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snowbellewells · 11 months

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CSSNS Fic: "Carolina Moon" {Chapter Three}

Oh my goodness!! I feel like all I do is apologize to you lovely folks, but I am truly sorry once again that it has taken me so long to update. This is a lengthy chapter at least, and we are really plunging into the meat of the action now. I could try to promise that you'll have the next installment sooner, but that doesn't seem to be the way my life is working lately. I'll do my best though.

In the meantime, I do hope you enjoy this one, and I'd love to hear what you think.

Thank you SO MUCH to @eastwesthomeisbest for the gorgeous cover art, and to @xarandomdreamx for being my beta. I am very grateful to you both.

Chapter Three: Fresh Starts and Stumbling Blocks

The following morning, Emma rose early to the sun on her face, streaming in warm and bright through the windows where she hadn’t yet hung curtains. A noisy mockingbird called brashly to his mate in the trees outside as she sat up, rubbing her eyes and pushing back the rumpled covers, resolving to go ahead and get an early start on the day. Though her body might still be weary, her mind already seemed fully aware and was running through all that needed doing before Saturday’s anticipated grand opening.

Standing and stretching out the cricks and aches, Emma sighed, shaking her head while she straightened the bed clothes as best she could over her mattress on the floor. It had arrived on time, with the other household items she’d sent with the movers from her apartment in Boston. But the antique brass bedframe she had ordered had yet to arrive. Still, she’d slept in the end, and she had spent so many nights in much worse discomfort, she could make do for the time being with an accepting shrug.

Trailing into the kitchen while yawning, Emma pulled an old terrycloth bathrobe over her oversize tee and shorts, threadbare and comfortably soft with years of washings, as she went. She reached up into the cabinet for her coffee, opened it and took a grateful whiff, before she grabbed a measuring spoon from the drainer to fill the coffeemaker. It was only as the life-giving brew began to percolate that she was startled by the sound of three crisp knocks on her front door, making her jump and jerk her robe more tightly closed as she spun to face it.

Not sure who would be calling on her so early in the morning - and when she had barely been back in town three days - Emma almost didn’t answer the summons at all. Still, she couldn’t help both her curiosity and the concern that someone could genuinely need her. She crossed the worn wooden floor of the simple kitchen and unlocked the door, pulling it open only to catch her breath in surprise at who stood on her porch. Emma couldn’t help stumbling back a step and unconsciously running a hand through her still sleep-rumpled hair, for what little good it did.

What was Cora Jones doing there?!? She cursed herself fruitlessly for wearing her most comfortable, but rattiest, pajamas and robe, and she floundered for something to say. Cora, meanwhile, seemed to only stand taller, an eyebrow arched as she looked down her nose at Emma much like she would something rotten which had been smashed on the bottom of her designer shoes. “Might I come in, Ms. Swan?” the older woman finally deigned to speak in frosty tones. “Unlike some people, I have numerous things to do this morning, and cannot afford to lounge around until noon.”

Emma caught a defensive retort on her tongue, biting it back with painful effort. If it were anyone else, she would have given them a piece of her mind, but this was Rose’s mother. Some small part of her, a skinny, lonely pre-teen who had never known a mother other than the proper Jones matriarch, still ached to prove herself to this woman. Oh, she knew it was impossible. It always had been, even before the awful day that forever altered her world. But deep within, that needy child wanted to please her best friend’s parent, to feel some semblance of a parent’s love for herself, and it would not be completely buried. So she held back speaking at all and simply opened the screen door still separating them, motioning Cora through.

Moving toward the kitchen table, Emma offered coffee and a seat, grateful that though the small piece of furniture was chipped and rickety, it was at least cleared and clean. Looking as if she would rather do almost anything else instead, Cora declined abruptly. “I’ll stand, thank you.”

Emma shrugged wordlessly, trying not to let the clear derision make her shrink. She was right where she was meant to be, intending to lay old demons to rest once and for all. She’d like to make peace with Mrs. Jones as well, but she also knew it wasn’t meant to be, and was not about to be run off. Not now, not after she had waited so long. Instead, she reached up into her cabinet again for a mug for herself, poured coffee into it with as steady a hand as she could manage, and forced herself to wait. Let Cora broach the topic Emma knew she’d come to discuss; she didn’t need to make the woman’s job any easier.

Much as though she had read Emma’s thoughts, the Jones matriarch’s eyes narrowed, and she raised her chin haughtily when she spoke, her voice a whip crack in the taut air of the quiet kitchen. “Let’s not pretend this is a social call. I’m sure you know quite well what I have in mind. It is merely a matter of how difficult you wish to make things.”

Emma merely hummed low in her throat, the slightest nod allowing that she had heard and understood Cora’s words, but still not answering aloud. Inside, she ranted, ‘Me?!? You’re the one making things harder than they have to be!’ But she didn’t give Mrs. Jones the satisfaction of needlessly protesting or taking the bait. She simply met the older woman’s stare head-on and held her tongue, biding her time.

“I do not want you here. Not on our family’s property, not in this town, nowhere near us. I trust you understand that much? Neither my children, nor I, want you around, unearthing painful memories again after all these years. I realize you have already leased space in town for your little shop, ordered merchandise and so forth…. So, Ms. Swan, what will it take?” As calmly as if she were discussing the weather or ordering a latte, Cora Jones withdrew a fine leather checkbook from her designer purse, poised with pen in hand. “Tell me what you need to pack up again and clear out of here, to start over elsewhere, and I’ll make out a check here and now.”

Unbidden temper flared in Emma’s gut suddenly, no matter how she tried to remain unaffected. No matter how far she had come or what she had made of herself, to people like this woman she would never be anything but poor white trash - a mess to be cleared away out of sight. Her presence made them uncomfortable or guilty or angry - she’d never quite decided which. And she was tired of it. She might not have come from anything, and she might not possess some fancy pedigree stretching back generations, but Emma was not nothing; she never had been. Pure, unbreakable steel seemed to fuse her backbone, bringing her voice and fighting spirit to the fore. She wasn’t for sale - not at any price - and it was time that “Her Highness” learned that fact.

“You must be mistaken, Mrs. Jones,” Emma replied, slow and plain, each syllable as intentional and measured as any of her adversary’s had been. “You seem to think I would consider relocating. Let me be clear: I’m not on the market. You can’t buy me out. You can’t run me off. Not this time. I’m staying.”

If she’d been at all in the mood to laugh, Cora’s perfectly painted mouth gaping open, then snapping shut in stunned disbelief would have been comical. As it was, Emma just kept staring her down, holding firm until the oldest money in Storybrooke had nothing left to do but withdraw. “This isn’t finished, Ms. Swan,” she hissed, her stare sparking dangerously like a match against flint. “You would be better off to take my money and make your way more easily elsewhere.”

Emma followed her to the door, arms crossed tightly over her chest as she watched those classy heels cross the warped board threshold. Anger had restored her nerve and then some as she clipped out, “Well, nothing’s ever been easy in my life. Why should it start now?” Facing off stonily with the woman she had finally, once and for all, given up trying to impress, Emma was determined that this time she would not be the one to crack.

Then, just as Cora stepped off the porch, Emma couldn’t help adding, “And, in case you haven’t noticed, both of your children are grown now. Maybe you should find out what they actually think before trying to speak for them.”

The older woman whirled, but Emma had slammed her door closed, ensuring the final word on the matter. She deflated quickly, falling back against the solid barrier bonelessly and trying to catch her breath, but it felt good to stand up to the woman at long last rather than taking any more judgment she didn’t deserve. She was sure Cora Jones wasn’t finished yet, but she had made up her mind. She was through running.

*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*

Despite the upsetting and inauspicious start to her day, by the time early afternoon rolled around, Emma found herself pleasantly puttering about it her shop, humming to herself as she hung pictures in just the right place for best appreciation and then stepping back to take in the overall effect. Things were coming together nicely, and somewhere beneath the anxious concern she wouldn’t be ready in time and the only half-buried dread that no one would come to the opening because it was hers, Emma was beginning to feel proud excitement. She had found a real outlet upon discovering photography in college and had kept it up ever since, developing and honing her knowledge and skill in the art. In the quiet of the dark room and the simple, calm repetition of the developing process, Emma often found the whirling thoughts and visions that screamed inside her head went silent, a rare moment of peace as she worked alone to bring to light the images she had captured. Just as she had told Killian the previous evening, it was the one time she actually found a benefit in her ability to see more beyond the obvious existence on the surface. That she could bring out some aspect or nuance of her subject because of the burden she’d borne all her life was not really any sort of relief, but it felt like some tiny bit of restitution to make up for her trials as she looked around the gallery she was slowly forming, full of moments worth remembering, caught for as long as the pictures might last. She was gradually daring to hope that others as well would wish to glimpse the images she’d brought to life, ones which otherwise might have remained unseen.

She was turning to the back where she kept a small refrigerator to get a pop and take a breather when the bell over her door announced the arrival of a newcomer at her store front. Emma paused at the end of the long counter, turning to look over her shoulder curiously and prepared to greet the guest, but explain that she wasn’t open to customers quite yet. However, something about the young woman she saw standing just inside the door anxiously shuffling her feet and offering Emma a nervous but hopeful smile told her this one wasn’t there to buy framed photographs or picture-taking equipment, but had something else entirely on her mind.

Rephrasing the speech she’d had ready to deliver, Emma instead offered an encouraging smile of her own and inquired curiously, “Hello, I’m Emma Swan, the owner. How can I help you?”

Upon closer inspection, Emma could see the visitor was quite young, and clearly rather shy as well. She couldn’t be long out of high school, or college at the latest, and she blushed with another quick smile before looking down at her hands, then back up at her to answer. “Hi, I’m Violet Clemens. Fresh out of college actually,” she added with a self-conscious little giggle, “and new in town. I’ll start teaching art at the middle school here in a week or so, but I was wondering if you might need any part-time help here in the meantime. What with moving and student loans and all, I could do with a little extra income.”

Understanding dawned on Emma as the girl continued, and she seemed so genuinely sweet that it was impossible not to grin right back at Violet in welcome as she came forward to shake hands. It would really come in handy to have someone who could focus on manning the register and wrapping up purchases for customers while she focused on book work, restocking, and troubleshooting. Unfortunately, Emma had sunk nearly all she possessed in the move, leasing the space, and procuring the merchandise she hadn’t created herself; it might not be possible to hire on any help until she saw if she could start making back some of her investment.

She told Violet as much gently, making clear that she truly did regret having to be so cautious, but the younger woman easily understood. Nodding sagely, Violet took the disappointment in stride. Glancing out the large front window to the sidewalk, she shrugged good naturedly and gestured toward the large, rather scruffy, dog Emma just then noticed, tied by the leash to the bike rack and lounging on the cement with its tongue lolling contentedly. “It’s alright. Honestly,” she piped up, cheer still evident in her voice. “I knew it was a longshot, dropping in unannounced and all. But Norman and I,” here she beamed at the dog who seemed to sense her affection through the glass as his tail began slapping the sidewalk and his ears perked up, “were taking an afternoon walk, and I couldn’t help but notice your lovely store front - it’s really coming together, you know that, right? And I had to try. I’d love to work somewhere like this.”

As an afterthought, Emma quickly asked before Violet could leave, “I wish I could say for sure I could hire you. You seem like a wonderful fit, and I could use the help. I just need to see how things progress on the business side. Might you have a resume or a card you could leave? Then, if I’m able to hire later, I can call and find out if you’re still interested.”

Violet’s head was already nodding enthusiastically, even before Emma could finish speaking. “Yes, I do! Right here,” she chirped triumphantly, pulling it out of the shoulder bag she carried and then flushing slightly as she smoothed the proffered resume against her leg before handing it over. “I’m glad you’re willing to take a look at it. This will be such an intriguing gallery, and I need something that can fit around my hours at the school once classes are in session. Between you and me, it took nearly every cent I had to get me and Norman here, and it was worth a try to make a little money until my paychecks start coming regularly. But I apologize if it’s a bit rumpled - my partner out there can be a bit of a handful.”

Emma waved off the concern, not in the least bothered about slightly bent paper, and wishing even more that she had a definite opening. She remembered all too well just the spot this young woman was in - and she wasn’t that far removed from her situation even now. Instead, she grinned as they both looked out toward the irresistibly floppy-eared dog who absolutely knew he was being watched and leapt to his feet, tail wagging in excitement.

“He looks like a sweetie though, all the same,” Emma smiled indulgently, feeling a pang in her heart at the memory of all the times she had wished as a kid that she could have a pet of her own, particularly a dog that would have been by her side when she was alone and in need of someone to understand her and lend her comfort.

Violet nodded readily in confirmation, grinning at her dog as if he was hearing and comprehending every word. “Yeah, he really is,” she agreed, turning back to Emma once more. “Sad as it might sound, he’s probably my best friend.”

“It doesn’t sound sad at all to me,” Emma assured, thinking to herself that choosing to depend on such an inherently loyal and devoted creature made perfect sense - especially if one were alone in the world otherwise. Giving Violet Clemens one more hopeful promise that she would call if she was able, Emma began walking with her back to the door, before adding as the girl turned the doorknob and moved to step out. “Thanks again for your interest. If things go well, maybe we’ll see each other again soon.”

She stepped outside into the mild sunshine, turning her face upwards for a moment to drink in its gentle warmth. Then, with a curious nod toward Norman, who was wriggling and writhing with enthusiasm at both his mistress’ return and the proximity of a new friend, Emma hesitated only until the expected indication that it would be just fine before squatting to the dog’s eye level to scratch him behind the soft, velvety ears and accept a sloppy lick across her cheek.

“Norman!” Violet chided, even while giggling at the same time. “Really! You’ve no manners at all, bud. Sorry about that, Ms. Swan.”

Emma chuckled too, not at all put off, and the simple affection that flooded her at the dog’s sweet, uncomplicated reception made her want to wrap her arms around his neck and bury her fingers in his thick ruff of gray fur. “Don’t worry about it,” she assured, stroking the dog’s back and chest several more times before standing again at the protest of her knees and calves. “I pretty much asked for it,” she added good naturedly. “He’s a handsome dog, but unusual looking. What breed is he?”

Violet shrugged unconcernedly, stroking along the top of his head as Norman came to lean against her side, his head nearly even with her hip, and gazed at her with the sort of obvious and complete devotion that only a good dog could muster. “The people I adopted him from had an Irish Wolfhound that guarded their sheep, but they didn’t really know about the father - it wasn’t an intentional litter of puppies.” She gave a playful little “oops” sort of grimace to Emma before gently rubbing under Norman’s furrily bearded chin for a moment, crooning, “You were a bit of a surprise there, weren’t you, Normie?” to the dog. “Anyway, best the vet back home could figure, he’s some sort of wolfhound-shepherd mix. And he may be huge, but I’m pretty glad of it. He’s all bark, but it’s an intimidating one if someone is around who shouldn’t be. I feel a lot safer having him with me, that’s for sure.”

“I’d imagine so,” Emma agreed, nodding her head in easy agreement.

“Well, we’ll let you go for now,” Violet said, unlooping Norman’s leash from the bench and readying to lead the two of them off down the street. “Thank you for your time, and I’ll hope to hear from you, but I’m sure I’ll stop in again once you’re open, either way.” She gave an easy wave, which Emma returned, and then started away along the sidewalk.

Emma turned to reopen the shop’s door and get back to work inside when a strange movement caught her eye, seemingly in the alley between the law offices and the jeweler’s on the opposite side of the street. Squinting in concentration, she tried to focus on the dark blur she was certain had slipped through her peripheral vision mere moments ago, but without any luck. Whoever or whatever she had seen was gone, vanished into the shadow of the narrow space between the buildings, or - more likely - never there at all. Shaking her head, Emma re-entered her own building and returned to her unpacking, pricing, and display efforts, doing her best to put the strange sense of having been watched out of her mind, and to ignore the nervous energy crawling along her skin. There was nothing there, and she was being ridiculous.

Soon, she was swept up in her work again, and the pleasure at seeing the pictures all side by side and ready for viewing at last, the way the whole thing was taking shape, had shoved the anxiety from her gut, letting the warmth of pride and accomplishment take its place. She’d slipped into her own little world to such a degree that when David Nolan charged in a couple hours later, followed by Killian Jones, both of them projecting a sort of restless upset and overflow of adrenaline, she was startled enough to whip around with a surprised exclamation from where she was perched atop a ladder, hanging a large landscape she’d captured. She wobbled slightly at the sudden movement, and Killian was across the room in a blink, steadying the ladder with one hand, the other at the back of her calf - warm, strong fingers clamped around her leg impossible to ignore, and sending all breath whooshing from her lungs even as it restored her balance. The heat and pressure ran tingling all the way up her legs to the juncture of her thighs, feeling like a bubbling of molten lava at her core. Even when she had been deeply committed in a years-long relationship with Neal back in Boston, she’d never felt anything like the burning intensity that gripped her with the mere touch of Killian’s hand.

If the breath of shock that escaped him, his widened blue eyes meeting hers before they darted away, and how he withdrew several steps promptly when she moved to shakily descend the ladder, were any indication, he had felt it too. Emma could feel his gaze still flickering over her back as she turned to David with hands crossed over her chest, trying to gather enough air to speak normally, and asked, “What is going on? You two charged in here like the place was on fire and scared me half to death!”

That was a bit of an exaggeration, but she was trying to lighten the moment and deflect attention from her churning insides and the fact that her body’s reaction to Killian Jones was what truly frightened her most.

David bobbed his head in a sheepish nod of acknowledgement, his tense shoulders dropping only a bit, though he did have the decency to look apologetic. “Sorry about that, Emma. It wasn’t our intention at all. Just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

Emma immediately caught his tone and the concerned, nervous energy radiating from both of them, even as they saw she was just fine and seemed to try to reel themselves back in. Tilting her head to study David’s face more carefully, she pressed warily, “Alright? Why wouldn’t I be?”

Killian stepped up closer to her side again, clearing his throat as he did, immediately upping Emma’s awareness further with his nearness, though he didn’t speak. David, meanwhile, shifted from one foot to the other restlessly, glancing away from her to meet his friend’s eyes before drawing in a deep breath and answering her question as calmly and succinctly as possible.

“I was notified an hour ago by one of my contacts in the city that Vic Franken - your former foster parent - has broken parole. He was facing five years for possession and reckless endangerment, but plea bargaining and so-called ‘good behavior’ have him up for parole sooner.” David’s tone and the practically audible air quotes in his voice made the huffs of disbelief and derision from both Emma and Killian seem all the more justified. “At any rate,” David continued, leveling his gaze on Emma seriously after a long-suffering sigh, “he’s in the wind, and it’s more than likely he would head this way. He might have been arrested elsewhere, but his last known address was here in Storybrooke, and he tends to return to what he knows. We’ve all borne witness to that pattern over the years.”

The sheriff paused there to both catch his breath and gather his thoughts. His well-muscled arms were crossed over his broad chest, almost looking as if he planned to plant himself right in front of her like some sort of stubborn protective barrier for the foreseeable future. The frown of consternation that marred his naturally open and amiable face completed the look all too well. Emma felt a surge of affection for Nolan at his obvious show of concern, and found herself wanting to ease his worry - even if the idea of her former abuser being on the loose and nearby had made a quivering fear run through her. She wasn’t trapped in a house with Franken anymore, didn’t have to deal with his presence any longer, and she was not about to let the idea of him reappearing rule her mind or emotions.

She gave a cool, measured nod, standing to her full height and making certain to look David right in the eye as well, not flinching for a second, no matter how much she wanted to. Waiting until she was sure there would be no tremor in her voice, Emma offered, “Thank you for letting me know so quickly, David. Truly. Being prepared is about the best defense I can have, as far as I’m concerned. Turning around to find him standing right there would be a hell of an awful shock to the system, but at least now I know to be on my guard.”

She wasn’t oblivious to Killian’s coming to stand just behind her, as if slightly flanking her against an attack, but she resolutely ignored it for the moment, determined to show she could face down the threat before her, regardless of the scars and horrific memories just the mention of Franken’s name brought flooding back. Facing David with fire in her eyes, she added reluctantly, “If he’s smart, he’ll run somewhere other than directly back here where he’s expected and bound to get caught. Still, we all know sensible, intelligent behavior is not the man’s leading characteristic, so I’ll be keeping a wary eye out. It won’t be the first time I’ve had to face him since I ran anyway.”

“What?!” David burst out incredulously.

Just as Killian swung around to face her with a hotly uttered, “Emma, what are you talking about?”

“He found me in Boston,” she shrugged, fighting to hang onto her calm air of nonchalance, even in the face of their volatile emotions. “Several years ago now. Startled me right in the street outside my apartment building - wanting money to stay out of my way and keep leaving me alone, essentially. It wasn’t a hard choice to pay it and have him gone. I was rattled that he was able to track me down, but he left, thankfully… and that was the end of it.”

Killian’s dark brows furrowed intently over his eyes that had grown stormy like a squall amidst the pretty ocean blue. Gently taking her arm to turn her to face him fully, his voice was quietly intense when he argued, “The end of it?! Are you serious, Emma? What are you thinking? He’s a dangerous man, particularly toward you, and you’re acting as though we’ve just told you something as minor as the weather for this evening.”

Emma gave him a cool look, not about to back down or fall apart in front of either of these men who were clearly concerned for her and expecting just that. She might feel as if her stomach was suddenly sloshing around like a sickening bowl of jelly, but she wouldn’t let Vic Franken take any more time from her or waste any of her concern. He’d made her early life a living hell - much more than Killian or David could imagine, whatever they thought they knew. It had taken years for her to stop biting back anything she might have noticed or seen for fear of being punished for her “unholy visions”. She’d looked over her shoulder, jumped at the slightest touch, been unwilling to accept the simplest compliment, continually unable to fathom that others might find her interesting, worthwhile, or important. It was still a work in progress, but she wasn’t moving backwards or scuttling to hide like some crawfish beneath its rock at the first hint of the man’s existence or mention of his name. She’d face it without flinching; he had no power over her now.

“I understand,” she finally gritted out as steadily as possible, eyeing Killian and David in turn, seeing that they took in her resolve. “I’ll keep my guard up, and I’ll call you the moment I see him - if I see him - but I’m not cowering or letting him ruin what I’ve worked toward. I have a store to open the day after tomorrow, and I’m not stopping for him or anyone else.”

David was already shaking his head, not liking her stubborn response, but being wise enough to recognize a battle he couldn’t win. “Well, see that you do. Keep your phone on you at all times. Try not to be alone any more than you have to. Call me anytime - day or night, whether I’m officially on duty or not, I mean that. We can’t ignore the facts. We may not have been able to do much to help when we were kids, but I’m not giving him a chance to lay a hand on you again, not on my watch.”

“Nor mine,” Killian echoed gravely, his voice a low rumble that shuddered through her pleasantly, no matter how she tried to ignore the effect. He was right there at her elbow, radiating anger, protectiveness, and something else delicious and unspoken which she didn’t dare put a name to. Even in the nightmare situation being threatened, a small, neglected corner of her thrilled at the sensation, savoring it for all it was worth.

“What? Nolan’s deputized you, and I haven’t heard about it?” she queried sarcastically, arching a sardonic brow at him in effort to hide just how touched she was by the care they both showed and the amount of comfort it lent her. Shaking her head, Emma regarded both men with knowing resignation, shrugging her shoulders helplessly. “Look, I appreciate the thought, but do you really think I don’t understand the danger here? Or that I plan to leave myself vulnerable again? I don’t. But I won’t stop living my life either. It’s finally mine, to live as I choose.”

“But Emma…” David began again, seeming to forget his earlier decision to abandon a futile struggle - at least until she sent a quelling look his way to freeze the words on his tongue.

Killian was undaunted though, and picked up where the Sheriff had left off. “At least don’t allow him to catch you all alone, Swan. You shouldn’t go anywhere by yourself until Franken is back in custody.”

She’d placed her hands on her hips then, facing off against him squarely, even as he stepped closer too, moving to cradle her elbow in his large, calloused hand, much as he would aim to soothe a skittish animal. That still didn’t keep her from countering frustratedly, “And just how long might that take? Who’s planning on uprooting his life to follow me around like a babysitter, you?” She shook her head wildly, seeing that he looked every bit as stubborn as she did. “You don’t have time for that - no one does. It’s not practical.”

“I’ll make time,” he shot right back, without so much as a blink or a moment’s pause. “Practical or not, it’s necessary, and you’re stuck with me.”

She huffed in dissatisfaction, but turned from him to plant her hands on the counter and force several deep breaths rather than continuing to fight - in front of David, no less - when they were both so riled up.

“Well, glad that’s settled,” David breathed out with a brisk energy, pointedly ignoring the obvious tension in the room and smacking his hands together loudly, as if to accentuate the issue being resolved. He tapped a hand twice on the sturdy counter in farewell. “Everyone’s looking for him; he won’t be loose for very long,” he predicted, giving Emma a bolstering smile. “Until then, you’ve got a little extra insurance, right? Just to be safe.”

Emma only offered a half-hearted grumble and roll of her eyes, but David unaffectedly allowed that to roll right off his back with typical good humor, slapping Killian’s shoulder on his way to the door.

Once they were alone, Killian turned to her with an exaggerated sort of leer and waggling brow, as if knowing she needed to lessen the anxiety surrounding them. “So, Swan, it would seem I am at your service. What would you have me do?” He leaned closer to her with the words, lending them a hint of temptation, especially when she could see his tongue swipe along his bottom lip seductively.

She had to tease him back; there was simply no other way her pounding heart and heated blood would allow her to respond. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” she purred with a salacious wink, batting her lashes for added effect.

If possible, the heated expression on Killian’s face grew more scorching, little flames of awareness licking up and down her arms and all across her skin. Emma flushed involuntarily, knowing her response showed, and that realization only making her embarrassment and arousal climb all the higher. Her gaze fell to the counter in an attempt to escape his intense regard; eyes following her fingers as they fumbled over odds and ends lying about, scrambling to look busy.

Still, her head jerked back up at his response, unable to avoid eye contact when the warmth of his words washed over her, still lightly flirtatious, but no less sincere, as he answered, “Perhaps I would.”

There was no way she could question that he meant it honestly. Along with the ability to see things average eyes could not, Emma could also sense when someone spoke the truth, and knew most usually when the truth was withheld. She might have lost her faith in that skill for awhile; her emotions too involved where Neal was concerned to see he had not meant all he had promised, and her ability to interpret her visions compromised by heartbreak in the case that sent her city life and purpose crumbling down. But, for all of that, she could still read Killian with absolute certainty, like the printed font on the page of a book. In fact, he was the most unmistakably clear, open person she could remember facing since Rose herself. It was impossible to misread him, and more than that - though it set her heart to fluttering at triple speed - not only does she trust him, but she finds that she wants to.

Humming softly under her breath, she accepted his admission without further comment, and with a cryptic, quiet smile she turned to find something she could have him do to help if he was determined to stay.

Once started, Emma was pleasantly surprised to find that they settle into an easy rhythm working side by side. She carried on unpacking, but could direct Killian up on the ladder with hammer and nails to hang various canvasses and frames for display, rather than having to do it all herself. As the afternoon sun crossed the sky and began to lower toward the evening, they shared various stories from the years between since they had seen each other last. Emma spoke warmly of the professor who took her under her wing, a Professor Ingersoll, who showed her all she could about camera, angles, light and shadow, and taking a shot which could truly speak to the viewer once captured. The older woman had also given Emma a place to visit for a homecooked meal some evenings, shared her secret of topping cocoa with whipped cream and cinnamon to make it even more decadent, and had become almost a surrogate older sister in Emma’s eyes, beyond being a brilliant mentor.

Meanwhile, Killian spoke less often, but with a wistful fondness that drew Emma nearer, allowing her to see that though he had possessed the money, fine home, seemingly perfect family, and advantages she had not known, he still had pains and regrets, wishes and hopes he had not yet been able to make come true. As strange as it might once have seemed to her barely teenaged self, they had much more in common than what held them apart.

He spoke in easy, rolling vowels and smooth, deep rumblings of learning all that he knew at his father’s side, and of how much he had looked up to Brennan - practically idolized the man - until tragedy had brought him low and he had seen his hero crumble in his grief and vices. He even spoke falteringly of how he had blamed himself for not telling on Rose the evening before she had snuck out to her death. He had seen her bike - the one he then hated himself for teaching her to ride - hidden in the bushes at the end of the long drive, and had known she planned to slip away to some childish mischief after dinner. He hadn’t told, and it had eaten at him a long time, until he finally accepted that his inaction may or may not have changed anything, and that what happened to his sister was not his fault.

Emma had to press her hands between her knees to keep from reaching out to cradle his tormented face between her palms at that confession. Her heart ached for him; she knew all too well what it was to dwell on might have beens and take on portions of the blame not meant to be her own. She might have never planned to meet Rose in their spot that night. She might have made it there to face down the killer with her friend or fall beside her. But she was not the one who had taken Rose’s life, and whatever others thought, she had finally come to see that her actions had not made the horror come to pass.

At some point they had ceased working, settling together at tall stools behind the counter and talking as evening shadows stretched and darkened the burnished shades of a Carolina sunset. Still, neither was ready to bring an end to the gentle comfort between them; the chance to speak of things long bottled up inside and receive understanding rather than judgement in return. It was only when Emma’s stomach growled so loudly that they both stopped speaking, wide-eyed before dissolving into laughter, that they finally gathered up their things and left, locking up the shop and driving off in search of some dinner.

She still didn’t think it was truly necessary for Killian to shadow her everywhere she went like some unofficial bodyguard. Yet, she also couldn’t deny feeling safer in the knowledge that he was there beside her and watching her back. Once they had decided to take his truck and leave her VW there on Main Street for the night, they headed for one of the local drive-thrus. She would be right back at work tomorrow, after all, and the car would probably be safer there in the middle of town under streetlights and regular patrols of the local police than it would be at her rented cabin.

Clambering up into the passenger seat of his tall pickup truck, Emma still felt she ought to protest once more, just at the upset to Killian’s schedule, the inconvenience of leaving behind his routine and all the chores of his own he no doubt had to do, not to mention the awkwardness of spending so much time - and overnight, at that - alone together, no more than they really knew each other. As expected though, Killian would hear no further argument, resolved that making sure she was safe was the most important thing to him. Then he deftly shifted the conversation with a wink and easy grin, asking where she wanted to eat.

It wasn’t until they were traveling along the rutted back road well outside the Storybrooke limits, along the edge of the wooded marsh near the place she was renting, that the peaceful companionship of the past few hours was harshly shattered. They had been rolling along under the deep midnight-purple sky sprinkled with stars, Emma savoring the last few salty French fries in her packet from the local diner and Killian slurping the last dregs of his milkshake from his cup, when her world suddenly swirled away from her; disjointed scenes from somewhere else flashing and pulsing wildly behind her eyes and the sight she both dreaded and couldn’t ignore swept her up more violently than it had done in years.

Gasping in shock, Emma bent forward over her knees, screwing her eyes shut even as the images playing behind her eyes invaded her head, growing ever more loud and vivid. “Wait, stop!” she rasped desperately, one hand clenched in her lap as the other fumbled blindly for the door handle as if to escape. Her voice scratched out ragged and plaintive as she begged Killian, “Please, stop! Right here, please!”

Alarmed, Killian pulled the truck over to the shoulder and threw it in park. He moved to reached across and take the hand she had reflexively balled into a fist, but even as they had barely come to a stop, Emma was out the door, stumbling sightlessly into the overgrown ditch. Hurrying after her, Killian called Emma’s name futilely while rounding the back bumper and plunging after her, but it was as though he were somewhere else from her entirely, unseen or heard as her arms flailed wildly while she climbed out on the other side of the ditch and into the field beyond, weaving unsteadily toward the treeline.

“Emma, hold up!” he called, trying to make it sound like a command, though his concern for her and confusion at what was happening overrode his intentions, making his voice echo shakily in the still night air. He jogged to catch up with her, abandoning any further entreaties that she was clearly past hearing.

Just as he reached her, Emma fell to her knees, hands on the hard-packed earth barely stopping her from falling flat on her face. Heaving, she seemed to be either struggling to catch her breath, or trying to purge nausea at whatever she saw that was invisible to Killian. She shook her head violently, almost clawing at the earth as she rocked back and forth on her knees. Not knowing what else to do, Killian reached out to lay a hand on her shoulder, then when no protest came, to rub it up and down her back soothingly.

Some minutes passed, minutes that felt like excruciating hours to Killian as he waited, not certain but hoping she would come back to him. At long last, Emma seemed to still, her rocking motion calming until she nearly slumped against his side, drained. For several interminable seconds neither spoke, until Emma suck in a harsh, rattling breath and jerked upright, her eyes popping open as she finally came back to herself fully.

“Shh, shhh, Love… take it easy,” Killian crooned, trying to pull her back to his side and smooth her hair back from her face as she scrambled backwards and began anxiously trying to regain her bearings. “I know you’ve seen something awful… but you’re back now, aye? You’re going to be alright.”

But Emma’s eyes were wide as they focused on him, finally seeing him there before her. “No,” she mumbled, her voice struggling back to life. “No, it won’t be alright at all.” Grabbing his hand and holding on tightly, she stared at him as if pleading for him to believe her and beggin his forgiveness at the same time. “I saw her, Killian. Some poor young girl… hitchhiking on this same stretch of road. He pulled over, gave her a smile… She didn’t know anything was wrong…” Emma’s breath hitched, but she pressed on. “She fought, but…but she couldn’t get away. I was seeing it t-through his eyes…” She shuddered before her voice dropped even lower, “No feelings, no remorse, just drinking in her terror… like it was before. That monster killed her. I saw it.”

The green of her gaze pierced his chest, causing Killian to struggle to breathe as well when she finally managed to tell him, “He killed her just the way he killed Rose.” Emma trembled all over as she finally let Killian gather her in his arms, though he was shaking now as well. “Rose wasn’t the only one. She was just the beginning.”

Tagging a few who may enjoy: @cssns @jennjenn615 @kmomof4 @searchingwardrobes @whimsicallyenchantedrose @laschatzi @jrob64 @apiratewhopines @spartanguard @therooksshiningknight @tiganasummertree @optomisticgirl @teamhook @revanmeetra87 @xsajx @sotangledupinit @winterbaby89 @bluewildcatfanatic @elizabeethan @donteattheappleshook @the-darkdragonfly @xarandomdreamx @booksteaandtoomuchtv @bdevereaux @caught-in-the-filter @anmylica @stahlop @hollyethecurious @artistic-writer @motherkatereloyshipper @jonesfandomfanatic @gingerchangeling @gingerpolyglot

#cssns23 #cs ff #cs fanart #CS au mc #Carolina Moon #chapter three

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daisychainsandbowties · 10 months

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I am very envious of your ability to have sushi (I don't drive and don't trust delivery in my city), AND a little void kitten (my dog is 13 and she's fine with cats but I think if I brought a kitten home she wouldn't like it). I'm living vicariously through you right now!

to be fair i walk seven miles to get sushi just because i’m too student to pay for delivery 🫠🫠

but yes Sushi (very proper noun) is the soot sprite of my dreams. he purrs whenever i look him now and has decided he likes to sleep on my running shoe but ONLY when my foot is inside 🥺🥺 so that he can bite my ankle with his miniscule fangs and make his little coffee percolator sounds while he does it

#trying new sushi tonight was !!!! eel tastes soooooo good #especially with my ‘put the sushi in the freezer for ten minutes before eating’ hack. i swear it’s genius 🥰😌😌#my oldest cat doesn’t care but the two one y/o twins are 🤨🤨🤨#i keep having to baby my big kitten Boba #he keeps staring at Sushi and then turning to me 🥺🥺 and meowing piteously #Boba is a very caspercore guy it has to be said (whining piteously & the 🥺🥺🥺🥺)#anon

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nocompromise-noregrets · 6 months

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🍾🍾🍾🍾

woohoo, thank you! I would take this as 4 snippets from 4 WIPs but I don't actually have that many at the moment, I don't think...but let's see...

“You grow no less insolent with age, pen-neth,” said Thranduil, but he was smiling, and Tilda grinned cheekily up at him. “It’s one of the many and varied reasons why you love me, Ada,” she said, and Thranduil could not disagree with that at all. (from Break You But You'll Mend chapter 32)

*~*

It wasn’t more than half an hour before Stella answered him, “omg mate I’m biting your hands off right now, you know Greenwood Hall is the only place in the county that hasn’t deposited its stuff in the county archives?! The national register of archives tried to go and list the stuff in the 50s, like they did with everywhere else, and they were VERY firmly rebuffed, so…it’s kind of like the great white whale, you know? Are you really sure the owner’s OK with me coming to have a look? And wait, what, your other half? TELL ME EVERYTHING.” (from All I Want Is You chapter 46)

*~*

We are in Edoras for the funeral of Théoden King, and in a quiet moment on the day before the ceremony I take Éomer aside, for there has been something preying on my mind for months, since the long ride to Helm’s Deep, and I cannot leave it unsaid, undone, for a moment longer. (from an as-yet-unposted one-shot in which Legolas goes back to bury the dead from the warg ambush)

*~*

Some days later I am finishing up the repair of the stable roof, which was damaged a few days ago by high winds, when I realise that Haldir is leaning against a nearby tree, watching me, and I hail him with a smile and leap to the ground, stuffing deep down inside me the odd feeling that I get when I see him, the sudden thundering of my heart and the fizzing in my blood. (from an as-yet-unfinished Legolas/Haldir one-shot in which Haldir and his brothers go to Ithilien after Galadriel leaves the Golden Wood, which I intended to do for My Slashy Valentine's 2023 collection for Keiliss, and still haven't finished goddammit >.< )

Well, would you look at that, I have four WIPs. :D There's also another instalment of Stars and Arrows which I'm percolating, and the forever-unfinished original novel (not to mention part whatever the hell it is of It's Always Been You, which has been sitting about for three and a half YEARS >.< ), but what I actually ought to be doing is my Barduil Month fics, which I haven't even started yet. Seriously contemplating ambling up to the pub tomorrow afternoon and sitting there with the laptop and a pint and making them cooperate...

wheeee, thank you for asking! <333333 anyone else want to send me champagne in return for some random sentences? :D :D :D

#ask game #go on #ask me stuff!#my writing #all i want is you #break you but you'll mend #my heart is an empty vessel #legolas #haldir/legolas #bard the bowman #thranduil #tilda #barduil #bard/thranduil

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jonathankatwhatever · 11 months

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It’s 10 Nov 2023 and I have a lot to say but first: were you really nervous this morning (my time), because I felt a panic at around 10AM? Next question: is that what you were nervous about? I didn’t realize that was today until later. Don’t you love playing around with times? Even the meaning of times.

That leads to something which seems to have been percolating without much if any awareness on my End: the coming together of the original conception of mechanics, as in Choice Mechanism or Context Mechanism or Creation Mechanism or even Concept Mechanism, because this is how ideas are born, how they spread, how they thrive or fail, and so on through whatever list you want to create because any list is finite because it is created, meaning it only continues as long as it is created, which means there is an infinite process of creation by which that list continues but it is finite at each step or stage. That is the minimum description. If we Attach an actual Thing to that idea, then we have the infinite process of the creation of Things, and as we add specificity to a Thing, like if we type it and otherwise classify it, then we generate more that must be continuously created. In other words, we could follow this continuous creation idea out and out and out, but I think what we really want to know is whether there’s a limit to that, a Boundary to continuous creation. And the answer is obviously yes: where the permutations fade to just the loneliest of few, when the line dies out, then there is no more link.

That’s relative. As in, relationship die because they’re not watered, which is fascinating to me because that was the gate I came in through. That really is striking. I’ve never had a clearer match in my head than just happened. And it has the next point too, which is slippery and easy to say badly, like it bites, which I don’t want. And that point is this scales entirely. I’m trying to keep this under control.

Scales means it Injects energy at the scalars, and then we scale those using HC. So now we can see that fCM stands as fundamental CM because it literally generates 50:50 and other choice and context mechanics. And SBE establishes modularities. That connects to scaling like Mag10, which includes or invokes (1+(SBE3)+1). SBE also connects to 1-0-1 and 0-1-0. The leaves what we call gs process, like Halving/Doubling and I//I. And gs process takes us to D-structure, which phrases all these methods and concepts in dimensional terms, notably using I//I to define existence as a D3-4 Thing in its related D-structure.

Anyway, whatever that paragraph was, it came out fairly well.

I meant to say that I was thinking about the Eulerian perspective, which is standing in one place watching stuff go by, versus the Langrangian, which is that you’re the stuff floating by, and then I started to think about Newtonian mechanics into Langrangian into Hamiltonian, and I had this extremely gripping and interesting moment which I need to describe.

I have now heard a bunch about the concept of jealousy like I am a jealous God, and the idea I keep hearing refine itself is that this means put me first, always, so whatever you do put me first and then act. There are of course connections over actions. Note: we can explain D’Alembert’s principle, why it exists, why it works.

So before the above, I had an ordering understanding about how HC leads to specific mathematical connections, like how the BSD conjecture has been unraveling, and then to physics, which makes the work not easier but connected and thus quicker.

That means there’s a mechanics in this. And I saw it in my head as a thing which saw me process the price on my house with objectivity, calculating what it might sell out for and thus what 30% of that might be and it made sense. Then I suddenly saw you, and I saw you doing stuff, and that became like a date or a flash of dates, and how else would you get to know someone, and that became is kissing part of getting to know, are handjobs, blow jobs, anal, you name it getting to know, and I terminated that progression, and then I saw a best image of you, one that always puts me first the way that I always put you first, no matter how far apart we have been, no matter how far apart we may ever be, always first.

And literally at that moment, I could see that is an effect over time, which compresses into moments of time, so we can define an encompassing mechanics, which includes any mechanics we can find or devise, and that was an enormous moments of clarity.

So now I have a blunt question for you: are you Ending our relationship? Are you choosing a life with him instead of me? Every other time I’ve thought this or brought it up, it has been knowing that I was nowhere near done. And now, I get frustrated if the most difficult problems don’t translate within hours. You’ve been experiencing the fluidity of enhanced creation. I can see it and hear it. And here you are with your boyfriend and I have to ask if this is all I’ll ever get from you.

You can see why this bothers me? It’s an inflection point and I have to question whether you will make the decision which has been dangled in front of me, which possesses me frequently during the day, or whether you’ll choose no to an actual relationship which actually involves me.

On another note, the amount of deja vu I’m going through is extreme. I rented a storage unit this morning and I did that entire thing already, including taking a photo of the maintenance guy with his broom in the open, empty unit. Even when I was typing on his computer and the mouse was wonky.

So I guess there’s a good chance this is our End. If so, I’m going to miss feeling alive. I hope you will miss me too. I have been looking forward to many years of productive, fun, happy times spent with you after so many difficult years. But maybe it’s time to give up and grow old.

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kinggrub · 1 year

Text

230707

It's been a while since I've felt compelled to write one of these "diary entries".

I have been obsessively thinking about her since the news arrived to our house. A week ago now.

And I have been saddled with this complex, heavy web of emotions: yearning, as the plurality. But accompanied by retribution; and a not-insignificant dose of self-righteousness (distinct from the former). And, of course, loss -- rivaling the yearning. Or really, complementing it I guess. They're kind of inseparable right now.

I loved her. I knew her. We could have been so strong together. And fuck me, I still deeply want her carnally -- which makes this so painful. I know, pretty puerile. Can't change the way I feel.

The complications with my feelings include a great sense of relief and admiration, and love still. I can't help but feel I was an integral part of her story.

But I'm stuck here. I know I'm allowed to feel these ways. I know it's safe to feel bad. I know it's okay to feel the good feelings alongside the bad and weird ones. I don't want to hyperfixate, I don't want to look away. I can't figure out then balance. I don't know what to do when I start spiraling.

And, look

Ultimately? She's... not a good person. She's an even worse friend. Her priorities have been consistently antithetical to my own. Ethics and art seem to be far from her purview of daily life, whereas I make great efforts to integrate those without prejudice. What else could possibility matter?? In this, I've never understood her.

I need to let her go. But I don't know how to do that without looking away, without completely shunning this overwhelming windfall of emotions. I want to bite and scratch and scream. And I don't know what could possibly be cathartic to me at this juncture. So I am left thinking. Forever. That's what I've been doing since we broke it off years ago. And I am still thinking, in motherfucking fractals twisting in on itself over and tighter for ever. It makes me want to fucking die.

But I don't want to die. Not over this. I'm just so tired of my machinations. I'm tired of being compulsive, obsessive, and stuck. I've been resisting reaching out to my therapist before our next session (they always say I can contact them outside of our scheduled appointments if I need them) because I felt like I needed time for the dust to settle, and to percolate. Unsure about that, though. I think I'm making myself sicker.

I'm looking forward to unpacking this with them, in doing so, giving myself the opportunity to detangle my account, to clear things up for myself, and to clean up the jumble of thought-feelings vectors exploding every which-way from my personal narrative of this aging clusterfuck

#bugtext #personal #lead #she'll still be plumbum here I guess

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oh-great-authoress · 2 years

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🌹🌹🌹tell me of your wips dear

@batmantaking-hobbits2gallifrey

Ohhhh, Elli, you do not know what you have asked for.

I now unleash Silmarillion-esque deep dives upon you!!!!

Three Roses, three WIPs…

So you will get information about three of my WIPs, and here we go!

I’m so happy to talk about these.

Benjamin Solo and the Shadow of Death

This is a Reylo and Gingerrose (Armitage Hux/Rose Tico) Grantchester/1950s AU where Ben and Armitage, formerly Kylo Ren and The General, the most feared enforcers of the Knights of Ren, are now Church of England priests after a St. Paul-esque come-to-Jesus moment.

However, their past is coming back to bite them in the ass, throwing a wrench, or rather, a spanner, into every aspect of their lives.

In this story, Rey is the vicarage’s industrious housekeeper, and Rose is the town mechanic’s daughter, a mechanic herself, while Ben is the Vicar and Armitage the Curate.

This story started as an imagine I sent to @galacticidiots, but then I couldn’t shake the idea, and it percolated for nearly two years, until I decided that, like Gandhi said, I had to “Be the change [I] wish to see in the world”, and write the darn thing.

This was/is a passion project for me, and there were moments that I was so worried I’d end up abandoning this story, but luckily, I’m stubborn as all heck, so I plowed on through months of writer’s block.

But despite all the frustration this story gave and still gives me, this story has also given me so much joy, especially when the scene bits (both for Armitage, actually) which I was so proud of and came up with in the two years where the idea lay percolating, made it in the story, which literally made me do a little happy dance in my chair.

Those bits would be the scene where Armitage gets engine oil on his shirt, and Rose tells him to take it off so that she can soak it in her family’s secret formula of stain remover (*snort* yeah, I went here), in this chapter, and the scene where Armitage kicks the town drunk’s ass after he shoves Rose to the ground, in this chapter.

And while this story is still very PG-13, at the end, this is going to be the steamiest thing I have ever written, with use of very, very tasteful fade-to-blacks.

I actually have one of the two fade-to-blacks written (it’s so romantic), with the other one a problem-for-future-Nadia, though the idea is nebulously present in the electric meat.

I am personally so proud of my characterization in this story, and I think that this story was key to my growth as a writer.

It forced me to stretch both my research skills, with the 1950s setting, and my writing skills, as it made me write scenes which I never thought I would ever be able to pull off.

And it still is stretching my writing skills, because I have some very tricky scenes to work through in the upcoming chapters, which will have elements that I do not think are my specialty.

But when this is over, this will be, I think, one of my most favorite stories I’ve written.

I’d like to think that this story has everything, with romance, action, snappy dialogue (I think this story has some of the best dialogue I’ve ever written), comedy, and drama.

(Divider via @delishlydelightfuldividers)

Okay, let me preface the next two WIPs with saying that I never thought I’d end up writing them.

But honestly?

I probably should have seen it coming.

Almost two months ago, I watched “Top Gun: Maverick”, and I absolutely loved it.

And I tried not to devolve into a hyperfixation, but… I just couldn’t.

I mean, for me, the movie had everything; found family feels, dysfunctional father-son road trip vibes, Pathetic™ men ready to be Blorbo-fied, action, comedy, and impressive visuals.

(Am I counting the shirtless beach dogfight football scene as part of the impressive visuals?

I’ll leave that up to you.)

And with me already being an aviation enthusiast, or avgeek, this was bound to happen.

Anyway, this stupid plane movie (affectionate) has had a chokehold on me for the last nearly two months, and I managed to keep it mostly tamped down here on the hellsite, because I was a little ashamed of how easily my brain plunged into a hyperfixation—hypocritical, I know, on the hyperfixation site—but now, the dam has burst, and I’m just going to own it from here on out.

These stories will not make sense at all if you haven’t seen the movie, so here’s the link to the Wikipedia page, so you can get an idea of what I’m talking about.

I also highly recommend looking on YouTube for clips of the movie, because… okay, yeah, I’m trying to drag you down with me, I’ll be honest.

(Sharing is caring?)

So here we have two of my Top Gun: Maverick WIPs…

Prank War

This is the tentative synopsis: “It was getting a little bit chummy here at NAS North Island, so Jake had a genius idea.”

Basically, Jake “Hangman” Seresin, reformed jerk extraordinaire, has the genius idea to start a prank war between him and Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, which does not go well at all.

One thing leads to another, and someone ends up strung up by the Naval Air Station’s flagpole, in a coup de grace.

This is pure crack, and even I burst into laughter when I read my own opening scene, because it’s just so hilarious, and, in my opinion, perfectly in character.

Here’s the opening scene:

(Warning: a little cursey)

“Fuck my life.

Fuck my fucking life,” Vice Admiral Beau “Cyclone” Simpson muttered to himself, as he stared at the report before him in despair.

“Become an Admiral, they said—it’ll be fun, they said,” he continued, aware he was sounding like he was a few screws short of an F-18.

But in his opinion, it was completely acceptable—he had to get it out somehow.

“You’ll just have to sign a few things here and there, but you’ll be able to have more time to yourself.

Meanwhile, I’m here, dealing with fucking infants when I could’ve been flying still, exactly like Maverick.

Well—maybe not exactly like Maverick, I have some sense of self-preservation—but anyway.

‘Best aviators the US Navy has to offer’, my ass—more like two-year-olds, all of them.”

From there, we flashback to all the pranks, until we end up back with Admiral Simpson.

I still, sadly, have to figure out how to properly end it, but I’m still waiting to finish my Grantchester/1950s AU to really work on this and the next story anyway, so I’m not rushing myself…

Finally, the piece I am most excited and embarrassed to talk about:

What Am I Doing

That’s literally the working title, because I was working on Benjamin Solo and the Shadow of Death, when this idea barged in like this:

So thusly the name.

I am actually actively trying to come up with an actual title for this that is not borne out of my frustration at myself for acquiring another WIP.

However, the subtitle, which is actually going to be put on the fic title or the synopsis, is: “It’s the Great Karmic Bitchslap, Jake Seresin!”

Which is a play on “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”.

I honestly have no idea how I ended up with this, but I think, to my knowledge, it was born out of a desire (as these things often are) to torture and torment Jake Seresin.

Because, other than Bradley, and Maverick, to some extent, we don’t know anything about the families of the other pilots of Dagger Squadron.

So I thought, what if Jake had a twin sister?

And what if she ends up falling in love with Bradley Bradshaw?

“Jake would absolutely hate that,” I thought. “I love it.”

But since I’m not entirely heartless, I give Jake his very own romance plot, with Natasha “Phoenix” Trace.

(Hannix shippers, this one’s for you)

So, here’s the plot.

In the middle of the night, Jake wakes up to a call from base gate security: it’s his older twin sister, Anastasia, and his nephew, Lucas.

They’re on the run from Anastasia’s ex-husband, whom she divorced and had her marriage annulled a year ago.

However, her ex is an A-grade crazy psycho, who stalks and follows her and her son no matter where they go.

So she goes to her brother, figuring that since he lives on base, she and her son would be safe.

Here, she meets Maverick and the rest of Dagger Squadron (now a permanent squadron based out of North Island, thanks to the success of the uranium mission), including one Lieutenant Bradley Bradshaw.

Circumstance then throws the two even further together when a regulation indicates that she and Lucas cannot stay with Jake.

(Hand wavey contrivance, I know)

So out of the goodness of his heart, Maverick offers to put up the mother and son at his large house behind his hangar (which is widely accepted fanon, since we did not see anything of the sort in the movie), which is sort of off the grid, where—wouldn’t you know it—Bradley is also living, so he and Mav can spend more time together; after all, they have fifteen years to make up for.

Bradley and Anastasia soon grow close, much to her brother’s chagrin, all while Natasha is laughing her head off, as she fills in as said brother’s voice of reason, because this is karmic justice for all the women Jake’s picked up in bars.

There’s a scene I wrote last week which I am already in LOVE with, and I—it’s just so sweet and romantic—it’s EVERYTHING.

I couldn’t even believe my luck when I remembered the PERFECT song for said scene—I mean, the lyrics are just EXACTLY what the scene needed, and the lyrics are just SPOT-ON.

I tell you, it felt/feels inspired.

And I am so grateful that I know/grew up listening to old songs, because this song would never have occurred to me otherwise.

Some background on this scene: it’s the day of the Navy Gala, and Anastasia is supposed to go as her brother’s plus one, she even bought a dress and everything.

But then, just before she was going to get ready, her son had an accident and broke his arm, which meant that she had to take him to the hospital, and she was unable to go.

(Which will end up being good for Jake and Natasha)

This scene takes place at the end of the night, after Bradley returns home.

(I have yet to decide if Mav and Bradley will go home at the same time.)

As a side note, Bradley will be wearing dress whites, not blues, because… well, just because, “cover” is the fancy military term for the uniform cap, and I see Anastasia, or, as Bradley calls her, Ana, as Leelee Sobieski in my head.

Here’s the scene:

(Warning: 100% fluff)

“How’s Lucas?” Bradley asked, setting his cover onto the kitchen island.

“He’s sleeping—they gave him the good stuff at the hospital.

Thanks for asking.”

He nodded. “That’s good.”

“How was the gala?”

He cringed slightly. “Ehh—the usual—lots of boring self-congratulatory speeches before we get to what people actually came for; the open bar and the free food.”

“Was it any good?”

“Yeah, it always is, though I think it’s pretty hard to screw up pasta.”

“You’d be surprised,” Ana smiled.

“Jake?”

“Me, actually, the first time I tried to cook spaghetti and meatballs.”

He frowned, “I don’t believe that, you’ve been spoiling Mav and me the whole time you’ve been here.”

“Believe it, Lieutenant.”

Something almost vaguely familiar briefly clouded his expression, before it cleared, and he continued, “Yeah, anyway, the food was good, though it wasn’t a patch on what you dish out, and… Jake missed you, said he was hoping the two of you could’ve had a night out.”

“Jake, huh?”

Bradley rubbed the back of his neck, “Yeah, he pissed Nat off enough to make her drag him to the dance floor herself.”

Ana looked down, her hair falling into her face, “To be honest, I was actually hoping to go tonight.

It’s been… a while since I went to a party.”

“Gala, actually—the Navy’s quite particular about not calling it a party.

Got to be respectable and all that,” he grinned.

“Oh, sorry—gala,” she laughed. “Anyway, it would’ve been nice to dress up, and—” she sighed, “this is going to sound so stupid.”

“Tell me anyway?” he earnestly asked.

“I… I’m feeling bad that I wasted all that money on a dress I didn’t even end up wearing, and—God—I wanted to dance.”

Ana looked down embarrassedly, running a hand through her hair.

“That’s not stupid.

That’s normal.”

She looked up at him, a little startled.

Bradley worried his lower lip between his teeth before she saw an idea literally occur to him, the only thing missing, the lightbulb over his head. “It doesn’t have to be wasted.

Go put that dress on, and meet me down here.”

“What are you planning, Bradley?” Ana shook her head.

“Since you couldn’t go to the Navy Gala, the Navy Gala comes to you.”

An incredulous gasp escaped her. “You going to ask me to dance, Lieutenant Bradshaw?” she asked, a stupid smile on her lips, tears in her eyes.

“Well, I am still in uniform, and… yeah, I am.”

“Are you sure?”

“Go—I’ll be waiting,” he nodded encouragingly.

She couldn’t keep the smile from widening to a grin as she went upstairs, pulling the box from the dresser.

She quickly washed her face, before putting on mascara and lipstick, and slipping into the dress.

When she looked in the mirror, even though she wasn’t wearing anything close to the full makeup look she had planned to if she’d gotten to go to the gala, she felt beautiful in a way she hadn’t in a very long time, and tears threatened, but she ruthlessly pushed them back, as she gathered her hair into a loose bun, and stepped into her well-worn black heels.

She crept out of her room and made her way downstairs, where, true to his word, Bradley was waiting, at the foot of the stairs, cover tucked under his right arm, looking every inch the dashing naval aviator and officer he was, in his dress whites.

He looked up at the sound of her heels on the stairs, and an awed expression came over his face.

“Wow,” he breathed when she was a step away from him. “You look amazing.”

Ana sheepishly smoothed the deep green silk with her palms, as she stepped down the final step. “The makeup and hair’s not what I was planning for tonight if I got to go, but I didn’t want to keep you waiting too long.”

“I’d have waited if you wanted to do all that.”

Ana’s jaw slacked a bit, and he continued, “But you—you look stunning.”

“Thank you,” she replied.

Bradley offered his arm, with a “Shall we?”

She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm, and they moved out to the backyard, Bradley even bothering to wear his cover for the short walk to the pergola a ways from the back door.

“I’m going to be the envy of everyone at the gala,” he proudly murmured as they walked.

“It’s only the two of us,” Ana shook her head.

“Still,” he breathed, with an honesty she hadn’t heard from a man in years.

Once they were under the string lights, he stepped away from her to place his cover on the patio table which had been pushed to the side, along with the chairs, to create a makeshift dance floor.

Bradley pulled his phone out from his pocket and fiddled with it for a beat, looking for something.

Eventually, he found what he was searching for, and with a final tap, he set the device down beside his cover.

The strains of Orleans’ “Dance With Me” filled the air, and Ana smiled for what felt like the thousandth time that night.

He turned to her, hand extended. “Will you do me the honor of this dance, Miss Seresin?”

“I will, Lieutenant Bradshaw.”

She placed her hand in his, and he took her in his arms, as they began to sway slowly on the floor.

I still have to write basically 98% of this story, but this scene, and a couple of other bits and pieces, including the opening scene, and Bradley’s first glimpse of Anastasia, are written out.

However, while I always tend to give myself room to change things, I am absolutely certain that this dance scene is going to make its way into the final product hook or by crook, darn it.

It’s just… GAH, I love this scene so much.

I was grinning like an idiot while I wrote it, and I still do, when I read it.

I’m truly sorry if that comes off as narcissistic, I just—AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the look into my WIP folder, and all the word-vomit, Elli!!!

Thank you and God bless you if you managed to read all this, truly—I know it’s a LOT!!!

#thank you so much for playing elli!#ask game #ask games #ask nadia

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notsowrites · 3 years

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Untitled Malex 3x09 Coda #1

I am not having a great morning, but it’s not anything to do with this, so I’ve been struggling to write even though the idea has been percolating in my mind since last night. I don’t know if I love this, but I love that we’re seeing Malex communicate and share fears, and really openly support one another.

Anyway, enjoy! <3

--------

Alex pushes open the front door, and takes a moment to stare at the pile of mail on the floor. Evidence of his own mistakes. The bag containing the food Michael had dropped off from the Crashdown to remind him to eat is up against the wall, and Alex sighs. Two days into this new relationship of theirs and Michael was already taking care of him, and here he had been the one to almost ruin it completely.

"Oh," Michael breathes out, coming up behind him and focusing on the same mess on the floor.

"It's fine, Guerin."

Michael shakes his head, already reaching down and picking up the old Crashdown bag, a new Crashdown bag in his other hand. "I'll clean this up. Why don't you go, uh, relax?"

Alex shakes his head. It isn't Michael's responsibility to clean up after him. "You don't have to-"

"Alex," Michael interrupts him, placing the bag down on the table and stepping into his space. Alex feels his hand on his face, and can't help but lean into it just a little. "I want to."

He relents, nodding his head and trying to ignore the mess, heading further down the hallway and into his bedroom.

Two days ago everything had seemed better, like with letting Michael in on everything he knew about the Lockhart machine and the work he was doing at Deep Sky, he would be able to work safer and smarter. A good lie he'd told himself, in fact.

His phone buzzes in his pocket with a text message from Eduardo. It's the photo from the security cameras outside Deep Sky, of Michael standing in perfect view, jacket held open, the words EDUARDO VALENTI I COME IN PEACE written in large black sharpie on his t-shirt. He'd seen the shirt earlier, once things had calmed down, the letters poking out from underneath Michael's jacket.

Michael had been so worried he'd walked up to the front door of Deep Sky for him, and demanded to be let inside.

A fresh wave of guilt washes over him thinking about the desperation Michael must have been feeling to make such a decision. They'd planned a date, they'd made the choice to go out together, to be seen together - and instead Alex had let himself get pulled into the issues that plagued the Lockhart machine, as if it was somehow more important.

Making the photo the contact picture for Michael in his phone is an no-brainer. Because maybe one day he'll be able to laugh about it, and not feel the guilt surrounding this. And he is entirely grateful that Michael did worry about him, because if he hadn't, if Michael hadn't stopped by for their date…

Removing his prosthetic is a chore, his stump sore and aching for fresh air. He debates the merits of a hot bath, but knows that if he gets in, the only thing he'll want to do afterwards is go to sleep. And right now, he needs to also eat something. They'd stopped at the Crashdown quickly on their way back, Michael saying something about making sure Alex ate. He hadn't even realized the diner was closed for it's yearly fumigation until Michael pointed it out to him. As his stomach rumbles, reminding him, he changes into sweats and pulls on an old Air Force hoodie, before making his way out of the bedroom.

Michael is in the kitchen, standing at the stove flipping what looks like sandwiches on a hot pan. Alex stands just out of view, though he's surprised with his crutch Michael hasn't heard him, and just takes a moment. A moment to let himself appreciate Michael, for taking care of him, for caring about him. It's always been a fear of his, and one that his own hallucinations had reminded him of, that he'd never be enough, that he and Michael were destined to always have issues greater than the ability for them to be together.

"I've never seen you cook before."

Michael spins on his heels, a smile on his face, and Alex pulls himself up into the stool at the counter so he can sit down, carefully leaning his crutch against the wall. "Wait until you taste it before you judge me."

Alex laughs, thinking of Maria telling him how good a cook Michael is, the surprise in her voice as she told him about the breakfast omelettes he'd made for her. It's nice that now though, he finally gets to see for himself, though he's never doubted Maria's assessment.

"What are you cooking?"

Michael turns back to the stove, and Alex watches as he checks to make sure nothing burns. "Hamdalorian and cheese sammies. Figured since you didn't eat the ones I left for you, you could try them now."

Alex ducks his head. He still feels awful, for all of it.

"I am sorry I ruined our date," he says, not for the first time tonight.

Everything was supposed to be different. They shouldn't be here, sitting in his kitchen, cleaning up after his mess. They should have been out in public, enjoying each other's company, and not dealing with the aftermath of Alex's own demons.

"I know," Michael replies, sliding a plate in front of him, and leaning against the counter next to him. "But hopefully we'll have lots of them in the future."

"Yeah?"

He tries to sound excited, he tries to sound sure of himself. But all today had done was confirm to him that there are still things he needs to work through, even with Michael by his side. It had helped to hear that Michael had been battling with some of the same fears about their future, about the weight of everything that had happened to them being too much. At least they were battling them together now.

"You know, Sanders called me out - about us," Michael says, and Alex feels him slip his hand in his own. The bandana is gone, even though Alex knows it had been there earlier today. "I called you a friend, and he uh, he sorta saw right through me."

"When was this?"

Michael's cheeks go pink, and he ducks his head before looking back up at Alex. "After the radio tower. He's been giving me shit about it since I asked him for advice."

Alex smiles, thinking of the metaphor Michael had shared earlier. He's happy that Michael has Sanders in his life, someone who knew his mother, to tell him what she was like.

He watches Michael push back from the counter just as takes a bite of his sandwich, looking around quickly.

"I know you probably want to be alone, and maybe sleep for a couple days, so I'm gonna head out."

Does he want that? Does he want Michael to leave? Now that he's here, in the house, in his space, Alex isn't sure he wants him to leave. He's always had issues with allowing people into his personal space, a fear that stayed at the forefront because of his father. But he's spent too much time alone with his thoughts the past two days. He doesn't need more alone time with them.

"Michael?" He calls out before Michael gets too far away, turning towards the hallway, and watching as Michael's curls pop back up around the corner.

"Yeah?"

"Would you stay?"

#roswell new mexico #malex #malex fic #alex manes #michael guerin #notso writes fanfic

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astriiformes · 3 years

Text

New Year’s Resolutions are always dubiously helpful for me, but it is a good time for reflection, so here is an organization of things that are not quite “resolutions,” but possible goals for me nonetheless:

Writing:

Last year I made a post expressing how excited I was that I had started working on fic again in earnest, and modestly expressed the hope that I could match it and write at least 25k of fic in 2021. Turns out that I instead managed to publish 84,582 words of fic, marking my most productive writing year.... ever.

What I am taking away from that: Fandom challenges & events are great motivators for me. The bulk of that published fic is from Whumptober and my Fandom Trumps Hate piece, and Whumptober in particular was a fantastic test of my skills & gave me some ideas for larger stories

What I would like to do in 2022: Keep that momentum! I love writing and posting fic so much and even though it’s hard it’s been great for me! That said, 2021 was also the year of not working on existing projects and instead posting new ones. Part of that was a new special interest developing in August, but in 2022 I want to return to my LotR longfic and BttF stories I’ve had percolating for ages, alongside new TOH stuff and finishing my FTH story/hopefully taking on a new one

(Additionally: I want to look more at non-fanfic writing projects. Thinking more seriously about original fiction or academic/freelance publishing seems like something worth doing if my writing ability is really returning so strongly, after struggling with it for so long)

Cosplay:

I only finished one cosplay in 2021, but Hunter’s Golden Guard outfit is far and away the most complicated one I’ve ever made and proof that I really have launched into a new sort of... echelon of ability

What I am taking away from that: I can in fact learn new skills without too much angst, and I do have some really solid problem-solving creating abilities (throwing together a mask to go with my Percy cosplay at 3am the night before wearing it again also proved this). It is absolutely worth tackling the projects I have been putting off because I think my abilities aren’t good enough. (Also, I really love the hobby and should invest in it)

What I would like to do in 2022: Finish at least one new cosplay from scratch. I also might like to fix up or remake parts of some others, but I want to tackle something completely new and finish it before the end of the year. Raine, most likely, but I also kind of want to look seriously at starting Fjord or Caduceus finally after worrying that they’d be “too hard” for me for a while now. Also, maybe look into doing a real photoshoot at some point because my costume(s) actually look good!

Music:

I struggled with this one this year and got very imposter syndrome-y about my abilities as a musician. Not so many successes. But I did write multiple original songs, which is a new one for me, and play one concert at the local con this summer, and at the very end of the year, before I injured my hand, was actually trying to regularly practice again!

What I am taking away from that: I know what I am insecure about and should tackle that as well as try to actually keep that practicing momentum. Also, I am a better lyricist/songwriter than I think probably

What I would like to do in 2022: Figure out regular practicing methods that work for me. Write at least a few more songs. There is a very decent chance that 2022 might end up being our album year -- work towards that. I think I need to share my music more to feel better about it, because I am my own worst critic so.... do that. On tumblr or on streams or even at more concerts if they’re possible. Also, if it’s possible, I really want to play in an ensemble by the end of the year. That probably means thinking about an audition, which terrifies me, but... I should try to bite that bullet. Maybe.

Of course there are other things I want to work on, but I think my school/mental health/interpersonal goals are a very different beast, to be handled differently. Mostly I wanted to look at three of the hobbies I invested in most this year in various ways & that made me happy (or sometimes did, at least), beacause oh boy were they one of the things that carried me through this last year, and I’d like for them to keep doing that. Creating is really important to me. I want to keep and get even better at creating.

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jjungkooksthighs · 4 years

Text

Claws of Carnality | jjk (7)

Pairing: alpha jungkook x omega reader

Genre: smut, fluff and angst, abo/werewolf!au, soulmate!au, fantasy!au

Rating: 18+ / nsfw

Word Count: 7.4k

Summary: When you and your alpha rivetingly reunite for the Offering Ceremony, you are thoroughly twitterpated in his display of intent to you that colors your entire being with affection for him, but you will soon find that he isn’t the only one that has his sights set on you...

Warnings: alpha!jungkook, possessive!jungkook, jealous!jungkook, dom!jungkook, sub! reader, omega!reader, mentions of breeding/ruts/heats, mentions of blood, mentions of a mark, slick and pre-ejaculatory production, scenting, mating rituals and hunting

A/N: What a ride this chapter has been. From the many drafts I had of the original version that went through various reworks before I initially posted and then onto the deletion of that from Tumblr only for an alternate version to be made in my efforts to better guide understanding of the story, this chapter has started from one destination and landed somewhere across the other side of the world.

I hope that this version is easier to digest after the heaviness of the original and much work has been done to ensure that. All feedback that was given to me on the previous rendition of this chapter was greatly appreciated even if some of it hurt, so those who reached out, I thank you. I hope that you all will continue to let me know what your thoughts are as I thrive on comments and feedback that show to me what you guys really think about my work. Please make me a happy author and share your feedback with me on this revised version that I made just for you guys!

Also, you will notice the gif I used this time is different. That is because that look is what Jungkook has somewhere in this chapter (because lbr here I am a slut for Black Swan Jungkook). There might additionally be an insert that looks somewhat familiar to something we have all screamed over, so that will be interesting to see if anyone catches what it is.

For my readers that enjoy auditory stimulus while they read, I wrote this chapter entirely to Jungkook’s “My Time” and I implore you to listen to that while you read because it really sets the mood and perspective I had in the sentiments that I wanted to convey for this part (not to mention I fucking love that song like a child adores their favorite toy). You may find while listening that a certain part resonates especially deep with it. Bonus points to anyone that catches the special allusion!

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 8 Part 9

Suffering in silence amid the agonizing absence of your alpha, every second spent without him is dragged on by cruel hands of time that languidly pass with lethargy in the wake of the sun’s slumber.

Despite the powerful paroxysms that wrack every fiber of your being, your heart paddles agog with anticipation while you wait anxiously for your alpha as your irises sweep like a whirlwind through the woodland in the distance in their frantic frenzy to find under their storm the bringer of the tempest of emotions that rain over you.

The knoll erected just before the greenwood is certainly an insolent impediment that blocks and bars your sights from penetrating pervasively into the forest’s opening as you whimper in the damned denial of your mate.

You hardly notice the profoundly proliferating mound of quarry in front of you that the same beta tugs and tows from the forest in an accumulating aggregation that far surpasses the small, sad excuses for the other piles of game that other betas pull from the forest in their lugging of the conquered prey of each alpha that they serve.

The name of this particular one drifts away from your comprehension in the turbulent gusts that your alpha spews over you even in your separation that cloud your mind of all but him.

By now, the sun has lain itself to sleep below the horizon and, in its place, the moon has awoken augustly from her own chamber to seat herself atop her throne at the sky’s crest. This night, she is tainted red with the crimson of the lifeblood within all creatures under her care in a rare occurrence that is otherwise known as the Blood Moon.

Occurring only twice a year among the winter and summer solstices, the striking shade is symbolic of the wild impulses that drive all living beings and even the stars pulse like veins through the sky’s soma in their own frenzied palpitations.

The moon’s subjects of omegas, alphas and betas all throng tightly together in clusters behind the garden of newly presented omegas that have blossomed with maturity, the cheerful chattering of all the wolves of your pack blooming around you in the warmth of excitement that spouts from them like water. You are rooted like a flower to the ground amidst the field of other omegas that have recently presented, your limbs planted there by the elder who had brought you from the woods.

It had been an onerous omission on your part to abstain from hissing at her when her bony, knuckled hands had grasped your arms in the utter dissatisfaction that had erupted like a volcano within you in the urge to tear her off of you in the lack of heat that her touch- which had been so definitively and determinately not your alpha’s- had been incapable of warming you with.

It had been so unlike what your alpha easily instilled upon you in his calefaction that rolled off of him in waves and, in wanting only your alpha’s hands on you, you’d had to bite down on your tongue to keep from releasing the noise of dismayed dissatisfaction and risk being begrudgingly berated for an unruly display.

Once she’d ambled away, it was your secret that you’d pulled the furs your alpha had given you closer around you to bask in his scintillating scent, the pelt closing comfortingly around you to offer you some much needed incalescence while some, but not all, of the tension pressing down on your shoulders had lifts away.

Niva, who stood behind you, had giggled as she asked, “Are you that gone for him, darling?”

Your cheeks had reddened in embarrassment before you’d looked back at her to quietly mumble, “I am. Irrevocably and unequivocally.”

You watch with bated breath as alphas begin to ascend from over the hilltop that stands to attention just before the woodland as you all but tremble in anticipation to find your own among them.

They are all cleaned of the blood, sweat and tears from the prey they slayed and most are dressed in exorbitantly expensive threads that have likely never before been worn before today.

They are donned under furs from which the alphas acquired in hunts years past in the aged, tanned colors of them all that are draped over each wolf’s shoulders as they come to stand in front of their designated deposit of game they have proudly procured in effort to offer it to their desired partner amidst the line of omegas that have been arranged opposite of them.

It is tradition that the sins of death be wiped away from them before an omega's virtues of life can fully cleanse the alpha that would receive them.

Incurring impatience is what has you whine out for your alpha that still evasively eludes your visage as you searchingly seek him while your wolf cries for the only one that could possibly quiet it as a familiar figure separates from the amalgamation of agglomerated elders that have accumulated along the west and east sides of the stage before she takes her place on the beamed boards that circularly coalesce into the timbered stage.

Amidst the jovial jabber that percolates through the air, the lead elder, who is also your grandmother, raises her hands over her head so that the moonlight drips down onto her upturned palms as she shouts, “Children! Tonight, we commemorate the adulthood that our blessed mother of the moon has acknowledged in these youth before you,” the lead elder lowers both arms to gesture to you as fondness showers over her before she softens, “And among them is my beloved grandchild, Y/N, who hails from the purest of bloodlines and who has been the sole caretaker of our pups and livestock in her dutiful and devout service to her pack since her very juvenility. Let us commend both her and those she was raised alongside in this momentous moment!”

There is a thunderous applause that bursts roaringly around you as exhilaration energizes you anew whilst every wolf in attendance animatedly hoots and claps with a delighted dynamism that has you smiling happily as the sounds bound through you with the liveliness of a sprite.

It leaps through you ceaselessly and when you breathe in to give it more room to prance around within you, that’s when your lips lift in gratified gaiety in the unmistakable undeniability of the scent of myrrh that skirrs insatiably forth until it has found and enveloped you in its mighty musk as you sigh with satisfaction at the realization as it wantonly wafts around you.

Jungkook, your precious mate, must be close by.

The knowledge has your heart skipping a beat as your wolf bays amidst the kindles of joy that light themselves within you in the rapid recognition of the presence of your other half somewhere in the distance.

In the cesspool of odors of all the other wolves that odiously stink and reek through winds around you, it is a taxing task to attempt to locate the origin of the aroma you have come to adore ardently.

All you can do is readily revel in the piquantly pungent incense that incites your baser being with inclination to rejoin with its mate and to find solace in the euphoric utopia of his waiting arms once more.

Some of the lead elder’s words are lost to you amongst your alpha’s essence that wraps willfully around you in a brume that brushes eagerly against you while the ovation that, somewhere along the way, has gradually quieted while the last of the alphas have found their allocated allotment next to their corresponding heaps of seized, slain prey.

They are organized according to rank with the first place that heads the row of alphas belonging to the wolf boasting the highest station amongst his dynamic as their chief in charge of them all through the title afforded to him through his strength, power and bloodline.

Such were no match for any other alpha that had been unwise and unfortunate enough to face and bear the brunt of his sharp claws in battle that ended in loss to any that opposed him as the rightful pack alpha.

It is Jungkook’s locus at the vertex of the line that is empty and while the sight should distill doubt’s inklings within you, your alpha’s reassuring redolence is there to caress you in the swathing surety that he’s near. In your endeavored expenditure to catch a glimpse of Jungkook, you fail to detect that there is not one desolate domain that is devoid of an alpha in front of you, but four.

Still, you’re hardly at the liberty to discern that within the olfactive haze of your alpha’s pheromones that effervescently enfold you in their pleasing particles.

When your irises chase the lingering trace of him that is everywhere and nowhere at once to no avail yet again, you pout and, in the distance, a pair of golden eyes glint with mirth at the spectacle of you that is so incredibly and charmingly cherubic to their beholder.

A knowing expression momentarily crossing the lead elder’s face, your grandmother steps back before smiling fondly at you before her eyes carry their focus across the line of omegas that have been bestrewn along the grasses to your right before returning to you as she proclaims, “My dear grandchild, I welcome you and your fellow omegeans to the maturity that the wolves within you have flourished so beautifully with. May the most worthy of alphas earn you this night under the approving nod of our maternal moon that shall watch us from above,” she gives a revering salute to the celestial body above as she crosses her fingers over her heart in a spherical motion before bowing and when she stands once more, she trumpets, “With that, let us begin the Offering Ceremony!”

Upon her final words, she hobbles haltingly back down the wooden stairs connected to one side of the stage with some aid from the other elders in the age that has stolen away the strength of her feeble, frail ligaments as another round of applause fiercely flies through the land on the wings of the air that carry it as good-natured gossip joins it.

The stage is emptied but for a moment before an alpha emerges from the arched lumbered and logged mouth opening onto the platform, the tongue of timbered planks spanning outward in a circlet as the wolf takes his starting position for his celebratory dance before a flurry of flutes cast their music from the forelimbs of the wooden body under the deft fingers of the pack’s musicians.

You do not recognize this wolf and it takes only a second for your attention to sway elsewhere as your alpha’s scent draws you back to him when its mists cling in their sedulous sumptuousness to you.

It is tradition that all ceremonies and events initiate with performances meant to embody the heart of the occasion. Through their artistically aesthetic displays, tangible forms are given to the impalpable sentiments that the pack amasses in its harnessing of sensibilities toward such a jovial jamboree in the dances that are done to reflect those avid attitudes of each wolf imbued innately with such enthusiasm.

Following this, alphas are the first to proffer a present to their desired partners in declaring and dedicating the winnings of their hunt to their chosen omega. In exchange for the bounty, the omega then gives something of their own to their alpha as a symbol of intent to be paired exclusively with each other.

If there are offerings that exceed those of a single alpha for one omega, challenges or duels can be instigated and thusly proctored in official matches in their efforts to win an omega.

Such battles end either through submission or when one wolf is left incapacitated in the incapability to rise from the ground through the wounds that always leave their bodies in tatters through the violent nature of the fight for a mate.

The losing combatant forfeits their rights to claim an omega if they are bested by their opponent and the omega is not given a choice to accept the victor even if the alpha that wins them is not the one they had hoped to have, for it is a rule that the superior wolf who dominates another and exhibits that they are the more capable provider to the entire compound is the worthier being in their ability to protect their omega.

Following this, an intended pair of wolves each bestow matching marks that they paint onto each other in the blood of the strongest, most fearsome prey that an alpha robbed of its life in the honor of their omega.

After that, they are free to depart to a den the alpha is to have carefully crafted in preparation of his mate where the two are then meant to consummate their bond that will seal them together forevermore, for the brand of tooth marks that the two leave on each other through the throes of rapturous ecstasy would bind them to one other until the end of their days in the ultimate deed of giving themselves to each other through such an intimate act.

Daedal devotion linked the delicate affairs of courtship that you had always thought was so romantic and you can’t help the thrilling sensation that cascades over you at the prospect of what is to come alongside a particular alpha that has captured your mind and soul in his very palm.

His scent swirls enticingly around you as your irises, once again, flick along the endless expanse of the forest beyond while you squint as if that would help you to better see into the greenhood that grasps him away from you. Try as you might, you still cannot glimpse the apple of your eye from the fanning ferns careening from the underbrush as you whine once more in his hedging of you.

As his tang drapes itself over you, it stirs in its insistence his voice that echoes through your mind to remind you, “I will return for you and when I do, I will make you mine forever.”

Your anxiety is quieted in his quintessence that settles like a blanket over you to warm you in his stead as you continue to scour scrupulously around you for any smidgen of him that might deliver you to the truth of his whereabouts, your focus narrowed now in the thin beam of light that luminates your mind only with the purpose of finding him.

Lost in your fossicking forage for him as you are, the first wolf that had arrived on the stage is replaced by another and after that, two more.

By the time that six have gone, you’re no closer to illuminating your vision with his candescent luster as you peer longingly at the vacant spot that parallels your own where your alpha should be standing as yearning pulls at your heartstrings in his devastating absenteeism as you tug his pelt tighter over you.

When the yakking and chatting of the wolves behind you is blown out like a candle in the current that sweeps them through in awed astonishment at the same instant that the pheromones lacing over you thicken in headiness in their willful wiles, that’s when your irises are whisked away, lured as they are to the baited source of it all.

Your breath hitches when golden eyes pierce your own, fiery fervor flashing in them amidst the ferocious flames that lick hungrily at him from all directions in their passionate parchedness to welcome him into their warmth.

His irises rove ravenously over you, heat coiling low within you as your wolf preens at the attention while you do the same.

Covered in the color of soot, Jungkook’s lower half is ashen with cindered linen that clutches with cohere to him in every slew of thew cording his legs. Adorning his middle is a blackened buckskin belt that bears a perfect hourglass shaped waist and already your salivary glands are fructuously fertile in their gushing of spittle within your jaw that drops when you drink in the overtly obscene shirt that is provocatively provoking in its transparency that elicits the subsequent swoons of omegas around you.

It leaves nothing to the imagination and, like a second skin, vaunts every delicious dip and ridge of his mouth-watering musculature.

It is decorated with patterned patches in the shapes of burned brambles that are woven across the material meant to inspire illicit impurities in all that are fortuitously fortunate enough to behold your alpha in how it sinfully sticks to him. Encircling his neck like a thick collar, the shirt bands around him and over it, a blazoned blazer engulfs him. Like it has been seared through by fire, it is open to reveal his clothed chest in its entirety.

Tendrils of dark hair fall over his face in dangerous, wild wisps that curl amidst the humidity that overtly obsess over them.

You can hardly contain your own ire of want that simmers through you at the sight all of that and, when you trail your visage back up to his eyes, they are brightened with amusement while he dares to flick a sculpted brow as if to tease, “Like what you see?”

You lick your lips as a whimper traitorously escapes you while a wolfish grin lifts at his own before the symphony of flutes and lutes harmonize in the opening notes of their song and they sing soulfully for a few meters.

When your alpha begins his damning dance to the thrumming tempo of the waiata whispering through his ears, you already know you’re going to fall even more for him in an impossibly irredeemable descent that you have no wish to ascend away from.

Your alpha sidles forward with purpose pervading his slow movement, his irises burning torridly into your own with the finer feeling that fully fulgurates them before he spins on one foot while the chords of both instruments twirl together with him as he whirls around to face you once more.

The melodic music is, like your alpha, insistent in its eagerness to call commandingly to you in the way that its trill lowers and soon deepens with the same tantalizing temptation into his darkness that captivates you to him in your pure light.

In his meticulous motion, his fingers close around the end of his jacket that he’d caught in an open palm upon completion of his turn only to strum his fingers through the air with the other hand as if he were stroking the strings of an invisible lute between his arms.

He draws his free hand backward before smoothly and flowingly sweeping it forward only to then arc it behind him in a circular kinesis, his chin following his hand like it is tied around his wrist by twine. He repeats this once more, his eyes never straying from yours in the heated intensity that warms your very being as he stares only at you the entire time.

Like a match being struck in various vertices over him, every movement sparks the flinted flicker of white that births from it the embers of an inferno amidst the small moonstones that have been adroitly added over his blazer.

When he steps forward to be bathed by the scarlet rays of the moon that color him in the passion that he dances with, that’s when he vocalizes the sentiments for you that move him in a lyrical lilt that is in sound synchronicity with the instrumental tune he’d written himself.

As he takes in the way that you melt under the smoldering charcoal of affection for him, he can’t help the words that fall freer than rain on a spring day as he allows his emotions for you to pour out of him while you thaw him with your own rays of radiance that glisten in your eyes and in the way that you fondly look on at him like he’s the only one that exists in your world.

His baser being demands that he show to you what you mean to him and so he does.

He sings how rapidly his life had gone by and how lonely with lorn he’d been in his wait for his mate in the incertitude of whether he’d been correct in his way of living without you while his arm lifts so his fingers point toward the sky that, through its unstopping hands, had turned the cogs of time.

“Oh, I think I was in yesterday ‘cause everybody walk too fast, don’t know what to do with, am I livin' this right?”

He chants to you about the time that had been stolen sufferingly away from you both in your childhood and adolescence that had barred you both from each other in the forbidding rules of the compound that outlawed with onus your unavoidable union.

“Why am I alone in a different time and space? Oh I can't call ya, I can't hol' ya, Oh I can't…”

He proclaims the struggling strife that had wracked him in being forced to remain apart from you for so unbearably long in his cover behind the trees while he’d watched over you as his soul had cried for the only one that could complete it in the days he’d spent following the orders of his father.

“Sometimes when I’m gasping for air, I wear my hat low and keep running, yeah, I don't know where I go, even if it's opposite of sun…”

He chronicles with vivid verve the verdict that he has brimmed blisteringly with in your brilliance that shines as bright as the stars above while he pumps his closed fist gently against the heart that thumps only for you as he continues, his hand dragging through the hair you’d pulled on in effort to induce his mercy in the wood before he runs his other palm along the thigh he’d watched you so beautifully pleasure yourself on while he’d been blessed with the view of your damned delight atop of him.

“One time for the present and two time for the past, I’m happy that we met each other now til' the very end…”

He declares to you that you are, after so long, the Eve that he will always escape into the verboten oasis to find as he jumps high in the sky, his spirits soaring for you as he watches you reach dotingly for him before he lands to extend a hand of his own to you before spinning in a circle like a clock to once more face you.

“Oh, I will call ya, I will hol' ya, oh I will and yes you know, oh yes you know that I will...”

Enraptured in ardency’s hold over you, Jungkook’s gleaming gold irises are streaked so profoundly with earnest elan that, as they sink into the riveting depths of your own, they scintillate with silver like the genial moon that you are to him as it washes over his eyes the farther that he descends into your deep devoutness that floods you for him.

In the irrefutable irrepressibility of your own sentiments for him, your own eyes dye themselves gold like the sun that is your alpha to you.

His dulcet words phosphoresce the burgeoning seedlings of affectionate attachment to him as he nears you along the lip of the stage that is speckled with candles that cast their light over him like sunbeams themselves that, through their heated kisses, leave him shimmering in an ethereal golden glow that radiates out into the night that has befallen you.

You do not know if a more mellifluous voice exists in the world than his own with the way the chords of your own heart are struck with each soulful solfege that is uniquely and undeniably him as his eyes seek nothing but you, who has brought so much lustrous light to his sky.

Neither of you pay any mind to the collective series of shocked gasps or astonished huffs that are emitted from the converged crowd behind you.

In the stuttered stupefaction that fastens itself to them like moss to a tree, all eyes are on you and your alpha that take notice only of only each other amidst the mutated metamorphosis that had transfigured the irises of both of you to match those of the other through the gift of sight that marks two soulmates in their belonging to one another.

Such an ocular occurrence had not been recorded for over seven thousand years in the rare paucity that the moon granted with the declining diminishment of purebreds descended from the lupi antiquis.

Thus, in the episodical exceptions where the celestial body did bestow such an innately intimate connection between two wolves, it was said that their zealous zest for each other would guide them in their reigned rule over the other wolves that would bring prosperity and peace for generations to come under the moon’s favor.

Yet, under the music’s metrical melody, its sonorous spell casts a coddling cocoon over you and your mate until the silken thrum hums around only the two of you as its fibered filaments shield everything but the both of you from each other’s vision.

Your mate’s vociferous voice fades after the chanted crescendos ravel into decrescendos until the collection of euphonious sounds wrap wholly and completely around you as his body moves with the beat of the organ that pumps only for you within him.

He plants both feet to the floor before a hand trails down his body in a vinelike display while one leg is uprooted off the wood beneath him to swing in front and behind him as if he’s embedded into it and can’t bear to relinquish himself from the earth that grounds and supports him like you do.

Like the celestial bodies whose hands that turn time, he easily epitomizes this when he steps forward, his arms turning in a spherical motion akin to that of sun’s path through the realm above during the days it brings before the moon journey in her brother’s stead as the siblings of the sky steal away the lost moments that had been wracked away from you both amid their ceaseless passing.

His wrist then flicks outward as if he’s trying to halt the spindles of a chronometer from ticking precious time away from him as his irises flare frenetically into your own with the fervor that flecks them.

You whine for him as he moves, his fervent feeling made so precisely palpable with the way his shoulders roll in circles along with the crux of the heart sitting in his chest that hastens its already quickened pace as he glimpses the tender smile lifting along your lips.

It sets his very soul afire with contentedness before one and then the other hand pounds against each pectoral only to then sweep upward to tangle through his hair as his legs splay outward so that each thigh bulges boastfully against the fabric while his wolf howls when he hears you suck in a breath.

It is one that sputters with a stammer from your lips in the emotion he’s nurtured inside you and drawn forth from the deepest recesses of your body that wails needily for him, your wolf baying with want to be closer, nearer and together.

The sound you make lathers itself like honey over his ears and he’s sure he’ll never tire of that with how breathlessly bewildered you had seemed all because of him.

He’s swiftly besieged by his baser being to show to you how much you affect him and to display to you what you do to him in his deep-seated desire for you and, never one to bypass his urges, he does not cage it.

Once his hands have streamed through his luscious locks, he trickles them over his face, irises still settled along the substrate of your own as his fingers drag downward to collect the lapels of his blazer before, in one fluid motion, he sheds it from his shoulders as a loud whimper dribbles from you while you absorb attentively the salacious sight before you.

His hair has fallen crazedly over one eye in curved, thick tufts as an iridescent iris dappled in the chroma of the orbs that oscillate through the sky during the night and day. Through his continued movements, the mingled union of a silver and gold buries itself as deeply as it can within your depths as the offending piece of clothing trails lower until it pools at his wrists.

With a devastating grin, he puffs out his chest with proud pride, a sheen of sweat shining under the thin material amongst dark, dusky nipples that nip against it in protest of its tautness that chafes against them.

Instantly, your legs are rubbing against each other without your mind’s notice as he smirks when your essence that is spawned by your sex spumes over you before its titillating tinge rises in the air to collect under his nostrils.

Your rousing spice seasons every recess of his body in the relish that causes his pupils to dilate in craving, his member growing hard within his trousers for you as he pulls his lip between his teeth with a growl before gyrating around and when your irises meet once again, he pivots to the side at the same time his fist opens and closes while he outstretches a hand for you.

Your limbs are slowly sapped of their strength with each measured movement that he makes and when he runs toward you until he’s dangerously close to the edge of the stage, you think he might reduce you to a puddle on the ground beneath him when his hand returns to the corpulent collection of muscles cording the crus of his leg as he whisks one palm along his thigh while he rotates his ankle inward to have every tendon jump in a torturously teasing sight while his free fingers curl inward before him as he repeats it all with the other.

Saliva pools in your mouth as he sleekly and confidently moves with the impressively intricate series of footwork that he glides impossibly closer to you with and with one final twirl and fatal arch of a brow, he shirks the blazer off him entirely while his ligaments lower him down to one knee in sharp, quick movements that have his chest caving in and out while he descends, his head tipping back to bare a neck sluiced with sweat in a sight that has you drooling in want to touch and feel him against you once again.

Jungkook leers longingly at you when he slides forth onto his other leg with one bent underneath him while the other is jutted out like the perfect throne that you’d gladly fall to your knees for.

He looks like a god that you would readily worship and yet, he dances like a demon.

It is with a lethal dark flash of his eyes that he snaps the fingers of one hand to the final strum of the lute while the other trails damningly along his chiseled body until it settles over the swelling cock throbbing for you that you whine with the unyielding yearningness that has captured every inhibited iota within you under his command.

You are utterly enthralled as his lips move to mouth, “All of this was for you, my omega. Now that everyone knows what we are to each other, no one will dare to keep you from me,” he watches with interest the way that your lips part in his effect on you and curses in how far away you are from him as he utters, “Come to me once I’ve gone away from here, pretty. Your alpha requires your presence after being denied of you in the forest. I will be waiting anxiously for you.”

When he stands to sink into the shadows behind him that the light cannot permeate, your high-pitched warble still has not dissipated.

You only realize this when a spindly, bony hand is laid over your shoulder to pull you back and away from the pack of wolves around you while the familiar and oldened voice of your grandmother tries to break through to you in the stupor set by your alpha.

When you don’t respond to the many redundant repetitions of your name, she squeezes your shoulder to throatily call out, “My, my, my… you are besotted with that alpha that names himself Jeon Jungkook, my dearest granddaughter. I hadn’t the foggiest idea before on why he asked me to allow him to dance, but now I see that it was for you. I suppose that is to be expected, considering everything."

It is the mention of your alpha that grapples your attention away from where you’d last seen him as you tilt your head in question before you quietly squeak, “I am very taken with him, but what do you mean by that?”

She laughs, “Grandchild, these eyes may be old, but I saw within you and he the gift of sight that the moon mother above bestowed to you both that, by her blessed design, declares each of you as the other’s soulmate. Even the gift of olfaction was there, for this nose can still smell the taint of sex that he, along with you, produced during his performance.”

Your eyes widen and your cheeks burn in embarrassment while you stutter, “Grandma, h-he made me do it. I c-couldn’t help it.”

She only pats your head to say, “It is nothing to be ashamed of, grandchild. The moon chose him for you. It is only natural that you respond to him in such a way. Incidentally, what did he say to you at the end of his dance?”

Mortification has you worrying at your lip before as you fidget as you shyly whisper, “He asked that I go to him. I believe he wishes for us to have some time alone together before the offering.”

Your grandmother nods in understanding and instead of finding any trace of dissenting disapproval in her countenance, she encourages, “Then go and join him, my granddaughter. You must be swift, though,” she steps back to gesture to the row of alphas that stand before the stage, “There are only a few performances left before you and he must return for any challengers that may wish to win you from him, though I don’t see how that will be possible as smitten as you appear for that alpha that you call Jungkook.”

Gratification steeply swills over you as you embrace her, “Thank you, grandmother. We will be quick as the wind, you’ll see.”

She waves you off as you scurry with hurry beyond her toward the wooden dwelling that houses the elders, for it secondarily serves as the temporary domain of the dancers that begin the performances where they are allowed to change clothes and prepare in the spare rooms that are located along the first floor.

You do not notice the shift of silhouettes in the distance as you scamper along, your mind swimming in the waters of your alpha that have soused you so.

It is only when you are scuttling along the steps that lead up into the den that you hear the whistle behind you before it is followed in a voice saturated far too saccharinely with sweetness that has your tongue souring in its wake as it muses, “Damn, Taehyung. You weren’t lying. She really is such a divine little thing.”

In the hormones heaving through you, they insistently incur your instincts that are stirred with stimulation only for your alpha and in simultaneous sequence, the repellant revulsion of any wolf that is not him in your baser being’s acknowledged acceptance of Jungkook as your mate.

Your wolf kecks under the miasmatic fumes of malodors that are bitter and acetic as they burn your nostrils, the stench of alphas heavy in the air as you remain in your place with your back to them while you try to stifle the gag that sits low in your throat as you manage, “What do you want with me? Why are you here and who are you?”

You recognize one as Taehyung’s, but the other is unknown to you.

There’s a mawkish chortle that bellows, “You do not know of me? You will, omega. Soon enough, you will. All of you omegas eventually do.”

The words lift the hairs at the base of your neck in the cloying sugariness of them that clump heavily together in their mission to rot your insides as the swish of grass grows louder in the closing distance between you and the stranger that is an obstructing obstacle between you and your alpha.

The unabating advance does not terminate and when you furtively glance over your shoulder to see a hand inching toward you, you cringe with the trace of a hiss tinting your voice, “Do not touch me. My alpha is very protective of me and will not be merciful if you toy with what is his. Your friend over there,” you flick your chin back toward the source of the foul odor that you know to be Taehyung’s, “he was not so lucky when he felt it just to try to take me from my alpha.”

The stranger makes a sound of consideration, “Hm, a creature with some bark to her bite. I like that.”

It’s as though you’re being backed into a corner, your wolf yelping in protest as you try to rein in your emotions that beg you to beseech your alpha that is so close, yet so far away from you right now. If he does not come for you, it is only a matter of time before your claws will come out in defense.

Fingers stretch toward you and before they can make contact with your skin, you bare your teeth to sibilate, “It seems you do not understand. It was only I that could calm Jungkook- who is bound to me and I to him by the moon above- through the rage that overcame him when he was ready to maim Taehyung for foolish disobedience,” you turn to pierce your perpetrator with a cautionary glare as you forewarn, “The wounds that were left in Taehyung’s shoulder are but minor lesions of what my alpha will scar you with should you dare to incur the wrath of my mate.”

In a momentary lapse of an instant, you think that you derive in your detection the distinct aromatic attar of your alpha nearby, but it is fleeting as are the contours that are casted of a darkened outline that, so quickly you think it may have been a trick of your eye, briefly block the light filtering past the opaque aperture of aged glass next to the entrance of the den.

They disappearingly depart almost as soon as they arrive with only a sliver of a scent that remains and without a doubt, there is only one wolf it could belong to in its special singularity.

It had been Jungkook, your alpha.

You wish you could be with him and wonder if an elder had gotten to him before you could, but you’re not given long to ruminate on either of those despite the sudden stoutness that is spritzed over you in Jungkook’s oceanic presence that ebbs and flows faithfully alongside you.

In spite of it all, it is Jimin who stands before you when you look down on him. He is clad in bloodred silks that contrast clashingly with dark smudging around the sides of his eyes while pewter colored hair hangs loosely over his forehead with the oils that must have been used to carefully style it while he cheekily checks you out much to your discontented dismay.

“What you say is of little concern to me, Y/N. I always get what I want and you will be no different,” he says.

You have seen him only a few times before during his performances and had once thought him to be beautiful as a doll, but now you can see where his stitches have become loose in vainness that bursts at his seams.

You take a step back and away from him, your alpha’s presence pouring itself onto you through the remnants of his smell that douse his confidence over you as you cross your arms to chide, “It is a pity your looks have made you so conceited, Jimin. You have become spoiled and ruined by them, it seems,” you harden your gaze at him, “I am not like everyone else and I do not wish to have anything to do with you because I am already promised to Jungkook, who is your pack alpha that you must obey.”

One side of his lips lift up his irises hoggishly digest you from head to toe as he decides, “It’s precious that you believe any of that is enough to stop me,” he climbs one step slowly before ascending up the other until he is eye level with you, “Spend the limited time together that you can, little omega. It will be over soon enough when I reap you from him and harvest the most fruitful crop this fucking pack has ever had and plow you until you’re bursting with my seed instead of his.”

Your alpha has never spoken to you with such disregarding disrespect. It irks you with anger that reddens enflamed within you.

You grimace at that, disgust damningly withering your insides in its blight as you sneer, “Try it, Park Jimin. You will never win against him. When you lose to him like I already am assured that you will,” you lift your chin in defiance, “you’ll regret allowing that minuscule cock of yours to rule over your tiny, pygmy brain.”

That earns a titter from him as he replies, “What a little spitfire you are. No matter,” he gibs, “I will tame you soon enough.”

Obstinance consumes you in its angry wildfire as you scoff, “As if you ever could. Good luck with your attempts that shall only end in bitter failure, for I will never be yours. I belong to Jungkook and there is nothing you could do to change that.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Jimin smiles so wide it’s almost nauseating with how much his lips can twist as he backs away with a quip coming from between them, “When he loses to me-“

“He will not be defeated by the likes of you. This, I know to be true,” you narrow your eyes in certitude’s credence that your blood sings with.

“If I do not win you, then Taehyung will. Nonetheless, we shall see, little omega. We shall see,” his vexing voice dims in deliquesce as the moonlight regressively recedes while the two prowling wolves remit themselves into the shadows of utter umbra that swallow them from sight.

You stand for some moments counting contrived breaths hindered by your ire that had smoked and combusted within you to block your airway from effectively expelling the blazing emotion and it is only when your chest no longer aches with the stressed strain to contract that you set in motility once again to make your way into the elder’s den.

It doesn’t take you long to locate your alpha in the perceptible path of pheromones that lead you to him and there is no havering hesitation that stymies its stall of you from opening the oaken door before closing it as it groans in its senile senescence from the effort of such work.

Any negative sentiments that Jimin had left brewing immediately disintegrate within you as you ogle openly how, with his back to you, your alpha damningly divests from his body the shirt made of pure sin in its tempting taunt to you.

He pulls it from his middle slowly and torturously drags it up to reveal skin soaked by the sun and burned by the claws of combat, the serried slew of muscles lining his shoulders swelling savagely in his mannered motion and only when he lets it fall limply on the floor do his eyes find your own through the mirror he ostentatiously oxidizes you through.

Golden irises specked with silver sear into your own as one brow arches up only for him to rumble out, “Enjoy the show, pretty? I know I did.”

#werewolf!jungkook #werewolf jungkook #jungkook x reader #jungkook smut #jungkook fanfic #bts smut #bts fanfic #bts scenarios #alpha omega bts #alpha jungkook x omega reader #alpha!jungkook #alpha jungkook #dom!jungkook #dom jungkook #bts abo #jungkook #bts #bangtanarmynet #btsbookclub

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leyyvi · 3 years

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Ok Ley, here's the deal: i am in love with you. Also: don't bother getting caught up on percolate it's not worth it. Also also: I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO STOP THINKING ABOUT YOUR ACTOR AU ART SINCE I SAW IT A FEW DAYS AGO AND IT'S KILLING ME (affectionate).

Liv....

Liv........

A-are you trying to seduce me rn?! Because if so it absolutely IS WORKING?! GIRL DO NOT ROAST (see what I did there bye) YOUR OWN WORK LIKE THAT DKFHSJKH I WILL catch up on it out of (affectionate) spite >:( <3

P-PLEEEASE. The following Levi's are taking up 101% of my thoughts currently. Actor au, college au, and pining Royal Guard au. aaaand asmrtist!Levi

I low-key have many...MANY actor Levi sketches...and drabbles...just... Hiding away???

here’s a random snippet of dialogue for an actor au in my drafts dskfjhsdfjkhsd

Levi sits down in his usual chair, chomping on a granola bar. Okay. You can do this. Just… forget the mental image of those two out of your head for now.

“What’s with you?” Levi asks as you’re furiously mixing two foundations together.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.” Though it dawns on his face when he notes the flush on your cheeks. “You saw them, didn’t you?”

“Dunno what you’re talking about.” Nope. No idea. You stand in front of Levi, staring at his hair, ears, lips-anything but the question in his eyes.

“Everyone already knows Eren and Mikasa are fucking. You don’t need to try to hide it from me,” he sighs with the roll of his eyes. There’s a pause in his eating as you pat his cheeks with the beauty blender.

“How’d you even know that’s what I walked in on?”

“Because those two fuck like rabbits, they’re literally everywhere.”

“Pleeeease don’t tell me they do it here, or I’m gonna have to sanitize everything…”

You don’t like the long pause Levi gives. Or how he clears his throat, gently scratching the back of his neck. “You should be doing that anyway.”

You groan. And though he never outwardly laughs, there’s a small chuff from him.

“Ugh, I get all of you actors have the innate need to bang each other because of proximity but at least keep it in the trailers.”

“Don’t lump me in with them. I know there’s a time and place for that.”

The patting on his cheeks stops. “What. Even you?”

“N-no. I didn’t mean it like that.” Levi averts away, chomping at the rest of his snack. You gasp.

“Oh my god, you too! The guy who’s sooo serious about his work.”

“Shut up,” he grumbles, covering his mouth as he chews.

“Don’t worry. I won’t ask who.” You suppress a grin, resuming the touch ups. “Even if I am kinda curious.”

You tilt your head with an eyebrow raised, all the hard work undone by the creeping flush on his cheeks. But fuck. You’re too curious.

“Was it Erwin?” you blurt out.

Levi coughs on the remaining bites of his granola bar. “No.”

“It totally was! Oh my god, look at your face! I’m gonna have to cover this up again!”

“If you had done it properly the first time you wouldn’t have to do it again,” he mumbles, much too embarrassed. “...What the hell made you guess Erwin?”

“Are you kidding me? You guys would always eye fuck during your scenes. And--well. Some of the stylists might’ve had a bet going that you two would date. Though since he’s no longer on the show..”

“We never dated.”

“But you fucked. Don’t let your fans find out. They’ll have a field day with that one.”

“I dont have ‘fans.”

You deadpan in the mirror.

“Whatever. How long does it take to do a simple makeup look?”

“A lot longer than it should, when the actor is blushing like a schoolgirl.”

#ive had this scene written out for the LONGEST time dfjhdsfhjk #SO MUCH MORE TOO.#there's a significant lack of actor au content!!!#asks #makeup artist!reader and actor!levi <3 <3 <3 #levi hcs

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dialux · 3 years

Note

I’ve been going on a reading binge of all your Tolkien Women fics, and I cannot stop thinking about Indis. As a consequence I’ve created a headcanon that hurts my heart and I am going to inflict it upon you because this is clearly your fault.

Indis is one of those people just meant to be a parent, it fits her so well everyone knew it was just a matter of time before she became one. And once she gets married she tries so hard to be there for Feanor despite her own grief, but he won’t let her in. She has her kids and everyone congratulates her on having four (four!!) wonderful children, but in her heart she has five. Because Feanor might not have let her into his heart, but she certainly let him into hers, and she will always think of him as her eldest son.

It will haunt her to the end of all days and beyond, that he was always her son but she could never truly be his mother, and on her bad days she thinks that every catastrophe and death of the first age can be laid at her feet for not succeeding in the one thing everyone said was her speciality.

Okay, so a) fuck you, b) fuck you, c) fuck you. This story is basically just saying that, only in more euphemistic terms, anon.

...

Once, there were three: a woman with fair hair, a man with fair eyes, a woman with fair skin.

...

The woman with fair skin is captured and taken by the Dark One to his fortress, where she languishes for long weeks in grief and agony. She is not turned, even as those captured alongside her become evil beings, twisted and gruesome and cruel. Melkor wonders why this woman- this limpid-eyed, weeping girl- can withstand what no other has managed.

He does not get the chance to find out.

The woman with fair hair storms Utumno. She drags her sister out alongside whoever is left of their people. But the fair-skinned woman collapses only a few days’ from the chill of Utumno, and she shows her sister the secret she expended all her fea upon: a child, a fair-haired, fair-eyed, fair-skinned girl.

Intyale the Fair-Haired buries her sister Indis in a cave of glittering light. Then she takes the child down to her people, and she bids her brother, fair-eyed Ingwe, to watch their niece. Indis he names her, for the mother she will never know, and he raises her as his own daughter, this girl who bears the brightest things of all his family.

...

She is the daughter of all three of them. Of Indis the Slain, and Intyale the Bright-Speared, and Ingwe the Grand. Indis bears one woman’s name and another woman’s steadiness and a man’s strength. She is the princess of the Vanyar. She will always be that.

She will always remember how desperately her mother fought to keep her alive. Hidden in Utumno, chanting song after song of hiding and cleaving and darkness, straining for one more moment- one more moment- to keep the little babe at her breast alive- defying Melkor himself-

The Vanyar suffer the greatest of the losses to the Dark One before ever Orome comes to them. They- none of them, not from the eldest down to the youngest child- will ever trust Melkor ever again.

She was born in grief.

The Doom that Namo places- it is shocking, it is pitiless, it is cruel. But then Alqualonde still rings with the laments of the Teleri. But then, Finwe is dead. Melkor has taken not just one from Indis’ life.

She was born in grief, and, as one by one her children too learn that taste, she wonders: Perhaps the doom is my own.

...

When she is very young, she asks Intyale: What did I get from my mother?

And Intyale- this, Indis remembers very, very well- had paused, and considered, and then said, Her silence.

...

From Indis her mother, she receives silence. From Ingwe, she receives the knowledge of ruling and leadership. From Intyale-

-from Intyale, she receives the strength of will to remain unbowed.

...

Indis loves Miriel with the kind of love of a calf for its mother: overwhelmingly, adoringly, all-consumingly. She spends hours with Miriel, learning to weave those tapestries, hands tangled in thread of silk and cotton and wool, eyes affixed to the wall just as often as she watches the silver spirals of Miriel’s hair.

The Noldor tend to craft to show their passion for the world, but Indis has nothing of that: she is a fair dancer, a well-versed scholar, a singer of surpassing talent. None of them call to her more than the rest.

She aids Miriel often, now that the building of Tirion is almost complete. Indis enjoys sitting with her and with Finwe, sipping a salty-hot tea as the light changes from gold to silver; she often falls asleep there, slumped over in her chair, and returns only at the second Mingling to Ingwe’s abode.

...

This is what they all forget about Miriel’s death: it was slow.

Slow and lingering and painless. She had dignity unto the end. Finwe clutched her hand until it could not be held. Little Feanaro is the only person in all of Aman, they say, who has lost his mother.

Indis bites her tongue until it bleeds, and does not speak.

...

Intyale dies upon the hills of the Ered Luin. Indis is still young in those days, not quite an adult and not quite a child. Three children are gamboling near the water, and there is- something. Not quite something, but not quite nothing either. Intyale realizes before anyone else, and flings herself forwards, bare-handed.

Bare-chested.

The water boar is driven backwards into the river. Indis grabs the children. Two maiar run, grasp the situation, calm the boar down with songs. Intyale emerges from the river dripping.

She collapses upon the sand, and Indis is there in heartbeats: Intyale is the only mother she remembers, distant and proud though she may be. When she dares to let her eyes drift to Intyale’s chest, everything tightens up inside of her. Her mother is rent open, from breast to belly.

“No,” says Intyale, and reaches up, and grips Indis’ chin tighter than she ought to be able to, so close to death’s door. “Look at me, little one. We are more than our flesh.”

“You are dying,” whispers Indis, trembling.

“Yes,” says Intyale bluntly. “Call for Ingwe.”

Not for the maiar, who might save her. And not for the Valar either. Intyale has given up: Indis doesn’t realize this until later, but her mother- her aunt- would not have called for Ingwe had she not been determined to join the sister she watched fall.

Intyale forces Ingwe to swear to care for Indis as he would his own daughters. Then she asks for her spear, and to be burned until even her bones show no ash. She tells everyone who her sparse belongings must go to. And then, fingers clutching the bone-spear, she dies.

...

(Feanor, too, burns. Half her family burns to death, Feanor and Fingolfin and Fingon and Turgon and Maedhros and- and- and-

That fire is not of Finwe alone. Fire can be taught to catch, and Feanor never burned quite so brightly to anyone else as he did for Indis and her usurpation of his sainted mother. No: the fire is Indis’ inheritance, and Indis’ gift.)

...

Intyale does not tell anyone who her bone-spear should be given to. Indis finds herself holding onto it, and somehow never lets go.

...

This is what they forget: Miriel was the first to die in the peace of Valinor.

The second is Finwe.

...

Feanaro has lost his mother, but Indis will become that mother if he will allow it. She would wish for nothing more. Of course she wishes for nothing more.

But he does not.

Indis watches him when he does not realize. She can see it- the grief, the loneliness. He is a little boy, and Finwe is not half the father he would wish to be, and there are impossible things in this world that Indis wants- her mother, her Miriel, her peace- but most of all she just wants little Feanaro to be happy, to know happiness and joy and trust in it instead of fearing the joy will turn cold and dead in his arms.

...

Miriel had been- quickly angered.

So had Finwe. So do most of the Noldor. Indis is patient enough not to pay much attention to it.

Well. She is patient.

...

Miriel had been easily provoked into greatness. A few insults, a carefree comment- Miriel would sit at her loom and weave, something ever-greater and ever-better. Even now, the finest gown in Indis’ keep is one that she received from Miriel the day after she spent hours insulting Miriel’s taste in fabric.

Indis would have done that to her in those awful weeks after Feanaro’s death. She would’ve gone in and insulted Miriel to within an inch of her life, made her so breathless with rage that Miriel would have levitated out of her bed to strike Indis about the face.

But Este’s healers- called in when the labor lasted for more than two days- refused to hear of it, and Indis could only watch as Finwe’s face went whiter by the hour and all they heard from the sickroom were little Feanaro’s wails and the healers’ murmurs. She obeys the Valar: she watches Miriel fade into Lorien, and never return.

Little Feanaro is all that’s left of Miriel.

She is certain that he’s very much like her, too.

...

Feanaro thinks that his dislike of Indis comes from her marriage to his father. Perhaps the dislike deepened into hatred then; Indis does not know. What she does know- for she’s ensured it- is that Feanaro hated her well before her marriage.

...

(“I expected better of you,” says Indis, once.

Feanaro is three years old. His eyes are Miriel’s in shape and size and beauty. Indis, determinedly, does not flinch.

“I’m just doing with Rumil taught me!” he exclaims.

“In Valmar,” says Indis, “children learn their letters by the time they turn a year old.”

Feanaro flushes red. “I don’t like these letters. They don’t make sense.”

“Then make your own,” says Indis, careful not to let sympathy seep into her voice.

She does not smile when the news percolates through Valinor of Feanor’s Tengwar. She does not smile, but oh, oh: how she wants to!)

...

This is what they do not see: Feanaro is young, and while fire is forever dangerous, while fire is forever alluring, it is too easy, far too easy, to stamp it out. Especially when it is young. Especially when it is small.

Indis would have been the shelter to that little flame if he would have allowed it. But he will not, so all she can do is throw fuel onto the fire. Chaff and dross and dried straw: insults and backhanded compliments and petty slights. If Feanaro will not let her protect him, then she will build him so high that none will ever be able to strike him down.

(Letting him die was never an option.)

...

Finwe dies, and they leave, and then Feanaro dies, and then Findis disappears, and then Nolofinwe dies, and then Arafinwe comes to her, for the first time since his father’s body burned in Tirion’s courtyard.

“We have been given leave to go to Beleriand,” says Arafinwe quietly, solemnly. “Morgoth shall be defeated and thrown into the Void. The Vanyar shall all come, by King Ingwe’s decree.”

“Is there something you wish to ask me, then?” asks Indis gently.

Arafinwe swallows, one reflexive jump of his throat. “Will you join me?”

Indis rises. Steps away. Goes to her bedroom and plucks it from the wall, and returns in time to see her darling son’s shoulder slump with frustration.

“I will not,” she says. Arafinwe jumps, startled. Indis steps closer to him and presses the bone-spear into his palms. “I will not return, Arafinwe, to that land. Already it has taken much from me. I will not offer it more.”

“But-”

“Take this,” says Indis. “It is your grandmother’s.”

Surprise glitters in his pale eyes. “I have a sword.”

“This has already held off Morgoth once,” says Indis. “There are tales that will never be told, of the courage of the elves that never saw the Blessed Isles. Intyale Bright-Speared was your grandmother named, and well-named was she! This spear held Morgoth back long enough to release prisoners in the depths of Utumno before ever Orome saw us, long enough to let Intyale’s sister flee. Long enough for Intyale’s sister to hand the child in her arms over to Intyale.

“The sister’s name is Indis,” says Indis. “I was that child. I was named for her.”

Arafinwe stares at her. “You speak so rarely of them.”

“I’ve no desire to relive tragedy for the rest of my life,” says Indis flatly. “Now come. You’ll need to learn how to use that, if you wish to hold Morgoth hostage!”

...

Perhaps she began this, when she chose this path.

Perhaps she could have averted this.

But Indis is the daughter of Intyale, and it will be her bone-spear held to Morgoth’s throat at the end of this awful, deathful road, and if nothing else- if nothing else- she has the will to remain unbowed, this girl born in the shadow of Utumno, this woman who watched all those around her fall as wheat before a scythe, this mother who would rather her children loathe her than die, this daughter who has lost both mothers and knows, bitterly, the whole of that unfathomable loss.

...

That is what she tells Feanor, finally, when he returns to life.

There is something thoughtful in his gaze. He nods, and returns, a week later, and when she blithely tells him that his sons have inherited his monotonous fashion sense, Feanor flushes, and then pauses, and then says, carefully, “I’d rather it be monotonous than Finarfin’s gaudiness,” and Indis drinks her tea- salty-hot, just as she likes it- and she says, smiling, “I am glad you can be taught.”

#indis #feanor #miriel #silmarillion #my writing #dialux answers questions #i cannot believe i wrote a story abt indis and gave finwe literally no speaking lines but it's FINE it's all FINE i promise it's FINE #anon i would like to formally challenge you to a DUEL what the H E L L #Anonymous

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honeymoonjin · 4 years

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ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: ot7 x reader || ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 12k || ɢᴇɴʀᴇ: smut - rated 18+

sᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ:

Sick of unsatisfying hookups, boring relationships or the company of your own hand? Apply today for the chance to be on bangasm.com’s very first reality show! Seven attractive young gentlemen will be vying for your choice of who is best in bed. All from different backgrounds, these men claim they’ll be able to rock your world, so don’t hesitate! Apply now!

Congratulations! You’ve been accepted as the Lady in the first season of The Gentlemen.

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ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢs: good god where to begin, loss of virginity : ) for real, big dick joon, cowgirl, unprotected sex, special appearance from namjoon’s sensitive neck o.o, premature ejaculation sorry bud, creampie, dom!joon still tho, sub!reader, sexting, dom!hoseok/master!hoseok, sub!jungkook, sub!reader agAIN, bondage and shibari, master/slave dynamics (sorry i have to spoil the prompt but want to properly TW this stuff, but the word slave is only used once out-of-scene), filmed sex, exhibitionism, voyeurism, hoseok wearing the tear dior fit you are WELCOME, fingering, orgasm control/denial, oral (m receiving), anal (m receiving), a position i am told is called a lucky pierre/french sandwich, threesome in case you couldn’t guess, aftercare, guided masturbation, phone sex, pet-names, discipline/punishment

banner designer @jamaisjoons | thank you my darling SFHS babies ! i love you

DAY EIGHT

“Are you ready to make your decision?”

No. Of course the answer is no, but there’s no delaying it anymore. “Is it nine already?”

Sejin sighs, shuffling to the side of the table to indicate you’re to sit beside him. When you do, facing the boys on the couch, your heart gives another sickening lurch. Sejin squeezes your shoulder kindly. “Just a game, sweetheart,” he assures quietly, before raising his voice into the authorial tone he used for announcements. “Thank you for all being here on time, any on topic questions before we begin?”

Nobody answers, not even Jin. There’s a tense atmosphere, and you feel caught right in the centre of it.

“Okay, then,” he says softly, sensing the sullen atmosphere. “I’d like to give each of the Gentlemen a chance to explain why Y/n should keep them in the show. Let’s go around the room. Yoongi?”

To Sejin’s left, perched on the end of the three-person couch, is the doctor himself, legs crossed and face relaxed. “Um, Y/n should keep me in becau-”

“Say it to her,” Sejin guides, shuffling back to move out of the way.

Reflexively, Yoongi glances up at you, and the calm warmth of his eyes reassures you. “Y/n, I’d ask you to keep me in because we’ve had a good time together so far, but there’s so much that we have yet to explore. Beyond that, I’d like to think I’m a good fit for the house, and I’ll continue to assist Jin-hyung in cooking many meals.” Once he’s done, he sends you a small smile, eyes glinting playfully.

The younger boy sitting next to him is not as cheerful. Bottom lip red from gnawing, Jungkook tucks his feet up on the couch, resting his chin on his knees. His eyes meet yours after Sejin signals for him to begin. “I really hope you don’t vote me out because I like it here a lot. You’re so cool, and the hyungs are so cool, and I feel really happy here. I know we haven’t spent a whole lot of quality time yet, but I want to, if I stick around long enough.”

You bite down harshly on your tongue, sending him a strained smile. Fuck, this sucks. Beside Jungkook is Hoseok, who props his elbow on the arm of the couch, posture casual but face stricken.

“Y/n,” Hoseok begins, voice tentative and uncharacteristically subdued, “you’re a very intelligent girl and you have a lot of potential in being a sub. I’d appreciate the opportunity to stay in and show you and the audience how enjoyable BDSM can be. We’re all very lucky men to be on the show with you.”

On the couch beside, Namjoon is the next one around. He pauses, eyes dancing about the room as he thinks. “I think it probably doesn’t make much sense to keep me in the game,” he allows. “I’m not experienced like the others and so it’s a little hard to defend on that front, but I think me staying allows you the advantage of being my first and best experience. I feel like with just a bit more time, I’ll really grow into my element, and I feel safe doing it with you. So I really hope I stay.”

Squished beside him is Jin, who sends you a big grin, even if it doesn’t fully reach his eyes. “This is so shitty,” he says with a laugh, “it’s harder than I was prepared for before I came, and I think that’s due partly to the warm environment that we’re developing with each other, but also because you, Y/n, are a very genuine and lively person. Of course this is a game about sex, but I don’t think any one of us could say that’s the only factor here. As for me, I ask that you keep me in at least a week more because I can promise not only a good time, but also an ear if you need one, and advice should you ever want it.” He pauses to glance around the room. “That goes for all of you,” Jin adds, “I cannot believe that I don’t hate any of you, I don’t know how the producers found such great people.”

His words ease a bit of the tension, and the rest of you let out laughs of relief, your heart easing slightly.

Next, it’s down on the floor for Taehyung, who seems to prefer sitting cross-legged on the carpet to any other spot in the room. “I really wanna stay here,” he pleads with his eyes locked on yours, so earnest, “you’re so fantastic, and Jungkookie and the hyungs are all so fantastic, and I don’t wanna go home so soon. And also I think in terms of sex and stuff, I bring a lot to the table.” Taehyung avoids Sejin’s gaze, fiddling with the hem of his shirt innocently even as he stares up through his eyelashes at the rest of you cheekily. “I think we saw that yesterday. Though in the future, hopefully it’ll cost me less.” He sends a withering glare at Yoongi and Jin. “You assholes.”

You let out a chuckle, Jin huffing in response and Yoongi just shrugging with a shameless grin. Finally, it’s Jimin’s turn, and your chest pangs as you remember the last time you were together. The way he squeezed your hand gently before getting out of the car last night, the way he walked you to your bedroom door, wishing you sweet dreams. The way you saw an entirely different man to the one he’s been advertising.

His eyes on you are imploring even as his back is straight and legs crossed. “I value the time I spend with you. This is, after all, a game about sex so I’ll defend myself by saying you can rest assured I’m skilled enough to please you well, but if you allow me to stay,” he drops eye contact, fiddling with his rings even as he fights to remain poised, “I do hope it’s not the sex alone that keeps me here.” Like a switch is flicked, his momentary vulnerability vanishes, and he glances up and sends you a smile, warm and at-ease, having said his piece.

“And Y/n,” Sejin guides from beside you, his kind eyes on you, “anything to say to the guys?”

Your heart stutters in your chest. It’s been a week? Why is this so hard? “I- First of all, this decision has been insanely hard. You’re all amazing, not just in bed but as people, and I hope that whoever has to leave will still stay in touch. It feels really cruel that I have to say goodbye to someone so soon. The reality is, none of you did bad, and there’s nobody I don’t like; nobody that doesn’t belong here. I’ve made my decision, but- I don’t know. I’m not happy with it, but I don’t think I’d be happy with any decision. In the end, I guess I just went for the least painful option.” You take a deep breath, eyes lifting to look at Hoseok, who sends you a sad smile. You open your mouth-

“Wait!” Sejin interrupts loudly. Everyone turns to look at him in unison, eyes wide. “There-” He breaks off with a sigh, glancing at the camera closest to him before looking back down at the group. “Listen; this will be edited out, but ratings have been doing far better than we’d ever anticipated. We already hired a third editor to keep up with demand and get more episodes out than was on the schedule, and there’s talk we may even start getting sponsorships because the support has been creating headlines, at least on Twitter. The higher-ups at Bangasm, well… they want to make an exception.”

You furrow your brows. “What do you mean?”

“You’ll see,” Sejin answers. “Act surprised.” The eight of you stare at him with varying degrees of bewilderment as he puffs his chest and carries his voice louder, switching back into producer mode. “Wait!” he repeats in the same tone as earlier. “The production team hasn’t been completely honest with you. This isn’t just a basic game with prompts each week like we told you. There will be a special advantage, a wildcard if you wish, that changes things up. They could affect the prompts, or how the game proceeds for that week. We call them Bangasm Bombs. And while we didn’t tell you, our production team has drawn the Bangasm Bomb for Week One.”

Sejin pauses to look at you all meaningfully. Jimin picks up the hint. “So; what’s the ‘Bangasm Bomb’ for this week?” he asks for you, gesturing quote marks with his fingers.

Your mind is starting to whir, possibilities beginning to percolate in your mind, but you aren’t prepared for what Sejin says next.

“Nobody goes home this week.”

Your mouth drops open, eyes darting around the room to see the open disbelief on the guys’ faces. “So I- I don’t have to send anyone home today?”

“No,” Sejin answers warmly, and you feel your shoulders sag in relief, a breath rushing out you didn’t know you were holding. Sejin winces, clearing his throat lightly. “That’s… the other thing.”

“Other thing?” Yoongi asks incredulously. “There’s more?”

“With the success of the show comes other benefits. For example; the CEO and treasurer of Bangasm have agreed to double our funding if we can keep the views up. No, Seokjin,” Sejin quips the second the eldest contestant raises his hand. Jin puts his hand down, lips pursed in a pout. “We’re changing the rules a bit. Before, we said if Y/n eliminated you, you’d pack your bags and leave. Now; you stay.”

Sejin can’t get another word out over the clamour that arises, everyone shocked and excited and confused all at once. He waves his hand for silence, and only after a minute or so everyone calms down.

“So, there’s just no eliminating?” Jungkook asks with a comically quizzical look on his face.

“Please just let me explain,” Sejin requests, sighing. “Yes, there will still be eliminations. But if you get eliminated, you stay in the house.”

“So it’s a free pass,” Jungkook surmises.

“Not quite. No longer will you not be competing in the game, but you won’t be able to have sex with or sexually touch Y/n in any way. If you do, then you’ll be sent out of the house for good.”

“No sex with Y/n?” Taehyung asks meaningfully. “So… otherwise…?”

Sejin sighs, a tired laugh falling from his lips. “Just no sex with Y/n,” he confirms. “If you touch Y/n sexually, you go home. If Y/n touches you, of course we can’t send her home, so we’ve devised a punishment.”

At the word punishment your head darts up to stare at the producer, but Hoseok beats you to the punch. “She’s gonna come join us in the bunkroom?”

“That’s for failing prompts, Hobi-hyung,” Namjoon points out, “Y/n doesn’t have any prompts.”

“Correct,” Sejin confirms. “If Y/n touches an eliminated member in a sexual manner, then that member gets to choose what she wears for the next 24 hours.”

You frown. “That doesn’t sound so…” you trail off when you glance up, only to be met with seven hungry sets of eyes. You can just about see the cogs turning in their brains as they stare at your body. “Ah.”

“Yes. So stick to the rules, and you get, as Jungkook so elegantly put, a free pass minus Y/n. Got it?”

The eight of you stay silent, still shell-shocked from the two revelations. This changed things. Now, when you voted someone off, they would get to stay, but they would get to stay. You can see both the positive and negative possibilities there, and it’s no surprise that a reality show would have such a sneaky plot twist.

So you’d have all seven fucking you for one more week, and then all seven every week in the future, only with your sexual prospects dropping as you went. It does ensure that you’ll begin voting for them purely based on sexual performance; considering their personalities in the house wasn’t an issue if you’d have those anyway.

As you glance around the room, you can’t help but wonder if your vote would’ve been different had you known that he’d get to stay. And you wonder if you’ll end up picking the same person in a week’s time, after a new set of prompts. The thought makes you sit up, turning to Sejin again.

“Will the boys draw their new prompts, then?” you ask. “Do I get to know the theme again?”

“Ah, of course-” Sejin breaks off to sit up, retrieving a stack of slightly crumpled papers from his back pocket. “This week’s theme is dynamics and roleplay. Come pick a card.”

Like last week, you pay close attention to the reactions of each of the seven. Namjoon blinks wide at his, but doesn’t seem as put off as last week, and his eyes go distant when he sits back down, like he’s already picturing it. Jimin takes two, one for him at one for Taehyung, and the two compare, Taehyung laughing at Jimin’s and Jimin smirking at Taehyung’s, brushing his clean-shaven cheek with the back of his knuckles and murmuring something in his ear.

When Jin gets his, he bites his tongue and shakes his head with a light laugh, and Yoongi’s mouth drops open upon reading his card, eyes darkening with lust. Jungkook winces at first, but thinks on it a moment longer and grins eagerly, taking a second glance and scrunching his nose cutely at it. Hoseok takes his last, calmly reading it with a pleased smirk, sliding it into his front pocket and taking a seat.

Your breath leaves you in a slow stream. You’re back to the not-knowing. Dynamics and roleplay. It could really be anything, you supposed. Naughty schoolgirl, pizza delivery guy. You didn’t watch a lot of porn but you vaguely knew some of the tropes, and it’ll be a rather interesting week indeed.

“That’s not all, of course,” Sejin adds, and you feel like your brain could implode with the information dump that this morning has been. “Would you like to hear the Bangasm Bomb for Week 2?”

“We find out now?” Hoseok questions. “Not at the end?”

“Well, in order to fulfil it you need to know now,” the producer explains. “This week, Y/n may not sleep in her own bed, and she may not sleep in the same bed twice.”

You blink, not expecting it to be directed at you. “I what?” Your mind catches up with the rule, and you let out a light laugh. “So, I’ll have to share with the other guys?”

"Let's not forget the type of show we're on," Yoongi points out, leveling an impressed stare at the producer. "Well-played."

"Thank you," Sejin replies shortly. "Now, that'll be all. Just a reminder, if your scene isn't filmed, it doesn't count, and it's okay if Y/n guesses the prompt, but if you tell her directly then your prompt is void. Seokjin; we ordered you a set of chef's knives that should be here later today. Please stop spamming the company's inquiries email."

He's out of the room before Jin can even react, open-mouthed but smug like the cat that got the cream.

The eight of you sit in silence for a moment or two, still reeling. It's Hoseok in the end that recovers first.

"So we all stay," he muses. "Even if we get voted off, we stay. Why is that both a blessing and a curse?"

"This is reality TV," Jimin points out calmly, "and it's porn on top of it. Tension and drama skyrockets ratings. Well; I'm going to make some coffees if anyone wants one."

Most of the group move back into the kitchen, rifling through cabinets like zombies to make their breakfasts, but Namjoon approaches you hesitantly, biting on his lip.

"Y/n, can I talk to you? Privately?"

You stand up off the coffee table, though still you're lifting your chin to meet his gaze. "Sure," you reply easily, "privately or privately privately?"

"Um," he hesitates, glancing towards the entrance foyer, where across the hall lies the unfilmed rec room. "Just privately is fine for now."

Everyone else distracted with the prospect of food and hot coffee, it's easy enough to just sit on the stairs, side-by-side and thighs touching. Like this, you become aware of how much bigger he is than you. Namjoon's legs sprawl out down to the bottom of the stairs, socked feet slipping slightly on the glossy stone floor, whereas yours are tucked on the step below you. He glances down at you with a nervous disposition, but his eyes are surprisingly steady.

"Hoseok-hyung and I slept in the bunk bed room last night, as you probably know," he explains. "Him and I talked a lot. About a bunch of things, but he helped me realise something. And after I got the prompt today, I was sure."

Your eyes widen as they watch him carefully. The roots of his purple are starting to grow out in a soft brunette that makes him look even younger, his face round yet gently sculpted, chin pressed out in solemnity. "Sure of what?" you question quietly.

Namjoon takes a slow breath, rubbing his palms over his knees. "I think it's better if I don't lose my virginity while doing some cheesy role-play for a porn show, you know? I know I chose to come here knowing what I was walking into, but... Hoseok suggested maybe we could use the rec room for some privacy and then I could just fill my prompt later in the week. Of course, the producers will probably get annoyed at me not losing my virginity on camera, but they never said I had to, and I think I want it to be something just for me, you know? Something that's just you and me, outside of the show. I understand if you don't want to do that, but if you're happy to, I think I'm ready now."

You take a few moments to fully process his words, the gravity of them. "You sure you're ready? If you are, I'm happy to do that, Joonie. I want it to be good for you. You deserve that."

He smiles at that, broadly, but with his head ducked down. "That means a lot," he admits, "but yeah. I'm ready. If you want to...?" He trails off, tipping his head in the direction of the private rec room.

You sit up straight. "Oh! You mean- now now? Yes, I can do that, wow, okay-"

"If that's alright?" he asks hastily, face pinched with worry, but you just stand up, holding out a hand to him. He takes it, letting you lead him to the door.

From the few times you've needed to use this room, it's been pretty empty. It's small; most likely originally intended as extra storage or a home office, and the producers had put a visibly second-hand couch on one wall, a skinny coffee table and a lamp in there.

Generally, it's a glorified staffroom of sorts, a time-out that's more valuable for its lack of cameras than anything actually inside. Today, though, you freeze in the hallway at the sight that greets you.

With the table pushed to one side, boasting two bottles of water, a box of tissues, a bottle of self-heating lube and a small bluetooth speaker, the rest of the room has been converted into a massive bed.

The floor is covered with blankets, sheets and duvets, thick enough to be like a bedroll, with pillows stacked on the edges. They cover most of the floor, roughly the size of a queen size bed. On top of the impressive set-up are a colourful variety of packaged condoms, arranged in a tasteful love-heart.

Namjoon groans at the display, pinching his brow. "Hoseok said he'd set up for me and make it a little more comfortable, I'm sorry."

"It's cute," you say with a laugh, "are you wanting to use condoms?"

Namjoon swallows. "Uh, you- what would you prefer?"

You shrug, collecting them up and flicking through the buffet of options. You chuckle as the majority are L and XL. Unsurprising. "I mean, we don't need one. So if you want to feel everything fully, I say go bare."

"G-go bare, please," he coughs out awkwardly, shutting and locking the door behind him, double-checking the handle. "Can we put some music on? It's really quiet in here."

"Of course." You busy yourself with the music, smiling at the fact that he must have appreciated it last time. By the time you select a nice playlist on your phone and pick a decent volume, Namjoon's surprised you by hastily stripping down to his underwear, shyly rubbing at his knees.

You stand stock-still for a moment, just taking in the gorgeous sight of his body, all understated muscle and bold lines and planes. He must do some form of exercise, because his chest is thick, as are his thighs, and his lower stomach is soft but lean. He's gorgeous, and between your legs you feel your excitement grow.

Hustling to strip your clothes off as a gentle guitar strumming fills the air, you feel the cool cotton of the duvet under your knees as you straddle Namjoon, the man sucking in a breath as your clothed pussy presses flush against his hardness.

"Give me a kiss," you ask softly, a suggestion to let him take control, and a sigh of relief leaves his lungs as he cups your face in his hands, tugging your lips onto his greedily.

The ferocity with which he kisses you takes your breath away. It's powerful, greedy and demanding like he's waited an eon to kiss you again. While he was surprisingly skilful the first time, now it feels like he's come into his own.

You make a noise of surprise in the back of your throat as you feel his tongue slipping between your lips, licking up into your mouth like he's trying to devour you. You're drunk on it, mind feeling hazy, but you manage to pull away for a moment, gasping out a, "how the hell did you get this good?"

Grunting, Namjoon's eyes flutter open and one of his hands slips back to cup the nape of your neck securely, preventing you from backing up further. "Hoseok gave me some tips," he admits. "Now get back here."

You let yourself be pulled in again and eaten alive, muffled groans and sighs of bliss slipping out between swipes of tongue and flashes of teeth, nipping at your bottom lip until it's swollen and aching in the best way.

Without realising, you've begin to grind your hips against him, needing friction, and he pants into your mouth at the feeling. The pleasure makes him sloppy, and you groan as his lips leave yours, veering down to kiss along your jawline, tugging on your earlobe before sucking blossoms of colour down your throat. You tip your head back, arching into his mouth and rocking your hips against him, the friction addictive.

"Gonna fuck you now," you hear him groan against your collarbone, lips on your skin that's slick from his spit. Even in your heightened state of arousal you can sense the slight question in his voice, like he's checking you're still okay with it.

More than okay, you glance down to see the point that joins you, your panties so wet that the grey of his boxers is marred by a dark spot, wet and clinging to the stiff outline of his cock. You curse lowly at the sight of it. "Fuck, please, I need you, Joonie."

He lets out a strangled sigh, hands trembling slightly as he pushes down the waistband of his boxers so that it rests below his balls, cock bobbing up to rest at his stomach. He swallows hard, eyes closed and back resting against the base of the couch. The sheets beneath you have heated up with your body temperature, arousal radiating off the two of you in waves.

When you first reach out to touch him, you keep your eyes on his face, on his reaction. The initial contact makes his brow twitch, eyes clenching shut. So thick your fingers don’t touch around him when you grasp his base, he’s definitely the biggest you’ve seen in the house; a touch of irony that the least experienced member had the biggest genetic advantage. His bottom lip finds his way tucked between his teeth, thighs tensing beneath you.

“Joonie,” you mumble in a mock pout, “are you gonna fuck me now or so I have to do all the work myself?”

His eyes fly open, gaze landing on your widened eyes of innocence, before darting down to where you’re gently stroking him, fingertips catching on the sensitive ridge beneath his head. “Hobi-hyung said you should ride me so you can get used to it.”

You chuckle, tapping your thumb over his weeping slit, making him hiss. “Let’s stop thinking about what Hobi said and start worrying about what you want. Do you want me to ride you? Feel how tight I am for you?”

He curses, brows knitting as he nods shakily, and you can’t hold yourself back any longer. With a low curl of thrill in your stomach, you sit up so you can quickly slip off your panties, before straddling him again. He feels heavy when you brush his length through your sodden folds, readying him for you, and the thought makes you groan lowly.

“Wanted you so bad,” you confess over the music in the background, now a simple drum beat that gives you rhythm as you grind your hips over him, letting his blunt head catch at your entrance. “Fuck.” His fingers are digging into your hips just with the feeling of your pussy clenching over his tip, and you lower yourself painfully slowly, adjusting to the way he stretches you to your limit, dragging inch by inch against your walls.

“H-oh god, it is, it’s so tight,” he comments with a hitch in his voice, and again you feel the muscles of his thighs twitch, like he’s fighting the urge to bury himself in you. Though the thought of it is hot, you’re merciful that he’s giving you time to grow accustomed to the sheer girth of his dick inside you.

“Does it feel good, Joonie?” you ask, the question panted as he takes your breath away, grinning at the quick stuttered nods he gives in reply, fingers flexing on the flesh of your hips and ass. By the time you’re sitting flush against his lap, you can barely breathe, a shaky hand pressing onto your stomach almost expecting to feel him bulging out of you from the inside. He’s not just the biggest on the show, but the biggest you’ve ever had, and you feel like you could cum just from rolling your hips against him.

“You feel so amazing, Y/n,” he praises, arms wrapping around your waist, pulling you in close so that he can press his lips to yours. You whine as he shifts in you, feeling shakier than ever, but appreciate the chance to adjust to him, tongue chasing his and fingers slipping into his hair as you kiss.

You’re content to stay like that for as long as he continues to move his mouth against you, mouth watering at the feeling of cockwarming him and joining your bodies so intimately, but the excitement of new sensation gets to him, and after a while he begins to shift, holding your hips down and grinding his hips.

Your jaw drops open, hands flying out to grip at his shoulders at the feeling. He’s so deep you can barely comprehend it, can barely think with his cock filling you so completely, and find yourself pleading quietly, an unintelligible babble of more, please more, need more. He shifts his posture as you sit on his length, uncrossing his legs and instead bracing them in front of him.

“Want me to fuck you like this?” he asks, nipping at your throat, and you shiver at the husky gravel of his tone. What happened to the shy virgin?

“Please, Joonie,” you gasp, clenching around him, “need you to move.”

His first thrust takes your breath away, punching the air out of your lungs. When he moves inside you it feels monumental, like a core piece of you shifting, and your eyes water with the delicious burn. You whine when he pauses for a moment, hands slipping down to knead at your ass. Namjoon’s eyes are like molten dark chocolate as they focus on you, rich and intense, and when your head tips down to kiss him again it’s so needy your teeth clash, the keening whimper in your throat sign enough that you want more.

It’s only once he begins to fuck you in earnest, bouncing you on his cock, that you see how truly affected he is. Strands of lilac cling to his temples as he sweats, chest heaving and hands trembling even as his fingers dig in hungrily. His lips are slick with spit, but he makes no move to wipe them clean, just biting onto his bottom lip and sucking, hips snapping up with bruising momentum.

You can’t catch your breath, but still you chase his lips like oxygen, needing to be as close as possible. His panting keeps you anchored as you moan shamelessly, toes curling and back arching. Your high approaches quickly enough that it shocks you, but there’s no escaping the pleasure that rushes through you with every snap of his hips.

You lose contact with his mouth, cheek resting limply on his shoulder as he speeds up his pace, the muscles in your legs failing you, twitching uncontrollably.

“No, no, no, fuck,” Namjoon chants lowly, and you feel a hand bury in your hair, holding you to the crook of his neck, “I’m sorry, I’m not gonna last.”

You moan at that, feeling him stiffen impossibly more inside you with every thrust. “Wan’ you to cum,” you promise in his ear, barely more than a gasped breath, “wanna cum with you.” To end the statement, you nuzzle your nose against his throat and nip at his pulse point. To your surprise, he shudders violently, suddenly going stock still.

Your eyes widen as hot ropes of cum fill you, Namjoon clutching you to him helplessly, groaning nonsense as his orgasm hits him out of nowhere. Your own high recedes, but you barely notice it as you sit up tiredly and clench around him, watching the pleasure flicker across his face as he rides the high.

“Fuck,” he breathes, eyes cast towards the ceiling and chest still heaving, “I’m so sorry, I… sensitive neck.”

You grin, running your hands up to gently brush over it, feeling him pulse inside you, spurting the final drops of cum from his spent cock. “Don’t apologise,” you assure, leaning in quickly to nibble at his lips and give him a lazy, indulgent kiss. “That was really fucking hot.”

He laughs, cheeks pinkening slightly, and you feel your heart warm at the return of the shy Namjoon you’d gotten used to. So he’s a lot more dominant and confident in the heat of the moment, you muse as he catches his breath, good to know.

When you find your strength again, slowly sitting up off him, you wince at the rush of cum leaving you, and the uncomfortable feeling of emptiness. That’s only exacerbated by the fact that you haven’t cum yet, but it’s his first time and you don’t want him to feel bad. Collapsing on the sheets beside him, you rest your head on his shoulder, breath still coming in shallow pants. “Good?”

“Good god, Y/n,” he exclaims earnestly, “I think I might be a sex addict now.”

A surprised peal of laughter leaves your lungs, and you shove him playfully before crawling over to the coffee table, cracking open a bottle of water and cleaning yourself up with the available tissues. “Hoseok really did think this through, huh?” you muse, chucking him the box once you’re done.

Namjoon clears up the cum on his cock and thighs, grimacing at the way some of it has stained his boxers, but he sends you a guilty look. “I’m sorry.”

You frown, reaching for your clothes. “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t-”

Whatever Namjoon is about to say is cut off by a sudden thud that gives you both a fright, followed by three polite albeit enthusiastic knocks. You stare in bewilderment at the door, before hastily dressing yourself.

“Is everything alright?” Namjoon calls out, putting his underwear back on properly and hopping into his pants. “Has something happened?”

“I should hope so, young grasshopper!” an enthusiastic voice chirps from the other side of the door, muffled but unmistakably Hoseok. “You’ve popped your cherry, Kim Namjoon!”

The academic winces, reaching out to unlock the door once he’s made sure the two of you are dressed. “Hoseok, what are you doing? Wha-?” He breaks off once he opens the door, and you rush around behind him to see what gave him pause.

In the foyer are Hoseok, Taehyung and Jin, all in matching paper birthday hats, the strings of thin elastic digging into their chins. Hoseok’s holding two more in his hands, and he thrusts them towards you as Taehyung wiggles the weighty bottle of champagne in his grasp. Behind them, Jin calmly holds a kitchen knife.

“What’s going on?” you ask in bewilderment, stepping out into the foyer and wincing at the ache between your legs with each step. “Why the fuck are you holding a knife?”

Jin, his bright blue party hat on at a jaunty angle, stares down at his hands blankly before gasping, tucking it behind his back. “Sometimes I forget I’m still holding it.”

“That’s extremely alarming,” Namjoon says with a frown. “I still don’t understand why you’re all gathered outside the door.”

“It’s time for the party, hyung,” Taehyung explains, “to celebrate you finally getting your dick wet.”

Your cheeks go flaming red as you glance at Namjoon, the poor man spluttering and eyes wide like he didn’t know what to do. “If there’s champagne, I’m there,” you announce calmly. “Come on, Joonie, let’s go celebrate.”

Namjoon visibly relaxes when you aren’t offended, flicking you a warm smile. “Is everyone wearing a hat?” he questions incredulously, taking the thin cone card.

“Mo-mostly everyone,” Hoseok answers suspiciously.

“It’s just you guys, isn’t it?”

“Well, if you both wore one, we’d have the majority.”

You grin, patting Hoseok on the shoulder as you walk past him into the foyer. “Let’s just go,” you call out to the guys behind you, “there better be food.”

As expected, the three that greeted you were the only ones wearing party hats. At the dining table, which has been laden with aromatic dishes, steaming rice and empty champagne flutes, the other three await. Jimin’s is resting beside his plate and chopsticks, untouched. Beside him, Yoongi has his upside down, using it as a bowl for the rice snacks he’s munching happily on. The youngest man in the house hasn’t even noticed you’ve arrived, using it like a very inefficient telescope, one eye scrunched shut and the other focused on the pinhole at the top of the cone. Sitting at the head of the table, he aims it at Jimin, mouth hanging open as he tries to see through the tiny gap.

Giving up, he waves the wide end around the room, desperate to catch a glimpse of something. Once the cone lands on the five of you, he gasps, chucking down the party hat. “You’re back! I didn’t start eating the cake, like you said!”

Jin frowns. “That sounds awfully suspicious.” Knife still in hand, he makes his way to the kitchen island, where you catch a glimpse of a beautifully iced cake with writing on the top that you’re too far away to read.

Jungkook shifts restlessly in his seat, staring worriedly at Jin. “The- um, the birds attacked it.” If you look closely, you think you can see the slightest hint of vanilla icing in the crook of his mouth.

Jin stares at the cake desolately. “The birds?” he deadpans.

“Seagulls, you know,” Jungkook tries to pass off casually, the pink of his tongue dashing out to lick the sugar off his lips. “Absolute vultures.”

Hoseok tsks in disappointment. “Was it seagulls or was it vultures?”

Jungkook stays silent an inexplicably long amount of time, glancing slowly between Hoseok and Jin. His eyes are wide like he’s trying to work out the lie in his head “...It was me.”

Jin’s fingers are pressed to his temple as he sighs. “Right.” Setting down the knife, he picks up the cake and brings it to the table, placing it in the middle of the table. The rest of you all take a seat, filling in the spaces around the table. Taehyung slips in beside Jimin, Hoseok at the end of the table opposite Jungkook, and finally Jin, Namjoon, and you take the last of the seats.

The cake is beautiful, neat and fluffy buttercream all over with swooping cursive written in a thin black stream. Unfortunately, a very delicate but obvious slice has been taken out so you have to focus to work out what the writing says. Once you do, you let out a reluctant chuckle, watching Namjoon blush once more, tucking his hands into the sleeves of his shirt shyly.

“‘Here lies Namjoon’s virginity,’” you recite, “‘1994-2020.’ Who came up with that?”

“That’s not impor-” Jin begins, but Taehyung swiftly cuts him off.

“I did!” he declares proudly. “Everyone agreed mine was funnier than Jin-hyung’s.”

“Obviously not everyone,” Jin replies bitterly, dishing himself up some of the rice closest to him. “Dig in, everyone, Yoongi and I worked hard on this. And congratulations Namjoon,” he adds, though he sends Namjoon a genuine smile, eyes twinkling.

After everyone says their congratulations, the food is dug into and the cork of the bottle is popped, conversation flowing like the champagne.

Over time, Namjoon seems to get used to the chatter about sex, perhaps not feeling so left out of the loop, and his face is more open and relaxed than ever, a dimple poking out when he smiles. You occasionally reach out to shove him playfully or squeeze his arm as the chatter continues, and he no longer freezes or stiffens up. It warms your heart that he feels a little more comfortable amongst you.

You’re happy to tuck into your meal, having worked up an appetite for lunch, but it’s barely more than a second after finishing your first helping that your phone buzzes.

You slip it out casually, frowning when you see it’s a notification that you’ve been added to a group-chat.

After that, you smother a scoff and slip your phone back into your pocket, hoping if your cheeks are red they can safely be attributed to the alcohol.

Glancing up, you see Jungkook stand up suddenly, eyes wide with barely-contained excitement as he picks up his bowl, chopsticks and champagne flute, scurrying over to dump them in the sink before disappearing upstairs. Yoongi stares at his empty seat in confusion, but shrugs and takes another mouthful of cake. You eat yours quickly enough that your stomach flips, or perhaps that’s just the anticipation.

After you’re done it takes you a few moments to build up the courage to look across to Hoseok, feeling his gaze hot on your skin. When you do, your eyes lock immediately, but he just continues to stare, lips pressed in a narrow line.

Your heart leaps for a moment, wondering what that hard gaze means for you later on. Silently, as Taehyung continues to explain something to him with a mouth half-full of food, Hoseok lifts his eyebrow once, gaze darting to the roof. The message is clear. Go upstairs.

Biting your lip, you let Namjoon know you’re heading up, waving off his concern until he’s pulled back into a thread of conversation. You try to ignore the uncertain adrenaline rush that makes your hands tremble and your core throb all the way upstairs, until you’re knocking on Jungkook’s door.

The two of you share a look once he opens the door, one of anticipation and desire, and you let out a breathy chuckle.

“What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into?” you ask rhetorically, stepping in and collapsing onto the bed.

“I’ll take it if it means getting a good fuck,” he states matter-of-factly, sitting himself beside you and tucking his legs up. “Besides; I’ve wanted to see Hobi-hyung in action for a while.”

Sitting up, you think back to that day in the confessional booth, where he had so easily made you fall apart without even taking a single item of clothing off. You wondered if he’d deprive you of his body tonight as well.

“I think he’s angry at me,” you admit, “before I left, he looked… intense.”

“Why would he be angry at you?” Jungkook asks with a frown, his hand slipping under the baggy fabric of his black tee, rubbing at his shoulder like he’s aching to take the item off.

You go to shrug, but then your mind flicks back to this morning. “The elimination,” you realise, dread rising in your stomach just as much as your arousal is. “I think he knows I was going to eliminate him.”

Jungkook’s eyes widen, round enough to be saucers. “Wait, really? Why him?”

You find the words dry up in your throat. “I- God, I don’t know. How am I meant to choose anyone when you’re all amazing? Maybe his had the least impact on me, I suppose.” You eye the door to the walkway warily. “I guess he’s determined to change that now.”

Instead of replying, you’re taken aback when Jungkook throws his arms around you in a tight hug, his long hair brushing at your neck and shoulder as he tucks his chin into the hollow of your collarbone. Hesitantly, you bring your own arms up to hug him back, feeling your tension melt in the warm embrace.

“It must be so hard,” he murmurs, “I don’t think Hobi-hyung is really mad, you know? He probably just feels like he wasn’t good enough for you and wants to prove himself.”

This thought just sends another spike of guilt through you, but you have no time to dwell on it before the door is clicking open, making you and Jungkook instinctively jump apart.

Hoseok stands there, as intimidating as last time in all-black. Though he’s wearing just socks instead of the heavy duty boots he was in that day, there’s no denying the power he holds in the clothes he wears like armour. Leather pants so snug they’re like a second skin and a black long-sleeved shirt, tight but breathable cotton with a harness of thin leather straps providing some structure. His raven hair is swept back, but just a single stray lock hangs low over his brow, drawing your eyes back to his. “Starting without me?” he questions lightly, though his face is devoid of humour.

You swallow hard. “No… Master,” you add, seeing the expectant look on his face. Once he steps further into the room, you notice the black bag that was previously hidden behind his back. The duffel bag from last time. You suck in a breath and clench your thighs before you can even think to stop yourself, and Hoseok’s positively gleam at the sound.

“Both of you have been very naughty today,” he explains, dumping the bag on the bed beside Jungkook, beginning to casually pull a heap of bright red nylon rope out. “Little Jungkookie ate the cake that Jin-hyung worked so hard on, even when he was specifically asked not to. And Y/n… Y/n knows exactly what she did.” Your eyes widen when Hoseok sets the multiple lengths of rope to one side in a neat folded coil and reaches back into the bag to produce a pair of wide, heavy-duty shears.

“Woah, hyung,” Jungkook exclaims in alarm, “I can apologise for the cake, I-”

“Settle, Jungkook, it’s okay,” Hoseok explains softly. “I told you we’re gonna be tying you up, yeah? This is so that we can cut the ropes quickly in case you want out. They aren’t part of the scene.”

You feel a thrill run through your veins at the gentle click of metal resting on the nightstand once Hoseok sets the scissors down. He hadn’t needed them for when your arms were tied. It meant that whatever you were going to do tonight would be more intense. The thought of everyone else downstairs having a good time and hanging out while you and Jungkook were up here getting bound by Hoseok… it somehow feels even more illicit and dirty.

“Let’s do Jungkookie first, hm?” the dom proposes. “I’ve been wanting to see what you’d look like all prettied up for me. Choose red just for you.”

Jungkook positively preens at the compliment, hands tucking into his lap and chest puffing out. “I’m excited, Master!”

Hoseok gestures for Jungkook to remove his clothes with a flat expression. “Don’t be,” he retorts calmly, “this isn’t a reward, it’s discipline. We’re going to learn a lesson about behaving.”

The camboy trembles, hastily shucking off his baggy shirt and pushing his sweatpants down, naked except for a pair of white socks. Your breath is taken away by how easily he bares himself to the cameras and to the two of you, eyes eager and nervous as Hoseok picks up one of the longer lengths of rope.

“I want you to kneel, Jungkookie,” Hoseok instructs, “kneel on the bed for me, arms at your sides.”

Jungkook obeys, breath hitching as Hoseok approaches, passing the coil over his palm. You watch with baited breath as a bright red strand of rope is run around his narrow waist. As the professional dom begins looping, knotting and wrapping the rope around Jungkook’s torso, the boy’s eyes grow lidded, cock twitching as it rests back against his lower abdomen.

It takes a while, but time is as smooth as velvet in the soft silence of the room, just gentle breaths and the whir of nylon rope sliding so beautifully along Jungkook’s skin.

By the time Hoseok is done, Jungkook’s eyes barely open, so content with the feeling of being patiently wrapped up, and he hums lightly as Hoseok rechecks the tightness of each loop, slipping two fingers between rope and skin in several places.

Rather than bondage or restraint, this looks like art. An elaborate harness of red contrasts beautifully against the pale golden flesh below, hardness of his chest and abs softened by the vaguely fishnet pattern, loops that interlock and curve across his body gracefully, the most careful and precise lattice of scarlet ropes.

“Pretty, isn’t he?” Hoseok questions, and a finger comes down to run through the glossy precum that has been smeared onto Jungkook’s lower stomach. The boy hisses, arching his hips up in search of contact, but all it takes is a sharp swat at the head of his cock and Jungkook is whining, thighs flexing with the force of keeping still. “Patience, my little prince,” Hoseok tuts, patting Jungkook’s cheek with a hand still wet with the camboy’s own precum, “we’re gonna teach you how to be patient today.”

Jungkook groans low in his throat, lips parting at the term of endearment, and Hoseok grins at it, tiger-like.

“Oh, do you like that, hm? Wanna be my special prince today?” Hoseok runs his fingers through Jungkook’s long hair, the camboy sucking in a sharp breath when they snag on some knots. Jungkook nods, eyes round and glittering as he looks up at his Master. Hoseok pouts, tapping him once on the end of his button nose. “It’s a shame you weren’t behaving today, then wasn’t it? Maybe if you’re good for me tonight, you can earn it.”

Jungkook’s brows lift pleadingly, looking so small under Hoseok’s harsh stare. “I’ll be good, though, Master.”

“Mm, I’m sure you will,” Hoseok confirms, swiping a thumb over Jungkook’s nipple to make him shiver, before he fixes an iron gaze onto you.

You swallow, slipping out of your clothes as quickly as you can once he gives the same gesture as before, crossing your legs and arms to try and preserve some dignity. Hoseok just tuts, picking up two of the remaining sections of nylon rope, only one still left waiting on the bed.

“Hands at your sides, kneeling,” he instructs sharply, and you feel the way your walls clench at the authority in his voice as you hustle to get into position.

The harness he puts you in is different to Jungkook’s, accentuating your breasts with bands both above and below them, leaving your stomach free but doubling the rope over so that every loop that wraps around you is twice as thick. The final tie is slipped up between your breasts, around the back of your neck and tucking back down to hold it all together, and your breath shallows at the secure feeling of the rope.

It’s peaceful; the warm stripes of friction as he pulls strands through loops, the gentle flicking of the ends against your skin until he folds them away, the way it embraces your chest so snugly, but not too tight. It’s only once he’s done checking the rope like he did with Jungkook that he picks up the second, shorter length of nylon, and by then you already feel the sleepy yet electric haze of subspace seeping throughout your body.

“Hands,” he instructs, and you hold them out for him, watching with heightened arousal as he binds them, the rope wrapping around and between your wrists until they’re locked together. Last time your hands were bound behind your back but like this, you can watch him as he works.

It’s quick - a testament to his expertise - but you spend every moment with your eyes locked onto him. The eyes, gleaming with control and satisfaction, the pink tip of his tongue poking out just slightly as he focuses. His thin fingers, looping and wrapping and knotting with such skill.

His last move, eyes darting up and smirking once he catches you watching him, is to connect the thick cuff-like ropes to the top of your harness, pinning them up to your chest, folded hands resting at the base of your throat. You instinctively tug once he’s done, only to feel the rope around your back tighten and dig in, but no distance made. The feeling of being at his mercy only adds to the slick gathering between your thighs.

Once he steps back, eying the two of you up, your breath catches in your throat. Both you and Jungkook are fully naked, somehow feeling even more vulnerable in the rope, and Hoseok stands across from the bed in all his black leather glory, eyes raking over you like he’s assessing his work.

“Are you gonna touch us, Master?” Jungkook questions in a small voice, fingers clutching at his own thighs, cock flushed and needy between them.

“Not you yet, Jungkookie. Gotta warm Y/n up first.” Your eyes widen - for what? - but Hoseok is moving closer run a hand down Jungkook’s back, fingers jumping over the strands of rope. “Do you wanna help me, baby?”

Jungkook nods, blushing when Hoseok pinches lightly at his cheek.

Hoseok leans over to you, carding his fingers into your hair and curling them in so that he can hold you steady. Like this, kneeling on the bed, you have to tilt your head back to meet his gaze, but he just tuts, holding you face-forward to Jungkook. “You wanna give her a kiss, Kookie?”

You swallow, fingers interlocking together as you look over to the camboy. He looks so needy, blissed out and pretty in his red rope, cock untouched and weeping. Your lips part automatically, tongue darting out to wet your lips and you don’t miss the way Jungkook’s eyes are drawn to it, lids now as he nods.

With your hands pinned to your chest and kneeling, you don’t feel able to meet him halfway so you just wait as Jungkook crawls to you, glancing up at Hoseok for permission before burying your hands in your hair alongside the dom’s. With barely a second to suck in a breath, Jungkook ducks his head, his lips descending onto yours with sweet, unrestrained need.

Unable to touch him back, you let your eyes slip shut with the soft presses of his mouth, taking everything he gives you. Everything about Jungkook in this moment is soft; his lips, his thumbs brushing across your cheekbones, even the subtle scent of vanilla as his hair tickles your face - but the stiff grip in your hair is anything but, reminding you where exactly you are and the hand you’re under.

Your breath hitches as two things happen at once; Jungkook’s tongue presses into your mouth, deepening the kiss, and behind you Hoseok shifts, getting up on the bed behind you. Though you can’t see him, you become even more aware of his commanding presence, through the simple gesture of a fingertip, tracing beside lines of rope with a touch so light you shiver.

“You both look so pretty for me,” Hoseok murmurs warmly, his voice closer than you’d expected him to be, sounding like it’s right beside your air. Jungkook doubles his efforts in response, and your core is alight with excitement when you instinctively go to touch him, only to be reminded of the restraint you’re in.

Jungkook kisses without abandon, not hurried but deep and purposeful. Though you still tremble under Hoseok’s teasing touch, your mind is so enraptured by Jungkook’s tongue in your mouth and teeth on your lips that you lose track of it.

The camboy doesn’t dare venture his hands further than your face, cupping it so tenderly as he delves into you, so your eyes fly open with shock when two fingers are suddenly slipping through your folds, running over your clit for a single delicious moment of pleasure. You moan in shock and pull away to look down.

Between your kneeling legs is the slender but calloused hand of your Master himself, wrapped around your front and slipping inside you without question like you’re his. His to explore, his to ruin. You pant at the intrusion of two fingers, clenching around him, but his only response is to tug suddenly at your hair, pulling your gaze back up again.

Nipping sharply at the bridge of your ear, Hoseok scolds you. “I didn’t tell you to stop,” he growls harshly, “did I?”

“Sorry, Master,” you reply without thinking, barely a moment before you let out a muffled squeak from Jungkook joining you together again, wasting no time to obey.

Hoseok doesn’t stop his motions between your legs; on the contrary, he continues without pause, fingers moving inside you with a steady urgency.

For a while, your brows furrow, hips rocking below him. He keeps missing your g-spot, fingers too straight to press against it on each thrust, and he moves to three fingers without touching your clit at all, hand held foward off of you to avoid friction. You moan brokenly into Jungkook’s mouth as you realise Hoseok’s doing it intentionally, stretching you out almost clinically, without regard or want for your pleasure. You go weak at the thought, sinking forward into Jungkook’s embrace, but soon enough the fingers are removed from you completely. Empty and unsatisfied just like earlier, you huff and begin to kiss the camboy more frantically, desperate for some pleasure to replace it.

But Hoseok clearly isn’t having it. “Stop,” he commands shortly, “hands off.”

Jungkook sits back quickly, making sure you won’t slump over before he presses his hands to his thighs again, cock twitching at the continued neglect. Blinking, he licks his swollen lips and glances behind you to Hoseok in confusion. “Master?”

Your mouth goes dry when you hear the unmistakable sound of a zip being lowered. Hoseok’s hand leaves your hair suddenly, and you feel unmoored between the two men, just you and your hands tucked under your chin. “You tasted her pretty little pussy in Week One, didn’t you, Jungkookie? Would you like her to return the favour?”

Eyes wide, you drop your gaze down to Jungkook’s aching dick, as it twitches and leaks another thin trail of precum, the boy groaning. “Please, Master.” His fingers flex, holding back from touching it. “‘Hurts,” he whines.

You bite your lip, mouth watering. He’s not as big as Namjoon, but you know how fully he filled you just yesterday, and to have him in your mouth… “Please,” you croak out, fingers wiggling in the air as you’re unable to lower yourself to him.

“Good girl,” Hoseok praises, hands strong on your shoulders as he helps you down, elbows propping yourself up awkwardly in the space that Jungkook’s shuffled back from. “Gotta warm Kookie up too, don’t we? Open up, princess.”

Like this, you’re able to keep upright, but barely, craning your neck to look up at Jungkook. His cock is in front of you, and this close you can see just how flushed it is, the tip almost perfect. Hoping your pleading gaze can communicate your desperation, you open your mouth, letting your tongue rest just over your bottom lip.

Jungkook’s brows furrow in wanton need as he glances towards Hoseok. “Can I touch her, Master? Help her?”

“Of course,” Hoseok’s voice allows from behind you, palms running over the flesh of your ass, “but my little prince better not cum.”

Jungkook visibly shivers at the nickname, hips jerking uselessly. “Y-yes, Master,” he allows, before tipping your chin up so gently, gripping himself to guide his length into your waiting mouth.

You moan the moment your lips wrap around his tip, the tang of his precum bursting on your tongue as you flick it over the slit, making Jungkook thrust up again, enough that his cock reaches the back of your mouth. You’re barely able to avoid gagging, but you inhale harshly through your nose, blinking up at him as he brushes your hair back with a shaky apology.

Knowing he can’t orgasm, Jungkook seems happy enough to lazily roll his hips, just enjoying the wet warmth around him as you follow his rhythm, enjoying the slight ache of your jaw around his girth. Hoseok gives you only a few moments to reach this equilibrium before you feel his cock lining up against you.

Eyes widening, you’re given no time to prepare as he slides inside you, slowly but without pause, making your back arch with the intrusion.

You moan, muffled, as Hoseok pulls out and begins to pick up a steady pace, once again sliding right past your g-spot, not fast enough to make your toes curl and not deep enough to make your eyes roll. There’s no denying he’s doing it on purpose, and the thought that he might not let you cum at all has you whining desperately around Jungkook’s cock, loud enough that Hoseok hears.

To your disappointment, he tsks and pulls out, tugging at your hair to pull you off Jungkook. “What the fuck?” you complain bitterly, sucking off the drool that’s accumulated in the corners of your mouth. Equally deprived, Jungkook makes a noise of confusion, but before he can speak up, a commanding voice calls out to you.

“That’s it, on your back,” Hoseok orders, making you jump as he smacks the flesh of your ass. “If you’re gonna be ungrateful you won’t get anything at all.”

You pout, craning your neck to look back at him. “Hobi,” you whine, hoping to appeal to that soft inner that got you what you wanted the last time you were scening with him, but it doesn’t work.

Impatient, his hands find your hips, flipping you around unceremoniously. Your breath is punched out of you as you’re suddenly landing on your back, and you whimper as he hooks a finger in your harness over the top of your breast, using it to tug you higher up the bed so that him and Jungkook are on either side of your waist.

“You’ve been far better behaved,” Hoseok directs at Jungkook casually, reaching into the duffle bag to pull out a square foil packet, “so you’ll get my cock instead.”

Jungkook bites his lip harshly, shuffling on his knees as Hoseok rolls a condom on. “Thank you, Master,” he replies politely, eyes lidded and needy.

“What a good boy,” Hoseok coos, reaching over to brush a fond hand over Jungkook’s cheek. “Do you wanna fuck Y/n too, my little prince?” You let out a low groan at the prospect, at the way Hoseok speaks for you like you’re a toy of his. The thought is more erotic than you’d expect, and your legs part unconsciously.

Jungkook whimpers at the sight, dark hair curling at his temples with perspiration. “Please, Master.”

“Go on, then, baby.” Hoseok gestures for him to straddle you, and you whimper as Jungkook’s form blocks the light from the ceiling, framing him in a silhouette of dark hair.

Your legs part further as he settles between them, cock brushing between your folds lightly until he puts a hand down to line himself up. With one arm bracing himself, Jungkook slowly drives his cock deep inside you, small rocking motions to get you accustomed to him as he bottoms out. The two of you groan in unison, the feeling of being full again like bliss.

Before Jungkook can set a pace, you hear Hoseok’s voice again behind him. “There’s only one thing,” the dom adds in an apologetic tone, “Y/n hasn’t earned an orgasm yet, not like my sweet prince has. If you want to fuck her, Jungkookie, she better not cum.”

You let out a frustrated moan, heel kicking into the mattress. “Fuck,” you whine, hips already rocking against Jungkook’s length inside of you, “are you serious?”

Calmly, Hoseok clicks open a bottle of what must be lube, and you feel Jungkook go lax above you, holding his weight off of your torso but dropping his head onto the bed beside yours, groaning lowly. “Of course I’m serious,” he explains simply as he preps Jungkook with his fingers, “I’m doing you a favour, Y/n. This way you won’t make the same mistake twice.”

You sob, feeling Jungkook twitch inside you from the pleasure he’s receiving from Hoseok. As the dom finally deems Jungkook ready and lines himself up, you realise why Hoseok was so popular at his job. Handling two subs, let alone one who was getting punished and one who was now getting rewarded, was a tough balance, and yet he does it with such cool and professional ease.

Jungkook curses, rocking his hips with stuttered gasps, and you feel the impact of Hoseok’s hips through Jungkook’s body as he thrusts the first time, the camboy hurriedly throwing his other arm up on the other side of your head to prop himself up with more stability. You can feel the rhythm as he gets fucked, and the way his chest heaves, breaths panting over your bare shoulder.

With your hands tied to your chest and lain on your back, you quickly realise there is nothing you can do to chase any pleasure for yourself, and you let out another low sob. You won’t be making the same mistake twice indeed, you muse as Jungkook barely shifts inside you. He feels so good, but it’s just not enough for you to get anywhere close to your own high. The lesson has most certainly been learned; if you want pleasure, you play by Hoseok’s rules.

“Please, Master,” you pipe up desperately, looking past Jungkook’s shoulder to the dom’s face, calm even as his hips rock with the graceful fluidity of a dancer, every stroke making Jungkook cry out. “I’ll do anything, Master, I’m sorry for being bad, just please let me come!”

A grin spreads across his face, satisfied, even as he grunts from exertion, Jungkook trembling above you as he’s brought mercilessly to the edge. “It’s too late for that,” Hoseok pants out with a chuckle, “it’s already time for my little prince to cum.”

Jungkook moans, a high-pitched keen at the pet-name, and the sound is so sinful you can’t help but clench, making him stiffen impossibly inside you.

It only takes a thrust or two more, and a gruff command to cum before Jungkook does just that, spilling inside you with a drawn-out whine, thanking his Master with every breath he can suck into his lungs.

He manages to keep his weight off of you as he rides his high, Hoseok fucking him into oversensitivity before he pulls out, leaving briefly to discard the condom. Jungkook pulls out of you with a wince, but a satisfied one, and rolls over onto his back, running his fingers under the lines of rope lazily as he catches his breath.

Once Hoseok returns, he begins untying you first, and as your wrists are loosened from your chest and promptly released, the cool air on your skin feels like defeat. Your eyes slip shut, a pout no doubt on your lips as you give him nothing but dead weight, forcing the professional to manhandle your torso as he undoes the rope bit by bit.

You open your eyes once he’s done, frowning at him as he releases the rope from Jungkook’s body. Without looking, Hoseok chastises you. “Don’t look at me like that,” he scolds, “I’m sure next time you’ll be behaved like our Jungkookie here.” The boy in question preens softly at the compliment, blinking up at Hoseok as the dom brushes his hair out of his eyes.

The sight warms your heart, and you can’t deny that Hoseok has the right to discipline you, no doubt feeling self-conscious about his place on the show. And the feeling of him playing you so skilfully is something that will stick with you for a good while. You press your thighs together, sighing out at the slick still between them.

After finishing with Jungkook, speaking quietly with him in praise or reassurance, he comes back around to you, rubbing at the few red marks on your chest and wrists that have appeared from your movements. His eyes search your face, and you’re surprised to see the absolute calm in them, clearly switched out of the Master persona and just into a dominant but caring one. “Not hurt?”

You shake your head after taking the time to really think it through, wiggling your fingers and toes.

“Not angry?”

Again, you take a moment to consider, but shake your head.

Hoseok smiles down at you, warm as he squeezes your hands fondly. “Good. Now I know you can’t sleep in your own bed, so Jungkookie has kindly offered for you to stay here with him. Take care of each other, okay? I’m just down the hall.”

By the time Hoseok zips up his pants - you note that even after all that, you hadn’t seen him properly naked - and gathers his bag, Jungkook’s managed to slip his legs under the blankets, snoring away peacefully with the aftermath of a good orgasm.

After the dom leaves, you get under the covers yourself, watching the relaxing cycle of Jungkook’s chest rising and falling, the way his eyes flutter lightly in his sleep, but it doesn’t lull you to unconsciousness.

Instead, the unsatisfied throb between your legs just grows more ferocious than ever. If you could just get yourself off…

Your hand trails down, slipping between your legs naturally, but the first swipe of your index finger against your clit gives you pause. Hoseok had pretty clearly stated that you weren’t to masturbate without permission unless you were in a scene with another contestant and, well…

You grimace as Jungkook snuffles in his sleep, wriggling around to get more comfortable. You can’t exactly wake him up.

Which leaves you with only one option.

Fuck it. As quietly as you can, you slip out of bed, stumbling over to your pile of clothes. After retrieving your phone - still somehow tucked neatly into your pants pocket - you hop back into bed and seek out the one contact who can alleviate your need. Hoseok himself.

You answer the call with shaking fingers, those not still buried inside you. When Hoseok’s voice comes through, it’s thankfully quiet and low, but the words still make you keen.

“Princess couldn’t wait until the morning, hm?” Hoseok chuckles quietly at your whine of response. “That’s okay. Let Master help you.”

You sigh out, sitting the phone so that it lies on the pillow beside you. “Please, Master,” you whisper, “can I touch my clit?”

“Fuck,” he curses under his breath, “such a polite girl now. Baby took her lesson well. You can touch it, princess. Get yourself close for me.”

When you change the angle of the fingers thrusting inside you to make room to rub at your clit, you could cry from the satisfaction, biting your lip to muffle the moan that’s pulled from your lungs.

Glancing quickly beside you to ensure Jungkook’s asleep, the sight of him sleeping so peacefully as you get off right beside him has you clenching down, and your back arches off the bed.

Your high is close, and the faster you strum your clit frantically, the more you pant, desperate to keep quiet. Your mouth drops open as you suddenly feel the orgasm approaching, and you turn to the phone on the pillow, getting close enough that he can hear your whisper. “I’m go-gonna cum, Hoseokie, fuck,” you choke out before quickly pressing your lips together, preventing further noise.

His voice is low velvet on the phone, a calm command. “Cum for Master now, princess.”

You feel your orgasm hit you like a tsunami, crashing so violently that you curl over your hands, shivering and convulsing as pleasure rocks every inch of your body. As it floods you entirely, you feel hot tears stream down your face, ones you didn’t even know you were shedding. Your thighs shake and your chest heaves and you don’t stop your fingers until there’s no more pleasure left to be milked from you.

When you finally cum down from your high, panting, you fumble clumsily for the phone. “Tha-thank you, Master.”

Perhaps it’s the post-orgasm delirium, but you swear you hear the smile in his voice when he murmurs, “you’re most welcome, princess. Now get some rest. You’ve earned it.”

After hanging up, you lock your phone and chuck it down onto the carpet beside the bed carelessly, the wetness between your thighs no longer uncomfortable, now just a satisfying reminder of the pleasure he finally allowed you. Taking one last look at the tranquil face of Jungkook as he slept, you let yourself join him in a blissful unconsciousness.

ELIMINATION GRAPH

No elimination this week ! What a doozy, huh? If you were curious, here are the results of the vote!

It was taken after exactly 48 hours of the poll being open, and required a sign-in with email to prevent spamming so that it was as fair as possible!

In the future, we’ll use this format for both Fan Favourite and Elimination voting. I’ll tell you the top three for audience fan-favourites in the following chapter, and for elimination you’ll find out Y/n’s final decision in the following chapter, plus this graph at the end for the complete results.

Thanks for all your support !

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iloveyou3thousand · 4 years

Note

Peter is the owner of a lovely little Coffee Shop and famous billionaire/ironman tony stark is his regular costumer.

Oooh man I went lowkey wild with this one I love coffeeshop AUs. Hope you enjoy c:

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The very first time he comes in everybody recognizes him immediately. It’s busy with people coming and going trying to get their caffeine fix before work, and although most of the people’s eyes are on their phones, he doesn’t go unnoticed, and whispers start up before he can even make it to the counter.

Peter is helping out front to get through the initial morning rush hour, working the till with a beaming smile, but because he’s busy punching in orders he doesn’t see him until he’s right in front of him.

Their eyes meet, and it’s as if the both of them are taken aback for a second, before Peter can flash him a warm smile and asks him what he can do for him.

He doesn’t stick around for very long, and Peter figures he’s in a hurry to get out, even if it’s possible he didn’t necessarily have anywhere to be. Peter wouldn’t want to stay in a crowded coffee shop where everyone is staring at you and whispering behind their hands and probably taking sneaky pictures over their toffee nut lattes.

The morning staff doesn’t stop talking about it until they leave their aprons in the backroom for the afternoon workers. And even then the gossip passes on to those starting their shift late.

And, in all honesty, Peter feels a little proud.

He knows that it’s probably a coincidence that the Tony Stark came into his shop, and he’s aware that it doesn’t say anything about his management or his products or the atmosphere in his shop until someone actually starts to come back regularly, but still. It’s like he’s been visited personally. By a celebrity!

Peter hopes that he’ll find his way back to his café some time, but he also feels like the chances of that are pretty slim. About as slim as the chance was that Tony Stark would one day walk into his shop and order one of his coffees from a blend he’d so carefully selected and perfected and maybe even think, by the time he takes his last sip; ‘huh, that was pretty good coffee’.

When Mr. Stark shows up again a few days later, Peter starts to think that maybe the odds were in his favor after all, and the chances of all of that weren’t as slim as he thought.

MJ is at the till and Peter is in the back when Tony gives his order, and since it’s past the morning rush and it’s now a lot quieter, MJ is also the one to make him his coffee.

Peter has just loaded up a tray with freshly baked triple chocolate chip cookies and steps out into the shop behind the counter, setting the tray down to slide it into the glass display case. When he looks up and notices the familiar man on the other side of the counter waiting for his order, he smiles at him.

“Good morning Mr. Stark,” he greets him pleasantly, and the man looks up as if shaken from his thoughts, and one corner of his mouth ticks up when he sees Peter.

“Hi. Morning. Are those made in house?” He points at the tray of cookies with the pair of sunglasses in his hand that probably cost more than Peter’s rent.

“Sure are. Just in the back.”

Peter likes it that way. They bake whatever they can in the shop so that it always smells like something fresh. They started doing that just with the cookies, but the more customers came up to the staff complimenting them on the smell, the more they strived to put out homemade products. Now, depending on the time of day you come in, you’re met with new scents every time. In the morning it’s usually the pastries and cookies, the latter of which need to be refilled when the morning rush has gone. Then in the afternoon, the pies are prepared to be baked at night, and Peter will usually throw a tray of brownies in the oven, and cakes depending on how many slices have been sold. Then toward closing time Peter finishes up with the pies, and prepares several batches of cookie dough.

It’s a lot of work throughout the day, and they’re constantly busy, but it’s rewarding when someone specifically asks for Peter, and compliments him on his products.

Thankfully he has great staff that help him day in and day out, so he’s never left to do the work alone. Without them by his side Peter probably would never have been able to fulfill his dream.

Tony’s coffee is done, and he puts his sunglasses on before he picks up the cup.

“Smells great,” he says, and Peter has to fan himself with his oven mitt when the other man is safely out of the door and down the street.

“Smells great,” he mimics to MJ, who just fondly rolls her eyes at him.

After that, Peter is hopeful that he’ll come around again. At some point. There’s no pattern in when he’ll show up, but Peter is almost always there anyway, so when Tony makes another appearance he’s right there once again.

It seems that Mr. Stark is slowly finding out what times are safe for him to drop by, because it’s quieter again, a little later in the afternoon and after the lunch crowd has come and gone. Peter is working the front while newbie Harry is sweeping tables.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Stark,” Peter greets him pleasantly.

“Hi,” Tony takes off his sunglasses and peers at his nameplate, “Peter. I’ll have your finest Americano please. Just a medium.”

“House blend?”

“Yessir.”

Peter picks up a cup and writes the man’s name on it, sneaking in a little heart instead of the O of his name. Can’t hurt, can it? He probably gets those kinds of things all the time.

“So are you the Peter that owns this place or do you just so happen to be a random Peter coincidentally working at Peter…Peco… I’m sorry what’s this place called again?”

“Petercolator,” Peter explains with a grin as he punches in Tony’s order and gives him his total, “It’s from the word percolator, which is an old type of coffeemaker.”

Tony hums thoughtfully as he drops his change into the tip jar.

“Oh—and to answer your question, I suppose I am the Peter from Petercolator, yes. Not just a Random Peter. Although maybe I should look into hiring more Peters. Really make it our trademark.”

“Go for it. Really lean into it.”

Peter slides Tony’s cup of coffee across the counter and chuckles.

“I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for any applicants called Peter.”

“You do that.“ Tony flashes him an actual, honest-to-god wink, “See you later, Petercolator.”

Peter watches as he leaves. No one is ever going to believe that Tony Stark just said that to him.

Peter falls ill with a cold and has to stay home for a few days. He doesn’t want to infect anyone else and he definitely doesn’t trust himself around the food when he’s all sniffly and sneezy. He keeps in close contact with MJ, one of the managers who makes sure everything runs smoothly when the owner is away, and gets two texts he’s not sure he believes during the week that he’s at home.

One reads that Tony Stark came by the shop and asked for him, curious if he was in the back, or…? MJ gladly informs Peter that she’s convinced Tony looked disappointed when she told him Peter was sick.

The second one explains how Tony came by another couple of days later, and asked how Peter was doing, if he was feeling better yet.

MJ knows that Peter has had a crush on the man since he was little, and Peter is convinced that she’s just using that knowledge against him now, teasing him when there is nothing he can do about it. She’s just feeding into his obsession. Probably trying to get back at him for all the times he’s put her on the early shift.

When he gets back he jumps right back into the middle of things. He’s still recovering from his cold and therefore gets tired pretty easily, so he lets his colleagues handle things in the front while he keeps to himself in the back, working through batches of whatever it is they need. He’ll make it a short day, stay as long as he can, and then he’ll go home to rest again. The evening shifts aren’t usually as busy as the morning ones anyway.

He’s just restocked their display with a load of seasonal apple cinnamon muffins, crouched down to be able to reach the lower trays, when a face pops up on the other side of the glass that says; “You’re back.” Peter nearly startles and sends the last muffin tumbling to the ground, but he catches it in time. Unfortunately, he catches it a little too firmly, and his thumb is pressed right through the middle, stuck in the gooey apple filling of the muffin.

He pulls a face but smiles when he straightens up and looks at Tony on the other side of the counter between them, who has the decency to look sheepish a little, at least.

“I’ll pay for that,” he offers, gesturing to the muffin.

“Why?” Peter asks, sounding amused, “Are you going to eat it?”

Tony seems to calculate his next move, before stretching his hand out over the counter, wiggling his fingers at Peter. Peter doesn’t quite believe him, shakes his head just a touch, but when Tony wiggles his fingers more insistently again he can’t do anything but slowly put the muffin down into the other man’s waiting palm, extracting his thumb almost pointedly at the last moment.

Peter’s thumb comes away sticky and covered in cinnamon and the muffin has never looked more unappealing, but Tony Stark sets his cup of coffee down to free up his other hand, and casually peels off the paper muffin cup, calculates his angle for a moment, and then takes a big bite.

Peter watches with something of a muted horror, his jaw slack and mouth open as if he’s halfway to saying something but has changed his mind at the last second.

“Mhm. Not bad,” Tony says when he’s swallowed his bite. There’s crumbs on his lips and Peter wishes he could look away as the man licks them off. “How much do I owe you?”

Peter gives an exasperated chuckle. “It’s on the house, sir.”

“Huh. How generous. Anyway, I just wanted to say I missed you.”

“…You missed me?”

“Yeah, I missed you. You were gone, right? Sick.”

“Oh! Yes, yes I was. For a few days.” Peter is too dumbstruck to be able to really say anything else. MJ had been telling the truth? He almost can’t believe it. Not that she doesn’t always tell the truth but she sure has a way of making things out to be better than they are sometimes. She is just about as good at that as she is at making things out to be far worse than they really are. Or at pretending that everything is fine when everything clearly isn’t. It’s a gift, honestly.

“Right, well. Glad you’re feeling better.” Tony reaches for his coffee again, and lifts the hand with the disastrous-looking muffin as if in greeting, “Thanks for breakfast.” And then he walks out again, leaving Peter with a feeling like something equal parts wonderful and bizarre just happened.

Occasionally, Tony comes in and sits down. He’s usually busy, Peter assumes, with work and being a billionaire and everything. Peter can’t imagine what that must be like.

But sometimes Tony comes in and sits down, and those are honestly pretty wonderful days. He drinks his coffee from one of the many cute mugs Peter has acquired for the shop, reads the paper, or taps away at his phone. He only sits down when it’s really quiet though.

It makes Peter wonder if sitting down in his shop is the only moment of reprieve he gets in his busy life, or if he has time to find peace elsewhere, too. He kind of hopes so. Peter is heavily biased though.

MJ teases him about it more and more. Ned is in on it as well now, which means he practically never gets a moment of rest, because if MJ isn’t in then Ned usually is. It’s like they plan it that way, to keep Peter perpetually tortured – even though that’s not possible because it’s Liz who makes the schedules.

Unless Liz is in on it…

It’s nice to be able to see Tony sitting down and enjoying his mid-morning coffee, or his afternoon fix, or occasionally his nightly dose just before they close up shop.

Peter also notices a pattern that when he’s baking another tray of brownies, Tony usually sticks his nose into the air while he’s in line, and then decides to have his order in.

He has no idea if it has anything to do with each other, because Tony never actually buys a brownie, but he can’t help but wonder.

Ned and MJ are convinced that whenever Peter’s not looking, Tony is keeping an eye on him. Naturally, Peter doesn’t believe it, although sometimes he’ll think he catches him looking when he peers over his shoulder or peeks through his lashes. It’s silly of course, because someone like Tony would never even notice someone like Peter, and yet it makes Peter feel warm in a way no one has in a very long time.

It’s about an hour from closing time when Tony has been sitting in his usual spot, nursing his usual coffee, and MJ corners Peter before he can go out and take stock of their inventory for the night.

“You need to go give him a brownie,” MJ says urgently, as if they’re talking about a matter of life and death, not chocolate cake.

“What?” Peter asks confusedly.

“You need to go give him a brownie, on the house, and write your phone number on the napkin.”

Peter shakes his head vehemently when he realizes what MJ is trying to do. “No. Nuh-uh. Not happening.”

“Peter,” MJ groans, “If you don’t do it then I will, but if I bring it he might think it’s my number on there. You have to do it. Now’s the perfect chance. We’re literally empty, you’ve been drooling over him for ages, I’m pretty sure he comes in just to see you…”

Peter shakes his head again.

“Fine, then I’ll do it. I’ll just tell him it’s yours, and that you’re too much of a coward to come onto him even though he’s clearly been coming onto you in his own…peculiar way.” MJ has a look in her eyes that tells Peter she’s dead serious. So now he has two options; he can either do it himself, or MJ can do it for him. Either way, Tony Stark is going to end up with Peter Parker’s phone number alongside a freshly baked brownie, and he might never come visit Petercolator again.

MJ follows him closely as he goes to grab a napkin and reluctantly writes down his cell on one corner, as if she doesn’t trust him to do this himself. Granted, if MJ wasn’t watching him so closely he would probably find a way out of this. Peter scoops up a brownie square from a cooling rack and places it on the napkin next to the phone number, then he deposits both onto a small plate.

His heart beats furiously in his chest as MJ physically pushes him toward the door into the shop. Tony’s still sitting in one of the comfortable chairs in the corner of the room the furthest away from the windows, looking intently at his phone.

“What if I accidentally interrupt something important?” Peter whispers.

“He’ll probably think you’re just as important. Now hurry up, I wanna go home.” She hisses back, and gives him another push.

Peter nearly stumbles over the threshold. It catches Tony’s attention, and for a moment they just look at each other. Peter flashes a quick smile, which the other man returns.

Shit. Okay. Now or never.

Peter approaches his table and puts down the brownie in front of Tony, who looks up from where his gaze had gone back to the phone for a minute, gaze inquisitive.

“It’s on us. They came out of the oven when you walked in, so they’re still warm. I thought you… Well you seem to always like the smell, so… Um. Enjoy, Mr. Stark.”

Peter hurries back and all but dives into the backroom, eager to be out of Tony’s direct line of sight. He takes a deep breath and gives MJ’s proud smirk an unimpressed look.

“I’m putting you on startup shift for the rest of the week,” he says when his heart has stopped beating like it’s trying to break out of his chest.

“Hey!”

Peter won’t listen to her protests.

He refuses to come out of the backroom again until Tony is gone, afraid to meet his gaze and recognize that he’s found Peter’s phone number and that he doesn’t know what to do with it or doesn’t want to do anything with it.

They close up shop and Peter clears out Tony’s table, taking his empty cup of coffee and the empty plate, belatedly noting that not only the brownie is gone, but the napkin as well.

He tries not to think about it.

Tony Stark has his phone number but he tries not to even acknowledge that fact.

MJ leaves a little early when all her chores are done, and Peter does his last rounds, turning off the lights and activating the alarm before he steps out onto the street and locks the door behind him. As he turns the key he wonders if he’ll ever see Tony again after this. He wouldn’t be surprised if he never showed his face again.

His phone buzzes, and he tucks his keys away before he reaches for it, wrapping his scarf a little tighter around his neck.

He has a text from an unknown number.

Peter nearly forgets how to breathe for a moment.

I think it’s time I pay you back for all those complimentary snacks. How’s dinner sound? I know just the place.

Signed:

Tony Stark.

#starker #peter parker/tony stark #starker fanfic #marvel #coffeeshop au #aus #starker au #peter parker #tony stark #marvel fanfic #my fanfic #my writing #this is the longest starker fic I've written so far lol #also please don't roast me for my choice in coffeeshop name i'm begging #get it? roast #Anonymous #replies

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