#the arrow... is nice for once??? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

eowynstwin · 5 months ago

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peristalsis - v

selkie!soap x reader. depression. strangers to "lovers." shower sex. cunnilingus. smut. manipulative soap. oysters as an aphrodisiac. unstable narrator. . Running away from life to the Scottish Hebrides, you meet a man who won't leave you alone. . Masterlist. Ao3.

You watch him over an open book.

It’s an old romance, something from the eighties. Classic bodice ripper, billowing sleeves, tight corsets, mullets and heaving bosoms and all. Naturally, it’s set on a pirate ship, the heroine as the unlucky spoils of a merchant ship raid and the hero a lusty captain able to pierce her virgin’s desire for sexual depravity.

It could only have been more pointed at you if it had been set in the North Atlantic—it isn’t—but you glare at Soap’s back anyway.

He must be able to feel it, because he stands straight at the wheel, shoulders thrown back, occasionally flexing.

The freak.

You’d realized the joke he’d been making, once your heartbeat had slowed. Hiding the pelt somewhere obvious enough for you to see it. You live in the age of the internet—you know what it’s supposed to mean.

And you kind of hate him for it. Now, post-coitus, you can’t shove it away into a box—he is the most attractive man you’ve ever encountered. Rugged and handsome, competent at everything you’ve seen him do, seemingly at home wherever he finds himself. Everything makes him smile. Nothing seems to disconcert him.

And a nice big cock he actually knows how to use. Certainly the best lay you’ve ever had.

What every woman traveling solo, you think, longs to encounter on a solo trip across the world, but will never acknowledge looking for. An answer to an unaddressed desire; proof that satisfaction is out there to find, if it’s searched for.

A lover with no conditions. Someone willing to strip your inhibitions away, knowing your protests are only token.

You had not been searching. You’d given up searching.

And now he mocks you—with every satisfied glance he throws over his shoulder.

“Good book?” he asks, all casual and pleased. “S’ one a’my favorites. Tell me when you get to the naval battle.”

You frown. “You haven’t read this.”

He gives a little huff of amusement. “Read all of ‘em, bonnie.”

No, this is where you draw the line. A good cook, a good fuck, and a romance reader? No. No, you absolutely will not take this.

“Sure you have, Johnny,” you grouse, “you read every single stupid book on that shelf. Sure. Hell, you’ve read books that aren’t on that shelf. You’ve read every new release from the last six months, even. Why not.”

He looks at you again over his shoulder, mouth curled. “Aye. Needed ideas, once a’knew you were comin.’”

He says it matter-of-factly, with only a little bit of pride. As if it was a natural step in the process of getting ready for your arrival—renovate the croft. Stock the fridge and pantry. Plan some island excursions.

Study the erotic mind of the average woman to divine how best to seduce her.

Your frown deepens, and you lift the book higher, making it a barrier between you and him. Loser. Couldn’t he just go to the mainland for a few days if he wanted pussy? Not like it would be hard to find, for him.

You resolve to ignore him for the rest of the trip. A petty endeavor, maybe, but it’s the only one you can make.

But six hours is six hours, and you can’t read the whole time. Periodically you have to get up to stretch your legs, and the windows wrapping around the bridge draw your attention to the sea outside.

Johnny drives the trawler at a remove along the coastline, keeping close enough to the islands for easy viewing. The denizens of the Hebrides are out en masse, enjoying the clear weather, joyfully populating the land- and seascape in the absence of human interlopers.

Porpoises, so much smaller than you might have expected, periodically catch the wake of the boat, swimming alongside, playful and curious. Gulls loop in the air above the dunes, fronds of grass fluttering in the breeze. Gannets, stark white, arrow down into the waves, wings folded back pin-straight as they spear their quarry—silvery fish that boil the surface of the water in their frenzy.

Some removed part of you enjoys their pleasure secondhand. The normally-grey ocean is vibrant in the sunlight, crystalline and sparkling and as blue as Johnny’s eyes.

He seems to be in a good mood, too, although that could just be because you let him fuck you. You feel his eyes on you even as you refuse to look at him, dancing along the curves of your body the same way his fingertips might.

At one point—“Bonnie, I know you’re sulking an’ all, but c’mere.”

He gestures you over to the cockpit, and—embarrassed at being called out—you join him. He brings a hand to the small of your back, stepping behind you and pointing over your shoulder.

A gray wall of passing cliffs, and crags of rock jutting up from the churn at their base. You see ten or twelve grey-and-white seals lounging across every available flat surface, some cuddled in groups of three or four, apparently unbothered by the periodic spray of breaking waves.

“No’ where I’d choose to have a kip, personally,” Johnny says, sounding amused.

You turn your head to look at him, hard. His eyes soften when they meet yours, and he tilts his head to kiss you, undeterred even when you flinch away from it.

His hand tightens across your back, fingers digging in. He sucks your bottom lip between his and caresses it with his tongue, as he edges beneath the hem of your shirt to spread his hand across the warming skin of your back.

“I’m mad for ya,” he murmurs when he pulls away, blush high on his cheeks.

“It’s been two days,” you deadpan.

He presses up behind you, open hand sliding around to press into the low part of your belly, right at the sensitive crest of your mons; you can’t help your gasp when, at the same time, his erection nestles into the cleft of your ass.

“No’ to this,” he purrs in your ear. “Feels like it’s been forever, for this.”

When his fingers start making their way beneath the waistband of your pants, you grab his hand and wrench it away, scoffing.

“You’re just a fucking horndog,” you sneer, betrayed by the heat spilling through your core.

“Aw, you break my heart, bonnie,” Johnny simpers, but there’s a mocking edge to it. As if he knows exactly what you’re hiding.

You step away from him, folding your arms across your chest and staring out at the basking seals instead. Then—

“There’s one in the water,” you say.

A few meters away from the rocks, a round head pokes up from the surface, bobbing with the rise and fall of the waves. Its eyes are slitted closed, nostrils dilating.

“Aw, he’s bottling,” Johnny says affectionately, when he comes over to look. “Look at his wee face.”

You remember suddenly your encounter of the previous day—another lone seal, resting apart from its fellows.

“I saw one on the beach,” you say, “yesterday, after you dropped me off. A big one. You didn’t say they might show up.”

“Male?” he asks, and you nod. “Peripheral male, then. I’m no’ surprised.”

You sigh. “And that is…”

As if magnetized, his hands find you again, this time settling on your waist. It seems that Johnny’s touch is something impossible to escape, in his vicinity. He drags them down over your hips and back up almost idly, as if he’s not even thinking about doing it.

“There’s dominant males, and then there’s the rest of ‘em. Only the dominant ones get to breed at the rookeries, see? And the rest of ‘em have to wait around for the females to leave to have their chance.”

He leans into you from behind, nose in your hair, and you hear him inhale as his hands tighten.

“Once a peripheral male finds a female alone, separated from the colony, ready to go back out to sea—well, that’s his chance to pounce.”

You frown, mostly to yourself. “No matter how the female feels about it.”

“We’ve been over this,” he chides.

He brings his lips to the curve of one ear, then the soft spot behind it. His nose finds the juncture of your neck and shoulder, where the capillaries that he broke with his teeth still throb whenever you press your fingers to them. He inhales again, deeply.

“Why do you do that?” you grouse, unwilling to give him the win.

“Like how you smell,” he says, doing it again.

His tongue caresses the bruise before he closes his mouth over it—but he goes no further than to kiss your neck twice more before returning to the wheel. It leaves you reeling, half-dizzy with arousal, and when you stomp back to your seat with a frustrated growl, he only glances over at you, smirking, and laughs.

He finds a berth in the early evening to park the trawler, and at that point you’re thankful for any kind of solid ground to set your feet on, as well as enough open air to disperse whatever pheromones have saturated the enclosed space of the bridge.

You’ve been half-tempted the whole time to make him drop anchor and drag him belowdeck toward the nearest flat surface big enough for the two of you to share; as it is, you’ve simply stewed in your own juices instead, hot with angry arousal and ignoring the slick pooling in the gusset of your underwear.

Johnny steps out into the cooling air in his usual kilt and sweater, and you once again huddle in his jacket, aromatic with his musk, as he leads you onward. This time, unlike the last excursion, he insists upon holding your hand the whole way, callused fingers worming their way between yours, the captured air hot and humid between your palms.

Callanish turns out to be a henge of standing stones.

Meters-tall megaliths, squarish and narrow like broken teeth, surrounding a burial site and extending in two directions as if lining a road. Inevitably evocative of its cousin Stonehenge, with the notable exception that you are allowed to go up and touch the stones with your bare hands.

“They used ‘em for that TV show,” Johnny informs you as the two of you circuit the main ring. “Well, no’ these, they probably had styrofoam for that, but they got the idea from these.”

You lay your free hand on the nearest stone; it’s cold, and rough to the touch, a day’s worth of sunlight evidently not sufficient to warm it. Tiny spots of moss and lichen cling to the old stone, green and eggshell white.

“Why are we allowed to touch them?” you say. You think of bronze statues, rubbed to a golden gleam by millions of tourist hands.

“That’s Lewisian gneiss, bonnie,” says Johnny, laying his hand, much larger, next to yours. His thumb teases the side of your pinky. “Doubt you could make much of a mark on it. This rock here? Three billion years old.”

You look at him, seeing his profile. The expression on his face is soft—not unlike the way he looked at you earlier, on the way here. He spreads his fingers over the stone, tendons furrowing down the back of his sun-weathered hand.

“No’ just older than us,” he continues. “Older than what we used to be, a’fore we were us. Was there when we first made fire. Was there when we came down th’ trees. Was there all the way back when we left the ocean for the first time—”

He looks at you, then. The setting sun catches in the dips of his irises, setting jewel blue aflame.

“An’ it’ll be there, bonnie, when we go back.”

The wind curls around the stones with the chill of the oncoming night. Even despite the jacket, despite the walk up to the site—you feel it penetrate beneath your skin, deep into your bones.

You choose derision, to reject the shiver.

“And you have this all memorized,” you say.

Johnny doesn’t respond. He continues to stare at you, mouth in a relaxed, but inscrutable line.

You suddenly remember that you do not know this man; though he’s told you enough about himself to fill out his background—you don’t know him. You don’t know how he feels about most things, what’s important to him, why he may find one thing or another meaningful. Not the way you’d have to, in order to understand why the gaze he fixes on you feels so significant.

Whatever you’re supposed to understand in the way he looks at you now, you don’t have the ability to discern. The only thing that occurs to you is that, perhaps, you’ve finally managed to offend him.

It does not satisfy you as much as you might have imagined—

In fact, the thought drops through your belly like a rock.

Again. You did it again.

In the one place you thought you’d never have to face this—you did it again. Here is someone who seems to like even the worst of you, and you somehow found an even uglier side of yourself to show him, a squirming thing that cannot help but sling itself around with no heed for the damage it can cause.

But when you open your mouth to say something reparatory, something that certainly won’t fix what you’ve broken no matter what he might say, his expression softens into something thoughtful.

“Visited when I first came here,” he says. Completely unbothered. “After the discharge an’ all.”

You blink. Sharp heat and the numbness of cold, warring across your face.

“Why?” you ask.

“Dunno.” He shrugs, and lifts his hand from the stone, smiling ruefully. “I was a bastard back then. Didnae wan’ anything’ to do with anyone anymore. Mad at the world, a’was.”

Shucked like an oyster; scaled like a fish. Heat wins out, even in the growing chill. Tender skin scalding itself.

“And what,” you say, reflexively nasty, panic whirring up behind your breastbone, “you thought—you’d get some sort of, magical insight here?”

Johnny laughs. “Naw, a’was just pissing my money away, bonnie. Thought I’d come up here an’ try t’ knock one over.”

Tight chest. Can’t breathe. You step away from him, far away, hide it like you’re looking at another of the standing stones, but a stabbing pain spears upward through your diaphragm.

In—count—hold—out—

“Could you?” you ask, wringing something like a normal tone out of your voice.

“Nope. Paid for it later, though.”

He says it casually. He hasn’t noticed. You reach out to the new stone, drag your fingers overtop of the rough surface, imagine every little bump flipping the friction ridges of each print like pages of a book. Cold—the rock is cold. The wind is cold, and sharp with the smell of rain. The jacket is heavy on your shoulders.

The jacket smells like Johnny.

“I’m sure the park wardens weren’t happy,” you say, feeling your heart slow in your chest.

“No,” he says, and—with the silence of a lightning strike—“I drowned, afterwords, first time I went to sea.”

You look back at him. The wind picks up, ruffling the ends of his mohawk; on the horizon, a rind of darkness splits the clouds from the earth.

“You drowned?” you repeat.

The hem of his kilt flutters and dances. His gaze is intense—the angle of his brow unreadable.

“Aye, bonnie. I did.”

Your ears begin ringing—as you stare at him, you get the sense of dreaming. There’s a distinction to Johnny that contrasts the landscape framing him, a sharpness so focused that everything else lenses around him.

“Why—why are you here?” you find yourself asking, though you’re not entirely sure why. The question leaves you as if surfacing on its own power.

The corners of his mouth quirk—although for once, he doesn’t smirk at you, the way he always does.

“You tell me,” he murmurs.

He holds you in the tilt of his head; in the depths of his eyes, currents pulling you downward. You inhale, and expect, for some reason, water to pour into your lungs.

Then a gust of wind buffets the two of you. Johnny turns, surveying the sky. Breaking the spell, he says, “Come on, let’s get back. I don’ like the look a’that storm.”

Halfway back down the path, the front overtakes you; rain begins sheeting down, ice cold, needle-precise into your hair and down your collar. Johnny grabs your hand again even as you start worrying about slipping, and though the torrent veils the way, the both of you make it back to the trawler in one piece.

Back on the bridge, a red light blinks on the panel by the wheel. While Johnny attends to it, flipping a switch and bringing a microphone on a curly wire to his mouth, you squeeze your hair out over the sink nearby.

“This is Soap on the vessel Sea Ghost,” he says, and waits for a response.

“Soap. Drop anchor somewhere. Looks like a storm’s coming in,” a gruff voice comes in.

“Yeah, Cap, we noticed,” Johnny says with a laugh, turning and smiling at you. “We’re moored, dinna fash.”

“Good. Looks like it’s just for the night. Clear enough in the morning.”

“Barry. You got everything? Shops’ closed tomorrow.”

“Never will understand why. But yes.”

“It’s a holy day, Captain,” Johnny says pleasantly.

Price grumbles something about damn Catholics and their damn rules, which just makes Johnny laugh.

Then, “Gaz is here. Made it in after you left.”

Johnny’s posture shifts. Similar to a dog hearing the turning of a doorknob; amorphous attention coalescing, finding a target to point at. Anticipatory. Tail twitching, winding up to wag.

It’s a new reaction, to you—you’ve never seen it before.

Johnny lifts the transmitter to his mouth. He holds it there for a silent moment, before saying, “And Simon?”

No response from the other end of the line, pulled taut, as if snagged. Then Price responds “Haven’t heard yet.”

Something passes over Johnny’s face. Some flex of the muscle in his jaw. An expression held in check.

That’s—

That’s familiar.

“Alright. Back tomorrow then.”

“See you.”

He replaces the mic on its hook.

Thunder claps somewhere over the distant, open ocean. The trawler creaks and groans as the wind swirls around it. Yellow lamps illuminate the warm, wooden space, but are unable to penetrate the lowering blackness outside.

Tension—you can feel it drawing tight, see his shoulder blades shifting closer together. It aches in the muscles of your own back. He faces away from you, like you’re not there—

He turns to look at you. He’s smiling, but it doesn’t look quite real. As if he’s forcing the expression on his face.

“Poor bonnie,” he croons, looking you up and down. The tenor of his voice is saccharin-sweet and thick. “How’s a hot shower sound to warm up, hmm?”

Your belly pinches. “Sure.”

He leads you down a steep flight of stairs into the stomach of the boat, showing you into a single bedroom. The space is cramped, wedge-shaped—barely enough room for the double bed shoved into the middle of it, sheets and blankets gathered in rumples across the top. The unique musk of its occupant wars with the smell of lacquer; the walls are lined with orangey planks, evoking the sailing ships of old.

Directly to the left of the entrance, an open door leads into a small bathroom, into which Johnny guides you, hands on your hips.

“Go’ plenty a’ drinking water stored upstairs so take all the time you like,” he says. “Here, lemme show you how the taps work.”

You half-expect him, after the instruction, to stand there and watch, waiting until you undress. And he does hesitate for a moment, hovering in the threshold, before giving you a practiced grin, telling you to enjoy yourself, a closing the door behind him.

You stand in the middle of the tiny room for an uncertain heartbeat. Assumptions lurching. Almost—hoping.

His heavy footsteps climb back up the stairs.

So, you peel off your damp clothes and drop them into a pile on the floor, stepping naked into the shower. It’s far less mildewed than you might have worried of a single man living alone. Hot water chases cold out of your hair, streaming with pressure far superior to the cottage’s installment.

You realize your toiletries are still above deck, in your bag, beneath the two paperbacks Johnny packed that you haven’t gotten to just yet. You could step out after him—

You don’t do that anymore. You promised yourself.

The floor sways as the shifting sea rocks the trawler in its berth. You reach for the bar on the wall to steady yourself.

One version of yourself is sometimes able to fool the other. The truth is, you could have told him to stop at any time. Put your foot down, hard. Just because he owns the house you’re staying in doesn’t mean he gets to decide what your entire vacation is going to look like.

You scoff at yourself, without any humor. Vacation. Like you’d ever believed this was anything more than self-imposed exile.

The truth is, water takes the shape of the container it fills.

There’s a chill still present in your hair follicles. Impossible for you to identify until now; live with an ache long enough and it stops registering, until it’s balmed with a moment of relief. This is where the addicts begin; experiencing, for the first time, a complete absence of pain, as if it had never been there in the first place, and, once that pain is restored, the ruthless pursuit of its elimination.

Cold rain outside, warm rain within. You stand in the flow, listless. Steam rapidly clouds the empty spaces around you, gathering in droplets on the wall, drizzling down again.

That’s where the mistake is. Pain is never defeated—only deferred. Its panacea provides only diminishing returns, until it’s useless. Until you might as well be swallowing sugar pills or drinking seawater to assuage your thirst.

But you keep doing it. You remember too well how it felt. You chase it down because now you know how it feels.

At some point you have to understand that it always ends poorly.

The bathroom door opens again, and then the shower door, spilling yellow light into the shadowed recess—

Johnny.

The expression on his face is inscrutable; mysterious, as his gaze moves down your body, following the streaming water. Your arms curl around your chest in a perfunctory attempt to conceal yourself, even despite the futility of the effort.

He’s naked, and half-hard, a refrain on the previous night. One hand holds the travel-size soaps and gels that he must have dug out from your bag. He steps in behind you—enclosing the two of you in together.

“Sorry, bonnie,” he murmurs soothingly in your ear. “Had t’make sure we were tied up for the storm.”

The space is not even suggestive of being big enough for two people. You hear the squeak of the shower wall against his shifting back, hot skin slipping against yours as his hands draw you back against him by the hips.

“Dinnae want you t’slip an’ hit your head,” he murmurs, massaging the fat of your pelvis, as if there’s any reason to make excuses for what he’s doing.

Half-raised hackles petted down too easily. You relax into his touch, even as you disdain it. Your heart tremors in your chest.

“What’s going on tomorrow?” you finally ask. “Who’s Simon?”

Pathetic. A jealous lover, after less than forty-eight hours.

“Old task force,” he answers, kissing the back of your head. “Little reunion, food an’ beer, mostly.”

You half-expect him to go immediately for your breasts, or maybe your pussy. His cock is stiffening against the small of your back. But instead, he opens one of your bottles, squirts some pearly body wash into the palm of his hand. Rubbing a little to lather it, he puts his hands back on your hips, and begins massaging it into your skin.

Inward, up your stomach. Pressing into the soft parts of it, with the water slicking his way. His mouth touches the back of your neck—softly. Tenderly. With all of the languor you rejected the previous night, and not enough space for you to slap it away again.

His lips press inward, looking for the bite he left, which he lays his tongue on as if in contrition, licking it like a dog with a wound. The comfortable warmth of the shower swelters with his added body heat; the steam pulses in time with the heavy beats of your heart.

One hand slides up your body, fording your thoracic arch, the wedge of his hand ascending the length of your breastbone. He cups your jaw, bubbles between his fingers, one of your breasts nestling between his bicep and forearm.

He tilts your head to the side as he cranes his head further into your neck, lipping at the space behind your ear, kissing delicate, sensitive skin, as his other hand drags soap around your ribs, beneath and over both breasts, up into your pits and back down again.

A doll in his hands, bent along the shape of his will. He shifts his hips, frotting his erection against you.

“Johnny,” you breathe. “Johnny, this isn’t anything. This doesn’t mean anything.”

“Aye, bonnie,” he hums. “Whatever you say.”

He licks a hollow in your throat.

His other hand dips lower, sweeping down into the crease of one thigh to round the lower swell of your hip; then back up again, fingers spreading.

The stall compresses your arms close against you; the only space you have available to lay your useless hands is on his arms. The dark hair you find with your fingertips is coarse, wiry, plastered to hot skin with water. The spray seeps between the both of you, streams in the runnels of flesh pressed together.

Between your legs, your clitoris heats, awakening even though untouched. You give a small whine, and Johnny huffs a little chuckle in your ear, suckling your neck as his fingers make the descent back, rinsed in the falling water, teasing your pubic hair before nudging your folds apart.

He finds you slick and aching. He only dips lower briefly to wet his fingers, and then, as he settles a light touch over where you’re most desperate for it, relief razes through your nerves in a sudden wash.

You search for the back of his head, slotting your fingers into the ends of his mohawk at the nape of his neck. He hums against you, hand dropping down from your jaw to cup one breast in his palm, weighing it, thumb flicking around the pert nipple in the same tight circle he draws around your clitoris.

Orgasm, usually so obvious on approach, sneaks up on you, quick and quiet, but when it takes you it floods you, rather than knocking you down. You tremble all over, the follicles on your scalp standing on end, the nerves down your back and sides bending like dune grass to a wind.

Your long, breathy cry reverberates against the shower walls, and you lean heavily back against Johnny’s body, grip tightening where you have your hands on him.

He twitches against your back, but he makes no move to chase his own climax. He only turns you carefully, when you recover, and lays his hot, open mouth on yours, tugging your hips close enough to trap his cock against your belly. This time, the wall is cool at your back, the crown of your head moving against it as Johnny angles himself deeper, sliding his tongue between your lips.

“C’mon,” he says, when he finally pulls away. His pupils are huge, black dilation swallowing the blue. The spray fills the empty spaces between the strands of his mohawk, fluffing the hair a little as it courses down the shaved sides of his scalp. “Need to get my mouth on you again, bonnie.”

This time, when he eats you out, he does it at his leisure. Licking honey off a spoon. So lightly that you whine at him, find the energy to bitch at him to do it like he means it, but tonight he does not indulge you.

No—he mouths at you, eyes closed, curly lashes against his cheek as you lay belly-up on the rumpled sheets of his bed. The heat of his tongue in your cleft is the only source of warmth you have as the rain lashes at the outside of the trawler, but the hot shower still lingers in your skin—

Humid. Sticky. Sweat gathering beneath Johnny’s palms where he holds your thighs to his ears, as if mimicking the way your sex will clutch around him when he enters you. Slick and tight and viscous.

When he crawls up your body—nosing at your belly, your breasts, inhaling as if your musk is something he’s trying to get drunk on—he fucks you slow and deep. You stop being able to tell if it’s the storm rocking the boat, or the weight of his hips rolling against yours, one of his hands on the headboard for leverage and the other on your mons, pressing down with the heel of his hand to feel the head of his cock moving in you.

Tacky skin catching on the grind; heart speeding up as he grins at you from above, thumb tapping your clitoris. Enough to wind you up. You reach for his hips with your clawed hands, digging your nails into the meat of his ass—firm, muscle tensed, twitching every time he bottoms out.

“Johnny,” you finally beg, on the edge of a sob, “please, Johnny, please—”

Breath leaves him like a steam valve turned, pressure carrying an uninhibited moan. He ignores your plea, hips rolling slow, forcing you to feel every inch of him in and out of you, every ridge—every vein pulsing on the surface of his cock.

His eyes are closed still; when the widest part of him catches the rim of you around him again, his mouth drops open, lips pink and bitten.

Lost—he’s lost in pleasure, in the feeling of you around him, pulling him in. You watch his chest as it heaves, the flex of his stomach as it tightens—the twitch in the muscles of his arms as the impact of each thrust ripples up his body.

Look at me, you want to say. Look at me. I’m right here. Look at me.

“Again,” he groans, choked, restrained, hands gripping your hips. “Say it again, bonnie—”

“Please—” you whine, on the edge of a sob, “please, please, please—”

Thumb metronoming at a quick tempo where you need it—you seize, back arching, tightening around him so narrowly you could force him out—

He snarls, sharp and hard, thrusting into the resistance, hands falling to fist in the mattress. Breath coming rough and fast, sweat dripping from his forehead into the cups of your collarbones and down between your breasts. Hard and fast now, pushing in as far as your body will let him, and a final, long moan tears from his parted lips, liquid heat flooding you as Johnny goes rigid with a climax following only moments after your own.

Pelvis flush with your thighs. He doesn’t let a drop escape, pushing against you, lifting your hips from the bed.

“Tha’s right,” he slurs, eyes hazy when they open. “Tha’s right, that’s where it belongs.”

He collapses on top of you, almost crushing you with his weight, as he seeks your mouth out with his. He moves his hips against yours with shallow thrusts, whining in his throat.

“Didn’t you—” you pull your lips away, too hot, too cold, buzzing and exhausted, “didn’t you just finish?”

He tongues at your cheek instead, and then down your neck. “Doesnae matter, is no’ enough. C’mon, bonnie, wrap your legs aroun’ me, please…”

After he is finally spent—long after you’ve had enough energy to do more than lay beneath him and let him use you as he pleases—Johnny diverts briefly to the galley, bringing back with him a plate of oysters and a pry knife. It’s his bed, so you don’t complain about shell fragments, but you resolve to make him change the sheets anyway, shifting uncomfortably to find a spot that isn’t soaked.

“Was on this boat,” Johnny says, as if picking up the thread of a conversation only recently dropped. He picks up one of the oysters and shucks it open. “When I drowned.”

The way he says it, you’d think it was a casual thing, something he barely thought about anymore, but the line of his brow is low and serious.

He hands you one half; you bring the shell to your lips and tip it upward. Brine slides across your tongue, flesh smooth and buttery. Johnny watches you with soft eyes before having his own.

“Price was with me. I told him to fuck off, but he said he wasnae gonna let me take it out alone the first time ever. I was a bastard back then, I told ya. We went out in a storm, like this one, even though any eedjit could take a look outside and know it’d kill him.”

You flick at the edge of the shell with your fingernail, looking down at your hands. “Why’d you do it?”

“Dunno. Had somethin’ to prove, I guess.”

“That you could still do stuff like that?”

He doesn’t respond, so you look back up at him. He angles his gaze toward the mess of your hair—the new hickies he’s left on your neck—the bead of your nipples in the cold. The hard angles of his face soften.

“All my life,” he says, measuredly, “all I wanted to be was a soldier. An’ I couldnae anymore. Even though I was better. Hell, I was better than better. But I couldnae go back. That was it. It all wen’ on withou’ me.”

He breaks open more oysters as he talks, hands steady and deft around shells and knife. When he finishes, he slides the plate into your lap, and reclines to face you on his side, propping his head up with his hand.

“We wen’ out when the waves were as tall as a man, an’ us hangin’ onto the railing for dear fuckin’ life,” he continues. There’s a faraway quality to the tone of his voice. “Only life wasnae so fuckin’ dear, was it? I could’ve held on tighter, I think. I fell off.”

“And Price pulled you out?”

That feeling again, meeting his gaze; caught in the arms of a whirlpool, being dragged down. A vial in a centrifuge, constituent parts separating.

“No,” he says, “he didnae.”

“Then…”

“Eat, bonnie.”

There’s a stillness to him that feels unnatural. Johnny is a man who should be constantly in motion, gesturing with his hands, bouncing on the balls of his feet, tapping any available surface with rolling fingertips. Instead, here in front of you, he’s still as a statue. Chest softly rising and falling, but otherwise completely placid.

He gazes steadily at you, down at the plate, and then back up. You sigh, and pick up another shell.

“I don’t remember exactly what happened. I remember getting pushed down deep, real deep, then getting forced up again, on a current or something. Not far enough to get any air, mind. I thought, I’m gonna die out here, an’ I didnae want to.”

He shifts then, a little forward toward you.

“That seemed important, you know? I didnae want to die. Dinna think the sea would’ve given me up f’ I did. It knows. Sometimes it doesnae care. But I guess that time, it did, ‘cause after I blacked out, next thing I know I’m wakin’ up on the shore.”

Something hard shifts in your belly.

“Cap found me a bit later, bringin’ the boat in. Gave him a real scare. Think it turned some of his hair gray overnight. After that…a’was no’ the same. How could y’be, after that?”

You—you don’t want to know any of this. You don’t care. You didn’t ask. His story drops expectation on your shoulders, heavy, custom-tailored, laden with understanding that sands your abraded nerves.

All of this is too much. The damp sheets beneath you, the food, the sex. The fact that you picked the last place in the world thought you could ever meet anyone, let alone someone who—

“And now you have a seal fetish,” you sneer.

Who understands.

Indulgent. This is indulgent, reckless, idiotic in the extreme.

Soap reaches out, and wraps a large, sun-brown hand around your wrist, the one still holding the oyster. Pulling it towards him, he opens his mouth and then tips the flesh from the shell. He slurps it down, noisily, mimicking the sound of his mouth and tongue on your pussy.

“Something like that,” he says, with a sharp, cocky grin.

He changes the sheets. Dims the lights. Plasters himself around you as the storm blows itself out, arm heavy over your waist, thigh and knee nested inside yours.

He’s warm at your back, musky with the mingling aroma of dried sex and sweat.

Sturdy. More real than anything that’s ever put its hands on you.

Johnny, who the sea loved so much it spat him back out. So treasured by the world that a bullet to the brain couldn’t even take him away from it.

Who, by the sound of it, means so much to the people in his life that they would follow him to the middle of nowhere just to keep an eye on him.

Bile churns in your stomach.

next chapter early access

a/n: two chapters left!

#soap x reader #soap x you #john soap mctavish x reader #john soap mctavish x you #john soap x reader #john soap mactavish x reader #soap mactavish #john soap mactavish x you #soap mactavish x reader #soap mctavish #john soap mactavish #mwritessoap #madi writes #selkie soap #peristalsis #'i'm going to write shorter chapters' writes this monstrosity #i am so not happy with this but we forge ahead nonetheless #hopefully I can get 6 up in EA next week. maaaaybe a double posting since the epilogue won't take long to edit. i think.

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wonderjanga · 9 months ago

Text

Island Retreat

Some JL members get stranded on an island.

Marvel: “I caught couple rats and a rabbit.” *holding the rats by their tails and the rabbit by its legs*

GA: “Ooh nice. I got a deer. Can I have a rat or two? They taste like stringy chicken.”

Marvel: “Sure!”

WW: “I brought back a bear.” *points behind her to a bear*

GA and Marvel: “Woah, Wondy you’re the best!”

The reason Marvel didn’t get anything bigger was because as Billy, he’s used to catching rats and pidgins so he stuck to what he was used to. GA just was just hunting, and Wonder is just Wonder. Now, of course as Marvel, he could’ve catch bigger things. This was utilized when Arthur, Diana, and him made a challenge of hunting and ran around trying to hunt the most. Diana won with a warthog, three deer, a rabbit, and a snake.

So, here’s the squad: Marvel, Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman.

They turned this into a vacation guys. They’re playing beach ball with a makeshift ball. They’re using the radio they’re supposed to be using to radio for help, for music. They’re chilling.

Aquaman: *stops paying attention to their beach ball game and doesn’t even notice as it smacks into his head as he’s looking to the water*

GA: “Dude…? Why’d you throw our game? Now we’re behind those two.” *looks to where Arthur’s looking*

Marvel and WW: *also look over to the water*

*silence*

Dolphin: *suddenly pops up out of nowhere tugging a crate with him*

Aquaman: “Oh my god…” *rushes over*

GA, Marvel, WW: *confused*

Aquaman: *opens crate* “Alcohol!”

All of them were later chilling on the beach, drinking cocktails of their choices…

GA: “The is the life…”

Aquaman: *Agreed. It’s nice to have a couple days away from Atlantis and being a hero. Speaking of which, Cap, I’m honestly surprised you’re so chill about this.”

Marvel: “Whatcha mean?”

GA: “Dude, you never take breaks.”

Marvel: “Wha? Of course I do.”

WW: “Brother, the other day I heard Bruce discussing with Clark about the fact that out of the six years you’ve been on the team, you’ve never once asked for some kind of leave.”

GA: “Wait really??”

Marvel: *silence* “I don’t see how it’s a bad thing.”

Aquaman: “It is a bad thing, pal. That’s not normal. You don’t have any family you need to visit or spend time with?”

Marvel: “No, not really. Junior and Mary are in the hero bizz so we spend a lot of time together already. Then, as for you guys, I see you almost every day since I go to the Watchtower a lot.”

GA: *gasp* “You consider us family?” *sounds touched*

Marvel: “Yes? Is that bad?” *sounds self conscious*

Aquaman: “Not at all. I for one am happy to be apart of your family.” *sounds proud*

WW: “As am I. I’m happy we’re siblings, brother.”

When the four were finally found, they got scolded by Bats and Supes.

Batman and Supes: *standing side by side*

Batman: *bat-glaring them all*

Supes: “What is wrong with you?! You can’t just shipwreck and then not contact us! Why didn’t you use the emergency radio?!”

GA: “There was an emergency radio?”

Supes: “Yes!”

Marvel: *whispers to Arthur in Atlantean* “Is he talking about the radio we used to play music?”

Aquaman: *whispers back in Atlantean* “I think so.”

Supes: “What’re you two saying?”

Marvel and Aquaman: *simultaneously, and in English* “Nothing.”

Supes: *starts ranting again*

WW: *whispers in Greek* “What were you guys saying?”

Marvel: *also switches to Greek* “The radio. We think it was the one we used to play music.”

Supes: “Guys! I can still hear you!”

Marvel: “Sorry Mr. Superman.”

WW: “Apologies, Clark.”

Supes: *starts ranting again*

GA: *in Italian* “What were you guys talking about?”

Marvel: *in Italian* “Remember the radio? We think that was the SOS radio.”

Supes: “GUYS. Stop whispering in languages we don’t understand—”

Batman: “I understood two out of those three.”

Supes: “—In languages I don’t understand!” *looks to Bruce*

Batman: “They weren’t using the SOS radio to signal for help.”

Aquaman: “We were using it for music.”

GA: “Arthur! You snitch!”

Aquaman: “What? They were gonna find out anyways.”

Supes: “Why were you guys playing music???”

WW: “We had what one would call a vacay.”

Supes: *takes a deep breath* “Okay. Marvel, go sit over there.” *points to a couple feet away from the other three*

Marvel: “What? Why?”

Supes: “Because you speak to many languages! Now go.”

Marvel: *pitifully walks over there*

Supes: “Now, back to what I was saying.” *starts ranting again*

#billy batson #dc captain marvel #shazam #captain marvel dc #fawcett comics #fawcett #fawcett city #wonder woman #diana prince #batman #bruce wayne #clark kent #superman #aquaman #arthur curry #green arrow #oliver queen

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cakypa120 · 1 month ago

Text

Aka continuation of the previous post. Conversation between the League and Marvel.

Billy didn't know that the League would go so crazy when they saw his notebook. Bruce and Clark were especially pale, staring into the depths of space for ten minutes. Diana was pacing back and forth like a caged animal. Barry was tapping his foot rapidly, nervously biting his lip. Hal looked green. Arthur looked at everyone smugly. J'onn was already eating his fifth pack of Oreos. Shayera was tapping her finger on the table and frowning. Oliver stood straight and clenched his hands into fists.

Marvel: I don't understand your frustration. You didn't do this

Barry: You don't understand?! Marvel, this is not normal!! I killed you 43 times!! This...this...

Barry pauses, tears welling up in his eyes. Billy feels awkward.

Marvel: Sorry. I'm just used to it. It's always one of you.

Bruce: It's not just the League, it's the Titans and Young Justice. Why did they kill you?

Marvel: *shrugs* Sometimes you tell them to, sometimes they do it themselves, sometimes they're mind-controlled. There's a lot going on. I like Nightwing the best. He always kills me quickly and painlessly. I didn't even realize I was dead until I took my first breath in this dimension. You can tell a pro.

Bruce covers his face with his hands.

Clark: Did John ever...

Marvel: Yeah, along with Damian. Two demons who were enjoying it way too much. I gave them a few points for cruelty.

Clark covers his face with his hands, too.

Diana: Brother... This... You need to get help!

Marvel: Who? Dinah? Should I remind you that she's seventh on the list?

Diana: Brother, throw that list and those points away! What happened... How can you react like that?! You were killed! And very cruelly! Your face was melted! Your heart was ripped out! You were poisoned! You were mobbed and killed! How can you be so calm? HOW?!

Billy didn't know what to say. Had he resigned himself? A long time ago. But that fear still lived in him. Every time he thought about how and who would kill him. To do many things so that after his death the world would continue to exist. Hell, he himself sometimes pushed them to kill, because sometimes they didn't want to kill him. They always looked at him with sadness. As if killing him was not what they wanted.

Marvel: Too many lifetimes to get used to. And this notebook is like... I don't know... a distraction? A way to understand you? To find some kind of pattern in everything? I don't know. It's just that over time all the pain has dulled, it's not gone away, but it doesn't hurt as much as the first few times.

Hal: Dude. This... this... I don't know what to say.

Oliver: Have you ever given up on being a hero?

Marvel: Sure. Who do you think I am? But even so, I didn't even live to be fifteen. Once I was killed by Diana right in the crib, the second time I was killed by Clark on red kryptonite, the third time I was killed by Hal, who became a Yellow Lantern, oh, don't forget how Arthur chopped off my head when he was taking over dry land. By the way, the fact that the brain lives for twenty seconds after being cut off is true. I did the math myself.

Everyone looks at him strangely.

Diana: I killed you in the cradle?

Marvel: Yes. I couldn't even roll over. You killed my sister then, too.

Diana presses her lips into a thin line.

J'onn: Do you have a sister?

Marvel: Yeah, but she's currently missing. I'll find her soon and introduce her to you. She's pretty sweet.

J'onn: Has she ever killed you?

Marvel: Yeah. It's not nice to have your throat torn out by sharp fangs, but it's a lot nicer than being stabbed with arrows. Yeah, Oliver, your version of me couldn't kill the first time, so you shot me so many times.

Oliver: Thanks, I could live without that information.

Marvel: You're welcome. I need to get back to patrol. The city can't save itself.

Batman: Hold on. The meeting's not over yet.

Marvel: Come on, I already know what's going to happen. You'll swear not to kill me, you'll even create special protocols, but I'll still get killed, even with those protocols. So I suggest you calm down a bit and think with a clear head. And I'm going back to the city. Bye.

Marvel leaves. The heroes remain silent. The weight of guilt weighs on their laps, and the knowledge that they can't fix anything eats them up, depriving them of any hope. There's only one question spinning in their heads.

How dare I kill Marvel?

Part 1

#billy batson #dc captain marvel #dcu #captain marvel #shazam #fawcett city #fawcett comics #jl #justice league #batman #superman #wonder woman #hawkgirl #green arrow #green lantern #flash #martian manhunter #aquaman

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gimmethatagustd · 18 days ago

Text

what the fire gave us | jjk

You were born with a Gift that the world wanted to turn into a weapon. All Jungkook wanted to do was show you that you could find love, even in the dark.

Relationship: Shadow Elemental Jungkook x Water Elemental Reader

Rating: Explicit

Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence (someone you love is gonna die I'm so sorry)

Tags: Dystopia, Fantasy, Friends to Lovers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Character Death, Murder, Human Experimentation, War, Jungkook is a precious baby boy but he’ll also kill you, Elemental Magic, Shadow Elemental Jungkook, Fire Elemental Yoongi, Loss of Virginity, Vaginal Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Cunnilingus, Outdoor Sex

Word Count: 25,983

A/N: Fun fact, Taehyung’s character is based off of Jeff Goldblum. Part of a spring offering collab.

Soundtrack: cyberpunk - ateez

moodboard credit: @btscontentenjoyer

3 MONTHS

Lookout duty is hard on you. When it’s your turn to camp out on the roof and watch for potential threats, you complain that staying awake all night is hard. Most of the other runaways are night owls, but you aren’t. You need your beauty sleep, you joke. You can’t get comfortable on the roof, even if there’s a flat landing with pillows and blankets to keep you warm.

These are a few of your excuses, but you can’t bring yourself to tell the others the truth: you are scared.

It’s close to midnight when you hear the creak of the trapdoor opening. The likelihood of it being anyone other than the group of Gifted runaways you live with is low, but you can’t trust that the impossible wouldn’t happen. You’ve seen the impossible happen far too often.

Hopping down from the old milk crate you’d been sitting on, you crouch behind a giant bean bag with your bow and arrow ready. The harness you wear strapped around your torso holds your spare arrows. It digs hard enough into your shoulder that you form blisters if you don’t wear a thick enough shirt.

The fluffy pink hair poking out of the trapdoor makes you sigh in relief.

“Hey, kid,” the pink-haired man whispers.

He gently closes the trapdoor and walks with a hunched back toward you, careful not to expose too much of his body beyond the roof’s railing. The abandoned warehouse you live in is on the city’s outskirts, with nothing for miles but empty concrete parking lots and overgrown plots of land.

Still, you never know who might be out there. Although the Red Pins have only inflicted pain from within their research facilities, all the runaway Gifteds know that the government employs more than one type of evil to hunt them down.

You try not to think about them, those scientists in long white coats that fall to their thighs and blood-red nametags pinned to their labels with names you often see painted on the walls of your nightmares. Lately, the frequency of the nightmares has lessened. It doesn’t feel like it, though, when you often wake in the middle of the night to your friends screaming in their sleep while they suffer through their own trauma. You wish the knowledge that the pain of being government lab rats is something you all share could be comforting. But, instead, it only makes you hurt more.

“Yoongi,” you huff, returning to your perch on the milk crate. Now your hands are all sweaty. “You should be sleeping.”

“Hi, Yoongi; nice to see you too! Thanks for coming to hang out with me!” Yoongi mocks your voice, clearly stating what he thinks you should have said. “Oh, no problem, Y/N. I just wanted to see how you were doing and hang out with my favorite kiddo.”

You scrunch your nose at kiddo.

“I’m not a kid.”

Yoongi leans over to rub his knuckles into your head. “Nah, you definitely are.”

Despite the lack of lighting outside, Yoongi practically glows. That’s always how it is with fire elementals. It’s like they absorb all the light and let it buzz inside them. Like fireflies, you’d once told Yoongi. He hadn’t found it cute to be compared to a bug.

“If I’m a firefly, then you’re a fucking fish,” he’d teased. You’d promptly summoned water from a nearby puddle to throw in his face.

For as long as you can remember, that’s how it has been between the two of you: fire and water. A push and pull. So different that you need each other to be whole.

You watch Yoongi get comfortable in the bean bag, his skinny limbs spreading like a starfish and his eyes lifting to the sky. In quiet moments like this, you would give anything to hold him. And not out of fear like you had when the scary men came to take you away from your parents. And not out of anger like you had to when you stopped him from blowing up the research facility they’d held you in.

No, you want to hold him and for it to be gentle, soft, and peaceful.

Like now, when the world is silent except for the crickets calling to each other in the weeds and the rustle of wind in the trees.

But he thinks you’re just a kid.

You’re not that much younger than him. But, if you put in the effort to look at your relationship objectively, you’d see that Yoongi’s paternal nature comes out with you and the other runaway Gifteds. He cares for you as an older brother would.

It’s not enough for you, though. It will never be enough.

“Is everyone else asleep?” You rest your elbows on your knees and hold your chin in your hand. When you speak, you look out at the empty field.

“Hobi sneezed and blasted a hole through the bathroom wall,” Yoongi says with a low chuckle. “So me and Joon found some supplies to patch it up the best we could. I think they’re all asleep now, though.”

“How is it Hobi’s the one breaking shit and Namjoon’s fixing it?” You press your hand against your mouth to muffle the ugly snort bursting from you. There’s very little to find funny in this life, so you cherish how your chest burns with fond warmth.

“The world’s all backwards.” Yoongi’s gummy smile lights up the night and tears into your heart.

The two of you fall silent once again. Moving slowly, you reach out to hook your pinky finger with Yoongi’s, a small smile forming when you feel his pinky wrap tightly around yours.

“Where are we gonna go, Yoong?”

He watches you with eyes heavy with sleep, determined to stay up with you even though he doesn’t need to. Initially, you thought it was because he wanted to keep you company. Now, you often wonder if it’s because Yoongi is afraid to sleep, too. He never speaks about his experience at the Labs; the other runaways have learned the hard way not to ask. Singed eyebrows don’t look good on anyone.

“I don’t know.”

You already knew this would be the answer, but it scares you anyway. Yoongi always knows everything.

Yoongi lets go of your hand to sit up in the bean bag.

“Hey, kid,” he whispers. He gently presses his palm to your jaw, cupping your face. You hope he doesn’t hear your breath hitch in your throat. “As long as we’re together, you don’t gotta worry about anything, okay?”

You stare at him for a long time, searching the bags under his eyes and the worry lines on his forehead.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

3 MONTHS, 1 WEEK

There’s a stream that cuts through the overgrown fields behind the warehouse. It’s man-made, flowing from a sewer tunnel beneath the cracked parking lot - and likely from somewhere else, perhaps connected to a lake beyond the woods at the property’s edge. The separation between industrialization and the natural world of the unknown hurts your heart. You’d never felt longing until you found yourself inside a cage of cinderblock walls and concrete floors.

A rope of water whips across your face, drawing you from your thoughts of the woods. It’s muddy and makes your skin and clothes smell sour.

Though the air is still crisp and bites at the tip of your nose, spring came early this year. It takes minimal effort for Namjoon to draw more water from the soiled stream as it’s not frozen over like it should be. With a flick of his wrist, another rope of water hits you, this time across your chest.

“Aghh!”

“Pay attention.”

You lift your arm in enough time to block his next assault. The liquid rope freezes in the air before shattering into a thousand glimmering pieces, scattering jagged ice across the pale yellow grass.

“I’m tired of this, Grandpa.”

Namjoon rolls his eyes at the pop culture reference; you’re pleased he understood. Posed to speak, mouth already opening, he barely gets a sound out before another voice bellows across the field.

“WELL, THAT’S TOO DAMN BAD!”

Hoseok isn’t afraid to be loud. He smiles, all teeth and pink tongue, and throws his head back as he cackles. Everywhere he goes, he carries the smell of spring with him - cherry blossoms and morning dew that makes newly-grown pieces of grass stick wet against ankles.

You close your eyes and let spring overpower the sour smell of sewer water Namjoon has thrown at you for the past hour. It lets you forget how your skin aches with welts and bruises.

As Hoseok bounds toward you and Namjoon, a dark tornado spins beside him. When he gets closer, you can see Hoseok occasionally blowing a small gust of air toward the tornado. It appears to be made of smoke, a gradient of grays and blacks.

“Look at this,” your friend announces with a mischievous grin. “Me and JK learned a new trick.”

With a quick snap of Hoseok’s fingers, you and Namjoon watch in patient silence as the tornado begins to slow its speed. Almost gently, the smoke curls tighter and tighter until the darkness turns into a solid mass.

Jungkook stumbles a few times as he attempts to get his footing. His limbs continue to propel his body into a small spin.

Hoseok quickly reaches out to grab the younger man. Secure hands squeeze his shoulders, and then it’s only Jungkook’s head lolling about.

“Cool, right?” Jungkook’s voice is gruff, but his lips curl into a weak smile.

Namjoon lets out a long sigh. “You look like you’re going to be sick.”

Although Namjoon is right, Jungkook does look like the effort of his little party trick took a toll on his body; you can’t help but match his smile. Especially when his eyes flick toward yours. You told his gaze for half a second before Jungkook quickly looks away. His cheeks flush pink, but you’re sure it’s from the exertion of all that spinning.

“I think it’s really cool,” you praise the two while elbowing Namjoon in the ribs. With a grumble, your sparring partner returns to his previous stance a few feet away.

“We should go again. Just for a little while longer.”

Every muscle in your body feels stiff when you turn away from Hoseok and Jungkook.

“I hurt all over, Joonie.”

“Let her rest!” Hoseok adds to your whining. “All we ever do is practice fighting.”

“Sparring.”

Hoseok waves a dismissive hand at the younger man. “Whatever you want to call it. I find it to be fri-”

You stifle a laugh by pressing the back of your hand to your mouth as Hoseok is tackled to the ground by Jungkook. The two men roll around, all arms and legs, kicking up dead grass and dirt. A lot of howling and teasing laughter rings through the open air.

It isn’t until Jungkook is launched into the sky by a gust of wind you know comes from Hoseok, and lands roughly on his back, that the playful fight ceases. How Jungkook lands knocks all the air out of his chest, but he laughs once his lungs start working again.

“Ridiculous, all of you.” Hoseok brushes grass from his clothes. It’s futile; they’re dirty and ragged anyway. Try as you and Namjoon might to use your Gifts to clean the clothes; water does little when there’s no soap.

“I let you win,” Jungkook teases.

Still, he stands a bit further from Hoseok than he had previously. Not far enough for anyone to notice, aside from you. You notice although you don’t mean to. It’s hard not to when Jungkook keeps stealing glances, only to look away when you try to return his gaze.

“You did not.”

“Did, too.” His insistence makes you giggle.

“And how did that work out for you? Hmm? How does your back feel? I know you landed on that rock.”

“I-It, it doesn’t hurt.” Jungkook glances your way. His cheeks are still pink. “Would take more than that to hurt me.”

“Jungkook is impossible to beat.”

You startle at the gentle voice, spinning on your heels to see Yoongi approaching the group. He’s got a leather satchel strapped across his chest and resting at his hip. It bulges with what you assume are plants and fruits scavenged from the woods.

“Boy Scouts” is what Yoongi offered when you asked how he knew so much about surviving in nature. It was peculiar; nothing about Yoongi seemed like the type. He’s tougher, more steel than wood or earth. A bulletproof shield, you think. Broad and strong.

“Impossible?”

Your question is meant to be a tease, but Yoongi’s face remains stoic. Such a severe look only reveals itself when he assumes his position as your misfit group’s leader. It would be extremely attractive if it didn’t scare you.

“How can you fight shadows?” Yoongi deadpans. He stares into your eyes long enough to make your face feel hot, but you don’t look away.

“I…”

Yoongi hums at your lack of an answer. Suddenly, you feel unbelievably small.

“It’s not impossible,” Jungkook whispers. His head hangs low, long bangs hiding his face. The rest of his hair is tied into a bun at the nape of his neck. “I’m just as beatable as you, hyung.”

Something about Yoongi’s expression softens at the honorific. Formalities died long ago, along with many other traditions that once made Korea what it was. So many things died during the war - tangible and cultural - lives and ways of being. Now, the Republic is something you know your friends no longer recognize. Although it is not your home country, your heart aches for what it once was - something you will never have the privilege to experience because you arrived during the Restoration of the Republic - a fallacy of an era since the country was never restored to how it was.

That may be best. It is easier to mourn the loss of something you never knew.

In moments like this, you feel terribly inadequate - when you speak with broken Korean or struggle to understand the foreign politics behind why Gifteds are hunted, no matter how many times Namjoon patiently attempts to teach you. All you know is that, at least here, to be Gifted is not a death sentence, per se. Other countries’ governments have been far less lenient with their mutant population.

You’re simply seen as a science experiment to be tested on, poked and prodded, pushed until you’re driven mad, and then warped into whatever shape the government has the need for.

“You have no match,” Yoongi smiles softly at Jungkook with a shake of his head. “I do.”

Holding out his hand, a small flame appears in the center of Yoongi’s palm. It floats just above the skin, though he isn’t burned. You’ve seen Yoongi summon fire a million times from the heat of the air around him, and he never ceases to amaze you.

With a nod in Namjoon’s direction, Yoongi waits for a small rope of dirty water to splash against his hand. Namjoon is much kinder in his attack against Yoongi, only summoning enough water to extinguish the flame.

“Water will always win against me,” Yoongi admits. This time, he holds your gaze when he speaks. “It is my match.”

You feel something stir in your belly that migrates up your chest until it eventually threatens to suffocate you, nearly getting lodged in your throat.

“You would do well to continue sparring with Namjoon,” he says after a moment before turning to Hoseok and Jungkook, who have otherwise been silent.

It’s an order, even if Yoongi is gentle with his words.

With a sigh, you turn back to Namjoon. It’s difficult to stamp down the heat Yoongi always manages to trigger inside of you. You would compare him to fire even if it didn’t already run in his veins.

Drawing from the murky stream, you weave a ball of water between your palms.

“Let’s go again.”

While you spar with Namjoon, Yoongi leads Hoseok and Jungkook to the other end of the field.

You and Namjoon spar as though you are dancing. It’s a push and pull, your rhythms falling into harmony, even when one of you performs a surprise attack or a new move that hasn’t been practiced before. Perhaps it is because you both fight with water. There is a fluidity to it that the others don’t possess.

Occasionally, your eyes stray to where Yoongi, Hoseok, and Jungkook have begun to spar. The three men do not dance. Instead, they are a fury of elements intertwining in chaos. The wind snuffs fire, Yoongi and Hoseok blasting each other incessantly. Shadows allow Jungkook to disappear before being hit by an attack, only to reappear right behind his opponent to go in for the kill.

And it would be a kill if this was real. You know Jungkook keeps a rather terrifying knife strapped to his thigh. You all carry weapons, though you don’t really need them. Even Jungkook, with a Gift that’s misunderstood and exceptionally rare, is never found without his weapon.

Out of all the Gifteds you’ve met on your way to safety, you have never encountered another who can manipulate shadows. So, there is truth to Yoongi’s statement.

Jungkook is terrifying, even with the wide, starry eyes he always seems to stare at you with. He’s quiet and shy, typically sticking to Hoseok. You assume it’s likely because you found the two of them together. Both were kept in the same room at the research facility in Busan. As unassuming as Jungkook may be, you’ve seen him manipulate shadows to wrap around a Red Pin’s neck. Those shadows twisted and tightened until the man crumpled.

You didn’t need to have the Gift of blood manipulation to know when his heart stopped.

It was one of the scariest moments of your life, even beyond the suffering you’d endured having lived in the research facilities since you were a teen. Before then, you’d never seen someone die. Even when Yoongi and Namjoon helped you escape, they shielded you from the worst of it. It wasn’t until the three of you came upon the newest facility that such horrors were unleashed.

Jungkook hates himself for it. You know he does; you typically make your bed beside his, and he cries in his sleep. Self-defense protects the body in the moment, but harms the mind and heart long-term.

You probably would have done the same.

For as tragic as his story is - or what little you know of it - Jungkook has an undeniably beautiful soul. Those horrors have yet to turn him cruel or his heart black. Even when he spars, you can tell that he’s being gentle. He holds back and doesn’t reach his full potential out of fear of hurting others, you’re sure. You can see it in how he bounces on the balls of his feet to keep his movements light and how his back muscles ripple beneath his shirt as it clings to his skin. A bead of sweat runs along his neck, over the vein that bulges from his exerting effort.

Something prickles under your skin. When you look up, it’s into those wide eyes full of galaxies you’ll never understand, are somehow okay with not understanding if it means you can continue to gaze upon them.

A small smile pulls the corners of Jungkook’s mouth up. His expression is short-lived, though, quickly falling as a bright orange flame licks at his ankles.

“Don’t let my words get to your head, Jeon,” Yoongi teases. “Impossible to beat, but easy to hurt.”

This time, you catch Yoongi’s eye. You duck your head when he winks at you, just in time to block another blast of water from Namjoon.

“Why is everyone so off today?” Namjoon grumbles to himself. You haven’t managed to successfully hit him even once.

“I’m tired,” you whine again, dropping a ball of water to the ground. Dead grass quickly soaks it up once it splashes. “We should check on Jessi.”

Your group’s sixth and final member is tucked away in the corner of the warehouse on the top floor. It’s dark up there, though Yoongi’s everlasting fire, paired with the windows Jessi managed to open, gives enough light for her to work.

She has black grease smudged on her left cheek and across her forehead. Her long, thick hair is tied back into a ponytail, though strands have fallen out to frame her face. When you step closer, you hear her muttering, but you can’t make out what she’s saying. It’s not for you. She speaks, facing the black box placed in front of where she kneels on the floor. The floor can’t feel good on her knees with its bits of broken concrete and dirt. Everything hurts in this life; it hardly matters as long as you’re here and not there.

“This piece of shit,” Jessi hisses, running her hands across her face. It smears more grease onto her skin, but she doesn’t care.

“Not working?”

“Beep beep boop beeping all over the fucking place, then static. White noise and shit. Like it’s telling me to fuck off even though I’m the one fixing it.”

You hum, crouching down to stare at the box. It’s an old radio meant to transport messages back and forth. Perhaps left behind by the military after it had occupied this land while it bulldozed the vigilantes seeking to save Gifteds from the fate you all ended up sharing anyway.

Jessi tweaks a few exposed wires. Every time they spark, you flinch. Mini white lightning, it’s deadly for anyone but Jessi. She grumbles and continues her work with deft fingers calloused from toiling away at the stupid thing for months.

“I’m normally so fucking good at this, I swear to God.”

Frustration colors her tone, even if her expression and cursing didn’t already give her feelings away.

You don’t doubt her, though, and you tell her as much. Still, you know firsthand that it sucks when your powers don’t work how you want them to. As a technopath, fixing the radio should be easy work for her.

“There must be something wrong with it… Maybe the Red Pins did something to it?”

You don’t know anything about technology. Even with the phone you’d stolen off one of the Red Pins, all you’d gotten to do was look at TikTok and try to find out where your parents were before Yoongi made you destroy the device. The government had ways to track you. Technology was as much your friend as a stranger on the street.

With a sigh, Jessi leans back until she’s sitting flat on the grimy floor.

“Maybe? Fuck if I know. I think I’m getting close, though. I’m getting some frequency when I concentrate really hard, but I wanna fix it so it’ll work even without me.”

Your friend whispers the end of her statement. It goes without saying; each one of you knows the fragility of life on the run.

“Thank you for working so hard.” Even in the dim lighting, you can see her watery eyes shine. It hurts your heart, but all you can offer is a light squeeze of her shoulder.

Jessi shrugs. “It’s as much for me as it is for you.”

You watch her stand and brush the dirt from her butt, her joints cracking from sitting down too long. When you first joined this mutant crew, you would have followed behind Jessi to comfort her. But, after months of running and fighting, you’ve learned that sometimes solitude is the best healing method.

4 MONTHS, 2 DAYS

“What makes you think you’re ready? That any of us are ready?”

Yoongi watches you with catlike eyes from where he sits at the kitchen table. The chairs circled around the battered wooden table are mismatched and in varying stages of deterioration from being abandoned for so long. The one Yoongi sits in is metal, and he leans on its two back legs, his right foot pressed to the floor to keep himself steady and his arms crossed against his chest.

Although Yoongi isn’t raising his voice - he never does - you still feel like you’re being scolded.

“I know we are,” you challenge him. Your voice is steady even as your fingers tremble. To stop them from shaking, you squeeze your hands into a fist, nails biting at the skin of your palms.

You should sit down, but holding your energy in is hard. Instead, you pace the kitchen while Yoongi’s cat eyes and Jessi’s wide ones follow you. You feel like a lion looping its cage, the desire to run restricted and confined.

“How?”

“We can’t stay here, Yoong! We can’t. I can’t.”

The front legs of Yoongi’s chair slam into the concrete floor. He allows the momentum to pull him forward, landing his elbows on the table’s surface.

Looking at Yoongi hurts. You can tell from his face that the next thing he says won’t be pleasant. His lips are pressed into a fine line that curves downward slightly. It’s cute how he can pull off a straight-lipped frown, but not when it’s directed at you.

It’s been at least an hour of back and forth between the three of you. Jessi tapped out a long time ago, resolved to watch the tennis match of an argument between you and Yoongi rather than exert energy on a fight she isn’t committed to. Yoongi and Jessi have the final say in all group decisions as the group’s elders. It’s another reminder of how you think Yoongi sees you as someone to take care of rather than an equal.

“Have you ever killed someone before, Y/N?”

You pause your pacing to stand in front of the table. Yoongi is an exceptional cook, managing to create delicious meals out of what little you all have to work with from the forest. But now, at this moment, you feel like you’re going to be sick from the food churning in your stomach.

“No.”

“No,” Yoongi repeats. He speaks slowly, like he’s mulling your answer over, letting it twist around his tongue until he’s satisfied enough with its taste to swallow it down.

Leaning forward, Yoongi presses his palms against the table’s surface. He spreads his fingers and stares at them. The two of you seem to trace over the scars that line his skin, little nicks, and slices that healed light pink or blazing white. You’ve never seen Yoongi naked, but you have seen a good expanse of his body when you’ve used your Gift to help the others get clean. From what you’ve seen, you know Yoongi’s entire body is littered with battle scars.

“I have,” he admits what you already knew, and the gravelly sound of his voice makes you shudder. “Jungkook has.”

You wince at the mention of the younger man, but Yoongi doesn’t give you a chance to speak.

“Do you want to ask him what it’s like to squeeze the life out of another man? He may have done it with shadows, but I guarantee he still felt it in his hands.”

Yoongi lifts his eyes to yours when the first tear rolls down your cheek. Concern wrinkles his forehead.

“Yoongi,” you start, but the pink-haired man shakes his head.

“I don’t mean to upset you, kiddo.” The pet name twists your gut tighter with frustration - even though Yoongi’s voice is filled with gentle adoration when he calls out to you. “But I’ll be damned if I let us walk into that forest without knowing where we’re going or whose claws we’re running into. The Gifted Commune is, at best, a rumor. At worst - a trap.”

You want to tell him that falling for a rumor or getting caught by the government is better than sitting in a concrete cage. The prospect of finding a community of other Gifted runaways who have managed to create a society safe from the evils you’ve grown up with means more to you than the fear of the unknown.

There’s no use, though. Jessi is nodding along to Yoongi’s words; the blank expression she wears when she’s upset already masks her face.

“I will not put you in a situation where you must kill or be killed, Y/N. I won’t fucking do it.” Yoongi clears his throat suddenly, and he looks away from you. You’re unsure, but think he might be blinking back unshed tears.

You’re still pissed, but now your anger is mixed quite prettily with debilitating guilt. You’ve never seen Yoongi cry, and you realize with a sinking feeling that you really don’t want to.

“It’s too fucking risky,” Jessi finally speaks. She presses her fingers against her forehead, massaging it slowly as she, too, looks for words. “The radio is almost fixed; I can feel that it’s close. Then we will have a clearer line of communication with the Commune. It doesn’t guarantee anything, obviously, but it’s better than going in without fucking knowing anything.”

There’s nothing else to say. Yoongi doesn’t look at you or Jessi, instead staring at something in the opposite corner of the room.

Jessi gives you what you think is a smile laced with pity - or at least an apology.

How can everyone be so content to stay in the warehouse? You’re a bunch of sitting ducks, hiding out in the same location for months, practically waiting for the government to send their agents to either corral you into laboratories again or exterminate you. You don’t understand how becoming a moving target is a bad thing.

But, ultimately, you don’t understand why Yoongi can’t just trust you.

With a frustrated huff, you twist around to hurry out of the kitchen. As you cross the threshold, Namjoon appears in the doorway.

“Oh, I need to ask you-”

You don’t mean to shove Namjoon with your shoulder as hard as you do, but you don’t have the patience to comply with whatever he expects you to do for him. Probably more sparring and training.

On the one hand, sharing your identity as a water elemental with someone else in the group is an affirming experience. On the other, it’s infuriating because Namjoon sees your potential and pushes you toward it - even when you fight against him.

Namjoon sputters something, and you hear Jessi convince him to drop it. Whatever else they have to say is lost on you; you’re no longer interested in entertaining the conversations of the “leaders” of the group. Part of you wants to find Hoseok or Jungkook to force them to commiserate with you, but something about dumping your sludge of emotions onto them feels wrong.

So you do what you’ve always done best: you repress.

It isn’t until a few hours later when you’re lounging on your makeshift bed with the only tattered book you kept from your facility (Fahrenheit 451, how fitting), that you give yourself over to the gnawing need to interact with other humans.

Jungkook bounces on the balls of his feet, items that you can’t make out pressed against his chest.

“Will you cut my hair for me, noona?”

The out-of-use honorific flusters you, making your face burn under Jungkook’s attentive gaze.

“You don’t have to be so formal with me,” you insist, embarrassment ravaging your twisted stomach and fluttering chest. Something about the attention Jungkook gives you makes you feel nervous and giddy.

“It’s not very formal, really. It’s… respectful? I just… You are, it means,” Jungkook lets out a huff. He blows his bangs out of his face as his cheeks turn pink. “You are special to me.”

You duck your head, shocked by Jungkook’s honesty. It warms you in a way you’re not sure you understand, letting the feeling sit inside your chest rather than exploring it any further.

“Where I come from, we don’t have words like that.”

Jungkook gives you a shrug. Neither of you mentions that in Korea, those words don’t really exist anymore, either.

“But, okay,” you relent softly.

Jungkook stands beside the mess of blankets that make up your bed, holding a pair of scissors and electric clippers Jessi enhanced to operate on their own. Jungkook nicked them from a Red Pin on their way out of the research facility he’d grown up in. Hairstyling tools didn’t seem high on your list of items to steal, but they’d come in handy. Like now, with Jungkook’s bangs falling entirely into his eyes and his hair sweeping across his shoulders.

The pout Jungkook wears lessens slightly. He holds out the tools with an expectant look on his face. It’s cute how his bottom lip juts out, pink and chapped from nervously chewing on it. You’d overheard Namjoon scolding him for something earlier that morning before you went outside to patrol the grounds with Hoseok and Jessi.

Taking the items from Jungkook, you lead him out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. The lights sputter briefly before they fully brighten the small room. Jessi was excited to learn that her Gift extended to electricity as a whole, not just that within technology like computers and radios. With all your Gifts combined, the warehouse is liveable, almost comfortable.

Jungkook sits on the closed lid of the toilet, making you tower over him. He parts his legs slightly so you can stand between them as you run your fingers through his hair.

You spread your fingers and sweep his bangs up, exposing his forehead. It opens up his face more and makes him look older. Jungkook is handsome; there’s no denying that. You’re sure in another life, he could have been a regular college kid with a sweet girlfriend and a bright future.

“What would you like me to do?”

“Hmm?” Jungkook hums with his eyes closed, and his head tilted back slightly.

You don’t miss how he leans into your touch, completely pliable in your hands, as you massage his scalp and continue to play with his hair. It’s thick and soft, even without the proper haircare products to maintain the health of the follicles.

“How do you want me to cut it, silly?”

You reach for the hairbrush you keep tucked away in the bathroom cabinet. It takes a few more moments of silence while you brush out Jungkook’s waves before he finally speaks.

“Short. Cut it all off, please? It’s too hard to take care of now, and it gets in my face.”

“Don’t get mad at me if it comes out bad.”

Jungkook lets out a frustrated sound. “You always do a great job. You gave Yoongi hyung an undercut. It looks so good!”

At the mention of Yoongi, you feel your heart drop. Somehow you know Jungkook is here to make you feel better even if he hasn’t said anything about the argument, and he’s the one seeking your help, not the other way around. He’s a distraction - one you wonder if Yoongi sent himself.

It isn’t that Yoongi won’t apologize; you just never give him a chance to before you run off to lick your wounds on your own.

It’s the healing quality of solitude, you think as you prepare to cut Jungkook’s hair. However, this time, you’re not alone.

You can’t help but smile when Jungkook starts singing a song of his own creation as chunks of his hair fall to the floor. His song drowns out the static that buzzes in your brain like the fuzziness Jessi’s broken radio emits when anyone but her fiddles with it.

“This way,” you speak softly, not wanting to disrupt his singing as you press your fingertips against his jaw and under his chin to lift his face toward you. Your finger presses against the little mole just below Jungkook’s bottom lip. The angle gives you a better view of your work so far.

A small smile flickers on Jungkook’s face as though he’s trying to keep it down, but the corners of his mouth won’t listen to him.

“It feels nice. We don’t touch.”

You hum and nod your head, but Jungkook’s eyes are still closed. It’s true; kind touches are rare. Hoseok is really the only one who gives out hugs. Everything is tough all the time. There’s little room for gentleness, even amongst friends.

So you understand when Jungkook’s smile wins out, and he finally surrenders to the happiness your light touches along his jaw bring him.

4 MONTHS, 5 DAYS

It takes Yoongi three days to apologize.

Perhaps you should have apologized first, but you struggle to see how you could have done anything that warrants an apology. Yes, you feel bad for upsetting Yoongi, but his attitude toward you lately has rubbed you the wrong way.

During the three days it takes him to apologize to you, he seems to do his best to avoid you.

On the days you’re assigned to go on patrol with Yoongi, Jungkook accompanies you instead. You don’t mind having Jungkook by your side, you discover, even though you’re upset that Yoongi is behaving so childishly.

Neither Jungkook nor Yoongi talks much, but you learn that their silence feels different. Whereas Yoongi’s silence stems from feeling confident and content with not needing to fill the air with incessant babbling, Jungkook’s silence is awkward and heavy. He fiddles with the loose strings of his shirt, his reddened cuticles, and everything else. You don’t mind the awkwardness, though. It’s nice to comb through the woods with someone as powerful as Jungkook; you know there’s nothing to fear with him around.

The only weapon Jungkook carries is the knife strapped to his thigh. You, on the other hand, stay heavily armed. Your fingers tighten around your bow. When you twist your torso, the harness that holds your arrows digs into your shoulder. You also have a knife, though you are honestly afraid of close combat. A gun would be even better, but ammo is difficult to come by. It’s easier to collect your arrows after you’ve shot them, although you haven’t needed to yet. Since finding refuge at the warehouse, no one has discovered your group.

Apparently, all your friends are willing to keep testing fate. You aren’t interested in pushing your luck. Jungkook doesn’t comment on the group’s plans for moving forward - or lack thereof. Something tells you that he’ll do whatever Yoongi and Jessi tell him to do.

Still, going on patrol with Jungkook does a decent job of preventing your thoughts from straying toward your argument with Yoongi. Your hands brushed together a few times as you walked side by side, and you could practically feel Jungkook’s brain shortcircuit from the contact.

Part of you thinks he has a crush on you, but the more logical part of you knows he’s probably shy. The kid has gone through a lot in life. Not everything is always about you; you try to remind yourself. Yoongi doesn’t even want you. Why would Jungkook?

On the third day, bright doe eyes don’t greet you at the edge of the woods, just as the sun is kissing the sky for the first time. Instead, sharp cat eyes hold your gaze when you lightly jog over.

“Good morning, kiddo.”

Yoongi wears dark shorts with tattered edges cut from a pair of old jeans and a plain t-shirt the color of the forest in spring. It’s not warm enough to wear what he’s wearing, but fire elementals run hot like you run cold.

“Hi,” you say, voice a bit stunted as you hold your jacket tighter to your body.

You’ve foregone your bow and arrows today; you may or may not have snapped your bow in a fit of frustration that may or may not have anything to do with Yoongi ignoring you at dinner the night before. A knife and your Gift will have to do, but you feel it is enough. Namjoon insists on learning how to use your Gifts and weapons in tandem. For double the defense, or so he says.

Carrying a knife seems ridiculous when you know how to choke someone with their own spit without touching them.

Once you’re within arm’s reach, Yoongi offers his hand to you. He holds it as though he’s going in for a handshake. Yellow-orange fire licks at his palm and swirls in tendrils around his fingers and wrist.

After a few seconds of silence, he makes a slight grunting sound and wiggles his fingers, beckoning you.

It’s impossible not to cave. A prickly feeling tingles down your arm, beginning somewhere in your chest and eventually settling in your fingertips. A tiny hurricane of water stolen from the moisture in the air circles around your hand just as the fire does Yoongi’s.

He lets out a pleased sound when your palms glide across each other. You hook your thumbs together, using the momentum to spin your hands around until your fingers are interlaced and pressed into your palms. You both squeeze your hands once, twice, three times in a heartbeat before pulling away. By the end, the fire and water have disappeared.

When you meet Yoongi’s eyes, the warmth of the fire in his palm has transferred to his gaze. There is an apology in how you release each other’s hands. The handshake holds secret words of friendship and reassurance between you.

The two of you stand in silence for a bit until Yoongi tilts his head in the direction of the woods. You nod in response and follow Yoongi along one of the many patrol paths your group has established.

There’s never anything in the woods besides small animals like squirrels and rabbits, but everyone feels better knowing there is a consistent patrol of the area, just in case.

“So,” When you look at Yoongi, his lips twist into a light smirk you absolutely do not like. “You and Jungkook.”

“Me and Jungkook what?”

Yoongi shrugs. “Just seems like you two been hanging out a lot.”

“Yeah, because you were fucking ignoring me all week.”

His smirk drops into a stern frown, but Yoongi continues following the path. He walks slightly ahead of you with his hands clasped behind his back. It feels like he’s taking a leisurely stroll through a garden rather than going on patrol in the woods for government assassins.

“It was immature and irresponsible of me, and I’m sorry for that.”

Forgiving Yoongi is too easy. It’s the way the morning sun shines through the canopy of trees above you, casting streaks of light against his fading pink hair. The way he carries himself with confidence is gentle and comforting rather than arrogant or misplaced. It’s how he looks at you; you know he would do anything for you.

“It’s okay,” you finally concede. You scramble a bit to fall in line with Yoongi again. “I was being dramatic.”

“Life is one big drama, isn’t it?” Yoongi muses with a chuckle. It’s a question he doesn’t expect an answer to, which is good, considering you’ve got something else buzzing around in your head.

Well, fuck it. You’re just gonna say it.

Heart pounding, you eventually find it in you to say, “I still think you’re wrong.”

After a moment, Yoongi hums in acknowledgment of your admission but doesn’t offer anything else. It’s better than nothing, so you tell yourself to be content with all that he offers.

“Anyway…” You don’t want to drop the subject, but Yoongi’s question is nagging in the back of your brain now - a nagging question you now have a gnawing desire to know the meaning behind. “Me and Jungkook can hang out without it meaning-”

Before you can finish your statement, Yoongi slaps his hand against your mouth. The calluses on his palms are rough against your chapped lips, and his skin is sweaty. His free arm comes around to the front of your chest near your collarbones. He draws you against his chest so tightly you can’t move.

“Don’t talk.” His breath is hot against your face, and his voice is almost indiscernible.

You give a tiny nod before locking your body completely still. You hold your breath, straining to hear what Yoongi might hear or see what he might see. There’s nothing, just the usual sound of life in the woods - birds chirping, small animals scurrying in the brush. You don’t see anything either.

You can only focus on the frantic pounding of your heart and the calm beat of Yoongi’s against your back. How he can be so relaxed when he thinks there might be danger in the woods that you can’t even see is unreal.

Slowly, Yoongi takes a step back away from you. He holds a finger to his lips and silently mouths for you to stay where you are. Everything inside you screams to disobey as you watch Yoongi disappear further into the woods, the thick trees swallowing him whole.

But you don’t. You stay put, fear rooting you to the ground even though your body desperately wants to follow.

What lies beyond the thicket of trees? What is dangerous enough that Yoongi wants you to stay put but not so dangerous that he believes he can take it on alone?

Just when your resolve is about to crumble, something catches your attention out of the corner of your eye. Barely breathing, you turn your head to watch a dark spot glide across the forest floor. It’s two-dimensional, not an object but a presence creeping along the ground.

Suddenly, the spot grows. It spreads, turning its shape from a flat, uneven circle to a thing with tendrils sticking out of it, each new tendril moving independently. You gasp when one of the tendrils creeps up your leg. Despite being two-dimensional, you can feel the darkness. It’s firm and cold, like a snake slithering up your body.

Every inch of you trembles as the strange darkness slowly spreads across your body. You squeeze your eyes and hold your breath. Perhaps this is the thing that Yoongi saw, a phantom stalking the trees. But now you’re left behind to be absorbed into its darkness, eaten alive.

You’re startled when the cold disappears; instead, strong arms pull you against a firm chest. Warmth envelopes you, and when you open your eyes, you see familiar ones looking back at you.

“I got you,” Jungkook murmurs. He has you tucked under his chin, and he tilts his head down when he speaks to you. You shiver as his lips lightly brush against your forehead.

“Where did you-”

“Shhh.”

Jungkook’s heart isn’t steady like Yoongi’s had been. On the contrary, it’s beating rather furiously. You can hear him attempting to regulate his emotions, taking in mindful breaths and exhaling in a way that tickles your skin.

You don’t know how long you stand there pulled against Jungkook’s chest. After a while, your breathing matches his until you fall into a gentle rhythm that makes you sleepy. The adrenaline is making you crash, your body hardly strong enough to hold yourself up after panicking so severely - still panicking. Luckily, when you lean into Jungkook, his hold on you tightens.

In another situation, pressing your fronts together would have flooded your body with heat. You can feel all of Jungkook like this, from the bulging muscles of his chest to his thigh pressed slightly between your legs from how he holds you up. But fear of the unknown and Jungkook’s clearly distressed state prevent those other thoughts from materializing.

Jungkook’s body doesn’t relax until Yoongi appears around the corner of a large tree. He keeps his arms wrapped around you, and for a second, Yoongi looks around at the clearing you’re in as though he can’t see you.

It isn’t until Jungkook lets go of you that recognition flashes in Yoongi’s eyes.

“There you are,” Yoongi murmurs to the two of you. He looks like he rolled around on the ground, little pieces of leaves and sticks caught in his hair and stuck to his clothes. His left knee is bleeding from a few superficial scrapes.

“What the fuck happened to you?”

Yoongi looks at Jungkook before he answers your question, which irritates you. “I tripped when I rushed in, but it was nothing. Just a large fox I heard making noise back there.”

A fox is likely the largest animal in the woods, with no bears or wolves in the area. Still, you don’t trust Yoongi. You can pick up on the charred smell coming off of him. He smells like a barbecue, which means only one thing…

“Have you been practicing turning yourself invisible?”

Jungkook ducks his head down but no longer has long bangs to hide his face. It takes a second for your brain to process Yoongi’s question - and the change in the topic - but Jungkook is already answering him by the time you figure it out.

“It’s not really invisibility,” he says softly. “It’s more like… an illusion.”

Yoongi hums and motions for the two of you to start walking. You’re returning to the warehouse, you realize, even though you only just started the patrol route.

“Yeah, I can… adjust the lighting, I guess? To make it seem like you can’t see me. Or, us, this time.”

Jungkook gives you a small smile when you whip around to look at him.

“I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook repeats. He draws his bottom lip between his teeth and wiggles it like he has more to say but doesn’t want to let it out just yet.

The three of you walk in silence until you reach the warehouse. When Yoongi walks ahead of you, you can tell he’s limping, even as he does his best to walk normally.

“He’s okay.”

Jungkook stands beside you in the field behind the warehouse, watching Yoongi reach the backdoor.

“He’s bleeding.”

Jungkook’s ears are pink when he responds, “He’ll be okay.”

“He’s lying to us.”

Jungkook absentmindedly runs his fingers along his bottom lip. It droops as he speaks through a pout. “Maybe. But I trust him, even if he is.”

It’s a strange thing to trust someone who is lying.

All you can do is nod. All you can do is accept that the people around you are doing what’s right because, aside from them, there is no one and nothing you can trust in the world.

As you approach the warehouse, Jungkook curls his fingers around your wrist to stop you. He watches you with the same wide-eyed look he gives everyone, though something about this time feels different. His expression is more open and vulnerable. He looks at you like he’s waiting for you to hurt him.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he apologizes softly.

“But you didn’t?”

Your eyebrows crease your forehead, trying to recall what you may have done to make Jungkook feel like you feared him. Sure, his sudden appearance in the woods was startling, but he’d brought you a feeling of comfort and safety - not fear.

Jungkook doesn’t correct you. Instead, he lets go of your wrist as shame warms his cheeks, but he doesn’t look away from you. The timidness is still there. You can see it in how he chews on his bottom lip. Still, his eyes take on a more guarded, hardened expression for a split second, and then…

He’s gone.

“What the fuck?” You mutter to yourself.

Now that you’ve seen the darkness before, your eyes quickly notice the spot on the ground that creeps and grows into odd shapes, slinking along the grass before taking form up your legs, curling around your arms.

It’s Jungkook. You knew it in the woods, somewhere deep down. Your fear for Yoongi’s safety - and your own - prevented you from processing the situation. But now, as the darkness envelopes you again, you know what to expect when you close your eyes and open them to see Jungkook’s broad chest as he crushes you against him.

“You never showed me before.”

Maybe it’s weird that you’re still clinging to each other, but Jungkook is warm and solid, and his heartbeat guides yours into a slower rhythm.

“That’s because it’s creepy.”

“Well, I think it’s cool. Even though, yeah, you kinda scared the shit outta me.”

Jungkook lets out an embarrassed whine and squeezes you tighter. You knew he could command shadows but hadn’t realized he could become one or move within them. Sure, the tornado trick he’d done a few times with Hoseok had been cool, but you’d always thought he was merely swirling the darkness around himself. You hadn’t realized he was the darkness.

Honestly, it made him all the more terrifying and equally as endearing.

“I just had this… feeling something bad was happening…” Jungkook whispers into your hair. “I needed to check.”

“Good thing it was only a fox.”

Jungkook nods in agreement; you know he believes it more than you do.

“I’m just happy you’re safe.” You can feel his cheek press against the top of your head for a moment before he finally releases you.

There’s a feeling there as Jungkook leads you to the warehouse. He laces his fingers with yours, and you can’t help but hear Yoongi’s question on a loop in your head.

You and Jungkook?

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS

“What if they think we’re the feds and feed us false information?”

“We’re too stupid to be the feds. It would be obvious.”

“I don’t know… we all escaped the government, so they must be pretty stupid.”

“What if they’re the feds?”

“Shit, I never thought about that.”

“They’re not the fucking feds.”

“How do you know that?!”

“Can all of you please just shut the fuck up?”

The six of you crowd around the radio on the kitchen table. Jessi shows you how to operate it, which flip to switch to activate the microphone, and how to adjust the volume. You’re all muted for now. When Hoseok goes to flip the switch, Jessi smacks his hand out of the way.

“Listen to me,” she says sternly, turning in her seat to get a good look at all of you. “No one talks.”

“But-”

“No one talks.”

Five heads nod at her command, including Yoongi, which feels very satisfying to you for some reason.

Details of the Gifted Commune somewhere beyond the woods traveled by word of mouth. Coordinates and radio frequencies were exchanged in hushed tones between the Gifteds who dared dream of a life beyond the Labs. You’re sad to admit that you were never one of those Gifteds. It wasn’t until Yoongi helped you escape that you even realized escaping was an option, so brainwashed into thinking the Labs were all you had. You were in a new country, stumbling through an unfamiliar language, taken from your family. Sure, you’d learned enough to get by over time - but missing your adolescent years made you feel hopeless.

Jessi is the only one who had communicated with the Commune leaders in the past when she and another Gifted managed to break into a control room in the Labs she came from.

That’s why she’s the one to speak into the radio that you find operates much like a long-distance walkie-talkie. You’re glad it’s not you. She introduces herself, her whereabouts, and her credentials with an even voice you know you could never replicate.

Despite the distrust you’re all afraid of, Jessi’s previous connection to the Commune makes it easy for her to request to speak to the Commune leader, a healer named Kim Taehyung.

Sitting with your fingers gripping the edge of the table so tightly your knuckles are beginning to ache, you lean forward as though you can get closer to the gentle voice that floats from the radio’s speakers.

Taehyung doesn’t sound anything like you’d imagined, though you aren’t sure what you were expecting, to be honest. Maybe someone with a rougher voice made harsh by the trials of life as a fugitive of the Republic. Instead, he’s soft as he asks Jessi how many there are of you and what your coordinates are. This man, already larger than life even though none of you knows what he looks like, is patient as he gives Jessi instructions on how to reach the Commune.

“I can assure you,” Taehyung speaks, and you don’t know what he’s about to say, but you find yourself already believing him, “You will be safe here. It won’t be a short trip.” That makes your gut twist, but you focus on his following words. “But there are abandoned shelters along the route to find refuge in. The nights get terribly cold.”

Namjoon scribbles some notes down on a worn piece of paper. It’s been written on and erased to add more notes over the months you’ve been at the warehouse since there are only a few pieces of paper between the six of you. There’s a small hole in the middle of the page where someone erased too hard - or too many times, you suppose.

“Thank you, Taehyung-ssi.”

The line is quiet for a moment. Jessi’s gaze shoots up to glare at Jungkook’s interruption, but Taehyung speaks before she can chastise the younger man.

“Anything for my dongsaeng,” the man on the other side of the radio states.

You don’t know him, so there is no way to tell if the subtle lilt to his voice indicates affection, but it seems like it as the two men use polite terms no one ever uses anymore. It’s old-fashioned and reminiscent of a time lost to all of you.

Jessi steers the conversation back to planning the group’s journey to the Commune. Excitement makes you jittery as you skip out of the kitchen, the men - aside from Yoongi - following after you. The boring stuff is what follows, and you’re all content to let the leaders discuss that stuff.

“Do you think we’ll be able to do it?” Hoseok clasps his hands together, occasionally squeezing them. When he speaks, he keeps his eyes on the closed kitchen door.

Namjoon shrugs at the same time you respond, “We have to.”

5 MONTHS

Later, when you look back on this time in your life, you’ll see that everything that transpired during those precious months at the warehouse led up to this.

At the moment, though, you don’t see anything but the beginnings of spring attempting to sprout from the hard winter earth.

You sit on the roof atop the old milkcrate with your elbows on your knees. Your eyes follow a small butterfly floating through the light breeze. It’s quiet, just like any other day.

Yoongi, Jessi, and Namjoon are inside, preparing for the trip you all will make through the woods to the Commune. Hoseok and Jungkook are somewhere at the perimeter of the woods, gathering whatever they can as food for the trip.

You’ve learned that there is a runaway at the Commune whose Gift allows them to disguise the Commune, similar to Jungkook’s Gift of optical illusion through shadows. Except this Gifted can alter reality, bend the shape of time and space to make the Commune simply…. disappear to anyone they don’t want to find it.

It sounds otherworldly, something you can hardly wrap your head around, but you must remind yourself that before your Gift had revealed itself to you, you had never believed in the supernatural or fantasy. Now you were everything a younger version of you couldn’t have begun to believe.

A tiny part of you had been worried that you would get nervous, but you find you can’t sit still from the enthusiasm building up energy in your body to the point you might explode. It’s exciting, the knowledge that in a few short days, you won’t have to sit on top of this roof with your bow and fear that has seemed to make its home deep inside your chest.

Soon you’ll be safe.

You hold your breath as the butterfly gently flutters toward you. With a slight dip in its flight, the beautiful insect descends until it rests on your shoe. You’re pretty sure you learned somewhere that butterflies shouldn’t be touched, but you want to run your finger along its wings so badly.

Just before you can touch it, a scream rings out, echoing against the warehouse and reverberating across the industrial park’s empty fields and parking lots. Crows take off into the sky, their cawing harmonizing with the shouts coming from behind you.

With your heart beating in your throat, you stand and run to the other side of the roof toward the woods.

“RUN! Y/N, FUCKING RUN!”

You just barely catch a glimpse of Jungkook’s face as he sprints out of the woods before suddenly disappearing. Your blood becomes ice, piercing your veins as it glides through your body. Jungkook is a shadow now, you tell yourself. He didn’t really disappear.

Hoseok stumbles out of the woods behind Jungkook, the wind at his feet enabling him to run across the field faster than an average human.

At first, you think they’re just playing some silly game. Jungkook and Hoseok always mess around, pranking each other and playfighting. This seems like some elaborate joke until you watch Hoseok use his Gift to lift a giant chunk of concrete from the ground near the warehouse and throw it toward the woods.

You watch with wide eyes as multiple masked men, wearing all black except for the blood-red insignia of the Republic on their chests, crash through the woods like a spring flood.

Red Pin agents.

They’re armed with guns, some still on their hips while others are holding them out in front of them as they swarm the warehouse’s perimeter.

One of the men tilts his head up, his dark eyes locking with yours before you drop to your knees to hide behind the protective barrier around the roof.

You throw your bow over your arm and head so it rests across your chest and back and crawl as quickly as you can toward the trapdoor.

Your limbs tremble so terribly that you miss the last few rungs of the ladder and fall flat on your back, knocking the wind out of you. With a gasp, you touch the back of your head and try to blink away the stars swarming your eyes. When you bring your hand back, your fingers are coated red.

“Shit! Get up, Y/N. Get the fuck up!”

A pair of strong hands squeeze your biceps, and once your vision clears, you see that it’s Jessi hauling you to your feet. There are grease streaks on her face. You wonder if they’re from…

“The radio,” you croak, your lungs still struggling to work properly.

“It was fucking rigged,” she spits, “I don’t know how I couldn’t sense it. But it was.”

And now they are here to collect you - or kill you, you aren’t sure.

Maybe they would spare Jungkook. He has a Rare Gift; they would be stupid to harm him. The rest of you, though? Common Gifts - although Jessi’s is Uncommon, but certainly not Rare.

You feel lightheaded, likely from the fall and blood loss as it trickles down the back of your neck. It’s thick and wet. The smell of iron floods your nostrils and makes your stomach curl inward. It doesn’t matter, though. Jessi throws your arm around her shoulders and practically drags you through the warehouse.

Inside is a tornado. Namjoon and Hoseok are scrambling to gather as many supplies as they can. Luckily, many of the essential items are already packed, though Jessi quickly tosses out the radio from the duffle bag she flings over her shoulder.

“Stupid piece of fucking military bullshit,” she grumbles, giving the item a harsh kick with her steel-toed boots. “Gonna get us all fucking killed.”

Hoseok lets out a whine. “Please don’t say that.”

His face is bright pink, and his hands shake while he shoves clothes, random notes, and anything else he can find into his duffle bag.

“We need to get the fuck out of here,” Jessi growls in response. Her tone has Namjoon and Hoseok picking up the pace.

Somewhere below you, likely on the first floor, you hear the sound of glass breaking.

“Fuck,” Namjoon hisses. You don’t think you’ve ever heard him curse before, and in any other situation, you would have giggled. But right now, he looks so grim it makes all the hairs on your arms stand. “They’re inside.”

The sound of shouting and boots slapping against the concrete floors gets louder the longer the four of you stare at each other. Even Jessi, with her commanding presence, seems to stand frozen in place. The shouting becomes easier to understand as death threats if your group refuses to cooperate and willingly turn yourselves in to the government.

As if any of you would actually go back to the Labs. At least, not without a fight.

“If we stand here, we are going to die.” Your voice trembles just barely above a whisper. It’s enough, though.

Namjoon gives a curt nod and looks around the room you’re in - the room that was once your bedroom. Your little nest of blankets is in the corner, along with Jungkook’s and Jessi’s. The beds have been rifled through, likely by Namjoon and Hoseok collecting the warmest blankest to bring on the trip.

“The window,” Hoseok finally says with a quiet hiss. The warehouse is relatively large, so it will take some time for the Red Pin agents to figure out which room you’re in.

The four of you rush to the window and peer out of it. From what you can tell, there aren’t any Red Pin agents below. Even if there are, it would be a smaller number than is currently bulldozing through the warehouse.

It’s a long drop, though. You’re on the third floor.

“I’ll ease you down,” Hoseok insists. He props open the window and rests his hip against the wall. “Sit on the edge, with your feet out like that.” His fingers are delicate but firm as he positions Namjoon the way he needs him to be. Sweet Namjoon, willing to put his life in Hoseok’s hands and go first in case something terrible happens.

Hoseok’s hands shake as he uses his Gift to slow Namjoon’s fall when the other man finally jumps from the window.

Tears burn the corners of your eyes as you watch Jessi do the same as Namjoon. The two land on the ground roughly but without injury. Hoseok looks exhausted, likely from the pressure of not fucking up and less because of the exertion.

“Come on,” he urges you as the Red Pin agents’ shouting gets louder. “They’re close.”

You climb into the window, letting your legs dangle out the other side. Before Hoseok conjures a gentle breeze between his hands, you grab onto his wrist. Something is tugging at your chest; it has been since the moment you saw Hoseok and Jungkook escape from the woods.

“Hobi,” you hope he hears the plead in your voice. “Where is Yoongi?”

The way he grimaces shoots anxiety through you so severely that you feel your entire body jolt.

“He and Jungkook are down there.”

“Down there…”

“Figh-”

Hoseok cuts himself off by letting out a shrill shriek when Jungkook suddenly materializes beside you. He has a deep gash on his cheek, blood pouring from the wound, coating his chin and neck deep red. His hair is matted and stands up on end, and there’s more blood all over his clothes, enough that you can’t tell if the blood is from him or someone else.

“Get out,” he wheezes. When he grabs Hoseok’s arm, he leaves blotches of blood on his skin. “Hyung’s gonna blow it up.”

“Blow it up?” You hiss, twisting around to stare at Jungkook.

It’s a mistake.

His irises are dark and wide, so vast that his eyes are almost entirely black. It gives him a crazed look, like a wild animal backed into a corner with its teeth bared.

What’s worse, it’s not just his eyes that are black. The veins in his neck are black like dark spiderwebs climbing up his throat and spreading down so far that it reaches the raised veins in the backs of his hands. He looks like he’s possessed, like the darkness of his Gift is consuming him whole.

“Get out.”

Before you can argue further, you feel Jungkook’s palm press between your shoulder blades, and suddenly you’re falling out of the window.

When you open your eyes, you’re on the ground. Your upper body is propped up by Namjoon. His arms are wrapped around your torso, your back pulled against his chest to stabilize you. His chest rapidly raises and falls against you, but you hardly notice this. All you can focus on are the eyes staring back at you.

“You okay, kid?”

Yoongi looks much like Jungkook. Blood is splattered across his face and staining his clothes. His faded pink hair is plastered to his sweat-drenched skin. He crouches beside you and Namjoon, one hand pressed into the grass to keep himself steady.

From behind Yoongi, you can hear gunshots and screaming echoing through the warehouse. If Hell had a sound, you were sure it would be this.

You try to turn to look at the building you’d just jumped from, but Yoongi grabs your chin.

“Hey,” he lightly squeezes your cheeks. “As long as we’re together, you don’t gotta worry about anything. You remember that?”

You nod once Yoongi drops his hand from your face. You try not to shiver when the air blows against your now wet skin; try not to think about how your skin is now stained with someone else’s blood.

“Hyung!”

Yoongi turns toward the warehouse. Now that he’s distracted, he can’t stop you from peering around him to get a look at the building that you’ve made your home for the past five months.

What looks like black smoke furls around the building. From how the tendrils move like snakes through busted-out windows, you know it isn’t smoke but shadows. Through an open window, you watch one of the shadows slip around a Red Pin agent’s throat like a noose. It tightens and tightens, squeezing the man so hard his face turns purple and his eyes water.

Before you can witness more, your view is again obscured by Yoongi.

“Hyung!”

Jungkook’s shout sounds more desperate than the first, and you feel your heart constrict at the pained edge of his tone.

Yoongi must notice the desperation, as well, because he quickly grabs your hand. Fire swirls between his fingers as he presses his palm against yours.

“Yoongi, please-”

“You need to listen to me.”

He presses his hand against yours even harder, only letting up when you give in and summon little streams of water to intertwine with his fire. You don’t like how rushed your secret handshake feels.

“I need you to look after Jungkook. The kid’s stubborn as fuck, worse than you.”

“Why are you saying this?”

Yoongi’s gives you a small smile, lifting his hand to swipe his thumb against your cheek. The blood there mixes with the tears you hadn’t realized you’re shedding.

“Because it’s what I need you to do.”

Taking your face in his hands, Yoongi pulls you close to kiss your forehead. You feel Namjoon lift you to your feet when Yoongi lets go. Hoseok had cushioned your fall from the window, but you’re weak from blood loss and the exhaustion that fear can instill in the bones.

Before you can say anything more, Yoongi sprints toward the warehouse, disappearing through the backdoor and into the darkness that surrounds the building.

“Namjoon, let me go!” You scream as your friend squeezes his arms around your waist to haul you toward the woods. Jessi and Hoseok wait for you there, hidden within the trees, as the sounds of fighting and death from the warehouse get louder.

Your friend lets out a low grunt when you dig your heels into the ground, but he’s stronger than you, and the action only deters him for a moment. He lifts you a bit, practically carrying you.

Namjoon only stops when a flash of bright red light turns the entire industrial park dark for a split second before a deafening crash rings through the air. Even though your feet aren’t on the ground, you can feel the ground shake with the explosion that busts all the windows out of the warehouse. The entire building bursts into flames, turning the walls black. Balls of fire fly out of the broken windows, igniting the grass below.

You crumble to the ground once Namjoon reaches the woods.

“We have to go,” Hoseok pleads. When you look up at him, his cheeks are streaked with tear tracks, too.

Turning back to the fiery scene across the field, you watch a dark spot slither from shadow to shadow in the grass until it merges with your own shadow beside you on the ground. You tremble when Jungkook wraps his arms around your shoulders. His body is still crawling with dark veins, and the whites of his eyes are now entirely black.

“Where is he?”

You glare into Jungkook’s eyes and swallow down the fear they strike in your heart. Like black holes, ready to absorb anything unlucky enough to fall in their path.

The frown Jungkook wears intensifies.

“Jungkook. Where. Is. He.”

Jungkook closes his eyes and shakes his head, jaw clamped shut so tightly you can see the muscles ripple under his skin. When he opens them again, black tears pour from his empty eyes.

It’s like all the air is sucked out of your lungs, like a punch to the throat. You’re breathing in as hard as you can, as fast as you can, but nothing’s staying. Everything is too cold. You can feel the blood crusting on your skin, the throb in the back of your head. Black ash falls from the sky, further obstructing your ability to breathe.

Everything is too much.

“Get off of me.”

You try wiggling out from Jungkook’s grasp, but he doesn’t let go.

“We have to keep moving.”

“Get the fuck off of me!”

Jungkook lets you push him away. He leans back on his heels and watches you. Or, you think he is. It’s hard to tell where those black eyes look, but it doesn’t matter.

“Yoongi,” you moan, sagging forward to dig your fingers into the ground. You rip tufts of grass until all that’s left is dirt.

With closed fists, you beat into the now bare ground, over and over, until your knuckles split open, and Jungkook has to scoop you into his arms to stop you. Your fingers are raw and bloody, and you don’t feel any of it. Nothing at all. Just numb. Numbness spreads through your body like Jungkook’s black veins spread through his.

None of this is real.

“Jungkook,” you sob into the crook of his neck with your arms thrown around his shoulders. He holds you bridal style with one arm wrapped around your torso and the other under your legs.

“I know.”

“He’s coming back, right? How will he find us if we keep going?”

Jungkook tightens his hold on you, cradling you against his chest. You assume he’s following the group deeper into the woods, but your eyes are closed, and your face is buried in his neck. He smells like smoke and blood, but you all do now.

“Jungkook, he’s coming back, right?”

A wet sob cuts through the otherwise quiet woods somewhere in front of you. You think it’s Hoseok, but you can’t tell.

“This way,” Jessi whispers.

There’s shuffling, then only the sound of feet crunching dead leaves and snapping twigs. Jungkook jostles you slightly to adjust his grip on you, murmuring gentle apologies every time he does.

“How are you holding up?” This time it’s Namjoon. He sounds close, like he’s walking in line with Jungkook.

“I can keep us hidden until we’re deeper in, but then I’ll have to stop,” Jungkook says through gritted teeth, as though he doesn’t want to admit what he must say next. “I’m exhausted.”

“Want me to carry-”

“No.”

Jungkook barks his response with an aggression you’ve never heard from him. He squeezes you, almost protectively close to his chest, as Namjoon assures him everything is fine. It’s hard to focus on the men’s hushed voices when you waver in and out of consciousness.

Eventually, all you can see when your close your eyes is a flash of bright light, like fire engulfing your brain.

And then everything goes black.

SHELTER #2

Hoseok’s hands shake as he holds the flint rock in one and the steel knife in the other. Twigs snap beneath his boots as he adjusts his squat. Each fidget draws your attention despite your desire to keep your eyes off the sight of Hoseok struggling.

After three failed attempts at creating a spark, Jessi quickly snatches the items from Hoseok’s grasp and kneels beside the fire pit.

“You’re gonna fucking stab yourself,” she grumbles, though she, too, struggles the first few tries. Eventually, the little pile of tinder ignites, filling the circle of rocks you’d gathered with a hot fire whose heat licks at your ankles.

Namjoon fists your jacket sleeve and drags you backward, nearly toppling you over and making the wet grass stain the butt of your pants a dark green.

It rained today. You can’t help but wonder if it washed away the blood and soot from the warehouse or if more Red Pin agents will show up and find evidence of what happened there.

“You’re sitting too close.”

“I’m cold.”

“You’re too close, Y/N.”

You glare at Namjoon, opening your mouth to retort that you’re an adult who can take care of yourself when a sob cuts through the tension between you.

Hoseok shudders with each heave of his shoulders, nearly folding in on himself, with his elbows on his knees and his palms pressed against his eyes.

“Hyung,” Namjoon calls out; his voice barely registers over Hoseok’s crying.

“It makes me think of him.” It’s all Hoseok says, all he needs to say.

Namjoon and Jessi’s expressions crumple like Hoseok’s body in the dirt. You watch them lock eyes with each other, something silent and private passing between them. You don’t know why, but it pisses you off. It shouldn’t, though.

Something dark and sick is growing inside you, this angry mass doubling in size every time someone cries for Yoongi. He was your best friend. He found you, saved you, and helped you see that there was more to life. The rest of them don’t get it. Yoongi didn’t mean to them what he meant to you.

Attempting to hoard grief all to yourself isn’t fair to you or the rest of your group, but you want to do it anyway. You want to be selfish because you feel you deserve the right to hurt the most. The rest of them don’t get it.

Rather than voice your frustration, you bite your bottom lip and dig your fingers into the dirt, winding up your whole body into a tight fist that’s not quite ready to spring but prepared all the same. If you let yourself loose, you know you’ll say something you shouldn’t – something you know you don’t actually mean and that you’ll regret, if not tomorrow, then ten years from now. Assuming you survive that long.

For now, survival should be the only thing on your mind.

The fire sputters slightly. A section of the tinder is wet from the morning’s rain. You hold out your hand, palm facing the sky, and wait.

Hoseok’s sobs have subsided by the time you’ve drawn the moisture out of the wet wood. It sits in a small pool of water in your palm. A reckless part of you wants to plunge your hand into the fire, but you spread your fingers apart instead. The water falls through your fingers and soaks into the grass.

The fire’s crackling overpowers the silence that blankets the four of you. Each of you stares deep into its flames, streaks of orange burning in your eyes. You wonder if Jungkook’s invisibility shield (“Optical illusion, guys.”) is strong enough to hide the fire. You’d never thought to ask if he can maintain the shield when he’s not even around.

Twigs snapping in the distance make you reach for the knife sticking out of the ground beside you. Hoseok doesn’t seem concerned by the sound, but his sense of smell as the air carries it to him may be compromised from all the crying. His nose has been running since your group left the warehouse.

You haven’t cried since you woke up inside the first abandoned shelter Taehyung mentioned would be on your path to the Commune. Even if you wanted to cry, you wouldn’t be able to. The part of your chest where the sobs should come from just feels empty.

The rustling in the woods increases until you hear the sound of someone clearing their throat.

Jungkook emerges from the darkness with a satchel – Yoongi’s satchel – thrown across his chest and a stone bowl in his arms.

“Rabbit. I skinned them already. I thought you guys might not wanna see…” Jungkook trails off when his bright eyes fall on Hoseok’s tear-stained face. With a quiet sigh, he crouches beside the fire and slides the satchel off, handing it to Namjoon.

“Fruits,” he mumbles, not looking in Namjoon’s direction once the older man takes the bag from him. Instead, and unsurprisingly, Jungkook’s eyes are on you.

You look away. There’s too much in those eyes, full of constellations of stories you’re too weak to learn. Bending your knees, you draw your legs against your chest and hug them, returning your gaze to the fire while Jungkook prepares to cook the meat and Namjoon handles the other food.

Yoongi asked you to look after Jungkook, but it’s he who has taken care of the group. Namjoon seems too busy fussing over Hoseok, and you know you aren’t any help. Jessi is the leader by default now that Yoongi isn’t here to take charge. She’s strong and has kept the group on a tight schedule. You know it’s her way of coping. There’s no time to lose herself in mourning if she charges ahead. Having an end goal gives her purpose.

If only you knew what yours was.

SHELTER #3

Your feet sink into the ground with each step you take. The sand feels soft between your toes as you wiggle them, watching the little black grains roll across your skin and make your toes disappear. Your steps halt just before you reach the water’s edge, where bright orange waves lap at the black shore. The shore stretches in both directions, a black stripe for as far as you can see. A ghost of a memory tickles your brain. Jack-o’-lanterns lit by tealight candles, and the smell of cinnamon.

Suddenly, the orange waves kick up in speed, crashing against the shore more violently. The force causes black sand to spray into the air. You can taste it in your mouth, feel it gritty against your teeth and harsh on your tongue.

You try to lift your hands to cover your face, but you find that you can’t. They’re trapped to your sides by long vines that wrap around your wrists and dive deep into the sand, rooting you in place. You try to pull out of the vines’ grasp. Thorns dig into your skin so deeply that black blood oozes from the jagged puncture wounds the thorns leave behind.

“Don’t struggle.”

The voice brings stillness to the whirlwind of sand and the crash of waves.

You already know who it is, but your body still feels surprised when Yoongi takes slow steps toward you from the other end of the shore. He’s dressed in a flowy white shirt and loose white pants. When you look down, you realize you’re matching.

“What do I do?”

Yoongi ignores your question. His fingers run along your forearm, his index finger dipping into one of the holes in your wrist, still dripping black blood. It doesn’t hurt, even though you know it should.

Dark cat eyes examine the black that stains his fingers. After another silent minute, Yoongi wipes your blood on the front of his shirt. You don’t know why you’re worried that he’ll ruin it.

“Jungkookie is here.”

“What?”

Yoongi walks toward the orange ocean. You scramble to keep up, but the sand grabs your ankles and pulls you back every time you step forward.

“Yoongi! Wait for me!”

“You don’t need me anymore. This is a good thing.”

Your friend nods his head before stepping into the water. The moment his foot touches the orange waves, the entire ocean bursts into flames.

“Yoongi!” You shriek, running as fast as possible, but the sand won’t let you go. It sucks you down until you’re up to your knees in the soft grains trapped in the hold of the shore. Your brain knows it’s hopeless, but your body keeps struggling even though Yoongi told you not to.

Suddenly, you feel rough hands grab your arms, and you’re being pulled into the sand, the grains filling your mouth and nose until your lungs are full and you can’t breathe.

“Hey, hey, shhh, it’s okay.”

Fingers trail along your hairline, dragging down the length of your face and tracing your jaw. Rather than cold sand, you feel something solid and warm wrap around your body.

“Breathe. In and out, okay? Inhale… exhale… I got you. It’s okay. I got you.”

As your body returns to you, you realize your face is pressed against smooth skin. You can taste salt on your lips, but no sand. When you blink, your eyelids feel heavy and wet.

You’re crying. Sobbing, actually.

“I miss him, too. So fucking much.”

Jungkook is crying, too. His voice remains steady, though. He’s always so steady now. The shy, fumbling boy of the warehouse is no more. In the time since the Red Pin attack, Jungkook changed. You all did, but he seems to have changed the most. His eyes still hold the stars, but the darkness seems… deeper now. His aura has lost its boyishness.

The abandoned building where your group has taken refuge is dark, only lit by the moonlight filtering through the slotted windows. You think it may have once been a cabin for a couple or small family.

Jungkook cradles you in his lap. The two of you are wrapped in thick blankets, cocooned away from the world.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper.

Jessi is asleep in the corner of the room, while Namjoon and Hoseok have made their beds in the room across the hall. You’re all accustomed to loud noises at night. Nearly all of you have suffered from night terrors at some point.

“It’s okay. You’ve had to listen to me cry in my sleep, too,” Jungkook points out with a small smile.

It’s a breathtaking smile. Jungkook’s cheeks shine with fresh tears, but his bunny teeth poke out, and his eyes crease with the sincerity in that smile. It warms the empty parts of your chest – like hot tea poured into a cool mug. Perhaps the odd feeling in your stomach is similar to the bubble of water boiling.

“You’re cute when you cry. I’m an ugly crier,” you sniff. It’s stupid to say, but you don’t want to think about how sad you all are.

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. All the boogers and the dumb faces I make.”

Jungkook shakes his head. His hair is getting long again.

“I think you’re beautiful.”

“Don’t lie,” you try to joke, but your voice comes out small and unsure rather than teasing.

“I would never lie to you.”

As if to seal the promise, Jungkook presses his lips against your forehead in a kiss. Your fingers ache from how tightly you squeeze the fabric of his shirt into your fists.

Every day you trudge through the woods in search of the Commune, and every day you live in fear of the Red Pins finding you once again. But being in Jungkook’s lap, face nuzzling the crook of his neck, his strong arms holding you against his chest… It’s the only time you genuinely feel safe.

SHELTER #4

“When was the last time,” Jungkook pauses to pull his shirt over his head, “you took a bath?”

Your eyes roam the expanse of his broad chest, the dips and valleys of his abdomen, and the sparse dark hairs disappearing into the waistband of his pants. You’ve seen Jungkook shirtless before. It’s a treat every time, although you feel a twinge of guilt from looking now. Running along his ribcage is an extended cut, red with scabs. Jessi did her best to stitch Jungkook up with whatever she had in the supplies Namjoon and Hoseok snatched before you fled the warehouse. It’s a pretty nasty wound, but it seems to be healing well. Part of you wonders if exposing it to lake water is a good idea, but you keep the thought to yourself. Jungkook is tired of everyone babying him. He hasn’t told you as much, but you can tell.

“I’m too ashamed to answer that question.”

“You and me both,” Jungkook snorts.

He removes the harness strapped around his thigh, taking the large knife off along with it. After the Red Pin attack, you now know how pointless it is to carry any weapon other than a gun. However, none of you have guns, though you still believe your Gifts are better than any human-made weaponry.

“Too bad we don’t have, like, soap and shit,” you grumble, stomping a cluster of wild mushrooms growing along the bank of the lake you’d found.

Jungkook’s tattooed fingers play with his belt buckle while his big, brown eyes flit up to meet yours.

“Sorry!” You rush to apologize and turn your back to him. Heat creeps up your neck, spreading across your cheeks and biting at your ears’ tips.

Your discomfort worsens when you hear a quiet chuckle rumble from Jungkook. There’s the rustle of clothes and, soon after, a light splash that tells you he has eased himself into the lake.

“You’re good.”

When you turn around, Jungkook isn’t facing you. He dips his head back to wet his hair, running his fingers through it a few times before righting himself again, still facing away from you. The water reaches his lower back when he’s standing, but you can tell he is crouching slightly because the gentle waves lap higher up on his back. It’s not dirty water since the lake has a fresh stream feeding it, which ensures that the water isn’t stagnant, but it’s murky enough from the plants growing at the bottom that you can’t make out the rest of Jungkook’s body. Not that you want to, considering he’s naked.

Thankful for the privacy, you quickly strip out of your clothes and step into the water. You keep a respectful distance between you, choosing not to drift too far into deeper water. You much prefer to at least touch the sandy bottom with your tiptoes.

Slipping deep enough that only your head remains above water, you watch Jungkook as he uses an old rag to scrub his arms. You’re both disgustingly grimy.

“Lucky we found this place,” you think aloud as you begin to work on scrubbing down yourself, as well.

“We are.”

“Jungkook. You can look now.”

His head snaps up, gaze locking with yours for a split second before he averts his eyes again. You’re close enough to see pink bloom across his face.

You clear your throat to fill the silence when he says nothing. Part of you thought it might spur him to talk, but the tension between you remains.

You’re not sure when it first developed. Part of you knows it has always been there, perhaps dormant or less noticeable. Much of it falls back on Jungkook’s behavior, you think as you watch him slide the rag down his chest. The tension has always lived in the dark expanse of his eyes and how he searches for you, always you, maybe without even realizing it himself. It’s gotten worse since you’ve started waking up every morning wrapped in his arms and nuzzling his neck.

“What’s the first thing you want to do when we get to the Commune?” Jungkook finally speaks. When he does, you force yourself to drop your gaze, focusing intently on continuing to wash yourself to the best of your ability with the lack of soap.

“Eat food that isn’t rabbit, hopefully.”

“Hey!”

A giant splash of water hits you in the face. You gasp, rushing to wipe away the droplets clinging to your eyelashes.

“F–fuck you!” You sputter.

“It’s not my fault rabbits are the easiest things to catch around here. I’m doing my best!”

Another splash slaps into you. It isn’t hard enough to sting, but it’s a splash all the same.

“You’re real dumb if you think you can start a splashing war with someone who has a water Gift,” you challenge.

“I’m not scared of you,” Jungkook sticks out his tongue after he challenges you.

All it takes is a flick of your wrist and a wave higher than most nearby trees descend on Jungkook. It doesn’t ever reach him, though. The sheer panic that contorts his face is enough to warm your body with evil satisfaction. You gently let the wave descend into the lake, barely kicking up enough to splash Jungkook against the chest.

“I showed you mercy. You’re welcome, young man.”

Jungkook lets out a loud snort, eyes rolling into the back of his head in defiance. “You’re insane.”

“You provoke me.”

You don’t like how high his eyebrows arch, unable to decipher what an expression like that is supposed to mean.

“I provoke you? In what way?”

You narrow your eyes at him. “You literally did it just now.”

Jungkook straightens up a little. The action makes more of his torso rise from the water. You can’t help but drop your eyes to the water level that has fallen so dangerously low on his hips.

When your gaze finally returns to his face, Jungkook is wearing an exaggerated pout.

“I’m innocent.”

“Pfft,” you scoff.

By this point, your fingers are starting to get wrinkly, and the position you’re standing in to ensure your whole body is covered in the water is becoming uncomfortable. You’re just about to tell Jungkook that you’re done playing games – that the two of you need to hurry up before the rest of your group gets worried about you being gone for too long – when the man disappears.

“Oh my god, Jungkook-ah, why?”

Your eyes dart around the lake, eyeing each shadow suspiciously. You don’t think you see Jungkook’s actual body underwater, so all you can guess is that he’s doing his creepy crawly shadow-walking just to bother you.

“This is doing the exact opposite of proving that you’re innoce–” You interrupt yourself with a loud gasp when you feel fingers squeeze your bare hips.

“Boo,” Jungkook deadpans, but his face quickly cracks into a smile.

You want to laugh at yourself for being so easily startled, to match Jungkook’s joyfulness, but all you can focus on is the feeling of his fingertips pressing into your skin.

“Jungkook…”

“Hm?”

He’s absentminded as his gaze drops down to stare at your lips. You automatically lick them, almost on instinct, unable to stop yourself. Jungkook follows your lead, though he pulls his bottom lip between his teeth instead of settling his face. If that action didn’t already make your stomach twist into a knot, the darkness of Jungkook’s gaze does.

“I…” Jungkook rubs slow circles into your hips with his thumbs, following the curve of your hip bone and effectively interrupting your thoughts.

You don’t know who leans in first, but it doesn’t really matter. The moment Jungkook’s lips connect with yours, it’s as though your brain completely empties.

It’s a hesitant kiss, just a light press of Jungkook’s closed mouth against yours. He grows bolder when you don’t pull away, parting his lips slightly. He nibbles at your bottom lip, prompting you to part yours as well, allowing him to slot your lips together.

You bring your hands up to squeeze Jungkook’s biceps, coaxing a slight whine from him when your nails lightly dig into his skin. The sound is gentle but needy, making your skin prickle with goosebumps. You’ve never heard Jungkook sound like that, never heard anyone sound like that.

You’ve never even kissed anyone before.

It’s not what you expected, though you haven’t spent much time thinking about physical intimacy. Being trapped in the Labs, it never seemed like something you’d have the privilege of exploring. Once you escaped, there was only one person you ever thought about being intimate with – and even then, it was far more wholesome than this, you now realize. This… is different.

Jungkook trembles, and you feel his hands flex against your hips as he tilts his head to the side, deepening the kiss.

A few times, the two of you fumble, noses bumping into each other and teeth nipping a bit too hard. It makes you wonder if this is Jungkook’s first kiss, too. You decide it doesn’t matter if it is. It’s warm and soft, and Jungkook tastes sweet, like the berries Hoseok picked earlier today. You’re dizzy; Jungkook stealing the air from your lungs. Your body screams for you to pull away, but you cling to him tighter.

Something firm brushing against your inner thigh brings you back to reality. You nearly jump out of Jungkook’s grasp, chest heaving and fingers trembling beneath the water.

“I’m sorry,” Jungkook hurries to speak before you do.

Before you can say anything in return – though you’re not sure what you want to say – Jungkook is gone. All that’s left are his clothes still neatly folded on the grass beside the lake and a thrum of excitement beating through your body to the tune of guilt and shame.

Kissing Jungkook felt good. And that is why it can never happen again.

SHELTER #5

If you ever told Jessi that you see her as a mother figure, she would probably kill you. You consider this as she wields a machete, hacking away at the brush that blocks your path as you continue toward the Commune. The muscles in her bicep and shoulders flex with each swing. It’s sexy and terrifying, and you can only admire her strength when the rest of your group is floundering.

The guys trail behind, practically dragging their feet. It’s Jungkook’s fault (and maybe yours, but you won’t think about that).

Ever since the kiss, Jungkook has avoided you. You haven’t interacted with each other in days, aside from the cuddles you share at night when nightmares overtake you.

Hoseok and Namjoon have also noticed the shift in his behavior, though they believe it’s grief causing him to distance himself from the group. They hang back, letting you and Jessi march forward, so they can talk and do whatever boys do to cheer each other up when the world is falling apart.

You try not to think about it too much, but Jessi and her motherly instincts don’t let you know peace.

“Yoongi wouldn’t want us to be so fucking sad all the time.” Jessi lets out a grunt as she hacks at a particularly thick tree branch blocking your path. “If he was here right now, he’d kick all of our asses with a quickness.”

She’s right; it goes without saying.

Letting her arm fall to her side, Jessi uses her free hand to wipe away the sweat that collects on her forehead and drips down the side of her face. She looks at you like she’s waiting for you to do something. The expression makes you feel uneasy.

“What?”

“Did you even hear the shit I was saying?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then, what’re you gonna do about it?”

You scrunch your eyebrows together. “About what?”

Jessi lets out a frustrated huff and again brings the machete down on the tree branch. It splinters and breaks, providing enough weakness for Jessi to stomp down on it with a steel-toed boot.

“Did you and Jungkook fuck?”

“What?!”

When you gasp, you’re sure you inhale a bug, sucking it right down your throat and probably into your fucking lungs for all you know. It sparks a terrible coughing fit that makes Jessi pause to slap you between the shoulder blades a few times.

“Why–” you heave, tears in your eyes, “why would you think that?”

Jessi pushes forward through the forest brush with a roll of her eyes.

“It’s obvious there’s something going on. The poor boy’s moping around after you like a lovesick puppy. Even worse than usual.”

If you weren’t already sweating your ass off, you would be heating up from Jessi’s astute observations.

“I don’t know what you're–”

“Aish, fucking save it, babe,” Jessi interrupts you with a wave of the hand that isn’t holding the machete. “All I’m trying to say is that it’s okay to feel good. Life is fucked as it is. Stop ruining good things for yourself and live as best as you can in the circumstances we got, alright?”

She gives you a stern look from the side, a look that you quickly try to avoid by ducking your head down. Suddenly, the ground is fascinating.

“I’m fine.”

“Right, and I don’t have a fat ass.”

“Really!” You insist. The desperation in your voice is pathetic and telling.

“Yoongi would want you to live, hun. I know he would. And you wanna know how I know?”

There isn’t a need to say anything; once Jessi has her mind set on something, she sees it through until the end.

“There wasn’t a fox in the woods. It was a Red Pin scout.” She gives you a pointed look. “But ignorance is bliss, and he wanted you to be happy. He wanted you to live without more fear, so he didn’t tell you. So do whatever you need to do to fix things with Jungkook and be fucking happy.”

You fall behind as Jessi speeds up, the path much clearer now than it had been just a few feet before. The guys are still meandering further back, so you fall somewhere in the middle, close enough to see everyone at either end but far enough that you can be alone with your thoughts without interruption.

Jessi is right, but it feels wrong to let yourself feel good. How can you be happy when Yoongi isn’t here? There is a bit of survivor’s guilt clutching at your heart, but most of your struggle is from the pain of simply not having Yoongi around. Being happy feels like it would be a betrayal of some kind.

Yoongi would disagree. He would give you that gummy smile and poke you in the ribs until you cry, and then he would tell you that you’re being an idiot.

With a sigh, you break into a light jog to catch up with Jessi, Yoongi’s voice echoing for the millionth time in your head.

You and Jungkook.

COMFORT

You are ashamed to admit that you take longer to apologize to Jungkook than Yoongi took to apologize you to.

In fact, you never apologize to Jungkook before your group makes it to the Commune. It never seemed like the right opportunity came. There was always someone else around, or Jungkook looked exceptionally sad, or you told yourself you would say something once he woke up but got caught up watching how beautiful he looks when he sleeps cuddled against you every night.

It’s always tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. The thing about tomorrow is that it always comes until it doesn’t.

And then suddenly, you’re all stumbling into a clearing in the woods that leads to what looks like a hole in the trees, and there is magic dancing in your bones that pulls your thoughts away from anything but the man who stands to greet you.

Kim Taehyung is not what you expected from the leader of a notorious Gifted runaway commune that has evaded the authorities for years. Admittedly, you had few expectations – too busy worrying about surviving the trek to think about what the man would look like when he finally greeted you. Still, it’s a lot to process.

“Welcome, my little Gifts!”

The lithe man stretches his long arms out as wide as his wingspan will let him. Your group exchanges looks when Taehyung doesn’t move, his eyebrows arched as he waits.

The six of you stand at the Commune entrance, marked by two trees manipulated into forming a magical-looking arch. Large flower bushes and more trees flank the arch, hiding whatever may lie within the Commune. Try as you might, as you peer over Jessi’s shoulder, you can’t see through the thicket.

Taehyung lets out a quiet sigh, but his arms don’t seem to tire. He wiggles his fingers as though he’s beckoning you into his arms. The movements, although small, make the numerous gold bracelets that line his wrists clink together like wind chimes. He wears loose slacks and an oversized white silk shirt. A knitted shawl with intricate patterns stitched into it in earth tones hangs over his broad shoulders. The tassels sway in the wind. You don’t know how, but he smells like summer.

“Do you not seek comfort?”

A loud whimper erupts from the middle of your huddle, and suddenly Jungkook pushes past Jessi and Namjoon. He stumbles the few steps it takes to reach Taehyung.

“Jungkook-ah,” Jessi whisper-yells, but it’s too late. Jungkook has his face buried in Taehyung’s chest, a sob tearing through his body.

“Shhh, my little Gift, you are home.”

Taehyung keeps his eyebrows arched, giving the rest of your group a pointed look. It takes hardly a second before Hoseok follows Jungkook, launching himself into Taehyung’s embrace with such power you’re shocked the Commune leader manages to stay upright. Hoseok’s cries harmonize with Jungkook’s until Namjoon eventually joins.

Never one to open up about sadness, Jessi stares down the Commune leader with a challenging look that would make the bravest soldiers shit themselves – and yet Taehyung merely smiles the strangest, most charming smile you’ve ever seen.

Before you know it, you’re standing alone because Jessi has a singular tear sliding down her round cheek, and Taehyung has one arm curling her against his chest, too.

Comfort.

It’s funny, isn’t it? Funny that we want it, crave it, even from a complete stranger. Comfort provides no solution to our problems and is even sometimes used to avoid problems altogether. You have known little comfort since Jungkook carried you away from the warehouse.

Okay then, what’re you gonna do about it?

You meet Jessi’s gaze, and the realization hits you that this is the first time you’ve seen her cry.

“Be happy, Y/N.” If Jessi speaks out loud, you can’t hear her but can read her mouth clearly.

It’s like something shatters in your chest. It’s shocking; you were convinced nothing was left inside to break. But when Taehyung finally lowers both arms to wrap them around your group – yourself included – no pain or sadness plagues your heart. You feel strangely at peace. Taehyung’s summer scent envelopes you. It’s freshly-cut grass, sea salt, and cherry blossoms. Warmth spreads from the man, what you imagine it feels like to be a plant absorbing nutrients from the sun.

“Thank you for trusting me,” Taehyung speaks softly. “This is my Gift, and it makes my heart happy to share it with you today.”

You remember that Taehyung is a healer Gifted when he gently extricates himself from what became a group hug that lasted for eternity.

“Are we feeling better now?”

You all find yourselves nodding. Taehyung beams at that. He claps his hands together, startling Hoseok into a small giggle.

“Wonderful!” Taehyung turns on his heel, his shawl billowing out behind him as he swiftly crosses the archway. “Now, come with me. We have many things to take care of!”

Your group hurries to keep up with the man who’s all legs. Beyond the arch, the Commune is more like a small village than whatever tent city you’d expected. Little houses similar to the abandoned ones your group found refuge in on the way here line the dirt paths – except these are full of life. Odd markings are painted on the brick and concrete buildings, all in the bright colors of summer: sunny yellows, healthy greens, and vibrant pinks.

You notice that in the doorway of every building is a small basket, sometimes more than one, resting on the ground. Some are full of items you can’t quite make out because Taehyung is walking so quickly that you don’t have time to peek into any of them.

“I can’t quite remember how many there are of us,” Taehyung says over his shoulder as he leads you down a road lined with shops. There’s clothing, produce, and other wares for sale. You feel embarrassed by how your mouth waters simply from seeing an apple. “I would say at least three hundred, but Seokjin hyung would know better. He’s the brains of all this. I’m merely the handsome face of the operation.”

“Yah, I heard that, Kim Taehyung!”

“Oh, so you heard me singing your praises, hyung?”

Taehyung leads you to what you guess is the center of the Commune by the way the buildings form a half circle around a grassy quad. In the middle of the quad, there is a large pile of tinder – tree branches, dead grass and hay, planks of wood, and other items stacked on top of each other to build what will most likely be a giant bonfire from the looks of it.

The man known as Seokjin approaches your group just to shove Taehyung’s shoulder with his own. “I am both the brains and the beauty, thank you very much. You can be second-best.”

“You’re demoting me? In front of our new friends?” Taehyung pouts.

Seokjin twists his broad torso to get a good look at your ragtag team of misfits. Facing this new man’s beauty head-on, you are quickly reminded of how disgusting you all probably look and smell, having fought through the woods for weeks without even a proper bath.

Even though you all look like hell, Seokjin beams just as Taehyung had.

“Oh good, you didn’t run away!”

You feel Jessi tense beside you. “Why the fuck would we run away?”

“Taehyung is insufferable, that’s why.”

“Hey!” The leader shoves his friend much harder than his friend had shoved him. “You’re so grumpy. Do you need a hug?”

Seokjin swats at Taehyung. “Don’t you have things to do? Summer is here soon. Go make daisy chains or something. Jimin and I will take care of our new friends.”

“Daisy chains?” You blurt out in question as Taehyung wiggles his fingers at your group in a goodbye. In the blink of an eye, he’s gone, disappearing into the crowds of people going about their day in the Commune. You’ve never seen so many Gifteds, free and all together, in your life.

Seokjin hums, beckoning your group to follow him deeper into the Commune.

“In a few days, it will be the First of Summer. I assume you all have never celebrated Summer?”

You find it odd that Seokjin speaks of the season as though it’s a holiday. When no one responds, he lets out a long sigh.

“You’ve missed out on so much, trapped like lab rats.” He spits the end of his sentence. It’s in anger at the research facilities rather than a judgment of you, but it makes your heart sting just the same. You wish Taehyung was here.

Leading you to a three-story building that looks similar to a warehouse or an office building, with plain concrete walls decorated with more colorful markings, Seokjin pauses to let your group enter the front door first.

“This is my home,” Seokjin welcomes your group. “My husband and I sleep on the first floor, but there are a few empty guest rooms on the second and third. Newcomers tend to stay with us until we’ve built them their own homes.”

“That’s so generous of you, Seokjin,” Hoseok speaks up for the first time. The crackle in his voice tells you he’s still on the verge of tears, but he smiles when you turn to look at him.

“Please, call me hyung if you’d like.” Seokjin smiles.

Taehyung and Seokjin’s use of honorifics warms your heart, even though you don’t have the same emotional attachment to the custom as the others. When you look out of the corner of your eye, you see Jungkook smile at the honorific, too.

“We’ll get your rooms situated, but first, are you hungry?”

“Fuck yes,” Jessi groans.

The group and Seokjin laugh when you ask, “Do you have anything besides rabbit?”

In the kitchen, your group meets Seokjin’s husband, Jimin, a fire Gifted. When Jimin pulls you into a tight hug, tears prickle in the corners of your eyes because his body burns, and he smells faintly of smoke, just like Yoongi.

While chomping away at fresh vegetables and meat that isn’t rabbit, you learn that Seokjin is the legendary cosmic Gifted you only half-heartedly believed to be real. His ability to bend time and space wipes the Commune off the radar, ensuring the Red Pins never find it. Despite his large personality, he seems too shy to demonstrate his Gift, even as Jimin pesters him.

They’re cute, Seokjin and Jimin. They fuss over your group as though they are your parents, making sure that you each get a turn taking a shower and that you have enough blankets and pillows in your bedrooms. Hoseok, Namjoon, and Jungkook share one, while you and Jessi share another. Jimin apologizes profusely about not being able to provide you with your own bedrooms, which you all dismiss.

“We anticipate a few additional newcomers soon; I’m so sorry we don’t have enough room to spread out,” Jimin bemoans as he plays with his fingers.

“Are you kidding?” Namjoon teases with a smile that crinkles his eyes. “We’ve been living in an abandoned warehouse for months.”

“Sleeping on the floor gave me fucking arthritis, and I’m barely thirty,” Jessi chimes in.

“That’s not how that works.”

“Fuck off, Jungkook-ah. Tell that to my broken back.”

Jimin looks appalled by your previous living situation, making your group joke around more. Laugh through the pain, right? It’s a coping mechanism you’ve all done a decent job of perfecting. Sometimes being alive is enough to laugh about because, well, at least you’re alive.

After a whirlwind of a day getting settled into Seokjin and Jimin’s home, you can finally ease your bones into a real bed with a thick, fluffy mattress and clean sheets. Your tummy is full of delicious food, your body clean and well-moisturized thanks to Jimin’s homemade skincare products, and you finally allow yourself to sink into the one thing you’ve been scared to find: comfort.

Just before sleep overtakes you, you hear a quiet, almost timid, knock at the door. You wrack your brain, thinking about who it could be and why they need you. It feels like too much effort to get out of bed when you’ve only just been able to relax, so you call out to the person on the other side of the door.

“Hi.”

Jungkook’s wide eyes peer at you through the dark, a sliver of moonlight peeking through the window blinds highlighting parts of his face.

“Hi,” you say, pausing to quietly clear your throat. “What’s up?”

“Can’t sleep.”

Your heart feels like it will fly out of your chest when Jungkook hesitantly steps into your bedroom. You watch him eye Jessi’s sleeping form in the bed on the opposite side of the room, perhaps weighing the pros and cons of being in the room if she wakes up.

Apparently accepting the risk, Jungkook scurries over to stand beside your bed.

“Can I sleep with you?”

It’s the most Jungkook has spoken to you since he fled the lake. His request shouldn’t make your stomach flip with nerves; you’ve cuddled together every night since your first nightmare about Yoongi. So it should be easy when you respond,

“Of course.”

You quickly scoot over to give Jungkook room when he slips beneath the sheets.

“Thank you,” he whispers into the dark.

Holding out your arms, you encourage Jungkook to curl against your side, a position you usually take, but something tells you that Jungkook needs this more than you do. Part of your assumption is due to the timid, gentle boy who entered your bedroom – a different person than the one you watched murder multiple Red Pins at the warehouse with frightening ease.

He’s still the same, though, deep down, a lonely boy with nothing to his name, just like the rest of you.

Jungkook stays quiet while you run your fingers through his hair. You’re reminded of the promise you were supposed to make to Yoongi, the one about taking care of Jungkook. It’s time for you to finally fulfill that promise, and you already know what the first step should be.

“I’m sorry,” you apologize softly. “I don’t like not talking to you.”

And it hurts more than you realize. Saying it out loud makes it real, this scary uncertainty in your relationship that you’ve never experienced before. Jungkook has always been there – a steady comfort to fall back on, soft eyes to search for in moments tainted with fear and grief. Not having Jungkook in your life… It’s unfathomable.

“I’m sorry, too,” Jungkook whispers into the crook of your neck.

You’re not sure what he’s sorry for, though you remind yourself that a relationship is a two-way street. The two of you should have talked rather than dance around each other. Even now, you’re not really talking. You want to bring it up – the kiss. What it means for him. What it means for you. Why it happened in the first place. If it’s… okay, okay to like how soft Jungkook’s lips had felt on yours and how sweet he’d tasted. Okay to feel an unfamiliar heat spread throughout your body, starting at his fingers gripping your waist.

“I’m sorry I did it without asking first,” Jungkook elaborates after a few minutes of silence.

Even though he doesn’t say what it is, you don’t need him to spell it out before you reply, “It’s okay.”

“It’s not, though.”

You shiver when Jungkook’s lips brush against your neck as he talks. His breath is cold, even though his body is warm. You wonder if it’s the darkness inside of him seeping out when he breathes.

“I swear, it is. I forgive you. We both kinda went for it, right?” You say with an awkward laugh.

“I’m not sorry about doing it.” Jungkook squeezes you tighter, but you’re already holding your breath. “I’d do it again.”

His confession is whispered so quietly you likely wouldn’t have heard him if it weren’t for the fact that his lips brush your neck just below your ear.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Jungkook’s lips travel higher. You close your eyes and let out a shuddered breath when his lips brush against your earlobe.

It’s getting harder to relax, your body completely rigid and your breathing on the verge of frantic as Jungkook drags his nose down the length of your neck. The touch sends tingling sensations across your body. A strange feeling, like your stomach is flipping around inside of you, consumes you. His nose on your skin tickles, but it’s somehow more than just a tickle. It feels… good. Makes your stomach tense and heat spread, chasing after the goosebumps.

“Goodnight,” Jungkook finally whispers into the crook of your neck.

It takes you a long time to fall asleep.

THE EVE

Apparently, the First of Summer is something to celebrate at the Commune. It seems as though everyone has a task to complete on the Eve of the holiday to get all the preparations in order, even you and your misfit crew.

“Our Gifts are at their strongest during the Summer; haven’t you noticed?”

Jimin flutters around like a hummingbird, gracefully darting between about a dozen small baskets lined up in the grass beside his home. The fire Gifted places a variety of items in the baskets: flower bouquets, fruits and vegetables wrapped in protective cloths, and other little trinkets and handmade presents.

“Is that so?” Namjoon perks up from where he’d been watching a line of ants march into a small anthill. He sits in the grass next to you and Jessi while Jungkook and Hoseok stand closer to where Jimin flits around.

“Mhm. We are more in tune with the Seasons compared to humans.”

Jessi scoffs, “We are humans.”

Cradling a bouquet of tiger lilies in one hand, Jimin puts his other hand on his hip. It’s supposed to be sassy and, perhaps, stern, but he just comes off as adorable in your eyes.

“We are not humans.”

“Then what are we?”

With a huff, Jimin gently places the flowers in a basket that’s nearly full.

“We are Gifts from Nature. Don’t you feel it? The Earth flows through our veins, Jessi. She broke pieces off herself to gift to us; pieces of the Universe exist inside of us. Humans don’t have that.”

There mustn’t be a good comeback for such lofty talk because Jessi remains quiet after Jimin finishes speaking. You don’t blame her; the perspective Jimin offers isn’t one you’ve ever heard of before. Everyone talks about Gifteds as mutants, genetic abominations. It’s scientific and clinical, although no scientist has figured out how or why Gifteds exist.

Jimin’s perspective sounds like… magic. You decide that you quite like the idea that some omnipresent entity chose to give up parts of herself to make you special, a lot more than believing you’re an unnatural freak.

“What are these for?” Hoseok asks, bending at the waist to peer into one of the baskets.

“They’re gifts,” Jimin says with a little giggle, likely at the tease around the word he uses. “It’s customary to give gifts on the First of Summer. You’re supposed to leave them on your neighbors’ doorsteps, though you could directly gift them during the Bonfire.”

Brushing his hands onto his pants, Jimin straightens up and looks around at your group. In the few days you’ve known Jimin, you’ve noticed that his lips poke out when he’s thinking. It reminds you of a little beak on a baby bird. You’ve told Jungkook as much, and he agrees.

Your eyes fall on Jungkook, hoping he’ll look your way. It doesn’t take long for him to tilt his head to the side and meet your gaze. Sometimes you wonder if Jungkook can sense you somehow. You don’t understand how his Gift works, but it seems mysterious enough to be capable of anything at this point. How else would he somehow know when you’re looking in his direction every time?

With a mischievous glint in your eyes, you subtly pucker your lips.

Jungkook catches on quickly. His eyebrows shoot up, and a small smirk etches itself into his features. He pinches his lips into a pucker, too, and wiggles his eyebrows at you.

You have to press your lips together to stop yourself from laughing.

“Jungkook?”

The younger man quickly straightens his posture and schools his face when Jimin calls out to him.

“Yes, hyung?”

“Want to help me finish up with some decorations? Jessi, too?”

Jungkook nods hard enough that you worry he might give himself a headache.

As Jessi pushes herself off the ground, Jimin turns to you, Namjoon, and Hoseok.

“How about you all help Seokjin down at the quad with the Bonfire? He’s working on setting up the tables and food stalls for the Morning of Summer. We gather to have a breakfast feast and celebrate the first Morning together.”

Hoseok beams at the idea, turning to you with his hands held out. You squeeze them and let him help haul you onto your feet.

“It sounds so nice,” Hoseok chirps with excitement as the three of you make your way through the winding dirt road toward the quad, past rows of unique homes and community gardens scattered across what is essentially a makeshift neighborhood.

“Having a community… I feel like I don’t know how to enjoy it,” Namjoon says softly.

“What do you mean?” It seems odd to you; haven’t they all wanted something like this?

“I don’t remember how to be social. I was, I think, at some point. Before the Labs. And, of course, I feel comfortable with you all. But…”

“Being around strangers is hard,” you offer.

Namjoon nods in agreement. He isn’t sad, though, like you’d assumed he’d be. Namjoon wears a smile as Hoseok wraps his arms around his waist.

“The good thing is we have all the time in the world to figure ourselves out, now. We get to be whatever we want to be, and exist however we want to exist. No more running, no more hiding, no more fighting,” Hoseok says with a grin, and it’s impossible to not believe him.

The air Gifted nuzzles his face into Namjoon’s neck, and you swear there is light pink that mixes with the honey of Namjoon’s cheeks.

Hoseok’s display of affection reminds you of your nights with Jungkook. They’ve become more frequent; nearly every night, he slips into your bed to cuddle with his lips dragging along your neck, just lightly enough to seem innocent but still present enough to make your body burn with an unfamiliar heat.

You haven’t done anything more than cuddle, and you’re having a hard time telling yourself that you’re okay with that.

Seokjin doesn’t give you time to ponder what you think is your budding love life. He gives you, Hoseok, and Namjoon a variety of tasks to complete throughout the day, from painting what you learn are ancient runes on the sides of buildings to helping the farmers harvest their produce to bring to the food stalls. Manual labor doesn’t bother the three of you; for months, you’ve all lived in a world where you work hard to survive, hunting and building your shelters. This work is easy in comparison and much more entertaining.

At some point, Taehyung strolls through the busy quad to check on the outdoor dining space coming to fruition a safe distance from the large bonfire. He plops down on the bench at one of the tables, elbow on the table and chin resting in his hand as he watches you, Hoseok, and Namjoon take a break to munch on some snacks one of the farmers had given you.

“Having fun, little Gifts?”

Taehyung’s eyes sparkle in the late afternoon sun, and you can’t help but melt into the comfort that radiates from him.

“I could stay here forever,” Hoseok mumbles around a large bite of an apple.

“Oh?” The twinkling of Taehyung’s eyes morphs from adoration to teasing amusement. “I thought that was already the plan.”

Hoseok nods, giving the leader a sheepish look.

“That would be dope, yeah.”

“Then it is done.”

The exchange makes you and Namjoon giggle, though the sweet sounds quickly die out when familiar figures jog down the dirt path toward where you sit.

Jimin is beaming, his entire aura nearly glowing, though you know part of that is due to his Gift. Your gut twists from the memory of Yoongi, but the pain doesn’t cut as deeply as it used to. At first, you thought the lessening of the pain meant you were forgetting him or no longer caring about him, and you felt even more grief from that. But a late-night heart-to-heart with Hoseok taught you that this isn’t apathy; it’s healing.

So you acknowledge the little prick of pain that sits in your chest but choose to use the memory of Yoongi to fuel your new love for Jimin, who you know Yoongi would have loved, too.

“Jiminie!” Taehyung calls from his seat at the table. He holds his arms open, eagerly pulling the other man into a spine-crushing hug.

The call of your own name draws your attention away from the men. You turn to see Jessi flashing you an uncharacteristically large grin. It makes you extremely suspicious.

“What do you want?” You question her with narrowed eyes.

“Oh, nothing. Jungkook wants something, though,” she says in a sing-songy voice before skipping - literally skipping - away to talk to Hoseok and Namjoon.

Jungkook stands at the opposite end of the long wooden table. In his hands is a small wicker basket and he shuffles from foot to foot, staring at nothing in particular.

“Jungkook-ah?”

He looks up at you with large, startled eyes. In a split second, he’s gone. The only evidence that the young man had even been there is the wicker basket now rocking from side to side in front of you on the table.

You can’t help but giggle as dark shadows slither from table to table.

“Do you think he can still hear me when he’s in his shadow form?” Jessi slides onto the bench beside you. She looks around at all the shadows, likely wondering which one is Jungkook.

“I have no idea.”

“Hey, Jungkook-ah!” Jessi looks over her shoulder to survey more of the quad. “You’re a fucking wimp!”

Ignoring Jessi’s comment, you turn your attention to the basket. Inside is a small bouquet of white mugunghwa, a modern-looking pale pink jeogori, and a brand-new hard copy of Fahrenheit 451. Your heart pounds in your chest as you lift each item from the basket and gently place them on the table in front of you, inspecting them with soft eyes and careful fingers.

“Where…?”

“He picked the flowers himself and did odd jobs around the Commune and hunted some meat to trade for the jeogori and the book,” Jessi answers your unfinished question.

You feel your eyes tingle at the corners, with tears threatening to burn your cheeks if you blink too hard. From what it sounds like, the Summer gifts are extremely meaningful - something you share with those you care about to wish them a fruitful year and good health. To think that Jungkook has spent the few days you’ve been here preparing such a gift for you warms your heart, so much so that you feel like you’re catching fire from the inside out.

“This is very special,” Taehyung speaks as he caresses one of the flower’s petals.

You’d almost forgotten about Seokjin, Taehyung, Jimin, and the rest of your group.

“It is,” you agree. You carefully return the items to the basket to keep them safe. “I don’t have a gift for him, though. Is it fair to show up to the Bonfire empty-handed?”

Jimin rests his chin on Taehyung’s head and hums as he thinks.

“Typically, we don’t give gifts to each other during the Bonfire. The gifts you bring to the Bonfire are offerings to Nature to ask for health and prosperity in the upcoming year. You’ll toss them into the fire and recite the offering prayer - but you don’t have to since you don’t know it yet.”

You’re not sure you have anything to offer the Bonfire, either, but it seems Taehyung reads your mind.

“There are other ways to give an offering to Nature, if not through the Bonfire,” Taehyung supplies with a small smirk. He looks mischievous and sneaky; the expression makes your skin tickle with goosebumps.

“Yeah, you can fuck,” Seokjin adds with a smirk of his own. He looks too proud of himself when you choke on your next inhale of air.

“You can what?” Hoseok nearly trips over his feet in his attempt to get closer to hear what Seokjin has to say.

“It’s not an official part of the Summer celebration,” Jimin interjects with a roll of his eyes at his husband.

“It’s a part my sweet Jiminie doesn’t mind partaking in.”

“Seokjin!”

Taehyung throws his head back in a loud cackle as Jimin’s face turns bright pink. The poor fire Gifted sputters as he tries to defend himself.

“N-no! No! It’s, no!”

Seokjin shrugs and stretches his arms over his head, leaning on each side long enough to make his joints pop.

“Sex is part of Nature, is it not? It represents vitality, fertility, birth, new beginnings,” Seokjin points out. “Nature takes all that we give her with equal value.”

If Jimin is uncomfortable, you’re downright mortified. You can’t help but look around at the quad as Jessi had, every shadow lurking around the corner more suspicious than the next. What does it mean that they mention sex, and your thought immediately turns to Jungkook? Shame burns at your cheeks, but you can’t get the image out of your mind. You know pretty much nothing about sex and can barely even imagine what it would be like, yet you latch onto the idea that Jungkook might be…

Well…

You can’t say it. You can’t bring yourself to think about it. Shaking your head, you quickly stand and scoop the wicker basket into your arms.

“I’m going to put this in my room,” you announce to no one and everyone.

The group shouts teasing comments about your shy behavior as you do your best to walk calmly in the direction of Seokjin and Jimin’s house, avoiding everyone’s gaze and especially the shadows.

FIRE

You expected the Bonfire to hurt. Not physically, since there are plenty of fire Gifteds around to ensure the celebrations stay safe and under control. No, you expected the pain of the Bonfire to be internal, an emotional pain like the pain you’ve been failing to run from in the months since Yoongi left you.

It has taken you a long time to let go of the anger you’ve let fester inside of you. Your anger verges on hatred, and hatred helps no one. Who is there to hate? Yoongi, for sacrificing himself to save his friends? The rest of your group for mourning your best friend just as profoundly as you have? The Red Pins for taking everything away from you?

The Bonfire crackles and hums like it’s trying to speak to you, but its voice is drowned out by the singing and shouting of the Gifteds dancing in a circle around its flames. The flames reach nearly as high as the buildings surrounding it. Jimin and the other fire Gifteds occasionally pull out stray flames, letting them lick around their arms and bodies to entertain the children fascinated by Gifts they have yet to master within themselves.

The performance is beautiful just as much as it hurts your heart to watch. You’re mesmerized by the dancing flames and swaddled by the heat of the Bonfire, so you don’t notice another Gifted approaching you until you’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder.

“Have you given your offering yet?”

The fire reflects in Jungkook’s eyes like an orange light show, hues swirling and dancing to the tune of whatever ancient language the Gifteds sing in.

“Not yet,” you respond, turning to look at him.

Jungkook’s gaze drops to take in the jeogori you’re wearing – the one he gifted you the day before. It fits you well, loose enough that you don’t feel restricted, but still cut in a way that compliments your body. You’re glad it’s short-sleeved, or you’d be sweating in the summer night air.

“Me either.”

“What did you bring?”

Jungkook pats his thigh. When you look down, you see that he has his knife strapped to his leg.

“The fire probably isn’t hot enough to melt it, but… I think it’s the thought that counts.”

It’s a serious matter, what the two of you are discussing, but you can’t help but giggle as you crouch down to retrieve your offering from where it sits at your feet.

“Your bow?” Jungkook whispers as though he’s scandalized.

“And my arrows.”

“Are you sure you want to do that? You always–”

You shake your head. “We’re giving our weapons up for the same reasons, aren’t we?”

Jungkook nibbles at his bottom lip for a few moments. He turns away from you, those big doe eyes focused again on the fire.

“Yoongi gave them to us.” When Jungkook speaks, his voice quivers, but his cheeks remain dry. “And we’re done fighting.”

“We’re done fighting…”

You mull over the thought, let it roll around in your head, test out its taste on your tongue and see how it weighs in your heart. No more fighting, just like Hoseok said. In the place of fighting, you have a community, like Namjoon wanted. Like you all wanted, no matter how afraid you are to embrace it or admit that you aren’t sure how to join it.

Yoongi never wanted any of you to have to fight.

“Yeah.” Jungkook’s shoulders sag. “I don’t think I could keep it up even if I had to. I’m… ready to be happy. Like the hyungs. They are so bright.”

Your heart cracks with every word, nearly spilling out onto the floor when you watch Jimin sprint across the quad to launch himself into Seokjin’s arms. He wraps his legs around Seokjin’s waist as the two kiss, the fire illuminating their faces like angels’ halos.

Reaching over, you squeeze Jungkook’s hand, lacing your fingers with his. You don’t need to speak; gently tugging his arm has him following you through the crowd toward the base of the Bonfire. The rest of your friends are somewhere around the Bonfire, but you aren’t interested in looking for them.

“1… 2… 3.”

When Jungkook stops counting, the two of you toss your weapons into the fire. Your hands are still intertwined, even if the heat makes your skin sweaty and stick together. You’re both willing to stand at the Bonfire for as long as you can, letting the flames burn your retinas as you try to follow the path the fire takes to eat away at the weapons you’ve surrendered to it.

Letting go feels good, even if you’re letting go of something Yoongi gave you. In a way, he has given you far more than just a bow and some deadly arrows – or a knife and thigh harness. He gave you love, hope, and a second chance. He showed you what it means to love and be loved selflessly and unconditionally and taught you what it means to be a leader in the face of unbelievable hardship.

You don’t think you could have been even half of the person Yoongi was.

The press of fingers at the tip of your chin pulls you out of your melancholic thoughts. Jungkook cradles your face, swiping the pad of his thumb along your cheek once a few tears slip from your lash line.

“Sorry, this is ridiculous,” you croak out. “This is supposed to be a happy celebration.”

Jungkook’s eyebrows furrow as a pout turns the corners of his lips downward. You think he’s about to scold you over apologizing for your feelings – which you know you shouldn’t do – but Jungkook is always full of surprises.

“Can I take you somewhere?”

Forests will likely always scare you. Too many unspeakable things have happened within the woods, too many sad souls wrapped around tree roots and branches. You’re unsure what the woods around the Commune have seen - or if they’re even real; Seokjin’s Gift confuses you. Are the woods here the same ones you traveled through to get here? Are they imaginary, crafted by Seokjin’s mind? Does any of this exist?

The woods certainly feel different here than at the warehouse. Jungkook leads you by the hand down a winding path through trees decorated with brightly-colored garlands draped across their luscious green branches. You recognize the decorations as ones Jungkook, Jessi, and Jimin helped the children make while the rest of your group worked with Seokjin on the Bonfire.

“I found this spot when I was looking for your gifts,” Jungkook murmurs.

“With Jimin?”

“Mhm. He said, I know a place. It was funny.”

The sound of the Bonfire festivities is far in the distance, muted by the quiet rustling of life in the woods. Jungkook stops to brush a few vines away that hang from the trees. When he steps to the side to let you walk through the opening he created, you feel your breath get caught in your throat.

Before you is a circular clearing littered with white and pink mugunghwa shrubs. The flowers nearly glow in the dark, and their sweet scent permeates the air. But what really tugs at your heart is the smattering of tiny fireflies that meander above your head, exploring the peaceful little world away from the chaos of the Commune.

“Jimin hyung said he doesn’t think anyone else knows this place. He comes here to be alone. Or… with Seokjin,” Jungkook whispers, giving you a sheepish look with pink cheeks. “I think it’s supposed to be, umm, you know, for what the hyungs were talking about, but, I, uh, I’m not…”

You suddenly feel hot, warmth prickling at your skin and making moisture collect along your hairline despite being far from the fire. What is Jungkook going on about? You have an idea but are too nervous to respond to his rambling.

Jungkook nudges you with his shoulder before carefully weaving through the shrubs until he finds a more open spot to sit in the grass.

You follow him, the two of you sitting face-to-face, your knees bumping into each other as you cross them.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” you whisper. “And for the gifts. I didn’t get to talk to you about them…”

There’s no need to speak so quietly, but something about this place makes you worry being too loud would disrupt the magic of it.

“Of course,” Jungkook responds just as softly. “I wanted to show you something special because you are special to me.”

Your stomach flips at the memory of Jungkook’s similar confession when you last cut his hair at the warehouse. His gentleness has been a saving grace for you in a world so dark, even when the darkness sometimes consumes him, too.

“You’re special to me, too.” It’s easy to admit; it flows from your mouth as easily as water flows from your soul.

“Thank you… I think we deserve something soft. Does that make sense?”

You tell him that it does because even if you aren’t entirely sure what that means to him, you know that you desire softness in a life that has been so hard.

Jungkook gives you a small smile. A shake of his head flips his bangs out of his eyes so he can look at you properly. It feels different, the way he looks at you. Darker, more intense, but not scary like you’ve seen him look at you before. There is the same power in his gaze, but it’s gentler.

You don’t know what to make of it, so you don’t comment on it. Instead, you reach up to brush Jungkook’s bangs out of his eyes.

“I need to cut your hair,” you muse, a small smirk pulling up the corner of your mouth.

Your fingers linger on his face, migrating from his forehead to drag down the bridge of his nose. When you get to the tip, you mean to bop it lightly, but Jungkook tilts his head back. The adjustment makes your finger slip, and you end up pressing against his lips instead.

Jungkook watches you with curious eyes as he puckers his lips slightly to kiss your finger. It’s a closed-mouth kiss, nothing scandalous, but you feel electricity shoot up your arm and spread through your body.

“Oh,” you quietly gasp when Jungkook takes hold of your wrist. He kisses each of your other fingers, ending with a lingering one on your palm.

“Can I tell you something?” He asks, bringing your hand down to hold in his lap.

You silently nod because you’re afraid of what you might say or sound like if you open your mouth.

Jungkook takes a deep breath, and his grip on your hand tightens slightly. Whatever it is he’s going to say seems like it’s taking a lot for him to sort through in his head from the way his breathing picks up and his eyebrows furrow.

“Jungkook-ah, you don’t have to…”

Jungkook shakes his head and takes your other hand, too.

“No, I have to do this. It’s… we’re just, ahh.” He tilts his head back to stare at the starry sky. After a moment, he exhales loudly out of his nostrils and drops his gaze to yours again. “I’m in love with you. And for some reason, I feel like I shouldn’t tell you that ‘cause it seems selfish to dump this on you ‘cause everything is so… fucked up. It’s so fucked. I don’t know why I feel like I’m not allowed to… to be like this, to feel like this. But Jimin hyung said love is in our Nature and is never bad. And, yeah. I guess, yeah. I’m in love with you, and I think you need to know ‘cause I can’t keep pretending I’m not.”

Out of breath from expelling his words as fast as he can, Jungkook clamps his mouth shut and waits silently. Waits. Waits for you to do something, to say something.

He’s right. Everything is fucked up enough that you can relate to the guilt Jungkook feels for wanting to love, to be happy. He didn’t call it guilt, but you’ve felt it, so you know. It’s precisely what Jessi scolded you about – on numerous occasions. It’s what Hoseok, Namjoon, and Seokjin and Jimin have shown you that you can overcome.

Are you in love with Jungkook?

As you watch him bat his pretty eyelashes at you, those large eyes bearing his entire soul and the love and hurt inside, you think that maybe you aren’t in love with him, not right now. But you do love him. And you think, maybe one day, when your heart no longer hurts, you could be in love, too.

So it feels right when you scoot closer to Jungkook and slide your hand against the side of his face to bring your lips to his.

Something flutters in the pit of your stomach, like the fireflies above your head, when Jungkook’s lips move with yours. There’s a push and pull to your movements, a hesitant dance that reminds you of how Jungkook spars. His touches are light yet calculated, showing strength when he holds himself back.

“It’s okay to be happy,” you whisper against Jungkook’s lips when you finally pull away – just barely because you want to cocoon yourself in the warmth of his body.

“You make me happy,” he whispers back.

It takes more kissing, the exchange of air and spit that would normally gross you out but somehow feels good before your brain finally lets go of the negativity you’ve been holding.

Jungkook kisses away your shame and guilt as he squeezes your hips and pulls you into his lap. You settle on his thighs with your legs wrapped around his tiny waist and let him kiss you until you can’t breathe. And just when you feel like you’ll suffocate in the most pleasant way, he begins planting kisses along your jaw.

Your hands find the hair at the back of Jungkook’s head, and you run your fingers through his hair to distract yourself from how your hands are trembling. Your entire body vibrates with a desperate feeling you’ve never had before as Jungkook sucks on the sensitive skin of your throat. The sensation makes you squirm.

“Fuck,” Jungkook groans into the crook of your neck. He sounds pained to you, which makes you panic.

“What? What’s wrong?” You feel like you’re blinking sleep out of your eyes from how dazed you are. Embarrassment creeps along your burning skin; how can you be so out of your mind that you start behaving like this?

Jungkook presses his hands flat against your back, the pads of his fingers massaging your muscles while he lowers his touch, slowly and gently, until his hands find the curve of your ass.

“Jungkook-ah,” you nearly scold him when he squeezes you.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he confesses, encouraging you to grind against his crotch.

It’s only then that you feel his erection in his pants. The knowledge that he’s reacting this way because of you makes the electricity in your veins spike through you even stronger.

“Me either.”

Jungkook finally lifts his head to look at you, and it’s a wonder how he manages to wear innocent doe eyes yet bite his kissed-pink bottom lip in an air of seduction that makes your body tingle.

“I want to be good for you.”

His words do something to you that you’re too scared to address, so you opt for humor when you reply, “Well, I don’t have anything to compare you to.”

With a roll of his eyes, Jungkook brings trembling hands to the side of your jeogori where the strings are tied into a bow to keep the clothing in place.

“Can I take this off?”

“Please.”

Getting naked in front of Jungkook is a lot less terrifying than you thought it would be – not that you’d ever thought of it before! Not like this, at least. The two of you have bathed together, but that’s different. It’s easier to hide in the water, and both of you are respectful enough not to take peeks. So it’s most likely the calming presence Jungkook holds that keeps you relaxed once you kneel naked in front of each other. In the moonlight, you both let your eyes wander each other’s figures, drinking in each other like you want to savor it.

You let Jungkook’s hands wander, experimentally pinching your nipples to draw a moan out of you and tickling your stomach as his touches make their way down your body. He whispers gentle words of encouragement and proclamations of your beauty when you fall back in the grass and open your thighs for him.

“I want to touch you,” Jungkook says into your chest. Your skin glistens from how his tongue explores where his hands just had, but you’re more focused on his fingers ghosting over your hips. “Please?”

“Yes,” you whimper.

You’re both shaking when Jungkook slips his fingers through your folds, his thumb lightly pressing against your clit while his fingers reach your entrance. It’s an odd sensation, but you’re quickly a moaning mess beneath him. Even if the rhythm of his fingers pumping in and out of you isn’t consistent, and he’s touching you almost too lightly as though he’s afraid of hurting you, it still feels good.

“Am I doing okay?”

You can’t help but laugh.

When he gives you a pout, you throw your arm around his shoulders and pull him down to kiss him. He hovers over you, spreading you open further because your thighs press against the outsides of his hips. You both notice when his cock – which you’d nervously ignored until now – brushes against the crease of your thigh.

“Fuck,” Jungkook moans, and it’s the prettiest sound you’ve ever heard. “I want… I wanna, ah, fuck.” If you’d thought Jungkook’s usual flustered state was cute, this is downright deadly.

“Me, too.” You guess what he’s trying to say – are confirmed when he lightly bites your shoulder and ruts against you.

“Are you sure?”

It’s a valid question, and you surprise yourself when you say “yes” without hesitation. But you’ve wanted this for much longer than you can admit. Your desire for Jungkook has grown with every soft late-night cuddle and almost kiss.

Jungkook rolls his hips, gliding his cock between your thighs, the motion wet and slippery. It takes some fumbling before he manages to line himself with your entrance and slowly sink inside you.

Gentle, careful, he whispers that he’ll take care of you even though he has no experience. With each thrust, you promise him that it doesn’t hurt, speak praise into his ear that makes his entire body shiver.

Your legs ache from your unusual position, and your sweat mixes with Jungkook’s in a way that’s honestly disgusting if you think about it. Still, you can’t deny how good the building pressure feels as it seems to start between your thighs and at your clit, slowly spreading like wildfire up your stomach and into somewhere deep inside of you.

The only time you’ve heard anyone talk about sex is Jessi, and it was typically in a negative light. Something about men not knowing where the clit is or how to use their dicks. Jungkook seems like a natural; he’s the golden maknae for a reason. Maybe it’s not mind-blowing, but you’re both starting with nothing to guide you.

Rather than a life-changing orgasm, you’re more interested in how Jungkook looks like he’d give his heart to you, no questions asked. Like he already has.

You’re more interested in how softly he kisses you and holds your leg against his hip and caresses it like you’re something worth treating with care.

You’re more interested in how he moans, “I love you, fuck, I love you so much,” and lets you bite his bottom lip because he knows you aren’t ready to say it back, and he’s okay with that. Because he’ll wait for you for as long as you need him to.

“I’m so sorry,” Jungkook moans against your throat, where he’s sucked blossoms nearly as pretty as the mugunghwa. “But I’m gonna come, like, ahh, fuck, like right, fuck, shit, like right now.”

From Jessi’s complaints, sex is supposed to end with this: Jungkook finding his release against your inner thighs because he has enough sense to pull out, and you’re left on your back, discarded and unsatisfied.

So when Jungkook slides down until your thighs are propped open by his shoulders, you watch in confusion because you thought it was over.

The flick of his tongue against your clit has you lifting off the ground from how sharply you arch your back. You frantically exhale a raspy chant of Jungkook’s name in time with each pump of his fingers he’s managed to slip inside you while you struggle to lie still.

“Let me make you feel good,” he murmurs with shiny lips, and you see stars just from that image alone.

Later, when you’re both sweaty and exhausted, you curl together under the protective barrier of Jungkook’s shadows. He hides you from the world and keeps you safe until morning when you’ll return to the Commune to bring in the First of Summer with a breakfast feast.

But until then, you hold each other with promises of never letting go, forgiveness, and understanding.

“We’re gonna be okay,” Jungkook whispers against your hair.

“You just have to stick with me, right?”

When he laughs, you feel it rumble through his chest. “By your side is the only place I wanna be.”

You fall asleep among the mugunghwa shrubs and fireflies to the sound of Jungkook’s heartbeat.

@rkiveslibrary @mar-lo-pap

@iadelicacy @likecrazy22 @jaemayy @annyeongbitch7

#bts fanfic #bts x reader #jungkook x reader #jungkook fanfic #bts fluff #bts smut #bts angst #jungkook smut #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #gimmethatagustd #what the fire gave us

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hellfire--cult · 1 year ago

Text

Johnny Storm x Fem!Reader

wc: 6.7k+

summary: Johnny grows infatuated with you, something he never thought was going to happen to him, at least for a long while. He liked being single, but then you came along, and all he could think about was you... then you got kidnapped thanks to him, and he felt so guilty for it... but not everything was as it seemed.

warnings: +18 smut, p in v (no protection), roughness, hate fucking, some fluffiness, branding of skin, description of getting burnt, slapping, some violence, porn with plot

a/n: I had this vision that needed to be written cause it would not leave my fucking mind, and this was the only chance i would be able to write something like this. I will clarify, this is my first ever MCU fic, and I do not believe I will write anything else for it, at least not now. If you are from the MCU fandom, and decide to follow me, don't expect more really... i mainly write stranger things, i was just... too haunted with this image...

Anyways, I love Joseph Quinn, so I pictured HIS Johnny Storm for this (yes, he triggered the thots.)

thank u to @andvys and @ghost-proofbaby for proofreading this and helping with my editing cause i never wrote marvel and i needed their opinion, i love both thank u

Enjoy and don't forget to reblog!

BRAND ME

When Johnny Storm saw you for the first time, he thought Cupid fired an arrow his way.

Now, it wasn’t the best of situations of course, he had to save you from a slight altercation regarding some of Doctor Doom’s subjects wreaking havoc in the city and all that, and he saved you by beating up the guy that held you hostage in spirits of saving his ass.

You had thanked him, smiled at him and he may or may have not thought of having you as one of his conquests. He was known for it, you absolutely knew about it, but he couldn’t really help himself when he started talking to you. He first asked to meet up with you privately and you immediately rejected his advances, surprising him, sure, but not stopping him, so you offered to meet up with him for a coffee after work.

Coffee was not something he did often. It was usually drinks, and to be fair, no women really ever said no to him. Sure he messed up a few times, but who hasn’t? Still, sharing a coffee with you didn’t sound like a bad idea. It was different, but different didn’t always mean bad.

So you gave him the address to your building, and at 1 PM sharp on Tuesday, he met up with you right outside of it. You were wearing the typical office attire, skirt to the knees, a nice blouse, a comfortable jacket and he still thought you looked absolutely beautiful. Sitting down at the coffee shop, you two talked, and talked, and he found out so much about you.

You were an only child, and you have been working since you could remember. You lived alone, you liked to cook, and you absolutely disliked pickles. Every small thing he found out about you, he reciprocated with a fact about himself, without giving much away of course.

One coffee date turned into two. Then four. Then, counting didn’t matter anymore.

For a month he has been seeing you, and never once has he made a move on you. It’s not that he didn’t want to… He absolutely wanted to. But you were different. You were completely different from all the flings he had, and he even tried to have one after meeting you and it felt pointless. He didn’t know himself any longer, even Reed got a little worried from all the sneaking around he did, but Johnny couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help it when it came to you.

You were magnificent, a breath of fresh air to be around with. You always greeted him with a smile to your face and he’s never felt more alive when you did. He, of course, had to be careful with you. Not because of trust, but of what might happen to you if you were seen being involved with one of the Fantastic Four. He always picked out private places for the two of you to meet, away from public eyes.

Coffee shops turned into take-out coffees and parks. Talks that happened at your home’s balcony. Him looking for a comforting shoulder after a long day of being a hero. He was always careful in keeping you away from public. In keeping you a secret. In keeping you safe.

But not careful enough.

When you didn’t answer your phone that day, his heart stopped. You always answered. He tried and tried but you just wouldn’t pick up and he became restless. He flew out of the headquarters, not caring for the waves people gave him, with your apartment as his only destination. He felt himself growing cold despite being up in flames, flying, the horrible feeling that something happened to you making him want to puke.

And when he arrived at your home, he froze. Your balcony’s sliding door was open and what he saw inside made his whole world shatter. Your things were all thrown to the floor. Your furniture was destroyed. Your pictures were all broken and shattered. And then, as he put a foot into your apartment, he saw you.

You were breathing heavily as you lay on the floor, facing down, and your hair was all over your face. He rushed towards you, jumping over everything that was on the floor, and immediately dropped to his knees in order to scoop you up in his arms and turn you. He pushed the hair off your face as his heart beat loudly in his chest, only for it to come to a stop as he saw the open wound on your eyebrow and the bruise that was starting to form all around it.

“Crap– fuck!” He felt his world plummeting to the ground as he tried shaking you awake, calling out your name, and he sighed with relief as your eyes slowly opened, only for your face to contort into a wince.

“What…?” He shook his head at you and held onto your form, one arm underneath the back of your knees while the other was wrapped behind your back. He got up on his two feet with ease as he rushed towards the balcony. You made a sound of discomfort as you were moved around, and all he wanted was to keep you safe right now. He needed to take you with him. He cannot leave you alone, not when all of this is probably his fault.

“It’ll be quick, I promise…” He took a deep breath as he controlled his flames temperature, ensuring it would not go towards his arms. Your eyes looked up to meet his, his eyes that were now fiery orbs, looking down at you with sadness displayed on his eyebrows. You whined through the pain again and he immediately leaped out of your balcony.

You could feel the heat off his body, but he made sure to make it as less uncomfortable as he could, but he still knew he had to be quick. He was angry, desperate, and that wasn’t making the flames be any less intense. He knew he was gonna break a rule, but he couldn’t give two shits for the consequences he might face with his family. His sister was going to kill him, but she will understand. They all will have to understand.

He sneaked you in, heading straight to his room, laying you down on his bed. The rage he felt with himself was scorching him from the inside out, so he took the top of his suit as fast as he could and rushed towards the bathroom to get one of his medical kits.

He aided you, cleaned your wound, put the butterfly strip over it, and even gave you medicine for any impending headaches. He checked for other wounds besides the one on your eye, but there was nothing else, at least from the places where your clothes did not cover you.

An hour passed and you were slowly coming back to your senses. You opened your eyes to see him walking back and forth, pacing, worry displayed on his features as he seemed deep in thought. You slowly sat up on the bed, looking around, wincing slightly thanks to the throbbing in your head.

“Johnny?” Your voice was small but it was enough for his head to snap towards you and rush to the bed, sitting on the edge right next to you. His hand came up to caress the side of face, making sure to not touch the bruise on your eye.

“Hey…” His eyes were filled with fear, anger, sadness, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down in his throat as your eyes roamed all over the room.

“Where… am I?” Your eyes found his again and he gulped, thumb caressing your cheek softly.

“My room… I– I couldn’t leave you alone…” Your eyes widened for just a second to then look down at your hands. Your breathing turned heavy as your eyes filled with tears, shaking your head at him.

“I– I thought it was you… I opened the sliding door and– They wanted information–” Your voice was cut off with a sob and Johnny saw how you winced in pain, your hand flying to press onto your temple and he quickly shushed you, scooching closer to you, lifting his hand to grab yours gently and move it away from your face.

“Don’t touch it– I… I seriously thought I was careful in keeping you safe and hidden… I screwed up.” Your eyes met his, seeing the guilt that was flooding inside, knowing he was torturing himself because of it. His lips were downturned, disappointment written all over. You shook your head at him, your hand grasping his.

“I don’t regret a minute of it…” His eyes met yours as you guided your gaze around the room, frowning slightly as your headache seemed to start to drift away. “So this is your room…” “Fantastic Four headquarters… nobody knows I sneaked you in, but I really couldn’t care less. I won’t let you out of my sight, at least until whoever is stalking me is captured.” You turned towards him again, a soft smile on your lips that made his heart combust in its own flames.

“Probably a fan.” Even now you still joked to him, when you were the one hurt. You were too beautiful. Too incredible, even for his own good. He should be careful with his moves, he should let you know how different you are to his other flings… but his body betrayed him as his free hand came towards your cheek, holding it gently, and his lips surged forward, slotting right onto yours.

Your eyes were wide as a surprised gasp fell from your lips, but you reciprocated that kiss, even if a bit hesitant at first. His lips moved with yours as his body started rising in temperature which he was trying to keep at a warm number. He could easily control his temperature but with you, he was finding it hard to do so.

He was happy because you were not pulling away from the kiss. You were moving into it, following his lead, not even stopping it after your tongues started to dance together. He wanted you. He definitely wanted to show you just how special you are but– You were hurt, and he can’t do that to you now… so he pulled away. Your breaths were heavy as you looked at each other and he rubbed your cheek with his thumb.

“I’ll tell everyone tomorrow you’re staying here for a while. You need safety, and I can give that to you… Just stay with me…” He held you so gently, afraid of you running away, or disappearing right before him. You licked your lips as you nodded slowly at him, to which he responded with a satisfied smile. He leaned forward, pecking your lips once more before getting up which alarmed you, getting hold of his hand.

“Where are you going?” Your voice was small and he thought he was going to break listening to it.

“I’m not going anywhere, just going to get you some clothes for you to sleep in, baby.” Your eyes widened at the new petname, but Johnny noticed how you tried to look away from embarrassment, and he found you too cute. He will definitely protect you. He won’t let whoever is looking for him, or his team, hurt you.

But when he fell asleep and cuddled up to you after having some tea with you before bed, he didn’t expect to be awoken in the middle of the night to a ring of his cell phone. He was startled, sitting up on the bed quickly only to realize you were not by his side. He looked around frantically and grabbed his phone from the night table next to his bed. He answered it, getting up from the bed to walk towards his bathroom in hopes of seeing you in there.

“Hello?” And all he heard was heavy breathing on the other side until a raspy, robotic voice talked.

“How does it feel to wake up alone?” And Johnny’s blood drained, evaporated, and he knows you are not in the building. How did it happen? How? There were cameras, security, detectors, how?

“What the fuck did you do to her?” His voice was coming from in between his teeth, like a growl, a hiss, a threat. The other voice only laughed, igniting Johnny’s anger even more than before.

“Come find out. We’re at her old apartment. We have to talk, Johnny, so come alone.” And like that, the line clicked. He was breathing heavily as he looked down at his phone and his hand shook as he grunted, his eyes igniting in yellow as the hand that was holding his phone set aflame, destroying the device before he threw it across the room, making it hit and for the plastic to splash onto the wall.

He ran his hands through his hair, wanting to rip it all out, to burn the whole building down. If he didn’t tell anyone, he might die, but if he does, then you… He couldn’t. He has a chance, even if alone. He has to save you, he can’t let them have you, he can’t let you suffer because of him.

So he stepped out to his balcony, his body engulfed in flames as he leaped into the sky, headed straight to your apartment. He was trying to go as fast as he could, his breathing heavy with anticipation as he swerved through the buildings. He finally got onto your balcony, the sliding doors were open again but when he looked inside, he couldn’t help but feel confused.

He took a few steps in as his flames subdued, and all your furniture was gone. All your pictures, even the cabinets… it was just empty. Empty except for the big windows that were on the side. What happened?

A chuckle coming from one corner startled him. It was the robotic voice that slowly transformed into a female one. A voice he knew too well. A voice that never chuckled in that manner, always be it a giggle, or a little scoff, but never… this. He turned to face it, and his eyes widened as the figure stepped into the small bit of light that came through the windows thanks to the night sky.

“Aren’t you a little naive Johnny?”

And there, in front of him, was you. Face hard, wearing a simple cocktail black dress, some black heels… nothing like what you normally wear. You didn’t look dizzy because of your bruise, the butterfly strip he applied to you hours ago was still there. It was you… but at the same time, it wasn’t.

“W-What…?” He stuttered, not feeling the tips of his fingers as he looked at how you slowly walked towards him, throwing a device to the ground, a voice-changing device.

“I really didn’t think you would take me to your headquarters. Not this quickly at least.” You sighed, looking out the window as you kept talking. “I had a whole large plan for it, but you just had to make it THAT easy.”

You finished with a giggle, the giggle that he knew too well. The giggle you directed to him many times when he told you stories about Sue and him. Stories about how he made a fool out of himself on a few dates. The giggle that he liked so much… all for it to be a fucking lie. You–

“You lied to me… You–” He felt his heart twist as your eyes turned to meet his once more. He really isn’t lucky, isn’t he? The first time he feels something genuine and he gets stepped on by the universe. You took a step towards him as you put your hands behind your back.

“Not all the time. I can promise that, but my boss will be glad to hear I got into the headquarters in such a short period of time…” Your eyes studied his face, seeing how his features turned from shock to anger, slowly, making a wicked grin appear on your face. “Aw… are you mad?”

“What the fuck do you think?” His voice turned low, and it almost made you freeze in your place, but you kept talking, your head high.

“You look cute when mad. I wish I could take a picture right now–”

“Stop–”

“I would hang it up, frame it… Name it ‘My best show yet’.” Johnny felt his body start to burn, and he had to try to keep the flames from igniting out of his suit, but each word you spat out, made it more and more difficult for him to hold himself back.

“I said stop–”

“I just didn’t think it would be this quick. Who would've thought that Johnny Storm would be so desperate for actual love? So much, he throws himself head first like an idiot–”

A hand came to grab the back of your head, fingers gripping onto your scalp, grabbing your hair, and yanking your head backwards with no restraint, no care. And suddenly your eyes were looking at the Human Torch. His eyes were yellow flames, his face, his hair, his body, everything was on fire and it was burning you. He was baring his teeth at you, your face illuminated by his flames, and you noticed the hand holding the back of your head was not lit.

“I could kill you right now. I could easily burn you to a crisp for no one to find your body.” You trembled under his grasp, and your breathing turned a little heavy as you stared into his flaming eyes.

“But you won’t…” Your reply was soft, making the flames go down, making you breathe out in relief, feeling the cool air again on your body and face. He was still glaring, his nose slightly scrunched up in anger, in disgust. “Approaching you romantically was never the intention.”

That made him tilt his head at you, his eyebrow twitching at the mention of romance. Of how he was so close to having it but–

“Why tell me this? Why not keep the fucking act until you have more?” And you didn’t answer him, still under his grasp as you looked up at him. He couldn’t describe what he saw in your eyes, but he knew that it wasn’t hatred. He knew that there was a feeling that you shouldn’t be experiencing but you couldn’t help it.

So you stayed silent, swallowing as you kept your eyes on him. You saw him tremble slightly and he raised his free hand, making your gaze turn to it as the flames enveloped it all, to the tip of his fingers. It wasn’t a massive flame, more like embers, small, yet damaging.

You felt anything but scared of him, and he knows it, yet his anger fuels him in ways he cannot describe, and he wants to show you. He wants to show you just how fucking angry, enraged, he is. He wants to hurt you, burn you, engrave himself deep on your skin and in your mind.

“Say you don’t want this.” He needs to know if he connected the dots right. Why tell him? Why tell him who you truly were? Why not keep faking it to get more out of him? Did you take whatever you needed in the short period he kept you there? Those few little hours…

You remained silent, looking into his eyes as you struggled in his grasp slightly. Your right hand flew to the wrist holding the back of your head, which only made him pull on your hair once more, making you wince. It was another warning, another chance for you to push him away.

But you didn’t.

His right hand lifted up to reveal that it was slowly being covered in small embers, not yet flames, and he pressed it on your back. Your eyes widened when you felt heat engulf your back, the scent of burning fabric filling your nostrils. You winced when the burning turned a bit painful, his eyes not leaving your face.

He was still scowling at you, his eyes traveling to your exposed neck as his hand kept moving on your back, making small holes in it, the embers spreading slightly. He knew he was burning you, but it doesn’t compare to what you did to him. You will heal from these superficial burns.

You wanted to tell him to hurry up, but you knew that you weren’t the one with control right now, so you had to be careful with your words. You yelped when his hand started moving to your front, leaving embers fluttering over the black satin. It was burning easily, the material too thin, too flimsy.

His eyes caught onto yours once more. You were breathing heavily, waiting for his next move. He clenched his jaw as the memories of those picnics filled his head. Those movie nights. Those nights when you told him about your family. You showed him those pictures that were on your wall that you probably faked. Those pictures were all fake.

His fist grabbed onto the front of your dress and pulled on it as he grunted from the force. Your dress ripped easily away from your body thanks to the holes that were burned on your back and side. Your body will probably have scarring, burnt marks, or red spots, but you couldn’t help the excitement in your body when he held your torn dress in his hand.

His eyes turned to it for a second and then back at you. You saw how they glowed in a deep yellow and his hand engulfed into flames, your dress catching on fire and burning into ashes in three seconds. His eyes returned to their natural color as his hand dropped, and then he could finally take a look at your half-naked form.

You took the opportunity of his distraction to push him away, making him rip his hand off your hair, looking at you with surprise and anger. You were breathing heavily in just your bra and thong, a matching black set, looking at him, the anger in you also coming out to light after how he treated you.

Anger, but no hatred. Not from your side… nor his.

So you took a sharp intake of breath as you lunged forward, wrapping your arms around his shoulders as you slammed your lips against his, connecting your chest to his. He groaned at the kiss, his arms immediately wrapping around your frame, his lips moving against yours instantly, like a starved man. Weeks of wanting this with you, dreaming of having you, but he never thought it would be like this.

You bit his bottom lip, yanking a bit on it with your teeth, provoking a protest on his part but you silenced it by sliding your tongue into his mouth. You moaned in satisfaction as his right hand slid downwards, grabbing onto your ass cheek and squeezing tight. You responded by raising your leg up, thigh against his hip, while his hand moved, leaving your behind to graze your thigh, gripping it tightly to hold you in place.

His hips pressed against your core, earning him a moan from you. You felt his buckle against your clothed cunt as well as his hardness as he rutted himself on you, moaning into your mouth. One of your hands went towards his hair, running your fingers through it and then you gripped tightly, pulling his head backwards and away from the kiss. He hissed at the action, his eyes connecting with your defiant ones.

“Doesn’t feel good, does it?” Your voice came out through your teeth, a taunt. He gave a tilt of his head as if asking if you were really defying him right now. You could almost see the smoke coming out of his nostrils as he huffed in anger, his hands flying to the back of your thighs, pushing you upwards with his strength, making you yelp slightly at the sudden movement.

Your legs instantly wrapped around his waist so you wouldn’t fall, but then your back was slammed against the window, with such force that you were amused by how strong the glass was. You whimpered at the coldness against your naked back and ass, eyes glaring back at him.

“You think you have the right to talk back to me right now?” One of his hands left your thigh so it could get between the two of you. His lips reconnected to yours before you could even reply back to him, and you heard how he started undoing his buckle, that ‘F4’ shaped stupid belt he had.

You felt him move underneath you and you heard the rustling of clothes and then something pressing against your wet thong, making you whimper into the kiss. You pulled away to look down in between the two of you, and he had pulled his pants and underwear mid-thighs, enough to let his cock free, which was now pressing against you.

He got hold of the elastic of your thong, pinching it between his thumb and index finger, pulling it away from your body. You then saw a tiny and quick flame set fire and it quickly snapped the elastic apart, making your thong drop from your cunt, left to dangle thanks to the scraps still holding onto your other thigh.

You were exposed to him now, and then he pressed himself against your aching clit, rutting his hips against yours, causing a beautiful friction that left you moaning, throwing your head back, thumping against the glass.

He groaned as he looked at your exposed neck, moving forward so he could bite on the side of it, making you wince as your clit kept being hit with the ridge of his dick. It was hot. Literally hot. Not even warm temperature, it was burning and you wondered how that would feel inside of you.

He was coating his cock with your wetness, and he couldn’t be bothered with foreplay, he didn’t care for it, and you didn’t either, not that you needed it. You’ve been wet the moment he gripped your hair. So he pulled his hips back, letting the tip of his cock kiss your clit for a brief second before it caught on your entrance.

A voiceless moan got caught on your throat, where his teeth still remained, as he slowly pushed inside and– it was a perfect burn and stretch. He was perfect as he seethed himself inside, your walls fluttering in need around him as his mouth unlatched from your throat in order to look at how your face contorted at each inch of him.

“Good. That shut you up.” He held back the groans as he watched how your eyes were wide, looking in between the two of you now, seeing how his cock was disappearing inside of you. He wanted to hate you. He wished he could. It wasn’t fair that even now all he could think about was you, even if it wasn’t like before.

He cracked his neck as he felt his control slipping away, afraid of letting his flames burst out without his intention. He slammed his hand on the glass, right next to your head, as his left one gripped your thigh tightly and he struck his hips forward, bottoming out inside of you in one forceful thrust.

You gasped as your eyes met his. He was deliciously deep. There was a little bit of discomfort due to not having any prep but it was worth it. He was breathing heavily as he looked at you and your eyes danced with his in uncertainty, in rage, in sadness, in confusion. He was letting you adjust, or maybe he was just catching his breath, either way, you didn’t think you deserved it.

“You’re gonna cum already Johnny boy?” He gave you a glare, which only made you smirk at him. You didn’t deserve the kindness, at least not from him. He started pulling out of you, only to roughly slam back in, causing you to choke on your own moan. You felt it in your throat almost. And then, he set the bruising pace. No mercy, slamming into you like a wild man.

The glass behind you shook, the metal hinges making loud sounds as he kept smashing his hips against yours over and over again, not leaving a single second for conscious thought, not leaving a single second for even a memory to slip through the both of you. All he wanted was to pour his anger out, all he needed was to show you how you made him feel then and how you made him feel now.

The sound of skin slapping echoed through the now empty apartment, an apartment where he spent a few nights with your company. He growled at the memory, his hips picking up a pace as your moans raised in pitch, your fingers digging into his shoulders, scratching on him while your eyes filled with tears. Was it pleasure? He didn’t know.

“Not acting so smartass now, huh?” You choked out a moan as you tried to speak but he was piercing you right where you needed. Your g-spot was being abused at each sharp thrust of his. Punch. Punch. Punch.

You felt your body heating up, more than any other time you slept with someone, feeling as if you were sweating more than you should and you knew it was him. You knew he was raising the temperature of his body, including the one in the entire room. Your forehead was sweaty, your neck, your chest that was still covered in your bra that you now need to rip off because it was just too fucking hot.

You lowered a hand and pressed it against the glass, right next to you, and you grunted as you pushed against it, forcing him to stumble backwards. He fell to the ground, holding onto you, his back hitting the floor, his dick never slipping out of you as you landed on him, which caused you to choke.

You were breathing heavily as you looked down at him, who only winced slightly at the sudden hit on his ass and back. Your hands were now on his chest, still covered with his suit. You stared at the number 4 logo, glaring at it, and then your eyes found his. He was looking at you now with furrowed brows, sad instead of angry ones.

You didn’t deserve those.

Your hands went towards your back, unclasping your bra off and ripping it off your body. A sigh of relief escapes you as the air hits the sweat that’s on your tits. Your hips started circling against him, slowly, and he threw his head back as his hands gripped your hips, his digits digging into your skin.

Your belly coiled as you started rising yourself up and then slam back down again, knees pressing against the hard floor, knowing you will be bruised tomorrow, but you could give two shits about that right now. His hands traveled upwards, grabbing onto your breasts and everywhere he touched just left a lingering feeling of warmth, of burning.

You threw your head back as his fingers pinched your nipples, making your belly coil as you slammed yourself down again and circled your hips against him, making the tip of his cock rub against your g-spot repeatedly. He moaned your name in pleasure, the first time he did during the night and you looked down at him.

“You sure that’s my name?” And his eyes clashed with yours in new found anger, sitting up as his left hand gripped your waist, while the rest remained on your hip. His face came close to yours as his words became venomous.

“I wonder how many names you had to come up with. With how many you had to whore yourself to in order to get information for your boss. Whoever that might be.” And him calling you a slut was not something you expected. You didn’t want him to think that. You became angry. Not at him, but yet, you had to direct it towards someone.

So you slapped him.

His head was turned with wide eyes and you had to pretend you weren’t shocked at your own actions. You looked at your hand and then back at him, opening your mouth to say something but as he slowly turned to face you again, you knew you had fucked up. You saved yourself by talking once more.

“I didn’t jump your bones. You jumped mine, back in your room. Who’s the actual whore here, Johnny?” And you let him have the small memory of that innocent kiss he gave you. Of that kiss that made him so happy you had reciprocated, only for that memory to be shattered, tainted. His glare turned murderous as he looked at you.

You started feeling the areas he was grabbing you at become hotter and hotter. Your breathing became heavy in nervousness as your head turned to look at his hands which were becoming redder by the second. He laid back down and pushed his hips up, making you raise yourself a bit on your knees and before you could say something, he started slamming himself inside of you once more.

Your mind became mush in an instant, your moans choking up your voice as he hit your insides over and over again, the slapping of skin loud and quick. Your belly started turning, the elastic band about to snap as your hands dug into his chest. And then, you screamed as pain took you out of your pleasure palace.

The smell of burning filled the room, very slightly, faint, but still there. You looked down at where he was holding you, and his hands were now almost as red bright as metal against fire. He didn’t stop his pounding either, growling as he looked at you with his yellow irises, filled with flames.

“This is your reminder of who you betrayed. For you to remember me.”

Tears fell down your cheeks as you felt the pain of your skin being burnt, of being branded by him, and then your climax hit you out of nowhere. You choked out a whimper, a cry of his name as your walls tightened around him, pulsating. His balls tightened with the need for his own release, and he cooled his hands once more but kept them in place on your body.

He groaned loudly at your tightness and he looked at how tears fell down your face as well as the drool that had pooled in the corner of your mouth. He cursed under his breath and slammed his hips upwards one more time, completely seething himself inside as his cum filled your insides and you felt the heat of it. You could feel it.

He was breathing heavily as he lowered his hips, his hands keeping you in place so you wouldn’t lower on him. He hissed as he pulled out of you, his cum already dripping down from your hole, falling on the red tip of his cock. Your eyes looked down at his hands as they slowly parted from your skin, a squelching sound following after.

You were bleeding in some places, layers of your skin successfully burnt with his handprints. They were hurting you, they were very painful, and you… you couldn’t be mad at him for them. Your eyes connected to his as he lay there looking at his own hands, trembling at the sight.

Pieces of your burnt skin were stuck to his hands, on his palms. He lost control. He didn’t want to hurt you like this. You saw the guilt that displayed on his face and you raised your hand, wanting to touch him and tell him–

“Shit…” You winced before you could say anything else. He snapped out of his thoughts and sat up, pushing you to sit on the floor next to him. Without another word, he got up and you looked as he pulled his pants back up and buckled his belt once more.

“I guess we’ll see each other again now that you’ve entered the headquarters.” He was asleep while you were there. He was sure you took something, and it was just a matter of time for you to strike the building or him. He walked towards the sliding doors, and you moved on your place, wanting to go after him, but the sharp pain of the burns made you stay put.

“Johnny… wait.” Your voice was choked, but he turned around to face you again. You felt the room becoming cooler, and you didn’t want it to be that temperature… but it had to do for now. “My name… I didn’t lie about my name.”

His eyebrow twitched in confusion at that. Should he believe you? Should he trust you on that one? He didn’t know, he didn’t want to find out, he didn’t want to see you again, but he knew that one was inevitable. He turned away from you and you saw how his whole body turned into flames and flew out of the balcony, leaving you bruised, branded and alone.

In an empty, cold, room.

“It’s been a while since your last report, Chameleon.”

The stupid nickname your boss gave you. You had the ability to infiltrate through people without being spotted. It wasn’t a superpower, just good hiding.

“Got a little bit busy Boss.” Your voice was flat as you looked at how the man turned to look at you. So many people are afraid of this man, but there was something about Doctor Doom that just made you want to laugh.

“I hope that ‘bit busy’ was to get the information we need.” His voice was threatening, menacing as he looked at you through the screen. You gave him a sharp nod.

“Yes, I was planning my next encounter with Storm.” At your report, he gave a small nod of approval. You felt your bandages becoming sticky underneath your oversized sweater. It was about time to change them again, so you had to make this a quick call.

“I see. So, you still didn’t get into the headquarters then?” And you wanted to smile at his question. You wanted to show him how fucked he was, but you held yourself back because you had another plan in action, one that doesn’t include a boss.

“No sir. I require more time to create a bond with him.” He gave a small nod as his sharp tone filled the speakers.

“Get it done.” And the call ended abruptly.

You stared at the black screen, a smile appearing on your face as you slowly got up from the couch, walking towards the windows that were all blacked out. You pressed a button that was on the side and the windows returned to be transparent, showing the city lights in the night.

But what caught your attention was the orange gleam that was far away, still, floating, as if looking your way. You knew it was him. He has been waiting for you to turn the windows transparent once again. You had blacked out the apartment from his view for a whole week. You had refurbished it again, even hung up a real picture this time, the only one in the room.

One of you and him. One that you took at a picnic you had planned for the both of you. One that wasn’t part of the plan. Like the theater. Like the nights spent in this fake apartment. Like the drinks spent on a terrace. But he didn’t know that.

And then you saw him fly away, making your heart plummet to the floor. You winced as you turned to walk towards your kitchen, ready to take care of your wounds. Of his markings. Of his handprints that will permanently stay on your skin.

It was funny. First, you betrayed Johnny, and now you are betraying your boss, someone who might rip you apart the moment he finds out you’ve been lying. Yet, you are more scared of losing the only fire that made you feel alive after a long while.

You’ll keep that flame alive. You have to.

You’ll make sure it does.

end

a/n: um, yeah, the thot was the burning of clothes, like, how was i supposed to do that one with just like, a normal person with no superpowers... with a lighter? not sexy enough.

also, handprints.

ta-ta

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