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orangezinnia · 2 years

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Marius's Mechanism, and speculation on its bioengineering

so, the elephant in the room. who built Marius's mechanism? how, exactly, does it keep him alive, if it isn't by Dr. Carmilla's masterwork?

today, i seek not to answer those questions. instead, easier ones! such as "what type of microelectrodes are used for somatosensory" and "where does osseointegration begin, and would there be wireless myoelectric leads?"

should this have probably waited until TDOBVR was released, so i could obtain potential new and updated details on the workings of Marius's brachial mechanism? no! 'cause i am not nearly that patient! anyway, 7.5k words and 3 distinct Sections under the cut!

(and for those of you who don't have the time to read 7.5k, there's a TLDR at the very very end!)

CW's for: avid descriptions of surgical procedures, medical injuries, generally invasive and fleshy experiments.

Sections-

How does it doggone move? an introduction to our dilemma - creating an external power source - alternative compliance designs in the fingers

How does it flippin' feel? peripheral nerve electrodes - reproducing bidirectional feedback - the epic highs and lows of highschool osseointegration

Why the shit does it do that? vestigial features - SKIN - closing statments and TLDR

but! before making like intrepid heros and striding into the treacherous heath of biomedical and neuroprosthetic jargon, it'd do well to get a refresher on what little lore there is to know Marius's mechanism so far, as like scavengers upon a tragedy, each scrap is sure to have its use. the checklist isn't long, but i'm enamoured with every bit of it-

Alongside Raphaella, (and potentially Tim), it wasn't created or implanted by Doc C. src: tumblr

Whereas the mechs normally 1) heal on command or instantly, 2) don't get hurt at all, or 3) may ignore a wound at leisure, Marius only "regenerates [his kneecaps] when he dies" src: Kofi's twitter

The casing of his fingers are occasionally "organic". src: Kofi's twitter (i still adore the insistence that the mechs aren't human. makes it lovingly impossible to humanize them!)

The surgical procedure, or perhaps the interface styling, that anchored Marius to his mechanism was "botched". src: Kofi's blog post about TDOBVR

Marius "always approached the concept of immortality with a little bit more skepticism than the rest of [The Mechanisms]". src: DTTM :(

way hey, look! i've got links this time!

so, How does it doggone move?! in this case, the TDOBVR post can half-help with that! (and count your lucky stars about it, too). directly quoted-

"Byron [Marius] is from a world that has devolved through an endless war of attrition. Once highly advanced, technology has regressed to circa 18th century fare..."

meaning, since we don't know where or who he got the arm from, its composition is either really advanced, or hilariously crude. but it would seem- or, i thought- if this is the same arm that's going to keep him alive for eons upon eons through supernatural powers, it's likely to be the same sort of technology which constitues those big mechas.

then, you know, i was all ready to explain to you lot about shape memory polymers, and heat wire electrodes, and the many plus sides of artifical muscle fibers, including but not limited to tolerance strain, industrial-like strength, and being the one of the most lightweight options when it comes to mass-producible robotics...

...and then i realized- i'm going too easy on him! what are the chances that Marius is receiving the "leading innovation"? nope! more likely, he's getting acquainted with pneumatic concepts from 1910's Germany that flunked! haHA!

oh, i mean that by the way. here it is-

[ID: A black and white conceptual schematic of a compressed gas-powered hand from 1919, showing a thumb-side and top-down sketch. Top down, there are four parallel cylinders in the palm, but complex gear systems only in the index and thumb. An airline, captioned "Luffzufuhr", comes up from the wrist. Thumb-side, the gear systems are clearer, as is a fifth cylinder for the thumb. /end ID]

this diagram, and that single annotation of "luffzufuhr", translating from German to "air supply", is literally all i can find about it. thankfully, there's at least one other research paper who has attempted to revive this general concept, which makes things much easier for me! both by way of not having to figure it out all by myself, and not having to choose between 300 different styles of motor systems. yippie!

to lay some basic groundwork- actuators, in the application of motorized prosthetics, operate as the replacement for muscles, providing power and resistance for an everyday range of motion- linear, rotary, oscillatory. accordingly, when looking at which actuation systems garner the most praise for prosthetic limbs, one of the first things you'll see is how sleek and precise they are, since jankiness is usually the biggest giveaway that a technology won't be human compatible.

and it's an important factor, but only half of the problem. or, well, the paradigm. it's one that's formed by no fault of our own, and bested even the most funded, functional, state-of-the-art arms. that is, dexterity vs. durability, where the more components a prosthetic requires, the more fragile it becomes. the tougher its materials are, the less agility is afforded.

generally, people who want a "tool" are going to go for the stronger one, because if a prosthetic can't hold up to the stress and strain of the human condition, then its practicality is kind of worth jack and shit.

the pneumatic arm zeros in on this shortcoming of strength, since its simplistic components- a piston pushing against a spring within a hollow cylinder, bolstered by air- need only an increase in PSI to be faster, and are stronger against torque and backlash, giving it that advantage over electric motors.

they also don't draw current when retracting, since the spring elements naturally return to position, but their ability to pull all that power means they won't get shocked under a sudden or demanding influx. though, these plus sides are often achieved at the same cost of a heavy weight and excessive size, usually in response to supplying an appropriate power source. vapor is a bit harder to shuttle along than an electrical current, you know?

but unlike their electric counterparts, the fuel being a detached compromise makes this much more resolveable. and so, we're off on our merry way to make Marius far more steampunk than i initially planned! wahoo!

one of the factors necessitating a bulk-up is getting a servo-like control of the air valves, or servovalves, to fine tune motion and pressure more deliberately. it seems hard pressed to happen on a smaller scale at all, let alone while still packing a bigger punch than electric.

funnily, the way the paper phrases these drawbacks tends to raise the problem in the same paragraph that they solve it. "ah, unfortunately, there are so small-scale high peformace servovalves... fortunately, our team invented small-scale high performance servovalves." summarized, it's a rotary, four-way motor for the gas, compacted to roughly the size of a AA battery. now That's efficiency!

they seemed pretty proud of that, and i do think that Marius's arm would make use of something akin to those, though for us, the REAL focus is the fuel!

like i said, in terms of energy sourcing, gas cartridges have largely been regarded as a poor means. in those pioneer attempts of the early to mid 1900's, the CO2 they used was a limited resource, due to expense, and the quantity demands for a full day's power. add in the heavy bulk of steel canisters, and we don't have a very pretty picture for mobility.

but this obstacle is taken care of pretty smoothly, too, by switching to a liquid monopropellant as a gas generator. in this case, it's 70 percent hydrogen peroxide, which has a hissy fit when it has to buddy up with a catalyst, and spits out more energy than the liquid-to-gas phase change of liquid CO2. the catalyst, by the way, is iridium, typically known for its durability as a metal, but its decomposition under acid is used in the- get this- the Space Industry for propulsion.

yeah, that's right! Marius's arm is a low-grade ROCKET!

because of this drastic improvement, the tank for the hydrogen can stay at about 1 / 5th the size of what the CO2 would be, while manifesting the same power, keeping it nicely in a lightweight and anthropomorphic form. (said power, according to the paper, is comparable to skeletal muscle!)

then, with a setup of 200ml monopropellant cartridge, fuel lines, and a pack of catalyst pellets as the power behind the actuator's piston movement, and the servovalves as modulators to the incoming vapor flow, a choroid of surprisingly aesthetic stainless steel tubes is what carries that oxygen gas to the pneumatic cylinders. (Not a different thing than the actuators, as i learned the hard way).

they're also taking great care to assure us how NOT flammable the propellant is, despite being, you know, rocket-grade hydrogen peroxide. i'm sure this has no implications for Mr. Raum whatsoever!

the downsides to this way of powering his arm aren't many, but in the shadow of their silent, stable, battery-powered bretherin, the nitpicks include-

- exhaust products (ooh, dieselpunk...)

- audible exhaust noise (ooh, steampunk...)

- some unpredictable internal heat (ooh, hot...topic?)

and all of these, conveniently, could compile their inconveniences to explain away the arm cuff criss-cross laces by translating them in-universe as vent slats for exhaust outlets!

on that note, i genuinely enjoy postulating on what shortcomings the mech's -anisms could have. like, jonny's heart (~steel) weighs six pounds, nastya's blood is too dense and likely causes spPOTS (space POTS), ashes's lungs might be prone to clotting (damaged endothelial response), ivy's brain is. uh. well she already can't remember dog from shit of her past. brian's joints (metal-bound) could be fucky! oh, to be a new fan theorizing on all their faults again...!

ahem, anyway. when i was still considering artificial muscles for the articulation of Marius's extremeties, particlarly what those 4 bolts on the back of the costume's hand might signify, i first imagined linear actuators tugging a false tendon strung through his digits. this, as well, turned out to be the same "fully compliant" friction design of the gas-actuator prosthetic, just with electronic back-hand linears switched out for pneumatics in the wrist.

a.k.a, he'd have Marionette Fingies. and, truth be told, it's hard to find a hand that obeys these specifications i'm getting from two different directions- follow the pneumatics, but give Marius an arm that can at least maneuver a violin bow- without coming across strange trade-offs like "we're working on making the fingers move independently" or "if you lean on this arm it'll snap-crackle-pop fucking die"

but! this is where 2009 concepts that die ignoble deaths under the technological onslaught that was the 2010's come quite in handy! (get it?) under the work of the RoMeLa team at Virginia Tech, they led the innovation of a robotic hand roughly following the same principles of "air pressure controls grip", committing to a simplicity of lower pressure = lighter grip, and higher pressure = a tighter, "firm grip that could rip out a human's windpipe."

(editor's note: while the CNET author may be biased on that front, it is, indeed, applicable to the physical demands of Marius's job.)

but this time, in order to coordinate flexion and extension of the fingers, the compressed air fills up corrugated tube actuators (built like miniature accordions) spanning the length of the digit. however, it's pertinent to comment that the gas-actuated arm explicitly does not use compressed air, and i've decided the same holds true for whatever version of this build Marius would use. the four bolts, then, are likely some cylinders or servovalves to regulate the gas expenditure.

it's purportedly "strong" under this lack of linear actuators or motors to strain, and dextrous at the exclusion of "tendon" strings or gears, as is common for most prosthetic hands on the market. feedback sensors for grip and proprioreception work in tandem with the extent of pressure, which is already much more than the highly underactuated hand of the original monopropellant arm, and further awards a gentleness fit to handle raw eggs and lightbulbs.

hmm... with one catch. unlike the self-awarded praise of our essay's predecessor, this portion might be a bit weighty for Marius? its original creation saught to eventually appendage the hand to a separate ongoing robotics project of theirs, but the team deemed it "too heavy", and so it was subsided (cough, discarded, cough) into a separate project.

yet, this isn't exactly a downside, 'cause remember! Marius's tenuous grasp on reality (as per the TDOBVR blog post) doesn't come from nowhere! eons-long pain from an inordinately heavy prosthetic would drive anyone up the wall, i think! although, they theorized that a hardier material, such as carbon fiber, could do more favours toward ease of replacement and overall weight. not that we're too worried about that ;>

in general, by the way, i think the casing (cosmetic hard shell that covers all these inner components) of Marius's arm IS carbon fiber. most real-world casings are plastic, or aluminum, and it gets into a tricker area once you start trying to replicate skin. but for now, that material figures to be a pretty easy mention, since it's well known for being Strong As Steel But Lighter, the molding process is variable and easy, and comparably more forgiving to deformation from everyday wear.

anyway, i like the RoMeLa's hand especially because, on the sparse but official page for the hand, it even advertises a potential application in "Hazardous environment operation" and "Entertainment", which if i'm not mistaken, is Marius's middle name (hyphenated.)

oh, and guess what the protoype's acronym is! too late, i'm telling you- it's the "Robotic Air Powered Hand with Elastic Ligaments," or RAPHaEL. ah? ah, get it? like la Cogni- [i am dragged off-screen like a dead extra]

here's the beaut in action, too! what a charmer. i think Marius would love her. i may or may not be projecting.

it was very very interesting to touch on something that hasn't really been feasibly explored before, because in the event of making it work, we find ourselves in a beautiful gray area of "how!" and "why?", which i think is perfect for the technological stance of Marius's- sorry, Byron's era.

i'll do you the favour of linking the IEEE video that shows the gas-actuated fucker actually in motion too, because the beginning positively oozes 2008 "The Future Is Here" vibes

also, a quick credit to that crop of Ruth's art below the fingers tweet, whose depiction of Marius's arm with steel piping very much helped solidify the idea of throwing all that advanced technology into the garbage disposal!

but, How does it flippin' feel? first off, it feels weird to use flippin' instead of a swear, hold on- fuck! fuck! there we are. balance restored.

actually, let's take a closer look at that "botched" line.

"One of the first things I decided when creating Marius is that the effects of his (probably botched) mechanisation and his advancing years have left him with a somewhat tenuous grasp on reality..."

that doesn't give us much detail, does it? commendably so, seeing as it's a spoiler-free rundown, but that dissonance between whether it was the surgical manner or the internal mechanics that render "botched" an apt descriptor kind of worried me. i mean, how would i narrow down which configuartion worked best for him, when even the lore doesn't have his best interests at heart?

and, you know what? the question kind of answered itself! what we're capable of in the real world, right now, is genuinely pretty cool, but remains unusually limited.

i think our best example of this is the microelectrode array! the way we're using them, microelectrodes, in short, (get it?), are a rather direct interface with the peripheral nervous system on the cellular level, communicating bidirectionally (translating and sending) sensory, motor, and electrical signals with the axons they're implanted in or around.

there's different types, whose physical attributes determine their strengths and weakness per application. the one that we're looking at today is an "intraneural", meaning its needles physically pierce the nerve sheath.

did i say pierce? i meant stabs it clean through the middle.

[ID: A zoomed-in screenshot on a simplistic diagram of two intraneural electrode styles. The nerves are cylindrical, yellow, and transparent. To the left, labelled "D", a flat gray electrode cuts the nerve perpendicular. To the right, labelled "E", something akin so a slanted bed of nails is embedded up to the square base. /end ID.]

(the one to the left is our guy, transverse intrafascicular multichannel electrode! the cutie right beside him is the USEA, Utah Slanted Electrode Array, which i personally headcanon Nastya as having. talk about metal!)

i'd make a running joke where we call this microelectrode TRANS, but unfortunately, pride month is over, therefore its actual acronym is TIME. you're free to imagine that i've made an awesome pun on "bidirectional", however.

the more broadly discerning that these electrodes are, the more invasive their design is- for example, bed-of-nails USEA has some 100 channels, while a C-FINE (imagine a tiny clasp, gently squeezing the nerve) may have only 8 or 16. while TIME doesn't fair much better with 10 electrodes, and its cross-section style implantation may look a tad horrific (which is exactly why i chose it), its wider spatial range of fascicles allows it to get more picky during recruitment.

it also seems to be pioneered specifically with prostheses interfacing in mind, where most TIME studies (as per a May 2018 report) have been to test its design of "selectively [activating] subsets of axons". or, sending signals from the sensors to very particular parts of the nerves- and that's perfect when our goal is to restore a sense of "touch".

the most complete long-term configuration between human and machine of indwelling electrodes sending two-way signals that i've been able to find is the 2019 in-person trial of the DEKA "LUKE" arm, which unlike their commercially available FDA-approved version, used chronically implanted USEA's to "evoke tactile perceptions on the phantom hand". and, thankfully, this is the production that most articles i've found latch onto like a lamprey.

sorry, that's misinfo. lampreys don't latch onto their prey. that's leeches!

basically, the way this can happen is by finding a method to taper and dilute those bursts of electrical signals coming into the nerve. for this team, the key in registering actual textures, pressure, joint tension, etcetera was by recording the neural responses from primate's fintertips when touched, and alongside some vaguely referenced "calculations", coding this into a procedural model for the arm.

and like i said, the LUKE system is actually bidirectional! ...as usual, with some caveats. my sources may be outdated, taking from early to mid 2010 experiment papers as i often am, but when papers say "bidirectional", they tend to mean "microelectrodes for sensation, sEMG for decoding motor command."

the "sEMG" being a superficial electrode, stuck on the skin to sense and interpret voluntary contraction on the muscles of the residual limb. y'know, the weird stickers? it's the most common, intuitive, and non-invasive way for prostheses users to "control it with their mind!!1!1!", but when the backlog of complaints ranges from socket pressure sores, sweating interference, superficial recording and loss of contact during limb repositioning, i'm not so sure that our mischevious violinist can affort that sort of setup.

but the DEKA model, at least the non-portable USEA prototype, solves this nicely. making dual-use of implantable EMGs to train a Kalmann filter on recognizing the muscular commands, the user mimics "pre-programmed movements", whose recorded values are whittled down to a select number of "features", or what i'm guessing is potential kinematic positions. i think, in laymans terms, that entails some Physical Therapy for Marius!

since when have i been here just to praise things, though, huh? ...okay, roughly the entire time, but i ain't no liar about downsides! 'cause, when referring to "touch", we're not yet at a vis-a-vis recreation of our somatosensory. more often than not, haptic interfaces are missing ways to convey accurate temperature and pain, if any.

even though i found at least a handful of articles saying that LUKE's USEA can "help sense pain and temperature" (sometimes in a copy-paste phrasing), after turning to the official NSF pdf, the only two claims they'd made on that front was, "the LUKE does not include pain and temperature sensors", and "any evoked pain or temperature sensations are uncommon". so, man, i just dunno who to believe!

but a bigger, and more perplexing issue to circumvent, is the electrodes themselves. technically, their placement is a chronic injury to our tissues, and while it might seem like the resultant scarring is ideal for securing its positon on the nerve trunk, the fibrosis can sometimes grow bad enough to insulate it and completely cut off the signals. or other times, completely push the electrode out of the nerve. (which is just our bodies reacting how they should to foreign objects. the same thing would happen if you got a splinter)

at minimum, you're looking at a good chance for nerve damage and signal disruption. and- awe, while researching for the downsides of microelectrodes, i've just stumbled across my first ever bookmarked science paper for that essay i did on Nastya's cybernetics <3 talk about ouroboric deeds! and talk about upgrades- that thing was from 2003, jeez!

ack, distractions! moreover, unless your electrodes are wireless, their channel leads will have to trail a considerable ways through the muscles, and won't be sitting pretty when forming scar tissue can pull them taut. then, if the system can't sustain itself solely indwelling, external hardware will need a way to get ahold of the nerve signals, so a percuntaneous incision will often bring the leads to outside connector pads, opening opportunities for infection and tissue decay.

why am i saying "yours"? you don't own incredibly expensive, defense agency-funded materials. right? at least, i don't. all my tupperware is already used up.

but what i Do have is some inconveniences for Marius, fabricated purely by a nature of my own design! yeah, that's right! I'M creating issues out of thin air!!

since i made the executive decision for Marius to operate under microelectrodes exclusively, and the DEKA system i mentioned used iEMG's for motor decoding, (a.k.a muscular action potential over electrical neuron firings) there's a significant likelyhood of crosstalk and interference between commands coming and going on that shared peripheral channel.

meaning, he might get some rogue signals that are twitchy, painful, or just plain uncooperative. not a complete ravage to his range as a violinist, but certainly some obstacles to overcome. (or angst about, do how you do.) told ya that i liked downsides, didn't i?

the peripheral nervous system, by the way, is just what translates sensory information to the brain. the somatic (somatosensory) is a more voluntary divison of it, and registers the stimulation of mechanoreceptors by pressure, temperature, proprioception, etcetera, for input when considering to the appropriate actions to take. when i say "peripheral", i basically mean both.

and, hey, so long as we're taking about fudging up phrases and bodies alike, how about a little admission time? because, see, here's the thing. roughly half of the robotics that i've talked about today aren't actually... wearable? frequently being "proof of concept"s created by distinctly non-amputee college teams, they would be controlled by an external computer, or someone wearing a "master exoskeleton" glove that mirrors the motions commands into the prototype.

that, or they can be removed at will, after the connecting pads for microeletrodes are merely detached. and at risk of squandering a potential hilarity, but for the sake of preserving the "ahhh irrevocable immortality!" faustian, i stringently don't believe that Marius can separate his whole mechanism from his flesh body. at most, his fingers, maybe his hand as well. (you'll see why later on ;> and that's a threat ;D)

so, let's get a rundown of osseointegration, or OI, which is probably the most Not Portable a prosthetic socket can get. for Marius, i've decided that his amputation is NOT up to the shoulder. instead, he is a transhumeral amputee, the same as every "bionic upper limb OI" subject i've seen news of, because the status of the residual limb is of course the deciding factor in candidacy for this type of surgery.

(that's why the gas-actuated arm is conveniently also transhumeral- they crafted it with eventual OI implementation in mind)

in summary, they (the Scientists) implant a metal rod fixture, typically titanium, into the remaining skeleton. an abutement section of it protrudes out of the skin in a stoma opening, where the prosthetic is attached as an extension. (Marius, i think, does not get that differential luxury. ergo, his "arm"'s titanium bone IS the fixture itself.) obviously, there's alternative types and methods, but this is what we're giving our dear Baron.

for a basic depiction of that setup, from the OPR A Implant System site, and edited so that tungle doesn't kill me dead-

[ID: A grayscale diagram of a rounded residual limb, transparent to show a sturdy bone. Within the bone is a dark threaded metallic rod, labelled "fixture". Outside of the limb, the continuing rod smoothens, now labelled "abutement," and the thicker, bolt-like end is "abutement screw". /end ID]

i run a risky game here, folks.

the humerus is one of the 5 bones eligible for osseointegration, which does not include the shoulder, and it's reportedly ideal for the socket troubles that would come to a residual limb that's "short, wide, scarred, or painful", promptly speedrunning the checklist for "botched".

to hit those point by point- well, in opposite order- for a limb with nerve pain, the necessary compression of a socket may be a deal breaker in everyday use. energy transfer (that is, the inertial strength when performing actions) from the muscles can be put more effectively, and without much misalignment, into the prosthetic.

there's markedly less fatigue than having to work for sEMG devices to proceed with movement via over contraction of unrelated muscles, and a robustness fit for physically demanding jobs, i.e. a truck driver, a builder, a murderer. then, a stable precision for finer tasks, i.e. brushing teeth, handling eggs, setting up security cameras outside the Penelope vault.

as an added bonus, linking the prosthetic directly with the bone reopens an avenue for natural sensation, "osseoperception", where the mechanical vibration from contact (touching or stepping) can be felt through the skeleton. apparently, we can even hear the frequencies?! in our ears?! then, since this eliminates the factor of a cup socket, a suspension rig, and ideally sEMGs, a microelectrode interface is nearly a given for this system to work.

(a lot of OI is paired with Targeted Muscle Reinnervation to control the prosthesis, though. i haven't looked too far into this method myself, but it seems more helpful for transhumeral or shoulder amputees without much of a residual limb.)

(because, while TMR surgically transfers the residual nerves to defunct muscles in a gambit to boost their own signal, then communes those re-assigned nerves to the prosthetic, the TIME would talk directly to whatever remains of the upper arm's somatic. it would definitely require lots more rehabilitation than peripheral interfacing.)

so, viola! overall, a pretty marvelous way of melding a prosthetic to the body, as well as giving Marius's environmental perception and navigation a solid 2x modifier, if he can handle the months-to-years long physical therapy and rehabilitation protocol!

ah, although, the point of a lot of these surgeries is to be rather clean? like, hiding the leads via intramedullary canals, using wireless myoelectrodes. personally, if Marius's arm popped away from his limb, i'd be imagining more wires and connectors and sensors running out of him than King Cole to his machines.

which, you know who else runs the risk of infection besides percutaneous leads? a stoma! which is exactly what this exposed implant is! especially when the infection rate is "well accepted" as 100 percent! ...okay, maybe that's a bit fearmongering. mostly, these infections are "superficial", only causing inflammation or drainage at the skin around the stoma from bacteria making it past the daily hygiene.

a skilled surgeon minimizing the amount of soft tissue that can shear, or crafting an epithelial seal around the abutement can lower this risk. but when it happens, it must be intervened with strong antibiotics, and fast, 'cause any infection close to underlying bone runs the risk of becoming a "deep infection". beyond that, the pain of just that "minor" infection can purportedly keep people bedridden.

alongside the whole predictable subset of issues that can arise when melding Human and Machine, i.e. bone deterioration (aseptic) or fracturing because of the implant, when loadbearing demands on the prosthetic are excessive- machine's fault- and the implant loosening or requiring explantation because of the bone, when natural remodeling fails to fill in the gaps between metal and residuum, or after osteomyelitis (septic) failure. simplisticly, human's fault.

accidents, high-impact events such as falls and sports, patient overuse, or improper rehabilitation (cough, cough, doubling over with my coughing) MARIUS (cough.) can cause both and all of those issues, exacerbated under the event that the components were already shitty. ...do i need to start coughing again, or are we in agreement?

despite their infrequency, managing infections and monitoring the integration's efficacy is a life-long maintenance. now, you've probably seen the catch here- how for Marius, and the mechanisms at large, as immortals whose whole shtick includes (as per a tumblr ask) never getting sick and shrugging off bullet wounds like burrs, he probably wouldn't be bothered by roughly any of this...

...but, during his initial implantation, with regards to the notion that Dr. Carmilla wasn't present? as well as for reasons that i'll touch later on...? suffice to say, hooo boy! eeks! yowzers! uh-oh!

but, hell, nothing says "botched" like pioneer procedures, am i right!

Why The Shit Does It Do That?

and kicking off the final section is my favourite subsegment, titled on the fly "What The Fuck Is That"! the fuck in question-

[ID: A zoomed-in screenshot of Marius's arm, showcasing a strange brass circle on the "upper" outer forearm, where two thin side-by-side wires, colored white and red, trail up and disappear into the laced corset arm cuff. /end ID]

in my initial brainstorming post, for those who saw it, you might recall that i mentioned the similarity of the white and red wires on the back of Marius's arm and MOSFET wires, whose electric nature implied a potential utilization of that weird brass thing on the back as a Solar Cell.

wellll, if you haven't already guessed, i changed my mind. no motors here, no sir! the wires, i'm afraid i can't explain, but with regards to the gas cartridges often being treated as a separate entity from the anthropomorphic prosthetic, from even the actuators that it powers, it could be an extraneous seal for when the arm is not connected to a canister source. so, not quite an insignificant residuum.

or, imagining Marius's arm as slightly more advanced, as a stopper cap to an internal basin that stores the hydrogen peroxide. by its appearance and function, not too dissimilar from a fuel cap in automotives :>

to quote myself from a reply i made in the comments of my interest check, i do believe that Marius's mechanism is Voidily, Outer-Godily powered in terms of immortality, so i think a benign generator like this would either be vestigial of its intended applications (a.k.a., Used By Normal People), or what makes it physically operate.

as for what electrically powers the servovalves and sensors... i dunno. brother, he can just die. (/ref)

operating under that paradigm, when the monopropellant has run out, it might be limp and nonresponsive, but far from dead. kind of like a limb out of socket! the arm falling inert might also harbinger a potential return of Phantom Limb pain! i'll actually link this one, since the normal article has since become paywalled, but in 2015, one Igor Spectic who took part in DARPA'S Haptix trials, described the phantom pain from his amputated hand as "a vice grip all around."

following the experiment's development of generating communicable sensation in a prosthetic hand, where the manually varied electrical signals from pressure sensors on the hand's surface were sent to C-FINE electrodes around his remaining ulnar, radial, and median nerve trunks, the pain was reported to have decreased immensely, if not entirely disappear!

this is good news for Marius, if his arm is active. and this is bad news for Marius, if his arm isn't active. ah, aporia my beloved!

okay, self-plagiarism over. onto the most lovingly terrible section! Skiiin!

for some prelude- remember those Artificial Muscles that i kind of left in the dust? the shape-memory polymers who could hold 5000 times their own weight without permanently deforming at all? well, honesty corner, one of the features i somewhat lament losing in tandem with that whole charade is... the lead professor, Zhenan Bao.

chemical engineering is her field of expertise, and her team also pioneered a thin plastic "skin-like sensor" that could distinguish between pressures and accordingly interface with a neuron cell! and i was gonna do a little callback, start a bioengineering cinematic universe, all that fun stuff.

but, taking a step back, it becomes apparent that Zhenan's approach is So novel, that it literally can't interface with Marius in any of the ways that i've described. or that's in any way natural. what they did, see, was translate the electrical pulses into light pulses, and had those sensed by line of CNS neurons that were optogentically modified. a.k.a., they're specifically bioengineered to be influenced or activated by light frequencies.

it worked, but, not quite what we're looking for, you know? and, considering how we've already devoted lots of space to integrating Marius with the TIME microelectrodes and RAPHaEL proprioception feedback, i think we can just skip right to the part where we make this thing out of living tissue. Kofi said Marius's fingers were occasionally "organic", remember?

on that note, time to overhaul one of my cornerstone ideas on Marius's arm for, oh, say, the third time? we're getting to "she's not the same Aurora" levels, at this point! (just be glad i didn't have to turn to the fleshy phone case for research, hm?)

you know, i've noticed that a lot of these articles are just playing synonym hopscotch with each other? they don't quite care to reveal more information than the last one, the last one- just rephrase it a bit, getting more and more scant on as it goes down.

well! time to enthusiastically propogate the issue!

the broader goal by this particular team, from the University of Tokyo, is to trounce the uncanney valley by cultivating a sense of familiarity with The Artificial, under a predilection that robots would eventually be an integral staple in caretaker jobs. thankfully, i care roughly zero percent about that, so let's dig into the sciencey bits.

colloquially deemed a "biohybrid robot", the product of the experiment is cool, but not nearly so outlandish. it's actually marvelously simple! in fact, i'll keep the outline i had for "questions to answer" as a guide for us, since this subsegment runs on a big longer than my others.

How can it cover the metal?

we've already got the "covering robotic fingers" bit down on lock from the getgo, because this skin was specificially made to grow around a finger-mimicking structure! (this time, electrically driven.) it only faces strain at those typical three joints, but seems to "stretch and contract" rather forgivingly when it does!

since it's a different cadence from "grafting" on lab grown skin-sheets, adhered to each other and wrapped snug on the surface by stiches, which runs the parallel risk of the living skin incurring injury in the surgical-esque procedure, this recreation would prove a bit more complex. and fleshier.

How is it grown, exactly?

using a solution of "commercially available human cells", of course! which sounds like it should be appendaged by a * on the black market. but, hey, i know this song! from the meat berry video! we've all been haunted by Meat Berry in our recommendations, right? ...right?

okay, look, it's not as creepy as it sounds. it's actually comprised of the similar sort of ingredients in implants and hydrogels for severe burns- collagen, in that case, but the culture media also had dermal fibroblasts, both of whom are two big players in the building of connective tissue.

so with the robotic scaffold bathing calmly in that mixture, the cells, as they grew over the course of 3 days, naturally compacted and conformed to the surface's contour, as is the tendancy of collagen's elasticity and fibroblasts's traction. the team then moved it to an ablution of epidermal cells, keratinocytes, and let it develop that sealing outer layer for two weeks.

the whole sleeve ended up at about 1.5 millimeters thick, similar to an average human dermis! the scentists also lauded it for its "natural wrinkles", so... a win for Marius?

by the way, culture media- as per the meat berry video- is a solution primed with the nutrients, antibiotics, and hormones for the specific type of cell it intends to grow. it's usually a pinkish benadryl color, not naturally, but colored that way, and its hue shifts with the health of its condition, indicating to the cultivators whether it's gone bad or not.

just imagine Marius going "Raph I want organic fingers for our next performance :(" and she says, "okay, but remove them from your arm. they'll have to soak in the Science Fluids for about two weeks... beforehand."

ah, get it? get it? beforeha- [i am killed, veritably]

Does it need bloodflow?

NOPE. It pointedly doesn't have a circulatory system or sweat glands- basically only collagen and a layer to un-gooify it, right now, and it dries up (dies) when left out of the solution too long. that also means no nerves, but, eh, Marius could probably just sliiide some sensors under that bad boy.

that was actually a big selling point of one of the previous iterations of "artificial skin" i delved into researching, before i noticed that it technically duped the criteria what Kofi had originally stated as "organic". but, most incriminatingly, the prototype wasn't even skin! just some circle little sensors that "could be" placed under cosmetic silicone.

his version of the culture would also need some melanocytes, since the prototype flesh doesn't have even a bit of melanin, making it look either like a pepto bismol finger, when in the culture, or a ballistic gel dummy outside of it.

How realistic is it?

"Water repellant, self-healing, and with a texture that looks and feels like ours," as every article will happily tell you, one in particular repeated themselves 3 different ways in the same paragraph! in short- thank you epidermal, thank you fibroblasts, thank you collagen.

it's not yet up to par, however. apparently the cells weren't very mature, so although it could tolerate being pinched and stretched by the robotic joints, it was rather weaker than human skin should be. but, the epidermal could at least be picked up by tweazers! which hurts like a motherfucker, if you've ever done it.

and when these articles say "heal" they mean placing a "collagen bandage" over the clean, surgical slice, and letting the cells assimilate it into the wound. not to undercut (get it?) the achievement, though, because importantly this means the cells are living- the skin is alive! how about THAT for organic, Kofi!

Finally, what melange of mean things have articles called this scientific beauty?

icky-looking, sweaty, gooey, stinky, "westworld", "terminator", creepy, revulsive, ersatz, "out of a horror movie", and that it "looks like a, um". (you get three guesses, and none of them count. that's also why i'm giving no links this time, friends! sorry!)

also, y'all? hey y'all? this news came out, as of the time writing this (July 12th), almost Exactly a month ago. this is right now! we're LIVING in it! the future is HERE! and that just goes to show, folks- procrastination DOES pay off! because i, like, kicked this idea around for months... and months...

any! way! arriving at last to our closing statements, it is my firm bias that we would both benefit from making only as many wrap-up claims as further questions they raise. do i honestly expect any of them to be answered in TDOBVR? not a lick of hope! will i propose them anyway? absolutely!

most of these quandaries, i will admit, are conjucture stemming from one jokeful tweet. but when you add upon the more canonical layers, i.e., his mechanism lacking Dr. Carmilla's certified seal of approval, himself harboring a strangely outlier mistrust in the likelihood of true immorality, and in general, hailing from a planet that has regressed badly enough to go back to muskets, it would not surprise me if these conundrums came to pass at one point or another.

and on that peroration of resounding confidence, here goes nothing!

TLDR:

Marius's mechanism is styled, in general concept, after illustrations within a German "limb substitution" book from 1919 that ideates an externally gas-powered hand prostheses. revitalized under our "modern" technology, it is fuelled by catalyzing monopropellant hydrogen peroxide with iridium pellets in an internal reservoir.

a steel tubing network and small scale servovalves shuttle along the gas, providing the pneumatic cylinders with ample power for linear actuation, while the vapor leaves as an exhaust product through a crosshatch grille spanning the length of his inner forearm.

Plus sides are- stronger than most electromechanical prostheses, steel is very quite aesthetic

Downsides are- lacks an offhanded dexerity, constant need for fuel

as our counterpoint, let's indulge on some fun curiosities about Marius's healing factor- canonically the "device's self-regulation", as per Drive The Cold Winter Away. incipiently, if his patellas don't regenerate until he "dies," must his brain be clinically dead before he can start to heal? or does he just not share that preternatural haste of repair, where the assumption would be that he often meets death's clammy grasp quicker than any healing may have its finishing touches?

Marius's pneumatic hand is materially influenced by Virginia Tech's robotic RAPHaEL prototype, though altering RoMeLa's design to preserve the fuelant approach in its coordination. rocket-powered air fills up corrugated tubing within each finger for an enticingly individualized articulation, and an oscillatory grip strength is commanded by lowering and raising the air pressure at hand. the cosmetic shell of his entire arm, including the hand, is made of carbon fiber.

Plus sides are- fine tuned manipulation of objects, a sense of independence

Downsides are- no steampunk gears, a bit too heavy

seeing to it that his regeneration fails to be as thorough as his companions, and a stabilized form doesn't come back until death, would he still be able to recover minimally over the intervening weeks and months, like a normal person? gaping wounds to fibrous scars, deep infections to chronic sicknesses, whose remnants only get cleared away when he's fully dead, like one big reset button?

Marius has transverse intrafascicular multichannel electrodes interfacing with his peripheral nervous system to stimulate sensory feedback on the ulnar, radial, and median nerve trunks of his residual limb.

Plus sides are- increased somatosensory and kinematic precision, seeming metal as hell

Downsides are- neural scarring, and long-term glitches from signal crosstalk

on that note, during those rare occasions he survives the crew's raucous lifestyle for a continuous length of time, will his immune system begin responding appropriately untoward the traumatic, invasive, foreign implantation that is, in essence, his mechanism?

are there infections to ensue, and inflammation, and eventual scarring whose nature is inclined to cut off both his sense of touch and motor skills? by proxy, making him uncharacteristically ill and in considerable pain? (this line of thought, patently, is why i kicked up such a fuss about "wuauggh, his scar tissue! infections! stoma! blargh!")

Marius underwent a major implantation surgery to osseointegrate a threaded titanium stem, screw-fixation type, into his transhumeral. most likely, he did not have the resources at hand to abide by the prolonged rehabilitation protocol. there are no intramedullary leads going solely through his abutement, and the exoskeleton of his arm is inseparable from the indwelling fixture.

Plus sides are- remarkable stability, and rejuvinated osseoperception

Downsides are- acute infection, innate incompatibilities between skeleton and metal.

with the established hypothetical that he doesn't return to a generic save-state in an automatic fashion, we have to wonder- does he age? how slow, if altered at all? more pressingly, can his mechanism get worn down alongside it?

especially when taking into account how, while several pros-and-cons lists have praised the pneumatic actuator's simplicity under an impression of less oversight, that's once again treating the baby separate from the bathwater. maintenance of the several components, fuel lines and tight seals and valve fittings, required for reliable gas generation basically creates an inverse sunk cost.

whether he knows this or not, if the mechanism starts to act archaic and clunky after he's gone a bit too long without kicking the bucket, would he perhaps settle for a tune-up in lieu of literally biting the bullet? is he scared? is that why?

does walking head-first into certain doom become a reflex at the first sign of mechanical failure? is that why?

Marius, at a whim, may adorn his mechanism's fingers with living skin cultivated from commercially available human cells. ideally, his organics would be buffed by self sustaining perfusion channels, and melanocytes.

Plus sides- flesh, hell yeah!

Downsides- will be fingerless for a number of weeks, as the digits soak in the culture media petri dish

most of all, why doesn't he believe in immortality?

i've, well, got half an answer to that. 'cause when the contraption that's supposed to keep you alive already started out so messy, and makes no promises to keep you in top shape through your millennia of mangling and make-do, it's probably a bit hard to place the trust of eternity in its air-actuated hand, huh?

#the mechanisms #marius von raum #tdobvr #marius #oz.txt #this thing took two whole weeks to write y'all it is a Monster #oz.essay

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sushireads · 4 years

Text

yoongi fic recs

this is a list of yoongi fics i’ve read and loved very much! enjoy. <3

ps. all fics with 🍙 are the ones i loved a little bit more.

“Where’s my kiss?” by @mintseesaw

fluff | drabble | 1.6K words

A Wish Out of Water by @jimlingss

🍙, fluff, humor, fantasy | two shots

A genie could solve all your problems. Though you wouldn’t even know exactly what to ask for - money, a warmer house, a better job, a better life? But Min Yoongi is no ordinary genie. He’s here to make your life a living hell. Too bad it was hell to begin with.

GENIE au

All I Want for Christmas by @hayjeon

🍙 | one shot | 13K words

CEO, CHRISTMAS, SECRETARY, SINGLE DAD au

an out of bounds umbrella by @yoonsgiggle

fluff | one shot | 10.2K words

you’re apologetic about almost blinding your university’s star point guard with the broken tip of your umbrella until you share a class with him and find out he’s a three star recruit but a four star dick or min yoongi doesn’t find your high school musical puns amusing.

BASKETBALL PLAYER, COLLEGE, ENEMIES TO LOVERS au

aquiver by @floralseokjin

🍙, fluff, angst, smut | series

Yoongi can’t remember the last time he was able to successfully bring himself to the point of orgasm, then Namjoon gives him a business card advertising ‘Healing Hands’, and that’s where he meets you; pretty and innocent looking, who gets paid to provide hand jobs for a living…

IDOL au

bad boys bring it to you by @yuengi

smut | one shot | 7.1K words

TATTOO ARTIST au

Black & White by @akinnie75

🍙, fluff, angst | one shot | 24.7K words

You finally confessed to Yoongi after he asked if you like him. His response is to give you a contract to sign. However, you soon realize that Yoongi manufactured your emotions and manipulated you to like him all for the sake of his senior project.

SLOW BURN au

Blackthorn Manor by @kpopfanfictrash

one shot | 7.5K words

After becoming the assistant of professional recluse Min Yoongi, you begin to notice strange things. Noises which shouldn’t take place, shadows which shouldn’t move like they do. You’re almost convinced that you’re crazy - until something happens, something unbelievable to make you realize you’re not.

GOTH au

Blow by @inkofyoongi

smut, fluff | one shot | 5.5K words

Yoongi loves you, even if he’s never said it… but gestures sometimes speak louder than words.

BOYFRIEND au

budapest by @junghelioseok

smut | one shot | 11.1K words

over many years and across several dozen cities, you fell in love.

SECRET AGENT au

Clair De Lune by @yoonia

smut | one shot | 23K words

You were ready to leave a part of your life to move on to the next, and he is willing to give you a chance to end it glamorously. But at what cost? And will he be a part of the life you are leaving behind or will he be there for the next part of it?

—part of @bangtansmutcentral‘s In The Mood Project

ESCORT, MUSICIAN au

Cut Me Open by @hayjeon

angst, smut, fluff | two shots

—a spin-off from Cardio Palpitations

MARRIED COUPLE, SURGEON au

dancing with the devil by @minnpd

smut | one shot | 6.8K words

Easy Rebound by @ditzymax

smut, angst | one shot | 6.5K words

Yoongi is one of the star players on the college basketball team. You are the head of the cheerleading squad. The pair of you would make the most beautiful (if most cliché) couple on campus, except neither of you have ever wanted anything more than the frequent, casual fuck. Yet somehow Yoongi finds his emotions straying towards dangerous territory.

BASKETBALL PLAYER, CHEERLEADER, COLLEGE au

ego: hoe chronicles by @suga-kookiemonster

smut | one shot | 7.2K words

he was messing with you again. he was messing with you, trying to get a reaction out of you simply for his own amusement. but you refused to give it to him—refused to give him the satisfaction of playing right into his hands.

—an alternate universe of ego

COLLEGE, FRAT BOY, FUCK BOY au

eight by @cupofteaguk

🍙, fluff | one shot | 5K words

or, Eight times Min Yoongi tells you he loves you

IDOL au

First-Date BAIT! by @jimlingss

fluff | two shots

First dates are embarrassing. First dates are awkward. I’ve been through countless ones, sitting across from people who bored the living daylights out of me. It was less exciting than watching paint dry. Some dates were so utterly rude - I think you and I both know what it’s like to be on the receiving end on that. But now we both don’t have to waste our time anymore!

With First Date Bait they went out for me! Afterwards, they informed me if it was recommended to go out on a second date. It’s amazing with a 99.99% accuracy rate! That’s how I ended up meeting my husband!

First Date Bait.

Why waste your time with awkward first dates?

—part of the Service Series

Hades by @littlemisskookie

horror, smut, angst, fantasy | one shot | 9.4K words

You meet a rather dreamy- albeit annoying, new kid who sweeps you off your feet. Too bad it’s in the middle of a series of murders around town.

GREEK GOD au

heavy sugar by @kinktae

smut | one shot | 8K words

The Roaring Twenties were a time of great economic wealth and social change. But beneath the jazz music and colorful speakeasies were mafia led organized crimes and bloodstained cash. You knew this well, but try as you might, you just couldn’t ignore the dark and enigmatic gangster whose eyes lingered on you from across the room.

—part of the rewind series

1920s, GANGSTER, FLAPPER, MAFIA au

i’m not your daddy by @scriptaed

🍙, fluff | one shot | 2.5K words

learning that his daughter no longer wishes to wed him but rather his now-arch-enemy jungkook marks the most soul-crushing day your husband has ever had to endure. no one, and he means no one, is more deserving of his angel than daddy min himself, and he’s willing to do anything to earn his daughter’s heart back.

DAD, PARENT au

Ink Nemesis by @scriptaed

🍙, angst, fluff | series

As an aspiring writer drowning under the public’s radar, a click of the pen is all you need to accept your supervisor’s offer to co-write an article for the SS - Secrets Spilled, a regular section of your company’s weekly tabloid; but fabricated stories and invasive details aren’t all that you write when you discover Min Yoongi’s dirty little secret.

FAKE DATING, IDOL, PAPARAZZI au

La Douleur Exquise by @cinnaminsvga

ON-GOING | fluff, angst, smut, fantasy | series

in which you accidentally summon an incubus in the middle of your shitty apartment and he won’t leave until you agree to have sex with him. until then, min yoongi, incubus extraordinaire, is now your sexually promiscuous and grumpy roommate. aka, the incubus au no one fucking asked for.

INCUBUS au

Melody companion by @prisczero

fluff | one shot | 3.6K words

“A soulmate story where Yoongi can hear everything that you listen to, but only if it is music.’’

IDOL, SOULMATE au

Miss Dial by @versigny

ON-GOING | 🍙, smut | series

[11:31] You: okay so i’m texting you now like I promised instead of drunktexting yoongi and telling him how badly i want his cock tonight. Arent you proud?

[11:32] unknown number: this is yoongi, hi

FRAT au

Mixtape by @jungblue

🍙, smut, fluff, humor | one shot | 15.6K words

Two mystery students from your college run the podcast dubbed ‘mixtape.’ It’s become a sort of phenomenon around campus, listened to by almost everyone. In their most recent episode they discussed various study methods… One of them being oh so tempting.

COLLEGE, PODCAST PERSONALITY au

Next Door by @personasintro

smut, fluff | one shot | 10.3K words

Your neighbor doesn’t respect your complaints about him being loud, but you don’t let it slide so easily.

ENEMIES TO LOVERS, NEIGHBOURS au

petals by @yoonia

🍙, fluff | series

IDOL, PARENT au

see you soon by @cupofteaguk

fluff, angst | one shot | 7K words

In which you live in a world where one stroke of a pen against your skin is a signage of forever, and Min Yoongi just has really good timing

SOULMATE au

She’s Testosterone by @jimlingss

🍙, crack, smut | series

Drop dead gorgeous, cute and sassy - you adore your best friend. But is there more beneath the surface? Who exactly is Min Yoonji?

YOONJI au

so i heard you like bad boys by @scriptaed

fluff | one shot | 4.7K words

while others see min yoongi as the resident heartthrob of the school - quiet, resilient, and mysterious - you can’t see him as anything other than your dorky best friend since childhood; but what you don’t know is his long desire to be anything but that, even if it means becoming the bad boy in town… or at least try to.

COLLEGE, FRIENDS TO LOVERS au

stay high by @personasintro

smut, angst | one shot | 16.5K words

You’ve to stay high to keep your ex out off your mind when he comes back into your life.

EXES au

Studio cuddle by @mintseesaw

fluff | drabble | 1.8K words

Tired from work, you went straight to Genius Lab in the hopes of being able to cuddle with Yoongi. You did not hesitate to press the passcode of his studio, knowing he might get pissed off for interrupting him from his work.

IDOL, PRODUCER au

Sweeter than Sweet by @gimmesumsuga

fluff, smut, angst | series

“You never would have expected someone like Park Jimin to notice you. As handsome and beguiling as he is deadly, you’re enthralled from the very moment you meet. Addicted to his kiss and his bite, Jimin opens up your eyes to a whole new world of love, lust and seduction.”

VAMPIRE au

the blue coat and cerruti 1881 (a flash fire) by @yuhdongsaeng

angst, fluff, smut | two shots

that’s the thing about flash fires. they’re intense outbursts of flames that reach their maximum heat quickly and don’t last a long time. hell, they don’t even get to fade before they cease to exist. however, flash fires may be intense and short, but the floor beneath them is ruined forever.

IDOL au

The Truth Between Us by @jimlingss & @gukyi

🍙🍙🍙, fluff, angst, fantasy | series

a book deal should be the most exciting time of your life, but there seems to be a constant and omnipresent damper on your mood in the form of a certain min yoongi, who you would just cut out from your life, if he weren’t your editor. but then, the world shifts beneath your feet, and you begin to wonder if maybe you’ve always been looking at life from the wrong angle.

ENEMIES TO LOVERS and loads more aus— just stop what you’re doing and read this masterpiece!

want a taste by @suga-kookiemonster

smut, humor | one shot | 18.3K words

pretzel pro. most skillful tongue in the food court world. allegedly. that’s what yoongi keeps telling you, anyway. of course, you’re reasonably skeptical of his claims—but if there’s one thing that motivates the notoriously-lethargic man, it’s proving skeptics wrong.

—part of the you never shop alone collaboration

FRIENDS TO LOVERS, SHOPPING MALL au

what you did last summer by @winetae

smut | one shot | 33.8K words

Yoongi was fine with a lot of things—you maxing out his credit cards to buy ridiculously expensive items of clothing that you never wore more than once, you taking out his newest ride for a spin without permission, you spending an extra thirty minutes on your hair and makeup when he was running late for a dinner function.

What he was not okay with, however, was you sharing your pussy with barely-out-of-college boys who were incapable of going five seconds without creaming their pants.

No, that was where he drew the line.

↳ alternatively titled; How to Get Dick - an autobiography written by (you)

TROPHY WIFE au

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#bts fic recs #namjoon fic recs #jin fic recs #yoongi fic recs #hoseok fic recs #jimin fic recs #taehyung fic recs #jungkook fic recs #fic recs #bts fic recs masterlist #bts smut #bts fluff #bts angst #bts x reader #yoongi smut #yoongi fluff #yoongi angst #yoongi x reader #bts masterlist

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peaches-writes · 4 years

Text

how to appease your asian aunties ch. 1 - christmas

description: in the immortal words of wine aunts and aunts you’re not even related to but forced to call your aunt at gatherings, ‘do you have a boyfriend?’ member: jisung / han genre: fluff, fake dating au, implied rich kids au, eventual childhood / best friends to lovers au, college au, implied fem reader (but i still used they/them pronouns) word count: 7.5k chapter warning: food, drinking, explicit language, one comment about weight note: insp by a twt meme + this is my first attempt at making a story with parents having a bigger role in them omg

ch. 2 // ch. 3 // series masterlist

Though you’re a semester away from graduating college, with your own circles of friends, clubmates, and close classmates, you still can’t understand why your mom and her sorority batchmates feel the need to have reunion parties every single year. Maybe it’s the product of growing connectivity in this modern age or just simply your wide age gap preventing you from having the same nostalgic feelings attending these dinners; nevertheless, ever since your mom started bringing you to these parties to socialize with her friends’ children when you were four, you've always personally found it a bit troublesome.

They see each other at mall sales, weekend brunches, weddings, birthdays, and anniversaries all the time—a lot of them even work closely with each other. For as long as you can remember, you can’t help but endlessly wonder in this time of year: will they ever get tired of each other?

As you adjust your coat over your semi-formal attire for this year’s dinner party, you sigh in front of the full-length mirror by your house’s front doors and mentally conclude that they probably never will. This is your 19th reunion dinner now and even from meters away in the kitchen, you can hear your mom fuss to your dad and the helpers either worriedly about the desserts that everyone in the house (and your nearest restaurant branch) was forced to bake two nights ago; or excitedly about seeing her college best friend, Mrs. Hwang, even if they literally just dragged their respective families to the monthly brunch last weekend—like she always does minutes before you leave. She always sounds like a crazed woman but you know deep inside that she’s excited to see her friends again and reminisce about the same old college memories you’ve even memorized by heart now.

It’s cute and all, maybe you’ll even end up the same in a decade or so but you swear at present on the dinner menu tonight that the more you spend your first day of Christmas break attending these dinners, the more you’ll slowly lose your mind over this unofficial holiday tradition: from your mom’s dramatic ramblings at the start of the night to the prospect of spending the rest of the evening laughing off your unofficial aunts and godmothers’ unnecessary backhanded comments and trying not to get caught in the trouble the younger children make.

It really just isn’t exactly your type of scene. It’s like family Christmas parties but with more passive-aggressive internalized drama since you’re not related to any of the guests by blood.

“Y/N, dear, come along now, we’re running late!” Your mom scolds you as she approaches your direction to the double doors, carrying cupcake caddies and cake boxes with your dad and your six house helpers. She’s wearing the dress you helped pick out last month, you observe, which is another tradition of hers. Rich people and not wanting to be seen wearing the same clothes twice, you guess. “Oh dear, I need to fix my hair in the car!”

You take one last look at yourself in the mirror before sprinting to the doors and helping your dad open them. You also take a couple of boxes from one of the helpers as you all pile outside, letting everyone pass through before closing the doors behind you.

The nine of you then head to your dad’s Ford you parked outside the house gates earlier this afternoon, loading the everything in the back of the car without much difficulty before parting ways with the helpers for tonight with the same house instructions from your mom to not wait up for the three of you.

“Bye!” Your mom waves at your helpers through the rolled down windows on the front passenger seat as your dad begins to drive away from the house.

Once your house begins growing smaller in the distance behind you, only then does your mom attend to her hair while your dad closes all the windows and locks the doors.

You, on the other hand, lean back in your own seat, taking out your phone to pass the ten minutes travel time to one of your godmothers, Mrs. Kim’s house in the adjacent subdivision.

“Y/M/N! Y/F/N! Welcome!” Mrs. Kim greets you at her house gates with her own mini army of house helpers, kindly helping you and your parents unload your party contributions and transfer them inside her recently renovated kitchen. “Oh, Y/N! Look at you, you look so beautiful tonight!”

You smile politely through the wave of compliments and ‘oh you gained a bit of weight’ comments that follow as you try your best to not to trip over the slippery marble steps leading to the house. Contrary to what your mom has been worrying about earlier at home, you eventually discover that you’re fairly early to the party for the 19th year in a row with only half of the families already in attendance to greet you when you entered the house.

“Y/N, all the teenagers are upstairs on the second floor, by the way.” Mrs. Kim informs you once your cupcakes have been neatly organized in the caddies at the very end of the buffet table, making you cringe internally at her preferred term for you and the other older kids in the house. “Dinner is at 7:30.”

“Thank you, auntie.” You smile one last time at her before excusing yourself to go upstairs, sighing internally in relief that her son, Seungmin, has smartly gathered everyone upstairs for the third year in a row to avoid the aunts and uncles for as much as possible.

You’re not completely fond of the parties, sure, but you can’t deny that there are little parts that have unconsciously grown on you—like your unlikely band of childhood friends and your shared hatred for this particular party.

Climbing up the slippery staircase as fast as you can with a death grip on the railings, you reach the second floor in no time to be greeted by six out of the eight people you’ve sort of grown up with in these parties occupying the common area: Felix and Hyunjin having a Wii dance battle in front of the television, Seungmin and Minho having a violent game of UNO on the coffee table, and Ryujin and Yeji scrolling through their phones on the sofa before abandoning them to approach you at noticing your presence by the staircase.

“Y/N!” Ryujin calls you in as she reaches you first for a brief hug and a short exchange of compliments on each other’s outfits, as if you didn’t just meet at one of your shared class’ Christmas parties yesterday. Though all of you attend the same university, you see Ryujin the most since you’re in the same college, just in different departments. “So nice to see you again!”

“Yeah, yeah, hello to you too again.” You chuckle, more genuinely now in the company of party guests you’re actually comfortable with, before waving hello at Yeji who trails behind.

Yeji then naturally hugs you next, pulling you a few steps away from the staircase so the two of you don’t topple over when she leans her weight on you. “Y/N, took you long enough!” She says next to your ear. “Hyunjin and I were starting to make bets if the aunties suddenly trapped you downstairs like Chan and Miyoung.”

You hug her back with equal force, a little more than you did with Ryujin, pulling away after to playfully slap her arm for the teasing comment. “I’d sell my arm first before I let that happen.” You retort as the two of you laugh. “I just helped set up desserts—mom made us do an extra two boxes of brownies and cookies this year so you better get a lot later!”

“Of course, but only if you eat a lot of the spaghetti my mom made!” She reminds, kindly fixing your hair for you. “I missed you! You look so pretty tonight!”

Behind the two girls, the boys also greet you in scattered casual ‘hi’s and ‘hello’s before going back to their own activities. You greet them back as they acknowledge you (and even reciprocate Felix’s long-distance high five mid-dance), crossing off everyone’s names in your mental attendance list as your gaze wanders around the room.

Since Chan is busy being a grown-up and showing off his fiance downstairs, you conclude that only one person is missing among your eight friends.

“Ya, Han Jisung!” As if on cue, the missing eighth person in your list emerges from the staircase behind you as Minho calls his name. “Welcome back!”

Jisung greets everyone back in their second wave of scattered greetings as he walks to Minho and Seungmin’s direction, purposely acknowledging you last by suddenly turning around and walking backwards to send a wave and wink your way. He almost trips over the long ruffles of the big accent carpet as he does this, making you, Yeji, and Ryujin laugh as the only witnesses.

“Oh my God.” You place a hand to your forehead in secondhand embarrassment, stifling your laughs as your best friend regains his balance and looks behind him in case anyone else saw (which, unfortunately for you, they didn’t). You can’t believe that despite missing last year’s party because of his study abroad program’s strict schedule, he still manages to do his ritual clumsy carpet accident somehow. “This dumbass, I swear.”

In front of you, Jisung only laughs it off as well. “You didn’t see that!” He adjusts his coat with one hand and scratches the nape of his neck with the other in between laughs, walking forward to you properly after with his arms extended for a hug. “Stop laughing and come here, ugly. I missed you.”

You feign a scowl but hug him back anyway, Yeji and Ryujin slyly stepping away with knowing smiles that only you can see with Jisung’s eyes turned away. You stick your tongue out at the two girls as they abandon you and walk back to the sofa before slapping Jisung’s back harshly for the familiar insult. “Speak for yourself, you ugly. I missed you too.” You reply to his latter comment with an amused chuckle of your own. “How are you?”

“Better now that I’m seeing you in person again.” He pulls away after with his signature flirty smirk, visibly eyeing you up and down now while his hands are still on your upper arms. Though he knows such gesture irks you, especially when it comes to the aunts and uncles downstairs, Jisung is the only one among your friends confident enough to tease you this way. Knowing each other a bit longer than everyone else has its perks, he’s come to realize over the years. “Look at you, all dressed up tonight. For me?”

“Of course I’m all dressed up tonight, it’s Chan’s engagement announcement later.” You retort, swatting his hand away to adjust your now wrinkled clothes. “You’ve known me for twenty years, already; I think it’s time to stop assuming I’ll ever dress up for you now.”

He only shakes his head, his teasing and lighthearted mood unwavering in front of you. “Nah, I really think you dressed up for me tonight.” He insists jokingly, a hand lingering over the fabric of your coat. “If I get welcome back parties like this from you in the end, should I just do more one-year study abroad programs?”

“And leave me to fend off the aunties every other year? I don’t think so.” You’re quick to turn down, walking pass him to rejoin your group now. Jisung naturally follows along like a lost puppy, suddenly changing his mind on joining Minho and Seungmin to follow you around now that you’ve started conversation. “You owe me for leaving me to take all the ‘I can set you up on a blind date with my godchild’ and ‘are you dating anyone’ comments last year.”

The two of you sit next to Ryujin and Yeji who, without even looking up from their phones, quickly scoot away to the other end of the big sofa which makes you send pleading looks their way while Jisung laughs and gains enough confidence to sling an arm on the sofa behind your shoulders.

Another annoying thing from this yearly reunion party is how it’s an unspoken rule in your group to leave you and Jisung alone whenever you’re engaging in your usual banter. You and Jisung are the enemies type of best friend, for God’s sake. You don’t understand how everyone (yes, even Seungmin) thinks the two of you are being cute.

“I keep telling you, you wouldn’t get all those comments if you just tell them you’re dating someone, dummy.” Jisung returns to your conversation once you’re settled, purposely placing a suggestive emphasis on the pet name. “That’s just the most natural thing to do in front of the aunties.”

“And who would I show them if they ask who?”

“Try me.” Jisung answers smugly, earning him an eye roll from you.

“As if.” You deadpan, leaning to his arm anyway as you take out your phone and connect to the wifi. “Given your new fuckboy look to the aunties, I’m pretty sure they’ll see past that kind of bullshit, especially Yeji and Hyunjin’s mom and Minho’s mom. They’d be more convinced if I tell them I’m dating Seungmin instead and he’s already in a relationship.”

You don’t even have to look to your side to see Jisung pouting as he whines in complaint, his free hand going up to your side to shake your arm. “That hurts.” He dramatically points to his chest when you show the slightest hint of turning his way. “And having Bumble on your phone isn’t being a fuckboy, I don’t even use it to get dates.”

“That’s not what the aunties think.” You point out, knowing just how much your aunts and uncles easily misunderstand concepts from your generation like social and dating apps. “I’m telling you, I prefer you swaying the conversation for me over you pretending to be my boyfriend.”

Jisung is quiet for a moment and you’re convinced that he’s decided on ending the conversation at this point until he suddenly twists his body towards you and challenges, "Do you wanna bet? Test out that theory?” He smirks again. “It’d really spice up this party, besides Chan’s announcement, of course.”

Only then do you look up at him since you sat down, deadpanning, “No.”

“Come on, it’d be really interesting!” He taps you on your shoulders with a laugh, a combination of habits he always does whenever he’s trying to involve you in his usual trouble-making antics. “My mom will finally get off my back for always nagging me as a ‘fuckboy’ and our mom’s sorority friends will finally get off yours for not dating.”

“You’re crazy.” You comment, crossing your arms in front of him. “I think I’ll just re-download Bumble too and bring someone to the party next year.”

“You’re really taking too much jabs at my heart right now,” He sighs with a contrasting smirk. “and we’re not even past dinner yet.”

“Because you deserve it,” You chuckle back at him, pretending to punch him on his stomach which he reacts to dramatically. “I’ve always known you’re a dumbass but that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard from you.”

Stubborn, he shakes his head in disagreement as you speak. “Nah, nah, we’ll see about that.”

And as if on cue, Mrs. Kim emerges from the staircase and announces that dinner is ready, luring everyone out of the second floor before you can even ask Jisung what he means with his words.

“Ya, Han Jisung!” You call for him when he sprints to Seungmin’s side when the latter begins leading everyone downstairs.

You try catching up to him but the staircase becomes too narrow for you to squeeze past everyone, forcing you to walk with Minho and Ryujin at the back of the group. With this, Jisung then takes this as an opportunity to look up at you from the turn on the staircase and send you another wink, a more confident one this time since he doesn’t trip after.

Your ‘age group,’ as the aunts differentiate you from the younger children, hogs the extensive buffet and steals the best table in the backyard, near the karaoke machine so you can stop the uncles from singing too much of ‘My Way’ once they get drunk later on and as far away from the children’s table as possible so you don’t have to be obligated to take care of them later on. Chan, the eldest among you now, joins your table with his fiance, Miyoung, after they’ve officially declared their engagement before the buffet opened, happily handing out their save the date cards for their May wedding.

“Just remember, Miyoung, that you can literally get all your wedding needs from us, okay?” Yeji comments amidst all the talk about the wedding, gesturing to everyone as you eat and drink champagne. “Like Y/N and Seungmin for catering, Ryujin for the attires, Felix for your honeymoon trip, me and Hyunjin for the flowers and documentation, and Jisung can dress up as a clown for your reception.”

“Ya!” Jisung protests to your left, cheeks full of steak and spaghetti that makes the whole table erupt in laughter. “Chan’s and Minho’s studios can arrange the music and the decor; my mom will probably argue with Miyoung’s mom for the locations and hotels.”

“I can just tell my dad to hire you as a clown, though.” Minho shrugs nonchalantly, further fueling your laughter. To your right, you can even see Miyoung giggling through her glass of champagne, having given up on stifling her laughs. “It’d make good entertainment.”

Jisung then leans over to you to turn to Miyoung on your other side with a pout and a pleading look to her and Chan. “You two are just letting them drag me like this?” He whines dramatically before turning to you. “Y/N, back me up here.”

“No!” You press a finger up to his forehead and playfully push him back on his seat. “It’s a great idea, what are you talking about?” You tease as you do so, much to more whines from him. “There’s like five months before the wedding, think about it.”

Next to you, Miyoung forces herself to stop laughing, teasingly asking Chan, “Babe, what do you think? Should we just demote Jisung from groomsman to clown?”

“I’d very much prefer being a groomsman, please.” Jisung asks over Chan, leaning over the table. “I can’t compete with Changbin for best man but as long as I’m not dressing up as a clown I’m good!”

“Hey, how come Jisung’s a groomsman?” Seungmin complains from across you, frowning cutely at the couple. “Miyoung, I’m your cousin! I introduced you and Chan in university!”

“You’re a groomsman too, Minnie, don’t worry.” Miyoung reassures with a warm smile before elbowing her fiance. “As long as you can get your parents to cater with Y/N’s family.”

The offer makes Seungmin’s ear perk up in interest. “Okay, call!”

“Can we all be in the wedding party at this point? I’m seriously pushing it now, I want to dress up really cute!” Yeji, who sits on Chan’s other side, pleads.

“Me too! I second that!” Felix backs her up immediately, the two now leaning over the table expectantly in Chan’s direction. “Though I’m not so keen on designing things.”

“Ah, but we have to make more room for actual relatives.” The groom-to-be in question laughs sheepishly. “Though, knowing our parents, I’ll try to squeeze everyone in somewhere in the program. Just let us iron out everyone’s contributions first.”

“Yeji, I’ll take note of your suggestion, though.” Miyoung points at the younger girl with an appreciative grin. “I’ll message the groupchat once Chan and I meet up again with the planner.”

Meanwhile, Chan’s last comment gives you and Minho an idea and the two of you suggest in chorus, “Get Seungmin to sing!”

“Jinx!” You and Minho exchange winks and long distance-high fives from Jisung’s two sides after while Chan and Miyoung ask Seungmin about said idea, making Jisung pout at you.

The general table conversation then naturally flows to other matters, mostly about the famous names you might be expecting at the wedding, but Jisung doesn’t participate much anymore, turning to you instead and asking, “Ya, are you cheating on me with Minho now? You sacrifice me as entertainment then back Minho up but not me!” He rambles in between mouthfuls of food, making you and even Minho chuckle in amusement despite the latter being in another conversation with Ryujin and Seungmin. “I just left for one year and you’re already doing this to me!”

“What are you on about again, dumbass?” You roll your eyes with a scoff, stealing a piece of steak from his plate for the third time this dinner. “Finish your food, everyone’s done and you’re so slow!”

Jisung then belatedly swats your chopsticks away, “I’m almost done, dumbass, stop mooching off my plate!”

"Then hurry up, you still have to accompany me to the dessert table.” You point out, referring to your least favorite part of this reunion parties: getting attacked by invasive questions on your return trip to the buffet table. “Remember, you owe me. I’m not going in there alone again.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He replies on his last two bites of food, eating one then handing the other one to you. “Have the other one, then.”

He pokes your lips with the last piece of steak and you instinctively lean your head away, catching the food with your own chopsticks instead. “Thanks.” You bring the food to your mouth before carefully patting the oil he ended up smearing on your lips with your table napkin.

Across the table and out of your earshot, Yeji elbows Hyunjin and points to the two of you. “They’re at it again.”

Without you or Jisung looking, Hyunjin looks at the two of you in feign disgust. “I know, every damn year.”

On Hyunjin’s other side, Seungmin nods frustratingly in agreement which makes Yeji laugh. “We shouldn’t have taken last year for granted, 'no?” He sighs. “Last year was so peaceful without them together.”

“Agreed.” The Hwang cousins agree in chorus before listening to the table’s general conversation again.

Meanwhile, Jisung finally finishes his food and excuses the two of you from the table to get dessert. Miyoung waves at you politely and Felix playfully orders that you two get him cupcakes but the rest only acknowledge you with simple nods as they’re completely engrossed in betting on whose dad will be singing My Way on the karaoke machine first (everyone’s in the middle of betting on Mr. Bang). With that, you and your best friend then take your leave, going back inside the house and making a beeline to the kitchen.

Unfortunately for you, you catch your mom, Mrs. Han, and Mrs. Hwang gossiping by the punch bowls once you reach the kitchen’s open doorway—literally the worst combination of sorority aunts to be bombarded with invasive questions.

“Shit.” You mutter under your breath loud enough for only Jisung to hear, the two of you still out of the three women’s sights. Looking up at Jisung with pleading eyes, you ask, “Should we just go back later?”

Quickly seeing this as an opportunity to get back at you, Jisung only smiles evilly and links his hands with yours, dragging a hesitant you inside the kitchen and towards the direction of the dessert table. “No, let’s get dessert now, baby.” He dismisses your silent pleas teasingly, making sure his voice is loud enough to get your worst nightmare of trio’s attentions. “Felix also asked us to get cupcakes too, remember?”

And like vultures, the three women immediately turn to you and Jisung as you head in their line of vision, three different shades of questioning looks on their faces. You especially catch your mom’s face, a mixture of surprise, amusement, and genuine curiosity for some reason, which sets all the gears in your head into panic mode while Jisung only gains more confidence from this.

You swear at that moment on Jisung’s sort of untied shoelaces that you just want Mrs. Kim’s new kitchen floor tiles to swallow you up right there and then.

“Hey, mom!” Jisung greets his own mom with a wave, coming off as sweet to her but mocking to you. He then bows politely to your mom and Mrs. Hwang and you’re forced to follow along for the sake of courtesy. “Mrs. Y/L/N, Mrs. Hwang.”

The three women look at each other curiously, as if in a silent debate on what they’ve just heard, while Jisung pretends to be unfazed, passing you a dessert plate and examining tonight’s dessert options.

“Jisung, I swear to God,” You hiss at him as you take a slice of chocolate cake for him. “I’m going to kill you after this party.”

He leans close to your ear while gathering cupcakes on a separate dessert plate, whispering, “I think it’s too late for that, though.” before your mom, Mrs. Han, and Mrs. Hwang suddenly appear in front of the two of you on the other side of the buffet table with sickeningly sweet smiles, and a million questions.

You especially fear Jisung’s mom. Mrs. Han and your mom often go to the mall together, especially when there’s an ongoing sale, and you’ve been forced to carry all their shopping bags over the years because Jisung and his older brother usually bail on you. Though she’s very sweet, you’ve always known her to be very picky on some things and it just makes you think that she’s picky on who Jisung dates too.

“Mom,” You call for your mom with wide eyes. “Do you need anything?”

But she waves her hand dismissively with a reassuring smile at your question. “Oh, nothing, Y/N dear,” She answers, eyes darting almost threateningly between you and Jisung. It makes your hand shaky as you now complete your tower of dessert plates. “your aunties and I were just talking and we didn’t mean to but we saw you and Jisung so we just got curious and thought we’d ask how the two of you are.”

“Oh, just ask them already!” Mrs. Hwang exclaims excitedly, slapping your mom’s arm like a school girl. “If you won’t, I will.”

But Mrs. Han is already leaning over the table with a knowing smile, straightforwardly asking, “Are you two kids dating?” which immediately makes your mom and Mrs. Hwang erupt into fits of giggles. “Come on, the aunties want to know!”

“Oh, um—” You stammer out before Jisung beats you to it.

For the second time tonight, you feel Jisung’s arm on your shoulder as he speaks over you confidently, “Y-Yeah, we’ve been for a while now!” He then places his dessert plate back on the table and boyishly rubs the nape of his neck which only elicits swooning reactions from the three women, a complete contrast from your expectations a while back. “Just some time before my program ended so it’s been a bit long-distance for the most part.”

“Oh? But how?” Mrs. Hwang asks curiously. “I didn’t hear of you going to Malaysia this year, Y/N, and Jisung, your mom told me you didn’t have time to go home!”

“You could’ve just told me, Sungie! Then, I would’ve had you sent home earlier if you wanted to see Y/N!” Mrs. Han adds as well, clasping her hands in satisfaction. “I knew this was coming! You two have always been so cute together!”

Your mom agrees, “Luckily, I refused Mrs. Park’s offer to set Y/N up with another one of her nephews a while back. Had I known you two were dating, I wouldn’t have talked to her tonight at all!”

You open your mouth to try and speak but Jisung beats you to it again. “We’ve been in touch: message, calls, and video calls, you know.” He half-shrugs casually, as if he’s been rehearsing the line for a while now. “It’s our first time meeting since we started seeing each other so telling you guys just kind of flew past us.”

You groan internally but you also can’t help but sigh in relief at the prospect that you avoided getting set up by Mrs. Park again because of Jisung. Though this doesn’t completely erase your annoyance over him for putting you in this situation, you still owe him a ‘thank you’ after somehow.

So, you conclude that you should just follow along. It’s fake dating your best friend over another pointless blind date at this point now, after all. “You’re okay with this, right?” You decide to ask in a follow-up, pretending to not know that they’ll agree anyway. Next to you, Jisung’s eyes visibly widen and, seeing it from the corner of your eyes, you quickly elbow him in response before giving your most innocent look to your mom. “I mean, Jisung won’t be studying abroad now and we’re graduating, anyway, so it’s cool, right?”

Judging by their softened reactions, you feel like you could challenge Hyunjin to acting now.

“Of course we’re okay with it!” Your mom answers first, Mrs. Han nodding along happily. “I’m glad that it’s someone I know at least and I’m sure your dad wouldn’t mind.”

You hear Jisung gulp nervously at the last comment. If you’re afraid of his mom, he’s afraid of your dad because of the one time he helped you practice for your driver’s license and the two of you almost ended up crashing the Ford on your subdivision’s club house. You allow yourself to relax and laugh at this, making him tighten his grip on your shoulder.

“Me too, sis.” Mrs. Han agrees, gesturing over to her son. “My Jisung here’s been going on dates with strangers online before this so I’m glad he’s finally stopped and settled for your kid! Modern love, huh?”

“Oh my God, mom!” Jisung whines, his free hand coming up to his face in embarrassment. “I’ve told you before, I use them to meet friends! Not in front of Mrs. Y/L/N and Y/N please!”

“Ay, it’s the same thing!” His mom insists to him before turning to Mrs. Hwang and your mom. “Social apps, dating apps, they’re all the same. Why do you even use them if you’re just going to fall in love with the person right in front of you? I taught you better than that, Sungie.”

“Mom!” Jisung hisses, cheeks tinted pink. “This is so embarrassing!”

You snicker next to him, catching his attention. “Your mom’s right, you know. Tsk, dating people from miles away and you just end up confessing to me on FaceTime.”

He scowls at you in a way that scolds you for suddenly turning this situation in your favor. You only smile triumphantly at him which the three aunties take as a really sweet moment.

“Aw, look at them! So cute!” Mrs. Hwang gushes before turning to her two best friends. “Should we just leave them alone now? We’re intruding!”

“Right! It’s especially embarrassing since we’re both here, Mrs. Han.” Your mom agrees, leading the three out now. She then turns to you and Jisung, “I guess we’ll be off now, then? Don’t want to intrude to you two lovebirds anymore!”

You smile up to your mom, making sure Jisung does too. “It’s fine, mom, we’re going back to our table now too, anyway.”

But Mrs. Han waves her hand dismissively at you. “No, no, we’ll run along now first! See you later, okay?”

You and Jisung bid your moms and Mrs. Hwang goodbye, overhearing your mom bragging that she’ll share this new information to Mrs. Park while Mrs. Han and Mrs. Hwang agree before the three completely exited the kitchen.

Once they’re out of earshot, you sigh in relief and elbow Jisung harshly who responds by dramatically taking a step back and massaging his side. “Ow!” He winces, careful not to hit the dessert table. “What was that for?”

“I told you to drop the fake dating thing a while back.” You protest, threatening to hit him with your plate of chocolate slices. “Now I have to have you at home more often. I’ve already had enough of you at campus, here, and when your mom visits at home.”

“Ya, but you played along!”

“That’s because I was put on the spot! And they did mention another blind date from Mrs. Park’s army of nephews.” You explain. “It was between you and another blind date.”

“At least I got you out of another potential blind date, right?” He points out defensively, proceeding to put your hand with the chocolate slices down on the table with caution. “And more effectively now than before, too! So why’d you hit me?”

“Yeah, I know but still, that doesn’t cancel out how you got me out of that.” You frown in disappointment, taking both of your dessert plates now. When he holds his hand up defensively, as if expecting you to throw them to his face, you only roll your eyes and walk past him to the direction of the second kitchen exit. “Now, I have to fake date you for real either until Mrs. Park lays off the blind dates or until I actually date someone.”

Jisung immediately follows you suit, genuinely rubbing the nape of his neck in a bashful way now. “We don’t have to, maybe they’ll forget about it.” But when you give him a pointed look, as if suggesting that what he just said seems unlikely, he ends up suggesting, “Okay, fine, should we break up after Chan’s wedding, then?”

He then glances over at you to see you contemplating and calming yourself down so he instinctively insists on carrying the dessert plates for you, walking a little bit ahead as well and opening the screen door leading back to the backyard.

When you’ve made yourself calm down and think more rationally, you firstly point out, “That’s too far away and wouldn’t that be too scandalous? It’s a big event so it could become gossip.”

Passing the entire length of the backyard now, you receive a few congratulations and questions confirming your relationship from some of your mom’s sorority friends and their husbands, forcing Jisung to hold his thought until you’re not being swarmed again.

“But if we do it before, it’d be too suspicious since we’d only be dating for less than 6 months.” He counters once the adults have left you alone, glancing ahead and seeing your entire table looking at you with quirked up eyebrows and comically intimidating looks. “Remember when my older brother did that as a joke to the aunties and got caught because they only did it for 3 weeks? They smell fear and deceit, Y/N.”

You sigh in defeat, “Let’s just figure it out later.” With that, you reach your table, setting your plates down and asking, “What did we miss?”

Judging by the way they eye you, your mom has probably told Mrs. Kim who’s gone table to table.

“It’s fake, isn’t it?” Ryujin speaks up once you’ve settled back in your seat, making the table break character and laugh. “It can’t be a coincidence since you two were just talking about that a while ago inside!”

“Please be fake.” Seungmin adds, gesturing to you and Jisung. “It’d be more annoying for all of us next year if it’s true.”

You and Jisung, having the same thought and trust for your friends, nod simultaneously at Ryujin’s question, eventually joining in on the laughter.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe you’d actually try that!” Ryujin cackles, a clear giveaway that she and Yeji were eavesdropping on you and Jisung a while back to a degree.

“To be clear, though, it’s his fault!” You add in between laughs for clarification, pointing to Jisung with your dessert spoon. “He started it!”

“And they were about to get set up on a blind date by Mrs. Park again.” Jisung gestures to you back, completing the thought. “I was being a good Samaritan.”

“Ooh, and what did they say?” Felix asks curiously, one elbow propped up on the table as he listens intently.

Jisung groans in exasperation as he eats his chocolate cake. “We bumped into my mom, Y/N’s mom, and Mrs. Hwang so you can imagine how they reacted.”

“I can imagine, especially our mom.” Hyunjin sighs with his hands carding through his hair in secondhand embarrassment.

“At least now we know where you inherited certain qualities from.” Chan teases, making the younger boy exclaim ‘ya!’ at him.

“This is good, though isn’t it?” Yeji asks curiously over her iced tea. “I mean, Mrs. Park’s wouldn’t set you up on blind dates now.”

“Yeah, but that leaves me as Ms. Park’s only target!” Ryujin moans in frustration. “You know Mrs. Park doesn’t get convinced with dating people online!”

You shake your head at Ryujin’s complaint. “Yeji can fake date you, though.” You point out, much to the girl’s annoyance. “Or ask out that girl from our lab.”

“So, does this mean we’re getting a dramatic break-up at Chan and Miyoung’s wedding?” Hyunjin interjects, having moved from playing with his now long hair to his glass of champagne. “Because if so, then you better tell us now so we won’t get too drunk at the reception until it happens!”

“I honestly want to see that happen too.” Seungmin agrees, the two high-fiving at the thought.

“That’d be interesting, breaking up at weddings.” Minho chuckles along now too. “People usually propose or hook-up so this is new.”

“Hey, no stealing my spotlight on my wedding!” Miyoung complains playfully to you and Jisung this time. “We’re all supposed to have a good time there!”

Chan nods in agreement. “If you break up at our wedding, you’re getting kicked out.”

So you shake your head reassuringly in between eating cupcakes. “We aren’t planning to.”

“You’re going to date for real?” Felix asks teasingly, earning him a glare form you.

“Gross, no.” You and Jisung turn down the thought in chorus.

“Jinx.” Jisung adds, stealing a spoonful of cake from your plate.

“So when are you breaking up?” Chan asks, leading the whole round table to look back to you.

“Whenever, I guess.” You shrug casually, belatedly swatting Jisung’s hand from your plate this time. “Until Mrs. Park gets off my back and Jisung actually stops fucking around on Bumble.”

“I don’t fuck around on Bumble!” Jisung complains over a mouthful of chocolate cake.

“Well, that’s going to take a long time.” Chan dismisses. “At least let us all know so we can schedule faking a whole drama in this group.”

“Anyway, it’ll die down soon, surely.” Jisung assures with a half-shrug. “Also, our parents only meet up constantly during this reunion party. If anything, we just have to fake date in front of our moms since they meet up more often.”

“And Mrs. Hwang.” You point to Hyunjin and Yeji. “Since we all go to brunch once a month.”

At the mention of the monthly brunch, Yeji’s eyes widen. “Does that mean Jisung has to be at our monthly brunch?!”

“Oh, ew!” Hyunjin adds in disgust. “I’ve had enough seeing you at campus already!”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?!” Jisung exclaims back in complain. “I doubt I’d get invited to that, we’re supposed to be dating not getting married!”

Jisung turns to you expectantly, sighing in relief when you say, “That seems unlikely, it’s my mom and Mrs. Hwang’s thing, anyway. It’s not the Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner brunch.”

“It better be!” Hyunjin says with crossed arms. “Hopefully our moms don’t get that kind of idea.”

You quietly agree. Having Jisung on your monthly brunch with the Hwangs would just cause so much trouble and cement him in your mom’s good graces—but as your boyfriend, this time.

That’s probably not good.

The party officially ends some time around 3 AM, when most of the parents with elementary school children have gone home hours earlier and, besides the Kims, it’s just your family, the Hwangs, the Hans, Chan, and Miyoung left at the front gates, bidding each other goodnight.

“Thank you for having us again, Mrs. Kim.” You bid Seungmin’s family last since they’re the hosts, bowing politely to Seungmin’s parents before giving Seungmin a high-five.

“See you after break.” Seungmin greets you after your high-five. “Have fun in Japan.”

“And you enjoy your trip to New York.” You reply with an enthusiastic smile. “I do hope your mom reconsiders staying longer so you can spend the New Year there.”

He nods with a sigh, “Yeah, I know. Still, I’ll try my best to convince her.”

Your mom then approaches the two of you, bidding Seungmin and his parents goodnight before taking you away by the arm then turning you towards the direction of Jisung and his family. “Goodnight, Seungmin, Mr. and Mrs. Kim!” She smiles warmly to them before turning to you. “Y/N, aren’t you going to say goodnight to Jisung?”

“I already did.”

“Ah, but go to him anyway! Your dad still has to start the car.”

You groan internally. After a whole night of drinking, singing, and gossiping with her friends, you’d think that she would’ve forgotten about earlier.

Yet you oblige anyway, excusing yourself from your parents and approaching Jisung whose parents are busy having last-minute small talk with Chan and Miyoung, probably endorsing their chain of hotels as early as now for the wedding.

“Hey, ugly.” You greet him casually as you approach, both your parents out of earshot so the old nickname naturally comes out. At this, Jisung immediately turns from scrolling through his phone to looking up at you with wide eyes. “My mom didn’t see us say goodnight a while ago so I’m here.”

“Oh,” He muses, eyes flitting to your mom behind you once. When he sees her glancing expectantly, he turns to you and suggests, “Should we hug?”

“Yeah, I guess.” You sigh, going straight into his extended arms. “‘Night.”

“’Night, baby.” Jisung hums gently, too sleepy now to throw more witty comebacks besides the cheesy pet name that originally got you in trouble tonight. “See you after the break.”

“No, see you on our moms’ next shopping spree.” You correct firmly, pulling away from his warmth before you could accidentally fall asleep on him. “Since we’re ‘dating’ now, you’re morally obligated to attend shopping bag duty now, too.”

This makes Jisung sigh in defeat, “Fine, fair enough. See you on our moms’ next shopping spree, then.” He pauses for a moment then asks, “The day after New Year, right?”

“Yeah.” You confirm with a nod when you catch him pouting, “You started this so don’t pout now.”

“I know, I’m regretting it now.” He rolls his eyes with a scoff, only making you chuckle. “I suppose it’s different when we hang out as friends and when our moms think we’re dating.”

You continue laughing anyway until a thought crosses your mind and softens your gaze up at Jisung. “Anyway, thanks for saving me from another date—I almost forgot. The means is still annoying but I have to appreciate it somehow, right?”

This time, it’s him chuckling, “Now you appreciate my efforts. See, I told you, something good comes up with this.”

“Whatever.” You dismiss before you hear your mom calling for you as your dad pulls up in front of the Kim’s gates. “Okay, that’s me. Bye, ugly!”

“Hm, bye!” With a final wave, Jisung then sees you off before joining his parents who he didn’t even realize have already gone to their car.

Seating himself at the backseat of his mom’s car a moment later, Jisung accidentally glances over to his mom from the rear view mirror only to see her wiggling her eyebrows at him.

“So,” Mrs. Han says. “you and Y/N.”

“Yeah?” Jisung response with a questioning tone. “Me and Y/N, what about it?”

Mrs. Han only shrugs from the driver’s seat as she now drives away from the Kim’s house. “Nothing, you’re just both really cute.” She comments casually with a proud smile. “I like it. Though it is too bad we can’t invite them to dinner since they’re going to Japan for Christmas this year.”

“How about next year?” Jisung’s dad suggests. “We can go on one of our hotels abroad.”

“Ah, but—” Jisung stammers, only to be interrupted by his dad again.

“Or, honey, when you and Mrs. Y/L/N go to the mall again.” Mr. Han quickly quips in to Mrs. Han before turning to their son in the back seat. “I expect you’d stop bailing on your mom when she goes to the mall now since Y/N’s always at these shopping trips.”

At this, Jisung shakes his head, “I won’t. I’m ‘morally obligated’ now, apparently.”

“That’s good.” Mr. Han says, turning back to the road ahead and relaxing into the front passenger seat. “You better.”

Jisung sleepily props his elbow up by the window and sighs, letting his parents enjoy this new prospect of him seriously dating someone now. “Yup.” He ends the conversation, closing his eyes and getting a few minutes of sleep before arriving back home.

Suddenly, this is probably not a good idea—lying to his already hyped parents.

ch. 2 // ch. 3 // series masterlist

tag: @t-toodumbtocare @sandaigdigan-reads @pwarkhans @ruellelix @malai-barfi @mahalau @milkywayfelix @qweens-stuff

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officialthiamlibrary · 4 years

Text

2019 THIAM REVERSE BIG BANG MASTERLIST

Below is the masterlist of all of the creations by the amazing artists and writers for the Thiam Reverse Big Bang… four months of fantastic work, preparation, organization and collaboration between the creators are in this list, and we’ll never stop shouting about how thankful we are to everyone who participated this year for the work that you’ve put in to these!!

Some of those participating were even creating for other events (including our Halloween event) in between this one… and they still have these fantastic works ready to show everyone... so PLEASE show them some love for their hard work by commenting, reblogging, and giving likes/kudos/comments where you can! <3

All fics are arranged by the date each collaboration was scheduled for posting, titles for both each artwork and fic will take you to each individual creators post.

Special Thanks to @manonisamelon for creating this event’s roundup banner!

16 December 2019

The Price of Freedom + Artwork 1, 2

Author: @volsungar-the-mighty Artist: @moondrunkmonster56

[41k Words | Rated: M | No Warnings]

When the McCall pack find out that Mason is the Beast of Gevaudan, the Dread Doctors plans go awry, and Theo is left in the firing line. He goes on the run, only to be captured and paralyzed by them before he gets too far.

Liam, a Fallen Angel turned demon, is convinced to leave hell for the first time since his Fall. When he comes across Theo, paralysed, wounded, and about to be tortured and punished by the Dread Doctors, he offer's the Chimera a deal.

Theo's freedom, in exchange for his soul. But something goes wrong when Liam makes the deal a reality, and he becomes stuck on Earth with Theo.

And thats when the fun begins.

~~~

Making The Pieces Fit + Fic Aesthetic , Thiam’s Story Aesthetic , Aesthetic for Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4,

Author: @bookwyrm07 Artist: @manonisamelon

[7.5k Words | Rated: Teen and Up | No Warnings]

When Theo was hired to rob a bank he knew he could do it, but now that two of his crew have taken themselves out his only option left is to get help from his ex.

~~~~~

17 December 2019

Eyes Unclouded + Artwork 1, 2

Author: @wolfenboyb Artist: @marauders-mess

[6.5k Words | Rated: General Audiences | No Warnings]

Inspired by Princess Mononoke... Theo leaves his remove village after it is attacked by a mysterious dark god. Cursed, he ventures out into the world to discover the source of unbalance in the land. He discovers a wolf prince at war with an encroaching town of humans making iron out of sand and destroying the sacred forest. As tensions rise, Theo must find a way to end the conflict and protect the one he loves

Archive Tags: AU | Inspired by Princess Mononoke

Those Who Wait + Artwork 1, Aesthetic 1, 2 , 3

Author: @lovelylittlegrim Artist: @tabbytabbytabby

[6.5k Words | Rated: Explicit | No Warnings]

Theo finally gets what he's always wanted.

Like The Trembling Heart Of A Captive Bird + Artwork 1, 2 , 3

Author: @impalachick Artist: @osirismind

[9.5k Words | Rated: Explicit | Warnings: Underage]

Liam is head boy for the Juniors at Beacon Hills Preparatory Academy, and Senior Theo Raeken gets in trouble a lot. They don't exactly get along.

Everything changes when Gerard Argent shows up. Liam finds out that the supernatural seniors are to be drafted and sent to Vietnam on Gerard’s orders. Liam is determined to keep the pack safe and is surprised when Theo agrees to help. When they work together, Liam realizes there is much more to Theo Raeken then the bad boy stereotype implies.

*The underage tag is checked because in this story, Liam is 17 (and Theo is 18). There is discussion about the Vietnam War Draft Lottery and the drafting process, and the pack seniors face the stress of possibly getting drafted.

~~~~~

18 December 2019

All The Broken Pieces (you chose to love) + Artwork 1, 2

Author: @flyde Artist: @marauders-mess

[22k Words | Rated: Mature | No Warnings]

Life fell to pieces, not suddenly, not violently, but slowly. Softly, the broken parts were caught. Safely, they were held. Lovingly, they were protected, although they could never be put back together.

Or: a childhood friends to tragic lovers AU

The Strangeness In You Is The Strangeness In Me + Artwork 1, Artwork 2, Artwork 3

Author: @eneiryu Artist: @18-sweet-poisoned-heart

[28k Words | Rated: Teen and Up | No Warnings]

Theo’s life is never boring, considering where he works, but he’d have to say that his job doesn’t truly get exciting until the day that their entire station gets taken hostage by the Fae King of Northern California, pissed off that Theo arrested his murderous little protégé prince.

(Not) Dying For Brew + Artwork

Author: @nabawrites Artist: @snaeken

[7k Words | Rated: Teen and Up | No Warnings]

Liam graduated from college, and now he’s back in Beacon Hills. He didn’t expect to run into Theo again, especially not in a coffee shop. It stirs up some old feelings he hadn’t ever really forgotten about…

~~~~~

19 December 2019

When the Day Met Night + Artwork

Author: @imjustafangirl-nobodylovesme Artist: @lightfiretomypaperwings

[8.2k Words | Rated: Teen | No Warnings]

The day finally arrives where Theo is told he's officially joining the family business. He's not happy to hear the news. Life under his father's thumb is a nightmare come true.

On his last day of freedom, he meets Liam Dunbar, a human ray of sunshine that changes everything.

Archive Tags: Original Genderfluid Character | Organized Crime | Mob Boss's son Theo | Photographer Liam | Theo and Tara hate their lives

Saw the shadow of the valley but the shadow was mine + Artwork

Author: @eneiryu Artist: @colder-bones

[17.3k Words | Rating: Mature | No Warnings]

No one ever trusts Theo, but then again: they’re not supposed to. It’s Liam they never see coming.

Archive Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence | Dread Doctor Spy!Liam

Caput Mortuum + Artwork

Author: @imjustafangirl-nobodylovesme Artist: @moondrunkmonster56

[16.3k Words | Rating: Teen | No Warnings]

Liam had pretty much resigned himself to never leaving his home, but then HE moved in. Or

The one where Liam is a ghost (but not really) and Theo buys the house he haunts (but not really).

~~~~~

20 December 2019

Melting The Ice + Artwork

Author: @extrasteps Artist: @snaeken

[30k Words | Rated: Mature | No Warnings]

Liam's entire world is shaken up when Scott McCall, the captain of the Los Angeles Rams and Liam's mentor at the club, unexpectedly asks to be traded to the Dallas Stars. As Liam struggles to deal with this in both his personal and professional life, his teammate and friend, Theo Raeken, is there to help him in any way he can.

Archive Tags: Ice Hockey AU | Liam doesn't handle his ied very well | Scott is a prick (sorry) | First Kiss

The Memory + Artwork 1, 2

Author: @tabbytabbytabby Artist: @lovelylittlegrim

[5k Words | Rated: Teen and Up | No Warnings]

When Theo's away and can't reach Liam he gets worried. Especially when neither Liam's parents nor Mason will give him answers. When he gets back to Beacon Hills he's able to quickly find Liam. The only problem is, Liam has no idea who he is.

Be Free With Me + Video

Author: @ethereal--jeonghan Artist: @underthegallowws

[20k Words | Rated: Mature | Graphic Depictions Of Violence]

After being recaptured and dragged back to Eichen House, the place he's been running from for years, Theo vows to do whatever he can to escape instead he finds himself being drawn towards Liam, someone who was deemed as a 'high-level threat' within Eichen.

~~~~~

21 December 2019

You Just Need To See The Signs (Quite Literally) + Artwork

Author: @marauders-mess Artist: @wolfenboyb

[9.5k Words | Rated: Teen and Up | No Warnings]

Liam is used to not notice most things.

Like when Mason gets a new shirt or his mom gets a new haircut.

The usual, y'know.

But not noticing he got a boyfriend is kind of a new level, even for him.

Blue + Artwork

Author: @flyde Artist: @li0nh34rt

[10k Words | Rated: Teen and Up | No Warnings]

Every werewolf has a soulmate.

Every werewolf has a soulmate, and this is how it happens: On every day you spend on earth, the stars move a little closer together above your head until they form a line - the curve of a closed eye that will one day open to look upon you. From that day on, you will have someone to watch over you in life and death, and you will never feel complete without the soul that the eye belongs to.

But what if your soulmate's eye opens to reveal something you didn't expect?

You've Got Nothing Left To Lose (I Have Even Less Than You) + Artwork

Author: @snaeken Artist: @theraeken

[3.5k Words | Rated: Mature | Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death]

After everything that’s happened in Beacon Hills, Theo really shouldn’t be surprised soulmates exist. He just never thought he would have one of his own.

(Still to be completed, word count below is as of 1st chapter)

Archive Tags: Soulmates | Time Loop | Temporary Character Death

~~~~~

22 December 2019

Darkened Skies + Poster, Aesthetic for the fic, Theo aesthetic, Liam aesthetic, Liam with his dragon tattoo, Theo with his dragon tattoo, Theo and his dragon

Author: @lightfiretomypaperwings Artist: @manonisamelon

[3k Words | Rated: Teen and Up | No Warnings]

In a world where black dragons are a sign of evil, Theo Raeken was automatically an outcast. Coupled with a tragedy from his childhood that he was responsible for, it was easy to understand why everyone was afraid of him. But not Liam Dunbar, the friend from childhood that Theo hasn’t seen since the fire that claimed his family.

Archive Tags: Dragons | alternative universe

I don’t suffer from my sanity, I enjoy every minute of it + Artwork

Author: @lightfiretomypaperwings Artist: @moondrunkmonster56

[8.4k | Rated: Teen | No Warnings]

When Theo Raeken became the new therapist at Eichen House, he didn’t expect a collection of secrets. His high priority patient, Liam Dunbar, won’t speak a word to him during their sessions. But when Theo uncovers a stash of notes from a previous doctor, he finds more questions than answers.

Archive Tags: Eichen | Echo House | insane asylum | Secrets | Alternate Universe

Your heart or mine (we’re running out of time) + Artwork

Author: @lightfiretomypaperwings Artist: @snaeken

[3.8k | Rated Teen | No Warnings]

Theo Raeken knows it’s a long shot. Finding the heart of immortality feels like an impossible task, but it’s an adventure he has to pursue if he wants to survive. He doesn’t expect to meet Liam Dunbar along the way, a man with a record of violence that wants the heart just as badly. When circumstances force them to work together, Theo discovers there’s a whole lot more to Liam than his mercenary past. Can these two manage to get along on their quest or will they tear each other apart?

Archive Tags: Treasure Hunt | some steampunk vibes | Enemies to Friends to Lovers | Angst | Alternate Universe

And that’s it! Thanks again for a great event and we will see you all at the next one ;P

OTL Team

#thiam #thiamrbb19 #teen wolf #theo raeken #liam dunbar #officialthiamlibrary

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twopoppies · 5 years

Note

Hello, I hope you are well? I need a mental break ASAP, can you please recommend Larry established relationship, kidfic type stories pleeease. With smut, and lots of familial bliss and love and maybe chaptered, I love long-ish stories?? I will really appreciate it, I read ALL the kid/established relationship related things on the Larryficsandrec blog. Again, Thank you

Ok ok...sorry I took a while. Here’s my caveat, I really don’t like kid fic in general. Perhaps because I’m a parent and I have yet to read one that actually feels like it was written by someone who gets what that’s like. And fics that are all fluff generally aren’t my jam - most of my established relationship fic tend to be smut heavy. However, here are a bunch of fics I really like. I hope they fit what you’re looking for.

Established Relationship / Kid Fic

❤️ Fugue by iwillpaintasongforlou 16.5K Explicit

Harry falls asleep a 17 year-old who lives in Cheshire and is probably rockstar Louis Tomlinson's biggest fan. He wakes up 24 with a wedding ring on his finger, two kids, and Louis Tomlinson attempting to wake him up with a blow job. The doctor calls it organic retrograde amnesia, says he might never get back the last seven years of his life. The only thing that feels the same is how he feels when Louis touches him, and maybe that's enough to make him fall in love all over again.

❤️Barefoot in Blue Jeans by @indiaalphawhiskey 24K Explicit

AU. Louis Tomlinson is trying desperately hard not to fall for his son’s au pair, but he can’t, for the life of him, remember why.

475. The hope that this fear is unfounded.

❤️O’ Christmas Tree by @justalittlelouislove 15K Mature (no smut, but I love this one)

At a stoplight, he finds himself doing some retrospective thinking of his own. Instead of going over one of his fifty or so mental to-do lists, his mind drifts to Harry’s dimples, the way his whole face changed when he smiled, how some of the pine trees almost matched the green of his eyes perfectly. It’s- well it’s annoying is what it is. He can’t spend all his time thinking about some tree farmer with broad shoulders, he’s got bigger fish to fry. Girl Scout meetings, homework charts, client lists, lots and lots of very large fish sitting around waiting to be fried.

or:Louis has a busy schedule to keep and a daughter to raise. He definitely isn't looking for a relationship. Enter Harry Styles, a local Christmas tree farmer that seems just a little too good to be true.

❤️Back To You by Only_Angel_28 6K Explicit

"Hello?" His voice came out all high and breathy like an anxious school girl, and he cringed internally at how wrecked he sounded already.

"Lou?"

Harry's voice was the same as ever, deeper than the sea and somehow both gravelly and smooth as silk. Harry was full of infuriating little contradictions like that. It drove Louis crazy. He had spent a good portion of his life questioning if Harry Styles was actually even human; on paper he just didn't make sense. He was an enigma, an anomaly, the exception to every rule.

*After dropping his new single, "Back To You" Louis gets a text from Harry inquiring about the true inspiration for the song.

❤️You’ll Know What Makes The World Turn by objectlesson

Sometimes, when things are messy and they have more than a few weeks apart, they need the reminder. It’s comforting to have stars to map your course by.

or, Harry's blue bandana is a day collar.

❤️Just for you by momentofclarity / @gaycousinlarry 3K Explicit

This is probably the only canon thing I'll ever write. I don't know why this happened. Sorry?

❤️That Mouth of Yours by Awriterwrites / @a-writerwrites 3K Explicit

“Did I–” Louis panted around the sexiest moan Harry thought he had ever heard (at least since the last time Louis moaned–which was about 5 minutes ago). “Did I ever tell you about that guy that I let rim me at one of Liam’s parties in college?”

Something dark and furious unfurled inside Harry, making him pull away from the sweet oblivion that was Louis’ arse. “Wh–” He wiped his mouth off on the back of his hand. “What?”

Louis shot a smirk over his shoulder. His hair was a mess and his face was flushed and his eyes were glazed over but he was still himself–still teasing. Still a menace beneath angelic blue eyes and a soft voice. “Just some guy. Never got his name.” He turned his head back toward the pillows, giving a slight shake of his arse in Harry’s face.

Not that that wasn’t distracting or anything.

A little drool slipped out of Harry’s mouth.

❤️So Much Left To Say by myownspark / @myownsparknow 7.5K Mature

Reason #32: Cheer Someone Up.

Harry remembers Louis stalking along the Cougar’s sideline as the final seconds of the game ticked away. He was apart from everyone, with his arms crossed and his head down, sort of fragile looking even in his pads and helmet. Harry’s fingers actually itched to hold his hand, just as they do now.He holds the phone up to take a selfie and smiles into the camera, trying to ask Louis a question with his eyes. (Are you really okay? Tell me the truth. I bet you’re sitting on your bed, playing Madden, sulking. If you want to see me, I’ll come. I know you better than anyone. You’re sad. I’d like to come.)He pushes send.

(Harry and Louis play for rival high school football teams, and when they play against each other in the Homecoming game, someone has to lose.)

❤️Let’s Get It On by @someonethatsfunny 5K Explicit

Reason # 25 - "Let's Get It On" by Marvin Gaye is Playing on the Radio

A self-indulgent fic. In a roundabout way, this is about love, forgiveness and make-up sex. With a strong focus on the make-up sex.

❤️It’s A Rare Condition by gloria_andrews / @gloriaandrews 7K Explicit

Louis and Marcel stumble upon an old episode of Family Matters and accidentally get an idea...

❤️Crave Me: The 30 Day Smut Challenge This is a collaborative fic completed by 33 authors centered on the following premise:

Harry and Louis are happily married with two kids, but their sex life has grown stale. During October, they accept the 30-Day Sex Challenge. That's 30 days of sex. No exceptions. No excuses.

Each story or "chapter" was written by a different author and centered on a unique prompt/sexual act, making this the first large-scale author collaboration within the Larry fandom.

❤️Let Your Hair Down While You Still Can by @alivingfire 6K Explicit

“Could you, maybe, play with my hair?” Louis can’t see much, but he can feel the rush of heat in Harry’s cheeks when he blushes. “It’s what my mum used to do when I couldn’t sleep.”

“Well, if that’s what Mummy Anne did, who am I to disagree?” Louis teases lightly, then runs his hand slowly through Harry’s hair. It’s still a little sticky from the product the hair team put in before the show, still a little crunchy from dried sweat because Harry won’t have access to a shower (with a decent amount of elbow room, at least, unlike the one on the bus) until the morning, but with each stroke of Louis’ hand through lank curls Harry goes looser, looser.

❤️turn you on make you radiate by ballsdeepinjesus 15K Explicit

When he presses inside for the first time in weeks, he’s pretty sure he sees stars behind his eyes at the staggering sensation of Harry’s body squeezing every inch of him. When he bottoms out, he stays buried inside for a minute just to catch his bearings, listening as Harry takes sharp breaths beneath him. When he finally feels like he’s under control, he presses his lips against Harry’s ear and whispers, “Are you ready husband?"

Harry throws his head back and groans. “Call me your spouse.”

[...or, a self-indulgent snapshot of hl’s sex lives over the course of 10+ years]

#my fic rec #larry fic rec #established relationship #kid fic #fluff #fics with smut #smutty fics #Anonymous

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peekaboongi · 6 years

Text

This is my masterlist! I try to keep it up to date, but sometimes I forget to. If you’re looking for something that isn’t there, feel free to ask me for a link. My drabbles are separate in efforts to keep things organized.

All works are copyrighted by me under applicable copyright laws. Please do not repost, translate, redistribute my work, etc. It’s not nice. Just don’t do it. If you find my work posted elsewhere (not by me) please let me know! ◡̈

Last updated 06.23.2020

Kim Seokjin

➻ Strawberry Roses fluff, angst, smut

When a chaotic man who claims to be a Cupid appears, your dull life is suddenly filled with laughter and strawberry roses. You’re just forgetting one important thing—magic never lasts past midnight.

7.5k+

Min Yoongi

➻ Sweet One fluff, angst, smut

A man whose existence you thought to be a Halloween trick many years ago turns out to be more of a treat when you cross paths with him again during your college years. When he disappears at the time you need him most, you get a little help from some surprising, if not slightly terrifying, acquaintances. Supernatural AU

11.9k+

➻ Rude Awakening fluff?

You fall asleep while studying with your best friend and are woken in the worst way possible, but he makes it up to you in the end.

1k+

➻ Hell on Wheels fluff, angst, drama, idk? trash

When a partner presentation has you traveling down memory lane, you find that there are many things that were left unsaid. Will this project help you make amends, or will you simply be tying up loose ends?

4.9k+

➻ Snake Kisses fluff, smut, angst

You are grossly unprepared for the snake hybrid that enters your life. Yoongi is quiet and sneaks around you but eventually, even the cold reptile warms up to you.

8.5k+

➻ Defense Against the Dark Farts fluff, smut, crack

While trying to get Yoongi to take the full Pottermore sorting quiz, you discover something that he’s self-conscious about. Lucky for him, you love every part of him, snake bites and everything.

2.2k

➻ Fragment of my Soul fluff, smut, angst

Yoongi didn’t plan to collide with you on that fateful day, but it’s not long before you consume is every thought. As a palace maid, you weren’t destined for greatness, but he seems to think otherwise.

16k+

Jung Hoseok

➻ IHOB(I) fluff

Spending your Sundays with one of your regulars (your only regular, really) in the comfort of his own apartment was never something you saw yourself doing, but you suppose its not an entirely unwelcome surprise.

1.4k+

Kim Namjoon

➻ Lost fluff

When you get lost in Chicago a few days prior to the BTS concert, you find yourself getting more than your money’s worth out of the tickets. You walk away with more than you bargained for, and just maybe, with a budding romance.

2.5k+

➻ Electra smut

You do poorly on an essay and your psychology professor lets you do revisions as long as you do something for him.

2.6k+

➻ Santa Baby smut

With Christmas approaching, you decide to help your husband unwind.

1.6k+

Park Jimin

➻ 망개떡 fluff?

This was the first time you’d traveled with Jimin since having your son, and things don’t go as smoothly as you would have liked.

632

➻ Heartstrings fluff-ish, smut

Jimin’s spent a long time without his heart. Without emotion. Then you come along and he begins to feel things, things he’d rather forget.

8.5k

➻ Cocoa Cuddles fluff

When you and Jimin get snowed in and can’t go home for the holidays, the two of you stay in and watch Christmas movies surrounded by fuzzy blankets with a cup of hot cocoa in one hand, and Jimin’s hand in your other.

790

Kim Taehyung

➻ Marigolds fluff, angst

Your meeting with famous actor Kim Taehyung was no coincidence, and you find that your destinies are intertwined too intricately to ever escape your fates.

4.4k+

➻ The Color of the Sea fluff

His hair is the color of the sea you call home

3.7k+

Jeon Jungkook

➻ Something More fluff, angst

As Kim Namjoon’s younger sister, you stay out of the public eye. When you use your sibling privileges, people start to take notice of you and wonder who you are and more importantly, who you are to Bangtan.

Social Media AU

➻ Yes, Sir smut

You wear a particularly tight skirt to the office one day and your boss is having none of it.

2.2k+

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thedefinitionofbts · 7 years

Text

Gifting you the stars

Pairings: Kim Namjoon x Reader

Genre: Romance, Fluff

Words: 7.5K

Description: While on your quest to find a book for East Asian History class, you meet a charming owner of an old bookstore who offers a helping hand. It is then that you learn about a story that is painted in the sky, uncovering a mystery you never knew existed.

The atmosphere just before it begins to rain is peaceful enough to freeze the world and humid enough to urge the thickly gathered clouds to condense and form the pellets of liquid that trickle down from the light grey sky. Traces of musky dampness are brought over by the breeze that drifts towards your face, lifting strands of your hair into the air and pushing the dried autumn leaves that have piled on the ground into swirls of dancing feathers. It was the signature of fall, a solemn reminder of the summer that had passed and the new journey that awaits.

Being a freshman in a new city and starting a new life at the beginning of the school year is enough to make you take a deep, sedative breath, quelling the anticipation of change and soaking in the unacquainted yet stimulating surroundings. The tree-lined avenues of the metropolis are bustling, everyone seems to have something to do, somewhere to go. Trickling here and there are the sounds of transient movement, the humming of car engines, the click of heels against the smooth pavement.

Passing by charmingly decorated antique shops, clothing stores, and cafés, a bookstore surely should not be difficult to find.

History of East Asia, a class that you were required to take as a History major, was starting soon, and the professor had sent all the students who had registered for the course an email last week explicitly stating that everyone needed to find a book before the first day of class. It was supposed to be a book that revealed some sort of belief the ancients had and give insight into their culture through their legendary stories. The instructions were vague, and you had absolutely no idea where to even begin looking, but you figured coming down to explore the city might give you some inspiration or at least allow you to stumble upon something interesting.

It seemed like a good idea in your head, but the weather clearly wasn’t in your favor, because just as you had predicted, a rumble originating from the sky signaled the beginning of the impending rain. Luckily it wasn’t pouring, but you knew if you didn’t find shelter soon, you would end up soaked regardless.

You stumble upon an old looking bookstore just as you were racing along the sidewalk to find cover. It’s glass window offered a glimpse of the inside, dark and stoic, a subtle reminder that in any other situation you probably wouldn’t have entered, but the rain was beginning to fall harder and it seemed like the best option at the time.

You cautiously push open the unlocked door; a ring of a bell, followed by silence greets you. You immediately notice the shelves worn with age, the narrow spiraling staircase that goes up to what you assume to be the second floor, and the disarray of books that looked like they were most likely used, rather than new. It must be one of those collectable shops, and you were thinking perhaps you lucked out because this place had to have some high-quality history books based on the look of it.

A hue of excitement churns in your stomach, but the eerily still ambiance hits you just as suddenly. The lights were dim, the air was dry, and it almost seemed like the store was empty. There wasn’t even a worker at the checkout counter.

“Hello? Is anyone here?”

You hear a painful grunt come from the upstairs, followed by the sound of a stack of books falling over. There’s a creak from the floorboard, shuffling of steps, and soon the figure of a man walking down the stairs, hand gripping on to the thin wiry railing as he descends.

He was tall, lean, and looked a bit too young to own such an old bookstore. He was wearing a dark navy beanie, a pair of khaki pants, and a short-sleeved button up that matched his attire.

“Hi there” He says when he sees you. A wide smile spreads across his face, causing a pair of lovely dimples to form on his cheeks.

“Hi.. sorry about that” You apologize for startling him and causing him to drop a stack of books or fall from a ladder from what it sounded like.

“Oh, don’t be. Happens all the time.” He laughs to himself slightly. “Can I help you with something?”

“Ummm, I was wondering if you had any books on urban legends of East Asia.” You inquire, looking around at the messy shelves and wooden walls.

“Hmmm...” He pauses to think. “I think there’s a pile of those somewhere around here.” He says as he peers around and begins heading for the stairs again. “Are you looking for any one in particular?”

“No, just something related should be fine. It’s for this class of mine.” You answer as you follow him upstairs. The steps creak, and for a moment you question if it’s even sturdy enough to carry the weight of two people.

“Oh, you go to school here?”

“Yeah, first year of university.”

“Nice.”

You’re met with a cramped attic-like space; a lone window off to the side tells you it’s still raining outside, if the pitter-patter of the water droplets against the ceiling wasn’t telltale enough. Your attention shifts to the piles upon piles of tattered pages and fall-apart bindings.

“These are all supposedly related to East Asian history.” He says as he stares at the unorganized stack of books in the corner. “Unfortunately I haven’t gotten around to organizing them yet. My father left them behind right before he left me this bookstore. He’s been collecting them for years, but you’re free to take a look.”

“Thanks” You breath out as you eye the books curiously.

“I’m Namjoon by the way.” He says, after realizing you guys haven’t had a proper introduction yet.

“Oh, I’m Y/N” You reply, turning to face him again.

He chuckles again, looking down at the ground and then back up at you.

“I can help you look through this mess.” He offers. “I was tidying this place up anyways.”

You smile. “Yes, please do.” You giggle. “I’d probably screw things up if I were left alone with all this.” You wave your arms, gesturing to the piles and piles of unopened boxes.

And so the two of you begin working your way through the piles and stuffed boxes. There were a lot of books covering the various dynasties of China, Korea, and Japan, the wars between the separately governed states, countless invasions and periods of peace, and even documentations of trade, new world inventions, and the evolution of languages throughout the region. None of it was really suited for what your professor had instructed and just as you were about to search through another box, one distinctively dilapidated scroll, hidden at the very bottom of the container you were rummaging through, grabs your attention.

You cautiously pick it up, untie the frayed string that was keeping it bound tightly, and watch as it unravels, a plum of dusk being released in the process.

“The Origin of the Stars” You read out loud as your eyes gloss over the title.

Namjoon’s ears perk up at the sound of your voice, and he moves over closer to you to take a peek at the item you were now gripping between your fingers.

“Hmmm, I’ve never seen that one.” He comments.

You turn to look at him. “I wonder what it’s about. It’s not exactly a book, but it sounds kind of promising.”

He reaches over, fingers gently brushing the surface. You can’t help but notice how long they were, and how elegantly they danced along the scroll.

“In the beginning there was only darkness…” He murmurs, reading the first line vertically. The artistic brushstrokes of the calligraphy were fading, but the characters were still very much readable.

In the beginning there was only darkness. Beyond the mystical hour of twilight, when the sun sets below the horizon, nightfall would bring a kind of darkness that was neither daunting nor worrisome, but simply natural. It was just the way things were since time first began. The gods from the sky would look down at the humans, watching them return to their cots at the end of the day and close their eyes until light from the dawn would cause them to awaken once again. This cycle continued uninterrupted until one day, out of pure curiosity, one of the celestial gods of the night decided to take on the form of a human to learn about and understand human emotion in the realm of the mortal.

On his first day, he came across a beautiful girl playing by a river. Even in ragged clothing and unkempt hair, she was breathtakingly gorgeous, more so than any of the goddesses he’s seen up in the heavens. The celestial god was confident that she would fall for his appearance as well, but upon introduction, it was clear that she was not interested in the way he looked but rather his innate curiosity. She would laugh at his astonished reaction to mundane things, unaware that he was not of her world. And he in turn, was captivated by her contagious delight and humble origins. He spends the entire day with her, running around the vividly green forest, catching fish in the cooling flow of the river, and finally watching her fall asleep as the blinding light from the sun disappeared.

On that first day, a single star appeared in the night sky.

“A single star appeared in the night sky?” You whisper, reading the last sentence of the scroll. “This doesn’t seem like the end of the tale.”

“There must be another scroll,” Namjoon says, as he turns and begins rummaging through more boxes. He lifts the box next to the one where you found the scroll and flips it over to dump all the contents out. A large plume of dust torrents throughout the room as the old books come crashing to the floor.

“Whoa there” You comment as you cough and attempt to fan the dust particles away from your face. “Shouldn’t you be more careful with those?” You smirk, as he turns and looks at you as if he’s done nothing wrong.

“Even if I didn’t tip the box over, these probably would’ve fallen out from the bottom right as I lifted it.” He replies, shaking his head.

“Sounds like it’s happened before, and more than just a couple of times.” You laugh.

“Ha, yeah, my friends used to call me the god of destruction” He states.

The two of you continue to search through the rest of the boxes and the piles of already organized books, but come out empty handed. It seems like this story was becoming a dead end, and you decide it’s probably best to just give up and look for something else for class. It was a real pity, because the title had sounded so intriguing and you really wanted to know what happens next.

“Maybe my dad kept part two in his library at home.” Namjoon says.

“You have a library at your house?” You ask surprised.

He nods. “If you want, you can come over someday.” He offers. “I know we just met and all, but I promise I’m not going to kidnap you.”

At that you laugh once again. “And I’m going to trust you based on your word alone?” You question jokingly.

“Yeah…I do sound kind of creepy.” He agrees, scratching the back of his neck.

“How about you take me to a library this weekend and see if we can find the rest of the story there?” You suggest, weighing the options in your head and deciding that it’s better to get to know him out in public before agreeing to go to his house.

Namjoon’s face instantly lights up at your suggestion. “Sounds like a plan” He responds with another flash of his dimple-framed smile.

…

You enjoy some peace and quiet that Friday night, most of the students haven’t moved back on campus yet, and it was mainly just the freshman that have already arrived the past week because of orientation and the need to tend to other required matters. Finishing you’re simple microwave meat that, like all microwave meals, falls short of satisfactory, you glance at your roommate’s empty bunk. She had contacted you, informing of her delayed move-in due to some summer job that hadn’t ended yet.

Amidst your unpacking, you came to realize the dorm room was way too small to fit all of the things you brought from home. Although you had attempted to place things in an orderly manner, they looked chaotically cluttered in the limited space that was available. Sighing, you decide to give up the unpacking until you address the issue of organizing everything more efficiently.

You slump back in your desk chair and look out the window. The sky was dark, nearly pitch black, with nothing but the crescent moon visibly bright enough to emit a distinctive glow. The lights of the buildings downtown in the distance were pretty, a vivid contrast to everything else in the background of the night. It pulled your thoughts back to the story, and made you wonder how impossibly dark the world must’ve been back in the day, before the discovery of electricity or the invention of candles.

Tomorrow you would be seeing Namjoon again. There was still so much you didn’t know about him yet, and it felt sort of crazy that you were making him help you find a story for East Asian History when you literally just met him two days ago. But you figured it wouldn’t hurt to meet new people, and he was nice, albeit a bit clumsy, but something hidden within his sweet smile made him seem nonthreatening. And you sincerely hoped you weren’t making a bad decision in trusting him.

…

You arrive back at Namjoon’s bookstore on Saturday, only to find that it was locked and there seemed to be no one inside. Maybe he doesn’t open this early in the morning. You silently think to yourself.

“Y/N!” You hear a deep male voice call from behind you. Whipping your head around, you see the vaguely familiar face of the bookstore owner approaching you.

“Hey, Namjoon” You respond, waving back at him.

“Sorry, I’m late” He says as he leans over and tries to catch his breath from the running you assumed he was doing to rush to the bookstore where you were waiting for him.

“Actually, you’re right on time” You say with a smile. He pulls out his phone from his pocket and glances at the time, a surprised expression flashes across his face.

“Damn, I could’ve sworn I was going to be late and you would’ve left.” Namjoon says, he chuckles to himself once again, thinking back one how frantic he was trying to get ready this morning because his alarm didn’t ring even though he had set three of them, each five minutes apart in the case he was tempted to hit snooze. “How depressing that would’ve been.” He mutters, thinking you couldn’t hear him.

“I think I could’ve handled that” You respond, assuming he meant you would’ve been pissed if he didn’t show up. Of course, it didn’t really matter; you would’ve just gone to the library by yourself in that case.

“Oh, I mean, me…” Namjoon says, face flushing.

You feel a small flutter in your chest at his response. Was he looking forward to this that much? After all it was just a trip to the library, but you underestimated how much this arraignment meant to Namjoon.

The two of you walk along the blocks of the city, past the parks that were constructed throughout the city to promote a greener way of life. It was something you had noticed the first day you were here, with the tree lined streets and trash separation bins. The sidewalks were clean, no litter on the ground and the blocks were filled with numerous interesting modern buildings designed by talented architects. It was a mild day; sunny with an occasional cool breeze, just chilly enough to know that fall was in the air.

“So I assume the bookstore is closed on Saturdays?” You turn to ask.

“Actually, we haven’t opened yet” Namjoon replies. “I just moved back home and decided to open it this month. Which is why I’m still in the process of organizing everything.”

“Oh, that’s why there was not one there.” You comment in realization, thinking back on how empty it was when you first entered.

“Haha, yeah” Namjoon chuckles. “I just graduated last spring semester, and since I’ve loved books ever since I was young, I decided opening a bookstore would be cool. Especially since my dad was planning on selling his collection.”

“A book lover. I see.” You nod, so you were right about him being young. For a second there you were mulling over this irrational fear that he was just a middle-aged man who looked like he was in his mid-twenties. “Is there anything else you’d like to reveal?” You throw him a sly grin.

“Well…I also like to compose music, and I was an underground rapper during my university days.” Namjoon shrugs as if it was no big deal.

“What? Ok, you just got ten times more interesting.” You laugh, perking up at his unexpected response.

“Do I not look it?” He questions, glancing at you with a grin.

“It’s not that” You return the action. “It’s just I haven’t had the chance to meet many underground rapper turned bookstore owners.”

Now it’s his turn to laugh. “Hey, rap lyrics can be very poetic.” He defends. “I’m just passionate about the arts. Music, poetry, books… they’re the things I gravitate towards, that which compels me to discover and create.��

“Same.” You respond, lifting your head and squinting at the bright rays of the sun cascading down. “Although my parents have always steered me towards the sciences, hoping I’d become a doctor or engineer.” You sigh, thinking back on how disappointed your father was when you told him you were going to major in history. “But I was always more of ‘right-brained’, drawn towards the stories told by people.”

“Your family too?” Namjoon raises an eyebrow. “My mom was exactly the same way, but I convinced her to support my self chosen endeavors.” Namjoon turns his head towards the sky as well. The two of you linger there, spacing out for a long moment, one that feels serene akin to the atmosphere right before it rains. “Science, medicine, engineering, those are all necessary pursuits, and I am by no means downplaying their importance, but the arts? It’s what makes us unique as human beings. It gives us reason to live, an incentive to push on no matter how hard life gets.”

You turn back towards Namjoon the same time he slowly turns towards you. There’s a second when your eyes meet, and you realize it’s the first time you’re actually focused on looking into his eyes, and in that infinitesimal amount of time, not even long enough for you to blink, the two of you linger just long enough to feel a connection, a “click” as most people like to call it.

“So, um, how’s class?” Namjoon clears his throat and diverts his eyes.

“It starts next week.” You respond, voice wavering ever so slightly and facing forward once again.

The library was an old building, located in the corner of a forest-like park. Hidden amongst the trees, you probably wouldn’t have found this place had Namjoon not been your guide. It had wooden walls and large glass windows, revealing the rows and rows of bookshelves within. Walking in, you immediately sense the familiar scent of paper and ink, mixed with the sweet, musky smell of the older volumes, wafting in the cool air-conditioned building. It was silent, minus the occasional sound of someone pulling a book off the shelf or the shuffling of feet on the carpeted ground.

“The history section is on the third floor,” Namjoon whispers. You follow him to the elevator, eyes still peering around and trying to soak in the details of the place.

You enter the noticeably smaller room, following to the East Asia section in the western corner. There were calligraphy paintings hanging on the walls, old maps from Western explorers and missionaries who went to the East to spread their beliefs, and dozens of manuscripts placed in glass displays. The place was almost more like a museum than a library. You and Namjoon roam around, keeping an eye out for anything that looked interesting or similar to the scroll back at the bookstore.

“Hey, that one looks like it’s made of the same material as the scroll you have.” You say, pointing towards one unrolled specimen displayed in one of the glass boxes. The both of you walk over to take a look.

“The Origin of the Stars” Namjoon reads. “I hope it’s part two.”

“There’s only one way to find out.” You respond as you begin to read.

On the second day, the celestial god approaches her once again and the girl immediately recognizes him by his voice, a trait that she will continuously use to identify the mysterious man who brightens her days and her nights, unbeknownst to her. Stars continued to appear in the night sky one by one, day after day. Each day the celestial god spent with the girl had him falling deeper and deeper in love with her. Her musical voice that would ignite a flame in him was powerful enough to cause five stars to pop up in one night, and her delicate fingers tracing along the curves and contours of his face would make him jolt in happiness, triggering another three stars to light up the nocturnal expanse.

As the years went by, the celestial god began forgetting about his life up in the heavens, even willing to trade his immortality to be with the girl. But one day, the emperor’s men came on horsebacks in search of a bride who would be the future empress. A woman who would give birth to the eventual heir to the throne, the missing link in the continuation of the current ruling family. The girl was immediately chosen due to her immense beauty, and even though she was severely lacking, the emperor didn’t care as long as the people of the state didn’t find out she had a prominent disability.

“Disability?” You flash Namjoon a questioning look after reading everything.

“That’s what it says.” Namjoon shrugs. “Man, leaving us with another cliffhanger.” He shakes his head.

“I wonder what it means by that. I mean, all of her physical descriptions so far seem to imply she was perfectly healthy. Why would it now bring up the fact that she had a disability? There must be missing pieces to the story.” You try to run through a list of possible explanations in your mind. Thinking that maybe she was missing a limb or hunchback, but the descriptions of her unmatched beauty suggest she had no outer physical shortcoming. Maybe she was unable to bear children, but that wouldn’t make sense because how would the emperor or his men know just by looking at her?

“She was blind.” You hear Namjoon whisper in realization. You turn to look at him, amazed by his conclusion. “In the first part, it mentioned she was not interested in the way the celestial god looked. It also mentions she doesn’t notice the stars appearing in the sky. I think it’s because she can’t actually see any of this happening.”

You look up at Namjoon in awe. “Wow, I’m impressed.” You smile; giving him a nod as a blush slowly appears on the apples of his cheeks.

“It’s just a wild guess,” He voices modestly.

…

As classes finally begin, you start to feel the stress piling on once again. Gone were the carefree days of summer when you didn’t even have to keep track of the days of the week, the passage of time blending everything into a blur of lazy afternoons and late nights. It was all replaced by homework, project due dates, long essays, and forthcoming midterms. Honestly they shouldn’t even be called midterms because the word midterm signifies the one exam taken around the middle of the semester, whereas these were designated midterm 1, midterm 2, and midterm 3. Like how does that even constitute a “midterm”? You contemplate it was probably just named that way to make students feel more accomplished, like “we’re a third of the way done!” or perhaps it was just to make the exam more intimidating than a “mere test”, a warning of “you better study hard or you’ll fail.”

You barely had time during the week to participate in other activities, even though your roommate, Jisoo, dragged you to a music festival once, in which you decided to invite Namjoon because you recalled he was into music and whatnot.

It was actually pretty funny, because Jisoo was the kind of girl who was like the dumb blonde in a group, kind of slow when reacting to new information and always lost in her own little world, so everything that came out of Namjoon’s mouth kind of flew over her head.

“He’s cute,” She said while you two were walking back to the dorm that night after the concert ended and Namjoon had left.

“Who? Namjoon?” You ask, raising an eyebrow. “Y-yeah, he is, I guess” You feel your face heating up at the mention.

“Are you guys dating?” She continues to inquire.

“Us?” You react in surprise. “No, no, we just met a couple of weeks ago.” You respond, brushing it off and trying to calm the strange feeling of excitement churning in your stomach at the thought.

“Aww, well what are you waiting for!” She exclaims. “You guys would be perfect together!”

“Jisoo, calm down, you barely know him,” You say, trying to subside the redness in your face before the lights of the building can make it visible to her.

It was the first time you had considered thinking about Namjoon in the way that Jisoo had mentioned. Although there was always that butterfly feeling in the pit of your stomach ever since the day you conversed with him on the way to the library and that little hint of fondness in the back of your mind, you chose to keep it at bay, absolutely certain that jumping on too quickly would only lead to disaster.

And though you were trying to take things slow, you found yourself gravitating towards him, and it didn’t help that he was so inviting and always offering help whenever you needed him. So throughout the fall, you continued to visit Namjoon at his bookstore on the weekends, often opting to do your homework there rather than at the university library. And it wasn’t just because Namjoon seemed to be knowledgeable about anything and everything, something you soon found out after complaining to him about how difficult some of your classes were, which lead to a long discussion about the Eastern and Western philosophy and metaphysics, but it was because you genuinely enjoyed his company.

He was funny, well-spoken, and at the same time, pretty adorable, getting excited over the most childish things while at the same time, maintaining a rather mature composure. He was someone who was the epitome of having a beautiful mind. His thoughts and opinions were intriguing, and you felt like you could listen to him talk for hours, something you wouldn’t be able to do for most of the people you’ve met in your life so far.

“It was an album showcasing the struggles of youth,” Namjoon says as he tosses you the box, a smooth, matte square, titled “The Most Beautiful Moment in Life”. He continues digging through the box, looking for other examples of his musical works. “I helped compose some of the songs, and my group of friends recorded them in the studio. It actually sold pretty well.”

“Wow, I’ll have to listen to this.” You exclaim, flipping the album over and reading the list of songs.

“Yeah, have a go at it and let me know if you like it” He smiles.

...

It wasn’t just that he was intelligent; it was because his interests were diverse and his personality had multiple layers. He definitely wasn’t the kind of person you would classify as one dimensional, like those people who were super predictable, with hobbies that fell within the spectrum of their personality and what society would label them as. Like the girly girl who loves makeup, acts overly cute, sucks at math, and wouldn’t go near a gym or the nerd who couldn’t dance to save his life. Namjoon was like the idol who was badass on stage but soft and fluffy in his day to day, he was the girl who carried a pink backpack to computer science, a rapper turned bookstore owner.

“Want to grab dinner?” You hear Namjoon’s voice penetrate through your reading.

You look up at the clock hanging on the wall and notice that it’s already 7:00pm on a Saturday night. Time had soared by once again, and you were feeling productive, like you always did when you were studying with Namjoon. It used to feel like a chore, but now you were slowly starting to appreciate the process of acquiring newfound knowledge, thanks to the guy with a dimple-framed smile.

“Yeah, I’m starving” You reply, closing your book and tucking it away.

Walking along the now familiar streets of the once foreign metropolis, the sounds of activity fill your ears once again. The cacophony of moving bodies, the indecipherable conversation of people strolling past, and the occasional music seeping through the opened windows of the cars driving by. With lite up stores and fancy restaurants paving the way, you’re attention is directed towards the familiar figure walking alongside you.

“Namjoon?” You murmur.

“Hmmm?”

“Did you always want to be a bookstore owner?” You randomly inquire, wondering if Namjoon had always followed his passions and had always known what he wanted to do ever since he was young or if there was more to the story. He always seemed like the kind of person who was introspective and knew himself inside out, but at the same time, maybe he also faced the dilemma of not knowing what path to choose in life, like everyone else who doesn’t have their life planned out from the get go.

“Truthfully? No.” He replies, sighing. “This might sound crazy, but I actually really wanted to be a musical artist back when I was in high school.“

“What happened?” You query.

“I decided to take another route in life.” He simple puts it.

You nod, thinking that he probably didn’t have much to say on the matter, but after an almost minute-long pause, he begins speaking again.

“I thought about all the people who’ve put everything they have into that sort of dream but ended up not making it to the top, and remember how hard it actually is and how unlikely it would’ve been for someone like me to have succeed in such a competitive industry.” Namjoon explains.

He sighs again as the two of you walk over a bridge, looking at the city’s skyline that has lit up to beautiful shades of yellow and red from the faint glow of the setting sun. Your eyes trace to the place where Namjoon’s were gazing at, that space between this reality, this world, and something beyond. As if there was something in the air, something out in the distance that his heart was yearning towards, but he knew deep down that he would never reach it.

“But sometimes when I listen to good music or see an artist that I admire, I still feel a tiny, tiny bit of regret. Like maybe I should’ve taken the risk, because it was something I was truly passionate about and haven’t really ever been able to let go of.” He says.

“Hence, the underground rapping and composer side gig.” You finish for him.

“Yup” He nods, turning back to you. The way his eyes land on yours makes butterflies churn in your stomach. There was a sparkle in them you hadn’t seen before, and it was the first time you felt such a tangible tenderness just from someone’s gaze.

“At least you’ve struck a balance.” You say, looking at the way his side profile casts shadows on the cement sidewalk.

“There are no destinations in life, but only endless intersections.” Namjoon states. “I know that no matter what road a person chooses to walk down, they can harness their passions and do great things.” He smiles, and it’s so bright you momentarily think the light emanating from his soul could probably replace the sun that had just dipped below the horizon. “But my first dream is still hard to forget about completely.”

“Like a first love?” You murmur.

“Yeah, exactly” He chuckles. “You seem to understand this so well.” He compliments.

“Nah” You reply. “I’m just blabbering.” Your face flushes slightly. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream, dream. Like something I really wanted to be when I was little, and even now I’m just as lost and clueless about life as ever.”

“You’ll find something some day.” He says.

“Perhaps in some alternate universe you are a famous rapper or composer.” You shrug. “It’s kind of what I like to think whenever I fail a test or don’t accomplish something I wanted to.”

Namjoon laughs. “That’s an interesting way of looking at it.”

“Yeah, like in some parallel universe there’s another me who aced that physics exam, and in another one, I’m like some professional athlete or something.” You think about all the times you’ve used this method of self-consolation, but hey, anything that makes you feel better about your failures, no matter how pathetic, is an A+ in your book.

“That’s actually really cool.” Namjoon comments. “So like in some universe I’m this super famous musician called Rap Monster, and maybe I’m in this group with my friends too, and we’re all super successful.” He closes his eyes as if he was watching the scene unfold in his mind.

“It’s not only possible. It has to be true.” You laugh at the dorky name he came up with. “Infinite number of universes means covering all the possibilities, right?”

“That’s awesome” He joins you in your laughter.

When the laughter dies down, there’s a moment of silence hovering between the two of you, one that is in no way uncomfortable, but rather perfect for the moment. Kind of like the calm after the storm, when sunlight finally breaks through the thickly gathered clouds after centuries of rain, or the way contrasting colors in flowery meadows and metropolitan lights make the entire world come alive, or simply the unspoken understanding only exhibited in soulmates.

“Y/N?”

“Hmmm?”

Namjoon laughs and does that signature thing where he shakes his head and looks at the ground. “I know you see me as this well-spoken and composed scholar, but you’re so amazing and my heart is beating so fast right now” He tentatively looks back up at you. “I don’t think I can form the words for what I want to tell you.”

You feel your own heart beat quicken, as you take a step closer to him.

“You don’t have to” You whisper into the crevice of his ear, knowing exactly what his heart is longing to convey.

…

“So, I found part three” Namjoon says one day while you were typing away on your laptop, frantically trying to finish the 10-page essay that you procrastinated on writing until the day before it was due.

It was nearing the end of the semester and your hectic university life had caused you forget the unfinished story that had first brought you and Namjoon together.

“Part three?” You repeat, lifting your eyes from your screen.

“The Origin of the Stars” He replies. “Found it in my dad’s library.”

“What? Really? Oh my god, I can't believe I totally forgot about that” You exclaim, shutting your laptop and momentarily forgetting about your essay. You were almost done anyways. “Can we go read it?”

“So now you’re willing to come over” Namjoon smirks. “What happened to ‘you might kidnap me’?” He jokes.

You punch him playfully in the shoulder. “I’d gladly be kidnapped by my boyfriend.”

Namjoon’s parents’ house is located on the outskirts of the city, in a suburb south of your university. You find out that they don’t live in a high-rise apartment like most modern households there days but actually own a house, one that looks more like an aesthetically designed vacation getaway. So he really wasn’t exaggerating when he said his father had a full-blown library in their living quarters.

Their backyard was just a grassy field, with a small stream and a lone tree, jutting out in the flat canvas that was the backdrop. It was tranquil, a perfect place to read, and you could only imagine how pretty it must be in the summer or spring.

The library was located on the first floor. It had a spiraling staircase reminiscent of the one back in the bookstore, but much sturdier and grandiose with marble beams and a fresh coat of white paint. One of the walls of the room was entirely made of glass, and although it seemed scary as nightfall crept over the land, Namjoon assured you that there was nothing out in the wild that would come crashing through the glass and attack you.

“Here it is” Namjoon says as he walks over from the shelf that he had retrieved the scroll from. You stare at the neatly rolled up manuscript, preserved as well as it possible can, it’s year of conception unknown.

The two of you sit by the fireplace that was turned on to provide light and warmth. There was nothing but the sound of the crackling flame as you began unraveling the third and final part to the story.

Even when the girl was taken into the palace, the celestial god would sneak in and spend the evenings with her. Secretly visiting her in the emperor’s gardens, listening to her sing, and feeding the koi fish in the pond hidden under the guise of the night while the rest of the world slept. This went on for many days and many eves, but it was not long before the emperor found out about the man who had been seducing his bride, and orders for him to be hunted down and executed.

The celestial god never had the chance to bid farewell to the girl. The death of his human body initiated the returning of his spirit to his former godly form, an attribute of the immortal. The only thing he was reluctant to leave behind in the realm of mortals was the girl who had captured his heart. And so as a last gift to the girl, he used his powers to grant her the ability to see.

She was unaware of why the mysterious man stopped visiting her, but one night as she awoke, opening her eyes to see the world for the first time. She walked out to her balcony, tilted her head up, and saw a sky full of stars.

“Ah, you were right about her being blind” You say after reading the last sentence.

Namjoon chuckles lightly. “Yeah, I guess I was.” He sighs.

“Well, that was a bummer” You voice, thinking about how long you spent hunting down the mystery of this story only to find that it was actually not that interesting after all. “It’s probably just one of those stories the ancients told to their children to explain where the stars came from. Like how your parents respond when you ask them where babies come from.”

At that Namjoon laughs. “Could be…” He trails off. “Or it’s just another love story”

“Yeah, love story…” You repeat, pursing your lips. You knew Namjoon wasn’t the type of guy to just brush it off as something trivial, but you were still hoping the story would be deeper than this.

Namjoon laughs, that signature chuckle that stems from his soul. “Not exciting enough for you?”

“Eh” You shrug. “It’s alright, I guess…”

He takes a minute to ponder over your statement. “I’d say people don’t give the concept of love enough credit. It always gets mistaken for sappy romance, but in reality, love comes in many forms. It’s the root of passion, the passion for innovation, design, and creation. It can be concealed beneath pain, sorrow, hatred, and it can just as easily shape itself into blissful happiness or calming nostalgia.” He explains, giving his honest opinion like always. “I don’t think any of us can survive without it.”

You turn to look at him, seeing that same sparkling clarity in his eyes when he’s deep in thought or about to let his heart speak for his mind that usually in control.

“It pretty obvious that the stars in the night sky represents the amount of love that celestial god had for the girl, and that’s probably why nowadays we like to say we want to gift someone all the stars in the night sky when we love them. But I think there maybe a bit more symbolism here than meets the eye.” Namjoon comments after you’ve made your doubt known. “Like even if she could see, her lonely nights would’ve still been dark.”

You continue to look at Namjoon, who was staring at the flames dancing in fireplace, their warm hues reflecting off his peacefully pondering face, ricocheting off the reflection in his dark pupils.

“By gifting her the stars, he was conveying something along the lines of ‘no matter if it’s day or night, your world shall be dark no longer’.”

…

As the semester was coming to an end and winter break was approaching, the stress from college life was alleviated, and you had way more time on your hands now that you’ve turned in your final paper. The snowy season had casted the world in blankets of white. The wind was painfully cold, but the air was crisp and cool, comfortable enough to take a drive up the cliff outside the city, where “artificial lights wouldn’t hinder the picturesque landscape” as Namjoon had stated.

He had invited you to a night of “stargazing” as he had put it, wanting to celebrate the end of the story as well as the end of your first semester in university.

You gaze up at the infinite pattern of the starry expanse, vast, endless, and the closest thing to an eternity that you could probably see from earth. The firmament was black, but something about the atmosphere made it seem like there was a tint of blue, a multidimensional type of black with layers of void, speckled with shimmery crystals and shiny trails of light.

“It’s telling you what I’m thinking.” Namjoon says, as walks up behind you.

“Your love that is forever?” You voice, throwing your best guess at why Namjoon decided to bring you here and show you the night sky.

He walks over and stands beside you, gazing up at the scene that your eyes were fixated on. “The stars are always there, even when you can’t see them. Their visibility changes, depending on where you are and under what circumstances you’re viewing them in, but they are always there. They slowly come into view during twilight mixing with the pink and lavender hues of the fading light, and gradually wane out as the baby blue and yellow tints of dawn approaches, but they are always there. They shine the brightest at night when you need them the most, and without them our universe would not exist.” Namjoon pauses, letting the breathtaking scenery soak in even deeper. “I can’t promise you a forever, but I want my love to be gifted to you as the stars.”

You turn towards him, standing on your tippy toes as you reach up as if you were plucking a star out of the starry expanse, and connect your lips with Namjoon’s. He leans down and returns the gesture with more fervor than you had initiated, wrapping his arms around your waist and lifting you off the ground.

“I love you too,” You voice in a breathy whisper, breaking away for half a millisecond before heading straight back in for more.

...

#bts fanfic #bangtan bookclub #btswriters #armiesnet #sfwbangtan #namjoon fanfic #namjoon x reader #bts fluff #kim namjoon #happy birthday namjoon #first completed fic for the hyung line #just in time for rapmon's bday #:)))))))

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caelystrae · 7 years

Text

Two Ghosts (Standing in the Place of You and Me)

Read it on AO3.

Pairing: Anamercy

Rating: E

Words: 7.5k+

Whatever Ana might have expected, it is not this: Angela pulling her into a hug, as soon as the door is closed, arms trembling around her not with anger but with some other, unnameable emotion. Whatever she might have expected it is not this: lips on her skin and roaming hands, two eyes desperately trying to make contact with her own remaining one. Whatever she might have expected it is not this: a second chance at having something she thought long lost.

Or,

Ana finally answers the Recall, and receives a far warmer welcome than she could have anticipated.

Returning to Overwatch goes much how Ana expected it would; Reinhardt is tearful, Lena is overjoyed, and Fareeha is a knot of emotions, all felt and expressed at once.

(Who could blame her? Certainly not Ana.)

For the most part, being once again at Watchpoint: Gibraltar is—not routine, because there are some things, like dying, and explosions, after which nothing can be routine again, but they are—familiar, in the same way returning to one’s childhood home seems familiar. Despite a number of changes, mostly to Ana herself, and to the other people gathered, there is a sameness to rejoining Overwatch. Some things, it seems, can never change (even when she has wanted them to).

This is not, of course, to say that everything is as she left it; yes, she takes the same quarters she once occupied, and yes, owing in part to Fareeha’s presence on base, her favorite tea can still be found in the kitchen, but some people are notably absent.

Gabriel, for one, and for obvious reasons.

Jack, whom she last saw in pursuit of the former.

Angela, too, is absent. On base, or so Winston assures Ana when she asks, but—elsewhere. Wherever it is that Ana is not.

That Angela has made herself scarce should not come as a surprise to Ana; for all that they were lovers, once, it was purely in the euphemistic, physical sense, and if there was any deeper affection there, they never spoke of it. Furthermore, for all that Angela can be downright showy in many ways, there are parts of herself she likes to hide, such as anger.

To the public, and to those who do not know her well, Angela is a bright, shining thing, is kind and caring and calm, and certainly, she has the capacity to be all of those things, but that is not all she is. Sometimes, Ana knows, that tranquil smile masks a slowly building anger, one Angela would not dare show the public, for fear of losing face, fear of how they would think of her, fear that if she is not likeable, then she will be alone. In private, Ana has seen her shake with anger, be reduced to tears as she tries so hard to repress the feeling, to modulate her emotions and reach what she considers an acceptable level of anger, of fear, of sadness.

(It was beneficial to both of them, then, their arrangement—Ana was someone to whom Angela could express those feelings, before whom she could be vulnerable, and in turn Angela was someone whom, even if only for the duration of a given scene, Ana had some control over, even as Jack and Gabriel’s disputes grew beyond her ability to mediate—and Ana wonders what Angela has done, in the meantime. Reverted to her old unhealthy mechanisms of coping, perhaps, or found someone else? The former is more likely, but Ana hopes for the unlikeliest scenario of all: that Angela has found some equilibrium, even if Ana herself never could.)

Given what Ana knows of Angela, she expects one of two outcomes when she arrives at the door to her quarters: first, that Angela will put up the same calm, distant mask she does before others, when feeling something unpleasant, and politely greet Ana before finding some excuse to dismiss her, or second, that Angela will be furious, and expect Ana to step right in and take control, stealing her anger from her as happened so many times before.

(Third, of course, is the option—slim—that Angela will simply be angry, and that will be that, but Ana has a harder time picturing this; would Angela yell? Would she hiss? Would she say nothing at all? In the most heated of meetings, years ago, Angela’s voice would grow hard and her words would be cold and precise, then later she would shake and sob while Ana tied buried three fingers in her. Such an outcome seems unlikely today, for many reasons.)

Whatever Ana might have expected, it is not this: Angela pulling her into a hug, as soon as the door is closed, arms trembling around her not with anger but with some other, unnameable emotion.

(This is not the first time Ana considers that, perhaps, they lied to themselves when they laid the boundaries of their arrangement, but this time, the thought is not so easily dismissed.)

Rather than say anything, at first, Ana simply pulls Angela in closer, allows herself to hold someone for the first time in years, and to be held in turn. When she breathes in, she expects Angela will still smell the same, and it will be almost as if time never passed, save for the fact that this time, it is Angela who holds her.

Of course, things are not the same, and Angela smells different—is different. It is a little thing, a change in perfume, but it is enough to startle Ana from the moment of fantasy she has indulged in, pretending as if Angela were her lover in all senses of the word, and this some touching reunion.

(Angela never loved her, and she never loved Angela, so both of them said—it ought, still, to hold true.)

“Aren’t you angry?” she asks, stepping back, tilting her head up just slightly to meet Angela in the eye.

You should be, is the implication, and she knows Angela hears it in her tone, wonders if it will be taken as she might have meant it once, a judgement, a condemnation of the way Angela deals with feelings, or if it will be heard, instead, as it is intended now: an acknowledgement that Angela would have the right to be angry, after Ana left as she did.

(Ana is not the woman she was when she left; it is easier, now, to admit her own culpability.)

“Of course,” says Angela, brow furrowing, “But I’m happy too and—can’t we have just this?”

Just once?

Ana is not certain. What would it do to them, to allow such a change? Would they truly be able to go back to being what they were afterwards? She does not think so.

But, then, perhaps they could not do so already. Perhaps the past is already lost to them—they have changed, both of them, have they not?

What, then, is there to lose?

So she kisses Angela, and it is different, already, from the way things were, gentler, sweeter. Ana does not quite know what to make of the change, is not sure she is deserving of such tenderness—but she will take what she is offered, for she has always been good at taking things.

(Sometimes, she has worried that taking is the only thing she is good at, any longer, taking technology, taking leave, taking lives. She worries that she takes too much and gives too little.)

When Angela half-leads half-pulls her to the bed, Ana finds herself giving in.

Just this once.

It is strange, to let herself be led by Angela, strange to see how Angela has matured—not that she was immature, before, but she is older now, certainly, crow’s feet beginning at the corners of her eyes, and weight that was not there before pads her hips and thighs—strange to think that the woman before her now, thirty-seven years old, is not young, in any sense of the word, but is younger still than Ana was when the two of them met.

When they break apart for a moment, Angela catches her stare, but what she thinks of it, Ana does not know, for she says nothing, and they are not so close, now, that Ana can anticipate her thoughts. Years apart have taken that from them.

(But perhaps things, once lost, can been regained—has she not returned?)

This time, unlike years past, they do not undress one another—probably, Ana thinks, this is for the best, she doubts Angela would know where to find the pins in her hijab, does not want the fabric carelessly damaged. In time, they can relearn this step, she can teach Angela where the pins are and how to fold the fabric. They may not have a feel for one another just yet, but things can be (re)learned, if need be.

When Ana has finished divesting herself of her clothing, she turns, and takes the opportunity to truly look at her lover, for the first time in years. What she intends to be a thorough and drawn out cataloguing of changes is cut quite short when Angela turns around and Ana realizes that what she had previously assumed to be the same silicone inserts of years previous are now organic breasts, flesh and blood and fat, are part of Angela’s body, and not only adhesives. It catches her quite off guard—in the half a dozen years they were lovers, Angela only spoke of any sort of medical transition as a distant, nebulous thing, to happen, perhaps, once her life had settled down.

(Of course, her life never did settle down. Things grew worse and more turbulent steadily and steadily until finally nothing else could go wrong and Overwatch imploded and exploded both.)

She must stare a moment too long—and truthfully, she does not mean to, does not mean to stare at all, only wonders what changed and how she could have missed it—because then Angela is crossing her arms over her chest in a way that could almost be shy, were it not for the fact that Ana cannot reconcile shyness with the woman she once knew.

“I should have mentioned…” Angela says, teeth sinking into her lower lip at the end of the statement. It is not an apology—nor should it be—or an expression of shame or embarrassment; she is simply considering. “Well, next time.”

Perhaps, Ana thinks, this is new to her also.

(Ana wants to ask if Angela is happier now, but does not know if such a question would be appropriate, or quantifiable. In any case, they were never close enough to want to ask such things before, and simultaneously too close to need to ask them.)

“You look beautiful,” Ana says, in lieu of something more meaningful, unable and unwilling both to delve deeper, to threaten whatever temporary peace they have found themselves in, “You always do.”

“They’re smaller than I had hoped,” Angela confesses, and moves her hand to cup one breast, as if weighing it.

(This phrasing puts Ana back in the territory of the familiar—Angela has always referred to parts of her body as if they were some foreign object, something wholly separate, and not a part of herself. In the past, Ana could not imagine what it must be like to conceive of oneself in a way that is so fragmented, to think of the body and the mind as two separate pieces of something greater, but now, having been both herself and the Shrike, she thinks knows.)

"But," Angela adds, a coy smile playing at the corner of her lips, "Much more sensitive.”

"Really now?” Ana asks her. "I suppose I'll have to determine the truth of that myself, hmm?"

"Well," says Angela, huffing a little laugh. "That is what you came for, yes?"

It is not, in fact, what Ana came for—but, then, she also does not know what precisely she was thinking, what she expected from coming here, and this is much better, in any case, that any outcome she imagined, and so she does not contest the assertion when Angela pulls her in for a kiss, follows her one-time lover onto the bed without so much as a second thought.

(That is not to say she will not second guess this, later, but for now, it feels right.)

While Angela leading her might be a change from the usual order of things, they quickly cross into the territory of the familiar once they are on the bed itself, and Ana finds herself on top of Angela, lips returning to their favorite spot on Angela's neck. Time has not changed everything, and the little sigh her attention elicits is the same as it was before.

Similar, too, is the feeling of Angela's hands on her body, clinging to her as surely as they ever did, one fisted in her hair and one moving down to grab her ass, pulling her in as close as is possible.

There is difference, however, when she moves to play with Angela's breasts—it seems the assessment of much more sensitive was not an exaggeration. Certainly, Ana is not complaining; Angela always did make such pretty noises, and some part of her did worry about this, not that she would have forgotten what it is that Angela likes, but that perhaps after so many years she would no longer be attractive enough for this. While she does not think she is ugly, not by any stretch of the imagination, she knows that she is decidedly older, and the twenty-three years between them may not have mattered as much, when she was just beginning to grey and to wrinkle, but seven years apart changes many things.

Many things, but not this, not the way her name is gasped as she plays with a nipple, not the way Angela arches into her touch and bares her throat—a surrender, in years previous and now something else, a sign of trust. Time has not changed her ability to please Angela, to draw a response from her and to please her.

Or, so she thinks.

When she reaches down, intending to assess just how close Angela is, she finds her still soft.

Immediately, she pulls back from her place at Angela's breast, moves so she can look her lover in the eye.

"Are you not enjoying this?” she asks, and if she were anyone else, her voice might waver, and while a part of her is embarrassed, uncertain, insecure, the greater part of her is concerned, concerned that this is not something Angela wants, not really, or that she has done something wrong.

"What?” is the answer, and Angela seems genuinely confused.

"You're...” Ana gestures vaguely with one hand towards Angela's crotch.

"Oh!" and now, Angela looks away, a blush blooming on her cheeks which is distinct from her earlier flush of arousal. "It doesn't really...” she trails off, and then her tone switches to the same clinical one Ana has heard time and again outside of this room, "Estradiol injections have an adverse effect on the ability to maintain erectile function.” If, perhaps, she says the words a bit hastily, betraying some emotion that need not be named, Ana will not comment on it.

"Should we stop, then?” Of all the ways Ana had considered this reunion going awry, this was admittedly an unexpected one.

"No!" says Angela, perhaps a bit more forcefully than is necessary. "I mean... not unless you want to?"

Now Angela looks nervous, and Ana is quick to reassure her, "Not at all, I just need you to tell me what to do differently.”

"Could we just go back to what we were doing before? It was nice.”

Ana certainly has no objections—her arousal has faded considerably as they were talking, and starting again from the beginning ought to help that. So she returns to what she was doing, hands finding Angela's breasts again, and allowing Angela to take a turn sucking at her neck for a moment.

(She considers it fortunate that it is considerably harder to visibly mark her skin than it is to mark Angela's—although her lover is flippant in her use of nanobiotics to heal embarrassing bruises, Ana is a bit more cautious about an over-reliance on the technology.)

This time, what is different stands out to Ana more readily than what is similar—the way their breasts now brush up against each other, the fact that Angela's bangs and her own eyepatch being on opposite sides prevents them from easily making eye contact as they do this, the way her voice, changed both by age and disuse, sounds as she gasps Angela's name.

For all that is different, this is certainly no worse. Perhaps her knees are more quickly growing sore from kneeling than they used to, and perhaps things were briefly a bit awkward, but she is no less wet than ever by the time Angela moves a hand down to slide a finger between her folds, cannot help but rock into the motion.

She shivers as Angela whispers into her ear—and she does not catch the exact words, far more focused on the sound of her own heartbeat, but she knows well enough the meaning and suddenly everything is too much.

(She was dead, she was dead she was dead she was dead. She was dead, and gone, and this was too, and she was never to have it again. After years alone to suddenly be here, be back like this and to have this—admission, this confession before her, a desire long unfulfilled suddenly offered her—she is not ready, does not deserve this.)

When she hears it, she does not jerk back, is careful, does not want to ruin everything by not being able, yet, to return the sentiment she just—refocuses. Switches targets. Changes objectives.

(Running from things again, she thinks, and it is not untrue, but if anyone else were to say it she would say she is only buying time.)

Beneath her, Angela's back is arched, her breathing growing more labored, and Ana thinks This is the perfect distraction, knows that if she can only divert Angela's attention elsewhere, she will not need to answer the question, not until she is ready to do so.

So, she says nothing, only moves her mouth again to Angela's neck, hands kneading her lover's breasts and teasing her nipples, feels the heartbeat under her tongue increase as Angela's voice changes in pitch and volume, until she is gasping, begging.

"Please," says Angela, and then again, "Please, Ana.”

(Once, Angela might have called her another by her rank, or callsign, or something else entirely, but after so long spent living as not-herself it is nice, now, for Ana to hear her own name like this, to have her identity reaffirmed so.)

"What should I do?” she asks, because although she knew, once, the answer to her question, she has learned the value in asking questions, in their years apart.

"Want you inside me," Angela answers, and Ana feels a familiar stab of arousal in response—there is some power culturally ascribed to the act of penetrating, and outside of this room Ana would be quick to scoff, to dismiss it as men being as they are, but instead... well, there is something uniquely heady about knowing Angela allows her to take a position of power, to know that Angela, proud and stubborn, surrenders to her.

The lubricant is still in the top bedside drawer, tucked in next to a pair of toys and a box of tissues, although the condoms she might once have found next to it have disappeared. Although it may not be strictly necessary, she reaches for it anyway, makes quick work of slicking her fingers, and nearly as easily gets to work at fingering Angela.

It is not immediate, locating and slipping into a canal, and she is gentle as she does it, but things quickly fall into a familiar rhythm and it is not long before she finds herself slipping two fingers into Angela—in fact, the whole process is much faster than she remembered it being. That could just be the effect of time, however, and it really does not seem worth asking in the moment.

(They will have time enough for questions later, about many things; a part of her cannot help but note that it never seemed like such a luxury before.)

After a few exploratory thrusts, Ana finds what she is looking for, knows she has brushed against Angela’s inguinal nerve by the reaction she gets from her lover: a sudden jerk of hips, a gasping breath, eyes squeezing shut. Finding it took a moment longer than she might have considered usual, years before, but the sensations Angela experiences are clearly the same.

Pleased with herself, Ana shifts her weight, knees moving to bracket Angela’s thighs and free hand and forearm up beside Angela’s torso, supporting her weight so she can bring her mouth to Angela’s breasts, can tease and lick and suck and see what new reactions she can draw from Angela.

(It is a good thing, she thinks, that she wears her hair braided now—if it were loose it would get in the way, and she has not a spare hand to move it.)

Despite the not inconsiderable amount of time they spent on foreplay, she goes slowly, knows that doing so will get the best reaction out of Angela—and knows, too, that hearing her lover beg is quite scintillating for herself, and this is the best way to go about it. She times her movements carefully, circling a nipple with her tongue as she curls her fingers inside Angela, nipping lightly at the edge of her breast in time with a hard thrust.

Soon, one of Angela’s own hands moves to the breast Ana has been ignoring—she can see it in the periphery with her one good eye—and the other comes to join Ana’s hand, arm bent at what must surely be an awkward angle in order to entwine their fingers. It is… sweet, and unexpected, and utterly unlike what Ana has come to expect from the two of them, and she can feel her eye begin to mist slightly in response to the unexpected tenderness.

(She never thought she would feel such things with Angela, and once she became the Shrike she thought she could not feel such things with anyone.)

To distract herself, she redoubles her efforts, increasing the speed of her motions and feeling Angela react above her, below her, around her. She feels as Angela’s fingers tighten around her own, hears gasps turn to moans, notes the feeling of Angela’s thighs tensing and untensing between her knees.

Angela is, of course, not the only one feeling the effects of this, Ana finds herself growing wetter in response to the way Angela is saying her name, the feeling of Angela tight around her fingers, the knowledge that she can still provoke such a response.

It has been quite some time since she was involved with anyone else sexually, and it seems like longer still since she was able to think of herself as sensual, or desirable. But now, after years away, to see that for all that she looks differently—acts differently, thinks differently—some part of her elicits the same reactions, is no less attractive than she once was… it is a heady thing.

Also heady is the way she can smell Angela and herself both, their scents combined with sweat and arousal, and the taste of salt beneath her lips. Above her, the sounds Angela is making are increasing in volume, and she feels the hand she is not holding move between them, reaching downward.

Briefly, she entertains the idea of sitting back, grabbing Angela's wrist, and finishing off her lover herself, but she is not certain, quite, what she might need to do differently, does not want to interrupt this with more fumbling, more questions—she is impatient now, not only from arousal but because she feels her knees growing more sore by the moment, the arm supporting her wait beginning to tremble from the effort. Maintaining this position for so long is not so easy as it once was.

Despite being tired, she cannot help that her hips roll a little against empty air as she hears Angela begin to plead in earnest, hears her beg, a familiar litany of please and more and her name, over and over, Ana, Ana, Ana.

(Ana decidedly does not think of a phrase beginning with a word that sounds all too similar, dare not do so, but she hears it all the same, in Angela's tone, heard it years ago, if she is honest with herself, but, then, she was rarely honest with herself, not when she could avoid it. Time and distance have made such things harder for her, have provided greater perspective for the both of them.)

"Please," Angela is gasping, "Ana, please," and Ana realizes that oh, she is still waiting, still obeying rules Ana would not have dreamed applied any longer.

So Ana does sit back, moves so she can look Angela in one eye, their intertwined hands forcing their arms to half hang in the air between them, and orders her to come.

The effect is immediate, Angela's thighs closing tightly, her back bowing, her grip on Ana's outstretched hand tightening. She is beautiful like this, much as she ever was, and there is too much to look at all at once, and so instead Ana just maintains eye contact, watches an unnamable emotion pass behind Angela's eyes as this happens, rocks her own center against her forearm in the meantime to relieve some pressure.

Unlike in the past, Angela does not say anything as this happens—makes no noise at all—and so what it is Ana now knows stays hanging between them for the duration of the moment, there but not, a specter not unlike their history—

—Until, abruptly, the moment ends, Angela dropping her half-raised arm, head turning away from Ana's gaze, her now free hand reaching to the side table to grab tissues.

Unsure, suddenly, of what she ought to do, and feeling somewhat voyeuristic, watching Angela clean herself up, Ana moves to sit slightly to the side; in the past, this was always her job, was filed under the umbrella of aftercare, but now, it seems, Angela can handle herself, is more than willing to clean up her own messes.

"There we go," says Angela, signaling she is clean, and drawing Ana's attention back to her face, "Now it's your turn.”

The second sentence is accompanied with a gesture, and Ana knows the meaning immediately.

"Ah, no," says she, not unkindly but with enough firmness that the Angela of seven years ago would have taken it as an order, and left it unquestioned.

But the woman before her is not the woman of seven years ago, so a question does follow, and swiftly, "Why ever not? I seem to remember you quite enjoying it.”

Ana huffs—that is true, Angela's mouth has always been good for more than just asking petulant questions, and there is something unquestionably dominant about the position—and then answers, "I'm sore," says she. "That was more than enough kneeling before.”

Angela hums, considering, before she perks up and says, "Well, there are benefits to fucking the doctor you know.”

"No," says Ana firmly.

"But—"

"No. I may not have been here, but I know well enough that the PETRAS Act impeded your ability to finish testing. You still don't know the long term effects of nanobiotics, so I won't have them used on me so casually.”

(Never mind that Ana has been using them on others, but that is a conversation for another day, and she rather suspects that if she mentions the rifle to Angela now then she will not get a chance to come, either kneeling over Angela or on her back.)

For a moment, Angela looks as if she wants to say something else, expression pleased and confused, before she seems to quell the thought, and return to the matter at hand. "Well, I suppose I could get on the floor and you could stand over me, if you like. I mean, it isn't the most comfortable, for either of us, but it works. Or there's the chair, which—"

"Angela," Ana interrupts her, before things somehow get more complicated, "There's a much simpler way to do all this.” She pats the bed with the hand which is not covered in lube as she says it.

A brief frown makes the wrinkles that have appeared on Angela's face deeper, "I thought you didn't like to be... you know.” The statement is followed by a vague gesture.

"It's fine," she answers.

(In this context, with the two of them as equals, it is fine. In this year, the old Overwatch being entirely destroyed, and gone with it the dread Ana felt then, the terrible overwhelming anxiety and inability to let down her guard for even a moment, it is fine. In this scenario, the two of them having changed and been changed, it is fine. Allowing herself to feel vulnerable is no longer the danger it once was.)

"If you're certain...”

"I am," says she, as much strength in her voice as there ever was.

For a moment, they are still, before Angela breaks the silence again, "Well, I suppose you should just lie down then.”

Ana laughs, then, cannot help it, "You're currently lying on top of all three of the pillows, Angela.”

"Oh," says Angela, "Scheisse," but she too, is laughing a bit as the two of them switch positions, bumping into each other awkwardly as the dipping of the bed offsets Angela's balance.

It takes a moment for both of them to settle, even after they have switched places, for the laughter to fade and the mood to return somewhat, but it does, and then Angela is the one leaning over her, bangs tickling Ana's cheek.

"Do you mind?” she asks, fingers trailing the edge of Ana's eyepatch.

Does she? Ana is not certain.

"It's hardly attractive," she answers, to avoid having to ask the question of herself.

"I guarantee I've seen worse," is Angela's reply, and Ana supposes this must be true. She is still considering whether or not to remove it when Angela adds, "You're going to get sweaty, too. It'll be gross, if it isn't already.”

That, at least, she cannot object to, and it does feel a bit silly to cover the old injury in front of Angela, whose job has put her in a position to see many a more recent, messy injury. So she brings her own hands up to her face, brushing Angela's aside, and takes the eyepatch off, setting it aside on the nightstand. This somehow feels more vulnerable than nudity, more vulnerable than lying on her back and allowing Angela to crouch over her.

For her part, Angela does not react badly—looks for a moment as if she is studying the injury, assessing it, but does not say anything. Instead, she presses a kiss to the tattoo beneath it, whispers a word of thanks, and carries on her way, pressing a kiss to the corner of Ana's mouth, then to her neck, trailing lower and lower.

There is a tenderness, here that did not exist before—or, perhaps, one that was not allowed—a reverence to the way Angela's lips touch her skin, and the way clever fingers trail over all the new blemishes on Ana's skin, the scars, the sagging, the stretch marks made more evident by time. While Angela might have respected her before, might have been awed, that awe was in in the classical sense, with a respect towards potential for destruction, whereas now there is simply wonder, disbelief, and with it an aching gentleness, one the two of them have never known.

(A part of Ana wishes Angela were rougher, wishes she did not need to watch the emotions play across her lover's face as each new scar is revealed to her—but she cannot stand to look away, knows that now is not the time to run, not if she wants to ever be able to return again. Still, this would be simpler if only Angela were rougher, if only this were something more like what Ana were used to. Anger, she can defend against, and all other harsh things, but she is unaccustomed now to anything soft, does not know how to react to being treated so nicely.)

For a long time, Angela's gaze lingers upon one scar in particular, a shrapnel wound in Ana's abdomen. It would have killed her without nanobiotic intervention, nearly still did, as her supply of grenades and bullets dwindled—and Angela must recognize the severity, must know from the way it is healed that it ought to have killed, if not for extraordinary means. Her fingers trail along it, and her lips after, and Ana shivers in response, feels her nipples harden just a little bit more, and the physical reaction is distraction enough to compel Angela to move on.

Words will be had later, Ana is certain, a lecture on when field medicine is inadequate, but there are many other fights looming of greater priority too, You left, and You took, and You should have all awaiting them both, so she can hardly worry about it now.

(Even in the moment, she did not worry about it. A dead woman cannot be killed.)

Far more pleasant things exist to dwell upon, in the moment, and living in the moment is what kept Ana alive, in the between years, so it is easy for her to brush all thoughts of past, future, past-become-future, future-become-past from her head.

She refocuses just as she learned to, a deep breath, eye closing, focus turned only to sensation—a mattress, too soft beneath her, cool air against her skin where sweat has risen, heat as her internal temperature rises, soft lips moving to suck at the point of one hip, and an aching.

With one hand, she moves to nudge Angela's head over, to move things along, pushing Angela from her hip to her center, and Angela obliges, though Ana can feel her lips curling into a smile as she presses one last kiss—amusement, presumably, at the impatience so uncharacteristic of a sniper.

Ana opens her thighs to give Angela space, and is glad she does not have to ask for this; begging always was Angela's realm.

Of course, this does not mean Angela will oblige her immediately, does not mean that they are not equals in stubbornness. Instead of doing what it is that Ana wills, Angela bites and sucks along her inner thighs, and Ana finds herself unsure whether to arch into it or to squirm away. Angela is so close to where Ana wants her, yet so far away, and each time Angela turns her head she just barely brushes against Ana's exposed sex, in a way that is certainly not accidental.

Rolling her hips a bit towards Angela's face, Ana hopes to force the issue without betraying herself, without losing whatever small battle of wills they have found themselves in—so unlike the games they played in years before, given the reversal of roles, but so similar in other ways—but seven years is a very long time, and Ana almost wonders if losing might not be worth it, here.

Almost.

Instead she bites her lip, tries not to think too hard about what it is she would very much like her lover to be doing right now, and instead brings both her hands to her breasts, hoping that the motion will draw Angela's eye, that the image will be enough to spur her lover to action. She bites her lip as she does so, not wanting to give away how much she wants this, how much the delay, now and before, has frustrated her.

Still, when a particularly sharp nip from Angela accidentally syncs up with a flick of her nipple, she realizes that this is a game she will not win, does not want to, if waiting longer is the win condition available to her.

(Never mind that her wetness must have given her away already, anyway. She has been noticeably so since before she was ever inside Angela, and that is something she cannot mask, even if her pride demands she save face elsewhere.)

If she cannot win like this, she will do as she has always done—in the bedroom, and elsewhere—will change the rules to suit her favor. If Angela will not touch where she wants her to, well, she will touch herself. No matter what, she will not beg, cannot be made to ask for this.

(Before, only pride would have prevented her from doing so, but now, it is more than that, is not only pride but a need to know she does not rely on others, a need to feel that she can care for herself, here or anywhere.)

One hand she brings up to the headboard, giving herself something to hold onto, and the other she brings downward trigger finger sliding through coarse hair before finding her clit. She is not gentle—never is, with herself—and does nothing to hide the moan that escapes when, at last, she is able to find some relief.

That draws Angela's attention, and it is only a moment before she is being hoisted up, thighs over shoulders, hand pushed out of the way by Angela's nose as she moves to finally, finally satisfy Ana.

Had the teasing not gone on so long, she might be embarrassed by the immediacy of her reaction, by how much her thighs are already trembling, by the way she is already rocking into Angela's face, by the way her hand buries itself in Angela's hair, pushing her head forward. She might be, but she is not—she has waited long enough.

After so long, it does not seem as if Angela has forgotten any of what she likes, clever tongue remembering the rhythm from years before—one loose circle followed by two tighter ones and then a flick at the clit—and Ana can already feel the hot coil of arousal deep in her stomach, knows that if she wanted to, she could orgasm soon with just a little effort on either of their parts, and as alluring as that sounds, as much as she wants this, has wanted this, a part of her is not ready, yet, for anything to end, so she nudges Angela's face a little lower, to tease at her entrance, and allows the heat to uncoil slightly, allows the tension to fade a bit, her heartbeat slowing slightly and breathing more regular.

(Once this ends, she is afraid of what will happen, does not know where the arguments to come will leave them, does not know if she will ever again be able to be with Angela in this way, or if they will instead lapse into their old ways, will find themselves again unable to be open before one another outside of their prescribed roles. So she fights it ending, lets the orgasm escape her, allows them just a few minutes longer of this little interlude.)

It is not unpleasant, to feel Angela inside her, but such has never been enough for Ana—not with any partner—to result in an orgasm, and likely never will be. Still, there is something to be said for the knowledge that her lover is inside her, that she is vulnerable now in a way she rarely allows herself to be, and that Angela sees her like this and does not mind, does not care that she is not the same woman she once was, is not the same Captain who was strong, and brave, and never accessible in any way, was almost aloof, the knowledge that she is different, now, after her return, but it does not matter.

(She would be lying if she said that she could have anticipated even that she would want this, but want it she does. After too many years of being too strong she wants to be allowed to be weak, and to do so in a way that is not selfish, is not her leaving behind all that she has known, is normal, human weakness.)

Soon enough, Angela grows bored of just teasing, moves her attention to sucking at Ana's labia, teasing and pulling on them with her lips and tiny scrapes of her tongue—deliberate, in her intent to only excite but not to get Ana close, again, to orgasm.

Perhaps she still believes that she could win this, that Ana conceded by allowing her first potential orgasm to fizzle out, that she will wring a request from Ana yet.

She will not, of course, could never make Ana beg—would only ever get a command at best—but optimism is something that Ana's lover has never lacked, is to be seen in the way she pursues the impossible professionally, ethically, and here.

Knowing this, Ana teases her a little, lets free a few sounds that she might never otherwise, allows Angela to think that she is more desperate than she is, hears, feels Angela's corresponding hum of contentment. It is all the confirmation that Ana needs.

"Angela," she starts as if she were begging, and wishes she could see the grin she can feel pressed against her. Then again, "Angela.”

For a moment she thinks she has overplayed it—undercover missions were never Ana's forte—but then Angela is pulling back just slightly, looking so smug, "Yes, Ana?” Her voice is almost saccharine.

"You'll have to try harder than that," says she, flatly as is possible given the situation.

This, at least, startles a laugh out of Angela, a little shake of her head, and then they are moving again, Angela's lips and tongue finding her clit once more.

This time, there will be no backing down, will be no putting off an orgasm. She can feel it already, in the way her spine is arching into it, in the speeding of her heart, in the way both of her hands grip harder, one on the headboard and one in Angela's hair, pulling blonde bangs out of her face to make this easier.

Of course, Ana can hardly focus on the sudden eye contact, finds herself almost entirely absorbed by sensation, by the desire of all her muscles to tighten until they can do so no longer, all feeling focused on a single point of her body.

So close, Ana thinks, so close, so close, so fucking close.

Just one more hard suck, just one more graze of teeth, and she will finally, finally come. She closes her eye in anticipation of the sensation, bites down on her lip to silence herself and, and—

—And her attention is snapped away at the last minute by Angela moving a hand to snap near her face.

Fuck.

"Angela," she grits out.

They are, it seems, at an impasse.

Or, so Ana thinks. Angela has something else in mind.

"I want you to look at me," she says, breaking rhythm only long enough to get the words out, the feeling of her breath an almost unbearable tease in and of itself.

Well. Ana is not a fan of compromise, not really, it always tastes to her vaguely of defeat, but when Angela is keeping her on the edge like this, not giving her that one final push she needs—a concession may be worthwhile. Just this once.

So she concedes, opens her good eye and looks it with one of Angela’s, and it does not seem so much like losing now, as she feels Angela suck on her just so, and she thinks—

—She does not think, because that little movement, and Angela’s gaze upon her, and the way she has been tensing in preparation for what feels like so long now are enough, and there is hardly room for thought anymore, only sensation, the pulsing of her muscles and the clenching of her thighs, the way her heart races and head spins.

(Perhaps compromise need not always be a defeat.)

Throughout everything, Angela’s eyes are meeting her own eye, and she could not look away even if she wanted to. It might be nicer to say her gaze were one of defiance, a final small victory, but instead she is transfixed, is lost in feeling and space and time and possibility and Angela. Above all else, Angela.

But then, as most things do, it ends. They break eye contact and then the gulf of time and distance is there between them once more.

Angela is moving to wipe off her face, the sweat on their skin is cooling, and Ana is suddenly very thirsty. She gathers her strength to go walk into the bathroom, knowing that if she lets herself get comfortable now it will only be more unpleasant to stand up later, and ignores the slight shake to her legs as she does so.

When she returns, again, Angela’s clothes have found their way into a hamper, the sheets are once again straightened, and Angela is sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for her. Perhaps, if Ana ignores her, this conversation need not happen, she can just put on her clothes and walk out, and they can say all that it is they need to tomorrow, have this one night untarnished by past or future. She bends to grab her bra and—

“Please,” says Angela, “Stay.”

(In her voice, Ana thinks she can hear another conversation, thinks she can hear so many more words; Don’t leave, and Not again, and Not like everyone else.)

Like this, Angela easily seems seven years younger, naked before her as if the time never passed, and Ana finds herself wavering.

Should she stay? Likely, no—come tomorrow there will be conversations she would rather not have, about her leaving, about her rifle, about what Angela did say and what she yet cannot—but in coming back to Overwatch Ana is already acting against her own best interest and, well, what, then, is one thing more?

(How much could one night mean?)

“Alright,” says she, “Alright.”

Just this once.

#anamercy #ana amari #angela ziegler #this is just smut. like straight up 7.5k+ of smut

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