#I swear I'm going to be coding two years from now and I'm going to code someone as needing to tank better”

[armedwooper]

honestly this is me with my medical billing and coding courses right now. I've had my classes on one monitor and FFXIV on my main monitor for over four months now and somehow I have only gotten 1 C and 1 b grade. I have been passing the rest of my classes with A's.

ur future nurse is using chapgpt to glide thru school u better take care of urself

[junplusone]

soft spot for you ; lee jihoon

SUMMARY. jihoon has a soft spot reserved just for you.

PAIRING. lee jihoon x gn!reader

GENRE. fluff, friends to lovers (idiots to lovers), college au (they're seniors), soonyoung horanghae agenda, mildly ambiguous hopeful ending, just wholesome things

WARNINGS. language/swearing

WORDS. 2.51k

NOTES. here's a short little piece lol - if you couldn't tell i'm obsessed with soft spot by keshi... according to airbuds i listened to it like 64 times yesterday oops. also dedicating this to @ppyopulii my resident woozidan love you jay!! ok it's like 6 am for me rn so i'm going to sleep after posting goodnight (or goodmorning i suppose) enjoy reading!

TAGS. @mochacoda @ppyopulii (dm or ask to join!)

PLAYLIST. soft spot - keshi / the cutest pair - regina song

There has never been a time where you did not know Lee Jihoon.

Or if there has, you don’t really remember it. It’s always been you and him, a package deal; always two halves to the whole, no questions asked. The two of you could not be more different, but even so – everything is just so easy when he’s with you.

“Ji, can you pass me the gummies, please?”

Soonyoung watches as Jihoon wordlessly brings the bag of gummy bears over to you, picking out the pineapple ones he knows you like.

“You don’t give me candy,” he sulks, homework lying forgotten on the table.

“You are annoying,” Jihoon tells him, “and you also haven’t gotten a single bit of work done since you’ve gotten here. Don’t you have an exam tomorrow?”

“Well, I did the math and I could theoretically pass this class even if I get a 50.”

“At the rate you’re studying, I doubt even that’s possible.”

That gets a preoccupied laugh out of you. Jihoon smiles – he knows you’re listening, even as you type away at your laptop. You always have an ear out for anything he has to say, you hope he’s learned over the years. 

“You have no faith in me,” Soonyoung grumbles. 

“Correct.”

The exchange has you smiling to yourself quietly, because anyone with a brain and two eyes knows that Jihoon cherishes his dear friend very much, despite the harsh words.

Tough love, you like to call it, also having had to deal with Soonyoung’s questionable decisions multiple times before.

The clock hits midnight, and it still feels like you’ve made little no headway on your assignment. Soonyoung is currently knocked out, head leaning against his chair, and Jihoon is scrolling on his phone absentmindedly like he has been for the past hour.

“You know you can leave, right?” you whisper to him. “You literally have no reason to stay here.”

He blinks, eyes tired from staring at the screen all day. “You’re here.”

“That doesn’t necessarily extend to you,” you point out, giving your laptop screen a disdainful look. “You’re not the one doing this god awful project.”

Jihoon leans closer to squint at the document you’ve got pulled up, his hair brushing against your cheek. “Is this for that one systems programming class?”

“Uh-huh.”

“This looks awful,” he remarks.

“You’re not helping!”

“Sorry, sorry,” he apologizes, patting your shoulder comfortingly. “I think they have a new professor teaching it this semester. I don’t recognize the dude’s name, either, but we probably had it a lot easier.”

“Great. I’m going to drop out of college,” you groan.

“And leave me here with Soonyoung?”

You consider it for a moment, wrinkling your nose at the sleeping man across from you. 

“Good point.”

Jihoon sighs, placing his phone down on the table and looking at you with a concerned expression on his face. 

“I wish you hadn’t drank all that coffee earlier. You always get wired and end up not sleeping for at least sixteen hours.”

“That was the point,” you huff, editing a line of code. “Ji, if I cave and sleep now, I might literally fail all my classes.”

He frowns at you. “Sleep is a necessity, and you’re treating it like a luxury. You’re just as bad as Soonyoung.”

“Now that’s a comparison I didn’t think I’d ever hear,” you say, amused.

Even between your deflections, though, you know that Jihoon is right. You’ve started to notice the dark circles around your eyes lately, the little signs that you’ve been pushing yourself a little too hard.

And yet, you simply can’t. Stopping now is like throwing a wrench into the gears of your carefully planned out life. You know Jihoon knows that, too.

“Just be careful,” he tells you, glancing away indifferently. “Don’t want you to go and die out of sheer stress before you can even graduate.”

“Are you saying I won’t even make it to the end of the semester?”

“Well, not like this.”

He doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the time you stay holed up in the library, but he doesn’t leave either. You eventually give up trying to get him to go home and get some sleep, but you can’t say you don’t find some type of comfort in his presence, either.

It has always been this way. You will always look out for each other.

It’s a staggering two in the morning by the time you finally get to shut your laptop. You wake Soonyoung gently, though Jihoon tells you not to.

(“Just leave him here, he probably won’t wake up until noon, anyways.”

“We can’t do that, are you insane?!”)

The trudge back to your apartment is silent, the weight of a sleepless week on all of your shoulders. The boys insist on walking you back to your place, and you gratefully accept their company on the walk back.

Jihoon stops you right before you head into the building, propping open the door with his shoulder. Have his arms always been so… prominent?

You raise your eyebrows when he slips you another packet of gummy bears. “What’s this for?”

“Sustenance,” he says, and there’s that rare smile on his face again, one you only really see at times like this, when he’s just talking to you. His eyes always crinkle at the corners, forming crescents, and there’s something so heartwarming about his happiness when it spreads to you, too. “I picked up extra. For tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Ji.”

“Yeah, whatever,” comes his chosen response, but the gesture stays with you long after that. You end up leaving it on your desk with the rest of your things, and when you wash up the next morning you find it lying there, hastily forgotten in the rush to get under your covers.

It’s early, and the morning light is shining through your window. You rip the bag open, popping the first piece into your mouth, and the familiar flavor of pineapple floods your tongue.

“Soonyoung, please.”

“You know, I’m with him on this one,” you pipe up, enjoying the scene unfolding in front of you right now. “It can’t hurt to do it for like, two seconds.”

Jihoon looks genuinely distraught at just the thought of doing Soonyoung’s tiger pose, even for a quick selfie. It’s almost funny, almost.

“This goes against all my values and morals,” he states stubbornly. 

“You just hate me,” Soonyoung complains, trying to get a good angle with his phone. It’s lovely out today, and you thought having lunch outside in the courtyard with your friends would be a nice way to destress from the week you’ve been having.

This, however, might be accomplishing just the opposite.

“Come on, you can horanghae for one photo,” you coax him gently. “Just let him have this one, okay?”

He scowls deeply, folding his arms. “No.”

“Jihoon.”

He manages to hold your stern gaze for all of five seconds before looking away, rolling his eyes. 

“Fine,” he mutters in defeat as he brings his hand up to his face, and Soonyoung cheers. “I better be compensated for this.”

You frown. “You can only be compensated for emotional or financial distress.”

“My point exactly.”

The fiasco is more or less over with by the time you’ve finished your sandwich, with Soonyoung promising to never let that selfie see the light of day on social media. The sun is high in the sky, and the warm weather has you feeling more like yourself than you have in a while.

Soonyoung plops himself down beside you as you click through an email on your phone. He observes you silently, occasionally glancing towards Jihoon’s retreating figure going to fetch water bottles from the trunk of your car. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” you ask after a while, not moving your eyes from the screen.

“You two are so weird,” he remarks pensively. “I’ve known Jihoon as long as you have, but you get all the privileges that no one else does.”

You look at him curiously. “Like horanghae privileges?”

“Yeah, exactly,” he agrees, laughing, “but it’s everything else, too. You know what I mean.”

You do know what he means. You can’t say you’ve never questioned it before, either; the unspoken words sometimes hang in the air, suspended like a weight that hasn’t quite dropped yet. 

But to even question it puts a lot of things on the line, and you’re not ready for that. So you just let it go, words dissolving on the tip of your tongue.

“We’re just friends,” is your very anticipated answer. Soonyoung only chuckles lightly at your response.

“You always say that, but I’ve seen that man genuinely almost break his neck looking at you every time you laugh,” he points out, and you can’t even refute it. “I’ve seen it all, so many times. I literally can’t possibly be wrong.”

And shit, if Soonyoung isn’t right, if he hasn’t said exactly what has been on your mind when you let it wander. But just the thought of that is frightening, and it’s enough for you to smack his shoulder playfully, deflecting again. 

“Don’t be silly,” you chide him, trying to change the subject. “Maybe you’re just infinitely more annoying than I am.”

Soonyoung laughs out loud at this. “I thought we already established that!”

“For once in your life, you’re actually correct,” Jihoon calls out, approaching your spot with water in tow. “I can’t remember the last time I had a moment of peace with you.”

“You love me,” Soonyoung teases, accepting a bottle. Jihoon rolls his eyes, but the small smile on his lips gives him away.

The rest of the day flies by so quickly between their bickering and the endless chatter that follows. You wonder why you haven’t done this sooner, barring exam weeks and important deadlines. Lately things had gotten so hectic that you hadn’t spent much time with either of them.

“Hey, that’s cheating!”

“No, this is allowed! It’s literally the rules!”

It’s every day with these two, you can’t help but think to yourself as they argue over an UNO play, cards lying forgotten on the gingham picnic blanket.

And in truth, you would not have it any other way.

The day your thoughts start to boil over, it rains like there is no tomorrow.

“Fuck.” 

The word drops from your mouth as you glance out the window, met with the torrential showers. Across from you, Jihoon’s got his headphones on, focused on an assignment he’s been trying to do for the past few days.

You take a long sip of the coffee he’d brought you earlier. The taste is warm and familiar on your tongue, and you wonder how he got it down exactly, whether this is a step out of the ordinary for him or not. Ever since that day in the yard, Soonyoung’s words have done nothing but haunt you.

The seconds tick by as you watch him quietly, taking in his features and mannerisms. Amidst the familiarity is the feeling of a new emotion unfolding, and to name it scares you like nothing else.

“Wow, I think my eyes are burning,” Jihoon announces abruptly, leaning back in his chair. The exhaustion is evident in his face – you could count on one hand how much sleep he’s gotten over the last few days. “I can’t wait to never take an exam again.”

“Like the workforce is any better.”

“At least there won’t be any of this, though.”

“Yeah, but taxes, bills, all of that stuff,” you list off, “there’s a bunch of hard things that we don’t need to worry about just yet.”

“Oh, I guess you’re right,” Jihoon accepts, yawning as he glances back at his screen. “We grew up so fast, didn’t we?”

You nod in agreement. “Scary. I really don’t feel equipped to start adulting.”

The silence that follows only makes you feel the weight of your statement even more. The two of you sit there like that for a while, watching the rain fall rhythmically on the road outside.

You don’t enjoy this kind of weather, but still, you have to admit that there’s something awfully peaceful about it. It’s as if the pit-pat of the raindrops syncs with your own heart, and it grounds you in a way. 

“You know, you could call me for any of that stuff,” Jihoon starts, still gazing out the window. “I can’t guarantee being able to help, but we can figure these things out together.”

You look over at him, in part surprise and part fondness. “That would be quite the tall order from me,” you joke.

He just shakes his head reassuringly. “Nothing ever is. Not if you ask.”

“Aww, look who’s being awfully nice today.”

“Hey, I’m nice every day! Well, most days,” he corrects himself immediately.

“I think Soonyoung would have a lot to say about that, Ji.”

Jihoon’s lips are pulled into a slight pout as he furrows his brows at your words.

“I care more about what you think than Soonyoung,” he confesses, mouth open in a slight laugh. “Always have.”

You were going to say something, but now your throat is dry, the words gone from your mouth. It’s all so confusing; you can’t tell if this is supposed to mean what you think – secretly hope – it does, and it won’t do to give yourself false hope.

“Oh?” you just say instead.

“Thought you’d know that after a decade,” he adds, mildly amused. You can tell he’s trying to act as nonchalant as possible, but you see right through it. “When have I not had your back?”

You catch yourself staring into his eyes for a little too long, but you can’t bring yourself to look away. There is something there that feels a lot like a warm welcome home.

“Never,” you say hesitantly. There’s many more words you want to say, but they don’t come right now, still stuck in your mind. 

Jihoon just smiles tentatively at you, and in that moment you understand everything that he hasn’t said – everything he hasn’t needed to say. 

“Finish up,” he says gently, nodding towards your laptop. “I’ll buy dinner if you can get it done within the next hour.”

You laugh at that, knowing he’ll do it regardless. “Deal.”

Even so, you can’t help but steal the occasional glance back at him, meeting his eyes across the table ever so often. It’s so strange, so new, but so intimate at the same time. 

You smile to yourself, barely concealing a giggle. Jihoon has returned to his work, squinting at the lines of code, but you know the two of you will have a nice long talk about this over dinner.

Whatever this is, you’re not sure – but it’s Lee Jihoon, and to you that means everything will be okay. If anything, excitement is what bubbles in your stomach, an anticipation for whatever more is in store for you.

The rain has ceased, and the sun is back.

God, you can’t wait to tell Soonyoung about this.

thanks for reading! i usually end up writing much longer fics so this was really fun, let me know what you think! love, ashi xx

[docrobinavitch]

say goodbye like you mean it | part four

dr. robby x f!charge nurse!oc content: 18+ mdni, explicit sexual content, detailed descriptions of domestic violence, there is a gun involved in a scene but it doesn't go off, swearing, usual canon medical events, vague age gap (oc mid to late thirties) words: 7.9k PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE synopsis: gwen is confronted with the ghosts of her past and robby desperately wants to help her through it, but in the process ends up pushing her away. a/n: hellooooo there (: thank you all for following robby and gwen to the end. this is the last part! i had so so much fun! i hope you all like the finale. thank you again for all the support on the previous parts, it really means so much to me!! i'll probably turn my attention to one shot/reader fics for the forseeable future, unless some other idea really grabs me. feel free to send requests. ok!! well can't believe i'm saying goodbye to our gwendolyn. love her dearly. i hope she sticks with you all the way she has with me.

It had been a terrible shift. They had started the morning coding a 7 year old who had been in a car accident. Gwen wasn’t normally superstitious, but it had been true for as long as she had worked in the ER that if the shift started with a mortality, there was no saving the day. If a kid was lost first thing in the morning, she thought it was destined to be somewhere in the top five worst shifts of all time.

On top of that, they were slammed. Even more so than usual. There were too many beds in the hallways and the waiting room was standing room only for the entire shift. It was Gwen that day who had gotten snippy with Gloria when she came downstairs and Robby who had had to intervene and send Gwen out for a break to keep her from losing her job.

In order to not fall apart, to stop seeing that poor battered and bruised dead seven year old, Gwen had allowed her rage to fuel her the whole shift. She had broken up a few fights that day, mostly just to have an excuse to shout at someone. But it was the man at the end of the shift that had shouted at Princess that caused her to absolutely lose any semblance of cool she had left.

“Sir, back up. Now.” Gwen said loudly over his shouting, stepping between him and Princess. The man was speaking a mix of English and another language she couldn’t identify. She didn’t quite know what he was saying, but it was clear from the look on Princess’s face that she knew. And it wasn’t good.

The man didn’t back off, so Gwen shouted louder, taking a step towards him, hoping he’d take the hint and match her step back. But he stayed where he was, now directing his vitriol Gwen’s way.

“Sir, if you don’t back off right now, I will have security remove you from the premises. Your choice.”

He stopped his yelling and for a moment and Gwen thought she’d won. But then he curled his lip, “Fucking cunt.” He spat and then shoved her, hard.

Gwen’s head ricocheted off the wall behind her from the force of the shove and she lost her balance, sliding to the floor. There was shouting around her, from the man, and the other nurses around, and then security.

She was dazed from the blow to the head, so she wasn’t sure how long it was before Robby was kneeling in front of her, gentle, warm hands on her face and a bright light shining in her eyes.

“…Can you hear me, Gwen?”

She went to nod, but it immediately made her feel dizzy, “Yes,” She managed.

“You need a head CT.”

Gwen closed her eyes, “If you just let me sit here for five minutes, I’ll be fine.”

He laughed, “You really think that’ll work on me?”

“Considering the fact that your ER will probably be in shambles the second I leave the floor, yeah, I hoped it would.”

“We’re already in shambles,” He helped her up and onto a gurney, his hand lingering on her thigh, “It can’t possibly be any worse than it already is. Princess will take over as charge.”

Gwen closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the gurney, waiting for the room to stop spinning.

“Are you okay? Besides the obvious?” She heard Robby say softly into her ear.

She wasn’t. She was so far from okay and had been far from it all week, not just this shift. Tomorrow was her and James’s anniversary. The last couple of years, it had been tough to get through without being bombarded by memories, both good and bad. But she hadn’t been working, then.

Gwen had thought being back at work would make it easier. She’d be too preoccupied to think about it. But it just made everything worse because it had been in a hospital that most of their relationship had flourished. She saw him in every EKG ordered and every STEMI that rolled through. 

They had been dating exclusively for a few months now so Robby knew her well enough to know something was bothering her, but he was hoping she would bring it up herself. She hadn’t thus far, and it was beginning to scare him. He was finally beginning to understand why refusing to communicate your emotions could threaten to destroy a relationship.

“I’m fine.” Gwen said.

Robby stared at her for a moment longer, his heart sinking, but he only nodded, “Mateo, could you escort her up to CT please?”

About an hour later, Robby found Gwen still in her gurney on the imaging floor, texting Princess about where to move patients in order to clear more beds before the night shift came in.

“Head CT came back clean, time to go home.”

“I could have told you that.” Gwen said, putting her phone down and swinging her legs over the side.

“Better safe than sorry.” Robby said quietly. Gwen said nothing to that. “I sent the police up here, did you talk to them?”

“Yes,” She said and began walking past him, “I told them I didn’t want to press charges.”

“You what?” Robby asked incredulously.

Gwen sighed, “Please don’t get all righteous on me, I’m not in the mood. Assaulting a healthcare worker is a felony, it seemed extreme.”

Robby scoffed, “It’s extreme for a reason, Gwen. If he pushed you any harder you could have a brain bleed or a skull fracture.”

She nodded, “But I’m fine, so.”

He stared at her as she got her things together, “Do you not care about your wellbeing or safety, is that it?”

Gwen headed for the stairwell, Robby close behind her, “You’re being very dramatic about this for no reason. I’m fine.”

Robby sidestepped her and planted himself in front of her, a step down, so they were eye level, “You’re doing the same thing now that you did in Manhattan, you’re running away instead of facing it—“

She flinched as if he had hit her, but he couldn’t regret it. He was pushing too hard, he knew, but he didn’t know how else to get through to her. To get her to admit something was wrong, whatever it was. He had his suspicions it had something to do with James. She had been more on guard recently. Jumping at the sound of the door or the drop of a pan. She was tense beneath his fingers, until her body seemed to register it was only Robby. 

“This has nothing to do with him.” Gwen ground out, but she flushed as she said it. 

“That’s not true,” He shook his head, “I mean, Christ, he nearly killed you and you let him walk away. Then you get assaulted by a stranger and you let that slide too, and why wouldn’t you? You’ve already set the precedent that you think your life meaningless—“

“Stop.”

“—What would someone have to do to get you to hold them accountable? Or will you just keep running until someone puts you six feet under?”

Gwen’s eyes shone with unshed tears and she looked down at her sneakers. Too far. She was dangling off a cliff and he had crushed her fingers beneath his foot. She was free falling, with nowhere safe to land.

“I think we should spend the night apart.” She said finally.

She kept her head down and heard him sigh deeply, “Pushing me away won’t make it disappear.”

Gwen stepped around him and started descending the stairs, “You have no idea what it’s like to fear for your life every second of every day. Do not talk down to me and act all holier than thou because you think you would’ve made a better decision. I did what I thought was best.”

“You did the thing that scared you the least.”

She almost laughed at his cruelty, tears clung to her eyelashes. Choking back a sob, she pushed open the stairwell door at ground level, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Michael.”

***

Robby had tried calling her a few times the previous night, but she had let them all go to voicemail. He had only left a message once, implying that he was sorry he pushed her so hard, but that he still thought she should press charges. He went on to say that he would go with her to the police station if she changed her mind.

Gwen had been pretty certain that she was in love with Robby before this argument, but now she knew it for certain. Otherwise, it all wouldn’t have hurt so badly, knowing that he believed her a coward. And sure, she had the same thoughts about herself occasionally, but it hurt more to hear it from him.

She thought about calling him on her walk to work that morning, or stopping by his apartment. She longed to see him, to be folded into his arms, to be reassured that everything was okay. But he would want to talk it through. And she didn’t want that.

This week and this day especially were already hard enough. If she had to talk more about him, about all the ways she hadn’t been good enough at the end, the scars that still festered in his absence, she would fall apart completely.

It had been more than two years now since the last time she saw James. But that didn’t stop her from seeing him everywhere. Anytime she saw a doctor with thick dark curls from the back, her heart rate would pick up until she could see their face. It was the same in public, except she’d look for a baseball cap instead.

This morning, she walked her usual path to the hospital, through the park. She mulled over her argument with Robby in her head, thought about what she would say to him when she saw him. Probably nothing. It would be easier that way. Maybe if she ignored it long enough, they could pretend it never happened.

She was thinking about this as she crossed the street in front of the hospital, and how she was being childish, when she saw him. He was unmistakable. Dark brown curls peeking out from a Mets baseball cap she had bought him years ago, and in the middle of the street she stopped cold.

She vaguely heard a car slamming on their brakes. The horn pulled her out of her reverie finally, and she turned around.

“Shit, sorry!” She yelled at the car and then doubled back the way she came, back to the park.

Gwen turned back towards the emergency room long enough to see James walk through the doors she walked through every single day.

Her heart raced and her brain was going a hundred miles an hour. Why was he here? Today of all days? Surely it couldn’t be coincidence. He must’ve found out she worked here. He couldn’t stand the thought of her moving on and so had to come and ruin it all. She couldn’t breathe and she found she couldn’t bring her feet to move towards the ER.

She took a step back and hated herself for it, tears burning the backs of her eyes.

Robby had been right, she thought to herself, turning to walk back to her apartment. She was a coward.

***

When Robby walked into the ER that morning, he did a double take at the hub when he saw Gwen wasn’t there. He checked his watch and indeed it was 6:58 AM. Gwen was always here at 6:45 AM the latest. She liked to make rounds with the night shift nurses before everyone else came in so she could get the board in order before the day shift trickled in. It was possible she was running late, but he had never known her to be in the six months she’d been running the ER.  

She hadn’t answered his calls last night, but he was certain she was just taking some space. He didn’t think she would abandon a shift just to avoid him.

“Princess, have you seen Gwen?”

She shook her head, “I don’t think she’s here yet.”

Robby nodded, though his mind was already rapidly extracting worst case scenarios. Maybe she was hit by a bus on her walk in. Perhaps she was mugged. Or she had finally tripped over that loose step on her apartment stairs that he’d been begging her to let him fix for months.

“I already told my landlord, why should you have to do it? This is why I pay rent!”

“Is sticking it to your landlord really worth the risk of breaking your neck every time you take the stairs?”

She had pretended to contemplate, and then grinned, “Yes.”

Though there was a small part of him that worried, he knew realistically she was just late so digging his phone out of his pocket, he dialed her number.

It rang for about thirty seconds and then went to voicemail. Well, was she still giving him the silent treatment or was something really wrong? He sighed and hung up, typing a quick message: Everything ok?

The message delivered. He waited another few seconds to see if she’d start typing, but nothing.

“Fuck.” He looked back up at the ER, the patients, the nurses, his residents and med students that were starting to trickle in. Abbot was still around with a patient.

Robby had grown so accustomed to Gwen being here, to leaning on her for support, he was afraid of who he’d be here without her.

It scared him, the way she’d enmeshed herself so deeply into his life, he could no longer imagine it without her in it.

Sighing, he turned back to Princess, “If she’s not here in ten minutes could you please call her again? And if she doesn’t pick up try and see if you can get Dana here?”

When Princess nodded, he began walking around the ER and gathering his residents and students for rounds.

Just as he was beginning them though, he heard a commotion in the waiting room.

He put up a finger to quiet Samira as he listened. Definitely yelling. “One second, I’ll be right back.”

Pushing through the double doors, he saw security manhandling a guy with a Mets hat on and Lupe yelling at him.

“Hey!” He shouted over the yelling and they quieted, though the man continued struggling against security, “Lupe what’s going on?”

“This man tried to sneak through to the back. He’s perfectly healthy, says he’s looking for a nurse.”

“My fiancée works here and it’s our anniversary! I just wanted to surprise her.” The man said, then added, “I’m a doctor!”

Robby crossed his arms, “You may be a doctor, but you don’t work here. You should know you can’t just go waltzing into any ER.” Then he sighed, “Who is it you’re looking for?”

“She’s the charge nurse here. Gwen Keating.”

His head spun and his blood went cold. Gwen was missing and this had to be James standing right in front of him, looking for her.

He cleared his throat after a moment, “And your name is?”

“James Loverde.”

He could barely hear past the roaring in his ears. This couldn’t be happening. Was it really their anniversary? Was that why Gwen had been off all week? The things he would give to be able to punch this guy’s lights out without repercussions.

But he needed to keep him here until he figured out where Gwen was. Otherwise, he might end up at her apartment.

“Alright, Dr. Loverde, why don’t you come on back with me.”

“But Dr. Robby—“

“I’ll take care of it, Lupe, thank you.” He gestured to one of the security guards, “Olsen, with me.”

The two men followed him through the double doors and he felt his students watching curiously as he brought James into an empty family room.

“Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll see if I can find Gwen for you, alright?”

Before he could object, Robby closed the door, leaving himself and Olsen outside.

James was already surveying the area through the glass, looking for Gwen he presumed. It made him feel sick. Robby’s mind kept flashing back to the shame on her face when she had told him the truth about why she had left New York. The image of her being pummeled by this fucker. The pain in her eyes yesterday when he had thrown her shame back in her face. It was taking everything in him to keep up his calm and friendly demeanor.

“Olsen,” He pulled the security guard to the side, “Whatever you do, don’t let him leave. And don’t let anyone talk to him or vice versa. Got it?”

Olsen frowned, “Should we be calling the cops?”

Robby sighed, scratching the back of his head, “I don’t know.” He hated that he hadn’t asked her more about her protective order. He knew most protective orders were carried across state lines, but that would have required that Gwen had registered it with the county when she moved here. And he had no idea if she had done that. If she hadn’t, the police wouldn’t help and this motherfucker would definitely leave to go look for her elsewhere, “Not yet.”

Olsen looked at him skeptically, “Boss, what is going on?”

***

Gwen stared at the safe under her bed, silent tears rolling down her cheeks. Unconsciously, she rubbed at her throat. Her thoughts had been littered with all the ways James had messed her up as she had walked back home. The most recent memory that had assaulted her was when he had violently choked her during sex and then afterwards pretended like he thought she liked it.

Her therapist was always reminding her that her PTSD meant that her brain would hide away certain memories from her to try to protect her and that anything could trigger one. This was one she hadn’t remembered until seeing him again across from the hospital. It had hit her so forcefully, she had to pause her walk home to hyperventilate while she leaned against a tree. She could still feel his hands, the weight of him on her windpipe, the panic of not being able to breathe.

She remembered that she had scratched his hands up in an attempt to get him to loosen his grip and he had later made her feel so badly about it, she cleaned and bandaged them for him. He never so much as iced the bruises he left on her neck.

Gwen had let Robby’s call go to voicemail. She knew she should answer. Despite their argument, he would be there for her through this. Even though she had fled yet again, proving his point. But, his voice would probably soothe her. He’d know what to do. But she didn’t want to hear the voice of reason right now.

She wasn’t sure what she wanted. Mostly she felt stupid for believing that she was safe from him, here. That since she had dropped the charges he would leave her be. It was just fucking like him to show up at her hospital, her ER, demanding to see her. She was certain that’s what he would be doing. Entitled narcissist that he was. She hoped Ahmad kicked his ass.

But that would just mean once he was kicked out of the ER he’d find some other way to get to her. And she wouldn’t allow that. Could not allow him to float through Pittsburgh unsupervised. No. This was her city, her ER, her friends, her family, her boyfriend. He would not taint this new life she had built. She would not yield this fragile safety net that was beginning to feel like home. She would not run away again.

Her phone vibrated with a text. Robby.

Everything ok?

She stared at it blankly until her phone screen went black again and then turned back to her safe. Unlocking it, Gwen took out the gun.

Her hands trembled as she loaded the clip, slowly and methodically, just as her instructor had taught her, and then slipped it into her bag.

She stood and then stared at her phone that sat on the hardwood. It lit up again, this time indicating an incoming call from Princess.

Gwen lightly kicked her phone until it slid under the bed and then left her apartment.

***

“Hey,” Collins approached Robby with caution as he ended his most recent attempt to get in touch with Gwen, “I don’t want to pry, but is something going on with you and Gwen? I noticed Princess is charge today.”

Robby sighed heavily and ran a hand over his face, “No, we’re fine. Or at least, I think we’re fine, but she didn’t show up for work this morning and she’s not answering any calls.” He glanced towards the room James was sitting in, “Fuck, I don’t know, maybe she’s left the state by now.”

Collins frowned, “Why would she do that?”

Robby looked at her, deciding what to disclose. But fuck, Gwen was in the wind and he needed someone to talk to, to tell him he was overreacting, “Well,” He again looked at James through the glass, “She left New York because of that guy in there and she has a restraining order against him after he fucking beat her within an inch of her life and he turned up here this morning and she didn’t and she won’t answer any of my calls. So.” He looked at Collins, “You do the math.”

Heather’s eyes widened, “Shit.” She looked towards the man sitting in the family room, then back to Robby, “She’ll come back, Robby.”

“How do you know?” He asked, and he can’t help the way his voice shakes when he says it. He hadn’t fully allowed himself to feel how fucking scared he was for Gwen until this conversation.

Heather sighed and gave him what she thought was a reassuring smile, “Because she’s tough. And because she has something worth fighting for here.”

***

Gwen sat in the back of an empty ambulance hands shaking in her bag where she concealed the gun. She wasn’t quite sure what her plan was, if there was a plan. James likely was long gone by now. And even if he was still inside, she would never bring a gun into the hospital. She had been working during many gun scares. It never got less terrifying. She wouldn’t do that to her patients or her friends. Especially after the mass shooting they had worked through just months ago.

She doubted she could even pull the trigger if she was faced with him. In a way, she thought, it would be a bit like killing a part of herself. They had been together for a decade, shared the same bed, the same meals. The mannerisms and idioms they both picked up from the other. The language of people who had loved for so long they could no longer decode the outside world without the other by their side.

Gwen couldn’t look at James without seeing the man she had fallen in love with. The same man whose knuckles had split and bled after beating her was the same man who spoon fed chicken noodle soup into her mouth in bed when she had caught strep. And it was impossible for her to separate the two. She couldn’t kill him anymore than she could kill herself.

So instead she sat, running her hands over the gun in her bag, feeling stupid.

The adrenaline rush was beginning to wear off and she wished Robby were here. She should have answered her phone. He was probably worried sick.

Or maybe not, maybe he was just annoyed she had skipped her shift.

Gwen took her hands out of her bag and pressed her palms into her eyes, she was tired of thinking.

There was a knock on the ambulance door and Gwen jumped.

But it was only Robby and he was looking at her like he was scared out of his mind, eyes red rimmed.

At the sight of him looking at her like that, clearly distraught, she broke, sobs that wracked her whole body, “I’m sorry.” She managed.

Immediately, he was next to her, pulling her into his arms, “You have nothing to apologize for.” She felt him kiss her hair as he held her, “You’re okay. You’re alright.” He repeated, and she wondered which of them he was trying to comfort.

“James was here.” She managed through hiccups as she calmed down.

“He’s still here.” Robby said, slowly running a hand through her hair.

“What?!” Gwen started to jump up, but Robby secured her with an arm around her waist, effortlessly pulling her back to him.

“Not yet,” He said softly, “Stay with me.”

“Robby,” She said incredulously, “You can’t expect me to sit here when he’s in there.”

He was shaking his head, “What’re you gonna do when you get in there, hm? Scream at him? Cause a scene? Hit him?”

Gwen thought about the gun in her bag and rubbed at her eyes, “I don’t know. I’m tired of being afraid. I want to show him I’m not afraid of him anymore.”

He’s quiet for a moment before he resumes running a hand through her hair, “It was unfair of me, all the things I said to you yesterday and I’m sorry. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Of course you were scared. Of course you wanted to leave. Who am I to judge you for that?”

Gwen fully melts into him, his apology a salve to her frayed nerves, “Where is he?”

“In the family room. Olsen’s with him.”

“He was looking for me?”

Robby nodded, “Said his fianceé was the charge nurse here. Is it really your anniversary?”

“That fucker,” Gwen sighed, “He said that?”

“Yeah. Is that why you haven’t been yourself all week?”

She almost shook her head, almost denied that anything had been wrong before this morning. But what was the point of pushing him away besides hurting herself? “Yes.” She said finally.

“You could’ve told me.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” She looked up at him, “I thought I could handle it myself.”

He stroked a hand across her cheek and then threaded it into her hair at the nape of her neck, “The whole point of having each other is so we don’t have to do this shit on our own.”

She nodded and then laughed, “When did you get so good at being a boyfriend?”

Robby smirked, “Well, I have this really lovely girlfriend and she taught me everything she knows.”

Gwen smirked, “Ah, she sounds really cool and well adjusted.”

He barked a laugh, “You’re ridiculous.”

She hummed, pleased with herself for making him laugh, “So, what do we do about… James?”

He was still running a hand soothingly through her hair, “Did you register your protective order with the county when you came here?”

Gwen nodded.

“Good, then we can call the police.”

She stiffened under his hands, “He… could lose his medical license.”

“Rightfully so.”

“If I ruin his life,” She said slowly, “He’ll want revenge. He’ll become even more obsessed with me.”

“Not if he’s in prison.”

She scoffed, “Violating a protective order doesn’t come with a very lengthy sentence.”

“No,” He agreed, shaking his head, “But domestic assault with a deadly weapon does. You mentioned a rolling pin as I recall.”

Gwen balked, “You just said I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do.”

“You don’t,” He said quickly, “I want you to do what you think is right. But the fact is James is in the ER right now… And…” He tore his gaze away from her, “If we don’t call the police, that means he just gets to walk away. And I am so fucking terrified of not being able to keep you safe if he comes back one day.”

He presses his palms into his eyes, “I know it’s not about me. And I really don’t mean to be selfish. But if you won’t do it for yourself, could you please do it for me?”

Gwen stared at him for a moment, floored to silence by his admission. When she opened her mouth to speak, she was interrupted by a voice that sent chills down her spine.

“Am I interrupting some sort of lover’s quarrel?”

A few things happened at once when James appeared in front of them, Olsen slightly behind looking remorseful.

Robby stood, placing himself between James and Gwen. He was almost a full head taller than James, and so James backed up just slightly.

“I’d like to speak to my fianceé now if you don’t mind.” James said quietly, his voice dangerous and menacing.

“Not a chance.” Robby said, then looked up over James to Olsen, “What the hell, man?”

“He started saying shit like ‘false imprisonment’, Robby.”

“Gwen, honey,” James called, never looking away from Robby, “Call off your dogs, would you? So we can talk?”

Then they all went very still when they heard a click from behind them.

Gwen had stood and backed herself away, gun behind her back, until she had a clear shot of James. Now, her hands shook and the barrel was aimed at his head.

“Woah, what the fuck?” James backed off, hands up.

“Gwen,” Robby said very carefully, “I don’t know where you got that, but I’m gonna need you to put it away.”

“It’s mine,” She said, her voice shaking, eyes zeroed in on James, “I have a license to carry.”

Well, Robby was certainly learning new things about Gwen today, “Baby, look at me,” He said gently and her eyes flicked to his, “This will ruin your life. Don’t let him win.”

“Olsen,” She said slowly, hands shaking, “Could you please handcuff him?”

Olsen obliges and Robby feels relief flood through him as she lowers the gun.

“Gwen, this is ridiculous,” James starts as Olsen starts walking him away from them, “I just wanted to talk—“

“Oh, shut the fuck up!” She shouted, “I heard nothing from you for two years, but the second I get a job, the second you hear an inkling that I’m doing better, you come down here to try to ruin it all. Fuck you. I hope they take away your medical license.” Gwen said, turning away from him again.

Robby watches Olsen lead James away as he continues to shout after Gwen and then walks up behind her as she unloads her gun and puts it back in her bag, “Would’ve been nice to know you were carrying a firearm earlier.”

She sighed heavily, shoulders curling in on themselves, “I was never going to use it. I just wanted him to be scared for once. To know how it felt.”

“I know.”

She finally smirked at him, “Really?”

“Well,” He rubbed at his beard, “For a second there you had me doubting myself.”

Without warning he reached out and pulled her to his chest, one arm around her shoulders, the other cradling her head to him.

“You scared the hell out of me today.”

“I know,” Gwen said, greedily inhaling the scent of him, “I’m sorry.”

“I thought you left.”

Gwen pulls back slightly to look up at him, “What, like, permanently?”

He nods, “I thought maybe you left the state or something.”

Gwen was exhausted of being angry, but she still felt the resentment stir in her chest, “Right, because you think I’m a coward.” She said bitterly.

Robby doesn’t say anything for a moment, just continues holding her to his chest, “Part of me hoped you had,” He said softly, “Because it meant he couldn’t hurt you. You were right yesterday, about how I didn’t know how it felt to be scared like that. I’m sure I still don’t know, not really. But when he showed up here and I couldn’t find you…” He trailed off, “You’re not a coward. You’re the bravest woman I’ve ever known.”

Gwen sighed and tightened her arms around his waist, “Thank you.”

“Hey,” Dana walked up to them and they separated, “What the hell? I was told you weren’t here.”

“She’s not here,” Robby said, and picked up Gwen’s bag, handing it back to her, “She’s going home.”

Gwen frowned, “But you’ll be calling the police—“

“You don’t need to be here for that,” Robby said, “They can interview you later. You’ve been through enough today, don’t you think?”

Gwen looks like she might argue more, so Robby adds, “I’ll come find you after. Text me when you get home safe?”

Finally she sighs and nods, “Okay.”

As she walks off, Dana comes to his side, “Do I wanna know?”

Robby watched Gwen as she walked off, “Did Gwen ever tell you about the gap in her resume?”

“You mean the jack off cardio attending that beat her? Yeah, she told me.”

“He showed up at our ER this morning.”

Dana’s eyes widened, “Jesus.”

“I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have called you otherwise.”

“Happy to be here, cap,” She put a hand on his arm, “You okay? Maybe you should go with her. We can call Abbot. Or Shen.”

Robby shook his head, “No, it’s fine, I should really get back in there.”

***

When Robby lets himself into Gwen’s apartment after his shift, it’s dark and quiet. She had texted him that she was home, as he requested, but he still felt that little bit of panic at finding the apartment dark. The police had taken James into custody, but it was likely he would get out on bail while he awaited a hearing.

He found Gwen fast asleep on top of her bed covers, still in scrubs, her phone close to her face. He was relieved the find the gun was no where to be seen, but he made a mental note to ask her where she stored it later.

“Hey,” He sits on the edge of the bed and places a gentle hand to her shoulder, “It’s me.”

Gwen roused slowly, and then blinked up at Robby, giving him a sleepy smile, “What time is it?”

“Almost 7:30.”

She hummed and reached up to stroke his beard, “That’s early for you.”

“I was eager to see you.”

She smiled, “Well, lucky me.”

“The police took James in—“

“Can we not talk about James, please? Just for tonight?”

He nodded, “Of course, whatever you want. But can I just say one thing?” When she nodded her affirmation he continued, “I want to be clear that I know I asked for a lot from you when I encouraged you to press charges. I realize that it would take a lot from you and there would be only a slight chance that it would pay off. But I wanted you to know that if you did decide that you wanted to pursue charges that I’ll be here. Whatever you need.”

“Robby,” Gwen tilted her head a bit as she looked at him, “That’s sweet, but I just… You don’t have to do that, I… We’ve only been dating a few months and I have a lot of baggage.” He watched her eyes tear up.

“Well,” He scratched the back of his head, “I’m in love with you and your baggage so I think you’re stuck with me.”

She inhaled sharply, her heart beginning to race. They had never spoken about the depths of their relationship so openly. She had certainly felt like she was in love with him for weeks now, if not months.

They shared a bed most nights now and spent their days off together. Countless nights making dinner while sharing a bottle of wine, hikes in the mountains on their days off, nearly every moment spent together, even off shift.

It was in the dark of her bedroom the first time he had spoken of Pitt Fest, when she couldn’t quite see his face. She had wiped his tears silently, kissed his cheeks, whispered that he had done everything he could.

Weeks later, on a hike, he had told her about Adamson in the light of the Sun. She, in turn, shared her own stories about the pandemic. The Advanced Directives her and James had drawn up for themselves, just in case. The 12 year old girl she had lost in order to save her 9 year old brother. Some of her own nurses that had died on her shift.

It had healed something in both of them, just having someone to listen who understood.

And it had been staring her in the face for a while now that she could no longer picture her life without him in it.

But she had never expected him to be the first to admit it.

“Really?” She asked breathlessly, mind still reeling.

He nodded, “I mean it. I’m all in.”

She almost laughed, giddy at his confession, “I love you too.”

He exhaled slowly, and grinned at her, “Good, that’s a relief.”

He lowered himself beside her on the bed, and gently pulled her face to his to kiss her.

“Take a shower with me?” He murmured against her mouth.

She nodded, and he pulled her to standing. It was her apartment, but he had been here so many times, he knew how to find his way to her bathroom in the dark.

He left the lights off as he turned on the water and began to undress her. With every article of clothing he removed, he pressed a kiss to the bare skin revealed there. The gentle scratch of his beard against her skin left a trail of goosebumps in his wake.

Beneath his gentle and careful touch, she recognized the barely restrained hunger buried within. They had both had a difficult 48 hours, and so she knew he was keeping himself on a tight leash, should she not want anything further than this, this quiet tenderness. But one word from her and he would become ravenous.

They stepped into the warm spray of water and collectively sighed, Gwen rested her forehead against Robby’s chest. They stood like that for a few moments, the only sound was of the rushing water.

Robby pumped some soap into his hands, lathered it, and began running his hands over Gwen’s shoulders. She, in turn, mirrored him.

“You’re so tense.” She said quietly as she worked the soap into his skin. He grunted softly when she pushed her fingers deeper into his muscles.

As she worked the soap onto his body, she eventually felt his erection against her leg. He didn’t acknowledge it, instead continuing to focus on the sole job of cleaning her skin.

Gwen watched the warm spray of the shower wash the soap from his shoulders and then she kissed the freckles there, “Let me take care of you?” She murmured.

Finally his eyes lifted to meet hers. She saw the carefully lidded desire, embers smoldering in his eyes, but still, he said nothing.

Slowly, eyes never leaving his, Gwen lowered herself to her knees.

She took him fully into her mouth, one hand firmly on his base.

“Oh, fuck me,” He moaned and pressed a hand to the shower wall to steady himself.

Robby ran a hand through her hair, behind her ear, and down to her jaw, securing her chin between his fingers, “Gwen, baby,” He said breathlessly as she hollowed out her cheeks, “Keep looking at me, please. Want you to see what you do to me.”

Gwen moaned against his cock and Robby’s whole body shuddered at the sensation. He swore again, “I’m close,” He ground out and she quickened her movements in response until hot ropes shot down her throat.

She sucked until he was dry, Robby still shuddering with the aftershocks of his orgasm, and then she stood again.

Robby immediately grabbed her face and pulled her mouth to meet his. Gwen let out a soft gasp in surprise at the urgency of his kiss, she would’ve thought he’d be tired now, but he showed no sign of slowing.

“I want to taste you,” He said, and reached behind him to turn the shower off, “Go lie on the bed.” He instructed, mischief glinting in his eyes.

Gwen laughed, “I wasn’t done showering.”

“We’ll shower again,” He smirked and wrapped her towel around her shoulders, “After I’ve made a mess of you.”

She returned his grin and after drying off, headed back to the bedroom.

Gwen heard the padding of his feet on the hardwood behind her. He watched from the foot of the bed as she propped herself back onto the pillows.

Slowly, he crawled over her, kissing up her legs as he did so. His fingers dusted delicately across her skin, following his kisses closely.

Gwen fidgeted under his slow tease, sure she had to absolutely be dripping just from the look of him gazing at her body with pure undiluted adoration.

If he noticed her impatience he didn’t comment on it. When he began kissing her inner thigh, she could no longer hold back her sighs.

“Robby, please.” She whined finally.

He looked up at her, a cocky smirk on his face, “I’m sorry, I’ve been teasing you for too long, haven’t I?”

Finally, he parted her legs, hooking one of her thighs over his shoulder. He held eye contact with her on the first swipe of his tongue, drinking in the way her lips parted and eyelids fluttered. She was so beautiful, like an angel, the way her back arched at the flick of his tongue.

As he languidly circled her clit with his tongue, he slipped a finger inside her, and the moan she let out went straight to his cock. “So tight for me,” He murmured as he curled his finger upwards, “You’re already ready to finish, aren’t you sweetness?”

Gwen rutted her hips, searching for more friction from his mouth, chasing her high. She loved the sight of him between her legs. Loved the way he seemed to gorge on the taste of her, like he could never get enough. Robby could be difficult to read sometimes, he could be distant and moody and distracted. But here, on the hallowed ground that was their shared bed, she never doubted for a second how badly he wanted her. How he craved her, desperately. She felt it in every look, every touch, every kiss, every swipe of his tongue and graze of his teeth.

It felt holy, the way he worshipped her body when they were home together. She would never get tired of it. Just the thought of his soft brown eyes looking up at her from between her legs was enough to unravel her. And it did, then. He curled his finger once more against her walls before he felt her convulsing around him. She moaned his name as she came down and as she caught her breath, he came back up to her, beard full of the scent of her.

“Michael,” She said softly, eyes dazed, “Need you inside me, please.”

Robby tilted his head and smirked, “Really, you still want more?” The taste and feel of her had him erect again, but he doubted he’d be able to finish again.

“Please.” She said, and Robby noticed with some alarm, her lower lip was trembling.

“Hey, baby, what is it? What’s wrong?” He raised a hand to stroke her cheek gently, but she was shaking her head.

“I don’t know, I just feel…” She was crying in earnest now, “I think the day has finally caught up to me.” She reached between them, impatient to feel his erection, “Please, we don’t have to fuck, I just want the closeness, please, I want to feel you.”

He couldn’t deny her anything, not when she was like this, “Okay, shh,” He tried to say soothingly, “It’s alright.”

He slowly pushed himself inside her, watched as she gasped at the way he filled her up, and the tears that kept cascading down her cheeks, “I got you, baby.” He said softly as he slowly rocked his hips into hers. Robby cradled her head in his hands and kissed the wet trails on her cheeks, “You’re okay.”

Gwen pulled him closer, close enough that they were sharing breath, “I love you so much,” She said.

Robby pushed his nose into hers, “And I love you.” He kissed her, the saltiness of her tears on his tongue, “You’re alright,” He repeated, “I’ve got you.”

He wasn’t sure if he had somehow said the wrong thing, because she began sobbing earnestly. He stayed inside her, but he stopped his movements and simply wrapped her in his arms, holding her as tightly as he could manage. He continued to murmur soothing things in her ear, reminding her that he had her, that she was okay, that he loved her, that he wasn’t going anywhere. Eventually her sobs eased into hiccups.

“I’m sorry.” She said finally, her voice still thick with tears, “I don’t know what that was.”

Robby shook his head and pulled back enough to see her face, “It’s been a really hard couple of days for you. The physical release from your orgasm maybe triggered some emotional release.”

She huffed a laugh and stroked a hand down his cheek, eyes still shining wet with tears, “Well, thank you for…” She shook her head, “Maybe this is too much to say, but I don’t know that I would have survived today if not for you.”

“It’s not too much. I would do it ten times over if it meant ending the day like this, with you, in my arms. I would do anything to end every day like this, forever.”

Her lower lip trembled again and he caught it between his thumb and forefinger. She kissed the pad of his thumb and sniffled, “Careful. I might hold you to that, Robinavitch.”

He smiled, “Oh, I’m counting on it.”

Another laugh escaped her, and then she grew serious, “You’ll come with me to the police station tomorrow?”

He nodded, “Anything you want,” He kissed her slowly, “I love you.” He said again, drunk on the sound of it.

Gwen sighed against him, “I love you.”

God, did he love hearing it. The things he’d do to make sure he got to hear it every day for the rest of his life.

He brushed the backs of his knuckles against her cheek, “Let’s go get cleaned up again, shall we?”

In the shower again, they silently washed each other up. The desire in Robby’s eyes had been replaced by a tenderness, the depths of which Gwen didn’t think could be measured. She felt safe and loved and cherished under the weight of it, under the touch of his fingers as he methodically cleaned her body and followed the trails of suds as they were washed from her body with kisses.

Robby was safe. Robby was good. And most importantly, she got the feeling that Michael Robinavitch would love her until the end of time if only she gave him the chance to.

And she planned to give him the chance. She planned to give him everything.

[yoonia]

A Christmas Fix — 02 (m) | kth

⟶ Summary | One-night stands are supposed to be nothing more than just. It shouldn’t have involved seeing those two red lines looking back at you weeks later without a name or a contact number linking you back to your mystery man. Nothing more but his face. The unforgettable face that would sometimes appear in your dreams at night. So unforgettable that you immediately recognise him the moment he walks into your family home at Christmas, hand-in-hand with your older stepsister.

With special collab prompt: "the holidays aren't so bad with you around."

⟶ Title | A Christmas Fix

⟶ Pairings | Taehyung x female reader

⟶ Genre | Secret Baby!au, Second Chance!au, Strangers to Lovers!au

⟶ Ratings & Warnings | +18 / M for Mature; including: alcohol consumption, mentions of pregnancy, morning sickness, surprise babies, miscommunication, profanities/swearing, fake dating trope on the side, minor body insecurities (implied), fight scene, some family drama; involves multiple explicit sex scenes, including: sexual tension, one night stand, drunk sex (with clear consent), minor dom/sub dynamic, brat!reader, size kink, rough sex, light choking, restraint, hair pulling (M, F), protected & unprotected sex, pregnant sex, fingering (F), oral sex (F), clit play, breast play, stripping, biting, minor hand job/groping, grinding, masturbation (M, F), mutual masturbation, dirty talk, implied pain kink, praise kink, body worship, marking, multiple orgasms (M, F), overstimulation.

⟶ Word count | 29,410 words (of 54,773 words)

⟶ Story Notes | Part of the Jingle All the Way collaboration with @leahsfavefics, @kithtaehyung, @kpopfanfictrash, @cybrsan, and @sugaurora | Written in 2nd person POV (in case you’re new to my writing, I don’t use ‘y/n’ coding as all of my lead characters are considered as OCs) | Moodboard was done by me | Posted in: February 1st, 2024 by @yoonia

⟶ Author Notes | And we're finally at the end. Thank you so much for everyone who has read part 1, and those of you who have been so patient with me. I'm sorry I had to wait for a day to post this. I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the journey to see how this story ends :)

⟶ Jingle All the Way collab masterlist | A Christmas Fix: ⤎ previous chapter

⟶ Main Masterlist | Taglist | Feedback | Mailbox | Ko-fi

⟶ Read on AO3

The house has been quiet all morning. 

There is only one day left before Christmas Eve, and everyone has been busy for the past couple of days. Your mother and Honey are hosting the Christmas Eve’s family dinner this year, with close relatives from their side of the family joining in, so everyone has been busy going around and about to prepare for it. 

After days filled with all the bustling activities, it feels like you finally have some downtime. With both of your parents gone—your mother is out with Honey to shop for a couple of necessities needed for the event, and your stepfather out doing some errands, assisted by Taehyung in place of Hansol—it feels like you can finally breathe easy. 

While the pre-Christmas rush helped smother the loud thinking constantly happening inside your head, the silence that you are experiencing now feels comforting. The underlying tension that is also present, however, isn’t so much. 

When you agreed to stay home and help out with the rest of the Christmas baking still needed to be done, you didn’t expect that Alia had volunteered to stay behind and help too. So you have been using this silence as a protective shield. 

Almost an hour has passed since the two of you started getting busy in the kitchen. No meaningful conversation has been shared so far, aside from the times you had to talk through the recipes together or talking about passing things over. The only sounds that are keeping you company are the occasional sounds of kitchenware hitting the counter, the shuffling sounds coming from both you and Alia as you move around the kitchen, and the burning oven behind your back. 

Slowly, you are beginning to enjoy this routine, finding calmness in the steady rhythm of baking and cooking which helps quiet the voices in your head. Too bad it doesn’t last long enough for you to relish it when Alia suddenly speaks, bringing up something other than the task in your hand for a change. 

“I’ve been wondering for a while, but you look like you had a rough night. Is your stomach still bothering you?” she asks, breaking the silence. 

To say that you are caught off-guard seems like an understatement. And you have no idea how to respond to her question. For her to suddenly ask something personal is completely unexpected. 

It’s not that the two of you never had an actual conversation with one another like a pair of normal human beings. It’s just she never seemed to truly care or have any interest in getting to know about you other than the stories shared at family dinners with your parents around. 

It’s making it even harder to answer when you have this underlying guilt brewing inside you. A feeling that comes from hiding a secret that keeps getting heavier to carry. And you are afraid that the moment you open your mouth to speak, they will all come spilling out of you. 

You wish you could just lie to her face. Tell her that everything is fine so you can continue working in silence. 

But when you look up and actually look at her, she seems—genuine, in her concern, and almost as much with her curiosity. 

But there is no malice or pretence in her question that you find yourself reaching out to accept the olive branch that she is offering you and answer, “It’s—okay. I mean, it’s been pretty rough the past few nights. I think it’s because of the lack of sleep I’ve been getting.” 

And you’re not completely lying. Because the past couple of nights have been rough. But you couldn’t possibly explain to her why.

Alia scrunches her nose, oblivious to this. “I heard from Honey that you get this way when you’re stressed out. Has work been stressful for you lately? I mean, with your latest work promotion, I can only imagine that you’ve only gotten busier lately.” 

You purse your lips and avoid her gaze, once again biting back the secret that is threatening to slip out. 

“Maybe—” you start to answer, “I haven’t been eating well, and I’ve messed up my sleeping schedule so bad lately, that it’s been hard to fix it even when I’m home. I’ve been having trouble sleeping, and I woke up with a headache this morning.” 

Alia frowns. “Have you been taking meds? I have some vitamins that may help you sleep better. I’ve been taking them lately to—” 

Thinking about taking vitamins makes you cringe. The doctor’s warnings come floating through your mind—reminding you that you should be wary of the medicines and vitamins to take, as they may not be safe enough for the baby in your belly, her warning about keeping your stress level low, and her reminder of watching over your diet at the beginning of your pregnancy. 

“No, it’s fine. I don’t usually take medicines or vitamins to help me sleep,” you gently refuse. Even without your doctor’s warnings, you know that nothing could really help you with your sleeping problems. 

Because the truth is, your nausea and ‘stomach bug‘ haven’t been the sole reason why you have been having trouble sleeping as of late. 

It was Taehyung. 

Ever since you came across Taehyung that night in the hallway, memories from the night of your wild hookup have been coming back to you. They have been haunting you at night, whether you were sitting in bed wide awake or when you were deep in your restless sleep. 

When sleep failed you, you would be left spending long hours recounting every action and every conversation that you could remember. Every single detail had been coming back to you in bits and pieces jumbling together, and you would spend the next long hours trying to piece everything together. You went through it all to answer the resounding questions that are still messing up with your mind. 

How many times did we do it that night? 

More than twice, for sure, you recall each time you try to look back. Was it three, or four times? 

You remember feeling sore and tired the next day, yet you were content enough to sleep the whole flight away towards your dream vacation with your whole body humming with the waning pleasure. And while you weren’t completely drunk that night, you were surely tipsy enough that you were unable to memorise every single moment with a clear mind. 

But the biggest question that you have yet to answer—

He really did wear condoms that night, didn’t he? 

You remember watching him roll the condom down the length of his impressive cock. It wasn’t really a memory that you could easily erase, no matter how tipsy-minded you were that night. Not when the way he did it left you completely transfixed. 

For some reason, everything about the first intercourse you had with him remains vivid in your memory. Because it was the first time for you to ever feel that kind of pleasure. To feel wanton and free with someone who was willing to help you open up a part of you which had been locked and sheltered during the long period of time you spent in your past relationship. 

The second time always seems a bit blurry. But you can still recall waking up to his sinful lips devouring your sore pussy in the middle of the night. 

He claimed it as a way to make up for the rough and dominating way he took you the first time and the lack of foreplay. So he spoiled you by giving you pleasure through his mouth and tongue and the work of his fingers, before he fucked you gently, slowly, until you were arching into him and crying out his name once again as he helped you embrace your slow rising climax. 

And the third time—

“Um, earth to ________.” 

Alia’s sharp voice pulls you out of your dark thoughts. Her curiosity seems to grow more palpable, and so does the concerned look you see on her face. 

“Are you okay? Seriously, you don’t look so well. You keep spacing out today and now it’s like you’re burning up or something.” 

With a gasp, you reach up and touch your cheeks, quickly realising that she is right. You are burning up. Except that instead of burning from a fever, your body is growing hot from the inside for a different kind of reason. 

You are burning from being drowned in your dirty thoughts and recounting all the pleasure that you felt back then. To be thinking about all the wanton things that you shared with—

Your eyes fall open as you draw a shocked gasp. Realising too late that you are thinking about your stepsister’s new boyfriend while she is sitting right in front of you. Guilt pierces through your chest right at that moment, and you quickly rise from your seat. 

“Excuse me, I think I need to cool down a little bit. I’ll be right back,” you quickly say to her before slipping away from the kitchen without waiting for her response. 

Needing distance from Alia, you rush to your bedroom upstairs, finding solace in your safe space as you lock yourself in it. The feeling of shame washes over you. You can’t believe that you had allowed yourself to think of dark, sultry thoughts while you were sitting right across your stepsister. 

Worse yet, that doing so made you feel aroused. 

The same thing always happens each time you think back about that night. As if your body has memorised what your mind has failed to remember. Each memory of his touch brings back sparks on your skin, reigniting the same reaction that he managed to draw from you then. 

By the time you lie down on your bed, the heat in your body has spread all over the place. Even to the places that you didn’t expect to be affected, as it spreads down between your legs. 

At the same time, your skin seems to be humming with need. There is a desire that has been awakened simply by reliving that night in your thoughts, which would be impossible to quench. 

You close your eyes, and immediately feel as though you are under a spell. Your hands begin to move on their own, searching for the source of the heat rushing within your body. They continue travelling their way down, following the pulses that you feel emerging from your core. 

You slip one hand down your pants, reaching down until you feel skin. A gasp threatens to come out when the tips of your fingers are met with dampened skin. Just as expected, thinking about that night and the things you did with Taehyung then has made you wet. 

Your fingers tremble, and your heart starts pounding like crazy as you continue touching yourself. Slipping your fingers across your slit, you make use of the slickness that has formed to slide back and forth, playing with yourself until you feel only pleasure. A shudder erupts through you as you stroke your clit. 

You shouldn’t be doing this. But before you can stop yourself, an image of his face hovering right above you comes to you. In that moment, you are back to the night when you were with him. 

The fingers that are touching your hot center are no longer yours. They may not be the same size as his fingers, and not as firm, but your memory easily replaces your dainty digits with Taehyung’s longer and wider ones as you push them into your throbbing core. 

There is a voice in your head that keeps telling you how wrong for you to be doing this. How inappropriate for you to be thinking naughty thoughts about someone who isn’t yours and pleasuring yourself with it. 

But your body wouldn’t listen. 

Your hand continues to move, pumping your fingers in and out of your pussy while your hips push back against them. The pleasure rises, increasing quickly the faster you move your hand, the more you ride your fingers like an animal in heat. 

And you don’t stop until your orgasm starts building. It keeps growing stronger, until everything within you snaps. 

As you fall into bliss, his face is all you see. His voice is the one you hear instead of the soft, muffled moans coming out of your lips, whispering to you the same sweet soothing voice that he gave you that night while you were succumbing to pleasure. 

“Good girl. You’re amazing, Red. Rest up, and we’ll play again once you’re ready.” 

“I suppose this is what people call a Christmas miracle.” 

You start to roll your eyes before you remember that Skye wouldn’t be able to see it. For the past hour, you have been on the phone with your roommate while you were hiding from your family. 

Locked in the safety of your bedroom for the second time today because you still couldn’t get over the mortification that has fallen upon you after this morning’s blunder. 

Having your arousal slowly pooling between your legs by the mere thought of Taehyung and the sinful deed you shared with him seemed scandalous. Allowing it to happen while you were sitting right in front of his girlfriend, someone closely related to you, made you feel as if you were more deserving to be burned in hell rather than sharing the joy and laughter of Christmas. 

And instead of brushing those nasty thoughts away, you took it one step further by seeking pleasure with the touch of your fingers. With your head filled with thoughts of Taehyung and while your stepsister was waiting downstairs for you to return. 

Shame and guilt plagued you once you were done. And you were also too sated and tired to even function. But you couldn’t hide in your bedroom for long. Doing so would only cause people to grow suspicious of your behaviour, and you already gained enough unsolicited attention to let it happen. 

So after cleaning yourself up and wiping off any remnants of your misdeed, you put your big girl pants on and went back downstairs to finish the Christmas baking with your stepsister. This time, you kept to yourself more, avoiding as much conversation with Alia while you continued to pretend that nothing happened while you were away. 

Thankfully, you didn’t have to be alone with her for far too long when everyone returned from their outing.

Masking your shame no longer became a struggle when you stopped being the main focus of the room. Everyone was busy with Christmas Eve’s preparation; your mother with the holiday decorations, your stepfather with his handiwork as he went out to fix the porch and the locks on the front door, while you and Alia remained in the kitchen to finish baking. 

Honey stayed nearby, as she sat at the kitchen counter, watching everyone doing their own thing while she was nursing a mug filled with steaming hot cocoa and sharing the most recent gossip about the old ladies living in her apartment complex. 

While all of this was happening around you, you were blessed with the absence of Taehyung, who was said to have gone back to the motel where he and Alia have been staying to finish some work before Christmas Day.

You didn’t question it, trying not to care too much about him and making use of him being gone to try and forget everything that had happened. 

But then lunchtime came, and he returned just in time to rejoin your family for the meal. Seeing his face again, hearing his voice, watching how your stepsister kept being all touchy feeling with her boyfriend and clinging to him all the time gave you an unpleasant feeling that you felt sick to the stomach. 

That was when you rushed back into your bedroom. You convinced yourself that you weren’t hiding from them. That you simply needed some time alone; alone with your thoughts, to gather your wits, and calm your nerves that had become unsettled during lunch while he was once again sitting right across the table, subtly watching you when others weren’t looking. 

But being alone with your thoughts hadn’t been quite helpful. 

Your mind kept wandering into places that you shouldn’t dare to visit. You needed someone to talk to. To vent and get everything out of your system. And Skye, who is currently on the other side of the country to be with her family, was the best option to call. 

And yet, after telling her everything that has happened and keeping her up to date with the latest developments, you are starting to regret calling her. 

“Do tell me why you, of all people, would call this catastrophe a miracle?” you ask her while pinching the bridge of your nose. Your head feels tense, although you are relieved that it has somehow stopped pounding after sharing all of the drama to your roommate through the phone call. 

You can hear the subtle sound of her humming to herself, contemplating her answer. “I mean, think about it. We already made an elaborate plan to track him down, to the point that we nearly booked a ticket to go back to the place where your flight made a stop for transit in case we can’t easily find him,” she says with the same no-nonsense tone of voice that she always uses when she is laying out all of the facts, “and then he suddenly appears, right at your family’s home, as if saying ‘Here I am, look no further’.” 

She laughs, and you can picture her shaking her head when she adds, “Tell me that’s not a miracle.” 

Instead of answering her, you only bite your lips. It does sound almost too good to be true. Except for the one simple fact that is impossible to ignore. “You’re forgetting the fact that he’s here as Alia’s plus one. I’d say it’s a curse, instead of a miracle.” 

You can her chuckling bitterly on the other side of the phone. “And once again, I’m going to say that I don’t envy you.” 

You let out a groan as you fall back on the bed. “This isn’t funny.” 

“I know, sweetie,” she says, comforting you with a sigh. “It’s just so absurd to think about all the coincidences happening around this baby business.” 

You close your eyes, hating the fact that she’s right. There are too many coincidences happening around you, and it’s astonishing to think that everything could come to this point. 

“Yeah, it does sound absurd.” 

“I’m just sad I’m not there to witness it,” she says, laughing, while you barely have the energy to scoff at her. 

For the longest time, Skye has always been the one you turn to whenever you need someone to vent about your ordeal with your stepsister. But compared to the other times you clashed against Alia, this one surely takes the cake.

“You haven’t told him about the baby, have you?” 

You wince. “No,” you answer with s sigh. “I can’t think of a way to do it.” 

And you have been avoiding being in the same room with him to even have the chance to talk about it. Not that you would have found that chance anyway if you did, as Alia has always been by his side. You suddenly remember the way Alia suddenly sidled to his side when he was alone at a time, making a complete show about her doting on him.

Grimacing, you shake the image out of your head. “I’ve thought of different scenarios involving me talking to him and revealing about my pregnancy, but everything has changed now that Alia is involved in this.” 

Skye grows silent for a moment. “Just tell him,” she says. Her voice softens, which only means that she is being serious about this. “The sooner the better, even more so because he is involved with Alia. It’s better to let him know now rather than later, once they’ve been dating longer and the baby is here.” 

You bite your lips again, refraining to tell her that you had thought about the same thing. “He did say he wanted to talk—” 

But he never made it clear what he wanted to talk about. What is there to talk about if he still has no clue about the baby? Is he trying to convince you again not to let Alia know about your past hookup? How would that work if you’re having a baby together from that hookup? 

You hate to admit it, but being kept as a secret feels—painful. 

“Well—” Skye hesitantly says, “It’s not like you’re planning to have an actual relationship with him, right?” 

Her question makes your stomach drop. Have you ever really had any hope of having a relationship with him, just because you are expecting a baby with him? 

Thinking back to the night of your hookup makes you look back and relive the emotions that you felt that night. You are sure that you felt a connection with him that night. A connection that you never felt before with anyone else. It felt real, yet you denied it simply because neither of you had been using your true identities when you climbed on that bed together. It had seemed to you that both of you had only wanted that night to be a one-time thing. 

The sparks you felt with him had also been real, and you are quite sure that you felt them again the last time you were alone with him in that hallway, when he confronted you after the first family dinner that you shared with him. Sometimes, you can also feel that same sparks coming back whenever he is in the room, no matter how far away you try to distance yourself from him.

Could it be that somewhere along the line, you had unknowingly harboured hope that you could be together again? When did this happen? 

Or did having his baby growing inside you make you think that you could somehow build something real with him, to develop the connection that you felt that night into something else entirely? 

Is that why seeing him with Alia has been bothering you so much? Not only because you are hiding this secret, but also because nothing can come out of it once you come clean to him? 

Not for the first time today, you feel like you’re about to throw up. 

You only had one night with him. You keep reminding yourself this, hoping that it will be able to snap you out of the silly illusion that you had allowed your mind to possess. 

“No, I just want him to know about the baby,” you answer weakly, hoping that voicing this promise out loud would help put an end to your wishful thinking. To stop it before it gets too far. 

“But having this baby with me while he’s dating my stepsister will complicate things. And things are already complicated between me and Alia.” 

“Right,” Skye sighs on the phone. Knowing exactly what you mean without you having to say it out loud. 

Over the years, Skye had both witnessed and heard every single spectacle that had become a major part of your relationship with Alia. You can tell that she understands what to expect once this thing blows up. 

“You’re right. I can’t imagine how she’ll react,” you hear her say, before releasing an overly dramatic sigh, and you immediately know where this is going. “Maybe she wouldn’t have hated you so much if you didn’t break that doll of hers when you were a kid.”

You scream into the pillows while she laughs historically on the phone. “Why do you have to bring that up?” you groan, hating yourself for sharing this with her during one of your late-night drinking fests. “Out of all the ludicrous things I shared with you, that’s the one crossing your mind right now?”

“Hey, you were the one who brought it up first. How would you know that it wasn’t true?” 

“How could you possibly remember that when I barely could?” you whine out loud. 

One drunken night was all it took for you to disclose the severity of your childhood crime. Even if you barely remember the details of it. Thankfully, your roommate had been the only witness to listen to your drunk confession. 

“It was an accident that happened ages ago, and I already told you that she couldn’t have possibly started resenting me for years because of that ugly doll.”

Because it sounds ridiculous if you think about it with a sober mind. And you refuse to believe the disdain that Alia has shown you for years had all stemmed from the small incident that happened when you were a child. 

At nine years old, your small family—originally consisting only of you, your mother, and your sweet grandmother, Honey—suddenly expanded. Everything changed for you the day your stepfather, Cliff, came into the picture. Not only did he fill the void that was left behind by your late father, but he also brought with him another girl, and you suddenly had an older sister to play with and to look up to. 

A few years older than you, Alia appeared in your eyes like the coolest kid you have ever met. Beautiful, smart, witty, though she could act a bit snobbish whenever you tried to play with her, yet she still shared her bedroom, her toys, and sometimes her collection of dolls. 

One sleepover, a pair of clumsy little hands, and a ripped old doll later, everything turned the other way around. It happened so long ago that you eventually forgot about it. As Alia entered high school, she rarely came to visit her father, and the incident was simply overlooked with all the other things happening in your life soon after.

The moment she came back into the picture, Alia began acting differently towards you and your relationship was quick to turn dreary. 

Forced smiles and tensed, courteous chats. The hard and solemn look coming through her eyes that she would always reserve for you when others weren’t looking, always at the times when you earned everyone’s attention or when you accomplished something good in life. Plotting schemes by arranging her own agendas to match the significant moments of your lifetime—graduation days, birthdays, anniversaries—oftentimes forcing Cliff to have to choose between being there for you or to be by his biological daughter’s side, while mostly finding excuses to miss out on your important dates altogether. 

After another incident where she caused another drama back home years ago, you came back to your apartment with an opened bottle of tequila and spent the night drunk-venting with Skye. 

Somehow, as you drunkenly wondered why your stepsister would treat you with so much disdain, that small incident from a long time ago came back to mind. And that moment, it seemed that your subconscious linked the incident with the way she treated you years after, and you let it slip to Skye for her to later make it a running joke between the two of you whenever you came to vent about your stepsister drama. 

But really now…all of that hate and drama over a doll?

As if that would justify the way she has been treating you for years. It also makes you wonder if last year’s incident had anything to do with that as well. 

Shaking your head, you hate to think of what kind of hell she will be giving you once she finds out that you are carrying a baby from the man she’s been flaunting around since the day she came home. 

You shudder at the mere thought of it. 

“You know that my offer still stands, right?” Skye suddenly questions you, much to your relief, as she changes the topic right before your head begins to ache again. “If things get too hard or if he wants nothing to do with the baby, or if he mistreats you at all after knowing that he got you pregnant, we can still run away and raise the baby together. Maybe Europe is a bit too far, and too cold for me, so how about Australia?” 

Unprepared to hear her comment, you immediately erupt into laughter. Like always, your best friend knows how to ease your mind. The tension that comes from the stress is lifted, and so are your worries. 

It doesn’t change the fact that you are still going to have to face the music the moment you are given the chance to, but at least you are starting to see some light waiting at the end of this. 

“Running away sounds awfully tempting right now, I’m not going to lie,” you murmur into the call, knowing that Skye can hear you perfectly. But she wouldn’t be able to see it as you rise from your bed and reach out to the beside table, picking up the sonogram which you had gotten right before you left for home. 

Running away does sound tempting. But it is not the choice that you can make. And you won’t. 

You are going to have that talk with Taehyung and tell him everything. Soon. You just need to be ready to face his reaction and the consequences of what the truth might bring. 

As much as you kept telling yourself to prioritise finding the chance to speak to Taehyung, all of your bravado simply vanished by the time you rejoined your family for dinner. 

Sitting down at dinner, once again taking the front row seat to watch Alia making a good show of being the doting girlfriend, as she kept clinging onto Taehyung while he was trying to keep his composure in front of you, you felt suffocated. 

And you couldn’t escape it. 

You had done it once, masking your discomfort with your sickness. And then doing it again a couple of more times under various excuses while everyone was spending time together.

Despite feeling like you wanted to run away, you were running out of excuses and there was nowhere for you to hide. Even once dinner is over, your attempt to escape unnoticed quickly fails when Taehyung finds you first. 

“What are you up to now?” you nearly snap at him as Taehyung slips into view, intercepting you when you are about to slip past the backdoor, hoping to get some fresh air. 

Pursing his lips, he hides his smile and shrugs. “Nothing, just trying to see what you’ve been up to.” 

You squint your eyes at him, finding him suspicious. “Does Alia even know you’re here? Cornering me instead of chaperoning her out there?” 

As you cross your arms over your chest, challenging him with your question, Taehyung simply stares at you with an amused look in his eyes. “You know, everyone is in the living room and they’re wondering where you are. Honey is about to make a show of making that rum cocktail that she was bragging about at dinner.” 

An overwhelming feeling of craving and queasiness comes over you as you picture Honey and her rum cocktails that you would normally enjoy during the holidays. You swallow the tightness in your throat and force a smile. “So you offered to look for me?” 

Taehyung grins, making it seem like he has no fault whatsoever for being where he shouldn’t be. “I’m currently free, so why not?” 

You scoff at him and shake your head when you fail to hide your smile. “Yeah, well. I doubt that they’ll be missing me.” 

There’s already Alia in the room with them to steal the show and everyone’s attention anyway, you silently wonder. 

And yours. 

Surprisingly, a frown forms on his face upon hearing this. “That’s where you’re wrong. Honey kept asking for you. Said something about making a special recipe for your, um…stomach bug,” he says with a small smile, and then lowers his voice to add, “and I also wondered why you weren’t there.” 

Your heart makes a sudden leap inside your chest. “Thank you for caring,” you say to him with a sarcastic tone of voice, trying not to look deeper into it or feel to happy about him looking for you. 

Having the flutter in your chest gives you more reason to walk away. “Please tell Honey I’m sorry that I can’t join her tonight. I’m not feeling up to it.” 

“Are you sure?” he asks before you can get away. “I remember that you enjoyed drinking sweet cocktails the last time we met. With how Honey kept bragging about it, I’m a bit curious to try the drinks she’s making. Don’t you? 

Of course, you would be interested, you wonder. But I can’t possibly drink whatever it is that Honey is concocting, even if I feel like I need a glass of whatever she is offering.

But he doesn’t need to know that yet—or should he? 

Suddenly, you start doubting yourself. You can feel the words hanging by the tip of your tongue already, the urge to spill everything to him right this moment grows so strongly as you look at his smug face. 

So what if he wanted to wait until the time is right to talk? When is the right time to talk about this? 

You take a quick glance around, noticing that you are all alone with him. This would be the perfect chance to tell him about the pregnancy, wouldn’t it?

“Maybe her cocktail can help you feel more at ease and less—tense,” he suddenly adds with a hint of a teasing tone in his voice that rubs you the wrong way, taking away every good will you ever have of talking to him properly about your ordeal. 

“Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve dinner. There’s going to be enough drinking then,” you say to him while gritting your teeth. But you know that it would be highly unlikely that you are going to drink even then. 

You realise that you will have to find more excuses tomorrow to avoid any alcoholic drinks being passed onto your hands. But you can figure that out later. You first need to figure out how to share him the news. 

“You should go back. Alia would be looking for you by now,” you say to him with a bite while avoiding his eyes as you try to walk around him, yet he stops you from running away again. 

This time, he isn’t using his words. 

Your entire body freezes as he catches your wrist. Once he knows that he has gotten you right where he wants you to, he starts pulling you gently back to him. You look up at his face, surprised that he would do something so daring when he was the one who had been so adamant about keeping your history with him a secret. 

“What are you doing?” you hiss at him, yet you don’t make a move to pull away. You throw a quick glance towards the hallway leading to the living room, worrying that someone might suddenly show up. “Are you crazy? What if someone comes here?” 

Taehyung steps closer until you can feel his warmth engulfing you. He only stops once his chest is merely a few inches away from yours. His move seems menacing, and so does the look in his eyes as he looks at your face. 

Those are the same eyes that had been looking back at you that night. You get to see the same look you saw then. Passionate. Enthralling. He grounds you with nowhere else to go even without having to restrain you to him, only refraining you from escaping him with nothing more but the look in his eyes. 

Suddenly, the room feels tight. As though there is not enough air in your chest for you to breathe, much less to speak. And he is getting too close for comfort. 

His hold on your wrist loosens, yet he doesn’t pull away. The dark look in his eyes also wanes, and he looks almost as if he is in pain when he leans down, getting even closer until your faces are almost touching each other. 

“Is it making you feel uneasy that I’m around? Is that why you keep running away from me when I’m there?” he questions you with a voice so soft that you would have missed it if he hasn’t been this close, with his lips hovering close to yours. 

So close that you can almost feel his kiss, even without touching. Each word he murmurs to you sends your skin shivering, while the cavities inside your chest seem to tighten on themselves when he whispers, “You might be able to ignore it and pretend nothing happened, but I can’t.” 

You take a sharp inhale of breath. What is he saying right now? 

Suddenly, you feel as if you have just walked into a dream. The same feeling that you had that night returns to you; all the sparks that seem to be floating in the air around you; the way your head seems to be in a haze, as if his entire presence is intoxicating you. 

And his words are making your head spin. 

Once again, you feel as if you are under his spell. But at the same time, you feel irritated at him for doing this. For choosing to act like this now, when he was just holding hands with your stepsister just moments ago.

While your irritation lights up, he rubs his thumb across your wrist, and the sparks explode around you like fireworks. “Tell me you’re not feeling it too.” 

And just like that, his voice snaps you right out of the spell that he placed on you. Closing your eyes, you suck a deep breath and try to compose yourself. 

“This isn’t right. Alia is in the next room,” you grit your teeth. You open your eyes and glare at him. “You were the one who told me not to tell Alia about us. Was that not your way of telling me to forget everything?” 

Taehyung’s eyes grow wide and he slowly pulls back. To his credit, his face is filled with shame when you remind him of his own words. 

Leaning closer, you whisper to him, doing your best to keep your voice from shaking when you question him, “Or do you make it a habit of jumping from one woman to another as long as it’s convenient for you?” 

He winces. Once again, he looks pained after hearing your accusation. “We’re going to talk. Once the time is right,” he whispers. He clenches his jaw, looking tense for a moment until he lets everything go with a sigh. “But you need to stop avoiding me.” 

You rear back, not expecting to find that he has noticed that you have been deliberately keeping your distance. 

How are you going to explain to him the reason why you can’t possibly stay in the same room with him? 

For you, the reason is quite obvious. You are still feeling it now, when your skin feels tight and your chest grows warm the longer you are in close proximity to him. Even when you entered a room once he left, you could still feel his presence lingering around you, and it was starting to drive you insane. 

And yes, seeing him with Alia bothers you so much that you can never bear being there to witness it.

After your last conversation where he made it seem like he wanted to move on and forget everything, you thought that he would only notice Alia and wouldn’t care to notice your predicament. But obviously, he isn’t completely oblivious to your turmoil. 

“I’m not avoiding you,” you insist. 

Taehyung raises his eyebrows. “Are you sure?” he questions you with an accusing tone. “I don’t think I imagined it when I saw you turning away and running out of the room whenever I came in.” 

He is right, and you find it impossible to lie about it when you barely tried to hide it.

Tired of holding out the truth, you finally admit to him with a small voice, “No, you’re not imagining things. Do you really think it’s fun for me to watch you both together with Alia getting all over you the entire time you’re here?” 

The light in his eyes dims. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—” he sighs, “I’ll talk to her so she can tone it down.”

You shake your head and chuckle bitterly. “Don’t bother. She’s your girlfriend. I’ll be out of here right after Christmas anyway.” 

This makes him frown. “Look, ______,” he starts, but you are too exhausted to deal with this right now to listen.

“I have to go,” you whisper as you pull your hand away. “We’ll have that talk—” 

Because there are a lot of things that I need to tell you.

“And then I’m gone and you can go back to Alia with her family thing on Christmas Day. But tomorrow night, we talk. Right after the family dinner.” 

Not bothering to wait for his response, you turn and walk away, once again leaving him behind in that dimly lit hallway as you search for solace, somewhere far, far away from him. 

Taehyung has been restless. 

He has been feeling uneasy for days. The truth is, it has been like this for him since the moment he stepped foot into Alia’s father’s house and saw you standing there. It has been a struggle to hide it and keep everything in. But last night, after talking to you again, the urge to speak to you about everything and explain himself has been growing even stronger. 

The look that you gave him when he first saw you has been haunting him, weighing him with guilt. Ever since that night six weeks ago, he has kept your smile deeply ingrained in his memory; the coy smile that you gave him as you flirted with him at the bar; the sultry look you wore when you clung onto him at the elevator while testing his limits with your lips tracing his neck; the content smile that he saw on your face the morning after the long, passionate night he shared with you before he took you again one last time. 

And yet, the smile that he kept wishing to see again for the past month was not there when he finally met you again. The expression that he has yearned to see had been replaced with shock, as you stood there looking like a deer caught in the headlights, while at the same time, you also seemed as if you had just witnessed someone kicking your puppy. 

Which was quite understandable, looking back at it now. It must have been a complete shock for you to see him entering your home, holding Alia’s hand and introducing himself as her boyfriend. Just as shocking it was for him to find out that you are Alia’s stepsister.

Fuck, how did things get so messed up?

”You’re not ready yet.”

Taehyung has been so out of it when he enters the motel’s bedroom that he fails to notice Alia watching him. Sitting right in front of the dressing table, she barely gives him a glance as she is busy putting on her makeup and doing her hair for the night. 

Normally, she doesn’t take this much time getting ready. But Taehyung understands that tonight is different. 

According to Alia, the family’s Christmas Eve dinner is a small annual gathering that is quite important for them. Held on behalf of Honey, who often spends the holiday with Cliff’s side of the family. It is when family members and second cousins would come to her Dad’s house to celebrate both the holidays and Honey’s good health. 

Ever since early this morning, Alia has been saying how she needs to look as her best self tonight—spoken in her own words—because she wants to make a good impression on her stepmother’s family. The only problem was that she also made it clear that she wanted Taehyung to play his role as her boyfriend perfectly, to continue to show that they have a great relationship right in front of everyone, just the same way he has been doing it for the past few days. 

It shouldn’t be bothering him so much that she would ask him to do this. Since that was the main reason why he is here in the first place. 

The original plan had been simple. All he had to do this holiday was to accompany Alia on her trip home to see her family. The family gathering from her mother’s side has always been so stressful, and he simply wanted to help her lessen the pressure so she could enjoy the holidays for once. 

Yet her mother’s special Christmas gathering tomorrow had not been the only thing that was bothering Alia before this holiday came around. Once Taehyung agreed to be her plus one, she extended her desperate plea for help by asking him to come with her as she spends Christmas and the upcoming days to it with her father’s family before heading to see her mother.  

He can’t remember well what Alia told him about having to be here. He understood the reason when it came to her mother, but he barely knew anything about her father’s family. He remembers her talking about something that had to do with clearing her name. Obviously, he should’ve paid more attention, and maybe he should’ve taken the time to know more about Cliff’s family. 

Not that it matters now. When he has travelled all the way here for this, and now he is stuck in this mess without having any clue how to fix it.   

“Taehyung?” 

Taehyung blinks. “What?” 

Alia doesn’t say a thing at first. For a moment, Taehyung wonders if she notices anything when she tilts her head at him, finally looking directly at him as if she is trying to read him. 

Yet he is proven wrong when Alia merely sighs. “I just said that you need to get ready,” Alia says, unaware of the battle happening inside Taehyung’s mind. Before he can say a thing, Alia averts her gaze and looks back at the mirror as if she is trying to solve a puzzle. “You need to look your best if you’re going to stay beside me and we’re going to be late if you’re not moving it.”  

Chuckling to himself, Taehyung walks over to stand right behind her. With his face appearing in the mirror, she has no choice but to look at him. “Should I wear my best suit tonight, then?” he taunts her as he leans down, breathing in her perfume that is a bit too extravagant to his liking. 

I was right, this perfume is nowhere near my taste, he says to himself, while he silently recalls breathing in your perfume and thinking just how much it suited you.

Alia looks up at him through the mirror and rolls her eyes. “You can wear whatever. A suit would be too much, since we’re having the dinner at home, not at some fancy and way too expensive restaurant like how my Mom would have it. You did bring your suit, didn’t you? Wear that at my Mom’s party tomorrow,” Alia instructs him, and for some reason, it doesn’t make him feel good about it.

Usually, he wouldn’t take it to heart and just laugh it off when she acts this bossy around him. Not this time, however. The entire situation has made him grow a bit resentful to her, something that he has been realising for a while now, even if it isn’t fair for her to be treated this way when it wasn’t really her fault. 

Alia keeps her eyes on the mirror when she continues to speak to him. “Wear that black jacket that you love so much. You always look good in it,” she says, flickering her gaze in a teasing way when she adds, “Even I would swoon when I see you wearing it, and that doesn’t happen a lot.” 

Taehyung scoffs at Alia and lowers his head to avoid her gaze. The black jacket brings back a lot of memories. He didn’t think much of it when he brought it with him on this trip, but maybe a part of him already felt that he would be needing it. 

Would it be okay to wear it tonight, right in front of her?

“Are you okay?” Alia’s voice snaps him out of his musings. As he looks up to meet her gaze through the mirror, she surprises him by not only softening her voice, but looking as if she is worried about him. “You know, you don’t seem like yourself lately.” 

How nice of you to notice, Taehyung wonders to himself but bites his tongue so he wouldn’t let those words slip. He has been wondering for a while now just how she could remain oblivious to everything that has been happening around her. 

If only she would notice how uncomfortable he feels whenever she clings to him, or how their act in front of her family bothers you so much. 

Maybe she does notice it, he muses. Maybe she’s been doing it on purpose by pushing it on him. Does it have to do with—

Before Taehyung could finish his own thoughts, Alia seems to have enough of his silence and turns on her seat to look at him straight in the eyes. 

“What is it? Spill.” 

Taehyung only continues to remain silent, having no idea how to answer that question or if he should try to. Even if he can explain himself, where should he even start? 

Is this the part where he needs to tell her that her stepsister—the reason why Alia decided to come to see her Dad after spending weeks complaining that she didn’t have any desire to, and also the reason why she is trying so damn hard to impress everyone this holiday, even to the point of bringing Taehyung home to meet her family—was his last sex partner? 

“You need to tell her.” 

Taehyung closes his eyes as your voice echoes through his head, as if you are the voice of his conscience. 

You were right. He needs to tell Alia about his connection to you. But knowing her mood swings, and the reason why she has been trying to be ‘perfect’ the entire time she was spending time with Cliff’s family, he was hoping that he could postpone talking to her about it until tonight’s big family dinner is done. 

An event that Alia claimed to be more important for her than her mother’s fancy family gathering. 

No, I need to talk to her first, he decides. Maybe we could figure something out once she knows everything. 

“Nothing. I’m just overwhelmed. You didn’t tell me—” he stops himself as he almost let it slip that it was your presence that bothers him. 

You didn’t tell me anything about your stepsister. 

He keeps those words to himself. But he makes a mental note to bring it up once he gets back to her again by the end of the night to have a different kind of conversation to the one he is having with you. “So, black jacket, huh? Got it.” 

“Good, now go get ready and make it quick. The trip from here back to Dad’s house will take some time,” Alia says with a sigh as she turns back to the mirror, her concern is quick to vanish as she proceeds to complain, “We could’ve spared that trip if you hadn’t insisted that we stay in this motel instead of using the guest room like me and my Dad suggested.” 

“I already told you,” Taehyung says with a deep chuckle, leaning back down again to whisper, “I’m a terrible actor.” 

He straightens up while looking pleased with himself for drawing a frown on Alia’s face. “And being in your Dad’s house the entire time we’re here would cost me too much work. The gig would’ve been up before you know it.” 

“Fine, whatever. Just go,” Alia waves him off. 

Taehyung nods and makes his way to the door. He stops before he opens it and asks her, “Remember what I asked earlier?” 

Once again, Alia rolls her eyes at him. “Yeah, yeah, tone it down with the clingy girlfriend act. I get it. Now go get ready, we’re going to be late.” 

Taehyung breathes a sigh of relief to hear it. He can’t seem to forget the way the light in your eyes seemed to dim when you talked about the way he kept putting on the new couple act in front of you. On top of this whole mess, the last thing he wants is to leave you feeling hurt by his actions, so he made a deal with Alia to tone it down, even if he couldn’t explain to her the reason why. 

Pleased to know that Alia is listening to him for once, and that he has at least one problem handled before tonight, Taehyung leaves Alia’s motel room, closing the door behind him with a click before he goes to his own room to get ready.

You turn to your side and have a good look at yourself in the mirror. On instinct, your hands run down your belly, pressing down gently at the spot where the baby should be. 

The knitted dress that you have chosen to wear tonight may not be the fanciest one, but it is the one that feels comfortable on your skin. It isn’t tight enough on your body to make you feel self-conscious about yourself and definitely not enough to show the changes happening in your body. 

With just over six weeks of gestation, the baby bump isn’t showing that much yet. But you can still feel the way your body is changing. Perhaps it is all happening in your mind, only from knowing that you are keeping a living being inside you, but you can almost see it when you look at yourself in the mirror that you cannot help but try to do anything you can to hide it from your family. 

For now, at least. Only until you are ready to reveal everything to them. 

Thinking about this only makes you grow more anxious. You have been feeling this way since morning, all for the thought of having to face Taehyung again, and to finally talk about everything that is needed to be said before the night ends. 

“Tonight,” you tell yourself as you straighten up to look at your reflection in the mirror for one last time. “I’m going to tell him about the baby tonight.” 

Tonight will be the only chance you will ever have to talk to him, after all.  

Tomorrow, Taehyung will join Alia to visit her birth mother. Alia’s mother has always held a massive luncheon or dinner event on Christmas Day that Alia would be required to attend, so you doubt that she would miss it this year, even if you had always overheard her complaining about it to your stepfather.  

Every year, Alia would always prioritise her mother’s family event over her father’s during the holiday season. Coming from a wealthy family, Alia’s mother had always appeared to you like a different breed. Her holiday parties had always been so fancy, almost too extravagant compared to your family’s simple ones. 

Every year, Alia would focus on preparing for those events, always stressing about it before going, and barely focusing on her days spent with her father and his family that it did come as a surprise to you when she came early this year to join your family and to even get herself involved. 

Perhaps that was the reason why she had decided to bring a date with her this time around, and to introduce her boyfriend to the family like you did with your ex. 

Shaking the thoughts of Alia out of your mind, you finish getting ready and walk over to your purse. With gentle fingers, you pull out the sonogram that you had printed during your latest trip to the doctor. 

Holding it up under the light, you brush your fingertips across the blurry image of your growing baby. Sometimes it is still hard for you to process the fact that you are carrying a human child within you. Even through the nausea, the cravings, the lethargy, and any other peculiar things that have become parts of your life as of late, you still have a hard time grasping this fact. 

But this sonogram shows you the undeniable proof that the baby is there. You had even gotten the chance to hear the baby’s faint heartbeat on your last appointment, making it clear that you are carrying a life inside you. 

A life that seems so fragile, that you have developed a strong urge to protect it from the world. Even from its father, if he ever tries to deny or reject it. 

“It’s going to be okay,” you whisper to yourself while brushing your fingers on the picture again, speaking of it like a mantra. At the same time, it also feels as if you are talking to your baby, soothing it like you would if the baby is here with you. “Everything’s going to be okay. Let’s just get through tonight first.” 

For a moment, you contemplate between carrying the sonogram with you or to leave it here. With no purse or a pocket to hide it in, you finally decide to leave it on top of the bedside table until you are ready to show it to Taehyung later tonight. 

With one last look at the mirror, you rub your palms down your dress and give yourself the final pep talk before heading out. “Let’s go,” you whisper to yourself as you walk out of your bedroom, strengthening your shoulders and keeping your chin up as you prepare yourself to face the inevitable.

It’s finally Christmas Eve. 

The holiday spirit hasn’t completely sunk in on you until you finally sat down at the table for the annual Christmas dinner, surrounded by your immediate family and the family members that you haven’t met for a period of time while you have been pursuing your dreams away in the city. 

Outside, the temperature has dropped down even lower than before. The layer of snow that your stepfather had spent hours shovelling away are piling up with fresh ones as snowflakes keep falling from the evening sky, while the windows would tremble once or twice with the flowing breeze that seemed to have picked up as the day turned into evening. 

Inside, however, the warmth of the festive season fills the air, as everyone gathers around the overflowing feast that has been set up on the table—your grandmother’s specially made ham and turkey with the additional main of lamb skewers and turkey meatballs, Aunt Dara’s potato bake and baked salmon, and Uncle Marco’s signature casseroles, with smaller bowls of side dishes set on the side. 

A couple of bowls of the fennel salad that you helped prepare are being passed around on the table. Once everyone is done with their meal, your home-made cinnamon bread rolls and your cousin June’s apple and caramel pie are ready to be served as desserts. 

Once everyone has filled the dining room, your mother’s Christmas decorations which you perviously thought was overdone no longer seemed as much. The twinkling lights and the fragrant pine garlands adorning the room are enough to rival the festive sweaters and bright-coloured dresses that everyone is wearing for the night. The scent of cinnamon and cloves wafts around you all the way from the kitchen, and it makes your head swim even without sipping on the champagne that are being passed around.

As everyone took their seats at the table, you stepfather stepped aside to let Honey take the head of the table as the matriarch of the family and the night’s host. The radiant smile on her face which never seems to wane sets the mood in the entire room, helping you to also forget about your personal troubles that no longer seem as dire as your mind had made them up to be. 

The laughter and chatter filling the room becomes the perfect distraction that you need to pay no heed to the unwavering gaze that Taehyung keeps stealing your way. Even as he chats with June who had sat down by his side, Taehyung continues to throw a few not-so-subtle glances your way, making you feel uneasy and self-conscious whenever you aren’t having your attention dragged away from your younger cousin, Maya, who is chattering right beside you while sipping her glass of champagne.

You turn your gaze at Alia, who had chosen to sit by Cliff’s brother, Kyle, who had decided to join your family this year. Too busy catching up with her uncle, she doesn’t seem to notice her own boyfriend’s wandering eyes. She doesn’t even seem to care as much as she should, you realise, as you have also noticed that she hasn’t been clinging or openly doting on Taehyung throughout the night since they had gotten back from the motel. 

It has given you a sense of relief, because you can finally have one night where your heart isn’t being crushed from watching them together, but also a twinge of guilt, knowing that your last conversation with Taehyung may have had something to do with it. She did appear tense when she first came in, and you never figured out why when it quickly faded the moment she saw her uncle in the room, and her stiff expression quickly turned into relief. 

The sounds of glasses clinking and the pouring champagne continues on as everyone is starting to finish their meal. Nursing the glass of fresh juice that you have had all through dinner, you hope that nobody notices that you have left the glass of champagne on your side mostly untouched—apart from the occasional raise of the glass when someone makes a toast or pressing your lips lightly on its rim to disguise the fact that you are not drinking any drop of it. 

Not too long, dinner is over, and everyone filters into the spacious living room to gather around the fireplace while the kids loiter around the Christmas tree to curiously shift through the wrapped presents to try and find which one of them would be theirs. 

There are a selective few that separate themselves to head out to the back porch to smoke and talk business—mostly your male cousins—while the others quickly follow Honey to where she has set up the minibar for her signature rum cocktails and act as the designated bartender for the night. 

As you follow to join everyone in the living room, the impending conversation that you are about to have with Taehyung keeps weighing you down, making you grow more anxious with each passing second. It makes you feel vulnerable, causing you to be hyper-aware of his presence inside the room even before you catch the sight of him mingling with your family. 

Moving one feet after the other without tripping feels like a struggle under the heat of his gaze. It bothers you to no end to notice that Taehyung seems to have disregarded any last bit of subtlety, when he is now openly staring at you even while he is chatting with someone else by the Christmas tree. 

You have no idea if anyone, especially Alia, has noticed it. You wouldn’t be surprised if someone has caught on, when he makes it so obvious that he is watching you from across the room. 

The only reprieve that you have to cover you from Taehyung’s gaze and the silent questions that may linger within any observant pair of eyes would be your grandmother, Honey, who steals most of the attention by running the show as she mixes her sweet cocktails and shares new stories about her friends back at her apartment complex and gossips that she heard recently from the neighbours here. 

“Congratulations.” 

A deep voice greets you, pulling you out of the stupor that you are in. You look over to see Kyle, your stepfather’s younger brother, coming to your side. 

It was a nice surprise to see him this year to join your family gathering, as your step-uncle has been working at another state for the past year and you haven’t seen each other since. Carrying a glass of wine with him—red, just the way he enjoys it—instead of a glass of cocktail, he gives you a warm smile that looks like a mirror image to his older brother. 

“I heard from your Dad that you just got another promotion. I’m guessing that this gathering is part of the celebration too?” he asks, while your skin warms at the mention of your stepfather. 

For as long as you could remember, you have been calling Cliff as ‘Dad’. You can no longer remember how it started, but ever since you were little, the only ‘Dad’ you have ever known has been Cliff, not the birth father who had been gone almost your entire life. He may not be your birth father, and there has been no talking about him adopting you yet, but he is the one and only Dad that you’ll ever know. 

Having someone else noticing and acknowledging it feels gratifying. Especially when it is coming from his side of the family. 

Nodding your head, you answer your step-uncle with a bashful smile. “Yeah, that’s what Honey said and she insisted that we host the annual dinner this year instead of Aunt Dara. But we all know that she’s the main star of the show,” you joke with him as you nod your chin to point at Honey, who is teasing your mother about dropping rum into her hot cocoa instead of taking one of her sweet cocktails. 

Kyle laughs with you as he watches the scene. “Still, you should be proud of yourself.” 

“Oh, I am proud,” you answer him with a smile. “I worked hard for it, but I’m feeling a bit guilty too since the busier I had gotten, the lesser I was able to make time to contact my parents.” 

Your step-uncle nods. “You can’t help it. That’s often the cost of building a career,” he says, understanding your situation, as he too has the same troubles of making time for his family with his busy life. 

“But your parents would understand. In fact, your Dad has been bragging about his girls quite a lot lately. One who keeps traveling across the globe to see the world, while the other who keeps climbing the corporate ladder, and I have to say—” he sighs, “I’m kind of jealous.”

You raise your eyebrows. “Has he now?” you chuckle a little, somehow feeling good about being your stepfather’s pride. “Oh, you shouldn’t be feeling too jealous of Dad. You know your kids are doing great too. They’re both in college now, aren’t they?”

At the mention of his children, Kyle’s eyes seem to grow brighter. He speaks with a voice full of pride as he talks about the two young boys who had just returned from the back porch and now huddling in front of the fireplace to warm up while bickering on their own. 

You stay to talk to him for a while longer, until your stepfather steals him away to share a bottle of a much stronger liquor in another room and you continue to mingle with the other family members that you haven’t met for a while. 

By the time you are done catching up, the object of your frustration—who is coincidentally also the father of your baby—forgotten, you are feeling drained and your legs are giving up from standing for too long that you unceremoniously collapse on the couch in the corner of the room without a single care. 

For a moment, you find calmness by sitting on your own, staying in the corner where you are mostly unnoticed. The festivities is still high around you, but you find freedom here, away from everyone’s attention. Too bad that you aren’t given the chance to savour it when someone decides to slide in and sit right next to you. 

“So—I suppose that aside from the cocktail tasting, the gift exchange is going to be the main part of the night’s event, huh?” 

A shudder rocks through your body. His deep, distinctive voice does that to you even when you hear it in your dreams. Taking a deep breath, you compose yourself before turning to him, hoping that you have enough strength to look at his face without feeling like your heart is about to burst. 

Slowly, you turn to look at him, and immediately, your entire body betrays you. Your heartbeat picks up, and the cavity in your chest is overflowing with gentle flutters, as if there are a thousand of butterfly wings inside you coming awake with just one look at his face. Taehyung lets his gaze linger on the children who are showing off their wrapped gifts to their parents before looking back at you. 

Your cheeks burn the moment your eyes meet each other, and you look away before it gets too much. “Yes, we’re exchanging gifts before the night ends, and then everyone will go on their merry way. Some drunk, while relying on their designated drivers or a cab, and some others to continue with their own thing back home,” you explain to him while trying to keep your voice calm. “It started mostly with Honey being the one giving out the gifts on the Eve, since it’s her thing to give something to everyone she cares about.” 

A smile is lifted on your face while you watch Honey handing out small wrapped boxes of gifts to the children first before the older ones get their turns. The cheerful laughter shared by everyone who has received Honey’s special gifts fills the room. Curious expressions that quickly turn into joy has always been the high point of these Christmas gatherings in your family. 

You should be there to join them, to enjoy the festivities, yet with everything that has been going on, you are feeling too overwhelmed to take part in it. “After a while, the relatives who are often invited to these things started joining in, bringing in their own gifts in addition to the plates of food that they bring for dinner.” 

“Sounds like so much fun,” Taehyung muses. “Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves.” 

“Why are you sitting back here? Aren’t you supposed to be with Alia?” you question him as you wonder why he would be so daring to join you instead of staying by his girlfriend’s side and play his role as her plus one. “You could’ve asked Alia about these things.”

Taehyung grins. “She’s busy with her own thing. Besides, every time I ask her about these things, she would just brush it off and tell me to ask someone else.” 

Frowning, you find his comment to be odd. It isn’t something that you could expect to hear from a new couple such as them. Lest of all from one half of the couple that haven’t been shy with their constant public display of affection from the day they arrived. 

Once again avoiding Taehyung’s gaze as he looks at you again, you find Alia across the room, conversing with one of Kyle’s sons. Judging from the way she seems to be enjoying herself with the glass of cocktail in her hand, she doesn’t seem to care much about what her boyfriend is up to, much less to feel curious enough to find him. 

That’s odd, but it’s not really my problem, is it?  

You remind yourself and put your curiosity aside. “You could’ve asked Honey. You seem to have grown closer to her lately,” you tease Taehyung, pointing out how often he has been spending time with your grandmother whenever he isn’t busy helping others in the house or catering to Alia’s need for attention. 

Taehyung chuckles softly. “How could I bother the host of the party? Look at her enjoying herself. She’s the superstar tonight, so I’d rather not take her out of the spotlight just to be my guide.” 

Even without looking, you can hear the smile in his voice as he talks about your grandmother. And when you look ahead, you can obviously see that he isn’t completely wrong. 

Honey is clearly having the time of her life; whether it’s about watching the happy faces receiving her gifts or seeing people enjoying the drinks she is making. She may have lessened her own drinking habit—except for the occasional drop of rum that she sneaks into her hot drinks—but she still knows how to make amazing sweet and fruity cocktails for others to enjoy. 

That should explain why you have the penchant for sweet alcoholic drinks instead of the bitter ones whenever you feel like it.

“So,” you turn to Taehyung with a sly smile. “I guess that means I’ve earned the honour to answer your questions?” 

Taehyung seems surprised to see that you smiling back at him. His gaze softens, and so does his voice when he leans closer to say, “You’re the only person I know in this room.” 

Fuck. Your cheeks shouldn’t be getting warm just because he says something like this. You look away to hide it. “Is Alia the jealous type? Would it bother her to see us chatting as friendly as we do now?” 

Taehyung scoffs. “I don’t think she even bothers to notice. Not tonight, anyway.” 

“Yeah…she can be the least perceptive person in the room sometimes,” you sigh as you watch your stepsister joking with her cousin without a single glance at her boyfriend. Realising what you just said, you turn to Taehyung to apologise. “Sorry, that was uncalled for.”

“It’s fine,” he scoffs. “Trust me, I know it full well from experience.” 

There is a sarcastic tone in his voice that should have made you wonder about his comment. Yet there is a bitterness that you feel inside after hearing those words. Of course, he would have enough experience dealing with Alia’s attitude. 

They are dating, after all. 

You look away and bite back that bitter taste in your tongue. “Right, of course.” 

Unlike Alia who can be completely insensitive to her surroundings, Taehyung notices your change of mood right away. You feel him sliding closer, just enough to allow him to speak in a low voice, but not enough to make people grow curious or suspicious that something is going on between the two of you. 

“You promised that we could talk,” he says, almost a whisper under the noises around you.  

Your stomach feels tight with nerves. It’s time. “I did, and we do,” you say to him while clenching your hands. You are beginning to wonder if you had made the right decision of leaving the sonogram behind. Maybe bringing him back to your bedroom wouldn’t be a good idea. “I have—something to tell you. Something important.” 

Taehyung nods. “Do you think we can slip out of the room unnoticed?” 

“You mean…now? You want to do it right now?” you hiss at him, glancing at Alia before looking back at him again. “Wouldn’t Alia be looking for you?” 

Taehyung merely scoffs. “Like I said, she’s busy. Once she gets a few more glasses of drink, she’ll be more focused on looking for a sofa to lie down on instead of noticing that I’m gone.” 

As if on cue, Alia’s laughter echoes through the room, and she turns away to joke with both of her male cousins now. You also notice that she has somehow gotten a fresh glass of cocktail in her hand, and she must have drank it halfway already by the looks of it. 

Looking around the room, you notice that the guests crowding the living room is slowly dwindling. Most of your relatives who had gotten enough of Honey’s cocktail and received their gifts are starting to bid their goodbyes, hoping that they could return home before it gets too late and preferably before each of their designated drivers join in with the drinking. Yet there are some family members who have yet to show any sign of leaving soon, still enjoying their chat with Honey by the Christmas tree. 

There will be no other chance, you tell yourself as you silently make a decision. The lesser people there are left, the more obvious it would be for everyone that you had gone missing from the room. 

And with whom you may have disappeared together. 

“Can you, uh—meet me in my room in about ten minutes, maybe less? I think we can get some privacy there and people don’t normally get upstairs unless they’re staying the night.” And because I left the sonogram there. 

That’s right, it would be easier to show the sonogram to him right away when you tell him everything, just as how you initially planned it, even if you haven’t been too sure about it. “I’ll have to mingle a bit more and make sure that Honey can see me before I disappear. She’ll be looking for me if I don’t join her even if for a minute.” 

“Yeah, I can do that,” Taehyung says as he straightens up, “You go ahead and talk to Honey, and I’ll sneak us out some drinks so we have something to do while we talk.”  

“Drinks. Right. Good idea,” you simply say to him, not bothering to try and turn down his offer, or to insist him to bring you the non-alcoholic ones. He’ll figure things out later once you are alone with him anyway. 

With a nod, Taehyung rises from his seat and walks over to June, your cousin who seems to have gotten along with Taehyung over dinner. You wait for a few more minutes before making your move. Honey seems to be busy as more and more relatives are preparing to leave. So you turn to Aunt Dara and have a quick chat with her, making sure that the two of you remain within Honey’s peripheral vision so she can still see you. 

Too restless to linger around and stay a bit longer, in not more than five minutes, you end your conversation and turn away from your aunt, hoping that you can slip away from the room before anyone notices your stealthy escape. Not even Honey. Because the moment you are caught by your grandmother, you know it would make it even harder for you to leave the room. 

But just as you slip through the guests, staying clear from your mother’s relatives who are crowding Honey, your grandmother catches the sight of you and calls out—

“______, there you are. We were just talking about you. Come over here,” she says, waving her hand so you can join her and the small group that still remains to accompany her after a couple of more relatives have left the party. 

Fuck. Too late. 

Forcing a smile, you slither towards her, practically dragging your feet. “What is it, Honey?” 

Honey leans against the minibar and picks up a small bottle. She continues mixing and pouring the drinks as she starts talking to you, “I was just talking to them about your recent promotion and how proud you made us. And then Jennie here shared that she is starting a new job and moving to the same city where you work. I told them that you have a big apartment that I love so much—” 

You roll your eyes and laugh. “Honey, I already told you. I don’t own the place, I rent it with a roommate.” 

“Anyway,” she brushes you off, “I wondered if you could be a dear and help Jennie out to find a nice apartment. You know people in the city can be a bit sneaky. We’ve heard stories of young girls getting scammed the first time they’ve gone into a big city, so obviously, I was worried.” 

Before you can say anything, Jennie raises her hand and cuts in, “I told Honey that I’ve already been looking up at a few places so—”

Jennie’s voice fades in and out and you can barely focus on what she is trying to tell you. Something about making arrangements with property agents to look up for a few affordable apartments not far from where you live. But your attention is being drawn elsewhere, as you notice from the corner of your eyes, that Taehyung is nodding at June and walking away, barely giving you a glance as he slides towards the small corner table filled with bottles of beer to grab the drinks he promised you. 

“You know what, why don’t you call me up once you start moving. Maybe you can crash at my place and use the couch while you’re looking. Then I’ll see if I can arrange my schedules to go with you when you’re looking into those apartments so you won’t have to go alone.” 

“That sounds great!” Jennie says, looking relieved, and you see it as a chance to also slip away so you can get to your bedroom before Taehyung could. 

“Honey, I—” 

“See? I told you that _____ is an angel,” Honey cuts you off before you can get a word out. Then she turns to you, handing you the glass of cocktail that she was mixing while you were chatting with your cousin. 

“Here, you should try this. I made this specially for you,” she says as she gives the drink a few more stirs. “I remember that you loved the rose scented drinks I bought you, so I ordered this infused—” 

You bite your lips, trying to hide away your revulsion as Honey raises the glass to you so you can take it from her. On reflect, you lift your hands to refuse. “No, thank you, Honey. I’m sorry, but I’m not in the mood for cocktails right now. I’ve just finished my hot chocolate, after all.” 

“That’s too bad. Well, I guess someone else has to taste this one for me.” She pouts, making you feel guilty for refusing her offer as she lowers her hand. “Speaking of which, I haven’t seen you drinking tonight. In fact, I haven’t seen you drink any alcoholic drink at all this holiday. Are you sure you’re not pregnant?”

Your stomach drops. An incredulous laugh leaves your lips. “W-what?” 

What did she say? You wonder. You must’ve heard her wrong. Right?

Honey shrugs as she puts away the rejected drink and places it on top of the minibar. “Seeing how you keep getting sick and avoiding alcoholic drinks since you got here, I would think that you’re secretly pregnant,” she says while laughing and looking proud, as if she was simply throwing her crude joke as she usually does without realising how spot on it was to the truth. “Are you carrying a child in that belly, dear?” 

The room falls into a rapt hush after Honey throws that comment into the room. You can feel everyone’s eyes on you, while Honey remains unfazed, still wearing her curious smile as if she hasn’t done anything wrong. 

“Honey? W-what are you saying?” you nervously ask her, while your sweet grandmother merely shrugs and innocently waves you off. 

“Oh, it’s nothing, sweetie. Just thinking out loud. It’s just that seeing you get sick every morning, and being so sensitive with certain smells reminds me a lot of myself when I was pregnant with your Mom. You haven’t even touched a drop of alcohol I offered since you got home, and I know that you barely touched your glass of champagne during dinner,” she says with a wicked chuckle. “Don’t pretend that you didn’t. You tried to hide it, but I knew. I have eyes, you know.” 

Fuck. I didn’t think she would notice. 

Gritting your teeth, you can only curse at yourself for acting such a fool. You thought you were being clever about it, but you must have been distracted by Taehyung’s presence at dinner that you failed to notice that Honey had kept her eyes on you all night. 

“I—” 

You try to speak, but words fail you. How do you respond? What do you say to this? 

Ever since from the moment you came back home, you had expected that Honey would be the one who is able to put the pieces together, being the perceptive person that she is, and she had been the reason why you have been extra careful in hiding it, especially when you were around her. 

Never once did you ever expect that she would so quick to draw up this conclusion and speak of it so nonchalantly with a few relatives are still around. 

“Mom, stop talking nonsense,” your mother gently chastises your grandmother while laughing nervously. She looks back and forth between you and her mother, her eyes flickering on your face, then to your belly, as if she is trying to find what she has been missing. “_____ can’t be pregnant. Right, sweetie?” 

Your tears begin to form. “I, uh—I don’t—” 

Your head starts spinning harder the more you try to speak up, to explain, knowing that it would be futile to lie. Not to Honey. And certainly not to your parents. 

Under the attention and distress, feeling the burden of having all eyes on you, all of them waiting for your answer, your hands move on their own, finding comfort in embracing the very spot where your growing baby is hidden as you press your palms on your barely-there bump. Noticing this, a collective gasp spreads through the room. Honey’s smile falters, while your mother’s eyes grow wide in shock. 

But the most devastating of all is to see your stepfather walking around his brother to get to you from across the room. “You’re pregnant?” Cliff asks you carefully as he slowly comes to your side. When you look up at is shock slowly turns into rage when he asks, “Is that why that prick left you? Did he get you pregnant and choose to walk away like a fucking coward?” 

“No, Dad. I—” 

While you are struggling to answer him, your stepfather’s voice continues to rise. “Tell me where he is and I’ll chase that fucker—” 

Everything moves in slow motion. Your stepfather who keeps cursing at your ex. Your Mom who keeps pulling him back to try and calm him down, and her pleading gaze silently asking you to explain. The whispering gasps and questions shared among the nervous glances that the guests are sending each other.

Everyone is talking at the same time, while you continue having a hard time to speak up. Your stomach feels tight. Even the touch of your hands no longer bring the calming warmth that your body needs. 

Gentle hands press down on your arms as you are slowly being pulled away from the chaos. You can only make out Jennie and Honey’s voices whispering to you, guiding you to breathe while helping you to sit down before you would pass out. 

Amidst the confusion, your eyes travel across the room, immediately finding Taehyung who is standing there in the corner with a frown on his face and a couple of bottles of drinks in his hands. As your eyes are locked with one another from the distance, you can see him processing through everything. His emotions are clearly written in his gaze; confusion, bewilderment, wonder. 

You have no idea what kind of look that he sees on your face, but slowly, you can tell that everything seems to sink in on him. A dawning realisation sparks through his eyes when he finally puts the pieces together, and his shoulders fall to slump.

He knows. 

And he isn’t the only one who is putting the pieces together. 

With a quick glance, you find Alia standing on the other side of the room, her eyes keep flickering between you and Taehyung, evidently noticing the silent exchange happening between the two of you. There is a clear sign of shock and hurt in her eyes that you get to see a glimpse of when she looks at you one last time, before she turns away and runs out of the room. 

“You need to rest. The stress wouldn’t be good for you.” 

Jennie’s voice sounds subdued, worrying. She has always been shy, but she seems particularly cautious as she looks at you. As if she is trying her best not to look down at your belly. But her presence here and her small, careful voice offers you comfort. Something that you need as you lean against the doorway to your bedroom, feeling a bit too weak to stand on your own. 

“I’m sorry you got entangled in all of this,” is all that you can say to her. You feel guilty for having your cousin and your aunt roped into this whole drama, all because they had been there to witness it when everything unfolded. 

While your step-uncle, Kyle, took over escorting the departing guests, and your mother is somewhere in the house to talk with your stepfather, Jennie had volunteered to help escort you back to your room. She becomes the calming force amidst the storm that helps clear your mind. 

“It’s fine,” she waves you off. “You’ll be paying me back once I’ve moved closer to you anyway. The couch is still available, right? You said I could crash until I’m settled.” 

That helps bring a smile to your face. “Yes, my door is always open. I’ll let my roommate know that you’re coming. She’s usually open to welcoming family who needs help anyway,” you say to her with full gratitude before adding, “Thank you for staying to help.” 

She nods and begins to turn away. “I better go check on Honey and see if my Mom is ready to go. I’ll see you soon.” 

Too exhausted to say anything else, you simply thank her one last time and watch her go down the hall before closing the door. Once again, the silence in your bedroom gives you the perfect solace. It does nothing to erase the weight in your chest, however, or give you the answer you need as you wonder how you are going to talk to Taehyung about the whole thing. 

You never expected that things would turn into such a mess, robbing any chance of you telling Taehyung about the baby properly, free of drama and uncertainty. 

Just as you start dragging your feet towards the bed, you hear a soft knocking on the door, pulling you back to it. Thinking it might be Jennie, you immediately open it. “Did you forget—” Your voice falls to a hush when you find Taehyung standing there instead, giving you a small smile that draws back all the slow flutters in your chest. 

“Oh, hi.”

“Hey,” he gently greets you. His smile is cautious, restrained, and his exhale of breath seems shaky. But he sounds calm when he speaks to you, “May I come in?” 

You prepare yourself to answer, but your eyes flicker out the hallway, searching, a gesture that he easily notices. “Alia is with your parents. They’re worried about you, but your Mom seemed a bit frantic because she didn’t see the signs. Alia probably won’t be looking for me until later. I wanted to talk to you first.” 

“Okay,” you answer him with a sigh of relief. “Come in,” you beckon him, stepping aside so he can enter your room. 

He steps deeper into your room while you take your time, gathering courage before you can turn to face him. His voice fills your room as he continues to talk, “I left our drinks downstairs. Things were so chaotic, so it slipped my mind—” 

“That’s okay, it’s—” you say in return, failing to notice that his voice has faded out into silence. When you finally turn to him, you find him standing in front of your bedside table, his eyes are locked on the tiny thing that he is holding up under the dim light of the bedroom. 

He found the sonogram. 

“How far along are you?” His voice seems quiet against your thundering heartbeat, drowning even in the silence surrounding you.

You draw an unsteady breath before speaking up. “Six weeks, give or take.” 

Taehyung remains silent for a moment longer before a sigh comes out of him. “Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?” he asks, still with his eyes on the sonogram. His expression is unreadable, something which you cannot fault him with, knowing that this must have come as a shock to him. 

“I’m sorry, I should’ve gone to you sooner,” you quickly apologise to him. A part of you wants to rush by his side, even if you cannot decide whether you want to calm and soothe him or rip that sonogram from his hand. Yet your legs seem frozen, and you are locked at one spot with no ability to move.  

“From the moment I found out, I was planning to find you and figure out how to share the news to you in person, but then you showed up here with Alia, and I got”—blindsided, aghast, confused, terrified—”I just couldn’t figure out how to do it.” 

“So, I was right. This baby is mine.” 

Just as he says those words, you finally understand the look that he is wearing on his face. Captivated. Entranced. Amused. As if this revelation is more fascinating to him rather than it is frightening. It brings a twinge of hope rising inside you, telling you that maybe you can both figure out on how to deal with this. 

But what about Alia? 

“It was from that night, wasn’t it?” he asks again, breaking you out of your thoughts—from thinking about Alia. And you can almost sure that you catch the corner of his lips lifting to a smile.

“Yeah,” you cautiously say to him. “It happened the night we got together. I’ve never been with anyone else since—” 

“What is this all about?” A deep voice bellows through your small bedroom, cutting through your words before you can finish talking. Both you and Taehyung turn to the door, noticing too late that your stepfather is standing there, watching the two of you with grief and horror in his eyes. 

“Dad—what you are doing here?” you ask him as your eyes flicker towards the door behind him. 

Crap. Distracted by your own nerves that had been affected by Taehyung’s arrival, you must have failed to shut the door tightly behind you. 

“I came to check on you and apologise for freaking out,” Cliff says, frown deepening, his voice and the expression you see on his face convey a mixture of anger and hurt. “But what is he doing in here?” he continues, pointing at Taehyung. “Why is he in your room, when he’s supposed to be with Alia?” 

The atmosphere grows heavier, yet Taehyung—the brave soul that he is—carefully steps forward to face your stepfather. “Cliff, I can explain—”

“And what did I just heard about the two of you being together? Is that baby—” Cliff turns to point at you, then back at Taehyung again while keeping his eyes on you, expecting you to answer him. “Was he the one responsible?” 

Still holding the sonogram in his hand, Taehyung straightens his shoulders and lifts his chin. And it seems to be enough to answer your stepfather’s question. But what it only does is to aggravate Cliff even more. The air crackles with his rage, and he moves so fast—too fast for your mind to comprehend—as he grabs the front of Taehyung’s shirt and starts dragging him out of your bedroom. 

“Dad, no!” 

The moment you see your stepfather dragging Taehyung out the door, that is when you snap out of it and start running to chase them. As you run out the door, you see Alia who was clearly on her way to your bedroom. Her eyes are wide with shock, and though you are unable to interpret the gloss in her eyes—whether they are tears of hurt or her tipsiness—you can tell that she has been standing there long enough before anyone noticed.

But was she there long enough to hear everything?  

“Daddy? What are you doing?” Alia screams out, though she doesn’t make any move, seemingly in shock to see her father dragging Taehyung across the hallway. 

“Alia, you need to stop him!” 

Your scream snaps her out of her shock, and she quickly rushes to chase both men down the stairs. You try to follow them as fast as you can, but your heart is racing, your legs feel weak, you can barely manage to come down the stairs without tumbling down. 

“Careful!” Alia snaps at you in panic as she catches you at the final flight of stairs. You lift your head to thank her for helping you, only for her to give you no chance to as she turns away right after, chasing after her Dad who is now dragging her boyfriend out the yard. 

Once the both of you are out the house, you can hear your stepfather’s voice bellowing through the air. His accusations echo through the chilly night, his eyes are blazing with frustration and rage, and he still has his hand pulling at Taehyung’s shirt, nearly lifting him off the ground as he continues shouting profanities between his grievance. 

“—the fuck are you trying to pull?” he yells at Taehyung’s face, and you wince at how loud he is being against the silent night. 

The only relief you can savour is the fact that he hasn’t gone physical. No hits are thrown, and the only rough handling he has been doing is to shake Taehyung back and forth with his tight grip on his shirt as he demands the truth. An answer. Anything that could clear this whole misunderstanding.

Taehyung’s eyes dart over Cliff’s shoulder as he notices you and Alia coming. Your stepfather follows his gaze and is caught by surprised to see you chasing him. But as he looks at you, his gaze hardens as he pleads, “Tell me that it’s not true. Tell me that you weren’t sleeping with him while he’s seeing your sister.” 

No, it’s not true. They weren’t together. You remember hearing Taehyung denying it when you first questioned it, so it must’ve been the truth. Right?  

The night you hooked up with him flashes through your head. That night from six weeks ago, the shared moment that he claimed to be a time where he hadn’t gotten involved with Alia. You want to speak up, to deny that he was playing both you and Alia, that the only thing behind this whole mess had been mere coincidence. 

If only you could stop shaking. Get some words out. Anything. 

But your chest feels tight. You can barely breathe in air, much less to let your voice out. 

“Cliff, please! I told you, I can explain!” Taehyung tries to get your stepfather to listen. You see his hand reaching to grab Cliff’s wrist, though it doesn’t seem that the hold would budge no matter what he does to pull it off. His eyes turn to you, then to Alia, right before he screams out with fear in his eyes, “Alia!” 

“Don’t you dare say her name!” Cliff yells at him, and you force yourself to speak. 

“Sto—” you try once, failing when your chest tightens. “Stop,” you cry out again, “Dad, please—” 

Your voice comes out as nothing more than dried paper, a silent hush compared to the loud voices as Cliff and Taehyung continue to argue with each other at the center of the front yard. But Alia is standing close enough to you to hear it. Close enough to see your hands shaking, your face turning pale and sickly, and she quickly moves right in front of you, standing between you and the quarrelling men. 

“Daddy, stop yelling. You’re going to stress ______ out,” she yells at her Dad while pushing you behind her to keep you away from them, as if she is making sure you won’t get hurt.

She’s…defending me? 

Your head starts spinning harder. Everything is so confusing right now, and it makes you feel worse when you look at Alia, seeing her getting caught in the crossfire as she tries to separate the two while shielding you from the chaos. 

“And it’s not Taehyung’s fault!” she yells again, and this time, it seems to do the trick, because Cliff finally lets Taehyung go. 

Now free from your stepfather’s clutch, Taehyung steps back. He tries to catch his breath while fixing his shirt. You notice then that he is still holding your sonogram, surprising you when even amidst all the chaos, he is still gripping onto it protectively. 

“How is it not his fault?” Cliff snaps at your stepsister. “Why are you defending this asshole? He slept with your sister when he’s dating you, and he even dared to show his face at my—” 

“Because we’re not dating!” Alia cuts him off with a scream, and everything stops. Her scream even shuts the voices in your head, drawing a single question in their place—

What—? What did she just say? 

With all eyes on her, Alia begins to shake with nerves. And then the truth spills out of her mouth. “We, uh—Taehyung and I—we’re friends. I wasn’t planning to come this year but you kept calling me to come for Honey’s family dinner, and—” she says, stuttering as she points at her father, and then turns to face you to add, “I thought that your—I mean, Hansol. I thought he was going to come with you this year like he always did and I didn’t want you to think that—” 

Drawing a shaky breath, she pushes through her nerves and forces the rest of the truth to come out. “I asked Taehyung to come with me and pretend to be my boyfriend so you wouldn’t think that I was going to try to make a move on Hansol again.” 

“Wait—what?” Taehyung snaps at her. He seems confused, and it is evident in your eyes that he never got to hear this part of the ordeal from Alia when he signed up for—whatever it was that they had agreed upon. “What did you do?” 

Alia opens her mouth to continue, yet Cliff cuts her off before she could. “Enough,” he says, no longer yelling. His voice sounds drained, exasperated, and yet there is an eerie calmness underneath that makes your skin shiver with fear. His silent rage terrifies you more than his loud, raging voice does, while the defeated look in his eyes hurts you deeply. “Alia, get inside. And you—” he turns to point at Taehyung. “Get out of my sight.” 

“Dad, no—” you step forward to stop him, yet Cliff doesn’t even look at you when he calmly orders Alia to move. 

“Alia, get your sister back in her room,” he says as he turns away, making his way back into the house.  

Left with no other choice, and feeling like the fight has left you, you let Alia place her hands on your shoulders. “I’m sorry,” you turn to Taehyung one last time as she starts guiding you back to the house, but then your stomach drops when he remains silent. His eyes are cold, as if he is trying to mask his true emotions as he looks at you. Something twists in your gut as if he had pierced a knife deeply through it. “Tae, wait—” 

A small smile is lifted on his lips, though it seems closer to a sneer, something which doesn’t seem to reach the pained look in his eyes, and that is the only thing that he gives you before he turns away and leaves the property without saying a single word. 

Sleep, without a doubt, has become fruitless. 

All night, you have been tossing and turning in your bed. Even when you manage to close your eyes and doze off a little, your stepfather’s grievance and Taehyung’s bereft smile flash through your mind, sending you to an abrupt wake each time. 

At the very last time you find yourself being forcefully pulled away from your restless sleep, you glance out the window, its curtains left partly opened, you see the shadows of nightfall slowly shifting. A blush of hue in gradient colours of purple and grey is beginning to emerge amidst the dark, and you can feel it in your skin the awakening of dawn. 

Too anxious to remain still on your cold bed, adrenaline and stress still flowing violently through your body, you finally give up trying to rest and tiptoe your way downstairs. 

The stillness in the house at night has always been something that you have come so familiar with, but as you walk down the stairs and into the quiet kitchen, the house feels more eerie that it usually does. You can almost hear the creaking sound of the floors and the walls around you, as if they are whispering to you all the things that they have witnessed from the night before. 

The air feels unusually cold. You fight the temptation to light up the fireplace once more and huddle up right in front of it, resisting only to avoid waking everyone else up, and then walk into the kitchen in search for another source of warmth. 

You are just beginning to make yourself a cup of hot chocolate to warm up when a figure steps into the archway leading towards the hallway. You turn with a jump, realising with relief that it is Alia. 

Giving you a hesitant smile, she walks into the kitchen. With her arms wrapped around herself and a thick shawl cloaking her shoulders, you realise that you are not the only one struggling with the cold. 

“Can’t sleep? Or did you wake up too early?” she asks you with a soft whisper. 

“A little bit of both. How about you?” 

She stands by the kitchen counter to watch you work. “Tried to sleep, but I kept having nightmares. I was running downstairs to catch up with Dad, and it kept repeating over and over”—she visibly shudders—“and then I woke up with this crappy headache.” 

You give her a smile and tip your chin at the high stool right by the counter. “Take a seat. I’ll make more,” you offer her, which she accepts with a smile. 

Neither of you says a word for a moment, only breaking the silence once you are done pouring the hot drinks into two separate mugs and handing one to her while whispering, “Here you go,” to which she responds with a soft, sleepy murmur, “Thank you.” 

Taking the seat on one end of the counter with Alia sitting on the other, silence stretches between the two of you once again. There is an awkward tension in the air. You cannot remember when you have ever found yourself alone with Alia like this, deep in the night and with nothing else to do but to talk. Not since those many years ago when you were children. 

You remember how your parents made you share the same bedroom. It was their way of getting you to bond with your new stepsister at the time. Even then, you could tell that Alia wasn’t exactly thrilled by it, already so used to having her own bedroom before she had to split her time between spending the weekdays with her mother and then with her father on the weekends. 

But at least back then, the silence didn’t feel as stifling. And she had let you borrow her personal things to play with, as long as you got out of her way. And that included her books—so many of them, you remember—with her occasionally sitting right beside you so she could read you some of the hard ones to follow for a little child.  

Taking a sip of your hot cocoa, you decide that you have had enough of this silence. “So—” you breathe out a sigh. “You and Taehyung.” 

Alia groans and closes her eyes. “You heard me last night, didn’t you? I know I was drunk off my ass, but it’s true,” she says, scoffing as she glances sideways and meets your gaze when you do the same, “It’s stupid, I know.” 

You sip your drink before asking, “Why did you have to go make an entire scheme out of this?” 

“I don’t know,” she breathes out an exhausted sigh. “It sounded like a good idea at the time.” Her voice sounds wistful when she says this, and then she breaks out into a bitter chuckle. “But I guess, just like a ton of other bad decisions I’ve made my entire life, it only added to the long list of fuck-ups that have tainted most of my adult life.” 

You let out a snort, something that is so uncharacteristically you, but still comes out with all honesty. “At least you’re taking accountability of it,” you say to her almost teasingly, “I know some people who wouldn’t even admit that they fucked up and simply move on while everyone had to pick up the mess they left behind.”  

Alia laughs. You can see her eyes warming up. “When did you meet him? How did it all happen?” 

Your lips curl up to a smile. You drink your hot drink slowly before you begin telling her everything—the trip that you went to after your breakup, the frustrating debacle with your flight getting delayed and cancelled and meeting him at transit, the hookup, everything that you already shared with Skye the first time you revealed about your first promiscuous night abroad with the stranger, the agreement you both made about shedding your identities, which had lead to this whole mess, and more.

Surprisingly enough, Alia merely responds with a soft chuckle. As if this is something that is to be expected when it involves her friend. “That explains it,” she muses softly. She has this faraway look in her eyes for a moment, as if recalling something in the past—perhaps something that happened during that period of time. 

“He was going through some stuff when we got in contact again about a year after the last time we met. We lost contact again briefly during that time”—the time he went to take that trip, you tell yourself—”I think he said he was off to some sort of a business trip and was using it to ‘escape’ from everything. He never told me any of the details, though.” 

You are curious, wanting to know more. But you also know that it isn’t your place to pry. You can also tell that Alia may not answer if you try to ask her. Yet she then surprises you by adding, “Then he contacted me not too long ago and said something about needing my help. I thought it was a wild coincidence and decided to use the chance to get him to help me in return. One thing lead to another, and here we are now.” 

You both share a laugh, despite how pitiful the two of you seem at this moment.  

When you both grow quiet once more, each of you taking the moment to savour your drink and the silence that is starting to bring more comfort than the uneasiness you felt earlier, your mind wanders. You recall the events that have been happening for the past few days, to tonight, seeing everything with a new light now that the truth has come out. You also find that you no longer feel the weight of your secret shadowing you, allowing you to breathe easier. 

And then the conversation you had with Skye on the phone from a while ago comes back to you. 

“I’m sorry I broke your doll,” you suddenly blurt out, while Alia snaps her head to look over to you. 

“What? Which doll?” she asks, her face is filled with incomprehension, before her expression shifts into knowing, and then to shock. “Oh, that one? That was a long time ago!” 

You laugh at her reaction. “Yeah, but it feels like you started resenting me since then.” 

“No, I’m—” she shakes her head and scoffs at you. “It’s actually fine. I hated that doll. That was the ugliest piece of shit I’ve ever owned when I was a kid.” 

“What—?”  you let out an incredulous laugh. “But you made it look like I’ve ruined your entire world. All hell broke loose because of it so I thought—” 

Alia laughs, though she also looks somewhat guilty when she explains everything to you. “One of Dad’s ex-girlfriends bought it for me on my eighth birthday. I never liked any of the women he brought home and introduced me, but she was probably the sanest and most normal one of all,” she calmly tells you, quickly adding, “That was before your Mom came in, by the way.” 

That makes you smile. Especially when you notice that her eyes are filled with fondness as she talks about your mother. 

“Anyway, she gave me the doll as a gift after she went for a trip abroad, and maybe I did like it because it made me happy to know that she thought about me. But the older I got, the weirder it felt for me to keep it, but every time I wanted to get rid of the doll, it made me feel guilty for even considering it because of how sweet she was to me,” she winces as she recalls the past. “When you ruined the doll, I was actually relieved. But I couldn’t show it to Dad since he thought I loved the doll so much that he even went out on his way to help take care of the doll for a long time, so I made it seem like losing the doll made me sad.” 

Your jaw drops and you laugh again. “Damn, I can’t believe I was gaslighted and framed by a twelve year-old.” 

“Sucks to be you,” Alia laughs back at you as she sips her drink. “Sorry for causing you some childhood trauma or whatever.” 

“It wasn’t so much of a trauma,” you say to her while scoffing. But that incident did leave an impression on you, regardless. And it wasn’t a good one. Looking back on it now, it does seem ridiculous for you to let it haunt your memories for so long. 

You are just about to share your thoughts to Alia when she finally speaks again. 

“On your eleventh birthday, you started calling him Dad,” she says, her voice dull, but you can feel the weight of her words when you hear them. It takes a moment for it to sink in, until you finally realise— 

“Oh—” Oh. You swallow hard and take a deep breath, realising that she is talking about Cliff. “Did you, uh—were you worried that I might take him away from you?” 

Alia smiles bitterly. “I’m not sure. Maybe?” She shrugs. “As a kid, I may have harboured an unrealistic fantasy that one day, my Mom and Dad would make up, get back together, and everything would be back to how it used to be.” 

She looks at you with a small smile. “But then Daddy met your Mom, and my Mom became more unhinged after the divorce and dealing with the consequences of her affair that it was becoming more obvious Dad would have never taken her back, no matter what.” 

The more she speaks, sharing her deep, darkest secret, the more you are able to understand her. For all these years, you simply thought that Alia has resented you for childish reasons. You never knew that she had nurtured the heartbreak of an innocent child for so many years. Silently hurting without anyone else knowing. 

“But it was the day you began calling him Dad that finally broke me out of that fantasy and forced me to accept that they were never going back together,” she says, sighing deeply with a broken smile on her face, which only deepens the guilt that you feel for becoming a part of it. “Maybe—that was the moment I started seeing you differently.” 

“I—didn’t know,” you murmur, and then you begin to recall how Alia kept avoiding to spend time with her father on the weekends when she was a teenager. “You started to come by less and less by then.” 

Your parents had excused Alia’s absence at the time as her newfound need of being independent. But you know better now. 

Alia releases a sigh, as if opening to you is helping her relief some of her own weight. “Dad was so happy because you and your family welcomed him into your lives. I guess that was really important to him. The more I watched him having a new family that was a whole, the more I resented it. Seeing you with Daddy—” she stops with a sharp intake of breath, “I guess the child in me felt like I was being replaced and I couldn’t take it.” 

“Alia—” 

She cuts you off with one look, with a gaze that is surprisingly warm. “You know what’s worse?” she asks. 

“The way Dad keeps bragging about you in front of me and anyone from his side of the family whenever he has the chance to. You have always been smarter, you’ve gained everything you wanted in life with your own effort. You have a good job, a nice apartment and, for a time, you had a long-time boyfriend, while I’m still floating through life,” she says with a wistful tone of voice instead of a bitter one. “I have no steady job, and I’m still moving around instead of settling down, which left me with no chance to start any serious relationship to brag about in front of everyone. So I suppose that makes me feel inferior when I have to face you.” 

You have no idea what to say. Because you had no idea about any of this. Still, you feel guilty, even if none of this was your fault when all you ever did was live your life the way you wanted it to. 

“Last year, I think that’s when I came to my limit,” Alia adds with a chuckle. “I guess somewhere in my mind, I had this thought that since you already stole my Dad, maybe I could steal something that was yours for a change.” 

Once again, your jaw drops. You let out a gasp. “Hey, that’s fucked up!” 

She laughs at your reaction. “I know! And I’m sorry, alright?” she says, still laughing and lifting both of her hands at you. But she quickly sobers up, looking genuinely concerned when she asks, “Seriously, though. Did you break up—” 

You quickly shake your head. “No. He chose his career over our relationship,” you admit to her. “He has always been like that. He’s always so crazy about work, a perfectionist, and not only does he have a big ego, he also has big ambitions. I think he pushed me to match his pace, whether he realised it or not, which became the reason why I managed to gained everything I have now.” 

Looking back, you have to admit that your ex was the one who gave you the drive which helped you get where you are now. As much as you hate to admit it, you do owe him that much for your current life, despite everything. 

“In a way, he pushed and motivated me to constantly be a better version of myself. But, deep down, I was starting to get tired of it.” You recall all the fights, the arguments, the agony that you felt when he belittled you for your need to start going in your own pace instead of following his. “I never realised how exhausting it was with him until we broke up. He made me feel like I was on a race against him instead of in a relationship where we were both equals in life.” 

Alia slowly nods her head with a silent understanding. “What happened last year with your ex was also the reason why I asked Taehyung to come with me,” she confesses with a shy smile.

“I felt so bad for everything that happened, and I had no idea how to fix it. I thought that if I brought someone with me this year, not only would I be able to shut my Mom up about trying to hook me up with some snobby guy from her circle and pushing me into marriage”—she rolls her eyes—”I would also be able to show everyone here, and you, that I had no desire to steal your boyfriend from you.” 

You grin at her. “That explains why it was shocking for you to find out that I already broke up.” 

“Obviously,” she scoffs. “That thwarted all of my plans.” You laugh together while she continues to complain about it. How she had meticulously planned everything to clear her reputation and avoid adding more drama between you.  

“But I couldn’t give up the gig. I know that Dad still keeps in touch with my Mom once in a while because of me, and she would call him to check on me if she’d heard I was coming, so if I let everyone know that Taehyung and I aren’t actually dating, my Mom would sit me down next to any bachelor of the year that she had chosen for me at the family gathering with just a snap of her fingers,” she sneers, lifting her hand to snap her fingers in the same manner that you imagine her mother would do. 

“And, as always, I had to mess everything up too because of my stupid plans,” she heavily sighs. “Sorry, by the way.” 

Scoffing lightly, you simply wave her off. “It’s not your fault. If only Taehyung and I had talked when we had the chance,” you finally admit, realising that you are also to blame for avoiding to speak to him right away, “Or if he had told you about me when I asked him to, then maybe the three of us could have figured something out.” 

Alia nods her head in agreement, and then her lips rise to a slow smile. “I didn’t expect that Honey would be the one stirring the pot when it was already boiling.” 

That makes you laugh again. “Honestly? I had expected that Honey would be the first to notice. I just didn’t expect her to blast me right in front of the whole family.” 

Sipping her hot cocoa slowly, Alia hums. “Maybe it was meant to work that way. Or else, I feel like neither of us would find any chance to spill out the truth, as bitter and ridiculous it might sound to admit,” she says, and you cannot help but agree with her. Even with no resolution have yet to be made, you can feel some of the weight of your troubles being lifted from you. 

Everything may have gone messy, yet for some reason, the future doesn’t seem so bleak when you are looking at it one last time. Then Alia gently adds, further encouraging the hope that is slowly blooming inside you. 

“Taehyung—he won’t be joining me to see my Mom. He’s driving back home, either in the morning or before noon, I’m not sure. You should go see him and talk.” 

“I—” you swallow hard. “I want to. We do need to talk, but—” 

Alia stops you by shaking her head. “No buts. You have a baby on the way, and I’m sure—seeing his reaction last night—he would want to be a part of it. Only if you’d let him.” 

That immediately shuts you up, taking away all the excuses that you have to run away and avoid facing him. You still remember seeing the way he was clutching your sonogram possessively as if it was his lifeline, and you have yet to get the sonogram back from him when he left. 

“Even without the baby—” Alia continues, noticing how you are still deep in your thoughts. “The favour that I mentioned? I think it might have something to do with you. I’m not sure what it was though, because he hasn’t had the chance to say anything about it. He only said that it had something to do with what happened during his trip from that time.” 

You know that she is right. The only problem is mustering the courage to go and see him in person. After what your family had put him through last night, you have no idea how to face him, feeling too guilty that he got roped into so much mess because you couldn’t tell him the truth when you had the chance.

“Well, while you take your time considering it, I should go back to my room. I have another Christmas event that I would need to mentally prepare to,” Alia says as she steps out of her seat. You watch her walking around the counter to put away her empty mug before smiling at you. “Thanks for the nice chat, and the hot chocolate.”

You return her smile and nod. “So—are we good?” 

That makes her chuckle. She stops before going out into the hall and shrugs. “Yeah, you’re okay. I guess we are.” 

“Does that mean we’re friends now?” you tease her, drawing a scoff from her. 

“Ugh—don’t push your luck, kid. Don’t even think about us being sisters,” she says, pointing at you. 

“Never would’ve dreamed of it,” you respond with a chuckle. Still, you are overcome with relief now that the old tension between you are lifted. “Good luck with your Mom.” 

“Thanks. Good luck with—” she says, “well, everything.” She turns away, but not before giving you one final warning, “I’m serious. Go talk to him. Don’t worry about the others, or about how Daddy would react. I’ll hold down the fort and explain everything to them until you’re back.” 

Your grip on the steering wheel tightens just as your stomach tightens with churning doubt. 

The thought of seeing Taehyung, alone, seems nerve-racking. You have no idea what to expect once you get there, or what you are going to say, which only makes you even more nervous the further you are getting from home. 

Your thoughts are filled with worrying that things may not go as planned. Not that you really had any plan to go with other than to talk to him, stop him from leaving, and maybe find out what the future hold—if there is any hope there. 

The weather outside seems dreary, which is no help at all. Even under the winter sunlight that appears brighter than usual, the snow keeps falling thickly from the sky, the trees standing on either side of the streets are swaying dangerously towards various directions due to the intense wind. 

Weather does hate me, you wonder to yourself as you glance through the side mirror, wondering why these things keep happening to you during critical times such as this one.

Getting more impatient, the urge to press down on the accelerator feels so strong, yet you fight it the best you can, recalling the promise you made when you stepped out of the house. 

Honey was right, it was a bad idea to be driving out under this weather. She was the one who warned you about the weather when you were about to leave, which you simply ignored because the sky was bright, the wind was steady, and your intention to see Taehyung was strong. 

You should have learned from experience and took your time checking today’s weather forecast to find out just how quickly the weather could change. 

Looking at the fierce weather, it seems obvious that things are about to get even worse. A white jeep breezes past your tiny city car, causing your car to sway, and you feel a pull to match its speed. But then you see it nearly slipping on the road as the jeep makes a turn right ahead, and you heart stops. Your car slows as you start hearing Honey’s voice warning you about how easy the road becomes slippery on days like this. 

“Drive carefully. Even if you want to risk your life getting out there, at least think about that baby,” Honey’s voice echoes in your head, stopping you before you could even think of picking up speed again once the road clears up before you. 

“There’s nothing to worry about. With this weather, he couldn’t have left yet,” you convince yourself, though your doubt keeps pushing back nearly tenfold. 

He couldn’t just leave, right? 

Turning with reduced speed on the next intersection, you curse under your breath. It feels like it’s taking you forever to reach the motel, and when you still see no sign of getting any closer to the motel, you begin to wonder if you’ll manage to get there at all. 

“Damn it, Alia. Why did you have to choose that motel? There’s a bunch of them closer to home.” 

Obviously, there is nobody here to answer your question. So the only thing that you can do is to force yourself to calm down, focus on the road—and in not slipping or sending your car into a ditch—and find the motel as fast—and as safely—as you can. 

Quiet Peaks Motel. Room 1109. 

You almost laughed when Alia gave you the room number where Taehyung has been staying in. The irony of having those numbers shown to your face, reminding you of that night from six weeks ago. 

“I suppose this is what people call a Christmas miracle.” 

You let out a scoff as Skye’s words ring back to you. Christmas miracle my butt, you inwardly scoff at the notion. A queer coincidence, that’s what this is. 

Not too long, you are driving your car into the small parking lot of Quiet Peaks Motel. With your head covered under the hood of your coat, you challenge the cold to rush into the motel without taking a look around to see if his car is still here. Past the receptionist desk, you follow Alia’s guide to find Taehyung’s room. 

Room 1109. 

Shaking off the snow that has gotten all over your body, you take a deep breath, and knock on the door. A few seconds pass. 

No answer. 

Another knock, just a bit harder this time. And all you have in return is silence. No. No. No—

You raise your hand again, ready to give it another try while refusing to accept the possibility that he is no longer there, when finally—finally—you hear a click, and the door slowly opens. Taehyung appears before you, with wide, curious eyes and a smile slowly lifting on his lips, like a piece of a fantasy manifesting into something real. 

“You’re still here,” you breathe a sigh of relief, drawing a low chuckle from him. 

Taehyung crosses his arms over his chest as he hovers by the doorway, the small smile on his face unwavering. “Alia called. Warned me not to run away,” he gently says.

The thought of him driving off to leave town, running away before you could see him, feels like a bolt piercing through your heart. “Were you—trying to run?” 

“I felt the urge to,” he admit while lowering his gaze, briefly avoiding your eyes. “But I couldn’t.” 

You can hear the sound of your heartbeat. “Because of the blizzard happening outside?” 

Taehyung looks up, and his smile deepens when he steps aside. “Why don’t you come in? It’s getting colder. You can warm up inside.” There is a playful glint in his eyes which says the unspoken words—

With me. 

Drawn by the look in his eyes, your legs begin to move on their own. Your arm brushes against him as you walk past him, just barely, and your skin prickles warmly, as if the thick winter coat that you are wearing is nonexistent.  

Taehyung takes your coat, shaking the remaining snow that is still attached to it before hanging it on the coat rack by the door while you step out of your snow-coated boots, refusing to leave trails of snow and dirt on his floor as he pulls you inside. He guides you to take a seat on the edge of the bed while he takes the one-seater from the corner of the room and places it across from you. 

Sitting back, he wears a playful smile on his face. He seems giddy, with a twinge of wariness that is quite noticeable coming out of him—both feelings are something that you also share as you sit with your back straightened while your legs are shaking.

Sitting here like this allows you to get a good look at Taehyung. And for the first time, you notice the boyish charm in him that looks—adorable. You can see it better when he smiles, when he looks at you with an expectant look in his yes, and when he doesn’t seem to be able to remain calm. 

You have no idea why you had never seen this side of him before. Has he been hiding this part of him? Because, if you want to be honest with yourself, you like seeing this side of Taehyung, maybe even more than the side that he has allowed you to see before today. 

If comfort is a person, this side of him fits the picture, you wonder to yourself with a smile. 

Speaking of pictures—

Your eyes travel around the room, taking notice of the place where he has been staying at. The room is undoubtedly smaller than the suite that he booked back at the transit hotel, but not any smaller than your own bedroom back home. The bed that you are sitting on feels soft, with wooden bed frames that makes it seem sturdy. There is a single vanity table that stretches out on one wall, also functioning as a writing desk, an electric fireplace in the corner that is running with a soft hum, and a wall-mounted television that has been kept on with its volume lowered to fill the room with its white noise. 

Your eyes fall on the long table, on the small object that catches your attention.

“Would you like to drink?” Taehyung asks you as the silence stretches out for too long, and you look at him with a smile. 

“Sure, I’d love to.” 

Nodding, he rises from his seat to grab a drink from the corner cabinet, while you do the same. Drawn towards the small object that Taehyung had placed on the table like a precious jewel—your sonogram. 

“I didn’t mean to keep it with me. But throughout all the chaos happening last night—” you can hear his voice getting closer and closer, yet you do nothing to look his way. Holding up the sonogram between your fingers, your eyes are focused completely on it, fixated at the clear proof of your future. You still have your eyes on it as his warmth comes pressing on your back, his voice feels like a gentle brush on your skin as he whispers close—

“—I just couldn’t let it go. It felt surreal whenever I looked at it. It was almost as if—I was actually holding that baby in my hands, and I needed to protect it.” 

His words send your mind into a daze, even when you notice the tremble in his voice. Everything he does next seems like parts of a dream. You notice his hand reaching out beside you, placing two objects which seem to be bottles of fresh juice on top of the table. And his hand stays there, palm pressing on the edge of the desk while his other hand is resting on your other side, practically caging you in place. 

Slowly, you turn around to face him. The sudden closeness makes you feel dizzy, yet the feeling is incomparable to the way your body is reacting when you look into his eyes. 

His dark eyes somehow appear even darker from up close. You feel nothing carnal in the way he is looking at you, nor the way he is giving you no chance to escape. But there is the heat that you feel reaching out to you, vibrating through his chest together with his heavy breath. 

“We are—” he murmurs, stopping briefly with a deep exhale of breath. “We’re expecting a baby.” He speaks as if he is trying to rewire his brain into accepting reality.

Your heart starts racing when you hear his words. 

We. That word seals everything in. 

And you can feel that sense of acceptance coming from him. You can easily see it written all over his face; in his gaze that looks resolved and in his warm smile that seems inviting. And then you get to see it coming together when he takes you in, his eyes landing on your belly. Even though covered under your thick sweater, he looks at you as if he can see what is hidden underneath. 

“We’re expecting a baby,” you whisper with a smile. “It’s still early. Very early. Which is why you might not see any changes, like seeing the baby in its fully grown form, or find out the gender yet, but we can already hear the heartbeat. We can arrange so you can join me on my next appointment with the doctor. That is, if you’d like.”

Putting all of your hopes into words feels risky. But thinking about him being there puts a smile on your face. That smile fades for a brief moment when you realise that you are also putting your heart at risk of being broken—be it from him, or from life. 

“Anything could still happen,” you add with a wry smile. The sceptical part of you slowly sneaking its way into your mind to take control. “But if you’re willing to go through this with me and—” 

He doesn’t let you finish your sentence when he suddenly reaches out to touch you. He brushes your cheek with the gentle touch of his fingers, and wraps his other arm around your waist, pulling you gently to him until you are nearly pressed into his chest. You bring your palms up to his chest in reflex, pressing against him as a barrier, separating you from his overwhelming warmth. 

You can feel his heartbeat picking up under your palms, just as your own heartbeat starts thundering inside your chest. 

“Last night, Cliff stole my chance to figure out or express how I felt about this,” he says with a nervous chuckle. “I was in so much shock both from the news and then Cliff’s reaction that I couldn’t say a word about it. But the moment I left your home and spent the night alone in this room, I finally got the chance to process everything.”

He stops, shaking his head before pressing his lips on your temple. “Still, I can’t believe that this is happening. But this is our new reality right now and I have to face it. No matter at what cost,” he whispers with his lips hovering against your temple.

“What—what are you saying?” 

“I’m saying that I’m all in,” he says, pulling back so he can look at you. “I told you, didn’t I? You never really left my mind after that night. I’m not sure why, but waking up in the morning to see you gone back then got me curious and, well—” he chuckles. “It was all the reason why I got roped into Alia’s sneaky scheme, which I’m beginning to regret ever being a part of, but since we’re here anyway.” 

Taehyung lets out a dramatic sigh, drawing a curious smile to your face. 

His chest rises and falls as he exhales a deep breath. “Alia promised to help me once we’ve done the deal. And although I never told her specifically what I needed help with—” he grins, looking as if he is thinking back to the day he planned out this whole scheme with your stepsister. 

A scheme where he pretended to be dating her to trick your and Alia’s family. 

“Actually, I was already trying to find you. Alia has a lot of connections, gathered by traveling to different places and jumping between odd jobs, so I thought that maybe she would know how to solve that problem of mine,” he admits, and your skin flushes warmly when you realise that not only has he been thinking of you this whole time, but he had also thought of looking for you when you thought that he would have simply forgotten everything and moved on. 

“Things may have gone differently than I imagined, and not entirely in the right order. But technically speaking, she made it happen, just as promised,” he chuckles again, looking just amused at the situation as you are. “If I had known about the baby, I wouldn’t have asked you to hide from Alia that we got together at one point,” he grimaces. “I wasn’t sure what kind of situation Alia was in that would require her having a fake boyfriend, so I don’t know what telling her that we hooked up would do.” 

Frowning, you simply shake your head and murmur, “No, I should’ve told you right away. But like I said, I wasn’t prepared to see my baby’s daddy coming into my parents’ home holding hands with my stepsister.” 

Taehyung smiles and rubs his thumb across your cheek. “I’m sorry.” 

Your body shudders under his touch, but you cover it with a sigh. “Likewise,” you whisper. “But can we please stop talking about Alia right now?” 

He barks out a laugh. “Okay, if that’s what you want,” he says with a wide grin on his face. “Maybe you’ll be more interested in talking about something else, then?” 

You suck a deep breath as his eyes bore into yours. Even before he says it, you can somehow tell what he is thinking. There is something in his eyes that makes you feel hot inside. Something that feels intimidating, yet comforting at the same time, and it makes you want to dive into whatever it is that is offering you. 

As if he can read your mind, Taehyung starts staring at you the same way he did that night—with the same passion and hunger that are enough to engulf you as a whole. 

While you are captivated with his gaze, Taehyung leans in, stealing a kiss from your lips before you realise what is happening. He begins with a gentle, tentative kiss, as if he is testing to see how you are going to react. But with your emotion heightened, and relief warming your chest, the innocent kiss that he is giving you is already enough to send heat flushing through your body.

Your fingers sink into his sweater in a desperate clutch as you return his kiss, pressing your mouth onto his without any inhibitions. A sigh escapes from your throat, while he releases a deep grunt and begins to deepen the kiss. 

His tongue presses between the seams of your lips, penetrating into your mouth in seek of control. All the heat inside you starts swirling violently as he devours your lips, and it’s driving you crazy. Your thundering heartbeat presses against your chest and he keeps stealing your breath, leaving you gasping the moment he releases your lips. 

Yet Taehyung doesn’t stop. Giving you a few more pecks on your swollen lips, he then moves his kisses down the column of your throat, and your head falls back in an instant, helping him to travel lower until he rests his lips beneath your earlobe where he breathes out a sigh.  

“This wasn’t—” you gasp as he nips at your pulse, rocking your entire body at the touch of his teeth on your skin, “This wasn’t the reason why I came here for.” 

“Are you sure?” he hums against your skin. “We can stop if you want to. But you have to be the one to say the words.” His words make you swoon, but contrary to what he is saying to you, Taehyung continues to press his lips on your skin, making it hard for you to say a thing. “It’s been pure torture having to hold back, being in the same room with you but unable to do anything about it.” 

He leans back, looking at you with a deep gaze as he brushes his thumb across your swollen lips. “I kept seeing these lips and wishing I could kiss it.” 

Silently admitting that you feel the same way for him, your eyes move to his lips, noticing its swell, the faint crimson shade and the moisture that are left there after kissing you, and hazily blurt out, “Did you kiss Alia with that same mouth?”

“Fuck, no!” he says, making you laugh when he seems horrified at the thought of kissing your stepsister. “We’re friends, but not that close as friends to be smooching at each other.” 

The way he is scrunching his nose still makes you giggle. “Sorry, but—you know, I had to make sure.”

Taehyung snorts. “Of course you do,” he grumbles, although the mirth in his eyes turns, as he gives you an understanding look through them, now knowing what kind of relationship that you share with Alia. “There are a lot of things about your stepsister that you might not know about.” 

His words remind you of the short conversation that you had with your stepsister this morning. Deep down, you realise that he is right. With so many years spent harbouring a deep misunderstanding between one another, you realise that you never really knew her at all. Closing your eyes, you tell yourself that you can revisit this later. 

“Are you going to spend the rest of the day trying to butter me up so I can start being best friends with my stepsister, or are you going to kiss me again?” you question him with a grin on your face once you open your eyes again. 

He returns your grin with his own, showing you that same boyish charm that makes you swoon as he murmurs, “I think I like the second option a lot better.” 

Giggling, you release your grip on his sweater and move to wrap your arms around his neck, meeting him halfway just as he leans down to capture your lips again. “An excellent choice, Sir. I do like that option much better as well.”

Once his lips descend on yours once again, they don’t come down gently. They crash into yours, and you can feel his urgency, his hunger, everything that he had spent days withholding for the sake of the god-awful scheme. The kiss melts every cell in your body. It weakens your knees, leaving your arms as the only thing holding you up against him. 

His hands feel hot on your skin as he runs them down your waist, your hips, the heat penetrating through your thick sweater and jeans. You instinctively arch your chest against his, while your legs are moving, rubbing against each other when his touch sends your pulse rising, hot blood flowing down right between your legs. 

Fuck, why I am so sensitive? 

Right as you are wondering if your pregnancy has anything to do with the way your body is reacting, Taehyung folds his body and grabs the back of your thighs to lift you up. 

“Oh, God—” you pull away with a gasp, surprised with the sudden lost of balance. Tightening your arms around his neck, you hold on to him as he turns. His smile widens, looking as if he is proud of himself, and then he drops you onto the bed, gentle as he puts you down until you are lying on your back. 

You shift backwards until you are at the center of the bed with him following close behind. His gaze remains on your face as he starts crawling over the mattress, not stopping until he is hovering above you. He doesn’t settle his weight on top of you right away, but instead grabs a gentle hold at the hem of your sweater. With a quick work of his hands, the sweater is gone, tossed somewhere across the room. He doesn’t let you see where it went as he bends down, hovering close above you.  

“Doesn’t this make you think back about that night?” he asks, with a deep voice that has your entire body trembling. He ignites more reaction out of you with a gentle kiss at the crook of your neck. 

“Something is”—you gasp, shuddering under his kiss—“something is different, though.” 

His warm breath comes brushing on your skin with his deep chuckle. “You can tell, huh? I did some workout after that vacation,” he brags to you while wiggling his eyebrows, making you laugh. 

“I’d say you may have gotten your money’s worth. A little bit,” you tease him as you reach down between your bodies for his zipper. 

You can feel his hard cock pressing against your palm. Even while hidden under his pants, you can feel the heat coming from him as you rub your palm against his covered bulge, moving it back and forth until you feel him hardening under your touch. 

“Are you going to continue staring at me, or are you going to fuck me?” you whisper, suddenly feeling overwhelmed with how much you need him. 

And he is the only one to blame. When his sole existence stirs your every being. With one glance coming from his eyes, butterfly wings flutter inside your body, touching all the crevices that aren’t filled with past hurt and the baby’s presence and filling them with warmth. 

With one touch, your whole body comes alight, and you are feeling it now as he brushes his fingers along the expanse of your waist. As tough your blood is on fire as it runs through your veins, even with nothing more but a light graze on your skin. 

Taehyung licks his lips. His desire is written so clearly on his face. But then his gaze moves down your body, lingering on your stomach that is completely exposed now that you no longer have your sweater covering your skin. 

“Will it be okay?” he asks, sounding genuinely concerned. His voice sounds tight, filled with worries, which gives your chest a tight pinch. 

When was the last time you had someone—other than your family—to be so concerned about your wellbeing? Granted, there is a baby that is involved in all of this, and it would be normal for him to care, but that doesn’t stop you from feeling like he is seeing right through you. 

“I think I read somewhere that the baby will be okay,” you look down at your stomach and start rubbing your hand gently over it. “Maybe we can go gentle. At least until we get to see the OB and ask more.” 

“Good idea,” he says with a smile, while you feel soft inside. But when his hand begins to move again, his thumb grazing down your exposed stomach, the heat rises back up and he is back in the game. 

His smouldering gaze feels like a complete opposite to the softness in his voice when he says, “Alright, I can do gentle. Just tell me if it gets too much, or you can lead the pace so I won’t make any mistake.” 

He wears the same wicked smile that stole your heart many nights ago as he lifts off from your body. You watch with your teeth nibbling at your bottom lip as he begins stripping himself. His sweater comes off, showing you his hard chest and filled arms which you haven’t had the chance to appreciate in the past. 

This time, you get to see everything with a clear mind. Instead of feeling hazy with intoxication, all you can feel now is the haze coming from your need for him.  

Reaching down to his pants, he pushes down his zipper. With a mocking grin, he makes a great gesture of pushing down his pants, only to stop once he hears your moan. 

“God, I missed hearing that sound coming out of your lips,“ he murmurs. He immediately returns to you and pushes your pants and panties down in one motion. Your bra comes off right before your butt comes back down on the bed. Having not an inch of your skin covered while you are lying there makes you feel exposed and vulnerable. Yet he keeps a gentle hold on your waist, holding you still while he takes you in. 

“I remember thinking that you were beautiful, but it beats seeing you in this kind of light to see what I didn’t get to see,” he murmurs, almost groaning as he takes you in. 

Licking your lips, you hold back, keeping your voice from trembling to answer, “We were both kinda drunk, so—” 

“Were we?” he chuckles softly and returns to you again, as if he can’t take being apart from you for too long. He presses his lips on your collarbone and whispers, “Good thing we get the chance to change that.” 

Your legs come up and wrap around his waist the moment he is back on top of you. The way his hard chest is pressing on your bare breasts feels heavenly. You can feel his heartbeat pounding against your chest, almost at the same rhythm as yours. But your attention is quickly drawn away once you try to move your hips to get comfortable beneath his weight, only to unintentionally rub yourself against his body.

You can feel his hard cock pressing against your thigh as you brush against him. Heat pools right at the depth of your core once you feel just how badly he wants you. It grows more intense as he pushes back into you, rubbing his covered cock against your center until you feel your wet arousal soiling the front of his pants. 

Yet still, the friction isn’t enough to satiate your needs. 

“Taehyung—” 

The moment he hears you calling his name—his real name—something dark and feral flashes through his gaze. As if saying his name in the heat of desire snaps something inside him that needs to be unleashed. 

His mouth comes down to capture yours just then, claiming you with a deep kiss. You writhe beneath him while he devours your lips, pressing against his center in a silent plea to have him striping himself off of the restricting pants and letting you feel him. 

Without saying a word, he understands what you are asking for and complies. With a reluctant sigh, he pulls back. He keeps his eyes on you the whole time as he pushes down his pants and boxer briefs until he is completely bare. His hard cock immediately springs free right before your eyes, drawing your attention towards it the same way it did the first night you were with him. 

“Say it again,” he says to you with a deep voice. A rough sigh escapes him as he wraps his hand around his girth and starts stroking himself, making himself hard and ready while he pleads with you, “Say my name.” 

“Taehyung,” you call him with a soft moan, and he lets go every last bit of his restrictions and covers your whole body with his. 

His mouth crashes down on yours, kissing you passionately until your body grows hot. A moan slips from you, and his tongue sweeps in between your parted lips, getting entangled with yours and you are immediately lost. You barely notice it when his hand moves down, slipping between your bodies to find the source of your heat. 

He flicks at your nether lips, drawing a gasp from your lips, and your hips rise up to welcome him. Then he slides a finger into your pulsing core, entering you until you are arching against his chest, overwhelmed with the sensation that he draws out of your body as he buries his finger deeper into your pussy. 

While he slides his finger in and out of you, his mouth remains pressed on yours, swallowing every sound you are making. Drowning every cries, every moans, while he continues devouring you as though you are his lifeline. 

The pleasure rises, and your body starts moving on its own before you can control it. You start grinding against his finger, needing more. It starts with a slow rock, but the more the pleasure climbs within your body, you continue grinding harder and harder onto his hand. This seems to amuse him, as you can feel his smile growing against his lips before he pulls away, freeing you from his searing kiss. 

Yet his hand continues to move, not resting until you can finally find release. “That’s it, ______. Give it to me, baby. Come for me,” he whispers with his deep voice like a spell. 

Under his encouraging words and his relentless strokes, you finally reach your orgasm. It feels so intense you can almost feel as if your body shatters in his hold, with your breath coming out in broken pants and your moans rising higher. 

With a gentle move, he pulls his finger out of you, leaving behind a series of small spasms inside your pussy from the climax. 

You immediately feel empty. But he doesn’t make you wait long as he positions himself between your parted legs, and his heavy hard-on comes right where his finger had been. His cock slides in between your slit, moving back and forth as he rocks his hips. The friction draws the slick sound of your release as he continues rubbing the entire length of his cock against your hot cunt. 

As your body continues to shudder beneath him, Taehyung lets out a deep groan. “Can’t wait, baby. Need to be inside you now.” 

“Yes, fuck me, Taehyung,” you cry out, and those exact words are the ones that draw him to move. 

You should have been prepared for it, yet your mind and body are somewhat occupied. Distracted by the blinding pleasure that he keeps pulling out of you, you are not ready when he slams his cock into you. You instantly cry out, and Taehyung stills inside you. 

You can feel your muscles clenching, pulsing around him in small spasms of pleasure at the sudden invasion. It draws a moan out of him, and he holds you in his arms to help soothe you through it until you are more accustomed to his width filling you up. 

“You okay, baby? I’m sorry,” he whispers with his lips pressing gently on your skin. Starting from your neck, your chin, and then he keeps making his way up to capture your parted lips. His kiss is soft, barely a flutter, but with every pulse rising in your body, you can feel the heat shooting right into your core. 

You wait just long enough until the pounding sound of your heartbeat eases before answering him, “I’m okay.” 

You start to wiggle under his weight, moving your hips to test if it’s going to hurt. When you feel that your muscles are no longer tense, and nothing but pleasure rushes through your body, you start moving your hips more. Grinding down his length, you can feel your hot walls contracting around his thick cock. It draws a sharp hiss out of his lips, and he jerks his hips against you, as though he is close to losing control. 

“Are you going to stay there the entire time we’re here”—you tease him while tightening your legs around his waist, your hands on his hard shoulders—”or are you going to fuck me?”  

Taehyung lets out a deep chuckle and begins to move. “So impatient. It’s been a while, so I’m only letting you act like a brat just this once,” he growls against your lips as he rocks his hips, moving in a slow pace. 

It feels so good. But you want more. You need more. 

With your heels pressing on his back, you rock back against him, grinding into his cock. He reacts with a groan, murmuring to you, “Fuck, that feels good. You want more?” 

The pleasure continues climbing. It starts to feel overwhelming that words fail you. The only thing you can give him is a nod. A sharp gasp comes out of your lips when he starts picking up his pace, going faster while pushing deeper with each thrust. 

“Tell me if it hurts,” he nearly begs, sounding desperate when you have yet to give him words in response to him. “Please, baby. Promise me. I’m barely holding on here, but I don’t want to hurt you or the baby.” 

His voice goes in and out of your senses, yet you still manage to hear what he is trying to say. “I’m fine, Taehyung. I won’t hide it, I promise.” 

He lets out a relieved sigh and smashes his lips on yours. “Good,” he groans against your lips. “Hang on tight then, baby.” 

Those words become the last warning as the force and speed of his thrusts escalate, hitting you deep and hard until your toes are curling and your throat feels tight with the urge to cry out in pleasure. Your chest rises in an arch at the sensations you are getting as your hard nipples are rubbing against his chest. 

But your mind is clear enough for you to do exactly what he asked of you. 

Your legs are pressing around him, not tight enough to make it hard for him to move, but enough to keep you attached to him. Your arms are around him, fingers running up to the nape of his neck and pulling at the back of his hair, while the other hand runs down his back, nails sinking into his skin as he takes you on a wild ride.  

Pleasure explodes through your body under his hard strokes. Your mouth falls open with a series of strained cries, calling his name. You wish he would lean down, to kiss you, to drown the sounds of pleasure that you are unable to hold in. Yet Taehyung chooses to pull back, allowing himself to keep his eyes on you as he continues with his relentless thrusts, making sure that he wouldn’t miss any sign of pain that may show on your face. 

But the pain that you had expected to come from his rough lovemaking only extends the pleasure. The wet sounds of his thrusts pushing deep inside you fills the room, growing intense by the minute. Your skin flushes warmly as blood pulses deep in your core, your pussy walls flutter around his girth, letting him know how close you are to reach the edge. 

“Are you close, baby? Do you want to come?” he whispers to you with a groan, and you find yourself crying out,

“Yes, Taehyung—I’m close. Please, let me cum. Please—” 

With his hands reaching down your hips, he lifts your bottom half slightly off the mattress, placing you in a new angle that allows him to reach deeper. Your whole body quakes once he finds your sweet spot, and as he repeatedly pushes his cock against that hidden spot inside you, you soon feel him pushing you over the edge, with him not slowing down even for just a moment. And you take it all while you continue clinging desperately to him with your nails sinking into the skin on his back. 

Pleasure flares through you like fireworks. A new wave of raw pleasure overcomes you, and your body erupts with the first wave of your orgasm. It flows smoothly through your body, but still intense enough to knock the air out of your chest. You cry out with a strained voice, your entire body shuddering beneath him. 

You heave as wave after wave of pleasure overcome your body, yet Taehyung shows no sign of stopping. Still not having enough, he still fills you up with long, deep strokes that rock your body and the entire bed together.

With every shake of your body, your nipples grow hard that they start to hurt as your skin keeps rubbing against his chest. Looking between you, Taehyung’s eyes turn darker with lust. You force yourself to watch him through your haze, feeling more than seeing it when he runs one hand down your belly. 

His big palm stays there, as if silently greeting the baby growing inside, before it continues to travel lower, finding home right where your bodies are joined. With his thumb and forefinger, he flicks at your engorged clit. Already throbbing and growing sensitive with the amount of frictions happening all at once, it sends your hips rising as another wave of pleasure rises from your core. 

Deep groans escape his lips as he savours the sight of you embracing the pleasure, and he continues playing with your clit—rubbing, flicking, pinching, drawing pain and pleasure over the constant thrusting of his cock. And just when you are feeling it building up once more from within, the telltale of your orgasm that you have been depraved of for so long, Taehyung leans down, capturing one taut nipple between his mouth and bites down. 

"Oh god. Oh god. I'm going to come again,” you cry out with your hips rising to meet each hard thrust that he is giving you.

“Yes, that’s it. Cum for me like a good girl," he croons against your skin, which sends you straight into the next round of climax while you are still riding the aftershock of your last one.

Your body shudders as another orgasm rocks your entire body, and your muscles clamp around his hard cock, sucking him with a tight clench as he thrusts in and out, pushing deep and sending your body shaking violently as you finally succumb into an earth-shattering orgasm that takes away the last drop of strength that you still have. 

And the force of your final orgasm is what sets him off. 

With a deep groan, and a rough tremble of his chest, Taehyung finally finds his release. You can feel his warmth filling your insides, his cock twitching and pumping between your spasming walls, and you are almost sure that the wicked sensation of him filling you up with his cum is enough to send you to a smaller, much more subtle climax. 

It takes a while for you to come down from the height of your release, and Taehyung is there, helping you to ride off your orgasm with the slow strokes of his cock and the gentle brush of his fingers as he slowly comes to halt. 

Once everything is done, your body is completely spent that you are unable to move. Your legs have turned languid as Taehyung gently drops them back onto the bed. The room is filled with the sound of deep breathing as both of you are fighting to catch your breaths. 

You can barely feel your arms moving, but essentially, he is freed from your tight hold, allowing him to pull out of you before dropping down beside you. 

The room no longer feels cold now that your entire body is burning hot. Seeing the thin sheet of sweat on his skin, you know that Taehyung is feeling the same heat, yet it doesn’t stop him from turning to his side and wrapping his arms around you to pull you close. 

The sound of your intense heartbeat makes it hard for you to listen to any other sounds. You feel so tired. The lack of sleep you had last night is making it hard for you to fight off the drowsiness that is coming over you. Feeling relieved and sated, you just want to give in to sleep. 

Your eyelids keep growing heavy, and once your breath is calm, you can feel Taehyung’s gentle kiss pressing on your temple. His voice is barely a whisper when he murmurs to you, “——sleep, rest for a while. It’s not like we’re in any rush to get anywhere, right?” 

You open your mouth to answer him, yet your body fights against it. His words seem to act like a spell, when you are soon taken deep into slumber, falling into a dreamless sleep with his arms wrapped around your body. 

When you finally come to, the soft light of the afternoon sun is slowly penetrating through the windows. 

It feels warm inside, especially now that you have a blanket covering your naked body and his heavy arm resting languidly around your waist, yet you know that the same cannot be said with the weather outside. Even without opening your eyes, you can still hear the sound of the fierce wind hitting the windows, and you doubt that the road would be safe enough for you to drive out of this place. 

You find yourself curling against Taehyung’s bare chest as you properly come to wake. His heartbeat is steady, and you can feel it when he starts waking up. 

“Hey, there—” you whisper, greeting him with a sleepy smile, which he returns with his goofy smile. “Was I asleep for a long time?” 

Taehyung shakes his head. “No, not long enough,” he whispers. “I also just woke up, though. So—” 

Chuckling softly, you stretch out next to him. Your muscles are lax, and while you still feel worn-out, the short nap has restored your energy some. It helps clear your mind, yet you still refuse to move a muscle. 

Glancing at Taehyung, you notice that he has a faraway look in his eyes. He keeps his gaze out the window, and you start wondering what he is thinking about. 

“Do you think we’re going to be okay?” Taehyung asks you with a gentle sigh.

You close your eyes briefly and sigh contently before answering, “With the baby? I mean, it might be a struggle at first. I know because I haven’t really grasp the fact that I’m carrying your baby, but—” 

“No, I’m not talking about this,” he says with his hand waving around your entangled bodies. “I’m talking about—” he waves his hand to point at the window. The muted light of the sun that you saw earlier is still looking bleak, more of a pale-grey than the usual golden, with the wild swirls of snow dropping from the sky and no sign of the blizzard letting up anytime soon. “That.” 

He sighs. “I feel like we’ve had strings of bad luck constantly following us.” 

Smiling against his chest, you know what he is trying to say. “We slept together twice, and both happened due to bad weather,” you deliberately deduce his thoughts with a hum. “Is that what you’re saying?” 

“Yeah,” he says with a delirious chuckle, finding it somewhat funny now that you have voiced his thoughts out loud. “Looks like we’re stranded together, again, until the wind starts letting up. They say it’s going to be soon, but I’m not sure.” 

You cannot stop smiling the more you think about it. “Funny how it keeps happening to us, huh? At least we can remember this day as the first Christmas morning we celebrated together,” you say this with a grin, as you pull back to rub at your stomach from over the blanket. “Just the three of us.”

Taehyung follows your gaze and scoffs. “Way to go for making me feel guilty about stealing you from your family on Christmas Day,” he grumbles, making you laugh. “And if we’re actually doing this, uh—this relationship, do you think it’ll be weird?” 

You look up to him, seeing the frown forming on his face. Before you can question what he means by it, Taehyung continues to explain, “Maybe I shouldn’t come to see your family again next Christmas, or anytime soon. At least until we’re settled and everyone has forgotten about everything.” 

The way he says it, and the way he looks when he did, makes you want to laugh. “I think we’re good. And you can always join us next year. Besides, the holidays aren’t so bad with you around. Not this year. It beats sitting down and listening to other people’s stories for once.” 

Hearing this, Taehyung raises his eyebrows at you. “Even with all the drama we had with your sister?” he asks, sounding doubtful. “In case you forgot, I almost had a brawl with your stepfather.” 

For the first time ever, you doesn’t feel any need to correct him by calling Alia as your stepsister. That thought makes you smile. But you keep it to yourself, and instead lean up to kiss his cheek to help ease his mind out of it. 

“What we had?” you question him with a teasing voice, “that’s nothing. You haven’t experienced having Aunt Janey around. Have you ever read or heard those Reddit stories about entitled aunts? She would have gotten all the trophies if anyone in the family has ever written anything about her online.” 

You smile as Taehyung listens to you with a chuckle, and you can feel his worries slowly being lifted. “And as for Dad—” you let out a sigh as you think about your protective stepfather, “let’s just hope that Alia manages to butter him up to let things go. You know that he’s weak when it comes to her. Or, you can buy him a drink the next time you see him.” 

Taehyung purses his lips as he considers this. For a moment, he doesn’t seem to believe your words, but he still nods his head either way. “Fine, I guess we can talk about that later. We’ll cross the bridge when we get there, I suppose?” he asks with a bashful smile. “Why don’t we focus on you for now, and the baby?” 

You prop yourself up on your elbow while holding up the blanket with the other arm to cover your nakedness from his hungry eyes. “Alright, what do you want to know?” 

“Everything,” he says with a grin as he sits up against the bed’s headrest. “Should we continue and maybe do this with a late lunch, though? I’m starving. I couldn’t eat anything at breakfast.” 

“Are you famished for food, or—” you tease him by leaning closer, “Do you have an appetite for another thing?

He groans. “If the second option has anything to do with you, then the answer would be both. But we need to get some food in our system if we want to get back into the other.” 

Laughing, you finally step out of the bed to call for the room service. You continue to spend the rest of the day with him, chatting over the meal, talking about your future plans and all the mundane things that you need to know about each other, before the heat between you picks up again and he pulls you back into bed.

Warmth envelopes you the entire time you are with him, regardless of the winter storm that is still happening outside of these walls. 

Author’s Note 2.0 | Thank you for reading this story! Any likes, kudos, comments, and feedbacks will be appreciated. See you in the next story :)

© All rights reserved. 2024 Yoonia — Unauthorized use and/or duplication of these works, including reposting, translating and modification in any form, is strictly prohibited. 

[hminnj]

Unckuna/reader (he's very dear to my heart), mostly uncle nephew banter tbh, i needa get dividers lowkey, very short lil drabble

-

Sukuna thinks he's lost his mind.

He means it figuratively, obviously. But at this point he's sure he should've physically lost it already.

His nephew- of which he is currently babysitting- is currently on his couch, not a care in the world, half empty family sized bag of chips that was unopened not too long ago (fatface), kicking his feet like an adolescent boy in love, greasy fingers on the remote, and scrolling through youtube shorts on the tv???

Oh and worst of all he forgot to mention, the brat is wearing shoes.

The fact that he's even related to this thing makes him want to kill everyone else in the room and then himself.

"Itadori Yuji..." Sukuna seethes, it takes everything in him to not rip the brat's skeleton right out of his skin. He thinks it would be easy, if only a certain three people would let him (a shame, truly).

Yuji spares him a glance (the disrespect).

"Oh whats up unc"

"And what do you think you're doing?" The older of the two walks over and blocks the view of the tv, glaring down with his hands on his hips.

Yuji stares for a moment before opening his stupid food hole (as Sukuna describes it), "Have you ever seen that one meme, no one looks good from below? Well you're the version where they-"

Sukuna promptly picks him up by his foot, shaking him as a few chip bits fall off Yuji's shirt, "I literally just cleaned the house you freeloading fiend. Have you seen what a mess you've made?"

"You clean the house everyday you freak. Now put me down! I swear I was gonna clean up afterwards anyways." Yuji attempts to wiggle his way out of Sukuna's grip, he gets nowhere (predictably).

"Brat. You don't even know where the vacuum is, were you planning on picking them up one by one?"

"Ugh you're such a housewife, if I didn't know any better I'd assume you- MMM"

The sound of the code being put into the front door quickly stops Sukuna who shoves his free hand into Yuji's face, effectively shutting him up as well.

Sukuna grins when he sees you walk in, holding Yuji as if he were a first place catch for the annual bass fishing competition.

The sight makes you pause and contemplate your life decisions.

"Sukuna... put Yuji down, all the blood's rushing to his head."

Yuji is dropped immediately.

"OWWWWWWWW"

Your eyes trail around the living space and then back to the two children, "Does someone want to explain what's happening? And why there are shoe tracks in my house?" You make eye contact with your husband (who practically regresses 15 years in age when your nephew is around), he looks at you then uses his middle finger to point at Yuji.

Said boy, still recovering on the floor, whines, "Mann why can't I have a cool wine aunt and normal uncle?"

"Yuji if I were a wine aunt I wouldn't even be your aunt. Now are you gonna clean up this mess or should I make you?"

"On it! Whatever you say ma'am!" Yuji scrambles away after saluting and then pops back up from the hallway, realizing something crucial.

"Where are the cleaning supplies again?"

You sigh.

.

Yuji's finished with cleaning when he joins (intrudes, in Sukuna's words) you and his uncle on the couch, another episode of criminal minds running in the background.

You've changed from your work clothes into something more comfortable, snuggled into Sukuna's side as you start, "You know, if Spencer existed in real life I'd consider leaving you for him."

The tattooed man can only cringe in disgust at your behavior, "We're literally married, woman. You would leave me for that??"

He gives you and the tv an incredulous look. You can only giggle at his reaction, "You're like a child sometimes." His disapproval worsens, and you consider continuing to tease him but go with your better judgement (before he decides not to cook dinner, even though he always does anyways).

"I'm sorry hubby, forgive me?" Sukuna scoffs but accepts the affection anyways, he always does.

Yuji's voice interrupts the moment, "Ew you guys are so nasty (his parents are way worse), but speaking of children... when am I gonna get a cousin?"

The young boy can only watch as you two glance at each other then back at him, casually dropping an "Oh, Soon" then moving on completely. It takes him a second to process.

"WHAT."

-

unckuna my love

reblogs & comments are greatly appreciated :]

thank you for reading, have a blessed week

not fully proofread or edited

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Musician Age Gap AU pt 2

Kara blinks, suddenly dumbstruck. Esme's t-shirt didn't do the woman justice. Her eyes catch briefly on a sharp jawline before being captivated by warm green eyes.

"Uhm, sorry, I-- I didn't mean..." Kara struggles with her words in a way she hasn't in years. "Are you--?"

"Yup," Lena confirms with a drawl, but her smile doesn't leave her lips. "Do I need to call security?"

"What? No! No, of course not, I didn't mean to barge-- I swear I wasn't looking for you."

Lena accepts the blithering answer at face value. "Good. It would be to have you thrown out before the show."

Sure enough, underneath her gray zip up hoodie Kara spies a flash of a silver bedazzled dress.

"I mean. For the record, you should." As soon as she says it, Kara picks up steam, suddenly angry on the artist's behalf. "I shouldn't have been able to get anywhere close to you---"

"It's okay," Lena assures her. "You don't look the type to be looking for an autograph."

Kara huffs, but finds a small smile creeping over her face. "No," she confirms. "I got lost."

One of Lena's eyebrows lifts.

"Well, first I got locked in the stairwell. Which is against code, by the way. And *then* I got lost."

Lena smirks, picking up her phone and typing out a short message. "Security," she explains.

"Oh."

"They'll be able to help you find your way better than I can."

Relief floods Kara, and then a thrill of excitement when Lena's smile broadens to a grin.

"You here with someone?"

Kara nods. "My goddaughter, Esme. She, uh.... she loves you. Rather a lot, actually."

"Tell her hi for me."

"I will-- oh! Shit, you've got a signal down here!" Kara fumbles her phone and her ticket, and in her rush to fire off a note to Esme promising to be there soon, doesn't notice when the ticket slips from her palm.

"Sorry," Kara rambles. "Damn. She's probably eaten all the nachos by now."

At that, Lena laughs, just as a hulking figure appears in the doorway behind Kara. "Yes, ma'am?"

"Hi Ryan," Lena greets, voice still full of mirth. "Miss, uh..."

"Danvers. Kara Danvers," Kara blurts.

"Miss Kara Danvers here got a little turned around. Would you mind showing her to where she needs to go?"

"Of course, ma'am."

Lena nods approvingly. When her gaze returns to Kara, Kara can't help but notice the brief glance that flicks over her, and the consequent blush that blooms in the younger woman's cheeks.

"I've got fifteen until places," Lena tells her. Her voice is smooth and low, velvet in the cinderblock room. "I'm sorry we can't chat more, but I'm sure Esme is worried about you."

Kara nods, swallowing. "Right. Um... thank you."

"My pleasure." Lena's crinkle at the corners. "Lovely to meet you."

"You too," Kara issues, turning to follow Ryan out the door and into the hall. It's not until the door shuts behind them that Kara realizes how hard her heart is thumping, or the tremble in her fingers.

"Jesus," she mutters, giving her hand a shake.

"Which level, Miss Danvers?"

"Second mezzanine, restrooms near the food vendors."

Ryan escorts her until Kara spots Esme, at which point he departs with her thanks. Esme dashes towards her, eyes wide. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Kara promises, giving her a hug. "Just got turned around. Sorry for taking so long."

"Come on!" Esme urges, already moving on from the subject. "We've got to get to our seats!"

Kara trails closely behind her goddaughter as they move towards the stands, but her thoughts remain with the raven haired woman two flights below.

Maybe tonight would be special after all.

[itwasntimethatdidit40]

A Quiet Neighborhood - Chapter 2

Pairing: Dave York x f!reader Words count: 4180 Rating: + 18, MDNI Tags: POV second person, reader is female with female genitalia, wears dresses, heels and a bikini, has hair that can be tied up in a bun/ponytail, no other description is given, she doesn’t blush, smut, angst, kissing, dirty thoughts, masturbation, use of a sex toy, mention of infidelity, kinda Desperate Housewifes coded (uh, don’t judge, I love it), easter eggs in secondary character’s names (so you can have fun guessing which series/film they come from 👀), neighborhood dynamics, Carol, Molly and Alice are there. Mention of food, alcohol consumption, mention of poker game, some reader's thoughts marked in italics, swearing, Dave is a fucking menace. This takes place right after Chapter 1. A/N: Dave is finally back! First of all thank you so much for the interest you have shown in this series, I didn't expect it and it made me really happy 🥹 I hope you like this chapter, I was planning to release it earlier but I struggled a little bit with my writing. English is not my first language, I apologize for any mistake. No beta, I reread it myself, I really hope it makes sense. I would particularly like to thank @arcanefox207 , @milla-frenchy and @aurorawritestoescape for their support, encouragement and kindness. Love you, girls ♥️

Chapter 1 | Series Masterlist | Masterlist

Coming out of the bathroom everything feels too loud, ringing voice of people, music, clanging of glasses, it's all too much to bear with when all you need right now is silence to make up with your overwhelming feelings spinning in your head like a carousel gone wild.

“I need to get out of here” you think, heading toward the Horowitz' living room in brisk steps to retrieve your purse. 

Jane stops you in the track "Hey, where were you? We're having margarita, would you like some?"

You see him. behind Jane’s shoulder, through the door to the outside. He's back in the garden to his wife, holding an arm around her waist with a relaxed expression on his face, as if nothing has happened.

"I-uh-" 

"Just sip this time, don't throw it down like you did before" Jane looks at you amused "I don't want to hold your hair while you vomit in one of Walkers' fancy bathrooms"

You nervously laugh then you look at him again and it's infuriating, the way he just goes on with his life while you feel like you've been hit by a train.

Fucking worthy of an Oscar.

The temptation to go home takes you for a moment but then looking at him smiling seraphically you think, “Fuck it, I don't see why I should ruin my day for him.”

So you follow Jane into the garden to join the others.

“If he can play it cool I can too” you think ”nothing a nice margarita can't fix.”

You walk past him and see that he and his wife are talking to Edie and her new boyfriend.

He doesn't even look at you, as if you are back a figure in the background with the others.

Which actually makes sense; the opposite would be much stranger since in the eyes of everyone you are nothing more than mere neighbors.

“Dave, look, Carol left lipstick on your lips,” you hear Edie say giggling as you sit at the table with your friends, ”you two lovebirds, you're still so cute after so many years of marriage.”

You feel your heart jump into your throat but you try to maintain composure outside and greeting Susan and Emma that just arrived “fuck” you think, cursing Edie and her big mouth “Now she's going to realize it's not her lipstick, God, I'm so screwed”.

You talked to her before but now in your panic you can't even remember what lipstick she was wearing.

You smile quizzically at Gabby who hands you one of the margaritas a waiter just left at your table but you perk up your ears to catch whatever they're saying; for a moment it's all silent until you hear Carol's crystalline laughter.

You barely turn to observe them out of the corner of your eye as you take a sip of your cocktail and see that Carol is wearing a lipstick very similar to yours. You're not a church girl but right now you're literally praying that one stupid kiss doesn't make you the laughingstock of the neighborhood.

Damn you, Dave.

Carol pulls a tissue out of her purse and hands it to him.

Okay, she’s quiet. Or at least she seems to be.

And who would ever connect me and Dave anyway?

You shake yourself out of your thoughts when you hear Jane call your name “hey! are you still with us?”

You smile “yes, sorry, I was thinking about work, you know that presentation I have to give on Monday” and you squeeze into your shoulders “what were you saying?”

Jane rolls her eyes “ugh, work. I was saying we're meeting tomorrow afternoon at my house for poker, are you coming?”

“Of course I'm coming, and I plan to tear you all apart!”

Jane, Gabby, Susan and Emma all say in chorus “we'll see about that!”You laugh and sip on your margarita again trying to appease your nerves, the liquid slide cool down your throat and you savor the citrusy flavor on your tongue thinking "it's good. it's all good. I will cut that Dave bullshit out of my life and everything will be great"

The rest of the afternoon passes pleasantly, you drink another margarita while chatting with your friends, you grab some snacks from the buffet so you don't risk forcing Jane to hold your hair in the bathroom, and you feel like you have regained some mental stability.

Dave is still here, looking like the perfect picture of a man trying to spend quality time with his beloved wife.

They talk to neighbors, they laugh, she holds a hand in his tracing small concentric circles on his back.

All smooth, I can't believe it, you sigh as you finish your second margarita.

Ms. Horowitz goes between tables to tell you that anyone who wants can take advantage of the pool, all your friends thank her saying they will do so shortly, and you reply, “Oh,I don't have my bathing suit with me,” wondering if anyone has ever told you to bring it. From the way Jane looks at you with an amused expression you guess that yes, she had told you but you completely forgot in your frenzy to look good in front of Dave in your new shoes.

Being in a bathing suit in front of him is not something you could afford to contemplate and you can't do it now either so you try to shy away from her invitation as politely as you can, but Mrs. Horowitz presses you, “that's no problem, dear, we have dozens of bathing suits for our guests!”

“Of course. I forgot that if they wanted to they could swim in a pool full of money like Scrooge McDuck.”

At this point you can do nothing than accept.

Carlos and Rafael managed to disengage under the guise of joining Mr. Horowitz and other neighbors in the living room to watch whatever is going to be on the sports channel. And these are the moments when you wish you were someone who knows about sports.

“You can go to the pool house and change there, you will find swimsuits and towels in the closet,” Mrs. Horowitz chirps.

And so you do, you head for the pool house teetering on your new heels, thinking maybe you shouldn't swim at all because you're feeling a little tipsy.

“God, I really don't feel like it,” you say to Susan who is beside you, and she replies, ”oh come on, it will be fun!”

You already hear some splashing coming from the pool as you enter the little house.

It is luxuriously furnished like a real outhouse, there is a huge bed, a small kitchen, and a door on the right side that leads to a bathroom. Someone could actively live in here like a king.

Susan opens the closet that takes up the entire wall in front of the bed and finds dozens of bikinis and one-piece suits. “Jesus, they could open a swimsuit store with all this stuff.”

You laugh, tapping her on the side “make room” Susan pinches your arm “rude!” she sneers.

Emma, Jane and Gabrielle laugh. You choose a swimsuit as they take turns to change into the bathroom.

____________________________________

You walk out of the pool house wearing a black bikini, holding the towel wrapped around you. You chose the simplest model you could find that wasn't a one-piece swimsuit, because you always thought you looked like your grandmother in those.

You don't want to stand out but neither do you want to feel ridiculous at the idea of Dave seeing you.

You hope he has already gone home until you reach the pool and see him diving off the small diving board located on one of the short sides.

By now it's evening so several strings of small lights have been lit and hung directly above the pool like small fireflies floating in the air and scattered over the buffet and beverage gazebos.

There are also several garden street lamps around, but the small lights create an enchanting atmosphere.

Mr. and Mrs. Horowitz really know how to throw a great party.

Dave's back looks golden as you watch him disappear into the water, his muscles outlined by the play of light and shadow that refracts against them. You bury a howl inside as you steal a glance at his butt swaddled deliciously in red swimming shorts.

You sit on a lawn chair, fully intending to stay there, while your friends put their towels down and go for a dip in the pool.

It's still warm for fall, today in particular, so you don't mind the thing itself, but showing yourself to Dave like this? That's a whole other matter.

The whole neighborhood is there but you literally feel like only he can see you, because that's the only look you care about and might feel judged by.

Your friends wave at you from the other side of the pool, even calling your name so you listlessly drop the towel on the deck chair and walk to the edge, wetting your feet in the cool water.

Out of the corner of your eye you see Dave go underwater, you follow his movements, and see him come up right in front of you.

“Fuck” you think

“Hi,” he says in a low voice as you wonder where his wife is. You answer him by mumbling a “hello” as you look around for her. Carol is sitting on a lawn chair, wearing a white one-piece bathing suit and matching sarong, and sipping cocktails with one of your neighbors. She is quite distant and seems very engrossed in the conversation, so you finally allow yourself to look at Dave.

He's still in the water, leaning against the edge below you.

He runs a hand through his hair to pull it back, small droplets sliding down his perfectly chiseled jaw to the column of his neck and down his broad chest until they die at the water's edge.

Your friends call your name loudly as he rests both hands on the edge and rises effortlessly beside you. You don't look at him, you keep your gaze fixed on Jane and the others as you hear the sound of water sliding over his body and falling back into the pool, a few drops hitting you in the process. He is beside you, completely wet, wearing only shorts. You’re petrified, trying to govern your emotions and especially your facial expressions “stay calm stay calm stay calm” you repeat to yourself as you hear his voice whisper “you look so fucking sexy in that bikini. I wish I could fuck you right here right now” just before he walks over to the loungers.

He didn't turn around, he didn't make eye contact with you, no one would say he even noticed you, and he spoke so softly that no one could have heard him but you. You heard him loud and clear, and his rough voice went and settled directly between your legs on your wet pussy.

You hastily dive into the pool feeling your cheeks on fire.

“Fucking Dave and his fucking flirting.”

_________________________________________

First thing you do when you come home is to take off your shoes throwing on the carpet in your living room.

By now you are no longer tipsy; swimming in the pool has definitely helped you get sober again.

And Dave.

Dave who ignored you pretty much the rest of the evening but infiltrated your brain like a disease.

You know you can't get your hopes up, you know that this thing between the two of you will have no future, and you also know that you don't like being a home wrecker.

I am just an escape from his marriage, a sleazy adventure, a little toy to entertain him.

And yet, you still want more.

Your body unfortunately doesn't care about morality right now, it reacts to every image of him imprinted in your mind, Dave is Pavlov's bell and you are the drooling dog.

Lingering in fantasies about him hurts, but there is a desperate part of you that still feels his hips grinding against yours, the taste of his tongue, the warmth of his big hands on you.

And his body next to yours when he got out of the pool, how you could smell the scent of his skin mixed with chlorine, how you could still feel the warmth of his body despite being completely wet, water dripping down his legs pooling at his feet.

You can stay here a little longer, just a little while longer without hurting anyone, before you turn the page.

You shuffle into your room with your head in the clouds, open your night stand drawer almost without thinking, pull out your dildo and lie on the bed. You loop your dress around your waist without even bothering to take it off, just enough to get rid of your bra and your panties.

You let the dildo glide over your body, shivering at the feel of the cool plastic on your tits, brushing against your nipples.

The low rasp of his voice still in your mind, graveling like an echo in your brain “you look so fucking sexy in that bikini”

It was the first time you saw him like that, you happened to see some exposed skin as he mowed the lawn, even lifting up his shirt to wipe the sweat off his forehead once he was done but what you saw today? Nothing compares with it.

His fully exposed torso, the darting muscles of his back as he dove, how his arms flexed as he leaned over the edge of the pool. There is something obscene about seeing people completely wet, a primal instinct awakening, the water slipping and hugging the curves of his body, the droplets of water glistening on his skin, the wet shorts glued to his body that barely suggested the shape of him.

You shut your eyes and suddenly it’s his cock wiping on your hardened buds, tip slapping and teasing, brushing on your skin just right, red and swollen and already leaking.

You can think it’s real, it feels so real, his hand roaming on your body, pulling your dress up, get it out of the way to dispose of you as he wants.

Big strong hand gripping on your inner thighs, his fingers rising higher on your skin, making you whimper in anticipation.

Your cunt aching tremendously, unrestrained and starving.

His big cock grazing your swollen labia, parting them and then sliding entirely over your center, his tip slamming against your clit, mingling your essences in an overwhelming arousal that runs through you all.

And then he pushes inside, deeper and deeper in the most intimate part of you.

And that’s it.

You are fucking away all your bad omens, lying to your hands sinking into the flesh of your thighs, your heart pounding behind your ribcage, your hips swaying against the rubber dildo, pushing them away to suppress them. All frenzy and delirium as it is his cock kissing your cervix, stretching your walls, pulsing and dripping inside you.

You can’t stop, angling the dildo so that it brushes against your swollen clit pumping incessantly into your core, creaming the entire length of your dildo, your legs obscenely spread, your body torn apart by every thrust, your hungry pussy sucking in, contracting, devouring every inch without finding peace.

"I wish I could fuck you right here right now"

Your free hand rises on your tit, your fingers latched on your pebbled nipple, pulling and twisting until you feel your brain leaking from your pussy.

Your orgasm breaks inside you, vibrating in and out of your body, quivering on your sweaty skin, taking your breath away. You come thinking of him completely wet from head to toe on top of you, your flesh colliding, your bodies merging, in a desperate, relentless rush toward the brink.

And you can't get enough, so you don't stop as the first orgasm washes over you, your swollen, slippery cunt keeps frantically gripping around the dildo, your hands keep thrusting it in, torturing your nipples, it's like you're trying to quench your thirst once and for all.

The way he ignored you afterward makes you want to have him even more, to break through his stoicism and trigger an outburst in him as much as your own.

It's twisted, wrong, immoral and you don't care a bit. 

You fall into a deep sleep, having come repeatedly, Dave being all that's left in your head.

______________________________________

Morning light flutters on your eyelids forcing you to open your eyes to another day.

You grunt, feeling your incredibly aching pussy, and realize your dildo is still inside you.

The stretch is here to remind you your guilt, the frenzy that took you last night, the feeling of being just one inch away from slipping into something dangerous.

You pull it out cautiously, feeling your essence slip out of you, soaking your inner thigh, the sticky mess of your desire for him dribbling silently over your skin.

Your pussy tightens around nothing, pulsing to the void, deprived of something, swollen and tried.

The dress from the night before is still crumpled around your body, crumpled and damp with your sweat and arousal at the hem. You get out of bed feeling like a rag doll, drag yourself into the bathroom and look in the mirror. Mascara has run down your cheeks, your lipstick smudged, an exhausted and defeated expression on your face.

You look like a total disaster, matching your feelings.

This morning, in the sunlight, you are furious with yourself. Why did you let this married man condition you so much? You spent $350 on a pair of shoes just because he told you they'd fit you, what the fuck is wrong with you?

You have to stop before it takes a turn for the worse and you find yourself crying for him.

There's no way it will end well.

You take off your makeup, take a shower, and change into a pair of sweatpants and an old Pearl Jam T-shirt you got at a concert a million years ago.

You clean and tidy your house, then Jane calls to have your confirmation to meet at 3 p.m. at her house.

Having a fun afternoon with your friend will help, you think.

You don't look out the window toward his house even once, you simply pretend it doesn't exist.

After changing into a pair of jeans and a white top, you head towards Jane’s house at the end of the road, your eyes straight to her house without your usual wandering and sneaking through your neighbor’s windows.

You are able to shut down your brain concentrating on poker and your friend and it all goes smooth until you hear Susan say, “Did Edie call you to gossip about the Yorks?” And you all turn to look at her, you with your heart leaping in your chest like an acrobat.

“Really? Was it only me who had this pleasure?” she says, rolling her eyes.

“Why, what happened?” Jane asks as she shuffles the cards for the next hand.

“According to her, Dave has an affair. But you know how Edie is, I mean-”

"And how can she say that?" Gabby widen her eyes, getting all excited. You love her dearly but she’s almost as gossipy as Edie sometimes.

"She says Dave disappeared at the party and then came back with some lipstick on his mouth."

“What?” you all exclaim, as you try with all your might to feign surprise.

“Yes, and then she says Carol pretended nothing happened but according to Edie there is something going on because you know - she says that lipstick seemed slightly different from the one his wife was wearing”

“Well that also depends on lips natural color,” Jane tries to intervene, usually she's the one who instead tries to quell the rumors. You are thankful that she maintains her attitude even now, all while your other friends cut her off squeaking “oh my God!” And Gabby, who sits right next to you put a hand on your arm “Jesus, can you believe that?”

“Actually no” you shrug “I mean…they seem so close-hearted”

“Well, honey, I'm sorry to tell you but not all that glitters is gold” Gabby scoffs.

“Even if it was true - and with Edie I wouldn't put my hand on it because she was really tipsy and then well...she's Edie” Jane admonishes “it's none of our business”

“God, he would be such a scam though. And to think I kinda considered him incorruptible” Emma sighs and you all nod.

You never mentioned your crush, not even to the friends.

No one ever saw you two talk for more than a few minutes and only of mundane arguments, totally out of courtesy and being good neighbors.

Fuck. It has to end before anyone finds out.

The bullet missed you by a whisker but you know you can't play with fire.

“Then you wonder why I haven't found another boyfriend yet!” You playfully snap, just to look more unsuspicious.

You hate lying to your friends, but you are relieved when you see them nodding.

Jane urges, “Come on let's play, we've talked enough about this.”

The afternoon flows nicely, Jane and Gabi argue over points as usual, you all laugh, and by the end you feel better, really better.

Yesterday was crazy, but I can get through it, you think.

When you get home you order a pizza and eat it on the couch watching a horror movie. You don't think about him for the rest of the evening, until you get under the covers and a flashback of him pushing you against the bathroom tiles flashes before your eyes. You squeeze them hard, trying to banish the image from your mind.

________________________________________

Monday morning at the office hits you in the face, you have a lot of work to do but you've never been so happy to keep busy so you don’t complain. Anything goes as long as you don't think about him.

Your agency has just acquired a big client for whom you'll have to manage a marketing campaign, there's a lot of pressure but by the end of the morning you feel like you and the rest of the team have come up with the right idea, which makes you relieved.

At lunchtime you go out to get a sandwich. It's a beautiful sunny day, there’s a little wind that caresses your face and moves the tree canopies along the road. You're glad you've been able to focus, you really care about doing a good job and making a good impression on your demanding boss in light of a promotion you'd like to get.

You will slowly return to your usual life and what happened will remain a sporadic episode without consequences. That's the best thing for everyone.

You walk into the diner and get in line to order a sandwich.

You greet Sarah, the girl at the counter, with whom you've been chatting since the first day you were hired at your agency.

You order the usual and come out humming and feeling some lightness at last.

You walk the short distance to your office, and the moment you push the door open you feel a gaze on you, like in déjà vu. You turn to look at the street, and see no one, just a black car that takes off quickly, speeding down the empty road. For a moment it looks like Dave's. You blink your eyes and shake your head, feeling lost.

It's like you've taken one step forward and three steps back.

It will take much longer to eradicate him from your mind, and living in the same neighborhood across the street from each other certainly won't help.

You come home tired, you managed to do a good job despite the thought of Dave that kept pounding in your head all afternoon, at least you can be satisfied with that.

You park in your driveway and out of the corner of your eye you see Carol loading suitcases into a cab.

Shit, what's going on? Was Edie right? Did they really have a fight? Is she leaving him?

You start toward your door but then stay on the porch pretending to rummage through your purse for your keys.

You see Dave leave the house with his daughters, he helps Carol with the heaviest suitcase and they briefly say something you can’t hear. You hold your breath for a signal, something that will let you know what they’re doing, but it all seems neutral, calm, no drama, no screaming fight in the middle of the street. Typical of them, you think, they would never do that in front of their daughters anyway.

Molly and Alice hug their father and happily get into the taxi, sitting in the back, Alice holding a doll which she places next to her on the seat.

Carol kisses Dave on the cheek and climbs into the cab with the girls. As you watch them leave your mind is filled with question marks, it didn't seem like a traumatic departure but you know they are the best at keeping up appearances. And deep down, what do you really know about Carol and Dave? What really happens when the doors are closed and they are far from the rest of the world? Are they really the perfect family they pretend to be?

Dave is on the sidewalk waving to the cab pulling away, as soon as it's far enough away he turns to look at you and winks.

Series tag list:

@penascigarette @syd-djarin @almostempty @aurorawritestoescape @joelalorian @milla-frenchy @baronessvonglitter @cas-readsandwrites @sunnytuliptime @foreveratlantica-blog @peppermintfury @drewharrisonwriter @indiegirlunited @darkheartgatita @untamedheart81 @missladym1981 @rosebuds-and-moonlight

If you want to be added or removed, just let me know, thank you so much for reading ♥️

[imaginesig]

“If they call me a slut, you know it might be worth if for once”

Lewis Hamilton x singer!reader

SMAU

yourusername

liked by lewishamilton, user1, y/nhq, and 402,038 others

yourusername: my muse <3

tagged lewishamilton

lewishamilton its an honor love

user1 when will I find someone to call me love

lando.jpg your own jpg account when??

yourusername I'll stick to my day job

user2 anybody else bothered by how quickly she goes from man to man

user3 right? like I swear she's had about 7 "muses" in the past 3 years

user4 she's literally done nothing wrong?? how dare a women date more than 1 person in her life??

carlossainz55 so new music when?

Charles_leclerc the Ferrari playlist needs an update

yourusername update loading 🔄

user5 oh please be a new album!!

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lewishamilton

liked by roscoovescoco, yourusername, user6, and 183,829 others

lewishamilton: race weekend with my loves

tagged: mercadesamgf1, roscoelovescoco, yourusername

landonorris interesting order

yourusername we all know Roscoe is the real star here

roscoelovescoco listen to the lady 🙌

mercadesmhf1 we love having the Hamilton family in the paddock

yourusername ahhh love to be there!!

lewishamilton 💚

georgerussell63 always a good time with these two in the house

yourusername ahhhh Georgie 🫶🫶

user1 "Georgie" 🥹😭

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tmz_offical

liked by user9, user1, user3, and 937,273 others

tmz_offical: just days after the end of the season, f1 driver Lewis Hamilton is spotted out with young girlfriend Y/n L/n. The couple is notorious for keeping their privacy, making paparazzi pictures a rare instance. Click the link in our bio to see what else was taken during their night out on the town.

tagged lewishamilton, yourusername

user1 no wonder they keep private, I would too if ended up trapped in a relationship with a slut like her

user2 didn't she and Dylan O'Brian break up right before they got together? Didn't think he rebound guy would last this long

user3 I could never imagine dating someone that much older than me

user4 fr someone tell her to take it down a notch, her sluttiness is showing

User8 the one sided hate is mid boggling

user5 the negativity is DEFINING

user6 right, y'all can't stand to see a women happy, healthy, and unbothered

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y/nupdates

liked by lewishamilton, user5, user9, and 749,934 more

y/nupdates: Y/n seen outside the studio with her producer after radio silence all winter!!

tagged yourusername

user1 she's cooking

user2 she's entering her reputation era I can feel it

user3 fr, after that one tmz post blows up and her comments are flooded with negativity, she locked herself away with her love, and is now seen for the first time in awhile leaving the studio

user4 I CANT HANDLE THIS RN

user5 not the slut trying for a comeback

user6 how about you lead by example? Leave and don't come back 🫶

user8 you know the records gonna slap when @/producer sprinkled her magic

user9 I need them and Taylor+Jack to release something

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yourusername

liked by user5, lewishamilton, y/nhq, and 394,028 others

yourusername: "Slut!" out now on all streaming platforms!! The rest of the album, "Amor Omnia Vincit" out this Friday!

when I originally sat down to create this new album I didn't image I'd write half the songs that made the final cut, but I did. This has been a very therapeutic experience for me.

Thank you to this album, my amazing team, and my lovely muse for keeping me going in the difficult time <3

tagged: y/nhq

lewishamilton you are so Shawn Hunter coded

lewishamilton I love you dear

yourusername I love you too darling

user1 they are so domestic I'm crying 🤭😭

user2 lets all start a thread of our fav lyrics from "Slut!"

user3 "if I'm all dressed up, they might as well be looking at us" WE KNOW THIS COUPLE ALWAYS BRING FIRE FITS

user4 very obvious but "if they call me a slut, you know it might be worth it for once," just hits so hard, like this is an issue she's dealt with for so long but Lewis makes it all better bc their relationship trumps everything

user5 piggy backing off of @/user4 's reasoning, "the sticks and stones they throw froze mid air"

user6 "IN A WORLD OF BOYS HES A GENTLEMAN" 🔛🔝

user7 I'm still not very her admitting that all the negavity around her dating has affected her so bad that she told Lewis "I said it might blow up in your pretty face"

scuderiaferarri we will not apologize for the people we'll become when this drops ‼️

Charles_leclerc we've always been #1 y/n stans

lewishamilton you red fuckers can take two steps back that's my title

carlossainz55 I thought you were her muse?

lewishamilton I'm both

user8 ok possessive king

youruserame for me and me only 🥰

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lewishamilton

liked by georgerussell64, your username, user1, and 789,739 others

lewishamilton: SO, SO, SO PROUD OF YOU LOVE!! Watching you work through a rough patch with such grace was beautiful. Thank you for allowing me to be apart of it and listen to these songs+more. I'll be your muse forever if you'll have me <3

tagged yourusername, y/nhq

yourusername forever and always <3

lewishamilton <3

user1 that water look very ~aquamarine~ to anyone

user2 he def knew what he was doing

lewishamilton I had a message to send 🤷🏾‍♂️

user2 LMAOOO HES SO PETTY

yourusername sassy man epidemic isn't a joke

user3 I love that she left like people wanted and wrote a whole song to shut down the hater but also put her and Lewis's relationship on the pedestal it deserves

producer such a sweet album!! Some of the best love songs out there!!

Charles_leclerc Vigilante Shit is my new pre-prix anthem

yourusername watch out @/maxverstappen1

maxverstappen this is where the dutch anthem falls silent 😔

carlossainz55 wasn't ready for Dress

yourusername but...

carlossainz55 its my fav

user4 I love that lewis posted for the whole album when Y/n didn't, but she's replying to comments in his section when he isn't

user5 they really are made for each other huh

roscoelovescoco amazing work mom!!

user5 I will never get over the mom

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yourusername

liked by landonorris, Charles_leclerc, user5, and 937,039 others

yourusername: surprise!! Since this album taught me what it was like to write and create in such an intamate space with very few people/outide influence I wanted to celebrate it with 3 small shows in Monaco, London, and Ottawa!

tickets on sale at 12 pm eastern this friday, see ya then ;)

tagged y/nhq

landonorris do friends get discounts??

yourusername everyone on the grid plus any serious significant others get VIP entry courtesy of me and my team 💖😘

y/nhq we'll be reaching out soon to select the show

lilymhe you don't understand how excited this makes me!!

yourusername well I couldn’t celebrate without my girls (and their men too ig 🙄🤚)

oscarpiastri thanks a lot y/n

alexalbon anybody else feeling loved??

lewishamilton completely 🫶

user1 this will start world war 3 I can feel it

user2 this is the eras tour all over again

user3 except that was selling stadiums, these are small venues

user4 any f1 driver want to link up for a show?? you'll never have to speak to me ever again

user5 I regret to inform you babe, but I think this is the reason she said serious significant others...

user6 official tour soon?? Please mother??

yourusername oh so very soon...

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lewishamilton

liked by your username, georgerussel64, landonorris, and 379,268 others

lewishamilton "got lovestruck went straight to my head" <3

tagged yourusername

user1 crying throwing up

user2 quoting her song?? that's about him?? I'll be resting my eyes on the highway if anybody needs me

user3 my toaster looks like a fun bath bomb

yourusername "got lovesick all over my bed" <3

landonorris beautiful show, beautiful couple 🧡

yourusername 🧡

scuderiaferrari maybe we're colorblind but that doesn't look like Mercedes green

mercadesamgf1 watch your back

georgerussell64 👀

georgerussell64 slayed so hard

yourusername an honor from the meme king?? I'm not worthy

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yourusername

liked by Charles_leclerc, user9, lewishamilton, and 930,393 others

yourusername thank you to everyone who came out to a show this weekend!! I had a blast sining new stuff, covers, and old pieces with you all- the love I experienced was unreal!! I cannot wait to see what happens in the future 💖

To all those close to me, our relationships mean the absolute world!! Special love to Lewis who held my hand through my darkest time, showed me what a true relationship was, and gave me a perfect little boy (I love you Roscoe). Darling, its been a wonderful experience being with you <3

tagged y/nhq, landojpg

lewishamilton love you so much angel <3

georgerussell64 definitely gave me and Carmen the night of our lives!!

alexalbon the show was so amazing I almost forgot you flirted with my gf in the invitation

yourusername stay mad

lilymhe 🥵

Roscoelovescoco can I come next time??

yourusername I'll see what I can do...

landjpg thank you for photo creddits and well as the opportunity to photograph these unique shows

yourusername you didn't not dissapoint 👏👏 thank you for doing it

Charles_leclerc I had an amazing time!!!

carlossainze55 you should hear him try to speak, voice complelty gone

yourusername that's the kind of energy we all need

comments have been limited

[spextr1m]

Growing up with Ben Tennyson (headcanons-Scenario)

⚠️ = Spoilers, jealousy, kidnapping, mutation (reader), Mpreg, swearing, Ben's hand is the Thing from Addams Family, heartbreak moments, childhood enemies to lovers (sorta of?), arachinchimp coded reader, fear of rejection, OOC Ben

A/N: Gender neutral reader

10-11 years old

- You first met him when Ben was framed

- It didn't go off well was because he was being brat which led you getting irritated

- You two are pretty much schoolmates in same school but you didn't know him well

"Bleh! I am not gonna hang out with other doofus!" Ben crosses his arms and makes a face only you get irritated

"Will you just SHUT up?" You immediately riled up and replied back.

- Even though you're quite an opposite of him, it didn't stop you from calling him out

- Only you realized that he's hiding something from you which is him being "Silly" (to cover up his fear)

- But if you get kidnapped by aliens or human like, it's time for Ben to confess that it should've be him not you (Remember Gwen got kidnapped and he went apeshit) shows that he does care for you.

- You two like Sumo Slammers which strengthen your bond with him.

- That's where he'll open up to you although slowly.

-When Ben unlocked Feedback and favoring that alien, you cant help but to feel replaced so you got heartbroken the way that he favors Feedback.

- Remember how he's secretly sorry for Kevin? Yeah you're conflicted whether you should feel bad for him or... No.

- But in return, you tease Gwen for simping over Kevin

- You and Gwen get along quite well

-You ended up crushing on Ben but you felt tad sad that he has a crush on Kai.

- Unfortunately before the event of AF-Omniverse, your parents have to move out of town and you bid farewell to Tennyson family.

15-16 years old

-You went back in Bellwood and you'd think that nothing change in here until.. It sorta did?

- Gwen is now mature while Ben... Well

-He's now showing maturitiy besides him being silly all the time

-You headed to Mr. Smoothie and being overwhelmed by its changes until you bumped into a green jacket

"Oh sorry, I didn't see you here" You apologize to that guy who's standing by

"Y/N?" Your eyes shot opened when you hear familiar voice and you looked at this person revealing to be Ben.

-You two at first, awkward since you two haven't talk for long time now until he broke the silence about how you're doing in other town

- Turns out you have a boyfriend (which he congratlute you but tingle of jealousy filled him), your parents are very much bus than the usual, and normal life too than him.

- You're also shocked when you realized that Ben was preggo (pregnant) was because of Big Chill being a seahorse

"Wait, you're a mother this whole time????" Your jaw drops when you see mini versions of Big Chill, now staring at Ben who's also disbelief

"Uhhhh yeah?" He's embarrassed that he gave birth to mini Big Chill while staring.

"Damn... No wonder why you ate a pickle" He's surprised you notice smallest details about him but secretly happy that you notice small details about him.

"The next thing was you supposed to be stringray alien but then you ended up becoming THAT thing!" Of course you didn't know about his new aliens' names to be honest with you, you get mixed up with Big Chill and Jetray was because they're both flying aliens well sometimes.

-Sometimes you made a joke that Kevin loves his car than Gwen

-Which Ben spit his smoothie, laughing his ass off.

"He's planning a wedding and his bride would've be a car-" You made a comment about Kevin's car only Ben spit his smoothie, laughing his ass off while his hand slapping your back.

"What? I'm being honest-" Which it also makes him laugh harder.

-You also freaked out that Ben's hand was sentient and crawling onto you which you immediately threw his hand at almost everything including him

"BENJI, YOUR FUCKING HAND IS CRAWLING AGAIN-" You freaked out as you began to grab Ben's hand which also makes Kevin laugh at you freaking out

"NOT FUNNY DUDE!" You added up right after you threw his hand at the wall, annoyed that Kevin continues to laugh.

-Unfortunately, your parents had to call you again to go back to other town which you bid bye to Ben again hoping you'll return someday.

-Bad luck tells you that, your boyfriend has broken up with you because two of you are now pursuing different school times and distant too.

-Ben got famous thanks to that kid who exposed his identity to the entire damn fucking world which you cannot help but to be worried about him and his family which adds his burdens as a teen.

-Luck is in your hands that your parents moved back to Bellwood

-You're also shocked to hear that Ben and Julie broke up (Writers fucked up their love life)

- So fame gets to his head that he becomes arrogant so bad that you called him out (he apologizes afterwards and wants to make it up for you)

- Unfortunately because of alien shenanigans, you ended up being... mutated into an alien. You immediately freaked out bout your new form and have many thoughts that Ben wouldn't like your ugliness and your parents rejecting you for being a mutant.

- Since you now see yourself as a "monster", you immediately distance yourself from Ben which he cannot help but to be worried about you.

- Like he ASKS Gwen what to do when your friend went missing and she replied that he'll find you.

- Okay now setting to Omniverse, still cocky teenager boi but he does concern for you

- Like if you have an ID mask, Ben will ask plumbers to track while worrying for you.

- It wasnt until a random ass villain and then you of course, you have basic knowledge about your newfound powers thanks to the id mask that makes you unrecognizable even though you easily forgetting your own face.

- *Inserts Ben fighting villain*

-You try to save Ben only the mask got knocked off immediately exposing your true form

-You freaked out when you see yourself again which you began to run away until Ben stops you from running away

"WAIT DONT GO Y/N!" He stops you from running away, fearful that he didn't like you AT all.

"Just go away, Ben." You shoo him away while distancing yourself away from him, his eyes are shot opened when he sees you in that mutant form

"Where have you've been? I haven't see you for time like this and... I've thought that I'd lose you." Ben shows his concern towards you for going missing, his eyes are filled with sad, care and worry..

But you take it as rejection, this self loathing intensifies that he didn't like you for being a mutant which you sadly looking down which also makes Ben begins to reassure you

"I don't really think you're hideous." Your eyes blinked, registering what he said, his footsteps getting near to you and his voice is now sincere.

"You.. Think so?" Your extra arms are crossing while your other arms are hanging, still saddened that you look like this.

"Of course! Do you really think I'll reject you because you're no longer human? I don't care what other people think of you so please... Y/N, let me help you." Ben offers his hand for you, at first you'd thought he's bluffing until you offer your hand which he pulled you into a hug.

You and Ben slowly blossomed into more than friends

-You continue to wear an ID mask but in the indoors, you showed up your mutated form and hang out with him but the outdoors, you still continue to wear ID Mask unless if its Undertown

- You two usually hang out in Undertown

-If Ben has bad day, don't worry you'll comfort him

- But if you have shitty day, Ben will also comfort you

- These feelings showed more

- Who kiss first?: Ben

- You slowly reverting your old personality

- He lets you mess his hair up

[w2soneshots]

Brother’s best mate -W2S

words: 0.8k+

warnings: smut, swearing, alcohol consumption.

summary: you and harry meet through your brother ethan. After a night spent with the side girls you crawl into bed with your favourite guernsey boy.

notes: I haven’t written anything like this in ages!🤭 hope you enjoy🔥🫶🏼

Liked by wroetoshaw and 301,583 others

y/username: spending time with my favourite people💞 (even if it's on a golf course😒😂)

Tagged: @faithloisak @behzingagram @wroetoshaw

-comments-

faithloisak: aw I love you

-> y/username: ❤️🫶

y/nfanpage21: she's so 🌼🧺☕️🧘‍♀️🥐 coded

user19470245: omg they went to golf together😭

user83271430: the pic of ethan and faith is adorable

Last year I moved to London to be closer to Ethan when Faith fell pregnant, to help her and to spend more time with the both of them. I also bought an apartment so I'm just a 20 minute drive from them. I finally met the sidemen at the gender reveal. I'd never actually been introduced to them before, which was weird because they are basically the reason Ethan has a career and they helped him so much a few years ago when he was in a really dark place. Me and Harry didn't immediately hit it off, don't get me wrong I thought he was attractive but he's also very awkward and was wary that I'm his best mates sister.

After almost five months of being friends with the group, going to little parties or just hanging out with them me and Harry kissed. I knew it was bound to happen since we had both quickly developed a large crush on each other but after it had happened we'd decided not to tell anyone (especially Ethan) before we knew we were actually good together. It took just one month before we were officially dating and decided it was the time to tell everyone. Of course we told Ethan first, he was shocked but (to our surprise) happy that his best mate and sister were dating. Everyone else was so excited.

We've now been together for 6 months and only told the fans recently. Today I'm going to dinner with: Talia, Faith and Freya for Talia's birthday. Harry had a more sidemen shoot today so wouldn't get home until six. I had a shower, dried and styled my hair, applied some makeup then chose an outfit. I was on my way out just as Harry arrived back. "Wow," He glanced down at my outfit before returning his attention to my face "you look beautiful." I smiled "thank you Haz, I'll be home by ten." "You better be, I can't wait to rip those clothes off."

I arrived outside of the restaurant, thanked the uber driver then spotted Talia getting out of another car. I quickly walked towards her "happy birthday!" We excitedly hugged each other. "Thank you! Freya's already inside." She beamed. "Ok. I think Faith's running a little bit late, let's just go inside." I replied. We headed into the fancy restaurant and were taken to our table where Freya already sat. When she spotted us she immediately leapt from her seat. She said happy birthday to Talia then we all sat down. Faith arrived a few minutes later and we ordered our drinks.

After eating our starters, mains and desserts me Freya and Faith split the bill (not before trying to convince Talia to let us treat her for her birthday). Thankfully I had only had two drinks so I was just a little tipsy. We left then ordered a taxi. Freya was dropped off first then Talia and I was third. I said goodbye to Faith then hopped out.

y/username

Liked by miniminter and 480,231 others

y/username: my girl @taliamar 's birthday dinner with @freyanightingale and @faithloisak 🤍💫

-comments-

taliamar: I had the best night ily😘

-> y/username: ily

freyanightingale: 💓💓

y/nfanpage21: omg you look stunning!!

user91037494: I love that the side girls are actually friends irl it's so cute

When I got up to mine and Harry's apartment I unlocked the door, opened it, kicked my shoes off and dropped my bag. "Haz?!" I shouted through the apartment. I walked through into the bedroom, Harry sat waiting patiently for me "Hey." My mouth curved into a smile "hi." I jumped onto the bed next to him. "Have fun?" He asked. "Mhm" I hummed.

I turned to him and pecked his lips. The kiss deepened, he grabbed the back of my thighs and pulled me onto his lap. I reached my hands down to the belt wrapped around my waist, I pulled it off and threw it to the floor. I moved Harry's hands from the back of my thighs to my ass. He groaned into the kiss then rushed to pull the zipper down on my dress, then he pulled it off and over my head, leaving me in just my matching black lace bra and underwear set. Harry broke the kiss to look down at me "you're so fucking beautiful." He rasped. I pulled his shirt over his head, followed by his pyjama pants. While Harry unclipped my bra, allowing the straps to fall from my shoulders.

Within just a few minutes we were both completely naked. Harry flipped me onto my back. I whimpered as I rubbed my thighs together, desperate for any sort of friction. "Harry, please." I cried out. "What do you want baby? Use your words." "I need you to fuck me."

[fandomrewrites]

Legends Chapter 5: Threshing

Hi Riders, This chapter is a little shorter than my last two but it's Threshing so we finally get to see who (Y/N) bonds! I'm going to add a longer note at the end so I don't spoil anything but until then, I hope you like the chapter!

Chapters 13-15 in Fourth Wing Pairings: Xaden x Younger Sister, Liam x Best friend Warnings: Swearing, violence, death, spoilers from the book series Word Count: 5,524

Legends Masterlist

Gods, I can't wait for Threshing. It must feel amazing to bond a dragon, to fly for the first time. What will my dragon be like? Will any even want to bond with me? -Recovered correspondence from (Y/N) Riorson to Cadet Xaden Riorson

I sit in Eya's room on her bed, drawing, while she sits at her desk working on homework for Physics. We haven't had a lot of chances to spend time together since I started at the college so she invited me back to her room after dinner.

"Are you nervous for Threshing tomorrow?" Eya asks, glancing over her shoulder at me.

"Not really," I sigh. "Whatever happens tomorrow happens. My only goal is to survive but if I can't do that then obviously I wasn't met to be a rider."

Eya scoffs, "Please, you're probably the most rider coded marked one, even more than your brother. You always loved the idea of bonding. And you fit in here on an almost scary level."

I laugh, "It's because I'm ruthless isn't?"

"Ruthless, brutal, savage, cutthroat…" Eya trails off, a smirk on her face as she turns around to look at me properly.

"Yeah, yeah. No regrets. People have to know not to fuck with me. Though to be fair, it seems like some people still don't understand that. Maybe I just need to kill someone right in front of everyone, battle brief would do."

Eya laughs, throwing her head back, "Imagine the look on Markham's face." I start laughing too. "Oh my Gods, I kind of want you to kill someone now, maybe that Barlowe kid?"

"You don't understand how badly I want to kill him. Every time he opens his mouth it's like listening to a cat die."

Our laughter dies out, "Xaden is going to kill me for encouraging this."

"I won't tell him if you don't."

"Deal." She smiles at me, "Do you know which dragon you're going for? Any stand out at Presentation?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure. They were all beautiful, but I didn't feel a connection to any of them. What was it like for you? Did you know?"

Eya nods, "I knew once Presentation was over. Once everyone went through I just kept thinking about this emerald green dragon, it was like I couldn't think of anything else. My heart lead me to her during Threshing and she bonded me."

"Seems like it was easy."

"It was, but it's not like that for everyone, some dragons want to make it a bit more challenging so they know if you're the right fit for them. Maybe that's what your dragon is doing. Leran said I didn't need to prove myself, she knew and she called out to me right when Threshing started."

I look down at my drawing of the two feathertails, tracing over one of the wings. "It's funny, the only dragons I even feel remotely close to are the feathertails, but they don't bond. They can't hold a rider."

"Which dragon was close to the feathertails? Maybe that's yours?"

"It was a brown one," I pause, "But I don't know. Maybe my dragon just wasn't there. Maybe I'm destined to repeat a year."

Eya shakes her head, "No, you're incredible. There's definitely a dragon for you, you'll find them tomorrow." I smile at her before turning back to my drawing.

*_*_*_*_*

It's early morning on October first; Threshing is today. It doesn't matter which day of the week or the weather, Threshing is always on the same day every year. I wake up for my morning run, quietly leaving the room. Dain's waiting for me as usual, his arms crossed. "I had a feeling you lied yesterday."

I roll my eyes, he tried to convince me not to go running today since I'd be busy all day dealing with Threshing. After his persistence I told him I'd sleep in, hoping to finally get some peace and quiet on a run. "Can't blame a girl for trying." I mumble, maybe if I annoy him enough he'll stop coming with me, "Ready for our run, sweet cheeks?" I smile brightly.

Dain rolls his eyes, "Let's do this." We take off, starting off at a light jog before gradually running faster. We stay out for about 20 minutes before Dain starts talking, "Do you know what dragon you're going for today?"

I shake my head. Dain likes to talk during these runs, I've slowly started to answer his questions but it's usually short replies, just yes and no answers and I'll ignore anything else, unless I know my response will annoy him. What can I say? Dain's fun to tease. "You should go for a red one."

"Isn't yours red?" I ask.

Dain nods, "Yeah, Cath is. Reds are typically fiery, you'd fit well with one."

"I know the dragons temperaments, you don't need to remind me." I roll my eyes, "Does that mean you think I'm fiery?"

As we see the school come back into view, we start slowing down. I see Dain look at me from the corner of my eyes, "Have you met you?"

I smirk, turning to look at him, "Are you fiery, Aetos?" This time he rolls his eyes, his eyes look far away and then a blush starts up his cheeks. My smirk widens, "What's the blush for?"

His eyes snap to mine, "What? I'm not blushing. I'm warm from the run."

"Uh huh, and Malek isn't the God of Death."

"Really considering telling one of your friends to start coming on runs with you." Dain mumbles.

I playfully roll my eyes, "You won't."

"You really think I won't?"

"It's been a couple of weeks and you haven't said anything to anyone. You even lied for me to Imogen. You won't say anything." I confidently say, walking backwards away from Dain, "See you later, squad leader."

*_*_*_*_* Violet

The squad is sitting around the breakfast table but I refuse to eat. I'm too nervous and I know it won't do me any good. Most of the cadets eat a light breakfast except for Ridoc and (Y/N). They're both eating like they normally do and I don't understand how. "How are you guys eating?" I ask.

"If I die today, I at least want to eat a good meal." Ridoc replies.

(Y/N) shrugs, "I'm not nervous."

The squad all turn to look at her, "What? How? We have a good chance of dying today, especially you with your last name." I say.

(Y/N) shrugs once more, "And? If I die I'm greeting Malek like an old friend, then I'm going to find my dad and tell him about all the shit I've gotten into since he died."

My jaw drops, "Gods, I wish I could think like that."

Rhiannon snorts, "I've come to the conclusion that (Y/N)'s not human. There's no way someone can be this unbothered about death."

"You forget that I witnessed the death of over 100 people, one of which was my own father. Death doesn't bother me. When I say I'd great Malek like an old friend, it's because he is." The table grows silent at (Y/N)'s words.

My heart pangs, (Y/N)'s grown on me a lot since we first met, enough were I consider her a friend. She's been nothing but kind to me since Parapet even when I tried to push her away because of her last name. And despite me jumping to conclusions about her, she never did the same to me. Hearing her talk so freely about witnessing her father's death makes me see (Y/N) differently.

She's been through so much and she's still such a good person. It makes me wonder why her father turned into a traitor. What was so important to him that he risked everything? "No need to get all quiet at my expense." (Y/N) eyes the group, bringing a piece of bacon to her lips.

"We just don't really hear you talk about that day," Trina replies quietly.

"Well yeah, I'm not going to be jumping for joy at the fact I watched my father and everyone that fought with him get incinerated in front of me." (Y/N) rolls her onyx eyes.

"Sorry, I didn't mean-"

"Don't worry about it." (Y/N) brushes her off, "Changing the topic, are you guys really all that nervous?"

Sawyer is the first to reply, "I don't know how you aren't. I'm not even nervous about dying, I'd rather die than not bond again."

"I personally would rather live and bond a dragon. So yeah, I'm nervous that that won't be the outcome." I answer.

"I'm with (Y/N). I'm confident in myself. I'm coming back a rider today." Tynan says.

I watch as (Y/N) rolls her eyes once more, she throws her long hair over her shoulder, "I never said I'm confident I'll bond. I think I will but no one knows how the mind of a dragon works. You can be the best in our year but if the dragon for you isn't bonding this year then you'll still end up unbonded. I'm just not nervous of whatever outcome I may have. I can die, I can be unbonded, or best case scenario I survive and bond. It doesn't matter to me, whatever happens happens."

"You'll bond," All of our heads turn as Bodhi walks up to our table, Xaden and Garrick on either side of him.

"You sure seem confident in me, cousin." (Y/N) replies.

"He's not the only one," Xaden says, Garrick nodding in agreement. Gods, when I said the Riorson's have good genes at Presentation, I absolutely meant it. All three of them are attractive. They look very similar; it's easy to tell they're related. Xaden's feature's are sharper than his sisters and cousins. Bodhi looks the most approachable out of all three. (Y/N) on the other hand looks intimidating, not because she looks scary but because I don't think I've ever seen someone as beautiful as her.

"Are Cuir, Chradh, and Sgaeyl telling you guys something that I should know?" (Y/N) asks, brows knitting together.

"Well, considering Sgaeyl told me she should had waited a couple years to bond so she can get you, I'd say there's at least one dragon out there that wants you."

Ridoc splutters, "She likes (Y/N) that much?"

"Why do you sound so surprised by that?" (Y/N) asks, "I'm amazing."

"Sgaeyl is terrifying!" Ridoc exclaims, causing Xaden to smirk.

"Chradh likes you too, according to him he's been talking you up to the other dragons." Garrick says, eyes locked on (Y/N).

"Tell him I said thank you." (Y/N) smiles.

"Cuir also has a good opinion of you." Bodhi smiles.

"Gods, how do I get all the dragons to like me?" Rhiannon asks.

"Okay, so a few bonded dragons like me?" (Y/N) rolls her eyes, "That doesn't mean one of the unbounded dragons will want to bond with me."

The three older marked ones exchange a look before turning back to (Y/N), "You'll bond." They say together. (Y/N) holds her hands up but doesn't argue.

Xaden reaches down, pressing a kiss to the top of (Y/N)'s head, "I'll see you later," He looks to the rest of us, briefly making eye contact with me, "Good luck everyone."

Bodhi wraps (Y/N) in a one armed hug, "Love you, cuz. Good luck guys."

Garrick gives (Y/N) a hug as well, "Good luck, Smiley." He nods at the rest of us before walking away with the others.

I sigh, "I was right, they really do love you."

(Y/N) laughs, "I never said they didn't." She turns to look at their table, a small smile on her face, "And I love them too, even though they drive me insane sometimes."

*_*_*_*_* (Y/N)

We're waiting in the bowl shaped valley for Threshing to start. Ridoc is currently heaving up the contents of his stomach by a tree. My nose scrunches up in disgust as I watch him. I turn away, noticing that Liam is approaching me. "Hey, good luck today." He says, wrapping me in a hug.

I hug him back, squeezing gently, "Good luck," I whisper to him.

He rests his head on top of mine, "We'll be fine, we'll come back as bonded riders."

I nod, "We got this."

We slowly pull away from each other, he catches something over my head nodding in the direction, "I think you're friends want you." I turn to look behind me, where Rhiannon and Violet are waiting for me. "Hey," I turn back to Liam, "I love you." He says, smiling.

"I love you too, Li. I'll see you later." He nods, turning to walk back to his squad.

I walk towards Rhiannon and Violet, turning to listen to Professor Kaori, "Remember to listen here," he says, tapping his chest. "If a dragon has already selected you, they'll be calling. So pay attention to not just your surroundings but your feelings, and go with them. And if your feelings are telling you to go in the other direction… listen to that, too."

"Which one are you guys going for?" Rhiannon asks Violet and I.

"I don't know." Violet sighs.

"Yeah, me neither. I'll know when I see them." I say.

"You both memorized the cards, right?" Rhiannon questions, "So you know what's out there."

I nod as Violet answers, "Yes. I just don't feel connected to any of them. Dain tried to talk me into a brown."

"Dain lost his vote when he tried talking you into leaving." Rhiannon counters.

"He told me to go for a red." I reply. Both girls snap there heads in my direction. "What?"

"He talked to you about Threshing?" Violet asks.

"Yeah," I shrug. "What about you, Rhiannon? What dragon are you going for?"

"Hold up, when did Dain talk to you about Threshing? And why?" Violet asks, before Rhiannon can answer my question.

I roll my eyes, then reach back and start braiding my hair, "This morning before breakfast and I don't know why he talked to me about it. I was trying to ignore him."

"Where have you been going in the mornings? I've been meaning to ask." Rhiannon questions.

"I've been running. Dain's bumped into me a few times when I'm heading out." I choose not to give them too much information, I don't want a bunch of questions, especially not right now.

Thankfully, Rhiannon changes the topic back to Threshing, answering my previous question, "I'm thinking about that green. The one closest to me when they got all up close and personal with you."

"Still can't believe they did that." I mumble, the girls told me about the two dragons that approached Violet at Presentation, because Violet's corset is made of her sister's dragons scales. I was surprised that Violet trusted me with that information but I'm happy she's realizing that I'm not a bad person.

"Well, it didn't eat you, so that's a promising start." Violet replies, smiling.

Rhiannon and I smile back, "I think so, too." She says, interlocking her arms with Violet and me.

We turn back to Kaori, "If you go in groups, you're more likely to be incinerated than bonded," Kaori argues with someone closer to the front, "The scribes have run the statistics. You're better off on your own."

"And what if we aren't chosen by dinner?" A cadet with a beard asks.

"If you're not chosen be nightfall, there's a problem," Kaori frowns, "You'll be brought out by a professor or senior leadership, so don't give up and think we've forgotten about you." He checks his pocket watch, "Remember to spread out and use every foot of this valley to your advantage. It's nine, which means they should be flying in any minute now. The only other words I have for you are good luck." He nods, eyes sweeping over the field of cadets. Then he leaves, marching up a hill and disappearing from sight.

"Be careful," Rhiannon says pulling me then Violet into a hug.

"You too." Violet says back, before pulling me into a hug.

"We got this guys, I'll see you both later." I smile.

"Don't die," Ridoc orders looking over our group.

"See you soon, good luck." Sawyer says, hugging me. Then we separate, the squad moving in different directions.

*_*_*_*_*

It's been a couple of hours since Threshing has started. I've come across a couple of oranges, three brown, and a green, none were my dragons. I've seen some dragon's launch into the sky with cadets, now riders, on their backs. I watched one cadet fall right off their dragons back. I've also seen plenty plumes of smoke rise from within the forest.

I feel like I'm wandering around aimlessly but I refuse to give up. I reach into my small pack, getting out my canteen of water. I've been lucky to avoid other cadets as well. I just know plenty of people here want to kill me and I really don't want to deal with that bullshit at the moment.

I just hope my friends are still alive, and hopefully bonded by now or will bond soon. As I continue walking, I see Violet rush past. I stop to let her get away but watch as her foot catches on a branch that was hidden by leaves and she careens forward, falling over.

I run towards her, "Vi!"

Her head whips towards me, "Shh!" She puts a finger to her lips.

I nod, helping her up, "Are you alright?" I whisper.

"I think it's just a sprain." She moves her ankle slowly, "I gotta keep moving though."

"You're dragon?" I ask.

She shakes her head, "Tynan, Oren, and Jack are heading towards the two feathertails. They want to kill them." She starts walking before I can say anything.

"Fuck that, I'll help." I walk beside her, there's no way I'm letting her do this by herself. If they bump into each other that's three against one, and let's be real here, Violet's not the best fighter.

We come to a clearing where the silver and gold feathertails sit, "You have to get out of here!" Violet hisses. "They're going to kill you if you don't leave." The dragons turn, watching us.

"Yes, you two! Leave, please!" I exclaim.

They blink, exchanging looks between each other, "Go! Run! Fly!" Violet shoos them away. The branches rustle from opposite us and Jack, Tynan, and Oren step into the clearing. The two feathertails turning their heads to look at the trio.

"Fuck." I say, eyes narrowing into a glare.

"We'll make it painless," Jack says, causing me to roll my eyes.

"Scorch them!" Violet tries once more.

"They aren't going to kill them. Maybe feathertails can't." I say. "We're going to have to do something. Feel free to leave if you want, but I also know that you're not a coward so I expect we'll be fighting side-by-side."

"There's no way I'm leaving you to deal with this by yourself." Violet takes a breath, then steps in the clearing, I'm close on her heels, "You can't do this!" She calls out to the trio.

"Oh, look," Jack sneers. "We can take out all three of the weakest links at the same time. Plus a traitor."

I snort, "That's cute, that you think you can kill me." Violet and I stand in between the three guys and two dragons.

"I've been waiting a long time for this Sorrengail," Jack says, ignoring my comment.

"If you can fly, now would be a good time." Violet calls over her shoulder.

"You can't kill a dragon." I snap.

"Yes, we can." Jack shrugs. Oren looks a bit uncertain though, Violet must notice as well because she turns to him.

"You can't. It goes against everything we believe in!" She says.

"You really think a dragon will bond with someone who killed one of their own?" I ask, I'm completely bullshitting though, since I actually don't know if they would care.

"Letting something so weak so incapable of fighting, live is against our beliefs!" Jack shouts back.

"Just because something is smaller, doesn't mean it's weaker." I reply, glaring.

"If you want to do this, you have to go through us." Violet says, raising her chin. She raises her daggers, flipping one to pinch the tip. I pull out my short sword and a dagger.

"I don't really consider that a problem," Jack sneers.

They raise their swords, just as we are about to start fighting, a voice calls out from across the field to my right, "I would strongly recommend you rethink your actions." I know that voice, I don't bother turning to look, keeping my attention on the enemies before us. Xaden is here, and he's pissed.

"And if we don't want to rethink our actions?" Jack shouts, glancing over his shoulder. There's a brief pause, "There's nothing you can do, right? Wingleader?

"It's not me you should worry about today," Xaden responds, I see Sgaeyl tilt her head from the corner of my eye.

"You're really going to do this?" Violet asks Tynan, "Attack two squadmates."

"Squads don't mean shit today," Tynan snarls, eyeing me.

"Oh, no need to be jealous that I wouldn't sleep with you," I say, he been bitter ever since I turned him down at Presentation, "Walk away now and at least you have a better chance of living to see another day."

Tynan snarls, "I'm going to kill you myself, Riorson."

I scoff, "Please do try."

Violet ignores Tynan and I; instead she chooses to talk to the two dragons once more, "So that's a no on the flying?" The dragons chuff in response, "Great. Well, if you can back us up with your claws, we'd really appreciate it."

They each chuff again causing Violet and I to turn slightly, we look down seeing they have no claws, just paws. Violet and I exchange a look, I mumble quietly, "See, I don't think they can kill."

"Oh, fucking hell." Violet replies. We turn back to look at the guys, Jack roars a battle cry and sprints towards Violet.

Violet throws her dagger, it lands in the shoulder of his sword arm, "Couldn't have gone for the neck?" I question as Jack cries out. Oren and Tynan run at us, Oren moving towards Violet and Tynan towards me.

I quickly slash at Tynan, blocking his strike with my sword. I move quick, pushing him away from Violet and the dragons. "She's destroyed my shoulder!" Jack shouts, clutching the wound, "I can't move it!"

I push Tynan back more, cutting his thigh, "That's the thing about having weak joints," Violet replies, "You know exactly where to strike."

"Kill them!" Jack orders, then runs away, still clutching his shoulder.

"Come back here, coward!" I yell, I maneuver around Tynan, ending up behind him, then sink my sword through his abdomen. There's a gross squelching sound as I pull the blade back out, Tynan sinks to his knees, falling to the ground. He takes one last breath, then stops moving.

"Behind you!" Xaden calls out, I turn quick, but it's Violet that Oren is attacking. She turns around, deflecting his blow.

"You can't interfere!" Oren screams.

"No, but I can narrate." Xaden replies.

I move to close the distance, to kill Oren just like I did Tynan since Violet clearly won't take a killing shot, but before I do Violet manages to knock Oren unconscious.

We each take a breath, making sure the other is okay. Then I watch as a huge black dragon lands behind Violet, a few seconds later I hear another dragon land behind me. My eyes widen, I slowly look over my shoulder, seeing the white dragon that Kaori showed us. "Holy shit." I mumble, turning to look back at Violet and the black dragon.

"Is she an enemy, Night Orchid?" A silky voice asks. What the fuck. My head, whips around to look at the white dragon again.

"No." I say quickly.

I notice Violet eyeing the black dragon, "I can't kill an unconscious man," She says, looking at Oren and shaking her head.

I scoff, "I can. Move."

The white dragon makes a huffing noise, almost like a laugh, "One of the many reasons why I'm choosing you," She says, her voice sounding in my head.

"No, (Y/N)," Violet scolds, "You can't."

"Oh yeah? Watch me." I reply, Violet steps in between me and the unconscious Oren. "Seriously? He almost just killed you and you're protecting him?" Out of the corner of my eye I see a flash of blue as Xaden and Sgaeyl take off.

"He can't harm us."

"Right now." I pause when Violet glares at me, "Fine, but when he tries to kill one of us later, I have every right to say I told you so."

She huffs, "Fine."

Violet starts talking to the black dragon, or at least I assume she does since I can't actually hear the black dragon speaking. "You're friend will be fine, but you're right. Maybe we should wait for them to leave so you can kill the enemy at her feet."

"Gladly. At least someone understands me." I say to the dragon. I see a twinkle in her eyes, and if dragons could smile, I swear she would be.

"You can speak to me in your thoughts, (Y/N), no need to speak everything aloud."

My head tilts, "So you can just hear everything I think."

"Yes, Night Orchid. There will be no secret you can hide from me." That's kind of terrifying… My dragon chuffs, blowing out warm steam.

I turn back around as I hear a shuffling behind me. The gold and silver dragons bend their legs then launch into the sky. "Oh, so they can fly." I say, watching them leave.

The black dragon inclines it's front leg, Violet gulps then looks at me, "I'll see you in a bit." I nod. She crawls up the dragons front leg, taking a seat on his back. Once she's seated, the black dragon stands to his full height then pushes off the ground, flying over the trees.

"Will you kill him now?" The white dragon asks.

"Don't need to tell me twice," I reply, walking towards the unconscious Oren. I slip a dagger out, plunging it into his neck. Might as well make his death merciful, it's the least I can do since Violet was so against it.

"Good, now come." I turn back to the dragon and smile. I slip my dagger back into the sheath at my thigh then run as fast as I can to climb up her front leg. I grab onto her shoulder, pulling myself up the rest of the way. I move so I'm at her shoulder blades, and grab onto the pommel. I squeeze my thighs and hold on tight, waiting for her to start flying.

"My name is Nyxarainum, daughter of Nyzrailim and Chaliache, descended from the cunning Dubhmadinn line." She pauses as she launches into the air, "You may call me Nyx."

"Nyxarainum," I whisper, testing the name.

Nyx hums, "Your pronunciation isn't too bad, but it could use a little work."

Nyx flies fast, she pivots and dives, testing my ability to hold on. I see another cadet fall in the distance, I can't help but hope it wasn't one of my friends. "This is amazing!" I laugh, closing my eyes and breathing in the cold air. "Is it true you're the only one of your kind?"

"Not technically," Nyx answers, "I am currently the only white dragon but I'm part of the black den."

"What do you mean?"

"It's rare, but on occasion dragons end up with…" She trails off as she takes a sharp left turn, "Abnormalities. Some grow to be blind, others deaf, one has even grown without wings. Those dragons can never bond, they stay in the Vale for their whole lives because that's where they are safest. I'm albino. I was supposed to be black by my abnormality made me loose my pigmentation."

"But this abnormality doesn't affect your ability to survive outside the Vale so you're free to bond." I finish for her.

"Correct, Night Orchid."

"So why now? After all this time, why bond with me?" My eyes narrow in confusion. Kaori told us she's never bonded before, he didn't even know that she was technically a black dragon because there was no way to communicate with her before. "And why do you call me Night Orchid?"

"You're brilliant, (Y/N) Riorson. Smart, loyal, strong, kind, and much more. Sgaeyl talks highly of you, the only other person alive she talks that highly of is your brother and my mate has also been making sure I was aware of you."

"Your mate?" I didn't realize she was mated, or dragons were this into gossiping.

Nyx chortles, the field with bonded cadets coming into view, "We know how to keep secrets very well, we won't gossip about things that matter, but things like this? Yes, we talk about it, it makes the bonding process a lot easier. And I call you Night Orchid because that's one of the meanings of your name. Plus Night Orchid's are very beautiful but deadly, much like you." I noticed she avoided my question about her mate. "I'll tell you soon." She lands on the field, right behind Violet and the black dragon. "First, go tell the roll keeper we've bonded."

I climb down Nyx's front leg, landing with a soft thud. The silver and gold dragons are nearby, safe. I smile at them, glad that Violet and I helped. "You two really should had flown away quicker." I say to them, shaking my head. The silver dragon snakes its head towards me, chuffs twice, then pulls back.

I look towards Violet who is limping towards the dais. Running to catch up, I lightly grab her arm, startling her, "Sorry. Are you okay?" I interlock our arms, "I can't believe you bonded him, that's amazing!"

Violet and I glance around us, watching as everyone that's currently on the field gape at the two huge dragons and the two smaller feathertails. Everyone's gazes jump back and forth between the four dragons and us, walking away from them.

"I'm alright, just some minor pain but nothing I can't live with. And yeah, his name's Tairn. I'm finding it hard to believe he'd want to bond with me." Violet says back.

I roll my eyes, "Please, you're brilliant, Sorrengail. Of course he'd see that."

Violet looks over her shoulder, towards her dragon, then looks back at me, "He says I should listen to you. But enough about me, you bonded the white dragon." She smiles.

I smile back, "Nyx. She's a black dragon too, just albino which is why she appears white."

"Interesting," Violet replies, we make it to the row of cadets waiting to tell the roll keeper their dragon's name. I let Violet in front of me, the girl in front finishes and Violet steps forward. I look on as General Melgren, General Sorrengail, and Commandment Pancheck all gape at Tairn and Nyx. They then look towards Violet and I, clearly not believing that we were the ones to bond them.

"Assholes." I can't help but roll my eyes.

"I can't argue with that, Night Orchid." Nyx says. Kaori jumps up from his seat, eyeing the two dragons in fascination. Violet glances at the roll keeper then says Tairns full name.

I look up, noticing General Melgren glaring at me. I raise my chin, refusing to turn away first. I hear a surprised, "Both dragons?" Causing me to turn back towards Violet. Then I see Violet nod.

"What just happened?" I ask Nyx.

"Violet bonded Tairn and Andarna, the little gold one."

My head whips around, looking at Nyx and the small silver dragon that stays close to her, the voices of the arguing generals mesh into one, "Wait. No."

"What do you mean no," A new voice, male, says to me, "We'll be great together." If dragons can pout, I know he would be.

"I just," I pause, "If they're freaking out about Sorrengail bonding two dragons they're going to loose their fucking minds when they find out a Riorson has."

"Good," The silver dragon replies. My jaw drops. I quickly close my mouth turning back around to the dais, the redhead roll keeper waves me forward, needing to continue her job, even with the generals still arguing. Violet already limped off, towards the medical tent with Kaori.

"(Y/N) Riorson," She smiles, though it looks strained, "Please state the name of the dragon who has chosen you for the record."

I nod, "Nyxarainum."

"Aetherion, Aether for short." The little silver dragon tells me.

I gulp, "And Aetherion."

The roll keepers mouth drops open, "You also bonded two dragons?"

I raise my chin, "I did." I was right, the generals are even more pissed off now.

Taglist: @desprrssooo-espresssooooo @galaxystern08

So first, I wanted to say a little fun fact. Nyx's personality is loosely based off my dog, Max. And Aether's is loosely based off my cat, Kreacher. I was hesitant at first to have her bond 2 dragons but with the way I want the story to work out it just made sense, so I hope you guys like this decision as much as I do. Remember to share your opinions or questions, I love hearing from you guys!

[queerholmcs]

guess who made it a full nine and a half months before going back for round two! (me. it's me.)

Massive thanks and all my love to Elena @ohwatson, Time @heartduct, Rachel @betweendoctorsanddetectives, and Elena's friend from uni for making this weekend (1) happen and (2) an absolute experience to remember 🩷💀🦠👨‍💻

Detailed write-ups for the escape rooms already exist (see my dear friend Rebs's notes on the original experience, and Amy's transcript, and my detailed write-up on the Mind of Moriarty room from last year) but I do still have Thoughts To Share, and it is in danger of getting wordy, as always, so I'll see you below the cut! 🫶🫶🫶

I started my day off strong by waking up far too early & going for far too long of walk to see some classics like Big Ben, and the Langham (as one does), and then met up with Elena and Time for the Sherlock Holmes museum, since I needed to see what they'd done with it since getting rid of most of the weird little wax guys. (I can't remember what that room upstairs was officially supposed to be, but it was giving Mycroft's office. Maybe it was supposed to be Watson's office?)

And then we swung by North Gower St for the obligatory Speedy's moment, of course! 🫶

Meeting up with the rest of the group for lunch at the Westfield did turn out to be possibly the most difficult part of the weekend. Most convoluted shopping centre I've ever been in, I swear. The pizza was worth it, at least—even if it was all quickly overshadowed by the real reason we had all gathered there that day: a good old-fashioned eye exam.

I'm going to refrain from rehashing all of the insane details here that have already been noted elsewhere, but I also cannot overstate how insane the experience is. And there are people who just do this casually. Like, the original escape room experience is just included with the London Pass now? That's bonkers. And it is impossible to mention the escape rooms without also mentioning how incredibly dead Jim Moriarty definitely absolutely undoubtedly is. Mr "I Wish I Could Die Twice", indeed. 🔫🤭 And we got my beloved Yorick in-frame for our photos this time, so we were already starting off on a very high note, indeed! (Even if Stamford was a bit confused by our reactions when he prompted us to pose as though Moriarty himself had just stepped into 221B.)

There are some fun details I had forgotten, or otherwise failed to notice, the first time I did these rooms. Like Molly signing off a note to John, saying, "Nice beard, by the way!" To a man whose wife is mentioned exactly zero times during the course of the entire experience, no less. Sure. Why not.

Mycroft's office is phase two of the original escape experience, and it should come as no surprise to anyone here that that is my favourite room. And this time, it was elevated beyond what it could have been, because I learnt Mycroft's birthday on what was undoubtedly the most humbling phone call of my life, and it all went something like this:

me [picking up the phone to call Sam to ask for the code for the cryptex; the reader should note that I'm getting better about making phone calls in real life, and this is a call I've done before, so I'm feeling fairly confident in my ability to navigate this interaction, but it does still take me two tries to successfully dial the number and remember to press pound to actually make the call]: Hi, Sam, can we get the access code?

Sam: Okay, let me see here... it looks like you have given us the data we need, but just as a security measure, I'll have to ask you for Mycroft's date of birth.

me [did NOT have to give this information last time, and certain that such information is never once mentioned in the canon of the show]: ..........mmhm, sure, we'll call you right back.

A brief moment of discussing the evidence ensued, during which we determined, based on a ticket for Les Mis from 28 February 2019, and the voice message in which he complained about seeing Les Mis with his parents for his 50th birthday, that his date of birth is 28 February 1969. Meaning (1) he's a fucking pisces, and (2) the Les Mis showing in TEH was nowhere near 28 February 2019, so either that's something you're supposed to literally not take that seriously, or, as I am going to choose to believe because it's much more fun this way, his parents think he actually likes Les Mis and therefore regularly take him to see it and it's far too late for him to convince them otherwise now. (You know how parents are.)

me [calling Sam back, definitely feeling good about my ability to handle this phone call because I now definitely have all the information I need]: Hey, Sam, so we've got that security code of Mycroft's birthday for you. It's the 28th of February 1969.

Sam: Sure, that's correct! And what is it you're looking for?

me: We are looking for the access code for the cryptex.

Sam: Okay, sure. But you are still missing a word.

me [frowning at Mycroft's desk, trying to think what on earth she could be referring to, and then realising what it might be, and knowing that if I'm wrong, I'm about to look so unbelievably stupid for missing some obvious additional code word that was somewhere in the room, but that if I'm right, that'll somehow be worse, because I am an adult in the eyes of the law and I can do things like file my taxes or take impromptu trips to London to give people money in exchange for being locked in a room and insulted for an hour and a half without so much as asking for a parent's pemission, and yet I am now finding myself sat at Mycroft's desk, both feeling and sounding very much like a small child]: ..........could I please have an access code?

Sam: Oh, of course you can! The first digit is 1...

Needless to say, I have never been more efficiently nor more effectively humbled in my life, and I doubt I ever will be. And, naturally, it was only after the fact that I found out that—because everyone else could only hear my side of the conversation—they all thought we might have gotten his birthday wrong, or something, and I was just asking if we could please have the access code anyway. So thank you, Sam, for giving me some memories to carry with me to my very grave. I think I deserve photos of myself at that desk for my troubles. And also I would love to know what I looked like while sat behind Mycroft's desk and being told to say 'please.'

And also I now have to spend the rest of my life knowing a date that they chose—and probably arbitrarily, like you're probably not even supposed to think that much about it, it's not even that deep, unless it is—to be Mycroft Holmes's birthday. As though I needed any more details about that man to gnaw on. Knife emoji.

There weren't any more major surprises in that original experience, and we debriefed at the Mind Palace with drinks before it was time for our second appointment. (They had a new drink on the menu for me this time called "Mycroft's Modus Operandi," so, you know. That was fun! And there was no 'December 1963' jumpscare this time, but they clearly know their clientele, because the playlist was very "chill queer pop" vibes.)

My major takeaway from the Mind of Moriarty experience this time was, once again, my beloved prison cell. There was a phrase on the wall that had been a complete blank spot in my memory from the first time, and that was "Oh, but Sherlock's excellent, really very excellent!" (which is insane, for the record). But at least that one is relevant to a puzzle you have to solve, because I was also able to verify that the two phrases which actually haunt me—"too many thatchers" and "three signs isn't enough"—have absolutely nothing to do with any puzzles in the room. They are there just to haunt me. Which is more insane.

But, hey, I got to text Mycroft on a phone that was hidden in John's Semtex jacket inside Moriarty's mind! And apparently I missed reading last time a card where Jim refers to Mycroft as "Her Majesty." So. You know. Feeling some sort of super normal way about that!

I do really love that they use s4 footage of John and Sherlock and Mycroft and Jim in the third phase rooftop portion of the Mind of Moriarty experience. ("Family or friend, Mycroft or John Watson?" scene my beloved!!!) Especially because there is absolutely zero mention of that wife of his at any point throughout this entire thing. You would think he would fall back on "I do have a baby and/or wife at home" at some point during all his "I am literally being held here at gunpoint against my will" complaining, and yet...

Also there's still the whole "is it about having the keycode to open every door, or is it just about knowing people's pressure points and finding alternate ways to get what you need" thing running through the entire Mind of Moriarty experience. And the opening test for the original escape experience includes "TFP" in the centre of the screen and the opening test for the Mind of Moriarty experience involves choosing the fifth option to complete an existing series of four, with the patterns changing slightly (being mirrored, one might say?) between each. And there's the whole literal actual virus in the original experience becoming an AI computer virus in the Mind of Moriarty experience—it's a delicious progression, and that's all I'll say on that before I spend another three pages rambling about Jimmy boy.

At any rate, we did successfully complete both rooms, and we wrapped up the evening with dinner at Battersea itself! (Still bonkers that that's a bougie commercial complex now, and not just, like, the run-down power station where John and Mycroft I mean John and Irene had THE conversation of all time. Like, hello?)

All in all, an absolute success of a day. All my love again to everyone who made it possible, and I truly madly deeply look forward to doing it again whenever they re-remember that they have carte blanche to do whatever they want and drop a third escape room experience feature Cabin No. 9 of Blood Vessel fame. 🫶♟️🪞🤭

[jmdbjk]

Dear diary: day 613 on the couch...

Not really. It's only been 7 days. See what I did there? Actually, it has been exactly 7 days.

I'm about done with this covid crap but still at home out of "Abundance Of Caution."

And because I am a little stir-crazy/cabin-feverish, having seen everything on the internet twice and three times already and shit and having nothing left to do, I started rewatching Are You Sure?. Of course I did.

And as my now recovered brain would do when its not laying like a pile of grey jelly suffering from covid cooties, it is speeding through all the thoughts that are thotting up there. Damn it and them.

One in particular... that great pic of Tae and Manager-nim with JK photobombing in the background, supposedly taken in Hawaii, is the biggest thot thought of all. Not for the same reasons that others are celebrating the pic for. Redrum.

This one that Tae said he forgot about.

Tae posts pics of he and JK which supposedly was taken when he was in Hawaii and was apparently going skydiving and invited JK to come do it with him...very early 2023 by the look of JK's hair. So you're telling me Taehyung went skydiving... SUPPOSEDLY literally jumped out of an airplane from way up in the sky in Hawaii... yet in Jeju in late September of same year, he acted like he was too scared to jump onto a sandbag from a stationary platform 30 feet in the air in a controlled environment with a safety harness on... (side-eye).

Or did Tae chicken out at the last minute in Hawaii and not actually jump out of a plane? Will we ever know? Did JK fly all the way there to hold his hand and he still chickened out? It kind of looks like JK is having to convince Tae in the above pic. Don't back out on me now bruh, I flew 9 hours to do this shit, I'm doing it with or without you.

Pretty sure JK went through with it because during an interview last year, he said he's been skydiving, right? So if he did, SURELY someone caught that on camera? Will we EVER see it?

And if Tae DID jump out of that airplane too... please explain exactly WHO is doing the fan-service in Are You Sure?

In other news, I heard the cult was mad at JK because guess what? They finally actually watched original content (episode 4) thinking they'd see more of what they thought they saw in Ep. 3 and therefore hijack the show. Wrong. Original content is kryptonite to the cult. Surprised they didn't all melt into the ground like the wicked witch when they watched it.

I haven't seen anyone mention all the secret hand signs or codes that supposedly pass between Tae and JK. Duh. Because there is no such thing as secret hand signs and secret codes.

Except this one which isn't secret at all:

FYI, I think the pool moment when JK reminded JM the pool was transparent, I think Jimin was gonna yank JK's pants down. I think its one of their silly kinks when they are down to their skivvies. Which they were. Those two... I swear... can't take them anywhere.

And lastly, no excuse now for JK to not do that CK underwear ad... maybe he's already done it and it'll hit us when we least expect. The thoughts are thotting.

My brain would welcome any perfectly logical explanations to any of this.

[festiveferret]

Wipdate!

Well. It's been like three years since I've done one of these, hahaha, but I've been missing fandom life so I thought it'd be fun to share an update of where I'm sitting. Toddlers manage to take like 140% of your time and energy, even though they sleep a lot, so I've mostly just been parenting, but I've been getting the writing bug lately, so there's very slow progress, but progress nonetheless.

Basically, I have a list of fics I want to make sure I finish. They're the ones it would break my heart to look back on twenty years from now and realize I put all that time and those words into something that never got shared. I haven't been having new ideas very much, so I'm putting all my creative energy into things I've either promised to other people or to myself.

I'm not going to list everything I've posted since my last wipdate, since that was a looong time ago and you can always sort my works page chronologically! But here's the latest ones...

Posted:

Do Not Reply  - Tony replies to a Do Not Reply email address thinking he's shouting into the void. Spoiler alert: he's not. Runaway Train - Preserum Steve and Prince Tony meet cute. Entwined - The aftermath of Ults Stony being magically soulbound and then separated. Lost and Found - Winteriron - Bucky finds a lost dog. Vacation Days - SHIELD needs Steve to take his PTO Sanguinary Revelations - Tony and Steve go on a date with a twist Kindly Calm Me Down - Ults Steve knows how to calm his Tony down after a mission First Christmas - Stony's first xmas as parents Even of My Secret Soul - Secret soulmates

Updating:

Second Chance Summer - Stony with a 20yr age gap. Pre-written and posting on Saturdays. Up to chapter eight. A Good Thing - Comic collab with Askafroa - Alpha!Tony and Omega!Therapist!Steve - almost done! Yet I Will Try the Last - Truck Stop Hooker AU with hooker!Steve and flashy billionaire, Tony Stark. Up to chapter four! (I swear I haven't given up on this) Held Remix - A rewrite of Held with Tony as the sub and Steve as the Dom. Up to chapter twenty-nine. Ashy and I are making a point of getting our chaptered version of Held edited and posted, and then we're cracking on with Remix. We may or may not do both seasons, but we're at least going to finish out S1.

Beta Queue:

Bro Code -  This is one of my 2023 MTH fics Rented Family - I started this one in like 2019 and finally finished it. It's a no-powers Ults AU where Tony is dying of his (canon!) brain cancer and Steve is a security specialist/bodyguard who Tony hires to be around while he dies. Yay for finishing old wips!

Wips:

This wiplist is basically just going to be my list of "I'll be sad if I never finish them" fics I mentioned above. I have no plans to stop writing fic entirely, but I'm definitely slowing down, and I want to focus on the stuff that will feel really good to have done so I don't ever leave myself or you guys hanging!

1) Held edit (the chaptered repost) and Held Remix (at least S1). @ashes0909 and I are picking away at it, but between three kids, two jobs, and two timezones, it's slow af. But we'll get there.

2) My other 2023 MTH fic, older professor Tony and young flirty student Steve for @sabrecmc pod bid. It's maybe a third done.

3) My contribution to the Stony Dating Sim game from MTH 2024 (I'm doing Ults Tony as a love interest. If you want to know more, check out @stevetonydatingsim).

4) My Stony Twilight AU. I posted a snippet of it here a long time ago and I've been picking at it ever since. It's at 33k and probably about halfway done.

5) Fangbait 3. My Fangbait series was always intended to have three parts. Two are up already. The third was on hiatus for a long time, but I just abruptly wrote 80% of it last night, so once I get the sex scenes (and a title oh no) done, she'll be good to go!

6) Yet I Will Try the Last has been waiting for waaay too long for an update and I feel really bad about it. It was the one time I experimented with posting an unfinished WIP (mostly because it started as a oneshot and then I started adding to it) and I regretti spaghetti every day that I did that lol. I. Have. Not. Given. Up. I have the outline for the rest, I know what I want to do, I just need to do it.

7) Brooklyn is a canon divergence from right after Avengers 2012 where Stony travels on a modified quinjet together, cleaning up the chitauri weapon's market. It's maybe a third to a half done? Another one I started a loooong time ago and never got my steam back with, but I would really like to. I really like that one.

8) A Venom/Eddie fic from right after the first movie. It's not too long and it's probably also about halfway done, so I believe in myself. It's called Parasite.

9) A collab started a few years ago that I'm not going to out here in case my collab partner doesn't want to do it anymore, but we did a fair bit of it so I'd love to get it done.

Writing comes in little spurts, but I have to pick and choose between my hobbies now, so I just have less time and energy to spend on one thing. I've been trying to read more to fuel the words! I also have OG stuff I'm working on, but that's just as slow as the other stuff lol. I miss you guys! Hope y'all are doing well. (Happy Easter if you celebrate!)

Thanks as always for reading! <3

[ascribesstory]

The Ache Of Betrayal (Part 1)

Hello! Welcome to my first fanfiction in well over a year! I'm really excited, but be warned, I've only recently gotten into the bat-verse recently and it's very hard to find the comics, so there may be some mistakes.

Trigger warnings: Bad family dynamics, false accusations, mention of injury.

words: 769 (They will be longer in the future I swear)

Part two

Jason Todd/Red Hood is the protag

I groan as I wake up on my ratty old couch that still had the faint odor of cigarettes from whomever owned it last.  I had found it one night on my way home from patrol when my safehouse had been mostly empty, and I’d still been sleeping on the floor.

My memory fails me for a moment until I sit up, a deep pain radiating from my side.

That’s right, I remember.  The night before I’d been patrolling and gotten jumped by some goons who thought taking down the Red Hood would improve their status.

Somehow, going after a guy who had beheaded eight crimelords seemed like a good idea to them.

Either way, it had ended with two very sorry criminals in the hospital and a bullet wound in my side.  Nothing lethal, but it hurts like hell.

Of course, passing out on my shitty couch without any first aid hasn’t helped any.

Or had it?  I’m surprised to find the bullet hole bandaged, and I’m guessing if I unwrapped my side I’d find the wound cleaned and stitched.

“You know, father said you didn’t have any self-preservation instincts as robin, but even I know better than to run around in the manner that you have.”

I groan.  “Hello demon brat.”  Looking over I see that Damian had settled down at the counter with a cup of tea he definitely didn’t get from my cupboards, in his civilian clothes.

“Father wants you at the manor.”  He says, shifting uncomfortably.

I scoff.  “Father wants a lot of things, you can tell him to shove it.  And do you just carry around a cup of tea now?  You know that’s pretty impractical right?”

At first I didn't even bother to look over at him, picking at the bandages and wondering how long until I could head back on patrol.

Until I realized that unlike normal, Damian hadn’t responded snarkily or slinked off.  That Damian was still sitting there and wouldn’t make eye contact with me.

“What happened?”

Damian flinches slightly, small fingers gripping the cup anxiously.  “Jason… Did you start killing again?”

I stiffen, studying him to see if this was his stupid attempt at a joke.  “Of course I haven’t, what the hell makes you think that?”

Damian meets my stare with a glare.  “The men who shot you last night turned up dead.  Father looked at the cameras, after you got shot and they slipped off something happened out of sight of any cameras. As for you… we couldn’t find you either.”

I laugh darkly.  “Oh, and of course that means I was behind it right?  It’s not like those guys could have pissed anyone else off by waving guns around in known gang territory.”

“Listen, it would just make all of the others feel better if you’d come back to the cave and help us find out who actually killed them-”

“You mean so Bruce can keep an eye on me, right?  Or maybe he’s finally decided to ship me off to Arkham, bored of babysitting the son he let die.”  I force myself to stand, grabbing my helmet.  “Well, you can tell him that I’m not interested in his feelings, and he should stay the hell out of my life.  I’m following the code, that’s all he needs to know.”

Damian scoffs and stands as well.  “Todd, this is very immature of you, father is just worried about your wellbeing.  The pit still affects you, doesn't it?  Is it possible you killed those men without knowing it?”

As if summoned, that familiar green starts to tint my vision and my feelings, but I take a deep breath and push it back down where I push all those nasty feelings I have no plan on confronting.  “I’ve had control of the pit rage for over a year now Damian.  And anyway, I’ve never killed anyone without knowing it.”

I head for the door.  “That’s just a lie the others tell themselves so they can look me in the eye.”

Damian starts to speak again but I head out, slamming the door behind me. I curse myself for not keeping an emergency bag for situations like these.  Finding a new safehouse was gonna suck, but if the bats thought I was going rouge I needed to lay low for a bit.

On the run again.

I can’t help the ache in my heart that I thought I had shed long ago.  After that hopeful little bird died in a warehouse, hoping for his father to save him up until the very last moment.

The ache of betrayal.

[luimagines]

SKYLNK Rebooting Up

Another Commission!

They asked for more Android au. They wanted Skydroid but uh- I went with origin story instead. :D

Enjoy.

Masterlist

Content under the cut!

"Testing one two three, Skydroid is now live and active."

The droid blinked open its eyes and looked around its immediate surroundings.

"Perfect, you're online!" I cried and clapped my hands excitedly. "Good morning."

The droid sits up.

"Good to see the core gears and suspensions are working just fine."

"Hello Master, is there a name you wish to register me by?" The SKYLNK model tilted its head innocently and I shook my head. 

"I'm not your master, I'm just The Doctor. I apologize for the inconvenience. For now, you'll be simply called Sky until we can send you over to your actual master and they can decide to keep or change your name, ok?" I smile. "I hope you're feeling alright. There are a few simple tests that I want to run by you before we can get into anything more physical and complex. Do you mind touching your fingers to your thumbs and wiggling your toes for me?"

SKYLNK model blinks and does as was told, matching my movements with my fingers and moving his toes.

"Perfect. I just want you to move your head around like this- awesome! Perfect. A lot of this is just checking if your motor controls are still intact and if there's anything that may need recalibrating or fine tuning but it appears to be in working order."

"The physical stuff was fine, it was just his motherboard and coding, you said so." Wild, my CALLNK model, reminds me from the background.

"But that was when we first got him. We need to make sure that there's nothing rusted or out of pace in the times when we moved him..." I pout. I turn to the SKYLNK model again and hold out a hand. "Can you stand?"

The newly awakened LNKdroid takes my hand and gets off of the table. The towel around his waist falls a bit, pooling by his hips but he doesn't notice. I look the other way out of politeness.

My repurposed TWILNK droid comes in and pins the towel for propriety's sake.

"We just need to test some walking cycles and get some more movement out of you. Then it's a few more questions and we can take a break." I explained. 

"Because someone hasn't had breakfast yet." My TWILNK model scolds me from the side.

"We're this close to being done! How can I think of eating at a time this exciting!" I reply and help the Skydroid get used to his weight and height once more. He's holding his balance incredibly well and within moments he can walk in a clear circle without help.

"Darlin’, please eat." TWILNK sighs.

"Soon, you worry wart." I wave him off.

"Perfect SKY! Can you go sit once more on the table? We're not done testing you but you would need a quick debriefing of your purpose and mission, ok?" I point to the examination table and watch as he does as he's told, moving with calculated ease and precision.

"Alright, you're in better shape than I thought." I comment and jump in place again. "Ok, here's the thing. You're going to a friend of mine to help out. They already have a WNKLNK200 model, real retro, but he's getting on in years and can't help out as much any more. He's constantly needing tending to and replacements. Not to mention he can't even reach the top shelf. His name is Wind. An adorable kid but he needs to retire from his duties at some point. That being said, and as much we'd like to keep him around, he needs to take on less responsibility. Your job is to keep the house clean, make sure your new owner eats as they should and helping them wherever possible, including making sure they take their meds on time."

"And maybe get them to sleep at a decent time too." Wild pipes up, his arm twitching a bit unnaturally before it swings back into place.. "Wind's programming makes him go to sleep earlier so they're always up at the witching hour despite the fact that they're human."

"Sounds familiar." TWILNK grumbles.

I gape and pout at the larger android. I swear he’s got so much attitude for a heavy duty model. "I'm not that bad."

Neither Wild nor TWILNK have much to say on that front but I can tell what’s firing off their synopsis. Honestly, sometimes their facial expressions give more away than they have any right too. I rolled my eyes. “Regardless, knowing this off the bat would be better in the long run but anything is easier to learn once you're there. Sounds good?" 

Sky nods. "Noted. Make sure they maintain a healthy diet with a clean living space and keep a close eye on their sleeping habits."

"More or less. I know you'll adapt as you're there but for a warning, they'll fight for a bit regarding this. They're stubborn but their heart is in the right place." I cross my arms. "If you can somehow get them to spend more time outside as well it would be phenomenal but it's not mandatory. Some sunlight wouldn't kill them...."

"Mistress..." Wild snickers from the sidelines. "You're inside just as much as they are."

"Not willingly! All my work is here! If I had an outdoor spot to do my work, it would be the greatest thing but as it stands I have no space to do that. Besides, what if it all got wet or something? I work with heavy machinery and computer parts." I sighed. 

Wild doesn't look away and instead crosses his arms.

His silence is deafening. I pout harder. "I know you're right but I don't like it."

He smirks.

TWILNK says nothing.

I stick my tongue out at Wild and turn back to Sky. "That being said, I'm hungry. Feel free to explore the house and get used to moving again. In an hour, we can see your performance regarding your mission. We still need to test your default databases and your problem solving skills before we can send you over to my friend. But I think all the major tuning is done so we can also get you some clothes finally. Wild?"

Wild nods and moves to go get the outfit we have prepared for him and I gesture for Sky to follow him. "He will give you your clothes. I doubt that I'll need to look at any more panels or your hardware so we should be good to go. And you can have a little more dignity for all of this so that's a bonus."

Sky nods as well and goes after the other droid. His movements are still janky. They can hardly be called robotic. Major components might need more oiling but there doesn’t seem to be any more major issues that would need to be dealt with in the meantime. He’s on the recovery road and will be in working order in no time.

Once alone, I grin and run to TWILNK, having to jump to properly wrap my arms around his neck. "I don't know how you did it but your coding is incredible. Way better than anything I've had to do on my own! This would usually take another two weeks but if it all goes well we can be done by the end of tomorrow!"

I hop down and rub my hands together. "I owe you one. Whatever you want in your room just name it and I'll get it for you ok? As a treat. Oh my god, I’m so excited to give Sky to them. They’re going to be so mad at me. Man, I can't wait to see their reaction!"

TWILNK smiles in that somewhat quiet way of his and turns around. "Can I pick up the mess around the place now?"

"No! I told you, the mess is for Sky to clean. We need to check his programing still and the end result of his own protocol. Keeping Wild from cleaning all this up was bad enough but you are one stubborn man!" I huff and cross my arms. "Don't hate on my process. I swear there's a method to my madness."

TWILNK groans and stretches his arm out. "I'm a household droid too! I hate seeing messes when I can do something about it. Are you sure you can't test this later? Don't you want to live in a clean house?"

"It will be clean, eventually. Even sooner than we think if Sky does a good job." I grin. "And if you programmed him, I'm sure he'll be just fine. And then we give him to his new home and you can clean to your little heart's content, yeah?"

"Mistress-"

"Oh! Before I forget, speaking of my friend they mentioned that Wind's arm is getting a bit squeaky and stiff. That can mean one of two things but I'll need my tools to get the source. I gotta go get those and put them where I can see them or else I'll forget to bring them. If I forget and get there, Wind is gonna have to deal with potentially losing his arm and that just won't do. It'll break their little human heart to see their childhood droid disassembled."

"Mistress, the food." TWILNK groans, putting his face in his hands.

"I'll eat in a minute, let me just do this real quick!" I nearly tripped up the stairs as I scrambled about.

TWILNK groans and watches as Wild and Sky return, the new droid now fully dressed and looking as you would see any other droid.

TWILNK didn't really know what to think of this new guy other than he truly got to see his new mistress in her environment. His last mistress was hardly ever that focused and hard pressed for perfection.

It was sweet, the way this new one fussed over the new droid and made sure that things would have been comfortable despite the android not being able to feel pain the same way humans did... or even discomfort- not to mention that this Sky wasn't even awake to experience any of it.

She looked so happy.

TWILNK looked down at his hands as Wild began to run Sky through the mess that was found in the room. Vaguely, he could register that Wild was explaining what was considered trash and what was considered a tool or something to be used for later. But he couldn’t focus on that. His mistress had even hugged him- tightly.

She complimented him on his work.

The idea made Twilight feel... foreign, like he no longer fit into his own skin and he wasn't sure what he was going to do about it. Or if there was anything to be done.

Again- he was noticing more differences in this mistress than in the last one.

Part of him wanted to ask the young woman about it to see if there was something wrong with his programming or his biocomponents. Granted, she mentioned that programming wasn't her forte, and if there was something wrong with him then there would no doubt be something wrong with Sky and then it would mean that he would have failed his job and as a faulty droid that would mean his mistress would have no reason to keep him.

And he would be abandoned and alone again.

Wild came over and put a hand on his shoulder, watching Sky walk around the place, looking at his reflection and the tools and nicknacks his ever tinkering mistress had around her humble home, gaining information as he went. "He'll be just fine, I think. All his biocomponents were in tip top shape when Mistress found him and even then, there's only so much to do with a blank slate. This friend of hers is practically getting a brand new droid for free. Lucky them."

"What if-" TWILNK started, not wanting to give away the way his thoughts were deviating. "-something's wrong with him?"

Their friend would probably ask our mistress to check it out and then she would try to fix it. If neither of them can figure it out, they can hire a true professional at Hylia.Inc and get their recommendation or support or supplies for whatever might be faulty. Or- and this is the more likely version- they both just let him be and keep him as he is."

"How can you be so sure?" TWILNK twiddled his fingers in a reminiscent version of human nervousness. 

"Well I'm here, aren't I?" Wild laughed, gesturing to his marred skin grafting, twitching once more as if on cue to prove his point. "I had missing biocomponents. I had exposed wires. I had vented or straight up irreparable paneling. I was barely functioning when Mistress found me and we both know there's still some faulty coding somewhere but she likes me the way I am. Horrible homemade skin grafting and all. She doesn't want to change me and she got used to it. Her friend keeps their Wind around for sentimental reasons. That WNKLNK was originally meant to help them as a child but humans grow and her friend technically no longer needs him. But he's still around because he’s loved and the humans want to keep him around, even if he's almost falling apart at the seams with how old he is. Our mistress tries really hard to keep him functioning as he should have been as if he was new. She does good work. Sky is in good hands regardless."

"Ok, ok, ok-" I came back, running down the stairs with a small black bag with clinging metal inside. TWILNK recognized the bag. It was my travel tool bag that I always had with me when I went on home visits to check on other droids. "I have my tools, I have my notes, I have my phone and my wallet. I-"

"Haven't eaten yet, ma’am." TWILNK finished, trying to keep his voice neutral. He can’t have any reason for anyone to think that he’s been deviating. He doesn’t want to be left out.

His words startled me as if I forgot he was there and his expression dropped a bit. It broke TWILNK’s mechanical heart.

"But you usually call me-... never mind. Yeah, I'll eat. What's for breakfast Wildcat?" I cleared my throat and tried to smile, looking over at him completely with a scrutinizing look on her face. She looked 

The action caused him to freeze, his biocomponents going cold.

TWILNK didn't get it, it was what he was supposed to call her. What was he doing wrong? And how can he keep himself from being sent out again? He didn't want to lose this new home.

I hummed and nodded, not knowing his internal struggles of accepting his place in my home. Wild patted his head for a moment before tilting it to the side. “I made bacon and waffles. I left it on the back burner to keep it warm for you.”

I smiled and dropped my bag of tools onto the floor. “Thank you, lovely. I’ll go get it. Will you show Mr. Sky around the protocols and tests I had pla-”

I look around my workshop again and deflate slightly. It was already cleaner by a long shot. Sky was still picking up little smaller pieces of trash as I spoke. “Oh… I see you already started him on that.”

Wild struck out his hand before angling it behind his head. “Was I not supposed to, Mistress?”

I shook my head. “I was planning to do that later but there’s no harm in getting him already started.”

I bit my lip and looked back at my TWILNKdroid. I really needed to give him a proper name. He deserves just as much. But might have to happen later. “Do you think you can show him how to do some handy work around the house? There’s that faulty sink in the bathroom and a lightbulb or two that need changing.”

TWILNK stands straighter in attention. “Why didn’t you mention something sooner? I could have already taken care of it!”

I smile softly. His conversational skills have improved greatly since he came here. Other “normal” droids would have simply given a yes or no reply and got straight to work. I give him a cheeky grin and put my fist on my hip. “I kept it a secret~ We have a guest in our home that needs to learn how to do this before he can be released into the wild.”

Wild snickers into a very robotic replication of a laugh when I do not mention his name. It’s almost endearing that he’s trying.

TWILNK huffs and crosses his arms. “I will do as you say.”

I wink at him. “Don’t be so grumpy.”

“I’m not grumpy.”

“Grumpus.”

“Mistress-”

I feel like I got struck. Maybe I’ve been pushing too many of his buttons, figuratively and metaphorically speaking. He’s never called me that before but he’s called me that twice already. I know that he used to have another mistress but he never speaks of her. I don’t know what it means to be called that but I’m not entirely sure that I like it.

“Call me by my name or by nothing else.” I bite my tongue to keep my tone in check. I don’t need my droids to learn from my example. I don’t like my order voice but all three androids in the room register it as the command that it is. “Sky, there are some more chores waiting for you once you’re done with this assignment.”

The other droid looks up in a fluidly smooth motion. It’s smack dab in the middle of an uncanny valley. “Understood.”

Wild recovers the fastest and puts a hand on my shoulder. I pat it, but quickly remove it from my body. “I’ll go eat. You’ve improved your cooking a lot. It’ll be a shame if I let it go to waste. Besides… I’m the only one who can eat it anyway.”

I smile weakly and scramble back upstairs, not entirely sure why I felt as weird as I did. And it was entirely the fault of that TWILNKdroid. I didn’t know what to do with him and it was driving me crazy. I had no reason to take him in. But what was I supposed to do? Leave him where he was, dirty and torn and alone? 

My very job is to repair and rehouse androids! 

I couldn’t do that.

Not to mention that as much as I loved my passion project, Wild, the CALLNK model was beyond repair in a lot of senses. He couldn’t be fully trusted to be left alone in the house just on the off case something gets lit on fire. 

Granted, he does it a lot less now that he’s focused more of his attention on cooking and miscellaneous craft projects that I’ve been supplying him with. But I don’t think the problem is solved just yet.

And then there was TWILNK who was a nice addition. I always wanted a model like him but I could never bring myself to make that sort of purchase for myself. When I found him in disarray and on the verge of shutting down, I considered it my lucky day and brought him home with me. I briefly considered calling his previous owner since he was clearly left alone but when I considered the state I found him in, I figured that whoever it was, they weren’t coming back.

Then! I mentioned about rehousing a different droid I had with me at the time to Wild and TWILNK all but shut down again. The poor android went up and down the house trying to find everything and anything he could fix in an attempt to earn his keep to stay here. So now I really couldn’t think about giving him away when I could see that it bothered him.

I took a deep breath and found the food that was prepared for me by Wild. It’ll distract me enough that I could forget about that strange reaction I got from the droids.

I was tempted to question my life choices that brought such broken, anxious and confusing androids- but I’m aware that I brought it upon myself.

I ate in silence.

By the time I was putting the plate in the sink I could hear footsteps coming up to the top of the house. TWILNK and ‘Sky’ were making their way up. TWILNK gestured for the new droid to follow him through the house to where the new light bulbs were kept so he could begin with his basic house up-keep lessons.

Admittedly, it made me smile that the three of them took such simple chores so seriously. 

Then again, that was the sole purpose of their existence and the very basis of their programming.

“Should I get started on the dishes?” Wild comes up as well and stands next to the sink. 

I shake my head. “I’ll get to it later. Don’t bother. It’s not like it’s hurting anyone.”

He makes a face and crosses his arms. “If neither of us do, your TWILNK model will.”

I sigh and mimic his position. “Then tell him not to.”

“You think he listens to me?”

“Well he certainly doesn’t listen to me.” I deadpan only for Wild to mimic my same expression. I doubt we’re on the same wavelength but he’s already learned so many of my mannerisms that I feel like I can read him like an open book.

Or maybe it’s the other way around.

“Are there other chores that need doing?” TWILNK comes around the corner.

I turn from my confrontational stance but keep my arms over my chest. I still don’t know what to feel when he calls me Mistress. It could either mean that he sees me as his new owner or he was just trying to get on my nerves. He certainly succeeded in the latter.

What can I say? I got used to him calling me ‘Darlin’’ in that farm boy charm of his.

I take another deep breath, meeting the larger droid head on. “Do you plan to do them yourself or are you asking for the sake of the SKYLNKdroid?”

He doesn’t answer me for a while and I all but fold in half. “You-! No! You don’t work!”

“But- my purpose-”

“This isn’t about your purpose. It’s about mine.” I blurt out before clearing my throat roughly. “I mean it’s about his. The SKYLNK’s purpose. He has to relearn everything from scratch so we need to give him the basics even though somebody has been keeping this house in tip top shape that I don’t think I have enough training activities for him to recalibrate himself.”

I give him a pointed look.

And he didn’t even have the nerve to look apologetic.

“It’s in my programming.”

I groaned. “Wild?”

“Yes?”

“Go nuts.”

TWILNK’s eyes widened as the scarred android cheered, running through the house with ‘wild’ abandon. 

“You can’t do that! He could destroy the place!”

“I need to have Sky trained.” I pointed out. “If we’re lucky, he only sticks to the kitchen and teases my friend until they comply with actually taking care of themselves but there is no way I can account for anything. Wind isn’t as destructive as Wild, thankfully, but we can put Sky to work and get this place fixed up.”

I shake my head. “Let me take a shower. I have more work to do.”

TWILNK reaches out and grabs me by the arm. I tense for a moment, immediately reminding myself of his supernatural strength even for an android. But he’s very gentle in his hold.

There’s a thought on the tip of his tongue. It shows plain as day on his face but he won’t say it.

“Speak.” I use my commanding voice again. It makes me flinch afterwards. Again.

“Then… what do I do?” He says after fighting the compulsion to not answer me. 

I let that process in my own mind. His reactions have been getting more and more human-like. I wonder if he’s aware of it. I shrug. “You can do anything you want to do. You can even help Sky if that’ll keep you from idly twiddling your thumbs. But you cannot do them for him. He has to learn.”

Glass shatters in the background.

Wild cheers

I try to keep the grimace off of my face. I have to trust my own process. There’s a method to my madness. There’s a method to my madness.

TWILNK also winces and sighs. I know I didn’t teach him that one.

Makes me wonder who exactly he was with before I came across him and fixed him up enough to be in working condition again. 

“Twilight.”

He turns his attention back to me and tilts his head.

I smile and pat his hand. “I think I’ll call you Twilight. Your model name is a mouthful and you’ve been here long enough.”

‘Twilight’ stares at me. I can hear his fans being put to work as his processors begin to work overtime to make sense of my words. I take his hand off of me. I register that he lets me do that. I pat his cheek and bring my commanding voice. “New Name Registry. Enter: Twilight. Belonging to the house on Creek Circle.”

“...A name.” He whispers.

Interesting, but I don’t can’t question his words before I hear something wooden snap in half. I don’t own many wooden things.

“Can you please check on what that was before Wild breaks any more of my belongings?” I ask him sweetly.

With a new mission in mind, he nods and makes his way over in the direction of the sound and it doesn’t take long before I can hear both Wild and ‘Twilight’ begin to wrestle each other.

I shake my head, tracking my way to find my newest guest and resident of the house. “Sky?”

I find the droid staring at the photos I have of the many androids that have come into my house. They line the wall with various attempts at human expression of happiness. Some more clever bots have their arm around my shoulders in some of them and others give a thumbs up. 

Wind is there too with his paneling open in his head as I worked inside. He is the only one with the learned capacity to make a silly face at the camera. Tongue out and all.

“I help them.” I explained. “Some of them have been brought to me from their owners to be fixed while others were brought in from the streets, the thrift shops or the dump to be given a new chance to live their purpose to the fullest.”

“And whEre was I foUnd?” ‘Sky’ looks at me expectantly.

I hum and tilt his chin gently. “I guess I still have a bit more work to do on your voice box.”

I hesitate to answer his question but it’s never paid to hide information from them in the long run. I feel more comfortable telling the repurposed droids about their history more so than the people who buy them off of me. “I found you by the recycling plant. Your motherboard was fried but I got you a new one.”

“Am I to be sold?” He asks next.

“No.” I put my hands on my hips. I hear my other boys knock into a bookshelf in the other room. “Like I said, I plan to give you to a friend. They need the help even if they don’t want to admit it. I think some new company would do them some good.”

He looks back to the photos. I grin and point out the one with Wind, one of the few child droids on my wall. “He’s in the same house I’m sending you in. His name is Wind and he is very special. I’m sure he’s going to want to include you in all the human interactions he’s learned over the last fifteen years.”

“Models are made obsolete once the new generation has come onto the market.” Sky tilts his head with some difficulty. “He is still functioning?”

“Very much so.” I proudly put my hands on his hips, noting the small ways his movements are hindered. Nothing to scoff at though. Easy fixes so far. “And I’ll proudly take credit for that. Even though it’s getting harder and harder to find compatible parts to keep him functioning. I fear that he doesn’t have that long left.”

“I am his replacement.”

“Don’t ever say that.” I nearly growl. The commotion in the other room stops. “He means too much to all of us. He is his own and there is no one that is going to fill the hole he’ll leave behind when there is nothing I can do anymore to keep him functioning.”

Silence follows for a moment.

“But I will admit…” I take a deep breath. “I don’t know how long he has left… And I don’t want my friend to be alone while they mourn. They… will need all the support they can get when that happens. I hope that having another in the house will lessen the fallout.”

Sky takes a moment like Twilight did earlier. I also hear his fans kick up as his processors are sent into overdrive. “...Emotional support… I.. am not equipped.”

“You will learn.” I say, calming myself down. “That’s why I’m sending you before any of that happens. You will know what to do when the moment arrives.”

Wild hesitantly pokes his head from around the doorframe. “...I uh… broke a few things.”

I facepalm- shattering the tension in an instant. “I know. I heard. I could figure it out. What did you break?”

“...A glass… and your bed.”

“What the-”