#SOMETIMES THE VIOLENCE AND BRUTALITY IS THE POINT

[atangledfate]

Was she getting comfortable with it? maybe? It was less being comfortable with physical contact and more that she was comfortable with Tangle. They were together now, it only made sense to show affection the only way she could. It wasn't like she could say i love you, or tell Tangle how nice her ass was! So she had to find other ways to flirt or, show her love. Sometimes that just meant a gentle touch here and there. Or sometimes it meant holding hands, or cuddling against her lover.

Though Tangle was right it had taken her time to let anyone past her defenses. She still remember the vivid thought of tossing her on her head when she hugged her the first time. But things weren't like that now, they'd grown---she'd grown. That was good wasn't it? Like Claire use to say... if we live in the past we'll never be able to see how bright our future is.

Maybe Tangle was talking to the wrong person about this type of brutality? It was probably because Tangle had never seen her flip her switch on had she? Weird as it was only Cream had. That moment where she nearly blew Eggman's head clean off his shoulders while he had no idea she was there. It wasn't as if she was above such violence, and if the moment called for it she'd do so. But She'd tried VERY hard to leave that life behind her and to never have to flip that side of her on ever again.

Still she was probably right about this guy. After all these weren't soldiers just thugs who picked the wrong fight.

✋ They got between him and his mission, he simply eliminated a threat. I don't condone his tactics at all, but i understand why he did it... if left behind they could have alerted others to his position or worse. Which makes me wonder if they do not have a military background. Still... those were civilians... so i see your point ✋

She lowered her head as Tangle reminded her that not everyone was a soldier, and that combat was really all she knew. Tangle didn't need combat right now, she needed time to decompress, to rest and recover. But she was probably the worst person to help her with that wasn't she? all she knew was battle, combat, tactics, and dozens of ways to kill people--- this was all... very new to her.

✋ Right--- Taking it easy, relaxing... resting... ✋

She fidgeted obviously these were all concepts she wasn't use to embracing. She was a soldier after all, a warrior, a fighter, and yet she was just worried about Tangle--- she hated not knowing how to help her.

✋ Sounds like you enjoy it, cooking i mean. What Sorts of things do you like to cook? Maybe we can plan out a few things while we are out of action since we might not have a chance later ✋

The entire attack on restoration felt like a multi-pronged strike of desperation. Clutch didn't trust his people, and so hired outside help to try and seal the deal. But luckily no one was hurt, and they managed to stop the attack from succeeding. She didn't think they targeted Tangle specifically as there were a number of explosives according to the report. She'd read it over while Tangle was recovering at the Hospital and gave her own report on what she had seen. In truth Tangle was placing alot of blame on herself for things outside her control. It was natural to do so but, she'd been a soldier so long she'd been so desensitized to near death experiences.

She reached out to Tangle and took her hands in her own, and rubbed her thumbs across the tops of Tangle's hands an an attempt to show comfort. She had never seen her quite so stressed out, and it was usually Tangle comforting her. It was an odd change but she'd be there for her in every way she could.

✋ There Isn't anything we could have done to prevent what happened. Sometimes all you can do is react to danger, and rely on each other. ✋

She reached up to caress Tangle's cheek and offered a little smile of comfort hoping that her presence was enough to quell her troubled mind.

✋ No matter what happens, i'll always be here to catch you when you fall. I promise...✋

She wasn't sure she trusted this figure either, but sometimes you had to take your allies where you could find them. Sonic understood that to its why he worked with the likes of Shadow, or the Chaotix and even Eggman at times. But working with and trusting were very different things. She worked with alot of people she didn't really trust at first. Tangle was one of those who had earned her trust and eventually her love. But few others did she ever regard as a friend, let alone trusted them as an ally.

✋ Some Soldiers can only see the mission ahead of them. It's how i was trained to be... if not for Claire i probably would have remained in that mindset... I am not saying we should trust them... just, we should gather more intel before we pass judgement ✋

Whisper could see Tangle's brain was running in overdrive and she couldn't focus it on anything but what happened. Maybe Tangle just needed something to focus on? Something to get her mind off of all her troubles and worries. Though Whisper was not exactly the most well versed in that area. She did have one idea though...

✋I think you are great at Relaxing, but you also have alot to mull over after what happened. We just need something to focus on outside of recent events... like a video game, or maybe we could spar? we haven't done that in awhile... though i guess dinner should come first✋

[lesbianwithchainsaws]

Honestly whoever coined the term "torture porn" for horror movies is my number 1 enemy

[asxgard]

Semper Fi | [2/8]

Dr. Jack Abbot x f!doctor!reader

Previous | Next

Summary: Feelings come to a head after a particularly bad patient interaction.

[ Series Masterlist ]

Note: I’m so thankful you guys enjoyed the last one so much! I was so nervous to write for Abbot, he doesn’t flow as easily as Robby does for me lol Thank you for the likes, comments and reblogs omg!!

Word Count: 2.4k

Warnings: age gap, foul language, hospital setting, medical inaccuracies, violence against women/healthcare workers, being bad at feelings, mild pining

not beta read

Between leaving a tea or coffee on your desk at the start of your shift just so he could watch the way you lit up, and him leaving a protein bar on yours to make sure you always ate, something started tangling in your ribs. Completely unnoticeable unless he cracked a rare smile, tugging the strings deep in your chest until you felt the heat. The pull. The ache. You left little sticky notes on his desk, sometimes with a coffee and a smiley face, or one with ‘usual place after shift? I have a sandwich with your name on it’.

You shared silences during sunrise, quiet and soft and content in the company of each other. There was no facade to be found on the roof. Just him. Just you. Unbothered by the stillness, the close contact of skin. No mask to be worn, just an easy smile from you and a gentle gaze from him. It was not completely vulnerable, but it felt just as good.

It felt clean, comfy and completely within control, if it weren’t for the messy feelings in your chest whenever he met your eyes.

It only took a few months for the storm between you two to brew, tense and heavy, finally reaching a breaking point after so many lingering stares and quiet mornings on the roof.

So this argument seemed to come completely out of nowhere.

How had the argument started? Patient care. The tensions were high after a mass pileup and apparently, Abbot thought you were taking too long between patients.

Too slow. Too soft. echoed in your head, not good enough.

You cursed New York for the way the words filled you with dread, ignited by the sight of Abbot’s disappointment.

Even before he had said anything to you, both of you far too caught up in the rush of stabilizing and assessing, the thoughts began to make you angry. Patient care was why you had become a goddamn doctor in the first place, who was he to yell at you about it?

“The time you’re taking, you could’ve already assessed the guy coming off the ambulance already!” While he was not shouting, his voice carried across the busy ED.

You leveled your gaze at him, tone remaining as it had, though your features had flattened into a plain expression, “Will that be all, Dr. Abbot? I don’t think everyone heard you.”

His nostrils flared, his hard gaze never wavering from yours. A thousand words could have been said between you in those few seconds, but you knew none of them mattered. Not when he was snapping at you in front of everyone, not when he had clearly crossed a line.

He moved to help intubate the incoming patient. You turned your attention back to the woman you were assessing for internal bleeding, ordering a CT scan of her head and abdomen. You were able to comfort her while making notes in her chart, irritating sitting heavy in your chest.

After each patient had been settled and cared for, you went to find Abbot. Why was he being so hard on you all of a sudden? It surely wasn’t over patient care, not really. He was a no-nonsense kind of man, something you had come to admire. If he had been annoyed in your turnaround time with patients, he would have said something. He would not have waited for it to boil over in front of everyone. That was unlike him.

You found him in the south hallway, just outside of Trauma 1, tablet in hand. His face was stoic as always, a brutal type of beauty you tried to convince yourself not to see. Sculpted by his experience in the ED, leaving behind sharp edges and an even sharper tongue.

“Would you like me to guess why you’re so frustrated with me? We can make it a fun little game! Guess Why Abbot’s A Total Asshole Today. Or would you rather just chastise me some more in front of the entire ED?” You asked him, folding your arms across your chest. Part of you wanted his approval, and the other part wanted to shove it back in his face.

His dark eyes flicked up, assessing you silently. The quiet brooding type had always easily lured you in—no, no, no. You were mad at him. You were mad at him. You disliked the way his eyes softened, just barely, making your stomach flip again. It burned when you shoved the feelings down your throat to maintain your neutral gaze.

“You don’t get it yet.”

“Please enlighten me, then. I never took you for someone to hold back.”

His sharp eyes were on yours, “Time costs lives, especially in scenarios where we have multiple critical cases coming through the door.”

You scoffed, “It makes sense why the satisfaction scores here are in the fucking toilet. Patients are more than words on a screen or cases to be closed. They’re human beings.”

“Do you think they give a shit? Whether I see them as a human being or a case? Do you think it matters to them when you’re saving their life?”

It felt like deflection.

Your lips finally curved into a frown, frustration bubbling in your stomach, “So you think a few words of comfort are completely useless? Even when it takes just a few seconds of consideration?”

He matched your frown, but something in him finally relented, much to your surprise. You could see him digest your words, and you knew it was the contradiction of everything he had learned in the military and everything he knew as a doctor. Quick efficiency vs mindful consideration.

Your frustration began to evaporate. “Look—”

“If that works for you, don’t let me stop you. Just be more mindful of the time you take.”

And he walked away.

—

Hours ticked by, and your mild irritation sat at a boiling point. It was easy to see Dr. Abbot cared about the patients coming in, but it was always at a distance. It was calculated consideration, not cold callousness that you had thought in the heat of your anger. The patients were not just numbers, or injuries to mend, but perhaps that was easier for him. To assess, treat, move on. Perhaps that was how he compartmentalized.

Your own compartmentalization really was the key that kept you smiling, kept you as the ray of sunshine everyone knew you to be.

You were warm, in just about every aspect of your life, but especially with your patients. Spending time to check in on them, offer them an extra pillow or blanket, to stop and grab them a sandwich if they weren’t on any restrictions. That came as easy as breathing. You knew nothing else.

So when your aggressive patient was being abrasive and combative, you steeled your smile and did what you could. You offered calm words and a cheery bedside manner. You wore a mask of it, of a fake smile, but it protected the real one that laid underneath.

The patient was mad at the world, which had turned him to the bottle, and left him passed out on the sidewalk. He was yelling and you listened, just nodding along, while your eyes scanned over his chart. Ending up in the hospital after drinking too much was not new to this man, which was good information to know.

By the time you turned back to your patient, he was out of his bed and swinging. Despite his staggered gait, one landed directly on your cheek and pain bloomed. You hit the floor with a smack, hands taking most of your weight so your head didn’t hit the tile and all the air was out of your lungs.

You were thankful for the resident passing by, calling security and helping you up. You smiled at Dr. Shen, dusting off your hands before gently touching your cheekbone and wincing.

“For a 0.3, he’s got a mean swing,” you smirked, trying not to be hard on yourself for allowing it to happen.

Dr. Shen just raised an eyebrow at you, “You alright?”

You brushed him off, “Yeah, you mind checking on South-20? I’m going to go get an ice pack.”

He nodded, glancing over your face again before going to do as you asked. You started back to the staff lounge, just to take a minute, get your bearings. You were genuinely surprised any of his hits landed, or landed with much force, due to how drunk he was. Patients had tried before, but you had been more prepared for those.

After snagging an ice pack, you sat down in the lounge. You snacked on a protein bar, and decided once you were done, you would get back to work.

Dr. Abbot rushed into the room like there had been a fire, making you look up at him in confusion. He was in front of you in an instant, crouching down slightly to be eye level with you. He moved the ice pack aside to assess the damage with that calculated look you knew well — but something unknown to you rested in his eyes. You tried not to wince when his fingers found your cheek and his hands stalled, looking into your eyes.

The air around you felt palpable. Like all those lingering touches and softening gazes finally spinning together like a tornado tearing through a town.

He was so close, you could finally see the green in his hazel eyes. They had always looked brown to you when you stood across the hallway. A contentment settled in your mind seeing him up close like this.

“You should see the other guy.” You forced a smile.

His eyebrows moved downward, just a fraction, but easy to tell up close.

“I’m ordering a head CT.” He said softly, thumb tracing lightly across your cheek.

“Whatever for? I’m fine.” You quirked a brow at him. “Nothing a little ice can’t fix.”

“Don’t do that right now. There’s no ‘look on the bright side’ for you to find. You were assaulted.” His voice was tense, eyes flickering over your face in something that edged dangerously close to concern.

One minute an asshole, the next someone who cared? This man was going to give you whiplash.

“Yes, and lesson learned. Don’t turn away even slightly away from drunk, aggressive men. Should’ve already known that one.” You chuckled.

Dr. Abbot stared at you for a long moment, “Can you at least get a CT for my sake, then?”

“Careful, Dr. Abbot. Your asshole edge is slipping.”

A ghost of a smile crossed his face, “Don’t let it go to your head.”

It ignited something hot in your chest, making you grin. You dared to dance just a bit closer to the edge.

“Too late.”

—

Your CT results were normal, and with no other symptoms, Dr. Abbot calmed. He was still mildly irritated, taking over the case of the drunk man and not letting you anywhere near it. His rough edges returned after he left the patient’s room and you could see him stewing in his thoughts much clearer than you ever had before.

The end of your shifts came with a bit of a routine, and this one was no different, watching as Dr. Abbot slipped away to the stairwell that led to the roof. You finished your last chart and followed him.

He was behind the railing this time, leaning on it like it was supporting more than just his weight. While it was still hard to read him, you could see he was deep in thought, looking down at the concrete of the rooftop. You moved closer to him, slowly approaching the railing while looking at the sun on the horizon, burning red and orange.

“Whatever’s going on here, it has to stop.” He refused to look at you. “It won’t work.”

Your breath got caught in your throat, heat washing over your features before you quickly schooled them. You were not one to run from your feelings, but the fragility of what was lingering made it feel like you should have. He was technically your boss. He was older by more than a decade, closer to two if you were being honest with yourself. There was an impossibility there and you were shocked he was even calling attention to it. You had been content with whatever was trying to settle between you, but the thrill of giving it a name was sending the tangled feelings to weave around your heart and squeeze.

You hummed trying to regain your composure, stepping to put your hands along the safety railing, but you did not look over at him, “You say that so definitively. Anything’s possible.”

He looked at you, eyebrows furrowed, “I’m not good at this. You’re gonna get hurt.”

You quirked a brow at him, “There’s fun in discovery.”

“I’m too old for you.”

“Isn’t that my choice to make here?” You asked, voice soft. Each word out of his mouth felt like flimsy excuses, and you might have found it amusing if you didn’t want to prove each one wrong.

“You’re going to regret me.”

But you liked him like you enjoyed summer rain or rolling thunder, how you found peace in darkness or in the rush of wind. Quiet, controlled, powerful, breathtaking.

“Life is too short for regrets, Dr. Abbot.”

Something in him must have given way, because his lips were on yours in the next breath, startling you. It was like finally giving into the tide pulling you in, and the relief of it shocked through your entire system. You were quick to respond to him, all of your feelings exploding like an array of fireworks in your chest at the feel of him. Rough and warm and undeniably addictive.

“Fuckin’ call me Jack.” He breathed against your lips, noses touching.

You found yourself smiling at him, “Only if you stop being an absolute ass.”

He considered it, “I think I can make an exception. For you.”

You kissed him again, the sunrise burning against your back, hands going to his cheeks. He was quick to wrap you in his arms, pulling you flush against him, careful of the bruise on your cheek. He hummed against your mouth, his tongue slipping easily inside, tasting like bitter coffee and something sweet.

“Let me make sure you get home safe, yeah?”

“Jeez, buy me dinner first, will you?”

“What about breakfast? There’s a diner a few blocks away.”

You agreed quickly before he had a moment to doubt it.

[ Next ]

want to join the any of my taglists? shoot me a message!

All Dr Abbot Content Taglist: @flyinglama @valhallavalkyrie9

All The Pitt Content Taglist: @cannonindeez

Jack is so It Will Come Back by Hozier coded omg I love that man

[wilwheaton]

s far as we can tell right now, the man who tried to assassinate Donald Trump was a registered Republican gun enthusiast. As more details emerge, the image will clarify. Assassins are individuals, and their motivations can sometimes be surprising or turn out to be obscure and debatable. At this point, it is just worth noting that it would not be surprising if the man who tried to assassinate Trump was, like Trump, a right-wing radical. That would be typical of the United States, where most terrorist acts come from the far right. It would also be historically normal. Trump, like extreme-right-wing politicians in the past, has legitimated violence. Nothing in recent American political life resembles Trump’s call for “Second-Amendment people” to kill Hillary Clinton, his mockery of Paul Pelosi after an attempted murder, his belittling of Gretchen Whitmer after a kidnapping attempt, the stochastic violence he directs against critics to intimidate them and against his fellow Republicans to keep them in line, the brutal language of his rallies since 2016, his vocal admiration for leaders known to be mass killers, and his violent attempt to overthrow constitutional rule in January 2021. What matters more than the action, though, is the reaction. We should all condemn political violence. We should all proclaim that this next election will be settled by the number of votes, rather than by threats, coups, beatings, or murders. The media should not spread messages of hatred and baseless conspiratorial thinking.

Political Violence - by Timothy Snyder

Timothy Snyder is a globally respected expert on Fascism and authoritarian movements. He’s very much worth listening to, always.

[dreamersparacosm]

jeon jungkook - the price of desire (part nine)

warnings ; well.. oral (f recieving) light choking, he hits it from the back, front, idk i lost count, she feels him in her stomach? (realism has left the chat)

prompt ; in which you learn that your dignity has a price, and unfortunately, it looks a lot like Jeon Jungkook in Calvin Klein boxers.

note ; here it is. my baby. my pride and joy. my biggest accomplishment that i will be hanging on my fridge with my hello kitty magnet. not even kidding i rewrote this part four times. four full rewrites. not because the words weren’t working, but because i knew this part had to hit just right.

writing that was hard!! i love these characters so much it physically hurts sometimes. ive lived inside this world for months now, and bringing them to this point broke something in me in the best way (also healed me??? idk dealers choice) the process wasn’t pretty. there were pacing debates, deleted scenes, google docs full of one-sentence paragraphs. through all of it though, one woman held my hand: miss taylor swift.

required listening for this part is this is me trying by tswift. (it’s actually required, the lyrics are THEIRS)

to all of you who’s sent me theories, essays, questions, unhinged keysmashes, character analyses, or even just a quiet “i love this” — thank you. thank you for seeing these characters the way i see them and for lovingly watching on the sidelines when two people experience the ache of wanting something they’re afraid they’ll ruin. you’ve made this story so fun to write!!! i hope, when you reach that last line, that it all feels right to you too. enjoy!!

playlist here

series masterlist here

When you were seven, you ran away from a kitchen fire before anyone else smelled the smoke. You bolted — barefoot, wild-eyed, arms flailing — as the toaster sparked and your mother screamed your name. You learned two things that day: one, that survival is instinct and two, that no one follows a girl who flees first. Ever since then, you’ve made an art of it, of leaving before you’re left, of outrunning the collapse before it’s had time to announce itself.

Even now, you still run like the building is burning.

You book a one-way flight back to Los Angeles with a violence that surprises even you, fingers stabbing at your phone screen, credit card number punched in before the doubt can catch up to your impulse. No pause for breath. No moment to excavate what just splintered apart in Seoul. Just the brutal efficiency of escape.

When the plane finally lifts, Korea dissolving beneath a cotton shroud of clouds, you search yourself for something that might feel like catharsis. But there's only absence. A vacuum where emotion should live.

Not the sweet release you'd imagined.

Not the peace you'd convinced yourself would follow.

Not even regret, which might have offered its own strange comfort.

There's a stillness inside you, resonating like footsteps in an empty gallery after the crowds have gone. You've become a visitor in your own body, observing from the outside.

The campaign, with all its frantic choreography of stress and miracles has finally wound down. The endless parade has halted: no more lighting to approve, no more impossible deadlines to somehow bend to your will through sheer force of determination. No more 4 A.M. calls with production when everything threatened to fall apart.

(No more Jungkook. Almost. You can taste it on the tip of your tongue.)

Tomorrow, it all launches.

You should be electric with anticipation. You should be riding the intoxication of knowing that in storefronts across continents, space is being cleared for what everyone predicts will redefine the brand's trajectory. Success is waiting,, yours to claim.

Instead, you're suspended in a strange limbo. Present but not present. Moving through the the world like someone playing the role of you in a film about your life.

You've become the most convincing ghost in your own story.

You slip back into the LA office like that same ghost returning to familiar hauntings, moving with that quietness people develop when they've spent years trying to be noticed while simultaneously proving themselves indispensable. The ritual feels stolen from another life: coffee warming one palm, the other hand clutching your phone with determination, as if the device might try to escape.

You lose yourself in the launch preparation, drowning in press releases that need one more edit, retailer confirmations requiring verification, social media calendars demanding timing. You orchestrate influencer packages like a general deploying troops, analyze backend metrics with the intensity of someone decoding ancient hieroglyphics.

Because busy hands can't text people.

Because typing another email means not typing his name.

Because every spreadsheet you complete is another reason not to wonder what he's doing right now.

When Jungkook's name illuminates your phone screen for the fifth time that day, something in your chest contracts with such sudden pain that for a moment, you forget how to breathe. You've developed a new skill: the swiftness with which you decline his calls, a movement so practiced it's become second nature. Your finger swipes across his name each time.

Voicemail. Another notification. Voicemail. The red badge multiplying like evidence.

Everything bearing his digital fingerprint gets redirected to Daniel. Meeting conflicts that need resolution, approval requests for campaign deliverables. Some tedious back-and-forth about choosing the right cover image for the website that would have once made you call Jungkook directly.

"Can you handle it?" The question leaves your mouth without inflection, your eyes never lifting from your laptop screen, afraid of what Daniel might read in them.

Daniel stands in your doorway, silent long enough that curiosity finally forces you to look up. The expression on his face carries such naked concern that you almost flinch.

"Are you really going to ghost your own campaign's face?" His voice is soft, which somehow makes you feel worse.

"He's not my anything," you say, the words emerging with a coldness that surprises even you. "He's the brand's."

The look Daniel gives you could incinerate entire cities, reduce them to smoke and memory. There's judgment there, yes, but beneath it something more dangerous: understanding. He retreats without pushing further.

You drag yourself to your hotel in Los Angeles at the hour when even the most dedicated workaholics have surrendered to basic human needs like sleep and food that isn't delivered by Uber Eats. It greets you with the enthusiasm of an abandoned museum exhibit — pristine, untouched, vaguely disappointed.

You answer emails until your retinas protest and your fingers develop their own Stockholm syndrome relationship with your keyboard. The clock on your laptop blinks an accusatory 2:17 A.M while you craft responses.

The Calvin Klein countdown timer on your open browser tab pulses with all the subtlety of a doomsday clock, a digital reminder that your exit strategy is right on schedule. This was always your personal three-step program: Get in. Get it done. Get out.

Jeon Jungkook was supposed to be a line item in your professional portfolio, not the tenant currently occupying all the premium real estate inside your head.

The fact that your brain has apparently thrown him a housewarming party complete with intrusive thoughts as party favors is just your psyche's idea of a practical joke.

One that unfortunately, you do not find the least bit funny.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

The launch doesn't just hit. It is literally a tidal wave. #jungkookcalvinklein is trending on Twitter at the ripe hour of 9am.

Before you've managed to convince the coffee maker that yes, today definitely requires the triple-shot setting, Times Square has transformed into a shrine to sculpted abs and Jungkook’s face. Stores unveil installations that somehow make minimalism feel maximalist.

He's everywhere.

Christ, that jawline probably has its own insurance policy, with Calvin Klein jeans on that defy the laws of physics by simultaneously hanging too low and fitting too well, silver chains adorning him.

The public response is teetering on obsession; less consumer enthusiasm and more mass religious conversion. You half-expect to see people speaking in tongues while clutching Calvin Klein shopping bags.

You don't even have time to perform your planned emotional collapse, which you'd scheduled right between "approve final press release" and "pretend to eat lunch." The universe, it seems, has no respect for your Google calendar.

There are calls to field, interviews to prep, press appearances to manage. But then, just to your luck, digital confetti in your inbox: the New York office is hosting a last-minute happy hour to celebrate the global rollout. The invitation lands with little subtlety in bold letters: SENIOR STAFF AND GLOBAL LEADS ONLY, with enough exclamation points to suggest someone's enthusiasm has escaped corporate blandness.

Your decision-making process rivals light speed. You book the flight with the impulsive confidence of someone fleeing a crime scene, pack your garment bag with a dress you haven’t worn in a while. It’s flowy, with an open back that lets you feel the breeze.

Daniel plops himself in the seat beside you on the plane, a one-man information hurricane disguised as your colleague.

You let his voice become white noise, because right now, even corporate jargon is preferable to the unauthorized commentary running through your head, the one narrating all the ways you're not thinking about Jungkook (which, ironically, is all you can think about.)

By the time you two land in Manhattan, it’s dusk, that magic hour when the city sheds its skin and slips into something more comfortable. The streets buzz with that New York electricity that called you even as a young girl in Busan, a current that used to light you up from the inside but now just makes you wonder if you ever really loved it at all.

The SoHo rooftop has undergone the standard office-to-party transformation: string lights creating the illusion that accounting departments can be romantic, glasses clinking.

For the first time since Seoul, you almost feel like a person again instead of a walking collection of unprocessed emotions wearing business casual. Not fixed, not whole, but at least functional, kind of like finding your favorite sweater that you thought was ruined in the wash.

You slip back into your social persona with ease. Your laugh doesn't even sound fake to your own ears, which feels like progress. The champagne bubbles tingle pleasantly, reminding you that sensations other than dread still exist.

It’s always been in your nature; telling stories, entertaining others. Your hands paint disaster scenarios in the air, voice dropping conspiratorially at just the right moments. When you describe finding the missing sample jacket locked in a janitor's closet, your audience erupts into that specific kind of corporate laughter. Even Daniel, standing beside you like your professional shadow, can't help but crack up.

It feels almost like... okay. Not perfect. Not Seoul-never-happened. But upright and breathing, like a houseplant that survived your vacation.

The moment shifts when Daniel's fingers tap your elbow gently. "Hey, walk with me for a second?" he murmurs.

"Sure," you respond, the word automatic as your brain runs rapid calculations on what this could possibly be about.

He leads you away from the celebration, past colleagues swapping war stories and marketing puns, until you reach the edge of the rooftop where the Manhattan skyline lights up the sky.

You exhale slowly, watching the city sparkle before you, thousands of windows lit up. The view is breathtaking in that uniquely New York way that somehow makes your problems feel both microscopic and monumentally important.

"Have you spoken to Jungkook?" Daniel asks carefully.

The question cuts through your momentary peace. Just like that, the city lights dim, the champagne goes flat in your veins, and you're back in Seoul, watching everything fall apart in high definition.

You don't answer immediately. Jaw clicks into lockdown mode. Your arms fold across your chest, the universal body language for "absolutely not having this conversation right now." If emotional armor could make sound, yours would be clanking into place.

Daniel watches you with that particular expression he reserves for when you're being self-destructive but he's too smart to say so directly. It's the look that has always made lying to him impossible, which is precisely why you've been avoiding direct eye contact.

You stare down at your drink where bubbles perform their slow surrender, fizzling into oblivion against the rim of your glass. There's probably a metaphor in there somewhere, but you're too tired to figure it out.

"No," you finally admit, "Not since Korea."

Daniel nods once, the motion small but definitive. "He asked if we were coming tonight."

Your heart performs an acrobatic routine that would qualify for the Olympics, some complicated tumble of hope, panic, and an unfortunate third thing. The champagne you've been nursing suddenly seems very fascinating.

"And?" The question emerges more breathless than you'd prefer.

"I didn't answer," Daniel replies with a shrug. "Wasn't my place."

You swallow hard enough that it feels like forcing down something solid.

"You don't have to tell me anything," he adds, tone dropping to that specific frequency of friendship where truth lives. "But I figured you'd want to know."

Somewhere in this universe, Jungkook might be wondering if you'd show up tonight. The thought lands like a stone in still water, ripples expanding outward.

What would he have done if he'd seen you here?

What would you have done if he flew from Seoul?

Worse: what might you still do?

You remain silent, lips pressed together in a thin line of indecision. Your voice might crack, words may betray you.

The truth is, you're standing at the crossroads of pride and longing, and you have absolutely no idea which direction to take.

You tilt your glass back, letting the alcohol wash across your lips before words form in your throat. “I don't know what you think you saw," you say, your gaze sliding sideways to catch Daniel's expression without fully committing to eye contact. "But I promise you, it's not some great love story."

Daniel makes a sound, a gentle hum that vibrates with something like understanding. “Never said it was," he offers,. "But something definitely happened. You've been walking around like someone left the door open and the wind knocked everything over inside you."

"Poetic," you say sarcastically and roll your eyes.

He shrugs. "I minored in creative writing."

A laugh escapes you, unexpected and genuine,"You minored in talking shit."

His grin unfolds slowly. "So? I'm right."

The silence that follows feels weighted, layered with everything you cannot bring yourself to say. Words gather in your chest, pressing against your ribs like birds against cage bars, but none find their way to your tongue.

Part of you — the part that still wakes at 3 A.M replaying conversations that cannot be undone — wants desperately to believe that your spiral has gone unnoticed. That you might still appear whole from certain angles, in certain lights.

When he speaks again, his voice has softened even more. “You know, you never really do things for yourself."

The observation catches you off-guard, slipping beneath your defensesd. Your brow furrows,"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean..." His hand lifts in a gesture that encompasses everything. His fingers trace the invisible architecture of the career you've built, brick by exhausting brick. "You do this. All of this. You're a fucking workaholic. But when was the last time you did something just because you wanted to? Just for you?"

"I wanted this campaign to succeed," you retort. Your posture straightens, shoulders squaring against accusation.

"For the company," he fires back, neither unkind nor relenting. "For the brand. For the headlines. For the part of you that refuses to lose. But not for you. Not really."

Your fingers curl more tightly around the stem of your glass. Because, like, yeah�� you keep a tight ship and all, but it’s what your multimillion dollar contract calls for. In the distance, a helicopter cuts across the skyline, its searchlight briefly illuminating clouds from beneath, revealing their hidden dimensions.

Daniel turns to face you more fully, his expression shifting more dangerously sincere. "What's all this success worth if there's no one to share it with?"

You attempt a laugh that emerges more like a strangled hiccup. Your lips part for a comeback that refuses to come out while your traitorous brain launches into a highlight reel of Jungkook: his sleepy morning smile across hotel pillows, the weight of his shoulder underneath your head during that night on the beach in Busan, his laughter spilling into crevices of the hotel bar. The memories arrive uninvited, like party crashers bringing gifts you're afraid to open.

Daniel nudges your arm, pulling you back from the your thoughts. "Look, I'm not saying go get married in a garden or whatever. Although, now that I think about it, the photos would be incredible. Very Architectural Digest meets romance novel."

He grins before his expression softens. "But maybe... just maybe... it's okay to let someone in. You know, that thing humans have been doing since, like, forever."

You meet his gaze then. It's terrifying, like standing at the edge of a high dive you're not sure you remember how to use.

He's not pushing, not wielding your vulnerability. He's just reminding you, in the way only Daniel can after years of watching you build emotional fortresses, that beneath your exoskeleton of competence and control, you're still embarrassingly human. Still allowed to want something that doesn't come with metrics, target demographics, or quarterly reviews.

You exhale slowly, turning back toward the skyline,"I don't know how to do that," you admit.

"Then start small," he says with the gentle pragmatism of a man suggesting you try a new coffee shop rather than rewire your entire emotional circuitry. "Text the guy."

You shake your head, but the gesture lacks conviction. Your fingers twitch slightly against your glass, as if already rehearsing what they might type.

You squint slightly at the skyline like the answers could be written in neon across the Empire State Building: YES or NO in flashing lights, visible from miles away.

Daniel stands beside you, patient in his silence. He's always had this gift; knowing when to push and when to simply wait, creating space for you to stumble toward your own conclusions at your own stubborn pace. Somewhere beneath the layers of denial, a small, persistent voice wonders what would happen if, this one time, you stopped running long enough to find out what might catch up to you.

Finally, you exhale. "And say what?" you mutter, mouth twisting into what might be mistaken for a smile if not for the panic flickering in your eyes. "Text him: 'Hey, can't believe I ended things between us, how's your day going? Fantastic, thanks for asking!'"

Daniel chokes mid-sip, whiskey catching in his throat as laughter erupts. Amber liquid splashes dangerously close to his shirt cuff. "Jesus Christ," he wheezes, eyes watering. "Maybe workshop that a bit before hitting send."

You laugh too at that. The momentary lightness evaporates as quickly as it appeared, leaving something heavier in its wake. Your next breath feels weighted.

"He said something I can't forget," you add, voice dropping to that particular register where confessions live. You trace the condensation on your glass with one finger, drawing invisible patterns that might spell out what you're afraid to say directly. "During this fight we had... about my family."

Daniel's expression shifts, humor draining away. He watches you with that careful attention that always makes you feel seen. "What'd he say?" he asks.

You shake your head, gaze fixed on some indeterminate point beyond the rooftop's edge. The city lights blur and sharpen with each blink. "That I didn't even want to see them. That I was back in Busan for days and didn't bother. He used it like an insult. Like proof that I don't care about anything."

Daniel's silence stretches between you, allowing your words room to exist without immediate judgment. Long enough for you to lift your glass again, for the alcohol to slide down your throat and bloom warm in your chest, for you to wonder if maybe you've said too much or not enough.

Then he speaks tentatively, "Okay. Not great. But..."

You raise an eyebrow, the gesture sharp with defiance. "But?"

"But he's also not wrong." When your eyes narrow dangerously, he lifts his hands in theatrical surrender, "Not about using it against you.. that was a dick move, solid eight out of ten on the asshole scale."

His expression softens. "But about the rest of it. You kept pushing everyone away. I think you told me to forward all calls from your mom to ‘Satan’ one time. You were so scared of being known, it was easier to hide behind quarterly reports than have coffee with the people who gave you life."

Your mouth opens, a rebuttal forming on your tongue. But the words evaporate before they reach air, leaving you momentarily speechless. Some part of your brain, the part not currently occupied with denying everything, whispers that maybe, there's a sliver of truth worth examining here.

Daniel shrugs casually, with the demeanor of someone sliding the final piece into a puzzle. "Look, I don't think he meant it to hurt you. I think you hit a nerve, and he lashed out. Poorly."

He shifts on his heels, "But he also... I don't know. He kind of seems hopelessly in love with you."

You blink rapidly, as if your eyelids might somehow filter this information into something manageable. "He- what?"

A grin unfurls across Daniel's face. "Dude's clearly gone. I've watched him stare at you like you personally invented the concept of desire. Dont tell anyone this, but he’s also been blowing up the rest of the team’s phones asking if he should expect to hear from you."

You scoff, eyes rolling skyward, but a sensation you've been systematically ignoring since Seoul unfolds within you. Since before Korea, if you're being honest, which you rarely are with yourself. The memories surface unbidden: Jungkook hunting down honey butter cookies because you'd mentioned liking once. The way he'd placed the bag in front of you without comment. The thousands of other tiny gestures you'd filed away as "just being cordial" because "being in love with you" seemed too terrifying a folder to create.

"I didn't..." you begin, then falter. The words hover, “ I don't think I know how to let someone be in love with me."

The confession hangs between you, delicate and honest. Daniel doesn't look away, "Maybe," he says simply, "it's time to learn."

The words settle over you, not a weight but an opening, a door unlocked but not yet pushed ajar.

Daniel drains the last of his drink with finality, eyes fixed on the skyline. The casual observer might think he's admiring Manhattan's glittering architecture, but you recognize this particular silence — the loaded pause before he drops something he's been strategically holding back. It's the conversational equivalent of watching someone wind up for a pitch.

And sure enough, after a calculated beat, he says, "You do realize the contract is done, right?"

You glance sideways, eyebrows lifting in a gesture that attempts indifference but lands somewhere closer to alarm.

"All the promo's scheduled. Launch assets are live. My inbox is starting to go down," he continues, ticking items off an invisible check list. "You're technically free. No more approvals.”

His voice softens around the final blow: "No more excuses."

You lean against the railing, the metal cool against your forearms "What are you saying?”

"I'm saying..." He turns toward you fully now, "You don't have to pretend this is about work anymore."

A scoff escapes you. "Please. Me? And a k-pop idol?"

Daniel delivers a look so deadpan it could be preserved in a museum, the perfect distillation of "are you actually serious right now?" compressed into a single facial expression.

You clarify, hands animating the air between you like you're conducting an invisible orchestra of denial. "The biggest k-pop idol. Like globally famous. The same dude who gets murdered everytime there’s so much as one dating rumor." Each descriptor escalates in pitch, as if the accumulation of external obstacles might somehow outweigh the internal ones.

Daniel lifts his hands in surrender, though his expression suggests he's winning whatever battle is being waged. "Yes. All true. Also.. just so we're keeping track, he's the same guy you've spent the last few months hooking up with, traveling the world with, fighting with like some married couple, and if I'm not mistaken, spending all your time with."

Your eyes narrow to slits. "You make it sound so romantic," you mutter, each word dripping with sarcasm.

"It kind of was," he says with a shrug, "In a HR-nightmare kind of way."

You roll your eyes for what feels like the hundredth time tonight, but there's no real resistance behind the gesture. If anything, you're fighting back something dangerously close to a smile.

Daniel nudges your arm, “I'm not telling you to drop everything and chase some wild fantasy. I'm not suggesting you write his name in your planner with little hearts or anything. But… if it is something, if it's more, then maybe you owe it to yourself to find out."

You stare down at the streetlights below, watching headlights weave through intersections. The city continues its relentless dance, indifferent to your crisis of heart. Somewhere down there, people are making decisions far less complicated than yours; ordering takeout, hailing cabs, choosing which Netflix show to fall asleep to.

"You should take a few days off," he adds, less the colleague who's seen you demolish incompetent vendors and more the friend who once held your hair back after three too many tequila shots at the holiday party. "You can actually take them. The company will somehow survive without you micromanaging every press release for 72 whole hours."

You don't answer, silence a familiar shield.

"I'll cover anything that comes up," he says, the offer weighted with a kindness you're not sure you deserve. "But I think you need to go."

He doesn't say where. He doesn't have to. The destination hovers between you.

Still, you say nothing, your fingers tracing idle patterns in the condensation on your glass. But something shifts in the atmosphere around you, not a decision yet, nothing so concrete or brave. More like the subtle change in molecular rearrangement that animals sense before humans do.

Because maybe there's a version of this story where you don't end up alone with your accomplishments for company, where professional triumph isn't the only warmth in your bed. The thought bubbles up, ridiculous and terrifying and somehow not entirely unwelcome.

You've spent so much of your life building walls with the focus of someone who believes safety lies in being alone, you almost forgot what it feels like to stand before a door that's already open, waiting. The possibility stretches before you, an invitation to step through and see what might exist on the other side.

Daniel slips away, leaving behind only the lingering scent of overpriced whiskey and words that hang in the air. You remain at the railing, arms folded across your chest in what your therapist would probably call a "defensive posture" if you actually went to therapy instead of just reading psychology articles at 3 A.M.

For a while, you just breathe, an activity so basic it shouldn't feel revolutionary, and yet somehow does. One inhale. One exhale. One heartbeat after another.

Then, with the slowness of someone defusing a bomb, your hand migrates to your pocket. Your fingers close around your phone, that small, glowing rectangle.

The screen illuminates instantly, revealing a notification dot so aggressively red it might as well be screaming. You tap the voicemail icon with the hesitancy of someone poking at what might be a sleeping bear. The app lags for a moment, probably collapsing under the sheer weight of messages you've been studiously ignoring.

112 unheard messages.

You stare at the number, a monument to your impressive commitment to avoidance. Gold medal material.

You haven't listened to a single one. Haven't allowed yourself even the smallest peek behind the curtain you pulled.

Your fingers hovers above the most recent message, trembling slightly. You press play before the rational part of your brain can stage an intervention.

"Hey."

His voice arrives like an ambush, rough around the edges, frayed.

"I don't even know if you'll listen to this. You probably won't. But I just... I don't know what to do anymore."

Your grip on the railing tightens, as if holding onto something sturdy might somehow anchor you against what's coming.

"You're not answering. You won't text me back. Daniel says you're 'handling things.' Whatever the fuck that means."

“You always do this. You disappear when things get hard. But this isn't just some hookup anymore. You know that."

You press the phone against your ear with unnecessary force, as if the closer it gets the more sense everything might make.

"I said something I shouldn't have. About your family. I know I crossed a line and I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."

Your throat constricts, performing an impressive impersonation of a python with its prey. The apology lingers in the universe for a second too long.

"I wanted you to know me. But… I think I forgot that I'm only just starting to know you. And I want to. God, I want to know you so bad."

The voicemail ends with a soft click that somehow sounds louder than any dramatic declaration. You don't move. You don't blink. You barely breathe. Your brain, that overachieving organ that's kept you ten steps ahead in boardrooms and client meetings, suddenly finds itself speechless.

You press play on the next message with the reckless courage of someone who's already jumped from the plane and figures the parachute situation can be sorted out mid-fall.

"Please talk to me."

The sound travels from your phone directly to some unguarded part of your chest.

"I can't sleep. I keep thinking you're gonna call. And then you don't. I get it, I do. But I miss you."

"That's pathetic, right? Missing someone who keeps running from you?"

The question hangs in the air, unanswered and devastating. You find yourself shaking your head in automatic response, as if he could somehow see you through time and digital space.

Your thumb hangs over the screen, hesitating for the briefest moment before tapping to the next message like someone poking at a bruise to see if it still hurts. And the next. And the next.

Each message is a progressive study in yearning — Jungkook's voice traveling through octaves of exhaustion and vulnerability you didn't know existed. Each one reveals another layer of him spiraling, leaving behind a man who can't understand why someone disappeared.

"I think I'm in love with you.”

There it is. The message that finally breaks through the elaborate wall of denial you've been maintaining. Kind of like the sprinkler system activating after the fire's already spread to every room.

You bite down on your bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, your body's desperate attempt to keep everything contained as your eyes begin to burn with the particular sting that follows with tears. You lock your phone with fingers that suddenly feel clumsy.

The breath you draw in trembles, your chest expanding around a feeling you've been ignoring since Seoul.

You can feel it now rushing toward you with the unstoppable momentum of a train whose brakes have failed. The devastation you left behind, casually strewn across continents like discarded clothing. The truth you didn't want to admit, even in the privacy of your own thoughts. The stupid, impossible, terrifying fact that somewhere between contract negotiations and late night 1-on-1 strategy sessions, between stolen moments in hotel bars and shared laughter over take-out containers that he forced you to eat, between arguments that felt too personal and kisses that felt too intimate, Jeon Jungkook somehow slipped past every defense system you'd installed and became more than just another project to complete.

He became the person you think about when good things happen.

The voice you want to come home to on difficult days.

The laugh that somehow makes everything lighter.

Oh.

The realization lands with surprising gentleness.

Oh shit.

You wipe your cheek with the back of your hand for tears that somehow manifested on your face. For the first time since you left Korea, the weight that's been compressing your lungs begins to lift. Not because the ache has diminished or because the fear has subsided, but because you've finally granted it permission to exist.

The realization settles into your bones, that what you want has never resided in quarterly projections or campaign metrics or the professional detachment you've perfected over years of holding people at a distance.

What you want, what you've wanted while convincing yourself otherwise, exists in a hotel room in Korea where a boy with gentle hands and knowing eyes has been waiting for your voice. The thought arrives with clarity, cutting through layers of cynicism and self-protection: you've been running from the very thing you most desperately need.

Your fingers find your phone with newfound certainty, navigating to your travel app with none of the hesitation that's characterized every interaction with this device recently. The flight options materialize on the screen. You select the earliest departure, credit card information autofilling as if your technology recognized this decision before you made it. The laughter and chatter from your coworkers seems so far away despite how close they actually are.

It’s just you and the simple, terrifying recognition that some journeys can only be postponed, never avoided — and the surprising discovery that stepping toward what frightens you can feel remarkably like coming home.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Okay… so you’ve definitely done more degrading things before. Right?

You're sweating through your blouse with the enthusiasm of someone auditioning for a deodorant commercial (and failing. To your own detriment.)

This isn't the "post-workout glow" fitness influencers pretend is attractive. No, this is your body's formal declaration of mutiny, a rebellion against rational thought executed through every pore. Your armpits, palms, and the back of your neck have formed an alliance dedicated to transforming your clothes into soggy evidence of your composure.

What the fuck are you doing?

Outside Jeon Jungkook's front door, you've established a pacing perimeter worthy of a security detail, shoes padding against pavement. The neighborhood is all manicured hedges and tasteful architecture, houses standing witness to what is undoubtedly the most unhinged moment of your professional career.

You halt abruptly, pivot, and resume your trajectory in the opposite direction. Each step carries you further into the absurdity of your situation while bringing you no closer to resolution.

"What the fuck am I doing?" The question emerges as a desperate whisper, fingers wrapped around your purse strap "What the actual fuck am I doing?"

The universe, in its infinite wisdom, offers no response. Not even a convenient sign from the heavens, no fortuitous text message, not so much as a symbolic bird flying overhead. Silence, highlighting the void where your rational decision-making process should be.

The most devastating part of this is your complete lack of preparation — you, who once created a thirty-page document for a photoshoot involving a temperamental cat. You, who color-codes your calendar down to 15-minute increments and keeps emergency protein bars in every bag you own. You, who has never entered a meeting without 3 different strategic approaches and a mental flowchart of possible outcomes.

You flew across the Pacific Ocean on nothing but emotional autopilot, your normally meticulous planning abandoned. You landed, changed your shirt three times in the Incheon airport bathroom while arguing with your reflection, and then navigated to this address with single-minded determination.

His address was acquired through means that would make your company's legal department develop hives. Extracted from the Calvin Klein executive contact database with the moral flexibility of someone who has left all professional ethics back in Manhattan along with her common sense. The violation of privacy policies sits in your phone.

You are experiencing what can only be described as a crash landing; no runway in sight, no landing gear deployed. The metaphorical wreckage spreads across this quiet street, invisible to everyone but acutely, painfully apparent to you.

You excavate your phone from the abyss of your bag and open the Notes app for the third time in 10 minutes, staring with mounting horror at the single sentence you managed to compose somewhere over the ocean — the grand thesis statement that was supposed to carry you across this threshold:

"I'm sorry, and I think I like you."

You blink at it, the words swimming on the screen like poorly translated instructions for assembling complicated furniture. A scoff escapes you in part disbelief, part surrender to the cosmic joke your life has become.

Jesus Christ. That's the line?

That's the earth-shattering revelation that propelled you across international date lines and multiple time zones?

It has all the weight of a middle schooler passing a folded note in math class. "I think I like you" — the verbal equivalent of bringing a water pistol to a nuclear war. The confession carries all the emotional awareness of someone who just discovered feelings exist yesterday and hasn't figured out the instruction manual.

You are pathetic.

You shove the phone back into your bag with force, bearing witness to perhaps the most pitiful declaration of affection ever composed by an allegedly successful adult. Another shaky breath fills your lungs, doing absolutely nothing to calm you.

You haven't knocked yet. You're just standing here, marinating in your own anxiety sweat. Your current strategy appears to be hoping for divine intervention. Perhaps the earth might split open and swallow you whole, or a targeted meteorite might strike just this spot on this particular street in Korea. At this point, even a localized power grid failure would be welcome, anything to ensure that no one ever discovers the depths of your desperate, transcontinental travels for this man.

You feel that urge to run again.

But your feet remain rooted to the concrete, overriding any escape plans.

Underneath the panic, the dampening of your shirt, and the chorus of doubt performing a full operatic production in your head, you know exactly why you're here.

Because of that voice on the phone that carved something permanent into your memory.

Because of the way he looked at you across crowded rooms.

Because for once in your existence, this isn't about control or power or securing the optimal outcome.

This is about choosing someone, even if it makes your knees perform a dance of terror. Even if it required theft of confidential information from a database you definitely shouldn't have access to.

You take one more breath, and step forward with the confidence of someone who still has approximately 14 seconds before complete collapse.

Your knuckles connect with the door in what's meant to be a confident knock but comes as more like the hesitant tapping of someone who's not entirely sure they've got the right house and is already formulating an apology to potential strangers.

The door swings open. There's no cinematic pause, no buffer zone during which you might remember how to be a functioning human capable of speech and basic facial control.

And there he is.

Jungkook.

Standing in his doorway like some kind of domesticated Greek god, barefoot in sweatpants that hang from hipbones, wearing a black t-shirt that clings to his torso. His silver chain catches the light, hair artfully disheveled.

There are shadows beneath his eyes that speak volumes, the look of someone waiting too long for a response that never arrived, for a message that never delivered.

He looks frozen in a moment of suspended animation.

And you.. well, you look like someone who's just realized they've accidentally booked a one-way ticket to their own reckoning without packing appropriate attire. Your professional persona is dissolving faster than cheap mascara in a rainstorm.

Your mouth opens automatically, but your brain has apparently decided to go offline. Not a greeting emerges. Not a witty remark. Not the apology you composed and discarded a dozen times between your airplane seat and this moment.

How do you explain what it means to see him again?To see the evidence of what you did inscribed across his features? To stand there and have a million feelings rushing into you?

And worst of all, to realize that somewhere along the way, between "professional boundaries" and "conflict of interest," you've managed to accomplish something you never planned for: you've fallen catastrophically, inconveniently, undeniably for Jeon Jungkook.

His eyes sweep over you once, then return for a second pass. There's a flicker of disbelief in his expression, as if his brain is running diagnostics on whether you're actually standing on his doorstep or if he's finally cracked and started hallucinating ex-whatever-you-weres.

And then, with the simplicity of someone handling something that might shatter, he says your name.

No accusation coloring the syllables. It’s your name, floating between you like a verbal lifeline extended without judgment.

You swallow with enough force to be audible, fingers doing that twitchy dance at your sides. The emotional menu before you offers several options — spontaneous crying, inappropriate nervous laughter, or your personal favorite: the tactical retreat.

But you stay put. No running shoes required.

You look at him with all your barricades temporarily offline. You’re thinking of that beach, that night you tried to bury. Thinking of the way he looked at you then, like you were still salvageable. Thinking of when he told you, “Hi is a good place to start.” You didn’t say it at your mother’s house. Couldn’t. But maybe now, with the weight of everything lingering in the quiet, maybe now’s your second chance.

So you take it.

"Hi," you whisper, the syllable emerging with all the confidence of a first-time public speaker.

He stares at you. You stare back.

Finally, Jungkook breaks the silence, his voice scratchier than you remember. There's a rawness to it, an edge that suggests maybe he got tired of speaking into the void of your unanswered messages. “What the fuck are you doing here?"

And just like that, your mental hard drive crashes. The speeches you rehearsed somewhere over the terrain vanish like airplane meals — unmemorable and completely inadequate for the situation.

You stand there, watching his chest rise and fall with slightly uneven breaths, and realize that you're going to have to improvise without a safety net.

The only thing your brain can process is the sound of blood whooshing behind your ears and the embarrassing tremor in your fingers as they begin to battle the suddenly complex engineering marvel that is your purse zipper.

"I—" you stammer, voice cracking like a thirteen-year-old boy asking someone to dance. "Hold on—just—"

You excavate the dig site formerly known as your handbag, pushing past convenience store receipts, a lipstick, and a charging cable that's currently charging absolutely nothing. Your fingers finally close around what you've flown across the world to deliver.

It's not exactly presentation-ready; it’s crumpled like it's been stuffed in a blender, folded and smudged around the edges.

With the triumph of someone who just discovered treasure, you extract the contract. His contract. Holy grail of paperwork.

The very same contract for Calvin Klein that consumed months of your life, prompted 17 panic attacks, and served as the professional excuse for every personal boundary violation you've committed since meeting him.

You unfold it clumsily, then thrust it toward him like an artifact that could explain your entire emotional state without requiring actual human communication.

"Your contract is up," you announce. "It ended this week."

Jungkook blinks at you with confusion. His eyebrows pull together, creating that little crease you've definitely never memorized. "Okay...?" he questions.

You look at him with the desperate stare of someone whose entire communication strategy is telepathy while your throat constricts. The words scream inside your head with megaphone clarity: Don't you get it? Don't you see what I'm trying to say?!

But all that emerges is a breath.

He glances down at the paper, then back at your face "I know," he says slowly, "I was there when I signed it."

A sound escapes you. This is what your life has become — standing on a doorstep, physically shaking, brandishing legal paperwork like it's a love letter. You, who once negotiated a seven-figure deal without breaking a sweat, reduced to communicating your feelings through expired contractual obligations and hoping he somehow translates this into "I've made a terrible mistake and flown across the world to fix it."

He's still examining the contract, tilting his head slightly, eyes narrowing, as if proper legal documentation might suddenly reveal invisible ink.

It's really just paper and ink and legal jargon that somehow became the flimsiest of excuses to orbit each other's lives.

Your fingers tighten around the document before it goes limp in your hands, dangling between you. “You think I care about this contract? Do you really think I flew across the world to remind you about paperwork? What am I, the world's most dedicated courier service?"

His eyes lock onto yours now. He's silent, still, letting you speak.

"I don't give a shit about Calvin Klein," you continue. "Or the campaign. Or the storefronts. I mean... I do, I did, but not like that. Not more than this." You gesture vaguely between the two of you with the contract, which has now been demoted from legal document to impromptu prop.

You're fully in verbal freefall now, thoughts colliding in real-time, each one crashing into the next before either can reach a proper conclusion.

"Do you know what you did to me?" The question is more of a whisper. "You made me feel things I don't let myself feel. You made me lose control. You — God, you made me talk."

His jaw tightens eyes simultaneously sharp and soft. He's bracing himself, his body language shifting.

"For the first time in a year, I saw my mother," you continue, the confession tumbling out with the momentum of something that's been held back too long. "I held my sister. I went home."

You blink rapidly, your eyes performing emergency protocols to contain the tears. "Do you know what kind of man it takes to make me do that?"

Jungkook's lips part like he's about to speak, but nothing leaves, as if the dictionary of possible responses has been wiped from his memory. You step closer, closing the distance between you.

"You got me to sit on a beach and tell you things I've never said out loud. You got me to let you in. Without trying.. or asking." Your hands wave vaguely in the air, as if trying to physically grasp the concept. "You just... did. You're the first man who's ever made me feel something that wasn't transactional. You make me feel like a person, Jungkook.“

He's standing with the frozen stillness of someone who just discovered they're in a minefield, but his chest is rising and falling. You know he's hearing it all; every word, every crack in your voice, every truth you've been swallowing since you pushed him away.

"I didn't come here to fix anything," you murmur, "I just needed you to know that you mattered. That you weren't some mistake for me."

And then, quieter, “You were the only thing that ever felt real.“

Jungkook blinks once. And then again. If a human could display a buffering sign, it would be rotating above his head right now.

He's speechless, which considering he's a man who performs in front of stadium crowds and has entire teams dedicated to crafting his public statements, is quite the achievement to add to your professional resume.

You just let him look at you. There's no persona to hide behind, not anymore.

And the longer he stands there, wordless as a statue, watching you, jaw clenched tight, the more your stomach flip-flops inside you.

You've never been this exposed. Not even in the heat of his bed, when physical nakedness seemed like the most vulnerable state possible (how adorably naive that belief seems now.) This is an entirely different category of exposure.

Still, he says nothing. The audacity of this silence is almost impressive.

So you redirect, falling back on the one thing you understand: paperwork.

Your fingers tremble, but you manage to grip the contract and tear it straight down the middle with surprising dramatic flair.

Again. And again. And again.

Until it's nothing but corporate confetti. Thin little fragments of legally binding language and signature and structure, falling in what your brain identifies as a metaphor so on-the-nose it would be rejected from a first year creative writing workshop.

"I don't care about this," you whisper, gesturing to the paper carnage. "I mean, I do care about this. Just… not the way I care about you." You immediately recognize this as the kind of line that would make you roll your eyes if you heard it in a movie, yet here you are, delivering it with complete sincerity. The universe has a twisted sense of humor.

Nothing. Nada. Zilch. His silence has evolved from awkward to actually embarrassing now.

You’re starting to think you may be too late. Maybe he got back together with his ex. Maybe him and Jennie are fucking again.

You blink back the burn in your eyes, throat closing around words. "Please," you breathe out, "Tell me I'm not too late. Tell me I didn't fuck up another thing in my life—"

You barely finish getting the words out before he moves.

One second you're standing there, and the next, his hands are on your waist, pulling you in, grounding you like gravity suddenly remembered your specific coordinates.

To your surprise — he’s kissing you.

The world narrows to this: his hands on your body, warm and solid and real. The faint scent of his musky cologne mixing with a body wash that is uniquely him. The pressure of his lips against yours, lip ring cool against your warm mouth.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, a small voice wonders if this counts as a successful business negotiation or a breach of ethics. The rest of your consciousness tells that voice, quite firmly, to shut the hell up.

You melt into him, shaking and breathless, fingers curling into his t-shirt as your lips part under his with enthusiasm.

This isn't some tentative, exploratory first kiss from a Hinge meetup. This isn't the calculated kiss of someone testing chemistry before deciding if a dinner date was worth the investment.

This is a kiss that announces "you're home" with little to no subtlety.

His mouth remains attached to yours as he backs into the doorway, pulling you along and tethering your body to his like you might run. His paranoia, you have to admit, isn't entirely unreasonable given your track record of vanishing acts.

The torn contract lies abandoned on the welcome mat. The wind shifts behind you as the door clicks shut with finality.

Inside, it's warm. Dim. Quiet. Smells like a mix of spices and some kind of candle. His soft lips move over yours, intoxicating enough that your educated brain has forgotten how to form coherent sentences in any known language.

He walks you backward through his home, the kiss breaking only in microsecond intervals.

"I waited for you," he whispers between kisses. You respond with a sound between a whimper and a sigh, palms pressing into his chest as he lightly pushes you against the nearest wall with surprising authority. His breath fans hot against your cheek, “I told myself to let it go. That maybe I'd imagined all of it, that you didn't feel the same."

You gasp as his teeth graze your skin with just enough pressure to short-circuit your higher reasoning capabilities. One of his hands slides up beneath your blouse, his touch somehow managing to be both needy and soft.

Your last coherent thought before surrendering entirely to this expected plot twist is that Daniel is never, ever going to let you live this down when you return to New York.

"I've never felt this way about anyone," he exhales against the base of your throat, words tumbling out. "Not once."

It’s real when he says it. All of it. Every emotional shard he left scattered across like breadcrumbs, still waiting for you to come back and attempt the world's most ill-advised puzzle reassembly.

You pull him closer with upper body strength you didn't know you possessed, kissing him like your respiratory system has been recently reconfigured to run exclusively on Jeon Jungkook. Your hands slip beneath the hem of his shirt, cataloging the warmth of him, the tension coiled in his muscles.

"Jungkook..." You begin, caught between a moan and a murmur.

But he shakes his head, kissing you harder, "Don't. Don't say anything yet. Just be here." The request comes with the desperation of someone who's still half-convinced they're hallucinating.

You have absolutely no idea of how you've navigated this far into his house. Your last clear memory involves standing on a doorstep watching shredded corporate paperwork fall to the gravel.

The walls blur, corners cease to exist. Every hallway becomes a perfect clone when your mouth remains fused to his. You maintain only peripheral awareness of your own movement, shoes occasionally slipping against the floor with all the grace of a newborn giraffe, his hands gripping your waist to steady you. You careen into one wall, then another, turning his home into an obstacle course neither of you seems particularly interested in navigating efficiently.

He's talking through it all, and you don't realize you're crying until his thumb brushes over your cheekbone in adoration.

"I thought I lost you," he mumbles, his mouth creating a cartography of your features; the edge of your lips, the angle of your jaw, the sensitive spot just below your ear. "You were gone. I thought that was it."

You shake your head, and he doesn't even wait for verbal confirmation before kissing you again. Deeper this time, with the kind of attention to your body that makes you wonder if perhaps your entire professional career has just been an elaborate prelude to this specific moment in this hallway with this person.

Your fingers fumble with the hem of his shirt, tugging the fabric upward in what's meant to be a smooth, seductive motion. He lifts his arms automatically anyway as if he is just as desperate to eliminate any non-skin barriers between you.

His shirt gets tossed somewhere, your hand firmly planted on the plane of his chest, the taut muscle underneath.

"Fuck," he mutters against your collarbone, as he presses you against yet another wall (his home apparently consisting of nothing but convenient vertical surfaces.) One hand slips beneath your blouse while the other slides up your clothed thigh with intent. "You can't do that to me again."

"I won't," you promise, hands trembling against his chest "I swear."

He kisses you again like he doesn't quite believe you but has decided the potential heartbreak is an acceptable risk if it means having this fragment of connection.

Clothes begin their gradual migration to the floor — not the choreographed disrobing of movie sex scenes where garments somehow land in artful arrangements, but the realistic, occasionally awkward shedding. Your blouse gets caught on one earring. He helps with buttons while simultaneously trying to maintain mouth-to-mouth contact, resulting in misaligned kisses that land at the corner of your lips.

There's a brief, silent negotiation about whether your shoes should come off before or after your pants. Jeans are discarded, fingers brushing against your lace underwear.

You don't even care about the logistics anymore, the who-goes-where and what-happens-when that your organizational brain would typically want to map out. You just know one essential truth.

You need him.

Not in the scratch-an-itch way of previous encounters.

You're letting him see you now, unfiltered and unedited.

You don't try to steady your hands as they trail down his sides. Don't stabilize your voice to hide the crack when you whisper his name like it's become a more honest version of your own. You don't armor yourself when he looks down at you, shirtless and flushed, and murmurs with wonder: "You came back."

And that's when he lifts you, hands sliding under your thighs, holding you firmly to him. You wrap your legs around him, arms circling his neck, surrendering to being transported like the world's most willing hostage.

You have only the vaguest awareness of your surroundings. Some room, presumably his bedroom, though frankly it could have been his kitchen or laundry room and you wouldn't have noticed or cared. Geography has become thoroughly irrelevant to your current priorities.

The only thing actually registering in your sensory catalog is him; breath warming your collarbone, skin pressed against skin, lips trailing slow, wet kisses along the slope of your shoulder. He lays you down on his bed, gaze taking inventory of every inch of you.

His expression carries the stunned disbelief of someone who can't quite convince himself he's allowed to have you after you pulled your disappearing act.

The room is quiet except for your combined breathing and the soft rustle of sheets. Jungkook's palms drag up the sides of your thighs with a confidence that makes your skin tingle in anticipation, thumbs grazing the curve of your hips. He lowers himself, dark hair falling across his forehead. He presses a kiss just above your knee that sends an electrical current straight to your core which has apparently been in hibernation.

"You always look like this for me?" he murmurs. His fingers toy with the delicate hem of your lace underwear — the good ones you'd packed with what you now recognize was blatant optimism disguised as practicality. His eyes flicker up to catch yours, and you recognize him on his knees in his own bedroom, and suddenly breathing seems like an advanced skill you never quite mastered. "Spread out, soft... waiting?"

You can only nod, lips parted and pulse fluttering beneath your skin. Because when he's like this, looking at you like you're some kind of miracle he's afraid to blink and miss, it's impossible to maintain the illusion that you were ever in control of this situation.

Your eyes flutter shut, hands curling into the sheets. He hasn't even properly touched you yet, but you're already unraveling faster than a cheap sweater in the dryer, undone by nothing more than his mouth hovering in your general vicinity.

You feel the delicate tug of lace between your thighs, the slow drag of your underwear as he bites at the waistband. He pulls them down with his teeth like he's personally offended by the concept of using hands for their intended purpose, savoring each millimeter of progress.

He drops the lace to the floor with casual disregard, like it’s unimportant — which, right now, it is — and without hesitation, he leans in, pressing the softest kiss to your soaked core.

You jolt visibly, audibly, a shaky sound catching in your throat as your legs try to twitch closed out of instinct. Not that he allows this sudden attack of modesty to proceed.

No, he’s already got his hands under your thighs, dragging you closer to the edge of the bed, closer to his mouth, to the heat of his breath, to the place he plans to keep you until you forget your name.

And then he hooks your legs over his shoulders with practiced expertise, essentially wearing your thighs like the world's most inappropriate neck pillow.

“There we go,” he mutters, like he’s pleased with himself, like he’s settling in. His fingers dig into your thighs to maintain his access route, thumbs brushing over skin softly that somehow makes everything worse (or better, depending on your perspective.) He’s spreading you wide open for him, singing your praises, “Nice and close. Stay just like that, baby.”

And you do, despite your brain's distant, feeble protests about maintaining some semblance of dignity. Your hands scramble through the sheets, heart thundering in your chest.

A single coherent thought manages to penetrate the fog of sensation overtaking your higher reasoning capabilities: you are so, so screwed. Metaphorically, for now. Though given current trajectory, the literal interpretation seems imminent.

His grip on your thighs tightens just before his mouth finds your cunt. It’s one singular lick, tongue dividing between your folds. Your fingers dive into his hair with the desperate urgency of someone grabbing the last life preserver on a sinking ship, threading through the soft strands until you're practically clutching his head. “F-fuck!”

It’s consistent laps up and down your folds, your juices coating his lips, the coldness of his lip ring sending you into oblivion. He doesn’t ease up. He doesn’t tease. He devours you, tongue beginning to speed up.

You feel completely exposed, like you've accidentally sent your most private thoughts to a company-wide email thread, and somehow this vulnerability only intensifies everything, your body apparently interpreting danger signals as "please, sir, more of that."

Then his tongue flicks across your clit with the precise timing of someone who's memorized your particular user manual, and the noise that escapes you resembles something between a hiccup and the beginning of an embarrassing performance. Some pathetic little "uh" sound bubbles up from your throat.

You’re spread out beneath him, legs shaking, sheets twisted in your fists as he keeps going — his tongue relentless, lips slick, chin wet with you. His jaw glistens with evidence of your arousal, creating the kind of mess that would horrify you normally but currently registers as the hottest thing you've ever witnessed.

He groans against you, the vibration adding yet another layer of sensation to the overwhelming cascade, a sound so deep and raw it seems to originate from somewhere primal. Maybe he's just as far gone as you are, equally lost in this moment of reconnection. Or maybe… god, who cares, he just really can’t stop.

Your brain is syrupy now, thick and slow, synapses misfiring as your body spins somewhere between pleasure and delirium. Every drag of his tongue has you twitching, every suck of his lips on your clit sends another wave crashing through you, and your body doesn’t know what to do with any of it.

“Fuck—Jungkook, I—I can’t—” you gasp, practically ripping his hair out of his scalp. Your voice has adopted qualities you've never heard before — high, fractured, entirely unbefitting for someone who once made a junior copywriter cry with a single raised eyebrow.

“I love eating this pussy,” he mutters, muffled against your soaked cunt. Like he's experiencing a religious epiphany that happens to be centered between your thighs. “Swear to god, I’d live here. Every damn day.”

You respond with a choked sob that would mortify you in literally any other context but seems perfectly reasonable given that your central nervous system is currently experiencing the neurological equivalent of fireworks.

“You taste so fuckin’ sweet,” he murmurs, dragging his tongue in one long, devastating stripe. “So good for me. You feel that, baby? The way you’re dripping all over me? The way your little cunt’s beggin’ for it?”

Your hips buck upward, but he counters this rebellion, mouth locking around your clit with such pressure that your eyes roll back like they're trying to retreat into your skull for safety.

“You’re mine,” he says, voice containing equal parts possession and wonder, as if he's surprised by his own declaration. “You know that? I’m never letting you go.”

You’re gone. Dizzy, spinning, stars behind your eyes. There’s a scream climbing up your throat, and your entire body is about to break apart, lit from within by a chain reaction that has precisely one catalyst: him, him, him.

Just when you think you’re about to tip over the edge, when every muscle in your body is coiled and quaking, Jungkook pulls back slightly, enough to keep you hovering. His tongue slows to an excruciating crawl, tracing soft circles around your clit. Barely there. Absolutely criminal.

Your whole body jolts, hips twitching helplessly, chasing more, chasing anything. But he keeps you right there, locked in with the pads of his fingers bruising your thighs.

"N-no—don't stop," you whimper, voice hitting notes that would embarrass you in any other context. "Feels so good, I—fuck, since when— since when did you get this good?"

He hums against you, the vibration hitting exactly where you need it most, sounding entirely too pleased with himself. His tongue resumes its torturously slow rhythm, each deliberate stroke designed for maximum frustration. He's moving like he's got all day to keep you on this edge.

"I mean it," you babble, vocabulary reduced to the primitive language center of someone who's forgotten they once intimidated an entire marketing department. "God, it's—fuck, I swear, what the fuck, it feels so —ahh— good!”

You glance down, desperate for visual confirmation that this is actually happening, and discover he's already looking up at you. Eyes dark and hazed over like he's sampled something significantly stronger than the recommended dosage, half-lidded and wild.

And the moment your eyes lock, it hits you like a punch to the chest. Somehow, it feels too raw.

His tongue doesn’t stop, slow and cruel in its own way, but his eyes stay locked on yours. Completely unflinching, intense, like he wants you to see him, like he’s trying to tell you something with every flick of his tongue.

Your tone fractures like cheap glassware. "Jungkook... please, please don't stop, I can't—"

He doesn't (clearly a man who follows through on his commitments.)

Just when you think you’ve adjusted to the slow torture of his tongue, Jungkook shifts.

This time, there's no trace of the earlier restraint. No more teasing. No more measured patience. His tongue flattens and drags against your slit, before circling your clit rapidly, flicking in tight, rhythmic strokes that have your entire body seizing.

You cry out with sounds that would be mortifying if recorded, hands clutching his hair like stress balls. "J-Jungkook—oh my God—don't stop, don't—fuck, please—"

"Keep still," he whispers against you,"Take it just like this."

And then he’s back on you, tongue working you over, flicking fast, then flattening again, sucking your clit into his mouth and rolling the sensitive nub over in devastating circles.

You're spiraling into some delirious dimension where coherent speech is a distant memory. "God—fuck—Jungkook, what the fuck, you're—nnh, please keep going."

He chuckles into you, vibration shooting through your spine. “Want you to cum on my face.”

And then — just when your nerve endings have adjusted to his particular brand of torture — he pauses.

You whine at the sudden loss, body shaking, on the very edge of begging. But then you feel it: two fingers, thick and warm, sliding slowly into you. The stretch makes your back arch, mouth falling open on a broken moan as he sinks them deep and curls them just right.

Your walls clamp around him instantly, greedy and desperate, like they've been waiting for exactly this intrusion.

“Oh my God,” you gasp, eyes flying open. “Fuck!”

He pulls his mouth back a bit to speak, lips slick with you, fingers never leaving you. “Hmm, I’ve always known how to fuck you right.”

He leans in again, multitasking with impressive coordination; his tongue returning to your sopping wet core with determination while his fingers establish a rhythm inside you that can only be described as diabolically perfect. They curl against your sweet spot that makes your vision develop lens flares at the edges.

"Cum for me," he begs, "Cum on my fingers. Cum on my tongue. I want all of it."

And there's nothing left in your arsenal of resistance to fight this particular hostile takeover.

Not when he's looking at you with that expression. Especially not when his fingers are pumping inside you.

Your orgasm tears through you with a force that feels almost violent, body snapping taut beneath him as your back arches off the bed and a involuntary cry rips from your throat.

This is a full system meltdown. A white-hot supernova behind your eyelids, a full-body seismic event that has you gasping for oxygen. Your thighs clamp around Jungkook's head but he doesn't even flinch — he holds steady, fingers maintaining their rhythm, mouth still attending to your clit with dedication.

Everything in the known universe disappears except the overwhelming input of sensation; his mouth, his hands, his voice murmuring something against your trembling flesh that your pleasure-scrambled brain files under "process later" in a folder that may never actually be opened.

And then — oh God. There it is.

A gush of warmth, uncontrollable, spilling out of you before you can stop it,, and maybe you do squirt, maybe it’s just a near miss, but who’s to say? All you know with absolute certainty is that you're essentially baptizing his face, and the animalistic sound he produces in response is obscene, so proud, that it sends another aftershock ripping through your core.

Your whole body vibrates. Wrecked. Utterly demolished.

Jungkook finally pulls back, face glistening. He looks both flushed and triumphant, eyes dilated, staring at you like you've just performed some rare cosmic event he was lucky enough to witness.

"Holy shit," you exhale, "What the fuck was that."

He has a shit-eating grin on his face, wiping his chin with the back of his hand in a gesture that should be gross but somehow isn't, managing to look simultaneously cocky and awestruck. "Guess I don't have to wonder if you came."

You release a sound that exists somewhere between laughter and delirium, flinging an arm over your eyes. “I think I just blacked out," you murmur, the confession slipping out too easily.

Jungkook leans over you, starts to get off his knees, pressing a kiss to your inner thigh, then another softer one. "Good," he says.

You blink at the ceiling with disoriented wonder. "Fuck, I missed this. Even if it wasn't that long of a break."

He chuckles. "I don't care how long it was, I still missed it."

You blink through the haze clouding your vision just in time to witness Jungkook fully rising to his feet at the edge of the bed, his gaze locked on you. His hands hook into the waistband of his boxers, dragging them down his thighs. Then he's there, hard, thick, and flushed, cock cradled in his hand as he strokes himself.

His eyes trail over your body with the thorough documentation of someone creating a visual archive. You can feel yourself responding in eagerness, walls clenching around nothing like they're experiencing separation anxiety.

"I'm never letting you go again," he says, voice dropping the playful edge, becoming something serious. “You get that, right?"

You attempt to formulate a response, but discover your mouth has apparently decided to cosplay as the Sahara. All you can manage is a nod that barely qualifies as movement.

He’s slightly hovering over you, arms sliding under your thighs, clamping around them as he drags you down the bed in one swift movement. You gasp as your ass makes abrupt contact with the edge of the mattress, cool air hitting newly exposed skin while your legs fall open, and then — holy evolutionary biology —

His cock slides through your folds, the weight and heat of him dragging against your already hypersensitive clit like a match strike against sandpaper. You whimper, legs twitching, your body apparently unable to decide if it's too sensitive for more stimulation or desperately craving it.

He repeats the motion again. And again. The thick, velvety length of his cock glides through your slick evidence, teasing your entrance. He lets you feel every ridge and vein without giving you the satisfaction of actual penetration, slaps his length against your juices a few times.

"Feel that?" he speaks softly, "That's mine. This whole fucking pussy. All of you." The possessive declaration should trigger your feminist alarm bells, but your body apparently didn't get the memo, responding instead with an endorsement.

Your hips jerk upward instinctively. “Jungkook, please."

He looks down at you, pupils so dilated they've nearly consumed the black holes. His jaw clenches, sweat creating a subtle sheen at his temple that catches the dim light. His cock twitches against you, leaving another hot trail of precum across your folds like some kind of territorial marking. “Say it," he growls, "Say you're mine."

Your fingers claw at the sheets, completely useless against the solid weight of him positioned between your thighs. You're wet to a degree that should concern you, but it somehow doesn’t. “Jungkook," you moan, "Please. I—I need you."

He grits his teeth, cock jumping between your folds. His expression broadcasts a man barely maintaining his composure. “Say it," he repeats. "Tell me you're mine."

You gasp, legs shuddering in his iron grip. “I'm yours," you whisper, the words escaping before your pride can intercept them. "I'm yours, Jungkook. I'm fucking yours. Please.. just fuck me. I can't, I need it, need you—"

That's all it takes; your desperate declaration being the final passcode to unlock whatever restraint he's been maintaining.

He growls under his breath incoherently, pushing his full length devastatingly slow into you.

And the stretch..

Sweet merciful heaven, it's always been llike discovering a new dimension of sensation. Always been the best you’ve ever had.

He's thick, pressing deeper into you than before, walls struggling to accommodate him. Each inch creates a delicious burn that makes your mouth fall open silently.

Your back arches, hands flying to his forearms with a desperate grip. Your lungs attempt to remember their primary function.

"Fuck," Jungkook hisses through teeth clenched, the grip on your thighs now firmly in bruise-manufacturing territory as he watches himself disappear into you. "You're so tight. Shit, always so wet for me."

You attempt to form words, but they never come. You're too full, stretched beyond what you thought possible. All you manage is a whimper as he bottoms out, hips flush against yours, the substantial weight of him seated so deep you feel claimed from the inside out.

He hovers over you, his forehead brushing yours with unexpected tenderness. "You feel that?" he says under his breath. "That stretch? That fullness? That's me, baby."

You nod frantically, nails creating temporary artwork on his toned arms, walls clenching around him with rhythmic pulses. “I can feel you everywhere," you whisper, "You're—fuck, you're so deep, I—"

Jungkook holds still inside you for one suspended moment, long enough for your body to adjust to the size. Your legs twitch where they remain trapped in his grasp, feet dangling in the air.

Then, without verbal warning or mercy, he withdraws completely.

All the way out.

The sudden emptiness hits you like sensory whiplash, your walls clutching at nothing, muscles fluttering with panic, and then he pushes back in unhurriedly, dragging every impressive inch into your slick cunt.

Head tilting back, you moan out something that sounds like a profanity. He follows your movement like he's tethered to you, leaning down with a groan.

That's when you feel it; the gentle tap of cold metal against your chin.

His silver chain. You never really did appreciate that jewelry piece.

It swings, providing cool metallic kisses against your overheated skin. The visual of it dangling above you, catching light with each oscillation, nearly sends you to heaven.

You will never get tired of this man again.

You grab him by the neck with the decisive urgency of someone who's finally stopped overthinking everything, dragging him down against you, crashing your mouth to his with absolutely zero concern for technique or dignity.

Fuck, the taste.

You taste yourself on his lips, a complex, slightly salty sweetness that you'd never admit to anyone you find strangely intoxicating. Mixed with the warmth of his tongue and the slick slide of his mouth, your brain temporarily suspends all higher functions. He maintains that unhurried rhythm below, deep thrusts that end with a grind.

Your teeth accidentally catch his bottom lip in your eagerness and his breath hitches against your mouth.

"God," you exhale into his mouth, "you feel so fucking good. I-I missed you so m-much.”

Jungkook moans wantonly, forehead pressing against yours in that surprisingly tender gesture that somehow makes everything more intimate than the actual sex itself. His hips maintain that tempo, drawing out pleasure.

"You drive me insane," he whines. "You're so fucking tight, so perfect. I could do this all night. Never get tired of being inside you."

You shudder, gasping into the half-kiss, legs tightening around his waist with newfound plans to eliminate any remaining space between your bodies.

When he thrusts again, harder this time, you swear the room performs a slow rotation around you. He breaks the kiss with a muttered profanity that somehow sounds like poetry, staring down at you. In this moment, in this bed, with this man… you’ve never felt more safe and loved.

Yet the careful, teasing rhythm he’s been making love to you with shatters like fine china dropped from a height.

Jungkook drives into you with a force that makes your breath catch, his hips connecting with yours. The soundtrack becomes deliciously obscene — skin meeting skin with wet smacking. The headboard begins its own contribution, banging against the wall with a volume that would concern you if you weren't well past caring about such mundane considerations.

You cry out incredibly loud, “Oh my God — fuck — Jungkook, don't stop," your nails drag across his back and shoulders, anywhere within reach, as your body jerks beneath him.

"Not fucking planning to," he responds with grim determination, thrusting harder, deeper.

Thank God he doesn't have neighbors.

High, broken sounds emerge from your throat that seem to bypass your vocal cords entirely. And Jungkook? He's producing a collection of grunts and groans, punctuating each thrust with your name.

"You hear that?" he pants, fucking into you with enough force to make the bedframe collapse at this rate. "That's how wet you are for me. That sound—fuuck—you hear how good it sounds?"

You can't formulate a coherent response but your body registers only the essential data points: the way his cock hits that sweet spot each time, the way your walls grip him, the feel of his muscles underneath your fingertips.

You're the visual definition of dishevelment — hair stuck to your face, eyes glazed mouth open and—oh god—actually drooling slightly as you beg for more.

Jungkook's hand comes up to grab your jaw with gentleness, tilting your face to meet his gaze. “You are so, so beautiful."

The sincerity punches through your pleasure-riddled brain. You suddenly recognize this look — the one he's been giving you for weeks while you've been busy pretending he wasn’t. The realization lands with the subtlety of a piano dropped from a third-story window: you're the oblivious protagonist in your own romantic story.

Without warning or consultation, Jungkook rearranges your legs, hooking them over his shoulders like he's claiming ownership… which, at this particular moment, feels like a completely reasonable arrangement.

He thrusts back in, so deep your mouth drops open in a silent scream. Your walls clamp down on them, juices leaking out onto the sheets below you.

"Holy shit," you gasp, "I can't, I can't, you're so deep, Jungkook, I—"

Somehow, in this moment of incoherence and surrender, you've never felt more genuinely yourself. There's something terrifying and liberating about being seen so completely, being known in this most primitive, honest way, and that you’ll let him have you like this.

He groans, abs flexing with roll of his hips. From this angle, escape from visual impact is impossible; he's looming above you, hair falling into eyes, jaw squared. His chest rises and falls in a quick, shallow rhythm but has decided breathing is less important than the task at hand.

"Fuck," he growls, gaze traveling downward to where your bodies connect, where every drag of his cock exhibits a ring of cream soaking his base. "Taking me so well. You're so fucking tight baby, squeezing me like you want me to cum."

You respond with some sound, legs twitching on his shoulders, toes curling behind his back with enough force to cause minor cramping.

"You were made for me," he rasps, "Made to take my cock."

His hand slides to your lower abdomen, pushing down with gentle pressure, and… wait, what is that? You can actually feel him inside you, a distinct bulge moving with each thrust, and your brain momentarily abandons pleasure to engage in scientific inquiry. How is that even possible? Isn't that one of those myths perpetuated by romance novels written by people with questionable understanding of female anatomy? Yet here you are, experiencing the impossible, your own body betraying your skepticism.

"Oh my God," you cry out, "I can feel your—I can't— Jungkook, I can't—"

"Yes, you can," he counters, leaning further forward. He pounds into you, driving his hips even faster. "You're doing so fucking good for me. You're perfect. So perfect."

The praise sends you down a delirious spiral. It's embarrassing how effective simple validation can be, how the right words at the right moment can dismantle any fears you had.

Jungkook's rhythm falters momentarily, before he suddenly stills, cock pulsing inside you with a distinct throb, your walls gripping him with contractions. “Get up," he rasps.

You blink up at him with the unfocused bewilderment of someone who's forgotten how limbs work, body vibrating.

But then his hands are under your thighs, guiding your legs down. He helps you upright, being as careful and soothing as possible. As soon as you’re vertical, back of your knees hitting the edge of the bed, he grabs your face with urgency and kisses you — not the polite, exploratory kiss of early dating, but the kind that has already memorized the topography of your mouth.

His tongue slides in with confidence, and you respond with some sound that gets muffled in his mouth, drunk on the cocktail of hormones, endorphins, and the intoxication of tasting yourself on someone else's lips. Jungkook grips your jaw, hand trailing down to play with one of your pebbled nipples.

Without warning or a proper transition period, his other hand executes a perfect southward journey to your ass and delivers a sharp smack that somehow hits the precise intersection of pleasure and startled indignation.

You gasp, body performing an involuntary jump, and he grins against your lips with the smug satisfaction of someone who's just confirmed a long-held hypothesis (which is that you’ve always liked it when he slapped you. Which he knew.)

"Atta girl," he murmurs, "Now turn around."

You comply eagerly, positioning yourself on wobbly knees on the bed and arching your back in what you hope resembles sexy feline grace rather than a person about to cum in under five seconds. Your hands clutch the sheets with a desperate grip.

Behind you, the mattress creaks with his movement, his hands beginning a leisurely expedition up your back, wandering against your spine. He leans in, his breath cool on your overheated skin, and begins planting kisses down your spine. Each contact of his lips sends tiny electrical currents branching outward, tongue occasionally making guest appearances.

"You're unreal," Jungkook whispers, his voice carrying the raspy quality of genuine awe. "Every inch of you."

And then his hands find your hips with purposeful intent, pulling you backward, and you already know.

You already know you're not ready; not in the sense of being unwilling, but in the way that your body is still recovering from the previous position and probably needs another moment. Normally, under other circumstances, you might’ve stopped whoever, but because it’s him and somehow it feels like it’s been too long, you whimper in excitement.

He taps his cock against your slit a few time, collecting the arousal, and that elicits another wanton moan from you. He slides back in easily, and the sensation of fullness is immediately overwhelming, spine curving in automatic response like you're trying to make space for him inside your body. Your forehead drops to the mattress as a cry escapes your throat, “O-oh fuck, Jungkook!”

"Fuuuck," he groans behind you. His hips connect with your backside forcefully, and repeatedly. "This pussy's fucking perfect. God, I’m going to fuck y-you everyday."

Your entire form jolts with each impact, hands clutching the sheets. Your sensory awareness has narrowed to a hyper-focused inventory of feeling: every inch of him, each purposeful grind of his hips, the smell of his leftover aftershave still on your body, the sound of skin slapping echoing throughout the room. “F-Fuck me like I’m yours.”

That pretty much sends him on a rampage.

His hands press flat between your shoulder blades, effectively pinning you as he speeds his tempo.

"You like this?" he pants against your ear, breath hot against your neck as he leans over you. "Being bent over, dripping all over my cock?"

Your moan comes out high-pitched, needy, and completely stripped of dignity.

"Yes," you whisper, "Yes, Jungkook — fuck, it's so good. You feel so good—"

"That's right," he groans, emphasizing his point with even more forceful thrusts. "Say my name. Let me hear who's fucking you like this."

You obligingly repeat it, volume increasing with each iteration, “Jungkook—Jungkook—"

With absolute certainty, you realize your impending orgasm has become less a question of "if" and more a matter of "how explosively.”

His hand leaves your back. And suddenly, he’s reaching around your front, fingers slick with his own saliva (you think) as they find your clit, rubbing tight, relentless circles that make your whole body seize up.

“J-Jungkook— oh my god —” you choke out.

“You gonna cum for me again?” he begs against your ear, his weight looming on you. “Gonna fall apart on my cock like the filthy little thing you are?”

And yes, of course you are — your body is already approaching the cliff edge — but your brain knew that while your whole being simultaneously sends a very clear memo: We are absolutely fine with this particular brand of objectification at this specific moment, thank you very much.

You attempt to formulate a verbal response, but your vernacular has apparently gone on strike, only a stuttering noise that emerges from you. “Y-yes. Please make me cum, oooh.”

His fingers speed up, merciless on your clit, and his other hand tangles in your hair and pulls. Spine arching, head yanked back until you’re forced to look up, eyes wide and glassy.

"Fuck, fuck," you practically sob, his fingers entangled so deep in your scalp as he gathers his own makeshift ponytail. "I can't—I oh my god—"

"Yeah?" Jungkook hisses, lips brushing your cheek with unexpected tenderness given what's happening elsewhere. "That cockdrunk already?"

"I'm gonna cum, I'm gonna fucking cum again, I—ahh, fuck," you babble with the coherence of someone experiencing a minor stroke, words slurring together, "Jungkook, please—"

"That's it," he bites his lip roughly, nearly drawing blood, his thrusts increasing in both frequency and force. Every circle of his fingers winds the tension tighter in your core. "Say my name while you lose your fucking mind on my cock."

Your mouth drops open in a perfect O, the pressure building in your stomach. Through it all, he remains the constant; grinding into you, fingers maintaining their devastating rhythm on your clit, hand still firmly grasping your hair.

God, you’re right there, so close you can almost…

Jungkook suddenly withdraws completely, creating a void so unexpected your body responds with a sob that comes from somewhere deeper than conscious thought, your entire body trembling and slick and utterly wrecked.

But before you can think again, he's gripping your waist, flipping you over onto your back, your body responding with the cooperative limpness of a rag doll. Thighs still unfortunately shaking from everything he’s done to you. You barely have time to catch your breath before he’s back between your legs, spreading them wide, staring down at the soaked mess between you two.

“Need to see you,” he pants, pupils blown wide. “Need to watch you cum.”

He's kissing you again, less a romantic gesture and more like someone attempting to consume you through your mouth. Tongue hot and demanding, lips slick with everything you’ve given him. It’s messy, desperate, teeth clashing, breaths swallowed. Your hands claw at his back, his hair, needing something to hold onto as he thrusts back into you.

You cry out into his mouth, sound mangled, your head spinning as he fucks you hard from above. His chain swings again with every thrust, cold metal smacking into your bouncing breasts.

Jungkook’s tattooed hand comes up to your throat, wrapping his fingers around the skin, enough to remind you who’s in control.

Your eyes snap open to meet his, and what you find there makes your internal organs perform cartwheels. Possession, worship, and hunger, as if he's been starving for years and you're the first real thing he’s had.

"You're gonna cum for me like this," he whines. His hand maintains its position at your throat, his chain now swinging with abandon, occasionally delivering metallic kisses to your chest. Hands are firmly placed on your hips, your legs flailing with each thrust. "Right here, while I'm inside you."

Your clit throbs at his words with almost painful insistence while your walls contract around his cock, your body apparently making decisions without consulting your brain first.

"Jungkook, right there," you mewl, hand gripping his shoulder tightly, "I can't—I'm gonna—I'm—"

"That's it," he grunts, reclaiming your mouth in a kiss that effectively silences whatever embarrassing sounds were about to escape. “Cum for me, baby."

And you do.

Your orgasm doesn’t just hit — it erupts. It detonates from deep inside you, hot and electric, tearing through your entire body like a lightning strike. Your back arches off the mattress, thighs snapping around Jungkook’s waist as your cunt clamps down on him, squeezing so tight it rips a guttural noise from his throat.

You’re sobbing something that might be his name, might be a prayer, might just be air torn from your lungs.

The world performs an impressive disappearing act. Your vision whites out. You're gone, temporarily relocated to some dimension where only he exists. Every muscle in your body spasms and shakes. It's raw and messy and completely unhinged.

Jungkook feels every microsecond of your unraveling. Each pulse. Each ripple of your body's meltdown beneath him.

"Fuck—" he groans, hips stuttering as your walls flutter around him. His grip intensifies — at your throat, your hip, anywhere he can establish anchor points — his self-control visibly deteriorating with each passing second. "Jesus Christ, you're— fuck, you're squeezing me so hard — baby, I'm not gonna—"

He’s panting now, forehead pressed to yours, sweat dripping from his temple as he tries not to lose it. This whole time you've been running from him, pretending not to notice what's been right in front of you; his almost painful beauty, the devastating architecture of his features, the way his eyes contain entire universes. (Okay, fine, you noticed. Sometimes. Often. Constantly. But admitting it then would have meant admitting other things you weren't ready for.)

"Look at you," he manages, the words coming out with obvious effort as he watches you completely disintegrate beneath him. "You're so goddamn beautiful when you cum."

"Shit," he gasps, "you're gonna make me—fuck, baby, I'm gonna—"

And still, he doesn’t stop praising you, even as his self-control cracks beneath the weight of your body convulsing around his cock.

“So tight. So wet. You’re perfect,” he growls, each compliment landing like a physical touch. “Made for me. My perfect girl.”

Even as his composure fractures atop the weight of your body, he continues his litany of praise. He's trembling above you now, jaw tightly clenched, every muscle locked as he continues moving through your climax, pursuing his own with increasingly desperate determination.

"Jungkook, fuck, I can't—" you sob, the overstimulation too much for you to even breathe, let alone think.

With one final, decisive thrust, he finishes, harder than he ever has in his natural life.

A sound escapes him, raw and primal and startlingly vulnerable. His head drops to your shoulder, hips moving with an erratic rhythm. His body pulses inside yours, hot ropes of cum painting your walls, your toes curling.

"Fuck, fuck, fuuuck—" he whimpers, hips making two more valiant efforts as he empties himself completely. "So good my girl, so fucking good—I can't, shit—"

This moment of complete abandon is when you finally let yourself see him. Not Calvin Klein's global ambassador. Not South Korea's beloved idol. Not the carefully constructed public image or even the man who you cared less about in those first meetings. Just Jungkook, beautiful when his own walls are down.

You spent so long running from this, from him, pretending not to notice how the light catches his features at certain angles, how his eyes tell stories when he looks at you, how the slope of his nose looks like somewhere butterflies land.

Now, watching him come undone because of you, inside you, the realization lands with catastrophic clearness: he was always yours to have. Completely, irrevocably yours in a way that both terrifies and exhilarates you.

His whole body trembles with aftershocks, chest heaving as he presses impossibly deeper, seeking maximum contact. Jungkook’s hand migrates from your throat to your waist, fingers grasping the warm skin.

Tears leak from the corners of your eyes, not from sadness or even overwhelm, but from some emotion too big for your body to contain. Your legs try to remain wrapped around him, but your muscles give out entirely. Your whole body has gone pleasantly boneless, nerves humming, heart performing a drum solo against your ribs.

He pants against your collarbone, his chain now a cool, slightly sticky presence trapped between your overheated bodies, lips brushing your jaw with tenderness.

"I didn't mean — fuck — I didn't mean to cum that hard," he murmurs, voice sandpaper-rough.

You manage a sound that's adjacent to laughter, breathless and slightly broken, your lips struggling to form actual words through the haze of endorphins. "It’s okay."

He allows his weight to settle near you, forehead resting against your shoulder, still intimately connected.

Neither of you move for a long time. Neither of you really want to.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

You don't know how long it's been since the world stopped spinning on its axis, time having apparently become an optional concept rather than a reliable constant.

The sheets beneath you are warm, air carrying a complex bouquet — skin and breath and something that exists in the undefined territory between forgiveness and desire. Your legs remain stubbornly intertwined with his own, as if your body is staging its own rebellion against separation, operating on some fear that distance equals disappearance.

Jungkook has maintained silence. You've been equally restrained in your contributions to the non-conversation.

But his hand continues its cartography against your skin. Slow, featherlight circles mapped across your back. Periodically, his lips find your hairline, the gesture so natural it seems less of a conscious choice, but instead an involuntary reflex.

Your head occupies the territory of his shoulder, lips occasionally brushing his collarbone in what could be kisses or simply the accident of proximity. Beneath your ear, his chest rises and falls, his heartbeat a steady percussion under your palm.

You allow your gaze to travel upward.

You look at Jungkook in his unfiltered state — eyes heavy-lidded with satisfied exhaustion, torso bare of everything except his tattoo sleeve, the silver chain and a thin sheen of cooling sweat that catches what little light seeps in from the hallway. A faint crimson mark decorates his jaw where you clearly got too excited. He looks beautifully dismantled.

"I want to make this work."

He blinks. Then freezes in place like someone who's just spotted a rare and potentially skittish creature.

You register when he stops his movement against your back, feel the subtle hitch in his respiratory rhythm before it recalibrates to steadiness. But what matters more is what doesn't happen. He doesn't retreat. Doesn't deflect with humor. Doesn't repackage vulnerability into something more manageable.

Instead, he turns his head to look at you with an expression of wonder, gaze soft around the edges, mouth slightly parted as if he's afraid that acknowledging what you've said might cause you to take it back.

"I don't know how. I'm not... I don't want to be your girlfriend yet. I know I'm not ready for that," you admit, the confession emerging with all the tentative vulnerability of someone stepping onto ice they're not convinced will hold. "But I want to try to get there with you."

You don't explicitly mention fear, don't need to catalog the specific anxieties currently living in your chest. It's encoded in every accelerated heartbeat, every microexpression, every subtle tension in the muscles that have spent years building barriers around your emotions.

You're not hiding behind power dynamics or professional distance or the fortress of pride you've constructed brick by brick. You're just here. In his bed. Body curved around his like a physical manifestation of the promise your words have just placed in the air between you.

Jungkook exhales through his nose, a sound that is the audio equivalent of relief wearing joy's clothing, and presses his forehead to your scalp.

"Then let's try," he murmurs.

The silence expands between you, but it isn't awkward at all.

You adjust your position slightly, one leg claiming territory around his waist. His skin radiates warmth against yours, offering a security that feels foreign but essential. Yet your throat constricts anyway.

"Well," you sigh, "I don't know how to be with you, to be honest."

His eyes move to yours. As always, he doesn't attempt solutions. He listens with the rare patience of someone who understands that witnessing is sometimes more valuable than fixing.

You lick your lips and continue, "I don't know how to be someone who texts good morning. Or someone who talks about their feelings over dinner. Or someone who... who knows how to let another person in without feeling like I'm losing something in return."

The admission costs you something — you can feel it leaving your body, years of self-protection dismantling in real time. For a woman who's built her career on knowing exactly what to say and how to say it, this raw honesty feels like jumping off a bridge with no harness.

He remains silent. But his gaze holds yours with steady assurance, eyes dark and patient in the dim light like he's prepared to wait as long as necessary for whatever comes next.

You hesitate, but then add ,"Is that okay?"

The question hangs between you two. About whether someone like him, who seems to navigate genuine connection with the ease of breathing, could possibly want someone like you, for whom emotional transparency feels like a foreign language.

For what seems like ages, he doesn't answer.

Then he lifts a hand to your hair, brushing it back from your face with a sweetness that makes your chest ache in places you didn't know could feel.

"Yeah," he affirms, "That's okay."

Two words. Simple. Direct. And somehow containing the most profound acceptance you've ever been offered.

"I don't need you to be perfect," he continues, "I don't need you to turn into someone else just to be with me. Honestly, i would hate that.”

His thumb traces your jawline, eyes maintaining their focus on yours steadily. “I just need you to try."

You blink back the tears threatening to compromise your maintained image as someone who doesn't cry over boys or sad movies or particularly moving commercials featuring rescue animals.

"That's the problem," you confess, "I don't know how to try without trying to win or turning everything into something to conquer."

"I know," he says with the certainty of someone stating that water is wet. "You're the most guarded person I've ever met."

You narrow your eyes with mock indignation. "You're terrible at comforting people."

Which… is a lie so transparent it wouldn't fool a toddler. The man clearly possesses emotional intelligence bordering on supernatural — he somehow got you, corporate warrior queen and professional feelings-avoider, to actually visit your family after a year of strategic absence. If that's not evidence of psychological wizardry, nothing is.

He smiles genuinely, "You didn't come all the way here because I'm good at comforting people."

Your lips twitch traitorously, the beginnings of a smile staging a coup. Jungkook leans closer, "You don't have to know how to be with me right now. You just have to stay."

You press your face into the sanctuary of his skin, inhaling his scent. “You're not afraid?" you ask.

"Terrified," he replies without even a millisecond's hesitation. "But I'd rather be afraid with you than safe without you."

The line would sound rehearsed coming from anyone else, but his voice carries this authenticity of someone speaking their unfiltered truth. He looks at you like you're the answer to questions he didn't even know he was asking, like someone who's found their favorite person in a world of seven billion options and is amazed by his good fortune.

You don't respond verbally. You don't need to.

Because your arms remain wrapped around him, your body more honest than your words have ever managed to be. And you haven't let go or run away yet — a physical declaration more powerful than any verbal agreement.

The soft moment only lasts so long, however , because he's a man and therefore incapable of sustaining emotional vulnerability beyond the FDA-recommended dosage, his chest rumbles with that low frequency that signals a subject change is imminent.

"So," he says, "wanna hop in the shower with me?"

The question carries all the subtlety of a neon sign, but you find yourself smiling anyway — partly because it's such a perfectly timed relief for the emotional pressure that's been building, and partly because even this transparent attempt at distraction is infused with affection. His eyes still look at you like you've personally hung the moon and stars, even while proposing something as mundane as shared hygiene.

You blink for a moment. Then lift your head just enough to give him a look that questions both his sanity and possibly basic human biology. “You're joking."

He returns your gaze with an expression balanced perfectly between amusement and innocence. "Why would I be joking?"

"Because it's physically impossible that you still have anything left," you retort ,eyebrows climbing toward your forehead in a silent judgment of his audacity.

He just shrugs, "I hydrate. I stretch. I take care of myself."

You drop your head back onto his chest with a groan that contains multitudes; exhaustion, disbelief, and a reluctant hint of admiration. "Oh my god."

He grins, entirely unbothered by your exasperation, fingers tracing a path down your side. "You're the one who came crawling back to me, remember?"

You lift your head again, fixing him with a glare that would wither lesser men. "Crawling is a strong word."

He arches a single eyebrow. "You showed up at my house with a crumpled contract and a face that said please, take me back my lover."

You have the simultaneous desire to slap him, kiss him senseless, and then perhaps slap him once more for good measure. But you opt for your mouth opening, then closing again, resembling an indignant goldfish as your brain frantically searches for a comeback and finds the cupboard disappointingly bare.

"Yeah," he smirks, "that's what I thought."

You grab the nearest pillow and smack him squarely in the face with it — the universal last resort of those who have lost the argument but refuse to concede defeat.

He laughs as he effortlessly confiscates your improvised weapon and tosses it aside. With fluid coordination, he tugs you back toward him, arms locking around your waist.

"I'm serious," he murmurs,"Shower with me."

His expression might be teasing, but his eyes tell a different story, one where this request is about far more than shared hygiene. They look at you with the softness reserved for someone who still can't quite believe you're actually here, in his bed, in his arms, agreeing to try.

You pull back just enough to examine him properly, the way his smile goes slightly lopsided when genuine, how his eyes crinkle at the corners when they're not performing for a lens. And underneath all of that visible surface-level perfection: relief. Quiet, unmistakable relief that you're actually here, that this isn't another near miss in your shared history of almosts.

You trace a thumb along his jawline, "If I go in there with you, you're not allowed to make a single comment about your 'stamina.'"

He presses a kiss to your wrist. "Fine."

"Or your flexibility."

"Okay."

"Or how good your skin looks wet."

He snorts with amusement. "You do like it though."

You deliver one final shove to his shoulder, the gesture containing all the force of a gentle breeze as he begins to sit up. His arms are already reaching for you again, the blanket abandoning its post as he pulls you back into him. A laugh escapes your throat before you can intercept it, muffled against the skin that's become more familiar to you than anything.

This unexpected development is precisely what you never permitted yourself to envision. What your risk assessments classified as statistically improbable.

But here it is. Materializing in this moment. Occupying this bed with the certainty of something that's always been inevitable.

You look at him again, and he returns your gaze.

Perhaps love isn't orchestrated declarations or cinematic gestures performed with optimal lighting.

Perhaps it's this.

The quietly profound silence that says despite all logical arguments to the contrary, you stayed.

And the next few days unfold with that same magic of moments you weren't supposed to have; soft, unanticipated.

You extend your return flight as if you’re postponing a dentist appointment. Once. Then again and again. Until the concept of departure transforms from definitive plan to vague hypothetical.

Your hotel sends increasingly concerned emails about your room you haven't seen and don’t plan to. Your suitcase maintains its position in the corner of Jungkook's bedroom, untouched and increasingly irrelevant.

Now? You essentially live here.

At least, that's the only conclusion based on available evidence.

Your limbs are entangled with his at all times; on his comfortable couch, in his ridiculously large bed, half-conscious on the floor in front of his massive TV. Your hairbrush has made good friends with his bathroom drawer. There's a bottle of your overpriced moisturizer holding territory on his nightstand. His kitchen now carries the scent of your morning coffee, and he never allows you to prepare it without supervision.

"Let me do it," he insists, "You'll make it too strong."

"You're weak," you counter, "Own it."

But he just shrugs with nonchalance, delivers a kiss to your cheekbone, and activates the kettle anyway.

Daniel, from across the world, hasn't made contact. He doesn't need to. Your discretion levels are currently hovering around zero.

You sent him a single text, a masterpiece of vagueness claiming you're "taken care of." His response consisted of three laughing emojis and a GIF depicting a calendar engulfed in flames. You chose not to follow up on that particular conversation thread.

No other member of the team has demonstrated the courage needed to disturb your unauthorized sabbatical.

For perhaps the first time in your adult life, you experience zero guilt about any of it.

For once, your life isn't structured around the strategy decks at dawn and press releases at midnight. You're eating toast over Jungkook's kitchen sink, while behind you, he performs a lip sync routine using a wooden spoon as his microphone. You're curled up on his couch wearing one of his shirts (which naturally, fits you like a dress), your laptop exiled to the coffee table. His head rests in your lap while he tells you tales from his trainee days that simultaneously explain his discipline and make you wonder how anyone survives the k-pop industry with their sanity intact.

You find yourself watching him smile, the authentic ones that transforms his entire face and makes something in your chest bloom. Somewhere between months ago and this moment, your brain recategorized him, filing him under "person I might actually miss" rather than "professional chaos requiring PR aide."

Each night, you fall asleep in his bed with windows slightly ajar, Seoul's night air drifting in, his arm draped across your waist.

Some days you wake to find him already conscious, just... looking at you, blinking as if he’s conducting reality checks.

"You okay?" you whisper during one such morning surveillance, voice still rough with sleep.

He nods. Smiles that stupid bunny smile that makes you all fuzzy. “Just making sure you're real."

You don't try to respond. Kiss him instead.

You don't know what comes next in this unscripted thing you've stumbled into. Your professional life has always operated according to meticulous planning but there's no PowerPoint template for whatever this is. No key performance indicators to measure the success of accidentally falling for the person you were supposed to keep at a professional distance.

Finally though, when reality does come crashing down, when the email confirmation materializes in your inbox, it feels like some alternate version of yourself made these arrangements. Some corporate doppelgänger who still prioritizes quarterly projections over the way Jungkook's voice sounds when he's half-asleep.

Your return to New York.

A city that once represented the pinnacle of your ambitions, now reduced to a collection of skyscrapers and deadlines.

You stare at the itinerary, thumb hovering over the screen. The return remains theoretical until you forward it to your assistant.

Subject line: returning next week. please keep calendar clear until I land.

What your assistant doesn't know… is that this departure comes with a loophole.

Not so much an ending as a comma in a sentence still being written.

There's another ticket purchased with the stealth of a spy. Under Jungkook's legal name. Scheduled for precisely seventy-two hours after yours — a buffer zone necessary for him to navigate the bureaucracy that runs his existence. A whispered promise that he'll follow once HYBE's legal department, publicity team, and some other people sign off on the logistical nightmare that is "globally famous person attempts to ‘try things’ with c-suite member of said person’s latest marketing campaign.”

There will be tabloid landmines to sidestep. Calendar schedules to master. Seemingly trivial concerns that will eventually mean something, like calculating time differences before sending texts, ensuring you’ve made space for his skincare in your New York apartment, and perfecting the art of arriving at the same location via different entrances.

“Trying to make it work” with an international popstar, it turns out, requires the same level of strategic planning as a corporate merger.

Right now, though, you're standing in the doorway of Jungkook's apartment, performing the world's most reluctant exit. Your suitcase waits by your feet, coat draped over your arm, heart lodged so firmly in your throat. The car service downstairs is undoubtedly charging by the minute while the driver wonders what drama is delaying your descent.

Jungkook’s standing before you, barefoot and hoodie carelessly thrown on, eyes carrying sleepiness. Beneath that morning haze, he's unmistakably present. Awake in the way that silently pleads don't leave without saying what we both know is true.

You haven't told him yet. The words you've been rehearsing in your head.

The truth you've been aware of for days while pretending otherwise.

His voicemail still plays on repeat, the one you finally had the courage to hear on that Manhattan rooftop, glass abandoned as his voice crackled through your phone speaker.

"I think I'm in love with you."

He never demanded reciprocation. Never presented it as a transaction. And now you're stuck thinking about your mother's favorite lecture, delivered with the exasperation reserved for a child too smart for her own good. "Don't lie if you can't carry it."

As your fingers make contact with the cold metal of the door handle, you pause. Turn to him.

Your eyes connect with Jungkook’s — they’re always wide with anticipation, patiently waiting, hopeful in that quiet, unassuming way he hopes for things. Your mouth opens, words still stubbornly refusing to leave.

Finally, with the triumphant relief of someone who's been holding their breath underwater, you manage to speak.

"I.. I-I think I'm starting to fall in love with you too."

He blinks at you. Like perhaps his sleep-deprived brain has misinterpreted that. Like maybe this is some elaborate dream his subconscious has constructed to torture him.

But then there’s that slow, sunrise smile that spreads across his entire face. That small, stunned shake of his head. His eyes soften, and he steps forward, reaching for your hand like it's the only anchor in a storm.

He presses his lips to your knuckles — a gentleman's compromise, the only part of you he apparently trusts himself to touch without dragging you back to bed.

"I'll see you in New York," he mutters.

In some way, those words say exactly what you know they mean. You nod, swallowing past the lump in your throat, forming a smile that doesn't look like you're about to cry.

The distance between Seoul and New York has never seemed so vast and so insignificant.

And when you walk out the door, heart thundering, you slide into the backseat of the car. Not any less yourself, not someone’s girlfriend, but with the promise of something new. Hands are still buzzing, gaze lingering on the city you used to avoid calling home.

As the driver pulls away from the curb, you feel your phone buzz once in your lap.

Eomma.

You blink at your phone.

Without hesitation, without fear, without guilt, you answer the call.

“Hi, Eomma,” you say, smiling softly. “I’ve missed you! Sorry I didn’t call since last week, I was crazy busy. But I do have a story for you.”

Everything in your chest feels entirely new.

Because at this point in time, you’re not running from something.

You’re walking toward it.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

masterlist + request

note ; if you’re reading this — welcome! you survived the end of the price of desire, and i love you for it. thank you for reading.

now to show my love and affection… i’ll be doing 3-4 epilogue drabbles/blurbs based off your guys’ requests (bc it’s no fun if im just doing whatever i please, duhh!!) send in some ideas (smut, fluff, even some angst) of what you would want to see as epilogue blurbs and i’ll choose the ones that inspire me :-) THIS IS NOW CLOSED! THANK YOU FOR ALL THE REQUESTS 🫶

taglist ; @lovingkoalaface @maybetheproblemisme @mimi1097 @mar-lo-pap @mysjammy @yooniepot @tinytan-gerine @ashslight @sky-23s-world @myzzysstuff @elinaki92 @7fever @munchkin-kitty7-blog @uarmygguk @jjkluver7 @coletaehyung @jkxlvrr @amarawayne @kooslilhoe @bangchanwantsmesobad @kpopslur @senaqsstuff @sugakookies77 @tteokbokibyjk @emmie2308 @neurospicynugget @prxdajeon @majesticjung-97 @jksusawife @rkivesarchive @hyunjinswifetingzz @bjoriis @nan4rf @parkinglot-nights @travelgurrl @softhaes @bexxs @magicalnachocreator @wisebouquetbarbarian @futuristicenemychaos @jadestonedaeho7

[heartlessvirgo]

No Saints Left

Summary: You hesitate too much, too naive for your own good. And Joel can’t stand it. He’ll make sure you learn.

warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI. DARK!JOEL. Blood, Gore, Death, Murder, Unprotected sex (PxV), raiders, language, assault, weapons. Please read these warnings.

word count: 9.4K

a/n: This was dirty, filthy, and I hope you like it.

The nights in Jackson were quiet—so much so that it felt wrong. Joel wasn’t used to quiet. Quiet was dangerous. Quiet was the breath held before the crack of a gunshot. The lull before the wet thud of a body hitting the dirt.

But here, in this town where fools believed in redemption, the quiet wasn’t a warning. It was real. And it clawed at him, sharp and relentless, prying him open and leaving him alone with the wreckage of his mind. With every single goddamn thing he’d done.

He didn’t dream much anymore—not the way he used to. No hazy glimpses of Sarah’s face lit by sunlight, her laughter bouncing off the walls of a life that had long since crumbled to dust. Those dreams were gone, suffocated under years of blood and bone.

What came now were nightmares. Brutal, unrelenting things that clung to him like the reek of gunpowder and rot. They didn’t fade when he woke—they stayed thick and heavy in his chest, like a hand pressed over his mouth, forcing him to swallow it all down.

In his sleep, he saw flashes of violence, red and raw. The swing of his fist, the crunch of cartilage beneath his knuckles. The glint of a blade catching light before it plunged deep. The sound of a man choking on his own blood, gurgling as Joel turned away, cold and unflinching. Sometimes, he’d watch closely and savor the way they died in his hands. 

And then there were the eyes. Wide and wild, reflecting fear and something worse—recognition. That moment when they knew he wasn’t going to spare them. When they understood that mercy had no place in him. Not anymore.

Tonight, he dreamt of a girl. She couldn’t have been older than Ellie. Her hands trembled as she pointed a gun too big for her grip, the muzzle wavering as Joel stepped closer. He’d told her to drop it, his voice low and steady, a predator’s calm. But she didn’t listen. They never did.

The shot rang out, a deafening crack that lit up the night. It missed. They always missed.

And then he was on her. His hands around her throat, her small frame pinned beneath him. She fought, nails raking his arms, legs kicking in panic, but he didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. The sound she made—wet gasps, desperate and animal—rattled in his ears long after she went still. Deadweight, dead eyes, death that followed him everywhere he went. But sometimes, Joel wondered if he brought it with him on purpose, like an old friend.

He woke with a gasp, his chest heaving like he’d been drowning. The room was dark, shadows pooling in the corners, but the dream still lingered, vivid and consuming. His hands ached, curling into fists against the mattress, phantom blood slick on his palms.

Joel sat up, dragging in shallow breaths that barely scratched the surface of the hollow inside him. The air in the room felt too thin, pressing down on him as he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. The quiet of Jackson surrounded him, warm and safe, but it felt like a fucking lie.

Because in the dead of night, when everyone else in this godforsaken town was dreaming of brighter tomorrows, Joel Miller didn’t dream.

He remembered.

And it was worse.

You were one of those people. Consumed by the good, too naive for your own good. Joel hated that. He hated you. And he despised his younger brother for pairing you two together for patrols. He didn’t need to carry extra weight anymore; his bones had enough pain, fused together in a fucked up way that reminded him of all the times he’d snapped them back together. 

Joel didn’t know why he deemed you naive. Maybe it was because you were half his age or that you had a little sparkle in your eyes that he wanted to stomp out, crush it beneath his worn boots. He wanted to smother the goodness from your body with his battered hands, and what little humanity that was left in him was scared for you, of what he would do when you were alone with him. 

So he kept to himself on your first patrol together. 

You didn’t think much of Joel Miller, not at first. Just another broken man, old enough to remember the world before it fell apart. You couldn’t imagine what that did to someone—what it carved out of them, what it left behind.

So, you tried. Tried to be kind. Tried to bridge a gap that he didn’t seem to care about closing. Why? You didn’t know. Maybe it was habit, maybe hope. 

You didn’t mean to be so hopeful—it wasn’t something you chose. It was instinct, like breathing. You searched for the good in people, even when it was buried under layers of filth. You looked for light in the cracks, no matter how faint, and clung to the belief that dawn always came to shatter the dark.

You swallowed the looks he gave you, sharp and cutting like he wanted to dissect you with his eyes alone. You learned to read the grunts he gave when he wanted your attention, when he needed to show you something, or when he was about to warn you in that low, gravelly tone that left no room for hesitation.

Being near him felt like walking a tightrope over broken glass; every word and step was a risk you couldn’t afford to miscalculate. You never knew when the silence between you would break—whether it’d be his voice or his violence that shattered it. 

Out there, beyond Jackson’s walls, the infected were mindless. Predictable. Joel Miller wasn’t. And you couldn’t decide which one you were most scared of. 

Joel pounded on your door before dawn, his knock sharp and insistent, like he was trying to crack the wood. He always came early—always fresh from his nightmares, his face shadowed by whatever horrors had dragged him from sleep.

“You’re up,” he’d mutter when the door creaked open, his voice rough, scraped raw by whatever hell had played out behind his closed eyes. “Time to ride.”

He didn’t wait for a response. He never did. Out there, beyond the walls, the world didn’t wait, either—not for you, not for him.

By the time you stumbled out, the day had already started for him. Patrols to begin. Horses to saddle. Mistakes to point out before the sun even dared to rise.

“The knot’s wrong,” he’d mutter, jerking the reins from your hands like you were a goddamn rookie. “Gate wasn’t shut right,” he’d add, his voice a low growl as he tested the latch with unnecessary force. “Bag’s too heavy,” he’d snap, shoving it back at you without so much as a glance, as if your failings were as predictable as the cold morning air.

“Mistakes like that’ll get us both killed,” he growls, his voice low and sharp, like the edge of a blade. He doesn’t even spare you a second glance—he doesn’t need to. His words cut deep enough without it.

What stings more is that he’s right, and he knows it. That’s the part that gnaws at you.

“You’re not steppin’ outside those gates again ‘til you fix this,” he snaps, the finality in his tone hitting harder than any shout ever could.

So, you obeyed without question, silently cursing your luck and wishing for a partner who didn’t wear indifference like armor. But deep down, you understood—this was necessary. One wrong move could be the slip that sent everything crumbling. So, you swallowed the fear that knotted your stomach and followed his lead, even though he unsettled you in ways you couldn’t fully explain.

Now, your horse moved ahead, its hooves landing softly on the mossy gravel, the rhythm muted against the damp earth. The air was thick with the sound of the river—a rushing torrent that swallowed your steps and left the world hushed. This path was deliberate. You chose it because stealth was your only true ally. You were always going to be smaller than your enemy. 

This was a test—your first patrol where the choices were yours to make. And Joel? He wanted you to fail.

The trail slithered through the forest like a vein under pale skin, narrow and treacherous. Each twist and turn pulled you deeper into its grip, leading toward the stretch you’d been assigned to patrol. You’d studied it obsessively, tracing every jagged curve on the map, committing each blind spot, every lurking shadow to memory.

Out here, familiarity wasn’t just an advantage—it was the only thing standing between you and a knife in the dark. Joel had made sure of that, drilling it into your skull until it felt less like a lesson and more like a scar carved into your mind.

“Rest here.” Joel’s voice cuts through the stillness, more command than suggestion. You glance back at him, perched on his horse, the weight of his gaze pressing down on you like a physical thing. You nod, trying to salvage some scrap of control. You’d wanted to stop here anyway, you tell yourself. Not that it mattered.

Swinging your leg over the saddle, you drop to the gravel with a jarring thud, the impact shooting up your legs. The sound feels too loud, too exposed, in the vast, empty quiet.

Your eyes flick around the clearing, scanning the treeline for any sign of movement. Shadows stretched long in the morning light, shifting with the breeze but revealing nothing. Still, you nod to Joel, your throat tightening as he dismounts with ease. His rifle hangs heavy on his back, a constant reminder of what he’s capable of. What he’s always prepared to do.

He doesn’t speak again; he doesn’t need to. The air between you is thick with unspoken expectations. It didn’t matter if he let you take the reins today. This was his call, his pace, his world—you were just moving through it. 

You eat in silence, chewing mechanically as the cool air presses against your skin. Spring in Jackson is deceptive—the thaw feels like a promise, but the nights still bite, and the mornings cling to the kind of cold that sinks into your bones. Behind you, Joel disappears into the treeline, his pack slung over one shoulder, rifle in hand.

He never ate with you. Never waited. Never said anything unless it was necessary. Lately, even the necessities have felt strained, like pulling teeth from a wolf.

Your horse snorts softly as you give him the scraps of your meal. You pat its mane and glance toward the direction Joel had gone. He wasn’t one to wander aimlessly. If he left, there was a reason. And yet, the silence around you feels off—too hollow, too still.

You grab your rifle and sling your pack over your shoulder, boots crunching against the damp ground as you follow the faint trail he left behind. Twigs snap underfoot, and the smell of wet earth fills the air. The woods are coming alive with the season—patches of green breaking through the gray, shoots of wildflowers curling toward the light.

Still, you don’t find him. The trail vanishes into the dense brush, and frustration creeps in. He wouldn’t have gone far.

Your fingers graze the bark of a nearby tree as you pause to catch your breath. That’s when you see them—small, scattered patches of wild strawberries, bright red against the muted earth. You crouch down, brushing away a stray leaf, plucking one, and rolling it between your fingers. The smell is faint but sweet, a strange comfort in the middle of all this quiet.

“What the hell do you think you’re doin’?”

The voice snaps through the stillness like a gunshot.

You barely have time to turn before Joel’s on you. His hand clamps around your arm, dragging you to your feet and shoving you back against the rough bark of a tree. The impact knocks the breath out of you, your back stinging where it scraped against the trunk. A ringing clouds your thoughts before Joel’s voice pierces through it.

“Out here pickin’ berries like it’s a fuckin’ picnic,” he growls, his face inches from yours. The bark digs into you through your jacket, his forearm pressing against your collarbone, pinning you there. His eyes are dark and furious. “You think this is a game? You think the world gives a shit if you stop to smell the goddamn flowers?”

Your chest heaves, but the words catch in your throat. He doesn’t let up, his grip firm, his presence overwhelming. The smell of leather and sweat clings to him, sharp and suffocating.

“I could’ve been anyone,” he snaps, his voice low and venomous. “You wander off like that again, and I won’t bother comin’ after you.” 

“I wasn’t—” you start, but his arm digs into your throat just enough to cut you off. You can taste the blood in your mouth from where you bit your tongue.

“First mistake,” he growls, leaning in close, his breath hot against your cheek. “Second mistake was not keeping your head on a swivel. Thought I taught you better than that.”

The air is thick with the taste of metal, your lungs screaming for a breath that doesn’t come. You can’t see much—everything is blurring, the world dimming at the edges. Your hands flail uselessly, but it’s useless. His arm is a vice, a wall you can’t scale, suffocating any defiance before it even starts.

“Joel, I—” The words catch in your throat, swallowed by the tightening of his arm, choking the air from your lungs.

“Gonna get us both killed,” his voice low, cold, like gravel scraping across exposed bone. “Maybe I should just end it for you now, one less mouth to feed. Do everyone a favor.”

The bite of his words cuts deeper than the grip on your throat. His eyes—those eyes—aren’t just cold anymore. They’re something else. Something dangerous. Like he’s weighing your life, watching the fear play across your face with a detached curiosity. A hunter deciding if he’ll kill his prey now or later. There’s something raw about the look. Something savage.

Just as the darkness starts to close in, when the world begins to slip away, he finally lets go. You gasp for breath, your chest heaving, but his eyes never leave you. They watch with a strange, detached satisfaction as the life slowly filters back into you.

It almost seemed like... he wanted it. Wanted to see you shatter. Wanted to know if you’d fight, claw, beg for your life.

He shoves himself off you, turning his back without a second glance like nothing happened. Like he didn’t just threaten to carve your life out with his own hands. You feel the burn of his grip still, the imprint of him on your neck, and the bruises linger long after he’s gone.

You rub the tender skin, the faint pulse of pain a reminder of how easily he could’ve ended it all. You don’t question him again. You don’t ask. You just do what you’re told, stay out of his path.

Of course, you begged Tommy to switch you out of Joel’s patrols and pair him with someone more capable of handling his... rage. Someone more his speed. But Tommy wouldn’t hear it. Said someone gentle was good for his brother. You never told him what happened in the woods. You didn’t speak of it ever again. 

There was something wrong with you recently—something in your head that didn’t quite fit anymore. Maybe it was the blow to the skull, that crack against the tree that left you gasping for breath. Whatever it was, it twisted you. Rewired you.

It was the dead of night, the kind of darkness that crept under your skin, suffocating in its silence. And there you were, hands searching places they shouldn’t. Fingers tracing a path down your body, touching with a desperation that was as violent as it was uncontrollable.

Your mind wandered to him—Joel. The way his body felt pressing into yours, the weight of him suffocating you, his heat seeping into your bones. His hands, rough and unforgiving, find your throat. He wasn’t gentle. Never was. It was slow, the pressure building, suffocating, until you couldn’t breathe—until you didn’t want to. Every breath, a struggle, every second a rush of power, his dominance a dark, intoxicating force.

It wasn’t love. God, no. It was death. The kind that burned, that crawled under your skin, settling deep in places you shouldn’t let it. The type of death that made you burn in ways you couldn’t explain. Maybe it was because you knew he could kill you and didn’t, and that made you feral. 

And then the release—the moment when everything shattered, your body betraying you, desperate and uncontrollable. Slick, burning heat on your fingers, streaking down your thighs, staining the sheets with every desperate, filthy inch of it.

But it didn’t matter. None of it did. Not the fantasy, not the sick thrill that came with it. All that mattered was the ache that lived inside you—an ache that would never be filled.

“You don’t sleep, you’re not in control, you’re not in control, then you’re dead,” Joel says, the words coming out like they’ve been chewed and spit out a hundred times. He doesn’t even look at you as he speaks, his gaze fixed ahead, scanning the horizon with that hard, unblinking stare. The shadows under your eyes are deep, and he noticed without even so much as looking twice at you. 

The smell of damp earth rises around you, clinging to the cool spring air. The soft squelch of your horse’s hooves in the mud seems deafening like a beacon giving away your position. The morning sun filters through the canopy of budding trees, its warmth streaking the ground in golden patches. But it doesn’t reach you. There’s a chill in the air, one that creeps up your spine and settles at the base of your neck, making the fine hairs there stand on end.

Joel sways with the rhythm of the horse’s stride, just enough to betray the tightness in his every move—like a coil wound so damn tight, it might snap at the slightest touch. The tension’s crawling in his shoulders, the muscles under his shirt flexing with its weight. His fingers are locked around the reins, his knuckles pale, and his grip is so savage it’s a wonder they don’t snap in his hands. The leather groans under the strain.

And you—you can feel the sickness stirring in your gut, that sick, twisted hunger. You wanted to be those reins, wanted that grip on you so hard it’d leave marks, bruises you couldn’t hide. Something about the way he holds everything in like he's just waiting for something—anything—to break makes you want to be the thing that breaks him.

You notice then, suddenly, when Joel’s horse halts abruptly. The birds, which had been chattering just moments ago, have fallen silent. Their absence feels unnatural like something has swallowed their songs whole, leaving behind a silence so dense it presses against your ears.

Joel senses it, too. You can tell by the way he stiffens in the saddle, his back straightening ever so slightly. His horse stops, and you stop yours beside him. His jaw tightens, the muscles flexing beneath the uneven scruff of his beard. His eyes flicker toward the treeline, scanning the shadows, searching for something unseen. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look at you, but his fingers drift toward his rifle anyway.

"Silent," he mutters; his voice is quiet but seems so loud in the space. 

You nod, gripping the reins tighter, though your palms are already damp with sweat. The weight of the quiet grows heavier. Every creak of your saddle and snort from your horse feels amplified, each sound bouncing back at you from the tangled trees.

It feels like eyes. Like something is watching, hidden just beyond the edges of your vision. The kind of feeling that prickles along your skin, primitive and raw, whispering to you that you’re being hunted.

You glance toward Joel, hoping for reassurance, for him to tell you this was another test, and you just failed. But his face is hard and carved from stone. He doesn’t look at you. His focus is ahead, unwavering.

Your heart slams against your ribs, a frantic, erratic beat that drowns out everything else. Fear and adrenaline twist together in your chest, cold and electric. You try to tell yourself it’s nothing, just your mind playing tricks, but the feeling won’t leave. It’s real, as though the woods themselves are holding their breath, waiting for something to happen.

Nothing moves. Nothing happens. But its weight doesn’t lift.

So you press on, hooves sucking at the mud left behind by last night’s rain, each step dragging like the earth itself wants to swallow you whole.

The town comes into view in fragments—weathered rooftops tilting under the weight of age. It should be a relief, a sign that the unease crawling up your spine was just paranoia, but instead, the sight twists something in your gut. The houses are scattered and quiet, their windows hollowed out like staring eyes. Like every shadow has teeth.

A chill brushes the back of your neck, light as a whisper, and instinctively, you glance over your shoulder. Nothing. Only the trees swaying softly in the breeze, their leaves trembling against the stillness. But the feeling lingers—the prickle of being watched, the sense that something, or someone, is just out of sight.

Somewhere ahead, there’s a faint crack. Just a shift, subtle but sharp, like a twig snapping under a deliberate step. Then, a rustle. It’s soft, barely a sound, but it’s all wrong. 

And then you see them.

Four figures slip from the edge of a tattered home, their movements slow and deliberate, like predators testing the range of their prey. They melt out of the shadows one by one, their shapes cutting sharp and jagged against the soft spring light.

They don’t bother hiding. They don’t have to. The way they move—languid, assured—screams of dominance. Like they’ve been watching you for miles, circling just out of sight, waiting for this moment. One of them shifts slightly, armed with a glint of metal catching the sunlight. A dull machete. 

One man slinks forward, tall and skinny, a shotgun slung over one shoulder like an afterthought. Two of them circle around you like sharks that smell blood.

His face is filthy, streaked with layers of grime so thick it’s like the dirt has become part of his skin. The sun catches in the cracks of his skin, highlighting the deep, gnarled lines etched into his face like a map of pain and neglect. His eyes, though—they're the actual weapon.

They’re wide, bloodshot with a sheen of madness that makes the back of your throat tighten. There’s something feral about them—dark pits that seem to draw you in, colder than the death itself, slicing through you with a hunger that goes beyond survival. And the way he looks at you—like he’s already measured you up, already tasted your fear. Like he’s made his decision. You can almost feel its weight as if it were a decision carved in stone.

You’d heard of the people who resorted to cannibalism out here—sick, desperate souls that had been chewed raw by this world. But hearing about it and seeing it are two different things. You never imagined it would leave such a mark. His lips curl back, exposing broken teeth that make your stomach turn. You can’t help but notice the faint, sickening smell that follows them—something rancid, like the last remnants of human decency had rotted away years ago, leaving nothing but a shell.

They’re all scrawny, the bones in their faces jutting out sharply. But it’s the way they surround you. You can see the monster lurking beneath the skin, the beast that’s waited for too long to feed.

Joel’s hand drifts toward his revolver, the movement fluid, but he doesn’t draw it.

The man tilts his head, the hint of a smirk curling at the edges of his mouth to reveal broken teeth. “Told ya I heard somethin’,” he drawls, his voice thick with amusement. His eyes flick to you, lingering too long. “Didn’t think anyone’d be out this far. Lucky us.”

The others chuckle softly, a low, rumbling sound that ripples through the still air. 

“Got yourself a pretty little partner, huh?” the man continues, his gaze crawling over you. “What’s she good for? Bet she’s—”

Joel’s voice slices through the air, low and venomous, like a predator of his own. "Don’t."

"Don’t what? You gonna protect her, old man? You think you can still play hero?” The man bristles but doesn’t back down. Instead, he steps closer, his boots grinding against the dirt, dragging his posse with him. Your horses start to stir, their breaths heavy and sharp, restless under the growing pressure. They can sense it—everything about this feels wrong, off. You can feel it, too.

The world narrows until all you can hear is your pulse in your ears and the low, dangerous hum of Joel’s silence, the weight of his restraint. You could run. You could get away if you had to. But you don’t know if you can get through them without blood spilling. Without—

The man makes a cold, humorless sound. “Those are fine horses." He raises the barrel of the shotgun so it's pointed at you. Only you. 

“Off,” he spits, his voice low and rough as if he’s talking to a dog. He jerks his head toward the man next to Joel, who has his own rifle trained on him.

Your eyes flick to Joel, trying to read him, searching for any sign of what he might do. His gaze meets yours, but there’s nothing there. Just emptiness, like the void behind his eyes, swallowed everything that ever mattered. You swallow the knot in your throat, but it doesn’t help.

He dismounts slowly, his movements stiff, like the weight of the world is pressing down on him with each deliberate step. Below you, the men loom larger, their bony frames stretching unnaturally tall, like dead trees in the winter. Their faces are gaunt and hollow-eyed, stretching skin tight over bone. The shadows twist around them like something alive and hungry.

The man gestures with his gun, the barrel cutting through the air toward Joel. "Hands up," he orders, and you both do, watching as he takes Joel’s weapons.

Joel’s eyes flick up, but there’s no surprise. No fear. Just that cold, unwavering look that always sits behind his gaze. His mouth pulls into a thin, sardonic line.

“Big talker for a small guy like you,” Joel says, the words thick with disdain, a flicker of sarcasm that rings far too loud in the silence between them.

Your head snaps to Joel, disbelief flooding you. Why the hell would he say that? Did he want to die?

Before you can even react, the blow lands. It’s brutal—an unforgiving hit with the butt of the shotgun that sends Joel stumbling down, falling to his knees from the force. His cheekbone erupts in a burst of red, blood splattering like a twisted painting, dripping from his face in thick streaks. The sickening sound of metal meeting bone rings in your ears.

Joel grits his teeth, his breath ragged, a low groan of pain escaping his throat, but his eyes—they don’t waver. His gaze is locked onto the man with a quiet fury, like the blood running down his face doesn't matter. It’s just another fucking wound.

The man steps forward, his grin splitting his face, sharp and cruel. “You think you’re tough?” His voice is venomous, each word spat out like poison. “Not so tough now, are you?”

Joel spits on the man's feet, blood splattering against the cracked asphalt and his boots. 

“Take the horses,” he commands to the other two behind you, the two sneering and grabbing the horses by the reins. You watch them take them away, your heart sinking every step. 

”Please, we don’t want trouble.” you beg, trying to be the voice of reason here. Since Joel seemed incapable.

“Seems to me he’s already asked for it though,” 

“No—I swear, let us go; you can keep the horses,” you beg. 

"Shut the fuck up, or I’ll give you somethin’ to beg about." the man snaps, so close to your face you almost gag. 

Joel’s eyes flicker to you for a second, so quick it’s almost nothing. But it’s enough. There’s no word, no sign, just a flash of something desperate. He’s telling you to run. And you know it’s not a suggestion, it’s a fucking order.

When the other two men disappear into the distance, leaving you with the last two, Joel moves. He’s a blur of muscle and force, using their hesitation to slam one of the men into the other, the three of them falling to the ground with a sickening thud. The crack of bone, the wet sound of flesh hitting dirt— a sound you’ll never forget.

But you don’t think about that. You don’t think at all. The guilt claws at your insides like a poison, but the fear is worse. You run.

Tears burn down your cheeks, hot and shameful, but you don’t have time to care. You run, legs pumping, every muscle in your body screaming at you to stop, but your feet won’t obey. You charge through the mud, slipping and sliding, the cold air ripping at your lungs like shards of glass. Your chest burns with the effort, and you push yourself harder, faster, your body on fire.

But then you hear it. The sound of footsteps. Heavy, fast, closing in. Your heart thunders, adrenaline surging, and suddenly, you feel him—the wind knocked from your lungs as he tackles you down into the muck. You crash to the ground with a sickening thud, pain blooming through your body. Your head rattles against the dirt, your vision blurs, and for a second, all you can taste is blood.

Then his weight is on you.

“Be good— for me,” He says in the struggle. He’s grinning down at you, his breath hot, fetid, mixing with the smell of sweat and rot. His hands are everywhere, tearing at your clothes. The desperation in his grip, his hands slick with grime, slides over your skin like the feel of a predator’s teeth sinking into flesh. He doesn’t want to kill you first. No, he wants to break you.

The thought makes your stomach twist, bile rising in your throat, but you can’t let him win. Not this. Not ever.

“Fuck you!” You fight back, not with hesitation but with pure instinct. You headbutt him hard—your skull connects with his nose with a sickening crack. Pain explodes in your forehead, white-hot, blinding, but the blood that splatters across your face, his blood, makes you want to spit. 

“You fucking bitch!” He roars, hands coming up to clutch his face, and that’s when you see your chance.

Your fingers rake through the air, finding purchase in his eyes. His scream is feral, a guttural, panicked thing, and you push harder, gouging into the soft, vulnerable parts of him. He’s stronger than you—bigger, more powerful—but he’s not faster. You’re smaller, quicker, and you use it to your advantage, sliding beneath his grasp, slipping out of his grip, making him chase you.

“Get back here, you little fucking cunt!” You’re on your feet again, lungs burning with the effort, but your legs don’t want to carry you. Still, you fight. You turn, every ounce of strength pulling into your fist as it crashes into his throat. The force behind the punch is brutal. His Adam’s apple caves in with a sickening crunch, and he stumbles back, gasping, choking, bloody eyes wide with shock. He claws at his neck, gurgling, but it’s too late. You strike again and again until the fight leaves him entirely, and all that’s left is a ragged body collapsing into the dirt.

Your hands are slick with his blood, the crimson staining your skin, thick and tacky. It clings to you like a sickening reminder, seeping into every crack, every groove. Your whole body shakes—nerves on fire, muscles trembling from the raw, jagged shock of it all.

“Fuck,” You whisper to yourself. Your blood, hot and wet, trickles down from your forehead, coating your face and dripping into your eyes and mouth. The taste is iron and salt, foul and sharp. You spit, your teeth gritting, but it doesn’t help. It’s everywhere. It burns as it slides down your throat, coating your lips with something worse than just blood—something... savored.

The ringing in your ears grows louder, a high-pitched whine that drowns out the rest of the world. You stand there, trembling, staring at the mess you’ve made. Your hands curl into fists, nails biting into your palms as your pulse hammers in your veins. Adrenaline’s a rush, a sick, sweet flood that courses through your body, making everything feel alive.

You felt the pain—raw and gnawing, a fire that burned through you. You felt the anger, deep and savage, boiling up from somewhere darker than you thought you knew. But underneath it all, in the twisted wreckage of your mind, there’s something else. Something ugly.

You felt... good.

Joel felt the pain radiate through his limbs, the ache setting in as the adrenaline wore off. His body throbbed, but that was nothing new. He'd earned every bruise, every wound. And the fight had been nothing but instinct. He'd killed the three raiders quickly, just like he always did. Their blood soaked into the earth, staining the ground beneath him with a crimson that could never be washed clean.

Gripping the machete by its handle, Joel shoved his boot against the skull of the nearest raider, pressing down hard. The sickening sound of bones cracking was almost comforting. He twisted the blade free from the man's head with a wet, sucking sound, his machete covered in blood and grey matter. The stench of it hit him like a punch to the gut, but Joel didn’t flinch. He wiped the blade off on the raider, the fabric catching a streak of viscera.

The horses whined quietly, tethered nearby. Their quiet snorts and twitching ears as they witnessed the carnage caused by Joel. 

Joel’s mind was already somewhere else, locked on the next threat. The raider who’d gone after you. His gut twisted with certainty—the bastard was still out there, lurking in the shadows, maybe covered in your blood. The thought didn’t churn up guilt, just a sour pit of dread. Dead or alive, you were his responsibility now. And if you didn’t make it back to Jackson, the blame would land squarely on him, just like everything else.

The machete felt heavy in his hand, slick and sticky from someone else’s blood. He followed the faint trail of footsteps stamped into the mud, his boots squelching with every step. Eyes scanning, ears straining for the faintest sound. A misplaced breath. The snap of a twig. He couldn’t afford to miss it.

Then he saw it. The churned-up earth where a fight had broken out, the mud streaked red. Blood, fresh and still shining in the sunlight. So much of it. Joel crouched, running his fingers through the dirt, smearing it between his fingers. You’d bled out fast or close to it. He shook his head, swallowing the bitter weight that came with the realization. Deadweight was heavier, and he could already feel it in his shoulders, the drag of carrying your lifeless body back to Jackson.

A pair of grooves marked where they’d hauled you away, your boots carving lines into the mud. Joel followed, his steps methodical, dropping the machete as he withdrew his pistol. The trail led to a house, and the door cracked open just enough to show the yawning black inside.

Joel stops short, his breath hitching, sharp as broken glass in his chest. The bastard was in there—waiting. He could feel it in his bones, a sixth sense honed. The tension pressed against him, thrumming like a live wire.

The rusted hinges scream as Joel nudges the door open, his pistol raised. Inside, the scent hits him like a punch—rotting wood, stagnant water, the sour tang of mildew baked into the walls. 

His boots scrape against the floor, the sound muffled by the filth beneath them, as his eyes follow the trail of blood. Dark and glistening, it streaks jagged lines further into the house, smearing the warped floorboards like a cruel breadcrumb trail.

And then he sees you.

His sharp inhale is reflexive—because, for a moment, you look like another corpse. There’s a wildness in your eyes that’s unrecognizable. You're crouched, your hands tangled in the dead raider's limp arms, dragging him inside. The body’s throat is mangled, caved in with such force that bone and cartilage poke jaggedly through torn flesh. 

Joel's grip loosens on his pistol, dropping his arm to his side. Your head snaps up at the sound, eyes blown wide like a cornered animal. Your chest heaves, breaths tearing out of you fast, and for a second, Joel can see the adrenaline surging through you—hot and primal. For a moment, all he can do is stare. Joel was confident you were dead. Hell, he’d been ready to write you off. But here you are, standing in front of him, smeared in gore like something dragged out of a nightmare.

Finally, he exhales through his nose, a short, humorless huff. “Well, I’ll be damned.” His voice is low, gravelly, but there’s a sliver of something in it—surprise, maybe, though it’s buried beneath the usual roughness.

“Didn’t think you had it in you.” Joel steps further into the room, holstering his pistol with a casualness that feels deliberate. Like he’s trying to downplay the moment. 

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t show a hint of surprise as he steps closer to the body, nudging the lifeless arm with the toe of his boot. His eyes flicker across the mess, his jaw tightening as he surveys the ruined throat—just another death. Just another moment. The cold, detached look in his eyes makes your stomach twist like he’s seen this so many times it doesn’t even register.

“Messy work,” he mutters, his voice flat, void of anything resembling emotion. “But it got the job done.”

You swallow, your throat tight with the residue of rage and disbelief. You don’t know why you say it—maybe it’s the blood, perhaps it’s the tension gnawing at your insides—but you find your voice rough and raw. “Thought you died.”

The words are a bitter mix of relief and frustration, still edged with that wild energy from the fight. The animal instinct that drove you to act.

Joel turns his back, scanning the room, his eyes taking in the sight of this abandoned house. It’s a shitty place to stow a corpse, but you did what you could.

“Can handle my own,” he mutters, and you want to roll your eyes. Of course, he could.

“That’s not what I mean,” Instead of replying, he crouches beside the body, pulling a knife from his belt and inspecting it before taking it. 

“Guess I should be grateful I don’t have to drag your ass back to town,” he says, the words more of an observation than a concern.

“That’s all you got to say? He’s dead.” You swallow, avoiding the body in the room, your eyes still on Joel. The blood on his face—on his hands—isn’t so different from your own, but his expression remains stone cold. You know he’s seen worse, lived through worse. To him, this is just another day. Just another body, just another death. But for you, it’s different.

It’s your first.

"You think feelin’ bad’s gonna bring ‘em back? Grow up. They were gonna kill us. Doesn’t matter either way. What’s done is done.” His tone is flat then, low and cold, and he adds, “Get used to it.”

And somehow, despite the weight of the horror pressing down on you, despite the reality of what you've just done settling into your bones, you can’t look away from Joel. Not now, not when he's standing there—bloodied, indifferent—and yet still so... there. His presence, his stoic stance, even with all that carnage around you, makes that sickness stir. 

“I’m not like you,” You say, trying to fight it. For a moment, there’s a flicker in Joel's dark eyes—maybe it’s annoyance, maybe it’s hatred. It’s gone in an instant.

“No. You’re not like me,” he growls, voice jagged. “You wouldn’t last five minutes in my shoes. You’re a goddamn fool. Draggin’ that body in here like you wanna die. Anyone could’ve cornered you. You must be real fuckin’ stupid. If it weren’t for me following your trail, you’d be a corpse already.” His tone bites deep like he’s daring you to argue with him.

"I didn’t drag him in here for fun. I did what I had to do." You narrow your eyes at him, voice cold now. "Maybe you're too old for this shit, but I’m still breathing, so I guess I’m doing something right.”

“Ya think you’re doing somethin’ right?” Joel steps closer. “You’re still here because I’m letting you breathe. Ya ain’t smart; you’re just lucky. Don’t get that twisted.”

“What, you gonna kill me? Do it, then.” you wager; the anger in you bubbles up, thick and heavy, like blood sputtering. You cross the room, shoving at his shoulders, but it’s useless. He’s like a goddamn rock—sturdy, too damn big, too hard for you to move.

“Know what, maybe you are like me,” he says as he studies your eyes.

“You’re a fucking dick,” you spit, pushing again, harder now, but it only makes him take a step back. He doesn’t even flinch. His eyes flicker with something like amusement, but there’s a darkness in them that makes your skin crawl. The gash on his cheekbone is still bleeding, slow and steady, and it churns something sick inside you.

So you push again, and this time, his hand snaps out to grab your wrists, his grip like iron. You don’t even have a chance to fight it. “Ya done yet?” he growls. His face is close now, the sweet smell of his sweat thick around him. 

His eyes bore into yours. His grip on your wrists tightens, bones creaking under the pressure, and he shoves you back against the wall with a thud that rattles your teeth. You barely have time to gasp before his hand clamps around your jaw, forcing your face upward and locking you into his stare.

He presses into you hard—every inch of him a dead weight, his breath hot and heavy against your skin. His body is a cage, but it’s not just about dominance. This is a test. Another one of his twisted games.

There’s no escape, no help coming. Just him and the sick thrill in his eyes as he waits for you to snap. How far will you go before you claw, before you scream?

But you didn’t care anymore. Thoughts weren’t yours to hold—excessive blood, too much death. For once, the silence was the only thing that felt real. But even that was poisoned. You hated him. Joel. The way he made you feel small.

But the hate… it was thick, slow, like tar. It oozed between your legs, crawling until it reached places you never wanted it to. Making your pussy clench around nothing. Your body twisted in response, involuntary, as you arched your back, hips grinding into his in the chaos. You hoped that it would go unnoticed. But Joel noticed everything, down to the slightest shudder of breath.

And against your hip, you felt him heavy and hard through the worn denim, like a brand in your flesh. The weight of his cock is solid— and just a slight shift and you feel him stir behind the confines.

Your shock didn’t stand a chance against the gravity of the moment. But in this instance, there is no room for shame. No room for anything but the hunger, the violence, the inevitable collapse of everything you’d tried to be.

“Fucking filthy…look at you,” Joel growls, his tongue feels heavy in his mouth. His hand that cages you brushes away the tangled strands of matted hair clinging to your face—strands that once might’ve been soft, now hardened by the soft pulse of blood still trickling from your head. 

Your eyes—those eyes—narrow at him, blazing with hatred, slits of fury cutting through the haze of the room. There’s no fear in them. Just rage.

“You like that?” Joel’s hand drops to the column of your throat, pressing hard enough to choke the breath from you. He leans into it, staggered breaths, each one trembling with the same anger that’s boiled over in every kill he’s made, every life he’s ended. 

“Like when I can fuckin’ feel your pathetic life in my hands?” His words hit like a slap, but they only made the gnawing emptiness inside you worsen. “No one’d notice if you didn’t come back.”

That dull ache deep in your core twisted, something dark and instinctive rising in response to the violent tension between you. You felt it low in your stomach, a heavy pull as your arousal pooled. Joel's face, the roughness in his eyes, stubble on his jaw, now covered in filth. It should’ve disgusted you. Should’ve made you pull away, retreat to whatever small semblance of dignity you had left. But you didn’t.

The pressure was a fire. It burned, it scorched, but it also made you want to dive deeper into the wreckage. The ache was something you couldn’t shake. It pulsed deep in you, and you wanted—needed—a way to release it. The anger, the fear. You wanted him just to feel the friction of all the ugliness between you two collide in some twisted outlet.

The world outside was cruel, and the one inside you wasn’t much better. So, you nod, and Joel’s eyes burn before narrowing. By your throat, he pushes you around the room, shoving you until you’re up against a dilapidated couch. 

“Am I wrong?” Joel questions darkly. 

“No,” you answer, and that satisfies him. His rushed hands find the waistband of your tight jeans and drag them down with your underwear. You’re completely exposed to him. And he is brutal, grabbing your shoulders, turning, and pushing you onto your knees on the cushions. Forearms against the head of the couch, you arch, pushing your bare ass against the front of his jeans. 

“No, what?”

“No, no one would miss me.” You can’t help it; you rub against the rough material, and you're already so wound up. It would only take a few more seconds, and you’d be coming all over the front of him. You were like a feral cat in heat, and you preened knowing he was watching you. Exposed, arching into him, rubbing your pussy until you were raw. 

“Knew it,” he rasps, his words dripping with grim satisfaction. “Pussy this wet? You’re just as fucked up as I am.”

“I’m not—” The words falter, sticking in your throat as his hand presses against the curve of your back. Rough, calloused fingers, stained with a violence that never washes clean.

“Stop fuckin’ lyin’.” His voice is low, guttural, a growl pulled from the depths of something broken. “And I’ll let you have it.”

You flinch, squirming as his hand drags upward, slow and deliberate, the scrape of his palm a warning in itself. The grip tightens, tangling in your hair, pulling hard enough to sting. It forces your head back, exposing your throat.

“Fuck—I am, I’m fucked up… and I want it, please.” you plead, pulling against his grip on your hair to look at him with hooded eyes. Joel responds with the rustle of his jeans as he unzips and drags them down enough to pull his cock out. 

Joel can feel the blood rush to his head as he watches you beneath him. Begging for him, needing him— your wet lips parting with a sigh as you feel the fat head of his cock pushing against you. 

“Dirty little thing, turned on by fuckin’ death.” Joel breathes out, almost a gasp, as he runs the tips along your soaked folds. Joel hadn’t been fucked in ages, and your young tight cunt before him made his balls tighten. He didn’t know how long he’d last, but still, he slammed into you with one fell thrust. 

“I know ya can take it,” You cry out at the way he splits you with his cock, giving you no time to adjust to his length. You search for purchase with your hands, but the fabric of the couch disintegrates as you pull on it. So, you push back against him, feeling the head of his cock nudge against your cervix. A jolt of pleasure fuses with the pain as you feel his balls against your clit.  

“Joel—oh my god.” You whine, your skin overly sensitive. 

Joel fucks into you, the stain of blood on his hands as he clutches the flesh of your hips savagely. 

“Should fuck the innocence outta you for your own good.” Joel feels your pussy clench around his girthy cock—stretching you, filling you completely with each thrust. 

A pathetic cry slips from your lips as his hand tugs at your hair, fingers weaving through the strands, tightening their grip. He drags you closer, your back flush against his chest, the weight of him pressing against you as he thrusts into you. His fingers slip around your throat again, finding their hold with familiar, bruising ease.

“Said ya could take it, so shut the fuck up,” he threatens, squeezing at your throat. Your pussy swallows him, and every time he withdraws, she sucks him back in. 

"I can—I can take it," you murmur, a sigh slipping from your lips. Your head falls back slightly, lost in the haze of numbing pleasure, the world around you fading into the background. The sensation builds, all-consuming, and you find yourself craving more. "Faster," you breathe, the words slipping out before you even realize you’ve said them.

Joel wanted you to suffer, just as he did when he felt that knot in his stomach every time he looked at you. To endure the hurt, he squeezes your neck as he thinks about it. He wanted to give you pleasure, to completely control you, to ruin you. His cock spears you with wet squelches, your pussy gushing with how fucking wet you are. You completely drench him, the hair at the base of his cock now coated with your arousal. 

“Always makin’ too many mistakes, too fucking stupid—fuck.” Joel pounds into you now as if he were driving his point into you with every thrust. 

"I'll be better," you whisper, the words heavy with meaning, though you’re not sure if you believe them yourself.

"Not for you to decide." Joel huffs, a hot puff of air against your tender skin. His lips brush against the side of your neck, teeth grazing before sinking in. 

The pressure tightens in your stomach as his teeth sink deeper, his grip on your throat tightening with an almost suffocating certainty. The tip of his cock pushes and grazes the spongy spot inside you that intensifies your pleasure. Joel can feel it when you suffocate his cock as he rams into you sloppily.

You look down at the arm circled around you; the blood splatters like paint on his skin. You feel the sickness tangle inside you, but the feeling unravels more and more as he continues. Like Joel was the one who had planted this inside you, and he was the only one who could fuck it out. 

A throaty moan vibrates under Joel’s grip as the thoughts consume you. It eggs him on, your silent cries, your loss for words—and he chases his release selfishly. His fingers slide from your neck to your face, the pressure firm as he squeezes your cheeks, forcing your lips into a pout.  

Your lips part instinctively, soft and eager, but Joel is quick—he twists your body in his grip, tilting your head back so that your mouths collide in a rough, open kiss. It’s sloppy, fervent—slick, so desperate. The heat of his mouth burns against yours, his tongue sweeping in to taste you, hot and hungry. The scrape of stubble on his jaw drags across your cheek. As he thrusts against you, his lips slide messily, reaching for you—again and again, leaving a trail of wetness behind. His teeth graze your bottom lip, pulling at it hard enough to draw blood.

The smell of his sweat overwhelms you, the weight of his body pressing against yours, and without warning, the tension snaps. Your walls tighten, pulse racing, and you feel every inch of him as your body reacts instinctively, urging him deeper. Pulsing, as if your pussy wanted—no needed to milk him inside you. It’s almost as if your body itself is begging for him, claiming him. The thought spins you into a daze, making you cry out his name, imagining him taking you completely. Your eyes roll back as your body loses itself, pliant under him, molded to his will. With a rough shove, he presses you down again, your arms against the couch.

Joel fucks your swollen pussy relentlessly until he’s on the verge of coming. His balls tighten, a warning he fights to suppress. Joel holds off, biting down on the need to release, but it doesn’t last. With a growl, he pulls out, gripping his cock as his hand pumps in quick, tight strokes. The surge hits hard, and he comes—hot, creamy spurts splattering against your bare skin. He paints you with thick, molten heat, groaning low, biting back the sound that follows as he watches you, chest heaving.

You pant, throat dry, your breath shallow and quick as a shudder rolls through you. Slowly, you twist your sore neck, casting a glance back at Joel. He’s a mess—blissed out, eyes half-lidded, chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. For a moment, he’s completely still. No biting remark about how you could’ve done better. No gruff comment, no criticism. Just silence. It's not the kind that hangs heavy with something else, but it's a quiet one you almost don’t know how to read.

"Don’t be expectin’ anything from this.” His voice is gruff, as if the words were meant to warn you and distance yourself from him. Like you didn’t already do so. Watching him, he tucks himself back into his jeans, fixing his belt before straightening up with a quiet sigh. 

"You’re too old for this kind of shit anyway." You lie with a smirk, a tired but almost amused glint in your eyes. You pull your jeans over your ass once you clean yourself off, pulling your shirt down.

"Don’t get cute.” He grunts, his jaw tightening, but there’s a hint of something beneath it—exhaustion. 

“Scared I’ll make you feel somethin’?” you quip, standing from your kneel on the couch cushion. 

He shoots you a glance, his eyes flicking up to yours with a quiet edge, but his lips twitch—just slightly, a nearly imperceptible shift that betrays the bite in his words. “I ain’t scared of you. Just tired of your shit.”

You laugh softly, not backing down. “Sure, Joel. Whatever you need to tell yourself.”

"Quit fuckin’ around, let’s go.” He replies, his movements stiff, like he’s already mentally moving on. You can hear his boots hitting the floor as he heads for the door, his back to you. 

He doesn’t need to say anything else. There’s no need to explain what just happened. No need for words. You know you’ll never speak of this—never speak of the violence and pleasure, of the heat between you, of the power his hands had when they were all over you. You’re too young, too naive, too goddamn full of life for someone like him. But he still finds you. Back in Jackson, he finds you when he wants, when he needs…

You know better than to expect anything more—this was what it was, nothing more. So, you mount the horse, the leather of the saddle creaking under your weight, and without another word, you both head back home. Bloody. Battered. And thoroughly fucked out.

Back to Jackson. Back to survival.

masterlist!

[cherrixpie]

NEMESIS

part four of five

↬ you were supposed to steer clear of mattheo riddle. Shame that he was just so irrestible.

↬ sfw; wc: 9.1k (good lord these keep getting longer); cw: violence, blood, broken bones, suggestiveness, swear words; tags: gryffindor!reader, muggleborn!reader, enemies to lovers

( masterlist )

The wind howled through the stands, tearing at banners of both red and green, as sheets of icy rain slashed down in relentless torrents. Over night, the weather had taken a dramatic shift, to the disfortune of any poor bloke who was on the pitch today. The pitch had turned into a mire of mud and puddles and looked more like a battlefield than the site of one of the most anticipated Quidditch matches of the season: Gryffindor vs Slytherin. Above, the players on their broomsticks were little more than blurred streaks of color, their shouts swallowed by the roaring of the storm. The sharp crack of a Bludger smashing into a broomstick echoed through the chaos, drawing gasps and cries from the diehard fans who clung stubbornly to the stands despite the weather.

Near the base of the stands, Madam Pomphrey hovered over you like an agitated owl as you sorted through the bandages and potions at hand. Ever since you'd started practical training in the Hospital wing to improve your chances to become a healer at the prestigious St. Mungos Hospital, you'd been assailing her at quidditch games. But you'd only ever had Gryffindors to look out for before.

“Playing in this weather is nothing short of lunacy,” Madam Pomphrey muttered, her words only heard over the howling wind because she stood so close to you. “The last thing I need is another student catching their death out here- or worse, ending up on one of my stretchers.”

Though you didn't say it out loud, you estimated the chances of that being close to zero. Not only the weather made this an exceptionally brutal game. It seemed as if the players translated the stress of playing in such conditions into pure violence, and the thick mist of rain only made the many fouls harder to detect. The game was turning more brutal by the minute. You did your very best to identify your friends, but only caught a glance of Harry hovering over the game, looking for the faint glint of the snitch through the fog and dodging the occasional bludger. And, of course, Ron, guarding the rings.

But your restless eyes didn't only scan the skies in search of your friends. Any time a Slytherin player passed the stands, you'd anxiously try to make out whether they were a beater, whether they were Mattheo. But he seemed to be amidst the center of the game. Sometimes you thought you spotted him when you recognized a figure with club that vaguely resembled him. Sometimes, you thought the figure looked back at you, but you couldn't be sure of anything when rain and fog clouded your vision and made it impossible to pin point anything.

Suddenly, another violent crack echoed through the stadium and the fans let out a collective gasp when the small, blurred figure of Gryffindor’s seeker slipped from his broom, having been violently hit with a bludger. Before even Madam Pomphrey could react, you, who'd been on your toes all game, cast a spell to slow his fall and took off over the field to meet him when he met the ground in a rather soft thud thanks to your spell. The nurse followed hot on your heels and together, you hoisted Harry up on your shoulders and helped him towards the sidelines as Madame Hooch signaled time-out.

The bludger must've hit Harry in the face at short distance, because it only took one look at his blood-smeared face and crooked nose to know the latter was broken. You had the vague idea it wouldn't be the last one toady. As Madam Pomphrey healed it with a flick of her wand, eliciting a crack from the nose as it sprung back in place and a pained groan from Harry, you recovered a diptam from your belt and leaned down in front of him to apply it to his face.

“That was Riddle,” said Harry bitterly as you healed the cuts and bruises to the best of your abilities. The murtlap essence did wonders on his injuries, but still, your worried eyes scanned his face restlessly as Harry kept raging. “He's had his sights on me ever since we lifted off the damn ground! Dunno what's up with him, it's like he doesn't even care about the game anymore. He's a damn psychopath, he is.”

Before you had the chance to respond, three thuds announced the arrival of three other players and you turned to them as they approached. Madam Hooch lead them, she walked on large strides over to Harry to inspect the graveness of his injury. Behind her followed a highly enraged looking Malfoy, platinum hair clinging to his forehead, and Mattheo, seemingly relaxed though there was a storm brewing in his eyes that rivaled the one he and the others were facing above ground. Your eyes met and you froze mid movement when he, despite the situation, gave you a quick grin. Just like Harry and Malfoy, he was covered head to toe in mud and his hair was even more of a mess than usual, but you had to admit it suited him better than the other two.

“From such a short distance, my my,” raged Madam Hooch who was quite red in the face. As most teachers did, she directed her anger at some point over Mattheo's shoulder instead of looking him into the face. “That's a foul if I ever saw one. Gryffindor gets a penalty.”

“But Madam Hooch!” called Malfoy indignantly. “He only did his job, isn't it allowed for the beaters to use their clubs anymore?”

“On the bludgers, not on fellow players!” hissed Madam Hooch angrily. Malfoy stroke up another argument, beginning with the words "my father...", but Mattheo couldn't have cared less. So what if Gryffindor got a damn penalty, there was much more important things to be enraged about. Like the way you fussed over Potter, how worried you looked, how pretty you looked in your nurse uniform, a white dress that fell down to your knees paired with the most adorable nurse cap. Mattheo realized he liked white on you. In his world that was drowned in such darkness, you stood out amongst crowds like a glowing ember. As much as he hesitated to admit it, he felt lighter anytime he laid eyes on you.

“Mate, help me out here!” Malfoy pushed him, but he fell on deaf ears, because you had just glanced back at him. Your reproachful look almost made him smile. A few loose strands of hair fell from your nurse cap into your face and clung to your skin. Even if you were to glare at him, he'd much rather have you do that than go back to giving your attention to Potter, of all people. But alas, you turned back to him and wiped the paste off of his face, giving him a light slap on the back to get back on his broom.

If possible, the wind cut even sharper as the game went on. Even under the cover of the stands, theoretically providing protection from the rain, you were soon drenched to the bone. You'd even had to borrow a Gryffindor sweater from Dean because your uniform had started to become see-through, and the material wasn't thin. By now, everyone was just praying for one of the seekers to catch the snitch and win the game. Though Slytherin was in the lead, partially due to a newfound brutality from their beaters, if Harry caught the snitch soon, Gryffindor would still win.

Just when you dragged the box with the medical supplies further under the cover of the stands to prevent the bandages from soaking up- by the looks of the game you would need them plenty- it happened. You hadn't looked, preoccupied with your task, so the only indication that something was wrong was the shocked screams of the crowd. As you looked up to see what was going on, for the smallest split of a second, you could make out a seemingly rogue bludger rushing towards the stands, specifically, towards you. You didn't even have time to close your eyes or shield yourself from the impact when a flash of green shot through your field of vision and the crowd breathed a sigh of belief.

Rushing forwards, you gripped onto the barrier and looked up at the sky only to catch a glimpse of Mattheo's jersey until he disappeared into the mist once more. Gryffindor scored. As the red and golden covered stands to your left erupted in hollers and cheers, you were hit with the sudden realization that Mattheo had not only saved you from being hit by a bludger, but had also diverted from the Gryffindor chasers, allowing them to score. It didn't fit. He'd been playing with undeveloped ferocity the whole match and now passed up the chance to intercept Gryffindor scoring? But, you thought to yourself, heart still hammering in your chest from the shock, maybe you should just give up trying to make sense of Mattheo Riddle, when he'd so far proved to be everything you thought he wasn't.

Due to the doubled efforts of Nott’s solo runs and Mattheo's bludgers being a major hindrance to the Gryffindor chasers and messing up their formations, forcing them to scatter, Slytherin took the lead by a long shot. But still, if Harry caught the snitch now, they could still win.

You were focused on him that you didn't even catch the maneuver of the Gryffindor beaters. There was a resounding crack heard throughout the stadium, even through the splatter of rain, and one of the Slytherin beaters was slammed into one of the stand walls with such force he bounced off of it before hurling towards the ground. Seconds before the player could hit the ground, they managed to pull their broom up and towards the sky, but their face was full of blood.

Your brain needed a moment to comprehend the situation, but then you read the name on the back of the player’s jersey and the blood seemed to freeze in your veins. Oh God. It was Mattheo. Panic-stricken, you turned to Madam Hooch. Not only had this clearly been a foul, but Mattheo needed time out to get patched up. But Madam Hooch was preoccupied with overlooking the Slytherin chasers ramming through a Gryffindor formation and the endless sheets of rain seemed to obstruct her vision. The Slytherin stands roared in indignation, but Mattheo steadied his broom mid-air, wiped his sleeve over his face, which only seemed to make it worse, and got back into formation.

Even Madam Pomphrey, who had expressed her dislike of Mattheo several times, gasped worriedly. “The game needs time out! He can't play in this condition!”

Your insides felt like claws, reeling against your ribcage as a sudden assault of worry hit you. The impossible frustration of not being able to help, to have to watch Mattheo get back into the game with gritted teeth was suffocating. Past you would have been indifferent, maybe. Past you was an idiot. Your hands gripped the barrier so tightly your knuckles turned white, and you couldn't take your eyes off of Mattheo’s figure. The blood seemed to be obstructing his vision even more than the walk of downpour already did,

Why did you care so much? Why did worry over a boy like Mattheo Riddle eat you up from the inside? Though it was quite untrue, you doubted there was anyone like Mattheo Riddle. Maybe it was just easier to pretend that your concern, the fact that you cared so much, was illogical, than to admit to yourself that he wasn't just you-know-who’s son anymore. That your fear of him had subsided and given way to not only interest, but affection.

The thought scared you. You knew exactly what your friends would say if they knew that you cared for their mortal enemy. Hermoine would look at you with a mixture of disgust and worry, maybe she'd even feel betrayed. And Ron? He'd feel like you'd fratanized with the enemy, you knew he would be angry. What about Harry? He'd been so understanding yesterday, but only after you reassured him that you detested Mattheo. A lie. Mattheo was supposed to be your nemesis, too. But he wasn't anymore.

What was he to you? The question rummaged in your brain as you watched his figure anxiously, wincing any time he got too close to a bludger. In the forest, he'd been intriguing. In the kitchens, exciting. Then, in the library, and you felt almost ashamed to admit it, attractive. But that wasn't all. What you felt for Mattheo couldn't be summed up in mere interest or attraction. It was a coiled up snake in the deepest pits of your self that had raised his head slowly, before you'd even realized it. You couldn't pin-point it, you just knew you wanted to know everything about Mattheo there was to know, and, that you hated to see him hurt.

The Slytherins were now in the lead by one-hundred-and-sixty points, but you couldn't have cared less about the score. More than ever now, you hoped for the game to end so you could have a look at Mattheo. But when the whistle sounded shrilly through the stadium, it was only to announce another two penalties for Gryffindor after Malfoy had fouled Harry mid-dive, both of whom Ginny dunked.

And then, finally, Harry and Malfoy went into a dive and, under the victorious roars of the Gryffindors, Harry emerged holding the snitch over his head. The score board showed Gryffindor: 260 points - Slytherin: 250 points.

Mustering up little more than a sigh of relief, you hurried over to the cart with the bandages and healing potions, arming yourself with supplies as the players landed one after the other. More than half of them immediately made a beeline for the medical tent, to you and a very ill-tempered Madam Pomphrey who muttered something about high risk sports and student safety. It had been an exceptionally rough game, and most players were at least bruised up, at worst limping heavily and clutching their ribs. As they trailed in, your eyes frantically darted around in search of Mattheo, but you couldn't find him.

Soon, you were preoccupied with fixing up the Gryffindor chasers, but your quick, distracted glances around the tent told you that he wasn't here. But where could he be? Dread pooled in your stomach as you bandaged up Ginny’s left hand and applied murtlap essence to her fellow chaser’s cuts and bruises. Only more people seemed to trail in, but, bit by bit, you managed to send them all off again. Still, Mattheo hadn't showed. As you were just contemplating whether you could just walk into the snake’s den, aka the Slytherin changing rooms, and offer treatment, you felt someone’s hand on your shoulder.

You spun around and were faced with Theodore Nott, looking very wet and very moody. The sight of him calmed you somewhat, you knew he and Mattheo were close. Nott looked as grumpy and sinister as ever, but he didn't sound aggressive. “Are you free here?” he asked in his Italian accent and you nodded silently. His frown subsided somewhat. “Can you come with me? Mattheo’s refusing treatment.”

For a split second, you wondered whether Nott knew about Mattheo and you. Then, you mentally slapped yourself back into reality. There was nothing between Mattheo and you, other than a few late night encounters. He'd only asked for you because he didn't want to ask Madam Pomphrey, you supposed.

“Of course,” you said, a little more enthusiastically than would have been necessary, and quickly rounded up some medical supplies to stuff them into your bag. Then, you followed Nott out of the tent, through the downpour of rain and down the steps that led into the Slytherin’s changing rooms.

As you walked down the stairs, you passed a group of Slytherin players who shot you nasty, albeit unsurprised looks. Struggling to keep up with Nott’s long strides, you hurried after him and averted your eyes from the passing Slytherin's. In front of a door with the engraved words ‘changing rooms’, Nott halted his step and nodded towards it. “He's in there, make it quick.”

Nott took off after his friends and you were left standing before the door. For a few hesitant seconds, your fist hovered in the air in front of the wood, and for some silly reason, your heart was thumping like mad. Finally, you knocked. Due to your sudden surge of timidity, it was a soft, quiet sound, barely heard over the splatter on the roof. Still, a voice you recognized as Mattheo's called from inside, clearly audible. “Come in, princess.” As if it had been a command, your hand fell down to the handle, you pressed it down and the door swung open.

The first thing you noticed about the Slytherin changing rooms was that they were way tidier than the Gryffindor ones that you'd often visited after a game to fetch Harry and Ron. No empty bottles, no forgotten jerseys on the ground and it smelled surprisingly good for a sports changing room, though the distinct smell of smoke clung to the air. All seemed perfect in place- except for the a smashed-in locker on the left side and the boy that sat, smoking, on one of the benches.

Mattheo hadn't even made an effort to change yet, both his jersey and his face were seeping with blood. His nose looked broken and his lip was busted up, which didn't stop him from taking continuous drags out of his cigarette, the ember glowing faintly in the dim light. Wisps of smoke curled around him like ghostly shroud. His dark curls hung heavy and damp over his sharp features, framing the defiant smirk that tugged at his lips despite the pain evident in his furrowed brow and clenched jaw. His eyes, dark and unfazed, met yours with a flicker of something unreadable- half daring, half relief- as if, even now, bloodied and battered, he was too proud to let the hurt take hold. Or too used to it.

His heavy gaze felt disarming as you stood aimlessly in the doorway, faintly dripping with water falling from loose strands of your hair. Mustering up a small smile, you closed the door behind you and attempted to ignore the way his gaze burned into your back as you turned to the door. “What if I hadn't been me?” you asked in an effort to diffuse the situation of the weird tension in the air. “What if I'd been one of your friends? That would've been awkward.”

When you turned back to him, his gaze had softened almost indiscernibly. His cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, his eyes raked over your drenched and drippy figure before snapping back to your eyes with the self-assurance of a skilled predator cornering its prey. You met his eyes without blinking and the corner of his lips twitched slightly. “None of my friends knock as if they're scared somebody will hear it.”

Your lips curled. “Touché.” With slow, deliberate steps, you walked over to him and came to a halt before him, fingers closing tensely around the handle of your medical bag. Even just the parts of him you could see looked badly hurt, though he didn't show any signs of pain. Maybe he had CIPA syndrome. Or maybe he was just a masochist.

Mattheo caught your wandering gaze, blew a cloud of smoke your way and leaned back against the back of the bench expectantly, cigarette between his bloody fingers. “Well, then, I'm all yours.” A lazy grin played around his lips, in spite of the situation, and it was as attractive as it was infuriating.

Before he could react, you snatched the cigarette out of his fingers and discarded it into an ashtray near you before turning back to him. “It smells disgusting,” you let him know and he chuckled, raising his hands in faux surrender.

You felt hesitant to approach him, touch him, even though you had his consent. His dark eyes rooted you to your spot, made you unable to move. You wondered whether it was some sort of spell until he raised his brows. “Any day now, princess.”

“Don't rush me,” you whispered, averting your eyes and scrambling around in your medical kit for the right supplies. You layed out bandages and healing potions out on the bench opposite him and turned to him once more to tap your wand against his nose, murmuring “episkey” under your breath. With a disgusting cracking sound, it snapped back in place, but Mattheo didn't flinch, only continuing to stare up at you. With the same feeling of sticking your head into a snake den, you leaned down nervously to examine the wounds on his face, whether they needed stitching. The deep cut near his jaw did.

“Careful there, princess,” Mattheo murmured and your eyes snapped from the wound to his eyes, only inches away. “Someone might think you have un-pure intentions.”

You couldn't help the blush that painted your cheeks pink, more so due to his proximity than his words. Still, you brought some distance between you and searched in your bag for needle and thread. “My intentions couldn't be more pure,” you huffed and he laughed lightly from behind your back about a joke you couldn't understand. Or maybe, you did.

“That is true,” he lamented and you heard ruffling. You turned around quickly and snatched the pack of cigarettes out of his hands. He looked mildly surprised at the frown on your face.

“Come on,” you said, voice somewhere between annoyance and pleading. “are you really going to poison yourself while I try to patch you up?” Fitting the threat through the needle, you ignored his raised brows and concentrated your attention on the deep cut in his cheek. A damp towel in the other hand, you ran it over the wound to clean it and then leaned in closer. “This might hurt.”

He completely ignored the last part, but you could feel his eyes on you. Damn him, he was just so distracting. “Hm,” he hummed, as if in thought, and ignored your hiss to keep still. “One might almost think you care about me.”

“I do.”

Both you and him looked up in surprise, and you quickly looked away as his eyes stayed on you, almost hungrily. “Hold still,” you murmured, and finally, he complied, allowing you to insert the needle as gently as possible and start to surture the wound. It was almost scary how still he kept now. You desperately wished to break the silence that spread, that followed your words like a blanket of led pressing down upon the both of you. It was only the truth, you cared about him. You cared for him. You cared for Mattheo Riddle. In order to concentrate, you attempted to shut all that out, but the confession hung in the air between you, as impossible to ignore as he himself was.

Finally, you finished the last stitch and tied the suture with a surgeon’s knot off the side so it didn't touch the wound. A small part of you hoped desperately that Mattheo would overlook your slip up, maybe even forget it, but that, of course, was naive. When you put away thread and needle, grabbed the murtlap essence and walked back over to him, he looked up at you without the trace of a smile on his lips. “You care about me,” he repeated, not a question but a statement. His eyes fixed yours as he got a hold of your wrists. “More than you care about him?”

“Who?” you asked, perplexed by the severity in his tone. A hint of displeasure washed over his face, but it gave way to indifference after just a second. “Potter.”

“W- what?” you spluttered out, laughing nervously. How on earth were you supposed to answer that question? “He's my friend,” you said hesitantly and freed your wrists to dab some of the potion onto the tips of your fingers. As you leaned down, you froze mid motion when you felt hands on your waist. His hands on your waist. Large and warm and rough even through the fabric of your nurse uniform. His touch seemed to send sparks of electricity through your body that balled in your stomach and made your breath hitch.

“Go on,” he commanded quietly, and though they were trembling, you brushed your cream-smeared fingers over one of the bruises on his jaw. They travelled up over his cheek, tending to the scratches there, but you could hardly keep your attention on them when his eyes seemed to bore through your skull.

With a low voice, he muttered your name, your first name, and you were so shocked to hear him call you anything but ‘princess’ you did the smallest of double takes. “Is there anything more than that?” he asked, and he seemed more tense than before as his fingers curled into the flesh of your belly lightly. “Between you and him?”

Both the idea and the fact that you'd just been asked it by Mattheo Riddle of all people elicited a shocked little laugh from you. But he didn't laugh, only watched you with an expression that you might have mistaken for indifference if it hadn't been for the clenching of his jaw. “He's just a friend,” you clarified, your cheeks growing warm. “We're not- we've never- It's not like that,” you closed abashedly and put a bit of distance between you under the excuse of getting more murtlap. His hands fell from your waist as you walked over to the opposite bench, heat boiling in your face.

You tried to keep your expression composed as you got back to him to tend to the other side of his face, putting some murtlap over the stitches as well for good measure. This time, he didn't hold your waist, but when you were finished and brushed off the remaining essence on your skirt, he caught the hem between his fingers and his light tug caused you to stumble forwards in between his parted legs. His hand travelled upwards, tracing the curve of your hip without ever touching them and locked around the hem of your Gryffindor hoodie. There was a magnetic sort of darkness in his eyes when he looked up at you, two black holes that threatened to swallow you whole. “Take that off.”

In hindsight, you probably shouldn't ever have complied with his request. But his voice was so soft, his eyes so alluring, his whole being like a siren’s call. So you curled your fingers under your hoodie and, heart beating hard against your ribs, pulled it slowly over your head.

Mattheo's breath hitched as his gaze locked on you. The dim light of the changing room caught the soft outline of your figure beneath the thin, damp fabric, your nurse’s uniform clinging to you like a second skin, innocent in intention, but anything but now. The delicate outline of your bra was visible through the slightly see-through fabric. His throat tightened, a mix of a pang of guilt and a despicable surge of fire curling in his chest like smoke.

You looked so pure, so untouched by the edges of the world that had long since roughened him up. The contrast hit him like a bludger- your soft, careful hands that had just cleaned his wounds now pulling your hoodie over your head, oblivious to the firestorm you'd lit inside him. The urge to discard that Gryffindor hoodie and dress you in one of his jerseys, hiding the sacred sight beneath with a claim of his possession, was so overwhelming he clenched his fists, desperately trying to remind himself that you were not his, you were too good, too-

His train of thought was interrupted when you shifted slightly and folded your arms over your chest, only pressing your boobs together. He dragged his gaze away, but the weight of your unreachable warmth, your white-clad purity, lingered, carving through his battered core and leaving him feeling utterly undeserving.

When he looked away, you recoiled slightly and scolded yourself for thinking, hoping, he might react. But before you could put some distance between you, he looked up at you and his gaze locked you in place, making you freeze just as effectively as a pointed wand might have. Mattheo leaned forward and for a confused moment, you almost thought he was going to kiss you, but he only rose from his seat and walked past you.

Only when you heard shuffling behind you, you realized he was rummaging around your medical supplies. No, not rummaging, you realized when you looked over in alarm. He was cleaning up, packing all bandages and potions back into your bag.

“You don't have to do that!” you called and hastily approached to take the murtlap essence out of his hands. But he kept a firm grip on it and raised his brows at you with a mocking little smile. It seemed so out of place after the heavy tension between you in the room. “Hey, ‘m trying to do something nice here, princess!” With one glance, you assessed that Mattheo wasn't one for neatness, as he didn't assort the items in any order or symmetry whatsoever but merely threw them all into a heap and closed the lid. But still, the gesture was weirdly considerate and you couldn't help the little smile that crept onto your face.

“Thank you,” you smiled and he only nodded, averting his eyes. Right now, with your moist strands of hair sticking out of your nurse cap, your pretty little smile, the way the nurse uniform clung to your body, it was hard to withstand the urge to kiss you. Then again, what if he did? It'd all be over. It was etched into Mattheo by habit that if he got close enough to a girl to get intimate on any physical level, it was time for any strings to be cut loose as to not endanger the fragile balance that was what was left of his heart.

But it had never mattered to him, he'd kissed and fucked them anyway because he could, and it felt good, and then he was relieved when it was over. He’d never before held back. And in favor of what? Spending time in your presence? Pathetic, was what his father would call it. Mattheo couldn't explain it either, he just knew that, in this moment, his desire to be near you, to keep you, was stronger than the desire to rip your damn uniform off of you, explore the soft flesh beneath and give you the time of your fucking life right here on this bench.

You seemed hesitant as you grabbed the handle of your bag, your eyes raking over his torso. Of course, you were too good of a nurse and too smart of a woman to not guess what wounds he had to hide beneath. But for now, you couldn't see them.

“Thank you,” he said honestly, and the unfamiliar sound felt so natural when he said it to you. “For patching me up. Fine nurse you are.” He made no attempts to hide the flirty undertone and the lightest of blushes spread across your cheeks. He breathed it in like a drowning man.

With a barely concealed smirk and a “you're welcome,” you approached the door of the changing rooms.

Something like an iron fist closed around his insides as you opened the door and he couldn't hold back the words that stumbled from his lips. “Wait!” You froze and turned to him once more with an expectant look, and, as if he'd always known it, a stroke of genius found his way out of his mouth. “You know shit about muggles, right?”

A genuine grin formed on your lips. “I should hope so.”

“How ‘bout you tutor me in muggle studies then?” he asked, trying to sound as casual as possible. With a light frown, you crossed your arms over your chest and he gave you a pleading look. “I'm gonna fail the class if I don't get my grades up asap.” Satisfied by the way he could practically see your resolve melt at the look he was giving you, his lips almost twitched but he bit down on it to hide any trace of his true intentions. In truth, he couldn't have cared less about muggle studies, but it was the perfect excuse.

“Fine,” you said, albeit begrudgingly, but you also gave him a little smile as you slipped out of the door, leaving only the vague smell of your perfume and a shaken up Mattheo behind.

Even though you had been apprehensive to the idea at first, tutoring Mattheo turned out to be something you started to look forward to every week. With every tutoring lesson, he seemed to be warming up to you more and more- and you did, too.

A few weeks into december, you found yourself laughing at his jokes and getting caught up in his brown eyes, that seemed softer than you'd ever perceived them. And you discovered that Mattheo was funny. He had a dry, sarcastic sense of humor that never failed to make you chuckle, even when you probably shouldn't have. Not only that, but he was also smarter than you'd ever given him credit for.

Previously, you'd thought of him as a mix of brute force and cunning, not unintelligent but thinking more so with his fists. But he was incredibly smart, and you felt not only a growing bond but also fondness in a not-so-platonic way. It also helped that confusion looked simply adorable on him, which was not a word you thought you'd ever apply to Mattheo Riddle.

“So,” he asked in one breath as he plopped down on the seat opposite you in your secluded corner in the library one snowy tuesday evening, “what the fuck is a movie?” Taken aback by his sudden arrival, you did a double take and quickly cleared the desk of your schoolwork to make space for his books and parchment as well. As he spread them out, your eyes got stuck on a few splatters of blood on his white shirt and you frowned. He, of course, didn't miss it, you saw it in the way he shifted his jacket to cover the stains, but didn't mention it further.

“Harry or Ron?” you asked, as you knew him well enough by now to know that the only instance in which he wouldn't brag about his brawls to you was when your friends were involved. He looked almost guilty when he glanced up at you. Almost.

“Both”

Rolling your eyes, you put your books aside and crossed your arms over the table. “So, movies, huh? Where might that word come from, ‘movies’?”

“Come on, princess, you know I hate word definitions,” he whined, resting his head on the propped up palm of his hand and making his best puppy eyes at you.

You chuckled about his behavior and gave a light slap to his forehead that made the curls fall into his eyes in the most irresistible fashion. “It's supposed to come from 'moving pictures’”

“But muggle pictures don't move,” Mattheo frowned, seemingly recalling what you'd taught him just last week.

You nodded. “No, they don't. You see, when muggle pictures move, they don't call them pictures, they call them videos. And they don't move in their own, but because muggles line up an unbelievably high number of pictures and then play them in order, so they look like they're moving. Of course, today, the technology is a little more advanced. But movies often span one if not several hours and they tell stories, like books. It's kind of… as if books came to life. They have a whole range of other means to archived their ends though, like camera perspective, many also have music that can emphasize moments and influence how you see them, actor's performances, lighting-”

You fell silent suddenly and cleared your throat. As so often when you explained muggle concepts to him, you had started to ramble on with increasing passion. Now, you looked back at Mattheo to apologize, but his gaze was locked on you and a light smile graced his lips. Your heart seemed to skip a beat and you quickly averted your eyes down to your book. “Sorry, that was- I'm rambling again.”

“Do you see me complaining?” Mattheo asked with raised brows and kicked your shin lightly under the table to make you look up at him. “So, what's your favorite of these things? These movies?”

“Impossible to answer,” you laughed outright and ran a hand through your hair. “There's so many that are just so good, I could never pick one.” The smile remained in your lips as you contemplated the movies you'd maybe have chosen, but none of them were better or worse than the next.

“So, you like them? Movies?” he asked, watching your features closely. These last weeks, you'd started exposing more of your emotions to him through free expression more than words, had taken down some of the walls you still had left around him. Though he didn't say it out loud, you could tell he appreciated it, because his eyes studied every change of expression rigorously, as though he'd receive everything you gave to him of yourself with insatiable hunger, though he didn't reciprocate them in the same way.

“Yes,” you replied, fiddling with your quill.

There was a slight furrow of his brows when he locked eyes with you. “But they don't exist in our world. So, you'd give them up?”

“Why would I have to give them up?” you countered and leaned back in your seat. “I think the way we talk about the muggle world and the wizarding world is completely wrong. We talk about them as if they are different universes entirely and not part of the same word, the same country. Look at me!” You performed an awkward motion indicating yourself. “I'm part of both, and I don't feel torn, I feel more complete.”

His eyes flickered between yours as he contemplated your words. In the short silence that followed, you glanced around to make sure no one had taken notice of your little outburst. You hadn't told anyone you were tutoring Mattheo, that you were meeting you-know-who’s son two times a week in one of the more secluded corners of the library. Your friends would freak out if they knew, you could picture their aghast expressions, they wouldn't understand that an irresistible force pulled you towards the boy sitting in front of you. How the tutoring lessons had turned into a game of pretend for you, as you tried to hide your growing fondness for him while opening up parts of yourself for him to see. A fragile balance. And whether intentional or not, you'd seen parts of him you'd never known, or maybe you'd heard them through the tone of his voice or the tapping of his hands.

“There are worlds within worlds,” Mattheo broke the silence, and you frowned. His serious look indicated that he wasn't merely talking about the muggle and the wizarding world. You caught his hands tightening ever so slightly around his book and bit down on your lower lip.

“I’d have to disagree. There are just collectives within collectives. If the limits of different worlds are separating us, we can just make it simple and give each other up.”

You'd made it personal, and you scolded yourself silently, glancing up at the clock despite not really seeing the time. Both you and him knew you had slipped up. When talking about issues slightly more serious than movies or superhero comics, which had amused Mattheo greatly, it was a fine line drawn in the sand neither of you could cross, a silent agreement.

The air felt weirdly tense whenever one of you- more often you than him- threatened to bring up the fact that the unmistakable divide between the two of you went far beyond little house quarrels and teasing. That there was a world behind those protective castle walls both of you drowned out whenever you were in each others presence. The clock showed ten past nine.

“Worried that you're going to break curfew again, princess?” God, how you hated yourself for loving the way he said it, that little nickname that you used to despise, and now it was all his.

“No,” you said, tearing your eyes away from the clock and back to him. Nothing in his sharp features indicated that he recognized the tension that had lingered in the air just moments before, but he was too perceptive of a person to have been unaware. It dawned on you that he was probably trying to make you less uncomfortable and nervously tapped your quill against your lips. Mattheo Riddle being considerate was dangerous, because every time he showed his gentle side, it evoked a hunger in you to see more of it.

“You sure?” he asked, a sly, teasing smile resting comfortably on his soft lips. Only now that you found yourself looking at them closer, you realized there was a cut on them, continuously seeping small drops of blood into the corner of his mouth. You suppressed the sudden and utterly mental urge to lean over and wipe it off with your sleeve. It was not the blood that you minded, though. Maybe his craziness was rubbing off on you, because you abruptly thought that you wouldn't mind having his blood on you. Yep, he was definitely rubbing off.

Then, you realized what you were doing, staring at his lips, and fumbled to answer his question. “We still have enough time until curfew, if we leave in half an hour, we'll still have more than enough time to get back to our dorms.” You realized you were babbling on to avoid his heated stare and looked back at him almost defiantly, daring him to tease you for it.

Mattheo didn't take his eyes off you as the corner of his lips quirked upwards lightly. “Look at you, little miss perfect. I'll bet you’ve never broken a single rule in your life before I came along.”

You shrugged, feigning indifference. “Maybe I don't feel the need to.” The ‘unlike you’ lay on the tip of your tongue, but you didn't need to say it out loud.

Mattheo grinned and shifted in his seat, his knee brushing yours under the table. “You're missing out. Breaking the rules is half the fun. The other half is not getting caught.” He watched you bite your lip, trying to conceal a little smile that threatened to creep onto your face. So, he'd been right, you had enjoyed your more risky encounters. Thinking back to the night in the library when you'd fled from madame pince, he remembered the way your breath had hitched when his hand had touched your neck. The way your soft skin had felt against his rough palms, your doe eyes glittering in the dim light.

Suddenly, there was shuffling in the shelf behind you and you shot around, holding your breath. The place you'd chosen for you tutoring lessons was hidden behind the shelf with the twelfth century economical wizarding records and every single tome in it was layered with a centimeter-thick layer of dust that had allocated there over centuries of disinterest. You'd thought it the perfect hiding spot. But after a few seconds of nervous glancing around and your heart racing as you listened into the silence, one of the school’s cats rounded the shelf and passed by you and Mattheo without a glance.

You breathed a sigh of relief who looked back at Mattheo who was watching you closely. “Dangerous, isn't it? Sitting here with me like this.” He twirled his wand around his fingers and leaned forward subtly, the motion alone making you feel as if he was cornering you against the shelf behind your back. “People would start talking.”

“About what?” you said dismissively and rummaged through your notes, just to have something to do with your hands. This tended to happen once you'd strayed from the topic at hand even slightly. Mattheo starting to tease you out of nowhere, and you struggling to keep up with his quickly changing moods that sometimes threatened to give you whiplash.

Mattheo leaned closer still and propped up his chin on his elbow, still wearing a casual grin. “Oh, I don't know. Maybe about how l've completely corrupted you with my evil charms.”

Your sighed with a mix of exasperation and amusement. Tapping your finger against your chin, you rolled around the words in your head before speaking. “You know I'm not treating this as, I don't know, something forbidden. I'm not scared of, how did you put it last week? Ah, yes, tarnishing my reputation. You're-” you hesitated, but then, your words reached out to him like a welcoming hand through cold and unfeeling fog. “You're not as bad as people think, by a far.”

A dry, almost bitter chuckle fell from his lips as he absentmindedly fiddled with the collar of his blood-stained shirt and bit down on the cut of his lip, drawing drops of red from it that trailed down to his chin without hinderance. This time, you couldn't resist the urge and leaned over the desk, extending a hesitant hand. Mattheo froze, not watching your approaching hand but you, but he didn't recoil either, so you wiped the blood from his chin with the hem of your shirt sleeve. The blood stood out prominently against the white of your shirt.

When you drew back your hand, his shot up like an attacking snake and closed around your wrist. With some sort of morbid fascination, it seemed, he stared at the tiny spot of scarlet, before his eyes snapped back up at you. His tone surprised you, you couldn't really place it, it was a mix of softness and chilling intensity. “You really think there's good in everyone, don't you?” he asked, piercing you with his brown eyes that were so unlike those of his father.

“I try to,” you said, attempting to sound humorous, but the chuckle dried on your lips and your voice swayed to softness as you held his gaze. He didn't have to ask, you could see the question burning in his eyes, so loud as if he'd screamed it. And you didn't even need to nod your head to make him understand that the answer was yes.

The winter holidays came and went. The lesson before departure day, he'd told you he'd stay in Hogwarts over Christmas, and you felt tempted to invite him over to yours for a split second before the cruel claws of reality dug into you and you merely wished him happy holidays.

There was a slight unease in you when you boarded the train, as if something was about to go horribly wrong. But when you arrived after the holidays and left the train alongside Harry, Ron and Hermoine, you spotted his shrouded figure in one corner of Hogsmeade train station, a soft curl of smoke rising from his dark profile. For a split second, you'd locked eyes with him and you couldn't help a smile of relief to see him again.

Because both of your friends started asking questions eventually, you often met up after curfew, though you still hushed around the halls nervously any time you did and earned a great deal of teasing from him for your timidity. From time to time, you managed to break into (you preferred the term sneak into) classrooms at night.

These weeks of sneaking around made you masters of discovering hidden chambers in every corner of the castles, and you were particularly careful and made sure Harry ‘forgot’ the marauders map somewhere in the common room or ‘lost’ it and found it again next morning under his bed. Frequently, you met up in the kitchens and you baked while telling Mattheo all about muggle cellphones, that he understood the concept of surprisingly quickly.

On one occasion, you even demonstrated them to him as you pretended to get lost in the sheer blizzard howling around the houses in Hogsmeade to meet him behind Madam Puddifoots and called your parents, fascinating Mattheo. This night, however, Mattheo had discovered a new room behind the entrance hall. The two of you had cozied up with blankets and candles on the couch, keeping a few inches distance at minimum. The dim candlelight was way too ripe for disaster.

“So, let me get this straight,” Mattheo said an hour and a half into your study session. “Muggles have metal, bird-shaped containers with which they can not only fly, but they actually do it.” You laughed at the incredulity in his voice, though a tad bit distracted by the shape of the record sleeve digging into your back. Because Hogwarts castle only had enchanted record players available, you'd asked your parents to send you one of your vintage vinyls you thought he might like, but you were hesitant, had told yourself that you'd just take it in case there was a record player in the chamber Mattheo had discovered. Well, there was.

“I don't really like planes either,” you said, smiling understandingly, “I even prefer brooms over them and you know how I feel about those.”

He hummed vaguely and glanced over at you. “What's got you so shifty, princess?” A sly grin spread over his features. “You got something hidden behind your back, don't you?” Infuriatingly good at reading you, he was, as ever. With a small sigh, you decided that he'd learned enough about muggle transportation for tonight and pulled the record sleeve out from out of your bag.

“Listen up,” you said, excitement and nervousness coiling in your stomach. “Do you remember when I told you about muggle music?” Though Mattheo had undoubtedly been preoccupied with watching your expression shift with passion and your hands gesticulate, drawing patterns into the air, he nodded. “Okay,” you said, nibbling on your lower lip, and held up the vinyl awkwardly. “I thought I might give you a taste of muggle music, only if you want, of course.”

He could tell you were anxious about playing him the track and raised his brows at your humming and hawing and nervously twitching fingers. “What are you waiting for, princess?” The abashed smile you gave him melted him in ways he'd never be caught admitting out loud.

Sometimes it was quite frightening how you made him feel, and more than once, he'd found himself laying awake at night, not only because of his chronic insomnia and returning nightmares but also torn between the reflexive urge to push away you and how you made him feel so utterly disarmed and vulnerable, and the irresistible desire to see you smile again and let your unconditional kindness wash over him, soothing the dark voices in his head.

By now, you'd walked over to the record player and inserted the vinyl. With a tap of your wand, it started spinning and the sounds of a guitar filled the room. The muggle guitarist played a few chords before starting to sing. When you lowered yourself down on the couch, you didn't bother with putting the usual space between the two of you. No, you seated yourself right beside him, so that he could feel the warmth of your body radiating against his like a hug. As the refrain set in, you put your head on his shoulder.

“And if a double-decker bus

Crashes into us

To die by your side

Is such a heavenly way to die”

Mattheo froze for a moment, his breath caught in his throat as your head gently shifted against his shoulder. The simple, unspoken gesture of affection sent a rush of warmth through him that was both startling and utterly intoxicating. He glanced down at you, his a dark eyes softening as they traced over the curve of your cheek, accentuated by the flickering candlelight, and your lashes resting light as feathers against your skin. A faint smile tugged at the corners of his lips, hesitant at first, afraid to disturb the fragile moment. Slowly, very slowly, his hand shifted, fingers brushing against the fabric of the couch before finding their place beside your arm, just close enough to feel the warmth radiating off of you.

“Take me out tonight

Take me anywhere, I don't care,

I don't care, I don't care”

He felt like one of the mythological figures you'd told him about. Mattheo had scoffed at Icarus' idiocy, but now, he felt like he could understand where he was coming from. His voice, when he finally spoke, was low and teasing, betraying none of the blazing storm raging inside him. But even still, it was edged with a sincerity he couldn't quite hide. “Getting comfortable, are we?”

You only shuffled closer in response, but Mattheo had to suppress the urge to pull you in, wrap his arms around you, drag you into his lap for all the pleasure and calm it would give him. He was a selfish creature, but at this moment, he managed to stay perfectly still, safe for his fingers barely brushing over the fabric of your sleeve. Your breathing, having come in small, hasty little puffs before, slowed as you sat in silence, leaning on each other and listening to the lyrics filling up the space in your room you didn't fill with your words, because they would never be sufficient.

“There is a light that never goes out

There is a light that never goes out

There is a light that never goes out”

The song faded into silence and you started to move again. Mattheo hid his disappointment when you stood up from the couch to walk over to the record player. As you put the vinyl back into its sleeve, you turned back to him and for a few seconds, you merely watched each other in silence. Then, Mattheo rose as well and handed you your bag, that you took without looking at it.

Could it be that you felt the same reluctance to leave this room as he did? But you had to, his gaze flickered to the clock. Other than him, you had the chance to get some sleep tonight. So he threw one quick glance around the room, the floating candles, the sleeping portraits, the empty couch, leaned down to your level and pressed the lightest of kisses to your cheek. It was warm and soft under his lips, and he could hear your breath hitch in your throat. Damn little minx you were.

“Good night,” you said, quietly, and he returned your smile before opening the door for you, the feeling of your skin against his still lingering on his lips.

Maybe you both should have known it was going a bit too well. Maybe you'd become too self-assured in your nightly adventures. In any case, neither of you had caught the portrayed woman in the frame above the couch watching you through half-closed eyes, feigning sleep. As you closed the door behind you, she rose from her false slumber with a dirty secret in her hands- and a burning desire to spread it around the castle.

taglist: @aespaslut @kricketwritesstories @catching-fire-in-the-wind @a-little-funny @thejediprincess56 @polireader @voidangxls @artsyle @nkvgt @ashrocker123 @chimchoom @onlytenkos @yvonne-dump @alwayslatetothefandoms @ravisinghs-wife @eneywey @viylikecats @darksss5516 @cocosparkel @stereading @helendeath

[devilander]

a mirror in half-light

18+ 1.5k. homelander x supe f!reader. blood, dirty talking, cunnilingus, use of telepathic powers, acts of violence mentioned (not between reader and HL)

From someone so concerned with shielding his mind, Homelander quickly comes to appreciate your telephatic powers and how useful they can be. Especially during a boring Seven meeting.

prompt sent by @infinetlyforgotten, thank you so much 🤍

When you were first introduced to the Seven, many, including your new colleagues, compared you to Mindstorm. Sure, there were some similarities—the ability to see a person’s thoughts or to project specific images. But that’s where it ended. 

The ace up to your sleeve, which distinguishes you and earned your supe name as Quickstep, is both your telepathic precognition, giving you leverage in hand to hand combat, and your crown and glory—possession. Supe or non-supes, all could have their minds hijacked by you; an ability Vought decided not to publicize. 

Your fellow partners in fighting crime knew, though; and from day one you could feel Homelander watching you with suspicion, a stare so filled with distaste your knees almost buckled. 

Seeing you in a corridor, Homelander signaled for you to approach.

“Quickstep,” he sneered, invading your personal space until he towered over you and your neck ached from looking so high up. “If I catch you using your little powers on me, be sure I’ll crack your spine. It’ll be easier than stomping on an ant. Got it?” His sudden artificial smile did nothing to lessen the weight of his words. 

Homelander was your hero, always, since childhood. Not only that, ever since you saw him for the first time, the shining blue eyes, the softness of his blonde hair, that commanding voice... You were a goner. And he most certainly knew. The disappointment almost, almost broke your heart. 

Little by little, however, with the unspoken promise you wouldn’t pry on his mind, you’d grown close. Partners in fighting crime, yeah, of course, but you had his back, no matter what. 

In one of your missions together, Homelander smeared in an innocent’s blood from head to toe, your first instinct was to help him—clean the mess. And you couldn’t lie, him in his violence and brutality did something to you. 

“Hey, you,” you murmured. “Let me help you, okay? Let me take care of it. Let me protect you.”

Surprisingly, he acquiesced. It took no more than minutes to possess the mind of some poor bystanders, having them fight and commit atrocious acts; they wouldn’t know what came over them and Vought would be too happy not to disclose. In quick action, the narrative changed; from rabid supe, to terrorist crowd. 

Later, you found yourself in his penthouse, in his bathtub, naked and cleaning the gore as he squeezed your waist. When you sealed your relationship with a bloodied kiss, you knew there was no turning back—and you loved it. Loved his quirks, his humor, his beautiful nose and soft hair, loved his flaws and all that came with it. Loved the tie that bound you forever. 

“I love you. I love you so much,” you whispered in his ear as you lay in his bed, a few hours before your meeting with the rest of the Seven. “I ache for you all the time. It overflows, sometimes.” You giggled, remembering when your desire burned you so passionately, so intensely, your mind had one focal point: Homelander and what he could do to your body. Without realizing, all your wants and needs were suddenly projected on his mind.

In the first time, you were fearful he’d throw a fit, but he simply grinned devilish at you. 

“Wow,” he laughed. “If I’d known more about your dirty little mind I would have put it to use a long time ago, babe.” 

After that, it became a fixture, in bed, in daily moments where voicing your thoughts wasn’t an option, or in missions when silent communication was useful. And bit by bit, he delighted in it, veritable proof of your devotion and love.

As it were, in this stolen moment, cuddled in his bed, he answered. “And I love you, my darling, My own mirror.” He nuzzled your neck. “No need to scream in my mind, I’m gonna eat your pretty pussy until you beg me to stop.” 

“I’d never,” you said breathily. 

Slowly kissing from your collarbone, to your stomach and thighs, mischievously looking you in the eye as he bit and kissed and licked everywhere around your cunt. His strength was enough to keep you in the exact place he wanted. Such a delicious torture. 

Finally he turned his attention to your clit, dragging his tongue over it in elaborate patterns—he was relentless, and you both moaned at the contact. You were loud, thrashing and screaming at the slightest touch, but only for him. He played your body perfectly. 

Your hands found his hair, soft to the touch, and yanked, wanting him closer and he groaned—the vibrations going straight to your core. Soon he started tongue-fucking, just as you liked it, going deep and slow, alternating to trace your slit from your asshole to your clit; not one part of you ignored. 

“Fuck, you taste so good. You’re fucking made for me, your pussy is mine, mine, understand that?”

“It’s yours! It’s all yours. Please, Homelander, please—”

“Please what?”

“Let me come, let me come in your mouth, I want to feel you.” It was all too much, the mess his tongue made, the wetness running down your pussy and dripping in the mattress.

Moaning, he plunged two fingers deep inside you, as he squeezed your ass, bringing you even closer. You cried from the pleasure he woke in you, and even in this madness you caressed his hair, closing your legs until he was in the position you liked most: with a perfect view of his face, his soft locks, his bright eyes. 

He smirked, squeezing you tighter, until you no longer touched the bed, and he slapped your ass so hard your whole body trembled. 

“Like that, princess? Like when I do whatever the fuck I want with your sweet body? Now show me. Show me what you want.” 

You complied instantly. 

You imagined him feasting on your pussy, licking it all until his spit and your slick became one and the same. His fingers marking your ass, your thighs; biting so deeply even your invulnerable skin would cleave to his superior strength. You wanted his tongue deep inside you, for yours on end, fucking your pussy so good your legs would spasm and you would scream for all the Tower to hear, pussy clenching just the way he liked. You wanted it all—Homelander slurping on your clit and swirling his tongue, making you squirt and swallowing it all, leaving his chin a beautiful fucking mess. 

In the aftermath, body boneless and exhausted, you wanted his fingers, for him to drag it all over your juices and make you swallow and gag on it. Then, in a little tenderness, he'd give you a breathtaking kiss, further proof of your intimate lovemaking. 

As you projected all of this on his mind, his smile grew bigger, more wicked. And you knew he'd deliver it, or even more. 

“You really are such a slut.” You giggled; it was all in the game.

Later on, as all the Seven were debating their latest terrorist attack, and what plan they'd need to put in action, all you could think was Homelander. His hands on you, his tongue lapping at your clit and his disheveled hair—which, you noticed, he didn't fix for the meeting. It wasn't fair, he was too mean at taunting you.

You couldn't keep your eyes off of him and he knew. Flashes of your morning together ran through your mind. No matter how satisfied you'd been, you wanted more, again, all the time. You wanted his kisses and devastation, his head between your legs and his mouth both teasing and giving you the most world-shattering pleasure. 

You wanted to caress his hair, your newfound obsession, while he fucked you, hiting that sweet spot and filling you up with his come.

In your daydreams, you tuned out from the conversation, and like being burned you found Homelander staring straight at you, an expression oh so familiar. Unintentionally he'd become the spectator of your fantasies. 

Rising from his chair so quickly you barely caught it, Homelander said, “That's enough for today. I have other things to take care of. Quickstep, you stay.”

Whispers of complaint were quickly shut down, as Homelander glared at them until each and everyone left the room.

“Well, well, seems like someone is still wantin' for more.”

He laid his hands on your chair, then turned it so you were face to face. 

“I couldn't help it,” you smirked. “I can't get enough.”

“But that's not fair, don't you think?" He clucked his tongue. "It's your turn to please me.” He pulled you from the chair, and manhandled you until you fell to your knees with a thud. “Now, princess, get to work.”

[dreamerimpossible]

His reaction when you say someone else's name during sex.

Warnings: 18+ content, unhealthy relationships, mentions of death, typical canon violence, threats, toxic behavior, manipulation.

Characters: Michael Myers, Chucky, Billy Loomis, Stu Macher, Patrick Bateman, Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, Art The Clown, Jason Dean, Alex DeLarge, Kurt Kunkle, Brahms.

Michael Myers

He stops abruptly and looks at you through his mask while tilting his head to the side. At this point, you were extremely scared. I mean, he's still a dangerous killer and all. You apologize profusely in a shaky voice, feeling the lump of despair forming in your throat. He, in a mood of indulgence, takes pity on you and spares your life. He pins you down, though while his thrusts are brutal enough to make you feel like you're going to break, he doesn't care; he's using all his strength on you. It's your punishment for your recklessness. His hand circles your neck, choking you so violently that you genuinely think for a second that he wants to hurt you. He lets go, though. By the time he finishes, you have a sharp pain in your private parts and your body in general and semen running down your thighs. Frankly, it could have been worse.

Chucky

He would stop. There would probably be an argument where he would say other kinds of things to hurt you. He just can't handle it; he has to be the one to please you. He asks you who the person is that you named; if you resist saying it, the argument will get worse, and he will accuse you of cheating on him. So you tell him so that your relationship doesn't get any worse. It's obvious that the person dies, because Chucky is proud and wouldn't like anyone else in your head. If you apologize, stroke his ego, and are constantly pushing each other's buttons to make the sex rougher and more violent. and behave for a while, he will forget, but sometimes he will moan names of other girls to annoy you, which turns the situation into a vicious cycle. You are constantly pushing each other's buttons to make the sex rougher and more violent. He drives you crazy because he moans names of people you detest. In his mind, you brought it on yourself.

Billy Loomis

He stops everything, makes a big fuss, and leaves. He asks you who that guy is and comes out in his ghostface suit that same day to take care of him. After that has calmed his mood a bit, he comes back to your place and menacingly approaches you and says something like, “I’m not forgiving you next time, honey.” As he runs his knife across your cheek, making it clear that he’s fighting with himself not to sink it. He’s in a bad mood for the rest of the night; the only way to ease it a bit is to climb on top of him and kiss his neck, all the while whispering lots of affirming words in his ear and apologizing for being so dumb and careless. Only then, if he believes your words, will he grab you by the waist tightly and push you roughly onto the bed. He uses you to take out his frustrations.

Stu Macher

Pretty offended. Hides his disappointment with a calm, joking facade. It's scary because he doesn't say anything about it, just laughs, and pretends to be offended, imitating childish behavior. He continues to have sex with you while telling you to scream his name and that he wants to hear you say that you're only thinking about him. However, even if you do it and tell him it was an accident, it's there, and it just doesn't go away from his mind until the person dies. He thinks about whether he should kill you too for making him insecure. His decision depends on your subsequent behaviors. If you're not interested in him or he sees strange behavior with other guys, his decision is made; he's not tolerating disloyalty directed towards him (quite hypocritical). But if he realizes it was just an accident, he'll always bug you about it to hear you validate him.

Patrick Bateman

This is a brutal mistake. Seriously, don't do it. Whether it's an accident or not, avoid it at all costs. He'll stop, pull your hair, and ask you who that person is. He gets violent in no time and will definitely end sex by looking at himself in the mirror and not taking you into account, regardless of your condition. He will then leave you there and get dressed, ignore your comments, and leave without saying anything to you. He will come back the next day and still not say anything to you. He gives you the silent treatment and is very hard to convince. I can see him ending it over something like this, as he wants genuine affection and interest bordering on obsession, and if you moan someone else's name, it means you are not seeing him as the only person in your life and your top priority. If he sees you aching for him for a considerable amount of time, he will come back to you. But I would take it with a grain of salt if I were you.

Jason Voorhees

Bad technique too. It's hard to motivate him to have sex, and if he sees you moaning someone else's name, he might not be able to continue. He'll just pull away and leave you alone. He takes it out on quite a few people along the way. He won't do anything to you, but it's pretty sad because he doesn't treat you the same way anymore. He sees sex in a negative light again, and he'll probably never do it again. The only way he'd want to do it is to just get him to give in to his impulses, but that would be hate sex, and he'd be taking it out on you for being weak and not controlling himself. If you get him down on you a high number of times and moan his name convincingly enough, he'll hate himself less and blame you a little less. He'll probably never forget it, but he finds it hard to resist you. Plus it turns him on too much to have the blood he splattered on his clothes on your skin. You'd be a guilty pleasure that he'd slowly come to terms with.

Leatherface

You better come up with your best excuses in record time, because he is not letting you go that easily. He does not know how to deal with anger, and he could do something he would regret against you. So, you try to explain to him what happened, trying not to stumble over his words and without getting nervous (it is a difficult challenge). He will cling to everything that is even remotely convincing that you say; even if it is incongruous, it does not matter; he will believe it. However, you are limiting interactions with everyone until he feels safe, and you will have to deal with his way of expressing his emotions, even if it is sometimes against you. He will forget over time if you make him feel good and behave properly. You make sure you never make a mistake like that.

Art the Clown

Uh… really? Do you have a death wish or something? Frankly, being with him is entirely a game between life and death. You never know when he will get bored and end whatever you have. Saying that person's name will mean that he will seek that person out and make them watch while Art has sex with you and subjects you to many violent practices that will only give you pleasure if he has already corrupted and trained you well enough. If not, it won't even be pleasurable for you. Your screams will be a constant mix of pain and pleasure. Your body will be visibly battered. The person at the end of the situation is very traumatized, especially by your positive reactions to everything they did to you. In the end, Art will obviously make you watch him kill him, and depending on your level of sanity, you will either enjoy it or feel distressed. I don't know; he doesn't care. He doesn't do anything to you beyond that because you are such a good pet…

Jason Dean

He would like to be one of those guys who makes fun of you and just goes on with his thing, but he quickly finds out that he isn't. Someone else's name hurts him deeply; you can see in his features his disappointed and hurt look. However, he quickly becomes manipulative and controlling. He makes you kill that guy by carefully following his plans, and if you don't, it means that you don't love him and that you just took advantage of him and that if you were a good girlfriend, you would do anything to make him feel safe. You probably do want to fall for his manipulations, because the relationship is clearly toxic. You go along with all his plans, and he is happy; he sees it as a sign of love and all that shit. When all that is done, he will fuck you good and fulfill all your whims so that in his mind there is only him and only him. In reality, he fulfills his mission.

Alex DeLarge

He changes his expression immediately; he looks at you with that dangerous look that his victims give them. He tells you to back off immediately if you want to get out of the situation unscathed. His dominant voice would have you under control, so your mouth automatically obeys, and you apologize several times while you try to explain to him that it was just an accident. He will play with you and tell you fatal scenarios that could happen to you if he decides to leave you and take away his protection. In reality, he is just playing with you; it is not that your little mishap hurt him that much; it is just that he needs you to understand that he is in charge and he will not tolerate you straying or betraying him. After that he will make you fulfill a fantasy, like having sex in a stranger's car while others drive by or something like that; he will also make you yell "Alex" many times to make it more embarrassing. He enjoys your nerves quite a bit, and he feels paid. However, that very night, he and his droogs are visiting the person you named. That's non-negotiable.

Kurt Kunkle

It cracks me up because I don't even know if anyone still loves this character, but anyway, he's added to my list of slashers. Well, he can tolerate recording you having sex; he can even feel comfortable seeing his followers grow thanks to seeing you naked, and he can act all feigned kindness to anyone who hits on you. But he won't tolerate you thinking about anyone else, much less blurting out someone else's name while you're with him. He's pretty crazy, so they'll have sex in public or something while he humiliates you in front of everyone for being an inconsiderate bitch. He laughs like a maniac, creating chaos and chaos. You literally couldn't even remember that day because of all the unusual things that happened. He doesn't apologize; at the end of the day, he doesn't even talk about it; he literally took out his frustrations by causing massive chaos. Well, that's what you get.

Brahms

He throws a tantrum and forces you to calm him down. He manipulates you and makes himself the victim. He will use this to have more freedoms with you and let you do whatever he wants, basically. No matter what you say to him, he won't want to understand. He just shamelessly enjoys the way you ride him afterwards and tries to get him to forgive you that way. In reality, he will never forgive you because he prefers to make you feel guilty all the time so he can keep getting things out of you. The only way out of this is for him to do something worse (which isn't hard) and you get mad at him and the roles change. But it's always like that. It's a vicious circle too. He silently wonders who that person is. Just give him attention and do everything he tells you for a while. He will think he won. However, you have to control his tantrum well; otherwise, he might get too out of control with his own strength.

[viridescentelf]

In your debt

Young druid Halsin x Reader

Ever since I saw the young Halsin art above by @ozumii-fucking-wizard, I have been obsessively staring at his gorgeous damn face (thank you so much for this version of him, I am hopelessly in looooooove)!

Enjoy young Halsin healing you~

Warning: Blood, Violence, Swearing

-----

You ventured through the forest, wanting to escape the loud bustle of the city. Carrying your heavy instrument on your back, you strode through the man-made trail into the thicket, to your usual spot you decided was your permanent hideaway.

You knew the forest was home to a druidic group, who adopted young lost children. You never encountered any druids on your many trips here, but you knew they were aware of you: sometimes you found some foraged fruit and vegetables at your spot, packaged neatly with strings or in small sacks. Someone left you these gifts. You assumed they liked your music, since you often came into the woods to practice some new songs you were crafting. You weren’t sure if the children were this fond of you or if it was some druid who kept leaving trinkets. It didn’t matter really, you were grateful nonetheless.

Today, you hadn’t found anything left for you. This wasn’t too unusual; you never ventured here expecting to receive anything. You let the strand of your instrument slide down your arm, placing it next to your seat by the large oak. It was clear this spot wasn’t really used by others, the print of you sitting in the dirt only really matched yours. It always seemed undisturbed, like you left it, with the occasional gifted sack placed there.

You gazed at the lake, where fireflies danced happily over the dawn lit water. It was another pleasant morning and you took a deep breath, enjoying the lovely fresh air you rarely got to inhale. Baldur’s Gate was lively and exciting, but you were always drawn back to this place.

You started plucking the strands of your lute, absentmindedly, taking in the sunrise as the rays warmed your face. You felt the trees sway with your music, as if they were welcoming you back. The forest seemed more alive here and had a distinct personality. Childlike glee vibrated through the branches. The tranquility of this area made you sink back into the tree, leaning against its strong body.

Something boomed in the distance. You sat up with a jolt. Normally, the only sounds you heard here were twigs breaking or the wind whizzing through the glade. You looked around, trying to locate the source of the noise.

Another blast. This time, there was shouting that followed. Some sounded panicked, some aggressive.

You got to your feet, frantically, staring into the distance where you thought the brutal noises were ebbing from. There were screams now. And they sounded young.

Without really thinking, you started sprinting towards the cries. Clutching your lute in one hand at your side to keep it from knocking your hip, you darted through the brush. There were children screaming and wailing, getting louder and louder the faster you ran towards them. A loud, ugly voice was yelling at them.

There were other more distant shock waves bellowing: an ambush? Were the druids under attack?

You heard the angry voice thunder in front of you, as you slid behind a birch tree.

“Move it, you little shits! Or I’ll cut yer hands off!”, a goblin with a bloody handprint across his face snarled at a group of mixed children, who were huddled together, sniveling and trembling uncontrollably. He pointed a curved, dirty blade at their backs, as they sheepishly shuffled along.

“Can’t we just kill them and drag their corpses? They’re so fucking slow…” Another smaller goblin groaned, walking in front of the hostages.

“No, the drows say they need new slaves. We need ‘em alive,” he pushed a small tiefling in front of him, who let out a terrified shriek, “Faster! Before the stinkin’ druids catch up.”

They passed the birch tree, which was rooted opposite a cliffside. The rapids below reverberated up, making it hard to hear clearly.

Goblins were attacking the druids, the far sounds of crashing and clanging meant a fierce battle was commencing.

“They won’t be able to hold them back much longer, Izick,” the short goblin at the front was standing close to your hiding spot. You peered through the branches and saw the poor souls quivering wildly. Their faces were cut and stained with blood. You deduced whoever was watching over them had been murdered in front of them.

You weren’t a fighter. But you couldn’t let them take the children.

The small goblin turned to face the group; his back facing the tree. You grasped your lute hard, making the skin around it paler. You took a deep breath, preparing yourself for guaranteed pain.

This was an expensive instrument, too.

You pounced out of the woods into the clearing and slammed the lute onto the head of the unassuming goblin. It broke over his fat head, but the velocity had done its job. He fell to the side with a loud thud, letting out a last, gurgled groan. You kept hitting him with the remaining pieces of your improvised weapon, making sure he was dead. The blood pooled around him.

Izick was already running towards you, having pummeled through the victims without care, who all fell to the ground and held their heads to the dirt, whimpering and horrified.

You dodged the first swing of his blade, but knew instantly this wasn’t a fight you could win. You had nothing to fight with, except your fists, and you dared not get close to him as she flourished his disgusting weapon.

The goblin roared as he jumped towards you. You collided and felt a scorching pain in your stomach. He had gotten you, deep in your belly. You screamed. You both fell to the ground near the edge of the cliff. The goblin tried to pull the blade back out while he sat on top of you, but it was stuck. Izick cursed at you, although no insult really reached your ears. Your entire body centered around the searing wound in your abdomen.

The children were petrified. You saw the tears roll down their faces as they watched the pathetic scuffle. If you failed, they would suffer endlessly. You couldn’t allow him to kill you, before you saved them.

He lifted his fists to pummel you. His face was etched with determination, he would beat you to death if he had to.

Your arm moved instinctively. You grabbed his collar, before his fists met your face, and leaned your entire body weight to the side, where the roaring river called to you. It was the only way.

You felt the wind whistle past your ears as you fell with the goblin in your grasp to the depths. You both crashed into the icy water and you felt him drift away, as the muffling water slowed everything. Your body was being pulled to the side, the current dragging you uncaringly down the river. It pulled you violently from one side to the other, not tiring of its new toy, pushing you up and down like a ball. Weightless, you floated and let it take control, unable to do anything else.

Your thoughts silenced. The cold of your surroundings embraced you and you had no strength to resist. The pulsating pain from the blade kept you awake, barely.

After a while, you felt yourself bob up, your head bracing the surface. The sudden blaring of the river crashed into your ears as you gasped for air. Your eyes blurred. The water seemed to settle into a lazy tempo. You didn’t know how, but you kept your head above water. You saw red puddles waft after you.

The current carried you to a small bank, discarding you there as it continued on. You lay on the muddy earth, motionless, staring at the piercing blue sky that seemed to beckon you towards it. The blade still stuck out of you, you saw it move up and down as you breathed shakily. You couldn’t keep your eyes open much longer.

Your heavy lids fell, darkening everything. The pain slowly left, too.

You were dying. And you were accepting it.

Before the complete darkness, you felt tiny hands pressing on your aching belly. That spot felt warm and kind, as the last of your wits evaded you.

Quiet. Emptiness. Nothing.

Halsin’s lips clasped yours, as he breathed into your mouth, holding your nose. The moss on your puncture was absorbing the excess blood. The vile blade lay discarded to the side, already carefully pulled from you.

You convulsed and coughed out, life filling your face first and then gradually seeping into your weak limbs.

You blinked hard and opened your weary eyes.

Halsin met your gaze and placed a hand on your cheek, as his other etched glyphs into the air.

“You’re going to be alright…”, he said softly, as a green mist appeared suddenly from his hand, which he lowered down to your injury.

“Breathe…”, he commanded gently. You obeyed and took a shaky breath. Your body felt heavy. Even breathing was difficult.

You felt his hand pressing on your abdomen. Whatever he was doing, the agony was quieting because of it slowly. You watched him as he attended to your mortal wound.

He was beautiful. A few braided pieces of his long, honey hair fell effortlessly next to his face. The jade eyes were focused, but there was an air of kindness about them. You squinted at the embroidery on his attire. This was one of the druids.  He looked young, but the elf ears suggested he might be older than he appeared.

You attempted to speak, but could only let out feeble coughs.

“Don’t speak. This will take a bit to close up”, he looked down at you and smiled kindly. You blinked as a response, taking another deep breath as you felt the pain flee your body.

There was a brief silence, the only sound was the hypnotic whirring of his enchantments.

“You did something truly courageous back there. The children told me. They recognized you, the singer in the woods…they often spoke about you at bedtime”, he chuckled briefly, “Didn’t expect I’d meet you under these circumstances.”

You watched him, as he seemed to reminisce fondly. So, it was the children who left you gifts at your spot?

His other hand swished and another cloud of green wafted out of it. He placed that hand next to the other on your stomach.

“I am in your debt. You saved the little ones, when they were not your burden. Truly, you’re a real hero.”  

You didn’t know how to respond. You were also more than confused as to how he found you so quickly. You felt like you had been drifting in that river forever. And the druids lived deep within the forest.

Who in the Hells was this elf anyway?

“You are exceedingly lucky. Thaniel found you and tended to you before I made it here.”

You raised an eyebrow, coughing again.

“Oh, haha. Thaniel is the forest spirit here. He seems quite fond of you.”

A forest spirit? Your exhausted brain couldn’t process that thought. You couldn’t really contest the idea either.

The druid lifted his hands briefly, checking how far along the healing process was. Deciding it needed more time, he repositioned his palms. You observed him for a while in silence as he concentrated on the regeneration of your tissue. He was huge. You felt like a child next to him.

“Wh-who are you…” you croaked out faintly.

He turned to you, his eyes softening with a calm smile.

“I’m Halsin,” he put one hand on your shoulder to keep you down, as you tried to sit up at the response. It didn’t take much strength to keep you there. He smiled more widely, then turned his attention back to his task.

Halsin. You had heard that name before. Whispered by folk in the area, he was famous for his incredible healing abilities and knack for getting captured. You only knew one druid by name and that was him. A druidic protégé, yes. A fierce warrior, yes. But a bit different. People in town talked about the impulsiveness of the young druid, which caused the other, older druids to scratch their heads in frustration at his unpredictability. And that‘s who was healing you right now?!

Gods, you never imagined he’d be this dreamy.

You were probably dreaming. No, you were dead. Definitely.

No being was this beautiful.

[poisonsage808]

Ma Meilleure Ennemie

Steb x Reader

warnings: set before and in season 2, language, angst, violence, police brutality

Judgement was a hard thing to shake. Topsiders were wealthy in their demeaning ideas of how the undercity worked. Fortunately, it often would work in your favor. They could say what they wanted about Zaunites, you took care of your own. Rumors and lies didn’t spread half as fast as a warning.

“Enforcers!”

Promises sacred down here too. Deals? Made to be broken, everyone knew that. Anyone could make a deal knowing full well that double crossings were a daily occurrence. Promises were special, though. Friends hooked their pinkies together in sincerity, a vow to uphold; while lovers whispered sacred oaths coated in devotion. A promise is a promise.

You should’ve known a topsider wouldn’t keep one.

Fuck, your lungs burned and itched like they were turning to cinders. You were on fire from the inside out, set ablaze when you couldn’t outrun the giant, moving, grey cloud that chased you. You could barely breathe inside of it, choking on the ashes of your lungs while your body tried to force them out.

You were staggering blindly on your hands and knees just trying to make it out of the death cloud alive. Another cough racked your body, desperate for air. Through your closed eyes you were blinded by white light. You fought against the hands that gripped you.

Swearing with a scratchy throat, you growled out, “Leave us alone!”

You heard your name, felt an obscenely gentle palm at your cheek and instantly knew who it belonged to. Behind that soulless mask was—

“Steb?” You croaked, peaking out of one bloodshot eye to no avail.

It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t do something like this.

Not-Steb ripped off his mask and pressed it to your face. The hissing noise made you wince and pull away but the enforcer held it firm against you. Air— real air; not the poorly filtered kind that you were used to— rushed to your lungs. It was frightening, addictive. Something topsiders took for granted every waking day.

Barely clear headed, thoughts and questions began battling in your mind. Weakly, you wrapped your hand around Not-Steb’s wrist. The grey smoke was lingering in the distance but you’d been dragged just far enough that you could breathe again. Suddenly, you shoved the hand and mask away. You kicked back, hitting a wall that you used to get back on your feet. Blinking away the sting, you shook your head until your vision focused.

Your heart sunk.

“You’re…” Your brows stitched together in confusion and rising anger. “What’re you doing?”

Steb, the Steb that you loved and trusted, straightens at your accusatory tone. He blinks carefully, eyes darting all around as he tries to come up with an answer.

“I thought when you wanted to become a fucking bucket head, it was to help.”

You never minded that he was quiet, never made him talk when he didn’t want to. The two of you could sit in silence for hours. Sometimes the conversation would go on and on with only your voice filling the gaps, sometimes he felt like contributing more and you’d tease that he was being too chatty. He’d laugh, a sound you loved, and find a way to get back at you.

You and Steb found a way to communicate without words.

“How is this helping, Steb?”

However you needed a fucking answer for this.

Hurried footsteps rush towards you just when his lips part. A smaller enforcer, but an enforcer all the same. Orange whisps peak out from under the barrette and you can feel their glare underneath those haunting goggles. They point their gun at your nose, voice distorted from the mask.

“You got one!” They say, rather cheerfully, to Steb. To you, “Do you have information on the fugitive Jinx?”

You spat at their boots.

Steb’s eyes widen slightly, his brows tilting up. He’d never seen this side of you before. He’s never had to.

The enforcer turns their weapon and the butt of their gun comes crashing, aimed for your shoulder. You didn’t flinch, so you didn’t miss Steb throw his arm out to stop his colleague. There’s a moment of confusion, a struggle as he grabs their weapon and wrenches it away.

“What the hell, Riba!?”

“Yeah, what the hell.” You mock.

“That’s enough, Nolen!” Steb’s deep voice holds a bizarre sense of authority. You’re not used to seeing him this way either.

You’re almost jealous of the silent argument he shares with the enforcer, Nolen, until he pushes their gun into their chest. You smirk, feeling mildly satisfied at their walk of shame back into the grey but it falls the minute you find yourself back in Steb’s gaze.

“So that’s how it is, huh? Gas and beat the answers out of us?”

He reached for you quickly, desperate to tell you that wasn’t what was happening; it wasn’t what you thought it was; this was important. Something along those lines you were sure. Enforcers were predictable that way. And you knew if he managed to get ahold of you again, that you would melt into his touch and believe him because you so very badly wanted to.

“Why d’ya wanna be a bucket head anyways?”

Hopping off the last stone, you made it over the stream only to slip backwards. A hand shot out immediately and locked on your arm, yanking you to the rocky shore. You laughed but your friend didn’t. Steb’s vicious side eye was halfhearted but serious all the same.

“Yeah, yeah, you wanna help people. I didn’t forget! Jus’ think it’s stupid s’all. Never met one enforcer that wanted to help.”

Your heart constricts so tightly it brings tears to your eyes. Anger turns to mourning before you can stop it.

“We pretended as long as we could Stubby, but we can’t ignore it anymore.”

A familiar warmth encased your wrist, smaller sliding down until a smaller digit curled around your pinky. Your shoulder slumped upon contact. You knew when you turned around his ears would be flattened and his big, blue, crystal eyes, soft and pleading.

“Please,” he manages. His mouth open and shuts but he can’t summon any other words.

“Riba!”

You can see his ears flattening at the sound of returning footsteps, and more. Locking eyes with him, you make sure he knows what you can’t bring yourself to say. Steb winces as his name is shouted again, unable to tear his eyes from you. He’s scanning you like he’s trying to commit your face to memory, something he’s done in adoration and longing when you’re forced to part. This time it’s fear. His boot shuffles back, body angled to leave but he refuses to move, torn between duty and love.

“Go do what you have to.” You said as sweetly as you could in hopes it would cover the venom of your words.

“I didn’t forget, Stubby,” you tilted your head, wearing a lopsided smile. Intertwining all your fingers, you held his hand firmly and continued tugging him down the path, “You promised to be the first.”

You made the choice for him and took off running.

~

comment jinxer or firelight to help me decide part 2

firelight 3 _ jinxer 0

come talk about arcane (and more!) with us on [discord]!

[anothertimdrakestan]

Batboys Toxic Traits Headcanons

because no one is perfect, i wanted to get a little dirty with it and imagine what the boys are like when they're a little... too obsessed with you.

tw for romanticizing possessive, obsessive, jealous, aggressive actions haha xoxo

Jason Todd

- scary dog privileges wherever you go with jace, but he is ALL bite with one and only one warning bark.

- when a hand that isn't his brushes your thigh in a club, fingers get broken. when a cat caller thinks his compliment just has to be said to you, he most likely won't be able to speak again for weeks. And god forbid any villain try to use you as bait for jason, they've all learned if they value their life to never touch you. He's all for justice not vengeance until anyone tries to mess with you, then those words always get mixed up in his head.

- sometimes you cant even complain about people, they end up getting randomly harassed by a certain someone until they just move town

- jason is adamant as long as he's alive there won't be a problem of yours he can't solve with a little violence

- your biggest problem is that he struggles to let you have guy friends, obviously the ones he knows especially fellow heroes are more than fine, but he's been known to burst blood vessels when he sees you up close and personal with men he's never met

- he's proud of it too: "let another man try and touch y/n, it's been a slow night for me." or "i just don't get why you need him as a friend when you have me, myself, and i"

Tim Drake

- tim gets... obsessive.

- he tends to fall hard but with you he brought the house down with him

- before you were officially his he had hacked every security camera in the city to have eyes on you at any given moment

- both for your safety and his own maniacal flirting strategy: you admire shoes but frown at the price tag? tim's buying you the matching bag to go with the shoes he bought the second you looked at them.

- before you knew how insanely in love with you he was, you truly thought he was a mind reader

- well he kind of was, seeing as he scrolled through your search history every night to know which talking points to bring up with you

- once you finally fell for him and set some stronger boundaries he still occasionally found himself double checking your location when you weren't by his side, or lazily purchasing every item on your pinterest boards, he just can't help but dote on you

Damian Wayne

- damian doesn't really get close to people, but as always you were his exception

- however, this means his list of people to hang out with is extremely short, and he saw no problem in wanting to be around you wherever you went whenever he could

- like a kind of tall, dark, and brooding puppy, he quietly followed you everywhere, and when you strictly told him he couldn't follow along, you always noticed a perched shadow just a few building away

- eventually you got used to rolling over to damian coolly watching you sleep or patiently waiting to pick you up from your classes/job, happy just to walk you to your car

- just like jason, damian had a brutal and heartless style of problem-solving when it came to anyone giving you trouble

- too often you found yourself standing in between his rage and massive mistake whether it was nearly assaulting a friend of yours who tried to ask you out or threatening to buy out your entire workplace when you didn't get the promotion you wanted

- forever cooling his rage was worth having his adoration though, and you were happy to have your overbearing shadow follow you throughout your days

Dick Grayson

- for such a bubbly leader, dick often struggled with communication

- always used to bearing his problems alone you'd spent too many nights tracking down your own boyfriend only to beg him to tell you what's wrong

- he never understood that you didn't always want to solve his problems, but hold his sadness or hurt with him

- it was the worst when he was upset with you, whether it was jealously or insecurity that crept into his mind

- he'd take off in a rush hoping you wouldn't notice but you always did, either hunting him down or simply waiting with open arms for him to come home

- it would take years to teach your traveling-circus-raised boyfriend that you weren't going anywhere, ever.

- but, this made for many heartfelt nights where he held you and promised you the world, as if you'd opened him up in a way no one else could, pulling forward the most magical and loving side of your sweet boy

[nightcolorz]

why do so many people act like lestat has better morals or is nicer then Armand in some way? there is nothing in the books that suggest this, Lestat and Armand have committed like the same exact crimes (even the sexual ones.) have fairly similar philosophies on murder (lestat tries to only kill criminals cuz he doesn’t want to take innocent life, Armand tries to only kill people who want to die and would otherwise take there own lives bcus he doesn’t want to take the life of someone who wants to live) Lestats moral stance on killing is more brutal arguably then Armand’s bcus he chooses to kill criminals cuz he likes chasing down his prey and tormenting them it’s fun for him, and Lestat finds maintaining his criminals only rule very hard bcus he “loves innocent blood it tastes better” which is fun. Armand sometimes brutally kills or hunts too and definitely drinks a lot of innocent blood but more often then not tries to make his killing as sparse and merciful as possible. Literally the only evidence at all that Lestat is a better person then Armand is the fact that most of the books are narrated by Lestat who is always informing the audience of his perspective while committing his crimes while Armand never explains anything he ever does even in his own book. But taking “we know more about what lestat thinks” to mean “lestat is a better person then Armand cuz he’s easier to understand” is shallow and biased imo.

show only fans who think Lestat is a better person then Armand make even less sense to me bcus there is even less to suggest this in the show, in fact there is significant evidence to suggest the opposite 😭? But again, Lestat and Armand both torture people, they both are physically violent and scary, both are abusive, both are highly motivated by histories of trauma and being crazy, etc. they are like the same amount of bad 😭 did I miss the thing that told everyone that lestat has a kind heart and Armand doesn’t 💀. I think people just sympathize easier with Lestat in the show bcus he has a really sad backstory we r informed of, but idk bcus we r also informed of Armand’s very sad backstory that In my opinion is easier to conceptualize as capable of breaking someone’s brain to the point where they casually enact torture and live in a constant state of violence. the worst of Lestat’s trauma happens to him when he is like (in the show) 37? 💀 which is still terrible, obviously, but man. I don’t see how he is more sympathetic then Armand😭

[reveryfics]

Strangers

Daryl Dixon x Male Reader

Summary: Sometimes being alone means nothing when you stumble across the right person.

A/N: Actually curious if you guys want more non Marvel fics, if you do requests are open. In the meantime I have 4 other TWD fics ready to post, and I'll eventually get around to the Scott Lang requests I have.

TW: Slight violence - Blood

The world ended, and you watched it happen from the supposed safety of your isolated campsite. You saw the dead rise, the familiar world crumble into chaos, and you learned the brutal lessons of survival. Each day was a masterclass in adaptation, a solitary struggle where trust became a dangerous luxury. You trusted no one, not since the first scream echoed through the empty streets. That was your mantra, your shield against the horrors that lurked beyond your firelight.

Now, you walk beside a still, man-made pond, the silence amplified by the weight of your solitude. Your compound bow, a constant companion, rests in your grip. A freshly snared rabbit hangs heavy on your pack, a testament to your hard-won skills. Your senses, honed by years of isolation, are razor sharp. You perceive the subtle shifts in the air, the minute changes in the forest's rhythm. You've become a ghost in this shattered world, attuned to its every whisper.

Then, a disturbance. The distant rustle of leaves and snapping twigs, too panicked, too heavy for any animal you know. Doubt gnaws at you. Hesitation, a familiar companion, whispers warnings. You could ignore it, retreat into the safety of your solitude. But something, a flicker of something you can't quite name, holds you back.

You hoist yourself into the nearest tree, climbing just high enough to gain a vantage point. Below, a man stumbles through the undergrowth. His long, greasy hair obscures his face, but his movements betray a desperate panic. He’s running, trying to disappear. You watch, your breath held, a cold knot forming in your stomach.

Soon, the source of his fear emerges. Two men, their voices raw and loud, crashing through the brush like clumsy predators. Their noise, you know, will attract more of the walking dead, a death sentence in this silent world. You could leave, disappear into the shadows. Let them tear each other apart. The isolation you’ve embraced screams at you to do just that.

But you hesitate. You knock an arrow, the metal cold against your skin. You watch, a hunter stalking its prey, your breath shallow. As one of the men passes beneath your tree, you release the arrow. It finds its mark, piercing his neck, silencing his screams. He collapses, choking on his own blood.

The distraction buys the fleeing man time. He throws the remaining attacker to the ground, a desperate struggle unfolding amidst the fallen leaves. You climb down, your movements fluid and silent. You retrieve your arrow, then plunge your bowie knife into the attacker's skull, ending the fight.

You stand back, watching, ensuring the threat is gone. Then, you turn to leave, to disappear back into the solitude you've carved for yourself.

"Hey!" The man's voice, rough and desperate, stops you. "Just gonna help and then walk away?"

You sigh, adjusting your pack, the weight of your solitude pressing down on you. "I helped you. There's nothing else for me to do." You point out, your voice flat, devoid of emotion.

Silence hangs between you, a tense, unspoken question. You study him, searching for any sign of deception, any reason to distrust.

"How long have you been alone?" He asks, his voice hesitant.

You shrug, the question feeling both ancient and immediate. "My whole life, basically. But to answer your question, since it all started."

You talk, brief and guarded. He asks questions, probing for information, testing your boundaries. You answer in clipped sentences, revealing little, trusting less. With each response, he seems to grow more… something. Trust? It’s a foreign concept, a dangerous vulnerability you’ve long since discarded.

"I have a group," he says, his voice low, almost a whisper. "I'd like you to join me, if you’d like."

A group. The word feels strange, unfamiliar. You've been alone for so long, the idea of shared survival seems almost impossible. Fear, sharp and cold, grips you. Trusting others is a risk you haven't taken in years.

"Am I free to leave when I want?" You ask, your voice sharp, demanding.

He nods, licking his lips, a nervous tic. "Ain't nobody gonna stop you if you did."

You look around, at the ravaged world, at the endless expanse of trees, at the weight of your own solitude. Then, you look back at him. You extend your hand, a hesitant offering. Your name slips off your tongue, barely audible to the man before you.

He hesitates, his eyes searching yours, before shaking your hand. "Daryl."

Being alone had its perks. You learned to survive, to rely on yourself and your instincts. But the question lingers: is isolation a choice, or a prison? Could being with others, even with the risk of betrayal, be a different kind of survival? You don't know, but you’re about to find out.

The woods swallowed them whole, a silent, green labyrinth. You walked, your senses stretched taut, every rustle and snap a potential threat. Daryl trailed behind, a watchful shadow. He glanced at you intermittently, his eyes tracing the lines of your movements, the way you navigated the treacherous terrain with an almost predatory grace. He seemed to be cataloging you, trying to decipher the enigma of your solitude.

The silence between you was thick, charged with unspoken questions and unspoken fears. You felt his gaze, a constant, probing presence. It was a strange sensation, being observed, being assessed. You'd spent so long as a ghost, unseen, unheard, that the attention felt almost invasive.

"You seem like you own these woods," Daryl finally remarked, his tone a dry attempt at levity.

You shrugged, your eyes scanning the dense undergrowth. "Been in 'em so long I might as well be a part of 'em." The words were simple, but they carried the weight of years spent in isolation, years spent becoming one with the wilderness.

The journey to his camp was a silent testament to your contrasting lives. He, a member of a struggling community, clinging to the remnants of civilization. You, a solitary predator, forged in the crucible of survival. The difference was stark, a chasm you weren't sure could be bridged.

Within a day, the dense foliage gave way to a clearing, a ragged encampment carved out of the wilderness. Daryl stopped, a subtle shift in his posture, and you followed his gaze. The camp was a hive of activity, a cluster of makeshift shelters and wary faces. You felt a wave of unease, a primal instinct screaming at you to turn and flee.

The group gathered, their eyes fixed on you, a stranger in their midst. You could feel their suspicion, their fear, their unspoken questions. It was a palpable tension, a silent accusation. You braced yourself, expecting hostility, expecting rejection. You’d known this feeling before, the outsider, the one who didn’t belong.

The faces blurred, a sea of wary eyes. You recognized the familiar sting of isolation, even amidst a crowd. You expected them to dislike you, to see you as a threat. You’d already lived a life of distrust, so this was nothing new.

But as the days bled into each other, a subtle shift began. You noticed the way Daryl stood beside you, a silent protector. You saw the flicker of something in his eyes, a flicker that might have been… friendship? Trust? Or something more complex, something you were afraid to name. You realized that, in this chaotic world, his acceptance, his silent camaraderie, was all that mattered. The opinions of the others faded into the background, a distant hum. You had found a fragile anchor, a tenuous connection in a world that had tried to break you.

[padawan-snack-packer]

[TW: Andor season 2 spoilers, mild jedi critique (but nothing "too anti-jedi"), I swear lol. Also this is a long post]

I’m going through the Andor tags and just wanted to throw in my two cents—

I’m seeing a lot of people saying things like “This is why the galaxy needs the Jedi!!” especially in response to what almost happened to Bix, and look, I get it. I understand the feeling. You see someone you love, a character who’s already been through hell, nearly suffer something unspeakable, and you want to believe there’s a big shining hero somewhere who could have stopped it. I get wanting that.

Desperately.

But honestly — and I say this with so much love — I think that’s missing the point of Andor.

Bix doesn’t need a Jedi.

She needs the Empire to fall.

Just like so many people in the galaxy.

The existence of Jedi wouldn’t have saved her. They never saved "everyone". That’s part of the tragedy of the galaxy long before the Empire ever rose. The Jedi were never a cure for systemic evil — they were a bandage, stretched thin and fraying, over a wound that was already hemorrhaging underneath.

They couldn’t be everywhere. They couldn’t protect everyone. They were never meant to be an army, or the galaxy’s emergency hotline, like some kind of cosmic 911 with lightsabers. They were an order of monks trying to hold back the tide with their bare hands.

And, yeah — I know. They did do good. They saved people. They fought for peace, they fought for justice, and they believed in something bigger than themselves. I'm not denying that. The galaxy would have been a lot worse off without the Jedi trying to shield it for as long as they could.

But, we also have to be honest: sometimes their actions made things worse. The Jedi got pulled into the Clone Wars — and in doing so, they unintentionally dragged neutral systems and innocent worlds into conflict. They became generals in a war they were never supposed to fight. They stood next to the Senate while it crumbled into corruption. And sometimes, trying to help, they made choices that played right into the hands of the people trying to tear everything down.

And that’s the heartbreak of it.

They were good — but they were never enough.

Because no single order, no group of "heroes," could be enough to fix a galaxy that was rotting from the inside.

Expecting the Jedi to fix everything is kind of like saying "the Avengers could fix anything."

Like—sure, you can punch a big threat in the face. You can stop an alien invasion or a rogue AI or a mad titan. But you can't punch poverty. You can't swing a lightsaber at systemic oppression. You can't duel your way out of generational inequality, or the slow grinding violence of a society built to serve a few at the expense of everyone else. You can't stop politicians selling people out for profit with a Force push. You can't heal a galaxy bleeding out under decades of neglect and cruelty just by being "brave" or "good".

The roots of the problem go too deep. They're built into the very foundations.

And the tragedy of the Jedi is that for all their power, for all their wisdom and discipline and sacrifice, they were still operating inside a system that was already collapsing. They were caretakers in a house with a rotting foundation. And sometimes, in trying to hold the walls up, they made the cracks worse.

And that's what Andor is showing us with brutal clarity:

No Jedi sweeping in with a lightsaber is going to save Bix.

No wise Master is going to show up to make the pain go away.

No ancient code can fix an empire built on exploitation and cruelty.

The people suffering under the Empire don’t need a mythical savior.

They need the Empire to fall.

They need justice that doesn’t rely on someone being "special enough" to wield a lightsaber.

They need change built by ordinary hands, stubborn hearts, and impossible choices.

Andor doesn't say "We needed heroes with powers." It says "We needed the people who were already bleeding to choose to stand up. And die. And fight. And win."

It says no outside savior is coming. No prophecy is going to unfold neatly in your favor. No chosen one is going to sweep in and fix the brokenness for you.

It's going to be you. And it's going to cost you everything you have. And you might not even live to see it change. But you fight anyway.

Because the galaxy won’t be saved by miracles.

It’ll be saved by people who refuse to stop hoping, even when hope looks like madness.

Andor isn't a story about how "we need the Jedi back". It's a story about how we need each other — even when it costs everything.

This isn’t me being anti-Jedi, or pro-Sith, or anything like that.

This is coming from someone who adores Jedi. Someone who loves The Clone Wars with their whole heart. Someone who has cried over Ahsoka’s heartbreak, over Anakin’s fall, over Obi-Wan carrying a war he never asked for on his back.

But Andor shows us a different part of the galaxy. It shows us a galaxy where people don’t have magic powers. Where people don’t have lightsabers to cut a clean path through corruption and cruelty. Where they don’t have ancient prophecies telling them they're destined to save the world. Where they don’t have Chosen Ones. Where they don’t have plot armor.

They have only themselves.

Only their grief.

Only their anger.

Only their aching, stubborn love for the people around them.

Only their desperate choice to stand up, to survive, to resist — even when it costs them everything.

And that’s what makes it hurt so much more. Because these aren’t superheroes or legendary warriors. These are ordinary people — bakers, mechanics, fishers, smugglers, orphans, parents, farmers, pilots, factory workers — staring down a machine so massive it barely notices they exist. And somehow, despite how small they are, despite how doomed it feels, they choose to fight anyway.

They choose to matter. That’s the heartbreak.

And that’s the point.

Saying “Well, a Jedi could have saved her” is — lovingly — missing what the show is trying to carve into us with every agonizing scene.

There is no cavalry coming here.

There is no one coming with a lightsaber to cut down your oppressors.

There is only you, and the people you trust, and the terrifying, beautiful decision to say no more even when the galaxy wants to crush you into dust.

Bix isn’t waiting for a Jedi.

Cassian isn’t waiting for a Jedi.

Brasso isn’t waiting for a Jedi.

Mon Mothma isn’t waiting for a Jedi.

None of them are waiting for a Jedi.

They are surviving in spite of their absence.

They are building rebellion from broken pieces, bloody hands, and stolen breaths.

And that’s what makes it powerful.

That’s what makes Andor hit so hard it feels like it rips you open.

It says: no one is coming to save you. So you save yourselves. And you save each other.

And maybe that’s how you light the fire.

[hypodermicfroggy]

= PROJECT MOON LORE GUIDE =

(I've posted a guide like this on Steam, but I figure it couldn't hurt to put an updated version on Tumblr, too. Also, a warning: This post is going to be very, *very* long.)

Hello, current Project Moon fandom and future/want-to-be fans!

Do you enjoy Limbus Company but don't know how to get into the other games and media to appreciate the greater lore of the series? Do you not actually have the money, time, or patience to endure a brutally punishing (and sometimes even janky) roguelike management sim, deckbuilder, or gacha game because we live in a capitalistic hellworld like the one this very series criticizes? Struggle with getting access to supplementary materials due to controversies and language barriers?

(Pictured: PM Twitter and the Limbus Steam Forums, on any given day. Seriously, what is wrong with some of you people.)

And especially important: hate how Reddit and Steam are full of dudebro coomers who are openly hostile to F2P, non-day one players who might grapple with all the previous issues on top of being more invested in story than waifus?

Then read on under the cut!

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This guide contains a comprehensive list of resources for you to be able to enjoy the Project Moon series to its fullest, including links to wikis, playlists, and more. Even if you can't play the games, I personally think those who can actually appreciate the series shouldn't be gatekept from the truly fantastic story and world that the games hold. Except Canto 6, we don't talk about Canto 6.

AND AN IMPORTANT REMINDER: THERE WILL BE SOME SPOILERS FOR CERTAIN PARTS OF THE SERIES, AND PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE THE CONTENT WARNINGS BEFORE YOU GET INTO ANYTHING HERE! This is a very dark series that tackles and shows very heavy topics and content!

For those who can't read the text on the image, some of the common trigger warnings for this series includes:

Animal Cruelty

Drug Use

References to Alcohol and Tobacco

Injury and Dismemberment

Homicide and Suicide

Violence and Torture

Cannibalism

Kidnapping, Abduction, and Captivity

Psychosis

Diseases, Seizure, and Dyspnoea (aka shortness of breath)

Familial Homicide and Domestic Violence

Reference to Clowns (Coulrophobia)

Themes of Occultism and Spiritualism

Audiovisual Depictions of Gore

Uses of Sharp and Pointed Objects

Hospital and Medical References

References to Gaslighting and Bullying

Body Modification and/or Deformation

Flashing Lights (Photosensitivity)

Disorientation Induced by a Shaking Camera

Strong Language and Demeaning Words

Reference to Traffic Accidents

Uses of Guns and Instruments of Violence

Discriminatory Violence

Religious Torture and Violence

Enforced Ideology and/or Actions

War and Mass Conflict

Anyway, if all that didn't scare you off, on to the guide!

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=WIKIS:

When in doubt, there's always the wikis for being references and useful sources, from gameplay to story elements!

>>Cogitopedia - A WIP wiki run by members of the community, working on adding in-depth content for all of the games and supplementary materials.

>>LobCorp Wiki - Has data on every abnormality, including inaccessible ones and cut ones (such as Price of Silence).

>>Library of Ruina Wiki - Has the lore from key pages, and also has cut content like the CGs from the original planned ending.

>>Limbus Wiki.gg - Has ID Uptie stories and info about Mirror Dungeon encounters. (DO NOT USE THE LIMBUS FANDOM WIKI, IT HAS BEEN ABANDONED/VANDALIZED.)

>>Library of Project Moon - A WIP fan blog whose purpose is to consolidate translations of the literary source novels and related works for Limbus Company and the PM games as a whole.

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=LOBOTOMY CORPORATION:

Summary: Lobotomy Corporation is the first game in the series. It is a roguelike management sim where you play as "Manager X", tasked with handling employees and various monsters known as Abnormalities in order to generate daily quotas of a power source substance known as Enkephalin and a mysterious "Seed of Light" project. You are aided by an alleged team of AIs known as the Sephirot, and your very own personal assistant AI, Angela. It's often been likened to "anime SCP Foundation."

This is the game where everything begins, and without it, we wouldn't have the plot of Limbus (or anything else for that matter). This is where the Golden Boughs come from, this is where Abnormalities come from, this is even where Distortions come from - but we're getting ahead of ourselves on that front.

>>This playlist will allow you to watch all the cutscenes from the game, in order, for the canon ending.

>>This video also has the cutscenes, albeit not in order, HOWEVER, it does have the alternate, non-canon endings A and B (which are timestamped in the link for convenience).

>>WordsmithVids (also on YouTube) also has what is generally considered to be the most popular summary of the game.

(NOTE: Some people disagree with WordsmithVids and his interpretations of some of the characters as well as his content being "meme-y," so I advise you to watch at your own discretion and draw your own conclusions. That being said, if people have better recommendations, please send them to me instead of just complaining and bitching without offering solutions like that one guy on Steam did, thank you.)

>>This site contains transcripts/text of the entire game, albeit not in order like the cutscene playlist. It also has WIP sections for EGO weapons, gear, and other useful info.

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=WONDERLAB:

Summary: Wonderlab was a webcomic by the artist MIMI/Whitezombies, originally posted on the Project Moon Postype account. It follows the adventures of several employees - often called "nuggets" in fan parlance - Catt, Taii, and Rose, in a Lobotomy Corporation branch facility as they go about their day to day activities.

This webcomic was taken down after the Summer 2023 Incel Controversy, when incels stormed the Project Moon office in Korea and made enough credible threats that the former Limbus CG artist known as Vellmori was fired, and it is currently part of a second conflict over copyright. However, primarily for archival and personal reference purposes, the comic has been saved and rehosted in several forms.

>>Internet Archive version. This has just the comic in an on-site readable format.

>>A backup archive on Google Drive. This features the individual pages, a downloadable .zip of the archive, and a readable Google Docs version.

For those who may have ethical concerns about downloading a webcomic that was pulled due to controversy (understandable), once again, >>WordsmithVids has a summary.

(NOTE: This is NOT the place to discuss either the Summer 2023 incel controversy *or* the current (Summer 2024) copyright conflict. There are far better places to do that with people who are far better informed on the topic than I am. This post is solely for providing references and archives of lore material to help guide people into this series. DO NOT attempt to bring up the controversies here, I will not be acknowledging them outside of mentioning why certain supplementary materials may have been pulled and have had to be mirrored. I am just an archivist, not a lawyer or discourser.)

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=LIBRARY OF RUINA:

Summary: Library of Ruina takes place some months after the events of Lobotomy Corporation. A "Grade 9 Fixer" known as Roland finds his way into the mysterious, tower-like Library that has sprung up in place of the former main facility of L Corp, where he encounters Angela and the other Sephirot (all now Librarians). He begins assisting her in finding "the perfect book", which involves enticing people to come to the library through the sending out of curious invitations.

Now, unfortunately, there is not a playlist that splits up the cutscenes or puts them in order for Ruina.

>>These two videos have them all in compilation.

HOWEVER. A wonderful and dear friend of mine (@citroncynique <3) has allowed the guide they sent me to be reproduced/copied.

>>As such, there is a guide on how to watch the cutscenes in the order that makes the most sense, utilizing the timestamps of the previous two videos. It is not a perfect system, but it works at least.

>>There is also a written transcript archive for Ruina, by the same person who did the one for LobCorp, which also includes useful info regarding things like cards and keypages as well.

>>WordsmithVids also has at least two summary vids out.

However, due to financial issues at last update, he has not been able to continue his summary of Ruina. I am including them regardless. >>As well as his Patreon in case people want to support him in hopes of making it easier for him to work on the vids again.

>>There is also an almost FOUR HOUR LONG video essay that delves into Angela's character specifically after the events of LobCorp and Ruina. It is not required viewing like the rest of the materials here, however, I think it still deserves a mention just for the amount of effort and care that went into it.

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=DISTORTION DETECTIVE:

Summary: Taking place at roughly the same time as Library of Ruina, two Fixers known as Ezra and Moses and an N Corp. Taboo Hunter known as Vespa investigate the Distortion Phenomenon that is rapidly starting to spread across the City after the events of the previous games.

Originally released as a webnovel on Project Moon's Postype, Distortion Detective has 42 chapters and is technically incomplete/on hiatus. Project Moon, surprised at how popular the webnovel was, decided they wanted to potentially make an entire game based on the story. As of this writing, that has not happened (yet) but at least one character from the novel has appeared in Limbus Company, so there is still hope yet.

>>The DD series in its original form on Postype. This version was posted chapter-by-chapter, on Project Moon's Postype account and is (as of this writing, at least) still readable there.

>>A backup archive on Google Drive. This has the entire webnovel in a single document format (both Docs and downloadable PDF) featuring NishikujiC's official chapter illustrations up to Ch. 26, and includes the now-cut comic adaption of Ch. 19 by the artist Monggeu/koug99.

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=LEVIATHAN:

(Lord, this one. Like it wasn't a big enough pain in the ass already.)

Summary: After the events of Library of Ruina, and operating as a direct prequel to Limbus Company, Leviathan follows the Color Fixer Vergilius (aka the Red Gaze) as he grapples with his own personal traumas and comes into conflict with the Ring Syndicate, before being recruited as a guide for the LCB.

Leviathan originally started as a webcomic by Monggeu/koug99. Health issues with the artist resulted in the comic being discontinued and turned into a webnovel, whose translation was never completed and had to later be finished by fans. The comic portion has since been taken down as of the Summer 2024 copyright conflict and controversy, much like Wonderlab was. Once again, however, this has been mirrored for archival and reference purposes.

>>Original source of Leviathan on Postype. Due to the copyright conflict and the translation hiatus, the only chapters available are Ch. 12-15. The link is still included for posterity reasons and just in case the copyright conflict results in the chapters being restored.

>>A backup archive on Google Drive. This link includes the comic chapters, as well as the SnakeskinFS English fan translations for the last five chapters that were never completed, all in PDF form.

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=LIMBUS COMPANY:

Summary: After all the events of the previous games, a mysterious up and coming business known as Limbus Company has taken it upon themselves to send a group composed of 12 "Sinners" and their mysterious clock-headed Manager Dante to delve into the now-abandoned L Corp facilities in search of mysterious artifacts known as Golden Boughs.

Finally we come to the end of the shrubbery maze. Limbus Company is the latest chapter in the currently unfolding story of Project Moon and the City, a gacha game being used to fund other projects under the company umbrella.

Many people, once again, have ethical concerns about patronizing a gacha game. I for one agree with them, even as one of those patrons.

>>This playlist features all of the cutscenes for each part of the game story released so far (up to Intervallo 6.5-2/Murder on the WARP Express as of this writing).

>>There is also this site, which operates as a pure datamined text archive of all the story content.

>>And this site, which has all the in-game Observation logs as told by the Sinners, about the Abnormalities and enemies encountered in-game.

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=BONUS/SUPPLEMENTARY:

This section, liable to be updated at any given time, is for links to materials or fan-creations that don't necessarily fit with the strictly canonical story materials found in the games and webnovels themselves but which otherwise provide useful resources or analysis. Note that the vast majority of material here is supplementary and not required, but recommended.

(Except the literary sources. You will read those, and that is a threat. I can't take another Wings-forsaken illiterate opinion on Canto 6, I'm going to start Distorting and biting people if YOU PEOPLE DON'T READ THE DAMN SOURCE NOVELS.)

YouTubers and Video Essayists:

Frey Chaqma - Frey has done lots of work for the PM community, such as spearheading the Absolute Pride Resonance charity event for Pride Month 2024 as well as discussing the lore of the games and the City as a whole.

Tsunul - Another YouTuber who discusses lore but who also often delves into more interpersonal matters relating to the fandom and controversies that can affect the game community as a whole.

Esgoo - Although Esgoo does not necessarily get into lore so much, they are often tauted as one of the biggest names in the fandom for, if nothing else, their meta-analysis and basic gameplay/strategy material, as well as their community involvement.

DMrLeeds - Although some of his videos are (comparitively) quite old, it can still provide a good jumping off point for anyone who is utterly lost on what's going on in Limbus.

hydrojoy's essay on Benjamin - In addition to Angela, hydrojoy also did an in-depth analysis on Benjamin, aka B, aka Hokma, from Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina and their impact on the story.

MetiNotTheBadGuy's PM Character Essays - Meti has done several excellent character breakdown videos on some of PM's most notable villains/characters, including Roland, Kromer, and Dongrang.

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=ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

Citroncynique. For being a truly amazing artist, putting in the effort of making a watch guide for Ruina's cutscenes, and getting me into this series and ruining my life forever by jingling a bugman with PTSD in front of me (<3).

MIMI/Whitezombies, Monggeu/koug99, NishikujiC, and Vellmori. Although several of these artists have left PM and the community on bad terms, I still think their efforts should be appreciated and supported, now more than ever.

SnakeskinFS. For finishing Leviathan's English translation.

Folex, Bek, WordsmithVids, hydrojoy, and the Lobotomy Corporation Archive. For posting their cutscene and summary/analysis videos.

NeedsMoreDoge. The Steam user who provided the original guide and backup on how to read Leviathan that I myself utilized.

The less than pleasant members of the community who spurred me into making this guide in the first place, out of pure spite.

And of course, readers like you and those members of the community who make me so happy to be here and be a part of this fandom. Genuinely, thank you all, I have never felt as welcomed as I do in the Project Moon circles I run in.

In addition to the references included here, I recommend you get involved in your PM community as well! Join communities and Discords, support content creators on social sites, help contribute where it's needed and in whatever way you can! The best way to counteract the worst elements of any fandom is to be a guiding and helpful element in your own right.

Thank you all for reading, and I hope this guide helps you out!