#Italian Shoes Company

[pucksandpower]

To Have a Heart

CEO!Max Verstappen x single mother!Reader

Summary: Max is a titan of industry, used to making grown men cry with one glance … then you and your daughter turn his carefully controlled life upside down

Warnings: descriptions of pediatric cancer

Max strides into his corner office, his Italian leather shoes clicking sharply on the marble floors. The floor-to-ceiling windows offer a breathtaking view of the Manhattan skyline, but he pays it no mind as he makes his way to the large mahogany desk.

His assistant, Clara, follows a few steps behind, her heels clacking nervously. “Sir, Mr. Henderson is waiting in the conference room per your request.”

Max doesn’t bother responding as he unbuttons his suit jacket and takes a seat behind the desk. With a flick of his wrist, he motions for Clara to leave. She gives the tiniest of nods and scurries out, closing the double doors behind her.

Taking a deep breath, Max presses the intercom button. “Send him in.”

A moment later, the doors reopen and a balding, paunchy man in an ill-fitting suit enters. Even from across the room, Max can see the bead of sweat rolling down the man’s forehead.

Good.

He should be nervous.

“Mr. Henderson.” Max says, his tone clipped. “Do you know why I called you here?”

The man — Henderson — fidgets with his tie. “Y-Yes, sir. The, uh, the Brighton acquisition ...”

“The $3.75 billion deal that was supposed to be finalized yesterday.” Max interjects, leaning back in his chair. “A deal that the company has been meticulously negotiating for over six months. A deal that would have been the largest hostile takeover in our firm’s history.”

Henderson gives a somber nod, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Max fights the urge to roll his eyes at the sad display.

“Because of your incompetence, that deal is now in jeopardy.” Max continues, his voice dropping to a menacing register. “Please explain to me how someone with three decades of accounting experience could possibly make the amateur mistake of misplacing a decimal point on the binding purchase agreement?”

“I … I missed it in the final review.” Henderson stammers out, sweat now visibly staining the armpits of his shirt. “The numbers, they all start to blur together after-”

“Do not insult my intelligence with your pitiful excuses.” Max cuts him off, slamming a fist down on the desk. He takes no small amount of satisfaction in the way the man flinches. “Because of your idiocy, we offered $235 million over the agreed purchase price. An overpayment to the tune of $2.5 billion with a ‘B’!”

Henderson seems to shrink into himself with each biting word. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Verstappen. It won’t happen again, I swear-”

“You’re damn right it won’t happen again.” Max growls, rising from his chair so quickly that it goes clattering backwards. He leans across the desk, getting directly in Henderson’s ashen face. “Because you’re fired. Effective immediately.”

The words seem to take a moment to register in Henderson’s mind. When they do, his eyes widen in panic and he starts shaking his head rapidly.

“No, no, please! You can’t fire me!” he cries, any veneer of professionalism crumbling. “I-I’ll work double shifts, triple shifts! I’ll volunteer for all the weekend audits, no overtime pay! J-Just don’t fire me, I’m begging you!”

Max recoils slightly at the outburst of blubbering, his lip curling in disgust. How pathetic, to see a grown man so thoroughly debased. He almost feels pity for the wretch … almost.

“This conversation is over.” Max says, his tone resolute as he straightens his tie. “You have one hour to collect your things and get out of my building. After that, security will escort you out.”

“B-But I have three kids!” Henderson sputters, tears streaming down his face now. “A mortgage. Alimony payments! You can’t just-”

In a burst of rage, Max sweeps his arm across the desk, sending papers, files, and office supplies clattering to the floor in a violent clutter.

“I am Max Verstappen!” He bellows, his face flushed crimson. “I do not make empty threats, Mr. Henderson. You are a miserable, costly disappointment. A failure. And I will not allow failures to remain under my employ.”

The words seem to drain what little fight was left in Henderson. His shoulders slump in defeat, and he lets out a pitiful whimper. Max feels his anger deflate, replaced with a tired disdain.

“One hour.” he repeats, falling back into his chair in exhaustion. “Get out of my sight.”

Henderson doesn’t need to be told twice. With trembling hands, he begins collecting the various objects scattered across the floor — pencils, paperclips, manila folders now slightly crumpled. His motions are slow, pained, like those of a man having just received a terminal diagnosis.

Max watches impassively as the sniveling accountant gathers his belongings. Part of him feels a twinge of … not quite guilt, but maybe the faintest pangs of empathy for the broken man before him. He quickly smothers that flicker of sympathy. This is the cost of doing business in the world of high-stakes acquisitions and mergers. There is no room for weakness or mistakes. Only results matter.

Finally, with his meager pile of office supplies clutched to his chest, Henderson straightens up. His face is blotchy and tear-stained, but he seems to have regained some small scrap of dignity. He meets Max’s cold stare for just a moment before turning on his heel and shuffling out of the office.

The double doors close behind him with a hollow thud that hangs in the air. Max lets out a slow exhale, suddenly aware of the tension that had been coiling inside him. He runs a hand over his face, then taps a button on his phone intercom.

“Clara, get me William Evans from legal on the line immediately.” he says, his voice steady once more. “We need to do damage control on the Brighton situation before it becomes irreparable.”

“Right away, sir.” comes the reply, his assistant’s voice tightly professional.

Max leans back in his chair, steepling his fingers as he stares out at the New York City skyline. This is far from the first firing he has issued, and it certainly won’t be the last. He is a great white shark, always needing to move forward or else he will drown in the depths of his own ambition.

There is a soft rap at the door, pulling Max from his reverie.

“Come in.” he calls out. Clara enters, her face schooled into a mask of polite disinterest. So much the better — he respects discretion.

“I have Mr. Evans on line two for you.” she says crisply.

Max gives a succinct nod. “Thank you, Clara. That will be all.”

As his assistant withdraws, Max takes a fortifying breath. He is Max Verstappen. He is the master of the corporate ocean. And he will not allow one flailing failure to capsize his empire.

Squaring his shoulders, he picks up the phone and begins issuing a stern series of orders and demands. After all, there is little time for rest when one aims to be a modern day titan of industry.

***

You take a deep breath and rap firmly on the door to the HR director’s office. “Come in.” a flat voice calls out.

Steeling yourself, you twist the handle and step inside the dingy, fluorescent-lit room. Janet, the red-haired HR manager, looks up from her computer with a practiced smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

“Ah, Y/N. What can I do for you today?” She asks in an overly saccharine tone.

You take a seat across from her cluttered desk, your knee bouncing with nervous energy. “I … I need to request some personal leave. Family medical reasons.”

Janet’s perfectly penciled eyebrows rise in bland surprise. “I see. And how much time were you hoping to take?”

Your throat tightens as you force out the words. “At least a month. Maybe more, depending on … on how things progress.”

The HR manager clucks her tongue as she shakes her head. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. We’re in our busiest quarter and you know the company policy — no extended leave during crunch periods unless it’s a valid health emergency.”

You feel panic fluttering in your chest. This has to be a valid emergency! “But it is an emergency! My daughter, she’s ...” Your voice cracks and you swallow hard, desperate to maintain your composure. “She’s very sick, potentially terminal. I need to be with her right now.”

Janet’s face remains stubbornly impassive. “I’m sorry to hear about your daughter’s illness. Truly, I am. But unless you can provide official documentation from a medical professional, my hands are tied.”

The words hit you like a slap across the face. Of course they would require documentation to approve leave — it’s standard corporate policy. But how can mentally collect yourself to get paperwork in order when you’ve been spending every waking moment by your little girl’s hospital bedside?

Unbidden, your mind flashes back to two nights ago, watching in helpless terror as your daughter’s tiny body was racked with another severe seizure. You had screamed yourself hoarse calling for the nurses as the meds they pumped into her did little to stop the violent convulsions ...

You’re vaguely aware of Janet still speaking across from you, something about company guidelines and productivity expectations. But the words sound muffled and far away, as if you’re underwater.

How naive you were to think they might bend the rules, just this once. To think the faceless corporation you pour your life into might actually show a shred of human compassion during your hour of desperate need.

No. That’s not how companies like this operate.

They don’t care about you or your daughter’s life. All they care about is the bottom line, and you’re just an expendable number in their organizational flowchart.

You’re jolted back to reality as Janet raps her lacquered nails impatiently on the desk. “Well? Is there anything else or can I get back to work?”

Is there anything else? Oh, there’s so much more you want to scream at this unfeeling paper-pusher. You want to cry and rage and beg her to just show an ounce of basic human decency.

But you know it would be pointless. Janet is just a cog, same as you. There’s only one person here with the power and influence to authorize what you need.

Only one person who strikes abject terror into the heart of every employee with his infamous volcanic temper and uncompromising expectations.

The thought makes your stomach twist into knots, but you know what you have to do. For your little girl’s sake, you have to try.

So you rise from the chair, willing your legs not to shake. “Thank you for your time.” you mutter tightly, already turning on your heel and storming out of the office.

You don’t look back as Janet calls out something about proper procedure. You just keep moving, your footsteps fueled by a mother’s desperation.

The elevator seems to take an eternity, each second feeling like a little bit more of your daughter’s life trickling away. By the time the doors finally open with a mocking ding, you’re practically vibrating with pent-up nervous energy.

As the mirrored box ascends, your heart feels like it’s trying to batter its way out of your chest. You can hardly breathe past the constriction in your lungs. What if the infamous Max Verstappen laughs in your face? Or has you fired on the spot for daring to interrupt his billion-dollar dealings?

No, you can’t afford to think like that. This may be your only chance to get the time off you so desperately need. For your daughter’s sake, you have to be brave.

The elevator seems to crawl upward at a glacial pace. By the time the doors finally part with a soft chime, you feel like you’re going to be sick from anxiety. This is it, the executive floor — the lair of the terrifying Max Verstappen himself.

You step out into the plush, mahogany-accented lobby with shaking legs. Behind a curved desk, Max’s assistant Clara looks up, her expression instantly hardening when she recognizes you as some inconsequential employee.

“I’m sorry, but Mr. Verstappen is not accepting any visitors at the moment.” she says, her tone brooking no argument. “If you’d like to schedule an appointment for next week ...”

“Please.” you blurt out, hating how your voice trembles. “It’s an emergency. I … I need to see him. Just for five minutes.”

Clara’s manicured eyebrow arches skeptically. “I extremely doubt Mr. Verstappen would consider your issue important enough to warrant an unscheduled meeting. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a million things to-”

“It’s about my sick daughter!” The words burst from your lips before you can stop them. Immediately, you regret being so unprofessional, but desperation has eroded your self-control.

For a split second, Clara’s expression flickers with something that might be pity. But it’s quickly subsumed by her usual cool mask of professionalism as she shakes her head.

“I’m very sorry to hear about your daughter’s illness. But those are still not grounds for me to disturb Mr. Verstappen while he’s-”

“Please!” You plead, tears of frustration pricking your eyes. “I’m begging you. This could be my last chance! If he says no, I’ll leave, I promise. But I have to try!”

Clara regards you appraisingly for a long moment. Then, letting out a weary sigh, she presses the intercom button. “Sir? There’s someone here requesting an urgent meeting with you. A … personal matter.”

The line crackles with static for several tense seconds. You hold your breath, praying beyond hope that the infamous Max has a rare charitable impulse today.

Then, his unmistakable baritone growls through the small speaker. “This had better be good. Send them in.”

Clara winces almost imperceptibly before gesturing towards the double oak doors to Max’s corner office. “Good luck.” she murmurs.

You don’t need any further prompting. Drawing a shuddering breath, you straighten your spine and make your way to the doors. You pause just briefly, hands trembling, before rapping your knuckles firmly against the lacquered wood.

There’s no going back now. Either Max Verstappen is about to grant you a miracle … or utterly crush your last, fragile hope.

***

Max scowls as the intercom crackles to life, Clara’s hesitant voice filtering through the speaker. “Sir? There’s someone here requesting an urgent meeting with you. A … personal matter.”

He resists the urge to roll his eyes. Surely whatever this is can wait until tomorrow. Max is elbow-deep in paperwork and holding patterns, trying to do damage control on the Brighton acquisition fumble. He has no time for frivolous “personal” disruptions.

“This had better be good.” he growls into the intercom. “Send them in.”

With an irritated huff, Max leans back in his buttery leather chair as the doors to his office swing open. He’s already opening his mouth to berate whoever dares disturb him over something as trivial as a “personal matter.”

Then you tentatively step into the room and Max’s words die in his throat.

Even with your shoulders hunched inward and your makeup smudged from crying, you are utterly breathtaking. A fragile beauty drowning in an oversized blazer, your wide eyes darting around his opulent office with obvious intimidation.

An unwelcome jolt of attraction lances through Max’s chest and he quickly squashes it down. He cannot afford such distractions, especially from a lowly employee like yourself who should know better than to interrupt him during work hours.

“Well?” He finally finds his voice, aiming for a brusque tone to remind you both of your respective places. “You’re hardly someone important enough to be granted an audience. This had better be worth my time.”

The harshness of his words seems to make you flinch. You worry your lip between your teeth, shrinking back slightly.

“I … I’m so sorry to disturb you, Mr. Verstappen.” you begin haltingly. Already Max can feel his patience waning. He hates fumbling fragility and wants only confident decisiveness.

But then your next words come tumbling out in a desperate rush. “It’s about my daughter, sir. My little girl … she’s in the hospital. She has a brain tumor and her condition is deteriorating rapidly. I asked Janet in HR for some personal leave to be with her, but she denied my request and said I need official medical documentation which could take days I don’t have!”

Tears are welling in your eyes now, your voice rising to nearly hysterical levels. “Please, Mr. Verstappen! She’s only three years old and I’m a single mom. I’m all she has right now! I’m begging you … please just give me some time to be with her before … before ...”

You seem unable to voice whatever terrifying possibility lurks in the back of your mind. Instead, you dissolve into shoulder-shaking sobs, burying your face in your hands as you break down completely.

Max feels his earlier irritation softening in spite of himself. He’s seen grown men thrice your age become blubbering messes under his withering glare. But there’s something distinctly vulnerable and gut-wrenching about your anguished tears.

Part of him recognizes this as a prime opportunity to regain control, to berate you for such an unseemly display of emotion. His reputation as a merciless taskmaster practically demands he put you in your place.

But another part of Max … a part he barely recognizes … feels a rare pang of empathy pierce through his calloused exterior.

Perhaps it’s the thought of a scared little girl lying crippled in a hospital bed, scared and missing her mother. Or perhaps it’s the way you wear your devastation so plainly, managing to humanize yourself in a way most people never achieve in his eyes.

Whatever the reason, when Max finally speaks, his tone has lost its earlier bite.

“I did not realize the full severity of the situation.” he says, slowly rising from his chair. He moves around the desk, not missing the way you tense as he approaches.

Up close, he can see the puffy redness rimming your eyes, the despair etched into every line of your face. It stirs something inside him … an ancient ghost of an emotion he can’t quite place.

“I’m sorry you were dismissed so carelessly by HR.” Max continues, struggling to keep his voice even. “Perhaps if you had led with mentioning your daughter’s condition, instead of being so oblique ...”

He trails off as you sniff loudly, dragging the sleeve of your blazer across your nose. The motion is equal parts endearing and mortifying for him to witness.

“Here.” he says impulsively, plucking a crisp linen handkerchief from his suit pocket. He presses it into your hand, watching as you blink owlishly at the unexpected gesture. “Allow me to make things right.”

Without waiting for a response, Max turns and strides over to his desk. He snatches up the phone and rapidly punches in a extension code, holding the receiver to his ear as it begins to ring.

“Janet? Yes, it’s Max Verstappen.” he says crisply when the line picks up. “I’ve just been informed about an ... employee situation that requires your immediate attention.”

He pauses, glancing over at where you’re clutching his handkerchief like a lifeline. Your eyes are still glistening with tears, but you’ve gone utterly still — hanging on his every word.

“One of our marketing staff came to me in quite a state about needing extended leave to be with their hospitalized child.” Max continues, his voice hardening slightly. “A matter you seemed to dismiss without proper consideration for the … nuances of the circumstances.”

There’s a sputtering on the other end of the line, undoubtedly Janet trying to make excuses. Max doesn’t give her the chance.

“The decision has been made to grant the employee’s leave request, effective immediately.” he cuts her off. “They will be excused for … two months, with full pay and benefits.”

His announcement seems to render you momentarily stunned. You simply stare at him, eyes wide and unblinking, like you can’t quite process what you’re hearing.

Max clears his throat self-consciously, refocusing on Janet’s flustered response filtering through the receiver. “B-But sir, we have very strict policies about-”

“Which is precisely why I’m instructing you to make an exception.” Max interjects, his voice brokering no arguments. “This leave is to be coded as paid health and wellness time. I expect no push-back or foot-dragging on this, understood?”

There’s a meek murmur of assent from Janet’s end. Max can’t resist a tight smile of satisfaction.

“Good. I’ll leave the paperwork in your capable hands then. That will be all.” He punctuates the statement by firmly hanging up the phone.

As the clatter of the receiver breaks the tense silence, Max turns to find you staring at him with an utterly inscrutable expression. For a long moment, neither of you speak or move. He finds himself paralyzed under the weight of your intense, unblinking gaze.

Then, with a strangled cry, you suddenly surge forward and throw your arms around him. Max goes ramrod stiff as your slight frame collides with his, your tears dampening the front of his crisp dress shirt.

“Thank you!” You’re whispering over and over like a prayer, clinging to him with a desperation that should be uncomfortable. And yet ... “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Max feels utterly transfixed, like a statue too stunned to react. He can’t remember the last time someone dared to encroach so boldly on his personal space, much less make actual physical contact. He’s not accustomed to such … warmth.

But before the unfamiliar embrace can start to grate on him, you suddenly pull back. Swiping at your eyes, you manage a watery smile up at him.

“You have no idea how much this means, sir. I … I can’t thank you enough for your kindness and understanding.”

He wants to scoff at the notion, to remind you that he is Max Verstappen — merciless and uncompromising in his corporate dealings. That this was merely an isolated instance of pragmatism to avoid a PR incident or workplace lawsuit, nothing more.

But something in your earnest gaze stops the curt rebuttal in his throat. For once, the infamously brusque Max Verstappen finds himself momentarily at a loss for words.

So instead, he gives a terse nod of acknowledgment. Already, his mind is starting to analyze how best to re-allocate your responsibilities for the next two months, which temporary hires to bring in for supplemental coverage.

But one stray thought continues to nag at the back of his mind, an errant curveball amongst the dizzying calculations.

For the first time in years — perhaps his entire adult life — Max feels almost … human.

It’s a strange and deeply unsettling realization, but luckily one he doesn’t have to dwell on.

Because in the next breath, you’re sweeping out of his office, a renewed vigor in your step and a brilliant smile lighting up your features. Max watches you go, an odd tightness settling into his chest.

He doesn’t have words — or perhaps doesn’t want to admit to any words to describe what he’s feeling in this moment. But one thing is for certain, for better or worse, you’ve well and truly upended Max Verstappen’s world.

***

Max remains rooted in place long after you’ve departed, his office now eerily silent in your absence. He should feel relieved to have some peace and quiet again after that … emotional encounter.

Yet instead of settling back into his usual all-consuming work flow, he finds his mind stubbornly replaying the scene on an endless, maddening loop.

The desperation etched onto your delicate features. The way your frame practically vibrated with barely-constrained anguish. The broken, pleading sound of your voice as you begged for his mercy ...

Despite his best efforts to dismiss it, the memory of your raw vulnerability has burrowed its way under Max’s skin, taking up an unwelcome residence. It picks and nags at the edges of his consciousness no matter how much he wills it away.

He has witnessed similar breakdowns from countless employees over the years — grown men and women brought to sniveling tatters by his uncompromising demands. But none of them elicited the same … response within him.

None of them made something twist so peculiarly in Max’s chest, unleashing that brief yet startling flicker of empathy from whatever dark crevice it lurks.

Gritting his teeth, Max paces behind his desk in tight, agitated circles. He prides himself on being a merciless pragmatist, unmoved by emotional pleas or babelling outbursts. Whatever decisions he makes are calculated toward the maximum profit potential and bottom line, end of story.

So why does this one case, this one instance of showing a bare modicum of human compassion, insist on gnawing at him so persistently? It makes no logical sense, no matter how he tries to mentally contort it.

Perhaps that’s the core issue — that for once in his life, Max’s motivations weren’t born strictly of logic or financial incentive. Something else had escaped from beneath, something primal and indefinable, when you broke down so nakedly in front of him.

The realization causes Max’s steps to stutter to a halt. His jaw works tensely as he runs a frustrated hand through his brown hair, disheveling the meticulously groomed coif.

He can admit to himself that some base part of his brain had been … affected by the rawness of your emotion. The way you had stripped away all artifice and propriety to plead so urgently and authentically.

Not many people manage to disarm Max Verstappen’s carefully curated expectation filters. But you had blown straight through them without even realizing it, battering down the reinforced walls he builds around his life. Just by being horrifically, unguardedly human.

It’s both impressive and deeply unsettling in equal measure.

Before Max can spiral any further down this rabbit hole of self-reflection, a sharp rap of knuckles against the door jolts him back to awareness. He straightens and clears his throat roughly.

“Come in.” he calls out, already retaking his seat and trying to project an aura of resolute control.

Clara slips into the office, her usual unflappable poise slightly ruffled as she catches the tense atmosphere. “You asked to see me right away, sir?”

“Yes.” Max says brusquely, watching her over steepled fingers. “I need you to do some … discreet digging for me into a personal matter.”

Clara’s perfectly groomed eyebrow arches inquisitively. But to her credit, she doesn’t comment on his evasive phrasing.

“And what exactly am I looking into?”

“The employee who was just in my office seeking leave.” he explains curtly. “The one with the hospitalized child. I need you to find out everything you can — where the child is being treated, their condition, prognosis, all of it.”

Clara’s perfectly glossed lips purse ever so slightly. “You’re aware I can’t exactly go through official medical channels without violating all sorts of privacy laws ...”

“I’m fully aware.” Max interjects with a curt wave of his hand. “Which is why you’ll have to take a more … unconventional approach. I don’t particularly care what methods you have to employ, just get me those details by the end of the day.”

His assistant regards him silently for a long beat, as if trying to suss out his motivations. Max meets her contemplative look with an unwavering stare of his own.

Finally, Clara gives a tight nod of understanding. “Consider it done, sir.”

With that, she pivots on the towering heel of her Louboutin and sees herself out of the office, the click of her footsteps rapidly retreating down the hall.

Max lets out a slow exhale, alone with his thoughts once more.

What is he doing? This bizarre crusade is so wildly outside of his typical conduct and practices. The lengths he’s going to, all for the sake of some random underling’s personal crisis ...

A smart, calculated part of his brain recognizes this entire situation as a fool’s errand, a waste of time and resources. He should be devoting every ounce of his focus toward extricating the Chinese investment group from the Brighton deal before their next earnings call.

And yet, he can’t seem to fully let this go. Your haunted, hopeless expression keeps flickering through his mind’s eye. The memory of your tears soaking into his suit lapel as you clung to him with a desperation that shook something deep within him.

It’s almost as if his body is acting of its own accord, driven by some urge he can’t fully parse or control. Like a murmured voice insistently compelling him to … to what? Help you? Offer some vague sense of solace or security?

The thought is patently ludicrous, and Max scoffs audibly at his own melodrama. Get a grip, he chides himself sternly. Since when do you care about coddling your peons?

He forcefully shakes off the uncharacteristic reverie and turns back to the stacks of paperwork and documents splayed across his desk. Focusing intently on running new financial projections for Q3, he manages to bury himself in the work for a solid two hours.

He’s in the midst of furiously scribbling margin and revenue notes when the trill of the phone line cuts through his concentration. A glance at the caller ID has him resisting the urge to sigh.

“Clara.” he answers crisply, leaning back in his leather chair. “I trust you’ve made progress?”

“Indeed.” comes the smooth reply, devoid of inflection as always. “Though I should warn you, some of these details are … concerning.”

Something tightens in Max’s chest, but he quickly tamps it down. “Just lay it all out for me. No need to editorialize.”

“Very well.” Clara acquiesces. “So the child, a three-year-old daughter, is currently a patient at Lennox Hill Hospital here in the city. According to my sources, she was admitted five weeks ago after experiencing severe seizures and hallucinations. An MRI revealed she has a large mass-”

“Let me stop you right there.” Max interjects, his brows furrowing. Even he can recognize those are less than encouraging signs. “What’s the official diagnosis then?”

“Grade IV glioblastoma.” Clara replies flatly. “One of the most aggressive malignant brain tumors, especially in children her age.”

A terse silence falls between them as the weight of that diagnosis sinks in. Grade IV … practically a death sentence wrapped up in clinical terminology. Max finds his hand unconsciously clenching the arm of his chair.

“And her prospects?” He finally prompts gruffly. “What’s the … prognosis for her case?”

Clara doesn’t answer right away. Over the line, he can hear her exhale slowly, a rare tell of emotional discomfort from his typically unflappable assistant.

“From what my contact at Lennox Hill said … if we’re talking full disclosure?” Her customary professionalism wavers slightly as her voice grows hushed. “They’ve given her three months at most, sir. Maybe less, if another seizure or bleed occurs before then.”

The words hang in the air like a guillotine blade against Max’s neck. Suddenly, all those intrusive mental flashes of your inconsolable despair take on a sharper, even more heartrending clarity.

Of course you were devastated, he realizes with startling empathy. How could any mother face their child’s death sentence with any measure of composure?

An unexpected swell of emotion rises in Max’s throat and he has to blink rapidly to keep it at bay. Now isn’t the time for such indulgences.

“Thank you, Clara.” he manages in a rough baritone. “That will be all for now.”

He ends the call without waiting for a response, abruptly severing the connection.

Alone once more, Max slumps back against the leather upholstery, an uncharacteristic weariness settling into his bones. He reaches up to loosen his already disheveled tie, suddenly feeling stifled within the confines of his suit.

Three months. Three paltry months for a precious young life to be snatched away before it ever really began. His jaw clenches hard.

That’s unacceptable. Not just unfair, but a complete and total injustice to all that is right and good in this world.

No child should have to suffer like that … and certainly no mother should have to face a future of unimaginable grief and emptiness once her only family is gone. Not if there was anything to be done about it.

And, at the end of the day, Max Verstappen has the means to quite literally move mountains with his wealth and influence.

An idea begins to blossom in his mind — one that feels daring and reckless and so utterly unlike his usual business-oriented self. But he finds himself drawn to it with a singleminded resolve he can’t quite explain.

Jaw set, Max snatches up his phone and punches in a number he never thought he’d use outside of donor galas.

“Roland? Max Verstappen here.” he says gruffly when the line picks up. “I need you to connect me directly with someone in Sloan Kettering’s pediatric oncology department ...”

Half an hour and multiple calls later, Max is finally patched through to one of the top clinical researchers in the field: Dr. Spencer Paulson.

“Dr. Paulson, thank you for making time on such short notice.” Max says, his tone polished yet clipped. “To cut right to it, I was recently made aware of a … sensitive case involving a terminal pediatric patient and some rather bleak estimated survival rates.”

Without preamble, he lays out what little he knows about your daughter — the diagnosis, the staging, the Lennox Hill prognosis that has already written her off for dead. All throughout, the doctor on the other end of the line remains grimly silent.

“So in your expert opinion.” Max finishes, realizing his hand has unconsciously tightened into a white-knuckled fist. “What would you say her realistic prospects for meaningful treatment or survival are?”

There’s a pregnant pause, then a grim sigh filters through the tinny line. “Based on what you’ve told me … I’m afraid the prognosis does indeed sound dire. Grade IV glioblastomas in children under five have approximately a 5% survival rate past twelve months with conventional treatment regimens.”

Max clenches his teeth, brutally unsurprised yet still floored by the frank assessment. Moments ago, he had still been clinging to a fool’s hope.

“However.” Dr. Paulson continues, his tone brightening slightly. “We do currently have an … experimental trial ongoing that might be an outside option to explore.”

Something akin to hope flutters in Max’s chest. “I’m listening.”

“Well, to put it simply, we’ve had some promising early results adapting viral gene therapies to target and destroy these aggressive brain tumor cells in young patients.” the doctor explains, shifting into a more clinical, lecture-style delivery.

“By modifying and re-engineering certain viruses to bind only to the specific mutated RNA and protein markers found in diseases like glioblastomas, we can theoretically use those same viruses as a delivery vector. One that can slip past the blood-brain barrier and directly infect the cancerous cells with a sort of … controlled payload, if you will.”

Max nods along, his mind working furiously to keep up with the technical jargon. “Some kind of treatment regimen then? Drugs or radiation therapy delivered directly to the tumor site?”

“Precisely.” Dr. Paulson confirms approvingly. “Only we’ve expanded past just chemo and gamma rays as the options. Thanks to the pioneering work of doctors like Bert Jacobs, we’ve now created an entirely new frontier of cancer treatments centered around gene therapy and mRNA editing.”

He rattles off a dizzying litany of polysyllabic scientific terminology that sails completely over Max’s head. Not that it matters — his focus is fully captured by the notes of guarded optimism finally creeping into Paulson’s voice.

“Of course, this is all still highly experimental. We’ve only managed to achieve remission in a handful of trial cases thus far.” the doctor cautions. “And we have no idea if the viral vector we’ve engineered will be equally effective against every variation of cancerous mutation out there.”

Max nods impatiently, waving a hand as if to physically shoo away the vague caveats. “I appreciate the need for clinical hedging, doctor. But let’s cut right to the heart of the matter.”

He draws in a fortifying breath. “If you were to take on this little girl as a patient, deploy these … gene therapy regimens of yours … would you give her a legitimate chance? At treatment, remission, survival?”

There’s a pregnant pause, as if Dr. Paulson is carefully considering the ethical ramifications of his answer. Then, “If she meets the selection criteria and baseline health conditions … and we get a bit of luck on our side ...” Another sigh, heavy with the weight of his responsibilities. “Then I’d say we would have a fighting chance, yes.”

Those five simple words crash over Max with the force of a tidal wave, hitting him squarely in the chest.

A chance. At life. At making it past those grim, dire prognoses.

After several moments of stunned silence, Max finally finds his voice.

“Say no more, doctor. Whatever it costs — money, time, logistics — none of it matters. I want this treatment option fully activated and prioritized immediately. Spare no expense, I’ll take care of the bill.” He utters the words with the same decisive confidence he handles his billion-dollar business dealings.

Because in this moment, it doesn’t feel like just some impulsive, emotionally-driven whim. Helping your innocent child — ensuring she gets the fighting chance she deserves?

It feels like the only choice he can possibly make.

***

You sit hunched in the hard, plastic visitor’s chair, your body angled protectively towards the small hospital bed. Despite the tubes and wires snaking from her fragile limbs, your daughter appears almost peaceful in her restless slumber.

She always was such a sound sleeper as a baby, you reminisce wistfully. Remembering how you’d regularly creep into the nursery just to watch the gentle rise and fall of her chest, assuring yourself she was still breathing.

Even back then, the ever-present fear of something going horribly wrong never truly left you. The world is far too cruel a place to let a mother relax, no matter how deeply you wish you could.

One slender hand rests atop the thin bedsheet covering your little girl, your thumb tracing soothing circles along her tiny knuckles. A silent, simple gesture of tenderness you hope she can feel even in sleep. If only you could so easily soothe away her pain and suffering as you could your own.

The quiet flutter of the heart rate monitor keeps beat, each mechanical beep another hammer striking your already shattered soul. You want to feel relieved, blessed even, that it continues that steady cadence. Instead, you only feel exhausted hollowness.

Because this morning, the doctors came to “discuss options.” As if their clinical detachment could soften the blow of learning your child is well and truly out of miracles.

“We’ve run every available scan and lab test.” Dr. Rhodes had said, failing to meet your desperate gaze. “I’m so very sorry, but the tumor isn’t responding to any of our treatments. At this point, we have to start considering ...”

You hadn’t let him finish, couldn’t let those hateful, unthinkable words pass his lips. Palliative care. Hospice. Just give up and let nature take its inevitable, brutal course while they pumped her full of numbing opiates so she could “comfortably” slip away.

The rage and anguish had bubbled up from some primal pit within your guts, hot and viscous like magma erupting from deep beneath the earth’s crust. You’d screamed incoherent denials until your voice was hoarse, begging and pleading through sobs for them not to take away your only hope.

In the end, they’d sedated your daughter fully so you could “calm down” and “process things rationally.” You know they meant well, trying to spare her from your outburst. But it only compounded your devastation, feeling like they were already treating her as a lost cause no longer worth fighting for.

So here you sit, after untold hours of cycling through various stages of grief, left only with bone-deep weariness cloaked by a fragile veneer of numb acceptance. You dimly wonder if you’ll ever truly feel anything else ever again.

Through the blur of tears constantly stinging your eyes, you keep a silent vigil over your daughter’s bedside. You memorize every delicate sweep of her sooty lashes, the tiny smattering of freckles across her upturned nose. Desperate to commit every last precious detail of her existence to memory before … before ...

A choked sob bubbles up from your chest at the thought, hot and acidic at the back of your throat. You quickly muffle it with the crook of your elbow, determined not to disturb your resting girl with the outward manifestations of your agony.

In through the nose, out through the mouth. An old meditative mantra you try to focus on, struggling to regain control of your tenuous grip on composure. You know your tears and hiccupping gasps for air are only harming yourself at this point. Better to conserve what little physical and mental strength you have left to simply be with your daughter while you still can.

The grief is an ever-churning sea just waiting to drag you under its dark, icy depths. But still you stubbornly tread water, unwilling to fully surrender just yet. Not as long as you can still feel the reassuring thrum of her pulse against your fingertips, a solitary lifeline keeping you tethered to the present.

You aren’t sure how much time stretches in that manner — minutes or hours, you cannot say. The days have all started blurring into one long, endless haze of sleeplessness and overwhelming sorrow.

So when the door to the hospital room suddenly clicks open, the sound manages to penetrate the cotton-muffled fog shrouding your senses.Instantly, you stiffen and blink rapidly, as if only just now awakening to your surroundings.

A stranger stands in the doorway — a tall, slender man in an impeccably tailored suit that looks distinctly out of place amongst the bland, sterile patient rooms. His face is sharp and angular, almost harsh in its sternness if not for the way his brow is furrowed with evident concern.

You open your mouth to ask who he is and what he wants, but he raises a placating hand before you can find your voice.

“Please, don’t be alarmed.” he says, words clipped yet softened slightly. “I know this is a terrible situation, and the absolute last setting you’d want an uninvited visitor.”

Now that he’s closer, you can see behind his obvious affluence lurks a cultured, aloof sort of demeanor. There’s no outward malice or disrespect in his manner, but he carries himself like someone long accustomed to privileges and deference. The sight of him sets you even more on edge amid your emotional rawness.

“My name is Spencer Paulson.” the man presses on, taking a few measured steps further into the room. “I’m actually a doctor, Ms ...”

“Y/N.” you automatically supply, dredging up the remnants of social graces. “Y/N L/N. And this is … this is my daughter, Olivia.”

Your voice cracks ever so slightly on her name, heated moisture already welling behind your eyes once more. You quickly dab at their corners with the sleeve of your worn cardigan, determined not to dissolve into fresh hysterics in front of this absolute stranger.

“Well, Ms. Y/L/N.” the man — Dr. Paulson — says, tone measured. “I realize I’m intruding on a highly stressful situation for you and your family right now. And for that, I truly am sorry.”

His apology seems sincere enough. But wariness still prickles along your nape as your overtired, over-protective instincts flare up. You clutch your daughter’s limp hand in yours a fraction tighter.

“Then if you don’t mind my asking.” you begin in a calculated tone, scrutinizing Paulson carefully. “Why are you here? And what business could possibly bring you to Olivia’s bedside unannounced?”

He regards you silently for a long moment, something inscrutable flickering across his features. When he speaks again, his words are deliberately precise, weighted down by their momentous gravity.

“I was recently contacted by … an interested third party about your daughter’s case.” Paulson explains, clasping his hands behind his back. “I was filled in on the specifics of her diagnosis — glioblastoma, grade four, extremely aggressive and largely unresponsive to standard treatment. Am I correct so far?”

You can only numbly nod, a chill prickling across your flesh. The man’s crisp, clinical recitation of your worst nightmare forces a painful convulsion of renewed heartache.

Paulson seems to catch your distress and quickly presses on. “Right, well, I’m actually here in an official capacity as the Chief of Pediatric Oncology over at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.”

The words hit you with all the force of a defibrillator charge, jolting your entire frame upright in the hard plastic chair. Your jaw drops open, already fumbling for a desperate reply that will somehow make this all make sense.

But Paulson continues before you can vocalize any of the hundreds of jumbled questions flooding your mind.

“I’ll keep this relatively simple, Ms. Y/L/N.” he says, holding up a forestalling hand. “My team at Sloan Kettering recently received permission to transfer your daughter over to our care as soon as logistically possible. You see, we’ve been working on an experimental new treatment protocol — a form of gene therapy designed to treat even the most aggressive, mutation-riddled forms of cancers like Olivia’s brain tumor.”

You blink owlishly, unable to fully process the onslaught of technical jargon being leveled at you. All you can do is continue sitting there, stunned into silence as the doctor launches into an almost dizzying explanation of re-engineered viruses, targeted gene editing, and “controlled payloads” being essentially the extent of modern medicine.

“... And while the trial is still in its early stages, we’ve actually already achieved partial and even full remission in a few key pediatric cases remarkably similar to that of your daughter.” Paulson continues, his tone growing faintly tinged with optimism and something akin to pride. “Which is why we’re reasonably confident Olivia could be an excellent candidate for our experimental therapies, if you allow it.”

He lets the weight of that statement hang in the air between you, watching you carefully for any visible reaction. But you’re frozen, fighting between warring tides of soul-rending hope and knee-jerk cynicism.

After all, you’ve come to reflexively distrust when desperation-stoking scenarios sound too good to be true over the past several torturous weeks. A small, rational voice in the back of your mind pipes up to remind you that you can’t afford to get your hopes up, only to be gutted yet again by the crushing inevitability of disappointment.

But another part of your wearied brain — the part that’s grown so fatigued by the oppressive feeling of hopelessness — recoils at dismissing any potential reprieve from the nightmare, no matter how fanciful or far-fetched.

So instead you hear yourself croaking out a single, wobbling syllable.

“How ...”

Paulson tilts his head inquisitively. “I’m sorry?”

You clear your throat, igniting the spark of desperate yearning flickering to life inside your chest. “How much would … would a treatment like this cost?”

For the first time since barging his way into your fragile world, Paulson’s aristocratic features twist into an unmistakable grimace. He lets out a tight sigh, clearly recognizing the gravity behind your simple question.

“Unfortunately, due to the experimental and intensive nature of this therapy … the baseline costs do run relatively high.” he explains in a precise tone, as if trying to distance himself from the crass logistical realities. “If approved for the trial and full treatment regimen, we’re looking at around $1.4 million in projected costs over the first six months alone.”

The astronomical number hits you squarely between the eyes, setting your head swimming with disbelief. One point four … million? The amount is so ludicrously exorbitant that it almost doesn’t seem real.

You open your mouth, fully intending to spit out the derisive scoff that such an impossible ask deserves. No amount of desperate wishing could ever make that attainable for a single, working-class parent already drowning in tens of thousands of medical debt.

But Paulson clearly recognizes the crestfallen defeat settling over your features. Because he quickly rushes ahead with his next words, effectively cutting off any vocal dismissal on your end.

“However, as I mentioned earlier, we did get some … special circumstances greenlighted regarding your daughter’s case.” he says, tone brightening with carefully cultivated hopefulness. “You see, there’s an anonymous benefactor who’s agreed to cover the full cost of treatment on a … philanthropic basis, let’s call it.”

The words punch you directly in the gut, momentarily robbing your lungs of oxygen like a cruel sucker-punch. You blink dazedly up at Paulson, struggling to make sense of what he’s saying through the roaring static in your ears.

“I … I don’t understand.” you manage to stammer out. “Someone wants to … pay for my daughter? All of it? But why? How could they possibly-”

“Hey now, none of that.” Paulson cuts you off, his voice softening with what might be the first hints of empathy and warmth creeping in. “The why doesn’t matter right now — only that it’s been arranged at no cost to you or your family.”

He moves closer then, resting one hand on your shoulder in an unexpected gesture of kindness that makes you flinch despite yourself. Up close, you can see the sincerity shining in his hazel eyes, pleading for you to simply accept this incredible parting of the dark clouds that have shrouded your existence.

“I know this is … well, frankly astounding news on top of everything else you’re already dealing with.” Paulson continues, giving your shoulder a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “And please, believe me, we want to avoid overwhelming you with undue complications. For now, I think it’s enough to simply feel that spark of hope again, yes?”

Despite your best efforts to tamp down the desperate yearning swelling in your chest, you find yourself nodding mutely in agreement. Because in this moment, you understand exactly the miraculous implications of his words.

After so many agonizing weeks of feeling utterly powerless, of watching your baby girl’s life slowly ebb away before your very eyes … there is a chance. An opportunity, a fighting possibility that everything won’t end in crushing grief and irredeemable sorrow.

And even just that single glowing ember of hope, no matter how faint, is enough to shatter the dam holding back your turbulent sea of pent-up emotion. Paulson watches in quiet acceptance as you finally break down in great, shuddering sobs — only this time, they’re threaded with the catharsis of relief.

Happy tears stream down your blotchy cheeks, unchecked and convulsive. You press your face into the cool, starchy sheets of Olivia’s bed, body wracked with a release of tension weeks in the making. It feels as though you’re being simultaneously unmade and reborn in this singular, messy instance.

Through the storm of your breakdown, you’re dimly aware of Paulson stepping away to give you privacy. And then, just before he slips from the room entirely, his composed baritone rings out one last time.

“We’ll make all the arrangements to transport Olivia to Sloan Kettering as soon as possible. Get her started on this treatment regimen right away, alright?”

You can’t even summon the words to respond, only nodding rapidly between hiccuping bursts of gasping and sobbing. But just before he exits, shutting the door silently behind him, you catch Paulson’s murmur.

“There’s a fighting chance now. That’s all any of us can really ask for ...”

***

Max rakes a hand through his meticulously styled hair as he strides down the sterile hallway of Sloan Kettering’s pediatric oncology ward. His eyes scan the room numbers tacked to each door, searching for the one he was provided.

456 … 458… ah, there — 460. Max pauses outside the closed entry, squaring his shoulders as he tries to tamp down the uncharacteristic fluttering of nerves in his stomach. Taking a fortifying breath, he gives the door a perfunctory series of raps with his knuckles.

Almost immediately, a muffled voice filters through from inside — your voice, he recognizes with a start. “Come in!”

Max’s brow furrows momentarily at the warm, chipper lilt to your tone. So unlike the brittle, devastated one he had heard that fateful day in his office. Though he supposes that’s only fitting, given the radically shifted circumstances these past several weeks.

Pushing his hesitation aside, Max takes the invitation and pushes into the hospital room. You’re seated in one of the uncomfortable plastic visitor’s chairs, wearing a soft cardigan and jeans — by all appearances the very portrait of a typical doting mother.

Well, not entirely typical. Because curled up on the bed next to you is a tiny, doe-eyed little girl whose resemblance leaves no question as to her relation to you.

Olivia.

As soon as the door clicks shut behind him, you glance up — and immediately do a double-take, eyes going comically wide. “M-Mr. Verstappen?” You splutter out, frozen halfway out of your chair like a hostess belatedly remembered her manners. “I … I didn’t realize you were-”

Max holds up a hand to stop the tide of nervous rambling, inexplicably touched by your visible shock. The effect is only compounded when Olivia shifts on the bed, eyeing him owlishly from beneath the cuddly weight of a stuffed unicorn nearly as large as she is.

“It’s quite alright, Ms. Y/L/N.” he says, offering you the barest hint of a disarming smile. An expression he finds shockingly easy to produce given the scene before him. “I admit I hadn’t warned you about my visit in advance.”

He pauses there, suddenly realizing the reason for his impromptu trip isn’t entirely certain, even to himself. It had begun as little more than a nagging impulse tugging at him throughout his days, growing more persistent and insistent until he finally gave in and scheduled some time away from the office.

And now that he’s here, standing in this dimly-lit hospital room, Max feels strangely … unmoored. Adrift in a situation his renowned business acumen didn’t even begin to equip him for handling.

But then your daughter is shifting again, curiosity winning out over her bashfulness as she props herself up on her elbows. “Who’re you?” She pipes up in a tiny, raspy voice that somehow bypasses Max’s usually implacable defenses.

Something pangs oddly in his chest at the innocent inquiry. He finds himself crouching into an automatic squat, bringing himself level with the bedside so he can better meet Olivia’s inquisitive gaze.

“You can just call me Max.” he says, injecting a gentle warmth into his tone that he didn’t even realize he was capable of. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

It occurs to him then that he’s been subconsciously clutching the bouquet of flowers still in his off-hand — an overly ornate spray of exotic lilies and birds of paradise blooms that probably cost more than a month’s rent for most families. He had ordered them from the city’s most exclusive florist boutique on pure aesthetic impulse, without pausing to consider the message such an excessive display might send.

This morning, holding the massive arrangement felt appropriate, a reflection of Max’s stature as a dominant business magnate. But now, watching Olivia’s large eyes track the oversized bouquet with open-mouthed awe, he feels suddenly self-conscious.

Hoping to recover some sense of propriety, Max clears his throat and holds the flowers out in front of him.

“These are, ah, for your mother.” he explains gruffly, avoiding your questioning gaze burning against the side of his face. “A small token of … of appreciation, one might say.”

He isn’t quite sure what prompts the carefully worded addition — perhaps an instinctive reflex to avoid showing any overt sentimentality. But either way, you seem to simply accept the generous offering with bemused grace.

“Thank you, Mr. Versta-” You quickly correct yourself at his mild arched brow. “Er, Max. They’re absolutely lovely.”

You bend to inhale the rich floral perfume, eyelids fluttering in evident delight at the fragrance. Max watches the childlike awe play out across your soft features, feeling an odd sort of satisfaction settle in his chest.

Having given you the flowers, he rises to his feet once more with a put-upon sigh of effort. Every bit of spoiled opulence and bravado that usually comes as second-nature to Max.

And yet, none of it lands quite with the affected solemnity he’s accustomed to projecting. Not when Olivia’s sweet-faced attention is still utterly transfixed by his every move and micro-expression.

Your daughter still hasn’t looked away from him even as you arrange the flower vase on her bedside table, entranced in a way only the very young can be. It’s … disarming, to say the least. But not entirely unpleasant, Max finds himself admitting.

“I, ah, got something for you as well, Olivia.” he announces impulsively. From behind his back, he produces a floppy-limbed teddy bear easily half her size.

He’s not even sure what prompted him to purchase such a pedestrian sort of toy. All he knows is that he saw the stuffed creature in the hospital gift shop window on his way in, and some impulse compelled him to acquire it for reasons he still can’t understand.

But any lingering uncertainty fades from his mind like a passing cloud when Olivia lets out an audible gasp of delight. Her little hands instantly shoot out, making desperate grabbing motions at the plush offering.

“Ohmygosh, thank you!” The words tumble out in a breathless, childish rush. Before Max can even react, she leans precariously over the edge of the bed, arms outstretched and grasping imploringly.

On instinct, Max takes a half-step forward, carefully depositing the stuffed bear into Olivia’s waiting embrace to avoid any accidents. She immediately snatches it to her chest, burying her face in the softness of its soft fabric with a contented hum that seems to vibrate in Max’s very soul.

He swallows hard past the unexpected lump that forms in his throat, watching a child delight in something so simple and innocent. How long has it been since he allowed himself to find joy in the pure, unbridled way that Olivia does? Far too long, he’s forced to admit.

Clearing his throat with an awkward rumble, Max tears his gaze away from your daughter’s cuddling. He levels his focus back onto you instead. Only then does he realize you’ve been staring at him throughout the entire interaction, an unreadable look painted across your face.

“I trust the medical team has kept you informed of Olivia’s progress so far.” he prompts in his usual clipped tone, struggling to reassert some sense of distancing professionalism. “I don’t have any special insight into the procedural specifics, but from what I’ve gathered, positive results are steadily accumulating, yes?”

You blink once, almost like shaking yourself out of a reverie, before offering a slow nod in response. “Y-Yes, you could definitely say that.”

Something sparks behind your gaze then — some dawning realization creeping over your delicate features. “In fact, Dr. Paulson himself said Olivia seems to have responded better to the gene therapy than almost any other patient yet. Her tumor reduction trend is so far exceeding their best models that they’re actually considering tweaking the formula for future tria-”

You abruptly cut yourself off, lips pursing into a tight line as you turn your focus back to Max. He holds your stare evenly, waiting for whatever it is you seem to be mustering the courage to say.

Then, almost in a whisper, “Max … are you the anonymous donor paying for all of this?”

The words hang in the air like a physical force between you, so full of implication and unvoiced emotion that even Max can’t find a way to deflect them. He stares back at you, utterly disarmed beneath the intensity of your scrutinizing gaze.

For a long beat, only the hum of hospital machines and equipment fills the weighty silence. Max’s jaw works tensely as he considers how best to respond. He wants to shrug it off, make some sardonic quip to reestablish the carefully curated aloofness that serves him so well in the business world.

But then Olivia lets out another joyous giggle as she squishes the plush bear’s paw, completely enraptured and undistracted by the silent standoff occurring across her bedside. And all of Max’s formidable defenses and calculated denials abruptly dissolve in the face of such childlike innocence.

So instead of evasion, he answers your question with a small, barely perceptible nod and a softly murmured, “Yes.”

He doesn’t have time to brace himself before you’re suddenly surging up out of the chair with a wounded cry. And then your arms are flung around his neck, your body slamming against his chest as you pull Max into a fierce and entirely unexpected hug.

The impact momentarily stuns him, freezing Max in place with his arms held useless at his sides. He can’t remember the last time someone dared to initiate such a brazen display of physical contact — perhaps ever, now that he racks his brain.

But just as he contemplates gently extricating himself from your clutches, your ragged voice rises to his ear in a trembling whisper.

“Thank you.” you’re whispering over and over like a fevered prayer. “Thank you, thank you, thank you ...”

With each impassioned repetition, Max can feel more of the tension slowly leeching from his frame. He finds himself sinking bonelessly into your embrace, one hand coming to rest against the small of your back in an automatic gesture of soothing.

Soon enough, heaving sobs are wracking your entire body against his. Hot tears quickly begin to soak through the fabric of his expensive dress shirt as you cling to him with the desperation of a fallen angel clawing her way back into grace. But Max doesn’t pull away, doesn’t extricate himself or put distance between your respective roles as worker and corporate king.

Instead, in a move even he can’t fully explain or justify, his free hand comes up to cradle the back of your head, pulling you in even tighter as you keen your grateful relief against the column of his throat.

“It’s … quite alright.” he finds himself rumbling in a low, soothing voice completely at odds with his usual persona. “No thanks are necessary. All that matters now is ensuring your daughter’s full and complete recovery … at whatever cost required.”

He isn’t sure whether his throwaway platitude is meant more for his benefit or yours at this point. But either way, you show no signs of releasing him from the crushing strength of your desperate clutch anytime soon. So Max does the only thing left available to him — he simply lets you cry and shake and cling to him for as long as you need.

Until finally, with a handful of watery hiccups and sniffles, you manage to tilt your blotchy face up towards his.

“I … I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you for this.” you murmur throatily. “For giving Olivia more than just some faint hope, but an actual chance to grow up and live the life she deserves.”

Tenderness isn’t something that often breaks through Max Verstappen’s shroud of callous indifference. He can count on one hand the number of times in his adult life he’s allowed himself to indulge in such sentimental trivialities.

But gazing into your puffy, reddened eyes, he finds he can’t quite summon any bitter cynicism. Instead, his voice remains low with a soothing gentleness that feels almost foreign falling from his lips.

“The only form of repayment I’ll require.” he says finally, “is your permission to take you to dinner.”

He blinks once, almost taken aback by the words that slipped unbidden from his throat. But you, for your part, seem equally dazed as your brows knit in bewilderment.

“Dinner? But … I haven’t left Olivia in weeks.”

At that, Max manages a wry smile, feeling as if he’s regained at least some fraction of his footing and composure. “Of course I don’t expect you to. I simply meant for the three of us to dine together … here, in the hospital. My treat, naturally.”

Your fingers unconsciously clench tighter into the fabric of his ruined dress shirt. But even with the hint of embarrassment pinkening your cheeks, he can see what looks almost like … excitement? Perhaps even coyness sparking behind your gaze before you avert your eyes demurely.

“I … yes, of course.” you murmur, sounding almost bashful. “We would be honored.”

Max simply nods, committing every little part of the interaction to his increasingly scattered memory for later dissection. For now, he withdraws himself from the gentle circle of your arms with what he hopes appears a natural sort of casualness.

“Very good then,” is all he finds himself able to say in response. “I shall make the necessary arrangements and return shortly with something to eat.”

With that, he turns on his heel and strides towards the exit, throwing one final look over his shoulder. You’re already back in your chair at Olivia’s bedside, shooting him another shy little smile as you start to idly stroke your now dozing daughter’s hair.

And before Max even fully processes the impulse, he feels the corner of his mouth tugging upwards into a warm half-grin in response.

A expression so unfamiliar on his usually dour features that it renders him momentarily unrecognizable, even to himself.

Shaking his head as if to cast off the dizzy sense of displacement, Max continues out into the hallway. He stubbornly refuses to dwell too much on the stirrings of contentment radiating through his chest.

Such indulgent notions are highly unseemly for a man of his stature and influence, after all. Better to ignore them entirely, as he always has.

Though even as the thought crosses his mind, Max finds himself picking up his pace with a renewed sense of purpose and determination. Because somewhere along the way, he realizes ...

Denial doesn’t appear to be an option anymore.

***

Two Years Later

The ornate grandfather clock in the corner ticks rhythmically, its pendulum swinging with measured precision. Max’s gaze flicks over to it briefly before returning to the stack of documents before him. Numbers and figures blur together as his eyes scan the pages, his brow furrowed in concentration.

A giggle from the corner of the room breaks his focus. He glances up to see Olivia sitting cross-legged on the plush carpet, curls bouncing as she plays with her Barbie dolls. A hint of a smile tugs at the corner of his lips at the sight of her innocent joy.

“What are you up to over there, kleine muis?” He asks, his voice gruff but tinged with affection.

Olivia looks up, her eyes sparkling. “I’m having a tea party with Barbie and Ken.” she explains, brandishing the dolls. “Would you like to join us, Maxie?”

Max chuckles softly. “Thank you for the invitation, but I’m afraid I have a bit too much work to do for a tea party right now.”

“Okay.” Olivia says cheerfully, returning to her imaginary festivities.

You had dropped Olivia off at Max’s office after her kindergarten class, needing to rush to an urgent marketing meeting. Max had insisted on keeping her company until you returned, despite the mountain of paperwork on his desk.

He watches Olivia play, mesmerized by her ability to create entire worlds from mere toys and her vibrant imagination. Her carefree laughter is a soothing balm against the chaos of his day.

After a while, Olivia looks up again. “Maxie, can I ask you something?”

“Of course, lieverd. What is it?”

Olivia fidgets with one of the doll’s dresses. “Today at school, we had to draw pictures of our families.”

Max’s heart constricts slightly at the innocuous statement, but he manages a reassuring smile. “Did you have fun with that activity?”

Olivia nods enthusiastically. “Uh-huh. I drew me, Mommy, and you.”

The words hit Max like a physical blow, stealing his breath away. He stares at Olivia, his eyes widening as a storm of emotions swirls within him.

Olivia, oblivious to his inner turmoil, continues, “But then Timmy said that you’re not really my daddy since we don’t have the same last name. Is that true, Maxie? Are you not my daddy?”

Max swallows hard, his throat constricting. He had grown to love this child as if she were his own flesh and blood, but he had never dared to assume the sacred title of father. The realization that Olivia saw him that way, despite the lack of biological ties, threatens to shatter his carefully constructed walls.

Pushing back from his desk, he rises to his feet and makes his way over to where Olivia sits. He lowers himself to the floor, his movements stiff and hesitant. Olivia watches him with curious eyes, still clutching her dolls.

“Olivia.” he begins, his voice thick with emotion he struggles to contain. “Even though we don’t share the same name, and I didn’t ...” He pauses, swallowing hard. “I didn’t have a hand in bringing you into this world, you are every bit as much my daughter as if you were my own.”

Olivia tilts her head slightly, considering his words. “So, I can call you Daddy?”

The simple question unlocks something deep within Max’s core, a part of himself he had locked away long ago. He feels moisture prickling at the corners of his eyes, an unfamiliar sting that he doesn’t fight.

“Yes, kleine muis.” he whispers, his voice wavering. “I would be honored if you called me Daddy.”

Without warning, Olivia drops her dolls and flings her small arms around Max’s neck, hugging him tightly. Max freezes for a moment, unaccustomed to such open displays of affection, before melting into the hug. He wraps his arms around Olivia’s tiny frame, holding her close as if she might slip away at any moment.

They stay like that for long minutes, Max’s shoulders trembling slightly as the dam he had so carefully constructed finally cracks. Tears slip silently down his cheeks, mingling with the softness of Olivia’s hair as he buries his face against her.

At last, Olivia pulls back, her eyes shining with joy. “I love you, Daddy.” she says simply, the words reverberating through Max’s very soul.

He manages a watery smile, brushing away the dampness on his cheeks. “And I love you, lieverd. More than you could ever know.”

Olivia beams at him before scrambling to her feet. “Oh! I almost forgot!” She darts over to her little backpack, rummaging through it eagerly.

Max watches her, his heart still thundering in his chest from the whirlwind of emotions coursing through him. He had built an empire, commanded boardrooms with an iron fist, and struck fear into the hearts of grown men … yet this innocent child had disarmed him completely.

“Here it is!” Olivia exclaims, returning with a piece of paper clutched in her small fist. She holds it out to Max, beaming. “For you, Daddy.”

With trembling hands, Max takes the drawing. A bright smile breaks across his face as he studies the crude but endearing figures — stick figures, but he can clearly make out Olivia, you, and himself, joined by vibrant swirls of color.

“It’s beautiful.” he murmurs, his fingers tracing over the lines with a tenderness he reserves only for her. “Thank you.”

Over the next few days, Max has the drawing professionally framed, the simple piece of artwork taking pride of place on the wall of his office. Whenever his gaze falls upon it, his heart swells with a love and sense of purpose that had been missing for far too long.

Beside the framed drawing hangs his business degree, a symbol of his power and influence in the corporate world. Yet, it is Olivia’s artwork that holds the most meaning, a reminder of what truly matters in this life.

Because Max is many things — a captain of industry, a force to be reckoned with, a man who has clawed his way to the top through sheer grit and determination.

But most importantly, he is a father.

And he has never been more proud of any achievement than to call himself Olivia’s daddy.

[letoasai]

Will work for food ~ part 2

Part 1 - Master list

Tim was anxious which wasn’t an emotion he often put into use. Even on a bad day he was calculating, overly prepared, and usually ran on caffeine. He was a young genius and a hell of a detective, but nerves probably didn’t care about his resume or personality quirks. 

He rubbed his thumb against the folded piece of paper kept hidden in his pocket. He’d examined it in the batcave but it held no clues of note. It was just a normal sheet of paper, and the ink could have been a pen from any local corner store. No DNA. No fingerprints. All the same, he kept it out of sight in public. 

Tim had been antsy about summoning Phantom, mostly because he felt like he was disrespectfully late. When he’d first laid eyes on the living form of the Ghost King, he’d felt a familiar ache. Neglect. He didn’t know if the king had neglected himself, or if the blame lay at someone else's feet, but he just couldn’t stand it. 

He’d offered food and company in an instant, the words popping out of his mouth before he could think them through. Despite that, he didn’t regret the offer. He could have done without the teasing from his siblings and teammates, but he didn’t regret the offer once. 

His only remorse was with the clean up efforts. The Infinite creature, Vortex, had left quite the destruction in his wake. Even with many extended members of the League assisting with clean up, it took ages. Search and rescues were active and humanitarian groups had arrived to offer aid but some things couldn’t be done in a weekend. 

The bats returning to Gotham didn’t offer much in the way of a break either. A Scarecrow outbreak with his fear toxin. Three different gangs in the middle of a turf war. A weapons smuggling ring being uncovered… It was one thing after another for a minute. 

When all was said and done it had been nearly two months before Tim had the opportunity to keep his promise. He was in his civvies, standing at the mouth of an alleyway across from a little italian place that looked cheap but was actually the best tasting, most authentic italian place in all of Gotham. Little hole in the wall places often were the best. 

The problem now was his ability to overthink things. Would he summon the king in a glow of green that would light up the street like a beacon? Would he arrive in his ghostly form, crown hovering above his hooded head? 

Phantom looked human enough but was he? Did he come from Earth originally? There were plenty of aliens that looked human. It would be rude to assume… 

What name did he use? Did he need to go full title? Why didn’t he ask more questions when he had the chance?

“King Phantom.” Tim muttered, deciding to just go for it. He still clutched the paper sigil out of sight. “Uh, Ghost King Phantom. King of the Infinite Realm. Um… Or was it High King…” 

“Just Phantom is fine.” 

Tim tensed, all of his hair standing on end at the voice directly behind him in the alley. He hadn’t made a sound but he needed to actively work to exhale and turn around to face his guest. There had been zero indication of his arrival, and he was thankfully, in his living form. 

He was in jeans and an over sized hoodie. Tim could just barely make out a faded NASA written in the front. That was a point in the direction of him possibly being a human from Earth. He wore shoes this time, beat up looking kicks that had seen better days. His hood was also drawn over his head, likely to hide his bony appearance. Tim did spy the tail of his braid over his shoulder though, his hair black to further prove he was in his living form. 

“You…scared the hell out of me.” Tim said, smiling after another hard exhale. “I am sorry it took so long, your Highness.” 

“Phantom.” He corrected, looking around the street and taking it all in. Tim could clock him making note of the turns down the street and the buildings with fire escapes even with his hood up. People just had certain body language when casing an area. “I figured it would be a while, if you summoned me at all. I was not going to hold you to a whim, Red Robin.” 

“I said i would…” Tim muttered. “Uh, it’s Tim, out of uniform. If you don’t mind.” 

“Tim.” He repeated. That softness to his voice remained, and honestly, Tim liked the cadence of it. He liked it as much as he was sure he never wanted to hear Phantom raise his voice. “I understand.” He hesitated only a beat. “You can call me Danny. Phantom is probably a silly thing to call someone in a city like this.” 

“Not if it’s your name.” 

“Danny is okay.” He said, and for whatever reason, Tim noticed now how he kept his hands in his pockets, likely to hide them too. Frail, skeletal looking hands would just frighten some people. “Food? For a favor?” 

“No favor involved. I invited you out.” Tim said. “I mean, maybe we can chat about stuff but you aren’t obligated to answer or anything.” 

Phantom…Danny nodded, shuffling for a moment and looking around again. The height of the buildings seemed to be a mild interest of his. “Where are we eating?” 

“Well, if you like Italian, we’re walking across the street.” He thought pasta and breads would be both filling and flavorful. It would also be something easily packed up for Danny to take with him. 

“I’ll eat anything.” Danny informed him. “I have no preferences after all this time.” He hesitated. “Or maybe i need to rediscover them, but anything will be fine.” 

“Let’s… let’s go then.” Tim said, walking with Danny at his side. He’d made a reservation which wasn’t strictly necessary at such a small place but it gave him the option of reserving a corner table to offer them a little more privacy. 

They walked in, the hostess greeting them with a smile before leading them to their table and leaving them with bread, water, and menus. There were a few other full tables but it wasn’t packed the way it would be in the evening. 

Danny kept his hood up, but it was Gotham and no one questioned the decision. They just left him in peace to not start a conflict with someone who wasn’t causing any trouble. He also kept his hands out of sight until the hostess had left. He sipped the water once and broke off only a little piece of the bread. He buttered it and ate on it while flipping open the menu. 

Tim didn’t know if he was reading the English or Italian parts of the menu but it didn’t matter. Being fluent in reading an Earth language was another check mark for this being his place of origin. 

“Can i…” Tim hummed, keeping in mind that he was speaking with royalty and act a little less like Bruce interrogating a suspect. “Can i ask a couple questions?” 

Danny looked up at him, Tim only barely able to make out some of his features passed the unnatural shadows his hood provided. “Sure.” 

Tim smiled, not even bothering with the menu since he knew what he was getting. “You’re the King of a realm, but was Earth your place of origin?” 

“Yes, but not this Earth.” 

Dimensions! Tim filed that away for later. “You can travel to any of them?” 

“Within reason. Yes. I’m old, but not that old yet. Only eight or nine decades.” He tore another small piece of bread to eat. Tim assumed he was pacing himself. “They call me a baby Ancient still.” 

“That’s cool…” Tim muttered. “Are there many other Earths?” 

“The answer to that would never satisfy you.” Danny said softly. “Trust me. I am the Ancient of Space and i’m hardly satisfied with it.” 

There was a new fact for Tim to latch on. “What’s the-” He stopped when the waitress appeared. Both of them ordered, and Tim was certain he’d end up ordering more halfway through the meal so Danny could take more home with him.  

When the menus were taken and the waitress left again, Tim continued. “What’s the difference between being an Ancient of Space and being the Ghost King.” 

“When i died, or half died, it was my fate to one day become the Ancient of Space. I am that regardless. I won the title of Ghost King.” 

Tim dragged a hand down his face. “That’s…. Endlessly fascinating. I have so many questions.” He didn’t even know how to touch ‘half died’ yet. 

Danny hummed once and fiddled with the end of his braid. “Do i get to ask questions too?” 

“Of course.” 

Danny leaned forward, sipping at his water again. “This Earth has super heroes. That’s interesting. Mine didn’t. How long have you been a hero?” 

Tim nodded, figuring that would be the direction the questions would have wandered towards. They were far enough away from everyone in the restaurant that he didn’t worry about being heard. The music playing in the background also helped a great deal. 

“Hero might be a debate depending on who you ask. In Gotham we’re considered vigilanties. I first suited up at thirteen but it was really more like fourteen after a great deal of training.” 

Danny was quiet for a moment. “And how old are you now? I have trouble telling ages these days…” 

“Eighteen.” Tim said. 

“Young.” Danny muttered. “I was young too. Fourteen when i became the bridge. Sixteen before i really understood what it meant.” 

“The bridge?” 

“Balance. The living and the dead.” 

Tim huffed softly. “You wear a lot of hats, don’t you?”  

Danny made a quiet noise, and it took Tim a beat longer than normal to realize he was laughing. “I do, i wish i didn’t most of the time. It’s fine though.” 

“Just fine?” Tim asked after a beat. He knew a little about expectations and high standards that could weigh you down–both his own standards and other peoples. 

Danny nodded, one of his hands resting on the other. “I’ve seen things. Good things. Bad things. Things that will never happen. Things that have. It’s better i have certain powers because i have no desire to use them.” 

Aah. Tim understood that. “People who want too much power are dangerous.” 

“Exactly.” 

“The power of ruling an entire realm…” 

“Exactly.” 

Tim heaved a sigh. “Damn.” Maybe he should ask something less intense. “Did you enjoy the food we gave you last time? It was just some fast food but there was some worry it wasn’t good enough.” 

“It was great.” Danny said and he sounded sincere. “Nostalgic. It took me a few days to eat all of it. I know the Infinite Realm’s reputation, and it is a warranted reputation, but i’m… hard to offend. Little things are just little things.” 

“I’ll put them at ease then.” 

Danny was quiet for a moment, the silence not an oppressive one. “What is the difference between a hero and a vigilante?” 

“How people perceive us, i guess. Superman will always be seen as a hero. Wholesome and valiant and all that. Things in Gotham are altogether… shadier. Being a vigilante isn’t exactly legal and while we have our boundaries, we break the law all the time.” Tim said. They covered their own tracks well but it was fortunate that no one looked too closely at their activities. 

It didn’t bother Tim when he knew his reasons were still good. 

Danny made a thoughtful kind of noise. “I’m willing to bet Superman’s business isn’t purely legal either. This seems like a nice Earth though, despite whatever troubles you have.” 

“Some hero work is sanctioned by the government so it’s a fine line. Any of it could be argued.” Tim explained, and that was something Danny seemed to find fascinating. 

They paused their conversation again when the waitress appeared with their food, and Tim put in a second order for them to take when they left. The eyes Tim could feel on him told him that Danny already knew what they were for. 

He could hear Danny softly inhale and exhale as he looked at the plate in front of him that came accompanied with salad. He likely wouldn’t be able to eat even a fraction of it but the way he looked at it…. made Tim realize that he could see Danny’s face more clearly. The shadows that obscured his face from his hood had receded. He was still gaunt, but he eyed the food with so much joy. 

The first bite of –non fast food– food nearly seemed to overwhelm him in a good way. 

“You know,” Tim swung hard to change subjects. “We can do a bit of a food tour every time i summon you for lunch. Pizza. Chinese. Barbeque. There’s a great taco truck. We could get something homemade.” 

“You cook?” 

“Haa. No.” Tim said seriously. “But Al… my grandpa is an amazing cook and he seemed to think trading food for world saving services was very sensible but he was appalled that we offered you cheap fries and burgers. He’d honestly love to cook for you.” 

Danny smiled, this shy little look that shouldn’t have fit someone with the title of Ghost King but it sure fit Danny. “That could be nice. Decent home cooked meals are kind of mythological to me.” 

Tim nodded once, and knew better than to ask directly. “I didn’t have a very cuddly upbringing either. There was a lot of take-out involved.” 

“Your food ever come back to life and try to eat you instead?” Danny asked and Tim just stared. 

“I can’t…tell if that’s a real question or if you’re messing with me.” 

Danny smiled and was that a hint of fangs? “Dead serious.” 

Time groaned. “No, no you are a king. You are not making puns.” 

“Thinking i’m too mature for puns is a grave mistake.” Danny said without hesitation. 

“Noo.” Tim groaned, lips upturned into a smile. His brothers could never know about this. Dick would start a pun off and Jason’s morbid sense of humor about his own death…. Ugh, it would be bad. 

It did bring up the interesting question of Danny’s age. He said he’d been alive for decades but how did he mature. Was he still a teenager? Did he age slowly? Asking not only sounded like a bad idea, but Raven and Zatanna had both made sure he knew it was a question to not ask. 

They chatted, they ate, or well, Tim ate. Danny ate a bite every few minutes and looked thrilled about it but he was slowing down. Tim was looking forward to Danny being able to eat more with every visit. 

He flagged down the waitress, gesturing for a box and got a thumbs up in return. 

“You can take it with you.” Tim said when Danny was giving him a look. “It might be a couple days before i can call you again and this way you’ll have enough to eat every day.” 

“I can’t deny that.” Danny said. “You don’t have to keep summoning me.”

“I promised you lunches.” Tim said firmly. “And you said it yourself, you should eat more and spend more time in a living realm. You may as well take advantage of being summoned for food.” 

“Hm…” Danny played with the end of his braid again. “You do make a compelling argument. It’s nice to talk to someone without it being preceded by a brawl.” 

Tim stared, “What?” 

Danny just looked amused. “I’ll explain to you etiquette in the Infinite Realm sometime.” 

“Yeah?” 

The waitress returned with boxes for Danny to pack up his meal and the empty dishes were whisked away to make more room on the table while they waited for their to-go orders. 

They were almost startled when a second waitress reappeared with a few little dishes before they could begin speaking again. Everything was set in the middle of the table, presumably for them to share. There was a piece of white peach tart, a bowl of strawberry gelato, and a slice of frozen chocolate chip meringata. 

“Um…” Tim blinked. “We didn’t-”

The waitress chuckled. “It was ordered for you by another patron. Please enjoy.” She set down another set of utensils for them and walked away. 

Danny made a small sound in his throat. “Well i was full but how could i say no to a couple more bites…” 

“Wait.” Tim said, gaze subtly shifting around the room. Maybe he was trained to be paranoid, but it usually served him well. What he found almost instantly had his eye twitching. 

Not even halfway across the room sat a poorly disgusted Dick wearing large sunglasses, a fedora, and the world's least convincing mustache. When he saw Tim looking and grinned and raised his own wine glass. 

“I gotta kill my brother…” 

Danny sputtered out a laugh, so genuinely amused that Tim could definitely see his fangs as he laughed.

“That would make him my problem.” Danny pointed out, reaching for a spoon to try the gelato first. 

“I’m not seeing your point.” Tim said, delighted by Danny’s teasing. It was a rookie mistake to think one of his siblings wouldn’t find out about this. An absolute blunder that he hadn’t noticed Dick walking in after them at all. He’d never live it down. 

“Guess i’ll have to be more careful next time.” He added. 

Danny hummed again and seemed to have a fondness for the cold dessert. “I could always invite you to my realm sometime.” 

“Cool.” Tim said instantly. Ha, let them try to follow him then…

[yourmidnightlover]

the story

pairing: mob!bucky barnes x reader

w/c: 3.5k+

summary: the weeks following bucky ordering that steve be your bodyguard, followed by an insightful night at a gala with your beloved husband.

warnings: mention of the incident with john (groping), slight threats of violence, mention of fear, lip on lip action (the upstairs ones), if i've missed anything please let me know!!

a/n: hiii! the third installment of my forever? series! i didn't even intend for this to be more than one part, but you guys have inspired me to write more for it! my writing schedule is a bit off since i recently started a new job, but i'll try to be a bit consistent with it. i hope you guys enjoy this next part, more to come!

part 2 -> control

the first few weeks with steve as a bodyguard wasn’t too bad. he was actually kinda funny in a grandpa kinda way, and he was an amazing listener. you had bounced a few ideas for your book off of him and he seemed to be very intrigued by some of the plot points you had planned. he even promised to be one of the first customers, right behind bucky (which you may have rolled your eyes at), of course, as long as he was promised a signed copy.

but, at the two month mark you began to miss your independence. of course, the chef bucky had hired was amazing and had years of experience in italian cuisine, but sometimes a girl just wanted some greasy smash burger to chow down on. most nights you ate alone with steve until bucky walked through the front door. 

he always seemed beaten down and tired, as though work was more straining than usual. he would shrug his jacket off, place it on the hook by the door, then his shoes on the rack, and walk upstairs to shower before coming downstairs to eat as you and steve were finishing your plates. you tried your best to start conversation, to be the best company you could but eventually the silence always grew awkward and steve would usher you to go upstairs to your room with a pressed smile. 

after two months of not really needing to show you off i any way, there was an important gala for him to attend. of course, that means that you were to be his beloved arm candy for the night. 

“buck sent me the address for a local boutique that he thinks would be right up your alley,” steve read from his phone as you took a stroll in the garden that was full of beautiful colors. “the appointment is at 3:45, so we have plenty of time to get ready and head there too. oh and he says you should get something in that one shade of green… i’m assuming you know what that is?” his brows raise in confusion, as your mirror his in a stunned expression. 

“surprisingly, i do know what he means for once.” about six weeks before the wedding, you had spent an all nighter with him amidst all of the chaotic planning. 

“accent colors are super important! right now, all we have is an off white color, and while it’s a good color, i don’t want my wedding to wash everyone out that much,” you shoved his side as you sprawled your binders out on the coffee table. 

“i say… green,” he says after pondering for a minute. 

“green… like tree green?” you chuckled at the notion. 

“i mean the green that’s light yet earthy, not too dark but not scream-in-your-face bright. it’s beautiful. plus, i think you’d look stunning in it,” he shrugs casually as if he hadn’t described a mundane color in such an alluring way.

“so a sage green?” 

“maybe more on the jade green side,” he tried to hide a smile as his thumb began to mindly trace nonsense on your thigh. 

there was such elegance in the way he described the simple color, as if saying light green wouldn’t have sufficed. clearly, there was a significance to the mundane shade that he felt the need to recommend it. 

but you knew not to ask anything further to pry, doubting his readiness to comply so easily so early in your relationship. while it was during the happiest days of your relationship, you still knew he held you at arms length. 

at the appointment, you had found several dresses in the perfect color, but only one stood out to you after trying them on. steve was also a good guide in ensuring you were choosing the right one, although you’re sure he would just say every dress looked good regardless. 

growing up, you’d read about a love that was so encapsulating that one would rather face death than be without their lover. you’d yearned for that kind of love. the kind of love that was consuming and irreversible. the kind of love where your partner wouldn’t love you in spite of your flaws, but because of them. 

and now you were married to a man who didn’t seem to feel an ounce of that towards you. sure, the months leading up to your wedding made it seem otherwise. it made you hopeful that he could maybe grow to love you, as you could grow to love him. 

because truthfully, it was hard to see many flaws in the man, other than those that were rumored in the tabloids. you’d read or heard of his anger issues and his lack of patience but abundance of irritability. yet all you’d observed is his laughter, his diligence and compassion. 

it was definitely confusing to want to believe these two contradicting tales of composure, but ultimately seeing is believing. you’d decided to believe whatever he showed you, what was right in front of his face rather than believe whatever was whispered in your ear. besides, if something was worth believing it should be said with their full chest rather than in such a low tone. 

-

“almost ready?” bucky’s low voice rang through the door as you were doing finishing touches on your hair, making sure you looked as presentable as possible. 

“i just have to put the dress on, and i’ll be ready to go!” you replied, unzipping the bag that the dress came in, even though you suggested that doing so was overkill.

“let me know if you need any help.” you heard a thud from the other side that suggested that he was leaning against the door, waiting to hear if you did happen to need any assistance. 

you replied in silence, just stepping into the dress and lifting the straps over your shoulders. it was such a beautifully made gown, truly. it hugged you in the most flattering places, accentuating just the right amount without flaunting too much. the material felt like a warm hug from a lifelong friend, you almost never wanted to take it off. 

the only downside was the damn zipper. it was a bit rough to pull over your hips alone, but once you reached your mid back it seemed to reach a snagging stop. you twisted your arms every way possible, trying to avoid the totally cliche scene of calling him in to zip you up. 

alas, the universe had other plans for you. although, how much could you complain when that would mean his rough, yet gentle hands would be against your skin…

“...bucky?” your voice meekly called out, trying to interrupt your own thoughts from spiralling down the path you wanted them to so bad. 

“yea?” his voice piped up, seeming to jump an octave or two in the process. maybe you jst startled him. 

“could you maybe help me zip this thing up?” you became quiet before the twisting of your doorknob broke the silence. “my arms can’t quite contort the way they need to in order to zip this all the way…” you refused to meet his eyes as he trailed inside the room. 

the first sign of his presence was his hands grasping your shoulders, lightly tracing down your arms. then he leaned down to press a kiss to your bare shoulder, more affectionate than he’d been the entire duration of your marriage without it being prompted. 

“you look beautiful,” he pressed another kiss to your other shoulder before letting his hands fall to a respectable place on your waist, stepping back to seemingly find where the zipper got stuck. “but what’s new, right?”

you chuckled at the compliment. 

“what’ve you been doing recently?” you asked meekly. “i haven’t seen you much at all since steve started his new gig as my babysitter.”

he sighed, stopping his antics to clarify what he felt he needed to. “he’s not a babysitter. he’s my best friend, and the only person i trust to look after the woman that i-the woman that i married, okay?” you felt his deep breathing on your neck before he continued, “i don’t know where john is yet. john is notorious for taking whatever he thinks is his and that night he made it very clear what he believed.” he turned you around to face him, the dress’ zipper be damned. “if anything happens to you… just the thought keeps me up at night. i need you to understand,” his voice was desperate, pleading almost. 

you understood what he was saying. at least, you were pretty sure you did. men in positions of power like bucky typically saw the people around them as pawns. part of you thinks that he’s saying all of this as the controlling, possessive boss man bucky. and that’s the large part of you. but the small part of you, the part of you that still believes in that fairytale love you used to read about, believes that maybe he’s saying all of this because he does feel something for you… something real. 

but that part of you is like… 15 percent. maybe 20…

“i understand,” you nodded, meeting his eyes and seeing desperation, fear. seeing fear radiating from a man that projects a version of himself that’s fearless is a scary thing. 

“good,” he nodded, his eye contact faltering to the dress that clung to your body. “you look indescribable, i’m a lucky man to call you mine.” once again, he grasped your shoulders to turn you around.

this time, he promptly found the zipper, his metal hand tracing nonsensical patterns on your shoulder as he zipped the dress with his flesh one. 

“all done,” he pressed a lingering kiss to your right shoulder. “my beautiful bride.” you wanted to believe him. 

“thank you,” you took a deep breath as you turned to face him. “so, tonight… what should i be expecting?” “well, there are a few people i’ll introduce you to, and a few i have to talk to. but i’ll be with you the whole time,” he pressed his hands into his pockets. “i scheduled a car to take us, and we have about 10 minutes before it should get here.”

“so we’ll be playing the roles of loving wife and doting husband?” you nudged his shoulder before you went to grab your shoes. 

“playing? this is all real, sweetheart,” he took the shoes from your hands, promptly dropping to his knees. 

“what are you-”

“i’m putting your shoes on, my love.” you chuckled before he guided your hand to his shoulder. “gonna want to hold on.” he picked up one of your legs by your calf, grabbing the correct shoe before slowly placing your foot inside and doing the same for your other shoe.

meanwhile, you were stuck staring down at him like a lovesick idiot. this behemoth of a man was beneath you treating you like a princess by putting your heels on for you. what the hell kind of alternate universe have you entered and how can you never leave?

“well, aren’t you a romantic?” you cleared your throat as he remained on his knees, a sight you could get used to. 

“don’t let the news spread around town,” he chuckled as he let your remaining foot hit the ground but not without pressing a kiss to your ankle. “i can’t have others knowing how enamored i am by you, can we?” “enamored?” you chuckled out. “what a word,” you shook your head as you helped him to his feet. 

“the perfect word.” he trailed his hand to a loose strand of hair, twirling it around his flesh fingers before he sighed, “the car should be here soon. we should head downstairs for it.”

it was a 45 minute ride there. you sat in a respectable silence, this time it wasn’t as awkward as it has been in the past. upon arrival, the door was swiftly opened for you, bucky getting out first and then offering his hand to help you step out. the first thirty minutes of the gala went very similarly. he would introduce you to a new face or say ‘hello’ to a familiar one, wrap his arm snugly around your waist before pressing a kiss to your cheek and move on to the next person. 

for a bunch of folks in banking and finance, everything seemed very high stakes. there seemed to be walls up all around you, from each man and woman you said a brief hello to or were meeting for the first time. everyone had decided to adorn a mask for the night, or maybe the mask was a semi-permanent fixture. maybe they’d worn the mask for so long they forgot how to function without one. you hoped you wouldn’t face the same fate.

to be doomed to fake face for so long that you no longer remember what was once real. you wanted something real, even if what you and bucky had was technically fake when you were in public. something about what happened behind closed doors when nobody was around gave you the illusion that part of it was real. 

“have i told you how ravishing you look tonight?” bucky held you close as you swayed to the soft melody. his metal hand was clutching your waist, his flesh hand holding your own.

“i think in different words, yes,” you both began to laugh at his flattery. “you don’t have to keep doing that, y’know? the compliments and everything… i think people get the idea that this is real by now.”

“you don’t get it, do you?” he shook his head before he moved his vibranium hand to your chin, nudging it up for you to meet his eyes. 

“get what?”

“buck,” steve’s voice interrupted your dance, but that didn’t stop bucky from pulling you taut to his side.

steve leaned in to whisper in his ear, but you were able to tell by his stone cold expression that whatever message that was being relayed to him wasn’t as delightful as the desserts from tonight. 

“when?” you barely registered bucky’s low voice over the music. 

steve went back to whispering in his ear and it wasn’t until he pulled back that you wanted to speak up, “what’s going on?”

bucky looked down to you, and when you looked into his eyes, what you saw was very similar to your earlier conversation with him. this time, however, there seemed to be anger buried beneath the stoic traces of fear. that’s when it clicked.

“did they find him?” his jaw clenched and unclenched.

“you told her about-”

“i told her what she deserves to know,” bucky interrupted steve’s accusatory tone. “you don’t get to question me or the decisions i make, especially not when those decisions are in regards to my wife.”

you weren’t sure if bucky was defending you or himself with the way he jumped on steve’s gears. 

“okay, got it,” steve rse his hands in defense before he nodded. 

“what steve was telling me was in regards to him, yes,” bucky clarified. “but it’s nothing important for you to need to know. you don’t have to worry about it, my love,” he let his flesh hand play with that same strand of hair as earlier as he looked down at you like his prized possession. 

oh yea, you almost forgot. that’s what you are to him. his trophy wife, as much as you hate that phrase. 

“when can we go home?” a shiver ran down your spine. what would john even do if he did get his hands on you? was he actually as bad as bucky made him seem, or was he worse? you gripped bucky’s arm tighter as thoughts raced through your brain. 

“hey,” he turned to face you again, his eyes no longer reflecting anger or fear but tenderness. “if you want to leave, we’ll leave. steve can get the car,” he turned briefly to steve who nodded before walking off, “we can talk on the way home. i can tell how many questions are running through that pretty head of yours right now. but i can assure you,” he cupped your face in his hands, and the contrast between the cold metal and the warm flesh was oddly grounding, “as long as your with me, or steve for that matter, you won’t have anything to worry about. i would do anything it takes to keep you safe.”

you nodded, pressing your lips together in a fine line, maybe a bit of doubt running in your head at the lengths he would go to in order to protect you. would he really go to the lengths necessary? would his hand be forced to do that? 

“how bad would it be if i admitted that i was scared right now?” you couldn’t meet his eyes as you admitted it. 

“it’s not bad at all. in fact, i understand. i just hope that you know that this is why steve is watching out for you now,” he dropped his hands to your shoulders, down your arms to hold your hands. 

“will you-would you be up for staying with me tonight?” you popped the question, almost scared of his answer. “like… like you did that night? i don’t really want to be alone tonight.”

“you don’t have to explain,” he smiled. “of course i’ll stay with you.”

the ride home was similar to the ride there, but this time with your head rested on his chest, his arms wrapped snugly around you. you’re sure he thought you were asleep when he pressed a kiss to your forehead. it also wasn’t beneath you to say you liked when he did it…

so much so that you apparently did fall sleep. when you woke up, it was wrapped in strong arms. you strained your neck to look at the clock beside your bed, the one that read 2:35 am. turning in bed to look at bucky, you realized you’d never seen him so peaceful. his hair had grown out a bit long, evident by the way it laid across his forehead. 

when you moved the few locks of hair from his forehead, he began to stir awake. 

“shhh,” you hummed softly. “it’s just me. sorry i woke you.”

“don’t be sorry,” his raspy voice was alluring this early in the morning, or was it late? “i don’t think i’ve slept this good since… well, since that night.”

“are you a secret cuddler, mr. barnes?” you smiled as he pulled you in a smidge tighter as he replied. 

“and what if i am?” “there are no complaints coming from me,” he pressed yet another kiss to yourforehead, then your cheek, your other cheek, and then you pulled back to look in his eyes again. 

the only light that was peaking through was from the hallway underneath the door, but that didn’t stop you from being able to see the bright smile decorating his face, a rare sight to see. 

“how bad would it be if i admitted that i really wanted to kiss you right now?” his thumb trailed across your bottom lip, gently pulling it down and watching it bounce back into place.

“it’s not bad at all,” you let your eyes find his lips before looking into his eyes once more. 

he made the first move, taking his flesh hand and cupping your face before he softly met your lips with his. every other kiss you’d had with him had been for show, cameras or people around to witness and aww at the romantic antics of the newlyweds. this one wasn’t for show. this was purely authentic. gentle, soft, delicate. for a man like bucky, you figured he wasn’t like this very often. this was a side of him not many other people got the privilege of witnessing. 

he was precise in his movements, every swipe of his tongue and every placement his hand made was deliberate, yet he was so tender. the soft grasp of your hair, the easy glide of his hand that began to hold your waist. it was all so consuming, in the best way possible. in the way that you wanted to drown in his presence. 

when you sweeped one of your legs over his, now perched on his lap, you felt him smile against your lips. 

“you’re astounding,” he breathed into you. “breathtaking,” he rearranged his hips, accidentally brushing his hardon against your center. “shit.”

“sorry,” you smiled against him as you pulled back, resting your forehead against his. 

“nothin’ to apologize for,” he shook his head with a laugh. “i mean, you are my wife an’ all.”

“i know, but,” taking a deep breath, you tried to figure out how to word what you wanted to say to him. you came up with nothing. “i don’ know. it’s different. we haven’t necessarily been the most affectionate since our wedding.”

“i didn’t think you wanted anything more,” his face shone with disbelief. “i didn’t want you to think you were forced to be ‘affectionate’ with me. you didn’t really want to marry me in the first place. i realize that.”

were you not this puppet in his master show? some play thing for him to own and display whenever he pleased? had every story you’d heard about him been nothing but that… just stories? could this story of you and him have a happy ending?

tags:

@blackbirdwitch22

@onceithough

@learisa

@mrsnikstan

@cjand10

@mrs-bucky-barnes-73

@armystay89

@adesum

@greatenthusiasttidalwave

@loki-laufeyson68

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[sugar-plum-writer]

No One Else <3

Tags: Creampie; rough sex; cum-play; size kink; over-stimulation; public sex; whored out; spanking; unprotected sex; manhandling; MDNI (18+!); smut; NSFW + NSFW; Public Sex; humiliation; degradation kink; porn with little plot; fem!reader

A/n: Finally I am back from Hiatus~ my college exams over woo-hoo! enjoy this fic~ feel free to send asks and your ideas for other fics~

Synopsis: What happens when your boss- The Gojo Satrou your boss the CEO sees you fucking the manager instead of him? How could you? aren't secretaries of CEO's meant to seduce the CEO's?

Word count: 2.2k

Gojo

Moans escaped your lips as you sat on your manager's lap; you've always been the pretty obedient secretary everyone loved- hell you were always looked up to by the people around you at work. The perfect "secretary" of CEO Gojo Satoru of the multi-billion dollar company "The Gojo Corporation" just their logo the italic fancy "G" was enough for everyone to bow their heads in respect.

Your boss being the most sought after bachelor- tall, handsome, rich, future head of the Gojo Corporation who could manipulate the global market with a lift of his finger. You liked him who would not? though you never confessed as well- why would he ever look your way when top models, actresses, etc where always around him?

"Who knew you were such a natural huh? CEO Gojo must sure love having his way with you", kissing your neck and whispering in a deep voice- his eyes darkened as he smirked biting your neck and leaving hickeys

"Ah- ", your eyes glossy as you grinded on his bulge trying to earn even a little bit of stimulation- "B- Boss Satoru… hah…he never fucked me till now", you blurted out as you panted

You were fucking your manager- scandalous? yes; if anyone saw you right now? Hell, Gojo will chew you out alive and even fire you for breaking the rules. The only reason you were even taking this risk was because the manager was hot and your brain just had lost it today from stress

As you looked into his eyes as you kissed him- the olive green eyes nearly hypnotized you, he could never beat your boss Gojo's hotness but hey? who can blame you for getting the second-hottest guy to fuck you? especially with how frustrated with work you are these days.

Non-stop meetings, travel from one country to another, prepare your boss Gojo's documents, schedule, deal with his affairs and what not

Gotta Blow off some steam cause working overtime for money is not enough to fulfill your needs

"Is that so? hm-", chuckling darkly he grabbed you by the jaw "Well- a secretary as good as you deserve to be fucked we-"

Before the next words could be uttered the door suddenly opened- making your jaw drop in horror. It was your boss- Gojo Satoru the CEO

His Italian leather shoes shined as usual- was it the new Armani shirt he was wearing? your eyes looked him up and down nervously as you got off your manager's lap. Sharp black suit, his white hair swept back making him look even bossier than before- and the cold look in his azure eyes- made you gulp

You are fucked today, aren't you?

"Oh, sir! This-" your manager tries to speak, his hands shaking as got up from the chair, "Fired"

Without batting his eyes he just walked towards you, hands in his pockets- sharp- intimidating- completely different from how he normally was

The look he was giving you made you shudder- your legs nearly going weak

"Boss- this! I can explain-" Coming to your senses you scrambled to explain

"How annoying", he grabbed you by the jaw tilting your head as he gazed at the hickies your manager had left even more pissed, "Is my secretary this much of a whore? Should have added that to your resume tsk"

"S-Sir!- please- I really"

"Really what? my dear secretary?", his grip tightening on your wrist as he dragged you with him outside. The whole office floor was looking at you two awe-struck about what the hell was going on

Why is the secretary's neck covered in hickies today?

How did the Miss perfect secretary get on Mr. Gojo's bad side?

"Do you wanna be fucked that badly?", with a whisper he chomped down on your neck- teeth grazing your neck- over the hickies the manager had left- blood coating his lips as he looked into your eyes- so possessively it was scary

"G-Gojo- ah! it hurt-", wincing you tried to push him away making him only pin you against the wall biting harder- as if ingraining into your bones on who you belonged to

"Gojo- Sir-!" gasping you cling to him as tears trickled down your eyes, "E-Everyone is- hah look-!" Before any words could be uttered, he kissed you hard with his tongue biting your lips and making you breathless

"Hah so?"

"Taking the risk of getting fired for him is fine? fucking me the man who owns the place is embarrassing? huh", pulling back- a string of saliva connected you both; he brought his knee up and grinded against your cunt. The expensive suit probably worth more than your months of salary combined covered in your slick.

"Ah-" you gasped as the sudden wave of pleasure hit you- "Gojo!" eyes wide you dug your nails into his back- your poor cunt was ruthlessly being abused by him right now

"Please- Merc-y! ah-", you squirmed pathetically but he just got even harsher

"Shall we show them all, how much of a whore you are? hm? The oh-so-perfect secretary is a hidden slut?", he whispered darkly sending goosebumps down your spine

It was pathetic how even in such a situation your cunt just kept getting wetter- your slick covered his pants as his knee continued to grind against your pussy. All sloppily and puffy asking for mercy as it dripped in front of the whole office.

"I-I am not a Slu-! ah!" you moaned again as you squirmed, "Then what are you getting even wetter for huh?", smirking he leaned in, "You wanna cum so bad? Shall I make you cum my dear secretary?"

"W-What? G-Gojo please…'tis too m-mu-" Before another word could be said his grinding got even harsher, "Ah- ahh-" gasping you arch your back cumming all over his pants- juices all gushing out dripping all over the pristine floor

"hah- ah..." you panted your brain hazily- hell your legs were still shaking from the intense orgasm- "Gojo…Sir..", you gazed up at him with your glassy eyes

"Fuck…" he whispered under his breath

"Guess I really should have fucked you before huh?", removing his tie he dropped it on the floor while simultaneously he removed his coat- god- he wanted to fuck you till he owned you- the way you were looking at him was better than all imaginations he conjured up while he jerked off thinking of you

"Y-Your heard everything? i-inside?", hearing his words made your eyes widen- goosebumps spreading across your skin after all how long was he standing? how did he know? so many questions swirled your already hazy brain

"I did", with a smirk he spoke, his voice strained by how much he was holding himself back from his ramming his dick into you

"A good secretary deserves to be fucked well right?", with a dark animalistic gaze he leaned in as he whispered- his deep voice enough to make you lose your mind; god have mercy

You don't know why but the way he said it made the walls of your cunt clench tight oozing with desire- You might at this point give in to being fucked in front of the whole office

"Mr.Gojo should have had his way long ago huh? How much of a natural you are", he continued to whisper as his hands went to your clitoris stroking it and making you moan even harder as you held onto him

"Ah-", your brain already felt hazy from the previous intense orgasm, "'toru- please..please..I wanna cum! Please!", the pleasure again was making your brain numb- the whispers, his hand on your clit, stroking it- teasing you while you gasped and moaned in front of the whole office

"I don't think so- after all which good secretary goes and fucks her manager instead of her boss huh?", he smacked your cunt- making it even more puffy as pre-cum dripped out of you

"N-No…Ah! I mean-", whining your grip on him tightened even more- tears spilled out- the pleasure was too good, and at this point, you did not care he was fucking you in front of the whole office

"You keep forgetting whose paycheck you are on dear- what about him even made you think he could give it to you better huh?", pissed he pinched your clitoris making you mewl and cum instantly

It was too much- he was too mean- the pleasure was too much- you were nothing but a mess right now- cum dripping all over, tear-stained face- voice cracked from all the moaning- you wanted to save your poor cunt from more abuse- but it felt so good

He looked so hot hell just when you thought he could not get hotter he just did

The carnal gaze, his icy cold blue eyes looking into yours, tie and coat on the floor, shirt unbuttoned, his hair slight bit messy- while he made you cum again and again- his deep voice- you were melting under him all the while the employees just stood stunned

"If you had seduced me like a good secretary does- you would not be like this you know?", smirking he sat down on the couch kept in the center of the office floor; all the eyes still on you two, "It's time you really show the skills you got darling"

Mind hypnotized by the sheer desire you were feeling right now- you literally crawled to him- legs shaking from the previous orgasms as you looked up at him- embarrassed, shameful, literally you felt so humiliated right now you could die but hey? even god won't blame you right? he was so- hypnotic it's like he just knew how to have his way

"Y-Yes Sir...", pushing your hair aside he brought your face close to his dick, "I don't think I need to tell you want to do?"

"No sir...", hazily you started sucking on his dick dragging your tongue from the base to the tip- he was so big; you knew he was big but this big? the veins on his dick pulsing as his hand gripped the back of your head

"Fuck..", he tossed his head back, "-should have done this long back"

You kept sucking, pre-cum dribbling down your chin as you kept going- tongue swirling around the tip

"Shit- Fuck-" , without a warning he rammed his dick deep into your mouth- deep throating you as he buried your face into his crotch

"G-Gojo- ah!", chocking on his dick tears trickled down your eyes from pleasure. His cum dripped out of your mouth, your face covered in cum as you gazed up at him. Next thing you knew he pulled you onto his lap and rammed his dick into your pouty sloppy and pathetic cunt- he was too big- your poor hole had to work overtime to adjust to his length with how big he was

"'toru..", you looked at him in the eyes with the last bit of rationality gone. You really had lost it today- how will you ever face the office from here on out? secretary letting her boss fuck her in the middle of the office floor and even sucking his dick for him? That too the CEO Gojo Satoru of the "Gojo Corporation" quite the headline for the morning news- the list goes on as you imagined the headlines

"Dragged from fucking manager to boss!"

"What's the relationship between Mr. Gojo and his secretary?"

"Did Mr. Gojo pay her? How much money was involved?"

"Secret revealed! learn to suck Dick from Mr. Gojo's secretary! Exclusive interview from sugar daddy website editor!"

...

Smirking he started stroking your clit again rubbing your clitoris- fingers moving in circles teasing you so much you could hit him- too bad your whole body was shaking right now. The smirk that always made your heart flutter, was making your heart flutter even now; though you tried to bury the feelings it never worked and certainly not right now

"You really are quite the piece of work~ huh dear secretary?", he whispered as he continued to jerk you off while his dick kept ramming into you, "'toru! ah! 'tis too much...I can't!...I really can't!", digging your nails onto his back you continued to moan

"You can, you are a good secretary of mine aren't you? be a good girl and cum", increasing his pace he stretched your folds making you curl your toes from pleasure and intensity your vision went white for a minute you though you could see the gates of heaven

"I-'m cumming!...ah! 'toru!" burying your face of the crook of his neck you came again at this point you had no idea how many times you came- all you knew was just pleasure in your hazy mind as you knocked yourself out exhausted

Little did you know Gojo in the mean time you were asleep on his lap- continued to make the employees work unbothered of everything that happened as he carried you in his arms- all security footage and everything was over-ridden and edited- you were all his after all- and only he get's to have his way like this with you

As for your Manager may lord have mercy on him, how dare he think he could lay his hands on you?

"Just say the word and it's yours after all- there is nothing I Gojo Satoru cannot do all you gotta do you open your mouth darling~"

Link to my Masterlist!

[johnwickb1tsch]

bittersweet ~ a yandere!John Wick x fem!reader sunshine/grump coffee shop AU... Part 15 all chapters

AUTHOR'S WARNINGS: N$FW, SEXUAL CONTENT, COPIOUS SWEARING

-You wake with a pounding head, and total uncertainty if your adventure the night before had all been a dream.

Did John actually tie you up with his belt? And did you beg like a hungry little kitten for his cock?

And he didn’t give it to you?

Jesus fucking Christ.

You know you’d sensed all along that there was something dark swimming beneath the surface in Mr. Wick, but you’re not quite sure this was what you expected.

You look down at the little purple bruise on the inside of your thigh, and you know it had all been real.

A hot flood of embarrassment fills you as you remember more from the night before. You are mortified, and frankly, a little scared. You’re not sure you can actually handle a man with tastes like Mr. Wick’s, and you also know that once you’re in his company again you won’t be able to think anything through, or frankly, deny him anything he wants.

He has this drug-like effect on you. You would like to blame the wine for the night before, but deep down, you know that mostly it was just hunger.

You could easily forget who you really are, caught up in the web of a man like John.

The first hint of morning light is peeking over the rooftops. You know that if you are going to make your escape, this is undoubtedly your best opportunity. You tie back on your shoes, preparing yourself for the worst walk of shame you’ve ever endured. Even with your new found flexibility, you are only able to get the zipper of your dress half up your back.

Motherfucker.

The morning concierge gives you a knowing look as you walk through the lobby, and you narrowly resist the urge to flip him off.

How ironic, that the day that you want to flee this beautiful city with your tail tucked between your legs, is the day you finally seem to get your bearings. You make your way back to your hostel, taking off your platforms and carrying them half way. When an early morning wanderer tries to hit on you, you finally snap, yelling at him in a mixture of English, Spanish, and broken Italian, so furious that he’s actually the one who flees. You catch the word pazza, which you think means crazy.

He has no idea.

When you get back to the hostel, hallelujah if the fucking door isn’t unlocked this fine morning. How novel.

Your beautiful dress is wrinkled from sleeping in it. You hang it up anyway, and hope no one steals it. You pound two Aleve from your toiletry bag with some stale water, and think a hot shower might fix some of your ills.

Too bad the water heater is only set to tepid. You wash away the grime, but not your anxieties.

You go to breakfast, completely stuck in your own head, when you hear, “Y/n?”

You look up to see Javi sitting at one of the tables with a cornetto and a cup of the weak coffee the hostel provides for free.

You offer him a tired smile and sit down across from him.

“Are you alright?” he asks, and it’s a little touching that he knows you so well after only a short time in his company.

“I’m fine,” you lie. “I had a…weird night.”

That’s when Kelsey, the Australian girl who helped you with your zipper the night before, saunters up with a shit eating grin. “There she is. Noticed you didn’t come home last night. How was your date?”

“It was…something,” you answer with what you know isn’t a convincing smile. “I’m tired,” you try to cover.

Javi is still looking at you, like he doesn’t believe any of what you’re saying.

Knowing you will not be able to process any of what just happened to you in the boisterous bustle of the backpacker hostel, you eat a quick bite and rise. “Think I’m going for a walk,” you say.

“I’ll join you,” offers Javi, and you can’t figure out how to say no without hurting his feelings.

You walk out the front door together, chatting about something silly. He manages to make you laugh, until you look across the street. Your mirth dies like a bird struck with a stone.

John is there, leaning against the building like a tall dark omen, and he does not look happy. He stalks over to you, giving Javi a forbidding look before turning to you.

“You shouldn’t have run off like that. I was worried.” There is something chilling in his tone. It reminds you a bit of the way he’d scolded Brian that one day, but times ten. Somehow, his teeth seem sharper in this tense moment in the buttery Venice sunlight. 

 “I’m a big girl, John.”

John glares at Javi again, but the younger man stubbornly stays at your side, not taking the hint. “We need to talk,” says John, taking your elbow.

“You don’t have to go with him,” says Javi with a frown, grasping your other arm. You feel like you’re stuck between two dogs with a bone, and it’s too much.

“Both of you, let go of me,” you snap.

Miraculously, this does the trick, though goddamn if there isn’t something like murder glinting in John’s eyes as he does it.

If you weren’t in public on a crowded street, you have a feeling it wouldn’t have worked at all.

“I am going for a walk. Alone. Thank you, Javi, you’re very sweet. John, should I choose to talk to you, I know where you’re staying.”

You turn on your heel, and flee down the street.  

[lisbeth-kk]

Sherlock fandom. (TW: domestic violence)

Building Walls

Both had been scared as boys. John of the dark, Sherlock of the light. 

John’s vivid imagination made up monsters under the bed and kidnappers in the woods around the tent when the Watsons went camping. 

“Fear is a weakness,” John’s father growled when his son was shaking and sobbing, terrified of the horrors of the darkness around him.

The solution was to beat the fear out of John while using spite words like coward, squeamish, queer, faggot, weak.

It took some time before it worked. For every stroke from his father’s hand or belt, John’s protecting wall was reinforced with a new brick, until his father was satisfied, and John’s fear had dissipated. So it seemed anyway.

***

Sherlock was a night owl from an early age but was forced to live in the light where others could see his aberrant behaviour. His cousins, aunts and uncles all called him freak, queer, weak, abnormal.

He just wanted to be left alone with his experiments, which he preferred to conduct in the dark hours.

“Fearing the light is a sickness,” his mother told him, and caught him in an iron grip before he could abscond and ordered him to sit in the conservatory with her and his cousins for hours.

When he finally was released, his head throbbed, his eyes stung, and he felt bone tired. He cried when he woke in the morning, realising that he’d been too exhausted to escape sleep.

“You must not let them see your weakness, brother mine,” Mycroft advised him, so Sherlock built a wall around himself and called it his Mind Palace.

***

In the dark Afghan desert, John met many soldiers who were afraid of what they could not see, and with good reason. He knew he should be terrified, and deep down he was, but he had a responsibility as a captain. His wall was strong and didn’t crack until a bullet came out of the velvet night and found his shoulder.

Back in the radiant city that was London, John’s wall crumbled. His mind was a dark hole even if he was surrounded by light.

“Nothing ever happens to me,” became a mantra he lived by, until he met Mike Stamford, and later Sherlock Holmes.

The brief and totally ridiculous encounter in the lab at Barts, lifted a vail, and a glimpse of sunshine entered John’s mind.

***

For years Sherlock lived in the blissful darkness, but people still interfered and made his life miserable. His mother and brother in particular. So, he sought out company that at first was a relief, but later put him on the path towards addiction and destruction.

Stumbling over Greg Lestrade’s crime scene, high as a kite, but still capable of observing and deducing what had happened, saved Sherlock’s life. For the first time in years, someone was interested in the knowledge he possessed; signs that a victim had been poisoned, different traces of mud or ash. 

“Get clean, and I’ll call you when we’re out of our depths,” Lestrade said.

Mycroft probably ensured Lestrade’s promotion after that, when Sherlock explained, and begged Mycroft to take him to rehab.

The incongruous scale Sherlock used to categorise the crimes Lestrade called him about, wasn’t all about how interesting a case was, but had more to do with the time of day. Only a serial killer could make Sherlock attend a crime scene in broad daylight. The darkness was his friend, and his dramatic persona thrived and added mystery to it all when he whirled around in his beloved Belstaff and polished Italian shoes.

John was like the sun and should frighten Sherlock with his warmth and incandescence. Instead, Sherlock felt an instant calmness fall over him when his fingers brushed John’s as he took the phone John offered him the day they met. 

***

John’s fear of the dark night vanished when he saw Sherlock together with Jeff Hope, and his hand was steady when he shot the awful cabbie.

Sherlock’s case scale suddenly changed, and he and John turned up at crime scenes at all hours, even when the sun shone bright and clear.

The only fear they had left, was losing each other.

----------------------------------------------------------------

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[seungrem]

Bang Chan x m!reader

‘Life Without You’ - Part 2 of ?

anon request - Part 1 **

summary: Male!reader and Chan share a connection in their teen years, though a difference in goals and family disapproval cuts their time short. Years later, someone attempts to pick up the pieces they both had left behind.

( overview: part 2, adult & idol chan, adult & non-idol reader, right one-wrong time trope. mentions touchy, persistent, stalker-ish, & avoidant behavior )

emoji code:

🌿 ( long story & series - 9k words wtf )

🧸 ( eventual fluff )

🫧 ( super light angst )

☁️ ( y/n )

likes, comments, & reblogs r appreciated ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Milan, Italy was immersed in history and rich culture. Walking alone through the park of a foreign country, ☁️ watched as the trees swayed alongside the stone path in which he walked. The sky was an inky purple, with a few dark clouds floating above. Tall lampposts illuminated the puddles around ☁️, his black dress shoes tapping as he walked toward his destination.

☁️ pinned his black tie down as he felt the wind brush against his white button up. He wore black pants and a black leather jacket- which he was gifted from his boss on their first day of the retreat.

The company ☁️ worked under “invited” a few of their employees on a short vacation to Italy. In reality, the company needed representatives to discuss something with their Italian branch. ☁️ didn’t understand what he was there for, his boss simply stating that his advice was valuable, and that the team needed moral support. He didn’t mind, though, as it was a much-needed break.

☁️ rolled his eyes at the thought of his boss as he finally reached the end of the park walkway. He stepped onto the sidewalk, waiting for the cars to pass before he could walk across the street. ☁️ and the boss’s team were meeting the Italian branch’s representative team at a luxurious restaurant nearby.

☁️ silently prayed to himself as he stopped in front of the large glass doors, sighing.

He was caught off guard as a boy in a suit, who seemed to be in his early 20s, opened the door. He motioned him to step inside.

“Salve, signore. Per favore, entrate.”

☁️ smiled warmly to him, assuming that he was working there.

“Grazie, signore.” ☁️ responded, which was the extent of his Italian skills.

☁️ walked down a small hallway with paintings framed along its walls. The hallway was dim, the only light coming from the spotlights on the ground and the room a few feet away.

☁️ looked around as he stepped into that room, it bustling with people. The ceiling was a shining shade of black with black carpeting. The walls were blue with neon signs illuminating each corner of the room. ☁️ turned to his right, catching the gaze of a girl behind a small desk. Assuming she was the host, he approached her.

“Salve, posso avere il nome della vostra prenotazione?” She spoke loudly, as the voices and music around them were almost deafening.

“No Italiano.” ☁️ basically yelled back in response, him creasing his eyebrows as he felt bad for not being able to communicate.

“Ah.. your name?” The girl felt a bit awkward as well.

As ☁️ was about to respond, he saw his boss approach the desk, waving nonchalantly. His boss wore a crimson-colored suit with a black turtle neck under it. His skin was a bit wrinkled, but you could only tell when up close. The boss’s hair was black with a tint of gray, and slicked back with what seemed like a lot of gel.

☁️ turned back to the girl, pointing at the man walking towards them. She simply nodded, smiling to the male as he yelled a ‘Grazie’ to her. ☁️ pulled his hand out from his side to shake the boss’s hand, but the boss put an arm around the male’s shoulder.

“Most of us are already sitting, come join.”

☁️ could tell he was already drinking alcohol, but couldn’t blame him. He turned his head to whisper into the boss’s ear.

“You should probably lay off the alcohol sir.”

“If you think I’m bad, you should see one of the Italians right now.” He let go of ☁️’s shoulder as they approached the large booth lined with black leather. Around the circular table, nine people sat, only three of them ☁️ recognizing. As the group locked their eyes on him, he put on a flashy smile and began waving to everyone. They all said their hellos, then turning to each other to talk amongst themselves.

☁️ sat next to his boss on the very edge of the seat, his boss intentionally or unintentionally brushing his leg against ☁️’s. Everyone spoke over each other as they all conversed, though ☁️ looked around the restaurant, choosing to people watch rather than participate.

A few minutes passed before their waiter arrived, a tall but younger man. He was attractive, the two catching each other’s glimpses almost immediately.

Ordering a salad, ☁️ watched as everyone placed their orders. As the waiter took his leave, the boss turned to ☁️.

“I’m paying for everything, so order whatever you’d like.”

☁️ turned his head as well. “Thank you, but I had a pretty big lunch.”

“Alright, watch out, though. I’m gonna use the bathroom.”

☁️ slide out of the boot and stood aside for his boss.

-

☁️ continued to watch the people around him, seeing his boss walk down the staircase behind a man in black. When the boss was a few feet away, ☁️ stood up again, allowing him to sit back down. After ☁️ sat, as well, he watched a pair of two younger girls, maybe in their late teens, walk up to that man in black as he was about to sit with his group. One girl was short and slightly stocky, wearing black pants and a white blouse. The other was tall and thin, wearing a long magenta dress. They looked very awkward, though they conversed with the men for a minute or two. The man sat in ☁️’s direction, taking both of the girls’ phones and signing the back of them. Though his face was far away, ☁️ noticed the man’s straight black hair and slanted eyes, him also with a well defined jawline. The man in black handed the phone back to the girls as they thanked him, giggled to themselves on their way back to their seats.

☁️ assumed that the man was famous, choosing to watch another group of people to pass the time.

After a minute of watching a man complain about his food, him received a tap on the shoulder. His boss looked down at him, then to the table where the famous person. ☁️ followed his gaze, catching the death stare that this man was giving him from around 20 feet away.

“Do you know him? Because he seems to know you.” ☁️’s boss said plainly. Trying to figure out who he was, ☁️ looked away after a few seconds.

“Not sure that I do.”

“Why don’t you go talk to ‘em?” His boss nudged him to go over, but ☁️ shook his head.

“No, no, no. Please, it’s fine. He’s probably just daydreaming or something.”

☁️’s boss was going to argue, but one of the Italian company members tapped a fork on his glasses. Raising it into the air, he got the tables attention.

The group finally began discussing the company’s activities and possible issues, though ☁️ only paid attention half of the time. He was surprised that the conversation was flowing so smoothly despite the language barrier.

From what ☁️ understood, the Italian branch was looking to expand to more locations, needing funding from ☁️’s location, the headquarters, to do so. After a while of talking, the waiter brought a few people’s food out alongside two or three other servers. Before he left, he handed ☁️ a very small, folded piece of paper. The server didn’t look at ☁️, making his handoff discreet before walking away as though nothing happened.

☁️ placed the small piece of paper under the table and opened it, the note in neat English.

‘Meet me in the upstairs bathroom.’

☁️ assumed that someone was hitting on him. Rolling his eyes, he crumbled the small note up and threw it into his pocket. He looked over to his boss, who was looking down at his pants.

“What was that?”

“Secret Admirer.”

“Who?”

“Did you miss the ‘secret’ part? It’s anonymous.”

The boss nodded in understanding, taking ☁️’s words as a ‘mind your business.’ ☁️ decided not to do what the note instructed. Instead, he glanced around the room to see if anybody was looking at him, attempting to spot the person who wrote the note. He watched his server approach the table where the supposed famous man was sitting, the two conversing. He watched as the man slipped the server another note, the three locking eyes as he did so. ☁️ felt embarrassment swallow his body, looking away almost immediately.

He kept his gaze on one of the Italian company members as the server approached him with his salad. He placed the bowl down, slipping another note under it. The boy furrowed his eyebrows, feeling awkward as he leaned down to whisper to ☁️.

“He’s very insistent, sir.”

The server hurried away as two other servers brought out the rest of the group’s food. ☁️ chose not to care about the famous guy’s ’insistence,’ instead focusing on the salad he just ordered.

☁️ finished his bowl quickly as his group continued eating. He grabbed his water glass, sipping out of it as he decided to people watch for the remainder of the night. He watched as the famous guy’s group stood up, seemingly preparing to leave. This relieved ☁️, who wouldn’t have to receive any more odd notes.

☁️ realized that he hasn’t read the note under his bowl. Discreetly, he lifted the bowl, grabbed the paper, and placed it on his lap under the table. He opened it slowly.

‘We went to high school together. I just wanted to say hi.’

☁️ grimaced at the paper, thinking of who from high school could possibly be famous, and in Italy at the same time as him. His curiosity got the best of him as he looked over to the group of men, his heart dropping as they all walked towards the exit. One of them departed from the others as they walked through that hallway, the man just standing at the host desk and turning his gaze onto ☁️. The famous man stayed behind, ☁️ noticing him in almost entirely black- dark grey jeans, a black hoodie, black mask, and black shoes. When the man noticed that he caught ☁️’s gaze, he slowly walked over to the staircase beside the bar. Trudging up, he occasionally turned around to lock eyes with ☁️.

“I’m going to use the bathroom.” ☁️ whispered to his boss, before heading over to the steps. He passed the host stand, and then the bar, walking up the black staircase lined with dark blue carpeting.

As he reached the top of the staircase, he stared at the man who stood next to the bathroom doors. ☁️ looked around, making sure nobody was near them.

“Who are you?”

The man pulled down his mask, smiling a bit at the boy standing before him. His freckles and v-shaped chin made ☁️ smile as he finally recognized the man.

“It’s been a while, ☁️.”

“Felix, what’re you doing here? And why the secretive notes?”

“I didn’t want to scare you.. How have you been?”

☁️ walked over to Felix, who rested his back against the gray wallpaper. ☁️ noticed a sofa a few feet away from them, motioning Felix to sit down with him.

“I’ve been well. Began my dream job recently, and now I’m here for a few days with the company I work with. Everything’s good. How about you, though? I haven’t seen you since high school.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m well, too. And I meant to reach out, but a lot has changed since I moved.” Felix looked over to the boy with a soft smile. His voice was much deeper than ☁️ remembered.

“Oh, where’d you move to?” ☁️ asked, placing his hands on his lap.

“Korea. I’m in a band now.”

“No way, that’s so cool! Can I see?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Felix said quickly as he pulled out his phone from his back pocket. He tapped on the Spotify app, typing a name into the search bar. ☁️ watched as he clicked on the first option, ‘Stray Kids’ appearing on the screen. His eyebrows creased as he saw Felix with blue hair in the profile picture. What surprised him even more was the 8.7 million monthly listeners that the group had.

“How.. that’s a lot of people.” ☁️ looked up at Felix, who giggled at the comment.

“Yeah, I know. We’ve been doing really well. Wasn’t a fan of the blue, though.” Felix pointed at the picture, making ☁️ smile.

“You’ll have to invite me to a show or two.” ☁️ laughed, half-joking. Felix nodded, taking his phone away and putting it on the sofa.

“For sure, we’re actually in Milan for our world tour. You should come, I’ll invite you backstage and everything.“

“Oh, are you sure? I don’t want to be a bother.” ☁️ shook his head, though he did actually want to see Felix perform.

“Of course. You and I weren’t as close as you were to..”

☁️ was taken aback when he heard Felix say Chan’s name.

“But, I think it’d be nice if you said hi to him after so long.”

☁️ raised an eyebrow at the comment.

“What do you mean?”

“Chan is in the group.”

“What?”

“You didn’t see him? Look to my left.” Felix pulled out his phone and showed ☁️ the picture on Spotify again, tapping Bang Chan’s face. He looked the same, but also different than ☁️ remembered.

“Are you sure that’s Chan?” ☁️ choked on his words, suddenly becoming uncomfortable. Chan hadn’t been on his mind since he went to college, and the boy left a sour taste in ☁️’s mouth after so long. Felix frowned at his reaction, seeming as though he hoped that ☁️ would’ve been more excited.

“Yes. He’s still the Chan he was before.”

☁️ nodded slowly, realizing that Chan must’ve gotten far with the agency he was in during high school. The male realized that he had buried Chan deep in his mind, ☁️’s head beginning to hurt as Felix forced him to dig the memories back up. He exhaled softly.

“I see. I’m very happy to see that you two are well. And still together.” ☁️ smiled genuinely at Felix, who smiled back.

“I’m happy to hear you’re good too, give me your number so that I can text you the concert information. Also tell me where you’re staying so I can send the ticket to you.”

Felix tapped an app and handed the device to ☁️, who typed his number in and made a contact.

“Okay, thanks. The rest of the guys are waiting for me because I told them I was using the bathroom. We’ll talk soon, okay?”

“For sure, it was so nice to see you.” ☁️ lifted his body off of the sofa, Felix following his action. Felix reached out his arms and wrapped them around the male, ☁️ hugging him back. Felix practically squeezed ☁️, the two embracing for a few seconds before Felix let go.

“It was nice to see you, too. I’ll be in touch.” Felix waved as he began down the steps, ☁️ waving back shyly with a smile. As Felix faded out of view, ☁️ fell back onto the sofa absolutely astonished.

He couldn’t stop thinking about Chan. Specifically about the wasted time they spent together in high-school, though ☁️ remembered enjoying it while in the moment. Memories of the boy also brought back memories of his family, who wouldn’t accept him if their lives had depended on it. ☁️ rarely spoke to his parents, doing so once or twice a month. The man sighed and stood up, though he felt nauseous. He spent the next few minutes sitting, the white noise of the restaurant below feeding his motionless state.

“☁️, you okay?” One of the younger guys from the boss’s team approached ☁️ from the top of the steps.

“Yes, just had to make a call.” ☁️ said monotone, him standing up and adjusting his jacket from around his shoulders.

“Oh, ok. We’ll be leaving shortly.”

☁️ muttered a ‘thanks’ before nodding, watching as the man entered the bathroom. Sighing once again, ☁️ advanced down the steps and to his table.

“Why were you upstairs for so long?”

The boss walked alongside ☁️ as the other four company members strolled a few feet behind them. The group was heading back to their hotel, admiring the city on the way.

“Had to take a phone call, that’s all.” ☁️ said, his face still forward. He felt his boss’s eyes on him, the man returning his gaze toward the stone walkway.

☁️ felt his phone buzz through his pocket as the tree branches swayed above him. He pulled the device out, there being a text from an unknown number. The male supposed Felix had messaged, ☁️ tapping on the notification and reading it.

Felix had already sent him the concert ticket- including the date, time, and stadium name. ☁️ smiled, responding with the name of his hotel and his room number, along with a ‘thanks :).’

He closed the messages app and looked at his lock screen. The concert was in two days, and ☁️’s company had four days left in Italy.

The group stepped onto the sidewalk. Waiting for cars to pass, they could see their hotel- it was just a few blocks down the street.

This part of the city was quieter than most, with the only sound being cars roaming or pedestrians chattering. ☁️ and his group crossed the street, the male looking over to his boss after.

“Boss?”

“Yes, ☁️”

“Are we busy in two days?”

“Is that Sunday?”

“Yes.”

“Then kinda. We have a meeting at noon at the Italian Headquarters. It shouldn’t be too long, why?”

“No reason..” ☁️ said as the group walked slowly down the sidewalk. “I was just hoping to tour the city a bit more.”

“That’s fine.. Also, would you like to grab coffee with me tomorrow morning?” His boss turned to look at ☁️ once again, his voice becoming soft.

☁️ looked back at his boss, the man’s face holding an empty expression- as if he was tired. ☁️ forgot that the boss was a bit tipsy, wondering how the man was walking so normally. “Feel free to say no.”

“I’m sorry, I was hoping to sleep in before our tour tomorrow. Maybe next time.”

“For sure.”

-

The group’s hotel was extravagant, probably because the company was covering the expenses. With two large, beige columns surrounding the entrance, two glass doors stood between ☁️ and the lobby. As the first to walk through, ☁️ stepped into the breezeway and then the lobby. He stopped at the beautiful floral arrangement that sat in the center of the room, waiting for the rest of his group.

Looking around the room, he noticed two men step out of the elevator beside the front desk. One wore a black mask and a grey cap, with a white shirt and tan cargo pants. The taller one was extremely attractive with long black hair, sunglasses, a plain white shirt and really baggy jeans. He watched as the two walked in ☁️‘s direction, the one with the mask seeming to notice ☁️ looking at them. Feeling awkward, ☁️ turned to his group, who were finally standing next to him. After the two guys walked past, the boss held his hand out, motioning ☁️ to lead the way.

“Ready?”

☁️ nodded his head and walked over to the elevator, everyone’s shoes tapping against the white marble floors. Pressing the button, they waited for the elevator to come back down.

As the door popped open, Felix practically ran into ☁️ as he hurried out.

“Ah, sorry! Oh, wait. Hi, ☁️. Did you see where Channie went?” Felix moved out of the way so that ☁️’s group could walk into the elevator.

“I’m not sure. A guy with a mask walked outside a minute ago though.”

Felix grabbed ☁️’s wrist and began walking outside, ☁️ stumbling behind him. The elevator door closed after his boss’s team watched, visibly confused.

“Felix, what are you doing?” ☁️ sighed.

“Say hi to Chris.” Felix dragged the boy through the glass doors and into the breezeway before ☁️ lightly pulled his hand away. His eyebrows creased together and a nervous chill descended down his body.

“I can’t, Felix.” Annoyed, he spoke softly as to be polite. ☁️ should’ve been walking into his room and getting ready for bed.

“Please, just say hi to him. It’s been a really long time.”

“Why?” ☁️ questioned rather impulsively, tilting his head at Felix.

“What do you mean?”

☁️ hesitated to answer, choosing to look at the ground instead of the man in front of him.

“It’s been a really long time.” ☁️ continued to face the floor, the two standing in silence for a few seconds.

“Do you hold a grudge against him?”

☁️ picked his head up to look at Felix, surprised by the boldness of the question. The two stared at each other again, ☁️ not knowing the answer to Felix’s question. Did he actually hold a grudge against Chan? It wasn’t his fault that the two of them didn’t work out all of those years ago.

“It’s not.. my place to tell you how to feel, but you two were young. If you’re going to see him Sunday night, I think you should.. think about it.” Felix’s voice turned soft, his words feeling as though he was soothing a deep wound in ☁️’s mind. ☁️ looked up and down, feeling a bit embarrassed.

“I don’t blame him. It’s just…”

“..difficult to process?”

“Exactly.” ☁️ nodded his head, to then match Felix’s eye contact.

“I understand. I just thought that you’d be more excited to see him, considering your.. you know.” Felix let out a nervous chuckle, a few strands of his black hair getting into his eye. He continued, “This is a sudden.. and.. weird coincidence that we’re all here at the same time. And staying in the same hotel. I’m obviously not going to force you, but maybe we can all hang out later?” Felix anticipated the male’s response with a sympathetic smile.

“Of course, maybe when I’m not dressed like this.” ☁️ smiled and looked himself up and down. He was still in his dress pants and tie.

“Are you free tomorrow?” ☁️ asked timidly. He noticed that Felix hadn’t grown much since high school, but he definitely looked more mature.

“Later in the day, yes. Let us take you out.”

☁️ was about to argue, but the unknown man with black hair approached the glass, tapping on the door lightly to get their attention. He pointed a thumb behind him, as a sign that they should get going.

“Okay? I’ll see you tomorrow, ☁️.” Felix waved goodbye as he stepped out of the glass doors and into the night air. A light wind escaped into the breezeway, causing ☁️’s ties and jacket to flail.

☁️ rose out of bed, rubbing his eyes. It was 11am, so ☁️ took his time to get ready. Repeating his odd interactions with Felix in his head, past memories were all he could think about. The coincidence of him being in the same city at the same time as his celebrity high school friends was a distasteful concept. Equally as distasteful, the concept of Chan throwing ☁️ off pace as he had done all of those years ago made the male sigh. He had gotten over Chan completely after high school, but ☁️ was now in his mid-twenties. He felt immature for wanting to push Chan away and avoid him, having to remind himself that people grow and heal as time passes. ☁️ slept on the idea of seeing Chan today, unexpectedly content with the idea. He took his time getting ready for the day.

-

☁️ held his phone above the nightstand beside his bed. It was 11:40am, and he had received a text message two minutes prior.

Felix: Are you free at 6pm?

☁️ had planned to visit the Lago Maggiore with his company’s team today, though he assumed that they wouldn’t be there for more than a few hours. They were supposed to meet in less than 20 minutes.

☁️: Sure!

☁️ placed his phone back on the nightstand and got dressed, wearing something rather light for the warm day. He made sure to look well-polished for the evening, though.

With four minutes left of their car-ride back to the hotel, ☁️ would have a few minutes to spare before meeting with the guys.

The lake was fun, ☁️ did some touring and took lots of cute pictures- both of himself and with his boss’s team. The sun drained his energy, though, so he planned to go lay for a bit before going out back out.

☁️ rested his head against the car’s leather seat, closing his eyes as the boss drove the group through the busy streets of Milan.

☁️ opened his eyes as his alarm went off at 5:58pm. He reached over to his nightstand, tapping around until his alarm turned off. He slowly rolled off of the bed before stretching, grabbing his phone, and putting his shoes back on. As he reached for the doorknob, a light knock erupted from the other side.

☁️ opened the door steadily to see Chan with his head down, holding a bouquet of white lilies. Startled at ☁️’s quick response, Chan raised his eyebrows and stared at the male.

☁️ stared back at Chan in a state of bewilderment, him frozen entirely. Chan shook off his nerves and curled his lips into a bashful smile. The man admired ☁️ for a few seconds longer before softly handing the lilies over to him. Still confused, ☁️ took the flowers, holding the bouquet as if it were a baby. He wasn’t aware of the blank expression on his face, ☁️ eventually forcing a smile as he looked Chan up and down. The man wore a white shirt under a baggy jean jacket with black straight-legged pants. His hair was dyed light brown, it a little less wavy than ☁️ remembered. The male thought Chan looked tired- his skin was shiny but he had faint bags under his eyes. As he caught Chan’s gaze, he realized that he forgot to acknowledge him.

“Thank you. Please come in.” ☁️ said softly before turning his back to the boy, walking inside. Chan followed him, standing in the hallway as he watched ☁️ remove fake flowers from a vase. The male filled the glass with water, him then placing the bouquet of lilies into it. He walked over to the window, setting the vase on the table below it. ☁️ turned around to face Chan from the other side of the room.

“How have you been?” Chan said, still looking ☁️ up and down. ☁️ leaned on the table behind him, placing his hands on the rim of it.

“Well, and you?” ☁️’s eye twitched as he responded, hoping the man wouldn’t notice.

“I’ve been okay.”

“That’s good.”

Chan nodded his head, looking around the room. He felt awkward and was clearly nervous, though, ☁️ was too. ☁️ decided to break the tension as he walked towards Chan.

“Is Felix in the lobby?”

He passed Chan and opened the room door.

“He… didn’t want to come.”

“Of course he didn’t.” ☁️ mumbled under his breath. Felix had always been sneaky, though his intent was never malicious. It was obvious that the man was trying to set the two up again, but ☁️ couldn’t imagine it.

“Can I invite you out?.. Just us two?” Chan walked up to where ☁️ remained stagnant.

The male didn’t respond, nor did he move as the door slowly closed to a shut. ☁️ breathed silently, completely overwhelmed with the way the past two days have been.

Reuniting with the man that he fell out of love with was painful, and he felt himself wanting to avoid the situation altogether. What did he owe Chan? And after all this time? It wasn’t like Chan had made an effort to reach out after a little less than 10 years.

Chan stood quietly behind ☁️ as he watched the male remain in his stance. After a few seconds of silence, he walked around ☁️, opening his room door.

“I’m sorry, I hope you liked the flowers.” Chan sighed passively, almost as though he didn’t want to say it. The man began down the hallway, placing his hands into his pocket. ☁️ peaked out to watch the man’s figure become tinier in the distance, feeling bad for his silence. Felix’s words crept on him as if he were a ghost or omen.

Whether cause by an epiphany or not, ☁️ had finally comprehended how he felt. He did hold a grudge against Chan, and he felt terribly immature for doing so. Maybe Chan was truly the right person, but the two had connected at the wrong time. Those tropes had always seemed bittersweet, anyway.

It was impulsivity’s influence that convinced ☁️ to run down the hallway and into the area housing the elevator. ☁️ stood with his hands at his side, watching Chan slowly disappear behind the closing elevator doors.

To his surprise, Chan shoved his arm through the opening before it could shut, causing the doors to reopen. Chan took a step forward as ☁️ walked over to him. Before the doors could close again, Chan grabbed ☁️’s wrist and pulled him into the elevator, pulling with such force that the two ended up body to body against the wall. Chan leaned his head down as ☁️ lifted his, the two locking lips almost immediately.

The elevator door closed and ☁️ felt a rush of euphoria trickle down his body, alongside a pair of hands. He wrapped his arms around Chan’s neck as the two continued to make out.

The elevator began to descend, which caused ☁️ to pull away from Chan and look at the declining numbers behind him. The male turned back at Chan, who couldn’t wipe the grin off of his face.

“I really missed you.”

☁️ unwrapped his arms from around Chan, putting them to his side and turning around.

“I’m sure.”

The elevator door beeped, opening to the main lobby level. Two men stood opposite to them.

“S‘cuse us, Seungmin.”

Chan pushed ☁️ from behind after placing a hand on his lower back, the two hurrying out.

“Where are you going?” The man behind ‘Seungmin’ asked, turning his head as Chan walked past.

“Going on a date, I’ll be back.” Chan said after removing his hand from ☁️’s waist. ☁️ didn’t turn around, already pondering about his decision.

“A date, hm?” ☁️ scoffed slyly, as the two walked over to the glass doors. Chan didn’t entertain his flippant remark, simply stating, “Yes.”

☁️ didn’t anticipate having a make out session with his kinda-ex in the elevator, but was somehow a bit less anxious when around Chan now. The two walked through both of the entrances, down the small staircase, and out onto the sidewalk.

“I’m parked in the garage behind the hotel. Just wait here and I’ll spin around, yea?”

Before ☁️ could respond, Chan was already power walking toward the side of the building. ☁️ felt around his pockets, realizing that he forgot his phone and keycard in his room. He cursed under his breath, contemplating on whether or not he should run back to his room and grab it. Wait, how was he going to get in without a keycard? He sighed, walking back inside and towards the front desk, there luckily being no line.

-

☁️ watched as Chan pulled up to the curb in a red car, it seeming to be an older model. ☁️ walked over to the passenger side, though Chan practically threw himself out of the vehicle before he could open the door.

“Stop-” Chan shouted, him rushing toward ☁️ from around the car. Confused, the male took a step back as Chan opened the car door for him. He looked up to ☁️ expectantly, ☁️ rolling his eyes and smiling.

“Thank you.”

Chan nodded as ☁️ stepped inside the car.

-

The drive was silent- for the first few minutes that was. ☁️ couldn’t stop looking at Chan as he drove. The sky was transitioning into a purple hue, though its clouds of pink and orange refused to do the same. The street lights eventually turned on sequentially, illuminating the road as night engulfed the city.

“See something you like?” Chan looked over to ☁️, a smirk forming on his lips. ☁️ could tell he was overly confident since the kiss they shared, the male wanting to change that.

“Felix told me you guys were in a band. Wanna play a song for me?” ☁️ was now the one smiling as Chan became visibly nervous.

“If you’d like. You’re gonna have to use your phone, though. There’s nowhere to plug a cord in here.”

“I don’t have my phone, can I use yours?”

Chan furrowed his eyebrows, though he didn’t question it.

“Yeah, it’s in my pocket. Pull it out.”

☁️ reached over into Chan’s pants pocket, grabbing his phone. He tapped on it, a picture of Chan and his group as the wallpaper. He slid up, though the man had a password. As the car came to a stop at a red light, ☁️ shoved the phone in front of Chan. The man looked into it, unlocking the device with facial recognition.

“What’s your band name?” ☁️ asked as he tapped on the Youtube app.

“Stray Kids.”

☁️ almost laughed at him.

“How’d you come up with that?”

“I’m not answering you.” Chan said dully, though he smiled. The man was relieved to hear ☁️ teasing him, the two slowly becoming more comfortable with each other.

☁️ tapped on the first music video that popped up, it being ‘S-class’.

“182 million views? That’s cool.”

“Which ones that?”

“S-class.”

“Watch another, you���re not gonna like that one.”

“Too late, it already started.”

☁️ smiled at Felix as he appeared on the screen, though he jumped back as the rapping started- chan tried not to laugh at him. ☁️ watched the music video intensely, occasionally chuckling at it.

“Any of your group members single? You should give them my number.” ☁️ smiled at Chan, who wasn’t as amused.

“No. I don’t even have your number.” Chan seemed jealous.

“I’m kidding,” ☁️ mumbled, continuing to watch the video.

“Why don’t you have a lot of parts?” ☁️ asked, this time in a serious tone.

“I have more throughout the album.”

As the music video finished, ☁️ nodded his head.

“Very experimental.”

“I said you weren’t gonna like it.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it. Maybe it’ll grow on me.”

Chan smiled at the comment, his eyes still on the road.

“Listen to the La-La song. You’ll like that one better.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

☁️ tapped on the ‘LALALALA’ music video, it having a much smoother start.

“Felix looks really good.”

“Yeah.”

As the video came to an end, ☁️ smiled at Chan.

“I did like that one.”

“See?”

☁️ closed the app and turned off Chan’s phone, placing it in his lap.

“I’m impressed. Hope I’m hearing those two live.”

“You’ll just have to wait and see.”

The two smiled to each other as Chan pulled into a small parking lot.

“We’re here.”

-

“Hyunjin took me here on our first night. It’s nice, right?”

Chan stood beside ☁️ in a small, open-concept restaurant. The two drove into the countryside, where it was much less crowded. The restaurant featured large glass doorframes with many plants hanging from above- giving the room a comfortable feel.

“Yes.” ☁️ responded, still looking around. A woman brought the two to a table in the corner, Chan sitting against the wall. She handed the two a pair of menus and quickly departed. ☁️ opened the menu, half-expecting Chan to start a conversation, which he did.

"☁️,”

“Yes?” ☁️ placed his menu down to look at the man in front of him. Chan hesitated as ☁️ narrowed his eyes at him, probably making the man even more hesitant.

“Firstly.. I’d like to thank you for coming out with me. I’m very happy to see you again after so long..” Chan avoided eye contact with ☁️ as he said this, making the male smile.

“I’m happy to see you too.” ☁️ replied, genuinely. After the kind gestures and impulsive decisions, ☁️ had put his pride aside to hear Chan out- which he had been enjoying so far.

“I just wanted to say.. that I apologize. I wanted to reach out to you, honestly. I just got so caught up with my schedules and my health- I just..”

“There’s no need to apologize.” ☁️ interrupted.

“No, I need to. It wasn’t right to abandon you the way I did.”

“It was a mutual decision, Chris.”

“Even so, I shouldn’t have let you go. Despite everything. I should’ve kept in contact, and after you went off to school and I became an idol, I tried. I guess you got a new number because my messages would never go through.”

☁️ tilted his head. “So you did try to reach out?”

“You think that I wouldn’t have?”

☁️ looked down at the table, not remembering what could’ve prevented him from receiving Chan’s texts. He simply shrugged his shoulders at Chan’s question.

“Just know I did, but I should’ve done more.”

“Wouldn’t your fans have been angry, anyway?” ☁️ looked up and at Chan.

“So?”

☁️ sighed, knowing that this conversation wasn’t going to go anywhere.

“Chris, when we stopped talking in high school, it was because you always kept me hidden. And all of these years later, I still feel the same way. I’m not going to be hidden in your shadow, and I’m sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear.” ☁️ spoke so that his voice was concise, yet tender. He wanted to be honest in the kindest way possible.

Chan contemplated ☁️’s words, the two sitting in silence for a moment. He looked over to the waitress as she approached the two, a notepad and pen in hand.

Ordering waters and a small appetizer, the two watched as she smiled and walked away. Chan looked at ☁️ with a blank expression, the male creasing his eyebrows at him.

“If I tell you this, you need to promise me that you won’t be mad.” Chan was serious, but ☁️ rolled his eyes.

“Okay, just tell me.”

“You need to promise.”

“Okay, I promise, just tell me.”

“Actually..” Chan looked up at the ceiling, contemplating once again. “..Let’s talk about it after we eat. I don’t wanna go back and forth.”

☁️ huffed, sitting back against his chair with his arms crossed. He looked at Chan with a somewhat irritated look, forcing Chan to change the topic.

“You know, Felix wouldn’t shut up about you. He’s really happy you’re here.” Chan smiled as he spoke. ☁️ gave the man a small smile back, nodding. “He told me that he was gonna take you out if I didn’t.”

Though confused by his statement, ☁️ he didn’t question it.

“Well, I’m glad I’m here too. He’s a sweetheart.” ☁️ picked his menu back up, quickly picking something to eat before the waitress came back.

“He is.”

-

Chan having ordered a lot, the waitress took empty plates and bowls from the table. ☁️ watched the man finish the rest of his food, there only a few people left in the restaurant.

Sitting across from Chan felt the same as it had in high school- with an unspoken tension between them, ☁️ was still happy to be in his crush’s presence.

“Do you remember when we would sit together after school?” Chan pushed his bowel to the edge of the table, ☁️ stunned by his question.

“I was just thinking about that.”

“I remember you’d always meet me after classes so that we could walk together. And the way my mom would cook you food when you came to my house. You always felt bad when she did.”

☁️ smiled wistfully and nodded.

“Also, when I joined the club you were in just to spend time with you. And when you’d help me with my essays in the library. I had a crush on you for a while before we talked. Then you started avoiding me.”

“I recall both of us avoiding each other after we both decided that it wouldn’t work out.” ☁️ blinked, keeping his gaze on Chan. “I was.. miserable.”

“I never wanted to hurt you.”

☁️ shook his head. “It’s okay, I don’t really remember it.”

Chan nodded slowly, him then placing his elbow onto the table. The man rested his chin into his hand, softly gazing at ☁️.

“Well, I do. And.. I really hated living my life without you.”

Chan and ☁️ stared at each other, though ☁️ couldn’t help but tear up. He turned his head to the side, looking down at the wooden floorboards surrounding him.

A single tear fell, though both of his eyes have watered. The male looked down at his shirt and lap to see where the teardrop could’ve landed, though there was no sign of it.

The waitress trotted over to their table and placed the check in between the two, thanking them and quickly departing. ☁️ continued to look down, though he thanked the lady back before she walked away.

Chan immediately grabbed the check, walking up to the stand to pay for their food. Embarrassed, ☁️ wiped his face with his sleeves.

Chan approached the table, offering a hand down to ☁️. The male placed his hand into Chan’s as he helped ☁️ get out of his chair. Before resting his hand on the male’s hip, Chan wrapped his arm around ☁️’s back.

The two walked side to side out of the restaurant, only stopping when they reached Chan’s car. Chan moved his hand from ☁️’s waist to his shoulder, placing his other hand on the opposing side. The two now looked at each other, ☁️ noticing that Chan was now the one teary-eyed. Chan pulled the male into a tight hug, ☁️ hugging him back just as tight.

“I’m sorry… I really am. Can I ask you to give me another chance?” Chan kept his grasp on ☁️’s body as the two continued the embrace. ☁️ exhaled loudly.

“You live in Korea, don’t you? It’s not going to work, Chan.” As much as it hurt ☁️ to say, he wanted to remain realistic.

“I forgot to talk about that.” Chan took a step back from ☁️, him grabbing the male’s hands and holding them.

“Oh, yea. What were you gonna tell me before?”

“Let’s get in the car.”

-

Chan pulled out of the parking lot, driving for a minute before turning onto a dirt road.

“This isn’t the way we came.”

“It’s a scenic route. I took it last time I came.”

☁️ looked out of his window to see the town fade into trees.

“What were you gonna tell me.”

“Don’t be mad.”

☁️ looked over to Chan, getting irritated. Chan glanced over, smiling at the boy’s expression.

“So, after Felix saw you in that restaurant you went to yesterday, he met your boss in the bathroom. He asked about you, and they had a pretty lengthy conversation. He learned what you do nowadays, your company’s name, your department, and all that.”

“What?!”

“Felix said that there was a Korean branch happy to hire you. He spoke to them today.”

☁️ laughed out loud, baffled.

“Wait, wait, wait. So Felix was spying on me, got a lead on me through my tipsy boss, and then got me a job in Korea? I don’t even speak Korean.” ☁️ looked over at Chan, still in shock.

“We could be together if you moved.”

“You think I’d just pick up and leave because we bumped into each other? Chris, please be realistic.”

“I can’t let you go so easily, ☁️. I already made that mistake. I need you.” Chan spoke softly and turned to ☁️, the two glaring at each other before Chan noticed the car was shifting off of the road. He harshly turned the wheel, regaining control and continuing through the forest.

“What you need is your eyes on the road.”

“I’m serious, ☁️.” Chan exhaled loudly.

“I’m serious, too. It’s unrealistic. I already told you that I didn’t want to be hidden.”

“I wouldn’t hide you. I’d tell the whole world about you if I could.”

☁️ thought his words were sweet, but he had his mind made up.

“I’m sorry.”

☁️ watched as the city in the distance became closer and closer. It didn’t take the two long to reach the hotel’s garage, Chan pulling in.

Chan parked the car, the two then unbuckling their seatbelts. He pushed a button on the driver’s seat door, a clicking sound following. ☁️ tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

“My door won’t open.” He looked over to Chan, the man’s finger hovering over a button. ☁️ looked back at his side’s door, realizing it was locked. He pushed the lock open, though another click sounded.

“I’m not letting you leave until you give me a second chance.”

☁️ rolled his eyes and turned to face Chan.

“I already told you how I feel.”

“Just spend a month with me and see how it goes. Please.”

☁️ pushed the lock up again, Chan clicking the button. He thought about Chan’s offer, though he didn’t want to give the man hope.

“I can’t.”

“I have my own place. You can stay with me.”

“How would you make time for me? How would we be out in public? I refuse to repeat how things were before.” ☁️ gave up and rested his head on the seat.

“That’s what I’m saying. I’d make sure it wasn’t anything like that. I’d take you everywhere that I go. I promise.”

Chan grabbed ☁️’s hand, basically pleading him with puppy eyes. ☁️ glanced over at him, the scene making him smile.

Spending a few weeks with Chan didn’t sound too bad. It wasn’t like he had much going on besides work- no boyfriend, no pets, just an insipid apartment. He really liked Chan, and was truly considering to try it all over again. Considering the opportune circumstances, maybe their fire was meant to rekindle. Maybe they were truly soulmates. ☁️ didn’t want to lose what displayed so much promise.

“I’ll talk to my boss. A month seems too long.”

“I’ll make it worth your while.” Chan smiled at ☁️, letting go of his hand. He tapped another button on the door, unlocking the vehicle. The two slid out and walked together up to the hotel entrance. Chan took ☁️’s hand and intertwined their fingers as they walked up the steps.

Realizing that he was supposed to grab a keycard from the front desk, ☁️ let go of Chan’s hand and stepped behind an older person speaking to the worker. After a few seconds, the person walked toward the elevator, ☁️ smiling as the lady recognized him. She grabbed something from behind the desk and placed it in front of him.

“Thank you so much.” ☁️ said as he grabbed the keycard, him then waving goodbye.

“You left your card up there?” Chan asked as they approached the elevator.

“Yeah, when I.. met you at the elevator.”

“Met, hm?”

“Shut up.”

Chan smiled, pulling the male into him as they waited.

The elevator beeped and then opened, the two walking inside. ☁️ tapped his floor number, expecting Chan to do the same after him- except he didn’t.

“Aren’t you going to select your floor?”

“No. I wanna spend more time with you.”

“I’m all Chris-ed out, sorry.” ☁️ smiled as Chan wrapped his big arms around the male’s neck, resting his head onto ☁️’s neck.

“No you’re not.”

The two stayed in that position until the elevator opened, ☁️ dragging Chan to his hotel room down the hall. Swiping his card into the lock, he opened the door and led Chan inside.

“This means you’re coming back to Korea with me, right?” Chan asked as he climbed onto ☁️’s bed. ☁️ grabbed his phone from the nightstand and checked the time. It was 10:49pm, much later than he expected. He had a few messages from his company’s team.

“No. I don’t have a plane ticket or enough packed clothes.”

“You could just come with me and take mine.” Chan rested on his back, watching as ☁️ sat beside him. Chan pulled ☁️’s shoulder down.

“I have to work.” ☁️ now laid in front of Chan, the two looking into each other’s eyes.

“Don’t make me wait long to see you. I’ll miss you too much.” ☁️ turned to face Chan, wrapping his arms around the man’s neck. Chan responded by placing a hand on ☁️’s waist, lifting the male to sit on top of him.

“We’ll see.”

Chan continued to rub around ☁️’s waist and behind.

“The very last time you came over, we laid like this, and I remember wanting to kiss you bad. You had to go, though, and I didn’t want you to get in trouble. I also remember when you said your parents didn’t like me.”

“How the hell do you remember everything after so long?”

“How could I forget?” Chan smiled, his soft voice and smooth skin making ☁️ melt from on top of him. The two continued to look into each other’s eyes, ☁️ moving his legs onto each side of Chan’s hips and sitting. Chan grabbed the back of the male’s neck, softly pulling his head into his. The two locked lips, ☁️ trailing his hand down the man’s large chest.

Chan grabbed ☁️’s chin and lifted the male’s lips off of his own. He smiled, at ☁️, utterly enamored.

“I won’t let you go again. Would you let me be your boyfriend?”

“So suddenly?”

☁️ intertwined his fingers into Chan’s as he sat on the man’s waist. Chan simply nodded as ☁️ leaned in, planting a kiss on his cheek. Not being able to wipe the grin off of his face, Chan anticipated the boy’s response.

“I suppose.. we’ll see how it goes.” ☁️ whispered teasingly, his hand cupping the side of Chan’s face.

“Finally.”

Chan placed his hands on ☁️’s waist again, flipping the two of them over. ☁️ now laid under Chan, who put himself in between the male’s legs.

The moon hung high outside of ☁️’s hotel room window, glistening above thin clouds. Chan placed his lips on ☁️’s neck as those clouds lingered gracefully and uninterrupted through night sky. Within only a few minutes of being alone together, Chan and ☁️ had already tuned out the world around them. Both focused on the man they held close- the one with the beautiful smile and soft touch.

Now that Chan and ☁️ had accomplished both of their dreams independently, having each other in their arms was their only priority. They simply weren’t meant to be apart; rather, their purpose lies in a life with each other.

-——♡——-

BONUS: ( may or may not be a snippet of part 3 )

“Have you been enjoying the concert so far, babe?”

Chan was the last one to step backstage during the intermission, him immediately sitting next to ☁️ on one of the couches. He pulled ☁️ into a hug and rested his head on the male’s shoulder, sweat dripping from his head.

“Yes, but you’re all sweaty..”

“You didn’t seem to mind that last ni-“

☁️ punched Chan’s arm, looking around to make sure nobody heard him, making Chan laugh.

“Be quiet, I’ll grab you a towel.”

likes, comments, & reblogs r appreciated ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

a/n: this took forever sry :,) idk how to feel abt it but hope u guys liked !! ♡ this draft was making my app glitch so bad LMAO. anyway, part 3 is not coming soon- i need to write abt smth else for a while lolzz

-——♡——-

[urfavlarry]

Male!Carmilla Carmine x gn!reader

warnings: bad grammar, swearing

A/N: This one is a bit short sorryy 😭

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Being a worker at one of the most powerful overlords company really was.. something. Especially when you were the CEOs most trusted assistant. You handled almost everything; scheduling meetings, working on paperwork, working on the new ideas the boss has and go to meetings with the boss and his daughters. You’ve worked there ever since you could remember, taking care of his daughters since they were little. You liked the job, but it was tiring and you had to deal with really.. how can you say it lightly.. idiots. People constantly doubted you and your skills or just toyed with you as if you were some side whore they could use.

“He’s only keeping you around for your looks.”

“He doesnt think you’re skilled”

“When he gets bored of you he will just kill you off.”

Those are some things you hear at least once a week. But you learned to ignore it. You knew your boss had a bit of a temper, but you knwo he cares about his people more than anything, especially his daughters. He was hardworking and he was a passionate person, always coming up with ideas and working day and night. It didn’t have to look like it but he cared about most of his employees, yet you were told he favored you more so over the others, but you didn’t really see it.

Today was a particularly busy day, you were buried in the depths of paperwork and you were just counting down the papers and prayed you hopefully finish at 1am at least. It was 2 hours after your shift and your hand ached from all the writing and your eyes were drooping. A sudden knock on the door wakes you up and every bit of sleepiness leaves your body in an instant. You straighten yourself and dust off your clothes and yell a weak “come in”. And there he was, your boss. He had a stern look on his face and he walked up to your desk. He eyes you closely and a low voice with an Italian accent starts to speak; “Y/N, would you mind telling me what time it is?” He says and circles around you like a shark watching his prey. “1:43am, sir.” You say and look down at the almost finished pile of papers. He sighs and crosses his arms over his chest; “And could you kindly explain to me why the hell you are still working?” You stumble over your words and make up a really weak excuse and he looks at you unamused; “Sir I’ll just fini—”“Ah, ah. The only thing you are finishing is working. Pack up and go home before I make you leave myself, and we wouldn’t want that would we?” He says and ushers you out of your office, making you comply since he did have a bit of a temper. “Oh and Y/N I have a meeting tommorow with some company, they want me to model my products or something I could have cared less what those idiots had to say.” He says and walks with you to the exit of the company, his hand on your waist, pulling you closer to his body. “I’ll have to leave the other responsobilities to you while I’m gone, but I’m sure you can handle it, that’s why you’re my asistant.” He says a bit too smoothly as it made your stomach turn.

Your face feels a bit hot and he spins you around, smirking down at you. “But, maybe you could come to my office after I get back.” You stutter over your words and you internally slap yourself; “Sir but that would be after my shift.” He shrugs and dips you, face inches away from yours. “Then I guess I’ll have to pay you extra for the service hm? Amore mio~” His hands wander up to your cheek and pulls you closer, your lips touching. His lips were a bit rough, your soft ones moving in sync with his. You pull away when you suddenly hear a voice calling for him, needing him urgently. He mumbles some swears under his breath but calms down and pulls you up. He kisses your cheek and smiles, something he doesn’t really do often. “Good night la mía vita~” He says and leaves you on the streets of hell.

You walk to your apartment and kick off your shoes, finally relaxing in bed when you feel something in your pocket; a piece of paper. It was a phone number written in neat handwriting and you smile, quickly adding it into your phone.

“xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx

- Can’t wait to hear your lovely voice Amore~”

[pochiperpe90]

[Eng] Elle Italia - Daily Venezia: THE HISTORY IS US

Luca Marinelli is almost unrecognizable in the role of Mussolini in the series M. Son of the Century, directed by Joe Wright. Two greats together to tell one of the darkest and most criminal periods in History

Personal opinion: M. Son of the Century is one of the masterpieces of the 2024 Mostra. It's a shame it can't win, because it's a TV series, even if its director continues to call it a film. A seven-hour long film, which will be released in eight episodes on Sky and Now in the early months of 2025. It’s produced by Sky Studios and Lorenzo Mieli for The Apartment, a Fremantle group company, based on the novel by Antonio Scurati, written by Stefano Bises and Davide Serino. The director is Joe Wright, the protagonist is Luca Marinelli. It tells with historical accuracy the rise of Mussolini and our country's surrender to dictatorship.

Sensitive material, it reminds us that we invented fascism, and perhaps a foreign director, let's say, could have approached it with greater detachment, without our sense of guilt.  Wright looks at me almost with pity, in a good way: “But I share that sense of guilt, I reject national borders, there are no nations: the similarities between us human beings are more than the differences, I feel as responsible as you Italians…I was very careful to tell the truth without being didactic, I tried to understand without sympathizing, maintaining a critical distance... Mussolini was fascinating, he seduced a nation and many others. If I hadn't shown that charm then people might have thought that Italians were all idiots. That balance was my main concern... On a more personal level it's a series about toxic masculinity, which is like nothing else in us, we have it inside us. We have to understand our responsibilities and turn our backs on them, so as not to end up morally bankrupt".

Every day it took Marinelli two hours of makeup and hair to get into Mussolini's shoes. "It was something I brought home with me," the actor confesses, "in the same shape as on the set: the 22 kilos I had gained, my hair cut as you see it in the scenes.  The black lenses. were the things I could leave in the makeup van. Working with all the different departments was fascinating”.

It must not have been easy for him to shoot so convincingly in the fascist salute: “These are filthy and brutal things that the role required of me, but of course there is a big difference between what is considered right and what the role requires. I certainly did not take pleasure in carrying out certain actions or even in expressing myself in that way, but rather the opposite. What I had to face during the production of the project, as a convinced anti-fascist that I am, really cost me a lot. I did not come out of it intact”. But he was in the hands of an excellent director, a master in the cinematic transpositions of great books (Anna Karenina, Atonement, Pride and Prejudice).  How does he approach them? "The film," Wright continues, "is what happens in my head while I read the book. I'm dyslexic and so when I read I think I see beyond the words, I create the scenes and I edit, zooming in on small details that interest me. M. is a mash up between Scarface, Man with a Movie Camera and 90s rave culture." Tom Rowlands' techno music creates the right atmosphere: "I didn't want anything classic, kids have to see it too, they have to understand the roots of fascism." Luca Marinelli is monumental in the role of the "duce." "He's one of the greatest actors in the world, along with Gary Oldman. But, like Gary Oldman, he doesn't know it."

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Dow promised to turn sneakers into playground surfaces, then dumped them in Indonesia

Dow Chemicals plastered Singapore with ads for its sneaker recycling program, promising to turn old shoes into playground tracks. But the shoes it collected in its “recycling” bins were illegally dumped in Indonesia. This isn’t an aberration: it’s how nearly all plastic recycling has always worked.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/26/career-criminals/#fool-me-twice-three-times-four-times-a-hundred-times

Plastic recycling’s origin story starts in 1973, when Exxon’s scientists concluded that plastic recycling would never, ever be cost-effective (#ExxonKnew about this, too). Exxon sprang into action: they popularized the recycling circular arrow logo and backed “anti-littering” campaigns that blamed the rising tide of immortal, toxic garbage on peoples’ laziness.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/14/they-knew/#doing-it-again

Remember the campaign where an Italian guy dressed like a Native American shed a single tear as he contemplated plastic litter? Funded by the plastic industry, as a way of shifting blame for plastic waste from the wealthy, powerful corporations who lied about plastics recycling to the individuals who believed their lies:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-indian-crying-environment-ads-pollution-1123-20171113-story.html

When I was a kid in Ontario, we had centralized, regulated, reusable bottle depots — beer and soda bottles came in standard sizes, differentiated by paper labels that could be pressure-washed off. When you were done with your bottle, you returned it for a deposit and it got washed and returned to bottlers to be refilled again and again and again.

After intense lobbying from soda companies, brewers and the plastic industry, that program was replaced with curbside “blue boxes” that promised to recycle our plastic waste. 90% of the plastics created has never been — and will never be — recycled. Today, the plastic industry plans on tripling the amount of single-use plastic in use worldwide:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/26/plastic-fatalistic/#recycled-lies

You know those ads from companies like Bluetriton (formerly “Nestle Waters”) that promise that your single-use plastic bottles are “100% recyclable…and can be used for new bottles and all sorts of new, reusable things?”

Bluetriton is a private equity-backed rollup that has absorbed most of the bottled water companies you’re familiar with, including Poland Spring, Pure Life, Splash, Ozarka, and Arrowhead. When they were sued in DC for making false claims about their “recyclable” water-bottles, their defense was that these were “non-actionable puffery.” According to Bluetriton, when it described itself as “a guardian of sustainable resources” and “a company who, at its core, cares about water,” it was being “vague and hyperbolic.”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/26/plastic-fatalistic/#recycled-lies

With this high standard for plastic recycling, Dow’s Singapore scam shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it seems to have surprised the government of Singapore. Writing for Reuters, Joe Brock, Yuddy Cahya Budiman and Joseph Campbell describe how they caught Dow red-handed:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/global-plastic-dow-shoes/

The method is actually pretty straightforward: Reuters hid tracking devices in cavities in the soles of sneakers, dropped them in one of Dow’s collection bins, and then followed them. The shoes were passed onto Dow’s subcontractor, Yok Impex Pte Ltd, who sent them hopping from island to island throughout Indonesia, until they ended up in junk-markets.

Not all the shoes, though — one pair was simply moved from Dow’s collection bin to a donation bin at a Singaporean community center. Of the 11 pairs that Reuters tracked, not one ended up at a recycling facility. So much for Dow’s slogan: “Others see an old shoe. We see the future.”

Dow blamed all this on Yok Impex, but didn’t explain why its “recycling” program involved a company whose sole trade is exporting used clothing. Dow promised to cancel its deal with Yok Impex, but Yok Impex’s accountant told Reuters that the deal would be remain in place until the end of the contract. Yok Impex, meanwhile, shifted the blame to the low-waged women who sort through the clothing donations it takes in from across Singapore.

Indonesia bans bulk imports of used clothes, on the grounds that used clothes are unhygenic, displace the local textiles industry, and shipments contain high volumes of waste that ends up in Indonesian incinerators, landfills and rivers.

In other words, Singaporeans thought they were saving the planet by putting their shoes in Dow bins, but they were really sending those shoes on a long journey to an unlicensed dump. Dow enlisted schoolchildren in used-shoe collection drives, making upbeat videos that featured students like Zhang Youjia boasting that they “contributed 15 pairs of shoes.”

Dow does this all the time. In 2021, Dow’s “breakthrough technology to turn plastic waste into clean fuel” in Idaho was revealed to be a plain old incinerator:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/environment-plastic-oil-recycling/

Also in 2021, in India, a Dow program to “use high-tech machinery to transform the [plastic from the Ganges] into clean fuel” was revealed to have ceased operations — but was still collecting plastic and promising that it was all being turned into fuel:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-environment-plastic-insight-idUSKBN29N024

Dow operates a nearly identical “shoe recycling” program in neighboring Malaysia, and did not return Reuters’ requests for comment as to whether the shoes collected for “recycling” in the far more populous nation were also being illegally dumped offshore.

The global business lobby loves the idea of “personal responsibility” and its evil twin, “caveat emptor.” Its pet economists worship the idea of “revealed preferences,” claiming that when we use plastic, we may claim that we don’t want to have our bodies poisoned with immortal, toxic microplastics, that we don’t want our land and waters despoiled — but we actually love it, because otherwise we’d “vote with our wallets” for something else.

The obvious advantage of telling people to vote with their wallets is that the less money you have in your wallet, the fewer votes you get. Companies like Dow have used their access to the capital markets (a fancy phrase for “rich people”) to gobble up their competitors, eliminating “wasteful competition” and piling up massive profits. Those profits are laundered into policy — like replacing Ontario’s zero-waste refillable bottle system with a “recycling” system that sent plastics to the ends of the Earth to be set on fire or buried or dumped in the sea.

The ruling class’s pet economists have a name for this policy laundering: they call it “regulatory capture.” Now, when you hear “regulatory capture,” you might think about companies that get so big that they are able to boss governments around, with the obvious answer that companies need to be regulated before they get too big to jail:

https://doctorow.medium.com/small-government-fd5870a9462e

But that’s not how elite economists talk about regulatory capture: for them, capture starts with the very existence of regulators. For them, any government agency that proposes to protect the public from corporate fraud and murder inevitably becomes an agent of the corporations it is supposed to rein in, so the only answer is to eliminate regulators altogether:

https://doctorow.medium.com/regulatory-capture-59b2013e2526

This nihilism lets rich people blame the rest of us for their sins: “if you didn’t want your children to roast or freeze to death in the climate emergency, you should have sold your car and used the subway (that we bribed your city not to build).”

Nihilism is contagious. Think of the music industry: before Napster, 80% of the music ever recorded was not for sale, banished to the scrapheap of history and the vaults of record companies who paid farcically low sums to their artists.

During the File Sharing Wars, listeners were excoriated for failing to pay for music — much of which wasn’t for sale in the first place. But today, fans overwhelmingly pay for Spotify, a streaming service that notoriously pays musicians infinitesimal sums for their work.

Spotify is a creature of the Big Three labels — Sony, Universal and Warner — who own 70% of all the world’s recorded music copyrights and 65% of all the world’s music publishing. The rock-bottom per-stream prices that Spotify pays were set by the Big Three. Why would the labels want less money from Spotify?

Simple: as co-owners of Spotify, they make more money when Spotify pays less for music. Musicians have a claim on the money they take out of Spotify as royalties — but dividends, buybacks and capital gains from Spotify are the labels’ to use as they see fit. They can share that bounty with some artists, all artists, or no artists.

Not only that, but the Big Three’s deal with Spotify includes a “most favored nation” clause, which means that the independent artists who aren’t under Sony/UMG/Warner’s thumb have to take the rock-bottom rate the Big Three insisted on — likewise the small labels who compete with the Big Three. The difference is that none of these artists and small labels have massive portfolios of Spotify stock, nor do they get free advertising on Spotify, or free inclusion on hot Spotify playlists, or monthly minimum payouts from Spotify.

The idea that we shop at the wrong kind of monopolist in the wrong way is a recipe for absolute despair. It doesn’t matter whether you listen to music with the Big Tech-owned monopoly service (Youtube) or the Big Content-owned monopoly service (Spotify). The money you hand over to these giant companies goes to artists the same way that the sneakers you put in a Dow collection bin goes to a recycling plant.

Think of the billions of human labor hours we all spent washing and sorting our plastics for a recycling program that didn’t exist and will never exist — imagine if we’d spent that time and energy demanding that our politicians hold petrochemical companies to account instead.

At the end of Break ’Em Up, Zephyr Teachout’s outstanding 2020 book on monopolies, Teachout has some choice words for “consumerism” as a theory of change. She writes that if you’re on your way to a protest against a new Amazon warehouse but you never make it because you waste too much time looking for a mom-and-pop stationers to sell you a marker to write your protest sign, Amazon wins:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/29/break-em-up/#break-em-up

The problem isn’t that you shop the wrong way. Yes, by all means, support the creators and producers you care about in the way that they prefer, but keep your eye on the prize. Structural problems don’t have individual solutions. The problem isn’t that you have chosen single-use plastics — it’s that in our world everything for sale is packaged in single-use plastics. The problem isn’t that you’ve bought a subscription to the wrong music streaming service — it’s that labels have been allowed to buy all their competitors, creators’ unions have been smashed and degraded, and giant accounting scams by big companies generate minuscule fines.

The good news is that after 40 years of despair inducing regulatory nihilism and “vote with your wallet” talk, we’re finally paying attention to systemic problems, with a new generation of trustbusting radicals working around the world to end corporate impunity.

Dow is a repeat offender. A repeat, repeat offender. Chrissakes, they’re the linear descendants of Union Carbide, the company that poisoned Bhopal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

They shouldn’t be trusted to run a lemonade stand, let alone a “recycling” program. The same goes for Big Tech and Big Content company and the markets for creative labor. These companies have repeatedly demonstrated their unfitness, their habitual deception and immorality. These companies have captured their regulators, repeatedly, so we need better regulators — and weaker companies.

The thing I love about Teachout’s book is that it talks about what we should be demanding from our governments — it’s a manifesto for a movement against corporate power, not a movement for “responsible consumerism.” That was the template that Rebecca Giblin and I followed when we wrote Chokepoint Capitalism, our book about the brutal, corrupt creative labor market:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

We have a chapter on Spotify (multiple chapters, in fact!). For our audiobook, we made that chapter a “Spotify Exclusive” — it’s the only part of the book you can get on Spotify, and it’s free:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/12/streaming-doesnt-pay/#stunt-publishing

Next Thu (Mar 2) I’ll be in Brussels for Antitrust, Regulation and the Political Economy, along with a who’s-who of European and US trustbusters. It’s livestreamed, and both in-person and virtual attendance are free. On Fri (Mar 3), I’ll be in Graz for the Elevate Festival.

[Image ID: A woman kneeling to tie her running shoe. She stands on a background of plastic waste. In the top right corner is the logo for Dow chemicals. Below it is the Dow slogan, 'Others see an old shoe. We see the future.']

[stvrlightt69]

Do you think that i had forgotten? ~ Theo Nott

"Do you think i had forgotten about you?"~About you, The 1975.

paring: theo nott x reader/y/n

               .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Y/n and Pansy were in the common room, the rest of the Slytherin group were in Hogsmeade, or so they said. Y/n was quite offended that they didn't invite them to accompany them in Hogsmeade as they did every Saturday.

She a bit confused as to why Pansy didn't seem fazed by this. Little did she know there was a quite good reason for their dismissal.

✧.*✧.*

A few hours later the rest of the group strolled into the common room, looking for the two girls. To only find one, Pansy, she was curled up on the sofa. Theo stood before her confused as to where the other girl, Y/n, was. Y/n to Theo was the only girl who even had his attention, and the only one who was on his mind 24/7.

Pansy quickly awakened when Draco and Mattheo were shouting about quidditch or what not. "What the fuck?!" Pansy mumbled in her sleepy haze, she looked around to find no Y/n in sight, but Theo towering over her looking slightly aggravated. "Where's Y/n?!" Theo practically shouted at the girl before him. "I don't know?!" Pansy said her voice filled with panic. He stared pacing  the floor mumbling in Italian under his breath, something along the lines of "per l 'amor di Merlino"(For Merlin's sake) and "dove cazzo'e allora?!"(where the fuck is she then).

He suddenly scurried off towards the girls dormitories, leaving no time for the rest of the group to question him as to where he was going, even though they definitely did not need to ask. Theo's concern and his deep affection for Y/n was apparently know to everyone but the girl who needed to know.

While Theo was hurrying to get to Y/n's dorm, Y/n was curled up in her bed wondering why Theo hadn't really been showing her much attention or talking to her much the past couple of days. Then she thought she shouldn't care, why should she be any different to another girl Theo spoke to.

This would normally not even cross her mind but recently her and Theo had been spending a lot of time together and they both grew found of each others company. The only thing stopping them being together was they both feared the rejection of the other. They also did not want to ruin the great bond they had created. All that would change tonight though.

A big thud of her dorm dorm shuck her from her thoughts. "What the fuck" she shouted not expecting someone to barge into her dorm. She rolled over to face the door and lo and behold the boy who had been stuck on her mind all day was standing before her. Her expression slightly softened as she looked at him, to slowly have the doubt and thought of him not liking her to flood her brain once again. "What do you need Theo?" the boy in question looked at her with a puzzled expression "I just wanted to talk to you?" "About what" she said slightly aggressively. "Are you okay?" "Yeah" "Are you sure you seem upset?" "Yes, now what did you want to talk about" "Have i done something wrong" he said completely ignoring the question she asked. "No" she said half lying, because he hadn't actually done anything, it wasn't like they were dating. Yet. Theo could tell she was lying, he started to think of what could of upset her, then it hit him he'd not really spoken to her for a couple of days.

"Meet me at the astronomy tower at nine" "Okay" she said slightly confused, but before she could question him why he was gone.

✧.*✧.*

Y/n had freshened up her make up and straightened her hair, she hurried to put her shoes on when she realized she had five minutes to get to the astronomy tower.

Once she got there she saw Theo, standing in front of her with a bouquet of peonies, her favourite flower, he had remembered from one of many of their late night talks. "What's all this for" "You" "Why" "Because I've been meaning to tell you something for a long time". Oh my god. Was he about to say what she thought, what she was longing to hear.

"First of all I would like to apologies if you feel like I've been ignoring you, but i could never purposely ignore you. I hope you don't think I'd forgot about you." She froze hearing those words could he read her mind? He then continued with "I've been so focused on trying to think of ways to ask you this. Y/n, I've liked you for a long time and i was wondering if you would be mine, and i would be yours of course." Y/n stood there still frozen at what he had just said to her she wanted to scream "YES OF COURSE I WILL THEO" but instead she settled for "Oh Theo of course, i would love that" She walked over to him and placed a soft kiss on his lips, he was quick to reciprocate her action.

                .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

[sashaisready]

Chapter Seven - First time for everything

Bucky Barnes Mob AU x Femme Reader

You're hard at work in Pepper's Bakery when notorious mob boss James 'Bucky' Barnes darkens your doorway one typical afternoon, and life is never the same again.

18+ - see Masterlist for full list of warnings

Chapter 8

Series Masterlist

Back at your apartment that evening, you distractedly pick at your dinner with your fork as you scroll on your phone. The rest of your day had passed smoothly. Wanda had rushed back to the front after Bucky left, just as shocked as you were about how that had gone. You could tell she was concerned, worried about just what exactly you were letting yourself in for.

You were too.

There had been no accompanying SUVs on your journey home and you had decided to trust Bucky when he told you the trailing had stopped, but you couldn’t help the occasional peek over your shoulder to be sure.

You’d fallen down into a bit of a rabbit hole, scouring the web for anything and everything on James ‘Bucky’ Barnes. There were thousands of results. News articles, forum posts, photos, social media speculation, court transcripts. Violence, corruption, notoriety. It seemed he’d cleaned up his act in recent years, exploring more legitimate business options than mob activity – formal luncheons and galas rather than shoot outs and cement shoes. He had multiple companies in his name and owned a smattering of businesses throughout the city and along the east coast. Auto shops, nightclubs, construction. Still, there were suggestions that he wasn’t entirely on the straight and narrow – with accusations of fronts and money laundering littered across the web, although nothing proven. Occasionally his business rivals seemed to disappear into thin air, their digital trail coming to an abrupt end with a small news article about them going missing and police 'doing everything they can'.

You shuddered as you considered the implications.

But he also did a lot of good. He donated generous sums to philanthropic causes and charities. He ran fundraising events and sat on non-profit boards. He’d opened a centre for children in one of the city’s most deprived boroughs, and regularly paid college tuition for bright teens whose families couldn’t front the cash themselves.

He clearly enjoyed the finer things that his line of work provided. There were endless pictures of his sports cars, sprawling property and bespoke Italian suits. He was often photographed at the finest restaurants in the city, beautiful women on his arm basking in the paparazzi’s attention.

It was dizzying, intimidating. Worlds away from your rented modest one bed apartment and IKEA furniture, your simple job, your $30 hoodies and Target undies. A fancy night out for you was the local sushi restaurant, or vodka sodas at a dive bar with Wanda. You could barely afford a side salad at some of the places Bucky frequented.

One listicle that got your attention had the headline “The Dating History of  the Notorious James Barnes”. It was an endless inventory of photographs of gorgeous women – socialites, models, It girls…the occasional actress. Each more beautiful than the last, long legs and perfect bone structures, draped in expensive gowns and showing off flawless updos. The kind of women who never seemed to have a bad hair day or a hormonal zit outbreak, just relentlessly glamorous and immaculate. The article spoke about his known womanising, his playboy reputation cemented as he became linked to more and more beauties.

You felt foolish. Here you were shamelessly flirting with Bucky, fantasising about him, giddy with excitement that he’d asked for your phone number. You were nothing like these women, you couldn’t compete with them, or his chic lifestyle. You felt embarrassed for letting yourself get caught up, for briefly thinking you could fit into his world.

Your thoughts are interrupted by a buzzing on the table. Your phone is ringing, an unknown number. You sigh - probably a robot sales call but you answer it regardless.

“Hello?” 

“Evening, Doll” comes a low voice from the other end.

You jump to your feet, your chair squeaking on the floorboards as you feel yourself go rigid. You’re hyper alert, fleetingly guilty as if he is somehow aware of your web sleuthing. Not that he could be annoyed even if he knew, he’d done his homework on you – you could do yours on him.

“Oh…Bucky, hey” you respond timidly as you settle back down in your seat.

He chuckles. “Not quite the enthusiastic response I’d hoped for”.

“Sorry…I was expecting a robocall”.

“A what?”

“Oh you know…one of those automated spam calls you get? They always have a weird robot voice”.

He chuckles again, his laugh is syrupy and smooth and sends sparks through you. “Well, sorry to interrupt your big plans for the evening”.

You know he’s just teasing but in light of everything you’ve just read you cringe, it just further highlights how quiet your life is in contrast to his.

“What can I help you with, Bucky?” you ask tentatively, sitting back down in your chair.

“I’d like to put in a custom order” he says smoothly.

Your stomach drops slightly, disappointed this seems to be a business call rather than a personal one, but not surprised.

“Oh right, sure” you lean over the table to grab a pen and paper. 

“What are you looking for? We do 6-12 inch cakes in any flavour you want – we can write personalised messages in the icing too. Or we have cupcakes…”

“No...no Doll…not that” he protests.

You wriggle in your chair, moving your phone to your other ear. “Ah…um….wha-”

“I’d like a date with the store manager. Maybe Friday, at Gambino’s…say 8pm?” he purrs.

You flush as your heart soars, hardly believing what you’re hearing. A date? With you? You’ve never been to Gambino’s but it’s fancy. Fancy fancy.

“Oh!” you utter in surprise. “Um…are you sure?”

“I’m always sure, Doll” he fires back without missing a beat. You’re glad you’re already sitting down.

You pause for a moment, not quite believing this is happening and that he has asked you out. Those thoughts of him come flooding back. You imagine what his mouth feels like…what it would be like to be held in his arms…how his stubble might scratch against your cheek…

“You still with me?” he asks, breaking you out of your daydream.

You open your mouth to speak. Yes. Yes of course, Bucky!  You want to say. I’d love to! I can’t wait! 

But then you think about that article, all those beautiful women. Those expensive suits. The fancy cars. The paparazzi clamouring for shots of him. You imagine yourself on his arm, your modestly priced evening dress making you stick out like a sore thumb amongst the well-heeled clientele. You imagine the slick restaurant staff giving you a double take, surprised at Bucky’s choice of girl for the evening, raising an eyebrow at you. You imagine that you use the wrong fork, mistake the palate cleanser for dessert, stumble on your cheap heels on the way to the bathroom. You see Bucky, meticulous and assured Bucky who likes everything just so, embarrassed that his date doesn’t understand the unwritten rules of this scene. There’s practically an illuminated sign above your head – a big arrow pointing down to you – She doesn’t belong.

You want to stay in your small bubble with him, harmlessly flirting together in the bakery where the stakes are low and you’re in control. The prospect of the next step, venturing out into the world with him, dipping your toes into the pool of the mob and all that comes with it – is just too daunting.

“Uh…I’m sorry Bucky, I don’t think that would be a good idea” you finally reply, your voice meek and resigned. You don’t even sound like yourself.

There’s silence on the line and you briefly wonder if the call has disconnected until he clears his throat.

“No problem” he growls. 

You can hear the barely restrained anger in his voice. You realise Bucky Barnes must not be used to hearing “no”. Certainly not from women.

“I-” you try to respond, you want to tell him the truth – that you feel uncomfortable, that you don’t fit into his world – either of them, not the mob one and not the affluent businessman one either. Regardless of how much you might want to.

“It’s fine” he interrupts sternly. “Have a good evening”.

He hangs up. You stare at your phone in disbelief for a short while, willing him to call you back so you can tell him you’ve made a mistake.

*

Bucky slams his phone down onto the mahogany table so hard it cracks the screen. His anger swells, furious and embarrassed at your rejection. He was so sure that you were on the same page when the two of you had spoken earlier. You seemed to have forgiven him for the tracking and he must be getting rusty as he was sure he was picking up all the right signals from you. He was so looking forward to getting to know you better, away from the prying ears of his men and Wanda. He wanted to hear that laugh of yours again – outside of your workplace and unrestrained when you were off the clock. He wanted to treat you to a nice meal, make you feel special with the finest food New York had to offer. Maybe later take you home and get to know you even more intimately...

This is why he shouldn’t flirt unless he knows for sure that it’s a done deal.

“That went well” mutters Steve from the desk across the room, not looking up from his paperwork.

Bucky ignores him, rolling his eyes and adjusting his shirt sleeve as he sits down.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen before…” Steve smirks. “First time for everything, I guess”.

“Shut up” barks Bucky, tracing the big crack in his phone screen with his finger as he huffs in frustration.

Steve looks over at his best friend. Bucky is fidgeting awkwardly, he looks as if he’s physically trying to shake it off, cracking his neck and attempting to concentrate on his computer screen.

“Can you arrange for this to be fixed please?” Bucky says bluntly, gesturing to his broken phone as his eyes remain on the monitor.

“This girl has really done a number on you, hasn’t she?” Steve smirks.

Bucky meets his eye. His face is stony, livid.

“What did I just say…” he warns.

Steve holds up a hand in surrender. “Sorry. Just…I can’t remember the last time a woman got you this riled up, is all…”

Bucky ignores him again, sighing as he reaches for his whisky tumbler.

[thealexandriaarchives]

The Arrakis Royal Ballet in Arrakeen has just had a crisis of leadership under the management of the CHOAM Foundation which oversees its board, and Vladimir Harkonnen has been ousted as chairman, which means two things: Oh thank god we don't have to watch the same 5 Tchaikovsky shows over and over again this season, Swan Lake and The Firebird are FINE but GOD- and the Company's default leading man for every performance, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, will suddenly have to compete for his slot.

That's totally fine, but the next person to fill the board's slot is Leto Atredies, a man who's actively investigating the Harkonnens for using the Ballet for money laundering as well as reputation laundering, and his son, Paul Atredies, is about to make his international debut after being quietly... discouraged, from applying. Still, whether as a PR move or an olive branch, Leto suggests a Ballet to fit the bill: Giselle.

It's French, so it will give people something different from the aggressively Russian fare Vlad had selected for the last several seasons. ...A bit unfair, perhaps, Chani had been hoping for Balanchine outside of Christmas, but Feyd never expected he'd even get so much as Italian. Paul Atredies was taught by masters in the classical French schools and he's got the light, precise, delicate footwork and speed to show for it. Hell with that slight frame, and some of the moves Feyd has seen him do on TikTok, which is about the only place he's been able to perform up until now, there have even been whispers he could perform the female roles just as easily.

But Giselle is good. It will give Chani some space to show off her acting chops as she falls in love and goes insane, casts Irulan well as a cold and vicious wraith queen, ordering men to their deaths, and it's underperformed- often because it requires two strong male leads in the same company.

As soon as he hears the name Feyd-Rautha doesn't kid himself about which role he'll be playing. Even if he didn't personally prefer Hilarion to the lying noble prick Albrecht is revealed to be, there's no way the new chairman's son and anointed star is going to be the one drowned like a rat in a bucket by the end of act two.

Besides, Feyd knows what the last act requires physically, and he's seen Atredies throwing his whole body into full spins again and again through the air in his million dollar barre studio online. Feyd's just not going to let a spoiled green debutante get away with blowing this for everyone else.

So on the first day of rehearsals, while Chani and Stilgar are off with the set designer, discussing the frankly insane decision to replace the woods and lake with a desert terrain out of Lawrence of Arabia, Feyd-Rautha sidles up to their untested new danseur noble as he laces his shoes.

"I hear you're our new Duke of Arrakis."

[steddieas-shegoes]

Request: POLYGLOT STEVE??? WHO SPEAKS FLUENT FRENCH, ITALIAN, KOREAN, POLISH, SPANISH, ENGLISH AND PORTUGUESE??? EDDIE CONSTANTLY BEING FLUSTERED AS HELL HE FINDS IT REALLY HOT THAT STEVE SORAKS SO MANY LANGUAGES AND HE WILL CASUALLY USE THEM IN CONVERSATION????? WITHOUT MEANING TOO???? LIKE HE'LL FORGET A WORD IN ENGLISH & SAY IT ANOTHER LANGUAGE WITHOUT REALIZING????

MY LOVE! OKAY SO LET ME PREFACE BY SAYING I AM A LAZY PIECE OF SHIT WHO DID NOT WANT TO EVEN ATTEMPT GOOGLE TRANSLATE BECAUSE IT IS OFTEN WRONG ANYWAY OKAY. Also, English is my first and only language (damn Americans amirite) and while I did take a year of Spanish and two years of French in high school, my auditory processing is so shit, I can pretty much barely get through an introductory conversation in those languages. But I tried to still make this cute and fun! - Mickala ❤️

-------------------------------------------------------

“Gówno!” Steve exclaimed from the kitchen.

“Everything okay?” Robin yelled from the couch.

Eddie looked at her with wide eyes.

“The fuck did he say?” he asked quietly, not wanting Steve to hear him.

“Shit.”

“No, what did he say?” Eddie asked again.

Robin stared at him, annoyed.

“He said, ‘shit’ in Polish.”

“Steve knows Polish?!”

Robin rolled her eyes and got up to physically check on Steve.

Eddie sat and stewed in this new knowledge.

But this was only the first of many surprises.

—-------------------

“Mama, no.” Steve’s voice came from his bedroom as Eddie made his way up the stairs.

His mom was here?

And then Eddie heard Steve speaking in…Spanish? It was too fast to tell for sure, but it definitely wasn’t English.

He peeked his head through the door, relaxing slightly when he saw Steve was on the phone.

Steve gestured for him to come in while he spoke, so Eddie slipped his shoes off and sat down on the bed, getting comfortable.

But then it sounded like Steve started talking in another different language.

It was close to Spanish, but some of it sounded almost French?

Eddie blinked at him, his free hand gesturing wildly as his voice got louder.

Eventually, he sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. Eddie rubbed his back in a totally friendly, not loving, manner.

“Okay. See you then,” he sounded resigned, tired.

Eddie hated it.

When the phone was back on the hook, Steve sank back against Eddie and sighed again.

“My parents will be here next week for a couple days. They’re organizing the sale of the house, so they are packing what they want to move into a storage unit and having a cleaning company come get the rest to be donated. I have until the end of the month to be gone.”

Eddie looked down at Steve’s hand, how it was playing with the edge of Eddie’s shirt, how tense the rest of his body was even as Eddie played with his hair.

“You speak Spanish?”

That wasn’t really what he meant to say, but the shock hadn’t quite worn off from hearing him speaking in another language. Or two.

“I speak Spanish and Portuguese,” he replied.

“Oh. Well…why?”

Steve sat up and looked down at Eddie with a smirk.

“Because my mom’s family is mostly from Spain and Portugal and if I wanted to talk to my grandparents, that was my only option.”

“Oh. I…had no idea.”

Steve rested his head against his chest again, finally seeming to relax a bit.

“I really only speak it with her now. I took Spanish in high school for the easy A.”

“Makes sense.”

They remained quiet for a few minutes, Steve coming down from the stress of his phone call and impending parental visit.

“So you wanna live with me?” Eddie finally asked, casually.

They weren’t…well. They just weren’t. And that was okay. Eddie told himself that if all he was for Steve was a great friend who could hold him when he needed it, then that was enough.

But they also kind of…were.

It was very confusing and he was constantly balancing between pushing too far and not pushing enough.

“What? Like, in your trailer with you and Wayne?”

Eddie shrugged.

“Wayne wouldn’t mind. Long as you help clean up sometimes and maybe chip in for groceries.”

Wayne also was team Eddie-tell-Steve-you’re-in-love-with-him-before-I-do and would absolutely support this type of thing.

“But you guys only have two bedrooms.”

“You can share with me or like, we can work something out where we section off a part of the living room? I dunno. It’s not perfect, but I know you don’t have quite enough saved up for your own place yet.”

Steve hid his face in Eddie’s shirt for a moment before nodding.

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll share with you for a bit. But probably only for a few months, I swear. I have almost enough to get that house by Robin,” he said.

It was a house for sale in Robin’s neighborhood, and it wasn’t selling because it needed quite a bit of work done to the yard and bathrooms. But Steve knew he could do it, he just needed to make sure he had money for everything first.

He wouldn’t let anyone chip in, either.

“No rush. But, yeah, I’ll talk to Wayne about it tomorrow.”

—-------------------------------------

Steve moved in the next week after a long argument with his parents, who didn’t seem too thrilled about him becoming “trailer trash.”

Eddie thought about the last words Steve said to his parents before leaving: “I’d rather be trailer trash than your son.”

About how he’d spit them at them, poison from his lips.

About how he’d said it in French.

He probably didn’t think Eddie understood, probably didn’t realize that most of the reason Eddie had been so quiet on the ride to the trailer was because he was turning over Steve’s words in his head.

He still hadn’t quite come to a conclusion more than eight hours later, but he was busy helping Steve unpack the last of his things anyway.

“You seem quiet,” Steve said from where he was putting some of his tapes by Eddie’s boombox.

“Hm?” Eddie looked over at him, smiling to himself when he saw Steve putting Eddie’s tapes on top of his. “Oh. Just thinkin’.”

“Thinking about…?” Steve looked over at him.

“Just what you said earlier.”

Stev’s brows furrowed as he thought about what Eddie meant.

“You mean before we left?” Eddie nodded. “I said it in French though? You understood?”

“I’m not fluent, but I took it for three years in high school. One of the only classes I passed with flying colors.”

“Really?” Steve asked in French. “So I could say something in French right now and you would know what I’m saying?” he continued, still in French.

Eddie understood enough to nod.

“So if I told you that you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me and that I wish I could hold your hand right now, you’d say…”

Steve’s blush gave away some of what he was saying, though Eddie had to admit to himself, he hadn’t quite understood some of it.

Steve sounded so natural, was speaking so quickly, Eddie wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Um. I guess I’m not so good at it when someone as natural as you speaks it,” Eddie awkwardly said, turning back to the closet where he was moving some of his things so Steve would have room for his clothes that couldn’t be folded.

He felt Steve’s body heat behind him, knew he would be right there if he turned back around.

Steve said something in Italian (how many languages did he know?) and then something else in a language Eddie didn’t recognize.

He finally turned to see Steve blushing, looking down at the floor of his room.

“What was that one?” he asked, moving in a bit closer, barely leaving any space between them.

“Korean. My dad insisted on all of us learning it when he acquired a business in Korea.”

“So you know…how many languages?”

“Seven counting English, but I’m also learning Russian from Robin. Kind of a way to ‘own the trauma’ or whatever she tells me,” Steve rolled his eyes.

“You know seven languages?” Eddie squeaked.

“Oui,” Steve smirked up at him.

They were so close. He could almost feel Steve’s breath against his lips, closed his eyes and imagined how he would taste.

“Eds,” Steve breathed out.

“Hm?” Eddie felt high, or like there was a severe lack of oxygen in the room, maybe both.

“Can I kiss you? Please?”

Eddie’s eyes popped open, his jaw dropping in shock.

Steve asked again, this time in French.

Eddie groaned and threw his head back.

“You’re killing me.”

“...so that’s a yes?” Steve teased.

“Oui,” Eddie replied.

Steve’s lips were warm against his, surprisingly soft, though demanding.

His whole body was demanding, pushing Eddie backwards until his back hit the wall with a thump. Eddie had never been so glad that Wayne was at work.

His hands found Steve’s waist, squeezed until he was sure he left bruises, only tightening his grip more when Steve moaned against his mouth.

Steve’s body was flush against his now, their shirts rucking up just enough for the skin of their stomachs to rub together, sweat slicking between them.

Eddie couldn’t breathe, but he didn’t really want to, didn’t want to part from the closeness he’d been hoping for for so long.

Steve did pull away though, even if only enough to rest his forehead against Eddie’s.

He whispered something in Spanish, then opened his eyes.

Eddie was hot.

“It’s really fuckin’ hot when you do that,” he admitted.

“Do what?”

“Speak any of the 100 languages that you know.”

“Oh?” Steve kissed the corner of his mouth, then his chin, then his jaw.

He kept whispering things in different languages, right against Eddie’s skin, until he was practically ready to fall to his knees.

“Steeeeeeve. You’re killing me,” Eddie complained.

“I can stop,” Steve said against the curve of his neck and shoulder.

“No, please don’t,” he groaned out.

So, he didn’t.

Steve spent the next hour kissing, and teasing, and whispering things Eddie didn’t understand against his skin.

He didn’t stop until Wayne knocked on the bedroom door to let them know he was home and was cooking burgers on the grill.

Eddie smiled as Steve left the room to help Wayne with dinner as he’d been looking forward to doing.

He thought about how long they weren’t anything but friends who could have been more.

But now they were. Hopefully they always would be.

[musings-ofthe-unamused]

Honey So Sweet pt. 1 (Genshin Impact)

Pairing: Childe x Reader, Harbingers x Reader

Word Count: 1.6k

Warnings: Childe

A/N: Man, I could deal with Childe if he gave me money

It sucks being broke. You had no luck in job searches and college had ended more than three months ago. The only solace you had was going to the café near campus. It was cheap and quiet most of the time. The only downside was that the coffee sucked. Big time. Your nose scrunched as you set down your mug and deleted yet another rejection email. 

It was raining outside. It seemed to match your mood, the way it poured relentlessly. The gray cloud swallowed up every bit of sunshine there could be. You watched as a flash of bright orange hair flashed past the window. The bell attached to the door rang as a man walked in. He huffed and shook off the water droplets from his hair. His outfit was impeccable. A thick gray wool overcoat covered a nice looking black dress shirt. His matching gray slacks were impeccably clean and tidy, expensive leather Italian dress shoes pulling the whole outfit together. 

Like you, Childe was a regular. More than several times, he had bought you coffee and kept you company as you searched for jobs or studied. As much as you appreciated the company, he was annoying. Not only was he talkative, but he always talked about the expensive items he bought or the lavish trips he went on. You couldn't help the jealousy that grabbed any common sense and destroyed it. You wanted the lavish lifestyle. You wanted to stop drinking bad coffee and get the expensive shit that only tasted slightly better. You wanted to-

"It's pouring down, huh?" Childe pulled you away from your thoughts. He slid a piece of chocolate cake towards you. "I thought I was gonna get soaked."

You hummed and happily accepted the cake. "Maybe you shouldn't wear an expensive coat like that. It could get ruined."

"I'd just buy another one."

There it was. That smirk paired with the nonchalance of spending wild amounts of money. It drove you crazy. You angrily pierced the cake with your fork. For once, you just wanted to live life comfortably. Was it too much to ask? Probably. The world enjoyed laughing at your expense. Your empty wallet was just an ongoing bit. But at least you had free cake.

"Tough day?"

"Another job rejection." You sighed and lowered your head. "Why can't I be rich?"

Childe leaned forward and rested his chin on his hand. "Let me take you out for dinner tonight."

You groaned and shook your head. "Can't. No money."

"I'll pay."

That piqued your interest. You raised your head. "Okay… but where?"

"The new place that opened just outside campus."

"The steakhouse?" You snorted. You couldn't even afford to look at it. "I don't have clothes fancy enough for that. Why don't we just-"

Childe took out his wallet and produced a black card. He held it out to you. Your eyebrows furrowed. Was he just trying to show off his money now? You took the card and turned it around in your hands, studying it. Childe stared at you with a smirk. He was most definitely planning something.

"Buy yourself some clothes. Then go out to dinner with me."

"I couldn't-"

He stopped you, his hands moving over yours. "Yes, you can. You deserve it, okay? Think of it as a gift."

"No one is ever this generous without a hidden motive."

He raised an eyebrow. "I don't have hidden motives. Other than wanting to see you happy for once."

You took a deep breath. What was the worst thing that could go wrong? If anything, you could just return whatever clothes you got after dinner. Your eyes drifted over to your laptop. After months of constant rejections, you did deserve a break. You deserved some happiness. And it wasn't like you didn't trust Childe. At least, you didn't think he would have anything malicious planned. So you nodded and agreed. Nothing bad would happen. Right?

***

The restaurant Childe chose was all the buzz. You heard your classmates dream about even stepping inside. And here you were, your arm looped around Childe's as he led you into the fine dining restaurant. The place was big with a wide open space. Chandeliers decorated the ceiling, the lighting soft and intimate. There was a stage towards the left of the dining area where a grand piano sat. The pianist played music that flowed throughout the building and added to the already romantic atmosphere. This was… a date. 

You looked up at Childe. He had a grin on his face as he held you close. So this was his whole plan. To take you on a date, woo you, shower you with gifts, and then suddenly it's two years later and you're a stay at home housespouse. You took a deep breath and sat down as Childe pulled out your chair. He then walked around and sat, giving you a smile.

"You look gorgeous tonight."

"All thanks to you."

He leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand. "Did you enjoy shopping?"

"It wasn't bad…" You looked away from him. "It felt kind of awkward. Like I was afraid to buy something too expensive."

"Please, you barely left a dent in my wallet." He picked up the menu then motioned for you to do the same. "Get anything you want."

You picked up the menu. As you expected, everything was out of your price range. Not to mention, you barely understood any of the names on the menu. It was one of those places that didn't have pictures either. You frowned, bringing the menu closer to your face. You peeked over the edge to see what Childe was doing.

He was staring, of course. 

Your face flushed and you brought the menu back up. "So… see anything you like?"

"I was about to ask the same."

"Uhm…" You slowly set down the menu and gave him a sheepish smile. "Why don't you order for me?"

"Sure thing, sweetheart."

Sweetheart. There was definitely something fishy going on here. Childe had never wanted to talk to you so much before. And now he was acting like… he enjoyed pampering you. As the dinner went on and you ate food too fancy for your tastes, your mind tried to find a reason for him doing this. Even as you enjoyed yourself, you couldn't help but think that something deeper was going on. Maybe it was because you felt so out of place. You were a commoner, someone who had to rely on some rich spoiled kid to give you even a singular day of relaxation. 

After dinner, you two were walking back to campus. Childe's arm was looped around yours as he held you close. He felt warm and shielded you from the cool night air. It was silent as you tried to rationalize why someone would ever do something like this for you. Childe pulled you closer. It felt so right, but there was still something off. Eventually, the two of you made it back to your dorm.

"Wanna go shopping this week?" He asked, his eyes trained on you.

You looked up at him. "Me? Why?"

"Because you deserve it. And I want to see how you shop."

"Is this not a waste of money?"

"I'm rich, sweetheart."

You frowned and stopped walking. "Childe, why are you doing this? I'm starting to feel like a sugar baby."

"Hah!" He chuckled and rolled his eyes as he leaned towards you. "Wouldn't be too far off."

You stared at him in disbelief. "Are you a sugar daddy?"

"A new one, yeah. I was getting bored. I wanted to spend my money somehow, so I signed up for this app that hooks up sugar babies to sugar daddies. Or mommies. Or whatever you'd like."

"Okay… but why me? I know for a fact I'm not on that site." You crossed your arms and tilted your head. Was this a blessing in disguise?

He hummed and reached out, pinching your cheek slightly. "Because I couldn't resist that cute sad face of yours."

Your face scrunched up. You couldn't tell if that was a compliment or pity. Either way, it felt weird. So there was an ulterior motive. It may not have been sinister, but it was something different than you expected. You sighed and pushed his hand away. "So I'm your sugar baby?"

He shrugged. "If you wanna be. I'm not the type to force you if you don't want it. It'll be a learning curve for me too."

"I'll… I'll think about it." 

"Great." He leaned in and kissed your cheek. "I'll text you."

With that, he left. Your hand brushed where he kissed you. You went inside, dazed and confused. As you lay in bed in your too expensive dress, you took out your phone. Childe had texted you asking if you got in safe and when you were free next. You sighed and set down your phone. You had to admit, under all the bad vibes you felt, the date was fun. Hanging out with Childe, going shopping… you enjoyed it. Your phone dinged and you got another text.

Childe: "Here's the app in case I'm not enough ;)"

Your eyes widened. He wanted you to have… more? Was this normal? You weren't exactly educated in glucose activities. But… nothing could go wrong. Right? As long as Childe was okay with it, there would be no harm in trying out at least another one. So you downloaded the app. The way it was set up was exactly like a dating profile. You made an account fairly easily. As you swiped right through the ones you didn't like, one caught your eye. He looked well off, brand name glasses perched on his nose and dark long hair put into a neat side ponytail. His eyes were closed in a joyous smile.

"Pantalone, huh? I guess… It won't hurt." And then you swiped left.

[whimsimille]

VACANT ROOM

Lee Dong Wook x fem! reader

"My dear, could you perhaps verify it one more time?" You asked, mustering the most charming smile you could manage in the face of the disinterested and nonchalant receptionist, who seemed more interested in her nails than her job. "I find it incredibly hard to believe that a reputable company like Starship would commit such a glaring oversight."

At half past midnight, the hotel was teeming with actors, singers and idols. Positioned in the center of the lobby, the luxurious building housing the assistant's desk was where you were standing. The interior exuded an atmosphere of old-world elegance, with polished marble floors, ornate chandeliers, and plush velvet drapes adorning the walls. Soft candlelight cast a warm glow over the dining room, illuminating tables adorned with crisp white linens and sparkling silverware.

Guests, dressed in their finest designer attire, mingled and conversed in hushed tones in the grand ballroom. Their quiet laughter pierced the air, merging in perfectly with the sweet notes of a Mozart sonata that drifted from the grand piano in the corner, played by a virtuoso whose fingers moved like dancers across the keys.

"I regret to inform you, ma'am," she retorted, her eyes barely leaving the glossy pages of an article about the latest trends in Seoul's fashion week. "But your company specifically requested a grand suite with a panoramic view spanning across the sea, located on the 16th floor. One king-sized bed, presumably for you and Mr. Lee Dong Wook."

"But that can't be right! There must be some kind of mix-up." Instant panic set in, your pulse going haywire as images swarmed in your mind—you sharing close quarters with him—definitely not on your wish list.

With an exaggerated sigh, she ditched her magazine and leveled her gaze at you for the first time since this little chit-chat commenced. “I assure you, there is no mistake. Everything has been arranged as per the request we received. The company was very explicit about the arrangements."

"Explicit about throwing me into a room with my ex-husband? That doesn't seem like a professional request."

"That's not for me to comment on, ma'am," she replied curtly, picking up her magazine again. "My job is to ensure our guests have the best experience. If you have a problem with your arrangements, I suggest you take it up with your company."

"But that's... it's... preposterous!" you stammered, feeling the blood drain from your face. "There must be some way to rectify...”

"I'm afraid all other rooms are fully booked. Perhaps you could address your grievances with your company, ma'am.”

"Aish…"

You turned your head to the side, spotting Dong Wook standing in the doorway of the lobby, dressed in a new, crisp navy blue suit with trousers tailored to his frame, complete with a matching tie and polished leather shoes. God, he had become insufferable since he discovered fabrics imported from Milan. This was where all the money had been going before the divorce.

Crushing the last of his half-smoked cigarette under the heel of his polished Italian leather shoes, he looked down and saw the flickering neon sign from the hotel entrance reflected in the trail of smoke.

"What the fuck is going on?”

“You ought to watch the language you use, old man,” you retorted, your thumb and index finger nervously smoothing out creases from the Chanel dress handpicked for the company's decadent birthday celebration held at this isolated high-end dwelling. “Prayers should dominate your vocabulary rather than swear words at this stage in life.”

His sharp gaze turned to you, and you could see the frustration simmering beneath his usually calm exterior.

Unmoved or maybe portraying so, you played along, “Just stating the obvious.”

A dismissive snort escaped him as he ran his hand irritatedly through otherwise meticulously groomed locks. “And if I don’t?”

You rolled your eyes, masking the unease creeping into your voice. "Then you'll just be an old man with a foul mouth, won't you? A grumpy, divorced, aging actor with nothing but a string of B-list movies to his name?"

"Better than being a frustrated little girl who got pissed by losing an award to me,” he retorted, his tone dripping with sarcasm and a bitter bite. "A little girl who can't accept that she's not the best and that someone else could actually outshine her brilliant talent."

A sharp retort tipped the tip of your tongue as you hesitated, but you swallowed it down, heart palpitating. If only the hotel was closer to your home, you'd escape this uncomfortable situation. You'd rather risk wandering down a dark, unfamiliar alley at midnight than share a room with your ex. But you were stuck here, trapped in this ostentatious lobby, miles away from any familiar comfort, forced to face whatever the night would bring.

"Can't you sleep in the same bedroom as your best friend? You two are usually tied by the hip, practically inseparable at every social event," You taunted, eyes glinting under the harsh lobby lights.

“Gong Yoo has a wife and you know it. And I'm not about to impose on their space. What about you? Don't you have other friends that came other than scripts and books? Or did they all get scared off by your charming personality?”

“Oh, you better bet that I'm charming. Maybe that's why our daughter decided to stay with me.”

Before he could respond, a bitter laugh escaping his lips, the woman at the desk cleared her throat, extending a key towards the two of you with a look of forced patience. "I believe this is what you two are fighting over, correct? Perhaps you could decide who gets the bed and who gets the sofa without causing a scene in the lobby?"

You took the key from the receptionist's hand with an exaggerated sigh, turning it over in your fingers. The weight of it felt heavy in your palm, like a lead boulder pulling you down into the pit of despair.

“Yes, of course. Thank you so much; your help was really indispensable.”

Turning back to face Lee Dong Wook, you could barely contain your humiliation as he stood stoically by your side, staring out at the dark ocean beyond the hotel's glass walls. Along with the sound of the ice cubes in his drink and the scent of his expensive cologne, the lobby was filled with the sound of the waves crashing against the coast. You couldn't help but wrinkle your nose at the cloying smell that reminded you too much of your past.

"I suppose we have no choice but to make do," you said finally, motioning for him to follow you towards the elevators.

As he settled into step beside you, the click-clack of your high heels on the marble floor created an odd harmony with his steady gait.

It was almost impossible not to gag at the stale, rich smell of warm metal and coffee that pervaded the elevator. Pressing the button for the sixteenth floor, you peered up at the metal ceiling.

A few seconds later, the doors opened with a soft hiss and you stepped out into the dimly lit hallway, feeling Lee Dong Wook's hot breath on your neck. He seemed to be waiting for you to take the lead, as if this were some kind of game, a cat-and-mouse chase that you just couldn't seem to win.

Swallowing hard, you walked ahead to the suite number indicated by the keycard.

When you finally turned the handle and pushed open the door, you found yourself face-to-face with an opulent display of luxury: plush red and gold carpets underfoot; crisp white linen tablecloths adorning an ornate dining table; fluffy duvets piled high on a king-sized bed; and a decadent bathroom beyond.

It was too much like the honeymoon suite he'd gotten you when you were still married, and your heart skipped a beat as it registered.

Butterflies filled your stomach as you set your luggage down on one of the side tables.

You turned around to face Lee Dong Wook, who was standing in the doorway, watching your every move intently, reminding you of the way Yeosin would look at you when she was planning a prank. 

Well, she was his mini version after all.

You held your breath as he stepped inside, taking in his tall frame and perfect nose. 

He took a deep breath before reaching up to his necktie and loosening it ever so slightly. "It's going to be a long night," he muttered under his breath as he moved closer towards the window, pulling back one of the heavy curtains to let the cool sea air and the sound of waves splashing against the shore gently lap at his face.

"I'll take the couch. It's not like I haven't endured worse accommodations while filming on location.”

He turned to look at you, his eyes narrowing slightly, an all-too-familiar gesture. “You have had back pains all the time since giving birth to Yeosin.”

“I don’t," you snapped back immediately, an automatic response honed by years of bickering.

“Yes, you do," he insisted, his tone softening. "I may not have been around recently, but I do remember. You’d wince every time you thought I wasn’t looking. But if you want to play the stubborn card here, if it makes you feel stronger, be my guest. In the meantime, you can freshen up. I'll make a makeshift bed for you, kid.”

There you stood, in the silence that followed, absorbing the sight of him.

It wasn't fair, an inner voice protested, as you took in the jawline you had kissed and nibbled countless times, the tantalizing constellations formed by the moles adorning his neck, each one a landmark you could identify even with your eyes closed, like a child eager to please and win a candy.

In the end, it wasn't fair that he could still find his way into your heart, the way a worshiper finds their way into a long-abandoned cathedral, kneeling in reverence among the dust and the decay, and still find it holy, still find it beautiful that there’s a vacant room waiting for him to lay his head.

He was the prodigal son returning to the home he once renounced, and you? You were the father left to wonder if welcoming him back was a show of futility or a sign of welcomeness.

"You always were stubborn," you retaliated, folding your arms across your chest. "Always thinking you knew best. Well, I'm not that same naive 23 year old girl you married. I can take care of myself.”

“Stop it. I have a headache right now.”

"You were always quick to jump in and play the hero, weren't you? But this isn't a drama, Dong Wook. There's no director yelling cut, no script to guide us. This is real life. And in real life, I don't need you to save me."

"I never asked to be your hero," he retorted, the quietness of his words cutting through the tension like a knife. "And I never wanted to be one. I just wanted to be there for you. But you always made it so damn hard." 

Frustration bubbled inside you, "You think I made it hard? You were the one who walked away. You were the one who gave up on us." 

“She’s only six,” he countered weakly. “She doesn’t understand what’s happening.” 

“You’d be surprised, Lee. Kids are smart. They pick up on more than we give them credit for. She knows something’s wrong. She misses her father. She misses us being a family.”

As the words left your mouth, you could see a flicker of pain cross his eyes. But you didn't care. You were too angry, too hurt to care about his feelings. 

With a huff, you turned on your heel, leaving him alone in the bedroom. As you slammed the door shut, the metal clanged loudly against the wall, echoing through the otherwise silent room. You hear the latch click into place, sealing you inside the small, enclosed space.

The bathroom was spacious and modern, with a luxurious glass-enclosed shower stall and his-and-hers sinks. 

Before you was the daunting task of turning on the water to run a hot bath. The faucet gave a small shudder, like a beast waking from slumber, as it sputtered to life, filling the room with the biting smell of chlorine and the comforting warmth of hot steam. A bottle of expensive shampoo, perhaps a gift from one of his many sponsors, sat on the vanity counter. You uncapped it, and its scent—a tantalizing blend of jasmine and sandalwood—tickled your nose as you sniffed it slightly.

The room began to mist up as your fingers fumbled at the buttons on your dress as if they had a mind of their own, desperate to get out of this suffocating fabric that reminded you too much of happier times when he'd slide them down your spine slowly and carefully, making you gasp under the cover of darkness.

Heat flooded your cheeks, remembering how those fingers had once traced your entire body—the pulse point at your wrist, where his wedding ring used to be, now replaced by a thin silver band around your third finger.

Stepping into the tub, the water was scalding hot—almost too hot to touch—but you reveled in it nonetheless.

As you slipped into the tub until it was almost full, feeling it lap at your neck and shoulders, you let out a long sigh of relief.

Closing your eyes, you breathed heavily as you began to scrub the last few days off yourself. 

Memories flooded back—years' worth of memories that had led up to this moment: the late-night movie marathons where you both would cuddle on the couch, the way he would laugh at your comical impersonations of movie characters, the way he would always keep the last slice of pizza for you, the way he would read bedtime stories to your daughter, his voice imitating various characters, making her giggle. You remembered his bright smile when your daughter took her first step, his eyes filled with tears of joy, the proud look on his face when she called him 'Daddy' for the first time.

But alongside the sweet memories, the bitter ones also found their way: the arguments that lasted till dawn, the slamming of doors, the sound of shattering glass, and the cold silence that followed. You remembered the canceled family trips due to his sudden shooting schedules, the forgotten birthdays and anniversaries, the vacant spot beside you in bed getting colder each day, late-night calls from agents about last-minute script changes, and sleepless nights spent worrying about Yeosin while he was off filming some romantic comedy filled with clichés and air kisses towards irrelevant starlets.

You scrubbed until your skin began to redden and sting from the heat, until all that was left was residual anger and resentment. Then you climbed out carefully, reaching for the plush white towel hanging on a stainless steel rack.

After drying off, you slipped into your silk pajamas and brushed your teeth with Totoro’s brush, the one Yeosin insisted on bringing so that you could remember her while she stayed with her Nana.

Stepping back into the suite, you expected to see Dong Wook, but he was nowhere in sight. The room was empty, save for the soft hum of the air conditioner and the distant murmur of voices from the television.

You walked towards the window, peering out into the darkness. The moon was a thin crescent in the night sky, casting a faint glow over the sea. Lee was probably out there, taking one of his late-night walks along the beach, letting the cool sea breeze clear his mind.

Turning around, you noticed the makeshift bed he had prepared on the couch. The cushions were arranged neatly, with a soft blanket folded at one end and a pillow with a fresh case. Beside it, there was a small side table with a glass of water and a bottle of painkillers—for your bruised ankles and sore legs, no doubt. Despite everything, Dong Wook was still considerate.

You walked over to the couch, running your fingers over the soft fabric. It wasn't a king-sized bed, but it would do. 

Lowering yourself onto the couch, you winced slightly, feeling the day's exertion catch up with you.

You slowly stretched out your legs, trying to find a comfortable position. As you did so, you could feel the soreness in your muscles easing slightly. 

Curling up on the couch, you wrapped the blanket around yourself, pulling it up to your chin.

Lying there, you found yourself mimicking Yeosin's favorite position—curled up like a small ball, waiting for her father to come home and pick her up. It was a bittersweet feeling, a reminder of the simpler times, when the lines between work and personal life hadn't blurred, when the word 'divorce' hadn't been a part of your vocabulary.

As you closed your eyes, the events of the day replayed in your mind: the party where he'd been eyed by other women, the looks he gave you when you seemed more interested in your Champaign than his speech, the receptionist's words, the look on his face, the tense silence in the elevator. But despite the turmoil, you felt a strange sense of calmness. Maybe it was the fatigue, or maybe it was the realization that you could handle whatever life threw at you.

With that thought, you slowly drifted off to sleep, the soft hum of the air conditioner and the distant sound of the sea lulling you into a deep, peaceful slumber.

-------------------------------------------------

As the first rays of dawn creeped in through the slats of the blinds, you stirred from your sleep.

Slowly blinking your eyes open, you adjusted to the soft morning light, feeling something different.

Under you was not the stiff fabric of the couch, but something softer, more yielding. You didn't know when or why, but here you are, in the king sized bed that was supposed to be Dong Wook’s.

Confusion clouded your sleep-laden mind as you tried to piece together the puzzle and heat hushed to your cheeks as you felt something nuzzling your neck, the soft sensation making you bite back a groan.

Suddenly, you felt a warm presence between your legs, a muscular thigh that was solid yet comforting. It took a moment for you to register the protective arm draped securely around your waist, pulling you closer against a firm, muscled chest.

"Wha--?" you started, your voice cracking as surprise jolted you fully awake.

Before you could react, a chill coursed through you as your shirt was ridden up, an audacious hand slipping underneath to splay across your bare skin.

"Shh, it's just me, baby," a deep voice whispered in your exposed left breast before sucking it into his mouth softly, tugging at the pink flesh with his teeth while rolling the other hardened nub between his fingers.

As he slid down even further, his tongue softly licking the valley between before finding its way into your cleavage, your mind reeled from the situation. You gasped at the feeling of his cool tongue tracing circles around the right nipple, tickling it lightly as it hardened even more under his touch.

Your hand instinctively reached up, fingers tangling in the soft strands of hair. It was familiar—too familiar. The scent of sandalwood and sea salt filled your senses—a scent you had known for years, a scent that brought back a flood of memories, reminding you of all the times he had made love to you on a beach house's balcony after one of his late-night strolls along the shore.

"Dong Wook…” you breathed out, the sound more like a plea than anything else. The name felt foreign on your tongue after so long, tasting bitter and sweet at the same time.

"Yes, it's me," he replied, his voice a soothing hum in the quiet room. "I missed you."

"I--I don't know what to say," you stammered, your mind reeling from the sudden turn of events.

"Just relax. All you have to do is open up those pretty legs and let me fuck this pussy once again.”

His tongue found its way into your mouth; you tasted the remnants of the Merlot from last night. You sucked on it eagerly, feeling him groan softly as he pushed deeper into your throat.

Hungry. You were hungry for him, starved for this intimacy that had been denied to you for too long. 

You couldn't believe it—this was Lee Dong Wook, the man who had once claimed not to know how to please a woman properly, who had once slept with dozens of nameless starlets and models just to forget your name.

Letting go of your lips, his head found its way into your neck and his hand slid further up, pressing against the mound hidden by your silk pajamas.

You didn't trust yourself enough to speak, fearing your voice would betray the growing need twisting inside you. Instead, you responded by parting your legs slightly, granting him access to your cunt.

Expertly unbuttoning your pajamas with his other hand, Dong Wook spread the fabric apart, revealing all of you to his hungry gaze. 

Your pussy glistened in the dim light, a testament to the tangible evidence of your arousal. He swept away your slit with one broad thumb, gathering slick and marveling at how wet and ready you were for him.

"That's my good girl.”

Unable to resist any longer, he dipped two fingers into your slick folds while his thumb continued its sensual assault on your swollen nub. Pleasure started to unfold in waves of white heat, and the combination made you utter moans.

With a devilish smirk, he withdrew his hand and brought it up to his mouth, sucking on one finger. 

"Fuck, you're so wet and sweet for me, honey. Tell me, didn't any of your flings with those little boys in the set make you cum like I used to? Or were they so young that the only things they observed were these lovely curves and a treat for their hands?

His words stung, but the ache between your legs pulsed with need, completely drowning out any traces of regret.

In the haze of his touch, you were lost. It was obvious that you ought to halt him, shoo him away, and remind him of what he had done to you—severing all ties, abandoning you while he toured the globe filming and failed to remember you existed.

But the truth was that you missed him, missed the sensations his mouth could create in your mouth, and missed the way his hands could change from being rough to being gentle in an instant.

“Shut up, Lee.”

There it was, the opening salvo of a fight, but he ignored it, knowing that once you got past this hurdle, you would be his again.

He rewarded your honesty with a devilish grin before sliding his hand back between your legs, slipping his fingers deeper inside you. "Such a dirty mouth on such a pretty girl," he murmured against your skin before pressing his index and middle fingers deeper, crooking them to find your g-spot with practiced ease. “I guess I'm the only one who teaches nice manners to our daughter, huh?”

You moaned long and low, bucking against him. Your whole body felt like it was shivering underneath the touch, like a fever dream that turned into reality.

"Drop this shit before I decide to leave you with a purple dick."

"Calm down, darling… I'm just playing with you, hum?"

He pushed you down into the mattress then, holding your hips in place as he began thrusting his fingers in and out of you in a rhythm that had your body trembling with need. 

You could feel the bed squeaking beneath you as you arched into him, craving more contact as he thrust faster and harder into your pussy, sliding off on to his fingers as if they were a big, thick dick. 

It was perfect; it hurt and felt amazing at the same time.

“Jesus…”

A whimper escaped before you could stop it, betraying how much you needed him inside of you again.

"Yeah, that's it. Just take it," he encouraged, watching with dark eyes as you moaned his name while his fingers plunged deeper into your slick folds, finding that spot that always made you come apart.

"You need this; you need me."

He was right. You did need him in this moment, in this bed, even if it was wrong and twisted. You needed him to make you forget everything else—the cameras flashing, the public scrutiny, the anger. He'd always been good at distracting you from all that.

"Oh, fuck," you moan into the pillow, feeling the pleasure coiling inside you like a snake ready to strike. Your wetness pours down his hand and fingertips before it drips onto the comforter beneath you. 

You open your eyes to look at him, seeing how he bites his lip in concentration as he works you open with his fingers, tongue and teeth. His dick twitches against your leg, eager and ready. There's no one else who can make you feel this way; there's no one else who could make love to your body with such precision even after all these years apart.

"Squirt for me, baby. I know you can, hum? Like old times.”

“I… I can't…” you whimper, but he doesn't let up.

“Shhhh, baby… Come on, you can let it out. Soak me. Soak the sheets. Show me how much you want me.” He urges, his words acting like a spell, pushing you further towards the edge.

His fingers worked faster, his thumb pressing down on your clit in relentless circles while his other hand gripped your hip hard enough to leave a mark. His other hand slides up to your throat, fingers closing around it lightly, the threat of pressure making your pulse race even faster. 

Overwhelmed, you felt yourself let go, your walls clenching around his fingers as a rush of warmth gushed out of you. Your body arched as you squirted, your release soaking both his hand and the sheets beneath you. 

“Dong Wook!" you scream, the words echoing in the room as you come apart under his touch.

The sensation was too much; your body was sensitive and overstimulated. You whimpered, but his fingers didn't relent, continuing to stroke your swollen nub even as your body twitched and shuddered.

As you came down from your high, your mind felt foggy, and your body was limp. The surroundings softened into a comforting mist as you sank deeper into subspace. But he wasn't done yet.

Even as your body begged for a reprieve, he moved over you, his body pressing down on yours as he positioned himself at your slit.

“W-What are you doing?” You ask, your voice weak and shaky.

“What do you think, wifey? I'm going to pound into you until you're begging for mercy. Going to fill you up so good, you'll be begging me for another baby. Want to give Yeosin a baby brother. Want to make a little version of me for her to play with. Can you imagine our son running around the house, causing trouble just like his father? But first...” he trails off, the hand on your throat, applying such pressure that dark spots form behind your eyelashes.

“First, I'm going to fuck you senseless."

Suddenly, your phone rings, the sound piercing the silence like a gunshot. You glance at the caller ID and see Gong Yoo's wife, Ji-Eun, name flashing on the screen.

Well, he'd have to wait then.

"Dong Wook, it's Ji-Eun," you try to protest, but he ignores you, his eyes dark with desire.

"Let it ring. She can wait," he growls, and before you can protest further, he thrusts into you, burying himself to the hilt inside your wet heat.

But the ringing never stops.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four calls.

With a sigh, Dong Wook grabs your phone from the bedside table, places it on the pillow next to you and answers.

Before the line could finally connect, he changes positions, seating himself against the headboard with you straddled in his lap. Your breasts bounce with every single movement, and soft moans spill from your mouth as he continues to thrust into you.

"Hello?" He breathes into the phone, his voice steady as if he isn't buried deep inside you. His free hand grips your hip, guiding you up and down his length at a relentless pace while he talks to Gong Yoo's wife, Ji-Eun.

"Dong Wook, what the hell were you thinking?" She scolds from the other end of the line. "You can't just arrange for you and your ex-wife to share a room, no matter how many strings you pull!"

Dong Wook chuckles lowly. “Well, it seems our plan worked perfectly then," he murmurs in your ear, his warm breath fanning over your skin. His words surprise you, making you pause.

He planned this?

Ignoring your shocked expression, he continues his conversation. "Listen, I appreciate your concern, Ji-Eun, but there's no need to go yelling at the manager or looking for another room. We're adults; we can handle this." He punctuates his words with a particularly harsh lift of his hips, ripping a breathy moan from your throat.

Meanwhile, Ji-Eun continues her rambling, her words becoming background noise as you frown, scratching his shoulders and trying not to lose your shit. It would be humilliating coming all over his dick only from seeing it poking your belly.

Suddenly, Dong Wook pulls the phone away from his ear, offering it to you. "I think she wants to talk to you," he murmurs, a mischievous glint in his eyes as he kisses your nose.

You glare at him, about to protest, but his hand encircles your bruised neck again, making you relent.

With a huff, you take the phone, pressing it to your ear as you try to keep your voice steady. "Hello?"

Dong Wook smirks, his hand dropping to join the other on your hips, guiding you up and down his length like a well-used doll again.

This man is the devil.

"Oh, thank God, you're there, honey." The older woman exclaimed, relief evident in her voice. "I was worried about you! I'm on my way to your room now. We need to sort this out."

Panic set in; the last thing you wanted was for her to see you in this compromising position. You had to dissuade her.

"No, wait! You don't need to do that. We're handling it. We're...we're talking things out," you lied, hoping she'd buy it. 

"Are you sure? I can be there in five." Her voice was filled with concern, but you could detect a hint of suspicion.

"Yes, we're fine. Really," you insisted, biting back a moan as Dong Wook hit a particularly sensitive spot. "We'll...we'll talk tomorrow, okay? Goodnight."

Abruptly, you ended the call, tossing your phone onto the nearby bedside table, your heart pounding like a drum in your chest.

Turning your wrath on him, you struck his chest with all the strength you could muster. "I swear I'm going to kill you, you absolute jerk!”

"Oh really?" He groaned in response, the corners of his mouth lifting in a smirk. "But darling, before you commit homicide, don't you think you should let me leave a lasting heir on this divine body of yours?"

Before you could lash out again, his other hand darted out, capturing your wrist mid-air. His grip was firm effectively stopping your hand from making contact with his broad chest again.

“I want you.”

“You’re crazy, Lee! Delusional, old, out of your damn mind!”

“I’m yours too and I still love you.”

His eyes eyed you hungrily, his gaze dark with desire and something else. Something that made your heart pound out of your chest, something that made you weak in the knees. He loved you once, and he loves you still.

Or maybe it wasn't love anymore—maybe it was possession, maybe it was lust—but it felt real in that moment. You couldn't resist him, no matter how hard you tried.

“L-love me?” you husk, staring at him in disbelief as you feel his cock pulsating inside you. He pushes deeper, but you don't resist. You feel an odd mix of anger and desire, pain and pleasure, all mingling together into an intoxicating brew.

His tongue flicks out, licking your lips as he leans down, his face close enough that your noses touch. "Yes, I do," he murmurs against your lips. "And I always will." His voice is low and rough with want as he kisses you gently before plunging his hips once more.

In the end, you realized that it wasn't about fairness. It was about acceptance. Acceptance of the past, acceptance of the present, and acceptance of the potential of the future. It was about opening up that vacant room in your heart once more, dusting off the cobwebs and letting the light in.

Maybe it was welcomeness. Maybe it was time to let go of the pain of the past and embrace the possibility of a new beginning. Maybe it was time to let Dong Wook find his way back not as a prodigal son but as a cherished guest. Maybe it was time to let love bloom once more.

And just like that, the vacant room wasn't so vacant anymore.