heleninhha

[heleninhha]

"exercise will give you more energy" gets said a lot as a common piece of health advice but I think it needs to be expanded into "exercising will make you tired while you do it, and you will continue to be tired immediately afterwards, sometimes even the next day too, but over months of consistent exercise, your muscles will get stronger and therefore get less tired out by everyday activities, making you feel like day-to-day life takes less physical energy than it used to"

[heleninhha]

nothing, and i mean NOTHING, compares to joining a new fandom and reading through all the ____ x reader tags. it’s akin to opening gifts on christmas or recieving a package in the mail. actually, scratch that; it’s th equivalent of ascending to the heavens

[heleninhha]

The Shadow Ballet:

Series Masterlist

Summary: Sometimes shadows tend to dance too close to the light and get found, especially when they are from the past. This is the case of Y/n Belvie, one of the marked ones and the new Cadet arriving along Sloane and Aaric in Violet’s second year. From what is known, this girl is Imogen’s foster sister, deadly, elegant, and beautiful. Word says she used to dance for the Royal Ballet Comitee, so why did her name cause so much tension when her name was brought up in a conversation with Xaden? Why did his eyes flash in hurt, longing, and regret?

A Ballerina at War

A Drop of Nostalgia

A Broken Music Box

An Aretia Grand Jeté

A Revealing Perfomance

A Dance of Love

The Tale of Three Aching Hearts

My Soul only Breathes for You

His Ballerina

The promise of Tomorrow

Author’s note: This one is one of the shorter ones , mainly cause it’s one of the last ones I wrote of the bunch and I wanted something short and nice. It will only have 10 chapters. <3

[heleninhha]

𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐀𝐊 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐒 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒

𝐗𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐑𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐱 𝐅! 𝐌𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢! 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐝 - 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐮𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 (6/23/25)

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐰𝐨

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐬𝐢𝐱

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐞

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐞𝐧

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧

𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐗

.........

𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

........

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬:

@luvly-writer @blueeclipsepaperstudent @honethatty12 @poeticbookwormcat @cheappremingerfromdelululand @eep500 @littlepippilongstocking @86laura11 @lxnvmvrzx @what-will-be-your-verse @sheblogs @fangirling-galore @callsigns-haze @side-angel @faeofthemoonandstars @jesschalamet @abysshaven @bisexualbitchsgotass @books-hlmc @r0sluvs @galaxystern08 @bwormie @littleemissperfecttt @lagrandeourse @steph-fowlie @casiiopea2 @nisarelle @matrixmoxi @eepyfaerie @thegirlwiththepurpleshelves @smileysunshinesworld @brieflyclassymortal @noonenuts @nikfigueiredo

[heleninhha]

Home

Synopsis: Waking up in the middle of the night to you missing, Xaden finds more home than he could imagine in his own kitchen.

Tags: Fluff, domestic life, Xaden X Reader, Tyrrendor Week Day 2/3

WC: 2.5K

Thank you so much @empyreanevents for putting this week together :)

Waking up to echoes of clanging from deep in the Riorson house was not new for Xaden. Patrols happened at all hours, and the middle of the night was no exception. Despite the initial annoyance of a disturbed sleep, the noises were almost comforting, a reminder that he wasn’t alone in the huge house, an announcement that everyone had made it back from their flights safely.

Reaching over to pull you closer to him and finding your side of the bed empty and cold, however, was anything but. He shot up out of bed, eyes immediately adjusting to the dark and his need to scan the entire area. Your side of the bed had the covers laid down flat, no sign of a struggle out of them, which allowed a little bit of oxygen back into his lungs. Your flight jacket remained as it always did when not in use, hung up on a hook you installed while he was gone one day, a permanent addition of you into his house that, on a normal night not taken over by panic, would bring a smile to his face. Still analyzing, he found your boots lined up neatly next to where he had kicked his off after hours of meetings that day, worn down soles knocking into your smaller ones next to the door he was now up and moving toward. 

As his hand hit the handle, his gaze met the desk you had been occupying for hours at a time recently, also empty. Not just of you, but of all of the books that had been making themselves home on the surface all week and his own flight jacket that he had tossed onto the back of the chair. 

He opens the door, his shadows darting out and through the house before he does. They spread out, checking every possible area as Xaden looked for anything out of the ordinary. The top floor was pitch black, and each of the rooms were silent. He crept towards the stairs, eyes sweeping for any movement his shadows weren’t catching, and then he heard it. 

A yelp sounded from the kitchen, one that he could know from miles away to be yours, followed by an avalanche of clattering.

His own footsteps joined the horrific orchestra as he thundered down the steps to reach you. His heart beat louder with each one, roar in his ears from the panic drowning out any other sounds as he approached. He slid around the corner into the arch of the room, grabbing the stone wall to stop him before fully entering at what he saw. 

It was a warzone in there, but, thankfully, not the kind on the borders that he had anticipated with the panic in your previous yelp. All of the counters were covered in something, not a single ounce of space unoccupied. 

On the island, piles of flour surrounded different consistencies of dough in varying sizes and colors. A lumpy tan one was neighbors with a wheat like powder and a concerningly dry rock of mixture. Further down, the dough sections became smoother, but their colors began to vary, some more yellow and others…green? He noticed flecks in some and while others wore the color throughout the entire mound, all united in how they were rolled into palm shaped spheres.

Inside the fire pit alcove in the wall had a large stone pot.  He could hear sizzling from inside, hinting at more solid contents than the typical liquid the pot suggested. Flames danced up the side of the high gray walls and smoke hugged the space around it, yet not escaping the inside of the space, causing his head to tilt to the side and eyebrows to furrow in confusion at how. 

Looking at the pot closer, he could see looped etchings in the stone. Swirls of interlaced divots ran diagonally across it in connected, scratched knots. They were jagged and shallow at best, obviously etched by a novice, but still clear in their nature–old Tyrrish cooking runes he hadn’t seen since childhood. His eyes widened in surprise, looking above to see their inked form on paper taped above the alcove, edges jagged and ripped from the journal he had seen you hurriedly writing in all week. Beside them were more pages plastered to the next, all with the light penciling of your handwriting but too far to make out the words.

On the counter next to this lay more bowls than he knew the Riorson house even held, all filled with differing vegetables cut in different ways. Sweet potatoes were cut into discs in a clay pot adorning damp fingerprints against the red siding in the same spacings of your hands. In shallower bowls were a variety of different green herbs that he had seen with the dough, some fully powdered in black stone dishes and some with its individual leaves separated from thin stems in wooden saucers. Next to them, all uncut except for the darkest of the bunch, was probably every pepper ever grown on The Continent, he thought.

Beneath them, on the floor, is where Xaden finally found you. His flight jacket swallowed your form, its black leather covered in a light dusting of white on the sleeves. Your hair had been hastily managed, pushed back from your face but with pieces frizzing in every direction in the back. Sweat stuck the edges to the sides of your face and matted slightly with chunks of the green dough. One of your hands, dripping with water, was pressed up against a closed eye while the other was picking small round seeds off from where they had been stuck on your cheek. 

He kneels down on the floor next to you, dusting more flour off your forehead and smiling as your uncovered eye flickered over to him in surprise

“Why aren’t you asleep?” You ask, removing your hand from your eye and blinking a few times. It was red and irritated, but you could thankfully see fine now. 

“Heard some noise down here and you weren’t in bed. Had to make sure you were alright,” He brushed more hair from your face, getting a better look at you, “Why are you in the kitchen floor?”

You look away sheepishly, picking up the end of a pepper and a discarded knife that had clattered to the floor as you had. “I got pepper in my eye.”

He took the knife from your hands and stood to set it on the counter, pushed back out of reach. Taking your hand in his, he gently pulls you from the floor and rubs his hand down the side of your arm. 

“Why are you even anywhere near peppers right now? What are you doing down here?”

You drop your head in defeat, playing with your own fingers nervously. “It was supposed to be a surprise, but looks like I couldn’t get that right either.”

He takes your hands in his, stopping your fidgeting and getting you to look up at him. Slight concern covered his features, furrowing his brows and tightening his lips into a small frown. 

“What’re you talking about, love?”

You sigh, stepping back but keeping your hands in his to lead him around the kitchen as you talk. You start at the stove, gesturing to the pages. 

“You kept saying how it felt weird to be back here with things so different, so I wanted to try to do something that made it feel like it did back then.”

Finally close enough to see, he read all of the notes on the papers.

Each one held Tyrrish written in your own handwriting with rough translations underneath, copied from a recipe and then attempted to be put in words you understood. There were question marks taking up more spaces than words, whole words crossed out and rewritten on top of. Beside a few, he noticed familiar names, including his own.

“None of the recipes I found said what kind of pepper it was, just that there were peppers in it. And I’m not even sure if that is even true”

Looking down at the variety on the counter, he glanced back at the recipes above him. 

Imogen said spice here meant like seasoning, but down here it means like heat? Like peppers? She didn’t know what kind. Can’t believe I took her patrol shift for this. 

Stepping toward the dough, you look at the different pieces in disgust, picking the most promising candidate up in your free hand and holding it to Xaden like a science specimen. 

“Does this even look right? I remember you saying it was an herb dough, and I figured out that part, but nothing explains how the herb was in the dough.”

Confirmed with Bodhi and a few other readings that the herb is definitely basil, but he still didn’t know what “in the dough” meant? Is it like sprinkled on top? Chopped up in it? Or is it like, mainly herb and no flour? That can’t possibly be right. What about old recipes make them the perfect candidate for gatekeeping. 

Approaching the pot is when you sigh the loudest, breath making the smoke inside the alcove sway as it billows up. 

“And I ruined this pot with runes that only work half right. I’m sorry.”

He pulls you to him tightly, wrapping his arms fully around you and pressing your head into his chest as he reads the final note, heart warming up more than the fire in front of him. 

Xaden said the meat was his favorite part when he mentioned the dish in the dining hall last fall. Lamb for sure, and definitely smoked based off of all of the other customary preparations in everything else I’ve read. There’s no smokers around anywhere, but something about a rune? To add the smokey flavor? Guess I’ll have to man up and ask Cat to teach me the rune. FML, but it’s his favorite part and he’s my favorite, so Regina George it is

“It’s perfect,” he whispers softly into your hair. 

You pull back slightly to look up at him, scoffing slightly. “Don’t humor me. I didn’t even get halfway through the dish. There is no dish to be perfect. I couldn’t figure out what even goes in it, let alone how to–”

He dips down and slams his mouth on yours, shutting you up. He presses at the base of your back, melding you to him as he does, and cradling the back of your head softly despite the intensity of the kiss. You grab the sides of his waist for balance as he leans you back, deepening it before pulling back, smile evident in every part of his face. 

“It’s perfect,” He steals another kiss, brushing hair behind your ear and rubbing his thumb against your cheek. “You’re perfect.”

Your face heats up, blushing as you shove him playfully. He grabs your hand as you do, tugging you back to the island. 

“It means folded in.”

“What?”

He turns and grabs the bowl of basil leaves that have been chopped and a chunk of dough from the original mixture. Clearing an area from the cluttered space, he sets the two down and stands behind you. 

“The basil is folded into the dough.”

He grabs your arms from behind, leaning his chest in to your back and resting his chin on your shoulder as he guides your hand to the dough. He flattens it out into a rectangle, sprinkling the basil onto the layer before folding it into stacking layers. His voice rumbles through you as he speaks, soft tone making its home in your ears.

“The balling comes right before it's cooked.” He turns you to look at the spheres you had scattered all down the line. 

“Tyrrish recipes, especially ones originating in Aretia, explain preparation ingredient by ingredient instead of chronologically to help prevent waste of leftover parts,” He explains, one hand drifting from your arm to wrap around you and squeeze lightly as he presses a reassuring kiss to your temple. “That’s why you were having so much trouble figuring out what goes where. Recipes were more of a shopping list, in a way, while the making part was more of an oral process.”

Rotating in his grip again, you see him smiling faintly at the mess of a kitchen. His eyes were calm, nostalgic as they scanned the familiar bowls and ingredients interwoven with all things you. Your slippers were discarded next to the wooden trim of the kitchen where he had traced his fingers against the grooves impatiently waiting for dinner growing up. Next to the knives was your favorite pencil, one you had made him grab for you many times from the bottom of the bag that sat in his favorite stool by the breakfast nook.

And then you. In his arms, in his kitchen, smiling at him in a place where many had yelled. Filling a space that was frequently empty in later years, fending for himself as adults were busier and busier with plans and consequences. Here you were, decoding languages you didn’t understand and going out of your way to try everything to make a dish he mentioned once just to make him happy. Just for him. 

You press your lips to his, breaking him out of his thoughts. 

“Well then what’s the rest of the process? Tell me more, Chef.”

Xaden leads you around the kitchen as he explains each step of the dish, not breaking contact with you the whole time. Arm around your waist as he explains how you figure out which pepper to use when, hands jokingly covering your eyes as he cuts them, legs slotted between yours when he sits you down on the stool next to the alcove as you wait for the dish to finish cooking. 

He takes one out, blowing on it to cool before offering it to you. You take it from him, pulling it apart to observe the inside. You smile excitedly when you see the dough has cooked perfectly, holding the meat, peppers, and sweet potatoes roasted nicely inside. 

“It looks delicious,” You turn it out to face him, “Does it look right? Like you remember?”

He stares. His flight jacket has slid down your shoulder to expose one of his thread worn shirts you love to wear to sleep beneath it. Your eyes shine up at him, twinkling with the wave of the fire next to you. Your legs cage one of his to keep him close, and you hold the food, one he has been wanting again for years, out for him to have a bite first, always putting him first. 

“Yeah,” he says, looking right into your eyes. 

“Looks just like home.”

[heleninhha]

You know that your boyfriend Clark is Superman but he doesn’t know that you know, naturally you pretend to have a crush on everyone in the justice gang to annoy him into confessing. Based on this.

“The way I see it when you’re in a relationship you can browse the menu as long as you don’t order” you hand him a coffee. “Like yes you’re my boyfriend but that doesn’t mean I go blind and suddenly stop finding Tom Hardy attractive.”

Clark pouts “so that’s why you wanted to watch that movie with me?”

“Guilty as charged” you shrug “but you have no room to talk, what about Natalie Portman?”

“What about her?”

“You switch the channel whenever the commercials come on, unless it’s that Miss Dior ad.”

He flushes, perfectly falling into your trap. “Anyway even if I could switch off my attraction to celebrities I couldn’t possibly stop having a little crush on a certain superhero. I mean gosh, who doesn’t?”

He looked pleased then, ears perking up “well I guess I can’t blame you for that one” he says puffing up his chest subtly “even I can admit Superman is pretty darn attractive.”

“Superman?” You ask with perfectly acted innocent confusion “oh no he’s not my type…little bit dorky don’t you think? I mean underwear over the trousers? C’mon”

“Well I think it looks cool.”

“Eh. If that’s what you’re into I guess…no I was talking about Mr Terrific I mean gosh he’s just so…Terrific isn’t he?”

“Mr…Mr Terrific? You have a crush on Mr Terrific?”

“Yep” you popped the p “I mean he’s soooo smart and tall isn’t he? A real dreamboat.”

Clark sulked for the rest of the night and you mentally gave yourself a point.

_______

“Did you see superman found that little girls missing cat?” Clark asked suddenly. Real subtle you thought, considering that your boyfriend knew of your love of cats.

“Mmm pretty sweet of him.”

“Makes him rank above Mr Terrific don’t ya think?” He asks.

You laugh “are you still hung up on that? I think I’ve gotten over my Mr Terrific obsession now. A new super powered guy has captured my heart.”

He sighs with relief “well Superman has a knack for that doesn’t he-“

“Superman? I meant Guy Gardner, he’s just so dreamy don’t ya think?”

Clark squishes the can in his hand so hard a spurt of soda bursts out “Guy Gardner?” He repeats his voice squeaking a little “green lantern dude with a bowl cut?”

“Yeah that’s him” you pretend to sigh dreamily “I mean on anyone else that haircut would be horrible but he pulls it off you know?”

“I…I heard he’s really arrogant!”

“Yeah, kinda hot not going to lie. That dude can Green my lanterns any day if you know what I mean.”

“Get therapy” Clark mutters huffily and you laugh and peck his cheek “you’re still my number one.”

~~~~~~

“Ive been having a bit of a crisis” you sigh.

“Oh?” Clark instantly comes to sit beside you squeezing your hand gently “baby what is it?”

“You promise you won’t look at me differently?”

“Never, you know that, you can trust me.”

“Well I think I might be bisexual.”

He blinks “really? Well that’s great honey. It’s nice to see you exploring and accepting parts of yourself. How’d that come about?”

“It’s just Hawkgirl” you sigh “she’s just so…I mean you’ve seen her Clark isn’t she hot as hell?”

Clark pauses and it takes everything in you not to burst out laughing right then and there. God he was just so easy…one more push and you think he’d reveal his secret to you right then and there.

“Hawkgirl?” He asks voice low and deadpan “the woman who flies around screeching? She triggered your bisexual awakening?”

You nod sagely “yes I think I must be into assertive women or something.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose “and superman?”

“What about him?”

“Well you’ve worked your way through the justice gang…he’s like an honorary member of them…do you think you’ll start to like him next?”

You pretend to think about it “nahhhh, he’s just not my type really.”

“Why not?”

You shrug knowing that not giving him a specific answer will drive him even more crazy. “I dunno, he’s just not for me I guess.”

Clark’s eye twitches. “You know baby maybe you should interrogate why you’re so obsessed with me having a crush on superman. Look inwards like I did, maybe you’ll discover something about yourself, maybe you’re in love with him.”

The look on Clark’s face had you laughing so hard internally it caused a coughing fit. One day, you thought, he’ll admit it one day soon.

[heleninhha]

kneady

Pairing: Azriel x baker!reader 

Word count: 4.1k

Contains: explicit sexual content, unprotected p in v (but Azriel is on contraceptive tonic because yes males can take it too), flour (nothing weird don’t worry), light shadowplay, choking, light size kink, fingering, finger sucking, creampie, light cumplay

a/n: I haven’t written anything since last September so I’m sorry if this is shoddy 😭😭 I literally only have 2 sentence structures 😔 plz dont laugh at me

Soft hues of golden light washed over Velaris in the early morning, the reflections sparkling off the Sidra. The city was still waking up, and Azriel’s boots hit the stones of the road as he walked to his destination: The same bakery he came to as often as he could, ever since he found out that the owner was his lovely mate. You didn’t know that yet—yet it mattered little to him. You expressed your interest for him, too, which was the most he could ask for. 

The gentlest glow shone through the wide windows of the bakery, as if it was a beacon guiding Azriel’s footsteps. He pushed the wood framed-door open despite the handwritten CLOSED sign sitting between the glass panels. You had yet to start baking for the day, and hence he was met with only the tinkling chime of the bell by the door and not the scent of freshly baked bread. Which he didn’t mind—it meant more time alone with you before you opened the shop. 

You were preparing the bakery, making sure the tables were set and chairs straight before you started baking the first batch of pastries for the day. As soon as you felt Azriel’s presence, your features lit up, and your beam only widened when you saw him. “Hi!” His shadows immediately rushed over to you affectionately and brushed up against your arms. 

“Good morning,” he greeted in that smooth timbre of his, his fingers gliding over your hip as you walked past him with his shadows nipping at the heels of your satin slippers. Azriel followed behind you as you walked into the back of the bakery where you baked your produce. 

His subtle smirk widened when you tied your apron over your simple pastel-colored gown. Soon enough, your equipment and ingredients were laid out on the wooden countertop, your hair twisted up into a loose bun that let Azriel admire the curve of your neck highlighted in the warm light. Really, he just admired everything about you. His beautiful mate. 

“Are you aware,” murmured Azriel, “how lovely you look today?” 

“You always tell me that.” Leaning over the baking station, you reached for a handful of flour to dust the countertop. It didn’t matter that you hadn’t prepared the dough yet—you loved setting up your workspace this way. The flour particles settled onto the clean table, and you dusted your hands over the floor before getting to work. 

Or, tried to, at least. The male behind you seemed to have other plans, his warm palms finding your hips over the soft material of your dress. “That’s because you look lovely everyday.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that,” you teased, whirling out of his grasp to search for the measuring cups you had forgotten to take out. 

“Better than that?” His eyes stayed trained on you as you stretched to reach the cabinet and as you came back. Like magnets, his hands returned to your hips. He delighted in touching you, you delighted in his touch. “I missed you. Missed your smile, missed the way you look at me.” 

You were pulled away from the table as his arms wrapped fully around you, pulling you back into him and resting his cheek against the back of your head. Flared, his wings cast a shadow over your table that only served to bring your attention to the erection that was pressed against your lower back. The familiar scent of clean leathers and cedarwood infected your olfactory senses, and you quickly found yourself leaning into Azriel’s embrace.

“Okay,” you said, attempting to unlatch his strong, veiny arms from around your body. “I have things to do.” Trying to sound stern, your little grin betrayed you. 

He hummed and loosened his grip but refused to fully release you. You always fit so perfectly in his arms, so why would he ever want to let go when you felt like the missing piece of him? 

Reaching for the sugar, you grumbled, “This is why I hate when you come so early in the morning.” 

“Honey, I’m only trying to help.”

“Help distract me.”

“It’s still helping, is it not?”

You shot him a glare over your shoulder, to which he planted a quick kiss to the corner of the scowl on your lips. Your heart stuttered in time with your surprised blinks that had Azriel chuckling. “You’re so easy to fluster.” 

“Shut it.” Returning to the sugar and the measuring cups, you tried to keep your hands steady even as Azriel dragged his up to your waist, down to your hips, up again…combined with the sleepy swirls of shadows curling by your ankles, it was making you dizzy. 

He did shut up, but only to attach his lips to the side of your neck and sink his teeth into the spot. The slow burn of need began to build inside of you when he leisurely dragged his tongue across the skin to soothe the bite. Something flipped in your lower stomach but you suppressed the feeling, pouring the first cup of sugar into the large mixing bowl. 

“Don’t ignore me,” Azriel complained, his hand sliding from your hip to your thigh to give it a squeeze over your dress. 

Sugar spilled from the container when you tried to pour it into the cup again. “You’re being distracting.” 

“But sweetheart, I haven’t even started yet.” 

His fingers curled around the material of your skirt, clutching it in his fist so that your dress was just above your knees where his shadows had inched up to. You could feel his warm breath on your neck, raising goosebumps on your skin and causing you to clench your thighs—an action Azriel immediately picked up on, his eyes lighting up deviously. 

“Azriel, stop, I’m busy.” You added the second cup of sugar into the bowl, about to go for a third when Azriel’s knuckles skimmed the underside of your breast and made your breath catch in your throat. 

“Stop? Do you really want me to stop? Because I can smell your arousal, honey, and…” His fingers tightened on your skirts as he inhaled slowly. “Godsdamn. You fucking want me, don’t you?” 

“Not…now,” you said, but lowered the measuring cup in defeat anyway. 

You could feel Azriel’s low hum reverberate in his chest, his hips pinning yours to the counter. 

“Not now?” he repeated, lazily grinding himself against your ass. Gasping, your arm jerked out and sent the bowl of sugar careening to the floor until the white crystals were scattered on the tiles. 

Flour stuck to your forearms as you leaned them on the tabletop. “Az…” “Mm, you were saying?” Azriel kicked your legs further apart, fisting more of your dress in his hand while the other held your hip. “Still want me to stop, honey?” 

You shook your head resignedly, sticking your ass out for him when he stopped his movements. 

“Where are your words?” 

“Fuck me, Azriel.” The words came out breathless, needy. But it was only fair that they did when your clit was begging for any sort of friction. A sigh fell from your parted lips when his shadows slipped up your skirt and rubbed soothingly against the material of your panties. 

At Azriel’s frown, the rebellious shadows reluctantly slid away to dance around your thighs. Satisfied with your discontent whine, he leaned over you so that his warm chest was to your back. His hand traced its way up from your hip to your ribcage to your breast, palming at it and earning a shaky exhale from you. 

With his lips by the shell of your ear, he asked, “Are you comfortable with this?”

Comfortable with this? You wanted to scream, but instead opted for nodding. “Yes, please…”

“Haven’t even done anything and you’re already not thinking straight,” Azriel teased, kissing the side of your head. “Pretty girl, what am I supposed to do with you?”

Desire stirred warm under your skin at the deep, sultry tone of his voice. Azriel’s shadows tugged your sleeves and bralette straps so that they fell off your shoulders for Azriel to pepper kisses on. You could feel every inch of your skin, from Azriel’s firm lips on your shoulders to the phantom touch of his shadows along your arms and legs, and the fact that you were wearing too many clothes. 

“Azriel–” 

“Don’t worry, honey. I’ll make you feel good.” 

Then he was pulling back, hitching the skirt of your dress up to your waist to reveal the dainty pointelle fabric hugging your hips and the curve of your bum. The shadows were quick to rush up to your hips, feeling you for themselves. Meanwhile, Azriel’s hand slid between your thighs, his smirk widening when he felt the damp material of your panties and when you rocked your hips back onto his hand. 

“You’re so needy, sweetheart, aren’t you? You’re fucking soaked. You want my cock inside of your pretty pussy?”

Your forehead dropped to rest on your arms and you bit down on your lip. “Yes, please.” 

His scarred fingertips traced up to your clit, pressing snugly to make your body surge in response and draw another whine from your lips. The front of your skirt fell back down as he released it in favor of grabbing your throat with that hand, pulling you upright so that he could kiss his way from your cheekbone to your lips. 

His mouth clashed messily with yours, lips warm and greedy to match the need burning in the both of you. His fingers never stopped their motions against your clothed cunt, feeling as more wetness seeped into your panties. It was hard to keep up with his devouring kisses when your mind was going fuzzy and the only thing you could think about was how badly you needed to feel his cock inside of you. 

“Tell me what you need.” The words were murmured into the side of your mouth, his grip around your throat still tight. 

Even in your state, you forced out a string of words. “I– don’t know, need you, Azriel.”

“Need me where?” He smirked. He was so tempted to just shove your panties aside to feel how wet you were on his fingers, but was willing to wait for the sake of teasing you. 

“Anywhere. Everywhere.” 

“Honey,” Azriel pressed his lips to your exposed shoulder, “you’re going to have to be a little bit more specific than that.” 

“Inside me.” Your slippers squeaked against the floor as you tried to shift to better grind yourself down on his hand. 

“Inside where? Your mouth? And what do you want inside you? My fingers?” he continued to taunt. 

You shook your head, dizzy with desire. “No, you know…” 

“My sweet darling girl, you’re going to have to use your words if you want something from me.” 

“Please, I want you–  your cock, in my pussy.” You’d tapered off into a whisper, but Azriel was satisfied. 

“You do? You want me to fuck you, hm?” He released your neck and you leant forward on your elbows. At your frantic nod, Azriel’s shadows began to drag your panties down. Each second it took felt like eternity, but was worth it once his fingers ran through your folds. 

“Azriel…”

Azriel himself was trying his damndest not to lose control and scare you off—he couldn’t afford to do that now that he quite literally had his hands on his wonderful mate. 

Your hands clenched into fists as Azriel pushed two fingers into you, which slid in easily with how wet you were. It was deliciously snug, slightly stinging, and you craved for more. But Azriel took his time, drawing his fingers out before filling you again, making your hips rise desperately to meet his hand.

He smacked your clit with his fingers lightly, causing you to flinch. “Ah-ah. Patience, honey.”

“Azriel, please.” 

Once again you could feel the blissful press of his long fingers against your inner walls, lips pressing into a thin line of annoyance because he wasn’t doing this to pleasure you, and you knew that. Instead he was prepping you—which could only make you wonder…

Your overheated skin was soothed by cool whispers of shadows that kissed your bare shoulders. Then you felt Azriel lean down, one of his arms resting on the floury countertop while the other continued pumping in and out of you, as he asked, “Do you want my cock inside you? Want me to fill you up, sweetheart?”

“Yes, yes please, Azriel, please give it to me.” 

“So sweet.” He planted a kiss on your temple and straightened. When he pulled away from you, you whined, head falling to rest on your arms. 

Azriel undid the laces of his trousers, wrapping his hand slicked in your wetness around his aching shaft. Your hips pushed back, letting out a needy whine. His shadows would’ve complied if Azriel didn’t swat them away, favoring sliding the head of his cock against your leaking cunt instead. 

“Please…” 

“Yeah?” He taunted, pushing the tip just past your folds. “You want me to fuck you, pretty girl?” 

“Yes, please,” you nodded, glancing at him over your shoulder. 

Azriel’s lips quirked up into a little smirk. “Mm…honey, I don’t know if you can take it. I don’t want to wreck you completely yet.” 

“I can take it, I can take it, please give it to me.” Leaning your hips back, you pushed him just a little deeper into you, making you bite down on your lip at the subtle stretch. 

Azriel’s grin widened as you attempted to take what you needed, his hand still tangled in your skirts to hold it by your hip. As much as he wanted to bend you over the counter and have his way with you, he wanted to prolong it—and couldn’t deny that this was fun. So he let you rock your hips against him, but never fully let himself enter you. 

“Azriel, please fuck me,” you whined, his shadows dancing over your skin making your lashes flutter. 

“Only because you asked so nicely.” 

In one swift motion, you were impossibly full, fingernails pressing into the flesh of your palms and features pinched as you bit out his name. 

“What?” He revelled in the way his hips were pressed flush against your ass. “You did ask. Unless you don’t want that anymore?” 

“No- yes, I mean–” you stuttered out, having to remind yourself to breathe. 

“What’s that?” Azriel drew himself back excruciatingly slowly, causing you to whine at the emptiness—only for it to melt into a moan as he slid back in just as unhurriedly. 

You bit down on your lip, leaning forward on the counter. “Faster.”

“Faster, honey? What happened to you being busy?” he mocked, hips still keeping that languid pace, in, and out, in, and out…making sure you felt all of him as he pressed into you. It created a delicious friction, but not what you were looking for. 

“Busy with you now,” came your retort that pinched into a gasp when his hand reached over to find your aching clit. 

“Well, that’s not such a bad thing to be busy with.” 

Your arms were on the countertop, fingers splayed out to steady yourself with each thrust you were given. Azriel’s hand readjusted your skirts and hitched it higher over your hip, pressing you harder against the counter. His shadows swirled over your aching breasts and tight nipples, enjoying the feel of you just as much as Azriel was. 

You raised your head to support yourself on your elbows and arch your back as you pleaded breathlessly, “More, give me more.”

“Mm? What do I get if I give you more, pretty girl?” 

“Just– please…” 

Azriel hummed in thought before leaning down so his chest was nearly pressed to your back, fisting your skirt more messily as the other hand wrapped around your throat. Like this, he was flush against you, deep inside you. Warmth and strong arms wrapped around you, sealed with a kiss to the side of your head. 

“This alright?” asked Azriel as he ground his hips into yours. At your nod and airy agreement, he picked up the pace, drilling himself into you firmly, making sure you felt all of him. Gradually, you could feel your hair unravel from its bun, sliding down to curtain your bare neck and shoulders. Eager shadows toyed with your hair, twirling and pushing it back. 

You would’ve collapsed against the tabletop if not for Azriel holding you up, his hips pinning your own to the counter with each thrust until you were basically tiptoeing, heels not touching the floor and slippers so close to sliding off. 

His breaths were hot by your ear, soft grunts of “that’s it” and “you can take it” making you clench even tighter around him. From your throat, his large hand trailed down, grabbing a handful of your breast and squeezing.

Your hands searched for purchase on the counter as he pounded into you, instead sweeping over the surface and knocking down corked bottles and the open bag of flour. You gasped as it clouded, but Azriel only chuckled. “Messy girl.”

“Didn’t mean to,” you managed to get out between each press of his hips. 

“Lemme see you,” he murmured, turning you around, grabbing you by the hips, and hoisting you up onto the counter. With a soft huff, your hands landed behind you to hold yourself up, one of them landing in the pile of flour. One of his hands landed on your inner thigh, spreading your legs again, while the other guided himself to your entrance again. “Ready?” His shadows swirled lightly around your hips and shoulders, feeling your skin for themselves.

“Yeah.” You barely had time to register how handsome he looked, bathed in the soft sunlight with his wings spread and hair messy. This time, he pushed in slow and deep, until your breath hitched—and he didn’t stop. Lashes fluttering and head tipping back, you let out, “Yeah, just like that…” 

“Just like that? You like it?” Cockiness oozed from his words.

“Mm hm, don’t stop.” “Not stopping,” assured Azriel, pushing your skirts up so your dress stayed pooled around your torso. The hand that rested on your thigh moved closer to your centre, his thumb finding your clit and rubbing circles into it. 

Letting out a profanity, your mouth fell open, and he took the opportunity to slide two fingers into your past your lips, pressing down on your wet tongue. “If only you could see yourself, sweetheart, so pretty all fucked out…”

To that, you could only manage a whine around his thick fingers. He increased the pressure on your clit, letting out a grunt when you bit down. You could feel yourself nearing the edge, wrapping your trembling legs around him to lock him in. 

“Close?” He grinned at your weak nod. “Come on, pretty girl. You can do it. Cum for me. Come on…” His fingers left your mouth to palm your breast, rubbing and pinching at your nipples. 

Your core tightened as his body expertly pushed you onto the edge, your breaths coming out louder and faster. When you opened your eyes to glance down where the both of you were connected for just a moment, the sight sent your lashes fluttering shut again as white exploded behind your lids. “Azriel– Azriel, fuck, fuck, fuck…” 

“Yeah, that’s my good girl. Cum for me. Great job, sweetheart, fuck, you’re so tight, you feel so good around me…ride it out, I’ve got you.” His thumb eased on your sensitive clit as you clenched around him, coaxing you down from your high. “There we go…” 

Slowly, Azriel began to rock into you again. When your eyes finally opened, you were met with a small, unapologetic grin from the male. “Still with me, pretty girl?” 

“Yeah– yeah.” 

At that, his pumps got harder again, this time to drive himself closer to climax. His hands moved down to grab you by the hips, giving himself easier leverage to thrust into you. By your head, his shadows cooed, tucking loose strands of hair behind your ear. 

Bit by bit, the sensitivity melted into a cresting pleasure again. 

“Ah– fuck, you feel so good. I’m so fucking close…” His already solid grip on your hips tightened, basically pulling you onto his cock as his momentum increased sloppily. 

Knowing he liked it, you clenched around him, making his breath catch on another swear. 

“I’m gonna cum– lemme cum inside you, please, fuck, I’m on the tonic, I swear.” The pleading words fell from his mouth drenched in need. “Please, sweetheart please…”

You’d be lying if you said his begging words didn’t turn you on even more. Shifting, you let one arm wander down to rub at your clit, feeling the pressure coil again, the other wrapping around his shoulder—and leaving a dusty streak of flour—to get closer. At your soft “inside me”, Azriel’s let out a deep groan, finding your lips with his. 

“Thank you.” His words fell hot against your skin. 

“Come on…” you mimicked his earlier words, less confident than he was, but no less effective. 

With a string of curses, Azriel’s rhythm stuttered. He was as close to you as possible—you held him as close to you as possible as his warmth filled you up. 

“Fuck you’re so perfect…” he mumbled, tilting your chin up to kiss you slowly again as he moved lazily. Both your arms looped around his shoulders, one tangling in the messy hairs at the nape of his neck. 

As he pulled out, Azriel couldn’t help but want to make sure you didn’t leak his essence. Perhaps it was his one-sided mating instincts that wanted to mark you as off-limits to everybody else. With no resistance, he slid his fingers into you before you could even leak his release and pushed his fingers deep. 

Only once he realised you were on the brink of another orgasm did his fingers start rubbing at your innermost walls a little more forcefully, his thumb returning to your clit. “Gonna cum again for me?”

You nodded against his shoulder where your head rested. His fingers curled, his lips found your neck—and worked you gently over the edge. 

After a few more lingering kisses and unhurried movements of his fingers, he pulled his hand away, wiping his fingers on your thigh. His cheek was still pressed to the side of your head when he whispered, “You alright?”

“Better than alright.” You wrapped your arms around him firmly, resting your chin on his shoulder. Soothing hands rubbed your back as he continued to pepper kisses on your head. 

As your senses returned, you could feel the grainy flour stuck to your skin. The rumple of thick skirts around your waist. The warm sunlight kissing your sticky body. 

Azriel and his shadows held you like that for a long moment—his arms wrapped around you comfortingly, and for that moment you felt at home. 

Then he was easing you off the counter. Smiling at your dishevelled appearance, at your rumpled dress and tousled hair and flour dusted skin.

Azriel smiled to himself. The Spymaster's secrets now included the shape of your smile, the sound of your laughter, the exact shade your eyes became when caught in the sun.

“You’re the most beautiful female I’ve ever seen,” Azriel said, reverence coating his words. 

You just smiled and shook your head, fixing your dress sleeves over your shoulder again. Azriel shook his head at your reaction. “It’s true.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

His trousers were already laced back. At some point his shirt was lost too, probably to feel your skin on his, but his shadows carried back his discarded shirt, your apron, and your panties. He helped you get dressed again before helping himself.

Out of the corner of your eye you spotted the other shadows tidying up the pile of sugar on the floor, and the mess of flour— “Oh my gods, Azriel!”

At your outburst he seemed a little alarmed. “What is it, sweetheart?”

“The counter, I bake on that counter! Do you think I need to– disinfect it? I can’t have any of my pastries tasting like…” you stopped to frown at him worriedly, “you know!”

“If it’s any consolation,” he offered, “I think that table just became the most memorable part of your bakery. And at least you’ve got one creampie–”

You glared at him. “Azriel.”

He grinned, utterly unrepentant. 

🏷️: @wildflowermooon @azrielslittleslut @azriel-shadowsingerr @secretsicanthideanymore @a-courtof-azriel 

🏷️: @iliveinthebooks @sizzlingstarlightsky @jem2299 @ahaha0246 @fourthwing4ever

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[heleninhha]

KISS ME! | JJK › PART 1

Summary: You and Jungkook have known each other your whole lives. Childhood best friends turned almost something more. He’s charming, popular, and scared of commitment. You’re ambitious, guarded, and tired of being a maybe.

After one kiss changes everything, you realize wanting him isn’t enough if he won’t choose you back. But walking away is easier said than done.

University brings distance, jealousy, and new people. You’re ready to move on. He’s finally starting to realize he can’t. Not when it’s always been you.

pairing: childhoodbestfriend!jungkook x (fem) reader

genre: angst, hurt/comfort, slow burn, childhood friends to lovers, kinda toxic but delicious, mutual pining, fluff & eventual smut

rating: 18+ (mdni!!)

word count: 3.4k 💌

warnings: emotional whiplash, jealousy, possessive behavior, fear of commitment, unresolved tension, mutual obsession, brief mentions of sex, hurt/comfort, pining, lots of yearning

A/N: I finally hit post!!!! AAAAAAAA I’ve always been anxious about sharing anything I create, so I really hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it hehe. This is my first fic (kinda), so please be gentle with me. I’m also lowkey new to Tumblr, so I’m just going off what I’ve seen other fanfic creators do, hopefully I’m doing this right. I don’t have too many solid plans for this story yet, but I truly hope you stick around. Also hope this lives up to the hype the teaser got heheh 🤓 Happy reading! - Ivy ₍^. .^₎Ⳋ

Taglist: @akirawhore @amarawayne @jahnaviii @crazyovayou @niniythv @dollyunjinz @yungies @caaally @aestheticalime @flaneuseonthestreets @goldenko-97 @lachimolalajeon @buckylov3r @labbbaaa @bts123746 @chxiosworld @amarawayne @qu3t @littlecherri @alessiamargaux @lokislittlemouse-library @enchantingeagleengineer @jeoncasino @minnie-mouser22 @tinytangerineangel @yourlittleslutcums @httpjeonlicious @uaremyserene @intro-bts @glossyxiaoting @cdllevantae

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KISSME!MOODBOARD | KISSME!PLAYLIST | SERIES MASTERLIST ⭑.ᐟ

(One Year Ago)

You’ve known Jeon Jungkook since the day he was born. Your moms were best friends before either of you even existed, girls who grew up together, fell in love with life side by side, and then raised their kids side by side too. You were born in February, and just like fate, Jungkook followed in September, just six months behind you, and from that moment on, it was the two of you. Always.

You were inseparable. Friends before you even understood what friendship meant. Sleepovers, scraped knees, shared snacks, birthday candles blown out together, all of it.

And then high school happened.

You drifted. Slowly, painfully. The way people sometimes do when the world starts asking more of them.

You went to a top-ranked all-girls private school, the kind with uniforms pressed to perfection, essays that weighed as much as bricks, and girls who competed to see who could have the best grades. Jungkook ended up at the local public school. It was louder, messier, freer. His parents wanted him to have a social circle outside of the snooty prep school one.

You started moving in different circles, living different lives. And somewhere along the way, your daily texts became weekly, then monthly, and then… nothing at all.

So when he invited you to a house party at his friend’s place, you were shocked. And maybe a little bit hopeful. Maybe this meant something. A bridge being rebuilt.

You dressed carefully that night. A pale pink tweed dress with gold buttons, white stockings, and shiny Mary Janes. Definitely overdressed for a house party, but you didn’t care. You wanted to look good. Maybe even wanted him to notice.

He didn’t.

He barely looked at you when you got in his car. Just a casual nod. No compliment. No hug. No "I missed you.” Or just a simple “How’s life?” To catch up.

It stung.

You quickly realized the only reason you were even invited was because his mom insisted he bring someone she trusted in order for him to go, and that someone was you.

As soon as you got there, he ditched you, disappearing in the crowd. You stood awkwardly by the drinks table, sipping a Coke Zero, the cold fizz sharp on your tongue. You didn’t know anyone. Everyone else seemed to know everyone. Loud laughter, inside jokes, bodies swaying to the beat.

You felt overdressed, overlooked, and completely out of place. People stared. Girls whispered. But you held your head high like your mom taught you.

You searched the crowd for Jungkook and when you found him, your heart sank.

He was on the couch, some girl straddling his lap, his hands gripping her waist, her fingers tangled in his hair. Mouths moving like they were starving. Oblivious to everyone else in the room.

Your stomach twisted so hard it felt like it was trying to fold in on itself. A bitter sting crawled up your throat, sharp and sour, like you’d swallowed regret.

Suddenly, the air felt too thick. You weren’t supposed to be here. You should’ve said no. You just wanted to spend time with him.

That’s all.

You pushed the patio door open, letting the cool night air wash over you. Arms wrapped tightly around yourself, fighting off the chill and the burn in your chest. It felt like stepping into a different world, darker, quieter, with the distant thump of bass bleeding from inside. You leaned against the railing, trying to relax a bit.

“Hey,” a voice said behind you, soft but close. You jumped, your spine going stiff as you turned.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” the guy said, holding his hands up in mock surrender. His lips quirked up, amused. “Though… I’m starting to think you scare easy.”

You startled and turned fast, your pulse kicking up.

“You’re real smooth,” you muttered, narrowing your eyes.

He grinned. “Smooth’s better than sleazy, right?”

“You always approach girls like that?”

“Only the ones standing alone in expensive shoes.”

You glanced down at your Mary Janes.

“And what if I’m just lost?”

“Then I guess I’m lucky.”

You tried not to smile, but failed.

“What’s your name?” He was handsome and looked like the type that would break your heart. Why not let him entertain you for a while?

“Eunwoo,” he said, shifting closer. “And you’re…?”

“Y/N.”

“Pretty name,” he said, leaning one elbow against the railing beside you. “Let me guess. St. Michael’s?”

You blinked. “How’d you know?”

“You’ve got that energy,” he said. “Put together. Fancy. But kind of annoyed to be here.”

You let out a dry laugh. “That obvious?”

“Only to someone who’s also pretending to have fun.”

You smiled. He was disarming, in that effortlessly flirty way that made you want to roll your eyes and lean in closer.

“You don’t seem like the house party type either,” you said.

“Not when half the people here still think fart jokes are peak comedy,” he replied but you could tell he only says that to impress you.

You let out a soft laugh, for real this time. “You’re not wrong.”

He tilted his head at you. “So, what’s your deal? You here with someone?”

You hesitated. “I got ditched the second we got here.”

His expression flickered, just for a second. “Ah. That makes sense.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Why?”

“Because you’re way too pretty to be standing out here alone if you weren’t.” The compliment caught you off guard.

“Do you always flirt like this?” you asked, half teasing.

“Only when I mean it. I can keep you company, if you want.”

You hesitated, then smiled faintly. “I’d like that.” You were done feeling lonely at this dumb party.

You chatted for a while, nothing too deep. Just a little bit of distraction from the ache in your chest as you sipped on your drink.

“So, do you have a boyfriend?” he asked suddenly, eyes searching your face.

You shook your head. “No.” You could have but going to an all girls school made that kind of social circle a bit more difficult.

“Really? That’s hard to believe.”

You laughed softly. “I’m not interested in that sort of thing right now.”

He tilted his head. “Interesting.” He just wanted to know if you were single or not.

You looked up at him. “What about you? Do you have anyone special in your life?”

“Got dumped this morning.” He admits.

You look surprised as he says that, you would have never guessed with the way he was talking to you right now.

“Oh. Sorry.” Your tone is a bit regretful. You hadn’t expected him to respond with… that.

He shrugged. “We didn’t click. Guess I was meant to be alone.”

You echoed his earlier words. “I can keep you company, if you want.”

He grinned. “Yeah?”

You nodded. “Yeah.”

“And how would you do that?”

You didn’t know what came over you, but you said it anyway.

“What if I said you could kiss me?”

He blinked, then smirked. “I'd ask if you were serious.”

“Does it look like I’m joking?” You lean in.

He leaned in, slow, deliberate. “You’re trouble,” he murmured.

You tilted your chin up. “Do you like trouble?”

“Depends on the kind.” he murmurs and then he kissed you.

He kissed you. Gentle at first, then hungrier. You kissed him back, maybe out of loneliness, maybe out of spite. You weren’t sure. But for a brief moment, it felt nice to be wanted.

You didn’t notice the group of boys by the pool bar watching.

Didn’t see the money exchanging hands.

Didn’t see Jungkook stepping out on the patio.

Jungkook stepped outside just in time to see it. The way your hands clung to Eunwoo’s collar, how his fingers were brushing the hem of your dress lowering to your ass like he had every right to. The kiss was already too far gone. His pace slowed down, eyes narrowing.

A group of his friends stood nearby, some grinning, some groaning, throwing bills into a baseball cap at the poolside bar. His gaze flicked to the hat full of crumpled bills.

“What’s going on?” Jungkook asked, his voice low, guarded.

Mingi didn’t even look up. “We bet Eunwoo he wouldn’t be able to kiss the rich girl in under an hour.” They were watching as if to see what would happen next, ready to add more money into the hat.

“He did it in 45 minutes, he a real sweet talker,” Mingyu added with a chuckle, popping a chip in his mouth like it was just another Friday night. "I wonder if she'll sleep with him.." he thinks out loud.

Jungkook’s nostrils flared.

They made a bet for a kiss and now he might take you to bed?

His eyes flicked back to the hat stuffed with cash, to the smug look on Eunwoo’s face, to your soft smile, the one you used to give him when you were kids.

It reminded him of summers in your neighbourhood, you in your silly sandals and ribboned braids, waiting for him on the porch with two popsicles, always saving one for him.

That smile used to be his.

He remembered it like a favourite song, sweet, familiar. But now? Now you were smiling like that at someone else. And it burned.

You weren’t the girl on the porch anymore; you were all grown up, and now someone completely new got to see that side of you. Someone else got to make you laugh like that. And it made his chest tighten in a way he hated.

He felt something shift in his chest, like his heart had just dropped straight into his stomach. Was it jealousy? Was it disgust? At them or at himself? For leaving you alone? For bringing you here in the first place?

He couldn’t even name what it was, but it felt wrong.

He was moving before he even realized it.

He stormed across the patio, clearing his throat loud enough to slice through the moment.

You broke the kiss first, startled. Eunwoo smirked, the kind of lazy, satisfied grin that made your skin crawl. He knew exactly what he’d done. He had gotten under Jungkook’s skin. He had won the bet, he kissed the girl.

“Y/N,” Jungkook snaps, his voice sharp enough to cut through the noise. He’s standing stiffly just a few feet away, strong arms crossed over his chest. "Let's go."

You blink at him, lips still parted, confused by his sudden intrusion. “What? I was just starting to have fun.” You grumble like a child.

His jaw tightens. “Kissing strangers is fun?” There’s something biting in his tone. Not just judgment, jealousy, too. Thinly veiled and barely contained.

You scoff, heat rising to your cheeks. “You do it.” You just saw him. That girl on his lap, his hands all over her. You didn’t know if they had history or if they were dating but he never mentioned her to you, he never even brought up having a crush.

He’s one to talk.

His eyes flash. “No, I don’t.” It’s not a lie, not exactly. But the way he says it, quiet and defensive, you know he means something else.

“Remind me. Was that your girlfriend or just your entertainment for the night?” Your voice is cold, sharp as glass. You're not just asking. You're accusing.

He knows exactly who and what you're talking about. You saw him back there. Hands all over her like you weren’t even there.

His jaw ticks, but he doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t even look surprised. “Trust me,” he mutters, voice tight. “I know her.”

You laughed bitterly. “Yeah. That makes it better.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but nothing came out.

“Can you just leave me alone?” you muttered, voice tight as you brought your arms up around Eunwoo’s neck. Maybe out of spite, maybe out of pain.

If Jungkook could ditch you for some random girl, then why shouldn’t you do the same thing to him?

“No.” Jungkook grabbed your shoulder, firm, pulling you back to face him again.

Eunwoo chimed in lazily, “She’s fine with me, man.” His hands slid to your lower back, hands lowering a little too low for Jungkook's liking.

That did it.

Jungkook’s jaw clenched, and his eyes darkened as he stepped forward, closing the space between them. “Get your fucking hands off her,” he growled.

One arm moved around you, yanking you out of Eunwoo’s grasp and behind him like you were something to protect and to claim.

Eunwoo smirked. He liked this. Getting under Jungkook’s skin like it was part of the game. As if he knew Jungkook had the hots for you.

But wasn’t it already obvious?

“Stop,” you snapped, louder this time, your voice cutting between them. “Both of you.” You didn’t want to cause a scene. Especially since you already stood out in this crowd.

Jungkook turned to you, jaw tight. “Y/N. Go to the car.”

It wasn't a suggestion, it was a command. He was pissed.

You didn’t argue this time. You were tired. You wanted to leave anyway. You turned, heading out to the driveway without sparing a glance at either of them. You probably wouldn’t see Eunwoo ever again, so you didn’t even bother saying goodbye or give him a chance to ask you for your number.

Once you were out of earshot, Jungkook took one threatening step closer to Eunwoo, voice low and sharp. “If I ever catch you making bets about her again, I’ll break both your fucking legs. Got it?”

Eunwoo rolled his eyes and lifted his hands like he was innocent. But the message was clear.

He didn’t move. His fists stayed clenched, like holding on could stop everything else from slipping. He was angry. At Eunwoo. At you. Maybe at himself.

But beneath it all, shame was twisting in his gut.

And something else he didn’t want to name.

Something that felt a lot like heartbreak.

Jungkook found you outside, standing by his car with your arms wrapped around yourself, the cool night air brushing against your legs.

That dress, as pretty as it was, wasn’t built for cold air, or this party.

But you already knew that.

And now someone else had touched you. Kissed you.

His stomach turned.

What the hell were you thinking? Letting some stranger put his hands on you like that? Letting him taste you like it meant nothing?

You weren’t like that. At least… you never used to be.

You weren’t just some girl. You were his best friend. Or… you had been.

So why did it feel like he was already losing something he never even got the chance to have?

You didn’t look at him when he approached.

“What was that about?” he asked, irritation bubbling just beneath the surface.

You shrugged, eyes fixed on the pavement. “What?”

“Kissing that guy?”

“I don’t know,” you muttered, voice quiet. “Maybe I just wanted to have fun.” Your tone was sarcastic.

He let out a sharp breath, stepping in closer. “Eunwoo’s not a good guy. He cheated on his last girlfriend like six times.”

“How was I supposed to know that?” You grumble, hugging yourself from the cold.

Jungkook scoffed. “Well, he’s not. They were making a bet to see if Eunwoo could kiss you and probably take you to bed right after! Are you that easy, Y/N?”

His voice was laced with anger, sharp and bitter, the words cutting before he could stop them.

You scoffed, shaking your head. “Wow. So now I’m easy? Is that what you think of me? Just some spoiled girl who jumps at the first guy who calls her pretty?”

He clenched his jaw. “Well, it seems like it, doesn’t it?”

You took a step back, your voice rising. “What’s your problem? Why are you getting so mad that I kissed some guy? I don’t care if it was a bet, I was having fun. I wasn’t even supposed to be here, was I? Your mom needed me to keep an eye on you, huh?”

His eyes widened slightly.

You hit a nerve. You read him like an open book.

You turned away, angry, pulling at the handle of the locked car door.

He exhaled, voice lower now. “You weren’t supposed to come… but I brought you anyway, didn’t I? You were supposed to hang around me. Not those other guys, you don’t know what their intentions are.” He scolds you.

That made you snap your head toward him. “With you?” you repeated. “You invited me, then ditched me the second we walked in. I didn’t know anyone. You knew that!” You exclaim angrily.

“I didn’t think—”

“Exactly,” you cut him off. “You didn’t think.”

You blinked at him, heat rushing up your throat. “I looked for you. And I found you with some girl practically dry-humping you in the middle of the living room.”

He dropped his gaze, jaw clenched.

You shook your head, laugh bitter. “I felt so stupid. I thought maybe you invited me because you wanted to see me. Like maybe we’d talk. Catch up. I dressed up and everything—”

He interrupted you. “I noticed.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did, Y/N.” His voice was quiet, but the weight behind it made your breath catch. “You look beautiful.”

Your arms dropped from around yourself. “Then why didn’t you say anything?” you huff, your voice vulnerable.

It wasn't about the compliment. It was about him acknowledging you, him making a stupid comment about how you were overdressed just like he would before.

Jungkook looked at you then, really looked. And there it was.

That flicker in his eyes. That quiet ache.

The one that said everything he didn’t know how to say.

You shook your head, voice softer now. “I felt like you didn’t even want me there. Like you were embarrassed to be around me.”

He stepped in. “That’s not true.”

“Then what is?” you say, staring at him, waiting for him to say something, anything. He didn’t answer, though. Instead, his hand reached for your arm, just lightly, just enough to ground you both.

You let out a breath. “We used to be best friends.”

Jungkook scoffed, shaking his head. “We’re not little kids anymore, Y/N. That whole best friends thing? It doesn’t work like that.”

Your jaw tightened. “No, it does… you just stopped knowing how to be one.” Your words hung in the air, sharp and defensive.

“You’re the prettiest girl here,” he added, softer now, like that would change the ache between you. Even he wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince. He said it suddenly, quietly… like it slipped out before he could stop it. Like he was only just realizing it himself.

You scoffed, stepping back. Your voice rose, raw. “Pretty? Please. Is this a bet too? You invite me out here, ditch me, get pissed when someone else kisses me like it matters, and now you call me pretty like that makes it okay?”

He flinched. Your words hit harder than you knew, because he’d already asked himself those same questions. What the hell was he doing? Why was he so mad when he was the one who messed up first?

Your voice cracked, and your hands shoved at his chest. “Tell me, Jungkook. Are you doing this just to see if I’m really that easy? Or do you mean it? Do you really care about me?”

You hit his chest again. Once. Twice. You hit him again, and he didn't stop you, not until the ache in his chest became unbearable. Then, gently, he caught your wrists. His touch wasn’t rough. It was careful but cautious.

He swallowed, his jaw tight. His heart was pounding so hard it hurt. And then, when your eyes finally met his… it hit him all at once.

The fear. The guilt. The jealousy. The truth.

He was afraid of this… of you, of what this could mean, but more than anything, he was afraid he’d already lost you.

His gaze dropped, unable to hold yours.

His voice, when it came, was barely a whisper.

“I mean it.”

It wasn’t slick or charming or sure of itself. It was broken open and vulnerable, scraped raw and trembling with something too big to name.

You froze.

Something in you shifted.

He lifted his eyes again, slowly, and for the first time in a long time, you saw the boy who had always been your best friend. The boy who still cared, the look on his face stole the breath from your lungs.

Regret. Longing. Fear. Hope.

All tangled in one unbearable glance.

And then, like everything in the world had been building to this, he kissed you. Not like a mistake. Not like a dare. Like a promise he was too scared to speak out loud.

And you kissed him back because despite everything, part of you had been waiting for this your whole life. It was sudden and deep, full of everything neither of you had the guts to say.

His hands cradled your jaw, warm and trembling slightly, like he was afraid you'd vanish if he let go. His lips tasted faintly like spearmint gum and bad decisions, and your knees nearly buckled.

When you pulled away, lips tingling, you whispered, “I thought I wasn’t supposed to kiss random boys.” You teased.

Jungkook leaned in again, his forehead pressed to yours. “You know damn well I’m not a random boy.”

The second kiss was messier. Needy, deep, slow, desperate. Familiar in a way that made your chest ache.

One moment you were in the driveway, the next, in the backseat of his car. Your heart was racing. His touch was careful but confident, his fingers memorizing every line of you like a secret only he got to know.

And even though it scared you, how fast it was happening, how much it meant, it didn’t feel wrong.

It felt like the beginning of something you didn’t quite understand yet. But it was yours. His, too.

That night, in the backseat of his car, under the streetlight glow and distant hum of a party you didn’t belong to, you gave yourself to him for the first time. The windows fogged. The car rocked gently. And for a while, nothing else mattered except the quiet gasps, the whispered names, the fingers grasping for something real.

And for a moment, just one, it felt like maybe he belonged to you too.

Or at least… you hoped he did.

[heleninhha]

for morale | myg

— pairing: min yoongi x f!reader

— playlist: moment's silence (common tongue) - hozier, love me harder - ariana grande, honey - kehlani, adorn - miguel, don't - crush, waves - dean

—  summary: After two weeks apart, you come home from Bali sun-kissed and full of stories—except none of them compare to the warmth of Yoongi’s arms. He wrote you a song. You brought back tequila, a TikTok trick he has no idea about, and a plan you executed after a terrible week strictly for morale.

Yoongi never stood a chance.

—  word count: 9.9k

—  warnings: lovey dovey couple, they're so in love, little fluffly at the beginning but they're always horny (i get them), established relationship, tequila shots?, yoongi missing oc, oc missing yoongi, unprotected sex, dirty talk?, cunnilingus, little rough, multiple orgasms, jealous yoongi if you squint.

—  note: HELL YEAH! so this was fun to write because it was born, like most of the things i write, from a personal experience with tequila shots. wanna thank miss salma hayek for letting us know The Trick to get a man like that. i miss you yoongi (thank god he'll be back soon). FIRST YOONGI ONE SHOT BTW CROWD CHEERED.

Yoongi has always been sure of two things. Well—always is a strong word. Maybe lately is more honest. Certainty doesn’t come easy to him; it’s something he’s had to fight for, inch by inch, thought by thought. But here, in this quiet moment—his fingers idle on the keys, a half-finished verse echoing in his mind—he knows these things like he knows his own name.

One: he loves music. Not in the cliché way people throw around the word love, but in the way it threads through the cracks in his chest and holds the broken parts together. It’s been his anchor, his escape, his language when he couldn’t find the right words. Music has never asked him to be more than what he is. It just lets him be.

Two: he really, truly, fucking loves you. It’s terrifying, how real that is. How permanent it feels. Like it’s carved into him somewhere deep. You came into his life without warning, without fanfare—and now you’re in the pauses between his breaths, in the silence between his notes. He doesn’t know when it happened, but loving you feels inevitable now. Like it always would’ve come to this, no matter the path.

Three—was there a three? Yeah because now, standing here at the airport, watching you walk toward him, duffel slung over your shoulder, smile cracking through the jetlag—he knows something else, too.

He’s really fucking glad you’re home.

You nudge him gently, your fingers brushing against the fabric of his hoodie sleeve as he sits hunched over his laptop, headphones around his neck, the room bathed in dim yellow light and the faint scent of coffee and something else uniquely him.

“Yoongi,” you say, voice soft with that teasing affection only he ever gets to hear.

He glances over, the corner of his lips twitching into a tired smile—one of those barely-there ones that still makes your chest warm. His eyes, though, tell a different story: they flicker with something like relief. Like seeing you in front of him makes the past two weeks fall away.

“I wanna hear the full song?” you ask, and then you hesitate just a beat, voice quieter, more vulnerable: “Missed you.”

That’s when he turns fully, shutting the laptop with a quiet click. His eyes don’t leave yours.

“I missed you, too,” he says, and it’s not just words—he means it. His voice carries that low, slow sincerity you know he only lets out when he’s too tired to hide anything. “House felt empty. Bed felt colder.”

You laugh softly, settling down beside him on the couch, your thigh pressing lightly against his. “You could’ve texted more, you know.”

“I know,” he murmurs, and his hand finds yours, thumb brushing over your knuckles. “Didn’t want to bother you. You were having fun.”

“I was,” you admit, leaning your head on his shoulder. “But it didn’t feel right without you. Kept looking over like I was gonna see you sitting next to me.”

He lets out a breath, quiet and shaky. “I kept hearing your voice in my head when I was working. Thought I was losing it.”

You grin. “Maybe you are.”

He finally laughs—low and real. Then he squeezes your hand and says, “Let me play you the song. I finished it... the night before you came back. It’s about you.”

Your heart skips, just a little. “Of course it is.”

And in the soft silence that follows, he slips the headphones over your ears and presses play, watching your face as if every beat and lyric matters more now, because you’re home. And so is he.

The music washes over you like a wave—warm, layered, intentional. It’s him in every note: the way he composes with feeling first and logic second, the subtle textures, the pause right before the chorus that somehow says more than words.

And the lyrics? God. They’re not even overly romantic, but they are him—honest and understated and impossibly vulnerable. There’s a line in the second verse that pulls something tight in your chest. Something about “empty spaces filled by the weight of a laugh I forgot I needed.” And another one, quiet, tucked into the bridge, that just says: “You made room where I didn’t know I had any left.”

When it ends, you don’t say anything for a moment. You just breathe. His hands are resting on his thighs now, and you can tell from the way he’s chewing the inside of his cheek that he’s nervous.

You blink a few times, then take off the headphones slowly, setting them aside. “Yoongi,” you say, voice soft, caught somewhere between awe and teasing, “are you trying to kill me? Be honest.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Emotionally or musically?”

You snort, nudging him with your shoulder. “Both, obviously. That was… wow. I don’t even have the words.”

“That’s ironic, coming from someone who works with words all day,” he says, smirking just slightly, but his eyes are searching—worried.

You look at him. “I’m serious. That was beautiful. It felt like…” You pause, pressing your lips together before letting the truth out: “Like you cracked open your chest and just—let me see everything.”

Yoongi shrugs, but it’s the kind of shrug he does when he’s trying to be chill and failing. “Yeah, well. Took me long enough to say all that. Figured I’d just put it in a track before I chickened out.”

You lean in, forehead touching his. “You’re still such a coward sometimes,” you whisper, smiling against his skin.

“I know,” he murmurs. “But you waited for me anyway.”

You both go quiet for a second. The kind of silence that doesn’t ask to be filled. The kind you only get with someone who knows you inside out.

“I was gonna say,” you continue, pulling back just enough to look at him, “funny how this all started with you awkwardly avoiding eye contact that night we met at Hobi’s thing.”

Yoongi groans. “Don’t remind me. I was not avoiding eye contact.”

“You literally stared at the floor the whole time.”

“I was tired.”

“You were shy.”

He rolls his eyes, but there’s no heat behind it. “And you were so annoyingly composed. Sitting there with your editor brain probably judging my entire existence.”

“I was not judging,” you say, laughing now. “I was intrigued. You were the only one in the room who looked like they wanted to be somewhere else.”

He smiles again—smaller this time, realer. “Yeah. Then you sat next to me and started talking about existentialism and short stories and somehow I didn’t want to leave.”

You grin. “And then we spent the next year pretending we weren’t falling in love during every 3 a.m. conversation.”

Yoongi’s hand finds yours again, and this time he lifts it to his lips, pressing a kiss to your knuckles. “You didn’t pretend very well, by the way.”

“Oh?” you tease.

He nods. “You kept looking at me like you were already writing a story about us.”

You shrug. “Maybe I was.”

Then, quieter, you add: “But I like your version better.”

You and Yoongi have been together for over two years now. That’s not even counting the year before—when you both clung to the idea of just friends like it was some kind of lifeline, even as everything between you said otherwise. Late-night calls, shared silences, too-long stares, the kind of conversations that felt like peeling each other open, layer by layer.

Everyone saw it. Except, apparently, you and him.

Or maybe you did see it. Maybe you were just scared to name it.

Either way, it all came to a head one night—tangled sheets, hearts racing, a confession slipping out in the dark like it had been waiting all that time just to be said out loud. And after that, well… the rest unraveled beautifully.

“It was bound to happen,” Hoseok had said with a grin so wide it felt smug. “Honestly, I was just waiting for one of you to crack. You were already acting like a married couple and you hadn’t even kissed yet.”

Seokjin, ever the dramatist, had clapped a hand on Yoongi’s shoulder and told you both, “You don’t understand. This guy? He doesn’t react to people. He nods at introductions and moves on. But you? You walked into the room at that party and he looked up. That’s practically a love letter coming from him.”

Namjoon had agreed, of course—more calm, more analytical, but just as insistent. “We’ve seen him hear a song he loves and still just blink. But when you spoke for the first time, he tilted his head, like he was trying to figure out a melody he didn’t want to forget.”

It sounds dramatic. Overblown. But you’ve lived with Yoongi long enough to know that his reactions aren’t always loud—but they’re deep. And real.

And now, two years in, you still catch him looking at you the same way he did back then—like he’s studying you, memorizing you, writing lyrics in his head that only you’ll ever get to hear.

You joke that he’s soft for you. He just shrugs and says, “Yeah. And?”

But there’s this quiet steadiness to it, too. Like after all the slow burn, the long talks, the almosts and maybes, you both found something solid. Something that doesn’t need to burn wildly all the time because it stays.

So yeah—Hoseok was right. It was bound to happen.

And now you both took a break.

Well—technically, you didn’t take a break. Let’s rewind. That makes it sound way more dramatic than it was.

You just went on a trip.

A girls’ trip. Bali. Sun-soaked beaches, endless laughter, fruity drinks with names you couldn't pronounce, and the kind of easy joy that only comes when you’re surrounded by women who love you like sisters. It was good. No—wonderful, even. It was the kind of trip you talk about for years after, the kind that feels like a pause from real life in the best possible way.

But still… you missed him.

You didn’t say it at first. You told yourself it was healthy—good, even—to have space. That it was nice not to be The Couple for once. You didn’t need to be that clingy type, right?

Right?

Except… it hit faster than you expected. Maybe on the second morning, when your coffee didn’t taste quite the same without his weirdly specific milk-to-coffee ratio. Maybe when someone cracked a joke and your instinct was to turn, to catch his eye across the table and share that look you always did when something was exactly your brand of funny. Maybe when you fell asleep without the weight of his arm slung around your waist and woke up reaching for someone who wasn’t there.

It was the first time you’d spent more than 48 hours apart since becoming officially, capital-B Boyfriend and capital-G Girlfriend—a title that felt funny on your tongue at first, but quickly became second nature. You weren’t all over each other all the time.

(Okay, you were. But like, in a wholesome, “I’d follow you into the kitchen just to steal a grape from your hand” kind of way.)

But it wasn’t just physical. That wasn’t it. You liked him. Genuinely. You liked being with him—liked how he made space for your chaos, how he listened like every word mattered, how he challenged you without ever making you feel small. You liked the quiet hours and the loud laughter and the strange little routines that made your life feel stitched together in all the right ways.

So yeah, Bali was gorgeous. Your girls were radiant. The food was incredible. But there was this quiet, persistent pull in your chest the whole time—a whisper that said, I wish he was seeing this too.

And now you’re back. Sitting beside him, knees brushing, headphones still warm from when he played you that song. And it hits you all over again:

You missed him. Not in a dramatic, world-ending way.

Just in the way you always miss home when you’ve been gone too long.

You’re still barefoot, half sunk into the old couch in the corner of the studio, hair a little messy from the flight, face flushed with excitement instead of exhaustion. You just listened to the song—his song—and you swear your ribcage is still vibrating from the last chord. But your mind’s already off, burning through memory, hands moving animatedly as you talk.

“Oh, babe,” you say, practically bouncing in your seat, “Bali was insane. I mean, the kind of beauty that doesn’t even feel real half the time. You’re walking down a street and suddenly there’s a temple just... there. No gates. No warning. Just stone and incense and a woman with silver hair weaving flower offerings like it’s the most normal Tuesday in the world.”

Yoongi hums from the swivel chair, eyes on you, chin in hand. You’re not even looking at him—you’re too wrapped up in everything you're trying to say at once. And god, you’re glowing.

“And the air?” you go on, laughing breathlessly, “Yoongi—it’s like the whole island is perfumed. Salt, frangipani, smoke, clove cigarettes—it gets in your clothes, in your hair. You become part of it. I haven’t felt that light in years. Like my whole body was being wrung out and re-threaded.”

He doesn’t say anything. Just watches. Quiet. Intense.

“And there was this one night,” you continue, tucking your feet under you. “We went to this hidden beach—like, you have to go down a billion steps that look like they’ve been carved by actual ghosts—and when we got there? Bonfire. Music. Locals playing guitar on these beat-up amps powered by a generator that sounded like it was dying.”

You grin, eyes flicking up to him for the first time. He’s still. Too still.

You push on, because you’re on fire now. “They handed us drinks—stuff made with arak and fruit juice, totally unregulated, I’m probably lucky I didn’t go blind—and they were just... flirting. Shamelessly. With everyone. Dami got asked to teach this guy how to salsa. Chaeyoung got proposed to with a mango. And I—” you pause, tilting your head, eyes dancing, “—I got called a goddess like, three times. Four, if you count the guy who kept asking if I wanted a moonlit shoulder massage.”

Yoongi's eyebrow twitches.

You notice. You smirk.

“Relax,” you tease. “I told him I was taken. Very taken. Like, off-the-market, emotionally-devoted, boyfriend-writes-me-songs kind of taken.”

His lips twitch, but the line of his jaw stays tight.

You lean forward a little. “Yoongi.”

He still doesn’t look at you.

“Yoongi,” you sing again, dragging out the vowels.

Finally, he lifts his eyes to yours, deadpan. “I’m just wondering why you remember how many times someone called you a goddess, but you can’t remember the name of the ramen place we went to three times in one week.”

You blink. Then you laugh. “Are you—oh my God, are you jealous?”

He shrugs like it’s nothing. “I’m just saying, you were gone for two weeks and apparently became the main character in a beach romance novel.”

“Well,” you hum, shifting closer, “I am a woman of many genres.”

He gives you a look. “Including ‘hot girl summer in Bali with mysterious shoulder-massaging men.’ Got it.”

You bite back another laugh, slide closer until your legs touch. “Would it make you feel better if I told you none of them had your voice? Or your hands? Or your devastating ability to turn missing someone into actual music?”

He doesn’t reply—but he’s listening.

You rest your chin on his shoulder. “I loved every minute of it. But I thought about you the whole time.”

His voice is lower now. “Even when someone was calling you a goddess?”

You grin. “Especially then.”

He exhales, finally, leaning back into you.

“You’re still annoyed,” you murmur, smiling.

“I wrote you a love song and you got proposed to with fruit,” he mutters.

You laugh against his neck. “Okay, that’s fair. But at least your song didn’t give me food poisoning.”

He finally cracks a smile.

And in the soft silence that follows, you slide your hand into his.

Back. Safe. Still burning—with the sun, with the music, with him.

The day after the studio session—after Yoongi had pulled you into his world and played you that new song with the kind of pride he rarely let show—you were finally home, finally grounded enough to unpack.

You’d brought back a mountain of things, mostly souvenirs for your friends. It wasn’t even guilt-buying; you just missed them. A lot.

You started sorting everything out on your floor, each item sparking a memory of someone’s laugh, someone’s oddly specific obsession.

For Namjoon, you had a set of handcrafted ceramics—delicate bowls and one oddly shaped mug you knew he’d appreciate in an “object with character” kind of way. He was into stuff like that: things with weight, texture, stories.

Seokjin’s little bundle was easier. He had this current fixation with coffee, and not just any coffee—he’d sent you the exact brand he wanted, grown somewhere at a particular altitude, roasted a certain way. You weren’t even sure how he found it, but you made the detour just for him. Worth it, you figured, for the chaos he’d unleash in the group chat once he got his hands on it.

Hoseok was getting the batik fabric you found in a tiny shop tucked away near the market. It had deep blues and burnt oranges—bold and beautiful, just like him. You already pictured him turning it into a jacket or draping it over something dramatically at a dance studio. And for his girlfriend, a delicate piece of handmade jewelry—silver with tiny amber stones, shaped like falling leaves. She was going to lose her mind over it.

Your own stuff? That took less time. You hadn’t packed much to begin with—mostly bikinis and breezy tops. The heat had practically demanded it. But you’d also picked up a bunch of new shorts, the kind that showed off your legs just enough. The thought made you grin.

You were definitely planning to wear them around Seoul soon. Yoongi was definitely going to like them.

You were halfway through organizing your pile of clothes when your hand hit something solid near the bottom of your suitcase.

“Oh... right.” Tequila.

Chaeyoung.

The memory hit you like the smell of lime and salt.

She’d shown up in Bali like a whirlwind—barely touched down in Seoul for the past eight months. She’d bounced from London to Chile, Argentina, and then Mexico, and somehow skipped straight to Bali to meet you all, suitcase in tow and stories practically spilling out of her mouth.

“I brought the best tequila for you girls,” she’d announced like it was gold. She held it up like a trophy, her sunglasses still on even though the sun had already dipped behind the trees.

“You’re gonna love it. I swear,” she added, unscrewing the cap to let you smell it right then and there.

Dami squinted at her, skeptical. “What do you mean best? Like—good flavor or good time?”

Chaeyoung had smirked. “Oh, babe, if I told you half the things I did after a couple of shots of this…”

“You’re crazy,” Taeha called out from the back patio.

“No, babe,” Chaeyoung said, eyes wild and glass already half-empty, “you’re gonna want to be crazy after I teach you this little trick. Trust me—this stuff? It’ll get your man on fire.”

The room paused, like it collectively sensed incoming chaos.

Jieun blinked. “Why does that sound illegal?”

“Because it probably is,” Dami whispered, crossing her arms like she was preparing for war.

Chaeyoung ignored both of them, too far gone. She slammed her glass down like she was about to present a scientific discovery. “Okay, LISTEN. I’m about to change all your lives.”

“Oh no,” Taeha muttered. “Not another ‘I saw a TikTok and now I’m a sex guru’ monologue—”

“SHUT UP and listen”, Chaeyoung snapped, already standing like a drunk prophet. “So I was in Mexico, okay? Had just eaten like...six tacos and a churro. I’m tipsy. This guy is rambling about the flavor notes in mezcal like he’s auditioning for MasterChef: Alcoholic Edition, and I’m scrolling TikTok minding my business—and BAM.”

She clapped loudly. Everyone jumped.

“This woman—an actress, like straight up goddess energy—comes up on my For You Page. And she’s like, ‘This is how you seduce a man in ten seconds or less.’ I didn’t even blink. I learned.”

“Stop,” Jieun begged, already wheezing. “I can’t breathe when you talk like this.”

“I’m serious!” Chaeyoung shouted. “You don’t need lingerie. You don’t need a playlist. You just need THIS.”

She grabbed a pillow off the couch and slammed it onto the floor like it owed her money. “Dami, you’re the man. Get over here.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“DAMI. Get. Over. Here.”

By the time Dami crawled over, purely out of morbid curiosity, Chaeyoung was already miming the scene. She picked up her shot glass like it was sacred, locked fake-eyes with Dami, and whispered:

“You take the tequila. You hold it. You stare. Not blink. Not smile. Just stare like you’re about to commit emotional crimes.”

She mimed holding the shot in her mouth, then leaned toward Dami with cartoonishly intense eye contact.

“And THEN,” she continued, dramatically slow, “you pass it. Mouth. To. Mouth.”

The room exploded.

Jieun SCREAMED. “WHAT THE FUCK!!!”

“I SWEAR TO GOD I’M GONNA DIE,” Taeha said, curled into a ball.

Dami fell backward, shrieking. “Get off me, you demon woman!”

“I WAS DOING RESEARCH!” Chaeyoung yelled back, offended.

“YOU DID THIS TO SOMEONE?” you gasped.

“In the bathroom of a rooftop bar in Oaxaca!” she declared like she was announcing a Grammy win. 

“WHAT.”

“WHATTTTTTTTT?!”

Jieun was hiding behind the couch now. “I cannot believe I have to know you.”

Chaeyoung, now fully unhinged, launched into a dramatic reenactment—flipping her hair, straddling the pillow like a man was beneath it. “Then we made out so hard I almost knocked a soap dispenser off the wall. I think there was applause outside. I don’t know. I blacked out from the POWER.”

“You need help,” Dami groaned, fanning herself.

“No, YOU need tequila and a man with low expectations,” Chaeyoung snapped, already pouring more shots. “Now, who’s next? Let’s practice. I’ll be the guy. Come on. Seduce me, cowards!”

You were crying from laughter. Your stomach hurt. Your soul hurt. Jieun looked like she was about to call a priest.

“Do we need to tell Yoongi about this?” Taeha asked you with an evil grin.

“No one tells Yoongi anything,” you said quickly, gripping your drink like it was your only protection.

Chaeyoung just smirked at you, devilish. “You’re gonna try it. I know you are.”

You just laughed—and avoided her gaze.

But she already knew.

Yeah, that bottle of tequila was now staring at you.

Oh, you were gonna have fun.

By the time Yoongi woke up—hair messy, hoodie slipping off one shoulder, blinking at you like you were a dream—it was nearly noon.

“You unpacked already?” he asked, voice raspy, warm with sleep.

“Trying to pretend I’m not still on Bali time,” you mumbled, smiling into your mug.

He padded over, kissed your temple, and muttered something about making tteokbokki.

And god, he really could cook.

You sat cross-legged on the counter while he moved through the kitchen with quiet confidence, slicing green onions, adding just the right amount of gochugaru like it was instinct. The rich, spicy scent filled the apartment, and when you finally sat down to eat, you could have cried from the comfort of it. After two weeks of fresh seafood and tropical fruits, having something that tasted like home—like Seoul, like him—felt grounding.

“Still like mine better than any Bali food?” he asked, smug as he watched you devour the last piece.

You licked your spoon. “No offense to Bali, but your tteokbokki is emotional support food. It wins.”

He grinned, that small, rare one that made your stomach flutter.

Now, hours later, the sun was setting outside the living room window. The city buzzed softly in the distance, but here in the apartment, it was calm—dim lights, a quiet movie playing, legs tangled under a shared blanket. Yoongi leaned into the cushions, one arm draped behind you, the other lazily scrolling through his phone during the slow parts.

“Should we open some wine?” he asked, his voice low, almost a hum.

“Only if you pick it,” you replied, resting your head on his shoulder.

He gave you a small pat on the thigh before heading over to the shelf tucked into the corner of the kitchen—a narrow unit lined with a modest but respectable collection of bottles. He crouched down, humming to himself, searching for the right red.

Then he paused.

“...What the hell is this?”

You turned your head.

Yoongi straightened slowly, holding up a sleek, unfamiliar bottle. The label was bright. Bold. Very not him.

He squinted at it. “Did this multiply in my apartment without my permission? I did not buy this.”

You bit your lip, trying very hard not to smile.

He turned to face you. “This yours?”

You gave him a sheepish nod.

He examined the label again, then looked at you with a mixture of suspicion and amusement. “Why... do you have a bottle of tequila hiding in my apartment?”

“Chaeyoung gave it to me,” you explained, as innocently as possible. “As a gift.”

Yoongi arched a brow. “That sounds fake. Try again.”

“Okay,” you admitted, slowly standing up, blanket falling from your lap. “It was part of a girls’ night... situation. Involving stories. And hypotheticals. And a very specific TikTok.”

Yoongi narrowed his eyes at you like he was trying to read subtitles you weren’t offering.

“…What kind of TikTok?”

You gave him a totally innocent smile. “A harmless one.”

“That’s never true,” he said flatly. “Every time someone starts a sentence with ‘so I saw this TikTok’ it ends in something insane or borderline illegal.”

You raised your hands in mock surrender. “Nobody got arrested. Nobody died. There were just... beverages. And discussions. That’s all.”

Yoongi held up the bottle like it was radioactive. “So this ended with you bringing back imported mystery tequila from girls' night? That’s the takeaway?”

“Don’t be dramatic,” you said, walking over and plucking the bottle from his hands. “It’s artisanal.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“You act like I’m hiding a crime,” you teased, setting it carefully on the table.

“You are hiding something,” he muttered, still watching you suspiciously. “You’re way too smiley for this to be a normal ‘hey let’s have tequila’ situation.”

You shrugged, doing your best to look unbothered—even as your face threatened to betray you with another grin. “Maybe I just missed you and thought it’d be fun to have a drink together.”

“Uh-huh,” he said slowly, eyes narrowing like he was filing that line away for later. “Totally believable. No other reason. No hidden context.”

“Exactly.”

A pause.

Yoongi finally dropped back onto the couch beside you, still eyeing the bottle like it might start talking.

“You’re lucky I like you,” he muttered under his breath.

You nudged his knee with yours. “I am lucky.”

He glanced at you, then let out a small, exasperated laugh. “And now I’m low-key afraid to drink that.”

You leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Well, good thing we’re having wine right now.”

He shot you a look, but couldn’t help the amused smile tugging at his lips.

It had been a shitty week. No poetic metaphors, no dramatic flair. Just plain, exhausting, soul-sucking shit. Going back to work was shitty. As an editor at a publishing company, you were used to juggling deadlines, writer meltdowns, and 2 a.m. “urgent” revisions — but this week? This week decided to personally test your will to live.

By Friday, you were running on caffeine, petty rage, and whatever serotonin your cat videos could offer.

Thankfully, it was over. Finally.

You were curled up on the couch in an oversized hoodie, staring blankly at your phone while half a bag of chips sat forgotten beside you. Yoongi had texted earlier — be home in an hour, miss u — and even just that had been enough to keep you from combusting.

With a sigh, you opened your messages app, finally catching up on the chaos you’d ignored all week.

Your friends' group chat was on fire. Everyone was still riding the Bali high, posting blurry sunset photos, thirst traps in bikinis, and messages like:

Taeha: literally thinking about the nasi goreng at 3am Jieun: my skin still glows like i bathed in tropical gods Dami: WHEN are we doing round two. i need a new passport stamp and a new man. urgently. Taeha: can we do Greece. or Spain. or literally anywhere with sun and drama.

You smiled, heart softening a little. Yeah. That trip was magic.

And then you saw it — a private message from Chaeyoung.

Chaeyoung💥: [TikTok link] “this is the visual representation of what i tried to explain that night LMAO” “giving this to u cuz u r the only one with a man lol”

You tapped the link, suspicious.

The video started playing — and you immediately paused it, jaw dropping, face heating.

Oh. OH.

It was the exact tequila trick she’d so enthusiastically attempted to act out back in Bali. Except now, seeing it performed in real time — slow, hot, absolutely lethal — made something in your brain short-circuit. You blinked, stared at your phone like it betrayed you, then hit play again. For science.

The way the woman in the video straddled her man, the effortless way she passed the drink between their mouths, the almost moan he let out like it rewired his whole nervous system—

Yeah. You were watching this on a Friday night after getting metaphorically body-slammed by your job. You deserved joy. You deserved serotonin. And preferably, you deserved it in the form of your boyfriend, shirtless, on this very couch.

You: chaeyoung. what the hell. why r u sending me this 

Chaeyoung: DIDN’T I JUST SAID YOU R THE ONLY ONE WITH A MAN THAT YOU CAN CALL YOURS. SEE THE VISION

You: i see it i feel it

Chaeyoung: YESSSS get that man WEAK, babes.

You: he’s coming home in 40 how fast do u think i can shower and emotionally prepare

Chaeyoung: light the fucking torch.

You stared at the screen for a second, heart racing, lip caught between your teeth.

Well. You did just wash your hair last night. And your cute robe was clean. And that bottle Chaeyoung gave you? Still hiding behind the wine rack like a dirty little secret.

You stood up.

Time to turn this terrible week around—with tequila, TikTok tactics, and one very lucky boyfriend.

The apartment was dimly lit, cozy, and quiet—exactly the way Yoongi liked it after a long day. He kicked off his shoes by the door, ran a hand through his hair, and called out casually, “Babe? I’m home.”

No answer.

Well, no immediate answer.

Just the soft hum of music coming from the living room—something low and sultry. It wasn’t your usual playlist. This was a vibe.

He squinted. Suspicious.

“Babe?” he tried again, stepping further in. His jacket was halfway off his shoulders when he turned the corner—and stopped dead in his tracks.

You were in the living room. Waiting.

Correction: you were posed in the living room.

Wearing your favorite silk robe—one that barely grazed your thighs, tied in a loose, suspiciously flimsy knot. Candles flickered on the coffee table. Two glasses sat beside a bottle he definitely didn’t own.

“Hi,” you said sweetly, crossing one leg over the other as you sat perched on the edge of the couch like a perfectly wrapped sin.

Yoongi blinked. “...What the hell is going on.”

“Celebrating,” you answered, like it was obvious.

He raised a brow. “Celebrating what?”

“The end of a very horrible week,” you said, then added with a grin, “And also… you.”

Yoongi was now actively side-eyeing the bottle. “Is that—”

“The tequila,” you confirmed. “Yes.”

“I thought we said we were saving that for—”

“Plans change,” you cut in, voice light. “Besides, I have a new method. A fun one.”

He blinked at you again, slower this time. “Why does that sound threatening.”

“It’s not,” you said. “It’s sexy.”

You laughed, a little wild in your eyes, and patted the spot in front of you. “Sit. Trust me.”

Yoongi hesitated, that familiar wariness flickering behind his dark eyes like a warning siren—this was definitely going to be one of those moments. But as always, he couldn’t resist you. With a sigh, he shrugged off his jacket and dropped onto the couch, still shooting you a suspicious look. “You’re being weird.”

“I’m being generous,” you teased, voice low and mischievous.

You slid closer, your hands gentle but firm on his shoulders. “This is something I learned.” You practically straddled him, settling down on his lap with a confident smile.

Yoongi’s brows knit together, confused but intrigued. “What—”

“They said this is how tequila tastes the best,” you whispered, your fingers tracing the buttons of his shirt. “And since I know you really like your alcohol…”

You slowly hooked your finger into the top button of his shirt, eyes not leaving his face. “Can I unbutton this?”

Yoongi tilted his head slightly, lips curling in amusement. “Yes,” he replied, raising a brow as if to say whatever you're up to... I’m watching you.

With a sly little grin, you unfastened one button. Then the next. Then another. You were deliberate with it—fingers brushing his skin each time, exposing just enough of his chest to leave your mouth watering. His skin was warm, soft, and smelled faintly of the cologne he always wore. That scent you liked to steal from the collar of his sweaters.

You leaned in, holding the tequila shot glass loosely in your hand, and whispered—half to him, half to yourself, “And then I have to... huh... lick.”

You dipped your head and—without hesitation—flattened your tongue against the base of his neck. You dragged it slowly up, tracing a path over his collarbone and along the curve of his shoulder, right where the salt would go in the classic version. Except you weren’t following any rules.

Yoongi’s breath caught sharply. His hands, resting on your hips, twitched.

You leaned back, just enough to lock eyes with him. He looked stunned. Flushed. Slightly speechless.

Then, as if to really commit to the bit, you took the shot. Head tilted back, throat bobbing as the tequila slid down.

And finally—eyes on his—your hand reached out for the lime. But instead of putting it in your mouth, you brought it up to his lips.

“Bite,” you said softly.

He obeyed.

You leaned in one last time, stealing the lime back with a kiss that lingered longer than necessary, your lips brushing his in a mix of citrus and heat.

“Okay—where the hell?” Yoongi sputtered, blinking like he just came out of a trance. “What? Why? What the hell?”

He was flustered—genuinely flustered—and that was rare for him. A soft pink crept up the sides of his neck, and his chest was still rising and falling just a little faster than usual. You stayed exactly where you were, still straddling his lap, hands resting lightly on his now half-unbuttoned shirt like it was the most casual thing in the world.

You tilted your head innocently, though your smirk betrayed you. “This is why I wanted to save that bottle.”

Yoongi stared at you, eyes narrowing. “This is what that TikTok discussion was about?”

You leaned forward just enough so that your chest brushed his, your voice dropping to a whisper. “I told you it was educational content.”

He huffed a dry laugh, but his hands were already on your hips again, holding you tighter now. “Educational? Babe, you just licked me like a human salt rim and then kissed tequila into my mouth. That wasn’t education. That was witchcraft.”

You bit your lip, eyes gleaming. “Witchcraft that works, clearly.”

Yoongi’s gaze dropped to your lips, his breath catching slightly. You could feel him shifting beneath you, his composure unraveling by the second.

“You’re literally still on top of me,” he muttered, voice lower now, rougher.

“Mhm.” You rolled your hips just a tiny bit, enough to make his hands dig into your waist in warning. “On purpose.”

His eyes snapped back to yours, something darker flickering there now. “You planned this.”

You kissed the corner of his mouth. “Maybe.”

“Maybe, my ass.”

He surged up just enough to kiss you fully, mouth warm and tasting faintly of lime and tequila, his hands sliding under your shirt like he was reclaiming control. But you broke the kiss with a breathless laugh, leaning back just enough to look him in the eyes.

“You said you liked tequila.”

“I like peace and quiet too, but I guess I’m not getting that either,” he muttered, though the way he looked at you said something very different.

“Not when I’m around,” you teased, pulling his shirt fully open now and tossing the shot glass aside like the game was only beginning. 

He chuckled, low and wicked. “And here I was, just trying to have a normal Friday night.”

“But did you like it though?” you asked, breathless now, lips still tingling from the kiss. You dragged your hands slowly up his chest, over the exposed skin you’d just unbuttoned, nails light enough to make him twitch. “You haven’t said anything about it, babe.”

Yoongi looked at you—really looked at you. His pupils were blown wide now, jaw tight, lips slightly parted as he processed the question, like you had just asked him something offensive.

“You’re seriously asking me that,” he said, voice low, hoarse with restraint, “while you’re literally sitting on me like this?”

You rolled your hips ever so slightly, the friction cruel in how light it was. “Just want feedback.”

Yoongi let out a sharp breath—half disbelief, half groan—and grabbed you by the hips, steadying you, containing you, but barely. His fingers dug in, possessive.

“Of course I fucking liked it,” he said, eyes dragging down from your lips to your neck, to the swell of your chest beneath your shirt. “Who the fuck do you think I am?”

You smiled slowly. “Just making sure.”

“You licked my neck, downed a shot like it was foreplay, and then had the audacity to grind on me like it was a goddamn game.”

You tilted your head. “It was a game.”

He pulled you flush against him, his mouth brushing the corner of yours with maddening softness, the kind that made your whole body tense in anticipation. “Oh, it’s a fucking war now.”

You gasped, but before you could respond, his mouth was on yours again—hotter this time, needier, tongue sweeping past your lips like he needed more of you now. His hands slid up your back, under your shirt, dragging it higher with every desperate kiss.

He was already hard beneath you, and the way his hips bucked up, just once, slow and deliberate, told you exactly how much control he was pretending to have.

“You wanna know if I liked it?” he growled against your mouth, lips brushing yours with each word. “I’m gonna show you how much.”

And he kissed you again—messy, rough, like the question had flipped a switch in him. One hand tugged at the waistband of your shorts while the other held you firmly in place, his thigh pressing between yours now. Heat pooled low in your belly.

“Tequila,” he muttered against your skin, trailing kisses down your neck. “What kind of spell did you girls cook up in Bali?”

You laughed, breath shaky as your hands tangled in his hair. “The kind that ends with you begging.”

He was gone the second you straddled him.

Yoongi tried—really tried—to keep his cool. But the minute you whispered “lick” and dragged your tongue along his neck, something short-circuited. His brain, his restraint, his sense of time. All of it.

And now, here you were—sitting on him like sin in human form, asking if he liked it.

Liked it?

He wanted to laugh. Scream. Flip the couch. Instead, he grabbed your hips because he had to. Not to stop you—hell no—but because if he didn’t hold on, he might do something entirely unhinged. Like flip you over and lose his mind.

“Of course I fucking liked it,” he said, and even to his own ears, his voice sounded wrecked. He could feel the way your weight settled into his lap, how warm you were, how smug. You knew exactly what you were doing, and it was driving him insane.

He couldn’t look away from your mouth. The way you were breathing a little faster. The faint shimmer of tequila still lingering on your lips.

When you rolled your hips again—again—he swore under his breath.

His body reacted instantly, hips lifting into yours with an involuntary jerk that made him clench his jaw. Your breath caught. Good. You felt it too.

“You’re gonna fucking kill me,” he muttered, dragging his hands under your shirt, mapping every inch of skin like he had to memorize it. “This—whatever this is—you’re not walking away from it, you know that?”

You tilted your head, smirking. “Wasn’t planning to. I told you I had a shitty week.”

Yoongi chuckled, the sound deep in his throat as he leaned in, lips brushing against the shell of your ear. “So this was your plan, huh?”

You felt the slow drag of his hands down your sides—warm, steady, maddening.

“Mmm,” he murmured, voice low and laced with amusement. “You just wanted to have a little fun. That it?”

His nose nudged against your cheek before he whispered, “You missed me, babe. Don’t play like you didn’t.”

You tried to keep a straight face, but the way he spoke—so casual, so sure of you—made your breath hitch.

“Two weeks without me…” His teeth grazed your jaw. “Two weeks without sex.”

Your thighs instinctively tightened around his hips, and he noticed—of course he did.

“Ohhh, I knew it,” he grinned, cocky now. “I wonder what you got up to while I was around. Hm? What kind of desperate little thoughts did that pretty head of yours have?”

He ran his hands up under your shirt again, slow, appreciating every curve like he’d been starving for it. “You did something to this body, didn’t you?” he drawled, voice dark velvet now. “You’ve been walking around all tan and glowy and smug like that trip fixed your soul—but I know what you really needed.”

His fingers curled around your hips, rocking you down against him, just enough to remind you exactly how ready he was.

“You’re a whole different person when you’re horny, baby. So needy. So fucking honest.”

You squirmed, and his laugh was smug, satisfied.

“You had a shitty week,” he said, dragging his mouth down to your neck, lips soft but teasing. “So naturally, you thought—‘Hey, I know what’ll help. Let me climb on top of my boyfriend and ride the stress away.’”

“Is it working?” you whispered, breath hot against his cheek.

He pulled back just enough to look at you—really look, eyes burning like they could eat you alive.

“I made you a song while we were apart,” he said with mock offense. “You? You learned a seduction trick off TikTok.”

You grinned. “Productive two weeks.”

Yoongi’s hands were still on your waist, warm and possessive, when he leaned back just slightly, eyes hooded and gleaming with something dangerous. You knew that look. That smirk. Your stomach flipped.

“So…” he began, brushing his thumbs in slow circles over your bare skin, “you pulled that little tequila stunt…”

You grinned. “Guilty.”

“…and thought I wouldn’t retaliate?”

Your smile faltered. “What?”

He leaned in again, lips barely ghosting over yours as he whispered, “You really think I don’t have a few tricks of my own, baby?”

You swallowed hard.

“I’ve been patient,” he continued, dragging his fingers slowly—infuriatingly slowly—down your spine. “You had your fun. Now it’s my turn.”

Before you could respond, he was lifting you effortlessly, standing with you wrapped around him like it was second nature—because, at this point, it was. You barely had time to gasp before he was carrying you down the hallway toward the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him like he meant it.

He laid you on the bed with a reverence that made your heart race and your thighs press together, and then he disappeared for a second—just long enough to make you whine in protest.

“Relax,” came his voice from somewhere near the kitchen, casual and dangerous. “I’m just grabbing the bottle. If you’re gonna start something, babe, you better be ready to finish it.”

Your mouth went dry.

When he returned, the bottle of tequila was in one hand, and that same dark smirk was back on his face. He set it gently on the nightstand, then climbed onto the bed with the kind of grace that made your breath catch.

“You remember how it goes, right?” he murmured, kneeling between your legs. “Salt… lick… shot.”

You nodded, suddenly the one speechless.

He dragged a finger across the curve of your collarbone, then leaned in to kiss the spot—slow, open-mouthed, lingering. You felt your heartbeat stutter.

“Lift your arms,” he whispered.

You obeyed. He licked a line just below your clavicle, then sprinkled the salt there with deliberate precision. His lips brushed your ear again.

“Keep still.”

You couldn’t breathe.

He brought the shot glass up, holding it steady in one hand as he dipped his head.

The lick came first—wet, slow, decadent. His tongue traced the salt from your chest with a kind of reverence that made your whole body tighten beneath him.

Then the shot—head tilted back, clean and quick.

And then?

Then came the lime.

Instead of handing it to you, Yoongi brought it to your mouth himself, holding the wedge with his fingers just so. “Bite,” he murmured, his eyes locked on your lips.

You did—and his eyes darkened.

He watched the way your mouth moved, watched the little shiver run through you from the sour tang and the heat still lingering on your skin.

“Fuck,” he muttered, dropping the lime to the side and pushing you gently back onto the pillows. “You're never allowed to do that trick again unless I get to do it right back.”

Your laugh was breathless. “Deal.”

But before you could say anything else, his mouth was back on you—hot, insistent, everywhere at once. He kissed a path down your stomach, murmuring praise between every inch of skin.

And just before he disappeared between your thighs, he looked up at you with that same boyish smirk that always got you in trouble.

“You had a shitty week,” he said, voice low “Guess I’m gonna have to fuck it out of you.”

You barely had time to react before Yoongi’s mouth was on you again—slow. He kissed down your stomach like he was mapping it, like he was reclaiming it. His fingers slid under the waistband of your shorts, tugging just enough to make you whimper.

“You wore these to tease me, huh?” he murmured, hot breath fanning over your skin. “You knew exactly what you were doing.”

“Maybe,” you said, breathless, hands tangling in his hair.

He chuckled, dark and low. “You walk in here, tequila bottle like some kind of sex witch… straddle me like it’s nothing, lick salt off my chest like that’s a normal Friday night—what the fuck do you expect me to do?”

You were about to answer—something witty, something bratty—but then he had your shorts off and his mouth was on your inner thigh, kissing the skin there like it was sacred.

“You smell like heaven,” he muttered. “And you’re shaking. You’ve been thinking about this all week, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” you gasped.

He hummed. “Then stop pretending like you don’t want me to ruin you.”

And he did. Tongue pressed flat, slow and firm—one long lick that had your hips bucking off the bed. His hands gripped your thighs, holding you down with practiced ease.

“Fuck, baby,” you breathed, already seeing stars.

Yoongi didn’t respond. He was focused, utterly and deliciously focused, like he was composing a melody with your body as the instrument. He switched between long, slow strokes and quick flicks that had you sobbing his name.

Every time you got close, he’d pull back—kiss your thighs, suck a little mark into the skin just to watch you squirm.

“You don’t get to come yet,” he said, voice rough now. “Not until I say.”

You whimpered, a full-body shiver running through you.

He slid two fingers into you—slow, curling just right—and your back arched. Your hands gripped the sheets, clawed at them. He pressed kisses to your inner thigh as he fucked you with his fingers, mouth still devastating between your legs.

“You taste like you missed me,” he said, voice hoarse, fingers never slowing. “Is that what this is? Two weeks of missing me? Of needing this cock and not getting it?”

“Yoongi—”

“Tell me.”

“Yes—yes, fuck, I missed you—”

“Yeah, you did.” His teeth grazed your skin, his fingers moving faster now. “Missed being filled. Missed being fucked like you deserved.”

You were a trembling mess, every nerve ending lit up, every muscle tense and begging for release.

And just when you thought you couldn’t take another second, he moved up your body, hovered over you, kissed your lips deep and dirty with your taste still on his tongue.

“Wanna come?” he whispered, grinding against you, already rock hard through his boxers.

“Yes, please—”

“Good,” he smirked. “Because I’m not stopping until you do. And then again. And again. You're not sleeping tonight, babe.”

Yoongi didn’t stop—not when your legs started to tremble, not when your breath hitched in that high, helpless way that drove him insane. He was relentless, completely immersed, tongue gliding in slow, torturous circles before switching to sharp, precise flicks that had you arching off the bed.

“God, fuck. Please,” you almost choked, voice wrecked, coming out in desperate, broken pieces. “Fuck, fuck—”

Your hand flew to his hair, threading through the dark strands with shaking fingers. You weren’t just touching him—you were clinging, grounding yourself against the overwhelming wave crashing through your body. Then your other hand joined, not stroking, not pulling—just holding on as he pulled deeper sounds from you than you'd ever made before.

“I—fuck,” you gasped again, voice hoarse and breathless, hips rising against his mouth. “Yoongi—please—I can't—”

He growled low, the sound vibrating against you in a way that made you cry out. And still, he didn’t stop.

Didn’t even look up.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

You were falling apart under him, trembling and moaning and begging, and he was drinking it in like your body was his favorite kind of worship. His hands tightened on your thighs, holding you open, holding you down—as if to say You’re not going anywhere. I’m not done yet.

Because he wasn’t.

He was building you like a beat, layering sensation on sensation until it all collapsed—until the dam broke and you screamed his name, clenching around nothing, your body shaking as pleasure tore through you.

And even then, he still didn’t let go.

“Good girl,” he murmured against your thigh, breath hot, voice rough with pride and lust. “Now let’s see how you take cock”

He didn’t give you much time to recover—just enough for your breathing to even out, for your lashes to flutter open, dazed and ruined, still trembling from the aftermath.

Yoongi leaned over you, chest brushing yours, the weight of him grounding you. His lips ghosted across your jawline, featherlight, and then lower, over your neck, where he bit down gently—claiming.

"You always taste like this?" he murmured, lips brushing the shell of your ear. "Or is this just what happens when you miss me?"

You whimpered, already breathless again.

He sat back on his knees, undoing his belt in one smooth pull that made your mouth go dry. His eyes never left yours—dark, heavy-lidded, pupils blown wide with hunger. His shirt hung open, still a little damp where you’d licked the salt off his skin, and he looked completely, devastatingly fucked out, even though he hadn’t gotten anything yet.

“Look at you,” he murmured, eyes raking down your body. “You’re shaking. You really had a week, huh?”

You nodded. Barely. And he smiled, slow and sinful.

“Well, baby,” he said, positioning himself between your thighs, stroking himself once, twice—thick, flushed, already dripping—“let me make it better.”

And then he pressed in.

The stretch made your breath catch, eyes fluttering shut—your body still too sensitive, too desperate—and he hissed between his teeth.

“Fuck, you’re tight. Always so good for me. Goddamn.”

He rolled his hips, slow and deep, and it was like the air was punched out of your lungs. He filled you completely, every inch deliberate, every movement dragging against all the places you needed him.

Your hands flew to his shoulders, nails digging in for purchase.

“Yoongi—fuck—”

He caught your mouth in a kiss, messy and hot, all tongue and teeth, swallowing your sounds like he wanted to own them. His thrusts got harder, deeper, finding that rhythm that had your entire body arching, your legs locking around his waist like he was the only thing anchoring you.

"You think you can come in here, ride me with tequila tricks, and not get absolutely wrecked?" he growled into your neck.

You moaned—helpless—and he smirked.

"Not after that little show, baby. No way."

He shifted, one hand sliding under your thigh to hitch it higher around him, changing the angle—and fuck, you saw stars. Your back arched off the bed, your head thrown back, and Yoongi watched like he was witnessing art.

Yoongi’s grip tightened, his voice dropping low and rough against your skin. “What did they call you? A goddess?” His hips thrust harder, heavier, deliberately rougher, every movement pushing you closer to the edge. “But they didn’t get to have you like this, right?”

You choked on a breath, overwhelmed by the sensation. “Oh my god… I told you—fuck—because I thought it was… there, fuck—funny… Oh my god, are you really jeal—fuck!”

Your eyes rolled back, pleasure washing over you in waves so intense you could barely keep up.

“I’m not jealous,” Yoongi growled, voice thick with need.

“No?” you teased breathlessly, arching into him.

“I’m thriving,” he said, pressing his forehead to yours, every word dripping with possessiveness. “They don’t fucking get to see you like this. Only I do.”

“You feel that?” he grunted, thrusting harder now, body slamming into yours with a rhythm that left you gasping. “That’s mine. All of this—mine.”

You couldn't speak—you could barely think. Every movement was electric, every drag of him inside you a white-hot promise of release. His pace was brutal now, every snap of his hips laced with possession, with the kind of love that ruins you for anyone else.

“You’re gonna come again,” he said—low, rough, a little breathless, but firm. Not a question. A command. “And then you’re gonna do it one more time. Because I missed this, too. I fucking missed you.”

He growled the last part, voice cracking slightly under the weight of how real it was. His hips didn’t let up—deep, relentless, tuned perfectly to your body like he’d memorized every reaction, every gasp.

Your fingers clawed at his back, useless against the way your body spiraled. You were wrecked—utterly, completely, beautifully wrecked.

“I—I missed you so much, Yoongi,” you sobbed, the pleasure too much to hold in anymore. “I’m gonna… fu—fuck, cum—”

“Oh my god,” is all you can manage, your voice wrecked and breathless, your whole body trembling beneath him.

“Inside,” you whisper, your lips brushing his ear, need thick in your tone.

He’s still moving—slow now, but deep, deliberate—as if he wants to feel every last second of you wrapped around him. The look in his eyes is feral, undone.

“Fucking missed you so much, babe,” he groans, and then he’s right there—burying himself deep as he cums hard, hips stuttering, spilling into you with a growl so raw it vibrates in your chest. His whole body tenses against yours as he rides it out, forehead pressed to yours.

“I fucking missed you,” he repeats, almost breathless, voice rasping against your lips. “I told you—I wrote a whole damn song because I missed you. I didn’t have time to give you something earlier but I had this whole fucking plan—a date, like a proper boyfriend.”

He huffs out a breathless, delirious laugh, still barely able to move.

“And now look at us,” he adds, burying his face in your neck. “Fucking tequila.”

You laugh, weak and breathless, wrapping your arms around him tighter. “Next time you bring the salt.”

Group Chat: 🌴 Good Bitches Reunited 🌶️

You: update: tequila trick was… effective 😌✨

Chaeyoung: I KNEW IT

Taeha: WAIT. omg she DID

Jieun: This is why I need to start collecting frequent flyer miles. I’m flying to you next.

Dami: HELLO??? 

You: girl. the look on his face when I did it… like he saw God

Chaeyoung: I’M SO PROUD I COULD CRY

Taeha: Honestly I thought you’d chicken out but no. you did the whole “lick → salt → shot → kiss” thing right??

You: Of course I did I studied the tape

Jieun: So you're telling me tequila + cleavage + terrible week + some sort of emotional reunion = Yoongi malfunction?

You: He short-circuited 😌 Then rebooted and proceeded to rearrange my internal organs

Chaeyoung: This is now a case study Scientific proof that tequila leads to spiritual fulfillment and hot sex like I SAID.

You: Anyway. Legs? Gone. Dignity? Questionable. Regrets? Zero. So… success?

Chaeyoung: Tell Yoongi I accept thank-you notes in the form of concert tickets or exclusive unreleased demos 🫶

You: He wrote me a whole song during the trip So I seduced a man and got a song.

Dami: MAIN CHARACTER SHIT

You: I’ll send a selfie later once my legs function again Love u whore💋

Taeha: God I missed us Can we go to Greece next?

Jieun: Bitch, we’re going to Spain next. Get a freakin grip. 

[heleninhha]

if you leave something behind (you gain something too.)

pairing: bucky barnes x multiverse! reader summary: you’re a TVA agent—meant to observe, never interfere—but you fall for him in every universe. every iteration. every version of james buchanan Barnes. and across centuries, across collapse and convergence, that love stays. steady. inevitable. written into the code of the multiverse like a rule it can’t break. (multiverse!) inspired by past lives (2023) and the ministry of time. for an expanded explanation and playlist, click here. word count: 15.7k content warnings: 18+ mdni, fem reader, heavy angst w/ a happy ending, oral (f and m receiving), creampie, piv, praise, overstimulation, hair pulling, breast worship, use of pet names, mentions of death and loss

This is it.

The glamorous, sparkling career of a TVA precision-field agent. 

Emphasis on “precision.” Emphasis on “field.” Emphasis, mostly, on “agent,” because the term “analyst” was deemed too misleading after what happened in 1806 Prussia (one rogue spreadsheet, a very confused Napoleon, and three weeks of bureaucratic bloodshed).

You’re not like the Minutemen, stomping into timelines in those tactical chic jumpsuits, pruning anomalies with the self-satisfaction of people who still think “delete” is a solution. You’re not an auditor—thank God—squinting at branching event charts and muttering about entropy coefficients over cold tea.

No. You’re the needle. The thread. The hand that sews.

Your job is surgical. Your presence is a whisper. Where others correct by erasure, you correct by inclusion. You enter the timeline. You become part of it. You don’t push the dominoes over—you walk by, breathe funny, and trust the air will tip them just right.

There’s no glory in your work. No medals. No mission logs, either. 

Everything you do is redacted—even from you. You carry the residue of other people’s lives under your fingernails, and sometimes forget which memories belong to whom. 

Sometimes you wake up choking on grief that was never yours. You learn to live with that.

It’s the first thing they ask you in training, during the psych filters: Would knowing the future help you grieve less?

No one answers yes. Not honestly.

You understand now why. There’s no solace in foreknowledge, just the burden of it. Knowing that someone dies doesn’t stop you from loving them. It just makes every moment feel like a countdown.

You specialize in delicate convergences: moments in history so precariously balanced that a sneeze in the wrong direction could avalanche into centuries of collapse. Your handlers call them “softpoints.” You call them “the edge of the knife.”

Sometimes you’re a midwife in 1421. Sometimes you’re the barista who smiles just enough to make a physicist reconsider her route to work. Sometimes you’re a corpse at the right place, the right time, to remind a man of the past he keeps trying to forget.

Right now, you're really fucking hungover.

You started having the dream again.

Not a dream, exactly. A memory with the edges worn smooth. At first it came in pieces—clipped sounds, filtered light, the low hum of something old and mechanical beneath your feet. You dismissed it. Just timeline residue. A misplaced echo.

But it kept returning.

Always the same: a red-brick apartment building. New York—no file, no mission tag—in winter. Brooklyn, more specifically, from your view of the bridge. You’re on a stoop. Someone calls your name and you turn just in time to see a shadow disappear around the corner. A laugh rides the wind, low and familiar.

You wake up before you follow. Every time.

Your mouth tastes like floor polish and betrayal. Your eyes open one at a time, not out of coordination, but protest. Your skull seems like it's determined to play a high-stakes game of ping-pong against itself.

You groan.

This is how your days usually start. 

You sit up slowly, bones cracking like old film reels, and assess the carnage around your quarters.

Clothes: on the chair, on the floor, one boot in the sink.

Timepad: blinking faintly on the nightstand, still charged.

Your hair is somewhere between “ungovernable” and “formerly respected.” You run a hand through it and immediately regret that decision. Your reflection in the tiny wall mirror is a damning indictment of last night’s choices. Smudged eyeliner. A smear of something neon-orange near your jawline. You shower quickly — TVA-issued water pressure: inconsistent, ironic. You pull on a button-up and slacks instead — neutral, inoffensive.

You’ll blend into whatever century they throw you into next. For now, you settle for looking like you might belong in the TVA cafeteria line.

By the time you lace your boots (twice — the first attempt ends in a mild panic attack and a missing sock), the hangover’s down to a dull roar. Your breath smells like expired mint gum and broken dreams, so you down two cups of black coffee and chew on one of those flavorless temporal hydration tablets like it might save your soul.

You do your job. Reliably. Unremarkably. The way they like it.

And sometimes you drink enough that for a few hours, you don’t remember how you got here. Or how you’ve always been here.

You toss your timepad into your holster, slap a mediocre patch on your face to cover the worst of the under-eye shadows, and mutter something vaguely threatening at your own reflection.

Time to go.

Three mugs deep into lukewarm cafeteria coffee that tastes like regret and the glue holding office furniture together, you’re hunched over yet another Form G-17 — “Suspected Non-Nexus Deviation: B-Class Branch.” Your fourth this week. You’ve logged more hours categorizing existential anomalies than actually interfering with any, which is particularly unusual, for you anyway. You've been dormant for much longer than you're used to.

The previous G-17s included such branch classics as “cow develops rudimentary consciousness,” “Steve Rogers blinks twice during a televised 2013 speech instead of once,” and “Loki starts a book club.” (Unauthorized self-improvement remains a hot-button issue.)

This one, though—this one’s different.

The case file reads:

CASE FILE: #616-BE0 MISSION CLASS: Softpoint Convergence LOCATION: Siberia, USSR DATE: February 1955 SUMMARY: A low-grade temporal softpoint has been detected. Origin ambiguous. Energy output consistent with pre-convergent instability. Divergent potential is not yet sufficient to trigger a Nexus Event, but the timeline is exhibiting signs of local timeline ‘fraying.’ Mission parameters suggest passive stabilization through presence, not correction. Duration: 3 hours. Environmental hostility high. NOTES: Embed into local context. Observe anomaly behavior. Maintain temporal camouflage. Apply Softpoint Integration Protocol if deviation escalates.

You stare at the file.

Cold, quiet dread coils low in your stomach. Siberia. February. 1955. No glamour in that assignment—just ice and silence and the kind of untraceable damage that leaves timelines limping.

Across from you, Casey is organizing his pen caddy by weight again. You catch a glimpse of the sticky note on his lunchbox: “Please do not eat my croissant. Please.” The second “please” is underlined three times.

You stole that croissant yesterday.

Honestly, he should thank you. It was a little dry.

You turn your eyes back to the file and eye the temperature index: -43°C. S. “Oh good,” you mutter to no one. “Toe amputation weather.”

You stand, suit creaking as you shift, and tug on your tie with practiced resentment. You snap your timepad into place on your wrist. The UI pings with a mild hum — dull orange light, sanctioned and soulless.

Casey looks up.

“Heading out?” he asks, hopeful. He always wants your desk when you’re gone. You have the only chair that doesn’t squeak like a dying goose.

“Yup,” you say. “Brad flagged something ‘mildly interesting.’ We’ll see if it’s another raccoon wasted off shrooms.”

“Or a bear,” Casey offers.

You click your timepad open, keying in the Siberia coordinates. “Or a hallucinating bear.”

Casey nods gravely.

The door opens, temporal energy flaring in its signature burnt-orange halo. You take one last swig of your bad coffee, grimace as it hits your tongue, and mutter, “Let’s go see what broke this time.”

Then you step through.

The light swallows you whole.

And you forget, for a second—just a second—that you were ever anything else.

EARTH-616 | SIBERIA, 1955

The walls groaned when the wind pressed against them. Not urgently. Not like they were in danger of collapse. More like an old man muttering in his sleep.

You didn’t trust the ship, not entirely. It had been retrofitted for temporal operations, but barely—still more icebreaker than chronal vessel. The insulation was patchy in places, and every vent exhaled a little breath of cold that bit at your ankles. If the TVA had a top-shelf of deployment crafts, this wasn’t on it. This was bottom-shelf. Dusty. Dinged up. Probably cursed.

Still. It was warm. Warm enough.

Outside, Siberia stretched like a battlefield already lost. White, endless, blank. Indifferent to watchers, to wanderers, to time itself. It didn’t care that the threads of history bent here. That the TVA had deemed this place a convergence zone—a softpoint where multiple outcomes were forming brittle overlaps. No Nexus spike yet. But something was pulsing.

You leaned back against the wall and let the thermos rest against your chest. The rhythmic thump of the engine hummed through your bones. You liked that. The vibration reminded you that you were still solid. Still here. Still someone with a job to do.

Observe. Do not interfere.

And yet. A flicker on the monitor caught your attention.

Unidentified movement—Quadrant C. Low thermal. Not vehicle. Not patrol. One heat signature. Steady. Moving through the storm.

Human-shaped. Probably.

You didn’t move yet. Just watched. Let it crawl across the display while you listened to the wind.

You checked your timepad again. No nexus flare. No spike. But there was a pulse. Faint, irregular. Like the anomaly was alive.

You didn’t believe in fate. But you believed in gravity. In the way some people pulled history around them like cloaks. This place? It felt pulled.

The door behind you hissed open, then shut again with a metallic shudder—just a shift in cabin pressure, but your body went still anyway. One hand tightened around the cooling thermos; the other hovered near your holster. Not paranoid. Just prepared.

You took a breath. Let it sit in your lungs like steam.

The blip on the monitor moved closer. Still slow. Still steady.

Somewhere out there, in that wide, white nowhere, something was walking toward you.

Before you can focus or fixate on the blip, you hear the bang. It’s not the ship groaning this time. Not the distant thunder of ice shifting. This is close. Inside.

Then the ping.

INTERNAL SECURITY BREACH: SECTOR 7 – SUB-HOLD ACCESS. UNAUTHORIZED MOVEMENT DETECTED.

Of course. Of course it’s the hold.

You didn't run. Running was noise, panic, a rookie move. Instead, you moved swiftly and fluidly, silent as frost.

The corridor narrowed as you descended, metal groaning beneath your boots, the walls sweating condensation from the sudden temperature drop. Ahead, you heard clear sounds of intrusion—boots scraping against metal, something sharp and metallic snapping like bone.

Voices shouted orders in Russian, clipped and urgent.

You pressed against the wall outside the sub-hold entrance, flicking your wrist to pull up the heat signatures on your timepad. Four—no, five—distinct signatures flickered on screen, scattered and frantic, like dropped matchsticks.

Far more than the single blip you'd tracked earlier.

You move anyway.

Quiet. Calculated. Not to neutralize—just to see.

Inside, the hold is chaos: crates overturned, equipment flickering, something sulfuric in the air. A soldier stumbles into your path, disoriented, eyes wrong—like the mind inside doesn’t fit anymore. You sidestep, smooth and practiced, letting him fall without intervention. Another crashes through the smoke and doesn’t even register you.

Your breath clouds the air. The hold smells like ozone and rust and something sharper—like old blood sealed in with frost. And then you see it. 

In the corner of the hold, something hums—low, persistent, and thoroughly annoying. Not a cryo chamber, thank god. You've had enough encounters with frozen bodies this fiscal quarter. 

Instead, it's a pulse field generator—standard TVA gear, uncomfortably grafted onto mid-century Soviet tech. You frown deeply, which is practically your default expression at this point. This thing was supposed to be dormant.

According to the updated log, this thing is officially a Temporal Dissipation Node—a fancy TVA euphemism for a safety valve that bleeds out timeline tension. Supposedly passive, no-contact. The kind of setup they drop into delicate softpoints, relying entirely on subtlety and minimal human interaction.

This node, however, isn't subtle at all. It's malfunctioning, stuttering irregular pulses instead of smooth ones. Perfect. You crouch, eyes narrowing as you spot obvious manual overrides and Soviet tampering. Wonderful. Someone's been messing around inside the casing.

“Great,” you mutter under your breath, tasting bitterness that has nothing to do with your morning coffee. “No wonder they didn’t send backup. Needed someone expendable.”

Before you can fully embrace the gravity of the situation, the far wall explodes inward in a decidedly dramatic fashion—metal screeching, smoke filling the room. You whip around, baton raised instinctively, already calculating how much paperwork this will generate—

—and freeze.

Because someone's standing there. Just standing. Breathing hard, like he ran the whole way here through the ice.

His hair is long and damp at the ends, curling slightly where the frost is starting to melt. His clothes are frayed at the edges—standard-issue Soviet combat gear, only half-zipped, soaked through. There’s snow clinging to the edges of his sleeve. His stance is wide, solid. Familiar in a way that makes your blood run cold.

But it's his eyes that hold you still.

Not the metal arm, titanium and deadly. Not his sharp-edged stance, nor the rifle slung almost forgotten across his back. It's the eyes—pale blue, intensely focused. Clear. Too clear.

Just staring.

Like you’re an answer to a question he hasn’t been able to phrase. Like he’s seen you before and forgot until now.

And maybe—you freeze, stomach folding in on itself—maybe you forgot too.

The Winter Soldier. James Buchanan Barnes.

It’s not recognition, exactly. Not full-blown. But something in you shifts, quiet and tectonic. The sensation of stepping into a half-remembered dream. Or maybe it's the ache you’ve been waking up with lately, the dream you can never hold onto, just shapes and colors and a voice you almost know.

You’ve heard plenty about Bu—the Winter Soldier from hushed whispers in break rooms and blurry security footage in restricted archives. Never once did you picture him looking so… aware. 

At the TVA, he’s quietly regarded as a tragedy. Not a threat, not a glitch—just a sorrow too persistent to be useful. His story, in every version they’ve managed to scrape together, is one long unraveling. Grief braided into duty. Identity shredded and rebuilt, over and over, never the same way twice. He’s the man who keeps losing himself and somehow finding his way back—bloodied, wrong, resilient.

Maybe that’s why he doesn’t replicate well. His story’s too heavy to echo cleanly across timelines. The trauma calcifies too early or never forms at all. He fractures, or fades, or dies too soon. The man doesn’t scale. Whatever makes him who he is—the loyalty, the guilt, the staggering, stubborn will to keep trying—it’s never quite transferable.

The few variants that do emerge feel more like flickers than full lives. Glimpses. Reverberations. None of them last long. Some of them are never quite right.

In all your missions, all the cautious mentions of him across different centuries and realities and debriefs and documents, you’ve never actually met any versions of him.

Not directly. Not face-to-face. You’ve seen the aftershocks he leaves behind—cratered timelines, corrupted code, confused agents muttering about ghosts with metal arms. You’ve traced the outlines of his story across so many fractured worlds, each one slightly wrong. The scent of smoke where he should’ve stood. A silhouette in archival footage. A name carved into a resistance wall in a language long dead. But never him. Not until now.

It should be insignificant. It shouldn't matter. There should be no correlation, not even a twinge of paths intertwining.

Except now he’s standing in front of you, and it feels like being struck clean through the chest with something invisible and ancient.

In one smooth movement, he dispatches a soldier—a precise blade across the throat. No wasted motion. No hesitation. Then his eyes sweep the hold again, landing on you and locking in place like he couldn't stand to take his eyes away.

You take in the rest of him.

His face is younger, but that's to be expected. Well, not young, exactly—but preserved, like a man caught mid-sentence and left on pause. Strong jaw, a haunted set to his mouth, cheekbones that look sculpted more by winter than by genes. He looks like he hasn’t shaved in a week and hasn’t cared in far longer. You run a mental calculator, it must've been only about a decade since… the thing.

But it’s the eyes again—flicking over you, sharp and clinical. Blue, frostbitten, edged with something you’d almost call suspicion, if there wasn’t so much… exhaustion in it.

And finally—his silence. Not blank, not confused. Just... watchful. Like he's seen this play out a hundred times already. His head tilts slightly. Just a fraction. Like he’s cataloging the shift in your body language. 

Realization hits you with an unpleasant jolt: he’s uncertain. Of the timeline. Of the mission. Of you.

Whatever brutal conditioning was poured into him hasn’t fully rebooted yet. There’s still too much of the man bleeding through the programming. His breath’s too ragged. His movements, a fraction too slow. His gaze—not vacant, not robotic, but… blinking too hard. Like the world’s coming in too fast, too bright, too much.

Your timepad buzzes insistently, a sharp vibration at your wrist—twenty minutes and some change until convergence. You lower your baton slightly, resigned, and open your mouth.

“Look—”

But your sentence is abruptly cut short as a shadow drops from the walkway above, gun raised. Before you can react, a powerful arm wraps across your mouth, hauling you sharply back against a solid chest. The bullet punches into the floor exactly where your head had been, sparking furiously.

“Quiet,” he rasps. His voice is rough-edged, wind-scoured—hoarse from disuse or screaming into nothing or god knows what else. The metal arm presses lightly against your abdomen. Not pinning. Just… grounding.

You nod. One deliberate motion. A signal that you understand. That you’ll play along.

There’s a beat—one heartbeat, maybe two—before he releases you. The contact disappears like breath off a mirror. Quick. Clean.

Two more figures drop from above—armed, definitely not TVA or Soviet. Fantastic. A third-party complication. Just what this mission needed.

Bucky moves first, a blur of ruthless precision. You watch him take down an attacker effortlessly: elbow, weapon disarm, throat strike. Smooth, clinical, deadly poetry. 

The air shudders again—an ugly crack in the hull overhead. Your timepad screams: fracture line detected. asset instability threshold imminent. Everything’s shaking. You grab his arm and mutter, “We have to move.”

He hesitates—but only for a second.

Then he runs.

You don’t speak as you sprint through the corridor, ducking falling beams and sparking lights. He stays close. Too close. Like he’s guarding your back on instinct. Like he hasn’t figured out yet that you aren’t the one who needs protecting.

You hit a collapsed hallway and double back, darting into a maintenance shaft. The walls here sweat condensation. Bucky’s chest is heaving from exertion, breath coming too fast.

You glance back.

He’s stopped.

He’s leaning a hand against the wall, eyes shut. Not from exhaustion. From something else.

His metal fist clenches tight—so tight the plating groans—and he presses it to his temple like he’s trying to block something out. His whole body shakes, just once. A full-body flinch. Like his brain’s short-circuiting.

“Hey,” you say, softly now. No command. Just presence. “Hey.”

Nothing.

“Bucky.”

It slips out before you can catch it.

And it works.

He startles. Freezes. His eyes snap open—and they find yours instantly.

Something ancient and aching floods his expression. Not anger. Not threat. Just confusion. Recognition. Fear.

Not of you. For you.

His lips part like he’s going to speak—but no sound comes out.

You move toward him. Slowly. Hands up. Nonthreatening.

You reach him slowly, each step cautious, deliberate. His back is against the bulkhead now, shoulders rigid like he’s trying to hold himself together through sheer force of will. You stop just short, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body.

The lighting flickers, painting sharp angles across his face. For a moment, he looks nothing like a weapon. He just looks... young. Tired. Worn raw from too many ghosts.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” you say quietly. “I swear. I’m not.”

His jaw twitches. His eyes won’t leave yours. That look again—like he knows you. Like he’s trying to dig the truth out of your face with nothing but instinct and desperation.

“I know this place is loud,” you continue, softer still. “I know your head must feel like a war zone right now. But you’re doing fine. Better than fine.”

A sharp breath. His fingers twitch at his side, metal knuckles flexing like he’s fighting the urge to reach for you. Or to run. You’re not sure which would be worse.

And then the timepad on your wrist pulses—a slow, resonant tone. The kind it only makes when a divergence has been successfully reabsorbed. You glance down.

CONVERGENCE REDIRECTED. NEXUS THRESHOLD STABILIZED.

Of course. That’s what this was. The system was waiting for the moment he didn’t break. For the second he chose not to collapse, or kill, or disappear. A single, improbable outcome unfolding exactly as needed.

It was him. He was the pulse.

You let out a shaky exhale. The node in the hold must’ve gone inert—no more timeline bleed, no more irregular pulses. Outside, the storm’s intensity drops by half in minutes. The hull creaks as pressure stabilizes. Everything’s slowing down. Calming.

It’s over.

The right call now would be to leave. Every protocol you’ve ever memorized is screaming at you to disengage, to extract clean, to leave no mark and make no memory.

But.

You’ve already—fuck, you’ve already. The moment he looked at you like that—like you were familiar, like you mattered—it was over. You are so utterly, catastrophically screwed.

“I don’t know what they told you,” you say, and your voice barely clears your throat. It’s quieter now. Gentler. Like you’re afraid of scaring him back into whatever shell he crawled out of. “About this place. About this mission. I don’t even know if you’re going to remember this tomorrow. But I wanted you to know—”

You don’t finish.

Because he speaks.

“Will I see you again?”

The words are soft. Barely voiced. Like he had to haul them out of someplace deep and rusted shut. They land heavy—denser than sound has any right to be. It knocks the breath out of you. 

You blink. “What?”

He steps forward—just one measured step—but it’s enough to change the air between you. Close now. Close enough to see the uneven skin at the corner of his mouth, the wind-chapped crack at his lower lip. Close enough to notice how his left hand shakes, barely-there tremors betraying the tension he’s trying to lock down.

He doesn’t say it again. He doesn’t need to.

You could lie. You could make it easier. There are a dozen lines you’ve used before—smooth, forgettable, safe. But you don’t reach for any of them.

Instead, you smile. It’s lopsided, weary, born of too many years being the one who leaves first. It’s your shield and your surrender, both.

“Only if you start talking more,” you say, a half-hearted tease wrapped in something much more fragile. You flip open your timepad as the breach activates, casting soft gold light against the hallway walls.

The portal hums. Warm. Waiting.

But your heart’s a thunderclap now. Relentless. You’re already tucking away the tilt of his head, the way his gaze softened—not like surrender, but like a question. Like maybe he’d found something in you worth staying awake for.

And you know better—god, do you know better—but your feet don’t move. You hesitate. Just a second. Just enough to feel it. Then you step through.

You don’t look back. You never do.

But the image of his eyes—ice-clear, impossibly human—follows you like a ghost you didn’t mean to keep.

.

You wait for the hammer to fall.

You expect it in the usual ways—a recall order, a message from Oversight, a polite but unambiguous invitation to report to Subsector 8 for disciplinary review. You expect the breach notice, the system ping that says unauthorized designation use or noncompliant field contact, maybe even timeline contamination: agent-induced.

You expect something.

Because you said his name.

Because you looked at him like a person, not a variable. Because you touched him. Not in passing—not incidental. You chose to.

You’ve seen people get demoted for less. Scrubbed out. Timeline reassigned, memory wiped, consigned to desk duty or worse—shunted into the Void or the Nullspace, that softly brutal end-of-line where broken things go to dissolve.

And you—you—let your guard down in the middle of a convergence zone and called the Winter Soldier by his name. That’s not oversight. That’s not mission drift. That’s a lapse.

And yet… nothing happens.

Not a single alarm. No reprimand. No haunting message from Internal Realities. No pulled credentials. No veiled threats in Performance Management.

Instead, your timepad pings three days later with a new assignment.

Business as usual.

You run it back a dozen times, trying to parse the angle—waiting for the catch. It never comes. You go on a mission in Year 3830 where the only threat is a sentient vine and a mild temporal rash. You document a collapsing micro-timeline in 1994 Missouri. You sit through three mandatory debriefs and a cross-departmental cultural sensitivity training that somehow lasts six hours.

Nothing.

Just… more work.

You fall back into the rhythm, the TVA's particular brand of unremarkable eternity. The recycled coffee, the endless corridors, the clipped dialogue, the dozens of agents who all look slightly frayed around the edges in the same way. The paperwork is never-ending, the bureaucracy divine in its pettiness. Time moves strange here—like chewing on tinfoil. Sometimes it gallops. Sometimes it forgets you entirely.

But there’s something different now.

It’s you.

You keep seeing him—in flickers and echoes, half-formed thoughts you don’t realize you’re having until they hit the page. You start reviewing your field notes only to find entire paragraphs written in shorthand about the moment he tilted his head. About the way he said Will I see you again?

You shouldn’t care. You don’t care. It’s just a glitch in your focus. Just… inertia.

Still, you pull up his file. James Buchanan Barnes.

It’s a fractured thing. Not quite whole, like someone took sandpaper to the edges. Parts redacted, others duplicated. A timeline that can’t seem to decide if it wants to be linear. No two missions involving him look the same. There are strange annotations. Personal tags from long-retired analysts. Notations like non-repeatable trauma pattern and event recursion index unstable.

Some entries are missing dates.

You read through anyway. Not for duty. Not even for curiosity, really.

You just want to.

And then, one standard TVA cycle later, it lands. Another assignment. This time the seal is embossed in gold—Causal Preservation Division. Low-risk, softpoint reinforcement. Routine.

You flick through the details:

CASE FILE: #456-TH9 MISSION CLASS: Softpoint Reinforcement LOCATION: British Isles, Kingdom of Latveria Borderlands DATE: JUNE 1602 ASSIGNED COVER: Itinerant Herbalist, non-native, licensed under local superstition codes SUMMARY: Objective is limited to passive timeline stabilization: ensure delivery of a restorative tonic to a six-year-old child suffering from swamp fever. This act preserves a familial survival event critical to a downstream medical lineage. Mission does not intersect with major temporal figures. You are not to interfere with core narrative threads. You are not here for Bucky Barnes.

(But the file doesn't say that last sentence. You just write it down anyway.)

You frown at the file. It feels… small. Intentionally. A clean mission. An easy one, all things expected. No soldiers, no storms. Just a timeline that needs a nudge.

Still, you hesitate.

Not because it’s dangerous. Because it’s not. And because part of you wonders—quiet, insistent—if he’ll be there again. Not as the Winter Soldier. Maybe as something else. Someone else.

The TVA says every mission is randomized.

But it never quite feels like that, does it?

EARTH-456 | BRITISH ISLES, 1602

The first thing you register is the smell. Damp earth. Horse sweat. Pine sap and someone nearby frying something questionably birdlike in lard.

Your boots sink into wet loam as the time door closes behind you with a dull sigh. It’s quiet here, beneath the canopy—just birdsong and the faint crackle of something cooking over a badly constructed fire pit.

You scan the clearing.

They call it a "camp," but it’s more aspirational than functional. A few makeshift tents, some scattered crates stamped with the royal crest—recently liberated, if the smashed locks and missing inventory are any clue.

You move quietly, cloaked in the nondescript garb of a traveling herbalist—dirt under your nails, satchel full of fake tinctures, a few well-placed knives. 

You watch from the shade of the trees as he crouches beside the firepit, running a cloth along the edge of a short dagger. His hair’s tied back, rough and practical. There’s mud up to his knees and blood on his knuckles, dried like old guilt.

He doesn’t see you, not yet.

Later, after setting up a modest stall in the village square (all intentional smoke and drying herbs, designed to blend in more than stand out), you’re told by a fellow field agent to visit the pub.

“The mead’s surprisingly tolerable,” they say, nudging your satchel. “Also, your contact’s not due for another twelve hours, so don’t just sit there and brood. Blend in.”

You go.

The pub is suspended in a towering yew, three stories up a gnarled trunk, accessible only by a ladder that looks like it hates everyone who uses it. The structure groans in the wind but holds, its branches creaking like tired bones. The inside smells of firewood, old ale, and something herbal—probably the same bitterroot tincture you’ve been pretending to peddle all day.

The mead is surprisingly tolerable. You settle into a booth carved into the wall, lit by low-burning lanterns. It’s warm. Quiet. You sip and let yourself feel anonymous.

Right up until the door slams open in that unmistakably theatrical way only someone with a chip on their shoulder and too much presence can manage.

You look up—and still, somehow, you’re not ready.

He’s changed, of course. That’s the constant.

His hair is pulled back in a low tie, streaked with ash and caught with a bit of red cloth. He wears a leather cloak patched with scavenged velvet. The left arm, impossibly, is still metal—but shaped like something out of myth. Not sleek. Not sterile. Forged. Etched in old runes that flicker faintly in the lantern light.

A blacksmith’s nightmare. A knight's inheritance.

And then there’s the way he moves—like someone used to silence, used to watching the world from its edge and only stepping in when absolutely necessary. He doesn’t walk so much as arrive, and the moment he does, the tavern seems smaller. Quieter.

His eyes—those same pale, searching eyes—find yours almost immediately.

He pauses, mid-step. The look on his face isn’t surprise. It’s that ache of recognition, buried too deep to name. Like catching your reflection in a mirror that doesn’t quite match.

He walks toward you without invitation. Controlled. Coiled. Not hostile. Just inevitable.

“My lady, you shouldn’t be out this late,” he says, voice worn at the edges, smoke-scoured and rough from a life that’s clearly involved too many cold nights and too few comforts. “Not alone.”

You take a slow sip, meet his gaze. “It’s always late here. And rarely alone.”

He studies you. Not just your face, but your posture, your stillness. The way you speak like you’ve been somewhere else too long to fully belong here.

Something flickers in his expression. Not memory. But something adjacent.

He lowers himself into the seat across from you without asking. He’s still damp at the collar—rain, or sweat, or both. He’s got a scar running from his jaw to the hollow of his throat, clean and straight like a blade meant to silence. But his voice doesn’t shake.

“Have we met?”

You offer a small, unreadable smile. “I don’t believe so.”

But he keeps looking. You can feel him doing it—mapping the angles of your face against some invisible sketch, something etched into his bones that refuses to fade.

“You look lost.”

“Just passing through.”

His mouth pulls tight at the corner, like that answer doesn’t satisfy. You can tell he doesn’t believe you—but he doesn’t press.

He nods toward a table in the back, where a small crew drinks from shared mugs and watches the door. They wear scraps of stolen uniforms and carry themselves with the weight of people who’ve stopped pretending they’ll live long lives.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says again.

You glance at them. “Neither should you.”

His silence is telling. It confirms what you already guessed.

He’s part of something. A resistance, sure, but not just that. He’s the center of it. The calm in the chaos. The one who moves supply through enemy lines and burns bridges behind him. His coat bears a crest he’s tried to remove—once royal, now repurposed. His fingers twitch when he’s still too long, and there’s something reverent in how the others look at him when they think he’s not paying attention.

This version of him is no less dangerous. But more visible, somehow. More known. To these people, he’s a savior. To himself, probably a liability.

Always the same story: a man pressed into myth by the weight of his own regrets.

And still, he looks at you with that same protective wariness. Like something in him knows you don’t quite belong here—and wants to guard you anyway.

“Come on,” he says quietly. “I’ll walk you home.”

The words strike you harder than they should. Like something remembered from a dream that felt real long after you woke.

The night outside is so still you can hear the wind whispering between the boughs.

He pauses under the lantern hanging from a bent branch. Looks at you, shadow-draped and silent.

“Why are you here?”

You should lie. You want to lie.

But instead, you say it softly. “Because I said I would be.”

He blinks. The words hit something deep. Maybe he doesn’t understand them. But he feels them.

You step closer. Just close enough to reach up, cup his jaw gently, feel the sharp edge of his breath catch in his throat. And then you kiss him.

The moment your lips touch his, the rest of the world blanks. Not gone—just irrelevant. The pub, the low burn of lanterns, the sound of rain tapping against the wooden slats—it all slips away. All that remains is this.

His mouth is warm, unexpectedly so, and still. Cautious. As if he’s holding still for a test he doesn’t know the answer to.

You’re the one who moves first. Just slightly. Just enough to let it mean something.

And gods—it does.

It means everything you haven’t said aloud. Every hour you spent since Siberia rewatching that moment when he looked at you like he knew you. Every line of his file you traced with your eyes long after you were supposed to close it. Every anomaly he left in his wake, the hollow prints he pressed into timelines like fingerprints you couldn’t scrub clean.

You’d told yourself it was curiosity. Professional interest. A harmless fixation. Just trying to cover your own ass in the event that the TVA catches up to you, foolish, foolish girl. But now you know better.

Because kissing him feels like gravity finally catching up to you.

He doesn’t pull away.

His hand twitches—just once—like he might lift it, might anchor you there with the metal one, or with the other, the one that remembers touch. But he doesn’t. He just breathes against your mouth like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Like no one’s kissed him like this in years.

Like no one’s ever kissed him like they remembered him.

The kiss is brief. You make yourself pull back before it deepens, before it turns into something hungrier, something you won’t be able to file away as incidental.

But you linger close.

He sends you off with a kiss to your forehead.

You complete the mission in silence.

The child is easy to find—just as the file described. Freckled nose, limp in his mother’s arms, fever-bright. You hand over the tonic with a reassuring word and a warm enough smile to pass for human. The woman weeps when the boy stirs minutes later, the color already returning to his cheeks.

And just like that—it’s done.

Softpoint reinforced. Future intact.

The door opens in a grove just outside the village, where moss curls over tree roots like sleeping hands. Golden light hums at the edges of the breach. You don’t look back. You’ve learned your lesson there.

But as you step through, the last thing you hear—carried faintly on the wind—is his voice.

“I never got your name,” he says into a room that’s not as empty as he thinks it is. Not yet.

.

You try to stay detached. Try to mark each version of him like a data point—distinct and catalogued, filed neatly beneath coordinates and context. But it never works. The lines blur.

There’s the one with the scar over his brow and the wild dog stare, who watches your hands like they’re a threat and touches you like they’re a prayer.

The one in 2049 who doesn’t speak until the third encounter but holds out his hand like he’s known you forever. The one who plays cello in a city that shouldn't exist, who smiles only for children and flinches at thunder. The one who dies before you can reach him. You stay by his body anyway, until the timeline resets.

Each time, it’s different.

Each time, it’s him.

You start to think: maybe he’s not a variable. Maybe he’s the constant. The fixed point the multiverse can’t help but echo. A gravitational pull in human form—tethered to something your soul must have signed onto long before the TVA ever handed you a timepad.

You wonder if the multiverse is trying to teach you something. Or if it’s punishing you instead—showing you every version of the thing you can’t quite keep. Like a lesson in longing, rerun on loop.

You try not to hope. But the hope comes anyway. It always does. Soft and bright, a bruise you press on just to feel.

Then you get your next assignment.

The file is clean. Neat. Sanitized in that way TVA summaries always are—euphemisms in place of grief, percentages instead of people. But you read between the lines. The divergence happened on the train. Or rather, didn’t.

You read it twice. Three times. It doesn’t change.

This Bucky Barnes didn’t fall. The train held. The mission succeeded. Captain Carter rescued him and helped dismantle the remains of Hydra’s European cell before the war even ended. He was never captured. Never reprogrammed. Never dragged through a Hydra chamber like something to be melted down and reforged.

You try to imagine him without the weight.

You picture Bucky Barnes smiling easily, untethered to the guilt of fifty years of carnage he never chose. A man who still cracks his knuckles but not because they ache with remembered pain. One who walks into sunlight without flinching.

You wonder what that would be like.

So you go.

Of course you go.

You always do.

EARTH-838 | LONDON, 1944

You’ve never liked the long assignments.

Short ones are surgical—get in, disrupt or observe, slip out before the timeline notices the echo of your footsteps. This one, though, is different. Your mission folder is three times thicker than usual. Paper-clipped pages in brittle brown envelopes. Dossiers printed on carbon-smudged letterhead. Photographs tucked inside, blurred by time and memory.

You’re embedded with the 107th, slotted in as a specialist from Intelligence, the kind who shows up with forged credentials and a quiet knack for being in the right place just before things go wrong. Your cover holds. Mostly. They think you’re here to coordinate logistics for Hydra base strikes. They’re not entirely wrong.

The first time you see him again, he’s making a sarcastic remark about British rations and butterless toast. He’s not in uniform—just a pressed shirt with rolled sleeves and a cigarette dangling loosely between two fingers, a smear of grease on his wrist. He laughs when Howard Stark tosses a wrench and almost breaks a window.

It’s different sound from what you've heard over the years.

But then Bucky Barnes notices you.

Not all at once. Not like in the stories people tell themselves after the fact—love at first glance, magnetic fate, sparks across a battlefield. No, it starts in pieces. A glance held a beat too long during mission briefings. A muttered thank you when you slip him a replacement knife requisition that definitely wasn’t cleared. The way he starts lingering near your tent in the evenings, offering lazy conversation while the others clean weapons or sleep.

“You always write that fast?” he asks once, elbow braced on the flap of the entrance like it’s casual, like he didn’t cross half the camp just to talk to you.

You don’t look up. “Only when I’m trying to drown out poorly played harmonica.”

He grins. “Hey, Dugan’s doing his best.”

You snort. “His best sounds like a wounded mule.”

He laughs again, quieter this time. You feel it settle between your ribs like a warm coin. It’s nothing. Just noise. You tell yourself that.

Weeks pass like that. Quiet orbit. You take longer walks to the mess hall because he always times his exit to meet you halfway. He asks questions—about where you're from (a place you name off a pre-approved list), what brought you to London (the war, obviously), if you believe in fate.

You lie when you can. You dodge when you must.

But not everything you say is false. You like coffee too bitter and books too sad. You write letters you never send. You don’t sleep well. You’ve lost people.

He listens. He remembers. He starts showing up with extra coffee. Offers to walk you back to your quarters even though it’s technically against regulations. You start lingering in his doorway.

He never pushes.

And you hate it—how much you want him to.

The first time he touches you, it's an accident. Your fingers brush as he passes you a pen. Your skin sparks. It’s stupid, how much you feel it.

He notices.

"You ever get that sense," he says one night in the empty mess, voices low, "that you’ve known someone longer than you’re supposed to?"

Your breath catches.

You laugh it off. "I get that about my dentist."

He grins. But his eyes stay on yours too long.

You’re not supposed to fall in this one. 

But God, it’s so easy. So familiar.

Bucky tells you about his family. His sister. The stoop of his childhood apartment and how he used to sneak Steve a flask when the nurses weren’t looking. He draws out your laugh like it’s a map, like he's been trying to find it for years.

And all the while, you feel it coming. 

One night, two months in, he walks you back and you don’t stop at your door. You let the silence linger. The city is dark and rain-slicked, war planes humming overhead like ghosts.

"You’re not like anyone I’ve met before," he says, leaning against the wall.

You smile sadly. "You’ve said that to a lot of girls, Sergeant."

"Yeah," he murmurs, voice suddenly quieter. "But none of them felt like déjà vu."

You almost kiss him. But not yet.

The war ends not with silence, but with song.

London spills into the streets like a wound unstitched—men and women dancing in front of blown-out buildings, children painting flags onto brick walls, sailors kissing strangers with the urgency of borrowed time. The city doesn’t sleep. Neither do you.

You’ve stayed longer than planned.

Your official timeline expired a couple of hours ago. But your timepad’s been blinking quietly in your coat pocket since sundown, like a secret you’re not quite ready to confess. For long-term infiltrations, the TVA grants a small window of flexibility—two to three extra hours, soft margin. Enough to wrap up loose ends. Enough to say goodbye without saying it.

Bucky doesn’t know. He’s too busy laughing—really laughing—face lit by the amber glow of the pub sign behind him, arm draped lazily around your shoulders. He’s had two pints and a victory cigar, and you’ve never seen him look so alive. 

He’s in his shirtsleeves again, collar open at the throat, hair mussed from the wind. He smells like tobacco and soap and something citrusy he must’ve stolen from Stark’s ration stash. His hand grazes your shoulder as you step outside the crowded pub and into the cool night air. He’s warm, even in the London chill. Always warm.

“I’ve been thinking,” he says, suddenly serious, voice low in your ear.

You turn, startled by the shift. “About?”

He runs a hand through his hair, eyes flicking to the cobblestone street, then back to you. The revelers blur behind you—drunk joy and blurred music, a world gone soft at the edges.

“You could come with me,” he says. "To New York. Brooklyn."

Your stomach drops.

“We’ve got peace now. There’s gonna be rebuilding. A hell of a lot of it. I know it’s chaos but… I don’t know. I thought maybe…” He trails off, then forces a laugh, too bright. “Forget it. It’s dumb.”

You step in close. The timepad at your hip vibrates again—EXIT NODE ACTIVE. TEMPORAL STABILITY REACHED. RETURN IMMEDIATELY. You ignore it.

“Say it,” you whisper.

“I’ll get a job,” Bucky says.

His Brooklyn accent is thick with hope, slipping out between the cracks like sunlight through boarded windows. His voice is rough and low, but urgent—like if he stops speaking for even a second, this moment might collapse under the weight of everything it’s not allowed to be.

“You’re so… so fucking smart it gets me dizzy sometimes. I watch you in a room and—Christ, I’ve seen tacticians, I’ve seen war heroes—but no one moves the way you do.”

He’s closer now, just a breath away, like proximity might be enough to anchor you to this place.

“I’ll get us a place of our own. A tiny walk-up with drafty windows and floors that creak every time you step wrong. The kind of place where no one knows our names, but we’ll learn the neighbors’. I’ll fix the heater when it breaks. I’ll learn to make your coffee the way you like it—two sugars, not too sweet, extra hot. I’ll write it down if I have to. You won’t even have to ask.”

He swallows, his voice breaking just a little.

“I’ll make pancakes on Sundays, even if I suck at it. I’ll burn the first batch every damn week and pretend I meant to. We’ll fight about the dishes and who left the radio on. I’ll learn to fold the sheets the right way, your way. I’ll leave notes on the fridge. I’ll rub your feet when you’ve had a long day, even if you pretend you don’t want me to.”

His eyes are wet now, but he doesn’t blink them away. He wants you to see.

“I’ll build a life where you can rest,” he says, so softly it barely carries over the celebration in the street. “No secrets. No war. Just mornings and bad coffee and a bed we don’t have to leave unless we want to.”

His hand lifts, hovering like he wants to touch you but doesn’t dare. He’s unraveling. And he’s never been more sure of anything.

“You walk around like you don’t belong to anyone,” he whispers. “But you belong somewhere. You belong with someone who sees you.”

His eyes search yours, bright and raw.

“Darling,” he breathes, “I just want—”

You don’t speak. You want to. You want to say yes so badly your teeth ache with it.

Instead, your hand reaches for him—cups his cheek, thumb brushing the scrape of stubble there. You lean in before you can stop yourself.

The kiss is molten.

Not soft, not chaste. It’s everything you aren’t supposed to want: greedy, aching, desperate. It tastes like smoke and honey and war’s aftermath. You can feel the imprint of his hands at your waist, grounding you, like he already knows you’re slipping.

You gasp against his mouth when he deepens the kiss, his hand moving to cradle the back of your neck like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he lets go. And you—you clutch at his coat, fingers fisting in the fabric like it’s the only solid thing left in the world. The city roars around you—drunken songs, laughter, heels on cobblestone—but none of it touches this moment. It belongs to you. To him.

He kisses like he’s starved for something he can’t name.

Like every version of himself has been waiting for this.

Somehow, you make it back to his quarters—barely remembering how. The door slams shut behind you and he’s on you again, mouth warm and insistent, hands trembling now as they trace your jaw, your hips, the shape of your spine like he’s mapping it to memory. You let him. You want to be remembered.

“Tell me this is real,” he murmurs against your throat, breath hot. “Tell me I’m not dreaming you.”

You tip your forehead against his, eyes fluttering closed. “You’re not dreaming.”

You pull his shirt free from his waistband, palms skimming over bare skin, warm and ridged with scars you recognize from dossiers—scars you’ve imagined tracing with your mouth, with your hands, in every universe that told you not to.

Bucky's mouth finds the edge of your jaw, your collarbone, the hollow of your throat. Each kiss feels like a confession, like an apology, like a promise. "You're so fucking pretty," he moans into your skin, moving and moving and moving, until you feel his thigh part yours, giving you just the right amount of friction to drive you crazy.

Your shirt's off in turn, and all at once, he drifts down to your tits, cupping them with both palms and burying his face in them. For a moment, your brain short-circuits—he's groaning, tender kisses against your nipples and sucking, nipping at the swell of your breasts. "You taste so good, darling. God, I can taste you all day."

You pull on his hair—hard. "Bucky, please. Give me more."

"Ask and you shall receive."

You're rewarded with a beautiful view of him shedding the rest of his clothes off. You can't—won't—look away. It never ceases to amaze you, how pretty his cock is. You lick your lips as he gives it a stroke, slow and soft and positively ready for you.

Then Bucky leans forward, capturing your lips again with a certainty that makes your heart near burst out of your chest. 

Your hand wraps around the base of his cock and you smile when he wrenches his head back, eyes shut in almost agony. Bucking against your hand, like he can't get enough of it. He says your name, and despite yourself, you grin before pulling yourself away from his kiss to lower your head, tongue swiping out to taste what leaks from him at the tip.

"Oh, god," His hands come to twist around your hair, the pull making your eyes water with something delicious, something filled with need. You keep going deeper, until he hits the back of your throat and you both moan. "You're so good to me. So, so good."

He's babbling now, as your lips stay wrapped around your cock and you're pressing the flat of your tongue against his veins, a hand stabilizing you underneath. "Sweetheart, you're perfect. I'm going to—oh, yes, right there—god, I'm gonna marry you. We're never gonna stop doing this. I'm never gonna get enough of you."

You take him there, all the way up, until he's almost to the edge and he has to ground his hands against your cheeks and pull you off. He looks down at you with that goddamned earnest look that makes you fall in love with him in the first place. "Not—not like this. I want to be inside you."

Of course, of course. "Of course, James."

He pushes you onto your back, and you can't help the giddy feeling in your chest, seeing how much of a mess you've made of him. His cock's shining with your spit and saliva, your wetness all over him. When Bucky sees where you're looking, he licks his lips. A preliminary swipe against your folds when you, very intentionally, thrust forward against his hips impatiently.

"So eager."

You glare at him, lips curling even as he takes both of your thighs until he's slotted between them. "There's no need to be a tease—Oh."

He sinks in, inch by agonizing inch, and you're moaning, jaw dropping as his cock disappears inside of you. You're so full. You've never been this full before and it makes you pant, sighing breathlessly, and when his thumb finds your clit, you whine and clench around him. Both of you moan in harmony.

His pace speeds up from there, hard and fast, and it's intensified by the way he looks at you. Eyes dissecting you carefully, trying to remember every expression, every second, every move that makes you keen further into his touch. 

"Look at me, baby, please," Bucky growls and you do. "Look at me when you make me come."

You can't look away, feeling the stars gather up behind your eyes as your own orgasm catches up to you—fuck, it's nothing compared to how his release feels inside of you, the warmth, the way he feels so strong under your fingertips. His chest vibrating, mouth falling open in a prolonged, beautiful groan. He pushes himself deeper inside of you, until you feel his release slipping out of you onto the mattress.

You press a kiss to his forehead and let yourself fall asleep like that—him inside of you, tangled up in him.

The light is different when you wake up in the morning.

Soft, pale, almost shy. It seeps through the parted curtains like it doesn’t want to intrude, spilling over the uneven floorboards and up the rumpled edge of the blanket half-draped across your hip.

His arm is still around you. Heavy in sleep. Warm. Bucky Barnes is still asleep.

You don’t kiss him goodbye.

Instead, you whisper something he won’t hear. “I wish we had more time.”

And then you activate the timepad.

.

Time passes strangely in the TVA.

There are clocks, yes. Digital ones on walls, analog ones in desks, internal ones ticking behind your eyes. But none of them matter. Days don’t pile up here—they just... repeat, under different names. Tuesday is a fiction. Sunday doesn’t exist. Lunch breaks happen when the lights flicker just right, and sleep is what you do when your body gives out mid-report.

You stopped counting after the first month. You stopped pretending to count after the second.

Instead, you worked.

Harder than anyone. Longer than anyone. You took missions no one else wanted—scrubbing nexus events off apocalyptic wastelands, ghosting through centuries where empires rose and fell before you’d even finished breakfast. You volunteered for side branches, anomaly audits, recursive sync loops. Anything to keep moving.

It didn’t go unnoticed.

A plaque went up in the Hall of Merit. "Agent of the Month." Your name, etched in fake gold. Mobius clapped you on the shoulder with a proud little smile. Brad brought you the worst celebratory cupcake you’ve ever tasted. (Vanilla. Dry. Sprinkles like gravel.)

You smiled. You always smile.

You don’t let yourself say what you’re really thinking.

That all of it—all the assignments, all the accolades, all the long nights pinning divergent strands back into place—is just inertia. Just mass multiplied by pain. Because you know what happens when you stop moving.

And you’ve tried. God, you’ve tried.

You dodge his branches when you can. You pass them off to junior agents, citing temporal redundancy. You tell yourself it’s not cowardice if it’s protocol. You let yourself believe it, for a while.

Until the file lands on your desk.

CASE FILE: #2149-BE0 MISSION CLASS: Collapse Softpoint Reinforcement LOCATION: Earth-2149 — Brooklyn, United States / Geneva, Switzerland DATE: April 2018 (Post-Outbreak +1 Day) ASSIGNED COVER: Civilian logistics runner, no official alignment, false survivor credentials SUMMARY: Objective is to reinforce critical softpoint during global collapse event: ensure Scott Lang, Peter Parker, and T’Challa successfully board Wakandan quinjet. This evacuation preserves three downstream nexus threads essential to limited multiversal salvage. Do not interfere beyond softpoint parameters. Infected superhumans active.

You stare at it for a long time. You could say no. You should say no.

But your hand moves anyway. Signs the form. Accepts the mission.

No backup. No reassignment.

Just you.

EARTH-2149 | BROOKLYN, 2018 (+1 DAY POST-OUTBREAK)

Out of all the missions you've had so far, you think you hate this one the most. Which is saying something. Zombie apocalypse timelines are the worst.

The air reeks of ash and ozone. You’re used to strange skies by now, but this one feels wrong in your bones. The light doesn’t fall the way it should—too sharp at the edges, like the sun’s been split into shards and you’re walking through the aftermath.

You arrived forty hours ago. Standard infiltration and alignment. The assignment brief was brutal in its simplicity.

Bucky doesn’t make it out of this timeline. He dies at Camp Lehigh. He buys them time.

And you’re supposed to let that happen.

Your first glimpse of him isn’t cinematic. No slow reveal, no stirring strings. Just a sliver of profile through the cracked door of an old deli, combat boots pacing, rifle slung over his back, the metal arm glinting dull and scratched. He’s talking to Parker—low and firm, the kind of voice meant to ground someone younger, more fragile.

When you step into the light, he turns toward you like he was already waiting. Eyes blue, shadowed. Jaw set. And there it is again—that look. Recognition.

Your breath stutters. You don’t say anything. You just nod, like you’ve been here all along. Like you’re meant to be here. 

You don’t know if you can watch him die.

Not when you’ve held versions of him in your arms, heard him laugh half-asleep beside a campfire, watched his hands shake after battle and pretended not to notice.

Peter introduces you. A name you chose at random from a TVA list. He doesn’t flinch when Bucky says it aloud. But something shifts behind his eyes—quiet and soft and gone before it settles.

You get through the introductions. Kurt, smiling nervously. Sharon, bloody but unbowed. Okoye nods once at you, sharp and appraising. Happy makes a joke that doesn’t quite land.

For the next two weeks, you stay with them.

You don't mean to get close to Bucky in this one. (You mean it this time. Seriously.) For the first couple of days, you try your best to stay away. You do your best to focus on the mission and he's… he's just another person in the crowd. You think that would make it easier, when he—when he eventually—You can't even say it.

But it happens one morning, anyway—fog pooling low across the park, the air thick with that awful, metallic smell of rot. You’re both on perimeter watch, standing on opposite ends of a shattered greenhouse. He catches you glancing toward the skyline, what’s left of it, jagged teeth against the pale pink sky.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” he says, voice low, scratchy from disuse.

You blink from your thoughts. “In a doomed, post-apocalyptic sort of way.”

He huffs a laugh. Almost smiles. “I was gonna say the same.”

Silence settles between you, but it’s a companionable thing. Not awkward. Not forced.

You speak first this time. “You always this poetic?”

“Only when I’m tired. Or scared.”

You glance at him. “Which is it now?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Just shifts his weight, runs a hand through his hair, and says, “Both.”

You don’t touch. You don’t need to. It’s all there in the space between you—heavy with implication. Unspoken, but not unfelt.

You sleep on opposite ends of the same room. He never touches you. Never asks. But some nights you wake up to find his jacket draped over your legs. Once, during a particularly bad storm, he nudged a cracked thermos of lukewarm coffee toward you without a word.

He doesn’t have to say anything. You feel it.

All of it.

And the worst part—the most unbearable—is knowing it’s temporary. You feel the convergence approaching like a bruise beneath your ribs. Two days now, maybe three, before you lose him again. Before he dies. Before you vanish back into the timeline like a ghost leaving no fingerprints.

You try not to show it. You smile when Peter cracks a joke. You run drills with Sharon. You help Kurt fix a busted radio, even though it’s hopeless.

But every time you look at Bucky, your heart tightens in your chest like it’s trying to keep him there.

And then it's here.

The journey to Camp Lehigh was fucking gut-wrenching.

You've lost practically everyone—Sharon, Hope, Kurt, Happy, Okoye. It sits in you like a shard of ice. Not grief—there’s no time for grief. Just weight. Just the bitter gravity of survival. The quinjet is prepped and waiting. The remaining survivors—Peter, T’Challa, Lang’s floating head in a jar—are already climbing aboard. You’ve done everything the mission brief demanded. You met the moment. You held the line.

You’ve done everything the mission brief said—down to the minute, the location, the final headcount. And you… you’re standing beside Bucky.

And still, you’re standing beside him.

Bucky’s chest rises and falls with the kind of steadiness that makes you ache. His metal arm glints in the firelight, streaked with ash and blood, fingers twitching in a rhythm you can’t decipher. There’s soot on his cheek, a rip in his sleeve, and when he turns to you, there’s something too clear in his eyes. Not fear. Not even pain.

Resolve.

You taste it in the back of your throat: the copper of a timeline ending.

“We have to go,” you say softly, not to him, not really. Just to the air.

Bucky doesn’t move.

He turns his head slightly, enough for you to see the hard line of his jaw. The wear around his eyes. There’s something about this version of him—familiar, but not calloused like the others. Still earnest enough to believe in sacrifice. Still sharp enough to choose it without flinching.

You hate that.

“I’ll hold her off,” he says, and you feel something break, neat and irreversible, in your chest.

“No,” you breathe. Too fast, too raw.

His brow furrows. “Someone has to. You said it yourself—if we don’t get the jet off the ground, we lose everything.”

“That doesn’t mean it has to be you.”

He smiles, and it’s that same damn smile that’s followed you across time. The one that says it’s already decided.

“I think it always was.”

You want to scream. You want to tell him he’s not disposable, not fated, not just a name on some cosmic itinerary that keeps getting torn out and rewritten. You want to confess that you’ve met him over and over, and every time he’s left a bruise somewhere deeper.

But the timepad at your hip begins to beep.

MISSION END: T-MINUS 2 MINUTES

You ignore it.

“You’ll make it,” he says gently, like a goodbye.

“No, I won’t,” you whisper. “Not really.”

There’s shouting near the quinjet ramp. Peter calling your name. Bruce waving you over. The others are loading in. You should be there. The moment is closing. The window is narrowing.

You don’t move.

Instead, you step forward and press your hand to his cheek. Your skin is cold from the wind, but he leans into it anyway. His eyes flutter closed for half a second—just long enough for you to memorize it.

Then you kiss him.

It’s not gentle. It’s desperate. Greedy. A kiss that says remember me. Your hands fist in his jacket. His mouth moves against yours like it’s something he’s missed without knowing. You drink in every inch of him—the scrape of stubble, the roughness of his palms against your back, the low sound he makes when you pull away.

“I’ll find you again,” you say. It's a promise.

He nods once. His hand lingers at your waist for a breath longer than it should. Then he turns back towards Wanda.

You watch him go. You always watch him go.

The quinjet door hisses shut behind you. The engines roar to life. The pad at your side flashes, like some sick, fucking joke—

Mission Successful. Extraction in Progress.

You don’t look back at the ground. You’ve learned that much, at least. Looking back doesn’t stop the bleeding. But when the jet lifts, when the trees blur below and you can’t see him anymore—

You swear something rips loose in you.

And this time, you don’t think it will grow back.

.

You’ve seen him in snow.

In bloodied ice, in rusted Soviet hulls, in the shadow of burning quinjets and crumbling castles. You’ve seen him with death behind his eyes and guilt threaded into every line of his face. You’ve seen him careful, methodical. Kind in all the ways no one notices—quiet in a world that demands noise. Someone who doesn’t ask for gentleness, but gives it anyway.

And now you’ve seen him in the dark, too. In 1602, under soot-smudged moons and flickering gaslights, a knife twirling between clever fingers. He hadn’t known you—not really. Not as the woman who’d held his gaze in a cryo chamber. Not as the silhouette slipping into the quinjet before he turned to face the Scarlet Witch. But he’d looked at you like he wanted to.

The thread stays taut between you, no matter the timeline.

So when you get the assignment to go—

It doesn’t land with ceremony. No formal debrief. Just a flicker on your desk monitor, a soft chime that cuts through the static hum of the TVA’s perpetual fluorescent haze. You almost miss it. You almost ignore it. Because everything still hurts.

The kind of hurt that doesn't pulse—it seeps. It rots. You move like you’re wearing someone else’s body, like your own bones are too loud. You haven’t been sleeping—not really. 

You open the file with a numb hand. Just procedure, you tell yourself. Just another timeline. Until you see the numbers.

CASE FILE: #616-SV1 MISSION CLASS: Passive Observation LOCATION: Bucharest, Romania DATE: March 2016  ASSIGNED COVER: Independent tenant, upper flat SUMMARY: Subject Barnes, James B., presumed alive and in civilian hiding following HYDRA data exposure and the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. Timeline approaching critical inflection. Target is not actively breaching; no temporal instability present. Assignment is preventative: monitor for signs of deviation or catalyst behavior.

Do not engage. No interference unless softpoint destabilization occurs.

You let out a sound that might be a laugh. Or a sob. It’s hard to tell.

There’s a reason TVA protocol avoids revisiting timelines. Too risky. Too messy. History isn’t built for recursion. But this—this is a spiral. A closed loop. Like something unfinished trying to write its own end.

And now you’ve been assigned to watch him again.

After all this time. After what you felt splinter through you like glass.

You should tell someone. Flag the conflict of interest. Recuse yourself. 

You don’t.

You close the file and begin packing for Bucharest.

EARTH-616 | BUCHAREST, 2016

You land in Bucharest in the dead quiet of early morning, the sky still purpled with sleep. 

The city feels brittle—like something trying very hard not to splinter. Your cover’s thin again: traveling contractor, repair work, nothing that draws attention. You rent a room across from a narrow building with stained windows and a faulty streetlamp that flickers at 2 a.m. every night like clockwork.

And you wait.

The first time you see him again, he’s carrying plums.

You’re leaning on a railing, nursing coffee that’s more soot than bean, watching the street in that not-watching way you’ve perfected over decades. And there he is. Gray hoodie, boots worn to the stitching, a canvas bag slung across one shoulder.

He walks like someone trying to be smaller. Eyes down. Shoulders rounded. Every muscle still taut beneath the fabric, but pulled inward. Controlled.

You almost don’t recognize him like this. Then he glances up. Brief. Casual.

But it slams into you anyway.

Because there it is—that flicker. That impossible, unplaceable pull. Like gravity, but sideways. Like someone whispering your name in a language you forgot how to speak.

He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t linger. But you feel it. That taut little wire between your ribs goes taut again, humming faint and low.

You’ve seen him across centuries, across madness and ruins and impossible skies. And now, here he is, just... buying fruit. 

You observe him for seven days. No contact. No breach.

Each morning, he walks the same path. Plums one day. Bread the next. He pauses at the corner every time—checks the shadows, the mirrors. Still sharp. Still trained. But dulled at the edges like he’s trying not to be. Like he’s tired of being a weapon, and doesn’t quite know how to be anything else.

He never takes the same route home.

You map them all anyway.

There’s a rhythm to his caution. It’s not paranoia. It’s preservation. You know the difference. You’ve watched enough shattered timelines to recognize when someone’s not trying to escape the world—just survive it.

And through it all, you pretend not to ache.

You keep the timepad dim, tucked under your coat like a second heart. The updates are clean. No deviations. No instability. He’s not a threat. Not a spark.

Just a man. Still whole, somehow. Still holding.

But you find yourself watching anyway. Not for fractures or fault lines—but for the quiet, ordinary proof that he’s still him. The way he double-checks his change at the fruit stall. The soft apology he gives a stray dog he nearly bumps with his boot. The habit of pausing in the stairwell, just long enough to listen for another pair of footsteps behind him. You memorize all of it like it’s going to disappear.

You don’t. Of course you don’t.

Until the night you lose him.

It’s raining. Thin, indecisive drops that fall more like static than water. You’re two streets behind, just enough distance to not spook him, when someone yells, and a car backfires, and you look away for a single goddamn second.

And he’s gone.

You circle three blocks. Then six. Nothing. It’s half an hour later when you feel the grip.

Quick, precise. A hand closes over your arm and pulls you sideways—into a narrow alley between buildings that still wear their war damage like it happened yesterday. The wall hits your spine. The air knocks out of you. And then he’s there.

Close. Too close.

Hood down. Eyes sharp. Rain slicking through his hair.

You don’t move. Don’t breathe.

Because he’s looking at you like he’s been waiting.

“You’ve been following me,” he says, voice low, rough. No heat in it. Just truth.

Your mouth opens. Closes.

He tilts his head, studying your face like he’s comparing it to something half-forgotten. Then he says, quiet, like a memory. “Siberia. 1955.”

The words gut you.

“I remember,” he says. “You said my name.”

His name. That night. The way he shook—like his own mind was something turning against him. The tremor in his breath. The metal arm pressed tight to his temple, like he could hold back whatever wave was cresting inside. And then your voice, just a whisper: Bucky.

And it worked.

He startled like the sound reached deeper than his programming. Like it found something still human.

You don’t mean to—but you reach up, slowly, and press your hand over his where it still grips your coat. His fingers tighten for a second. Then release.

You look at him. Really look.

The rain has soaked through everything, and he’s shivering. Not from cold. From memory. His breath ghosts in the narrow space between you, and his eyes—God, his eyes—don’t look like a stranger’s.

It looks like home.

He takes a step back and mutters, “Come on.”

You follow him through back alleys and slick cobblestone streets to a squat building with iron balconies and doors that stick. His apartment is a few flights up, small and clean in the way that feels practiced—surfaces scrubbed, not decorated. A cot, a kettle, a folded stack of shirts too neatly pressed. No photos. No noise.

He doesn’t speak at first. Just watches you watch the space, like he’s trying to guess what you’ll say.

“Not what you expected?” he asks eventually, voice rough.

You shake your head. “No. It’s exactly what I expected.”

He scoffs. Sits on the edge of the cot, elbows on knees. “How do you know me?”

And you could lie. You could stall. But you’re tired of running out of time.

But you’re tired of running out of time. Siberia. The hold. The pulse. The kiss in 1602. The quinjet, the gaslight, the plague-soaked rooftops and the boy who lived because you were there. The mission you botched. The rules you broke. The dozens of timelines where he didn’t make it. The handful where he almost did. The way it was always him. And when you finally stop—when the words have left you empty and open and raw—he doesn’t flinch.

He exhales, long and deliberate. His fingers twitch against his knee. Then he looks at you—really looks, and you can feel the moment shift.

“When I saw you again,” he says, voice quieter now, but steadier, “on the street… it wasn’t like remembering something. It was like finishing something.”

You blink. “Finishing?”

He nods, slowly. “Yeah. Like… you know when you’ve had a song stuck in your head for days? Not the lyrics—just the feeling of it. The rhythm. The echo. And then one day it comes on the radio, and your chest just—unlocks. Like something you didn’t know was broken gets put back together.”

He glances down at his hands, then back at you.

“That’s what it felt like. Seeing you.”

You stay silent, afraid to interrupt the thread he's following.

“At first I thought I was losing it,” he admits. “Some hallucination leftover from Hydra. A ghost memory I couldn’t place. But then you moved, and—Jesus—I knew it wasn’t just in my head. The way you looked at me. Like you knew me. Like you weren’t afraid of me.”

His jaw clenches, not from anger, but from something deeper. Held longer.

“I’ve seen that look before,” he says. “Fear. Disgust. Pity, sometimes. I’m used to people stepping back. Or pretending they don’t see me. But you… you didn’t flinch. Not even in the alley. You looked at me like I was—” He falters, and then tries again. “Like I was real. Like I had a name worth saying.”

Your chest aches.

He laughs, a short, unsteady breath. “God, and hearing you say it again—Bucky—like it was the first time all over. I don’t know why that hit so hard. But it did. It felt like… like I’d been underwater for years, and suddenly someone opened a window.”

You don’t say anything.

You’re still trying to breathe around the weight of him.

“I don’t remember everything,” he says. “Not clearly. Flashes, maybe. Cold metal. Smoke. That light—on your face, in that hallway. But I remember how I felt. I remember peace. For like… five seconds. It was the only thing that made sense.”

His gaze flickers to your lips, then back to your eyes.

“I think I’ve been looking for that feeling ever since.”

You don't answer—not with words. There's nothing left to say that would hold the weight this moment needs. So instead, you cross the small stretch of floor between you, slow and deliberate, and sink to your knees in front of him.

Your hand finds his, trembling with some emotion neither of you dares to name, and he lets out a sound—half-breath, half-confession—as your fingers thread together.

“Okay?” you murmur.

He nods, once. But it's not enough. His hands rise, hesitant, then hungry—one brushing the curve of your cheek, the other settling at your waist like he’s still afraid you might vanish. Like if he touches you too hard, you’ll be another dream, another phantom gone by morning.

And then he kisses you.

It starts soft, reverent—his lips just ghosting yours, like he's asking permission. But the second you respond, the second you lean in and kiss him back with everything you’ve carried through centuries of almosts, it shatters something in both of you.

He surges forward.

Kisses you again, deeper this time. More desperate.

Your back hits the wall with a muted thump, and suddenly his hands are everywhere—one splayed across your lower back, the other cradling your jaw. He kisses you like he’s starved for it, like he’s trying to map your mouth, your breath, the corners of your teeth. Like he's trying to memorize you from the inside out.

And then—God—he breaks away just enough to kiss the line of your jaw. The soft spot beneath your ear. Your temple. Your forehead.

“You’re real,” he breathes against your skin, almost like a prayer. “You’re here.”

His lips trail lower, find the bend of your knee as you hitch your leg around his waist. He presses a kiss there too, slow and aching, like it means something. Like everything means something.

You’re both breathing hard now, hands roaming, hearts pounding in rhythm too fast to be calm, too synchronized to be coincidence. He kisses your collarbone. The corner of your mouth. The space beneath your eye, where something like grief still lingers.

He's so gentle. Gentle all the way through until he manages to shove you to the bed, kissing his way down the column of your throat and then it shifts. His hands find their way inside your jeans and he gasps, shakily. "You're so wet, fuck—you're so wet. For me?"

You nod, breathless.

It's another slow dance, as he rolls your jeans off, only to quickly find his way back like he can't stand to be parted from you. His fingers find your entrance, the rough pads of them swiftly finding your entrance and spreading the heat, the wetness around, like he's playing with his meal. 

Then Bucky brings his mouth, that beautiful, beautiful mouth, to your cunt to replace his fingers and you swear you may have just died. He's so—he's so passionate, devouring you with a hunger until your spine's arching off the bed, your hands tangling in his soft brown hair. He doesn't stop licking and sucking.

"Bucky, please—oh god, please, don't stop."

You get closer and closer to the edge, hips rutting against his jaw. You feel everything so, so deeply. The way his stubble leaves goosebumps in its wake, his hands digging into your thighs to keep you in place—and then, he slides a finger back inside you as he hums, satisfied with the moans he's wrenched out of you.

It's like coming home. Your orgasm's like a strike of lightning, crying out as you release, close to tears as he laps up the rest of your orgasm.

When he finally stands to start taking off his clothes, you've been reduced to nothing more than a boneless heap on his bed. Your knees are wobbling slightly, but you force yourself to get up anyway, helping him shed the rest. "I'm–here. Let me help."

Bucky smiles. Softly.

"You're so sweet. You're too good for me." 

You think you lose another shred of your sanity.

The look in your eyes lights something up in him. He joins you back on the bed and you can feel him, the weight of him, and it's all so familiar. He rests heavy on your thigh and your heart feels like it's about to come out of your chest.

"Bucky, please."

His cock slips inside of you, with a gasp and a groan, and suddenly, Bucky's locking his hands with yours. "Promise me you'll stay."

It's almost overwhelming, but he keeps you grounded. There's just so much of him. There's his teeth on your neck, the burn of his stubble on your collarbones, the way he sucks off marks against your skin and looms over you, like he never wants you to leave him again. His strength is addicting, the way he pushes you so close to breaking. 

He says your name again. "Promise me."

You tell yourself—you're never letting him go again. You wrap your arms around him like something fierce, kissing him as he thrusts deeply, hitting the spot that makes stars light up behind your eyes. "Bucky—fuck—I—"

Your name falls from his lips with a groan. "Sweetheart, I'm—"

"Me too," You nod, whining when his pace quickens and it—you don't mean to, but it makes you clench around him. "Let go for me. It's okay."

Bucky looks at you, his grip around your hands tightening, and suddenly, it's a rolling wave of pleasure, over and over and over until you're trembling. You can feel him, his warmth, so fucking much of it, it's addicting. He's still groaning, hips thrusting, like he's trying to carve a home out of you.

You’re not sure how long you stay like that—twined together in the stillness, forehead pressed to his, breath shared in the hush of a room that suddenly feels too charged, too fragile to last.

You don’t want to break it. But you have to.

“Bucky,” you whisper, your voice threading through the quiet like a thread pulled taut. “They’re going to try to take me away.”

His eyes snap open. “What?”

You rest your hand against his chest, feel the beat of his heart stutter beneath your palm. “The TVA. They monitor softpoint drift. I’ve pushed too many lines. Stayed too long. This—” You gesture softly between you, “—this isn’t sanctioned.”

He stares at you like he wants to argue. But he doesn’t. Because he knows you’re not wrong.

“Let them try,” he mutters, jaw tight. His hands tighten where they rest on your waist, grounding. Possessive in the way a storm anchors to the sea. “I won’t let them.”

You smile—sad, crooked, fond. “You might not get a choice. But I will. I always find a way back.”

He swallows hard. “You promise?”

You nod. Press your lips to his again—gentle this time, slow and deliberate, like sealing a vow with your breath. Then you whisper against his mouth:

“I’ll come back. I always come back.”

His eyes close for half a second. And when they open again, they’re full of something wild. Unspoken. Undeniable.

“Next time,” you say, voice shaking with certainty, “next time I’ll stay.”

THE NULL SECTOR | TVA DETENTION LOOP C-9

You broke protocol. 

Not for the mission. Not for the stabilization of a softpoint. For him. For a man with a haunted gaze and a heartbeat you should never have memorized.

And the TVA caught up to you.

They always do.

They didn’t drag you out of the field. There was no team of Minutemen, no sirens or threat display. Just a pulse through your timepad, a freeze-frame of motion—and then static. You never even got to say goodbye. Just watched as his apartment in Bucharest faded from view. The world around you disassembled. You didn’t fall through time; it collapsed around you.

And then: nothing.

But nothing wasn’t quiet.

Nothing was the absence of coordinates. A place with no variance, no measurement, no entropy. A sealed chamber of cognitive suspension—standard punishment for agents who breach emotional integrity clauses.

They called it “nullspace” in the manual. But that word doesn’t tell the whole story.

Sometimes you remembered his voice. Sometimes you forgot your own. Time didn’t move here. Not in any way that mattered. You floated in it—bodiless, unraveling, stitched together by a thousand what-ifs that all ended in silence. At first, you tried to count days. Then heartbeats. Then regrets.

You stopped when you couldn’t tell which were yours and which belonged to the lives you’d watched but never lived.

You thought of his hand on your back. His voice rasping low when he asked you to stay. The way his eyes crinkled when he smiled—not every Bucky, but that Bucky. The one who knew without knowing. The one who held out hope like it was a knife and an offering both.

Maybe they’d left you there forever.

But something changed.

When the light shifts again, it’s not like waking.

It’s like surfacing—like clawing your way out of a dream that was also a coffin. You blink against it, vision blurred and lungs tight with the phantom taste of ozone.

The TVA fell, you realize. Or maybe it evolved. The pruning stopped. The sacred timeline shattered. The multiverse stretched open like a wound and you—like so many others—were set loose without fanfare.

Just a blinking cursor on a timepad.

You’re on a bench. Clean metal. White walls. No restraints. Just a single timepad laid neatly on the seat beside you, like it’s been waiting.

You reach for it cautiously. No alerts. No directives. No timeline embedded. The screen flashes once and then settles.

“Welcome back, Agent.”

“Status: Cleared.”

“Assignment Log: Vacated.”

You sit in the silence that follows, your fingers trembling.

“You are free to go.”

They’ve never said that before.

There's no debrief. No memory wipe. No analyst knocking at your door to escort you back to a cubicle and a world of recycled coffee and unread reports. Just… release.

It doesn’t feel real. Then you notice the neatly packaged case file.

When you wrench it open, your eyes gaze upon a few simple words. Your name. Not your alias. Not your designation. Your name. Next to a birthplace.

Earth-616. Brooklyn.

And suddenly that dream… that dream you've always had isn’t a metaphor. It isn’t psychic bleed or misaligned memory. It’s real.

The stoop. The red-brick building. The muffled laughter on the wind. It wasn’t timeline residue.

It was home.

You see it all now: the way the sun hit the side of that building in the dream—your building. The stairs you must’ve climbed a thousand times before the TVA unmade you. The shadow rounding the corner wasn’t just any figure. It was him. That version of him. Bucky Barnes in his sergeant uniform, calling for you before you could catch up.

And you never did. Until now.

The words fall into your chest like stones. Every suppressed instinct, every redacted name, every unexplainable ache when Bucky looked at you like you were someone he’d loved in a dream—all of it clicks into place.

You were never a ghost in the machine. You were a person. You were his.

You stare back at the screen of your timepad. At the quiet, singular prompt at the bottom:

“INPUT COORDINATES.”

Your breath shakes.

For the first time in your life, there’s no mission waiting. No protocol. No watchers behind two-way glass. Just the choice you were never allowed to make.

You don’t hesitate.

EARTH-616 | BROOKLYN, 2026

You're not sure when you first fell in love with him. Maybe it was the 1940s, maybe it was in 1602, maybe it was earlier than language and names. 

But you’ve always been sure about how he looks in silhouette—how his shoulders hunch slightly when he’s thinking, how his hands twitch when he’s fighting the urge to reach for something he knows he’s not allowed to want.

And maybe that’s why you keep searching for him in the in-betweens. 

In lives that never finished writing themselves, in branch timelines that evaporated before they touched soil. You comb through the TVA archives like a woman possessed—not for intel, not even for closure, but for slivers. A timestamp where his name is scribbled in the corner. A blurry photo of someone with his gait. An anonymous field report that ends with, “target disappeared into snow.”

Everywhere, he disappears. And still, you follow.

You love Bucky Barnes the way fire loves oxygen: recklessly, instinctively. Not just for who he is now, but for every life he never got to live. 

For the kid in Brooklyn who dragged Steve out of alley fights, for the soldier who fell off a train and was turned into a ghost, for the man who woke up decades later in Wakanda with a name that felt too big for his mouth. You love him for the quiet moments the world didn’t see—chopping wood in the forest, feeding stray cats on apartment balconies, the way his thumb brushes over his dog tags when he thinks no one’s watching.

Bucky, who made you laugh over terrible coffee in a mess hall in 1943. The one who handed you a damp handkerchief in a zombie-scarred train depot, saying nothing as you wiped blood off your hands. The one in 1602 who watched you from beneath a soot-black hood, eyes squinting through torchlight, and still let you pass.

You remember something he once said—maybe it was in 1955, maybe in 2016, maybe in a fever dream. “People like us… we don’t get soft landings.” And you think that’s the tragedy of it. 

He has always been built to break. And you—you keep getting assigned to the wreckage.

There’s a concept you came across once, while embedded in a minor deviation out of Seoul, 1957. Not part of the assignment—just a detail on a bookstore receipt someone left behind.

In-yun. Fate through friction. The belief that even a passing graze between strangers means your souls have already brushed, thousands of times before.

It’s nonsense, by TVA standards. Sentiment dressed up as spiritual determinism. No measurable coefficient. No supporting data. But you haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

You’ve crossed paths with James Buchanan Barnes in more than a hundred timelines. You’ve logged the hours, cataloged the events, archived the footage. On paper, it’s coincidence. Strategic convergence. The mathematics of softpoints aligning with the gravitational pull of significant individuals. He is, after all, a heavily-indexed Variable.

But paper doesn’t account for the way he looks at you—each time new, each time the same. Like he recognizes your silence before you speak. Like your presence reads to him not as anomaly, but inevitability.

He's not supposed to remember you. He can’t. And still, he always sees you.

That’s the part that undoes you.

You ache because in every timeline, you find him. In every universe, you lose him.

But you think—no, you know—if you had to live and comb through thousands more universes just to stand in front of him again, in the year 2026, you’d do it. You’d do it a thousand more.

Because even if all he says is, “Took you long enough,” you’d still believe it was worth the wait.

EARTH-616 | BROOKLYN, 2026

The year is 2026. This Earth breathes uneasily in peacetime. Stark’s foundation has pivoted to disaster relief and neural rehabilitation tech. Wakanda opens its fourth embassy—this one in Seoul. Post-Blip survivor benefits have just passed preliminary legislation in three states. And James Buchanan Barnes—former assassin, occasional Avenger—has just won his election for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Redistricting helped. So did the veterans’ vote. So did the way he looked people in the eye when he told them he remembered what it was like to be used, to be weaponized, to be hollowed out and told to smile for the cameras. But mostly, it was him. The myth re-forged as man.

You find him at the VA in Brooklyn. Technically off-duty, technically supposed to be celebrating. But of course he’s here. Rolling up shirt sleeves to take constituent questions. Translating bureaucratic-speak into something that feels like compassion. He looks like a U.S. History textbook illustration—white dress shirt, tie slightly loosened, blazer draped over the back of a chair. 

And somehow still the same soul you’ve met in a hundred different guises. The same gravity. The same ache. Like no matter the universe, he’s always trying to make something right.

You step into the lobby, boot heels echoing on tile, and the gravity of him pulls you forward before you’ve fully decided to be brave.

He’s facing away, head slightly bowed in conversation with a nurse, his hair still too long for Washington norms, tucked neatly behind his ears. The sight of him hits low in your stomach—familiar and wild, as always. The sound of his laugh, rare and rumbling, sends a tremor through your ribs.

“Excuse me,” you say, steadying your voice like it’s just another assignment. “I’m a deeply concerned constituent, and I’d like to register a complaint about your policies.”

He turns.

And the moment lands like gravity reasserting itself.

His eyes go wide. Then narrow. Then go soft in that way only you’ve ever seen—like he’s witnessing a miracle he doesn’t trust yet. He doesn’t say your name. Doesn’t need to.

You only just open your mouth to say something else when he’s already in front of you. And then—

He kisses you.

Not tentative. Not questioning. Just real. Like this has always been the ending he was holding out for. His hand cups the back of your neck like he thinks you might vanish again if he doesn’t keep contact. You let yourself press into it—mouth to mouth, memory to body. The weight of the years falling off both your shoulders.

You pull back, breathless. Smiling.

“You came back,” he says, wonder tucked beneath the rasp of his voice. “You came back.”

Your hands are on his chest now, smoothing fabric just to touch him, to confirm he’s real. “Took me long enough,” you echo, and his smile breaks wide and unguarded, rare and all for you.

Then he stills, just a little.

“You staying?” he asks.

You don’t hesitate.

“Yes.”

And that, his laugh, short and disbelieving, his forehead pressed briefly to yours like a prayer, is the softest landing either of you has ever known.

[heleninhha]

‘I’d fix azriel’ ‘I’d fix eris’ I’d make them worse I’d be weaponizing that mating bond territorialism and giving them enrichment by tattling on all the people in prythian being mean to me

[heleninhha]

Blood singer (Jasper Hale) Series Masterlist

Summary: Alice's vision is clear - Jasper will meet his blood singer and once that happens, her fate would be sealed. However, when he finds her, Jasper manages to resist the thirst, long enough for his family to step in and save them both from a tragedy. The vision predicted more than death for her and Jasper wasn't ready for what it meant. As years pass, Y/N meets someone new, someone who will lead her straight back to Forks to face her destiny.

Warnings: injury, blood and death, angst, fluff, grief, swearing, sexual content, mentions of mental health struggles, alcohol

Pairing: Jasper Hale x human!reader (blood singer), Paul Lahote x human!reader

Prologue

Part one

Part two

Part three

Part four

Part five

Part six

Part seven

Part eight (coming soon)

[heleninhha]

Fearless 8

Masterlist <<Previous

Tris’s eyes roamed over the artwork adorning the walls. These days, artists seemed to exist only in Amity. Abnegation deemed art impractical and its appreciation as wasted time, time that could be spent serving others. Though she had seen pieces of art in textbooks, she had never been in a room like this, where every wall was alive with color and creativity.

Her gaze lingered on a striking image of a hawk, its sharp eyes fixed on something unseen, poised in motion. Beneath it, a sketch of a raven in flight caught her attention. The intricate lines made the bird seem like it could lift off the wall at any moment.

“It’s a raven,” a voice behind her said, breaking the silence. “Pretty, isn’t it?”

Tris turned quickly, her chest tightening at the familiarity of the voice. Tori stood there, her expression unreadable, like a shadow of their encounter in the aptitude test room. The memory of the mirrors and the wires pressed against her skin flickered through her mind.

“Well, hello there,” Tori said with a faint smile. “Never thought I’d see you again. Beatrice, right?” Her voice carried a note of feigned surprise, though her eyes betrayed recognition.

“Tris, actually,” she corrected gently. “Do you work here?”

“I do,” Tori replied, leaning against the doorframe. “I only took a break to administer the tests. Most of the time, I’m here.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully, her gaze sharpening. “I recognize that name. You were the first jumper, weren’t you?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Well done,” Tori said, her lips curving into a knowing smile. “You remind me of someone I know very well. In some ways, you’re so similar, and in others… you couldn’t be more different.”

Tris wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so she simply said, “Thanks.” Her fingers brushed the edge of the raven sketch. “Listen, I need to talk to you about…” She glanced over her shoulder at Will and Christina, who were lingering nearby. “…something. Sometime.”

Tori’s expression shifted, the faint warmth fading from her eyes. She took a small step back, shaking her head. “I’m not sure that would be wise,” she said quietly. “I helped you as much as I could. From here on out, you’ll have to go at it mostly on your own.”

The words hung heavy in the air as Tori stepped away, leaving Tris to process them.

Later, Tris found herself seated in the chair, trying to make small talk with Tori as the tattoo needle hummed softly in the background. The conversation was awkward and stilted, and the room felt tense despite the bright artwork surrounding them.

“Mostly on your own.”

The phrase echoed in her mind, growing louder with each passing moment. What had Tori meant by that? And why had she said it so ominously?

Tris’s hands tightened into fists in her lap as she wrestled with the questions, summoning the courage to ask. She felt a creeping sense of unease, an almost certain knowledge that whatever she was about to uncover would change everything.

Finally, as Tori moved toward the door to let her out, Tris blurted, “What did you mean, mostly alone?”

Tori stopped in her tracks, her hand resting on the door handle. For a moment, she didn’t turn, her back to Tris. Then, slowly, she glanced over her shoulder. The weight of regret flickered across her face, but it was fleeting.

Her voice was low, steady, and almost reluctant when she replied, “Y/N. She can help you.”

And with that, the door opened, and Tori was gone, leaving Tris with more questions than answers.

"Since there are an odd number of you, one of you won’t be fighting today," you announce, stepping back from the board in the training room. Your voice is firm, but inside, you feel the weight of your decisions. Christina versus Molly. You knew it wasn’t a fair fight, but Christina needed to prove herself, and Molly, well, you doubted she belonged here at all. What better way to show that than Christina, half her size, knocking her down?

Still, what really bothered you was Tris’s upcoming fight against either Peter or Drew. That matchup wasn’t your choice. You’d spent thirty minutes in the control room earlier, arguing with Max and Eric, trying to push back against the unfairness of it.

“It’s not supposed to be fair,” Eric had said with a smirk. “It’s about who’s stronger.”

You knew they were testing you as much as the initiates. Could you sit there and let this happen? You didn’t like it, but you knew you had to.

Now, in the arena, Will and Al face off. They’re circling each other, their hands up as Four taught them, shuffling cautiously. Al towers over Will, taller by half a foot and twice as broad, but his hesitation is evident.

Then, to your surprise, Al throws the first punch, landing it hard against Will’s jaw. Will stumbles, clutching his face, but quickly recovers to block the next strike. Even blocking the punch looks painful. Al is slow but powerful.

Across the room, you catch Eric smirking at you, twisting one of the rings in his eyebrow. His eyes are still shadowed with the remnants of the fight he’d picked, and lost, not too long ago. The advanced tech here healed wounds faster, but the bruising was still faintly visible.

Will hooks a foot around Al’s leg and yanks back, sending him sprawling to the floor. Al scrambles to his feet, his face red with embarrassment.

Out of the corner of your eye, you spot Christina and Tris whispering. On the other side of the room, Peter, Drew, and Molly are snickering. When Christina sarcastically waves at them, you can’t help but chuckle softly. Wiping your face, you bark, “Everyone shut up and pay attention!”

The room goes silent.

“You’ll all have to fight each other eventually,” you continue, your voice firm. “Use this time to size each other up, not gossip.”

Will and Al return to circling, now more hesitant. They glance at you, as if hoping you’ll call off the fight. You remain still, offering no reprieve.

After a tense pause, Eric’s voice cuts through the silence like a blade. “Do you think this is a leisure activity? Should we break for nap-time? Fight each other!”

Al hesitates, lowering his hands slightly. “But…” He looks around uncertainly. “Is this scored or something? When does it end?”

Eric steps forward, his voice dripping with mockery. “It ends when one of you is unable to continue.”

You step in, your tone calm but authoritative. “According to Dauntless rules, one of you could also concede. But that will be recorded.”

Eric narrows his eyes at you, his smirk fading. “According to the old rules,” he says coldly. “In the new rules, no one concedes.”

You scoff, refusing to back down. “Unless the rules changed in the five minutes between me leaving the control room and you getting here, that’s not true.”

“A brave person acknowledges the strength of others,” you say, your words deliberate. You hope to throw Eric off, to defuse his attempt to provoke you. But you remind yourself, this isn’t Four. This is Eric. He thrives on confrontation.

“A brave man never surrenders,” Eric counters, stepping closer.

The room feels like it’s holding its breath as the two of you stare each other down. The air between you crackles with unspoken tension.

In this moment, it’s not just a difference in philosophy. It’s a battle of wills, a power struggle between the two youngest Dauntless leaders. The room is filled with two kinds of Dauntless, the honorable and the ruthless, but right now, it’s you and Eric.

Neither of you moves.

Beads of sweat dot Al’s forehead as he wipes them away with the back of his hand. “This is ridiculous,” he says, shaking his head, his voice tinged with frustration. “What’s the point of beating him up? We’re in the same faction!”

“Oh, you think it’s going to be that easy?” Will replies, grinning through his exhaustion. There’s a spark of determination in his pale green eyes, one that wasn’t there moments ago. “Go on. Try to hit me, slowpoke.”

The taunt works. Al, teeth gritted, throws a punch, but Will ducks effortlessly, his movements sharp and fluid despite the sweat dripping down his neck. Al swings again, and Will dodges, slipping behind him with surprising speed and landing a hard kick to Al’s back.

Al stumbles but recovers quickly, his face twisting with a mix of embarrassment and anger. Without hesitation, he charges at Will, grabbing his arm to stop him from slipping away again. Before Will can counter, Al throws a punch directly to his jaw.

The impact is deafening. You watch as the light fades from Will’s celery-green eyes, his body going limp. His head rolls back, and all the tension drains from his frame as he crumples to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

Al’s eyes go wide as panic sets in. He crouches next to Will, tapping his cheek with trembling hands. “Will? Hey, come on, wake up!”

“He’ll be fine, Al,” you say firmly, your voice cutting through the rising tension. “You just knocked his ass out. Let this be a lesson, sometimes cockiness gets you killed.”

You nod toward Eric, who barks for someone to drag Will out of the ring. Turning back to the board, you feel a flicker of excitement despite the lingering heaviness in the air. The fight you’ve been waiting for is next.

“Next up, Molly and Christina!”

Christina cracks her knuckles, rolling her shoulders as Tris leans in to whisper what you assume is encouragement. Christina glances at you, her expression determined but tinged with nerves. You smile, offering a reassuring nod.

“You got this,” you tell her, your voice steady. “Just remember what I taught you.”

Christina tucks her chin-length black hair behind her ears, the silver clips glinting under the fluorescent lights.

The fight begins, and Christina makes the first move, her leg swinging out to land a sharp kick against Molly’s side. Molly gasps, her teeth gritted as if she’s biting back a growl. A lock of greasy black hair falls across her face, but she doesn’t bother brushing it away.

Then, Molly smirks, a sinister, knowing expression, and lunges forward with no warning. She dives for Christina’s midsection, knocking her down with a thud. Pinning her to the ground, Molly drives her fists into Christina’s face, one blow after another.

Blood smears across Christina’s nose and mouth, staining her hands as she tries to shield herself. Molly doesn’t stop.

Your jaw tightens, but your confidence in Christina doesn’t waver. You can feel Eric’s eyes on you, likely expecting Christina to give in any second. You glance briefly at Tris, whose wide eyes betray her fear. She’s clinging to Al, who wraps an arm around her as if to shield her from the sight.

Christina screams, a sound of raw desperation, and manages to free one arm. With all the strength she has, she punches Molly square in the ear. The blow sends Molly off-balance, giving Christina just enough space to wriggle free.

Blood drips from Christina’s nose, thick and dark, streaking her fingers as she presses a hand to her face. She screams again, a guttural cry, and crawls backward, putting distance between herself and Molly.

But Molly doesn’t hesitate. She drives a kick into Christina’s side, sending her sprawling onto her back.

Al pulls Tris tighter against his side, his face pale as he watches. You glance at him and Tris, their fear palpable, and a pang of empathy washes over you. You remember this feeling, watching, waiting, knowing how brutal this world could be.

It’s hard, you think, but it’s necessary. You think back to your own initiation, the bruises, the blood, the fight that seemed impossible to win. You remember watching Four and Eric tear into each other. You remember stepping into the ring yourself, how the first punch that landed on your face changed everything.

Christina will learn that too.

You take a deep breath, forcing yourself to stay steady. “Get up, Christina,” you mutter under your breath, so low only you can hear.

And she does.

You can feel the phantom stinging in your cheek, the ringing in your ears had pulled the true Dauntless from you. You had beat that girl, who was now factionless, unconscious. Not even bothering to clean yourself off, or feel bad afterwards. You had grown since then obviously, you didn't really like watching them beat each other. But you knew they would need hand to hand in the field. And hitting bags wasn't going to prepare them for fighting in person. 

"Stop!" wails Christina as Molly pulls her foot back to kick again. She holds out a hand. "Stop! I'm..." She coughs. "I'm done."

[heleninhha]

Fearless 7

heres the years awaited parts.. good god I am so sorry, the loss of my grandfather was seriously crippling to me. its been so hard to get back into reading or writing. i was just working and working taking care of my kid and grandma trying to get through. thank you so so much to those of you who have stuck around and hello to those of you who are new.. i hope this is decent!

My Masterlist

Previous part <<<

Skipping dinner, you storm into the control room, the door slamming shut behind you. You throw yourself into your chair, kicking your legs up onto the desk, leaning back further than you should. The room is still, unnervingly quiet. No one here to badger you with questions: How’s training? How’s Four? How’s Tris?

Just silence.

At least, that’s what you think until the door creaks open. The quiet is shattered, and your jaw tightens when you see him. The pierced asshole you can’t seem to escape. The one who makes your skin crawl.

"Ah, Princess. Just the person I was looking for," he drawls, his smirk setting your blood boiling.

You don’t bother looking at him. Instead, your eyes drop to your nails on one hand, your whole posture screaming indifference, even though you’re gripping the armrests of your chair so hard your knuckles ache. You hear his footsteps close the distance, and soon enough, he’s perched on the edge of your desk, waiting for you to acknowledge him.

You don’t want to give him the satisfaction. But ignoring him won’t make him go away. It never does. So, you raise your head, locking eyes with him, your expression cold enough to freeze fire.

“I caught the tail end of your session today. You’re doing a good job with the initiates.” His tone is fake, condescending, the compliment poisoned. You force a tight smile, letting out a hum instead of dignifying him with a response.

He doesn’t stop. He never does. “Just wanted to let you know—I’ll be present during the fights. I’ll be taking over for Four. Just me and you.”

Before you can react, his hand moves. His fingers trail up your leg, starting at your ankle. Your stomach twists violently as a wave of nausea hits you. You lash out, trying to kick him off, but his hand clamps down hard, bruising your skin.

The pressure sends a sickening jolt through you, and this time, it’s not just rage—it’s fear. He’s too close. Too much. You bite back the urge to scream.

He leans closer, his other hand brushing over the marks already on your skin, his lips curling with disgust. “Who gave these to you? Was it Eaton? You let him touch you, but not me? Pathetic.”

Your chest burns, a mix of shame and fury clawing its way up. Somehow, you manage to shove him off, planting both feet against his chest and pushing with everything you have. He stumbles back, his ass hitting the floor with a loud thud.

He’s on his feet again in seconds, eyes gleaming with amusement, like this is some kind of game. “Clearly struck a nerve,” he sneers, voice dripping with malice. “What’s wrong? Don’t like it when I talk about baby Tobias? Aw, don’t tell me you’ve fallen for the robot!”

Your vision blurs with red, but you force yourself to stand tall, arms crossed tightly over your chest. You won’t let him see you break. You won’t give him that.

“Who I sleep with is none of your goddamn business,” you snap, your voice like steel, cutting through the tension. “Unless you’re planning on going around and asking everyone for a status report, I suggest you mind your fucking business.”

You take a step toward him, your movements controlled, deliberate, daring him to push further. “I told you—you’re not welcome in my training sessions. If Four approves you taking his place, fine. I’ll deal with it. But until then, stay the hell out of it.”

The venom in your words is enough to make even him hesitate for a fraction of a second. You don’t wait for a response. Spinning on your heel, you storm out of the control room, slamming the door behind you.

Your chest heaves as you march down the hallway, every muscle in your body coiled with frustration. Lately, it feels like all you’ve done is storm around, anger and stress eating away at the calm you usually pride yourself on.

You used to be laid back—focused, capable, in control. But now? Now it feels like you’re drowning, and no matter how hard you fight to keep your head above water, someone’s always there, waiting to drag you under.

And if you don’t get a grip soon, you’re afraid the stress just might kill you.

All you want to do is find Zeke and Shauna, ask them to go to the cenote. Try to make some time to relax with your friends, you wouldn't even mind if some of the other Dauntless came. You make it all the way to the cafeteria, swinging the doors open and looking for your friends. Once you spot them you start towards their table. You're half way there when the doors swing open again and Eric yells your name. 

"Yo, man, where's Y/N? I thought she was with you today?" Zeke asks, his voice carrying just enough edge to cut through the low hum of the dining hall. It’s the fifth—or maybe the sixth—time he’s asked, and Four doesn’t bother looking up from his plate.

He doesn’t need to. He already knows something is wrong. Something is always wrong lately.

His shoulders lift in a halfhearted shrug, the motion stiff, weighed down by the same knot of guilt that’s been sitting heavy in his chest since this morning. He doesn’t need to say it for Zeke to know—the answer hasn’t changed. He doesn’t know where you are. Again.

Zeke sighs, louder this time, before turning back to his girlfriend, muttering something Four doesn’t catch. Four barely registers it anyway. His mind is a thousand miles away—or, more accurately, wherever the hell you are.

The four of you had always been close. You and Zeke had pulled him into your little circle the day you met. You were relentless about it, making it impossible for him to retreat into his usual solitude. Back then, it had nothing to do with love—at least, not the kind that kept him up at night now.

But now?

Now, it was everything.

And right now, all he knew was that he had somehow managed to upset you. Again. The burning need to fix it clawed at him, relentless, even as he forced himself to stay seated, to not run off searching for you like a lovesick idiot.

Behind him, the recruits’ voices rose and fell, a chaotic mix of chatter that he only half-listened to. They were discussing their progress, speculating about who might fail, comparing him to you. As always.

He clenched his jaw at the last part. It wasn’t like he didn’t know how the initiates saw the two of you. You were the wildfire, the one who inspired awe and fear in equal measure, your sharp words cutting them down and building them back up stronger than ever. He was the steady hand, the quiet storm, the one they came to when they wanted guidance without the sting.

But lately, it felt like they preferred you more. Or maybe that was just him, projecting his own feelings.

His attention wavered, catching on Al’s announcement that he wanted a tattoo. Four had to bite back a chuckle at the thought of the gentle giant sitting in the chair, trying to look tough. Sure, Dauntless tech made tattoos nearly painless, but still—Al getting inked? He belonged in Amity, not here.

He shook his head, his gaze shifting as Tris and Christina started talking about haircuts and piercings. Tris wanted to cut her hair short, maybe dye it, something bold. Something Dauntless.

The words made his chest tighten unexpectedly. He wanted to tell her she didn’t need to change a thing—that she was fine just the way she was. But he kept his mouth shut, unwilling to draw attention to himself. Or worse, to risk upsetting you more if you happened to show up and see him talking to her.

That was the problem with Tris, wasn’t it? She was a reminder of the life he’d left behind, the one person here who truly understood what it meant to come from Abnegation. There was a familiarity there, a connection that made it easier to talk to her about things he couldn’t explain to anyone else. Not even you.

But no matter how much Tris understood him, she wasn’t you.

And it was you he was pining after, you who occupied every corner of his thoughts, you who made him feel like he was both drowning and breathing for the first time all at once.

He just wished he knew how to fix this—how to find you, how to say the right thing, how to make you see that it’s always been you.

But instead, he stayed rooted to his seat, staring at the uneaten food on his plate, waiting for you to come back. Hoping, praying that when you did, he’d have the chance to fix what he had broken.

His heart lifts—just for a moment—when the doors swing open and you step inside. Relief rushes through him at the sight of you, even if you’re still a little too far away. Zeke notices it first, nudging Shauna, and the two exchange a knowing look. But then your expression registers, and the air between them shifts.

“Oh shit... for real,” Zeke mutters under his breath, already halfway to his feet before he freezes in place.

You don’t notice them at first, too focused on crossing the room with purpose etched into every step. But just as you get closer, the doors behind you slam open again.

“Y/N!” Eric’s voice cuts through the room like a blade. The sound alone is enough to make every conversation stop, every pair of eyes turn toward the source of the commotion.

The trio sees it before you even turn—your face twisting into something that borders on rage and exhaustion. Then you whip around so fast that your ponytail snaps against your face.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT, ERIC?!” you scream, your voice echoing off the walls before you even think to lower it.

You know Zeke is behind you somewhere, along with Four and Shauna, the recruits huddled near them. You know Tori and Max are in the room, too—plenty of people who could step in, stop this, before it spirals too far.

But none of that matters when Eric starts moving toward you, his heavy boots echoing like a countdown to something inevitable.

He doesn’t stop until he’s standing inches from your face. You can feel his breath on your skin, warm and suffocating, and it only fuels the fire roaring in your chest. Your fists clench at your sides, trembling with the effort it takes to keep them there.

You know his game. His only advantage is size, and even that’s barely worth mentioning. He’s an inch taller than Four at best. That’s it. That’s all he has. And yet here he is, leaning down, his cold, dead eyes locking onto yours, daring you to flinch.

But you don’t flinch. You don’t back down.

Because backing down now would mean letting him win. It would mean letting him believe he’s superior, and there is no reality in which you’ll let that happen.

The tension is unbearable, stretching out in a suffocating silence as the two of you stand there, locked in a battle of wills. Then, you laugh.

It’s not the kind of laugh that makes people smile. It’s sharp, cutting, and maybe a little unhinged. It probably sounds insane to the people watching, but you don’t care.

“If you don’t have anything to say, Eric, I’ve got things to do.”

You don’t wait for him to respond. Your body moves on autopilot, spinning away from him, determined to put as much space between you as possible.

But before you can take even two steps, his hand shoots out. His grip is vice-like, wrapping around your arm and jerking you back with enough force to leave a mark.

The room goes deadly silent.

“I’m not done talking to you!” Eric growls, yanking your arm back harshly again.

For the second time tonight, his touch burns, not just your skin but something deeper. Fury coils in your chest, and for a moment, you forget about the people watching, about Zeke and Four and Shauna and Max. You forget about everything except the searing need to make him pay for it.

The force nearly spins you off balance, but you catch yourself, planting your feet firmly on the ground. Around you, the room feels like it holds its breath. Tori stands somewhere in the distance, her eyes wide, and you know Four and Max are watching, too. But none of them could’ve moved fast enough to stop what happens next.

Maybe if Zeke had already been on his way toward you—but not now.

Later, when Christina and the others would ask, you’d break it down for them, using this moment as an example. You’d explain the technique you taught them, the way every movement flowed together: where to place your feet, how to shift your weight, the mechanics of a proper fist. You’d tell them it was all in the momentum of the twist.

But in this moment? You didn’t think about any of that.

It was second nature.

So when the loud CRACK of Eric’s nose breaking echoed through the room, it wasn’t just satisfying—it was perfect.

His hand fell away from your arm immediately, blood pouring between his fingers as he staggered back, clutching at his face. You stood there, chest heaving, a triumphant smile tugging at the corners of your mouth.

Zeke and Tori were at your side in seconds, their presence grounding you, while Max pushed past you, moving to stand beside Eric. His expression was unreadable, but the slow shake of his head spoke volumes—disappointment aimed squarely at both of you.

“I told you in the control room to keep your FUCKING hands off me, Eric,” you said, your voice cutting through the stunned silence like a blade. Your tone was sharp, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “Touch me again, and I’ll break every one of your fingers. Knuckle by knuckle.”

The sheer venom in your words made Max’s head snap toward Eric so quickly it looked like it might spin. His disappointment was no longer aimed at you—it was fully fixed on the bloodied, staggering mess in front of him.

Everyone knew what Eric was like. Grabby. Overconfident. A man who thought he was God’s gift to women, never bothering to ask permission—just taking what he wanted. Maybe some fell for his act, but you? You’d had enough.

You wanted to say more—to warn him that if he ever laid a hand on any of the transfers, you wouldn’t stop at his nose. You’d kill him. But for once, you held back, biting down the words.

The tension stretched thin again as the two of you locked eyes. Eric’s face was twisted in pain, but the fury burning in his gaze was enough to match your own. You didn’t care. You wouldn’t back down.

Zeke’s arm came around your waist, a firm but reassuring grip, as he began pulling you toward the cafeteria doors.

Even as he led you away, you never broke eye contact. Your glare stayed locked on Eric’s until the very last second, until the doors finally swung shut behind you.

As Zeke guided you out of the cafeteria, the door shut firmly behind you, leaving a room full of wide-eyed initiates in stunned silence. For a moment, no one moved. Then, slowly, a ripple of chatter began, followed by scattered cheers. The sound grew louder, spreading through the room like wildfire.

“Dauntless is such a weird place,” Christina muttered, shaking her head as she turned her attention back to her plate.

Tris nodded absentmindedly, her gaze drifting across the crowd. The cacophony of cheers and laughter felt out of place to her, almost jarring. When her eyes landed on Tori quietly slipping out of the cafeteria, she pushed her half-eaten food away.

“We should go get ready if we’re still doing tattoos,” she said quickly, standing up.

Christina shrugged but followed, along with Will and Al, leaving the noisy cafeteria behind. Tris felt a mix of emotions bubbling in her chest—discomfort, curiosity, unease. The violent confrontation she had just witnessed was still fresh in her mind.

But it wasn’t just that. It was everything—Myra and Edward taking any opportunity to make out at the table, Will and Al teasing her for blushing at their jokes, Christina relentlessly pointing out her awkwardness.

As they made their way through the dorms, Christina turned to her with a teasing smirk.

“What are you going to do when you see two people really going at it?” she asked, laughter in her voice. “I get that you grew up all modest in Abnegation, but if you’re going to stay here, you’ve got to get over it. One of the Dauntless-born told me he caught a couple having sex in the hallway once.”

Tris felt the blood drain from her face. The very idea made her stomach twist uncomfortably—not just because of her strict upbringing, but because of how foreign it all seemed. She had never even kissed someone before, let alone considered anything beyond that.

Meanwhile, Christina carried on, nonchalantly describing the things she used to do with her so-called “guy friends” back in Candor, the boldness in her tone making Tris feel even more out of place.

Carrie, a Dauntless-born girl who had offered Christina some makeup for their free night, joined them partway down the hall. She was kinder than most of the Dauntless, her laid-back demeanor putting Tris slightly at ease. For a moment, they made light conversation, the tension in Tris’s shoulders loosening just a little.

That was, until they heard it.

The noises began faintly, muffled by the walls as they walked past the dorms. Tris frowned, unsure what she was hearing, but the others knew instantly. Christina and Carrie exchanged amused glances, barely stifling their giggles, while Al’s face turned redder than his shirt.

“Well, someone’s getting some,” Will said, his voice dripping with amusement as they kept moving down the hall.

But just as they were about to pass, the sound of a voice cut through the muffled noises. Deep, steady, and taunting, the words were unmistakable:

“Guess I didn’t fuck the attitude out of you last night like I thought. I’ll have to try again.”

The group froze.

Christina raised her eyebrows, trying to cover her shock with forced laughter. Will glanced awkwardly at the floor, Al looked anywhere but the door, and Carrie shifted uncomfortably, clearly unsure of what to say.

Christina's jaw drops, she can't believe what she's hearing. "Oh my god.. Is that.... Is that Four?" She whispers aggressively at Carrie, who just nods confused by the reaction. She went to say something but an equally strong and clear feminine voice spoke next. One that they all knew just as well as Fours.

Tris, however, couldn’t seem to move. The voice chilled her to her core, and while the others reacted with awkward giggles or nervous glances, her stomach churned uneasily. Her mind raced with questions she didn’t want to think about, and a sense of wrongness crept over her.

"It'll never be enough.." 

The jaws of the boys drop this time, Christina's is still on the floor. Tris's stomach is in knots, her dinner feeling like it's going to come up. "This is wrong, we shouldn't be listening." Even though she has no clue where she's going she walks off. 

Carrie just looks between them all, "It's not a big deal, they do this all the time.. Like almost every night. Lots of us do. You'll learn to just sleep through it." Carrie isn't into the drama, but she found Tris's reaction amusing. It would definitely be something she shared with Shauna later. 

Christina gave her a small nudge. “You okay?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” Tris lied, her voice barely audible as they moved past the door. But the words still rang in her ears, lingering long after they had left the hall.

[heleninhha]

Fearless 5

PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 PART 4

One of the things you loved about Dauntless, was even in the cold underground cave like home the water never got cold. Whatever water heaters the faction had were on point. So as you stood there his chest to your back letting the hot water run over the two of you until your skin warmed, it was divine. When one hand left your hip, and slowly made its way up to your breast kneading roughly you tried to act like you didn't notice. 

"Tell me Y/n" Four said his lips brushing the shell of your ear as he spoke, only proving to turn you on further. When you stayed silent he chuckled darkly, before moving his other hand towards the apex of your thighs. When he lazily drug a finger threw your lower lips, you let your head fall back onto his shoulder. 

Being 5'7 to his 6'0 had its advantages. One hand found its way behind you to his hair, your fingers threading threw. While the other went to the wrist of the hand he had lower, you knew that if he pulled away you wouldn't stop him. You physically couldn't stop him even if you wanted too, but if he wanted to stop you would never push that. 

His rough fingers easily found your clit, while his other hand moved from your breast to your throat. Wrapping his fingers around it to hold you in place, brushing his lips across your shoulder. A soft moan escapes your lips as he starts rubbing sloppy but quick circles over your clit. 

"Eaton.." You moaned digging your nails into his skin, trying to not give to much away. You knew what he was going to do, you gladly were accepting. While it felt a little weird saying his last name, you felt weird moaning Four.. And he hated Tobias.. So that left Eaton, sometimes you would say Four but it was normally Eaton. 

Really Four didn't care what you said, he just loved the way your sounds of pleasure made his chest warm. He loved the way his skin felt like it was unfire but also relaxed whenever you touched him. The unconscious way you moved towards him in crowds. How your eyes would seek him out when you were stressed or anxious. He loved everything about you, except your short fuse. 

But he figured everyone had a down fall. Everyone had a flaw that someone couldn't stand.  He knew that you held it together to the best of your ability. Like earlier in the dorms when you snapped, it had been coming all day. He could tell by the way you tapped your fingers against your arm, the way you bounced from foot to foot. 

Zeke had also told him you had been the same at the ceremony. Between the stress of losing some and gaining some, the stress of maybe seeing your hateful brother. Seeing Rita's sister die, and the beginning of the trials. That fuck head Peter, and all the annoying questions. 

Then Eric coming over, that was bad enough but then when he was touching you.. It set Four ablaze with an emotion he couldn't quite name, one he hadn't felt often. And had never felt towards you. All he knew was that he lived for these moments, the moments in one of your rooms. Or the few times you had pressed him against the wall in a quiet hall. It was what got him threw the shitty days. 

So with that in mind, he moved his hand lower pushing a finger into you harshly. Pumping only a few times before adding another. He could feel your pussy fluttering around them, he felt himself growing hard at the feeling. 

You were trying to not show how much you were enjoying it. That of course didn't matter because Four knew your body almost better than you did. You turned your head, his lips catching yours as he continued pumping his thick fingers into you. He pulled away letting your moans fill the air as you started to tighten around him, "Tell me what was wrong." 

You groaned  a little and bit your lip, just a few more seconds and you would be over the edge. 

As if he read your mind, he ripped his fingers out of you. "Fuck.. Come on Eaton.." His other hand was still firmly around your throat, so you couldn't pull away. His fingers brushed over your clit again, so lightly you almost couldn't tell if it happened. You felt yourself push your hips forward, trying to keep whatever contact you could. 

"Do you think I'll let you cum before you tell me?" He said biting down on your shoulder just hard enough to leave a mark. You shook your head a small smile on your face as he squeezed your throat a little tighter. Cutting off just a bit of the air flow to your lungs. "Ah, that means you like being a brat." 

When his fingers found his way back into you, you couldn't stop the way your back arched. It only took a small twist and curl of his fingers for him to find the sponginess of your g-spot. Pushing the pads of his fingers against it every time he pushed in or pulled out. 

The sensation along with the slight light headedness was overwhelming.  The motion quickly brought you to the edge again. "Four.. Dont.. Please.." You begged knowing he was going to do it again if you didn't answer him. At this point honestly you couldn't remember why you wouldn't answer him. You were just along for the ride.. and so far the ride was fabulous. 

When he pulled out again a whine found its way from between your lips. He spun you around this time, pressing you against the cold stone wall. Your mind barely registered it as his lips found yours. Kissing your ferociously both his hands now wrapping around your thighs and hoisting you up the wall. 

Before you could even take a breath to start begging he was pushing into you. Your head falls back to the wall, as your nails dug into the skin of his back. You heard him hiss but nothing really mattered. You were with the person you loved, doing one of your favorite things. Nothing could stop you at this moment, someone could've walked in and neither of you would've stopped. 

Your legs wrapped around his waist, heels digging into his ass as he pounded into you. "Fuck, Ill never get use to how tight you are." He said his fingers digging into your thighs so hard that you knew there would be bruises. "I can feel you, you're ready to cum.. All you have to do is tell me what was going on.. Tell me now or I'll stop." 

Your mind told you to keep your mouth shut, but your body won out. "Fuuckk.." You seethed threw your teeth trying to hold on. Two hard thrusts later it all just spilled out "I just dont like any of the newbies yet.. Those two girls and that fuckwad guy pissed me off.. Eric pisses me off.. His touch makes me want to vomit. Fuckk.."

You moved your head fell to his shoulder as he held all your weight, muscles in his arm flexing to help move your body. "I just feel more stressed than normal.. Im sorry." Finally the rest of the weight rose off your shoulders. 

The groan that came from Fours throat made you clench, only making him groan again. When you finally felt the band of your orgasm snap, your vision went white. Buzzing sounds filled your ears, you could barely hear Four tell you he was cumming too. 

You didn't remember making the choice to rake your nails down his tattooed back. You were sure there were spots where he was bleeding. But through those final few thrusts nothing mattered. Not the soreness of your thighs, not the stinging in his back. Just the euphoric feel flowing between the two of you.  

When Four finally set you down, it was quiet besides the sound of the water and the hazy breaths. He left his arms wrapped around your waist and back while your legs stopped shaking. The rest of the shower was spent gently washing each other, his arm firmly around your waist. The smell of his minty body wash filled your nose, he scrubbed hard enough to lightly pink your skin. Having showered with you enough to know how you would do it. 

He didn't wash your hair, knowing you would be pissed if he didn't condition it but he rinsed it. You washed his hair as he held you up, lightly pulling at it as you rinsed it.  Using your hands to wash his skin, rubbing the tension out from his shoulders. He pressed his lips against your forehead before turning the water off and stepping out. 

"You dont have to apologize to me for being stress Y/n.. You know that right?" Four asked as his fingers brushed through the tangled mess of your hair. He was on his back with you on his chest, even though you were mostly asleep you answered with a nod and hum. 

"I know there's something else going on.. I just want you to remember I'll be here when you are ready to talk. I will always be here Y/n, I'll always protect you." His soft voice was the last thing you heard as you fell into the darkness. Feeling completely relaxed and safe under the blankets wrapped in Fours arms. 

You slept wrapped in each other's arms that night. A silent dreamless sleep comforting both of you. The beat of your hearts as well as your breath synced with each other. Both on your side, your hands against his chest while his arms were wrapped around you.

One under your head keeping it tightly tucked under his chin, the other around your waist. Your legs tangled together. Every part of you that could be touching was. Had anyone walked in and seen you two,  they would never have thought you were 'just friends'.

~

~

~

@coolestgirlhere @everydayisordinary @hannahbeezz @cat-lockwood

[heleninhha]

Fearless 4

 

PART 1 PART 2 PART 3

"For those of you who don't know, my name is Eric," he says. "I am one of five leaders of the Dauntless. We take the initiation process very seriously here, so I volunteered to oversee most of your training." 

You roll your eyes crossing your arms, trying diligently to avoid looking at Four who is staring at you. He knows you're avoiding him, which only makes him stare harder. It pisses you off that Eric is 'overseeing' anything. You specifically told him to stay out of it, hes just doing this to piss you and Four off. He has absolutely no training skills, he just gets off on being cruel. 

"Some ground rules," he says. "You have to be in the training room by eight o'clock every day. Training takes place every day from eight to six, with a break for lunch. You are free to do whatever you like after six. You will also get some time off between each stage of initiation."

You shuffle from foot to foot again, the need to get out of here and away from the stress eating at you. But you stay in your spot and silent as Eric keeps speaking  "You are only permitted to leave the compound when accompanied by a Dauntless, behind this door is the room where you will be sleeping for the next few weeks. You will notice that there are ten beds and only nine of you. We anticipated that a higher proportion of you would make it this far."

"But we started with twelve," protests Christina and you sigh seeing Four shake his head out of the corner of your eye. Clearly what you said to her earlier didn't stick, she was going to need to learn to stay quiet. 

"There is always at least one transfer who doesn't make it to the compound" You say stepping forward to try and wrap up this dreadfully long speech. "In the first stage of initiation, we keep transfers and Dauntless-born initiates separate, but that doesn't mean you are evaluated separately. At the end of initiation, your rankings will be determined in comparison with the Dauntless-born initiates. And they are better than you are already. So I expect—"

"Rankings?" asks the mousy-haired Erudite girl "Why are we ranked?"

That anger that was flowing through you earlier, that is almost always right under your skin comes back. You could feel the RBF you always have morph into a true bitch face. It only took four strides to be right in her face, "I will only say this one more time today.. So EVERYONE LISTEN UP." Your voice raises towards the end of the sentence. The girl in front of you flinched slightly at your tone but you kept going. 

"WE are your SUPERIORS! I do not give one flying fuck who you were in your old faction. If you want to make it through the next few weeks you will learn to shut your damn mouths. You do NOT interrupt us when we are speaking, and knock off all the bullshit questions. Everything will be answered in due time if you are QUIET." 

You turn your back to the group and nod to Eric who smiles, and in the blue light, his smile looks wicked. He continues as you take a few deep breaths, curling and uncurling your fists. Four doesn't look at you this time, it almost hurts but you're so worked up you can't focus on that. 

"Your ranking serves two purposes," he says. "The first is that it determines the order in which you will select a job after initiation. There are only a few desirable positions available. The second purpose," he says, "is that only the top ten initiates are made members." 

All the initiates' faces drop, they must've thought that they all would get a place here. They really know nothing about the faction they moved too. You watch a few of them as they start to rethink their decision, but it's far too late now. 

"There are eleven Dauntless-borns, and nine of you," Eric continues. "Four initiates will be cut at the end of stage one. The remainder will be cut after the final test." 

"What do we do if we're cut?" Peter says and it takes everything in you to not say 'when you get cut'. "You leave the Dauntless compound," says Eric indifferently, "and live factionless." The mousy-haired girl clamps her hand over her mouth and stifled a sob. You roll your eyes, you know you're being kinda bitchy. 

Life with the factionless is not one you would wish on many. But you are seriously wondering how these guys didn't do even a little research on who they were joining. It's no secret that you don't keep everyone who shows. It's no secret that a lot of the factionless came from Dauntless. It's not something you're proud of, but there's nothing you can do about it yet. 

As the girl starts crying you hear Eric sigh as he turns to you and says "Pathetic" repeating the word you used on the train. You look back over the 16 year olds, watching the determination fall over Tris's face.

 "But that is...not fair!" the broad-shouldered Candor girl "If we had known—"

"Are you saying that if you had known this before the Choosing Ceremony, you wouldn't have chosen Dauntless?" Eric snaps. "Because if that's the case, you should get out now. If you are really one of us, it won't matter to you that you might fail. And if it does, you are a coward."

Eric pushes the door to the dormitory open. "You chose us," he says. "Now we have to choose you."

~~

Its raining as your feet pound the pavement. The cold water and even colder wind cooling your insides, as the pent up rage and stress leave. You know its been hours since you left, you know you really should be going back but your not ready. 

You're not ready for the questions from Tori, Tris or Christina. 

Not ready for the questioning looks Four will send your way.

But also not ready for the possibility that he wont look at you at all like earlier. 

You know you lost your shit a little, but it was better you put her in her place over Eric. Hes vindictive and cruel. He would hold a gun to your head, or a blade to your throat like it was Sunday breakfast. 

After another thirty minutes you turn towards the compound. Climbing the ladder to the roof, and launching yourself over the edge without pause. 

Fearless. It was one word that you could always associate yourself with. Because at the end of the day what was the worst that could happen? When the net below caught your body you sighed in relief. Your muscles were burning, lungs aching from the cold air they were forced to breathe. 

A deep voice next to the net startled you, "I wondered when you would come back."

You turned your head to the side, still not moving your body as you looked at Four. He smiled a little, relieved that you had calmed down. "You want to talk about whatever all that was earlier?" 

You shake your head and make grabby hands in his direction, he chuckles before pushing the side of the net down allowing you to roll towards him. When you sit up he turns around letting you climb onto his back as he makes his way towards his room. Your cheek is pressed against his shoulder as your eyes get heavy. 

You're tired in a way you haven't been in a long time. You wished that Tori hadn't put the weight of watching Tris on you, but you knew it was for the best. That didn't mean you had to be happy about it. OR that you had to be nice to her. 

A slight blush filled your cheeks as he lifted and readjusted you on his back. Moving his hands further up your thighs, fingers digging into your skin threw the soak material of your leggings. You hadn't thought about the fact that you were soaked when he lifted you. But now wasn't the time to start caring, not when about 15 steps away was his room. Where everything was going to come off anyways.

He bent down slightly signaling for you to open the door. Pushing with one foot to let it swing open, resting your chin on his shoulder. Trying to ignore the fact he could probably feel the warmth radiating from between your thighs.

He didn't stop in the main area, instead making his way into the bathroom. Sitting you on the counter before turning around and setting his hands on either side of you. Bringing his face down so you are eye level with his dark blue eyes.

"So.. Are you ready to tell me what was going on." He said it more like a statement, it wasn't a question of if more like when. He was going to get it out of you, he just didn't know how far he would have to push.

You felt your teeth clamp down on your lip as you shook your head. When he sighed and turned around you felt relief flood into you.

For about a second.

Until he reached back and pulled his shirt off, fluidly turning the shower on just after. In that moment you knew you were in trouble, if he really wanted to know he would figure it out. Part of you wanted him to want to know.. Just to see how far he would take it. The other part was screaming just tell him now, before your to stupid to watch yourself.

When he turned back to you he was unbuckling his belt leaving it in the loops as he pushed his jeans off. Leaving him in just his black boxers, you had to force yourself to not look down. You already knew what was waiting for you, but didn't want to give him the satisfaction of looking.

The steam from the heated water started filling the air, making the small room feel smaller somehow. He was only one step away from you, so his hands easily found your hips pulling you off the counter. His eyes stayed on yours as he pushed your leggings down.

You tried to not laugh at the extra effort it took, them being practicality glued to your legs from the rain. But when you cracked a smile you were rewarded with his in return. And a beautiful smile it was. The way it lit up his entire face was breathtaking. Tobias Eaton was a beautiful man, scars and all.

Not that you would ever call him beautiful out loud. You had called him hot before, even sexy here or there. But beautiful seemed like it would cross the line the two of you had drawn. The line where it moves from friends with benefits to who knows what. You loved him too much, in too many ways to risk losing everything but alerting him to your feelings.

When he stood, he lightly drug his fingers up the back of your thighs. Gently squeezing your ass in a way you knew was meant to be teasing. When he was back to his full height he traced the straps of your bra watching his finger dip under it pulling before letting it snap back.

"Are you ready now?" He said slowly, that smile still in place on his face. You could tell that even though he wanted to know, he was enjoying the game he had barley started. And if he was enjoying it... Who were you to end it so quickly?

"I dont know Eaton.. Am I ready to tell you?" You said side stepping him as you pulled your bra off. His eyes followed you until you stepped into the shower, purposefully leaving the curtain open. He sighed through his nose as he watched your figured threw the fogged mirror.

When your raised your arms to pull your hair down you flicked your hair tie at him. Watching him chuckle as he stepped out of his boxers and into the shower.

~

~

@@coolestgirlhere @everydayisordinary

WARNING, THE NEXT CHAPTER IS SHITTY SMUT!

[heleninhha]

Fearless 3

PART 1 PART 2 PART 4

Four pushes a set of double doors open, and we walk into the place he called "the Pit."

"Oh," you hear Christina whisper nervously. "I get it."

"Pit" is the best word for it. It is an underground cavern so huge you can't see the other end of it from the doors at the bottom. Uneven rock walls rise several stories. Built into the stone walls are places for food, clothing, supplies, leisure activities. Narrow paths and steps carved from rock connect them. There are no barriers to keep people from falling over the side.

A slant of orange light stretches across one of the rock walls. Forming the roof of the Pit are panes of glass and, above them, a building that lets in sunlight. It looked like just another city building when passed on the train. One of the reasons only the people here and the higher ups knew where the entrance was. 

Blue lanterns dangle at random intervals above the stone paths, they grow brighter as the sunlight dies. People are everywhere, all dressed in black, all shouting and talking, expressive, gesturing. A group of children run down a narrow path with no railing and you can see the sweat rolling down Tris's face as she tries to not yell at them to be careful or stop. 

You know it's shocking, as an Amity transfer you understood the shock but she had to keep quiet. You were praying she would stay quiet. "If you follow me," says Four, "I'll show you the chasm."

He waves us forward as we approach the railing,  you hear the roar of water, fast-moving water, crashing against rocks. Sighing happily as Four shakes his head, the most dangerous place in the area is your favorite. 

You watch everyone look over the side. The floor drops off at a sharp angle, and several stories below that is a river. Gushing water strikes the wall beneath you and sprays upward. To the left, the water is calmer, but to the right, it is white, battling with rock.

"The chasm reminds us that there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy!" Four shouts. "A daredevil jump off this ledge will end your life. It has happened before and it will happen again. You've been warned."

"This is incredible," says Christina, as we all move away from the railing "Incredible is the word," you hear Tris whisper. You cant help but listen to their conversations, feeling the need to know everything about this girl who you are supposed to 'save'.

Four leads the group of initiates across the Pit toward a gaping hole in the wall. The room beyond is well-lit enough that you can see where we're going: a dining hall full of people and clattering silverware. When we walk in, the Dauntless inside stand. They applaud. They stamp their feet. They shout. 

A smile fills your face as you watch the transfers, the shock slowly falls off their faces and smiles replace them. You all move towards an empty table, Four and you sitting across from each other. With Tris on one of his sides, Christina next to her. A quick scan of the rooms tells you that Tori is still at the shop. 

You quickly pile food on your plate, more than you will eat but you know the tank across from you will finish it. You watch as Tris grabs a burger following your lead, but pinches the meat between her fingers, unsure what to make of it.

Four looks up at you before grabbing the ketchup and setting it in front of her. "It's beef," he says. "Put this on it." "You've never had a hamburger before?" asks Christina, her eyes wide. Taking an unladylike bite you roll your eyes as Tris looks down at her lap "Stiffs eat plain food."

Christina's eyebrows pull together, "Why?" She asks as Tris looks up, smearing the sauce on her burger while answering. "Extravagance is considered self-indulgent and unnecessary." Tris answers in a monotone voice. You look up at Four remembering how many times he said the same thing to you. 

Christina smirks "No wonder you left." You sigh, rolling your eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure it was just because of the food." The corner of Four's mouth twitches as he tries to not smile at your attitude. Tris looks at you thankfully, before slowly eating her food. 

Only a few more bites in Christina is talking again, testing the little patience you have. "So Y/n, where are you from?" Before you can answer you feel Fours leg brush against yours, when you look up you can see what hes trying to say. 'You don't have to answer them.'

You smile and turn to look at the recruits who are all staring at you. "Amity" you say smoothly picking up whatever drink it is Four poured you. You try not to laugh when all of their jaws hit the table. Stuttering over their words as they try to comprehend how you came from the gentle loving community. Four speaks putting all their questions to bed before they can start.

"Theres a reason shes here. Unless you want to experience it first hand I wouldn't ask." 

The doors to the cafeteria open, and a hush falls over the room. Without looking you know who it is, you can tell by the way the recruits act. By the way Fours entire body tenses, his eyes falling from your face to the table. You know what the newbies see in the man standing in the doorway. 

"Who's that?" hisses Christina, staring across the room at his as he marches his way over. "His name is Eric," says Four. "He's a Dauntless leader." She gasps turning back towards us "Seriously? But he's so young."  Four gives her a grave look as if asking if shes stupid before waving over to you "Age doesn't matter here."

You feel him sit down next too you, wrapping his arm around your shoulder before leaning over to whisper in your ear. "Ive been looking for you." It sends chills down your spine, he is the only person you truly hate besides your brother. You take every chance to fight him that comes your way, even if its just verbally. 

"Well, aren't you going to introduce me?" he asks, nodding to the recruits. Four says, "This is Tris and Christina." You point your fork down at Peter "Thats Peter, we haven't been properly introduced to the other yet." 

"Ooh, a Stiff," says Eric, smirking at Tris. His smile pulls at the piercings in his lips, making the holes they occupy wider.  "We'll see how long you last." You see Tris wince but turn her eyes towards you and you roll your eyes and shake your head a little. Trying to tell her to ignore him. 

He taps his fingers against the table. His knuckles are scabbed over, right where they would split if he punched something too hard. Which he did, two days before you had gotten into an argument in the control room over how much involvement he would have in training. Like a teenage boy he punched one of the walls. 

"What have you been doing lately, Four?" he asks, his arm still around you even though you had pushed it off twice. Fours eyes land on it glaring before looking at Eric "Nothing really." 

"Max tells me he keeps trying to meet with you, and you don't show up," Eric says. "He requested that I find out what's going on with you." Four looks at Eric for a few seconds before shrugging and saying, "Tell him that I am satisfied with the position I currently hold."

"So he wants to give you a job." The rings in Eric's eyebrows catch the light as they lift. You smile down at your plate, knowing exactly which job Max wants to give him. He knows Four is a threat to his job, he also knows he wont take it until forced too. "So it would seem," Four says looking back at you trying to read how uncomfortable you are. You scrunch your nose at him  and chuckle a little at his protectiveness. 

"And you aren't interested." Eric says finally moving his arm from your body and leaning across the table a little. You see Tris lean away from him, Christina's eyes still locked on him 'God please dont develop a crush' You think. 

"I haven't been interested for two years." Four answers

"Well," says Eric. "Let's hope he gets the point, then." He claps Four on the shoulder, a little too hard, and gets up. When he walks away, when hes far enough away you groan and dramatically throw your head back. Thanking whoever was watching that he finally left, but also cursing them that he came over in the first place. 

"Are you three...friends?" Tris asks quietly, its like shes afraid to speak you dont know if your grateful for that or not. "We were in the same initiate class," Four says. "He transferred from Erudite." You finish sliding your plate with mashed potatoes and a half portion of green beans left towards him. 

"Were you a transfer too?" Tris says a little louder this time, causing the others to look back our way. You know he wont answer, and can almost see his walls slamming up.  "I thought I would only have trouble with the Candor asking too many questions," he says coldly. "Now I've got Stiffs, too?"

"It must be because you're so approachable," She say flatly. "You know. Like a bed of nails."

He stares at her, but she doesn't look away. Looking him in the eye is a challenge. Its yet another moment that shows her divergence. Another moment that shows how hard this is all going to be for you. "Four" You say lowly breaking his attention away from her, he looks back at you and nods when you flick your head to the side. Dismissing him without undermining his authority. 

But just before he walks away he says "Careful, Tris" in a tone that conveys he isn't done with whatever that was that was happening. Your eyes stay on him as he makes his way over to another table, the one with Zeke and Shauna. Both who wave at you before putting there attention on him. 

As you're watching him you're listening to Christina "I have a theory.. and that is... That you have a death wish." The two girls laugh and continue their conversation, but to you it isn't a joke. She doesn't understand the danger shes not only putting herself in, but all of you in. You don't even want to think about what would happen if they found out about her. 

Because if they found out about her, it wouldn't be a far leap to you. And if they found out about you, they would find out about everyone.. Anyone who was even slightly divergent would be in danger all because of one stupid girl. 

Anger rose in you quicker than you could get a handle on it. You stood briskly from the table grabbing both your and Fours plates and cups. Walking stiffly from the table, your breathing was getting heavier. You knew you needed to get out of the room, either to the gym or the parlor.

 You didn't meet Zeke, Shauna or Fours eyes as you practically storm from the room. The last thing you heard before the doors slammed behind you was Christina.

"Was it something I said?" 

~~

You knew you only had an hour before you had to meet the group back down in the dorms. So instead of going to the gym where you would spend hours, or the parlor where Tori would ask too many questions, you went to your room. You didn't lock your door, knowing that one of your three best friends would be following. 

Most likely Shauna, and about five minutes later as you were changing into leggings from your jeans she walked in. Zeke was the only one of them who ever knocked. Shauna said it was because she had all the same lady parts, Four said it was because he had seen it all. Which wasn't the point, but whatever. 

"Ok Girl.. What was that? Did Four piss you off? Want me to sick Zekey on him?" She said quickly after shutting the door and throwing herself across your bed. You sigh, moving towards the bathroom to brush your hair up into a pony tail. You had to be careful on how you answered, you always did. It was yet another thing that was exhausting about your life here. 

"Those girls were just driving me nuts, after the stress of being in the city today I was just done." You say rubbing your eyes before leaning your hands on the counter. 'Arent you tired of lying to all your friends? ' That voice called doubt.. or depression asks silently in your head. 

Shauna is one of the easier ones to fool, Zeke a little harder but Four could read you like a child's book. You were grateful she was the one who came up, it allowed some of the weight to fall off your shoulders. Pulling your shirt off you stood adjusting your sports bra, then splashing cool water on your neck. 

"Want to hang out after you put the kiddies to bed?" She asks looking your way, even if she cant read you she can see the tension in your shoulders. 

You shake your head "Im gonna go for a run before I go to sleep, try to work out some of this energy. Gotta be on point tomorrow, I want to be the one to break that Peter fucker."

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@coolestgirlhere