now if you two decide to pile on me instead of each other.” Scott placed one of the suitcases near the door but the other at the edge of your bed. 

“We’ll be nice,” Steve promised, standing to greet Scott with a hug. 

“You better. Catch me up, please?” 

The suitcase contained your outfits for the rehearsal dinner and the wedding. Whoever was in charge of costumes definitely went all out, hoping their work would make the big fight the most fashionable. Steve was given a perfectly tailored suit, navy blue and velvet. It was lined with vibranium, inside pockets covered with it. That would certainly be handy if you were forced to walk through metal detectors - vibranium couldn’t be detected. His suit for the rehearsal dinner was a lot simpler, the custom black and white aesthetic, but still protected with vibranium. 

Your clothes were certainly not styled to match Steve’s, giving you a sense of individuality. It was perfect really - it would allow you to leave Steve’s side, if necessary, when the mission called for you to split up. Your rehearsal dinner outfit was two parts: a black, velvet long-sleeved shirt, slight turtleneck, and gold cuffs. It was joined by a long gold skirt, high-waisted, the front shorter than the back and sides more curled than ruffled. You would have to wear tights underneath, but it was beautiful. Vibranium was also stitched in for added protection. Your dress for the actual wedding, however, was a total knockout. Red, spaghetti strap, tight on top but loose once it reached your hips, a long slit on the left side. They were even kind enough to give you a pair of heels to match. 

Yeah, Steve was Captain America and his appearance will shock the guests, but your attire will definitely be the second topic in gossip. 

Scott was filing through the same papers you and Steve had reviewed earlier, a bowl of potato chips at his side. And it was peaceful - you and Steve even had the chance to nap. 

“So, you’re gonna see Jackeline at the rehearsal dinner?”

You wiped the remnants of your nap from your face and groaned as you stretched, “She’ll probably be busy tomorrow when we go for breakfast, so yeah.”

Scott shifted uncomfortably in his seat, eyes practically attached to the computer screen. “And… she’s the one getting married?”

His tone started to worry Steve, “Yes, Scott. You good?”

Scott piled a handful of potato chips in his mouth, finger clicking the mouse every few seconds. His eyes were now wide, blinks forgotten. “Jackeline Vega. Jackeline.”

Steve ignored him now, “Hey, why isn’t your last name Vega?”

As much as you wanted to share about how and why you changed your last name, Scott’s demeanor interested you more. “Changed it when I became an American citizen - Scott, what’s up?”

He let out a tiny squeak, swallowing his snack quickly. “And she’s your father’s favorite?”

You rolled your eyes, “Mmm.”

Scott released a huge huff of air, shoulders falling as he raised his voice and turned the monitor to face you. “Think he knows anything about this?”

The photograph was blurry because it was enhanced, but you could still make out the face of a sister you hadn’t seen in years. Older, still with teenage features obviously, and tossed on what looked like a church alter-

Steve's eyes widened, “Is she…?”

Scott finished his sentence for him, “Fucking a priest?”

You covered your mouth in shock, “Oh my god, she’s fucking a priest!”

Bent on the literal church altar, skirt bunched around her hips, head thrown back in ecstasy and face in full view. And the damned priest, in between her legs and under the eyes of god. 

“That’s why I asked!”

Steve clutched at his chest, head thrown back as he howled, “I think you were wrong about your sister.”

Now your eyes were glued to the screen, “Oh, I was fuck all from correct!”

Scott cleared his throat, “Is the priest… her fiance?”

Steve came down from his laugh attack, “I highly doubt that, Scott.”

“This is actually really damning evidence.”

You grinned at Scott, “For what? Painting her out to look like the most sinful whore? I might just congratulate her.”

Steve stared at you, judging almost. “For fucking a priest?”

“For proving me wrong. She’s not so innocent after all,” you responded, cheeks strained from how wide you were smiling. 

“Clearly. This is… actually badass,” Scott admitted, turning the monitor back to him.

You teased, singing your next words. “Don’t let the Lord and Savior hear that.”

Steve glared, “Y/N.”

You leaned away from him, “What? Anyway, that’s gotta be one the worst sins to commit, right?”

Steve’s expression contorted from annoyance to disbelief. “We’ve literally killed people.”

“Pfft, but we’re not fucking priests. Right?”

Scott answered, nodding quicker than he needed to. “Right.”

“You’re literally asking that?”

You pressed your lips into a fine line and tilted your head at Steve. “Steve?”

He glared at you for a long moment before slowly shaking his head. “I’m not fucking any priests.”

Your response was immediate, “Alright! I gotta hand it to her, though. Who took the photo?”

Scott went back to fishing through the emails. “Some sleazy magazine that never got around to actually printing these out.”

“Someone paid them off. Or killed them.”

“I wonder who,” you replied sarcastically. 

Steve continued, “You honestly think he would support her doing that?”

You shrugged and scurried back over to your unmade bed. “Not my problem.”

Scott interjected, “Okay, okay. How’s tomorrow gonna work?”

Steve answered first, “Well, we’re driving out around eight.”

You hummed in agreement, reaching over to unplug your phone from the charger. “Scott, you’ll just ride on one of our backs as we walk through the estate.”

“I kind of want to ride Y/N’s back this time.”

You snorted, “Now that doesn’t sound sexual at all.”

He hid his face in his hands, “You know, I heard it once I said it.”

“Course you did.”

Steve jumped back into the conversation, Scott’s embarrassment seeming to grow under the weird tension. “Then you’ll hop off and plant the bugs wherever you feel like they’re needed.”

“Easy peasy!” you cheered. 

“Bucky and Sam gonna meet us Friday night?”

Steve nodded, “That’s what they said.” He looked over at you, scrolling through your phone and already smiling at something you found funny. He cleared his throat to get your attention. “You know they can be out here in under an hour if we seriously need them.”

You glanced over at Steve, his sincerity greatly appreciated. “I know. But all my faith is in Scott here.”

Scott moaned quietly, “Oh… no, let’s not put all the faith in me because I can’t handle that responsibility.”

You propped yourself up onto your elbows, “You saying I can’t trust you?”

“No, no! That’s not what I’m saying at all-!”

Steve rolled his eyes and looked at the man, a sheen of nervous sweat starting to form on his forehead. “Scott.” 

Scott lowered his hands from his chest, “O-oh. She’s messing with me, huh?”

You chuckled and laid back down. “You’re so easy.”

The easygoing atmosphere for the next few hours almost had you believing you were on vacation, away from the bad guys and space aliens for just a moment. Almost like you weren’t in the middle of a drug war, a mob business, the literal daughter of a king. Scott had that effect, his personality such a sweet refresher and such a contrast to every soul in the compound. 

Thor and Peter were also sweethearts and fun was always expected when they were around, but Scott had this different vibe. Maybe it was because he was relatively new, or that he had a child, or that he hadn’t suffered the same five years as everyone else did. Like he wasn’t yet tainted.  

“You guys mind if I run a job inside a job?”

Your head snapped up at Scott’s crazy question, “You stealing something?”

To run a job inside a job was risky. There was no exact plan to keep both missions balanced, to somehow rank the other more important. You prayed it wasn’t something insane. 

Scott chuckled under his breath, already grabbing his jacket and suitcase by the door. “No, I’m not stealing something. Hank needs me to speak to some guy he’s doing negotiations with about a space for a new lab headquarters.”

Steve tilted his head, “In Northern California?”

“Nah, the dude is vacationing out here for the time being. The lab will be in San Francisco again.”

You squinted at him, still cautious. “Where you meeting him?”

“Some nice Italian restaurant an hour out.”

Steve spoke before you did, similar thoughts running through his mind. “You check with Torres? We don’t know who might randomly show up there.”

Scott tried his best to reassure you, “Yeah, he said they’re following every car that leaves the premises and travels more than thirty minutes away. None of Ernesto’s men have been spotted further up north.”

You sighed. You didn’t want another member of your team to venture out in this area, let alone this goddamn state, without your eyes on them. You were protective, the proximity of your outside world with the one you had spent ten years building too suffocating of a reality. 

Still, you told Scott goodbye with a steady voice. “Then enjoy your dinner, Scott.”

His voice picked up again, that childish and upbeat feeling wrapping you around his finger. “You guys wanna come with? I’m sure you’re sick of icky hotel food.”

Steve waved him off, “It’s actually not that bad-”

“Breadsticks. Garlic pasta. More breadsticks.”

You laughed, “That sounds nice, Scott but we can stay here-”

“Three-cheese pastas.”

“Scott, you can try all you want but-”

“Unlimited breadsticks.”

You shared a look at Steve, puckering your lips at the suggestion. 

“.... We’ll sit far away from your table, okay?”

Scott opened the hotel door and started sprinting down the hallway. “I knew I could persuade you with that! C’mon!”

     California at night was a death trap. Potholes on every stretch of asphalt, construction halted for who knows how long, random opossums lingering in the shadows just waiting to get hit by tires. It was prettier during the day - less of a ‘lead me into this forest, yes, kill me’ vibe. 

You chilled in the backseat while Scott drove you guys to the restaurant. You had texted Bucky where you were planning to go, the message activating the group text chain. 

Peter: it’s Wednesday! Who died?

Wanda: she’s literally texting us

Peter: Y/N, you won???

Bucky: fuck do I owe the fucking spider money?

Peter: pay up dude

Y/N: tf Bucky? You bet against me?

      “You sure you two are good?”

The restaurant looked quiet considering it was a Wednesday night, but it was still crowded. There was a short line extending out the door and a… bouncer. You sucked in a breath and smacked Scott in the chest once you were out of the car. 

“Thought you said this was a restaurant?”

Scott rubbed his chest, a look of disbelief spreading across his face. “Restaurant slash bar!”

“We eating with the Italian mob now? I can only handle one mob at a time, Scott.”

You nodded rapidly, pointing at Steve. “I agree with him!”

“Not every place has bad guys!”

You groaned and reluctantly stood at the back of line, pulling Steve’s hat lower on his forehead. It wasn’t like people couldn’t take one long, hard look at him and not know who he was, anyway. 

“Can you guys just… enjoy a night out?”

“While on a mission?”

“While living your long lives. God, Y/N, you getting old already?”

Your mouth dropped, “I’m twenty-six and I’m not complaining about a nice dinner, Scott.” You pointed at the bouncer. “I’m worried about the fact that our ID’s are gonna be checked.”

Scott’s mouth formed an ‘O’. “Yeah, that.”

“Next.”

You shot Steve a worried look but handed the bouncer your driver’s license. He just looked at the date of birth and moved you along. “Next.”

Scott handed him his, doing his best to smile proudly while the bouncer scanned him up and down. “Next.”

“See? Wasn’t so hard,” Scott joked, standing next to you in the far corner of the entrance. 

You rolled your eyes, “Wait.”

The bouncer took one look at Steve’s ID and gasped. Steve looked anywhere but the bouncer’s eyes, his bottom lip suffering the abuse of his incisors. 

“Cap-Captain?”

Steve gave a sheepish grin, lowering his cap further. “Uh, yeah.”

“Enjoying your day?”

You pinched your nose. 

“Would like it a lot more if you could lead us to a table with as much privacy as you can offer.”

You had to hand it to Steve for taking advantage of situations like this. 

The bouncer agreed immediately, speaking with the manager and promising discretion. The manager said it was no problem, that it was the least he could do for you guys after you brought his son back to him after those rough five years. 

The restaurant offered a somewhat real Italian setting, awarding their guests with as much real scenery and architecture it could. You could only compare it to the Venetian in Vegas as you had never actually been to Italy, but the live band and garlic smell was enough to transport you. 

The lights were low, older couples enjoying the food and wine, and there was a small bar near the back of the restaurant. It wasn’t really a place for some shady business, but years of experience let you know that wasn’t always the case. It was second nature to eye women reaching into their purses, only to pull out a pack of gum. Second nature to wince at the sound of a loud laugh cutting through the quiet atmosphere. 

As promised, you were led to a more private area of the restaurant, closer to the bar than to the band. 

“Go run the job, Scott. We’ll just be enjoying our unlimited breadsticks,” you said, letting out a heavy and relaxed sigh as you settled into the private booth. 

“That hat isn't really hiding those broad shoulders, Cap,” Scott laughed, slapping Steve on the back.

Steve slid into the same booth, ignoring the completely empty seat across from you. “Thanks, Scott. I’m aware.”

You tried to hide your blush as you squeezed deeper in your seat. Scott noticed though, side eyeing Steve who was none the wiser. “You know, I told him that he should have used those facial changing things SHIELD used to have.”

Steve grabbed the offered utensils and started unwrapping them from their napkins. 

“What are we if not superheroes who think a baseball cap and glasses hide our identities?” you teased, shooting Scott a quick wink. 

Steve answered almost triumphantly, “Uh, Superman?”

You giggled and grabbed the napkin he had unwrapped for you. “I’d argue Thor is more like Superman, but okay.”

“How am I not more like Superman? What-”

“Uh, guys? I see the dude so I’m gonna go. You two enjoy your meal,” Scott interrupted, running off to a booth located toward the middle of the restaurant. 

You sat for a few awkward moments before you squinted and looked at Steve, who was sitting to your left and way too close. “Are we annoying?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, like,” you spoke with your hands, “you and I bicker a lot because we love to annoy each other but you think it gets on other people’s nerves?”

Steve chuckled, rubbing his shoulder with yours. “Do you really care if it does?”

That blush of yours was starting to feel warmer. “No, just wondering if you felt that way.”

He shrugged, “I quite like our relationship.”

“Oh,” you smiled, looking down at your lap.  “I quite liked it more a few years back but you know.” 

He immediately tensed, body leaning away from you as if you were burning him. You shut your eyes and shook your head. “Sorry, that was low.”

He sighed deeply, “No, I deserve it. I’ll always deserve it.”

You took a risk and reached for his hand, squeezing gently. The kind gesture seemed to calm him, and he looked back at you. “I still shouldn’t have said it.”

He accepted that, and handed you the menu. 

The hotel food was grand, it did its job of filling you up and providing the necessary nutrients, but there was just something about the carbs in pasta and bread. It ignited the food critic inside you, because now you were cursing the hotel chef and dreading having to order breakfast in the morning. No, dinner. You were having breakfast with your father tomorrow. 

Scott was busy conducting his own business, bluetooth turned off but still glancing over his shoulder once in a while to check on you guys. Each time he did, he felt butterflies flutter in his breadstick-filled stomach. It was the first time he had seen the two of you so carefree, let alone with each other, and it was the most refreshing thing in the world. 

Steve was in the middle of telling another childhood story, his main plate already finished and practically licked clean. But the unlimited breadsticks were coming out by the pound, a new stick in each of your hands every five minutes. 

“I swear, she loved Bucky more than me!”

You covered your mouth and chewed, careful to not let anything through because of your giggle fit. “Steve! Your mother did not!”

Steve wiped at his under eye, clutching his chest as he continued explaining. “Bucky was always around and my mom would just linger every second she wasn’t working!”

“Bet she loved him.”

“See?”

“No, I mean she must have loved him like her own! Bucky was your best friend, your only friend. She probably thought of him like an angel sent from God!” you clarified. 

Steve smiled wider at your cheesy explanation. They were happy memories, joyful ones that he would often think about while writing or drawing. 

He continued with a soft confession. “I really wish I could see her again.”

You leaned your temple on your palm, “From everything you’ve shared with me, she sounds lovely.”

“She would have loved you.” The blush was back, and so was Steve’s, almost like those words were supposed to be kept in the back of his head. He cleared his throat. “God, she was so destroyed when Bucky first got his orders.”

“Was Bucky scared?”

“Scared? Absolutely fucking terrified. We talked about running away and changing our names so he didn’t have to go.”

The draft was such a horrible practice. The fact that men still had to enlist and hope no ‘necessary’ war was upon them. It was quite reassuring to know most of those men wouldn’t have to see battle today, they were given a choice, and there were agencies that managed people who could, like the Avengers. 

“Steve…”

Steve just hummed softly, “Life in the forties, am I right?

Your voice also got quieter. “Why didn’t you run away?”

Steve huffed out a laugh, swallowing the last of his bread. “We tried. Got all the way to the edge of town before Bucky’s dad wrung us both back to kick our asses.”

Almost out of instinct, you gripped his hand again. You rubbed soothing circles into his knuckles, knuckles that hadn’t seen hand-to-hand combat in so long. There wasn’t much danger in the world nowadays, just small missions here and there. It wasn’t like the team was itching for another alien invasion. But these periods of well needed rest were odd, periods where bruises completely healed up and little pockets of weight were gained. Steve’s knuckles were soft, only having seen the ends of paintbrushes for a long while. 

 “...Where’s your mother?”

His voice snapped you from your thoughts, and you had to repeat the question in your own head a couple times. 

“It’s not a happy story.”

There wasn’t much of a story anyway. 

“But is it a story you need to get off your chest?”

Steve didn’t want to push too hard. The long pause in your relationship definitely didn’t soften this blow, and it only added to the strings of resistance. If you decided not to tell Steve about this, Steve would have to accept it. If anything, this was one of the toughest questions to ask someone when all you’ve been doing is ignoring them for two years. 

“Not really much to get rid of.”

He nodded, only a slight hint of disappointment laced within his words. “You don’t have to tell me.”

Natasha was the only one with any knowledge of your mom. There was never an actual moment in which you freely spoke of her - inserting her likeness, her person, back into some alternate and fucked-up reality - you kept her legacy dead. It was obvious she hadn’t enjoyed this part of her life, no doubt it absolutely killed her to leave you trapped in it, so keeping her dead, even in conversation, was a favor. 

But one drunken night and you were showing Natasha the one photo you had of her, stuffed deep in your wallet and crinkled beyond repair. Her black hair to her shoulders, lip liner a darker shade than her lipstick, hands intertwined behind her back as she arched forward in a playful tilt, shooting the camera a smile that was stuck around the word she was saying as the candid was taken. There was no recorded voice but you had a record of her movement, frozen in time.     

Steve’s sincerity grasped you by the literal roots of your hair, because next thing you knew you were spilling the first thought you had. 

“She was twenty-three. Working as a real estate agent, very beautiful, and she was engaged. To an American.”

Steve chuckled around his champagne glass, “Was that bad?”

You grinned at that, like he was already fully and deeply invested in your story. “Not necessarily. But everyone knew she was taken.”

“And your father?”

“He wanted to buy some houses. Saw her, wanted her, tried persuading her into going on a date. Nothing really worked, she didn’t accept his money or gifts.”

Steve fumbled over his next words. “Did she eventually?”

“No, but her brother did. My father didn’t know it was her brother, so he thought she was accepting them. Got mad when she still refused his advances.”

He was digesting this little by little. Steve had heard horror stories of girls he grew up with, forced to marry at a young age when they were caught in a passionate moment with a man, or when they ended up pregnant. Bucky and his mother had always instructed him to treat women with respect, to never intentionally or accidentally ruin their reputation, to protect and use his voice to stand up for them. And although women weren’t getting frisky with him when he was all but ninety pounds at the ripe age of twenty, that didn’t stop Steve from exchanging a few words and punches with men who had no right.  “How did they end up together?”

You shrugged, reaching over for another breadstick. “No one knows. He invited her to a party one day and she didn’t come back for a whole week. Next thing her family knows she’s engaged to my father and no longer with the love of her life.”

“That’s awful.”

“Yeah, her family had no choice but to accept that. Her poor fiance, though.” 

“Where is he now?”

Steve had this weird hope that the fiance may still be alive somewhere, waiting for your mother to find him. But that was just the hopeless romantic emerging. 

You sighed deeply, “My father told my mother he killed him. My mother believed him.”

“So, he’s still alive? He didn’t hurt him?”

“Apparently he’s still kicking, yeah. But my mom became severely depressed from that lie.”

The restaurant felt colder and the air became thinner. Steve didn’t want his next thought to be true. “She didn’t...?”

You shook your head quickly, “No, she found out he was alive.” Even if you weren’t witness to it, you could still imagine your mother charting the areas she would have to run and swim through to get away. Wasn’t like it was a heartfelt thought, but the mere fact that she had that much determination to risk her life for love, it was somewhat therapeutic to think about. Like it was genuinely satisfying to imagine her defying your father. Still, your face drooped as you gave Steve the sad conclusion. “She didn’t even make it across the border before he had her killed for betraying him.”

His face fell in time with yours, “Fuck.”

“She left me with Maribel’s mother. But my father found me and told me she had an accident. Didn’t find out the truth until I was thirteen.”

“I’m so sorry.”

You shoved his shoulder with yours, a light chuckle cutting through the sad moment. “Not like you had a hand in this, Steve. It’s just my life.”

You were used to Steve’s generosity, his ability to make any person feel a part of his family - you had been on the receiving end of his sincerity for the past week now. But as you held his gaze, his body seemingly towering over yours, your chest flushed with such warmness, a tranquil promise of safety. He leaned forward, breath hitting your cheeks, hand still gripping yours. 

“Not anymore. We’ll end this, Y/N. I promise you, we’ll end this.”

You took a risk and rested your forehead on his, his continuous promise still causing your stomach to twist pleasurably. “How’d we get so sad all of a sudden?” You pushed away and threw your arms in the air. “We need more breadsticks!”

Steve laughed loudly, the private booth still providing somewhat of a thin curtain to the other diners. “No, we need mints!”

Rolling your eyes, you blew your breath at Steve teasingly. “Weak.”

Steve groaned, “You and Scott are not getting into the car without chewing on a mint.”

“You got a thing against bad breath?”

“Take the mint.”

“I’m gonna fight you if you force the mint on me.”

He was reaching into his jacket and pulling the small case out. He winked at you. “I’ll win.”

He popped open the cap and held it out to you. He didn’t tip it though, as if he was waiting for you to extend your palm. Everything was silent for a minute, eyes challenging one another. 

He could easily lean in. He could easily just tilt his head a little to his left and capture your lips with his. Every damn molecule in his body was telling him to do it, every bubble from that champagne somehow giving him some extra courage. 

Your breath hitched slightly, and he leaned away. I’m such a coward, he thought.

You reacted swiftly, disguising the awkwardness. “You’re right, give me the mint. You should swallow like three.”

Steve snickered, “You ruined the moment.”

But you didn’t ruin the moment. And he just blamed you for it. Like he had already established - he was a coward. 

You grabbed the mints he offered and popped them into your mouth. “What moment? I didn’t see any moment.”

Okay, he could just lean in right now and hope the mint freshness in your mouth would mask the garlic in his. Yeah, he could just lean in and do what he’s been thinking of doing for the last day and a half-

“Hey, you guys finished? Getting dessert?”

Steve almost shot from his seat, “Jesus fucking christ, Scott!”

Scott slid into the seat across from you. “You scare easily. Let’s get dessert!” 

You were too flustered. Fine, okay. You’ll play along. If the gods want to reward you with this fun Steve, the Steve you were closest to years ago, then so be it. You’ll bite. And if he wants to resort back to his bitchy self, his hermit behavior, then you’ll fight him then. 

Scott ordered so much dessert. 

So much. 

The little moment you had with Steve was still fresh, you could sense he was thinking about it too, but you opted to simply enjoy the night out. You were here with two friends, protection was just a phone call away, and you were safe. 

Perhaps Scott had the same effect on Steve that he had on you. Absolutely demolished his ‘Captain’ self and released the guy who simply wanted to enjoy a mini road trip with his friends. 

     You were barely fifteen minutes into your ride home when Scott lowered the windows and turned the radio up high. 

“Woohoo!”

You screamed over the loud roar of the wind, “Scott, it’s fucking freezing!”

Scott yelled back, “We just had three desserts each! Your blood should be running warm!”

You blinked away the dryness, “Dude!”

Steve, surprisingly, agreed with Scott. “Enjoy it!”

Your mouth dropped open and you followed Steve’s movements as he turned the radio higher. 

The music blared and you were about to protest again, the air literally nipping at your sensitive cheeks, but the song that started was a non-skip. 

You would indulge in this childishness once. 

Once. 

You reached around the passenger seat and gripped Steve’s shoulders, shaking him in place. “Ah, California radio giving us the classics!”

Scott leaned over and turned it up higher. 

You swayed in your seat and sang along with Scott. “Bidi bidi bom bom!”

Scott pointed at you and recited the lyrics, “Bidi, bidi!”

Both of you sang, “Bom!”

Even with his eyes on the road, Scott was nailing some good dance moves in his seat. You both sang each lyric with your heart and soul, laughs escaping during the guitar breaks. 

Steve just enjoyed the show. He didn’t know the song, the melody a foreign one for him, but it must have been popular for both you and Scott to know it. He watched you sway in your seat, hands dancing and voice matching the volume of the radio. Just the other night, you had mentioned how you never sang anymore.

But here you were, singing through the most beautiful smile Steve had ever seen. 

He missed the sound of it. He missed hearing you sing in your room, no doubt you were dancing too since he usually heard your feet shuffling against your carpet. He missed the innocence you would casually portray, an invitation for anyone to befriend you. He missed teasing you lightly, and he regretted the roughness of his voice years later. He missed just walking into the common area and finding you there, cooking for yourself and anyone who wanted a plate - that plate usually for him. He missed you. 

You were right here, voice hitting those octaves Steve didn’t think he would ever hear again. You were right here, and he missed you. 

      Scott was staying in a separate room. The dessert and alcohol had run right through him, and he bid you goodnight after he threatened to plop down in your bed if you invited him in. 

The sound of Scott’s retreating footsteps seemed to suck all the air from the vents at once, whispering its song lovingly in your ear. It was both refreshing and terrifying to be left alone because now here you were, standing outside your hotel door with the super soldier you had gone to Hell and back with. 

You inwardly cringed, the tightness in your chest sending your childish ass back to sophomore year of college. A first date, the lost promise of another - a proper teenage reaction to a crush. But this man in front of you wouldn’t let you delete his number from your phone; he wouldn’t avoid eye contact in the dining hall; he wouldn’t sit at the back of the lecture hall just to keep a necessary distance. 

Granted, Elijah - poor, frightened Elijah - had seen you literally kidnap someone off the street under your father’s orders. This being before you went straight and moral, before you had met Fury, before SHIELD training. You were to blame for that sprouting relationship going south pretty quickly. So you avoided him, too - praying Ernesto or Seda could never track him. 

But Steve, beautiful Steve who reloaded your guns when you couldn’t, who jumped in front of stray bullets for you and those he loved, Steve who very quietly asked you for various salsa recipes when he was in the mood to cook. Here he was, eyes also watching Scott walk away, no doubt experiencing the same tight coil within his chest. He hadn’t run, he had worked and fought with and against you, and he wasn’t running away. 

No, Steve Rogers never ran. 

The low beep from the hotel lock snapped you from your thoughts. You sensed his hesitance because when your history was truly reviewed with the most unbiased of minds, there was absolutely no reason to overthink. Hell, when you ran through the halls of Thor’s Asgardian palace with Rocket tailing you, the first joke out your mouth was how Steve would probably instruct you to respect a place like that and speed walk. Your first thought when starting the pilot episode of a new show is to wait for Bucky… and Steve, who would pop the kernels over the stove and add real salt and butter. 

His first thought as he helped load people onto the planes in Sokovia was that your whiny ass better be on one of them. Or when Steve regrouped in the support circle, his first thought before he continued the discussion was that he really hoped you would walk through those doors and join - until one day you did. 

Whether the two of you recognized the severity of your unspoken feelings, they were there. Silent and at a gradual increase. Never rushed, not entirely obvious because of the temporary roadblocks of unnecessary separation. 

Steve was here in front of you, like he always was, and he was wearing the smallest nervous smile you had ever seen.  

And you were here in front of him, like you always were, and he could not entirely read the mixed emotions on your delicate face. 

You shuffled alongside your bed, stopping to shrug out of the heavy jacket you had on. “We should turn in early so we can be well-rested, in case we gotta fight tomorrow.”

Steve nodded in agreement but remained silent, hovering near the coffee table and monitors. Your back was facing him and he just watched you fumble with your boots and belt. It was like your back was on fire, bursting with fueled flames as you could literally feel his gaze boring into you. The overwhelming urge to simply snap and ask him what the hell he was looking at was strong, so in character, but you refrained. It was too intimate, too quiet, but before you could even ask him if he wanted the shower first, the warmth of his chest was near, inches away and calling. 

Your breath hitched, shoulders rising slightly and exactly what Steve needed to witness. It was awkward for him to just stand behind you with no actual intention of touching you first - no, he needed a proper signal. So Steve waited those few precious seconds more until you turned, sun-kissed by the California sun and hair no longer in tight curls, before he glanced down at your glossy lips. You followed his eyesight, all knowing in his intentions, and you glanced at his lips as well. 

A gesture of approval. 

Steve pulled you in, both hands settling on your cheeks, thumbs exploring the corners of your mouth. He watched them dance and how your mouth parted slightly in response. He looked back up, studying the small crease forming in between your eyebrows and the pinch of water filling the inside corners of your eyes.

His thumbs felt like a gentle sigh, a promise of a sweet caress in both the daytime and dead of night. Although all his focus was on you, his own features reacted to the moment. His lips were also parted, sweet breath with the scent of those classic tiramisu’s he had devoured, touching the tip of your nose and equally trembling lips. 

So goddamn intimate that you found yourself internally cursing those sitcoms Wanda had forced you to binge watch. Because the two love interests, albeit they had several months or years of growing tension, rushed into their first kiss for the sake of limited airtime. They didn’t prepare you for practically a ten-year build-up, a relationship that was both heavily work and friend related, the slowness of such a moment fans would most certainly be jumping out of their seats for. No, nothing could have prepared you for the warmth of Steve Rogers. 

Your Captain. 

You registered the soft feeling of his lips as they pressed against yours, overlapped only slightly. Eyes now fully closed in surprise and pleasure, you leaned into it more, hands placed on Steve’s rising chest. The squeeze of his hands cupping your cheeks caused your lips to pucker more, but you were relaxed in his desperate touch. He tilted his head a little to the left, your lips sliding against each other’s and noses bumping. Steve frowned in concentration, pouring whatever emotions he had felt throughout the last few years into this one kiss, and he knew he couldn’t possibly fully portray them. And almost as quickly as you thought about how sweet and innocent of a kiss this was, Steve’s tongue slowly peaked out from behind his teeth and greeted your bottom lip. 

His tongue traced over your bottom lip warmly, welcomed by yours as you followed his lead. God, you would always follow his lead. 

You tried to move in closer, but your elbows were already bent fully against him and his hips were only a few inches from your greedy ones. One tiny step forward and you would be completely flushed against him - but you chose to respect the distance Steve created. 

You let out a quiet whine, body shuddering as Steve applied more pressure. It was as if Steve had never heard such a sound - completely unexpected and causing him to pause momentarily. He leaned away a little, lips still barely kissing yours. He opened his eyes, gaze wandering from your flushed cheeks still squeezed between his palms and to your fluttering eyelids. The crease between his eyebrows deepened as he debated leaning forward again, to be selfish for once and to pass forth the trophy for ‘waiting too long’. But as you opened your eyes, no trace of regret or hate swimming inside your irises, Steve froze. 

You were his friend. His friend who teased him about the paint streaks across his forehead, who followed his lead no matter how ridiculous the order. 

He didn’t want you to inspect him further as well, so he shut his eyes and rested his forehead against yours. It was only then that he felt you settle back down from your tippy-toes. 

You gulped loudly, throat dry and lips instantly craving him again. “Steve…”

Steve let go of your face and dragged his hands lightly down your neck, leaving goosebumps in their wake. He turned his head slightly, his breath now kissing your cheek. Although your cheeks were red, the absence of Steve’s palms made them cold. 

He took a small step back, hands straining to stay on your skin as he reluctantly pulled them away. The absence of any warmth finally woke you from that intense daze and you frowned at Steve as he pulled away altogether. The instinct to reach out was there, and you cursed yourself for being so clingy. 

“Steve?” you called again, voice hoarse but light enough to pinch at Steve’s fast beating heart. 

He looked up and locked eyes with your confused ones. Oh, you’re gonna hate him for this. 

He gave you a small and kind smile, one you had seen plenty of times when he was actually enjoying your company. He backed up to the door, gaze never leaving yours even as he reached for the handle and key card. 

And he wanted to bring his hands back to your face to rub away that wrinkle between your furrowing eyebrows. But he simply opened the door and left you standing near the edge of your bed, flushed with a deep sense of longing and growing confusion. 

Steve already knew the amount of heat he would receive from the moment gossip of the kiss spread. Whether he was first to tell or you were. Bucky’s going to kick his ass, for sure, no doubt about it. No matter his bond with Bucky, it could never excuse leaving you alone to unravel this situation. You had this hold over Bucky, a soft mutual understanding of mental torture, so this inevitable ass kicking would be justified. Plus, after years of being rejected over and over, mostly in the forties, Bucky might just kick his ass for simply being a dumbass. 

But Steve felt calm, an added relaxation due to the whiskey cooling in his hand. If there was anything Steve was an expert in, it was overthinking. You two had that in common - were you overthinking while absentmindedly watching TV? Overthinking while rubbing shampoo into your scalp? Overthinking while angrily stomping your way down to the hotel bar to hand his ass back over to him?

He let out a sigh of relief when he didn’t see you burst through the doors. 

      “Anyone wanna start?”

Steve glanced around the circle of familiar and new faces. The group varied each week. Some people would try, share their anecdotes about lost loved ones, only to never show up for another session. Others often attended and never spoke, but they kept returning. Steve didn’t judge their choices - he couldn’t. No matter how many mornings he wanted to crawl back under the sheets and binge eat packaged foods, he never could. He had been at this job for two years. There was both pain and satisfaction in what he did. Sam would be doing this if he were here. 

And he had to do this for Sam. 

“My divorce was finalized yesterday.”

Steve looked over at the man who spoke first, a long-time member of this particular support group, and grimaced at his confession. The man couldn’t have been more than thirty, no wrinkles or gray hair, and he was ending a two-year marriage. 

“I’m sorry, Michael.”

The man, Michael, shrugged sadly, “We still love each other, man. But seeing your newborn disintegrate in your arms does something to your soul that’s just… we both knew we needed to move on. Even if it was from each other.”

Steve squeezed the small, red stress ball in his hand and tried to offer more condolences and a kind smile, but it came out rather painful. He opted to stay silent in case Michael wanted to continue. Instead, another member decided to comment. 

It went like this for almost an hour with Steve adding in his empathetic words of wisdom whenever he saw appropriate. It was good for everyone to share so openly, to carry the conversation with minimal involvement from Steve. Steve had shared snippets of his story with the group awhile back, careful to not mention the gruesome specifics. He had let out as much as he was able, not as much as he would have liked, but his main job was to facilitate. Besides, Steve went to confession every month to talk to someone - anyone - even if he wasn’t necessarily Catholic. But that’s just the thing - no one knew who they were anymore. 

The sound of a scraping chair leg caught everyone’s attention, and they all turned to the entrance in search of the disruption. You paused in your movements, face scrunched in embarrassment. Opening one eye, you mouthed a quick apology and rushed to carry the chair to the circle. 

“I’m sorry I’m late. Subway was a bitch,” you muttered, your embarrassed smile growing wider. 

For over a year, Steve had subtly urged you to attend one of these meetings. He was witness to your nightmares, your destructive solo missions that even Friday had no records of, and your sudden breakdown last week. You were casually jogging around the outdoor track when you suddenly stopped and fell to your knees, broken sobs seeming to shake the trees around you. You were crouched for a good minute before Steve had seen you wipe your eyes and continue your jog. As if nothing happened. 

To see you here, whether to share or to listen, prompted the proud and erratic beating of Steve’s heart. 

“It’s completely fine. Time’s almost up but we still got time for you.”

You sent Steve a funny smile, amused by his professional tone. “Uh, yeah! A friend convinced me to come. He was pretty persuasive.”

Steve blushed, head tilting downward. 

You introduced yourself and let the group know you were also an Avenger. No one seemed shocked and you were suddenly grateful for this mixture of people. 

Steve sat and listened, his nerves settling. 

“I’m gonna be honest with you all,” you started, thumbs dancing in your lap. “And I’m not sure how you’ll react.”

Steve sat up straight, eyebrows scrunching as he listened intently. 

You sighed, wetting your lips briefly. “The day before the snap, I was supposed to die.”

You wanted to avoid Steve’s gaze until the right moment. You continued, “I went on a mission to Mexico. Alone, which was completely against protocol but hey, we broke a lot more rules than that.”

Steve cleared his throat which earned a chorus of chuckles from the group. 

“And I was technically on house arrest but I found out a way to temporarily disable that ankle monitor,” you added, grinning from the laughs you were receiving. 

“Anyway, all my potential backup was nonexistent. I had friends on the run,” you paused, glancing at Steve with a somber expression. “And other friends literally fighting another battle on their home planet somewhere in space. So, I went alone.”

“While I was bleeding out from a bullet my own father ordered, Tony was already up in space. Loki was already dead.”

You hoped no one commented on Loki’s role in your life. He wasn’t exactly a nice figure to suddenly name drop in New York, but he was important in your grief. 

It was slightly unnerving to be on display here, but you weren’t exactly planning on returning. You just needed to rant. 

“I stitched myself up the best I could in that quinjet - which I almost crashed,” you muttered, smirking at Steve. “Sorry, Cap.”

“This is the first time I've heard you flew. You’re not even authorized to fly,” Steve declared, face scrunched in confusion and astonishment. 

“That’s not important,” you teased. “But the stitches were messy work. Horrible criss-crosses.”

Steve was in a tiny state of shock. He had known what happened to you, but to hear you talk so casually about the day before the world went to shit - it just made it more real. 

You had mentioned before that you never dreamed about the snap, but about everything leading up to it. 

“I woke up, betrayed yet again by my own blood, and Steve was suddenly there after two years. We were gonna fight an outside threat.”

You crossed your arms over your chest and huffed lightly, “I was still healing but I was on the battlefield. Stayed close to Nat most of the time.”

The group was heavily invested in your retelling. “I couldn’t fight him, obviously. But I did see him. I saw how he ripped that stone from my friend’s head.”

A few winces sounded around the circle. 

“I guess I feel immense guilt. Like, I could have done something more even though realistically, I couldn’t. Kinda feels like I sat back and watched my friend’s die.”

No one spoke, but it was obvious everyone had survivor’s guilt. 

“And now, I’m living with the pain of having all three of my best friends stripped from me while also celebrating the fact that the snap took my father.”

Shrugging, you gave your last sad smile to the group. “I feel guilty for what happened while also being grateful it took someone who deserved it.”

After a few seconds of silence, Steve spoke. “You’re here today to tell your story. No one has to agree or disagree with you. It’s your story. Tell it like it is.”

You chuckled, “I could easily bother Steve with this at the compound.” You smiled at the teenager clutching what looked like a stuffed animal in his lap. “But I had nothing else to do tonight. My only friends are gone.”

“You and Steve aren’t friends?”

This time it was Michael that spoke, his eyes bouncing from you to Steve. You turned to Steve for some kind of answer. Was it a yes? Were you more like coworkers than true friends? 

Steve’s eyes softened and his kind smile was back. 

You answered, “I guess. I did come here for him.”

Steve rolled his eyes and kept his light-hearted tone, “I’m really glad you did.” 

Steve backtracked, clearing his throat as he addressed the circle. “I’m really glad all of you did. Same time next week.”

You busied yourself with stacking the chairs and dusting off your pants. Once most of the group had left, Steve gathered his things and walked over to you. “You take the subway?”

Your head shot up at the sound of his voice, and you stacked the final chair high. “I did. You drive?”

Steve hummed in response, “Want a lift?”

You raised an eyebrow at him, “You’re not staying at your place tonight?”

“Nah, I haven’t seen Nat in a week. I should pay her a visit.”

He curled his jacket around your shoulders as you exited the building. You held it tightly, relishing in the comfort. The walk back to the car was quiet but not awkward. After such a heavy night, silence was most definitely needed. And just the comfort of being around someone you trusted added to the relaxation aspect of it all. 

Steve kicked a loose piece of gravel to the street. You watched him for a few seconds before you spoke, voice light and a puff of cold air escaping your lips. 

“Steve?” 

He turned to you and waited for you to continue speaking. 

“You know Sam would be so proud of you doing this, right?”

Steve watched the cold air leave his own lungs as well. He felt the weight of that statement pressing down on his shoulders as he looked up at the dark sky. “I know.”

     Steve knew he was utterly fucked, so fucked that any line that had been established was stepped over and kicked a thousand yards back. His mind was made up, he would not run, he would not succumb to some former mindset 2016 Steve would have fallen victim to. He was a new person, a completely different person than he was out of the ice and after the snap. He deserved to cross the line, he deserved whatever happiness was afforded to him - he deserved comfort in the arms of another after years of denying himself. 

He downed the rest of his drink with a loud gulp, mind made up, and headed back to your room. 

    It was best to just pretend it never happened… no? But did you want to pretend it never did? So many moments over the years where this could have happened, where either of you could have literally just said ‘fuck it’. As overthinking was a specialty, quite a useless skill, you thought about the countless fights you had. 

Red in the face, hands clenched until nails imprinted little crescents, absolutely seething at the mouth. Some of the things you would yell were vile, none at all honest but with the intent to cause pain for only a moment, and mumbled apologies later. You were literally enemies for these past two, long years. Enemies who had to be seated and scolded, tricked into accepting defeat and living as teammates once more. 

Perhaps one of those arguments could have been remedied by simply leaning in like you had tonight, by throwing each other against the wall, by pulling the roots of your hair as he tugged-

Nope. 

Nope. 

No matter how much tension you were now realizing you had for this man, tension that could literally be fucked out, wasn’t it too late to act on it? You couldn’t pinpoint the chance you maybe had and missed. 

Steve walked through the door in the middle of your rapid brainstorming. He just grinned sweetly and slipped into the bathroom. 

As simple as that. 

Now you couldn’t discern between the feelings of wanting to fight him or fuck him. Not being able to differentiate between them ignited a sour mood, and once he stepped out from the shower, you basically pushed him to the side to lock yourself in. 

Even the warm water hitting your body couldn’t alleviate the pressure of overthinking. You disregarded your hair tonight and instead just washed your body. As quick as you could jump back out and go to bed, the better.  

Sucking in a deep breath, you opened the door and shut off the bathroom light. Your eyes landed on Steve’s torso, shirtless and the only thing not covered by the white blanket. He hadn’t shaved his beard either, the length evident when he kissed you earlier. It felt wrong and right at the same time, a battle that you seriously did not want to deal with. To get involved with your mission partner was dangerous - not because Steve himself was dangerous, but because it was a giant distraction. A distraction that you couldn’t afford. 

But as he put down his book and lay it in his lap, looking up to look at you through hooded eyes, sleepy but alert, the ‘danger’ was nothing but enticing. 

You cleared your throat and padded down your pajama shorts absentmindedly, slinging your hair over one shoulder and focusing on plugging your charger into your phone. It was so silent besides your pitter-patter, and god, did Steve find that sound so relaxing, until you climbed into bed. Once your shuffling was done, the slight buzzing of Steve’s desk lamp drowned out all your other senses. And the longer it was heard, the more it sounded like a ticking clock. 

Steve shut the lamp off, the only light now illuminating your figure from outside. He studied your breathing, watching how every so often you would bring your hand up to scratch your cheek or move a stray hair. You looked so gentle, so inviting, so small. 

You were turned away from him and facing the wall, eyes shut as you listened to his movements. There was a small part of you that wanted to stay up all night talking, to lean on his shoulder and simply feel his warmth, to feel that beard against your cheek one more time. As quickly as those thoughts flashed through your mind did you scold yourself, that this was inappropriate and wrong and so dangerous. 

You felt a dip in your bed, heavy and unsure, a lift of your blankets, and it happened so quickly that you could have sworn you dreamt it. Steve wrapped his arm around you, his broad chest pressed tightly against your back and his lips attacked the skin just below your earlobe. Your breath hitched, eyes shot open, and your hands reached up to grip his wrist. Steve stilled. 

“Tell me to stop,” he breathed, lips hovering over your blushing skin and breath practically blistering. You could feel him now, hard and pulsing against your ass and ready to move. You felt dizzy, overcome with such a rush of desire that you couldn’t help but stiffen in his tight grasp. 

“Don’t,” you choked out, feeling his body become rigid and his breath begin to quicken. 

“I’m sorry I-” he began to move away from you, voice no longer a whisper and tainted with panic. 

“No,” you pulled back, tilting your head up to lock eyes with him. You brought your arm up to grasp the back of his head, and you tugged it back to your neck. “Don’t stop.”

Yeah, he was utterly fucked. “Fuck,” he groaned, continuing the attack on your neck. But he gained momentum now, arm squeezing you against him tighter, and voice cracking as he moaned your name. 

“Steve, please do something.”

Your hands found their way back to his arm, gripping it tightly as he fumbled with the waistband of your shorts. He played with it, teasing in his actions, almost as punishment for the years you tormented him with your attitude. His lips pressed harder now, finding each patch of available skin on your neck and flushed cheek, and Steve has never felt so aroused in his life. He wasn’t even inside you, but the quick gasps he heard from you did plenty in aiding the rush of blood from his head to his stiffening cock. 

“Tell me what you want. Please, tell me and I’ll give it to you,” he moaned, the slightest experimental role of the hips causing you to whimper. 

“Touch me,” you practically sobbed, rolling your hips back against him, eyes rolling to the back of your head as you felt all of him.  

And just like that, he gave you what you asked for. He gripped your hip and shoved you closer to him, hot and ready and pressed firmly against you. He rolled his hips into you, little whimpers of his own touching your sensitive ear. He quickened his pace and he found it hard to think straight when the scrunch of pleasure all over your face, making you look so willing, was all he was focused on. He focused on the way you bit your lip, a bite and then a gasp, and then you were back to biting as if you were trying to restrain any higher moan. And even with only the moonlight illuminating the room, he could see the sun-kissed color of your skin and the bruising he was causing. He kept his mouth on you as he rocked himself against you, indulging in a few more selfish seconds of pleasure before becoming his generous self. 

He dipped his hand into your shorts and found the sweet nub that so desperately needed attention. His brain almost short circuited, the feeling of his fingers finally sliding into your wet lips making his throat dry. He drew little but skilled circles, each twirl of his index and middle finger in unison with the grind of his hips. Your mouth fell open by such pleasure, and you braced yourself by placing your left palm on the mattress and pressed down, nails scratching the cotton fabric and alerting Steve of your excitement. You pushed back against him, timed and in perfect harmony. 

You knew the room wasn’t on fire, but even if it was you didn’t think to check. 

“Keep talking to me, Y/N. Keep talking to me,” Steve begged, each rotation of his hips gaining pressure. His eagerness prompted you to reach back up and grab him by the hair, yanking his head to your tilted one and smashing his lips against yours. Steve gasped at the pleasant sting, somewhat surprised with himself that he liked that form of roughness. But who was he to judge his kinks when the tip of your nose was turning redder, the blush in your cheeks mixed with barely visible silver droplets of sweat, and a purple outline was beginning to form on your plump upper lip? 

The kiss was sloppy, uncoordinated, but still beneficial in getting Steve to rut against you even harder. 

He could so easily pull your shorts down and enter you, and if he was anything like he felt, then you knew it would sting. But you craved that sting and stretch, the thought of him inside you causing another gush of desire to leak from you. Steve dipped his finger deeper into you only to accumulate your juices and spread them higher. He went back to rubbing expertly, actions gaining speed to match your whimpers. 

“Fuck, Steve,” you moaned louder, and you swore you felt tears forming in the corner of your eyes. You pressed back harder, his hand rubbing and pressing down on your stomach simultaneously. Your head felt cloudy, the pleasure coursing through your veins and to the very tips of your toes. “Oh, my fuck.”

Steve paused his fingers to trail his hand back up your stomach and to your breasts, pulling your tank top down to spill them. The sounds leaving your throat set him on fire, desire pulsing everywhere - his head, his heart, his aching cock that was pressed so closely against you that he could feel you vibrating. He pinched your nipple and rolled it, closing his eyes in response to your dirty purrs. “Let me make you come, doll.”

“Wasn’t that the point?” you quipped, ass tilting at an angle that caused Steve to choke. He growled from the attitude he couldn’t believe you still fucking had during a moment like this and kissed you roughly, both your broken moans molding into one. His hand returned to your shorts. 

“Do that again,” he begged, hitching his leg up to rest on yours. The angle allowed him to drive his hips even harder. You maneuvered to provide the same tilt, grinning at the pleasurable cries that left your Captain’s mouth. 

“I think I’m gonna make you come first,” you chuckled and took his bottom lip between your teeth. You pulled lightly, concentration still in the circle of your hips. He looked back down at you, determination and undeniable lust in his eyes. He thrust his aching cock against you, sliding himself over your ass. He did it hard but slow, the pressure applied giving the head of his cock such a sweet squeeze as he bumped it against the curve of your lumbar spine. 

The heavy duvet was abandoned now, cold air from the hotel air conditioner failing in cooling you down at all. You both had a thin sheet of sweat on your clothed bodies, goosebumps standing proudly, and lips all plump and red from your harsh kissing. 

Steve held you so close, so tight, and his fingers were drawing such rushed and tiny circles that you swore his wrist had to be cramping up. But the sound of both your whimpers started to mesh together, alerting you of such a sweet climax up ahead. 

“Steve, fuck, fuck, ohh,” you mewled, voice now high pitched and yes, it turned Steve on incredibly but it also fueled you. Your pornographic moans ignited an even deeper desire within you, just the true fact that Steve was touching you, Steve was getting you to make these sounds, Steve is actually hearing these sounds, Steve is making the same exact sounds. 

 “I-, please, come for me,” Steve pleaded, cock twitching with each thrust as he neared his end. “Make me come.”

His begging, his equally high voice, his skilled fingers rubbing rapidly and the slight pain from that, his breath burning your neck, were all too powerful, their combinations causing the fire in your core to explode and make you see white in a flash, black dots later clouding your vision. Your nails dug into his moving arm, crescents branded into him. You clenched around nothing, walls fluttering and thighs shaking as they pressed around his hand and fingers. 

The inappropriate squelching sound of your juices spreading as your thighs clenched around his cramping fingers, the slide so sensual and dirty, had Steve rutting against you one, two, three more times before he came in hard but long spurts. His mouth hung open, breath still fanning your neck, and his eyes were so tightly shut that the force was enough to strain them. 

“Oh, fuuuck, yes, yes!” Steve groaned, his body taking longer than usual to recover. His orgasm was powerful, more powerful than when he got himself off in the shower or in the comfort of his bed at night, and he knew it was because you clouded his senses. Of course, there was an added benefit to getting off with someone else, aiding that person in the same endeavor, but because it was you, it made the climax even more forceful, more intense. The whole situation was both unexpected and calculated, gentle and rough, and Steve’s heart was beating so fast by the thought of what just occurred that he found himself wanting to spill into you all night long, and to apologize for overstepping an unspoken boundary. 

You could feel the wetness of both your own release and Steve’s, head still cloudy from such a sharp orgasm. You hummed in satisfaction, reaching your arm over once again to lift his head up by his hair. He hissed at the pull now, his body all fucked out and satisfied. “You good?”

Steve gave you a lazy smile, chest heaving in unison with yours. “I’m okay. You?”

“I’m good.”

Steve scanned your face for any regret just in case your words held other meaning, but all he could see was your satisfied expression, cheeks still flushed pink, hair tangled, and pupils dilated. He hesitated for a second before he leaned down and connected your lips, molding his with yours slowly and chastely. You both sighed at the feeling, highs now lowering and the coldness from the air conditioner causing a different set of goosebumps to appear. Steve pulled away, giving you one last peck as if testing the waters, and rested his forehead against yours. You both relished your post-orgasm bliss for a few silent minutes before cleaning up. 

You shared playful shoves as you cleaned up. It was almost innocent, a huge contrast to the sinful activities you two had just committed, but there was a genuine feeling of understanding in the room. Your heart clenched at the simple sight of Steve washing his hands, eyes meeting his in the mirror, a soft look in his that startled you. 

You gave him a smile so as to not alert him of your reaction, and exited the bathroom to climb back into bed. You drew the heavy duvet back over your body and cuddled in it deeply, chin hidden underneath and back facing Steve’s bed. It was a few more minutes before Steve came back into the room, shutting the light off, and looking at your resting form. He wanted to climb back in with you and hold you innocently, to have the feeling of your warm back against his broad chest, gentle exhales tickling the arm that would wrap around you. But he just looked back and forth from your bed and his, and he decided to not push the boundary further. He hesitated with this decision, but climbed into his own bed, the feeling of his cold sheets making him immediately regret it. He shuffled silently, his body facing yours. 

You wanted to lay beside him too. But whether you were making a smart decision or an absurd, cowardly one, one thing was certain: you could no longer ignore the stacking of such emotions you had for this man. 

It almost angered you, how much you denied yourself of even a simple crush for literally ten years, and it made you mad at Steve, too. Because if he hadn’t pushed you away, then maybe you could have accepted this sooner. 

~

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