#as a distant barely tangible memory | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ughbrie · 5 months ago

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converging threads | zayne

part one | part two

⤜ ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ- “And I know what that loneliness feels like.” His voice was rough, raw. “Because when I had nightmares of his life… he dreamt of mine.”

A chill ran through you.

“He dreamt of Linkon. Of Akso. Of—” He swallowed hard, his grip on you unyielding. “You.”

The word hung between you, heavy and fragile at the same time.

“Now, he’s clawing his way into my thoughts, trying to make sense of a life that isn’t his to have.” Zayne’s hands curled into the fabric of your clothes, as if anchoring himself to something tangible. “And every time I look at you—” His voice cracked, his hands shaking as he clutched you. “He’s reaching for you. And I don’t know if it’s me who wants you or if it’s him bleeding through.”

(Or… after the events of Chansia City, Zayne had started to avoid you. More than a week later, in the dead of night, he's outside of your door, struggling with his sense of self—blurring between two worlds.)

⤜ ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ- zayne x female reader

⤜ ɢᴇɴʀᴇ- angst, smut, & fluff

⤜ ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ- 8k

⤜ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ- nsfw, mdni, softdom!zayne, references to zayne's third anecdote (still in the dark), spoilers to zayne's main story branch (thorns under the moon) and four star memory (fragmented dreams), mentions of childhood trauma and violence, too much angst, oral sex (blowjob), dirty talk, penetration (p in v), clothed sex, riding, breast play, emotional sex, unprotected sex, and creampie.

⤜ ɴᴏᴛᴇ- As a dedicated Zayne main, I've always had a soft spot for Dawnbreaker!Zayne, I just want to give him the biggest hug! While he never explicitly took control of main story Zayne’s body, their connection through dreams and nightmares allowed them to see into each other’s lives. And so, I wanted to explore what it would be like if that connection blurred even further after the events of Chansia City, and how Zayne would react to it. I hope you enjoy reading!

The knock at your door was soft, barely audible over the hum of Linkon City outside. You might have missed it had you not been awake, staring at the ceiling, unable to shake the restlessness clawing at your chest. Something felt wrong.

Hesitating for a moment, you peeled the blankets away and stepped towards the door. When you opened it, Zayne stood there, still as a statue. The warm glow from your apartment barely touched him; he lingered in the shadows of the hallway, his expression unreadable, like he was caught between two worlds—one where he stood before you and another far beyond, too distant to reach.

“Zayne?” Your voice was uncertain, your fingers tightening around the doorframe. He looked normal—his crisp shirt unwrinkled, his coat still shielding him from the cold. But his posture was rigid, like he was torn between memories, caught between the man you knew and something far more elusive, far darker. His breath came slow, controlled, but his fingers twitched at his sides, as if holding onto something unseen, something slipping away from his grasp.

It had been more than a week since you last saw him—more than a week since you clawed your way out of his dreamscape, fighting against the twisted phantoms of his nightmares and the suffocating pull of his uncontrollable evol. More than a week since he began avoiding you, and you couldn’t understand why.

You had searched for him—at Akso Hospital.

You pushed open the door to Akso Hospital, the sterile scent of antiseptic filling your nose as you made your way down the familiar corridors. The sight of the bustling staff, the low murmur of nurses giving reports—it should have been comforting. But it wasn’t. Every step you took felt heavier, the weight of worry pressing down on your chest.

You were looking for Zayne. It had been a week since you’d seen him, and the silence between you was suffocating. You had tried calling, texting, but there was no sign of him.

You found Greyson near the nurses’ station, chatting with a few other doctors. He noticed you first, a flicker of surprise in his eyes before his usual, easy smile appeared.

“Hey,” he greeted, his tone too casual. Too… practiced. “What brings you by?”

“I was hoping to see Dr. Zayne. Is he around?” You tried to keep your voice even, but the question felt like a weight in your chest.

Greyson shifted on his feet, glancing toward the hallway where Dr. Zayne’s office was. “Oh, you know how it is,” he said with a shrug. “He’s been buried in surgeries lately. Really busy.”

You frowned. “Busy? He hasn’t been answering my calls. I’ve tried everything.”

At the sound of your words, Greyson’s gaze flickered uncomfortably, and before he could answer, Yvonne appeared beside him, her bright smile almost too wide.

“Hey, I didn’t expect to see you here today!” Yvonne chirped, her voice all sweetness, but there was a subtle edge to it. “Greyson’s right. Dr. Zayne’s probably just deep in work. You know how he gets, don’t you?”

You nodded, but the unease in your chest grew. “But… I haven’t been able to reach him. And he’s been avoiding me. I’m starting to get worried.”

There was a beat of silence before Yvonne glanced at Greyson, then back at you. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the motion almost too practiced. “Oh, you know Dr. Zayne,” she said, her voice a little too smooth. “He’s a bit of a workaholic. And, well, he’s been dealing with some… personal things lately. I’m sure he’ll be in touch when he’s ready.”

Greyson cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’m sure he’s just focused on… other things right now.”

You felt a knot form in your stomach. Something wasn’t right. Both of them were too evasive, too careful with their words.

“So he’s just been… avoiding me because he’s busy?” You asked, your voice thick with skepticism.

Yvonne’s smile didn’t waver, but her eyes shifted just a little. “Exactly! He’ll reach out when he’s ready. Don’t worry.”

But you weren’t convinced. You couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something they weren’t telling you. Before you could press further, Yvonne’s phone rang, and she quickly excused herself with a bright, almost rehearsed smile.

Greyson rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “I wouldn’t worry too much, Zayne’s just… well, Zayne. He’ll be back to his usual self soon enough.”

The words felt hollow, like a lie wrapped in a smile.

You turned to leave, the knot in your stomach tightening. Something wasn’t right, and you were more determined than ever to find out what was going on.

You even went to his home not two days after. You had been patient, given him space, but the silence between you was gnawing at you, and you couldn’t ignore it anymore.

You arrived at his place and paused outside the gate, your heart sinking. The house sat dark and still, as though no one had been home for hours. The front door was locked, the quiet expanse of the yard untouched. No sign of Zayne’s car in the driveway. No movement behind the windows.

Frowning, you reached for your phone, calling him once more. It rang, and rang… and rang. But there was no answer. No familiar voice on the other end. You tried again, and again—each unanswered call tightening the knot of anxiety in your chest. It was unlike him. Even when he was busy at work, he always answered your calls. You thought things had changed between you—gone beyond just childhood friends, past the barriers you once had.

You hadn’t been able to ignore the way things had shifted between the two of you, how you’d shared more, laughed more, and even kissed—moments that felt like stepping into something real, something undeniable. And yet now, in the silence, you felt that connection fraying, slipping out of your grasp.

You reached for the gate, testing it, but it was locked tight. The metal was cold beneath your fingers, the weight of it pressing down on you in a way you couldn’t quite shake. You knocked gently on the gate, your hand hesitant against the metal, but there was no answer. No sound from inside. No footsteps echoing in the distance. Just more silence.

You stood there for a moment, staring at the door, wondering if you were missing something, if you were just being paranoid. But there was no denying the gnawing sense that you were being shut out.

Yet now, here he stood, unannounced, uninvited. The sight of him should have brought relief, but something was off, like he was a mere shadow of the man you knew.

“You should’ve let me in sooner,” he murmured, a wry attempt at a smile barely forming before fading just as quickly. His voice was softer than usual, almost exhausted, like the fight had been taken out of him. You stepped aside instinctively, letting him in. He didn’t move right away. Instead, his gaze lingered on you—as if memorizing every detail, confirming that you were real, that this wasn’t just another one of his nightmares.

Then, finally, he stepped through. The door clicked shut behind him, sealing the two of you in the silence of your small apartment. He exhaled, but this time it was unsteady—as if releasing a breath he’d been holding for far too long. His hands trembled, and he shoved them into his coat pockets, a feeble attempt to mask the unease rolling off him in waves.

“Zayne, where have you been?” The question came out before you could stop it. His avoidance had gnawed at you, making every second of silence between you feel like it stretched on forever.

He hesitated, his gaze dropping to the floor for a brief moment, like he was trying to find the right words. Then, finally, his voice broke through, hoarse and fragile, as if he’d been swallowing down too many words for too long. “Every time I close my eyes, I see a world where you don’t exist.”

The confession hit like thunder in your chest. Your breath caught, eyes wide with confusion, but something else too—fear, a strange sense of loss, creeping in. You stared at him, unable to comprehend, yet knowing there was so much more buried beneath the surface.

“It’s not just nightmares anymore,” he whispered, voice barely audible. His eyes flickered with something raw and unfamiliar—something you hadn’t seen in him before. “It’s bleeding into the day. I can’t… separate it. Separate me.”

You frowned, confusion tightening around your thoughts, heart pounding. “Separate what? Zayne, what are you talking about?”

He stiffened, jaw tightening as if he’d realized he’d said too much. He shook his head, dismissing the words before they could fully escape. “Ignore what I said.” he muttered, but the tension in his voice betrayed him.

“Zayne…” You stepped closer, cautious but firm. “Just tell me what’s wrong.”

A bitter chuckle escaped him, but there was no humor in it. His hand drifted to his temple, pressing hard as if trying to force something out of his mind. “I don’t know how to explain it.” His voice wavered slightly, a rare crack in his composure. “I don’t even know if it’s mine to explain.”

Your stomach twisted at his words. Zayne was rarely uncertain. But now, he looked lost, like he was trying to hold onto something slipping through his fingers. The man who had always been in control, who always had an answer, was unraveling in front of you.

“Then let me help,” you said softly, reaching for him.

He exhaled sharply, his hands clenching into fists before loosening just as quickly, as if even that took too much effort. “I don’t think you can,” he muttered, barely above a whisper.

You reached out, your fingers brushing against his sleeve. He tensed, but didn’t pull away. The warmth of his body under your touch should have felt familiar, comforting, but there was something cold in the air around him that you couldn’t ignore.

“I’m here,” you reminded him gently, voice steady despite the knot in your stomach. “I’m not going anywhere.”

His shoulders sagged just slightly, his resolve faltering under the weight of something neither of you could name.

You guided Zayne to the couch with a soft insistence, his steps heavy, like each one was taking him further away from something he couldn’t quite grasp. He didn’t resist, but his hesitation was palpable. You noticed the subtle tremor in his shoulders as he sat down, his back stiff, as if the weight of the world was pressing down on him.

You sat next to him, your fingers brushing the fabric of his coat as you settled yourself. The space between you both felt charged, yet strained, like two magnets unwillingly attracted but refusing to align.

Your hand hovered near his arm, unsure, but you couldn’t ignore the impulse to reach out. The last few days—weeks—had felt like a slow, suffocating crawl through a fog. Seeing him like this, so unguarded, was both a relief and a deepening worry.

“Zayne…” You started, your voice low, soft. You weren’t sure how to approach him anymore. He had been pulling away, emotionally distant, and now, even his presence seemed fractured.

You reached out, your fingers brushing against his sleeve.

At the first touch, his body flinched. Not an outward movement, but a sharp intake of breath, like a quiet shudder that ran through him. His hazel-green eyes were blown wide, pupils dark and dilated, swallowing the soft color until only a thin ring of green remained. For a brief moment, he looked at you—through you—like he was caught between two realities, struggling to tether himself to the one in front of him.

Then, just as quickly, his gaze flickered away, his throat working around a breath that sounded too controlled, too measured. As if he was holding something back. The air between you thickened, the weight of his restraint pressing into the space between your fingers. His jaw tensed, a sharp line of tension beneath his skin, and yet—he didn’t move away.

With a careful breath, you let your hand rest against his arm, your fingers curling gently around the fabric of his coat. You felt him tense beneath your touch, but it wasn’t from discomfort. No, it was something else. Something deeper. His body shuddered again, more pronounced this time, and you could feel his muscles ripple under the strain of holding back.

“Zayne…” You said his name again, this time softer, as though you were speaking to someone who was slipping away. You moved a little closer, hoping that your proximity would ground him somehow, though you weren’t entirely sure how.

His voice cracked when he spoke, low and hoarse, like a man speaking to a ghost. “Every time you touch me… it’s like… I feel like I’m being pulled in two directions.”

You blinked, your heart skipping a beat as you tried to make sense of his words. “What do you mean?” you asked, your hand still resting on his arm, waiting, watching him closely.

Zayne exhaled slowly, his fingers twitching at his sides as if struggling to find an anchor. “I’ve always suffered from nightmares,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. “The same ones I’ve always had since I was young. But after what happened at Chansia City…” His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. “It didn’t stop when I woke up.”

Your heart clenched at his words. You knew Zayne had always been plagued by restless nights, but this—this was different. You thought back to that moment at Akso Hospital, when you had found him slumped over his desk.

His brow was creased with the weight of exhaustion. His breathing had been uneven, his hands gripping the fabric of his coat as if he were bracing himself against something unseen. You had hesitated before stepping closer, unsure if you should wake him. But the quiet distress on his face made the decision for you.

“Zayne…” you had whispered, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

The moment your fingers made contact, he jolted awake with a sharp breath, his eyes wild with something you couldn’t name. For a split second, it was as if he didn’t recognize you, as if he were somewhere else entirely.

But then, his gaze softened, reality bleeding back into him. His breathing was still heavy, his shoulders tense, but when you knelt beside him, concern written all over your face, he didn’t pull away.

Without thinking, you had reached out again, brushing his hair back in a quiet attempt to soothe him. His body sagged under your touch, the tension in his shoulders melting just enough for him to lean forward. And before you could react, he rested his forehead against your chest, his breaths uneven as if the simple act of being close to you was the only thing keeping him grounded.

You had stilled at first, heat creeping up your neck, but you didn’t push him away. Instead, you let him stay there, your fingers threading through his hair in slow, absentminded strokes. You weren’t sure how long you stayed like that, the sound of his breathing evening out against you, his body losing some of its rigidness.

When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse, barely audible. “Just�� let me stay like this for a while.”

And you had. Because for the first time, you realized how deeply tired he was.At the time, you thought he was just tired physically, but now you realized he was tired in a way that ran so much deeper as you watched him sitting on your couch, that same exhaustion clung to him like a shadow, only now it was accompanied by something far worse. He wasn’t just tired. He was unraveling.

“I thought I could ignore it,” he continued, pulling you back to the present. “I thought it would fade eventually. But it’s not stopping.” His fingers curled into the fabric of his coat as if trying to ground himself. “It’s getting worse.”

You swallowed hard. “The nightmares?”

“They’re not just nightmares anymore.” He exhaled sharply, his hands clenching before loosening again. “They’re memories of a life that isn’t mine.” His jaw tightened, his entire body tense with something unreadable. “And the worst part?” His eyes flickered to yours, dark and conflicted. “I feel like I’m walking on air, seeing things that aren’t there, feeling emotions that aren’t mine.”

You frowned. “Zayne, what are you talking about?”

His throat worked around a response, but for a moment, he said nothing, only looking at you with something close to desperation. He shook his head as if trying to shake off the words before they could leave his mouth.

“It doesn’t matter,” he muttered, but you weren’t about to let it go.

“It does matter,” you said firmly, stepping closer. “You’ve been avoiding me for more than a week. You look like you’re about to fall apart, and now you’re telling me ‘it doesn’t matter’? What’s happening to you?”

He let out a bitter chuckle, but there was no humor in it. “I don’t even know if I can explain it. It’s… there’s another version of me. One I can’t escape. And he—” Zayne cut himself off abruptly, dragging a hand over his face. “He’s ruining everything.”

The conflict in his expression made your stomach twist. You had never seen him like this—so lost, so tangled in something that seemed beyond even his understanding. And when you reached for him again, your fingers brushing past his sleeve against his skin, you saw the way he shuddered.

At first, you thought his reactions stemmed from discomfort—that every shudder, every tensed muscle was his way of pulling away. But then you saw it. The way his breath hitched. The way his lashes fluttered shut for the briefest second, as if savoring the warmth of your touch. As if he had been starving for it.

It wasn’t rejection. It was restraint.

Your heart pounded. “Zayne…”

His fingers twitched at his sides before he finally spoke, his voice raw. “Every time you touch me…” He exhaled sharply, as if the words themselves were dangerous. “It’s like my world’s losing its sense of direction.”

His confession stole the air from your lungs.

“But it’s not just me that wants this,” he continued, his voice barely above a whisper. “And that’s what scares me.”

Your fingers curled slightly around his wrist, grounding both of you in the silence between words. Zayne’s breath was uneven, his body strung taut beneath your touch. You could see it—the war waging within him, the push and pull of something he refused to name. His fingers curled at his sides, clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He was holding himself back.

But from what? From who?

The question burned at the edges of your mind, but you didn’t voice it. Instead, you did the only thing you could think of. You moved.

Slowly, you climbed onto the couch, onto him, your knees settling on either side of his thighs as you straddled his lap. His entire body went rigid beneath you, his breath stalling in his throat.

“You—” His voice broke, a warning tangled in desperation. His hands shot up, as if to push you away—but the moment his palms met your waist, he froze.

A violent shudder ran through him, his grip faltering but never leaving you. He barely held together, his fingers twitched against your sides, his body caught in an unbearable tension.

“You shouldn’t…” he rasped, but even as he said it, his hands pulled.

Pulled you closer.

Pulled you flush against him, until there was no space left to retreat.

You gasped softly at the sudden contact, at the warmth of him, the way his body molded against yours like he had been starving for this. For you.

His head dipped forward, his forehead pressing against your shoulder as his breath came out in a harsh, unsteady exhale. His grip on your waist tightened, not enough to hurt, but enough to make you feel how badly he was struggling.

“Zayne…” You whispered his name, hands lifting to cradle his face, to guide him to look at you. He didn’t resist, but the moment your fingers brushed against his jaw, his eyes fluttered shut—his entire body reacting as if your touch was something he had been craving but forbidden from having.

“Every time you touch me…” He repeated, his voice was raw, nearly fractured. “I feel like I’m slipping deeper.”

Your fingers trembled slightly against his skin. “Slipping into what?”

His jaw clenched. His hands trembled against your waist, caught between pulling you closer and pushing you away.

“Him.”

The word sent a chill down your spine.

Zayne’s eyes finally opened, and what you saw there made your breath hitch.

Something was breaking inside him.

Something was bleeding through.

Like the fragile moment before dawn—when night still clung to the sky, desperate to remain, yet the light pressed forward, inevitable. A battle between darkness and the coming sun, neither willing to yield.

You didn’t know who he was, or why Zayne was fighting so hard to keep him at bay, but you could feel it—how much hewas longing for you. How much Zayne himself was afraid of that longing.

Your hands slid from his face to his shoulders, steadying him, grounding him. “You’re still you,” you murmured. “No one else.”

His fingers flexed against your waist, his breath ragged. “Then why does it feel like every time you touch me… I’m losing control of myself?”

He was slipping, unraveling, caught between two selves—one who had you, and one who had only ever ached for you.

And for the first time, Zayne wasn’t sure which one he wanted to be.

You sighed, your fingers curled against his shoulders, gripping him just a little tighter. His body was warm beneath your touch, but the tension in him never eased. If anything, it worsened.

“Zayne,” you whispered, searching his face. “Help me ease your mind, tell me everything. Tell me about him.”

His expression darkened instantly. His hands, still gripping your waist, stiffened before pushing you back—just slightly, just enough to put distance between you.

“No.”

The refusal was sharp, final.

But you didn’t let go. “Zayne, please.”

His jaw locked, his breath coming out in harsh exhales as he tried to rein himself in. But you had already seen it—the flicker of something raw in his gaze, the weight pressing down on him like it was crushing him from the inside.

He turned his head away, his grip tightening before he forced himself to let go. “I don’t want to tell you.” His voice was quieter now, but no less strained. “Because if I do…” His throat bobbed, his hands clenching into fists. “What if you look at me differently?”

Your chest ached. “Zayne—”

“He’s not me,” Zayne bit out, his voice lower now, edged with something close to rage. His fingers dug into the fabric of your clothes as if anchoring himself. “I don’t care what I see, what I feel—he is not me.”

You frowned, your heart pounding. “I didn’t say he was—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he snapped, his fingers digging into you much harder before he wrenched them away, as if touching you made it worse. “It shouldn’t matter. Because whatever he is—whatever he’s done—I am not him.”

His voice cracked at the end, his composure slipping, and it hurt more than anything. Not because of what he wasn’t telling you, but because he was carrying it alone, letting it eat away at him like he deserved it.

Your fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt. “Zayne, I don’t care what you think this means. I don’t care what’s bleeding through or what memories aren’t yours.” Your voice wavered, but you pushed through. “What hurts me isn’t who you were or weren’t—it’s this.” You gestured between the two of you, the distance he was trying to wedge between you. “It’s you shutting me out, punishing yourself like you have to carry this alone.”

Zayne let out a sharp breath, his fingers curling into fists against the curve of your waist. His grip was tense, hesitant—like he was still fighting himself.

You watched him carefully, the weight of his silence pressing against your chest. He had been resisting, keeping himself locked away behind walls you couldn’t breach. But this time… this time, something shifted.

And then you realized it.

It wasn’t your persistence that made him falter. It wasn’t even the promise that you would accept him, no matter what. It was the fact that you told him it hurt you too. That his silence, his self-inflicted suffering, didn’t just wound him—it wounded you.

Zayne’s throat bobbed, his gaze flickering, as if weighing the consequences of speaking the truth. His fingers flexed against you, his breath uneven.

Finally, he asked, “Do you know why I became a doctor?”

You hesitated. “Because you wanted to save people.”

“Partly,” He let out a bitter laugh. “But mostly because I spent my entire childhood dreaming of a man butchering them.” His hands raked through his hair, gripping at the strands.

“It started when I was twelve.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. “I didn’t understand it then. I just knew that every night, I saw his hands, covered in blood. I heard the screams, felt the cold metal of a blade I never held.” His fingers flexed against your waist. “And every morning, I woke up terrified that I’d become him.”

You sucked in a quiet breath.

“That’s why I became a doctor,” Zayne muttered, his voice barely audible now. “To erase him. To bury him. Every life I saved was another step away from him.” His gaze snapped back to you, and there was something close to desperation in it.

He paused, and his gaze softened just slightly as it met yours, though there was still that edge of desperation.

“And… I wanted to help you, too. Since the first time I saw you struggling with your heart… I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you, not like that.”

Your heart pounded. “Zayne…”

“But now?” His gaze locked onto yours, and you almost flinched at the intensity in his eyes. “Now it’s not just nightmares. After Chansia City… it’s like something cracked. Like I bled through him.”

You frowned. “What do you mean?”

His fingers flexed against your skin, then curled into a fist, as if the words physically hurt to say. “I used to only see flashes. His world, his sins—they were nothing more than fragments. But now? I see his everyday life.” His voice dropped lower, as if saying it out loud made it more real. “I see him waking up in an empty apartment, walking through streets that no longer have names. I see him looking for something—someone—who was never there.”

Your chest tightened. “Zayne—”

“And I know what that loneliness feels like.” His voice was rough, raw. “Because when I had nightmares of his life… he dreamt of mine.”

A chill ran through you.

“He dreamt of Linkon. Of Akso. Of—” He swallowed hard, his grip on you unyielding. “You.”

The word hung between you, heavy and fragile at the same time.

Your heart pounded.

His pain was something you could see, something you could feel in the way he held you too tightly, in the way he refused to look away, as if afraid you’d vanish if he did.

“Does it change anything?” you asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Zayne’s breath stilled.

“No, it doesn’t,” he admitted, his voice hoarse. “I want you. I do. I’ve never denied that.” His fingers curled against your skin, holding you closer. “But this… it’s never felt like this before.”

His gaze darkened, his brows drawing together. “Like I can’t go a second without feeling you, without needing you right here. And I don’t know if it’s just me—if it’s always been me—or if it’s him. But it doesn’t matter.” His voice dropped lower, rough with something unspoken. “Because either way… I still want you.”

You reached up, cupping his cheek, forcing him to meet your gaze. “You’re here, right now. Whatever he feels, whatever he wants—this moment belongs to you.”

His throat bobbed, the conflict in his gaze raw and unfiltered. His fingers twitched where they held you, as if he wanted to push you away and pull you closer all at once.

And then—finally—he whispered, “I don’t know if I can separate us anymore.”

Zayne’s breath hitched, his hands still gripping your waist like a man on the verge of breaking. His body was rigid beneath yours, every muscle coiled tight with restraint. His stormy eyes flickered between your lips and your gaze, warring with something unseen.

You could feel it—the way he was holding himself back, the way his fingers twitched against your skin like he was fighting the instinct to pull you in.

And then, just when you thought he might push you away—he moved.

His lips crashed against yours, the kiss rough, almost desperate. A sharp inhale left him as his fingers tightened at your sides, pressing you flush against him. It wasn’t careful, wasn’t measured like everything else about him. It was hurried, hungry, as if he had been drowning for far too long and you were the only thing keeping him afloat.

Yet even in his desperation, there was hesitation—a tremor in his touch, a battle within him. His grip faltered, his breathing unsteady, as if his own emotions were overwhelming him.

For a moment, he slowed, his lips ghosting over yours, softer now—less frantic, more reverent. His fingers traced up your back, like he was memorizing every inch of you, terrified you might disappear.

But then when you surged forward to deepen the kiss, something in him snapped.

His restraint shattered as his hand cupped the back of your head, pulling you deeper into the kiss. His other hand dug into your waist, as if grounding himself in the feeling of you. He let out a quiet, shuddering breath against your lips, his body trembling beneath your touch.

It wasn’t just desire—it was longing. A desperate, aching need that had been simmering beneath his skin for far too long.

And still, it wasn’t enough.

He kissed you harder, as if trying to chase away the ghosts of a world where you didn’t exist—where he had spent endless nights reaching for something that was never there.

Zayne’s breathing was ragged as he suddenly tore himself away from you, his forehead pressing against yours, his grip on your waist still firm but trembling. His chest rose and fell in unsteady heaves, as if he had just surfaced from deep waters.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he rasped, his voice thick with something raw and desperate. His fingers flexed against your waist before slowly dragging up your sides, his touch both grounding and possessive. “But I need to feel—” His words cut off, a quiet ‘fuck’ slipping from his lips as he clenched his jaw, forcing himself to stop.

You could see it—feel it. The battle raging within him. The desperate need to claim this moment as his own, to separate himself, to make sure that this—this longing, this ache, this hunger—was his, and not something bleeding over from the nightmares that haunted him.

His fingers ghosted over your arms before gripping your wrists, guiding them up to rest against his chest. You could feel the rapid beat of his heart beneath your palms, erratic and heavy, proof of his struggle. His eyes searched yours, dark with emotion, pleading for something he couldn’t voice.

“I need to know it’s me,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. “Not him. Not the dreams. Just… me. But I don’t trust myself enough not to hurt you.”

His fingers brushed your skin, hesitant, reverent—like he was afraid of his own hands.

“But I trust you.”

The words felt heavier than anything else he had said tonight, laced with the weight of every nightmare, every fear, every ghost of a life that wasn’t his. He swallowed hard, his gaze flickering to your lips, then back to your eyes.

“I need you to take control,” he murmured, each syllable careful, deliberate. “I need to know this is real—that you’re real—that I’m real.” His hands curled into fists before he forced them to relax against you. “Because if I let go now… I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.”

There was no mistaking what he meant. No mistaking the conflict in his gaze—the desperation tangled with restraint, the need warring with self-loathing.

Your hands slid up from his chest to cup his face, fingertips brushing against the sharp angles of his jaw.

“It’s you, Zayne,” you whispered, your voice steady, certain. “You.”

You tilted his face up, brushing your lips against his—a whisper of a touch, just enough to tether him to the present, to this moment with you. He shuddered beneath your touch, his hands tightening at your waist as if anchoring himself.

“I’m here,” you continued, pressing another soft kiss to the corner of his mouth, then another along the line of his jaw. “This is real. We’re real.”

A sharp exhale left him, his resolve breaking little by little as you pressed against him. His grip on your waist faltered, then returned, stronger—desperate.

“Let me take care of you,” you murmured against his skin.

He shuddered at your words, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment as he wrestled with the warring emotions inside him. When they opened again, the desperation had intensified, the dark gray irises nearly swallowed by the black of his pupils.

“Show me,” he rasped, his voice low and rough with barely restrained desire. “Make me believe it.”

You took your time, trailing kisses along his chest, feeling the hard planes of muscle beneath his shirt as your lips travelled down. You wanted to savor this moment, to make sure he knew it was him, that this was real.

As you sank to your knees before him, you looked up at Zayne through your lashes. The raw vulnerability in his expression made your heart ache. You wanted to erase every nightmare, every fear, every shadow that haunted him.

“You’re real,” you murmured, your breath ghosting over his cloth-covered arousal. “This is real.”

With a steadying breath, you leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to the bulge straining against his zipper. You could feel the heat of him, the throbbing need, and it made your own body ache in response.

You worked slowly, unzipping him with deliberate care, letting your fingers brush against his arousal as you did. He was already hard, the thick length of him stretching the fabric of his boxers.

You haven’t seen him naked before, and crossing this line made your thighs clench. Glancing up at him, you caught his gaze, holding it as you hooked your fingers in the waistband of his boxers and tugged them down. His cock sprang free, long and thick and perfect, the swollen head already glistening with need.

“Beautiful,” you whispered, wrapping your hand around the thick base of Zayne’s cock, giving him a firm squeeze as you gazed up at him with hooded eyes. “You’re beautiful, Zayne.”

Slowly, teasingly, you started to stroke him, your soft palm gliding along his hard length. You could feel every throbbing vein and ridge, committing the shape of him to memory.

Leaning in, you breathed over his swollen cock head, then, with a deliberate slowness that was almost torturous, you dragged the flat of your tongue along the underside of his shaft, tracing the thick vein that ran from base to tip. You lingered at the sensitive spot just below the head, swirling your tongue around it before giving it a firm press.

Zayne shuddered and groaned, his fingers flexing in your hair as you dragged your tongue back down to the base, your hand following the same path. When you reached the bottom, you dipped your tongue into the neat little slit at the tip, tasting the first salty drops of his arousal.

Savoring his flavor, you wrapped your lips around the swollen head, your soft mouth stretching around his impressive girth. You suckled gently, your cheeks hollowing as you began to take him deeper, inch by hard inch.

“Your mouth… it feels so g-good…” he groaned.

The praise that escaped his lips made the flush on your face more evident. As your lips moved slowly down his shaft, encasing him in the slick heat of your mouth, your tongue undulated along the thick vein on the underside as you took him deeper, until the head of his cock bumped the back of your throat.

You held yourself there for a long moment, relishing the heavy, throbbing weight of him, the musky scent of his arousal flooding your senses. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, you began to bob your head, taking him deeper into your throat with each downward motion.

Your hand worked in tandem with your mouth, stroking and squeezing as you sucked him. You could feel him growing harder, the thick length of him pulsing against your tongue as you pleasured him.

“Fuck… just like that…”

You couldn’t help but moan around his cock at his groans, your brain committing the sounds to memory. You doubled your efforts when you felt he was close, sucking harder, stroking faster, your tongue never still as it lapped and swirled and caressed every hard, throbbing inch of him.

His grip on your hair tightened, his hips starting to piston forward, fucking your mouth as you sucked him with wild abandon. You could feel his body tensing, his breath coming in harsh pants and groans.

“I can’t… I can’t hold back much longer…”

And then, with a roar that was nearly feral in its intensity, he came. His cock jerked and throbbed as it erupted, shooting hot, thick ropes of cum down your eager throat.

You swallowed it all, working your throat to milk every last drop from his pulsing length. The taste of him was intense, the salty-sweet flavor of his essence exploding on your tongue.

As the waves of his release began to ebb, you slowly pulled back, letting his still hard cock slip from your lips with a lewd pop. You licked your lips, savoring the lingering taste of him as you gazed up at Zayne with a look of pure, sated desire.

“Zayne,” you whispered, your voice hoarse. “It’s you. This is you. You’re real.”

You placed a soft, lingering kiss on the tip of his cock before nuzzling your cheek against his thigh, looking up at him with a smile that was pure tenderness mixed with deep, abiding lust.

As the last tremors of his intense orgasm faded, Zayne reached down and gently but firmly pulled you up by your arms, urging you back into his lap. You went willingly, straddling his hips as you sat facing him.

His hands slid around to your back, one resting high on the curve of your shoulder blades, the other splayed across the small of your back, pulling you flush against his strong chest. You could feel the heat radiating off his skin, the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath your palms.

Gazing into your eyes, Zayne leaned in, capturing your lips in a searing kiss that steals your breath. It was a kiss filled with gratitude, with hunger, with a desperate need to claim you, to make you his.

You kissed him back just as fiercely, your fingers tangling in his hair as you arched into him, pressing your soft curves against the hard planes of his body. His tongue delved into your mouth, stroking along yours, tasting himself on your lips and tongue.

As you both lost yourselves in the kiss, you could feel Zayne’s cock, still semi-erect and slick with your saliva, nudging against your core. The friction sent sparks of pleasure shooting through you, making you ache with a renewed desire.

Almost unconsciously, your hips began to move, grinding against his in a slow, sensual rhythm. You could feel the heat building between your thighs, the dampness of your arousal soaking through your panties.

Zayne groaned into your mouth, his grip on your waist tightening as he felt your hips rolling against his. His cock twitched and began to harden further, growing thicker and longer with each passing second.

Breaking the kiss, Zayne trailed his lips down the column of your throat, his teeth grazing your racing pulse. “Ride me,” he growled against your skin, his voice low and rough with renewed desire. “I need to feel you, all of you, surrounding me, consuming me, making me forget everything but your name.”

You shuddered at his words, at the raw, primal need in his voice. Reaching down, you pushed your panties aside, baring your slick, needy sex to the cool air and his heated gaze. You could feel your own arousal dripping down your thighs, a testament to how much you wanted him, needed him.

With a roll of your hips, you positioned yourself over his hardening length, feeling the thick head nudging against your entrance, you slowly sank down. You were so wet, so ready for him, that he slid inside you with a single, smooth thrust.

You both groaned at the sensation, your inner walls fluttering and clenching around his thickness as he stretched and filled you completely. You could feel every ridge and vein of his cock as it brushed against your sensitive flesh, igniting nerve endings you didn’t know you had.

Zayne’s hands gripped your hips, guiding your movements as you began to ride him. You started slowly, rising up until just the tip of his cock remained inside you, before sinking back down, taking him to the hilt.

“You feel so good, love.” he murmured, his lips parted open.

With each downward motion, you could feel the pleasure building, the coil of tension in your core winding tighter and tighter.

You arched your back and Zayne leaned forward, freeing your breasts from the confines of your shirt as he lifted it by the hem. He captured one straining nipple in his mouth, suckling and nipping at the sensitive bud. His free hand slid from your hip to the juncture between your thighs, his fingers finding your clit and rubbing the swollen nub in tight, fast circles.

You cried out, your head falling back as the sensations overwhelmed you. Your hips moved faster, rising and falling in a frantic rhythm as you chased your pleasure. The wet, obscene sounds of your coupling filled the room, spurring you both on.

His other hand inch upward, holding your head firmly, his fingers tangling in your hair, Zayne tilted your chin up to gently force your gaze to meet his intense, hazel-eyed stare. He let out a strangled moan, “Say my name, love. Come on…”

Zayne’s grip on your hips tightened, his fingertips digging into the soft flesh as he guided your increasingly desperate movements. His own hips surged up to meet yours, driving his thick length deeper, harder, faster into your clutching heat.

“Zayne,” you breathed, “You’re the only one I want, the only one I need.”

His breathing grew ragged, each exhale escaping through gritted teeth as he lost himself in the slick slide of your bodies joining again and again. The obscene sound of skin slapping against skin echoed through the room, mixing with the staccato cries spilling from your lips.

Zayne’s hand moved from your clit to your breast, squeezing the soft mound roughly as he pinched and rolled the stiff peak between his fingers. He leaned down, his hair falling forward as he dragged his tongue over your collarbone, tasting the salt of your skin.

“Fuck, just like that…” he growled against your neck, his voice strained. “S-Say my name again—please…”

His words sent shivers down your spine, making your inner muscles clench around him. You could feel every ridge and vein of his cock as it stretched you, filled you, owned you.

“Z-Zayne…!” you moaned.

Zayne’s thrusts became more erratic, more desperate at the cry from your lips. The hand on your hip slid around to the small of your back, pressing you flush against him as he pounded up into you. The couch creaking with each surge of his hips, the sound mingling with your cries and his grunts.

You could feel the tension building in your core, the pleasure coiling tighter and tighter as you climbed towards your peak. Your nails raked down Zayne’s nape as you held on for dear life.

With a harsh curse, Zayne slammed up into you one last time, burying himself to the hilt as his release overtook him. His cock jerked and pulsed inside you, painting your insides with his hot release.

The sensation of his release pushed you over the edge, your own climax crashing through you like a tidal wave. Your body convulsed, melting into him as your inner muscles clamped down around him while you came apart in his arms.

You collapsed against his chest, both of you gasping for air as the aftershocks of your release rippled through you. Zayne’s arms tightened around you, drawing you in close, his heartbeat steady beneath his damp shirt, grounding you in the moment.

In the quiet aftermath, as your breath began to steady, Zayne placed a gentle kiss against your temple, his lips lingering there as if memorizing the moment. “Thank you,” he whispered, his voice raw and heavy with emotion. “For this. For everything.”

You gently cupped his face, guiding him to look at you. “You have me, Zayne,” you said softly, your words steady and sure. “No matter who you are, no matter who you become—I’ll never walk away.”

He paused as his fingers brushed gently across your damp cheek.

He spoke, his voice was soft, almost hesitant. “All I know now is that… the only thing I’m sure of,” he began, his forehead resting against yours once more, “is you.” He swallowed, his grip around you tightening as if trying to ground himself in the present.

You thought that would be the end of it, but he exhaled, a shudder racking through him.

“I never believed in fate,” he added, his voice low, but without any trace of bitterness—only a quiet acceptance. “But now, I do. Because no matter where I am, or who I am… you’re the constant. The one thing that’s always been real.”

He paused, his words heavy with an ache that tightened your chest. “And I think… I think I’m meant to love you in every life, in every timeline. I’m meant to be with you. And no matter how complicated it gets, no matter what happens, I’ll always end up finding you.”

His grip on you tightened further, pulling you closer, as if to make sure you were really there. “Now… I can’t help but feel… bad for him.”

A heavy sigh escaped him, thick with weight and regret. “He doesn’t have you. He doesn’t get to have this—this connection.” His voice wavered, raw with something unspoken. “And I think that’s what hurts the most. No matter how much I try to separate myself from him, I can’t shake the feeling that a version of me is still reaching for you. That somewhere… in every universe, in every life, even if you don’t exist in it—it will always be you.”

part one | part two

likes and reblogs are greatly appreciated <3 if you want to check out more of my writings, head on to here — masterlist.

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kathaelipwse · 3 months ago

Text

The Fan Who Got Away - C.Seungcheol

Warnings: Angst, Comfort, Self-Doubt, Secret Relationship Genre: Drama, Romance, Idol!cheol x Former.Carat!F.Reader Word Count: 3.9k (reading time 14 mins-ish) Synopsis: Years ago, you were a dedicated Carat, attending concerts and collecting albums—until life got in the way, and you drifted from the fandom. One night, at a random bar, you bump into Seungcheol in disguise, hiding from the public. You don’t recognize him at first, but he recognizes you. Turns out, he remembers you from old fansigns. "You stopped coming," he says softly. "Why?" What starts as a simple conversation turns into years of texting, stolen glances at concerts, and a secret relationship that neither of you can walk away from. Author's Note: This story is for everyone who has ever found comfort in an artist but felt like they had to leave that love behind. I hope this brings warmth to your heart. 💙

The bar, a dimly lit haven of forgotten dreams and lingering scents of whiskey and regret, was a stark contrast to the vibrant, pulsating world you once inhabited. It was a place where the weight of daily existence was palpable, a tangible entity that pressed down on your shoulders. You, a ghost of your former self, sat at the counter, a drink swirling in your hand, its contents as stagnant as your life.

The years had been unkind, stripping away the joy that once defined you. The echoes of roaring crowds, the frantic energy of ticket sales, the sheer, unadulterated happiness of being a part of the SEVENTEEN fandom—all of it seemed like a distant, almost fantastical memory. Now, bills piled high, relationships crumbled, and the sheer exhaustion of survival had transformed you into a shadow, a hollow echo of the person you used to be.

"You stopped coming."

The voice, deep and resonant, cut through the haze of your thoughts. It was a voice you knew intimately, a voice that had once filled your life with joy. You turned, your heart pounding against your ribs, and found yourself face to face with Choi Seungcheol.

Even under the dim lights, concealed beneath a cap and hoodie, his presence was undeniable. The leader of SEVENTEEN, the man who had been your beacon of happiness, stood before you, his eyes holding a knowing, gentle gaze that sent a shiver down your spine. He recognized you.

"What?" you managed, your voice barely a whisper.

"You stopped coming to concerts. To fansigns. You used to be there—front row, every time." His voice was soft, laced with a hint of disappointment.

A bitter laugh escaped your lips. "Didn’t think you’d notice."

"I did."

Those two words, simple yet profound, were enough to shatter the walls you had meticulously built around yourself.

The stale air of the bar hung heavy, thick with the unsaid, the unspoken regrets that lingered like ghosts. You stared into the swirling amber of your drink, the liquid a distorted reflection of your own fractured emotions.

"Life happened," you repeated, the words sounding hollow even to your own ears. It was a cliché, a dismissive phrase used to brush aside the complexities of existence, but it was the only explanation you could muster.

Seungcheol remained silent, his gaze fixed on you, unwavering. He wasn't judging, wasn't offering platitudes. He was simply present, a silent witness to your unraveling. The weight of his attention, the intensity of his focus, was almost unbearable.

"Bills piled up," you continued, your voice barely a whisper. "My job… it barely covers rent. I'm constantly working, constantly exhausted. There's no room for anything else."

You paused, a bitter laugh escaping your lips. "And then there's my personal life. Or what's left of it. Relationships fell apart. Friendships faded. It's like… I'm slowly disappearing."

You looked up at him, your eyes filled with a raw, vulnerable pain. "It's not just about the money, Cheol. It's about feeling like I've lost myself. Like I'm just going through the motions, existing but not living."

You looked back down at the drink, unable to meet his gaze. "I used to find so much joy in being a Carat. SEVENTEEN was my escape, my happy place. But… I couldn't reconcile that joy with the reality of my life. It felt like a betrayal, almost. Like I was pretending everything was okay when it wasn't."

You took a shaky breath, the weight of your confession pressing down on you. "I felt guilty. Guilty for spending money I didn't have, guilty for taking time for myself when I should have been working, guilty for feeling happy when I felt like I had no right to be. And then… I just stopped. I stopped going to concerts, stopped buying albums, stopped watching your videos. I just… shut it all out."

Your voice cracked, and you swallowed hard, fighting back tears. "It wasn't that I didn't want to be there. It's just that I couldn't… I couldn't bear to see you all, to see the happiness I used to have, knowing I couldn't reach it anymore."

You closed your eyes, the memories flooding back, each one a sharp pang of longing. "I remember the first time I saw you perform. The energy, the passion, the sheer joy radiating from the stage. It was like… magic. And I wanted to be a part of that magic. I wanted to feel that happiness again."

"But I couldn't," you whispered, your voice thick with unshed tears. "I couldn't pretend anymore. I couldn't keep up the facade. And I didn't want to be a reminder of what I'd lost. So, I just… disappeared."

You opened your eyes, meeting his gaze, and found them filled with a deep, unwavering empathy. He wasn't offering solutions, wasn't trying to minimize your pain. He was simply acknowledging it, validating it.

"I used to love SEVENTEEN," you admitted, the words heavy with a bittersweet nostalgia. "I still do. But loving something doesn’t always mean you get to keep it. Sometimes, life takes things away, and you have to learn to live without them."

You paused, a wave of exhaustion washing over you. "I didn't think you'd notice. I thought I was just another face in the crowd, another fan among thousands. I didn't think I mattered."

Seungcheol's silence was deafening, a stark contrast to the cacophony of your inner turmoil. He was absorbing every word, every nuance, every unspoken emotion. His eyes, dark and intense, held a depth of understanding that made your heart ache.

He didn't interrupt, didn't offer empty reassurances. He simply listened, his presence a silent acknowledgment of your pain. It was as if he was creating a space for you to unravel, to lay bare your soul without fear of judgment.

The silence stretched, heavy and charged. It was a silence filled with unspoken words, with the weight of years of unspoken emotions. You felt exposed, vulnerable, yet strangely comforted by his unwavering attention.

You looked away, unable to bear the intensity of his gaze. "I'm sorry," you whispered, the words barely audible. "I'm sorry I left. I'm sorry I stopped being a Carat. I'm sorry I disappointed you."

You felt a tear escape, tracing a path down your cheek. You didn't bother to wipe it away. "I just… I didn't know how to be happy anymore."

You closed your eyes, the image of SEVENTEEN's joyful performances flashing through your mind, a stark reminder of the happiness you had lost. "I felt like I was betraying myself if I was happy. I felt like I was pretending and I couldn't do it."

You opened your eyes, finding his gaze still fixed on you. "I didn’t want to be a reminder of what I lost. I didn't want to be a ghost in the crowd."

Seungcheol’s silence wasn’t indifference; it was a profound respect for your pain. He was allowing you to express the depths of your despair, to acknowledge the wounds that had festered for years. He was offering you a space to be vulnerable, to be broken, without judgment or interruption.

His silence was a testament to his understanding, a silent promise that he was there, that he was listening, that he cared. In that moment, his silence spoke volumes, conveying a depth of empathy that transcended words. It was a silence that held your pain, a silence that offered solace, a silence that promised understanding.

He let you finish, and when the last of your words faded into the murmur of the bar, he took a deep breath. He had heard you. He had truly heard you. And he understood. He understood more than you thought possible.

---

The glow of your phone screen became a familiar comfort in the quiet hours of the night. After that initial, raw conversation at the bar, the texts from Seungcheol were like a lifeline, a gentle reminder that you weren't alone. They started with simple check-ins, a way to ensure you were taking care of yourself.

Cheol: Did you eat a proper meal today? Not just coffee and a stale pastry, I hope. You: Okay, fine, you caught me. But I promise I’ll make a real dinner tomorrow. Cheol: That's what you said last week. I’m starting to think I need to send you a meal prep service. You: Or you could just cook for me. ;) Cheol: Now that’s an offer I can’t refuse.

The playful banter was a welcome change from the heaviness of your earlier conversations. It was as if Seungcheol was gently coaxing you out of your shell, reminding you that laughter and lightheartedness were still possible.

As the weeks turned into months, the texts became more frequent, more personal. He would share snippets of his day, the behind-the-scenes moments that fans rarely saw.

Cheol: Rehearsals were brutal today. But we got a new choreography down. I wish you could see it. You: I’m sure it’s amazing. You guys always put on incredible performances. Cheol: It’s not the same without you in the audience. You: Are you trying to make me blush? Cheol: Maybe. ;)

The subtle flirtation was a delicate dance, a push and pull that made your heart flutter. You found yourself looking forward to his messages, eager to see what he would say next.

One night, he sent you a picture of himself, a candid shot taken during a break from filming. He was smiling, his eyes crinkled at the corners.

Cheol: Thinking of you. You: You look good. Even when you’re tired. Cheol: Only for you. You: Smooth. Cheol: I have my moments.

The late-night calls became a regular occurrence, a way to bridge the distance between your worlds. You would talk for hours, sharing your thoughts, your dreams, your fears. He listened with unwavering attention, his voice a soothing presence in the darkness.

"You know," he said one night, his voice soft, "you never talk about yourself. You're always asking about me, about the members. But I want to know about you. Tell me about your day."

You hesitated, unsure how to articulate the mundane details of your life. "It's nothing special," you murmured. "Just work, errands, the usual."

"Try me," he insisted. "I want to hear about it."

So, you started to share, recounting the small moments that made up your day—a funny interaction with a coworker, a beautiful sunset, a new book you had started reading. He listened intently, asking questions, offering his own observations.

"You have a way of seeing beauty in the ordinary," he said, his voice filled with admiration. "It's one of the things I admire most about you."

You blushed, surprised by his compliment. "You're just saying that."

"I mean it," he said, his voice firm. "You have a unique perspective, a way of finding joy in the little things. It's refreshing."

The compliments, the gentle teasing, the genuine interest in your life—it was all so unexpected, so different from the distant idol you had once admired from afar. He was human, vulnerable, and undeniably charming.

One night, he called you late, his voice a little breathless.

"I just finished a concert," he said. "The energy was incredible. But all I could think about was you."

Your heart skipped a beat. "Me?"

"Yeah," he said, his voice soft. "I kept looking out into the crowd, imagining you there, singing along, cheering us on."

"I wish I could have been there," you whispered, your voice thick with emotion.

"Me too," he said. "But next time, I promise, you'll be there. Front row, center stage."

The promise hung in the air, a tangible expression of his desire to bridge the gap between your worlds. It was a promise that filled you with hope, a promise that made you believe that maybe, just maybe, you could find your way back to the joy you had lost.

The texts and calls became a constant in your life, a source of comfort and connection. You found yourself sharing more of yourself, opening up about your fears, your dreams, your insecurities. He listened without judgment, offering support and encouragement.

"You're stronger than you think," he said one night, his voice filled with conviction. "You've been through so much, but you're still here. You're still fighting. And that's something to be proud of."

His words were a balm to your wounded soul, a reminder that you were capable of more than you thought. He was slowly piecing you back together, helping you rediscover the strength you had forgotten you possessed.

One late night, after a particularly long conversation, he sent you a final text.

Cheol: Sleep well, my love. You: You’re so cheesy. Cheol: Only for you. You: Goodnight, Cheol. Cheol: Goodnight. And dream of me.

You smiled, the warmth of his words spreading through you. You closed your eyes, the image of his smiling face filling your mind. You were falling, slowly but surely, and you knew that you were falling for him all over again.

2 years had passed by since you both had started texting and you had become a carat all over again; developed feelings for cheol but knew you had no chance with him. Or thats what…you thought.

The phone rang, a sharp intrusion into the quiet of your apartment. The name 'cheolie' flashed across the screen, and your heart pounded in your chest. His voice, when it came, was strained, a raw edge to it that sent a shiver down your spine.

"I can’t do this anymore i need to tell you something, And sorry to this over a fucking call i wanted to see you talk to you- this idol life is a fucking mess-" he said, the words heavy with a desperate sincerity.

Your stomach dropped, a cold knot forming in your gut. "Chill out cheol its fine- And you can't do what anymore?"

"Pretend you’re just a fan. Pretend I don’t—" He paused, a frustrated sigh escaping his lips. "I don’t want to see you in the crowd. I want you beside me."

The words hung in the air, a declaration that shattered the delicate balance you had maintained for so long. You were silent, your mind racing, trying to process the weight of his confession.

"Say something," he pleaded, his voice laced with a vulnerability that made your heart ache.

"Cheol… I don’t think I’m—"

"Don’t." His voice was sharp, cutting through your doubts like a knife. "Don’t say you’re not good enough. Don’t say you don’t matter. I swear, if you say that, I’m coming over just to knock some sense into you."

Tears pricked your eyes, a mix of fear and longing swirling within you. "I’m just me. I’m nothing special."

"You’re everything," he countered, his voice softening, filled with a tenderness that made your breath catch in your throat. "And I want you to be mine."

You swallowed hard, the words echoing in your mind, a declaration that felt both surreal and intoxicating. "Cheol… I don’t understand. Why me? I’m not… I’m not pretty. I’ve gained weight. I’m just… ordinary."

A low growl rumbled through the phone, a sound that sent a shiver down your spine. "Don’t you dare say that. Don’t you ever say that again."

His voice was firm, laced with a raw intensity that left no room for argument. "You are beautiful. More beautiful than you know. You have a light inside you, a warmth that radiates from your soul. It’s in your eyes, in your smile, in the way you care for others. And yes," he continued, his voice dropping to a husky whisper, "you've gained a little weight. And honestly, it drives me crazy. You look so damn good, so… edible. You’re soft, you’re real, and you’re absolutely stunning."

Your cheeks flushed crimson, a wave of heat washing over you. You had never heard him speak like this, with such raw desire, such unfiltered adoration.

"I don’t care about the superficial things," he continued, his voice filled with conviction. "I care about your heart, your mind, your soul. I care about the way you make me feel, the way you make me laugh, the way you understand me without me having to say a word."

He paused, a heavy silence settling between you. "You’re the only person who sees me, truly sees me, beyond the idol, beyond the leader. You see the man beneath it all, the man I keep hidden from the world. And that… that means everything to me."

"Cheol…" you whispered, your voice choked with emotion.

"I know I’m asking a lot," he said, his voice softer now, laced with a gentle vulnerability. "I know this isn’t easy. But I can’t keep pretending. I can’t keep watching you from afar, longing for something I can’t have. I need you in my life. I need you by my side."

"But… the fans…" you stammered, the reality of his world crashing down on you.

"We’ll figure it out," he said, his voice filled with determination. "We’ll find a way. We’ll be careful, we’ll be discreet. But I won’t hide you. I won’t pretend you don’t exist. You deserve to be seen, to be loved, to be cherished."

He paused, taking a deep breath. "Please," he whispered, his voice laced with a raw vulnerability that made your heart ache. "Please, say you’ll give me a chance. Say you’ll let me love you."

You were silent, tears streaming down your face, a whirlwind of emotions swirling within you. You had never felt so seen, so cherished, so loved. His words were a balm to your wounded soul, a testament to the depth of his feelings.

"I… I don’t know what to say," you whispered, your voice trembling.

"Just say yes," he pleaded, his voice filled with a desperate longing. "Just say you’ll be mine."

You closed your eyes, the image of his smiling face filling your mind. "Yes," you whispered, the word barely audible. "Yes, Cheol. I’ll be yours."

A sigh of relief escaped his lips, a sound that was both shaky and filled with joy. "Thank you," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "Thank you for giving me a chance. I promise, I won’t let you down."

The phone line went silent, but the connection between you remained, a bond forged in vulnerability, in honesty, in love. You were his, and he was yours, a secret whispered in the darkness, a love that defied the odds.

Your relationship, born in the shadows of fame and fueled by a deep, undeniable connection, became a delicate dance of stolen moments and whispered affections. It was a world of late-night phone calls, coded messages, and clandestine meetings, a world where every touch, every glance, was charged with the thrill of forbidden love.

Backstage at concerts, amidst the chaos and adrenaline, they would find fleeting moments of intimacy. A quick, stolen kiss behind a curtain, a lingering touch of hands in a darkened hallway, a whispered "I miss you" amidst the roar of the crowd. These moments, though brief, were precious, a reminder of the love that bloomed in the midst of their busy lives.

One night, after a particularly grueling concert, Seungcheol found a way to slip away, his manager covering for him. He arrived at your apartment, a figure shrouded in a hoodie and cap, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

"I couldn't stay away," he whispered, his voice hoarse from singing.

You pulled him inside, locking the door behind him. He shed his disguise, revealing the tired but happy face you had come to adore. He pulled you into a tight embrace, burying his face in your neck.

"I need you," he murmured, his breath warm against your skin.

He showered you with neck kisses, each one a tender expression of his longing. The touch was electric, a reminder of the raw desire that simmered beneath the surface of their relationship.

"I missed you so much," he whispered, his lips tracing the delicate curve of your ear.

He pulled you to the kitchen, where he proceeded to make a late-night snack. He moved with a quiet efficiency, his movements fluid and graceful.

"I've been practicing," he said, a playful grin spreading across his face. "I wanted to impress you."

You watched him, your heart swelling with affection. He was so different from the charismatic idol the world saw. He was a man, vulnerable and loving, eager to please.

They cooked together, a silent dance of shared intimacy. The kitchen, once a place of solitary meals, became a haven of shared laughter and whispered secrets.

After they ate, they settled on the couch, wrapped in each other's arms. They put on a movie, but neither of them paid much attention to the screen. They were content to simply be together, to feel the warmth of each other's bodies, to lose themselves in the quiet intimacy of the moment.

"I wish we could do this every night," he murmured, his fingers tracing patterns on your arm.

"Me too," you whispered, your voice thick with emotion.

Movie nights became a regular occurrence, a way to escape the pressures of their lives. They would cuddle on the couch, sharing popcorn and whispered jokes, their laughter echoing through the quiet apartment.

Sometimes, they would simply talk, sharing their dreams, their fears, their hopes for the future. He would tell you about the challenges of being a leader, the pressure to always be strong, the fear of disappointing his members and his fans. You would tell him about your own struggles, the loneliness of your past, the joy you found in his love.

He listened with unwavering attention, his eyes filled with a deep understanding. He never judged, never minimized your feelings. He simply offered his support, his love, his unwavering belief in you.

One night, he surprised you with a handwritten letter, a declaration of his love that brought tears to your eyes.

"My dearest," he wrote, "I never thought I would find someone who understood me so completely, someone who saw me for who I truly am. You are my light, my strength, my everything. I love you more than words can say."

He signed it with a simple "Cheol," a reminder of the man beneath the idol, the man who loved you with all his heart.

Their secret relationship was a tapestry woven with stolen moments, whispered affections, and unwavering love. It was a world of hidden kisses, late-night cuddles, and heartfelt confessions. It was a world they built together, a world that was theirs and theirs alone.

He would send you goodnight texts every night without fail, no matter how late he was working.

And in those quiet moments, when the world felt too loud, he reminded you of one thing:

"You won’t leave me again, right?"

You smiled, fingers tracing the words on your screen.

"Never."

The secrecy was hard, but it made their moments together all the more precious. Each stolen kiss, each whispered "I love you," was a testament to the strength of their bond, a reminder that their love was worth fighting for. They were building a world within a world, a haven of love and understanding in the midst of the chaos of their lives. And in that haven, they found a love that was both extraordinary and deeply personal, a love that was theirs and theirs alone.

---

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hoshifighting · 10 months ago

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— jihoon + roomates to lovers — mrs. lee might think her son is focused on his books, but the truth is, jihoon’s attention is entirely on you.

— synopsis: mrs. lee is a strict, no-nonsense mother determined to keep her son, jihoon, focused on his studies. her only condition for letting him have a roommate in his dorm is that it has to be a boy—no distractions allowed. when jihoon reveals that his new roommate is you, a childhood friend she remembers as a sweet, innocent girl, mrs. lee is ultimately relieved. surely, you wouldn’t do anything inappropriate with him… right? — WC: 2.6k — WARNINGS: smut, clit stimulation, dirty talk, penetrative sex, oral (f.receiving) pervert!jihoon, mentions of another, making sex on the couch jihoon's mom bought being mentioned, them almost getting caught, jihoon's mom being strict.

you were sitting across from mrs. lee, the woman’s gaze piercing as she stirred her tea with a delicate clink. she hadn’t changed much since the days you rang her doorbell with scouter cookies in hand—still the same sharp eyes, still the same subtle judgment wrapped in a soft smile. “you’re not going to do something like that with him, right?” she asked, her voice dripping with the kind of sweetness that left a bitter aftertaste.

you could feel jihoon shifting awkwardly beside you, his discomfort almost tangible. he hadn’t said a word since his mother had started this impromptu interrogation, and you could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hand clenched around the arm of the chair. he was too old to be treated like this, you thought, but still too young in her eyes to make his own decisions.

“of course not, mrs. lee,” you replied, your voice as innocent as you could muster, though the irony wasn’t lost on you. you had grown up, after all. “i’m just here to help out with rent. that’s all.”

“good girl,” she murmured, taking a sip of her tea. “i knew i could trust you. you always were such a sweet little thing.”

you forced a smile, but inside, something coiled tight. it wasn’t the first time someone had underestimated you, but there was something about the way mrs. lee did it that made your skin itch. maybe it was the fact that she was right, in a way. you weren’t here just to split rent with jihoon. no, your reasons, or his reasons were far from innocent, but they were none of her business.

[...]

“you’re not going to do something like this with him, right?”

BZZZZZZTT! HAHA! DAMN WRONG.

mrs. lee’s voice was just a distant memory now, drowned out by the heat of jihoon’s mouth on yours, his grip tight on your ass as he pushed you up against the wall in the dorm hallway. the sweet, shy boy she thought she knew? long fucking gone, replaced by this guy who couldn’t even wait to get inside before pawing at you like an animal. the taste of alcohol was heavy on his breath, mixed with the remnants of the cigarette you’d both shared earlier, and the way he was devouring your mouth left no doubt about what was coming next.

if only she knew this was your routine—every time he came back from a night of drinking and smoking with you, his hands were on you before the door even closed behind him. you’d barely made it through the door last time before he had you bent over the arm of the couch—the very couch she’d picked out and bought for his dorm—fucking you so hard you were sure the neighbors had heard every slap of skin against skin.

“jihoon,” you gasped against his mouth, but the sound of his name only seemed to spur him on, his grip on your ass tightening as he ground his hips against yours. “can’t even wait, can you?”

“fuck no,” he muttered, lips trailing down to your neck, his teeth scraping over your skin in a way that made your knees weak. “need you now.”

you didn’t protest when he practically dragged you to the couch, his hands already tugging at your clothes as he pushed you down onto the cushions. the look in his eyes was wild, nothing like the shy boy mrs. lee still saw in her mind. this was a man driven by pure, unfiltered need, and you were more than willing to let him take what he wanted.

“she’d lose her mind if she knew,” you teased, voice breathless as you wriggled out of your clothes, your eyes locked on his as he yanked his shirt over his head.

“don’t care,” he growled, and the next thing you knew, he was on you. his hands were everywhere—tracing the curve of your waist, squeezing your thighs, rough fingers brushing over your nipples.

oh, you two were damn lucky that this couch couldn’t talk, because if it could, it’d be the first to spill the beans to mrs. lee. blabbing about all the times jihoon’s had you spread out on it, making you cum on his mouth like it was his favorite fucking meal. this couch had seen more than its fair share of your moans and gasps, had felt the tremors of your body when he made you melt in his pretty little mouth, and if it could, it’d give mrs. lee a full report—every dirty detail.

too bad for her, though, because this couch? it kept secrets like a vault, and tonight was just another deposit.

jihoon had your clit in his mouth, sucking on it like it his life depended on it. the way he worked his tongue made sure you couldn’t form a single coherent thought. every flick of his tongue against that sensitive nerve was so fast, so precise, it felt like he’d turned into a human vibrator, leaving your mind completely scrambled. he had you quiet, reduced to nothing but gasps and moans, and fuck, he knew exactly what he was doing.

and jihoon was downright filthy. he’d pull his tongue away just enough to show off the slick, glistening line connecting it to your clit, a blatant display of how much he was enjoying every second. the sight alone was enough to drive you wild his nasty face + his greedy mouth.

jihoon took his time eating you out, like he was conducting a symphony. every flick and swirl of his tongue was calculated to build you up, to make sure you were more than ready for when he’d finally shove his fat cock inside you.

he made damn sure you came enough to be completely dazed, your mind a foggy mess as if every coherent thought had been wiped from your head. when he finally pulled away to grab a condom, you were left sprawled on the couch, still in the same position he’d left you in, utterly wrecked. he’d bite his lip to hold back a laugh, clearly amused by how out of it you were.

you prop up on the couch, your ass practically waving at him. he gave you a playful slap on your ass before sliding the condom on, his eyes sparkling nastily, but his mouth had a cute smile.

“good girl,” he muttered, his voice dripping with satisfaction.

you shot him a half-hearted frown, shaking your head. “don’t tell me your momma used to say the same thing?”

he chuckled, sliding in with a slow, deliberate push. “well, she might’ve. but i’m pretty sure she wasn’t talking about this.”

“yeah, i’d hope not,” you retorted, letting out a breathy moan as he filled you. “because if she was, i think we’d have a whole different family dinner conversation.”

“can’t argue with that,” he said, pressing deeper, a grin tugging at his lips. “but, you’re still my favorite good girl.”

you tightened your pussy grip around his cock, a playful warning. “yeah? well, you better remember that. you only have me.”

jihoon’s breath hitched, his eyes widening as he felt the squeeze. “a-ah! okay, okay, true, true! you’re the only one—no one else gets this much of me.”

you grinned, feeling him twitch inside you. “oh, really? because i could’ve sworn you said that to your last—”

“stop!” he interrupted, laughing between his moans. “no more exes, i swear! it’s all you, babe.”

“glad to hear it. i wouldn’t want to share my favorite toy.”

he laughed heartedly. “believe me, i wouldn’t let anyone else near it. you’ve got exclusive rights.”

“damn right i do,” you said, giving him another teasing squeeze. “now show me why i’m the only one who gets to enjoy this.”

jihoon groaned, sliding in deeper with a satisfied grunt. “you got it, babe, and this”—he thrusts just a bit harder—“is all yours.”

you felt your ego swell with his confession, knowing it might be flattery, but it was in these moments—when he was deep inside you—that you could unlock jihoon’s secrets. a well-timed squeeze or a slick suck was all it took.

“jihoonie it feels amazing… you’re making me lose my mind.”

“losing your mind, huh?” jihoon’s voice was a low, teasing purr. “do you like it when i hit that spot, make you shake like this?”

you could only whimper in response, your body trembling with each thrust. “yes, fuck… don’t stop.”

he chuckled, his hips snapping forward with intentional force. “what’s it gonna take to make you admit i’m the best? more of this? or maybe you want me to keep making you come so hard you can’t even think?”

your breath caught in your throat, escaping as a breathy gasp as you throbbed around him. you cursed under your breath, realizing that if you had known this shy guy had such a filthy side, you would’ve jumped his bones way sooner.

just as you were about scream his name, you heard a series of knocks on the door, making both of you freeze. you glanced back over your shoulder, eyes wide with panic. jihoon’s face was a mask of concentrated silence as he put a finger to his lips, shushing you—like it wasn’t painfully obvious what was happening.

he then clasped a hand over your mouth, pulling you flush against his chest. starting to roll his hips deep and slow, your eyes rolling back.

“don’t you dare make a sound, babe. if you want me to keep going, you better stay quiet.”

you squeezed your eyes shut, cursing the person at the door for the awful timing. all you wanted was to scream his name, let the whole building know how fucking amazing jihoon was making you feel. and he was as into it as you were, if not more.

“you’re gonna stay quiet and take every inch.”

“i want to come so bad, jihoon. i wanna scream it.” you mumbled through his hand.

jihoon’s breath turned into a desperate whine against your ear, the knocks at the door growing more insistent with each passing second.

“fuck, i swear if they don’t shut up,” he muttered, his breath hot and ragged against your ear. despite the distraction, he kept his movements steady, his cock still sliding in and out with the perfect pressure.

you shivered, clamping down on him, your body quaking with the effort to stay quiet. “jihoon, i need to come so badly,” you whispered through clenched teeth. “can’t you just…”

“shhh,” he murmured, his voice a seductive growl. his grip on you tightened, pulling you even closer, as if trying to drown out the unwanted noise.

“goddammit,” he whispered fiercely in your ear, his voice trembling with and irritation. “i can’t believe this shit. i’m gonna make you come anyway. just stay with me.”

you could only manage a muffled whimper in response, your hips still moving in sync with his.

jihoon could feel your warm puffs of breath on his palm, your breath coming faster as you clenched the couch rest, eyes squeezed shut in desperate frustration. he kept his hand over your mouth but gently turned you to face him.

“open your eyes,” he whispered.

you slowly opened your eyes, eyebrows furrowed, silently pleading for mercy. a thick tear slid down your cheek, coming to a halt on his hand. jihoon’s gaze softened, a flicker of pity in his eyes as he felt the tight clench around him.

“i know, baby, i know,” he murmured with empathy. “i know it’s rough, but you gotta hold on for me.”

you spasmed around him, your body trembling uncontrollably. jihoon’s eyebrows furrowed in response, his own expression mirroring your pain and need. he could feel your struggle, the way you were trying so hard to hold on, and it made him ache for you even more.

“i’m so close,” you whispered, barely managing to speak through the muffling of his hand. “please, jihoon.”

“just a little more,” he whispered back, his voice strained with longing. “i’m almost there too. i need you to come for me, baby. let go and let me take care of you.”

you clenched around him with renewed strength, your body shaking with the effort. jihoon let out a low, pained groan, his hips grinding into you with a desperate rhythm.

jihoon’s eyes softened as he looked at you, his movements becoming sharper, trying to offer as much relief as he could while still keeping quiet.

“fuck, i can feel how close you are,” he continued, his voice desperate. “i’m right here with you. i won’t leave you hanging.”

he adjusted his position slightly, angling his hips to hit you just right, hoping to push you over the edge despite the interruptions.

jihoon’s other hand, slick with his own saliva, moved to your clit. he sucked the tips of his middle and ring fingers, then placed them against the sensitive spot, making you flinch. he could feel your body reacting eagerly to his touch.

you loved it when he fingered you, no matter how he did it, and he knew it well. your eyes squeezed shut, and you arched your back, head falling against his shoulder.

as the tension built, you finally let go, your body trembling violently against his. jihoon’s face contorted in pleasure, fighting the urge to moan out loud. he bit his lip hard, stifling the sounds he loved to make, watching your fucked-out expression combined with the way you were swallowing his moans, was all it took for him to lose control.

jihoon’s jaw went slack as he felt the condom growing wetter, his cum trapped inside the rubber. the knocks on the door sounded muffled and distant, like they were underwater, barely registering through the haze of post-orgasmic bliss.

you felt his sweaty body pressed firmly against you, anchoring you in the moment. his hands, still warm and slightly trembling, roamed over your tits, giving them a gentle, affectionate squeeze. a satisfied smile spread across your face.

you whispered against his skin, “aren’t you going to answer the door?”

jihoon sighed, his breath still heavy. “it’s stopped now. probably just someone being nosy.”

just as he finished speaking, his phone buzzed loudly. he glanced at the screen and saw it was his mom calling. jihoon cursed softly under his breath and grabbed his phone.

“hey, mom. what’s up?”

“jihoon! i’ve been trying to reach you. i need to know if you’re okay. there were some noises, and i—”

“yeah, everything’s fine. just a little noise from the neighbors, you know how it is.”

“oh, okay. i was worried. you didn’t answer earlier, and i thought something might have happened.”

“nah, it’s all good. just dealing with a bit of stuff here. i’ll call you back later, okay?”

“alright, but make sure to take care of yourself. call me if you need anything.”

“will do. talk soon.”

as you lay on the couch, you mimicked jihoon’s voice in a high-pitched, exaggerated tone. “oh, it’s just a little noise from the neighbors, mom!”

jihoon rolled his eyes, a playful grin extending across his face. he stuck his tongue out at you, waggling it just enough to make you laugh.

you raised an eyebrow, catching his teasing gesture. “oh, is that the same tongue you used on me earlier?”

jihoon’s grin enlarged. “pftt, come on. you’re not telling me you didn’t like it when i used it on you?”

you laughed, shaking your head. “keep that tongue to yourself.”

jihoon leaned in. “what, you don’t want me to give your pussy the same attention?”

you playfully smacked his arm “jihoon!”

quick fic based on friends > roomates > lovers anon request. ❤️

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sp4ceboo · 7 months ago

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As Selfish as Love: Merman!Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

genre: merfolk au, fantasy au, merman!bakugou x witch!reader, strangers to lovers, bakugou x f!reader, smut and angst and fluff

summary: in a world infested with purgers of magic, neither a clandestine witch nor a lone merman can remain safe for long.

tw: 18+, smut (afab reader, p in v, bkg has a merman cock, marking + biting, oral f receiving, fingering, crying during sex but not like you think, unprotected sex, creampie), violence, blood, death, vivid gore, grief, reader treated as a tool by evil ppl, random worldbuilding, questionable medical knowledge, kinda plot heavy, other stuff i don't remember

wc: 19.8k

For years, all you’ve known is darkness.

Chained by the wrist to a ring in the wall, swaddled and asphyxiating in the blackness of the brig - it is there where your closest companion has become the dark. It is the absence of light: not only because they do not deem you human enough to spare lamp oil on you, but because the kiss of the sun has been reduced to a foreign concept, a distant, syrupy memory.

Every morning when that door opens, letting light leak in and crawl painfully between the cracks of the roughly hewn floorboards like an intruder, you repeat your name back to yourself, remind yourself who you are - a witch, a survivor, a person at the end of their tether but that all the same does what they can to keep the shadows at bay.

For the darkness is not just the absence of light: it is the absence of hope, and if you let it take you, your very substance will dissolve and you will sink beneath obsidian waves and melt away without a sound. They will have won.

This is something you will not allow.

White knuckled, you hold onto memories of the past the way a drowning man clings to driftwood. They swirl in the currents of your mind, fickle things. Sometimes they are so tangible you can feel the grass beneath your feet and the bracing wind of the highlands on your face even in the still, humid air of the brig, sometimes they eddy away before you can catch a glimpse.

You were barely a woman when they caught you, when they tore you out from where you’d been rooted to the earth, ripping through the stitches that held your life together. You were young, and you were naive and ignorant. This would not have happened if I had been as I am now, you think, but as you are now is shackled in the belly of a ship built for the single purpose of hunting merfolk.

They hunt to purge. Their so-called divine has commanded the eradication of magic, and so that is what each and every child is trained for from birth. The land has been rife with their conquest for centuries, making witches such as your kind unheard of, yet the sea for all its worth has lain mostly untouched until recently.

You are jealous of the merfolk. The magic must come easily to them, because they have not had to suppress it out of fear - it seethes in their blood, potent as an ocean storm, imbued within their essences as salt is in seawater. For this, they are feared, and for this, the hunters are more so hellbent on their extermination.

Over your years spent in the hull’s constant night you’ve learnt that your captors are the most celebrated hunters of their time, held above everything but their leader and their divine. They are revered among their people, and that is why they are allowed to chain a witch in their brig and force her to heal wounds sustained from hunting the undeserving - because they are strong enough and honourable enough to not be corrupted by your magic.

There is nothing honourable about the way they treat you.

Though you are human as they are, you are lower than an animal to them. They have no care for your limits - oftentimes, you are pushed to heal and heal and heal until you are exhausted, and yet you refuse to succumb when the darkness calls, because each time you meet their eyes, without fail, you see, buried deep within, is fear.

They fear what is unknown, what is not under their control, and every time you refuse to break when they beat you just for entertainment, every time they push you almost to death yet you survive, you wrest back an inch of control. You are needed, and that is something you will use one day, when the time is right. For now, you collect those sparks of fear in their eyes and let it feed the fire nestled within your soul that fends off the growing dark.

It is a day like any of the other days. Stirring in your fraying blankets, you wake up to the sound of the crew’s strident voices, and as it is sometimes, you almost forget that they are cruel and stained by their own wrong doings because for now, there is no talk of blood shed, just breakfast. You hate that they can seem so normal with so many innocent lives on their hands.

The day very quickly progresses into the type you have come to dread.

They neglect to bring you your daily portion of bread and water, nor the echinacea you had asked for more of, and it can only mean one thing - a hunt is on. Already, you can feel the unruly lurch of the ship as it skims over the waves, picking up speed. The crew’s voices become louder, crowing and eager, and you despise them so deeply your heart twists and becomes an ugly thing in your chest.

Almost imperceptible, you can hear the rattle and hiss of ropes as they ready their harpoons. This part is the worst, where the darkness closes in so near that you can feel its cold touch brush up your arms and its breath ghosting over your face. Sometimes you hear the anguished cries of the merfolk, sometimes the whoops and victory cries of the crew are loud enough to drown it out. You don’t know which is worse.

After will come the wounded, grinning still and soaked in blood of two kinds - theirs and their victims. You are always numb to it by then, turning a blind eye to the crimson dipped trophies they grip in dirty hands: lopped off fins and strips of scales, sometimes small enough to be a child’s.

How they can butcher beings as beautiful as the merfolk and think it the right thing to do, you do not know.

It makes you sick to your stomach, that somehow you have become their accomplice, stitching their wounds with your magic, saving their lives so they can kill again. You vow that one day, you will strike back, but what good can you do now, trapped in the bowels of a boat that was designed as a vessel for murder?

You have to try. You have to survive, if just to try. You are yet to come up with a method for escaping past what you have already attempted, but if you do not, more lives will be lost, more bloodshed that you had inadvertently aided. Right now, on deck, the patterns for it to happen all over again are falling into place.

You’re sure that this time will be no different.

And so you wait for the injured to come, almost defeated if not for the hard, bright little ball of hate settled in your throat. You wait, and you wait, listening to the strange thumping above that you can’t decipher, and still they don’t bring you their wounded. Neither comes their usual sickening shouts of triumph - you wonder if the merfolk managed to escape. You hope desperately that they did.

Listless, you turn your head as footsteps approach. There are more than normal. You can’t count exactly - five, maybe six, and they all walk with a strange irregular gait as they approach the brig.

I hope the merfolk put up a magnificent fight, you think as the key scrapes in the lock. I hope that taught them; you know it never does. The more damage the merfolk do while they fight for the lives of their mates and children, the more they are damned as unnatural and beastly and deserving of the fates that are doled out to them by men.

With a rusty squeal, the door swings wide, and with it comes the same influx of light that always spills greedily through, stinging your eyes and making them ache - the doing of a tiny, wayward star moulded from precious lamp oil. You blink away the tears that well up at your lash line, testament to your accustomation to the dark, and then blink again.

Back when you took the warmth of the sun on your face for granted, you lived too far inland to ever see one in the flesh. You were still a witch under the disguise of a healer, though. You’d heard tales, seen artists’ renderings and gorey body parts wrenched off as sick memorabilia.

None of those could have ever come close to preparing you for the sight before your eyes.

A merman.

Deep in enemy territory - so deep, in fact, that all those surrounding him, bar you, have murdered more than dozens of his kind each. He is on a galleon rammed bow to stern with killers. And yet, despite it, he has not fallen victim to the purge. Yes, there is a splintered harpoon sunken into his side, yes, he is limp and broken, but even so, shallowly, his chest rises and falls.

He breathes. He breathes, and even that is beautiful. The lamp’s light reflects off his scales; he is mainly jet black, but broad swathes of orange run across the length of his powerful tail like they were drawn with the loving stroke of a painter’s brush. In parts, they darken into a ruby red that glitters and winks as the lamp light dances.

Or maybe that’s just blood.

There’s a lot of it. It soaks into the sheet they strain to carry between them, pools in the dip his weight makes, streaks in smears down his chest and face, coats his hands and is embedded under his sharp nails. You hope that all of it is not his, that he made them regret whatever they must have done to get a merman vulnerable enough and far enough from his pod to capture him.

Deep lacerations cut all along his chest and tail, and one of the spines that extend from his sail-like dorsal fin is bent in a way that must mean it is broken. A smattering of scales reach wide across his shoulders and back and down his arms, some of them twisted and bent out of shape. Your eyes fall to the harpoon buried just below his hip, and you feel the bite of your nails digging into your palms.

“Heal it,” commands the man holding the corner of the sheet closest to you. “We’ve been ordered to bring back a merfolk to be studied. It must be in peak condition.”

You frown as they begin to manoeuvre all three metres of merman into the brig. Studied? They must be looking for a weakness to exploit. After all, merfolk succumb less easily to flesh wounds than humans - the magic of the sea resides in their very bones.

A hand fists the front of your shirt and you’re jerked forward. You can feel the hunter’s foul breath on your cheek, feel the violence roiling just below the surface of his skin, and yet you cannot tear your eyes from the merman until you’re struck across the face. Reeling back, you raise your head to look at him, a hand flying up to cradle your jaw where it has begun to swell.

“Are you deaf? What are you waiting for?” he spits.

Your brain is still stuck on the fact that there is a merman before you, alive on a ship full of specialised mermen killers, but your body has gone through these motions many times before and brings you to kneel by your patient so fast your chain jingles crassly in the relative quiet, your hands already working to gather herbs for a poultice that will slow the bleeding.

Glancing over your shoulder, you see your captors filing out of the door, the last of them grumbling and wiping his hands on his trousers as if being near enough to hit you had sullied him. Realisation dawns abruptly on you.

They’re leaving you alone with the merman.

“Wait,” you call.

Disquiet grows in your stomach. As much as you hate the life forced upon you, serving as a tool for men who would not hesitate to kill you if you ran out of worth, you have gotten used to it, and this merman at your feet has disrupted your delicate equilibrium, tripping you as you balance on a knife’s blade.

You have never had problems with thinking fast in a pinch. You are a healer, you are accustomed to endless wells of blood and snapped bones sticking through skin. Conversely, you are not accustomed to the sight of a half conscious merman taking up the majority of your floor space, a single fingernail on his hand no doubt potent with more magic than is contained in your whole body.

Your tongue is slow, your mind slower, but you force the words out, emboldened because whether he likes it or not, this merman is leverage for you. There is no one else on board that could save him.

“I will need a lamp indefinitely, while I’m in the process of healing.”

You realise how important the health of this merman is to their study because the hunter holding the lamp brings it over with no words of criticism, just the curl of his lip when you draw near enough to take it from him.

Its metal is warm in your hands, and you cup it in your palms - a little sun that clears the clinging shadows from the brig like they’re cobwebs. Carefully, you set it on the floor next to you, just outside the border of the canvas the merman lies upon, sitting back on your heels as the door slams shut.

You stare at the merman for a weighty moment. If it did, there’s no telling what organ the harpoon may have punctured - do his intestines extend all the way down his tail? Or are they in the same place as a human’s, and his tail is just muscles, like legs would be?

Never in your life did you think merfolk anatomy would have any significance to you. Even if you’d thought it did, there wouldn’t be any books for you to study on it. A hysterical, jittery laugh builds in your throat, wringing itself from you when you spot the strange slit - for lack of better words - that sits just below where his skin turns to obsidian scales.

The nervous sound breaks the silence, jolting you into action. Never mind his anatomy, he’s still bleeding out. Somehow, you need to get that harpoon out of him: the hunters don’t clean them off once they’ve used them, and if you’re not vigilant, infection will get him before whatever they’ve got in store will.

Determinedly, you scoot closer to his lower half, stretching out a hand to test the area around the wound. In preparation, you will your healing magic to rise to the surface, and it fizzles at the surface of your palms, warming them.

Your fingertips have barely brushed over his scales when pain slashes across your cheek.

The merman jerks away from you so hard that he cries out, and you wince as you see the wound pull wide, blood oozing out from where it gapes. Gingerly, you touch a hand to your cheek - one of his spines had glanced off your face as he’d moved away, its tip sharp enough to shed blood.

Any human patient would have lost consciousness moments after being hit by the harpoon that’s buried in his tail, and if by a miracle they hadn’t yet, the pain caused by what he just did surely would have knocked them out. Inexplicably, he’s still conscious, blood red eyes glaring at you with blatant distrust.

You hadn’t gotten a chance to look closely at his face before - you’d been too busy ogling his tail. Spikey, sandy hair casts a shadow over his eyes. They glow, carmine and half crazed, no doubt with the same agony that pinches at his face and curls his lip, revealing sharp canines that he bares at you, twin ivory warnings.

A rattling, hissing sound emanates from deep in his chest when you attempt to move closer again, his dorsal fin undulating in an obvious threat display. You can tell it hurts him; the spine you’d noticed before is definitely broken, the parts of the fin around it drooping and limp. He growls when he catches you looking.

You really, really don't know what to do.

Your skin prickles, the hairs on the back of your neck rising. He hasn’t taken his eyes off you since you were left alone with him. Aside from the obvious hostility, his face is effectively blank; there’s nothing in his gaze except the primal instinct to survive, and the unspeakable, offensive terror of a wounded animal backed into a corner and trapped there.

There’s no getting through to him with words. You remember the night you were ripped from your cottage by the hunters, the way you clawed and screamed until your voice was gone and your nails were torn and bleeding. You know what it’s like to have the adrenaline coursing through your veins so fast it burns, you know what it’s like to feel the anger and fear blend together in your chest until it strips away your humanity and you’re reduced to nothing more than a feral, wild eyed animal.

Slowly, you get to your feet, your chains rattling. He growls, making that hissing sound again, and despite his size, despite the muscles straining in his chest and the magic you can sense in his form, he looks small. You grit your teeth. The shock is beginning to wear off, burnt to ashes by a roaring fury that licks up your throat and fills your lungs.

You wonder if he had a pod. You wonder if they got massacred before his eyes.

Ignoring the trembling of your hands, you scoop up the piece of dried fish that remains from yesterday’s meal. It’s the only food you have, so you turn and offer it to him - when he doesn’t hiss immediately, you slide it over to him on the dented tin plate it had been on.

Tentatively, the merman picks up the fish, his nose very obviously wrinkling. As he examines your peace offering, you notice his hands are webbed up to the lowest knuckle and are a little larger than a human man’s, the fingers longer and the nails considerably sharper.

Relief fills you as he begins to chew at the fish, and you retreat to your pile of blankets, sitting down and half facing away to give him as much privacy as is possible in as small a space as the brig. You begin to make a poultice for him, crushing the herbs between your fingers because you’re not allowed a mortar and pestle and depositing them on one of the dishes you have lying around.

Once you’re done, you turn back to him. The edge in his eyes has softened a touch, and when you scoot over to settle closer to him, he doesn’t make a sound, instead just leaning away a little, watching you warily. Warningly, he hisses when you lift your hand, his red eyes flashing.

“I’m going to have to touch you to put this poultice on,” you tell him. “It will reduce the bleeding and might alleviate the pain.”

He twitches but remains silent. You wonder briefly if he even understands - people don’t talk to merfolk these days. They either run or they kill. For all you know, he might speak some ancient language of the sea that you have no hope in understanding.

You scoop the poultice up in your fingers and lean forward, aiming to ease him in by angling first for a smaller wound situated just over a hip bone on a human would be (you’re not even sure if his equivalent qualifies as a hip seeing as he lacks legs).

“Don’t,” he snarls, his voice guttural and rasping, like he hasn’t uttered a word in years.

Fumbling, you almost drop the dish. You guess that answers one of your many questions - he can speak your language, although you presume one word doesn’t really express fluency. For a moment, you consider telling him that they’ll no doubt beat you for not healing him, but it seems rather insignificant since it’s nothing they haven’t inflicted on you before.

Sighing, you sit back on your heels and look at him, defeated. He regards you with those same crimson eyes as before, but they’ve cooled considerably and hold traces of scathing criticism you find you aren’t the fondest of.

You begin to realise that he’s not going to give you any explanation as to why he doesn’t want you to treat him. He doesn’t trust you, most likely - you haven’t given him any reason to think otherwise of you, rather, you’d gawped openly at him. You’re not surprised he hasn’t taken a liking to you. You wouldn’t either.

So you retreat back to what has now become your corner of the brig, since the other three are taken up by the length of his tail and the doorway. On a whim, you prepare yourself a turmeric tea; it’s anti-inflammatory and you know you’ll be needing it sooner or later.

It takes a day, but one of the hunters barges in, light sneaking in past the outline of his silhouette. You don’t know any of them by name, nor would you want to, but you do know that this particular one is the first mate.

The merman hasn’t let you near him still, and although at points his eyes are closed, you’re worried that if you try to sneak up on him, he’ll move away again and tear open the parts of the wound around the harpoon that have partially closed up. The perimeter of blood soaked canvas beneath him has slowed its expansion but still grows.

It’s amazing that he’s survived this long while still losing blood. You presume merfolk must be rather resilient, unsurprisingly - the sea is no easy place to live in, nor is it made any easier by its recent infestation of merfolk hunters.

“Did you not hear your orders yesterday, you useless bitch?”

Passively, you look up at him as he looms closer. “I did.”

“So you don’t want to cooperate, then,” he snaps. “Do I have to encourage you?”

You don’t get to answer. A fist full of scarred knuckles collides with your nose, and your head snaps back, white exploding across your vision as the hunter shoves you backwards. Your back hits the ground and before you can even think of scrambling away, you’re kicked hard in the ribs.

You don’t try to resist it. You’ve learnt it’s better to take it than to fight and make him hit harder.

Red hot pain shoots through you when the tip of his boot catches your chin, clacking your teeth together. You cry out as your blood fills your mouth, streams from your nose, stains his knuckle bones. Hands up in a pitiful attempt at protecting your face, you curl up on the floor, as small as you can. Your ribs throb, your chain trapped awkwardly beneath your body.

You’re still balled up with your arms over your head long after he slams the door behind him. You ache all over, and your lower lip is trembling treacherously. Tears press at the backs of your eyes so you squeeze them shut: you’re not going to cry.

You need to get up.

You need to down that damned turmeric tea you made, just to feel the ginger burn as it slips down your throat.

When you open your eyes, the merman is staring. You grimace as you heave yourself to sit upright, the metallic taste of blood still coating your tongue and curdling until it’s sour. His face is unreadable, shuttered and devoid of any emotion. He doesn’t speak, although that isn’t exactly atypical.

“Well, now you’re not the only one bleeding all over the floor,” you mutter, unable to keep the resentment from your tone.

You turn your back to him as you set your nose with a grunt, letting your magic flow through your fingers and knit your flesh back together. Running a hand over your ribs, you check if any are broken, but when none are, you don’t heal them up; you’ll need to save your energy. The hunter didn’t bring food for you, and you doubt he’ll be bringing you any more until you treat the merman. That could take anything from an hour to a week.

Falteringly, you glance over your shoulder. He stares off to a place far away, a place you cannot see. A scowl furrows his brow, and you sigh, wondering if he thinks of the sea and the freedom that was torn away from him the way it was for you.

Curling up on your blankets, you pull one over yourself, rolling to face the wall and shutting your eyes. Loud in the darkness, your stomach growls, and you twitch but ignore the urge to look over your shoulder and stare accusingly at the merman - you too would not trust a human if all their kind had brought him was pain.

Your ribs hurt. It is alright, though. You’ve fallen asleep through worse.

When you wake, the first thing you do is crouch down beside the merman to check his wounds. The rattle of your chains makes him open his eyes, and you see that his face has paled, the alertness in his gaze dimmer now the adrenaline has worn off. As is becoming clear, he’s more resistant to injury than humans are, but there’s a worrying amount of blood saturating the canvas sheet beneath him, and you doubt he’ll make it much longer without help.

If he lets you near, what you’re going to have to do is far from ideal. The hunters’ harpoons are barbed and vicious, but you can’t exactly keep it in, and you can’t exactly cut it out without risking more blood loss. You’re just going to have to yank on it and hope it doesn’t destroy anything too vital on its way out.

“I’m going to have to take the harpoon out,” you tell him measuredly, gauging his facial expression.

He simply stares at you, his face blank but for the slight pinch of his brow. Shadows bathe half of his face; there is barely any lamp oil left to burn. The little flame flickers and sputters, letting darkness dance up the close walls of the brig, and if you do not hurry, you may have to treat him in the dark.

Slowly, you lift your hand, letting it hover over the splintered end of the harpoon. Tension bleeds into his body, the set of his jaw tight and his hands fisting as if he’s bracing himself, but he doesn’t growl or flinch away. Expectancy and resignation lurk in his gaze.

You don’t like that he won’t say anything in response even though he’s proven he can talk. You can feel his eyes boring into the back of your head as you gather your materials: the poultice from yesterday, a roll of bandages, a thick strip of worn leather. The latter you give to him, sighing when he turns it over in his hands, quizzical,

“Bite down on it,” you instruct him as you roll up your sleeves. “Either that or it’ll be your tongue.”

He frowns, but does as you say. You glance up at him to check if he’s ready. The hard lines of his body stand out, taut as a bowstring. He looks brittle, as if he might break and crumble into dust the moment you touch him.

Years ago, when you healed children’s scraped knees and the broken bones of men who had fallen from their ladders while fixing leaks in roofs, you had the words to comfort your patients. These you lost to the eternal darkness of the merfolk hunters’ ship, and these you wish to find again but cannot.

Instead, you murmur a quiet warning as you kneel by his tail, wiping your sweaty palms off on your trousers before getting a strong two handed grip on the end of the harpoon. Under your breath, you count down: three, two, one. Pull.

It makes a squelching, sucking noise as it comes out. You cringe but keep on tugging - if you stop now, it’ll be worse for both of you. He cries out, voice ragged and spilling over with agony, his tail arcing off the floor, and you feel the movement in the way the harpoon jerks in your hands with the bunching of his muscles.

All of a sudden, the resistance disappears. His tail fin slaps against the floor as he goes limp, both his and your heavy panting filling the room. You’re left with the splintered harpoon in your hands, a chunk of flesh and a twisted scale still clinging to one of the bloodied, rusted spokes. He spits the strip of leather out and it lands near your knee.

Carefully, you set down the harpoon and begin applying the poultice straight onto the weeping gash in his side, spreading the rest over the bandages which you bind tightly around his tail. Leaking from your fingertips, your magic suffuses across his skin as you work; you can’t heal him accurately without knowing much about his inner workings, but it should help to stave off any infection.

He shelters his face in the crook of his elbow, and though he tucks his other hand tightly to his chest, you can see the way he trembles.

You give him his space by swiftly moving on, busying yourself with his other injuries. You splint the spine in his dorsal fin, ignoring the way his hands shake and gently placing the arm crossed over his torso by his side so you can use your magic to clean and close up the various cuts and slashes littering his scar flecked body.

His scales seem to be damp, even though it’s almost been a full twenty four hours since he was brought in. It must be seawater somehow, you decide, or a sweat-like substance that keeps his tail wet enough when he hasn’t been in water for a while. He doesn’t look the most comfortable: he’s probably not used to having to support his own weight without the buoyancy of the waves.

There are little scars all over him, his skin a map of cicatrices, but the one that catches your attention is raised and jagged, spanning from the middle of his sternum to his navel. You touch your index finger to the centre of it, and he inhales sharply, flinching away.

“Sorry,” you mutter, pulling back, half expecting him not to hear you.

He’s silent for a while, ignoring your apology, but then comes a begrudging: “Thank you.”

Though he won’t see it - he’s still hiding his face from you - you shrug. “You should never have been hurt in the first place.”

He’s quiet again, lying still enough for you to imagine him dead if not for the rise and fall of his broad chest. You slouch, the energy having leaked from your body in order to mend his. The lamp finally gutters and winks out, leaving in its absence a tiny pinprick of light, a vanishing ember at the wick’s tip, buried in ashes.

When you tear your gaze away from your expired little sun, you’re confronted with a pair of blazing eyes. Pinned on you, they glow in the darkness like two pools of blood, but you find their luminosity strangely comforting, like Arcturus and Betelgeuse to a sailor: stars to lead you on your course.

“You are a witch, are you not?”

You jump at the sound of his voice, rough around the syllables but measured, as if he rolled them around on his tongue before he spoke. The scarlet light from his eyes dims a little as they narrow (you’re not sure if that’s meant to convey amusement or distaste) and you become aware that maybe he can see a lot more in the dark than you can.

“I am,” you confirm, still squinting at him - to no avail.

“Why do you not fight them, then?” He demands, his tone darkening. “Surely you cannot like it here.”

You scoff. “Of course I don’t like it here. You think I like the way they beat me?”

He’s silent, and though you still cannot see his face, you sense his scowl.

Sighing, you reign yourself in. This merman comes the closest to being an ally than all the others that have entered the brig, and you cannot squander this. He may not trust you, and you may be ignorant and ill informed of his kind, but you both have a common enemy, and though he may not like the thought, you are similar enough: the raw energy that flows through him is the same that you harness to perform your magic.

“I could fight, but there is nowhere for me to go if I escape the ship - there is just the sea,” you explain. “In the end, they are scared of all those associated with magic, even the witch they keep chained in the dark. The moment they deem that the risk I pose outweighs the use I have to them, they’ll kill me.”

He’s quiet again while he processes what you’ve said. “And what of me, witch? Why have they not killed me yet?”

“They want to study you,” you reply, wincing at how harsh your voice comes out. “I think we’re quite far from their lands - a few months’ travel, maybe - but it’s hard to tell.”

“What - ”

“Enough questions,” you cut him off. “My turn.”

A plethora of questions crowd your mind, but as you think of the merman in front of you, you find that they can wait, because although he must have stories of the sea that you’d only dreamed of hearing, and although magic you could learn endlessly from is threaded through his being, he is primarily, before anything, a soul. He is a soul: a soul with eyes that make the permanent night you are lost within just a little more manageable.

You will have to find out whether the kraken is real or not later; you will ask him about selkie skins afterwards.

Instead, you ask him his name, and tell him your own.

Bakugou, he grunts in response before turning his head to face the wall, clearly ending the conversation. Frowning, you stare at his back - or where you presume his back is, in the darkness - and mull over the name he provided you with; you are certain he has given you the one he gives to strangers. You suppose that is what you are.

Pulling absently at your chain, you sit with your back to the wall, your knees to your chest, and think about the merman, about Bakugou. For a moment, you are seized by the absurd belief that his most grave injury is a bleeding heart, but that cannot be true, for he has not said anything that indicates it. Questions find their way to your tongue, but you let them stick there, stifling them before they deign to interrupt the silence.

Neither of you move from your positions until the door opens, revealing the first mate. Squinting, you rise to your feet, a muscle feathering in your jaw as he purposefully kicks Bakugou in the shoulder, lifting his lamp high so he can see the bandages you’d applied.

“I’ll need a top up on lamp oil if I’m to continue the healing process,” you announce. “And we’ll need food and water. He’ll have - ”

You hesitate, glancing over at Bakugou, but he just lifts a shoulder and makes a face of disgust that you know isn’t conscious. Deliberating for a moment, you wrack your brain for any clues about merfolk diets.

“Fresh fish,” you decide. “And crabs. The bigger the better. Also, he’ll need a tub big enough for him, filled with seawater.”

“Watch the way you address me,” the first mate snaps, taking a step forward.

You shrug. “You wanted him healed, didn’t you?”

Your first two requests come within the next few hours, appeasing the increasing hollowness that had resided in your stomach and sending the shadows inhabiting the brig retreating up the walls and into the corners of the room, but the tub doesn’t come until two days after. It is barely watertight, plugged with tar and made from rough sawn wood.

You haven’t exchanged words with Bakugou since you asked his name and he gave you one, though you find yourself on the receiving end of his red eyes more often than not. He’s silent as the hunters bring the tub in, as they fill it with pails of seawater, as they leave and slam the brig’s door behind them. He’s silent, even as he slips into the tub and into a thin slice of his home.

And then, after a moment, he turns to you, and there’s something painful and cutting and cynical in his eyes.

“You know, the water doesn’t speed up the healing.”

You nod. “I know it doesn’t. You were uncomfortable.”

His eyes blaze. “What do you want?”

You regard him, regard the intensity of the fire in his gaze and the way his chest heaves. His tail fin hangs out of the tub, but even so, water swills over the side and splashes onto the floor like it can sense his agitation. Loudly, the links of your chain clank against each other as you cross your arms.

“I do not want anything, Bakugou.”

He narrows his eyes. “All humans I have known but one are cruel, witch. You wish for me to owe you something.”

“I don’t,” you reply, noticing the strange look that creeps onto his face. “Who is this human you hold in such high esteem?”

A distant look erases the furrow in his brow, and you get the sense he is no longer talking to you when he speaks again: he is lost in some place far away, a place coated in the golden sheen that tints all good memories. His voice turns soft as he brushes his fingers over the scar on his chest.

“His name was Izuku,” he murmurs. “But I called him Deku.”

“Deku?” You echo, your voice crudely loud all of a sudden.

A flash of grief slashes across his features like lightning on the high seas, there and gone so fast you almost don’t catch it. It’s like a switch flips, and suddenly shutters slam down behind his eyes and his expression melts away until his face is blank and cold. Regret sinks heavy in your stomach.

You wince. “I’m sorr - ”

“He’s dead,” Bakugou growls.

He doesn’t speak to you for three days. There is a certain rawness in his blood red eyes that makes you gentler as you change his dressings and reapply your poultices. He looks at you as if he hates that you are healing him instead of leaving him to die, so you avoid his gaze, staring instead at the scars that cover him like warpaint.

You get the sense that he is mourning this human he told you of all over again, and you cannot help but see the weight of it in the tension of his body and wonder if you could alleviate the pain.

On the fourth day, he shuts the vulnerability away somewhere deep inside of him, buried far enough beneath other things that he can pretend it never even existed. Yet you remember it, still vivid and fresh in your mind as you lie curled up on your side, watching the lamp’s flame until your eyes burn. He breaks the silence by clearing his throat, his gaze fixed on you.

“Witch,” Bakugou says softly. “How did they catch you?”

You glance over at him. “I was young and foolish and alone. It’s easy to snatch a girl from her home under those circumstances.”

“You have been here for years, then.”

“I have,” you sigh. “I tried to escape once. That’s why I’m chained down.”

“A weaker soul would not have survived this darkness,” he remarks solemnly. “You are strong, witch.”

You look down at your hands, watching your fingers fidget to and fro in your lap. Your tongue is frozen in your mouth - you had not spoken properly to someone in years before he was captured, and his behaviour confuses you. No words come to mind that express how grateful you are for his acknowledgement.

“Thank you,” you settle with in the end.

He hums but other than that remains silent.

Later you discuss with him the possible logistics of an escape. He explains to you that he cannot channel the magic the way you can, but that he is soaked in the magic of the sea; he is unable to use it for spells because it is innately part of him, enhancing him beyond human capabilities. Together, you come to the conclusion that you must get off the ship before you arrive at the hunters’ lands, or your chances of freedom will have narrowed to almost nothing.

An actual method of subduing or injuring the hunters enough to allow an exit route evades you, though. After all, you are chained to the wall, and there’s no easy way of moving Bakugou - he is, evidently, far too heavy for you to drag around all by yourself.

Uneasy silence falls over the brig. You stare at the lamp again: with it, your ability to see has been restored, along with a piece of your humanity, but now its light seems to illuminate how small a space you are contained in, how strong the chain binding you to the wall is.

As you drift off to sleep that night, you find yourself gripped by the fear that Bakugou will never return to the sea, and instead, they will inflict unspeakable torments upon him.

You will be the one who kept him alive for them. You will be the one who he grows to hate, because you had the chance to let future pain pass him by, but you saved him, and by doing so, you failed to spare him from their torture. And while they cut him open and study his insides, you will be somewhere far away, still risking yourself to heal their most elite, almost as if they are beloved to you.

The thought gnaws at you as the weeks pass. Blood no longer soaks the bandages wrapped around his tail; his dorsal fin is almost healed. He is gaining strength, more rapidly through your magic, and it is clear he has shaken off death many times before if his scars are testament to anything. In particular, the one on his chest draws you: though it is long healed, you can tell it was deep.

He almost died back then, too - the scar tissue around its edges is strange, lumpy and malformed as if he was kneaded back together by a child who saw his flesh as nothing more than clay harvested gleefully from a river bank. Even so, the shape of it is familiar. You know you shouldn’t pry. You remember the way he flinched away when you first touched it, but you ask, anyway.

“Bakugou,” you ask him once you’ve finished changing his bandages. “What did you do to get a merfolk’s blade stuck in your chest?”

He snarls. “All you do is fucking dig, you shitty witch.”

“I - ”

Hissing, he swipes at you half heartedly, and you stumble backwards, dodging his fist and almost tripping on your chain, caught off guard by the agitation in his eyes. Stunned, you gape at him. The fury is vehement on his face, evident in the grit of his teeth and the tremor in his hands as he grips the side of the tub; you can tell he despises how he is trapped in here with you, fending you off with the sting of his words.

You open your mouth. You’re not certain what you’re supposed to say, other than an apology that he will shake off easily, but you hope that words will form on your tongue. He levels his gaze on you, and this time, within it dwells an overwhelming sorrow that stops you short.

“Don’t try,” he whispers. “You cannot change the past.”

Brow furrowed, you stare at him. You take in the pain carved all over him, and this, you realise, not his scars, is his warpaint - he holds it close to him, like a cloak of inwardly turned, savage blades, reminding him to keep his distance. It is present in the bow of his head, the slump of his shoulders, a weight so heavy it threatens to rend his flesh from his bones.

You get to your feet, and in the lamp light, the single tear that rolls down his face is turned to solid gold.

Balefully, he looks at you, yet he holds still as you reach out and smooth it away with your thumb. A rawness resides in his eyes that you wish you could soothe as you catch the next tear that spills over, gently as if he is made of porcelain.

“You need not bear the weight of your world on your shoulders, Bakugou.”

Your words wrench a sob from him. His fingers curl tight around your wrist, tearing your hand away from his face, silently weeping as he grips you so hard you begin to lose feeling in your palm. You watch as the anguish in his eyes evolves into anger, harsh and brittle and bleak.

“Get away from me,” he spits, voice strangled, and yet he does not release you, so you perch on the side of the tub and make a show of not looking at him so he is not alone in his privacy.

It’s then that you realise that whether or not he likes it, you have gotten through to him. In the month that goes by, sometimes he is cold and aloof, keeping to himself, and sometimes he allows you close enough that you can feel his warmth. You find you savour his company when it’s there.

His wound is fully healed, a pink scar bordered by healing scales, and his dorsal fin spine is back in working order. You check up on him still, every other day or so, careful to monitor them in case you have somehow healed him wrong, careful to keep your regular intersections with him, because although you would never admit it to him, he is amusing, and he keeps the darkness at bay.

You are unsure what he thinks of you. Sometimes, he smacks you upside the head with no real force, and you dare to label it as affectionate. He gives you the name which he gives to those that mean more to him than strangers, too - well, you wring it out of him.

(“Bakugou, what’s your name?”

A scoff. “Witch, have you hit your head?”

“We both know you’re not obliged to answer, so if you’re not going to tell me, spare me the insults.”

Pause. “Katsuki. It’s Katsuki.”)

There are times when he has nightmares, too. You surmise that most of them are about Deku, and that the scar branding his chest, the one made by a merfolk forged weapon, is linked somehow to this dead human. Incomprehensibly, he mutters in his sleep, snarling about krakens and storms and sometimes even witches, but it always leads back to Deku.

Sometimes he protests against him, speaking a language you do not fully understand, cursing and thrashing so hard you fear the tub will splinter, while sometimes he proclaims his love, his voice slurred as he slumbers, but each time, without fail, he begs: forgive me, Izuku, forgive me, Deku, I’m sorry.

Katsuki is unaware of what he gives away in his sleep. Often, he settles down quickly after raising his voice, but sometimes you look over to see him stiff and terrified and shake him awake; he then jolts upright, the water sloshing out of the tub as he reaches for you, his stricken eyes searching yours for something you do not know the identity of, but he always finds.

He does not let you go, not ever. At these times, you lean or sit by the tub and let him crush your fingers in his grip.

He never speaks of it in the morning.

You would not hide from him what you have learnt, nor the feelings that grow treacherously in your heart, but you are too cowardly to tell him of either. It is certain that he loved Deku, and that maybe Deku loved him too. What was it like, you often wonder, to have loved Katsuki?

When he holds onto you, still half lost in the dark lands of his nightmares, you think about it. He would have been less guarded, a young merman not yet covered in scars; he would have given Deku his name immediately, for he would not have learnt that he needed to be wary of humans. Still, he would have fought for him until the end with the same ferocity he would fight for his own heart - because Deku was his own heart.

And Deku, you imagine Deku saw people as they really were. You imagine Deku with bright eyes and a brighter smile, with a face that all his emotions could be read off as easily as a book. He must have been good, persistent, if Katsuki had fallen for him. Soft, even, but tough when he needed to be.

They fit each other, no doubt.

You feel guilty, as if your speculations are invasive, rummaging around within Bakugou’s heart where he has not let you set foot. Mercifully, he can pin his red eyes on you as much as he likes, which he often does, but he will not hear your mind.

Now that he is healed, that is how you pass your days, exchanging words with him when either of you wish to, while you wrestle with the unspoken in your head and while god knows what happens behind his eyes. It is normal for silence to fall after a conversation - it is not awkward, but not comfortable either. It is pensive, it is familiar.

And today, it is shattered by screams up on deck.

Katsuki perks up, his keen ears picking up things your dull ones cannot, and he tilts his head, listening intently. You do not have to hear what he does to know what is happening: there is the sound of clashing steel above you, the all too familiar war cries of the hunters. It is not often that the merfolk are prepared for the hunters as they pass by, but neither is it impossible.

The ship lurches, harshly enough that some of the water in Katsuki’s tub overflows. You wager it must be a whole pod, then, maybe two, and you glance over at him, wondering if he knows who they are, wondering if -

“Are they yours?” You blurt.

“Huh?”

“Your pod,” you clarify.

Bitterly, he scoffs. “If the merfolk wanted to rescue me, they wouldn’t have waited months.”

You freeze. The detachment in his voice does nothing to hide the betrayal beneath, and ice begins to crawl up your spine, for he addresses them as the merfolk, not as his kind, his people. Harshly, you swallow as you start to understand that the hunters would never have been able to capture a merman if he wasn’t alone.

“You don’t have a…” You trail off, feeling far too inadequate and stupid to continue.

“My pod renounced me the moment they learnt about Deku and I.”

A picture forms in your mind, of a Katsuki who lost his family because he gave away his heart to a human - of a Katsuki to which the sea was no longer home, but a huge expanse of alone. Horror closes over your head like cold water as your eyes slide down to the scar on his chest.

His pod didn’t stop at just renouncing him.

You had always hoped that beings whose very essence was rooted in magic would be fair and just as the tales said. Your hope had always been that the merfolk would see that humanity was not united in the purging of them, that they would spare you if your path ever crossed theirs. Never did you think they would be so blind as to turn on one of their own for something as reliant on fate as love. You are a fool.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, and it comes out almost like a sob.

“We are no better than you are,” he replies.

His voice is so devoid of hope that it cuts you to the quick. You open your mouth so say more, to try and fill that emptiness inside him if you can, but your words are stuck in your throat and before you can force them out the door flies open, banging loudly against the wall and almost extinguishing the lamp’s flame.

Three gravely wounded are deposited in front of you and then the door slams. Silently, you get to work, sealing the deep slashes to their flesh more carelessly than you should be - but with Katsuki watching, you feel sullied, a betrayer who works for the purgers of magic. Their blood coats your tingling palms, and yet not in the way you wish it could be.

You have just finished the last when four more are dragged in, and you’re hit hard across the face and ordered to work faster, which signifies only one thing: more are coming. As blood wells up in your mouth, you hope that the merfolk are victorious, even if it means sinking the ship and letting you drown within.

Hate rises within you again, searing and acrid like smoke clogging your lungs, but this time it is different. You hate them for what they have made you; a tool, a means to an end. The determination you nurse in your heart is unimportant as long as you do what they say, and yet you cannot defy them, and this is what you hate yourself for.

Prickling sensations begin to claw up your arms as you heal. You are lost in it, the blood and the battle and the patients, and you swear you see the same faces twice: hunters who you healed once coming back more injured than last time. Your energy dwindles like a dying flame and you dip into your reserves when you recognise the violent light in the hunters’ eyes.

You cannot ask for a break. They already bay for blood and death; what more is yours but just another magic using bitch’s?

You are being bled dry. You are no longer aware of your surroundings, just the halting of the flow of blood beneath your hands and the wheezing gasp of your breath and the rattle of the chain locked around your wrist.

They have not been attacked like this in a long time. You almost forgot how fast the darkness closes in when you send out your energy through your palms to knit flesh and skin back together again. Spots cloud your vision, and futilely, you swat them away. Muffled, Katsuki’s voice hums in your right ear, but you do not understand the words he utters.

Your hands tremble. You pitch forward, slumping over your newest patient.

A hand fists in your hair. Knuckles press into your jaw, far harder than a lover’s touch and yet it feels like it in the way your head lolls slowly to the side. It takes time, but pain radiates through your skull, vibrating your teeth and sharpening your focus, and then you can hear yelling, yelling for you to wake up, yelling for you to carry on or they’ll kill you -

There are so many of them. So many hunters with frenzied eyes and blades that shine where they are not coated in innocent blood, and they are hurt and they want to return back to the battle and you must abide by their demands. The air is too thin as it whistles in and out of your lungs. You cannot think.

You press your palms to the blood slick abdomen of the next man placed down before you and do as they say. Your mouth is dry, your head pounds, your eyes won’t focus, and yet, you do as they say, you always do what they say.

What a fucking coward you are.

Letting them push you farther than you ever would let yourself go. You’re right on the edge, right over the edge, clinging onto the side of the perilously vertical cliff face even as the mossy stone crumbles beneath your fingers and threatens to make you fall down down down. But still, you heal. Your body performs numbly what your mind cannot take any more.

All of a sudden, there is not an open wound for you to heal or guts to force back inside a torso, there are just crimson soaked planks and a raised voice. Loud. An incensed, raised voice, cursing and roaring. Can’t you see she’s almost gone? They shout, earsplitting enough to make your head pound. She can’t heal you fucking bastards if she’s dead!

Bakugou. No, not that name. It’s… Katsuki. Katsuki making all that racket. You don’t know when it happened, but now your cheek is pressed to the rough planks that make up the floor. There’s blood everywhere. Some more splatters to the ground and you notice that the din isn’t being made by Katsuki any more. Your eyes are hazy as you lift them upwards and see a hunter raise his fist again.

“Kats,” you slur. “Watch… watch out…”

The lamp goes out, which is strange, since the oil got topped up this morning. You pay it no mind, though.

You’re too tired.

You wake surrounded by water. For a moment, you wonder if the merfolk won, and if somehow you managed to get tossed off the boat and into the sea, but then you move your leg and it hits something hard and vertical which must be wood. Peeling your eyes open, you find you’re in… the tub? Katsuki’s tub?

Lifting your head, you’re met with a pair of concerned red eyes. One is almost swollen shut, and blood has crusted down the side of his face from a wound in his temple, yet he smooths his hand soothingly over your upper back, watching attentively as you come to.

“You’ve been out for just under two days,” Katsuki says. “You need to eat, get your strength back up.”

Your memory begins to trickle back, and with it floods a torrent of shame: you always told yourself that you survived out of spite, out of the belief and conviction that one day you would hurt them enough to negate all the healing they made you to do, but it was all a pretence. You were scared and so you took the easier road of complacency, and it has caused the deaths of hundreds of merfolk.

It is without a doubt that if you had healed even just a papercut more, that if Katsuki had not stopped them, the life force within you would have winked out, and you would have died. Death had loomed right over you, brushing boney fingers over your face, and even now, it lingers.

You are burnt out, exhaustion weighing on you as if a whole mountain rests on your back. Worse is the fear, revealed in the blinding light, shackling you, for you are its slave, and you cannot shake its hold off you.

Your face crumples. “I am spineless, for letting them use me so. I am a coward, a - ”

“They give you no choice, witch,” Katsuki remarks. “Do not put it on yourself.”

You shake your head. “You cannot ask that of me. How many lives have been lost because I obeyed when the hunters told me to save them?”

Bowing your head, you sob. Fatigue envelops you, the chain around your wrist unspeakably heavy, and you lean heavily against Katsuki; he holds you like you are precious, handling you with care so that the pieces you have shattered into do not fall apart and scatter onto the floor. He tips up your chin, forcing you to look him in those eyes of his as he wipes away your tears.

“What was that you told me, as I wept like you do now?” He asks. “You need not bear the weight of your world on your shoulders. That was what you said to me.”

Nodding, you feel more tears leak out when you squeeze your eyes closed. He strokes your hair, and you hide your face in his chest and wish you could do forever, for he is warm and he is far gentler than you ever imagined he could be. You are tempted, but he nudges you and chides you, reminding you that you will feel much better once you have eaten.

Wobbly as a newborn fawn, you climb out of the tub, Katsuki steadying you with a hand on your arm. Wrapping one of your blankets around you like a shawl, you retrieve a hunk of bread to gnaw on before planting yourself on the tub’s rim, loath to be any farther away from him than you have to be.

Though hunger worries insistently at your insides, sending tremors through your hands and weakness in your legs, you force yourself to eat slowly; you cannot risk wasting any of the food by throwing up. Katsuki rests his forearms on the sides of the tub, watching you with a keen gaze that you cannot read. You become more aware of the purpling bruising across his face and reach out without thinking.

He catches your hand before you can tap into the slowly replenishing well of magic inside of you, his fingers circling your wrist before he lets them slip down and lace with yours. Something ignites behind his eyes, and you find you are mesmerised - you lean closer to see how the spark dances.

“Katsuki,” you breathe, and then your lips are on his.

He tips his chin up to lean into you, his fingers threading into your hair as he pulls you closer to him, so tender that it makes your chest ache. You could stay like this for eternity, simply doing nothing but tasting the salt of him on your tongue and savouring the sweet, sweet scrape of his canines over your lower lip; he is all that matters, all that is.

Slowly, his hands come round to cup your shoulders, pressing you closer to him, and so you feel the moment his grip falters and he stiffens, feel the way he recoils from you as if you have burnt him, and you can do nothing to prevent it. You’re propelled backwards with the force he jolts away. Though it is only a few steps, you feel the gap between you yawn wide, stretching into an uncrossable chasm.

“No,” he chokes out, shaking his head. “No, not - not like - ”

Abruptly, he falls terribly, terribly silent. Stunned, you touch a hand to your mouth; your legs buckle, and you throw out a hand to steady yourself against the wall before sinking to the floor. It feels as if you are drowning.

Katsuki does not love you - how can he, when he fits with Deku like they were made for each other? You were wrong to hope for anything else, wrong to give in to what you wanted, because you have torn open old wounds that never properly healed. It is no longer significant that he does not love you, for you should have seen that already; what matters is that in your blindness, you have ripped him open.

You’re beginning to realise that it was not the lamp that kept the shadows back, but him. It is only natural that you are drawn to him like a moth to a flame, only natural that you were too weak to resist flying straight into the fire. This time, it is not only the moth who gets hurt.

You are left alone with your thoughts. Time passes, as it always does, but you pay it no mind. However hard you try, you cannot bring yourself to meet his eyes. You are numb, numb to the slow rock of the ship as it cuts through the waves, numb to the sounds of the crew at their battle stations again, numb to it all now that it is undeniable: you love him.

He cannot love you.

Wearily, warily, you raise your head when the door opens, revealing the first mate, soaked in blood. Crossing the room in a few strides, he stands before you, chest heaving, a frantic sort of desperation contorting his face as he tightens his hand around the hilt of his sword and glares at you.

“The captain is near death. We drop anchor home in a fortnight. I will be put in command if he does not survive, and if this happens, I will make certain that you come upon a death slower and far more painful than his.”

You do not answer, nor do you pay any mind to his threats. You can sense Katsuki staring in your direction, the feeling of his red eyes on your skin unmistakable: no doubt, he has heard what you have. We drop anchor home in a fortnight - a fortnight until Katsuki is delivered into hands who seek to study him, to slit him open while he still lives and examine his insides and the way his heart beats, ensnared in the cage of his ribs.

Just like that, you know what to do.

You wait silently until they bring the captain to you. The first mate did not lie when he said the captain is near death. Sweat creates a sheen on his brow, and though his eyes are open, he is barely conscious, for he has been sliced open from gullet to navel by a merfolk blade. Briefly, you touch a fingertip to the lip of the gash, ignoring the pained moan it causes and the disquieted mutters of the other hunters.

If you were superstitious, you would deem the wound too similar to Katsuki’s to be anything but fate, but you do not believe in such things. Instead, you put your trust in the strength of good steel and the sharpness of a tongue. Yes, you know what to do, and you will do it.

The chain fixed around your wrist is not broken, but it does not have to be. You are free to do what you wish, because before you is the captain, and he is leverage. There is no fear left in you, no shame to hold you back as you look up at the first mate; he opens his mouth, about to ask why you do not jump to heal his captain, but he pauses when he takes in your cold smile.

“Free the merman, and then I will heal him.”

A silence falls. They are left with no other choice but to do as you say, and they know it. The first mate’s hands ball into fists, a reminder to you of what will come once Katsuki is let go and you heal their captain, but it does not concern you any more. None of it is of concern to you, only his freedom.

“What the fuck did you just say, witch?” Katsuki spits.

His voice jolts the first mate into action. He heaves you to your feet by the front of your shirt, seething, and punches you squarely in the nose. Something cracks. Your head snaps back, the air knocked from your lungs when he drives his knee into your stomach and lets you crumple to the floor by his feet. Gritting your teeth, you glower up at him.

“Come at me all you like,” you hiss as blood pours down your face. “It will not save your captain.”

He crouches down before you. You do not listen as he shouts at you, because you see it in his eyes. He knows you have them all backed into a corner, he knows you’re aware he will not risk the captain’s life. Over his shoulder, Katsuki urgently mouths something to you: do you know what they will do to you because of this? They will do worse than just kill you!

“Let them,” you reply, and as you gaze at him, you smile again. To the first mate, you say: “Bring me up on deck. I want to see.”

The first mate hurls you away from him, barking orders at the other hunters, but all you hear is the crash of the waves outside and all you taste is the nectar of victory on your tongue. You watch, still smiling, as they grab Katsuki and drag him from the tub. He fights, of course he does, screaming your name and slashing at the hunters, but there is but one of him, and he is unarmed.

Cursing, the first mate unfastens your chain from the ring in the wall, wrapping the length of it around his hand and jerking you forward with it, pulling you to follow him through the ship. There is murder written on his face and in the curl of his lip, and you let it slide it off you like water from a sea bird's feathers.

He throws open the hatch, and for the first time in years, you see the sun. Slowly, you step into the light, and the salty breeze tugs playfully at your clothes and hair, fresh and briney and strong, pulling tears from your eyes. All around you is empty space, just blue sea and blue sky and the wind that dances gloriously between them as far as you can see.

The air is invigorating and crisp in your lungs. Hesitantly, you take a step forward, then another and another, seeing the way the sun plays on the water’s surface, scintillating as it warms your cold skin. It is as resplendent as you remember it.

“Witch!” Katsuki cries, shaking the hunters’ hands off him. “Why? Why would you do this to yourself?”

There are countless ways you could answer him. Instead, you take him in one last time, his spiky ash blonde hair and his crimson eyes and the way his scales glitter under the sunlight. You do this for love: if you can’t give him your heart, you will give him his freedom.

“Go,” is all you say, and though tears stream down your face, you smile.

“I will not forget you, witch,” he replies, voice thick. “I swear it.”

Running to the side of the ship, you cling to the taffrail and lean forwards to watch as he dives overboard. He slices through the water, the amber of his tail bright as he goes, further from you with each passing second, and your breath catches in your throat - he is more beautiful than you imagined he would be in the light.

As he crests a wave, he looks back at you, and you see the shimmer of his scales and the graceful arc of his dorsal fin one last time before he twirls in the surf and dives. With that, he is gone, and you are alone again, yet you do not fear what is to come.

A hand grips your shoulder, nails digging sharply into your skin. “Enjoy your peace, you thankless bitch, because once you heal the captain, all you’re going to know is pain.”

You turn to the first mate and laugh in his face.

He loves you.

Bakugou Katsuki fucking loves you.

He loves your deft hands, careful despite their calluses and nimble despite the chain around your wrist. He loves the smell of you, herby and laced with petrichor. He loves the brightness dancing in your eyes when you laugh. Most of all, he loves your sweet soul: the fierceness woven into it like second nature, the blaze of your heart when you stand up for what you believe in.

He was stupid for pulling away from that kiss. You had fit your lips to his, and suddenly panic rose in his chest, and he jerked backwards as if ignoring his heart would silence it; he was scared to love another human, scared because last time it led to pain. His fear had hurt you, and this is his regret - that he was the one to cause the slow dimming of the light in your eyes.

There are countless other things he regrets. He should have trusted more easily, he should have fought harder as they yanked him out of that silly tub and away from you, and he should never have left you by yourself on that ship with those despicable hunters.

He didn’t tell you he loved you, and now he is scared he will never get the chance.

He has left you in a den of beasts. Deku would never have let this happen if it was Katsuki in danger. Deku would have found a way to get him out. In fact, Deku did, he saved him instead of himself, and now Deku is gone, and he fears his heart is not strong enough to lose another. He does not want to lose another.

That serene little smile on your face as you watched him go - it haunts him, fucking burns itself into his retinas, because you knew. You knew precisely what you were doing, when you bargained with that hunter’s life, and you knew exactly what they were going to do to you for making them let him go.

You must be hurting right now. You must have been beaten within an inch of your life. You, who broke down the walls he rebuilt, brick by brick, after Deku was gone - the same walls that Deku himself tore down too. Katsuki is beginning to think that their foundation has always been flawed, or maybe they crumbled like Jericho simply because you shine brighter than the sun on the waves, and he could not look away if he wanted to.

He has been tailing the ship for little over a day. Keeping out of sight and in the shadows is easy; he has felt the sting of their harpoons enough and he will not risk an injury when getting you away from them is the priority, yet he can’t help but resent the way he must hide. There is no other way, though. Currently, he has no plan, and he must bide his time.

Katsuki was never the most patient, but he has no choice but to be patient since he has no sword and no allies. It is plausible that he could scuttle the ship by himself, but he can’t risk it with you chained inside and possibly unconscious.

But then he sees it - a shape in the distance.

It is an isle, small enough that it could sustain maybe one hamlet of people, and rather plain, with rocks that make up a small cliff on one side and a sandy beach dotted with rock pools on the other, a thicket of trees spanning the distance between. One could call it nondescript, but there is nothing nondescript about it to Katsuki.

He has bled out on that golden beach. He has fought to protect his own life and the life of another in the waters near that isle, and he has failed. He has wept on that shore, wept enough to cleanse the blood soaked sand beneath his newly fixed body that held his newly broken heart.

That isle is where Deku washed up, half dead, a decade ago. It is where he watched from afar as this green eyed, freckled human nursed himself back to health, and where he watched from a little closer as he learnt that humans were more than what they are portrayed as in the tales of his pod.

He understood many things on that isle: what love was - the touch of his lips to a man with unruly green curls and an infectious smile, and what betrayal was - when his pod found out and the waters were tinted red because of it.

Just like that, he knows what to do.

Hidden in the underwater caves below the isle is a monster that slumbers until a soul dares to wake it. The humans call it a kraken, but the merfolk leave it unnamed, for it is too great to be reduced to a simple moniker. He has seen it once before, through the haze that descends over one close to death, and felt as its power stymied the lifeblood that poured hot from a wound spanning from the middle of his sternum to his navel.

Both he and Deku had lain on the beach after his pod ambushed, both bleeding from fatal wounds. He had been too fucking weak to get to the kraken first, and so Deku had been the one to sacrifice himself and give himself to the monster so Katsuki could live, when it should have been the other way round.

This time, though, he is strong enough.

He remembers slipping back into the ocean with his freshly healed wound so the saltwater of his tears mixed with the sea, unable to understand why Deku would leave him. Now, he understands all too well, and he will not fail to protect the one he loves again.

Summoning the kraken means no going back. After waking it, the summoner is transported into the kraken’s form, and they have a limited time within it before the kraken reaps its payment - the summoner’s soul. It will shatter their spirit and ensure they cannot return to their body.

Katsuki dives down deep, breaking away from the ship and swimming ahead of it to find the gaping mouth of the cave that the kraken slumbers within. He is far down enough that the water is murky, frigid as it weighs heavily on him, the sun a weak pinprick of light suspended somewhere above him that does nothing to pierce the gloom.

The entrance is curtained with seaweed, the cold fronds caressing his skin as he slips past them. Nestled in the darkness, it lies there, slumbering: a behemoth shadow, looming as high as the cavern’s ceiling and filling its width like the berth of a warship docked in a seaside hamlet’s harbour.

As he swims towards it, he realises he has already had his last glimpse of you through his own eyes. The last time he will see you, he will be fighting to keep hold of himself before he loses his soul to the kraken, and then it will just be bottomless darkness until it is summoned again. You might not even know it is him inside the monster.

It doesn’t matter - a lot has ceased to matter to Katsuki. He can no longer deny that he loves you, and with that epiphany comes another: you knew what the hunters would do to you when you bargained for his freedom, and yet you did it anyway, with no fear of the consequences. Now, it is his turn to put his life on the line for you, and though he may lose it, you will be free.

He will never feel the sweet touch of lips again, but that’s alright. He hopes that you will find another to make you happy, another who will make your heart soar and help you forget him. They will be to you what you were to him: a light to scare away the shadows, a star in the night sky to guide you, even if at times, just like him, you believe you do not wish to be guided.

Katsuki pictures your face as he draws near to the kraken.

Its flesh is odd beneath his palm - slippery and uncomfortably cold. Pressing his palm to its skin, he wills it awake, and it obeys him alarmingly fast, an eye as big as his head snapping open and rolling around until it fixates on him. An abyss of a pupil sucks him in, beckoning him forward to a place that will be the last he ever visits.

Though he knows his body remains still, he feels himself fall forward, sucked towards the magnetic emptiness within the kraken as if it aches to be occupied. For a moment, he resists, pure instincts making him struggle against it, but he forces himself to let go. Sensation briefly forsakes him.

When his vision is restored, he finds that he is looking at his body, limp and vacant. Already he can feel a difference in the water, the sharp tang of fear drifting toward him on currents that hadn’t been there before as creatures begin to flee, aware that something ancient has been roused from its sleep.

A tempest is brewing.

Katsuki - or a version of him that no longer is really Katsuki, but instead a wrathful monster caller - cannot see the dark clouds amassing above, but he knows they are scudding across the blue skies to taint the high midday sun, and it is his doing. Cruel winds accumulate in the shadows cast by his thunderhead, and he can hear the sharp snap of canvas and the raised voices of a crew readying their ship for a storm.

Unfurling a tentacle, he curls it around his old body, careful not to crush it, and reaches up high enough to deposit it on the beach. He begins to move the kraken out of the cave, dislodging pebbles that would have been boulders as the bulk of its body manoeuvres through the exit.

In a way, he is disconnected from the body that is his now; there is empty space that he is not large enough to occupy, like he has donned a garment made for a merman the size of a mountain. It is strangely silent inside this huge vessel, although he is not alone. Shadow wreathed souls lurk in the corners of his mind, and he knows they are disgusted by him.

He is not surprised. Historically, the kraken have been summoned only in the utmost peril. To the merfolk, the kraken are as sacred and as old as the sea, called upon in the wars of old, when the magic beings of the sky were eradicated. Despite being only scattered shards of themselves, the past summoners look down on him, because he does not summon to seek the solution to mighty matters.

For the second time in a lifetime, the kraken is being summoned for a cause as selfish as love.

There’s an awful symmetry to it, really. He imagines the way they must have abhorred Deku, a dying human who did not use the kraken’s power to destroy, but to knit together the wound of a simple, unnoteworthy merman.

Faces contorted beyond recognition flash before his eyes and hands claw at his sides with nails as vicious as knives. They want blood, they want a whole fleet to rip through and ruin. He tells them that they will have to settle with one ship, and they cry their discontent in his ears, their voices rough and rasping, like rusting metal on stone.

He has not broken the surface of the water yet. His body prowls many leagues down, but still, he spots the shadow cast by the ship, and the moment he does, his vision narrows, blurs, and he sees winking lights on board: the lives of the crew, twinkling and tantalising and begging to be snuffed out.

The kraken jets upwards and breaches, spraying up a wall of water, and though he does not command it, he bellows a war cry, the sound so bloodthirsty and wild it almost sweeps him up and incapacitates him. The shadow souls close in, fragments of vengeful souls garbed in shadow, greedy and eager to see him torn apart, and he shakes them off, wrenching himself from their grasp with all his strength.

A twinge pinches at his side, and he glances down to see a volley of harpoons glance off his hide, leaving shallow gashes in their wake. The crew swarm on the deck, their terror sour as he breathes it in and savours it. They are but ants, small and irritating with their measly weapons and made to be crushed and devoured -

He seizes the mast and uses it to rock the ship from side to side, fighting to keep the visions of blood staining the water red away from him. Too fast, his control is slipping, and he feels the souls swarm around him, filling his field of view with darkness until all he can see is those tiny flames that he must put out. There is something he wanted to do, something he needs to do -

Selfish, the souls hiss in his ears, trying to sink their hateful claws into him again, and he agrees with them.

He loves, and therefore he is selfish.

It is no bad thing.

The storm clouds gather over the ship, roiling and rumbling with thunder. Lightning strikes, a bolt of white fury that splinters the deck and extinguishes one of the little lives on board, producing a delighted cackle from the souls at his back, but he ignores them. He knows what he must do.

“Bring me the witch,” he roars.

His voice comes out warped and foreign, the words of men coming out strange and misshapen on his tongue, but the crew understand enough, scuttling to obey, desperate to believe he may spare them if they give you to him. The grip of the souls tightens, squeezing at his throat - he has spent too long in their presence already, and they nip at the edges of his mind, stealing away parts of him when he isn’t looking.

He realises with a jolt that he does not remember his name any more.

It is fine, though. He will join the souls in their namelessness soon. They are a cacophony in his head, and he can no longer hear anything but them, the burn of their claws threatening to tear him apart and shred him the way they are already torn apart, but he barely cares.

The little gnats bring another up and present it to him. This one shines brighter, suffused with a magic the souls cannot wait to devour, and they encourage him forward - surely he too will enjoy the honeyed taste of this offering? Plucking it off the ship’s deck, he brings it to his eye level, and his shadow companions clamour for him to crush it, but he hesitates.

It looks at him like it knows him. In its weak, tiny voice, it yells something that gets lost in the howl of the winds, but even so, it makes the souls shrink back, receding enough for him to remember that this little thing he holds is important. Important for what, he can’t recall, but it is important all the same.

Kicking its legs, the small being beats its fist on his tentacle, still shouting. He leans closer, wincing as the shadows scratch and tear at his back, trying to draw him away again.

“Katsuki!” You scream.

He jolts. It is you, his little, beloved witch - you are why he is being so selfish, summoning the kraken just to save one life. Peering closer, he notices that you are bruised all over, and suddenly the storm worsens overhead, crackling as bolts of lightning stab down like vindictive knives and the wind tears at the ship full of aghast hunters, tossing it violently among the waves.

Carefully, he places you on the beach, next to a body that used to be his. You scramble towards it, limping, and he turns away, looking back towards the ship and the lights it is infested with that still need to be destroyed. Anger comes easily to him, because these are the ones that have marred you with bruises.

The shadows close in again.

Roaring, he tears at the ship, rending it in two and crushing those that leap overboard, yet the souls are never appeased, never satiated. It feels as if power leaks out the seams of his spirit and if he does not let it go it will destroy him from the inside, but he knows he cannot let go. He needs to hold on, to hold himself together, for something that drifts further and further out of reach -

It is as if he has been tied to the bottom of a sea trench for so long, drowning in darkness, that the surface is just a fanciful thought. He does not remember the sun’s sweet face, nor the sound of your voice as you called out the name he has lost again. They sink their teeth into him, ready to tear him apart.

He struggles. He will not go without a fucking fight, he will not let them have him before he has tried valiantly to swim upwards to the sun, where the shadows will not survive.

But the light is so far from him. It floats away every time he strives to be closer, or maybe there are hands holding him back, ripping him open and tethering him to the blackness. They cling to him, shrieking in his ears, sinking curved claws into him and refusing to let go, ready to reap the kraken’s payment.

He is losing himself.

And then - a hand, gentle, touching his face. Emerald eyes fill his vision, wide and lovely, and suddenly he is able to ignore the souls and their blaring dissonance, the pain in his side fading away into nothing. There is a soul that still remains named here, mixed in with those who have been rent apart by hate.

“Kacchan,” the soul says earnestly. “You must fight it, Kacchan.”

“Deku,” he sobs, leaning into the soul’s warm palms as he wipes his tears away. “I’m sorry.”

Deku smiles, and Katsuki weeps, because he looks so proud of him, as if he is worth an eternity spent trapped within a kraken alongside shattered souls that only wish for chaos and destruction. He weeps, because here are Deku and Kacchan, back together again, but they cannot stay this way forever.

“I understand,” Deku whispers, and his touch heals Kacchan once more. “I understand you love her. You need to fight, you need to return to her and love her like you want to. I died so you could live, Kacchan. Let go.”

He looks down and sees the way he clutches onto Deku so hard he is white knuckled, while Deku cradles his hands in his scarred ones, softly as if Kacchan is fragile. Trembling, he loosens his grip, and he feels the light draw closer, the sun’s rays warming his face. Something tightens in his chest when he finally allows himself to release Deku, but it hurts in the manner of stitches pulling taut inside him and binding him together again.

One last time, he looks over his shoulder, to where Deku watches as he goes, smiling brightly, shining like he is a star plucked from the night sky. His brilliance holds the shadows back, rendering them powerless. He pays them no mind, though - his viridescent eyes are lit up and fixed only on his Kacchan.

Deku says something, but the sound of his voice is drowned out by the crashing of the waves and the winds of a dying down of a storm. Still, Katsuki knows what he said by the shape of his lips: I love you. Smiling, he takes a final look at him, at those unruly green curls and those sweet eyes and bright smile, and then he turns and is bathed in light.

The kraken sinks again beneath the waves, but Katsuki does not sink with it.

You know it’s impossible, but you sense the moment Katsuki is back in his body. You’ve heard the tales of the kraken, and you know he should have been taken from you, but there he is, present in the weak pulse of his heart beneath your palm and the steady rise and fall of his chest. Shallow cuts have appeared all over his body, remnants of the damage of the hunter’s harpoons.

His eyes are open, but barely, and he blinks slowly, fighting to keep them fixed on you, giving you only glimpses of familiar crimson. There is a strange looseness to his awareness that must come with the recency of doing the impossible, but still he grips your hand desperately, struggling to stay awake long enough to force words out.

“I - I lo - ”

Before he can finish, his voice cracks and he coughs. His eyes widen, and he opens his mouth to start again, but you smile, tears blurring your vision as you press a finger to his lips and hush him, and thankfully he relaxes under your touch, curling closer to you and seeking shelter in your embrace. Once he is rested, he will have all the time in the world to tell you whatever he likes.

What matters is that he is here. That in itself is beyond even a miracle.

Almost disbelieving, you cradle him to you, pressing your forehead to his as tears you cannot stop spill down your face and mingle with his blood. You are bone tired after repeatedly healing your own cracked ribs and fractured wrists, but you are whole enough for now - you won’t waste your energy on your own bruises while he still hurts.

So you hold him against your chest, sweeping your fingers delicately over the deeper of his cuts to seal them. The sky has cleared, the storm clouds departing as fast as they arrived, and the sea is dipped in ruby by the bleeding sunset. It lacquers the wet sand with the glow of dying embers as the incoming tide smooths over where the storm had churned it up, erasing the mark left on the island as if this afternoon had never happened.

If it were not for Katsuki in your arms, it would be like the kraken never came.

You glance down at him. He seems at peace, though worn and battered, as if he has reconciled something deep within his heart; he has closed his eyes, simply leaning against you with his face pressed into your side, his warm hands tucked just beneath the hem of your shirt.

You cannot help but smile. Because of him, you are free. No chains bind your wrists, no threats limit you in what you decide to do next. You are not sure where you will end up later, but for now you intend to fall asleep beneath the open sky, beside the one you love infinitely more than any life you might have had and even this new life he has fought and bled to give you.

When you drift out of your dreams - just simple, golden things full of a contentment that lingers past waking - the tide is high, the ocean lapping at the sand at your feet. The moon is almost at its highest point in the sky, depositing a residue of silver on everything around you.

Katsuki stirs in your arms, and when you glance down, you are met with the twin beacons of his eyes, luminous in the dark and full, brimming and spilling over with unspoken things that leave a deep ache in your heart. Trembling, he grips your hands, and you lace your fingers with his, brushing your lips over his knuckles and stroking his face as the tears begin to flow.

He cries like he is mourning. You wonder what he saw while his soul donned the kraken’s skin, how poignant it must have been to wrench these fitful sobs from him. Cupping his face in your palms, you wipe his tears away, and he clings to you to keep you close while he bares his newly healing heart to you; it is wrapped in the past’s scars. He shows you the rawest parts of him, and you soothe them as best you can with your healing hands.

There is no magic to this cure, though. It is just the love that burns within you, consuming you so entirely it makes you shake. You did not know it was possible to love like this, but the proof weeps in your arms, a merman who summoned the kraken and somehow conquered it so he could make it back to you.

“Tell me,” you whisper, tracing the strong lines of his face with your fingertips.

Curling his arms around you, he hides his face in your neck. “Deku stood with me against the dark inside the kraken,” he replies softly. “He held them back so I could come back to you. I - I thought I had lost him forever, when he summoned the kraken to save me.”

Carefully, he brings your hand to touch the scar stretching down his chest, and you outline its edges, comforted by the warmth of his body and the steadiness of his breathing beneath your fingers. You would be happy to stay like that forever, linked to him by your skin on his and the synchronised beat of your hearts.

“He told me to fight so I could return to you,” Katsuki murmurs. “So I could love you.”

Your breath catches, your voice sticking before any words come out. He is blunt and honest as always, but this time, he is without his walls, without his guard up, open and vulnerable for you to lash out at him if you wished to, but he trusts you will not. Still, you hesitate, your throat constricting.

“I… I didn’t know him, or what he was like, but I know I can’t be him to you,” you falter. “I cannot be Deku, Katsuki.”

You do not expect your voice to come out so small, so timid. Neither do you expect the overwhelming tenderness that fills his eyes - no one has ever looked at you like that, as if they really see the whole of you, the blemishes and shadows on your soul and they love those too.

“I don’t ask you to be like him,” he replies. “No one will ever be like him. No one will ever be like you, either. I love you because you are you, not because you are him.”

“Katsuki,” you breathe, unable to swallow down the tears welling in your eyes.

“You know I can’t give you the life you deserve, either,” he continues, voice thick. “If you tie yourself to me, you tie yourself to the sea too, regardless of if you like it or not.”

Searchingly, you look at him, and it feels for a second that as you meet his eyes, you know the whole ocean, down to its unexplorable depths, down to every grain of sand and every critter it shelters and sustains. In that moment, there is a total, utter understanding within you - you would love him whatever the condition.

“I would tie myself to the most pitiful of the things on this earth if it meant I could love you, Katsuki.”

“I too, witch,” he replies, and a fond little smile pulls at his lips. “I would summon that kraken a thousand times if it meant I could win your heart.”

You laugh, out of pure joy more than anything else, and he laughs too, rolling in the sand so he can prop himself up on his elbows. Flopping over, you adjust yourself so you can rest your head against his stomach, lifting your eyes to watch as he tips his face up to the sky, letting the stars reflect in his gaze, as if he holds the galaxies of the universe in each pupil.

Your fingers find his as you stare up at the moon where it hangs highest in the sky now, full and silver as the stars. A new moon: symbolising fresh starts and new beginnings, or maybe even the waxing of a love that was planted in the darkness of the brig of a ship soaked in blood, nourished by nothing but the weak flame of a lamp and swift hands knitting flesh back together.

A familiar prickle trails coyly down the side of your neck, and the sound of sand whispering against itself reaches your ears as Katsuki shifts beneath you, lightly skimming the high tide’s surf with his tail. You are not ready to leave the easy silence you’ve made yet, so you bask in his presence and his warmth a little longer.

The moon has just begun its descent when you turn to face him. He’s just looking at you, looking and looking and looking as if he can’t get enough. You smile, aware of the fresh edge in his gaze that was not there before, the string binding your soul to his pulling delightfully taut.

“You’re as beautiful as the ocean,” he mumbles, fiddling with a lock of your hair. “More beautiful than the ocean. But in a different way, you’re…”

You grin. “Worse?”

“Worse,” he agrees, smirking, but he looks at you as if you breathed life into his seas. “Much worse.”

Time stops for a moment, and you sit up, bringing your face close to his until your breaths mingle - you cannot help but let his crimson eyes consume you, heart and soul. You linger there for a moment, the air crackling between you, both of you waiting as if to see who will give in and pounce first.

Bringing his hand up, Katsuki lets his fingers slide under your jaw, lifting your chin so you are merely a hair’s breadth away. He fills your senses; you can feel the warmth of his body, the roughness of the calluses on his fingers, the feather-like brush of his breath against your cheek, smell his briney sea scent, hear the swish of sand as he shifts infinitesimally closer. A lethal spark gleams in his eyes, tying you in helpless knots.

You lean forward and claim his lips.

It draws a quiet groan from him, and suddenly you are beneath him in the sand and his hands are all over you, grabbing handfuls of you and shucking the damp material of your shirt up and over your head so he can touch your skin. The way he looks at you, with those stirring embers that tug at something low in your stomach, reduces you to a sailor under the influence of a siren’s song - he is irresistible, he is magnificent.

Tangling your fingers in his hair, you pull him ever closer, licking into his mouth as if you might find the god’s nectar hiding beneath his tongue. He nips at your lower lip with those keen canines of his, and you cannot help but buck your hips as the tide swirls around the both of you.

Chuckling, he skims a palm over your thigh, pulling your leg up to hook over his hip. It brings your clothed core right against the length of his hardening cock that has emerged from the slit in his tail; you stifle a moan at the feel of him, grinding agonisingly slowly down on him and sighing as he trails wet kisses and purpling bites down your throat.

Katsuki licks at the spot under your jaw, and this time, at the second graze of his teeth against your skin, your fingers tighten in his hair, pulling at it and squeezing another sweet noise from him. You keep your hands threaded through his ash blonde locks as he licks at the valley between your breasts. Meticulously, he marks your plush flesh with the imprints of his teeth, laying his claim on you.

When he reaches your stomach, he mouths at your skin, nipping playfully just over your hip bone before he raises his eyes to meet yours. They are heavy lidded and sultry, and they stir the fire building in your core as he toys lazily with the waistband of your trousers. His fingers are casual as they curl beneath the fabric.

“Let me taste you, witch,” he implores.

“I cannot argue when you look at me like that,” you reply, breathless. “Nor would I, anyways.”

That is all the consent he needs before he is helping you out of your remaining clothes, almost ripping them in his hurry to have you on his tongue. His hands slip beneath you, gripping your ass and guiding your legs over his shoulders, and there he pauses. Yearning blazes in his crimson eyes, and then he dips his head and puts his mouth on you.

You gasp his name. Your hands scramble for purchase before you bury them in his hair again, yanking to encourage him further, and he responds by sucking harshly on your clit, making your hips jump and buck into his face. He groans into your heat, and the vibrations of it make you see stars.

Slowly, he pulls back, glancing up at you, and the sight of him is enough to make you moan: his eyes are glazed, fervent, worshipful, and your slick drips down his chin, the moonlight making it seem like liquid diamond. Bewitched by him, you choke out his name, and he smirks and slips two fingers inside you. Your legs begin to shake when he pumps them slowly in and out of you, bending them at the knuckle so he can hit that spot inside you.

The friction enraptures you, mounting in the pit of your stomach and winding up tight, and your thighs close around his head, clenching as Katsuki pushes you closer and closer to the edge. Turning his head, he sucks at your skin, marking you there, too.

You balance on a knife blade’s edge.

Abruptly, he slides his fingers out and your pussy clamps down a second too late; already, you open your mouth to lament it when he bends his head and replaces them with his tongue. Your words dissolve into wretched moans; you grind your hips against his face and lightning spears through you when his nose nudges at your clit.

Pleasure rises within you, a gradual, swelling thing that sneaks up on you in the unhurried nature of his movements. You can feel his smile against your cunt. You can feel the light burn as he grips your flesh, anchoring you to him so you could not pull away and part him from the taste of you even if you wished to.

You cry out his name as you come.

Katsuki nestles you close to his chest as you come down from your high, kissing your face as the aftershocks send shivers down your spine. Tenderness resides in his eyes, right beside a longing that makes you melt into him, weak with ardour as you slip your hand between your sea damp bodies to curl your fingers slyly around his cock.

His lips part as you jerk him, and you cross the small distance between you to bite at his lower lip, sucking it into your mouth and swiping your tongue over it as you feel him grow impossibly harder in your palm. Ridges swell down his length, flushed a coruscant orange that blurs down into obsidian at his base.

Tipping your head back, you look him in the eye. “I - I need you inside me, Katsuki.”

The words are clumsy on your tongue. You do not know how to articulate the pressing need to feel him, to not know where you end and he begins, to collide with him right there on the beach of this island that houses a kraken, to get lost in the salt on his skin and the eddy of the sea at your joined hips.

Lowly, he curses, treating you as if you are holy as he spreads your legs and settles between them, gripping the curve of your hip with one hand as he lines himself up. You press your lips against the warm bronze skin of his shoulder, sighing against him, urging him forward, urging him closer, a blissed out sound slipping from you as the ridges of his cock push past your entrance, the stretch nothing short of divine.

At last, he is sheathed fully within you. His hips kiss yours, and he remains there, pulsing hotly within you, the pleasure on his face bordering on pain as your cunt bears down on him, yet still, he will not move. Jaw clenching, he squeezes his eyes shut, and a hoarse groan tears itself from deep in his chest.

Panting, he bows his head, and when he looks up, tears rim his lash line, glittering like individual crystals dipped in the light of the stars. One rolls down his cheek and plops down onto yours, and you raise a hand to caress his face, raking your fingers through his hair to push it back from his forehead; he leans into your touch, turning his head to kiss your palm.

Slipping your hand round to cup the nape of his neck, you bring your mouth to his. Delicately, Katsuki kisses you before pulling back to press his lips feather-light to your eyelids - he lingers there, his breath fluttering warmly against your skin, his thumb drawing circles on your cheekbone.

Again, he kisses you, and it is only then that you taste the salt of your own tears on his tongue.

Your soft, raw sob echoes across the beach, and you dig your nails into his wide shoulders, urging him to move. With a gasp, he begins to rock his hips into you, and it breaks you apart. You keen, pushing back into his fluid, achingly unhurried strokes, scrabbling at his back in an attempt to bring him closer, to let him consume your very being.

Right there on the sand, under the moonlight with the seafoam lapping at your sides, he fucks into you, slow and deep, trembling and crying above you, and tenderly, you kiss him again. The roll of his thumb over your clit sends thrills chasing down your spine. He dips his head, burying his face in your neck, and fiercely, you hold him to you.

“Mine,” Katsuki whispers, and his teeth sink into your skin.

Something snaps inside you, and the fire in your gut blazes. Your cunt clenches hard around him, vice like around his cock, and you feel him twitch when your velvety walls clamp down on him, feel his soft exhale and know that he too knows the burn of the inferno in your core.

“Please, Katsuki,” you whine. “Harder.”

“Fuck,” he growls, his voice rasping in your ear, and suddenly you are empty.

Before you can protest, he flips you over, pressing your back into his chest and you reel, momentarily blinded by the night sky stretching high and wide above you. He is solid beneath you, and he knocks the breath from your lungs when he surges up into you.

You can feel all of him. Ruthlessly, Katsuki pounds up into you, as if he is desperate to taste the sea salt on your skin and inhale your scent and never let you go. Your body jerks with each thrust, your voice cracking as you cry out his name, the new heady angle of his cock inside you leaving you writhing, lost in the bliss he wrings from you.

His tail thrashes in the surf as he fucks up into you. You are limp in his arms, trembling all over as your back arches - he squeezes your breasts in one hand while the other settles between your legs, his skilled fingers working over your clit to kindle a mind shattering type of euphoria within you that renders you boneless and speechless, your jaw slack.

Your head falls back on his shoulder, your eyes falling shut as you moan, your pussy constricting tight around him. A hand circles your throat, squeezing lightly, and you mewl, your cunt unashamedly spasming at the feel of his calloused fingers about your neck.

“Let the moon and stars witness how I pleasure you, my love,” he snarls.

Your eyes roll, your toes curl. Somehow, he fucks up into you faster, harder, and his cock hits places that cause your vision to white out, the relentless friction of his ridges on your walls enough to make you sob and claw at the arm he uses to keep you in place. Distantly, you can hear yourself begging him, pleading for him to go harder, deeper, to not stop, to ruin you.

You scream Katsuki’s name as you come for the second time tonight. Uncontrollably, your thighs shake, and your cunt convulses around his cock; you can feel him slowing his thrusts, letting you ride out your high, but despite the overstimulation building in the tautness inside your stomach, you grind against him.

“Don’t stop,” you gasp. “Want - want you to come inside me.”

Your words elicit a groan from him. “Fucking filthy, aren’t you?”

Helplessly, you whimper in response, your pussy fluttering as he hammers up into you. He swears as he comes, spilling hot inside you, the sweet sound he makes muffled when he bites down on your shoulder. Both of you lie there for a moment, catching your breath, before gently, he manoeuvres the two of you so you lie on your sides, careful to keep himself deep in your heat; he is warm against your back.

Katsuki splays a palm over your stomach, holding you close, and you lace your fingers with his, sighing happily as he begins to pepper kisses over your back. You can feel the upwards curve of his lips as he smiles against your skin.

“Are you alright?” He asks, nuzzling the nape of your neck.

“Better than alright,” you confirm.

You remain silent for a while longer, happy just to lie there cocooned in his arms and the quiet wash of the ocean; you can feel the pulse of his heart against your back, steady and comforting. A hushed, steady noise comes from him, a satisfied noise, almost a purr. His cock is beginning to soften inside you, its ridges coming down - you both groan as he slips out, moving so his length is tucked against the curve of your ass.

“How did you know it was me?” He asks suddenly. “When I summoned the kraken.”

You squeeze his hand. “I saw you in its eyes. You know, I couldn’t have missed it if I tried, especially not when you yelled for the hunters to bring me to you. I heard it all the way from below deck.”

He laughs, and you shuffle closer to him, feeling his arms tighten around you.

“I didn’t even know the kraken was a real thing,” you tell him. “I wasn’t scared, though. I knew I’d be safe when I saw it was you.”

Katsuki scoffs. “You’re horrendously sappy, witch.”

You laugh, pushing your ass back against him. “I think you like it, merman.”

Laughing, you roll to and fro in the sand, with you grinding on him as he grips your hips and tries to wrestle you into submission. Eventually, he manages to incapacitate you by holding you tightly against his chest, dipping his head so he can whisper hotly in your ear.

“Keep that up and I’ll have to fuck you again,” he grits out.

“You’ll have to catch me first,” you challenge.

Giggling, you wriggle out of his grip and plunge further into the shallows, just catching him muttering something about insatiable and damn witch before he dives in and streaks after you, his dorsal fin cutting through the water. A hand closes around your ankle, and you squeal, flailing as you shake him off.

Clumsily, you take off towards the rock pools, wading through the sea water as fast as you can. You know Katsuki will catch you (you’re not exactly opposed to it - you’re running into the sea rather than out of it, after all). Again, he makes another grab at you, and you romp with him in the waves, grinning as you fend him off by splashing water at him, squirming out of his arms again.

In the end, he grabs you around the waist and traps you against one of the tide pools, the rock rough against your back as he smirks down at you. The sight of him above you is enthralling: droplets run down his chest in rivulets, rolling down the grooves his muscles make, and the moon hangs the sky behind him, crowning him with a halo made of silver. Your mouth waters.

Taking your chin in between his thumb and forefinger, he brings his face close to yours. A shiver runs down your spine. His red eyes fill your vision, glowing in the night, hypnotic and burning with craving so devout it borders on veneration.

He smiles. “Caught you.”

Katsuki takes you again, against the rock at your back. Afterwards, you lie there, spent and tangled together in the waning moonlight until you grow hungry again and you straddle him, mesmerised by the sight of him staring up at you, pleasure twisting his features as you ride him. You fuck and make love until the sun begins to rise, and it is only then that the two of you are finally sated.

So there you lie, held in his arms and the sea’s embrace - and inexplicably, you find that you do not regret all the pain you suffered at the hands of the hunters, because if it was not for them, you would never have been in that brig to heal him. Inside you, something blossoms within your soul, young and fresh and beautiful as the new moon, and it spills forth from your lips, a whispered confession pressed to his skin like a kiss.

“I love you, Bakugou Katsuki.”

Cupping your jaw, he brings his forehead to yours and murmurs your name. “I love you too.”

Katsuki glances down at you, where you are curled into the curve of his side like you were made to fit him, and he feels his failing, tired heart bloom once again. You have healed him in ways that run deeper than just his flesh.

He looks in your eyes, and when he does, the sea looks back.

You are his home.

A/N: by the way guys, afterwards they travel somewhere cool and the reader sets up a lil witchy abode by the sea and the villagers come to her for cures and half of them are lowkey a bit terrified of her mermaid husband but it doesn’t matter because she still gives really good remedies and he hasn’t eaten anyone yet and sometimes she and bakugou go out in their boat and attack hunter ships for funsies

also here's a picture i found off pinterest which i kind of imagine his tail being like except it's a bit more rigid and the dorsal fins are more spiney and longer, also there's more black and less red

taglist: @freakingsparkydreamer @d1orhaz3 @msjaeger @mellasimp14 @eyesforbkg @cottagedumpling @silkdolli @teeesthings @raksstuff

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yandere-wishes · 1 year ago

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⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡Acolyte⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆

𐙚Yandere! Qimir/The Master x Reader

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Plot: Your loneliness is suffocating, engulfing. Qimir is the only one who seems to subdue the pain. But every forbidden fruit has its price.

⁀➷Warnings: Yandere behavior, gore, angst (at the end), author having an anxiety attack over this fic

🪐Note: Why is the longest thing I've ever written for a fandom that barely exists? Anyway, here's the long-awaited Qimir piece!

⁺₊𝄞₊⁺ : Disturbia - Rihanna, Dark Vacay & Motion Picture Soundtrack - CAS

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆🍓⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺

Your master's anger is tangible. You harbour it stubbornly on your tongue. Relishing in the frustration. You aren't sure how many times you've cut out your soul to place at a master's feet. Gnawing on perfect lips to keep quiet during another scolding. Your new master's disappointment reverberates through the room. Thick and oozing like an infected wound.

You messed up again.

"We do not injure other padawans during training. We do not lash out and attack, especially when your training partner has fallen. How have you trained for so long without comprehending these basics?"

The rage that boils inside you is not Jedi in nature. It's something else, a bizarre second, something ancient, ghoulish. An all-consuming fire that burns inside your veins. It shouldn't feel so welcoming, so familiar.

You roll your eyes.

"With all due respect master. How is one to win, if they do not strick when given the opportunity? That too should be a basic notion, no?"

You see the anger snake across your master's face. A defeated, disgruntled, glance that you've become a bit too acquainted with. This is the look that all your previous masters give you. And yet none have yet to master its eeriness quite as well as your first master. Master Sol.

Your master sighs, a piercing noise, deflating every ounce of his willpower. You are exhausting to be around, his annoyance is becoming discernible. "Master Sol is coming by the temple to check your...progress. He's requested a few items to take back with him. Please go fetch them from the apothecary."

Progress is a gentle word and Jedi love using gentle words. It's easier to say than the full truth. Sugar-coated things always taste better.

But the sugar refuses to stick to you.

It burns away in your bitterness.

Coruscant is a distant memory, it was never your home to begin with. But the high bustling volume is something that is hard to forget. Here things are quiet, you slip through the bazaar undetected. Small basket clutched tightly. You wonder what's dragging your former master halfway across the galaxy. You wonder if it's really just to see you.

You gaze blankly at the holographic list. A few rare herbs and some medical roots. This planet grows them in abundance, and the local apothecary carries more than its fair share.

The apothecary is an old, disheveled thing. The older Jedi say that its presence is as old as the temple itself. Odd how some things have a will of iron. You gently rap at the worn metal door, waiting for an invitation to enter. The hinges cry as the door opens ever so slightly. You squeeze in, surveying the cluttered den. Careful to avoid the half-empty bottles and neon puddles scattered across the floor.

"Excuse me" your voice holds an urgent annoyance. Where is the pharmacist? What kind of store owner abandons their shop in the midday? You run your fingers across the strange bottles, letting your nails pick at the murky glass. The colors flash, begging to be freed, strange space pinks, and summer oranges all trapped inside square prisons. Baby poisons dying to taste the world, burning it if they must, but experiencing it nonetheless, tasting their own form of freedom. Funny, they almost remind you of yourself.

Trapped and fatal.

"Hello?", the voice behind you is languid, dozy. Mirroring a late afternoon nap. When the man next speaks you notice a lyrical lint "What brings you here little lady?". You turn to see it, the voice, or rather the man harboring the voice. He's loosely robed and shaggy in the way that only the most spirited vagabonds are. He smiles tenderly upon seeing your face, strange red fruit caught between his teeth. "I um...I" you click your tongue anxiously against the roof of your mouth. Feeling around for those pesky words, in the end, you just shove the hologram holder forward, hoping he'll understand.

"Oh, I see, out here doing some chores?" You nod, mind preoccupied with the otherwordly fruit. "what's that?" you ask, schoolgirl curiosity lacing your voice. "What, this?" he asks holding the freckled thing between his fingers, it's only in the mild light that you notice the shimmering gold scattered across its red skin. The stranger laughs, walking closer, he places the hologram base on the black table, clicking it on as he studies the list. "They're called strawberries. They're from the forest planets, not many grow here in the mid-rims." He's nimble as he packs the herbs and roots, fumbling with the straw ties. "care for a bite" he asks, handing you the bitten fruit.

Hesitantly you bite.

Letting the sweetness erupt on your tongue.

"Thank you" you mumble trying not to moan at the foreign taste. The stranger laughs, it's a cheery noise like birds chirping in first bloom tress. "you're a Jedi, aren't you?" he asks stepping around the table, eyebrows furrowed, caught in a dream he doesn't seem to understand. You choke on the rogue static as he steps closer, eyes half-lidded dreaming of nothing. "Here..."

"Wha-" your voice catches in your throat, it's getting harder to breathe.

"Your supplies" He hands you the brown paper bag, motion a little too phlegmatic to be right.

"Oh, right...thanks" You anxiously shove the bag into your basket and scurry out of the shop. Holding your breath.

"Come back soon." the voice chirps behind you.

Your old master arrives by spaceship, a newer, albeit worn model. The landing pad ejects to reveal a small escort.

Master,

Knight,

Padwan,

Apostate,

You stand still watching as they descend. Bits of envy bubble in your throat watching your former master and his band of little heroes. You wish you had their belonging. Forgoing the loneliness to find kinsmanship with your coterie. You swallow down the bitter thoughts as they finally approach you.

Master Sol's smile reaches his eyes. Gentle and wise. The true epidemy of a Jedi in every sense of the word. Funny how he now has two failures under his belt. None of which are capable of scratching his shining repute.

His hands are on your shoulders, bright smile. "My padawan, it's been too long." You try to bow, awkwardly and stiffly. "Mater Sol, I'm grateful you've come to asses my progress". If he hears your doubt he doesn't show it. Instead, he reintroduces you to Yord, Jacki, Osha.

You try to be polite. Gulp down the awkwardness

You imagine the taste of strawberries on your tongue.

Remember their stiff sweetness and prickly tasteless freckles.

You smile. Easier this time.

They'll stay here for some time. Hunting assassins and documenting progress in their free time. Jacki seems more invested in your training than you are, trying to teach you everything she knows. At least she doesn't mind the rough play, the violent strikes, and sloppy prideful defenses. She speaks in pointers and parries. She's the one to drag you along these assassin hunts. Welcoming you...or at least trying to.

But there is something else at play. Darker, broader, Sol and Jecki welcome you into the fray. Yet you still feel your old master's hesitance, he's still wary of you. Worried about your anger, your defiance.

The distance grows, some icy void.

Sol used to tell you fairytales. This was back when you'd been young and bright-eyed. Freshly welcomed into the order and still overflowing with artless hope for a colorful future.

But even back then, he had known there was something wrong with you.

Looking back it was evident.

Every story started and ended the same. Little princess against the big bad world. Holding out until her prince came along. Only problem was the morals never registered right in your little messed-up brain.

Why didn't the princess fall for the dragon, the wolf, the tyrant king with a crown of bones? Why didn't she swoon and sigh over someone rousing, compelling? A paradox wrapped in black ember? Why settle for a sun-painted prince, with no complexities, no mysteries to unravel?

You would have married the dragon, or the wolf, or the tyrant king with a crown of bones.

Even back then, it was evident something was wrong.

The temple's roof isn't restricted per se.

It's rather abandoned as opposed to forbidden.

Maybe that's why you find solace here. The abandonment feels familiar, similar. The chipped cement kisses the soles of your feet, you imagine it's something like walking upon the rough terrain of a star.

You breathe in the night air deeply.

Expecting the fragile scents of moonshine and star glitter.

Instead, you choke on heavy mist and blood-drenched air.

The thing standing in front of you isn't human. It can't be human. It's created from the blackness, ebony in all the ways a living thing shouldn't be. For a second you think you're staring at a black hole. No doubt this creature crawled out of one.

What sheer willpower one must need to drag themselves out of endless nothingness?

"Little Jedi should not brave the night alone."

It speaks

"There are far too many monsters roaming in the dark"

Its face never moves, statue in all the ways the figures towering over the entrance aren't. This statue is something else, a lost page to some forgotten epic. Carved from gems born in darkness. Evil and rotten.

"What are you?" your voice susurrate, quivering in this surreal scene. The air is thicker now, overflowing with raw static.

Your fingers itch for your saber. Only when the cold metal kisses your palm do you regain some semblance of reality.

The hiss, the green light.

The figure chuckles.

Its voice bouncing from every direction. Everywhere all at once. When it speaks the air cackles, raining as if it were a frightened child.

"I am something akin to you, another child of the force" His voice comes out distorted, uneven in tone. "I am what's birthed when one learns of the true strength of the force."

Your body moves on its own, feet kicking the ground sprinting faster and faster before the final leap. You aim for the helmet, for the morbid toothy grin permanently etched within steel. In a flash the word stills, floating around you like fluorescent bubbles, the rain tumbles around you, curving and diving for the wet ground. It dares not land on something within his grasp.

You feel the slithering across your body. They start from the ground, summed from the unknown depths. Clinging firmly to your ankles before inching up your knees, your hips, your neck.

long, slipper tendrils curling around your body. The figure watches, bare arm outstretched. You should probably be focused on how the unseen things are inching closer to your mouth. Not on the toned muscles and limber fingers of the monster. Not on how, for a fraction of a heartbeat, his smile appears genuine, caring, aimed straight at you.

Only You

They finally reach your lips, prying your teeth ajar and flooding your mouth. Sinking deeper and deeper into your soul, your mind, you.

The smile grows.

In a blink you're suspended in the space between worlds, dark damning thing cradling your body.

"The dark side once belonged to the Jedi, yet they chose to discard it. Deeming it malignant, ungovernable."

Your weightlessness unnerves you. You're malleable in this void.

"Those few who embraced its calling were dubbed Sith." He says the word with such fervent pride. Devoted to it's weight and all it carries. You try to roll the word off your own tongue only for it to burn the roof of your mouth.

The stranger stalks closer, lethal and lithe.

The void vibrates, the darkness bends to his will.

He reaches down to cup your face. His fingers feel warm, welcoming. You nuzzle into his palm, fighting the urge to kiss each finger and suck on the dark force they emit. "You..." he starts, his voice shakes you to the core. Its horror amplifies with the proximity. You wonder if it'll cut through steel, armor, flesh.

your flesh.

"You aren't like the other temple dwellers. You have potential."

His thumb presses your lower lip, demanding entrancing. You comply, needing to feel something solid.

Something you've been denied your whole life.

"They keep you locked away. Trading you between craven masters. Seeing who can tame you first."

He nicks his thumb on your teeth,

Pressing bone into dentin.

His essence drips into you.

He tastes of power.

Of dark, dreadful things you can not name.

"They do not know how to train you. How to use your power..."

The world crumbles, ebony midnights giving way to reality. You feel yourself fall, plunging through the air like a comet bent on destruction.

"They only break you further"

Your knees collide with the harsh ground. Skin splintering in the aftermath giving way to bruises and bloodmarks.

The ground feels too solid beneath you.

A poly, a ruse.

You all but expect to melt through it. Slipping and falling into the vacuum, into him, once more.

He hovers above. Absolute in his strength. You're beginning to believe that blackholes birth divinity. Eyes shimmering with fanatic fidelity, staring up at the holy creature commanding the storm.

"Teach me..."

You've never begged for anything so terribly in your life.

But you need this.

this power

this control.

him.

Sol never told just how the princess met the villain.

He never said it wasn't love at first fright.

Sol insists that the local apothecary knows the truth behind the Jedi-killer. Definite that the unseemly man can tell you something important. He sends Osha inside to play Mea. To get the man to talk.

You crowd around the communicator urging back giggles. Yord's chin is placed upon your shoulder and Jecki's cheek rests against yours. Their touches come so early. And yet they are utterly alien.

"He will be so pleased." No sooner have the words chime from the corroded speakers that Sol is ushering you all towards the small metal hut.

Yord entwines his fingers with you as he runs.

Jacki wraps around your arm.

You feel at times they are trying to tame you.

Befriend the feral puppy they found in the backyard.

The apothecary's face is utterly stunned. He's stammering over his words fear glistening in his eyes as he stares at Sol. "Please, please don't wipe my memories. Or whatever it is you Jedi do." A rosy blush colors your cheeks, at his terror. It's terribly amusing seeing someone so carless, anxiously list off everything he knows. You almost feel bad for the poor scared man.

There isn't anything important here. But Sol decides that you will all return at midnight. The Jedi-killer will be back. Apparently, Qimir -that's his name, that the strawberry-eating, disheveled pharmacist's name- is holding something of value for her.

There's a tug on your wrist as you go to follow the others. Gentle and firm as he pulls you to his chest. "Come by tonight. I'll have some strawberries waiting for you." why does he feel too genuine? When you turn to look at him, he's painted in his usual sweet carefree smile that tugs at your heart.

He looks so innocent...

Starlight really brings out his eyes. He's laughing with a nervous smile,

School-boy crush on full display. You're licking strawberry juice from your hands as you listen to him talk. Backs pressed against the rusty wall and bodies half sprawled in the dirt. He's telling you about the first time the Hutts made him retrieve a plushie for their son from another solar system.

Qimir's voice feels like rose peddles melting into your skin. Sweet, jejeune, free. You offer him a berry from your pile. Watching tentatively as he submerges the red fruit into his mouth. Missing your fingers by an inch. He's laughing after the fact, head thrown back as if he's about to engulf the stars. You decide to laugh too.

"Are you really that lonely," he says in a voice that's almost not his own. You're not expecting the invasive question, although you guess he means well. The words still cut deep. Piercing through the laughter, stunning you for a breath too long. "No...I'm a Jedi, we do not-"

"Form personal connection. I know...But you just look so lonely." He shuffles closer, the dirt particles almost look celestial in this light. Your fingers pitch a civil war. Pinching and clawing at each other. "No, yes. I don't really get along with the others." He rolls his eyes, bored and amused in the same breath. "Yeah, no wonder your money." He's picking at another strawberry, letting the crunch fill up the silence. You're beginning to think he just likes having something to chew on. Gulping down the anxiety with something toothsome.

He's a little closer now, fingers gingerly tucking back your hair. His fingerprints reverberate across the shell of your ear. Lips gliding against yours. You swallow as his lips fall across yours, pushing sweet stars past parted lips. He tastes of odd things, whimsy things. Everything you'll never come to understand. Xeno fruits and asteroid fields. His fingers glide up your arms, leaving moondust in their wake. He slowly parts, holding you softly with his soulful dark eyes

"You taste so sweet"

Strawberry, Starberry, You kiss him a little too deeply.

Maybe your new master is right.

Maybe there are other ways of being a Jedi.

The movie playing is doused in shades of rose and lilac. Gentle in all the ways. Everyway. The twi'lek girl is in love with the zabrak boy and their families do not approve. You think you remember Sol telling you a similar tale.

The makeshift auditorium is cozy. Brown couch housing the three of you and your armada of blankets and popcorn buckets. Jacki's head is in your lap, you're playing with the end of her braid imagining the hair to be the lace of a Love-sick girl's ballgown. Yord's arm traverses the length of your arm, absentminded as he studies the motion picture, poking holes in the lose rose-tainted plot. Your head rests against his broad shoulder taking in his new cologne.

Maybe you really did miss them.

Jacki reaches for the popcorn, offering you some before shoving a handful into her mouth. You think the little symmetry-less kernels would taste better with a strawberry glaze. Qimir flashes across your mind, smiling sweetly as he tilts his head.

You think you're a little too similar to the star on screen.

Pinning after forbidden love,

Forbidden power.

Master Sol is growing acutely aware of your drastic improvements. He's noticed the betterment in your offense, your defense. To the way, you wield your saber, your techniques, and yourself. There is esteem in the way he smiles. In the words of praise, you've longed to hear. But you notice the lingering glances, the undertone of skepticism and worry when he asks about practice. He doesn't need to know of the black-glad creature that trains you in the unholy hours.

He doesn't need to know how beautifully your new master sculpts your rage into lessons. Teaching you how to wrangle the force and control it. How to use it to make the world bow.

These things will remain secret. For you fear Sol and the others will strip them of you. Strip them of the new master you've come to worship.

"Do you think people glow when they fall in love?" Jacki's voice is filled with sleep. Eyes closed as she murmurs remnants of movie memory. "No, I don't believe they do" you answer. "too...bad" There was a yawn there darling and vigorous like the rests of her. She looks so sweet like this, infantile in all the ways she can't be. Little girl dreaming of something impossible. You wonder if Sol's told her the fairytales too. You kiss the crown of her head, your baby sister you think. And big brother Yord, snoring with his head thrown back.

Maybe you should test her theory. rising softly from the couch you make your way to the door. Throwing one final glance at your sleeping siblings. Before going to find Qimir.

His lips ghost over yours, spilling star-clad secrets between each kiss. The apothecary has never been so dark, so secret, so secluded. Qimir's lips glided across your neck biting the flesh and licking the little diamond droplets of blood. Your nails rack across his spine, the wool of his throw-over itching the backs of your hands. "So precious" he mumbles, voice ridden with want, need. it's criminal how desperately he needs to feel you. You writhe under him, "Qimir, kiss." you whine. His lips feel like a lifeline, something keeping you sain. He pushes fireflies and lava pearls inside you, carving you open and enjoying you

He always enjoys you.

It's foggy outside when his tongue clashes against yours. A thick unsettling mist banging against the darkened window. "You're custom-made for me" Qimir mumbles against your lips. "Custome tailored" you boldly correct. "ummm, sure" his hands pinch at your hips, clawing mindlessly and leaving tails to your thighs. But the sensations are growing distant, you hear the heavy hum of saber activation. You psyche cracks

The world is dark,

He alone is absolute.

Your master's mask flashes dangerously across your mind. "Master Sol would be disappointed". You've heard that line a million times. Still, the words cut a little too deep coming from your demiurger. "Gullible" you don't understand, what have you done to earn his rage? He's gone, leaving you in the emptiness, you taste the charcoal from the landscape under your tongue.

Still, you long to call after him.

"Master"

The darkness subsides with the feeling of softness across your muscles. A breeze stirs you from the clutches of slumber. "Good morning" Qimir chirps, soft smile greeting you as you open your eyes. "Qimir, when did I?" he laughs, it's such a pretty sound this early in the morning. Sweet like caramel tea. He kisses your forehead. His quietude is commendable, he tries to calm you with feather-light kisses. You laugh pushing the covers away and still. Frozen.

What's this

The nightgown is lacy and short. It drapes expensively against your skin. Marring it with its tenderness. "Qimir, what's this!" he chuckles, "I couldn't let you sleep in those robes, they looked uncomfortable." You want to argue, to scream, and be angry. But the rage boils down slowly as you notice something dangling around your wrist. A bangle, and an anklet you notice later, black and gold entwined in patterns mirroring lighting stricks. "They're from Korriban, I had some relatives there." oh, why does that planet sound so familiar? "Thanks, but ask me next time before you go playing dress-up doll with my sleeping body" He pouts and can't help but trail a string of mouthy kisses across his neck. Qimir shuffles pulling you onto his lap. Pushing his nose under your chin. His eyes are honey-deo, adoring and scheming. "But you're mine." The possessive ness that flesh across his face is alarming. So is how tightly he grips your waist. It's only in this state of half-undressed that you begin to notice the taut muscles of his arms.

During your most recent lesson, your master gifts you a ripe juicy strawberry. He says it'll focus you, replenish your wither strength. You eat it a little too quickly, forgetting to savor the pink blush within. You believe too ferociously in everything your master says.

He can never be wrong.

You love the way your new master splatters blood across your sleeves. Be it yours or his enemies. He's started taking you out on his kills, having you watch as he hacks and mauls. His enemies must die, no one who doubts such marvels should be granted the privilege of life.

He's only ever spoken in half-riddles.

"Unfortunately legacy is a fickle thing. Tenacious, fervent, yet frail and erratic. No matter how hematological, we all read our bones differently."

The rain falls to your ragged heartbeat. Fast one minute and slow the next. You stick out your tongue desperate for a few drops. Your body is on fire, every muscle pushed to its limit. But the Force is screaming inside you, thumping dangerously between your fingers. You're ready for the next round. Saber ready and only half mesmerized as your master pulls out another blood-red saber. You charge, rage pumping deliciously through your body.

You forget to ask him where he got the berry from.

The next Jedi to die will be Kelnacca. That's why Sol is dragging all of you to the forest planet of Khofar. You think the name is utterly hilarious, the others don't understand the mirth.

Between briefings and Jacki and Yords packing quarrels. You sneak out to say goodbye to Qimir. Scribbling a half eligible not to leave for your master. But the apothecary is deserted upon your arrival, only a taped note on a half-full mortar.

'Gone to get more Strawberries.

Be back soon.'

You wonder if Khofar has strawberries.

Strawberry, Starberry, you're falling between the cracks of so many.

The Sun on Khofar is red, barely breaching the thick canopy. Maybe it's for the best. This scene is not one to remember, but how can you make yourself forget?

Death looms.

Permanent, Eternal

The fighting began in twilight.

The sky has grown two shades darker since.

He had floated in from the high reaches. You'd almost called out to him, 'master', the words die bitterly on your tongue. His saber ignites in the carnage, light growing redder after each kill. The bodies fall haphazardly stirring the quiet night.

Your saber falls onto the woodchip ground. No sound. He has followed you here. Yet it is not you, he seeks. Your master mask is haunting, in the dark the silver mouth glows bright white. Even against a massacre

the smile never relents.

He twirls the red saber with lethal accuracy, red arc severing another life. 'Take the right!' Jacki screams through the force, her eager voice bouncing inside your cranium. 'Don't' you scream but she's already attacked.

Saber sings saber.

Golden light flickers.

Forward. Backward. Lunge. Parry. Flunge.

Just like you practiced. Back in the quiet of the training room. Is it too late to return to the matted ground and wooden swords? Too late for safe comfort?

You won't take it for granted this time you swear.

Your master attacks with vicious zeal, cutting through the light. His black robes bleeding into the night. Jacki, scurries backward, trying to block with every ounce of strength. In one swift move, she spins freeing herself and assaulting his head with the metal of her weapon.

The mask clutters to the ground.

You scream.

He looks every bit the villain here. Blood drenched, water drenched. Smiling like the wolf in a child's picture book. Qimir's face stares back at you, hair matted to his forehead. He's panting, spent. You've never seen him toil. Dreaming him incapable of harm.

Yet he stands above the corpses. Wolf's teeth bared as he slices through the little girl.

It's been years since Master Sol tucked you into bed. Years since he's read you a story and listened to your baseless questions about romances.

You've finally gotten your answer. Painted in a shade of red indistinguishable from black.

Because the villain is too vile to be loved.

You run, catching the limp corpse before it joins the rest, you cradle her close. Tears landing on the orange of her face. There are no strawberry romances here. No sweet forbidden fruits. Just pain, hollow, empty, rotten. "Jacki" your voice muffles into her robes, rain-soaked, tear-soaked.

"Was that its name?" his voice doesn't sound right. No cheerful hellos or drowsy laughs. It's all menacing now, grating and hollow lilt. "Qimir" you wail, sob half caught in your throat. "It can't be you." He shakes his head, smile crooked and maniacal. "I'm afraid so, little one." The force pushed you up, pulling you to him. Qimirs head tilts, his fingers dancing around your throat. Squeezing squeezing squzing. Your glossy eyes take in his unruly appearance. Even now your master looks utterly perfect. Muscles relaxed as he steals your breath. "Master" you whine, your heart shouldn't be hammering like this, leaping through beats like something lovesick.

"(Y/n)" golden light fills the clearing. Yord runs, Prince Charming in every way you should have loved.

Qimir releases you, only to nestle your neck in the crook of his arm. "Don't worry darling. I'm almost done." He blocks the first attack.

Second, third. Yord scrambles to pull you away, missing each time. "Let her go" The urgency in his voice rattles you. He did love you.

Little sister, little princess.

Why is only starting to make sense now?

There's a crack, so loud it echoes across the woods.

"NO"

Yord's body joins the rest.

no no no

"Where were we?" Qimir is every bit the villain.

The dragon, the wolf, the tyrant king with a crown of bones.

"You lied to me, you killed them. Why, why would you do this."

"Because the Jedi say I can not exist." Sith, right those things were supposed to be evil. Hailing from Koriiban, the evil Jedi forced to flee. And here you were having so readily given yourself to the enemy.

The blood flows free in the rain. Dozens of bodies drained.

There's a river of blood. You kneel by the holy thing, dipping your cupped hands into the crimson. You drink deeply from the massacre thinking it'll taste sweet. Qimir pulls you in holding your throat as he submerges you.

Baptized in blood

The world flashes red.

It feels so free here. Floating weightless, letting everything be. The rage can not find you in these depths. Free like an adrift astromech. Free to float amongst the stars.

When you emerge again. The world has grown brighter. You see the wide-eyed bodies, even Sol is among the dead, you swear you see disappointment in his lifeless orbs. You gulp, swallowing the euphoric faint. You see your new master before you. Swimming to him carefully, following the gentle tug of the force. Prey meets predator. Qimir chuckles, the water is shallow by the banks. He sits awaiting, on his makeshift throne.

There is no sympathy here you should know better

"You took adorable" Qimir rasps. Hot breath fanning your ear. "Master Qimir" you mumble shifting as he pulls you onto his lap. He laughs this is submission, a breath away from grasping his desire. He cups your cheeks, drifting his hands to your shoulders. Pulling you closer, bodies melting into one.

His kisses still taste like strawberries. Sweet and metallic. All possession and domination. Biting lips and tongue and flesh. Spilling fresh poison with each snip of your neck. He licks the blood from your fingers with feral pleasure. Swirling his tongue around each digit and pulling it further down his hungry mouth. You swallow the darkness from his tongue, letting him snuff out the little embers of light. The stars are burning away bit by bit. He pushes you under again.

Mornings on Khofar are dark, caught in a perpetual twilight. Qimir wraps his robes around you letting the midnight sink into your bones. "The ships a bit of a walk. But we should be there before noon." You paddle after him. Fingers lashing awkwardly at his hand. He turns and offers you that tilted smile once more, mask bouncing in his free hand.

"Master qimir" you confess, it feels so light on your tongue. Like clutching dying white-dwarf-stars behind your teeth. He chuckles, snapping a berry from a nearby bush. His smile sings of triumph, victory, earned in blood. He places the fruit amongst your teeth. You, his little war prize.

"My little acolyte"

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2K notes · View notes

meownotgood · 11 days ago

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viktor + hand kink (+ some childhood friends to lovers)

18+, minors dni

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Viktor breathes a low, accented hum against the vulnerable back of your neck, spreading warmth across your skin in a steady wave. "You were ruminating quite a bit today."

You shuffle, grumbling only slightly. The sheets rustle. Your shared bedroom is quiet, save for the distant hum of the city, still bustling even in the dead of night. Viktor pulls you closer with a gentle arm around your waist, his lithe limbs tangled up with yours like a fire's kindling. He peppers your neck with dream-soft kisses, causing tingles to trace from the top of your spine, to the ends of your toes.

"Ruminating?" You reply, sleepy, "I was focused."

"Mmm, I don't think so." The smile on Viktor's lips is practically tangible, as he trails them along the curve of your nape.

He's right, if you're honest. Viktor's always been very, frustratingly good at fluttering your pages and effortlessly reading you; perhaps you were zoning out, your head hasn't been fully focused on your work in days. You've lost your rhythm. You're dropping pens and staring into space, and though your partner doesn't tease — he's helpful, actually. Bringing you coffee or offering a light tap to your shoulder when your eyes start to grow heavy — he definitely notices.

It isn't his fault, not exactly. Your mind has a tendency to wander. Or maybe it sort of is, today.

The truth is, plain and simple — Viktor's been doing this thing with his hands that you find hard to look away from.

He likes keeping his hands busy.

When you both were younger, little fledglings scampering down Zaun's hallways and the Sump's crisp shore, he'd keep a delicate piece of folded parchment in his pocket, to fold and unfold and refold again. He pinches a tiny, rusted spring between his small fingers, twirls a bronze washer instead of spending it. You wind up scolding him when he accidentally drops it into the murky water, landing with a plip, because his parents gave it to him so the both of you could buy a loaf of bread. (Viktor sniffles, tearily trades the prized spring for a single berry to the first shopkeep on the strip. He places the berry into your open palms, along with a promise to be more careful next time.)

A little bit further, then, and Viktor's coined a habit of fiddling with his pencils, the eraser-end placed between his teeth as he mulls over various academy acceptance letters.

He leans his back against the wall of a brick alley, strikes the wheel of his lighter and toys with the cigarette held precariously between his work-worn fingers. Once he gets to Piltover, he won't really miss the smoke in his lungs, or the scent of ash that clings to his clothes like a second skin. It's more so the habit, the action and reaction of busying his hands, filling his lungs, and feeling everything convene for a singular, quiet moment.

It's best, when you're there to join him.

So, in recent memory, you've been watching Viktor twirl strands of his hair around his finger, until he leaves cowlicks that curl like the spiral in a snail shell. He's been tapping his fingertips against the end of his cane, a restless blip that barely makes a sound, but settles in your chest nonetheless, and twisting every pen he touches before he sticks it behind his ear.

You're currently working on a shared project, an air purifier prototype that is rudimentarily powered by gears, for now; and usually, collaborative projects run smoothly. You know how Viktor likes to work, he knows everything you're thinking before you've even conceptualized it. But Viktor — he keeps swiveling the gears, flipping one over his fingers, back and forth, or holding another while he rubs his thumb over each ridge agonizingly slowly.

With Viktor, you've already spent years finding new things to obsess over. New similarities and pursuits, new words that you love hearing on his tongue. New moles and new touches and new feelings to press between your gritted teeth, as you admire the scrap-metal flower Viktor made for you when Piltover was a distant dream away. Everything he's ever given you gets held onto, stored somewhere in your chest, in your favorite slices of lingering memories.

Fixating on his hands is just another piece in the puzzle's very long, very well-established line.

His fingers have always been delicate, long and defined along the bones of his knuckles and joints. The paleness to his skin makes the hidden moles on his right knuckle and left wrist stand out, two guiding stars in an inverted sky.

There's a long scar on his thumb from years upon years ago; he reached too far into his pet project, a mismatched piece of humming machinery; he hid the jagged scrape from his worried parents and his overbearing professor, and now, you think you're the only one that knows it exists.

(You're prone to your own habits, too. You like to kiss the mole on his inner wrist, then the soft scar on his thumb, then the tips of his fingers, before you take them into your warm, waiting mouth.)

Viktor has this effortlessly methodical way of working, to the point where every movement seems practiced, careful and measured and precise.

You're lost in another daydream, as you watch him slowly press a tiny gear into an even tinier mechanism, or tense his bony knuckles as he grips a wrench, or splay one delicate hand onto a page, as he charts a diagram with a protractor and a fountain pen. When he comes home, chalk is still dusted onto his palms, ink is stained onto the side of his hand.

(It reminds you of when he'd write notes onto his arms, covering them with his sleeves, because he stayed up too late working on another prototype instead of studying for his History of the Lanes exam. I would've let you cheat off of me, you grumbled, rolling your eyes. If only your professor hadn't already seated you and Viktor in opposite corners of the classroom. Your previous teacher advised as such. They whisper too much. You aren't disruptive. Just… cooperative.)

Viktor runs his fingers through his hair, ruffled from countless twirling, and pushes the strands away from his face. You watch him crack his knuckles, his joints, shuddering at the painful satisfaction. He sighs when you bring your palms to his knotted shoulders, his sore thighs.

This routine is never lackluster. Viktor's fingers lace with yours. His are long and delicate, and the shapes aren't the same, but they match with your own so perfectly. A pattern, a measured flourish of intimacy born from repetition. He recounts how he feels in a drowsy haze — Yes. This is fine. More than fine. Please, I want you to continue.

His forehead leans into yours, a Zaunite kiss. He rests against the softness of the mattress, and breathes nothing but a pleased exhale when you begin your instinctive descent, unbuttoning his shirt all the way down. Soft skin, exposed, you nibble on his collarbone, you admire the sculpture-ridges of his ribs with your touch. The final footfall is Viktor's palm, soft and familiar, the safety released, as he presses his hand to your chest, feels your beating heart, and pulls the trigger.

(The first time you kissed, Viktor was nervous. Normally, he faces everything head-on, believes in himself when the world doesn't. You'd never seen him so fidgety and unassured. He toys with his thumbs, holds your chin and promises to make it quick like he's set on killing you, not kissing you. You'd let him, if he plans to.

It's only practice. Neither of you had ever kissed anyone before. It makes sense to be one another's first test subjects. Afterwards, you're convinced you never want to kiss anyone else ever again, no-one but him.)

Now — Viktor fumbles with your shirt, gasps something fierce when you latch your teeth to his neck and bite. A secret part of him hopes you leave marks. He pulls you in, planting high-voltage kisses along your jaw. They're sloppy, hurried. On the night you're picturing, neither of you have the patience to waste time. There's desperation to the way he holds you, melding the shape of your body to his. Your chest to his chest, your legs to his legs. A shudder arches through him: a flicker of electricity through wires, and a wave of molten, galaxy-rich energy.

He's beautiful. You tell him this, as you kiss the space between his brows. Those lovely hands nearly shake, once he cups your face. He presses his lips to the tip of your nose, an expression of tenderness he's repeated over years of learning how to love.

Viktor steadies his gaze to yours, eyes catching the low light like melted amber. He tips your chin in his direction when he kisses you, and his gentle thumb pulls at your plush bottom lip so he can sink his tongue into your mouth.

You're imagining Viktor's hands everywhere, then.

A palm to your stomach, your chest, as methodical and careful as everything he pursues; palms holding your face to pull you in, a soft smile on his face as you lick the pad of his thumb; warm hands holding your thighs open, while he buries his mouth in between them — your hand in his hair, holding his cheek, brushing the perfect mole beneath his eye as he gives you his tongue — sloppily kissing right where you're slick and needy.

You want to feel the delicacy of his knuckles as he brushes them to your face, the calluses and the notched scars on his palms when he wraps his arms around you, and touches you as if you're holy.

In the imaginary spaces you often find yourself in, head buried in your notes to make it at least seem like you're working, Viktor places his gentle, pretty hands everywhere you've been craving, without the need for you to ask.

He knows you always shiver when he trails his fingertips over your spine, knows you'll whine the moment he brushes his palm between your legs.

You want to murmur the familiar syllables of his name against his throat, as his star-filled touch blesses the curves of your hip, your side, and the intricacies he's already memorized. He eases a finger inside you, just one, until you're begging for two, shaking when he reaches three.

You picture his fingers pressing into your mouth, his middle and ring. A soft tremble grips his voice as he asks you to suck.

Hand in his, fingers laced, he runs his thumb over your first knuckle and murmurs something into your ear, I missed you in his mother tongue. It's always desperate with him, always a dance of fully-bared emotions. Viktor buries his head into your nape, squeezes your side while you rut against each other; maybe through clothes, or maybe with nothing in between to make the press of your sex to his infinitely warmer, wetter, closer; his legs shake, but nothing hurts, nothing matters. Just this, sitting in his lap as Viktor holds you, and roughly dry humping until you're both sensitive and messy and you're holding his hand so tight, you can't take it anymore —

Viktor flicks your forehead, bringing you back to the present.

You turn in bed to face him. Piltover's quiet darkness envelops you just as softly as the sheets and comforter. A smile is already present on his lips, causing the mole above them to obediently follow the upturn.

"Welcome back." Viktor's tone is playful, lighter than air, with this saccharine-soft inflection you know he reserves just for you. "I was beginning to think I had lost you completely."

You yawn. "That wouldn't happen. Not ever."

"So sleepy." Viktor kisses the end of your nose. "You are usually resting, at this time."

"I know." You give a long blink, for emphasis. A feline display of affection. "I can't stop thinking."

Viktor leans closer. He hums against the side of your neck, vibrations low and steady, "Are you ready to tell me the details?"

"I was thinking about you."

"Ah." He breathes the slightest, most endearing laugh. "And what about me?"

"Your hands," You confess. "They're pretty. You're pretty. And you've been… I don't know, fiddling with things a lot more than usual. So I keep thinking of more, and…"

You trail off. Viktor hums.

"You are sweet to me," He says, as he traces his fingertips over your spine, first leaving a butterfly kiss to your shoulder, then shifting to let his nose brush yours. "I know it is late, but… we do not want you to be just as distracted tomorrow, yes?"

You nod. "Yeah."

Ever-so connected, you're already sure of what Viktor will say.

Tell me precisely what you need. I will give you everything.

#small warmup for today #sorry if it's a bit all over the place lol #I am not immune to Feelings #viktor x reader #viktor x you #viktor arcane x reader

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starryeyed-apple · 20 days ago

Text

you're the only friend I need

summary: Caleb has always been your dearest friend, and so much more. Your world continues to revolve around his memory when you lose him, until he comes home to you.

★pairing: Caleb x Reader/MC ★wc: 5.2k ★content warning: fluff in flashbacks, nostalgia, longing, angst, grief/mourning (Caleb's temporary death), tension when he returns, emotional hurt/comfort. alcohol consumption. heavy use of pipsqueak/pips, Caleb calls Reader baby & honey one (1) time each. ★a/n: I feel like Ribs by Lorde is going to be my most played song this year because of Caleb & writing this fic. Been working on this one for a while! This song is just so Caleb-coded to me, it embodies all that painful nostalgia I love about him, and I wanted this fic to reflect that feeling <3 masterlist ★ read on ao3

It all replays. Effortlessly, in a never-ending loop each time you close your eyes. Every touch, every glance. As tangible as ever until you open your eyes again.

"Pips?"

You blink a few times, rapidly, before looking towards him. For a moment, your mind swims, blurring the familiar image before you.

"Yeah?"

Your voice sounds distant to your own ears, and you shake your head. You blink a few more times, until he becomes clear before you.

Tall, broad-shouldered. Face faintly freckled, framing the glow of those lilac and orange rose eyes. His warm, easy smile.

Caleb, you want to sigh in relief, and have no idea why.

His strong brows are furrowed as he leans forward to get a better look at you, trying to catch your eyes as you shift them away again.

"Sorry," you mumble quickly, giving another sharp shake of your head.

You smile, weakly at first, then stronger when your eyes meet his again. There's always a familiar rush of comfort when your gazes meet. Even when you just feel his eyes on you, it brings a certain kind of peace.

"Spaced out a bit," you add.

"A bit?"

He laughs, but it's worried, his head tilting to the side as he scans you from head to toe. As if there will be some secret revealed in the twitch of your fingers, in how quickly your weight shifts from one foot to the other.

Caleb would be the one to pick up on the slightest tell. Unraveling your darkest fears, so hidden even from yourself, just from the shift of your eyes or the bite of your lip.

"You were headin' all the way to the moon with that stare," he jokes, easing off that sweet, albeit overbearing concern when you smile at him again.

Still, there's comfort in how he hovers over you, in how his worry wraps around you and squeezes just tight enough to be pleasant. Familiar.

"Yeah—sorry," you mutter again, glancing around you.

The pounding of the bass is what hits you first, a sensation of the blaring music felt deep in your chest. You blink a few times more times, disoriented, swaying on your feet only for Caleb to step into your side, steadying you.

"Pipsqueak?"

Your drawn to his voice like a magnet, squinting at his face in the low light of the…bar?

Looking around again, your mind pulls together all the pieces to set the scene. Yeah, the bar—a popular one among students in Skyhaven, near enough to the Aerospace Academy's dorms that fledgling pilots could drown the sorrows of their finals or celebrate acing their flights.

Tonight, it was the latter—though you highly doubted it was ever anything else for Caleb. You were visiting for the weekend, a break from your own studies, and enthusiastically agreed to the night out for the both of you when his friends stopped by his room to ask.

God, where had your mind been?

"Have you been drinking too much?"

Caleb's eyes narrow down at the half-finished beer in your hands (was it your first or second?), and you automatically bring it to your chest, half-expecting him to snatch the affronting alcohol away. The drink in his own hands is barely sipped at by comparison.

"Nooo," you draw out petulantly, and his narrowed gaze turns to you.

You stick your tongue out at him, biting it in a growing smile when his own lips twitch upwards at your behavior.

"Alright, alright," he huffs, even as the suspicion doesn't completely leave his keen eyes—keener in everything they see when it came to you. "Just don't forget to bring me with you next time."

You return his smile, even if something buried deep within you aches at what he says.

"Bring you where?"

Caleb's hand lands softly on your head, the warmth from his palm seeping into your scalp when he ruffles your hair.

"The moon," he says with a grin, easing you and grounding you to both him and the moment. There's an infuriating, beloved sparkle of mischief in his eyes when he adds, "Duh."

"Aren't you supposed to be a real, certified Deepspace pilot soon?" you shoot back instead of focusing on that faint ache. You focus instead on his shining gaze directed at you, how he's fully attentive to every word you say, until that ache fades away. "You should be the one taking me to the moon."

He snorts, eyes crinkling with mirth.

Somebody shuffles past behind him, and he's forced to step closer to you. The heat of his body permeates into your own, and he leans down further to try and meet your wandering eyes.

"Why do you think I became a pilot in the first place?" he asks, tilting his head further down.

The magnetism of his gaze pulls your attention from the words you'd engraved on that metal around his neck.

"To be a big hotshot?" Your nose wrinkles up at him when he grins teasingly from baiting out your familiar snark. "That's what everybody else seems to think. Ooh, Caleb, he's so cool! Look at him coming off the plane, taking his helmet off, I'm gonna swoooon—"

"Oh, quiet, you," Caleb swiftly interrupts you, reaching up to gently pinch your nose. You smack at his hand, and he gives it a shake before letting go.

The pounding music increases in volume, and he shifts, his head tilting to the side so that his cheek brushes against yours. You freeze at the casual contact, and heat up when you feel his breath against your ear.

"Besides, why would I care what they think?"

Caleb's breath is warm, but his words are warmer, heating up your entire body from the inside out. You feel your cheeks get hot, and you can't help but wonder if he can feel it radiating off you, his own cheek still grazing against yours.

What would it feel like, you wonder idly, to have his lips there too? To have them press down, soft, then firm, to feel his breath turn to panting? What would he sound like if you—

You suck in a deep breath, smacking weakly at his chest, even as he doesn't budge in his proximity to you.

"You don't?" you mumble, a hint of petulance creeping into your attempt at teasing, even if you feel your heart race in time with the pulsing music.

Because you know how they all look at him. You know how they gaze longingly, how they admire him from afar or as close as they dare to get.

Even now, you can feel the attention that circulates him, grounding him as the center of gravity in the room, with all the little stars and planets stuck in his orbit.

You lean in closer, daring to get as close to the sun as you can without burning.

In a flash, you see the fingers coming to pinch you again, and you swiftly dodge it, wavering back and forth. He sets his drink down on the table closest to you, and reaches both hands towards your face to catch you.

When he does, you pout up at him, your lips further pushed out when he squeezes your cheeks in.

"Ca-leeeeb," you whine, putting down your own drink and pinching his cheek to mimic his actions, and he lets go of you with an easy laugh.

"I only care if you think I'm cool, pips," Caleb answers, his eyes warm and kind while he shakes his head at your huff of disbelief.

As if it was the most obvious thing in the world—maybe it was, to him. Maybe he didn't notice everybody else in the room as drawn to him as you.

"So?"

You stiffen, whipping your head away.

"So what?"

"Soooo," he drawls, picking his drink back up as he ducks his face into your view again, grinning, "Do you think I look cool? Coming off the plane with my helmet off—what did you say again? I'm gonna swoon, he's sooo handsome—"

"I didn't say that—"

"You thought it—"

"Did not!"

You wack at his chest, frustrated huffs turning into a steady stream of giggles as he wraps his hand around your wrist, tugging you towards him. You stumble towards him in the same moment he steps back to make room for you, crashing into somebody right as they try to skirt past behind him.

Caleb is pushed back forward, colliding into you, and you hiss at the suddenly unpleasant sensation of warm beer spilling all over you.

"Oh, shit."

Caleb's moving in an instant, setting down his glass—from nearly full to more than half-empty in a split second—and grabbing at a pile of napkins nearby.

There's mumbled apologies from whichever drunk classmate bumped into him, but it only earns a rare glare from your golden boy, instead of a charming smile and quick joke to defuse the tension.

"Sorry, pips, I'm so sorry—" he mumbles under his breath when his attention quickly rivets back to you, dabbing gently at your shirt.

But the napkins are not helping, and the layer of beer on your shirt is already soaked through and starting to make the cloth stick to your skin.

And it really sticks.

Caleb seems to notice at the same moment as you. He turns swiftly, backing you towards the corner, away from the eyes always glued to his every action.

Leaning over you, he uses his large frame to hide you from view, quickly unzipping his jacket and helping your arms through the sleeves.

"I'm so, so sorry," he's still rushing the apologies with every breath, zipping up the jacket all the way to your neck.

He rolls the cuffs of the sleeves up to your wrists, brows pinched with concern, face flushed down to his neck.

"Caleb," you urge softly, pulling his panicked gaze up to your eyes. His stiff shoulders relax slightly, just from the familiarity of your eyes looking back at him. "It's fine. People are drunk. I'm probably drunk. It happens."

He still frowns.

"It shouldn't," he mutters, before his hand finds yours, fingers easily falling into place around yours as he tugs you after him. "C'mon, let's get you home."

"What about—"

You stop, your mind suddenly feeling fuzzy again.

You get the uncanny feeling of being trapped in static, like an old-fashioned TV that sometimes sits in an antique shop window, playing the same image on repeat. It doesn't help that you swear this same song blasting in every corner of the bar has been looping on repeat for hours at this point.

Shaking your head, you blame it on the alcohol, focusing instead on the warm weight of Caleb's palm in yours, his fingers giving you a squeeze whenever he looks back at you.

"What about Gideon?" you finally manage once Caleb gets you through the doors, and you suck in a large lungful of cool, crisp Skyhaven air. "Your friends?"

"They'll be fine," he brushes off with a shake of his head, fixing the collar of his jacket on you when it sticks up from the sudden gust of wind. "Gideon's a big boy, he can handle himself. Promise."

"You should still let them know you're leaving," you insist, frowning.

With a sigh, Caleb fishes his phone out of the pocket of his jeans. It's an older pair, you recognize the worn hems, and how it's become way too tight across the butt, accentuating how round his—

You clear your throat, glancing away. Needed to take him shopping for some new clothes, the dork. What was he wearing worn out jeans for?

"Shopping?" Caleb says as he sends a text and slips his phone back away, and you start.

Had you said that out loud?

Oh no did you talk about his butt out loud too?

God, how drunk were you?

Caleb frowns at you, pressing his hands against your cheeks before he's suddenly leaning in. Your breath stutters through parted lips, eyes wide as you watch his own close as his forehead touches yours.

"You're too hot," he hums, completely innocent in his concern, unaware of how you now feel even hotter. Unbearably so. "How much did you have to drink again? I swear I was keeping track…"

He's mumbling to himself now, ignoring how flustered you're getting as he turns, crouching in front of you.

"What—"

"C'mon." He reaches his hand back to give a pat to your leg, and you jerk forward with a squeak when his fingers squeeze gently on your thigh. "Hop on."

Hop—

You clear your throat, pushing the sudden barrage of mental images from your mind as you drape yourself over his back, letting him lift you in a piggy back ride back home.

There's a few stopping points along the way.

Five minutes into the walk, and he's setting you down on a bench at your complaints that your feet are being pinched by your boots. He gently tugs the laces loose, pulling each one off. They hang from his fingers while he lets you climb back on his back.

Five more minutes later, your cheek is pressed against his as you start whining for—

"Ice cream?" Caleb repeats, a little laugh in the question. "Pips, it's 1 am."

"Soooo?" You pout, nuzzling your cheek against his, failing to hide a smile into his neck when you feel his breath hitch in his throat. "I want some."

He pivots easily, taking you in the other direction.

Caleb sets you back down, this time on the curb while he gets a frozen bar of your favorite flavor from the 24 hour convenience store. He sits next to you, rambling about zero-gravity tests and flight maneuvers as you happily devour your ice cream.

His mouth opens automatically when you place the last bite in his mouth, lips closing around the stick to pull it off with his tongue.

He doesn't seem to notice the tips of your fingers caught in his mouth, even as your gaze is glued to the sight of them popping out, a little shinier and warmer than before.

You clear your throat, averting your gaze when you feel him look at you.

"You don't even like ice cream," you grumble.

"Nope," he answers in his teasing, sing-song tone, shifting for you to climb back onto his back. "But I sure do like you, pips!"

Caleb laughs when you groan and bury your face back into his neck, like he thinks what he said was the most casual thing in the world.

Which maybe it was.

Or maybe it wasn't.

Your head spins, and you don't say anything else until he's gently setting you on your feet outside his dorm room.

"God, you really are drunk," he sighs softly when you stumble through the door, his arm easily hooking around your waist. His voice is even more hushed when he gently directs you towards the bathroom, his palm on your lower back big and warm, "Gotta get you out of that sticky shirt, honey."

His back leans against the other side of the door when you take a quick shower, still rambling about whatever came to mind, and asking every now and then if you're doing okay.

You emerge from the tiny bathroom with a cloud of steam, clean and happy in one of his old t-shirts. It's one of your favorites of his, tucked away in the side of his top drawer just for your visits.

"Remember the first time you got drunk?" Caleb asks when he tucks you into his bed, only for you to kick the sheets free and tug him in with you. He laughs, easily slipping in beside you in his own favorite, comfy pajamas.

"Mhm," you hum. "I was sixteen—"

"You were fifteen—"

"—and it was at Francesca's house down the street—"

"—it was Luke's house, and I had to carry you for three blocks—"

"—for a sleepover—"

"—it was a house party, pipsqueak—"

"—I'm talking!" You bark at his constant interruptions to correct you, and he bursts out laughing.

You curl up into his side, giggling along with him. Whenever there's a lull in your laughter, with barely enough time to catch your breath, one of you starts up again.

You hold each other tight with each wave of giggles, until your ribs start to burn and your cheeks ache.

When the moment of silence finally comes, Caleb inhales slowly.

"I watched you dance down an entire street before you almost fell, and I had to carry you the rest of the way home," he whispers. It sounds reverent, as if the memory will disappear the moment he speaks it out loud.

You glance up at Caleb, admiring the faraway look in his eyes he got whenever he was hypnotized by nostalgia. It seemed to be happening more often, the older you both got—him remembering you, even when you were right in front of him.

"You were spinning around that flickering streetlight down on West Cedar Street when you almost tripped over your own feet." He laughs softly, and you smile at the memory. You were drunk and young and happy, and Caleb never strayed from your side. "And you were laughing so much I thought you'd wake the whole neighborhood."

"Did not," you mumble, resting across his chest, your body jostled by his laughter.

"Did too," he stubbornly insists, even when you pout up at him. "It was even worse when we got home. Had to shush your little giggles alllll the way up to bed before we got caught."

You roll your eyes, smacking him lightly in the chest.

"How come you never forget anything, Caleb?" you whine.

He falls quiet, and you peer up at him curiously.

There's a different look in his eyes now, even farther away, but it shutters off when he catches you looking.

"How could I forget?" he asks, smiling down at you with a tenderness that makes your heart race in these quiet moments—too intimate for what you said you were to each other, and also not enough. Never enough. "How could I ever forget anything about you?"

Caleb squeezes you tighter, and you feel that static in your mind again. It makes your vision hazy, your head heavy, and sets your heart racing with fear.

"I'm scared, Caleb," you whisper, fingers curling tighter into his shirt.

He shifts underneath you, the gentle strength of his arms tugging you closer. You adjust on top of him until you can listen to the steady beat of his heart, until it settles your own heartbeat.

"Of what?" he asks quietly, fingertips tapping an idle pattern against the base of your spine.

It's comforting, and your eyes begin to droop.

"Of…" you yawn, turning to bury your face further against his chest. Your fingers curl around the chain of his necklace, warm from his body heat. "Of getting older."

Of getting older without you, echoes in your mind.

Which doesn't make sense. When you get older, so does he. That's just the way it goes.

But the words dance around your mind, flashing in your eyelids every time your eyes blink shut again. They get heavier, harder to open, and you hold onto him tighter.

No, you think distantly. Not yet. Please.

You don't know why you think it. He'll be here in the morning when you wake up.

Caleb will give you that dopey, sleepy smile, tug gently at your cheek until you're awake and shoving him away. You'll pester him about what he's going to make you for breakfast, and he'll tease you that you better get up because you snooze, you lose, pipsqueak, it'll all be gone by the time you get up. But he lets you sleep in a bit longer anyway.

"There's nothin' to be scared of, pips," Caleb's hushed voice brings you back to him in that moment, and your racing heart begins to calm. "I'm gettin' older, too. Hear how creaky my knees are gettin'?"

He bumps his knees against yours, and you scoff, kicking him back until your legs tangle together as he laughs.

You want to stay up. You want to keep laughing, until you're sore in the ribs again. Until you feel him nestled between them, always.

"I'm right here with you, baby."

Your stomach flips. It feels off-script, somehow, but you're not complaining.

With a yawn, you finally allow your eyes to close. "Every step?"

Lips brush against your forehead, and you calm.

"Every step."

You poke him in the chest, fighting one more wave of sleep like it was anesthesia—pointless and painful to resist.

"Chapped lips," you mumble, brows furrowing. "Need to get you more chapstick…and jeans, you dork…"

His laughter rumbling through his chest is the last thing you hear.

When you wake, it's with the absence of him.

You sleep again, for just one more glimpse.

You don't like going out for drinks anymore.

You do it, because they ask you to. Your coworkers look for the smile on your face when it's been gone for months, when they should know better than to think you'll ever be happy again, with half of you gone.

And when you stumble home, it's alone.

No stopping for 1 am ice cream, shoes carried for you as you're carried the whole way. There's no dancing down Cedar Street, twirling around the flicker of a streetlight, knowing who's following a few steps behind and laughing along with you.

These aren't the streets of your old neighborhood. You couldn't bear the thought of ever walking them again, even as familiar sidewalk chalk art and cracks in the pavement flicker through your mind as you trace your steps back to your apartment.

It always replays in your mind, sleeping or waking. Sometimes you could hardly tell the difference between those dreams and reality.

You still hear his voice, teasing you with every little thing you do. Even with the weight of the words that had been a gift to him, a promise between you, now dangling around your neck.

He should be here, you think with each beat of your heart, with every staggering step. Your hand sways out from your side, fingers grasping at empty air each time you waver. He should always be here.

It feels like driving through a tunnel, the lights flashing above you with every image of a memory as your mind rewinds back through time. You remember every promise broken, every fear come to realization.

I'm right here with you. You can't remember if that was dream, or memory. Or both. Every step.

Either way, it's a lie. A cruel reminder.

In just a few years, you'll be older than Caleb ever was.

You slowly crouch to the ground, arms brought around your knees. The gate to your apartment complex is in sight, a distance easily crossed, even when your steps falter.

But your chin rests on your knees, tears swimming in your vision. Muscles heavy and slack, no desire to get up and go to it. Because this may be your house, but it isn't home.

Strong arms, gentle embrace. Sure, steady, always open and waiting for you to return to them. Constant. Inevitable.

Gone.

Wiped from an existence that should have always revolved around him.

You could never go home again.

By some miracle, it all comes back to you.

He comes back to you.

When your dreams do become reality, it takes a while to accept it as so. To differentiate sleeping from waking, to fully realize he was once again in not just one, but both.

But it's hard. Fuck, it's so hard. Your breath still catches in your chest, impossibly tight each time your beloved ghost stands before you.

His name still sticks to the roof of your mouth when you see him, sometimes. Your tongue heavy with the syllables you'd laughed, and cried, and called, and whispered; in times of joy and times of grief.

Grief, you think the word over, turning it to inspect in your mind as you walk those old streets. Searching for a forgotten, familiar glimpse of him in every place where you grew up. Seeking another memory in every corner, every old favorite haunt.

Your name is still on the top of the wall of wishes—untouched by human fingers, only weathered by time.

You retrace your footsteps down that repaved street, only to find they've replaced the light bulb in the lamppost.

Down at the abandoned park, the old chains creak under the brush of your fingertips when you sink into the worn plastic seat of the swing.

You haven't answered his messages today, ignoring every phone call, and you wonder how long it'll take him to find you.

Unsurprisingly, it doesn't take that long at all.

"Hey," he calls, even if you feel his presence before you hear him. "I've been textin' you for hours. What are you doing all the way out here?"

You don't answer, your feet kicking at the ground you couldn't reach as a kid, when he used to use his Evol to push you higher and higher.

He's still talking, but he sounds far away, as trapped in your memories as he used to be.

"Hey." His voice is still gentle, but more insistent when he kneels before you.

His gloved thumb and forefinger find your chin to tilt your face towards him, and you realize he's still wearing that damned uniform. Fresh out of the fresh hell of his job that tries to keep him locked away from you, and here he is, running back home to you.

"Pips, you're worrying me here. Talk to me."

When you meet his gaze, his breath is sucked into his chest at whatever look is in your eyes.

Eyelashes fluttering, he whispers with a crack in his voice, "Please?"

The déjà vu hits you then. You remember the two of you, just like this once before. Your reason for being upset then seems so petty, so inconsequential now.

"I don't recognize you sometimes," you whisper, voice shaking. Your heart breaks when you see the hurt flash in his eyes before he blinks, quickly covering it up. "Or—or maybe I do. Maybe that's what scares me. That you look like my Caleb. You are still my Caleb."

You sniff, eyes watering, and Caleb strokes his thumb under your eyes to collect the fallen tears, the leather cool against your skin.

God, how desperately you wanted to go back in time.

Back to when things were so simple, when all you had to worry about was homework and what Caleb was making for dinner. When the only thing that could hurt either of you was falling off the swings, and you never had to be scared because Caleb always kept a few band aids of your favorite color in his pockets.

You miss riding your bicycles to the train tracks so you could watch the chemtrails the planes left across the spring's sunset sky. You miss hot summer nights when you curled up on the floor of his bedroom with the windows wide open, sharing the same pillow and blanket.

You miss the winters when he'd share one glove with you when you forgot yours, your bare hands linked together as you walked home after school. You miss having sleepovers with your best friend whenever you wanted, surrounded by a pile of plushies and laughing until your stomachs hurt, over some stupid joke you'd forget in weeks.

You miss stale beer staining your shirt and the warmth of his jacket around you, you miss piggy back rides and 1 am convenience store ice cream and sharing beds and laughing and you miss him.

Most of all, you miss the days when you believed that nothing could ever take him from your side.

"You're still my Caleb," you whisper again, and his eyes flash back up to yours, wide and unable to hide all the hope he tries to keep hidden from you. "But I see all the pieces of you they tried to take away."

He laughs dryly, looking away again.

"It doesn't fit right, does it?" he mumbles, moving to stroke his thumb over the back of your hand now. His head tilts, staring numbly at your hand in his. You realize belatedly that it's his right one. "All those broken little pieces."

Whatever broken part of your own soul calls out to what's broken in him.

"Hey," you whisper, nudging your knee against his. You remember being a ghost in the street, drunk and stumbling home all alone. "What would you do if I told you I felt that same way about myself?"

Caleb stiffens instantly. His brows pinch together, looking in pain at just the mere idea of that.

"I'd tell you you're wrong." Slowly, his fingers shift, until his pinkie twines around yours. Looking back up at you from his knees, adoring and supplicant, he whispers under his breath, "You're the best of the best."

How could he be so sure of your place, you think, and not his place in your heart? His spot by your side?

You reach for him, desperately, your hands knocking the military hat right off his head. Your fingers drag through his hair as you pull him closer, until he's resting against your chest, holding him close to your heart.

"You think so little of yourself," you whisper, pressing a kiss to the top of his head, and feeling the breath that shudders out of his chest against your own. "But I adore you."

Your fingers gently scrape at his scalp, your lips pressing to his temple.

"I always have."

You're both quiet for a moment. Enjoying the once overlooked, beautiful simplicity of just breathing together.

When Caleb eventually pulls back, it's with a smile.

But it's tight, the corners of his eyes not crinkling in their usual mirth.

Typical Caleb, overthinking even your heart on your sleeve, waiting for him to take what's always been his.

"But you got a big, wide world out there now." His hand comes towards your face, hesitant, then caressing your cheek when you lean into it. "Don'tcha, pips?"

You wouldn't know. Your world had ended when they took him from you.

But you just hum. With a forced casual shrug, you take his hand from your cheek.

You gently tug his glove off, fingers sliding up along his longer ones. Callouses from the lives you'd fought for rub together before they intertwine.

"Maybe," you admit with an utter lack of conviction. Its stark in comparison to the devotion that shines in your gaze up at him, and you see the hard edges that had encapsulated him softening. "But you're all I need."

Your head finds its place on Caleb's shoulder, and his slow sigh of relief ruffles your hair, followed by the light brush of lips there. His fingers tighten in your grip, and yours squeeze in response.

Until it hurts. Until he can feel it.

Until nothing could keep you apart again.

Then it loosens. Not to pull back, never to pull back. But it mellows out to something comfortable.

Not quite content, not yet. But close.

Knowing that someday, hopefully, you didn't have to hold on so tight just to hold each other at all.

Somehow, you know that he hears it this time, in the soft silence that falls between you.

You're all I'll ever need.

#caleb x reader #caleb x mc #caleb x you #lads caleb #lads x reader #lads fanfic #love and deepspace #caleb x reader angst #lads caleb x you #lads caleb x mc #lads caleb x reader #caleb lads #caleb love and deepspace #love and deepspace caleb #caleb angst

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jerryandersonsdaughterinlaw · 2 months ago

Text

abby x pregnant partner

abby x fem!reader . ݁₊ ⊹ ౨ৎ . ݁₊ ⊹

soft!abby / wholesome!abby / mommy!abby | modern au ✿

this is a short series! read pt1 here ᡣ𐭩 more coming soon

cw: pregnancy + childbirth

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It was late again, hours past midnight. Our apartment was dim, just the soft hum of the fridge and the occasional creak of old floorboards under Miso's feet as she patrolled the shadows. I sat cross-legged on the couch, bathed in the faint light from my laptop. I hadn't meant to go down the rabbit hole. It had just started with a stray thought— what if there was a way for it to be just us?

Abby emerged from the bedroom, rubbing sleep from her eyes, hoodie hanging loose off one shoulder. "You comin' to bed?"

I looked up, guilt flickering in my expression. "Yeah. Sorry. I... couldn't sleep."

Abby stepped closer and caught sight of all my open tabs — articles, speculative journals, medical forums, half-finished thoughts in a notes app. She didn't say anything at first, just sat beside me, knees bumping. "Okay. Talk to me."

I hesitated. Then finally, in a whisper that barely held together, I said, "I just keep thinking... I don't want there to be anyone else involved. I want it to be ours, just ours. No anonymous donor. No third party."

Abby was quiet, her thumb brushing slow, grounding circles along my wrist.

"I know it sounds selfish," I added quickly. "I just... I keep imagining a baby with your freckles. Your eyes. Something that's both of ours. And it hurts a little, knowing that can't happen. Not like that."

Abby looked at me, eyes soft and steady. "It's not selfish. I've thought about it too."

"You have?"

"Yeah," Abby said, with a small, bittersweet smile. "Sometimes when you're asleep, I look at you and I think, I wish we could build a whole person from what we have right here. No outside pieces. Just Us."

I blinked back tears I didn't expect.

Abby leaned in, voice low and warm. "There are some researchers working on it, you know. Cell conversion. They're trying to figure out how to turn somatic cells into viable germ cells. If it works, it means two women could create a biological child together."

"I read about that," I whispered. "They've done it with mice."

Abby nodded. "They'll get there. Maybe not today. Maybe not even soon. But someday."

I curled closer, tucking my face against Abby's shoulder, voice muffled. "I want that someday."

Abby kissed the crown of my head. "Me too."

We sat like that for a long time, wrapped in a silence that wasn't sad — just full. Hopeful. And when we finally turned out the lights and climbed into bed, Abby pulled me close and whispered into my hair, "If it ever becomes possible... we'll be ready."

And I, half-asleep and curled into the warmth of her, whispered back, "They’d look just like you."

── .✦

It had been years since we first sat together, wrapped in our quiet dream of creating a child that was ours, without the interference of any outside sources. The world had changed so slowly, it almost felt like the dream itself was a distant memory — something we had let drift in and out of our conversations on lazy Saturday mornings, when the apartment was filled with the scent of pancakes and Miso sprawled out on the couch, sound asleep.

We had never fully let go of the hope that one day, the research would lead to something more tangible. Every now and then, we would check in- articles, journals, forums, a quiet ritual that had woven itself into the fabric of our relationship. Each update felt like a small victory, a step closer to the "someday" we had dreamed about.

And then, one day, as the world outside shifted into a new season — the leaves turning gold, the air crisp — a headline appeared that would change everything.

"Breakthrough in Somatic Cell Conversion: Same-Sex Couples Could Now Have Biological Children Together."

It was one of those moments where everything seemed to stop. Abby was sitting at the kitchen counter, pouring a cup of coffee, when my sharp intake of breath pierced through the quiet hum of the apartment.

"What is it?" Abby asked, eyes narrowing in concern.

I was standing in the middle of the room, laptop in hand, eyes wide. I couldn't even speak for a moment, the weight of the headline too much to process. I quickly clicked through, reading the article with an intensity Abby hadn't seen in years.

"Abby..." My voice was barely a whisper. "It's real. It's happening."

Abby pushed herself off the counter and moved toward me, feeling the weight of the news settle in her chest like a heavy breath. She read the headline over my shoulder, then scanned the article. It was brief — hopeful, tentative, the first true proof that our dream might one day become reality.

I was shaking, my hands trembling. "This is it. It's actually possible. We could... we could do it, Abby."

Abby took my hand, feeling a surge of emotion. Her throat tightened, the words feeling far too big for what she could express. Instead, she pulled me into a tight hug, burying her face in the warmth of my neck. "I knew it," Abby whispered. "I knew we'd get here. I knew this day would come."

We stood there for a long time, the world outside fading into the background, lost in the overwhelming rush of possibilities. The weight of what it meant settled between us — the dream we had both cradled quietly, now within their reach.

That night, we didn't sleep much. We talked, and talked, and talked. About the future, about what this meant for us, about the world we would build together. We discussed everything from names to how we would decorate the nursery. Abby's mind raced with logistics, thinking through the process, while I held onto the dream with an intensity that was both fiery and tender. We were both there — so deeply intertwined in this future that it almost felt too good to be true.

The next morning, we woke up in each other's arms, and for the first time, it felt like the future was no longer a question mark. It was there. It was real.

Abby slipped her hand into mine, our fingers intertwined. It wasn't flashy or dramatic, but in the softness of that gesture, there was something more profound than we had realized. They had come this far. The dream was happening.

── .✦

The process was slow. Complicated. We went through dozens of tests - cell sampling, genetic screenings, trial injections to prep my body.

The science was new, constantly evolving, and we were part of something that hadn't been done more than a handful of times.

But we kept showing up.

Every appointment, every needle, every fear — we faced it together. Abby never missed a single step.

She kept meticulous notes on schedules and dosages. I kept a journal, sometimes scribbling nonsense, sometimes raw, unfiltered feelings: ‘I don't know if I can do this. I want to. I think I'm scared of loving something this much before I even know them.’ There were tears I didn't always explain, and silences Abby knew not to press on.

A few weeks later, after appointments with a handful of meetings with specialists, we stood in the sterile white of the clinic together— my hand firmly in Abby's, both of us quieter than usual. The consultation room was small and warm, a single potted plant in the corner trying its best to brighten the place. It didn't feel like the kind of place where history was being made. But for me, it was. A specialist had just walked us through the latest breakthroughs, the clinical steps, the risks. It had all sounded distant, surreal.

I already knew it all. We both did. But I needed to hear it one more time. Needed to feel the gravity of it. Because after this, there would be no turning back.

"The embryo is healthy," the doctor said gently, sliding a photo across the desk. "Genetically viable, with balanced markers from both of you."

I stared at the grainy image. A cluster of cells, barely formed. But it was ours. Not half of one of them and half a stranger - not a compromise, not a workaround.

I felt Abby's thumb stroke over my knuckles. I looked over and saw the tension in Abby's jaw, the almost childlike awe in her eyes.

"I still don't believe it," I whispered.

"I do," Abby said quietly. "Because you're the only person in the world who could've made me want this."

That next morning, I barely ate. I showered in silence, dressed in soft clothes, and sat on the bed with my hands in my lap while Abby packed a bag.

When I finally stood, Abby reached out and pulled me into a long, grounding hug. "You sure?" Abby murmured.

I nodded into her shoulder. "Terrified. But sure. I never thought l'd be the one to do this."

Abby's brow furrowed — not with worry, but with that quiet, soft steadiness that always grounded me. "You don't have to do this for me.”

"I'm not. I'm doing this with you." I nodded. “ I want to. I want to try. If it's you... if it's us... I think I could be brave."

Abby's chest tightened, her throat constricting with something too tender for words. She stepped forward, brushing a hand over my cheek and into my hair, steady and reverent. "You already are." Abby let out a shaky breath. "You're everything to me."

I smiled faintly. "We’re about to meet the rest of everything."

── .✦

In the procedure room, I laid back, my knees drawn up, legs in stirrups, sterile lights overhead.

Abby stood by her head, gloved fingers holding my hand tightly. She didn't try to offer empty words - just stayed with me, steady, solid.

When the doctor entered and nodded to them gently, I looked up at Abby. "Don’t let go," I whispered.

Abby cupped my cheek and leaned closer. "I've got you.”

There was pressure. A strange fullness. My body flinched instinctively, and Abby stroked my hair, murmuring nonsense, grounding me with touch.

And then-

"It's done," the doctor said softly. "Congratulations. We'll give you a moment."

Silence.

I blinked up at Abby, stunned. My heart hammered against my ribs. Abby leaned down and kissed my forehead. "You did it."

Tears gathered in my lashes. "We did it."

Later, after we were home, I curled into Abby's side on the couch, our hands resting gently on my lower belly. Nothing had changed physically, not yet. But something felt different. Like a thread had been tied between past and future, looping through both of us.

"I'm scared." I mumbled softly.

"I'll be with you every second."

I turned to look up at her. "Promise?"

Abby smiled, eyes shining. "You're stuck with me, babe."

I laughed, soft and breathless. "Good."

We sat there a long time, silent except for the sound of our joined hearts beating against one another, the smallest spark of something new beginning inside me- something forged entirely out of love.

── .✦

By the second week, my body began to shift.

I was tired. Exhausted, actually. Like my bones were heavier, my limbs slower. One morning, I made it to the kitchen, poured myself a glass of water, then fell asleep on the couch halfway through drinking it. Abby found me like that — water sweating onto the coffee table, as I curled into the cushions. Instead of waking me, Abby sat beside me, carefully lifting my legs onto her lap and tracing soft patterns into my calves until I stirred.

"Sorry," I mumbled, half-asleep.

"Don't be. You're growing a person. You can sleep through the next three months if you want."

The nausea kicked in not long after. The first trimester was brutal.

Nausea hit me like a wave I could never quite get ahead of. Some days, I curled up in bed and didn't move. Abby stayed close, memorizing my cravings and aversions like exam material. She made toast in the middle of the night. She rubbed my back when I cried because I was so tired of feeling sick and scared and exhausted. She grew even more attentive. She learned to give space when I needed to retreat and brought me quiet comforts when words weren't enough: a warm drink on the nightstand, the soft hoodie I always stole, the old, faded sonogram tucked into a book I had been reading.

Abby had already read three books on pregnancy (and annotated them), watched Youtube videos on everything from fetal development to hip-support pillows, and made a spreadsheet to track symptoms, cravings, and trimester milestones. But none of that prepared her for the sight of me kneeling at the toilet in the middle of the night, my whole body trembling with morning sickness that didn't care what time of day it was.

At first, I insisted I was fine. "It's just the coffee," I said, then the tea, then "maybe the toothpaste?"

Without a word, Abby knelt behind me and held my hair back. One hand resting on my spine. Her touch always so steady.

Abby didn't push. Just started keeping plain crackers in a container by the bed and brought ginger chews home without saying a word.

Then came the night I staggered out of bed at 3 a.m., made it to the bathroom, and barely got the lid up in time. I knelt there shaking, face clammy, forehead resting against my arm as I tried not to cry.

Abby came in a minute later, half-asleep but steady. She didn't say anything. She just knelt beside me, held my hair back, and rubbed my back in slow, quiet circles until my stomach settled.

Afterward, she wiped my face with a cool cloth, and kissed my temple as she helped me up and got me into fresh clothes, then curled around me in bed, whispering,

"I'm so proud of you," like I had just run a marathon instead of being sick. "Gatorade? Water? I'll make you toast."

I blinked at her blearily. "Abby, you don't have to-"

"I want to."

From then on, it was a routine. When the nausea flared up, Abby was already there. She adjusted my pillow stacks at night, made chamomile tea and kept saltines on the nightstand, learned how to make different soups from scratch and carried ginger chews in her coat pocket like a secret weapon.

Around week five, the hormones hit hard.

I cried watching a video of a baby goat hopping around a barn. I cried when Abby made my favorite pasta. I cried when I couldn't get my socks on one morning because my stomach cramped when I bent over.

"Come here," Abby had murmured, kneeling and gently putting the socks on for me. "I've got you."

"I'm losing my mind," I sniffled.

"No, babe. You're just doing something impossible."

── .✦

Doctor's visits became more frequent, but no less surreal.

Abby went to every one, notebook in hand, asking precise questions I forgot five seconds after hearing the answers. She held my hand during the ultrasounds, eyes glued to the screen while I mostly stared at Abby's face instead.

The soft hum of the machine filled the space, and I laid back on the table with my shirt rolled up, cold gel on my belly and Abby seated right beside me, out fingers intertwined tightly.

Abby's eyes were fixed on the screen, even more than mine. She'd been unusually still since they walked in - jaw tight, brow furrowed like she was trying to solve something, even though it was out of her hands.

The tech smiled gently. "Everything looks good. Strong heartbeat. And... do you two want to know the sex?"

I glanced at Abby, who didn't look away from the screen as she softly said, "Yeah."

The tech gave a warm, knowing smile. "It's a girl."

I felt it in my chest first - that swooping warmth, the disbelief. But when I turned my head to look at Abby, it nearly undid me.

Abby's eyes were glassy. She let out a slow, unsteady breath like she'd been holding it for weeks. Her hand lifted to press lightly over mine where it rested on my stomach. And then, almost a whisper, she said: "I knew it."

We left with a blurry printout of the scan and two stunned, quiet smiles. I tucked my arm around Abby's on the walk to the car, rubbing the bump through my coat. Abby looked down at me, eyes still soft with wonder. "You realize we're girl moms now, right?"

I laughed through my nose. "God help us.”

Abby kissed my temple. "She's gonna be the luckiest kid in the world."

Afterward, we sat in the car in the parking lot, not ready to drive away. Abby stared at the blurry black-and-white photo in her lap.

"That's our kid," I said softly. "Our actual... kid."

Abby smiled, tears brimming without falling. "I know."

We didn't need to say anything else. We just sat there, parked in the middle of everything — the world outside moving, and us inside, still. The air between us full of awe.

── .✦

The house was dark except for the glow of the bedside lamp. The hum of the city filtered in through the cracked window, distant and muffled.

I laid on my side, one leg tangled with Abby's, her fingers idly tracing patterns over my stomach - the softest touch, like she was learning me all over again. Neither of us said anything for a long moment. The silence wasn't heavy. Just full.

Then I mumbled, "What if I'm not good at this?"

Abby kissed the crown of my head. "You will be. I've never seen you love anything halfway. Our kid's gonna be the luckiest in world." Abby smiled. "They'll be obsessed with you. You're gonna be their favorite."

“What do you think they'll be like?" I asked softly.

Abby glanced over, her lips curving faintly. "Loud. Probably smarter than both of us combined. Stubborn like you."

"I'm not stubborn," I protested softly, rolling my eyes and burying my face in Abby's shoulder. "God help us if they're as sarcastic as you."

Abby laughed quietly, chest rising beneath my cheek. "They're gonna be loved, that's for sure."

A pause.

"I keep thinking about that," I said. "How different their life is going to be from ours. They won't have to figure it all out on their own, you know? They'll have us."

"You think we'll be any good at this?" Abby's voice was quiet now, a hint of vulnerability tucked underneath her steadiness. "We didn't even think we wanted it."

"I know," I whispered. "But maybe... maybe that's what makes it feel so right. We didn't want this out of obligation or expectation. We wanted it because it became impossible not to. Because we love each other so much it spilled over."

Abby's hand moved to cradle my cheek, brushing my hair back. "I'm scared sometimes."

I tilted my head, eyes soft. "Of what?"

"Messing up. Not being enough. I didn't grow up with a mom. I don't know what it's supposed to look like — to be soft and gentle and still... me."

I leaned up, kissing the corner of her mouth. "We'll figure it out together. You don't have to be anyone else. You just have to be you. And I'll be me. And we'll be imperfect and messy and probably overtired a lot of the time, but they'll never have to wonder if they're loved."

Abby swallowed, nodding slowly. "Yeah."

"I want them to grow up with so much softness," I whispered. "I want bedtime stories and lazy Sundays, and learning how to stand up for what's right. I want them to feel safe enough to be whoever they are."

Abby looked at me, and for a moment she didn't speak. Then she said, "You're going to be the best mom."

"So are you."

Abby blinked hard and pulled me closer, tucking her face against my neck. I ran my fingers through her hair, gentle and slow, until her breathing evened out, her body relaxing into sleep.

And even long after Abby had drifted off, I stayed awake, my hand resting over my stomach, already imagining the tiny heartbeat growing quietly inside me. I smiled in the dark. We were really doing this. Together.

── .✦

It wasn't easy. And as my body began to change, as the pregnancy became visible and real, Abby watched with awe. She never said much, but every once in a while, she'd rest her head against my belly, or trail a gentle hand over my skin, admiring and amazed.

Once, I caught her just staring. "What?"

Abby just shook her head, eyes soft. "You're so beautiful like this."

I blinked. "I look like a bloated beach ball."

Abby grinned. "You look like my future."

My cheeks flushed, heart pounding, I smiled quietly and rested my hand over Abby's.

Neither of us had ever imagined this. I hadn't even liked kids growing up — and yet here I was, trying to imagine the tiny life growing inside me. I would lie in bed sometimes, my hand resting lightly over my belly, and whisper, “I hope you're kind. I hope you're like her.”

── .✦

Nesting hit me hard— and Abby rose to meet it like a mission.

Abby painted the nursery walls pale sage green, carefully taping the edges and climbing up and down the ladder ten times to make sure it was perfect. I waddled beside her with one hand on her back, and kept insisting it was fine. It had taken Abby a full weekend and an almost obsessive amount of tape precision, but the end result was perfect. Smooth, even, peaceful.

"No, see that corner? Uneven," Abby said, focused. "She deserves better."

I rolled my eyes, smiling. "You're ridiculous."

"I'm thorough."

"You're obsessed."

Abby smirked. "With you. And her. Get used to it."

She assembled the crib by hand, refusing to let me help with the heavy parts, and installed a mobile of stars and moons above it. She organized the closet by size and type - swaddles, onesies, tiny socks in labeled baskets. She kept her calloused hands gentle on every detail, folding soft blankets and testing the glider chair twice before I even sat in it.

Abby also quietly baby-proofed things before I could even worry. Door latches, outlet covers, cabinet locks. Some of it wouldn't even be needed for months — but she did it anyway, just in case. That's how she showed her love: in preparation. In presence.

Abby stood in the middle of the room now, arms crossed, a pencil behind one ear, squinting at the gliding chair she'd just finished assembling. It was light oak with a creamy linen cushion. I was sitting in it now, swaying slowly, both hands resting on my belly.

"She's kicking," I murmured, smiling. "I think she likes it."

Abby crouched down and placed her hands over my bump, her eyes softening instantly. "She's got good taste."

A gentle breeze caused the sheer white curtains to flutter at the open window. There were baskets on the floor, half-unpacked with swaddles and tiny hats. A folded quilt with warm, earthy tones lay draped over the edge of the natural wood crib. Abby had spent an hour adjusting the height of the mattress before I told her to just pick one. She settled on the middle setting, then double-checked the screws anyway.

"What do you think?" Abby asked, motioning to the fake hanging vines she'd just pinned around the corner of the room. They draped softly above the changing table, catching the light from a woven rattan lamp that cast a warm, golden glow over everything.

I nodded, smiling as I rocked gently. "It feels like a little forest. Peaceful."

Abby looked around too, hands on her hips. "Still need to assemble the bookshelf."

I watched her, my heart full. "You know," I said quietly, "You built this whole room around her. With your hands. That's kind of... beautiful."

Abby ducked her head, a little embarrassed. "Just wanted it to be right."

"It's perfect." I reached out my hand, and Abby came immediately. She lowered herself onto the armrest, one arm draped across my shoulders, the other falling instinctively to my belly again.

"I can't wait to see her in here," Abby murmured, eyes soft.

I smiled, turning into her. "Me either."

── .✦

The bedroom was still dim, curtains drawn shut with only the faintest slivers of light breaking through - early morning, just after sunrise. The air was cool, still touched with the softness of sleep.

I was curled on my side, long lashes resting against my cheeks, one arm tucked beneath the pillow and the other resting protectively across the curve of my belly.

Abby lay beside me, propped up on one elbow. She was watching me in the way she always did when she thought no one could see — full of quiet awe, like she still couldn't believe she got to be here.

She reached over with her free hand and carefully lifted the hem of my sleep shirt, revealing the gentle roundness beneath. She leaned down, brushing a kiss just above the spot where she'd felt the baby kick the night before. She took the cocoa butter lotion I kept on our nightstand, rubbing a little between her palms to warm it. She moved slowly, smoothing the lotion over my skin with careful hands. Her palms were calloused and warm, steady and soothing as she worked the lotion in slow, circular motions, like she was afraid she'd press too hard.

"Morning, little bear," she whispered, her voice scratchy with sleep, low and quiet. "Sorry to wake you if you were still out. Your mom's still asleep too. She looks like a literal angel right now, by the way. Don't tell her I said that."

She smiled faintly to herself, then rested her hand on the warm skin, thumb tracing absent, lazy circles.

"I've been thinking about how much stuff I want to show you. Like stargazing. And tree frogs. And the exact right way to organize a toolbox — which your mom will make fun of me for, but you'll get it. I know you will."

There was a faint, fluttering shift beneath her palm.

Abby paused.

"Yeah?" she whispered. "That sound good to you?" Another little thump. Abby's eyes softened.

She looked back at me, still resting, but with a small smile curling at the edges of my lips now - maybe half-awake, maybe dreaming.

"She's listening," I murmured without opening my eyes.

Abby smiled. "You both are."

"I like hearing your voice first thing," I mumbled, my voice still heavy with sleep. "So does she."

Abby leaned down and kissed my temple, then my stomach again.

"Then I'll keep talking," she said softly. "Forever."

She stayed like that - her hand resting gently, her body curled close. As the light slowly warmed the room, the three of us drifted in and out of that quiet, perfect in-between place — a soft cocoon of comfort, love, and the slow, steady rhythm of family beginning to take shape.

── .✦

"Nothing," I muttered from where I laid sprawled on the couch, one hand draped over my belly. "Absolutely nothing."

Abby glanced over from the kitchen, holding a glass of water. "Still quiet?"

"She's ignoring me," I grumbled, brow furrowing. "I've been rubbing my stomach and humming like an idiot for twenty minutes and she hasn't moved once."

Abby walked over, setting the glass on the coffee table before crouching beside the couch. "Maybe she's just asleep."

"She was kicking like crazy this morning. The second you left for work, it was radio silence. She's obsessed with you."

Abby grinned, clearly trying not to look too smug. "She just likes my voice."

"She loves your voice," I corrected, a little dramatically. "Which is rude. I'm the one carrying her. I'm the one with swollen feet and acid reflux and a bladder the size of a raisin."

Abby leaned in and kissed the curve of my stomach softly. "You're also the most beautiful person l've ever seen."

I raised a brow. "Flattery won't save you."

Abby smiled and shifted, stretching out beside me on the couch and resting her cheek against the swell of my belly. She wrapped an arm loosely around my waist and spoke in a low, affectionate murmur. "Hey, peanut. Your mom says you're being shy. You hiding from her?"

A solid thump answered. Then another.

I groaned and covered my eyes with the back of my hand. "Oh my God."

Abby grinned into her skin. "There she is."

"She didn't even hesitate. Are you kidding me?"

Another kick — harder this time. Abby chuckled and rubbed slow, gentle circles where the movement had come from. "Wow. You're really showing off now, huh?"

"Betrayal," I muttered dramatically, but my other hand was already moving to join Abby's. "It's because your voice is deeper. Babies like lower frequencies."

"She just knows I'm cool," Abby said dryly, then looked up with that warm, teasing glint in her eye.

I laughed, but my fingers curled into Abby's shirt. "She already loves you so much," I said, quieter now. "It kind of breaks my heart."

Abby tilted her head, eyes softening. "Hey," she whispered. "You're the one she knows. Your heartbeat's her home. I'm just the loud neighbor she kicks for attention."

I smiled, even as my eyes watered.

Abby kissed the stretch of skin between kicks. "But I'll take every little nudge if it makes you smile like that."

── .✦

I was curled up on my side, propped up with a mountain of pillows, my T-shirt stretched gently over the swell of my belly. The hum of the fan was the only sound in the room—until the mattress dipped behind me.

Abby slid into bed carefully, freshly showered, wearing one of my old sweatshirts that was fraying at the cuffs. She leaned over to kiss my temple, then the edge of my shoulder. "How's the peanut?"

"Restless," I murmured sleepily. "She's been having her own little dance party for the last half hour. I think she misses you."

Abby smiled, already pushing the covers down and shifting lower on the bed so she was face-to-belly.

She eased me onto my back, her touch gentle. Her big hands cupped the sides of my stomach, warm palms smoothing over the soft skin.

"You giving your mom a hard time?" she murmured, then pressed a kiss just above my belly button. "I hear you've been kicking all night."

The baby responded instantly—a solid, thudding kick to the side of my belly, right where Abby's hand was resting.

I let out a breathy laugh. "Unbelievable."

Abby laughed too, but softened as she moved even closer, gently tugging up my shirt. She rested her cheek right against the bare skin, wrapping her arm around my waist, grounding herself there. "You've got strong legs already, huh? Like your mama."

Another small thump. Abby's grin only grew.

"Okay, okay," I said, half-amused, half-exasperated. "You win. She's yours."

"Nah," Abby said softly, voice muffled against my belly. "She's ours." And then, without warning-she started to hum. A low, soothing tune, something simple and old and wordless. I recognized it after a moment-it was a melody Abby had once said her dad used to hum when he was cooking. Now it filled the quiet space between us like a lullaby, like a story passed down.

The baby stilled, then kicked again. Gentler this time. Rhythmic, like she was listening. "She likes when you do that," I whispered.

Abby hummed a little more, then pressed a kiss to the curve of my stomach. "She'll probably fall asleep to this once she's born. Bet I'll be pacing the living room at 3 a.m. singing this with my eyes half-shut."

"She's so lucky to have you." I murmured, my hand reaching down to thread through Abby's hair.

Abby didn't respond at first-she just stayed there, curled close, holding my belly like it was the most sacred thing in the world. Then she whispered, "I think I'm the lucky one."

You’re going to be the best mom. She’s going to be so safe with you. You’re steady, strong. You look at me like I'm making something precious, even when I feel like a mess— I hope she gets that from you. That softness, under all the muscle and the serious face."

── .✦

The room had gone silent sometime after midnight.

I had drifted off, my breathing deep and steady, one hand resting loosely on my belly. The fan hummed softly in the corner, and the occasional creak of the old building settled into the silence.

Abby hadn't moved. She stayed where she was, lying on her side, head rested gently on my belly, as if it were the most natural pillow in the world. Her hand had stilled, fingertips curved softly over my skin, but her eyes were wide open-quiet, thoughtful. She glanced up once to check on me, and when she saw the gentle rise and fall of my chest, her voice lowered into a barely-there whisper.

"I know you can't really understand me yet," she murmured, voice husky with the softness of it. "But I wanted to talk to you anyway." She closed her eyes for a moment, pressing her cheek more firmly against the swell of her daughter's little world.

"Your mom is the best person l've ever known," she whispered. "She's brave, and smart, and so full of love even when she doesn't think she is. She's scared sometimes. But she still shows up—every day. And she's already given you more than you'll ever realize." She swallowed, the weight of emotion sitting thick in her chest.

"You're going to get her smile," Abby continued softly. "And her curiosity, and her little stubborn streak. But I hope you get her heart most of all. I'll do everything I can to protect it. Both of yours." She stayed quiet for a long beat after that. Then she smiled faintly to herself, brushing her thumb gently along my skin. "I already love you."

And just then-like she'd heard-there was a little flutter beneath her hand. A tiny movement. Barely more than a nudge. Abby's eyes welled unexpectedly. She pressed a kiss to the spot where she'd felt it, then another. "Okay," she whispered, her voice catching slightly. "Okay. I'll stay right here."

And she did.

She stayed curled there in the quiet dark, one arm wrapped protectively around my waist, one hand over her daughter, breathing in the soft rhythm of home.

I stirred slowly, the kind of gentle, reluctant waking that came from a deep and dreamless sleep. For a few moments, I didn't open my eyes -just felt the comforting weight of the blankets, the faint tickle of breath against her skin, and the warmth of someone close.

Then I registered it: the shape of Abby, curled into my side. Her head was resting low, right over my belly, one arm loosely draped around my hips, the other hand cradling the curve of the bump with aching tenderness.

My chest ached in that full, golden way it always did when I looked at Abby and loved her so much I thought my heart might bruise from it. I brought a hand to Abby's hair, brushing my fingers softly through it.

Abby stirred but didn't lift her head. "Hey," she murmured, voice sleep-rough. "Did I wake you?"

"No," I whispered, my voice thick with affection. "You stayed like this all night?"

Abby hummed. "She kicked. After I talked to her."

My eyes burned unexpectedly. "She did?"

"Yeah. Pretty sure she likes me more already."

That earned a quiet, small laugh from me. "God, of course she does. She's got good taste."

Abby tilted her head just enough to look up at me. Her eyes were soft, heavy with love and sleepless wonder.

"What did you say to her?" I asked, my fingers still carding gently through Abby's hair.

Abby hesitated, just for a second. "That I love her. That I love you. And I'm gonna do everything I can to be good at this. To be what she needs."

My lips trembled as I leaned down, pressing a kiss to Abby's forehead. "You already are," I whispered. "She's going to be so lucky."

"I already am," Abby whispered back.

She rested her head again, listening quietly, adoringly, to the gentle rhythm beneath her. I wiped at my eyes, then let myself be still, my palm pressed over Abby's as we both held onto the tiny life between us.

And in that quiet moment, wrapped in the soft weight of each other and the miracle growing within, I knew—there wasn't anything more sacred than this.

── .✦

We were curled up in bed, late morning sunlight filtering through the curtains. I laid sprawled across Abby's chest, tracing lazy shapes along her collarbone while Abby's fingers idly skimmed through my hair. The apartment was quiet, peaceful — a rare moment where time didn't feel like it was rushing forward.

"I have a question," I murmured.

Abby hummed, eyes half-lidded. "Mm?"

"It's theoretical," I added, my voice soft but tinged with mischief.

"Okay..." Abby cracked one eye open. "What kind of trap am l about to walk into?"

I propped my chin on Abby's chest and looked up at her with mock seriousness. "If there was a complication during labor - like, something dramatic, high-stakes, Grey's Anatomy level — and the doctors said you could only save me or the baby... who would you choose?"

Abby blinked. "Are you serious?"

"Dead serious."

"I hate this question."

"It's important."

"It's emotionally manipulative," Abby said flatly, and I burst into a laugh, burying my face against her.

"I'm just curious!" I giggled. "Like... where do I rank now? Am I still number one?"

Abby groaned and ran a hand down her face, trying to suppress a smile. "You're ridiculous."

"But?" I pressed, eyes dancing.

Abby looked at me for a long moment, then reached up, cradling the side of my face with a gentleness that never failed to make me feel like I was glowing from the inside side out.

"I would save you," Abby said quietly. "Always you."

My teasing smile faded into something softer, my eyes searching Abby's. "Really?"

Abby nodded. "We made that life together, but you're the one who’s bringing her into this world. There's no her without you. And I could never... I'd never choose a life where I lost you."

I swallowed, my throat tight as I crack a small smile. "I think you’d be able to handle the whole single mom thing, though."

"Don't even joke about that. I wouldn't want to," Abby said, kissing my forehead. "I want the version of our life where we're all together. You, me, and the baby you've already started talking to when you think I'm asleep."

I smiled, eyes a little glassy now. "You hear that?"

"Every word."

"Okay, well," I sniffled, laughing as I blinked my tears away, "I'd save you, too."

"Emotionally manipulative," Abby teased.

"Shut up. I love you."

"I love you more."

── .✦

Later that week, it hit me differently.

I stood in front of the mirror, towel wrapped around me after a shower, just staring. My body didn't feel like mine anymore - my breasts ached, my stomach heavy and stretching more every day.

There were little purple lines beginning to spider near my hips, my back hurt constantly, and I didn't even recognize the way I moved.

I blinked, then blinked again, but the tears came anyway.

I didn't even hear Abby come into the room until her arms slipped around mhwaist from behind, the towel giving way a little as Abby pulled me close.

"You okay?" Abby's voice was quiet, her chin resting on my shoulder.

I nodded, then shook my head. "I don't know."

I kept staring at myself, hating how small I sounded. "I feel so... uncomfortable in my skin. I don't know if I can do this. What if something goes wrong? What if labor's too much? What if I can't handle it?"

Abby turned me gently so we were face to face. "Hey," she said, brushing a strand of damp hair behind my ear. "You don't have to have it all figured out. You just have to take it one day at a time. I'll be there for every single one of them."

My voice dropped to a whisper. "What if you change your mind?"

Abby blinked, pain flickering across her face. "Babe..."

"I mean it. What if I break down or panic or lose it and it scares you away?"

Abby pulled me into a full hug then, holding me tightly, like she could keep the fear from leaking out of my chest if she just held on hard enough.

"You're allowed to be scared," Abby murmured into my hair. "This is the bravest thing l've ever seen anyone do. But I'm not going anywhere. Not now. Not ever. You're it for me."

I clung to her then, burying my face into her shoulder and letting the tears come.

Eventually, Abby pulled back just enough to meet my eyes. "You're still you. Your body's doing something incredible - but I see you. You're still beautiful. You're still mine. Even when you feel like a stranger to yourself, I promise, I'll always recognize you."

I sniffled, smiled through the tears. "Even when I'm puffy and hormonal and covered in stretch marks?"

Abby grinned. "Especially then."

── .✦

I had barely made it to the couch most days before Abby was already there, gently guiding me down, her big hands cupping my elbows like I was something delicate and precious. I didn't even get a chance to protest-Abby was already lifting my feet into her lap, her thumbs pressing into the aching arches like she'd been waiting all day for the chance to do it.

"You don't have to do that every time," I murmured, even as I melted into the cushions, already sighing at the pressure.

"I want to," Abby said, soft and certain, gaze fixed on me like she was studying me. "You've been on your feet all day. Let me take care of you."

I watched her for a moment, cheeks warm, heart fluttering with something deep and tender.

Abby's calloused hands worked with care, mapping every tired muscle with instinct. When she looked up and caught my gaze, her lips curled into a soft smile. "You're glowing, by the way."

"Oh god," I groaned, covering my face. "If one more person says that-"

Abby chuckled and leaned forward, brushing my hands aside and kissing my cheek. "I don't mean it in a corny way. You just look... happy. And beautiful."

She paused, one hand drifting to my belly, fingers splaying over the soft swell. “Both of you do.”

I blinked at her, heart catching in my throat as Abby leaned down and pressed a kiss to my belly too, lips lingering for a second before she looked up, eyes filled with a quiet kind of awe. "You're incredible," she said quietly. "I don't know how I got so lucky."

I reached for her hand, threading our fingers together. "You're the one who makes me feel safe. Like I can actually do this."

Abby gave my hand a squeeze, then started massaging my calves next, careful and slow, like I was the most important thing in the world. And maybe, in that moment, I was.

── .✦

The third trimester settled in like fog.

Everything felt heavier — the air, the quiet in the apartment, my limbs as I shuffled from room to room. Abby had started sleeping with one hand splayed protectively over my stomach at night, like a reflex. She didn't even wake up for it anymore. It was just... automatic. And I loved her for that.

We had spent the past few weeks nesting - quietly building a little life inside our home for someone we hadn't met yet but already loved.

The crib sat near the window in our bedroom, sunlight pooling across the pale green sheets every morning. A mobile with little felt moons and stars gently swayed from the ceiling fan. Miso had immediately claimed the changing table as her new perch.

I sat on the edge of our bed one afternoon, pulling a tiny onesie from the drawer and laying it flat on my lap. It was hard to believe someone small enough to fit in that could make me feel this full, this stretched and tired and overwhelmed.

"I washed all the blankets," Abby said from the doorway. "Repacked the go bag. It's by the door now. Snacks, phone chargers, extra socks for you."

I smiled softly, holding up the onesie. "I can't believe this is going to be ours."

Abby crossed the room, crouching in front of me with one hand on my thigh. "She's already ours."

── .✦

It was still dark out when my hand curled around Abby's wrist, my breathing already uneven.

I stirred awake with a low, aching pressure in my belly. Something about it felt different. Heavier. Lower. Then came the sharp tug - unmistakable.

"Abs," I whispered, my voice low but urgent. "Abby."

Abby blinked awake instantly, reaching for me without hesitation. "What is it?"

I looked down at my hands, then met Abby's eyes. "I think it's time."

Abby was upright in a second, the bleariness dropping from her face like a mask. She was dressed and steady within minutes, helping me into the car with practiced hands—one arm around my back, the other clutching the hospital bag.

I held onto her hand like a lifeline. "I'm scared."

"You're okay. We've got this.”

The ride was quiet but thick with tension, squeezing Abby's hand between contractions, my eyes closed, my lips pressed tight. Abby drove one-handed, her thumb stroking over my knuckles the entire time.

By the time we got to the hospital, I was fully in it-sweating, trembling, my breath hitching with every contraction. Abby didn't leave my side. Not once. She held my hand through every wave of pain, her other arm wrapped around me when the tremors got worse. She whispered soft things against my temple-"You're doing so good," "I've got you," "You're almost there."

The hospital room was dim and quiet, softened by the hush of early morning and the low beep of a heart monitor. My hands gripped the sides of the bed, my knuckles pale as another contraction rolled through me like a wave. Sweat clung to my hairline, and my face twisted with effort — not just from the pain, but from the sheer intensity of it all. Abby was at my side, one hand wrapped around mine, the other brushing damp hair away from my forehead.

At one point I buried her face in Abby's shoulder, my voice tight with fear. "What if I can't do it?"

Abby didn't hesitate. "You are doing it. You're the strongest person I know. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. You're doing so good," she whispered, voice low and steady, even though her own heart was galloping behind her ribs. "You've got this, babe. Just breathe. I'm right here."

I let out a shaky exhale and gave a tearful laugh. "You better not let go."

"Never," Abby said instantly.

I looked at her, eyes glassy with exhaustion and pain, and something in Abby's heart cracked wide open. She cradled my face and kissed my forehead, then my lips, long and gentle. "You're not alone. You've got me, okay?"

Time moved in strange, disjointed pieces - minutes stretched, then snapped. The pain came and went, each surge stronger than the last.

Abby didn't flinch. She squeezed my hand and leaned in, her voice a grounding force. "You're so close. You're almost there."

Nurses moved in and out of the room like ghosts, adjusting machines and checking vitals. A doctor appeared at some point, calm and collected.

And then came the words that made everything still. "It's time to push."

I nodded, terrified and ready all at once, squeezing Abby's hand so tight my knuckles turned white, but Abby didn't let go. She held on like a lifeline, her forehead pressed against mine, whispering words of encouragement through gritted teeth like she could shoulder the pain with me.

It was raw and exhausting — primal in a way I had never imagined. I felt like I was cracking open, like everything I had ever been was shifting to make space for someone else. I cried out. Cursed. Squeezed Abby's hand hard enough to bruise.

And Abby - steady, unshakable Abby — stayed right there, her voice trembling but never breaking. "One more push, baby," she whispered. "Just one more."

And then, just like that, the room shifted. A rush of motion, cries, and then—

A baby's first sharp cry split the air.

My head dropped back against the pillow, tears streaking my cheeks, my whole body trembling, dazed and blinking through tears. The doctor held up a tiny, pink-skinned girl, slick and squirming and perfect.

"She's here," Abby breathed, her voice catching in her throat.

Our daughter.

They cleaned her quickly, wrapped her in a soft hospital blanket, and placed her gently in my arms. I looked down at the tiny face nestled against my chest and I started to cry. Not from fear this time, but from the overwhelming, unbearable love. "She's so tiny."

Abby stood frozen for a second, eyes wide and glassy. "She's perfect," Abby whispered, wiping her eyes. She leaned over, resting her hand gently on our daughter's back. "You did it. Babe... you did it."

I looked up at her, eyes shining. "We did it."

Abby smiled through the tears and kissed me, long and quiet and full of adoration. She pulled back just enough to press her lips to the baby's head too, her voice catching in her throat. "Hi, little one. Welcome home."

The room had calmed into a hush, the rush of nurses and movement giving way to soft beeping monitors and dim, golden light seeping through the drawn blinds. I had drifted into a light sleep, exhausted but peaceful, one arm protectively cradling our daughter on my chest.

Abby hadn't taken her eyes off us since.

She was sitting beside the bed, one hand curled around my forearm, her thumb slowly brushing along the inside of my wrist. Her other hand reached out, feather-light, to run along the baby's back. Tiny fingers flexed against my hospital gown, the faintest sigh slipping from the baby's lips as she nestled closer. Abby smiled so softly it barely looked like a smile at all— more like awe made visible.

"Do you wanna hold her?" I asked softly, voice hoarse from tears.

Abby blinked, like the question hadn't even occurred to her. "Can I?"

“Of course you can, she’s yours.” I gave a gentle, sleepy nod and slowly adjusted, guiding the baby into her waiting arms, so small she barely seemed real in Abby's hands. She settled so easily there-like she knew her mother already. Abby looked down at her daughter, her expression stunned, undone. She held her like she was the most fragile thing in the world—one hand cupped beneath her head, the other across her back, steady and strong. The baby blinked up at her with bleary, unfocused eyes, making tiny mouthing motions as if learning the shape of her. She looked down at her daughter, "Hi," she whispered. "Hi, baby girl." She swayed slightly, cradling her gently, as if the world had just shifted on its axis and found its new center in her arms.

“Look at these fingers." Abby murmured to me without looking away.

I smiled tiredly, eyes glassy. "She's got your nose."

Abby let out a quiet laugh. "Poor thing."

"Don't say that," I whispered, reaching out to tuck some of Abby's hair behind her ear. "You're beautiful. She's lucky."

Abby kissed the baby's forehead, then held her close to her chest, feeling that impossibly small heartbeat against her own. Her voice lowered to a hush. "Hi, baby. It’s Mama." She swallowed, clearing the catch in her throat. "You're so small... I can't believe you're real."

The baby squirmed faintly in her arms, then went still again. Abby rocked slowly, instinctively, and the movement soothed them both. "You're gonna be so loved," she whispered, mostly to herself.

I watched them through heavy-lidded eyes, my heart aching with how full it was. I’d never seen Abby like this before-so unguarded, so gentle it felt sacred. I saw the way Abby looked down at our daughter like she was the entire world. And maybe, for Abby, she was.

Abby leaned over and kissed my temple, “You're amazing," she whispered.

I watched them with awe — my tired heart so full it felt like it might burst. We stayed that way for a long time — the three of us, tangled in warmth, completely changed and yet exactly who we had always been.

── .✦

if anyone’s read this far i’d love the feedback, this is my first time writing a fic! 🥲

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