#from sinking into his knees and getting too depressed to do anything or move forward!!!

[dnangelic]

last cap comparison but this panel is always so good to me because a) dark's absolutely evil anime villain face b) daisuke's dialogue talking about how dark's always there for him to completely offset that and c) dark's grip

[strawberry-lemonade-kisses]

Cracks

Warnings: mental breakdown, illness, crying, depression, mention's of death.

Gn! Reader Pt. 2 Here

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Tengen rarely got desperate, he had his life together and knew how and when to get things done. He had no need for last resorts or replacements for anything. He was clear-headed in everything he did. The only time he will admit to becoming desperate or losing his cool was his final mission. He left that morning with promises to bring back your wives, wiping away the tears and making his way towards the butterfly estate to gather assistants. As the mission moved forward and he lost an assistant he felt the cracks in his demeanor. He wouldn’t get his wives if he wasn’t there anymore. When everyone came back, horribly injured and defeated, Tengen admitted-between your cries-where his fault was, his desperation had gotten the best of him. But now, as he watched you fade in and out of consciousness, he felt himself cracking again.

“Tengen-sama, You're too close, please sit down and give them some space, we have to let the fever break by itself” A broken moan slipped from your horrendously pale lips as you looked up at him, hooded eyelids fluttering as you tried to focus on him. Shinobu sat on the other side of you, dabbing at your forehead with cold water like she had been doing for the past few hours.

“Tengen?” a meek voice called from the doorway, Suma peering in from the hallway. “Can I spend some time with them?” he looked back down at your fluttering eyelids, acknowledging the way you attempted to squeeze his hand in reassurance before he stood again.

“Of course my dear, I will be back later.” He patted the back of your hand before releasing you, letting Suma take up the seat beside your bed. He let the door shut behind him before he collapsed, sinking to his knees.

“Fuck” he muttered, letting his head drop into his hand as he ignored the tears burning his eyelashes. He knew he didn’t deserve you enough as it was, but if he was going to let you go it shouldn’t be like this. Your parents, your siblings. How would he explain that he let you get this sick? How would he plead his case that you didn’t tell him you weren’t feeling well until you had collapsed in the yard. He knew he should have stayed home instead of visiting his friends grave yesterday, the gnawing feeling in the back of his head that tried to keep him home, warning him something wasn’t right as you tried to push him out of the house, reminding him that he had promised to spend the same day every month with Kyojuro. If only he had looked closer, if he had noticed the way you covered your mouth as he walked away, hiding your coughs from him. Maybe he could have stayed behind and helped you to bed instead of letting you sew that kimono you promised to Suma. Tengen had already watched his family fall apart, he watched each of his brothers fall at his feet. So why did the new family he built have to do that too?

“Tengen? Tengen! What's wrong” He was pulled out of his daze with rough hands gripping at his wrist, shaking him out of his own hand. The bandage on his left arm loosened in her grip as he looked up at his wife, Makio’s scared eyes looking back at him. “What’s wrong?” She asked again. She was scared, just as much as he was.

“I’m sorry, I should have noticed, they didn’t look good yesterday, I should have stopped but they kept saying everything was okay. I’m horrible, what if they don't make it? What if this becomes permanent?”

“Tengen, it’s not your fault. None of us noticed. It will be okay, I trust Kocho and I called for one of the doctors at the hospital like she said. If it gets worse we will move them” Makio was gentle as she spoke, trying to soothe Tengen’s overwhelming anxiety. The anchor of the household, the strong one that you all followed like lost puppies, remaining calm as long as he did, he was falling apart at the seams and everything around him was doing the same. “It’s going to be fine. they are going to be fine” She was trying to convince herself more than she was trying to convince Tengen, but he ignored it to pull her into him, holding her close while he cried.

“I can’t lose any of you. I can’t lose anymore” He mumbled, tightening the hold his left arm had on his wife.

“Tengen, look at me” Makio lifted his head, forcing vermillion eyes to look into brown eyes as she stared him down. “We aren’t losing anyone” she nodded, forcing Tengen to agree with her, affirming their resolve as they embraced once more. “Come on, Hinatsuru is making dinner, lets go help so we can eat and rest, gotta stay nice and Healthy for Y/N when they get better, okay?” Tengen just nodded, wiping the tears off of his cheeks before they dried. Makio smiled as she stood, holding a hand for her husband to take. He wasn’t alone anymore, Tengen was constantly reminded of that when he felt himself breaking, and he was beyond thankful for it.

[hollyhomburg]

Before I Leave You (Pt.4)

(Omegaverse au, Mafia au, Bts x Reader)

Summary: Yoongi makes his choice, so does Moonbyul.

Pairing: Beta! Yoongi, Omega! Reader, Omega! Jungkook, Omega! Seokjin, Alpha! Namjoon, Alpha! Hoseok, Alpha! Taehyung, Alpha! Jimin,

Tags: Graphic material, Death, Murder, Dead bodies and dying described in detail, brief suicide attempt, suicidal thoughts, depression, DARK THEMES, guilt, blood, a touch of blood kink? drugs, murder/crime themes, guilt, kinda fuck or die vibes? finally fluff at the end, mating marks, 

W/c: 7.1k

A/n: here is the moment you’ve all been waiting for! the big d word moment!!! my carpal tunnel is acting up, I will probably not be able to get the next chapter out for a few days or until next week. Chronologically the next chapter continues after part 1. 

(PLEASE READ TAGS FOR CW BEFORE YOU PROCEED)

Previous part — Masterlist

Part 4: If I Have You 

Pulling the trigger is the easiest thing you’ve ever done. 

Geumjae’s body flinches back from the force of the bullet. The ceiling splattering with the spray of his blood. It hits the side of your face too, your white shirt crested with red at the shoulders, dripping down your throat along with the blood from your mating bite. It’s a percussive splatter, noisy as it hits the wall.

People never talk about how blood gets everywhere during a murder. Yoongi is unable to stop his flinch when Geumjae’s brain matter and viscera splatter against him, just a little. 

Yoongi didn't think you'd actually do it. 

He watches you shove the body away from you, hard, what's left of his head, an empty vessel, hitting the floor with a hollow thud. His hands leave you for the last time, but the pain isn't finished. 

Yoongi barely has the forethought to lunge forward, knees scraping, wrestling the gun out of your hand before you can turn it on yourself. The barrel of the gun is hot when Yoongi's hands close around it and yank it away from your own temple. The smell of burning skin joins the metallic scent of murder. Your scent is a mess- it’s barely had a chance to mix with Geumjae’s burning wood-burning bread and wrath, rainstorms, and gunpowder. 

He shouts your name but you don't respond. 

Yoongi yanks the gun from your hands, probably hurting your fingers but panicked when he hurls the gun to the other side of the room and takes your hands in his, wrestling with you and screaming your name until the fight goes out of you. 

You’re hyperventilating when you stop struggling. Both of your wrists pinned above your head in both of Yoongi’s hands, his knees pressing your legs to stillness in a way that could be sexual but isn't- it's the easiest way for him to restrain you- both sprawled on the bloody floor. Yoongi’s crying, tears dripping down his nose, every other drop shines pink from what's on his face.  

“Yoongi please- please just let me go- I don’t want to become a ghost- I don't wanna become a walking corpse.” The way you look breaks his heart, your neck so bruised and bloody, your face swelling too from Geumjae’s hits. The way your eyes hold only darkness and no warmth as you look at him and beg- beg him to let you take your life. Your pupils are so small he can't see them at all. 

“Let me die Yoongi- please just- if you do one thing for me- let do this. let me go."

Yoongi looks at your mating mark and can already see the thin tracery of ink spreading under your skin- inky blackness spreading from your mating bite and up your throat. A piece of someone who’s dead inside of you, shot through with silver to make it stand out more. 

It’s like some silly zombie bite in a bad horror movie but it’s so much more haunting, The veins in your eyes are even starting to discolor. You have maybe a few minutes before the mating bite takes you over completely and you’re mated to someone dead.

Zombie movies were nothing more than fear of this taking root in common culture, everyone fears losing their mate. What else is more terrifying than something that takes your humanity in the way that this has taken yours. This is every person’s worst nightmare- a death sentence.  

‘Ghosts’ are what society has dubbed the women and men who live after losing their partners. Most of the time they live without alpha or a pack- unable to bond to anyone else ever again once their mates are dead. Mating bites are a one-time thing. 

When one-half of a mated pair dies- a person's body has a peculiar way of letting outsiders know how to treat them gently- The mating mark turns black like a brand. A mark to let everyone know that they would never have another person to take care of them- to love them.

But you aren’t alone- you’re not alone because you have Yoongi and he’s right here with his wide palms on you. Hands that where always made to fix things, but you aren’t just some broken toy that needs a bit of glue.  He’s too late, just seconds too late and only inches away. 

He grips both of your forearms in either of his palms hands, pulling you closer. Making you sit up, dragging you into his lap like carrying your weight in his arms will fix this. Anything to hold onto you- to not lose you too soon. 

"Stop- just stop, I've got you- I've got you," Yoongi repeats it more for himself than he does for you.

But there are wounds in your body that can’t be fixed by simple hoping. There is a limit to what one person can take. Despair is one hell of a drug and while Yoongi fights and fights there is no undoing what Geumjae has done to you.

But maybe…

Yoongi dares to hope; “It’s only a half bond if we-“ he falls silent as the idea settles over him like a bucket of cold water. His brain rushing over everything he’s ever learned about mating bites and beta’s; all of the statistics and articles that Namjoon had shoved down his throat when Jungkook had first stopped having seizures. 

The medical mystery that betas were; how they were able to heal unseen hurts and maybe- maybe this was like that. Maybe the solution to this problem lays in Yoongi’s veins, in his mouth. 

His jaw aches at the very suggestion of it.  “I’m a beta- and betas don’t usually mark- because- because they’re stronger than alpha and omega bites.” 

It’s the only truth that makes sense. All of the stories of omegas and alphas going crazy after being bitten by betas, not being able to move from them too far, extreme clinginess- a bond that was too close, too strong, stronger than anything else in their life. You weren’t supposed to bond with someone so deep, the bite almost seemed to do more harm than good. 

But you’re already dying and there isn’t much worse that could happen to you.

You don't have anything to lose but Yoongi does. You shake yourself free from his arms and pull back. Recoiling from what he’s offering to do for you; tether him to you forever when you might not make it. 

You can already feel the mating mark taking hold- It's already starting to cloud your judgment, deep down, the part of you that cares if you survive this is already winking out. The blankness sinking through your every inch, The emptiness. You’d be surprised if you lifted your hand to your chest and found your heart still beating. 

“Yoongi- No- you don’t have to- you’ve already got a pack and don’t- don’t bind yourself to someone like me.”

It’s the same argument that you had before but there’s no force behind it- every stupid excuse you had for him not to love you is moot now that your husband is dead next to you. But you're done; Every breath takes more effort than it should and you feel so heavy. You look down at your lap and feel the lethargy sinking beneath your bones like lead. Hidden hands gripping around your throat cutting off your words.

You feel like you’re choking on something. 

You’ve felt depressed before (how could you not have given what your life was like before Yoongi). And having a mating mark from someone deceased feels like that but worse, like it's turned up by a factor of three. A weird mixture of dizzy, absent, and dissociative. You have never felt less connected to your own body, it feels foreign.

You are nothing but a soul inside a body, craving release. A thread of black that wants to tug you down to where ever Geumjae is now. 

The sinking sadness says to you with gentle hands- this is a fine spot. You can just sit here, It’s okay. You don’t have to move, you can just sit here until you die. As long as no one bothers you and hurts you again, you could just sit here, as long as it was quiet and peaceful. Things don't even have to be good, you don't need good things, you just need it to not hurt anymore. Until the earth reclaims you like it takes abandoned buildings. 

 A sharp pain that goes through your heart, an ache so deep that it speaks to cavernous places, wakes monsters that you didn’t know where there. 

You’ve never really wanted to die before, maybe as a passing thought- but didn’t everyone think that way? it’s so different now- where the thoughts are all consuming, running over your words in your head like oil spreading and staining cloth. 

Die- want to die- want- want- want die- wanna go- wanna be quiet- wanna fall asleep and not wake up- want to- 

But if you decided to lay here and not get up again, Yoongi would stay too.

He would try and get you to move, probably beg and try to get you to live. Even if he never bit you, he’d stay next to you until the end, just to hold your hand so that you didn’t have to be completely alone. You thought dying would feel more lonely,  But maybe it doesn't feel that way because Yoongi’s here. 

His hand closes around yours, his thumb rubbing soothing circles as he cries. And you think if you want one thing; it's for him to stop crying. Out of all people- Yoongi doesn't deserve the hurt (but maybe you're biased because you love him).

That tips the scale in his favor.

Geumjae’s blood is pooling on the floor. His body gives a twitch, the last remnants of his misfiring nerves as he dies. You feel the painful jerk in your mating bond. Yoongi watches the muscles of your neck twitch. 

Neither you nor Yoongi pays him any mind. 

"You don't have to do this Yoongi." Yoongi’s hand on your cheek- is like a balm to those words, pushing them out of your head. “You can’t take it back. If I die- you could die too.”

“But I want to” he kisses your cheek- and the contact lights a flame down your neck to your touch starved heart. The heat flares to light and the next second your body and your mouth are aching to bite. Your instincts an avalanche around you begging you to complete the bond that’s tearing through you making you shake. He kisses a little closer to your lips, cheeks wet and cool against your skin.

Geumaje and Yoongi were related by blood at all, maybe your instincts can’t tell the difference. 

“I don’t care if it does- I can’t- I’m not going to just let you die” his voice breaks on the last word. Not when it was me who was too slow to save you; He won’t say the words or whisper his guilt into the open air. 

“Please sweetheart- let me.” He kisses your lips. So soft- achingly soft, Your first kiss, you wish it had happened under better circumstances.

You hate that the first kiss you and Yoongi share tastes like blood.

But there would be more- there could be more kisses if Yoongi manages to do what he’s saying he can. The mark on your shoulder is already healing, the blackness stretching to scar treacherously fast. Normal mating bites usually take a day or so to heal, but not yours, it’s already scabbing and sealing in the poision.

If you’re going to try this- if it’s going to work- it has to be now. The bond is advancing, regardless of the fact that Geumjae is barely dead, barely cooling beside the two of you.

It’s barely been 10 minutes since you shot him. And if you listen carefully- you can hear sounds in the rest of the house, maybe someone else from the gang here- about to come upstairs and discover the mess of you three. muffled voices and heavy footsteps grow louder by the second. 

Yoongi is safe but you’re not. “Yoongi,” you say, his name a broken hymn on your mouth. Musical- and Yoongi can’t think of a time when he wouldn’t want to hear it. Hoping for more of this closeness and maybe one day, a love that doesn’t hurt.

You get the feeling that even if you are broken beyond repair, this man could fix you. Wide hands and careful fingers that rub the blood away from your skin, hands made for making things and mending things when they break. And maybe you’re selfish enough to let him bind himself to you- broken as you are.

You press your forehead to his, you have to ask one more time. "Are you sure Yoongi?"

He nods, quick and small, "I'm sure." there isn’t anything in his eyes that makes you doubt him.

"Okay," you say softly, tugging him closer, tilting your chin up to the sky, your skin stings where it stretches around the mating mark. "okay. Come here then."

Your hands tangle in Yoongi’s hair as you guide his mouth to your throat, and his mouth sliding into the space where Geumjae was just minutes ago. He lingers for just half a breath before sinks his teeth over the mating mark, a little deeper- his mouth a little wider. He makes the bite a tiny bit offset.

Your breath hitches, back arching. His hands-on your waist go hard, holding you closer to him, as close as he can get you. Unlike before when Geumjae’s bite was agony, this feels like heroin- like every drug mixing together sending you up and up.

If you looked down and saw your hands were tipped in gold you wouldn’t be surprised. For a second you think you can taste colors, and then the chocolate sea salt of Yoongi settles over your tongue delicious, like ambrosia- fuck it’s so strong, it’s halfway between a headache and a high. You gasp when you feel it, feel Yoongi all over, Goosebumps rising on your arms as he touches you. The smell of ocean breeze and chocolate filling you in a way that Geumjae’s scent didn’t.

Geumjae’s bite was nothing compared to this, a whisper to a symphony. 

This must be what a mating bite feels like when you want it. You cry out. Gripping the lapels of his coat. Yoongi’s heartbeat thunders in your ears, the only thing you can hear, until the beat matches to your own, heartbeats pumping in sync.

Your blood tastes sweet and he wonders what it says about him that he likes the taste. He gulps at it- once- twice- and then a third time just to make sure the mark sticks, maybe he could suck a little bit of Geumjae out of you.

His kisses get feverish, lapping up your blood with wide laves of his tongue, moaning a little. and this time when you kiss- with your blood in his mouth, they get hurried and rushed like he can consume you, each one sweeter than the last. There is one moment of nausea, only one moment where Yoongi sees the black tracery receded and feels it dim. 

Maybe it’s not gone, but at least it's buried.

Yoongi can almost feel you, can almost feel the bond, but not yet. Your scent, it's all cake-sweet now. You kiss him until your jaw aches until your lips feel bruised. Until you know the sounds below actually are people, rushing around trying to find Geumjae. Calling out your names. 

Yoongi is the first to break apart, the room spinning. “Do me” he lifts the edge of his shirt, picking out a spot that he likes, the meat just above his hip. A spot is half-hidden by his shirt and his pants.

Not everyone likes to have their mating marks on their neck (you certainly would have chosen to have yours another place had you been given the chance). And Yoongi stretches out so that you can get your mouth on him, your mouth on the spot he wants to bind your soul to his.

He holds one of your hands in both of his hands so gently as you cup his hip and bite down, even as you begin to make out the noise of gang members coming up the attic stairs. Yoongi bites down a moan, lets you take one gasp of blood into your mouth before your teeth leave his skin.

The high rushes over him and he knows his pupils are mirrors of yours, black and dilated. He just has time to wipe his blood from your mouth and get you as close as he can, before the attic door creaks, the barrel of a gun pushing it open. And the gangsters enter the room with practiced steps.

Yoongi pulls his shirt back down just before they have a chance to see.

You play the part, slumping against him and letting him take the reigns. the people must take it for pain even though you’re shaking not with sobs, but from the feeling of Yoongi’s soul intertwining with yours. Full body shivers and something solidifying between the two of you. 

Together you shake, Yoongi is barely aware of the gangsters clearing the room. 

You feel like you can taste his thoughts, though you can’t actually hear what he's thinking. You can feel the way they tumble like small waves over each other. You feel concern and something else, something that feels an offal lot like love shoot down the fledgling bond as Yoongi’s arms pull you up, firmer against him.

It makes shivers rise on every inch of your skin, the pleasure he feels when he touches you that you're now hyper-aware of. It's what your body has been craving- the completion of the bond.

You both bleed- your blood dripping onto the floor. One part sacrament and sacred love and another part poisonous longing for a man you hated so much more than you ever loved him. This feels strange, it feels wrong, and that you have one part of you reaching out for something that’s not there. And then this- with Yoongi, right and front of you and inside of you. Completely occupying your heart and your mind and your body.

Accept for that one poisoned inch; you might not be completely his, but it's enough now, the bond with yoongi occupying those thoughts you'd had minutes before.

The gangsters don’t touch Geumjae, at least until Moonbyul enters the room, unarmed. Yoongi’s cousin eyes Yoongi from the door. There isn’t enough room in this torture room for the 12 or so gangsters and the three of you, they press against the walls, guns at the ready.

Moonbyul approaches Geumjae’s corpse, turning him over with her foot to see his blankly staring face, turning it towards the heavens instead of hell. For a moment, Yoongi thinks she might actually kick him. She plucks her pink handgun from the floor. Someone passes her a rag and she wipes it free of blood and fingerprints.

Her eyes on Yoongi are hard; a bit of mirth playing on the edge of her mouth as she plays her hand. A queen in a room full of pawns and knights, and the king underfoot. Her hand of aces. 

Betting it all on a simple game of roulette- red or black- will Yoongi challenge her or not. Yoongi doesn't miss the way her finger hovers on the trigger. 

“I suppose this entire situation would be concerning to me- if you hadn’t already named me as Don.” she nudges Geumjae's body again with her foot. "I guess he didn't take it well?"

She lies effortlessly, taking the moment to seize power. So this was what she was waiting for. Yoongi doesn’t challenge her words for fear of what she might do right now, not that he really would anyway. 

Yoongi tips his head forward in difference, “No he didn’t,” 

Moonbyul tucks her gun back into her waistband, and holds out her hand to pull yoongi to his feet. 

Yoongi takes you with him, small and still a little high in his arms. You hide your face in Yoongi’s shoulder, Holding onto him tight. You don’t know if you could take it if they tried to separate you now. 

Yoongi has to swallow to continue, struggling to think before he speaks with so many new sensations shocking his body. He's intimately aware of the way you shift in his arms, arms tightening around you at the very idea of you moving more than an inch away from him right now as you settle onto your own two feet. still a little unsteady. 

“He- he mated her against her will, and then he tried to kill us when I told him I wouldn’t- and- and after-” It’s not a lie- not really, but it still feels that way. Moonbyul doesn't need to do anything more than that to nod to call her men off, and they all relax around the room. 

They instantly fade from engaged concern to understanding. The other heads of household will probably grill Yoongi more. But you’ve both got time to get your story straight. For now, they need to clean up the body.

It helps that threatening the beta is a punishable offense; no one will question Yoongi killing him- especially since they’re brothers. Most of the families tend to think that inner house spats that family's business. Yoongi doesn’t know which of his relatives will inherit the title of head of the Min family, but it won't be Yoongi.

You’re small and silent in Yoongi’s arms, so vulnerable, he keeps you a few paces away from any of the mobsters, bites down a growl whenever any of them come too close to his mate. It’s just the mating bond making it’s self-known. You are his. No one can touch you.

Yoongi has never been a possessive man, but now he is. The mating mark tearing through him and screaming at him to protect, to provide, to nurture, and keep safe. He strokes down your back as his cousin quietly orders the others to clean up the mess and Geumjae’s body. The family has cleanup crews on call for this very reason.

They quietly offer to burn the house down to stage the death but Yoongi doesn’t care. He guesses it belongs to him now or maybe you. It depends on which bond the family will consider more important; the bonds of a half mating or the bond of brotherhood.

“I’ll handle it-“ his cousin has the good grace to offer comfort to Yoongi that way when he gets you into her car. she doesn't say anything about the dents in the side.  

Yoongi doesn’t quite hate her for any of this, but he doesn’t trust her the same way he did before either. She’s gotten what she wanted- the Don position. Plucked it from Yoongi’s hands.

“You haven’t had a chance to call the heads of house and tell them about your decision yet, but after that, you should be free to go” she reads him easily as always, The only other manipulator up to par with Yoongi himself in the gang. She knows that not an inch of Yoongi wants to stay in this house or this city a second longer.

At the idea of leaving you to straighten up in Yoongi’s lap to listen in a little more, you share a look with Yoongi. Your mate, your body sings the eye contact makes you shiver in your seat. Yoongi pulls you closer, stroking up to your arm mistakenly thinking you’re cold. You pull yourself closer to him- but it feels like you can’t get close enough, He makes a dissatisfied noise in his throat.

Yoongi will have to get used to this feeling. Like his soul is walking outside of his body. It feels incredibly vulnerable and intimate- He can feel your panic, how physically you’re being torn apart right now, every few minutes you shake. Yoongi puts your legs over his and holds you close. Watching your face closely for every twinge of pain as the lights of the city flicker over you two.

The meeting with the heads of house is tense, though the usual group of is two short now, standing only at eleven members now that Geumjae is gone and Moonbyul is named Don. You cannot be Don and a head of house at the same time.

It takes every bone in Yoongi’s body to let you be taken into the other room by Moonbyul’s mate to check over your injuries. He stops her with a hand on her shoulder. He catches Moonbyul’s nostrils flare, but she doesn’t say anything. “Would you look at her bruises for me?”

Later Yoongi will check them himself, again and again until he's sure you're all right. But the sooner you get ice on the nastier bruises the better off you’ll be. Someone should look at your ribs and your head too- he has half a mind to take you to the hospital before you leave the city. He doesn’t know how long it will be before you’re stationary again. He’d stay in the city tonight if you needed to. But he can feel your panic down the bond, The sooner you both get out of here the better.

With Geumjae dead there is no true opposition against his cousin's rule. She stands at the head of the table like she’s meant to be there. And still- the heads of the families talk through the night, kicking the non-proverbial dead horse into the ground. There is little mourning for Geumjae, one granny who cries faintly in the other room while the heads argue. Yoongi supposes he should look more upset, but no one pays attention to him now that he’s made his choice.

No, what they spend most of the time discuss is you. Sat in the other room, able to hear all of this, the men and woman weighing your fate and deciding what to do with you. If Yoongi listens, he can hear Hyejin’s quiet voice. Can feel your discomfort as the ice hits your ribs, maybe broken, definitely badly bruised.

Yoongi flinches every time he feels the pain pulse down the bond. Maybe in time, it will feel less sensitive but right now- Yoongi can feel your hurts just as bad as he can feel his own. A part of him is reaching out into the other room, screaming in his ear to go comfort his mate.  

He has a mate. Yoongi can scarcely believe it.

The gangsters around the table remain blissfully unaware of that fact. Most of the heads are on the same page, and he won’t reveal his mating mark unless he absolutely needs to, he will let that secret stay secret unless necessary. It’s a good bargaining chip. They wouldn’t kill you if they knew it was going to kill him too. But still- it’s hard to hear them argue over your fate when he can’t intervene.

“You know the rules- no divorces and no separations,” one alpha says, he’s older- nearing 60, but Yoongi can’t excuse that cruelty with age. The youngest, the head of the Ahn house does the rebutting for Yoongi, and he bites his tongue.

“But it wouldn’t be a divorce; she’s his widow now and his ex-mate technically.”

“Yes but that’s only a half bond.” There is only one omega head, and the woman snubs her long cigarette out on the table leaving an ashy circle 

“It’s only the alpha bite that matters- or have you forgotten?”

To her credit, the omega doesn't back down. “Chances are she’ll die anyway why are we even talking about her, we should start transitioning already.”

“That’s easy to say- if she’s got nothing left to lose what’s to stop her from going to the police.”

“I can keep an eye on her,” Yoongi volunteers, jumping at the chance to turn the discussion to his favor. They can all go fuck themselves if they ever dare to try and hurt you. “You say she’s as good as dead anyway. So you shouldn't mind if she comes with me.” 

The likelihood of anyone living after their mate dies is in the teens. Yoongi knew that and even then he bonded to you anyway. He can only hope that with his bite coursing through your veins and your body confused that you’ve got better odds than that. Yoongi did what he promised to do, now your odds are both 50/50. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t go to the police.”

Through the bond he can feel your curiosity and a little bit of fear too, you’re listening in. And he does his best to let his calmness comfort you too. Your panic instantly relaxes and he senses you reaching out. If you were next to Yoongi you’d be holding hands, and it kind of feels that way. If you could ever hold hands with someone’s soul.

“You realize that if you make her your responsibility, anything bad that happens will fall on your head as well” their betas might be sacred- but they aren’t free from the rest of the laws of the gang.

“I understand.” The Don lifts her head, regarding Yoongi with a heavy look. “She’s his widow and whether we want to address it now or not, the law says she’s inherited his wealth.”

It's met with immediate opposition, several heads of house start speaking over each other at once,  but Yoongi speaks up again, shouting over them. A beta raising their voice is about as strange as one giving or getting a mating bite, everyone falls silent. “Give it to me or her- I don’t care.”

another few minutes and they’re ready to let you go. they vote on it, and only 3 out of 11 heads vote to have you killed. Moonbyul gives the all clear, “Then you’re free to go.” Yoongi doesn’t even say goodbye, going to you in the other room just as quickly as he can without outright running. The Don’s mate is crouched in front of where you sit. Your body is mostly clean of blood and you’ve been put in other clothes; a pair of sweats and a baggy shirt.

Yoongi can see all the bruises on the side of your face turning purple and Yoongi wants to cup your face and bring it to his, kiss away the pain coloring your skin like watercolors, but can’t do it here. “Do we need to go to the hospital?” 

“Not for her but maybe for you, no ones checked you over yet, have they?”

yoongi grits his teeth, seconds away from snapping at hyejin, he wants her to get away, get as far from you as possible. “i asked if she needed the hospital.” 

Hyejin stands when Yoongi crouches. shaking her head when it becomes clear yoongi isn’t to be argued with right now. “There’s something wrong with her- but I think you know what” her eyes hover on Yoongi’s hip.

 So at least she’s figured it out. She has the good sense to utter the words quietly. Though the people in the other room aren’t concerned with Yoongi anymore, they’ve already launched into discussions about transitioning power and re-defining responsibilities. It seems Moonbyul had a plan on how she wanted the family to run from the beginning.  

He shakes off his annoyance, “Thank you,” he says to the omega, holding out a hand to you, which you take, still not saying anything. Tiredness holding you down to the chair. The same kind of look you’d had when Geumjae had died. The mating mark has been taped over but some of the blackness is still there. Yoongi wonders when it will fade, if it ever does.

“I wish I could say I’ll see you soon but I don’t think I will.” You and Yoongi nod, your hands twined between the two of you. She knows that neither you nor Yoongi has a love for the gang. No one stops you and Yoongi when you leave the house. Immediately hailing a taxi. You stop only at Yoongi’s safe house for a spare 20 minutes, while he packs up a fraction of his belongings in a hurried rush, anything to get out before someone tries to change their mind.

If Geumjae had any hidden loyalists the beta that killed him and his runaway wife would be the first targets. Let alone their reaction if they knew who had really killed Geumjae. The quicker the two of you get away from the city the better.

You end up at the train station, Yoongi breaks the bracelets off of your wrist- the same ones that he saw you wear on you the first night- and the ones that he’s always thought looked like shackles. He yanks at them as hard as he can until they snap; kissing your wrist after each one is off. You throw them over the side of the chain-link fence and into the darkness- to be lost forever you hope. The symbols of all you’ve lost.

When you get on the train, you cuddle close under Yoongi’s jacket and into his warmth. He’s a protective barrier between you and the third seat that thankfully remains empty this late into the night it’s so late it’s nearly early morning. Most of the train is empty besides an elderly couple at the front. Regardless, the two of you sit behind them. Yoongi can’t take his eyes off of the potential threat. Actually flinches when the conductor comes around to stamp your tickets.

You head off into the night- your little box of light in a sea of street lamps and hidden dangers. You almost fall asleep a few times, head bobbing as you catching yourself before it hits his shoulder. After the third time this happens he pulls you in close, tucks your head close to his scent gland, and commands “sleep” in a voice that you cannot disobey.

Eventually, you wake, the car is bright with the midday sun and the car is half full. Yoongi’s eyes are bloodshot as they train on every passenger who comes in and leaves your train car. Yoongi holds your hand, rubbing his thumb up and down the back in an endless trail. A conductor opens the door of your train car to pass through, bunching a few tickets here and there from the new passengers who have boarded the train.

He passes by where you're bundled and Yoongi flinches so hard it wakes you fully. his shoulder accidentally nudging a bruise on your cheek, He murmurs his apologies, panicked hands fussing over you. He could feel that he hit one of your bruises and the horror of hurting you make him wide-eyed and worried. You catch his hands, pressing the pads of them to your lips. Yoongi's hands shake as they touch you, hours later, he's still high on adrenaline. 

“You need to sleep Yoongi” it’s been a long few days for both of you.

He doesn’t answer with more than a grunt. But you get off the train at the next stop and it’s nearing noon by the time the two of you stumble across the street to a motel, and it’s shitty and smells like cigarettes and the lady at the front desk asks if you need the hourly rate or the daily rate. Though she does give you a discount because Yoongi’s a beta. Eyeing the blood-soaked collar of his jacket and the bloody bandages on your neck.

You should be holed up somewhere safe away from prying eyes to adjust to your new mating bite- not in a hotel where the smells of other people assault your nose. Making you press close to Yoongi because everything smells so new and scary. Like your senses have been turned up and only Yoongi can quell their sensitivity.

you don’t realize that the attendant gave you two beds until you get to the room. you both stare blankly before you cough and separated. the closeness too much now that you’re alone and free from threats. Though it doesn't feel that way. 

you hate it- you don’t want to curl up across the room from Yoongi- you want to be next to him. you almost whimper when he He steps away to the other bed to set down his backpack. You want to cry, your skin feels irritated and itchy without his pressed to yours. You want him to touch you but you can’t stay it. Don’t know how to ask around the thickness in your throat.

He gets a clean shirt from his black backpack and helps you put it on so that you don’t irritate the mating bite. You can’t lift either of your arms much and neither can he but he pushes through the pain for you. He only has 2 or three sets of clothes that he grabbed from the cottage, and it’s all you’ve got.

“We’ll get some more clothes for you tomorrow.” He doesn’t say that you should have grabbed some of your clothes- because you both know you couldn’t handle staying in that house a second more than was necessary. You barely thought to linger long enough to grab your purse, which thankfully had everything you really need in it. 

Somehow he has athletic tape in his bag, and he spends a few minutes changing out your soaked through bandages, bundling up toilet paper, and taping it over your mating bite. Only after yours is taken care of does he let you do the same for his bite on his hip, and the burns on his hands. 

You pull his pants off and then his boxers down just enough so that you can get at it, small from your mouth, the skin around it irritated and pink. You try not to let your eyes hover on the small happy trail that traces from his belly button downwards. The band on his boxers is stained with blood- and you wonder how much it hurt to have it dig into it all day.

You curl up in separate beds, and only when you’re under the covers do you slide off your pants. leaving you only in a large shirt that smells like yoongi.  Yoongi does the same, says “goodnight” and shuts off the light but doesn’t turn away from you, keeping his eyes on you in the darkness. 

You’re silent for a few minutes, but you can tell that neither of you is falling asleep. Your bed feels cold and you wonder if he feels the same, you let the distance hurt for a minute before you give in.  

"Thank fucking god-" He peels back the blanket for you the second you make the move and dash across the cold room. you scoot into his warmth and he lets out a little ‘oof’ when you collide. Letting him pull you closer, put the blanket over your back, and make sure all of your skin is covered.

It’s not enough for Yoongi and he pulls you sideways so that he can get some of his weight on top of you. A growl building in his chest at the thought of anyone walking through the door right now.

He needs to check the lock, make sure that no one can possibly disturb you. Needs to- the instinct filling him so harshly he can’t breathe. He tries to pull away, but your hands tighten on him, and you let out a whine so heartbreaking that instantly has him releasing comforting chocolate, flopping back on top of you nuzzling under your chin, you feel like you’re drowning in it. 

Your love with Yoongi is still too new and raw to be close like this without feeling shy- and yet you can’t resist, your mating bond is like a fresh burn that you can’t stop picking at because it hurts. (Like there’s something dead there that you need to get rid of, you can’t heal around, you need to tear it out so that it feels more like bleeding rather than something that was carved out by hungry heat.) You fiddle with the bandage at your neck before Yoongi takes your hand in his, lacing your fingers together.

For a moment, you crave the release that blood might give you- and like he can feel it. Yoongi presses a kiss to the back of your hand. “Couldn’t sleep?” Yoongi says. You shake your head. The motel creeks and overhead you can hear someone else moving in an adjacent room. Yoongi gets his head on your pillow and adjusts his hand around your waist so that he’s not hitting the vicious bruise that Geumjae left with one of his kicks.

The last 24 hours have been such a tangle. It feels weird to not move now. Yoongi’s heart is still hammering; you can feel it under your palm. You’re both unwilling to relax and close your eyes even for a second even though you’re both exhausted.

You’re worried if you close your eyes you’re going to see Geumjae's face.

Yoongi left the light in the bathroom on for you. Sensing that the shadows would be too thick with nightmares for you to handle for long. You look at each other in the darkness before Yoongi lets out a shaky little giggle.

“Do you know what I just realized?” he says, the words quieted against the too scratchy bedspread. “We could have gotten a better hotel, we easily have enough money for it now” and that’s true.

If Yoongi’s orders were followed and the gang's accountant really did transfer all of your inherited wealth to your name then- fuck- both of you saw the bank statements. Both of you know how much money Yoongi’s family had amassed- the same wealth that Geumjae had inherited and now you.

“Fuck you’re right,” you say, ducking in so that you don’t have to meet Yoongi’s eyes. Geumjae used to hit you sometimes if you did that- and trained habits die-hard. 

yoongi kisses your brow, slow little pecks that travel down your cheeks, as unhurried as they are sweet. It's strange to be close to him now when it’s all you’ve wanted for the last few months. You never thought you’d get this. It feels like a daydream and a nightmare all at once.

“We could buy a whole house- or three” and even then you’d have more than enough money to live on after. For the rest of your days, comfortable and cozy even if you were foolish with the money. Yoongi still gets his stipend from the gang. No doubt to be greater now that he’s the only beta.

He stops his kisses, mouth hovering on your cheek, “We could do that.” he sounds like he’s barely containing his excitement. 

You’ll both be fine. Neither of you will ever have to worry about money again and it makes you feel sick and happy with something that feels a terrible lot like grief.

Even if you got that- the last 24 hours haven’t been worth it. You’re not entirely out of the woods yet. The mark on your shoulder is scabbing over and inky. But every few hours of closeness that the two of you have- Yoongi think’s he sees the color fade- just a little bit.

You don’t know where the giggle comes from but one moment it comes out of your mouth and you laugh, and Yoongi joins in the sound startling out of his chest. He presses his forehead tight against yours and sighs at the sound. You see the moment clarity falls on him and an idea settles into his mind the second it hits. And dim happiness settles over your bond.

Yoongi lifts your hand to his mouth and kisses your bruised knuckles. “Let's buy a house.”

You smile- tired from today but still willing to placate him. “Okay Yoongi, we can do that.”

Now finally, his eyes are starting to droop, every few seconds he tries to keep them open, but you know he's seconds away from sleep. His words slurred when they whisper, his sweet chocolaty breath tickling your cheeks. “Goodnight sweetheart- love you.”

“Love you too,” it’s the first time you’ve ever said those words to each other. It feels like the first of many times you’ll say it. Forever- you and Yoongi will be mated together until you both die. And who cares if that happens tomorrow or months from now. Who cares? Because you have him and that’s all that matters.

Yoongi holds you and knows- that he will love you- as long as he can.

He watches you sleep, waits until your eyes are closed. Until he can make sure you’re safe and warm. A gentle purring fills the hotel room, soft and peaceful. yoongi hears it louder when he presses his ear to your chest. He tries to keep his eyes open, but somewhere around the second hour- they fall closed.

Neither of you dream.

—————

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[sluttyten]

Fresh Air

Poly Series Chapter Index

summary: the first few months of life with your boyfriends and your newborn daughter bring numerous hardships that none of you were truly prepared for

length: 27.8k

tags/warnings: handjobs, dry humping, fingering, breastfeeding kink, slight daddy kink, cum sharing, smut, polyamory, multiple partners, the usual tags, angst?, some sadness

Having a baby is no easy thing. You knew that. You also knew that being in such a large polyamorous relationship wasn’t an easy thing. Already you’d lost two boyfriends; Lucas was long gone, happy in his own little world with Chaerin, and Ten was gone too, slowly slipping away.

It took the others a few days to realize that Ten was gone from the relationship. You didn’t have the same emotional breakdown as you did when Lucas ended things, so it wasn’t until you went around kissing each of them goodnight halfway through movie night, skipping over Ten, that Taeyong sat up curiously. 

“Excuse me!” He calls as you start to climb the stairs. “What just happened?”

Ten is slouched down between Taeyong and Kun, and he scowls at Taeyong, twisting his hand in the back of his shirt and tugging him back into Ten’s side. Ten mumbles, “We broke up.” 

“What?” Taeyong looks sharply between you and Ten. “When?”

The other eyes in the room slide toward this conversation. 

Ten flicks his gaze toward you, then he switches on his mischievous flirty grin, snuggling up against Taeyong. “When I realized you’re the only one for me, hyung!” 

Taeyong shoves him away with a groan.

WinWin comes down the stairs then, looking sleepy, sporting a little spit-up stain on his shoulder. He looks past you to where Taeyong and Ten are wrestling with each other, nearly falling into Kun’s lap as he groans and tries to keep them away. WinWin’s hand slides over your shoulder, squeezing reassuringly as he asks, “Hey, what’s going on?” 

He just got off from Daddy-duty, which mostly meant giving Mei a bottle and then napping with her. Ever since learning that he was her biological father, he’d been trying to help you out even more—offering to change her, to give her baths, to feed her (even though she was mostly breastfeeding, you were supplementing a little with bottles and formula).

“Me and Ten broke up,” you tell him, plucking at the front of his shirt. “You might want to wash this. Mei spit up on you.”

“Hold on. Are we just skipping over that? What do you mean you and Ten broke up?” WinWin frowns, his lips drooping into a pout.

You look back at everyone else, and a few of them are craning their necks to be able to see you. So you sigh, and you explain the breakup. Ten nods along with you, occasionally adding his own little input.

“I told you all that first day when we learned I was pregnant, if any of you want to leave or feel like you can’t deal with helping raise a baby, I understand. None of you signed up for a baby when we started this relationship.” You glance around the room, your gaze touching Lucas who has his head ducked as he picks at some loose skin around his nail. “Only WinWin’s definitely stuck with me now.”

There’s grumbles and eye-rolling around the room. WinWin touches the small of your back, just a tender touch to reassure you that he’s here, not going anywhere.

“Like I said, I understand when any of you want to leave. I don’t want any of you to be unhappy here.” You turn away and start up toward your bedroom. “Goodnight!”

But the others can’t let it go. It was one thing when just Lucas had left the relationship, but now Ten too? That second loss felt like the start of instability in the relationship, a crack in the formerly solid foundation. You tried hard not to think of it that way, but that was hard especially when a few days later you’re in bed with Kun.

Mei is asleep on the bed between you both.

It was just you and her for a long while, you were reading a novel to pass the time, and because you knew it was important for her to hear speech and intonation (even though at only almost two weeks old, speech was still a while away for her) you were reading aloud to her.

Kun had come inside, and when you paused in your reading he’d smiled and shaken his head. “Keep going. You have a lovely voice.”

So you’d read until Mei was asleep again, until your throat was dry. Kun was alternating between looking at you, looking at Mei, or looking at the backs of his eyelids. But when you sit aside the book and turn onto your side facing him and your daughter, Kun’s eyes open so he can see you.

“How are you?” He asks softly, reaching out to brush a finger at the thin skin under your eyes. “How are you holding up?”

You clasp his hand, pulling it down to your lips so you can kiss his palm. “You mean in general, or like postpartum? Or the breakup with Ten?”

Kun swallows, his eyes searching yours. “All of the above, I guess.” He looks down to your lips as you kiss his hand again. “I mean, you haven’t left the house since you came home from the hospital. That’s got to be taking a toll. And I’ve done some reading online, I know about postpartum depression and stuff. Then on top of the chances of that, there could be a hit of regular depression because of the breakup. I’m just worried, concerned.”

“I’m fine, Kun. Really.”

And you believe that you are. You feel good. Even with the breakup. Ten’s still here; he’s just more like your best friend now than anything else when he comes into your room to make sure you’re getting something to eat, to coo at Mei, or to kidnap Miso from where he’s curled up beneath Mei’s crib.

“Can I ask you something else?” Kun turns onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. “If I still hook up with Ten, are you going to be mad? Does it count as cheating on you?”

You laugh. “No. It’s fine. You, Taeyong, Johnny, any of you can keep doing whatever you’ve been doing with Ten. I encourage it. I’m pretty sure one of you is actually the reason he broke up with me, unless you know of someone else that he’s had his eye on?”

Kun shakes his head. “No, just us.”

“I don’t mind sharing with Ten. I still love him. I want him to be happy.” You stroke a gentle finger down Mei’s arm. “I want you to be happy, so if you want to choose Ten, then I wouldn’t blame you for br—“

Kun moves so quickly to shut down what you’re saying that he jostles the bed and that wakes Mei.

“Shit.” Kun immediately starts trying to comfort her, cradling her gently in his arms, speaking to her in soft, soothing tones. And as Mei starts to settle, he looks sharply back up at you. “Don’t say something like that, about me breaking up with you.” His face twists with annoyance. “I’m not going anywhere. I love you.”

“That’s what you all say. Lucas loved me. Ten loved me. They both left.”

“I do fucking love you.” Kun tells you, his voice assertive and hushed as he looks down at Mei again. “If I had Mark’s balls I’d have proposed to you by now too. I’m sure half of us would have as well. I’m not planning on going anywhere anytime soon, my love. So stop trying to get rid of me.”

You’re not trying to get rid of any of them, but over the next few weeks it becomes clear that all of this—maintaining this relationship—is going to be a lot harder while you’re recovering from birth and while you’re trying to focus on Mei, feeding her and sleeping when you can.

Even with your boyfriends trying to help, it’s not easy.

Jaehyun, WinWin, Kun. They’re always up to help you with anything and everything. Doyoung and Yuta are a little squeamish still of diapers. Taeil, Johnny, Taeyong, Jungwoo, Xiaojun, Mark, and Hendery try, but some of them still seem scared to touch her, to spend time alone with a newborn who is so utterly fragile. And for some of them it seems that they’re just desperately ready for you to be recovered, ready to have sex again.

“It takes some time,” you explain to Johnny one evening when he approaches you. “I’m sorry, I know you’re horny.”

You’re not ready to have sex again, so the most you can offer any of them are handjobs, maybe a blowjob. 

You’re standing in the kitchen, just cleaning up a few dishes. Taeyong and Doyoung are upstairs watching Mei, so it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea when you offer to Johnny, “Do you want me to give you a hand?”

So moments later, you’re sitting on the edge of the counter, Johnny between your knees. You’re kissing him with one hand in his hair, the other down the front of his pants, softly kissing away his moans, giving him a few of your own to edge him closer. 

“Shit, I want to be inside you,” Johnny groans, fucking forward into your grip. 

“Just a few more weeks.” You kiss the corner of his mouth, then sit back. You twist your fingers tight in his hair, tugging lightly. Johnny’s eyes fall shut, a moan slipping free of his lips. “Then we can--”

Distantly, you hear the sound of Mei crying; her howling cries that she seems too tiny to be able to make. Your head jerks toward the doorway of the kitchen. You can see the stairs from here.

Johnny sighs, and his forehead touches against the side of yours. 

“I’m close. Please, babe.” He bucks forward through the ring of your fingers, grinding closer, trying to get himself over the edge. “Just finish me off, then go.”

She howls again, and you wonder what Doyoung and Taeyong are doing up there. Johnny pants desperately, so you turn your attention back to him, dragging his mouth back into a kiss, tugging on his hair, jerking him off just the way you know gets him off quickest.

He cums with a grunt, coating your hand in his load, and as soon as he’s finished, you pull your hand out of his pants, rinse it off in the sink, and then you hurry from the room, up the stairs after the sound of your daughter’s cries.

By the time you reach the room, you can see she’s red-faced, crying while Doyoung tries changing her diaper, and Taeyong’s desperately trying to calm her. 

“Did you pinch her or something?” You ask, wiping your hands on your pants, wrapping them briefly in your shirt to make sure they’re dry. Taeyong looks up at you with panic in his eyes. 

“She just woke up and started screaming,” he says. “Is she hungry? She’s not really all that messy.” Taeyong gestures at her diaper. 

Doyoung’s doing just fine, wiping her clean, changing her while holding his breath. Once he’s got the diaper safely fastened, he wipes his hands clean with a wet wipe, then lifts her up in his arms to rock her. He looks up at you then. “We were doing just fine before that.”

Slowly her cries quiet down, the bright color of frustration draining from her face until she’s back to normal, her little fists gathered around Doyoung’s pinkie finger and his thumb. Her dark eyes are still open wide, gazing up at his face. 

You sit down on your bed, and Taeyong sits with you.

“I feel kinda bad,” you tell him. “I left Johnny down there, but her crying had me worried. I hate that I can’t give you guys the time and attention you deserve.”

Taeyong smiles softly, stroking the back of your head. “She needs you more than we do. And I’m sure Ten would be more than happier to help out. Kun said that you told him it’s okay. Right?” You nod. Taeyong nods too, then lets out a breath before saying, “That’s a relief, honestly. Because I didn’t want to feel guilty about still sleeping with him.”

“It’s fine, Taeyong. What you have with him predates what you have with me anyway.” You squeeze his thigh reassuring. You truly don’t mind sharing any of them with Ten. “I don’t want to be the one to mess with that.”

Taeyong grins and kisses your cheek. “Thanks. Well, now you’re back, and you and Doyoung probably have this handled, I’m heading to the studio.” He stands and stretches his arms over his head, the hem of his shirt lifting up just enough that you can see the red mark of a hickey on his hipbone. “I’m almost finished up with all this recording,” Taeyong says excitedly.

And when he’s gone from the room, you flop back into your bed, staring up at your ceiling. 

Doyoung comes over to the side of the bed a moment later, and when you turn your attention to him, he’s holding Mei to his chest, but he’s only looking at you. He asks, “Can I join you?”

You nod.

The mattress shakes as Doyoung does his best to settle down carefully into the bed beside you. Mei goes comfortably onto her tummy on Doyoung’s chest, her little fist up at her mouth, thumb between her lips. You scoot closer, your face close in front of hers, and you sigh.

Doyoung rests a hand on her back.

“You okay?” He asks. “Feeling good still?”

Just a few days before, an ever-concerned Doyoung had approached you and begun asking you what felt like very pointed questions that you eventually determined was him trying to make sure that you weren’t suffering from postpartum depression. You’d convinced him you were fine and feeling good about everything, which was absolutely the truth. Still is the truth. But while staring here at your daughter’s face you just feel like you never want to leave her side.

Originally, you’d planned to go back to working after about six weeks.

“I’m not so sure I want to go back to work,” you tell Doyoung.

Mei blinks, sucking at her thumb. She’s looking at you, and you wonder if she can really see you right now, if she can distinguish your face, tell you apart from Doyoung or WinWin or Miso.

“So don’t go back.” Doyoung’s words are simple, direct. “If you just want to stay home and take care of Mei, then that’s perfectly fine. She’s the most important job you can have, anyway. We’re here to make sure you and this little princess have a stable future.”

You nod. “Maybe when she’s older I’ll go back to work, but I think while she’s young, before she can go to school, I want to spend time with her, teach her.”

Doyoung smiles. “You’ll make her brave and smart. She’ll go to school and they won’t know what hit them. A tiny little sweet faced girl with a big personality, a big heart, and a brain to match. She’ll be the perfect combination of all her daddies.”

You laugh. You can see it now: a little girl with WinWin’s face in her little uniform and braided pigtails, walking into her first classroom with confidence, jabbering away and making friends, impressing teachers. You want to build Mei into a strong, confident, brave girl who’s intelligent and knows her own worth, who won’t let anyone put her down or make her feel small.

You can’t wait to meet her.

When Mei is one month old, WinWin accompanies you to the checkup appointment with the pediatrician. The appointment goes well, and WinWin makes it clear that he’s eager to be Mei’s dad, asking the doctor all kinds of questions about things that you didn’t even consider. He asks the doctor if she thinks it will confuse Mei if she hears multiple languages on a regular basis.

“Oh, no. Quite the opposite. Children raised in multilingual homes often benefit greatly. They can have improved concentration skills, are better at providing solutions, and generally perform better academically.” She smiles encouragingly. “But, out of curiosity, how many languages are we talking? Two? Three?”

You and WinWin look at each other.  

“Probably three,” you tell her. “Potentially four or five.”

Korean and Chinese and English you figure will primarily be spoken around her, but Japanese and Thai are also possibilities. You don’t even mention that Cantonese might occasionally be spoken around her as well. 

“Oh, well that is impressive.” She scribbles something on her clipboard. “I think little Mei will certainly benefit from that.”

When you’re leaving the doctor’s office, WinWin carries Mei’s little carrier. She’s awake and looking up at him, and he keeps speaking to her in Chinese using a cutesy tone. Though as soon as you’re outside, he looks up at you. “Are you hungry? I was thinking we could go grab something to eat?”

There’s a place right around the corner that WinWin knows, so that’s where you go. It’s been a while since you’ve been out on anything that seems like a date. The last time you really went out somewhere and did things with people was your baby shower, and that was three months ago. Your last date was before that, when Lucas took you out to dinner just days before he broke up with you, which is somewhat upsetting when you think about it. And you’ve gone to a few parks over the last few weeks, taking Mei out for some fresh air and sunlight with your various boyfriends, but none of those really counted as dates, so you’re excited when you get to sit down at a table with WinWin and Mei.

Even by the time you do get home afterwards, you’re still buzzing with happiness from how wonderfully the appointment had gone plus the lunch date afterwards, and how Mei didn’t start getting fussy until right as you were arriving home.

You’re just in a very good mood. While you nurse Mei, Xiaojun sits with you and tells you a dramatic retelling of his day with Hendery and YangYang. Renjun wanders into your room a bit later to hangout and hold Mei. The whole afternoon is just guys coming in and out of your room, and you’re feeling great and happy, and you’re feeling good enough that when Jungwoo and Johnny come in to interrupt you doing yoga (in an attempt to get your body as closely to how it was before the pregnancy), you don’t mind. You let them sit and watch. Johnny even helps you with a few poses, and Jungwoo lies down on the floor with you, but he puts Mei on his chest to give her a little bit of tummy time.

You’re in the midst of laughing with Jungwoo and Johnny when Doyoung steps into your doorway, knocks on the doorframe, and says, “We have a little problem.”

That happy little bubble you’ve been living in all day pops.

Doyoung summons a group meeting, so you and Jungwoo and everyone else who’s home descend to the living room. You bring Mei with you, apologizing to Renjun that you don’t want to leave her alone with him (not his fault, it’s just you being nervous being away from her). Not everyone is home, so Doyoung calls Taeyong, Kun, and Jaehyun who are all working and puts them on speaker so they can listen in.

You sit nervously in the big armchair. Ten squeezes in with you, and he convinces you to pass Mei over into Uncle Ten’s loving arms.

“What’s wrong, Doyoung?” You ask first once everyone’s gathered.

He sighs and holds up his phone, which has Twitter open on it. There’s a long thread of tweets, images and text, and you’re not sure what that’s all about, not until he says, “It’s amazing that it took fans this long to catch on.”

“What do you mean by that?” Jaehyun’s voice is staticky over the phonecall. “Caught on to what?”

“To us.” Doyoung explains. “Apparently, our girlfriend and WinWin and Mei were spotted out together today by a fan, and now the pictures are everywhere.”

WinWin swears under his breath. 

“But it’s not just that. It was at first.” Doyoung scrolls up to the top of the Twitter thread on his phone. “Some fans realized that they’ve seen her before, so there’s this thread and a whole bunch of others just full of photos of us and you, sweetheart. Going back ages. I’ve been reading comments, and people were saying that for a long time they just thought you were one of our managers or a staff member or something, but then others had their photos, had stories of times they’ve spotted us out with you. There was some fan who said she saw you out with Hendery and Jungwoo. 

“So now they’re pretty sure that you’re dating one of us, or secretly married to one of us, but they don’t know who. Until today, seeing you and Mei with WinWin, they think they’ve solved it all.” Doyoung rubs his hand over his face, clearly exasperated. “But others think differently, because you’ve been spotted out carrying Mei on your walks through the park with me, with Taeil, with Mark and Taeyong. Some fans are just generally pissed off about all of this.”

Everyone’s been staring at Doyoung or else looking down at their phones as they also search social media for all of these swirling rumors and gossip.

Taeil’s the first to sit forward, and he looks over at you. “I don’t think you should leave the house for a few days until this dies down. For your safety.”

You know he’s talking about their sasaengs. Somehow they’ve been lucky enough that sasaengs haven’t camped out in front of this house like you know they did at their apartments when you first met them. You’re sure that many of those photos in that thread Doyoung’s talking about were taken by sasaengs.

“What are we going to do?” Kun asks, his voice sounding echoey and very distant over the phone. 

“What can we do?” Yuta responds. “I say we just let it all die down, don’t acknowledge the rumors at all.”

Doyoung sighs heavily. “I don’t think we can really do that, hyung. I’m sure the company is going to want to talk to all of us about it. And we can’t just ignore it and pretend that we don’t know what they’re talking about because there is all of this photo evidence, many stories, there are videos, and apparently when Xiaojun did an Insta live last week, you could hear Mei crying in the background.”

“Just say it was Haechan,” Mark suggests. “Say he was acting like a baby.”

“Or we could just tell the truth,” Jaehyun says over the phone. 

Yuta rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but what part of the truth? That Mei is WinWin’s baby, or that literally the fourteen of us all had the same girlfriend and that for nine months didn’t know which of us was fathering her child? That part of the truth? I feel like our NCTzens would possibly explode. Imagine the chaos. We’d probably be forced to disband.”

“Obviously not that whole truth, dumbass.” Jaehyun retorts. 

Yuta starts to bicker back at him, but Taeyong’s voice speaks up loudly over the phone, cutting them both off. “We’re not our own PR team. This isn’t something that we have to address right now, so maybe we should at least wait until we’re all home and can talk about it together, right?”

Right.

But you decide to go on to bed. It’s late enough that you can go without drawing suspicion, and as you’ve got Mei comfy in her bed, you curl up in your bed and open Twitter on your phone.

Maybe it’s a bad idea to search up what fans are saying, but you can’t help it. Especially now when you see half of your boyfriends’ names trending along with NCT and some other things that you’re sure are related to this drama going on. It is somewhat disturbing to see this evidence that the fans are gathering against you, to see the nasty things that they’re saying--threats against you and you even see a few against your daughter that have you muffling your tears against your pillow--and you’re still looking at all of this in horror when the door of your room opens. 

A shadowy figure slips from the lit hallway outside into the dark of your bedroom. You hear the familiar footfalls, and when he falls into bed, it’s a comfortable and intimately familiar weight and heat as he rolls against your side.

“Are you okay?” Mark asks.

His feet bump against yours, and as his head edges onto your pillow, he sees what you’re looking at and sees the blue light of your screen reflecting off the wetness on your cheeks.

“No, that’s what we’re not going to do, okay?” Mark sits up and plucks your phone from your hand, rolls over to the far side of your bed, and sits your phone on the bedside table before he comes back. His thumbs are gentle when he wipes at your cheeks. His voice only sounds a little frustrated, more concerned than anything else as he questions, “Why were you looking at all that?” 

“I wanted to know what they’ve seen, what they had to say.” You sniffle and press your face into the pillow. “Your fans can be terrible.”

Mark sinks down beside you once more, and he places a soothing hand on your back, rubbing up and down your spine. “Listen, you and Mei are safe. If you think that we’d ever let them do anything to hurt either of you....” Mark’s cheek rests against your shoulder. “We’ll fix this. I know we will.”

You sigh shakily, and turn, wrapping yourself around Mark, squeezing him in a hug as you hide your face against his neck. He hugs you back just as tightly. 

It’s hours later, Mark has fallen asleep beside you, and his arm is still tucked under your head, his fingers on that hand are tangled in your hair as he’d fallen asleep gently massaging your scalp in an attempt to get you to fall asleep (which was unsuccessful). There’s a soft glow from the nightlight in the corner of the room, and by its light you’ve been watching Mark’s face, counting his eyelashes and his freckles and then counting his breaths, but you can’t calm your mind enough to slow down and fall asleep.

So you hear Mei waking up, hear her starting to cry. You know you need to get up, leave the nice comforting warmth of the bed, to go feed her, but all you want to do is just stay right there.

You squeeze your eyes shut even as her cries begin to build.

Mark’s sleeping like a rock, so he doesn’t stir. You press closer, press your face to his chest.

The bedroom door opens, and a sleepy Taeil with messy hair comes inside. You can just barely see him through your eyelashes; can see him looking at you and Mark, then his gaze sweeps across the room to the crib in the corner and Mei’s little pink face scrunched up as she cries.

He crosses quietly to the crib, shuffling barefooted, his sweatpants dragging along the floor like socks.

You can’t see him from this angle but you can hear as he shushes Mei, cooing and making soft noises to soothe her. You can hear the rustling as he picks her up, the creak of wood as he settles down in the rocking chair. She keeps crying though, no matter how desperately Taeil tries to soothe her, and after a few minutes of that, you sit up in bed and look over at him.

He’s rocking in the chair, trying to get her to take the pacifier, but she keeps spitting it back out when it’s not giving her what she really wants.

You sigh and push out of bed. Taeil looks up at you.

“Unless you’ve got tits, Taeil, I don’t think she’s gonna calm down for you.” You stand beside him, push your fingers into his hair.

“I thought you were asleep,” he whispers back to you. He doesn’t look away from Mei, just keeps looking down at her puckered face.

Your fingers slide down from his hair to the back of his neck, resting gently there. “I can’t sleep. I just keep thinking about what your fans are saying.” 

Taeil looks up at you then, a frown drawing his eyebrows tightly together. “You don’t need to look at what they’re saying. Our managers have already said that we’re going to have a big PR meeting probably tomorrow so our company can put out a statement. But you don’t need to worry about anything. You’re safe here.”

Mei lets out another piercingly loud cry from such a small baby, and you reach for her. Taeil hands her up to you easily, then he stands, gesturing for you to sit in the chair. You don’t even think about it as you move your top to bare your breast for Mei to latch onto, but Taeil makes a short noise, and when you look up at him, he’s looking away, rubbing at the back of his head like he’s embarrassed.

You try to hide your smile. “You’re all so funny about this, you know. Half of you get embarrassed to look at my boobs now. You’ve seen them before, Taeil.”

“I know that.” He mumbles, and you swear if there were a bit more light in the room, you’d be able to see that he was blushing. “I just have really been missing you lately, you know? It’s been a while.” 

Taeil tries his best to keep his eyes on your face when he turns to you then, but you watch as his gaze inevitably falls to your breast. But there his gaze seems to soften at the sight of Mei’s dark little head nestled there.

Taeil sinks to his knees. “It’s all different now, you know? She’s here now, and she’s so tiny and perfect. Everything’s just.... centered differently.”

You know exactly what he means. Before Mei there were so many things--things to do, places to go, people to go see and talk to, and meaningless things to fill your time with, boyfriends to go fuck around with--and now there’s Mei and she’s just got you so wrapped up with her, none of those things feel like they matter. It’s just you and her, like your whole little world. 

“I don’t think it really matters that WinWin’s her real dad.” Taeil reaches one finger up and strokes the back of Mei’s tiny hand. “Isn’t there a saying that it takes a village to raise a child? Well, here we are. Your whole village to help raise Mei. Our Mingmei. I know that it’s not going to be easy to be here sometimes, and that there’s no way of telling what the future holds for all of us, but I want to be here. I love you. I adore Mei.” Taeil’s expression is so soft as he says that; his eyes are moist looking at you and your daughter then, and after another moment he sinks back to sit on the floor, and he turns his face away, hiding as he tries to hastily wipe away his tears.

“I don’t want you to go anywhere either, Taeil. I’ve said it before, but if Mei could have all of you as her father, that’s what I would wish.” You smile down at her. “Imagine having a dozen fathers to show up and be there any time she needs support, protection, encouragement.”

Taeil sits up then, resting a hand on your knee reassuringly. “We will be here to protect her. Especially right now.” He shakes his head, his brows set in determination. “After you came up here, Doyoung was showing us some more of what they were saying, and I swear to you, we will not let any of them near you. Ever. But there were some great things people were saying.”

You’d seen a few of those during your deep dive. Fans saying that you seemed lovely--both visually in the pictures, and then also the few fans that had stories about seeing you out with the boys had said that you had sounded sweet--and fans defending you, defending the boys, reporting accounts threatening violence toward you or Mei. There were fans gushing over the boys as fathers, fans going wild thinking about aesthetic baby pics that some of them might post on their Instagrams. 

There were definitely some wonderful things you’d seen, but it was hard to focus on those when there was so much negativity inspiring fear and anxiety and terrible things in you. 

By the time Mei finishes nursing, even you are finally starting to feel tired. Taeil takes her from you as you attempt to pull your shirt back into place, and he paces around the room, singing quietly, patting her back to burp her. You just sit there in the rocking chair, rocking back and forth, your eyes feeling heavier and heavier as you watch Taeil and listen to him.

You don’t even realize that you’ve dipped off, not until there’s fingers on your shoulder and on your cheek, a quiet voice calling your name. 

“Hmm?” You open your eyes.

Taeil, smiling sleepily too. “You should get in bed, my love. Mei’s fine,” he explains when you sit up suddenly and look around. “She fell asleep, so I put her back down. Come on, into bed.” He helps you cross the few feet to the bed, his hand in yours, and once you’ve slid back in between the covers, your head once more on the pillow, Taeil smooths hand over your hair, and leans in to whisper, “Goodnight,” and he places a loving kiss on your forehead. 

You’re asleep before you can remember to mumble a sweet “goodnight” back to him.

Maybe it was a mistake telling your boyfriends that the doctor had approved and even encouraged the use of multiple languages with Mei. Because after you tell them that, then you rarely hear the Chinese members speak in anything other than Chinese to her. Yuta almost exclusively reads and sings and speaks to her in Japanese. Johnny, Mark, and even sometimes Jaehyun and Ten speak English to Mei. You even catch Xiaojun singing in Cantonese to her.

Mei looks up at him, waving her arms and legs, cooing happily as he leans on the side of her crib to sing to her.

“What are you doing?” You ask, sliding up beside him, one arm curling around his waist, your cheek resting on his shoulder. “She’s going to be so confused when she’s older if you speak to her in Mandarin and Cantonese, Jun.” You brush your lips in a light kiss to his exposed shoulder.

“She’s going to be smart,” Xiaojun responds quickly. “Going to speak five languages by the time she’s five, and put all of us to shame with her brain.” You feel him kiss you on the top of your head. “Were you still on for coming with WinWin, Ten, and I later?”

It’s been a few weeks since the rumors first struck. Their PR team put out a statement, claiming that you were just a staff member and close friend of the group who happened to have a baby. A lot of fans had backed off, but you were still a little wary about leaving the house unless it was necessary. You’d only left for appointments, and then to go meet up with your parents once for them to fawn over their granddaughter.

“I don’t know, Xiaojun. Your fans are still watching us.” You step away from him.

Lately there’s been a heightened presence of sasaengs around the boys. You’d even noticed one following you on your way to the last appointment you’d had with your doctor—one where you’d been cleared to return to work (if you wanted that) and to resume sexual activities (though she did advise that you take it easy, so no rough sex, no orgies)—and you’d been lucky to find that an old friend of yours was acting as a courier, and he was in the doctor’s office dropping something off right as you were leaving. He’d walked out with you, and though he was working, he did walk with you and make sure that the sasaeng stopped following.

Xiaojun turns away from the crib to follow you, his fingers catching on your sleeve, sliding down over your hand. “Hey, babe. Look, I know that lately we’ve been under more surveillance than normal. I’ve seen what they’re saying online, people still doubting the story that our team put out, but that doesn’t mean that you need to withdraw from us.” Xiaojun strokes the back of your hand until you turn it over and he laces his fingers through yours. “Come out with us tonight. Let Kun or Jaehyun or one of them watch Mei, and come have fun.”

You glance uncertainly over at Mei’s crib. “I don’t know....”

You haven’t left Mei yet, not for any extended period of time, not for longer than a shower or a quick snack in the kitchen along with a handjob for Johnny. Leaving her for two or three hours, that just doesn’t sound like something you’re ready for yet.

“I’ll think about it.” You tell him.

Xiaojun lets out a happy sound, and then he cups your face between his hands, and pulls you into a quick kiss. “Please say yes. We’re just going to see a movie. And whoever watches her will have to deal with Jaehyun probably hovering protectively right at his shoulder the whole time. She’ll be fine.” He pecks you on the lips again, and this time you twist your fingers in the bottom of his top, lean in on your toes, and kiss him again.

Xiaojun makes a pleasant sound, his fingers slide into your hair, angling your mouth against his. You want to push this a little further, want to feel his bare skin against yours, feel the pleasure that you haven’t felt for weeks and weeks now.

He smiles into the kiss as you push your hands up under his top, moving up his chest. He almost giggles when you feel up his pecs. Xiaojun pulls back just a little, pecking you on the lips playfully amidst his giggles, before pressing back in fully.

You can do this, you tell yourself. Your doctor cleared you for sex again, and you know that Xiaojun will be gentle with you, that he’s a good choice to be your first time again. This will be fine.

When you drop your hands from his chest, slipping your fingertips beneath the waistband of his pants, Xiaojun slows down as if he’s a little confused by you initiating this. And when you touch his dick, he backs off and his eyebrows draw together in confusion. “Are you... Are you sure?”

“Mmmh.” You nod. “My doctor finally cleared me. I’m good as long as we take it a little slow.”

Xiaojun’s smile returns, and he cocks his head to the side a little and looks you up and down. “So I should treat you like a virgin, right? Take it easy and slow?”

You whine. “Don’t tease me, Xiaojun.”

“No, I won’t.” He kisses you sweetly. “But are you sure? You want to do this now? Here?”

Mei’s just right over in the corner, unknowingly looking up at the mobile spinning over her head, unaware of what’s going on here. It does feel a little bit weird, but she won’t know. She won’t have a clue what’s going on.

“I’m sure.” You nod. “Well, I’m sure that I at least want to see how far we can go. I just,” you sigh, “feel like we’ll be interrupted by one thing or another. A baby, a boyfriend, discomfort. Something. But yes.”

 “We’ll figure it out.” Xiaojun bounces a little eagerly and excitedly on his toes. “God, I really want you.”

You kind of love that Xiaojun doesn’t rush you at all even after he says that. He doesn’t push you to hurry into anything, is content with just lying in your bed and making out, letting your hands wander over his bare arms, delving into his hair, slipping through the large cutouts at his sides to scrape your nails lightly over his back or his abs or his chest. He doesn’t try to get you to touch him lower down his body even when you can feel how hard he is against your thigh. Xiaojun lets you take it all at your own pace, lets you pull his hands under your shirt.

You’re feeling more confident with your body now than you were even just a few weeks ago. You’ve looked at mommy forums online, and they say that it’s not uncommon to feel negatively about your body for quite a while after birth, but you’re happier now.

So when Xiaojun touches your belly, as he lifts your shirt up over your chest, you don’t feel embarrassed at all. You feel the heat of lust burning in your belly, your skin flushed with heat even as cool air touches your chest.

“Fuck, so pretty. I’ve missed you like this,” Xiaojun groans, breaking away from your lips to kiss your neck, then skipping down to your chest, the mound of your tits in your bra. His thigh slips between your knees, his lips dance over your chest, and you can’t help the breathy little sounds that spill from your lips.

You clap a hand over your mouth.

“Don’t be shy,” Xiaojun chuckles. “You make such pretty noises, babe. Let me hear them.”

You obediently drop your hand, sliding your fingers into his hair instead as Xiaojun keeps kissing your chest, and his hand finally slips down into your panties.

“Ah!” The little gasped sound escapes your lips when Xiaojun’s finger glides over your clit.

He grinds subtly against your thigh, and moans softly, lifting his head from your chest and kisses you again.

It’s been so long since you were touched like this, that it’s literally seconds before Xiaojun is smirking at just how wet you’ve grown. He sticks with touching your clit, kissing away all the sweet sounds you’re making, until you start moving with him, rocking your hips up and looking for more than just the touches to your clit.

Xiaojun moves down to kiss at your neck, and as he does that, he slips a finger inside you.

You moan loudly, your hand flying down to grip at Xiaojun’s forearm, not to stop him but just to hold on to him as he fingers you. It doesn’t hurt or anything, it’s a bit uncomfortable after everything your vagina went through just a little over a month and a half ago. But it still feels so good.

Your fingernails dig into his skin just as his teeth nip at your throat, his cock rubs against your thigh, and Xiaojun makes a muffled sound against your neck. You let go of his wrist, snaking your hand inside his pants to touch his cock, to help him feel good too.

“Wait,” he mumbles, “I feel like this should be about you.”

“Very chivalrous of you, but I kinda want you to enjoy this too.” You try to keep going, but Xiaojun stops, sits up, and pulls his hand entirely out of your pants, then grabs your wrist and removes your hand from his pants as well. You pout up at him.

He looks away from you, up at the ceiling. “Please don’t give me that look.”

“Then come touch me some more.” You reach for his waistband.

Xiaojun bats your hand away, and moves down the bed. “I’m going to, but, babe, I want the focus to be on you. I don’t care about me right now because I guarantee I had an orgasm more recently than you. So, please, just let me make you feel good first.”

You really can’t argue with that.

“Okay. Fine, do with me what you will.” You spread out your arms and legs, dramatically going limp.

Xiaojun rolls his eyes affectionately. “Can I take your pants off?”

You lift up your hips to help him slide your pants off, then he kneels up over you, pulling the shirt up over your head.

He sinks back down to sit on his heels and drinks in the sight of you before him.

You wonder if he’s thinking of the last time he had you like this, because you know that you are. It’s been months and months since the last time that you and Xiaojun were alone together like this, taking the time to appreciate and take each other apart. It was shortly after you learned you were pregnant, you’d spent the whole morning in bed together, getting each other off; you’d spent at least half an hour kissing his entire body, sucking his cock, praising his body.

“Fuck, I love you,” he sighs, and falls over you again, his body covering yours as he captures you in a kiss once more. Xiaojun slips a hand under your back, and you feel his fingers fumble for a second or two with the clasp on the back of your bra before it releases. You sigh in comfortable relief, and reach up to pull the straps down your arms, freeing yourself of the bra entirely.

You hold your breath as Xiaojun starts to kiss down your body—trailing burning kisses down your throat, between your breasts, down your belly, and at last he reaches the edge of your panties.

His nose nudges against your clit through the material, and when Xiaojun places the gentlest of kisses right over your pussy, your breath catches in your throat before shaking its way free. He lifts his head so he can see your face as he finally removes the last piece of clothing on your body.

The last time you were this naked in front of one of your boyfriends was when you showered with Jaehyun before you found out WinWin was Mei’s father. Almost two months ago.

When you feel his breath on your bare, wet pussy, all you can do is close your eyes, bite your bottom lip, and pray that he’s about to eat you out. You want so badly to really, truly get your pussy eaten the way that hasn’t been done in a long time.

And right as Xiaojun grants your nonverbal wish, his tender lips kissing your clit, a new voice of doubt enters your mind.

What if you look different down there? Or smell or taste different?

You haven’t really taken much time to pay attention to if giving birth altered how your pussy looks. You have no idea if you’re going to taste different. You’re only kinda sure that you don’t smell different. And what if it doesn’t feel right when he eats you out anymore? You’ve read that sex might feel different after the baby, and you’ve always loved Xiaojun eating you out. Him and WinWin are two of your favorites when it comes to oral.

You just start doubting all of this, thinking and worrying, so even as Xiaojun’s doing his best down there, you’re not giving him any reactions. Not until he pulls back and looks up at your face to ask, “Does it not feel good?”

“I’m sorry.” You groan, rubbing a hand over your face. “I think I’m just... thinking too much.”

“Relax.” Xiaojun puts a hand on your thigh, massaging gently. “You don’t need to think about anything, don’t worry or stress.”

He’s probably right. You don’t need to worry about any of that stuff. He’s clearly not turned off by what he’s faced with down there right now, as he’s already diving back in to sweep his tongue against you. You just need to relax, to sink into the pleasure of what he’s doing, and forget everything else but just that.

Easier said than done, honestly, but you do try.

Xiaojun sets to work on fucking you open on his middle finger again, his tongue at your clit. Slowly, it does start to feel really good; you get out of your mind and just relax into the pleasure, your body taking over, moving with Xiaojun. A second finger joins the first, and soon he’s even got a third finger pumping inside you, his lips sucking at your clit.

You twist your head to the side and bite at your upper arm to keep your moans in check as your orgasm quickly rises. Your chest heaves, whines leaking out even though you try to keep quiet, and Xiaojun lifts his head.

“You look so sexy right now. Are you going to cum on my fingers, babe?” Xiaojun moans a little, sitting up on his knees so he can kiss at your belly, then a little higher up your chest. His lips brush against your breasts, and you shudder from the small burst of pleasure that gives you. His hips dip down, hard cock grinding against your leg, and his three fingers push in deep inside you, stretching you so your pussy really feels it in the best way.

“Fuck, Dejun. Deeper.” Your hands fly to his shoulders, fingertips digging in. “I want you to make me....”

He drops back down, face dipping once more between your legs. With his free hand he pushes at your thigh, trying to get you to spread your legs even farther apart. His tongue flicks over your clit, fingers pressing inside you. The knot in your belly grows tighter, the warm tingling of pleasure building higher and higher, and you feel so close, your body growing hotter, orgasm just within reach the air itself feeling like it’s sparkling around you.

Xiaojun sucks your clit between his lips, his fingers press in right against your G-spot, and just like that your orgasm unleashes.

Your toes curl, body arching up, hips rolling against his mouth, and the guttural sighs and moans that leave your mouth are barely muffled as you bite at your lip in an attempt to keep them in. Your chest rises and falls and feels damp, your whole body warm and shaky and you feel like you’re sweating, but it’s different.

Xiaojun licks you through the throes of ecstasy, only backing off and pulling his fingers out when your hips have eased back down against the bed and you’re whining, thighs twitching on either side of his ears.

And it’s then that you open your eyes from where they were squeezed shut.

Xiaojun’s face is the first thing you see, his wondrous gaze locked on your chest. “Is that your milk?” He asks. And for the first time you realize that your chest doesn’t just feel damp, doesn’t just feel sweaty from that mind-blowing orgasm, your breasts have leaked out breastmilk during that orgasm.

“Oh my god, I’m sorry.” You cover your face in embarrassment. “Oh my god, I just, god, didn’t know that would happen.”

Xiaojun just laughs. “It’s fine. It’s kinda hot, honestly.”

“Right, my boobs squirting is very attractive.” You can’t convince yourself to pull your hands away from your face. Not until you feel Xiaojun’s tongue on your skin. “You are not licking up my breast milk, are you?” You lift your head to look down at him.

Xiaojun freezes and makes eye contact with you. His tongue hasn’t yet reached where your breast milk has leaked down to. So he pulls his tongue back inside his mouth. “I wouldn’t be opposed to it. It’s just breastmilk, right? What’s the possible harm?”

It’s not like you’ve never heard of this before. You’d read in forums and stuff about mother’s tasting their own breastmilk, fathers tasting their wife or girlfriend’s breastmilk. You’d even read about someone letting their friends, brothers, and more try it. You think that one’s a bit strange, but you can’t deny that you had tasted a little bit of yours yourself one morning out of curiosity. And while you were pregnant Jungwoo had confessed his interest in it.

You just hadn’t expected Xiaojun to be into this.

“I mean, you can if you want to, I guess.” You drop your head back down onto the bed.

Xiaojun’s tongue touches your skin again, and it feels so nice. And then his mouth is on your tits, gentle lips and tongue lapping at the spilled breastmilk. Your pussy starts to throb again with arousal as Xiaojun’s tongue races right up to the edge of your nipple, and then he stops.

You groan and lift your head to look at him again, and just as your eyes meet, Xiaojun flicks his tongue over your nipple, lapping at the damp peak.

It’s certainly not a whimper that leaves your lips.

Xiaojun laughs, and then he does it all over again; his warm tongue tracing over your chest on the other side, though this time he takes his time with your breast, and upon reaching your nipple, he closes his lips briefly around the nipple to flick his tongue at the hardened bud. It’s weird feeling it like this, so different from before when they would lick and suck at your nipples during sex, but also a lot different too than when Mei does it.

You feel like you should not be deriving sexual pleasure from one of your boyfriends basically nursing from you—breastmilk flowing from your nipple into his mouth—but Xiaojun doesn’t stop. In fact, he also seems to be getting off from it. His hips roll against the bed, grinding down into the mattress. He moans, brings one hand up to the side of your breast, gently massaging as he continues with this.

“Fuck me,” you sigh, a plea and a sound of pleasure. And Xiaojun obeys, pulling away from you just long enough to push his pants down and kick them off the foot of the bed, and then he’s back, hips cradled between your thighs. You knot your fingers in the front of his shirt, “Now.”

Xiaojun is gentle and slow, tenderly stroking your thigh as he enters you. He leaves little kisses on your throat and your chest, and it’s only when he starts shallowly rocking into you that he lowers his mouth to your chest and once again starts laving his attention on your tits.

It’s not terrible, just a little uncomfortable. There’s a dull ache that’s not pleasant at all as he thrusts into you, and even though you can tell Xiaojun’s holding back, just trying to make you feel good. And you can feel it—the pleasure is right there through a thin veil of discomfort, and you know if you can just get past that then this will be great. Sweet love-making with Xiaojun would be perfect.

You slide your hands over his back, dipping your fingers beneath his shirt to scrape lightly over his shoulders, and Xiaojun moans. He loses a little bit of restraint, thrusting deeper and a little harder, and there you find the pleasure.

“More,” you moan.

Xiaojun nuzzles against your breast, his lips closed around your nipple as he moans, tasting you on his tongue, feeling you warm and wet around his cock. You’re not surprised that he might not last long. Not surprised when he moans again and draws his hips back, cock leaving you empty as he cums across your belly, still suckling at your tit.

You cradle a hand against the back of his head, your eyes flutter closed, and you think you could let this sweet pleasure overwhelm you again, take you into another orgasm, to peaceful bliss.

The door opens suddenly (why do they never seem to know how to knock when you’re in the middle of something?) and there, framed in the doorway, stand Jungwoo and WinWin.

Xiaojun lifts his head slowly, his lips releasing your tit as he turns his wide-eyed gaze to his members. There’s a small hint of breastmilk on his bottom lip.

There’s no possible way to deny what just happened.

For one thing, you’re lying fully nude beneath Xiaojun. His face was just buried against your chest. Both of you are fully flushed in the face. He looks dazed, horny, and (as you just noted) there’s breastmilk on his bottom lip.

WinWin and Jungwoo stare at both of you in silence for a long moment that finally breaks when WinWin shakes his head and marches inside, heading straight over to the crib.

Mei’s still happily oblivious to what’s been going on. WinWin scoops her up, cradling her in his arms, and as he turns to face you on the bed, he shields her little face from the sight of you and Xiaojun with his hand. His voice is somewhat amused, somewhat scandalized, as he asks, “In front of our daughter?”

Xiaojun rolls to the edge of the bed and sits upright, tries to cover up with the edge of the duvet cover, and then folds his hands in his lap. But when he notices that Jungwoo’s staring at him—most notably, staring at his mouth—he quickly wipes at his lips and chin, smearing away the last of the evidence of what he’d just been doing.

You sit up as well, dragging a blanket over your lap, folding your arms in front of your breasts. “In my defense, there’s absolutely no way that she knows what just happened.”

WinWin shakes his head, trying to look disapproving, but you can see the corner of his mouth turning up in a smile as he looks back down at Mei. “So does this mean that you’re cleared again?” He asks. “Doctor says you can have sex?”

You nod, looking around at him, at the back of Xiaojun’s head where he’s facing away from you, at Jungwoo still framed in the doorway and gazing in awe at you and Xiaojun. “Yeah, just nothing really intense or rough. So no orgies for a while. Her actual words.”

“Good to know.” WinWin wiggles his fingers in front of Mei’s face, and she knocks around one of her little fists, as if she’s trying to grasp his fingers in front of her. He can’t pull his eyes away from her as he says, “I’m pretty sure I owe you some kind of great thank you for this gift right here.”

He starts walking toward the door again, and Jungwoo even steps out of the way to let him pass, so you ask, “Where are you going with her?”

“I’m going to spend a little quality time with my daughter,” WinWin says, and if life were a cartoon then his pupils would be heart-shaped as Mei grips onto one of his fingers right then. “You and Xiaojun can finish up here. Clean up before we go to the movie tonight.” His gaze finally lifts from your daughter, flicking in Xiaojun’s direction.

Xiaojun starts to say something in response, but WinWin’s already ducked out of sight of the doorway, leaving Jungwoo still standing there.

He doesn’t move, even as Xiaojun stands and starts to gather his pants and underwear from where he’s kicked them. Jungwoo just stares at you, at your bare tits. You can kind of guess what he’s thinking, and right as Xiaojun’s shimmying his pants back into place, Jungwoo asks, “Does it taste alright?”

Xiaojun freezes, glancing between you and Jungwoo.

You don’t really care what his answer is. It’s breastmilk, it’s not meant for him anyway, so you don’t think his opinion on it really matters. Instead of intently listening to him, you climb out of bed, turning your back on your boyfriends to get dressed.

“It’s not bad. Wouldn’t be my first choice of drink, but I’m not going to pretend like I wouldn’t definitely do that again.” Xiaojun sounds so pleased with himself as he says it, and you roll your eyes affectionately, carrying your clothes in your arms into the bathroom to shower, leaving Xiaojun and Jungwoo out there to discuss your breasts and your milk. You need to shower and get ready for the first date you’ll have in months.

Once the others realize that you’re open to having sex again, you’ve got a parade of boyfriends trying to get between your legs again. Or at least, after hearing about what WinWin and Jungwoo had walked in on, they keep asking to taste your breastmilk.

Self-consciously, you cross your arms over your chest as Mark’s folded himself onto the end of your bed and just asked you in a very serious voice, “So can I have a taste too?”

“Mark, shut the fuck up.” Yuta’s sitting right beside you, holding Mei who’s just looking up at him and smiling. She’s been doing that a lot lately, making this absolutely adorable smile that has every single person in this house wrapped around her tiny fingers. “If you want to taste it just go get in the minifridge.” Yuta jerks his head over to the set up you’ve got tucked in the corner beside the rocking chair, now that you’re pumping milk just so you don’t have to get your tits out every time that Mei cries for food.

“Do not drink Mei’s supply, Mark Lee.” You get up, and as you walk toward the end of the bed, you reach up to ruffle your fingers through Mark’s hair. “You boys are all so weird. Every one that’ve had a taste say it’s weird, so why do you keep asking. You don’t even eat yogurt, Mark, what do you think breastmilk is going to do to you?”

Yuta snickers.

Mark laughs too, and you smile as you rest your hand on his head. He tilts back to meet your gaze.

And then you hear it.

Your head snaps toward Yuta and Mei. You feel Mark go still beneath you. Yuta’s frozen in surprise.

You hear it again.

“Is she laughing?” You climb back onto the bed, crawling up toward the head.

Mei’s tiny little body, her smiling face. She’s laughing. And if you’ve ever had a favorite sound, it is this. Your daughter’s little giggle. She’s three and a half months old, and this is the funniest thing in her whole life.

You’re still fawning over her and the cute sounds she makes when WinWin gets home.

He always comes up to see Mei first thing when he gets home, even if it’s super late, even if he’s already extremely tired. Even if he’s fresh off a fifteen hour long shoot, he pops through the door of your bedroom.

“Sicheng!” You look up, unable to lose your grin. “Babe! Come here! She laughed!”

He looks confused for just a split second, and then Haechan (who had come into the room looking for Mark) does something and Mei laughs again.

WinWin’s face goes soft with surprise and awe, and then he lights up. Yuta’s still holding her, but he gives her up easily when WinWin makes grabby hands at his daughter. WinWin immediately hugs her and you can see Mei smiling like the happiest little baby.

For the first time since you saw her, right now as you look at the way she’s looking at her father, you realize that Mei is like a real little human. Like, on some level you’ve known that this whole time. You’ve known it since you first felt her move inside you, since you heard her first cry, since you spent all night watching her breathe.

After a little while, the others drift away, making excuses to leave, and then it’s just you and WinWin with your daughter. You scoot close beside him so you can rest your head on his shoulder, looking down at Mei cradled in his arms. Her eyelids are growing heavy, a pacifier between her lips now.

“Sometimes, when I first wake up in the morning,” WinWin says in a hushed tone, “Sometimes I think that this has all just been a dream. That I’m going to roll over, get up, and we’re going to be back where we were a year ago, before we even knew you were pregnant, and in that moment after just waking up, my heart drops. And I think that it was such a good dream.” He sighs.

Mei’s eyes fall shut, and WinWin looks down at her.

“I can’t imagine my life without her.” WinWin admits. “I hope you know that. The day I got that test result, best day of my life. I just.... I can’t even describe....”

“I understand.” You sit up a bit and kiss his cheek. “And I’m happy you’re her dad. I don’t know if I’ve ever actually said those words to you. But you’re so good at this.”

“So you’re saying I’m the best boyfriend?” WinWin smiles over at you, and judging by the way that his gaze briefly flicks past your face, over your shoulder toward where the door to your bedroom is, you assume one of the others has come to call, and WinWin’s looking to irritate whoever it is. He meets your gaze again as he says, “You’re saying that all along you wished I would be the dad, and you were just playing along with Jaehyun’s fantasies of him potentially being the dad.”

You look over and see Jaehyun leaning in the doorway, arms folded across his chest. 

Honestly your mouth waters at the sight. He looks like he’s ready for climbing into bed and staying there. Shirtless and wearing sweatpants, hair pushed back with a headband. 

“I’m glad Mei’s your daughter, WinWin. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to make Jaehyun a daddy too.” You trace your gaze down the length of Jaehyun’s body, barely able to contain yourself. 

“Alright,” WinWin groans. “I guess that’s my cue to take our daughter and go. You look like you’re about to jump him, baby.”

“You don’t have to go.” You kneel up on your bed when WinWin stands up to go.

He shakes his head. “I’m not staying here with her while you eye-fuck Jaehyun.” He looks the other man up and down. “Have fun. Looks like you could both use it.” WinWin pats Jaehyun on the shoulder as they pass each other, and you watch WinWin leaving the room, holding Mei to his shoulder, kissing her head softly.

The softness you feel at that sight wars entirely with the lust you feel when Jaehyun slinks into your bed.

One knee lands between yours, a hand to your shoulder gently presses you back, and then Jaehyun’s over top of you, his lips press against yours. It feels so good to just kiss him, to feel his body on yours, all heat and hard planes. You love the soft little grunt of pleasure he makes against your lips when you trail a hand down his chest, fingers brushing over his nipple. You love the amused sound of surprise he makes when you suddenly push him over, rolling him beneath you.

Jaehyun’s hair’s grown long over these last several weeks, and now it flares out on the bed in a not-entirely-flattering manner. But you sit on his hips, reach forward to pluck the headband from his hair, and you toss it aside so you can run your fingers freely through his hair as you sink back in to kiss him some more.

“Did you mean what you said?” Jaehyun moans a few moments later as you begin to helplessly shift your hips. “About wanting to make me a daddy too?”

“Mmmh.” You kiss down his throat. “I would gladly give you a baby, I think. You clearly want one all your own.”

Jaehyun puts a hand to your shoulder, applying gentle pressure to get you to stop for just a moment. “Hey, look at me.”

You lift your head from his throat.

When Jaehyun’s eyes are looking right into yours, he says, “I want you to know that I am perfectly happy with Mei as my daughter. You know that, right?” You start to sink back down to get back to what you were doing, but Jaehyun catches your chin between his fingers. “I don’t want you to think that you, like, owe me a biological baby, okay? I know I always talk about this breeding kink thing, but in the end it’s just that, just a kinky thing. Of course, I would love to have a baby with you, but I don’t want you to feel obligated, okay? Tell me you know that.”

“I know, Jae.” You peck him on the lips. “But I want to make you happy too. And I don’t think I want to stop with just one kid. Especially when I see how you all dote on her. You’re all really amazing dads.”

Jaehyun chuckles, shaking his hand still holding your chin a little. “Don’t you miss our days of doting on you? Spoilt baby.” He flips things back over, sweeping your hands up over your head, pinning your wrists against the mattress. “Want me to spoil you again, princess?”

Warmth blooms through you, tingling down to your fingertips and toes as Jaehyun looks at you and talks to you like that. His hand dives under your shirt, pushing it higher up your chest until your bra is exposed; one flick of his wrist and the nursing bra you’re wearing falls apart, and your breasts are freed for him.

“Jaehyun, please.” Your breathy whine does exactly what you want.

Jaehyun, with one hand still pinning your wrists above your head, lowers his mouth to your breast. His other hand dips inside the shorts you’re wearing, inside your panties too. You gasp and arch into his touch as he grazes your clit. So enamored are you by the things he’s making you feel, that you don’t notice at first when he removes his hand from your wrist. It’s only as you feel your shorts and panties being tugged down that you realize your hands are free, but you leave them together above your head as Jaehyun pulls his mouth from you and shimmies your shorts away.

“God, you’re so fucking sexy.” Jaehyun sinks down low, lying on his belly between your legs. His hands press against your thighs, getting you to spread open a little farther. He leans up to kiss your belly just below your navel, right where the butterflies are going wild in your gut.

Sure, Xiaojun ate you out when you had sex with him, and you’ve fucked a couple of the others since that, but you haven’t had Jaehyun’s tongue on you in what feels like ages. Definitely for several months. So seeing him between your legs like this has really stirred you up, and you can feel yourself dripping more just thinking about his tongue and sweet lips on your pussy.

“Gonna make you cum until you can’t take anymore.” Jaehyun murmurs, kissing lower, his breath fanning over your wetness. “I love spoiling you, baby. Just let me know if it gets to be too much.”

And then there he is, fingers spreading your labia apart to give him direct access to suck your clit between his lips. You can’t stand how well Jaehyun knows you, how he knows exactly every move to make right now to get you to cum quickest. He buries his face against you, eating you out with such intensity and devotion that you’re lightheaded even before your first orgasm crashes over you. And it doesn’t stop there. Waves of pleasure as Jaehyun keeps licking your pussy, fucking you with his tongue, making vibrations to carry you through it by moaning as you drip on his tongue.

When Jaehyun sharply sucks your clit back into his mouth after that second orgasm, you squeeze your thighs around his head, and you whine, “Too much, Jae. Back off.”

He does slowly pull himself up onto his knees, lifting a hand to drag it back across his mouth, though he still licks his lips again.

“Good, princess? You only came twice. Don’t you want more?” As he shifts a little, you notice the tent in the front of his sweatpants. Immediately you want to offer to jerk him off or blow him, but you know that Jaehyun is just as likely to turn that down, to go shower and take care of himself instead, so you entice him the only way that you know for certain will have him staying.

You spreak your legs apart again. “I’m not finished. I want you inside me. Told you I want to have your baby too, didn’t I?”

“Stop. This is about you. Not me.” Jaehyun says, but he’s already got a hand on your hip, is already rolling you onto your belly. “Want to get on your knees, precious?”

You lift your ass up, cheek still against the bed, and Jaehyun slicks his fingers against your pussy, giving you just his fingertips before they disappear again, his fingers damp on your hips instead. You bite your lip to hold in the pathetic whimper that you almost made as you grind back against his fingers, pressing back until you feel the soft material covering his thighs bumping against your bare skin. His erection fits against your ass.

“Ah, shit.” Jaehyun moans, his hips pushing forward involuntarily.

“I need you, Jaehyun. I’ve missed your cock. It’s been so long since I had you inside me, remember?” You’re sure you’re creating a damp spot on the front of his pants, continuing to grind back against his erection. “Please fuck me, Jae. Please, Daddy?”

Jaehyun’s not always big on the daddy kink thing. That’s mostly Kun, occasionally Doyoung when he’s really feeling it. But from time to time, you’ve called Jaehyun daddy, and he’s loved it. Just as he does now.

You can feel him fumbling quickly with his pants, pushing them down around his thighs, his hands going back to your ass, thumbs spreading your cheeks so he can see as his desperately hard cock presses against your entrance and then as he pushes inside.

Jaehyun moans, swearing and sounding so lovely as he feels your warm vagina around him for the first time since the beginning of the year, like eight months almost. “Fuck, baby, you feel so good around me.”

“Yeah, Daddy?” You turn your head to the side, trying to get a look at Jaehyun’s face. “You missed my pussy?”

“Haven’t we all?” His hands slip from your ass to your hips, holding tightly as he starts thrusting into you. “Heard you keep telling most of them no when they come drooling after you, baby. Waiting for someone special? Only want Daddy’s cock to fill you up?”

He’s mostly right. Ever since Xiaojun, you’ve messed around with several of them. Johnny had come to you begging for attention as the one handjob you’d given him had been distracted and hurried. Kun and you had had a quick roll around the other morning, which ended with his fingers inside you and your hand down his pants. There was the moment when Jungwoo had sat there watching you try to nurse Mei, but when it turned out that she wasn’t hungry although your tits were hurting with the need to get the milk out, and he’d eagerly volunteered to help you with that instead of you having to sit there with the breast pump which was just annoying to have to deal with. You’d sat in his lap with his face buried against your tits, and after he’d had his fill, looking dazed and horny, you laid back on the bed for him so he could jerk off over your chest before licking it clean again.

For the most part, you’ve not engaged in actual penetrative sex with any of the guys since Xiaojun, but a couple weeks after that, you did share a single glass of wine with Doyoung, and it went straight to your head, making you feel all giddy and buzzy, so when Doyoung got you to your feet to go bed, you’d dragged him into a kiss. The kiss also went straight to your head, pulling and tugging Doyoung all the way into your bedroom with you, through the bathroom door, into the shower. It felt so good to have him in you again, moving against you, pinning you against the cool tile wall of the shower, water racing down your bodies and streaming between your lips as you kissed.

You’d had sex with Yuta too, convincing him to stay in bed with you one morning. He’d woken hard, your name on his lips, and as soon as he realized, Yuta hurried to climb from bed, to go take care of it himself, but you’d caught his arm and asked him to stay. Yuta was worried about hurting you, concerned about Mei in the corner. But she was already gone as it was actually quite late in the morning. You’d already fed her, and Taeil had taken her downstairs when he left your room. So you welcome Yuta into you, and he’s not normally so tender and romantic in bed. You know him better by the rough passion, each time normally touching on one of his kinks, but this time had been sweet and gentle, taking you apart second by second until you unraveled beneath him. He’d left afterwards, pressing a kiss to your forehead and promising he’d be back with breakfast in bed.

 But, Jaehyun was mostly right about you waiting for his cock. The few times you’ve had sex again, none of them had cum inside of you for one reason or another, and you know that if you tell him that now, it’ll really satisfy Jaehyun’s jealousy and his breeding kink, thinking that he’s the only one allowed to cum in you now.

“Waiting for you, Daddy,” you moan, gasping for breath as his tip drags right against your G spot. “Been waiting for your cum. Please, Jaehyun.”

“Of course, baby. I’ll give it to you.” He thrusts in deep, reaches a hand up to tangle his fingers in your hair so he can pull you up from where your face has been planted against the mattress.

Now, you know that you’ve not been trying to hold your moans in much, and Jaehyun’s definitely not being quiet either, so you’re not too surprised when your eyes open as Jaehyun tugs on your hair, and you see that all of these sounds have drawn some attention.

Johnny and Mark stand watching in the doorway.

No orgies, your doctor’s voice echoes in your mind. She’d been joking, you know that, but right now, you don’t care about how serious or not she’d been. You just want. You don’t think you can handle three of them—sure, you’ve had more and worse before than just three at once, but it’s been a long time, and your body would definitely not be up to it, already after just the two orgasms back-to-back that Jaehyun gave you, you were feeling it. You can take maybe one or two more, but not more than that.

“Jae, please,” you moan, throwing your head back so you can see his face. “Please.”

He glances over at the two in the doorway. He jerks his head, and Mark and Johnny come closer. Mark’s gaze is fixed on Jaehyun’s cock disappearing inside you. Johnny’s watching the way Jaehyun’s fingers are knotted in your hair.

“Are you finally giving her the treat she deserves, Jae?” Johnny asks as he joins you on the bed, kneeling in front of you. “How does she feel?”

“Sweet.” Jaehyun’s hand winds tighter in your hair, drawing you up more until your back is pressed to his chest, and his lips brush your throat. “Our baby girl feels so sweet. Tastes sweet too.” His tongue swipes quickly at your skin.

Johnny starts touching you too; a hand between your legs to rub at your clit, another raised up to tweak one of your nipples. And when he leans in, his lips touching the other side of your neck from Jaehyun’s lips, you lose control of yourself.

You keen at the attention being laved on you, an orgasm rocking through you.

Jaehyun’s teeth close down on your sensitive skin. Johnny chuckles, continuing to rub your clit and kiss your neck as you keep shaking, your body too overstimulated now on your third orgasm, pressed between two boyfriends with them still touching you.

“Oh my God, it’s too much,” you moan, shaking. “Jaehyun, Johnny.”

“Guys.” For the first time since entering the room, Mark speaks. “Back off, look at her.”

It’s a lot but you’re still fine. It’s not more than you can handle, though you appreciate Mark’s concern. But you don’t appreciate when Johnny pulls away, when Jaehyun stops thrusting toward his own orgasm.

You shake your head. “No, keep going.” You reach back, fingernails digging into Jaehyun’s hip. “Please, Jaehyun, I told you I want you to cum in me. Keep going. I need it.”

“Love when you beg for it.” Jaehyun picks back up where he left off, chasing his orgasm, and it’s only another few moments before he’s cumming, the long-awaited heat of his orgasm spilling inside you. “Mmmh,” Jaehyun moans, “now you’re all mine, baby. Gonna give Mei a little sister or brother, right?” He kisses your neck and you shoulder, and as he pulls his hips back from yours, you can turn around in his arms, and he kisses you on the lips.

“Come on, when’s my turn?” Johnny asks, his voice teasing, his hands reaching for your hips. “I’ve missed you too.”

You break the kiss with Jaehyun, twisting around somewhat uncomfortably to bat Johnny’s hands away. “I can’t, Johnny. It’s already been too much, too quick. I shouldn’t have even done that much probably.” It’s not like that sex had been too wild or anything at all, just a bit rougher than the others have been since you were cleared for sex again, but you can already feel a dull ache setting into those muscles.

Johnny sighs and leans back against your pillows. You can see the bulge in the front of his pants, and it hurts you to know how much he wants you, to know that the most you can offer him right now is another handjob or a blowjob, but not what he wants. He looks at you for a long moment, considering, and then he sits up, pushes himself off the bed, and walks out the door.

You sink back against Jaehyun, and he wraps his arms around you. Mark’s still standing there, looking after Johnny, but as the door swings shut, Mark looks back at you and Jaehyun. You groan, reaching down to dip your fingers between your legs, the cum dripping out of you now. “I feel so gross now.”

Jaehyun lets go of you, flopping down onto his back, eyes fluttering shut. “We should take a nap. Mark, you joining?”

There’s just barely enough room for three people on your bed, but it doesn’t matter, because Mark shakes his head. “But if you feel gross, how does a bath sound?”

You nod.

Jaehyun makes a little noise, stretching out an arm to lay it over your lap possessively, keeping you there in bed with him.

Mark rolls his eyes a little. “You can join us, Jaehyun. That tub might be big enough to fit the three of us and your jealousy.”

Jaehyun opens his mouth to retort, but you quickly cover his mouth with your hand. “Let’s not argue. Let’s just relax with a soak in the bath, then we can go see what WinWin and Mei are up to.”

After Mark steps out to go run the bath, Jaehyun moves his arm away.

He’s lying there stark naked, not trying to cover up at all, and you once more find your gaze drawing attentively and appreciatively over his form from head to toe. But as you return to looking at his face, you find that he’s watching you, smiling and blushing ever-so-slightly.

“Enjoying the view?”

You reach over, pinching lightly one of his nipples. “Shut up. You know you’re handsome. I don’t need to tell you that. And also, you don’t need to act so jealously possessive when Mark offers me a bath, like you just fucked me so good, Jaehyun. If I thought I could’ve handled more I would have gladly begged you to keep going, would’ve let Johnny and Mark too.” You lean down so your face is right above his. Jaehyun blinks slowly, dazed by your sudden proximity, and he makes a soft pleasant humming sound when you kiss him. “Only would’ve let you cum in me, though,” you promise him.

Jaehyun grins, resting his hand against the back of your head as he brings you back down into another, longer kiss.

You’re still kissing when Mark pops his head out of the bathroom to tell you the bath is ready.

“Coming?” You ask Jaehyun.

He shakes his head, watching you slip off the bed. “Think I’ll go steal Mei from whoever’s got her. Maybe I’ll just go take a nap.” But he’s still in your bed when you close the bathroom door behind you.

The tub swirls with steam and bubbles, the air scented with vanilla. Mark’s already soaking in the tub, but he opens his eyes as you ease a foot into the water. “Where’s Jaehyun?” He asks, his eyes following each inch of your skin that sinks beneath the bubbles.

“Decided to go bother whoever has Mei.” You sigh as the bubbles brush your chin, the warm water enveloping you, already working magic to relax that ache you’re feeling. “This feels so nice.”

“It does.” Mark’s hand brushes your arm beneath the water, circling around so he can pull you closer and closer until you’re sitting with your back to his chest.

“This is nicer,” you sigh, leaning you head back as Mark kisses the side of your head. “Relaxing.”

His hand slides down to yours, twisting your fingers together underwater. You rest your head on his shoulder, his head rests against yours, and you let your eyes close, feeling safe and good, all wrapped up in warmth and Mark.

After a few moments, he starts humming, playing with your fingers. He brings your intertwined hands up out of the water, and you smile to yourself. Mark rubs his thumb back and forth and back and forth and again and again at the base of your third finger until you finally open your eyes, turn your head slightly, and you ask, “What are you doing?”

“Just thinking,” Mark answers. “Remembering the night I proposed to you, how quickly you shot me down.” He kisses your head, then says, “I still want to marry you, by the way. I know things have been.... a little different since Mei. I know she’s not mine, so proposing like I did back then was maybe a little silly, but it doesn’t change how I feel about you at all. I still love you as wildly as I have done since I met you and even more. I know that you would probably shoot me down in a heartbeat again if I tried to propose, but I’m just thinking about how I would still gladly spend forever with you and Mei.”

Mark lifts your hand up, kissing right there at the base of your finger where a ring would sit if you’d said yes to him.

Mei’s giggles quickly become your favorite sound in the universe. She giggles when Miso comes up to snuggle beside her. She giggles when her dads or the other guys play with her. She giggles when you talk to her in silly voices or when you blow raspberries on her belly. She smiles and makes babbling noises, such a happy baby.

“Mei-mei!” Ten coos, lifting her up. “How’s the happy little princess today?” He scrunches his nose at her adorably.

“She’s been fussy today, actually.” You’ve had her lying on a blanket on the floor in the living room while you sit nearby and fold laundry, and she’s been making little crying noises for the better part of an hour, but every time you’ve checked her diaper she’s been dry, and she’s not hungry either. You’ve tried holding her and talking to her, giving her her favorite new toy. Nothing had worked until you put YouTube on the TV and started playing videos of the guys—music videos, interviews, reality shows, videos from their channels.

They’ve all been gone all day. The 127 members, the Dreamies, and WayV were all out, and you don’t know the last time you were in the house without any of them, or if you’ve ever been there without them. It was strange, and maybe that’s what Mei had been picking up on. And now Ten’s the first one back.

“She seems good now.” Ten sits down on the sofa, sitting Mei back against his chest. She’s making little happy sounds, which only turn to giggles when Ten takes her hands and starts clapping them together between his. That entertains her for another minute or two before she starts getting whiny again.

Ten watches in surprise as you start playing one of WayV’s videos and Mei immediately calms down, her eyes watching the TV screen, transfixed.

“Honestly, I think she wants WinWin.” You sigh, folding the last of the clothes and sitting it on top of the neat pile you’ve made. “She’s only four months old, and already such a Daddy’s girl. I swear she already has some idea of the time he normally comes home, because she just starts to get so excited and looks at the door. And watch, when he starts talking.” You point at the video, and as WinWin appears and starts talking Mei makes such happy sounds.

Ten laughs. “Is it just him she does that for?”

You shrug. “Sometimes Jaehyun. I think it’s because they’re the ones always stealing her from everyone else. You know how possessive they both are of her.”

“And of you.” Ten bounces Mei a little in his lap. She’s got her hand shoved into her mouth, drooling around it, and Ten just watches her do it with amusement. “Johnny came to me a few days ago, complaining that you’d left him on the edge again. Something about Jaehyun calling you about Mei, interrupting what you were doing, then you left him like that?”

You groan. You know exactly what he’s talking about. A few days ago, Jaehyun had happily volunteered to babysit Mei to give you just a few hours to yourself to relax. That relaxing had consisted of you going to get a wax (just because Doyoung had eaten you out and afterwards commented that he missed the times when you would be so smooth down there) and a massage and a trim for your hair too. And when you got home, Jaehyun wasn’t finished having quality Mei time (a nap side-by-side on the floor; it was adorable and you snapped quite a few photos of them), so you climbed up the stairs to your bedroom, but before you went inside, Johnny had peered out of his room, saw the glowing happy state of you, and invited you inside.

You’d been excited to show off to him how soft and smooth you looked, and Johnny had been equally as excited to get to experience it. So he’d laid you back on his bed, touching and stroking you until your belly was on fire with lust, your pussy dripping, mind going fuzzy with just how much you needed Johnny to make you cum. He’d taken photos too, a few small video snippets as well, sending them into your groupchat with your boyfriends to show each of them what they were missing out on, and as he teased you with light brushes of his fingers over your clit, Johnny had read out the responses of what the others were saying.

By the time that Johnny was finally inside you, his big cock feeling so good, and his warm arms and body surrounding you, making you lowkey lose your mind at the all-encompassing feeling of Johnny Suh, you’d forgotten about everything but him.

Until there was a frantic knock on the door.

Both of you ignored it. Lips locked together, Johnny’s hips knocking you higher up the bed with your hand braced against the headboard to keep from ramming into it.

It took another few harried knocks on the door before Johnny grunted a clearly annoyed, “What?”

“It’s Mei,” Jaehyun said from outside the door. “She woke up crying and she feels a little warm, maybe feverish. Sorry to interrupt, but I don’t—“

He didn’t even get the chance to say anything else before you were shoving Johnny away from you, pulling clothes on that weren’t even yours, and you were out the door. Mei had been fine; it wasn’t a fever or anything, she was just a little warm and hungry, and by the time you got that sorted, you couldn’t even find Johnny to finish things off.

In the back of your mind, at the time, you had wondered if Jaehyun had just fibbed about Mei feeling feverish just to break up what was going on with you and Johnny. If he’d seen the photos and videos in the chat, if his jealousy had overwhelmed him enough to make up any excuse to get it to stop. You’d convinced yourself that that was ridiculous; Jaehyun seemed genuinely concerned that Mei might be sick.

But right now, Ten looks at you like he believes Jaehyun had done exactly what you were suspicious of.

“I thought Mei was sick, so I had to go take care of her, Ten.” You push to your feet, coming over to offer your hands to your daughter. She babbles excitedly as Ten hands her over to you. “It’s not like I could tell Jaehyun to just go watch her, make sure she didn’t get too high of a temperature while I stayed to finish Johnny off. And by the time I’d settled her down, I couldn’t find Johnny anywhere to pick back up or to even apologize.”

Ten nods. “Yeah, he was with me. Don’t worry. I took good care of him.” He grins mischievously. “But afterwards we were talking, and he said that kind of thing has been happening a lot. Him feeling left behind or left out. I think you two should talk.”

You think he’s right.

It’s hours later when Johnny gets home. Mei’s asleep upstairs; you’ve got the baby monitor beside you at the table while Chenle and Jisung argue over who gets the last ramen cup in the cabinet. Jungwoo, Mark, and Sungchan are playing video games together in the living room with Yuta and Taeil calling out advice and commentary from where they’re watching. You feel at peace again with the house back to normal, loud and busy and relatively chaotic.

Yuta greets Johnny as he walks through the door, and as he passes the doorway into the kitchen, you call his name. He passes by then backs up, pulling out a headphone. “Did you say my name?”

You nod. “Can I talk to you?”

Johnny pulls his headphones out of his ears, tucking them away in his pocket. “Of course.”

Yuta strides into the kitchen then, bypassing the two youngest members of the group who are now standing at the fridge together, and before either of them notice, he steals the ramen they’d been arguing over. You shake your head at him, and he just smiles.

“Yuta, can you take this.” You hand him the baby monitor. “Just keep an ear on it for Mei, please?”

Yuta glances between the baby monitor and your face and Johnny’s. Something clicks in his eyes, and his smile turns more suggestive. “Ah, alright. I’ve got our little angel. You two have fun.” He accepts the monitor, and walks back out of the room with the steaming ramen in the other hand.

Johnny follows you as you walk outside into their small yard. It’s deep night outside, quiet but the air still buzzes with the nature sounds of insects and the wind. It rustles your hair as you sit down on the bench, Johnny settling down beside you.

“What’s up?” He asks. You notice the way that he reaches down to the knee of his jeans, fiddling with the frayed hole there.

“I was talking with Ten earlier,” you say, “and he told me that last week when I skipped out on you, you went to him instead.”

Johnny nods. “Yeah, like, you don’t have a problem with that, right? Kun and Taeyong still fuck around with him too.”

“I know. I’m fine with that. But, Johnny, Ten said that you’re feeling left out in this relationship lately, and that’s what I want to talk about.” You reach over, laying your hand over his on his knee. “Why do you feel that way?”

Johnny’s quiet for a few seconds, looking at your hand on his, and then he lets out a short, sarcastic laugh. “I mean, it’s not a ridiculous way to feel right now, is it? Not baseless? I can count on one hand the number of times that I’ve had your wholly undivided attention, uninterrupted by someone else within the last, like, five months almost.”

“You mean since Mei was born?” You withdraw your hand. “Johnny, I’m sorry you feel that way, but you know I can’t just ignore my daughter, right? If she needs me, I have to go, because I’m her mother and that’s my responsibility.”

“Of course I get that. I know that you need to take care of her. It’s just fucking annoying when you leave me in the middle of something sexual.” Johnny argues, “Like, that time you gave me a handjob, and you definitely would’ve just left if I didn’t beg you to finish me off, and even then you did it so quick then just left. And when Jaehyun was fucking you, me and Mark walked in, got me so hard and then just told me to leave pretty much. Then there was the other day. And I get it, Mei needed you, but it just pissed me off that Jae interrupted, especially since it turned out that she was fine.”

You don’t know what to say. Those examples he gave you, two of those times it was because your daughter needed you, and the other time your body literally couldn’t take any more so there was nothing you could have done for him.

“And it just seems like you never have time for me anymore. There’s the sex stuff, but also, even when we’re together just talking or watching a movie or whatever it may be, I just feel like you’re not there with me. Like you’re thinking about something else, not listening to me or wanting to be there.” Johnny tilts his head back and looks up at the sky. “I love you, I really do, but lately it’s just felt like maybe I shouldn’t be here anymore. I want someone I can go have fun with and not have to worry about leaving me at a moment’s notice.”

“Well, I’m a mother, Johnny. That’s going to happen.” You tell him. “She comes first; she always will.”

“I know.” Johnny folds his arms in front of his chest. “So maybe we should end this. I thought that I was ready for a relationship like this, but now with all things considered – the other guys and Mei and everything – I think it’s too serious and too complex for me to be happy trying to keep doing this. Your attention is split too many different ways, and I hate ending it, because like I said, I do love you. But I... I just think that maybe we want different things.”

You look down at your hands, willing the tears not to flow, but you can already feel the hot tingle behind your eyes, the tightening in your throat. “You wanted a baby, Johnny. Do you remember that? We talked about it before I was pregnant. Hell, we talked about it while I was pregnant, when you were coming to the appointments with me, meeting my parents. You remember that, right? But now you’re saying that you can’t deal with having my attention split between you and her?”

“That’s not it.” Johnny’s voice drops low, offended and defensive as he says, “Not entirely. If it was just that, just split between me and Mei, I could handle that. But it’s the fact that you’re in love with all of us, that you’re dating all of us. That’s what I can’t deal with. You get that, right?”

You hate to admit it, but you do get it. This moment is strangely similar to when you and Lucas broke up. He had other reasons, mostly his growing feelings for Chaerin, but he also told you that one of the reasons was that he felt that your attention was too divided.

“I get it,” you agree. But you can’t bring yourself to look at Johnny.

“Are you mad at me?” Johnny asks after a few silent moments.

You bite your cheek, blink away the tears, and then you say, “Well, it’s not like I’m jumping for joy or anything over here. But I get it. I don’t like it, but not many people do like being broken up with.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes again. His hand rests briefly on your shoulder, and then he’s gone, leaving just the heat behind from his hand.

Kun’s the one that finds you a while later. You’re not sure how long you’ve been sitting out there, but the light in the kitchen has gone out when you hear the door.

“There you are.” Kun steps out, closing the door behind him to come sit beside you. “I was starting to get a little worried when I couldn’t find you anywhere inside.” As soon as he sits down Kun wraps his arm around your shoulders, drawing you into his side, and you lean your head down on his shoulder. “I’m guessing that talk with Johnny didn’t go well?”

You start to lift your head, but Kun lays his hand on your hair, pressing you back down. “How did you know about that?” You ask him.

“Ten. He told me that he told you what Johnny had been saying, and that you two needed to talk.” He strokes your hair soothingly. “And when I got home earlier, Yuta had the baby monitor, and when I asked, he said you were out here talking with Johnny.”

“Yeah.” You sigh. It feels like there’s a weight on your chest that won’t go away. You hate this feeling, like maybe if you’d just done something different, maybe you could make everyone in this relationship happy. But as you’ve been thinking about this since Johnny left you out here, the only thing different you could come up with is just choosing one of them from the start; that or not getting pregnant, but you can’t bring yourself to regret that one bit at all.

“What happened? If you want to talk about it?” Kun asks.

You pull your head away from his hand slowly, and Kun moves to let you do so. He makes a little sound as you sink down, resting your head in his lap and taking his hand to bring it back to your hair. The bench is a little hard and uncomfortable to lie on like this, but you don’t really care too much.

“We broke up. I didn’t, like, come out here thinking that’s what was going to happen. I thought we’d just talk, come up with a compromise or something, and then go back inside happily.” You close your eyes tight. “But Johnny thinks that I’m juggling too many people in this relationship, that I don’t have enough time and attention for all of you, plus being Mei’s mom on top of all of that. And he’s right, I guess. That’s partially why Lucas left me, and I know things have probably gotten worse since I had Mei.”

Kun twirls your hair around one of his fingers. “A little bit, but I thought we all understood that you have to focus on her. We can handle ourselves. But Mei needs you entirely; she’s a baby. And we, or at least I, can see that you’re doing your best to be what all of us need you to be. Aren’t you exhausted?”

You rub your cheek against Kun’s leg, loving the soft feel of his pajama pants against your skin. “A little exhausted.”

“You need a vacation.” Kun suggests. “You barely leave the house, so you need to just get away, get out of the city. Probably get away from all of us.”

A laugh bubbles out of you, and you turn onto your back so you’re looking up at Kun. He’s smiling, eyes glinting in the dim light. “Right, get away from all of you. And what about Mei? Do you think I could leave her here for a week or even a few days? With all of you?” You laugh again. “I love all of you, and I know most of you are good with her, but really, Kun? If you want me to relax, leaving my daughter here in this house without me would almost be as bad as leaving her in a fraternity house.”

Kun frowns. “We’re not that bad.”

You lift a hand up to touch his cheek. “No, you’re not. I know I can trust a couple of you with her, but I still couldn’t leave her.”

The longest you’ve been away from Mei is about four hours, and even then, she was only about twenty minutes away from you. What Kun’s suggesting, leaving the city for a getaway would last much longer and put your farther away from her than you’ve ever been before.

“Take her with you, then.” Kun turns his head, brushing his lips to your hand. “You, her, WinWin. Take a little family trip. He should have a few free days coming up on his schedule. And don’t mind anyone getting jealous about it if you take WinWin with you. He’s her dad. I think the three of you deserve some quality time together.”

It does all sound like a very tempting idea, so you keep that little idea wrapped up nicely in your mind for a few days, coming back to it again and again every time that a stressor pops up in your life. Like when you bump into Johnny and his expression shifts into something that’s a combination of sadness and concern and apology. After the third time of that happening, you decide maybe taking some time away from the house would be a good thing.

You bring it up to WinWin on a Tuesday morning.

He’s just woken up, rolled out of bed, and strolled upstairs into your bedroom. His hair’s still a wild mess, standing up in various direction, and looking especially silly because of the recent dyeing it had. You laugh and reach up to smooth it down as he flops down into your bed, dragging the sheets up. Miso hisses as the sudden sheet movement disrupts him bathing himself at the foot of the bed, and he stalks off, his tail held high, looking back once before he disappears out the door to give WinWin a disgruntled look.

“I want to go back to sleep,” he mumbles into your pillow. “But Hendery wouldn’t stop being loud. I get that he isn’t the one who had a schedule running into early this morning, but come on? Being awake this early?” WinWin smashes his face into your pillow, pulls the blanket up over his head entirely, and falls silent.

“You have a few days cleared on your schedule soon, right?” You lift the edge of the blanket so he can breathe. The lump under the blanket moves to signal a yes. “Do you want to get away and relax with me somewhere that’s not here?”

WinWin emerges from the blanket, squinting against the light. “What?”

“Kun suggested it the other night. He thinks you, me, and Mei should get away. Well, initially he just said me, but when I laughed about leaving Mei here in this house alone with all of you, he amended it to include you and her too.” You quickly reach up, trying to push his hair flat again, unsuccessfully. “What do you think?”

WinWin nods. “Sounds good to me.”

And three days later, you and WinWin pack up Mei and a weekend bag, and drive away to a beach a few hours away. You’re not there necessarily for the beach—after all Mei is only a few months old and you definitely don’t want to expose her to the sun or to the heat for too long—though it does make a very pretty view from the window of your hotel room. The pretty blue water lapping against the beach below makes you pause at the window, holding Mei who also looks out at the water transfixed (or maybe she just sees her reflection in the window and wonders who that other baby is), pressing her little handprints to the glass.

“Do you remember the last time we came to the beach?” WinWin asks, sneaking up behind you. He drops a quick kiss to your cheek, then brings a hand up to cradle Mei’s head.

“Mhmm.” You hum, and Mei waves a hand at the window, fingers leaving streaks on the glass. “I’m pretty sure last time we came to the beach is probably when we made her.” You stroke her soft cheek. “That was such a good day.”

WinWin laughs, and Mei turns her head to look up at him with her sparkly dark eyes. “I remember that day, like, I was joking around with Taeyong and Hendery, and then I looked over at you and Dejun sitting on the end of that dock. You were just sunbathing, and then the next time I looked over you were making out, straddling him, God, it was really sexy. I never pegged him as being the type to mess around in public like that, but neither was I really until right then. I still can’t believe we did that out in broad daylight where anyone could’ve seen us. Do you really think that’s the time that we made her?”

You shrug. “Probably. That’s definitely around the time that she was conceived. And Mei’s our little sea star. She loves her baths, and when I play white noise to help her sleep, the ocean waves are her favorite. Of course, that could all be a coincidence.”

WinWin smiles as Mei starts making nonsensical babbling sounds, kicking her legs as she looks back out the window at the beach and the people milling around in the sand. “We really did something good, didn’t we? Making her.”

“Absolutely.” She certainly wasn’t planned, but you don’t regret one thing about it. You and WinWin talk about this semi-regularly, both of you just absolutely enchanted watching your daughter exist, amazed that she’s the product of both of you. “And to think you almost didn’t come with us to the beach that day.”

WinWin shakes his head. “I don’t want to think about that. Mei-mei, you want daddy to hold you?” He repeats it in Mandarin, and as he says her full name Mingmei, she lifts her arms to him, so you pass her over. WinWin cuddles her, continuing to speak to her quietly as she gazes up at his face and clings tightly to one of his fingers.

It’s the next day when the three of you go down to the beach early on in the day, before the sun’s really beaming down, but nevertheless you’ve slathered Mei with some baby-safe sunscreen, you have a little adorable hat on her head shielding her from the weak sun rays. It’s not really warm enough to get in the water, but it’s nice enough that you and WinWin can sit on the sand for a while, put Mei’s toes in the sand, and eventually you carry her to the water’s edge and hold her right there, her little feet curl up as a cool wave washes over them.

“Does she not like it?” WinWin asks, chuckling as Mei lets out a sad little cry just once.

“You’re not too sure about that are you, Mei?” You laugh. She puts her feet back down after a minute, just to have another wave crash nearby, racing thinly over the sand, covering her feet. She watches the water carefully, and the next time it happens she giggles, quickly adapting to the strangeness of the water.

You don’t spend all day at the beach. There’s a temple nearby up atop a tall hill, so you put on a baby carrier strapped to your chest, fit Mei snugly in it, and you and WinWin go exploring with Mei along for the ride. It’s a nice walk, pretty out, and as you follow a path along the seaside, the breeze blows salty spray up at your faces. Once you’ve reached the peak of the hill, Mei is ready to be free of the prison you’ve got her strapped into on your chest, ready to be set free and held by her dad.

It’s breezy and cool, relaxing here atop the hill, looking down at the waves below. There aren’t too many people up here, so you decide to take a seat on one of the benches overlooking the sea, unpacking a little picnic.

WinWin sits across from you on the bench, both of you facing each other, and he holds Mei in his lap, her sitting up against his chest, waving her hands excitedly as you pull out a bottle you’ve kept chilled with your food. When you try to get her into your arms so you can feed her with the bottle, Mei just whines in protest, clearly wanting to stay with her dad.

WinWin, to be fair, tries his best to not grin in victory as you hand the bottle over to him so he can feed her.

“You know I carried you for nine months, right?” You tell her. “But he’s your favorite?”

WinWin just laughs, and as you watch him laughing and smiling, feeding your daughter, you fully understand why he’s her favorite. Why wouldn’t he be?

You take photos of them together, sweet snapshots of memory as the day goes on. WinWin feeding her, him holding her on his shoulders (you were both surprised and pleased just a few days before as she’d sat upright so well by herself), and even a photo of them looking out at the water with their faces side-by-side as WinWin talked to her in a gentle voice. But as the day goes on Mei starts to grow sleepy and fussy, crying loud enough that heads in the crowd turn to look, so you decide to go back to the hotel.

You sit out on the balcony together, the door cracked open behind you so you can hear if Mei starts crying inside. WinWin stands against the railing, and you stand beside him, your head on his shoulder.

“This is nice.” He sighs. “I don’t get many vacations, not many trips where I can just get away from all the cameras and everything.”

“Nice to get to relax some, isn’t it?” You turn your head and kiss his shoulder. “At least one good thing’s come out of Johnny and I breaking up.”

WinWin makes a soft sound of agreement. “We all knew this wasn’t going to be easy. From the start, we’ve all known that we couldn’t all stay here, doing this with you. I remember after we all found out that Doyoung had kissed you, we thought that was going to be the end, that you’d chosen him. But then a few days later Taeyong was bragging you’d kissed him. For a long time, this didn’t seem, like, real—that you chose all of us, that we were doing a relationship like this, and even when I finally realized that this was happening.... I definitely didn’t think that we’d end up here.”

“What, you didn’t imagine that all of our fun and fucking would lead to Mei?” You glance back over your shoulder. She’s asleep in a little portable playpen in a clear line of sight to you.

“Something like that.” WinWin’s voice sounds strange, and it’s only when he brushes your hair back behind your ear that you look up at him. “I love you. I’m so glad that we have Mei, even if the circumstances were kinda unconventional. But you’re happy, aren’t you? With Mei, with me?”

The longing in his voice, in his touch, warms your heart, and you lean in to his touch. “I am happy, Sicheng.”

You tilt your head to look him in the eye, and then he’s leaned in and is kissing you. The kiss is soft, tender, filled with every ounce of that longing that you’d just heard in his voice. You feel positively light and warm, so you let him guide you back inside. The balcony door slides shut behind you both, and you move past the playpen where Mei sleeps soundly, back into the bedroom. You let him peel your clothes away, kissing down your neck and shoulders and chest.

“You smell like coconut,” he murmurs as he kisses down your body, nose skimming between your breasts. “Mmm, love it.”

It’s like you’re drunk on the sun-warm heat of WinWin, the summer smell of sunshine in his hair when he’s kissing you on the lips again, the way that having him inside you and all around you makes you forget that it’s the tail end of summer and not the highest hottest part. You feel so good as WinWin makes love to you, both of you fallen into this high, dreamy haze together.

Even in the aftermath, sweaty and sticky skin pressed together, you can’t get enough of kissing him, his body still tucked between your legs, your fingers tangled in his hair as he lays against your chest.

“Mmm, god,” WinWin moans softly, kissing softly beneath your jaw, down the side of your throat, and retracing his steps to your lips. You smile into the kiss, giggling a bit as the way that his fingers brush over your ribs tickles. WinWin smiles, kisses you once again, and then leans up, breaking the kiss. He just looks down at you, and as you blink your eyes open, WinWin says, “Marry me?”

“What?” You trail your fingers over his miles of exposed skin. “Like, right now?”

He shrugs. “Whenever. I love you, and we have Mei, and I just want to marry you.” He kisses you again, but you put a hand to his shoulder, pressing him back.

“Dong Sicheng, are you serious?”

The warm glow pulses all around you, threatening to collapse or explode. The idea of what he’s proposing—marriage to him, a future with him as your husband and Mei’s father—it excites you, but terrifies you in equal measure. If you say yes to him, then what about the others? It’d be like a slap in the face. You love WinWin, of course you do, but you love them too.

You think of Mark, his underprepared proposal nearly a year ago, the hurt in his eyes when you’d told him no, but the persistent hope and love, the soft way that he traces a line around your ring finger when he holds your hand. You think of Jaehyun, a man so full of love and jealousy. You think of Taeil who looks at Mei as if maybe she could really be his daughter. You think of all of them.

“I am.” WinWin sits up, breaking contact with you, and the cool air floods in against your skin. “I want to marry you, but I know that you’re not going to tell me yes. Not now, anyway. But I just thought I should put that intention out there, let you know where I see this relationship going. I don’t expect you to actually tell me yes, so don’t worry your pretty head about it too much. Okay?”

He leans in, kisses your forehead, and then he’s slipping away, dragging his shorts back up, and he’s out of the room before you have the chance to say anything.

The rest of the vacation is very nice and relaxing, even after the slight awkwardness following WinWin’s proposal. Nevertheless, by the time you’re returning to Seoul, walking through the door of the big house with Mei in your arms, her fingers tugging at your hair, you’re pleased to be back.

The warmth of the beach faded quickly on the way back to Seoul where a chill has set in as the season turns over to autumn. As soon as you’re inside the house, Jaehyun, Taeil, and Taeyong are there, cooing at Mei, offering to take her from you. She goes easily into Taeyong’s arms, and he sweeps her away, playing with her and talking at her in a sweet baby voice.

Xiaojun’s there when you go back outside to help WinWin bring in the bags, and he pulls you quickly into a hug, tucking his face into your shoulder. You wrap your arms back around him, squeezing tightly.

Your reunion with most of your boyfriends goes as such, a warm hug, a murmured “I missed you,” a passionate kiss that gets booed and noises of disgust made at it. The last reunion is with Jungwoo as he gets home late from a schedule and comes into your room to use your shower, then crawls into bed with you and Mark, snuggling in between both of you.

“Where’s Mei?” He asks, casting one leg over yours, slinging an arm over Mark.

“Jaehyun and Doyoung are hoarding her,” Mark mumbles, pushing Jungwoo’s arm away. “How did the photoshoot go today?”

“Fine.” Jungwoo sighs, turning over so he’s on his back instead of his stomach. “They really liked Shotaro.”

You look at him, at the ever-so-slight downturn of his lips. “I’m sure they loved you too, Jungwoo. Like, yeah, Shotaro’s a cutie, but you....” You bite your lip and give him a once-over. “Very sexy. Sex appeal sells more than cuteness, you know. I know for sure your fans will buy up anything that’s got you looking sexy on the cover.” He’d looked so stunning when he walked into your room, his hair and makeup still done up from the shoot, and right now it’s all gone, but he is stretched out in your bed wearing only the towel around his waist.  

Maybe you reach out to touch him then, unable to hold yourself back when he’s lying there looking so tempting.

Jungwoo laughs at the ridiculously horny look you’re giving him. “Didn’t WinWin give you any sex while you were away? You haven’t looked this needy since before Mei, probably.”

“We did have sex. Several times. Should I tell you about them?” You can’t help it if you’re horny. Maybe that’s a good sign that your body is returning to how it was before the pregnancy, your libido skyrocketing again.

Mark leans up, resting his head on his hand as he watches your hands wander over Jungwoo’s chest, watches the way that Jungwoo’s nipples perk up, the way that Jungwoo bites his lip as you pinch at one of his nipples. You start telling them both about your fun on your little trip, continuing to touch Jungwoo as you do.

Mark just watches and listens, drinking in everything that’s happening. He watches you eventually swing your leg over Jungwoo’s lap, situating yourself right over the bulge that’s risen under the towel. He watches Jungwoo strip you of your shirt and bra; he moans a little as Jungwoo loses the towel and pulls you down, filling you with his cock. Mark moans again as Jungwoo starts touching your boobs, nuzzling against them, and then closing his lips around a nipple as you grind down on his erection. Jungwoo alone of your boyfriends is really into this; the others that tasted your milk thought it was okay or thought it was gross, but Jungwoo just genuinely loves doing this, tasting it on his tongue any chance he gets.

Jungwoo laves all of his attention on one, suckling as you ride him slowly. Then his other hand rises up to your other breast, the one closer to Mark, just massaging, his fingers occasionally tweaking your nipple.

And if Mark makes any sound you don’t hear it, but then he’s right there, head in front of your chest, tongue testing as milk leaks from your nipple while Jungwoo massages. Just as the first time it had been strangely very hot to have a boyfriend breastfeeding from you, so is it now, but multiplied as you’ve got two of them doing this.

As Mark grows more confident, he knocks Jungwoo’s hand away, and Jungwoo drops both of his hands to your hips, encouraging you to ride him faster. Both of them keep their mouths on your breasts even as you start fucking yourself on Jungwoo, feeling your orgasm building, getting closer. And then Mark’s hand slips down to your clit.

The orgasm bursts like a bubble of pleasure popped.

You shudder in their arms, quaking and moaning. Mark pulls his mouth from your tit, licking his lips.

“Good, Mark?” You ask after you catch your breath. You slump forward against Jungwoo. “Did you like that?”

Mark nods, looking a little dazed as if caught off guard by how much he’d liked it. You giggle, reaching to pull him in for a kiss, but just as you do, Jungwoo tips you backwards.

He drags your legs up around his hips, fucking into you now at his own pace, needing his own orgasm after he’s felt you cumming around him. Mark falls down beside you, happily seeking your kiss, swallowing down all of the moans that Jungwoo fucks out of you.

“Mark,” you sigh, “please. Please, let me help you feel good too.” Your hand searches down his body, looking for the spot where his shirt gives way to skin, so you can push your hand inside his shorts. “Mark, mm, please.”

Jungwoo nails a spot inside you that makes your eyes roll with pleasure, your hands grapple at the waistband of Mark’s shorts.

“You want my cock, baby?” Mark rolls away from you, getting off the bed so he can strip off his shirt and shorts, and when his weight next settles beside you, he’s naked, jerking his hand over his cock. “Open up, baby.”

Mark feeds you his cock, thrusting gently at first, his tip bulging your cheek, but you turn your head, breathe through your nose and let your jaw go slack, encouraging him to use your throat.

Neither of them are much for dirty talk, but as Jungwoo’s pace picks up to almost a brutal speed, you hear him start talking to Mark about you. “God, look at her, all open and pretty and wet for us, just a dripping fucktoy for both of us.”

“She’s our pretty slut again,” Mark says, thrusting down your throat, pinching one of your nipples. “Taking two cocks at once. When was the last time you did that, baby?”

It hasn’t been that long, not that you would tell Mark that even if you could right now, but the way that he’s now fucking your face makes it a little difficult to even draw breath, let alone attempt to speak.

Jungwoo cums a moment later, spilling his load inside you, but he keeps thrusting with his thumb on your clit until you experience your second orgasm of the night. He pulls out and leaves you and Mark, not that Mark notices really, too absorbed in fucking your face, feeling you moan and gag around him.

When Mark cums, he pulls back so just his tip is between your lips, and he looks down so he can see your eyes as you suck and flick your tongue over the slit on his tip. His hips just barely press forward, only the shallowest of thrusts between your lips, and he cums over your tongue, and you can feel just a bit of his cum dripping from the corner of your mouth.

Mark moans, swearing in at least two different languages, and after a moment he falls away from you, sinking back into his comfortable spot on the bed from earlier. You sit up, using your thumb to push what you’d spilled back into your mouth. Mark looks up at you as you straddle him, as you lean in to kiss him. He opens his mouth to your kiss, and makes a startled yet aroused sound as you let his cum leak from your mouth into his. But he takes it, kissing you with his cum passed between your mouths. It’s gross and dirty, but it’s something you’ve thought about doing before; you’re just surprised that Mark’s going along with it.

He swallows when you break the kiss, sitting up just a little so you can see his face.

Mark wrinkles his nose adorably. “That was gross. Does it always taste like that?”

You laugh and kiss his cheek. “Usually.”

Jungwoo returns a moment later, looking freshly rinsed clean, and he crawls back into bed with a damp cloth to wipe your face and chest and thighs down.

“Messy girl,” he teases as he watches you wipe between your own legs at where his cum is leaking out.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Mark mumbles, but Jungwoo’s already moving back off the bed, taking the cloth with him back to the bathroom. “Filthy, messy girl. Spitting my cum back into my mouth.”

He doesn’t sound like he didn’t like it, though.

You snuggle up against Mark’s side, your cheek on his shoulder, and Jungwoo cuddles up behind you, drawing the blankets up to cover all three of you. “Goodnight,” he whispers, kissing the back of your shoulder, “You know we love you, right? That we didn’t mean those things we said.”

You hum. “But I am a slut for all of you. I accepted that a long time ago.”

Mark pets your hair. “You’re an angel. Just go to sleep, babe.”

Several hours later you wake in the half-light of dawn in your bedroom. The door is cracked open a bit, letting in a little light from the hallway, and a nightlight glows in the corner, all of this allowing you enough light to see that Mei’s in her bed sound asleep. But it takes you another second to realize that Jungwoo is gone, that Mark is sitting up on the opposite side of the bed from you whispering to Doyoung.

“Doyoung?” You mumble, rolling over fully, stretching your arms above your head. “What are you doing? Where’d Jungwoo go?”

Mark leans over, kisses your forehead. “Go back to sleep. Jungwoo just felt like there wasn’t enough room with all three of us.” He brushes his fingers through your hair for another moment, and then your eyelids sink shut again.

The next time you wake, it’s much later. The sun is shining through the windows, Mark is asleep once more beside you. Taeil is sitting in the rocking chair, holding Mei and giving her a bottle. You almost feel a sense of déjà vu to a few months ago, though back then you’d woken in the middle of the night to this similar situation.

“Good morning,” you yawn, sitting up and stretching your arms above your head. “I didn’t even hear her cry out.”

Taeil shakes his head. “She didn’t. Jungwoo said you’d probably be pretty tired this morning, so I just came in to check on her. She just woke up a few minutes ago.”

You nod, and then look around, trying to find your phone, but it’s not on the nightstand where you would normally leave it.

“Why don’t you go shower?” Taeil suggests. “Lucas ordered in some breakfast for everyone.”

“Why?” You stand up, dragging the top blanket with you to keep your body covered.

Taeil shrugs. “I think he lost a bet yesterday or something. But go shower.” He tilts his head toward the door to your bathroom. “If you hurry there might still be some left.”

So you do go shower off, and when you come back out, Taeil’s gone but Mark is sitting in bed, his legs spread in a V with Mei lying on her back between them as he plays peek-a-boo with her.

You walk over to the nightstand to grab your phone, then remember that it’s not there. So you start looking in the bedsheets, then you crouch down to look under the bed.

“What are you doing?” Mark asks.

“Looking for my phone. I was going to send my mom some pictures from the trip.” You sweep your arm under the bed, only coming out with a pair of panties you thought you’d lost ages ago. You toss them toward the wash basket and then stand up, looking around, hoping that your phone will catch your eye from somewhere unexpected. “Have you seen it?”

Mark stands up, hoisting Mei up into his arms, and instantly she’s resting her head on his shoulder in a way that is absolutely one of the most adorable things. If she loves her dad the most, then Mark is a close second tied with Jaehyun. “Nope. Maybe it’s a sign that you should be away from your phone today. Did Taeil tell you about Lucas buying breakfast? I think he got some of those bubble waffles you’ve been wanting to try.”

You let it go for the time being. You know your phone is somewhere here in the house; you had it just last night while showing the boys some photos and videos, and now you’re just not sure where it’s gotten to. So you follow Mark downstairs to the kitchen.

Jaemin and Renjun are in there when you, Mark, and Mei walk in. They stay to hang out, playing with Mei to make her laugh while you and Mark eat breakfast, and then Mark disappears for a bit, and you give Mei a bath, play with her by giving her tickles and kisses, stretching her arms above her head and cycling her legs as you get her dressed. She smells clean and perfect, just a happy ball of sunshine as you bounce her in your arms as you walk around the house looking for your phone wherever it might be.

The house is oddly quiet. Most of the guys are gone though you can hear Jisung and Hendery playing video games downstairs. Eventually you walk into the room Doyoung, Taeil, Yuta, and Mark share, though right now only Doyoung is in there, curled up on his bed watching a drama, looking sleepy.

“Hey.” He sits up abruptly, pausing the show.

“Hey,” you reply. But you don’t stop to chat, you start moving around the room, nudging aside bags and piles of clothes, flipping the sheets on Yuta’s bed with one hand, moving Taeil’s pillows around. When you turn back to Doyoung he’s watching you with a confused expression. You sigh. “You haven’t seen my phone, have you? I know I had it last night, but I can’t find it anywhere this morning.”

Doyoung looks back at the drama. “No, I haven’t seen it. I’m sure it’ll turn up. Miso probably stole it. You know your cat is a real thief, right?” He glances back over at you. “Yesterday I caught him stealing a pair of my socks, and Taeil said he thought he saw him eyeing up that handstitched baby blanket from your mom. It’s like he’s nesting somewhere in the house.” He fiddles with his sleeve, and when his phone lights up beside his thigh with a notification, a thought enters your mind.

You lean closer, reaching for his phone. “Can I just use your phone to call mine?”

Doyoung snatches his phone away. “No.” He hides his phone on the opposite side of the bed.

Mei makes bubbly noise, blowing at her lips while she clings to your shirt as you try to reach Doyoung’s phone again. He moves it even farther out of your reach.

You stand up straight, shifting Mei slightly. “Doyoung, what the hell? Just let me see your phone.”

He shakes his head. His grip on his phone is so tight that his knuckles lose all their color. The screen lights up again from between his fingers, and you can just make out the sight of multiple messages coming through. And in the silence of this standoff you hear a quiet buzzing coming at the same time from beneath his bed.

Doyoung’s not fast enough to stop you as you crouch down and dig a hand beneath his bed, coming out with your phone in your hand.

“Wow, that’s crazy. How did that get there?” Doyoung asks in a very put-on voice, his look of surprise very clearly fake.

You frown at him as you rub the screen of your phone against your shirt to clean it a bit. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on? Or do I need to look at this first?” You wave your phone, and at that moment, Doyoung reaches out and snatches it from you, hiding it right back beside his phone. “Doyoung. Seriously.”

You can feel Mei drooling through the shoulder of your shirt, but you don’t even care.

Doyoung shakes his head. “I just thought you could use some time away from your phone today.”

“Why don’t I believe you?” You readjust your hold on your daughter. “Are you really just going to lie to me like this?”

He shakes his head again, looking at you for a few long moments in silence as the phones continue to buzz periodically beside him. And eventually Doyoung sighs. He pushes away from his blankets, standing up in front of you, and then he puts a hand to your shoulder and presses you to sit down on his bed.

“The fans know about you and WinWin. Someone posted photos and videos of the two of you together on your trip. They got you and him and Mei looking like a happy little family, and this time I don’t think there’s any denying it like our team did last time.” Doyoung clears his throat. “And either that same sasaeng or a different one must’ve been outside here yesterday when you got home. There are photos of you and Xiaojun hugging. People are bringing up those old pictures and videos like they did last time. It’s a whole fucking mess, and I didn’t want you to see any of that.”

Suddenly the blurry memory from early that morning of Doyoung in your room whispering to Mark makes sense. The odd behavior of all of your boyfriends so far today, like the way Mark and Taeil had both tried to distract you when you were looking for your phone.

“We all think that you shouldn’t leave the house again for a bit. Like, fans are going crazy.” Doyoung’s hand massages your shoulder gently. “Like last time, there’s fans defending you and us, but there’s others too. I don’t think you need to see any of that.” He sinks down to kiss you gently, soothingly on the forehead. “We just want to protect you.”

You’ve been through all of this before, so this time it seems a little easier to handle. You can’t blame Doyoung and the others for wanting to keep you from seeing the things that are being said online. You even manage to keep yourself from looking at social media after you leave Doyoung’s room with your phone back in your possession. Well, at least for a little while.

Eventually you do look. You see fans talking about being so mad that sasaengs are camped out in front of the house. You see long threads full of the same pictures from before, with several more from your vacation with WinWin, plus several others that you recognize of you with the other boys over the last month or so.

You put Mei down for a nap and sit in the rocking chair beside her bed with your knees drawn up to your chest as you scroll through Twitter looking at all of this. You only get up to close the curtains over your window because even though your bedroom is on the top floor of the house and facing away from the street, you can’t help but feel surveilled. You see someone reposted some photos from one of those sasaengs that are apparently camped in front of the house, and you almost throw your phone away because you can hear that Ten, Johnny, and Taeyong just got home and those are the photos that are already being circulated.

This goes on for a few days. No statements put out by the boys or the company seem to sway the fans, and you can barely eat or sleep. You can’t leave the house. There are stalkers outside day and night, and you leave the curtains drawn on every window so you can at least walk around inside the house without feeling like they can see you.

On the morning of the third day, as the sun rises you’re sitting in the kitchen, watching Hendery sleepily eat a bowl of cereal. You haven’t eaten since about midday the previous day. You lost any appetite you might have had when one of the Dream members came home and a sasaeng nearly attempted to come in with him.

Since then their company did at least hire a security guard to stand in front of the house’s door, but your stomach is still tied in so many nauseous knots.

The front door of the house opens, sounding loud in the quiet munching of Hendery’s breakfast, and your heart sinks into the bare cavern of your belly, anxiety knotting your nerves. But then the door closes, and Taeyong calls out just loud enough for you to hear, “It’s just me.”

You hate that he knows that you’re this nervous about everything that he has to announce himself. He pops his head into the kitchen a moment later, gaze sliding from you to Hendery and then back again. He sighs at the look on your face, then comes closer. Taeyong asks, “Did you sleep at all last night?”

“Did you?” You retort. He already knows the answer, you can see it written on his face that he wouldn’t believe you even if you said yes. “No, Taeyong. I haven’t slept. Every time I close my eyes, I just think about one of them sneaking inside and coming upstairs.”

Taeyong strokes your hair. “We have the guard. He won’t let them in. He barely let me pass by.” He smiles lightly in an attempt to brighten your mood, but it doesn’t work. “Babe, I can see that you’re beyond stressed about all of this. If you need to, go stay with your parents for a while, until this all blows over again.”

“But what if it doesn’t blow over.” You swat his hand away, suddenly overwhelmed by irritation at the patronizing way he’s petting you. “Your fans have a long memory. They’re not quick to forgive either. And some of their theories online are disturbingly accurate. They hate me.”

“They don’t even know you.”

“Well, they hate me for being happy in this relationship with all of you.” You fold your arms over your chest and stare down into Hendery’s cereal bowl until you hear the sound of Taeyong walking away.

Hendery taps his spoon on the side of his bowl for a few seconds before he clears his throat. “Are you unhappy?”

You almost roll your eyes. Of course you’re not happy right now.

“I mean, like, in this relationship. With all of us.” He sits the spoon down and pulls his hands back into his lap. “I know it’s unusual and that in itself makes this more stressful. I guess, what I mean to ask is, do you think you’d be happier if this relationship were more normal? If there were less of us?”

You look slowly into his eyes. “What?”

“I haven’t really been in this since Mei was born. I think, for me, what you and I have has mostly been about sex. At least, as I’ve been thinking about it recently, that’s how I think it’s been.” He nibbles nervously at his bottom lip. “Right now, there’s a lot going on, and it’s stressful for you and for me, so maybe if I back out of this relationship it will help a little bit.”

You want to say, “Right, because piling heartbreak on top of the rumors and hate is going to help.” But you don’t. You keep quiet because maybe he’s right.

You haven’t had Hendery around much since Mei was born. It’s not like you didn’t invite him to be around, he just doesn’t come around. He’s there, but not really. You know he’d been somewhat excited about you having a baby, had been there for you as he believed that she could have been his, but once he’d seen her with his own eyes and held her in his arms, once he’d learned that she shared none of his DNA, that’s when you’d felt him withdrawing somewhat.

And you know he’s right about the sex. Yes, you’d had your romantic moments together. Shared intimate date nights, soft ‘I love you’s between kisses, and many of the things you’d shared with your other boyfriends, but truly from the start this thing between you and Hendery had been sexual. And sex with Hendery was something that you hadn’t had in months.

“I’m sorry.” You duck your head as you apologize. You’ve gone months ignoring Hendery’s sexual needs. “God, I’m a really bad girlfriend, aren’t I? You guys keep breaking up with me and telling me how good I am at ignoring you, making you feel left out. And you’re all right.”

“I’m not blaming you for that!” Hendery quickly says. “You’re busy! You’re a mom now. You have all of us to pay attention to. And for so long you couldn’t have sex after Mei, and like I said, I really feel like that was a key point to our relationship. It might sound bad to say this now, but like, our relationship has been over for months now, and we’ve just been pretending that it’s not. But I think it’s time that we finally put the end stamp on it.”

So you do, and you feel that stamp like a dull bruise on your heart.

But he’s right. Things between you and him have been over for months. Similar to you and Ten, the end of this branch of your polyamorous relationship has withered and faded away.

And as you rise from the breakfast table, hoping to go upstairs to maybe catch a few moments of sleep, you feel the instability of this whole relationship around you. You’ve lost four of your boyfriends in what feels like such a short time. And you’re afraid that they won’t be the only ones.

Ten looks ridiculous, cradling Miso like a baby in one arm, holding Mei in the other, grinning and bouncing them.

It’s been almost a week now since the rumors started up again, and they’ve died down some, but there’s still a lot of attention on you and the boys.

“Why don’t you just marry one of them?” Ten asks as you voice your worries aloud. “I mean, get married, admit that you’ve got a baby, it’s a little less than traditional but it’s not like it’s not something that’s happened before. Other idols have announced all of those things after the fact. That would get the fans to butt out, but right now they’re just being nosy, wanting to know the details of what exactly is going on. They want to understand your role with all of us. I’m sure Mark would be glad to do the honor of marrying you.”

You sigh before admitting, “Sicheng has also proposed to me.”

Ten makes a noise of surprise that startles Miso who twists his way out of Ten’s arms and drops to the floor. Ten quickly and carefully makes sure that he’s got a good hold on Mei and that Miso didn’t scrape her or anything in his escape.

Once he’s comforted himself that she’s fine (as if she wouldn’t have immediately begun squalling if Miso had caught her with a claw), Ten stares at you. “He proposed? And you said no? Also, since when do you call him Sicheng?”

“Since I realized it was weird calling my boyfriend, the father of my daughter by WinWin when that’s not his real name.”

“But you still call Hendery by his name, not his actual name. And Lucas.” Ten points out.

Your heart gives an odd little beat. “Yeah, but neither of them are my boyfriends anymore. And besides, I call Xiaojun Dejun sometimes.” You start listing off all of your boyfriends, suggesting you call them by their actual names rather than the ones you and pretty much everyone else use for them.

Ten waves his hand at you to make you stop. “You’re just doing all of this to gloss over the fact that WinWin proposed to you, and you turned him down. Do you just not want to get married or something? Is that what this is? Because that right there is a very good option: the father of your child, extremely in love with you. He’s the perfect solution to everything going on right now. Most of the fans already believe that WinWin’s definitely the one that you’re dating in the group.”

“Well, they’re not wrong. They just don’t know about all of the others. And all of the others are exactly why I can’t marry him. It’s not fair.” You thought about all of this the first time when Mark proposed, rethought it when WinWin proposed. “And can’t you just imagine what a slap in the face that would be to Mark since I turned him down? How Jaehyun would react?”

Ten rolls his eyes now. “You can’t live your life worrying about how Jaehyun’s going to react to stuff. He can be very dramatic, but I promise you, babe, he just wants you to be happy. That’s what we’ve all ever wanted for you. For sweet, sweet Mingmei.” He looks down at Mei then, making a silly face that makes her burst into giggles.

“I don’t want to get married to any of them yet. Not when I don’t know.” You clench your fists against your belly where the knots that have been there for a week still grow even tighter.

“When you don’t know what?” Ten asks, glancing up from Mei.

You shrug. “Everything. How everything will play out.”

Over the last week, especially these last few days since you and Hendery had the quiet breakup in the kitchen, things have felt so odd and unstable. Almost all of them dance around you and your feelings, it’s only your exes who seem to be perfectly fine, like Ten and Johnny. You can feel the tension in the air every time you pass one of your boyfriends, like the crackling of static electricity in the air before a storm.

You’re just waiting for the first rumble of thunder.

Weeks pass with nothing.

Then late October arrives, the days cool and overcast, but your days with your boyfriends and your daughter as she hits 6 months feel bright and sunny, watching her grow and excel every day.

But that was just the silence before the storm.

Clouds gather and the static feeling grows in the air as the silence surrounding this whole relationship breaks after so long.

Someone (“an insider” according to articles being posted online) spilled some details of the relationship, talking about how the members of NCT are all involved in some way or another with you. They don’t list your name in the articles, not that it matters because fans dig up your private information, your social media and things like that before you have the chance to prevent it.

It wouldn’t have been such a big deal, just another rumor to brush under the rug. Except that this insider had really offered up very specific details. They cite the time you went to America to join 127 on tour. How you broke up with them, only to come back a few months later and then miraculously wound up pregnant just weeks later.

The article makes it sound like you’re a gold-digging whore of the group.

You suspect that it’s a manager of the group that had leaked this info, they’re the only ones that could have had the information without spilling it for all this time. Not even any of your closest friends had known all of this.

But the article is a massive success, sweeping the internet.

And just like that, the storm you’ve seen approaching for weeks breaks around you.

Jungwoo is the first to approach you that same evening. The house has been disturbingly quiet. WinWin came and took Mei away a little while ago, telling you that you looked like you needed some time to yourself, and that he could take care of his daughter for a bit. You know he’s right. Especially when Jungwoo enters your room.

He looks like an anxious disaster, can barely get through his explanation. He cites the pressure and attention from fans on the relationship right now. The things he’s seeing online, as now fans aren’t only attacking you but are also saying very terrible things about the members. It’s destroying him.

“I love you so much, I really, really do.” Jungwoo promises, holding onto your hand so tightly that you swear you can feel your bones grinding together. “But I can’t be a part of this anymore, it’s not good for me. And, also, I just—I don’t think I’m ready to be a dad, not really. Like I thought I could be, but watching you and WinWin with her, seeing the responsibility and everything of it, I’m not ready for that. I think I’d be better as her Uncle Jungwoo, you know?”

You do. You understand. You hate it, but you get it.

Taeil comes in not too long later as you’re still wiping at the stupid hot tears that pour down your cheeks. You’re hiccuping from the force of your crying, and at first you think Taeil’s just heard you crying and has come in to comfort you. He sits down on your bed with you, grabs some tissues for you to blow your nose and wipe your face. He puts his arm around you, and you rest your head on his shoulder.

You can tell the moment when he’s about to say the words you don’t want to hear. His breath hitches as he opens his mouth, searching for the words to say.

You sit up and put a hand to his chest.

“Don’t.” You shake your head. “Please, Taeil. Don’t break up with me. Please.”

His hand covers yours, warm and soft. “Baby, I think it’s now or never, honestly.” His voice is slow and sad, overflowing with all of these different emotions. “I think that before this is all over you’re going to have to decide on one of us to be with, and I hate it, but I just know that it won’t be me.”

Those words hit like stones, and something breaks inside you as you press yourself against him, clinging, silently begging him not to leave.

This house you’ve lived in has been on such unstable foundations since the moment Lucas left you, and now you feel like the ground it’s been built on has turned to liquid. Taeil can’t leave. He’s been such a stable person that you can rely on here. You love him.

Taeil presses his lips to your hair, holds you as you cry, as you repeatedly ask him not to leave you too. But you can tell that he’s already made up his mind, signed out of this relationship, decided that the others rank higher than him, even though it’s his bed that you’d shared for so many nights. It’s Taeil that you woke up to on so many happy mornings; it’s Taeil that you’d once spent all night during your late pregnancy talking to as he touched your belly and spoke softly to your unborn daughter as she stretched and rolled, the two of you whispering together about a future that you could have together.

He holds you until you stop crying but only because your throat hurts and your nose is running and you’ve started hiccuping again. Taeil leaves only when the door opens again and Taeyong stands there.

“Oh, sorry, I can—“ Taeyong points his thumb back over his shoulder, as if he can leave and come back later. But Taeil stands up, gestures for Taeyong to take his place, and as Taeyong slides in to take up the place of the ghost of Taeil in your arms, Taeil slips out the door and closes it behind him.

You don’t even give Taeyong the chance to talk to you. “Are you breaking up with me?”

The way he goes awkwardly stiff is answer enough. A few seconds tick by, your head on his shoulder, wet cheek feeling stuck to the cotton of his tshirt. Taeyong sighs, “I don’t really belong here as much as I once did. And I think it’s far past the time we stop pretending that I do. I just think I might be happier somewhere else. You might be happier with less people in this relationship. You’re always juggling us and Mei, trying to make time to make each of us happy, but you don’t give yourself the time. I love you, I love Mei. I want both of you to have the best in life, and I just don’t think that you need me here romantically to do that.”

The words spill out of him, his thumb stroking over your knuckles as he says, “Besides, I.... I really like what I have going on with Ten. It’s easier, honestly. We understand what each other needs on some level that I just.... I don’t think you and I have ever really had. Ten’s good at making me feel small when I need it, powerful when I don’t. We have fun and can trust each other, and, like I said, I love you, but we don’t have that in the same way.”

By the time that Taeyong leaves, you feel wrung out. You’re surprised that there are still any tears left, surprised that there’s any more of your heart to break.

And then Xiaojun walks into your room. You’re half buried in your pillow and blankets. You don’t even properly see him.

“Just leave,” you tell him. “Just like everyone else.”

Xiaojun makes a noise, but you cut him off.

“Don’t. I’m so tired of breaking up, Xiaojun. Please, just, let’s get this over with. You can leave.” You turn your back on him.

“I wasn’t coming in here for that....” Xiaojun’s voice is small. “But if that’s what you want, I guess, um, I understand.”

You pull your blanket cocoon tighter around you, press your face deep into your pillow, and wallow in the darkness as Xiaojun closes the door behind him, night falls outside.

Some time passes. You’re not sure how long exactly, only that you’d heard footsteps passing up and down the stairs, doors opening and closing, showers running. The night sky visible through the tiny gap in your bedroom window’s curtains shows that it is dark outside, truly dark. You should be asleep by now, fallen into fitful dreams after the misery of the past several hours. You’d heard your bedroom door crack open a while back, heard WinWin’s quiet whisper to Mei, heard the pause, then he’d backed out of the room and taken Mei with him, leaving you to wallow in the sorrow of your breakups.

The house has fallen once more into disturbing silence when your bedroom door next opens. You can’t tell who it is right away. And then he turns the light on, flipping the switch to throw the room into blinding whiteness for a moment. You blink against it, rolling over to face the door, and once your eyes adjust, you see Jaehyun.

He presses the door shut firmly behind him, leaning back against it as he stares at you.

“Are you going to break up with me too?” You mumble, wiping your snot and tears on the pillow case. “You tired of being watched all the time? Being whispered about and shitted upon by your fans? I know I haven’t been ignoring you, so that one can’t be your reason.”

Jaehyun just sighs and pushes away from the door to come sit down on the edge of your bed. He rests his hand on your back, rubbing up and down to help you relax, but you just bury your face in your pillow again and keep crying.

This fucking sucks. You feel like your heart has been run through a shredder. Four boyfriends gone in one fell sweep, just a few hours. And you pray with every ounce of your being that Jaehyun’s not here to break up with you too. You don’t think you would blame him. You don’t really blame any of them—they deserve to live a happy life that’s not tangled in with this drama of the polyamorous relationship, your daughter, the heavy judgement from their own fans because of you—and it does make sense, but that doesn’t mean that you’re not heartbroken.

You twist your head to the side and look up at the blurry colors of Jaehyun’s face. He’s just watching you with what you think is a sad expression (but his face really is quite blurry through your teary eyes). If he’s here to end things with you, then you want to say what you have to say first, so you just say it: “Mei’s not your daughter.”

Jaehyun’s hand goes still on your back. You can feel just how tense he goes too.

“I know that.” His voice sounds tight.

“She’s not your daughter, and I know how badly you wished that she was, and now with all of this shit going on, I wouldn’t blame you if you were breaking up with me too.” You close your eyes. “You could go be free of me, go start dating some probably really hot model or actress or other idol, go make a super hot baby with her.”

“You’re right, I could go do that.” Jaehyun says it simply.

Your eyes flash open to glare at him, but he’s smiling softly at you.

“I could go do that, but why would I?” His hand starts moving on your back again. “I love you. How many times do I have to say that before you get it through that thick head of yours.” His knuckles knock gently on your forehead. You frown, and Jaehyun just laughs. “I love you,  and I love Mei even though she’s not biologically my daughter. I don’t know why you think that I would leave you just because of that.  I know when we broke up the first time it’s because I was shitty and jealous all the time, but I’ve grown, haven’t I? And regarding what you were just saying about finding a hot model or whatever to have a baby with, I have no intention of leaving you for anyone else. You are already hotter than I can handle, thank you. I have a beautiful daughter downstairs. And if you ever want any more beautiful babies in the future, I’m right here to help with that. If you don’t, then that’s okay too. We have Mei.”

Your eyes feel hot and your breath hitches in your chest for an entirely different reason than minutes before. You squeeze your eyes shut as fresh, hot tears spill over.

Jaehyun sinks down to lay on the bed right in front of you. His thumb traces over the mess of tears on your face, and you bring your hand up to the back of his.

With your eyes still closed, you confess, “I’m so afraid of what the future holds right now. I feel like you’re all going to leave me. All of you.” You sniffle, then quietly say, “But then you have to go and say stuff like that, Jung Jaehyun. Do you mean it?”

“Every word. Promise?” Jaehyun offers, his pinky finger intertwining with yours already. 

You squeeze your pinky in a loop with his, and you each press a kiss to your hands to seal it.

“Why did you think I was going to break up with you?” Jaehyun asks after a moment. “Who else did? Why?”

So you start to explain to him the past several hours in a story with pauses for you to get through your hiccuping tears, with many deviations down side tracks through history explaining why you understand their reasoning. You talk and talk, and Jaehyun listens and holds you.

And by the time the morning sun rises, you don’t really feel better necessarily, but for the moment you feel like you’re at least being held together, you feel like maybe everything going on right now does suck immensely, but you have Jaehyun here holding you in his arms, ready to shield your fragile heart from anything else that comes your way.

Adore You <- Previous || Next -> Let Me

a/n: so this is the end of Part 1 of the Finale (I’m sorry for stretching it out into two parts, but this story isn’t able to be wrapped up in less than 40,000 words apparently). I really hated writing this, like there were so many breakups and poor y/n has to go through so much heartbreak in this part :( but it was inevitable, something I’ve been hinting at pretty much since the first part of the series I’m pretty sure. Part 2 should be posted pretty soon, so I promise the wait for it won’t be so long, but what do y’all think? Who do you think she’ll end up with? Several of them or just one? 

As usual, please let me know what you think through comments, reblogs, likes, messages, whatever. Sharing is definitely super appreciated!

[yatsurinamikaze]

Sombre (first) - (second) - (third)

//tw: miscarriage, blood, depression, dark stuff.

Osamu’s eyes widen in shock as he sees you pass out on the bathroom floor, all covered in blood. He hooks his arms under your knees, lifting you up, and rushes towards the elevator. He knows he’s panicking, but there’s no time to ponder over what is happening so he goes on with hurried footsteps, his white shirt bloodied red and tears streaming down his cheeks.

He steps out of the elevator and notices people clad in white rushing towards him taking you out of his arms and putting you on a stretcher. He climbs into the ambulance and waits for the nightmare to be over already.

As they wheel you inside the OT, he finally sits down on the hospital bench trying to make sense of all that transpired that day. He sighed loudly as he realized there’s one more thing he needs to do. He takes out his phone, long-pressing a single button, his number 1 speed dial, Miya Atsumu. The rings go unanswered and he groans in frustration before dialing again, and then again.

He’s drowning in anxiety and can feel his nerves clawing at him from the insides. He’s sitting on the bench outside the operation theatre, hunched forward with his elbows resting on his knees, head hanging down. He brings his wrist in front to check the time. You’re taking too long- it’s been over two hours already.

He wonders what went wrong, and where. Images of the past hours haunting him in flashes: You sprawled on the bathroom floor, the blood, the lost look in your eyes, the sweat forming on your forehead. He shakes his head trying to get the images out of his mind, but where his mind goes next haunts him even more, what if.

After what feels like an eternity, the doors to the theatre finally open. Osamu quickly rushes to the doctor who is being followed by the nurses.

“How...How is she? She’s going to be okay…right?”

The doctor gestures for the nurses to move on and once they are left alone, she sighs resting a hand on Osamu’s shoulders.

“She’s out of danger, medically speaking.”

Confusion materializes on his face in the form of furrowed eyebrows. He shakes his head, “Medically?”

She marginally tightens her grip on his shoulders, “You see, she’s out of danger but… she miscarried. The next few months are going to be extremely difficult for her.”

Osamu’s eyes widen in shock as he shakes his head, water glazing his eyes, “No, no... NO.” He takes a brief pause, trying to absorb the news, sinking down slowly into the bench close to him. The doctor takes the seat next to him.

Osamu can tell breaking this news is equally arduous for her, he gulps the seemingly solid mass forming in his throat, “How...?” She speaks softly, “Sometimes there’s no reason at all. You can do everything by the book from the supreme diets to the positions you sleep in, and still miscarry. I know the explanation is not enough, but...”

Her voice drifts off as a sob escapes Osamu’s mouth. She gets up to get some water, handing it to him she says, “I’ll leave you alone for some time. Yn will take some time to recover, she’s unconscious because she lost a lot of blood. I’ll be around if you need anything, alright?”

Osamu nods drinking the glass of water. He passes his hand through his hair, pulling at it harshly. I promised I’ll take care of her. I promised. He sniffles hiding his face in his hands.

It has been hours since he received the terrible news. He is exhausted. So exhausted from being all cried out, his tears have dried up. He feels numb, not a single thought lining his brain. His phone starts ringing, too familiar a face lights up his phone screen.

He slides the ringer and is greeted by a furious Miya Atsumu, “What's up? Ya know I got practice during these hours. Why woudja bug me when I have an important match coming up?”

He sighs pressing his other hand against the hand holding his phone, “Tsumu.. your wife, miscarried.”

[unprofessional-bard]

Chapter 15 - The Result

Unprofessional Bard's Masterlist

Losing My Religion Series Masterlist

Previous Chapter • Next Chapter (TBA)

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female!Reader/OC

Warnings: smut: oral sex (m! receiving), unprotected sex, joel breeding kink go brrr; talks of depression, anxiety and PTSD, detailed descriptions of bloodshed/death.

Summary: The confrontation the reader had been waiting for finally happens.

Word Count: 5.771

Author's Note: I apologise for the repost y'all!! The chapter didn't appear on the tags and I didn't notice it soon enough!! If this doesn't appear as well...

Enjoy!

The last heatwaves of summer started coming in with full force as September approached– a final storm before the calm. It wasn't completely intolerable, but it still messed with a lot of people: even you and Joel had to stay away from one another during the nights due to the heat making everything more sticky and irritable. It was annoying as hell, given that you had Joel all to yourself for a whole week now.

That certainly didn't stop you two from having sex before his departure, of course.

It took you some time to anchor yourself back to reality after what happened with Ward – the first three days were the worst with the episodes and attacks, but you don't think you could've made it this far in such a short time without Ellie and Joel. This was practically nothing compared to when you had first arrived in Jackson... if you had them both with you when–

Doesn't matter now. It took you months and it wouldn't have mattered if it had taken more– you made it. At the end, you got through it.

You and Joel talked about things, too. A lot of it mostly surrounding Kiki and Ward, of course. Things were cleared out, feelings were gotten off of chests and apologies were made: One day, after going out to get groceries while you chopped some vegetables for dinner, he put the sacks on the counter island and approached you, wrapping his hands around your waist.

"Smells delicious," He murmured into your ear and placed a kiss on your cheek, then put his chin on your shoulder, ever so slowly –with minimal movement– swaying you to the smooth jazz playing in the living room.

"I didn't cook anything yet?" You raised a brow and smiled at the way his beard scratched at the side of your face.

"Didn't mean the food," He whispered and kissed the back of your ear, sending a shiver down your spine as you chuckled. He then moved down the line behind your artery, peppering kisses there, each and every single touch of his lips sending a rather pleasant feeling between your legs.

You slowly leaned your head back against his shoulder as he took your hands in his, making you put the knife down and let him sway you to the wordless tune playing in the background.

He eventually stopped when he reached your collarbones and turned you around to face him: "Mrs. Miller..." Your smile grew at the name: "How're you on this fine evenin'?"

"Just fine, Mr. Miller." You grinned and mimicked his accent. He placed one hand on your waist while the other grabbed your hand. He smelled so wonderful and looked so good–

"Would ya fancy a dance, m'lady?" His teeth showed when his smirk grew wider, your faces were almost touching.

"Ain't you a dandy and a charmer?" You chuckled, your lips brushing against his and chests pressed against each other.

This? This was everything. All of your problems and worries gone even just for a moment or two– you'd do anything for him.

The small dance you two had going on lasted another minute before the track ended softly. Joel finally stopped teasing your lips and pressed a gentle kiss against them, which you returned with more hunger and passion.

"A little dance got you all excited?" Joel chuckled when he pulled back for air, noticing your hands had already unbuttonned his shirt halfway.

"You got me all excited," You beamed at him and dipped your hands under his shirt before reaching the last two buttons, feeling his warm skin under your fingertips and sighing into his chest. "We haven't done it in awhile..."

"Tsk," Joel shook his head with a soft grin, licking his lips as his pupils dilated the longer he thought of the last time you had sex, which was when he came in you for the first time. It had him weak in the knees, and would definitely do it again if you let him. He then softly leaned in and placed a wet kiss on your neck, making you sigh and close your eyes.

His hands placed themselves on your waist as he pushed you against the counter island, lightly marking your neck as he went: "Should'a done this a few days back, would'a marked you red and blue since y'ain't goin' out..."

You quietly moaned as he trapped you in place, lightly pushing your shirt up and massaging your sides as he did. You took the opportunity to place a kiss on his neck in return, hearing him growl softly, so you did it again, and again, and again...

Sex with Joel never ceased to satisfy you: He always managed to get you all giddy and excited like a child given a reward. His movements gained some speed as soon as his hands cupped your breasts, immediately taking your shirt off and kissing your lips hungrily. His arms closed around your waist and back as he moved down to your jaw and neck, biting and licking his way to your shoulders.

"Joel... the food..." Your chuckles mixed with moans the more his beard and lips caressed your skin. At your words, he picked you up and placed you on the counter, hooking his fingers through the waistbands of your shorts.

"I'll be full in a few," He smirked and started kissing down your breasts as he slowly dragged your shorts down your legs. His tongue worked wonders on your nipples while your fingers made their way through his hair, giving him soft hisses and quiet moans whenever he lightly bit on the skin.

Moments later, he was on his knees, caressing and kissing your inner thighs, not pulling back on leaving hickeys where he knew your shorts would cover to spare you the embarrassment; although that didn't keep him from lightly biting on the skin that showed too.

He then spread your legs and started giving tiny licks along your slit, making you slowly lean back onto your elbows, only to suddenly land on your back when he pulled you forwards by your thighs. You gave a brief chuckle as he feasted on your juices like a man who hadn't eaten in weeks.

As soon as you threw your head back, you opened your eyes to an intensifying sizzling sound, gasping when you saw the pan on the stove: "Joel! The food!"

"Oh shit–" He quickly left your wetness and practically threw himself over to the stove. After that was out of the way, you both stood still and giggled briefly. "Why'd you cook this much food?"

"Ellie asked if she could eat with us," You spoke as you got off the counter. "Said she didn't have time to cook for herself, I said sure. She then asked if Jesse could come too– Wait, what time is it?"

"Five twenty."

"Oh, good."

"Why?"

"Because," You gave him a mischievous smirk as you walked over to him and hooked your fingers behind his belt without breaking eye contact, pulling him back to the counter island. "That means we have at least another half hour before they arrive, but we still gotta be qui– Hmph!"

His lips were instantly on yours as he quickly pressed your back against the counter, but you stopped him before he could go down on you: "Nu-uh. I may be the cook–" You grabbed him through his trousers, making his hips jerk forward: "But I gotta eat too."

He made to protest –he's been going on about how you should take it easy and how your pleasure was more important than his (it was funny how he thought his pleasure didn't add to yours)– but you were already sinking to your knees, trapping yourself between his legs and the counter.

"There we go," You cooed as you got rid of his belt. Joel sighed deeply and closed his eyes, putting his hands on the surface above your head and leaning into your touch instinctively.

You were quick to pull him out of his underwear, pumping his cock a few times before giving it a few licks around the tip, to which he hissed quietly.

It was when you decided to take all his length to the back of your throat at one go that his hands shot to your hair: "Jesus– christ, doll!"

You offered a quiet giggle while you played with him in your hand, then slowly and rhythmically you took him in your mouth, but not even a few minutes later, Joel pulled your hair into a ponytail with both hands: "Can't believe I'm sayin' this but, food can wait."

You gave him a surprised look before he gently grabbed your jaw and lightly pressed your cheeks to make you open your mouth wider, then pushed his cock down your throat. Gagging and moaning you grabbed his hips, to which he responded: "A-ah, no hands Dolly."

You were perhaps too quick to drop your hands to your sides, then lace your fingers behind your back to keep yourself from grabbing him. You let him use your mouth for a few minutes: the sounds of wetness and gagging, plus occasional grunts and moans from him was heavenly for the both of you.

"Fuck– Dolly, up," He suddenly pulled out and leaned down to pull you up. He turned you around and gently, but with rushed movements, bent you over the counter a little. He entered you with one precise thrust, making you bend even more. You moaned simultaneously when he did, staying still a little for you to adjust.

He then leaned down over you, framing your body with his. Your bare back pressed against his naked chest, his hands wrapping themselves around your arms –then wrists– as his chin found its place like a puzzle piece in the crook of your neck. You loved it when he covered you like this, loved when he was so desperate, loved when he couldn't help himself and couldn't get enough of your–

"You get me so– shit," He growled as he pulled back and thrusted in again. He began with a steady rhythm, making you moan softly. You felt your eyes roll back when he nibbled at your ear and kissed your neck.

"Fuck– Joel, fuck–" You moaned, the pitch of your voice rising like it did when you began closing in on your orgasm. You both were aware how you were short on time and had to make this into a quickie, a promise of something more when night time fell and you both were alone in your room, hungry for one another like you were now.

"Want me to– to come in you again? Y'think I put a baby in you the last time?" He moaned at the way you squeezed around him, wriggled under his body and cried out at his words. "Don't matter, we can do it again to make sure– just say the words."

"Joel– ah, ah," You gasped when one of his hands left your wrist to draw circles around your clit, making you thrust back to his rhythm. "Fuck, come inside me, please."

"Shit, (Y/N)," He growled low, almost animalistically, into your ear. He placed kisses over your neck, then went up to your jaw and cheek, finally meeting your lips halfway. "Come on, babydoll, put one leg up for me?"

His other hand left your wrist as well when you nodded, helping one leg up to the counter. He proceeded to lean back and up, grab your hips and slam into you as fast and hard as he could, knocking the breath out of you.

"Oh my god!" You cried out, failing to keep up. The skin slapping against skin had long drowned out most of the surrounding sounds, minus your moaning and Joel's growling. "So– so close–"

"This ain't gonna work," He suddenly stopped, murmuring to himself. He put your leg back down, pulled out of you and turned you to face him. The sight of his cock –erect completely, thick and swollen– made you moan quietly. He lifted you up and sat you on the counter once more, spreading your legs. He grabbed your ass and pulled you forward, to the edge, where he thrusted back in.

You grabbed his face and kissed him hungrily, biting on his lower lip, then shoved your tongue into his mouth, moaning all the while.

"Ah," He broke off suddenly and put his forehead on your shoulder as he slammed, and slammed, and slammed...

Until he grabbed you by your thighs, his voice cracking slightly, and finally emptied his seed inside you, biting on your shoulder quite aggressively; you didn't mind, however, as it was the final stroke that threw you off the edge. You held onto his shoulders as you both trembled in the other's arms, panting as if you'd run all the way from the western gate to home.

His hips involuntary jerked forwards, his cock twitching inside you. He held you tightly in his arms as you came down your high, becoming sleepy all of a sudden. Him coming inside you had a wonderful effect on the both of you last time, it was no different this time.

"Shit," You hissed. "That was– that was–"

"Mind blowing?" He chuckled, reminding you of one of your quickies during patrol before you got married.

"That's one way to put it," You grinned back and claimed his lips in a sweet kiss. "You should come inside me more often."

You felt him tense a little: "Yeah, about that, are you su–"

Knock knock: "(Y/N)?" Ellie.

"Shit!" You jumped where you sat. Joel immediately pulled himself out of you and tucked his softening cock back in his jeans as you collected your clothing and ran to the bathroom.

After dinner, your love-making continued in your chambers. The pace slowed, the air became somewhat more sentimental, and tears were shed– both of you trembled in the other's arms, kissing and wiping away at the other's wet cheeks. You laid together: entwined, side by side, eventually parting because of the heat...

Now, you laid alone.

Alone in the house after that too-good-to-be-true week, you felt trapped and not as up to date as you liked to be about the town, so you asked Maria to sign you up for supply runs, extra shifts– whatever you were kept from.

People were more happy to see you than you thought they'd be– and more worried about you than Kiki. "You underestimate the place you hold in the community, (Y/N)." Eugene had told you with a pat to the back when you showed up to your first patrol in near two weeks. Before setting off for your assigned route however, Maria called you over with a half worried, half grave expression.

"Gonna tell you something you're not gonna like, so try to keep calm okay?" She stared right through you, making you gulp and nod: "Kiki wants to–" She sighed halfway when you scoffed quietly. "She said she wanted to talk to you, sort things out. She seemed pretty calm, maybe she made her peace with it."

"Nah," You shook your head. "She's got some folks riled up against me, they're giving me weird looks. Won't believe she's made her peace 'til that stops."

"All the more reason for you to talk. Her group's gonna wait for yours to arrive at the checkpoint. It's a good opportunity."

"... Alright." You exhaled heavily as she gave you an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

Your group was made of just you and Eugene, but Ellie and Jesse asked if they could join. Jesse was already allowed on paired patrols, but Ellie was a matter of debate as Joel still deemed her young– definitely not because he was worried sick over her.

"Ellie..." You made to protest, but your gut told you to let her tag along.

"(Y/N) c'mon, Joel ain't even here," Eugene.

"No, yeah," You blinked, snapping out of your deep thoughts. "I was gonna say yes, sorry. Come on, hurry then."

Once you reached the checkpoint, you asked Eugene to stay back: "What's up, Dolly?"

"Kiki's in there, she says she wants to talk to me," You explained, hands on your hips. "To sort things out– I don't buy it."

"Woah, hold on. She said that to you?"

"To Maria. She says she's made her peace with what I did, but I say otherwise."

"Like hell she did," Eugene agreed. "I heard she's been calling you a–"

"I–" You put your hand up: "–don't wanna hear what that idiot has to say. I see a few people staring at me whenever I go out, some straight out avoid me."

"You want me to–?"

"No– no I'll talk to her, no biggie. This has to end one way or another, but I don't trust her. Be my eyes?"

"Always, (Y/N)," He started walking towards the doors of the checkpoint, but you stopped him.

"Actually, you watch out for Ellie and Jesse. I'll handle this alone."

"(Y/N)–"

"It's okay, she's weak. Squealed to the softest touch when she first came here, remember? She wouldn't try anything."

"But that was when she first came here. Don't underestimate her."

A warning that had fallen on your deaf ears.

As you reached the doors, you saw Ellie and Jesse standing a feet or two from the entrance awkwardly. You took a deep breath and walked through the door with heavy steps and, as soon as you saw her sitting on the couch, you stood across her: "Let's talk," You looked around the room to find it quite small for you to have privacy: "Leave us. Let's finish this."

"Wh–?"

"It's okay, Ellie– Just step outside for a moment, all of you."

Kiki's group, three other people, left the room with your company while giving you dirty looks. You locked eyes with Eugene, seeing him signal you watch, then as he turned around he also signaled you with hand signals. You really were grateful for him.

"Alright," You straightened up: "Let's get to it. I'm done holding back on you, so don't you dare play coy with me and say what you wanna say and get this over with."

"Very well then." She got up and started walking towards you, but you stopped her.

"I can hear you just fine from where you are." You told her not to approach, eyes instinctively scanning your surroundings. She was around 20 feet away from you, the path between you and her were clear of any obstacles –furniture etc– minus the small set of stairs that led up to where you were standing. There was a table behind you that you spied when you first entered the room, otherwise there was nothing near the neither of you.

"Fine. I was here to talk about Ward."

"I guessed that much."

"You do realise what you've done to me, right? You've ruined my life." Her face didn't reflect the words she spoke, not one bit.

"Oh for god's– I know damn well what I did."

"Did you regret it?"

You clenched, then unclenched your jaw: "Why do you wanna know?"

"I wanted to know if I'm talking to a normal person, or a cold blooded murderer."

Your hands were quick to ball up into fists, but you had to keep your cool. Her face and her stance made your shoulders tense even more– despite how she had behaved when you shot Ward, she was quite calm. Let's not jump to conclusions, you told yourself.

You remained quiet and huffed after a moment: "Let me ask you something."

"Ask away." She was ever so slowly inching closer, but you let her.

"Do you regret it? Me, shooting a man who beats you to a pulp, a man who won't–"

"I loved him, of course I do," She scoffed, but there was no love in her voice, just irritation.

"Or was this your plan all along?" You smirked sardonically, trying to keep your anger away from her prying eyes– allowing her to slip up: "You hated him so much, then you saw Joel and me, wanted my place; that it?"

"Clever, very clever," She nodded. "And what better person to kill Ward than you? How is it going between you and Joel, anyway?" She was suddenly too close: "Does he look at you with disgust every time you go to bed, wishing that it was me instead, the poor woman made into a widow by his own wife?"

Your face scrunched up with disgust and fury: "You fucking–"

"I'm right, aren't I?" Her head was tilted forward, giving you one of the most chilling, emotionless smiles you had ever seen.

"No... you're a fucking psychopath, that's what you are," You frowned.

"Ah, you sounded like Ward. Have you also read those psychology books Doctor Katherine had given him?"

Your mind blanked for a moment, but you quickly replied to cover it up: "I was trained to deal with the likes of you."

It was partly true, especially after everything went to shit with the apocalypse and whatnot. You were trained, yes, but you had educated yourself about certain disorders which could help you train and read body language better– you were no expert of course, and you weren't police, or a detective; you didn't deal with people like her up close.

"Likes of me?" She rolled her eyes: "Ugh, you and your husband... In any case, I feel like I can be honest with you now, you're smarter than I imagined."

Eugene was right, you thought: "Decided to be honest, finally? When no one else is around? How brave of you."

"The point wasn't bravery," She looked angrier, but her voice was still quiet. "The point was exactly that– No one will hear this confession but you."

You stared into her eyes, confusion and stress taking over a bit more quicker than you liked, you didn't even realise she was inching closer towards you: "I hated Ward. I didn't love him. He was my means of escape and protection for all those years out there, but I was weak– he was abusive, yes. I was smaller than him in physique and had no training to defend myself, so naturally I was inferior. His love, I assume, was true at one point. Mine never was. And yes, I was aware of how we were the black sheep of the community once we had arrived. I figured, if Tommy, Maria– people who were looked up to, like you, liked us, we'd fit in. I did, more than Ward anyway. And yes, I did want Joel for myself, but I knew it wasn't going to be easy. You– you never really liked me, you had to move out of the picture."

Your stance became defensive as you listened: "Move out of the picture?"

"Joel will move on, eventually, and I'll walk him through his grief. For all of this to work out, you had to die. That's why I am being honest, because I am going to kill you."

You thought you were ready to evade her attack, but not mentally. Her words had made your mind go blank: despite being smaller than you in figure, she threw herself at you, grabbed your hair and slammed your head onto the table behind you. Twice.

"Ah!" You growled and grabbed her wrist in a death grip, however she didn't let out as much as a groan (unlike the first time you had tried something like this with her), even though you felt like her bones were going to crush under your palm. You cursed at yourself for letting her get as close to you as she did, giving her an advantage; your vision was getting blurry from the strikes you suffered.

You growled angrily as you turned your body towards hers again, her hands not letting go of your hair. She had gotten stronger over the time she's been trained in Jackson, but you could still have the upper hand. You landed the hardest kick you could on her stomach. Twice.

"You're not even pregnant, are you?!" You spat when you managed to push her off, but as soon as she backed off, she pulled out a knife and lunged at you again. Before the tip of the knife could pierce your throat, you crossed your arms and blocked her attack, the force bending you backwards across the table.

"I never was, yes," She struggled, voice still stable. "Though telling everyone I miscarried because of your little doing didn't really hurt nobo–"

————

"Eugene, what the hell?" Mike, someone in Kiki's group asked as soon as they stepped outside.

The older man didn't reply, sparing an angry look in the younger man's way as he began looking for a window, an opening, anywhere he could keep an eye on you from.

"Whatever, let's hope (Y/N) doesn't kill her too in there," Jennifer, Kiki's neighbour across the street, grumbled.

"What's wrong with you?" Ellie snapped and turned to her. "(Y/N) protected her!"

"I don't think cold blooded murder doesn't really count as protection," She sneered.

"The fuck did you just–" Ellie started walking towards her, but Jesse held her back.

"Ellie calm down," He spoke quietly, then turned to Jessica. "If it weren't for (Y/N), both Kiki and Paul would've died, don't you understand? Ward beat Kiki to her death, then actually tried to—"

"What do you know? You weren't there!" Jessica hissed at him.

"Neither were you," Jesse replied calmly. "(Y/N) isn't a murderer, she's a protector of this town."

"Her history with FEDRA says otherwise," Mike joined in.

"So you're telling me you haven't killed anyone in the past 20 years?" Eugene suddenly walked over to them. "You think you're so innocent in all this, huh? You're as innocent as the rest of us, Mike. We've all done– forced to do some fucked up shit before Jackson, but this what this place's all about; a second chance." He took a few silent deep breaths, before adding: "You don't know what anyone here has gone through before here, so shut your goddamn mouth."

Both Mike and Jennifer fell silent, as well as Jesse and Ellie as the older man death stared Kiki's group. He started walking back to continue looking for an opening too late however– he suddenly heard two loud thuds, followed by a shout, your shout.

"God dammit!" He ran to the door with everyone else behind him and almost kicked down the door when he reached it.

————

"Kiki, what the hell?!" Eugene came in  shouting, the door suddenly opening with a loud crash.

"What's the matter, can't handle me on your own?" She hissed at you, but her grip failed at Eugene's entrance. She had failed, and she knew this too, for her face morphed from ambition and triumph to anger and fear. That was your moment.

You directed her hands to your left with your forearms, the knife suddenly giving in and stabbing into the wooden table: "Oh I can handle you just fine!"

You twisted your arms around hers, grabbed her and push kicked her with all your might, sending her flying down the small set of stairs back near the couch she was sitting on previously. Driven by rage, you pulled the knife out of the table and jumped on her with scary speed. Before she could get up, you reached her and straddled her hips, ready to drive the knife through her throat like she had tried to do to you.

"(Y/N) stop!" Eugene yelled before you could, knife holding hand raised high, the other around her lower neck.

"Tell them, go on!" You suddenly yelled, moving your hand onto her throat. "Confess to them like you did to me."

"Get off me." She spoke calmly.

"Speak!" You yelled and shook her where you had grabbed her by the throat.

"(Y/N)..." Eugene, you realised when he entered your line of sight, was pointing a gun at Kiki's head. He kept his distance, his stance almost professional.

"Get off me," She spoke after awhile of silence. "And I'll tell them what I told you."

For whatever stupid reason, you believed her.

You believed, for a second, that she was actually going to make her confession and try to survive this, somehow. Jackson never took to execution as a form of punishment, so she had higher chances of staying alive that way.

Instead, as soon as you lowered your arm and simultaneously pulled your hand away from her throat, she grabbed you by your shirt's collar.

Everything happened so fast.

You gasped and shouted when you felt her teeth sink into the left side of your throat, dangerously close to the artery. Before she could completely bite off your skin, you embedded the knife in your hand to the side of her neck. Twice.

The tension in your body, the fear and anger you felt– everything came out on her neck. You stabbed her neck reflexively and as soon as she let your neck and shoulders go, you stopped, threw her back on the ground and fell on your back.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" You grimaced, panting and holding your neck as you backed away from Kiki where you sat. You stopped crawling back when your back hit one of the armchair across the sofa.

The outside voices started to drown out as you pulled your hand away from your neck to see a mix of blood smeared across your hand. Your head hurt so much; the beating of your own heart, the voice ringing in your ear– too much blood–

"(Y/N), christ!" Eugene knelt beside you immediately, followed by Ellie and Jesse. Mike, Jessica and the other person stood, dumbfounded and shocked, as Kiki gave her last breath.

"No, oh god, what did I do?" Tears finally started rolling down your cheeks as you panted, visions of old memories covered in blood flashing under your eyelids making you hyperventilate.

Joel... Where is Joel...

"You protected yourself, (Y/N), it's okay! Breathe!" Eugene ran a hand through his hair, then held you by the shoulders hesitantly.

"(Y/N)," Ellie spoke worriedly: "(Y/N), you're okay– it's okay."

You put your hands on your ears in an attempt to drown out the noises, tried opening your eyes but the images weren't going away: "I can't– can't breathe," You held onto Eugene's arms. "You're– Is she–?"

Your question died on your tongue when he pulled you into a hug, putting your chin on his shoulder, then turned to the side so you didn't see Kiki's now lifeless body: "(Y/N), we need to get you to Katherine, you're bleeding."

"She was trying to stab her?" Katherine.

"Yeah, then she said she was gonna confess something she had confessed to (Y/N), but bit her nearly in the damn artery instead." Eugene.

"And whose bright idea was it to let 'em talk alone?" Tommy.

"Mine," You weakly replied as you slowly opened your eyes.

"Jesus christ, (Y/N)," Tommy sighed, relieved, and sat to your right. You were back in the hospital, where Doctor Katherine, Eugene and Tommy had been waiting for you to wake up.

"We should put my name up outside," You said stiffly, in an attempt to make a joke. "Seems like I won't stop waking up in this room."

Katherine was sat to your left– she put a hand against your forehead, then the back of it: "I got a fever?"

"You had a mild fever while I was operating–"

"Woah, hold on– operating?" You sat up, holding your neck to find it patched up. "Was it that bad?"

"She almost tore out the meat, that crazy–" Eugene spoke, but huffed with frustration halfway.

"I don't wanna rush you," Tommy put a hand on your shoulder and gave you a worried look. "But I need you to tell me what happened."

You and Eugene exchanged a worrisome look: "Just back there, or right from the beginning?"

"Everything," Tommy said after awhile. You gave Katherine a hesitating look, which she didn't notice, but sighed and began telling everything: from the dirty looks you got, to the symbolism of flowers and the night before Ward's death; then how some townspeople were riled up against you, and finally how she confessed to everything and attacked you, ultimately resulting in her death. Tommy went a little pale throughout, especially when you told him of her confession– Same with Eugene. Katherine looked devastated.

"Some folk ain't gonna believe this," Tommy said with an apologetic look on his face.

"Well, fuck 'em– I believe her." Eugene shook his head from where he was leaning against the windowsill. You offered a brief smile.

"I believe you too, but it just sounds too absurd, no offence," Tommy said, scratching his beard. "A damn maniac and his psycho wife... Then this whole– confession?"

You just sighed and looked down, where you had been playing with your fingernails and tips nervously: "To be frank, I don't owe anyone in this town a goddamn thing, except for maybe Katherine here. I'm not gonna try and convince a bunch of people, who have no place in my business, that I'm right or whatever. I did what I had to– and I have you all, so..."

Katherine took your hand in hers, giving it a soft squeeze: "That you do. We got you (Y/N), you're safe."

You gave them all half a smile, struggling not to cry but you managed to keep your tears to yourself. Tommy smiled, tsked and put his hands on his hips: "Well, now I'm worried about how Joel's goin' to react."

"React to what?" Came a tired voice from the door, the voice of your husband who was supposed to be away at a run.

"Joel?" Tommy's shocked tone mixed with yours, which was laced with both relief and disbelief.

"Tony got injured before we could make it out the county, Earl and I had to bring him back," He said from the door, slowly walking in and taking Katherine's place by your side: "Ran into Daisy, said my lovely wife managed to land herself here again."

He put his hand through your hair and combed it back, giving you a solemn yet soft look, then kissed your forehead and kept his lips pressed there for a few seconds. He then pulled back and gently looked at your neck: "What happened?"

—————

tagging: @spideysimpossiblegirl @sherry-212 @joelsgeetar @peachymelon69 @assinteractions @gizmogurlie41786 @giselatropicana @unfinishedsynopsis @nervousmumbling @thewintersoldierswife @roxypeanut

[boldlyvoid]

Got a little carried away thinking about what I’d do for Spencer after Maeve died.

Cw: depressed Spencer, food mentions, reader is worried he might commit suicide, he’s fine tho

He’s not answering the door. She taps her foot anxiously and knocks again, “Spencer open the fucking door.” Still nothing. “You’ve got 5 seconds before I kick the fucking door down and you lose your deposit. It’s not a fucking joke anymore.”

Nothing. She pushes all the baskets out of the way, shakes the door to see how sturdy it is and then backs up, she lifts her leg and puts all her force into the kick. When she collides with the wood, she uses all of her body weight to push it forward, snapping the hinge and watching the wood fly in different directions.

She steps inside, the place is an absolute mess, he opened books and ripped pages. A chess set has been thrown across the room. A mirror fell and cracks, his curtains are ripped. All his drawers are open. “Spencer? Where are you?”

She walks into his bedroom to find it neat and tidy, his bed hardly slept in and piles of clothes thrown about. And sees that the bathroom door is closed and her heart sinks, “Spencer I’m coming in.”

She gives him a chance to cover up if he’s in there before twisting the door handle and opening the door, it opens fine and there’s nothing in its way. Inside she can't see him right away, not until she pulls the shower curtain back. He’s curled up in the fetal position with headphones on, listening to an audiobook that sounds like Leonard Nimoy's voice.

She smiles, getting down on her knees and lightly rubbing her hand over his shoulder. It startles him awake and his eyes fly open. He gasps and jumps back, “what?”

“You weren’t answering.”

“And?”

She just stares at him in silence. “I broke your door, I’ll pay to have it replaced, but I couldn’t let you keep ignoring me.”

“I’m fine.”

She nods. “Can I clean your house? You can go back to sleeping in here, it looks cozy?”

“It feels like a hug.”

“Do you want a real one?”

He nods and lunges forward, wrapping himself around her with the porcelain tub edge cutting into her stomach, he’s holding her so tight. “You’re okay.”

“Thank you.”

She doesn’t say anything because she knows that was hard enough for him to say, he doesn’t need to do anything more today. “I’m not leaving, I hope you know that.”

“You don’t have to stay,” he tries to push her help away.

“I didn’t ask, I was telling you. I’m staying here. You’ll have to call the cops to get me out of here, we’re making dinner, we can watch Star Trek and if you want. I can tickle your back again like I did that night in Omaha? When you told me how your mom used to do that to help you fall asleep as a kid?”

He nods, “can I nap first?”

She hugs him once more and kisses the top of his head, “do you want to move to your bed?”

“Please?”

She helps him up and brings him over there, tucking him in and turning to leave when he grabs her hand. “Don’t tell anyone else. I don’t want any other help, it’ll overwhelm me.”

“Of course buddy,” she smiles down at him.

She leaves his room and heads right to the maintenance office of his building. She pays for his door and offers to replace it herself for the inconvenience. It’s more difficult than she expected but his door closes and it’s fine. And she gets a second key, pretending to be his girlfriend and being given the spare. Next time she won’t have to break the door.

So she locks it and heads to the store, placing a note on his pillow so he doesn’t feel abandoned again, she’ll be home again soon.

She buys the essentials for Spencer’s favourite soup, making it for him from scratch while also cleaning his apartment to the best of her ability. She buys garbage bags and cleaner at the store, opening the windows and dusting everything. He’s still got his headphones on so she doesn’t feel too bad about turning on the vacuum, but he doesn’t wake up until he smells the soup.

It’s just a basic chicken noodle, but she sautéed the carrots, onion and celery first, drawing out the flavours before mixing in the chicken pieces. She cooks them up with all the seasonings she could find, he was surprisingly well-stocked in the spices department. Adding the water, she lets it simmer and out he stumbles.

“It smells delicious,” he rubs his eyes and walks into the room, “Woah, I can see the floor again.”

“I wrote down a list of every book that was destroyed, in case you want to get new copies? I never threw them out, they’re just in a bag, I didn’t know if they were triggering or just in reach.”

“Just in reach,” he smiles. “Thank you, this is really helpful.”

She smiles and joins him on the couch, watching reruns of Star Trek on the science channel and listening to all his facts. She had already watched every episode with him in hotels across the US, but back then she didn’t get the commentary, he wanted her to enjoy it. Now he tells her all the little facts, he pauses and backs things up to show her continuity errors and he repeats all his favourite quotes and he smiles.

By the time they get to eating dinner, Spencer’s starving and actually excited for the meal. He eats a little too fast, she has to remind him to take his time, his stomach has been empty for too long and it’ll make him feel worse. He listens, enjoying it now that he slows down, appreciating the fact she took the time to care for him.

When she gets into bed beside him she can tell that he’s tense, “you can tell me everything on your mind or nothing at all. I’m here for what you need, I don’t expect anything from you.”

“Just cuddles? No talking? I’m not ready.”

“Sounds good,” she opens her arms and lets him settle into her embrace.

She rubs her hand over his back, bumping along the fabric of his T-shirt and attempting to soothe him before he sits up and takes it off, throwing it to the side and snuggling back in. It’s easier this way, she can feel the bumps on his skin as her fingers trace down his back and her nails lightly drag their way back up. Over and over she does it in a figure-eight motion, the infinity symbol, hoping He's aware enough to know she means she’s going to be there for him forever.

She can tell he’s asleep when his breathing changes, his body gets heavier and his hand drops from her side to the mattress.

“Dream of me?” She whispers against his hair, hoping his subconscious will listen. “I promise I’ll take care of you in there too.”

[vecnawrites]

Jaune didn't know why Velvet and Coco had been so pushy to get him to meet them in downtown Vale, on a particulary Sunny day. Seeing both the hotties wearing flowy sundresses, he quickly saw the appeal and even more so, when Coco had lifted the back end of Velvet's dress. Seeing the cute and full rear was already hot, wearing no underwear was hotter and the Cottontail Butt Plug, was the cream on top.

Velvet whined as she looked at the different clothes that Coco had placed on their beds, more and more fabric spilling from their dressers and their closets like blood from a Grimm Attack. “Isn’t this enough, Coco?” she gestured to the ‘rejected’ pile, where most of their casual clothes lay. “I mean, we’re just going to Vale…” she began timidly, freezing in place, rabbit ears twitching as her friend stiffened, before slowly turning towards her, tilting her sunglasses down and staring at her with narrowed chocolate eyes.

“Oh, but Velvet, this isn’t just a visit to Vale!” Velvet felt heat creep up into cheeks at the sudden passion that her friend was showing, waving her arms as the Coco slowly advanced towards her. “This is a visit to Vale with. Your. Crush. You managed to get the courage to ask the brave knight who defended you out! To repay him for his kindness. To admit your feelings! To take him to a quiet place and ride his-”

“COCO!” Velvet nearly shrieked, cheeks burning and heart beating rapidly as the images formed and danced around in her mind, images of her hugging, kissing, making love to the attractive blonde that had been so kind to her. She bit her lower lip as she imagined riding him, him holding her hips and looking up at her, love in his eyes-

“Perfect! Found it!” Velvet was ripped from her daydream when Coco’s victorious cry reached her, and glanced over to see her holding a cream colored sundress high above her head like a battle trophy. Velvet felt her cheeks somehow darken even more as she realized what dress this was. She remembered Coco buying it for her because ‘it goes wonderful with your complexion, Bun-Bun!’, but she had never worn it out of the dorms.

Why? Well, it looked nice on her, that was for sure, but the length of the sundress left much to be desired! It just skirted legality, barely cresting her upper thighs! The slightest breeze would flip it up and expose what underwear she was wearing to whomever was in front of her or behind her! “Coco…!” she whined as her friend moved forwards, a smirk on her face.

“Re-lax, Bun-Bun...there’s no breeze at all today really. You’re in no danger of showing the goodies off to Jaune or anyone, until you want to!” Seeing the firm look in Coco’s eyes, Velvet’s shoulders slumped, knowing that there was no way she was getting out of wearing this. All she could do was submit, and hope that the embarrassment wouldn’t be too great in front of her crush.

She squeaked as Coco descended upon her, her top being pulled over her head and being tossed into the corner, her bra following, her orange sized breasts settling onto her breasts with a jiggle, before her pants and panties followed, leaving her naked before her teammate.

A quick moment later, she found the sundress pulled over her head and her arms put into the sleeves, leaving Velvet disoriented for a moment as Coco ran her fingers through her lightly tangled brown tresses, easing the small knots out. “Perfect! Now, time for me to get dressed!” she hummed, heading back to the closet and looking for something for herself, leaving the slightly dizzy bunny alone. As she cleared her head, Velvet took a step, then blushed brightly as she felt a healthy breeze over her bare pussy. “C-Coco...underwear, please!?” she squeaked out, making her friend laugh loudly. “Coco!?”

~x~x~x~x~

Velvet walked with burning cheeks next to Coco, making sure to keep her thighs pressed together as much as possible. Why, one may ask? The reason was simple: Coco had refused to let her wear underwear. Neither bra nor panties. Meaning she was completely bare underneath this woefully short sundress which just barely fell past her mound and upper thigh. Even now, she was afraid to raise her legs too high to walk so the people around them didn’t get a perfect view of her freshly waxed pussy!

But still, on some level...this was exciting. And Velvet hated that that was true. She didn’t want to find this exciting! She didn’t want to get turned on! And she certainly didn’t want to leak down her thighs! That would be so humiliating! All...all the people seeing her juices sliding down her thighs, a small breeze all it taking to just expose her to all their eyes, to Jaune’s eyes-!

She was pulled out of her frighteningly arousing thoughts by Coco tugging gently on her hand, making her nipples graze the inside of the dress, becoming dangerously close to getting hard and saying a loud and happy “HELLO” to everyone. “There’s Jaune! Come on, Bun-Bun!”

~x~x~x~x~

Jaune Arc was confused. He had never really understood girls, even with being raised in a family of seven sisters. If anything, that made it worse. He constantly mixed signals and such...but even he couldn’t mix this one up. At least, he thought he couldn’t mix this up.

When he had helped Velvet, the admittedly very cute rabbit faunus in the year above him, he hadn’t been expecting anything from it! He had just been doing what was right getting Cardin to leave her alone.

But later on he had pretty much hunted down by the bunny girl and her fashion plate of a partner (trust him, with seven sisters, he knew girl’s fashions, and she was wearing all the latest trends with the best fabrics and colors that accentuated her skin and eyes) and told him in no uncertain terms to meet them here today in Vale, on a bright and sunny Saturday.

It wasn’t a date, of that he was sure. After all, why would two beautiful girls want to be seen publicly with him at the same time? But still, he wore some clothes that he knew were acceptable for an outing with a lady, or ladies in this case.

He took a sip of his tea, savoring the cool sweetness and wondering where they were. He knew that he was early, a holdover from his childhood where his dad was of the belief that not only was it better to be early than late, but to never keep a lady waiting. They still had about ten minutes before he would begin getting worried, at any rate.

Hearing a familiar voice, he looked up to see Coco and Velvet making their way towards him, Coco surprisingly enough missing her beret and sunglasses, and Velvet with a deep blush on her face. He smiled a bit, finding her beautiful, adorable. He paused. Beautiful? Adorable?  That wasn’t something that was a common thought with every girl that he saw.

He swallowed as they made their way over. Both of them were wearing beautiful sundresses that accented their figures wonderfully, Velvet a cream colored one that seemed almost gauzy in its composition, and Coco was wearing one the color of her namesake, Cocoa, with accents of Burnt Sienna. He found himself holding back a wince. His sisters really had done a number on him if he knew the colors on sight.

Biting his lip and taking a deep breath to calm himself, he stood.

~x~x~x~x~

Velvet swallowed roughly, mouth watering upon seeing Jaune wearing clothes that she didn’t expect him to have, but Brothers, did he look delectable! A soft yellow dress shirt was pressed and buttoned up against his frame, tucked into his navy blue slacks and topped with black dress shoes. His hair was combed neatly, framing his face nicely. Her heart thumped loudly in her chest, so loud she worried that Coco could hear it.

Speaking of her partner...Coco whistled low. “Damn, Bun-Bun, he cleans up nice~!” she outright purred, licking her lips. “Hell, if you don’t want to take him for a ride, I think I will…” Velvet’s ears went stiff and she spared a glare at her partner, before putting her attention back to Jaune, giving him as good a smile as she could, despite the fact she felt a mixture of arousal, shame, and fear filling her as she felt herself moisten. This was...going to be difficult.

Especially when Coco practically dragged her along to go meet her crush, the breeze whipping along her damp lips as she was moved. Her cheeks darkened more and she shuddered as her arousal grew higher and stronger as they reached the table.

She nearly squeaked as Coco all but shoved her into the seat next to Jaune, her bare rear and thighs plunking down onto sun warmed metal, feeling the little...addition that Coco insisted on. She shivered as she remembered how she got it…

(Flashback Begins)

“Coco, what are you doing!?” Velvet screamed, cheeks burning as Coco bent her over the bed and pulled up the edge of the sundress, revealing the round swell of her bottom and her plump pussy lips. She tried kicking out, but it was useless, as Coco was too close to her for her kicks to do much, especially with the benefit of Aura. Her cheeks burned as she felt warm puffs of air across her backside, brushing over her most intimate of places.

She released a soft squeak as firm hands grabbed her soft cheeks, fingers sinking into them and spreading her rear apart, revealing the entirety of her pussy and her small hole. She whined, thanking everything that she had showered thoroughly that morning, before a startled shriek escaped her lips as something hot and wet licked a stripe between her cheeks, before prodding at the small depression of skin, circling it.

Velvet whimpered as she hunched and curled in on herself, her legs tucking inwards and knees pressing together as she dug her fingers into the sheets before her, biting viciously into her lower lip to try and make herself focus on something other than what her partner was doing to her ass...her eyes nearly popped clear from their sockets as she felt Coco’s tongue work along her rim, before pushing inside her.

She buried her face into the bed, releasing a wail as Coco insistently worked her tongue around, before pulling away with a ‘pop’, leaving her shivering at the wetness that was suddenly attacked by the cool air of the room.

“Well…” she could hear Coco sounding breathless, and heard her lick her lips, puffs of air brushing her soaked nethers, before she felt her partner release one of her buttocks, Coco’s other hand shifting to keep them spread apart. “If you decide to fuck the stud, it can’t be in your pussy...from what I hear, Arc’s got seven sisters...he shoots inside, you get pregnant. I guarantee it.” Velvet squirmed as she felt something cold poke against her small hole, before worming its way in, “So, what we’re going to do is make sure this bunny badonkadonk of yours is alllll ready in case you want to make love to the stud~” Coco murmured.

Feeling the item settle within her rear, plugged in fully, Velvet shook as she sat up slowly, looking behind her with wide eyes to see what Coco had shoved up her butt. She whined, her ears drooping as she saw it. She couldn’t believe that Coco had even gotten one of these. How had she not noticed that she had a-

(Flashback End)

Velvet fought a shudder as the cottontail buttplug that her partner bought shifted inside her ass, pressing against her inner walls, the sensations nearly making her miss what Jaune asked her. She released a soft ‘eep’ and spoke. “I-I’m doing okay, Juane! H-How about you?” she nearly scrunched her menu up in her hands, her emotions going wild as she glanced at her crush with a shaky smile. It didn’t help as she felt the air under the table going up her skirt!

And Coco, the wicked bitch, just sat there and smirked behind her menu!

~x~x~x~x~

Gods help her, Velvet couldn’t even remember what she had eaten, or even what they had talked about, her attention focused solely on Jaune. Were his eyes always such a deep, soulful blue? Did his hair always catch the sun that way? Did he always smell so...so good?

Velvet was mortified as she shifted, feeling slickness between her thighs. She just knew that she would be leaving a wet spot on the chair when she stood up! That would be so humiliating! Oh, she hoped that Jaune didn’t notice...that would be...terrible.

She could already see the look of disappointment on his face, feel his hand around her wrist, tugging her close, before he threw her over his lap, flipped up her dress, and upon seeing her bare bottom and pussy, began to spank her, punish her for being such a bad, such a perverted, naughty, filthy, outright slutty little bunny who needed to be disciplined-

She was pulled from her thoughts by the boy in question, who placed his hand on her arm, and she found herself drawn into his eyes, his smile. She melted. Coco was right, as much as she hated to admit it. She was smitten. Truly, completely, utterly in love with this young man. She wanted him...she wanted him so much, to be his. To be wrapped in his arms and hugged...kissed...fucked halfway through the mattress!

~x~x~x~x~

Jaune noticed that Velvet was nervous and stuttering, her words disjointed and almost frightened. He didn’t think it was him, but boy, did he understand social anxiety. Reaching out, he placed his hand on her arm, and found himself staring into deep chocolate eyes.

He had heard tell of the eyes being the windows of the soul, but he had always thought that to be complete and utter bunk that was in tawdry, bodice-ripper romances, like the ones that Saphron wrote, and the ones that Blake tried to hide that she read.

But looking into Velvet’s eyes...he understood what his sister meant. He could see warmth, fear, contentedness...attraction, desire, want. All of this, aimed at him.

“Hey, lovebirds~” a teasing voice made red blossom over Velvet’s cheeks, and heat in his own face made him realize that he was blushing as well. Both shrinking slightly at the confident smirk that the other brunette had on her face. “I paid for our lunches, and don’t worry, it was my treat~” she teased, obviously taking joy in their embarrassment. “Let’s go for a walk?”

~x~x~x~x~

Coco Adel was a lot of things. Team Leader of CFVY, Leader of the fashion trends in Vale, and most of all, she liked to think herself a good friend. She knew that her Bun-Bun was shy as fuck, but that she really wanted, thirsted for, really, the blonde that had helped her with that brute Winchester’s bullying. She often caught her closest friend staring at him in longing.

And by the Brother’s, this ship would fucking sail if it was the last thing she did!

So she planned, she plotted, she managed to get Jaune to agree to meet them in Vale, she got Velvet in the sundress (she was proud; she had known that she’d get her to wear that someday!), and refused her underwear, and even bought the cutest buttplug to prepare her!

She knew Velvet after two years. She knew that the timid little bunny would take ages to actually attempt to get close to Arc, so she knew that she had to help her. She had caught the needy little bunny masturbating in her sleep, moaning Jaune’s name! She had to do something!

And so here they were, by the artificial beach near the edge of downtown, with not a single person in sight. Perfect. She turned to see Velvet standing by Jaune, looking up at him almost adoringly, but could tell that her sweet little bunny needed help admitting her feelings. But she would, after all, Velvet had her for help.

“Jaune...you know why we called you out for a day out?” she asked, seeing Velvet stiffen and look at her pleadingly, but Coco wasn’t going to be stopped. She wasn’t going to let Velvet keep curled in on herself anymore!

Reaching out she tugged her bunny close and could feel her heart beating hard and fast against her rib cage. She rubbed her back gently, trying to soothe her a bit before redirecting her attention to Jaune, who stared at them with confusion. She smiled at him softly. “Velvet...she’s bad with talking, but she really, really likes you, but I knew that if I didn’t help her, she’d say nothing and possibly lose out. She’s my closest friend, and I can’t let that happen to her.”

Velvet trembled against her, and she felt her bury her face into her shoulder so she didn’t give into the urge to look back...not that that was an issue. Jaune looked at Velvet in awe, as though the bunny had hung the stars. Good. Maybe he was worthy of dating her.

Her lips titled upwards into a smirk. “Ready yourself, Velvet…” she whispered, feeling her partner stiffen against her, before she looked back at Jaune. “Yeah, she’s been, well…” she stopped herself, knowing that she was almost about to ramble, before quickly dropping into a bend, grabbing the end of Velvet’s sundress and yanking it up, revealing her bare bottom and the cottontail buttplug nestled between the fat cheeks, her free hand cupping the plump right buttock underneath her chin. She ignored the shocked squeak and flailing arms above her as she gently squeezed the delectable cheek in her hand. “See, Jaune? Velvet’s been ready for you~” she cooed.

Part of her worried that this action was a bit too much for him, but she needn’t have worried, as she saw Jaune’s eyes glaze over in lust and his pants swell...and swell...and swell...my, my. He was a big one...fortunately, she had prepared her bunny for this. She smirked, looking around, before seeing a small alcove hidden from most. Perfect~

~x~x~x~x~

Velvet felt her cheeks burning as Coco leaned back against the wall behind her, and she leaned against her, with Coco’s hands holding up her sundress, keeping her bare backside visible to the young man behind them.

Her cheeks burned as she felt eager hands playing with her rear, skilled fingers outright massaging the bubbly cheeks, making her whimper and tremble against her partner, her beautiful, caring, loving partner, her lower lips drooling her thick honey down her thighs.

She must have looked needy, desperate, slutty, because Coco smiled at her before looking behind her. “Don’t just tease Bun-Bun, Jaune...pull out that plug and make her day! You can’t have her pussy, you told me you have seven sisters, one drop of that cum gets in her womb, Bun-Bun’s a goner~” her leader teased.

But Coco’s teasing words ignited a fire within her belly, her pussy twitching, her womb hungry for cum, fantasies of her with a belly swollen with life, her lying in bed with Jaune as he rubbed her belly, the life within gently kicking out-

Velvet was pulled from her fantasies with Jaune’s hand gently grabbing and tugging on the plug in her ass, making her squeak and bury her face into Coco’s tits, the exquisite softness pressing against her burning cheeks reminding her that Coco had forgone a bra as well.

~x~x~x~x~

Jaune pulled out the plug with a wet sounding pop, Jaune caught sight of the slightly gaping hole, and felt his aching cock throb harshly in his slacks. He had always known that Velvet was beautiful, hell, her partner was a woman of extreme beauty as well. He didn’t need anyone to tell him that...but he didn’t think it was actually possible for Velvet to think he was someone worth dating. So to have her (Coco, really…) flash her butt at him and then drag him over here (Coco again), really threw him for a bit of a loop...but if she truly wanted this, he wasn’t going to deny her, or himself.

Letting her rear go (not for long, it was like squeezing the warmest, softest pillows imaginable), Jaune looked for a place to set the butt plug (cute, a cottontail outside, with the actual plug looking like a carrot, perfect for this adorable bunny), only for Coco to snatch it out of her hand and tuck it away in a secret pocket, giving him a nod as she stroked Velvet’s hair.

Jaune groaned, his cock throbbed hard. SNAP! Three sets of eyes widened as his button snapped off, shooting over Velvet’s back and hitting the wall next to Coco, making the blonde groan in humiliation, before he worked his belt and loosened it, shoving his pants and boxers down, groaning again, this time in abject relief, as his cock was freed, landing between Velvet’s buttocks with a dull whap!

He grabbed her buttocks again, sinking his fingers into the flesh and spreading them enough that his cock slipped between the fat buns, making both moan, Velvet shuddering before him, arching her butt up against him. He rocked his hips back and forth a bit, sawing between the fat cheeks and getting a mewl from his...girlfriend? Girlfriend sounded nice. Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue. He loved it.

He took a deep breath. “I…” he winced as his voice shook, “Velvet, is this okay? I don’t want to take advantage of you…” he wanted this, Gods, did he want this, but he wasn’t going to take advantage of this sweet girl, either.

He saw her head move a bit between Coco’s breasts, the other girl smiling amusedly down at her partner as Velvet mumbled something. “Sorry, what was that, Velvet?” he asked. The mumble was slightly louder this time, making Coco giggle, but Jaune still couldn’t hear it. “Vel?”

~x~x~x~x~

Velvet couldn’t take it anymore! Popping her head out of Coco’s cleavage, she wiggled her ass as best she could. “Yeeeessssss~!” she whined out. “Fuck me! Make me yours! Use that bitchbreaker you call a cock and stir my guts up! Fill me with your thick, sticky cum! Fucking Breed My Ass!” she voice raised more and more, until she was almost shouting at the end.

Her cheeks glowed as Coco giggled. “You heard the sweet bunny, Jaune!” she chirped, making her realize she had just been such a loud, naughty, slutty little bunny, screaming out her desires like that. With a whine, she buried her face back in Coco’s chest, licking her lips as she felt the fat tip press between her cheeks. She quivered.

~x~x~x~x~

Jaune swallowed as he pressed his tip against the still slightly winking hole Velvet was offering. Taking a deep breath, he slowly began to ease his way in...but was unprepared for Velvet to shove her ass back, swallowing his cock to the base, her bubbly ass hitting his hips with a muted clap!

He heard a muffled wail, and was afraid for a moment that he had hurt Velvet, but seeing and feeling her shaking and trembling between him and Coco, muffled squeals escaping her lips as she shook and (his eyes widened a bit) squirted between them, an arc of clear fluid splattering on the wall between Coco’s thighs. He knew he needed to wait, he didn’t trust himself not to pop off and cum from the brutal tightness that wrapped around his shaft.

His breath hitched, his cock throbbing hard within her searing orifice, his fingers digging into her rear as his girlfriend rolled and twisted her hips, making his cock twist and turn, rubbing against the inside of her ass. “Fuck…” he gasped.

~x~x~x~x~

Coco knew her panties were ruined; seeing Velvet come undone from having a cock in her ass was simply so fucking hot and who wouldn’t be turned on from having the desperate bunny in their arms while the boy of said bunny’s dreams was balls deep in her ass? His hands groping and squeezing that fat bunny bottom? She was surprised that she herself hadn’t cum yet just from watching!

She saw Arc staring at down at Velvet in utter lust. Completely understandable, the bunny was beautiful, and having finally given in and become who she was truly meant to be? Fuck. If only Velvet had gotten her cues...but that was neither here nor there right now.

Velvet released a loud cry into her chest, making her realize that Arc had started moving.

~x~x~x~x~

Jaune couldn’t wait anymore! Slowly pulling back, he shivered as her ass clung to him, refusing to let him go as he rolled his own hips, thrusting back into Velvet’s lovely backside. His moves were slow and stilted in the beginning, not wanting to move too fast and make it too intense for either of them, but even with the slow movements, Velvet’s moans were getting louder and louder as he began to pick up his thrusting speed.

Taking a deep breath, he finally began to start smooth thrusts, a moderate roll of his hips that belied the power of his thrusts. He growled low as he squeezed and practically mauled the thick bubble of her ass in his hands, subconsciously wanting to leave his mark on the creamy flesh to let Velvet know that she was his now.

He knew that he wasn’t being too rough. He could hear her moans and whimpers of appreciation only getting louder. If she was allowed to continue, she might actually draw people towards them. “Well, well, well…” he spoke, his voice a low growl, his left hand loosening its hold on Velvet’s ass, rubbing the pliant flesh. “You needy little bunny...you know if you get any louder, you’re going to draw people to us. They’ll see us. Is that what you want? For them to see that you’re my little butt-slut bunny?” he growled. He didn’t know where these words were coming from, but he could see from Coco that it wasn’t a bad thing. Her eyes were dark, but not from anger, from lust. And the whine from Velvet, Brothers, that only made him harder.

Raising his hand, he brought it down on her ass with a loud crack, making Velvet clench around him with a loud cry, quivering like a bowstring. “Are you going to cum already, Velvet?” it wasn’t him who spoke, but Coco, her voice thick with lust and desire. “Is our little Butt-Slut Bunny going to cum her brains out from having her ass filled and being spanked?” her chest heaved as Velvet squealed between her breasts, “We can’t have that...you may want people watching you get claimed, but I don’t think Jaune or I wish to be seen in such a fashion...so let’s keep your mouth too busy to scream…”

~x~x~x~x~

Velvet shivered and moaned, quivered and cried out as her ass was fucked thoroughly by the boy she had fallen so hard for, completely missing Coco’s words...but she didn’t miss the hand settling on her head between her ears and moving her head down, down, down...her nose going wild as it picked up the thick sweet scent of what she knew was Coco’s arousal as she slid down her belly. The angle would have been awkward, perhaps even painful for someone that wasn’t as flexible as her.

Her eyes fluttered open as she felt the smooth fabric of the sundress rise up under her cheek until it rested on Coco’s flat, toned belly. Glancing down, she whimpered, seeing Coco’s bare, drooling pussy just underneath her chin. Her mouth watered and she licked her lips, only for Coco’s hand to be more insistent and push her down further. “Let’s keep that mouth of yours occupied, Bun-Bun.”

Any potential argument Velvet might have had was stopped as her head was moved down further, and her face was pressed against wet flesh. Her eyes rolled up in her head as she began to mindlessly lap away at the soft, fragrant flesh, eating out her beloved partner as she was dominated and fucked hard in her ass.

~x~x~x~x~

Jaune watched, wide eyed as Velvet buried her face into Coco’s pussy and began to ravenously eat her out, slurping and smacking noises filling the small alcove, only just softer than the cries that she had been releasing.

He locked eyes with Coco who was now rubbing her breasts over her sundress, pinching her swollen nipples as he fucked Velvet’s ass faster now. Her chocolate eyes were smoldering with lust. “Mmm, what do you think, stud?” she purred, “Do you think Velvet can handle us? I think she loves being our little pet in bed…” her breath hitched and she arched a bit as Velvet became more insistent in her actions. “Fuck, this tongue is sinful...w-what do you say? Think we can share her? I think our needy, slutty little bunny just wants both our love!”

Jaune thought about it as he thrust into Velvet’s clinging rear, spanking her ass, loving the nice rosy shade the pale flesh had taken from his strikes. He heard Coco continue, maybe thinking that he needed more convincing. He let her, even though if Velvet wanted this, he was perfectly on board as long as she spent equal amounts of time with the two of them.

“And don’t worry, you won’t be just fucking Velvet, stud...I saw that cock, I want to take it for a ride too! How’d you like that? Both of us brown themed beauties on our hands and knees before you, wiggling our asses, making you pick-”

Jaune couldn’t take it anymore. “Sold!” he growled, beginning to fuck Velvet’s ass with even more force, loud claps filling the small area, the bunny’s bubbly ass rippling and jiggling as his hips crashed hard against them as his balls churned in need.

Coco cried out in shocked as Velvet wailed into her pussy, clenching down brutally around his cock as she squirted again, adding to the small puddle of slick on the ground.

Jaune growled as he plunged to the base, balls hitting Velvet’s soaked pussy and snapping taut against him as they unloaded every drop of thick seed they had, depositing it into Velvet’s rear end. He spanked and slapped her rear as he did so, loving how every swat to her rear made her clench and bear down more around him.

~x~x~x~x~

The three enjoyed their orgasms around each other, Coco squirting and coating Velvet’s face, Velvet herself trembling and shaking and whining between them, and Jaune pumping what felt like every drop of nonessential bodily fluid into the greedy backside is cock was buried in.

Finally, Jaune and Coco came back to themselves, and took deep breaths to steady themselves. Slowly, Jaune slipped out of Velvet’s rear end, his now semisoft cock slick with his cum, and he thoughtlessly reached out and took the plug that Coco handed him, admiring the gaping hole filled full with his cum before pressing the plug into her, making sure that it was secure and none of her cream filling could leak out.

Carefully grabbing the near unconscious, giggling bunny, Jaune helped her upright, only to gasp as Coco sank to her knees and throated his cock, sucking and slurping off all of the cum and Velvet’s taste off of his cock, then tucking him into his pants and making sure they were settled as good as they could be on his body.

“Now, stud, we are going to a hotel, and you are going to fuck both of us. I’m sure you can do that, right?” Coco smirked when Jaune scooped Velvet into his arms and tucked her against his chest, the absolutely glowing bunny smiling and rubbing her pudgy belly full of cum. “Velvet got me off, but I need more than one orgasm to be satisfied...and I can tell you do as well. Ready to go, stud?”

Jaune couldn’t nod fast enough, making Coco laugh.

The trio left the alcove, leaving behind no evidence of their being there beyond a large clear puddle near the wall as they made their way back into Vale proper.

[infernal-fire]

TAU (1/2)

Summary: Steve Rogers traps you inside his mansion. Your only means of escape? The naïve A.I., Bucky, that is designed to kill you if you ever step out of line. 

Pairings: Dark!CEO!Steve x reader, A.I!Bucky x reader, Bucky x reader

This is part of a series of works (not interconnected). I highly suggest you read the description of the series master list to better understand the premise of this story. 

Warnings: swearing, kidnapping, mention of sedative, technical Lima syndrome, psychological abuse, violence, blood, character deaths, injuries, mention of depression, suicide & poverty

The chair was on the brink of collapsing, yet Martha folded her arms and leaned back into it anyway. You internally grimaced, waiting for her to fall flat on her ass or give you the bad news. It had to be bad news. You had done this enough times to know that she periodically bounced her right leg only when there was bad news. These days, that was often. 

You huffed once, loud enough for her to hear, hoping to hint that you were hanging by the threads of your patience. She took the hint, finally throwing open the drawer in front of you with excessive force. Pens rolled and a notebook slid towards her amid the force. Again, another piece of furniture that was ready to give in. For someone as stingy as her, you aren’t surprised that it hasn’t been replaced - just wondering why she’s treating it like it won’t disintegrate any second now. 

Martha’s plump fingers slapped a couple of bills onto the table, her seedy eyes challenging you to pluck them from under her hand. You wrestled the bills out of from under her palm and diligently counted them, only to shake your head defeatedly. 

“That’s it?” you snarled.

“Steal better shit next time,” she replied, shrugging. 

You slowly sighed and pinched the bridge of your nose, refusing to open your eyes and face her.

“I really need the money.” 

When you open your eyes again, it’s because you hear the roll of her weathered chair. Now standing full height, the middle-aged woman shook her head softly, a hint of a smirk playing out on her lips. 

“Like I said; steal better shit.” She turned to leave before facing you again. “You could always come and work with our girls.”

She glanced through the door that was cracked open, eyes resting on the table situated in the corner of the adjacent room. Around it, a group of girls set down cards while pushing poker chips around. 

“Sell my body? I’d rather die,” you scoffed. 

“Suit yourself. Now, get out.”

“Was planning to.” You flipped her the bird, knowing that she was watching you leave.

“Real classy,” she called after you. “You gotta come back here for your next week’s dinner, you whore!”

“That’s all you,” you smiled at her before slamming the door closed on your way out. Oh, the satisfaction of pissing someone off; unparalleled. 

Placing your measly wage into a makeshift purse, you made your way back home. You hugged your frame tightly, keeping your head down and pacing through the dilapidated neighbourhood. 

Once upon a time, when you were new to the shadier areas of town, you affirmed to yourself every day that this situation was temporary. The hope for a better job, better apartment and better tomorrow kept you going for a long time. Deep down though, you knew it wasn’t temporary, and now you were being proven right every day. What was keeping you going these days? Multiple times, you delayed the contemplation of that question, knowing that if you thought about it… well, it’s better to not go there. 

You were careful to double-check the lock on your door and windows when you stepped into the cramped shower. Today, you thanked God for hot water, even though you were sure he didn’t exist. Mind empty like a brand new chalkboard, you shuffled around your one-room housing and put together something edible to appease the churning stomach.

Your ear perked up at what sounded like the creaking of the fourth floorboard from your bed. You locked the door. You were sure of it. 

Still, you peeked over the short dividing wall that hid the view of your bed from the kitchen. Nothing. You shook your head at your paranoia and turned back to get to the less-than-appetizing meal waiting for you. 

Steve jammed the needle into your neck, expecting you to fall back into his arms. Instead, your forehead hits the edge of your counter and you slump onto the floor. Your eyes shutting down and head throbbing, you reach out to feel your attacker and touch Steve with saucy fingers. He groans in annoyance as he picks up your whimpering form. 

Thump, thump, thump.

The nightclubs you frequent were full of snobby, rich kids who didn’t know the value of wealth. You stole to survive. They could survive without their wristwatch for one night. 

Thump, thump, thump.

Music turned the speakers inside out, deafening those closest to it, but the youth are resilient to damage in any form. For you, though, it was too loud; too much. It wasn’t uncommon of you to walk away from the scene with a pounding head. 

Thump, thump, thump.

The inside of your head resembled the thumping of club speakers. Jaw slack and eyes foggy, you tried to rub your temples. But your arms wouldn’t move. 

Sitting up the best you could, you looked down at your hands to see them bound by zip ties, sitting on your lap. It was joke-worthy how your captor thought they could bind you with zip ties, of all things. He would have to do better than this. 

You tugged on the end of the tie using teeth and tightened it some more before huddling your knees up to your chest. Bringing your hands down as hard as you can against your kneecap, you awaited the snapping sound of the zip tie. Nothing came. You look at your hands again, realizing that they were still bound.

“Don’t do that,” a voice piped up from the dark corner of the room. Startled, you look to the source of the voice but no light fell in that direction. For the first time, you took in your surroundings: half of the room was divided by a set of bars. The other side had large machinery with wires running towards the jail section. As you trailed your eyes across the wires, you noticed a closed door. 

At least you knew it was possible to escape now. 

Quickly turning to the place the voice came from, you scooted backwards some more and anticipated the arrival of your captor. 

A woman crawled forward slowly with bounded legs and arms like yours. 

Seeing that it was just another prisoner, you tightened the strap of your zip tie again and tried breaking it one more time. It snapped. Rubbing your wrists where they were bound, you got straight to undoing the bind on your legs. Beside you, the girl moved closer and repeatedly begged you not to free yourself. 

“Shut up, Brit,” you mumbled, referring to her accent.

The bind on your legs gave away and you stood up and stretched. Tentatively stalking around the cell, you noticed the toilet and sink. Why would he have those amenities in here if you were tied up anyway? When you went to touch the bars separating the room, the girl cried out again. 

“Stop! Don’t!” 

You rolled your eyes and touched it anyway. Electricity surged through you and you yelped, pulling back immediately. 

“Could’ve told me it was an electric gate,” you snapped. 

“Don’t try to escape.” 

You looked at her incredulously. “And sit here like ducks, waiting for him to kill us?”

“Someone will find us!” she pleaded. 

“Look at me! Look at you! No one is looking for us. The police won’t blink twice if people like us are gone. And he knows that.” You eyed the door that was inside your cell and looked to the other one outside the bars. 

“Do you want me to remove your binds or not?”

The girl sheepishly looked down before sticking her arms out for you. 

“My name is Peggy,” she offered as she stood up. She held your arm for support when blood rushed to her head. You shot her a withering look in response and she took her hand off. 

“I don’t think we can leave. He can probably hurt us with these implants.” Peggy pulled her hair to one side and showed you the nape of her neck. A glowing red triangle shone from under her skin. 

Your eyes widened, immediately reached for the back of your head. You felt around and touched the area that stung a little when you touched it. You compulsively hissed, realizing that your implant was fresh and the skin around it had not healed yet. 

“Has he done anything to you using the implant?” you held and shook Peggy’s shoulders while you questioned. 

“No, no, but he said it collects brain data and that it was connected to my spinal column, so I shouldn’t try anything.”

“He spoke to you?”

“Once. It’s Steve Rogers, the inventor guy on the cover of all the Forbes magazines.”

“Brain data,” you silently repeated as you look to the other side of the cell again. 

“I have an idea. Rip your clothes like this,” you demonstrated.

Using the rags ripped off from both of your prisoner uniforms, the pair of you created a long rope-like contraption with a loop on the end. You stuck your hand through the gaps in the cell and tried to fling the loop to a nook in the machinery. Failing hurt, your arm accidentally brushing against the metal once or twice before the loop finally caught onto a crevice. 

“That’s the wrong part,” your fellow inmate breathed.

“Yeah, but that’ll work too.” You pulled as hard as you could and a section of the machine broke off, sparks flying from the source. It crackled and caught on fire. 

Peggy was pulling the cell door open, grunting as she tried her best. It gave way and you both looked at each other briefly before dashing out of the room. The jail room went up in flames behind you. Peggy looked over her shoulder, but you yanked her arm, signalling her to keep running. 

You flew up stairs and through doors, finally making your way into a clearing. Peggy rushed to what seemed to be the entrance door and frantically banged on it. 

“HELP!”

“That’s not gonna work!” you rushed to the door and inspected the lock. On the right side, there was a screen that displayed a handprint. 

Do not try to escape. Only Steven can leave the premises. 

“What?” you whispered. The new voice was coming from all around you, seemingly through fixtures in the ceiling and walls, but you couldn’t be sure. The situation was tense and you were scared the whole house was going to burn down.

Before you could catch her, Peggy planted her hand on the screen which scanned and turned red. Suddenly, all the lights emanated red, accompanying a booming alarm that blared through the house. 

In the distance, what you assumed was a statuesque décor piece, came to life. It reminded you of the spiders from the Maze Runner. A motorized killing machine. It stalked towards Peggy and you with pincers appearing from its side. 

Screaming, Peggy ran. So did you, but you weren’t sure if you were screaming. You couldn’t hear through the noise your friend was making on top of the deafening alarm. 

The spider machine stuck out its knife-like hands, trying to stab you. As you ran into another room, you frantically searched for an exit. Right now, your priority was to survive this thing.

You pulled open a cupboard in what appeared to be the study and instructed Peggy to climb in. The monster was coming. There wasn’t much time to hide. 

You shut the closet door and hid behind a lounging chair in the corner. 

The machine came in and scanned the room, looking for your heat signatures. It could see Peggy.

The cupboard door flung open and Peggy shrieked, crawling out of it in attempts to move out of the line of attack. She took 4 steps on her knees and looked straight into your eyes. 

“HELP ME-”

You screamed when she was dragged back towards the machine. You couldn’t save her anymore. You mobilized and ran back to the living room area, not even turning back to address blood that splattered across your back. It wasn’t in your best interest to find out how she was killed. 

“Aries!”

Frozen in fear, you look to your right to see the entrance door open. There stood your captor, staring at the machine that was now hovering over you. 

“Stop,” he muttered and set down his briefcase. 

Aries retracted its pincers, making its way back to the little pedestal it was perched on before. It powered down just as the CEO stepped into the house and glared at you.

For a split second, the doors were open, and you considered tackling past him. 

“Don’t even think about it.”

You collapsed onto the floor where you were already lying down. Getting out was going to be a lot harder than you anticipated. 

Your hands were bound again, but this time, behind you. You were seated on a pedestal like the one Aries was on, except this one had an ugly glass décor piece that extended to the ceiling. You tugged on the bonds, hoping for some leeway, but Rogers had learned his lesson. 

You shook your head side to side, trying to get pieces of hair and blood off your face. Eventually, you had to give up, slumping into the post your arms were tied to. 

“You cost me 7 million dollars worth of tech,” Steve’s voice sounded from another room. 

“If you let me go, I swear on my life I won’t tell anyone. They won’t believe me anyway.” 

He appeared in front of you and placed both hands on either side of your thighs. 

“Things will work out for you, if you just… shut up.” 

You exhaled and turned your face to the right, hoping he’d stop invading your personal space. 

“Just… please, untie me.”

He stood back and considered your request before rounding the side of the pedestal and untying you. 

“Bucky?”

Yes, Steve.

“Activate Aries if she moves a single inch from her spot.” He eyed you at the end of his command and sauntered away to god-knows-where. 

You hoped it wouldn’t be pushing your luck to stand up and stretch, so you did. You mentally considered the various stretches you did as a child, during gymnastics. It had been years since you recalled those, so you did them to the best of your ability. It’s funny how life works. One day you were among a row of girls, learning how to do a cartwheel and before you know it, you’re in a psycho’s mansion as a lab experiment. 

About 30 feet away from this pedestal was Aries.  

Cautiously, you took a few steps away from your place. No reaction from Aries. That meant ‘Bucky’ and Aries weren’t the same thing. You could also deduce from Steve’s command, Bucky was capable of conversing.

Do not take another step forward, Subject 10. I have been told to inflict pain if you move from your position.

You took another step anyway, wondering how much you could test the limits of this A.I. 

Do not take another step forward, Subject 10. I have been told to inflict pain if you move from your position. 

You considered making a run for it but reconsidered. Aries would activate in less than 5 seconds and Steve was still in the house somewhere. You needed to play this better. Besides, you didn’t even have an exit point. 

You went back to your pedestal and sat down, drawing patterns on the ground with your feet. It would help to know the time or date. A part of you wondered if anyone was looking for you, but you yourself had answered that question long ago. No one looks for people like you or me. 

It could’ve been hours or minutes, but finally, Steve called you into a different room. You observed your environment as you stalked towards the kitchen area where the inventor was seated. 

“Sit,” he motioned at the chair that was on the other end of the table. 

As soon as you sat, tiny robots flew to your seat and placed food in front of you. It was some sort of soup with a side of bread, the only utensil he gave you being a spoon. Smart bastard. 

You wanted to hold off on the food; you really did. But you didn’t even get to eat the sandwich that you were putting together before the kidnapping. So you began devouring the meal, ignoring his pointed stare at your lack of table manners. It was only when you were halfway through the meal did you realize that the food may be drugged. Too late now.

“You killed my only other test subject and rendered her data useless.”

“I didn’t kill her.”

Steve dropped his steak knife and fork, shooting daggers into your eyes.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he began. Clasping his hands together, he leaned forward, supporting his weight on his elbows. You could tell by the way he talked that he was used to getting what he wanted. He relished in it.

“Every day, for the next two weeks, I’m going to leave for work. And every day, you’re going to complete the puzzles and tasks that Bucky tells you to do.”

“And if I don’t?”

“It won’t take me more than 10 minutes to kill you, clean up the mess and dispose of your body.”

“If you could kill me, you probably would’ve. I know you considered it,” you remarked, leaning back into your chair and folding your arms.

“Now, why would I waste a perfectly good test subject?” It was his turn to mimic your body language. 

“If you want me to do what you need me to do, I need three things,” you announced. 

“It’s funny how you think you have any leverage in this situation.”

You kept your face stoic, trying to prove that you were serious about the negotiations. If he didn’t allow you these requests, you would never escape. 

“Okay, go on,” he said, clearly amused. 

“I need clothes. Regular clothes, not prisoner uniforms. I need to shower. And I need proper food, like what you’re eating.”

“That’s quite the list.” he laughed. Abruptly, his features turned serious. “I hope you know that you don’t hold any cards against me right now, and if I allow any of those things, it’s out of the kindness of my heart.”

It was your turn to laugh. “The kindness of your heart,” you wheezed between laughs. “Sure, okay. Yeah.”

He swallowed the last piece of his meal and gestured towards the sofas. 

“Bucky will be guarding you throughout the night. Don’t think of trying anything.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” you beamed at his sour expression right before leaving the table.

Masterlist

[after-witch]

Takeout (Yandere Dabi x Reader)

Title: Takeout (Yandere Dabi x Reader)

Synopsis: You haven’t been eating. Your captor brings home takeout.

Word Count: 1165

Notes: yandere, depression, mentions of malnutrition and injuries

 Dabi shuts the front door of the apartment you two share with an unusual gentleness, dangling a large bag of take-out in one hand and the keys for the myriad of locks he’s installed in the other. He normally likes to make a show of coming home--keys jangling, door slamming, anything to get you riled up and tense and reacting. But since you’ve fallen so deep into your… funk, as he calls it, he’s been strangely quiet. Truth be told, he’s afraid that his usual loud noises and intense demeanor might shock you into some further place inside you, making you infinitely harder to reach.

So it’s with this careful quiet that he enters your bedroom, noting with a frown that you’re in practically the same position as when he left. Curled up on your mattress, holding a small, ratty pillow to your chest. You turned over at some point--that’s something, at least.

“Hey,” he says, casually--with more practiced effort, it must be said. He tried being his usual snarky self with you at first, thinking you were being stubborn and pouty when you refused to get out of bed or even respond to him. But even nasty threats hadn’t coerced you to react more than glancing at him, eyes unusually dull. A healing burn on your arm, a last ditch-attempt on his part, was testament to just how deep you’d fallen in.

In any case, you don’t respond.

He sets the takeout bag down on the foldout table he’d found near a dumpster and promptly co-opted for his place, and begins pulling out the containers. The smell of the array of takeout boxes, filled with freshly steamed vegetables, fish, curry and an array of dishes he knows you like fills the otherwise stale smelling room.

He glances over at you as he starts popping open the staples on the boxes, but if you’ve noticed the impressive takeout spread he’s started to lay out, you don’t give any signs. His eyes roam over your prone form and he feels a twinge of anxiety beginning to bubble. You hadn’t been eating much, sometimes not at all, for a few weeks now. Lately you refused to even feed yourself, and he had to resort to offering you bites, which you would--only sometimes--nibble.

You would compliantly drink water if he held the glass to your lips, and sometimes he overheard you sipping it from the sink in the bathroom; but any attempts to make you eat more than a bite or two had ended in messy spills, wasted food, and your sobs. You’ve lost weight, and the dark circles under your eyes are showing more as each day passes. The burn on your arm is healing more slowly than it should, much slower than the other burns and scratches and bruises you’d received since he brought you home.

“I picked up some of your favorite things at that place you used to go to all the time,” he says, taking the time to keep his tone pleasant. “I even paid for it--if you can believe that.” He glances over again--you haven’t moved a muscle.

“I got some desserts too.” He pauses. “You can eat them first, if you want. Or should I stick them in the fridge?” Maybe a question will get you to respond, he thinks.

When he glances over next, you’re looking at him, but any relief he feels is short lived. Your eyes have a sad, glazed over look that he’s come to know all too well over the past few weeks. He tries to pay it no mind as he dumps a bit of of each thing on a plate, before setting your tray carefully down on the floor next to the mattress.

“We can freeze what you don’t eat. This should last us a while, huh?” His voice trails off at the end. Your eyes are--you barely look like you’re even there. Finally, something inside him seems to snap and he takes a few staggering steps towards the door.

“I’m… a real piece of shit.” He looks back at you and smiles, a sad, unusual smile that he’s never shown you before. “I fucked up real good, didn’t I? I can’t believe I--” He doesn’t finish.

He suddenly leaves the room, but he doesn’t make it far past the threshold before he collapses on his knees. He begins to cry, an unusual, soft piercing sound that carries easily through the open doorway to your shared room.

He doesn’t see you shift on the mattress, pulling yourself into a sitting position as you learn forward to look at him. But he does finally feel your gaze and glances over, noting that you’re looking at him not with the lifeless expression you’ve been wearing for days but with a dulled version of… pity? Sympathy? He doesn’t know, but the thought lasts only a moment because the next thing he sees is you lifting the pair of chopsticks he left near the plate. Your hand is shaking slightly as you take up a piece of fish and bring it to your mouth. He’s entranced as you take a small bite.

He wants to run through the doorway and shove the rest of the food in your mouth. Eat, damn it, eat! But he knows that would be monumentally stupid. Instead he slowly gets up from his crouched position and quietly makes his way back into the bedroom. He sits down near the doorway. He doesn’t want to break whatever spell is simmering between you. He watches you pick up another small bite, some plain rice, and eat that, too.

He scoots closer to you and, seeing that you don’t show any sign that his presence is disturbing you, continues until he’s close enough to touch you. You seemingly ignore him as you set down the chopsticks and takes a small, gentle nibble of a sweet pastry. Dessert.

He places his scarred hand on top of yours and finally, you do look up at him. The sight of something--pity, sympathy, sadness--in your eyes causes Dabi to let out a shuddering breath. It’s a beautiful sight.

He strokes the top of your hand gently.  “That’s so good, (Y/N). You’re doing so good. I’m so proud.”  

The praise seems to make you tremble, and he sees you wipe away a tear before you take another bite of the sticky pastry.

It’s just a bite, a bite or two. But it’s a start.

[dokifluffs]

Head Pats | Akaashi, Hinata

Pairing: Akaashi X Reader (gender neutral), Hinata X Reader (female) 

Genre: comfort fluff!!!~~

Author’s Note: i’ve said it so many times but OH TO BE Y/N !!! hinata;s is actually kinda angsty ngl sooo ah ha ha 

Warnings! implied time skip. No spoilers for Akaashi but spoilers for timeskip hinata!! 

Head Pats | Suga, Atsumu 

gif from @rivaillerose 💛💛

Akaashi: NOTE - R/N is restaurant name

“I don’t know this.. I don’t know this…”

Panic

It was all you could feel in ever bit of your soul as your heart sank after reading question after question, skipping the ones you didn’t know

But doing this only brought you to the end of the test where you didn’t know anything

Panic

Everyone progressed through their exam in a timely manner and here you were

It felt like you were the only one who wasn’t moving their pencil in the slightest bit

You stared at the words on the test paper before you, all the pencil sounds surrounding you — you felt like such a failure

Like all the hours you spent, all the effort you put into this course, and maybe others, were all for naught

You took a deep breath as you gathered yourself, pushing through your exam

As you took it, some questions were actually fine, majority was alright but they all made you feel uneasy with your answer, making you doubt everything

Sitting in this lecture hall, how grand and tall it was yet here you were, so small. This room used to be filled with your professor’s voice yet here it was — silence

“Time. Pencils down.” Your professor’s voice cut through eh silence like a blade. “Close your packets, slide them into your envelope and pass them down your row. Students at the end of the row pass the envelopes down.”

The shuffling of papers and whispers made your head dizzy, your heart trembling as you closed your final exam

You were done

It was finally over

“All tests are in, you are all dismissed. Have a great summer break!” your professor smiled

Everyone gathered their belongings, chatting amongst themselves as they shook the professor’s hand on the way out

“It was great to have you in class Y/N,” your professor smiled so kindly as he shook your hand one final time. “Have a great summer!”

“You too, professor,” you forced a smile but as soon as you stepped out of the lecture hall, you could hear all the complaints from your classmates as they complained about the test

“I honestly gave up bro, like I didn’t know anything” a guy commented freely as he walked toward the exit

“Bruh I know like I remember him teaching the material but that was it.”

Hearing all the comments sort of like this eased you just a bit but just knowing that you were going to see such a bad score

It made you sick to your stomach, making everything feel wrong

The warm summer sun welcomed you as you stepped outside of the hall

You felt so miserable, all you wanted now was Akaashi, his hand to pat your head and to shoo everything you felt that made you feel so stuffy

“Y/N,” a voice called

The sound of this voice brought tears automatically to your eyes before you could even look up to see the owner of this voice

Your body seemed to move on its own towards your boyfriend as all the emotions and tears that had built up within you during your exam came rushing out

he smiled to you as if nothing was wrong in the world when everything felt wrong 

he wore black jeans with a white shirt and navy blue cardigan with the sleeves rolled up

You wrapped your arms around him, burying your face into his chest and shoulder 

“Oh, Y/N, was it that bad?” He stroked his hand on your head 

“Mmhmm,” you nodded, stifling all your cries and whimpers the best you could but you knew it was already too late - you could feel how swollen and stuffy your nose were 

“I feel like I didn’t know anything and it was so frustrating and depressing to just sit there.” You buried your face into your palms, trying not to break down even more when all you wanted to do right now was to disappear 

“I’m sorry, but it’s over, alright?” Akaashi rubbed your shoulders as a way to comfort you as he smiled at others passing and staring at what was going on but he could also hear the others complaining about the exam you had just taken 

“Y/N?” he leaned down, carefully parting your hands from your face, smiling once you opened your eyes to him. “I brought you these since I know I haven’t been able to really support you properly while you were studying.”

he handed you a bouquet of your favorite flowers 

your lips trembled even more as you cried tears of something else from his loving gesture 

“What’s wrong now?” he laughed as he rolled down his sleeves, using them to dry your face, a sound so pure from him, it made life feel alright 

“N-nothing, I’m just so happy to see you,” you lowered your head down once again only for akaashi to wrap his arms around you, kissing the top of your head 

“negativity begone,” he repeated the words in between every kiss as he gently rocked the two of you side to side 

“Come on, let’s go to R/N, hm? We can talk about anything you want and we can do anything you want now or after, okay?” 

Bonus: 

your sniffles felt like they were never going to end as you sadly drank your drink, letting it refresh you as Akaashi adored you from across the table, happy that your tears and sadness and frustrations from your exam were no longer 

The restaurant was empty as cars whizzed by outside

your heart sank hearing the email notification from your professor  

upon opening it, your soul left your body as all the tears you thought you were done shedding came bac for round two 

“Y/N! What is it?” Akaashi’s brows knitted together as he had never seen you so emotional before 

you couldn’t even begin to speak or try to - all you did was show him your phone

“Hi all, I know this semester was very tough but you all know how much I care about the class. This final exam was not an actual exam nor will I actually be giving one. As for your final grade, I have based that on today’s attendance so everyone will be passing. Have a great summer.” - your professor 

it was unbelievable but all your worries for the last couple of hours were for nothing 

Gif from @rivaillerose​ 💛💛

Hinata: note - pedro is hinata’s roommate in Brazil and he works as a delivery boy to make money 

the door shut behind his body, enclosing him into his dark bedroom, the only source of light coming from outside was from the streetlamp and the bustling night market 

he leaned back against the cool wooden door as it separated Hinata from the lively atmosphere of the rest of the house as Pedro watched One Piece on the TV 

the floor made a loud thud as his body slid down the door, disappointment filling him up as he thought about what had happened 

the new wallet Natsu had gifted him before leaving to Brazil was nowhere to be found in his fanny pack as he ran his deliveries 

for once, the human sun didn’t feel so bright 

he signed as he looked to his dark room, bits and horizontal lights from the street casting onto his wall through the blinds 

the street lift bustling on the street right outside as usual 

a sinking feeling felt like it was only getting deeper and deeper inside his chest as he hugged his arms with his knees, a cool breeze from the floor brushing his legs 

he really screwed up losing his precious wallet

he had never felt so dumb 

his groans and sighs filled the room as he sat in his pool of self disappointment, slowly sinking deeper and deeper 

until his phone rang 

it rang with his bright ringtone, lifting the mood instantly since this particular ringtone was dedicated for you 

everyone had their own ringtone in his phone 

and it was like a breath of fresh air when he sighed, grateful he didn’t lose this today 

He opened the flap of his case, his face suddenly illuminated by the device in hand 

“Shoyo!” you beamed, your bright aura illuminating through his screen even into the darkest places within him, eradicating as much negativity as you unintentionally could 

“Y/N, hi!” he beamed, almost completely forgetting his major bump in the road 

“How are you doing? How was your day?” you asked, the sun shining on the side of your face from what he could see on his phone 

you were clearly still in bed but then again, you did just wake up 

“It was alright...” he tried to smile, trying to be okay but there was just something deeper about this hurt inside as it pooled 

even talking to you - when you would almost always heal him, right now, he couldn’t feel too much of it 

“I uh, lost my wallet today, so that’s bumming...” he rest his phone on his bed as he held it up with his hand, his chin resting into the side edge of his bed

“oh no, the one Natsu gave you?” you asked, hoping it wouldn’t be too serious. “Could you like call the police station and ask if they find it or if it like turns up?” 

“No.. it’s not like back home...” he sighed, clearly dejected 

your thoughts scurried as you thought of alternatives, thinking of ideas that you could possibly suggest to help him find it 

“How’s home? how’s everyone doing?” he asked, his voice light and soft, airy as if he had just woken up from a nap, his question reaching back home, back to the place he longed the most

where he wished he could be right now...

“shoyo, lean forward,” you smiled warmly, able to see his somewhat lagged, pixelated face through your phone

“what?” he asked confused 

“just bring your phone to your head. Im gonna pat your sadness away even though I can’t really do it how I normally would, but better than nothing.” 

He did as you asked, bringing his device to his forehead, feeling the warmth of the screen, feeling the breeze from his cracked windows open, letting his imagination take flight, imagining it was you that was here with him 

you sitting on the edge of his bed, patting his hair, playing with your tangerine as you normally would, his head resting in your lap 

“shoo shoo,” you cooed, silly, hoping this would help in the slightest 

he could hear the pat of your hand over your phone’s mic 

but there was just something 

this sudden hit of the real life that was his right now 

he was so far from home in a foreign country, chasing his dream when so many others his age right now would be at school, planning a career and their future for themselves 

and you 

you were so far 

his family, his friends, you, god you 

his nose sniffled as subtle rumbles sounded in his ears, his eyes blinking, widening with every blink to hide the sudden pink in them, the tears lining his waterline 

he kept his phone to his head, subtly seeing the glow of his screen through his closed eyes, wishing you really could reach through the phone or at least he could just be back home soon 

but there was quite a great time before this could happen and he knew it vividly 

“shoyo? You okay?” you held your own phone, turning onto your side so the sun no longer shined right into your eyes 

there was just calm breathing from his end before an airy “mmhm..” 

“Tsuki got promoted at the museum and I’m gonna be going out with Yachi later today, and then Yams is gonna join us..” you paused, still not seeing his face 

“We’re all doing okay, sho. So is Natsu and your mom,” you chimed cheerily for him. “They miss you just as much but don’t worry. You’re gonna be home before you know it and I just know you’re going to blow everyone away with how much you improved.” 

“I know you will, Sho. All the time you’re spending there will pay off..” you paused. “Even Kags thinks so, haha. We hang out together sometimes and he pretty often goes off about how you better be ready to go against him cause of your guys’ never ending battle.”  

“Thank you, Y/N,” and that was when you finally saw him. 

he smiled brightly with tears streaming down his cheeks, dripping off his chin 

these words

your voice 

this is what he needed 

he needed this more than anything to satiate the homesickness that grew within him every single day 

he needed to remember these words - that you and everyone are supporting him all the way across the world

bonus: from Chapter 371 - On The Other Side Of The Globe (vol 42/54) 

~~~~~

Thanks for reading! Masterlist for more! Please do not repost anywhere else!

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[shedobewritingalittle]

Two Slow Dancers

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: Steve and the Reader have had feelings for each other for years now. The night before everything goes to shit, they decide to act on them.

Word Count: 1.6k

Rating: R

Warnings: Angst, longing, the use of an amazing Mitski song, mentions of a graphic death, sadness, I’m so sorry

Her fingers danced on top of the various bottles of liquor. She hums softly to herself before grabbing the bottle of Asgardian mead she had taken from Thor earlier. The hero stood on her tippy toes in order to get a glass off of one of the higher shelves. Her hand reached for a second one when she heard someone walk into the room.

"Want a drink, Steve?" Y/N asks, not needing to turn around to know that he was there. The Captain chuckles, walking further into the room. She doesn't wait for him to answer as her hand picks up two glasses while the other holds the neck of the glass bottle. She turned on her heel, placing the glasses on the counter just as he sits down on one of the bar stools. He's dressed down, wearing a smile white t-shirt that's way too tight for his body and a pair of sweatpants. His hair is wet, freshly washed. The man's ready for bed yet he still is sitting across from her, as happy as a clam.

"I can never say no to you, Y/L/N." Steve replies, a smile on his face. A smile of her own appears on her face as she opens the bottle, immediately pouring them both a glass. How many times before a mission had they done this? Just the two of them sharing a drink while everyone else sleep. Dozens? Hell, maybe even a hundred. She hand him his glass, which he quickly takes, his fingers brushing against hers.

"Good, because drinking alone is depressing." Y/N grins at him, tapping her glass against his, ignoring the way her heart seemed to skip a beat, her fingertips burning from having touched his. Steve's grinning from ear to ear now as he holds his glass in his hand, shaking his head.

"Should we cheers to something? I feel like we should." He questions, looking at her. his eyes are twinkling in the low light, reminding her of the lake outside. Y/N bites her lip, thinking for a moment before she raises her glass in the air.

"To time travel." She announces, grinning at him. Steve rolls his eyes as he lifts his glass, tapping it against hers. It's tradition amongst friends. Nothing else.

"To time travel." Steve repeats before they both lift the glasses to their mouths, taking a long drink. It takes like honey as it goes down her throat, slightly easing the way her stomach has been twisting and turning all day. Its the only thing that'll get both of them drunk and with what is going to happen tomorrow-it's much needed. Y/N pulls the glass away from lips, trying to force herself to unwind.

"You wanna sit? Just for a bit?" She motions towards the living area. Steve follows her line of sight before nodding. She walks around the island, moving past him to go sit in one of the big love seats, pulling her knees into her chest. He sits down on the seat beside hers, looking far more relaxed than she does.

"Penny for you thoughts?" Steve asks, looking over at her. Y/N looks down at her glass, her thumb wiping away some of the spilled drink as she stays silent for a moment.

"I have a bad feeling about tomorrow, Steve." She murmurs to him, raising her glass to her lips. Y/N hopes that the alcohol will continue to calm her nerves, that it'll just take the edge off.

"You always have a bad feeling. We-We're going to be okay." He responds, offering her a smile that's as sweet as candy.  Y/N swallows her drink and rolls her eyes.

"Have I ever told you how annoying your optimism is? Because it is." She teases, acting annoyed even though she loves his optimism. It balances out her pessimism, it reminds her that not everything is all doom and gloom.

"And here I was thinking that my optimism is exactly why you keep me around." Steve jokes right back, a shit-eating grin on his face. Y/N scoffs, trying to ignore the way blood rushed to her cheeks and the tip of her ears.

"You're such a dork." Y/N says, trying to ignore the way that he was making her feel, even as his chuckle makes a million butterflies fly around her stomach. She looks down at her glass, unable to stop herself from smiling. The weight on her shoulders had been lifted ever so slightly. That was just the effect Steve had on her.

They both have had feelings for each other for years now, although neither knew that it was mutual. For the others, it had just been this unspoken thing. Y/N and Steve really, really liked each other but they are both too chicken shit to do anything about it. It didn't matter that they had spent three years apart and it didn't matter that over the past five years they hadn't seen each other as much as they would've liked. Those feelings were still there and they had never left.

It was like something in the air had shifted.

Maybe Y/N's worries had settled into Steve or maybe he finally realized the gravity of the whole situation. Maybe the Star Spangled Man with a Plan was tired of waiting, tired of hoping the right time and right place would come to him, tired of wondering when he was going to work up the courage to say something. Steve didn't know how tomorrow was going to play out and because of that he finally felt that courage building up, felt his heart starting to beat faster in his chest.

"Dance with me." Steve says as he suddenly stands, the drink in his glass sloshing the sides, almost spilling. Her eyebrows knitting together as she looks up at him, a bit confused.

"I'm sorry-what?" Y/N questions as he quickly sets his drink aside and holds his hand out to her, his brows knitting together.

"Y/N, I've been waiting for the right partner and I just want to have a dance with you. I-We've waited too long for this and I can't wait anymore. So will you dance with me?" The Captain asks, his hand still outstretched towards her. Her bottom lip trembles, her eyes filling with tears as she starts to nod, feeling her heart swell in her chest. Y/N takes his hand and stands, putting her drink down.

"FRIDAY, play something slow and sweet from one of my playlists." She says softly, smiling up at Steve. He carefully (and awkwardly) wraps one hand around her waist, the other moving to hold her hand in his. Y/N's hand moves to rest on his chest, carefully, as if she moves too fast of isn't delicate enough this all might end.

"Of course, Miss Y/L/N." FRIDAY replies, a song immediately starting. It'a slow and it's sad, but there is just a tinge of sweetness to it.

"Does it smell like a school gymnasium in here? It's funny how they're all the same It's funny how you always remember And we've both done it all a hundred times before It's funny how I still forgot"

The two moved slowly side to side, their hands clutched together. They could both feel a sinking feeling in their stomachs as they moved, that initial happiness being replaced by anxiousness. Both heroes were terrified of tomorrow, of losing the other.

"It would be a hundred times easier If we were young again But as it is And it is We're just two slow dancers, last ones out We're two slow dancers, last ones out"a

Neither could voice those feelings or the feelings they have both had for each for years now. Y/N lets the tears roll down her cheeks as Steve slowly, cautiously leaned forward and placed his lips against the top of her forehead as he brings their hands close to their bodies.

"And the ground has been slowly pulling us back down You see it on both our skin We get a few years and then it wants us back"

Tomorrow they'd be sent on their separate journeys. Tomorrow they would have to worry about the other getting hurt. Tomorrow they would have the weight of the universe on their shoulders. But tonight they were right here, holding one another.

It would be a hundred times easier If we were young again But as it is And it is

Tomorrow, Steve would watch as she met her sudden and swift end, taking one of The Mad Titan's blades through her abdomen. He'd would run towards her, crying out her name as she stumbled and fell to the ground. By the time he'd get there, by the time he pulled her into his arms,  she'd be bleeding out. Y/N will be unable to talk, sputtering and gasping for air, her blood covering her teeth and lips as the battle continued all around then. He'll start crying, practically sobbing as he told her over and over that he loved her and that she couldn't leave him, not yet. Her blood would get all over his hands and his suit and he would hold her as she struggled to take her final breath.

But tonight, they held each other and swayed from side to side. Steve rested his cheek against her forehead, both of them letting their eyes flutter shut. Tonight, all that mattered was that they were together and it seemed like things were looking up for them.

Tonight, they danced.

To think that we could stay the same To think that we could stay the same To think that we could stay the same But we're two slow dancers, last ones out We're two slow dancers, last ones out Two slow dancers, last ones out

[anyoneseenadam]

Hi! Could you do an azriel x reader where they have a huge argument but it ends with fluff? Thank you!

pairing: azriel x reader (acotar)

warnings: mentions of self harm and suicidal thoughts, depression, anxiety, shouting, swearing and a butt ton of angst but with some fluff at end

a/n: this is kinda self indulgent because i’m vvv depressed rn and for some reason angst rlly makes me feel better so i hope u enjoy!! pls comment it rlly means the world <3

—————————————————————————-

You knew Azriel was stressed. His hands clenched, lips red from excessive chewing, his gaze stormy and sharp words hurting anyone that pried to deep. You knew you should leave him alone and let him finish whatever he needed to do, but it had been a week and while you had noticed he was stressed, he seemed oblivious to your pain.

You had woken up a week ago with a heavy head, your entire body weighing you down, making everything seem too loud and too bright. The first day you had laid in bed all day, barely eating and when Azriel found you hours later he simply presumed you had just taken an early night.

But you couldn’t sleep.

A few days later you were practically withering away. You had barely eaten in days; you couldn’t sleep, and you missed your mate horribly. Every part of you ached as you dragged yourself into the shower, desperate to scrub away the layer of dirt you could feel on your skin. You stood under the scalding water, hands moving on their own accord to wash your skin, your head moving a million miles an hour as your eyes itched from the hot tears that were mixing with the even hotter water.

You leaned a hand against the counter when you got out, your legs shaky and weak from the lack of food you had consumed, you considered just getting back into bed, but you knew you needed help. You had gotten like this before and it always ended in some form of unhealthy coping mechanism, but you had promised Azriel you wouldn’t do that again so you instead you pulled your clothes on again, not bothering to dry your hair and dragged your feet to the kitchen.

When you didn’t find him there you frowned but went about making yourself some toast to quell the nausea brewing in your stomach. With your food you padded through your house but couldn’t find him anywhere, feeling more hot tears spill as you realised he was out.

You knew his job was hard, but your heart ached as you realised he truly hadn’t noticed the change. You sent a pulse down the bond as you sank to the floor in tears, your head heavy and heart numb. You didn’t get any reply, so you tried sending another one, to no avail, almost as if he were waving away your cries for help.

You cried for about fifteen minutes, before standing and going back through to your room, sitting on your bed, and staring at a blemish in the floor as you fiddled with the toy you had kept since you were young. You felt guilty for the thoughts running through your head, never wanting to make Azriel alone but feeling so lost in your own head that all you wanted to do was die, to feel the lightness you vaguely remembered enjoying as a child. You were standing to move to your bathroom, itching for your razor when you heard the front door open, relief flooding through you that he was finally home.

You walked out the room, fiddling with the sleeves of your oversized hoodie as you went to meet him. He was standing in the kitchen, shoulders tight and your heart panged at the sight of him, stressed and tired. You considered turning and leaving him but remembered that he told you to always come to him when your head was being cruel, so you shuffled forward, wrapping your arms around his back, and pressing your face between his shoulder blades, breathing easier as you inhaled him, your heart feeling some form of peace at last.

But he shrugged you off, moving away from you and you felt white hot dread fill you.

“Not right now (y/n), I’m busy.” His voice was cold as he made himself a cup of coffee, not offering you one as he usually would.

“I- I know I just haven’t seen you in a while.” You fought to keep your voice steady, but he didn’t seem to notice or care about the breaks. You felt your breathing getting deeper and your hands were tingling as the panic rose in you.

“That’s because my jobs fucking important!” he shouted and you flinched, tears swarming in your eyes as you wiped your sweating hands on your hoodie, stepping to him.

“But you said I should come to you if-“ he cut you off by slamming his hands down, shoulder hunched and glare furious as he shouted at you.

“Will you just fuck off! I have important shit going on.” You stopped where you were standing as he picked up his mug, storming out the room and slamming the door to his office behind him.

Tears spilled out of your eyes and you stumbled as you sat down, legs and hands going numb as you hyperventilated, the panic attack hitting you full force as you sobbed into your hands, trying to muffle the sounds so you wouldn’t bother Azriel anymore than you already had. You counted your breaths as you dug your nails into your palm, trying to calm yourself down and thankfully, slowly your breathing began to return to normal as you wiped at your eyes.

Of course he didn’t care. No one else does, you don’t deserve him, and you should be thankful that you have someone so good to you. Half your brain was arguing in his favour as the other half protested, but he hurt you, you can’t let him in again, this is what happens when people get to close.

Your head kept arguing with itself as you pulled yourself upright, walking through to your room and climbing under the covers of your bed, crying yourself to sleep, head pounding and somehow heavier than before.

--

You woke up to an empty bed and pounding headache. You dragged yourself out from under the covers and went to receive a glass of water and some painkillers, finding Azriel in the kitchen.

He smiled softly at you when you came in, but you averted your gaze, going to the sink and filling a large glass.

“Would you like a coffee?” he asked, his hand coming to your hip, but you shook your head, pulling out of his grip and clearing your throat as a weighted silence filled the room. “I’m sorry I shouted at you,” he muttered, desperate to get you to look at him again, but you just turned away, muttering a small “it’s okay,” under your breath and leaving.

You walked back to your room and sat down on the bed as you sipped your water and taking two painkillers. Azriel followed you in soon after, guilt gnawing at his insides and he stood quietly and watched as you pulled the jumper you were wearing over your head, pulling on a clean one.

He inhaled sharply as he saw the change in your body, moving closer to you.

“Have you been eating?” he asked, and you closed your eyes, facing away from him and staying silent as you no longer trusted your voice or temper. “Baby, you have to eat.” While he said it in a pleading manner, your brain heard it as angry, thousands of comments pertaining to how worthless you were springing to the forefront of your mind.

“It’s kinda hard to eat when you want to die.” You snapped and Azriel felt a pang go through his heart.

“(y/n). You promised me you would come to me if you felt that way,” he was frustrated, hating himself for getting annoyed at you but angry that you were ignoring him.

You laughed bitterly and you went to the bathroom, scrubbing the old makeup of your face, “I did. Or at least tried to,”

You stormed past him, pulling on a pair of joggers before moving to leave the house, but Azriel caught your arm.

“You haven’t done anything stupid have you?” he asked, worry and guilt filling him as your eyes filled with tears, finally looking at him enough that he could see the dark circles surrounding your hollow eyes, your skin dull and lacking its usual dewy finish.

“Why do you care.” You pulled your arm from his grip, stepping back and creating space between the two of you.

“Because you’re my mate and I need to know that you’re okay.” He tried to move closer again, but you stepped back so he stopped.

“Your mate huh? Then why haven’t I seen you in a fucking week, even though we fucking live together! Why are you only just noticing that I’m struggling!?” each word hit him like a blow and only his decades of training stopped him from bursting into tears, falling to his knees and begging your forgiveness.

“I was struggling so much, I couldn’t leave my bed, I wasn’t eating, I wanted to kill myself and as soon as I tried to reach out for help you shut me down.” You head was bowed, tears flowing freely as you sobbed into your hand.

He stepped closer his arms wrapping around you as you sobbed into his chest, “I’m sorry baby, I’m so, so sorry,” he kissed your head, his heart cracking at your next muffled words.

“You only care now because you feel bad. I don’t need your sympathy.”

“No baby, I’m sorry. I care so much I was just tired and stressed last night and I know that’s not an excuse, but you have to know how much I care about you. I love you so much and I need you to be okay.” He tightened his arms around you, bringing the two of you to kneel on the floor.

“I’m not okay Az,” you muttered, and his chest tightened as he stroked your back, allowing you to cry for as long as you needed.

“I know baby, but it’s okay. We’ll get through this, together.” He kissed your forehead lightly and you tilted your head to look at him, eyes wide and glassy with tears. He kissed one of the tears that was slowly trailing down your face away and you sniffed, before he kissed you lightly. He picked you up and carried you over to the bed, the two of you lying down together, tucked safely into his arms as he whispered sweet nothings and apologies to you as you fell asleep. Tears drying on their own.

[hongism]

the little things - c. jongho

↣ pairing: jongho x reader; mentioned poly ot8 x reader ↣ genre: sfw, fluff, hurt/comfort, angst, fantasy au, witch ateez au ↣ wc: 3.6k ↣ summary: when the winters seem to drag and last forever, you find yourself slipping a bit into murky waters of despair. jongho is your lifeline, your lifesaver, your lifeboat, determined to guide you back to peaceful shores. ↣ warnings: mentions of intrusive thoughts, depression, lots of Talking about depression/grief/mourning, mentions of death/talking about someone who has died

The air bites harshly at your skin, nipping the areas where you can’t be bothered to pull your blanket up over, and if you were in a different emotional state, perhaps you would find it in you to care more. Instead, you remain rooted to the spot — a small stump behind your cottage that overlooks the quiet and expansive forest just over the lip of the hill. It’s a beautiful sight, even in the midst of winter like this where snow has just fallen and left a white sheen to the tips of the trees below you.

It would be wise for you to be inside just in case someone decides to climb the hill to your shop and request a prescription, but you know you will sense them coming before they even reach the stairs.

So, you stay where you are, letting your blanket slip a little more from your shoulders. Your guest — even the loud and boisterous one as he works — sings along to a silent melody, painting your ears with the pleasant sound of his voice as he moves freshly chopped wood to your dwindling pile by the house. Despite your attempts to help, he simply told you to stay put and not move a muscle while he chopped and moved them. Arguing with him would be a losing fight anyway.

In all honesty, as beautiful and delightful as the forest below you usually is, you cannot find it in you to see that beauty right now. Nothing seems to be working. All your wasted and helpless attempts to feel some type of way about your surroundings have failed time and time again. Either that or they are drowned out by that lingering ache in your chest, the one that clenches your heart tight in its clutches and pins you to the ground in a state of numbness that sadly is not foreign to you.

You wish you had a better explanation for that tightness in your chest. Whenever Seonghwa or Hongjoong asks after you and how you’re faring, you scrape by and say you are doing fine. Because yes, you are arguably fine. Not bad but not particularly good either. Just a middle ground of fine. (Nothing is ever truly fine in such a world where the word has become a cloak for how one truly feels, and you know both Hongjoong and Seonghwa can see right through your ruse each time you utter the words ‘I’m fine’. Neither push you further than that, however, so you don’t say anything else). Part of you feels the tuggings of guilt on your heartstrings when one of the others tries to cheer you up — Wooyoung with his playful jokes and endless tickle fights on the couch that end with you exhaling an exasperated sigh and leaving him there alone, San who does anything and everything to help but is too clumsy for his own good so he accidentally makes things worse, Yunho who tries his best to sit with you in absolute silence without moving while you read but inevitably cannot sit still for more than five minutes without doing something. So you do feel guilty for not being able to cheer up when they try their hardest to break that emotional wall around you.

It must be frustrating for them to have to deal with you while in such a state of emotional distortion and confusion; you aren’t sure whether you could be nearly as patient as they are with you (god, they are all so endlessly patient — another thing to feel guilty about). Yet you must admit that it is frustrating for you as well. Because as much as you want to be more than just fine or okay or whatever variation of “I’m not good, not bad, I don’t know what the fuck I am, I just am” you are on a certain day, you cannot will yourself into pushing those negative thoughts and feelings out of the picture. Almost like the thing holding you down has an anchor tied to your ankle and causes you to sink deeper and deeper each time you try to fight your way out of it.

Maybe you aren’t paying as much attention as you thought you were after all because when a firm hand reaches down to clasp around your shoulder, you are more than a little startled.

The little jump in your body as well as the sudden gasp that tears through your lips catches your companion off-guard too, it seems. Although Jongho is always a hard book to read; he doesn’t wear his feelings on his sleeve the way people like Wooyoung and San do. The slight and momentary widening of his eyes tells you all you need to know before you let yourself relax under his warm touch.

That’s another thing about Jongho — he is always so warm. Now, of course, you are fairly certain that part of that relates to him being an elemental witch, so obviously he will carry some extra warmth in his body because of those energies, but he holds a different kind of warmth with him as well. One that makes you believe for almost a second that it will be okay.

The sun flickering at the edge of the horizon.

Two swallows flitting across the bright and clear morning sky.

The rolling forest that rests at the foot of your hill.

It’s green today. The snow caps the trees just enough to leave hints of winter foliage peeking through.

Green and alive and beautiful.

Then the illusion breaks, like the anchor around your foot let up for just that moment to let you gasp in a desperate gulp of air and beauty before dragging you back into its abyss.

What a cruel, cruel mistress.

“Too cold?” Jongho inquires as he squats down beside you. A smile twists his lips, gentle and effervescent. (“Love,” your mind helpfully supplies, “he looks at you with love”).

“It’s not too bad today,” you reply in a quiet tone. There lies an alternate meaning to what you said, something contained and locked away in the box you call your heart, and Jongho takes that box into his hands so carefully as always. Sits down on the snow-covered ground without complaint beside your tiny stump and lets his hand slip down to rest over where your thigh meets your knee. It’s careful. Your lip twitches in some direction.

“That still implies it’s a little bad.”

You hum in response. There isn’t much for you to say to that even though he is unfortunately all too correct in saying such a thing.

“I chopped enough wood to last you through February. Should be a harsher winter than usual, so don’t hesitate to send for me if you need more before then.” You reach down to cover Jongho’s hand, tracing pointless and unknown patterns into the back of his hand. The touch is more for you than anything else; a peace of mind that allows you to disconnect the brutal reality of your pained chest from what is sitting right in front of you. Love, joy, care, warmth.

Why does your chest only grow colder in the face of something that burns so hot?

Jongho’s lips move again, and you are almost certain that he is speaking to you but the deep waters clog your ears and make it impossible to understand what he’s saying to you.

Why does this anchor never find a place to rest? You want to rest.

When you fail to respond or even acknowledge whatever Jongho has said in the slightest, he takes it upon himself to stand back up and nudge you away from your little stump. You are understandably confused by the action but too …absent to reality to complain or fight back against whatever he’s doing.

So you opt to simply stand off to the side and watch as Jongho brushes stray pieces of snow off your blanket. He wraps it snug back around your shoulders. It’s a bit warmer this time. Then, he guides you to the back door, hand closing around the soft white handle and pushing into the cottage without a word. This is just another language you speak. Understanding. Push and pull. The complex nature of working with an emotionally stunted and constipated individual who does not know how to communicate what exactly they are feeling or thinking in the moment.

You prefer to just exist rather than bog yourself down with such detailed intricacies — it makes things easier for you in the long run.

Once inside, Jongho continues to push you forward until you reach the positively tiny dining table you have set up next to the kitchen. Hardly an excuse for a dining table since it’s barely bigger than your bedside table but then again it’s made to seat you and only you. That doesn’t stop Jongho from pulling a second chair up to slot into the space directly to the right of your chair. Again you do not fight him when he eases you down onto the soft ivory cushion.

Instinct causes you to shift and look out the window above your table, finding the first few flakes of the morning snow beginning to fall. You wonder if Jongho sensed the weather shifting or if it’s merely happenstance that brought you both inside before the snow started.

“Seonghwa went on a rampage and cleaned the house again,” Jongho murmurs. He follows your gaze out the window but doesn’t say anything more than that, leaving the conversation open and hanging onto a hope for your response.

“Is he worried over Hongjoong?”

“No more than usual. You know how he gets. Can’t sit still even when you ask him to.” You shift to look at Jongho, noting the smile that curls at the corners of his lips, and this time you return the gesture with a lopsided grin of your own. “All before sunrise too.”

“He always has to be the first to wake up, otherwise he doesn’t get to tell you that you’re his darling sunrise.”

Jongho’s smile stretches wider and shows off his gums and teeth. It’s beautiful, you think, somewhere in the back of your mind that remains untouched by that cold sadness. Happiness looks good on Jongho — warm, alive, and beautiful. You wonder if it looks the same on your features as well, if it were ever to come back to you.

“Shall I prepare some tea?”

“You’re beginning to sound like Yeosang.”

“Maybe all those naps on the couch are finally starting to have weird side effects on me.” Jongho shrugs then laughs under his breath, but the sound is still clear and bright on your ears. He pushes back from the table to step into your small kitchen nonetheless, not waiting for your answer to his question as he begins to rummage through your cabinets.

“That would make sense; you’re his favorite after all.”

“Hm, I think Seonghwa has me beat there.”

“Only because of their familiar bond. Otherwise, I’m positive you would take the cake.” You prop your elbows up on the edge of the table, leaning forward until your chin rests atop your clenched fists, and you simply watch Jongho move around the kitchen with little on your mind for a bit. He’s quiet again; this time, he doesn’t speak as he works, and it allows you to stew in the silence while you can. You have to remind yourself that sometimes it’s like this. Some days are harder than others. Some days are easier, and some are like today where you can’t even manage to pinpoint the source of your negative feelings.

You glance over at the wall, staring hard at the small chalkboard that sits there with your messing scrawling and intelligible handwriting. Then your stare settles on today’s date. The small red circle around the number placed in roman numerals there. You left no other note there, no indication of what the red circle means, but after several years of practicing said habit, the knowledge is deeply ingrained in your mind now.

“Ah…” you exhale without thinking. You don’t notice the way Jongho’s gaze flickers over to you, how his hand hesitates near the kettle, or how he follows your stare to the calendar. You’re far too engrossed in the swarm of hurt in your chest. Suddenly your shifting moods make much more sense. “Another year, another birthday passed.”

The day always feels so odd and cathartic to you. A day one is supposed to celebrate that has long since grown cold and lonely because the one you are meant to be celebrating is nothing present. Birthdays are almost worse than the other melancholy anniversary that hasn’t left your mind.

You force your gaze away from the calendar to look back at where Jongho stands frozen as a statue in the kitchen.

“Did you… remember?” You ask. Jongho doesn’t typically come over unannounced, but he rarely explains why he comes to visit either. He did neither again today. It is far more understandable now that you’ve finally realized what day it is.

“I did,” he whispers back before settling back into his routine of making tea. “I did not want to mention it unless you brought it up first.”

His tone is careful and wary, like he’s treading on broken glass and trying not to make the damage worse. You are almost grateful for it.

“It’s okay,” you say through a strained smile. “At least I know why I’m feeling this way now.”

Next thing you know, Jongho is abandoning his station at the stove, leaving the kettle behind to heat up, and he returns to your side within seconds. Although this time, he merely stands beside your chair and brings his hands down to cradle your face in his rough and warm hands. You can’t understand why until his thumbs brush something damp away from your cheeks. You don’t even remember feeling the tears spring up.

“It’s okay.”

You nearly snap back and say it’s not okay, why would it be okay if you’re crying like this? But then it hits you that Jongho is not implying the situation is okay or that it is not something to be upset over. Rather, he’s telling you that it’s okay to cry like this, to be affected and hurt and in pain. You wish you could believe it.

“I thought it would get easier as more time passed.” You keep your tone quiet, knowing that if you lift your voice any higher it will begin to crack and break.

“Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. But I think you’ve made lots of progress as it is.” Jongho squats down until most of his weight is pushed onto his toes, sitting just beneath your eye level now. His hands don’t drift from your face for a second though, and right now, you couldn’t be more grateful for the warmth of his touch. “It’s not always about measuring the pain or comparing how much it hurts not to how much it hurt back then. Sometimes it’s about being able to see how you’ve grown and how you can look back at memories that were once painful with fondness now. And occasionally, it’s about being able to look at the calendar and smile because you know you get to celebrate a life and a soul that you still cherish.”

“What if one day I look at that calendar and don’t remember though? I don’t want to forget, but I want to be okay.” You suck your lower lip between your teeth and bite down hard on the skin. It doesn’t help with your sudden influx of tears (not that you expected it to) but Jongho wipes them away with each one that falls.

“Is that what you’re afraid of? Forgetting?”

“Y-Yeah. I get… I get upset because — I don’t know. Part of me feels guilty to even want to be okay when I know that he didn’t get to be. He didn’t have the chance to be okay, he was gone before he had that, and I’m here and I just… feeling a lot less deserving of that.”

Jongho shifts his weight to rest on his knees now, and he pulls you a bit further down to still comfortably hold your face between his palms.

“Would he want you to punish yourself for something out of your control? Or would he want you to rest in the knowledge that he is okay now? Resting easy after a long fight and at peace because he did well in his life? Even if that life did not last as long as we might have hoped, he still did well and worked hard and showed a life that was full of many beautiful things, no?”

“You’re right,” you murmur, eyes flitting away from Jongho’s ever so gentle ones. “I’m thankful for the time I had with him, even if it wasn’t as long as I imagined it would be. He’s at peace and he’s resting and okay now. Just the selfish part of me isn’t ready to let go.”

“You don’t ever have to let go, darling. Not completely. And if you don’t want to let go, then that gives me confidence that you won’t forget him or the memories of him. He will always be resting here.” Jongho’s left hand falls to rest over your heart, fingers barely brushing against the soft material of your clothes there. You instinctively reach over to cover his hand with one of your own and press him closer and closer until his palm lies flat against your chest. “He would want you to find the peace you deserve even if he isn’t here on earth anymore.”

“I’m trying my best to remember that,” you counter. The words come out a bit choked and thick thanks to your tears but you push through that and continue speaking nonetheless. “I’m trying to remember that he would want us to celebrate him and remember him fondly, not just the sad parts or the tragedy. He wouldn’t want to be remembered as something sad or a tragedy, and he wouldn’t want to only be remembered when times are sad. I just feel like I’m drowning in these feelings and can’t get out sometimes.”

“In times of grief, we often let ourselves sink because we lose ourselves in the feelings of pain and sadness. It’s easier to get lost in it than it is to fight your way out of it, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. There’s always a way out. Sometimes you just need someone to hold your hand and help guide you home.”

“I want to go home,” you whisper. It sounds utterly stupid to say aloud since you are sitting in your own damn kitchen right now, you are home physically, of course you are, and you are more than well aware of that. Still, your heart feels like it’s torn from your chest and off who knows where with no hope of coming home, yet Jongho just twists his hand around and takes hold of yours. You cling to your lifeline harder.

“Do you trust us to stand by you until you find your way home?”

“Always.”

“Then I promise that’s exactly what we’ll do.” Jongho pulls your hand close to his face, then presses his lips to your knuckles. The gesture is soft and intimate, even moreso with the knowledge that Jongho isn’t one to typically engage in such physical affection often, and you feel some warmth creep into your chest again.

“Will you stay even after that?” You ask through a breathless whisper, bracing your hands on Jongho’s firm shoulders and offering a teary smile. Jongho pushes up, and his head bumps haphazardly into your shoulder as he moves suddenly. It causes you to tip back a bit, nearly falling all the way off the chair, but he catches you before you can slip. It’s not a verbal answer, nor do you need it to be because you’d like to think you can understand what Jongho means in the movements without hearing him say it. “Thank you for being patient with me. All of you are so patient and gentle with me.”

“I think this is where Seonghwa would say something grossly sappy like ‘that’s part of being in love’,” Jongho murmurs before his forehead finds purchase against yours. You let your eyes flutter shut and rest in the gentle embrace. “Thank you for opening your heart to me.” You hum back, not bothering with words in favor of just drinking in Jongho’s presence. “The kettle is boiling away, you know.”

“Let me have this for just a few moments more.”

“Always,” Jongho sighs against you, but it’s not a tired or exasperated sound, merely content in the peaceful space the two of you have created. You’re content as well — okay for now, fine for now, but maybe even leaning more on doing well and feeling good. Not perfect, although you don’t think it needs to be perfect as long as you have the hopes of reaching safe shores.

...

a/n: this came at an opportune time i think? april 7th/8th is always difficult for me and i know many people can relate to that well and understand that feeling, and i kinda unintentionally reflected those feelings into this part of little things, but i hope maybe that you can find comfort in this and understand how important and valid your feelings are, no matter what ❤❤

[fandom-imagines-stories]

If I Go, I’m Goin

Dr. Spencer Reid x Reader

Words: 1845

Part One

Summary: With the reader’s funeral just days away, the team worries about Reid. Spencer struggles to cope and finds himself going to places he remembers being with you. Inspired by the song If I Go, I’m Goin by Gregory Alan Isakov. 

Notes: I know. I’m mean. 

Warnings: Character death, grief, depression

More Criminal Minds: HERE

-

And the photographs know I’m a liar

They laugh as I burn her down

She wasn’t leaving until he opened the door. J.J. knocked again, this time a little louder than the first. She had given him a day to himself, but now she was worried. It had been less than 48 hours since Y/N died. Everyone was dealing with it differently. Prentiss and Morgan went to the shooting range, Hotch buried himself in paperwork, Penelope was running around trying to fix everything, and Rossi was being, well, Rossi. 

Everyone thought it was a good idea to let Reid be alone for a while, but they didn’t know what J.J. knew. They didn’t know what Y/N had told her that day. Of course, everyone had their suspicions, but J.J, and maybe Penelope, were the only ones that knew that Spence just lost the woman he’d loved for at least the past year. 

The door slowly opened just enough for him to look out. From the little sliver that she could see, he didn’t look well. His eyes were sunken and dark and it looked like he hadn’t changed clothes since the hospital. The sight of his despair nearly brought tears to her eyes. 

“Hey J.J.” 

“Spence.” She greeted, her voice quiet and empathetic. “Can I come in?” 

“Uh, I guess. Sure.” He stepped aside and let her walk past him into his living room. It was strangely well put together. She expected things to be discarded on the floor, for the kitchen sink to be full with dishes. But the only thing that seemed out of place was a single chair facing the window. “Why did you come?” 

“I just wanted to see how you were holding up.” 

“Did Hotch tell you to come see me?” 

“Spence-”

“Because I really don’t need a psych evaluation right now.” He sat down in the chair in front of the window. Honestly, it was where he had been for the hours before J.J. got there. He just sat, looking out like he was waiting for Y/N to come down the street. 

“I came here as a friend, Spencer. Not as an agent.” 

“Oh.” She watched as the previous outburst lost its effect on him and he slumped forward, leaning his head on the glass. It was like watching a wounded animal stop fighting. It broke her heart. 

Spencer didn’t say anything else. When J.J. asked him a question, he responded with either a silent nod or a quiet mumble. Eventually, there was nothing else she could say. 

“We’re all here, Spence.” She put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “If you need anything before the funeral…” The last word nearly caught in her throat. Funeral. J.J. kept a steady appearance, leaning over and kissing the top of his head. “Bye Spence.” 

He didn’t say anything as the door closed behind her. He didn’t even look back. Spencer kept his gaze out the window and watched J.J. get in her car and drive away. He must have sat there for a few more hours because by the time he finally moved, it was dark out.  

He forced himself to stand and walk back to his room so he could take a much needed shower. Seeing his still made bed made his stomach twist. His mind conjured the image of a quiet morning, none in particular, where he laid with her. He laid with Y/N in his arms as the sun peeked through the windows. Just as quickly as it had come, the vision left, returning the room to its original empty state. 

Spencer moved through his apartment aimlessly, his body moving before his mind could catch up. His thoughts were far away, trapped in those woods with the constant sound of an arrow cracking through bone. It cracked through his chest, leaving only a painful ache. He stepped into the shower with his clothes still on. 

-

This old house, she’s quite the keeper

Quite the keeper of you

He was there before anyone else, sitting in the dim light by himself for nearly an hour. When Hotch quietly trudged to his office, he stopped suddenly, seeing the form sitting at his desk. 

“Reid?” He flipped on the main lights and looked warily at the young agent. While he didn’t show it, Hotch noticed Reid’s disheveled appearance and blank expression. “What are you doing here?” 

“I wanted to do some paperwork,” Reid replied, keeping his eyes trained in front of him. Hotch set his briefcase down. 

“I told the team to take a few days off.”

“You’re here.” 

“I have to deal with…” He trailed off, dreading the report sitting on his desk. Reid nodded, still not entirely paying attention to his supervisor. 

“Right.” He continued to slowly tap his pen against the surface of his desk. Hotch knew that the psych evals weren’t until after everyone came back, but Reid was worrying him. Grabbing his briefcase, he kept a close eye on him as he went to his office. 

Spencer stared at the desk across from him. 

“Come on, there has to be something that you don’t know.” You challenged, chewing absentmindedly on the cap of your pen. Normally he would remark on how many germs were on the average pen, but when you did it, he thought it was cute. 

“Of course there are things I don’t know, I just don’t talk about them because I don’t know them well enough to talk about them.” 

“I bet you can’t name every character in Star Wars.” 

“Alphabetically or in order of appearance.” He smirked smugly. 

He blinked and the memory was gone. Y/N was gone and the emptiness returned. Spencer stood up, wanting to find something that would conjure another image of her. He wandered aimlessly around the office, slowly weaving in between desks. He opened the drawers of her old desk, but they had already been emptied. Her parents must have already cleaned it out. 

Right. Her parents were here. He’d almost forgotten. They were here for the… 

Somehow, he found himself standing in the break room in front of the empty coffee maker. He made himself a pot, not really thinking about his motions as he put the grounds in the filter and poured the water. It wasn’t until he imagined her hand on his arm that he felt anything at all. 

“What are you doing?” He asked, an amused smile playing at his lips. 

“I’m dancing.” You twirled to the other side of him, your playful laugh filling the small room. 

“There isn’t any music playing.” 

“Who said you need music to dance, Spence?” You took his hands and spun into him, giggling relentlessly. “Come on, dance with me.” 

“Are you crazy? We’re at work.” He tried to sound stern, but he just laughed instead. 

“So? Nobody will see us.” You put a hand on his shoulder and moved his arm around your waist. You both swayed to the music in your mind, your hearts somehow playing the same song. For a moment, you forgot where you were. You forgot that there was another horrific case awaiting you in the conference room and all that existed was you and the man that held you. 

“Hey Y/N.”

“Hmm?”

“I love you.” It seemed now that the two of you were swaying to the sounds of your heartbeats. You blinked up at him, surprised at first, but soon a bright smile spread across your face. 

“I love you too.” 

This vision faded slower than the last, Y/N’s face staying until the last possible moment. His arms ached from the emptiness, his feet rocking back and forth like he was dancing all on his own. 

“Reid.” Hotch’s voice halted the music in his mind. His voice was grimmer, almost sadder than it was before. “Are you ready to go?” 

“Go?” He read Hotch’s expression. “Oh. Right. That’s today.” Hotch nodded and stood aside so Reid could pass by. 

“I’ll drive you home so you can change.” 

-

If I go, I’m goin crazy

Let my darlin take me there

It was a perfectly nice day, making him even more sick to his stomach. The sun was out and clouds lazily drifted across the sky. He wished it would have rained. At least then, the world would look like he felt; colorless and dark. 

Y/N’s parents both shared a few words and Penelope did the eulogy. Spencer was sure it was nice, but he couldn’t focus enough to really hear any of the words. Hotch kept a close eye on him, though he tried not to be obvious about it. Spencer felt like everyone was watching him, waiting for his numb exterior to break. He knew they meant well, but he’d appreciate it if they were a little more subtle about it. 

Somehow, the ceremony felt both eternal and over too quickly. Before he had even moved to put his rose on the coffin, it seemed like everyone was leaving. Maybe it was just him; frozen in time until he could bring himself to step forward. It still felt like everyone was staring at him. How many people even knew about him and Y/N? Maybe everyone, at this point. They were profilers after all and he hadn’t been abundantly subtle on that last case. 

That last case. 

Suddenly the rose in his hand was an arrow, bloody and splintered at one end. It fell between his fingers and hit the grass as a flower again. A petal fell off and he held it to his lips. Was he going insane? Was this what it would be like from now on? Everything reminding him of that last moment with her? With the blood and the arrow and the screaming? 

With a slow, shaky hand, he placed the rose on the coffin. Someone put their hand on top of his, but when he turned, there wasn’t anyone there and suddenly, he felt something… peaceful. Something that told him that all he would need to remember were the good things. The smiles. The laughter. The dances in the breakroom. Despite every logical impulse in his mind, every scientific fact he knew by memory, he knew. It was her. Y/N.

Finally, he started to cry. The numbness was gone and allowed for emotion to finally come to light. Sobs shook his body and nearly made his knees buckle, but he made himself stand. He ran his fingers over the gleaming surface of the coffin and cried. 

“I love you. I’ll always love you.” 

He must have stood there like that for at least an hour, if not several, but when he turned around, he found his team- his family- waiting there for him. And they walked away together, always to remember the member that they lost. A friend. A sister. A lover. And Spencer would never forget you, as long as he lived. 

I will go if you ask me to

I will stay if you dare

-

General Tag: @rae-gar-targaryen; @takemepedropascal; @childhood-imagination;  @mylovegoesto; @yellowbadgergirl; @itmejado; @suckmyapplejacks; @kendahl0216​

Requested Tag: @ lolalee24; @ haylaansmi; @ obsssedwithjustaboutanything;

[ren-therose]

You Are Like Me (Pt. 1 of "Winter's End)

Roommate!Bucky X F!Reader

Summary: You and Bucky begin rooming together after Sam discovers your background and suggests you live with him. . As another failed HYDRA experiment with an enhanced skill set, Sam decides that you, the newest recruit who shares a similar path with the Winter Soldier would benefit from living together.

Warnings: Angst, Fluff, Cursing, semi-spoilers for FATWS (but nothing plot related, just set during that time).

A/N: This started out as a one-shot for our man Bucky Barnes, but now there will be multiple pieces with this as the wonderful starting piece to the story. I don't know how much the parts will be reliant on a plot, but it will all be based on the same love story throughout. The parts don't necessarily need to be read all together and in order. There will be a variety with this couple, varying from angst to smut, fluffy fluffy FLUFFY shit, and some very depressing stuff too. I hope that these different pieces fulfill all your Bucky needs and help you feel like you really have a developed and copasetic relationship with this lovely gentleman.

"Jesus, who the hell are you?"

I had been laying on a neatly made bed in the apartment Sam had signed me up for. I was staring at the ceiling mindlessly as an old record player spun, emitting the scratchy tones of classic 1940s music. In my hand was a small journal, opened to a blank page towards the middle of the book. My eyes shot open, my hand grabbing a knife from the back of my pants as I launched myself off the bed and towards the unfamiliar man in the doorway.

Before the knife could reach his throat, cool metal met my wrist, stopping my arm in its track. I was practically on top of the dark man in front of me, staring up into his bright cerulean orbs. He seemed almost amused by this first introduction. Almost. The glimmer of humor left his eyes as soon as my knee made contact with his groin, causing him to keel over, as I maneuvered around him to be behind, using his arms hold on me to choke himself.

"I could ask you the same question, blue eyes," I said with a snort. I realized quickly he wasn't an enemy, but the continued power struggle was fun enough to let it play out. Before I could plan my next move though, I was flipped over his broad shoulders, and square on my back, the impact knocking the wind out of me. I looked up through my lashes, trying to focus my eyesight as the splitting headache blurred my vision. Standing above me, the man let out a soft chuckle as he stepped over me, making his way over to the bed and sitting on the edge. I slowly lifted my head, still dizzy from the landing, as his eyes followed the outline of my body.

I was still in my training clothes, too tired to have changed out of the tight tank top and cargo pants. I had been perfecting my combat technique so that I could fend for myself, but it seems I was not yet ready to fight whoever the stranger in my room was.

"Here," he started, getting up from his place and reaching his right hand out to me. I stared at it for a moment, not sure if I should give in or not, though I could tell I would have to. I placed my hand in his, surprised by the contrasting warmth I felt compared to the hand he had caught my wrist in. He quickly pulled me up, causing me to launch into his chest, my left arm quickly wrapping around his bicep to steady myself.

"You can feel me up later doll, but can you explain what the hell you are doing in my room?" He taunted.

I realized that his colder hand was on the small of my back and I leaned back into grasp as I sneered "I could say the same for you..." I noticed the outline of dog tags imprinted underneath his shirt, glancing back up into his eyes with a wink, "Sarge".

He let go, allowing me the chance to step back and start searching for my knife. I could feel his eyes on me, questions waiting to be asked.

"You are Seragnet Barnes, correct?" I mused, grabbing my weapon from the corner and twirling it in my hand before replacing it in its holster. The corner of his mouth twitched into a smile at my maneuver, but quickly looked down and cleared his throat before replying.

"Yes ma'am. And I apologize for not knowing your name, as well as for throwing you," he grunted. It was suddenly a very formal manner in which he spoke. My eyebrow quirked up, as I spun on my heels and made my way into the kitchen, hearing heavy footsteps follow in time.

"Y/N".

"And what are you doing in my room, Y/N?" he said inquisitively. I was now the freezer for an ice pack, finding a floppy blue one in the back.

"I guess, I'm your roommate," I shrugged, putting the ice pack to the back of my head as I moved towards the bathroom.

"Wait, Sam told me I was meeting someone named "Y/L/N", they were gonna stay here for a bit," he retorted, once again following behind.

"That is my last name Blue Eyes. Need an ID or something?" I called over my shoulder, turning the corner to enter the bathroom, reaching towards the medicine cabinet.

"That still doesn't explain why you were on my bed," he scoffed, leaning against the door frame as I scavenged through the drawers.

"I didn't think anyone was living here. I was told I'd have a roommate, but I didn't think anyone had moved in yet. You have, like, no shit here. It looks like a hotel room," I critique, standing up with a shake of the bottle in my hand.

"I'm using your Ibuprofen" I say with mock respect. I move past him as I saunter back towards the kitchen. He can't help but laugh at this bizarre encounter and that I am truly not making this easy for him.

"You have a lot of sass for someone who just had their ass beat," he jeers, leaning forward on the counter between us.

All I could do was smile and shake my head, throwing the pills into my mouth and taking a swig of water.

"So, Y/L/N, why do you figure we Sam is rooming us together?"

"Love match?" I joke, placing the now empty cup in the sink and walking over to his side, leaning my back against the countertop.

He snorts, amused by my sarcasm once more. "Maybe, but I have a feeling it goes deeper," he says, turning to rest his side on the counter as he looks me over, clearly searching for something.

"You aren't gonna find any metal attached to me, Barnes," I report, turning to brace myself against the counter. "They messed me up in here." I gesture to forehead, softly tapping to get my point across.

His face falls as he realizes what I mean.

"HYDRA..." was all he could make out.

"They weren't just trying to make soldiers. They were trying to make spies. Hyper intelligent ones that can be manipulated without the risk of losing control or access, like a computer could. I am their failed experiment," I say softly. I chuck the ice pack into the sink, and make my way over to the window, rubbing at the back of my head.

"You have super soldier serum. I have an acute memory and the ability to calculate probable outcomes and human error. I remember..." I turn back to look him in the eye, "everything".

His mouth slightly gapes as he looks me over. "I was a lethal weapon when placed in sensitive situations. If I knew the possible endings of different scenarios, I could pick which one could happen."

He steps towards me, as if he was considering whether to comfort me. Before he could though, I straightened up and tried to scurry past him.

"I am so sorry for invading your space, I'll take my stuff out of your room. I can stay on the couch until-" The Winter Soldier cut me off, grabbing my arm before I could make it into the room.

"No, take the bed, please," he began. "I don't sleep in it anyways. Too comfy."

My eyes go from the grip on my arm up to his eyes, staring down at me, but with concern. I softened my face, providing a half smile as I nodded my head.

"Okay, Sarge. Let's eat though- I'm starving. You order the pizza while I take a shower. Then we can talk."

He let me go, looking down into my eyes, "I think I know your favorite kind."

I raised a brow at this bet, curious to see if he was right. "Alright...we will see..."

I turned and made my way towards the bathroom, looking back to see him still watching.

---

Shit, I don't have my clothes.

I was dripping from the shower still and my hair was very haphazardly put in a bun to keep the water from dripping. I quietly opened the door and peeked my head out, searching for my new roommate. When I had determined the coast was clear, I scurried into the room, shutting the door behind me quietly. When I turned around, I shrieked to see James exiting my closet, a few shirts in hand.

"What the fuck Barnes!!" I choke, desperately clutching my towel, as I had almost lost my grip. He dropped the shirts to the ground, slapping his hand over his eyes in case I did lose my covering.

"Damn, Y/L/N, let me buy you dinner first!" He laughs, trying to make his way to the door.

"Oh you are SO paying for the pizza now Barnes," I fume, adjusting my towel and making my way to the other side of the bed where my bag was.

"So you're saying I can look?"

"You just scared me, I'm decent you prick". I kneeled down beside the bed, opening my bag to see that all of my clothes were missing.

"Are you. fucking. SHITTING ME?" I curse, banging my already sore head onto the side of the bed.

"What did I do this time," the soldier groans.

"No, it's not you, it's just that...well shit. My clothes are missing."

"Oh yeah. I threw them in the wash for you. You weren't carrying a lot, and it's a force of habit from the old days, I thought they would be done by now but-"

"Sergeant?" I interrupt, seething with rage and a tinge of embarrassment.

"Y/L/N?"

"I don't have any clothes," I hiss.

"oh." he says shortly. I press my face into the bed, trying not to scream bloody murder. Suddenly, I feel two soft things land on me, causing me to turn my face to the side.

"Sweats and a shirt. Don't do anything weird," he quipped, leaving me in the room alone.

I look down at the black sweats and navy blue shirt. It was soft, and smelled of fabric softener and pine. I looked up at the empty hallway as I heard the front door open and shut behind him as he went to get the pizza.

I slipped on the clothes and looked myself over in the mirror. I decided to let my hair down to air dry, and the rest of me looked swallowed in his clothes. His sweats were pulled tightly around my hips, exposing my stomach when I stood. The shirt would probably be form fitting on him, but it just barely gave me a shape, though my chest clung to the fabric. I didn't know what this meant, but whatever it was felt nice.

---

"I got the pizza, and Sam already confirmed I was right about it being your favorite so..." James trailed off as he saw me standing in the kitchen, leaning over a brochure of sorts. I looked up to see him holding pizza in one hand and soda in the other as his eyes widened at my get up.

"No snappy remark, blue eyes? Wow, they just keep getting wide-" he cut me off by throwing the box down in front of me.

"Movie?" he muttered, quickly making his way past towards the living room.

"uh...okay. Can we watch 'Casablanca'?"

He turned around, looking at me with confusion.

"You know that movie? That was made almost 80 years ago."

"I'm a sucker for the classics, James," I say, grabbing the pizza and soda of the counter and bringing it to the coffee table.

"Bucky, please. We're gonna be living together and already saw you half-naked," he chides, sitting down on the couch and flipping it on with the remote.

"Okay, Bucky, do you remember the plot?" I probe, sitting myself next to him as I placed two glasses in front of us. I pulled my legs up to cross and adjusted the waist of my pants to sit above my stomach more comfortably. He was leaning back into the sofa, as I was turned to face him, waiting patiently for a response.

"I mean, I remember looking back on it and how terribly it depicted the war. It was not easy to find love abroad," he stated, reaching to grab a slice of pizza.

"Were you looking for love?"

"I was looking for fun. I was pretty sure I was gonna die, or at least not make it back. I was kind of right," he finished, biting into the slice.

"Yeah, not a lot of love in present day HYDRA safe-houses either. Not that I had time for it between missions, I say, leaning over to pour the drinks.

"Well what were you before...them?"

"A history student, if you can believe it. Wanted to study abroad and learn about wars, apply it to algorithms to prevent them. Seems like the common denominator was always men," I reply with a wink.

"I can't say you are wrong. But I am impressed. And now..."

"Now, I'm protected by the Avengers, er- what's left of them, and am able to use my skills for good. All of that history knowledge, everything I have ever learned and forgotten about, I can remember it all". I looked him up and down. "I didn't recognize you without the long hair and this stubble thing kinda threw me off, it's not the same as the pictures in the museum".

He adjusted his angle to better face me, curiosity etched across his features. "You really are something," he contended. The comment caused me to pull back, shocked by his honesty.

"I...uh..." I stammer, unsure of how to proceed.

"If you're going to say thank you, don't bother. It's just a fact," he noted, once more causing me to fall to silence.

He started looking up the movie, struggling with the technology of the remote.

As I studied him, the tension in his jaw, the stress he carries in his eyes, I realized I shared similar features.

"ты как я," I whisper under my breath, unsure if he even heard me.

You are like me.

I knew when he straightened up, and slowly looked in my direction.

"я знаю," he replied.

I know.

I reached my hand out to his arm, resting it on gently.

"What does this mean?" I asked softly.

"I'm not quite sure."

------

The next morning, I awoke to the smell of deep roast coffee.

Bucky and I had spent almost the entire night talking. We skimmed around the dark parts of our past, knowing that there would be time for that, but instead got to know the things that really shaped who we are today.

He really enjoyed his time in Wakanda. It was incredibly healing for him, and allowed him a chance to find piece, something we ex-soldiers and spies rarely could get. He told me about his life in the 40s, or what he could remember. A lot of his memories has been formed with the help of Steve, which I knew caused him pain. But he also found happiness in retelling those stories, knowing that someone else will see him as more than the Winter Soldier.

I shared my experience abroad. I had been all across the USA, in Canada, both Iceland and Greenland, Poland, France, Italy, Turkey, London, and of course Sokovia. It was were I had been taken during my travels. I had never told anyone about this before, but I had felt so comforted knowing that he had been through something so similar.

I don't know when, but at some point in the night, I had ended up falling asleep propped up on the couch. When I woke up in my bed the next morning, I realized it must have been him. I looked down to see I was still wearing his shirt, and smiled to myself. When I got up, I found his sweats on the floor, knowing I probably kicked them off when I got into bed. I stepped back into them, pulling them up around my legs and tying them once more on my hips. I looked in the mirror, my hair limp and flat from sleep. Checking my phone, I walked out, scratching my head and rubbing my face, yawning as the coffee smell grew stronger.

"доброе утро," he greets me, smirking at the confused face I made.

"No Russian. Too early. Try again later," I mumbled, jumping up to sit on the counter. He held up the sugar, shaking it in my face.

"Two to three teaspoons please," I groan, pushing the container out of my face.

"Someone likes it sweet," he laughs, dumping in my unhealthy request.

"And creamer, if you have some," I added, smiling as he turned towards the fridge.

"Did you know you speak Russian in your sleep?"

"I bet you do the same. All HYDRA escapees probably," I mutter, taking the mug from his hands.

"Well, you will have to let me know sometime," he chides, taking a sip of his own black coffee.

"Last night was...."

"Traumatizing?"

"Yeah, but maybe healing too?"

"Good," he exclaims, walking over to the couch. He sits down, swiping his phone off the charger next to him.

"Before you have to go, do you want some breakfast?" I offer, scanning his response to my inquiry.

"Is that your power thing? You knew they would ask me to work today?" He questions, looking down at the phone and then back at me.

"It's a skill, not a power. I'm not a superhero," I laugh, getting out the contents for a breakfast sandwich.

"Yes, I would like one. But you already knew that didn't you?"

"No skills required. Tony texted me this morning too. We are training together."

He smiled. He almost looked excited.

"I'm gonna beat your ass again Y/L/N".

"You wish".

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

Every day, we played out the same routine.

I would wake up to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. I'd come out, thank him and proceed to make us breakfast. We would then go to combat training for a few hours. When he wasn't helping me, he was working on his own workout routine; often, he would put aside time to just focus on improving my knife skills. He would always joked that I showed promise after out first encounter, and then would promptly beat my ass in a knife fight.

After training, it would be time to meet Sam for lunch, chat about our personal lives (which were rarely separated from our work), as well as current issues in the Avengers, and the world.

Bucky always stayed close by when we were out and about, glancing over to make sure I was okay. I would signal back that it was okay, smiling as a way of thanks when I noticed him checking. The only time we went our separate ways for our "rehab plans" we called jokingly. He would go see his therapist while I went and saw mine. Then, he would meet Sam for a bit by himself, while I went back to our place and did paperwork. When he came home, we would decide on dinner and a movie, but would probably stay up the whole night talking and leaving the movie with at least 20 minutes to go (on a good night).

One night, after I had "magically" ended up in bed, I woke up to Bucky shaking me, yelling my name.

"Y/N! Y/N, it's me, it's Bucky! Come on Y/N, wake up!"

I was drenched in sweat and my voice felt coarse and raw. My heart was beating at an impossible rate, as I shot up to hold on to him.

"Y/N, it's okay, you're okay," he said, trying to calm me down as he pushed my wet hair off of my face. I was gripping his arms, trying my best to ground myself. My eyes were bloodshot and wet, as tears and sweat mixed down my face. His blue eyes were frantically searching me, making sure that I was okay.

"It was them Bucky, they were here, they were gonna hurt you, I couldn't move, they said the, they said the words Bucky, jesus I was gonna lose you Buck, I couldn't, I can't..." I trailed off, starting to hyperventilate as I buried my face in his chest, allowing him to pull me closer.

He held me against him, shushing me as he ran his hand through the back of my hair. His chin rested atop my head as I regained control of my breathing. As my heart rate lowered and the sound of blood rushing through my ears subsided, I heard him say softly:

"I could never leave you Y/N, I can't...you mean to much to me..."

I didn't know if he realized I heard him, but it made me relax into him a little more. We didn't move for I don't know how long, just holding each other, breathing in sync. I could feel myself start to get sleepy, and began to slump more and more into him. He could feel the wait of me on his chest, and softly laid me back into the bed. When I was settled in, he started to scoot backwards towards the edge of the bed, before I grabbed his arm.

"Stay. Please. Stay," I barely whispered.

He looked down at me, tucked under the covers in an oversized t-shirt with my hair a crazy mess around my face. My eyes were glassy and red from crying, but my grip on his arm was sure.

"Please Buck."

I pulled back the covers next to me, signaling the invitation that I meant it.

He was only in a T-Shirt and boxers in himself, but nevertheless, he climbed in anyways. As he slid down, I pulled myself into him, hugging his torso as the scent of his fabric softener filled my nose.

He wrapped his arm under my head and around me, the other to my back, sheltering me from my nightmares as I drifted back to sleep. When I woke up, my head was resting on top of his chest, his hand still in my hair. I could count his steady heartbeats over time, our breathing once more in time together. I glanced up to see his stubbly face, in a serene sleep. I had heard him up late at night, wandering in the living room. I am sure he had nightmares like me, but I was the unlucky one to have the first terror while we were roommates.

I couldn't help but realize that he put a shirt on.

He never wore a shirt to sleep.

I knew this because I had woken up a time or two to go to the bathroom, and he would be there, on the floor, practically shining as the moonlight radiated off of his skin. It was almost impressive.

So he put a shirt on when he came in to help me last night. I guess it is respectful of him. I mean, everything about last night, or at least what I could remember, made me feel safer than I had in a very long time. Bucky always made me feel safe, but now, lying on his chest, it was deeper than two former soldiers-it was intimate.

I couldn't stop myself, I inched slightly up, lifting my head to his face, practically nose to nose. I could feel him exhale as the air left his nose and tickled my face. I leaned down, just off to the right side of his mouth and softly kissed him. I couldn't kiss him on the lips, but I needed to put it out there, even if he was asleep. I laid back down next to him, facing the ceiling as I felt him softly stir next to me. I tried to discreetly roll away, my body turned away from him, screwing my eyes closed.

I could feel the bed shift underneath me as he awoke. I could feel him leaning over me, checking to see that I was "asleep". Then, I felt his lips on my forehead, pressing a gentle kiss to my temple.

"You can't get away with it that easily Y/N"

My eyes slowly opened, as if afraid I would see it was all a dream, and he wouldn't be there. Instead, he was looking down at me, his head cocked to the side with a crooked smile dancing on his lips. Concern was etched on my brow, though my mouth betrayed me in a half smile as I stared back at the blue eyed soldier.

"I uh-I didn't, uh, mean to wake you Bucky, I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me," I stuttered out, worried that I might have made him feel pressured to return the favor.

I was surprised when his arm reached for my waist, pulling me from my side to my back as he rested his hands on either side of me. Trapped underneath him, my train of thought was so far off the rails, my ability to even speak was completely hijacked.

"Y/N, you have no idea how long I had been waiting for you to do something like that," he confessed. I quivered underneath him, my only response to his words. He was now hovering above my torso, propped up on his forearms as he continued to ramble.

"I never wanted to pressure or impose anything against you. I thought that you felt it too, and I wanted to be a gentleman, but with last night and you wanting me to stay, and now this morning..., I just wanted to make sure that I am reading the signals right an-"

He was cut off by my hand on the back of his neck, pulling him up to my face where our noses connected once more. His eyes were piercing, searching mine frantically before I closed them and pulled him down. Our lips attached to one another, fitting together softly, one on top of the other. His arm slid underneath my back and pressed me into him as my arm wrapped around his neck, my other hand holding his face. I could feel the metal against my waist, but it was warmer than usual, probably due to being under the covers all night. After years of torture and pain for the both of us, this kiss made terrors of that night worth it. It brought him and I together.

As we pulled away, our lips still stuck to the others until there was enough distance to truly focus our eyesight on the other. Pupils dilated, chests rising and falling against each other, our status shifted from roommates to something more in seconds. Maybe we were always something more and we hadn't realized it until now. But none of the what ifs mattered now. Now, there was a certainty that Bucky and I had a future together.

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A/N: This made me cry. A lot. The angst, the coping skills, the little sparks of chemistry. I just love writing about this man. He is everything a girl could ask for. I will start writing a part two tomorrow and I can promise you, it is about to be a lot cuter, a lot smuttier, and a lot more BUCKKKYYYY.

Taglist: @n3ssm0nique @arctic-duchess @bluemoon-icecream