#i was sick. and working . and then sick again

[all-with-angel]

High Voltage

❥ Electric Fly Swatter Sukuna x reader

❥ With the heat being unbearable and flies swarming you practically every minute, you have nothing except a faulty fly swatter on your side. even then, the thing does nothing except zap you randomly! Sick of its shit, you throw it out the window, only for it to come stomping back to fuck some manners into you! Don't you know its rude to throw things out of windows?

Content. CRACKFIC, smut, dubcon, afab!reader, sukuna is mean(duh), grinding, oral(f!receiving), his fingers vibrate, he zaps you sometimes, p in v, doggystyle, dacryphilia, begging, creampie :P

A.N. I blame @yenayaps and @madamechrissy for enabling me so i take no accountability whatsoever. @yamadramallamaqueen here you go unc ily

It was hot.

Like, skin-sticking-to-furniture, every-fan-sounds-like-it’s-pleading-for-death, consider-lying-on-the-tile-floor-like-a-cat kind of hot. It was hellish during this time of the year. The heat outside would've been fine, if not for your AC breaking at the start of the week and your landlord doing absolutely jack shit about it. Thus, your humble little home had turned into a sauna and your overhead fans could only do so much. And if that wasn’t bad enough?

Flies. So many damn flies.

It was just the season for them, and you were getting tired of swatting them to death manually. Lucky for you, you stumbled upon a quaint little yard sale on your way home. It was small, stacks upon stacks of books and old cds, and a few barely-working pieces of electronics. A worn out looking fly swatter caught your eye, and when you asked the old grandma about it, she gladly gave it to you in exchange for a few dollars. It was black with pink highlights, residue of stickers clinging on to the plastic.

Lucky you, It was way cheaper than any of the newer models you’d seen, and it worked fine. Sure, it vibrated and shaked whenever you turned it on, and it took way too long to charge, but it worked.

For a while.

A week later, the thing turned on you. You were waving it around in your living room, a surge of slight satisfaction at every loud bzzt! that signaled the death of another one of those flying bloodsuckers. You were about to walk to the kitchen, satisfied with the lack of any more flies buzzing in the room when you felt a sharp sting of electricity course through your hand. You yelped and dropped it, hitting the edge of the sofa and clattering loudly onto the floor.

“What the hell?!” 

You hissed, massaging your hand for a moment before grabbing the fly swatter with a cloth. “Stupid old thing.” Murmuring curses and complaints under your breath about how its faultiness was showing after just a week of owning it, you set it on the counter and plugged it into its charging port. You eyed it as it lightly hummed and a red light blinked on and off, you could've sworn it started blinking out of sync— its patterns more similar to a human blinking than an electronic with a set program.

Whatever. It was too hot for this. You brushed it off and turned away.

Over the next few days, it kept zapping you. Randomly. It started when you were just holding it, using it actively when it would zap you when you even dared to put it down. Then, it started to zap you when it wasn't even on. You had turned it off, the phantom pain of getting electrocuted in your hand earlier fading as you tucked it under your arm. Before you could even reach halfway to your room, it had zapped your entire side. 

Nothing too painful, not exactly enough to be an immediate health hazard– but the surprise made you scream and drop it (again), clutching your side in betrayal.

 It was less a bug killer now and more of an abusive relationship that you couldn’t let go of. At least not with your current fly problem.

On another day of trying to survive through a damn heatwave, you were sweating even as two fans were working overtime fanning you. They were your real friends in this situation, even if they just blew hot air around the room, doing little to help you. 

Still, help is help.

But that morning, sweaty, stressed, and so over it, you swore that anything would set you off. As if sensing that you were on your last straw, the fly swatter had zapped you mid-swing. You flinched, face contorting from pain to anger. “Motherfucker!”

You shriek as it hits the floor, except this time you didn’t use a cloth to pick it up, you didn’t fear it anymore. Who the hell cares if it zaps you again. You grabbed it and threw it out your window, hearing it hit the soft grass of your yard as you huff. 

“You wanna fucking electrocute me?? Well I’m not having it anymore!” you yelled, flopping onto your couch with all the grace of a damp spaghetti noodle. You swung an arm over your eyes, cringing at the feel of your own sweat-slicked skin but too tired to care. With a sigh, you slump further back and practically melt into the couch.

The crawling feeling of exhaustion caught up to you, crawling from your head down to your chest. A nap at this time would probably fuck up your sleep schedule, but you couldnt seem to care in between the heat and the occasional buzz of a mosquito in your ear. The lull of sleep almost drowning out the sudden bang of your back door.

Wait, what?

The sudden bang of your backdoor startles you awake, loud stomping accompanying your racing heartbeat as you shoot upright and turn to see a very naked and very angry looking man. He was broad, large with black inky tattoos adorning his chest and arms. His head almost reached the ceiling and  you were sure that his dick— DICKS, were the size of your forearm.

You could feel both heat and fear crawling up your spine, settling uncomfortably in your throat as you try to find your words. Before you do, he beats you to it.

“You–!” he snarled, pointing a finger at you. “Did no one teach you to not throw your shit out windows!?”

“What the hell are you talking about!?” You stammer for a moment, eyes flicking around you to his glaring red eyes. You grab the nearest thing to you, a throw pillow and point it in his direction. “Who even are you?! And why did you just break into my house!?”

The pink-haired hunk of a man rolls his eyes, muscles flexing as he crossed his arms. As if this was just another nuisance to him. “I’m your goddamn fly swatter, or whatever the fuck you call it.” He hissed. “Congratulations, you broke the seal and set me fucking free. By throwing me out the window.” His voice was laced with sarcasm and brimming anger, finger tapping idly on his forearm.

“You’re my what??” You asked again, stunned. Unconsciously lowering your protective throw pillow as the hot demon man snarled at your stupidity and confusion.

“Your fly swatter.” He repeated through gritted teeth. The fact he was such a menial object irked him, clearly so.

Your eyes raked over him again, from his broad chest to his.. Sizable cocks. Your eyes seemed glued to the pair, your gaze sending a pulse or arousal through Sukuna. One that went straight to his dicks, making them twitch.

God, how long has it been since he’s had a good fuck? Too many years, that's for sure.

You made a noise in your throat that may or may not have been an inappropriate giggle. That seemed to piss him off. He clicked his tongue stomping over to you, who took a few steps back his looming figure. “Something funny, brat?” He snarled, glaring down at you like he hates your guts. But his half-hard cock(s) told a different story.

You swallowed, breath hitching as you craned your neck to look up at him. God, he was so much bigger upclose, not to mention that his chest was right up in your face distracting you from making any proper thoughts. “N-no. Just— this is so weird.” Your voice drops into a mumble as you continue, every three steps you took back, Sukuna would take one– And it was enough to bridge the gap. “Who knew my shitty fly swatter was hot..”

“HUH? The fuck you just call me?” He roared. “I’m Sukuna, the King of curses you heathen. Not some ‘shitty fly swatter’– Who said you could talk to me so casually!?” Sukuna, now you knew his name, had cornered you against the wall. “Throw me out of the window, no less.” He added, seething.

Alarmed by the dangerous— almost predatory look in his eyes, you hit his chest with the pillow in your arms a few times. “THE HELL? How was I supposed to know that?” Unknown to you, with every shriek and pathetic excuse for an attack, Sukuna could feel his cocks harden– throbbing painfully as his body screamed to show you your place. 

He was grinning, the hungry look in his eyes snapping as he grabbed your wrist and halting your (fairly worthless) struggle against him. You gasp as you feel your wrist get engulfed by a much bigger hand, shame filling your head as you feel the warmth pooling in your stomach.

“You really think that’ll do anything, brat?” He inches closer, scarily handsome face inches away from yours. “Or did you just want to piss me off even more?”

As if caught like a deer in headlights, you stammer, feeling his intense gaze on you making your heart clench and stomach flutter. “I– No, I mean I didn’t–”

“Shut it, slut.” He grabs at your throat, not quite squeezing— But just enough pressure to shut you up. “I don’t need your excuses.” Sukuna grins. “I know what you want, anyway.” He slides his thick leg in between your thighs, putting pressure on your core as you let out a mix of a yelp and a moan.

He grabs your hips as you slowly start to grind on his leg like a bitch in heat. “Ha, pathetic. Is that all it takes for you to give up?”

Your hips stutter, but Sukuna continues to guide your movements against his thigh. “N-No,”

“Liar.”

Sukuna pulls his leg back and in a blur, you end up manhandled onto your couch with your shorts pulled off of you. “Tsk. No panties? What a perfect whore.” He snickers, and as soon as he sees your already dripping cunt, he knew he was in for a sweet treat. He dared to look at your face, waiting in anticipation and beautifully aroused. He took it all in, the curve of your body and every inch of skin bared all for him. He was one lucky fly swatter. And you were one very, very lucky owner.

“W-wait–” You tried to plead, but Sukuna wasn’t a patient man. He didn’t wait. He took what he wanted when he wanted it. And he wanted you. He took his sinfully long tongue to drag across your folds, groaning loudly at your taste. “Fuck..” He muttered, immediately grabbing your hips to pull you into him as he let his tongue explore your perfectly sweet cunt.

Sukuna was like a wild animal– Or an insatiable toy, brimming with electricity ready to be expended on poor you.

He let his tongue curl inside of you, nose brushing and rubbing against your clit as your hands found purchase in his pink hair. The same shade that matched the fly swatter form this so-called King of curses had unwillingly taken.

Suddenly, you feel a zap of electricity on your thigh, making you flinch further into Sukuna’s mouth. “So fucking loud.” You could feel him smiling against your pussy, just before he continued devouring you like a man starved.

You held into his hair for dear life, tugging whenever he’d hit just the right spot, making him groan and send vibrations straight to your core. It felt more intense, more electrifying than anything you could have ever felt from any other man. 

“That needy, brat?” Sukuna pulled away, licking his slick-coated lips before tucking one, then two fingers right into your needy hole. Just as he did, he put his mouth back to work. He could feel you clench against his fingers, the tightness of your hole having Sukuna’s cocks leak pre down his thick cock.

“Y- Y-es!” You moaned out, voice breaking as Sukuna curled his fingers up into that sweet spot of yours. You couldn’t control the desperate gasp escaping your lips when you felt his fingers vibrate inside of you, right against your G-spot. “Oh- Oh god, fuck–” The stimulation felt intense, so much pleasure all at once as Sukuna licked and sucked at your clit.

He was merciless as he finished you off, lapping up at the juices squirting out of your fluttering pussy. You could practically feel electricity shooting up your spine as your back arched further into him, as if fucking his face.

You were definitely testing this demon(?), incubus(?), whatever the fuck he was’ oxygen, but he wasnt complaining. Not even when he pulled away from your cunt, slipping his thick fingers out of you and licking them clean.

“On your stomach. I’m not done with you.”

That's how you found yourself face-down ass-up and drooling onto the couch as Sukuna pounded his fat cock into your pussy, the other slapping against your abdomen with every thrust. You just felt so full, every push of his dick into you hitting every single spot you thought couldn’t be reached.

“Fucking— Fucking slut, shit–” Sukuna growled from above you, barely holding back his own moans from how fucking good you felt around him. So warm, practically made for him— Even if you were such a disrespectful brat. “Throwing me out the goddamn window–” Ah. He still hadn't let that go.

His eyes were glued to the back of your head, occasionally tracing his warm hand on the arch of your back, all to zap you randomly. Relishing in the way you’d flinch and tighten around his length, a condescending grin spreading on his face as he felt himself getting closer to filling you up. To put you in your place.

“Puh-lease–” You gasped as your legs shook, if not for his bruising grip on your waist, you’d have collapsed into a pathetic cum-puddle by now. Tears streamed down your cheeks, staining the couch along with various other fluids.

“Please what, huh?” Sukuna taunted, continuing to thrust his hips into you at an unrelenting pace. His lips parted, breathing heavily as he could feel his cock throb and twitch at the idea of cumming inside of you for the nth time.

Your hips moved back to meet his thrusts, you let out a pleasured sob at the feeling of attempting to rearrange your own guts on Sukuna's dick. “Please cum– I’m sorry, so so sorry for throwing you out the wind-AH!” You shiver as you felt Sukuna slap your ass, his eyes following how a red mark slowly started to imprint itself onto your skin. “What was that?” He mocked, voice condescending as he leaned forward, his chest flush almost flush against your back. “Say that again.”

“I'm sorry for throwing you out the window!” You repeat, moaning and gripping at the sheets as you feel Sukuna angle his hips to fuck you deeper, harder.

“Yeah, you better— fuck, you better be.” Sukuna continued to pound into you, twitching as he felt your pussy spasm around him. His breath was hot and heavy above you and you could feel your eyes roll to the back of your head as his other cock was slapping up against your clit again and again. “Take my fucking cum, take it since you’ve learned your lesson you brat–”

In a second, you could feel warmth start to flood your insides, making your pussy flutter and cum around his girth with a strangled cry. The pleasure was overwhelming, white-hot and so fucking good. Sukuna growled and grunted as his hips continued to fuck his cum deeper into you, cock throbbing with every shot of his seed pooling into you. There was just so much, enough to start leaking out your pussy along with your slick.

You were distantly aware of the cum sticking to your stomach and the couch, but your muddy, post-orgasm brain had barely adjusted when Sukuna's voice had cut through the haze. Unforgiving.

“You think we’re done? I haven’t even gotten my second dick wet yet.”

A.N. I was projecting my breeding kink a bit. Woops

[be4chywritez]

you again? | quinn hughes

quinn hughes x fem!reader

After a disastrous first date, you and Quinn Hughes think you’ll never see each other again—until he shows up in your office… as your newest therapy client.

recs are open + prompt list

beachy’s masterlist🐚

THIS IS MY WORK AND MY WORK ONLY. I DO NOT GIVE CONSENT TO ANY FORM OF “REWRITING” MY FICS

You agree to the date because your friend swears he’s normal.

“You’d like him,” she says. “He’s low-key. Dry humor. No red flags. And he’s hot. But like… tired hot.”

“Tired hot?”

“You’ll see.”

The app profile is vague. One picture—blurry, probably a cropped group photo. Bio says:

Hockey. Golf. Mostly quiet. Good at Mario Kart.

You message him because the Mario Kart line makes you laugh. He replies ten minutes later.

Only if you pick Yoshi. Anyone else is a war crime.

You meet him at a little place you like—a bar with decent food and mercifully low lighting. He’s ten minutes late, and when he walks in, he looks…

You squint.

He looks like he got hit by a truck, reversed over, and then forced to do media availability. His hoodie is slightly damp. His eyes are red-rimmed. He has the audacity to sniffle.

“Hi,” he says, voice rough. “Quinn.”

You blink. “You’re sick.”

“I’m not contagious.”

“Right.”

“I took DayQuil.”

“...Okay.”

You both sit.

It goes downhill immediately.

You ask normal questions. He answers in fragments.

“So, are you from around here originally?”

“Michigan. But I live here now.”

“What brought you to Vancouver?”

“Hockey.”

You sip your drink. “Right. Of course.”

He nods, sniffling.

“You play professionally?” you ask, just to clarify.

He glances at you. “Yeah. Canucks.”

“Oh. I don’t really follow hockey.”

“That’s fine.”

Silence.

You try again. “So besides that... what do you do for fun?”

He shrugs. “Not much. Golf in the offseason.”

You wait.

That’s it. That’s the whole sentence.

He reaches for his water and knocks over the salt shaker.

You press your lips together. “You know, we could reschedule.”

“I’m already here.”

“You’re clearly not feeling great.”

“I didn’t want to be a flake.”

“That’s very noble of you,” you say flatly, and he huffs a quiet breath that might be a laugh.

You spend the next ten minutes trying to scrape a conversation out of someone who answers like he’s being cross-examined in court.

Eventually, you set your fork down.

“This isn’t working, is it?”

He looks up, startled. “What?”

“This. Us. The date. It’s not going well.”

He opens his mouth. Pauses. Then nods. “No. I guess not.”

You sigh. “Okay. I’m gonna go.”

“I’ll get the check.”

You blink. “Seriously?”

“I feel bad. You came out.”

You glance at him, and for a moment—just a second—you feel sorry for him. The hoodie. The puffy eyes. The way he keeps rubbing the side of his neck like he’s thinking hard about something he’ll never say.

But then he adds: “You ask questions like you’re a therapist or something.”

You raise your eyebrows. “I am a therapist.”

His face does a weird thing—like his brain short circuits and he reboots mid-sentence. “Oh. Shit. That makes sense.”

You stare at him. “Good night, Quinn.”

Two weeks later, your receptionist pokes her head into your office.

“New intake just arrived. Quinn H., 2:30 p.m.”

You freeze.

“No,” you say automatically.

She tilts her head. “No?”

“No,” you repeat, pulling up the intake form. “That can’t be right.”

You read the form. Referral: E. Pettersson Presenting concern: Work-related stress. Generalized anxiety. Difficulty with emotional processing. Client: Quinn Hughes.

You close your laptop and stare at the wall.

A minute later, there’s a knock on your door.

You don’t look up when you say, “Come in.”

You do look up when he says: “Are you serious?”

He’s standing in the doorway, arms crossed, looking like someone just told him he has to retake the SATs.

You stare back. “I could say the same thing.”

He runs a hand through his hair. “Petey said you were good.”

You sit straighter. “Elias sent you to me?”

“Yeah. He’s worried about me or whatever.”

“I mean… fair.”

He glances up. “You gonna refer me out?”

You pause. “Do you want me to?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can’t treat someone I’ve had a personal relationship with.”

Quinn snorts. “We went on one date and hated each other.”

You nod. “True. Still personal.”

He looks at the wall. Then back at you. “I just— I don’t really want to start over.”

You sigh. “You could’ve led with that.”

“Not really my style.”

You hesitate. Think. One session. One session won’t kill you.

“Alright,” you say. “Let’s try. One session.”

He sits, awkward in the chair, like it might bite him. “So what now?”

You fold your hands in your lap. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”

He talks more than you expected. Not easily—but once he gets going, it’s like he can’t stop. He talks about pressure. About expectations. About how he gets stuck in his own head. About never feeling good enough even when he is good enough. About how sometimes he feels invisible, and sometimes he wishes he was.

You say very little. You let the silence do its work.

At the end of the session, he stands slowly, almost reluctant.

“That wasn’t terrible,” he says.

You give him a bland look. “High praise.”

He huffs a laugh. “You’re still kind of annoying.”

You smile sweetly. “And you’re still emotionally repressed.”

Quinn pauses at the door.

“Hey,” he says. “I didn’t mean that thing I said. On the date. About you analyzing everything.”

You shrug. “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not.” He shifts on his feet. “You were just trying to be nice. I was... sick. And stressed. And kind of a dick.”

You nod once. “Apology accepted.”

He clears his throat. “So, uh. See you next week?”

You smile. “Same time.”

Quinn’s slumped in your office chair, head tilted back, arms crossed. He's staring at the ceiling like he’s trying to count how many ways he’s trapped in his own head.

“I don’t get it,” he mutters. “Why is it still like this? I’ve done what you said—I've tried journaling, I’ve been getting sleep, I even stopped reading Reddit.”

You blink. “Wow. That one must’ve hurt.”

He gives you a weak smirk. “Little bit.”

You nod slowly. “Alright. You want to try something different?”

He looks at you. “Different how?”

“Out-of-office different.”

Quinn squints. “Like... a field trip?”

“Not officially,” you say. “But yeah. Come with me. I want you to try something.”

Fifteen minutes later, you’re standing outside a strip mall building with blacked-out windows and a fluorescent sign that says: “Rage Room.”

Quinn looks at the door. Then back at you. “You’re kidding.”

You don’t blink. “Nope.”

“You want me to hit stuff?”

“I want you to let go of things without overthinking them.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Is this even—like—allowed?”

“Ethically? Not ideal,” you admit. “But you said you didn’t want to start over. So you get me. And I say you need to get out of your own head before you spiral into another three-day silent shame cycle.”

He huffs a breath. “You’re weird.”

You smile. “You’re avoidant.”

The rage room smells like old rubber and drywall. A speaker’s blasting 2000s emo music at an almost disrespectful volume. A wall of bats, crowbars, and sledgehammers hangs like a weapons rack in a zombie movie.

Quinn’s in a beat-up hoodie and safety goggles, staring at a pile of breakables like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

You hand him a metal pipe. “Start small. Smash something.”

He hesitates. “Like what?”

You gesture to the row of ceramic mugs lined up on a folding table. “Pick your least favorite and commit a crime.”

He gives you a look. “You get weirder every week.”

“You get quieter.”

He walks up to the table, lifts the pipe, and smashes a mug with one clean, decisive swing.

It shatters like a tiny explosion. Glass skitters everywhere.

You wait.

“…Okay,” he mutters. “That was kind of satisfying.”

You grin. “There it is.”

Twenty minutes later, Quinn has completely entered his rage era.

He’s sweating, muttering under his breath between swings. You only catch bits and pieces—some unholy mix of “fucking power play,” “media bullshit,” and “Jack gets away with this stuff.”

He’s wrecked three keyboards, a set of old plates, and a plastic printer you brought from home that’s been jamming since April.

And finally, finally, when he stops—breathing heavy, shoulders tense—he leans back against the wall and lets out a sound that’s somewhere between a groan and a laugh.

You pass him a bottle of water. He takes it, still catching his breath.

“That helped more than I want to admit,” he says.

You sit next to him, cross-legged on the padded floor. “Then why don’t you want to admit it?”

He shrugs. “It’s dumb.”

You tilt your head. “It’s not. It's physical release. Unfiltered emotion. No expectations. You don’t have to explain yourself.”

He’s quiet for a second. Then he says, “I think that’s the part I’m bad at. Not being explainable.”

You blink. That’s… unexpectedly honest.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I’m not loud. Or charismatic. I don’t want to be interviewed. I don’t want to sell myself. I just want to be good at what I do.” He pauses. “But everyone’s always trying to tell a story about me.”

You nod slowly. “So you feel like you’re not allowed to write your own.”

He glances at you. “Yeah. Exactly.”

You let the silence settle between you for a second.

Then, gently, you ask, “So what story would you write?”

He snorts. “You always do this.”

“Do what?”

“Turn one good moment into a pop quiz.”

You smile. “I call it ‘holding space.’ You call it ‘being a pain in the ass.’”

“Both can be true,” he mumbles.

You nudge his arm. “Come on. Try.”

He sighs. Looks down at the dented metal bat in his hands.

“I think…” he starts, slowly, “...I’d write that I’m trying. Even if it doesn’t look like it. Even if I fuck it up. I’m still trying.”

You look at him for a long second. “That’s a good story.”

He shrugs, glancing away. “No one wants to hear that one.”

“I do.”

It’s out before you can stop it.

He blinks. His face shifts—something between surprised and soft.

You clear your throat. “Professionally speaking.”

“Right,” he says quickly. “Obviously.”

Another beat of silence.

“…But seriously,” he says, “this was good.”

You nod. “Next time we do yoga.”

He groans. “No thanks. That feels like a Jack thing.”

You grin. “Exactly.”

You walk out together. It’s raining lightly, just misty enough to make your clothes cling.

He stops at his car, hesitating before opening the door.

Then: “Hey.”

You turn.

“Thank you.”

You nod. “You’re welcome.”

Quinn’s quiet for a second. Then, very softly, “I don’t think I hated our first date as much as I acted like I did.”

Your breath catches.

You try to play it cool. “Because of me? Or the DayQuil?”

He laughs—low, real. “A little of both.”

“Noted.”

He opens his door.

“You’re still not allowed to flirt with your therapist,” you call after him.

“I know,” he says. But he smiles anyway.

Quinn stops coming to your sessions after the rage room.

At first, it’s just a reschedule.

“Practice ran late.”

Then a last-minute cancellation. “Bit of a travel day mess. Can we push to next week?”

Then nothing.

You try not to take it personally.

You’re a professional. You have to be. You remind yourself of this while reading over your clinical notes, chewing your pen cap like it might bite back.

Still, you can’t help but notice the shift.

He’s not just skipping therapy. He’s avoiding you.

Which—fine. It makes sense. The line got blurry. He opened up, got comfortable, probably caught himself too late. That happens sometimes.

But what bugs you isn’t that he stopped coming.

It’s that he didn’t say goodbye.

Three weeks pass.

You try to forget about him, but then Jack Hughes goes viral for doing donuts in a golf cart, and it’s all over your For You page.

Quinn’s in the background of the video, arms crossed, trying not to smile, and your stomach flips like you swallowed a rock.

You set your phone down and say—out loud, to your empty apartment— “Get a grip.”

It’s nearly 7 p.m. on a rainy Thursday when you hear a knock on your office door.

You glance at the clock. You don’t have anyone booked this late.

You open it slowly, cautiously.

Quinn’s standing there in a baseball cap and a hoodie like he thinks he’s undercover. His expression is unreadable.

“Hey,” he says.

You stare at him. “Are you lost?”

He huffs a soft laugh. “Kinda.”

You lean against the doorframe. “You’ve missed three sessions.”

“I know.”

“You didn’t even email.”

“I know,” he says again.

You pause. “You okay?”

He looks down. “Not really.”

You step back. “Come in.”

He doesn’t sit on the couch. He hovers, fidgeting with the hem of his hoodie like he’s not sure he should be here.

You let the silence stretch until it starts to fray.

Finally, he says, “I think you should refer me out.”

Your heart sinks.

“Oh,” you say, trying to sound neutral. “Okay. That’s fair. If you think someone else would be a better fit—”

“I don’t,” he cuts in. “You’re—you’re a good fit. That’s the problem.”

You blink. “Sorry?”

He drags a hand down his face. “I liked talking to you. Too much.”

You stare at him.

His voice gets quieter. “And then after the rage room… it didn’t feel like therapy anymore.”

You try to steady yourself. “We’ve kept clear boundaries—”

“I know,” he says quickly. “You’ve been... great. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“But you did?”

“No, I just—” he stops, frustrated. “I couldn’t keep pretending it didn’t feel like something else.”

Something thick swells in your chest.

He finally meets your eyes. “I couldn’t come back in here and keep pretending I didn’t want to see you outside of this room.”

You don’t say anything. You can’t.

“Look,” he continues, his voice shaking slightly, “I don’t want to mess this up, and I don’t want to put you in a weird spot, but I— I want to try again. I want to go on a real date. With you. No DayQuil. No pretending it didn’t happen. Just... you and me.”

You let out a slow breath. “You understand the rules, right?”

He nods. “Six months. After termination.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You looked it up?”

He shrugs. “I looked a lot of things up.”

You stare at him. You think about your ethics board. You think about your job. You think about the way he looked in that rage room—focused, present, real—and the way his laugh got stuck in your throat after he thanked you. The way your fingers itched to reach for him and didn’t.

And you think: maybe it’s okay to want something, too.

You exhale. “Alright.”

Quinn blinks. “Wait—really?”

“I’ll refer you out. To someone I trust. And if you still want to try... after the required time... I’ll consider it.”

His eyes flicker with something bright. “You’ll consider it?”

You smirk. “You have to earn your second date.”

He grins, small and honest. “Fair.”

He stands to go.

At the door, he pauses. Looks over his shoulder.

“Hey,” he says softly. “For what it’s worth... I think I got better. Not fixed. But better. Because of you.”

Your throat tightens. “Thank you.”

Quinn nods once. “See you when I’m legally allowed to flirt with you.”

“Countdown starts now.”

[hey-ol-soul]

FL and TX and semi-frequent festival goer here! Adding to OP's point about Going from low temp to high temp, HIGH TO LOW IS JUST AS BAD. Again! Try to be gradual. Water on your wrists, behind your jaw, in your hair, whatever. Hell if you need to drench yourself in ROOM-TEMP water to cool down, sure. But (especially if you're about to drive or something) do NOT chug or dump an ice water, then BLAST your AC right into your face.

It WILL leave you disoriented due to the sudden shift. While this is not true temp-shock, it's certainly not great and being disoriented for even a moment in the heat like that will leave you nauseous and sick, and may impair you for a few seconds to a few hours.

Even a small amount of distraction can be the difference between health and sickness, and sickness in record-high temps is BAD.

If you get sick, you cannot properly protect yourself from the heat for maybe a day or so, maybe longer. That day or so of improper care can make you sicker. And then begins a VICIOUS cycle.

Room-temp water (MAYBE an ice cube on the face) on vital points (wrists are quick to cool you down), let your car get to about mid-temp, then get in and gradually shift it to cold.

—

Also, yes!!! Dump water on yourself! I don't care if you're wearing a white top and it's your only clothing. Immodesty is still better than being sick or dead! And don't be afraid to do the same for kids, pets, and even peers. Dump. The. Water.

Have their head beneath the stream of water, and MAKE SURE it gets to the back of their neck NO MATTER what. Crown of their head, back of their neck, and cover any other surface area you can. Thighs in jeans is a bad idea, it can lead to burns and pain (even if you don't get a sunburn, the heat is unbearable).

—

No pool and you have active kids? Just fine. Clean out and line a trash bin (the big green or blue ones) with a bag and fill it with water. Play in a hose or sprinkler. Water balloons. Those water shooters work just fine for outdoor water fights. They all provide some cool water for your younger ones.

—

Now, while the days can be hot, the nights are a toss-up. They can be lukewarm-hot to absolutely frigid. Please be very careful and try to get inside no later than 45 minutes after sun-down if you can. The night is blissfully MUCH easier to manage, but they're still nightmares.

If it's warm or hot? It should still be much cooler. You can generally relax and drink water that's mid-temp to cold. If it's cold, make sure you keep a jacket with you in your car or bag. Cold summer nights are no joke during hot seasons, and especially if you've had to cool down with external water at ANY point in the day, it can quickly make you sick.

Unsure? Keep a jacket in your belongings and only use as necessary. If your weather is as erratic as the southeast states, you know that jackets and umbrellas are your best friends year-round.

—

Please stay safe out there this summer!

For all of the northerners that stood up for Texas during our freeze and said, "Don't make fun of them, they've never dealt with this before. Their infrastructure isn't made for snow and freezing."

This one is for you.

Where I live 108°F with 80% humidity with no wind is normal.

Pacific North West is dealing historic best waves 35-40°C or 95-105°F.

First of all. Don't make fun of them for bitching about the heat. Just like Texas isn't built for a freeze and our pipes burst, Pacific North West isn't built for heat and a lot of their homes don't have AC.

If you live somewhere with a high humidity like 80+ HUMIDITY IS NOT YOUR FRIEND. The "humidity makes it feel cooler" is a lie once it gets beyond a point.

If you live somewhere with a lower humidity, misters are nice to cool off outside.

Once you get over 90°F (32°C) a fan will not help you. It's just pushing around hot air. (I mean if you can't afford a small AC unit because they're expensive as hell, by all means a fan is better than nothing).

If you have pets, those portable AC units aren't safe. If your pets destroy the outtake thing, it'll leak CO2. Window units are safer.

Window AC units will let mosquitoes or other small bugs in. Sucks, but that's life.

Now is not the time to me modest. If you have to cover for religious reasons, by all means. If you don't, I've seen people wear short shorts and a swim top. It's not trashy if it keeps you from getting heat stroke.

If you do have to cover up for religious reasons, look for elephant pants or something similar. They're made with a breathable material.

Shade is better than no shade, but that shit it just diet sun after some point. Don't think shade will save you from heat stroke.

I know the "drink your water" is a fun meme now, but if you're sweating excessively you need electrolytes. Drink Gatorade, Powerade, or Pedialite PLEASE. I don't care if you're fucking sitting in one spot all day. That shit WILL save you from heat stroke.

Most importantly. RESEARCH THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HEAT STROKE AND HEAT EXHAUSTION PLEASE!

If you're diabetic and can't drink Gatorade, mix water, fruit juice, and either lite salt or pink salt

If you can afford it, cover windows with thick curtains to insulate the house

If you have tile floors, lay on them with skin to tile contact. If you don't, laying your head on cool counters works too.

If the temperature where you're at is hotter than your body temperature, don't wear heat wicking clothing. Moisture wicking is safe though.

Check your medication labels. Many make you more susceptible to sun and heat

-Room temperature water will get into your body faster. This is something I learned doing marching band in high summer in Georgia, and it saved all of our asses. Sip it, don't gulp it, especially if you're getting into the red; same goes for whatever fluid you're drinking. And just in general drink during the day.

-If you are moving from an air conditioned space to an un-air conditioned space, if at all possible try to make the shift gradual. When my dad and I were working outside and in un-ac houses a few years ago, he'd turn the air down to low in the truck about ten-fifteen minutes before we got where we were going. This way your body doesn't go from low low temps to high temps. S'bad for you.

-If you can, keep your lights off during the day. Light bulbs may not generate a lot of heat, but the difference is noticeable when it gets hot enough. I literally only turn my bedroom light on in the evening when it gets too dark.

Don't be afraid to just like... pour water on yourself if you need to. The evaporation will cool you off.

Put your hand to the cement for 15 seconds. If you can't handle the heat, it'll burn your dog's paws. Don't let them walk on it.

Dogs with flat faces are more prone to heat stroke. Don't leave them out unsupervised.

Frozen fruit is delicious in water.

Wet/Cold hat/handkerchief on your head/neck will help you stay cool.

Pickle juice is great for electrolytes! You can even make pickle juice Popsicles!

Heat exhaustion is more, "drink water and get you cooled off." Heat stroke is more "Oh my god call 911."

Image Description provided by @loveize

[Image description: an infographic showing the difference between heat exhaustion and heat stroke. The graphic is labeled "Heat Dangers: First Warning." Signs of heat exhaustion: faint or dizzy, excessive sweating, cool, pale, clammy skin, rapid, weak pulse, muscle cramps. If you think you or someone else may be experiencing heat exhaustion, get to a cool, air-conditioned place, drink water if conscious, and take a cool shower or use cold compress. Signs of heat stroke: throbbing headache, no sweating, red, hot, dry skin, rapid, strong pulse, may lose consciousness. If you think you or someone else may be experiencing heat stroke, call 911. End description]

Be safe.

-fae

[mzyjxu]

࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧࿔࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧࿔࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧࿔࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧࿔࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧࿔࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧

“i'll be fine, torururu,” you declared with a smug little smile, adjusting the strap of your silver heels as you admired yourself in the mirror. the pink satin dress hugged your body perfectly with the fabric softly adoring over the gentle swell of your belly, seven months along now and still refusing to give up glamor.

“darling, please. just wear the flats,” satoru asked gently, voice low but firm behind you. “it’s going to hurt later.”

you pouted instantly, the kind of dramatic expression that always made his heart clench. “nooo, i feel ugly in those.” your voice cracked, just a little, weighted with hormones. you already felt so swollen, so exhausted all the damn time, and now when you are actually feeling pretty he is asking you to wear shoes that will ruin everything? didn’t he get it?

satoru sighs

to him, ugly isn’t even a real word when it comes to you. you are stunning. tired, yes. moody, sure. but you are glowing. radiant and growing an entire human being inside your beautifully crafted frame, and somehow still worried about shoes.

he hated it — not you, never you — but the way pregnancy was seen as light work by the world. the way even you downplayed it. he saw everything. the sleepless nights. the morning sickness all the when times you flinched without realizing. and all he wanted to do was make it easier, not just for the baby, but for you.

“baby…” he tried again, softer now.

but your pout deepened.

so goddamned cute you are stubborn. brilliant, compassionate, infuriatingly headstrong. you would take a hundred people’s advice, nod sweetly and then do exactly what you wanted. should he fake a migraine? maybe pretend to spill something on your dress? anything to get you out of those heels. but he cant, tonight is important, it is your hospital’s donation gala, a celebration of a new pediatric wing and as one of the lead doctors, your presence is expected.

he sighed, resigned. “okay. let’s go.”

you turned toward the door with a triumphant little bounce, smug grin in full bloom. “hmph. i’m not a baby. i can walk just fine. told ya.” you mumbled it under your breath like a secret you wanted him to hear.

he watched your small, proud frame walk ahead, hypnotized by your swaying hips, pink satin swishing, heels clicking. nearly groaning at the sight, chest aching.

it took everything in him not to scoop you up right there and never let you walk a step. he clenched his jaw, pretending to look unimpressed, fighting off a wave of affection so overwhelming it felt like pain.

she’s going to regret those shoes.

࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧࿔࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧࿔࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧࿔࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧࿔࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧࿔࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧

it had only been an hour.

just long enough to make your rounds, greet the board members, smile at every second cousin of the hospital’s chief donor, introducing your husband to the professors and compliment three different resident doctors on their choice of dress.

and now, your knees are screaming.

you shifted your weight, again. one foot, then the other. the pain is no longer polite, it was sharp, hot, crawling up your calves. you try to smile through the ache.

satoru was watching.

of course he was.

he stepped a little closer, voice low near your ear. “how is your feet?”

you looked up.

the answer was silent- just your eyes, wide and glassy, like you were trying to stay brave but the edges were softening. a tiny shake of your head.

he didn’t speak.

he just looked at you. then, without a word, slid one arm beneath your knees, the other around your back, and lifted you clean off the ground.

there were gasps. a few laughs. some ‘aww’s but he didn’t look at them.

only at you.

“thank you all,” he said gently, as he nodded to your colleagues. “she’s had enough for tonight.” they said their bye’s while nodding understandingly.

and then he carried you out.

the ride home was silent, his jaw was tight. one on the steering wheel, one gently rubbing your thigh.

he wasn’t yelling. he wasn’t angry. just silent.

silent because you hadn’t listened, because you treated yourself like someone who wasn’t worth protecting.

at home, he helped you out of the car, carried you again up the stairs, into the apartment, and the bathroom. still wordless. he changes your clothes and takes your heels off.

you sat on the closed toilet seat while he filled a basin with warm water, rolled up his sleeves, and knelt before you.

“satoru—”

nothing. he dipped the towel, wrung it gently, and began pressing it to your swollen feet.

he massaged your ankles with firm tenderness on your exact spots as he knows them like the back of his hand. his fingers were gentle, but his silence was heavy.

you hesitantly start. “i just wanted to look nice.”

no answer.

“i didn’t mean to push it. i just…”

you bit your lip. the tears snuck up on you, hot and humbling. you turned your face away, but your shoulders betrayed you, shaking with the quiet sobs of guilt and exhaustion.

his hands stilled.

“oh no. no, no, no. baby.” his voice cracked as he leaned up, cupping your face, brushing the tears with the pads of his thumbs. “don’t cry. please don’t cry.”

“i wasn’t trying to be reckless,” you hiccuped. “i just wanted to be…pretty.” cheeks smashed against his chest.

“you’re always pretty baby always my goddess.” he kissed your forehead. “you don’t have to prove anything to anyone. especially not to me, never for me.”

you nodded, breath shaky.

he stood up, kissed your nose, your cheeks, the corner of your lips. then scooped you up again, bridal style, and carried you to the couch.

“feet up. cat on your lap. ice cream on the way.”

you sniffled. “silent treatment over?”

he grinned down at you, a little ashamed, then finally. “only if you promise no more heels till the baby’s in kindergarten.”

“deal,” you whispered.

lady purrshia jumped onto your lap, purring like she knew everything had been fixed while silently scolding you.

࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧࿔࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧࿔࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧࿔࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧࿔࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧࿔࿔‧ ֶָ֢˚˖𐦍˖˚ֶָ֢ ‧

[myf1ficlog]

Sleeping In

Pairing: Lance Stroll x established gf!reader Summary: It's the first morning of summer break, and Lance wants you to stay in bed. Warnings: fluff, smut, creampie, unprotected sex, p in v, light nipple play, oral (f receiving), face riding. A/N: This was originally supposed to be just fluff based on All Time Low's Sleeping In, but my brain had other ideas. I also don't write fanfic very often, but Lance has me particularly inspired, especially since there is not a lot of fics featuring our favorite Canadian. Barely proofread. WC: 1.9k

These were your favorite kinds of mornings. The sun coming in from behind your curtains, curled up under your duvet, and him. The first morning of the summer break, and Lance curled nearly around you in bed together, his arm across you, holding you to his chest, his legs tangled in yours.

You moved to get up, to at least draw the curtains back a bit and let in more sunlight, trying to slip out from under Lance’s arm but it tightened around you as he started to wake up. 

“No. Stay” he grumbled into your neck, voice gravely with sleep. 

You instead turned over in bed to face your boyfriend, studying his face as he continued to lay there, basking in your presence. 

You rested a hand against his jaw and he turned his face into your palm to kiss it, his eyes still closed. Your heart tightened, a simple kiss, but you loved him for it all the same. You loved these mornings. 

Quiet. Warm. Full. 

Waking up together with Lance in your shared apartment was not as regular as you ever wanted it to be, but it made the mornings you had with him even more special. Sure, he came home between races when the travel made sense, and you spent race weekends with him when your work schedule allowed, but there was nothing like waking up together in the place you both called home.

”Lance, I have to get up,” you whispered, your thumb stroking his jawline, feeling the stubble under your skin, looking at him, recommitting his face to memory. “It’s a Tuesday morning”

Lance’s eyes fluttered open, his gaze finding yours, his grip on your hip tightening and he pouted. You chuckled lightly as he stuck out his lower lip. “Call in sick, reschedule your appointments, order groceries for delivery, whatever you have to do can wait. Stay here with me, we get so few of these mornings” 

You leaned in and kissed him, Lance immediately pressing his tongue to open your lips, and you let him. Slow and sensual, you kissed, savoring in his warmth, his taste. 

“Only if you get me that mini Fernando helmet I’ve been eyeing” you grin as you pull away. Lance fake gasps, grabbing the pillow you had been sleeping on and throwing it at you with no real force behind it as your laughs peals across the bedroom. 

“I see how it is, only using me to get closer to my teammate. I should have spotted it sooner” Lance smirks and pulls you on top of him, his hands on your hips to steady you. A silence falls over you, comfortable and warm, as you run a hand through Lance’s dark hair, nails lightly scraping at his scalp, and Lance looks up at you, his dark eyes dancing in the morning light. 

“I love you” he says, almost reverently, “I can’t wait to marry you one day” 

Your heart jumps to your throat, tears come to your eyes as you are so overwhelmed with emotion. You don’t know what it is about this moment, why it feels so poignant and tender, but you lean down and kiss Lance again, moving your lips against each other, slow, deliberately. 

It doesn’t last long, the kiss deepens from both of you, tongues moving against the other, and you roll your hips once. It’s enough for Lance to moan into your mouth and you feel him starting to harden beneath you in his boxers. 

His hands hold your hips still, and he starts to rock his hips up into you, breaking away from the kiss to moan into your neck. Your breath starts to come in short gasps, feeling yourself warm with every press of Lance’s cock against your covered cunt.

You sit up and grab at the hem of the shirt you were wearing: the plain tee Lance had been wearing when he got home last night that you had unceremoniously thrown to the floor as you had practically humped each other like horny teens, falling into bed unceremoniously, desperate for each others touch after several weeks apart. Lance watched your hands as you pulled the hem up, revealing your smooth skin inch by inch, his eyes following your hands up and up. You pull the shirt over your head, revealing your body in full and Lance’s hands leave your hips and immediately grab your breasts. 

“Fuck, baby, you’re so sexy” Lance kneads at your breast, his thumbs running over your nipples and you gasp. 

Lance smirks "Sensitive this morning, eh?” As he does it again. 

You lean back slightly, your arms behind you resting on his thighs “you weren’t exactly gentle with them last nigh—“ you gasp again barely finishing your sentence as Lance pinches and rolls your nipples between his fingers. 

You moan as Lance continues to pull and pinch at your nipples, heat continuing to build in your core as you rock your hips against Lance. Your world narrows to Lance’s hands on your tits, and the feeling of rocking your pussy against Lance.

“That’s it baby, I love hearing you moan just touching you like this. You could come just from this couldn’t you? So fucking sensitive” 

You whimper and nod, your nails digging into his thighs. 

“Come here” Lance grabs your hips suddenly and drags you forward, pulling you towards his face. “Sit” he commands, pulling you down. 

You gasp as Lance pulls your underwear to the side and licks through your folds, not bothering to tease you, both past that already, as he moans into your cunt.

“Lance” you cry out, your hands flying to his hair, grabbing on as your boyfriend teases your clit with his tongue, flicking it back and forth with a steady rhythm. 

“I’ve fucking missed this, missed you, dripping on my face” Lance growls, his fingers coming to tease your cunt, collecting the wetness dripping out of you before pushing two fingers in.

You cry out and close your eyes, your head tipping back as you continue to moan and gasp as Lance laps at your clit.

“Baby, look at me,” he moans, and you look down at Lance, your hand still gripping at his hair, his eyes dark with lust, his nose and lips shiny with your wetness. “Fucking ride my face, I want you to come all over me,” he growls out, his voice deep and wrecked with lust. 

“Oh god,” you whimper out as your grip in his hair tightens, keeping eye contact with Lance as you start rocking your hips down onto his tongue. You struggle to keep your eyes open as pleasure starts to take over. You feel hot and icy at the same time, the pressure in your clit building as your hips start to move faster, more frantic. Lance’s muffled moans come with increasing frequency, never breaking eye contact with him. 

“Lance– I’m gonna– fuck— FUCK” you scream as the pressure comes to a breaking point, your orgasm ripping through you, wetness gushing from you onto Lance’s face as you clench around nothing, your clit pulsing like it has a heartbeat of its own. 

You flop off of Lance, throwing an arm over your face as you pant, trying to catch your breath. Lance grabs your cheek, turning your face to him and catching you in a kiss immediately, tasting yourself on his tongue as you make out. He kissed you like you were going to disappear into thin air, hungry and messy.

“We’re not done”

Lance pulls away just enough to push his own boxers down and off, before grabbing at the underwear you still had on, pulling them down as well and tossing them across the room. “Stupid, I don’t even know why we wear them when we’re home together” Lance mutters and you laugh as he settles in behind you on the bed.

“I like looking cute, babe”

“They’re cute but I like you better full of me” Lance breathes against your neck as he lifts your thigh up and over his hip as you reach behind you to guide him inside. You both gasp as the tip of his cock breaches your entrance.

“Please, more baby, please” you beg as Lance stills, his lips against the back of your neck.

“Fuck, how do you feel even better than last night? I can’t believe how much I missed you,” Lance kisses your neck as he starts to press in more, slow, as if he was afraid to hurt you.

You grab at his arm that he placed beneath your neck, his forearm across your chest as he finally, finally presses all the way in. The moan you let out as he bottoms out in you is deep and gutteral. “Lance, please, I need you, please fuck me” you beg again, the fullness of Lance in you forcing all other thoughts out of your head. 

Lance shifts his hips, pulling out, before pressing back in. It’s slower and softer than last night. “I just need to feel you” he breathes, keeping his pace steady.

He’s everywhere, behind you, one arm wrapped around you grabbing your shoulder, the other making its way to your clit to rub slow and soft circles, matching the tempo of his hips.

“I love you, fuck you feel so good, so full of my cock,” Lance moans into your ear as his hips start to move faster. You felt the molten pressure starting to build again, your thigh trying to close around his hand, still pressing against your clit.

He grabbed your thigh and pulled you back open, the arm wrapped around your front moving so his hand was against your throat, not pressing or squeezing, but there, strong, holding you in place, a gentle pressure

“Come on sweetheart, come for me again, drench this cock, I want to fill you”

You moan at his words and Lance’s hips speed up.

“You like that, huh? Me filling you up, keeping this pussy full of my cum, keep you full the entire break,” he groans as his hips start to stutter

“Yes, Lance– please fill me– I need your cum in me– fucking claim me” you cry out and your thighs try to close again as your orgasm rips through you. “LANCE” you scream as you clench around his cock, and you feel Lance’s groan in his chest against your back, as you feel his cum shoot into your pussy, the hot pulses coating your walls. 

You lay there as you both came down from your climaxes, catching your breath, Lance still inside you as he pressed a kiss to your shoulder. He slowly pulled out, and you whimpered softly at the sudden loss of the stretch of him. 

You rolled over before he could get up to get a damp cloth to clean you both, catching his lips in a soft and slow kiss. You rested your forehead against his, eyes closed, just feeling each other's breath, each other’s hearts.. 

“I love you” you exhale. Lance kisses you again, tucking a piece of your hair behind your ear, before getting up and walking to the restroom. You watch him walk away, admiring the view before rolling onto your back and calling out, “You get to explain to my boss why I’m calling in to work today”

He laughs from the bathroom, his deep chuckle settling in your chest with warmth. “You think he wants a video or a picture of you on your knees from last night?”

“You’re terrible” you cackle from the bed.

“And you love me”

And you do, you do love him.

[katscki]

hiiii it’s me 🌷 currently obsessing over kats using my throat as long as he wants :3

also random but do u think he’s a titties or ass guy ? i really can’t decide im leaning more towards titties but idkkkk!

Omg

Sex Hcs for bkg

He would loveeeee when you lay down on the bed asking him to fuck your throat. He could never ask you himself because he doesn’t want to hurt you but when you ask… one hand is on your tit and the other is feeling him fuck your mouth through your neck. He loves it even more when you spread your legs to play with your pretty pussy while he does it, gives him a show.

He loves every single part of you but I believe he is an ass man through and through. It all started back in your third year when he began to have a crush on you. He noticed all the little things and that lead to him staring at where your perfect legs met your uniform skirt, dying to see what underwear you had over your gorgeous ass. He was a very respectful boy but he couldn’t help tilting his head a little bit as you walked away trying to get a good view.

Speaking of third year, you were his first everything. So when you finally made out for the first time and he got two handfuls of your ass? He was a mess.

He loves watching your pretty pussy stretch around his cock then looking up at your half lidded eyes that beg him to keep going. And once his thumb finds your clit they flutter closed in the most beautiful way.

He’s a slut for dirty talk, he knows that you can’t really respond to him, just moan out his name. And that’s why he loves it so much. It makes you make the noises he’s addicted to and your cunt tighten up around him. “Yeah~ that’s it baby… look so fuckin perfect under me. Feel good sweet girl?” All to have you nod uncontrollably.

He can get off on the sounds you make alone, nothing even has to touch his dick but when you’re moaning so sweetly it’s like the cum is already dripping from his cock. However It becomes a problem when you’re sitting in the common room just stretching out and then moan a little, the poor boy is so fucking hard and all it took was a little “ngh~” while your arms are above your head.

He would never tell you this but he knows exactly when you’re going to ovulate. As sad as it is he waits all month for this time because he knows that when he goes home you’re going to jump his bones and fuck him till he can’t speak. Waits at the agency all day like a teenager touching a girl for the first time. And he was right, when he got home you’re kissing him sweet nothings, asking about his day but not really caring. Then somehow you’re riding him right there on the floor. He loves when you ovulate because you force him to cum five times just to “make it stick Suki~”

As much as he wants to deny it, he was so horny when he was a teenager n when you get him in bed, it’s clear he tried to make up for lost time fucking you over and over again. He tries to have sex or at least make you cum once a day at least. Unless one of you is sick or he’s gone for work.

The first time he knew he wanted to marry you was when he came home to your shared apartment and found you in your room, wearing his hoodie moaning his name, as you plunged a dildo, that he got specially made to be like his dick, into you. Instantly he opens the door and comes over to you on his knees to eat you like a mf. Fucking you with the toy himself as he tongues at your clit.

All in all he is just fucking addicted to everything about you and wants to experience all the lovin you have to give.

[yoonmetogether]

I am unbelievably blown away by this masterpiece. It’s been 2 years since the last update but honestly I would wait 100 more to witness this astonishing ending. Like resurrect me from the dead.

Prepare to be sick of me as i go through this series again to atone for my sins of previously being a silent reader (i have since reformed 😔) i am ready to put myself back through the pain and the heartbreak and the 🥵 and the kneeling on the ground for asshole coworker min yoongi. Even though im 📯🧎🏻‍♀️for angst and drama, i love how you wrapped this up and showed the growth and transformation and healing of all of these incredibly dynamic characters and that yoongi and mc talked out their feelings and held themselves and each other accountable instead of fucking lol. the part where he showed up at her doorstep when he should've been at the grammys getting that well-deserved award had me in tears. i am so awestruck with your writing and story building truly a work of art!!!!

look down on me like that - 11 (explicit)

genre: slow burn enemies to lovers hatefucking coworkers au, smut, angst

pairing: yoongi x reader

summary: your asshole coworker min yoongi has made it his personal mission to ruin your life.

word count: 23.1k 🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️

contains: mentions of suicidal ideation, depression, panic attacks, therapy. many scenes featuring alcohol (naturally) and a brief weed-smoking interlude. a whole lot of tears!!! but also everyone heals, yay!! we have a lot of conversations about trauma and family/childhood shit and accountability!! also the scammys are back (boooo) - plus a smidge of phone sex ft. reader masturbating.... as a lil treat 🤪

A/N: i told y'all i was gonna fuck it shibal this out and here we are!!! omg omg omg. i don't have the words, but thank you for being here. thank you for waiting TWO YEARS. thank you for even caring at all about this insane story that has been rotting in my brain since 2023. i am so, so proud to bring you this final chapter. neither it nor i would be here today if it weren't for a metric truckload of support from my incredible friends/beta team/personal peanut gallery: @sailorsoons @moni-logues @eoieopda @daechwitatamic @jihopesjoint @yoongukie-ff - i don't know what i did right in a past life to end up cared for by such incredible humans. y'all mean everything to me.

read on AO3!

chapter ten | masterlist

~*~

It’s quiet in Yoongi’s studio. He’s slipped his headphones off, frustrated, and now lets them clatter onto the desk as he slumps back in his chair. He stares at the track on his monitor like it’s a puzzle he can’t figure out.

It hits him all at once: he’s tired. Tired of looping this shitty song over and over, playing with the mix, adding new layers just to delete them again, unable to make it into anything worth anyone’s time. He’s tired of working until his contacts sting in his eyes and exhaustion feels like it’s sunk right down to the marrow of his bones.

If he’s honest, he’s fucking tired of living like this.

Yoongi exhales hard and the sound feels deafening in the quiet of the room. The soundproofing is decent in here, but he knows even if he flung the door open and screamed down the hallway, there’d be nothing else to hear except the echo of his own voice.

And no one to hear it. He’s the only one left in the building, has been for hours.

An issued key to the front door glimmers on its ring, next to his half-drunk coffee. Hasn’t even been long enough for the polish on it to dull.

His whole life is so much quieter, lately. In a way, that’s what he wanted.

Or at least what he asked for.

Yoongi reaches a hand back to rub at his shoulder, trying to work out the dull ache that’s blooming there, mouth twisting into a half-grimace. All of his joints feel stiff from sitting still for so long– he told himself he’d only put one more hour in tonight, and that was two hours ago. He really should leave, but he knows full well that when he packs up his things, shuts the studio door behind him and heads for the exit, he’ll walk by a desk that’s sat empty for weeks now. He’ll get into a car that’s too quiet, glance over at a passenger seat with no one in it, then drive home to a dark apartment.

All this empty space. It didn’t used to bother him.

The downturn of his mouth flattens out again as his gaze refocuses on the screen in front of him. He doesn’t want to think anymore, about that, or anything else. Introspection never leads him anywhere productive. He wants to work, to get this fucking track done so he can go home.

He straightens his spine, stifles a yawn, reaches for his headphones and steels himself for another listen through. Maybe all the issues have magically worked themselves out, he thinks dryly, and then the sudden buzz of his phone against his desk makes him start a little.

The noise drags out long enough for him to realize someone is calling him– who the fuck is calling him?

With a huff of frustration, he grabs for it, and then his headphones are dropping out of his hand, missing the desk entirely and plummeting straight down to the carpet under his feet. In the moment, he’s not even sure he notices.

Not when the name on his phone screen has just knocked all the breath out of his lungs. Because, well, it’s you.

He never did change your contact name.

But why are you– fuck, isn’t it late in California? Or early?

Yoongi’s head spins as he tries to remember the math, and then it occurs to him that his phone’s been ringing in his hand the whole time and he’s probably running out of chances to–

At what feels like the last possible second, he taps the button to answer the call. Taps again to put it on speaker. Doesn’t say anything. What the fuck is he supposed to say? Hi? How’s it going? Do you hate me?

There’s a long pause on the other end, enough to make him wonder if you’re already regretting the decision to call. Or maybe this was an accidental dial from the inside of your purse, or the back pocket of your jeans, while you’re out enjoying your warm, sunny, new life.

If he’s honest, he’s having a hard time trying to conjure up a reason why you’d want to talk to him at all.

And then you’re heaving a sigh and murmuring, “‘Course you don’t have a fucking voicemail message.” 

Or at least that’s what he thinks he hears. The words all sort of run together.

But that’s your voice, unmistakably so. Yoongi feels the sound of it kick through him.

“Asshole,” you punctuate, and he winces. He supposes he deserves that.

There’s a shifting sound on the other end of the phone, like you’re moving around a bit, wherever you are. Maybe in bed, maybe on the bathroom floor. They seem equally likely given your current state. 

“Alright, fuck it,” you say like you’ve finally decided on something, voice a little muffled, like maybe you’ve got your hands over your face. Maybe you’re exhausted, too.

“I guess,” you continue, “I‘m just gonna say what I wanna say, and then you can… fucking deal with it whenever you listen to this. And if you don’t like it you can just delete it. Or block me, or whatever. I guess it doesn’t matter.”

This is by far the drunkest he’s ever heard you. Which is saying something.

It takes a second for the reality of it to click into place, and then it dawns on him. You, apparently, have not realized that he actually answered his phone, probably aided by the fact that he hasn’t fucking said anything.

He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to quickly figure out how to proceed here. Fuck, he’s not good at shit like this.

And then you start talking.

“My friends are all mad at me tonight,” you say, and Yoongi keeps his eyes closed. “I showed up so late to this party, when I promised them I would be here. I fell asleep at my desk, working late, after everyone else had left for the day. I work like, all the time now. I guess it’s a distraction. Tiff says I’m pushing everyone away to keep myself from getting hurt again. Which is like. Yeah, probably.”

Your breath hitches slightly, sticks on a self-pitying laugh. “When I finally got here, I was like hours late, so I tried to catch up to everyone. But nobody told me Vernon makes his Jello shots with fucking Everclear and now I’m just… way, way too fucked up. And it’s like I’m– I’m not even having fun. I don’t even remember how. How I used to.”

Yoongi tries to make his exhale as steady and as quiet as he can, tries to ignore the way he can feel his heartbeat in his throat.

“Fucking stupid.” He sees your voice in his mind’s eye, shaped like audio input on his monitor. A faint line wavering, unsteady, dropping in volume, shooting up again when you breathe in, a broken gasp. “This whole thing is so stupid. I’m so fucking angry, all the time. I don’t know what to do.”

The line stalls out– a long pause.

“You broke my heart.” The words come out all jagged-edged. “And now I’m just like you.”

And, well. That hits him like a truck.

“I threw my whole fucking life out and decided to come here, to get away from it all. And now I’m here and– it’s still everywhere. All over. I’m fucking miserable, and I wanna hate you for it, but I don’t. Not even close.”

Yoongi’s hand presses tight to his mouth, dry lips smudging over the lines of his palm, physically holding in this awful noise that threatens to tear out of the back of his throat.

“Half the time I wish I’d never fucking met you, and half the time I wish I’d never left. And I just… I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. About any of it. I don’t know how to stop being in love with you.”

The words hang there in the quiet of Yoongi’s studio, unfurling in his mind like ink in water. He can hear soft, tinny sounds through the phone speaker.

“So I guess you win,” you mutter, and it’s apparent in your voice now. You’re crying.

He scrubs his hands down his face, then shoves them through his hair. What the fuck is he doing, listening in on you like this? And why isn’t he saying anything?

In the empty space, you seem to come down from it a little bit; there’s a heavy shudder-sigh, then a sniff. A wet laugh. “Fuck. That was dramatic.” There’s noise on the line, like you’re dragging the phone closer. “God, how the fuck do you delete a voicemail?”

There’s a beep, then another, because you’ve started to aimlessly press buttons to try and delete a message that isn’t one, and if Yoongi’s going to say anything at all, it has to happen. Right fucking now.

So he swallows down the lump in his throat. And then he taps the button to end the call. Because he has no idea what to fucking say. How to make any of this better.

Yoongi pushes his chair back from his desk, lungs heaving air. He needs to take a fucking walk.

There are gaps in what comes next, like he is blinking in and out of reality. One minute he’s shouldering open the door to the lobby. Cars are rushing past in dizzying streams of light and sound. His face is wet, and he can’t quite catch his breath. He just keeps walking.

And then, all at once, there is the darkness of open water in front of him and a metal railing cool beneath his palms. Yoongi blinks out over the river, and it feels like he’s being unzipped, right down the middle. Like nothing has changed. Like everything has changed.

There’s footsteps, he hears them vaguely over the static in his brain. Steady rhythm, most likely a jogger, but then they start to slow before coming to a stop just past his shoulder.

So maybe it’s someone with worse intentions, he thinks, and it’s so unlikely, but there’s a fucked up kind of hope there. That it could be someone to flick open the line of a switchblade, find purchase right between his ribs, do for himself what he hasn’t figured out how to, hasn’t been brave enough to manage. Not even when he’s like this, on the precipice of it, close enough to taste it on his tongue: the allure of dreamless sleep.

He’s just so fucking tired.

When Yoongi turns back, he has to blink three times before he can process it. The figure standing a few feet behind him, in all-black athletic clothes, still breathing hard.

“Min Suga?”

“Jungkook?”

Yoongi is standing very still, but he wonders all the same if Jungkook can see it churning up inside of him. This dark, ugly violence.

“Is everything–?”

“I was just getting off work,” Yoongi answers simply, voice low. Jungkook’s head tilts a little.

“Walking home?”

Yoongi’s mouth pulls flat. “No.”

“Are you–?”

As if Yoongi is operating on a delay, the words he’s said finally catch up to him, shifting into place. Jungkook must track the way his eyes widen, because he loses his grip on whatever he was about to ask. Silence and warm night air hang in the space between them.

“The door,” Yoongi breathes. “Jungkook, I left the fucking door–”

He doesn’t finish the sentence before he starts running.

The city is a blur, just color and noise around him, useless, overwhelming. The only thing that matters is the thud of his sneakers on the concrete, underscoring the beat of his heart. Not again, not again, not again.

It isn’t until he’s jabbed the button for the elevator, and is standing there trying to take in air, that he realizes he’s not alone. Jungkook’s chest is heaving beside him. There’s a glisten of sweat at his temples.

“It’s okay,” Jungkook manages, and the words make Yoongi feel… insane. As if anything could possibly be o-fucking-kay right now. “Whatever happens. We’ll figure it out.”

The elevator chimes, and they step in together.

It’s quiet when they approach the glass doors. The lights are still on. No signs of obvious entry.

“I’ll go,” Jungkook says, and he’s pushing the unlocked door open before Yoongi can stop him. And Yoongi doesn’t stop him. He’s frozen where he stands, heart still hammering in his chest, hands shaking.

He is shaking all over, actually.

The minutes tick by, dreadfully slow, and then Jungkook is reappearing around the corner, Yoongi’s bag slung over his shoulder and the key in his hand. There’s no sound except the door easing closed behind him, and the click of the key in the lock.

Then Jungkook finally speaks. “Everything’s fine. Nobody took anything.”

Yoongi is still unraveling.

“It’s okay,” Jungkook stresses, and his brow is furrowed, like he’s really worried about something. “You made a mistake, you’re human. It’s okay.”

Yoongi doesn’t even think about it. All at once, his face is just– pressed to the smooth material of Jungkook’s shirt, leaving wet spots behind. There’s a split second where Jungkook stiffens, and then his arms are locking over the width of Yoongi’s back, and he’s pulling Yoongi that much tighter into his chest.

“You’re okay,” Jungkook says again, voice softer, and Yoongi fucking breaks down.

It’s a long time before Yoongi can get words in his mouth again. When he finally does, his voice is wrung-out.

“I– uh. Thanks. For that.”

Jungkook releases him, and Yoongi immediately puts space between them again, gaze skimming across the floor. He sniffs once, mouth drawn up tight.

“Did you eat, hyung?”

Yoongi glances up, not expecting the question, or how casually Jungkook asks it. Like nothing just happened. Like they’re old friends catching up.

Jungkook is already pressing the button for the elevator.

“Come on,” he says, turning back to meet Yoongi’s gaze again. “I want lamb skewers.”

Jungkook leads them out of the building and down a few blocks and Yoongi just follows, hands swiping at his cheeks, not really feeling like any part of this is real.

It’s nice, though. Just having somebody to follow.

It’s silent between them, and Yoongi can’t help but wonder if that’s for his benefit– quiet doesn’t seem to be Jungkook’s default state, not at work anyway. He’s always chattering on about some mobile game or the latest trend on TikTok– but he doesn’t seem uncomfortable with it, is the thing. Seems perfectly content to sit across from Yoongi and watch the skewers of meat turn over the coals and not talk.

Yoongi tips his head back, eyes closed as he chews, and feels himself coming down from it. Stepping back from the edge.

“You can head out if you want, Jungkook-ah,” he murmurs around his next bite. “Don’t let me keep you.”

“And what will you do?”

Yoongi hums a note, staring down at the table between them. “Go home. Probably get drunk.” Honesty comes easy to him in this moment. He doesn’t see a point in trying to act like he’s in a better headspace. Not after what Jungkook’s already seen tonight.

“Do you like Irish bombs?”

He blinks, surprised at the question, then looks up. “I– yeah. Do you?”

Jungkook’s eyes crease at the corners as a laugh floats out of him. “Why is everyone so shocked that I drink too?”

Yoongi’s mouth ticks up. “Hey, you’re allowed to, you know. Contain multitudes.”

“There’s a good place,” Jungkook nods toward the front door. “Around the corner.”

“I’m afraid I’m not much company tonight.”

Jungkook shrugs, like it doesn’t matter. “It’s fine, hyung. Come on.”

Yoongi doesn’t really know what he’s doing. But the beers go down easily enough, and so he orders a whiskey neat, even manages the ghost of a laugh when Jungkook sheepishly orders his with soda, then still does this throat-clearing hiss of a noise at the first taste.

He’s swirling his drink aggressively, in what Yoongi assumes is some misguided effort to better disguise the taste of liquor, when he says seemingly out of nowhere, “Can I ask you a question, hyung?”

Yoongi nods, takes another sip of his own drink.

Jungkook is now sliding his glass back and forth across the table, palm to palm. “Why Suga?”

It takes a second for the question to make sense, and then Yoongi sucks in air through his teeth when the realization clicks, shaking his head a little. “Come on, how long have we worked together? And you’ve never heard this story?”

There’s no way he hasn’t, but Jungkook shakes his head innocently, gaze still locked tight on his glass. “Nope.”

Yoongi’s fingers drum a steady beat against the dark wood of the bar. It’s easy, telling this story; makes him feel more like himself. “I loved basketball as a kid. To play, to watch. Still do. Though I haven’t played in years now. But when I did, I was the shooting guard. So when I needed a producer name– took the first syllable of each. Su-ga.” He huffs a self-deprecating breath that flutters his shoulders. “It’s really not that interesting.”

Jungkook hums, thoughtful. “Why not just use your real name?”

Yoongi makes a face. “Suga is more like… a facet of me. There’s a separation there. I wanted there to be.” Jungkook is slow-blinking, like he doesn’t quite follow, and the whiskey is starting to loosen Yoongi’s tongue, so he keeps going with it. “It’s all just different versions of me, right? Suga, Agust D, Min Yoongi.”

Jungkook’s gaze snaps up. “Wait, Agust D?”

Ah, fuck. “I didn’t–” Yoongi fumbles, trying to find the right words. “Let’s not go there. Just forget I said anything.”

It appears to be an impossible task for Jungkook, who is already shifting excitedly in his seat, retrieving his phone as if he immediately needs to scour the internet. “Hyung, do you have, like– secret music?!”

“No, no. Not yet.” Yoongi wishes he could think more clearly, but it’s all cotton-fuzz numb in his brain, more from easing out of an adrenaline rush than the liquor. His face is hot with embarrassment. “I don’t know. Probably never will.”

“But you want to?” Jungkook prompts, and he shrugs.

“I– it would be nice.”

This seems to stir something up in Jungkook, his spine straightening out, like the conversation is suddenly one of utmost importance. “You shouldn’t wait. To go after your dreams.”

At that, Yoongi outright laughs into his glass, shakes his head as he swallows a mouthful down. “Dreams are overrated, Jungkook-ah. I used to dream about being a professional basketball player.”

Jungkook’s eyes are shining. “And then you dreamed to make music.”

“And look at me now,” Yoongi quips, voice thick with sarcasm. “Living the dream, and still miserable.”

The ice cubes in Jungkook’s glass clink together as he rolls it between his palms. His voice is softer when he speaks again. “So maybe it’s time to try a new one.”

Yoongi sighs. “I don’t have time. I work too much as it is.”

Jungkook deflates a little, but he’s got this look on his face like he’s trying to work out the answer to a difficult question: brow furrowed, lips pursed, eyes sweeping over the bar.

“Are you doing it all on your own?” he finally asks, and Yoongi just gives another shrug.

“I guess that was the plan. You’re only the– second person I’ve said the idea out loud to, so.”

There’s a pang behind Yoongi’s ribs as the words hang in the air, and Jungkook nods, and Yoongi knows. Knows that Jungkook gets it. Knows that Jungkook’s not touching it.

“I have this friend,” Jungkook says instead. “You two should meet. His name is Chan and he is an amazing producer, seriously– I mean, nobody is in the same league as you, of course. But. Maybe it would be easier, right? If you weren’t trying to do it all by yourself?”

Yoongi takes another slow sip of his drink before he answers. “I’ll think about it.”

He’s surprised that Jungkook doesn’t push it, that all he does is nod his head along to the music playing low over the speakers, letting them lapse back into a silence that is somehow, just– comfortable.

When they’ve both finished off their drinks, Yoongi gets to his feet. “Come on, my car’s at the office. I’ll drive you home.”

They’re walking the few blocks back, the city humming steadily around them, when out of nowhere, Jungkook’s voice cuts through the sound. “Can I tell you something?”

“Go ahead.”

He sucks in this big breath of air, and Yoongi has no idea what to expect. But then he starts to talk. “You know, when I was a kid. In school, and stuff. I was bullied. Like, really badly, actually. It got to the point where I was having panic attacks every morning, just at the thought of going to school. Having to deal with it all. It felt so impossible sometimes.”

Yoongi doesn’t answer, because it seems like Jungkook needs to get this all out, like his brake line’s been cut. So he lets him go and just listens, the two of them walking side by side.

“And for a while,” Jungkook continues, “It just made me, like. Pull away. From everybody, from everything. I stopped talking in class, stopped hanging out with my friends. Didn’t go to Taekwondo. I just thought it would be easier if I lived… the smallest life possible. Like if I didn’t do anything to draw attention to myself, then everyone could, I don’t know.” Yoongi looks over in time to see his shoulders shrug. “Forget about me, I guess.”

“And how did that go?” Yoongi asks, even though he’s starting to feel like he already knows the answer.

The laugh that Jungkook breathes out doesn’t reach his eyes. “I was so, so lonely, hyung.”

There’s a lump in Yoongi’s throat, and he doesn’t try to speak around it.

Jungkook’s voice comes back again, stuttering, like he’s unsure. “I-I just want you to know that you don’t have to be like that. Lonely. If you don’t want to be.”

And, yeah, Yoongi thinks to himself. That is, actually, exactly what he fucking is.

“Hyung?” Jungkook murmurs, and there’s this urgency in the way he says it that makes Yoongi glance at him again. His eyes are a little red. “If we– if I hadn’t, uh. Seen you. Would you have...”

He trails off, and it takes Yoongi a second to finish the sentence in his head, to remember where he was when Jungkook found him, white-knuckle gripping on the edge of it all. “No,” he answers firmly, maybe a little too quick. “No, I promise.”

Jungkook swallows, nods once. “But you were– thinking about it?”

“A little bit, yeah.”

I always am, Yoongi thinks to himself, but he doesn’t say that part out loud. Jungkook doesn’t need to carry that around with him.

There’s a long, heavy pause between them, punctuated by a soft sniff from Jungkook. Then he finally manages another question.

“Do you want to know what I do, sometimes? When it’s all just, like… too much?”

It takes Yoongi a few more paces before he realizes that Jungkook has stopped walking. When he stops to turn over his shoulder with a questioning hum, he sees Jungkook behind him, tipping his head back and letting out this big, primal shout.

“You’re drunk,” Yoongi says with a laugh.

“Try it! Just like a….” He does it again, fists balled up at his sides, and it’s almost triumphant this time, a victory cry.

Yoongi feels it all buzzing through him, his nerves open-wound raw. But he’s smiling.

And then he’s closing his eyes and shouting up to the sky: a messy, ugly sound, echoing in the warm night air. But it’s honest.

He opens his eyes, and Jungkook is beaming, proud, painted in the glow of a streetlight. “Feels good, huh?”

Yoongi nods, because it does.

~*~

It’s a few weeks later that Jungkook asks if Yoongi wants to take a walk after work, and he agrees. He’s started doing that more and more lately. Saying yes. Mostly to little things: office lunches and happy hours, team meetings. Boxing classes, which he actually liked a lot more than he expected.

And really, it’s not so bad, getting outside the four walls of his lab. It’s a good distraction, at least.

Yoongi finds it a little suspicious that Jungkook is walking so purposefully as he leads them down a few blocks. Even more so when their destination just so happens to be a park with a basketball court.

And when the dark-haired guy leaning up against a car in the parking lot starts walking toward them, a ball tucked under his arm, Yoongi scoffs.

“Oh, I see. This is an ambush.”

Jungkook hums a questioning note, like he has no idea what Yoongi’s talking about. “Hyung, this is my friend Chan. He’s a producer too, did I ever mention him to you?”

Yoongi rolls his eyes, but still catches the ball when it’s tossed his way. “You’re full of shit, JK.”

Chan’s only greeting is a nod of his head, and Yoongi returns it. They both seem to be waiting on him, and he hisses out a dry laugh.

“I’m not playing. Not for real. I’m too old.”

Chan lifts his hands, palms out, like he’s not trying to fight. “Whatever you want. It’s cool.”

Yoongi keeps the ball, though– lets it drop onto the asphalt a few times, getting used to the feel of it under his palms. Shakes his wrists out, rolls his shoulders back, all his stiff places cracking. It’s been a long time. He lazily tosses it up a few times, knees flexing, just trying to get his form right.

“Chan said he’d be down to help you work on your mixtape,” Jungkook finally admits. When Yoongi glances over, he’s rocking back and forth on his heels, hands shoved into the pockets of his work slacks, mouth drawn up tight.

“I don’t have a mixtape,” Yoongi mutters, words almost lost under the steady sound of the dribbling ball.

“But you could,” Chan offers, circling him, not unlike a shark. “Hyung, if you want to make music, you should make music.”

“I do make music.”

Chan laughs a little, makes a face as if to concede that Yoongi’s not wrong. “Yeah, but like. Music that’s for you, you know? It’s different. You’re not trying to keep another artist’s brand in mind, you’re just… speaking from the heart. Saying what you wanna say.”

Yoongi shrugs the suggestion off. “I don’t have time.”

At this, Chan seems to brighten a little. “So let us help. If you’ve got rough ideas of what you want, just send them over. I can polish them up, then we can fine-tune or rework parts as needed. I can help mix and master. I’ve taught Jungkook a little bit, too. He helps me with my guides a lot.”

“He really is good, hyung,” Jungkook says softly, lips still pursed like he’s nervous. “I sent you some of his stuff.”

He did. Yoongi’s listened to it, and he knows Jungkook’s right. He keeps his gaze fixed tight on the ball in his hands, watching it bounce as he dribbles aimlessly. His thoughts feel like they’re going a mile a minute. 

“I’m not– I don’t want to waste your time.” Yoongi sighs as he lets himself get into it. “If we do all of that work, and I hate it, and I just want to scrap the whole thing. Or, or–” His chest starts to feel like it’s caving in, a little; he tries to breathe through it. “If we put it out there and nobody likes it. Or nobody cares. I can’t see why anyone would have interest in what I have to say, anyway.”

The ball thuds a heartbeat against the asphalt as Yoongi keeps going.

“‘Cause you know, who am I? Some producer? Some rich, out-of-touch, depressed asshole?” He shakes his head. “It’s just… probably not worth the hassle. I think some things are like that, you know. Better left as imagined ideals. Sometimes it’s better to just not try, ‘cause it’d be too painful to fuck it up. Reality is–”

“Hyung.”

Chan says the word forcefully enough that Yoongi glances up. Chan’s gaze is steely when their eyes meet, and Yoongi feels– a little ashamed, suddenly. Like maybe he’s overcomplicating this.

“Take the shot,” Chan directs, jutting his chin toward the net, and then Yoongi realizes that, yeah. He’s just been standing here dribbling all this time. Hasn’t even put it up once.

So he nods, drops the ball down one more time, then settles it between his palms. Brings it up, softens his knees. Gets out of his head, focuses on the thing in front of him, and for a few seconds, the rest of the world falls away. He sucks in a breath, and then he takes the shot.

It’s a pretty one, entirely silent, save for the swish of the net.

Chan’s voice comes back almost immediately, and Yoongi’s head jerks to take him in again. “Now in that moment– did you think about any of that shit?”

Yoongi’s mouth pulls flat, but it’s enough of an answer.

Chan’s already jogging up the court, retrieving the ball where it rolled to a stop against the perimeter fence. He keeps it tucked under his arm as he makes his way back, and there’s the ghost of a smile on his face as he steps in close to Yoongi.

“Sometimes, you just need to take the fucking shot.”

He passes the ball back, hard. Yoongi barely gets his hands on it before it knocks into his chest.

~*~

That Friday, in his studio, Yoongi tries not to think about it.

Jungkook is stretched out longways on the couch, scrolling aimlessly on his phone; he’d hung around as the rest of the office emptied out, and then Chan showed up with a bottle of whiskey– motivation, he’d quipped– and a devious grin. He’s made himself at home in Yoongi’s desk chair, getting the bones of a track ready, expanding off an idea Yoongi had sent over earlier in the week, the night he’d actually agreed to this.

Why the fuck did he agree to this?

They’ve had a few drinks– well, Yoongi and Jungkook have– but it hasn’t quite managed to get him calm. He drains the last of what’s in his cup now, trying to go back over the lyrics in his head, even though he knows he knows them.

He’s had this song written for years, actually.

“Alright,” Chan’s voice breaks Yoongi’s concentration, punctuated by the sound of him drumming his palms against the desk. “Should be ready for you.”

Yoongi’s mind is still racing as he gets situated, pulling on the headphones he’s had slung around his neck. He feels the muscle in his jaw tighten as he glances over at Chan and nods once, and then the track starts up in his ears.

He steadies himself. Gets out of his head, focuses on the thing in front of him, and for a few seconds, the rest of the world falls away. He sucks in a breath, and then he steps up to the mic.

~*~

“Thank you,” Yoongi keeps his eyes fixed on the table, diligently pouring soju into his glass. “For agreeing to meet with me. I know it’s been a long time.”

Just like that, the days have somehow slipped away into months. A few months now that he’s– they’ve been steadily working on this– well, project. This mixtape. His mixtape.

And the thing is, Yoongi’s starting to think that he actually likes what’s coming out of all those late nights in his studio. It’s not perfect, and certainly not finished. But when he listens to the rough drafts they’ve compiled, shuts his eyes, lets the music open up those places inside of him he usually keeps locked down and closed up tight, it just feels different this time. It feels like he’s onto something.

He lets that be enough, for now. Tries not to worry too much about what comes next.

There’s a scoff from across the table. “Yeah, well. I think my agent was doing cartwheels after getting a call from the producer Suga to set up a business meeting.”

Yoongi glances up to see a knowing glint in Jimin’s eyes, his expression all too familiar.

“Of course,” Jimin continues casually, “it was obvious to me that you purposefully planned your schedule so that our visits to New York would overlap, because you wanted to chase down the one that got away. The person that you’ve been in love with all this time, never able to move on from, even after a decade apart.”

Jimin holds Yoongi’s gaze for the longest three seconds of his life, and then he can’t keep his laughter in any longer. He nearly falls off the bench seat. Yoongi’s mouth twitches at the corner, but he’s never been one for big outbursts, the way Jimin is. In some ways, he’s a little envious of that.

“Jesus, Park. How did you get worse since we were teenagers?”

“Hey,” Jimin holds up a finger as if to make a counter-argument, still giggling a little. “At least I keep my clothes on now. Mostly.”

Yoongi realizes he’s smiling despite himself. He hadn’t expected it to be this comfortable, that they could just pick up where they left off. But Jimin is like that, he remembers now. Easy to talk to. He sips down the liquid in his glass, then sets it on the table again.

“I thought it was time we got back in touch, is all. And I appreciated the ticket to your show.”

Jimin cards a hand through his hair, mouth pulled into a smirk. “Figured you should see how much better I’ve gotten in ten years.”

“Ah,” Yoongi waves his words away. “I always knew you’d be good. You were good back then, too, and your work ethic was…” He sucks in a breath through his teeth, considering. “Insane, really. I remember you were always the last one to go home, always practicing so much harder than everyone else.”

There’s a distant look in Jimin’s eyes as he stares down at his own empty glass, running a fingertip around the rim, before he reaches for the bottle to top them both up. “Do you remember what you used to tell me?”

Yoongi makes a soft, low noise, gaze suddenly locked on the table again. Because yeah, he does remember. And he thinks he knows where this is going.

“‘You don’t have to work this hard.’”

A breath of a laugh punches out of Yoongi when he glances up to find Jimin looking at him, like he can see right through him. “Are you quoting me or telling me?”

Jimin’s eyebrow lifts, barely discernible. He doesn’t blink. “Just thought maybe you needed to hear it, hyung.”

The way Jimin emphasizes the last word and stares pointedly at Yoongi makes him hot all over, enough that he shifts a little in his seat, clearing his throat. He reaches for a skewered fishcake, if only for the distraction, then finally hums another wordless answer.

“I’d actually say my life improved drastically when I decided to stop making everything so hard all the time. Because it really doesn’t have to be.” Jimin flicks his bangs out of his eyes, like he’s satisfied with his own wisdom.

Yoongi’s fist smacks against the table, and as he fires back, he can hear the tone to his voice that only Jimin seems to be able to pull out of him– the other trainees used to say they fought like a married couple. “You are really just attacking me right now, huh, Jimin-ah? Like no time has passed?”

“Aish, it’s not an attack! Both of you! You and her, you’re so alike!” Jimin huffs, frustrated, his voice knife-edge sharp. The words hit Yoongi right in the center of his chest. “Taking everything so personally! And running circles around each other, for no reason. When it could all be easy if you let it.”

Fuck. Yoongi throws back the liquid in his glass, fills it up again, takes that one too. Breathes in deep as the rush of warmth pours into him. “I– she– that’s not actually what I wanted to talk about. Just so you know.”

His voice comes out low, a little uneven, and Jimin goes just as quiet. His gaze has softened when Yoongi finds it again, but Jimin doesn’t say anything. He folds his hands over each other on the table, almost like he’s waiting for Yoongi to continue.

A bolt of nerves travels up Yoongi’s spine. It’s a question he has to ask.

“But how is she?”

The corner of Jimin’s mouth just barely ticks up. “She’s good, hyung. Really good. I promise. She’s been… working on herself.”

Relief floods through Yoongi, and he leans back in his seat, exhaling a long stream of air. He reaches to pour himself another drink, and Jimin’s still quiet, like he’s letting Yoongi work out whatever he needs to work out.

“Did you know she called me?”

A flicker of surprise flashes over Jimin’s face as he takes the bottle back from Yoongi. “I didn’t.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure if she’d remember.” Yoongi’s chest is already tightening at the memory of that call, that night. “She was really drunk and, I don’t know. I picked up, but I think she thought it was a voicemail.” It’s all coming up now, undeniable, overwhelming, and he stares at Jimin across the table from him and just– says it.

“She, uh. Said she loved me.”

Jimin sucks a fishcake into his mouth, like it’s the least surprising thing in the world. “That makes two of you,” he says plainly, mouth full.

The words knock Yoongi off balance, and he blinks. “She– told you. About, uh. Me. That.”

“Of course she did.” Jimin chews, eyes narrowing, like he’s observing Yoongi carefully. “It really fucked her up, hyung. Everything that happened.”

“I know,” Yoongi answers. “It messed me up, too. In ways I’m still figuring out.”

Jimin nods, tongue prodding the inside of his cheek. “I guessed as much.” There’s a pause, and then he sighs. “Look, do you want my advice?”

All at once, Yoongi isn’t sure he’s ready for it. It’s too real and too much and he doesn’t think he’s had enough soju for any of this. He stutters for a second, then finally lands on, “I-I don’t know. Let’s just eat. Then, after. Maybe.”

Jimin makes a face as if to say, suit yourself.

Yoongi’s gaze sweeps over the table. “I’m working on an album, you know. Getting close to done now.”

“For who?”

“Uh, for me.” He swallows hard. “My first mixtape, I guess.”

Jimin’s eyes go wide, a smile playing at his lips, like he can’t quite believe it. “Wow, look at you. Finally doing it. Is it rap? Pop?”

“Some of both,” Yoongi shrugs, still uncomfortable with the attention. “Mostly rap, yeah.” He busies himself with eating as Jimin sips at his soju, and then a memory bubbles up. “Do you still rap?”

Jimin nearly spits his drink out. “Shut the fuck up,” he manages to cough, and Yoongi’s laughing too.

“I’m serious! It’s a real question!”

“Hyung,” Jimin groans. “I haven’t rapped in a decade. Please don’t remind me that I ever did.”

“Ahh, I always thought you were good!” It’s not not teasing. “You were!”

Yoongi’s still smiling at the picture of Jimin he can see so clearly in his mind: a decade younger, cheeks still full of baby fat, always with this put-on sneer, like he’d be quick to swing if you looked at him funny.

“I was such a try-hard back then,” Jimin mutters, and well, Yoongi can’t disagree with that. “Thought I had to be so tough.”

“You were cute,” Yoongi coos, and Jimin’s head hits the table with an audible thud. “Seems like you’ve grown into yourself, though. Like I’m not about to find you crying outside the bathroom anymore.”

“I can’t believe you remember that.”

“How could I forget?”

It was the first time he’d ever really seen Jimin break down, exhausted from the stress of it all, the demanding hours, and mostly the pressure he put on himself. Yoongi had found him like that: thick-framed dark glasses, swoop of an overgrown bowl cut casting a shadow over his tear-streaked face, balled-up fists smudging at the corners of his eyes.

Yoongi is having a hard time reconciling that Jimin of his past with the one sitting in front of him. “You’ve changed so much,” he says against the rim of his glass, and Jimin just shrugs as he straightens himself back out again.

“Everyone changes, hyung.”

Jimin says it so easily. It makes Yoongi wonder how he’s changed, too.

It takes him by surprise when Jimin continues the thread of that memory. “I was going to quit that night. I really was. I was so, so tired. So worn out.” He pauses, staring at a point over Yoongi’s shoulder, then laughs softly, like something’s just come back to him. “And then you sat down next to me, didn’t even look at me, and asked: ‘Do you like fried chicken?’”

“Oh,” Yoongi murmurs. “That’s right.”

The rest of it plays out in his mind as Jimin recounts that night, so many years ago now. He’d led Jimin down the street to a hole in the wall place; it was all either of them could afford at the time. They’d had to split the free soda, watering their halves down to make it enough for both of them.

“You didn’t say a word to me the whole time. We just ate and then walked back home, and the next day you acted like nothing had even happened.”

Yoongi nods. That much hasn’t changed; he’s never been good with his words. Not when it matters.

“But it always stuck with me. That you did that for me when you didn’t have to.”

There’s a long pause, because Yoongi doesn’t know what to do with that comment. It almost feels incongruent, trying to line it up next to the idea he has of himself in his mind. Like the two can’t coexist. “You seem a lot happier now,” he finally admits, and Jimin’s eyes draw up in a slight smile.

“I think I am,” he says with a nod, reaching to drain the last of the bottle of soju into his glass. Yoongi busies himself with cracking the lid of another. “And actually, I think it’s because I stopped mistaking emotion for weakness. You know? Life is… hard enough, without trying to fight everything I feel.”

And, well. That resonates, more than he’d like it to.

Yoongi grimaces as he pours his own drink. “There’s a lot I could learn from you, huh?”

“I’m wise as shit,” Jimin says, like it’s obvious. Their eyes meet over the rims of their glasses, and as soon as he swallows, Jimin keeps going. “So you tell me, why did we stop talking?”

Yoongi clicks his tongue, because he doesn’t have a good answer, except that that’s just the way he gets. How he operates. With everyone. “‘Cause we both gave up on our dreams?” he tries instead, but Jimin just shakes his head.

“Ah, we were kids. We didn’t even know what we wanted, not really. And dreams change. It’s not a failure.”

It’s not like Jimin’s said anything that intense– Yoongi doesn’t know why, all of a sudden, it’s like his chest is caving in. He clears his throat, rolls his shoulders back. Can’t quite look up to meet Jimin’s eyes, so he delivers the offer to his glass of soju instead. “Well, if you ever want to try it again. Rapping. I have this track that I think you’d be good on.”

“On your mixtape?” When he looks up, Jimin’s eyebrows are nearly at his hairline. “Hyung, that’s… like, a big fucking deal.”

“You don’t have to. Just putting it on the table.”

“This hyung,” Jimin mutters under his breath, and then he’s swallowing down his soju, like he needs it for strength. “I can’t believe I’m fucking saying this, but. Send it to me. I’ll see what I can do.”

Yoongi feels himself smile, really smile, big and broad. “Like you could ever say no to me.”

It’s somehow nearly two hours later by the time they stumble out of the restaurant, faces flushed from drinking, Jimin laughing hard enough that he can barely keep his feet under him as he breathlessly recalls the way Yoongi used to shove safety pins in the front of his beanies because he thought it made him look cooler. Yoongi’s got his arm slung around Jimin’s shoulders, half-holding him up, Manhattan blink-blinking around them, and he realizes: he’s missed this. Just having somebody who knows him like this. 

“Thanks again, for meeting up,” Yoongi mumbles, trying to unwrap himself from around Jimin, but before he can even manage it Jimin’s got both arms slung over his neck and is pulling him in for a real, proper hug, one palm smacking ruthlessly over the bend of Yoongi’s spine. 

“Don’t make it ten years before I see you again, you fucker.” Jimin’s words run together, like his tongue is heavy in his mouth, and Yoongi’s laughing when he finally extricates himself.

“Yeah, yeah, I won’t. Get some sleep.”

With a final smirk, Jimin starts off down the street, and in the split second before Yoongi turns to go his own way, he watches him pivot on his heel, like he’s thought of one more thing. He’s walking backwards now, hands in his pockets as he stares Yoongi down.

“Hyung!”

Yoongi raises his eyebrows, hums a little, and the corner of Jimin’s mouth tugs up.

“Stop making things hard! That’s my advice.”

Yoongi already knows exactly what Jimin means, but he clarifies himself anyway, the little shit. 

“Call her! It’s still early in California!”

“Goodnight, Jimin-ah!” Yoongi shouts in return, like he’s done discussing it, and the last thing he sees before he turns away is Jimin’s head thrown back, laughing up to the starless sky.

Before he even makes a conscious decision to do it, Yoongi finds himself walking the blocks between the restaurant and his hotel, long stretches of avenues, and he lets the white noise of the city streets buzz like static in his ears. New York is full of people, and he’s paying more attention to them now than he usually would. Standing outside of bars, hurrying down the street in the opposite direction, whizzing past on bicycles. Smoking, making phone calls, waving down cabs.

It’s like something unlocks in his brain, a key finally turning in a stubborn door. Good person, bad person. It’s all kind of… bullshit. All these people around him, they’ve all been hurt, and they’ve all hurt someone despite their best attempts. He knows it’s a banal fucking observation, and maybe it’s the soju talking, but somehow the thought has never quite hit him like this before. That people are just people. Trying and fucking up and trying again.

Everyone changes, hyung.

And yeah, maybe he’s changed too, in little ways. Maybe he still is.

Back at his hotel, Yoongi presses his keycard to the door, toes his shoes off in the entryway, and collapses down on the bed, phone in hand. He swipes to pull up his contacts, sees that familiar name, and feels everything swirl up inside of him all over again.

There’s so much he wants to say. And he’s so tired of not saying it.

He presses the Call button and breathes it all out as the line starts to ring.

~*~

It’s been a truly fucking terrible workday. Maybe not the all-time worst– you didn’t accidentally wipe an entire recording session’s worth of files, or not-accidentally fuck your nemesis in his studio– but it’s certainly up there.

The morning had started with an artist’s entire management team giving you grief for supposedly fucking up the studio scheduling, until you’d physically turned your computer screen around to show them that they had, in fact, booked time on the wrong day. It wasn’t even an hour later that you’d gotten a call about last-minute T&E costs that finance had forgotten to reconcile, which meant you had to work straight through your lunch hour to re-run all the quarterly reporting so the numbers wouldn’t be wrong. And just as you’d started packing up to leave for the day, an urgent call had come in from someone on the executive board, letting you know they wanted to “go in another direction” for tomorrow’s all-hands, and surely it wouldn’t take you too long to redo the ninety-minute presentation, right?

When you finally cross the threshold of your apartment, it feels like a miracle. You heave a sigh of relief, letting the door slam behind you a little harder than necessary, just to take the edge off.

“There she is!” Your roommate’s voice echoes down the hallway as you hang your keys on the hook and reach down to pull your heels off. “I thought you were done with your workaholic phase.”

“Yeah, well, the executives have no idea what they fucking want,” you mutter, and the words have hardly left your mouth when you feel your purse vibrate as your phone starts to ring. You’re positive it’s another one of them now, probably calling to ask about something that you’ve already clearly explained in an email sitting unread in their inbox.

Nearly toppling over as you shift your weight to pry your other shoe off, you drop your bag down onto the couch with an exasperated groan, then reach in to fish your phone out, anticipating the worst.

You take in the name staring back at you, and your heart instantly drops into the pit of your stomach.

The world tilts as your pulse starts to race, and all at once you lose your grip, like your brain is short-circuiting. Your phone slides out of your hand, clattering onto the floor beneath your feet, the impact enough to send it skidding right under the couch.

“Motherfucker,” you breathe.

You crouch down, hands and knees to the hardwood, and wriggle yourself halfway under the couch to retrieve it. The damn thing keeps buzz-buzz-buzzing, noise amplified by the floor beneath it until it feels deafening.

Distantly, you’re aware of the shuffle of Tiffany’s slippers.

“What’s up, buttercup?” she asks, voice drawing closer, and then she must turn the corner into the living room because her follow-up is much more direct: “What the hell are you doing?”

Just as you manage to close your grip around your phone, the ringing stops. Dread floods through you as you slowly drag it out, then turn over to sit right there on the floor, your back against the couch. You glance up at Tiffany, and even with a Hello Kitty sheet mask obscuring most of her expression, you can still see her eyebrows quirk up as something clicks into place.

“Oh no,” she breathes. “I know that face. You were making that face when I found you in the bathroom at the Jello shot party.”

“We agreed not to talk about the Jello shot party–”

“The point is!” she interjects, raising her voice to drown yours out. “That is your Yoongi face! Which means I need you to tell me right now: did he just fucking call you?!”

For a second, you can only nod dumbly up at her, and the words come out thin and reedy when you finally manage to say them. “Yeah. He did.” Tiffany drops down onto the floor next to you as you pull your knees into your chest. “What do I do?”

Her tone immediately softens. “What do you wanna do, baby? No wrong answers.”

You stare blankly at the dark screen of your phone, still clutched tight in your hand. It feels like staring into the depths of a black hole. “I have… no idea. I genuinely don’t know.”

“Okay,” she tries again. “Let’s start simpler. How are you feeling, right now, in this moment?”

With a steadying inhale, you let your eyes drop shut and try to find the answer. After all this time, and after a long, exhausting day, seeing Yoongi’s name flash up on your screen– it takes you back to months ago, when you were bordering blackout in the bathroom of this very house. The way everything rushed up inside you, a feeling so big you thought it might swallow you whole if you didn’t get it out.

“I think I’m… angry, Tiff. Like really, really fucking pissed off, actually.”

Her acrylics scritch gently at the back of your head, the sensation enough to bring you back to reality again. A muscle in your jaw tightens as you blink your eyes open.

“I think that makes perfect sense,” Tiffany says, nodding decisively. “I’d be hella angry too.”

A noise flutters out of you, halfway between a groan and a laugh. “Is it unhealed of me to want to call him back so I can just, like, fucking scream at him?”

Her head tilts, considering. “Um… it’s not super healed. But!” She raises a perfectly manicured nail for emphasis. “This does present an opportunity, if you want one, to share those feelings with him in a slightly more emotionally intelligent way. If you think it might help?”

Panic snakes up your spine; it’s an overwhelming idea. “Ugh, I don’t know. Like, I’m not– I don’t feel like I have to have closure from him, or even an apology.” Another self-pitying laugh. “I gave up on that dream after the fucking Jello shot party.”

“He never called you back, right?”

The memory is like a punch to the chest. You shake your head slowly. “Nothing.”

“Typical Pisces behavior.”

You sigh. “But at the same time, if we assume this wasn’t a butt dial, and that he for whatever fucking reason has suddenly decided to be open to conversation. Maybe it could be, I guess… cathartic? To hear what he has to say? And to communicate, like a calm, mature, rational adult who has had seven therapy sessions, that I’m still fucking pissed off and kind of want to kill him.”

Tiffany’s head tips back as she barks a laugh, aggressive enough that she has to reach up with both hands to keep her sheet mask in place. “You know what? I actually love that for you.”

Your pulse has already started to kick up at the thought. “Really? You don’t think it’s a bad idea?”

She shrugs. “I meant it when I said no wrong answers! The way I see it, if he pulls some asshole shit, you can officially block him and be done with it, knowing that you tried your best and that he’s gonna be his own worst enemy for probably at least another decade of his life. And then we can go get milkshakes or something.”

“Oh my god, In-N-Out actually sounds so good right now,” you murmur. “I worked through lunch.”

Tiffany gestures down the hall in the direction of your bedroom, as if to remind you of the task at hand. “Survive the phone call first! Go forth, girlie. Give him a piece of your mind!”

With a groan, you drag yourself to your feet, giving her a cursory glance over your shoulder. “Thanks, Tiff.”

“Love you, mean it!”

It’s only once you’ve closed the door behind you and dropped down onto the bed that it really sinks in. The gravity of this decision, the potential for everything to go horribly wrong all over again. All the memories spiraling up of moments you’d rather forget.

But it wasn’t all bad, either. That’s the hardest part.

You’ve never figured out exactly what to do with it. How to extinguish that glimmer, a pair of eyes in the dark that know you too well, that almost-something feeling. Or if you even want to.

As you wake the screen of your phone, you take in one long slow inhale. Min Yoongi’s name stares back at you. Thumb hovering over the Return Call button, you summon all the courage you can muster. Then you tap the screen and press the phone to your ear.

The line rings once, twice, a third time, but it feels like it’s happening too fast. Like there’s nowhere near enough time for you to collect yourself, remember to keep breathing, figure out what you want to say or what the fuck you’re even doing–

“Hello?”

Yoongi’s voice is– unmistakable. Smoke and gravel. It couldn’t be anyone else.

It takes you a second just to manage a response.

“Hi, Yoongi.” You try to keep your voice firm, even, try to hide how breathless you feel at the sound of him.

“Hey, uh. I hope it’s okay that I called you.”

You genuinely don’t know the answer to that, but you already feel yourself bristling, an instinctive defensiveness rising up faster than you can reign it in. “Can’t say I was expecting it,” you mutter, and you can hear the harsh edge in your voice.

“Right, yeah,” Yoongi answers, pausing to clear his throat before he continues. “I know it’s sudden. And also months overdue, I guess.”

There’s a heavy pause, and it hits you all at once– how much you don’t want to talk about it. That night, that drunk phone call, the embarrassing voicemail you left and couldn’t figure out how to delete. Your memories of that night are hazy at best, in part because you’ve tried not to think about it since, but you remember enough of your alcohol-soaked confession that a rush of shame heats up your face at the reminder of it.

Thankfully, Yoongi speaks again. “I saw Jimin tonight.”

It’s enough to snap you out of your own thoughts. Your eyes widen. “Really?”

He hums an affirming sound. “I’m in New York this week, and our schedules ended up overlapping here. So I got in touch to see if we could meet.” You double-blink, equally shocked by the notion of Yoongi reaching out to anyone. “He got me a ticket to his show, too. Madison Square Garden. He’s really doing it.”

The thought of your best friend performing to a sold-out arena, living his dream– it makes something draw up tight in your chest. “I miss him,” you breathe, before you can even consider if you should say it.

“I think I did too,” Yoongi answers. “More than I even realized.” He hisses out a half-laugh before continuing. “I feel like he has life so… figured out. At least, compared to me.”

The corner of your mouth just barely tugs up, because you know that feeling well.

“And we talked about a lot tonight, and it got me thinking. That there’s some things I’d like to say to you, if you’re open to hearing them.”

A weight drops into the pit of your stomach, and you squeeze your eyes shut, trying not to get your hopes up. The tension in your throat makes your voice come out thin. “I called you back, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

Another flash of anger flares up inside of you, knowing he can’t say the same. You spit out the words, acid-laced. “Just say what you want to say, Yoongi.”

“Right, okay.” The line goes quiet for a second, and it’s punctuated with a faint exhale, like he’s breathing out nervous energy. “Sorry. This is harder than I thought it would be,” he murmurs, but he keeps going before you can get another snide remark in. “I guess the main thing I keep thinking is that you were right. About… everything you said to me, really. Before you left.”

It takes a second for the reality of it to hit. That you’re actually hearing these words, even if they are months too late.

“I think at some point in my life, I got it in my head that I was a bad person: selfish, depressed, an asshole. Whatever you want to call it. And I think I used it as an excuse to, well. Act like an asshole. Hurt people, push them away– all the stuff I did to you. Because that’s what a bad person would do. And that’s what I told myself I was.”

Phone clutched tight to your ear, you turn over onto your side. When you blink your eyes open, your gaze finds the window and the sky beyond it, colored blush from the last fading rays of sunset, bleeding out to hues of dusk, violet-gray and deep blue.

That anger is still there, a hot coal glow in your stomach. But it’s muted now, like words muttered softly in another room, shapes you can’t quite make out. All at once, it doesn’t feel so important. Not with the things Yoongi is saying.

It’s enough to sweep the floor out from under you; suddenly, you’re in water too deep to touch the bottom of. Enough to drown in, if you’re not careful.

Yoongi’s voice pulls you up out of it. “But then, this person comes along who sees me at my absolute worst. And for some godforsaken reason, one that I will probably never understand, she keeps coming back anyway. Like she sees something worthwhile, where all I see is self-loathing. She doesn’t get scared when I tell her how I feel, how I really feel, even when it’s not fucking pretty. Or when I get reckless and stupid. If anything, it’s like she just… gets it. In this way where I don’t have to explain. Maybe she’s like that, too, in her own way.”

It’s suddenly hard to breathe. Because it felt the same for you, too. All of it. This terrifyingly perfect fit.

He huffs a dark, self-conscious laugh before he continues. “It made me fucking spiral, if I’m honest. Because it meant one of two things. Either that I was liable to seriously fuck up a good person with my own shit. Or, that I had been wrong about myself, all this time. Which, you know. That’s my whole sense of self just… gone. And I had no idea how to handle that.”

I didn’t either, you can’t help but think, and then the firm line of your mouth starts to tremble.

“So I panicked. And I did what I always do.”

There’s a lump in your throat, one you can’t swallow down or speak around. You thread an arm around your stomach, as if to physically hold yourself together.

Yoongi’s voice softens into something else, low and thick, a little hoarse. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m– really fucking sorry.”

And just like that, your resolve crumbles, like a sandcastle to a tidal wave.

“I know I’m saying it way too late. And this isn’t– I’m not expecting or asking anything of you. Forgiveness, or anything. Honestly, I’m not even sure that I deserve it. But when I saw Jimin tonight, and talked with him, and saw how much he’s changed, I don’t know. It made me realize that I’ve just been– stuck. For a long time. On a lot of bullshit that wasn’t even true.”

With a slow exhale, you try to listen, your eyes flitting around the room as he speaks. The sky has settled to blue-black now; the night breeze fluttering in through the open window is warm; you can faintly smell your fabric softener on the bedspread, sweet and floral.

You breathe it in as Yoongi keeps talking.

“I’m sorry that I hurt you. That I couldn’t get my shit together enough to even talk about it. That I made it all so complicated when it could’ve been easy. I don’t know if me saying this is worth anything to you now, but. I just wanted to say it anyway.”

When Yoongi falls silent, it occurs to you that he’s probably waiting on you to respond; it’s a struggle to find any words at all.

“I, um–” You have to reach a thumb up to swipe at a tear that threatens to streak down your face. “Sorry. Just… a lot to process. But I appreciate you being honest.”

He lets another pause linger before his voice comes back. “Jimin said you’re doing well, so. I hope that’s true. ‘Cause I don’t want you to hate yourself the way I did. You deserve to be happy. And I hope you’ve found that in LA.”

The sentiment retrieves a buried memory: Yoongi’s hand brushing yours at a going away party. The way he looked at you, how it felt for a moment like you were the only two people in the crowded, noisy break room. And the last thing he said before you ran right out of his life: I just want you to be happy.

You sniff. “Can I tell you something?”

Yoongi hums his answer, and you slowly sit up, lifting a hand to scrub at your face.

“The day after I– um. Called you. I think Tiffany could tell I wasn’t doing well, so she convinced us all to go for a drive up the coast. Said we’d walk along the beach, just make a day of it.”

The memory is so clear in your mind: the day had been oddly overcast for Los Angeles, and just a little too cold for swimming, but Tiffany had managed to talk your group into it nonetheless.

Matthew had rolled down the windows in his Jeep once you hit the PCH, and you remember the rush of cool air on your face, the way it soothed the dull hungover ache in your head and the emotions swirling in your chest. The wind whipping through Tiffany’s long black hair, the smell of salt rolling in off the ocean.

Vernon had gone quiet next to you in the backseat, dark sunglasses pulled down over his eyes, for long enough that everyone just assumed he was asleep, until an hour in he’d suddenly broken a stretch of silence to ask if Matthew could put on Charli XCX. Tiffany had been so startled that she’d screamed, and Matthew had nearly driven the car right off the road, he was laughing so hard.

“At some point,” you continue, “we pulled off at an overlook, where there were these steep cliffs, with the shore and the ocean way down below them. And everyone got out to see the view, and. I don’t know. I remember standing right there at the edge, and looking down, and thinking to myself. I could just… take another step. Go right over.”

All the way down, where the waves were cresting over the jagged edge of the coast. Where it could all finally be done.

The words are hard to shape, harder to say. “I didn’t even feel scared. I didn’t feel anything. A part of me wanted to do it, just because. It would be better than the… gray. The nothing. I was so exhausted of the nothing.”

You can’t keep the emotion out of your voice, not anymore, not with a truth this raw. It’s pulling apart now, splintering around the admission.

“That scared me so much, Yoongi. I’ve had highs and lows, but I had never really felt anything like that before. And when we got back in the car I just… broke down. I told them everything. I was so afraid to say it, thinking I was gonna fuck up these friendships.”

But that hadn’t happened.

Instead, Tiffany had crawled into the backseat, hugged you so tight you could scarcely breathe, then pulled away with her eyes wet and shining and murmured, “You don’t have to do this alone, okay?” Vernon had been the first one to gently bring up the subject of therapy, had texted you the links to a couple different websites to search for a provider. After a tedious month of waiting lists and insurance woes, Matthew had driven you to your first session, cranked up ‘All I Do is Win’ on his stereo when you’d walked out of the building ninety minutes later, face puffy from crying. First step taken.

They’d all shown up, in different ways.

“I had never thought of it like that before. Until I felt it. Wanting to push people away so they don’t see all the dark shit. Like you’re a liability.”

“Yeah.” Yoongi’s words sound a little stilted on the other end of the line. “That’s– yeah.”

“But they didn’t leave. They helped me. Got me into therapy.” The breath of a teary laugh slips out. “Turns out, I’m really fucked up over my dad dying. And even stuff from before that.”

“Trauma,” Yoongi murmurs softly, and something sticks in your throat. “Yeah. That’s exactly what it is, actually.” You smudge the back of your hand over your mouth, heaving a sigh against your skin. “I don’t know. It’s only been two months, so. I don’t have all the answers or anything. Jimin is maybe overselling it, but. I’m trying.”

“Better than me. I don’t have a therapist. Unless you count Jungkook.”

It’s so unexpected, you’re laughing before you can stop yourself, and the feeling washes through you like relief. Like a balm for all the ache in your chest, for all the fracture-lines threatening to crack right open.

“If Baby Goth pulled all of that insight out of your emotionally constipated ass, you should be paying him,” you deadpan, and Yoongi really laughs, too.

“It’s– not exactly like that. But he’s somehow talked me into working on music, and when I’m writing, that’s when I really… Take everything apart and look at it. See it for what it is. But he puts up with a lot.” He huffs another low note, amused. “Probably should pay him.”

You can’t bite back your curiosity. “When you say music, like–”

“A mixtape. My mixtape, yeah.”

You turn onto your stomach, propping up on your elbows, eyes wide. “Wow, Yoongi, that’s–”

“Ah, let’s just–” he interjects, and the tone of his voice is so familiar that it’s like you can see the expression on his face. One hand to the back of his neck, brow pinched with discomfort. Like he immediately regrets bringing it up. “It might not happen; it’s not a definite, so. I’m trying not to put too much stock in it. If I actually see it all the way through, then you can congratulate me. Right now it’s just me screwing around, wasting time.”

“Okay,” you answer. “Well. I hope I get to hear it. Someday.”

“We’ll see,” Yoongi says softly.

You decide to let it be enough.

~*~

It’s a couple weeks later that your phone starts to buzz on the kitchen counter while you’re halfway through cubing a block of tofu.

The last time you’d spoken to him, Yoongi had extended an offer, and you had agreed to it: that he’d call you when he could, and that you were welcome to do the same. Neither of you had used the word, but it felt suspiciously like a proposal of friendship.

Which is… you’re not sure how to feel about it.

You haven’t managed to convince yourself to call him yet; in fact, the words of the previous conversation are still whirling around in your brain, not having quite settled in as reality.

But when his name lights up on your phone, you maneuver a free pinky finger to accept the call and put it on speakerphone.

“Hi, Yoongi.” It’s still weird to say that, too.

“Hey– bad time?”

“No, no, you’re good,” you murmur, trying to speak up to be heard as you slide the tofu off your cutting board into the pot on the stovetop, careful not to splash. “I just, uh. Got home from therapy, actually. So I’m a little drained.”

“Sounds like maybe it’s a bad time, then.”

“I’m serious,” you reiterate, wiping your hands on the kitchen towel so you can properly pick your phone up, turn off the speakerphone, and cradle it to your ear. “I would tell you if it was. Or, you know. I wouldn’t have picked up. Coulda sent your ass to voicemail.”

He hums, like he’s considering the argument. “Therapy was… tough?”

Your hip nudges against the kitchen counter. “Um, not the worst it’s ever been. I don’t know. Just talking about family stuff can be a lot. Heavy. Made me miss home.”

“Yeah. I get that.”

“Do you visit Daegu much?” It’s funny, all the things you still don’t know. Never had a chance to ask.

Yoongi sucks in a breath. “No. I should. It’s been years; my parents are getting older. I always say I’m too busy with work. But maybe I could take some time off.”

“It’s hard sometimes,” you murmur. “Home is weird.” Yoongi doesn’t say anything, so you turn back to face your simmering dinner. “I miss it, and also I don’t, so. I’m making soup about my complicated trauma feelings. This is what my wild nights in Los Angeles look like.”

The soft tones of Yoongi’s laugh filter through the phone, and it’s like you can see his shoulders shaking with it. “I didn’t know you cooked.”

“That’s because I don’t,” you confirm. “Not historically. But, you know. Maybe I am becoming someone who does.”

“Cooking’s nice,” Yoongi muses. “Relaxing.” 

And, oh. For just a second, you’re standing in a borrowed t-shirt, in a kitchen that isn’t yours, imagining a future that never came to be. Your breath sticks at the memory. That morning, the night before it, Yoongi’s hands on your body, his mouth finding yours under the spray of the shower, and the way it all felt so–

“Right.” Yoongi’s voice stops you before you can spiral any further. “I actually, uh. Wanted to get your opinion on something. If you’ve got a second.”

It’s a little hard to talk, but you clear your throat and try. “Yeah, sure. What’s up?”

He pauses, and there’s a shifting sound, chased by the faint click of a mouse in the background. You don’t know why it didn’t occur to you that he was probably calling you from his studio, given it’s midday in Seoul.

“I have…” Yoongi finally speaks, his voice deep on the other end of the line. “Been assigned a deadline, by which I need to stop dicking around and actually finalize my tracklist. For the– you know.”

“Mixtape,” you offer, and you don’t miss his disgruntled grumble of a response, even though it’s muffled, like he’s breathed it into the back of his hand.

“I’m stuck on this song. Whether to keep it or not. Can I send it to you?”

The question catches you off-guard. “Uh, yeah. Yes, okay. Will be glad to share my opinions as a professional music industry fraud.”

Yoongi scoffs a little, underscored by the muted clacking of his keyboard. “I’m emailing it to you.”

“And will you kill me if I play it right now?” you ask, pulling the phone away to flip the speaker back on.

“Nah,” he answers, and you can hear him groan softly, like he’s rolling out sore muscles in his desk chair. “I’ve already heard it a hundred times, what’s one more?”

“Fair enough,” you respond as the file appears in your inbox, and you pull it up and click play. 

It’s clearly a demo, the production far from polished, but it’s still impressive. Yoongi’s flow is rapid-fire, his voice proud and dynamic– and, it occurs to you as the chorus hits, familiar. Everything about the artist on this track sounds exactly like the Min Yoongi you encountered on your first day of work. Unapologetic, pissed off, and maybe a little bit of an asshole.

“Wow,” you murmur as the final chorus repeats and fades out. “It’s good, really good. So different from your producer stuff.”

“Honestly, I think I hate it.”

“Well, you’re an idiot,” you retort automatically, smirking to yourself as you turn the heat down on the stove, then reach to take your phone off speaker again. You tuck it back up to your ear. “Why do you hate it?”

“That’s the thing,” Yoongi sighs, voice heavy with frustration. “I can’t figure out why. I just feel this disconnect.”

“I mean, the line about winning a Grammy is a little painful,” you admit, and he hums a note of agreement.

“That too. Obviously I wrote this a while ago. Before.” Emotion-soaked memories lick at the edges of your mind, and you will them away, trying to focus. “And now, I don’t know, it’s just…” he trails off, unable to finish the thought.

“It’s not you anymore,” you offer, and Yoongi exhales. 

It takes you a second to realize it’s the breath of a laugh. “What?”

“Nothing,” he says. “It’s just. You’re good at that.”

“At what?”

There’s an extra beat of silence, like he’s hesitating. “I don’t know. Knowing me, I guess.”

It’s an overwhelming thing to hear, but Yoongi just keeps going.

“It’s not, no. When I listen to it I’m like, who is this kid? And why is he so angry?” 

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth at the wry smile in his voice. “I mean,” you start. “Okay, I’ve actually talked this to death in therapy. You felt that anger at one point. It’s not wrong, just because you don’t feel it anymore. Like, I was really angry at a lot of things, for a really long time. Including you.”

“Yeah?” You can hear the surprise in Yoongi’s question, the way his voice eases up.

“Yeah. Still am, sometimes.”

Another pause. “You can, you know. Be angry with me.”

Your hip thuds hard against the counter, like your knees are considering giving out all together. You can’t help but wonder when Min Yoongi is going to stop surprising you, if he ever will. 

“Okay,” you breathe. “Noted. And you can be angry on this song. Like, it’s not a bad thing.”

Yoongi makes a low noise, like he’s still not convinced. “I just sound like such a… try-hard.” It makes you wonder if he’s in one of those moods tonight, where every answer is the wrong one.

But he called you, didn’t he?

“Well,” you try, “is that really so bad, either? Music is by nature kind of a time capsule, right? Look at TXT. They’re not the absolute babies that they were when they did Cat & Dog–”

“That fucking song–”

“But,” you continue, unbothered. “It doesn’t mean it’s not still the greatest song that’s ever been written.”

“Christ,” Yoongi grumbles. “Why am I getting my advice from you?”

“We already covered that you’re an idiot,” you remind him, cradling the phone to your cheek as you turn to pop the lid of your rice cooker open. “All I’m saying is, I know firsthand that there are a lot of different versions of Min Yoongi. And this is only one of them, so. Maybe you just need some songs that showcase the others, too. Find a balance.”

There’s a long stretch of silence, like he’s considering this.

“‘Cause yeah,” you say, not quite able to hold in a giggle. “If your entire album was like this song, I’d be like, wow. This guy’s a real asshole.”

“Alright,” he says, like his jaw’s set firm. “Noted.”

~*~

“If I’m calling too often, you don’t have to pick up every time.”

You have to bite back your smile, doing your best to keep an office-appropriate expression as you click the button on your headset to turn up the volume of Yoongi’s voice.

“Workaholic producer doesn’t know what to do with himself with a whole week of freedom, huh?” you murmur, teasing, before turning back to your long list of scheduling requests.

Yoongi grunts an indignant sound. “I’m doing things.”

“Like sleeping?”

“Not as much as I’d like. My dog hogs the fucking bed.”

The mental image is enough to send a flutter of laughter through you: Yoongi relegated to the edge of the mattress, while a brown toy poodle– one whom you’ve received approximately 700 pictures of in the last seven days– sprawls comfortably in the middle.

“How is Daegu?”

It’s quiet on the other end of the line, save the chirp of early morning birds. A new picture replaces the old one: Yoongi pacing the back deck of his parents’ home, soaking up one of the last warm-weather days before autumn sets in. Barefoot, mug of coffee in hand, face still puffy from sleep.

With a hard swallow, you force yourself to refocus on work.

“It’s good,” Yoongi finally answers. “My last day here, so. I’ll cook them something before I go. Gotta finish up that woodworking thing for my dad.” He makes a soft, low groan, like he’s stretching himself out, or still waking up. It sends a shiver through you that you wish you could ignore.

“Are you glad you went?” you ask instead.

He hums, as if he’s mulling it over. “I think so. Brought up some stuff, but. It’s been good, too. Weird to think about it all. What’s changed. What hasn’t.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Just being with my family, my brother. Driving around streets that I know like the back of my hand. And there’s memories everywhere. That bus stop, where I didn’t have enough money but the driver let me on anyway because he felt bad for me. This restaurant, where I had a panic attack in the bathroom after I broke up with my first girlfriend. The kimbap from the GS25 across the street from my high school. I think that’s why I avoided coming back for so long.”

You can’t help yourself. “The kimbap?”

Yoongi hisses a half-laugh between his teeth. “Nah, I just. Knew it would all be a lot. ‘Cause I still feel like a kid whenever I’m home. That apparently doesn’t go away, even in my thirties.”

All at once, you find yourself holding your breath; Yoongi hasn’t talked much about his childhood, not even during this week spent in Daegu. You haven’t wanted to push the subject, but it feels like he’s on the edge of something, so you leave an empty space for him to get it out, in case he wants to.

He sighs softly, and then he keeps going. “I think a lot about that kid. How he didn’t get enough love.” A pause. “And how it fucked him up. But it’s like, I’m old enough now to know my parents were just people, too. They tried in their own way. So I just… don’t know what to do with it, I guess.”

“Yeah,” you murmur. In the weeks of sporadic phone calls that have drawn out between you, you’ve learned that Yoongi doesn’t always need all the answers. That sometimes he prefers not having them, and letting the reality of that settle into him. Learning to live with it.

“I’m serious, you can really tell me to fuck off if you need to work. I can monologue to the wind.”

You smirk, fingers hovering over your keyboard. “It’s fine. I’m just doing booking shit. I’d have put on a podcast anyway.” For a split second, you press your lips together, as if to keep the thought to yourself, and then you decide to just say it. “Or your mixtape.”

“Ah, there it is.”

It’s been a week since Yoongi drove out to visit his family– and seven long days since his album officially dropped on streaming platforms, the release done with minimal fanfare per his insistence. Seven excruciating days you’ve gone without saying a single word to him about it, despite the fact that he’s called you damn near daily.

“You lasted longer than I thought you would,” he admits, voice nearly teasing.

“I figured you’d tell me when you wanted to talk about it.”

“And now, what, you’re tired of waiting?”

You roll your eyes despite the way your mouth is tugging up at the corners. “Just curious. We can keep not talking about it.”

There’s a pause on his end, underscored by the clack of your keys as you resume typing. “I have nothing to say because I haven’t looked at anything,” he finally admits.

That makes you lose your focus. “Wait, seriously?”

“I call it delaying the inevitable,” he answers dryly.

You open your mouth, then close it again, not sure what to say. How much to reveal. “And I take it you… want to wait? Until you’re back in Seoul?”

Yoongi sucks in a long sigh, like he’s debating, and then he finally lets loose a groan of defeat. “Fuck it. I’ve got stuff to distract me today. Go ahead, deliver the blow.”

“Are you sure?” You’re suddenly aware of the way your heartbeat is hammering behind your ribs.

“God, not an encouraging answer,” he mutters, before clearing his throat and putting on a more determined tone. “Yeah, yeah. Come on. Get it over with, rip off the bandaid.”

“Okay,” you breathe, more to yourself than to him. Fumbling for the mouse, you navigate to the browser window you’ve had sitting minimized on your desktop for the last seven days, doing your best to ignore the tremor in your hands. “Do you just want me to, like, read them to you?”

“Just the most important parts. I don’t need the fluff.”

“Alright. Let’s see.” As quick as you can, you scan your eyes down the page, trying to pull quotes, trying to will your pulse to slow as you read off the screen. “‘Producer Suga releases his first mixtape under the stage name Agust D, proving that there truly can be 'no-skip' albums.’”

He exhales a laugh, and you keep going.

“‘Through compelling lyricism and cohesive storytelling, he presents a narrative of the hardship and spite that comes along with the art of existing.’” You flip to another tab, then another.

“‘Agust D's first masterpiece proves that the producer can do more than make songs. In his stunning mixtape, he sets a new standard for other artists and sets the stage for a new era of self-exploration as he navigates discovering his final form.’

“‘The album is a collection of introspective abstractions, exploring different personas to represent rage, desire, desperation and empathy. He remains lyrically candid from song-to-song, painting a raw picture of his inner self that packs a punch, emotionally and artistically.’

“‘The Grammys may have snubbed him under his producer pseudonym Suga, but make no mistake: there is no ignoring Agust D.’”

A heavy silence stretches out on the other end of the line, long enough that you’re halfway tempted to check your phone to confirm the call hasn’t dropped. Just as you find yourself reaching for it, your hand still shaking slightly in a way you can’t quite believe is solely from over-caffeination, there’s the sound of Yoongi breathing deep. Like he’s coming up for air.

“Thanks for that. And I appreciate you… editing out the less positive parts.”

It takes you a second to find your words. “I-I’m not, is the thing. It’s– they’re all like this.” Your admission of the truth is met with more silence, so you squeeze your eyes shut and continue. “Because it’s good, Yoongi. I believe I’d use the term critically acclaimed. You know. As a music industry professional.”

Another pause.

“Well, shit,” Yoongi finally murmurs, and you can hear the smile in his voice.

~*~

“God, you’re so lucky Los Angeles doesn’t have weather. It was cold as shit in Chicago,” Jimin mutters, tugging down the brim of his baseball cap to better shield his eyes from the morning sun.

“Hey!” Tiffany interjects, clearly offended on behalf of her city. Her baby pink sneakers kick up little clouds of dust as they crunch along the gravel path beneath your feet. “We have weather! Sometimes it rains.”

The weeks have, somehow, spilled over into months, and Jimin’s not wrong– late fall in Los Angeles is a far cry from the colder temperatures you’d be experiencing back in Seoul. It all makes time feel a little unreal, like it’s speeding up and slowing down, the days both long and short. You’ve slipped into a comfortable, steady routine now, doing your best to keep things more or less balanced: work, therapy, nights out with friends, FaceTime dates with Jimin.

And, well. Yoongi’s still calling. And you’re still answering.

“Look at her.” Your best friend’s unwavering sass brings you back to reality, and he scoffs, voice thready from the uphill climb, words punctuated by the scrape of his sneakers as the trail continues to steepen. “Off in her own world. Drag me out here on my one day off, make me go on a fucking hike because you’re ‘a person with healthy habits’ now, and what? You can’t even be bothered to make conversation?”

You shoot him the best death glare you can manage. “Mochi, I will throw you down this canyon.”

The laugh you huff out is more like a snort; you can hear Tiffany giggling, too, on your other side. There’s a glow on the apples of her cheeks when you glance over, the only indication she’s expending any effort at all, and then her mouth pulls up smug, and you already know what’s coming.

“Oh, I know what this is, she’s got that look. It’s her new Yoongi face,” she says helpfully, eyes narrowing along with her grin as she flicks her gaze back to Jimin. “The old one was like–” she frowns, brow pinched, mouth taking on a downturned slope, like she’s liable to burst into tears at any second.

“Very familiar,” Jimin confirms.

“But the new one is like–” Tiffany’s face immediately brightens, her eyes wide and lashes fluttering; she might as well have a cartoon heart floating over her head. She waves a hand in front of her as she drops the expression. “She’ll be back with us in five minutes, give or take.”

“That’s right,” Jimin continues before you can get a word in. “I forgot you two are having your regularly scheduled phone sex. I’m still trying to get Wonho to do that; he just gets so flustered saying things out loud.”

“Hate that,” Tiffany chimes in.

“Right? Like, just tell me you want to split me in half. It’s not that hard.”

This time you actually do shove Jimin, though he’s put on enough muscle from touring that the impact barely seems to register. “We are not having phone sex, Mochi.”

“They’re having deep, therapeutic conversations,” Tiffany supplies, and she shoots you a look when you whip your head back toward her. “What? Our walls are thin.” She shrugs. “It’s not my fault I can hear you two talking about your trauma all the time.”

Like she’s already bored with the discussion, she unzips the lilac fanny pack slung over her hips, retrieving her cell phone and beginning to tap gently at the screen with her nails.

“Yeah, trauma on that pus–”

“Jimin!”

“Okay, okay!” Jimin squirms just out of your reach, narrowly avoiding your attempt to tackle him to the ground. “I’m caught up now. It’s enemies to lovers to long distance boring-ass friends who aren’t even having phone sex.” He grimaces. “God, this narrative is all over the place.”

You roll your eyes so hard they threaten to fall out of your head entirely. “You need to stop trying to shove me and Yoongi into one of your 12-episode dramas. Life isn’t that simple, Park Jimin. Or that cliché.”

All at once, you must find a patch of cell service, because Tiffany’s phone starts buzzing in her hand, humming with so many notifications that for a moment you think it might just combust. When you glance back, she’s clearly processing something on the screen, because her eyes widen, and then she claps a hand over her mouth with a soft squeak.

“Oh, holy fuck,” she breathes into her palm.

“What?” Jimin asks. His brow creases with concern. As if on some kind of instinct, you feel the bottom of your stomach drop out. 

Tiffany grips her phone with two hands again so she can type faster, thumbs clack-clacking for a moment before she manages to answer. “Um, well. Grammy nominations just dropped. And girl.” She’s looking at you now, eyes still wide. “Guess who’s on here.”

“Wait,” Jimin interrupts before you’ve even had a second to think. “For the mixtape? I’m sorry, am I a Grammy-nominated featured vocalist right now?” He tucks a hand under his chin, posing cutely, as if he’s already prepared to give the acceptance speech for his award.

Tiffany’s already holding her phone up so you can see it for yourself, and there it is, at the bottom of a list of names: Agust D.

Your heartbeat flutters like butterfly wings as your eyes snap up to the category.

“Best New Artist?!”

“Uh-huh,” Tiffany says, and you tear your gaze away from the screen just in time to see her shoot a grimace at Jimin. “Sorry for your loss, babes.”

“Those fuckers,” he hisses, immediately indignant. “Can’t believe they would snub me like this. Whatever, everyone knows the Grammys are a scam anyway.”

The static in your brain is whirring too loud for you to keep up with any of it.

“But Tiff,” you say softly, fully aware you’re processing all of this in slow motion. “It’s– that means– if he’s–”

“Better get ready, girl,” she murmurs, tilting to the side until her hip bumps against yours. “‘Cause here comes your man.”

The rush of memories is so overwhelming, it’s all you can do to keep up with the conversation as Tiffany and Jimin unpack the rest of the nominees, then somehow spend most of the long drive home on a tangent about tragic red carpet fashion. You barely hear any of it; all you can think about is– Yoongi, in a hotel bed, hair mussed from sleep. Yoongi, in a suit and tie, one hand squeezing yours as they call out a name that isn’t his. Yoongi’s head dropping down on your shoulder in a cab ride home, tongue thick in his mouth as he mumbles out–

“God, you really do have a Yoongi face.” Jimin’s shoulder thuds into the doorframe of your room, and you glance up to find him scrubbing a towel through his still-damp hair.

His eyebrows lift as you blink back at him from the edge of your bed.

“Um, excuse me, I believe this is the part of the exchange where you scowl at me? Threaten my life? Call me that stupid nickname?”

That one finally pulls you out of your thoughts enough to laugh. “If you don’t want me to call you Mochi, you should try being less mochi-shaped.”

“I can’t help that I’m adorable and delicious,” Jimin deadpans. He launches his towel into the laundry hamper tucked in the corner of the room, and then his gaze finds yours again, still a little questioning. “Seriously though, you good?”

You nod. “Yeah. Just. A lot to think about, you know.”

He hums, like he understands. “Well, Tiff said she’s picking up food, so I think I’m gonna ride along. Figured we’d leave you to your thoughts.” His mouth is already tugging up at the corner. “And your phone sex.”

“Mochi!”

You’re immediately on your feet, but Jimin disappears from view just as quickly; you can hear his retreating footsteps thud down the hall. By the time you make it to the doorway, he’s slipping into his slides, face still pulled into a shit-eating grin as Tiffany flips the lock on the front door, then swings it wide.

“Be right back!” she sing-songs, and Jimin is right behind her, shooting you one last glance over his shoulder.

“Tell Yoongi hyung I’m proud of him! You know, before you tell him how much you want his big, fat–”

The door slams shut before he can finish the thought.

With a groan of a laugh, your pulse already starting to quicken, you cross back to your bed, then grab your phone and drop down onto the mattress. Yoongi answers on the second ring, and his greeting is a noise that doesn’t quite manage to be a discernible word.

“Fuck,” you say quickly, trying to do the timezone math in your head. “Did I just wake you up? I figured you’d still be awake, but if you–”

“Wasn’t sleeping,” Yoongi clarifies, voice rough like gravel. “Chan and Jungkook took me out. I just got back. Almost called you, but.” He heaves a sigh. “Took me three tries to get my door open.”

It’s with that admission that what you’re hearing finally locks into place, the messy slant to his words, and you can’t hide the laughter that flutters out of you. “Oh my god. You’re drunk.”

“We were celebrating,” he whines, but the fact that he doesn’t deny it tells you everything you need to know. A version of Yoongi, albeit one you only ever managed a small glimpse of, slots into place in your mind: face flushed, smile all gums and teeth, laughing and dancing and scream-singing into a noraebang microphone.

The memory kicks through you, a pang that echoes right behind your ribs.

“I hope you had fun,” you finally manage, your voice soft at the edges. “I was just calling to say congrats.”

“‘S fucking crazy,” he slurs, sounding as dazed as you feel. “I almost pulled the plug on this album. So many times.”

“I remember.”

Yoongi inhales deep, like he’s preparing some big, elaborate thought, but then you hear all that air rush back out of him again, chased with a weary groan. “Fuck. I’m so– fucked.”

“Fucked for the Grammys or fucked for the amount of alcohol you drank tonight?”

The phone rustles a little, like he’s shifting, but there’s the sound of breathy laughter underneath it. “Just. Yeah. Fucked all the way around.”

“Best New Artist,” you try the words out, which just makes Yoongi groan again. “That’s huge.”

“‘M trying not to think about it. Too many milkis shots.”

For a moment, you wonder if maybe that’s it, and it makes sense. He’s so overwhelmed with a new future to start preparing for, a whole new level of fame and attention, all of it about to crash over him like an unforgiving tidal wave. Why would that have anything to do with you?

But then he’s continuing, his voice so low that it’s barely audible. “Guess I’ll be coming back to Los Angeles soon.” And you swear your heart jumps into your throat.

“Guess so,” you answer, with more breath than sound. All at once, you’re aware of so many things between the two of you: the big things, like space and distance and time, but also– this thread. This something, a tether you don’t have a name for, built up again from next to nothing.

In this moment, it suddenly all feels very, very fragile. Liable to break apart on impact.

“Wish I was there now,” Yoongi murmurs, and your breath catches. “With you.”

“You’re drunk,” you repeat.

“I know.” He sighs again, heavier this time, and you can feel it too. The weight of everything between you. Past and present. “But it doesn’t mean I don’t mean it.”

Your mouth twists. “And you can understand why that might be hard for me to believe, right?”

“I can,” he answers softly. His voice has emotion threatening your waterline.

You’re not sure what else to say.

Yoongi huffs out a frustrated noise. “Shit. I don’t want to be that guy anymore. But I don’t wanna only ever say shit like this when I’m drunk either. ‘Sjust easier sometimes. When I’m not thinking so much.”

The irony isn’t lost on you. You’ve been there, on the bathroom floor.

“We’re both guilty of that,” you murmur.

“Yeah.”

A rush of words is coming up before you can stop it. You squeeze your eyes shut with enough force to push a tear past the border of your lashes. And then you just say it. “For the record. I did mean it. What I said that night.”

I don’t know how to stop being in love with you.

Yoongi pauses, and the silence of it stretches out long enough to make you wonder if he even knows what you’re talking about. Maybe he’s forgotten that voicemail entirely.

But then you hear him take in a breath. “I did too. When I said…” He trails off, like it’s a thought he can’t quite finish. “Yeah. Think you already knew that, though.”

You try to swallow around the lump stuck in your throat. “It’s nice to hear it anyway.”

“I’m sorry. That I fucked it all up.”

A few more tears streak down your face, and you swipe the back of your hand over your cheek. “It wasn’t just you, Yoongi.”

“Fucking hell,” he groans, like he’s exhausted with himself. “It’s not– I don’t–” There’s a muted thud on his end of the line, and you can’t help but wonder if it’s his fist making contact with something soft, given the way he can’t even get a sentence out, the way his voice has gone jagged-edged with frustration. “‘M just. Gonna say this. And you don’t have to do anything with it, okay?”

“Okay,” you breathe. You’re distantly aware of the sound of keys in the front door.

“It’s still true. For me. Didn’t stop. Hasn’t stopped.”

The words sweep your feet out from under you. All you can do is breathe.

“Okay.” You say it once, then again. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Yoongi echoes.

And then it’s quiet.

You finally speak first, punctuated with a sniff and a soft huff at your own dramatics. “I hate to ruin this moment, but my friends just came back with food.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Yoongi murmurs, pausing to clear his throat. “It’s– yeah. You should go. I should sleep.”

“I have to console Jimin,” you say, unable to keep your mouth from tugging up at the mention. “He’s really torn up about his feature being snubbed.”

“Well.” Yoongi gives a grunt of effort, like he’s forcing himself to sit upright. “Tell him the Grammys fucking suck anyway.”

That actually manages to pull a laugh out of you. “I will.”

Silence hangs heavy in the air after the call ends, when it’s just you again, alone in your bedroom. You collapse back against the sheets, head spinning, still coming down from it all.

Yoongi loved you. Yoongi loves you?

The thought alone feels like touching a live wire, one that lights up every cell in your body. It’s awful, wonderful, terrifying, magical, life-ruining. It’s a nightmare. It’s the easiest thing in the world.

To his credit, Jimin’s patience lasts longer than you would’ve expected. He and Tiffany crowd in on either side of you, cross-legged on the floor of your living room, styrofoam takeout boxes of tacos fighting for space on the coffee table. The three of you make it through most of the blender of Tiffany’s homemade frozen margaritas before you feel his shoulder knock into yours. You know what question is coming before he even asks it.

“Alright, quit holding out on us. How did it go?”

Your pulse starts to quicken, and you keep your gaze fixed on the table. “Well. I guess. There is a distinct possibility. That Yoongi and I… could be more than just friends.”

“And how does that make you feel?” Tiffany pipes up.

You press your fingers to your temples, but you can’t keep the smile from breaking out over your face, one that only brightens when Tiffany starts squealing.

“I don’t know!” you quickly continue, even as you feel her close both hands around one of yours, fingers squeezing tight with excitement. “I really don’t know. I am, we are, still… figuring it all out. But there’s. Yeah. There’s something, I think. And it’s not a bad thing.”

Jimin, surprisingly, is quiet. You watch him closely as he sets his half-eaten taco down, then reaches for a napkin to diligently wipe the juices from his hands. All the while saying nothing, his face an expressionless mask.

Just as you feel your stomach start to clench with nerves, he turns to fully face you, and then you’re suddenly laid flat on the carpet, Tiffany letting out a squawk of surprise and barely managing to get out of the line of fire in time. Jimin’s on top of you now, pinning you against the floor, his arms wrapped around your waist in a hug so firm you can scarcely breathe. He peppers your face with kisses as you try to squirm out of his grasp.

“I am so fucking proud of you,” he murmurs, face squished in the crook of your neck. More tears immediately threaten the line of your lashes.

“Thank you, Mochi,” you whisper. You’re barely able to get the words out; his full weight crushed against your ribcage certainly doesn’t help. “For telling me what I needed to hear. I’m sorry that it took me so long to get my shit together.”

A fat, wet, dramatic kiss is pressed to your cheek. “You have nothing to apologize for. I knew you’d figure it out. I was always on your side.”

“Thank you for being my best friend.”

“Always, babygirl.”

Before he even finishes the words, Jimin cuts himself off with an oof, and simultaneously, you feel a second weight drop down on top of you, pushing you that much flatter into the carpet. Tiffany’s head peeks over his shoulder.

“Hi.” She grins down at both of you. “I was feeling left out. Should I make more margs?”

“Please,” Jimin wheezes, and you can’t stop laughing.

~*~

With a mostly-smoked joint pinched between your fingertips, you suddenly find yourself halfway through a question, your words underscored by the old school hip-hop thudding softly through the speakers of Matthew's parked Jeep. The last rays of the setting sun cling to the horizon in front of you, coloring the world dusk pink.

“How do you know when you’re in love?”

You’re not sure you actually meant to ask it out loud, but Matthew nods, thoughtful, as he reaches to pluck the joint from your grasp. The crease in his brow deepens as he takes a hit, like he’s really considering his answer, and then he shrugs.

The words flutter out on his exhale. “Love is… easy. And I don’t mean like rainbows and butterflies, hell no. It’s more like, when you’re with that person, there’s that feeling. Where everything locks into place. It’s like, oh yeah. There you are. Like you just found something that you’ve been waiting on a long time, kinda thing.”

You take the joint back when he offers it, exchange it for another question. “Do you think it can ever be easy with two people who have really hurt each other?”

“Oh, for sure,” he answers with a nod, fingers drumming aimlessly against the steering wheel. “Take me and Tiff. We’ve been through it, most definitely. There was a long time when I didn’t want to say how I felt, ‘cause I didn’t want to show weakness, you know? And that girl is crazy, too. She’s made me jump through every hoop there is.”

You laugh, choking a little on smoke, because you know he’s not wrong. Tiffany has admitted as much herself.

“But,” Matthew continues, gaze distant through the windshield. “We’re trying. Taking baby steps with it. And every time we screw up, we get a little better at it, you know? And at the end of the day, there’s nobody else for me. Nobody else I want to be with, nobody who gets me, really knows me the way she does. For real. Like best friend type shit.”

The corner of your mouth turns up. “That’s really sweet.”

He shifts in his seat, crossing his arms behind his head with a smirk. “I got a soft heart hiding behind these rock-hard tiddies, I know.”

You cackle as you pass the last remains of the joint back across the center console. Matthew puffs on it a couple more times, then finally lets it drop out the open car window.

“I’m serious though,” he says, glancing over at you in the passenger seat. “If two people are both willing to put in the work, try to meet each other halfway, and be accountable about their own shit, then. Yeah. Some people think if you’re always struggling, and fighting, it means you really love each other. I don’t buy that. But I do think sometimes you have to go through hard to find easy.”

You let out a long, slow exhale. The thought of it feeling easy almost seems too good to be true. And yet that’s exactly how it’s been in this strange little bubble, just you and Yoongi. Spending hours on the phone, yet somehow never running out of things to say.

“It’s scary,” you finally manage, and Matthew nods, sympathetic.

“Fucking terrifying, for sure.”

A long, stoned silence stretches out between you, until Matthew finally breaks it.

“So, you in love with that asshole producer still? Or, again?”

The smile flits across your face before you can stop it, and your pulse thuds in your throat. It feels so real, to say it so casually like this. “I think I am, yeah. Still and again. Both.”

Matthew’s smiling too, when you look back at him. “That’s cute. Well, I’m rooting for y’all.”

“God, you’re such a sap, Matthew.”

You both startle at the sound of Tiffany’s voice. Matthew’s gaze flits to the rearview mirror while you turn over your shoulder to see her stretched lazily across the backseat, eyelids still heavy.

“Damn, girl,” Matthew huffs. “I thought you were comatose back there.”

“I was meditating,” Tiffany says, like it’s obvious. “Can we get Taco Bell? I would do some very fucked up things for a crunchwrap right now.”

Matthew outright salutes, which has Tiffany snorting with laughter as she manages to pull herself back up to sitting. “I gotchu, baby.” The car roars to life as he turns the key in the ignition, then cranks the stereo a good ten notches higher. “Seatbelts on, y’all!” He has to yell to be heard over the music, and you fumble for the metal buckle of yours. “Daddy’s about to pull an illegal U-turn!”

~*~

You wake up flushed all over, bedsheets kicked down to the edge of the mattress, an ache of desire thudding like a pulse between your hips. Remnants of sleep-soaked images stick to the edges of your thoughts, and you try to will them back into frame: the slide of rough hands down your body, the press of deft fingers working you to pieces. The scent of sandalwood and musk.

Your phone is in your hand like a reflex. It’s only once the line picks up and you hear an answer that it hits you, what you’re doing.

“Are you okay?” Yoongi’s voice is painted with concern. “Isn’t it late?”

The middle of the night, probably. “Yeah,” you reply, knowing full-well that your voice is thick with it, this want. “I just– I’m sorry.” You shake your head. “It’s nothing. I shouldn’t have called.”

“What is it?” He tries again, undeterred. You wonder if you’re imagining that his voice has softened slightly, dropped a little deeper in his chest. It radiates through you, liquid-hot.

“I just, uh.” The words feel heavy in your mouth. “I had this dream.”

There’s a silence on the other end of the phone, just long enough that you nearly falter, and then you hear Yoongi’s voice again.

“Tell me what you want.”

“You.” The answer comes before you can stop it, flutters out on an exhale so soft you’re not even sure it registers. “I want you, Yoongi.”

“Yeah?” The word is so familiar, you can see the smirk on his face with your eyes closed. Your body reacts automatically. “You want me to tell you what to do?”

“Please,” you breathe with your heart in your throat.

“What are you wearing?”

It’s insane, really, the way your nipples stiffen from a single question.

“Just, uh.” You swallow hard, suddenly self-conscious at what feels like an unsexy answer. “A t-shirt, shorts. I was sleeping–”

“Take the shorts off,” he instructs, voice dark, and it’s so easy, following his lead, slipping the thin cotton fabric over your hips. Easier still when he tells you to touch yourself, to tease your drenched folds apart, to moan for him as you press yourself open with a finger. And you do.

“How wet are you?”

“Soaked,” you tell him, working a second finger in, gasping at the stretch, curling them until you find the place that makes your breath catch.

Alone in your room, with thousands of miles between you, it still doesn’t matter. It’s like you can feel the heat of Yoongi’s breath on your skin. 

“Am I the only one you get this wet for?”

“Yes, Yoongi.” There couldn’t be anyone else.

“Tell me how it feels.”

Instinct takes over: you press the heel of your hand flat to your center and circle your hips, choking on another gasp at the friction-spark against your pulsing clit. “Fuck,” you hiss, head tipping back against the pillow. “It’s so good.”

“Just like that,” he breathes. “Keep going.”

“God,” you moan as your hips fall into a steady rhythm. The needy press of your fingers only serves to make you that much wetter, until you can feel it painting your thighs, soaking the sheets. “It feels so fucking good,” you say again.

“I bet you look so good right now, fucking yourself like this.” Yoongi sounds like he’s coming undone, too. There’s a pause, and then his voice comes back. “Do you wish it was me?”

“Yes,” you gasp, without hesitation. “I miss you.”

“Yeah, you miss the way I touch you? The way I fuck you?” You feel it all in the dark. The weight of Yoongi’s body above you, the brush of his mouth over yours, the slow drag of his cock fucking you all the way open. This unmistakable ache, right behind your ribs.

“Yes, Yoongi,” you murmur. It’s overwhelming, a flood of a thousand emotions at once as you work yourself to the edge, thinking only of him. “All of it. All of you.”

When he speaks again, it’s softer. “Wish I was there with you. To take care of you. Make you come until you can’t take it anymore.” A pause, and he breathes a laugh. “Make you squirt. God, that was hot.”

“Yoongi,” you whine. You’re drowning in it now.

“I know, baby. You’d take me so well, wouldn’t you? Squeeze so fucking tight around me?”

“Yes,” you moan. “Please, I’m close.”

“Love the way you look when you’re all fucked out.” The word flutters through your body like a wave. Love. “Fucking beautiful.”

“Yoongi.” It’s all you can say, all you can think.

“I’m right here. Come for me.”

And you do. With a shaky gasp, you pulse hard around your own fingers, wishing they were his instead.

“Fuck, you are– unbelievable,” Yoongi says softly. You can barely hear him over the waves of pleasure rolling through you, dragging you under.

It’s a long time before either of you speaks again. 

“Thank you,” is all you can finally manage once your pulse starts to slow, and then it occurs to you how one-sided this has been. You’re not sure what the rules are. You’ve never done anything like this before. “Um, did you want me to–?”

“No,” Yoongi answers before you can finish asking. “It’s okay. That was probably more than I deserve anyway.”

“Yoongi–”

He cuts you off, insistent. “Really, I’m fine. And you should get some sleep.”

Even in the haze of post-orgasm glow, the feeling swells up again: you miss Yoongi. Desperately, terribly. You squeeze your eyes shut and try to feel him beside you, the weight of his body on the mattress. Sweat beading at his temples, pulse thudding in his throat, his dark eyes searching yours.

It crashes over you, undeniable. You love him. Of course you do.

But the words feel– too big to say. Too small to close the ocean of distance between you. Too much, and not enough.

“I wish you were here,” you whisper instead. Despite how badly you want to keep talking, exhaustion is already on you like a heavy weight, easing your eyelids shut. You can feel yourself starting to drift.

“I know,” Yoongi answers. “I will be soon.”

You don’t remember ending the call, just the dreams that come after: hot breath on your skin, a body pressed firmly into yours, and three little words, whispered over and over, like a prayer in the dark.

~*~

You try not to overthink things. But just like that, the near-daily occurrence of hearing from Yoongi starts tapering off. Three days between calls, then five. Then a week, sometimes two.

When you do hear from him, it’s usually just long enough for him to tell you how busy things are before he has to go again. You know there’s a lot going on, with his music, his work, his blossoming career as an artist. And you get it; your job keeps you plenty occupied as well.

But any free moment you manage, you can’t stop yourself from playing it all back, looking for answers. Wondering what you might have done to make him start pulling away.

Part of you wonders if he regrets that night, the phone sex. If you swung the pendulum too far back, in a direction he had no interest in revisiting. If it somehow made him think differently of you. But you can’t make sense of that– he was there. He told you as much himself, and you heard the truth in his voice. How much he wanted it, wanted you.

At least, you thought he did. But as the weeks stretch on, you’re not so sure.

The closer the Grammys loom, the tighter the anxiety spiral knits in your chest, until finally, you can’t take it anymore. The next time you hear from Yoongi, hardly a fortnight out from when he’s meant to touch down in Los Angeles, the dam breaks.

“Is something going on?”

There’s a heavy sigh on the other end of the line, but he doesn’t answer right away.

“Will you please just tell me, Yoongi?” You hate the way your voice sounds as you say it. “What– what did I do wrong?”

“Nothing,” he answers immediately. “At all. It’s me.”

Your stomach twists. “What does that mean?”

“It’s not–” he cuts himself off. “Things have been really hectic lately, and I’ve been trying, but.”

You steady yourself for the blow.

“I just don’t think there’s a way that I’m going to be able to see you. While I’m in town.”

“Oh.” It’s the only response you have.

He keeps going. “My schedule is… honestly, just fucking insane. Rolling Stone, Genius, Pitchfork. My calendar looks like I’m speed-dating the entire LA music industry. I’ll get maybe three hours of sleep a night if I’m lucky. So then I thought maybe I could extend the trip, stay for an extra day or two, but. I’m booked up for a solid month after this. I have to be on the first flight Monday morning just to make it back in time. As it turns out, I’ve somehow stumbled my way into working two full-time jobs.”

“It’s okay, Yoongi,” you finally manage, but you're not sure how convincing you sound. “I get it. I remember how busy it was last year, so. I can only imagine what it’s like for you now.”

But you can’t ignore the creeping sense of dread, a skull-numbing buzz that’s all at once too familiar. He really can’t make any time for you? You’re not worth even half an hour?

“I know it’s not fair to you,” he continues. “And I’ve been more distant because I was dreading having to tell you, and part of me was convinced that I could figure it out, that maybe there was a way I could make it work.”

He could make it work, your mind whispers. If he really wanted to.

“Right,” you answer wetly, a beat too late. “I get it.”

“I’m really sorry.” His voice has gone raw, like it’s hard for him to say these words. “I’ve looked at this from every angle. But I’m not… I’m not good at this. I don’t want the first time that we see each other to be when I’m– a wreck. Overwhelmed, anxious, jetlagged and running on nothing. You deserve better than that.”

A tear streaks down your face, quickly chased by a second. “Yeah.”

“None of this has anything to do with me not caring about you, or not wanting to see you. I need you to believe me when I say that.”

“Yeah,” you repeat dumbly, but you can feel it all building, until it threatens to choke you. The disappointment, the shame, the anger, a poison that stings in your veins. And with it, the urge to pick up your fears and your trauma, to wield them like weapons. To say things that can’t ever be unsaid. To hurt Yoongi the way he’s hurt you, over and over again.

Yoongi speaks before you have the chance to. “I know. I know I keep doing this, putting work above everything. It’s not fair to you. And I’m sorry for doing it then, and sorry for doing it now. But I just want to get this right. Being with you again, after everything– I want to do it right.”

“It makes sense,” you say softly, and then your facade crumbles. “It just hurts.”

“I know,” he says, like he really does. “It hurts me, too.”

A sob hitches in your throat. The thought of Yoongi being so close, so soon, and not being able to touch him, to even see him, after all this time. Loving him like this, from a distance. It’s devastating.

“I wish there was another way,” you breathe. “I just– I’m scared I’m never going to see you again.”

“I promise,” Yoongi says, and you’re not sure you’ve ever heard him more serious. “You will. Just let me get through this, and then I’ll come to you, and we can take our time. I’ll be all yours. No distractions.”

You swipe away a few more tears. As much as you want to blame him, hate him, a part of you understands that just as much of this is your fault. You were the one who ran away.

The words tumble out before you can shove them back down. “I wish you had stopped me. When I left. I kept hoping, I don’t know. That maybe you would show up at the last second and take it all back, or ask me to stay. And I just–” You try to swallow past the lump in your throat. “I know it was my choice. But I just really wish you had.”

Yoongi goes silent for a moment. His voice is barely a whisper when he speaks again. “I do, too,” he says. “Trust me.”

And, somehow, despite everything. You do.

As terrifying as it is, like free-falling with no safety net, you squeeze your eyes shut, and let your weapons drop. For the first time in your life, you make the choice to take Min Yoongi at his word. To trust him.

“Okay.”

~*~

“You know I'm fine, right?”

You turn to face Tiffany accusingly as you ask the question, and her eyes immediately snap away from your face. She does her best to act engrossed in the broadcast, as if you haven’t felt her gaze staring daggers into you the entire day.

Concerned, loving daggers, sure. But it’s driving you crazy all the same.

“I know!” she chirps, entirely unconvincing. “It’s just, like. We can always put something else on, if you want.”

“It’s really not a big deal,” you say for what easily has to be the fifth time.

“Tiff, seriously, drop it.” Matthew interjects through a mouthful of chips. The large serving bowl you’d set on the table for everyone to share has somehow ended up permanently in his lap. He reaches in for another handful. “Gotta admit though. Dude can for sure rock a suit.”

The four of you have been camped out in the living room for the better part of the afternoon, and you’ve just made it through the Grammys red carpet pre-show– well, at least three of you have. Vernon has been horizontal on the floor for at least an hour now, and you’re not positive if he’s sleeping, dead, or a secret third thing.

You’re appreciative to have the kind of friends that won’t let you go through a hard time alone, but it occurs to you now that maybe you actually would have preferred to be alone for this.

There’s no escaping the ache that blooms in your chest anytime Yoongi is onscreen. You find yourself holding your breath, just taking him in. The same dark eyes, same overwhelming gaze, his hair grown even longer in the year you’ve spent apart.

His fans have already made themselves known, and the reaction to him on the red carpet makes your heart flip. Even the interviewers are in on the “Yoongi Marry Me” jokes, and Yoongi does his best to force polite smiles that you can see straight through. It’s so strange to think how quickly everything has shifted; that only a year ago, no one knew who he was, or cared that he was at the Grammys.

And a year ago, you were there with him, too.

You swallow hard, trying to will those memories out of your mind, when Vernon sits up with a gasp.

“What day is it?”

“Sunday,” you answer slowly. “Why?”

Vernon’s brow is now creased with a panicked look, one you’ve frankly never seen before. “And tomorrow is Monday?”

“That’s how days work, yes.”

“Oh, then I’m fucked,” Vernon groans. His gaze flits from you to Tiffany to Matthew and back again. “I’m super fucked.”

“Vernon, baby, deep breaths,” Tiffany instructs. “What’s going on?”

“That big training on Monday,” he explains, expression twisting into a grimace. “I completely forgot, they wanted me to put the deck together, it was supposed to be like three hours of content.”

“Just do it now, dumbass,” Matthew says, and Vernon pauses, as if taking a moment to consider this.

The grimace quickly returns to his face. “I might, uh. Have left my laptop. At the office.”

“You’re telling me I gotta drive your ass all the way–”

“I can do it,” you interject quickly, before Matthew can spew any more chip crumbs out along with his complaints. A wave of relief rushes over you, because this is exactly what you need right now: the promise of an empty office and enough busy work to keep you occupied. “Seriously, I can build a deck in my sleep. I’ll just do it, and I’ll bring your laptop back in case you want to change anything.”

“Are you sure?” Vernon asks, awestruck.

But you’re already on your feet; a millisecond later, Tiffany is on hers, too. “I’m coming with you.”

“Tiff–” you shake your head, doing your best to shoot her a convincing smile, one that you’re sure doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “Just, please. Let me handle this, okay?”

Her mouth pulls flat; you know her well enough to know it means reluctant acquiescence, and you don’t hesitate. You cross the room to the front door and slip into your shoes, then grab your keys off the hook.

“Vernon–” you turn back over your shoulder. “All your files are on the shared drive, right?”

His brows raise, like it’s his first time hearing the term. “The… what now?”

As if to express his disappointment, Matthew lobs a couch pillow across the room, missing Vernon by at least a foot. You do your best to bite back a smile– it’s not like you can exactly judge anyone for a lack of computer knowledge.

“Just text me your password and where your laptop is, okay?” you try instead.

Vernon nods, shooting you a double thumbs-up. “Thank you for saving my ass!”

When you step outside, the promise of rain sits cool and heavy in the air, and you let yourself breathe it in. You’d been wound so tightly, trying to hold it together in front of your friends. You can feel those threads starting to snap now, like you’re coming apart at the seams.

The lights of the city begin to blink on, one-by-one, as you make your way across town. What was once an overcast afternoon sky has begun to bruise darker into grey-black storm clouds, thick and ominous over the hills.

You’ve barely managed to lock the office door behind you when the sky opens up, giving way to sudden downpour.

Finding Vernon’s laptop is easy enough, as is actually getting the slides together, despite his questionable notes. And, well. You can’t help it. You prop your phone up on the desk, tuned into a livestream of the Grammys broadcast.

It’s a long show, and you manage to finish the deck before Yoongi’s category is called. It’s still pouring down rain, so you stay at your desk, eyes glued to your phone.

You remember the feeling of Yoongi’s hand slipping into yours, the tick of nerves in the line of his jaw. Selfish as it may be, you can’t help but wonder if you’re on his mind at all. If he wishes he was with you instead. If it hurts him just as much, being this close.

And then a pretty blonde country singer is stepping up to present the next award, and your heart leaps into your throat as the words leave her mouth: Best New Artist.

Flashes of performance footage are stitched together into a video montage introducing each artist. You see Yoongi sneering into the microphone, dark hair falling into his eyes as he stares down the camera like it’s the barrel of a gun.

It’s suddenly hard for you to get a breath in.

The presenter fumbles a little with the envelope, but eventually manages to get it open. She leans into the microphone for one long moment of suspense, and then she says it.

“Agust D.”

The room erupts, and your heart cracks, right down the center. He really did it.

There are tears in your eyes now, and as you try to blink them away, you realize the camera is swinging a little haphazardly. It almost looks like they’re trying to find Yoongi, which doesn’t make any sense, given that they know exactly where he’s sitting.

When the broadcast finally manages to zero in on the dark-haired man bounding towards the stage, you clap a hand over your mouth in disbelief.

It’s Jungkook.

He makes it up to the microphone, as wide-eyed as you’ve ever seen him, one hand raised in a shy wave. “Oh, wow. Um, hi everyone. Hi Grammys.”

There’s another pang in your chest. God, you miss this kid.

“My name is Jungkook. Agust D has asked me to accept this award on his behalf.” You can see the look of sheer terror on Jungkook’s face now; he stares into the camera like a deer in headlights. “He, uh, gave me a note to read. Hang on, let me get it.”

As Jungkook starts to pat down his pockets in search of the note, you catch a glint of silver at the edge of his mouth. Is that a… piercing? You lean in closer, squinting at your phone screen to try and make it out.

There’s a bang at the front door, so loud that it makes you jump. You glance up, startled, and then the bottom drops out of your stomach.

Min Yoongi is standing outside of your office, soaked to the skin, like something out of a dream.

None of it feels real. Not when you get up from your desk, not when you unlock and open the door. Not even when he steps inside in his all-black suit, clearly out of breath, raking back his wet hair.

“You’re here,” he says dumbly, and you just stand there, sure that you’re about to wake up. Any second now.

“Yoongi,” you finally manage to breathe. “What are you–”

“I love you.”

The words nearly knock you off balance. “Yoongi,” you try again. “You just–”

He shakes his head. “I have to say this first, and then you can tell me to fuck off forever. I love you. I’m sorry that I didn’t say it sooner, or that I took it back when I shouldn’t have. It’s like you said– I was scared.” His dark eyes threaten to burn right through you. “I just couldn’t sit at that stupid show anymore knowing I was so close to you. I had to come tell you myself.”

You press a hand to his face, feather-light, your fingertips swiping at an errant bead of rainwater trailing along his cheek. His arms close around your waist, pulling you closer as if on instinct. Heat blooms under your skin at every point where your bodies touch.

“You just won a Grammy,” you say softly.

The look on Yoongi’s face shifts from concern to confusion, and then his jaw goes slack beneath your palm. “I– what?”

All you can do is nod. You feel a tear streak down your face. “I was watching the broadcast. You won, Yoongi.”

“I–I didn’t think I had any real shot.” His eyes widen. “Oh my god, and I told Jungkook to give my speech.”

You manage a wet laugh, even as more tears start to fall. “He did it, I saw him. He was shaking like a leaf.”

“Oh, the fangirls are going to love him,” Yoongi mutters with a disbelieving grin, and then he shakes his head again, as if to refocus himself. “We’ll circle back to that. This is more important. Than the music, than the Grammy, all of it.”

It feels like your chest could cave in at any second. “But Yoongi, this is your dream.”

His arms tighten around you, and a shiver trails up your spine. “There’s this funny thing that happens when your dreams come true. It makes you realize what really matters. Because as it turns out, being there tonight meant fuck all without you beside me.” A smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. “As much as I love Jungkook.”

Yoongi’s eyes search yours as he keeps talking. “I’m sorry I didn’t go after you when you left. I wish I’d known that you wanted me to. But I figured maybe if I did it tonight, it might count for something. Like, better late than never.”

You’ve given up on trying to hold the tears back, and you feel Yoongi trace a thumb gently beneath your lash line as more spill down your cheeks, unrelenting now.

“I hate to see you cry,” he says hoarsely.

You look up at him through your wet lashes, wondering how on earth he hasn’t put it together by now. “I’m crying because I love you, you idiot.”

Recognition spreads slowly over Yoongi’s face, and then you’re both laughing, his hands moving to cup your jaw. He looks at you like you’re something precious, something he doesn’t want to lose twice. For a second, it’s impossible to breathe.

“Can I kiss you now?” he asks softly.

“Please,” you answer, and he does.

His mouth on yours blots out every other thought in your mind. It’s a long time before you finally pull away.

“Hang on,” you start, once you’ve regained the ability to string words together, every cell in your body still buzzing with electricity. “How did you even know I would be here?”

Yoongi shrugs, strands of damp hair falling into his eyes. He pushes them back again, and you swear there’s a tinge of mild embarrassment in his expression. It’s an emotion you didn’t know he was capable of. “I… didn’t? I just kind of ran out of there, and I knew your office was close, and it was raining, and– I don’t know. I guess I was hoping for one more of those cosmic coincidences.”

“We do have a lot of them,” you admit with a nod of your head. “But honestly, you could have just called.”

“I know, I know.” He winces, and you swear you can see his face reddening. “I was acting on impulse, okay?”

“Shocking,” you deadpan, and he really laughs. Your heart threatens to beat right out of your chest at the sound. Another tear slips down your face at the realization: you’ve missed it all. Every piece of him.

Yoongi’s still smiling, your face still cradled in his hands. “Alright, your turn. Why are you here?”

“It’s a long story,” you say with a shake of your head. “And we have better things to do.”

“You make an excellent point,” he replies, lips brushing close to your ear. You feel him hesitate, just for a second. “I really am sorry I can’t stay longer. But I’ll be back as soon as I can, if you’ll have me.”

“Of course,” you murmur. As if you haven’t missed him since the moment you set foot on California soil. As if you could ever want anyone else, anything but this.

Another kiss, this one pressed to your hairline. “I know it’s probably way too soon for me to talk about this,” Yoongi’s voice is soft against your skin.

“It’s okay, Yoongi,” you answer. “Whatever it is, you can say it.”

“I just– do you think you’ll ever come home? To Seoul?”

And, well. You can’t help yourself. There’s a small smile on your face as you tip your head back to gaze up at Yoongi, feigning as much innocence as you can muster. “You know, I’m not sure.” You blink, and there’s a flash of something all-too familiar in his dark eyes. It’s a look that makes your gut clench with anticipation. “I guess you’ll have to make me.”

His mouth finds yours again, and something tells you that you won’t need much convincing.

~*~

A/N: thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for reading. 🤍

chapter ten | masterlist

[thewitchblue]

Damian was staring. He knew he was. He couldn't stop it even if he tried. You were perfect. He loves your warm eyes that seem to light up with love when you look at the animals you are working with. He adores the way you laugh at the black bear you work with when it rolls onto its stomach for belly scratches because it knows you give the best ones. He falls in love every time you give in and pet the insistent wolves that were headbutting your hands and asking for it. It was all too perfect. You are everything he wants in a partner. He had to meet you.

"Quit being a creep."

Jason whispered to him. It was his turn to get dragged to the animal sanctuary, and he was sick of all this ridiculousness. He will drag Damian kicking and screaming if he doesn't start talking to you. He's not fifteen anymore. He's a grown adult with no confidence when it comes to relationships.

Damian tried again to look away, but your eyes turned to meet his gaze, and he froze in place. He couldn't move. You were crouched down and playing with the happily growling wolves when you sent him a wink and a smile that seemed to know exactly what Damian was thinking. You had noticed him. He knew your schedule and followed you to every animal exhibit. It was so obvious your coworkers started betting when he would finally ask you on a date.

Jason rolled his eyes and shoved Damian towards you. He was done with this constant rotating shift. He's seen these animals for what feels like hundreds of times. He's exhausted all the questions he was forced to ask just for Damian to talk to you. He said, clearly very annoyed,

"Just talk! You're worse than loverboy Dick with a crush."

Damian grumbled but obeyed and walked up to you through the other side of the glass. Damian took a deep breath before lightly knocking on the glass to gain your attention. You smiled fondly at your wolves before standing up and walking to the glass, then walking around the back to talk to him properly when he gestured he wanted to talk to you without needing to shout through several layers of protective glass.

"Do you have questions about the wolves?"

You asked him firstly. It seemed like a default question that you were forced to ask everyone who wanted to talk to the zookeepers, but you both knew exactly what he wanted to talk about.

"No. I wanted to..."

He lost the words. He was lost in you. You smirked at him like you knew exactly what he wanted to say to you. You were close enough that he could smell the hand sanitiser you use after working with an animal. You had wolf fur on your uniform and ruffled hair that vaguely matched their own wildness.

"The answer is yes, cutie. I'll meet you at the cafe downtown around six."

Damian felt lovesick with your gentle smile and kind eyes directed at him. Jason looked and felt like he would rather be anywhere else. He loved Damian, but he's sometimes ridiculous. All of his confidence drained when a pretty enough person crossed his path.

Damian showed up far too early, but he was anxious. You didn't seem to mind, strolling in with your uniform still on and an air of confidence that Damian could feel in your steps. To be fair, anybody with the ability to pet bears without consequences would make them confident and fearless.

You did manage to get the fur off your uniform somehow, so the cafe remained as clean as it was before you got there. You looked at Damian for a moment before saying with amusement,

"Do you have any questions about the wolves?"

Damian laughed. It was the perfect icebreaker. It put him immediately at ease as he shook his head. He said,

"Not this time, wolf-master."

You grinned like a wolf, and he could see his life with you instantly. It was only for a moment, but it felt like time froze. He could see a little life together. He can picture what his future with you could be.

Maybe you'd even live on a ranch together with horses, cows, chickens, roosters, maybe even several livestock dogs, or maybe a guardian dog or three. He'd work in the hospital and really find fulfilment. He'd finally be complete. He made it his mission to become a doctor like his grandfather Thomas Wayne and survive the brutal hours residency has thrown at him. He can make room for your budding love together. If being a hero contradicts his goals, he'll give it up freely.

"What's on your mind, beautiful?"

You asked him with a curious look on your face. You could easily picture a life with him. Somewhere away from the rat-hole that is Gotham City, preferably. You'd love every second of a domestic life with the man who can hardly speak around you.

His thoughts were all jumbled and confusing to even him. He was on a loop, yet you seemed to patiently wait for him to think straight once again.

He wanted the normal life with you that he's imagining. He wanted the boring, domestic mornings as you feed the animals you both raised as he puts on his scrubs for his residency. His heart was set on forming a normal family with a normal life now that his thoughts can't stray away from it. He doesn't want to be a hero anymore, yet he feels torn between his responsibility to Gotham and his fantasy life with you. He wants the fantasy he can't escape from anymore. He needs that normalcy in his unusual life. He was willing to give up his suit for you.

He took your hand gently in his and smiled softly at you. Yes. He wants you. He wants a basic life despite both of his parents' expectations. He doesn't want the Batman cowl. He wants more than the seemingly unfulfilled life Bruce lives. His hands were made for healing. He wanted to save lives and atone for all the pain and death he's caused in the past.

He will let the responsibility of becoming Batman to his siblings. He will follow this budding love with you regardless of how the family feels. He will not take the cowl. He is already busy enough with his residency at the hospital. He can give up the vigilante life for someone he can already see a future with.

He wants to cuddle with you in the morning and kiss you in the garden he has plans to plant and maintain. He doesn't care if he even stays in Gotham. He wants to spend his happily after ever with you now, and he will.

His happily ever after was eventually spent on a quiet ranch with you cuddled in his arms and three dogs surrounding you both with a cat on the windowsill that was licking his paws peacefully.

[ahnaiee]

⋆｡°✩ Constellation Discovered ⋆｡°✩

CARETAKER . . .!

⋆｡°✩ ;; Zayne, Sylus ⋆｡°✩ ;; The hunter had gotten sick, luckily, your loving boyfriend is always there to make sure you feel better. ⋆｡°✩ ;; MC is dramatic. Because I’m dramatic. I hate colds, I hate flu’s, I hate coughing, I hate lying in bed and ultimately bedrotting in sweat, bro.

⋆｡°✩ ZAYNE ⋆｡°✩

No goodmorning text. At least, not a reply from his goodmorning text. And that in itself is already strange. 

Zayne stares at his phone for a while, staring at that ‘delivered’ on the screen. It takes a while, but he decides to stop by before he heads to Akso Hospital. Just to check on you.

What answers him is silence. 

He calls out your name cautiously, closing the door behind him as he assesses the living room. It’s dark, the only light being the sun that peeks out from the blinds of the windows. “Are you alright?”

Zayne’s lips form into a line, worry beginning to build in his chest.

Then he hears a sound from upstairs– your bedroom. 

It's a muffled cough, followed by a groan and the sound of you blowing your nose. 

“Ah.” Zayne quickly heads up, and knocks on your door. There’s silence for a moment, before he hears you, voice raspy and hoarse, “Come in.”  

The knob clicks, and Zyne steps in your bedroom. Your room is generally… the same. Except for the mountain of tissues next to the lump on your bed where the source of sniffles and dry coughs came from. He heads to you, and you can feel your bed dip, followed by a cold hand on your forehead. 

You whine, “Zayne.” 

“Mhm?” He looks over your desk, spotting an empty cup of water and an unopened pack of tissue. 

“I’m dyinggggg.” You complain, eyes bleary as you cough. That gets you a chuckle masked by a soft sigh. 

“You’re not, my love.” 

Shifting on the bed, you pull up the covers to below your chin. You jut out your lips, sniffling. “I am… I can’t even get out of bed.“ You sigh. “Im dyingggg.”  

Zayne reaches out to you, and you can see the slight furrow in his brows when he frowns. His hand cups your cheek. You lean into his touch, but it's only for a moment before he pulls away. A whine of protest leaves your lips but he quickly shushes you with a kiss to your temple. “You’ll be fine, [name]. It’s just a cold.”

“It's my death.” You mumble. 

Zayne shakes his head. “Have you taken medication yet?”

You shake your head. “No.” You sneeze, and let out a small apology, before sneezing again. “Mm, I see.” The bed moves as he gets up. “I’ll be back, okay? It’ll just take a while.”

You pout, but nevertheless nods. “Okay.” 

He’s back in ten minutes, with additional things on the tray. 

“My love.” You groan at the interruption of sleep, but you move out of the covers. Zayne is sitting on bed, a cup in one hand and a medication bottle in the other. You make a face, “... no pills?” You mumble, eyeing the syrup. The taste is already settling in your mouth, and you haven’t even taken it yet. 

“None. You seem to have run out.” Zayne pours the syrupy medicine on the spoon. Your face twists. “Blegh.” 

Your boyfriend moves the spoon towards you and you wince. “[Name].” Zayne raises a brow.

“Eeeehhhh….” 

You groan, but Zayne stares at you long enough to make you relent.

You chug the glass of water he hands to you, gagging when you finish.

“I hate being sick.”

“You’ll be alright in a few days.”

"And your work?" A smile tugs on his lips. Despite you being sick, you still manage to worry about him. "I Called in late. I'll leave in a bit, but I'll be checking up on you throughout the day. Kay?"

"Kay." You cough. “I’m dying.”

“You’re not.”

“Zayne, Write in my will that you get all my plushies. Or maybe Tara. Yeah you should write in Tara’s name.”

“My Love.”

You sniffle, and snuggle back into your covers. Zayne has an exasperated smile, and he tucks you in.

“... Zayne.”

“Hm?”

“Love you.”

“I love you too.”

You smile. Then you cough. Then you groan. 

Zayne chuckles, “Go rest, my love.”

You nod, and shut your eyes, a smile on your face. Despite the snot, the constant coughing, you feel a bit better now that Zayne’s here.

⋆｡°✩ SYLUS ⋆｡°✩

The silence from you is telling. 

Sylus is a patient man. He is. Really. (He isn't). He managed two hours of silence from you, (lies, he managed one) before he called you. 

“Kitten.” His voice rumbles through the phone speaker. “Are you too busy fighting wanderers that you forgot to call me? You do know how I adore hearing your voice before I begin my mornings.”

You can hear the concern behind the teasing tone, and If you were anything but sick, you would’ve flushed at his words and probably said something along the lines of “God, you’re so cringy, Sy.”, but you could barely say anything other than a raspy: “Sorry.” 

That gets his attention.

“Sweetie? Are you alright?” What answers him is a cough, and you letting out a small wet laugh. “No. Can you– sorry Sy, but can you,” You sniff, “Can you come over? I feel like shit. And everything hurts.” 

“Already on my way, sweets.” Sylus isn’t exactly lying. The moment he heard your raspy voice, he was already on his way to his garage. 

You hear his motorcycle rumble, and Sylus assures you with a soft voice. “I’ll be there in ten.”

“Okay.” 

The call ends, and you snuggle back into your covers.

Everything hurts, you decide the moment you open your eyes again. Your head hurts from all the blowing of your nose you did, you feel so lethargic, and god, you just want to shut your eyes and pass away.

It's a good thing that the sight of your loving, worried boyfriend kneeled in front of you is what greets you, instead of the sight of your empty room full of tissue. The worry is evident in his face, in the small furrow of his brows to the twitch of a frown on his lips. 

You smile. “Hi.”

“Hey, sweetie.” He reaches a hand to touch your forehead, frowning. “Mm, you feel hot.”

“Thanks.” You mutter. “Should I tone it down, or what?”

That gets a chuckle, and a gentle pinch to your cheek. You let out a small ‘ow!’ glaring at Sylus. It’s not like it hurts, but you grumble under your breath. Your complaints were silenced by a dry cough that absolutely wrecks your throat. You groan, and reach over for the tissues, too sick and too tired to think about how much of a mess you are.

“Have you taken your meds?” He ignores your glare, instead standing up to look around your room. You nod, eyes flickering over to the meds on your nightstand.

“Mhm.” Red eyes peer at you, and he pulls your covers up.

“Water?”

“Finished it earlier.” 

“Food?” 

You make a small noise of annoyance at all the questions, but you still manage to answer, mumbling your words as sleep begins to take over. “Didn’t eat.”

“Alright then. Rest, kitten. Let me take care of you.”

Those words nearly make you cry but you instead sniffle, and nod. Sylus smiles at you, kisses your forehead and heads to your kitchen.

“I got you soup, and additional medications.” Sylus tells you a good two hours later. He makes sure you are sitting up, putting pillows behind you to make sure you are comfortable. You eye the soup on the tray, and then him. 

“Where’d you get that?” Sylus sits on a chair he had brought in sometime while you were asleep, and he takes a spoonful of the soup. He blows on it, before reaching it over to you. “I got the twins to get it.”

You furrow your brows. “Just for this?”

“You’re sick. I’m here to take care of you and make sure you get better, so yes,” He makes you eat. “I made them get this soup just for you.” 

Your eyes soften, and you nod. “Okay.” Warmth washes over you, and not from the fever but from the affection you feel for the man in front of you.

“Thank you.” You mumble right after the soup was at least half finished and the meds were in your system. 

Sylus smiles, and kisses your sweat-ridden forehead. “Always, sweetie.” 

©ahnaiee [do not repost, copy, translate, or modify]

[prettydaisygirl]

Halloooo u saw ur requests were open and can u request a james potter x reader, where reader is sick (this is me rn) and james taking care of her, i've cried the oast hour cuz my head hurts so much, and my period just ended so i wanna be canuddled by a James Potter

Anyways, luv ur works, live life girl, i'm praying all the best for you‼️❤️

hi lovely!! Thank you so much for requesting. I already have a period comfort fic, so I made this one into a migraine fic, hope that's alright! Thank you for the kind words and for requesting <3

boyfriend!James Potter x fem!reader who has a migraine ✿ 739 words

cw: fem!reader, reader has a migraine, James is the sweetest i need him

james potter masterlist

°˖✧✿✧˖°

The bedroom door creaks open in a way that makes your head throb. A small sound of frustration leaves James’ mouth as it does, and if you could open your eyes to look at him, you’d see the apologetic look on his face. He deliberately tiptoes in quietly, going out of his way to step softly.

“Hey, angel,” His greeting is whispered, his hand reaching out to brush some hair from your forehead. The sound you make is whined, but relieved. You must have been dozing, he can see your eyes flutter below their lids.

“Hi,” Your response is weak, shaky and whispered as quietly as his. You start to peel your lashes apart to look at him but he stops your movements with his own strangled protest.

“No, don’t open your eyes, love. I know that makes it worse.” His fingers trail across your temple and into your hair, the soft pads soothing the skin of your scalp. “Do you need anything? I can make you some tea, or some soup if you like?”

You hum, neither a yes or a no. James doesn’t mind if you answer or not. He takes a seat next to you on the bed, fingertips tracing gentle lines back and forth through your hair. You curl toward him, nose brushing against his thigh. James’ heart aches, he wishes he could take all of your pain and suffering away, but he can’t. What he can do is be here, with you, and give you what you need.

“Just… stay here.” You manage eventually, so soft he wouldn’t have heard it if there were any other noises in your bedroom. 

The words make him smile, though they shouldn’t. He presses his thumb into your temple, not painful, but firm enough for you to feel it. The moan you let out would normally make James hard instantly, but right now he just feels relief that you’re feeling better, that he’s helping you. You slowly raise a hand, fingers wrapping around his wrist to encourage him to push harder. He obliges, and this time your moan does make his stomach tighten. 

“That feel good?” His question is whispered, and you manage another proper answer, albeit strained.

“Yeah,” Your eyes squeeze shut tighter when he presses down again, the pressure from his fingers alleviating and distracting you from the pain of the migraine. He continues for a while, the soothing motion has his own eyes closing too. 

“Do you want some medicine?” He asks eventually, whisper cutting through the dark silence of the bedroom. 

“Yeah,” Your answer is whined and your fingers tighten around his wrist. “But I don’t want you to move.”

James smiles, though he feels slightly guilty for how giddy he is when he gets to take care of you like his. He leans down to press a kiss to your forehead, then one to your brow. You turn your head just enough for him to press a final, quick one to your lips even though lines in your forehead give away that it’s uncomfortable.

“How about this?” He says decidedly, “I’ll go get some medicine, some water, and a snack just in case you need them later, and then I’ll spend the rest of the night right here?”

You let out a heavy breath like you’re making a big decision, like the idea of him moving his thumb now even for a moment is too much for you. You turn back into the sheet and James knows you’re going to tell him to get medicine. He’s already moving as you ask for it.

He grabs everything he thinks you might want: painkillers, your favorite snack, some water, and an extra blanket. You’re sitting up when he returns, and he places everything down on the bedside table except the water and painkillers, which he gives to you. The moment you swallow the pills down, you open your arms for him. He climbs onto the bed again, scooping you against his chest. Your body sags into him, face buried in his neck. He reaches a hand around and finds that spot on your temple again, pressing down like he did before. He smiles when you let out another wonderful sound of relief. 

“I have you, baby,” His other hand finds your back, rubbing soothing circles there, “Anything you need, I have you.” 

And you know he means it. He would do anything for you, always. 

°˖✧✿✧˖°

© prettydaisygirl

[chelseeebe]

take me (home)

18+. mdni. smut. violent descriptions. older!eddie x reader zombie apocalypse au. no use of y/n!

🎧home - daughter.

the world had gone to shit. the undead roamed the earth and the people were evil. can you learn to trust again? can you teach a grumpy, greying man to trust someone again?

an: hiiiii!!!! i am so sorry for my absence and honestly i have nothing to say about it other than i am lazy. i really got into the latest season of tlou and thus got inspired to write some zombie au with eddie wherein he’s a little older and a lot grumpier. i really want to make this a series but i know what i’m like so can’t promise anything

♱

robin is going to die. 

in the middle of some forest in wyoming, all alone. 

you’ve tried. and tried. again and again. every pharmacy picked clean for miles. 

no antibiotics, not even a damn clean bandage you can wrap around her ankle. 

“just go!” she screeches, collapsing on the snow-covered ground, “fucking leave me— please,” her voice begging now, desperate for you to just listen. 

“i’m not fuckin’ leaving you here robin, i won’t fucking do it,” peering seriously through the trees for some shelter, just some relief from the cold. 

she’s paler than usual, the infection now reaching her bloodstream. you’d hoped it wouldn’t get this far, that something would come along before you were made to decide between dragging her further through the state or to hunker down until she passed. 

robin’s eyes slide from your worried face to somewhere behind, causing you to turn with haste, bow drawn at whatever it was. 

a girl. 

two girls. 

with a shotgun pointed at your face. 

they look clean, well fed and strong. 

nothing like your grime covered body, littered with scratches and wind burn. 

“stop right there!” pointing your arrow at the round-faced girl, “don’t come any closer or i’ll put one right between her eyes,” mostly a threat to the gun wielding woman next to her. 

she doesn’t look scared, which figures. you wouldn’t believe you either. but her hands remain up, a gesture of peace and goodwill. 

“i’m chrissy, this is nancy,” nodding to the other lady, “we want to help you, and your friend,” they stay put, a solid ten yards between you. 

nobody wants to help anybody anymore. that wasn’t how the world worked now. not without some ulterior motive. 

you scoff, keep the bowstring pulled taut, “i don’t believe you,” narrowing your eyes. 

you could do it right now. take her out. 

and then what? 

that shotgun was dead-set on your forehead, you’d be gone before you could entertain reaching for another arrow. 

“she’s not bit?” the other girl asks, one eye squinted behind the barrel. 

you look at her, a scrawny girl with an angry face. she’s small but she clearly knows her way around a gun. 

“n-no. she tripped— some miles back, cut her ankle, we’re clean,” spitting your words. 

she hums, sharing a look with the girl in front. 

“nance, lower the gun,” ordering her companion who complies easily, “we have medicine.. and food and water,” her foot creeps forward, leaves crunching underneath her leather boot. “she looks sick,” averting her gaze to robin’s pale face, “let us help you.”

you want so badly to believe her, more than anything in this world. 

what if they weren’t lying? 

was it even worth the risk?

“you can keep the arrow on me— if it helps,” nodding gently, “but we have to go now, before they come,” glancing around the bare trees, it was only a matter of time. 

your bottom lip trembles, unsure of whether the cool feeling sliding down your face were tears or snow drops. 

it’s the only chance you have of getting robin help. 

fuck fuck fucking fuck. 

fingers trembling as you drop the bow, running to get robin from the cold, damp floor as the two girls join you by her side, her arms slung around their shoulders. 

the winter is bitter here, cutting your skin and stinging your lips. it’s why robin is so sick, with no relief from the weather and a severe lack of food, her body had succumb to the infection. 

“okay,” nancy orders, “keep that bow up, take out anything you see and we’ll carry her,” hoisting your only friend from the ground, “our camp is straight ahead, through that clearing there.” 

you do as instructed, sending silent prayers to whomever would listen that this wasn’t some sick ambush. that robin would be okay. 

please please please be okay. 

stumbling through branches and bushes, heaving laboured breaths as the hard wind sets in, whipping at your clothes. 

it’s surreal. 

a gigantic metal wall, almost knocking the rest of the air from your lungs. you wouldn’t make it out of there if things went south. 

“steve!” nancy hollers, waving her arm around the thick fog, “open the gate! we have wounded!” 

the metal creaks as a gap appears before your face, people rushing to the entrance— to robin. 

she’s gone before you can protest, into the arms of a surly stranger. 

everything’s happening too quickly. whizzing around your head like flies. one minute you’re in the scathing winter and the next placed in front of a screaming fire. 

it’s dizzying. 

robin’s not here. 

you should go. try and find her, get her away from these people and their gawping eyes. 

but you’re so warm. 

and dry. 

and your shoulders feel light for the first time in months. 

it’s hard not to let the fatigue take over, you shouldn’t. you really shouldn’t. 

yet your eyes blink shut, and your limbs relax into the tattered couch and suddenly everything is dark. 

-

you awaken in the same room you were rushed into, with no recollection of the last hour.. hours? the sun had gone down, nothing but darkness from outside the windows.

your ratty jacket no longer hanging from your shoulders but a woven blanket placed carefully over your body instead. 

did you take it off? 

did someone undress you? 

your lungs gasp for air, sitting upright as you attempt to come to grips with everything. 

“hey hey—,” a familiar voice echoes. finding her round cheeks and soft eyes, a little reassurance even now. “you’re okay.. you’re safe,” speaking gently, for your understanding. 

“rob.. where’s robin?” sticking by the crackling fire despite your urges to bolt. 

she smiles, surely a good sign, “robin’s okay,” nodding, “she’s in the nurses station, she’s on an iv. a little worse for wear, but she’ll be okay.”

your head lols back, breathing out. that’s all that mattered. robin was alive. 

“you slept for some time,” her soft chuckle ringing through the room, “you hungry? or you can shower first? it’s your choice.”

it just all seems too good to be true. the catch is coming, no doubt. 

you nod anyway, if you were going to die; at least it was out of the storm. 

chrissy, guides you through the halls, shooing away the nosy citizens. all wanting to get a good look at the new girl. 

“they’re not all bad,” she laughs, walking straight past the line of people, “some soup i think,” an order thrown at the long haired man behind the counter, “and some bread, quickly if you can,” your eyes catch her wink, her authority was not understated here. 

people respected her and her orders, that was obvious enough with nancy. 

she ushers you over to a mostly empty table, gesturing for someone to bring water, a lanky boy with shaggy hair jumps at it, a jug in hand as you sit. 

something felt.. off. it’s as if they had never seen someone like you before. 

“how ‘bout we give her some space, hmm?” chrissy hums, shooing the crowd onwards. gratefully, they do disperse, leaving you to eat, “please excuse us, we haven’t seen new people in.. forever,” she chuckles, “i’m just gonna check with eddie about where you’ll be staying, no one’ll bother you here and then we can get you settled in, okay?”

her tone is oddly settling, calming your nerves as you tuck in, leaving you to the now empty canteen to plead your case. 

she’d known it wouldn’t be easy, especially with eddie the way he is at the moment, but you and robin deserved a chance at this. 

eddie huffs, pulling his chair closer to the oak desk, “it’s more mouths to feed— we can barely keep these people fed.. how’re we gonna help two more?”

she’s trying to fight your corner, you were more than capable and robin seemed pretty crafty. chrissy had asked her about the hand-sewn makeshift holster as they were taking her to the nurse.  the group could use that, utilise your skills for good. for the betterment of hawkins. 

“alright,” bowing her head, trying her hand at a new tactic, “d’you remember when hop found you?” blinking slowly, “all skin and bone. that nasty cut on your lip.. what’d he do for you? what if he hadn’t have helped you? hmm?” cocking her head to the side. 

this angle was fool proof, eddie owed his life to hopper and he knew that better than anyone. 

he sighs again and she knows she’s won. meeting her twinkling eye with a scowl she knows isn’t serious. “fine,” exhausted from the conversation alone, “but they help out, go huntin’.. whatever it takes to earn their keep.” 

chrissy grins, she’d won the war. “she knows her way around a bow and arrow, give it a few days and i’ll send her out with nancy,” her eyes don’t mistake is worry, hand poised on the door, “this is good, eddie.. stop worrying.” 

eddie begrudgingly follows her out of the room, shooing the growing crowd from your table. the sudden lack of eyes on you cause you to look up, meeting his heavy gaze immediately. 

“you bit?” straight to the point. wasting zero time in getting to the gritty stuff. 

your head shakes, pushing the empty bowl away from you, “not bit.” 

he huffs, lips pressed tight together. he’s older than the rest of them, creases by his eyes and a slight greyish hint to his head of curls. nobody still alive today had had it easy, that was for certain. but eddie looks as if he hadn’t had it easy before the world turned to shit. 

a mean, stoic presence that was necessary for survival nowadays. but theres a softness there too, hidden underneath his exterior. you see it flash across his face when you clutch your side, bruised and aching from the long winter you’d faced. 

there’s a scar that starts on his chin, right through to his top lip. is it wrong to think it makes him look better? 

it’s definitely unholy. 

“everyone pulls their weight ‘round here,” laying down the rules, harshly pulling you from your adolescent fantasies. “and everyone answers to me, understood?” driving his seniority home, making sure you really got it. 

your head nods on its own again, “understood.” 

he wants to say something else, you can tell by his lips pursing but he doesn’t, slinking off back to the small room he came from. 

you shouldn’t have come here. 

it all felt like a mistake. 

you certainly shouldn’t have let the older man in charge of this hell hole creep into your mind the way he so suddenly had. 

-

chrissy puts you up in one of the empty houses, a little away from everyone else while you adjust to living with people other than robin. 

she gets to stay in the large, main building. a makeshift ward that housed their sick and needy. you don’t envy her, surrounded by coughing and spluttering, strangers poking and prodding at her wound. 

though at least her leg was now less hideously purple and terrifying, her wit and snappy attitude had come back in droves. 

she sits now, legs dangling off the bed, “i just don’t understand why i can’t help in the kitchen or something?” her tone full of disgust, “you’re the one that can shoot, not me.”

“d’you only wanna work in the kitchen because vickie works in the kitchen? because last i checked, you can’t cook for shit either,” bursting into giggles. 

“shut the fuck up, that’s not true, i mean— it’s not the only reason anyway,” rolling her eyes in jest. 

it was nice, calming even, to joke like this again. to be able to. everything had been so serious for so long, it was kinda hard to remember that at the end of all this, you were just girls. girls with crushes and nonsensical fantasies. girls that liked to gossip and giggle.

you try not to think too much about it, for the sadness weighs too heavy. the knowing that your previous life was non-existent now.

“alright,” chrissy announces, striding into the room, breaking the tender moment in half, “you’re good to go,” throwing a thumbs up at robin. “i spoke to will and he said the infection’s all cleared up, just rest up for a couple more days and you should be back to normal.” 

robin looks almost startled, the reality had hit her that this wasn’t just a fly-by visit and was in fact your new home. leaving the ward meant integrating properly, something neither of you had done in years. 

you’re certain you can figure it out together, well it was that or you could sneak out in the middle of the night. you’d follow robin wherever. 

the older lady smiles softly, “i trust you two’ll be okay together,” her eyes glide over to the window, where eddie looks sheepishly through the window at her, “i’ve gotta go, come find me in a little bit and i’ll get you some new clothes,” rushing off without another word. 

you watch after her, watch how her smile grows ten times bigger, how his hand met her elbow to guide her away from your prying eyes. 

“d’you think they’re together?” blurting out what was supposed to be an inside thought. 

“duh,” like it were obvious, “you saw the way she smiled at him.. why?”

you scoff, grabbing the pile of robin’s discarded clothes, “no reason.” 

her eyes narrow, you’d spent far too much time together for her to not pick up on your transparent feelings. 

“do you have a crush on him?” giggling like a schoolgirl, “he’s old!” 

“he’s not that old,” offering your hand for her to take, “besides, i don’t have a crush on him— i’m a grown woman, rob.” 

“mmhmm,” limping her way out of the room, quieting the conversation before the snooping residents of hawkins could hear. 

it’s not as if it’s a serious fantasy of yours, more likely just the result of five years with extremely limited contact with the opposite sex. 

give it a week and you’d be over it, for sure. 

-

weeks do in fact fly by. 

assimilating into the town, slowly becoming a part of their community even if you’re wary and unwilling. 

it’s not that the people here aren’t nice, it’s just a lot to handle. 

eating at a set time— hell, eating regularly at all had been a shock to your system. the constant pang of hunger had been replaced by a feeling of fullness. your body fuelled by food and not sheer anger. 

and sleeping, in a warm bed, all night. 

the softness of it all had turned you into a new woman. no longer peering over your shoulder for the first sign of danger, now looking forward to playing board games with vickie and robin. 

you can’t help but wonder if perhaps it’d be a mistake. to soften up and embrace this life fully. every other group had fallen, this one was no exception to that rule.

it doesn’t matter today. because today you were going out.

you’d been itching to get your hands on your bow again, after all, spending two years with it glued to your side, your hands felt empty without it. 

the only thing stopping you, seemed to be eddie. 

waiting at the armoury for nancy who is supposed to be hunting with him, but had asked you to step up in her place. it was a muttered excuse about being tired though you’re sure she could see how antsy you were getting. 

eddie doesn’t even turn to give you the turn of day, shovelling a spare magazine into his jacket pocket instead. 

you clear your throat, decidedly the best way to get his attention without startling him, “hey uh— nancy asked me to cover her shift.. she said she’d spoken to chrissy?” unwaveringly nervous under his gaze, “i-i’m more than ready, if you’re worried.”

eddie turns, giving you a once over before scowling. he blinks, as silent and stoic as he’d ever been. you assume he’s trying not to freak out over the sudden change 

“can i trust you to save my life out there?” cut-throat. straight to the point. 

“yup.”

he wavers, contemplating your answer before nodding, “alright. then let’s go,” swinging the shotgun over his shoulder and marching off towards the gates before you can even think to grab your bow. 

it’s the first you’ve been out of the gates in weeks, but you’re not even slightly nervous. 

in fact, you’re excited. as much as hawkins and it’s people were a welcome relief, it also felt a tad bit suffocating. 

the forest smells exactly as you’d imagined it, crisp and earthy, with no signs of rotting flesh anywhere. 

you scamper along behind eddie, appreciating every step that lead you further away from hawkins. 

“so.. where are you originally from?” scanning the tree line for any signs of the undead. it was a mile or so to the traps by the river and eddie hadn’t said a word. 

he huffs in response to your question, irritates by your mere presence. “indiana. you?” obviously not interested in conversation. 

“well,” dragging your feet behind him, “i was born in missouri but i was in boston for college when this all happened,” shrugging, like he cared. 

he doesn’t honour that with a response, keeping his mouth closed and his eyes on the trees. 

“how’d you get to wyoming?” daring another question. 

this does it. 

he snaps, turning around to glare daggers at you, “y’know me and nancy don’t usually talk.” 

you pause, humming softly, “well, i’m not nancy.” 

“you sure aren’t.”

the audacity. 

his nonsensical issue with you was becoming too much. 

“i didn’t ask you to bring us here,” dropping your bow before you let the arrow fly right through his eye, “so you can stop acting like i’m some burden— because i’ll leave, you don’t even have to ask,” scoffing loudly, hoping you’d finally gotten through to him. 

he goes to speak, a rebuttal to your home truths but you cut him off before he has the chance. 

lifting the bow in a blink, your eyes move rapidly, finding the movement in the bush before it reaches eddie and takes a bite out of his shoulder. 

“eddie, duck,” drawing the arrow back and firing without much thought over his left shoulder, sticking the groaning infected in the forehead. 

if he wasn’t already before, eddie’s stunned into silence, taking heaving breaths as he finds the body on the floor and then meets your eye. 

“i didn’t know you could shoot like that.” 

no thank you, no appreciation, nothing. 

maybe he just wasn’t capable. 

“well, someone had to do it,” catching your own breath after a trickle of excitement, “robin’s about as straight as a circle,” his eyes flicker, narrowing slightly, “her aim i mean,” coughing through your blunder. 

eddie hums, coming to lean against the large oak behind him, “right.. so.. she’s not into vickie then?” 

your eyes widen, wondering if you had just guaranteed your exile from the town with a comical fumbling of words. 

“no— i-i mean i don’t know, how would i know?”

oh my god. 

he smiles for what must be the first time in his life, “relax, you’re good, she’s good.. y’know, that’s all good here,” swigging from his bottle. 

oh. 

maybe you’d actually done some good here, putting in a good word for robin with her friend could have zero negative consequences, could it? 

unless vickie was violently homophobic, you suppose. 

“is vickie.. good too?” pushing the boundaries for the sake of your love-sick best friend. 

eddie chuckles, he actually laughs, you weren’t sure if his body was even capable of something so human. 

“she is, she.. wanted me to let robin know but i guess you can do that for me,” his attitude far more relaxed than it had been the entire time you’d been here. 

who knew that all it took to crack eddie was to almost put an arrow through his eye?

you nod, accepting your newfound duty, “i’ll put in a good word,” sharing a smile, albeit short and likely forced, it made your heart swell. 

he looks away almost immediately, like it’s a struggle for him to get the words out, as if he was allergic to being nice to you, “there’s a.. a thing tonight, for hops birthday,” avoiding your eye at all costs, “you don’t have to come, but you and robin are welcome,” standing from his perch. 

the nerves, or more likely excitement bubble over, “oh.. okay, y-yeah we’ll be there,” a failed attempt at playing it cool. 

it was the first real indication that you were welcome to stay, robin needn’t have worried, not with vickie on her side. you on the other hand, had been slow to warm up. 

which was understandable after years of scampering around the country with robin, protecting not only yours, but her life too. the people in hawkins had got comfortable, well adjusted to their lifestyle, they had no idea what remained outside of the walls. 

well, maybe except for eddie. 

“shall we carry on?” he asks now, gesturing deeper into the woods. straight back to business, seemingly unaffected by his brief moment of kindness. 

you nod anyway, following him through the trail with an embarrassingly excitable thumping in your chest. 

-

the music plays on, an old folk record from a band you’ve never heard of, accompanied by people dancing around. 

it reminds you of old, a sweet, reminiscent feeling of college and the not knowing where a night will take you. 

people laugh and talk and sing, though you find it easier to stick to the sidelines. still not so comfortable with these people to let your guard down completely. 

evidentially robin didn’t feel the same, chattering away into vickie’s ear while simultaneously hanging from steve’s shoulder. she belonged here, that was clear. 

you were just hoping that eventually, you did too. 

before you can convince yourself to leave for the comfort of your own house, eddie joins you at the bar. sidling up to the empty spot without a word. 

when will this not be so awkward? 

he sighs, a bid to get your attention, “y’having a nice night?” resting against the bar, the sterile stench of the home-brewed moonshine wafts both from his glass and his pores. 

“yeah! thank you for inviting us,” your eyes are on robin, and vickie, twirling around the room to the folk beat blaring behind. “it’s nice to feel normal again,” your heart aches a little, not out of jealousy but pride. 

proud of your best friend, proud that she was herself again. she’d found a home in hawkins, and for that, you were proud. 

eddie nods, following the pair too, “yeah.. i ‘ppreciate you coming,” his words come out easier now, warmer, more sincere. 

the conversation stills, but it’s not so tense anymore. 

when you finally conjure up something to say, eddie speaks first. knocking the words from your tongue. 

“everybody in this room is looking at you,” he mumbles, keeping his gaze set on the crowded dance floor. 

your cheeks burn in immediate response, was he drunk? trying to embarrass you? whatever it was, it wasn’t right. 

“i don’t.. i don’t think so,” shying away. 

eddie’s lips curl upward— definitely drunk if he were smiling at you again. “you don’t think so?”

“nuhuh.”

“i mean, i don’t blame ‘em,” he blurts, the slur in his voice only becoming clearer. “i would if i could bring myself to look at you,” swirling the liquor in his cup, a pitiful attempt at playing cool. 

he’s trying to get into your head. it was so transparent that he had picked up on your juvenile crush and decided to exploit that. 

“wha.. what are you doing?” completely exasperated. 

eddie shakes his head, a strand of his hair coming free from his lazy bun to frame his face, “‘m sorry, i’ll see you around,” pushing himself from the bar, striding off before you can muster up enough courage to call him back. 

the air turns cold, abruptly snapping you from your haze and back into the room. 

-

“no, i have to go,” you announce, getting up from your spot on vickie’s couch. you’d spent the evening with both her and robin watching movies, actual movies on an old vhs the town seemed to share. 

“d’you want me to walk you back?” robin looks up, the begging look in her eye only obvious to you. 

you hum, contemplating whether pissing her off was worth it or not, “i should be alright, wouldn’t want to trouble you,” wiggling your brows. 

it was honest, you hadn’t seen her so happy in years. 

“thank you for having me, really,” heading to the door, “don’t do anything i wouldn’t do,” staring straight into your best friends eyes. 

the evening air sends a chill down your spine, you wonder if wyoming ever gets warm because it certainly didn’t feel like it was capable of getting the sun. 

a five minute trundle from vickie’s house to yours, that was all it was supposed to be. 

but you find your feet wandering. 

eddie’s words hadn’t left your brain since saturday night. what did he mean? 

the darkness conceals his body at first, the outline of his figure only made obvious as you near. 

the lowly strumming of his guitar is carried by wind, so you wait. watching his fingers pluck the strings, playing a tune you don’t recognise. 

he’s blissfully unaware until the wood creaks from under your feet, his head shooting up to catch who or what was watching him. 

“christ, you scared me,” eddie exclaims, banging his palm against the body of his guitar, “what’re you doing out at this time?” 

you don’t speak. not yet. stood at the bottom of porch with a pounding heart and sweaty palms. 

he sighs, knowing precisely what you were doing here. 

“what did you mean?” a simple question, with a tricky answer. 

he leans his guitar against the railing, staring straight down at the splintering wood, “i was drunk,” he states flatly, shaking his head ever so slightly, “i can’t even remember what i was saying,” he’s stoic, back to being the asshole who had questioned you your first day. 

you can’t believe a word he says, a pathetic cop out. 

“i don’t believe you,” stepping up to him, “you weren’t that drunk.. i-i know you weren’t.”

crack. 

a branch snaps from somewhere behind you, the wind picking up and bringing a nasty chill with it. your jacket stupidly hanging on the wall behind your front door. 

eddie stands up tall, but intimidating he is not. 

“okay, what d’you think i meant? hm?” 

there hadn’t really been enough time to consider. you know what you’d have liked him to mean but that wasn’t necessarily the truth. 

“i don’t..” losing courage by the second, “i don’t know.”

blink.

your back knocks the brittle wooden fence, not hard or out of anger. his hands gripping firmly onto your hips eddie no longer a distance away but mere inches. 

“do you know now?” 

you nod, watching his tongue peek from his mouth, teeth grazing his lip, taking every inch of willpower not to smash his lips against yours. 

a whirring, churning feeling settles in your stomach. a hunger different to the one you had felt for so long. 

lust. 

insatiable desire that is only ever quelled one way. 

“too much?”

“n-no,” struggling to catch both your breath and any sane thought that was left in your head. 

“not here,” he growls, fingers curling around your hand whisking your trembling body through the door, into his house. nobody came here. this was eddie’s territory and they respected that. 

a house in the far corner that overlooked the tiny town. a watcher, guardian, whatever he wanted to call himself. 

it isn’t that much different from yours, or vickie’s for that matter. they’d settled in what was a standard suburb before all of this, cookie cutter houses for cookie cutter folks you figure. 

before you can even form an opinion on his decor, his hands find your hips again, twirling your body, taking instant control over the situation. 

you’re not even certain that this wasn’t some alcohol-induced dream. you’ll awaken any minute now with an uncomfortable feeling and no longer possess the ability to look him in the eye. 

the way your arms snake around his neck feels mechanical, a habit you’d had for years even. 

eddie blinks, knocking his forehead against yours, “can i?” his age showing through his gentle words. 

“please.” 

closing the space to crash his mouth to yours, his body knocking into yours in a hopeless attempt at clawing his way closer. 

the tension snaps at long last, lighting the ignition that awakens you. you can’t get enough, can’t get any closer, not with your chest pressed flat against his, hips grinding mindlessly for any hint of relief. 

it’s been so long since you’ve felt another touch like this. so long since you’d even entertained the idea of having this again. and now, within a matter of weeks, eddie had forced his way into your mind, his tatty leather jacket and gruff voice were now imbedded within your veins forever. 

eddie hums, trying to pull back but your lips are unrelenting, not willing to let him work his way out with misspoken words. 

“not.. not here,” he gasps, walking your bodies down the creaking hallway. 

his hands don’t stop, roaming everywhere they can reach, slipping underneath your shirt and back down into the backs of your jeans. grabbing and caressing your flesh, utterly encapsulated by exploring every inch of you. 

your lips part again as you reach his bedroom, dark and awfully minimalist. reminiscent of a typical bedroom you’d find yourself in on a saturday night once upon a time. 

his grip doesn’t let you dwell on it too long, pulling you right back in with a kiss. 

“wai- wait,” you rush, keeping a steady grip on his shoulders, “i thought you and chrissy..” reluctant to finish when his lips find your neck, his stubble grazing your skin with every movement. 

eddie cackles, vibrating against your jaw line, “you thought.. what?” forcing you to finish your sentence. 

you grumble, partly due to his talented mouth and the other for the hole you’d dug yourself into. “..together?” shifting your thoughts to your question though it’s useless when his teeth come out to play. 

“no,” answering definitively, “not together, just friends.. from before,” his fingers skim your waist, bringing the hem of your shirt up with his hand. 

your throat hums, a sort of half-moan, half-grunt, “oh.. i-i uh—,” losing your train of thought as his palm finds your bra, groping and grabbing over the thick material. 

“huh?” he teases, drawing circles around the now erect nub with his thumb. 

every slight touch makes your skin burn and your nerves work overtime to keep up and you aren’t even undressed yet. 

“fuck, i don’t know— please just touch me,” sliding your hands underneath the collar of his jacket, itching to get it off. 

eddie groans, letting go of your body to get his jacket off himself, his arms thick and tattooed. a shock to you, seeing as they were hardly seen from beneath the scuffed thing. 

there’s so much about him that you’re begging to find out about, other than his name and the fact that he was a phenomenal kisser, you knew nothing at all. 

your shirt is next, his fingernails scratching your hips as it’s lifted over your head, landing on the floor as quick as it was pulled off. 

there’s no time to feel insecure, as you’re sent tumbling backwards, landing on the soft mattress with eddie not far behind. 

“you’re beautiful,” he mutters, if it were any quieter you wouldn’t have heard it. 

it doesn’t take long for your cheeks to burn, the heat rising from your stomach to your chest immediately. 

he moves down, dragging his fingers along every curve on the way, until he’s knelt on the floor between your legs. touch like this feels so foreign, nobody had spent this much time and care on you even before the world went to shit. 

he’s gentle, something you’d thought he was incapable of, tugging at your jeans until they rest at your ankles. 

the air is cold but eddie keeps you warm anyway, his palms leaving burns in their wake. 

a thousand and one thoughts rumble through your brain at once; what if you couldn’t handle it? what if he was repulsed by you? god knows that shaving your legs in the apocalypse was useless.

perfume and moisturiser were a thing of the past, you don’t even half resemble the wild girl from college anymore.

“it’s been a long time,” a fair warning, you could already feel the damp sensation rubbing between your thighs, there’s no saying how much you can take. 

eddie grunts, his deep, rumbling chuckle making another appearance, “d’you think i care?” his fingers keep your knees wide open. 

he doesn’t get it. 

so you give him a hint. a really, very obvious one. 

fingers curling around his wrist, “i mean.. before this started long,” keeping your grip tight around him. 

cocking his head to the side, he smiles, tongue washing over his parched lips, “yeah, i heard ya. i don’t care,” breaking away from your hold to spread your legs further, trailing his finger tips down your skin until he reaches your clothed cunt.

skirting over your clit with a solitary finger, his gaze transfixed to your face, drinking up every single contortion, every curse and moan. 

his fingers hook into the waistband of your underwear, teasing them down your thighs until the cool air hits your cunt, send shivers down your spine. 

“shit,” he mutters mostly under his breath, “i’ve barely touched ya,” as if you weren’t already ashamed of how needy you’d already become. 

“i told you..” barely a squeak, your cheeks burning in sheer shame for the pool between your legs. 

eddie just tuts, refusing to repeat himself again. he just wants to hold you into the mattress until you’re begging for relief, shaking against his tongue. 

but that’s a little much for the first time he gets to even touch you. 

so he doesn’t. 

instead, pulling you by your legs to the end of the bed, his grip on your thighs would surely leave markings in his wake. clutching on as if his life depended on it. 

he stands, the tent in his jeans made increasingly obvious as he moves on top of your body. it’s both foreign and completely familiar all at once, like you and eddie have danced this dance a thousand times before. 

you haven’t, of course. 

you’d barely seen him smile before tonight. let alone this. 

he scuffles with his jeans, keeping one hand wrapped tight around your thigh, keeping you open for him. not once letting his eyes flicker, resulting in an awkward fumble to get his jeans off. 

it’s an impossible feat not to stare open-mouthed as his cock springs out of his boxers, already leaking and far bigger than you could’ve ever expected. 

there’s a semblance to the first time you were ever in this position, a little intimidated while hungrily anticipating what was to come after. 

you just hope you don’t scare him away. 

“didn’t nobody teach you it’s rude to stare,” he bites, but the sarcasm is thick, dripping off of his tongue. 

as if you were being scolded, your eyes fly upwards, bottom lip trembling, begging for a rebuttal but nothing materialises. 

eddie takes full advantage of your flustered state, pressing down to kiss your puffy lips, grinding his hips tenderly against your own. 

his fingers slide down from your hip to fist his cock, teasingly slapping the glistening tip against your clit. 

agonisingly slow, drawing out every last second before everything would change forever. 

okay, you’re being dramatic. 

his cock harshly pulls you from the battle inside your head, nudging against your hole, gently knocking his forehead against yours. 

a quiet, muted, “please,” is all you can muster, soft thighs keeping him as close as the space allowed. 

with that, he slides inside, encased by the soaking wet warmth of your cunt. eddie’s lips part, grunting as his balls meet your pussy. 

everything feels electrified, as if the universe had always meant for this to happen. your two bodies meeting was destined to happen thousands of years ago. 

“fuckfuckfuck,” he groans through gritted teeth, beads of sweat melding together on your shared foreheads. 

you need him closer somehow, deeper. until you can feel his cock in your throat and a buzzing in your head. 

eddie presses his lips to yours in a haste, muttering rushed expletives into your open mouth. 

you break away from his lips to moan aloud, throwing your head back against the pillow to allow him into your neck, which does with a grateful murmur. 

“y’sound just as sweet as i thought,” he pants against your skin, sucking away but only lightly, not enough to leave any evidence of his presence. 

your mouth is uncontrollable, pleasure overcoming your entire body, every stroke evokes ripples through your nerves. 

“f-fuck eddie.. feels so good,” slurring your words, rolling your eyes to match. the closeness is inescapable, balls slapping against your thighs, his tongue rough against your neck and jaw. 

cumming before all this was a rarity, but now it felt as if anything less would be downright impossible. your stomach flips already, tightening and turning with every pump of his hips, every time he brushes against your clit. 

eddie groans, long and melodically, moving faster as he coaxes your orgasm from you. 

“mhm, tha’s it sweetheart.. let me feel you,” pulling his face from your neck to watch your face full of bliss, ecstasy overcoming your features as the waves crash over, figuratively and literally. 

your chest heaves, moving rapidly, “oh my god,” gasping when the wetness reaches your thighs, your release gushing, coating his pubes, his cock and his sheets. 

“shit darlin’,” speaking softly yet with sheer amazement, “‘m gonna cum.. you’re gonna make me fuckin’ cum,” pressing his wetted lips to your cheek, breathing in your scent. 

“please..” you huff, digging your fingertips into his back, “cum for me,” whispering now, plump lips grazing his ear, your words punctuated by his increasingly feeble thrusts. 

the noises are guttural, coming from somewhere within. you’re too exhausted to truly care but can feel him pull out regardless, his cum spurting over your thighs, painting a perfect picture. 

“jesus fuckin’ christ,” he pants, leaving a solitary kiss on your forehead, gazing down to admire the mess you’d made. 

you’d like to say that that was only because it had been so long, but deep down you know that you’d only be lying to yourself. 

“y’gotta get up,” he nudges, “gotta change these sheets baby girl,” speaking into your skin, though it does nothing but lull you further into your slumber. 

“mmm,” shaking your head, “i wanna sleep,” nestling in to the blanket, hoping he’d leave you be. 

“nuh uh,” eddie sighs, his arms coming to scoop you from the bed, carrying your tired body bridal style to his couch, “i’ll be quick,” setting you down to get to work. 

-

you had somewhat, maybe foolishly, expected warm arms to wake you up, reality crept in and the harsh chill encased you instead. 

paper crinkles underneath your arm, left haphazardly on his now-empty pillow. 

‘gone on patrol. help yourself - e’ 

wow. 

a gentleman. 

you weren’t really expecting flowers or breakfast in bed but then you weren’t expecting to wake up in his house alone either. 

it’s cold in here, you suppose he spends more time away from it than he does in it, which makes sense as to why he doesn’t heat it but christ. 

you had to somehow sneak out of here and back into your own house without a soul seeing. at least robin would more than likely still be with vickie, just leaving the rest of this cursed town to avoid. 

this wasn’t how you’d pictured this going at all. 

he couldn’t even force himself to see you out? to make sure you got home okay after making you literally tremble beneath him? your release still all over his sheets. 

you almost feel nauseous about how easily you had let him in, how utterly delusional you must have been to ever believe that this was even slightly serious. 

getting yourself dressed quickly, too fast to let your self do something you’d regret. 

maybe he was scared. he’d run off to protect himself..

no— he didn’t deserve your pity, not when a goodbye was too much for him to give you. 

you refuse to dwell too much on your surroundings, trying to ignore the slight insights into who eddie was as a person. his guitar, the paintings, the books. everything that made him more human, not the machine you saw pacing the walls. 

it’s quiet outside, still too early for the majority of the town to be up and pacing. you could slip right on by without anyone caring too much about where you were the previous night. 

joyce wags her fingers as you pass by, sat on the porch with will, both completely oblivious as to where you were coming from. 

robin isn’t home either; your house just as quiet as eddie’s had been. 

you mustn’t dwell. 

it was over. 

a short lived fantasy that had sent your delusions running wild. this was the end of the world, there were no happy endings anymore, at least not with grouchy middle aged men. 

-

you don’t see him for the rest of the day. 

he’s not at lunch. or dinner. or even wandering around like he usually was. 

robin can tell somethings wrong, roping steve and jonathan in to try and draw it out of you, or to cheer you up. 

it didn’t matter, neither were working. 

“we sing too y’know,” steve beams, standing at the other side of the table, his elbow almost knocking jonathan clean over. 

there’s a loud protest from the boy, but the noises turn to static when you see him. 

the leather jacket. 

disappearing from the doorway the second your eyes leave jonathan, a blur that you weren’t even certain you’d actually seen. 

how long had he been stood there? watching you, like a coward. 

steve blurs before your eyes, unwarranted tears well up, forcing you from the table and out into the frosty evening air.

eddie’s no where to be found, not even a glimpse of his hair. it’s just you, the snow, and a desire to get as far away from this wretched place as possible.

[jinx-xxed]

I have a remmick x gender neutral!reader request (I hope you do those, if not it’s okay!). Reader is a lone, fledgling vampire - perhaps they became a vampire through being cursed, or whatever strikes your fancy. I’m dying for more Sinners vampire lore.

Anyways, reader is on their own, not knowing how to vampire, barely surviving, throat on fire with thirst because they don’t understand their new afterlife until they meet Remmick. The two can be companions, which they so obviously need.

Rotten Blood

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆ .。.:*

A/N; Thank you for the request!! I absolutely love this idea and can 100% do a gender-neutral reader :) Of course Remmick still calls them the usual pet names (darlin’, baby, etc.) since I believe those can be for anybody so interpret as you will!

Summary; As a new vampire, you have no idea what to do but don’t worry, Remmick will help you.

Content; GN reader, fledgling vampire reader, getting turned, vampirism, suicidal ideation, hive minds, starvation, death, Remmick is weird and a smartass (what else is new), blood and injury, fighting Remmick, Remmick gives you your first meal, vampire bonding, very dependent relationship

Wc; 4.2k

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆ .。.:*

You’ve never before known a hunger like this.

You feel it within every cell of your immortalized body as you stumble through the moonlit forest in a daze. Roots catch the toes of your boots, intent on dragging you down and keeping you there with them as they consume your flesh that’s so inherently wrong. You know it wouldn’t be difficult, you know that if you fell you wouldn’t be able to get back up. Starvation is like a beast stuck in the confines of your form, growling within your stomach and creating a tightness like a clenched fist in your chest. Your lips are dry and cracked, your face sunken, skin sallow, throat burning like you swallowed acid.

The teeth in your mouth feel unfamiliar, sharpened at the ends and crafted with the purpose of tearing into flesh. They create an ache in your gums, full of a desire to rip and devour and drink the warm life of God’s creations, the same ones you’d been taught to cherish. They’ve refused to retract since that night, your own body ignoring your commands in favor of the hunger steadily consuming you.

It was two weeks ago now, the time that passed feeling like an unbearable blur tracked through the moon’s cycle. She was full when your family was killed in front of you, and now she’s merely a crescent sitting amongst the stars.

You hadn’t known the man, neither did your parents. All they’d seen was a person in need of help and god bless their hearts, they’d welcomed him in so he could have a place to rest. You’d merely been visiting, something you did every month now that your parents were getting older, having no idea it’d be the last time you ever did such a thing. You were in your room finishing your work, oblivious to the monster that had just stepped foot inside your childhood home. It was three minutes after when the screaming started and you ran out to find your momma and papa laying in pools of their own blood with that man standing over them.

His beady eyes locked on to you and you’d tried to run but oh, do those things love a chase. You’d been shoved to the ground so hard your chin busted and you’d punched and kicked with all your might, but it wasn’t enough against a creature with snapping teeth and claws digging into your shoulders. In an act of desperate frenzy, you felt those fangs sink in and rip your life right from your neck.

You don’t understand why you were the only one who woke up again.

When you came to on the kitchen floor, you found you were alone and covered in your blood. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes based on the warmth of it, but the man was nowhere to be seen and your back door was left swinging open. It made you sick how alien your body felt, like you’d been picked up out of your original one and plopped right into a new one. There was something unusual that crawled under your skin, your limbs felt foreign, and every sense was heightened to an inhuman level. You could hear the critters far off in the woods, could smell the iron of your parent’s blood, could see perfectly in the darkness of the house.

You didn’t know what to do. You wanted to scream, to cry, to puke, to chase down that vile man and kill him—with the claws that protruded from your fingers now, you probably could. But you didn’t do any of that. You merely stood on unsteady feet and walked out the door, something within you telling you that you couldn’t stick around any longer.

From there you continued to wander in a state of shock, unable to muster a single thought, your gleaming eyes wide and lips parted in disbelief. You kept going until the moon began to fall, until some secondary, old voice inside of you hissed that you needed to seek shelter. You’d gone deeper into the woods, managing to find an old hut that was falling apart inside and out. It was completely abandoned, meaning you got to just walk inside and curl up in the furthest corner from the door, making yourself as small as possible on the wooden floor that gave you splinters.

You laid there for hours as the world seemed to pass you by, only noticing when the room lightened with the sun, rays breaking in through a hole in the roof or gaps between the boards. You were far enough from them that you didn’t burn but you still felt the kiss of their heat on your sweat soaked skin. You were more than content to just remain there, to listen to the sounds of the outside as your body rotted away in some unknown hut. Then the voices started.

Screams and terrified voices of those long dead, of people who suffered your same fate, creating a cacophony within your mind. You’d groaned like you were in pain, clutching your head as they continued to wail. It was your connection to the man that did this, the souls of those he’d damned come to torment his newest victim. You could feel him so faintly within you, his frayed emotions and frantic thoughts, and if you branched yourself out, you knew you’d be able to rifle through a couple of his loose memories. It was clear he had no care for anyone but himself, he was barely a century old, and he lived in a state of constant panic. It spread to you, anxiety kicking in your chest, making you feel as though you were being hunted by something unseen.

“Please… just stop…” You’d muttered, your first words since your parents were killed. Your voice was cracked and weak, a mere whisper to whatever cursed god reigned over damned things like yourself. The screams quieted, but they were still there in the back of your mind, a constant echo while you drifted through fitful bouts of sleep.

Those voices became your companion while you walked through the forest like a ghost. Your hunger reared its ugly head after two days, your vampiric mind running in circles around the idea of fresh blood. The human part of you that still remained refused, the thought of taking a human life all for your own needs making you ill. You’d tried to eat the normal food you were able to scrounge up, had tried to drink water from a stream, but it just ended with you throwing it back up in violent heaves until there was nothing left but bile. You’d cried then, sobs wracking your body in frustration and horror, your tears tinted red.

Your days and nights continued to drag on much the same. You pulled yourself back into your hut as the moon set, you withered away on the floor, and then you’d spend the night roaming in search of some kind of purpose while desperate pleas and screams bounced around your skull. There were some days where you’d simply stare at the sunlight coming in through your hut, the specks of dust dancing in the rays acting like a taunt. You wanted nothing more than to walk into them, the human part of you begging for freedom, rattling the bars of the cage you’d been forced into. However, just as you’d reach forward, just as the sun would make your skin bubble and blister, you’d yank yourself back. That twisted sense of self-preservation continued to keep you from ending it all, kept you trapped in your prison of flesh and bone.

Sometimes the voices even urged you to do it. Some of them went out the same way, they just walked straight out into the sun and burned with nobody to stop them. They murmured that you should join them in their torture of the man who turned you, their spirits locked to him in an act of defiance, restlessness, and anger. You could never escape them until the one night they just… went silent.

It was like a radio being abruptly shut off, pure silence following. It felt like you could breathe again, could think again, at last left with just your own thoughts and emotions. You knew what it meant—the man that did this had finally been killed. You weren’t surprised of course, based on his old memories it seemed he was a fucking idiot anyway. With quiet finally in your mind, that was the first day you were able to sleep properly.

The cycle continued, hunger eating away at you with each sunrise and sunset. It’s why you’re still walking the woods now, like you’re hoping some solution will present itself to you and relieve you of this problem. You haven’t even been able to catch an animal, your heavy limbs too clumsy and your mind too distracted to get your claws on a mere rabbit. It’s led you to wander farther than you ever have before, starvation leading you on an invisible leash to what’s undoubtedly your own demise. Your mouth hangs open, your fangs peeking out from behind your lips, desperate for something, anything, to ease the pain twisting your stomach.

Your shoulder bumps into a tree and you find yourself sticking there like a bug would get stuck to sap, leaning your weight against the trunk with panting breaths. Your knees threaten to buckle beneath you, unable to keep holding up your shrinking weight. You would’ve sunk to the ground right there and made that your resting place if something strange didn’t break you out of your stupor. The forest had gone quiet. It’s not the kind of quiet of night time when all the birds have laid to rest, it’s the kind that’s followed by something dangerous, every creature and insect too scared to utter a single peep.

Your ears perk, your abnormal eyes widening in an attempt to get a better view of your surroundings. You can feel it. The hairs along your arms raise with goosebumps, a shiver runs down your spine, your teeth ache in response, something new is hissing in your mind to be ready, like it knows something you don’t. You think you hear whispers in the branches above, passing things that you can’t make out but proceed something that has you shoving yourself off that tree with newfound strength, your claws extending even further.

“Thought I smelled somethin’ good.”

You whip around at that southern drawl of a voice, finding the source of it in a man leaning against a tree not even ten feet away. You can see the way his eyes gleam red in the darkness like rubies, lazily looking you over. His scent comes to you on the breeze—ancient earth, rusted metal, and old leather, with an undertone of something that doesn’t belong in this world. In other words, something like you. His posture is relaxed, hands in the pockets of his trousers, sleeves rolled up, but it does nothing to shut off the alarms blaring in your mind. It’s a constant loop of things like danger, threat, new vampire, too strong, run-

He shifts, taking slow steps towards you. “Ain’t never seen you ‘round here before.” He says curiously, hands falling from his pockets to reveal long claws stained with blood. His fangs show when he speaks, glinting under the moon and undoubtedly sharper than yours. His head tilts. “What’s yer name, sweet thing?”

You can’t find it in yourself to answer as you stumble away from him. You want nothing to do with another vampire, not after witnessing the one who turned you. Though this one seems vastly different, more experienced and sure of himself, like he’s been around long enough to figure it out. He hums. “No need to be scared, darlin’. Here, I’ll go first. Name’s Remmick.” The name itself sounds old and foreign, a piece from a time long ago, from lands far away. His eyes narrow when he looks at you, assessing. “Ya look like skin and bones. When’s the last time you ate?”

“Stay away from me.” You finally manage to bite out, the first thing you’ve spoken in days. The words burn your throat, thick and clunky on your tongue. Your fingers twitch, your muscles tense, and Remmick notices. He smiles knowingly.

“It’s okay, darlin’, I can help ya. Ya feel that hunger eatin’ you from the inside out, don’t ‘cha?” He says, seeing it plain as day on your face. He’s seen it plenty of times in other fledglings, even in himself. That original denial to feed, the unbearable wrongness of your desire, the desperation to cling to your humanity, even if it kills you. He forced himself to overcome it with defiance, to give in to the new monster raging within his body. He can tell there’s nothing like that in you though, instead filled with misery and depression and skittish instinct. Hell, if he had to guess you’re probably a day away from dropping dead.

Before you can even blink, he’s on you; your hunger-induced sluggishness is no match for his speed. Your breath whooshes out of you in a gasp when he grabs your face, those claws of his just lightly pressing into your skin like a reminder. His hold on you is tight as he tilts your head from side to side, his brows scrunching. “Yeah, ya ain’t one of mine. You get left all alone then, darlin’? Abandoned by yer maker?” His tuts in disdain. “Y’know, I killed one of them a few days back. Real young, spazzy fella, got too in my space.“

Your eyes widen with recognition. So he’s the one that did the other guy in. You’d honestly thank him for it if you weren’t terrified. With mere inches separating you, you’re able to more clearly see his strong features, the curls of black sitting on his forehead, the lines of a human life gone by just barely etching his face. There’s something eerily charming about him, something that makes you want to give in to his promises.

Still, there’s a part of you that refuses, that won’t fall prey to another one of these beasts, that has you raising your claws and slashing them across his arm. He yanks back with a hiss, red irises flashing dangerously like sparking embers. He holds his wound, four gashes along his forearm, the blood beginning to seep through his fingers. You nearly choke on the scent of it, staggering back a step as it wraps around you, thick and cloying. For the first time, you feel the drool pooling in your mouth, made from moisture you didn’t even know you had left in you. It seeps from the corners of your lips, it coats your fangs as if in preparation.

Remmick grins. “Ohhh yeah, that smells good, don’t it?” He lifts his hand, covered in his own blood, taunting. “Poor thing like you ain’t have anyone to show ya the way. All alone out here, no idea what to do… let me help ya, darlin’.”

“Leave me alone.” You practically beg, trying to distance yourself from that god damn smell, clenching your teeth so hard they could shatter. Hunger claws at your insides, begging to come out, to get a taste of the meal in front of you, tainted as it may be. His blood smells rich with history, full of stories and different lives lived, laced with earth older than you could imagine. There’s something in your mind howling for just a drop of it, begging to know what something that ancient would feel like on your tongue.

For every step you take back, Remmick takes another forward, never letting you get far enough from that scent. “Aw c’mon now, I can’t let a sweet thing like you go to waste. It’ll be okay, baby, I promise.” He coos at you like a frightened animal, getting closer still. “You don’t have to be all by yourself no more. Don’t have to keep bein’ in pain.” There’s something about you that draws him in, that makes him want to know more, to tame that frenzied panic within you. He’s already decided he won’t let you waste away for a second longer, no matter how much you fight him on it.

Oh, you sure do fight him on it. As soon as he gets too close for your liking, you’re growling again, lunging at him. Your claws want nothing more than to dig into him, especially as he laughs lightheartedly. He stumbles back as your weight slams into him, as your hands reach for his face and neck. He moves with an inhuman speed and strength that you lack, easily gripping your wrists and keeping you at a safe distance. “Easy now,” he says, almost teasing, “don’t wanna hurt ya.”

His tone serves to piss you off more, and you use that anger and your final pump of adrenaline to struggle, to try and kick and hit, to burn off the rage that’s been simmering within you for two weeks. Remmick sidesteps you with a lazy confidence, watching you wear yourself out. There’s a point when his own claws just barely nick your arm like an accident, a thin strip of blood beading at the surface. It makes him pull back, his nose scrunching. “Whew baby, yer blood is potent.” He whistles, nearly wincing at the scent that makes his mouth water. It smells so human, not yet flushed out by feeding on other’s blood, by the wrongness of being a vampire. His eyes gleam. “Still got all that mortality in ya.”

With the grace of a cat, Remmick sweeps your legs out from under you when you try going at it again, leaving you to fall to the forest floor with an oof. You groan, your head pounding, your limbs feeling unbearably heavy, chest heaving. You go limp against the cool grass, your remaining energy at last spent, more than content to lay there until the sun comes up and burns you away. You hear a click of the tongue above you, Remmick looking down at you. “You done, sweet thing?” You don’t respond, making him huff. “Alright, c’mon,” he says, scooping you up by under your arms and forcing you back on your feet, “don’t die on me just yet.”

He nods towards the trees beyond. “Let’s go. Got somethin’ for ya.”

He starts walking without even looking back, like he fully expects you to follow him, like he knows you will. He’s right of course, and you find yourself stumbling after him without a second thought; it’s not like you have much else better to do than follow this weird, ancient vampire.

His steps are steady and light, traversing the forest with the experience of someone who’s done it hundreds of times. He barely rustles the bushes he passes, as if he doesn’t exist to the world around him, or he doesn’t want to disturb it lest it turn the wrong eye on him. You, on the other hand, make enough noise for the both of you. You can barely stay upright, your legs shaking, every tree root feeling like a death sentence.

The further you go, the stronger a certain smell gets. At first you think perhaps it’s Remmick’s wounds from you bleeding again, but they closed up a while ago. No, this scent is fresh and full of life and human. Hunger slams into you tenfold, sent into a frenzy at the idea of a true meal. You begin to hear noises too, garbled cries and pleas and sobs.

The undergrowth parts around you, leading you into a small clearing where blood has smeared across the grass, eerily illuminated by the moon above. Lying amidst it all is a young man, his clothes dirty and bloodied, his face bruised, and tears running freely. He’s on his stomach like he’d attempted to crawl away, drawing attention to the fact that both his Achilles tendons have been brutally sliced. When he spots you both, he goes into a full blown panic, begging and pleading for mercy. “No, no, no- please- I don’t know what I did just spare me please-“

“Oh hush up.” Remmick says roughly to him, grabbing him by the collar and dropping him against a tree, then keeping him there with a boot pressed into his leg. Remmick looks to you, nodding towards the guy. “Now I left this poor feller waitin’ all cuz of ya so ya best be nice and put him outta his misery”

You stand there confused for a moment, in disbelief at the fact that you’re being offered someone else’s meal just like that. Drool coats your chin, your fangs fully extended and sharp as razors, the hunger inside you howls. You know better than to reject a gift when it’s given to you so Remmick watches you with both intensity and fascination as you stumble forward, your lips already dropped open. The scent of blood coats the roof of your mouth, your eyes gleaming while the man struggles and sobs.

You fall to your knees in front of him, clawed hands coming up to shove his head aside to bare his untouched neck to you. You can feel the way his blood pumps beneath the skin, his heartbeat so loud in your ears you could mistake it for your own if you had one. There’s still something human in you that struggles against this, that screams at the horror of it all, but it’s ultimately drowned out by the desire and temptation. You can’t find it in yourself to apologize before you’re leaning in, before your teeth are sinking deep, deep into his flesh.

The man’s scream gets cut off, his body going still beneath you. When those first drops of blood hit your tongue you moan, the sound coming from you without control. It feels like a puzzle piece has finally been snapped into place, everything suddenly feeling so unbelievably right, despite your actions being so wrong in every way under the eye of God. That burn in your throat at last goes away, strength already returning to your limbs, your mind clearing with each gulp. Remmick grins, satisfaction and pleasure blooming within him just from watching you. He crouches down, his hand coming to pet through your hair, brushing it back from your face. “That’s it, good, good. Drink it all, baby.” He says in whispered awe.

You do just that. You take and take and take, sucking every drop of blood from the man’s veins until there’s nothing left to be given, until the flavor starts to lose its vibrancy. When you finally feel satisfied, you pull back with a loud pop and a tear, your fangs leaving one last mark by ripping some of his skin. Your breath comes in heavy, iron-tainted pants, your eyes bright and you feeling like you can think for once. The blood has made a mess of your front, smeared across the lower half of your face and down your neck to your chest, ruining your shirt. Your hands haven’t been spared either, the red running from the tips of your claws to your knuckles.

You look up at Remmick, at the creature who finally fed you, who gave you just what you needed without hesitation, who saved you. Where there was once alarms ringing, there’s now just whispers of devotion. Whispers of Remmick being safety, a provider, a savior. He sees that shift in you clear as day, something he’s seen countless times before—it’s just that this time he didn’t have to turn you himself for it to happen. It makes his smile widen, his red gaze lidded.

He takes your face in one hand, and this time you don’t flinch away from his touch. “Gorgeous.” He murmurs before his tongue is on you, dragging across your chin, collecting the combination of blood and spit in rough licks. You whimper under his ministrations and he swallows down that sound with his lips on yours, his kiss starved and desperate. He groans at the taste of blood, taking every bit he can from you, the weight of his body pressing hot and heavy against your own. He licks across your neck, teeth grazing purposefully along your skin as a tease for you and him both. There’s small nips when he can’t control himself, when there’s a spot properly drenched with blood.

The combination of the man’s human blood mixed with the scent your own is intoxicating, and if Remmick didn’t force himself to pull back, to exercise some form of self restraint, he believes he would’ve found himself with his fangs in your neck.

He sighs, running his thumb along the corner of his lip to clean off the drool that began to form. “Now let’s find another one ‘fore I eat your sweet self whole.” He says, voice low and scratchy at the edges.

You’re eager to follow him, to have him show you the way of this new life. You both leave behind the mangled body of the man, his blood now flowing through your veins and giving you the energy you’d been so sorely lacking. You feel reborn, fresh and rejuvenated, excited to see what else may lay on the moonlit path with Remmick as your eternal guide, neither of you ever being alone again.

[thatbuddie]

Hi!! 26 for the kingdon kiss roulette (A kiss while one or both parties are crying) 🫶

“Sweetheart, are you— Are you crying?”

“No,” she says, her voice strangled, a tear slowly running down her cheek.

She’s definitely crying.

“Baby…” His face is close to hers, so close that she has to cross her eyes a little to look into his eyes, making him look blurry. Although that could just be that she’s not wearing her glasses at the moment. Or the tears quickly gathering in her eyes. “Oh my god, baby.”

“Stop,” she pleads, raising one of her arms and being careful not to hit him when she throws it across her face, shielding her eyes from him as more tears start to leak from the corners. “This is so embarrassing, I’m sorry.”

“Hey, c’mon, it’s not embarrassing.” He gently wraps his fingers around her wrist and tugs at her arm, trying to get her to lower it. She resists stubbornly. “It’s not, I swear.”

“Frank,” she says, moving her arm just an inch higher so she can stare at him incredulously, “of course it’s embarrassing. You’re still inside me.”

He blinks down at her for a second before his eyes lower to gaze at the place where they’re still joined. 

“I am indeed still inside you, yeah.” Now it’s his voice that’s strangled but she doubts it’s because he’s about to break down crying like her. That’s a shame reserved exclusively for her.

“God, I’m such a cliché,” she complains, and he -very reluctantly, it appears- moves his eyes away from between her legs to look her in the eyes again. 

His face softens as he readjusts his body over hers. She notes how he carefully balances his weight on his forearms, both resting on the pillow at each side of her head, as to not crush her. With the arm not thrown over her face, she pulls his torso closer to hers, finding comfort in the way she’s squeezed between his body and the mattress. She wraps one of her legs around one of his, the ball of her foot resting against his calf. He bends his other knee to make the position easier to maintain. 

Through all this, she also notices how they’re both moving carefully, mindfully keeping their pelvis as still as they can. ensuring he stays inside her. 

“It’s a natural reaction,” he says, his voice lowering and adopting the tone she has come to recognize as hers. It’s the one he uses when he’s trying to soothe her worries, sometimes after a case gone wrong, sometimes after her and Becca have had a spat. It’s soft and almost melodic, like his words have a musical rhythm to them that is meant to tame her, to hypnotize her. “The release of oxytocin during sex can be as overwhelming as it is pleasurable, and crying has been proven to be a great way to regulate heightened emotions.”

Sniffing slightly, she blinks up at him.

After a second of silence, she says, “Thank you, Dr. Langdon.”

He presses his lips together, very obviously trying not to laugh, but he soon loses the battle and lets out a deep chuckle.

“Sorry, sorry.” He shakes his head, kissing the tip of her nose. “My bedside manner is obviously a work in progress.”

“So you do think I’m sick for crying after sex.”

His eyes widen in worry until he must read the teasing in her face. He sighs in relief, chuckling again as she joins in the laughter. It’s a strange sensation, laughing and crying at the same time, one she has never experienced before. 

This is a night for firsts, it seems like. 

“I know it might be just simple biology,” she concedes, moving her arm away from her face and wrapping it around his neck. Her other hand works on trying to tidy his hair a bit, pushing the strands of hair plastered to his temples away from his face. “I guess it just doesn’t feel that way. It feels like something…holier.”

The faint shine of the moon coming in from the window, with its curtains open wide, casts Frank’s head in a silver ring of light. He’s so beautiful, exactly what Mel would have prayed for if praying was something she had ever had faith in. 

“You know I’m not a religious person, and that I don’t believe in the sanctity of sex or the purity of virginity or that procreation should be the aim of all intercourse or that—” She takes a deep breath, slowing her words down, knowing he will wait patiently for her to get them all out. “That’s not why I hadn’t, you know, it’s not why I hadn’t had sex yet.”

He nods, and her eyes fill with even more tears. He uses one of his thumbs to catch the drops that escape from the outer corner of her left eye. 

“But I think I was still waiting for something. I didn’t know what, but I was still… Waiting.”

Even in penumbra, she can see the way his blue eyes start gleaming. 

“I think I know now that I was waiting for you.”

He closes his eyes, and the first tear travels down the elegant slope of his nose then. She thinks about wiping it away, but instead she follows its path down his philtrum, watching it as it suspends from his bottom lip for a heartbeat before falling. She swears she can feel the moment it lands on her own lips. She swears she can taste the difference between her tears and his. 

“Fuck, Mel. I was waiting for you too, baby.” This is, of course, an impossibility, as his two children are perfect proof of. But she knows exactly what he means, and she believes him. “I’ve been waiting for so long.”

The kiss they share is wet and desperate. Their tears mix on their faces, their tongues tangle inside their mouths. They are breathing the same air, passing it back and forth like it’s the last bit of oxygen that exists in the world and they both need it to survive. 

She has never been kissed like this in her life. Like he is searching for eternity in the contours of her mouth. Like he is showing his devotion at the altar of her lips.

This is a night for firsts, it seems like. 

[barnesandbarton]

Bucky wrapped his arms around her automatically, folding her into his arms and holding her close.  “Hey, don’t think about that right now,” he said.  “I don’t care about that.”

He led her over to the couch and sat down with her, his hand moving up and down her arm as he kept her tucked into his side.  “You guys are stronger than that.  Look at everything you’ve been through.  Things are just tense right now, and everyone knows Clint’s a hot head.  He’s always storming off cause he got his ego hurt about one thing or another.  Sam’s still pissed at him for how he acted when Sam got put on the team instead of him.”

He looked over at where Natasha was standing in the door to Bobbi and Clint’s bedroom.  “What happened anyway?  What got hot head so worked up?” 

Clint yanked his shoe laces hard as he refused to make eye contact.  He couldn’t tell Natasha what happened, because that was Bobbi’s story to tell which only made him want to get out of here even worse.

He was so hurt and angry and he was sick of feeling anything.  “Oh yeah, like you’d know, Nat.  You were here,” he snarked.

He folding himself in half, going full fetal, holding onto his head as he resisted the urge to scream in frustration.  “I just wanted a drink!” he shouted.  “One fucking drink.  I didn’t want to get drunk.  I definitely didn’t want to ‘use her however I wanted’ to get this shit out of me.  The fact she’d even fucking suggest that makes me sick!”

He couldn’t leave now.  They’d fucking lock the door behind him.  Although, maybe that was for the best.  Apparently he was a disgusting piece of shit who gives off wife abuser vibes.  He shoved his shoes off again and pulled out his hearing aids, throwing them at the wall like they weren’t incredibly expensive pieces of equipment that Tony had made him.  He was done with hearing things tonight.  He flopped over on his side and pulled the blanket over himself.  “Go away!  Leave me alone!” 

Bobbi was so lost in thought and her emotions that she barely felt Bucky’s hand on her shoulder. She heard what he said, but it was like he’d said them via a piece of string and two cans: very tinny, far and not very clear. “Whuh-wha?” she asked confusedly, what he said sinking in slowly. “I-I d-don’t…we were just…and I don’t know what just happened,” she cried, grabbing onto him and holding tightly. He wasn’t the person she really wanted, but she was okay with that; she needed someone to ground her right now, to keep her from losing it further.

“I’m s-sorry that y-you’re having to s-see me luh-like this. I c-can’t imagine it’s sexy at all,” she said tearfully, burying her face in his chest as she clutched at his shirt. “I muh-messed things up w-with Clint and I d-don’t know how to fix th-them and now he’s mad at m-me again and I c-can’t deal with him leaving me if he d-does.”

———————————

Natasha stood at the doorframe, her arms folded as she listened to him, watched him get dressed. She’d have been impressed with how much he was moving if she wasn’t pissed off at him for how he was talking to her. She took a deep breath as she weighed her options. The first was trying to stop him: if she did that, god knew how much damage they’d cause to the house, it was a rental, not to mention that they could both hurt themselves further, so that was out of the question. The second was that she could go with him, wherever he was going but she doubted he’d actually wait for her to get dressed with the irrational way he was being. Unfortunately, she was going to have to go for door number three.

“Really? She actually said those exact words, or did she say something completely different and you only heard what you wanted to hear, which is what you do whenever you’re upset?” she scoffed, shaking her head at him. “Because while I may be your friend, I’m also hers, and she and I have talked about you for more hours than you’re aware of. You’re full of yourself, Clint. Pull your head out of your ass. That’s the last thing she would ever think of you, and she’d be disgusted to know that you’re implying that.”

“And fine. Feel free to go, I’ll even call a car for you if you’d like. When you get back from whatever bar I’m guessing you’re going to so you can do something foolish like drink yourself silly, you can stay here tonight and we’ll have someone come and finish out the mission with us, since you’re determined to not be around your wife. Go home, and maybe we’ll see you when the mission is over. Don’t contact Bobbi; if she wants to talk to you at all after whatever you just said to her, she’ll reach out, I’m sure.”

Natasha sighed. “Or your other option is that we can go for a walk, you can get yourself together, tell me what happened if you want to and I can try and help. Or you can call and talk to Tony, and let him talk you down off the ledge. It’s your call.”

[b1eedthefreak]

okay so first request to you, i’m a LITTLE nervous but I NEED THIS😓

so reader and daryl are roommates/besties but daryl has a huge crush on her and she knows it and she likes him too but she loves teasing him and flirting with him just to get him riled up and not do anything about it.

but one night he hears her getting off in her sleep and he can’t help but go to her room and watch her. in the middle of him watching her like a perv he hears her whisper his name and it sets him off and he can’t help but go over and help her with her needs..

OKAY this has been on my mind HEAVY and might i say I LOVE YOUR WORK (especially needy/sub daryl you’re the only one i’ve read who really does our subby king justice) YOURE AMAZING THANK YOU BYE LOVELY😼

⋆ 𐙚 ̊. Tease

⌇daryl dixon x reader

summary⌇daryl hears you moaning his name

warnings⌇smut, masturbation (f and m), sub daryl, begging, this could’ve been somno but no, erm daryl lowkey being a perv

word count⌇1.5k

a/n⌇YOURE AMAZING ANON I LOVE YOU AND THIS REQUEST SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG

He’s not proud of it.

Not the way he stares when you bend over, or the way his eyes flick to your mouth when you lick food off your spoon like it’s nothing. Not the way he stiffens when you laugh and press your body close to his like you don’t even notice what it’s doing to him.

You know.

You fucking know.

And he knows you know, because every goddamn time he gets quiet—every time he shifts in his seat or turns away, flushed—you just smirk. Like you’re proud of what you do to him. Like you’re waiting to see how far you can push him before he finally breaks.

He hasn’t. Not yet.

But then again, he hasn’t heard you moan his name before.

—

The night had settled soft and slow over Alexandria, that kind of quiet that wraps around everything in summer warmth. Daryl sat hunched forward on the front steps of his porch, chewing on the inside of his cheek, fingers idly tugging at a loose strap on his crossbow. He wasn’t thinking about anything important, not really—just drifting, letting the silence rock him like a porch swing. But beneath the calm, there was tension. There always was, especially lately. Especially with you.

You’d been circling him for months now—pressing close to him when no one was looking, whispering jokes against his neck, letting your fingers graze his chest like it was casual, like you didn’t know he was holding his breath every time. But you did know. You knew. And still, you flirted. Touched. Teased. You liked watching him squirm under your gaze, liked how flustered he got when you sat too close or gave him a smile like you were up to something

You were always up to something.

And he took it. Every goddamn second of it. Let you laugh in his ear and press your hands to his chest and sit in his lap when there were clearly other chairs available. He let you because he liked it. Needed it. Needed you. Even if he didn’t know what to do about it.

Daryl’s thoughts were interrupted when he heard a soft cream above him..

Your bedroom.

He wouldn’t have thought twice about it—except it’s followed by a sound.

A whimper.

His whole body stiffens.

He knows he shouldn’t move. Shouldn’t listen. Shouldn’t care.

But he does.

The hallway’s dark when he climbs the stairs. He tells himself he’s just checking. Just makin’ sure you ain’t hurt or some shit.

But then he hears you again.

“Mmh… fuck…”

His knees nearly give.

He moves closer, slow, trying not to breathe too loud. Your door’s cracked—just enough. And when he peers through, he nearly chokes.

You’re squirming in your sheets, still asleep. Tank top pulled down under your tits, one hand between your thighs, the other clenched in the fabric at your chest.

“Please…” you murmur, legs shifting.

He knows he should walk away. He should turn around, lock himself in the bathroom, and jerk off like the sick fuck he is for even watching.

But then you say it.

“Daryl…”

It’s not a joke. It’s not teasing.

You say it like a beg. Like you’re begging for him..

His body moved before his brain did, pushing the door open with a creak that made your eyes fly open, startled but not scared. You blinked, dazed, flushed and breathless as you looked at him. And then—

You wake up to warm breath on your cheek. A hand—rough, calloused—ghosting over your thigh.

Your eyes open, slow. And he’s there.

Kneeling beside your bed, flushed and shaking.

“What’re you doin’?” you whisper.

He swallows hard.

“I—I didn’t mean—I heard you. Say my name. Thought—thought maybe—”

His voice cracks. You’ve never seen him like this.

You sat up slowly, tugging the sheet around yourself but not really covering anything. “You heard me touching myself?”

His jaw flexes. He doesn’t answer.

“Were you gonna watch me and leave? Or were you gonna help?”

He looks like he might explode.

“Need me to help?” he rasps, eyes wide.

You lean up on your elbows, breath warm against his.

“Been teasing you for weeks. Didn’t think you’d ever snap.”

His hands twitch.

“Can I—can I touch you?” he asks, breathless. “Please—fuck, I wanna.”

“Then touch me.”

—

He pulls your panties down like he’s unwrapping something sacred. His hands tremble. His eyes are locked on you, like he’s still making sure this is real.

“So pretty,” he mumbles. “You’re so—fuck—”

He kissed your thighs like he was starved. Like it was all he’d dreamed about. He was slow, reverent, pressing his mouth to every inch of your skin before letting his tongue slip between your folds, groaning as your slick coated his lips. He held you open with trembling hands, tongue dragging long, slow strokes up your slit before circling your clit, groaning at every gasp he pulled from you. When your hips bucked, he moaned. When you cried out, he whimpered. When you tangled your fingers in his hair and pulled him closer, he melted.

“Taste so good,” he whimpers. “Could stay here forever.”

Your hand threads into his hair. He groans again.

“That what you were dreaming about?” he murmurs. “Me eatin’ your pussy like this?”

You nod, breath hitching.

“Yeah? Was it good?”

“It’s even better now,” you breathe.

He whimpers.

“Say my name again,” he begged. “Say it like ya did before.”

“Daryl,” you gasped. “Fuck—Daryl, just like that—”

He whined into your pussy, rutting his hips into the mattress like he could find relief that way. He was hard and aching, but he didn’t care. Not yet. He needed to make you fall apart first. Needed to prove himself. Needed to be yours.

You came with your fingers in his hair and his name on your lips, and he looked up at you like you hung the stars. “Can I—fuck—can I be inside ya?” he rasped, already stripping himself bare. “Please—I need—been wantin’ this so long—”

You pulled him into your arms.

“Then take it, Daryl. All of me. I’m yours.”

You pulled him up. Made him take his pants off. He’s hard. Leaking. Desperate.

“You been wanting this that long, huh?” you tease, wrapping your hand around him.

“Been wantin’ you forever,” he pants. “Jerked off in your bathroom more times than I can count. S’messed up—couldn’t help it.”

You guide him in slowly. He moans into your neck, trembling all over.

“Fuck—feels like a dream. Can’t believe I’m inside you—”

“You are,” you whisper. “Finally.”

He cums fast the first time. Too fast. But you don’t mind.

Because the second time, he takes his time.

Whispers things like so beautiful, and mine, and never wanna stop.

—

Later, wrapped in the sheets, curled against his chest, you ran your fingers through his hair as he blinked up at the ceiling, still dazed.

“You okay?” you whispered.

He nodded slowly, then looked at you—eyes soft, almost scared.

“You… ya meant it?” he asked. “All that? That I’m yours?”

You smiled, tracing the curve of his jaw.

“I’ve been yours, Dixon. You just needed to come get me.”

His face softened, then flushed deep as he buried it in your neck with a groan.

“Fuck, m’never gonna survive you.”

[thehmn]

When this post popped up again LINK I realized I haven’t been keeping up with crazy conspiracy theories so I looked into what they’re saying about Death Standing and oh boy oh boy.

I can’t go into every little thing but Sam is seen as a stand-in for the death angel Samael, his wife was named Lucy which is often used as code for Lucifer, babies are “sacrificed” as soon as they’re born from their pods (nevermind that Sam saves his baby Lou from the fire) and Higgs who is named after the God Particle is the villain so players are fighting God who is nothing but a puppet who thinks himself more powerful than he really is. He also constantly makes himself look like a cross or Jesus on the cross.

And Kojima couldn’t help himself and snug some occult imagery into the game (I don’t think the Monster Energy product placement was part of it but the conspiracy theorists made it work) Like, why does the star have “eyes” in the same place as the star of baphomet, Kojima?

I’m now convinced Kojima is playing into it on purpose like Del Toro and Refn who also put a lot of occult symbols and messages in their works. Unlike celebrities like Beyoncé who hates the Illuminati nonsense these guys are horror and pop culture nerds who have a lot of fun with it. Especially this photo convinced me he knows exactly what he’s doing. Nice Freemason t-shirt you got there.

Looking further into it I now have a better understanding of the roles they’re believed to have in Illuminati and why Kojima is apparently so important.

Guillermo del Toro is either a witch or a warlock who has the ability to summon monsters and demons and he spread their influence by having their likeness in his movies. If you know them they know you and all that.

His movies supposedly also work as spells that open portals into people’s homes. Not gonna lie, his powers sound sick as fuck!

Refn is responsible for human sacrifices in some way, either as overseer or organizer or something, because a lot of his movies have human sacrifices in them. He has also talked about having erotic fantasizes about being mutilated, killed and cannibalized himself (never forget what a huge freak he is) as well as feeling “submissive pleasure” by having Kojima kill him over and over in his game which is interpreted by conspiracy theorists as him having a desire do be sacrificed to Mads Mikkelsen Satan himself. If Illuminati consider satanic human sacrifices a good thing it stands to reason that Refn would want to experience it himself, yes?

So why is Kojima so important to the Illuminati? Well, Asia is believed to have their own evil secret society that’s in constant battle for world dominance with Illuminati. People use different names for it and I don’t know the cultural importance of any of them so I’ll just let it go unnamed here.

Del Toro wowed Kojima with his powers by showing him the creatures behind the veil and got him to leave Asian Illuminati which made him an extremely valuable member with a lot of inside knowledge into their mortal enemies (and it didn’t hurt that he has a strong hold on gamers). Hence why he was gifted a high ranking member like Refn who works closely with one of Satan’s vessels, Mads Mikkelsen.

Apparently that’s one of the hot and steamy things you do with your Illuminati mandated sub; make him send actors and actresses to you. We know from interviews Kojima told Refn he wanted a cool actor for the role of Cliff and Refn said he could get him either Keanu Reeves or Mads Mikkelsen and it seems Kojima pulled Refn’s strings again to get Elle Fanning (who was killed and cannibalized by witches in Refn’s movie The Neon Demon) for Death Stranding 2.

So that’s why Mads Mikkelsen is depicted as the coolest, hottest and scariest man to have ever walked the afterlife, and why Deadman who is based on Del Toro help Sam see the truth and leave Bridges and Heartman who is based on Refn is literally right about everything (the only thing he isn’t sure about it wether humans have separate afterlives)

It’s very funny to me that no one seems to be able to connect Norman Reedus to anything satanic or Illuminati besides a vague “He’s in this so he must be involved somehow” Best of luck to Luca Marinelli in DS2. Maybe the Illuminati has a spot for you.

Side tangent, I could talk forever about Kojima wanting the characters to move like the people they’re based so Deadman takes up a lot of space with his movements and constantly gets in Sam’s personal space until Sam learns he has nothing to fear from him like Del Toro apparently did to Kojima, while Heartman is awkward and tries to touch his male friends all the time (but unlike Deadman he respects a no) but like Refn he has an insane respect for women’s comfort and boundaries so even when Fragile faints he helps support her at a respectable arms length and leaves the more physical touching to another woman.

Anyway, I think the conspiracy theorists came up with some pretty good horror characters here. Love Mads Mikkelsen as Satan’s part time vessel. I’d personally have Kojima kill Refn over and over for real and not just in a video game and have Del Toro use black magic to bring him back. And maybe we can give Norman Reedus a backstory about selling his soul just so he has more to do? And does Troy Baker even know he’s made the avatar of god, the most hated figure in Illuminati, or will he realize that when he’s strapped to a sacrificial altar in front of Mads Mikkelsen? But what do I know about conspiracies. It’s okay, I’m sure we can workshop it and make George Miller fit in there somewhere once Death Stranding 2 is released.