#i listened to repeat until death while writing this

[asahicore]

cherry pits - psh (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact

pairing. dad!sunghoon x fem!reader

synopsis. Your alarmingly empty bank account forces you to find a last-minute summer job so that you can afford a trip with your friends. The extremely handsome customer that comes into the store just happens to be a young single dad who's renovating the old house next to yours. The tension that settles between the two of you as you start helping him fix up his house soon becomes unbearable, but it's all one-sided anyway, right?

(Spoiler: wrong.)

genre. DILF AUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!, neighbors au, s2l, summer au, slight age gap (reader is 21 and hoon 26), reader is so down bad over sunghoon its actually crazy but also extremely relatable cause this is sunghoon we're talking about, fluff and smut, sex gets freakyyy ngl

word count. 12.9k

a/n. hey sisters had no time to write anything this week so i am coming back (everybody boos) with a repost yayyy!!! i actually love this story idkw i just find it fun so i hope you guys will enjoy rereading / reading it !!!! as always let me know ur thoughts.. even if they're just incomprehensible screaming (bad or good).. im happy w anything ok bye!!!

You’ve always wondered about the ratio of cherry to pit. Such a big pit for so little flesh, isn’t it? Yet that’s never stopped you from biting into the small fruit, eating what you could and spitting out the unwanted part. You actually rather enjoy this whole process. Bite, eat, spit. You could repeat this with huge bowls of cherries at a time until they upset your stomach and you had to stop for your own good.

Bite, eat, spit is exactly what you’re doing when, with a trembling finger, you finally brave to open your banking app and check your balance. It’s the beginning of summer, and after two semesters of intense studying and too-much-coffee drinking, you think you deserve three long months of doing nothing but hanging out in your childhood bedroom and eating the food your parents buy and make. You’re especially looking forward to the vacation in Mexico you have planned with your friends at the end of August.

One look at your bank account and your dreams of white beaches and seas so blue you couldn’t tell them apart from the sky shatter around you, the sad, low numbers on the screen sneering at you mockingly. You were sure you had saved enough money from part-time jobs and generous relatives, but now you regret all of those night-outs and lazy takeaways. If you had cut down on those, maybe you wouldn’t have to go through the hassle of finding a summer job at the last minute, which you would definitely have to do if you wanted to eat something on that dear beach of yours and not just starve to death under the glaring sun.

That was it - tomorrow, you’d go and get a job. Today, however, you’d enjoy your last day of respite and eat some more cherries, or maybe make some jam and a pie so your parents wouldn’t chide you for eating them all, and then go pick some more from the three trees in your backyard. You’d sit outside, enjoying the warmth of the sun while you read or, if you couldn’t be asked, while you listened to the bustle of the old and worn-down house next door being renovated. You’re surprised someone had the courage to buy it and give it a new life, but you assume that’s the kind of courage that comes with having time and money. 

Yesterday night, you’d heard a little girl playing outside until her mom called her in saying it was time to go, so you made up a story of your neighbors being newlyweds that had decided they’d had enough of the city and wanted to raise their daughter in a calmer town far from busy streets and loud honks. You could bring them some cherries, maybe in jam or pie form, as a housewarming gift.

Unfortunately, the day passed and you were too busy doing nothing to actually get around to baking, so you decided to do nothing some more and then go to bed, needing rest before your big job hunt.

You’d gravely overestimated the amount of job opportunities in your small hometown, only receiving apologetic looks from the store owners as they tell you they don’t need any help, or worse, already have someone. Damn those 16-year-olds who only get summer jobs so they can blow their whole pay in a couple weeks before school starts again. You, on the other hand, need that money for important things, like sipping on a cocktail at a bar with a seaview.

The local hardware store next to the train station is your saving grace. It looks quite small from the outside, but once you step inside, rows of lamps and mirrors in all shapes and sizes along with all kinds of household needs welcome you, followed by a section for gardening and pet caretaking. The basement is where all the paints and brushes were, as well as the more technical (technical to you, at least) products, like bolts and tools or kitchen and bathroom appliances.

A lot of people undertake renovations in their homes during their free time in the summer, so it’s important for the store to have their experts helping out customers in their dedicated aisles rather than working behind the till and restocking the shelves, which is what you will be doing for the next two months. The pay is slightly above minimum wage and with twenty-one hours of work a week, you’ll earn more than enough to enjoy your vacation. You start tomorrow.

Your co-workers are happy to welcome a new face into their team. They’re nice even if they have the tendency to drone on about different types of tools and the importance of choosing the right brush for the surface you’re painting, which you don’t particularly care about, but you think you might as well learn as much as you can during your time here; it might always come in handy later.

As you expected, it isn’t the most stimulating job ever, but you aren’t bored out of your mind either. You make small talk with customers as they explain their purchases, some more defensively than others, even if you didn’t ask. You make sure to restock the shelves correctly and sometimes ask for help when you feel your arms giving out after hours of carrying heavy stuff. When no one’s in, you like to rearrange the cute bathroom decorations so that they make a little rainbow of toothbrush and soap holders.

You were daydreaming about what you would do with your friends in Mexico and all the cherries you could eat there when a man so handsome you thought he was a part of your dream walks in. He doesn’t notice (or maybe he just ignores it, you’re not sure) your gawking and smiles at you, saying “hello” before turning his attention to the map which details where everything is stored at the entrance of the shop. You manage a small “h-hello” back that probably doesn’t even reach his ears, and you curse yourself for doing a poor job of greeting a customer just because said customer looks like he’s been pushed from the heavens above onto this unworthy earth by the other angels who were jealous of his beauty. 

You stay put behind the counter the whole time he’s there to avoid the potential embarrassment of running into him in a random aisle and making a fool of yourself. There isn’t much to do anyway, so you rearrange the organic protein bars and chewing-gum at the counter and count all the money in the cash register to distract yourself. He doesn’t spend a very long time browsing and after twenty minutes, you see him approach with a cart full of the biggest cans of paint the store offers. It’s mostly white paint, but there are some browns and grays, and one of pink as well.

You thank God for those twenty minutes because they allowed you to get a hold of yourself so that you didn’t gape at him like a dead fish instead of scanning his articles, which is what you are very professionally and expertly doing. “That’s a lot of paint,” you comment lightheartedly, partly just to prove to yourself that you can also speak in front of this man.

“I know,” he chuckles, and it seems unfair that his voice should be just as attractive as his face. “The previous owners of the house I just bought had terrible taste in wallpaper and wall colors, so I have to repaint basically the whole house. Everything has to go, really. The floors, the furniture, the lights.”

“Sounds like you’re going to have a busy summer. That’ll be $132.76, please.”

“I’ll pay by card,” he says as he brings his wallet out from his back pocket and inserts his card into the reader, which allows you to look freely at his tanned arms and the veins that protrude here and there. He can’t be older than thirty, so there’s probably not that much of an age difference between the two of you, but damn does he look more mature in the sexiest way possible than all of the male college students you’re used to seeing on a daily basis. If anything, he reminds you of the hot young Linguistics professor your whole department likes to drool over. 

The beep of the payment being accepted snaps you out of your daze. “And yeah, it’ll sure be a busy summer. I’ll need a lot of stuff from here, so you might have to get used to seeing me around,” he says with a smile that makes your heart skip a beat. There’s no way this walking Greek god of a man is actually flirting with you, but the glint in his eyes tells you it wasn’t just an off-hand comment.

“I could get used to that,” you surprise yourself by replying confidently, your smile mirroring his as pretty dimples appear on each side of his face.

You hand him the receipt and notice his eyes flickering down to your name tag before trapping yours in his gaze once again. You don’t think you ever want to look away. “I’ll see you around, Y/N,” he says and walks out with his cart and his tons of paint before you can say anything, lest ask his name, except for “see you.”

You take a deep breath in and another out when he’s out of sight, trying to calm your racing heart. You can’t wait to rave to the girls’ group chat about this, but one of your coworkers calls you for help and you have to put the handsome stranger to the back of your mind for a while.

—

That weekend, your parents ask you to do something about the cherries slowly starting to spoil in the fridge, so you put on your headphones and listen to an audiobook for entertainment, then get to pitting. It feels wrong to listen to The Kiss Quotient and its many smut scenes when your parents are coming and going out of the room, but what they don’t know won’t kill them; you just try to keep your reactions to a minimum during the extra spicy scenes.

Pitting cherries is an arduous task that always takes longer than you think it will, but you never complain about it. You’ve found the perfect technique of cutting them in half around the pit, turning the small fruit without squeezing it, extracting the stone and making sure it doesn’t get confused and end up in the bowl with the pitted cherries, all without tiring your wrists after ten minutes. A surprise pit in a cherry pie can add to the charm of a homemade dessert, but you’d rather not have to spit out five of them while trying to eat one slice.

You prepare a crumbly dough to make two classic American-style pies and fill four jars with cherry jam that you cook while the doughs rest. It’s almost offensive how small the cherries become as they cook, the amount that fills those four jars having filled eight before, but you decide there’s no reason to take it personally since the cherries don’t do it on purpose, and put the jars away to cool down. You roll out the first rested dough and despair for a bit when it keeps on falling apart, but it just makes it more satisfying once you have it perfectly thinly rolled out and covering the tin. The second one is a bit nicer to you and you only have to try rolling it out twice. 

Two hours later, as the sun finally starts to relent and a cooler breeze flows through the air, the pies are all baked, cooled and ready to be eaten. You leave one for you and your parents to enjoy later, then head over to the next house to greet your new neighbors with the other pie. You knock and wait for a good thirty seconds before getting any sort of response, making you think no one’s in.

“Y/N?” a semi-familiar voice calls out, and your head whips in its direction. If this were a cartoon or a 2012 teen show, you’d probably drop the pie tin, but thankfully, your hands aren’t that sweaty, and the shock of the man from the other day at the store being your neighbor isn’t that great, because of course, of course he’s your neighbor. You’re Y/N, after all; the almighty gods above would never let you have a boring, uneventful summer. Of course the hot new man in town is your neighbor.

“Oh! Hi! Guess we’re neighbors. Ha,” you say with a clumsy smile, holding the tin over your forearm as your other hand shields your eyes from the sunlight so you can look at him without squinting your eyes.

“Neighbors?” he repeats as he joins you on the front porch, taking off his gloves dirtied by the mud and using the back of his hand to wipe off some sweat from his forehead. The sweat makes his hair stick to his face and there are small beads of it falling from his hairline down onto his white t-shirt. You detect the slightest of stubbles on his chin and upper lip, probably from not having shaved for just a day or two. He’s even tanner than when you saw him a few days ago, and his thick eyebrows form a straight line as he frowns in what you guess is tiredness and perhaps confusion from seeing you in regular clothes and holding a pie tin on his porch. For a second, you’re scared he might think you’re some kind of stalker, but you nod and tilt your head towards your house. 

“Yep. That one just over there behind you.”

He turns his upper body to take a look at your house and nods slowly as he turns back around, gaze finding yours again like the other day at the store. You have no idea who this man is - hell, you don’t even know his name - but good lord are you attracted to him, especially when he gives you that unreadable smile that shows off his dimples. 

“Huh. What a coincidence,” he says, and that could mean anything in the world, but you hope he means it in a good way. “I’m Sunghoon, by the way.” he adds, extending his hand for you to take, which you do, and the simple action of shaking his hand without eye contact ever breaking is enough to send shivers down your spine. Hopefully, this goes unnoticed by this Sunghoon.

A walking wet dream. That’s what this man is. He’s walked right out of your deepest Wattpad-induced fantasies and into the house next door. Probably doesn’t help that you’d been listening to literary porn just fifteen minutes prior. 

“Is that pie?” he asks as he releases your hand.

“It is, cherry pie I made myself with cherries from our backyard. A housewarming gift, if you will. Here,” you reply, offering him the tin.

He takes it from your hands, the tips of his fingers slightly grazing yours, on purpose or not, you’re not sure. He lifts some of the aluminum covering the pie and peeks underneath, then hums appreciatively. “Thanks, it looks really good. I’ve been living off of ready-meals and casseroles from the neighbors, so this’ll be really nice.”

“Well we’ve got tons of cherries, so feel free to ask whenever you want some,” you offer, and he nods. A small silence settles between the two of you and you’re about to excuse yourself so it doesn’t get awkward when he invites you in, asking if you’d like to have a piece with him.

“If you want to, I mean. I was gonna take a break anyway,” he says somewhat coyly, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. You’re surprised to see him being anything else other than confident and self-assured, but it only makes him look cuter in your eyes.

“Sure,” you accept with a smile, letting him lead you inside the house.

“Sorry, it smells like paint all over the house. That’s why I was outside, doing some gardening while I aired the house out,” he explains. “Let me just get some plates and a knife out. And something for us to drink. Do you want to drink something? I’ve got water, or some iced tea or lemonade. The grandma across the street made some for me,” he says all at once, and you suppress a giggle at his sudden nervous behavior.

“Sunghoon?”

“Yeah?” he responds almost immediately, turning to you just as you both reach the kitchen.

“Just water is fine.”

A shy smile makes his dimples appear once again as he nods. “Okay, sounds good.” You help him carry everything to the back porch and set down the glasses and a jug of water on a table with two chairs around it.

“The porches are the only parts I won’t have to fix up too much, for some reason.”

“You’re going to redo the whole house yourself?” you ask, surprised, as you pour two glasses of water and he serves you a slice of cherry pie (“there might be some stray cherry pits, so be careful,” you warn as he sets a slice on his plate).

“A lot of it, yeah, but I’ve also got some people to help out. My dad’s a carpenter so I know my way around these things, but I also know it’s better and faster to have more than one man on the job, so some guys he works with come a couple times a week.”

“Yeah, with the state this house is in, you’d need more than a summer if you did everything yourself,” you comment, and he chuckles, agreeing. “My friends and I used to make stories about how this place is haunted, you know,” you say jokingly.

“Please don’t jinx my house from the get-go,” he says, making you laugh.

“Sorry, sorry. It’ll be nice seeing it all fixed-up, actually.”

“Have you lived here long?” he asks, looking at you thoughtfully as he takes another bite of the pie. “This is really good, by the way.”

“Thanks. And yeah, my whole life. I go away when semester starts but come back for the holidays and the summer.”

“So you're a student?”

“Yeah, just at the state university a few hours away. Not too far away that it’s a hassle traveling back, but not too close that I go home every weekend. What about you, what do you do?”

You wait for his answer while he swallows his mouthful and take another bite yourself. “I teach,” he starts as he dabs the corners of his lips with a napkin. “Fifth graders, on the other side of town. I used to live in a small apartment near the school I work at but it’s nicer, having more space. I saved enough money to buy this house and fix it up, so here I am now,” he says, gesturing to the house and the garden with his arms. 

You notice his use of the first person pronoun when he talks about where he used to live and his house now, which makes you wonder if it’s just him, even though you were sure you heard a woman and a young girl’s voices the other day. Surely, if he wasn’t single, he wouldn’t have invited you in or given you flirtatious looks, right? Or were you reading totally wrong into this and he was just an exceptionally friendly person?

You put these questions to the side and continue chatting with Sunghoon, letting the subject of his marital status come up on its own during your conversation. And indeed, you get your answer when he tells you about the different parts of the house he plans on having, one of them being a bedroom for his daughter.

“Oh, so you have a daughter? How old is she?” you ask as you take a sip of water, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. Considering his age, you expect that his child will be one, two years old max, so his answer makes you almost choke on your drink.

“She’s turning eight this summer.”

“Eight?” you repeat as you set your glass down, looking at him wide-eyed. So much for nonchalance. “But you’re so-”

“Young? Yeah, I know,” he interrupts with a knowing smile, probably used to this kind of reaction. “I’m 26,��� he adds, then watches as you do the simple math in your head. When you turn to him with a surprised look, he answers your question before you’ve even asked it. “Yep, I had her when I was 18.”

“Wow,” is all you can say. “Can I ask what happened?”

“Sure. I mean, it’s nothing extraordinary or anything. I was in my last year of high school, and I got my girlfriend at the time pregnant. We’d only been dating four months but her parents wouldn’t let her get an abortion. They’re really religious. They took care of our baby, with the help of my parents, while I went to community college and she retook senior year since she had to drop out halfway through the year. No, we’re not together anymore, if you’re wondering,” he says, catching you off guard, as if he’d read your thoughts. 

He chuckles before sighing and continues. “If none of this had happened, we’d probably have broken up before going off to college and proceeded to forget about each other. We started out living with her parents, then got that small apartment I told you about when she found a job. We’re not on bad terms by any means, but we’ve just not been in love since Chaeryeong turned 2, probably. We’ve been more roommates than a couple for the past six years. And you know, we kept on living together for Chaer mainly, but she’s found a new boyfriend and I wanted to have my own place. Which has led me here.”

You nod slowly, letting the whole story sink in. “You’re both handling this situation really maturely, it sounds like. I’ve heard of so many teenage parents fighting all the time and not taking care of their kids properly.”

“She’s already got a weird parental situation, it’s the least we can do for her to behave like adults, you know.”

“Right, of course,” you say, nodding again. Your hot new neighbor was actually a DILF, you realized a bit inappropriately, perhaps. Cherry on top.

He tells you a bit more about his daughter and you keep talking until your dad calls you, asking you why you’re not home at dinner time, and you only notice then how long you’ve been sitting there with Sunghoon, just talking. You tell him you feel bad for taking up so much of his time but he shakes your apologies off.

“It was my pleasure, really. And thanks again for the pie, I think Chaer will love it.”

He walks you to the front door and calls out your name after you’ve waved goodbye and started walking. You didn’t know you had been expecting him to do anything until you heard the hopeful tone in your own voice. “Yeah?”

“You any good with kids?” he asks, leaning against the doorway with crossed arms and a smirk that makes your heart flutter.

Although you’ve only got one older brother, you have younger cousins as well as older ones that have babies of their own, so you’re not a complete stranger to kids, but more importantly, you like them. They have the world to learn, but they say surprisingly smart things and have really cute faces.

“I’d say that I am, yeah,” you reply, a smile growing on your face, mirroring his expression.

“Good,” he says, and pauses a second for good measure. “I’ll see you later.”

“See you later, Sunghoon,” you say as you turn back and head to your house, letting him enjoy the view of you walking away. 

On the short way home, you realize that you completely have the hots for your neighbor, although you probably knew that before. Is it twisted that you like him more now that you know he’s got a kid? Probably a little bit, but you’re not going to fight it. He’s single, after all. And not even thirty. A five-year gap isn’t unheard of. 

Your parents ask you where you’ve been as you set the table and get ready for dinner. “Just over at our new neighbor’s house to give him some pie and say hi,” you say as you toss the salad in its bowl, spreading the dressing evenly. 

“Ooh, the neighbor,” your mother echoes knowingly, wiggling her eyebrows, and steals a leaf of lettuce when it falls from the bowl because of your vigorous tossing. “We should have him over at some point, welcome him into the neighborhood. I’ve seen him a bit, you know. Out painting on his front porch or when he was in his garden the same time as me. He’s a very attractive young man,” she says, lowering her voice so your dad doesn’t hear even though he’s outside grilling the meat. “Do you know how old he is? Looks a bit young for a homeowner to me, but who knows what young people are up to these days.

“He’s twenty-six, and he’s saved a lot of money. Plus, I don’t think that house was very expensive. From what he’s told me, the renovations will basically cost as much as the house itself. He’s also got a kid.”

“Aw, must be a cute baby,” she says as your father walks in, carrying a tray of steaming barbecued steaks and potatoes.

“She’s eight,” you say bluntly, causing them both to look at you with wide eyes.

“Oh, right, then. Happens,” your mother says, bringing her glass of water to her lips and taking a sip from it. “Is he still with the mother?”

“They broke up a while ago, but they’re on good terms,” you say, and your mom nods slowly at the information.

“So, he’s single, huh?” she says, trying to hide her smile, earning herself a groan from your dad and a chuckle from you. 

“C’mon, mom!”

“What? You can’t deny that he’s attractive, and he’s single. Plus, you two must get along well if you spent a couple hours talking. Sure, he’s got a kid, but you love those, don’t you?”

“Mom, you of all people would know kids aren’t pets. Dating someone with an eight-year-old isn’t the same as dating someone with a cat.

“No one’s asking you to be that girl’s mom,” she says, dishing out some meat for the three of you. “I’d go get that man, if I were you.”

Your dad shakes his head and you eat your food as you listen to them bickering with a smile. You think about what your mother said - should you go and get Sunghoon? Your heart says yes, but your brain is a bit more reluctant. Another part of your body, lower down there, is screaming ‘yes’ at you.

He does live right by, after all.

That night, you FaceTime your roommate and best friend from college and bring her up to date about ‘the hot man from the store the other day.’ She paints her toenails but listens intently as she always does when you talk about boys, humming and chuckling here and there.

“God, Y/N, I didn’t know you had daddy issues, of all things.”

You gasp fake-dramatically. “Excuse me, I do not! I was attracted to him before I knew he was a dad, I’ll let you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let me know when you guys actually hook up, I’m curious whether older men are actually better,” she says, making you scoff.

“I hope he is. I’m very much tired of those boys that don’t know where the clit is and use too much tongue.”

“You know, when I complain to my mom about guys, she always tells me to wait it out a few years. She says they get more mature and, well, she didn’t say that outright, but she very heavily implied that the sex is much, much better. Kinda gross hearing it from her, but it’s good information.”

You hum. “Well, he’s not that much older… But let’s hope that it still makes a difference,” you say, and then move on to another topic. 

—

One thing that eating cherries has taught you is that if you want to enjoy eating the sweet flesh, you’ll need to deal with the pit as well. Ever the grand philosopher, you realized soon enough that this was applicable to real life and not just your favorite fruit. Wanna get a good grade on your test? Gotta study for it. Wanna go on holiday to Mexico? Gotta find a summer job and earn money.

Wanna make your way to Sunghoon’s bed? Gotta seduce him.

Over the following days, you stand behind the counter at the hardware store, elbow perched on the hard surface, head resting on your palm and vision fuzzy as you daydream about your next encounter with Sunghoon. More often than not, a customer will clear their throat to awkwardly let you know of their presence and you’ll have to exchange your imagined dialogue with Sunghoon for a quick apology and some pleasantries; more often than not, a coworker will call out your name for some help just as you get to the juicy part of your reverie. In those moments, you always feel like you’ve been caught red-handed watching softcore porn, even if no one knows the last thing about what goes on in your head, nor do they care. 

Much like the first time he walked into the store, when he does again on a Thursday morning, you think your daydreams have just gone too far and you’re now hallucinating. But, lo and behold, this is the true Park Sunghoon in the flesh, and he smiles and waves at you as he strides in before disappearing behind one of the many aisles.

You spend the next fifteen minutes going over witty conversation starters that will surely make him fall for you, only for you to stutter out a “h-hi, Sunghoon,” when he finally reaches the counter.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he jokes, and you laugh a bit too hard for a comment that isn’t that funny.

“How are the renovations going?” you ask as you scan his articles - some more paint and brushes, lots of tile glue, a bunch of nails and two different sizes of turnscrews. He frowns in concentration at the snacks next to the counter until he caves in and gets a chocolate protein bar that’s more sugar than protein. 

“Pretty okay,” he starts. “I’m in a bit of a rush, cause Chaer is already coming in two weeks and I need to have finished at least the interior by that time. My dad’s friends helped me get the roof done, so that’s good, but now they’re all busy with other sites so it's just me. Right now I’m redoing the tiles in the bathrooms. You need so much damn glue,” he says with a chuckle.

You think for a second, then timidly offer, “I could help out, you know. If you needed me to.” 

He looks at you with raised eyebrows, halfway through getting his card out of his wallet. “Really?”

“I mean, I don’t have much experience with this kinda stuff, but I’ve picked up a few things here and there from working here. If it saves you time, I could do the easy things. This job isn’t particularly physically demanding so I’ve still got energy at the end of the day. That’s $78.96, please.”

A small smile appears on his face as he inserts his card into the reader. He punches in his code and then returns your gaze. “That could be nice, actually.”

And that’s how you find yourself over at Sunghoon’s house in denim shorts and your dad’s old t-shirts almost everyday for the next two weeks, helping him fix up the old two-storey home. He measures out the perfect length for wood planks or marble tiles that you assist him in fastening to the floors of different rooms and he fixes holes in walls that you paint over afterwards. Sometimes on your breaks, you share a bowl of cherries that you brought from your garden. (One morning, you tried to make cherry juice out of them, but when after almost two hours of pitting the liquid barely filled a glass, you decided that it was too much effort and that you’d keep on just eating them and baking the occasional pie.) You asked him to tell you what each of the rooms upstairs would be and you realized that the window of his room faced yours directly. The blinds were down as they had always been, so you hadn’t known what the room would be.

“I’ve been sleeping on the couch since I haven’t gotten around to fixing up this room yet. Guess I should get to it, though,” he says, giving you a look that blurs the meaning of his words so that you’re not sure what he’s implying, which happens a bit too often with Sunghoon.

And you’d think that spending the better part of two weeks with the current man of your dreams would be amazing, right? 

Wrong. It’s unbearable.

Maybe that’s exaggerating it - it’s mostly fun, and sometimes unbearable. Usually, you’re an avid fan of sexual tension, especially with attractive men like Sunghoon. Lingering gazes, eye contacts when there shouldn’t be any, remarks with a deeper meaning that they let on, barely-there touches on the back of your hand or on your waist that manage to take your breath away. These are all very fine things that keep your heart bouncing and a blush on your cheeks, but they are supposed to amount to something more in the end. Maybe you’re impatient, but after two weeks of sending sex through your eyes to Sunghoon, you get the feeling that he doesn’t reciprocate your desire. One afternoon, you’d made sure to go and sunbathe in your bikini at the exact moment he was doing some work outside, and even then, he merely gave your body a one-over and disappeared a few minutes later inside his house. When he came back about ten minutes later, he could still barely look at you.

At the same time, there’s no way he doesn’t know what he’s doing when he stands close behind you, letting you feel the warmth of his chest against your back, big, rough hands enveloping yours as he demonstrates how to cut a plank of wood with the machine. There’s no way the way he smirks when the action turns you into a stammering mess is innocent, either.

Yet nothing happens. The tension is thick enough to be cut with a knife, but maybe Sunghoon hasn’t bought cutlery yet. The air is already heavy from the heat and the relentlessness of the sun, but this thing between you and him makes it almost suffocating, in somehow the best yet worst way possible. You’re this close to simply throwing your naked body at him, and it doesn’t help that you see his flexing, working muscles and beads of sweat on his hairline everyday. On the days he wears shorts, which is most days, all you can think of is getting off on his thick thighs, of his hands holding you tightly by the waist, of the way he’d look at you, eyes clouded over, of the words he’d whisper in your-

Your phone buzzes, interrupting you in your horny downward spiral. It’s your dear mother telling you to come home for dinner. As you pick up your phone, a second buzz. Ask Sunghoon if he wants to eat with us. 

You find him in his bedroom, adding the last touches to the walls. “I think I’ll be able to sleep here starting tomorrow night. I just need to go buy a bed,” he says when he sees your figure standing in the doorway.

“We can go together if you want,” you blurt before you can stop yourself. Hoping it’ll make you seem less weird, you add, “I’ve got really good taste in furniture.”

“Is that so?” he questions, turning to you with a smile. “I’d appreciate the second pair of eyes, actually. There’s a lot of things I need to get.”

“Yeah, I didn’t wanna comment on it, but I think you’ll end up needing more than a couch, a plastic dining table and two chairs,” you tease, making him roll his eyes lightheartedly. “We can go to that huge second-hand store they have just outside of town. You’ll be surprised how good - and cheap - the furniture is there.”

“Sounds good,” he nods, and checks his watch. “Are you going home?”

“I am. My mom’s invited you over for dinner, if you’d like,” you say, tilting your head at him.

He raises his eyebrows in delighted surprise. “I’d love to. Just need to shower first.”

“That’s fine. I’ll go home, just come over whenever you’re ready.” You exchange quick see you laters and you head home, taking a shower yourself and making sure to use your best-smelling body lotion.

Sunghoon arrives half an hour later with a bouquet of roses in his hands and an award-winning smile on his face. You let him in and he greets your parents, offering your mother the bouquet. “Sorry I took so much time getting here, I wanted to pick these out as a thank you.”

You can tell your mother is pleased to the heavens as she waves him off, leading him inside your house. “That’s awfully nice of you, Mr Park-”

“Call me Sunghoon, please,” he says with a warm smile.

“Right, Sunghoon. And no worries, you’re just on time. Please, sit.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Oh, no, you’re working all day fixing up that house, just sit and relax. We’re very happy to have you over, aren’t we?” your mother says, sending a very obvious smile your way, which makes you furrow your eyebrows and shake your head lightly at her, silently telling her to shut up. Sunghoon chuckles at the exchange but says nothing and you want to bury yourself and your mother ten feet underground.

Sunghoon sits across from you at the dinner table, which allows you to stare unabashedly at him as he works his charm on your parents. He’s the neighbor, so technically, he’s not a boyfriend you brought home to meet them, but still, you can’t help but compare him to those few boys that you did bring home. None of them were a disaster, but none of them went as smoothly as this, either. There were always some awkward silences and dry chuckles with your past boyfriends, but Sunghoon clearly knows how to make parents happy. Maybe because he lived with his ex’s parents for so long, or maybe because he’s a parent himself. Either way, it only adds to your desire to take all of his clothes and let him rail you into next week. Too bad he clearly doesn’t feel the same way, you remind yourself with an audible sigh, which makes him look curiously at you, but you brush it off with a smile.

You watch as he accepts a beer, compliments the food and the house, talks football with your dad, accepts another beer, and shares teaching anecdotes with your mom, who herself is an elementary school teacher. You jump in every now and then when you have something witty to add or someone asks your opinion on something, but most of the time, you sit back and enjoy, happy that everything is going well. 

You bring out your infamous cherry pie that you’d baked the previous day along with some vanilla ice cream for dessert, and smile when Sunghoon tells you how much he’d been waiting to have some of it again, trying not to blush as his gaze stays focused on yours for a second too long. Thankfully, your parents don’t notice, too busy cutting themselves a slice. 

He stays for another hour or so, until the sun has set and the streetlamps and the moonlight are the only things keeping the world visible. Your mom forces him to accept tupperwares full of leftovers from the night and makes him promise to come back with his daughter. Sneakily, she tells you to help him carry the tupperwares home even though he’s more than able to do it himself, then hugs him goodbye, hurrying you out of the door.

Sunghoon hasn’t yet changed the lightbulbs to more efficient ones, so his kitchen bathes in the faint glow of the overhead lighting as you put away the leftovers in his fridge. He stands a bit to your right close behind you, closer than needed to simply hand you the tupperwares he was holding. When everything is stored, you turn around, but you’re trapped between his body and his arm that holds the fridge door open. With his free hand, he takes you by the waist and pulls you gently towards him. “Careful,” he says so quietly, it’s almost a whisper, and closes the fridge door behind you. 

He’s never been this forward with you, and even though you’ve fantasized many times about this exact moment, now that it’s really happening, you don’t know what to do except to search for an explanation in his eyes. His eyes that are looking right into yours and are a bit clouded over, from the alcohol or the proximity between the two of you or both, you don’t know, but that also have the twinkle of a smile in them. 

His lips are close enough to kiss, you think, and as if on cue, his gaze drifts down to your slightly parted lips. “You’re very pretty, Y/N,” he says, before sealing your lips with his own. You respond immediately to his kiss - you’ve thought too much about it to stand there and do nothing - but it’s all so slow and so soft that you’re not sure if it’s actually happening, so dreamlike it all feels.

You’re called back to reality when his other hand finds your waist, your own hands coming up to his shoulders before one of them snakes its way to the nape of his neck, tugging lightly at his hair. This seems to change something in Sunghoon, who all of a sudden tightens his hold on your waist, his arms wrapping around it to bring you closer to him. His kiss gets faster and deeper too, and, to your surprise but not your distaste, a bit desperate. You’re happy if you have on him half of the power he has on you. You taste sweet vanilla ice cream and tangy beer on his tongue, and it’s not at all unpleasant. It makes you want to eat cherries together so you can then taste them in his kiss. 

A lustful sigh escapes your lips and then the warmth disappears all at once. Sunghoon looks at you like you just woke him up from a deep slumber and takes a step back away from you. You call out for him worriedly and the sound of his name seems to make him think he did something terribly wrong.

“I-I’m sorry, Y/N, I don’t know what came over me. We shouldn’t do this, it’s not- I shouldn’t have done that,” he sighs, looking defeatedly at the ground.

“Why?” you ask quietly, almost inaudible.

“You should go home,” he snaps, then closes his eyes as if in pain, cringing at his harsh tone. “I’m sorry. I think you should go home, it’s getting late,” he repeats, softer this time, but the words still sting.

“O-okay,” you say to the floor, already feeling tears well up in your eyes. You feel like you just got rejected by your high school crush, and the humiliation makes you want to crawl into a hole and die. 

Sunghoon sighs again. “I’ll let you know tomorrow about the furniture shopping, yeah? Chaeryeong is coming in the morning so we can go with her.”

“O-okay,” you repeat, surprised he still wants to do that with you. “Good night, Sunghoon,” you say without looking at him and scurry out of his house.

“Good night, Y/N,” Sunghoon answers to the emptiness after you’ve left, touching his lips with the tips of his fingers and feeling the ghost of your kiss there.

—

Truth be told, you haven’t always loved cherries. Because of a heinous lie your older brother had made you believe when you were just six years old, you hadn’t eaten cherries for two summers in a row. It was the summer your parents had finally allowed you to eat cherries as they came from the trees in your backyard - beforehand, they’d been too scared that you’d choke on the pit or swallow it unknowingly, and had always prepared purées or other forms that cherries can take for you to eat, so to be finally handed the small fruit and told “go ahead, try it,” felt like an honor. 

A simple “don’t forget to spit out the pit” from your mother had sufficed for you to be careful, and yet, your brother had thought a fear tactic would be more effective. “If you swallow it, a tree will grow inside your belly and make you puke out cherries,” he’d lied when it was just the two of you at the outdoor table. 

“Really?” you asked him in disbelief, horror written all over your face as you looked at the seemingly harmless yet deadly fruit in your hand. You’d already eaten two and were in the middle of eating a third; your brother nodding ‘yes’ in response was all it took for you to spit out the cherry furiously and immediately start sobbing, afraid you’d swallowed one even though all three pits were right there on the table, a guarantee that no unwanted flora would grow inside of you. 

Your mother rushed outside at the sound of your wailing and quickly put two and two together when she saw your brother laughing uncontrollably while you hid your face in your hands, desolately imagining your future as a walking cherry tree. She held you tight in her arms as she told your brother off and reassured you that he was just playing a stupid prank on you. Still, the simple thought of swallowing a pit had terrified you and you were unable to eat cherries for the remainder of the summer and the one after that.

This is the story you tell Chaeryeong and her dad as the three of you sit outside together, making them laugh - although, a few minutes later, when Sunghoon is gone to the bathroom away, Chaer leans over the table and whispers, “It’s not true, is it?” so you reassure her that you’ve eaten cherries your whole life and have never had one single root take life in your tummy. 

It’s been a bit over a week after you shared that kiss in his kitchen, and the awkward atmosphere is just starting to fade. You’re glad he didn’t ignore you after that night, even if pretending nothing happened when both of you are very aware that something did happen is only the slightly better alternative. It’s a refreshing change from boys that sleep with you and then act like you don’t exist, for sure.

The kiss hasn’t done anything to burst the tension; if anything, it’s made it even more electric. You catch him looking at your lips more than once and you wonder why he still acts the same way as before when he’s made it very clear he didn’t think kissing you was a good idea. Catching him shirtless one night in his bedroom doesn’t help, and neither does him catching you staring at him - you’d quickly shut the curtains, but it was too late, and he’d seen you ogling his toned chest and abs.

At least, the fact that Chaeryeong is here forces a bubbly atmosphere upon you, and you hope you’re not crazy when you notice him fondly looking at the both of you interacting. Chaer is an outgoing little girl and seems to have liked you as soon as you complimented the toy puppy in her hand, saying you used to have the same and it was your favorite.

The day you went food shopping was practically hell to get through. One evening, you were holding onto Sunghoon for dear life, finally kissing him, and the next afternoon, you were browsing through the endless aisles of your local IKEA, holding his daughter’s hand and pretending like you hadn’t kissed her daddy.

When it got to the bedroom part of the store, you and Chaer decided to try all the mattresses and find the most comfortable one. You usually were never one for seating and laying on random beds in stores, but there was a kid with you, so you were sure it’d be fine. When you found the one you liked most, you looked up at Sunghoon from your position and said, “This one’s pretty good, Sunghoon.” His immediately reddening cheeks told you everything you needed to know and you quickly sat up, clearing your throat. He tested the mattress by pushing his palm against it and muttered a “yeah, it’s pretty good” before scribbling down the number of the mattress onto the small sheet of paper customers use to remember which products they wanted.

Of course, now that Chaer is with him and most of the work in the house is done, save for some minor things that Sunghoon can finish up on his own, you spend a lot less time together. You hate that you miss him so much. You miss the way he makes you feel, like your whole body is on fire with just one look or one touch, the way his stupid jokes make you laugh or how endeared he looks when he talks about his daughter. Seeing him with her only adds to your stupid crush - he’s doting, protective and caring, makes sure she has everything to be happy and manages to treat her at once like the kid that she is but also like a human that has opinions and feelings. He’s a really good dad, and that does nothing whatsoever to stop your DILF fantasies, although now, it’s really Sunghoon that you want, and the fact that he’s a dad isn’t a dealbreaker, it just makes him that much better.

You hate that you miss him, and yet being with him is somehow worse, because you can’t do any of the things you want to do. You fall asleep one two many nights dreaming about his lips and how nice it’d be to feel them again - on your lips, on your neck, everywhere. You want to feel him everywhere, and this longing lust is starting to drive you crazy. You’d never wanted anyone this much.

He invites you over for dinner one night, and the look he gives you when he opens the door sends a shiver right down your spine. “Hi, Y/N.” 

“Hi, Sunghoon.”

He leads you into the kitchen with a hand on your waist, even though you’ve been in his house many times before and need no assistance getting there. A small, horny voice at the back of your head tells you that tonight may be the night, but you quickly shut it down, not wanting to get your hopes up all on your own.

Sunghoon serves you a glass of red wine, and you ask him what the occasion is. “Just to celebrate the house being almost done,” he answers with a smile.

Dinner would have gone as usual if Sunghoon wasn’t practically staring you down the whole time, eyes full of something you can’t quite put your finger on and that drives you crazy. His gaze lingers on you every time you speak, and he punctuates the syllables of your name like he’s trying to get a feel for them on his tongue.

Your heart is pounding in your chest when the clock strikes nine p.m. and it’s time for Chaeryeong to go to bed - you don’t know if you’ll be able to handle being alone with Sunghoon, and you might have to make a run for it, Cinderella-style. 

Chaer goes to the bathroom to wash up and change into her pajamas, and when she comes back, she asks - no, demands - that you’re the one who tucks her in, and who are you to say no to the cutest little girl on Earth? She holds you by the pinky as she drags you up the stairs to her room then buries herself in her covers, tapping on the bed next to her body for you to sit there. “Okay, now we can talk without Dad around,” she says all business-like.

She tells you about the boys at her school and the birthday party she went to last week and the latest drama with her friends. The both of you are too busy chatting and giggling to hear footsteps coming up the stairs and stopping at her door, hiding behind the wall. After ten minutes, she yawns loudly and says, “Can you call Dad? I think he’ll be sad if he doesn’t wish me good night.”

“Of course,” you reply and kiss her on the forehead, wishing her a good night yourself. You’re only half-surprised to find Sunghoon at the doorway, waiting for his cue.

“Wait up for me, yeah? I’ll just be a minute,” he says, that smile still on his lips, that smile that keeps you hoping.

“Okay,” you whisper, and head downstairs, nervously taking a sip from your wine glass as you wait for him on the living room couch.

He is indeed back in a very short time, too short a time for your nerves to settle, so when he sits down close to you on the couch, body turned towards yours, you can feel your heart in your throat. He traces the rim of his glass with the tip of his pointer finger and you both watch the slow movement for a bit, a heavy silence hanging over both of your heads. You wait for him to talk because you’re too scared of what you might say if you start the conversation.

“Y/N, I’ve been thinking,” he starts shakily, “about um, our kiss, the other day-”

“Oh, we don’t need to talk about that,” you quickly interrupt, waving your hand in dismissal at him. “You made it clear you didn’t like it-”

“No, that’s the thing-”

“And that you thought it was a bad idea-”

“No, just listen-”

“So let’s just forget about it, and-”

“Y/N,” Sunghoon says in a stern voice, raising his tone just enough to make you stop in your rambling.

“Yeah?” you look up at him, eyes wide open. Expecting, as always.

“I haven’t once stopped thinking about that kiss,” he says, sounding out-of-breath. “I handled it awfully, and I’m so sorry that I made you feel like I didn’t like it, because, God, I liked it. A lot,” he chuckles. “Maybe even too much.”

There they are, the words you’ve been dying to hear. Yet all you can say is a stupid “Oh.”

“I just… I was tipsy, and Chaeryeong was coming the next morning, and I panicked. I didn’t know what to do for the rest of the week, and you didn’t say anything, so I didn’t, either. But I can’t pretend like it isn’t there.”

“Like what isn’t there?” you echo, voice almost low as a whisper.

“You know… this,” he replies, voice as low as yours. Slowly, one of his hands comes up to trace your jawline. You release a shaky breath as you set your wine glass on the coffee table and rest your hand on his knee.

“Are you sure about this? ‘Cause if you tell me that you want me… then I’ll be all yours, Sunghoon,” you murmur, hands slowly sliding up his thigh. He takes you by the wrist and puts your hand right on top of his already growing erection, letting you know exactly how he feels about you.

“God, can’t you see what you do to me? I want you so bad, Y/N,” he almost growls, and with that, his lips are on yours, trapping you into a kiss far hungrier and more ferocious than the previous kiss, your mutual intentions finally laid out in front of you for you both to see.

Sunghoon wastes no time as he grabs you by the waist and brings you to his lap, sitting you on top of his crotch so that you can feel his hardening cock against your core. The kiss turns desperate in mere seconds, and you’re relieved to see that Sunghoon seems to have been waiting for this as long and with as much ardor as you have. Your hands are fisting his hair, tugging almost harshly, while his hands roam the expanse of your back until they settle on your ass, grabbing at it to press you closer to him. You can’t stop yourself from moaning into his mouth when his erection rubs over your core in just the right way, and he takes that opportunity to add tongue to the kiss, deepening it.

You start to grind yourself against him, which he helps you do by slightly rutting his hips into yours and bringing your ass closer at every movement. Quickly, you fall into a rhythm so perfect and that feels so good, you think you might explode right then and there. Forget riding his thigh, this is infinitely better.

Needing to catch your breath, you pull away from the kiss, but your lips find his jaw immediately and you start pressing wet, needy kisses there and down his neck, sucking in some spots so that light bruises appear. “Fuck, Y/N, that feels so nice,” he breathes, eyes shut closed. His scent drives you crazy, and his small praise makes you double down on your actions, almost biting the soft skin of his neck.

As you continue kissing him there, occasionally returning to his lips for more, his hands roam your thighs and then up your back, snaking themselves under your t-shirt and finding the clasp of your bra, quickly doing away with it. He pulls away just so he can help you out of your top and takes your bra off of you, hands caressing your sides as he admires your half-naked body in all its glory. You take his hands and bring them to your chest, resting your hands on top of his as you continue grinding onto him and let him play with your boobs. “You’re so fucking hot,” he practically moans, making you chuckle. You reach for the hem of his t-shirt, because it’s only fair that you get to see him too, and you bite back a moan when he uses the absence of your hands on his to pinch your nipples lightly, then takes one in his mouth, catching you off-guard. You forget all about your plan of undressing him as his tongue flicks at the perked bud, your hands finding his hair again as you moan unabashedly. 

“S-Sunghoon,” you breathe, the combined feelings of his now fully hard cock pressing against your clothed but soaking cunt and of his warm mouth around your nipples really getting to your head and making you see stars, so that all you can say is his name. “Please,” you beg, you’re not sure what for. Mercy, perhaps. Or release.

“Please what, baby?” he asks, and the nickname goes straight to your core.

“I don’t- just, please, Sunghoon, please,” you say incoherently, making him chuckle.

“Okay,” he says as if he can read your mind, and you think he actually does when he lays you down on the couch, fingers finding the zipper of your shorts. He unbuttons them and slides them down your legs along with your soaked panties. He makes sure they’re fully off of your body before running his palms up both of your legs, from your ankles to your hips.

“Don’t tease, please,” you plead, too desperate for him to take his time.

“As you wish, princess,” he smirks, and brings a finger to your folds, sliding it down to gather some slick before pushing it inside your hole. Your back arches as an instant response to his touch and you let out a small whine, already craving for more. “Fuck, so wet, and all for me, yeah?” he questions, his eyes not once leaving your glistening pussy.

“Yes,” you breathe out, mind too fuzzy to produce a longer sentence.

“That’s a good girl,” he coos, and adds another finger, pushing all three of his knuckles in and massaging your sweet spot as soon as he finds it. When he’s found a rhythm for his motions, he finally looks up at you and curses himself for not having watched your face earlier. Head tilted back in pleasure, mouth agape as your breathing gets more and more irregular and eyebrows scrunched together, you look like the definition of sex, and it takes everything in Sunghoon to not start touching himself.

He forces himself to look away from you only to focus back on your pussy and notices your swollen clit that is begging for attention. He licks it tentatively, and when your back arches at the feeling of his tongue on you, he dives in completely, licking a stripe up your folds before wrapping his lips around the bud and sucking at it like he did with your nipples earlier. The pace at which his fingers are pumping out of you quickens and you’re pulling so hard at his hair, you think you might rip some strands off. You feel yourself getting close, and you’re reminded of all those frustrating encounters with college boys where they stopped right before you came, so you can’t stop yourself as you desperately chant “oh my God please don’t stop please don’t stop,” not even noticing the way you’re holding his head down against your clit and bucking your hips into his face.

Your orgasm hits you like a truck - this is probably the first one you’ve received from someone other than your own hand or your vibrator in the past year and a half. It takes your breath away, and you’re left gasping for air for a good thirty seconds, your mind reeling from the intensity of such pleasure. When you calm down, you lift your head to look at Sunghoon who’s already watching you with a grin on his face, your slick coating his chin and mouth.

You plop your head back down with a groan when realization hits you. “I’m sor-”

“Don’t even finish that sentence,” Sunghoon commands, hands rubbing your still-trembling thighs. “That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he marvels, and you can’t help but giggle.

“Really?”

“Really.”

After another couple of seconds, you sit up on the couch and send Sunghoon a mischievous look. My turn, you think, and if his smile is any indicator then he seems to have understood. “Let me thank you,” you say, gesturing at him to sit up himself as you lower yourself to your knees on the couch in front of him.

You look up at him from between his thighs then unclasp his belt and undo his jeans. He lets out a shaky breath and says, “You don’t need to do this, you know-”

“Don’t be a gentleman, Sunghoon. I want to do this and I know you want it too. It’s pretty obvious,” you tease as you run your hand over his erection, watching in delight as his eyebrows furrow and his eyes close. “Now help me get these off of you.” He nods and raises his hips so you can take his jeans and underwear off, imitating his actions from before as you take your time to get them over his ankles and caressing his legs until they reach his crotch, watching as he takes his t-shirt off as well so that you can finally see him entirely. You’d caught glimpse of him shirtless before as he worked in his garden, but the sight still manages to take your breath away. Taut muscles and sun-tanned skin, laid bare right before you. This is what they mean by sculpted like a Greek god, you think.

You haven’t done anything, yet his head is already laid back against the top of the couch, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he gulps in expectation and chest rising visibly at every intake of breath. You must’ve saved a thousand souls in your previous life to be deserving of such an image.

You spit in your palm before taking him, starting out by slowly moving your hand up and down his shaft, then rubbing small circles against his tip, the small moan-like sighs that leave his lips letting you know you’re doing a good job. You gather some saliva in your mouth and spit on his length to add some lubricant and smirk when he lets out a low fuck. You bring your head closer and lick his balls, taking one at a time in your mouth and sucking very gently, making the volume of his moans increase. “Just like- fuck, just like that, Y/N.”

You then lick a long stripe up his cock and swirl your tongue around his tip when you reach it, humming at the taste of precum there. Sunghoon gathers your hair in a makeshift ponytail so it doesn’t get in your way, and finally looks down at you, blown away by the beautiful sight of your flushed cheeks and your mouth around his cock. He groans when you take him deeper and unconsciously bucks his hips into your throat, making you gag around him. He loves that feeling but doesn’t want to hurt you so he grabs your face and makes you look up at him, lust and worry written all over his face as he apologizes, but you quickly stop him. “It’s okay, I like it. You can do it again,” you say, and smile before wrapping your lips around him once more.

“Fuck, are you sure?” he asks and you hum, sending vibrations all over his body.

“God, o-okay,” he says, in disbelief that you’re okay with him practically fucking your throat and even liking it. And you do like it - you love letting him use your mouth to get off, just like you had earlier with him. He must have amazing core strength because he’s able to buck his hips into your mouth rapidly as he holds your head tight in his hands. The way you keep coming back for more every time he lets you breathe is enough to drive him crazy, but after a couple minutes, he stops you from taking him in your mouth again.

“I can’t- I don’t wanna cum like this,” he breathes, looking just as fucked-out as you do.

“Where, then?” you ask, kissing him all over his thighs as he trails his fingers through your hair. “Inside?”

He groans at the offer but shakes his head, eyes shut as if trying to calm himself down. “I haven’t got any condoms.”

“I’m on the pill,” you tell him, still pressing kisses on his warm skin. You’re far too desperate to feel him inside you to let a lack of condom stop you, especially when you don’t even need one.

He lets out an umpteenth shaky breath and makes you look up at him. “Are you sure?”

“Sunghoon,” you say, looking him dead in the eyes, “I’ve never been more sure of anything.” You’re relieved when he smiles and nods, bending down to trap your lips in a heated kiss for good measure. Something about being in this position, kneeling in front of his spread thighs and having to look up at him, turns you on even more.

“Okay, then,” he says, still smiling as he pulls away, holding you gently by the chin. “I don’t think I’ll be able to last long, and I want to feel you cum around me. So, tell me, what’s your favorite position, princess?”

The question takes you aback but you answer it anyway, looking at the ground. “Reverse cowgirl…” you admit shyly, a small smile spreading on your lips.

“Reverse cowgirl, huh?” Sunghoon repeats, and you don’t need to look at him to know he’s smirking. “Come here, then,” he says, and helps you up, making you turn around so your back faces him and seats you down on top of him, keeping your hips raised. He takes his cock inside his hands, pumps it a few more times before guiding it to your entrance, pressing kisses to your shoulders and nape to make you relax. 

You moan at the simple feeling of his tip teasing your entrance and Sunghoon whispers “I know, baby” against your skin. “Sit down for me,” he commands gently, and you oblige, lowering your hips slowly to feel all of him stretching you out, the both of you moaning in synchronization when he bottoms out.

Sunghoon wraps an arm around your middle and pulls you onto him so that your back rests against his chest and you can let your head hang back next to his. “Let me do all the work, yeah?” he murmurs into your ear, and you hum in response. He doesn’t move for a bit, roaming his large hands all over your body until he feels your walls relax around him. One of his hands finds your breasts, playing with each nipple in turn, while the other finds your clit. It’s all so much but so good that you’re already a moaning mess before he’s even started moving. “Ready?” he asks, but you’re too far gone to answer.

His pace starts out slow, but you’re impatient and whine as you try to move your hips against his to go faster, which makes him tut. “I told you I’d do the work, didn’t I?” he asks, pinching one of your nipples in reprimand. “So be good for me and stay still, Y/N. I promise I’ll make you feel good.” You whine again but stop moving, heeding his words.

“Perfect,” he whispers and kisses your neck before picking up the pace, shushing you when your moans get too loud.

“I’m sorry, just feels too good,” you manage to let out.

“I know, but you need to stay quiet, baby,” he says, yet gets rougher with his thrusts, which does not help in the slightest. His hand that was on your breasts comes up to cover your mouth, but he quickly decides to make you suck on two of his fingers instead, muffling your moans a bit.

His fingers on your clit haven’t relented this whole time and after just a few minutes, you feel that familiar knot tying itself again in your stomach and you know you’re mere moments away from it coming undone. Judging by his rapid but clumsy thrusts, Sunghoon must be close too. He pounds into you like you’ve been wanting him to ever since you first set eyes on him as he entered the hardware store, hitting your g-spot over and over again. Tears roll down your cheeks and you whimper around his fingers, biting down on them as your second orgasm hits you.

You’re practically sobbing as he helps you ride out your high, his movements sending your body into pleasant overstimulation until he reaches his high too, the feeling of your pussy clenching tightly around him pushing him over the edge. Ropes of his semen paint your walls white, and there’s enough of it for him to become a father of two. You whine as he pulls away, and feel his cum slipping out of you and onto the couch underneath you. Before you can catch your breath, he asks, “Baby, can I do something very dirty?” and you nod without thinking much. This man could do anything he wanted to you, and you’d thank him for it.

He settles you back down onto the couch, kneels on the floor, head level with your core, and sticks his tongue inside your hole, making you yelp in surprise and overstimulation. You don’t understand what he’s doing until he comes back up and makes you open your mouth with his thumb, then spits inside it, telling you to swallow. You do as he says and taste his cum, laughing in disbelief at what he just did - and at how much you liked it. “Fuck,” you giggle.

“Was that too much?” 

“God, no,” you say, and he smiles. You open your arms, gesturing for him to get back on the couch. He rests his head between your breasts, the both of you sighing in contentment as he rubs small circles on your belly and you graze your fingers through his hair. He’s so silent that you think he’s fallen asleep, but he speaks up after a while, voice soft and calm like you’ve never heard before.

“We should go get cleaned up…” he says, and you hum in agreement, “...but it’s so nice here,” he finishes, making you giggle.

“If we get cleaned up quickly now, we can cuddle in bed right afterwards,” you argue.

“You’re right. Infallible logic. You’re so smart, you know that, Y/N?” he says, and you can hear the smile in his voice.

“Of course I know that,” you joke. “Let’s go,” you say, kissing the top of his head.

You take a shower together, cleaning each other and leaving kisses here and there, or touching in places you shouldn’t touch and that maybe lead to more, right there in the shower. Now that you’ve had a taste, you’re insatiable, and you warn Sunghoon that the both of you are in for a very long night, to which he answers that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Once you do fall asleep, (which isn’t until two rounds later, and you’re surprised either of you have this much energy), however, you’re holding each other tightly, the fan on high so that you don’t feel all sticky, being so close to each other. Even if you wake up here and there because he shuffled or he snored too loudly, it’s one of the best sleeps you’ve ever had.

—

You wake up the next morning by small giggles and snorts that come from none other than Park Chaeryeong herself, who’s buried herself between you and her dad, shaking her body to wake the two of you. You’re glad that you listened to Sunghoon when he told you to put on a t-shirt of his as well as some underwear so neither you or Chaer would have a fright when she came and woke you up as she liked to do every morning. “You had a sleepover!” she exclaims excitedly when she sees you’ve finally opened your eyes, looking at her with a sleepy expression and a smile.

“We did!” you reply, trying to keep the same level of excitement.

“We did,” Sunghoon repeats, taking his daughter in her arms to hug her tightly and blows a raspberry in her neck to make her laugh.

“You didn’t invite me!” she shrieks when her dad’s left her alone.

“Sorry, sweetheart. It was just me and Y/N.”

“No fun,” she pouts, laying on her back and crossing over arms before turning back to her dad. “So, is Y/N my new mom?” she whispers even though you’re right there. You gasp at her question, making wide eyes at Sunghoon who just snorts, and you can’t tell if she’s genuinely asking or if she’s an eight-year-old with an advanced sense of irony.

“Of course not. Is Heeseung your new dad?” he asks, mentioning his ex’s new boyfriend. Chaer shakes her head.

“No. He’s Mommy’s boyfriend.”

“Exactly, and Y/N is Daddy’s girlfriend. Isn’t she?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at you, smirking.

“She is,” you reply, and Chaer turns back to you, giggling. She snuggles close to you, wrapping an arm around your middle, and you’re taken aback by the sheer cuteness of it all. You look at Sunghoon with a fake pained expression, and he smiles endearingly at the two of you before sighing and joining you in your hug. He rests his arms around you and his daughter, kissing the top of your heads in turn. 

“My girls,” he mutters in your hair, and you smile peacefully.

There’s a lot of things you have to talk about with Sunghoon. You know your parents - especially your mom - will be okay with the two of you together, but will his parents be? And once semester starts again, what will happen? You’ll have to go back to campus and he’ll have to stay here - will a three-hour drive be a dealbreaker, or will you make it work?

The thing is, there’s no point in thinking about all of this at this moment. You’ve got the whole summer to figure things out. For now, you’ll eat cherries and spit out the pits, and everything will be perfect.

this is a one shot, there will not be a part two!

permanent taglist: @k-ingzo @bbujiikseu @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts (ask to be removed/added!)

© asahicore on tumblr, 2023. please do not repost, translate or plagiarize my works. feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!

[vonne-inc]

product: yandere husband.

gender neutral reader. mainly fluff. yandere-ish (a little).

yandere husband, who met you a few months after your high-school graduation. being a barista at his parent's cafe and seeing you walk up to the counter. oh, how he immediately fell in love with you. he found you beautiful— no, more than beautiful; glorious, angelic, heavenly.. there were too many words to describe you. he knew you were perfect.

yandere husband, leaving his number on the receipt taped to your to-go drink. he watched as you glanced at the writing while walking out the door. your eyes met his, smiling as you held your phone in your palm. his heart raced with nervousness. his phone buzzed as it showed a text message from an unknown number. when he lifted his head, you were gone. he was happy, elated even.

yandere husband, at work or at home texted you any moment he could. he really liked you— you were just so fun and interesting! he couldn't get enough of you, and you could get enough of him.

yandere husband, after a few dates and flirty conversations, you started dating him. his obsessive and possessiveness didn't start until your first i love you's. only then did he realize that he needed your touch, your voice, your presence, all of you. he needed you, only you.

yandere husband, after two years of dating him, fully comfortable and accustomed to each other, he's asking if you'd ever want to get married. after months of talking and questions, hinting at the idea, he finally proposes. on one knee as you're in bed while the early sun shines through the curtains. it was a beautiful scene for your eyes.

yandere husband, who is smiling from ear to ear once you say yes, pulling you into a long, loving kiss. now he can plan his next moves to have you all for himself, forever.

yandere husband, smiling brightly as he watches you walking down the aisle. your attire fitting you perfectly, it was divine on you. he could feel himself falling in love with you all over again.

yandere husband, who said his vows, holding your hands as he repeated the rehearsed words he spent months on writing. there were too many things for him to say, words couldn't describe how you made him feel. the love you brought him were beyond description— you were ineffable, intangible, unutterable. he'd do anything for you; go through any suffering or pain for you. he'd even kill for you, if it came down to it. once he'd end his speech, kissing your knuckles, he'd listen to your vows with a loving smile.

yandere husband, as soon as he was able to, he pulled you in close as he cupped your cheek and kissed your lips. a short yet eternal kiss that made him feel like the luckiest man on earth. parting, he held his lips near your ear, whispering, "'til death do us part."

yandere husband, once the wedding was over, he carried you to your shared hotel suite. immediately climbing into bed with you, smiling widely as he peppers you in kisses. you stay in his arms during the night, comfortably sleeping in his embrace after the long and overdrawn day. he adores your sleeping figure, keeping himself as still as possible as to not wake you. oh, how he can't wait to spend the rest of forever with you. "you're mine and i'm yours, my love. forever and always."

[jakeshands]

stars will fall

pairing, park sunghoon x fem! reader

synopsis, you’ve had a crush on park sunghoon for the longest time. all you’ve ever wanted was sunghoon to notice you, or at least pick you out of the dozen other girls throwing themselves at his feet. you can’t believe it takes a zombie apocalypse for him to notice you.

genre, zombie apocalypse au, aouad au, strangers (?) to lovers, mutual pining to lovers

warnings, angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, swearing, lots of death, minor character death, open/ambiguous ending, reader gets cut with a knife, lots of mentions of blood, stabbing, mentions of guns.

word count, 16.4k

author’s note, heavily inspired by all of us are dead, like there might be some similiar scenes from aouad in this fic😨 please enjoy reading this it was A Lot To Write. i also watched a the last of us gameplay while writing this…so theres some tlou influence in this fic as well. maybe i’ll write a tlou au who knows?! also this fic is heavily unedited, pls mind my mistakes Lol! this fic is for daphne, ily the hoonerz to my jake🫶🫶

Your life is like a wave brushing against the shoreline. It’s full of routine. It’s full of gentle actions and gentle words. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. Your life isn’t remarkable; you spend your days at school and in your apartment with your mother. You spend nights eating at the chicken restaurant your friend’s parents own. You study until you pass out. Rinse and repeat.

Your life is like a steady wave brushing against the shoreline. It’s a natural occurrence. You stay in the routine you’ve known your whole life. Wake up, take a shower, have breakfast with your mom, walk with Seeun to school, sit next to Kim Sunoo and listen in on his conversations hoping you’ll hear a word about Park Sunghoon, you sit with Seeun in the cafeteria at lunch and watch Park Sunghoon, you go back to class. After school you walk home with Seeun, study at the chicken restaurant her parents own, go to the karaoke booth next door for an hour, walk back to your apartment with Seeun, and study until you pass out. Rinse and repeat.

Today is nothing out of the ordinary. You kiss your mother goodbye and wait outside your apartment for Seeun. The door next to you swings open and Yoon Seeun steps out, a white ribbon tying her hair back. “Y/N!” Seeun cheers, reaching for your hand. “Sorry I’m late. Are you ready to go? I think we’ll have enough time to make it before they start handing out detention slips.”

You hum. “You better wish for that, Seeun. We’ve cut it close before, but never this close. C’mon, I want to at least get to school and have a few seconds to stare at Sunghoon from afar.”

Seeun giggles and you ignore her. You know what Seeun thinks of your crush, she thinks you should just confess your feelings to Sunghoon. “There’s no harm, Y/N!” Seeun’s always told you, but she just doesn’t get it. There’s so much to lose when it comes to facing someone like Park Sunghoon who was built by the hands of Earth.

Park Sunghoon is a widely-known name in the province. He’s an up-and-coming figure skater, his visuals are akin to the K-pop idols you see at university festivals, his body proportions are those of a model’s. His personality, well, that’s a part of the mystery called Park Sunghoon. His name may be widely spoken about, but no one has helpful information about Park Sunghoon. If he’s ever talked about, it’s either about his figure skating career, his looks, or his friends. Sunghoon’s never spoken to anyone outside of his family and close friends as far as you’re aware. You’ve been going to the same school as Sunghoon ever since you could remember and he’s always hung out with the same six boys.

Your crush on Sunghoon started when you were fourteen. Puberty was a crazy time for you. The girls and boys were maturing and separating into groups, it wasn’t the same anymore. You stuck with Seeun, of course, because she was the only friend you ever made. You remember the day you started liking Sunghoon with clarity. It was after school, you were at Seeun’s chicken restaurant and Sunghoon entered. He was laughing with his friends over something, and you swear you’ve never seen anyone laugh prettier than Sunghoon. It was like time had slowed as you watched Sunghoon laugh. It was then, you realized you wanted to see Park Sunghoon laugh for the rest of your life.

Too bad the world wasn’t on your side and as years passed, Sunghoon became more withdrawn and seeing him laugh became something of the past. Now, you rarely ever saw Sunghoon. The only times you were given chances to see Sunghoon was before school started and at lunchtime. You took those moments and cherished them.

You thought this year would change everything; you were assigned to sit beside Kim Sunoo, one of Park Sunghoon’s closest friends. But most of the year has passed and you haven’t said anything more than four sentences to Kim Sunoo. Darn you and your social awkwardness. Soon you’ll have to resign and admit the truth; you’re nothing more than another one of Park Sunghoon’s fangirls.

You and Seeun rush across the street and through the school’s gates hand-in-hand. Only a few minutes left until school starts and detention slips are handed out. Breathing heavily as you slow down into a walk, you glare at Seeun. “That was extremely close, See.”

Seeun rolls her eyes. “Whatever, Y/N. Let’s go find your loverboy.”

You did not get to see your loverboy that morning. You slouch in your seat that morning, pouting lightly as you drew random stars all over your textbook. You’ll always have lunchtime to stare at Sunghoon from afar and wonder what it would be like to sit next to him and listen to him laugh. Beside you, Sunoo stares out the window, sunlight washing across his face. You’ve always thought Sunoo was handsome. His visuals are sharp and fox-like, it’s no wonder he’s the most admired boy on campus behind Park Sunghoon. (He’s often referred to as the Handsome Oppa of your class.)

A chair scrapes back drawing your attention away from Sunoo. Kang Suyeon stands, her hands resting against the desk in front of her. Suyeon’s face was extremely pale and sweat dripped down the side of her face. “Excuse me, could I please go --” Suyeon couldn’t even finish her sentence because she faints and panic spreads through the classroom.

“Kim Sunoo! Kim Y/N!” The teacher gestures for you to help her lift Suyeon up. “Let’s go to the nurse’s office.” The teacher says after both of Suyeon’s arms are wrapped around your and Sunoo’s shoulders. Together, you and Sunoo struggle under Suyeon’s weight to take the fainted girl to the nurse’s office.

“Poor Suyeon,” Sunoo says gently, his eyes darting over to you, “I hope she’s okay.”

You nod slightly in response. “Me too.”

Entering the nurse’s office you freeze up -- why is Sunghoon here?

“Y/N?” Sunoo asks, looking at you questioningly. A blush spreads over your face and you stumble forward, placing Suyeon on the bed next to where another student lies, face also pale and sweating. Park Sunghoon and Sim Jaeyun stand next to the boy watching as Nurse Jeon checks whatever needs to be checked.

One look at Suyeon and Nurse Jeon glances at your teacher. “Another one?”

“What do you mean, Sooyoung?”

Nurse Jeon drags your teacher out of the office leaving you alone with Sunoo, Jaeyun, Sunghoon, and two unconscious students. Afraid to glance around the room, your eyes never leave Suyeon. Her chest rises and falls at a rapid rate, and she’s sweating more than she was in the classroom. You stare at her hands, the area around her cuticles was bleeding pretty badly. Suyeon must’ve been picking at her skin before she fainted.

“Did she also faint, Sunoo?” Jaeyun asks. “Joon also fainted. Fell right out of his seat.”

Sunoo nods. “Suyeon stood up to ask the teacher something, but fainted halfway through her sentence,” Sunoo glances at the doorway of the office and then leans across the bed Suyeon lay on, lowering his voice. “I heard a rumor a couple of days ago. Apparently, Suyeon’s pregnant.” Sunoo looks back at Suyeon, “that’s probably why she fainted.”

It’s silent for a few moments before Sunghoon snorts. “You don’t believe that bullshit rumor do you, Sunoo?”

“Hey!”

You hear a chuckle. Looking up, you find Sunghoon grinning as his shoulders move. He was laughing and your insides curl up. You’re finally hearing the laugh you’ve been dying to hear for years.

“You’ll be eating your words soon, Sunghoon,” Sunoo scowls. “Nurse Jeon will walk back in and check Suyeonie and say she’s pregnant. You’ll owe me ten thousand won.”

Sunghoon laughs again. You really like his laugh.

Suyeon jolts awake suddenly, shattering apart the joyful mood in the room as everyone jumps back. “Suyeon --” your voice stops sharply when Suyeon grips your wrist, her fingernails digging into your skin and you cry out. You use your other hand to try and pry off Suyeon’s hands but to no avail.

Another hand appears and helps pry off Suyeon’s hand. “Jaeyun,” Sunghoon calls out, “hold her down. You too, Sunoo.” He calls for nurse Jeon after, taking your wrist into his hand as blood trails down from where Suyeon’s nails had dug into your skin and drops onto the white bedsheet. His hand is warm. “You’re hurt.” His eyes dig into yours. You feel uncomfortable beneath Sunghoon’s gaze because it doesn’t hold the same warmth that was there when he talked to Sunoo.

“Right,” you say, your voice shaking.

Sunghoon leads you over to a chair as nurse Jeon subsides Suyeon with some sort of injection. Kneeling down in front of you, Sunghoon cleans and bandages up your wrist. Pressing lightly, he looks back up at you. “Replace the bandage with a new one tomorrow morning.”

“O-Okay.” You internally curse yourself. Why did you have to be so awkward around Sunghoon?

“Y/N,” Sunoo calls out, “it’s time for us to head back.”

Nodding your head, you scramble up out of your chair and step around Sunghoon. His touch burns your skin and your heart quickens. You pinch yourself. No. You weren’t dreaming but this certainly felt like a dream.

“Are you okay, Y/N? Suyeonie was gripping you really hard,” Sunoo asks, concern shining on his face.

You smile, your cheeks burning beneath his attention. “I’m okay Sunoo, thank you for asking.”

Sunoo beams. He really does remind you of the sun. “Seatmates care for each other!” Warmth floods your chest and your cheeks burn even more. Sunoo’s sincere words circle your mind even as you settle back down in your seat next to Sunoo.

—-

It was finally lunchtime. You watch Sunghoon from afar as he laughs with Lee Heeseung, throwing some food at the older boy. Beside you, Seeun admires the bandage Sunghoon placed on you. “Wow, this is like a relic, Y/N. I bet if you auction it off it could go for a high price. I don’t think anyone has ever been bandaged up by Sunghoon before.”

You huff and rip your wrist out of Seeun’s hands. “I forgot to say thank you to Sunghoon. I should probably go do that now because what if he thinks I’m impolite? Oh, I would never sleep at night if I knew he thought that.”

Seeun laughs. “Well, go on then, thank loverboy for bandaging you up. Gift him with a kiss while you’re at it.”

You scowl and take your eyes off Sunghoon. “Seeun, shut up.”

Seeun giggles and reaches out to pinch your cheeks. “Hey! It’s just a suggestion! And I didn’t mean on the lips, you crazy girl! The cheek would do just fine.”

You ignore Seeun and turn back around to stare at Sunghoon, only to find him gone. The table where he sits with his friends is abandoned and you slump, looking back at Seeun. “I missed my chance. Now he’s going to think I’m impolite for the rest of his life.”

Seeun laughs and rubs your back. “Y/N, I’m sure he doesn’t think that.”

You ignore Seeun and push the food in front of you around on your plate. “I’m doomed for eternity. He’ll probably tell Sunoo he thinks I’m impolite for not saying thank you to him and Sunoo will gossip about it and soon --”

You never get to finish your sentence because students rush into the cafeteria, terror plastered across their faces. Seconds later, you see the reason why they were terrified.

Zombies.

Zombies only ever existed in your imagination. They only ever existed in books, movies, and TV shows. Not once did you ever think you would be an active participant in a Zombie apocalypse. You couldn’t move a single muscle as you watch students around you scramble to the exit or get tackled to the ground by a hungry Zombie. Beside you, Seeun screams in terror.

The Zombies were grotesque. Their faces were mutilated; like someone had punched them over and over. Blood covered their faces, eyes were gorged out and hanging, teeth were missing, cheeks were cut open, the eyes that remained in the eyesockets were the darkest black you had ever seen, and their skin was a terrifying pale green color.

“Y/N!” Seeun screams, terrified.

You snap back into reality as the fire alarm goes off and the sprinklers turn on. You and everyone else in the cafeteria are drenched in seconds. You survey the carnage going on around you. Zombies were pouring in through every available entrance and exit. In all honesty, you believed that this would be where you would die.

Windows.

You pinpoint a window, and then a table beneath it. You could stack chairs on top of the desk. Grabbing Seeun, you both slip across the wet ground, narrowly avoiding the Zombies that were once people you knew. Seeun sobs loudly behind you, shrieking whenever a Zombie strayed too close to the both of you. Your main priority was Seeun, you needed her safe.

Reaching the window, you tell Seeun to help you push a table up against the wall. Behind you, screams of terror filled the silence. You heard snarling and bones cracking, you heard other students crying out the names of their friends dying in front of their eyes. You needed to get out. You needed to find safety -- an adult. You needed an adult.

Grabbing a chair, you climb onto the table and smash open a window. Seeun climbs onto the table next to you, her sobs now muffled by the palms of her hands. You place the chair on top of the table and step onto it peering out the window. It was safe. Far safer than the cafeteria. “You first,” you tell Seeun.

“Y/N --”

“Seeun,” you cut your friend off, gripping her tightly, “I need you safe. You’re going first.”

Seeun nods her head. “Okay. Okay. Me first.” With a shaky inhale, Seeun climbs onto the chair, grips the window pane, and pulls herself out of the cafeteria. “Your turn!” She calls out and relief floods your body. Glancing behind you, you see the carnage -- it’s a sight you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

You drop down next to Seeun and grab her hand. “Let’s go to the nurse's office,” you say to Seeun. “Nurse Jeon will know what to do.” Together you both run away from the cafeteria and out into the courtyard, not expecting other places to be swarmed with Zombies -- but they were everywhere.

You begin to wonder how this was even possible -- where did the Zombie army come from? How were they able to turn that quickly? A Zombie lunges for both you and Seeun and with a quick yank, you pull the both of you away.

“Y/N!” Seeun calls out, but you ignore her. Surely Nurse Jeon is alive. She has to be. If not, maybe you and Seeun could seek refuge in the nurse’s office. You drag Seeun toward one of the entrances to the school building, but it’s immediately blocked by Zombies. You divert to another path, but come up short and terror begins to flood your body at a faster rate.

You didn’t want to die -- you couldn’t. You still had so much left to do.

But everywhere you went, there were Zombies and at every wall, Seeun sobbed louder. Anger and terror flood your veins, it blinds you, and you take Seeun down to a quieter place. Leaning against the wall, you turn to Seeun. “Seeun --”

“Y/N,” Seeun interrupts, “it’s hopeless.”

“Seeun, don’t say that,” you say, taking her other hand into yours. “I’ll look for another way in -- surely there’s a window we can climb into --”

“Y/N!” You’ve never heard Seeun scream louder. Suddenly, you’re yanked behind Seeun and watching a Zombie tackle Seeun to the ground. The world slows. There’s a loud ringing in your ears as you watch the terror occurring in front of you. Seeun’s screaming, desperately reaching for you, but you can’t hear her. You drop to your knees and crawl forward. Tears drop onto your hands. You didn’t even know you were crying. When did you start crying?

Desperately, you try to pull the Zombie off Seeun but it’s no use. You aren’t strong enough. The world is still quiet. Seeun stills beneath the Zombie, her hand falling limply to the ground. The Zombie’s eyes focus on you and you give in. This is how you die. Abruptly, there’s another hand on your shoulder that slips down to your forearm and is yanking you up onto your feet.

“Y/N!” Someone shouts right next to you. Everything slams back in focus and you finally hear everything -- you hear someone sobbing loudly but Seeun’s dead? Who is the one crying now? You touch your face. Oh, you’re the one crying.

You’re yanked forward as the Zombie pounces your way. You stumble over your feet, but the hand on your forearm keeps you steady. You focus on your savior; silver hair, long legs, and a familiar warm grip. It’s Park Sunghoon -- what was Park Sunghoon doing?

You try to say something, but all that comes out is a sob. You don’t know what is happening. One moment you were sitting in the cafeteria with Seeun, and the next you were watching her die. Your arm hangs limp in Sunghoon’s grip as he drags you through the outside of the school. Zombies and lifeless bodies litter the ground. Loud screaming and snarls fill the air and you wonder if Seeun could make it out of this alive even if you did just watch her die. Seeun can’t be dead. Sure, you saw her arm fall to the ground, but Sunghoon had pulled you away too soon.

Seeun can’t be dead. With that thought, you rip your arm out of Sunghoon’s hold causing the older boy to top in his tracks. He whirls around, eyes wide as he focuses all his attention on you. In another situation, you would be frozen beneath this kind of attention, but right now, all you want is Seeun by your side once more.

“Y/N --”

“Seeun’s not dead. I need to go back for her.” You like to think you sound more articulate and calm, but all that comes out are sobs and jumbled-up words. You watch Sunghoon’s eyes droop in sympathy. “Seeun -- she’s not -- she can’t be --”

“Y/N,” Sunghoon takes your hand. “I’m sorry. But we have to keep moving. They’re waiting for us.” He springs back into action with you following behind, sobbing even louder. You don’t even remember how you make it into the school building. Tears fill your vision and Seeun’s death is repeated in your mind. The more you watch it, the more hopelessness fills you. Seeun’s really dead. There’s no denying it anymore. Seeun’s dead and you just watched her die.

The running stops. Sunghoon bangs on a door and it slides open. You and Sunghoon step into a familiar classroom filled with unfamiliar faces. Sunghoon drops your hand and helps whoever was behind you stack the chairs back on top of the desks keeping the door shut.

Once again, ringing fills your ears and the world quietens around you. Seeun’s death is still playing in your mind. Your eyes drop down to look at your hands, and you see the blood that wasn’t there before. You wail loudly and drop to your knees, bunching up your skirt and hurriedly scrubbing off the blood from your hands. It doesn’t work. The blood won’t come off your hands and you continue to sob.

There are voices.

“...Sunghoon what the fuck….”

“....../N? Why is she here, Sunghoon? You said you were getting…..”

“......just pick up random people!”

“….is she doing? Someone stop her, Y/N……”

Hands pull your skirt away. The rubbing stops and you look up. Sunghoon’s kneeling in front of you again, his mouth poised to speak when you shriek and scramble back from Sunghoon, your butt sliding across the floor. “Don’t touch me!”

Silence rings through the room.

You finally glance around the room. Lee Heeseung. Park Jongseong. Sim Jaeyun. Nishimura Riki. Kim Sunoo. Yang Jungwon. All of Sunghoon’s friends are gathered in one room. And now you’re here. You’re here, and Seeun’s out there. Lying all alone. You’re alive and Seeun’s dead and you watched. You watched Seeun die. Hot tears stream down your face and you desperately wipe them away with the back of your hand, not caring if blood is smeared across your face.

“Y/N,” it’s Sunoo. Your sweet seatmate settles in front of you. He reaches out and guides your hand away from your face, wiping the tears himself. There’s a gentle smile on his face. “You’re safe now.”

You ignore the purposeful cough after Sunoo’s words. You can worry about safety later -- for now, you’re in a classroom that isn’t full of Zombies. “Sunoo,” your voice cracks and you lean forward, your cheek pressed to Sunoo’s chest as he wraps you into a hug. “Seeun’s dead.”

“Oh, Y/N,” Sunoo’s hand rubs your back. “I’m sorry.”

There’s a loud bang on the door and everyone in the room jumps. Sunoo squeezes you tightly, his chest not moving beneath your cheek. The silence in the room is overwhelming. Seconds pass and there’s no other bang. “Let’s get you up, Y/N, come on.” Sunoo helps you up, wiping your face with his hands again.

Sunoo helps you to a chair, and as soon as you sit down, you notice everyone in the room looking at you. Bowing your head, the tips of your ears turn red.

“Y/N,” Sunghoon says and you peer at him. “Are you okay?”

Nishimura Riki snorts. “That’s a stupid question to ask, Sunghoon.”

“What else am I supposed to ask? ‘How’s your day going so far?’”

Jaeyun snorts, clearly amused but covers it up with a cough.

Sunghoon looks back at you, but you avert your eyes, opting to stare at your shoes instead. A heavy silence settles over the group. Noises that were still unfamiliar to you floated through the open window in the classroom. Goosebumps spread over your skin as you hear heavy footsteps run down the hallway. Everything happened so fast that you’re still running the events that lead up to this moment through your head.

The cafeteria. You were watching Sunghoon. Seeun was beside you. The Zombies came and you escaped out a window with Seeun.

The back exterior wall of a building. You and Seeun. Watching Seeun die. Sunghoon appears out of nowhere and drags you with him to some kind of safety.

The classroom. You’re with Sunghoon. And Sunoo. And their friends -- the friends everyone talks about. The world is muffled around you once more and your breathing grows shallow -- how are you supposed to get home? How are you supposed to look Seeun’s parents in the eye and tell her their daughter is dead and you watched.

“Y/N?” Sunoo’s gentle fingers brush hair behind your ear. He looks concerned as he holds your chin between his fingers. “Hey, it’s okay.” It’s not okay -- you don’t think it will ever be okay because Seeun’s gone. Your best friend is gone. And you hate how her death is the only thing you can see whenever you close your eyes.

You tune back into the conversation happening beside you. Jongseong sounds exasperated. “We’ll stay here until tomorrow. We have no plan, Heeseung. And Sunghoon decided to add one more person to our party of seven.” Jongseong sounds more than exasperated, he sounds resentful. You curl into yourself even more because it wasn’t like you asked to join Sunghoon, he was the one who pulled you away from your death sentence.

“Having Y/N doesn’t mean the end of the world, Jongseong,” Jaeyun says, sighing after his sentence. “Since Sunghoon brought her here, she’s his burden.”

Burden. That’s all you were to these seven boys. A burden. And no one wants to bear the burden.

Sniffling, you wipe your nose with the sleeve of your school cardigan and stand up. The chair scrapes against the ground and all attention is pulled to you once again. You stalk over to the corner of the classroom and slide down the wall, curling up into a ball, and pressing your face against your legs desperate to sleep because when you wake up, hopefully, you’ll be back in your seat beside Sunoo with the sun shining on your face and Seeun’s familiar giggles floating through the classroom.

—-

It’s night when you pull your face away from your legs. It’s gotten oddly quieter, the only noises are from the Zombies. Looking out into the darkened classroom, you find Jaeyun, Riki, Heeseung, and Sunoo playing a card game, using the light from the lamp outside the classroom as a way to see.

Someone drops down beside you. Park Sunghoon. He holds out half a slice of Tiramisu wordlessly. He holds the other half. You hadn’t realized how hungry you were until it was in your mouth. Instantly, you’re savoring the flavor and your taste buds are begging for more.

“How are you feeling, Y/N?” Sunghoon asks, his voice low.

You shrug. You didn’t know the answer to that question because you were feeling so much that it felt like nothing. Turning your head slightly you stare at Sunghoon, his silver hair standing out in the dark classroom. You don’t think you’ve ever seen anyone as perfect as Park Sunghoon. It was like his existence was written in the stars because no one has ever shone as brightly as he has. Sunghoon has everything anyone’s ever wanted.

“I’m sorry about Seeun,” Sunghoon says again, his eyes meeting yours.

“It’s okay,” you whisper, your finger tracing shapes on the dirty ground beneath you. Sunghoon’s uniform looks perfect like he had just put it on. His shoes, though, give it all away. They’re bloody, just like your skirt and your hands. “Can I call my mom?” You hate how your voice trembles. “I miss her. I want to hear her voice.”

“Oh,” Sunghoon glances over to his friends playing cards in the lamplight. “We don’t have any phones with us, Y/N.”

“Oh.” Your eyes burn again and you blink them away. You’re starting to grow sick of crying. “Do we know anything about this situation at all?”

Sunghoon shakes his head and his knee bumps yours. You feel the familiar warmth you felt back in the nurse’s office when Sunghoon bandaged you up.

The Nurse’s office.

“Sunghoon,” you start tentatively, his name rolling out of your mouth awkwardly. “What about Suyeon and Joon?”

Sunghoon looks at you confused.

“This morning. They both fainted and looked really pale and were sweating lots and what if they’re patient zero and one and --” Your heartbeat increases with each word you say, and it peaks as Sunghoon interrupts your sentence by grabbing your arm and peeling off your bandage.

Where there were four bloody scratches before, there was now nothing. It was as if you had never been scratched.

Your heart stills and you look up at Sunghoon who was already looking at you. “Sunghoon, I --”

A loud thud interrupts you. And another. And another. The silence in the classroom is loud. Sunghoon’s hand tightens around your wrist. Terror seeps through your blood and you adjust your position on the floor to be closer to Sunghoon.

Then, it happens all too fast; the window on the door to the classroom is smashed open and somehow, all the chairs stacked up on the table in front of the door go tumbling down onto the ground revealing a young boy. The snarling of the Zombies grows louder and the young boy, bleeding and terrified, pulls himself through the broken window of the door.

“Taki?” Nishimura Riki knows the boy. He’s looking at the unfamiliar boy with excitement, relief, and apprehension.

Turning around, the boy smiles when he spots Riki. “Riki! Hey!” He holds up his hand and waves and that’s when you, and everyone else see it. A bite. His hand is bloody and there, clear as daylight, is a bite.

Sunghoon’s hand is firmer around your wrist when he pulls you up off the ground. You keep your eyes on the scene unfolding in front of you -- Taki waving enthusiastically with a wide smile while Riki regards him in disbelief which turns into sadness.

“Taki,” Riki starts softly as Sunghoon leads you over to the rest of the group. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too, Riki!” Taki replies, still cheerful as ever.

The groans and snarls of Zombies grow even closer.

“Taki,” Riki says again, his voice still soft and eyes shining in the dark.

“Yeah?”

The first tear falls down Riki’s cheek. “You’re my best friend, you know that?”

“You’re mine too!” That’s when you notice it: Taki’s skin is beginning to turn green. Beside you, Heeseung and Jongseong exchange words in a low mumble.

“Sunghoon,” you whisper, “his skin. Look.”

“Y/N,” you look up at Sunghoon, his eyes rake over your face and even though you’re in the middle of imminent death, you feel warm. “Stick close.” His fingers brush over your wrist and somehow your stomach is still able to produce butterflies.

Heeseung walks closer to where Riki and Taki stand and lays a hand on Riki’s shoulder. “Riki,” Heeseung speaks, “we can’t stay here.” Behind you, a window clicks open. The tension in the room rises and you begin to feel unsettled. The groans of the Zombies are closer than ever.

“Heeseung --”

“Riki. We have to go.” Heeseung’s voice is hard and you see his hand digging into Riki’s shoulders.

“But Taki --”

“We can’t save him, Riki.”

There’s a loud snarl and that’s when you see it. One of the many Zombies crowding the door’s broken window. Flashes of Seeun’s death run through your mind and you can’t breathe. This feels all too scary and you want to escape. You want to go home. You want to be walking to school with Seeun again. You want to be fourteen and see Park Sunghoon laugh for the first time again.

“Riki? What’s going on?” Taki is confused. He doesn’t realize his skin is turning a light shade of green. He doesn’t notice the black liquid pouring out of his eyes. He doesn’t realize how black his eyes are turning. Taki steps closer as Riki and Heeseung step back.

“Taki,” Riki’s sob is heartbreaking. You hate this, you hate watching Riki have to come to terms with the fact his friend is turning into a Zombie. “You’ve been bitten.” Riki’s voice is thick as he speaks through the tears pouring down his face.

“What? No I’m not. Why are you saying these things, Riki?”

Behind you there’s movement. Glancing over your shoulder you find Yang Jungwon climbing out the window and slipping into the night.

There’s another thud and you find Taki on the ground with Heeseung gripping Riki tightly as the younger sobs loudly, adding more noise to snarling and groaning coming from the Zombies pressed up against the locked door.

In the next second, Taki is rising up from the floor and launching himself at Heeseung and Riki. Riki’s thrown out of the way and Heeseung tackles Taki down onto the floor. It’s like the Zombies are excited with the way they throw themselves at the door, eager to enter the room and take down the seven occupying the room.

There’s a flurry of movement behind you and you watch as Jongseong ushers Sunoo out the window. “You have to be careful, Sunoo,” Jongseong warns the boy, “one wrong move and you’re dead.”

Sunoo snorts. “That’s assuring, thanks, Jongseong.” And Sunoo’s gone, slipping into the night the same way Jungwon did. Suddenly, you’re being ushered forward, Jongseong’s sharp eyes slipping to you and immediate disdain creeps over his face.

“Y/N next,” Sunghoon demands from behind you.

“Sung--”

“She’s next.” Sunghoon’s voice leaves no room for argument and Jongseong huffs. You wonder how they both could be so calm in a situation like this. Behind you, you hear Heeseung grunt and Taki, the newly turned Zombie, growl. Riki’s sobs are loud and Jaeyun’s calming words aren’t doing anything to subdue the younger.

“What do I do?” You ask hesitantly, your voice quiet under Jongseong’s gaze.

“Climb out of the window and across to the broadcasting club’s room.”

Sunghoon’s hand slips from your wrist as Jongseong pulls you harshly towards the desk in front of the window. You look at him expectantly. “What?” Jongseong asks, “do you want to die?” You steal a glance at the horde of Zombies still pushing up against the door, their arms reaching through the window. You look at Heeseung, his school uniform getting torn beneath Taki’s needy hands, Jaeyun and Riki on the ground, and Sunghoon, who is behind you frowning.

When you look back at Jongseong, there’s shock hidden in his eyes. You wonder how he was able to figure out what you were thinking. You seriously wouldn’t mind dying right now. Jongseong’s reaching out and pulling you closer to him. You’ve never been this close to him. He looks extremely handsome.

“You’re not dying Y/N,” he whispers harshly, it’s hard to hear him over the noise echoing throughout the classroom. “And if you do die, it’ll be my own hands.” You never do get to ask Jongseong what he means because he’s pushing you towards the window and forcing you out. “Hold on, Y/N, and don’t look down. You’ll know when you’re at the broadcasting room because Jungwon will be waiting for you.”

The coldness of the night seeps through your school uniform. It does nothing to make the sweat on your hands evaporate, though. The ledge is not wide enough for a school kid to be inching their way across the outside of the school building. There’s little to nothing for your hands to grab onto and you don’t heed Jongseong’s advice. Looking down was your greatest mistake.

You’re so far up, and everywhere you look there’s a Zombie walking. One wrong step and you’re dead. You’re dead, and you won’t ever see Sunghoon again. One wrong step, and you’ll see Seeun again. Pushing yourself against the cool wall, you squeeze your eyes shut as tears form again. You didn’t want to be here in this situation. How did this all even happen? How did people you know turn into bloodthirsty monsters?

Opening your eyes, you see what Jongseong had meant when he told you Jungwon would be waiting for you. Light floods through an open window and there Yang Jungwon was, with fiery red hair, peering at you as he leans out of the window.

You don’t know much about Yang Jungwon; you just know the basics. He’s class president and head of the taekwondo club. He’s very good friends with Kang Taehyun and he works at a cat cafe. He’s also Park Sunghoon’s neighbor.

You inch your way over to the broadcasting club’s room, your hands sweatier than they’ve ever been. The horror that lay beneath you kept your heart rate beating at a rapid speed and kept terror streaming through your bloodstream.

Jungwon helps you into the broadcasting room, it’s much nicer in here and you spy a few water bottles resting on the desk. Instantly, you’re reminded of how thirsty you are. “Can we drink that?” You ask, making eye contact with Sunoo who spins around on a chair, his fingers fidgeting with whatever was in his lap.

“Go for it,” Sunoo says, “I think there’s enough for the eight of us.”

Riki is the next to join the three of you with bloodshot eyes and a runny nose. Sunoo, with pitying eyes, hands Riki a tissue box and gently cards a hand through the younger boy’s hair. Riki instantly melts into Sunoo’s touch and you feel your heart tugging in despair for the boy.

Jaeyun follows after Riki also looking incredibly disheveled. He converses with Jungwon in a low voice and you begin to grow restless waiting for the remaining three boys. It hasn’t even been a full day and you’re already exhausted. You’re ready for this to all be some kind of fucked up prank because you can’t take this anymore. You want to survive to see your mom again, but you’re already tired that the thought of giving yourself to the Zombies doesn’t scare you as much anymore.

Jongseong is the next to join. He doesn’t look happy, “they forced me to go. The door is about to break down and Taki’s only just been restrained --” There’s a loud cry, silence, and then a bone-shattering thud. You, along with the five boys, crowd the window and look out into the dead night. Someone’s lying on the pavement, their limbs bent in awkward angles and your breath catches.

Riki’s the first to turn away, Jaeyun following after. Sunoo’s hand snakes around your elbow and pulls you away from the window. “Come on, Y/N, let’s go sit and wait.” You could hear the desperation in Sunoo’s voice so you comply, also desperate for some sort of distraction from the fear telling you that body was Sunghoon.

“Sunoo,” you say in a hushed voice, your knees pulled up to your chest, “I was talking to Sunghoon before. We know nothing about what’s going on but what if Suyeon and Joon were the ones who started it? Think about it, Sunoo.” You were desperate to have some kind of answer because maybe then you could figure out a way to end this all, to bring everyone infected back.

Sunoo stares at you, his face morphing through many emotions. That was one thing you always loved about Sunoo, he was always transparent about how he felt. “Y/N,” Sunoo says in amazement, “oh my god. Suyeonie. She was pale, but I thought she looked kind of green, and Joon -- they were both sweating a lot and then --” his eyes drop to your wrist that was no longer bandaged.

“Y/N,” you immediately hide your wrist from Sunoo. “Y/N, Suyeon made you bleed.” His eyes meet yours and you see the fear.

“Sunoo --”

“Heeseung!” Jungwon exclaims, hurriedly pulling the oldest through the window. Seconds later, Sunghoon also lands in the broadcasting room and his eyes immediately seek you out. His and Heeseung’s uniforms were in tatters. There were big gaping holes in their blazers and buttons missing, blood covering their pants and white blouses, and their ties had been ripped off.

“Are you okay, Heeseung? Sunghoon?” Jaeyun asks, “you aren’t hurt?”

Behind them, Jongseong slams the window shut quite loudly, and follows it up with a loud shout of “fuck!” The response from the Zombies is almost instant -- they begin to snarl and groan, moving in the direction of the window that had just been shut.

Of course -- no one pays attention to that response except for Jaeyun who furrows his eyebrows.

Jungwon hands Jongseong the last water bottle full of water. “This is all we have,” Jungwon speaks gently, “we’ll need to venture out tomorrow to find supplies. We can’t stay in here forever.”

“There was plenty of food in that classroom,” Sunoo says forlornly. “Everyone’s bags had secret snacks for nighttime studying.”

“We also need a phone,” Sunghoon speaks up, “some form of communication. We’re in the dark, we have no clue what’s going on, and,” Sunghoon cuts himself off, sighing deeply, “there may be. .Infections beyond the school.”

Everyone inhales sharply, their worst fear coming true.

Jongseong slumps down in defeat, hanging his head. “Jungwon’s right. We can’t stay here forever. We have to leave and try and reach somewhere safe, like a quarantine camp. But first, we need a phone.”

“The only information I know is that Suyeon and Joon may have started the outbreak at school, but how they got it themselves is still a mystery,” Sunghoon continues, his eyes holding yours.

“How do you know that, Hoon?” Heeseung asks, resting beside Jongseong.

“Because when they were in the infirmary they were acting weird,” Sunghoon says, “before Joon knocked himself out, he was moving weirdly and always trying to bite Jaeyun and I. I don’t know much about Suyeon, but I know when she woke up, she grabbed onto Y/N and made her bleed.”

All attention is directed back to you again.

“I bandaged her up, the scratches were pretty bad. Before Taki came, I checked her wrist. The scratches aren’t there anymore. It’s almost like she wasn’t scratched.”

The silence is too loud.

“Suyeon’s fingers were bleeding,” Sunoo says in a hushed voice, “when she scratched Y/N, her blood must’ve come into contact with Y/N’s.”

“So, Y/N’s a Zombie,” Riki says.

“What?” You croak, taken aback by the accusation. “No. I’m not.”

“We don’t know that Y/N,” Jongseong backs up Riki. Of course he does. “You could be some weird evolved Zombie for all we know.”

You scowl, hot anger surging through your veins suddenly. You don’t know where the change in mood came from. “If I were a Zombie, you’d be dead already, Jongseong.”

Jongseong scoffs. “You wouldn’t even be able to land a single finger on me. I’d take you down before you even get the chance to bite me. You’re weak compared to me, Y/N.”

All you see is red. It’s like you don’t have control of your own mind as you lunge for Jongseong ready to prove him wrong. Before you could even touch the boy, an arm wraps around your waist and holds you back. You struggle in the person’s arms, and you spit at the ground in front of Jongseong. “I’ll kill you,” your mouth is moving without your consent and spitting out words you don’t want to say. “I’ll fucking kill you.” With one last struggle, you’re pushing arms holding you back from Jongseong off you. The next thing you hear is a loud thud and a groan.

Glancing over your shoulder you see Sunghoon crumpled up on the ground, the locker that stood behind him was caved in, marking how he was flung into the metal. You stop breathing and register the silence and eyes staring at you in terror.

“I think Jongseong’s right,” Jungwon speaks up. “We can’t trust you, Y/N.”

“I’m not a Zombie,” your hands clench, fingernails pressing into your palm. “I don’t even know how I did that!”

“We can’t trust you,” Jungwon repeats. “But I don’t think we should be pushing you out to be with the Zombies,” he gestures to the recording booth. “Go in there.”

“You want me in the recording booth?”

“Just until morning. If by morning, you haven’t changed or done something weird, we’ll let you out, but, if something happens overnight, we’re leaving you here for good.” Jungwon’s tone sounds final and you can’t find it in you to rebut his idea because, if you think about it logically, it’s what’s best for both you and the seven boys.

Entering the recording room with Jungwon locking you in, it grows deathly quiet. You’re alone with your thoughts for the first time today and you don’t know what to do.

—-

“Y/N.” You don’t know how much time has passed when Sunghoon steps into the recording room. Your head snaps up at the sound of his voice and immediately you’re spewing your apologies. You didn’t mean to throw Sunghoon into the lockers. You hope he’s not too injured, otherwise you won’t be able to sleep at night knowing you had hurt Sunghoon unintentionally.

Something of a smile appears on Sunghoon’s face as he sits in front of you. “It’s okay, Y/N, I know you didn’t mean to push me that hard.” His hand reaches for your wrist and you let him take it, his fingertips gently tracing the patch of skin that was once covered by scratches.

“Sunghoon?” You ask, not raising your voice above a whisper.

“Hmm?”

“Are you scared?”

It’s silent for a moment. The moonlight washes over Sunghoon’s face and you’ve never wanted to kiss someone this badly before. “Of you? Never,” came Sunghoon’s response, and your body burns. It burns so intensely you can’t breathe.

“Oh. I was asking if you were scared of the situation. Not me.”

Sunghoon looks up at you, his hand slipping from your wrist to hold your hand. “Oh. I meant what I said, Y/N. You don’t scare me.”

You smile softly. You don’t know how, but being with Sunghoon like this brings some sense of comfort to you. “Oh. Thank you, Sunghoon.”

Sunghoon smiles softly. It’s the first real smile you’ve seen on his face since this whole Zombie situation began. Warmth settles in your stomach and your shoulders sag, the weight you were carrying around slides off. “Are you okay, Y/N? How are you feeling?”

You snort lightly. ”That’s like the third time you’ve asked me if I was okay.”

“I ask because I care, Y/N.”

“Oh. Sunghoon, I--” you stare at Sunghoon, unblinking. Your stomach feels weird. It’s way too loud in the recording booth and you want out. You slip your hand out of Sunghoon’s and push your face into your legs. Did Sunghoon know about your feelings? Or was he being honest? You couldn’t believe that you were at the beginning of a Zombie apocalypse and still thinking about Sunghoon and how much you liked him.

“Y/N?” Sunghoon asks, sounding hesitant.

“I’m okay,” you mumble.

“Okay.” Awkward tension floats through the room. You don’t make any move to disperse the awkwardness and instead, you let it simmer.

“Right, I came in here because Sunoo told us the debate team was supposed to go on their annual school trip tomorrow, but obviously that isn’t going to happen, but in the classroom where they meet up, there’s a cupboard full of food and some water,” Sunghoon tells you and you don’t think you’ve ever heard him talk this hesitantly before.

You look back up at Sunghoon and instantly regret it because he’s so beautiful. “Oh. Okay. Do you have a plan yet? Am I even included in that plan? Because I can leave you all alone if you want. It might be easier since I’m probably a burden to you.”

Sunghoon stares at you. He stares at you for a long time that it becomes uncomfortable. “Do you think you’re a burden, Y/N?”

You shrug half-heartedly. “It’s easy to tell when I’m not wanted.”

“You’re wanted, Y/N,” Sunghoon says intently, his eyes never drifting away from yours.

You don’t say anything in response. How could that be true? It’s clear to see you’re a burden in the way the boys regard you, it’s clear to see you’re a burden in the way Jongseong talks to you, and it’s clear to see you’re a burden when you heard Jaeyun’s words.

“Y/N. .” Sunghoon says softly. You’ve never heard him speak like that before. It’s gentle like he’s coaxing a cat from underneath a car. It’s a comforting voice, one that makes you want to dive into and soak forever in. “You’re wanted.”

You scoff and look away, your heart tremors beneath your ribcage. Butterflies bloom and stick themselves to your gut. “How do I know you’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”

There’s a pause.

“Because I --” Sunghoon falters. His eyes slide away from your face and you feel your heart burn. “You should get some sleep, Y/N.”

“Right. Of course. Goodnight, Sunghoon.”

“Goodnight, Y/N. Sleep well.”

You don’t get any sleep that night.

—-

You’re allowed out of the recording booth when you wake up. You’re still regarded with caution, but you don’t care, you’re just glad to be out of the room. Sitting on the floor next to Sunoo, you listen to the conversation happening around you. They’re discussing a way to get to the debate room without alerting any Zombies to their presence.

“I have useful information if anyone wants to hear it,” Jaeyun says, raising his hand.

“What is it, Jaeyun?” Heeseung asks. “We’ll take anything at this point.”

“I think I know how to get past the Zombies.”

Everyone leans in and listens eagerly. “Sound attracts Zombies,” Jaeyun starts to explain. “And we’re in the broadcasting room. This is where the morning school announcements are made which means there are speakers all over school connected to this exact room. So, if we play a song, all the Zombies will move to wherever that sound is coming from. It’ll give us a clear path to the debate room.”

“I love it when you speak like that, Jaeyun,” Sunghoon comments, wearing a teasing smile. Seems like someone got a goodnight's sleep, you think bitterly to yourself. You were so sure Sunghoon was going to say something last night that was going to completely change your relationship. You were proven wrong, though.

“Someone needs to stay back though, right?” Riki asks, “because who will turn off the music?”

“I’m sure we can keep it going until it stops,” Sunoo pipes up.

“Yeah, but how will it stop?” Riki presses, “there’s no timer. It would keep on playing and we’d all go crazy.”

“I don’t think any of us should separate from the group,” Jungwon says firmly. “Separation is the last thing we want to do now.”

“What song should we play?” You ask, “because I suggest Red Velvet. Playing Zimzalabim would be so funny.”

Beside you, Sunoo giggles.

“I was gonna suggest Ring Ding Dong by SHINee,” Riki says, a wicked grin appearing.

“We’re immediately vetoing that idea,” Jongseong says, scowling in Riki’s direction.

“What about classical music?” Sunghoon asks, “that shit doesn’t get too repetitive, right? It’s just a bunch of instruments playing over and over again. No lyrics, just vibes.”

“No lyrics, just vibes,” Jongseong mimics and Sunghoon whacks him in retaliation.

“Let’s try to find some music, surely they have some in here,” Jaeyun says, standing up.

“First, I need to use the toilet,” Riki announces. “Should I pee out the window?” Riki earns disgusted groans in return and a small giggle from you.

“No. No peeing out of windows,” Jongseong says firmly. “We may be in an apocalypse but that doesn’t mean we don’t do our best to remain hygienic. We need to set up some kind of toilet, maybe in the recording booth? We’re not going to use it anymore, right?”

“I sure hope not,” you mutter, folding your arms over your chest. “Because there’s no way I’m going back in there under suspicion with it smelling like shit and piss.”

“The recording booth it is,” Jungwon says, “I did boy scouts when I was younger, let me build the toilet.”

“Me too!” Sunoo pipes up, eagerly pushing himself off the ground, “I was your group leader, remember Wonie?”

Jungwon’s smile is fond as he remembers his past memories, and together he and Sunoo begin to build the make-shift toilet. All around you, everyone falls into conversation to pass the time leaving you alone with your thoughts once more.

You begin to wonder how hard you had pushed Sunghoon to make a dent in the metal lockers to the left of you. In fact, you’re 100% certain you aren’t even that strong. You’re pretty weak so for you to be able to make a permanent mark on metal terrifies and oddly intrigues you -- what more can you do? Surely the small bit of blood on Suyeon’s that infected your bloodstream carries some kind of weird mutation causing you to be this way -- you hope you get answers soon because all this uncertainty is driving you insane.

“Get a good sleep, Y/N?” Sunghoon asks, sitting down in front of you.

“Yeah. You?”

Sunghoon hums. “The best I could get.” There’s a lull in the conversation. You immediately think back to earlier in the recording booth -- you were so sure Sunghoon was going to confess, or something because the way he was looking at you, and the way he was phrasing his words, made you believe. It made you find hope in this bleak apocalypse. “How are you feeling?”

You give Sunghoon a deadpan look. “This question? Again?”

Sunghoon shrugs. “I think it’s warranted in a situation like this.”

You smile softly. “Yeah. I suppose. And I’m feeling a bit nervous because we don’t know what’s out there. I hope Jaeyun’s right. I hope this plan works. I hope --” you sigh heavily, your chin resting on your knee.

Sunghoon reaches forward and takes your hand into his. “We’ll make it, Y/N.”

“Okay,” Jungwon and Sunoo step out of the recording booth. “Who is first?”

“Y/N,” Sunghoon says loudly, “ladies first. People who need to shit go last.”

“Riki, you’re going last then!”

“Shut the fuck up Sunoo.”

It took quite a while for all seven boys to use the toilet. After numerous rock-paper-scissor games and fights, Heeseung left the recording booth with the nastiest look on his face. “When we make it to a safety zone you all better sleep with one eye open.”

“Even me?” You ask, pouting.

“They’ll call me Misogynist Heeseung.”

“Alright, Misogynist Heeseung, do the honors,” Jaeyun gestures to the booth, “go back in there and turn on the music.”

Heeseung hisses at Jaeyun and turns on his heel, taking a deep breath before entering the recording booth once more and turning on the classical music you’d found in one of the dented lockers. With the first note of Four Seasons playing, the school speakers become a target for the Zombies limping through the school grounds.

You, along with the others, watch out the window in awe. Jaeyun was right, Zombies are attracted to sound.

“It’s showtime,” Jongseong rolls his shoulders back and rolls his sleeves up. “I will do anything to make it to the room of treasures even if it means leaving you weaklings behind.”

It’s silent. Overwhelmingly silent.

“Sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

“Yeah,” Riki hums, “we all know you’d be the first to die.”

“We’re running out of time, let’s go already,” groans Sunoo heading over to the door. “I’m opening up this damn door and running all the way to the debate room. I am about to eat Y/N/’s hair.”

You touch your hair, frowning. “Why my hair? Why not Jaeyun’s?”

Sunoo shrugs. “First name that came to mind was yours. Okay, opening the door in 3. . 2. . 1 --��

“-- WAIT --”

Sunoo wrenches open the door.

Nothing happens.

There’s a pause in the music. And then it starts all over again.

The look Sunoo gives the rest of the group is one of pure jubilation. “Last one to the debate room is Zombie bait for our next mission!” And then he’s flying out the door, Jaeyun and Jongseong shouting after him.

“Do they think the music will drown out the noise they’re making?” Jungwon asks with a shake of his head. “Stupid. Idiots. All of them are.” He steps out the door, Heeseung following behind. Sunghoon reaches for your hand and smiles down at you. Behind you, Riki groans, “keep the heart eyes to a minimum around me, please.”

“Let’s go, Y/N.”

Stepping out, you stare around you in amazement. Zombies are desperately trying to reach for the speaker, climbing and standing on top of each other to try and satiate their hunger. At the end of the hallway stood the rest of the ground. Jaeyun was holding Sunoo by his collar.

“We have to climb up two flights of stairs,” Jungwon explains quietly, but loud enough for you to all hear over the music. “Be aware of your surroundings. There might be a few Zombies who haven’t gone towards the speakers.” With one final shared look, you begin your long ascent to the room full of food and water.

You were nearing the end. Sunghoon’s hand was tightly gripping yours and you could see your final destination in sight. You realized you truly had nothing to worry about because Jaeyun’s plan was foolproof --

And then you’re being yanked back by your hair.

With a loud shriek, you go flying backward, your hand losing Sunghoon’s. Pain explodes as you land on your back harshly. Standing above you with their hand still curled in your hair is Joon. The boy from the nurse’s office. His face is bloody and there’s a long cut down the middle of his face, the sight of it makes you retch. His eyes are the darkest black you’ve ever seen.

“Sunghoon!” You cry out, desperate to get away. Your stomach churns and you wonder why Joon specifically targeted you, and how Joon was still a functioning human. Reaching up, you try to pry Joon’s hands away from your hair, but he was too strong.

Snarling, the older boy yanks your head back harder, a harsh pulsing pain beats rapidly against your skull. Is this how you die?

“Joon?” Jake sounds astonished. “You’re alive?”

You had no clue what was going on. Fear creeps into your bloodline and sets your heart alight. You struggle in Joon’s grasp and cry out, a sob wrenching itself free from your throat. Maybe you didn’t want to die. Maybe you wanted to survive because there was still some hope deep within you that everything will be okay if you make it out of this alive. (Maybe you were feeling this hope because of Park Sunghoon.)

“Of course I’m alive, idiot,” sneers Joon, his hand tightening in your hair. “Why would they kill patient zero?”

You reach up and claw at Joon’s arm, your nails snagging his skin, cutting the boy open and he begins to bleed. “You’re such a bitch, Y/N,” Joon growls, his other hand wrapping around your neck and dragging you up from the ground, your breath hitching as you struggle to breathe.

“Let Y/N go, Joon,” Sunghoon demands, his eyes only focused on you. You feel pathetic, you’re unable to do anything -- you can’t even breathe. Maybe it would’ve been better if they left you in the broadcasting room.

“Why should I let her go?” Joon’s voice was close to your ear. You could practically taste the black blood spilling out of his mouth and onto your clothed shoulder. “She’s just like me. She’s another Zombie and you’re willingly keeping her in your group?”

“Zombie or not, let go of Y/N,” Sunghoon says, his voice low, and his eyes finally looking at Joon. He steps forward and then takes another step, and another, and another -- and then Joon snarls. It’s not loud enough to be heard over the music pouring out of the speakers, and yet, all the Zombies turn and focus their deadly black eyes on the group of seven boys, with Sunghoon in the front.

Terror floods your veins and you struggle in Joon’s grasp. You couldn’t let more people fall victim to Zombies because of you. With all eyes focused on the seven boys, a chill creeps up your spine. “One move,” Joon begins, his voice threateningly low, “and you’ll join them.”

Joon lets go of you and you instantly gasp for air, your chest heaving in delight. “You don’t believe me, do you?” Joon says, a hand reaching out to grip the back of your blouse. “Y/N’s a Zombie. The moment Suyeon’s blood entered her bloodstream, Y/N began to turn.”

“We locked her in the recording booth for a night,” Jungwon says, his eyes carefully passing over every Zombie looking at them with hungry black eyes, “nothing happened. Nothing changed.”

Joon laughs. It’s loud, but the Zombies don’t move. “But something did happen, didn’t it, Y/N?” He yanks you back towards him and you shriek, desperation filling your veins again. “What happened, Y/N?” His fingers curl through your hair, brushing it away from your face gently.

“I -- I pushed Sunghoon.” You struggle to speak, fear hindering your every move, and every word. “And he dented the lockers in the broadcasting room.”

Joon hums. “That’s an oddly inhumane amount of strength, don’t you think?”

“Please let me go,” you beg.

“Do you believe me now?” Joon asks, ignoring your begging.

“Y/N’s not a zombie,” Sunghoon says, and it sounds like he truly believes it.

“Sunghoon,” you whisper, crestfallen.

“Fine, I’ll make you believe.” Without warning, Joon’s hands settle on your chest and rip your blouse apart, your eyes widen and immediately your arms come up to cover your bare torso. One hand wraps around your neck while the other produces a knife. It’s one from the kitchen in the cafeteria and you’re paralyzed by fear.

“Watch me,” Joon growls, “or I’ll kill Y/N.”

Seven sets of eyes settle on your bare body and if this was any other circumstance you would blush. You look at Sunghoon again and it’s hard to make out what he’s feeling as he stares back at you. You want to say something to him, you want to comfort him, you want to tell him to run and leave you here, but you don’t. You feel the cool touch of a blade against your abdomen, settled just beneath your bra, and then you’re being cut open, the blade digging into your skin and you cry out.

A long line is cut into your abdomen and blood flows out of the cut. It’s dark red and it matches the blood already on your hands. You collapse to the ground once Joon lets go of you and you continue to cry, the pain overwhelming. You push your hands against the wound to stop the bleeding but to no avail.

You were dying and no one was helping you. It was a picture-perfect scenario because you did nothing to help Seeun. “I’m sorry,” you whisper to the ground. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” And then, little by little, the pain lessens. Little by little, you stop bleeding. Little by little, the cut on your abdomen heals itself.

Grabbing you roughly by the hair, Joon forces you up and your hands away from your now-healed cut. “Do you believe me now?”

You look over at Sunghoon. His eyes are wide and his mouth is slightly ajar. You don’t dare look at anyone else. For the final time, Joon lets go of you and you collapse back onto the ground. Your head pounds and your upper body feels overwhelmingly hot. “I’ll be back,” Joon warns. “This is only a warning.” He snarls again, and every Zombie in the hallway trails after him, their black beady eyes never leaving the group of seven boys.

“Y/N,” Sunghoon says, darting forward. He rushes to your side, crouching down in front of you and reaching out. You quickly back away, tears pouring down your cheeks as you keep your head down and arms wrapped around yourself.

“Leave me alone Sunghoon,” you say, your voice thick with tears. “I’m a Zombie, don’t you understand?”

“Y/N, look at me,” Sunghoon says softly, he takes off his blazer and covers you with it. “Zombie or not I still want you with me.” Hesitatingly, he reaches out to brush strands of hair behind your ear. He then cups your cheek and his thumb brushes your cheek. “Come on, Y/N, I bet you’re hungry.”

“Yeah, for brains,” you mutter under your breath, angry at the world. Looking back up, you see Sunghoon smiling. “Why are you looking at me like that?” You feel shy beneath Sunghoon’s gaze.

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Sunghoon answers, “Jongeong’s brain can be the first to get eaten.”

—-

You reach the classroom that holds all of the debate club’s food and water for the trip they were supposed to take today. Your eyes stare at the food stacked up, and the water lying on the ground. You felt like you were in heaven.

Jaeyun’s the first to move. He darts forward, swipes the Home Run Balls, and the rest follow, squabbling over who gets what. Sunghoon nudges you. “What do you want, Y/N?”

“I don’t know,” you answer, hugging Sunghoon’s blazer tighter around you

Sunghoon smiles and steps into the cupboard. A few seconds later he reappears with a chocolate bar and water. “Here, you’ll probably need a lot of water after what happened, Y/N. And chocolate just because everyone loves chocolate.” After handing you the water and chocolate bar, Sunghoon takes some snacks for himself and leads you over to some chairs.

You both eat silently, letting the loud yet quiet voices of the others fill up the silence. You didn’t know what to say -- what were you supposed to say after a situation like that? You feel Sunghoon’s shoulder brush your’s and you instantly become aware of how close he is.

“Sunghoon?” You ask hesitantly.

Sunghoon glances over at you, humming slightly. His stare pins you to your seat. He still looks beautiful, you think to yourself, like a star. He still looks like he was hand crafted from heaven above, and he still looks so out of your league. No matter the time, no matter the place, no matter the situation, the answer will always be the same; Sunghoon will never be yours. He’s destined for things bigger than your small village, and he’s destined for someone better than you. And yet --

And yet he’s sitting next to you.

And yet his school-issued blazer is wrapped around your body.

(You remember bringing Park Sunghoon up to your mother one night. She laughs and shakes her head, finishing dishing the takeaway chicken she bought after work onto your plate. “Park Sunghoon, that boy is destined to be a star, Y/N.”

He’s out of your league is unsaid. You’re no good for him is unsaid.

“There’s no point loving someone like that, Y/N,” your mother warns gently. “He’s a star. And you know how bright they shine.”)

If this is how a star shines, you think, eyes trailing over Sunghoon, then I want him in every way possible.

“Thank you,” you say, smiling slightly.

“For what?”

You shrug and glance away from Sunghoon.

“Ah,” Sunghoon can read between the lines. He reaches for your hand and squeezes. “I’d do it again, Y/N.”

“Sunghoon?” You turn back to him. “You’d do what again?”

Sunghoon’s ears burn red. “Don’t make me say it, Y/N.”

You grip Sunghoon’s hand tightly. You don’t want to let this moment slip away like last time in the darkness of the broadcasting club’s recording booth. “Sunghoon,” you say, your eyes hold the unspoken desperation.

There’s a scrape of a chair being pushed back, and then Jongseong’s voice echoes through the room. No, you think, no, no no, this can’t be happening.

The moment is over. Sunghoon’s hand falls from your grip and you watch him slip away from you for the second time. You reach after him, but you capture nothingness.

“We need a phone,” Jongseong says, “and we need it now.”

The music flowing through the speakers shut off. An unsettling chill lingers in the room and everyone’s thinking the same thing; Joon. “We need a phone,” Jongseong repeats, “any ideas?”

Looks are shared and nothing is said. Jongseong groans, “come on. Give me something to work with here!”

“My phone,” Riki says, “it’s in Mrs. Jang’s room.”

Jaeyun snorts in amusement. “Now how did that happen, Riki?”

Riki scowls. “Apparently learning English is more important than Alice in Borderland.”

“Okay, and how far away is Mrs. Jang’s room?” Jongseong asks, looking slightly more alive ever since Riki’s announcement.

“Since we’re in the debate club’s meeting room,” Sunoo thinks aloud, “the floor beneath us.”

Jongseong looks at Riki and scowls. “And you didn’t let us know any sooner? We literally walked past her room on the way here, Riki! And Joon is probably there waiting for us!”

“No one asked,” Riki answered, “so I didn’t provide.”

“You’re going to be the reason for my death, mark my words.” Jongseong’s eyes fall on you and you feel uncomfortable. “Y/N. Joon can somehow command the Zombies to do whatever he wants, can’t you do that? Y’know, considering you’re like, half Zombie-half human or some shit like that.”

It’s a weird silence you sit in after Jongseong’s remark. “I mean. . It’s cool if you can’t though,” Jongseong chuckles awkwardly. You find you quite like this situation; Jongseong awkward beneath your bland stare, it’s a situation that should happen more often.

“Speaking of,” Heeseung pipes up, “shouldn’t we talk about what happened back there?”

“What is there to speak about?” Jungwon asks, “Y/N is a Zombie. But she’s also a human.”

“Clearly,” Heeseung responds, “we should also find Y/N a shirt, but what about Joon? How he came to be. . . That, is unknown and what he said? ‘Patient zero’? Isn’t that at least a little bit concerning?”

“Obviously Joon and Suyeon were some experiment,” Sunoo says, “gone wrong. And now everyone is paying the consequence.”

“Someone was probably trying to make a superhuman,” Jaeyun jokes, his eyes sparkling, “Y/N and Joon have enhanced strength, which is super cool, and Y/N even has enhanced healing! I would suspect Joon does too, but from his appearance. . I don’t think so.”

“Superhuman,” Jongseong mutters under his breath like it was the missing piece to a puzzle.

“Boring. Let’s talk about this later,” Riki says suddenly, “it’s getting dark. Who volunteers as tribute to go and grab my phone? It has a pink sparky case and a small little Yuuji sticker on it. From Jujutsu Kaisen. I say let Y/N go. She can self-heal and can push people off her and into lockers.” Riki winces after being on the receiving end of many glares. “Too soon for jokes?”

“It’s okay, Riki,” you wave him off, too tired to involve yourself into this conversation. “Wake me up when you make your decision, I’m feeling sleepy.”

“Right, of course,” Jaeyun hums, “obviously there are side effects. You can sleep, Y/N, we’ll make sure nothing disturbs you!”

You smile at Jaeyun, thankful.

——

When you come to, it’s pitch black. The only light source is a yellow-tinged light shining on Jungwon and Sunoo who are seated together and whispering to each other. The light is sourced from a flashlight, how they acquired said flashlight is unknown.

Sunoo catches your movements and beckons you over. You shuffle over to the two boy and carefully take a seat beside Sunoo, scared to wake up the sleeping bodies lying around the room. “Sleep well? Feeling any better, Y/N?” Sunoo’s words are kind, and his gaze is kinder.

“It was a good sleep. I’m feeling much more energized.”

“That’s good,” Jungwon says, “because Sunghoon’s the one who went to search for the phone.”

You stop breathing. “What?”

“He left an hour ago and he’s not back,” Jungwon informs you, the yellow-tinged light shining on Jungwon’s face makes the boy look older than he actually is. “Heeseung always says to not think of the worst, but I’m thinking of the worst right now.”

Images of Sunghoon lying on the ground in a puddle of his own blood flash through your mind. Images of Sunghoon as a Zombie flash through your mind. Images of Sunghoon with Joon’s hands wrapped around him flash through your mind. You can’t let Sunghoon slip through your grasp for the third and final time. You need Sunghoon safe and you’ve never needed anything this desperately before.

“I’ll go find him,” you say to Jungwon, your words oddly sounding like a goodbye. And a promise.

“Y/N --” Sunoo starts.

“Sunoo,” you cut him off. “Let me do this. Let me not feel like a burden for once.”

“Okay,” Sunoo whispers, “okay.”

You rise to your feet and pad over to the door. “Y/N,” Sunoo hisses through the dark, “be safe.”

You want to laugh at Sunoo’s words. Your palm touches the cool handle of the door and you gently slide it open, cold air from the hallway rushing into the room behind you. You begin to feel uneasy and goosebumps spread across your skin as you step out of the warm classroom and into the unknown. The last thing you see as you shut the classroom door is Jongseong staring at you.

You don’t know what to expect as you slowly walk down the dark hallway that’s only illuminated by the night sky. The moon and the stars hang above you, unintentionally guiding you to where Park Sunghoon lay. Keeping your hands pressed close to your chest and your eyes focused on your surroundings, you do your best to not bring attention to yourself by any means -- one noise and it’s all over for you. You wander down a familiar hallway that has become unfamiliar and you truly begin to question how this all happened; how easily your hometown succumbed to a Zombie apocalypse.

A loud bang shakes you out of your thoughts. It came from inside the classroom next to you and terror floods your senses. You hold your hands tighter against your chest and try to even out your breathing. There’s another bang and you quickly stride past the classroom, making your footfalls as quiet as possible.

Everything felt so off; not a single Zombie roaming down the hallway you were in, not a single Zombie chasing you down -- you were expecting the worst would come when you find Sunghoon. Your heart races at the thought of something bad happening to Sunghoon. You don’t want anything bad to happen to Sunghoon, he’s the only good thing you have left in your life right now.

You pad down the steps and enter the hallway Riki’s phone was supposed to be on. Here, you finally see the Zombies you were looking for. A sudden cold chill lays itself over your skin as you dare to enter the hallway crowded with Zombies.

Even though you know you shouldn’t, you hold your breath as you maneuver around the Zombies in complete silence. Sometimes, they let out random groans and it frightens you, but you keep your terrified shrieks contained within you. One single noise and you’re a goner.

You reach Ms. Jang’s office and a Zombie is blocking the door. Inhaling quietly, you step around the Zombie and reach for the cold silver doorknob. As you twist the doorknob it makes a shrill sound and you halt, not daring to move another inch. The Zombie right next to you lets out a groan and steps closer to you, their arm brushing yours and suddenly they’re latching onto your arm.

You can’t help it and cry out, ripping yourself out of the Zombie’s grasp and throwing yourself at the door. Growls fill the air and the Zombie in front of you begins to sniff, seeking out a smell. You could smell the death on the Zombie and begin to pray that this isn’t how your life ends -- you don’t want to be a Zombie because what happens then? You become Zombie and then what? Where does your soul go? Your conscious?

A tear trails down your cheek and the Zombie is stepping away, wandering back down the hallway and leaving you pressing up against the door, your hand curled around the doorknob. Without hesitation, you open the door and jump inside, letting the door shut gently behind you.

The first thing you see is Park Sunghoon lying on the ground, unresponsive -- but breathing. Immediately, you drop to your knees and shake the boy, “Sunghoon,” you whisper, not liking the odds of this situation. There’s a cut on his temple that’s bleeding. “Fuck sake. Sunghoon!” Your shaking gets more aggressive as each second passes and Sunghoon doesn’t shoot up, gasping for breath.

Desperate times call for desperate measures so you slap Sunghoon. You weren’t sure what you were expecting to get out of this action, but it certainly wakes Sunghoon up. His eyes fly open and his hand comes up to clutch his cheek. Scrambling to sit up, Sunghoon looks at you with wide eyes. “Did you just slap me?”

“What? Was I supposed to kiss you awake?”

It’s silent for a moment. “I mean. I wouldn’t have been opposed to a kiss, Y/N.”

You glare at Sunghoon and slap his bicep. “You are such an idiot! Why were you unconscious? And why are you bleeding? Sunghoon, what happened? We were -- I was worried.”

“Y/N, you -- you were worried?” Sunghoon asks, a little breathless.

You scowl and slap Sunghoon’s bicep again. “Are you even listening to me? What happened?”

“I got scared and fell over, hitting my head on the way down,” Sunghoon explains sheepishly. “I did dream of you saving me though, Y/N.”

“Dork. You’re a fucking clumsy dork, did you know that, Sunghoon?”

“A dork for you,” grins Sunghoon and you push him away, falling onto your bum and feeling hot, taken aback from Sunghoon’s sudden flirty nature.

“Consider us even, then,” you say, “you saved me and now I’m here to save you.”

Sunghoon’s smile is soft, a small dimple peeking in the curve of his cheek. “I have Riki’s phone, though, you ready to go?”

“What about your temple?” You gesture to Sunghoon’s head, “you’re bleeding, Sunghoon.”

“Don’t worry, Y/N, we’ll patch it up later. I don’t know about you, but I still feel uneasy being by ourselves and separated from the group. It’s better we get back quickly before Joon sniffs us out.”

You hum and stand up, holding out your hand for Sunghoon to take. His hand is warm in yours and you ignore the gentle squeeze he gives your hand as you pull open the door slowly. “Remember, be quiet,” you whisper to Sunghoon.

“Of course, Y/N.”

You both step out into the darkness.

The sight that awaits you both is unexpected. Suyeon’s body is sprawled out in the middle of the hallway, her eyes falling out of their sockets and her head smashed in. You immediately avert your eyes as your stomach lurches.

“Oh shit,” Sunghoon hisses, “her throat was slit. Gross. Do you think it was Joon who did this?” Sunghoon’s question is answered soon enough as Ahn Yujin steps out of the shadows, her black hair falling across her shoulders angellically, and bloody covering her hands and splattered across her face. In one of her bloodied hands, she holds a knife. “Oh shit,” Sunghoon repeats, but this time more terrified.

No words are spoken as Yujin charges towards you and as you push Sunghoon away. You weren’t going to let someone else die because of you. You willingly let Yujin’s knife enter your body as she flings her body into yours. You crash into a wall behind you and you hiss in pain, which turns into a bloody cough.

“Y/N!” Sunghoon calls out, but you ignore him.

“Yujin,” you croak, seeing humanity left in her eyes, “Yujin. Don’t do this.” You already know the stab wound is futile, you could feel your wound healing around the knife still stuck in your body. It’s a weird sensation, one you can’t describe.

Yujin twists the knife and you cry out, your hand reaching for Yujin’s hair you tug hard, momentarily taking the girl off guard. You push her away and rip the knife out of your stomach, blood splattering the ground and you hear Sunghoon gasp.

Yujin growls and charges again. You muster up all the strength you have and backhand her, flinging Yujin into the wall. There’s a loud crack and Yujin slumps to the ground, blood trailing down the wall to her slumped figure, her head hanging.

You reach for Sunghoon’s hand again. “Let’s go.” Sunghoon doesn’t hesitate and you both fly down the hallway, not caring if you were loud enough for the Zombies to find you.

—-

To stay the other’s were surprised that you didn’t come back with just Sunghoon and Riki’s phone would be an understatement. The bloodied knife was handed off to Heeseung, and Jungwon had simply sighed, shaking his head. “We really need to get you a new top, Y/N,” Jongseong says, “maybe like a whole pack because you like ruining clothes, don’t you?”

“It’s not like I chose to be stabbed,” you huff bitterly.

In the midst of all of this, Riki falls to his knees and cries out. Instantly, you all fear the worst. “What? What happened, Riki?” Jaeyun asks, his eyes wide and his hand coming to pet Riki’s head. “Is everything okay?”

“My Yuuji sticker!” Riki cries, “it’s not here!”

Sunoo mimics strangling the boy with wild gestures and Sunghoon snorts. “That sucks, but we got a phone for a reason. Don’t let me going unconscious for a few minutes and Y/N getting stabbed by some psycho girl to all go to vain.”

“It wasn’t a few minutes, Sunghoon!” You exclaim, whacking the boy again, “it was an hour!”

“It felt like minutes to me,” Sunghoon shrugs, “though I would love to wake up to your face more often.” The silence that follows after that declaration is awkward.

“Right,” Jungwon says, ripping Riki’s phone out of the crying boy’s hands. “Let’s see what the internet is saying, shall well?” A few seconds later Jungwon is groaning, “why is everything in Japanese? Jongseong? A little help?”

“But it’s Riki’s --” Jongseong cuts himself off as he looks at the unresponsive, crying boy curled up on the ground and Jaeyun hovering beside him awkwardly. “Right.”

“Well?” Sunoo says after a few seconds of silence, “what does it say?”

“It’s loading, Sunoo, patience,” Jongseong snaps, glaring at the younger.

“Old people are so slow,” Sunoo moans.

“You brat --”

“Translate for us, Jongseong,” Jungwon cuts off the older boy, thrusting the phone into his grasp.

Jongseong’s eyes trail over the phone screen in front of him. “Well, the electricity and power and phone service is getting cut off in twenty-one hours.” A heavy silence settles over the group, “so, that means we’ll have no contact to the outside world in twenty-one hours.”

“Well that fucking sucks,” Sunghoon mumbles from next to you.

“Hurry up then, Jongseong,” Sunoo rushes, “see who is still alive. And where the nearest quarantine zone is. I want to get out of here and see my family!”

“Alright, alright,” Jongseong sighs, “get comfortable, it’s going to be a long night. Did you happen to bring a charger with you, Sunghoon? Y/N?”

The two of you share a look. “Uh. . We were supposed to?” Sunghoon replies.

“Airhead. We have two fucking airheads in this group,” Jongseong grumbles and Jungwon comforts him with a look of amusement.

Ignoring Jongseong, you take Sunghoon’s hand into yours again. “Let’s get you patch up, dork, where’s the first aid kit again, Heeseung?” After Heeseung points you in the direction of the first aid kit, and you settle onto the floor a bit away from the group with Sunghoon, you get to work on cleaning up the cut to Sunghoon’s temple.

“How clumsy are you, Sunghoon?” You mutter, slightly amused. “How were you able to hit your head that hard?”

“I get scared easily!” Sunghoon defends himself, pouting slightly. “You would too! Being all alone, surrounded by Zombies and with the threat of a murdererous weird Zombie-person running around hanging over your head!”

You snort and shake your head, tilting Sunghoon’s head to the side slightly. “But,” Sunghoon continues, his voice more softer. “Thank you. For saving me. Twice. The slap wasn’t nice, though.”

“I was desperate, okay,��� You say, scowling, “and worried. And concerned -- you weren’t waking up, Sunghoon.”

“I know. And I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize Sunghoon. This might hurt.”

Sunghoon hisses and you send him a smile in apology. “You care about me, Y/N?”

“Of course I do,” you mutter, “you are all I have left. And the others.”

“But mostly me?” Sunghoon smiles a cheeky smile and you scowl, purposefully pushing down on his cut harder.

“Don’t push it, Park.”

Sunghoon reaches up and pinches your waist, making your yelp in surprise. “Sunghoon! I’m cleaning your wound! Don’t make me make it worse on purpose!”

Sunghoon laughs. It’s the laugh you’ve been dying to hear ever since you were fourteen. His smile is wide across his and his eyes crinkle up. He really shines like a star in moments like these. You can’t help but smile, it’s all soft and fond, and love is what makes your smile curve wider. He’s a star that’s shining for you.

“I like it when you laugh, Sunghoon,” you blurt.

Sunghoon holds eye contact with you for what feels like the longest time. “I like it when you smile, Y/N. And I like it when you get so focused your tongue pokes out of your mouth. And I like it when you blow your hair out of your face. And I like your eyes, especially when you’re laughing and I -- I just like you, Y/N.” Hesitancy spreads across Sunghoon’s face and he averts his eyes, cheeks turning a soft red. “I know this is all sudden but -- but you’re not a burden, Y/N, and I hope you don’t think of yourself as one. I care about you, Y/N, and I want you with me, Y/N, that what I wanted to say that night in the recording booth. If I didn’t want you with me, then I wouldn’t have pulled you away when I did.”

The cold, jarring truth strikes you. Sunghoon could’ve left you to die, but he didn’t.

“I want you with me, Y/N, all the time,” Sunghoon admits, more certain of himself now. “So, thank you. For saving me. For patching me up. For being with me.”

“How could I not?” You respond, shaking your head and laughing breathlessly, “you’re all I think about.”

“Y/N --”

“I wasn’t joking when I said you were all I had left. Seeun’s a Zombie and my mother probably is too.” Your voice quivers and you sniff, Sunghoon’s stare getting too intimate for you, so you glance at a spot over his shoulder. “Please don’t leave me either, because I don’t plan on leaving you.”

“Y/N,” Sunghoon whispers, “why would I ever leave you?”

That’s all it takes for you to dissolve into a sea of tears. Sunghoon wraps you up into his arms and holds you close to his chest, his hand gliding through your hair, over the nape of your neck, and down your back.

“Y/N,” Sunghoon cups your chin and tilts your head up, wiping your tears away, his eyes soothe you. “I know this might be a bad time, but there’s nothing better than the present. Can I kiss you? I’ve always wanted to kiss you, did you know that?”

Your heart skips a beat. All the air is knocked out of your lungs. Sunghoon is a star. He’s unbelievable. He makes wishes ceom true. “Sunghoon,” you whisper, “you don’t even have to ask.”

Sunghoon kisses you and the world explodes. His lips are warm. Everything about Sunghoon is warm. He makes you feel warm. He makes you feel special. Sunghoon makes you feel less alone. Sunghoon settles you onto his lap, an arm slipping around your waist while the other cradles the back of your head. He keeps you close to his chest as your mouths move.

Maybe suriving the apocalypse is worth it since it brought you to the exact moment; Sunghoon kissing you.

“Wait,” Sunghoon’s pulling away, sounding breathless, “you like me too, right?”

You giggle. “I like you too, dork,” and you pull him back in for a kiss.

—-

Having a phone works wonders. Jongseong finds out where the nearest quarantine zone is, and he finds out that the apocalypse has spread throughout your small province. Jongseong also found out damning news; in forty eight hours, the school and everything around it would be blown up by bombs dropped from the skies above.

“We need to move quickly,” Jungwon addresses the group. “Today, we need to leave the school and get to the forest. From there, we’ll hopefully have some cover, and be able to reach the zone a couple hours before the bombs are expected to drop, but we have to move quickly.”

“I will move the quickest out of anyone in the group,” Sunoo proclaims confidently. “I want to get out of this hell hole.”

So with the first rays of sunlight peeking through, you and the seven boys move out of the classroom, a backpack strapped to Heeseung and Jungwon’s backs full of enough food and water to make the eight of you last the two day journey.

“At the first sign of Joon, just run,” Heeseung tells the group gravely, “we don’t have time to engage with him. He’ll be blown up shortly anyway.”

As you pass through the hallway where you were stabbed by Yujin, your hand in Sunghoon’s warm embrace, you find her body missing. You share a glance with Sunghoon but neither of you point it out the rest of the group, not wanting to unsettle the happy mood everyone was in today.

Today was full of luck. Everyone was silent and you were all able to easily slip past Zombies. The knife you hold in your free hand didn’t need to be used. Your new t-shirt was bright white and clear of blood. It made you feel good, feeling slightly clean.

You reach the school gym in no time, finding it clear of all Zombies. There, you decide to take a rest, and Jungwon decides to call Kang Taehyun. The dialing tone rings throughout the gym and it’s picked up seconds before the last dial tone rings.

“Riki?” Taehyun asks in disbelief.

“Taehyun,” Jungwon cries out, tears welling in his eyes. “You’re okay.”

“Won,” Taehyun repeats, still in disbelief. “You’re okay? Oh my god, what about the other’s --” a loud clamor takes over Taehyun’s side of the phone. You hear the familiar voices of Yeonjun, and Soobin, and Beomgyu, and Kai. The boys on Jungwon’s side of the phone all crowd around the phone and everything is a mess. (A happy mess, you think.)

After the phone call ends with promises of seeing enach other soon, Jungwon looks over at you. “Y/N? Do you have anyone to call?”

You smile and shake your head. “I have no one, Jungwon.”

“Oh, sorry I asked,” Jungwon seems a little embarrassed and you laugh him off with a wave of your hand.

“It’s okay. Thank you for asking, though.”

“You have us, Y/N,” Sunoo says with a smile. “You’ll always have us, now. Our bond is thicker than blood!”

You laugh, “thank you, Sunoo. I’m glad I have you.”

—-

It rains that night. It pours, but Jungwon doesn’t let up. Loud thunder booms through the sky and the lightning lights up the darkness. You continue to creep around the Zombies in silence, the storm masking any loud noise you make. The storm was a blessing in disguise.

You had entered the forest a few hours ago but none of you had wanted to stop, especially as it began to rain. You all wanted to reach the quarantine zone desperately, already tired from all the running and surviving you had been doing.

Sunghoon squeezes your hand. “Are you doing okay, Y/N?” His voice was close to your ear.

You squeeze back. “Yeah!” You shout over the storm, and that’s when you somehow catch a glimpse of it. A white ribbon. Your breathe stutters and you stumble over, Sunghoon keeping you upright. “Seeun,” you breathe. She moves carelessly through the forest, stumbling over like many of the Zombies you had seen do before. You face the truth you had subconsciously been denying this whole time; Seeun’s a Zombie.

Slipping out of Sunghoon’s grasp and ignoring everyone’s loud calls, you walk over to Seeun. You need to see her one last time. You need to say your apologies one last time, and if you die trying, then so be it. You reach within an arms length distance of Seeun and watch her stumble about quietly. “I’m sorry,” you shout over the storm. “I’m sorry, Seeun.”

She turns towards you and snarls, stumbling forward and stopping in front of you. She copies the movements of the Zombie who you stood face-to-face with in front of Ms. Jang’s office. She sniffs the surrounding area of your body, and then turns away. She lets you live, like that other Zombie did.

Turning back around, your eyes meet Sunghoon’s and the sympathy he holds make tears slip down your cheeks. No one says anything when you return to the group and stick yourself to Sunghoon’s side.

The further you all went into the city you grew up in, the further reality sinks in. Zombies fill every nook and cranny, and the loneliness of the city makes your skin crawl. You all push on, and your eventually have to begin to hide and use your knife as the Zombies become more ruthless and pick up on every small sound.

You grow tired, but you still push on. With Sunghoon beside you, holding you and keeping you safe every step of the way provides you with the strength and energy to push on.

“Would you believe me if I said I was looking for you that day, Y/N?” Sunghoon asks during one of your short breaks, his finger twirling your hair.

“I don’t know. Were you?” You respond, smiling.

“Well. I was looking for any sign of an adult, and also for weapons, but when I saw you, Y/N, all I thought about was keeping you alive and safe.”

You melt against Sunghoon, your head resting on his shoulder. “I like you a lot, Sunghoon,” you whisper, “and maybe if we weren’t in a situation like this, we could be going on a date right now.”

“What kind of date?” Sunghoon asks, oddly interested.

“We’d go ice skating,” you say, “because you’re good at ice skating and I’m shit. You would help me skate, and we’d hold hands, and then we’d go eat something warm and spicy. You’ll make me laugh, and I’ll make you laugh, then you’ll take me home and kiss me goodnight.”

Sunghoon kisses you temple. He doesn’t say anything and you just bask in the silence and the warmth of Sunghoon. “That’s if either of us confessed,” Sunghoon says, “because I don’t think I would’ve ever confessed.”

“Me either,” you admit. “You felt so out of my league, and I never had your attention, so the thought of confessing frightened me.”

Sunghoon laughs and you peer up at him, perplexed. “What’s so funny?”

“You always had my attention, Y/N,” Sunghoon says, and he kisses you.

—-

You reach the quarantine zone and you’re met with guns pointed at you. With your hands raised, you all shuffle into a line and are being tested with a thermometer device. It’s raining again and you shiver, missing the warmth of Sunghoon’s hand holding yours.

“What are you doing?” Jongseong asks the soldier.

“A colder temperature means you’re a Zombie,” the soldier informs Jongseong.

“But what if someone is sick?” Jongseong asks, “then what if you’re leaving someone out to die?”

The soldier smiles, but it isn’t a nice smile. “Would you like me to show you what happens when this thing identifies a Zombie, and then what we do after?”

Jongseong’s immediately shaking his head.

Sunghoon’s herded into the zone before you, and the smile he sends you is a sweet one. It calms you down as only thoughts of Joon’s words fill your head. You hope you’re able to pass this test. You hope you’re able to live a relatively normal with Sunghoon by your side.

But, luck runs out at some point.

A high pitched squealng sound emits from the thermometer device and the world shifts and everything happens at once.

“She’s a Zombie!” The soldier yells, raising his gun and pointing it at you.

“Y/N!” Sunghoon shouts, running to you, his arms wrapping you up as more soldiers swarm the area. “Y/N, everything will be okay, the device probably made a mistake, they just need to do it again --”

“Sunghoon.” You cut him off.

“No,” he says, “I can’t lose you, Y/N, you said you wouldn’t leave me.”

“I don’t want to leave you, Sunghoon,” you admit, “but I have to.”

“How are you so calm about this?” Sunghoon asks, his voice low, “I feel so desperate, Y/N, I feel desperate enough to kill --”

“I was expecting the worst, Hoon.”

Sunghoon stares at you. There are so many emotions flooding his face, your stomach churns. Suddenly, he’s ripped away from you and he struggles, calling out your name. “Y/N! I love you! I love you, and I’d save you again. I’d save you again and again if I had the choice.”

You did your best to keep your tears at bay. You couldn’t have them falling over now. You couldn’t cry. You had to remain strong, even with a gun pointed at your head.

Sunghoon breaks free from the soldier’s grasp and flings himself into your embrace again, clutching you close.

The rain falls harder, soaking you both to the bone.

“Y/N, I love you,” he kisses you so passionately and desperately it makes your heart break. “And I’ll come for you. I’ll find you, Y/N, I promise. I promise that once I find you, I’ll take you ice skating and catch you every time you fall.”

“Of course you will,” you laugh as the tears begin to fall. “You’ll always catch me, no matter what, Hoon.”

“And we’ll be the happiest people on earth, Y/N.”

“Of course we will, Hoon,” you say softly, cupping Sunghoon’s face, “you will always make me the happiest.”

Sunghoon’s ripped away from you and you instantly shiver, the cold overwhelming you. “I’ll find you, Y/N!” Sunghoon shouts, his words tearing your heart apart. “I promise I will!”

You watch as Sunghoon and the rest of the six boys are pulled away from view. You refuse to look at the others because it’ll only break your heart more.

A gun is pointed at your head.

You close your eyes.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper to whoever is listening. “Please forgive me.”

author’s note, well that was wild and crazy and goofy and im sorry if the pacing seems rushed but i wrote most of this at 1/2/3am when i was tired and sad and completely delusional. there are lots of unanswered plot points like omg what happened to joon?? and suyeon?? and yujin?? why was she so crazy🤣🤣 and how did the infection start?? and did y/n really die?? and i left some of those points unanswered in case i ever decide to write a part two in the future..Gasp😨😨 anyway. i hope u enjoyed reading this mess. i hope u love it😆😆

[rachalixie]

a/n: a little thing i scrapped from a fic i'm writing for my baby star @forlix :) i love you. i choose you. <333

“lix?” you ask, tentativeness lining the single syllable like even your voice knew that what you were about to say was a little silly. “why did you choose me?”

“what do you mean?” he hums, his fingers faltering on his keyboard as he tries to split his attention between you and the colorful pixels on the screen. 

“like, why me? you could have had anyone you wanted,” you bite your tongue, not quite understanding why these words were coming out here and now. 

“what do you mean.” he repeats, more of a statement than a question now, like he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing. he turns around completely, facing you and letting his character die a tragic death on the screen behind him. “are you serious?”

“i- no?” you sigh, not quite meeting his eyes. “yes. kind of? i don’t know.”

“y/n,” he rolls his chair close to you until your knees were touching, and he takes your hands in his, stopping you from wringing your fingers together. “it wasn’t a choice, you know that right? the stars brought us together, you’re mine in every way that i am yours.”

“right but,” you start, feeling grateful when he squeezes your hands in a silent go on, i’m here to listen. “if you could make that choice. if you didn’t want what the universe chose for you. then what?”

“if it was a choice to make, i would choose you every single time,” he slides off the chair, falling to his knees in front of you. “in every universe, in every reality, in every single world that exists, i choose you. over and over.”

“yes, but why?” and that is the root of it all - it was less of a deep rooted problem of insecurity and more of a lack of understanding. 

“god, i love you,” he looks up at you, so reverent that you feel your breath catch on nothing. “you’re perfect for me. no matter how many flaws you think you have, you compliment me in every single way. i didn’t know someone like you could exist for me in this world, and if i ever lost you i’d spend the rest of my days alone because no one can compare to you.”

“you think of me like that?” you try to ignore the stinging in your eyes and the burning in your nostrils that signal that you were going to cry. you knew the answer; you felt that way about him, too.

“yes,” he says, simple and ringing with truth. “you’re my perfect little star, the one i wish on every night. i look up at the sun and i think of you simply because we live under the same one. i could go on but - do you understand, now?”

“i do,” you smile. and while looking at him, the moon that hangs bright in your night skies, you truly do understand. 

—

soft hours

[python333]

your writing is literally the best in the cod fandom. we need more injured reader angst. it's too good

don't breathe — python333

— — — —

synopsis [reader] gets buried alive after refusing to give intel to enemy soldiers and *slips up and writes reader almost dying again* oops how did that happen haha

relationships platonic!price & gn!reader.

characters cap. john price.

word count 2.7k

warnings suffocation [reader], just generally really depressing thoughts, near death??, 2nd person pov [you/yours/yourself], usage of c/n [code name/call sign].

note aww tysm :(( dont say its the best im gonna get a complex LMAO but i appreciate it!! and yes i agree injured reader angst ftw :3 i present to you: reader gets very injured and theres a lot of angst and its basically just you suffering for a good 3/4 of the fic while the last quarter has the actual comfort!

“Hello?” You try again, your voice cracking and your tone as desperate as it can get, “Please, God, say someone can hear me.” 

You’ve been trapped in a casket for about five minutes now—at least, you woke up five minutes ago. God knows how long you’ve been stuck in the stupid thing, but realistically, it’s probably been much longer than five minutes.

The last thing you remember from before you were buried is being in the interrogation room of some small terrorist group’s facility, one you and the others were led to believe was abandoned weeks ago. 

Unfortunately, whoever gave you the information must’ve either had incredibly outdated information or was setting you all up for failure, because the facility was very much not abandoned and was instead full of enemy soldiers.

You all had already gotten into the building before you knew that, because of course you all had to be in the same spot at the same time—practically sitting ducks for the enemy—and of course you all had to be clueless about the possibly hundreds of people in the facility until it was too late. 

As far as you know, everyone managed to escape. Everyone but you. They didn’t mean to leave you behind, of course they didn’t, they were more focused on just booking it out of the facility. However, because of that, you were now stuck—you assume—several feet underground in a casket that has a limited amount of oxygen that drops every time you take a breath. 

You let out the breath you’re currently holding and suck in another deep breath, holding it as you think. Your strategy of holding your breath until you no longer could mostly worked, but it wouldn’t for long, you knew that soon you’d suffocate in all of the carbon dioxide gathering in the enclosed casket.

You don’t know how long you’d been unconscious in the casket, breathing in oxygen carelessly in your slumber, which made the whole situation worse. You didn’t even know how much time you had left. 

You hate to waste your breath checking your comms, but the enemy soldiers had accidentally left your earpiece in your ear—the small device apparently going undetected under their radar—and you wanted to make the most of it. You move your arm from your side and press onto the PTT button on your earpiece, wincing a little at how cramped the casket was.

“Does anybody copy?” You ask again, staring up at the almost pitch black space above you, “I repeat, does anybody copy?” 

It’s a vain attempt at contacting your team, really. You don’t know if they’re thinking about you, if the signal is going through, if they even have their earpieces on—you know nothing, and that terrifies you because you really don’t want to die right now but there’s literally nothing else you can do besides helplessly talk into your earpiece, not knowing if anyone’s listening. 

Your lungs start to burn and you let out the breath you were holding, taking another deep breath and beginning to hold that one. The air feels… thick. It’s starting to get harder to breathe, and you know you shouldn’t panic but you can’t help the few worried thoughts that come to the forefront of your mind. 

What am I going to do when I run out of oxygen and the only thing left for me to breathe in are my own discarded breaths? What will I do when all there is to do is suffocate? Am I going to try, in one last desperate attempt, to break out of the casket, or am I going to just lay here and die? Will my team try to find me, or will they forget about me? Have they already forgotten about me? 

Before you can listen to any more of those depressing thoughts, a voice comes from your earpiece. 

“H—lo? [c/n]?” It’s hard to tell with the static and the cuts in between the words, but you think it’s Price talking. 

“Price?” You ask immediately, all thoughts of preserving your breath forgotten. “Holy shit, you can hear me?” 

“Je—s— whe—e—” He cuts out for a moment and your stomach drops when all you can hear is static for a moment. 

“You’re— You’re cutting out, Captain, what did you say?” 

“Wher— —re you?” It takes you a moment to realize what he’s saying, your mind working much slower than it usually does, but once you do you shake your head negatively despite him not being there to see you. 

“I don’t— I don’t know,” You respond, taking a deep breath before adding on, “I think I’m underground, I just know I’m in a casket and it’s getting harder to breathe and—” 

“Okay, o—y,” You hear Price’s voice crackle, his voice becoming more distant and sounding almost muffled to you, “Sa— —ur bre—th, I’ll try to g—t some—e to track your— —tion.” 

With the constant cutting out of his words and the distortion of his tone, you can barely register or process what he’s saying, and that only panics you more but you refuse to let your emotions get the better of you even in the state of disorientation you’re in, so you keep holding your breath. 

A minute later, Price’s voice crackles through your earpiece again. 

“Okay, we’ve got your loc—tion,” Price’s voice sounds… oddly far away, “We can—” 

His voice slowly becomes muffled, and you release the breath you were holding without realizing it, slowly blinking up at the ceiling of the casket. A sort of haze falls over your mind and you can barely even hear Price anymore before you suddenly snap back to reality and hear his now much clearer voice loud in your ear. 

“[c/n]? [c/n], are you still there?” You recognize his tone now, and you’re just a little shocked at the sheer amount of worry in it. 

“Haven’t moved an inch,” You breathe out, before lying, “You cut out for a second for me, sorry.” 

“Don’t be sorry, it’s okay,” Price reassures you, “I said we got your loc—tion and we’re hea—g out th— —w. It’s not t— far away from where —e alre—dy are, we’re ba—ely three clicks away.” 

“… Clicks?” You ask, your eyebrows drawing together in confusion.

“Yes, clicks,” Price replies, sounding concerned, before hesitantly asking, “… You know what those are, right?” 

“I don’t—” You struggle to find words for a moment before you speak again, your own voice starting to sound distant, “I don’t think so?”

“What do y—u mean you don’t thi— —o?” Price asks, his voice sounding freakishly close, “Are you okay?” 

“No, yeah, I’m fine,” You lie through your teeth, not wanting to worry Price further, “I just… how far away are you?” 

“Just ab—t two cli—ks now,” Price says, before pausing and clarifying, “Two kilometers.” 

Two kilometers… how far is that? “And that’s… is that far, or?” 

“No, it’s not too far. It’s just a mi—te away, we didn’t ge— —o far before Laswell got your loc—tion,” Price tells you, “We’ll be there soon, ok—y? We’ll get y— —ut of there.” 

“A minute—” You cough and feel tears pricking at your eyes from how hard it is to take another breath, “A minute?” 

“Yes, a minute— [c/n], are you okay?” Price asks again, before laughing nervously, “You know what a minute is, do— —ou?” 

“...” You struggle to answer the question, thinking long and hard for a few seconds before hesitantly answering, “… Yeah, I do, sorry. It’s sixty seconds.” 

“Why’d it take you so long to answer?” 

“I don’t know, I’m sorry, I—” You take a few shallow breaths, and feel a headache start to build up, “How far away are you guys?” 

“We’re alm—t there,” Price promises you, “The heli’s ab—t to l—nd, and we’ll dig you up, and—” 

Why is it so cold? Price’s voice cuts off and when he stops talking you realize that you’re shivering. You ball your fists up and can’t even feel your nails digging into your palms, your hands having gone numb from the cold, and realizing that makes you discover that your lips feel numb too. 

Your ears start to ring and you feel that uncomfortable pins and needles feeling in your hands, the sensation slowly traveling up your arms, making you both wanting to peel off your own skin and also grateful that you can at least feel something besides the cold.

In the midst of your thinking, you hear muffled thumping coming from above you—whoever buried you couldn’t have buried you anything below six feet. 

“—llo? [c/n]? Are you still there?” 

You bring your hand up, the movement slow and sluggish, and you try to search around the side of your face for your earpiece. You eventually find it and when you do you press against it until you feel the PTT button being pushed. 

“Still here,” You confirm breathlessly, coughing again as you take a few more shallow breaths, “I think I’m running out of— of… what’s the fuckin’ air that you can breath in, it starts with an o…” 

“… Oxygen?”

“Oxygen, yeah,” You slowly blink up at the ceiling of the casket, “There’s— I think— I don’t… I think… I think I’m gonna pass out, Captain.” 

“[c/n], don’t you fucking dare,” Price growls, “You stay awake, I swear to fucking god.” 

“I can’t—” You take a few more shallow breaths, before coughing, the tears escaping your eyes reaching the corners of your mouth. 

You can hear Price briefly talk with someone else, his voice the most serious you’ve ever heard it, before he talks directly to you again, “How much longer do you think you have before you run out of oxygen?” 

It takes you a moment to register the question, but when you do, you answer, “Uh… I don’t— I think… maybe a few more minutes? I can’t tell, it’s just hard to breathe, I can’t…” 

“Okay, okay,” Price softly says, gusts of wind blowing into his mic as he talks, “Give me a second, okay? We’re almost there, kid, we’ll— we’ll be there in just a minute, we just passed over you, I just need you to stay awake.” 

“In a minute,” You repeat to yourself, before taking a deep breath, hoping that you have enough oxygen to make it out of this casket because you really don’t want to die here, not when there’s help just a minute away. 

After what you assume is a minute or two, instead of thumping, you hear something cut into the dirt above you. The sound, however, is heavily muffled, so muffled to the point where you don’t know if you’re hallucinating or not.

Is that a symptom of CO2 poisoning? Hallucinations? You lay still in the casket and can’t help but release the breath you’d only just taken, the ringing in your ears starting up again and growing louder faster than they had before. 

Your entire body is numb, your chest is heavy, and you can feel a sort of fog fall over your mind. You can distantly hear Price yelling through your earpiece, but you can’t find it in yourself to respond, instead simply laying there, your blinking starting to slow down before it eventually stops, leaving your eyes closed. 

— 

For a moment, you think you died and went to heaven, which would be weird, considering all the things you’ve done in your life. Not saying you’d go to hell, just saying God would probably hesitate for a second before letting you in through the pearly gates. 

You blink awake, slowly but surely, and the first thing you realize is that you can feel things again. You tilt your head down to the bump under the white bed sheets laid on top of you, and squeeze your hand into a ball, watching the bump move and feeling your fingers dig into your oddly sore palms.

You let out a sigh of relief and pull your hand out from the sheets, bringing it up to your face and feeling the oxygen mask that’s been placed over your mouth and nose.

“Don’t mess with that,” You hear a voice say to your right. You turn your head and see a very tired Captain Price, dark eyebags hanging under his eyes and arms crossed, his hands having a white knuckle grip on either one of his elbows. 

“…” You don’t say anything, instead you simply stare at him until he sighs and gets up from his seat. You watch silently as he leans over your bed and bends down, before pausing, and then quickly snaking his hands under your back to pull you up just enough for him to properly hug you. 

You reach up with shaky hands and tentatively hug him back, not nearly as tightly—not that you don’t want to, but you physically can’t with how weak your arms are right now—but with just as much sincere affection. You can feel Price’s beard rubbing against your neck and hear his small sniffles as he embraces you tightly. 

Maybe it’s his sniffling, or the way you can finally feel warmth for the first time in what feels like forever, or maybe it’s just the fact that he’s holding you with so much care and affection that it almost makes you burst at the seams, whatever it is, it causes you to tear up as well. 

Those tears quickly become sobs that bubble up in your throat and crawl their way out of it, forcing you to tuck your head into the crook of Price’s neck and muffle your sobs in it, muttering a small ‘sorry’ after each one. 

After each ‘sorry’, Price responds with, “It’s okay, let it out, sweetheart, you’re okay,” and those reassuring words only make you cry more because God, you didn’t even think he’d find you, yet here he is, letting you cry into his neck and is reassuring you after every apology that it’s okay. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—” You mumble a litany of apologies into Price’s neck, your breath stuttering and hitching as you try to hold back your sobs. Price only shushes you and rubs his hand up and down your back in a comforting gesture, bringing his head up to kiss the top of your head. 

He tucks your head under his chin, “Don’t apologize, it’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.” 

And fuck, you know it’s just words, but it only makes you cry more. 

Your sobs eventually stop, leaving you hiccuping against Price’s neck, silently crying as he continues to rub your back. 

“I thought you died,” He whispers, his hand stuttering on your back, “I thought you died and I was going to dig up your dead body, when you didn’t answer me.”

You stay silent, letting him continue, “I thought you were dead when we dug you up and needed to feel your heartbeat for myself to confirm that you were still alive.” 

He pauses for a moment before continuing, “I’ve been here ever since they put you in here. I haven’t slept, I’ve just stayed here, waiting for you to wake up so I could tell you that I—”

He chokes up for a moment before taking a deep breath and continuing, “I’m sorry for not even thinking to drag you out of the facility with me when we all ran out. You were— you were right there, and I couldn’t just grab your arm and take you with me, I just had to leave you behind and I—” 

“You watched me while I was asleep?” You ask quietly, your eyebrows drawing together. 

Price pauses and pulls his chin off of your head, and pulls you away from his neck so he can properly give you the most incredulous look he can pull, before saying, “I’m pouring my heart out to you and apologizing for practically leaving you for dead, and that’s what you’re worried about?” 

“Well, I’m not worried, I’m just—” You shrug, not knowing how to explain it. Price sighs and chuckles quietly before tucking your head back under his chin. 

“You’re insufferable,” He mumbles, sniffling a bit. 

“… I forgive you, by the way,” You say after a moment of silence, “I didn’t really blame you in the first place.” 

“You had the right to.” 

“Sure I did.” 

“But you didn’t blame me.”

“Right.” “…” Price stays silent for a moment before pressing another soft kiss to the top of your head and saying quietly, “You should blame me.” 

“Maybe,” You mumble back, “But I won’t.” 

Later, maybe an hour later, if the others see you asleep in Price’s arms while he keeps your head tucked under his chin and rubs your back affectionately—no they don’t.

[cerise-on-top]

Hello! I hope your requests are still open because your writing makes me go 😙🥹❤️💞✨

So, can I request 141 men + Nikolai + König when reader needs CPR?

Hello! My requests are always open, unless I explicitly state somewhere that they aren't! I'm glad to hear that my writing is enjoyable to you! This request was fairly difficult to write since I've never performed CPR before, I've never been in a dangerous situation like that either, so I hope I was able to do it justice! Thank you for requesting!

TF141, Nikolai and König Performing CPR on Reader

Price: In his case, you were probably just putting away some Christmas decorations, offering to go upstairs and stash away the box. It seemed simple enough, what could go wrong? Eventually, he heard something large and heavy falling down, a loud thump sounding throughout his home. Did you drop the box? How lovely. With a chuckle, he walked up the stairs himself, calling out your name. The door to the room was open, a few Christmas ornaments rolled on the floor. Did you trip? Once again, he called out your name as he opened the door, his chest tightening with worry. When he saw you lying on the ground, absolutely motionless, seemingly not even breathing, he panicked a bit.

It wasn’t the first time he had seen something like this happen, nor was it likely going to be the last, but it was you. Lovely you, who really shouldn’t be dying in a place like this. Rushing to your side, he instinctively checked for a pulse. The room seemed so cold, with his blood to match, as he couldn’t feel one, and thus he rolled you onto your back, putting his ear to your chest. Nothing. Fuck, you really shouldn’t, you couldn’t, die in a place like this, not to something like a heart attack. It hadn’t been long just yet, he convinced himself, there was still time to save you. Why didn’t you say anything?

Price was never one to physically freeze up, it could mean his own death if he was paralyzed, after all, but he had never been closer to being unable to move. Checking your mouth first, it seemed empty, he quickly put his hands over your chest, pumping away. His rhythm was steady, his pumps powerful, Even when he heard the cracking of bones, he didn’t cease. Losing you was the worst thing that could have happened to him. Mind blank, forcing any and all thoughts that weren’t him counting to thirty, he took a quick, somewhat deep breath, gently exhaling into your mouth. If this didn’t work he was fucked, he didn’t have the time to dial 112 either, after all. This could have been such a nice evening, but the worst took place… Suppressing anything and everything that wasn’t his physical activity, repeating it time and time again, he was just about ready to give up. Putting pressure on your chest again, he talked to you, maybe out of fear of never seeing you again, maybe to calm himself. Whichever it was, he spoke clearly, if just a bit rushed. “You can’t leave me alone here, please.”

Eternal moments that seemed to never pass, but eventually, your heart started beating again. It’s in that short moment of respite that Price called 112, immediately stating his location and what happened. But until that help arrived, he never left your side, always checking for your pulse, always checking if you’re breathing. To hell with everything else, once the medics had arrived he went with them, making sure you were alright. There was no way he’d leave you alone for a while after something like this.

Gaz: Good food was always among the most important things to you and him, and thus you spend the day before New Year’s Eve with him, enjoying his culinary expertise. Regardless of how spicy it was, you always kept going, even with tears in your eyes. Gaz could appreciate that, someone with a big stomach willing to eat the food he makes. Taking another bite of his spicy spaghetti, you listened intently as he cracked another joke, accidentally inhaling some of the noodles in your mouth, with them going down your windpipe. You started coughing violently immediately, hitting your chest to get those damned noodles out of your throat. But to no avail.

Gaz immediately tried the Heimlich manouver on you. It seemed to work after a few times, even if you had gone unconscious by then. Yes, he knew you were not supposed to use it on unconscious people but he genuinely did not know what else to do. Slowly lowering you to the ground, he, too, would check for a pulse. Normally you’d find one, but not in your case, with your breathing having ceased as well. Unlike Price, he’d call 112 immediately. While he did know even before the call that he’d need to perform CPR on you, it was for the best he’d help stabilize you until help would arrive. Listening to their instructions, he’d immediately told them you weren’t breathing and asked them to come to his address, he put his hands on your chest as well.

It would take a bit for him to find a steady and good rhythm. He was a soldier, yes, he’d been through even more stressful situations than one could imagine, but this was something else. While you wouldn’t be the first loved one he had lost, he’d be damned if he didn’t try to resuscitate you. He wouldn’t always reach exactly thirty, no matter how calm he thought he was, being off roughly one or two pumps from time to time. Him trying to breathe life into you again would also be extremely gentle, almost more so than Price. Your lungs could rupture, leaving you lost forever. He couldn’t afford a single mistake. No matter how hazy his mind may have been in that moment, he was going to save you. You were going to be alright, help would be here soon.

And that it was in the following moment, with him leading them to you as quickly as possible. Like Price, he’ll simply lock his home and go along with you, if they let him. And if they don’t then he’ll demand to be informed at once when he can visit you. He knows an ambulance isn’t the biggest car, not too many people can fit inside it, but he wants to see you again, alive, if possible. Too many people die per day, you don't need to be one of them. However, as soon as he’s allowed to, he’ll visit you, regardless of whether one hour or one day has passed. In his haste, he might not have brought you a gift, and for that he’ll try to calmly apologize, but he was just that worried about you.

Ghost: It was a lovely winter evening with the both of you just being out for a ride, with you driving. Ghost sat in the passenger seat, making conversation with you as you talked about anything and everything. The road was a bit slippery, England was known for its rain, after all. It wasn’t that cold, it could have been colder, but the wet road posed a danger in and of itself. He had been looking forward to something like this, just spending time with you on the road, listening to some blasted pop songs that were overplayed on the radio and chatting about how your lives were going. Everything seemed peaceful enough, everything seemed good so far.

The songs were sometimes interrupted by warnings of a ghost driver on the road where the two of you had been. It was worrisome, but you insisted that you weren’t going to encounter them. It seemed so unlikely, it might as well not happen. But somehow, Ghost couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. And later on, after the fourth warning, a car came down the road you were driving. Usually so quick with your reactions, you were too slow this time, with both cars crashing into each other. Yours, being the smaller one, rolled over too. It was a horrid sight for anyone involved, but Ghost was somehow able to drag himself out of the wreckage that was your car. People had started stopping and gathering already. But, despite being bloody and in pain, he searched for you, hoping he could find you alive and somewhat well. Finding you wasn’t the problem, dragging you away from the car was. Ghost ordered someone to call an ambulance as he checked for your pulse. None. No breathing either.

The people around him tried to tell him what to do, giving pointers that he barely even heard. He immediately started performing CPR on you, pumping away on your heart to get the leftover oxygen circulating through your body. He was relatively calm about all of this, his mind hardened enough to not jump to the worst conclusions. By no means was he ready to let go of you and lose you, but panicking wasn’t going to solve anything either. Thirty times he pumped, twice he tried to bring you back to life with more oxygen. The lights around him blurred together, the chatter of the people didn’t reach him, all that mattered was you, all that mattered was that you’d survive. Although it tried to get foggy, he kept his mind crystal clear, knowing that once you were going to wake up, you’d want someone with you who was calm and collected, ready to calm you down and give you a rundown of what happened. He needed to be that person for you.

The ambulance arrived soon enough and, as he had no one to ride with in the middle of the road, they took him with them to the hospital. He was quiet the entire ride, but never let his eyes leave your unconscious body for even a second. It was selfish of him, but Ghost wanted you alive and for himself. Hell, if he had to shoot the ghost driver himself to accomplish such a thing, he would.

Soap: What better thing was there to do during summer than going for a swim with your loved ones? It wasn’t exactly uncommon for you and Soap to meet up just to play around a bit in the water. Although you would have loved to go to one of the beautiful beaches the country has to offer, you opted for going to one of the public pools as those were closer. There were plenty of people there anyway, but at the very least you wouldn’t have to drive for a few hours just to be able to play in the water. It was far too hot for that, after all, and the both of you just wanted to dunk each other underneath that blue gold.

It was around midday when the two of you were eating some fries, with you joking about needing a nap afterwards despite you not nearly having eaten as many as Soap had. But they were relatively cheap and filling enough, they were a good source of food when it came to just spending a day at the pool. You may have been far from full, but it was still nice to be able to take a nap, even if it was far too loud and the stench of chlorine wafted through the air as well. However, Soap decided he’d try to convince you to go swimming with him anyway, and how could you say no when he can be one of the most annoying people on god’s green earth. So, you agreed, willing to swim around the perimeter of the pool to please him.

However, soon enough, you felt a cramp coming along. It was slowly sneaking up on you, making sure you’d feel your doom coming along slowly. You panicked, trying to get out of the water so you wouldn’t drown, but it was too late by then. Instinctively, you curled up, sinking like a stone eventually. Soap noticed immediately, swimming up to you as quickly as he could and dragging you out of the water. But he was too late. By the time you were out, you stopped breathing. Soap panicked a bit, hoping this was all just destiny playing a cruel trick on you, but he wasn’t out of his mind for long, taking a quick breath before pointing at someone nearby and ordering them to call an ambulance. He’d hesitate a bit, not wanting to disrespect your boundaries, but he’d get to work quickly enough, knowing fully well that you weren’t going to leave him over him performing CPR on you when you could have died.

Like Gaz, he wouldn’t have the rhythm down immediately, he had never done this before on a proper human, only the dummies. When he isn’t trying to breathe into you, he might ask someone to play some music with the proper rhythm, it would help him tremendously. Him actually hearing the music is another thing after a while. Because his mind would go foggy, he would go wild with worry, but he won’t stop trying to reanimate you until the medics would take over. Or until you’re spitting out the water in your lungs, whichever comes first. There’s a chance they likely won’t take him with them since he was only wearing his swimming gear and someone needed to pick up your things as well, but you can count on him doing so immediately. You are near and dear to him, he can and will break the traffic laws if only to get to you a bit more quickly.

Nikolai: You were likely in his workshop, helping him out here and there by handing him some things. Such a thing had become routine for the two of you as well, with you being his beloved little helper. He was working on his helicopter again, making repairs, performing general maintenance on it, that sort of thing. Despite him being quite the handyman, capable of doing just about anything with his hands, he doesn’t always have the time to do so, leaving some things unfinished, almost dangerous, in his own four walls. Although he’d love to fix the electrical wiring in his workshop so it would work properly again, he was always busy as of late, with Chimera taking up most of his time.

You chatted with him for the time being, making it a game of what he could be needing next. Which screws was he going to replace this time to make the helicopter more safe? You’d find out soon enough. However, he was asking for a tool, a specific wrench, which you didn’t have on hand right now. No matter how much you looked nearby, it wasn’t there. However, you did spot it on the workbench in front of you, and thus you went to pick it up. However, something unfortunate must have happened as it was near an open electrical wire. You didn’t feel like grabbing rubber gloves just for that, though, so you went to pick it up regardless.

Nikolai hit his head on the helo as he heard you scream, perking up immediately to see what was wrong. Soon enough, however, you went completely quiet, completely still as you didn’t move a single inch anymore. Something was up, something more important than the helicopter. Immediately, he rushed to your side, throwing aside the screwdriver in his hand. You really shouldn’t have touched that, but that wasn’t what was important in the moment. Grabbing your hand, he tried to feel a pulse. In this case too, there was none. He couldn’t feel your chest rise and fall, he couldn’t feel your heartbeat. He wasn’t panicking, Nikolai barely ever did, but he did feel a certain sense of dread as he called 112 as well. The call was short enough, but too long for his liking either way, since any second could decide whether you live or die.

In all fairness, Nikolai has performed CPR plenty of times throughout his life, so he knows what he’s doing. His rhythm is never off, his pressure is good and he won’t break any ribs of yours either. He breathes into you fairly gently as well, but quickly enough for him to get back to doing chest compression. He’s completely calm, his mind doesn’t wander. Maybe once, he’ll think about not wanting to have you die just yet, but he’s not too worried. Whatever it is life throws at him, it won’t be the worst thing he’s gone through, but if he can extend your life just a bit longer, he will. Watches you very closely for any signs of you being alive again, sometimes checking for a pulse before going back, repeating the same steps over and over again.

When the ambulance arrives, he’ll ask if he can come along, but won’t make a fuss if they won’t let him. While it won’t leave his mind, he won’t freak out over it, he knows you’ll be in good hands now. A few hours later he’ll visit you. Unlike Gaz, he gives himself enough time to get you some chocolate or something. Anything to try and comfort you, dying isn’t fun, after all.

König: A habit the two of you had developed was just spending time with each other in silence. You were drawing in your sketchbook while König was watching a video on his phone. Everything was good, nothing was off. Sometimes you’d make small talk, ask him about what exactly he was watching when you heard him chortle at some angry German speaking bus driver yelling. He was nice enough to try and translate the jokes into English, but that didn’t mean everything carried over well. You couldn’t understand why he was laughing at some man screaming while getting out of a bus in a video game, but oh well. As long as he was having fun, everything was good.

Sometime later, you noticed that it was getting harder to breathe. It wasn’t impossible, just difficult. You could still get enough oxygen as it was, but you felt a bit light headed. Eventually, you did have to use the bathroom and you excused yourself for a moment. König didn’t mind, it was nice to have you be this comfortable in his home. He, too, would hear a thump and call for you, asking you what was wrong. When there was no response, he’d knock on the door. Listening intently to what might have been the matter, he heard you gasping for air until that stopped too. The door was locked, making it hard for him to get to you, but he was worried. No matter how much he tried to get you to respond, you didn’t.

Eventually, he just ripped the door off its hinges to get to you. In the end, he was glad he did since you had collapsed onto his bathroom floor. Shaking you while calling your name did nothing, so he, too, opted for feeling a pulse. Nothing on your wrist, nothing on your chest, no breathing either. Naturally, he called 144 and followed the instructions perfectly. There was no time to be wasted, he knew that, but he couldn’t help but feel that twinge of fear in his heart either way. König was only a worried man when it came to some social situations, but this time he could feel the fear arising in him just a bit. It wasn’t enough for him to actually deter him, but he was afraid of messing up. You were important to him, he couldn’t make a single mistake.

He knew that there are some songs that are ideal for CPR, but he won’t play any of them on his phone. In his mind, he’ll try to remember them, their rhythm. If it’s a song he especially likes, then it’ll help him calm down a bit as well. He isn’t panicked per se, but his mind will wander just a bit. Like Price, he’ll push the bad thoughts aside. He’s all for realism, but if he can, he will be in denial about your death for as long as he can be. While König has been in situations where someone needed CPR, he was never the one to perform it, so he hasn’t mastered it. He only had to take the course several times. Even so, he performs well enough, keeping you alive long enough for the medics to arrive and take you away. He’s aware he’s a big guy and thus likely won’t fit inside the ambulance, but he will come visit you as well. Might yell at you a bit as he was quite worried, but don’t take it to heart, he needs to relieve some stress after this as well.

[bedsyandco]

Soon you’ll get better

❥ — ꒰ pairing ꒱ lani x quinn hughes

❥ — ꒰ synopsis ꒱ the aftermath of the accident

❥ — ꒰ content ꒱ talks of an accident, medical injuries, death, miscarriage. incorrect medical talk and diagnosis…obviously i’m not a doctor and this is fiction!! unedited. will be edited later!!

❥ — ꒰ note ꒱ title bc I listened to the song while writing!!

Eight and a half hours later when the Hughes family arrived in Vancouver and at the hospital, Quinn was still in the same position he had been the entire night. Sat on the floor, his arms rested on his bent legs, his head rested against the wall. When he saw his family arriving he mustered the little energy he had left after not sleeping last night, to push himself up and meet them halfway across the waiting room.

“Oh Quinn,” is all his mom said as she wrapped her arms tightly around him and held him for a few minutes. Afterwards he gave his dad a long hug, no word being exchanged there because what could he say?

“Have you heard anything?” Violet asks as Quinn hugs her.

“Not really. The doctor comes out every few hours to tell me that she’s still stable and that they’re doing everything they can but… it’s been hours and…” Quinn says, tearing up again and he wipes his face frustratedly.

“You should get some sleep,” Jack suggests softly and Quinn just glares at him.

“I’m not sleeping until I know she’s okay,” Quinn responds

“Quinn we’ll wake you-”

“I’m not sleeping until I know she’s okay,” Quinn repeats and Jack nods.

Jack understood. So did Luke. He spent the 8 hour flight over there thinking about what he would do if God forbid something ever happened to Violet. He determined that Violet was gonna live way longer than him and that he’d never have to live that horrible life without her, nothing was ever allowed to happen to her. Luke wraps his arms tightly around her again, kissing her neck where he could feel her pulse and the pressure in his chest lessens a bit but it returns when he goes back to observing his older brother.

“Do you know how it happened yet?” Jim asks and Quinn nods

“She was on her way to the restaurant, a truck lost control on the road and Lani swerved to miss it, her car rolled off the road and crashed straight into a pole. Apparently she’s lucky she swerved otherwise she would have died on impact with the truck. Doesn’t feel very fucking lucky though, does it?” Quinn asks angrily and everyone flinches a little when he curses but all of them remain silent. Not quite sure what to say.

“God, if I had just…gone home and picked her up. Or cancelled the damn dinner. You know I can’t even really remember what my life was like before the past year, before her. And I can’t even imagine what it would look like without her,” Quinn says, his voice cracking at the end.

“You don’t have to imagine it. Lani’s gonna be okay Quinn. She’s gonna pull through,”Jack says, pulling his brother into a tight hug.

“I’m gonna go get us some coffee,” Blue says to Violet softly and she leaves just as the doctor appears.

“Mr. Hughes?” the doctor asks from a distance away and Quinn walks closer, so only he would hear what the doctor was saying, scanning the doctor’s face for any clues as to what he should prepare for, but the doctor’s face doesn’t give anything away.

“Is she okay?” Quinn asks desperately

“Ms. Reed is out of surgery and will be moved to recovery now. She had extensive injuries. She had multiple fractured bones in her arm, and shoulder. She also took a major blow to the head and there was some internal bleeding that we were able to stop luckily. One of her lungs was punctured-” the doctor’s words get caught off by Quinn turning towards the garbage can to vomit.

“I’m good, you can continue” Quinn rasps out as the doctor sends him a concerned look.

“The list of injuries is long Mr. Hughes but the most important thing is that she’s okay and she’ll make a full recovery. Physically at least. Unfortunately Ms. Reed suffered a miscarriage because of the physical trauma and shock her body went through because of the accident and there was nothing we could do,” the doctor says softly and Quinn stops breathing for a second.

“Miscarriage?” Quinn asks, not quite comprehending the fact that Lani was…

“Ms. Reed was pregnant prior to the accident. She wasn’t very far along…7-8 weeks potentially. It was likely that she didn’t even know yet. There was no permanent damage done and she should have no problem getting pregnant again in the future. I can be the one to tell her if you don’t feel-”

“No, I’ll do it,” Quinn immediately responds, knowing it would be better if it came from him.

“Someone will be out shortly to take you to her room. I’m very sorry for your loss,” the doctor says sympathetically before walking away again and Quinn has to lean against the wall for a second to process what he just heard. The doctor obviously assumed correctly that the baby was his since he told them him and Lani were engaged despite their very obvious missing rings.

Lani is pregnant. Was pregnant. Was.

Quinn walks back towards his family, a little dazed. His lack of sleep and shock of what happened in the past 24 hours finally caught up to him.

“She’s gonna be okay,” is all Quinn says because Lani should be the first person he tells about the baby, and maybe she doesn’t want other people to know and Quinn wanted to make sure he respected those wishes.

Everyone practically deflates with relief and his parents take a seat on the chairs, his mom letting out a few tears.

“Luke and I are gonna stop by your apartment. Get you some clothes and other things. I’ll pack Lani a bag too,” Violet says and Quinn hands her the keys to his car and his apartment. The guys had driven to the hospital with his car and ordered a ride home so Quinn still had his vehicle.

“You know where my stuff is. Lani’s things are all in the same places, just on the left. Same with the bathroom, all her stuff is in the left vanity,” Quinn says and Violet nods giving him a tight hug.

“We love you,” she says and Quinn squeezes her tight.

“Thanks for being here,” he responds

“Of course,”

They leave and when Blue comes back a few minutes later with 2 hands filled with multiple cups of coffee, Quinn feels his chest contract again. Lani loves coffee.

“We’re gonna go get everyone some food. We’ll be back but if you go see her before we return, tell Lani we love her yeah?” Jack says taking Blue’s hand in his own and Quinn nods as they make their way to the exit.

About thirty minutes later a nurse shows up and leads him to Lani’s room, and this is all Quinn’s been waiting for…a moment to lay his eyes on Lani and be sure that she’s okay. That he didn’t lose her. That they were gonna be okay.

But as he stood in the entrance of the room, he was unable to move, or speak, or breathe at the sight in front of him.

There she was. His Lani. Except she didn’t look like his Lani at all. Because his Lani was full of light, and so filled with joy she practically glowed with it. And now she was pale, battered, bruised and blue.

Quinn simply stands there for a moment observing her before he walks closer, taking the seat closest to her bedside and gently as ever, grabbing her hand and holding it against his cheek, pressing multiple kisses on her palm.

He fell asleep like that, clutching her hand tightly and resting his head against her.

A few hours later he awoke to the feeling of fingers gently running through his hair and his eyes instantly shot open.

He lifted his head to meet her gaze and he instantly teared up again.

“Lani,” he whispers, standing up and leaning over to kiss her on the temple

“We should call the nurse,” Quinn says hastily but Lani halts him with a hand on his arm.

“The nurse was already in here, just a few moments ago. She explained what happened and gave me some pain meds,” Lani says

“How long have you been awake?” Quinn asks

“For thirty minutes or so,”

“You should’ve woken me up,” Quinn says

“The nurse said you didn’t sleep at all last night, I wanted to let you rest a little longer,” Lani explains and Quinn sighs

“Come sit,” Lani says patting the spot next to her and Quinn immediately shakes his head

“No I don’t wanna hurt you,” he argues, choosing to sit at the bottom of the bed instead.

They talk for a little bit but half an hour later the troubled look on Quinn’s face still hasn’t disappeared.

“I’m okay Quinn,”

“You almost weren’t though,” he argues, his voice cracking

“But I am. And that’s all that matters. I'm here. I'm okay.” she says softly and Quinn just stares at her for a few minutes

“I should probably go give my parents an update,” Quinn says but doesn’t move.

“Your parents are here?” Lani asks surprised

“yeah, came as soon as they heard what happened. So did my brothers and Vi and Blue,” Quinn says

“oh. they didn’t need to fly all the way out here for me,”

“you almost died lani,” quinn says incredulously. finding it ridiculous that she’s even having the thought that her almost dying is an inconvenience to others.

“They can visit tomorrow if you’re up for it,” Quinn determines, seeing how tired she looks. She didn’t have to see them today. Or tomorrow. Or at all if she didn’t want to.

Him and Lani spend the next hour or so just talking, reassuring one another that she was okay and everything was gonna be fine. And then Quinn remembered that there was still something he needed to tell her. He really didn’t want to, not wanting to hurt her even more than she was already hurt.

“Lani. I need to tell you something,” Quinn starts but hesitates

“What is it?” she asks concerned, taking both his hands in hers.

“Before the accident, you were- you were pregnant. But the baby didn’t make it,” Quinn says softly and it feels like someone stabbed him right in the heart when she gasps and tears up, retracting her hands and putting them on her stomach.

“No,” she whispers, and Quinn wipes her tears, nodding sadly.

“No,” she repeats again, her body shaking with her sobs and Quinn just wraps his arms around her, holding her tight.

Her sobs eventually die down, but the tears never stop, all ending up on Quinn’s shirt.

“I’m so sorry Quinn,” she apologises softly, pressing a kiss to his neck, knowing he must be hurting too.

“Don’t apologise. You have nothing to apologise for. None of this is your fault, you hear me?” he asks and she nods against his shoulder.

Rationally Lani knew it wasn’t the right time to have a baby. Her and Quinn are only dating for about a year now, she was still in school, he was only now really settling in with the responsibility of being captain. But she also can’t help but be sad at the possibility of what could have been. Of what they could have had.

“We’re gonna be okay angel. The only thing that matters right now is that you’re okay. We’ll get through the rest together okay?” he asks and she nods, tears still falling as he cups her face and presses kisses all over. Kissing every tear away.

“I love you so much. More than I can even try to explain,” Quinn says, kissing her gently, and that just makes the tears fall even more.

“I love you the most,” she replies, snuggling into him more as he holds her. They would spend the rest of the day like that. And the next few days. And a lot of days after that. But they were gonna be okay, as long as they had each other.

[forest-hashira]

'Til Death Do Us Part

hi everyone! this is my (first) entry for @kentopedia's "Love Through the Ages" collab/event! this is a retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, but with Gojo/Reader. if you want to know the full vibes for this, i listened to Moon Song and I Know The End by Phoebe Bridgers on repeat while writing this.

read on ao3 here | wc: ~3.3k | cw: gn reader, satoru is a musician, major character death (reader), hurt no comfort, unhappy ending

Falling in love with you was easy. In fact, it was probably the easiest thing Satoru had ever done in his life; even easier than picking up the lyre as soon as he was strong enough to hold it; even easier than the singing lessons he’d outgrown the need for when he was still just a young boy; easier than charming every young woman he ever came across, leaving a long string of broken hearts in his wake.

But not you.

With you, he’d taken his time, had actually gotten to know you until it felt like he’d known you all his life; he knew your favorite season, what times you liked to take walks in the fields outside of town, even your favorite place to watch the sunset. He also knew that you were the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Falling in love with you was easy, and even after you’d fallen in love with him, too, asking you to marry him felt terrifying. But you said yes, and all that terror had melted into elation. 

There was hardly any time at all between your engagement and your wedding, both of you eager to belong to each other forever, so in love it was almost painful. Though the wedding itself was small – and barely a month after Satoru proposed – it was the most joyful day in both of your lives. Being surrounded by the laughter of your loved ones, everyone dancing and enjoying good food and dancing had made you feel lighter than air, even long after the sun had set; for once, you weren’t even sad that you had missed watching it from your favorite spot.

Falling in love with you was easy. Loving you was easier. Losing you was the most painful thing Satoru had ever experienced.

It was only days after your wedding, after you had promised to be at one another’s side until the end, in the very field where you’d first told him you loved him, where you’d shared your first kiss. 

You had cried out from a sharp pain in your ankle, and when both of you looked to see what it was, you watched a large snake disappear into the flowers. In a panic, Satoru had ripped the fabric of his tunic, wrapping it tightly around the wound, silently, desperately praying that the poison would move slow enough for him to get you back to the town, where he could only hope someone would know how to cure snake bites. He couldn’t lose you, not like this, not so soon after he’d made you his.

When he’d gone to carry you – to pick you up and rush back to town with you in his arms – he had seen your skin was already an unnaturally pale, ashen color, a sheen of sweat over your whole body.

“No,” he’d whispered, shaking his head, as if that would magically give him more time to save you. “No, no no no.”

You’d only smiled at him, though your eyes were already starting to go a little unfocused. “It’s too late, my love.” Your hands had tangled in the front of his tunic, the soft blue fabric crumpling so easily between your fingers. “But this isn’t such a bad place to die, is it? I’m with you, and the flowers are blooming, and the sun is shining.” With every word, you’d had to lean more and more of your weight into him, your legs losing strength by the second.

“Let’s just sit together for a moment, my love, and enjoy the breeze. I don’t want to be scared when I go.”

The words had nearly shattered Satoru, but he had nodded, easing both of you down to lay amongst the flowers, cradling you close to himself the whole time. He’d stared down at you without blinking, unwilling to miss a single heartbeat of the time he had left with you; the fact that you had looked up at him, too, was both a blessing and a curse.

“Don’t go,” he’d pleaded, throat tight with the tears he was fighting back. “I don’t want you to go. I love you.”

“I know,” you’d whispered back. “I don’t want to go, either. I love you, Satoru, and I wish we had more time, but we don’t.”

“It’s not fair.”

“No,” you’d agreed, a bittersweet smile on your lips. “It’s not fair. But neither is life. And I’m happy to have spent as much of mine with you as I got to.”

Words had failed him then, and he’d leaned down to press one last kiss to your lips, knowing deep down that this would be his last chance. And he had been right; you’d managed to return his kiss for a moment, before going completely still in his arms.

Satoru had stayed in that field with you and wept for hours after the warmth left your body, only forcing himself to stand and take both of you back to town when it began to grow dark and a chill drifted in on the breeze you had been so eager to feel in your last moments.

And so, he had carried you home, his eyes red-rimmed and swollen from crying, but his face otherwise blank, too numb to feel even grief at that moment. No one that saw him had tried to stop him, the sight of the typically lively musician so hollow, so quiet, had left everyone shaken.

The days after your death all blurred together; the only one that stuck out significantly from the others was the day of your funeral, because it was the only time he’d cleaned himself up and left the house, and even that was because Satoru knew he was expected to be there, the grieving husband to round out the picture of a Perfect Funeral. It had made him sick, and he’d excused himself as quickly as possible. 

He spent much of his time crying, or staring at the wall, or ceiling, replaying that last afternoon with you, obsessing over how he could have done things differently, how he could have saved you, even if he knew logically it was pointless; what was done could not be undone, especially not death. 

…Could it?

Once Satoru had the thought, he could not bring himself to abandon it, so he began instead to meticulously detail his plan. 

The days were already growing colder, which meant that Lady Persephone had returned to her husband’s realm of the Underworld; perhaps he would be able to use that to his advantage. 

Satoru had a purpose again, something to get him out of bed and moving; he had a goal to achieve, and no earthly force would stop him. He spent days polishing and tuning his instruments, and days longer composing and perfecting a song to play for the King and Queen of the Underworld; if he was going to convince the keepers of the dead to release one of their charges, everything needed to be perfect.

He was vaguely aware that a couple people – Suguru and Shoko, perhaps? Anything outside of his task was fuzzy at best – came to check on him occasionally, just as they had before he had manically begun to prepare to do the impossible. If they tried to talk him out of it, he can’t remember; even if they had tried, it wouldn’t have worked. His sole focus was on getting you back, and nothing would stand in his way.

By the time Satoru felt he had done everything he could to prepare for his journey, almost two weeks had passed since you’d died in his arms.

Your husband dressed warmly, both because he was unsure what to expect in the Underworld and because having your scarf wrapped around his neck gave him confidence that his plan would work; how could it not, when wearing the scarf wreathed him in your scent, as if you were already back with him again?

The sun was barely up when Satoru left your home, his lyre wrapped carefully in muslin and tucked into his bag. He knew the entrance to the Underworld was close enough to walk, but he didn’t know how long it would take him to get there, and he didn’t want to waste any time at all. Though he had left so early in the morning, there were still a few townspeople that saw him, asked him where he was going, but he ignored them all; conversation would only delay his journey, and he wouldn’t have that.

The musician made good time, all things considered, reaching the entrance to the Underworld about an hour past midday. He paused for a moment, took a deep breath to steel himself, then stepped forwards into the darkness.

He had no torch to light his way, but the path beneath his feet seemed to glow on its own, as if guiding him along; as if the Lord and Lady were expecting and didn’t want to be kept waiting because the foolish mortal lost his way. So, seeing no other option, he followed the soft, almost foggy glow as it led him deeper and deeper into the earth and – hopefully – to the throne room of Hades and Persephone. 

Time didn’t quite feel the same below the surface – it felt thicker, somehow, and heavier, catching on his clothes and sticking to his skin like honey – which meant he had no idea how long he’d been walking. The only thing that kept him from panicking was the faintest scent of pomegranates, coming from the same direction the path seemed to lead.

Eventually, Satoru did reach the throne room, though he couldn’t have recalled what it looked like later if his life depended on it. For as much as he looked around, the whole room could have been made of diamonds and liquid gold could have rained from the ceiling; none of that mattered to him, because it had nothing to do with you. His gaze went straight to the couple in their thrones, and he fought to keep his nerves under control; now was not the moment to get stage fright for the first time in his life. 

“Your Highness,” he said, bowing so low he felt the way his hair shifted to cooperate with gravity, the dusty purple of his undercut no longer hidden beneath the pale strands of his frosty hair, so white it practically glowed in the dusk of the throne room. 

“What brings you to my realm, mortal?” Hades asked, his expression impassive, though his eyes simmered with something dangerous. 

“I have come to play you a song,” Satoru answered simply, standing from his bow and removing his lyre from his bag, unwrapping the fabric from around it with great care. He adjusted his hold on the instrument until it sat nestled in his arms in the best position for him to play, then lifted his gaze back to the gods. “If it pleases my Lord and her Ladyship, of course.”

This was the one catch in his plan: if he was denied permission to play, he had no chance of returning home with you at his side.

“Oh, please?” Persephone turned to face her husband, a pleading expression on her face. “Let him play, my love. We never have mortal visitors, much less artists, and I want to hear what he’s prepared for us!”

The King of the Dead hesitated for a few moments, staring at his wife, but Satoru caught the way his smoldering eyes softened, the way the hard lines of his mouth eased, and the musician knew he would be allowed to play.

“My wife wishes to hear you play,” the god said, turning back to the man before him. “I hope you don’t disappoint her with your skills.”

With another, smaller bow, Satoru began to play, and soon thereafter began to sing. He sang about you: all the ways you loved him, and all the ways he loved you in return. He sang of his life before he met you: how he had played around, led people along and broken their hearts with his carelessness, simply because he was bored. He sang of your lives after you’d met: how you had brightened his mornings and sweetened his days and warmed his nights; how you had planned a future together you had never gotten to see. The harmonies from his lyre blended with the melodies of his voice, painting the image of you so vividly Satoru swore he could see your shape in front of him again.

It wasn’t until he finished his song that he realized he could see you there in front of him, though your form wavered around the edges, like you were a little less than solid. But you were there, and you were smiling, and he felt like falling to his knees and crawling to you right then and there; the only thing that stopped him was realizing that both Hades and Persephone were openly weeping.

He, Gojo Satoru, had brought gods to tears with his music, and with his love for you.

Emboldened by seeing your face again, Satoru spoke. “Please,” he begged, his voice eggshell-thin, cracking under the stress of his request. “Please don’t make me return home without my love. I cannot bear to make the journey alone again.”

At first he received only silence in response, and though he was not a patient man by nature, he forced himself to wait until he was spoken to, not wanting to risk upsetting the gods before him.

“Once a soul has entered the Underworld, it cannot be allowed to leave again,” Hades responded once he had composed himself, which felt like years after Satoru had made his plea. “I am very sorry.”

The musician felt his heart sink at the denial, and he began to consider begging to be allowed to stay, instead, if he couldn’t bring you back with him.

“Oh, please, my love,” Persephone cried, messily wiping the tears from her eyes as she gazed at her husband. “You let me go home again when my mother begged for my return. Why can’t you grant him this same mercy?”

“Because order must be maintained,” the Lord of the Underworld answered. “Rules must be followed, you know this. Your own return home has its own rules, after all.”

“Then give me rules I must abide by. I swear I will follow them as faithfully as possible.” Though he knew interrupting a conversation between gods could be dangerous, Satoru simply could not stop the words from tumbling from his lips.

“Please.” The goddess’s voice was petal-soft, a warm, hopefully breeze cutting through the chill of the Underworld. 

The silence was heavy, crushing the air out of every part of the room, suffocating the musician where he stood. Despite the pain, Satoru only had eyes for you, your warm gaze giving him the strength to push through, to wait for Hades’s answer before completely giving up hope.

“If I let you both return to the surface world,” the god’s voice, though low and rough, rang out clear. “You must follow one rule.”

“Only one?” It seemed too good to be true.

“It is a difficult one.”

“Anything,” Satoru rushed out. “I’ll do anything.”

“You will lead the two of you out of the Underworld, but until you both are on the surface again, out of my domain, you are not to turn around. I promise you will not be alone, that you will return with your love, but you must not turn around before you leave this place. If you turn around, you will have to leave here alone, and you will never be allowed to return until your own death.”

“If I’m not allowed to turn around, are we at least allowed to speak to each other?”

“Yes, you can converse on the journey. Now, take your lover and go. Once you leave the throne room you must keep your back turned at all times until you reach the surface.”

Bowing deeply, Satoru thanked the god profusely for several moments, then straightened and stepped forward, reaching out and taking your hands, helping you from where you sat on the floor of the throne room.

“Let’s go home,” you said, smiling so sweetly at him it made his teeth ache. He nodded eagerly in agreement, taking just a moment longer to take in your features before guiding you to the entrance of the throne room.

“Are you ready?” he asks, turning to you one last time as the two of you stand in the threshold. “I’m not sure how long the journey back is, and if you grow tired we can’t stop.”

“I’m ready when you are,” was your answer, giving his hand a light squeeze to show you meant the words. 

Satoru nodded back, once again pausing to admire your face, your smile, everything about you, before turning away, still holding your hand as he stepped out of the throne room and began the trek back to the surface, back home.

He was silent for a bit at first, feeling your hand in his enough to assure him you were there, but eventually both his nerves and his natural chattiness got the better of him. He said almost every thought that came to his mind, though he tried to make sure to ask as many questions as possible, eager to hear your answers, your sweet voice a soothing balm to his raw and frayed nerves. 

The journey felt shorter this time around, though whether that was because he was retracing his footsteps, or some other strange property of time in the Underworld, Satoru couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t going to complain about it, either, because not turning to look at you was proving much more difficult than he had thought when he was first given the rule.

When he finally saw the entrance to the surface, sunlight still visible on the horizon, a beaming grin broke out across his face. “We’re nearly there,” he told you. “See? We’ve nearly made it.” Unable to help himself, he picked up his pace, still pulling you along behind him. 

He didn’t notice your hand slipping from his own as he closed the last few paces to the entrance.

His joy was palpable as he practically leapt through the gates, back onto the surface, into the grass that waited for him as the sun began to set behind him.

“We did it!” Satoru cheered, spinning around to look at you. “Oh, my love, it feels so good to have you—” The sight of your sad smile had his gaze dropping to your feet.

You hadn’t yet crossed over the threshold.

And he had turned around and looked at you.

“No,” he begged, racing towards you, desperate for at least one last kiss, one last embrace, even if he could not keep you with him. “Please, my love, I’m so sorry.”

Before he could reach out and touch you, though, your shape had already begun to waver, rippling like the surface of a pool disturbed by the wind. You only shook your head, your smile never leaving your lips. “It’s okay,” you assured him. “I love you. I’ll see you again someday. Live well for me, okay?”

“I-I’ll try,” he choked out, tears thick in his voice even before they spilled from his eyes, though there was no stopping them as your form wavered more, then faded fully from sight.

He fell to his knees and wept, loud, heaving sobs, gripping handfuls of grass as he pressed his forehead to the ground, forced to mourn you a second time.

ok so this was baby's first sad ending/hurt no comfort so pls don't come for me if it was bad i'm so sorry idk how to do this i don't like sad endings but this is my favorite myth i couldn't bring myself to change the ending

tagging: @kentopedia @kentohours @mitsuristoleme

[maximumkillshot]

I Can't Lose You- Part 7

Warnings: Descriptions of Grief, PTSD Flashback, Intense Grief, Mentions of Miscarriage, Pissed off Lee Know, Anxiety, Panic, Everyone is hurting but you knew this... right?

Pairing: Bang Chan x Reader

Characters: Stray Kids, Reader, Nurse, Soo?

A/N: Okay her we are with part 7 the song that I linked is what I had on repeat for part 6 &7 for the most part... I am so sorry and as always I'll be around for therapy after. If you really wanna cry, listen to what I listened to while writing this about 98% of the time, Can You Hold Me by NF and Britt Nicole.

I Can't Lose you Masterlist-CLICK HERE

Stray Kids Masterlist-CLICK HERE

ALL WORK IS UNDER ME AND MY BLOG. DO NOT TRY TO REPUBLISH OR STEAL MY WORK, AS THAT IS COPYRIGHTED UNDER ME AND IS CONSIDERED COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT WHICH IS A PUNISHABLE OFFENSE. 

ANY WORK THAT YOU SEE ON OTHER SITES THAT ARE MY WORKS PLEASE NOTIFY ME IMMEDIATELY.

BEFORE: His body went into overdrive, the shock melting into panic. He wasn’t going to let Death take you, “Han hurry up, she's slipping!” He screamed at the door. His scream didn’t sound like him. The sound akin to a bystander watching a loved one jump from a bridge. Watching the body disappear all because of one step. He couldn’t wouldn’t let you fall. He screamed as if he dove for your hand, the same hand that fits so perfectly in his, as you threatened to disappear over the ledge of that bridge. Bin got closer to your ear, so you could hear him better, “Please don’t say that. I know it hurts, just stay with me, hold on. I’m here. Stay with me. You can’t leave me here, please.” Changbin tilted your head, so you could hear his heartbeat. Subconsciously thinking, If you go I go. He gently wrapped his arm across your breastbone, trying to provide some soothing pressure to your chest. His hand resting on your opposite arm, rubbing the meat of it in a soothing pattern. His other hand was petting your hair. The hold he had you in gave you someone to hold on to. As soon as his forearm rested you wrapped your hands around it, grabbing his hand as you dangled on the ledge. “Binnie it hurts, pleaseee. Help me, it hurtss.” You sobbed, your voice cracking and breaking, a mirror of your soul. Bin continued to slowly rock you, “I know Angel, I know I want to take it away. Just hold on for me. Hold on to me.” He had no idea how he was able to be calm for you. A part of him knew that he needed to. He was not going to collapse so you could face all of this on your own. He refused. He needed to fight for you, and he would, for eternity if he had to.

NOW:

The boys were trying their hardest to be calm, but some just couldn’t handle it. I.N. and Felix being the two that were physically holding their heads, crouched in the fetal position, trying to cover their ears as they heard your screams in the hallway.

Hyunjin went over to them and picked them up, their forms curling into him as they cried. Hyunjin couldn’t pinpoint why your screams sounded so unhuman, subconsciously trying to find a way to help. Once reality set in he realized, none of them had ever heard the scream of a mother who lost their child… not until today. That made chills go up his spine as goosebumps riddled his skin. That was why it sounded so unhuman. His mother once told him, “Children are supposed to bury their parents, not the other way around.” He found himself repeating those words out loud as tears fell down his face. He never thought he’d understand those words, but now that he does, he was numb, numb with pain.

I.N.’s heart was breaking for you as he heard you calling out to no one, asking for the impossible. He was trying to be strong but hearing you in so much pain was too much. “I want to help her Hyung but I don’t know how.” That broke Hyunjin even more because he couldn’t do anything. No one could. 

Hyunjin rubbed his back saying,“We can only be here for her, Innah. We need to be here, make sure she knows we aren’t going anywhere. That’s all we can do. I wish we could do more, but we can’t.”

Felix was crying because the only thing that could happen was him hearing the screams of a person that he loves, a best friend he considers as his sister, while he can’t do anything at all. The frustration combined with the sadness sliced through him.

Seungmin was the one member whom no one expected to cry yet there he was,  crying. No one in the entire group knew he was one of the most hurt. His reactions to everything were visceral. If he wasn’t using the railing lining the hall, he was certain his legs would give out. He faced the wall sobbing, feeling the cold wall on his forehead. He didn’t care that he was in a hallway in a hospital full of nursing staff and strangers. He had been holding all of it in for weeks now… 

It all started about two months ago. When Seungmin had come over to the 3Racha house, he noticed some things. He was making some lunch while he waited for the others to come back from the gym. The minute he opened the kimchi, you ran to vomit. That coupled with the fact that you looked like you were glowing raised his suspicion. When you came back to the kitchen he said, “When was the last time you took a pregnancy test?”

You cocked your head to the side quizzicaly as he giggled, “I’m 99.9% sure that you’re pregnant. Pee on a stick just to be sure but… Yeah, congrats. I’m going to throw away everything that smells like kimchi while you check.”

He was there for all of it. Everything from staring at the test with you waiting for the verdict. He spun you around congratulating you. He helped hide the evidence. Helped plan, he was even there when you got the ultrasound, filming it for Chan so he didn’t feel like he was left out. In many ways Seungmin had a better tie to that child than anyone else aside from you. He imagined everything with you.

Ever since he saw I.N. storm out to kill Chan… he checked out emotionally. He couldn’t handle the pain. He couldn’t ignore it anymore when he heard your screams. He thought of all the names you’d send him to see if they’d sound good. If it was a boy, you were incessant on Seungmin. You wanted to name the baby after him because he had “noticed first.” But he got you to change it to Chanseung, meaning “lingering victory”. This whole time...Every scream you let loose he heard the baby’s heartbeat as the memories flashed in and out of his mind. 

He remembered the times when he would come over just to clear the kitchen of anything that’d trigger your gag reflex. His Hyungs would get pissed at him because they even labeled the items with "do not touch”, but somehow, mysteriously, Seungmin didn’t see it and ate it all… whoops. He even got up at whatever time you called to pick up whatever you were craving. Another was when you went out for a walk with him and you were telling him about all of the new things you were noticing about your body. 

But his favorites were whenever you and himself would be alone in the kitchen or on the couch while everyone was distracted he’d look down at your belly, he would glance around and go to your ear just to say “They have no clue… That there’s 10 people in this house.” He’d do that just to see you try to suppress the smile on your face. 

 He even had dreams of going to the hospital to meet the baby. The dream always started with the phone call. Changbin would be on the other line as he picked up, “the baby’s coming, they’re already at the hospital, see you there.” Then the dream would jump to Chris walking out, “Congratulations everyone, you have a beautiful and healthy nephew. Once Y/N is cleaned up, you guys can come back to meet Chanseung.” In every single one of those dreams Seungmin would cry happy tears. When he’d be taken back, he was met with the cutest bundle, eyes like yours, a head full of curly hair like Chan’s. Chan would hand the baby to Seungmin and Changbin would say “what about me?” And you’d say, “godparents always hold the baby first.” Seungmin would look around shocked as more tears fell from his eyes, he would look at you and say “really? Me?” You’d look at him nodding with tears of your own, “How could it be anyone else, you took such good care of us, Minnie. You’d do anything for him. Your the one I trust the most with him.” He looked down to the baby and whispered “Hello Chanseung, I’ve been waiting for so long to meet you. My name's Seungmin, I’m your godfather.” He cuddled with the baby as he cried tears of joy, nothing but love and gratitude in his heart. Now that’s all they’ll ever be… Just dreams.

While everyone else was mourning as a friend, a brother, an Uncle, he mourned like a father. He felt like he lost a child. It destroyed him, ripping him apart inside, making him reflexively grab his chest, the air abundant but still suffocating, leaving him no other choice but for his chest to collapse inward as the sobs escaped.

Minho noticed that your screams didn’t sound human, closer to a wounded animal.  Minho looked at Chan’s face as you screamed for your baby. He could see that Chan was sad, but it didn’t seem like he was truly grasping it. It was only when Chan’s phone lit up, that Minho’s patience snapped. He saw the name “Soo BFF Y/N” light up the screen, and before Chan could do anything about it, he snatched the phone. Minho grabbed Chris by the back of his neck, his nails digging into the meat of it. Minho spoke with a lethal air as he spat, “Waiting room… NOW.” 

They ducked into the waiting room down the hall. The rest of the boys followed suit, locking the door to the room as Minho answered the call and said nothing. 

“Hey Baby, you haven’t been picking up, is everything okay? What happened after I left?” Her voice rang through the waiting room. 

Minho looked to Chris, and nodded to the phone, Chris responded, “No. Everything isn’t okay. Y/N was pregnant.”

There was a beat or two and she said, “Was?” Then she said, “As in not currently? I guess that is a good thing right? Considering you were going to divorce her for me anyway. A baby would’ve made it messy, no?”

Everyone’s jaws dropped. Some looking for confirmation, that they indeed heard what they did. 

Chris looked at the phone like it had offended him his jaw slack, “what the fuck did you say to me?!” His face showed more emotion than hearing his wife’s soul being torn to shreds about losing the baby, “My child is dead and your response is ‘at least it’s less messy now?!’ How fucking heartless are you?” he asked.

Minho couldn’t believe what he was hearing and seeing out of Chris. He just heard his wife scream that she wants to die, that she wants to no longer exist because his child is dead. Yet the thing that gets him offended, have any reaction at all was his sidepiece saying something. Taking the first opportunity to skirt over how this all even happened. Minho wasn’t going to let him get away that easily, he spoke up, “You really are a fucking coward, huh, Chris? You won’t even tell her how all of this happened?”

Chris just bowed his head as Minho continued, “She miscarried from the shock and trauma of seeing you and her husband fucking right in front of her on their 3rd anniversary. YOU and Chris killed that child,” Minho seethed into the phone. “You want to hear what is happening to your so-called best friend? What you call, less messy?”

Minho took the phone off of the speaker and stormed down the hall. His heart was hammering in his chest, hearing of what she said playing in his head on repeat. His pain clouded his generous nature. For once, Minho doesn’t want to protect someone. He wanted Soo to feel the pain that you feel. He wants her to hear your screams. To hear your soul fracturing, hear the blood as it falls from the stab wound in your heart. That knife that no one can take out. That permanent piercing is now festering. The piercing that she and Chan personally put into one of the nicest people he’s ever met. He wants her to hurt. Just the thought of hearing Soo cry, made him smile. He wants her to suffer, truly suffer, just like he wants Chan to suffer. A part of him hates that this is what he wants but the rest of him knows, this is justified. A righteous anger. A human reaction. Which Soo cannot be. 

Minho stopped outside of the room and held the phone out for Soo to hear your screams. He could somewhat hear Soo gasping at what was happening. Minho turned on the video to show her what little he could see from the door, which was your form rocking with Bin gently holding you, trying to calm you. “Hold on to me and breathe for me,” He heard Bin talking to you, trying to get you to fight.

“Binnie, please, my baby.” Minho heard your voice trembling, seeing you clutch on to Bin’s forearm. Your voice was worse than haunting, Minho could hear you trying to will your baby back.

“All you need to do is breathe and hold on to me. I’ve got you, I’m here.”

“I can’t Binnie I can’t I need my baby! Pleassee help me!” Your voice nearly gone from all of the screaming taking place. 

It filled Minho with rage. The person on the phone caused this, along with your husband. Here Bin was, trying to will you to stay, to hold on to him, not anyone else. That made Minho feel better, if anyone could put you back together, make you want to stay, it’s Bin.

 After being there for a minute or two Han barreled by him, all Minho did was flash the phone at him and point to the waiting room and Han nodded. He was telling him that when he was done making sure you were okay, for him to come to the room they were currently occupying with no words. 

The minute Minho went back to the waiting room, he turned the speaker on to hear Soo. There was no response, only fast breathing and sniffling.

Minho tried to be quiet as he said, “Did that sound clean to you, Soo? Did that look less messy? She almost died last night, almost bled out from a hemorrhage that you both caused. She just screamed that she just wanted to die already. So tell me, what part about any of this screams a clean break?!”

Soo was silent for a moment and she said, “I never meant to hurt her, Minho.”

Minho’s blood boiled as he said, “People don’t get into cars with the goal of causing an accident and killing someone, but it happens all the same. I am so happy that you called, actually. I wanted to say this to your face but this’ll have to do. I couldn’t do this last night because I’m a decent person who was worried about one of my best friends... But now that she is being helped I can tell you. You are a sad excuse of a human being, I truly mean that. It takes a certain level of desperation to take your best friend’s sloppy seconds. Even more desperate to actually believe that he’d leave Y/N for your sorry waste of an existence. ” 

Chan prickled at that, cocking his head, “As a matter of fact, the sloppy seconds is glaring at me while I say this and I don’t fucking care, as soon as I am done with you on the phone I’ll deal with him. You both destroyed someone very close to my heart. A person who has done nothing to either of you and yet you do this.”

Han walks in as Minho is grilling Soo, he whispers something to Felix and Felix goes out of the room. Minho continued, “As if what you did wasn’t enough you have the audacity to say that it was a good thing that Y/N miscarried because it would make the divorce less messy.”

Han’s eyes bulged out of his head at hearing that. No wonder why Minho wanted him here. Han felt rage at those words. Calling the death of a child that was wanted, a good thing? Minho’s lip was tight as he calmly finished his say, “I hope you know what you’re wishing for when you say you want him to yourself. If he did this to his own wife, imagine what he’d do to you… A nothing, a speck compared to Y/N. I hope you can live with yourself, but at least you’re breathing, something Y/N’s child never even got to experience because of you and Chris. I hope you rot and I hope it’s painful. Above all else, I hope that you pay in full for what you’ve done.” 

Minho looked around, “Anyone want to talk to IT?” he punctuated “it” as he stared at Chris, daring him to say something. Everyone was silent and he said, “I would say it’s been a pleasure speaking to you, but that would be a lie; the only pleasure I’ll ever have is seeing you suffer.” With that, he hung up and walked to Chan, shoving the phone into his chest.

Minho stared at Chan, “Now it’s your turn… What are you doing here? Were we not clear enough for you?! What part of ‘stay away’ did you not get? Or are you that fucking stupid. She was making progress, she was sleeping and you had to come in, didn’t you.” His eyes burned into Chris.

“I just wanted to see her.” Chris said.

Minho got tunnel vision as he bore into Chan,“I… I … I.. That is all that exists for you, huh? It’s all about you. What you want, when you want, who you want, where you want. YOU wanted to see her, you didn’t even think about her wellbeing did you?! Of course you didn’t! That’s why you came in here and played the husband card over and over again. You are nothing to her. NOTHING! It baffles me how Changbin isn’t even married to her yet he’s a better husband than you will ever be!” Minho’s body betrayed him as he started to shake, “YOU DIDN’T JUST KILL YOUR CHILD… YOU KILLED WHO WE THOUGHT YOU WERE. YOU KILLED EACH ONE OF US! MOST OF ALL YOU KILLED Y/N. THE FUN LOVING, HOPEFUL Y/N  IS DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU! That alone is something I will never forgive you for.” 

“I’m going to give you one chance to walk out of here willingly. If you don’t, I will tell the boys to go back to the room. Then I am going to lock you in here with me, and believe me when I say you won’t like what happens next. When I’m done with you, I’ll go right back to Y/N and act like nothing happened.”

His tone was too calm, too monotone, the sound sending chills down Han’s spine.

The pain that Minho is in is something that he never shows anyone. He doesn’t like to be vulnerable. He couldn’t help but look at Chris’ wedding ring and think that he should’ve done something, anything to stop him from marrying you. He told himself that it wasn’t his relationship. He even asked Changbin if he was actually going to let this happen. Changbin just looked at him and said, “Does it kill me? Yes. Do I want to be the groom instead of the groomsman? Absolutely. But she’s happy. What I want is nothing compared to seeing her happy.” Just that singular memory gave him enough fuel to do what he had to do. He made a promise to himself in that moment, he will never let Chris close enough to be able to hurt you again. 

Chris didn’t make a move, Minho could see that he was shocked. Which only fueled his rage.

Han had to cut in, “Minho… she’s asking for you.” Minho's heart twisted again as he loomed over Chris.

Minho sucked his teeth, “Even after nearly killing her, killing her child, ruining her life… Even now she’s still saving you without even knowing it. You have your chance, if I were you, I’d take it.” Minho stormed out of the room.

With that, Han looked at the rest of the boys, “Make sure he leaves, he’s already banned from the room. You are all welcome to come back up since it was clear who caused her to spiral. She wants you all as well. She’s scared we’re worried or that we’ll leave her.”

Hyunjin looked at Han and said, “We’ll be there. Go to her.”

As soon as Han left the room he saw Minho duck into your room. 

When Minho came in he heard you saying, “Where’s MinMin? I don’t know what happened, m’scared Binnie, where's MinMin and Hannie? Lixie did they leave me?” Minho knew that whenever you were scared, you started using pet names. They felt safe to you. With your MinMin, Binnie, Lixie, and Hannie around, you'd be safe. Your voice is low and quivering, fear and panic clear. It's ripping him apart, reminding him almost of a child. A child trying to not let on how scared they are. You were a lot like a child in that way, you were so hurt you didn’t know who to trust, but the minute you see people you are sure won’t hurt you, you start asking for the others, knowing you can trust them to say the truth. You also reminded Minho of someone trying to cry silently, the quake in your voice giving you away.

From Minho’s view, all that could be seen is Changbin, grabbing his sweatshirt and putting it on, hood up. It was your favorite hoodie that Binnie wears, full of different stitches and felt like a cloud. He made fleeting eye contact with Minho. Just in those few seconds he could see Bin’s eyes trying to focus on not collapsing, yet trying to get Minho to understand. Minho could only imagine that what happened minutes ago was something that he had seen last night. Since Bin knew to call out to Han to get the nurses. It made his heart twist yet again, he knows that Bin isn’t used to caring for people. But you aren’t just people. You are more than that, you always have been more than that. That’s why it’s second nature to him.

“Binnie I’m scared what happened, where are my boys? Did I do something wrong, did I scare them? Will you leave too?” You asked through sniffles. Minho could see the effect those words had on Bin as he pulled the hoodie back, he spared one last gaze and flitted it towards the bed as if to say, watch me. If you can’t do what I’m about to do, don’t come in. Then he changed his face completely before turning to you and walking out of Minho’s field of vision. That killed Minho too. How Bin knew instinctually to change his face, his gaze softening. 

“What happened isn’t something you need to worry about. You didn’t do anything wrong and the boys aren’t scared. I’m not going anywhere, see I was just putting my hoodie on, its your favorite. You don’t need to be afraid. I’m here. So is Lixie.” Bin’s voice was soothing, calm, steady, eventhough Minho identified the cracks in his foundation with only two seconds looking into his eyes.

Felix added as he tried to calm you saying, “We aren’t going anywhere okay? We are just making sure you’re going to be comfortable. MinMin’s coming and so is Hannie, Okay?”

Minho put on a smile, “I’m here”, hiding his pain for now. Your eyes were darting as you looked at him. Tearstains still painting your cheeks, fresh ones about to fall. You looked so dazed and confused as you looked around the room like you haven't been in it before. 

You smiled at Minho, “MinMin…” more tears fell as you gaze fell on Minho’s eyes, “You didn’t leave? Binnie, Lixie, and Hannie said so but… m’scared… I don’t remember what happened,” 

Minho wanted to curl you into a ball and shelter you, make sure no one could sneak up on you, that Chris couldn’t get his hands on you again, spew more poison all over this healing space, your personal space. He wanted to tuck you in and stand watch, everything in him drove him to shield and protect you. He couldn’t show that though. He couldn’t call attention to what just happened. It could upset the balance that you are in. Instead he decided on another approach.

“Binnie was right, Beautiful. What happened isn’t important right now. What matters is that we are here with you, we’re going to keep you safe, okay?” Minho reached out and dried your tears with the sleeve of his shirt. 

The nurse was just finishing giving you medicine, “What’d they give you? Something good?” Minho smiled warmly. He looked to the nurse who said, “Yes, she’ll be able to sleep no doubt. We’re also giving her medicine every six hours for the anxiety,” she smiled. That made Minho smile wide. He couldn’t help but be relieved for you. You are finally getting the medicine you need. 

Minho looked at her and said, “Thank you so much, for taking care of her and coming so quickly.” 

She just nodded and turned the lights off. 

You yawned and started tearing up a little as you reached for Bin, “Don’t leave, Binnie…Lixie.” Felix was right at your hand as he said, “M’right here, it’s going to be okay. MinMin, Bin, all of us are here to make sure you’ll be okay.” Felix could see your shoulders slowly drooping as the medicine hit you. It was clear that the medicine was making you sleepy. That made everyone smile. You have had nothing but panic, havoc, and destruction. You deserved rest.

You looked at Minho and said, “I’m tired but I want my boys. You’ll wake me when they come back MinMin?” 

Minho nodded and said, “Of course, Beautiful.”

You nodded then looked to Bin, “Binnie, I’m tired, if I sleep you’ll stay with me? I don’t want to ask too much, but can I have cuddles while I sleep?” Everyone in the room could tell that you were looking for constant reassurance. You just got out of a bad PTSD flashback, triggered by the man that caused the trauma, all on top of getting no sleep. Han walked in after making sure that Chris couldn’t make it back into the room, only walking in after he was sure Chris was in the elevator and clear of the area.

When Changbin heard you calling out to him, saying you’re scared he just wanted to hold and protect you. He successfully coaxed you out of the flashback. His whole being broke when you came out of it so disoriented. The first things you asked Bin was, “Why did he do that? Why did they do that I don’t know why? What happened?” Then immediately after, “I’m scared.” He didn’t know what to say to that first half. It’s inconceivable how anyone could cheat on anyone, especially someone like you. Trying to answer that question would only prove to be more frustrating for you than anything. Apparently the shock was written on Bin’s face as the nurse explained. 

The nurses gently talked to Bin about what he was seeing, he’s never seen you like this and they explained that when someone comes out of a flashback episode, they are very confused. Sometimes they don’t know where they are or what happened. He learned that it was necessary to be very calm in repeating yourself, and ensuring the person coming out of it that everything is going to be okay and that they are safe. The nurse that was in the room with you was the one who coached Bin through the worse of it. He just had to keep pushing, to make you feel safe. He himself was also on the brink of collapse. The wall he made in his mind, to hold all the emotions inside around you, started failing long ago. More rubble falling by the minute.

Bin was trying to be as strong as he could be as he got into the bed with you, pulling you to him, and petting your hair back, “Of course we can cuddle. I am not going anywhere okay? I wouldn’t dream of it. Just take deep breaths. Let the medicine work, Angel.” He looked at you, so small, sweaty, tired, fragile. Felix immediately started tucking you in. Taking time to ensure sealing all of the edges of your body to stay nice and warm. Then he moved your hand to cuddle Bin, knowing that you’d want it there. He resumed his place at your back, he re-tied your gown that was coming loose, then slowly rubbing circles on your back, trying to soothe you. Bin tried to figure out how Chris could hurt someone so precious to him, to all of them. He couldn’t wrap his brain around it. Like that, more bricks fell from the wall.

“M’safe?” You asked Bin, eyes still brimming with unshed tears as you looked up at him. As soon as they were knocked free he used his thumb to wipe them away.

With me…“Always. No one is going to hurt you.” Not while I’m here. He brushed your cheekbone, you head leaning into his touch reflexively. More of the wall crashed to the ground. He gently guided your head down to his chest.

Even though you were being forcibly calmed by the medicine, he could see it. Your eyebrows were tense, still a quiver in your lip. The worst was the shaking. As he held you he could feel the tremble in your entire body. Your hands shook as you held on to his hoodie, rubbing the pattern to calm yourself. 

After a few minutes passed, the boys went to come back in, but Han stopped them, just to explain to them what happened. He also gave them the rundown of how to talk to you and redirect and reassure you, that way you can rest. 

“She doesn’t look like herself right now, that’s because she is still in a very fragile mental state, she’s going to repeat herself, she’s going to say she’s scared, a lot of things that will make you want to break. You cannot break in front of her. That can make her worse. If you need I can guide you through it. Just stay close to me, okay?”All of the boys nodded and went in. Minho let you know.

“Minnie, you here?” You asked.

“Yes I am, Birdie.” Seungmin said as he walked into your field of vision getting down to your level, “Getting sleepy, Birdie?” You nodded as tears started to spring to your eyes. 

Seungmin’s nickname for you is Birdie. When you started hanging out with him more, he noticed something. Whenever you had a song stuck in your head, you would sing it on repeat. Your voice was always very soft, shy, melodic. It reminded him of the morning birds, so one day he called you Birdie and you smiled ear to ear. No one heard him call you that until now, since Seungmin is more an observer than a talker.

“If I sleep, you won’t go anywhere? I’m scared you’ll leave and I won’t see you again.” your tears fell as you looked directly into Seungmin’s eyes.

Seungmin whispered, “Oh my sweet Birdie,” as he kissed your forehead trying not to cry, drying your tears immediately, “You don’t need to be scared, I’m not going anywhere without you. You will always have me, okay? Right now all you need to do is rest, okay Birdie?” 

You nodded then said, “Jinnie and Innie too? They’re here too?”

“Mhm, everyone’s here, Birdie.” Seungmin is doing his best to see you relax, lightly petting your hair, “So just close your eyes for me, let yourself rest, we’re here.” As if on command you slowly closed your eyes. What he doesn’t know is Innah is trying not to cry. Seeing the interaction cracking him open again. 

Your breathing started calming and as Bin felt your body relax into him, your grip completely loosening. Seungmin didn’t stop petting your hair until he was sure you were out. Only then, did he go to IN’s side, where IN’s tears soaked into his shirt. 

Bin played with your hand for a few seconds, seeing how delicate they are as well as gauging how asleep you are. Seeing no reaction from you he draped his hand over yours as he heard a ghost of mere minutes ago, ‘Please just let me die. Let me go.’ The wall collapsed and he started crying. Trying not to shake you at all as he kissed the crown of your head. 

“No one’s going to hurt you, I promise. I got you. You’re going to be okay. You have to be.” Bin didn’t care who saw him. He felt so helpless, his soul is breaking for you as he cradled you. He can’t help but think that it’s all his fault. How could it not be? He didn’t follow his gut, he didn’t make the move, and now you’re suffering because of it. He kissed your hairline as he did his best to stop the pain in his chest, worried that you’d hear his heart breaking. 

Minho watched as tears fell down his face. Seeing you like this and Bin, the one who gave up his own happiness… Handed his heart over to another man, only to see his heart used and abused. He could feel the pain radiating off of Bin. Minho heard a sniffle and looked to Seungmin. Seungmin always had a placid smile to his face, all Minho found was a quivering lip, tears falling, as he watched Bin. 

Seungmin was seeing how perfect you are together, like he always saw, and seeing how broken you both are, yet you are both so strong together. That made Seungmin cry. Even though both of you are in agony right now, torn to shreds, you still clung to eachother, making a silent pact to make it together.

“You can’t leave me here…” He leaned back to see you. Another specter paid a visit, ‘Binnie it hurts. Help me pleaseee’. He felt his chest caving in at the memory. He willed himself to breathe normally, each pull of air burning his lungs, the muscles wanting to constrict. He cradled your head, trying to keep you as close to his heart as possible, “I need you, My Angel.” Bin felt Felix’s hand wrap around his shoulders, much like Bin would do for Lix when he cried. 

Bin couldn’t imagine a world without you in it. A life without you. He knows the pain alone would kill him, kill all the boys. Your love, friendship, and loyalty is second to none. You are just that way. That beautiful, that kind, that irreplaceable. That is what makes Bin distraught, the thought of no you in the world… even finishing that sentence is unimaginable. 

Han looked up at Bin, trying to will himself not to cry. The both of you are so sweet, so kind. He could see the weight on Bin’s shoulders, crushing him. He could see it in his head, Bin keeping everything bad from crashing on top of you, his arms outstretched, using his whole body as a shield. Han knew that if it meant keeping you safe, Bin would carry the world. That’s what separated Bin from Chris. 

Both may be fond of you. Only one has ever put your safety over everything. Only one ever made you feel heard and seen. Only one ever made you laugh until you cried. Only one would take off work to take care of you when you’re sick. Only one made you understand that there is no priority above you. Only one would calm you with just a touch. Only one truly loves you with their heart and soul. That “only one” was in the bed with you right now. 

Han watched, eventually just letting the tears fall as Bin held you saying, “I’m sorry I didn’t protect you, I’m sorry. I love you… I’m so sorry. Don’t leave me.”

That was the first time Changbin had ever let himself say it out loud, “I love you so much it hurts…I Can’t Lose You.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Want more? TELL ME SO!

Want in on the tags? Shoot an Ask and consider it done!

THE CHAOS EXPRESS🚂❤️❤️

@Fuckthinking, @feybin , @1-800-shedevil , @channiesbakery, @channieswhore , @hwangswhore , @seungminhour , @skzms, @angstraykids, @roseykat , @seventeenytiny , @dreaming-medium , @thunderous-wolf , @hanjsquokka , @moonjxsung , @diddybok , @fics-lovebot, @seungminssangel, @straykeedz, @tasteracha, @ven-fic-recs , @euphoric-univers, @camilagonzalex, @juskz, @antoniorhinothethird, @mariteez, @armystay89, @i-like-nougat, @yeonjunsfox , @laylasbunbunny ,@uwuitsjungwoo , @3racha-soup , @bandolls , @bomi-ja , @skzfairyyyf8te , @3rachababygirl , @symptoms-of-moonlight , @hiddlestandom , @stay-fr0sty-r0yal-milk-tea , @8rach4, @bear8585 , @tenshimara , @galamxy, @fairlylilo , @skzms , @lolareadsimagines , @lillithathecat , @manuosorioh , @jazziwritesthings , @soulsbbg , @tuskaruska , @emmxxsworld , @maaatyroshka , @orchid-mantis-petals ,

[mintkookiess]

If Only.

Worst mistake to write angst while listening to a sad playlist oh my god I kid you not, I started ugly sobbing during the climax that I needed a quick break before continuing. Don't mind me, just gonna sulk in a corner for a while.

Love,

Mint

Summary: Hanahaki disease. That’s all I’m placing here.

Tags: Miles Morales x reader, Hanahaki disease, angst (no happy ending again), death, don't forget your tissues, not proofread, maybe I'll do it later

Warnings: Major character death, mentions of blood

Your eyes pried open on another normal, already dragging, Tuesday morning. The alarm clock on your bedside table wasn’t even loud enough to wake you, seeing as how you slept through it. You carefully laid to your side, as the all-too-familiar cough climbed up your throat. This went on for a minute until you see a small pile of petals on the floor. 

“Shit…” You muttered to yourself, groggily grabbing the glass of water that you’d already prepared the previous night like always. This was the normal morning routine for you.

Wake up. Cough those stupidly red petals. Get through the day. Cough even more petals. Go home. Sleep. Repeat.

On this particular morning, however, it was quite different because you could hear the voice of your best friend outside your dorm.

“Hey, you awake yet?” Miles asked, knocking softly to make sure he doesn’t wake you if you were still asleep. You always thought that was kind of him. 

You forced yourself up and out of your bed, shoving back the blankets then dragged your feet to open the door. 

“I’m awake. Why are you here? Thought you’d be waiting at the school entrance like usual.” You said huskily, still with that morning voice. Your best friend shook his head, “I kinda woke up a little early today so I thought I’d come to pick you up from your place instead.” 

You couldn’t help but smile. 

He was just too good for you.

“Fine. Let me get changed at least.” You chuckled, before closing the door in his face. You laid your back against it, sliding down to the floor as you felt that familiar ache in your chest.

In just a few seconds, you started hacking once more right then and there.  

Ah, was it because I wasn’t expecting him here this morning?

“H-Hey, you good?” You hear Miles ask from the other side, making you scramble up. “I’m fine Miles just um… choked on my saliva.” You lied. Your hands quickly grab the tiny broom and pan you kept and started sweeping up all the red petals that decorated your floor. 

You then threw every single last one in your already overflowing bin. I’d have to clear that out before he sees it.

You quickly changed into some more decent clothes before grabbing your bag and heading out to see Miles laying against the opposite wall of the door, he gave you a small smile and stood up. “Ready?” 

You nodded in response, making sure to lock your door before you both head down. 

“Oh right, Gwen is actually coming with us to class today if that’s okay,” Miles said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his hair. 

You made it like your life’s mission to ignore Gwen at all costs. It was entirely selfish, but it wasn’t like it really did you any favors with your… disease. Miles had confronted you about this a couple of times, but you just came up with lie after lie. You didn’t want to, because you can’t exactly tell him the true reason. 

Of course, your best friend knew you were lying, but he just didn’t want to pry because it might make you uncomfortable. And you were thankful for that. Until now. 

“Miles—”

“I know I know I just… It was a last-minute thing.” Miles said, trying to reason with you, “It’ll be just this once I swear. I know you’re not exactly a fan of her but, can’t you still try? I mean maybe if you got to know her better—“

“Fine.” You sighed, finally agreeing. 

Doctor Sanchez’s words suddenly echoed in your head like a siren that was loudly warning you. 

“Stop feeding yourself even more hurt. Ignore, lie, and do anything you can to stop. It’ll slow it down, but not much.”

Oh, how you knew. This was practically engraved into your mind, heart, body, and soul. You said this to yourself so many times like an oath. Avoid the hurt. 

But you can’t keep being a bad friend to Miles any more than you already have. 

The both of you continued to walk to the lobby of your school in complete silence. Miles could only bite his lip in nervousness, though he just wanted to ask why you happened to dislike Gwen so much, he just didn’t want to make you mad. His grip on his backpack’s straps only tightens at the thought. 

What is really going on with you? He thought to himself. 

Your eyes stared straight forward as you both reached your destination. It wasn’t long until it spotted the familiar blonde girl from a distance.

Gwen gave a light wave to the two of you as she walked toward where you both were standing. 

“Hey Gwen, what’s up?” Miles greeted, his face lighting up in an instant like some Christmas tree in New York. 

You forced yourself to look away but still got a glimpse of it. 

Why did I agree to this?

Your chest tightened, and you instinctively covered your mouth with a hand. No please, not here. Not right now.

“Um hey…” Gwen cautiously greeted you. She tried to give you a friendly smile to which you only nodded.

Miles could already sense the growing tension and suddenly clapped his hands together. “So, physics class? We gotta bounce or we’d all be marked late.” 

“Yeah, we should go.” You mumbled, walking past them while still covering your mouth as if it would stop the cough that was threatening to let out. 

Gwen and Miles looked at each other worriedly but silently followed behind you. 

You could hear them talk in hushed voices behind you, but your entire focus was on trying to not cough in the school hallways. 

The Hanahaki disease isn’t exactly a secret. Everyone knows what it is. And you’d rather burn in hell than have people find out. Especially him and her.

Your other hand clutched your chest as you tried to walk faster because you wanted to keep a safe distance between you and the other two as much as possible before you practically start vomiting those red petals on the school floors. 

“Is… she okay?” Gwen whispered to Miles with clear concern. She knew you didn’t exactly like her, she wasn’t an idiot. Gwen believes that it’s because she suddenly entered your two-man friend group without warning when in reality, it was so much more than that. 

“Sorry about her…” Miles sighed, his head hung low and a frown decorated his lips. You were his absolute best friend, and to see you being like this with Gwen makes him ache. If only, he could know what was wrong, but he also wanted to respect your space. It has him torn between two cautious choices that could end up in the worst way possible. He just didn’t know how deep the consequences would be. 

Other than the different morning you had, it was just like any other day. You were able to stop yourself from coughing for the most part, but if you couldn’t take it you’d excuse yourself to the bathroom, letting out a few petals in the toilet and flushing them away. 

During lunchtime, it was usually just you and Miles at the cafeteria, but Gwen decided to tag along once again. So you had the utmost pleasure to see the two joke about and discuss things that you never understood because you weren’t a Spider person like them.

You watched as Miles laughed and smiled at everything she said, and all you could do was mindlessly stab your food in hopes of drowning out and forgetting what you're currently witnessing. However, you immediately started coughing. Your hands instantly flew to your mouth to keep the petals in your mouth. 

You gave Miles a panicked look before running out the cafeteria and into the bathroom, immediately vomiting all the petals that had accumulated inside your mouth, and for the rest of lunch, you were stuck there, filling up the toilet with the petals that were such an eye sore to you as hot tears flowed down from your eyes.

Miles had tried to bring it up during the succeeding classes, only for you to turn him down every single time. He finally gave up, but was still worried because he sensed something different about you today. 

Your doctor did prescribe you some suppressants for the disease, but you refused it time and time again. Taking those suppressants would make you slowly lose grip on your feelings for Miles. 

As much as it hurt you, you didn’t want that. 

To hell with those fucking petals, who cares if it’s taking your life little by little every day?  Your love for him was too great, too good of a feeling. It was worth it. 

It’ll be worth it. 

When you asked your doctor how much more time you have left, they didn’t give a direct answer but you knew. You already knew that it wasn’t long. Few months give or take. Maybe even shorter than that.

Once classes were done, you gave Miles your usual goodbye hug before heading out of campus to the hospital for your daily check-up for the Hanahaki disease. 

Your doctor did the usual tests, examining a petal of yours, conducting blood tests, scans, etc. 

After an hour, she called you back into her office for the results. You were halfway into taking your seat as she already shoots the question that you’d been dreading to be asked. 

“Have you been taking your suppressants?” 

In truth, you didn’t tell her that the pills were just laying on the floor somewhere in your dorm. You weren’t going to be lectured by your doctor. 

“Yes.” You lied, eyes looking everywhere in her office but her. Your eyes focused on this particular vase, where a single flower laid there. It was the same shade of red as yours, making you chuckle.

Before your doctor could start telling you about how important commitment was to the treatment, you start wheezing. 

But this time, it felt different. 

Your lungs felt like they ran out of air, your throat was like it had been clogged and you couldn’t breathe. Your eyes widened as you took sharp inhales, but for some reason, you couldn’t exhale at all. You fell off your chair and into the floor, gripping your throat, nails digging to scratch your skin from the excruciating pain. 

Doctor Sanchez was quick to get down to you, rubbing your back as her face filled with worry. “It’s at its final stage, you have to tell him—“

“No!” You yelled, surprised that you were even able to utter a single word. Shortly after that however, you were back to heaving. Your hand was now in a fist, punching your chest in an attempt to get out whatever it was that was in your lungs. 

Your mind started to fog up, and your vision was slowly going black until you saw it. 

The fully formed flowers on the ground. 

There were no petals, this time they were fully bloomed roses. 

They were so pretty that it was almost laughable. Something beautiful was stemming from your despair and suffering. At least there was one thing good happening from your godforsaken disease. 

Miles, on the other hand, barged into your dorm to bring the textbooks he borrowed from you, or at least that’s what his excuse was gonna be to you. It was your number one rule that he shouldn’t just come into your room when you were gone, but he could sense something off with you today. Much more than usual. And he was determined to find out.

He had an extra key for emergencies, so he entered without any problems. He took in your room, setting down the textbooks on your desk as he took a seat by the edge of your bed. 

She’s not here. He thought to himself, sighing. 

As his brown eyes roamed the different bits and bobs around your dorm, he suddenly spotted something behind your desk. Miles squinted his eyes, wondering what it was. “Is that… a petal?” He wondered out loud. He crept up to it, crawling under your desk to grab the petal. “What the…” His fingers examined it carefully until he spotted something from the corner of his eye. There were more. 

A lot more.

His eyes slowly widened at the bin of red petals. It was so full that the petals had dissipated around it on the floor. Miles’ eyebrows scrunched up together, wondering where all these could be from until… it dawned on him. 

“Hanahaki? But… but how I…” He stuttered. He pulled the bin towards him with shaking hands, inspecting the petals that had a rich shade of red. Almost similar to that of his Spiderman suit. 

She… She had this all along and hid it from me I…

He spots another item, it was a pill bottle. Except its contents were scattered, and the bottle itself was cracked as if it was thrown against the wall and fell behind your desk. 

Miles picked it up, dreading to see what it was. He slowly turned it around to see the words “Hanahaki suppressants - Y/n L/n 30 pills 150 mg” written in big bold letters that stared back at him.

He drops it out of shock, chest heaving and breaths coming in quickly. 

He was confused, so confused about everything. Why would you hide such a thing from him…? 

Doctor Sanchez called for emergency assistance, she grabbed the intercom in a panic. “Code blue! I repeat code blue! Medical assistance to room 1304 now! Code blue!” 

In a matter of seconds, doctors and nurses have already carried your body to a hospital bed, as roses continuously shook out of your mouth.

Your entire body was flaring up and all you could do was scratch your neck so hard that it almost draws blood. Your nose and ears have started to bleed out, and it was as if your skull was being cut open and stabbed repeatedly.

You couldn’t even form words as the nurses continued to push you into room 1304 for emergency treatment. The people at the hospital looked over in pity and nervousness as they watched the girl with the Hanahaki disease being pushed across the hallway as roses start to flood after her bed like a trail. 

Even if it felt like the pain was eating your entire body alive, all you could think of was him. 

Please, I need to see him. Even for just one more second, please.

But Miles doesn’t even know anything about this, and it just increases your already large amount of regret. 

I should’ve told him. Even though I know he doesn’t like me back, I should’ve told him. 

He’s my best friend. And I can't even say goodbye.

But maybe this was for the best. I wouldn't want him to see me in such a pathetic state.

Miles was quick to suit up, flinging himself out of your window in a matter of miliseconds. He didn’t know where to find you, and all he could do was rack his brain on the places that you could be in. As he continuously swung around the city, tears formed in his eyes behind his mask.

He was angry. So angry at himself for not noticing. Furious at the fact that he already knew something has been off with you for the past months, but he didn’t try hard enough to know what it was. He was mad because he just let you suffer alone. 

Some friend I am. He thought on repeat. 

He tried to use his senses to see if he could pinpoint your location, running and swinging between endless crowds and roads, because something felt terribly wrong. 

Miles didn’t know what exactly it was, but he knew. 

He had to hurry.

“Time of death… 5:47 pm.” Your doctor read from the monitor in a monotone voice. She wrote down the information with trembling hands. Her eyes crept up to see you on the hospital bed, frozen and still.

The static sound of the heart monitor was so deafening and seemed louder than it normally was. There was a heavy silence in the hospital’s emergency area as everyone present stood still. 

Another poor youthful soul had been taken by such a cruel disease.

Suddenly, the door banged open, and there stood Miles who was breathing heavily as he tried to catch his breath. 

His brown eyes spotted you and it was as if time had stopped running, as if the world around him disappeared just like that. 

Miles slowly took in the sight before him, your doctor who stood by the edge of your bed with a deep frown, you who was laying still, eyes closed. He also tried to process the flowers that filled up the entire floor of the room. These were roses, but he knew their petals. 

“I believe you are him?” Doctor Sanchez asked with a poor attempt at a professional tone. Miles’ mouth was still agape in shock, his mind refusing to process what he was seeing as he slowly looked at her. “Wh-What?” The doctor sighed, hugging her clipboard to her chest. “You’re her unrequited love, yes? You’re Miles Morales?”

The poor boy couldn’t muster a single word right now, so all he could do was slightly nod at her. “Time of death was 5:47, the cause is… Hanahaki.” She reported with an aching heart as she sees Miles’ expression. 

“I… I never knew until I saw the…” Miles couldn’t even bring himself to say it, that maybe if he didn’t then all of this wouldn’t be true. He took slow steps towards you, each one being heavier than the last as if they weighed a thousand pounds.

It felt as if his heart stopped beating, and his body no longer functioned as he stared down at you. His quivering fingers tried to grab your hand, only to find that it was cold… Too cold…

Right at that second, tears had already started to stream down his cheeks silently. Miles bit his lip hard as he started to harden his grip on your hand. He placed it between both his hands and he rubbed violently.

Maybe if he did so, he’d be able to bring back some warmth into your body. Maybe he’d feel that familiar tingling sensation that he always felt when both your hands would touch. He was silently praying that it was a prank, that he’d feel your fingers wrap around his, and that you’d tell him you were fine. 

But it never came. 

Your chest wasn’t rising up and down, there seemed to be no more color in your face, no more life. Your lips have turned a faint blue as dried blood surrounded your nose and ears. 

He refused to think of what this meant. He wasn’t going to believe it. He… He just can’t. 

“But I… I love her too.” Miles hiccuped between tears. He felt his legs give out, making him fall to his knees but the flowers had cushioned him from hitting the floor. Even in this state, you manage to keep him from feeling pain.

Doctor Sanchez’s breath hitched in her throat and she couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. “She thought you liked someone else. She didn’t want you to worry so she hid it I… I’ve tried to tell her that she should confess, to tell you how she felt but she… she was dead set on thinking that… she was never enough for you.” After one last breath, she walked towards the door. “I’ll… give you some privacy.”

Once the door closed behind him, Miles weakly stood up and that’s when it started. He let out the most painful cry so loud that everyone outside the room could hear. 

His hands gripped his hair, pulling at it vigorously as he continued to bawl his heart out in agony. 

The truth was, he loves you more than anyone in this entire world. He loves you with every fucking fiber of his being, with every cell in his body. All of it was yours, every heartbeat of his was dedicated to you. You were a major part of why he wanted to keep being Spiderman, so he could protect you. 

So he could shield you away from any harm or danger. 

And yet, he still couldn’t save you. 

He started to feel suffocated as he punched the floor with his fists, almost cracking it in the process. 

He was so goddamn furious at himself. 

He felt like the biggest fucking coward in the entire universe. 

If only, if only he had mustered even the slightest of courage to tell you of how he felt, then this wouldn't have happened. You'd still be alive. 

Miles was now wailing in anger and pain that he couldn’t even begin to describe. 

The realization has finally started to kick in. 

He had lost you. 

You suffered alone because you thought your love for him was unrequited and would never have been returned. 

You didn’t believe in the possibility. But oh how wrong you were.

You didn't see the passion, love, and admiration in his eyes whenever he looked at you. You failed to notice the little things he did for you, like remembering your favorite things, or bringing you to your favorite places.

How he would pluck flowers from the school garden and gave it to you, or maybe even the times where he'd let you copy his answers on a test.

You just thought he was such a good friend.

If only… If only the both of you have tried a bit harder. Maybe then, it didn’t have to end this way.

Fin.

More of my Miles content here babes!

(if yall wanna be on my taglist feel free to let me know!)

[cherryredstars]

Pairing: Miguel O’Hara x fem!reader

Warnings: Some Fluff, Talk of Death/Afterlife, Suggested Depression, Suggested Self-Harm, Suggested Breakdown, Suggested Anxiety, Light Smut

Word Count: 3.7K

“I recognized you instantly. All of our lives flashed through my mind in a split second. I felt a pull so strongly towards you that I almost couldn't stop it.” ― J. Sterling

It was a hot and humid day. The type of days Miguel hates the most in September because the heat made him uncomfortable and the humidity made his hair frizzy and lose its shape. It was even worse while sitting in a stuffy classroom with ACs that never worked. The rooms were always filled with the strong smell of teenage bodies and dust from janitorial neglection over the summer months. In addition, the beginning weeks of school were a bore with nothing to actually do but sit there and listen to underpaid teachers repeat the same school rules they hear in the beginning of every school semester. 

He was sure he was about to fall asleep at that moment. The heat made him drowsy and the monotone voice of his teacher morphed into white noise. It was nearing the end of the day anyways, and too early into the school year for any teachers to give enough of a shit to write anyone up. He couldn’t take another second of school expectations and the disgusting mix of AXE body spray and floral perfume. But, now when he thinks back on that boring class, he can’t take it on himself to fully hate it. Because, in the same second that he looked toward the clock above the door to check the time, his life changed forever. 

It was instant. Maybe not instant instant, but it was just quick enough to call it instant. She had come in late. Very late with a chest that heaved and tried to keep her rapidly beating heart in her body. Sweat made the front pieces of her hair stick to her face, flushed from the way she had run down the hall to make it to class. Of course, in that moment Miguel found her less than ideal, but he knows now that even in that stuffy school uniform the academy mandated every student to wear, she was the most beautiful goddamn thing that walked the entire earth. And when she spoke to give her name for attendance, a voice and name that will haunt Miguel until he takes his last breath, he knew their lives would be forever intertwined. 

That thought was concrete the second you had walked down the same row of desks as him, stopping at the desk directly in front of him. The smell of sweetness and a bit of sweat, a smell that only comes to him in the early mornings when he isn’t really awake or asleep, instantly overpowered any other smell in the room. If he skips ahead, he can remember nearly every instance in which he leaned his stomach against the hard edge of the desk to get a stronger smell, everytime he held up a piece of your hair to his face, everytime he snuck out of your bedroom window smelling like you after spending the night making love. But, Miguel is a man who follows a strict timeline, who revels in the chronological order of things. 

Instead, he focuses on the first time he had the chance to talk to you. Despite you being only a desk away, it took a few months to hold an actual conversation that was more than, “Do you have an extra pencil?” or “Did you write down the last bullet of that slide?” Despite the lack of communication, the younger Miguel had developed a slight crush on you. He had seen you in the halls between classes and he focused more on you than on the board in class. In all honesty, the delay in conversation was purely your fault. You were an energetic girl, not popular but well known. Someone was always talking to you at your desk in the beginning and end of class. Always laughing with you about something stupid that happened early that day, always asking for help for an upcoming test or assignment, always taking up your time. He could never be mad about it, though. Even if it meant he had lost an extra few months with you. It was okay because even if those months weren’t with you, they were of you. Months filled with the sound of your voice, the addicting sound of your laugh, the glimpses of your smile and shiny eyes. Moments that fill his head when he sleeps at night and when he gets lost in a daydream. 

You had turned to him, asking him about some party one of his friends at the time was planning because he had turned 18. They’re simple, small questions: “What was the address again?”, “Anyone is invited, right?”, “What’s the dress code? Is there a theme?”, “Are you going?”. He had to bite his tongue to stop from scaring you off with manic answers. Yes, anyone is invited but don’t bring some random guy with you. Bring me with you instead. The dress code doesn’t matter because you’ll look stunning in anything you wear. I only want to go if you go. 

“You… only want to go if I go?” You had asked. Your voice was decorated with a confused giggle and your ears had glowed pink. 

Miguel blinked up at you with his own confusion. He had yet to realize his last words had bubbled out of his chest until you were giggling and eyeing him shyly. He was quick to cover his face as it grew warm, and he let out a groan while cursing himself. You had laughed harder then, eyes shining with a build-up of tears as you clutched your stomach. Miguel had spread his fingers slightly so he could peak through them. You were a sight to behold with that enchanting laughter and infatuating smile. He couldn’t keep himself from smiling against his palms. When you had finally reduced your amusement to a toothy smile, you had gently pried Miguel’s hands off his face just enough to see him. 

He was sure he looked stupid, mouth slightly agape and eyes wide over the fact you were touching him. Your hands were warm and small against his and he swore his heart was trying to rip open his chest so it could run to you. He almost went dizzy when your thumb stroked his hands in a comforting manner in hopes of easing his embarrassment. He had never wanted to kiss someone so badly before. Would you have minded? God he really hoped you wouldn’t.

“Miguel?” You sang, a teasing smile on your face as you looked at him, “Are you there?”

Say it again. Say my name again, please. You’re the only person ever allowed to say it ever again. God, he was losing his mind. He still is losing it over you. Every goddamn day. Miguel doesn’t think he’ll ever get it back. You took it from him. His mind, his body, his soul. You took everything from him. It’s yours. It’s yours, it’s yours, it’s yours.

Please, give it back to me.

When he had finally responded to you, your smile had shone brighter and you asked him a question that still leaves his mind dumbstruck when he thinks back on it: What time do you want to pick me up? He remembers the way his breath flew out of his lungs, how his heart had paused and then started running again. Remembers the way your throat bobbed slightly, probably because you had regretted asking the question or maybe, he hopes this is why because he never thought to ask you, maybe because you were nervous too. Just maybe you had wanted to talk to him before this life altering moment. Maybe, somewhere in the back of your mind, you knew you were tied to this fool of a boy too. 

He had stuttered out a pathetic ‘what?’ and you had rolled your eyes playfully in response. You ditched repeating the question and had instead given him a time and your address before getting up as the bell rang. While you walked out the door with a small wave and big smile, Miguel sat there in an astonished daze blinking at the board. Time seemed to stop as everyone else around him started walking past him to their next classes. It wasn’t until his friend walked past, jolting him with a slap on the back and a whispered, ‘good work, dude’ before walking out the door that he came back to his senses. It was only then that the conversation finally registered in Miguel’s dazzled brain. He leaned forward and hid his face in his hands again as he closed his eyes and his mouth formed a large smile. 

He had a date. He had a date with you.

His shoulders shook with a silent, delirious laugh.

☆*:..｡. .｡.:*☆☆*:..｡. .｡.:*☆☆*:..｡. .｡.:*☆☆*:..｡. .｡.:*☆☆*:..｡. .｡.:*☆

Miguel knew he was in love. Or, he knew he was going to be in love. It’s complicated to describe, that nagging feeling that wasn’t exactly scary but wasn’t completely comforting either. It’s even weirder feeling it. Having your mind constantly crying out go home, go home, go home but your body pulls you away from every building and straight towards another body like you’re tethered together. Like he’s tethered to you. Sometimes, when Miguel closes his eyes and really concentrates, he can still feel that sharp tug at the center of his chest that tries to bring him somewhere that he tries to get further and further away from. 

He can’t lie and say it wasn’t the big things that made him think, know, he was in love. Because it was. But it was also the small things. Like when you found out what his favorite color was, yellow despite popular belief, and how you had come into school the next week with your nails done in the exact shade you had made him show you on his phone. Or that time he had seen your phone light up in class and your display had revealed that you were listening to the same song he was mumbling under his breath the day before on repeat. It was the collection of those small details that made his heart beat a bit faster and for his smile to tick up behind his hand.

And it was that first kiss. That damned first kiss that Miguel can still feel ghosting against his lips. That he feels on his bad days like some sort of silent encouragement that he will get through it. Swears those phantom lips are what pulls him out of his night terrors as if to protect him as he pants and cries in those late hours. The same kiss that he wishes he could feel forever and ever and simultaneously burn from memory. Sometimes, he thinks about pulling some poor, unsuspecting stranger off the street and kissing them to see if it would feel the same. When he thinks like that, he instantly goes to the bathroom and dry heaves until his throat hurts. Of course it would never feel the same, what a silly idea. What a betrayal and discourtesy towards you to even entertain the idea. 

The kiss had happened weeks after the party. In between those two moments had been brushed hands, glances in the hallways, and not so subtle flirting whispered during lessons. Each moment had Miguel’s face flushing and heart racing. It left him with a craving for you. So, when you had invited him to study with you in the library, he had eagerly nodded despite knowing he would ace the test without looking over any of his notes. He would be too busy looking at you either way to focus on his chicken scratch. 

You hadn’t gotten much studying done that day either. Instead, Miguel had distracted you with whispered words in your ears that caused you to quietly giggle and smile up at him. He can remember every detail. From the way your cheeks grew to match the pink of your lips, how you had fiddled with the mechanical pencil in your hand, how your eyes had twinkled as you leaned towards him. He remembers how you had grabbed his hand, a soft and gentle touch, asking him to come with you to find a book you needed. Remembers how you had pulled him towards the back shelves filled with encyclopedias with bug-bitten pages. Can still remember the slight dizzy feeling he had when you pulled him around one of the old bookshelves and pressed him into it. Can still feel the hands pressed against his chest to hold him in place as you peaked around the corner in case anyone was coming over. He remembers the notes he chuckled as he asked you what you were doing. Can see the smile you gave him before you pulled him down for the only kiss that will ever matter in his entire life. 

Your lips were soft and tasted like the cherry lip gloss you wore. He had furrowed his brows as his hands came to squeeze your waist while he moved his mouth over yours. He memorized the trail your hands took as they traveled up his chest and tangled in his hair. He can replicate the way his vocal cords shifted as he let out that satisfied groan when you allowed him to slip his tongue into your mouth. If he were to look down at his hand right now, he could swear the creases of his palms still have your sticky gloss stuck in them from when he had turned you around to press you against the shelves, but his desperation caused books to fall and his hand went to cover your mouth as you pulled away and started laughing. He had smiled down at you and buried his head in the crook of your neck to muffle his own laughter. He never regretted getting detention for the next few days when the librarian had found the both of you. It just gave him more chances to kiss you when the detention instructor fell asleep. 

It was during one of those detention kisses that he had whispered against your lips to be his girlfriend. You had answered with another kiss and a delighted yes.

☆*:..｡. .｡.:*☆☆*:..｡. .｡.:*☆☆*:..｡. .｡.:*☆☆*:..｡. .｡.:*☆☆*:..｡. .｡.:*☆

It had been a month or two after the one year anniversary that he finally made love to you. It was sometime in the later months of senior year. Another hot and humid day. But instead of being in a classroom, he had been in your room. Miguel remembers that your sheets had been white with a small flower print, throw pillows and blankets making up for the lack of color. They were soft under the material of his jeans as he held you while you cried. 

On that day, your usually clean room was in shatters. Things ripped from your walls, notebooks and papers shoved off your desk, clothes taken off hangers and thrown on the floor. The only things that had survived had been pictures of the two of you and your bed. He had gotten a call from your frantic mother, begging him to come calm you down. That he was the only one that can get through the fog in your mind. He had rushed over, your mother opening the door for him so he could run up the stairs to your room. When he had thrown open the door, his chest broke in a way that made it almost impossible to breathe. He rubs his chest whenever he thinks back to it, like the heartbreak is still there.  

You had thrown yourself in a corner, sobbing and rocking yourself back and forth in a way to seek comfort. The mess of your room had surrounded you, barricading you from everything else. When the door knocked into the wall, your face had left your arms and tear-beaded lashes blinked up at him. You had cried harder when you had seen him. He had strived towards you, picking you up easily off the ground and away from the chaos on your floor. He cradled you in his arms, your legs wrapping around his hips as you cried tears into his T-shirt. He had whispered soft, caring words into your ear, an arm wrapped around your waist and a hand in your hair. 

You had cried for another hour, hiccuping watery words about a scary future. A life of uncertainties and insecurities. A life where you ended up alone and scared and desperate to get by. A world where dreams don’t exist and your greatest fears consume you. Days where you don’t know how to get out of bed and shut up the nasty voices in your head. Minutes where you’re tempted to listen to them and then the hours that follow where you hate yourself for contemplating it. If Miguel were to go into his closet right now, he can find the same shirt he wore. A single shoulder lingering with black splotches of mascara that never fully washed away. Each splotch represents a worry you had trusted him with. 

He had pressed you closer to him, whispering ‘it’s not your fault’, over and over and over again until his throat ached and your cries had died down to soft trembling. Another hour was spent in silence as he had just held you. His hands playing mindlessly with your hair and your breath tickling his neck. The sun had begun to set and a golden glow had lit up your bed in a yellow color.

“It’s your favorite shade,” You had whispered in a broken voice. It was scratchy and rough. Miguel thought it sounded just as lovely as it always has. It reminds him of a pipe organ, beautiful but sad. 

He had to turn around to see what you were talking about. He turned his head slightly to see your hand outstretched, fingers playing as the light spilled from them. He can’t remember a time where you looked so peaceful. He had watched your hand, before nodding his head in agreement. “Yes, it is.”

He reached his hand out, taking a hold of yours gently and connecting his fingers with yours like a puzzle. He brought his hands back towards the both of you, bringing it up to his lips and kissing your knuckles. He watched your eyes, red and puffy from crying. He held your hand to his mouth for a while, his thumb stroking the skin. When he had finally dropped your hand, you leaned forward to rest your forehead against his, just staring into his eyes. Your scent instantly filled his nose. It is the same smell that he has stored in his bedside drawer in a glass bottle. He never sprays it in his room, just holds it to his nose with closed eyes and pretends you’re right next to him again.

“I love you.” The words were sweet and poured warmth onto his skin. He closed his eyes and sat there, letting your words echo in his head until he memorized how each letter and syllable sounded when it left your lips. 

Miguel remembers the strength he used to grab your waist as he connected your lips to his. Remembers that the kiss was different from any other kiss the two of you had shared before this. He still can’t describe why it was different, but he can still feel it in his bones. He remembers pushing his body into yours and you pushing back. Even though his eyes were closed in the moment, he can see everything clearly in his mind, as if he were a phantom watching it. Can see the exact placement of your hands on his shoulders, can see the way your lips parted and the soft noise you made when he had flipped the two of you over and laid you on your back. 

Those soft, soft noises that split his chest open so his heart can absorb them and keep them safe. He remembers every soft pant and plead you had whispered into the air of your room as he stripped you of your clothes, kissing trails down your body. The giggle you had let out when he almost tripped taking off his pants is still trapped between those plaster walls. The soft feeling of your skin under his was like a cloud, your body warmth the sun. He remembers the halo your hair made as the dying sunlight bathed your face and caused your eyes to shine and for your skin to glow. He remembers the light dimming from your face as he slid slowly into you. He had immediately apologized as you whimpered in temporary pain. 

He had slowly moved inside you, taking his time as you held him close to your body. The soft moans of his name traveled through shivers that rode down his spine, the sounds quiet to not alert your parents. His response was the repeated saying of I love you, over and over again. He repeated it, looking down at your face, into your eyes, so you could see the realness and vulnerability of the words. He made sure you felt it as he grabbed onto your skin and buried his head into your neck as he thrusted. He felt the love you had for him in every scratch down his back and tightening of your walls around him. 

He remembers trying to hold on to his pleasure before it exploded right after yours. He had panted as he looked down at you, your breaths mixing together. He had kissed you softly as he pulled his softening member out of you and you smiled against his lips. He had laid with you for a while before getting up, grabbing his discarded shirt and wiping you down before taking you into his arms again and falling asleep. He held you close to his chest, both of you naked under your blankets as the moonlight glowed against the two of you. 

The next morning, he drove you to the closest drug store. The both of you walked to the counter smelling like each other as he paid for a Plan B pill and snacks. It was a story you and him laughed about on the rooftop of your house the night you both graduated from Pym Academy.

CHAPTER 2- THEN: THE CANON

[thebiggerbear]

Close Enough - Russell Shaw x Reader

Summary: When you'd met the Shaws at the morgue the day before, you thought that had been the end of it and you wouldn't need to see one Shaw brother in particular again. Little did you know that Colter was about to once again ask for your help and not only would you be forced to see Russell again but things were about to change drastically for the both of you.

Pairing: Russell Shaw x Female!Reader; Russell Shaw x Female!FBI Special Agent!Reader

A/N: Sequel to So Close. I wanted to follow up and reveal what happened between Russell and the reader in the past but as I was writing it, this idea popped into my head in addition to that and I just had to see where it went. This was the end result lol. Hope it's okay.

Unbeta'd so all mistakes are mine. I still have not seen Tracker (besides 1x12) because I just haven't had the time for a proper binge yet so if I got some things wrong about Colter and his experience in the show, I apologize.

Also, I always like to throw the disclaimer out there anytime I write something related to the universe of law enforcement: I have never worked in law enforcement so I tried to piece together things I’ve seen and heard in true crime documentaries and podcasts alongside with movies/tv and books. I apologize for any inconsistencies, incorrect information, exaggerations, or complete fallacies. Basically, I made shit up.

Songs I listened to while writing: Somebody That I Used to Know by Gotye; Easy Living by Loretta Lynn & Conway Twitty; Sweet Dreams by Patsy Cline; Sounds of Someday by Radio Company

Warnings: sanctioned assassination; death; gun violence; violence/blood mention; mention of dead bodies; arson; implied sex; a very, very tiny amount of smut(ish); language (I guess?)

Word Count: 16K+

Russell Taglist: @deangirl96 (I hope you don't mind me tagging you in this one; this is going to lead into the series that I mentioned); @avada-kedavra-bitch-187

Jensen Taglist: @samanddeaninatrenchcoat

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

Please do not do any of the above. Thank you for your understanding.

Your phone started to buzz and you glanced at the screen, rolling your eyes and letting out a sigh before picking up. That wasn’t the normal reaction you would have to seeing Colter’s name pop up on your phone but ever since that mess back at the morgue yesterday, you had been hoping he wouldn’t contact you again. At least not until his brother went back to whatever hole he’d crawled out of. But now it looked like that had been a fool’s hope, on both counts.

“You what?” You hissed.

“We’re about to head to this home in the Blue Ridge Mountains and go in to get Doug,” he repeated.

“I’m sorry, an incredible amount of stupid just sounded in my ear. Can you repeat that?”

“Reenie got me the location and it’s solid intel.” He lowered his voice. “Look, I thought we should get law enforcement involved, alright? But there’s a…valid reason why Russ doesn’t want to call them that I can’t get into right now.”

“Whoops, more stupid. One more time?”

Colter groaned into the phone. “Come on, Y/N.”

“I’m serious, Colter. What the hell are either of you think—wait, scratch that. What the hell are you thinking? Going into a dangerous location like that without any backup? If Carlos Solano found your missing man in a safehouse, do you think he won’t be armed to the teeth? That he won’t have guards patrolling the compound that you’re walking right into? That he won’t see something like this coming? You guys are walking right into a shitstorm.” Christ, you loved the guy like a long-lost brother that you sometimes kept in touch with but if he were in front of you right now, you would’ve delivered one good smack to the back of his head to get him thinking straight. Colter may know his way around a gun, but he wasn’t someone who had formal training or combat experience like Russell did. He didn’t even have your training and you wouldn’t be going in there kamikaze-style like they were.

“That’s why I’m calling you and asking you to meet us there. I’m not exactly calling in law enforcement but we’ll have one more person to watch our backs and help us search for Doug. And who better than a special agent with the FBI?”

You sat back in your chair, shaking your head but thinking it over. This was beyond stupid and you shouldn’t be encouraging it. Russell’s involvement in this idiot plan didn’t surprise you; Colter’s did. He knew better. But you also knew that if he thought he had a chance to get the missing guy back home safely, he was going to take it, no matter the personal risk. If you didn’t go like he asked and anything happened to him or Russell, you’d never forgive yourself.

“Please?” 

You pinched the bridge of your nose between your thumb and forefinger, your decision made. “Send me the location and I’ll leave now to meet you.”

“Thank you.” You could hear the genuine gratitude in his tone. “I promise I’ll explain everything.”

“You better,” you nearly growled before disconnecting the call. You had a feeling you knew what he was going to tell you but for his sake, you hoped it wasn’t anything close to what you were thinking. But why else would Russell not want to call law enforcement for help in rescuing his friend who had been taken hostage by a foreign criminal? God, you hoped you were wrong.

You let out another loud sigh and before you could stand, your phone started ringing again. When you glanced at the screen, instead of a name, you saw “Blocked”. Not good.

You swiped green, holding it to your ear. “Y/L/N.”

“We have a problem,” said the voice on the other end, one you knew all too well, and it didn't sound happy. Shit.

You watched as Colter’s truck pulled up alongside your car. Colter got out and noticed you leaning against your trunk, arms crossed and a scowl in place. Russell came around from the other side. 

“Either of you boys see two suicidal idiots around here? Oh, wait.”

Russell’s jaw tightened. “It wasn’t my idea to call you.” He slid a glare over to his brother. 

“You’re lucky he did,” you snapped. “And since I’m here,” You got to your feet and turned to open your trunk, revealing a smorgasbord of gear and weapons. “We’re going to be doing this my way.” You held out a bulletproof vest to Colter first and he immediately started to strap it on. You held one out to Russell but he shook his head and didn’t take it. You glanced over to find he had already put his own on while you’d been grabbing one for his brother.

“Okay, look,” Russell started, his eyes scanning your makeshift armory and setting your teeth on edge. “This isn’t some FBI raid of some drug gang. This guy, Carlos Solano, he’s the real deal. He’s as dangerous as they come.”

You could feel your irritation turning into anger at the suggestion that you didn’t know how serious this was, and from him of all people. “And what am I? Some part-time mall security guard? A receptionist at the Academy? I’ve dealt with cartels before and they’re as dangerous as they come, too. So take that mansplaining and shove it right up where the sun doesn't shine.”

Russell took a step closer and laid a hand on your shoulder, his eyes burning into you. “Be pissed at me all you want but I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“But you’re okay with your brother getting hurt?” You briefly glanced in Colter’s direction. The younger man was watching you two carefully as he adjusted his vest one last time, wisely choosing to stay out of this one. 

Russell’s jaw clenched and he dropped his hand. “I’ve got him.”

You snorted and grabbed a gun, loading it quickly. “And I’ve got both of you. Now, we’ve got a bit of a hike so let’s cut the chit chat and get this over with, shall we?” You motioned for Colter to turn around and you inserted an extra handgun into the back of his belt. “We stick together as a unit. You hear me? No wandering off alone.”

Colter faced you again. “Yes, Mom,” he teased.

You swatted at his shoulder before checking the fit of his vest, nodding in approval.

“I have done this before, you know.”

You knew that already. You’d been there with him a couple of times for such instances. “Good for you,” you quipped. “But for kicks, how about you just humor me?”

He rolled his eyes and you smirked, turning to slam the trunk shut. You glanced up to find Russell watching you, his jaw still tight but his eyes containing a familiar light that you hadn’t seen in a while. “You good?”

“Yep.” And just like that, the light hollowed out, replaced by something far colder yet familiar, but not because you’d seen it in his gaze. You’d seen it often enough in your own when looking into the mirror. 

Pushing that thought away and shifting focus, you began to lead the way into the trees. “Alright, let’s do this and get Doug home in time for breakfast.” Colter flanked you on your right while Russell came up on your left. 

“Let’s rock and roll,” he agreed. 

It hadn’t been as bad as you’d been expecting, even after you’d received the intel Colter had referred to on the phone. One guard and three henchmen. You were annoyed and almost insulted that they had presented so little a challenge considering Carlos Solano was supposed to be this big bad criminal. But when you glanced over and saw Colter looking over Russell’s bloody jacket sleeve, you regretted the thought and gratitude immediately filled you that things hadn’t been worse. Russell had taken a bullet to the arm and thankfully, it had passed right through. 

Before you could shoot the bastard that shot him, Colter and Russell were on it. You watched in awe as the brothers moved as a single unit, almost as if they hadn’t been strained or missed a beat over the years. You supposed you should be happy that they were working together rather than still arguing over shit from a lifetime ago that had torn their family apart. For Colter’s sake at least.

Just then, you heard what sounded like a small plane outside. You hurried to a window and glanced outside, seeing a rapidly descending charter plane aiming for the tiny landing strip in the back of the property. Right on time.

You let the curtain fall and looked back at the guys. “Time to go.”

Doug’s face was ashen while Colter and Russell exchanged glances. Immediately, Russell picked up his gun and got ready to leave the room.

You rushed to stop him. “There will be none of that!” 

“You guys get Doug back to the truck. I’ll handle this.”

You practically jogged around him, planting yourself in his path. “Not happening.”

He glared down at you. “Y/N, I need to close this up. Move.”

You scowled right back. “You’ve been shot.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I have to finish this.”

You refused to budge. “You are not finishing anything. You’re getting the hell out of here, that’s what you’re doing.” 

“Y/N—”

“Guys, not the time,” Colter interceded. “He’s getting off that plane any second now, so what’s the plan?”

“She’s right, man,” Doug added, making both of your gazes snap over at him. “We really need to go.”

Voices suddenly sounded outside and you all glanced towards the window.

“Shit,” you muttered, quickly checking the chamber on your gun. As you were about to head out of the room, a hand grasped gently under your chin and forced your eyes to meet Russell’s. You could see the pleading there but also a stone-cold resignation. “Go with Colter and Doug,” he urged, giving you a brief but strained smile. “I need you to go.” You felt the rough skin of his thumb on your cheek as he moved it tenderly back and forth.

You knew what he was really telling you, what he planned to do, but hell if you weren’t more infuriated with him. You were so sick of the self-sacrificial bullshit. Hadn’t it cost you enough? Cost you both?

You pulled away from him, giving him a glare. “I don’t think you understand,” you said in a tone so cold you were pretty sure you could give the winds in Antarctica a run for their money. “I’m taking Solano in and I am not leaving until I have my suspect alive and in custody.” Russell looked pissed but you couldn’t care less. Better than him being dead in the next two minutes.

You turned to face Colter and Doug so they also got the message. “This case is under Federal jurisdiction now.” Colter glanced between you and his brother who you turned back to face. “I’m bringing him in. Got it?”

Russell went to say something but didn’t get the chance. The sounds of gunfire erupted right outside the room and you all had to duck for cover. 

You secured your handcuffs around Carlos Solano’s wrists that had been forced behind his back once you shoved him into the chair in the room, purposely tightening the metal bracelets past the point of comfort. The man reacted, cursing you out as you smirked up at him. 

Getting to your feet, you focused on the Shaws and Doug. Russell watched you with a glare while Colter waited for you to speak. Doug looked downright terrified. They had helped you to take down Solano’s men who had flown with him — all three of them. Russell aimed for Solano but at the last second, you got in his way and tackled the criminal to the ground. Needless to say, he wasn’t happy with you. Oh well. The feeling was mutual.

Colter placed his hands on his hips. “Alright, so how are we getting him back to the truck? Are we just going to drag him through the woods and hope we don’t come across anybody else he might have coming here? How are we going to work this?”

You slipped your gun back into your holster. “He doesn’t have anyone else coming here and the plan is that you three are going to head back to the truck and get out of here. I’m going to wait for a pickup,” You gestured towards the window with your thumb where the landing strip could be seen. “They’re nearby, waiting for my call, and they won’t take long to get here.” You shook your phone in your hand, indicating you were going to be using it.

Russell glanced around, as if expecting Agents to start popping up out of the woodworks at any second, before his eyes settled back on you. “So you called this in after all?”

You shrugged. “You were going into a fully armed compound to rescue a hostage, a two-man team against a crime lord on the FBI’s Most Wanted list? Yeah, of course, I did.”

He shook his head, chuckling and muttering a curse under his breath. “Of course you did,” he echoed, shooting a look over at his brother. 

Colter’s gaze flickered back to you. “We’ll wait with you until they get here.”

You offered up a small smile. “I appreciate it but not necessary. I’ve got this until they get here and I do the handover.”

“But—”

“Look, you should get Doug out of here.” You inclined your head in the direction of the man who was staring dazedly at the floor. “You need to get him checked out and your brother should get his arm looked at.”

“I’m fine,” Russell interjected.

You ignored him. “I’ll be alright, Colter. Believe it or not, you tend to get experience with this kind of thing once or twice before becoming a Special Agent.” You meant it as a light-hearted reassurance but you could tell that both Shaw brothers were going to be a hard sell. At least Colter’s reasoning was up front and above board.

“I’m sure but I don’t feel comfortable leaving you alone. Not with him.” Colter gestured towards Solano who spit in his direction.

“I won’t be for long. But you guys need to get out of here. The Bureau can’t know you were involved in this.” You shot him a meaningful look. “For multiple reasons.”

The younger man looked as if he was going to protest again when you held up a hand. “Colter. You may not like it but you need to do as I’m telling you. If the Bureau finds any of you here…” You could tell that he didn’t care so much about himself but you let your eyes briefly flick in Russell’s direction, who was busy glaring at the man you had bound to the chair. You saw Colter’s expression immediately change and you knew you had succeeded in convincing him to vacate the area as soon as possible.

He nodded his head in assent. “Okay.” He laid a hand on Doug’s shoulder, prompting the man to look up at him, and urged him to start moving to the door.

“Okay? What do you mean okay?” Russell huffed.

Colter held up a hand. “Russell—”

“No.” Russell turned a glare on you. “Not okay. He’s a loose end that needs tying up. He knows who we are now, he came after Doug, and the FBI isn’t going to do shit with him.” You narrowed your eyes in a glare but he continued. “That’s not an insult. It’s the truth and you know it. They’re going to what? Get him to talk, to roll over on someone else he has connections to who’s higher up their food chain, and he gets off scot free? No, not happening on my watch.” 

He took a step forward and so did you, in front of Solano. You drew your gun but held it loosely across your waist, your finger on the trigger, ready and waiting should you need it. Russell stopped cold, his eyes flickering back and forth between you and the weapon in your hand. Colter and Doug were frozen, watching the scene unfold.

“I told you,” you said in the most deadly serious tone you could muster. “I’m taking him in, alive. If you have a problem with that, well…” You flipped the safety on the gun off. “You’ll have to go through me. And I promise you, my aim is a hell of a lot more accurate at close range than it’s ever been.”

Russell didn’t blink, he just kept scowling at you.

“Russ?” Colter called.

“Don’t make me kill you in front of him, Russell,” you murmured so only the two of you would hear. You were serious as a heart attack. No matter how you had felt about him once upon a time, this was important enough for you to make good on your threat if you needed to.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would and it will be justified by the higher ups as protection of a high-valued target before your body goes cold.” You hated saying the words but it was nothing but the truth that you spoke. You hoped he heard the message underneath your words: walk away, this isn’t worth dying over. “And he’ll be further traumatized,” you inclined your head in Colter’s direction. “Losing his brother right in front of him, just like he lost his dad.” You knew that was a severely low blow but he also needed to hear you. 

As expected, Russell’s jaw clenched and you saw a twitch in the good arm he had, the one that was holding his gun. “Don’t be stupid and do that to him,” you warned. “Walk away.”

That cold look was back in his eyes again. You mentally prepared yourself for what was about to go down. You had hoped he wouldn’t force your hand but then again, Russell Shaw had always been the epitome of stubborn, usually to his own detriment…and yours.   

“Russell?” Colter tried again.

“Russ, come on, man. Let it be for now,” Doug added in, trying to help. “And let’s regroup.”

This time, Russell appeared to hear them both, his gaze breaking from yours momentarily, flickering over Solano behind you, who was laughing and smirking in the former’s direction, clearly enjoying the standoff over him. 

Russell’s eyes met yours again but this time, there was nothing familiar about the green you used to stare into when he’d sway with you on the dance floor to a slow song playing overhead or when you’d both wear matching sated grins and laugh, a pleasant exhaustion overtaking you as he pulled you into his arms in a motel bed. It was almost like staring into a dark void and you couldn’t help but wonder how often that void showed up during war or if the war created it — the old chicken or the egg question. Either way, you knew you’d succeeded in convincing him to leave, but you’d also have to watch yourself. There was no warmth left in those jade-colored orbs when they focused on you. You’d done your work well; you’d crossed a line that you could never go back from.

“Alright,” he capitulated, loud enough that the two men near the doorway heard him. He relaxed his arm and slipped his gun into a pocket in his vest. His face lightened a little and a strained smile worked its way across his face. He glanced back at his brother. “She’s right. We should get Doug out of here.” He turned back to face you, his smile fading. “She’s got this.” He then glanced in Solano’s direction, smirking right back. “I’ll see you soon,” he promised, giving him a finger gun and winking, before his expression became stone once more and he walked away, glaring at you as he did.

You lifted your chin, not reacting in the slightest, until Solano shouted out, “You’ll be seeing me? No, puta, I’ll be seeing you. You’ll never see it coming, you hear me? You’ll never see it co—” You spun a few degrees and pistol-whipped him, causing the jackass to cry out in pain before you turned back to face Doug and the two most important men in your life. “Get going,” you growled out, lifting your phone with your other hand as a subtle threat.

Colter gave you a nod, the concern still there in his dark brown gaze as he led Doug out the door. Russell’s eyes never left you, even when he walked out the door a moment later, following his little brother’s lead. You never looked away even when he was past the threshold. 

You ignored Solano’s yelling threats and kept your eyes on the spot you had last seen the Shaws disappear through a few minutes longer than needed, tense and ready in case Russell decided to double back. Though you highly doubted he’d come at you from the same angle. A part of you was making sure you stayed prepared in case there was an ambush, yes, but another part of you knew your gaze was lingering on the spot because you knew things had now drastically changed between you and Russell forever. He would never forgive your threats and you would never forgive yourself for having to make them. Though that remorse was more related to Colter than his brother. Regardless, when it came to the Shaws now, you were fucked. Not even Dory would want to hear from you, not that she had all that much before, but now it was definitely a no go. And that saddened you tremendously.

Hearing more of Solano’s threats, you recentered your focus on the task at hand and prepared to wait, giving him one more pistol whip for good measure, before you settled in and kept both eyes and ears open for any possible ambush that might come your way before you could finish up here. 

You leaned against the workstation next to the chair, waiting, gun still in hand and your eyes focused on it. You had waited a certain amount of time to allow the boys to get out of the area.

“The soldado was right, you know. They’re not going to hold me,” Solano bragged.

You briefly closed your eyes in annoyance. He had been talking ever since you were left alone with him. He had offered you money to let him go, offered you riches and power that you knew for a fact he had no business offering. He even had the nerve to propose making you one of his new lieutenants, citing your fighting skills and gun handling that he’d briefly witnessed. He knew you would be able to protect him because you had from the asesinos who had killed his brother. He then changed tactics, threatening you, your loved ones, the men who just left…now, he was boasting about how he would walk free and whatever charges were thrown at him wouldn’t stick. You just wished he would shut the hell up already. Needless to say, it had been a long twenty minutes. You now understood why his brother had been the businessman and he was only the muscle willing to do the dirty work. His bargaining skills were for shit, not that it mattered in the scheme of things. No deals were being made today.

“I offer them a little bit of money and they’ll just make the case go away. Just like that.”

You checked your watch. Twenty two minutes now. That was good enough. You slowly got to your feet and moved past him to look out the window. You had purposely moved his chair out of the sight of the glass, in case Russell got any ideas.

“That’s how it works here in America. Everybody knows that. If the criminals have money and power, they don’t stay in jail.”

You ignored him, glancing around to see if there was any movement outside. You didn’t see any. 

“They won’t keep me locked up. They weren’t able to in my home country. What makes you think they’ll be able to here? Where corruption is ripe and anyone can be bought? And then I’ll be coming for you and for your friends. You will wish for death long before I am through with you.”

You made your way to another window, lifting the curtain and looking around. Still nothing.

“There’s no point in bringing me to jail. It will never hold me.”

You lowered the curtain and squared your shoulders, turning to face his direction. You focused on him, staring right into his eyes. “You know, I think you’re right.”

Solano seemed pleasantly surprised for a moment, thinking you were finally stupid enough to take one of his offers, before his eyes narrowed with realization. “No, wait—”

You quickly lifted your gun and squeezed off a round. His head snapped back from the force and the space behind him was spattered with red among other things. One glance confirmed your aim had been accurate; he was dead. Right through the eye. What you’d said to Russell earlier hadn’t been an exaggeration; you were much more accurate at close range than you’d ever been.

You slipped a pair of gloves on that you pulled from your pants pocket and immediately started unzipping the small compartments on the side of your vest where you usually kept extra ammo in a raid, pulling out small white bottles that weren’t sporting any labels. You began to squirt the liquid from inside them all around the room, dousing Solano’s body with a healthy amount.

You continued into the house, having quite a few bottles of lighter fluid to empty out in specific areas that would help achieve your goal. Arson wasn’t your preferred route but it did get rid of pesky little things like hair and DNA, and what it didn’t, it contaminated which would make it harder for not only law enforcement but the justice system to work with. Though you weren’t too worried about either looking at this particular house fire too closely.

You didn’t bother collecting any bullet casings, knowing that your gun and the ones you’d given Colter to use would be untraceable even if they somehow managed to get a hold of any of the weapons (which they wouldn’t). And Russell’s gun…you figured he had that handled. The only thing you did collect were your handcuffs. 

You also didn’t bother staging anything for the scene. There was already enough evidence that pointed to the theory that Solano’s own men had turned on him and a gunfight ensued, resulting in the multiple dead bodies. While an arson specialist would most likely be able to tell that an accelerant had been used, there was no way for them to confirm just who had been present for this battle and who had gotten away. Satellite imagery would be shoddy at best due to the foliage cover (and eventual smoke) but still, you planned to set the fire and make your getaway out the back, crossing over the landing strip so if they went back to look for any heat signatures after the fire started, it would be one person leaving the scene alive, the person they would assume had started the blaze. There were no nearby neighbors to immediately call first responders but that didn’t mean smoke wouldn’t be seen from the sky from miles away or that a fiery orange blaze in the distance wouldn’t be noticed by residents of another vacation home or cars traveling the backroads in the area. Since you planned to go into the deep woods and take the long roundabout route back to your car, you weren’t too worried about your path being followed.

Once you had completed all of your tasks, you used the fireplace to help, moving the grate out of the way, starting a fire, and then knocking a fiery log onto the wooden flooring. You used a lighter to set flammable materials that you could find to add to the flames. Only when the room was nearly engulfed did you finally slip a beanie from your pocket, cover your head fully, and make your way out of the house. Once at the landing strip, you ducked under the plane, making sure you couldn’t be seen from above. 

You watched as the flames consumed the house. Once the smoke was sufficient, flames were ragings out of the windows, and the sound of breaking glass could be heard, you knew it was time for you to vacate the vicinity before the sirens started up. It was fortunate that most people were asleep at this hour but the sun was due to come up not too long from now and you had a long trek ahead of you, so you needed to get moving.

You kept your head down and made your way into the woods surrounding the property line. 

The sun was breaching the horizon and quickly warming the sky by the time you made it back to your car. You were relieved that Colter’s truck was gone and you needed to quickly make tracks as well. Sirens had started up an hour ago and you needed to get the hell out of Dodge before the cops were all over these roads. You tossed your weapons and vest into the trunk and got in the car. You slipped your beanie off your head, tossing it onto the seat next to you, and started the engine.

Just as you had expected, cops were everywhere but thankfully, you had timed it just right and gotten out before they could block all of the mountain roads. Once you were back in town a few hours later and a certain distance away, you pulled a phone out of your glove compartment you kept there for emergencies and turned it on. You pressed a button and it immediately dialed the number programmed — the only number you had saved on this device. 

It rang once before the same voice from yesterday picked up. “Is it done?”

“We’re clear,” you confirmed. “It’s been handled.”

“Shaw?”

Your jaw clenched. You knew that despite how you and Russell had left things earlier, you would do whatever it took to keep him breathing. “He’s a soldier. He follows orders.”

“He wasn’t so willing to follow orders in this situation.”

“You know what they’re taught. Leave no man behind. He got his man so he’ll be fine. Things can go back to how they were. He’s not going to be an issue and he’s clean, just like you wanted.”

And then you were asked the one question you didn’t want to hear. “And the brother? What’s your assessment?”

The knuckles of your free hand gripped your steering wheel so tightly that you could see how white your skin turned from the pressure. “Non-issue. He has no interest in you.”

“He seemed interested yesterday.”

You forced yourself to remain calm and nonchalant. “He’s paid to be nosy when someone goes missing so he can get them found. He found who he was looking for, he was able to keep the promise to the guy’s wife — it’s over for him. The case is closed, it’s as simple as that for him. He’s no threat.”

You waited to hear a response, holding your breath and your hand gripping the wheel even tighter, your body tensed. This would be what decided your fate. Either you would be allowed to go on as before or you’d be going on a mission up against one of the top private security contractor firms in the world which wouldn’t end well for you. But you’d take out whoever you could with you before you were killed.

Another moment passed before the voice replied, “Understood.”

Your body relaxed slightly and your shoulders sunk in relief. Colter was safe. Russell was safe…for now. And you didn’t have to go all Rambo Kamikaze on anyone. Win-win all around.

“I’ll let the higher ups know the situation has been contained. Good work. We’ll be in touch.”

Without waiting for a response from you, the call disconnected. You quickly shut the phone off and tossed it back into its original spot. You let out a deep breath and the exhaustion from the past twelve hours immediately overtook your body. Deciding that returning to your place was not an option for you right now, you headed to another part of town, parked your car on the street some blocks away to the nearest motel, and using a baseball cap to cover your hair along with sunglasses, you hoofed it and then booked a room, paying cash and using a fake name. Once you set up everything you needed to in your quarters, you slipped onto the mattress and got some much needed rest, keeping your gun under your pillow within reach should you need it.

You pulled up to Colter’s trailer, watching as he stepped outside to greet you. You put your car in park, took a deep breath, and got out. You offered Colter a small smile. “Hey.”

He returned it. “Hey.”

You had been surprised when Colter called you a few days later to let you know he was still in town for a bit and invited you to drop by for a beer. Not surprised that he was still around (you already knew that) but surprised that he even wanted to speak to you. Perhaps Russell hadn’t told him what you’d threatened back in the mountains.

You took the beer he offered to you and followed him over to the firepit, taking a seat on one of the coolers. He sat nearby and held up his bottle in a toast. You mirrored him and then you both took a sip. You nearly sighed in satisfaction as the carbonated beverage slid down your throat. You enjoyed the taste and checked the label. “Mmm, home brew…not bad. You got something you want to tell me? Planning on opening some sort of brewery outfit anytime soon?” You were teasing but if Colter really was thinking of doing something else — anything else — instead of his current job, you’d fully support it.

“Not me.” Disappointment flared in your chest, your hope dashed. “Russ was actually the one who made it. I had some left over from the other night.”

The beer suddenly began to sour in your stomach. Well, you supposed it was good that Russell was starting to think of the future, the most important part of that being that there would be one. It still burned a bit, though.

You decided to change the subject so you wouldn’t have to think about that right then. “So, your guy is back home safe?”

Colter nodded. “Dropped him off myself.” Something else you already knew but you had to keep up appearances.

You nodded, biting your lip and staring into the flames. “And your brother?”

Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed Colter’s jaw tense for a moment. “Gone.” Though you had an idea that was the case, Colter’s confirmation still stung, like someone poking a finger into an old wound after ripping the scar tissue away. But what else had you expected? This was Russell Shaw you two were talking about after all.

You snorted and shook your head, taking another swig of beer. “Of course he is.”

He turned to look at you. “You know, you never told me what happened between you two.”

You shrugged a shoulder. “Not worth going into, trust me.”

Thankfully, Colter left it alone and he rolled with it when you brought up a different topic instead. 

“So, how much longer are you here for?”

“Teddi and Velma are working on that right now actually. Hopefully, something pops up soon.” He took another sip of beer, turning to gaze at the flames as well.

“It will.” Fortunately for him and sadly for others, someone would always go missing.

“How about you? Are they sending you somewhere for a new case or are they going to let you stay local for a bit? If it’s the latter, maybe you could get a dog for that place of yours?”

You smirked and ran your thumb down the smooth glass of the brown bottle in your hand. Colter kept teasing you about the residence you maintained nearby considering you were never really there most of the time. He’d then extoll the virtues of living on the open road, not having roots put down anywhere that would grow into expectations, and the unrestrained thrill of it all. The first time you’d had that conversation, you knew then that the desire to keep moving and stay unburdened must be a male Shaw thing. Dory seemed happy where she had settled and you — you wanted a home base. Some place you could come back to where you were still able to connect to yourself again, no matter how lost at sea you might be at times, no matter how much you felt as if every single piece of you was floating away on the wind until only a monster was left standing there, staring back at you in the rearview mirror of your car.

“Right now, I have a few things I need to close up,” you lied. “Then I’ll probably get sent out in the field again to work some cases.” You hated lying to him but you had no choice. His safety came first. As much as you had hated Russell for a time, you could now appreciate the difficult position he was in. Though, he had chosen to be put there, and now, so had you. 

You watched Colter nod, accepting your answer. “I still think a German Shepherd would be a great choice for you,” he teased. “You know, a big dog, trainable, would make a good guard dog. You could take it with you, chase suspects down together...”

“Oh yeah, I could see it now,” you played along. “I’d have to sneak him into hotel rooms, make sure he doesn’t take a shit on the rug… Then we’d go on the job and I could introduce him to everyone, ‘I’m Special Agent Y/L/N but you can call me Turner and this is my partner Hooch.’”

Colter winced. “No, no. You have to give him a name that will strike fear into the hearts of the criminals you track down. Like General or Commando or Killer. Killer! Now that’s a good name. That will make anyone think twice about running from a dog with that name.”

This time, you were the one who winced though you hid it well. Instead, you forced out a laugh. “I am not getting a huge dog named Killer and bringing him to work with me.”

He grinned. “That’s a shame. I would have loved to have seen the look on your face when the dog would sit in the front seat.”

“There would be no front seat sitting. Back seat only.”

“Like a criminal who he just helped you to arrest? That’s cold, even for you.”

“I am so glad that you have this imaginary dog of mine’s back.”

He snickered and took a drink, looking back at the flames. Your smile slowly faded as you did the same. You both sat there, drinking in a companionable silence for a bit.

Eventually, your eyes flickered over towards him. “I need you to promise me something.”

His brows drew together questioningly when he met your gaze.

“Horizon…” You noticed him tense slightly at the mention. “No more.” When you saw the confusion in his expression, you elaborated. “No more digging, no more Reenie asking her contacts about them, no more mention of them period. You got the guy you were looking for. Now, put it to bed and forget that you ever knew they existed.”

His confusion increased. “I did put it to bed the second I dropped Doug off at his door and saw him hug his wife.”

You gave him a look. “Col, I need you to promise me,” you softly entreated. 

His brows arched slightly at the use of the nickname; you didn’t use it often and if you were, then he knew you meant business. He also knew what you were telling him without explicitly saying it; Horizon was dangerous and they were better left alone. It would be better for him to get a case of sudden amnesia about anything related to the organization.

He watched you for a moment before giving you a nod. “As long as nobody else goes missing like Doug did and as long as Russ is okay, they’re forgotten.”

You knew that was the best you were going to get from him and you leaned forward slightly. “And if anything happens to Russ, I’ll be right there with you, knocking on their front door,” you promised. And you would be; no question about it.

The corner of his lips tipped up in the beginning of a smile and after a moment, you couldn’t help but return it. 

The coffee shop you were in was decently quiet considering it was around 8:55 in the morning and most people were making their last minute dashes for caffeine before the working day began. You sat near the window, facing the entrance so you could keep an eye on who came in and out. You had ordered your usual, a soy vanilla latte, and you carefully sipped at the hot liquid. You scanned your phone for the day’s headlines, looking for any updates on the mysterious house fire that started in the mountains a few nights ago.  

You knew you wouldn’t find any and sure enough, you didn’t. Someone was working overtime to squash the case from up above, just like you knew they would. You also knew that some local law enforcement officials didn’t buy the criminals-turning-on-their-boss theory and they actually thought the scene looked like a professional hit. Exactly what you figured would happen when accelerants had been found to be used at the scene. As much as you were sure the cops were looking to sink their teeth into something exciting to happen in those parts in however long, the bottom line was the case would get dropped and no one was going to care what happened to a violent criminal like Carlos Solano. The FBI would actually be relieved to remove one more name from their list, one more file from their desks. One more dangerous bad guy removed from the world that threatened American citizens as well as national security. No one was going to miss the murderous bastard.

You powered down your screen and placed your phone on the table, turning to glance out the window. That was when you saw him. Well, the reflection of him. 

You watched as he walked towards you, still dressed in a ratty pair of jeans and old boots, wearing another t-shirt with a different musician on it while sporting an open button-up over it, and donning that old military style jacket. His eyes were intent on you and you had to wonder how he had gotten in without you seeing him. The answer was in the reflection of someone walking past him to get to the bathrooms in the rear of the cafe. There was no exit located near there, you knew that because this was a local spot of yours, so how did he… Shit.

Even though you watched him in the glass and he watched you back, you didn’t give anything away to alert him that you knew he was there. You started calculating in your head how many people stood in between you and the front door (your only exit at this point), how much force you would have to use to catch him off guard and knock him to the ground so you could make your escape, and how fast you would have to run to your car. You even had a moment to debate drawing your gun and your badge, and making a scene to get yourself out of this mess. But all of that proved to be for naught when he came to a stop near you and announced his presence by asking, “This seat taken?”

You slowly turned to face him, arching an inquisitive brow, but you eventually shook your head. His lips twitched into the beginning of a smirk and he took the seat across from you. His eyes were a lot lighter than they were the other day as they took you in. “Looking good, Y/N. Like always.”

Your eyes narrowed. “Really?”

He shrugged and reached for your coffee, taking the lid off. You hated it when he did this, the whole sharing coffee thing; now you would need to order another one…well, depending on how this impromptu meeting went. “What, I can’t tell my girl that she looks good?” He took a sip and made a face. “How do you still drink this crap? It tastes like foam mixed with shit.”

“And free garbage coffee from the lobby of the latest scuzzy motel you’re staying in doesn’t?”

“Hey, don’t knock it. They have real nice machines now and it tastes the way coffee should. Not like this bullshit.”

You watched as he grabbed a spoon, added some sugar, and began stirring the crap out of what had once been your perfect latte. You thought over what he’d said before. “I’m not your girl, Russell.” His eyes met yours. “I haven’t been for some time now.”

He finished stirring and removed the spoon, lifting the glass to take a sip. “You’ll always be my girl.”

You snorted and lifted a finger in the air to signal to the barista that you wanted another coffee. The kid gave you a nod and turned to make it. “Is that what you tell yourself when you’re hooking up with cheerleaders-turned-dental-hygienists in hot tubs?”

Russell pressed his lips together and looked appropriately chastised, not even bothering to deny it. “Colter told you. I should’ve known he would mention it. You two were always close like that.”   

You didn’t confirm or deny that. There was no point in mentioning that Colter hadn’t been the one to tell you, not intentionally anyway. Instead, you leaned forward in your chair. “What do you want, Russell?”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“About what?” You snapped. You had been on edge, thinking he was here to either kill you or threaten you. Then him hitting on you and making that asinine and incredibly presumptuous statement bothered you more than you cared to admit. Not to mention he pissed you off when he took the latte you’d decided to treat yourself with after a few difficult days (without even asking you might add), knowing how that had irked you anytime he did it when you were dating. It was like the man was begging you to put a foot in his ass.

Russell glanced around briefly before removing something from inside his jacket. It was a folded up newspaper and he slapped it down in front of you. A picture of a burnt out structure stared back up at you with the headline reading above it “House Fire Claims 8 Lives, Sheriff Confirms Arson”. Your eyes met his and in that moment, you knew that he knew.

You refused to give it away just like that, though. If he wanted the truth, he’d have to work for it. He wasn’t getting anything for free, not from you, not anymore. You gave him a smirk. “Is this your way of telling me that you’ve finally learned to read, Russ? I’m impressed, really.”

Instead of being insulted, his eyes widened slightly. “You called me Russ.”

You sat back in your chair, pushing the newspaper away from you and prying eyes, waiting for the barista making his way over to you to deliver your coffee. “Slip of the tongue. Won’t happen again.” You smiled at the young kid in thanks when he placed the drink down in front of you and promptly slid your glass out of Russell’s reach. He saw it and immediately worked to smother a smile as the kid walked away.

“So, you got any more interesting tricks I should know about?”

Without any preamble, Russell said, “Solano’s dead,” the exact second you took a sip of your new coffee. If he was expecting any reaction to the news, he was in for disappointment when you didn’t give it.

“Yes, I heard. Quite unfortunate.”

“They’re all dead actually. Even that guard we subdued in the beginning.”

You remembered; you’d been the one to kill him after all. Once Russell and Colter got to their feet after knocking the guard out and started moving towards the house, you quietly pulled a knife and slipped the blade into the side of the man’s head. You’d cut his zip ties, removed them and the gag, and then caught up to the guys — all within seconds. You had made sure to move the guard’s body inside later, right before you’d started the fire, trying your best to get rid of any drag marks you’d left on the ground. You were there to clean up the mess, not leave witnesses, even if they had never seen any of you coming.

You nodded. “I know, I heard that, too. Is there a point here somewhere or can I get back to the nice morning I was having before you showed up to steal my coffee?”

Russell was the one to lean forward this time, lowering his voice even further. “You said you were calling in the FBI for a pickup. Who did you really call?”

You could tell he was trying to give you an out, an opportunity to explain that it wasn’t what he was thinking, and maybe you should have lied your ass off…but you no longer wanted to. You knew Russell; he wasn’t going to let this go until he had an answer that he deemed to be the truth. And while you could give him a distorted version of that truth that didn’t land at your feet, a petty part of you wanted him to know. 

“Y/N?” He pressed. “Who did you call?”

You sat back in your chair, considering him for a moment before you spoke. “No one.”

Russell dropped his head, briefly closing his eyes. “Fuck, I was afraid of that.” He glanced up at you, his eyes full of a sadness you hadn’t seen in some time. You knew he wouldn’t be happy if he ever found out the truth, but not to this extent. “I told you to walk away and let me handle it.” His voice was softer, not as gruff as before. You realized then that you’d accomplished what that vindictive side of you had wanted all along, ever since the day he walked away; you’d hurt him and caused him pain. Pain that you could see clear as day lining his face right now. He wasn’t even trying to hide it. And quite frankly, that pain caught you off guard. After all of this time, this is what it took for him to feel even a sliver of what you’d felt back in the day when he’d left you bleeding, your heart torn from your chest and sitting in pieces on the floor he’d just casually walked over to get to the door?

Not really sure what to make of this development or the emotions it caused to rise up within you, you went into pure professional mode and forged ahead. “The three of you didn’t need to be involved.” You could see the pain getting worse and it made you uncomfortable, something prodding at your chest and itching at your skin that you really didn’t care for. “Besides, last I checked, I don’t take orders from you, Shaw.” You threw his last name in there as a last resort to put even more distance there between you.

His eyes flicked from the newspaper to you. “Who do you take orders from then? Something tells me this wasn’t FBI-sanctioned.” 

You surreptitiously glanced around you before leaning in, lowering your voice.“You know, going to your handler’s house during her kid’s birthday party was a pretty bad idea. Ann really didn’t like that.” You watched as Russell’s eyes widened slightly before his face fell, a dreaded realization filling his expression. He had never mentioned her name to you before and he knew Colter hadn’t mentioned her to you either when giving you the rundown of what they knew before meeting up in the mountains. You sat back, tensed and ready for whatever came next. 

His jaw clenched. “How long?” He ground out.

“Long enough.”

You kept your gaze trained on his and you did your best to read him, trying to assess what he might do, now that the pain was all but absent since your revelation. Would he tell you to watch your back and leave? Would he tell you to stay away from Colter for good? It was hard to gauge from the way he was staring at you right then. You could see anger bubbling underneath but you also caught something coming to the surface that strangely looked like remorse. Considering you hadn’t seen that emotion on him too often, it was tough to be sure in your identification of it. And then something flickered in his eyes right then, something so fast you almost didn’t catch it, but you did. Fear that quickly dissolved into determination. You braced yourself for whatever he would say or do; this was it. This would determine your next steps.

Instead, he surprised you once more. He snatched the newspaper up and slipped it back into his jacket, before reaching over and taking your hand in his. “I’m getting you out of here. Now. Let’s go.”

Stunned, you wordlessly got to your feet but then it hit you, you were about to go somewhere alone with him. Not that you couldn’t handle yourself but he had still been Special Ops once upon a time and he killed people for a living…just like you. 

“Russell, I’m not—”

“Yes, you are,” he growled. “I’m getting you as far from here as I can. I’ve got a buddy who has a cabin in upstate New York. It’s got months-long supplies, power and running water, and a small armory. You’ll be safe there until this whole thing blows over.”

You yanked your hand out of his and grabbed your phone and jacket. “I’m plenty safe here. I have no reason to run, so I’m staying. You want to leave? Go right ahead. We both know it’s what you’re best at.” The sadness was back but you looked away from it. Yes, that had been another low blow but it was also well-deserved. You moved past him, refusing to look over your shoulder even once. There was no way he’d do anything out in the open; he wouldn’t dare risk it, especially now.

You slipped into your car, not surprised in the least when Russell got in on the other side before you could even think about locking the doors.

“What are you doing?” You hissed.

“What’s it look like?” He clicked his seatbelt. “I’m staying with you until you agree to my plan to get you someplace safe or you explain how the hell this even happened.” He pulled out the newspaper, holding it up for a moment before tossing it to the floor. You could see the determined set to his jaw and you knew he meant it. 

“Russell,” You pinched the bridge of your nose. “I do not have time for this.” You blew out a quiet breath and turned to face him. “Now I suggest you get out of my car or—”

“You’ll shoot me?” He shot you a look. Yeah, he was still pissed about the threats you’d made a few nights ago. You supposed you couldn’t blame him but you did what you had to do to get him and his brother out of there. You had regrets but they were slim. “We both know you won’t.”

That infuriated you and had you seething. “You think I won’t?”

“I know you won’t. Just like I know that no matter how much you tell yourself that you hate me, you really don’t.”

You scoffed out a laugh in disbelief. “Wow, you really are incredibly delusi—”

“I also know you would never do that to my brother.” Your glare in his direction intensified. “You’ve always been protective of him. Just like me.” A glimmer of a fond smile worked its way onto his bearded face.

Your jaw clenched and you looked away from him, back towards the coffee shop you had just stormed out of, your grip tightening on your steering wheel. It was true; you’d always looked out for Colter in some way ever since you’d gotten to know him through Russell. 

While the relationship between the brothers had been strained for years, it didn’t mean that there hadn’t been a couple of times where Dory hadn’t attempted to get them into a room together to try to fix what had been broken. In one such instance, Russell had brought you along, after shocking you by asking you two nights before to accompany him. The man had spent over a decade in the military, worked Special Ops, and there wasn’t much he was afraid of, if at all. But when you were wrapping leftovers to throw into the fridge and he’d laid a hand on your shoulder, turning you to face him, you’d never seen Russell Shaw look so worried, vulnerable, and damn near terrified in all of the time you’d known him. You’d even felt it when he’d enfolded you into his arms and whispered into your ear that he was due to meet up with his family in the next two days, asking you to come with him. How could you say no to that? You knew of the family’s tragic history and the simmering tensions that still existed between the Shaws who were still alive; Russell had told you everything, even about how his mom had hung him out to dry (though he made excuses for her which made you grind your teeth). And for him to ask you to go, to meet his family, you knew then just how important this was for him. So you went, squeezed his hand in silent support whenever he appeared to need it, and did your best to provide distraction whenever things got a little too tense or heated. Dory didn’t care for you too much; you got the distinct feeling that she wasn’t happy Russell had brought an interloper to a family-only discussion. But Colter…Colter you got along with from the start. 

Colter seemed happier to talk to you than his brother and you could tell that bothered Russell tremendously. He had told you once how much he missed his siblings at times, especially his little brother, and he would never stop hoping to patch things up with them one day. Sure enough, he tried to interject into the conversation a few times with you helping as much as you could, but each time Colter shut him down. It was blatantly obvious that the younger man wanted nothing to do with him and there was definitely some resentment still floating around after years of estrangement. Needless to say, things hadn’t ended well at that dinner and you weren’t surprised that Russell drank a little heavier that night. Nor were you surprised when he grasped at you in the hotel room and pulled you to him, his lips claiming yours as he began unbuttoning your shirt and moving you towards the bed. You knew he was hurting and you let him take solace in you as you whispered loving assurances in his ear. 

After that, Colter surprised you by calling you a couple of months down the road, apologetically asking for your help on a case he had picked up. Though he didn’t know you well, he was in a rough spot and needed a helping hand, particularly a Federal one. You saw the opportunity for what it had been, an opening of a possible door between him and Russell, so you took it. You helped Colter as much as you could without risking being read the riot act by your superior, and you two got to know each other better as you worked together. It happened a few more times and you had even called Colter in to assist on a case of your own that you had snagged. You had gone for beers afterwards each time and you’d tried your best to talk to him, to convince him to give Russell a chance. He hadn’t been interested, was resistant to it even, but he liked you and he was starting to trust you a little more each time. He’d even reluctantly admitted once that he was glad his brother had you, immediately following up with “He better be treating you right, though.” You had simply smiled and assured him that Russell very much was. 

You didn’t mention the odd absences a few times a month (sometimes with little to no warning), the radio silence during these stints, and the avoidance of any penetrating questions upon his return — all of it that had become conditional to your relationship by that point. And Russell certainly wasn’t happy at all to find out you’d been working with Colter once you told him. You both had arguments before like any common couple but nothing like this. You had never seen him so angry and he’d laughed when you told him he had no need to be jealous if that was what he was worried about, you loved him and you were trying to make things better for the both of them, to pave the way for him to be able to make peace with his brother. 

“You just don’t get it.” 

He had shaken his head and glared over at you before he walked out of the room, away from you. From then on, Russell became even more secretive, distant, and cold as ice. Gone was the easy affection, heart to heart talks, and playful banter between you. Gone were the tender touches, gentle kisses, and passionate sex. The love of your life turned into a stranger right before your very eyes. It hadn’t been too long after that when he’d left for good, leaving your heart shattered on your hardwood floor. As time passed, you were surprised he hadn’t just packed up and left in the middle of the night while you were sleeping, without a single word to you and completely ghosting you, since he had been intent on leaving you in his past. It might have been kinder actually compared to the things he’d said to you as a final goodbye before walking away for good. 

So whenever you had dared to think back on it over the last few years, you’d always figured the fight over Colter had contributed in some way to the rapid unraveling of your relationship. Well, that fight and…other things.

“Let’s go somewhere we can talk,” Russell urged, breaking you out of your thoughts. “Come on, Y/N, you owe me that at least.”

You turned the most menacing glare on him that was possible for you to give someone. “I don’t owe you shit,” you bit out. How dare he say that? To you of all people?  

His jaw tightened and after a moment, he agreed with a soft nod. “Fair enough.” 

You broke away from his intent gaze a minute later, your decision made as you turned the car on. “You know what? If this will get you out of my life for good this time, then fine. Let’s talk. And don’t be so sure I won’t shoot you afterwards should you continue to piss me off. You’re right, I do care about Colter,” You scowled over at him. “But not that deeply.”

Russell matched your scowl but wisely kept quiet as you backed your car out of your parking spot. You felt an immediate surge of guilt for having said that about his younger brother. You did care about Colter, more than you would ever admit to anyone, even your ex. There was nothing remotely romantic between you two; there never had been and there never would be. But Russell had been right; you were protective of him. Not only because he was a good man but he also reminded you of someone you had lost long ago. You would bend over backwards to keep him safe (as safe as you could given his chosen career), even if it meant putting yourself in harm’s way. He had truly become like a brother to you. 

But you had also meant what you said just now. If Russell continued to irritate you, there was no way he was leaving this time without you putting a bullet in him. Right in his ass before the door could hit it when he turned his back on you for the last time. That or a good old fashioned ass kicking in the form of your right hook. After everything he’d done, he deserved nothing less.  

You pulled up to a local motel that you had booked a room at the last few days, in case you needed to close up shop and haul ass out of town quickly. It wasn’t the same establishment you had gone to the morning of the fire and you still had your place thirty minutes away, but you had learned it was always best to prepare for any eventuality. Especially after a job needing to be done so close to home. You had seen what happened with Doug; who was to say Horizon wouldn’t leave you out to dry, too, should the heat from the fire get a little too close?

You got out and headed over to the door, unlocking it and stepping inside, not looking back to see if Russell was following you. Neither of you had spoken on the ride over (which was probably for the best) and you didn’t glance at him once. Instead, you had done your damndest to tamp down the fury you felt racing through your veins as more and more memories played out in your mind. Now that Russell had a vague idea of the truth of what you had been doing all of this time, everything you had ever wanted to say to him seemed to be trying to rush to the surface as well as all of the pain you had endured.

You slipped your suit jacket off and tossed it onto the bedspread. You heard the door shut behind you and you spun around, seeing Russell’s eyes scanning the room, stopping on the bed, and then lifting to you. You scoffed and unbuttoned the sleeves of your blouse, rolling them up to your forearms. “Not happening so don’t even think about it,” you hissed.

“Wasn’t going there.”

You didn’t believe him. “Right.” You took a seat at the table and impatiently gestured to the seat across from you. “Well?”

He sat down and without missing a beat, dove right in. “How the hell did this even happen, Y/N?”

“Really? That’s what you’re starting out with?”

Russell shot you a look.

You let out an aggravated sigh and sat back in your chair, crossing your legs and getting comfortable. “I was recruited, not too long after you left.”

His jaw dropped. “They approached you?”

Nodding, your jaw tightened thinking back to that time. It wasn’t a memory you liked revisiting. You were at your lowest, Russell having just walked out like the four and a half years you’d spent together hadn’t meant a damn thing to him. He had been it for you. You had put everything you had into the relationship, which proved to be a difficult balancing act sometimes between your career at the Bureau and Russell’s job that he wouldn’t tell you too much about. You both had overcome so much together…all for him to tell you that he simply didn’t love you anymore, give you a shitty apology, and walk right out the door years later. Like you had simply been an amusing distraction, nothing more. Like you had merely been a stopping point in his journey and now he was bored and moving on. The breakup would’ve hurt regardless but the cold detached manner he’d spoken to you with caused more pain than you would have ever been willing to admit. It was a good thing you had already become a Special Agent by then, not stuck to any one location or field office, given how often you were hungover for some weeks there. You had attempted to track him down (which hadn’t been easy) to try to talk to him, to make him see reason; you didn’t believe that he had stopped loving you just like that. But when you had finally located him, he had been holed up in a dingy motel, similar to this one, but he wasn’t alone. That had hurt beyond words and it had taken everything for you not to say anything, not to let him see you, and turn back around, heading home with your tail between your legs and your head hanging in heartbroken defeat. 

None of it made sense to you. How had your life changed so drastically in a single day? Perhaps you had never really known Russell Shaw. Perhaps you only saw what he wanted you to see. But when you replayed the last few weeks of your relationship, even the fight over Colter, something still wasn’t jiving. So you buried yourself in work during the day and as deep into the bottle as you could during the late nights. Until they showed up.

“And you said yes?” He asked in disbelief.

Your eyes flicked to Russell, narrowing. “Why not? You did.”

He pressed his lips together. You had him there and he knew it. “That was different.”

“How?” You snapped. “Exactly how is that different, Russell?”

“I joined them long before you and I met.” Yeah, you knew that now. You knew everything he hadn’t told you the time you’d been together, minus the actual details of the off the books missions he went on. You now knew why Doug had never told Tracy anything either. Not only were they not allowed to, but It was safer that way.

“Well, bully for you, Shaw. You’ve got a few years on me at being a black ops agent and you’ve racked up a few more bodies than I have. Told way more lies, too. Congrats. Do we get you a cake or…?”

He leaned forward, covering your hand with his. “Stop. Just…talk to me,” he pleaded gently.

You hated it when he did that because you hated that it still affected you on some deep level. You rolled your eyes and moved your hand from underneath his, placing it in your lap. “They approached me about six months out from when you left.”

“Who approached you?”

Yeah, you weren’t giving him that. If you did, you knew he’d be on their doorstep in a second and that you couldn’t have. Not after you had just cleaned up the Solano mess and smoothed things over. “Doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.” You knew that, could see it in his expression, but too bad. You both were in it now, had signed NDA’s, and details like that were meant to stay confidential anyway. 

“Someone did and that’s all you're getting.” You gave him a meaningful look. “Regardless, they offered me a job and I took it.”

You watched as Russell’s features tightened. “And the FBI thing?”

“Still active, though I’m now kept more as an ear to the ground, providing information and cleanup when need be.” You noticed a slight wince cross across his face. “They’re the ones I answer to and they’ve chosen to keep me there for the time being. I’m more effective in that setup.” Those words from your handler still burned you but over time, you had been able to adapt and utilize their refusal to fully bring you in to your advantage.

“And Solano and his men? Were they cleanup?”

You didn’t break away from his penetrating gaze and gave it to him straight. “You and Doug made quite a mess of things. So, yes, I was called in to clean it up.” He briefly closed his eyes in the same pain you had seen earlier, though you couldn’t fathom why. It had been nearly three years since he’d last professed to give a shit about you. Why would this even affect him? “Horizon wanted you kept clean and Doug was on his own. Then you idiotically showed up at Ann’s residence, not only tipping them off to the fact that you were sniffing around where you shouldn’t have been but then you allowed Colter to threaten them. You had to know that was going to ruffle quite a few feathers and put a target on your backs.”

His jaw clenched again and that dark void was back in his gaze. His fingers twitched near his phone and you knew he was itching to call his brother to check on him. “And they sent you to clean that up, too?”

You slowly shook your head. “No.” If they had, you wouldn’t be sitting here right now. Most likely, you’d be dead while Colter and Russell would hopefully be on the run or have gone into hiding. “Only to assess what threats you both posed to the organization.”

“And what was your assessment?” He watched you carefully. In this moment, you weren’t former lovers. You were two people with lethal skills and training, willing to do whatever it took to keep your loved ones safe, even from each other. 

You never broke away from his gaze, watching him back just as carefully. “What do you think?”

He stayed quiet for a moment, looking pensive and most likely turning your words over in his mind. You weren’t going to say it but knowing that gnawing feeling of constantly worrying about someone you cared deeply about, you wanted to make sure you both were on the same page of this topic. “And, Russell, if they had sent me for that, I never would.” His gaze immediately met yours. “Ever,” you promised. 

His eyes roamed over your face, most likely assessing if you were bullshitting him or telling the truth. Obviously having decided on the latter, after a minute or so, he gave you a nod. “How do you know they accepted your assessment, though? There’s no way they don’t know about you and Colter, you and me…”

This time, your jaw was the one clenching. Yeah, you were made aware of that fact when you had been approached for recruitment. That was how they knew about you, your career as a Federal agent, and how you had been involved with Russell once upon a time. When you found out more about Horizon from the inside, it didn’t surprise you one bit how deeply they dove into the background of their candidates or the amount of information they gathered on them. You’d even helped put together a few files yourself, without fully knowing what unit the candidates were being considered for of course. They kept a close watch on their assets and that was putting it lightly. 

So when you got involved with Russell, completely oblivious to what you were really getting into, Horizon had already scoped you out as well as Colter, Dory, their mother, Bobby, Reenie, Teddi, Velma — everyone. Even Colter’s on-again/off-again, Billie, and the mysterious circumstances of the death of the boys’ father. They knew it all. Horizon didn’t like surprises and you supposed you couldn’t blame them considering their line of work, but it also meant that you and everyone you cared about needed to be extra careful. 

It was one of the many reasons you couldn’t completely forgive Russell, though you now understood why he’d walked out when he did. Things had unraveled so badly between you that you’d started quietly digging into Horizon, not trusting what Russell had told you prior. Back then, you thought you’d find only what Russell had claimed: private security, perhaps a couple of Special Ops situations where an American hostage was retrieved in another country, or worse: he was lying to you and having an affair. Now, you knew he had told you the truth — a very scrubbed, limited version of the truth that omitted most of what he really did for the outfit. You remembered what he’d told you about a week and a half before he left. 

“You need to stop digging.” 

You looked upon him with confusion. One minute, you had been having a very tense and silent dinner where you could only hear forks scraping against the plates every so often, and the next, Russell was glaring over at you, speaking cryptically. “What are you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You need to stop looking into Horizon and leave it alone. I mean it, Y/N. Let it be.” His eyes bored into you with warning before he got up from the table and took his plate into the kitchen, leaving you to finish your meal alone.    

Normally, you wouldn’t have listened, determined to get to the bottom of Russell’s mysterious employer, but considering how your relationship was hanging by a thread at that point, you did. Despite the warning bells going off in your head, you did as exactly as he said: you let it be. 

You suddenly remembered Russell’s question to you. “You’re still breathing, aren’t you?”

Russell affected a slow nod, thinking it over. “And Colter?”

“I told them he’s no threat,” you murmured. “I talked to him, told him to forget they exist. He agreed as long as you were safe.”

For the first time since this conversation started, you could see Russell start to relax a bit, relief saturating his features. Even a small smile started to light up the tension in his face. While you could understand the feeling, share it even, something about it had you on your feet, walking over to the small refrigerator and pulling out a bottle of water from the six pack you had tossed in there when you booked the room. You held one up in an offer but Russell shook his head. 

“I’m good.”

You shrugged, unsurprised, and twisted off the cap, taking a drink. It made sense that he was still being cautious. Before you knew it, though, he was standing in front of you, that pleading yet determined look in his eyes again. 

“I want to get you out.”

You snorted. “There is no getting out, Russell. Not for me, anyway. Not until they’re done with me.”

He took a step closer and gently took the water bottle from you, placing it on the counter, and grasped your chin, forcing you to look up at him. “There’s always an exit strategy,” he murmured. “I never wanted this for you, Y/N. I only ever wanted to keep you safe. That’s why I left.”

Yeah, you knew that now, too. “I know that now. Why you wouldn’t tell me certain things about your job, but, Jesus, Russell. Did you really think they didn’t already know about me and who I was to you? Colter even? Dory? Your mom?”

He let out a deep sigh and hung his head, letting your chin go. “I know. I… It was a good fit for me at the time, the money was good — that’s why I hooked Doug up with them. But seeing how they hung him out to dry at the first opportunity and now you,” He tenderly ran his thumb along your cheek. “I’m seriously starting to rethink that decision.”

You pulled away from him. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t unring that bell.” You made your way back over to the bed and yanked your duffel bag from underneath it. You unzipped it and began rooting through it to make sure you had everything you needed for a quick getaway. You didn’t think you needed to go anywhere but now this location was blown for you since you had made the decision to let Russell know about it. You had already triple checked your stash when you left it here upon check-in but you needed something to focus on instead of the clear regret in Russell’s face. “And as for me, I made my decision.” You pulled out a gun from a secret compartment, checked the clip to make sure it was full, and slipped it back inside. “I’m good with it. I’ve used it fully to my advantage and I make good money, more than I was ever going to make at the Bureau, even if they fast-tracked me to Deputy Director. Solano was on our Most Wanted List for twenty six days and I took him out in one. Had he possibly gone free, there’s no telling what he would have done, who he would have hurt besides Doug.” You knew exactly what he would have done and who he would have hurt; he’d told you in explicit detail. You didn’t go into it but Russell wasn’t stupid (not when it came to things like this anyway). He most likely knew as well. He’d wanted to close up Solano as a loose end himself after all. “That kind of cleanup I can more than live with.”

Russell carefully approached, his eyes on the second gun you had pulled out and were checking. “I get that and I more than appreciate what you did with Solano. For Doug, for Colter and me.” Once you slipped the weapon back into its pocket, he laid a hand on your shoulder, prompting you to look over at him. “You can’t tell me, though, that this is what you want for your endgame. Not really.”

You shook your head in disbelief. “I don’t have an endgame, Russell. Maybe I did once but you took that the second you walked out the door, acting like everything we’d gone through meant nothing to you, like I meant nothing to you.” 

There was that remorse again and you despised it. “I’m sorry, I…handled that badly,” he admitted.

“Handled it badly?” You laughed in disbelief. You shirked his hand off of you and moved to the night table, yanking the drawer open to rip out the bible sitting in there. You opened it to the area you had cut out to hold emergency cash and cards, just like Russell had taught you once upon a time. “You told me I’d been nothing to you but a fling for the past four years, that you might have loved me once but you didn’t anymore. That I was…how did you put it? A fun distraction.” You slammed the bible shut and tossed it back into the drawer before closing it. You hurried back over to the bag, throwing the funds inside another secret compartment, more than done with this conversation.

“You’re right, I fucked up. I only said those things to—”

“Cut the cord, yeah, I know. Still doesn’t make it right,” you muttered, roughly zipping the duffel back up. 

“I wanted you to be safe. You were digging into them, even after I told you not to! And worse, you were pulling Colter into it!”

That quickly got your attention and you spun on your heel, jabbing a finger in the air at him. “Don’t you fucking dare lay Colter at my feet. Especially after what you just pulled last week. It wasn’t me hauling him into Doug’s case! Not to mention, way before you met me, the minute you took that job, you put everyone you knew on their radar and you know it! So don’t you fucking dare. I have been doing everything I can to make sure Colter is safe and doesn’t pull their attention, poring over every case he takes in the background to ensure they’re not involved or have any vested interests that are. Hell, I even just used a contact of mine to float a case over to Teddi and Velma to get him out of town and far away from here to continue keeping him safe. Me, Russell! Me! And what did you do to keep him safe? You blow back into town and not only put him even more on their radar, you deliver him right to their goddamn doorstep! So don’t you dare even try to put that on me,” you finished in a snarl. 

Shame lurked at the corners of his eyes and you scoffed in disgust, whirling around to grab your jacket from the bed before picking up the duffel bag and slinging the handle over your shoulder. “So glad we had this talk,” you sniped. “Now go have fun with the cheerleading dental hygienist or Reenie,” You could see more shame looking back at you. Unlike the hot tub conquest, Colter had actually told you about that one. You could tell how much it was bothering him and you knew he wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise, knowing it wasn’t something you really wanted to hear. “Or that bartender you holed up with three weeks after you walked out on me,” Now you could see surprise; you could care less. “Or whoever you want. But me? I’m done. Have a nice life, Russell Shaw, and try not to get killed before you get out to start your little brewery operation. Oh, and try to manage not to get your brother or me killed in the process, yeah? Thanks ever so much. See ya.” 

You were walking towards the door when you were grabbed and whipped around. Before you could react, Russell was on you, his mouth covering yours and his hands gripping your face. “I love you,” he breathed against your lips after breaking away to let you catch your breath. “I’m sorry I said what I did back then but it wasn’t the truth. It took everything I had to walk away but as long as you were safe, that was all that mattered to me. I fucked up and I am sorry. I never stopped loving you, Y/N. Not ever.” 

He wiped at your cheeks and you hadn’t even realized you’d been crying. Shit. Well, that was embarrassing. Even more embarrassing was how much you wanted to believe him. You knew he was telling the truth about why he walked away, how he wanted to keep you safe, but it obviously hadn’t been as difficult for him to move on as it had been for you. “No, you don’t,” you choked out. “If that were true, you would have never walked out that door.” Your voice wobbled on those last few words and you hated it, hated how vulnerable you were being to him right now.

You wiped at your own cheeks and turned around, ignoring the pleading you saw once again in his eyes. 

“Y/N, please,” he ground out.

You kept moving towards the door. As you laid your hand on the door handle to turn it, you were whipped around one more time and he was kissing you yet again, your back pressed up against the wood. Except this time, you finally threw in the towel and gave in to what your damaged heart had been wanting all of this time. You buried your fingers in his hair and kissed him back just as passionately, not caring that more tears rolled down your cheeks as you did. He yanked the duffel bag from you and let it fall into a heap on the floor before lifting you up and turning to carry you over to the bed. You knew this was going to hurt like hell later but you refused to put a stop to it. You’d find a way to numb the pain when it ripped you open a second time, just like you always had. 

The only thought running through your mind as he laid you down and ripped your blouse open, sending buttons flying everywhere, was that you had been right. You knew the bastard had been lying earlier when you’d caught him looking between you and the bed. But right then as he lifted away from you to quickly shed his top layers and then dove back down to kiss you again and melt into you, your fingers greedily relearning every inch of his bare skin, you couldn’t care less.   

You reached your hand over, tenderly running a finger along the edges of the bandage on Russell’s arm. “Does it hurt?” You murmured.

“A little.” He turned his head to smile down at you. “More than worth it, though.”

You rolled your eyes, ignoring his chuckle at you gently pushing his head away, and turned onto your back. Russell embraced you with his other arm, pulling you into him. You rested your ear against his bare chest, hearing his steady heartbeat and settling your gaze on the ceiling above you. He pressed a kiss to your head, letting his lips linger against your hair, as his thumb rubbed your shoulder back and forth.

After a few minutes of content silence between you, you put voice to the question resounding in your mind. “How did we get here, Russell?”

“Well, you drove us over and then we—”

You softly swatted his chest, making him laugh and hearing the sound reverberate underneath your ear. “You know what I mean.”

“I wish I knew the best way to answer that, “ he whispered to you. You could hear the genuine regret in his tone and it made you start thinking about when you both would have to leave this motel room, and go back to the separate lives you had been living. Memories of lazy mornings like this back when you had been together, of you listening to his voice in your ear and knowing you were safe and loved, replayed in your mind on a loop. You would never admit it to him but you missed this, missed him. Nothing had felt right in the last couple of years like this moment here did. If anything, all of that time felt like some weird drug-induced nightmare, and you had just woken up to find Russell here next to you, nothing having changed. But that wasn’t true; everything had changed.

Not wanting to think about that just yet, you picked up the hand that had been caressing your shoulder and studied the skin of his wrist. “This is new.” You trailed your finger along the design of the tattoo sitting there. “What prompted you to get this one?”

“That’s something Doug and I got one night when we met up with another one of the guys from our unit when he was in town. Tommy Laird. Good man.”

“A crown?”

Russell shrugged underneath you. “Tommy picked the design.”

“‘We three kings’, huh?”

You heard him chuckle. “Never thought of it like that but sure.”

“Is he also a part of Horizon?”

You felt him tense underneath you at the mention of the dark and deadly elephant in the room. “No. He, uh, he lives with his wife and three kids in North Carolina. They have a house in Cary and he went back to the family business when he got home.”

You nodded and pulled his wrist to you, placing your lips on his skin and tenderly kissing the middle of the design before letting him go. He hugged you closer to him and placed a kiss to your ear in turn, letting out what sounded like a contented sigh. 

A moment later, he murmured. “I want to help get you out.”

You nearly rolled your eyes again. You wanted to ask him why he was dead set on thinking that you even wanted out. Perhaps the you he had known would want a way out, want something more out of life than money and secrets and cleanups, but you had changed a lot in the last three years. But you knew if you posed that question, it would shatter the cocoon you currently found yourselves in and you weren’t ready for that to end just yet. So instead, you reminded him of another angle of the truth. “That’s not possible. Not the way you’re thinking. You know that.”

“Anything’s possible.” You nearly smiled at his response; there was the stubborn streak that sometimes infuriated you and sometimes endeared you to him, like right now. But you needed to make sure you maintained a reality check for the both of you. You knew what he was really thinking.

“Even if it was, we can’t.”

His head lifted and he frowned down at you. “Why not?”

“This isn’t some Mr. and Mrs. Smith shit. We don’t get a happy ending,” you finished sadly, thinking back to the life you once shared together as you cupped his cheek and rubbed it gently with your thumb. “Not together. It’s too dangerous.” You left it at that but you knew that he was more than aware of what you meant. 

His frown intensified at your words and he covered your hand with his, turning to place a kiss into your palm. “We’ll work it out.”

“Russ,” you sighed.

He gently grasped your chin between his thumb and forefinger, looking into your eyes. “We’ll work it out,” he softly repeated, that glint of determination back in his gaze. 

You decided once more that you wouldn’t bother launching into the many reasons it actually wouldn’t work out and you would refrain from popping that bubble he had just wrapped you both in. That moment would come later. But for now, you continued to keep silent.

When he noticed you weren’t going to say anything, a mischievous smile began to form on that handsome face you loved. “You know, I don’t really have anything planned for today. How about you?”

Other than some paperwork you had to go over later, your day was pretty much free, too. Even if it hadn’t been, you knew that look and after this morning, despite still having some unresolved anger with him, despite things that still needed to be said between you, you would have freed up your schedule immediately. “I don’t think I’ll be missed for a while,” you teased.

He leaned in to kiss you, whispering to your lips, “Oh, you were missed. Very much fucking missed.” The impishness you had heard a moment before was now absent but he never gave you a chance to respond. Instead, he kissed you deeply and began moving to cover your body with his once again. He maneuvered himself in between your thighs, your legs automatically coming up to gently cradle his hips. “Your arm,” you broke away to warn him.

“Don’t care.” He lowered down to keep kissing you and surprisingly (or unsurprisingly perhaps), all was right in the world right then. You didn’t allow yourself to get swept away by it or by the fantasy of something that would never be. Sadly, the time for you and Russell to be together had come and gone. You’d had your chance and you both had blown it, with him starting you out of the gate. This right here, this was all that was left — like embers of a dying fire. You would always love him, you knew that (truthfully, you had always known it), but this was all you would ever have. Once you both walked out that door, you would be walking in separate directions, taking different paths in your lives, no matter what Russell would say. 

But for right now, you allowed yourself to live in the moment, to enjoy it as he groaned into your mouth when your hand helped guide him to where you both wanted him to be. You held onto him as he began a slow movement within you, knowing you would need to take over again very soon when his left arm began to tremble. But until then you kept him close to you, drank deeply of him, and reveled in what the two of you had always managed to create together, content to keep Horizon and the rest of the world on the other side of the motel room door, if only for a moment longer. 

A/N: I know I left some things open and unresolved. I wanted to do that to let this be a gateway to the continuing story in the short series coming titled "Closer".

Please let me know what you think. 😊

[alicerosejensen]

How would Leon react if he found out his girlfriend got into a serious accident? (Ex: car accident, injured at work, school, etc)

Leon would have a heart attack. End. 😅

But let's be a little serious. I love headcanons, but I write full-fledged texts only in my native language. So here are some more headcanons on this topic.

Perhaps some angst. The reader suffered greatly and did not regain consciousness for a long time.

I just listening to "I Monster - who is she?" on repeat in a slow version. Now I associate her with Leon and his girlfriend from college. I love the excessive suffering of characters in fanfiction, so as my friends say: We eat glass!

Enjoy.

- "Anything can happen to me! You can't always be ready for something! I can go outside and any accident can happen: a car accident, a maniac! Yandere, a stone will fall on my head... anything, Leon!"

Before the accident

Leon hates to think that something could happen to you. Sometimes he guards you too fiercely, trying to prevent any possible incident.

He asks you to be extremely careful, but you never take his words seriously because you did not see what he saw.

Do you like to tease him? "If I die, will I be the most beautiful dead person?" or "Will you sit on my grave when I die?"

If you tease him too much about this, he will raise his voice sharply and tell you to stop.

Leon will remind you to buckle up when you're sitting in the car. Even if you're sitting in the passenger seat! Just fasten the fucking seat belt and don't argue with him.

You don't take death seriously, considering that you are still too young to think about such things. Instead, you just enjoy life sometimes preferring the extreme. Bungee jumping? It would be better if Leon didn't know about it.

He had seen enough pain and death because of his work. Raccoon City has left a scar on him forever, so he wants you to spend your time safe and careful (no matter with people, transport or anything else)

Perhaps luck decided to turn away from you when a truck drove into you while you were sitting in the passenger seat of a car. You were turned over twice with the driver (he died).

Before you fell into the darkness, you were in pain. Very. It seems that a couple of moments before the accident, you wrote another stupid message to Leon, but now your phone is smashed to pieces, and blood flows from your head and runs down your face.

In the hospital (If reader survived)

Leon will be rant and rave to be allowed into your hospital room. This person will literally go crazy until they tell him about your condition, and God save the doctor if he tells him that there is little chance of survival.

If he saw you covered in blood and unconscious while the doctors were taking you to the operating table, then his heart will definitely stop for a couple of seconds. Leon will run after you until the paramedics stop him.

He'll remember all your fucking jokes about your death, which will put him on edge. He probably would have been sent home, but damn it, he won't leave until he sees you awake.

You can't die! You can't leave him alone in this world! He loves you so much and needs you.

Leon feels his arms and legs tremble with uncertainty. He is afraid that at any moment they will come to him and say that his beloved is gone.

Before his eyes, you are still in bloodstained clothes and a broken head.

He had deep bags under his eyes again.

Leon is ready to give anything just to keep you alive.

When a nurse comes up to him and says that you can be visited (have pity on him) Leon will jump out of his seat just to see and hear your voice.

Are you worried about your appearance after the accident? Bruises, stitches on the face, a split lower lip? Believe me, the last thing Leon will care about is your beauty and the condition of a broken manicure. He almost died when he found out about the accident, so he's only afraid that you're still in pain.

Don't even think about turning your back on him! Leon won't let you do it anyway. Kennedy does not know how to touch you properly so as not to harm you after all the injuries, but he will seek the help of a nurse so that she shows him how to take care of you properly.

He will take a leave of absence to take care of you while you are in the hospital.

Absolutely you will not be able to dissuade him from doing this. You hate feeling so weak in front of him, but Leon, on the contrary, does not understand your resistance. His loved one needs help and he will provide it!

If necessary, he will carry you to the toilet on his hands.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of!" - be embarrassed as much as you want, but your boyfriend will not leave you alone. You, like any living person, have the basic needs of the body, so Leon does not feel any disgust. Baby, I'm sure he'll wash you without a problem if you need help with this.

He will scold you if you don't rest enough or try to do something yourself despite injuries.

Leon S.Kennedy is not a hairdresser (but I'm sure he spends at least 30 minutes in the morning styling his hairstyle), however, he will try to put your hair in order. Make a ponytail or a bun? He really tries, in the end you can always turn on the video how to do it correctly and accurately.

Flowers and gifts are constantly lying by the hospital bed.

When you are finally discharged, then get ready for an hour-long safety lecture from Leon S. Kennedy, and no escape will not work. You will obediently sit and listen.

No more jokes about death!

Leon doesn't care about your scars. He will gently take your face in his palms and kiss each of them, but if you are very complex because of them, then after full recovery and rehabilitation, you can think about how to fix this matter with the help of cosmetology.

He will pay for everything, just smile again.

After the accident, this person will take even more care of you. He's had enough shocks! You almost left him alone in this fucking world, so he needs to know that his woman is okay and safe.

I think there will be at least one night when Leon will turn you around to face him when you are lying in bed trying to fall asleep and just hold you with all his strength to himself for a couple of moments forgetting about all the bruises. He will bury his nose in your neck, and it will last so long until you feel the moisture from his tears on your skin. Leon will cry, probably quietly, because he almost lost you and the worst thing is that nothing depended on him. Just let him do it. Tell him how much you love him and stroke his head while his fingers hold you tightly by the waist pressing you to the mattress.

Don't you dare leave me, angel! God, I thought I'd never be able to see you again… I love you so much if you would leave…I couldn't go on living. I need you so much.

Your his shirt was wet from his tears.

If the reader is dead

The first thing you need to know is that his world collapsed with your death.

Hannigan or one of your relatives could have called him to tell him about the accident.

If you were alive when you arrived at the hospital, then Leon would have rushed there to you right away. The scenario of his anxiety has not changed much.

However, if due to a traumatic brain injury you fell into a coma (from which you subsequently went straight to the next world), then some part of Leon was still hoping for a favorable outcome.

When he would have been allowed to see you, he would have looked at your scars and abrasions endlessly holding your hand. "God definitely hates me," he might have thought, quietly shedding tears knowing that you might not wake up.

While you were in a serious condition, he brought you fresh flowers, read your favorite novels, even if he thought they were really stupid, and put headphones on you with a quiet melody from your playlist. Leon hoped to the last that you would open your eyes.

But on the fifth day, you still died without regaining consciousness despite all the attempts of doctors to save your life.

Life is not a book or a movie. Leon didn't hear your last "I love you" or any of your words. He was left with only the messages that you wrote to him that night in the car before you were hit.

Which he didn't have time to answer.

A huge part of him is irretrievably dead. The loss of a loved one is not like everything he felt before. He really went to hell.

Why did this happen? He so protected you from any misfortune, but evil fate still overtook the one he loved.

Leon drowns his pain from loss in alcohol. The endless bottles all over the apartment would have made Claire stumble when she came to visit him.

For God's sake, he doesn't want to go to your funeral! He just can't stand it, because right now he wants to shoot himself, just not to live without your voice.

Claire noticed a loaded pistol on the table next to him.

It was a fucking accident. A drunk driver who crashed into a passenger car (taxi) in which you were sitting.

-"Why her? Out of a billion people, why her?!"

It is unknown how, but Leon was able to find the strength to come to your funeral after all. Your coffin is open to those who want to say goodbye to you one last time, but all Leon wants is to lie down there next to you. He just wants to hug you and kiss you with the hope that you will reciprocate, although he knows that this will never happen.

Tears run down his cheeks when he looks at you dead: really beautiful. Your relatives took care to hide the traces of a car accident. Leon touches your cold hand to remember for the last time what your skin feels like.

No, he doesn't have the strength to sit on your grave. However, Leon will regularly bring flowers there and brush away fallen leaves from the tombstone.

You 're gone forever.

"Is the little teaser happy with herself?" - He asks you, knowing he won't get an answer. He just stares blankly at the sky, hoping that you can hear him. - "I hope you have a good time there, because I miss you. You can't even imagine how much I miss you."

He won't be able to remove your things from his apartment for a long time.

You have to become an angel. Leon wants to think that's how you're still looking out for him. He is not a religious person and does not believe in God, but he loved you and continues to love you.

Sometimes he hears your voice, which puts him in a stupor. What if everything that happened before turns out to be just a long nightmare, and now he wakes up in the same bed with you? But he looks around and sees only an empty apartment that has been in need of cleaning for a long time.

When his longing becomes too strong, he takes out your things, trying to remember the scent of your body. He doesn't want to forget you so much.

Your picture is still on his bedside table. Even after many years.

Just know that your death means years of depression and alcohol for Leon. He hates himself that you died leaving him and he's alive.

"Just take me to your place, princess. I'm tired."

You are definitely a little scoundrel! Sometimes when Leon is too drunk, he thinks that you could have done it on purpose to hurt him. Just so those stupid jokes about death turn out to be true.

But he doesn't hate you. you will always remain his love.

However, now his desire to die is stronger than ever before, and he really hopes to see you alive, and not just in his drunken stupor

[avataramy]

when did it end?

— finding comfort after tragedy

paring: gojo satoru x gender neutral reader

contents: established relationship w satoru; reader is a teacher/sorcerer at jujutsu high too; reader is best friends/grew up in the same class with sashisu; this takes place a few days/a week after the night parade/suguru’s death

warnings: angst, i guess? and terrible writing lmfaooo also not proofread 😮‍💨

a/n: i was listening to what was i made for by billie eilish on repeat while writing this so i suggest the same! especially the part where it says “when did it end?//all the enjoyment//i’m sad again//don’t tell my boyfriend” 😭😭😭 also i haven’t written anything in YEARS so please don’t flame me for this! 😭😭😭

it was early one morning, maybe a week or so after the night parade of a hundred demons. you had barely gotten any sleep since then and tonight wasn’t an exception. after tossing and turning all night, you decided to sit out on a grassy courtyard at jujutsu high and watch the sunrise. in a few hours you’d have to get ready for your students, today was supposed to be the first day back. you sat in silence mulling over today’s lesson plans when you heard satoru’s voice from across the courtyard. “oi! what’re you doin’ out here so early?” he sauntered over and plopped down next you. you look over at him. he wasn’t wearing his blindfold so you could see his bright, crystal blue eyes. they were tired and red underneath. you looked back up at the sky. “couldn’t sleep. you?” he nods, looking up at the sky too, “same.”

you two sat in silence, enjoying each other’s company. the birds were waking up and flying over head. he breaks the silence, asking “you ok?” you chuckle, “i’m barely keeping it together.” you looked at him, “you?” he tenses up but sighs, relaxing and laying down in the grass. “nah…not all,” he finally says. you nod, looking back up at the sky.

a moment of silence passes again.

“do you remember when would escape our dorms the 4 of us and make midnight trips to the 7-eleven?” satoru asked quietly. you bring your knees to your chest, hugging and resting your chin on them. you smile fondly, remembering those memories, “yeah…sometimes we’d drag kento and yu with us. iori and mei too.” satoru continued, “shoko would make suguru buy her cigarettes since he looked older than all of us.” “the cashier definitely knew we were all underage but he was too scared of suguru to tell him no,” you laughed, feeling tears prick the corners of your eyes. “and then we would just sit outside the store, laughing and talking until the sun started to rise. we would have to race back to the school, to our dorms before yaga would notice we were gone,” you said as you wiped away your tears. “somehow you and suguru would always get caught by him!” “heh, yeah,” satoru laughed. “man…those were the days.” satoru looked over to you, noticing you were crying. he sat up, concerned. you noticed him staring at you and tried to turn away from him. “oh sorry, i think it’s my allergies,” you said, voice slightly shaky. “(y/n),” he said softly. “it’s nothing, i’m fine i promise,” you say, voice cracking again. satoru sighs, placing his legs on either side of you and bringing you into his arms, turning off his limitless. you sob silently, leaning against him. “it’s not fair. we were all so young. we didn’t deserve to experience what we did so young. why did the higher-ups force us to go do missions filled with so much danger?” you say between sobs. “i know,” satoru says, rubbing your back. “why did riko have to die? why did yu have to die? why did suguru have to do what he did? did he not know he could’ve relied on us if he was feeling lost?” you cry loudly. satoru pressed his lips on the top of your head, closing his eyes. tears fell down his cheeks. you two cried in each others arms as the sky turned shades of orange and pink, mourning the loss of your youth, of your friends, of your happy memories.

“satoru…i’m tired,” you whispered after awhile. all of your pent up emotions had toppled over and tired you out, both physically and mentally. “me too,” he whispered, against your hair. you pull away and placed a tender hand on his wet face. “let’s go to bed, yeah?” you say. he nods, kissing your temple again. you stand up, leaning against him. you wrap your arms around each other, walking to the dorms. he brings you to the room, pulling you into bed with him. he sends yaga a quick message, stating to cancel classes today, that you weren’t feeling good and he was taking care of you for the day. you laid down, facing each other, arms still wrapped around each other. he brings you in close, kissing your forehead and resting his chin on top of your head, closing his eyes. you close your eyes and finally fall asleep, listening to each other’s soft breathing, hoping tomorrow would be a better day.

[heartilywrites]

♡ — Leaving tonight ; H. Callahan

cw: angst, but like, a bunch of that ; avengers: endgame strong references ; avengers: infinity war final battle reference just at the beginning ; spider!hazel; black widow!reader ; mention of death

word count: 2.8k

a/n: love me some angst, this is my post ~celebrating~ endgame happening canonically now, i just happen to remember we made spider!hazel a thing and i needed to write her in the mcu timeline. . . i made peter exist at the same time as haze because,,, why not? i think they would be best friends idk. anyways, hope you enjoy!

“ 𝓐ll alone, all we know, is haunting me. . . Making it harder to breathe. ”

⠀⠀Ever had that feeling that something is about to end very very bad? Great! That was the exact feeling everyone at the battlefield had, even the most optimistic person could be doubting about the conclusion of that fight. Yeah, you were winning against the army, but that gut wrenching feeling that it may all be in vain was there, haunting you.

You fought with everything in your system, but there wasn't really much to do as a Widow besides helping to stop the alien army and hope for the more powerful avengers to stop everything from the source: Thanos. . . And then you saw wakandians disappear in dust, your heart dropped to the ground when you realized what that meant and your feet were quick to run looking for Natasha.

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “Please, please, please.” you begged while your eyes began to accumulate tears.

You heard your name being shouted and were fast to recognize Natasha's silhouette running to you too. An almost crushing hug was what you received, after making sure neither of you were about to disappear you look to the scene next to you. 'Oh god' the captain's voice whispered in disbelief. You lost.

And that was just the beginning, once you arrived back from Wakanda you were fast to look for your friends only to find that Brittany was the only from your group still around, both of you cried as soon as you saw each other and hugged.

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “Where's Hazel?” her voice asked, “I know she ran out the campus with you, didn't she?” your eyes widened.

Hazel. She and this other spider–dude went to fucking space as a stowaways when you clearly heard on the earpiece Tony's voice telling them to stay on New York, obviously neither of them listened even after your own scold while helping on the ground as much as you could.

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “I'll be back, darling, I promise!” her voice in a robotic sound told you before losing signal with her.

You didn't know if she was alive anymore, but after the first couple weeks, you were beginning to accept the idea that she did dust away along with the other kid, Tony and the wizard dude. And you started to grief.

At least you were until one night in the compound an earthquake caught everyone's attention on a possible attack, curious your feet took you out of the building and in your visual field a spaceship appeared with a glowing woman directing it to the ground.

You were far behind from everyone, squinting your eyes to see a bit better your jaw almost fell to the floor to the sight of Tony coming down the stairs with a blue woman and. . . Wait.

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “Hazel!” an exclamation came from you now running to help the girl, once again crying, but those were tears of relief. She hugged you tight as much as she could. “I thought I lost you.”

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “I thought I lost you.” she repeated back on a sob, once you pushed away you saw how bad she looked. “Oh my god, Steve shaved?”

At that question, you turned your face to the captain who was talking with Tony and frowned. “I guess. . .” once again, your eyes were back at her and a sniff was heard from both of you. “Fucking idiot, I'm confiscating your web–shooters everytime we see a spaceship.”

After laughing at your comment, she gave you a weak kiss, leaning on you after a bit and you guided her steps to the building.

They did a little meeting to get the ones on space to date, your teeth were biting your bottom lip trying not to cry at the pictures of those you called your friends that weren't around anymore.

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “We lost Peter.” Hazel whispered while watching the argument the two grown men had. She, just as Tony, were connected to an IV and you were on her other side holding her hand. “We lost everyone, we–.”

You calmly shushed her, your thumb was leaving caresses on her hand. “We did what we could.” you smiled weakly. “And we're going to do everything to get them back.”

And you were one to keep a promise.

The next thing the group did was trying to find Thanos, but you didn't had the right mind to go with them. You wanted to stay with Hazel and take care of her, so that's what you did; stay. You hugged Natasha while wishing them good luck, telling them to 'get that bitch's ass' as she laughed and assure you they were going to bring everyone back. . .

But then, 5 years went by.

As soon as they got back, everyone took their own way. Defeated, neither of you needed to ask what had happened, because their faces said it all.

Once Hazel got better, both of you decided to move on, try to have a normal life. Kept studying at collage with Brittany, the three of you grew closer together. Deep down you knew things really won't be back as they were, missing Josie, Isabel and PJ became something constant like breathing; the first two years you usually went to the compound to train with Nat, but after that you started to drift away from the avengers to continue with your life, she didn't stopped you at that.

Sure, you did missions once in a while, but it wasn't as much as you did before the events. Your relationship with Hazel got serious and one night, she proposed to you. Obviously you said yes, you wanted to be with her for the rest of your life if it was possible, she had been your rock all those years in work, such as you were hers and it finally felt as the universe was trying to let you two rest at least a little bit.

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “We need you two, kid.” Rogers' voice was heard after his speech and a bit of silence, you were serving the dinner, passing a plate to him and one to your now fiancé, both of them smiled. “We need as many hands as possible.”

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “I. . . I don't know, Mr. America.” Hazel was the first one to speak, you took your seat across from her.‍ “Our graduation is near, we're planning a wedding as well.”

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “It's our second chance, girls.” he said, his eyes moved from Hazel to you.‍ “Congrats on the wedding, by the way, but this is our only chance to get everyone back.”

Your eyes darted back to Hazel as she did the same.

Maybe you'll get your friends back, maybe they'll be here for the celebration. What else could you lose? It was something easy, he said, risky, but easy enough. Travel in time to the stones, take them to use them, bring everyone back and take them back as if they never left their timelines. Piece of cake, right?

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “Are you sure you want to do this?” Hazel asked you while saving both your and her suit in a bag.

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “Are you?” You shot back, raising a brow her way. You sighed and walk to her side of the bed.‍ ‍ “Haze, we can get them back. Have Josie, Isabel and PJ on our day, don't you want that?” Her eyes looked down to the bag.‍ “Didn't you say you wanted to have them as best women?”

She laughed and nodded slowly.‍ “Fine, but we're only helping with the stones, yeah? Once that's done we come back home, we still need to choose between daisies or jasmines.”

You nodded with a funny smile and gave her a tiny kiss.

Once in the compound it was explain how everything would go down, where the stones have been seen and who had them at that time. It took no more than two days to get the information in order and everyone did teams; yours was the one going to Vormir and Morag, the soul and power stones.

A pretty good speech, a couple of words exchanged and a promise to come back was said by everyone before everyone started to travel.

Arriving to Morag was quite the experience, you've never been to space so looking around was almost inevitable.

A scream was heard from Hazel before kicking. . . Something similar to a rat, you laughed while taking away the white suit, underneath that it was your well–known black suit, your fiancé had her classic one without the mask.

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “Are we ready?” You said looking at your teammates, they nodded.

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “Good to go, kiddo.” Now it was your turn to nod. A small hug was received by the older man for the both of you. “Get the stone and comeback, no messing around, okay?”

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “Yes, dad.” Hazel said jokingly, after a bit she took your hand and started to walk towards the ship.

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “Take care of each other!” he exclaimed, you gave him a military salute followed by an 'aye aye, captain', the doors closed.

You both looked around the ship while walking to the pilot and co–pilot seat, once buckled up, the ship itself began the trip.

Your hand was holding tight to the seat, both laughing at the speed and colors, truly an experience worth living.

When arriving to Vormir, both of you looked shocked at such landscape. Nothing like we had on earth, you thought.

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “Let's go, m'lady.” Hazel called for you, offering her hand, you took it with a smile. “Let's get this stone and go back home.”

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “Easy work, we should've choose New York for a bit of a complicated level.” you said while walking.

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “And miss the opportunity to come to space? Nuh–uh, maybe we should've changed planets with them.” she responded back. “This planet is way too dark, feels sad.”

A laugh fell from you mouth. Now infront of the big mountain in there, Hazel got the both of you up with webs, knowing it would take more time if you climbed the mountain.

Once at the top, you took your gun out for precaution and both sets of eyes inspected every corner they saw.

You heard a voice say your name and your father's name, at least you figured that was him since after the same voice pronounced Hazel and her father's name as a welcome later on, such jumpscare made you both be on guard ready to attack. Then you saw a. . . A man? with red face, floating. “Consider me a guide to you and all of those who seek the soul stone.”

You exchanged looks with Hazel before putting down the weapon, your fiancé never let down her guard. “Yeah? How do we get it then?” she asked, still a bit scared.

The entity floated in the middle of the two, you followed him to almost the edge. “What you seek lies in front of you,” he said while both heroes walked to see down. “In order to take the stone you must lose that what you love, an everlasting exchange.” you could feel how your heart dropped, turning back to see Hazel. “A soul for a soul.”

You walked a bit back to think about what was just said, sitting down on a rock in silence. “There has to be another way,” Hazel said after a couple of minutes in silence. “Or maybe he was joking.”

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “I don't really think so,” you responded blinking a couple of times. “Think about it, Haze; Thanos came here with his daughter Gamora, got the stone and left without her, that has to mean something.”

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “Maybe he lost her somewhere else, how do we know he isn't making shit up and the stone is somewhere else?” Hazel stood up from the rock, clearly stressed at the situation.

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “He knows my father's name. . . I don’t even know it, I don’t think he'll be guessing if I knew him or not.” now you stood up and took her hands. “If we don't get that stone, billions of people will stay dead. . .”

She nodded sighing. “Whatever it takes, right?”

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “Whatever it takes.” you responded with low voice. Cutting distance with her, your lips met in a sweet kiss; one filled with sadness too knowing what was about to come, regret at the thought of accepting the mission, but calm at the thought of saving people. Once you pulled away, a smile showed on your face. “I love you, Hazel, remember that, yeah?”

The girl blinked confused at your words. “Did we just thought of different endings?” she shook her head, taking your arms. “Honey, you have the wrong idea.”

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “Hazel, please, let me do this.” you almost cried, taking a step back. “I promised you that, didn't I? We're going to do everything to get them back and this is how. After everything I've done. . . This is my way to redeem all the pain I caused.”

She didn't answer, in your distraction she pinned you to the floor while shaking her head. “No, you'll tell the girls I love them.”

You were quick to change positions and stand up while pointing at her with your electric gun. “Tell them yourself, Haze.” your voice defended before shooting her, seeing how the shock did its work at keeping her down you started to make your way to the edge.

Hazel was fast enough to remove the shot from her and sit up, when trying to use her right web–shooter she realized you had covered it, but not the left one so she changed hands and shot you on the ankles making you fall. With a curse coming out of your mouth, your hands were fast to get the small knife from your belt and cut the webs as Hazel was about to reach the edge.

You ran as fast as you could just as she jumped, hugging her and shooting a gadget which you attached to her was in matter of seconds. The mutant was fast to take your wrist.

The gadget was short, and it was right on her hip so she couldn't reach you with her other hand if she wanted to.

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “Don't do this, please, don't do it.” she pleaded, your hand was open so if she tried to shoot another web at you with the left shooter, she'll drop you.

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “It's okay.” you smiled at her, with quick hand you took away her left shooter. “Let me go, it's okay, I promise.”

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “I can't, I need you, please, don't do this.” Even with her sight blurry from the tears, Hazel was able to see how calm you were.

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “I love you.” your voice breathed out one last time.

Taking impulse from the rock, your feet pushed you as Hazel's grip slipped and let your wrist go.

A bloody gut wrenching scream came out of her mouth, feeling how throat hurt from said action, a lightning took her away while she called your name.

Next thing she knew, she was on a pond lying down. Sitting down, on her left hand she could feel the stone, Hazel opened her hand and tears began to stream down her cheeks at the look of the yellow infinity stone. What was she going to say know? How can she show her face back home without you by her side?

It took a couple of minutes for her to find any strength to stand up and get back to her time, but as soon as she arrived to the circle, she felt again on her knees. Completely numb, hearing the other voices muffled celebrating and asking her about you once her knees made noise.

Natasha's voice brought her back, Callahan looked up to her, tears falling from her eyes silently, she couldn't bring herself to tell her how her apprentice sacrificed herself for the stone.

So you could only imagine how she felt once the whole team won over Thanos again and brought her friends back, only for them to ask for you after hugging her and thanking for bringing them back.

Your funeral was alongside Tony's, but Hazel didn't cried, she just stood silent watching at her own ring on her hand, sitting on the stairs of the cabin.

Brittany was the one who sat next to her when she realized she wasn't inside with everyone else, they both were in complete silence.

‍ ‍ ‍ ‍‍ “You know. . .” she finally talked after hours of silence, hoarsely. “I just. . . I hope she knows that we did it. That we won.”

Brittany looked at her, compassionate at the way she was feeling. “She knows.” she said, passing one arm on her shoulders, Hazel leaned her head on her friend letting a couple of tears leave her eyes. “I'm sure she does.”

[whchenlvr]

Hi, I absolutely loved your Weak Hero collections. There are just so few of them in here, and you did such an amazing job capturing their personalities. I'm a great sucker for angst, so if requests are open, and you're comfortable with it, I was wondering if you could do a scenario where Y/N gets seriously hurt while taking the hit for them? Like they get in between and get stabbed/punched/near death? Basically, it's their fault you get hurt?

You can write for any, but I'd really like a Wolf Keum one...

Thank you tons and absolutely loved your writing style :p

YES omg i’ve been wanting to write angst and i LOVEEE wolf. THANK YOU SO MYCH

when you get seriously hurt ;

weak hero x gn!reader

wolf keum. stabbed

➤ you had a bad feeling. you tried convincing wolf not to leave that night, but he didn’t listen. when did he ever?

➤ the union was never safe, but recently, the violence has gotten more extreme. you’d witnessed old friends of yours falling into the fighting scene and ending up in the hospital

➤ you even caught yourself waiting by the front door until you see your boyfriend through the window and have to stop yourself from running out to greet him

➤ you’re doing just that one evening, watching, when you see wolf’s purple hair appear. you’re about to welcome him in when something behind him catches your eye

➤ without thinking, you throw the door open and run out to him. wolf is too distracted by your presence to notice the masked man behind him with a knife. “wolf, look out!”

➤ you just barely shove him out of the way when you feel a sharp pain in your side. you instantly fall to your knees, and you can tell wolf hesitates on whether to grab you or chase the man who did this, not realizing you’d just been stabbed

➤ when he does realize what’s going on, wolf would just stare at you with wide eyes

➤ his panic response is always fight, never flight, but he can’t fight this. he stands over you, frozen, for a few moments before calling for help and dropping to your side

➤ “you okay?” he’d ask in a distance voice, more for himself than you, but you know from all the times of cleaning wolf up what to do in a situation like this

➤ you’d have to take wolf’s hands in yours and press them against your stab wound, trying your very hardest to keep calm in this situation, since you can tell by the daze in wolf’s eyes that he’s in shock and won’t be much help

➤ “you’re not going to die. you’re fine,” wolf would repeat, and you’d just nod and focus on your breathing. “i’m fine. you can’t get rid of me this easy.”

donald na. shot

➤ you and donald had been walking home from a date one evening when you noticed someone following you

➤ when you move to warm donald, he only places a hand over yours, catching your eye and shaking his head to signal “no”

➤ that’s when you start to panic, because donald isn’t the type of person to back down or step away from a fight. you assumed it was because you were with him, but donald had seen the light catch on the follower’s hand and knew that this wasn’t something he could punch his way out of

➤ you’d just passed a corner when donald suddenly shoved you forward and turned back to tackle the follower. he had him pinned, weapon tossed to the side, and looked back at you when his eyes widened. “y/n!”

➤ but you’re frozen when you hear something click behind you. there were two of them.

➤ you barely have time to scream when the person pulls the trigger, and white flashes before your eyes as you fall to the ground

➤ donald wastes no time jumping off of the first man to run to you, ignoring the sound of him running away as he holds you in his arms and presses both hands harshly against your shoulder

➤ donald is calculated. he is talented and skilled in fighting. he doesn’t know how to keep calm against a bullet wound in the person he loves most

➤ he’d be too afraid to pull his hands off of the wound to use his phone to call for help, and thankfully a helpful pedestrian would run over and call for you instead

➤ donald would ride in the ambulance with you the entire way there, keeping you talking and laughing as he tried to get himself to stop shaking

gray yeon. glass cut

➤ typically, gray is aware of his surroundings at all times during a fight. your presence threw him off guard and wasn’t something he took into account

➤ you didn’t mean to be there. you had almost been home when you realized you’d forgotten one of your notebooks in your desk and turned back to retrieve it from the school. it wasn’t your intention to stumble upon a fight

➤ you can tell right away that something is wrong. everyone looks too tense, like they’re all afraid of more than just a few bruises

➤ then you see it. on the ground is a boy you recognize from your 1st period, laying in a pool of blood too big to be from fists

➤ there’s another, taller boy standing above him with something clutched tightly in his fist. when he realizes what he’d done, his hands tremble and he runs away from the group. runs right toward you

➤ it was clear by his face that he was scared. it was obvious that this was an accident, and you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time

➤ you move too slow as you step out of his way, and pain flares in your middle as the broken shard of glass sliced into you

➤ it takes no time at all for you to lose your balance as blood seeps into your once clean white uniform shirt

➤ you were so distracted on trying to apply pressure to your wound that you didn’t even notice gray sprinting toward you, his eyes wet with worry

➤ “what happened, what happened?” he’s repeating his words like a mantra as he falls to your side as assesses the situation. you can tell he’s trying to be brave, but there are tears rolling down his cheeks as he desperately covers your hands with his

➤ he’d be a trembling mess, his mind completely jumbled as thought of stephan fill his head. how he couldn’t help him. he wasn’t about to make the same mistake with you, too

➤ gray would tear the sleeve from his jacket to wrap around your wound and keep pressure with one hand as he calls an ambulance with the other

ben park. ganged up on. beaten

➤ ben can usually handle himself well. even when he’s outnumbered, his focus is only on himself and the men fighting him. not you

➤ the two of you would be walking home from a date one evening when a group of new union members trying to impress donald na surround you

➤ ben would instinctively pull you close to him, and you can’t help but shrink back when you notice how his face hardens and his chest puffs out

➤ “you’re big ben, right?” “…” “so you are! we figured, you know, if we rough you up a little, maybe we’ll get on donald’s good side!”

➤ you weren’t that afraid until more of them started trickling in around you, and soon a group of rowdy teenagers had formed around you and your boyfriend

➤ when the first kid charges, ben knocks him to the ground with a single strike. you aren’t sure what these boys thought they could do, but as more approached, you started worrying for ben

➤ thankfully, he’d been teaching you basic self defense, but you’d never had to use it in real life as he’d always been there to protect you

➤ it happened so fast. more and more kept appearing, and soon ben was overwhelmed. you fought off as many as you could, but when one of the boys threw a brick at the back of your head, you were done and taking kick after kick

➤ ben only noticed when he realized how quiet you’d gotten. when he sees you on the ground, not moving, all he’d see is red

➤ less than a minute later, you’d be in his arms with your body pressed against his chest as he runs to the nearest hospital, begging you to be okay