#HE SOUNDS LIKE HES INHALED CARBON BUT LIKE IN A GOOD WAY

[autumnalmoons]

Your late-night company (nsfw, mdni, +18 only)

It's smut bc I'm a horny bitch (lovingly), and because I want him to split me in half--I know he can, like c'mon

Viktor x fem!Reader | 2.1K

Notes: PWP, Established relationship, set kinda between act 1 and act 2, Vaginal Fingering, Innapropiate use of Viktor's cane (sorryyyy), Dom!Viktor if you squint, Cockwarming, Nipple play, English isn't my native language so lemme know if i messed up somewhere :)

Ever since he could hear the echo of your heels reverberate around the lab like a second heartbeat, Viktor knew you were onto something—and such rhythm makes his heart pick up speed too, though Viktor’s faster than each one of your carefree strides against the dark marble floor.

You go, smooching his cheek and surely leaving a pink mark on your lipstick. Not that he minds, of course, he's used to leaving his loving marks on you, too, and even now, he can see the now purplish hickey down your collarbone that you’ve been trying to veil with a silk scarf.

“What brings you here, my darling?” Viktor hums, unconsciously seeking your lips. Is that pink lipstick the one that tastes like cherry? He’s a man of science, he’s ought to investigate.

“Nothing much. I came to bring you home,” you say, hugging his slender frame from behind, your chin hooked in the crook of his shoulder, just over his back brace. “I miss my Vitya so, so much…”

Viktor shivers, trying to ground himself in the domestic, seemingly innocent gesture of a kiss over your temple. "I miss you, too, my jewel. Alas, Progress Day is in a couple of weeks, and we need to have everything ready in case a mishap happens.” He sighs, thick brows furrowing in focus. “As usually does.”

You nod. Of course, you understand that his work is a priority, but you also have a good memory; of those two past days when you went to sleep alone. There are those familiar purple bags under his eyes, only darker.

“Hmm, alright,” you say, massaging his scalp for a bit before wandering around the lab. “Then allow me to make you company. This place is filthy, handsome.”

“Chaos potentiates creativity.”

Your chuckle reverberates around the lab, which causes Viktor to lift his chin a little higher, how easily he can make you happy.

He turns back toward his desk, hearing you going toward the closet supply to get a feathery duster, mumbling a song under your breath as you hop around cleaning surfaces and wiping down machinery with a piece of cloth.

It's only a matter of time before your plan starts, and you have calculated it just as perfectly as Viktor's equations; using your knowledge of the man next to you, his existence is the most amazing creation you've seen—much to Viktor's attempts to surpass it with his machines.

You dust off the drawer next to his desk, ‘accidentally’ knocking off one of the pens tossed over the wooden surface, further down against the wall. "Oops!" you say in your best role of an actress, which isn't that good, only for him to look your way.

The floor is cold as you brush it with your fingers, a fine layer of dust and carbon covering it. One of the windows must be open because you can feel the cold autumn wind brushing under your mischievously short skirt, one of Viktor's favorites, right against your already wet folds that the underwear you chose today isn't meant to cover.

You want him to see. Swaying your hips playfully the moment you feel his gaze burn your back.

Over the purring of the machines, you hear his air leave in a sharp inhale.

Between not wearing panties at all, you choose ones made of black lace and cute, little black ribbons decorating the most… enticing areas. The cloth down your pussy was too small, and you had to choose or covering your clit, or covering your core—which of course, you choose the eager bundle of nerves, so Viktor could see you all wet and glistening for him.

Smiling, you push the pen further down his desk, a soft—very inappropriate—groan escaping your lips, copying my memory of one of the sounds you made every time his cock presses that special spot inside of you.

“I liked that pen a lot,” Viktor mutters, though you can hear the smirk in his voice.

By now, you have no idea where that damned pen had gone. “I’m sure I can make it up for you about that,” you say, knees bending slightly, so your pussy can open a little. Only if he ever tries to play the oblivious.

A chair squeaked, and it’s impossible not to start imagining Viktor’s lithe fingers caressing the curve of your ass. Instead, you got the cold metal of his cane’s handle.

“Ah!” He chuckled at hearing your surprised gasp.

“Is that disappointment I hear, my jewel? Or just cold?” He hums, dragging the handle along the folds of your pussy until it brushes your entrance, only the tip. “You’re all dressed up for me. And I wonder… why is that, hmm?” he says, the tip of the cane playing between your folds. “Is it because you’d like to ‘keep me company’?”

“I never told you how I planned to accompany you," You mutter, feeling your legs starting to shake as the cold metal meets your boiling core, thinking that you were about to melt.

“Use your words, darling. If you’re so eager.”

There is a certain edge to his words, the hoarse tone around his R replacing the usual soft tone he uses to whisper to you when you two aren’t in the privacy of your bedroom.

“I… I thought you may need… um…” you say, voice lost with each playful movement of his cane in and out your entrance; barely some inches in, but moving it just right thanks to the exhaustive research Viktor had conducted ever since he caught you with that vibrator. Little by little, your arousal warms the metal, and you wonder if Viktor can feel it, too. “Relaxing.”

“Relaxing? My, I’d say this is rather… distracting,” he chuckles, the wheels of his stool coming closer as you hold your hands against your burning thighs. “A pleasant one, of course, but still a distraction.”

“Oh? Then do I deserve a punishment?” You try your best to quip, though your voice quivers mid-sentence.

There’s barely a heartbeat of silence, and then:

“Bend over the desk,” he says, voice stern. You could almost picture him in one of the Academy’s auditoriums giving a lecture in that tone, absolute, bossy. He knows it, of course. He knows you, after all, just like any of inventions, he had spent several hours studying you. Loving you.

Your walls squeeze nothing at the words, but the light from the descending dusk is enough for him to see it.

“Hmm,” Viktor says. “I wonder how you’ve been pleasing yourself these days that I haven’t returned home, my jewel.”

You attempt to roll over—you want to see him, because he looked just so unfairly stunning with his brown hair stuck to his temples, beads of sweat running down his chest as he bit his lip as seeing you just so shamelessly needy for him, trying to contain himself just a little longer...

He pushes your back down the desk, pinching your butt once he catches you trying to turn your head to see him.

“Oh, no, no, my love. If you are going to distract me, then you must accept the consequences.” He bends down, biting your earlobe before nuzzling his nose down your neck, taking in the sweet essence of your clothes, of your hair, the same one he could always smell on his pillow. The mix of his shampoo makes his grasp on your hips tighten.

You whine, pouted lips parting in a breathless moan when he introduces the handler of his cane inside of you, his thumb lazily rubbing circles on your clit, first clockwise, and then in the contrary direction once he feels your walls starting to contract, ushering your orgasm away.

The wet sounds of the handle coming in and out your soaked cunt fills the lab, Viktor’s stool creaking as he re-position. From the sound of his pants unbuckling, you think you know what he’s doing that needed such a good grip on his seat.

“I wonder if you’d take me as well,” he mumbles, your wet sounds mixed with a new one that could only be Viktor starting to jack off from the view of you. "All those toys and they can't replace me.” He uses his left knee to part your legs even wider, his free hand making a wrinkled mess of your skirt, just above your hips.

You huff, fingers white from grabbing the edge of the desk. “As if I’ve ever disappointed you.”

Viktor chuckles, pinching your clit slightly before letting go. The emptiness fills you when he withdraws his cane, though the narrow length is soon replaced by the thick head of his cock rubbing against your entrance.

“Mmmm,” you hum, satisfied. Your hips buckle against him, trying to take him inside of you in one thrust.  Sadly, Viktor’s punishment for keeping him away from his duties was never.-ending teasing.

Viktor caresses the curve of your ass, his hands going to brush the outline of your hips and waist until his chest is against your back once again, his big length teasing through your folds without actually giving you what you want—and yet, you know you could finish off with only this. Would he be so cruel, though?

“Come here,” he mutters against your ear, sliding a hand around your waist, and pushing you down the seat with him.

You hiss, feeling the quick buckle of his hips as his cock burrows deep inside of you, twitching at the welcoming, wet warmth of your walls. His hands take you by the hips to stop you from starting to ride him.

“Shhh, shhh. Patience, my love,” Viktor coos, nuzzling his face in the side of your neck as he bites a trail of kisses toward your shoulder, fingers gently pulling down one end of the scarf, brushing slowly down your shoulders to reveal the quite generous cut in your neckline.

Humming, approbatory, Viktor returns to his desk, with a firm grip around your waist to keep you still.

He kisses your cheek, putting his cane against the wall. The metal glistens, soaked with your juices against the reddish hue of the dying sunlight.

His right hand pushes your legs open, tangling your legs against the desk to keep them open when his fingers slide down your stomach, fingers lazily rubbing your clit.

Closing your eyes, your head lolls against his shoulder, letting him take your lips in a kiss that lets you taste the bitterness of the coffee he has just drank to keep himself awake during the night.

His tongue passes along your bottom lip, and it’s indeed that cherry-flavored lipstick, teeth grazing the sensitive skin as the hand grabbing your hip raises to grab your breasts when he grows needy, too.

“Vitya…” you moan, voice muffled as he kisses you again.

“My favorite blouse,” Viktor says, tugging down the smock of the front so he could see your lacy black bra. “So easy to access.”

You smile, hips gently swaying side to side against his lap each time he strokes your clit.

Viktor’s fingers work masterfully inside your bra, rubbing your nipple as your hands frantically undo the clip of your top so he can push the bra away.

It’s too much. Between his playful nibbles down your neck, the slow circles drawn on your clit, his fingers pinching your nipples and rubbing them to make the little peaks soft again even his cock filling you, although still, is enough to push you through the edge of pleasure. Legs shiver as your mouth stutters a moan, letting out a cry that Viktor drowned with his mouth.

“We can’t let the guards know what we’re doing, don’t you think, my jewel?”

“Why… why not?” you pant, kissing the mole peeking above his shirt’s collar. “My boyfriend fucks me so good,” you giggle.

Viktor smiled, his cock twitching at your lewd words. Your walls keep squeezing him, greedily wanting to be soaked with his cum.

"I haven't yet today," Viktor hums, deep in thought, kissing your sweaty brow. “Let me finish revising this blueprint, and we’ll go home.”

You pout, but only another heated kiss is necessary to make you respond:

“Okay,” you say, all doe-eyed now that you’re satisfied. Momentarily, of course. And that you had convinced him to go home. “But only this one blueprint. Or I’ll bite you.” You try to stand up, Viktor’s hand yanking you back between his legs before his cock could sleep out from your pussy.

“I never said you could move, my love,” Viktor says, squeezing your hips playfully. “I’d take you can be a good girl while I finish my work?”

You shake your head. “No.”

Viktor chuckles, his free hand starts to rub your overstimulated clit once again. His other hand quickly drops his pen to reach the bottom drawer of his desk, where you can see the outline of the vibrator Viktor keeps there ‘just in case’. “I suppose I just have to tire you up, then.”

[roosterscockpit]

His Little Girl | Bradley Bradshaw x reader P. 40

click here for the master list

Hi my loves. I hope you are all doing well. Sorry for the spam that's to come today. I have more to post along with the three parter I did before this one. I hope you are all enjoying the story. I love you all so much. Happy reading and enjoy! ❤️

A/n: Your last day in paradise with Bradley. How will you both spend it before you return home? 🏝️☀️

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: cursing, but a whole lot of love ❤️

Please don't take my work, I will find you. 

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After two magical days in Hawaii, it was time for you and Bradley to return back home. As much as you wanted to stay longer, you really missed everyone. Especially Leia. You woke up around 7 AM to see that Bradley was gone again. You stretched and got out of bed. You made your way downstairs and he was out on the balcony in his underwear. You watched as he brought a glass to his lips and drank from it. He was looking at the city below him. He was taking in the sounds of the ocean, the view, and the way it all smelt. You walked out quietly to the balcony and wrapped your arms around his waist. You placed a soft kiss on his back and laid on him. 

Bradley looked over his shoulder at you and chuckled. He placed his free hand over your arms and leaned back slightly into you. “Good morning, my beautiful girl.” 

You let go of him slightly and he turned around to you. You kept your hold on him and rested your chin on his chest. You were looking up at him. He fixed your bedhead and placed a kiss on your forehead. You looked over at his glass. There was stuff floating all around his drink. You looked at it weirdly and he took another sip of it.

“Bradley, what are you drinking?” You giggled.

He swallowed his drink and burped. “Sorry, sweetheart. Naturally carbonated.” He blew away his burp and shooed it away from you. “But this is kombucha, babe. So good for your gut.” He took another sip. “You want to try it? You’ll feel so much healthier.” He laughed. He handed you the glass and you examined it.

“Why does it look like that? What is floating in it?” You made weird faces at the glass. 

Bradley laughed, “Those, baby girl, are live probiotics swimming around in there.” He tapped on the glass.

“So you mean to tell me that I’ll be drinking some sea monkey contraption?” You looked at him shocked. 

He laughed loudly, “Sweetheart. NO! Just try it!” He brought the cup to your lips. 

You inhaled and started to cough, “It smells sour! Oh my gosh, Bradley!” You pulled away from it.

“Baby, just a little sip. It tastes a lot different than it smells. I promise.” He smiled at you and brought the cup to your lips again.

You sighed and closed your eyes. You took a sip of it and gave the cup back to Bradley. You looked up at him and smiled, “Okay it wasn’t bad at all. It actually tasted like pineapples.” you burped. “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry.” 

Bradley woofed your burp to his nose, “Ahhhh. Nothing better to start my morning, sweetheart.” He started to laugh. He placed the drink down on a table. “So I was thinking, we could take another little stroll around before we head back home.” He interlocked his fingers with yours.

You brought his hand up to your lips and kissed it, “I love the sound of that.” 

He smirked at you, “We don’t have a set time to go home, we can do whatever we want. I am the pilot flying us home, you know.” He kissed your lips. “Let’s get ready and head out, baby girl.” 

He brought you back into the hotel room and the both of you got ready together. You sat on the bed in your towel. You looked around and smiled at Bradley, “I don’t have anything to wear today.” 

He laughed and shook his head, “You’re wrong, baby.” He went to the closet and pulled out a white cami jumpsuit. It was covered with red birds of paradise. It was so cute. He held it against him, “This is for me.” He winked at you and laughed. He brought it over to you and handed you the jumpsuit on the hanger. “Put it on!” 

You stood up and removed your towel. You put on a bra and underwear before you slipped into the jumpsuit. It fit you perfectly. It was so soft. You did a little twirl for Bradley. He put his hand over his mouth as he checked you out. His eyes were wide as he looked at you. You laughed and grabbed his hands, “Thank you, Bradley. I love it. I loved all my outfits. You picked right.” 

He kissed you on our cheek, “Wait for it. It gets better.” he ran over to the closet and furrowed his brows, and made an o with his mouth. He pulled out a matching shirt and presented it to you with an angelic hum coming from his mouth. “Matching, again!” 

He put it on and buttoned it up leaving the top two undone. He posed for you, he put his hands on his hips and did a superman pose. You started to laugh because he was just in his boxer briefs and the shirt. “Sooo hot.” You bit your lip and giggled.

He pulled you to him and kissed your cheek, “Okay let's get a move on, sweetheart. We have a whole lot to do with no time!” He started to laugh as he smacked your butt the whole way to the bathroom. 

After you both finished completely getting ready, Bradley brought you down to the beach by your hotel. He brought you over to the shore line and took your sandals off of your feet. He took his sandals off and held both pairs as you two walked along the water. The tide was slightly hitting your feet and the water felt warm. The sand was cold and crunchy under your feet. You and Bradley were hand in hand enjoying the sun. He swung your guys's hand back and forth as you walked. He brought you to a closed loading dock. There were a bunch of people on there jumping off and diving. There were also people there taking pictures. He brought you to the edge of it and you two were alone. It was quiet, all you could here was the waves crashing and breaking in the distance. 

Bradley held you in front of him and wrapped his arms around you. You closed your eyes and leaned into his chest. You took slow breaths feeling more and more relaxed with each release. You melted into Bradley’s arms and hummed. He held you close and brought his head down next to yours. He leaned his cheek into yours and you could feel his mustache tickling you. You turned to look at him. He moved his head and looked you in your eyes. His cheeks were rosy because it was warm out he was smiling with his eyes. He looked so happy. He started to rub your side. 

“It would be a shame you if suddenly fell into the ocean right now, sweetheart.” He jolted forward slightly making you yelp. He kept his embrace tight and pulled you back as you almost fell in. He started to laugh so hard he threw his head back. “I wouldn’t do that to you, baby.” 

You looked at him and shook your head. “You’re going down with me, Mr. Bradshaw. I go, you go. We are a team now.” you giggled and brought you hand to his cheek. 

He brought his cheek to yours again and you pulled him to your lips to kiss his cheek. 

“You are absolutely right, baby. You and me forever.” He pulled away from you and pulled out his phone. “You wanna dance, sweetheart? I think we should get our practice in for our wedding day.” He smiled up at you as he scrolled through songs. 

“I think I am that only one who needs practice. I have two left feet, Bradley. You dance so much, you’re so good at it.” You raised your brow at Bradley and rested your hand on your hip.

He looked up at you and shook his head, “You dance perfect, baby. But, if you would like to get better… you have a great teacher in front of you.” He chuckled, “Y’know I taught Payback how to for when he got married. THAT was HARD.”

You cocked your head back and looked at him with furrow brows, “You taught, Payback?”

He nodded, “I did. Private lessons, babe. He was embarrassed so after everyone would fall asleep at the barracks or on the ship, wherever we were at the time, he would come over to my room and I would teach him. He was very good at dancing with his pillow. He swept Emily ( @minstens ❤️) off of her feet. When we first started he had hands for feet, I swear. But come his wedding night, looked like he had taken lessons all his life.” He chuckled and shook his head. He finally picked a song, You Had Me From Hello by Kenny Chesney.

He put both of your sandals down and placed his phone on top of them. He grabbed your hands and placed them around his neck and pulled you in by your hips. He slowly started to sway to the song, “Just follow my lead, sweetheart. Feel the song.” He kissed your forehead and held you close. “Just the basics. You’ll be a pro in no time.” 

You laid on his chest and laughed. You slapped the back of his neck slightly. You closed your eyes and felt the music. You did what felt natural to you. Bradley rubbed his hands up and down your back slowly as you danced. He laid his head on top of yours. 

And you were in my future as far as I could see and I don’t know how it happened, but it happened still.

“You know baby, I used to listen to this song all the time when I was away and all I could do was think of you. You were always on my mind. You never left it and you never will. I am so in love with you, sweetheart. My heart belongs to you. It always has.” 

You could feel the vibrations in his chest from his voice. His heart beat started to get fast as he spoke, but then it slowed down as he held onto you tighter. You were his home. You made him whole. 

The moment that I looked into your eyes, you won me. It was over from the start. You completely stole my heart.

He brought his hand up to your cheek and pulled back slightly. You placed one of your hands on his. He looked into your eyes and smiled. He lightly scratched at your cheek and started to sing softly to you, “Something in your voice caused me to turn my head. You had me from ‘Hello’. You had me from ‘Hello’. Girl I’ve loved you from ‘Hello’.” You started to tear up and he kissed you softly. “I’ve loved you since the day we met, y/n. You were made for me.”

He pulled you in and hugged you. Your eyes started to tear up more. You felt a warm tear fall down your cheek onto your chest. You inhaled deeply and took in his scent. He always knew the right things to say and he always knew how to make sure you felt loved. In this moment, you felt so weak in your knees. You were in heaven whenever you were with Bradley. 

He rubbed your back and tickled you slightly, “Hey, sweet girl, no more tears.” He pulled back and squished your cheeks together. He kissed your squished lips over and over again rubbing his mustache against you. You started to giggle. “There is my favorite... most favorite sound in the world.” He kissed the tip of your nose. He picked up yours and his sandals and his phone. He grabbed your hand. “Come on, baby! We have so much to do! I have one more surprise for you, beautiful.” He started to run off the deck. You laughed and trailed close behind you.

“Bradley!” You giggled and wiped your tears. “Wait!” 

He looked back at you and pulled your arm so you were right next to him. He wrapped his arm around your waist, “Keep up, butter cup! We’re gonna be late!” He laughed as his strides started to get bigger. He held you close to him as he ran. You were both laughing as you ran. Everyone was looking at you two like you were crazy, but little did they know. You were just having the time of your life with the man of your dreams. 

You both arrived at another boat dock. There was a big private white boat waiting for you and Bradley. He shook hands with the owner of the boat and they helped you board. The owner held your hand and Bradley picked you up and placed you in the entrance of it. You walked into the boat as Bradley got help from the owner to get up. It was so pretty. You looked down and saw that the floor was purely glass. You could see the ocean beneath you. Your eyes went wide. You could see into the ocean. You could see all the fish swimming beneath you. It was such a cool sight. 

Bradley brought you over to the seats and sat with you. “You are going to love this, baby. Mav and my dad took me on one of these kinds of boat rides when I was little.”

The boat started to drive off into the water. You and Bradley looked down at the glass as the boat went. You could see all the fish in the ocean. It was crystal clear. The driver brought you over various live tropical reefs. They were so beautiful. The colors were so vibrant, it almost seemed like they were fake. You saw so many turtles and you squealed when you saw a starfish chillin on a rock. You even got to go and see a shipwreck. The boat from the shipwreck was huge. you could see that it had been there for a while. The outside of it was covered in debris, seaweed, and a bunch of barnacles. The tour boat went over it slowly so you could see every detail of the boat. you would still see all of its features clearly. There were fish coming in and out of the boat. 

You looked over at Bradley and smiled, “Thank you for taking me here. I am having so much fun.” You put your hand on his cheek and pulled him in for a kiss.

“I am glad you like the boat tour! I’m really happy you’re okay being on a boat. I was afraid you might get sick.”

You laughed, “Oh please, Bradley! Who would I be if I couldn’t be on a boat and I am marrying a man in the Navy.” You raised your brows at him.

He put his hand over his eyes and wiped it down to his mouth. “Sweetheart, you would be dead weight.”

You laughed together, “But I am not just talking about this boat ride, Bradley. I’m thanking you for flying me to Hawaii.” You looked at him with so much love in your eyes.

He grabbed your hand and squeezed it, “I will fly you anywhere you want to go, babe. You deserve this.” He kissed your cheek.

The boat started to make its way back to the dock. Bradley leaned back against railing of the boat and put his arm up. You snuggled into his chest and he put his arm around you. He looked out at the ocean as you made your way back. You looked up and admired him. His curls were blowing around in the wind, his eyes slightly squinted from the sunlight, his mustache getting flattened against his upper lip as the wind hit him, his green eyes were glistening from the reflection off of the ocean, and his nose was slightly flaring every time he would breathe in. You leaned in and kissed his chin. He looked down at you and placed his hand on top of your head. He pushed your head back and kissed your forehead. You both continued to look out at the ocean as you made your way back to the dock. 

After the boat docked, Bradley carried you out of the boat and back to the sand. He peppered your face in kisses as he held you. It was as if you were a weightless feather in his arms. He set you down on the warm sand. The two of you walked over back to the hotel. He bent down and dusted the sand from your feet and placed your sandals back on. You two walked around the hotel for a while. He brought you into a store to get some snacks and a luggage. On the way back to the hotel, you both ate your snacks. 

When you arrived back in the hotel room, Bradley started to pack yours and his belongings into the luggage. After he finished packing he put the bag near the door. He brought you out to the balcony one more time. You stood in front of him and he had his chest firmly against the back of your head. He reached forward and placed his hands on the railing. You were wedged between his body and the rails. 

“One last look until our wedding day, Mrs. y/n Bradshaw.” He tucked your hair behind your ear and kissed your cheek. “Come on, baby. Our little girl is waiting for us at home.” 

You turned to him and he took your hand. He grabbed the luggage and you looked back one more time before the door closed behind you. When you got downstairs the car was waiting for you. Bradley helped you into the car and you both headed back to the airport. Upon arrival, you went through the whole check and made your way to the tarmac. The plane was right where Bradley left it. A worker drove you both over in a taxiing car. There were tarmac attendants working on the plane and doing checks. 

When you got to the plane, one of the workers saluted Bradley and gave him the keys. The worker then opened the door for you and Bradley to enter. You went and sat in the co-pilot seat. You put your headset on and buckled yourself in. Bradley did his outside and inside checks. He came into the cockpit and kissed your cheek. You looked up at him and he gave you a thumbs up. You smiled and gave him one back. He sat in the pilot’s chair and put his headset on. He buckled himself in and started up the plane. He communicated with the grounds crew and the tower. 

“Carole Bradshaw ready for taxi.” The grounds crew closed and locked the entry door.

“C. Bradshaw requesting permission to taxi.”

The tower cleared Bradley to taxi. Bradley threw a thumbs up to the ground crew and saluted them. The crew member threw a thumbs up and signaled Bradley where to taxi. He pulled up to the end of the taxiway and called to the tower again.

“C. Bradshaw requesting permission to enter the runway.” 

Tower had him stand by as one of the commercial airlines was about to take off. He held it at the runway entrance. After the commercial plane took off, they cleared him to enter the runway. He started to flip switches and push some buttons as he made his way to the runway. 

“C. Bradshaw ready at the runway heading northeast.”

They cleared him to take off. He sent a quick text to Mav that you both would be heading back and will be making your way in, in about 4 hours. He turned his phone off and put it away. He reached over and grabbed your hand. You looked over and he squeezed it and brought your knuckles to his lips. He gave your hand a kiss and he winked at you. You smiled and nodded. He punched in the coordinates and readied up the plane. He readied up each engine, you could hear them kicking on and the plane stirred. He flipped a couple of more switches and pushed the thruster levers all the way forward. He kissed his fingers and tapped the airplane's dash. He held firmly onto the yoke and the plane took off. Before you knew it you were back in the air. You looked at the islands as they started to get smaller and smaller. 

Bradley cleared the tower to where he was heading. Once you were at the appropriate altitude, you took your headset off and laid back in your chair. Bradley took his off and flipped on the speaker. He put the plane on autopilot and looked over at you.

“Sweetheart, come here.” He put his hands out to you. “I miss you, come and sit with me.”

You chuckled and took off your seat belt. You made your way over to Bradley and sat on his lap. He wrapped his arms around you and pulled you into his chest. “Better, Brad?”

He kissed your arm and nuzzled his face into your size. “So much better.” He muffled into your side. It tickled and you started to laugh. He started to kiss your shoulder as he massaged your thigh. “I don’t know about you, y/n, but I miss our little girl.” 

You looked down at him and he was making some sad puppy dog eyes at you. You mirrored his face and cupped his cheeks in your hands, “I miss her too, Bradley. 4 hours and she will be in our arms.” You smiled at him and peppered kisses on his mustache. He tried pulling back as he laughed but you held his head firmly in place as you continued to kiss him. 

“Baby, don’t do that to me or you’ll be slamming your head onto the autopilot again.” He started to laugh hard. 

You looked at him annoyingly and slapped him in the chest. He started to cough. “That’s not funny, Bradshaw!” You annoyingly laughed, “Ha. Ha. Ha.” You narrowed your eyes at him.

“Sweetheart, you can make it even by hitting the other side of your forehead.” He started to laugh again.

You squinted your eyes and pursed your lips, “Or I can slam your head onto the autopilot and we can be twins.”

He stopped laughing and his jaw dropped, “That actually doesn’t sound like a bad idea.” He smiled at you devilishly. 

You got up off of his lap and crossed your arms, “We aren’t having sex in the air again.” You smiled at him mockingly and returned to your seat.

He placed his hand over his heart and clenched it, “That really hurts my heart, baby.” He made a crying face.

You rolled your eyes and laid back in your seat. “I am going to take a nap, Lieutenant.” You exhaled deeply and got comfortable in your seat. You could hear Bradley’s seat unbuckle. You felt his lips and mustache on your forehead. 

“Okay fine. Sweet dreams, baby.” He pushed your hair back and returned back to his seat. 

You dozed off into a deep sleep. You woke up to Bradley putting a blanket on you. You were drooling a bit and you wiped it as you sat up. You inhaled sharply and looked at Bradley. He smiled at you and squatted by your side. He started to pet your hair back away from your face.

He was being so gentle and his voice was hushed, “I am so sorry, baby. I didn't mean to startle you. I just didn’t want you to be cold.” He laid his arm on the armrest and rested his chin on his arm. He looked at you in a daze as he kept petting your hair. “Go back to sleep, my pretty baby. You’ve had an eventful week this week.” He got up and kissed your lips. 

He returned back to his seat and you looked over at him with a weak smile and almost shut your eyes. He pointed at you closed his eyes, laid on his hands, and gave you a thumbs up. You nodded slowly. Your eyes were getting heavier and heavier. He blew you a kiss before your eyes were closed shut.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I just adore how he takes care of us. I want this man so much. This is what I want in life. My standards are way high because of this 🥺 I hope you are all enjoying the story. I'll see you in the next part for the reunion with our little girl. 🫶🏼

My lovelies are tagging in the comments 💕

PS. I HAVE A SURPRISE FOR YOU ALL LATER ON, GET READY 😏

[scornedserendipity]

Part Four: Winchester x Younger Sibling (OC)

uhhh here is another one hope you enjoy some fluff moment. and no i cannot think of a title for this chapter lol

Jamie’s x-rays came back. She had a cracked rib severely damaged lungs from the smoke she inhaled, and some serious bruising on her whole backside. There wasn’t a part of her back that wasn’t colored purple or black. The investigators were shocked at how she had incurred so much damage when her brothers and the neighbors made it out just fine, and how so much force could have been generated to cause that much damage. “A freak accident.” They called it.

“We want to keep her in overnight so we can monitor her. The amount of smoke she inhaled was way too concerning. The doctor is worried that she may not get enough oxygen in her brain.” The nurse said as she looked over Jamie’s chart. Her brothers listened intensely as their sister’s condition was broken down. 

“She hit the car with force almost equivalent to a 15-foot fall. How you survived, can only be the work of God.” Her brother’s eyes went wide as they looked at their baby sister. “But I do need to ask her some private questions.” 

She was just lying there. Her oxygen mask and a scowl as she stared out the window. She was still a mouse. Probably in too much pain to move. Sam left his brother’s side and sat in Jamie’s line of view. 

“Hey, Dean and I are going to step outside while the nurse asks you some questions. Do you need anything?” Sam asked, placing a hand on his sister’s bruised one. Jamie slowly turned to make eye contact with her brother. She was exhausted and she couldn’t even make a joke if she wanted to. 

It was taking everything she had to keep herself from balling. Her back stung, her throat burned, and her eyes twitched with dryness. She couldn’t even feel the bed she was on. 

“Cream soda.”

Dean couldn’t help but scoff at his sister. Sam chuckled and nodded. 

“No problem kiddo.” He answered, shaking his head and standing up. The brothers looked at their sister one last time before walking out at shutting the door behind them.

“I’m gonna find whatever did this to her and kill it.” Dean scowled. Sam could tell he was beating himself up.

“We don’t even know what happened. It was like a freak accident.” Sam responded, racking his brain, trying to focus on anything other than the memory of Jess and Jamie’s screams. They walked down the hallway, in search of the vending machine.

“Well, It’s a good thing that’s our specialty. When she called me, Sam. I saw it. The smoke from the house attacked- it outright attacked her. We heard the thud. There is no way something other than the supernatural did this. You saw how the fire started.” Dean said as he looked down the halls they passed.

“Yeah, but I’ve never heard of smoke attacking someone. Jess died just like mom…” he paused. “But Jamie, she should have made it out, I could have sworn she was right behind us.” He muttered.

“I know, but you know her, she never follows orders,” Dean muttered as he approached the vending machine and searched for his sister’s drink.

“Dean, if she hadn’t done what she did more people might have died.”

Dean watched as the soda fell to the bottom. The sound of the metal clanging reminded him too much of the crunch he heard when Jamie hit the Impala. He gritted his teeth and looked at his brother. He felt useless.

The boys returned and the nurse was long gone, having left Jamie with some water and some applesauce. She was still sitting up but had more pillows and there were fresh bandages wrapped around her neck, they hadn't been there before.

“What’s with the neck?” Sam asked, popping it open and handing it to her. With a shaky hand, she grabbed it and took a large gulp and another. Her brothers watched in fascination as she chugged the carbonated drink like a college kid, she just wasn’t able to crush the can in victory.

“Tha-buuuuuuuuuuuurrrP- nk you.” 

Sam and Dean couldn't help but smile at their gross little sister. Dean moved around Sam and sat down next to his sister. He pointed at her neck with his eyes.

“yeah, that wasn’t there when we left.” He had that gentle smile on his face, the one he used when he wanted answers. 

“Uhm, I’m not sure. The nurse and I were talking and then my neck started hurting. She took a look, called in the doctor and they wrapped it up.” Jamie said. This was not a satisfactory answer for her brother. 

“There is nothing in your chart about it either,” Sam said as he read over the clipboard that hung on the edge of her bed.

“Sammy, go find the doctor,” Dean said not taking his eyes off his sister.

“Let me take a look sweetie,” Dean said, reaching forward as his brother left to find the doctor. 

“Dean, we need to talk-” 

“After you get better, James,” Dean said gently, he knew his sister was too tired to argue with him like she usually did, even if she wasn't showing it. Dean reached for her neck, gently unwrapping the thick bandages. He cringed as Jamie winced. Whatever was under there was already drying up.

"Weird," he muttered to himself. Dean had seen a lot of weird injuries, scrapes, cuts, and burns, if they weren't fatal they usually took longer than a few minutes to get as dry as this one seemed to be.

Jamie didn’t argue and looked up. Letting her brother look at whatever was on her neck. Dean hardly ever called her ‘James.’ It was something their father and Bobby joked about when they were younger. There wasn't a specific reason why they called her anything. Just comes with being the baby sister.

Dean only used it when he wasn’t going to put up with an argument of any kind. To Jamie, it was weird, she didn't like being called James. 

“Do you know what this is?” Dean asked as he stared at the open wounds on his sister’s neck. 

“They said it was some kind of reaction to the smoke, they said it should disappear after it closes up,” Jamie said. “But Dean, we need to talk about what happened on the stairs before Sammy comes back.” 

Dean rewrapped the bandages and put his hands in his lap. His face was serious, no smirks, no jokes to crack. 

“Yes, we do. Tell me what you saw.”

“I saw Jess,” Jamie confessed. Her voice was still raw but she could speak enough to tell her brother.

Dean’s eyebrows raised as he leaned in to listen.

“You saw Jess? That’s impossible. She was on the ceiling, Jamie. Burning alive.” Dean said, eyes wide and brows furrowed.

“After I banged on the doors, the fire started spreading or something because the house just filled up with smoke, I couldn’t breathe, I could barely see. I was on the stairs and I heard someone call my name.”

“Who was it?” Dean asked, leaning forward with a serious glint in his eyes. Jamie could tell Dean was moments away from boiling over. The pot of emotions that brewed inside him was reaching peak heat.

Dean listened as his sister spoke, making sure to watch the heart monitor behind her as she spoke. He watched as the numbers began to rise while she explained what had happened.

“Jess. Or her body, it was talking to me. She called my name, and there was the smoke behind her. Dean. When we first met her I had a bad feeling, but she did something, she sent that smoke after me. She made it throw me into the car. It was like she was trying to ki-”

“Jamie, it’s okay. You are safe. I’m right here.” Dean said as her heart monitors started to slow back down again. He sat up and sat on the edge of the bed. 

“Dean, she was trying to kill me. I could feel it. She was true evil.” Jamie finished, tearing up. “And I- I can’t tell Sammy. I can stain his memory like that.” 

“It’s okay, June Bug. You’re big brother’s got you. Sammy will be okay, we all will. We will find Dad and we will be together again,” he soothed, gently rubbing her palm, avoiding the bruises on her knuckles. 

“And I’m sorry about the car.” She sniffled out. Dean cooed and dried her tears. 

“Don’t worry about the car. I’ll fix it. I will fix all of it.”

Jamie had fallen asleep in her brother’s arms, watching the news on the hospital TV. Sam came back just as she had fallen asleep. She was leaning on Dean he relaxed next to her. Legs crossed and arms around his sister.

“Good news, the doctor said it sprouted up when we were gone. Said it shouldn’t be too serious, just inflammation of the skin. How is she feeling?” Sam asked, handing his brother a cup of coffee and taking a seat.

“She will be okay,” Dean said, taking a drink from the cup.

“Should we call Bobby?” Sam asked, taking a drink of the coffee and leaning back.

“No, we need to make sure Jamie is okay and keep moving. Once she is cleared we are out of here. Hospitals give me the creeps.” He felt a shiver crawl up his spine but he refused to move.

Sam stared at his siblings. Jamie, is asleep, half leaning on Dean’s side and peacefully breathing. Sam hated seeing that tube around her face. Hearing the beats of her heart monitor. He couldn’t help but think to that moment, how he could saved Jess and he could saved Jamie.

Dean looked serious. He hadn’t seen that look in Dean’s eyes since they were kids. He grimaced and looked out the window to his side.

“One more job.”

[legendaryfigure]

{ Maybe that’s the way I should GO Straight into the MOUTH of the unknown. }

FLASHBACK;

‘Do you need my help?’

It was the first QUESTION demanded as he answered the Roamzone phone, hands steady despite the interruption from his daily routine. ( Meditation helped clear the mind and cleanse the soul, and Evan was in tune with his body now more than ever. ) Yet the person at the other end of the line; took precedence at once, their voice crackling to life like static. The signal dismal at their end. It was the first thing he noticed. ‘I don’t know.’ Their responses VARIED each time. Some were full of disbelief, sceptical that he even existed. Others were overjoyed that he’d bothered to pick up, but the majority were desolate, their distress noticeable in their vocal tone. ( High pitched, panic, gasping, heavy breathing. ) He’d heard it all or so he he'd thought. Yet this response was weak to his own ears. Hoarse and dry, cracked speech. Evan inhaled, exhaled and followed the procedure. ‘Who gave you this number?’

He could never be too careful, danger lurked within every SHADOW. His alias a whisper in the air; a legend that lived on. ( Only a few knew how to contact him, and those who did were only allowed to do so once. ) The payment for the assistance? Pass the number on. That’s how it worked, and so he was looking for a description of his last client.

What he heard, however, made his blood run cold.

‘I don’t know.’

Hands tightened around the device; conflicted now. The MAN sounded genuine, and yet this could be a trap and a deadly one at that. For honestly how could he not know? Not if everyone had done as they should and followed his rules? He was always clear what he expected; he never took risks. ( The ten commandments he and his handler created were there for a reason, and yet; something held him on the line. ) Enabled him to pause; it was a simple rinse and repeat. He couldn't sway from his path, and it was with regret he finally admitted. ‘I see then I really can’t help you, sorry.’ The voice WHIMPERED; the sound sending shivers down his spine; either this person was a very good actor or they sincerely were at rock bottom. He was often their last hope; but what could he do? He had to be sensible about this. He expected a protest; a rambled excuse for not knowing ( which would prove they were suspect ) and yet all he got was a meek. ‘I understand, okay.’ Wait. What? He sat up straighter; horrified.

Why would anyone give up so easily? Bother wasting a phone-call Just to reply, okay?

It didn't make sense. ‘Wait. Who are you?’

He ran through the list of NAMES he’d memorised, potential threats. Anyone he’d ever come in contact with; knowing that with a name, all he needed to do was slip into his secret research room, command the computer to run a search and he would have every scrap of information at his disposable. ( Police databases? Not a problem. Firewalls? Easy. Un-hackable private networks? Impossible. ) But there it came again; the same soft answer.

‘I don’t know.’

He realised then, the person had him. He was too shocked to abandon the line.

PRESENT;

It turned out, the man didn’t know ANYTHING. Anything at all - ( at least in regards to himself. ) All he kept asking for was a Zima but why on earth would he want a lightly carbonated alcoholic beverage? One had to wonder if he was even sane for the details he did get out of him; didn’t make sense in the slightest.

Metal arm. Zima. Lost. Snow. Screams. Russia. Wolf. Cell. Electricity. Superiors. Chair.

What WORRIED him more than anything was the fact halfway through trying to think of anything else that would help him - ( the man had seemingly had a breakdown; started speaking like a robot and then began thumping against something… ) before the line had gone dead after a snarl of another in the background followed by a sharp deafening slap.

At once he’d frozen on the spot; taking in everything he had HEARD. There was no way the presence who had clearly snatched the phone away would ever be able to connect the phone call to him; but really. ( What had he just witnessed? ) A beating? A deranged man being found out while talking to him? No, surely not. He must have imagined it and even if he hadn’t; it was someone joking around surely….?

So he’d tried to FORGET the encounter; he’d had enough of crazies to last him a lifetime; but try as he might, he couldn't get rid of the grating whisper from his mind. ( I don’t know, he’d replied repeatedly. ) So on his computer he’d gone; running various programs and so far he’d discovered this.

Zima was Russian for Winter.

Any link to Winter and metal arm had lead to a swift DISCOVERY of the infamous Winter Soldier; a previously so-called legend who had turned out to be one Bucky Barnes, now residing - where? ( It didn't say; just news clippings mentioning a trial he’d attended for crimes he’d committed. ) Not one to judge Evan read on; nursing a bottle of Vodka as he uncovered everything he could.

The Winter Soldier had been a BRAINWASHED assassin imprisoned by HYDRA. His known associates were Captain America and the other Avengers. ( Of course Evan had heard about them; superheroes hitting the news more and more ) Yet he’d never thought he would be seeking them out… Not in a million years. Once in New York; he’d also realised that he could hardly walk into the known residence of the Avengers with his story, and so, praying his instincts weren't betraying him; he'd instead mailed a copy of the recording of the conversation with the other man and a simple scribbled letter.

-

Perhaps you’ve heard of me, perhaps you haven't. Known as the Nowhere Man to many; I take my time to help those in need. Handing out my phone number each time I’ve assisted a new person. This man rang my said private phone; and as you can see. I received no answers.

I will not lie to say I am incredibly untrusting right now. However should you recognise his voice; or make more sense of the words he spoke more than me. ( Which enabled me to put two and two together and realise he was speaking of the Winter Soldier ) then feel free to contact me on the number written below.

I do not know how clear it is; but I felt the fear as I spoke to him. If his plea is genuine, then I will not turn away.

You have my word.

Yours sincerely;

The Nowhere Man.

[tanushakyrano]

day 17: silent tears

i wrote this at 2am after downing a monster energy drink and i have no idea if it makes any sense. however i was out all day so! here it is anyway

characters: Gordon

additional warnings: house fire, smoke inhalation, descriptions of drowning

________

Gordon was a big ocean guy. That was an immutable fact about him. Even when he was a teeny tiny kid toddling around he’d been fascinated by all bodies of water and everything that lived in them. One of Jeff’s favourite stories of the boys’ childhoods had been the time that five-year-old Gordon had wandered off at the zoo and sent the entire family into a panic - until he’d been found, safe and sound, entranced by the stingray tank in the aquarium. He could still remember the soft blue glow of the lights in the water, the hypnotic movement of the creatures as they swam lazily by.

The childhood interest evolved into a fascination with marine biology. Gordon was shit at physics and math - at least compared with his brothers, all of whom were absolute nerds and majored in either math or a math-based subject - but he was excellent at biology and good at chemistry. Birthday and Christmas presents were overwhelmingly sea-animal-themed. His love of swimming came as a surprise to absolutely no one. Before his last-minute enlistment in WASP, he’d planned to major in marine biology too.

This was all a very long-winded way of saying that Gordon was very much an ocean guy. He’d lived in and around water for his entire life, what with swimming and WASP and now as operator of Thunderbird Four.

He was very much not a fire guy.

Which was unfortunate, given that he was completely unprotected and disoriented in the middle of a house fire.

Either the sprinkler system had failed completely, or the house owners hadn't installed one in the first place. The smoke was curling too thickly for Gordon to figure out which was true. Orange flame licked at the doors on the north-east and south-west walls; the light fractured and splintered amidst the smoke, smothering the room in dim amber and recreating exactly what Gordon always imagined hell would look like. 

Heat prickled over his body and pooled under his skin, sweat sticking his clothes to him. It was uncomfortable, but not unbearable. There was a third exit in the room he was currently in, one that he was moving towards even as the fire ate away at the door. The fire wasn't his biggest worry right now. That was the smoke. Gordon was keeping as low as he could and had torn a strip of fabric off his t-shirt to hold over his mouth and nose to try and keep it out of his lungs, but they were only stop-gap measures for a problem that was getting more serious by the minute. His eyes stung from the heat and the smoke, tears cutting tracks through the soot likely coating his face and blurring his vision. His breath rattled in his chest.

Gordon was an ocean guy. He knew that drowning was one of, if not the most painful and drawn-out ways to die. The increased desperation of trying to hold your breath for just a few seconds more in the hopes of another breath that will never come is consistent across many accounts of near drowning experiences. The brain holds out for at least 87 seconds before it finally gives in, the dangers of carbon dioxide poisoning and lack of oxygen greater than the danger of taking that next breath, regardless of the water that inevitably floods the lungs. Still more time elapses before death as the victim gradually loses consciousness.

In comparison, dying from smoke inhalation seems tame. Sure, the dizziness and stuff sucked, but he'll be unconscious before any of the serious symptoms finally takes him out. It's more peaceful. More humane - if you could call it that.

But Gordon almost prefers the thought of dying underwater. It's more fitting, somehow, that the one thing that has been one of the only constants in his life would be the thing to end it. He doesn't want to die here, alone in a fire in some house that he's never been in before and had never planned to come back to again.

So Gordon grits his teeth and pushes himself onwards, through the heat and the smoke, blinking away the tears that still blur his vision. 

He's not dying here. He refuses to.

[skellebonez]

I yelled about your blorbo for like two google doc pages, now you have to hear me yell about mine, it's only fair. You dug your own brainrot hole (and mine. thank you.) by answering these humongous asks

Nezha looks like he's in his twenties and he's absolutely been in and out of young life crises for his entire fucking existence, someone hand him some soda so he'll be lively at the party and not pass out before it even starts. I headcanon that he can get similar sugar highs that kids can. Give him a bottle of soda, and he'll be sweet and active for the next few hours and then crash.

He is. a little bit pudgy. just enough to cup his face like a pet and it be cute. His reactions to being called cute are either his knee-jerk "NO, I'M NOT >:(" or "Yes, I am, now pet me. This is not a request." His beloved shifu, Erlang Shen, adores him for this.

SPEAKING OF ERLANG SHEN. Nezha and Erlang have a very adorable son-adopted father dynamic because Nezha needs a good paternal figure dammit leave me to my fluff. Erlang trains Nezha when the latter of the two isn't dropping on his feet from exhaustion, and when he is, Erlang isn't shy about carrying him to bed.

Nezha's attitude towards MK is in the same ballpark as his attitude towards SWK. He thinks MK is reckless, but that he has potential if he can learn to fucking plan ahead, for the love of all that is sweet and carbonated.

He likes Mei but every now and again, he has a crisis over the fact that she's distantly related to Ao Lie, who's the nephew of Ao Guang. Nezha is more afraid of Ao Guang than anything else since he keeps having nightmares about that One Legendary Moment in his myth.

Something Nezha says once in a blue moon is that he has three homes, and one of them is a cramped apartment with his little brother. He's referencing MK when he says this. Sometimes he'll also say it's in the bowels of a volcano hidden away from the rest of the world, and then he's referencing Red Son.

NEZHA HAS FRIENDSHIP BRACELETS. He doesn't go anywhere without them. They have charms on them that match people he cares about. He has charms for Iron Fan, Erlang Shen, MK, Red Son, Mei, Sandy, SWK, and charms for two OCs, Lian Lanhua who belongs to that-one-enby-onyx, and Bai Xian, my snake pseudo nun who has some really great lore I'll go into detail about in another ask. If I named my snake badly, please inform me. (Bai Xian is she/he/they, Lian is she/her)

INHALES

Ramble over, I hope you enjoyed this completely self indulgent tangent about my interpretation of Nezha ft. OC mentions + MK, Red, and Erlang.

...my autism is showing. Oh well. Shrug.

Honestly, I accepted my fate the second you sent your first ask xjxjdjjd. I will gladly listen to all blorbo ramblings.

I absolutely adore it when people make Nezha and MK have a brother like bond. And I really really like the way that you have him interacting with Erlang Shen! (He also absolutely deserves All of the soda in the universe.)

His iffy relationship with Mei also makes complete sense! And the fact that he feels close enough to Red Son and MK to consider their homes his secondary homes is delightful.

I do genuinely enjoy your rambles! And your OCs sound interesting.

As for names, I suggest double-checking possible characters in Mandarin and Cantonese and the like for the chosen name and cross reference those with other words/names to make sure it all makes sense together! There is a little bit of leeway with stories like LMK since half of the characters have names like "demon bull king", so it's ok if a name doesn't make 100% complete sense as a normal name in our universe, but it is still always good to check! You never wanna have that moment when you realize your character's name accidentally translates to something unintentionally weird like Canned Fish because you didn't google it (I actually saw somebody legitimately name their character this in another fandom before someone pointed it out).

[introsla]

Chapter One: 2521

2018. Summer.

Swimming is the closest one can come to death without the finality. 

Underwater, the world is quiet – even when, by all means, it technically really shouldn’t be. Sound moves at a more than four times faster speed in water than through air. Below the surface, soundwaves pass directly through the water and right into your head. So, for all intents and purposes, water is a good conductor for sound. And yet, an upset mother’s cries to get out of the water, please do not reach you below the surface. The screams, the cheers, the cutting words all lose their bloody grip on the meat of your shoulder the moment your body submerges into the water. 

Because it’s not the world that goes suddenly silent. It’s the mind.

(Is there a difference? Is our world and our mind not one and the same?)

The moment you’re underwater, you forcibly stop the unconscious muscle movements of your breathing pattern. You hold your breath back. Your brain commands your body to stop the intakes of air, this constant, restless fight for the chemical element of survival. Your chest stays flat, unmoving, from sheer will only. 

After depriving yourself of this natural bodily function for much more than two minutes, the oxygen flow to the brain slowly begins to decrease – in turn, it’s the levels of carbon dioxide that increase in the body, just like it does when you’re going through the process of dying. 

It’s dizzying, disorienting. It’s calm. It’s scary. 

And still, people swim. They get in the water to go willingly through this artificial fight in the water. It’s kind of beautiful, the way several muscle groups of your body work together to push you through the water, forward, to push you for air, upward, to make you be, just for another moment longer. 

And another, and another, and another. End.

Maybe that’s the most crucial part of dying, too – surely perishing, but still, this most important fight remains, a fight to be. Just like when you’re swimming.

Every time Jeon Jungkook swims, it’s a little death. 

His head breaks the surface to draw a breath, and life, living returns with all its loudness for the short period of time it takes for his arm to travel a round from his waist up and over his head and push, to supply air for his heavy lungs for the next few strokes. For that short moment, shorter than a blink of an eye. And then — the quiet is finally back again.

Every time Jeon Jungkook swims, it’s a rebirth. 

The shrill of a whistle is the first sound welcoming him back to the land of the living when he finishes his laps. His fingers tap the coping as Jungkook’s head emerges from the water, feet finding support to keep him afloat on the slippery side wall of the pool. 

Three breaths in quick succession inhaled, and exhaled. It’s over. He may breathe now. Breathe without thinking, breathe without restraint — it takes a bit to get used to after he spends so long in control.

“Jeon, 51.21,” a voice calls from somewhere above Jungkook on the poolside. A pair of black sneakers, untied and the laces tucked carelessly into the sides, contrast the pale blue tiles of the natatorium as they enter Jungkook’s field of vision. “Slow. Way too slow for you.”

Jungkook does the curtesy of giving a frustrated huff. Way too slow for him. It’s almost more maddening than being way too slow in general. 

Having gone through many coaches in his arguably short lifetime (Your perception of age gets a bit messed up when you’re an athlete — Jungkook’s only twenty-one, and his mother still treats him like a small child, his friends still invite him out to party like irresponsible high-schoolers without a perception of tomorrow, when career-wise, Jungkook statistically should’ve already entered his top-elite performance period of 5 years. He has those 5 years, then he’s old. Late. Despite barely having earned his civil right to vote, when he’s in the pool, Jungkook feels at least 40.) from the lady who taught him basic strokes at the age of 5 in the Busan suburbs, to the coach who signed him up for his first ever competition in elementary school, to the man he spent more time with during his high school years than actually sitting in classrooms studying, Jungkook knows all of his clues by heart now. 

Praise? A smile, but no too proud, never ever cocky — after all, he’s done what’s expected. Just be grateful for the verbal confirmation.

Constructive criticism? Respect, and an affirmation of understanding, but not too loud, not too confident, never defiant, he’s not the one with the expertise after all, not the one who knows better. A promise to deliver, to listen.

Negative feedback? Remorse and shame. Frustration, but only in your own shortcomings — never annoyance. No tears. No excuses. Just taking the words in a stride, no matter what phonemes they’re made up of, no matter their tone, welcoming the consequences of your own doing with open arms and determination to strive for better.

By now, Jungkook learned to not allow himself more than a grunt in the last situation. That’s expressive enough, non-confrontational enough.

“What’s going on with you? Huh?”

Words of a text message that has appeared on his cellphone screen this morning cross Jungkook’s mind. It doesn’t matter. Or: it does, it matters, it weights terribly heavy — but Jungkook can’t let it drag him down to the pool floor like a boulder of problems chained to his ankles. He shakes his head to regain some of that blissful, mind-clearing silence he was surrounded by less than a minute ago while underwater, but the voice has already continued:

“Your results are on their way of getting worse than when you got Taereung, Jungkook,” the voice sighs. Unpleasant to Jungkook’s ears, like a fork scratching on porcelain plates. Jungkook’s going to be sick. “A month. We leave for Jakarta in a month.”

“I know,” Jungkook mumbles.

When he feels like he can breathe again normally, when he doesn’t feel thirsty for it anymore, like a person who’s allowed the privilege of air, Jungkook removes his swimming goggles, tosses them next to the pair of black sneakers. Without the blue tint of the plastic covering his eyes, the fluorescent lights above the pools are almost blinding as they reflect from the surface of the water, from the blue tiles, as they shine down on him — he suddenly feels like he’s on a stage, like he’s naked to the soul, and he sinks a bit deeper into the water, submerged to the chin.

Jungkook doesn’t have to look up to know what he’s going to see. Regardless, his gaze lifts from the pair of black sneakers, skims over the navy sweatpants and the zip-up pullover, the yellow whistle like a beacon of light against them, until it lands on Coach Lee’s face. 

Jungkook finds exactly what he thought he’s going to. 

Coach Lee’s brows furrowed in a troubled frown. Disappointment, maybe? Definitely careworn. But Jungkook can take all of it as long as he doesn’t find regret. 

“What are your thoughts on that, Jungkook-ah?”

Jungkook cannot be truthful. That’s not in the cards for an athlete. 

If he admits his worry, it’s just another thing to hold against him. Worry is awareness. Awareness should be motivation, a paved road to fixing things. 

Jungkook is aware, standing idly around the corner. So why is he still so fucking slow?

What are your thoughts on that, Jungkook? Thoughts, he unfortunately has plenty. But his head is so full of them there’s no way to possibly dissect one thing from another, relation, cause-consequence, and it feels like the only thing that’s keeping all of them from spilling out or simply exploding is this stupid silicone cap on his head, and the strain of it is way too painfull — maybe he took an old one that has been too small for him for ages out of his drawer before practise by accident, and he wants to take it off. But uncovered hair is not allowed in the pools, and he can’t take it off anyways, because — 

He’s tired, isn’t he? Too anxious, too aware. That’s the problem. 

Why are you so slow? 

He’s tired. Tired of Junghoon. Tired of the shop. Tired of Shinhan. 

But these are answers that require too many steps to get for them to make sense, Jungkook’s not even sure they make sense at all, and the journey doesn’t matter, anyways, not here. 

Results matter. Numbers do. So—

“I’ll do better,” Jungkook, and he finds that he doesn’t know if he means it. If it were up to him only, maybe he would — Jungkook tries, he’s constantly trying. But it feels like this promise is not his to give anymore. “I’ll get better. By Jakarta, I’ll be better.”

Jungkook misses the entrance to the pool opening and closing as his eyes zero in on the tug in the corner of Coach Lee’s lips. Unnoticeable to the untrained eye, but Jungkook’s survival depends on being able to read every twitch and jerk of a coach’s body. It’s not a smile. It’s a tired curl, a bit self-deprecating and full of irony, if Jungkook’s not mistaken. And he rarely is.

All Coach Lee says is; “Right.”

One simple word, nothing more than an affirmation of understanding, but its message is clear. Faith, invested in him, is something Jungkook still had not completely lost yet. 

That is when Jungkook finally notices him in the corner of his eyes, but in his defence, it’s generally hard to do so these days. To notice him. A black mess of limbs, and hair, and pale, spotless skin, lingering behind Coach Lee a good fifteen steps, barely in the room. From this far, Jungkook can’t see if he’s even breathing. 

Wouldn’t be a surprise if he wasn’t. He has spent way too much time in water. Maybe he doesn’t know how to, anymore. Nowadays, this figure is most likened to a ghost, silently haunting the corridors of the Training Center — known, but never seen. Not anymore. 

Jungkook only knew he was here — the here in question being somewhere at Taereung. And of course he did, with the man’s return being the most buzzing gossip the swimming team had received throughout this entire spring season, every aspect of it discussed and analysed over and over again so many times in changing rooms, in cafeterias, during illicit get-togethers in somebody’s dorm room, that there’s nothing left of it by now but the gnawned bone. But if Jungkook thinks about it, and suddenly he is thinking about it, he hasn’t seen any of Min Yoongi since they got out of the pool in Rio, the summer before last. 

Bu the man standing before Jungkook now, half obstructed in his field of vision by Coach Lee’s legs because he still hasn’t moved an inch, is not one Jungkook recognises. All the evidence of this being who Jungkook thinks it is are the letters MIN, in a bold white, written above the flag over his right breast on the black zipper-up he’s wearing. 

“Yoongi-yah,” Coach Lee calls. As if on command, like that’s what he has been waiting for all this time, Min Yoongi steps forward, face impassive. Not controlled, just simply clear of anything. He shoots Jungkook a look as he walks up to the edge of the pool to stand in line with Coach Lee, but it lacks curiosity. It’s more like an acknowledgement — a greeting, if Jungkook wishes to delude himself a little. “You’re late.”

Min Yoongi stays quiet, but his lips flatten into a kind of awkward straight line for a momently, a mockery of a smile, but maybe that’s all the remorse expected from fallen stars. Coach Lee doesn’t look particularly shaken or interested.

“Okay. Well, I believe I don’t have to make introductions.” Coach Lee claps his to hands together, like a job well-done, like he does when practise is over and Jungkook feels something Pavlovian within himself to start pushing his body out of the water. If he were a priest, it might’ve even been prayer. He shoots a loaded look, first at Jungkook, then at Min Yoongi. “I also believe that this partnership will prove to be quite… mutually beneficial, let’s just say.”

As he’s sitting on the edge by the feet of those two, legs caressed by the soft waves due to the pool’s circulation system, Jungkook won’t pretend he’s not quite confused by the sudden situation at hand. But — not his call. 

///

Within the Korean swimming community, and maybe that’s somewhat downplaying its magnitude, Min Yoongi is known — under many codenames, as many things. 

The first thing he was known as, since the moment he took his first breath and cried out upon his souls arrival to this life, is being Kang Junghwa’s son. Eldest, only. Poseidon’s Daughter, Kang Junghwa was nicknamed by the press in her prime, a mere working-class girl married to the middle son of the chaebol Min family, though that’s definitely the least notable of her achievements when she’s a 23 times Olympic medalist, the youngest ever to win the Gold in 100m freestyle, a record that was broken only by own her son later down the line. 

So maybe it’s fate that Min Yoongi ended up a swimmer, a fucking great swimmer at that, but Jungkook wouldn’t know. Some people inherit the family business, a trucking company or a chicken shop downtown. Min Yoongi inherited the weight of medals around his neck. 

One could say that Min Yoongi spent more of his lifetime in water than on dry ground, and probably wouldn’t be too far off the bet. Coached by his own mother since infancy, he qualified for his first Asian Games — Busan 2002 — at the mere age of nine, and although he didn’t bring anything home that week, being the youngest athlete in the league was enough of a feat to make everyone glue their eyes right onto him. 

Jungkook remembers being five, and watching Min Yoongi on the telly after he got home from pre-school. It was that summer that he started going to swimming classes — and when asked if it was because he was mesmerised by the way a boy barely older than him was gliding through the water as if he was just another current traveling in it, well, Jungkook would say; only partly. He also remembers his mother shrieking as she put down the telephone behind the counter at the seafood shop that evening, because an order just came in under Kang Junghwa’s name to some fancy hotel in the city center. 

That evening, Min Yoongi became yet another thing. It was the birth of a legend, maybe. The Hope of Korean Swimming, the press said, and maybe that sounds a little bit dramatic, but at the end of the day, that’s the point of tabloid journalism. 

And for a while, Min Yoongi made good by that prophecy. 

His first Olympics, he finished within the final ten. His second, he shot straight to the center top of the podium, and from that point on his skin wasn’t touched by anything less worthy than gold. 

The Hope of Korean Swimming came and took over like a violent storm at sea, became a prevailing monarch at the scene, and the newspaper cut-out of the podium at Beijing 2008 became an intimate secret between Jungkook and his locker at his high-school’s swimming pool. 

Then, it happened 2 years ago, in Rio de Janeiro, when Min Yoongi became one another thing. 

It was the first Olympics Jungkook has qualified for. He has been training at the National Training Center for a little short of two years at that point, having been recruited for the national team the spring he started his final year in high school. His mother had called it simple stroke of good luck — the male swimmers in the top 30 of the national ranking were invited to train at Taereung. 

Jungkook ranked 31st. 

Then, the 18th was pulled out — a doping scandal, handled on the down-low, made the spots move, and in retrospect, maybe Jungkook should have started to count his blessings and hold onto his good luck at that point. 

Before Rio, the closest he came to Min Yoongi was sharing a wall with him at the dorms, though he doubts the older boy was aware. Of the shared wall, maybe even of Jungkook himself. Stars are hard to make contact with for those only existing in their axis, after all, and he rarely joined group trainings, retreating instead to a lane on the side with his mother. 

Jungkook swam three lanes away from him while they trained tirelessly in Seoul, and also while they fought through the waters of Rio. So close yet so far away for so long, and it’s a miracle that’s beyond him still that Jungkook somehow still happened to be the first one to get there to catch Min Yoongi’s unconscious body when he had collapsed after the race. Today, Jungkook remembers the weight of the older boy in his arms more than he does of the Bronze around his neck. 

Jungkook doesn’t know the full details. Sure, he knows Taereung gossip, but ultimately, he was no smarter than what the initial (and only) press release had disclosed: rotator cuff tendon tear. Career-ending injury. May never make full recovery. Announced immediate resignation from competitive sports. 

With that, it was as if Min Yoongi had vanished into thin air. Not as if he had never even existed at all — he was still present in the team photo that’s hung in the Training Center’s locker room, he was still the first suggestion when you start typing M-I-N Y- on Naver, his name was still uttered like a prayer by little boys and girls in swimming trunks who dare to dream or by patriotic ajusshis sitting over a bottle of soju on a Friday evening. You can’t disappear when you’re part of history.

But his room at Taereung was packed up by the time Jungkook’s flight home touched down at Incheon, locker pristine and empty, his usual lane now used by Jung Hoseok, Kang Junghwa resigned from training to continue tending to his son, and Coach Lee’s attention shifted on Jungkook, of all people. The one of the only two who had come home with a medal in his suitcase, and the only one who did that in one piece.

And just like that, Min Yoongi became a supernova, a star who was born, shined, and died an explosive death. And for a while, it seemed like that was the last title to be attached to his name, if you discount the absurd mockery of locker room gossip. 

Then dropped the newest, maybe the most unexpected one — Jeon Jungkook’s coach. 

(Jeon Jungkook himself can’t quite yet decide how exactly that makes him feel.)

Continue on Ao3

[ts-porter]

The Shanty and the Hive

.

The first time the humans told us they sang their way through subspace, we thought it a translation error.

.

We-the-hive were overjoyed to meet them. Finally, finally, it was proven that we were not alone! And though we already knew that we must not be, given the vastness of time and the multiverse, we also knew that those same vastnesses were against us. Civilizations we could meet are greatly outnumbered by those who came before us and we are too late to meet, those who will come after us and we are too early for, and those so far away that we cannot find them.

A starfaring civilization, like our own, increased the chances of meeting greatly. One of our most distant scientific surveyors sensed a faint and far away disturbance, similar to the waves our own ships make when diving into and out of subspace. An exploratory team was sent to investigate, and there at the furthest reach ever taken from the hive's center, to our everlasting joy, we found human explorers on the far edges of their own range.

Their ships were strange to us, and their selves even stranger. Translation, and the mutual communication of peaceful intentions, was difficult. Mathematics was the first understanding we were able to share, as the basic principles do not change—though their and our systems of harnessing it are different. Science followed after, as the elements and natural laws are unchanging. So it was discovered that we-the-hive and the humans share the common ground of being carbon-based heterotrophs who consume water to maintain life processes.

These commonalities were far outnumbered by our differences. Yet, the most important thing we had in common was the desire to understand each other. With earnest effort, with forgiveness for unintended insult and misunderstanding, we worked to learn each other's languages.

Science being an early part of our understanding of each other, we asked them about the construction of their ships. They told us of their material compositions and their subspace engines, different in design but similar in purpose to our own technology—but when we asked them about the shielding and stabilization they used to make the journey survivable, they told us only that they sang their way through.

Translations were imprecise, and their language often contradictory. Of course we believed that it was yet another translation error. We believed there was a nuance we were missing.

The humans were a very musical civilization. They were always singing, all of them. They sang for joy, and they sang for mourning, and they sang for any reason at all between the two extremes.

(Later, we would discover that this was not universally true. That those who crewed their ships were chosen from the most musical among them. We only met their singers, their travelers, their ship's crews. How could we know differently?)

We believed, with music such a central part of their civilization, that they had given the words for song more meaning. Their subspace stabilization and shielding technology, without which any ship that dove into the confusion of subspace would be utterly destroyed and lost, had taken its name from music. We-the-hive noted the mistranslation, and worked to increase our understanding.

As our trust and understanding increased, as the human linguists became haltingly conversant in our language and we in theirs, the humans introduced to us a group of their hatchlings. It was a mighty show of trust, as they valued their younger generations as deeply as we did our own. Though still flexible, an adult human's mind was too set in its ways to easily become fluent in another language. That of their hatchlings was far more suited to the acquisition of language. With equal time spent between their own language and ours, it was hoped that the young would grow to be adults who could serve as translators and teachers to increase the closeness and understanding of our peoples.

We allowed our hatchlings and theirs to mingle, to play together, to bond. We spoke to the human hatchlings, and the speed at which they learned our language matched the speed they learned the language of their own people. It was to be a long project, but a joyful and an exciting one.

We learned more about the humans, and they learned more about us. Along with scientific sharing, we established a small trade, exchange of goods and curiosities from one civilization to another.

Our understanding grew, but we still did not understand completely. The humans told us that they sang their way through subspace. When we could no longer believe that the translation was so deeply in error, we instead believed that the crews who piloted the human ships did not understand the technology they used. They were such a granular species, not unified. We believed that those who built the ships had not shared knowledge with those who piloted them, and so they had developed superstitions around technology they did not comprehend.

We-the-hive asked to send a pod of researchers through a subspace dive on one of the human ships. We asked for it. The humans agreed, willingly, in exchange for an equal number of their own scientists to take the same trip aboard one of our ships. Our pod and their scientists were chosen. The ships and the destination were chosen.

The pod boarded the human ship with nothing but curiosity and excitement. As the humans were wont to limit the number of dives they took and make the most of every trip, a ship carrying cargo on one of their usual supply runs was chosen. The ship was called the Merry Dancer, of the type the humans called a 'small freighter'.

It was greatly open through the inside. The 'bird's nest' hung from the ceiling at the center, and there the Captain and Pilots had their stations. Room had been found to rig up two safety harnesses, to secure two individuals from the research pod where we could watch the Captain and Pilots work. The rest of us joined the singers, who stood in a line from stem to stern along the bottom of the ship.

The mood was solemn and focused as the humans prepared for the journey. The subspace engines were prepped, their rumble vibrating through the ship. The Pilots and Captain stretched their hands and rolled their necks, loosening themselves up. The singers took deep breaths and hummed, warming their voices.

"All Ready?" the Captain asked. She was a small human, her wrinkled skin a pleasingly luminous deep brown and her thickly curly silver hair tied up in many braids and twisted into a knot at the back of her head. She was called Janette, and when she spoke, in her firm and quiet voice, the crew of the Merry Dancer listened closely and with respect.

"Singers in Position," the chief among the singers—the Lead Chanter—reported. "At your command, Captain." He was a large human, hairless and very round, with pink skin heavily freckled with brown spots. He was called George, and his voice was big and booming as so many of the ship's singers were. Even when he was not working he was always surrounded by the singers of the Merry Dancer, in a loud and happy group that was always singing, for they trusted him and liked to be close.

After a look and a nod with the two pilots, the Captain spoke again. "You may begin when ready," she said. And then, informally and with a small smile, "Sing to me."

Lead Chanter George stamped out a beat that the rest of the singers took up immediately. He inhaled a massive breath, filling his belly and broad chest to its limit. (And we had heard of the training most ship's singers chose to undertake from childhood, exercises to increase their lung capacity and improve the volume and resonance of their voices, that they might sing loud and long without doing themselves damage. George epitomized the results, as so many lead chanters did.)

He belted out the line to song we had heard the humans singing before. A 'shanty', they called it; an old one. It was dated from long before their species even dreamed that they could leave their birth planet and sail across the stars rather than the oceans of their homeworld.

"Oh, we'll blow the man up and we'll blow the man down!" George led.

And every singer through the ship, in time and at great volume, sang out in answer: "Way, hey, blow the man down!"

George spared a brief moment of attention to wink at the nearest member of the research pod as he led again: "We'll make the trip over, won't let our friends down."

"Give us some time to blow the man down!" the singers responded.

The sound of their voices and the solid beat of their stamping boots vibrated the entire ship. It was clear that the acoustics were designed such that the vibrations bounced off the walls of the ship, centering unerringly on the crow's nest. The Captain and the Pilots nodded in time as the Lead Chanter improvised the next verse and sang it up to them, as the singers responded in tuneful chorus.

The Captain's hand clenched on a lever, the subspace engine throttle, tight enough her knuckles paled. A deep breath, and she slammed the throttle wide open in time with the singers. The engine roared briefly, outclassed only by the song. Immediately it was clear why the humans, in their language, had named their version of the subspace dive after a violent strike—the punch. It was a hard transition, swift and jarring.

Then. Oh, then. We understood, suddenly and most terribly, why the humans could not describe their subspace shielding and stabilization technology to us, for they had none.

They had none!

Their minds, bodies, and their entire ships were fully exposed to the nongeometrical confusion of subspace. The research pod, we who had asked to be there and been eagerly chosen, were caught up in it as well. Spacetime was ruffled, twisted, wrinkled, defying understanding in ways that three-dimensional space and regularly linear time never did. Unshielded subspace was a mind-destroying horror, the likes of which we-the-hive had never experienced.

And through the midst of the direful disorientation, the humans were singing.

We-the-hive discovered the principles of subspace engines, the basics for the traversing of subspace to make the lightyears of interstellar travel pass in hours, long before we used them. The dive to the space below the three dimensional and outside of linear spacetime requires mere force. Three generations were born and died while we developed the much more difficult shielding and stabilization technology, which requires finesse. Only when we had perfected it, when we could hold an entire ship in a stable pocket of three dimensions through a subspace trip, did we become starfarers.

The humans had taken a very different approach.

Lead Chanter George stood like a stone against the wind, inventing lyrics for his ancient shanty, and the ship's singers stomped the deck in time and answered, never faltering. Above them, Captain Janette and her pilots listened hard to the song and the echoes. Their hands were on their controls, manually firing the ship's small stabilization engines. They judged by the sound alone whether any part of the ship was warping, if it was redshifting or blueshifting out of tune or out of time.

Ship's singers had told us, proudly, that they lived and died by their voices. We had thought it hyperbole.

The twist and shake of the ship, what the humans called the shimmy and roll and the bucking gravitational waves, never abated. The singing never ceased. In between lines of the call and response of the shanty, singers took sips of water from the bottles on their belts to keep their throats from growing dry. George communicated with his Second with brief hand signs, and sie took over leading with a different shanty—another ancient song, The Wellerman. The pilots breathed hard with the effort of concentration. Sweat beaded at the Captain's hairline. A thin trickle ran down her cheek and neck in a jaggedly uneven line, pushed and pulled by the roiling of subspace.

The humans, with their fortitude and adaptability, and specifically the crew of the Merry Dancer with their long experience, were able to keep functioning. They could continue to work despite the tearing disorientation, else the ship and all in it would have been lost. The members of the research pod were not so prepared, and were not so adaptable. With communication disrupted between us so each was utterly alone, with the confusion and isolation overwhelming, we had all curled up tight inside our carapaces for safety, like frightened hatchlings. Only one in three were able to even peek a single eyestalk out to observe with shattered perception, to increase our knowledge and understanding as had been the intention of the trade.

(On the hive's ship, mid journey, one of the human researchers aboard hesitantly asked when the trip was going to begin. This caused great confusion all around.)

Another unknowable and incomprehensible time later, the Second signaled to Lead Chanter George, and he led again with a third song—Roll The Old Chariot Along. The music, sure and unending, was a comfort in the confusion. The singers' strong voices, unified, were a touchstone in the chaos.

The third song was ongoing when the subspace engine began cycling again, powering up for the punch back out. Despite the strain, despite the confused length of time of their singing, George's voice grew in volume, and the rest of the singers followed. They overwhelmed the sound of the engine, providing Captain Janette and the Pilots with the guidance they needed through the last moments.

The second punch was every bit as harsh as the first. Space time warped, twisted, and then snapped back into three dimensional linearity. Through the transition, the singers never faltered. The reverberation of their voices rang through the ship, a joyful shout. George had his hands raised high as he led one final chorus at half time.

"Lead Chanter, singers, you may stand down," the Captain announced, formally, and then smiling but still dignified despite her obvious weariness. "Nicely done, crew."

Some of the singers cheered and hugged each other, or slapped each other's backs in celebration. Others, though, ran and fell to their knees by the nearest of the research pod to them.

"What happened?", "Are they ok?" "Are they hurt?", "I don't understand they just collapsed as soon as we punched!"

Lead Chanter George, trusted and respected by the singers he led, sang out calming words even as he sat on the deck beside one the nearest researcher from the pod—one who had an eye stalk out monitoring. He smiled at us, human expression of happiness. He placed one large warm hand on the back of the researcher's carapace. He could not speak our language, but with his tired voice he sang the tone of safety—with the caress and the crooning he communicated an absence of danger as we might to our own hatchlings.

We would learn that a young relative of his was among the human hatchlings who mingled with ours, that by observing us with our own hatchlings he'd learned the way to offer comfort. One and another of the singers took up the tone, until the ship throbbed with it. The research pod were given care and reassurance, and with the sharp reduction in stress we were able to uncurl, to communicate and reintegrate and return to a harmonious whole as we worked to piece together our shattered understanding of what had occurred.

The touch and the tone were not quite the same as our own, similar enough, but different. Still, the difference was not unpleasant. In that moment, in the relief and the... the kindness, the sonorous resonance of a human singer's voice and the softness of a human hand were fixed as beautiful. These humans were not us, not ours, but become beloved. When the research pod was reintegrated in the whole of we-the-hive, the beauty and affection remained.

We would learn that the journey we observed had been 'easy', routine, as safe as any trip could be. The humans had pride in the safety of their ships and in the training of their capable crews—that they lost, astoundingly, merely one in two thousand ships in unstabilized dives.

They had done so much with so little, singing their way through subspace while still researching the technologies that would make it safe.

When we-the-hive truly understood the risks the humans took with every single journey, when the research pod's knowledge was fully integrated, we knew we could not leave them without the advantages we had.

.

The decision to share all details of our subspace shielding and stabilization technology with the humans—with our friends—was swift and without dissent.

.

.

Edit - 04/20/21 So! This story is actually an eventual-future-worldbuilding of a short story about space shanties that I wrote in 2018, and which I have finally found a home for! The story in question sadly does not include aliens, but it does have ace lesbians singing their way through danger. It’s sweet and hope-punky and I think that if you enjoyed this one, you’d enjoy that one too!

“(don’t you) love a singer” is available in the It Gets Even Better: Stories of Queer Possibility anthology by Speculatively Queer. You can grab a copy [here]!

[danidrabbles]

OCTOBER 1: KNIFE PLAY

Notes: Kicking Kinktober off with the following. Thank you as always @javier-pena for reading this over for me!

Pairing: Dave York x f!reader

Rating: Explicit (18+!)

Word count: 1.9k

Warnings: SMUT, established relationship, romance???, sexy use of knives (...i hope), sliiiiightly dub-con but that’s Dave for ya, dirty talk, gags, 1 **** (dedicated to Kelli and Cris 😘) If I forgot anything important, please let me know!

The slam of the door startles you awake. Sitting up in bed, you listen to him rummage around downstairs, trace his path through the kitchen, the living room, and up the stairs. Usually, he’s more quiet, at least attempts to not wake you, but the fact that he doesn’t must mean that today is one of those days.

You know what Dave does; your darling husband by day, something else entirely by night.

It hadn’t started off like that, is what he told you once he came clean. He really had been a CIA operative before becoming what he is now. But this suited him better. He had tried to explain what that meant, careful not to scare you; that people paid good money to eliminate other people, that it sometimes got messy.

But you weren’t scared. You tried to explain that to him, and that mutual understanding, that you were the same on some level others might consider fucked up, it deepened your bond, your marriage, in a way you never expected.

The bedroom door sweeps open, his silhouette dark in the deep of the night, painted in shadows, but the little light in the room does allow you to take note of the blood that has dried on his face. It makes you inhale deeply, fisting the duvet under your hands and waiting for him to make the first move.

It’s one of those days, after all.

Dave reaches you in two big steps, his boots heavy against the protesting wooden floor, but waits at the end of the bed, gnawing at his bottom lip and balling his fists like he has to physically hold himself back.

“It’s okay,” you say, and as soon as you do, he’s on you. Sheets discarded, he crawls over you, pushing you back against the mattress. His eyes roam your face, and he seems to be looking for more than that, so you give him more affirmations. “You can take what you need.”

Wordlessly, he straddles you, a thigh on either side of your body, and you’re trapped below the weight of him, your arms pinned to your side, the fabric of your nightgown stretched across your frame. There’s a barely-there roll of his hips, and he’s unmistakably hard as he seeks out the friction against you. He reaches behind himself, then produces his knife from his back pocket. With a click, the blade reveals itself, glinting like a promise and fuck, it shouldn’t make a burst of arousal flare up inside of you, but it does.

“You would let me do anything to you, wouldn’t you, sweetheart?” Dave asks as he turns the knife over in his hand once, twice, before giving you an expectant look.

“Yes,” you answer, obedient, eager, honest—because you would.

The cold blade—phosphated carbon steel, as he once explained to you—presses against the skin at your collarbone, the tip just hitting the side of your neck, and you swear you can feel your pulse racing against the sharp steel.

You know exactly what he can do with it, what he has done with it, and yet you trust him, literally with your life.

“You won’t hurt me, not unless you know I want it.”

You don’t miss the way he grins, or grinds down against you, or how he inspects your body under his. In a flash, he hooks the knife under one of the straps of your nightgown and pulls, the fabric parting easily around the top of the blade.

An eager hand pulls at the flap of fabric until he can fill his hand with the soft, plump flesh of your breast. With a gasp, you arch up against him, crying out when he pinches your nipple and twists.

You expect him to go for the other strap, expose your tits to him and play with them until you’re begging him for more, but instead, he fists the torn fabric and pulls it away from your body, bringing the knife up to begin cutting a slit right down the middle. With each rip-rip-rip of fabric, the throb between your legs gets more intense, and an actual moan escapes your lips when he fists the last bit of it and pulls, tearing the garment in half and pushing it to the sides of your body.

His finger dips under the waistband of your underwear, grazing just where the soft curls on your mound begin. He toys with it, pulling it from your body and letting the elastic snap against your skin, before hooking his finger back under it.

“Want me to tear this off, too?” he asks, focusing not on your face, but on the task at hand.

You take a deep breath. “Use the knife.”

That earns you his attention, something akin to pride flashing across his face before he looks back down. In one rapid move, the blade slides over your hip bone and under the fabric of your underwear. With a tug, it tears, the elastic snapping and the material folding back, exposing you to his hungry eyes.

Your head falls back against the pillow, and you moan as he repeats the action on the other side, again when he rips the fabric from between your legs.

“Open up,” he orders.

You try to move your legs, open them for him, but with his thighs still on either side of yours, it’s impossible. Just as you’re about to protest, he leans over you, grabbing you by the chin.

“Open. Your mouth.”

His fingers find your face, and the pinch to your cheeks borders on painful, making you open your mouth with a wet gasp.

Even in the dark, you can see him smile, before he tilts your head back just a tick and spits. His smile only grows when you welcome it with a moan, eyes fluttering and body surging under him before you swallow. “That’s my good girl,” he praises, kissing your open mouth before stuffing your ruined panties inside of it.

The blade is back at your throat, and the pressure of it against your voice box abruptly cuts off your answering whine. With a rough exhale Dave sits back and begins dragging the dull side of it down your body. Still, you find yourself holding your breath, your chest jutting out with the effort. Chin to your chest, you watch as he circles your nipple, once, twice, until it begins standing to attention, hardening at the cold, gentle touch. He brings it back to the centre of your chest and slides it over to your other breast, flicking at your nipple. Satisfied with how your body quivers under his, he slides the blade further down your body, following the bump of your ribcage to your belly button and down.

He shuffles back, and despite the fact that his body is no longer keeping your arms incapacitated, you keep them pressed against your torso while he crawls between your legs. With his free hand, he pulls one over each of his thighs, spreading you open for him to look at, to take you.

The knife kisses the sensitive skin of your thighs, and he keeps teasing you while he opens his trousers and takes his cock out. His eyes fix themselves on your cunt, no doubt glistening with want, even in the dim light of the night.

“You get so fucking wet for this shit, it’s depraved, sweetheart,” he grits out, and despite the fact he says it like he’s scolding you, you know he loves it. Dave is a dark man in more ways than one, and he loves that you’re like this. Like him. For him. With him.

He proves you right when he begins stroking himself, a ragged sigh sailing past his lips as he throws his head back, exposing the thick, strained tendons in his neck. He allows himself a couple seconds of relief, before he stops himself with a long exhale, a hand trailing up your thigh to touch you where you’re more than ready for him.

He fills you with two thick fingers, curling and stroking at your slippery walls, and it’s so much at once, making you cry out against the makeshift gag in your mouth.

“This sweet pussy is going to feel so perfect around my cock,” he says, eyes only leaving yours when he slowly pulls his fingers free, groaning softly at the way your body pulls at him, working to keep him inside. “Would you like that?”

You nod in the dark, unable to help yourself from bucking your hips to chase his touch. The hand that still holds the knife is quick to push you down, the blade glinting dangerously close to your hip bone.

“Want me to put it in, baby? Want me to put it all in? Push all the way inside until you can’t think about anything else but how deep you can feel me inside you?” He slides himself over your mound, pushing until the head of his cock can smear wetly under your belly button, showing off just what that would mean.

There’s so much you wish you could tell him right now. That yes, you want it. That you want him so badly to just take what he wants from you, here, like this, between the shreds of your clothes where you’re spread for the taking. That this ‘depraved shit’ does make you wet, it does when it’s him, when he uses you, when he makes it hurt.

But your affirmation is suppressed against the fabric in your mouth, nothing but incoherent, muffled babbles filling the bedroom.

And yet, it’s like he can tell exactly what you’d been thinking, because the knife hits the floor with a clatter, and if he gave you any time, you might be able to analyse the sudden surge of emotion that flows through you at the idea.

But he doesn’t give you that time. The sound of the blade startles you almost as much as the fat tip of his cock notching at your entrance, as the slide of him inside, as the sharp thrust that makes his thighs slap against the back of yours. He pushes you up the mattress with the force of it, and your hand flies up to press a palm against the headboard to keep your head from knocking against it.

“Fucking Christ,” he sighs, stilling for a second to revel in the tight squeeze of your pussy before he draws back and spears himself through your slick walls - again, again, again.

“I’m gonna make this pussy come,” he promises, voice strained. “I’m gonna make it flood my cock and then I’m gonna cover you in my come,” he adds, a hand dragging over your torso, thumb and pinkie catching on your hardened nipples before he settles his hand on your hip to pull you down against him.

The head of his cock knocks against the button of your womb with each thrust, and at your silenced keens, he falls down to a forearm, eyes boring into yours as he continues to fuck you. “I’ve got you, baby,” he assures.

Your hand curls around his bicep, fingernails digging into the fabric of his long-sleeved top. It’s wet, warm, no doubt evidence of his successful mission, and that thought, your body’s response to it, eases the glide of him inside you.

“I’ve got you,” he repeats, his hand leaving your hip to slide between your legs, to draw maddening circles around your slippery, puffy clit, and with the way he’s been working you up, you already know it will take no time at all. “You know that, right?”

You nod with a muffled groan, focusing on the way he stretches you open and plays with your clit, tears leaking from the corners of your eyes with how hard you squeeze them shut as it builds—as it all builds.

You know.

--

Thank you for reading! I hope to see you all tomorrow for October 2: Stripping. Anyone who guesses correctly which character I’ve written for will get a sneak peek at the fic in their DMs😌

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[hxseok-honee]

blossom | part 16

blossom [part 16] || 'Hoseokie'

[‘cause all i need is to see you blossom out, blossom out, blossom out]

previous || masterlist || next

a/n : I cant tell if this is a hobi chapter or a yoongi chapter but i am very in love with them both thats for sure -- lmk what you think!

“Hobi, hi!” Y/n had practically slammed face first into the front door in her rush to answer it, and she’s a little breathless when she finally greets him. She’d honestly been expecting maybe a different, more confident Hoseok than the one she’d become familiar with to be standing there -- after all, he certainly looks the part today. But she’s pleasantly surprised to find that he’s still the same old Hoseok, rocking back and forth on his heels on her porch while he takes in the exterior of her home with bright, wide eyes.

He turns those eyes to her now, his smile boyishly charming as his red ears poke out cutely from beneath his winter hat.

“Y/n! Your house is so cute!” The compliment rolls off his tongue immediately, because frankly it’s all he could think about as he’d walked up the path to her door. It suits her perfectly, this lovely little home on the outskirts of town. He holds up a bag when she thanks him, shaking it lightly while he steps inside, following her into the entryway.

“I know you said no gifts, but I couldn’t show up with nothing!” He sets the bag into her waiting hands, pulling out four flower crowns -- they’re perfect, clearly crafted with care and delicacy that borders on professional. Each one is unique in size and style, somehow a set of matching winter crowns but created with individual intent. She can’t even bother to hide the look of endearment she shoots him.

“Hobi, you really didn’t have to do all of this.” He waves her off while he removes his hat, and she sets the bag down so she can take his coat while he explains.

“It’s nothing, seriously. I didn’t know what I could possibly buy you and your family because I don’t know what they like, so I thought I’d stick to something I know… I tried to make the one for your dad a bit more, uh -- manly? It was hard, though.” He laughs off his slight embarrassment, but Y/n’s mind is stalling on what he’d said. She turns to him with an awkward smile.

“Ah… I thought the big one might have been to fit Yoongi’s massive head… I think it still would fit him, to be honest.” When Hoseok blinks at her in confusion, she only offers an uncomfortable laugh. “My dad’s not around, actually… There’s only three of us.” Hoseok’s eyes go wide, and he finds himself swearing internally. He hadn’t even noticed that she’d never mentioned her dad before.

“Shoot, I’m sorry -- I didn’t even think about it--”

“No, you’re fine! It’s okay, it’s my fault for forgetting to mention it.” When he tries to apologize again, Y/n only sets the larger flower crown on his head to silence him. It hangs low on his forehead, making her smile. “Seriously, Hobi -- you’re sweet for even thinking of all of this.” He opens his mouth, still feeling unsure, but another voice cuts in before he can say anything.

“Yoonie’s here! Oh-- you’re not Yoonie…” Sliding into the doorway with small socked feet is a literal carbon copy of Y/n -- granted, she’s about a head shorter and very clearly a child, but the resemblance is uncanny. Hoseok blinks at the girl, and she only blinks back, hands on her hips in what can be described only as disappointment. Y/n rolls her eyes playfully.

“Hoseok, meet Hana, my 8-year-old sister. Hana, meet the boy that brought you a handmade flower crown -- so be nice.” Immediately, Hana’s arms are dropping in surprise, her eyes wide as she glances at Hoseok’s hands. He smiles kindly, picking out the crown with the smallest circumference and handing it to her. The girl’s eyes almost sparkle with excitement as she moves to take it from him, fingers delicate as she sets it on her hair.

“I had to guess at what size your head would be, but I hope you like it!” Y/n’s sister blinks up at him with an expectant gaze when he’s done talking, clearly waiting for an assessment.

“Do I look nice?” Hoseok warms immediately, finding the girl entirely endearing. He nods, handing Y/n her own crown while he responds. He has to stop himself from doing a double-take when she puts hers on.

So pretty…

“Yay! Thank you for the pretty crown!” Hoseok blinks, realizing he’d definitely just said that out loud. Luckily, the sisters had taken it as a response to Hana’s question, and he feels relief flood his body at the coincidence. He’s so busy thanking whatever higher power had just saved him from that awkward moment that he misses the sound of the front door opening behind him.

“Yoonie!” Coming back to reality, Hoseok barely has time to jump out of the way as the 8-year-old barrels past him, charging with purpose for the person entering the home.

“Monkey!” The voice that hits his ears is familiar, but it’s entirely unlike the person he knows it belongs to. Looking up, Hoseok can only stare lamely as Hana all but flies through the air, caught securely in the arms of one Min Yoongi. The Slytherin laughs loudly at the sudden attack, swinging the girl around in greeting before taking a good look at her.

“Jeez, do you ever stop growing? I’m getting nervous over here, kid.” Yoongi sees Y/n and Hoseok then, and he greets them with nothing more than a nod and a cool grin.

“Happy Christmas, nerds--” Somehow managing to hold onto Hana with one arm, he extends the other out to Y/n, passing her a large bag of gifts. “The one on top’s for you -- don’t even think about it, loser.” Y/n had peered curiously at the topmost gift when he’d said it was hers, eyeing it with excitement. She rolls her eyes now, letting the bag hang at her side as she waves Hoseok into the next room -- a living room, decked out in warm blankets and an even warmer fireplace. There’s a staircase on the far end of the room, the wooden steps uneven from years of use. The home is small but very clearly lived in, and Hoseok’s happy to think that he’s been allowed into Y/n’s childhood home.

There are a few picture frames on the fireplace mantel, and he can’t help but wander over to them while Y/n sets the gifts under the decorated tree in the corner. He looks over the photos with a smile, listening as Yoongi and Hana catch up behind him.

“What’s that on your head, Monkey? I like it.”

“A flower crown from Y/n’s boyfriend! He said it looks pretty on me.” Y/n chokes on her own saliva when she hears those words -- Y/n’s boyfriend -- and Hoseok finds himself overheating just slightly. He swears it’s from the crackling fire in front of him, and he tugs a few times at the front of his dress shirt in discomfort. Y/n glares at Yoongi, who’s barely managing to contain his laughter.

“Hoseok’s not my boyfriend, Hana--” The girl turns, maneuvering her way out of Yoongi’s arms and onto his back while she responds, clearly confused.

“But the last boy you brought home was Stinky Koo, and he was your boyfriend!” Hoseok’s immensely glad that he’s still facing the fireplace, because the name Stinky Koo is much more amusing to him than it should be. He turns to face them only when he’s got his face under control, but he almost cracks when he sees how proud Yoongi looks -- it must have been him that had nicknamed Jungkook for the young girl.

Desperate to change the subject, Hoseok gestures at the photo in the middle of the mantel -- a portrait of the sisters and their mother.

“Your mom’s beautiful, Y/n. Like a queen.” Y/n smiles shyly, Yoongi nodding appreciatively behind her. He's doing just fine, Yoongi thinks to himself, seeing how obviously nervous Hoseok is.

“Well, thank you, young man! Y/n, I like this boy.” The photograph in question is nothing compared to the woman that enters the room, and Hoseok swears the genetics in this house have seriously won the lottery. Y/n’s mother has the kindest eyes he’s ever seen, and he feels like all he wants right now is to see those eyes look at him with approval. It would mean the world, honestly.

She steps toward the group of kids, smiling sweetly at Hoseok before immediately turning to Yoongi with an evil glint in her eye. The boy never stood a chance, only having enough time to inhale sharply before her fingers are coming down on his cheeks, pinching with all her might. Y/n snorts when Yoongi lets out a pained wail.

“Release me, woman!” Hoseok’s shocked at the tone Yoongi takes with her, but Y/n’s beside him in an instant to do damage control.

“My mom’s favorite pastime is antagonizing him -- Yoongi’s been around long enough that formalities just… don’t exist… You get used to it.” Hoseok only nods as he watches her mom start in on the Slytherin.

“Never in my life have I seen a boy with so little meat on his body -- do you even eat, or is the sickly look in style these days?” The woman pinches at Yoongi’s torso for emphasis, and he starts to wriggle away from her, Hana barely managing to hang onto him for dear life.

“This is why I never come here -- the bullying is insufferable!” Yoongi hops around the living room with the 8-year-old glued to him, racing for the doorway into another room when he sees that Y/n’s mom isn’t giving up anytime soon. She almost follows the pair when they disappear, deciding instead to stay in the room with Y/n and Hoseok, an innocent grin on her face.

“You look much healthier than that bag of bones over there--” Hoseok realizes she’s addressing him and smiles, extending a hand to greet her and ignoring Yoongi when he lets out an enraged ‘hey!’ in the other room.

“You have such a lovely home, Ma’am-- Oh! I made you this!” He’d almost forgotten about his gift, but it’s hanging from the wrist he’s using to shake her hand, making him look both awkward and cute as he struggles to hand it to her with some semblance of elegance. “I hope you like it-- I can mend it if it’s too big! But… I left my bag at home, so I’ll have to run to get the scissors and twine-- Oh, it fits!” Y/n’s mom had watched him stumble over his words for a moment before decisively setting the crown on her head with a smile.

“I love it, Hoseok -- thank you.” He blinks, realizing that she knows his name although he had forgotten to introduce himself, and it clicks that Y/n’s talked about him to her mom before. The shy smile on the Gryffindor’s face only confirms his suspicions, filling him with joy. He smiles brightly, following Y/n’s mom when she waves him into the room where Yoongi had gone.

It’s a kitchen, small but comfortable, with a dining table positioned in the middle of the room. When they enter, they find Yoongi bent over the open oven door, lifting a large dish out of it and setting it on top of the stove. Hana’s clung tightly to his back, but the Sytherin moves around the kitchen with ease, dropping the oven mitts on the counter on his way to grab plates from one of the cabinets. It’s obvious not only that he’s very used to having Y/n’s sister stuck to him, but also that he’s comfortable in this home, fully aware of how the house functions.

“What in the world do you think you’re doing? Get out of my kitchen -- you’ll break something!” Y/n’s mom makes a beeline for Yoongi, swatting him away with an oven mitt scooped up from the counter. He complains loudly, grabbing at it and arguing with the woman.

“Will you please just sit down and let me do this?! You’re in my way -- go sit down, Mom!” It looks like a fight -- by all standards, it’s a mother and son arguing and nothing else. But Hoseok looks around the room, taking in the table full of homemade food, the sink full of dishes from the cooking. He sees the light sheen of sweat on the woman’s face, knowing just by looking that she’d been working tirelessly to make Christmas dinner for them. And when he looks to Yoongi, he sees that the boy knows this, too -- that he’s urging her to sit down and relax, that he’s just making it seem like he’s annoyed instead of openly caring for her. That, along with the fact that Hana is very clearly emotionally attached to the Slytherin, makes it obvious to Hoseok that Yoongi belongs here. That this Yoongi belongs here, not the promiscuous one that the entirety of Hogwarts knows. Hogwarts doesn’t know this Yoongi.

“You’re doing that thing again.” Hoseok jumps, realizing when he turns that Y/n’s watching him closely. He smiles, cocking his head to the side in confusion. The chaos of the room never stops, happening in the background while he and Y/n stand in the doorway.

“What thing?” She grins, pointing at his face.

“That observant badger thing. You’re just watching and taking mental notes.” He flushes slightly, not even realizing that he does this often enough to classify it as a ‘thing’. He gestures to her best friend, a question slipping out in the form of an observation, something he’s apparently good at.

“I didn’t realize Yoongi was good with kids.” Y/n snickers, shaking her head.

“He’s not, actually. One time, he tripped over a kid at the store because he hadn’t seen them walking past, and for the rest of the day he kept saying ‘children are the evil groundhogs of the world… waiting to pop their little heads out of the ground and scare you’. It was kinda dramatic.” Hoseok blinks, utterly dumbfounded by that story because it sounds exactly like something Yoongi say, but the Yoongi in the kitchen right now is not showing any of that malice.

“So… then how did this happen?” He gestures to the pair hopping around the dining table, Hana now clinging to Yoongi’s leg while the boy sets out utensils, all the while bickering with her mom. It’s not hard to imagine, seeing how the girl hangs off of him, why Yoongi calls her Monkey.

“Well -- Hana’s 8, which means Yoongi’s been in her life for… almost the entirety of it. And, although I doubt he’d say it, I know he feels some sense of responsibility for her since our dad’s not around. He’s just kind of always looked after her, so she definitely relies on him a lot.” Y/n looks at peace when she says it, and Hoseok gets the feeling that she appreciates Yoongi’s involvement with her family more than she’s letting on.

“They’re pretty cute… It’s nice to see.” Y/n smirks at Hoseok’s final assessment before beckoning him further into the kitchen, commenting in a low voice as she moves to the table.

“Don’t let Yoongi hear you say that -- his ego needs to be kept under control as it is.” Yoongi looks up when he hears his name, lifting an eyebrow but asking no questions as he examines Hoseok and Y/n. Letting it go, he glances down at the child sitting on his foot.

“Let’s wash our hands, Monkey. I dont need your dirty germs getting in my food.” Hana protests loudly but allows Yoongi to haul her off to the bathroom to wash up. He sets his phone on the table when he goes, and Hoseok can only imagine how much trust he has in Y/n to leave her with it -- especially because it keeps buzzing with notifications, and Hoseok can tell even from here that Yoongi has his message previews on.

When they return, Y/n passes the boy his phone, but not before it lights up again in her hand. Without meaning to, she glances down at it, and Hoseok’s not sure what she sees, but it has Yoongi looking at her with wide eyes once he’s gotten a chance to read it, too. He eyes her almost guiltily, but she only smiles knowingly and turns back to the table, taking the seat next to Hoseok.

“Let’s eat!”

--

Dinner passes surprisingly easily for Hoseok -- he’d been nervous all day, changing and re-changing his clothes until finally he’d just given up and left his apartment. But now, sitting here with Y/n and her family, he feels welcomed, included immediately in the chaos of the group dynamic while they eat. Her mother insists on piling his plate high with insanely delicious food, although it’s not nearly as much as she feeds Yoongi, who looks disgruntled at being called a walking skeleton but eats it all with vigor, anyway.

Just as they’re finishing dinner, Hoseok jumping to his feet to help clear the table, Hana rests her elbows on the wood, peering up at him curiously while he moves around the room. He has to purse his lips to stop himself from smiling when he spots her legs swinging back and forth from her chair, not yet able to reach the floor.

“Who’s that other flower crown for? Is it for you? It’s kinda big on you!” His eyes widen just a fraction, and he looks to Y/n for help as he hums. Y/n starts talking at the same time he does.

“Oh, it’s just an extra--

“He just accidentally made it too big--”

“It’s for me!” Yoongi cuts them both off with finality, sticking his hand out almost childishly for the crown hanging low on Hoseok’s head. Hoseok looks at him in shock, forgetting to mask his emotions for the young girl in front of him. But it’s fine because Hana’s only looking at Yoongi, something the Slytherin's clearly aware of when he waves his awaiting hand, dramatically impatient for her sake.

“But then why haven’t you been wearing it the whole time?” The girl’s questions are straight to the point, and Y/n’s mom starts to tell her not to pry, but Yoongi’s always ready for Hana’s inquiries.

“Obviously, Hoseok’s a little shy about giving me a Christmas gift -- he’s been waiting for the right time!” He sounds so sure of himself, like he actually believes it. But as Hoseok’s lifting the crown off of his head and setting it in Yoongi’s hand, he sees the look the boy gives him, and he knows that Yoongi’s aware of the assumption he’d made about Y/n’s father.

And of course Yoongi knows -- he’d made the exact same mistake the first time he’d visited the home at 11 years old, walking in with expensive gifts for both parents because his mom had always stressed that ‘you never go to someone else’s house empty handed’. Hana was much too young then, only a year old, and Yoongi’s not about to let the girl catch on now and risk souring the Christmas spirit. He knows how insecure she gets sometimes about not having a dad, so he saves Hoseok from the moment with practiced ease.

Looking away from the Hufflepuff and turning to Hana while he sets the crown on his head, he points up at it.

“How’s it look, Monkey?” The girl hums, squinting for a moment before nodding.

“It fits! Probably because you have a big head.” Y/n snorts loudly, even Hoseok coughing out a laugh while he sets dishes in the sink. Yoongi only nods, accepting that he’s just been blatantly insulted by an 8-year-old, made worse by Y/n’s mom running her hand over Hana’s hair in amused approval.

“That’s my girl -- you tell the skinny boy how it is.” Yoongi opens his mouth to protest, but the woman’s standing to retrieve something from the fridge, and immediately his complaints are replaced by an excited gasp.

“Is that--”

“Well, someone’s gotta feed you your favorites!” Hoseok only glances over his shoulder while he and Y/n clean up, seeing that the woman’s setting a pumpkin pie on the counter and reaching for a knife to cut it. Another glance tells him that Yoongi’s argumentative nature’s been won over by the dessert, and he’s standing to help her serve 5 plates of it, shy smile peeking through.

“Thanks, Mom…” The woman grins, bumping him with her hip but not saying anything about the embarrassment on his face. She turns, holding two plates and gesturing toward the fridge while she heads for the living room.

“Grab the whipped cream on your way, will you, Hoseokie?” Hoseok almost drops the dirty plate he’s setting in the sink, all the hair on the back of his neck standing on end when he hears the name Y/n’s mom calls him. Y/n notices that he stills suddenly beside her, but before she can mention it, he’s blinking, the moment gone as he moves to the fridge with a smile.

The group migrates to the living room, Y/n’s mom taking the armchair by the tree while Y/n and Hoseok share the couch. Yoongi’s sitting on the floor with his legs crisscrossed, Hana seated comfortably in his lap. The plates of pie sit on the table next to Yoongi’s head, and he keeps glancing anxiously at them, like he’s wondering if he can sneak a bite without anyone noticing. Y/n’s mom’s voice rings out, and he knows he’s been caught.

“Not a chance, Yoongi -- presents first!” Rolling his eyes but nodding anyway, he turns his attention back to the group, where Y/n is passing out presents to everyone. The biggest ones always go to Hana, who seems very excited but is somehow even more enthused about finally giving everyone her own gifts, small trinkets she’d picked out with immense care during her school’s holiday field trip. Y/n has to stop herself from snapping a photo of Yoongi’s face when he unwraps a snake plushie, watching with amusement when he cradles it close to his chest, eyes full of adoration as he mouths "I love her" to the Gryffindor. Hana doesn’t even notice how dramatically sentimental he is, her short attention span having her already turning to Hoseok with a large smile and a small gift.

“This one’s for you, Hoseokie!” Hoseok chokes on his saliva, paling slightly when he hears that name again. Y/n picks up on it for sure this time, but she doesn’t say anything, not wanting to interrupt his and Hana’s moment.

Hoseok takes the gift with shaking hands, masking whatever’s running through his mind with a shy smile.

“You didn’t have to get me anything, Hana -- thank you!” The girl watches with intense interest while he peels the wrapping paper off, revealing a pink ballpoint pen in the shape of a flower, explaining when he holds it up in the light.

“Y/n told me you liked flowers when I asked! Do you like it?” Hoseok smiles brightly, pressing down on the center of the flower with a quiet click and running the tip of the pen along the knuckle on his thumb to test the ink.

“I love it! I’ll use it every day!” Y/n smiles then, thinking how endearing he’ll look, using a pink ballpoint flower pen in a school that still standardizes quill and ink. But she knows he means it and won’t even think twice about using it. Hana beams up at him, but her eyes become curious almost immediately.

“But -- do you not like the name ‘Hoseokie’? You looked a little sad when I said it…” Y/n cringes, cursing the fact that her sister is both extremely observant and completely lacks a filter. She’s like the perfect mix of Hoseok and Yoongi, something that would be really funny if the situation hadn’t just gotten really uncomfortable.

Hoseok gapes at the girl, letting out a breath of laughter when she only tilts her head to the side curiously. It’s fine that he’d been caught -- it’s just a little embarrassing that it had happened here at Y/n’s family dinner, where he’d been trying to make a good impression and leave only good energy behind. With a slight sigh, he shakes his head to answer Hana’s question.

“I don’t not like ‘Hoseokie’ -- I actually really like it… it’s just--” He glances quickly at Y/n, feeling a bit awkward. “My little sister used to call me that…” Immediately, Y/n’s looking to Yoongi out of the corner of her eye, finding that he’s doing the same, the alarm in his eyes matching her own. Hoseok had never mentioned a sister.

“It’s a little… uncomfortable, so I feel bad…” Hoseok looks to Y/n’s mom then, watching carefully for her reaction when he continues. “My parents run an apiary -- they’re very big nature types, all about the ‘way of the natural world’ and stuff like that… that's why--" He cuts off, gesturing vaguely to the crown on the woman's head. That's why I know how to do this, he means. Clearing his throat, he continues. "So it didn’t really… go well… when I turned 11 and got the letter saying I was a wizard.” Y/n hears Yoongi inhale sharply from where he’s sitting, and she knows he’s putting the pieces together like she is.

When Hoseok sees that Y/n’s mom is watching him with a guarded expression, almost worried about where he’s going with him, he bites at the inside of his cheek nervously. Y/n had never explicitly said it, but he could tell the minute he walked into the house just a few hours ago that she’s also a muggleborn. Wizarding homes always show signs of magic -- dishes that wash themselves, hanging plants that can’t be found anywhere in the muggle world, that kind of thing. He hadn’t seen anything to give away a magical upbringing, almost shocked at how much Y/n’s home reminded him of his own childhood.

He can see now that the woman is glancing at her own daughter, and he knows what she’s thinking. Y/n and Hoseok are the same, but his world had been entirely different. He sees her making that connection, so he just decides to rip off the metaphorical band-aid and finish explaining.

“My parents didn’t want something ‘unnatural’ living in the house, influencing their innocent daughter, so they kicked me out. Agreed to help me pay for an apartment and bills as long as I promised to never reach out to them for anything else -- Dumbledore helped me out the first few summers, let me stay on the grounds since I wasn’t old enough to be on my own. I moved into a place not far from here when I turned 15.”

He’s got his eyes screwed shut now, terrified of the pity he’s going to find when he opens them again. It’s too quiet, and he feels his ears warming, knowing that it looks like he’s been thrown away, discarded. He doesn’t feel that way, having accepted his situation when he was still young -- having decided to accept his situation because it was better than being bitter. But he knows what people will see when they find out, so he’d gone to great lengths to hide it. Because he doesn’t need pity, he’s happy as he is.

While he’s thinking of how to ease everyone’s tension, he’s completely unprepared for the arms that wrap around his neck. Cracking his eyes open, he realizes these arms are quite small, that the person hugging him is quite small.

“Will you come back for family dinner every year?” Hana’s question is muffled in his neck, but the words have his heart stuttering because he really hadn’t been expecting this. Glancing quickly at Y/n, he finds that the pity he’d been preparing for isn’t there. She looks completely heartbroken, her eyes shining with unshed tears, but more than anything she looks mad.

She blinks it away when they make eye contact, and she nods while reaching for his hand. He’s not sure what she’s nodding at, and he gets the feeling she doesn’t know either, but he takes it as her understanding. Understanding that he doesn’t want to talk about it further, understanding what he’d meant in the forest that day about being happy alone.

Just past Y/n, Yoongi’s standing from his spot on the floor with a groan and a crack of his spine. He moves for Hana, who’s still clinging to Hoseok’s neck.

“Of course he’ll be back, Monkey. He’s not goin’ anywhere.” It’s said so simply, without any particular feeling to guide it, but Hoseok’s so immensely grateful for Min Yoongi in that moment. Not only because he hadn’t changed at all in the way he’d looked at Hoseok -- his eyes are still even and calm, if not laced with slightest bit of emotion when their gazes lock -- but because Hoseok had just received clear and direct approval from the one person in Y/n’s life that he’d been most nervous about.

It’s one thing to be nervous about family or the entirety of her friend group -- those things are normal. Min Yoongi is not normal, not to Y/n. He’s the only person that knows Y/n better than she knows herself, and Hoseok hadn’t even realized just how terrified he’d been that Yoongi wouldn’t accept him suddenly appearing in Y/n’s life the way he had. But he sees now, while Yoongi is slowly peeling Hana off of him and carrying her to the staircase, claiming that it’s ‘way past her bedtime’, that Yoongi’s just let him in. The girl waves goodnight to the rest of the group, almost immediately sleepy now that Yoongi's carrying her to bed.

When Hoseok looks to Y/n, eyes wide with surprise, he sees that she’s noticed Yoongi's behavior, too. Because she’s got her eyes closed, but she’s smiling fondly, like the telltale signs of Yoongi’s respect have finally revealed themselves, decidedly giving Hoseok his stamp of approval.

He’s so busy reveling in the fact that he’d just gotten all the reactions to his life story that he’d been expecting the least that he barely feels Y/n’s mom set a hand on his shoulder when she stands. He looks up now, taking in her kind eyes, and he thinks she’s going to say something sentimental, but--

“I like you a whole lot more than I liked Jungkook.” Hoseok’s jaw drops, and Y/n’s scoffing loudly beside him.

“Mom!” The woman smiles, leaving the two them there on the couch while she grabs the plates of pie, mumbling something about ‘needing to pack Noodle Arms a plate to go’ before heading into the kitchen. Hoseok can do nothing but laugh when he looks to Y/n, who’s still completely scandalized by her mom’s comment.

“I can’t tell if I should feel highly approved of, or just regularly approved of since Jungkook is apparently low on the Family Opinions list.” Y/n nudges him with her elbow playfully, and they sit there quietly together on the couch for a moment. He finds himself reaching out to brush his fingers across her knee insecurely.

“You know, you don’t have to feel bad for me. I really am okay -- I said it before, but I just… I’ve been okay not having anyone. It never really haunted me or hurt me or anything I’m sure you’d expect an abandoned child to feel. I just… took the bad with the good and decided to focus on the happy moments of my childhood because, believe it or not, I had a lot of them. It’s just easier to remember my parents as they were before, so that’s what I do.” Y/n nods slowly when he’s done, feeling a lot of things but wondering if maybe it’s not her place to say it. He sees it anyway, because he sees everything.

“You’re angry. That they left me.” Y/n glances at him quickly, wondering if he’s upset at all -- this is such a delicate subject, and she doesn’t know if she’s allowed to feel this mad for him. But he’s smiling, like he can tell she’d been trying to hide it and he’s finding her incredibly endearing for it. She purses her lips and nods shyly, confirming his suspicions.

“That they left you… yes. But I’m angry that they kept your sister from you.” It’d been obvious in the way Hoseok had talked about his parents that he’d become purposely detached from them, that he’d accepted the situation and doesn’t feel any certain way about them. But the name -- ‘Hoseokie’ -- it had set him on edge in a way she’d never seen in this carefree, sunny boy before. His sister’s a sore spot, probably the one thing that hurts most. His smile tells her everything she needs to know, because she’s never once seen him smile bitterly. And yet there it is, forcing his dimples to make an appearance in a way that isn’t as heartwarming as it usually is.

“The last time I saw her, she was Hana’s age… she probably looks so different now.” If a person could physically deflate into nothingness, Y/n would have successfully done it. Hoseok can’t help but snicker, the image of Y/n almost melting into the couch too endearing.

“I -- I can’t even imagine… not knowing what Hana will look like in a few years.” It breaks her heart all over again, the way Hoseok nods, because he knows exactly what that feels like. But he refuses to dwell on it, clapping his hands down on his knees decisively and shaking Y/n from her stupor with the noise.

“Spend New Year’s Eve with me!” Y/n’s brain stalls, trying to process what he’d just said. He waits patiently, smiling while she switches mental gears and catches up to him.

“Huh? I mean -- sure? Yes? But, huh?” He laughs under his breath, finding her confusion almost obnoxiously cute.

“I’ve never had anyone to spend it with. Now that I do… I really want to spend it with you.” Y/n swallows hard, wondering where these butterflies in her stomach are coming from -- maybe it’s the way he’s watching her, eyes curious as he waits for her reaction. She only nods, suddenly very shy under his gaze.

“I’d love to, Hoseok…” He warms at how low her voice is, and now he’s the one feeling shy, pressing his palms into his thighs and staring down at his lap. They’re quiet for a moment, the soft crackling from the fireplace filling the silence, until--

“Oh, just kiss already!” They both turn quickly toward the voice, finding Yoongi standing at the bottom of the staircase, a look of disgust filling his face. He shakes his head when they gape at him, going so far as to wave his hand quickly, his palm passing through the air with intent. “Look, I even helped.” He’s looking at the space above their heads, and when she and Hoseok follow his eyes, they find a piece of mistletoe growing from the ceiling, hanging down between them.

Y/n groans in annoyance while Hoseok sits there, blushing brightly at Yoongi’s forwardness. As if to make things worse for him, Y/n’s mom enters the room again then, noticing the mistletoe right away as she’s handing the comically large stack of to-go containers over to Yoongi.

“Oh, cute! Did they kiss?” She looks at Yoongi when she asks, and he shakes his head in disappointment -- Hoseok gets the feeling they’re enjoying pretending he and Y/n aren’t right here when they start snickering in unison.

“Well, I gotta go--” Yoongi stops to glare at Y/n when she looks at him knowingly, eyebrows raised. Hoseok wonders if maybe this is about the messages she’d seen on the Slytherin’s phone earlier. “-- but I’ll catch you guys later. Happy Christmas, nerds!” With that he’s heading for the entryway, and Hoseok can hear him bickering with Y/n’s mom all the way to the door.

“Yes, I brought my coat--”

“You don’t have a hat! I’m sure they make hats for big-headed people, too--”

“That is so offensive on so many levels--”

“I’ll just have to make you one myself--”

“Mom! Stop working so hard, I promise I’ll go buy a damn hat!”

“Don’t you take that tone with me, Big-Head!”

--

“I got us takeout!” It’s the first thing she says when Hoseok opens the door to his apartment, emphasized by the large bag she’s shaking in his face with enthusiasm. He pokes his head around it, smiling brightly at her.

“I also got us takeout!” Lowering her bag in surprise, she follows Hoseok into the small studio when he beckons her in, slipping her shoes off at the door as she looks to the kitchenette, where an equally large bag of food sits. She only looks to Hoseok, dumbfounded, and she finds he’s giving her the same look.

“How are we gonna eat all this--”

“No idea.” Y/n snorts when he looks between their two bags, face deadpan as he reaches for hers and sets it on the table beside his. He looks at them for a moment longer, finally speaking.

“Did we get takeout from the same place?” Y/n hangs her head with a groan when she realizes the bags look exactly the same. When she looks up again, he’s heading for the cabinets to get plates, his shoulders shaking with laughter. It’s infectious, and soon she’s shaking her head, turning to look around the apartment while she laughs openly. Her breath is cut short almost immediately when she looks at the living area.

“Holy plants.” Hoseok glances over to where she’s looking, a nervous laugh leaving him.

“Too much?” To put it simply, they’re everywhere. Floor plants, hanging plants, windowsill plants -- everywhere. There’s even a massive plant overtaking the table next to his bed in the corner, not an inch of space for him to put anything else. She feels like she just walked into a jungle.

“Your air must be really clean…” Hoseok laughs loudly, not having expected that to be her one assessment of his plant collection.

“You’re lucky I haven’t covered the couch in plants, too -- where are we gonna sit to watch TV?” As if the universe has decided to test him at this very moment in time for absolutely no reason other than to make him suffer, the apartment goes dark with the booming sound of the entire room powering down.

Hoseok barely manages to hold in his groan when he hears Y/n turn in his direction in the dark.

“I wasn’t watching anything good on TV these days, anyway.”

--

“Come on, come on -- where are they--”

“Hoseok, it’s fine--”

“I swear I had candles--”

“Hoseok--”

“Aha!” He pokes his head up from where he’s crouched by the closet, holding a stack of small candles triumphantly. Y/n’s sitting at the dining table, having cast lumos long ago and unpacked their copious amounts of food with nothing but the light of her wand. She’s smiling at him fondly now as he shows her the candles.

“Are you feeling better now?” Hoseok lowers his candles, sending her a sheepish smile as he rises to his feet and moves to join her at the table. He’d immediately started apologizing to her when the power had gone out, thrown into a panicked rush to fix things as he flitted around his apartment. She’d tried to reassure him that everything was okay, but he’d still felt really bad for messing up their night.

“I’m sorry, Y/n… I told my parents that I’m still in school until the spring, but I don’t think they heard that part when they said they were gonna stop helping me pay for stuff after graduation… I’ve been applying for jobs all year, but they just don’t really start accepting people until they see our NEWT results and transcripts and stuff, so--”

“Hobi.” He stops at the nickname, realizing when she levels him with a hard stare that he’s devolving into anxious rambling again. She reaches across the table, taking his hands in hers.

“Stop apologizing, Hobi. This isn’t your fault, and you haven’t ruined anything. I promise.” He’s slow to nod, but eventually he accepts her words, seeing how insistent she is.

“I do have one question, though.” He blinks, humming curiously when she continues and wondering what she’s going to say. “Do you… have spare blankets? Because it’s going to get very cold in here very fast.”

--

“I don’t think I want to eat anything ever again.”

“Mmm… Mmmm…”

“So you agree.”

“Mhm… Mmm…” Hoseok throws his head back against the couch, completely unable to form words after the meal they’d just had. Y/n snorts, nodding as she gets used to his various sounds of exhaustion.

“Me too, Hobi.” They sit there quietly for only a moment before Hoseok is lifting his head, urgent. Y/n looks at him, wondering what’s happening in his head when he turns to her, face deadpan yet again.

“I bought us ice cream on my way home with the food.” Immediately, she’s groaning, and he joins her in flopping around on his couch dramatically. Y/n takes a moment through her food-induced haze to appreciate their little setup.

The candles are set strategically on his coffee table and counters, clear of any plants because the last thing they need tonight is a fire. She’d been right in assuming it’d get cold, and they’d eventually stopped trying to manage with small blankets, dragging his comforter right off the bed and curling up together beneath it as they ate dinner. She can’t even recall what they’d talked about, the entire thing a confused fog from the food.

She knows they’d been giddy the whole time, on a weird high from the collection of ridiculous things that had happened in the first five minutes of her being here. That, along with the sheer amount of food and the wine Hoseok had pulled out for them, ended up creating nonstop laughter over the smallest things. She’s comfortable here, never having experienced a bubble of quiet happiness like this. She feels no pressure and she’s worried about nothing -- everything had fallen away when she’d walked in the door, the rest of the world blocked out from this safe space, here with Hoseok in his apartment.

“Oh! It’s almost midnight!” Hoseok’s squinting at his phone in the dark before showing her the screen -- 11:55pm. She glances at her own phone, sitting peacefully on the table in front of them, and she hates that the only thing she can think of is Jungkook. She’s scared that this period of silence between them will have done nothing, that as soon as the new year starts, he’s going to be back to badgering her constantly. She just wants everything to return to normal, and she’s scared that she only has five minutes left before that dream falls apart.

“Hey… Where’d you go just now?” Blinking, she sees that Hoseok’s peering at her, brow furrowed in concern. His phone toggles when he moves closer to her, a small pout set in his features, and the screen lights up again. 11:57pm. She hates that, after such a good night, it had taken only this to have them both frowning. She hates it.

“I just… I really just want all of this to be normal again. I want Jungkook to be normal again. I want the new year to be something good again, and I’m terrified it won’t be. I just want to forget everything bad from this year and start fresh.” She rolls her eyes at herself, hating that she’s ranting to Hoseok about her love life again, when they’d just wanted to have a nice New Year’s Eve together. But his mind is elsewhere, a thought crossing his mind suddenly. He checks his phone again. 11:59pm.

“Maybe I can help with that?” Y/n looks to him when he says it, confused.

“What do you mean?” He blinks, trying to decide if he’s really going to do this. The nervous feeling building in his stomach is somehow telling him this is a bad and good idea. He turns to her quickly.

“With that fresh start… forgetting the bad from this year… Maybe I can help…?” Y/n’s not sure what he means, but she doesn’t see why she would say no. Hoseok’s never done anything but help, even when he doesn’t realize it. If anyone’s going to help her forget, it’s him.

So she nods, waiting for him to explain. And then she’s gasping, because he’s leaning in, and she can see even in the dim lighting that he’s looking at her lips -- that he’s going to kiss her.

He pauses for a second to give her time to push him away. When she doesn’t, he’s glancing up and finding that she’s looking at him nervously, her gaze flicking back and forth between his eyes and his mouth. With a small inhale, he lets his eyes drift shut, closing the gap between them carefully.

Y/n’s not even sure she’s kissing him back -- she’s too focused on the feeling of his lips on her, how gentle he’s being as he applies just the slightest pressure to her mouth with his own. But she must be kissing him back, because he’s responding to something, his lips pressing harder when he feels her reciprocating.

It’s only one kiss, one that he pulls back from slowly after a moment, their breaths mingling warmly in the small space he’s created. Neither of them makes a move, eyes hooded and noses brushing in his dark apartment as they try to make sense of this haze long enough to figure out if this has really just happened. If Hoseok’s really just kissed her on New Year’s Eve.

And then her phone is lighting up on the table, celebratory texts from her friends pouring in, and they turn at the same time to glance at the screen. 12:00am.

Hoseok turns back to her then, eyes searching hers for something -- he’s not really sure what it is, but when a shy smile starts to dance at the edges of her lips, he knows he’s found it.

“Happy New Year, Y/n.”

[ssscentral]

One More Time

Summary: Your touch was addictive, your scent intoxicating. He wants that back so badly, but he needs another chance. Just one more time.

pairing: Seokjin x female reader

rating: GA

genre: angst, mild fluff

warnings: pining, heartbreak, only mentions of sex, but everything very sfw

wc: 3k

member: Rid || @taegularities​

a/n: Hello! Back with the second fic in the Bouquet Collab series. Each one of us chose a flower and wrote a fanfic around the meaning of it! These were just 2 out of 6, so please look forward to many more awesome stories! I also want to thank my amazing betas @biaswreckme and @missgeniality, and further @birbdae for this wonderful banner!!!! 💕 And now let’s dive into the angst!

A single ray of sunshine illuminates the room.

Conveniently, it shines directly onto that one particular plant that stands in this whole apartment, still healthy and green as it refuses to die. Seokjin is fond of it, given the fact that it was you who had gifted him it many weeks ago.

You always used to say that his place is gloomy, grey, in urgent need of redecoration, so he could actually invite someone over and make them feel somewhat homely. After he’d declined all your offers due to laziness, you’d given up - except for the little present that you’d brought him that one significant day.

He remembers it so vividly, the memory still so painfully clear.

At that time, spring was just approaching, birds returning and beautiful flowers blooming. You were a sucker for nature and all its aspects - which was probably the exact reason for the distaste that you felt whenever you entered your friend’s apartment. His way of handling his place was dull, tasteless.

So, when you decided to surprise him with the odd choice of giving him an aloe plant as decoration and present, you weren’t expecting more than a pleasant evening that you’d spend together.

What you didn’t know was that he’d been a nervous wreck for days now, ripping out several strands of his hair before he’d finally decided to tell you the truth about what he caged in his mind. But when he saw you that day, wearing this beautiful sunflower dress, your hair in a bun with only two strands framing your angelic face, words failed him immediately.

Instead, he froze, eyebrows furrowing in fear of what you’d say or do if he confessed to you. And it didn’t take a lot from your side, no - one brush of your finger along his arm, an intense and loving gaze addressing only him, and a beautiful, mesmerizing smile were enough for him to snap before he pulled you in.

When you first felt his full lips on yours, you stared at the way his eyes closed, relishing in and welcoming the moment right away. You needed a second to comprehend what was happening, but once you understood, you felt yourself give in fast, the world becoming blurred and silent.

All you heard were the sweet words he uttered, all you saw was his glistening skin, and all you knew was that you wanted to bathe in this euphoria forever without ever having to let go.

But when you both found yourselves in each other’s arms, covered by nothing but his blanket, you still hadn’t addressed why this had happened and what it meant for you now.

Seokjin didn’t regret this - how could he, if it was with you? But the same old insecurity that plagued his heart and made his chest burn had eventually come back now. Despite having no real evidence or reason, he assumed that you didn’t want what he wanted - you’d never see him as more than a friend that you’d slept with in the heat of the moment.

In that sense, you’d woken up to a pressing awkwardness, him offering breakfast and coffee, but portraying distant nonchalance otherwise. And when you felt like none of this was going to go anywhere, you told him you had to go, finding some kind of excuse to leave.

Since then, an uncomfortable radio silence had found its way between you, and the only thing he had these days to remember you was the pink-orange flower that slowly bloomed on top of his desk.

Lying across the bed, Seokjin opens his eyes with a smile on his face, remembering how he’d looked at you in confusion when he’d first seen you standing at the threshold of his entry, smiling wide with Ally in your hands. Yes, you’d named the plant Ally - always one to give non-living things names.

Wrong.

Ally is very much alive. You’d made that clear that day. Plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen - yes, that’s what you’d lectured him with when he’d joked around. His apartment needs some freshness, you’d told him.

Now that he’s inhaling the air around him, it almost feels like he can smell Ally, which is total nonsense of course. He has honestly grown to love this small, spiky thing, especially after finding out the meaning behind it.

Affection.

Something he has felt for a long time now. Affection for the way you scrunch up your nose when you’re annoyed. Affection for the concentrated gaze you adopt when you’re reading a good book. Affection for your words, for the sound of your voice; he loves the sweet, honey-coated, soft tone that he swims in every time you speak.

Seokjin gets up, stretching his limbs and getting dressed when he looks at the clock, noticing that it’s time to go. There’s this boring gathering this evening, organized by some of your colleagues who thought it might be a good idea to come together and strengthen your bond as a student body or whatever.

The only reason he’s going is because he knows you’ll be there. He doesn’t care about getting himself drunk or talking about philosophical theories today - all he wants is to make right what he ruined back then. He just needs to tell you what words float inside his heart, hoping for you to reciprocate his feelings the way you’d responded to his kiss that night.

Gathering all this ardor for you, with only your name on his tongue, he closes his door behind him, summoning all the energy his body can deliver.

You’re easy to find in the small crowd. The room isn’t too filled, the atmosphere peaceful and pleasant when he steps in, running his hand through his soft, brown hair when he sees you. Breathing in and out in a steady rhythm, he approaches you, trying to mask his eagerness, hands pocketed to exude a relaxed demeanor.

When you finally notice the tall figure come closer, recognizing him as none other than the man you’re so in love with, your heart beats just a little faster and you tilt your head in wonder. After barely sparing you a glance in your classes, he has apparently finally decided to give you some attention.

Memories come crashing back; images of your last encounter flooding your mind as you press your tinted lips together, still feeling the phantom touch of his mouth on yours. He still looks the same, but his hair has gotten a little longer, almost covering his eyes entirely before he brushes the bangs away.

“Hey,” he greets, breathing in deep as he sits down in front of you, “long time no talk.”

You nearly counter with a sarcastic remark, but then contain yourself, only shooting him a breathtaking smile. “You’re right. Busy lives. How have you been doing, Jin?”

“Good!” he answers way too fast, clearing his voice before he continues. “I’m doing good. And you?”

“All good. Been writing some more lately.”

Seokjin nods as his eyes widen and his mouth forms an ‘O’, glad to hear that you’ve picked up your hobby of creating beautiful poetry again. He’s even read some of your poems, and you’re truly talented, working around words so easily as if they were his own heart.

“Oh, wow! I- um… I took care of Ally. Do you remember her?” he stumbles over his words, ears growing increasingly red. He’s such a dork and you can’t help but smile a little.

“That’s nice to hear. I bought one of these myself a few days ago. Reminded me of you.”

“That’s great! T-that’s…” What is he trying to say? There must be something that he had prepared, but for the life of his, he can’t remember anymore. All he knows at the sight of you is that he wants to grab you by your waist again, pull you in to press you against him. He wants to feel your lips, move against them in soft, then needy motions.

He just wants you as a whole, if not forever, then once.

Just one more time.

And when he sees you wait for him to speak, fumbling with your fingers with your eyes far away from his, he whispers the word “courage” to himself once before his hand reaches out to grab yours and settle on your palm.

Your gaze shifts to him immediately, his abrupt action causing confusion in you as your heart rate spikes up. But when you see the expression on his face, you feel like you know.

“Y/N, I- we… we need to talk,” he finally declares, his thumb gently ghosting over the skin of your hand, such a simple gesture sending shivers down your spine.

Yes, he doesn’t have to say much. You know what he wants to talk about; after all, there aren’t that many possibilities of what he could want at your first encounter after being somewhat estranged all this time.

“I’m not sure I want-”

“No, please,” he interrupts, squeezing your hand tighter in his. A few weeks ago, his warmth would’ve felt like a safe haven for you, pulling you out from the dark grounds of an ocean if it needed to - but right now, you feel like you’re drowning, like you’re sinking instead of swimming up. “There’s so much I’ve been wanting to tell you and there were so little opportunities to do so.”

Half-fearing, half-anticipating what he’s going to say, you search for the walls you’ve managed to pull up, accepting that Seokjin will never want you in that way. You think you’ve moved on, but now that he’s so close, on the brink of either confessing or rejecting you, you feel tense - and both options aren’t ideal for you right now.

You wait until he’s ready to talk, watch his chest rise and then fall, his eyes meeting yours, but looking like they’d rather not before-

“I’m in love with you,” he finally breathes - and as he mutters his last word, the air around you becomes suffocating, the sounds muffled and his touch heavy.

Is that better than being rejected? You don’t know. You really do not know; and the shake of your head and furrow of your eyebrows show him that something is plaguing you that he might not want to hear.

“Y/N.” His tone is calm, steady, different from your hazardous heart that’s breaking right in front of him, and he doesn’t even see it.

“Why did you not tell me that back then, Jin?” you inquire, pulling your hand away and settling it on your lap. “We slept together. Why did you let me go?”

This… this is awkward. It’s ridiculous. Seokjin shouldn’t have decided to talk about this in a crowd, surrounded by people who know nothing about what’s going on between you two. But now that he did, his heart sinks, his mind in a painful fog, and he puffs out some air, calming himself.

“Let’s leave,” he suddenly suggests, and you think you can see the faintest glint of panic in his dark eyes, “clear it out somewhere else. At my place?”

Again, you shake your head, chuckling lightly but not decently. “I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t. There’s someone…”

Jin is quick to cut you once again, his breathing suddenly erratic. He’s been in love with you for years - no, he can’t take the thought of you having a boyfriend now, choosing someone over him. “Someone else? This fast? Y/N, why did I never-”

He stops mid-sentence, and it happens just timely as you were going to hold out a hand to silence him anyway.

“Jin. Listen,” you start, leaning in closer, “there’s someone who offered to guide me through a scholarship. Not here - in a different city. And as much as I’ve always wanted you, I can’t do long-distance relationships.”

Your words ease the pain inside him, his mind suddenly relaxing as he takes in your confession. You want him. You’ve always wanted him. Is all of this real?

“Where- where are you going?”

“It’s too far away. I wouldn’t see you more than a handful of times a year. I can’t do this,” you admit, your eyes stinging as you swallow the lump in your throat.

You see him tilt his head with a sigh, and you’re on the verge of breaking when you see his mouth twitch, that familiar movement that mostly means despair. This always happens when his grades are worse than he expects. It happens when he talks to his little brother who lives miles away. Mostly, you see it when you watch - or used to watch - movies together, especially Pixar and Ghibli ones tearing him up in no time.

And now, it’s happening because of you.

“Is there no way for you to stay?”

You bite your lip, chewing on it until you taste your lipstick. “I don’t think so. And it’s… a big chance for me.”

Seokjin’s jaw clenches and he nods, relief turning into sorrow as his expression shows understanding on the surface while his blood is boiling with pain on the inside. He’s angry with himself - he truly is. But he’s also sad about the fact that you never approached him.

And while waiting for the other in silence, phones in your hands, but the courage to message each other so far away, you missed it. You both missed it and he hates it.

“Then I hope you’ll get everything you want, Y/N,” he finally says, standing up as he grabs his thin jacket. It’s probably not that fresh outside yet, he can carry it - maybe hide his fumbling hands that clearly show his nervosity and distaste to this whole situation.

All he can think of is to get away before he breaks.

Yet, he comes closer to you, hovering above you before he leans down. Not caring about your surroundings, only seeing you, his heart only beating for you, he presses his lips onto your forehead first, wanders to your nose, both your cheeks and your earlobes as he says in between each kiss, “whenever… you decide… to come back… I’ll be here…”

Then, he cups your face, looking at your beautiful, full lips, missing how they feel on his before he kisses you gently. His mouth moves delicately, sweetly against yours, bittersweet memories and feelings streaming back as you internally forbid yourself to cry.

“Waiting for you,” he finally whispers, lips brushing yours, and every fiber in you tries hard to hold back. To not pull him into another room, kiss him more fiercely and bring back the fervent heat that you’d indulged in the last time.

His thumb brushes your cheeks softly, his eyes registering you gulping hard as he says his goodbyes, so he can leave. There’s just no way he can stay here any longer. “Don’t cry. I’ll be here, sweetheart.”

And then, his warmth is gone.

Fighting the urge to follow him, you watch him walk away, mind going crazy as you see him face the ground. You can’t falter. You need to focus on your studies before anything else - you don’t want to regret your choices; and if what he says holds true, you might just be able to wrap him into you forever when you come back in a year or two.

Maybe it’s not over yet.

The sun has set by the time Seokjin arrives home. All the sunshine from today morning has vanished, warming someone else, somewhere else now, leaving him in the dark as he lets himself fall on his bed.

An absolute disaster, all of this. And what an idiot he is. Why did he not insist on inviting you over? Ask you if there was any way you’d spend this one last night with him? The lingering feelings of your soft lips strengthen his despair tenfold, and he hates himself for not fighting for a night or a day with you. After all, you’re not going away just yet.

But deep down he knows why he did what he did: being together again would just hurt you both further, the small flame that both of your pain is becoming a searing wildfire. At least he knows for sure that this is what would happen to him. He knows it’d be near impossible to let you go if he woke up beside you.

What if Seokjin searches for scholarships, too? Your grades are similar - if you can get one, why not him? The picture of having you around, falling asleep next to you, studying together and bantering over food and movies - it’s so intriguing that he knows what he’ll search up tomorrow. 

Then again, you have your people; he doesn’t know anyone who can guide him through this, give him a fast opportunity to study somewhere else, be near you.

He doesn’t know. Not how to get you back, not how to feel you again; his brain comes up with nothing helpful, no plan he can actually execute successfully.

Slipping out of his pants, he lingers at the corner of the bed, his arms leaning on his thighs as his fingers tangle between them. Seokjin shakes his head as he physically feels his heart break, each broken piece fighting the other and torturing him, no matter how much he tells them to calm down.

And despite not knowing what to do, what to feel, how to erase the image of you and your face from his mind for the time being, he remembers something else.

When he’d looked for the meaning of the aloe plant, he had found many sources, some beautiful descriptions, and some poetic definitions that connected it to an emotional feeling. While the flower holds the meaning of affection, the memory of another word comes flooding in, ironic to the fact that aloe is supposed to heal, used to mend injuries and pain.

And thinking of this particular word, all he does know at this agonizing moment is that he identifies with your plant’s meaning.

He knows that all he feels is grief.

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[worldsover]

Judgement to the Desiccated ft. Karina

length ✦ 5573

genres ✧ sm type future; asphyxiation; blackmail; virtual_servant!Karina;

✦✧✦✧✦✧

Air did a poor job of not being polluted so Lee Soo Man flooded the world instead. The man himself certainly must be long gone and could not have been in charge of that decision but the legacy of his company far exceeds the legacy of any other human collective in history. Once on this planet, gas was the fluid of choice for respiration and breathing was an unconscious reflex. Now there’s Aether by SM. How very on-brand of them to have the liquid air you breathe follow perfume naming conventions.

Open your eyes and exit the sleeping chamber. Aether has you work for each inhalation, it desaturates the color of the bedroom—maybe there’s a subtle but uncomfortable tinge of yellow—and it makes your nose itch. Your muscles wield much less force than they used to because of the lack of resistance the fluid provides. Moreover, it smells like hairspray as though the ozone layer is taking sardonic revenge.

Screens impersonating windows track your eyes to ensure realistic parallax, playing the scene of divine blue heavens that could not exist. An azure sky is a reward for those planets that have an atmosphere and a sun for light to scatter. Your walls are either chrome or drywall white and your whole bedroom is plainly decorated just like the day you moved in.

“Etymology of bedroom,” you think out loud, though it falls on no ears.

“Bedroom is a compound noun consisting of bed and room. Bed goes back to Old English bedd ‘sleeping place, plot of ground prepared for plants,’ which goes back to the Germanic-”

Plants and sleep are both strong words to use nowadays. The former doesn’t exist in nature and it seems you’re the only one who bothers with the latter. Faint buzzing distracts you from the AI’s response and signals you to the nano drones that swim throughout the liquid to process carbon dioxide from your lungs. This whole ordeal could’ve been much worse if you didn’t have brain interfaces doing the hard part of controlling your diaphragm. The most you need is a purposeful thought. Still, it gets tiring having to think the same thought every three seconds. In. Out.

Was the metaphorical Soo Man teaching a lesson in perseverance? You love K-pop and imagine it’s how trainees used to practice dancing, singing, being charismatic. Being an idol had to be as natural as breathing air. Inhale and exhale. Right now with any antiquated programming language you clung on to, you could write a single for loop that did the same job. For every three seconds: breathe in, breathe out.

“What’s for breakfast today?” Not loud enough. “What’s for breakfast?” you think it louder.

“Welcome, master. Ae-Karina is ready for service.” It’s quite a kindness for SM to blur the bland dystopia you live in by augmenting reality through your neural device. A bosomy woman in a gold-lined but otherwise modest maid outfit appears from the corner of your eye and she bows. Ae-Karina is bewitching and almost becoming of her basis as its graphics have gradually upgraded over the rotations but you wouldn’t misconstrue the avatar as human.

“I said, what’s for breakfast!” It feels impolite to scream in your head, there’s other residents there, but finally the fridge lights up.

“Of course master. May I remind you eating is unnecessary?”

In. Out. Every day, she does remind you, yes. How kind of the company to put all your nutritional requirements in the new air. Aether goes in then Aether goes out. You wish the thoughts of breathing could fade into the background but they’re just like your cravings for food. Always hungry but never starving, whole though not once satisfied. Your eyes pause at her gorgeous face and she tells you there’s bacon. Take it from your fridge. Bacon goes in. Well, the drones take care of the out.

Your assigned living space is the entire 207th floor of a tower. Two hundred and seven floors below the surface. The neighbor a few floors upstairs says that he thinks living deeper is a sign of status. What a luxury. That guy should check the status of his facial muscles, maybe improve his code that lets him tell lies while he’s at it. A couple hundred flights of stairs to swim up is a useless skeuomorphism of skyscrapers in the days of the sun. In fact they were more than useless, you would've preferred a single vertical hallway as it would have let you propel upwards unimpeded. Each floor is the exact same, a glass door that affords no privacy for its residence, a false tree on each side. At the upper levels, malls, convenience stores and other gaudy retail, but it’s the gyms that mock you that you mock in return. They’re always empty.

Finally reaching the top is no true break even if it is a change in scenery. Inhale. Aether tastes a little different up here. Exhale. Can’t say you like it.

Countless satellites form a parody of the star from which the planet flew away, the false image refracted by the upper boundary of Aether. They can’t take away your memories of this star. Looking up at the sky once blinded you with ultraviolet radiation, burning your cornea. It was beautiful. Now everyone’s decided that if they’re playing the part of corporate dystopia, they might as well fit the aesthetic. In a way, it’s self-fulfilling. They wouldn’t have chosen a neon pink sun to compliment the blue and metallic gloom of the cityscape if it weren’t so ingrained in popular media already.

Still, you would’ve expected Google or Walmart to become the megacorp responsible for the state of the world, not a Korean entertainment company. Must’ve been quite the red paperclip scenario. Instead of material design or utilitarian architecture, tacky artistic structures line the streets. The same advertisements for albums that they’ve been selling for the past however long. It's all so obvious, the city could've been designed from scratch to accommodate new forms of travel and goddamn liquid air but instead they went with futuristic Tokyo.

Dubstep permeates your inner ear implants. A notification informs your thoughts that it’s “Hip-hop EDM dance pop with a strong jungle house groove and urban influences.” It’s dubstep. Liquid carries barely any sound so SM affords the option for implants if you're nostalgic for one of the senses. Even though it’s a slower form of communication than direct neural transfer, the noise comforts you. Of course the company would choose dubstep as their background music, but maybe they make money off refunds somehow. It switches to Ice Cream Cake. Much better.

You walk the not so busy roads towards a short brick warehouse in the distance and heavy rain soaks your clothes. No such thing as weather without the sun and water but it’s all simulated anyway.

A warm Seulgi adlib and you know it’s Psycho that starts playing. No, none of your senses are real. The most you could trust is your vision but even that’s being lied to. You could be living in a vat and fed all these thoughts, but then why make it so mediocre? Not paradise, nor torture but a lukewarm in-between. Guess that's what happens when SM Entertainment manages the post-apocalypse. Good on them for trying. The alternative would be a frozen hellscape without solar radiation. Can’t deny their work with geothermal and nuclear energy to keep the Aether warm so that you didn’t have to live underground for the rest of human history. It’s quite great PR to save humanity.

“Hey now, we’ll be okay,” repeats a few more times than you remember.

The Idea Factory Alpha White Delta Green says the neon tubes lighting the front of the brick and mortar building. Your ID card bears a name but it’s not yours, not until they approve your name change. Those usually get processed faster with how often people liked changing their names.

Sit at a desk with a sterile white keyboard and slick new monitor. Type and empty words appear on the screen: “Think for the many, not for the one. We need to think ahead.” A thumbs up. The company appreciates the input. That’s probably enough work for one day. Some SNSD live stages help the time pass, SM certainly appreciated the streaming numbers and it would net you some social points.

It’s hard to say what comes to mind when they ask you to envision a world without the sun and air, especially since it’s what you’ve known for... Two hundred years? There’s no frame of reference, that much you can tell from when you counted seconds to see how often the satellites completed their orbit. SM really took time to have them propel at random speeds, they love withholding sensitive information like that from citizens. To be fair, time is sensitive. Guess the meaning of that phrase changes like all parts of language.

Look around. Dozens of employees at identical workspaces all try to answer the same questions. Naturally, there’s no need for manual labor anymore but there will never be a replacement for human ingenuity. Nice slogan but you know you’re only here for data. Can’t see a need for customer retention though—what’s the alternative, skip Earth? See you on another planet?

“Hey bro, you come up with anything new?” Dave says. Two desks away, you see the enthusiastic, surprisingly spry man play around with a Newton’s cradle. The balls at each end bounce back and forth, not slowing down their rhythm any time soon.

“I think I got something,” you say, “Earth is not the answer. It can’t be, long term.”

“Ooh, I like that. Actually, I really like that.”

“What are you gonna do, copy me?”

“Of course not. You know how much SM hates plagiarism.” Click. Clack.

“Ha. As if there’s a single original thought left in the world.” Click. Clack. The imaginary sounds of metal spheres bouncing play in your mind. They got the volume wrong, no way it’d sound that loud from that distance. “You’d think with all their resources, they’d have figured out space travel by now.”

“I don’t think they want to leave, bro. Wouldn’t be great for profits.”

Your mouth opens to laugh and causes laugh8942.mp3 to play in Dave’s head. “I love it. SM probably hates that sass too,” you say.

“Oh no, they’re gonna arrest me for thoughtcrimes. Nah, they love creativity, just when it suits them. Also, if they actually did bust you for wrongthink like rumors say, I wouldn’t have this on me.” Dave twirls a finger and points at you and you thank his absurd flair for the histrionic that keeps you amused with such drab work.

“NewDrug.mp6. Would you like to play it?” the dry system voice notifies you.

“Woah woah there tiger, hold on.” Dave must’ve noticed your intrigued eyes and holds his hands up. “You might wanna experience that at home. But if you’re interested in more, ask for chicken parm at the vegan place. You know the one.”

Dave leaves his desk. He doesn’t return. You finish your work. Inspire. Expire. You’d rather not.

In contrast to your commute to work, the roads fill with others on your way home. You have to know. Take solace in the comfort of a bench where a huge McDonald’s arch bathes the surroundings and its people with a yellow glow. Really shouldn’t watch it now, especially if Dave says it’s a home type of watch but you have to know. A family of five watches you pass out. They, along with every other passerby, ignore your still body draped over the chrome outdoor seating as you look like yet another junkie. The title is correct after a fashion, the simulation is some sort of new drug. The details of the exploits that happen in the immersive replay wash over you but you don’t need them to know that it’s the sort of lewd that SM would not allow—at least not publicly and not without the right exorbitant payment.

Suit pants and underwear go straight to the laundry. That must’ve been an embarrassing sight but no one bothered to stop you, so it doesn’t matter. Look up where this vegan place was that Dave so presumptuously assumed you knew about and you find that it’s about four Avengers’ stores down from work. He must’ve eaten there before.

“Yo Dave, just wanna make sure, what’s the name of the vegan place called?”

“What are you talking about, man? You telling me there’s some secret underground farms that SM wouldn’t know about?”

You can’t tell when you got to work, a lack of standardized timing would help as well the haze of living in a monotonous dark. “Nah, I mean, for the-”

“I have no idea,” Dave emphasizes each word, “what you’re talking about.”

“I see.”

Work flies by, unusually.

“Hey, can I get a chicken-”

“Uh, this is Maron’s Veggies Only, it clearly says on the sign.”

Clear your throat. “Parm.”

The shifty part-time worker looks around and rubs his fingers gesturing for money. “No digital.”

Over the counter, you pass him a gold coin stamped with a holographic 1 and he hands you a USB stick and a laptop in return. How old-fashioned.

“It’ll sync with whoever you have set as your avatar experience aspect,” the worker says.

“Thanks.”

Ever vigilant as the patrol is, the alleys are the last place you want to go to hide with the obvious criminal element within them all but you head to one anyway. Dump the anachronistic technology in your storage pocket dimensions. Looking at its contents, you’d have to clean that mess up later, but the more you look like an average slob the better. The biggest problem with the inventories is all the people squatting in them. Inspectors wouldn’t care about the archaic ruins you left in yours.

“Welcome, master. Ae-Karina is ready to service.”

“I’d like to go on a date. A special date.” You highlight the key word special and sit on your living room couch. No one’s going to look in your glass door and regardless, you wouldn’t be the pervert for glimpsing into someone’s home.

“Ah yes, master. Ae-Karina is ready to fully service,” she says with a provocative tint in her tone, her sclera disperses to black to match. A pole drops from the ceiling while parts of her maid outfit dissolve which reveals more of the silky skin of her thighs, her lissom arms and most importantly her overflowing breasts. Ae-Karina wraps her legs around the pole and spins around, teasing fingers trace curves on her body to harden you. Her dance is precise but sultry regardless. She pulls up her short skirt to flaunt more of her ass beneath white panties and then pulls down to flourish her cleavage, not trapped by a bra. “Are you enjoying your maid’s show?”

“Very much so, yes,” you say.

Half of a smile forms before a glitch occurs and she teleports next to you, fully nude. It doesn’t pull you out of the illusion however. You just stare and drink in the splendor of her created body.

“You’re not going to touch?” Ae-Karina says.

A feel of her tits and you find it softer than pillows you used to rest on. Soft isn’t much of a character that exists anymore when the whole world is engulfed in liquid. No one has beds, especially with the rarity of sleep. Therefore, her mounds are a consummate dedication to the texture as you squeeze and pinch at her cute nipples.

Her maid outfit rematerializes as she straddles you. It provides more friction to your pants as she begins her lap dance. The weight of her body dragging across your legs and clothed erection induces your carnal impulses further. If only you could fuck the virtual idol. You have to make do with the imprint of her pussy lips on your bulge sliding up and down. Breath in. Breath out.

Ae-Karina pulls down your boxers and spits on your erection. It's not real but her hands so slick on your cock and you let reality slip. Real is for the past, you have desires gratified in the present. There is no real person nibbling at your neck but your nerves activate in sexual desire without discernment for truth. No, she doesn't love you, but when the voracious mass of ones and zeroes says it loves its master, you say it back.

"I love you."

ILOVEYOU infected ten million computers in 2000. An explosion. Calibration engaging. It’s 1:21 PM, Sunday, July 18, 2286 and hypothetically the sun would be out in its full rage. At this latitude and longitude, you’re at what was once the epicenter of all—Seoul, where a fountain caused a chain reaction allowing the hopeful remnant of a world to exist. It lasted a surprisingly long time without the sun and without Aether but the dying planet would succumb inevitably to the ever-increasing contamination so SM of all corporations took charge. A different kind of chain reaction occurred when they acquired a restaurant chain that discovered the recipe for liquid air. The law is on its way and prepared to punish you to its full extent.

You reel while your ears ring. An even sexier version of the woman you already fantasized about appears from your peripheral vision in the crater of your floor. A skimpy cop outfit, striated with reflective material that seems to wane black at different angles, outlines Karina’s curves. She has a tool belt with absurd gadgets, such as a knife baton hybrid, a taser combined with a spray bottle and a Tamagotchi. None of this is necessary. They could just immediately arrest you, impose limitations on your devices. Sure, SM cloned people to deal with underpopulation, but why Karina would be the enforcer is a whole nother issue. Maybe the entertainment company loves their irony?

“Halt. You’re under arrest. Any resistance will be penalized according to the combined Terms of Service of all SM and SM associated products.”

Fucked anyway, you figure you might as well go for it. Escape into your inventory and only seconds later you’re forced out. You manage to get what you need regardless.

“Violation of access rights will be charged to your account.”

It’s so obvious but there’s a reason you kept so much gold in physical storage. As you swim away, the sides of your apartment start to bubble. Bubbles? Already, your limbs feel unsteady. Something’s wrong in the Aether.

“This is standard procedure for escaping suspects that are indoors. Again, this is all agreed to under the Terms of Service.”

“When the fuck did I ever click accept to that shit?”

“When you were born in this world and decided you want to stay in it,” Karina says out loud. You hear her say it. Your physical ears process the vibrations in the air that come from her mouth. Gravity thwarts your desperate escape as your limp body floats on the limit between liquid and air. The atrophy of your muscles becomes apparent within the gaseous atmosphere. She watches you sink down as the room drains of all the false air though her eyebrows crease when she inspects you closer. Your breaths are involuntary. Despite your muscles shorting out, the force of gravity and the pressure of the gas bearing down on you, you’re breathing and you don’t mean to. Her eyes wander farther down. On your pants, a concrete rod stamps the fabric.

“Oh, you like what you see?”

“Shut up, criminal. Anything you say can and will be used against you.”

“Your pussy,” you say and she scoffs.

“Original.” Karina bites her lip as your erection continues to grow behind its prison. You use all effort to put your hands up.

“Please, miss Karina. I’ve been bad.”

“I could punish you even more for sexual assault.”

“Then do it.”

Heat radiates the room in a way you haven’t felt in a while and droplets of sweat form on each of your bodies, especially on the thighs that her revealing outfit parades. Her facial features contort in deliberation and the wait kills you. You bat your eyes at her before Karina takes off her tight shorts and drops herself into your anticipatory face. This makes no sense but none of this life made any sense so you decide to go with the tides.

Centuries of training your respiration has led to this moment, but when you finally have real air to breathe, you spit at the opportunity and choose to suffocate. Then you spit at her pussy and lap it up. Karina’s nectar transfixes your olfactory glands, for once a smell that isn’t the sterile Aether. Your eyes are mesmerized in parallel because of the perfect design of her pussy, a single crease that leads into her hole that your tongue emphatically explores. Karina spreads her thighs wide to reveal a small nub that craves attention. So give it. Suck and swirl and flick your tongue, and the woman provides you the tight clench of her legs as a gift. And the sounds, rediscovered glorious noise. Loud, almost too loud, and clear is how they assault your ears, even surrounded by the flesh of her thighs. Muffled by the weight of her legs, you hear Karina moan in approval but she’s still clearly in charge with how she chokes you with her legs. This is not about your pleasure but hers, and any satisfaction that you derive is not only incidental but probably punishable by SM copyright law.

Karina squirms her hips subtly on your mouth. Her eyes are sharp and she’s just about to stop your hands from moving but she notices them clasp together.

“I’ll do anything to make you cum, please.” you say sloppily as her pussy juices fill your cheeks and drip down your chin.

“God. I can’t.” She takes deep, contemplative breaths. ”That’s more time added on for inappropriate behavior.” Her groaning and brief squeals make her words sound incogent.

You give her a concluding lick and a kiss on her slit. “So what have you been doing right now then?”

Point to a corner of the room and a subtle red light indicates a recording camera. At once, she pulls out a hose from a pocket that could not fit it and the vacuum submerges the room with noise. Her expression shifts quickly to serious.

“We don’t play games here in SMTOWN unless it’s SuperStar so don’t fuck with me.”

“Look who's trying to be a comedian. How about you fuck with me any further and the video gets released.”

“That’s funny, you think you have any sort of power-”

“Yoo Jimin, I suggest you don’t push me more.”

“Where do you know that name from? Right now.” She weighs herself down on your neck.

“You think I don’t have contingencies for if I die too? Karina, we can make this a  win-win scenario. We both get to cum, we both get to walk away unscathed.”

“Fuck you.”

Your weak arms wander between her thighs. At any moment, a feeble punch towards your face or another ten seconds of asphyxiation and she could call your bluff. Even if you did have the ability to expose her perversions in any way, there would be no permanent recourse, not as long SM was in charge. So it surprises you when Karina takes off her shorts. 

“Goddammit. Your cock just looks too good. And your mouth, how are you so good with it?” Put up five fingers when she motions to remove her top as well, and instead she opts to take off your clothes, seizing your pants and throwing them to join the rubble in the room.

A finger slips in, then two and a third dares. Her flawlessly architected pussy lips clings to your digits and Karina shudders in reply. You explore her wetness and find it’s smooth to the point of having no faults, but her juice inside is gloppy and causes your fingers to stick more than the liquids she spills from her slit.

“Who said you’re allowed to have more?”

You lap up the nectar on your fingers. “Then why’d they make you taste so good?”

Your thumb teases her sweet tight asshole and puts just the slightest amount of pressure on it while you finger her with more intensity. The mass of her butt burdens your torso the closer she gets to orgasm. Her eyelids squeeze close and you see her body ripple in anxious pleasure. Karina shows off her pearly whites, teetering on the cliff of hysteria.

“Yes, yes! I’m so close,” she screams.

"Not yet."

“Fuck." Karina sobs, "God. Damn, fuck I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just fuck me.”

“My pleasure,” you say. There’s no need for you to grab her since she brings herself down to your groin, which you’re thankful for as your arms are as good as jelly now. Fortunately, your cock throbs as hard as ever while Karina’s slit rests on it.

“Say you’ll delete it all, all the evidence, promise me.”

“You’re gonna fuck me first or what?” Your breath hitches while she makes a strangled noise as her velvety walls swallow your cock whole to leave no room for comfort. Her tightness is stifling and you have to start counting just to breathe again.

“One two-”

“Be quiet.”

But there is no quiet when pleas for your cooperation intersperse her excessive profanities when she seats herself into your cock and ricochets up and down. Sweat emanates from her creamy skin while her legs widen to find a better angle for her supporting knees in her cowgirl position. Grapefruit and other citrus mingle with the scent of the sweat, fruits you haven’t seen except on billboards in music videos. As much as your mind crackles and your blood roars for every atmosphere of pressure Karina’s walls provide on each thrust in and out, you can’t help but reminisce on sweeter, more innocent times.

The white fluorescent lights in your apartment sputter. For all the advancements in technology, some among many things never change. Light refracts differently in air, less bright, but you can see the pure enjoyment on Karina’s face no matter the luminescence. Karina slows her ride to pull her hips down harder instead and she jolts when your cock finds the most tender spots inside her pussy and it interrupts her babbling.

Karina almost hyperventilates when she gets up to spit on your cock. She pulls out some kind of meter from her tool belt and sighs when there’s no beeping and you recognize it having to do with carbon dioxide. She gets back to dribbling saliva and the filament trailing down to your shaft mesmerizes you. This spit is real, not simulated, and it wettens your erection in a mix with her pussy juices to paralyze you further in your already listless state. Her bare thighs jiggle and you can’t exert much force with your hands but her buttcheeks are firm with just a bit of give.

“Thank you for this cock, thank you for being bad,” Karina says as you watch her ass sink deeper while her pussy holds your dick taut. She’s frenetic when bounces up and down to play an unadulterated orchestra of slick noises between your groins.

“You’re welcome,” you accomplish getting out the words between planned breaths. Your hands cup her buttcheeks but you fear they may break with how she strikes her ass into you.

Karina turns around once more to give you the spectacle of her facial expressions as she fucks herself into you. Knead her calves laying on your torso and they take no energy to spread them though she brings them back together, compressing your hard shaft within her pussy. A new game you play with her, a separate rhythm of loosening and tightening. Her feet press on your chest to help her bounce, but the way they bear down on your lungs against the timing of your breathing causes you to fumble. Your cock bends straight forward as she plunges herself into you and it sends prickles to your entire skin, making the new angle difficult but worth it. Karina takes your hand and starts sucking on your fingers.

“You want my promise that bad?” you say.

“Yes, as bad as I want your cum. I swear, I need it.”

She draws her knees up to her torso and hugs her legs to keep thighs as tight together as possible. Karina couldn’t keep her word, she was trying to kill your cock with constriction.

“Fuck, your pussy is so fucking tight. God, Karina, fuck. You’re so good.” Even if good isn’t the word you want to use to describe her.

“Do it, please, please. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, baby. Karina can be a good girl, a good maid, a good cop, whatever you want. Just don’t get me in trouble, please.”

Karina’s mouth stops saying words though her lips writhe, drunk in increasing lust. Her cheeks flush, before the rest of her skin joins in redness while she grapples your chest and whatever spare limb she can find. You still struggle wresting control of your body but nature seems to take over when you drive yourself into her and match her needy cadence. The air in the room is replaced by a new air but it isn’t Aether. Passion, sweat, heat and all fluids that you both exude join squelching sounds, slaps and moans in harmonic bliss when her body tenses and she screams. As her body tightens, her pussy especially holds your cock for dear life and endeavours to wring out all your semen as her wetness throbs and spills. Karina starts counting to three repeatedly and you laugh though your amusement quickly subsides when you feel her juices become more viscous and she continues her ride, even in the dying pulses of her climax.

“Was I good?” Karina asks.

Just a moment goes by before you mentally send her a screenshot of all the recordings being deleted. Karina hasn’t stopped fucking you yet so at least it wasn’t a ploy.

“Thank you, thank you, I love you.” The flexion of her pliant legs brings them all the way back to rest on top of your legs. Karina lays prone above you and finally give you a kiss. The citrusy flavor may be closer to lime than grapefruit but it’s been so long that you can’t remember which scent is which. Lips crash and her tongue lashes out at yours trying to establish dominance. Keep still to let her investigate your mouth while her pussy does the same to your shaft.

You savor the way Karina’s top emphasizes the bouncing of her tits synchronous with the rebounding of her waist on your cock, but your mouth waters when she frees them. Take the shortest moment to relish in the sight before Karina smothers you with her plump globes. You wriggle your face to try to breathe. Inhale, up and exhale, down, but all you inhale is the scent of her orbs’ sweat. Her hips undulate with a pace at least double yours breathing and the echoes of slapping flesh resonate throughout the air-filled chamber. The loudness is unlike any you’ve experienced in a long time. It’s almost a flashbang every time her ass slams into your lap, especially as you start to see white when orgasm threatens to overload you with preludial pulses.

The last words you hear infected ten million computers in 2000. Fade to black. Cut. You’re slammed out of existence back into existence as a sun rebirths both within you, heating your core to a dangerous high, and from your eyes, dazzling you in an unforgiving white light. In the throes of unconsciousness relapsing to consciousness back to tenebrosity, your streaks of semen suspend in the Aether like a dead tree resting from the wind. What flashes your mind in its orgasmic state are two things only you would remember, plants and weather. Your hyperventilation is unconscious but not unwelcome, as it’s the first time in a while your breaths were reflexive even in the liquid air. However, basking in your newfound power, you start to choke. Right. You breathe in and out again. In and out. In. Out. In. Out. Back in.

“Replaying KarinaArrestsYou.mp6.” A hint of vexatious glee in the system’s otherwise dry voice. You don’t stop for it.

✦✧✦✧✦✧ 

AFF, AO3

It’s pretty silly but the idea danced around in my head ever since I saw the absolute Black Mirror concept that SM had for aespa and I concur that Karina is insanely hot.

As I’m writing this, this Kurzgesagt video on the idea of a rogue Earth comes out and now I have to rewrite stuff to make it at least a little consistent. I’m obviously already going nuts with all these ridiculous sci-fi concepts but this video almost feels too targeted to me writing this for me to ignore it.

[winterscaptain]

balancing out.

Aaron Hotchner x Fem!Reader a joyful future fic

a/n: thank you all for your patience this week! i hope you enjoy this one - a few of you have been asking for mom’s route 66 moment. here it is! i’ve got some really fun graphics comin out this weekend, so keep an eye out!

words: 3k warnings: canon typical mentions of injury and death, language

summary: “accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.” ― marcus aurelius, meditations. au!january 2021

masterlist | a joyful future masterlist | ajf faq | requests closed!

Haley’s sitting next to you when you snap to, sitting on a bench in a park. The same park, in fact, down the block from the apartment where you first lived with Aaron and Jack in 2012. 

This is the park where Jack learned to play soccer…

You have a feeling that something terrible has happened, that something isn’t right. 

“Don’t worry about that, right now,” Haley says, startling you a little. “You’re safe.” 

You look at her, finding her surprisingly aged in the time since you last saw her. “Haley? It really is you, isn’t it?”

She smiles at you. “Glad you can still recognize an angel when you see one.” There’s something behind her voice, the glints of her offbeat sense of humor you love so much. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” you snort. “You’re not an angel.” 

She shrugs with a wry smile. “Maybe not, but then again, maybe none of us are.” 

You take a moment to look around, finding the park exactly the same as you left it. Except, you note, you’re the only people there. The playground rests empty of children, curious dogs are absent from the grounds, couples lounging in the grass are nowhere to be found.

Why here? Why now?

All at once, the memory rushes over you. 

“Aaron,” you say, struggling for breath. You cough, and something wet crawls up your throat, making you cough again. Something dark lands in spatters across Aaron’s face and the collar of his shirt. You feel the compulsion to brush it away, but one of your arms feels leaden, trapped. 

He’s crying. And talking. 

“Hang on, baby. Hang on. I’m here.”

All you can say is his name, over and over, as you reach for him with the arm . There’s blood on your hands and part of you realizes you’re dying, probably. 

“What happened?” You hear yourself sputter. 

Aaron shushes you, brushing a shaky hand over your forehead. “It’s okay. You’re fine. You’re going to be okay. I love you. I’m here. You’re gonna be just fine.”

It sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself rather than you. You don’t mind. 

Everything goes dark. 

“Haley…” You look over at her again and she grabs your arm, stemming your panic. 

She shushes you once, short. “You’re fine.” 

Tears pool in your eyes before falling down your cheeks. “I don’t want to die. I’m not ready to go. Aaron, the kids, they - ” 

“You’re not going to die,” she assures you, standing and holding her hand out to you. “You’re just spending some time with me for a little while. Is that okay?” 

Her small, concerned frown warms you, and you know she’s actually asking. There’s a kind of understanding that she’ll just go away and you’ll be left in the darkness if that’s what you want. 

It’s not. 

“Yeah,” you reply. “That’s okay.” 

“Good.” Her face brightens and you stand. She tucks your hand into the crook of her arm and the two of you begin to walk, the landscape transforming around you. 

It doesn't make a lot of sense. You seem to walk through the park, then the apartment where you lived when Isaac was a baby, then the new house in Woodbridge with the twins, then the bullpen, all the way down the block to a house you recognize as Aaron and Haley’s - the big house they bought when they moved to D.C. in ‘98. 

The house where she died. 

“I have a couple people who really want to see you,” she says, by way of explanation. “I figured it would be easiest to meet here.” 

You step up to the porch and into the house, removing your shoes out of habit. There’s no trace of the blood or broken glass from the Foyet altercation. Everything seems in place, right down to Jack’s army men neatly arranged on the living room coffee table. 

It even smells the same - the light, floral smell of Haley’s perfume and something you can only describe as Aaron winds through the house, making it feel more lived-in than any time you’d been inside it after the divorce. 

“Momma!” A little girl with dark hair streaks across the room and throws herself into your arms. 

You catch her and bring her close. She’s probably six years old, maybe a little younger. When she leans back to look at you, you’re met with Aaron’s eyes. 

The recognition is immediate and you grin at her. “Hi, baby girl.” 

She smiles back at you, a mirror image. “Auntie Haley told me you’d come to visit.” 

“Did she?” You look over at Haley, whose fondness for your daughter is open and obvious. 

It’s only fair - my fondness for her son knows no bounds. 

“Yep. Gramma’s here, too.” 

You look around, your baby girl tucking into your chest as best she can given her size. Evelyn steps in from the back porch, closes the sliding door behind her, a glass of wine in her hand just like it would be in life, and smiles at you. 

“Good afternoon, sweetheart,” she says, crossing the room to embrace you and press a kiss to your cheek. She and Haley look about the same age, maybe forty or forty-five. Her resemblance to Sean is more obvious in her youth, but Aaron’s still her own personal carbon copy. 

You relax into her arms, your daughter squished between your bodies. “Hi, Mom.” On the first inhale, the smell of her detergent washes over you and tears spring into your eyes again. “I miss you.” 

She laughs, leaning back to place one hand on your cheek and the other on your daughter’s shoulder. “I miss you, too. How are those girls? And my sweet boys?”

The thought of your family makes you smile and you attempt to push away the fear of leaving them…

Of leaving Aaron a widower again…

Stop. 

“They’re perfect.” 

Haley huffs from beside you. “Ev, can you please tell someone stubborn that dying isn’t an option here? At least, not right now?”

Evelyn smiles at you. “You’re not going to die, sweetheart. This is just a stopover point so you’re not alone. Aaron had one too, when he was in surgery a few years ago.” 

“He told me,” you say, feeling a little more confident. “He told me he talked to Haley.”

“Yeah and I reminded him it’s a good idea to pull his head out of his ass every once in a while.” 

You look over at her. “Thanks for that.” 

She snorts. “I thought he’d never ask you. It was the least I could do.” 

+++

Eventually, you end up on the back porch, sitting in the lawn chairs with the other Hotchner women. Time seems to move differently here, the golden light of the evening hours stretches far beyond what you’re used to, but it's nice. It’s not cold, not too warm, just comfortable. 

You hear the gate open and a familiar voice calls, “I thought I might find you here.” 

Standing, still keeping your little girl on your hip, you embrace Jenny with your free arm. 

Her smile is just as bright and warm as the first day you met her. Your daughter wiggles out of your grip and latches onto Jenny’s slacks. 

“Auntie Jenny, did you bring Aunt Shannon with you?” 

She shakes her head. “Not today, sweetie. Today is for your momma.” 

You take a seat on the arm of Haley’s chair and she snags her finger into your belt loop and says, “It’s almost time to go back.” 

You look back at her, a kind of forlorn feeling creeping up in your chest. “Can you come with me?” 

With a rueful little smile, she shakes her head. “No. But, I can show you something.” 

A screen sort of comes from nowhere, propped like a drive-in movie on the other side of the yard. Foyet’s there, manning the projector. You squint at him and he shoots you a salute and blows Haley a kiss. She catches it with a smile and a fond shake of her head.

By way of explanation, Haley says, “Things are a little different here. If they weren’t different here, they’d be different there.” She points at the screen and you redirect your attention. 

Time moves a little differently, but you learn that you’re watching your life unfold as if Haley hadn’t died, as if the most pivotal moment in your life with Aaron hadn’t happened at all.

You see years pass by on the screen - Foyet is eventually caught and killed (by Derek - a surprise). Haley and Jack come home. 

Aaron and Haley come to an understanding, and you make up the tripod in their odd little fitful family unit. Aaron moves back into the big house on the river - he’s never there anyways and he sleeps in the room that used to be his office when he is home. 

Emily actually dies. That one is another, rather more unpleasant, surprise. 

When you look at Haley, she tells you, “Where there is death, there will always be death, eventually. It balances out, one way or another.”

With Haley in the picture, Aaron isn’t as fearless in love as he learned to be with you, doesn’t have as much perspective. He’s riddled with self-doubt and addled with fears of disappointing her, of disappointing you.

You and Aaron dance around each other for years and years and years - it’s almost 2015 before he kisses you for the first time, almost another two years before he finally asks you out, another one before you get married, another one before you have your first child. 

Upon seeing him, you can tell he’s not Isaac. He’s a different boy, one that looks more like Aaron than you, who’s remarkably neurotypical, loud, and much scrappier than Isaac. 

Jack doesn’t call you ‘Mom’ and you’re not as close. 

Things are...wrong. 

Well, maybe not wrong, but they aren’t the same. Even with the added joy of having Haley in your lives after the fear and uncertainty, you’re acutely aware that this is the timeline that was warped in some way or another. Everything feels delayed or just off. 

You never have the twins or move into the Woodbridge house. Aaron doesn’t close the gap with Sean, who overdoses after a tumultuous battle with his addictions and demons. 

There’s a kind of smallness to that life that you don’t have in yours.

The images fade, leaving the blank screen, after what seems like an eternity spent experiencing an alternate reality that you might have wished for if you didn’t know any better. 

Haley tugs on your belt loop. “See? Couldn’t stay, can’t go back. The life you have is the best one that exists. And,” she adds with another little wry smile, “the only one you’ve got.” 

Jenny places her hand on your shoulder, your daughter still stuck to her leg like glue. “You’re not done yet.” 

“And,” Haley adds, “you have another surprise coming next year - around August.” 

At your squint, she continues with a little smile. 

“I’m not going to tell you, so you’ll have to stick around and find out.” She winks. “Thank me later.” 

When she stands, you follow Haley to the front porch. The rest follow behind you like a little band of ducklings. Even Foyet, who could be an unwelcome interloper, seems like a member of the family. Evelyn passes him a glass of iced tea when she settles in the doorway. 

It’s kind of funny, if you’re honest. 

“Aaron and Jack will be there when you wake up. Jessica has the little ones at home.” Haley holds your hands as she speaks, swinging them back and forth a little. “You’re…” She sighs, “really hurt. Like, really really hurt. You’re gonna be out of work for a little while, and your lung capacity will be pretty fucked...forever. You’ll be able to do everything, but you’ll need to take more breaks than you’re used to.” 

Your lower lip disappears into your mouth. “How’s Aaron?”

“Terrified.” 

+++

Aaron sits by your bedside holding your hand, watches the way your chest mechanically rises and falls with the ventilator. They intubated you right away to give your lung the space it needed to heal, but all he wanted was to hear your voice before they put you under, just one more time. 

It’s been a wretched three days. Your surgery seemed to stretch on forever, digging the bullet out of your chest, repairing the gunshot wound that shattered four ribs and perforated your left lung in six places. 

After surgery, you coded after your lung collapsed again due to a pulmonary embolism. That little incident sent you right back to surgery and Aaron’s blood pressure to the stratosphere. 

Since then, you’ve been stable, quiet, and, in the doctor’s words, “lucky to be alive.” 

He can still feel the blood you coughed up running over his fingers and landing on his face, the shallow heaving of your breath under his hands. 

Images of Haley and Kate and Emily flashed before his eyes as he tried to hold you together - horrible, horrible reminders. 

Would he lose you in the field, like Emily? 

Would he lose you in surgery, like Kate?

Would he be too late, like Haley? 

Selfishly, the thought of playing the part of a single parent to four young children scared the hell out of him. The twins were hardly two and a half, Isaac almost five. Jack…

He really hoped he wouldn’t have to hold Jack’s hand as he delivered another eulogy for another person he called ‘Mom.’

If he was a single parent again, he would be tasked with raising three more children who wouldn’t know their mother - wouldn’t remember you after some time. 

Just like Jack with Haley. 

He was terrified of becoming a shell of a man without you, leaving his children practically orphaned overnight. 

Sitting in the waiting room during your first surgery, he decided that he’d quit. He’d take whatever the bureau offered and quit for the sake of his children, for the sake of Jack and Isaac and Caroline and Sophia. He wouldn’t let them lose another parent to the field, to the relentless pursuit of evil. 

Now, beside you, he holds your hand and talks to you as much as he can, knowing all the while you can’t hear him. 

+++

“I love him, Haley.” 

She grins at you while Foyet rolls his eyes. “I know you do.” Pausing as if to think for a moment, she adds, “When you wake up, don’t panic. You’re intubated. It’s...” Her head wavers back and forth a little as she searches for words. “...Unnerving. And uncomfortable. But you’re tough.”  

She kisses your cheek, Evelyn and Jenny give you a hug, and Foyet kisses your hand. 

“Say hi to big man Aaron for me, will ya?” He asks. 

You snort and shake your head. “Gimme a break.”

He shrugs. “Worth a shot.” 

+++

Your eyes snap open and you see the ceiling before anything else. Remembering what Haley said, you try to ignore the deeply uncomfortable pressure in your throat, chest, and mouth as you squeeze Aaron’s hand. Jack’s asleep, his long legs curled up like a little spider in the little corner chair.

Aaron meets your eyes and immediately reaches for the call button, assuring you, “You’re alright. You’re intubated, honey. Don’t try to talk. Just a second, I promise.” 

The nurse arrives and takes care of your ventilator. You take it like a champ, mostly to avoid scaring Aaron any further. Your voice is raspy and worn when you speak. 

“Hey.” 

He takes a shaky breath. “You scared the hell out of me.” 

A little chuckle leaves you and you cough once. It hurts. “Did you think you could get rid of me that easily?”

“That easily,” he scoffs, reaching for a lidded cup of water with a straw. “Your left lung practically exploded. You think that’s easy?”

You take the cup of water, pulling small sips. It instantly soothes your throat and you latently realize you have a feeding tube winding its way up your nose and down your throat. 

That’s a problem for another time. 

“Easy enough. You were stabbed multiple times - I hardly think one-upmanship is useful here.” 

Your humor has the intended effect. His shoulders relax and he leans over, pressing a kiss to your forehead. 

“Before you ask,” you tell him, “I feel like hell.”

“Yeah I bet.” There’s a little laugh in it. 

“I saw Haley, though. And our little girl. She’s almost six now.” 

Aaron perches on the edge of your bed, still holding your hand. “Tell me about her.” 

You do, as best you can remember. Things are disappearing from your memory, but you cling to the important bits. You tell him what you saw, how life would be different if Haley had lived, the way you two talked about him, the way his daughter fits seamlessly into the lives of those they’ve lost. 

“So she’s alright.” 

You nod. “She’s perfect. Haley’s taking excellent care of her, of course.” 

“Only fair,” he says. 

“My thoughts exactly.” 

+++

You’re in and out of sleep, but eventually, they remove the feeding tube and let you sit up to eat some bland pasta with some juice. It’s the best meal you’ve had in what feels like years. 

Jack sits on your good side, tucked under your arm and drinking all your cranberry juice and showing you the new games Dave got him on his Nintendo DS. The girls sit at your feet, playing with some blocks Aaron brought them. They’re attempting to stack them on your shins to no avail. 

Isaac’s sleeping against your chest. It hurts to breathe with him there, but you don’t want him anywhere else. 

It’s Aaron’s turn to sleep. He’s got untouched files on the little table beside the chair, just as he usually does. Maybe one day he’ll give up trying to pretend to do work with one of the team hospitalized. 

Haley’s right. This is the life you’re supposed to have. 

+++

tagging: @quillvine @stxrryspencer @hurricanejjareau @ughitsbaby @rousethemouse @criminalsmarts @genevievedarcygranger @ssaic-jareau @hotchsflower @hotchslatte @risenfox @mrs-dr-reid @captain-christopher-pike @pan-pride-12 @sunshine-em @jdougl-love @dreila03 @forgottenword @aaronhotchnerr @ssa-morgan @tegggeeee @abschaffer2 @ssacandice-ray @ellyhotchner @lotties-journey-abroad @mrs-joel-pimentel-23-25 @mooneylupinblack @ssareidbby @qvid-pro-qvo @mandylove1000 @jeor @roses-and-grasses @word-scribbless @bwbatta @capricorngf @missdowntonabbey @averyhotchner @joanofarkansass @popped-weasels @evee87 @nuvoleincielo @ssahotchnerr @this-broken-band-girl @winqhster @reidtomestyles @hotch-meeeeeuppppp @the-falling-in-the-danger @crazyshannonigans @softbibxtch @iconicc @mangoberry43 @andreasworlsboring101 @kerrswriting @mac99martin @itsalwaysb33nyou @baumarvel @kerrswriting @messyhairday-me @ssworldofsw @deagibs @moonshinerbynight @jhiddles03 @teamhappyme @mendesmelodies @starsandasteroids @unicorn-bitch @ambicaos

[applsauss]

Östliche Helden | I

Description: Your grin is unabashed when you hear him shouting after you.

Fandom: Hetalia


Pairing: Human!Prussia (Gilbert Beilschmidt)/Reader

Word Count: 4k+

Warning(s): None.

Unsere Freundschaft mit der Sowjet-Union erzwingt den Frieden.

The words are printed on a sun-bleached poster featuring two working class men, one holding the red and gold banner of the Soviet Union, the other with a German flag with three stripes: one black, one red, one yellow. 

“Our friendship with the Soviet Union enforces peace,” you whisper to yourself. Staring at the smiling men, trying to read into their expressions, you pick at the peeling corners of the poster, then try to smooth them down. 

Behind you, through the window, the sky is aglow with a strong orange and dusty red that fades into pink. You’ve wasted the afternoon in an abandoned factory, with the small, portable radio Gilbert spent a fortune on tuned to a western station. The announcer is saying something about a concert, but you don’t hear him. The sun is setting. The wind drags its fingers through the trees.

Gilbert is sitting in the window, with one leg bent at the knee and propped up on the window sill, the other dangling against the outside of the building. He’s reading a book your brother gave to you about Frederick II, the greatest king of Prussia. You could never sit through it, but Gilbert hasn’t been able to put it down for the last two weeks. 

You hum lightly to yourself as a different, tinny voice advertises some household cleaning product, and continue to observe your boyfriend. His brow is furrowed in focus, eyes scanning each page with intent, and his platinum hair is painted red by the blazing sun buzzing behind him. You can’t help but stare at him, and then past him. 

The view from the window is framed by Gilbert’s body, and then by large, dark trees that inhale and exhale with the breeze. Behind the trees is a demolished industrial block, rubble left where it fell at the foot of the wall--then past that is the Berlin Wall, itself: nearly four meters tall, two thick, and with various layers of increasingly horrible deterrents running the length of the death strip. It is a grisly sight. 

Behind that though, lies true innovation and freedom. Sunlight bounces off the windows of pristine West Berlin as if to say Look! Look at what is here. Look at Germans like you--but not--as they live with American autos, French wine, and Italian designer bags.

The radio announcer’s voice cuts off, and then the guitar chords of the next song fade in, plucking at all of your drifting thoughts and drawing them back tight again. It is a song of freedom, the western stations like playing it because they know it can be heard even behind the Iron Curtain. You close your eyes and let the music take you away, swaying in rhythm. 

“I, I will be king,

And you, you will be queen.

Though nothing will drive them away,

We can beat them, just for one day,

We can be heroes, just for one day.”

You never listen to western radio in your house. It is silent except for when your father listens to a concert performance, or when your brother used to practice piano in the sitting room. Besides, your mother is frighteningly aware of the ears in the walls, and your father makes a point of socialising with people he suspects of being connected to the Stasi--probably in hopes of being recruited. It’s why you’ve been left alone, even after your Onkel took bolt cutters to the chain-link border fence at the Austrian-Hungarian border.

You hear your shoes scrape on the floor as you step side to side, getting more into the song, nodding your head and then you hear Gilbert snicker under his breath. You peak your eyes open to find him watching you. His book is closed, resting on the window sill, and he’s now sitting with his legs inside the building. You stop dancing, laugh, but the music continues on without you, the sound like an afterthought calling to you.

Gilbert leans forward, watching you with steady eyes, then pushes off the window sill to stand. He tilts his head for a moment, like he’s appraising the music, then begins to snap his fingers on beat, tapping his foot and bobbing his head.

You join him, shimmying, waggling your eyebrows and he snorts, then gets more into the song, shaking his hips and dramatically reaching up towards the ceiling, then closing his fist and dragging it down in front of him like the disco stars on TV.

Trying to upstage him, you click your heels together and start to do the twist, but the song’s chords are drawn out, and so the shuffling you’re doing is more for comedic effect than anything else.

You pause when you’re closest to the ground, then jerk your head up to catch Gilbert’s eyes in challenge. He lets out a breathy laugh, then changes tactics. Not one to be outdone, he throws his arms above his head and begins thrusting his hips in time with the drums, while training his expression to remain serious, smoldering, almost. You laugh.

“And you, you can be mean,

And I, I'll drink all the time,”

“ 'Cause we're lovers, and that is a fact,” he mouths the words dramatically, then winks and blows you a kiss, making you snicker again. “Yes, we're lovers, and that is that.”

Still thrusting his hips, he begins to make little hops towards you, dust from the floor kicking up around his feet. Grinning, you rise back up to both feet and meet him halfway, swinging your arms and stepping in time with the beat. 

When you finally meet each other, he reaches forward, smooshing your face between his hands, then ducks down to plant a silly, solid kiss to your lips. Your teeth clack, your nose presses hard into his cheek, and he laughs into your mouth, then quiets when you kiss him back. 

The music becomes less of something you hear, and more of something you feel thrumming in your heart, thrumming in Gilbert’s as it beats beneath your palm, and thrumming in the way you both sway side to side, caught up in the moment.

“Though nothing will keep us together,

We can steal time, just for one day.”

Gilbert sucks in a breath through his nose, kissing you earnestly, sincerely now, then pulls back slowly. His hands are cupping your face, thumb gently rubbing your cheek, and you’re humbled by the expression on his face, still painted in increasingly soft shades of red-pink. Affection blooms in your chest, warm like a candle, and spreads until you forget about the bite of the approaching evening. Almost overwhelmed, you pull his arms around you and lay your forehead on his shoulder, watching the West as the sun dips farther towards the horizon, as the sky begins to bleed the same red, the same damn Sowjetisch Rot, that paints their bloody flag.

You can hear him smiling in the way he breathes, feel it in the way he settles the weight of his arm over your shoulders and presses his face into your hair. You forget about school, you forget about the stress of your parents’ disapproval of Gilbert, of you, you forget about the future and you forget about the gottverdammte West. “Lieb’ dich, Liebchen,” he whispers into your hair.

The intimacy scares you. You think about pinching the soft fat on his stomach and twisting like you would a bottlecap to relieve some of the carbonated tension that’s filled the space, the tender moment buzzing around the two of you, surrounding you with its quiet intensity. The sudden thought makes you laugh, and you settle farther into his embrace instead, letting yourself sink into this feeling despite the fear for once. “Lieb’ dich, doch. You’re my favourite, you know.” 

You somehow both see it coming and are taken by complete surprise when he pinches the meat of your arm and twists enough for it to smart.

“Ow-a!” You shove him off you and he stumbles back over a piece of broken furniture, snickering. You huff, dust your pants off, and try to glare at him, but you can’t bring yourself to be all that annoyed. Afterall, you chose this place and you chose him.

And the sun continues to set.

***

The morning is grey outside the apartment. It’s still early enough for the streetlamps to be on, and from under your bedroom door, you can tell the hallway light is on as well. You hear the muted clamor of breakfast coming from the kitchen, and your father coughs.

You smooth your hair back in the vanity one more time, double-checking your appearance, then grab your backpack and head out into the hall.

“You came home late last night,” your father comments from the dinner table as soon as you enter the sitting room. In front of him sits an empty plate, a mug of coffee and a half-empty glass of orange juice. 

You set your bag on the table and head into the kitchen. “I know.” 

“You shouldn’t ride your bike at night,” he calls after you.

“I know.” 

Your mother is by the stove, wearing her sunflower print apron and black slippers. The room smells like breakfast sausage. She has her back turned to you and when you approach, she spins on her heel and pushes a full plate into your empty hands before you can do anything else.

“Ah--Guten Morgen, Muti. Vielen--” you’re caught half-way through a yawn--“Dank.” 

“Good Morning, Liebling. Eat up.” 

You smile and return to the table. Your father is waiting, but says nothing. He continues to say nothing as the clouds are pushed across the sky and the food on your plate disappears one bite at a time.

Eventually, he grows tired of the silence. He takes a long sip of his coffee, then says, “You were out with that boy, weren’t you.” It is not a question.

“You know his name,” you say mildly as you push your chair back and stand to take your plate into the kitchen. Your mother appears at your elbow and collects it for you instead. Without another excuse, you pull your bag across the table to check if you have everything you’ll need for school.

Still sitting where he is, your father asks, “When are you going to break up with him?” 

“I’m not.” 

He gives you a hard look. You pull your arms through the straps of your bag. “Is there really no one else for you?”

“I’m going to class now.” 

He sighs, seemingly giving up on the conversation. “You have work after, right?”

“Right.” 

Another sigh. “Alright. Be safe. See you soon.” 

He drains the last of his coffee. Your mother kisses you on the cheek and tells you to have a good day as well. 

“You, too. Lieb’ dich.” You turn to your father, “Bye, Vati. See you soon.”

***

Childhoods are not made equal, and the law of even-stevens is not something adults seem overly interested in. You first learned this in year three, when you were dropped off by your mother to play with a friend who lived in an apartment the size of your living room. Her bed was folded up neatly under the coffee table and the bathroom was two floors below hers. When you explained all this to your parents, they never allowed you back.

The second time you learned that adults were not as worried about being fair as they pretended to be was at Gilbert’s house, when the two of you could only play cards on his bed because his newborn brother was sleeping and anything else would have woken him. His mother made you sandwiches and when you asked about her lunch, she said she wasn’t hungry, then ate the discarded crust off your bread. 

The third was when Gilbert was visiting your house, and switched on your family’s brand-new color television set. He casually flipped through the channels until he found one you’d never seen before, and you watched with confusion as image after image of the glamorous, rich, free West Germany flashed on the screen--something you’d never seen before, something he thought of as common knowledge, and something that made you begin to question what else was hidden from you. Your father catching the two of you soaking in the perverse capitalist propaganda movie ‘Grease’ was the beginning of his long-lasting feud with Your-Best-Friend-Gilbert. 

The list goes on and on, your eyes not so much being opened to a single dawning realisation--but rather that realisation was inevitable, a full picture fed to you piece by piece each time you bore witness to some other lie fed to East Germans, who chew and chew and swallow because they’re so starved of everything else. 

This is what you’re thinking about as Kristian goes on explaining Nietzsche to you. It’s terribly pretentious, he’s terribly pretentious, and so, regretfully, terribly, are you. 

“I thought it was interesting. Didn’t you as well? What Herr Ullman was saying about the difference between Nietzsche’s master and slave morality--obviously we are the strong masters. We must not be pitied.” 

Kristian is a person who never for a second thinks for, or critically, of himself. He is in your Philosophy lecture, your father knows his, and he has never once wanted for anything. The urge to fidget overcomes you, and so you grip the underside of the shop-counter, and rock back and forth on your heels to stop the annoyance from crawling up your arms. 

“Y/N?” 

“Hmm?” 

“I asked what you thought of how Nietzsche’s ideas could be applied to our politics now.” 

“Oh, well--” you pause for a moment to think about how much of yourself you’re willing to put into this conversation-- “It’s interesting how some people claim to be masters--”

“Of course!” he interrupts. “You’re brilliant--because in reality, they are not. Take here, in the DDR, for example. The majority of the working class think of themselves as masters, while holding slave moralities,” he finishes for you, incorrectly. You bite your tongue.

Sometimes, Kristian is enjoyable to be around because it’s like a game, to have a conversation with someone who refuses to hear anything you say. You like to test the limits of his perception of you and see just how far he’ll go to rationalise whatever you say so that in his head, you agree with him.

Recently though, it’s become clear that he has an interest in you that is just a little more than friendly, and casually letting him down is becoming a problem because he refuses to take a hint. Now, at Uni, every time you turn a corner, he’s there to follow you to your next class, and his forwardness is beginning to unroot whatever amusement you used to feel around him.

Kristian is another item to add to the growing list of reasons you’d rather be wasting your day watching the clouds go by than be at Uni--or be trapped behind the counter of the Apotheke you work at, begging the powers that be that Kristian leaves before your shift is up, otherwise he might get it in his head that you have free time to spend with him.

Time moves in slow motion as Kristian stands in front of the register and continues to talk. No one has come in after him so you don’t have any excuses to leave the conversation. You feel awkward, like being alone with him is a mistake that you can’t escape from because the owner of the Apotheke is out taking his lunch in the park across the street. 

“We think so alike, you and I…” Kristian trails off, and then he fiddles with the soda he bought ten minutes ago, and looks away, embarrassed. “Hey,” he begins again, and at the tone of his voice, your stomach drops. Before he was just dropping hints or loosely suggesting the idea of going on a date, but this is a confrontation that you’re not prepared to deal with. “I was wondering if sometime you’d like to--”

The bell above the door trills, and you jump into action. “Ah--Willkommen! How can I help you today?” you speak loud enough to smother the end of Kristian’s question.

“Liebe,” you hear the customer say, and immediately you know that it is Gilbert. What timing! He’d taken the morning off to go see Ludy’s school play and mentioned that he might be able to swing by after running a few errands for his mother. “You’ll never guess what happened! Oh! Kristian--” he pauses-- “Hallo. Anyways, I was riding my bike down Schulstrasse after the play and I--” 

“We were talking,” Kristian interrupts, whatever boyish shyness he’d had evaporating as he crosses his arms and turns to face Gilbert, almost puffing out his chest like a bird.

Gilbert gives him a funny look, then asks, “yea?” He looks to you for confirmation.

You shoot Gilbert a wobbly, unconfident smile and gesture to Kristian with wide eyes. He furrows his brow in confusion, then looks around and realizes you’re alone in the shop. He then turns his full attention to Kristian and, with fake pleasantness, asks, “how are your classes, Kristian?” 

Kristian rocks back on his heels and unfolds his arm at the sudden question. “Good, I guess…” He shoots a look back at you, and you pretend to be seriously inspecting the cash register for defects. You pop open the drawer and feign counting the Deutsche Marks.

“Good!” Gilbert presses forward. “I hear Herr Ullman is a hardhead.” 

“A bit,” Kristian replies, then turns his back to Gilbert and tries one last time to get your attention. “Y/N--” 

At the sound of your name leaving Kristian’s mouth, Gilbert slides an arm on the counter between you and Kristian, who bites off the rest of his response and drops all pretenses to glare at Gilbert. 

“Interesting,” Gilbert says flatly, “Sowieso, Schatz, when does Herr Friedman get back from his lunch?”

Kristian doesn’t wait for your response. He just huffs, snatches his drink off the counter, and stalks out of the Apotheke. The bell trills as he pulls the door open, then lets it slam shut in its frame.

“Tschussi!” Gilbert calls after him, and you really should reprimand him for that last, unnecessary taunt, but the amount of relief you feel now that Kristian is gone is ridiculous, and so you reach over the counter to grip his forearm with both hands, grinning up at him.

“Don’t be so mean,” you say half-heartedly. 

Gilbert cocks his head to the side. “Then he should take a hint and listen when you tell him no.” 

His genuine response surprises you when it shouldn’t. Afterall, you know what sort of man he is; you’ve known for years. It’s what kindled your crush on him in secondary school, the year before he went off for his apprenticeship in that garage he still dreams of, it’s what fanned the flames when he returned for his year of mandatory service, and it’s what stokes the love even now. “Thank you.” 

“Why?” He grins. “Did you think it was awesomely sexy when I made him back off--”

You choke on a laugh, cheeks warm. “Oh, shut it! You ruin everything!”

He laughs like a witch’s cackle, and you pretend to be put out, then ask,“what were you trying to tell me about before?” 

“Oh!” He straightens. “Remember that pigeon from school?”

***

“Gib can talk to birds, you know,” Ludwig says factually. ‘Gib’ is his childhood nickname for Gilbert. You nearly trip at the sudden change in topic.

“See!” Gilbert throws a hand out to gesture at Ludwig, vindicated. His other hand holds his bike steady as the three of you continue to walk down the sidewalk.

You groan. “I swear to god, the pigeon does not know you!”

“Yes he does! I’ve named him--” 

“Don’t remind me--” 

“His name is Gilbird.” Gilbert proudly sticks his nose up, and you resign yourself to pushing your bike in silence. You’ve had this same dispute since school. Gilbert is convinced that since he saved a pigeon from a hungry alleycat one time, it now owes him some sort of life debt, or at least he thinks the pigeon thinks that.

“I think it’s clever,” Ludwig says quietly, squeezing the straps of his backpack tighter in his hands as he continues to walk beside you and Gilbert, who are pushing your bikes to keep pace with him.

“Ludy,” you stage whisper just loud enough so Gilbert can still hear you, like you’re sharing some grave secret, “he’s been saying the same thing since year five. I don’t even think it’s the same bird!”

“Schatz!” Gilbert cries, outraged.

You roll your eyes dramatically. “C’mon,” you say, and goad Ludwig into jogging ahead of Gilbert with you. As much as Ludwig hero-worships his elder brother, he also can’t resist the temptation of teasing him, especially when you offer him the upper hand. 

“Ah!” Gilbert exclaims once he realizes your plan. “Hey!” When you pass him, you stick your foot out to unhinge his kickstand, making him stumble over his bike.

 “I’m too awesome to not be telling the truth!” he calls after you. “You were there! Hey!”

Ludwig laughs out loud, and so you turn around as well, only to see Gilbert struggling to untangle his handlebars from a bush. “Quickly!” 

You swing your leg over the seat of your bike, then usher Ludwig into the basket fixed over the rear wheel. It’s not meant for a person and is an uncomfortable fit, even for little Ludy, but the two of you manage. 

“That’s cheating!” Gilbert calls out sorely, still a little ways behind the two of you, though you know he’ll catch up in no time. Ludwig giggles right in your ear, and then you push off the concrete and begin pedaling down the sidewalk. 

“Look at him, all the way back there,” Ludwig teases. 

You can’t turn around to bask in your victory, you’re afraid to lose balance and throw Ludwig off the bike. “Is he still stuck?” 

“Yes--No! He’s just freed himself! Schneller! Faster!” Ludwig leans more of his weight forward, onto your back, and you laugh breathlessly, then pedal harder. You take the curb hard, pushing yourself off the seat to absorb the shock of your front wheel dropping onto the asphalt, then the rear wheel squeaks in protest under Ludwig’s added weight.

From around the wide bend of the road, you see the young trees that are planted in front of Gilbert and Ludwig’s Plattenbau, the tall apartment building looming over the road like a victory line. Your thighs begin to burn under the exercise. You pant, and Ludwig squeezes your shoulders tighter. “Oh no!” he cries. 

Then it’s over. “Ha ha!” Gilbert tuts victoriously as he flies past the two of you, legs stuck out in a silly pose as his gears rapidly click. 

“Aw! That’s no fair, Gib! Y/N has me on the bike, too!” Ludwig defends you from over your shoulder. 

“You should have thought about that before you two unawesomely conspired to push me into that bush!” 

“We didn’t push you! You tripped!” You slow to a stop in front of the side entrance next to Gilbert, and wobble under yours and Ludwig’s combined weight. Gilbert drops his bike in the grass and moves to help Ludwig down from his perch on the basket.

Gilbert rolls his eyes. “Same thing.” He sets Ludwig on the ground, then adds with fake scorn, “cheaters.”

Ludwig laughs, and you inspect your backpack, which Ludwig had been crouched on for the duration of the short ride. “Do you go to work now, Gib?” he asks.

“Ja. But I’ll be back like normal.” You look up in time to see Gilbert messing with Ludwig’s hair. You feel a pang of jealousy, thinking of your own brothers.

“Okay.” Ludwig walks to the entrance, then pulls open the door. “See you later!”

“Bye!” 

“Bye, Luddy!” 

For a moment, the two of you just breathe the filthy air. This part of town always stinks like a car’s exhaust pipe. Then Gilbert looks back at you. “Race you to your house?” 

You eye him critically for a moment, then turn your bike around and begin pedaling as fast as you can without so much as waiting for a fair start.

Your grin is unabashed when you hear him shouting after you.

***

Translations:

Unsere Freundschaft mit der Sowjet-Union erzwingt den Frieden. Our friendship with the Soviet Union enforces peace. From this 1979 propaganda poster.

Deutsche Demokratische Republik. DDR. German Democratic Republic. Abbreviated ‘GDR’ in english. The official name of ‘East Germany’.

Onkel. Uncle.

Sowjetisch Rot. Soviet Red, referring to the Soviet Union’s flag colour.

Gottverdammte. Goddamn (f).

Lieb’ dich. Love you (slang, not proper grammar).

Liebchen. Sweetheart, lovely (noun). Term of endearment. (Literally: little love, love I am fond of, the -chen is diminutive and cute).

Doch. Too, totally, all the same, nevertheless. This is a ridiculous german word.

O-Saft. Orange Juice (slang).

Guten Morgen. Good morning

Muti. Mom.

Vielen Dank. Thank you very much. 

Liebling. See Liebchen, though this is a more common version.

Vati. Dad.

Apotheke. Drug store, pharmacy.

Willkommen. Welcome.

Liebe. Love.

Hallo. Hello, Hi.

Deutsche Marks. Mark der DDR. Currency of the GDR.

Sowieso. Anyways.

Schatz. Babe, baby. Term of endearment. (Literally: Treasure)

Tschussi. Bye-bye, toodles. Cute with children, though usually used sarcastically by adults, especially men. (Gilbert is making fun of Kristian here)

Schneller! Faster!

Plattenbau. A cheap style of building made from prefabricated concrete slabs common in the GDR. (Literally: Panel building)

Masterlist | Posting Schedule 

[luminouspoes]

After Poe being tortured by Kylo Ren in TFA, he would have some kind of PTSD.... So I was thinking can you write about Poe having nightmares about that, and the reader comforting him? Just pure fluff

Warnings: some references to Poe’s torture/nightmares & PTSD 

It’s well past midnight when you shuffle into the shipyard, a sweater tucked around you and a toolkit hung around your hips. You couldn’t sleep, so you figure it would be a good time to get ahead on some of the repairs you needed to do tomorrow, which included some minor repairs on Poe’s newest ship.

He hadn’t crashed it or gotten it blown up yet, which you supposed was an improvement, the most damage his X-Wing sustained in his last mission was some blown fuses and carbon scoring. 

You’re surprised to already find a technician’s ladder rolled up against the hull of the ship when you arrive. You glance around, but find that the Resistance base is surprisingly quiet, save the sounds of wildlife emitting from Ajan Kloss’ jungles. You step up on the ladder and clamber up to the top, where you find Poe Dameron asleep in the cockpit.

His head is tilted back against the headrest like he fell asleep looking up at the stars - which he probably did - and while the sight is certainly endearing, he doesn’t seem to be sleeping well. His expression is screwed up and he’s fidgeting in his seat quite a bit. Worried, you rap your knuckles against the closed window to get his attention. It works - a little too well because Poe jolts upright abruptly and slams his head into the roof.

You wince apologetically as his eyes fall on you. His eyes soften around the corners, and he presses the switch to unlock the ship’s canopy as he runs a hand over his sore head. You push up on the canopy so you can rest your arms just on the edge, then you lean forward. “You’ve got to stop falling asleep out here, Dameron.”

“Well, at least I sleep,” Poe says defensively. “I’m not sure that you do, as many times as you keep finding me out here.”

“Insomnia is my best friend,” you retort wryly, stepping down the rungs when Poe goes to stand up. You hop down instead of taking the last couple of steps, then steady the ladder as Poe steps onto it. Instead of doing the civilized thing and walking down, Poe just grips the handlebars and slides down till his feet land on the soft grass beside you. 

“Which I’m sure has nothing to do with the amount of caf you inhale.”

You skirt around his crack about your caf addiction. “So what’s your excuse for sleeping in this thing and not - oh, I don’t know - your quarters?”

He doesn’t meet your gaze, instead, his dark brown eyes sweep back up to the canopy of stars above. “The stars calm me down.”

You sidle up closer to him, following his gaze. There are thousands of glittering stars, too many to take in all at once. You’re tempted to point out a few systems you think you recognize, but you remain quiet because looking up makes everything on the ground fall to the wayside, and you kind of want to embrace that.

“You’re still having nightmares?” You finally ask, sliding your gaze from the sky to the star standing beside you. There really is no other way to describe Poe, in your mind. He’s a bright light in the middle of all this darkness, with an irresistible gravitational pull that brings people together. 

“Yeah.” He admits, voice rough. His content expression slips to a pained one. “They were starting to go away, I don’t get why they’re so much worse recently.”

You step around in front of him, taking his face in your hands. “Trauma’s not a straight line, anything could have triggered them. A recent mission, the way someone phrased something, general anxiety -” you brush your thumb along his cheekbone where you can just barely make out the faint outline of a scar - “Which there’s plenty of, anymore.”

Poe hums in acknowledgment, catching your wrist and bringing your hands down. He doesn’t let go though, instead, he pinches the fabric of the sweater as he thinks. “Outta all the things I’ve seen, I can’t believe I let that brute get to me most of all.”

You shake your head. “Nope, we’re not doing that.” You press a kiss to his nose, which he scrunches his face up at, ticklish. “You didn’t let him do anything, that’s not how this works.”

“How does this work, then?” Poe asks, sounding both genuinely curious and frustrated.

“It works by you not blaming yourself for your trauma.” You reply with ease. “You’re already doing well.”

“How so, doc?”

You tip backward and make a sweeping gesture towards the sky. “You found something to calm yourself down, enough to sleep by.”

“Not very well,” Poe admits as he rubs the back of his neck. “I was having another nightmare when you showed up, and besides...falling asleep in an X-Wing isn’t the most reliable way to catch up on sleep.”

You look down sheepishly, trying to muster up the courage to say what you're thinking. “You could, um, stay with me. If you want.” There's a leaf just by the toe of your boot with a fascinating set of bright orange veins that pop against the dull yellow of the leaf, so you stare at it as your question is met with a beat of silence.

“In your quarters?”

“No, in the X-Wing.” You retort sardonically. You fix Poe with a well, duh expression. “Yes, my quarters. I don't sleep well at night anyway, so you could...lay down and if I notice anything bothering you, I can wake you up.”

You entirely expect him to decline, but instead, he asks, “You wouldn't mind?”

“You're my friend, of course, I wouldn't mind.” You reply, cheeks warming. “Besides the Resistance needs its favorite commander well-rested.” 

“Are you sure it's the Resistance's favorite commander and not yours?” Poe asks with a tiny smile, and you swat at his arm. He dodges easily, catching your hand again, but this time he tugs you forward. You stumble against him, one hand landing on his chest as he looks down at you with a soft expression. 

He wraps his arms around you and pulls you into a warm embrace, his chin resting on the crown of your head. Despite your hammering heart, you melt instantly against him. Few people gave hugs like Poe Dameron did.

“Thank you.” He murmurs faintly as he moves his head to press a kiss to your hairline. 

“Always.” You say when he draws back. You extend your hand to him, wiggling your fingers slightly. Poe chuckles, takes your hand, and you lead him back to your quarters. 

You don't pass anyone on the way there, which is fine by you and by Poe too, you're sure, but by the time you're stepping into your room with Poe hanging sheepishly behind your heels, a wave of exhaustion has hit you. Still, you're true to your word, so you motion at the mattress. “Have at it,” you tell him as you move toward your desk. 

Poe doesn't even pull down the duvet, just toes off his shoes and sits gingerly on the edge of the bed like he's afraid he'll break it. “You sure about this? I don't like the idea of you staying up all night to make sure I sleep. Where'd we be if one of Rose's best techs were falling asleep on the job cos of me?”

“I told you, I'm not even tired -” you hide a yawn behind your hand and cough, but Poe's eyebrow shoots upward so you know you've been caught - “I mean, I'm tired, but not enough to sleep.”

Poe leans forward off the bed, grabbing you by the sleeve of your sweater, and gently tugs you forward. You could hold your ground if you want, but you shuffle forward anyway, a tiny smile tugging at your lips. 

“You need your rest too, you know. I can always sleep on the floor or go back to my quarters.” 

“You're not sleeping on my floor.” You scoff, “And I think we've already established that you’re having trouble sleeping in your quarters.”

“The X-Wing is always available.” 

“Or we could just share the bed.” You don't mean to say it aloud - you don't think - but it slips out anyway. Part of you flounders, but it's overridden by your concern for his screwed up sleep schedule, so you continue on, “It's not like we haven't fallen asleep together before.”

Those times were different and you know it - falling asleep huddled together over datapads in the corner of the debriefing room was totally different than dozing off in the same bed.

Poe stands up and you start to think he’s going to leave, but instead, he gestures at the bed. “Pick your side.”

“Really?” You ask, moving to your favored side, closest to the wall. Unlike Poe, you yank the duvet down and snuggle in before patting the space next to you. He climbs on just as warily as before, feet kicked over the blanket.

“I figured there was a 50/50 shot of me finding you asleep outside my door if I tried to leave,” Poe says with a light smile and you whack him with one of the bed pillows. He isn’t wrong, you’re well-known around the base for your dedication to looking out for your friends, and that sounds...exactly like what you were planning to do if he wasn’t going to stick around.

He settles on the bed beside you, a low sigh escaping his lips as he stares up at the ceiling. You twist onto your side, propping your head up with your elbow. “Poe?”

He hums in response, not immediately taking his eyes off the ceiling. 

“It’s okay to be afraid, you know.” 

He turns his head to look down at you softly. “I know, I just...wish I wasn’t.”

You seek out his hand in the dark. As soon as you find it, you thread your fingers together. You wish none of this happened, it makes you angry when you think about it. “No one wants to be afraid, but it’s okay. You don’t have to deal with this alone.”

“Everyone’s counting on me. Leia’s counting on me.” 

“You really think the General doesn’t have nightmares either?” You counter. His gaze flicks back up to meet yours. You shift again, scooting a little closer. “Rey’s mentioned having nightmares, so has Finn. Even Jess has them, you know that better than anyone. People are all counting on them, so what makes you so different?”

“I just...don’t wanna let her down.” He’s talking about Leia, you realize.

You shake your head. “Poe Dameron, that’s impossible. No one understands the General quite like you do.” You bump your knee against his side, “I’m pretty sure no one understands you quite like the General does.”

“I don’t know about that.” Poe chuckles and looks back up at the ceiling. “There’s this person who always seems to know what I’m thinking.”

“Oh? What are they like, then, have I met them?”

“Probably. They’re a technician. One of Rose’s best, actually. Chewed me up one side and down the other for strapping experimental tech onto Black One before it got destroyed. Usually drags me to bed when they find me out cold in an X-Wing.”

Your cheeks warm. “They sound like a handful.”

“They are,” Poe agrees and you resist the urge to swat him with a pillow. “Stubborn like you wouldn’t believe, strong sense of justice, has an even bigger heart and will do anything for the people they care about. They’re a damn good friend - even if they keep their room below freezing -” he emphasizes this last part by finally ducking under the blankets and you bark out a laugh.

“It’s not that cold.” 

“Oh, yes it is,” Poe argues with a shiver. You roll your eyes and settle back into your pillow as he settles on his side, his back to you.

After a long moment of silence, you say, “Hey, Poe?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re a damn good friend, too.”

You’re met with a sheepish laugh, and you cautiously throw an arm around his torso. He doesn’t react for a minute, but just as you’re about to pull away, he wraps his hand around yours and pulls it up to his chest. You smile and awkwardly move closer, burying your face in between his shoulder blades.

It doesn’t take long for his breathing to even out, but you stay up for a while longer to make sure he’s in a steady sleep, but for the first time all evening, he seems relaxed and peaceful, so you close your eyes and murmur against his shirt, “G’night, flyboy.” 

[fandomwriterstuff]

Percy was not the only human on the USS Andromeda, but his fellow crew mates were still unaccustomed to his backwater species being on space missions. He got so many questions about his and Annabeth’s cultures, languages, and species, that he could barely keep up.

As captain, Percy liked to keep himself aware of the goings on of his vessel, so he often found himself meeting with various chief officers of different sections of the ship for little catch-up meetings. Yesterday he was with chief science officer DiAngelo, who nearly bored Percy to death with talk of the linguistic capacity of his newly designed language interface. It was an incredible piece of machinery, and DiAngelo was an incredible piece of eye candy, but it was so not interesting.

Today, he would have his meeting with his chief medical officer: Will Solace. He was an excellent healer from Helios, and was fast becoming a close friend of Percy’s.

“Percy!” Speak of the devil… Will smiled and waved at Percy from across the mess hall. It was lunch time for Percy’s shift and it apparently was also Will’s. “Come here!”

After grabbing his food, he joined Will and Nico at their table.

“What’s up?” he started before digging in.

“I figured we could get our meeting out of the way now, since our lunch times actually synced up today! Sounds good?” Will was always so positive and smiley, despite his profession. Though, he could be dry and snarky when the situation deemed it necessary.

“Yeah, hit me up with the deets,” Percy pulled out a notebook in case he needed to ask questions.

“So on the patient front: on our next shore leave we’ll have to get Nyssa to an actual hospital for her radiation sickness. We can treat the symptoms here but she’ll need better equipment to remove the damage,” Percy nodded, wincing. The Vulcan engineer had been working on the warp core when somebody had turned it on and caught a pretty serious case of radiation sickness. “Leo’s broken arm is all better, but he’s still on break for three days and has a training regimen to build the muscle back up,” again, Percy nodded. He’d been aware Leo had broken his arm. Something like a flying wrench hit him or something. “On the medication front, the usual: antibiotics, flu and cold medicine for various physiologies, carbon pills, Annabeth’s asthma inhaler- oh and don’t let me forget I need more antiseptic solution,” Will interrupted his own list with a look towards Nico and Percy. “I always forget antiseptic.”

“Anything else?” Percy asked after writing ‘antiseptic’ onto his own list.

“I do have a question about something you put into the requested list,” Will frowned, flipping through his packet and coming to a page with two highlighted lines in it.

“What’s that?” All Percy could remember adding was his adderall, and midol for Annabeth. He’d awkwardly asked her if she needed birth control pills, but she assured him she got the 3 year implant since they were on a long mission.

“Well I see your cerebral medication, but I also noticed you requested individually wrapped absorbent materials and large amounts of a brand name pain medication?” he ended it as a question. Oh, right. Annabeth had awkwardly come back to him and asked him to order unscented Kotex brand pads. (She would have ordered them herself, she added, though since Percy was captain they would actually get her name brand and not generic, so her best bet was through him).

“I understand ordering pain medication, but I’m not familiar with the brand name Midol, and you don’t seem to be injured,” Will eyed Percy up and down as if examining him for an invisible illness.

“It’s a human female thing,” he tried to play it off, but Will was curious, and if Percy was reading the scrunched eyebrows, so was Nico.

“As part of the natural reproductive cycle approximately half of the population, the females, will shed the lining of one of their internal organs and expel it,” Percy tried to be as medical as possible. He was raised by his mother and his best friend was a girl, so he wasn’t grossed out by period stuff, and Will was a doctor and had seen weirder stuff, but he wasn’t sure how Nico would react.

Apparently by turning a greyish green color and swallowing thickly.

“That is the most horrifying thing I have ever heard,” he choked out, though Will was frantically taking notes.

“Is this an annual event?”

“Monthly,” Percy added, chewing his veggie burger all the while.

“Monthly? You shed the lining of your internal organs monthly?” Will exclaimed.

“Not me, just the females,” Percy explained.

“Does this process not hurt?” Nico’s voice was barely hiding his horror and dismay.

“Oh yes, it is very unpleasant. The medication is to cover cramps and also deal with irritability and the absorbent pads are to catch the lining as it exits the body so that one can go about their daily life without bleeding everywhere.”

“Don’t you need blood to live?” Will asked skeptically. “Why would your body expel organ tissue and blood?”

“As I said, all a part of the monthly reproductive cycle,” Percy wasn’t ashamed to say he sort of enjoyed the shock factor he got when explaining human things.

“I never want to go to Earth,” Nico grumbled, and Percy barked out a laugh.

“Guess where our next stop is, buddy?”