#it makes me wonder if the rest of the 360+ chapters will be like this

[arytha]

finished another book and man do i want to read something interesting. the last book was mediocre

[prince-kallisto]

Savanaclaw Chapter Rewrite

We're nearing the end of the NRC arc, and it's amazing how far the story and characters have come along. Although the Pomefiore chapter was a hit or miss with fans, it's amazing seeing the writing deviate more from the Disney story line. However, looking back, it only makes the Savanaclaw chapter look even worse, and to this day, it's still regarded as the weakest chapter.

Some of things I didn't like from Chapter 2 was: lack of cohesion in the Savanaclaw dorm, lack of Leona screentime, bad plan, weak connection to the Lion King, and overall confusing character roles.

Lets break down this long list ^_^; Considering it was the Savanaclaw chapter, the world for us, the player character, didn't grow in the slightest. There's a Spelldrive Tournament, but even then, it didn't matter in the end. The dorm members were reduced to nothing but big, dumb bullies, and had no 'pack dynamic' or any type of bond with each other, not even with Jack or Ruggie. We also make no connection to Leona, which makes his actions in the end look far more bratty and unforgivable than any of the other Overblots.

Considering he was twisted from Scar, his plan was incredibly weak. The writing for his character did a 360 in the Octanivelle chapter, which did wonders for him, but made the previous chapter look even worse in comparison. Considering the investigation team we made with Riddle and Adeuce, and the Spelldrive Tournament, it feels like the story was trying to deviate from the Lion King story, but went too hard with the stampede plot point. A crowd of humans would do absolutely nothing to hurt Malleus, and taking out the best players from other dorms was painfully obvious.

This is also the first chapter where the antagonist of the previous chapter, aka Riddle, would be your ally. Riddle is incredibly intelligent; there's no way he couldn't connect the dots between Ruggie's magic, Jack's cryptic words, and the lack of injuries in the Savanaclaw dorm. Plus, Leona and Ruggie reveal all their plans upfront, so there was never any mystery element to it. The investigation team honestly didn't uncover anything, and we had to go along with it, even though the answer was obvious to us as the player character. It kind of downgraded Riddle, and didn't show off the best aspects of his personality.

Okay. Whew, that might have been a bit much! But considering the love I had for these characters after their own chapter, and how good the source material was, the missed potential pains me. So how do we rewrite this? Rest assured, I'm not 'fixing' the story or claiming mine is better, I'm honestly throwing ideas to the wall and see what sticks. I'd love to hear some of y'alls ideas for this chapter!

It's already established in the first chapter that Leona has already repeated a school year, and is at risk of repeating for a second time. He is also the oldest student at 20 years old. I'm thinking that the Savanaclaw chapter is introduced to us with the Spelldrive tournament, like in the original, but instead of the Malleus 'Hall of Fame' thing, Crowley pulls Leona aside to talk about his school performance. Later, we may learn (by Jack confiding in us), that Leona is facing the risk of not being able to participate in the tournament if he can't improve his grades. Considering how prestigious NRC claims to be, and Leona's history, I feel like it could be a threatening conflict unique to Leona.

With a conflict like this, it sounds inevitable that Riddle would involve himself in a subject he knows best: studying. Riddle proclaiming himself as Leona's tutor will not only show off Riddle's character/dynamic with Leona, but it will also set up the Exam season in the Octanivelle chapter. However, Leona's problem isn't with difficult subjects- it's his motivation and very much implied depression. I do wish it was a more prominent plot point, because I think it would've made his arc stand out more (while also not making it the ONLY plot point, of course). Anyway, a scene like this could show off Leona's academic intelligence and prowess, while also showing Riddle that he has a lot to learn. Perhaps there could be a line implying that Leona took his studies very seriously as a child because he was desperate to be 'good' at something and earn the attention for it?

And if we really want to involve Grim, Ace, Deuce, and Cater, it could be a little studying group. But I think I would like Riddle and Leona to have a one-on-one studying session to set up the dynamic, and then Riddle thinking that a group session would help Leona focus more (it does not haha). In a rewrite though, I'm toying with the idea of changing the group though to Riddle, Leona, Trey, Cater, and Jack (and MC too). Trey and Cater are both third years like Leona, and are lacking the attention/building they deserve. And Jack is a very studious-type, so I think he would've liked to both support Leona, and learn from his upperclassmen. Plus, Cater and Jack apparently come from the same hometown, so it would've been very cute if they were somewhat familiar with each other. Thinking about this group dynamic is very fun, especially considering Trey's secret mischievous side! I think Trey could somewhat get along with a character like Leona, since we already knows who he deals with haha.

I would like Leona's plan begin to 'spark' around this time, with perhaps the group moving on to History. Leona seems very knowledgeable about history from what we've seen in the Ignihyde chapter. It would be both a nice chance to get a bit more lore about the different kingdoms, and finally mention Diasomnia once they look at the Fae kingdoms. Leona could mention how Diasomnia has won the Spelldrive tournament for several years in a row, completely wiping out the competition. Jack, ever the optimist, believes Savanaclaw can triumph this year, but Leona becomes silent and incredibly pensive-looking.

Eventually, we somehow get dragged into training with Savanaclaw (Grim can finally join us haha. Perhaps he opened his big mouth to complain about not being in the tournament, so Jack dragged us into training). I think Savanaclaw would look incredibly intimidating at first, due to their strength and appearances. They would probably look down on MC and Grim at first, but once they learn they were invited to train, the dorm members would soften up. Seeing the dorm being depicted as just a group of bullies really annoyed me, because I think Savanaclaw would be a surprisingly warm and close community, like their 'pack.' Ruggie could finally be introduced here, and we get to know him a lot better. Perhaps we could learn a little about his background and how he met Leona. Savanaclaw is the ONLY dorm to not have a Vice Housewarden, and I would like that to be addressed, but also have the dorm members look up to Ruggie and come to him when they need help. He's very much the 'mom friend' of the group haha, but the dorm genuinely respects him and consider him as much of a leader as they do Leona.

Speaking of Leona, there could be moments of him loosening up ever-so-slightly with his dorm, even if he isolates himself most of the time. Although he himself is unmotivated, he is still twisted from Scar, and the dorm members follow his words. Have him be charismatic, have him motivate the dorm members with their victory. Perhaps he even recognizes the accomplishments of individual (faceless) dorm npcs, such as one dominated a martial arts tournament, or how another is being scouted for sports. Even if Leona doesn't believe in their talents, he uses them to create a loyal bond. Somewhere in this scene, Grim could ask Ruggie of his speciality, but Ruggie says he's not participating in the tournament.

After this, there could be some of the Tournament setting-up moments form the original chapter, because MC is still kinda the school janitor haha. I think some nice filler moments could be here, making hype for the tournament and perhaps including Ace and Deuce again. Eventually, I want the MC to overhear Octanivelle panicking, with Azul seething over a stolen potion. Perhaps we could have that Jade and Floyd moment from the original chapter? If we want to include an investigation scene, MC trying to track down the potion has potential. If an investigation scene happens, I would like to include just Jack and Riddle (Grim can be there too). Riddle needs more moments to show off, and Jack has good senses.

I'm not sure about the specifics, but I don't want the investigation to drag on too long- the Riddle and Jack team would be unstoppable haha. Jack starts becoming anxious further along the investigation, as he instinctively feels that Savanaclaw is up to something. But I think Riddle is the one who connects the clues together, and deduces that Ruggie was the culprit. However, I think MC would pull Riddle and Grim aside, and ask them from holding off on telling Jack, at least until after the Tournament. Riddle, seeing how much Jack admires Leona and Ruggie from the study session, reluctantly agrees, and sullenly says that it may be for the best if Jack doesn't know.

The tournament would be the heel-face turn. I imagine that the beginning of this arc is very heartwarming without any clear indication of an evil plan or villain. Much like the Lion King, I would like it feel that Leona took advantage of our trust and friendship. As Savanaclaw is pitted against other dorms, players from the other team start getting severely injured, but no penalties are put against Savanclaw as every injury appears to be an 'accidental' fall or slip. Some injuries even look like the members from the same team are injuries each other. This could be the moment where Trey gets injured, and sees Leona glancing at him from afar. Trey says nothing, but grimaces. He felt his body being pulled along without his will, and knows Leona had something to do with it. Riddle, connecting the properties of the potion and Ruggie's disappearance, pulls MC aside to try and find Ruggie.

Savanaclaw dominates this part of the Tournament, although some of the teachers are beginning to feel uncomfortable with how many injuries are happening. Perhaps Savanaclaw is being booed from the audience, even though they haven't gained a single penalty. But between rounds, Leona starts becoming more cocky and smug, and before the match with Diasomnia, perhaps he could give a little speech familiar to 'Be Prepared.' Meanwhile, Riddle and MC find Ruggie in a secluded part of the stadium, injured and exhausted.

In the last round with Savanaclaw vs Diasomnia, Savanaclaw doesn't score a single point, just like last year, and the year before that. Leona is absolutely furious, and after the tournament, blinded from his anger, goes to directly confront Ruggie. Paralleling the hyena's betrayal in the Lion King, Ruggie bitterly admits that he gave up using his Unique Magic, Laugh with Me, in the round against Diasomnia. Riddle and MC had some influence in his decision, but it was ultimately Ruggie's choice.

As the two fight, Jack and the Savanaclaw team become anxious, and start looking for Leona. How could their cool and collected dorm leader become so furious and vengeful? Once they find Leona and Ruggie, they all discover the truth behind the injuries and their victories. Jack is desperately asking if what they heard is true. Here, we could have the moment from Chapter 2-15, of where Leona says "only a total moron would have thought we could win."

The Savanaclaw dorm wouldn't stand for it. The dorm members, as brash as they are, seem very proud. Many come from martial arts and sports backgrounds, and believe in a motto similar to the 'circle of life': of how the strong triumph over the weak through true effort and tenacity, because that's the spirit of Savanclaw. How could they accept that all their victories were manipulated by magic, by Ruggie, by Leona? The leaders they looked up to most?

There's a huge argument, and the Savanaclaw dorm begins to corner Leona into answering. Somewhere in the chaos, Jack could confront Riddle over the potion, and also feels betrayed by Riddle and MC when he learns that Ruggie stole it. Riddle is shaken from Jack's anger, from someone who started to consider him a genuine friend.

Within the stress of the crowds and chaos, Leona becomes to lose his cool. With just one plan, he lost the trust of his 'pack,' of the people he chose to be his family. Perhaps there could be very quick flashbacks (in black and white) of Leona's childhood as he tries to yell over the his dorm. Here is where we go back the original chapter, of Leona snapping and using his Unique Magic, King's Roar. Everything here is generally the same, including the things he says to Ruggie. Once his Overblot form is defeated, his backstory will look a little different. Perhaps Leona was praised as a child and coddled by his older brother until his Unique Magic began to manifest. His magic is genuinely powerful and potentially dangerous, but he suddenly began losing the connection he had with his own family. Farena's warmth and care faltered as Leona became a pariah in his own home. Perhaps Farena began pushing him in his studies even more, to the point that there may be a bit more backstory on Leona's scar. Once Cheka was born, it was Leona's last straw. He saw Farena's warmth again, the way he coddled Cheka, and Leona saw Cheka as the boy he used to be for Farena. The boy he used to be, but now replaced and forgotten by his own family.

Once the dust clears (pun intended), Leona is unsettingly silent as he's taken away by Crowley. Later, he visits Ruggie and Trey in the infirmary. Ruggie is worse for wear, but has a mixture of relief and distrust from seeing Leona again. Leona should've apologized here, even if he was goaded to by Trey, Riddle, and the others. Leona should've had more of a moment with Jack, Ruggie, and the other members of his dorm. Although the dorm is disappointed in his actions, they try to cheer him up by the good things that happened from the tournament: team members getting scouted, first years scoring good points, nailing a flashy new move. Even if their victories were ill-gotten, their skills weren't, thanks to the training and encouragements from Leona. Later, Crowley finally mentions Malleus being in the Hall of Fame for next year, claiming that the difference in skill level was so grand, that it caused a fiasco like this. But here, Leona can confidently say that Savanaclaw would put their fight against Malleus next year, all with their own strength and tenacity.

Ruggie and Leona could have a bit of banter, but they both recognize how it's different from before. They understand each other more, but lost the connection they once had because of it. I think Ruggie and Leona's relationship could repair throughout the Octanivelle arc, because Ruggie got over it a little too fast for my liking haha. There would be more moments wrapping up this chapter, but this is my general idea for the rewrite! What do y'all think? I don't think this chapter would be the best chapter or anything, but I think people could have more respect and connection with it than before. I hope it could bring more attention to characters like Trey and Cater in a more natural way. I love Adeuce, but they had a bit too much presence in this chapter.

I actually feel really inspired to write a fanfic based on this new premise, so y'all may see a new story being uploaded one of these days! What would y'all change or add to this chapter? I love hearing from y'all, so I hope my brainrot ideas had some potential! ^_^

[nochuelinha]

Too Sweet - Chapter 6: Fermentation

The next morning at the apartment was a bit awkward. Questions flooded my mind. Did I really ask her to kiss me? And now what? My head is pounding so much, but the way she took me in her arms, it was so Ellie-like, I'm screwed. I slept in the guest room, the bed softer than mine. I'll ask her where she got it. I got up and headed to the bathroom. There were small tubes of toothpaste and disposable toothbrushes. Ellie was very prepared for visitors.

The smell of fresh coffee was practically making me float to her kitchen, where she was comfortable in sweatpants and a tank top from a rock band, her hair slightly damp and slicked back. She looked beautiful.

"Good morning, Els," I greeted myself, sitting on one of the stools and admiring her. Ellie turned around with a smile and came to me

. "Good morning, Sweetie, may I?" She asked, holding my face gently. I nodded, and she kissed me. Much softer and sweeter than yesterday's make-out session, but it was good nonetheless. "I'm making coffee, I know you prefer something sweeter, lucky for me the coffee maker can do various types of things," she laughed, returning to her activities.

Breakfast with Ellie was so natural and familiar, between conversations and smiles, that it seemed like we did it every day. I spent a few more hours with her and then went home. Sara wanted to go out for a walk this afternoon, it's been a while since the last time we went out together. We decided to go to an immersive Monet exhibition, with 360-degree projections and a wonderful soundtrack. I took several photos and sent some to Ellie.

"You two are quite close, aren't you?" Sara suggested with a gentle tone. I looked at her, and she pointed to my phone. "I was a bit apprehensive when I thought you two might not get along, I'm glad it turned out to be the total opposite," we were sitting in a diner now.

"I find it hard not to like Ellie," I smiled at the waitress who came to bring our orders.

" Well, that's true, but it can become a problem when you fall in love with her," Sara said, now serious. I looked at her, trying to understand what she meant. "Ellie is amazing when she's in love, but she has a collection of ex-girlfriends. I know it's hard to resist her, but I hope that if by chance you two end up together, it'll be more enduring. You two mean a lot to me," she took my hand and looked into my eyes with great affection.

"Even if things aren't long-lasting with Ellie, I'll never stop being your friend," I told her with all the sincerity in the world.

She smiled mischievously, "So, are you two having something?"

I blushed. "We kissed last night and spent the morning together. I'm not going to label it; I don't even know if it will continue," I replied honestly.

To my happiness, things really flowed. The meetings that initially were exclusively for wedding preparations turned into precious moments for us, filled with kisses and hugs. Visits to vendors became more than that, full of laughter and varied conversations. Being with Ellie is incredible.

Today we're going to a wine tasting, Ellie invited me a few weeks ago. I got dressed as best as I could, chose a black dress, heels, and did a more elaborate makeup. Ellie, as always, looked impeccable, gave me a peck on the cheek, and we headed to the tasting.

"They usually start serving from the lighter ones to the fuller-bodied ones," Ellie said while holding a glass of white wine, her other hand resting gently on the small of my back.

It was a fascinating journey through the different flavors and aromas that the world of wines has to offer. We started with Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling, and that explosion of freshness and fruitiness was like an irresistible invitation to what was to come.

As we moved on to the reds, each glass revealed a new dimension of sensory pleasure. The Cabernet Sauvignon with its dark fruits and oak notes, the Malbec with its unique combination of fruits and earth, the Syrah with its complex interplay of flavors that awakened my palate, and the Tempranillo, a delightful dance of red and dark fruits, spiced with oak and earthy tones.

Ellie's presence by my side certainly made the experience even more special. Her knowledge and enthusiasm for wine added layers of appreciation with each sip.

After the tasting, Ellie smiled and said, "I think we found some really incredible wines today, don't you think? It was a wonderful experience to share it with you. I loved seeing how you engaged with the different flavors and aromas."

"It was all so amazing, Ellie. Thank you for inviting me," I smiled at her, and she gave me a peck on the cheek. We went for a walk afterwards; the night was quite cool, and there were many stars. The tasting took place at a winery, and the landscape was beautiful with several vineyards.

"I think we're quite similar to the wine production process, you know," Ellie's tone was gentle. "We've spent several weeks together, gradually harvesting our feelings."

"We might be in the fermentation stage, I guess," she chuckled.

Ellie really has a poetic way of seeing things, doesn't she? Her comparison between the wine production process and our journey together is so insightful and touching. It's true, over the weeks we've spent together, we've experienced moments that are like ripe grapes, ready to be harvested and transformed into precious memories and feelings.

And when she mentioned that we're in the fermentation stage, it was as if she recognized the process of growth and transformation we're experiencing. Just like wine, we're developing, allowing our experiences to blend and evolve into something even richer and more complex. It's a beautiful metaphor for our journey together.

As we walked through the vineyards under the gentle glow of the stars, I felt a sense of serenity and connection with Ellie, as if we were truly aligned in our feelings and thoughts. It's a moment to appreciate not only the beauty around us but also the depth and richness of our own journey. And I couldn't be more grateful to share this with Ellie by my side.

As we walked through the vineyards, enveloped in the magical atmosphere of the night, the tension between us was palpable. Every glance, every touch, seemed to carry a pulsating electricity, heightening the anticipation of what was to come.

Suddenly, Ellie stopped and turned to me, her eyes burning with desire meeting mine with an intensity that made my heart race. She didn't say a word, but her gaze spoke volumes, conveying all the longing and passion burning within her.

Without hesitation, I surrendered to the moment, allowing myself to be pulled closer to her. Our bodies drew near, every inch of space between us vanishing in an instant. I could feel Ellie's breath against my skin, warm and uneven, echoing my own excitement.

Then, in a bold and impulsive move, Ellie captured my lips in a fiery and passionate kiss. It was as if a flame had been ignited within me, consuming me with overwhelming intensity. Every touch, every caress, was a promise of uncontrollable desire and complete surrender.

The world around us disappeared, leaving only the two of us immersed in the fiery passion that consumed us. Under the starry canopy of the vineyards, we surrendered to the heat of the moment, lost in the whirlwind of emotions and sensations that could only be found in each other's arms.

"Sweetie, you always have the best taste," Ellie whispered, her words filled with affection and admiration.

[dearabby1990]

Chapter 17: Just a little something…

Hearing the loud sound of Van Halen coming up the street signals to you that Eddie is close. You grab the bag and scurry to the living room to peek out the window you invited him to dinner at yours tonight dining room table set just for two with candles and wine glasses you spared no expense for the man that made you feel like the most beautiful person on earth. You spent all day cooking and baking making a full roasted chicken dinner with all the fixings & a cake and your moms strawberry jam white chocolate cookies thanking the lord she taught you lots with the short time you did get to have with her. Brushing the wrinkles out of your dress and checking your hair one last time you take a deep breath as the doorbell rings. You open the door to find Eddie smiling looking like a million bucks no jeans this time dress slacks and a white dress shirt noticing he has no tie maybe it was a good gift idea or maybe he hates ties you start to get nervous stepping aside to let him in he hands you a bouquet of red and white roses “Here gorgeous these are for you & by the way you look absolutely breathtaking” with that he takes your hand making you do a full 360 so he can see all of you. He whistles “all this for me princess?” You both blush you take his hand & head to the kitchen to put the flowers in the water next to the ones he got you last time “wow those held up great love” you smile and look down “thanks my mom had a green thumb she always knew how to make them last what felt like forever but you wanna know the best part?” He nodded “after they died she’d save the pedals every time put them in a large hat box inside was this jar she called it her love jar every flower my father ever gave her over 25 years” Eddie notices how you light up talking about her. “She sounded like a beautiful person sweetheart no doubt where you get everything from” Eddie knows what it’s like to lose a parent he also knows what it’s like to have a shit father so he sympathizes with one look you don’t wanna ruin the night & chose to change subjects “I have a surprise for you” his ears peak up like an excited dog “surprise?” You nod “mhmm stay here I’ll be right back” you pad your way to retrieve the gift bag while also grabbing Eddie a beer “no the beer isn’t your surprise goofy here I saw these & they made me think of you & I just had to get them I hope you like them & it’s not stupid” you say nervously “nothing I get from you could ever be stupid” he rests his hand upon your cheek & you lean into the feeling he slowly starts to take the contents out of the bag pulling out the thin black box running his fingers over it he slowly opens it and stares for a moment before taking your hand “thank you princess I love it it’s awesome but what if it doesn’t go with what you’re going to wear?” You smile kissing his hands “but it does that’s what made it even more perfect I found it after I found my dress last week” his eyes light up with excitement “you got your dress already?!” You laugh “yes Eddie i just need a few small things & im all set” you both smile at each other “I wanna see!” You shake your head “uh uh no way it’s gonna be a surprise you’re lucky you need to know the color it’s the maroon on your tie” he huffs “fine you’re lucky you’re beautiful I really wanna see though” at that you hear Eddie’s tummy growl you giggle “I guess it’s time for dinner” you take him to the dining room he sees how much effort you put into this dinner his eyes soften “babe… you did… you did all this for me?…” you grab his chin to look at you “of course I did you deserve it & everything else beautiful in the world Eddie you’re such a wonderful soul & I want you to know how much I care (you wanna say love but are too afraid) about you I’m not so good with words so I have to find other ways to tell people how I feel” with that he pecks your cheek & you both sit at the table to enjoy an evening just the two of you.

[getawayfox]

Recently, I’ve seen a few authors worry about crossposting their drabbles on AO3, wondering if maybe the notification emails might annoy readers, or if AO3 is the right place for stories that short. Beyond the argument that it’s your archive to do what you please with, I’d like to share a few shorts that live on AO3 and that had an impact on me, personally. It's my hope that maybe, if you’re also wondering whether or not to share tiny fics there, the perspective of one avid reader might help you make your decision.

Disclaimer: this is not a comprehensive reclist of drabbles/microfics (for that, see @drarrymicrofic and pick any of the incredible lessons in short form this extremely talented community shares on a daily basis!) These are a few personal favourites that I discovered specifically on AO3. This list would be incredibly long if I included every short fic that lives in my bookmarks and had an impact on me, so I limited myself to fics under 500 words. (1 wolfstar, the rest is drarry). Thank you @phd-mama for the reassurance and @crazybutgood for looking this over!

and pluck till time and times are done by @ruinsplume - E, wolfstar, 187 words

I often think about this drabble. I don’t think I had tumblr yet, back then, so I would have never found it if it wasn’t for AO3. I remember reading it and being completely smitten with how clever and hot it is. I remember telling my IRL friend about it. It has completely sealed my love of short form and I can still quote it today.

Storybook by @ruinsplume - G, drarry, 131 words

I wasn’t even in the drarry fandom yet when I read this, reading almost exclusively wolfstar back then. This was the drabble that sent me in search of more drarry and the rest is history.

No Absolutes by @shealwaysreads - M, drarry, 402 words

I mentioned this one to Bella recently as something that hasn’t left my brain ever since I read it. It was the first thing of hers I have come across and it made me read her whole catalogue.

Pantoum: "The air is thick. I’m sweating through my clothes" by @julcheninred -  G, drarry, 152 words

I love poetry. Poetry and drarry? Sign. Me. Up. I remember exactly how I found this gem –  via RuinsPlume, as this was gifted to them. And then I discovered that this is by THE Jules, who makes THE iconic paper art. I’m so happy I didn’t miss this.

Simple Things by @skeptiquewrites - G, drarry, 360 words

I don’t know if this drabble lives on tumblr too, but I’m so glad it does on AO3. It’s such a good example of a whole world woven into so few words, and I find it incredibly inspiring.

Bonus:

Series! A lot of authors keep their short fics in series or chaptered works. How many times have I had an AO3 window open at work to indulge in a short drarry break one chapter at a time? Let me count the ways (or, well, let me list just a few of them):

little luminaries by @the-starryknight

Drarry Drabbles by @tackytigerfic

flickers by @fw00shy

The Stories of Us by @phoebe-delia

The Beat My Heart Skipped and Other Stories by @lettersbyelise

Robin's one-shot collections by @rockingrobin69

[marunalu]

my friend told me that bakugo should not have died, since he and Izuku were shown as rivals for a long time and his death would be the same as Sasuke would die in Naruto, he believes that the work does not necessarily have to be a sacrifice that the heroes must pay, what do you think of this statement?😶

I never watched or did read naruto so I cant really comment on that. I just know that sasuke is VERY important to the plot and narutos rival, so the difference between him and bakugou is that sasuke actually has an important role to play in the story outside of his relationship with naruto, while bakugou... is just there and whos whole plot and character circles around izuku and izuku alone. In the story itself he pretty much has no part to play. Take him out, or let someone else take his parts and everything would have happened more or less the same way. Thats how unimportant he is to the story plot.

Bakugous death was as unimportant as his whole character in the story is: zero purpose! Except shock value. It was absolutely unnecessary to let him die, just for him to be safed 2 chapters later by a pro hero who will die for him instead now. Espicially a pro hero 90% of the fanbase feels no attachment for. Its just the whole midnight death again. Almost nobody cares. At least Bakugous death would have had an effect on izuku, aizawa and the rest of class a. Or instead of edgeshot let all might die for bakugou! All mights death would at least have an effect on the fanbase and story!

So I think your friend is partly right. Bakugou shouldnt have died in the first place, because it wasnt for story purposes, but to make his fans worry about him and anti bakugou people like him. His "death" lastet for 2 chapters and now an other character nobody really cares about uses an asspull to safe him. Bakugou shouldnt have died, not because he is izukus rival (rival of the mc DOESNT mean most important character after the mc, so no a rival character CAN absolutely die), he shouldnt have died because it has no lasting consequnces for the story. Why kill a character in the first place, just to bring him back 2 chapters later and sacrefice a nobody character just to show "look look the good guys also have casualties. Well nobody cares about them, because they had a screentime of maybe 10 pictures and said maybe 5 whole sentences in over 360 chapters, but hey its one of the good guys! You need to understand I cant just permanently kill my cash cow, I just did it for the shocks and because I want my manga to trend on twitter every week!"

And people wonder why I say horis writing of bakugou is terrible and why he should never had created him in the first place....

[bonvoyagenoona]

The Cul-de-Sac Cons | JJK, JHS | 04: The Heist

pairings: jungkook x reader, hobi x reader

rating: 18+ / Mature

c/w, themes, & more info:  fic page | masterpost

chapter 04 preview:

You pry yourself away from him, and though he chases you eagerly, you turn away to force your bottom lip out of the vacuum Jungkook has created with his mouth.

He takes a step back and looks at you quizzically.

“Come on,” he whispers. “We’ve got two whole hours.”

You shove him toward the other wall.

“They’re right next door,” you whisper back. “We can’t chance it.”

“Did you see how rabid she got explaining the rules?” Jungkook asks. “The only thing she’s thinking about is winning this game.” And then, his eyes deaden. “But I’m not the only thing you’re thinking about, am I?”

“It’s not that,” you happen to say precisely in the way Jungkook won’t believe. “I just can’t fully enjoy it when it’s this close.”

Jungkook would sulk if he didn’t already have an idea in mind.

“C’mon.”

He grabs your hand and leads you up the stairs into the attic. The door creaks open like you’d expect from a house this ancient, but surprisingly, everything is spotless.

Jungkook takes a long look around the room, starting with some file cabinets in the back. After a few moments, he smiles satisfactorily, letting out a little, “Hmm.”

“Don’t fucking tell me she cleaned up here,” you grumble.

“She’s Little Miss Perfect. Of course she did.” Jungkook beams at you. “God. Earlier. You wanted to kill her.”

“Wanted?”

Jungkook smirks. “I know a couple of guns for hire.”

04: The Heist

When you see Yoongi’s eyes blinking rapidly at the scene before you, you know for sure that you’re witnessing something incredible.

“How long did this take you?” he gapes, scanning the room.

Latched to Jungkook’s side, and tightening her embrace, Gyu-ri giggles and bends her knee. Jungkook shifts uncomfortably in her grip, holding the red spatula housewarming gift that Hobi’s just handed him like a grenade without a pin.

“We’ve been working since last game night.” Gyu-ri smirks at you. “With it being our first time to host and all, we kinda wanted to level up a bit.”

Hobi playfully pinches a little bit of skin at your hip. He knows that you tend to assume that people actually do have the edge that you hear in their voices, and it doesn’t help that Gyu-ri is now running her hand under Jungkook’s shirt and traveling up his stomach. Hobi’s pinch only distracts slightly from the anger building inside of you. To rid yourself of the rest of that anger, you chomp the insides of your lips, smashing them even tighter together than they normally set when you form this hardened, unpleasant line, hoping your canines draw enough blood for a convincing enough medical emergency and excuse yourself from game night altogether.

“To make an escape room is impressive,” Yoongi says, as he finishes his 360-degree turn and places his hands on his hips, “but to make four is, well, downright insane.”

Gyu-ri blushes. “Aw, thanks, Yoongi.”

You wonder how that could have possibly been meant as a compliment, and Yoongi’s, “Uh… you’re welcome?” lets you know that you’re not the only one.

As your eyes follow the same path that Yoongi’s have laid out, up the grand staircase to the second floor and along the square perimeter of the walkway, you see that the doors to the master bedroom, regular bedroom, guest bedroom, and attic staircase have taped to them big, manila envelopes numbered sequentially from 1 to 4. 

Gyu-ri finishes explaining how each of the rooms have been wired and outfitted with electronic deadbolts that can be solved one of two ways. Jungkook planned one sequence, while Gyu-ri planned the other. This way, everyone, even the hosts for the evening, could truly be immersed in the experience.

To that point, Namjoon adds, “Good call on suggesting the sitter, too. This is gonna be extra fun!”

With a confident smile, Gyu-replies, “We wanted everyone to fully participate,” finally sitting down after gathering you all in the living room, at the heart of the house. “But let’s eat first. I’m sure everyone’s starving.”

On the coffee table are glasses of wine and little homemade pizzas of all types, from standard pepperoni, to fancy-schmancy fig and prosciutto with a hot honey drizzle. Everyone starts digging in, taking a few slices for themselves and buzzing with excitement.

The group also voices appreciation for Gyu-ri’s decor, cool blues and greys with adorable and interesting black-and-white frames that go as high as the vaulted ceilings. You can’t help but admit noticing and liking her style every time you’ve been over to their house, and now, the rest of the group can see what you mean. Gyu-ri really has more in her than you give her credit for. 

“But to be honest,” she continues, “Jungkook did most of the labor.”

Did he, now? you think. You actually spent a good chunk of this work week explaining to Jungkook the process of how to wire the doors, and then, how to fix his mistakes, as your smaller-scaled cybercrime bots worked in the background. 

“I took care of the planning and direction,” Gyu-ri smiles.

“As wives are often wont to do,” Jin mutters, rolling his eyes.

“Seems like her husband at least listens well,” Jang-mi chuckles, elbowing Jin in the ribs.

You fight the urge to smirk at Jungkook about door 3, which he nearly kicked down out of frustration. He begged you to come over and help him, but since the last game night, you just couldn’t bring yourself to step foot in that house again until you absolutely had to. You just didn’t trust yourself. You didn’t know what you might do.

“Kidding aside, I’m glad it’s finally game night,” Jin sighs. “Work has been super stressful.”

“Namjoon’s been saying the same thing,” Nima replies, exchanging a look with Namjoon and frowning. “Terrible, what’s happening.”

“What?” Jungkook asks, looking at the guys. “What’s going on?” His eyes catch yours for a moment.

Actually, you’re just as curious. Hobi hasn’t mentioned anything of concern to you. When you look over at Hobi next to you for an explanation of his lack of one, you find him focused on his slice of pizza as he brings it to his mouth.

“Well, for one, I’ve been tinkering with my hypothesis that my lunch bag must look exactly like Suk-chin’s dick, because he keeps grabbing it inappropriately at work,” Yoongi complains, piling pizza slices onto his plate. 

Namjoon sighs. “I told you the passive-aggressive sticky notes were a bad move.”

“Those were Jin’s idea,” an annoyed Yoongi replies, as Jin shrugs and stuffs his mouth with pizza crust.

“You came across like a whiny roommate,” Namjoon goes on. “Now, he’s probably just eating your lunch out of spite.”

“He’s not even eating it!” Yoongi says. “My lunch bag was unzipped and completely empty, and all my food was in the trash next to the fridge!”

“Why are you even fighting again?” Jin asks, crumbs flying out of his mouth.

Yoongi rolls his eyes. “He’s still pissed that I beat him at the hackathon!” He snorts and sneers as he says, “I don’t know why he’s taking it out on me. It’s his own fault that he’s a shitty developer.”

“No offense, Yoongi, but I think we were talking about bigger issues on the horizon,” Nima sighs.

Gyu-ri and Jungkook, and you, for that matter, still look lost.

“Stock’s plummeting,” Jin explains, gulping down his pizza crust and chasing it with a sip of wine. “One of our manufacturers pulled out of a deal on one of our consumer products, so people are losing confidence in the brand.”

“We’ve got that defense contract, though!” Hobi points out eagerly, his gaze finally willing to meet with yours.

Jin and Namjoon shift awkwardly in their seats, and Yoongi glares at Hobi.

“The… confidential… defense contract,” Namjoon goes on, nervously glancing at Gyu-ri and Jungkook. 

Yoongi spreads his glare to you, and then to Jungkook.

Hobi winces, and you chomp into your lips again. Why is Hobi keeping things from you? And why does he seem so on edge?

“We know the drill,” Jang-mi says, taking a bite of her slice and smiling with appreciation for a job well done. 

“Not everyone knows the drill,” Yoongi mutters, also glancing at Gyu-ri and Jungkook.

Jang-mi notices, and she momentarily tears her attention away from the tastebud-led analysis of her pizza slice. “Well, then let’s fill in the uninitiated.” She turns to Gyu-ri and Jungkook, sharing, “If we ever accidentally hear them say anything work-related, it’s in one ear, out the other.”

“There could be serious legal ramifications if anything leaks,” Nima says gently, catching their gaze as they look from Jang-mi to her.

Before the conversation gets too serious, though, Gyu-ri smiles and glosses over it with her seemingly signature sweetness. “I didn’t hear a thing,” she replies. “All I know is that I’m ready to get this game started and blow you all out of the water with our impeccable handiwork.”

She exchanges an encouraging smile with Jungkook, who smiles half-heartedly. 

Gyu-ri excitedly explains how the rest of the night will work. “We pull names and break off, one group in each room. You’ll have two hours to solve one of two puzzles in each room. The answer that unlocks the door will be a five-digit code. Once you enter that five-digit code into the console on the door, you’ll escape, and you can come down here and relax, have another glass of wine, chit chat, whatever!”

She gestures to the hatch under the coffee table and says, “There are board games in there,” before pointing to the TV console to add, “and feel free to watch anything you like!”

“How did you come up with this idea?” Hobi asks, feeding off of Gyu-ri’s admittedly contagious energy.

“Teaching kindergarten forces you to be pretty creative,” Gyu-ri laughs. “Gotta keep those suckers entertained!”

“Hell, this works at any age,” Nima says, similarly excited. “Damn. We’ve never done anything like this for game night, have we?”

The group heartily agrees, and even starts to do a polite and appreciative golf clap that Gyu-ri curtsies to. 

“Now,” she says, returning to her seat, “all we have to do is…”

After looking around the table, she realizes that something is missing.

“The names!” she gasps. “I left them in the study. Be right back!”

She skips, actually skips, over to the office area by the front door, her shiny hair bouncing along behind her.

“Sorry,” Jungkook mumbles miserably, “she’s been like this all week.”

The laugh that prickles your throat gets stuffed back down when Hobi asks, “What, an absolute angel? Wine, pizza, fun, and friends. Certainly nothing to apologize for.”

You have to turn away from the group to hide how you’re essentially distending your optic nerves and pulling both sets of top and bottom eyelids so far back from each other that if you hadn’t received a solid understanding of basic anatomy from your torturing days, you’d fear that your eyeballs would pop out of their sockets from the utterly massive roll you’re giving them.

Swiveling your head back to the group, you throw on a smile just in time to see Gyu-ri skipping back into the living room with a fishbowl of slips of paper cut out and painted yellow to look like keys.

This is what breaks you.

“You… painted… yellow… keys?” you ask slowly, your natural, sardonic voice shining through.

Gyu-ri beams. You want to punch through it. You swear that if you did, you’d find a black portal to hell behind those ridiculous, unnecessarily sparkling white teeth.

“You didn’t just get yellow construction paper… or color it in with a yellow marker?” you ask, sounding more and more like yourself. “You didn’t just use a yellow sticky note for each of us? You drew keys… put all our names on them, and then you… painted… the paper… yellow?”

“Well, it’s cardstock, but yeah,” Gyu-ri brags proudly, “with watercolors.” She wraps an arm around Jungkook’s shoulders and hugs him tightly. “Cookie helped.”

He smirks, not out of pride, but out of amusement.

“A-and then you put them… in a fishbowl?” you ask.

Intrigued, Yoongi arches an eyebrow.

Gyu-ri giggles, oblivious, as always. “Yeah! Someone left it at the register at the arts and crafts store. It was a bit of an impulse buy, but I thought it might be useful. That way we don’t have to use antique teapots---” Gyu-ri smiles over at Jang-mi and Jin, and goes on to say, “---or have to enter them into a name randomizer all the time,” before flashing a smile at Hobi, who smiles genuinely back, but cowers a little when he sees the incredulous look on your face.

Jungkook leans forward with his elbows on his manspread knees, resting his chin in his palms, hiding his nose and mouth by rubbing his face and clearing his throat repeatedly. But his shoulders are shaking, and his eyes are squinched in a way that signals to you that he’s fighting with all his might to keep from letting out the biggest, most monstrous cackle he’s ever let out in his life. 

Gyu-ri keeps surprising you. Apparently, you’re not the only one well-versed in torture.

“How cute!” Jang-mi gushes happily.

You would find this cute, you think, your eyes like darts through her skull as you remember the whimsical cupcakes that Jang-mi whipped up and gave to the whole cul-de-sac to test for the kids’ upcoming Fall Ball bake sale. Sure, you scarfed those delicious chocolate and peanut butter bastards down, but you didn’t particularly care that they were shaped like friendly spiders with bright icing-orange smiles.

The rest of the group continues to gush adorably, and you quickly realize that none of them, save perhaps a smickering Yoongi, has any idea of the connotation of couples at a party where keys are kept in a fishbowl. And you’re certainly not going to be the one to educate them, given your circumstances, plus the dangerous look in Jungkook’s eye.

“So, let’s partner up --- starting with our odd group of three,” Gyu-ri says, winking at Yoongi, who’s quickly becoming less and less amused with her.

Gyu-ri dramatically closes her eyes and swirls her wrist in the bowl. You disguise a scoff as a cough.

“Everything OK, honey?” Hobi whispers quickly into your ear.

“Not now,” you whisper back, so annoyed that you’re nearly praying.

Gyu-ri grabs onto one key and pulls it out. “Room 1 has Namjoon…” Another key. “…Nima, and…” Another key. “…Jang-mi!”

“Nice!” Jang-mi exclaims triumphantly, jumping to her feet and plopping down between the couple. “We’re gonna be the first ones out for sure!”

“Hey!” Jin says, pouting at her gleeful departure.

“Not to worry, Jin,” Gyu-ri laughs, showing him that she’s pulled his name next, “you’re in Room 2 with… Yoongi!”

“Ah, a solid competitive edge, if I do say so myself,” Jin says, smiling at Yoongi, who only just perceptibly turns his lip up into moue.

“Then, in Room 3, we’ve got… Hobi,�� Gyu-ri says, with a smile that Hobi mirrors back, “and… me!”

Keys in a fucking goddamn son-of-a-bitch fishbowl, you jeer.

“Which leaves Sel and me in Room 4,” Jungkook says quickly, and a little too brightly, as he stands and bumps his elbow into Gyu-ri’s side a bit.

Bless him. As your eyes meet, you think, If anyone’s the real angel here tonight, it’s you.

“Right,” Gyu-ri replies stiffly, rubbing where he’s made contact, as everyone else stands. “OK. Well, let’s head upstairs.”

You follow Gyu-ri up the staircase, and you gather in your groups and stand in front of your assigned doors. Namjoon, Nima, and Jang-mi are already whispering about their strategy as they stand in front of the first bedroom. Yoongi and Jin are positioned in front of the master bedroom, Jin’s fingers already on the doorknob. Hobi stands just behind Gyu-ri, hands in his pockets as Gyu-ri turns from the guest bedroom door to face everyone else. And you’re careful not to stand too close to Jungkook as he leans against the door to the attic, slightly crumpling the carefully taped manila folder.

“The folders contain your first clues, and time starts as soon as you open your door,” Gyu-ri explains. “Be sure that everyone’s inside before you start! We have it set so that the doors lock on the next close. If you solve the puzzles and want to try a 5-digit code, enter it into the keypad on the other side of the door. If you’re right, the timer will stop, and the door will unlock.” 

“How will we know that you and Jungkook won’t cheat?” Jin accuses. Beside him, Yoongi scoffs, before lolling his head back in annoyance.

Gyu-ri blinks, appalled that anyone would even entertain the notion. “Honor system, I guess,” she replies lightly. 

“Hmm. Honor.” Yoongi says pointedly, turning his head to look at you and Jungkook. “The strongest of the vows.”

You think you hear Jungkook mutter something about vowing to do something to Yoongi, but you decide not to draw any more attention than you’re already getting.

“But how will we know?” Namjoon seconds, eyeing Gyu-ri playfully skeptically.

“How about…” Gyu-ri thinks, still somewhat surprised the group hasn’t dropped this. “How about we all have to be able to explain our answer before claiming victory.”

“Are you all satisfied yet?” Jungkook spits out impatiently. “Can we start now?”

Everyone laughs a little, and Gyu-ri grins at the shift in tone. 

“Alright… go!”

There’s a quick rustling of paper and tittering giggles as everyone else hangs back in the hallway and reads the first clues, but Jungkook quickly tears the envelope off the door and yanks you into the room that leads to the attic staircase.

He shuts the door behind you, and the ominous, echoing metal click! of the deadbolt locking into place speeds the growth of the lump in your throat. You stare at where you think Jungkook is standing as he fumbles for the light switch.

As soon as the tiny, hanging, exposed bulb clicks on, you reposition yourself so that you’re staring at him and not the wall, and your brow sinks toward him, heavy under your chagrin. 

“The timer starts when we open the door! We could have bought a bit of time to---”

Jungkook crumples the manila folder and throws it on the ground before slamming you into the wall and kissing you passionately, his tongue roving the inside of your mouth with fervor. And you let him, quickly getting swept up in the moment. Drywall slams onto the backs of your hands, the back of your head, and your ass. Jungkook’s strong frame slams against your chest, torso, thighs, and knees. Nothing will seemingly stop you, until you hear grunts and scraping.

You pry yourself away from him, and though he chases your lips eagerly, you turn away to force your bottom lip out of the vacuum Jungkook has created with his mouth.

He looks at you quizzically, still pinning you against the wall.

“Come on,” he whispers, pleading. “We’ve got two whole hours.”

You shove him toward the other wall.

“They’re right next door,” you whisper back. “We can’t chance it.”

“Did you see how rabid she got explaining the rules?” Jungkook asks. “The only thing she’s thinking about is winning this game, and the only thing I’m thinking about is how I get two whole hours with you.” And then, his eyes deaden. “But I’m not the only thing you’re thinking about, am I?”

“It’s not that,” you happen to say precisely in the way Jungkook won’t believe. “I just can’t fully enjoy it when it’s this close.”

Jungkook would sulk if he didn’t already have an idea in mind.

“Fine. C’mon.”

He grabs your hand and leads you up the stairs into the attic. The door creaks open like you’d expect from a house this ancient, but surprisingly, everything is spotless.

Jungkook takes a long look around the room, starting with some file cabinets in the back. After a few moments, he smiles satisfactorily, letting out a little, “Hmm.”

“Don’t fucking tell me she cleaned up here,” you grumble.

“Little Miss Perfect? Of course she did.” Jungkook beams at you. “God. Earlier. You looked like you wanted to kill her.”

“Wanted?”

Jungkook smirks. “I know a couple of guns for hire.”

You sigh. “We really shouldn’t be joking like this.”

He shrugs and moves toward you, the squeaking floorboards pelting you like a sudden hailstorm. 

“This is worse,” you point out, exasperated, and backing away. 

“What? We’re just walking around up here.”

“It won’t sound like that if we fuck.”

“True,” Jungkook gleams. “It’d sound like there were at least four times as many people were up here, especially if you let me do that one thing where I---”

“Jungkook,” you hiss, irritated at first, but easily relenting once you take a breath. “OK, look, maybe we should, I don’t know. Just play the game or something. Look for clues.” You look around. “Shit. Did you leave that manila envelope downstairs?”

“The code is 42195,” Jungkook says flatly. 

A puff of air whooshes out your nostrils. “What happened to the honor system?”

“Nothing,” Jungkook says. “I just already knew it.”

“Because it’s actually your code,” you challenge.

“No, that’s Gyu-ri’s code, I just---”

“Because you programmed it into the door?”

“No, we took turns entering in our own codes, just like you taught me how, but the---”

“Because you saw her notes?”

Jungkook huffs angrily, stomping his foot on a floorboard that eek!s in response. “The manila envelope clue said, ‘You already have the next clue in your hands’.” He points to a file cabinet in the back corner of the room. “We keep extra arts and crafts supplies up here, and there’s a whole box of manila envelopes in there.”

“And how exactly does that translate to 42195?” you ask.

“If you’d just let me fucking tell you---”

You frown, but it’s because you’re trying not to laugh at the pained look on Jungkook’s face.

“Look,” he admits, “I don’t know what the clues are after that, but if you stand by the filing cabinet and look out at the room, you can see a few things that are just a little bit sus.”

Jungkook points to some shelves holding a book inadvertently made shady because Gyu-ri isn’t tall enough to have been able to push it all the way back in line. You follow his finger across the room in a straight line from that book to a painting of a bird, which is slightly tilted and off-center. Both of you follow the bird’s new gaze down to some old sports equipment, where a pair of skis are leaning against the wall. Those skis are sitting directly under two framed marathon bibs: Jungkook’s, which reads 92765, and Gyu-ri’s, which reads 18326.

Ugh. Couple things.

You start to try and do the calculations.

“But she likes misdirection,” Jungkook warns, “so I’m willing to bet that instead of using either of those numbers, or any math, she’ll go for something clever and up its own ass, like the amount of kilometers in a marathon, which is 42.195.”

Speechless, you watch as Jungkook overzealously mocks Gyu-ri’s curtsey from earlier and hurriedly does a flourish with his hand to mark his argument’s elegant finality.

“Can we go up on the roof and fuck now?” he asks, annoyed. “We’ve already wasted at least 20 minutes, and I tried to get us inside as quickly as possible.”

Your eyes grow wide, and your smile grows even wider.

You slink toward him. 

“See?” 

It comes out dripping with lust, edging just under a whisper. 

“Not just the muscle.” 

Jungkook smirks as your hand runs up his shirt, feeling the slopes of his muscles, and then down again, following the line separating his abs, hard and toned even when unflexed, as it bleeds into the line of his fly. 

“Although you’ve got plenty of that, too.” 

You grab him, and he lets out a shuddering breath. 

Jungkook suddenly becomes shy at the way you’re ogling and grabbing him. “Guess I’ve learned a thing or two,” he moans, eyes closing, head bobbing toward you.

You dodge him, choosing to play a bit more. “Teach me.”

Jungkook bites his lip. “What do you want to learn?”

You ghost his kiss, breaths mixing yet imperceptible if not for the heat raising sweat on your lips. 

“Teach me how to get onto the roof.”

Climbing through the circular attic window and finding steady footing on the tiny blip of a ledge is the trickiest, scariest part. You feel a little vertigo when you look down and see the balcony where the two of you usually perch, its distance viscerally explaining just how high up you are. But that’s quickly remedied when you refocus on scaling the bit of wall next to you to get up onto the solid shingles of the topmost part of this roof. 

The angle is too sharp to actually allow for a decent fuck, so you both straddle the A-shaped frame, hips grinding as you pitch, “Makeout session instead?”

“No, please, I wanna touch you,” Jungkook pleads, running his hands up and down your thighs.

“I’m scared I’ll fall,” you admit, “and this isn’t exactly a tuck-and-roll kind of situation.”

“Fair enough. But I’m at least getting my hands on those tits.”

You chuckle softly as Jungkook wraps one arm around you to keep you stable, places one hand on your breast, and nestles his lips against your collarbone. You haven’t been able to stop pawing at each other since last week. Jungkook’s eager to make up for his game night transgressions, and you’ve been walking around in a daze from Jungkook’s messages from that same evening. 

You haven’t quite admitted it to yourself, but that’s definitely why Hobi has been so skittish around you. He’s second guessing every move or sound that he makes. Every single one of them seems to rub you the wrong way.

“Could do this forever,” Jungkook whispers, the feel of his lips against your neck bringing you back into the present.

“Agreed,” you sigh, as his taste buds dare to cross your jawline.

“Well, shit. Then let’s just go. Leave.”

“We can’t just go. It’s not like before. Hobi would have this whole town looking for us.” You whimper as Jungkook’s thumb slides into your bra, teasing your nipple and making you squirm against him. “Fuck.” You sieve a breath through your teeth. “We’d need different resources. A crazy amount of money.”

“So let’s take a job.”

Teeth start to pull and nibble at your earlobe, and you giggle in spite of yourself.

“Mmm, is that a yes?” Jungkook mumbles.

“No.” 

You let out a soft moan as his tongue traces the outline of your ear. 

“Why not?”

His tongue slips into your left ear, sending shivers from it to every non-left-ear part of your body.

“Too big.”

“Mmm.”

“I meant too obvious. Too easy to trace.”

His hand dips back into your shirt and starts massaging like he had been, and you bite your lip at the feel of skin on skin.

“Break it up into a bunch of jobs?”

“It’d take a while. Need several accounts. Might get caught in that time.”

Finally, his lips drag his tongue across your cheek and into your mouth, and you kiss hungrily. Sloppily. With reckless abandon.

And then after a while.

“Mmph!”

You stop kissing, but your lips stay locked.

“Whmph?”

“Mmph hng hngingingull cnmph!”

Releasing each other, you lock eyes instead.

“What?” you repeat.

“Do the original con!” Jungkook whispers excitedly.

You tilt your head. “Nnnnno---”

“Think about it,” he begs, taking both of your hands in his. “No one requested it. You planned to hit Sope on your own. Whatever con you came up with would have netted you a huge take. And we have four badges at our disposal, for fuck’s sake. We’re in.” 

“Way, way, way too risky,” you say, though between your freedom and Hobi’s love, you aren’t sure what you’re worried more about risking.

“How? There’s no trace,” Jungkook points out rightly. He licks his lips and pouts. “And I know how you like to leave no trace.”

“Out of line,” you protest. “Besides. Guilting me isn’t going to make me want to do it.”

“Then let me suck on your neck a bit more. That was the last time you agreed with me on something.”

Despite the countless Should’ve lefts that flurry through your mind, your small voice finds a way to crawl out and breathe, “I mean it, Jungkook.” 

He slides you closer to him. Your neck soon feels raw and undone without Jungkook’s lips, tongue, and teeth working against it.

“So do I, Sel,” he mumbles between kisses. “So do I.”

You’re both surprised to see only Yoongi, Jin, Hobi, and Gyu-ri back in the living room, watching some show on TV. 

“Where’s our all-star team?” Jungkook jokes as he flops down onto the loveseat, leaving you the only one still standing.

“They’re still at it,” Hobi replies, laughing, his splotchy, crimson cheeks suggesting that he’s at least four glasses of wine in. 

“Yeah, listen,” Gyu-ri giggles, reaching for the remote and muting the sound.

There’s faint beeping, a pause, a frustrated “Ugh, that’s not it either!” from Namjoon, and Nima and Jang-mi cackling. 

Everyone laughs, but all you can focus on is Gyu-ri practically sitting on Hobi’s lap, her legs swung over his thighs, ass pressed up against his hip bone, bodies fitting together like Tetris pieces, eyes locked, and lips turned up into playful smiles. Though Hobi’s arms are spread wide open and innocently resting on the couch back behind him, Gyu-ri’s temple is awfully close to the crook of Hobi’s elbow, the one that had been resting on your hip just one hour and fifty-odd minutes ago.

Yoongi seems to be the only other person who cares, his lashes fluttering as your eyes meet. You aren’t completely sure what he’s thinking or feeling, but within his ever-enigmatic smirk, he leaves you clues. His downcast eyes suggest he isn’t thrilled about Gyu-ri either, but the wrinkle in his chin tells you that he thinks it’s maybe kind of your fault.

And you can’t argue there.

Funnily enough, where you expect another deflating Should’ve left to pop into your brain, you find the flicker of a flame. Fire with fire, you decide.

With Hobi and Gyu-ri taking up the couch, Jin lying on his back across the other sectional, Yoongi hugging his crossed legs on the floor with his back leaning against an ottoman, and Jungkook manspreading on the loveseat, you look around for a place to sit. 

The fake-curious look on your face triggers fidgeting from Gyu-ri, the flawless hostess. “Oh, here, let me---”

“No, here’s perfect.”

You crouch by Jungkook, nudging his knee with yours slightly, and eliciting a small, happy smile from his lips. He makes room for you, but only a little, forcing you to squeeze next to him. He glances over at Hobi, like a toddler testing the boundaries. But wine-drunk Hobi seems to be off in his own world.

Jungkook rests his wrist on your knee as you cross it over your other leg.

Yoongi tightens his arms around his legs and frowns.

Gyu-ri’s wide, clear eyes flash from his wrist to your pupils, and she’s surprised to find you staring at her not like she’s a friend across the room, but a steel target 300 meters in the distance.

You square your shoulders to her, eyeing her in your crosshairs. 

“So. While we’re waiting for those brainiacs upstairs…”

You place a round in the raceway.

“…who got down here first?” you ask.

“We did,” Yoongi says, his eyes trained on you with his own dangerous agenda. “Only took us about half an hour.”

“Yeah, no thanks to you!” Jin exclaims, sitting up in a half-crunch to sneer at him. “All you did was run around picking random things up and asking if they could be clues.” He waves his arms around. “‘Is this a clue?’ ‘Could this be a clue?’ ‘How about this, Jin, is this a clue?’” Jin sits up all the way and huffs in frustration. “I don’t know what possible connection a wedding photo, a lamp light bulb, and closet hangers have to each other. Turns out, they’re just things in a married couple’s bedroom.”

“You never know,” Yoongi mutters, staring at the floor.

“I solved it with the clues in your nightstand drawer, under your bed, and behind your curtains, which was the trickiest to find,” Jin explains. “‘You see these more than we do.’ I didn’t understand the clue until I ruffled the curtains, which made the envelope fall.”

“That was Gy-ri’s puzzle,” Jungkook acknowledges. “What ended up being the code?” 

“Well, the last clue just said, ‘Now add them together,’” Jin goes on. “The thing that the nightstand drawer clue was taped to was your remote control. I used it to turn on the TV and saw that you left it on channel 36. The clue from there directed us to look under your bed. The envelope was taped to an old box of tealight candles?”

“Decorations from our wedding,” Gyu-ri gushes, choosing to smile at Hobi for some reason, who politely smiles back and says, “Aw. That sounds magical.”

You almost chomp down on your lips until Jungkook cuts in with a, “Yeah, but setting and cleaning them all up was a pain in the ass.”

“Well, that box had 50 candles in them,” Jin goes on. “Then, the curtain clue made me think the last number had something to do with looking at your house from outside. I thought about your address, and you’re house 1 on the cul-de-sac. Math didn’t work here---”

Jungkook smirks at you, and you can’t help but match him.

“---so, I simply entered 36501, and it worked.”

“That’s how we solved it?” Yoongi asks, impressed.

“That’s how I solved it,” Jin remarks, “while you were busy digging in their closet or whatever.”

You hum. “You solved it so fast, but then again, I guess the clues weren’t so complicated.” 

You brace at the shoulder for the kickback. 

Gyu-ri smiles hesitantly. “Seems not.” But then she looks more confident, eyeing Hobi and looking back at you. “Hobi and I didn’t have clues, but we had a much more challenging task. Cookie just littered a ton of one-digit numbers around the room like confetti.” She turns to Hobi and ruffles his hair, making him giggle sheepishly. “Sweet Hobster here figured out that the relevant numbers were all in the same font.”

Hobster??

“Once we settled in on that,” Gyu-ri adds, “it was just a matter of figuring out the combination. 17425. Right, Hobster?”

“Sure,” Hobi says with a simple, vague shrug.

Really. She’s going with Hobster.

You take your first deep breath. 

“They were done not too long after us,” Jin points out, looking at you.

You take your second deep breath. 

“What did you two end up doing?” Yoongi asks, narrowing his eyes at you and Jungkook, and meaning more than he’s saying. “Seemed pretty quiet in your room.”

You glance over at Jungkook, who just chuckles. He does a flourish with the hand that had just been resting on your knee. 

You grin. 

“Folder, book, bird, skis, marathons, 42195. Cookie figured it out right away,” you say cryptically, leaving Jin, Yoongi, and the Hobster scratching their heads, while Gyu-ri looks flattened.

“Guess Cookie just knows me really well,” she tries.

Yoongi rocks forward as he readjusts in his seat. “If you figured it out right away, then what took you so damn long?”

At the bottom of your third breath, you pull the trigger.

“Just wanted to talk it out to make sure,” you say. “Right, Jungkook?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, his voice low, “that’s what we did.” He sets his hand back on your knee and gives it a squeeze. “Just… talked.”

The corners of Gyu-ri’s eyes twitch. Then, she swings her legs off of Hobi’s lap.

Direct hit.

“Snacks are low,” Gyu-ri replies stiffly, and it’s just then that you see bowls of chips, pretzels, and candy set out on the table. “I’ll go get some refills.” 

She picks up a couple of bowls and disappears into the kitchen, this time seemingly not finding the energy to lift her feet to skip.

The last door swings open upstairs, and you hear Namjoon bounding down the steps to see you all sitting in the living room.

“Aw, man,” he complains, as Jang-mi and Nima join him. “We lost?”

But everyone’s demeanor shifts when you stand abruptly. “Yeah, and Hobi and I have to go,” you say.

You look over to Jungkook. “Tell Gyu-ri we had fun,” you say. 

When you look over at Hobi, who is still so blissfully ignorant to what has just happened, you feel the triumphant flame within you explode into an angry fireball. 

Finding Jungkook’s eyes again, you add, “An original idea. Wondering what it would be like to plan something like that again.”

Jungkook understands what you mean. “Sure. Already got some thoughts. Maybe I’ll text them to you,” he replies, and you can’t help but smile in anticipation of the messages you’ll get later. 

You stride over to Hobi to help him to his feet, uncaring that Jin is making jokes about you always turning game night into something steamier, or that Yoongi’s eyes follow you all the way to the door. 

As you lug Hobi home, you feel the fireball burn. You’re tired of keeping up appearances for someone who’s choosing to hide things from you rather than chase you down and make you understand. It might be unfair, leveraging Hobi’s sunny disposition and general all-around goodness against him, especially when those were the things that drew you to him in the first place, and ironically when you’ve been hiding literally everything about yourself. But even if it might be unfair, you can’t fight the real truth lying underneath all of it.

That you need and want the kind of love that someone would be willing to die for. 

To kill for.

You think of Jungkook aiming your Sig Sauer at Jimin’s head.

“Mmm,” Hobi sighs, distracting you and stumbling through the living room and collapsing onto your couch as you close and lock the front door behind you. “C’mere. Let’s cuddle.”

“Cuddle my ass,” you grumble.

“That’s what I’m trying to do.” He stretches out his hands to you and wiggles his fingers.

“What the hell was all that?” you demand, throwing your keys onto the counter and marching over to him.

“What?” Hobi asks softly. Nervously.

“Sope Industries stock is plummeting? Work has been stressing you out?” You fold your arms in front of your chest, Hobi just watching sheepishly. “Were you gonna tell me any of that?”

Hobi lowers his eyes, shrugging. “I don’t know. I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Well, you did.”

You start pacing. Your fingers get itchy for your go bag again, and you start squeezing them into fists.

“Are… are you about to hit me or something?”

“No,” you sigh, stopping in your tracks just to roll your eyes at Hobi. But when you catch a glimpse of him, you see that he has tears welling in his eyes.

Your heart softens, and for a moment, you’re able to pause the whirl of plans that are quickly building in your mind.

If you’re really going through with the plan that Jungkook has suggested, then you don’t have to kneel in front of Hobi. If you’re leaving, then you don’t have to run your hands up his thighs comfortingly. If you’re leaving, then you don’t have to look up at him, sigh, and say, “It’s me. It’s just me. I wanna know. I want you to tell me.”

But you do it all anyway.

“What’s going on?” you continue. “How are you feeling?”

Hobi leans forward, taking your hands in his, resting his lips against your wrist and interlacing your fingers with his. 

“Because Yoongi told me you were feeling… I don’t know… off,” you say. A sharp spike of anger pokes through your next words. “I really wish it had come from you, but…” 

Hobi nods. “I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “Having all this come out like that… and in front of the others… I should’ve just told you. But, lately, it feels weird.”

“What does?”

Hobi looks deeply into your eyes, tears still welling. “Talking to you.”

Fuck. Look at the state of him. You really should’ve left.

Guilt starts to sprout, apologies and confessions threatening to flower.

“Try,” you offer. “And I’ll try my best to listen.”

Hobi takes a deep, deep breath. You know this will be difficult. Drunk Hobi is more about feelings and actions than words. And Drunk Hobi tends to shut down when he feels like he’s flailing.

“You just feel so far away,” Hobi finally admits, and you almost hear it in Yoongi’s voice. “I didn’t want to tell you about work because I thought that’d push you even further.”

You let his words settle as you play with the pads of his fingers. 

“I miss you,” he whispers. “I know that doesn’t make sense. But I do.”

You nod. You understand.

You understand because you miss yourself, too. The self that you created with Hobi. It’s at war with your reawakened self. Your dirty, angry, independent, fiery self.

Your true self.

“I’ve been feeling off, too,” you say, careful with your words. 

“Is it work stuff?”

“…Kind of.”

You shake your head to avoid the impulse to come clean right there and then. You want to be honest. You want to tell him everything. But doing that would be selfish, too. You’d be absolving yourself, but where would that leave him?

“Anyway, I’ve just been in an awful mood,” you say, feeling the fireball start to cool.

“Me too.”

You can’t help but smirk at concerned, worried Hobi. You’ve literally never seen him in any mood except happy. 

Come to think of it… 

“You seemed happy with Gyu-ri sitting on your lap,” you can’t help but mention, feeling not hurt exactly, but competitive. Petty. 

Hobi brightens. “Yeah?”

“You’re really smiling right now?” you snap.

“Not by Gyu-ri specifically, but---” Hobi wraps his arms around you and pulls you onto his lap. “But… I… maybe like that you got jealous.”

“Yeah, well,” you grumble, admittedly liking the feel of his arms around you.

Hobi laughs. “I know that’s strange, coming from me,” he says. “I just don’t get jealous. I don’t really pay attention to much except for what’s right in front of me. I don’t care about anything else.” 

He sighs and runs his hands up your back, pulling you into him. You rest against his chest, and his voice emanates warmly, your body buzzing with each of his words. This is what Hobi’s love feels like. A long day of work, ending with a soft, warm embrace. 

Running his fingers up and down your neck, he pauses at a slightly pink stain on your skin from earlier. To cover, you scratch it as if it were a bug bite, but you think of Jungkook’s mouth working moderately, and, even with Hobi holding you, suddenly itching to feel him there at a stronger, faster pace.

He wipes your scratching fingers away and runs his thumb delicately over the stain in an attempt to soothe it. “I just care about you,” he whispers.

But can a soft, warm embrace soothe the core of you? The part that needs more than this? The part that he doesn’t know, and will never know? Though you’ve felt so cared for with Hobi, you’ve never felt more alive than when you’re with Jungkook.

Should’ve left.

You feel Hobi’s eyes on you, awaiting some kind of response. 

“I care about you, too,” you choke out. 

The effort with which you have to get it out only makes him grapple harder with what he really wants to say. 

“That feeling is back,” he tells you. 

“What feeling?”

“The feeling I told you about a few weeks ago.” He slumps a little. “The feeling that you’re looking for more. For something else.”

You tremble as you think about what you’re going to say next.

“Don’t fight it,” Hobi tells you. How kind a heart he has, to offer you permission to break it.

“There’s a lot going on inside,” you say.

“Can I help with any of it?” He looks at you hopefully. “Is there a way through?”

You take three breaths. And at the bottom of the third breath, you say, “I don’t think that it’s about whether this is enough or not. You’ve given me everything. It’s just that… there’s a lot you don’t know. There are parts of me that will just always be somewhere else.”

You’re almost thankful for the chance to get to try to explain. You’d never put it into words before, but now you see pieces of you were left on so many roads going in so many different directions. 

“Help me understand,” Hobi says.

“I don’t think I quite understand it myself yet.”

You crawl off of Hobi’s lap and extend your hand to him. 

“So tonight, let’s just try to get some sleep,” you say. “We’ve had a few drinks. You’ve had a long week.”

But he looks unsure. Like he wants to go brew some coffee and hash it all out right now.

“C’mon, Hobster.”

He laughs and smiles softly. He relents, taking your hand. And he follows you to the bedroom. 

When you both get into bed, still fully dressed, and Hobi nestling into you, you notice that the whispers in your mind are changing.

Leave.

Leave now.

Before it gets worse.

Before you really break him.

Client 152 (12:42 AM): So we’re on, right? I’ve got thoughts.

Client 152 (12:42 AM): You there?

Client 152 (12:47 AM): Message me back when you get a moment away.

Client 152 (1:20 AM): Are you there?

Client 152 (2:09 AM): I know I wasn’t misreading things. We can start planning whenever you’re ready. 

Client 152 (3:13 AM): Can you just let me know you’re OK?

Client 152 (5:42 AM): Heads up. The little one and the old one just came over. We’re heading over to the brainiac’s, then yours. Apparently, we’re going fishing at 6 to “shoot the shit”, whatever the fuck that means. 

Client 152 (5:42 AM): Please don’t let this change your mind.

These messages, coupled with Hobi’s quickly scrawled “Fishing with the boys -- love you” on the note on your nightstand, confirms it.

Something’s up. 

Yoongi is stirring the pot.

But you’ll worry about that later.

Right now, you just keep staring at the messages that Jungkook left, and you think about the conversation that you and Hobi had the night before. How you felt. What you heard. What your gut told you.

Maybe you said it out of spite. In the heat of the moment. But leaving, and using the original con idea to give you an out, still seems like the best option. You haven’t been able to convince Jungkook to go without you. And if you both stay, everything will disintegrate in the flames that you spark.

Your gears are a little dusty, but they’ve started spinning. 

If Sope Industries is, in fact, on a downturn, you’d have to steal something from them quickly, and it’d have to yield enough for you, Jungkook, and Hobi to be OK no matter what. You need to get your hands on something really valuable. Something bigger than you’ve ever dealt with. Something potentially as big, or even bigger than the Gomez. A true Victorian. And as you reflect on the game night conversation, you realize that Hobi, in his ever-present generosity, has inadvertently given you the answer.

The defense contract.

Your doorbell snaps you out of your thoughts and forces you out of the basement. 

And when you find Gyu-ri standing on your porch, you furrow your brow and cross your arms, wishing you were still in those thoughts instead of looking into her earnest eyes. 

“I thought the run was canceled,” you say, even though you’re still dressed in your sweats.

“Just because the guys saddled Nima and Jang-mi with parenting duties doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy our freedom,” Gyu-ri replies, also still dressed in sweats.

“Oh.” You shrug. “Well, to be honest, I was about to change out of these.”

Gyu-ri nods slowly, her eyes falling to the floor. “Well… we don’t have to run. We could just hang out, maybe?”

“Maybe another time---”

Gyu-ri’s eyes catch hold of yours, and you feel slightly off-balance.

“Look,” she says, her voice urgent, “I just…” She pulls back, her voice reverting back to its sweet, lilting tone. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve been wanting to talk to you. Not with the others. Kind of a heart-to-heart sort of thing.”

Heart-to-hearts already make you squeamish, and one with Gyu-ri is making you absolutely nauseated.

“Sure,” you say callously, when you meant to say it noncommittally. But given that you’re finally getting ready to move out of the cul-de-sac, you no longer care how you come across. Least of all, to Gyu-ri.

She follows you into your entryway, and as you close the door, she notices the bunny figurine. She chuckles and picks it up, and you immediately want to slap it out of her hands.

“Looks like him,” she says, laughing.

“Who?” you remember to say, but it sounds more like a knowing dare than a genuine question.

Gyu-ri gives you a knowing look of her own. 

But you decide to walk past it, like you’re now walking past her to get to the living room.

You watch her as she sits on the couch. You think of kneeling in front of it and Hobi last night, and how strange it is that you’ve seen your sofa shift from a hearth of healing to enemy territory in just 12 hours.

Gyu-ri blinks those earnest eyes at you. “You have to know why I’m here.”

“Fill me in,” you say, secretly enjoying the way Gyu-ri is tangling her fingers into knots and then untying them, over and over.

“Well. It’s about Cookie.”

“Is something wrong?”

Gyu-ri glares at you. “Yes, Sena. Something’s wrong. Very wrong.”

You try your best not to huff in annoyance. You ignore all the scenes that play in your mind, the flashes of heat, the glimpses of his body, and the feeling of your body making room for him. You desperately tamp down the He was mine first!s and You’re just in the way!s and He doesn’t love you!s that keep fighting the Leave, leave, leave!s that keep taking up space in your brain.

“What makes you think something’s wrong?” you ask.

Fingers unraveling, Gyu-ri looks at the empty coffee table. “Can I have some water or something? I’m feeling a bit… uh… nervous.”

Unlike Gyu-ri, though, you’re not really one to go great lengths to make even wanted visitors comfortable.

“Maybe you’ll feel less nervous if you just tell me what’s on your mind.”

And then you can get the fuck out of here.

“OK,” Gyu-ri replies stiffly. “Um… well… OK. I just… I wanted to ask if something was…” She sighs. “I wanted to ask if you’ve noticed anything weird about him lately.”

“What would be weird?”

Clearly thrown by your challenging straightforwardness, Gyu-ri can no longer meet your eyes. But it might be helping her. Staring into the sun makes you blind.

“He’s been so quiet lately.”

“Hmm.”

“I mean, he’s always been kind of quiet.”

Really? Because I can’t get him to shut up.

“But, apart from game nights, he doesn’t get excited about anything anymore,” Gyu-ri complains. “We haven’t been cooking together. We don’t paint like we used to. We’ve stopped going for runs.” She gestures to her sweats. “I wear my workout clothes around you ladies more than I do around him.”

You just stare at her, and she realizes that this is one of the things that you wouldn’t know about them.

“Running is… or, well, used to be… one of our couple things,” she explains. “I mean. He bought me these.”

You think of the marathon bibs. 

Gross.

She frowns, and she looks as if she’s about to cry.

Ughhh, noooo, grosssss, you think, disliking the prospect of having to console her.

“I’m sorry,” Gyu-ri whines in an ugly, stupid voice, fat with emotion, “I j-just… I don’t know what to do!”

You watch Gyu-ri bury her head in her hands and fall apart. She’s always been small, but here, in this moment, she looks miniscule. Like you could hold her in the palm of her hand. 

How easy it would be for you to crush her.

“Gyu-ri,” you say softly, trying not to sound as exasperated as you are by her, “I… Well, I’m not exactly sure what to do here…” 

She lets out a pained wail, and though you think it’s a tad overdramatic, you feel the deepest of those wails wrap themselves around and clench your heart.

If this were Jang-mi or Nima, you’d have all sorts of suggestions to make, but they all really roll up into one action: talk about it. That’s what you did with Hobi. Even if you aren’t any clearer on your feelings about him, you at least know that it’s better to make the break from Hobi now than let things fester.

But you don’t know if you should make the same suggestion to Gyu-ri. Not without giving Jungkook a heads-up. His last message echoes in your brain. Please don’t let this change your mind. You fear that if Gyu-ri acts exactly like this and talks to him about how she feels, it won’t be your mind that you’ll have to worry about changing.

“I know I mentioned this at brunch a while back, but I really need to know. Have you noticed anything strange about him lately?” Gyu-ri asks. 

“Like I said, I don’t---”

“Is he doing anything weird on his computer, specifically?” she asks.

This gives you pause.

“I don’t think so?” you ask, watching Gyu-ri very carefully. 

“What kind of stuff does he work on?”

Gyu-ri’s voice starts to sound desperate, but not in the wanting way Hobi sounded last night. It’s more inquisitive. Scrutinous. 

“I really don’t know,” you say, your defenses up.

“Please, anything,” Gyu-ri begs. “Have you seen any chats? Any names? Anything… well… suspicious?”

Not to you.

“No.” 

“Any, like… shady people?”

You frown. “Shady people.”

Your fingers start to itch for your go bag again.

“Yeah.” Gyu-ri looks a little flustered, and then she sighs. “I don’t know how to explain it. But sometimes, he goes online, and he tells me it’s all for work. But then sometimes, he’ll go places. Disappear. Sometimes late at night. And it gets scary.” She looks back up at you, pleading. “I’m trying to find out more. Where he’s going. Who he’s consorting with.”

You tilt your head. “Consorting?”

“Stop repeating me!” Gyu-ri cries, unexpectedly more frustrated with you than with Jungkook.

You notice that though she’s been wailing, she hasn’t cried any real tears. 

And, upon seeing the look on your face, Gyu-ri wipes her face --- for what, you don’t know. For show?

She settles back. “Just… can you do me a favor and tell me if you find out more about who he’s talking to online?”

You narrow your eyes at her, alarm bells ringing at full blast. “Why?”

Gyu-ri looks annoyed. “Excuse me?”

“Why don’t you just ask him directly?” you ask. 

Gyu-ri sighs and rubs her face. “He won’t tell me anything, and I’m just worried about his safety, OK?” she asks, but it lands funny. Sounds odd. Seemingly knowing this, she stands and shakes her head. “I’m sorry I bothered you with this.”

You follow her back to your front door, noting that like her run, her stride is quick.

“Why did you bother me with this?” you ask, kind of enjoying the way she cringes at you repeating her words again.

She turns on her heel and finally looks you in the eye. 

“Because he says your name in his sleep every goddamn night,” she says coldly. 

There’s a loud, mean exhale out of her nostrils, and then, “I don’t need to know why. At least, I don’t think that I need to know why. But that could change.” She sneers. “To be honest, I couldn’t fucking care less. But I just wanted to know if you knew anything about whatever else he might be hiding from me. Alright?”

You just stare at her.

Gyu-ri looks you up and down before stepping back onto your porch.

“Like I said, I’d really appreciate it if you’d text or call me if you find anything out,” she says angrily. “Because I’m really worried about him,” she adds quickly. But not out of haste or insistence. 

Almost as if it’s an afterthought.

She jogs back to her house, but you don’t stay to watch her go.

Instead, you rush down to your basement and double-check all of your encryptions. All of your alert systems. All of your bots. There don’t seem to be any breaches. You run check after check, and everything looks secure. 

So you chance it. You respond to Jungkook.

You (11:22 AM): Watch your back around Little Miss Perfect. 

The Sope Industries parking lot is so massive and sprawling that you have to settle for a spot in lot BC-21. As you hike past the sign marking the A-1 lot, the front entryway finally starts to make itself known to you.

One hand grips the strap of your crossbody purse, and the other clutches the handle of the bag housing four big plastic containers filled to the brim with vegetables, rice, and curry --- two shrimp, and two lamb. You don’t often feel the tug of domesticity, but you appreciate when jobs require it. Those moments bring you nice perks. The chance to revisit recipes. The chance to bust out an old, favorite sheath dress. The chance to see Jungkook in your apron in your kitchen, stirring the curry for you as you get ready and telling you how great of a job you did.

“You sure you don’t want me to go with you?” Jungkook asked, as the two of you split the leftovers. 

You reassured him that you’d be fine with the pin camera that you’ve affixed to the charm on your necklace, just before you packed up the bag that you’re now toting toward security. 

“Hi, I’m here to visit my husband, Jung Hoseok,” you say warmly. 

“One moment.” The security guard refers to their computer screen. “Sorry ma’am, you’re not on the books?”

You hold up the bag. “It’s a surprise,” you reply, smiling and raising your eyebrows.

The security guard mirrors your smile. “Hang on,” he says, as he picks up the desk phone.

You imagine Jungkook watching from your basement, chuckling to himself at the record time you’ve been able to sway someone.

Jungkook doesn’t work from his house anymore, technically not since Gyu-ri’s visit, and definitely not since you showed up as soon as she and the others left for work on Monday morning. “We’re working here today?” he asked sleepily, noticing you frozen on the step. “I don’t feel like working from home at all,” you said loudly, enunciating, just in case. “Can we work somewhere else? Maybe camp out at a cafe or something, eat while we work?” You flashed him your Sig Sauer in your purse, and his eyes widened with concern. And you finally filled him in at the gun range, releasing the tension that had built up in your muscles since Saturday.

You also discussed how things seemed to be lining up for your plan. Obviously, neither you nor Jungkook are safe around Gyu-ri. And, as manipulative as it sounds, you decide to lean into the funk that you and Hobi are in. It’s oddly satisfying, this unfortunate souring of your marriage. It’s just the kind of peripheral excuse to leave him. 

Plus, it opened the door for this recon mission. 

The timing is right. Your departure is now fueled by more than just what you feel for Jungkook. Gyu-ri and her needling questions are the biggest threat to Hobi and the cul-de-sac so far. Even if you did love Hobi enough to stay, there was no way that could happen now.

Though you’re familiar with plenty of people from the Sope Industries family, you’ve never actually been to their headquarters. As you see employees come and go, swiping their badges by the scanner at hip-height, you smile to yourself and think of Yoongi’s convenient badge placement within the small pocket of his pants. He really is so clever.

And that worries you, too.

Hobi steps off the elevator and sees you immediately. He excitedly calls out to you from across the floor. 

“Honey!” 

And he comically runs the entire length of the lobby, bumping into people on his way to you but not caring.

When he reaches you, he wraps you up in his arms and gives you a kiss on the cheek. “What are you doing here?” he asks.

“Wanted to surprise you,” you say, holding up the bag, the smell of food wafting toward his nostrils. You hope the smell masks how uneasily your voice comes out. With everything that’s going on, it’s becoming harder and harder to lie to his angelic face. 

To preserve him, and to save him, you need to go the minute that the opportunity presents itself. 

But that all depends on how today goes.

“Come up and see the guys!” Hobi says enthusiastically. 

“Oh, no, that’s OK,” you lie, shoving the bag toward Hobi and looking back at the doors. “I don’t want to disturb anybody. Just remember to give Namjoon one of the lamb ones because he doesn’t like---”

“You won’t be disturbing anyone,” Hobi says, taking the bag from you, but also taking your hand. “C’mon. Come up and say hi. They’ll be happy to see you.” He grins happily. “Especially with this food, and in that dress.”

You smile warmly. Based on Jungkook’s replay of the guys’ fishing trip turned heart-to-heart of their own, you know that Hobi at least partially means that they’ll be thrilled to see you making some kind of effort. They’re all rooting for you and Hobi to make it. They just don’t realize that the effort you’re putting in is for the opposite outcome.

Hobi checks in with the security guard. “She’s OK with me, right?”

“Yes, sir,” the security guard replies happily. “Both of you have a great day.”

Hobi wraps an arm around your waist, his excited elbow bumping your perfectly tied sash slightly to the side of your waist, and leads you to the elevators.

And with that, Step 1 of the recon mission is complete.

The 17th floor is full of people dressed exactly like Hobi: sensible sneakers, khaki pants, gray polo shirts, and lanyards with badges. When you come upon The Cul-de-Sacks’ little pod, you smile at the little things about the guys that you’ve come to know and love. Namjoon tending to the succulent on his desk. Jin playing a game that he minimizes anytime anyone walks by. And Yoongi sitting on his desk, arms folded, mouth hanging slightly open, mind lost in thought, his rebellious dark jeans sticking out in a sea of waist-high beige.

“Look who’s here!” Hobi cheers, presenting you to the group.

The guys turn toward Hobi’s approaching voice, and they look genuinely surprised and happy to see you.

“And look what I’ve brought,” you add in singsong, starting to pass out the containers of food. 

“Aww,” Namjoon coos, as he accepts one of the lamb curries, “what a kind gesture!”

He passes the other lamb curry over to Jin, who says, “Sweet Jesus, this smells so good.” He grins naughtily. “Jang-mi’s trying to get us to be vegetarian again.” He adds raised eyebrows to his expression. “Don’t tell her that I’m eating this?”

You cross your heart and smirk at him, and he gives you a wink.

Yoongi takes one of the seafood curries, his eyes roving over you, unable to do anything but admit, “Yeah… this is… this is actually really nice of you, Sena.” He smiles, touched. Warmed. “Glad you came for a visit.”

Hobi beams with pride, and though you absolutely hate everything about this dog-and-pony show, you’re at least happy that you could come through for him. For them all.

“It’s spicy,” you tell the group, as you hand Hobi the last seafood curry. 

“Like you,” he murmurs, kissing you on the lips.

You giggle in the moment, but then you remember not to linger. Jungkook probably doesn’t appreciate an up-close view of Hobi’s chest, and what it would insinuate.

You pull away self-consciously, turning back to the group. “How’s work going?” you ask, reaching back into the bag to pass out plastic cutlery and paper napkins.

Hobi sits down at his desk, completing the pod, and he gestures for you to sit on his lap. When you do, he bounces you a little, and you lovingly start to serve him some food.

“We’re kind of blocked, actually,” Hobi begins to explain, his mouth half-full. “The servers are down because---”

The rest of the guys glare at him, and Hobi nods quickly. 

Hobi swallows and chooses to say, instead, “Because of some kind of issue.”

You know exactly what that issue is, seeing as you’re the one who has sicced the security gap-identifying bots on them in the first place, but you quip, “Complicated computer stuff?”

For once, even Yoongi seems to be at ease, as they nod and chat with you. 

You play the part. You listen, feed Hobi, and watch the guys eat. You’re amazed that this is all it takes. An old recipe. An old dress. All that running you’ve done, and this is the most inconspicuous that you’ve been, hiding in plain sight, tied up in a bow of a gender role right at the scene of the crime.

It’s kind of infuriating.

“You cum stains know anything about these security breaches?” someone calls, and you all look up to see a grinning, admittedly handsome and muscular man striding toward you, his chest puffed out, and his badge swinging from its clip on the lip of his back pocket.

“What do you want?” Jin asks, rolling his eyes as Yoongi scowls into his curry.

“Easy, I’m just making conversation, walking off my lunch,” the man laughs, patting his stomach and staring at Yoongi, eager to get a rise out of him. 

When he sees that despite scarfing down Yoongi’s lunch, Yoongi is still eating, he frowns and looks around, his eyes landing on you.

“Ooh! A guest!” His smile transforms from eagerly teasing to painfully charming. He extends his hand to you for a handshake. “And you are?”

Before you’re able to answer, he interrupts you with, “Gorgeous. You are absolutely gorgeous.”

“She’s also my wife,” Hobi says. He peers at him and wraps an arm around your stomach to hold you to his lap before grumbling, “Sena, this is Suk-chin.”

“Hmm.” You don’t accept Suk-chin’s hand. “I’ve heard all sorts of stories about you.”

“Yeah? Well, if you’ve heard them from this nerd herd, don’t believe a word,” Suk-chin says, retracting his hand and latching it to his sweaty balls to scratch unabashedly. 

“Ugh,” Yoongi mutters, leaving his spoon in his food and setting the container back down on his desk until he regains his appetite.

“You guys hear that the fourth sector just went down?” Suk-chin asks, raising his eyebrows.

“Damn,” Jin says worriedly.

“Yeah,” Suk-chin continues, “they’re starting to think that this isn’t just an isolated issue but a straight-up attack.”

“An attack?” you ask worriedly, masking the pride you have in your handiwork, and Jungkook’s progress in coding.

“Not a physical one, just more complicated computer stuff,” Namjoon reassures you.

“Yeah, don’t worry your pretty little head, baby,” Suk-chin replies, grinning at you. 

You wonder if Suk-chin’s ever been shot before.

“Anyway, it’s kind of a blessing in disguise, if you think about it,” Suk-chin replies. “These kinds of things keep us on our toes. Help us beef things up, y’know?”

“I guess that means we should be on standby for data recovery,” Yoongi comments. He sighs. “If something happens, we’re gonna get so many tickets on the Jira board.”

“That all sounds pretty important,” you say worriedly. “Maybe I should leave?” 

“No! It’s OK,” Hobi replies, desperate not to let anything ruin your visit. “It’s just typical work stuff. Right, guys?”

Jin, Namjoon, and Yoongi are quick to agree, but Suk-chin looks like he’s about to counter.

“Actually, it’s not really common for---”

“Let me give you a tour or something,” Hobi tries. 

He looks back at Suk-chin, annoyed at the intrusion. “Getting a bit crowded here, anyway,” he adds, and even though you’ve been married for a while, you can’t believe how easy it is for you to steer Hobi in the direction you want him to go.

Hobi holds his arm out so that you can use it to help yourself to your feet. He wraps his arm around your waist, and the two of you push past Suk-chin, your hip slightly colliding with his, which makes him let out a skin-crawling, “Ooh. Don’t hurt yourself, baby.”

You flash a dead-eyed smile at him, and a happy and slightly apologetic one back to the guys, not envying the task before them as Suk-chin sits at Hobi’s chair to ruffle their feathers a bit more.

The building feels much larger than you initially visualized. Even though you easily obtained the dimensions of each floor by pretending to be an interior decorator and contacting the contractor about the job, you think it’s an important detail for Jungkook to know. 

“This place is huge,” you observe, looking up at the ceiling and fiddling with your necklace, aiming the pendant wherever you look. “It’s like a spaceship.”

You can’t help but gawk at the sleek, unconventional curves of the building. The environmentally friendly glass panels. The mix of bold and pastel colors. The transparent walls that serve as dry erase boards. And everyone’s hard at work. You take a peek at a couple of small conference rooms that Hobi says they call “think tanks”, and some larger conference rooms that they call “war rooms”. People are even hard at work in the recreation room, pausing every now and then to jot some work notes down on the wall as they play ping pong.

“Welcome to the tech industry,” Hobi says flatly. But then he smiles as he leads you down another hallway, pulling you in and kissing the top of your head. “And speaking of welcome, I was so happy to see you today.”

You smile and grasp Hobi’s fingers in yours, leaning your body into his as you stroll.  

“Thank you for the surprise,” Hobi whispers, planting another kiss on your cheek.

You notice that the hallways that Hobi keeps leading you down are getting narrower. And they have more cameras in the corners.

“Where are you taking me next?” you laugh lightly.

Hobi looks around to make sure you’re alone before grabbing at a nondescript, unlocked door handle. He wiggles his eyebrows, and then he twirls you into a dark, cool room.

Rows and rows of servers are laid out before you.

Jackpot.

Interestingly, Hobi’s thinking the same thing.

“I know I just said thank you, but… I wanna say it another way,” he mutters, pinning you against the wall by the door.

You’re thankful that the pin camera is only streaming video and not audio. You’re hoping that the room is dark enough that Jungkook hasn’t been able to see anything since Hobi first twirled you inside.

As Hobi barrels into you for a kiss, you tug downward on your necklace, snapping the delicate chain against the back of your neck, and quickly dropping it into the front pocket of your purse before you let your purse fall to the ground. 

You titter, hips coming away from the wall, your chest rubbing across his. “Really? Here?”

“We have a reputation to uphold,” Hobi mumbles next to your earlobe, and you giggle.

As Hobi slides down your body, kissing you and slowly unbuttoning the six points keeping your dress together, you quickly awaken for him. It doesn’t surprise you. This was never the problem.

Hobi grunts, when he pulls the two halves of your dress apart, staring at the lingerie you’ve picked to wear underneath. “Pretty.” He kisses at your navel, and you run your hand through his hair, grabbing and fisting his crown as he travels south. He catches the scent you’d sprayed on yourself as you finished getting ready, and he starts to salivate. He opens his mouth and draws your panties down slightly with his mouth, and you’re unable to tell if the moisture you feel when he licks your lips is coming from him or you.

“G-getting right to it, huh?” you ask shakily.

“Just want you.” He kisses your inner folds, slurping you and him up, his fingers reaching for the backside of your panties and pulling them down the slopes of your ass. “Wanna devour you.”

“Still not full from earlier?” you joke.

“Different kind of hunger.”

His tongue parts you, and you shiver, fist clenching, pulling up slightly and threatening to detach root from scalp. Hobi grunts at the tug and takes it as a sign to go harder, sucking and licking with hurry.

“What if we get caught?” you ask in the darkness, heart thumping.

“Won’t.”

You feel his lips smirk as he gets an idea. “But maybe we use this as insurance.”

He reaches for the sash that is still tied around your waist, and he starts to undo the knot.

You bite your lip as he stands again, crumpling the sash into a ball, and pressing his nose into your cheek as he kisses your jaw, his mouth wet with you. He follows the curve of your chin and then lands on your lips, kissing you sweetly at first, but then deeper, and with more fervor.

His other hand travels down your side and then into your folds, doing a good job of picking up where his tongue had left off, insanely close to your clit but still not touching, still only teasing, still wanting to build the thrill.

Your jaw opens wide and a loud moan escapes.

Hobi smiles and shakes his head. “Can’t have you doing that now, can we?”

You whimper a frail “sorry”, and Hobi kisses you again, tongue digging, fingers working, all of it making you pant and drool.

Then, he slides the ball of fabric of your sash up your neck and cheek, edging closer to your mouth.

A whisper before you begin. Something to give you context. 

“I’ve thought about fucking you at work so many times. Never thought it’d be like this.”

And then a kiss. Slow, sweet, suggestive. 

“Open.”

You take the fabric in, whining as a test, and then moaning with more abandon now that you know that your voice is reasonably stifled. You try to take deep breaths, but the tangle is making it hard, heightening the sensation, making all the blinking blue and white lights of the servers look more like stars passing you by as you’re traveling through space.

You whimper again as Hobi returns to work at your mound, stroking your thighs as he laps you up.

“Honey. You even taste different here.”

You need something to hold onto, and your palms desperately search the wall for anything, but coming up with absolutely nothing to help you.

Settling for leaning back against the wall, you push your flesh forward, but Hobi stays still, using the leverage you’re giving him to work deeper inside of you. His tongue enters you, and you squeeze around him as he fucks you with it, the muscle so strong and wet. You imagine how he had snaked it around the spoonful of food you had given him earlier, each serving effortlessly wiped clean as you pulled the silver from him. You’d never even been curious to know what spoon feels like before. 

A desperate plea fights its way through the fabric, and where met with resistance, bounces back and detours through your nostrils. 

Your hips engage, and you start to grind. The force helps Hobi’s upper jaw and the bottom of his nose meet your bud, and he takes strong breaths of his own through them to stay there for you, work for you, excruciatingly building each layer of heat that you will have no choice but to 

crash through in a few moments. 

Gonna come, you think desperately, rerouting your words to your brain, knowing they won’t be able to make it past the sash.

But then you feel a rush of cool air as Hobi pulls away from you, and you start to whine in protest.

“You thought I was just gonna give it to you?” he chuckles, kissing up your sternum. 

Edging? Here? Now?? Of all the possible times, and under all of the possible circumstances, he chooses a public place, and when you’ve got a checklist in mind that you need to complete? 

But maybe that’s precisely why now works so well. 

How quickly Hobi makes you forget.

His lips form a perfect pout as he stamps kisses along the revealed flesh of your breasts, his fingers starting to dig into the rest that is still covered by the cups of your lace push-up bra. He gnaws at the detailed fabric, and where saliva collects, his tongue flattens, spreading it across your chest.

You’re desperate for more contact, but Hobi is being selfish. Now, you understand that he wants to see you asking for it. He doesn’t want to get caught, but he wants to hear the pain in your voice when you call out to him. He’s probably missed that, given how distant and in your own head you’ve been. But today, you’ve come here. You’ve sought him out. You’ve brought everything to him, sustenance and soul.

It’s not part of the mission, but you alone can complete the fantasy.

Be there for him. Just for now. Just for this part of it.

Treat this like any other job.

With each furious whine you give him, you widen your eyes and flitter your lashes. Hobi folds your arms behind your back and forces your shoulders against the wall, making you rest back on your forearms and locking you into place. 

“Just us,” he tells you. “Just you and me.”

You don’t know if he’s trying to reassure you, or keep you focused.

He licks his lips and finally pulls one cup of your bra down, pert nipple meeting a slap of cold air and hardening, the other seizing and bracing for its turn.

Hobi’s perfect pout circles around it, and he locks eyes with you as he sucks, making you whine even more, and start to nod. Yes, you think, hoping that as you think it, he hears it. Feels it. Right there. Please. Yes.

Lips curling into a smile, Hobi moves faster, tongue swirling like it did inside your folds, and inside of your channel. You start to circle your hips, and ever-present Hobi notices. His hands latch to your waist, hands traveling down to your thighs, and stopping at the creases where they meet your torso.

You squeal with insistence. Fuck. Please! Please touch me. Move your hands down and touch me. I need it.

At your chest, Hobi moves his head from side to side, leading with his brow and letting his cheery cheeks and chin follow. So fluid. So good.

But none of it is enough to get you all the way there, and though your walls are starting to pulse, you know the next few moments are going to be inescapably insufferable. You’ll have to wait until he’s ready to give it to you, and you painfully expect coming apart so quickly when he finally does.

You sob through the sash, neck starting to go limp.

“Stay with me, hon,” Hobi tells you. “Don’t give up. Fight for it.”

The words shoot to your heart, but they also shoot to your core, strengthening you somehow.

Look at how badly he wants you.

You start to feel it all a little deeper now. Maybe a little realer. And increasingly, whatever pressure Hobi is giving you in his touch is starting to satisfy.

Hobi senses the shift.

“Is that what you needed?” he asks you, eyes no longer hooded, but suddenly alert. He brings his hands back up to the other cup of your bra. “Didn’t you know that? That I’ll always fight for you? In my own way?”

Your eyebrows knit, and Hobi smiles in a way that removes all doubt.

He pulls both bra straps off your shoulders, letting the bodice of your bra sit just under, at your breast bone, your chest free. He nestles between your curves, and he licks and sucks at both, hands clutching your rib cage, which doesn’t necessarily hurt, but you aren’t sure about just yet, not knowing if you’ve healed fully. Twinges of a dull ache sprinkle throughout the explosions going off in your head. You’d thought that the point of life was to get rid of those dull pains, to chase only the explosions. Having something to compare the explosions to, giving them new depth, is something you hadn’t really considered.

HIs hands start to travel down again.

Yes, yes, yes. Pleeeease.

As Hobi’s lips meet your neck, you squeal, but you notice that his hands are busy undoing his own fly, stroking his own sex, precum leaking and moistening the tip.

You moan at the sound, and if there were a little more light in here, you’d see the sash starting to darken even quicker as your mouth waters.

“No,” Hobi tells you sternly, making your pussy twitch. “I want it to myself for a bit. Wanna stroke it while I look at you.”

Fuck, what is he doing?

You realize that you’ve never not been able to have Hobi before.

Whimpering, you start to untangle your hands behind you, but Hobi stops what he’s doing to push your chest back, making sure you stay in the position he’s set you in, your arms pinned behind you to the wall.

“Don’t make me turn that gag into handcuffs,” Hobi warns. “Don’t know what I’ll put in your mouth in its place.”

You could do anything, you think, squeezing your eyes tight as Hobi pushes your shoulder blades against the wall again for good measure.

His hands return to his thick, full cock, swollen and wet, his strokes getting faster, and his grunts getting deeper.

You squirm impatiently and whine, wanting just a little bit more. The lightest touch. The smallest contact. You want whatever he’s willing to spare.

“Those eyes,” Hobi sighs, licking the hollows of your cheeks. “Killing me.” 

You widen them even more, and he chuckles.

“Soon. But not yet.”

He fondles more of himself with his other hand as he runs his tightened fist up and down his long shaft, hissing as he begins to struggle to maintain his composure.

You watch him deliriously, just able to trace his outline against the soft glow in the room.

You feel Hobi’s fingers touching the inside of your thigh, just by your knee. When he pulls his hand away, you feel cool air rush in to fill a void that you didn’t know would remain.

“Look how wet you are, just from this,” Hobi tells you, holding up his fingers and showing you the sticky slick that he’s pulled from you.

He takes more of you and slathers his cock with it, the sound of liquid on muscle as sinful as you’ve ever heard.

“Mmm, gonna need you soon,” Hobi sighs. “But let’s start it slow.”

He rests his cock against your thigh, and you both shudder at how warm and good it feels. Soft. Right. 

Nearly enough.

You change your stance, still jutting your hips out, but squeezing your thighs together. He lets out a groan and punches the wall, not expecting the way you clamp shut.

“Fuck,” he sighs. “Yes. Move like that.”

You roll your body to stroke his cock with your thighs. 

He bites into your shoulder, starting to pump into the crevice you’ve made for him, letting his cock travel farther up your thighs so that you get a little bit of friction of his shaft against your lips, a tiny fraction of that friction against your starved clit.

You hit one particularly good stroke, and your heads knock into one another. But instead of fumbling and laughing together like you normally would, Hobi’s eyes meet yours dangerously. He frowns, baring his teeth, and starts to pump.

Everything is so warm and slick, and given the angle you’re working at, it’s not long before the head of his cock starts to poke at your entrance, and you encourage it by shimmying it against your thighs just right.

“Fuck, honey, fuck,” Hobi sighs.

The pressure builds, the layers Hobi’s set up threatening to buckle. Walls are no longer just pulsing but throbbing. Muscles aren’t just clenched but locked. You might’ve missed the opportunity to let him slip in. You might come just from this.

But then, Hobi breathes, “Take it.”

And then you slam into each other in a way that slides Hobi inside of you.

You both sigh with pleasure, even with him just less than halfway inside. But everything is so tight. So raw. 

“Wait,” Hobi moans, letting his head loll back. “Mmm. Stay like this, just for a little while longer.”

You try to ride him as best as you can, but without going overboard. It’s difficult, now that you’re craving. 

He whines, hips no longer rolling, but legs and ass starting to thrust. 

Finally, god, give it to me, you think.

Hobi’s eyes shut, and then he angles himself on the next thrust to slide inside of you, deep and hard, making you yelp a bit. He doesn’t wait for you to finish making room for him. He pushes his way inside, claiming a stake.

“Shit,” he breathes, slamming his palm against the wall now. “Shit, shit.”

As he pumps, his other hand crawls up your side, fondles your breasts, and then reaches for one end of the sash that is dangling out of the corner of your mouth.

“You ready, hon?” Hobi asks, eyeing you.

What else could possibly be coming? 

You nod, and then Hobi takes the corner of the fabric between his index and middle finger, wrapping the wet fabric around his wrist, moving in a slow circle and drawing the sash out of you ever-so-slowly.

Where you lose the fabric running against the tissue inside of your mouth and the soft border of your lips, you soon gain Hobi’s tongue, active and able to respond. You moan into him, and he kisses you, his tongue threatening to slide past your tonsils.

You hit another good stroke, and you let out a squeal.

At this, Hobi grunts, and he suddenly picks you up and slams you down onto his cock, stepping forward and pinning your lower back against the wall. He fucks you hard, and fast, grabbing you at your rib cage and sheathing himself into you before pulling you up and off of him again. Over and over, faster and deeper, changing up the angles, responding to your moans whenever something particularly delicious happens, he keeps using you like this, pushing all the way to the hilt on every pump, sucking on your breasts, neck, lips, anything he can get his mouth around. 

Soon, you’re seeing real stars.

It’s a good thing you’d gotten used to not talking and somehow figuring out another way to communicate, because you definitely cannot talk now.

Gonna come, fuck, you think, whining piteously and wrapping your arms around Hobi’s neck.

He grunts over and over again, voice getting raspier, telling you the same.

He tops out at a relentless pace, slamming into you with such speed and force that you’re sure  someone’s heard you by now. You meet his pace by riding him, climbing up his chest with each stroke and landing back down on him, hard. You tighten, and when you think you can’t tighten any more, you tighten again.

Suddenly, his eyes flash open, staring at you, almost in anger, incredulous at how you’re daring him.

“Fucking come,” he tells you, voice somehow too clear for what’s happening, mind too clearly understanding that you will be the first to surrender. “Come now.”

You don’t know what happens, exactly. The heat emanating from your core explodes around you, and you have no choice but to melt into it, succumbing every moment of resistance that your muscles have been holding. And then, he shudders and lets out a gasp, emptying into you, squirt after delicious squirt, your liquids meeting and mixing and melding together, slowly dripping down your tired, aching, twitching thighs.

Hobi holds strong, though, palming your ass and making sure your legs are still firmly around him, propping you up with his forearms and making a ledge against his torso for you to rest on.

You thank him by kissing the muscles along his shoulder and up his neck, telling him that it’s OK to relax there at least, resting the flats of your upper arms on them and cradling his face in your forearms, your hands playing with his hair at his temples. 

You line your face up with his, and you kiss him lovingly, with every inch of space in your mind and heart, forgetting everything else and focusing on giving this man everything you have right here, in this moment.

“There you are,” he whispers, one hand running up your spine as the other continues to hold you.

“Hobi.” 

You place a hand on his chest, over his heart. 

You look at him softly. In this moment, it really is just you and him.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Hobi smiles and walks you back into the wall. In all your rocking, you hadn’t realized that you’d drifted so far. He pins you there as you kiss, and he gently rubs your pussy lips, walls still clenched so tight around his cock.

And though you technically could have checked this box off a little earlier than this stolen little  moment, the first Hobi-sober thought you have is that Step 2 is complete.

You think it as he helps you back down to your feet, and you feel solid ground underneath you.

A little out of breath, a little flushed, and more than a little embarrassed, you and Hobi sheepishly help each other get dressed before heading back to the pod, giggling and tickling each other on the way.

There, you find Yoongi, Jin, and Namjoon hard at work.

“Oh no,” Hobi complains, seeing the speed with which they’re typing. “Don’t tell me.”

“Actually, the work queue isn’t that bad,” Namjoon admits, though his eyes are still glued to his screen. “Just a lot of minor tickets.”

Yoongi adds to this, punctuating his sentence with a reassuring look at you. “Everything is fine. There haven’t been any important data breaches.”

Yet, you think, fighting a smirk.

You follow Hobi to his desk, and as he sits down, you quickly dip your hand in and out of your purse to complete Step 3.

“Oops.” Hobi rises up slightly before turning to see what he almost sat on. He picks up Suk-chin’s badge and frowns at it. “Oh. Guess he dropped this.” 

Jin glances over at Hobi and eyes the badge. “Oh, yeah,” he replies, “Suk-chin came by again when he realized it was missing.” He finishes typing and then swivels his chair to face Hobi. “We didn’t see it, but I guess we didn’t check your---”

He notices Hobi’s sweaty temples, and your dewy collarbone. The off-center seams of your dress. Hobi’s wrinkled, untucked polo shirt. Two sets of flushed, ruddy cheeks. 

“---sex!” Jin exclaims.

Namjoon and Yoongi stop typing, and Hobi’s eyes grow into cartoonish circles.

“I mean, uh, your chair. We didn’t check your chair,” Jin replies, eyes darting back and forth across the room before landing on the ground, and then blazing a trail back to his screen, pupils darkened and frantic.

“So,” Yoongi chuckles, pausing his work and swiveling to face you both head on, “Hobi gave you a good tour, then?” 

“The VIP tour.” You look back adoringly at Hobi, and though you’re playing it up for effect, you’ve gotta give it up to him. “Has nice perks.” He always knows what he’s doing in this department.

Yoongi meets you with a happy nod of approval.

If there were a Step 4 for today, that would have been it, with an extra gold star.

After a flurry of quick, giggly goodbyes, Hobi walks you back to security.

“Be careful driving.”

“I will. I might have to sit a little funny…” 

Caringly, you step forward and kiss him on the lips. It’s like your limbs are drawn to his. You’re surprised at the magnetic pull.

“Mmm,” Hobi sighs. And you catch it when he opens them again. The signature shimmer in his eyes. You hadn’t realized it had dimmed so much until you see it now.

“That was fun,” you say quietly, and truthfully. You smooth his hair down. “I’m glad I came.”

Hobi snickers, and you slap him on the shoulder, laughing.

“Me too,” he adds. “I’ll see you at home.” Hobi’s voice is the most relaxed you’ve heard in a while, especially as of late. And it helps to calm you, too. Even with everything you’re about to do, about to do to him, he somehow tells you that it’ll be alright. 

Your voice comes out warm, low, and full without you having to do act. “See you.” 

As you hike back to your car, you feel the daze slowly start to fade. Not in a bad way. Just in the way that happens with everything over time and distance. 

You pull your work phone out of your purse and turn it back on to check in with Jungkook.

And you start to feel guilty when you glimpse his last message.

Client 152 (1:23 PM): Lost the feed after that last room, but great job. He really fell for it.

Welcome to the Fall Ball!

Nima’s pretty, maple-colored cursive stretches across the yellow and orange banner, laminated with dried flowers and leaves and hanging from trunk to trunk at the entrance of the picturesque park across the elementary school campus.

She steps back to admire her handiwork, grinning at you and Hobi, and peppering kisses all over Na-young’s face, the little one’s arms wrapped around her neck, and legs wrapped around her waist. 

“What do you think?” Nima asks, as Na-young giggles with each kiss. “Did Mommy do a good job?”

“Mommy is the bestest!” Na-young celebrates, throwing her tiny hands in the air.

Namjoon is off running around with Nam-gi and Nam-il somewhere behind you. You can hear their laughter, as Namjoon chases them around.

And Hobi is staring at you with those eyes again.

You punt the conversation with Hobi for later, turning to Nima and saying, “It does look beautiful,” making her beam with pride. 

“Fifth attempt, by hand,” she sighs. “The boys kept knocking the paint cans over.”

“You could’ve just gotten it printed, like always?” you say.

“Yeah, like always.” She smiles a little anxiously. “I don’t know. After seeing how much effort Gyu-ri put into game night, I felt like I wanted to try doing something the old-fashioned way.”

You fight the frown that’s forming, and luckily, Nima shoving Na-young into your arms helps distract you from the anger.

“Take her for a sec,” she replies, “I see Jang-mi and Jin with the cupcakes.”

“I can go help instead!” you begin to protest.

But you’re left with no choice, as Na-young is already resting her head on your shoulder as she clamps her legs around your waist. You sigh and watch as she eyes the collar of your sweater.

Those eyes of Hobi’s widen even more, and his insistent smile burgeons on being creepy.

“Not now,” you say sternly, inadvertently addressing both the conversation and the idea itself.

“Auntie Sena?” Na-young asks.

“Uh, yeah?” you respond awkwardly.

“Mommy says I’ll get these when I grow up.” She pokes at your breast, her tiny, inexplicably sticky hands starting to dig into your cleavage. 

“Whoa, hey, OK there, ‘ya little flirt,” you say, repositioning her away from your chest, “ask for consent before you do that.”

“What’s consent?” she asks, as you hear someone approaching behind you.

“Oh, hi,” a vaguely familiar woman says, her toddler gripping her hand and shakily waddling next to her.

“Hi,” Hobi says, as you both turn to face her.

“I was looking for Jang-mi’s booth,” the woman explains, eyeing the empty but decorated table next to you. “I saw Na-young, so I thought you were Nima and Namjoon at first, but…” She laughs sheepishly. “Sorry, am I in the right place?”

“Yes, this is Jang-mi’s booth. They’re getting ready to set up,” you say, angling back to reveal Jin, Jang-mi, Nima, and a cranky Jong-soo making their way from the school parking lot, carrying tons of batches of cupcakes and other baked goods.

“Great,” she replies, smiling again. “Um, I’m Hei-ran.” 

“I’m Hobi, and this is my wife, Sena.” You smile politely, and he grins and places an arm around your waist, posing with you as you hold Na-young. 

You can see him making the Christmas card in his mind already. 

“I think we’ve seen you around?” you add. “You look familiar.”

“Yeah, I think we shop at the same grocery store,” Hei-ran observes. 

Never forgetting a face, you’ve already clocked her. She’s one of the cretins in your neighborhood who actually likes honeydew, and you’re surprised that her little one is as big as she actually is.

“I live not too far from here,” Hei-ran goes on. “I help run the daycare at the school, so I’ve met Jang-mi and Nima.” She crinkles her nose at Na-young’s sweet little wave. “I take it you all know each other, too?”

“Oh, yeah,” Hobi says. “Jin, Namjoon, and I go way back. Met in college. Work together at Sope.”

Hobi kneels and meets Hei-ran’s little one’s eyes.

“And who’s this?” he asks, making her blush and hide behind her mother’s leg.

“That’s Hyun!” Na-young exclaims happily, making Hyun peek out.

“Hello, Hyun,” Hobi coos, slowly winning her over. He holds out his fingers, and Hyun grasps his pinky. He shakes his hand up and down, Hyun’s tiny hand following. “How do you do?”

Hyun giggles, and says, “Ow doo?”, bringing smiles to everybody’s faces.

“Where are your little ones?” Hei-ran asks, looking around for more tiny limbs and voices.

“That’s a good question,” Jang-mi teases, as the rest of the present cul-de-sac gang starts to join you. “We’ve been asking Hobi and Sena that for years!”

Hobi swivels around to face you, with those eyes again. 

Everyone centers around Jang-mi’s booth right at the entrance, the beginning of the bake sale lineup.

“Where’s Hwan?” a blessed Namjoon asks Hei-ran, eyes scanning the line already starting to form. “Or is he working a shift at the hospital?”

Hei-ran smiles worriedly. “Actually, uh… Hwan and I are…” She reaches out for her daughter, picks her up, and strokes her hair. “We’re testing out a trial separation. It’s sort of, um, new.”

You meet those eyes of Hobi’s with a look of your own, mentally underlining that part of the kids conversation. That not everyone is as blissfully happy as Jang-mi and Jin, or Nima and Namjoon. That it isn’t the perfect picture that he always believes it to be. All he sees are the smiles and happy introductions. But, though you haven’t tried, you’re pretty sure you can’t fit a bulletproof vest over a baby bump.

“Oh, wow,” Namjoon tells Hei-ran, surprised. He fails to find something else to say. To someone as devoted as Namjoon, a trial separation is unthinkable.

“Sorry to hear it, but hoping it works out however it needs to,” Nima replies, equal parts warm and diplomatic, as Jin and Jang-mi just grin and nod. 

The looks on their faces say it all. Another couple bites the dust.

“We’re just here to have a happy day and spend some time together,” Hei-ran says weakly, bouncing Hyun a little to comfort her. Maybe comfort herself. “Thought we’d start with one of Auntie Jang-mi’s cupcakes.”

“Well, first ones are on the house!” Jang-mi offers, taking a cupcake and walking over to Hyun, smiling at her and offering it up.

Hyun’s eyes brighten, and she takes the cupcake with both of her hands, starting to lick the icing.

“Oh, no, I’d be happy to pay,” Hei-ran says, embarrassed.

“It’s tradition,” Jin says warmly, smiling proudly at his wife.

“During training, we were taught to give the first items of the first batch of anything away for good luck,” Jang-mi explains, wiping some icing off of Hyun’s cheek. Jang-mi reaches back for another cupcake and hands it to Hei-ran. “They’re peanut butter and chocolate. Pretty sure Hyun doesn’t have any food allergies, right?”

Hei-ran grins and nods. “Well. That’s very kind of you.” She looks at Hyun. “What do we say to Auntie?”

“Tank woo,” Hyun babbles, and everyone, even you, can’t help but sigh in disgustingly sweet admiration. 

Hobi gives you another pointed look with those eyes, and you do concede that part of the argument.

“Thank you,” Hei-ran says again. “C’mon, Hyun. Let’s go chase that down with some apple cider.”

As they take their leave, you notice that Jang-mi’s pretty much all set up with the bake sale items, so you set Na-young down to join her parents. 

Hobi pulls you in closer and kisses the shoulder that Na-young was resting her head on, the two of you watching as the two families continue to set up Jang-mi’s booth, even getting the kids involved with minor tasks. You watch their tiny fingers help put out napkins. Take cash and coins to make change. Hand over cupcakes, or cookies, or any of the other delicious treats that are bound to sell out within the first hour. 

It’s either brilliant or cruel that every year, Nima has organized the entire event to start with Jang-mi’s booth at the front. You feel sorry for the bake sale booths that follow, their lines empty, but you notice their owners taking the chance to enjoy time with their kids and activities at the festival until their sales pick up.

“So?” Hobi asks, following your eyes as you scan the park grounds.

“Yeah, yeah, kids can be cute,” you say, smirking at his eager expression. “But you don’t have to carry one in your stomach for nine months.” 

“I’m not saying that we should make one tonight,” Hobi laughs. “But this is a big deal, you actually coming to one of these things.” He hugs you closer to him. “I’m glad to see you enjoying yourself.”

It’s true that you’ve stayed away from the kids’ school events, but not because you don’t like kids, though you kind of don’t. You just want to help keep everyone safe. Each time you’d received an invitation to the Spring Fling or Fall Ball or some other cheesy nonsense, you’d get a flash of Jimin, or Taehyung, or even Sejin in the crowd and have a panic attack. 

You agreed to come tonight because Jong-soo is in the talent show this year, and Jin and Jang-mi begged you to come support him. 

It also serves as a great cover.

You feel better about this particular year, because if something crazy did happen, you potentially have backup in the form of---

“Jungkook!” Jin calls. “Gyu-ri! Hey! You made it!”

He steps out from behind the booth, still carrying Jong-soo, to stand next to you and Hobi. You both turn to see Gyu-ri and Jungkook making their way toward you. Jungkook reaches you faster, as Gyu-ri slows to say hi to some of her students, who are swarming her and greeting her excitedly.

“Aw,” Hobi sighs wistfully, and while you and Jungkook share a knowing look, you turn to find Hobi meeting you with those eyes again.

“Sorry we’re late,” Jungkook apologizes, first to you, and then to Jin and Hobi, and you’re glad Yoongi isn’t here to see that. “We just got caught up in a bit of a---”

“Hey!” Gyu-ri gushes, waving animatedly as she joins you. “Aw, everything looks so beautiful! All the pumpkins and apples and leaves and stuff… so autumn-y!”

“It is called the Fall Ball,” Jungkook mumbles, making you scoff.

Gyu-ri rolls her eyes. “Don’t mind him,” she replies, “he’s in a bit of a mood.” She looks at you stiffly before adding, “Anyway, I’ll go see if I can help at the booth.”

The rest of you linger, just taking in the sights.

“Well, this one’s in a bad mood for sure,” Jin replies, still carrying Jong-soo in his arms. He holds out his son, adorably decked out in a tuxedo. “How are you gonna put on a good show with that frown?”

Jong-soo scrambles to latch back onto Jin’s body.

“What’s wrong, buddy?” Jin asks seriously, pulling him close again. “Aren’t you excited to sing?”

Jong-soo stays frozen.

“Everyone came to see you,” Jin tries, in an attempt to soothe him. “Uncle Yoongi’s even helping set up your special mic for later.”

Jong-soo kicks his feet and hides his face from view, resting his cheek on his father’s broad shoulder.

Jin’s eyes meet yours and Hobi’s. “Stage fright,” he whispers, rubbing his poor son’s back. 

“Jang-mi said he did so well at the practice earlier,” Hobi encourages.

“Yeah, but I don’t think he knew there were going to be this many people for the real deal,” Jin replies. “Guess we’ll see how he’s doing when we get closer to time.”

Noticing how sweetly Jin is swaying Jong-soo in his arms, you start to feel the phantom weight of a small body against yours.

And you get an idea that might help. 

“Hey, Na-young, come back over here,” you call, catching her attention.

She checks in with Nima first, who nods and smiles as she scampers over to you. 

“Yes, Auntie?”

“Did you know Jong-soo is going to sing tonight at the talent show?”

Na-young beams. “Oh, yes! I was at the practice show today!”

“How do you think he’ll do?”

“Great! He’s a really good singer!”

Jong-soo’s head raises, and he turns shyly over to you and Na-young, curious about your conversation.

“R-really?” Jong-soo asks quietly, into Jin’s neck.

“Yeah!” Na-young exclaims. She fiddles with the end of her dress. “I clapped for you and yelled your name, but I don’t think you heard me.” 

Jong-soo smiles. “I didn’t.” He kicks his feet again, but differently, in a way that tells Jin that he wants to get down.

“I like your hair,” Jong-soo says, pointing out Na-young’s pigtails, tied up with pink ribbon.

“I like your, um, this,” Na-young says, poking at his bowtie, the edge of which follows her still inexplicably sticky fingers. 

As the two of them start chatting excitedly, Jong-soo brightening with each word, Jin softens and sparkles at you, mouthing an appreciative “thank you”.

You’re surprised at how easy that was. Like running a tiny, adorable con.

Hobi stares at you with those eyes like two screaming exclamation points, his sclera narrow columns, his pupils little dots. 

But perhaps more convincing, and satisfying, is Jungkook’s soft, reserved eyes settling into yours, his lips pulled into a small, admiring smile.

After Jang-mi’s booth sells out in record time, you help pack up all the containers and join Yoongi at the little stage in the middle of the park. You gather together all your picnic blankets and set up a home base, relaxing and taking turns with the kids to chaperone them to the arts and crafts stations, storybook puppet plays, and various games. 

When Jong-soo grasps his sparkly white mic and sings his song, Yoongi jumping up and nudging the parent volunteer at the mixing board out of the way, you can’t help but notice sweet little Na-young, who seems just as captivated and proud Jin and Jang-mi, the latter of whom cries and strokes the back of Jin’s head, gloating, “Just like his father,” as the crowd erupts with applause.

As you all welcome first-place winner Jong-soo back to the group with cheers and celebratory kisses, you all help Jang-mi unpack a veritable feast of cut-up and dried fruits, salads with different kinds of dressings to choose from, and a huge make-your-own sandwich board for dinner. 

“Did you see the girl who came in second place?” Namjoon chuckles quietly. “She was crying so hard.”

“Her mom was scolding her so badly, too,” Nima complains. “Very Mama Rose.”

“It makes all the difference,” Gyu-ri sighs. “Parents need to have healthy attitudes.”

The words seem to cut Jungkook, who has served as a dart board for every one of Gyu-ri’s passive-aggressive comments all afternoon.

“Good point,” he says, the bit of edge in his tone signaling that he’s starting to get heated. “I hate it when parents do that to their kids. In fact, as a general rule, people shouldn’t transfer their personal stuff onto other people.”

The rest of you exchange tense looks. It happens from time to time, couple disagreements during hangouts. But this one seems especially strained, and given Gyu-ri’s recent and weird visit, you and Jungkook are the only ones who seem to know why.

“Parents should at least be transparent, shouldn’t they?” Gyu-ri asks, needling. “With each other, at the very least.”

Jungkook lets out a pressured laugh. “Yeah, gotta have a lot of trust. Trust that you’re doing what you say. Trust that you won’t go around telling everybody everything about your private lives.”

Gyu-ri’s eyes snap to yours, and Yoongi’s are quick to follow.

“Until you establish that trust, you shouldn’t have kids,” Jungkook says with finality.

“Fair point,” Gyu-ri replies angrily, slapping some cheese onto her sandwich. “Besides, we don’t know if you’re going to make a good parent, anyway.” 

You see the hurt in Jungkook’s eyes, but right then, before anyone can leap to his defense, his phone chimes.

When he reaches into his back pocket to check it, Gyu-ri angles to see his screen.

“Work,” he tells her, looking slightly relieved and replacing his phone before she can get a look. He looks out at the group. “Sorry, everyone, I have to go.”

Though he’s currently dealing with all the kids scrambling and climbing on top of him, Yoongi looks back over at you. You don’t meet his eyes. Instead, you make it a point to show that you’re holding your sandwich with both hands, raising it to your mouth, and taking a gigantic bite of food. As Yoongi’s eyes drift back over to Jungkook and Gyu-ri, you sense that whatever accusatory questions that were bubbling up in his mind have dissipated.

“Really.” Gyu-ri glares at Jungkook. “Let me see the message.”

Jungkook furrows his brow. “You know I can’t let you.”

Gyu-ri folds her arms. “I guess it really is a good thing that we don’t have kids yet. You’d be abandoning them every time you got a work call.”

You can’t help your body from tensing, and your fingers start to tear the bread in your sandwich as they begin to ball up.

“Hey,” Hobi says softly to Gyu-ri, noticing that for whatever reason, this conversation is putting you off. He looks around at the others, and though the kids are happily harassing Uncle Yoongi, your friends similarly look kind of miserable.

Gyu-ri softens, and Jungkook frowns.

“He’s right,” Jungkook replies, looking at Gyu-ri. “Let’s not do this now.”

“Well, how am I supposed to get home?” she demands.

Nima pipes up, “We’re all going to the same place.”

Gyu-ri falls silent, staring angrily at the picnic blanket.

“I’ll see you later,” Jungkook tells her.

“Don’t think this gets you out of it,” she says pointedly, eyes rushing up to burn into his. “We’re talking about this when you get back.”

“Great, can’t wait,” Jungkook scoffs before bidding everyone else an understandably curt goodbye.  

After he walks off, and enough distance has separated him from the group, Nima dusts her fingers off and looks over at Namjoon. “I think I wanna take a quick walk, stretch my legs.”

“Good idea,” Jang-mi replies, placing her hand on Jin’s shoulder for support to stand.

They look at you expectantly.

Goddammit. 

“Um, yeah, me too,” you grumble, setting your sandwich down.

“Gyu-ri, you said that you wanted to go check out one of the jewelry crafting booths?” Jang-mi asks. “One of your students’ moms is working it?”

“Right,” Gyu-ri says despondently, standing and dusting her pant legs off, away from the food. “Yeah, let’s go see if she’s still there.”

“Alright then.” Nima looks down at the blankets. “You boys good?”

“Yep,” Namjoon answers dutifully, before Jin protests.

You share a look with Hobi, who just smiles at you. Yes, you’re all good, the smile tells you. But the eyes, those eyes, tell you that a conversation may also be waiting for you at home, too.

“Let’s go,” you say, jumping to your feet and starting to head further into the park, as Jang-mi, NIma, and Gyu-ri follow.

All of you move in silence at first, but you see Nima marking the distance you’re traveling by counting trees along the walking path. You almost hear her mind working. 

Eight. 

Nine. 

Ten.

“What was that about?” she asks as soon as you pass that tenth tree, bringing a small smirk to your face.

Gyu-ri shrugs. “I don’t know. I just…” She sighs and looks at you desperately. 

Fuck, you think. You’re going to have to vouch for her.

“I talked to Sena about it earlier this week,” Gyu-ri replies, shifting the tension onto you.

Nima and Jang-mi look almost offended, but they’re quickly able to refocus on the real point of this walk.

“Well, what did you talk about?” Jang-mi asks, glancing sideways at you.

“We did talk, but, Gyu-ri, this is your thing. I don’t exactly feel comfortable kicking off the conversation for you,” you say, bluntly, but fairly.

Gyu-ri huffs in the same way any of your past gal pals did whenever you failed to pick up whatever secret signal they’d sent you. But Nima and Jang-mi are different. They agree that, with them, you may be blunt, but you are always fair. 

“We don’t have to talk about it, but if you want to, we’re all here to listen, not judge,” Nima offers gently.

Gyu-ri sighs. “Well. It’s like I mentioned at brunch a few weeks ago,” she begins. “I just don’t get his work stuff.” She looks at Nima and Jang-mi, sensing that she’ll earn a bit more sympathy from them. “I don’t know how you do the whole confidential part of your husbands’ work. But maybe it’s easier for you. Your husbands don’t steal away in the middle of the night.”

Hah. “Steal away,” you laugh, internally.

But then you wonder about the weird atmosphere around Gyu-ri’s visit. How preoccupied she was with finding out more information about the things that Jungkook was doing, rather than Jungkook himself. She’s doing a better job of masking it now, you note. Maybe that’s what that first visit was? A test of some kind? 

“Well, I’d hardly call this the middle of the night,” Jang-mi says, noting that the sun has only just begun setting.

“He just up and leaves,” Gyu-ri complains. “Does Jin ever do that?”

Jang-mi watches her quietly.

Gyu-ri sighs. “I’m sorry. I just wish I could know what he’s up to.”

Though you won’t divulge a thing, you know exactly what he’s up to.

You know that the automated text message that he received says, “Need you down here”, just in case Jungkook needed an out. It ended up not being necessary, as Gyu-ri kind of set the stage for an exit, but the message was meant to cover Jungkook in case he couldn’t hide his phone from Gyu-ri when the time came. 

You know that his black skinsuit is already packed, and though this isn’t necessarily mission critical information, you know that he looks damn good in it. 

You know that the suit is nestled against his two Glocks, extra rounds, some rope, and a toolbelt with tiny screwdrivers, knives, and Allen wrenches. 

You know that on top of the folded suit sits a case containing a pair of black glasses with a tiny camera and flashlight affixed to it, and that when you get home, Jungkook will be able to see your messages on the left lens, and respond with one tap for No, two taps for Yes on the right. 

You know that all of this stuff is a nondescript case in the trunk, in a secret compartment that you built under the upholstery. 

And you know that the car itself is being driven by a khaki and polo-clad Jungkook, a copy of Suk-chin’s badge with a code set to self-delete in the records a few minutes after being scanned, the badge itself clipped to the small, inside front pocket, the entire car on its way to the Sope Industries A-1 lot, to park in a spot where the cameras are down for maintenance. 

You hate that you aren’t there with him, partially because you want to see him change into that skinsuit, and change back out of it. 

But mostly because you’re terrified. 

This is the riskiest work that you have done since the Sejin job. Adding a body to a job is even riskier, but you just wish you could be together to see it through.

And you hate that of all the things that you could be doing instead, you’re here, on this stupid, boring walk in the park.

“Well, we never really know what any of our partners are up to,” Jang-mi replies. “It’s like Jungkook said. Trust.”

There’s a pit in your stomach that aches. Yes, he has a point. It just turns out to be hypocritical in this particular case.

“Unless there’s something that’s making you question that trust?” Nima asks, sensing more.

Your heart pounds, wondering if Gyu-ri will let your name slip, the same way it does out of Jungkook’s mouth in the middle of the night.

“We’ve just been fighting a lot,” Gyu-ri replies. “I don’t know why. I thought that working on the game night escape rooms would bring us closer. But it’s just been… bad.”

“We have bad slumps from time to time,” Nima replies.

“I know, but… I guess I just want to see if I can learn more about what he’s experiencing. What he’s going through at work. Maybe that would help me understand.” 

Gyu-ri turns to you. 

“That’s why I talked to Sena.”

You’re surprised that that’s how your name comes up. With all the reasons to, and with all the perfect opportunities to, why isn’t she outing you? Is she that desperate? Stupid?

“I mean, out of curiosity… is there anything that you’ve noticed while you’ve worked together?” Jang-mi asks.

Nima blinks at you, waiting to hear your response.

And that’s when you realize what Gyu-ri is doing. Now, she’s not the only one asking. Pressuring. 

Nima and Jang-mi would close themselves off from you if they found out you and Jungkook were, well, cheating. And Gyu-ri couldn’t get you to budge by herself. Now that it’s coming from a unified place of support, Gyu-ri has created some sort of special wife task force. A husband intelligence agency.

But again… why? 

As Nima and Jang-mi redirect their attention to you, you swear that you can see Gyu-ri smirking behind them.

“I told you when you visited, and I’ll say it again,” you reply. “I don’t really know much about his work. We just keep each other company.”

Nima and Jang-mi exchange a look of their own, and you know that though Nima ends with a soft, “Don’t worry, Gyu-ri, it’ll all sort itself out,” you know that there will be several conversations waiting for you after tonight.

Hobi grins at you as you enter the bedroom, wearing one of your comfy black silk pajama sets. The top hangs loose around your frame, and the shorts just graze your thighs as they catch the air in your stride.

“I thought we said that we weren’t making a baby tonight,” he jokes, watching you from the bed.

You smirk as you put some clean laundry into Hobi’s dresser. 

“Come here,” Hobi says softly, straightening and reaching out for you. 

You turn to him and roll your eyes before joining him. He leans into you and kisses your neck. You hear him smelling you, enjoying your fresh laundry scent.

“Is this your way of starting the conversation?” you ask.

Hobi’s lips stop working, merely pressing into your skin at your shoulder. He leans back and looks into your eyes as you reposition yourself to face him.

“I saw you light up with Na-young and Jong-soo today,” he tells you. “I just want to know if that means anything more substantial than when we first got together.”

It might, you think. But as you think of Jungkook’s smile, you also wonder if Hobi’s the right person to consider that with.

“I don’t know,” you choose to say, taking Hobi’s hand in yours. “And if I’m not sure… then I don’t want to say yes.”

Hobi looks a little sad, but he tries to press on.

“What stops you?” he asks earnestly.

Loving and needing my independence. Not wanting to sacrifice my body any more than I already have. The constant threat of murder and death.

“The usual stuff,” you say, shrugging. “I’m just not ready.”

Hobi sighs and retreats, leaning back in his spot on the bed. He knows that he’s not getting anywhere with you tonight, and if the night after a whole day spent with adorable, perfect children isn’t going to lead to a more serious conversation, then it simply just isn’t the time.

He really only needs to know one thing, anyway.

“Do you think you’ll ever want them?” 

His voice is delicate when he asks you, as if trying to make space to catch whatever heavy response you have and not buckle under the weight.

You purse your lips. “Hobi, we’ve talked about this… Kids are a huge commitment.”

“Marriage is a huge commitment,” he points out. He grins. “And we’ve done that.”

“Yes, but kids are a different type of commitment,” you reply, releasing his hand and getting off the bed instead of acknowledging that you’ve actually failed at the first.

Hobi wants to tell you not to go, but you say, “I have some work stuff to check up on.”

“Can you do it up here?” he asks hopefully.

You definitely can’t. But you can’t turn Hobi down twice in one conversation. Not when you’ve made such great headway this week.

“Why?” you ask.

You crawl back onto the bed and smile.

“Will you miss me if I go downstairs?” you purr, letting your top slip down and show your chest.

Hobi licks his lips at the peek at your cleavage, but he frowns slightly when you stop at his hips.

That frown disappears when you gingerly slide your fingers into the waistband of his boxer-briefs, running along the seam, fingernails grazing his skin.

“I always miss you when you’re not by my side,” he breathes, watching your hands working.

“You’re such a sap,” you comment, pressing your lips to his abdomen, and kissing the faintest trail of hair under his navel.

He scoots down to lie flat on the mattress. “Hon,” he gasps at your touch, “o-only if you’re, if you’re sure.”

“Oh, this I’m always sure about,” you say truthfully, sliding his boxers down and taking his length in your hands. 

You lick his shaft, and as you watch Hobi revel in it, you wonder how much longer Jungkook can lie in wait in the vents before hearing from you. 

You want to enjoy whatever time you have left with Hobi, but you have to admit that the thought of Jungkook in that skinsuit, resting in the vents in silence as your bots send the fake email that will get Suk-chin to the office in the middle of the night to check on the servers, spurs you on.

“Damn,” Hobi sighs as you slide his stiffening cock into your mouth. He opens his eyes when he hears wetness that doesn’t quite match up with your tongue, and he bites his lip when he sees your hand down your shorts, working just as hard. “Shit… Honey…”

You smirk and look up at him, and you feel a thrill as you watch Hobi prop himself up on his elbows, his head lolling back. 

“God, that feels so good,” he sighs, as your eyes take in the sight of his abs crunching.

You close your eyes and imagine Jungkook in an employee bathroom, slipping out of those khakis and stashing them somewhere like you planned. He has to get completely naked to get into that skinsuit. 

Your throat clenches at all of these thoughts swimming together, and Hobi bucks up, sliding muscle against muscle. “Fuck, sorry,” he groans, as you move a little farther away from him. But you take a breath and slide back down, taking his entire length back into your throat, leveling out to make sure you can press your lips against his hips.

“So deep,” he whines, falling off of his elbows.

You start to pump your throat, watching Hobi squirm, and imagining Jungkook slithering through those vents, both sets of hips moving so gracefully. 

Your own hips start to grind, and soon, you don’t even need your hand. The corner of your mattress works just as well when you’re this aroused, clit stretching out for anything that it can use.

Now free, both of your hands focus on Hobi’s thighs, maybe less muscular and defined as Jungkook’s, but strong in their own right. You rake your fingers up and down the smooth, soft skin, drawing red lines like the ones that Hobi smacked into your flesh, and the ones the thicker layers of the tight skinsuit might be imprinting on Jungkook’s body. 

You fight the impulse to get the cane, or any other toy out of The Arsenal. The only arsenal that you should be focusing on now is the one that will ease Hobi to sleep, and free you up for the rest of the night.

Tongue folding. Teeth grazing. Tonsils closing. Throat clenching.

They all work overtime. You close your eyes and force yourself to take as much as you can, soon hearing animalistic grunts floating out of Hobi’s mouth. “Hon,” he whines, grasping the sheets underneath him, his entire body sweating, “what the fuck… God…”

Tears are forming at his eyes, and you know he’s close. You need something that will take him over the edge. Something that will really tire him out.

You flatten your palms and slide them under his ass on the mattress, and he moans at your touch, not expecting you to be there.

He shivers when he feels your finger circling around his hole, and as you start to ease him open, he bolts straight up to look down at you, his weight uncomfortable on your wrists.

“Wait, hon, are you sure you--- I didn’t prep or---”

You plunge the tip of your finger inside, and he howls, shaking as you feel for his prostate, and his weight lifts from your wrists as he flattens the soles of his feet and raises his ass into the air.

Your mouth moves with him, each direction that his hips buck leading to some kind of incredible bliss. Upwards, into your mouth. Downwards, onto your finger. And soon, fingers, as he widens for you to pleasure him more.

“Sen,” he moans. Anything other than “honey” means he’s really about to explode. “Baby, I--- ooh, fuck---”

You stroke the bulb of tissue, hypnotizing it, Hobi delirious with pleasure as you work. Unable to form words, he resorts to pained grunts and whines, clenching as many muscles for you, helping you make it easier for him to get there.

Seeing him like this.

Completely surrendered.

You’re going to miss it.

You stroke his cock with your throat even harder, even deeper, tongue lapping up as much liquid as you can collect to redistribute it along his shaft. As if there were a lack. Everything is so wet, sliding so easily in and out of you.

Then, a spurt, and Hobi’s incredible voice.

More spurts, more juices.

Hobi’s very bones shaking as he comes.

He thrashes and rolls onto his side, slipping out of you. But your lips chase him, and you kiss his still-hard cock as it continues emptying into your sheets. 

“B-baby,” he moans, “that’s enough, god, it feels, that’s---”

“Not yet,” you say roughly. “I know there’s more.”

Weak, he opens his eyes and bites his lip at the sight of you kissing his thigh and hip, letting his cock scream over and over again before resting, hand still working at the muscle in back, your own hips working against that mattress corner.

“I’m close,” Hobi warns. “Close… so close… Fuck, that feels so good… I just--- Honey, I--- Fuck--- H-hon, babe!”

He comes again, sighing and moaning, grunting as his entire body pulses, his hands reaching out for you, and your free hand meeting him. You lock your fingers together, and you smile and kiss his thigh as he rides the wave, your hand stroking his ass, and the skin leading to his exhausted, weeping cock.

“Honey,” you whisper, as you plant a kiss on his thigh. “Hobi. I love you. I love you.”

Others would find that foul. But you know in your heart that you mean it. 

“L-love you,” Hobi sighs, blown away by what he could have done to deserve this. To deserve you. “Fuck. Honey. I love you.” He doesn’t know that this is a consolation prize.

Tears stream from your eyes as you smile, and you force a chuckle to rid yourself of the guilt.

“Hon,” Hobi sighs, trying to summon the energy to pull you close.

“Rest, honey. Just the first round,” you whisper.

He nods, and almost immediately, he sleeps.

You can’t look at your reflection in the mirror. 

So you focus on washing up, and taking a warm washcloth to clean up a completely blacked-out Hobi, smiling to yourself as he snores. If you have to deceive him, then the least you could do is make sure he has a good time.

Once done, you tiptoe back down to the basement, pussy still twitching and hoping for release.

You (10:41 PM): Is everything OK?

Client 152 (10:41 PM): YES

You (10:42 PM): Is he there?

Client 152 (10:42 PM): YES

Poor Jungkook, ever a victim of timing. Though the cul-de-sac gang had taken the day off, Sope Industries was still hustling and bustling. Jungkook had to blend in, getting there before the end of the day so as not to stick out from the crowd. He then had to change and wait in the vents until most people were gone, and the rest of the plan could be set in motion. You imagine him trying his best not to make any noise, desperately working not to fall asleep, his snores potentially giving him away.

You open the video feed and see Jungkook peering down from the vents, an enraged Suk-chin gesturing wildly while he’s on the phone. This camera is a bit bigger than the pin camera that you’d installed and have since removed from your necklace, so you reach for your headphones to listen to the audio.

“---send me in to see what’s wrong?” you catch Suk-chin complaining. 

There’s a pause as he listens, and then, “Well, if there’s no flag in the system, then why the hell am I here in the middle of the night? Get one of the fucking lackeys to do it! One of those IT idiots, like Min Yoongi or whatever!” 

Pause. 

“Yes, I’m literally in the server room now! I drove all the way down here, and it seems fine!” 

Another pause. 

“What, and ignore an email from C-suite? I’m telling you, I got an email!” 

Another pause, and you catch Suk-chin scratching his balls again. 

“I already forwarded it to you! God, you know what? Tell those executive leadership shitbags that this is fucking ridiculous! I was in bed with my girlfriend!” 

Suk-chin sighs angrily before interrupting whoever he’s speaking to on the phone.

“I had to sneak back into the house to get my badge, Jum! My wife thinks I’m on a business trip! What if I had gotten caught?”

“Ugh,” you mutter to yourself.

You (10:43 PM): Can you believe this guy is married?

Client 152 (10:43 PM): NO

Client 152 (10:43 PM): NO

Client 152 (10:44 PM): NO

You stifle a laugh. You can only imagine the earlier part of the conversation, the part that Jungkook alone had to endure. But you also recognize that you, Jungkook, and Suk-chin may have more in common than you think.

Suk-chin leaves the server room, cutting off the lights, and cueing you to lean forward in your chair. 

Time to work.

You (10:45 PM): Clear?

Client 152 (10:45 PM): YES

You (10:45 PM): Go for install.

Having already loosened the vent screen, Jungkook slips silently into the pitch-black room, his flashlight barely standing out from the blue and white dots on the servers themselves. He hangs down from the rope and softly lands on the floor, shoes covered in shower caps to keep from leaving any kind of trace, no matter how uninformative it may turn out to be in the end.

He searches with gloved hands to find the ports that you’ve identified on the system map as the most useful points of entry, and he plugs in the first flash drive.

A new window pops up onto one of your screens, and you look over to see your script running through all sorts of Sope Industries information. There’s a varying degree of range and usefulness. Patents filed. Patents approved. Patent drafts with in-jokes between employees. Emails and schematics. Plans for a new wing for the building. Plans for an employee’s surprise birthday party. Plans for a slideshow presentation that seems ugly, dry, and terrible. 

You capture it all, but your job won’t be done until you find the defense contract.

Jungkook works with you, planting multiple flash drives to make your scan go faster.

And then, a new window pops up, your script listing top potential hits. 

As you turn to the side monitor to see it, your eyes settle on that cheesy picture of you and Hobi on your desk. You imagine it on his desk, just behind the container of lamb curry that you delivered to him.

Heart hurting slightly, you re-focus on the task at hand.

You quickly comb through the first dozen or so hits, but they’re all referring to contracts drawn up to address legal defenses.

Soon, though, one hit catches your attention.

It’s a series of plans and models for a new type of drone. Increased flight speed and time. Increased protection from known flight scanners and radars. And increased accuracy when deploying a weapon.

The entire project is valued at $2 billion.

“Fuck,” you whisper to yourself.

You wait for the downloads to finish, and you quickly make copies on several private servers of your own.

You (12:19 AM): We got it. Bail.

Client 152 (12:19 AM): YES

You watch as Jungkook swipes all of the flash drives and stuffs them into a compartment on his tool belt. He scans the area before climbing back up the rope. He does it with such ease, and you can’t help but purse your lips and stare.

As he nears the vent, you send him another check in.

You (12:25 AM): Wait, look down.

Jungkook looks down, fearing he’s missed something. He hasn’t. You just want a close-up of his taut body in that skin suit. And you get an eyeful.

You (12:26 AM): God. You look so hot in that.

You hear a faint scoff on the audio, and his glasses shake slightly.

Client 152 (12:27 AM): YES

Giggling to yourself, you watch as Jungkook disappears into the vents and starts to crawl back the way that he came. You check the camera feeds from the parking lot and confirm that there are still quite a few night shift employees in the building, and that the security shift change is still happening at 1 AM. 

Jungkook should be safe for now.

But it’s you that you’re suddenly worried about.

At the sound of unfamiliar feet shuffling by the door, you close down your screens and bring up your nonsensical real estate graphs.

You reach for your Sig Sauer in your drawer, careful not to draw it unless you really have to.

Is it someone from Sope? How could they have found you and gotten to you so quickly? What tracers could they have been using?

Your heart pumps in your chest, and when you hear footsteps that are too close for comfort, you whirl around in your chair and aim your Sig Sauer.

Right between Yoongi’s surprised eyes.

The Cul-de-Sac Cons masterpost

[thirstystarkey]

HATE CAN SOUND LIKE LOVE • JJ MAYBANK

Summary: JJ and Y/N have always fought, since everyone can remember. They both have short tempers and a endless love for surf and chaos. But what happens when they have to pretend to be a couple? Well.. people always said that hate can sound like love sometimes.

Warnings: Mention of underage drinking, drugs, minor violence, some smutty scenarios and a ton of sexual induendos, JJ being a hot idiot and Y/N a wild girl brat

CHAPTER 13

JJ 🏄🏼‍♂️: Come outside vertically challenged

The buzz from the text message caught Y/N attention, it was a calm afternoon, she had just finished her lunch and was appreciating her time alone, the pogues had nothing planned for today so she thought everyone was doing there own thing. That until her phone proved her otherwise.

She texted JJ why to which he was pretty quick to respond a simple “just come outside”, and she did after putting on her black combat boots. Most of the times Y/N wore dresses and war boots like JJ called them or vans.

“Finally!” JJ complained for the two minute wait.

“I’m staring to think you’re the one who actually misses me.” Y/N stated leaning into the door frame. “Can’t spend a day without me now can you JJ?”

“I wanna show you something.” He said. “Take you somewhere.”

“A date?” She asked playfully crocking her brows.

“If you want it can be a date.” JJ laughed. “Now, will you give me the pleasure to join me in this lovely day?” The blue eyed boy tried his best at politely asking her out which made both laugh.

JJ and Y/N walked calmly side by side, at a pleasant rythem. The soft summer breeze blowing through them like a kind gesture of affection from Mother Earth. Their hands brushed against each other a couple of times making both of them blush at the sudden touch. Holding hands was such a innocent yet intimate share of affection that left both of them speechless. Never in a million years would Y/N thought about how’d it felt to hold JJ’s hand or how is soft hot skin felt against hers but since the slightest touch that thought hadn’t leave her mind. She didn’t understood why and she was too headstrong to not fight it, but fighting the urge to hold his hand was eating her alive from the inside out. JJ felt the same thing as well.

“Hmm..” JJ wanted to talk but it seemed like the words got stuck in his throat. “Can I or do you mind if I do this?” He questioned softly brushing his fingers with hers to get a feel of her reaction, Y/N smiled shyly and JJ held her hand from that moment on.

“Where are you taking me?” The girl asked JJ after a moment of just walking in each other presence, which turned to be actually enjoyable.

“It’s a surprise miss.” He winked. “We’re almost there don’t worry.”

JJ planned to take Y/N to a rather secret and calm place down the shoreline, where a abandoned small ship layed to rest and rot. In the warm shallows of a mellow sea lies the wreckage of the ship, once the proud possession of a rich merchant hundreds of years ago. She's in a slightly roughened condition, but bigger and bigger holes do start to appear. It's a quiet, watery grave, but , for better or worse, a wide range of corals adorn her. In turn, many small creatures live among and around the corals. It was a beautiful sight to see. JJ found it his safe space away from everyone. That boy never felt really safe throughout his whole life, but one day out of luck he found it, exploring the shoreline beyond where no one usually went. It seemed like another dimension, so quietly and peaceful away from the nosy beach and harsh waves, Y/N had never been there before even though she lived there her entire life. Her mouth fell open with the view.

“How long has this been here?” She asked JJ still surprised.

“Ever since I can remember.” He said. “I’ve always loved this place.”

“I can see why.” She smiled mersmerized but by everything.

“Come sit.” He grabbed her hand again to pull Y/N in the direction of a small life guard house who by the looks of it seemed pretty much abandoned as well. The soft white paint fading gradually as the years went by.

Sitting down by the makeshift balcony, with legs swaying in the air freely they rested. The ocean air embracing them in a tranquil atmosphere. JJ looked at her, watching carefully. Y/N had her eyes closed with a soft expression, lips curls upwards and hair flowing wild into the wind, her curls looked like golden feathers and her white dress made her look like an angel in JJ’s most deep thought. She looked beautiful. Her full lips slightly parted glistening with the rays of sunshine in a reddish shine shade, her soft breaths. JJ knew she felt at home near the water, the ocean being her second home and it was one of the most pleasant things to experience.

“I can feel you.” Y/N opened one eye slightly, due to the sun, looking at JJ.

“Don’t thing to much of yourself.” He ramble crossing his arms, like a child.

Y/N laughed, admiring him. JJ was one of the most beautiful boys she has ever seen, if not the most, even thought she’d never admit it to him not wanting to bust his ego even more. His features seemed to be esculpited by the greek gods, with such delicacy it was impressive and hypnotizing for anyone who looked his way, but that along with his temper for chaos and taunting Y/N made him untouchable. Almost forbidden, until now. At least until he showed himself truly to her and in the last few days her world took a 360° turn about him.

“I like it.” Y/N whispered getting closer.

“You do?” He asked her. “What more do you like?” JJ cupped her jaw on his hand, gently.

Y/N shrugged her shoulders, making the sleeves of her dress fall a bit more down her shoulders, looking suggestively at him. Her thoughts seemed irrational but she couldn’t look away from his lips. All the built up, all the tension throughout the years seemed like it was swallowing them, like a black hole collapsing.

Once her eyes slowly drifted up to his, who was already lost in her wondering gaze, it was over. His lips caught hers in a hard kiss, driving them apart with the force of it. There was nothing gentle once they’re lips met, she felt his hands hugging her sides, tugging on the fabric of her dress to pull her even closer to his body.

Every thought in Y/N’s head exploded to a pure, pounding white like the foam of the waves crashing in front of them, she felt the dark curl of desire begin to twist inside her, burning her soul as it spread across her body. Bending all her rules about JJ Maybank, she tried to gather her last bit of willpower to pull away one last time.

“No.” He said, bringing his lips back to hers. It was different from the previous kiss, more delicate and soft. His lips brushed against her parted ones, tongues touching slightly, which earned a low groan from the back of his throat, making Y/N give in into his arms. She didn’t want to fight her urge anymore so the red headed girl kissed him back hungrily, pulling on his open shirt to press him closer.

They stayed like that enough time to lose their breaths, pulling away just to grasp for air. Y/N didn’t recall sitting on his lap with both legs on each side of his hips, but there she was. JJ’s hands held her face on each side, caressing her pink cheeks with his rough thumbs. They had never gotten so lost in a kiss before, their foreheads touched and the tip of their noses brushed against each other, out of breath still they looked into each other’s eyes, deep into it.

Y/N’s chest moved rapidly and her hands wonder from his neck down to his chest, finding a place to rest. And then in a second the space between them exploded on more time when their lips touched again, this time like their lives depended in each other touches. JJ’s hands moved from her face to her hips, squeezing her into him which made Y/N whine into his lips. Her heart missed a couple beats, it seemed like her hands couldn’t bring him close enough for her liking.

JJ tasted her stawberry chapstick in his mouth, realizing that was what he’s been starving. JJ had kissed a million times before but non felt like these, it didn’t consume the boy alive or burned his soul. It didn’t left JJ wanting more and at the moment he couldn’t get enough of her.

Maybe it lasted a minute or maybe it lasted a hour, time almost stopped to them. All they knew was that, that kiss seemed to last forever in a ethereal moment, even the waves calmed down, breaking peaceful into the sand. Her soft skin brushed against his, driving goosebumps down JJ’s spine, she craved her hips into his like she’s Michelangelo and his something holy.

Who knew two people who supposedly hated each other could find such pleasure in a passionate shared kiss. They both knew they weren’t faking anything in that moment, they kissed because they desired each other, always have, there was no one around them not even near to fake a relationship to piss their best friends off, they knew it was real in that singular rare moment, like a bliss, but Y/N and JJ wouldn’t talk about it.

Tag list 💞

@thatsonobx @starkeybaby @this-is-bigger-than--us @tomzfrog @alotbnouf @outerbankstings @jj-maybank-stan @jellyfishbeansontoast @rafecamerondeservesbetter @tomfreakinghollandneedsaoscar @tembo-ndoto @poguebx @k-k0129 @kieinred @obxmxybxnk @stilinskiandsuch @lcil123 @fandom-phaser @sexualparkour @myrandom-fandomlife @lasnaro @kristineee-obx @sw-eat-ing @strangebirds2 @kiarascarreras @jjswhore @milamaybank @marveloucnco @downbytheouterbanks @write-from-the-heart @justcallmesams @annedub @drizzlethatfalls @tovvaf @drewswannabegirl @whoreforouterbanks @newhopenessie @maybebanks @poguesrforlife @shawnssongs @wastedheartcth @rudyypankow @danicarosaline @sc4rlettm @hufflepeople @merc12-us @punkrainbows @obliviatevamps @tangledinsparkles @jjmaybanksbaby

[2manyfandoms2count]

I love you (not) - Chapter 4

Slightly late for @marichatmay day 4, yesterday was kind of a long day and this chapter just kept getting longer. Oops. Ft. real cats, and a nod to Star Wars day (belated May the Fourth be with you). Enjoy!

First | Previous | AO3 | Next

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Chapter 4: In which the flirting continues and an attempt to break up is thwarted. Again.

Marinette almost turned around the moment she saw Chat Noir standing next to the café, looking at the cats on the other side of the window.

Well, had it just been her partner, she would have walked straight up to him without a second thought, and diligently sat through their date, only to apologise at the end of it, saying that she’d fallen in love with an image, and that she didn’t think they belonged together.

What (for ‘who’ was a little presumptuous a pronoun) stood in front of her was a figure in a cardboard rendering of Chat Noir’s suit, complete with paper bell, tail, and cardboard baton. She would have forgiven its use as a disguise, even though the details kind of defeated the purpose, had the reflection of the headpiece’s eye hole not revealed that he was actually transformed underneath.

Nope , she thought at the sight. Can’t do this, nope, nope, nop-

“Marinette!” Chat Noir spotted her just as she was about to leave, and started enthusiastically waving at her.

She plastered a smile on her face, and clutched her purse as she made her way towards him. Kwami, give me strength . She wondered if ridicule was a good enough excuse to break up with someone. It wasn’t very nice, but she was getting desperate for an excuse.

“Cardboard Noir, I presume?” Her voice had an exasperated edge to it, which Chat didn’t pick up on.

“The one and only!” He twirled around to give her the full 360° view of the costume. She could tell that he was grinning under the helmet.

“To what do I owe the… pleasure?”

“Anonymity, obviously.” He rolled his eyes. “Wouldn’t want this date to finish in the tabloids, am I right?”

Sure, because somebody in a piece of cardboard is so much more inconspicuous than somebody who might be wearing a Chat Noir cosplay in a cat café , she rolled her eyes as she saw people passing by and doing double takes as they walked past him, but kept her point to herself.

“How... thoughtful of you.” She smiled slightly tensely.

“Isn’t it?” Chat Noir extended his kraft paper-covered arm and she took it awkwardly for the couple of steps that separated them from the café’s door.

Chat hurried forward to open the door for her. “After you, my… Princess.” He bowed.

She bit back a smug smile as the bells jingled above her head. The nickname "my Lady" would totally have been justified in this situation, yet he’d refrained from using it. She deduced that it must be too attached to Ladybug; maybe there was hope that he still had a crush on her alter ego. She could work with that.

She walked into the shop, and almost tripped on an orange tabby cat who’d apparently been making the most of the sunspot on the other side of the door. It looked up at her indignantly even as she petted him to apologise, but didn’t move.

Behind her, a grey sphynx tried to make a run for it, but Chat picked it up and closed the door before he could cross the threshold.

“Hi there! Welcome to the C afé des Chats . How can I help you today?” A woman emerged from the back room, wiping her hands on her cat-themed apron. Her name, Cathy, was embroidered on it.

“Hello! Could we get a table for two, please?” Marinette smiled.

“Of course! Pick a spot!”

Marinette looked around the room. Apart from a small group of friends sitting near the window, and who were too engrossed in laughing and taking pictures of the cats to acknowledge their presence, all the seats were empty.

“How about that table over there?” Chat leaned towards her ear and pointed towards a cozy booth at the back of the room. She jumped slightly at the sudden proximity. He didn’t notice, as the cat in his arms started meowing, and Cathy came out from behind the counter to take it in her arms.

“Oh, let me take Yoda off your hands. Did he try running away again?” She cradled him, the cat purring as she did.

“Yes, I feel like he might take after his namesake and like the outdoors more.” Chat joked.

“Maybe I should have picked another name for him, then. It would save me a lot of time looking for him around the neighborhood.” Cathy laughed. “I’ll let you two get installed, I’ll be right with you.”

The pair made their way towards their table, Chat letting Marinette take the couch while he pulled out the chair facing her. He sat on the very edge of his seat, the cardboard taking up most of the space. They both picked up the menu, and ordered their drinks (and a lightsaber-themed pistachio éclair for Chat), when Cathy came around.

Marinette tapped her fingers together as they waited, trying to find a conversation topic. She decided to acknowledge the smaller elephant in the room.

“You know, I think we’re okay now, you can take off your costume.” Marinette pointed out. He looked like he could fall off his chair at any moment.

“Are you ashamed of me?” His hand flew to his chest, almost knocking his paper bell off.

“Me? Never!” she scoffed.

“Good, because this isn’t coming off anytime soon.” Chat Noir crossed his arms over his chest. She could tell he was smirking under his headpiece.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that…” It was Marinette’s turn to smirk, as Cathy arrived and put down two cups of hot chocolate, and Chat’s pâtisserie, in front of them.

“Is that a challenge?” Chat’s eyebrow shot up, and he turned towards Cathy. “Excuse me, Ma’am, would you happen to have a straw I could use?”

The lady blinked at him a couple of times, perplexed, before realising he was serious. “I probably do, let me go check in the pantry.”

“You’re not seriously doing this.” Marinette facepalmed.

“I’m just showing the one thing you should know about me if you want to date me; I don’t back down from challenges.” He thanked Cathy, who’d returned, and started poking a hole in his headset.

Trust me, I know that , Marinette sighed. “I take it back. It’s not a challenge. Just take your… mask off, and enjoy your order. Please?”

Chat Noir squinted at her suspiciously. “You pawmise that you’re fine with this?”

“Absolutely. I just want you to be more comfortable.”

“Fine.” He took off his headpiece, making his hair stick up from static electricity.

Marinette stifled a giggle.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she cleared her throat, pulled her phone out and snapped a picture, before showing the screen to him. “I just like what you did to your hair.”

“Ah, yes. Beautiful,” her partner laughed. “I wonder what Gabriel Agreste would think about it.”

“I actually think he’d love it. It kind of looks like his haircut.” Marinette snorted.

“Yeah, that won’t do.” Some colour drained from his cheeks as he shook his head and tried to flatten his hair. The real bell under his costume jingled as he did so.

Marinette was about to ask why he seemed so upset about the comparison when a black cat jumped up on their table, looking at Chat’s éclair with interest.

“Hey, Chat Noir? Looks like you have some competition for your tea…” She took a sip of her hot chocolate and sighed happily as the rich aroma hit her taste buds.

“What?” He stopped wiggling around, his hair having regained its normal appearance. “Oh. No, no, kitty, this isn’t for you.” He slid the plate away from it. The cat tilted its head and meowed. “Being all cute won’t work on me, I’m cuter. Meow .”

“Hmm, I’m not sure about that.” Marinette stroked the cat’s head, making it walk towards her and purr. “This one is pretty adorable. Pincushion,” she read off its tag. “How original.”

“You’re not even saying it’s a claw-se call? You wound me, Marinette.” Chat gasped, before taking a bite of his éclair. “You know, I’m not sure I could be with someone who doesn’t think I’m cute.”

Marinette rolled her eyes affectionately. “Kitty, I think you know very well what I think,” she replied, putting a hand over his on the table. He gulped down the rest of his éclair, and stared into her eyes.

Pincushion meowed again after what she knew was too long for friends to gaze at each other, and Marinette jolted, feeling herself blush. Why had she done that? She should have just gone with it, it would have made everything easier. You know, Chat Noir, I definitely don’t think you’re cute. Let’s get the bill and be on our way…

Chat Noir cleared his throat, and waved towards Cathy. “Well, this was nice, but it’s getting a little late, isn’t it? Could I have the bill, please?”

“Yes, you’re right, we should probably get going… Wait a second, what do you mean could I have the bill? We’re splitting this.”

“No we’re not. I ordered the most.” Chat shot her a pointed look.

“Fine, then let me pay for my own drink, then.”

“Meow way! I invited you! I meant it when I said my treat!”

“Yes, but…” Marinette scrambled for an excuse, cursing her brain which had decided to notice that Chat’s cheeks seemed quite pink, and that she thought it looked good on him, especially combined to his slightly dishevelled hair.

“I’ll tell you what; if you really think I don’t owe you anything, then just consider this an advance for my birthday. You can pay me back in macarons.” Chat’s eyes lit up hungrily as he interrupted her.

“Your birthday?” Marinette tilted her head quizzically. “Is that soon?”

Chat froze in his seat. Ladybug had warned him about this. They weren’t supposed to share anything about their personal lives, with anyone. Just in case it landed in the wrong ears.

Besides, his birthday wasn’t until September. Which, since he’d invited her on this date, she could interpret as him thinking their relationship would last that long. Which he really hoped it wouldn’t (the romantic one, that is - he still wanted to be friends with Marinette behind the mask).

“Erm, yeah, it’s… Next week?” He scratched the back of his neck nervously. That seemed alright in terms of timeline.

“So soon…” Marinette trailed off, looking at the empty cup before her. Her partner’s birthday seemed like something she should know, yet as much as she raked her brain, she couldn’t recall a single conversation they’d had on the topic. “Does Ladybug know?”

“Oh, no. I wouldn’t want her to make a fuss.” He waved her concern away, and swiftly stole the credit card machine from Cathy as she returned with it. He tapped his card on it, looking Marinette straight in the eye as he did.

“Chat Noir!” She cried out indignantly. She’d been too engrossed in the consideration that she couldn’t decently break up with him now when his birthday was just around the corner, to anticipate his next move.

“Sorry, Princess.” He smiled smugly as he thanked the café owner and took his receipt. “In my defence, it makes me feel better about eating so much when I came over to your place for lunch, when I’d only brought a flower as a present.”

Marinette held his gaze for a bit, and, seeing his earnestness, she sighed. “Fine.”

“Thank you.” He nodded, and then turned towards Cathy, who was awkwardly shuffling next to their table.

“Is everything alright, Ma’am?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t want to intrude, but… are you really Chat Noir?” She asked hopefully.

“See, the costume is inconspicuous!” Chat Noir exclaimed, sticking his tongue out at Marinette. “I mean, yes, I am.”

“I’d totally understand if you said no, but would you mind taking a picture with some of the cats? I’m happy to keep it to myself, and not put it up with the other cat pictures if you’d prefer, it’s just that I’m such a huge fan…”

“I’d love to!” Chat Noir jumped to his feet and started peeling his disguise off. “Would it be okay if my… Marinette was in the picture with me?” He winced at the formulation of his question. He wasn’t sure if it was worse than if he’d called her his girlfriend.

“Yes, of course! Here, let me grab Yoda, and maybe Pincushion and…”

Marinette didn’t have time to explore the warm feeling Chat calling her “his” Marinette, in a very excited and pure way, had elicited in her chest, as Cathy shoved a cat in her arms and pushed Chat next to her on the couch. She grinned for the photographer, feeling a blush creep up her cheeks.

“Purr-fect!” Chat beamed as Cathy showed them the picture.

She melted a little at how happy he looked, chatting away to figure out a way to get a copy of the picture. I can’t hurt him, not now , she thought as she nodded along and gave her number to Cathy so she could send her the shot.

What she could do, though, was try to figure out a birthday present for him. Something useful, that he’d be able to keep when she broke up with him after they broke up, probably a week after she gave it to him.

She thought about it all the way Home.

[the-raven-who-writes]

Medieval Adventures: A Tale of Kingdoms and Knights

Genre: Slice-of-life, Fantasy, Magic, Self-Insert

Trigger Warnings: Cursing, (but you know that), duel mention, and blood mention

Word Count: 1622 (and 360 for the A/N)

Chapter 4: Show Them

And to think it started all the way back in mid-July.

It’s been three months now. No, four. Four months of practicing sword fighting techniques with a bamboo stick and all the sort. But there was something else I had to do.

Like Ser Sequin said, it was difficult for a woman to become a knight albeit being completely legal. And I’ve always wanted short hair. And I even thought of a name; Joseph Raven. Yeah ‘Joseph’ isn’t the best combo with ‘Raven’ but I guess Sir Jo sounds right

In those three months I also got accustomed to wearing a corset in both normal settings and while exercising. Trust me, this is key. You have to get used to it. I don’t know what’ll happen next. The rest of this story therefore, will be written in the present tense.

With the help of Ms. Simmons, I picked a set of warmer clothing. A cedar-brown long-sleeved tunic over a few under-shirts conveniently hid the shape the corset gave me, with a leather jerkin on top. Woolen stockings, woolen gloves, some nice leather boots, a woolen coif and a belt completed the look.

I waved good-bye to Ms. Simmons, Irene, Lizzy, Avery, Alex, Nancy and Emerald. They’re rooting for me.

“Are you sure your corset isn’t laced too tight?” Avery asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“You have everything you need?” Lizzy asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Then show them who you are!” they said.

I will. I’ll try at least.

—————————————————————————

I wonder why it’s winter. Well, it is November, so…

I tread carefully on the snowy road, careful not to slip again. Even with all those layers, I still feel a bit cold. I am not built for this weather, am I?

Not many people were outdoors, other than the merchants and the sparse passers-by. I think I blended in. Mostly. Some townsfolk are staring at me.

The smell of mist overwhelmed me in the beginning, but now it’s just plain annoying and freezing.

Everyone’s still smiling, however. Some are hard at work, while others are resting. Children are playing near the doors of houses either with little cloth dolls or wooden blocks.

‘Hey Monsieur!”

I look down at whatever was tugging at my knee. Which was a little boy. He couldn’t have been older than seven.

He's glaring at me for some reason. “Are you new here?”

I laugh, unlatching his little hands from my leg.

“Ouais, petit garçon.” (Yes, little boy.)

Before he could say anything more, a woman’s rough voice called.

“Pierre! Where are you?!”

He quickly looks around then runs away, holding onto his woolen hat.

“Arrivant, maman!” (Coming, mom!)

I smile and continue searching for the training hall for the soldiers.

—————————————————————————

I arrived at a large establishment. Stacked stones and marble pillars made up the exterior of it. From here I can hear the clashing of swords and voices.

The sign outside does say “L'entraînement Hall”.

Might as well go in.

The walls were mostly bare and unpainted, large torches on the higher ends of the walls. There were many soldiers dressed in tuscan sun-yellow and grey. Black tricorn hats with gold thread were worn on top.

The Order’s here too, with surcotes furlined at the edges.

One man seems to be monitoring them, with a similar uniform to the knights. He seems to be a knight as well, actually.

I stand dumbly, trying to observe what exactly’s going on over here. I look back at the knights, only to realize some of them were looking at me. A knight with long chestnut hair and blue-grey eyes and another one with black messy- wait are those the knights from the tavern!?

That’s Sir Will and Dame Kyda! They better not recognize me, or I’m toast! I should’ve thought this through.

….

Ok, I have to make a move, even some of the soldiers are staring at me. I take off my coif and stuff it into my pockets because I look stupid in that, like a baby. Not to say babies are stupid.

I marched towards the man in charge, whose build was of a warrior’s.

Jet black, ear-length hair and sharp mocha eyes that took notice of me with a look I could only describe as some sort of contempt. He clears his throat.

“Are you lost, boy?”

I shake my head firmly, standing straight. First impression’s the best impression.

“I am not lost, sir. I have come to become a knight,” I answer, having to look up at him.

He guffaws at that, waving his hand dismissively. In response to that, the soldiers too started to laugh. Now that’s amazing. My eyes are burning… no, not going to cry!

I keep standing with a defiant expression on my face, waiting for those idiots to stop laughing.

“I meant it. I want to become a knight.”

He doesn’t find it so funny now. He’s scowling at me.

“Go home, boy. This is for real men. Understood?”

—————————————————————————

Real men? I can’t stand this drittsekk! There are women and others as well in our army! Just that send him away already! He’s what, 20 something? If Commander Laurens wants to be a ‘real man’ or whatever he calls himself, he should drop that macho act!

—————————————————————————

Well, I’m not a man! But I can’t go ahead and tell him that, can I? I guess being persistent will have to work.

“I’m not going home. Did you not hear me, General?”

“General?! I am a commander, morveux!” he spits, now angry.

“It’s Commander Laurens to you,” he barks, towering over me.

“Did you hear me?”

I hesitated, taking a step back. This guy wasn't just intimidating, he meant to be. He clearly isn't someone I can mess with.

"Excusez-moi!"

Dame Kyda raised her hand from the group of knights. She steps forward.

"Whatever you want to say, Sellanddatter, it better be good."

"Well," she responded nonchalantly.

"He is already here. Why not test his strength with a duel?"

The commander raises an eyebrow, intrigued.

"A duel, you say?" he questions, looking at her.

Murmurs emerged from the curious crowd. They're excited by the chance a duel could take place. This wasn't supposed to happen… I'm not ready for this!

Commander Lauren's grins. Which isn't exactly comforting. In fact, I have a bad feeling about this….

"Traver!" the commander calls.

A young man with jet black hair styled in a taper fade, walks over. He's wearing something similar to the soldiers, but not quite. He has mocha brown eyes like…

He seems pretty submissive, with the way he's cowering. "Oui, C-commander?"

"Find Sir Samson, and bring him down here."

Laurens glances at me.

"Tell him he has a little runt to duel."

Traver pales. "A duel?! But Commander-"

"But Commander!" Laurens mocked in a singsong voice. "Go get him."

Traver gulped, and plodded out of the room.

Oh dear.

Oh no. No no no.

A duel?! I'm not that good! I remember Sir Samson… he was the concept of like a really strong knight. I can hope that he isn't that guy… no, I'm definitely screwed.

What was the dame thinking?! I'm going to have a word with her… if I'm alive..

"At first blood?" I say, mustering every ounce of courage I have. It wasn't a question.

"Of course," the commander agrees.

"Wouldn't want to hurt the little baby."

I'm the only one who could run into situations like this in an almost utopia. I gulp.

"The name's Jonas Raven. And I'll put on a fight."

"Really?" Laurens questions, lifting his head.

He turns to the crowd.

"We want a good duel, don't we?"

Shouts and cheers of agreement emerge from the soldiers and knights.

"So don't disappoint us. I'm sure you don't want to."

—————————————————————————

Dame Kyda begins to regret saying anything. Sir Samson was much bigger than the kid; and size difference was a landslide advantage to the former.

"He could crush him like a twig! Why is this kid accepting the duel?" Will exclaims in disbelief.

"Kyda, why did you even suggest that?" Jakob rebukes.

"It's Sellanddatter during work hours," Kyda countered.

"And do you think I asked him to hurt the 'kid'?"

Aurand pinches the bridge of his nose. "You know Laurens. He doesn't let things go so easy. You gave him the chance."

"Give her a break, Jakob," Sequin supported her. I-I can't watch this, I'm going."

Someone laughs. "And you call yourself a knight, Chevalier?

"Are you scared?" he sneers.

"Ta guele, Cartier," Kyda scorns, turning away from him. "He has a conscience. You don't. And that is the difference."

"Blablabla.."

Kyda sighs. Jonas, you better have something good up your sleeves.

—————————————————————————

Did I say Jonas? I meant Joseph! I wasn't even thinking of Mr. Woolf! Ugh, nevermind, it's not a big deal. No one's bound to notice.

None of the soldiers are sparring anymore. They're waiting for that duel they were promised. Placing bets already. Through the windows I can see the snow fall. Something I can't see where I live.

Oh, what I'd give to be walking in the snow with the rest of the squad! Then we could drink some hot chocolate and talk and play board games and word games…

Focus moron!

No turning back. I'm not turning back. I'm not even gonna think about turning back. Because then I'd be a coward, and that's one thing I'm not gonna be.

Okay, enough of this monologue. You're probably gonna get bored.

Maybe if I just proved to the commander that I'm decent, he'll won't be so annoyed? I don't know.

More importantly, I cannot make a fool of myself. No siree!

We'll have to wait and find out.

—————————————————————————

A/N: Yeah, present tense is hard to write. I keep writing my verbs in past tense!

[and this is me from a day later; actually lost half of what I wrote and recovered it today. That was a scare :’)]

Anyway, about the whole Joseph/Jonas thing… I planned while writing Chapter 2. It's based on something I've done irl lmao.

Basically, I had the opportunity of writing a skit for the morning assembly in school a few years back.

To those who don't know what that is every morning everyone in school goes down to the auditorium (we didn't have one, we had to stand outdoors TwT) and say prayers. I study at a catholic school so yeah. There's bible readings, thoughts of the day and the fore-mentioned skits.

It was something about anti-littering, and I was supposed to be Miss Caroline; teaching students on the effects of littering and what plastics to use and not to use. I didn't really get nerves on stage but for some reason I forgot what my character's name was. My brain automatically substituted it with 'Catherine' and the rest of my class went with the flow. (In my school each class got a weekly turn in the school assembly)

Apparently my lil sister's teacher was a Catherine and that her class and the teacher liked it very much that the educator was named Catherine as well. I ended up meeting her after and I'm sure remembers me even today. I saw her a few months ago too and she seemed happy to see me 😊

‘Ta guele’ means to ‘shut up’ in French, btw.

I've actually had to practice swordfighting with a bamboo stick haha. Props to my sister for helping me with this. Tho I think that she had the bamboo stick and I had a curtain rod lol-

I've got a decent amount of muscle, and I'm somewhat apple-shaped, and I feel if I tried I could pass as a boy. Except my thighs are 'womanly'...

With that out of the way, you'd be surprised to know that the commander was one of the oldest characters for this story, along with Princess Bianca. I'll explain that soon~

Thank you for reading!

[thedreammweaver]

That Would Suffice to Make a Formidable Monster Chapter 4 (Burton-Schumacherverse Sci-Fi Horror au, riddlebird, sea monster/alien!Oswald)

(A/N: I was supposed to be taking a break from this since I actually have thalassophobia and ‘research’ for this chapter was taking a physical toll but this has now become a hyperfixation and separation was making me depressed so...my break was brief. I’m feeling a bit better now and it was definitely worth it.)

Chapter 3 Chapter 5

Warnings: thalassophobia tw, animal death, blood tw, panic attack

Ed was still engrossed in the book by breakfast, hardly noticing the idle chatter between his crew mates. “Doin’ a little homework there Ed?” Harvey asked, referring to the book in Ed’s hands, patting him hard on the back as he passed by. Ed shook his head and ignored the other man. Bruce came into the kitchen looking a bit frustrated “I heard thumping outside, it could be nothing but something may have come loose. Who wants to go check?”

Ed grumbled as he walked the length of the sub looking for anything missing or damaged, he’d definitely drawn the short straw. He felt chills go up his spine as he noticed bubbles coming from part of his suit helmet. “Hey, Bruce?” He asked. Bruce was inside watching scanners and whatnot and by the radio.

“Yeah?”

“There’s bubbles coming out of my hose here, am I okay?”

“Oh- yeah, I think you’re just dealing with a faulty valve. I’ll fix it once you’re inside, your air is fine don’t worry. Just don’t breathe too hard, it’ll fog your mask up.” Reassured by the knowledge he wasn’t going to drown Ed reached the front of the sub, he scanned around looking for something off but couldn’t find anything. He rolled his eyes and started back. The sub was about 360 feet long with a few doors placed on the outside, the closest one was seventy feet from him. As he slowly made progress back towards the opening he’d come out through he found his mind drifting to the impenetrable darkness all around him.

“Ed, I have your vitals pulled up, what’s going on with your heart rate?” Bruce asked.

“I’m just freaking out a little here.” Ed chuckled nervously “Could you stay on for a bit and talk to me so I can’t...think.”

“Sure.”

“How are things with you and Selina?”

Bruce got a little flustered but obliged “Good- They’re um- they’re good, we’re getting to spend more time together than we have in months, that’s for sure. Not a lot of good dating spots down here though.” He laughed. Ed felt a little calmer, now just fifty eight feet from the door.

“Did she ever tell you how I proposed that was a very hectic-“ Bruce suddenly fell silent “Ed, stop for a second.” His tone had switched to dead serious so Ed did as he asked. “Not to sound cryptic but you’re not alone out there. Something big just came into the scanner, about forty feet long. It should be above you.” The scanner picked up everything within 200 feet so Ed could guess that was roughly how far away it was “Just keep your head down and take your time, I’d be willing to bet it’s only a sperm whale or something like that.”

“Kinda deep for a sperm whale...” Pamela mumbled, she wasn’t close enough to the radio for Ed to hear.

Ed felt nervous but kept moving as Bruce suggested. If he’d been on land he could’ve easily sprinted but of course humans were so terribly adapted for the water and he could only go so fast. Harvey came over having heard the scanner beeping since something large was in range. Bruce’s brow furrowed as the longer the animal stayed in one place the clearer the shape on the scanner became, it went from a a forty foot blob to a shape more triangular, the end of it splitting up and forking out in many directions, Bruce’s heart dropped as he and Harvey reached the same realization simultaneously “Jesus Christ, is that a fucking squid??” Unfortunately Harvey was close enough for Ed to hear him loud and clear. Ed immediately remembered the comment about his book at breakfast “Oh, that’s really hilarious, Harvey.” Ed shook his head, the corners of his mouth turning up in annoyance “Has anyone told you you’d make a great comedian? I’d guess not since you’re really not that-“ Ed out of reflex had looked up, the light on his helmet at full brightness since he’d been looking for damaged or possibly fallen equipment, expecting to see nothing or at the least the underbelly of a whale but instead he faintly saw suckers as big as frisbees about 160 feet above him “...funny..” he absently completely his sentence, most parts of his mind now on autopilot. He quickly put his head down and dimmed his light, hoping the thing didn’t see him. Without realizing he had come to a stop at fifty two feet from the door back into the sub. “Forget everything I said about taking your time, get back in here now.” Bruce said. Ed felt himself beginning to panic, trying to keep his breathing calm as he couldn’t afford to loose visibility now. He went as fast as he could despite everything in him wanting to curl into a ball. “It’s coming towards the ship now,” Bruce said “It’s eighty feet and closing, get the hell out of there.”

If Ed had the presence of mind he would snap at Bruce for assuming he was trying to do anything but get back to the door.

“Sixty feet-“

Ed felt himself freezing up “Bruce, I can’t do this.”

“Don’t say that. Forty feet-“

“It’s closer to the door than I am! I ca-“ Ed was cut off by something huge swooping by the ship very fast causing a current that made the ship move and sent Ed flying. He was relieved as he remembered he’d tethered himself to the ship earlier, Harvey chiding him for being paranoid, but the relief was short lived as he felt the tether snap and himself continue to spin away from the sub. He tried desperately to reorient himself or grab onto something but it was of course no use and so commenced the desperate clawing and pathetic wiggling of a human quite literally far out of their depth. When he finally came to an almost stop he noticed at some point during his spinning his glasses had come off and he couldn’t get them back on without taking his helmet off which wasn’t an option. Realizing he was stranded and unable to see made him panic, unable to keep from fully hyperventilating now and clouding his mask, obscuring his vision further. Not that he’d be able to see with the pitch black around him on all sides. Just as he’d begun to imagine what drowning would be like for him he felt something brush against his back and then start pushing against him. That’s it, he thought, he was dead, he was about to be eaten. But the thing behind him just kept pushing, he could only assume it was taking him somewhere to be eaten. Though soon he could make out the lights of the ship and felt himself being pushed onto it, then he wasn’t being touched anymore. After gathering himself for a moment he started feeling around for the door. The lights kept catching something red in the water around him which he couldn’t make out. As he felt around he jumped back a bit when his hand landed on a tentacle against the ship in front of him. There was more red around it. As he cautiously inspected further he discovered the tentacle....wasn’t attached to anything. He shakily stepped over it and felt like he’d gone from the deepest layer of hell to paradise as he finally felt the door of the sub.

“Just leave him alone for a while, Dent.” Bruce ordered, barring Harvey from entering Ed’s small sleeping quarters.

“He has to tell me what happened out there.” Harvey insisted.

“He’s in shock. He shouldn’t be made to recount anything too soon.” Victor insisted.

“Oh what are you now, a psychologist? Whatever, I’ll ask him later...” Harvey huffed before walking away. Ed was curled up in bed, having not spoken for the last hour. Bruce walked away as well but Victor came in “Try to get some rest, Ed. You’re okay now.” He said softly before leaving. Somehow Ed managed to sleep.

About forty five minutes later Ed stirred awake to vibrations shaking the ship a bit, he was going to brush it off and return to sleep but he soon recognized it as the same vibrations they’d felt when Oswald was first trying to make contact. He yawned as he crawled out of bed and grabbed his glasses before making his way to the main room of the sub.

Victor was at the computers once more and everyone else was sort of hovering around him. “Did I miss anything?” Ed asked.

“No,” Victor assured “It is just greeting us again.”

Harvey wanted to take control of the conversation this time “I need to know about it’s species, where are the rest of them, are they aquatic, that kind of stuff.”

‘Are there others like you?’ Victor typed.

‘Nothing is like me.’

‘Where is your species?’

‘I do not know. They left me.’

Pam frowned, feeling sorry for the creature again.

‘Does your species usually inhabit water?’

There was a delay, like a pause someone would take if they were being flooded with painful memories.

‘I evolved.’

“So basically it’s a freak.” Harvey said flatly, that was met with glares from the rest. “Oh, don’t be so sensitive. What I want to know is if it has met humans before how do we have no record of an enormous monster?”

Victor rolled his eyes, as he typed, Harvey was definitely dampening the wonder of this experience.

‘You have met entities like us before?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re quite big, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Entities like to keep record of big things, why is there no record of you?’

‘Wasn’t big then. Had only witnessed five turns of this rock and one equivalent off of it.’

Ed puzzled “Five turns...I think it means years.”

“So it was left here when it was only one?” Pam had a very sad tone to her voice as she absently pulled at the slightly too long sleeves of the green sweater she was in.

‘No more askings from entities.’

That made Harvey start fuming “Yeah, right, ask it-“

“Chill out,” Bruce ordered “You already have more information than you did a few minutes ago, give it a break.”

“Who are you to interfere with my operation?”

“Your operation which is being facilitated by my ship...” Bruce reminded. Harvey glared at him before storming out, knowing he couldn’t really argue.

Another message appeared on the screen that floored Ed.

‘Lost entity is safe now? I brought it back.’

“It saved me on purpose...” Ed mumbled, he’d though maybe the squid had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and gotten eaten by something and...he had been blocking out the part where a mysterious force pushed him back.

‘Yes, entity is safe now. Thank you.’ Victor typed, marveling at the care and apparent gentleness Oswald possessed. There was another delay.

‘You help me now?’

‘What is the matter?’

‘Hurts.’

The medical doctor in Victor was now seeing Oswald as a potential patient which was surreal. Pamela cleared her throat “It might’ve been injured while attacking the oil rig or by another predator, I doubt they appreciate suddenly being demoted and their whole ecosystem changing. Some of them might be trying to fight back. I’d be willing to bet a lot of wild life has been out of sorts since the cave opened.” She said, going to look out the front window.

‘How were you hurt?’

‘Sharp whale.’

“What the hell is a sharp whale?” Selina muttered.

“Shark.” Pam said.

“Yeah, it probably means a shark.” Bruce nodded.

“...Shark...” Pamela squeaked once more.

“Yes, Pam, we heard y-“ Bruce stopped as he turned to look at Pamela and in turn followed her gaze out the window. Barreling towards them was a shark that had to be at least a hundred feet long, jaws open. “Oh..” was all Bruce could say before there were teeth colliding with the ship.

[starlightnakamoto]

She Knows • Yuta Nakamoto

Member: Yuta x Reader

Genre: angst / fluff / smut / slow-burn / mystery

Warnings: Language, Drugs, Alcohol/Cigarette Use

Summary: You needed to find a way to raise money to find somewhere to stay. Little did you know it had to be through becoming a stripper at the biggest club in town, owned by the ceo himself. He’s not only a ceo though. Only at night he was.

Chapter 5

Soft lips were trailing all over. From your jawline to your collarbone, you felt the stars in you lighting up in a way you never felt before.

“More.. please”, you kept begging, not getting enough when you wanted all of him.

His hands were getting to know each part of you as you kept his name at a whisper, afraid if anyone would hear.

Two star-crossed lovers had become one through lips and you felt things heating up more.

“Yuta.. I need you”.

“So greedy.. I’m making you a fucking mess aren’t I?”, he smirked, looking up from where he was marking what’s his on your collarbone.

The moment started to fade along with the colors and his touch.

You didn’t want it to end but too late.

The blaring sound from your phone alarm had woken you up from the bittersweet dream you had so longed for.

You groaned into the now familiar pillow of the motel room you were staying in.

8:15 am. Today was show day.

Finally you were gonna get your first paycheck and could start seeing your dream be opposite from black & white.

You did the usual & went to the bathroom to take a quick shower. After getting out, you dried your body & curled up hair in a rose towel and went to get dressed.

You put on baggy silver pants & a crop tee, even though later you would be changing into the real outfit for tonight.

You & Ten had been anticipating all week to see what you two would look like on stage.

After putting on hoops and a final shape of lip gloss, you left the motel, this time with all your things.

It was time to find a new place after today and with the money you’d get you wouldn’t pass the opportunity.

The train ride to the Nakamoto Club was usually quiet & filled with only the mind being loud.

Ride by Lana Del Rey was blasting through your headphones as you tapped your hands against the foggy window.

I hear the birds on the summer breeze, I drive fast, I am alone in the night. Been tryin' hard not to get into trouble, but I

I've got a war in my mind…

—

You arrived to your stop and made your way to your destination.

As you climbed up the hollow steps, you headed to Room 1026 to meet up with everyone else even if everyone to you was mainly Ten.

You walked in and immediately were greeted by a slim pair of tan arms but with a body that radiated warmth for you.

“Y/N!!”, Ten gleefully cheered while ruffing your hair up and leading your hand to where you two would usually sit.

“It feels like forever since I saw you, I missed my best friend,” he pouted as he did his usual habit of playing with your hands.

“We just saw each other yesterday before you left me alone with—”

“Yuta!! Oh my god, tell me everything now. How big was it—“

“Ten!!”, you rolled your eyes, softly hitting his arm. “We just spoke for a bit and got to know each other’s names.. nothing else I promise.”

“Aghhh Y/N!! I tossed and turned all night just wondering if a moment finally happened with you two. I didn’t leave you in there for nothing—“

“Well a moment did happen..”, you cut him off as you played with the rings on his sculpted hands.

“Well tell me the moment.. I got my popcorn out and everything”

“Well it wasn’t much but it’s just the way how he looked at me like he already saw through me. Like I know it’s fast and all but I swear you could feel some—“

“Connection?”, a different voice had blurted out.

Oh shit. You had felt your whole face heat up into one color of crimson.

“Yuta—“

“Ten I think this is yours.. you uhh left it here yesterday”, he smirked like the bastard he was seeing the color you were, as he handed him his water bottle and walked back to the front.

He too was flustered but tried hiding it.

Ten had thrown his head back and squealed into your arm as you sat there with your mouth open.

“I don’t know what just happened but girl I’m loving whatever kdrama yall got going on”, he nonstop said between laughs, trying to catch his breath.

“Yeah yeah okay. Keep laughing, you’ll be crying later when that happens to you one day”, you rolled your eyes as your cheeks were still flushed and playfully flipped him off.

Your bestfriend kept teasing you for the rest the day about the most embarrassing moment of your life and you couldn’t wait till it happened to him later.

—

The night started getting closer and everyone was getting ready.

We got to our dressing rooms and staff was rushing around everywhere, helping with makeup, lights, outfits or what not.

It was all going so fast but he didn’t leave your mind, which brought you to the thought.. where was Yuta?

“He was there for most of the day but he seemed to have left”, a staff had told you while doing your eyes a bright shade of glitter red. “What can you say? He’s a busy man”.

You had hoped he would appear to see the performance you guys had worked so hard on, at least. After all, he helped with most of the moves.

7:30 pm

You started to feel more adrenaline as your first time performing is coming sooner than you think.

You had your makeup done & your outfit had shaped your body well. It was a crimson color built up of a corset with fishnets that made you feel self-conscious but everyone else had wore the same in various colors so you tried to feel at ease.

Looking up from your phone you heard “Damn Y/N!!”, from the now familiar cheery voice of Ten. “Girl you look amazing whatt!!”.

With the continuous praises you got & telling you to do a 360, you kept looking down getting all shy. He really was the only one of the dancers who made you feel at home.

Ten was wearing a see through black long-sleeved shirt with patterns on the front which had perfectly fit his figure & leather pants. It almost even turned you on.

His eyes were batted with sparkling black eyeshadow and wavy designs around it.

“The show is starting soon.. have you heard from him yet?”, he had asked as you two sat back down at your parlors.

“Nope. I’m just hoping he’ll show up at this point. I mean he has to after all the hardwork he’s done for us.”, you sighed while applying a cherry flavored lipgloss.

“He should. Lisa’s here, Johnny, everyone. It’s a big night, especially for you Ms. Yuta..”, he had chuckled looking in the mirror while fixing his combed back hair.

“Let’s not get too ahead now. We don’t even know his last name”, you admired how stunning you looked, pleading in your mind that he would consider coming.

“Yea.. weird but whatever”, he pondered but then decided to change the subject and apply final touches as you did the same.

—

8:25 pm

“We’re on in 5 minutes ladies!! Start wrapping it up and head backstage now”, Lisa had commanded everyone passing by each row of parlors.

“This bitch always forgets I’m here too”, Ten sighed, getting up from his seat.

You chuckled following with “C’mon my lady”, as you two linked arms to head backstage.

Showtime

Your nerves finally were kicking in as you had no idea how your first performance would play out. You just had hoped it would all go well after busting your ass to learn it for the past week.

When your group’s name was called on stage, you started recalling all the memories from the day you first got here. So much had happened already and you weren’t here for that long yet but you felt like you had. The places you were getting used to.. the faces that became familiar.

To see yourself doing all you can to get to that dance dream of yours, that was home. You knew all your hardwork would pay off one day and you were excited for it.

You got to your spot up in the back as you climbed up the shimmering steps on stage in your platforms, trying your best to see the taped X’s glowing in the dark to find your spot. You got into position as Ten got into his which was further down your row.

Lights of flashing black and white came on that then faded into color hue as the song started.

You know, from the moment she turn around.

She know, how to back it up and drop it down

She know, she what all the fellas looking at

'Cause they know, soon as her song come on it's a wrap.

You had been mirroring the moves everyone else had been doing as the chorus was building up.

And she loves the attention

That she get when she moves, yeah

Showin' out with her home girls

Hypnotizing all the dudes, oh

And she knows.

Even as a back dancer, you had felt confident in how good you were doing and living it up in moment that you hadn’t realized Yuta did show up.

But him also being Mr. Nakamoto, he had sat near the back blending in with the other people sitting on the barstools.

“You seem to come here often. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were Mr. Nakamoto himself”, bartender Jaehyun had remarked with a small laugh as he wiped the bar and served more drinks to customers. “In that case, welcome.”

Yuta was in a gaze as Jaehyun’s words were only muffles to him, trying to set his eyes on you even if you were blended in by other dancers.

You looked so beautiful right then and there even from far. The lights had illuminated your entire beint and made you feel like you were the only dancer in the room to him.

It was all going so well right up until after the chorus that Rosé had tripped you.

You knew something was up when Lisa had asked Ten and Rosé to switch spots before show day.

The music had continued but there was gasps throughout the crowd that led you to rush down the steps and back to the dressing room.

Hot tears were running down your face as you sat in your chair that had faced the mirror & violently threw off your platforms.

You had a bloody gash on your knee from the trip but other than that you just tried to breathe amidst your anxiety attack.

Yuta had noticed later in the dance that you were gone and was starting to worry as well.

You felt too embarrassed to wait till the performance was over to find Ten or just see anyone.

You had picked up some wipes laying around the lights framing the mirror and starting to wipe off the canvas that had been painted earlier on your face.

“It’s just a fall, quit crying Y/N”, that voice in your head telling you on a loop.

Mascara tears kept streaming down but you just hurried up the process so you could grab your things and head on out in the back.

You kept getting flushed at the embarrassed moment that kept replaying in your head and just wanted it all to be erased. Possibly to even just go home and forget you came here. You knew your family & few friends was worried sick from all the missed calls as well.

You were from Cloud City, a small town that not many knew about with only black & white surroundings. It wasn’t anything like Blossom City, with all the colorful lights everywhere and endless people with stories in them filling the streets.

You had come from a complete different area, all opposite from this.

After all you were a dancer, not a dancer for these types of clubs.

You went through the back door and droplets had hit you which progressed more as you walked further to the nearest bus stop.

You still had your outfit on but with a coat over it and your heels in your hands. You didn’t feel like going on the subway with the way you looked this time so the bus it is.

You pulled out a lighter to light up your cigarette as you had stayed hovered under the stop. The rain was making it harder for it to light up so you occasionally blurted curses under your lip with the paper between it.

As you let out the first puff into the foggy night air, you coughed a bit but felt more at ease. You were still new to this as you had picked up the habit from Ten.

Before the next bus arrived, you had realized you didn’t get your first performance’s pay and panicked at the thought of literally having nowhere to stay at tonight.

Suddenly a white polished Benz had pulled up with the passenger window rolling down to greet you with a face that had made the familiar flush come back to your cheeks.

Usually he wouldn’t greet any of his dancers at this time of the day with the work he had going on but here he was with his one hand on the wheel and other waving at you.

“Hop in”, was all it took for you to drop everything and forget your thoughts for the rest of the night.

0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5

[newcaptainofsquad9]

So, When Can We Tell The World?~Min Yoongi x black! fem! reader {5}

Parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Pairing: Yoongi x reader

Summary: The Grammys have finally arrived and you’re trying to navigate the red carpet yet the interviewers keep asking questions about you and Yoongi. You answer them to the best of your abilities with annoyance, along with confusion, until Yoongi and the boys arrive. The red carpet goes by with ease soon after, until the rumors of you and Yoongi reveal themselves, leaving you in a heap of emotions while leading up to your performance with the man you love.

  Genre: Angst, Fluff, Romance, Idol-Verse, Smut (none in this chapter)

Word Count: 3, 002

Author’s Note: Finally the Grammys chapter! This is where things come to a head guys, I’m so excited for you guys to see where this goes! Also, I’m sure you guys know that the BTS members speak primarily English in this series, but that does not mean they don’t still sing mainly in Korean, so expect stupid ass questions from interviewers so, yeah. Also this is fictional! However some of these people may act in real life is not a reflection of this fic! Anyways, hope you enjoy! 

I can’t help but smooth out my golden dress for the umpteenth while the black Mercedes comes I’m in comes to a swift stop in front of the Staples Center. The palm trees always make me giddy, I never really notice Los Angeles until now, it matters a lot. I can’t help and wonder about Yoongi for the third time today(something that got my stylist and manager in a heated mood today). He seemed so timid during our phone call a few nights ago, his energy is usually pretty chill, I tend to be the one to freak out. 

“Uh, Y/N?”

I break from my thoughts to turn to my brother Kevin, along with his puzzled stare. 

“You ok girl?” my manager Katie asks. 

I nod sharply as the photographers start to swarm around the car. They don’t get far as a few men in tuxes step towards the car to help me out. 

“Oh, she’s just thinking about someone,” Kevin teases, “her Suga bear-ouch!”

I elbow him in the ribs, his teeth gritting at the discomfort. Good. 

“He’ll be all right,” Katie reassures, “you’ll perform with him, but I want to make sure you’re good. Are you ready to get out there?”

The nerves bundle up inside me abruptly, the tux suited men grow closer as I try to breathe in and out to ease my racing pulse. 

“Look, don’t worry about Yoongi,” Katie says, “just do a kick ass performance and don’t worry about the nomination, this’ll be helpful for the both of you either way.”

I nod while I smooth down my dress for the final time. 

“I still think you guys will win,” Kevin declares, “if you get snubbed again-”

“You won’t do a thing,” I deadpan. 

Kevin’s face flares for a moment, yet it disperses as quickly. 

“Good luck big head,” he teases. 

“Thanks,” I say sheepishly.

“Let’s go then,” Katie giggles. 

The tux men open the doors for Katie and I, allowing the camera flashes, the roar of the crowd and buzz of interviewers to have sound all at once. Even the carpet below my wedges scream with a red that can’t help but be noticed. Fans, along with interviewers chant my name, Yoongi’s as well. I only smile, wave and eventually pose for the cameras as they all snap together and a few get a complete 360 shot. 

“Y/N! Y/N! Over here!” 

I peer pass the barricade that keeps the fans out, pass a heap of camera men and hell of a lot of wires.

The voice who calls me over is none other than Ryan Seacrest in a plain blue suit and blonde hair that’s obviously dyed. I get an uneasy feeling down my spine, I remember how uneasy Yoongi was when we talked the other day. I don’t doubt Seacrest was one of the interviewers who gave him and the guys an obviously awkward and rude time. Katie’s hand on my lower back forces me to jump slightly. There are cameras on me, I need to focus. 

“You ok?” she asks, “you see Seacrest right?”

I nod as Seacreast puts on a toothy grin and walks over.

“I see him, he just, well he’s Seacreast,” I say. 

Katie giggles. 

“I’ll be watching the entire time,” she says, “if it get’s too awkward just look my way and I’ll intervene.”

I mouth a thank you and stroll over to Seacreast, his smile expands once he gets a quick once over of my dress. 

“Looking glamorous this evening Y/N,” he gushes, “how are you feeling tonight? you’re nominated for Song of the Year, how do you like your chances?”

I put on my best smile before answering. 

“I’m just honored to be nominated,” I say, “just being about to share this experience with Yoong-Suga!”

Seacrest grins, his eyes narrowing at the mention of Yoongi. 

“So, you and BTS’s Sugar huh?” he asks, “how close are you both going to be on that stage tonight?”

I hold in my urge to roll my eyes at his blatant mispronunciation. Why is he saying this? How close?

“What do you mean?”

Seacrest chuckles. 

“You two aren’t partners?” he asks. 

His smile drops, he’s genuinely confused and so am I. I glance over at Katie, who shrugs as well before pulling out her phone. 

“Yeah, on the stage we are,” I say, “I hope Suga can tell you more about it when you get a chance to interview him.”

Seacrest nods. 

“Thank you Y/N, hope you enjoy the carpet.”

...

The same questions happen throughout each interview:

Do you get nervous when you’re up there with him?

Was Suga the one you were genuinely attracted to first?

How was it like working with one of the BTS members?

Nothing about the song. An album. About the actual music with Yoongi just a false attempt at asking if we’re dating. I try to shut them down as nicely as possible, keeping the conversation on song writing and my performance with Yoongi later. Katie continues to send me weary looks though, playing it off with a tiny grin once I raise a question. 

“What is it?” I ask, “do you know why they’ve been asking me those ridiculous questions?”

Katie opens her mouth, then shuts it as she peers around me. 

“Ah, Y/N uh-look!” she shouts, “there are the guys!” 

As soon as the words left Katie’s mouth the crowd, along with the photographers turned their attention towards the right. They always stick out: Namjoon because of the long mullet he’s been growing out; Taehyung with his curly medium length dark hair and smoldering eyes; Jimin with his honey colored hair; Hoseok and that smile that could heal the world; Jin with his looks that could make anyone stare and Jungkook sporting his confused, yet cute expression. Then there’s Yoongi. 

I rarely seen him dressed so formal in person. His hair seems lighter, a more blonde shade under the lights, his tan turtle neck fits him well too, along with his blazer. And the earrings, my God.

“Y/N, focus,” Katie giggles in my ear. 

I nod and strut the red carpet, expertly posing for photos while the guys approach my way. Out the corner of my eye I notice Jungkook’s face light up, similar to that of a child’s. I tilt my head over for the photographers, swiftly making eye contact with him, then Jimin and Yoongi. He flashes a short gummy smile and it takes all of my willpower not to sprint over and kiss him. I just want to hug him, I need him, but I can’t go to him. At least not right now. That’ll just add fuel to the already vast wildfire that these interviewers have sparked. 

Jungkook taps Namjoon on the shoulder as he nods in my direction. Of course Namjoon’s all dimples as he curves Ryan Seacrest’s attempt at interviewing him and the guys. 

“Y/N! Over here!” he calls. 

I turn fully towards them to wave and grin. 

Namjoon’s still dimples city as he gives me a quick hug and puts up his enclosed fist. Jimin hides a giggle behind his own fist as Yoongi rolls his eyes and Taehyung shakes his head lovingly. I accept the dap wholeheartedly, Namjoon’s smile only grows more. 

“How have you been? Excited for tonight?” he asks as he guided me towards the middle of the guys. 

“Yeah,” I lie as I get in between Jimin and Jin to smile for the camera. 

Jimin places a comforting hand on my shoulder while Jin rests his own on the other. 

“You sure?” Jin asks, “you seem a little out of it.”

I only smile and pose with all seven of them. 

“Just the interviewers,” I admit, “they’ve been bringing up ridiculous dating rumors between Yoongi and I.”

Jin blinks. Jimin sucks in his breath before gripping my shoulder a little tighter.  

“Ah, you know how the American interviewers can be,” Jimin scolds, “you’re around them more than we are.”

He giggles nervously, glancing away from me to wave at the crowd. Ok, weird. 

“Y/N!Y/N! Can we get just you and Suga?” one of the photographers asked. 

Jin and Jimin skitter from me as Jungkook, Taehyung and Hoseok do the same for Yoongi; they stand a little ways back. Our eyes finally meet for more than a moment and it’s hard. Hard not to blush around him like it’s the first time we saw each other, especially since we aren’t alone with the world watching us. 

“Hi,” Yoongi whispers. 

“Hi.”

We embrace, his turtle neck cuddly enough to melt in, yet I don’t. The embrace doesn’t last long, he pulls away quickly for the both of us. His hand goes to the small of my back as we both smile then wave to the photographers and fans.  

“Y/N! Suga, could I get an interview!” someone shouts, “please!”

Our heads shoot up towards a black woman with medium length hair clutching a microphone. She grins brightly and waves, forcing me to put on a small, strained smile. The hand on the small of my back moves up and down tenderly as Yoongi leans down to whisper.

“You all right?” he asks, “did something happen?”

“I-” I pause to look up at him, concern etched in his face. 

This is our night, our chance to maybe win, perform for our fans and just enjoy ourselves. Sure the questions are annoying, but that’s part of the game.

“Y/N?” he asks. 

“I’m ok,” I say, “let’s do an interview, yeah?”

Yoongi doesn’t say anything, but I can see underneath that this conversation will be held later. And I’m fine with that. He only nods and holds his arm out, confusing me for a moment. 

“I would hold your hand, but you know.” he gestures to the camera flashes that make him grimace. 

“Right,” I say.

We approach the interviewer who fixes her hair and motions to the camera man in front of her. 

“Tiffany from Access Hollywood here!” she greets, “how are you guys enjoying the carpet so far?”

“It’s been great so far,” Yoongi says before turning his attention to me.  

“Yeah, it still seems like a dream being here,” I say.

Tiffany grins. 

“The both of you are nominated tonight for your song All The Crown Players, how are you guys feeling about that? Excited?”

Yoongi’s gummy smile returns. 

“Of course, I feel like it’s a long time coming,” he says, “I’m glad I get to share this experience with Y/N.”

He looks to me with those eyes, that look as if I’m the most special thing in the world. It’s real no matter how we try to play for the cameras and I feel guilty for not acting on my feelings. It’s for the best though, for the both of us. At least that’s what I thought. 

“Y/N?” Tiffany asks. 

“I agree,” I say, “I always wondered if I was ever worth of being honored here and here I am. Yoongi being able to stand with me is enough, he’s making this experience so much better.”

Yoongi’s grin widens as he nudges me with his shoulder and hides his grin. 

“That’s so wholesome,” Tiffany gushes, “what can we expect from your performance tonight?”

I open my mouth to answer yet close it immediately. Yoongi catches this and goes to answer for me. 

“It’s going to be worth the wait,” he says.

I nod sharply as Tiffany smiles. 

“Great, well I’ll let you both enjoy the carpet,” she says, “good luck guys.”

“Thank you,” I say as Yoongi bows and waves.

Maybe things will get better before it gets worse.

...

I stay close to Yoongi and the guys as step through the hallways backstage. My anxiety flares once more eyes land on us, camera crew, performers and artists alike gawk. I always seem to forget how popular the guys are. That must be it, right? 

“You gonna tell me what’s bothering you?” Yoongi whispers, while not breaking his stride with the guys and I, “you’ve been forcing smiles all night.”

I hide my state of anxiety with a false giggle. 

“It’s nothing Yoongi,” I lie, “I-I’m nervous about our performance.”

Yoongi smiles, reaches in to take my hand but stops himself. I understand why, considering that we’re still around potential cameras and other American artists. 

“Don’t be,” he says, “I’ll be right with you. Is that really it?”

I look up and his stare is intense. His brows furrowed down in a deep set frown that I’d consider adorable even in our given the current circumstances. His deep brown pupils soften as he rubs my arm tenderly. 

“Tell me Y/N, please,” he begs, “I just want this to be an amazing night for the both of us.”

My heart sinks at his saddened tone. 

“I do too, it’s just-I-I don’t want it to ruin your night,” I say. 

Yoongi flashes that gummy smile again. 

“Try me.”

Ok, well I did warn him. 

“The interviewers, well besides the one we just had, they’ve been very forward to say the least,” I say. 

Yoongi raises an eyebrow. 

“How so? You do know that they ask us the most bizarre questions too, right?” he asks.

“Yeah, but they’ve been asking a little too much about me and you, nothing of it happens to do with the song or our nomination.”

Yoongi chuckles. 

“Let me guess, they asked what it’s like working with the ‘phenomenon known as BTS?’ or how we made a song in English and Korean,” he teases. 

“They asked if we were dating Yoongi,” I say. 

Yoongi freezes, his face blank as the guys walk on ahead of us. 

“See this is why-”

“Y/N, they’re only rumors, right?” he asks, “nothing more?”

I nod, a little confused at Yoongi’s question. 

“I guess so,” I say, “God, I told you this would ruin everything.”

Yoongi shakes his head, giving me another gummy smile as he moves to touch the small of my back. 

“It didn’t, Y/N. It’s just, what I did might ruin everything.”

“Ruin what?” I ask. 

“Yoongi, Y/N?”

Both of our heads snap up to see Namjoon and his deep, perplexed stare. I glance past him to see Jimin, Jungkook, Taehyung, Hosoek and Jin giving us weary stares as well. 

“Is there something wrong?” I ask, “did something happen?”

Namjoon purses his lips and look’s to Yoongi who shifts uncomfortably as he shoves his hands into the pocket of his blazer. 

“It’s nothing Y/N,” he declares, “just a couple of nasty tweets, I guess some of them got into the interviewers heads is all.” 

I open my mouth to question him, yet we get interrupted by one of the staff members. 

“Y/N, Suga,” he says, “you guys are performing a little earlier than planned. Your stylists are waiting, all the way down the hall to the left.”

My chest tightens at the news. Earlier? We didn’t rehearse for earlier. Yoongi must have saw my panic as he leans in to put a hand around my shoulder and squeeze me gently. 

“Got it, thank you,” he says before bowing slightly. 

Once the staff member disappeared I breathed in deeply. 

“All right, let’s go,” I declare. 

Namjoon looks to me then to Yoongi before back to me. 

“Y/N, you don’t look too fine,” Namjoon noted. 

I bite down on my lip to try and cease the tears, thankfully it works. I’m not sure if Yoongi notices but he holds my hand this time and nods sharply at Namjoon.

“I’ve got her, I promise.” 

His reassurance to Namjoon is solid, putting me at ease even though it’s not directed at me. 

“Good luck you two, we’ll be cheering for you,” Namjoon says. 

I hug him tightly and giggle as Jimin, Jungkook, Hoseok, Jin and Taehyung join in, engulfing me in a group hug. My anxieties disperse at their praise, along with any doubts I had about Yoongi. 

...

Performing with Yoongi made me feel ethereal. His verses and rhymes put a fire under me, made me keep up with him, when I felt overwhelmed Yoongi was there. I didn’t even notice the song stopped as he grinned brightly down at me with sweat pouring down his face while breathing heavy. I can’t help but smile back and stare up at his lips. Yoongi must have noticed and mirrored my movements to get closer. The roar of the crowd forces us to stop however, thank God. We both turn back towards the audience to wave and bow with our warm hands wound together. 

“You were amazing,” Yoongi whispers. 

“So were you,” I say.

“C’mon.”

I giggle as Yoongi takes my hand and leads me backstage.  

“Wow the chemistry you guys carry can’t be replicated,”  a staff member says, “no wonder you guys are an item.”

Yoongi goes rigid, I pull away from him. 

“N-No I ah, we aren’t dating,” I let out, “you shouldn’t really believe those interviewers.”

The staff member frowns. 

“Really? I thought it was official, hm,” he says before disappearing  to his duties. 

Official?

“Y/N-”

“What did he mean by official Yoongi?” I ask, cutting him off. 

Yoongi’s eyes sweep to the floor. 

“Y/N I-I fucked up,” Yoongi whispers. 

His eyes grew soft again as he bit down on his lip. 

“What is it?” I ask, “what the fuck did you do?”

Katie bursts in along with Namjoon. 

“You guys did great- Y/N? Yoongi?” Katie asks.

Namjoon gets in between the both of us. 

“What happened?”

“Just tell me the truth Yoongi, what. Did you do,” I whisper. 

Yoongi purses his lips before he speaks.

“Bighit had to put out an official statement,” he pauses before continuing, “about the both of us.”

My chest pangs as my entire body begins to tremble. 

“W-Why would they do that?”

Yoongi swallows hard. 

“Because I revealed it on V live, on accident,” he says, “I-I promise I didn’t mean to.”

I only nod and step past Namjoon and Katie, ignoring Yoongi’s pleas. I need some air. 

[oohfluffy]

TIHM Ch.6 | BBH

Group: EXO

Member: Byun Baekhyun

Theme: Angst | Fluff | Rated M | University!AU | Football!AU

Word Count: 1,751

chapter 6

When your breathing evened, Baekhyun slowly opened his eyes as his fingers halted in rubbing your arm. You fell asleep within 5 minutes. He would've drifted to dreamland as well if not for the realization that you're actually with him, and you shouldn't stay here in the cold.

Especially evil people are lurking within the party lights.

"Hey, Saejin-ah?" He carefully called your name, lightly tapping your arm in attempt to wake you up. You stirred in his arms, groaning at the annoying wake up call on your side. "Let's get you home, hm?"

"...here." You mumbled as you buried your face on the crook of his neck more, the warmth of his skin lulling you to sleep. This has to be one of the most comfortable places to be sleeping on.

"Hmm?" Baekhyun's voice turned much lower and gentler as he watch you looking like a baby in her mother's arms. He fondly fixed the strands of hair falling on your face, fingers caressing your cheek in the process. "We can't stay here for long. It's too cold, and those people are still here."

He paused for a while, trying to see if you would respond. When a minute has passed and you didn't, he chuckled as he pressed your body closer to his. Welp, he can't help it if you don't want to go.

You can wake her up continuously though! You just want to stay like this—

"SAEJIN-AH!"

Baekhyun broke out of his thoughts when a worried voice rang through the air. A wavy and dark-haired girl ran towards you, her face scrunching in relief when she saw you safe and sound. She was immediately in front of you, checking your face and body for scratches or wounds, and sighed when she saw none. Baekhyun was totally surprised when she didn't even glance at him.

"Those fucking bitches really want me to kill them!" He flinched as the girl suddenly shouted, not caring if he was there—does she even know he was there? When her eyes drifted down to him, they slowly widened as he smiled. She finally saw him.

"HOLY—"

"Shh." Baekhyun shushed her as he glanced down at your sleeping figure. Jiwon immediately shut her loud mouth, lips trembling as she kept her scream in. "Are you done partying?" He quietly said to Jiwon, recognizing her as your only close friend.

Jiwon gulped before speaking in a soft voice. "Yes. I was just searching for Saejin when I heard she's here with the bitch—Irene's squad."

"She went with them?"

"Yes. I wasn't surprised when I heard that since she's been hanging with them for a while, but she never went to parties with them. So, this is new." Jiwon looked at you, eyes dimming with something Baekhyun cannot comprehend. "I knew those girls won't do any good to her, but still, she kept being friends with them."

Baekhyun's eyes rested on your parted plump lips, his system went wild as you breathed in and out on his neck. Jiwon just noticed that the two of you were in some cute position, like lovers in a rendezvous at night when the wind was cold and the moon shone in the darkness.

She cannot wait to tease you after this.

"What did they do?" His eyebrows furrowed as he remembered the dj mentioning your name earlier. Was it that time?

"I didn't get to see what happened, but I heard the others talking about the shots game being started by Saejin." Jiwon sighed as she looked at you. "She doesn't drink, so that alarmed me already. I knew those girls forced her to do that."

As Jiwon continued to narrate what those girls and the crowd had done to you, Baekhyun's eyes quickly went sharp and filled with irritation. He pursed his lips as his arms wrapped around you more.

"I'll take you guys home." Baekhyun didn't ask, he straight out said as he gently slipped his hands on your back with the other under your knees. Jiwon almost squealed at the sight as he easily took you in his arms. Just like a prince carrying his princess.

She almost forgot that Byun Baekhyun is a fucking playboy.

Realizing this, Jiwon's smile turned into a frown. Her eyes glinting in annoyance.

"We can handle ourselves, Baekhyun." Her voice suddenly went stern, turning a 360° change in Baekhyun's hearing. "The night's still young, and I know you don't want to miss anything—"

"My car's just at the back of this garden. It's too crowded in front of the mansion." Baekhyun ignored what she said and started walking deeper into the garden. Jiwon didn't have a chance to argue as she watched his back on her. "You staying here?"

"No! I'll go!" She exclaimed as she quickly followed him.

You were still in deep sleep as Baekhyun arrived in front of his black Mustang, Jiwon gasped as her eyes feasted on their ride.

"Can you open the door?" She snapped out of her fantasy when Baekhyun called. She quickly opened the passenger seat, and let him carefully place your sleeping figure inside.

"Get in the back. We'll go now."

The ride was silent, only Jiwon's instructions to your apartment were heard. Baekhyun kept on glancing at you, with his hand grasping on top of the steering wheel. Your best friend couldn't help but to clear her throat as she watched him almost bumping on to the motorcycle in front.

"It's quite near the campus, huh?" Baekhyun broke the ice as he slowed down on the side, in front of the building Jiwon pointed earlier. Jiwon just hummed as she opened the door. Baekhyun quickly went out and opened the passenger seat door.

"I can handle from here." Jiwon was fast enough to get to you before him, her hand slipping behind you. You groaned as your eyes slightly opened. "We're home, Jin-ah. Stand up."

Recognizing your best friend's voice, you complied. Jiwon guided you out of the car with her arms on your shoulders. Baekhyun just watched as you mumbled under your breath, making him chuckle.

"Thank you for taking us home, Baekhyun." Jiwon said before waving at him with a smile. "Enjoy the rest of the night!"

Baekhyun just nodded as he closed the door, eyes watching your back until you were inside the building. He sighed while walking back to the driver's side. He remembered how sad your eyes were when you talked to him.

He doesn't feel like having fun now.

"Those people need to be taught a lesson though." Baekhyun muttered irritatedly as he drove off. He unconsciously gripped on the wheel harder, his eyes dimming with annoyance. They made you break down like that.

Maybe, he can have fun in a different way.

—

"Urgh."

Your forehead creased as your eyes squinted open, hands sliding up to your head as it felt like it was being smashed on by tons of bricks. With half-opened eyes, you glanced at the windows and saw that it was almost morning. The dark blue sky was slowly getting lighter, the bright stars slowly being unseen.

"The same old Saejin." You mumbled with a wince as you recall what happened last night. You were deceived once again, taking the bait with tears in your eyes. "How come you never change?"

"Jin-ah?"

You tried sitting up without whimpering at the pain in your head as you heard Jiwon knocking on your door. You groaned as you failed, leaning back on the headboard. The door opened as Jiwon's head peeked behind it.

"You awake?"

"Yeah, but my head's about to burst. Get me some ibuprofen and water, please?" You said with a weak smile, glancing her way. She nodded before running out again. You let out a deep breath as you closed your eyes again.

"I feel so tired facing them...I'm so tired fighting."

"We'll face them together then."

Your eyes shut open, mouth gaping at the sudden memory from last night. Your hands fell on your sides as your mind worked back to the happenings. You looked down at your palms.

You scooted closer to him as you felt comfort in his warm embrace. 

Your cheeks flared as you can still feel the warmth of his hug. You hugged him back, didn't you?

"I couldn't have done that to Byun Baekhyun, right?" You mumbled to yourself as you clicked your tongue. "You did, dumbass." You slapped your hand on your forehead, which you quickly regretted as you head pulsed hard. You groaned.

"It's not everyday that I see the prim and proper Saejin slapping herself while having a hangover."

You looked up at the grinning Jiwon beside your bed with a glass in her hand and a capsule on the other. She gave you the two things that will probably lessen your headache, you smiled gratefully.

"So, I bet you remembered what happened last night?" She slowly said as she sat next to you, her eyes observing your reaction. You gulped down everything first before looking back at her. "Why'd you go with them?"

"They said you'd be there, and you wanted me to be there." You explained, eyes on her. When she sadly smiled, you looked away. "I knew you probably didn't, but I still went."

"I wouldn't have wanted you to be around those people, Saejin."

"I know. I'm just too stupid to even hope I could at least try to go back to—"

"Stop going back there." Jiwon's usual cheerful voice was not present, instead, she spoke in a hard and stern one. "If they want to keep their ears closed, let them. If they don't want to believe in you until this world ends, let them. Fuck what they think!"

You flinched at her words, but you felt your heart being held onto gently. It comforted you so much even though you know she's probably the only one who's on your side.

How come just because of one incident, my life will change forever?

"I cooked breakfast." Jiwon said as she stood up, eyebrows furrowing. "It's better to eat on the counter than here." She mumbled before turning her back to you.

She must be upset. She's been reminding me every time, no wonder she's getting tired of it.

You nodded as you looked at the empty glass in your hands.

"Yong Sun-ah, what curse had you brought to me?"

If only you didn't follow what she said, all of this wouldn't have happened.

It wasn't me.

—

♫ Ch.7

[bubonickitten]

TMA fic: where there’s a will, we make a way

Decided to start writing a multi-chapter time travel AU fic to get me through S5, lmao. 

Cross-posted to AO3 here.

ETA: Chapter 2 is up. (tumblr // AO3)

Summary:

"So, what does happen if an Eye learns to See within itself? What happens is this: the Archive Beholds the Watcher – and the Watcher blinks first." Or: Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

CWs for Chapter 1: canon-typical horror & sadness; canon-typical spiders; mentions of canon-typical trauma (including being held captive by the Circus); (temporary) major character death/absence; spoilers up to and including MAG 169.

And, a couple things from the top:

For this chapter and the next, Jon's dialogue will consist entirely of statements from the episodes (cited in the end notes), but he'll have original dialogue at some point (probably by chapter 3).

TEMPORARY CHARACTER DEATH/ABSENCE: Martin's absence is left intentionally vague (and there are moments in the first couple chapters of Jon grieving for him), BUT I promise Martin will be back (probably by chapter 3 or 4 once I figure out how I want to pace things). Time travel is great like that.

The first couple chapters will be rough but I promise it won't be all bummers going forward.

___________________________________________

Chapter 1: Hubris

At the end of the world, as a tape recorder clicks on, uncountable eyes open wide and the Archive begins to speak.

  “There is a tower at the center of creation.

 "It juts up from the scorched earth, casting its oppressive shadow over all, so certain of its rightful place in this world. But although it may appear sturdy and eternal, it is, like everything else in this place, decaying – more slowly than the rest, but moving inexorably toward its own extinction all the same.

  “In the dying light of a ruined world, it Watches over all that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and leads and dies. For now, it is sated and gorged on the fear permeating its perfect world – but what happens when the fear runs out? There will come a time when each pinprick of life blinks out around it, one by one, taunting it with the dreadful knowledge of its ultimate, encroaching fate: a slow, agonizing death of boredom and isolation and starvation. 

  “And it will hurt.

  "Nothing lasts forever, but rest assured: the tower will be the last thing standing, wilting alone in a barren and desiccated realm of its own making.

  “It will be outlived only by death itself, and even then, only for the briefest of moments.

  “The tower is a monument to hubris, and as such, it is destined to collapse.”

 The recorder clicks off and Jonathan Sims comes back to himself, standing alone before the menacing bulk of the Panopticon.

 The statement was shorter than he's used to, but it isn't surprising – he can't See much here, in the Watcher's domain. Still, it took a lot out of him. He barely has time to take a breath, though, before a familiar door opens up in the ground just in front of him, its yellow paint chipped and faded. The Distortion’s ringing laughter ripples up from the ground and Jon closes his eyes, sighs heavily, and counts to ten.

 “No ‘hello’ for me, Archivist?” Helen pulls herself up and out of her door to loom over him. “You’ve become quite rude these past few… how long has it been?”

 Shaking his head, Jon readjusts the straps of his backpack and starts to walk. Helen, of course, prowls after him. Her gait seems different, Jon realizes, and when he trains his sight on her – yes, apparently she’s added an extra kneecap to her left leg. She watches him with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes, daring him to comment on her latest modification, but he’s learned by now that it’s best not to encourage the Distortion.

 “That was a rather short monologue for you. I very much doubt your patron will be satiated.”

 “Oh, how I wish he’d go away,”  Jon mutters under his breath. The pronoun is wrong, but it still gets the point across, and Helen is familiar enough with his current mode of communication to catch his meaning.

 “Still voiceless, are we? It must be very frustrating for you. Reduced to rifling through others’ trauma, forced to appropriate someone else’s terror any time you want to talk. It really is a shame your lexicon is so… limited. You’ve always had such a lovely voice. It seems a waste to deny it any novelty.”

  Ignore her. Count to ten. Breathe.

 “Silent treatment?” Helen pouts. “Well, that’s fine. I can speak enough for the both of us.”

 Jon wishes he could comment on the irony of It Is Lies telling the truth, but the Archive doesn’t offer up any fitting statements. Probably for the best, really; as a rule, he tries not to let Helen rile him. Tries being the key word.

 “Off to see the Watcher? I do wonder how our dear Jonah is doing these days. You’re curious too, aren’t you? You can’t See anything in there. You have no idea what you’re walking into.” Helen’s lips curl in a too-wide smile. “That must drive you mad.”

 Jon ignores her. Even if he had something to say, he expects he would be speechless at the moment, beholding the Panopticon. The tower bears no resemblance to the Magnus Institute he remembers. It’s the tallest thing left in the wasteland, now; standing at its base and looking up, it’s impossible to estimate exactly how high it stretches. He could Know, but he doesn’t care to. (The Eye bristles at his refusal to ask the question; Jon dismisses it with an almost childish defiance.)

 All of the surrounding buildings have been reduced to dust and rubble, and there is no remaining evidence of there ever having been a street. The composition of the tower's walls is entirely obscured by a viscous coating of –

  …aqueous humor, grave dirt, assorted viscera, sawdust, flensed dermis, dental pulp, spider silk…

 – Jon closes his eyes and shoves the Knowledge away with a practiced resolve. Its content is no more unsettling than anything else he’s encountered, but even after all this time, having the Beholding hijack his thoughts is still nauseating. He had experienced intrusive thoughts long before becoming the Archivist, but Knowing takes the experience to an entirely different level.

 After the moment has passed, Jon opens his eyes again. He can’t tell if the tower no longer has windows, or if they’re just hidden by the horror cocktail smothering its exterior. He supposes it doesn’t really matter either way; the Watcher doesn’t need windows to See outside.

 The staircase stretching to the entrance is impossibly long, and the stairs are of the narrow, shallow variety that never accommodate anyone’s stride. Jon sighs as he places one foot on the bottom step.

 “That looks like an awfully long climb,” Helen observes. “And a tripping hazard. I would offer you a shortcut, but… well, you know.” She winks and flashes him a wicked grin just as her door materializes beneath her feet, dropping her down into a vertical corridor. “See you at the top, Archivist,” she calls cheerfully, her door slamming behind her and vanishing.

 Jon rolls his eyes and ascends the stairs.

___________________________________________

The enormous doors to the tower are already open when Jon reaches the top of the steps. The moment he crosses the threshold, he is bathed in a blinding white light and every one of his eyes reflexively snaps shut. One by one, the extra eyes he has grown so accustomed to wink out of existence until finally, for the first time in forever, he has just the two he was born with. It’s jarring, having his hundredfold, 360-degree sight so suddenly reduced back to a binocular field of vision, but it feels oddly freeing.   

 At the same time, he doesn’t quite know what to make of it. Does the Watcher want him at a disadvantage? Is there something inherent to the Panopticon that allows only the Ceaseless Watcher itself to See, rendering all others – even its Archive – effectively blind? What if - 

 “Look at you!” Helen chirps directly into his ear, cackling when he startles. “My, you spook easily, Archivist. Not very becoming for one who Sees all and revels in the terror he has wrought –”

 Jon is already walking away. The light isn’t as overwhelming as it was before, but he still has to squint against it. As far as he can see, the interior of the tower is a flat expanse of white. He can't perceive any walls, ceiling, even a floor, making it impossible to guess the size of the place – or if it has an end at all.

 “Do you actually Know where you’re going?”

 “I was finding it really hard to get a solid idea on where we were,”  Jon admits.

 “Yes. It’s quite like the tunnels, isn’t it? You never could See down there, either. What did you call it – ‘a universal blind spot’? Strange, how your voyeurism touches everything except your own domain.”

 “I come to you not to wallow in my condition – but to request your assistance.”  Helen hasn’t been any help in ages, but Jon figures it’s worth a try.

 Helen simply laughs. “What assistance could I possibly offer? You are the most powerful thing the apocalypse has to offer, Archivist. Aside from the Entities themselves, that is. I’m certain you can figure it out on your own. As I’ve told you so many times, all you have to do is embrace it.” Jon glares at her. “Now, as much as I would love to stay and watch you get terribly lost, I believe there are more interesting things going on in the world.”

 With that, her door swings open on the ground in front of her.

 “I thanked them as they left, even though they had been of no help whatsoever,”  Jon grumbles to himself. 

 “You are tetchy today,” Helen teases. “Well, I’ll check back in with you later.”

 She steps off the ledge and plummets down through her door again, pulling it shut after her.

 Jon pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. It’s incredible how after all this time, even a short encounter with the Distortion leaves him feeling drained.

 But she did have a point. He never could See in the tunnels, but that was before he became the Archive. As he is now, he probably has a better chance of finding his way than Helen would. It’s just that doing so is bound to be… unpleasant. No use putting it off, though.

 He closes his eyes, looks inward, opens the door, and –

 A churning deluge of information crashes into him, sweeping him along in its undertow, and all at once, he’s drowning.

  …the equatorial circumference of Jupiter was 439,263.8 kilometres before it was devoured by the ravenous Falling Titan…

  …Mr. Spider has taken up residence behind innumerable doors – not every door, but any door. It has an average of one guest for dinner every 39 minutes and still it is hungry… 

  …the Sandman and the Buried wage war over scraps within the catacombs of Paris, now located approximately 6,294.2 kilometres below creation and sinking…

  …as of 23.8 seconds ago, the Crawling Rot and the Lightless Flame have completed their race to consume the endless apartment block located at the corner of Nowhere and –

 Jon shakes his head and tries to refine his search.

  Tell me about Jonah Magnus.

  …Jonah Magnus was born in –

 Tell me where I can find Jonah Magnus.

  …Jonah Magnus is –

 A wave of force crashes into Jon like a freight train and then he’s back in the white space, eyes open, gasping for air and struggling to fill his aching lungs.

 It comes as no surprise that the Ceaseless Watcher doesn’t want him to Know the way, but if the Eye didn’t want to be Seen, it should have picked someone less inquisitive. Or less stubborn.

 He takes a deep breath, steels himself, and dives back in.

  …in a hollowed-out sanctuary of bone and gristle, the Boneturner scavenges uselessly for –

  Tell me where to find Jonah Magnus.

 A harsh buzz of static starts to ring in his ears.

  …the Distortion in its corridors waits for –

  Show me how to reach Jonah Magnus.

 The static pitches up into a shrill whine.

  …Martin Blackwood’s last –

  A̵N̴S̸W̴E̸R̶ ̷M̷E̷.̷

 The noise reaches an earsplitting crescendo, then cuts out abruptly and –

 When the Archive opens its myriad eyes, it Knows the way.

___________________________________________

Once the Knowledge settles in his mind, it's as if a veil has been lifted; the empty, directionless white void resolves itself into perceptible details. Jon finds himself standing in a cavernous, cylindrical space. Countless iron-barred prison cells are recessed into weathered red-brick walls, stacked vertically one on top of the other and stretching all the way up to an impossibly high vaulted ceiling covered in… cobwebs.

 Of course. It figures the Web would have infiltrated this place. In fact, it had probably staked out its territory when the initial foundations for Millbank Prison were laid and had simply never left. 

 Jon shudders and looks away. Or tries to, anyway – there are always a few recalcitrant eyes that linger on the things he does not want to See.    

 He turns his attention to the observation tower. Its looming presence seems to take up the entire room, radiating a palpable sense of dread. There is nowhere in this world that its gaze cannot reach, but being this close to it is nearly unbearable.

 It hurts.

 Jon forces himself to stand there, to experience and endure the sheer weight of its omniscient scrutiny concentrated wholly on him. This is what it’s like to be Seen by the Archive, and Jon needs to Know how it feels – how it felt when he turned the Ceaseless Watcher’s gaze upon the monsters he met on the journey to the Panopticon.

 And it hurts.

 It’s like having his consciousness torn to shreds, every memory and thought and experience comprising his existence ripped out of him, pinned under a microscope, dissected with precision, classified and then hoarded away by a dispassionate curator. It’s sharp angles and blinding lights and throat-rending screams and scalding heat; it’s burrowing worms and scalpel blades and crushing earth and cold plastic hands; it’s fear and pain and love and loss and it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts –  

 Jon’s knees give out and he crumples to the floor, panting, resting his head in his twitching hands as the aftershocks of white-hot pain ripple through him. He lets himself roll over onto his side and curl into a fetal position while he waits for the tremors to stop.

 Martin wouldn’t have approved, but Jon had to Know. He had to Know what it was like, if the monsters he killed deserved it, if the punishment was proportionate to the crime, and –

 They did and it was. He can confidently say that each sentence he handed out was justified, and it’s somewhat of a relief.

 Beyond that, though, experiencing it firsthand was the best way he could think to fully appreciate the consequences of allowing his potential to go unchallenged and unrestrained, and to make clearer the distinction between Jonathan Sims, the Watched and the Archive, the Watcher – or conduit of the Watcher, at least. If nothing else, the memory of it will be an anchor going forward – a searing reminder of how much is at stake and the ultimate cost should his plan fail. 

 And, of course, it was also an effective way to assess the power he has at his disposal, to determine whether he’s strong enough for his plan to work. He did survive it, at least, which seems like a good sign. Hopefully it's a good sign.

 As the pain fades to a dull ache, he pushes himself to his feet and takes a minute to compose himself before entering the observation tower. He has not come eye to eye with Jonah Magnus since before the world ended, before he forced himself through the domains of each and every fear that marked him, before he completed his metamorphosis. That was the point of the journey, he realizes now: reliving the terror and retracing every mark was necessary for him to emerge as the fully-fledged Archive.

 He hopes it was all worth it.

 Jon takes a deep breath, braces himself, and crosses the threshold.

___________________________________________

 Jonah Magnus is a pitiful sight.

 He sits slumped on the Watcher’s throne within his lonely observation tower, ropes of spider silk binding him in place. The look in his eyes when he beholds his Archive is entirely unreadable, and Jon doesn’t care to Know. 

 Well – his two original eyes, in any case. The other eyes bulging through Jonah’s skin – bloodshot, rolling and twitching in all directions, and glowing a repellent shade of green – belong to the Watcher, and all they contain is a cold, measured fascination. Jon wonders absently whether they might cluster beneath the skin as well, a fitting mirror of Albrecht von Closen’s gruesome fate. Martin would have appreciated the poetic justice of that thought.

 Jon takes a step forward.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever know what they expected to happen.”

 The Archive’s voice rips through the silence like a clap of thunder on a clear day. There is something of a command threaded through the words, a power that brooks no argument and permits no lies. Jonah flinches at the force of it, and Jon takes that as his cue to continue; he has Jonah’s full attention now.

 “It’s weird, isn’t it, the things that can change your life?” Jon wonders, briefly, how Tim would feel about his statement being repurposed like this. Hopefully he would approve, seeing the way Elias – Jonah – is rendered silent and cowed in its wake, even if Jon’s voice is the vehicle. Either way, stolen words are Jon’s only option, and so he presses on: “You can plan for all the devastating, terrible possibilities you can imagine, and it’ll always be those tiny, unexpected things that get you. You know, the things that you never even noticed as they were happening, just… just nudging everything into motion. But even if there was a way I could have known, I really don’t think I’d be able to have stopped him.”

 When Jonah opens his mouth as if to speak, Jon catches a glimpse of a roving eye sprouting from Jonah’s tongue. What comes out is not words, but a small spider, creeping languidly over his lip and up his cheek, as if summoned by the Archive’s mere mention of manipulation. Even from a distance, Jon can See all eight of its eyes focus on him.

 The Spider perches there, patient and waiting. Whether she is issuing an invitation, a challenge, or simple, curious observation, the Archive does not know, and Jon will not waste his energy searching for the answer.

 Curiosity always was Jonathan Sims’ fatal flaw. It can be an asset in small doses, but Jon habitually took it to endangering and self-destructive extremes. By now he has learned how to wield that curiosity with precision, patience, and careful calculation. It was a lesson hard won and at great cost, but now he knows: there is a difference between a constructive avenue of inquiry and a dead end. One leads to answers that need knowing; the other only sates the Eye’s voracious appetite and leaves Jon adrift and wanting. The trick is to prioritize – which means accepting the existence of questions that aren’t worth asking.

 The Eye balks at an unsolved mystery, and the Archive’s every instinct drives Jon to seek, to ask, to know at any and all costs – but this is not the first time he has weathered the dueling instincts of Archive, Archivist, and human, and it will not be the last. If he stands in the crossfire long enough, breathes through the dissonance, and allows himself to simply exist as the strange, contradictory gestalt his apotheosis has made him… eventually, he can find the quiet.

 In any case, the Archive’s eyes outnumber the Spider’s by far, and Jon meets her gaze with a resolve that still feels new and untested, but unyielding nonetheless. Neither of them blink, but the Spider does eventually – slowly, so slowly – crawl away and out of sight.

 A stalemate. Jon expected nothing more or less; these confrontations with the Web never have a satisfying conclusion, only a protracted, stop-and-start hiatus. 

 When Jon feels the Spider’s presence fade away, he lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. For all his bravado, the fear never has gone away. He suspects that the Eye would never give him the choice in the first place. It isn’t enough to Know or See the contents of his library – he has to live them, feel them, share in them, or else the knowledge is not comprehensive. The Beholding requires more than facts and words and retellings. It demands the insight and dread that comes only from lived experience, and it has no use for an Archive that cannot fully experience its own catalog.

 If Jon was given the choice, though, he still wouldn’t give up the fear. It’s the fabric of this world, which makes it a reliable anchor as long as it exists. It tethers him to his humanity; it reminds him of his reason; it keeps him moving forward.

 And so, he approaches the Watcher’s throne, and the Archive resumes its recitation:

  “I continue to see in you the reflection of my own past hubris.”

 It’s a nice touch, Jon thinks, using Robert Smirke’s dying words to rub salt in the wound, and the surge of stunned outrage on Jonah’s face confirms that for him.

 “Why does a man seek to destroy the world?"

 Jonah’s human eyes widen ever so slightly as he recognizes his own words.

  “…you would quite willingly doom that world and confine the billions in it to an eternity of terror and suffering, all to ensure your own happiness, to place yourself beyond pain and death and fear.”

 Jon kneels before the throne, a mocking gesture of fealty to a man who so arrogantly believed that he was to be –

 “…a king of a ruined world” – he pauses, fast-forwarding the statement in his mind, picking through disparate fragments to cobble together something that can convey his intended meaning – “had miscalculated.” Another pause, and then: “The ritual failed."

 Jonah squirms against his bindings, though whether it is in fear or frustration or anger, Jon does not know. He does not need to know, and he strangles that alien part of him that wants to taste exactly what flavor of distress struggles in front of him. He refuses to feed the Eye, even if it is at Jonah’s expense.  

 “…as much a victim as any” – Jon gives a curt nod to indicate Jonah – “trapped in the nightmare landscape of a twisted world.” 

 When he sees the glint of the knife, Jonah’s eyes widen further and he redoubles his thrashing. Jon is flooded with memories of his month held captive by the Circus – rough ropes chafing at his bare skin; cold, plastic hands slathering him in strong-smelling lotions; the bruises that lingered long after he escaped through the Spiral’s door. Part of him wishes that he could enjoy seeing Jonah like this – the one who orchestrated that trauma and so many others – but all he feels is that familiar revulsion that rises up in him any time he catches a whiff of shea butter.

 Another, louder part of him is relieved to find that even after everything, he still can’t quite bring himself to find pleasure in torture.

 Taking revenge on Jude Perry, obliterating the NotThem – it felt good in the immediate aftermath, to make them appreciate the terror and pain they had wrought, to stand in their presence not as a victim but as a long-overdue consequence. As soon as the adrenaline wore off, though, he would always crash. Whether or not they deserved their fates was never what haunted him the most. It was the simple act of using the same power that destroyed the world that always left him feeling sick, guilty, divorced from what remained of his humanity, and terrified of what he could become if he embraced his role as the Archive. It felt good in the same way that stealing live statements used to, and that terrified him.

 Still, Jon has a point to make. He draws the knife to Jonah’s face and holds the tip mere centimetres from his right eye, poised to strike. Jonah freezes and Jon stares him down. The Archive’s uncountable eyes open wide and focus laser-like on a single point, and he waits for the would-be king to blink first.

 And he does.

 With that, Jon stands and drops the knife. As it clatters to the floor, Jonah opens his human eyes ever so slightly, looking at the discarded weapon and then back to his Archive with uncertainty etched onto his face.

 “…didn’t even have the decency to kill me,” the Archive says. Jon swallows down a reflexive wave of revulsion at the memory of Peter Lukas’ voice, but he needs Jonah to understand this choice his Archivist has made, to truly appreciate the fate to which he is being condemned.  

 The Archive reaches for Gertrude next:“They might even stop death entirely, deny us the one last escape, keeping us alive and afraid – forever.”

 It takes a moment for the words to sink in, but slowly, ever so slowly, the existential terror dawns in Jonah’s eyes. His greatest fear may have always been mortality, but faced with the reality of what an immortal existence could actually entail, well…

  “You’ll get used to it here, in the world that we have made."

 Jonah Magnus’ own triumphant declaration reverberates through the space in the voice of the Archive he forced into being. The words sound as smug and gleeful as they did the first time the Archivist read them to an empty room, on the day he opened the door. 

 Behind it all, though, is Jonathan Sims. Not the Archive, not the Archivist, just… Jon. He feels no catharsis, no gratification, no closure. He just feels tired.

 But he didn’t come all this way to the Panopticon just to monologue at Jonah Magnus. This is the stronghold of the Eye, and that makes it Jon’s best chance of actually communing with the Beholding.

 He places the tape recorder on the floor next to the knife and turns his back on the man who sought to reign over a desolated world. As Jon walks away, the recorder clicks on, and the Archive’s final statement begins to play:

  “There is a tower at the center of creation…”

__________________________________

End notes:

- Jon’s dialogue is taken from the statements in the following episodes, in order: MAG 85; MAG 149; MAG 098; MAG 027; MAG 137; MAG 104; MAG 138; MAG 160 (x4); MAG 159; MAG 162; MAG 160 (again). 

[xmalereader]

Newt Scamander X Male Reader

-

|| Masterlist ||

-

Summary: Reader is a muggle that saves and befriends a thunderbird. Later that thunderbird does the same.

Warnings: fluff, language, MxM, muggle, wizard.

-

-

It was storming outside as y/n tried to rush back home from work, it’s been a week since it’s been raining and he was slowly starting to hate it. Don’t get him wrong, he opens the rain but this past week it’s been storming with strong weather and it just didn’t want to stop.

Reaching the large apartment building he stumbled inside and breaths heavily as he removed his hat and hangs it up. “Ah, Mr. L/n! I seen that the rain has gotten you again.” His landlord lady says as she came out from her room.

Y/n chuckled with a small smile on his lips. “It’s not the first time.” He tells her as he removed his coat and hangs it up as well. “Did I get any mail?” He asks, walking Over to her, still covered in water. His landlord rolled her eyes, “You a few letters from family and your rent.” Y/n takes the envelopes and chuckled,

“I’ll get you your money by the end of the week.” He tells her as he heads upstairs and bids her a Goodnight. Heading up stairs to his own room, unlocking it He steps inside and tossed his mail on the coffee table. He’s been getting letters from his family and he’s been ignoring them. Ever since he’s told them about his dreams and drawings of him seeing weird like creatures, they all thought of him crazy!

He kept his artwork hidden from everyone that he knew, Including friends. He didn’t want people telling him that he was crazy about seeing such creatures that aren’t real. So, he decided to remain everything hidden and pretend like everything is normal in this world.

Stripping off his clothes he sets them down by the fire and heads to the bathroom to take a warm shower to keep himself from getting a cold. He lets the warm water trail down his body as he leans against the wall, lying his forehead on the wall as he thinks. He’s been working harder now and days, trying to keep himself busy and to forget about his dreams but each night was the same. He would wake up in a sweat and go straight to his desk to draw out what he dreamed about, it was mostly about mythical creatures.

Finishing up his shower he heads out and grabs some clothes, changing into them after he dried off, he kept the towel around his neck as he walks around the apartment. Making himself something to eat and some tea. “Let’s see what’s new...” he whispered to hisemlf as he held his drawing book and a pencil in hand, sitting down on the couch. Opening up the notebook, he flips through the many pages of different creatures that he’s dreamed of. Last night he had another one, it was about a small like leaf creature, it had a set of root arms and legs that would form out a small body. He began to sketch it out, getting every detail that he could Rememeber.

It didn’t take long for him to finish up, finishing his masterpiece he smiled at himself. “Good job.” He praised as he closed it up and sets it down, reaching over for his cup of tea he gasps as he noticed how the lights in his apartment shut off and a loud thud was heard above. “The power must’ve gone out.” He stands up and searched for the candles that he stored away close by the window. Finding one he lights it up and looks outside the window to see the other side of the street without light. “Guess it’s not Just us.”

Grabbing a blanket he wraps it around himself to keep himself warm from the cold weather, heading downstairs he sees the other owners out as well. “What happened?” He asks.

“A black out apparently, all of this rain is blocking us out.” The old man that lived just below him says as he huffs and grumbled. Y/n rolled his eyes, “it should be back soon.”

“It’s not just us! Half the city block lights are out as well.” Mrs. Gomez says as she held her blanket close to her body. “Ah, Stop freaking out it’ll come back on.” The landlord says as she crossed her arms. “Just return back to to your rooms and you’ll see that it’ll be back on soon.”

Y/n turns around and heads back up to the top floor where he lives.

“So much for help...” he whispered to himself, passing by the stairway that led up the roof, he was stopped by a Chirp. Loud enough for him to hear it.

Looking up the stairs he glanced over his shoulders to make sure that no one was watching him. Heading up the stairs he reached the main door to the rooftop, slowly opening it he noticed that it was raining softly now. Stepping outside In only his socks (which he regrets) he looks around the roof and sighs. “Must’ve been my imagination.” He turns around to head back inside only to freeze in spot when he sees a giant like bird standing right in front of him.

His breath is caught in between his throat as he tried to say something, but nothing would come out.

The giant bird tilts its head in questioning as it watched y/n carefully. Wondering if this person is a threat or not. Y/n slowly steps back, “Nice Little? Birdy...” he breaths out as he continued to move backwards to avoid the birds attention. Before he could take another step he noticed the bird shift around, trying to walk over to the edge. It spreads its left wing out but it’s Right was tucked away.

Y/n tilts his head as he stared at it. He noticed the way it looked, it looked broken.

The first thing that came to y/n’s Mind was to help this creature. He slowly approached and gets the birds attention, “Hey buddy...listen I’m not gonna yet you, I noticed your broken wing.” He says as he reached out slowly. “Would you mind-?”

The bird flinched and glared down at him trying to move away from the other male. “Shh it’s okay...” he pulls his hand away when he heard the large bird hiss back in anger. Y/n bites his lip as he lets out a sigh of frustration. “Alright I won’t force you.” He tells the golden like bird.

The giant bird tilts its head, slowly it lowers its head down to sniff at y/n’s face. He stayed still in spot as he lets the large bird sniff him out, letting him know that he wasn’t going to hurt him. The large thunderbird moves away, slowly it lied down and slowed y/n to look at his wing.

Y/n smiled weakly as he approached again, he placed his hand on the large wing and gasps. “Whoa, it’s soft.” He cooed out as he quickly examines the broken wing. He lifts it up carefully and nods, “You must’ve hit it against something to get a large mark like that.” He tells the thunderbird and smirks. “I’ll be right back, stay here!” He rushed towards the door. “Stay!” He turns around to see the thunderbird watching him.

Smiling softly he quickly heads inside to grab the things he needs. He just really hopes that this isn’t all a dream, he didn’t want to end up on the roof again only to notice that it was his imagination. Getting to his apartment he quickly grabs the things he needed like: bandages, food, blankets, and maybe some books in Case he got bored.

It didn’t take long for him to return back to the roof only to see the giant thunderbird still sitting there and waiting. “Good to know that it wasn’t my imagination.” He says as he smiled. Walking over he sets everything down, “Alright let me check your wing again.”

The thunderbird chirps and slowly lifts its broken wing up, doing as y/n Said as he let him inspect the broken wing. The older male frowns softly as he sees a few scratch marks under the feathers, his curiosity hits him as he reached up to touch them with a gentle hand and to stroke down the lines. The thunderbird tilts its head in confusion, looking under its wing to see y/n He cooed.

Y/n looks up to face the thunderbird and chuckled. “Sorry, I’ll fix this up quickly.” He grabs some bandages and began to fix up his wing. It was a very large wing but the birds Injuries were small so not much work is needed. It takes y/n awhile to fix up everything before finishing up. “All done.” He allows the giant bird to inspect the wrapping, it tilted its head in different directions. A confused expression was noticeable on the birds features.

“It’ll heal soon, it just takes time...so In the mean time you have to stay up here where it’s safe.” He spoke to the mysterious creature. He didn’t know why he felt so comfortable around such a strange creature, he should be freaking out and telling his neighbors!

But deep down he knows that he shouldn’t be telling anyone about this, he should keep it a secret. Just like how he keeps secrets about everything.

Y/n spent the rest of the night on the roof, he couldn’t really leave the thunderbirds side without causing trouble. He sat down across from the creature, leaving a bit of space. He didn’t want to piss off the bird, I mean he did help the bird but he didn’t know if that meant thag they were in good terms. Y/n was reading one of his books, the book lied on his lap as he scans each sentence as he read.

The thunderbird was watching the human male. He expected the human to immediately expose him to the human world, but instead all he got was patiences and silence.

Before y/n could read the next chapter he caught a glimpse of the sun rise. “Shit!” Standing up quickly he groans. “I can’t believe that I lost track of time! What time is it? Am I gonna be late?” He rushed around the roof collecting his things and hiding them behind pots and inside a shed. Before he could head inside he quickly remembered about the thunderbird. “Um...” he began to think and groans. “Just hide.” He grabs the blanket he had and placed it on top of the thunderbirds head to keep him “hidden”, y/n said a quick goodbye as he heads to his room to get ready.

The thunderbird was able to pull the blanket off its head only to see y/n gone. The giant thunderbird stands up in surprise, where did the human go? He did a quick 360 around him only to see no one. He lied back back down in his spot and chirps softly, waiting for the human to return back.

• • •

“Your late.”

“This is my first time coming late.”

Y/n was panting softly. He ended up running to work after finding out how late he was. Y/n worked as a regular Artist, he would usually work at home with his projects but he liked working at a building with more people to socialize with. His manager stood in front of him with crossed arms, “I don’t care if it’s your first time. You have work that has to be finished by today.”

Y/n rolled his eyes, placing his things on his desk and taking out his notebook. He grabs a blank canvas from the equipment room. “I’ll have it done at the end of the day, promise.” He answers to his manager.

He began to draw the outline of his new project, it didn’t take long for him to sketch it all out before adding the color. Y/n spent half of the day at work, he was actually able to finish up early and was aloud to leave home early, (which he was glad too after not sleeping at all) .

The weather was better in the afternoon. It was no longer raining and the sun was shinning down at them, slowly setting to end the day. He walked back to his apartment, spiting the veg large building he looks up to see if he was able to spot the golden bird but to his luck he couldn’t. Smiling, he steps off the curve only to hear a loud thundering and strong lighting. “What the hell.” He breaths out as he ran to his building, trying to avoid the rain from ruining his clothes. Right as he stepped foot Inside it started pouring, hard.

Y/n quickly takes the stairs to the roof, he wanted to make sure that the thunderbird was alright. Dropping his things by his doorway he doesn’t hesitate to head straight up the ladder. He exits the building and onto the roof only to see several men trying to hurt the thunderbird.

“Get away from him!!” Y/n shouts as he glared.

The five strange men turned to see y/n. “A no-maj!”

“Obliviate him!”

One of them stepped up and held out their wand, pointing towards y/n.

The thunderbird sees this and gets angry, he lets out a loud screech as he knocks down the wizards using his tail. He stood in front of y/n in a protective way. “Get that damn thing under control and that no-maj!” One man shouts as they began to throw hexes as the thunderbird. “Stop it! Your hurting him!!” Y/n shouted as he backs up from the chaos.

Everything was moving so fast, the thunderbird was flapping it’s now healed wing at the wizards. Trying to back them off, y/n pants as he takes another step back only to gasp, he noticed how close to the edge he was. The men were stepping closer, the more steps they take the further they had to go back.

One of the wizards kept throwing hexes, not stopping. It was trying to tire out the thunderbird from fighting back. Y/n glared at him, he ignored the other four wizards that were trying to stop the thunderbird from doing anything else.

“Hey!” Y/n shouts. “Leave the damn thunderbird alone.” He says as he gently grips the creatures feathers. The thunderbird flaps its wings harshly and picks up y/n by the shirt. Y/n gasps as he gets lifted up into the air.

“Oh my god!! Oh god!” He shouts in panic as he groans. “I think I’m gonna faint...or throw up.” He moans out. The thunderbird used his beak to place y/n on his back as they flew through the sky.

Y/n grips the thunderbirds feathers as he kept his head ducked down. He hated heights and flying just made things worse for him, “where exactly are we going?!” He shouts as he feels the wind against his cheeks.

The thunderbird only chirped in response as he continued to fly through the clear sky. Y/n sighs as he pressed his forehead against the back of the birds head, he closed his eyes and contained to breath slowly. “It’s all gonna be over...” he whispered to himself as he slowly drift off to sleep.

The flight only took a few hours before the thunderbird arrives at their locations. Landing in a large clear grass field, the thunderbird began to cry out in a singing kind of rhythm. This caused y/n to jolt awake and to fall off the birds back, “Ow...” he groans out as he gets up from the grass and grunts. “Where are we?” He asks as he stands up to see the open ocean as he stood on top of the mountain edge. “Holy shit where are we?!” He asks again.

“Frank?”

Y/n turns around to see a man in a blue coat. “Where did you come from? And who are you!” He ran over to Frank to keep him protected. (Even though he was a Tiny human being) Frank rolled his eyes as he chirps towards the British man. “It’s been a while Frank. I thought you went home.” The British man asks as he walks over carefully and stretched out his hand to stroke the thunderbirds feathers.

Y/n watched the Two and raised a brow in confusion. “Okay...” he says. “Hate to ruin the moment but where am I? And who are you? And what is going on?!” He began to repeat everything again as he panics.

The British man smiled shyly. “I’m Newt. Newt Scamander. And this is Frank he’s a thunderbird and a very rare species.” Y/n stared up at Frank and glared. “That doesn’t quiet answer my question...” he grumbled out. Newt nods softly. “Your in England, out in the country actually...” he says softly as he avoids eye contact.

Y/n’s eyes widen. “I’m in what?!” He shouts as he walks over to Frank. “You! Take me back home right now!” He points up at Frank, the thunderbird tilts its head and chirps.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you-“

“Shush!” Y/n says as he turns back to Frank. “Frank, take me back to New York this instint.”

Frank turns his back towards y/n, ignoring him.

“Frank!” Y/n shouts again as he tried to get the birds attention but the creature kept ignoring him. Newt could only watch and chuckle softly as he noticed the two bonding with each other.

“What are you laughing at?!” Y/n shouts at newt in frustration. This caused the Brit to look away shyly. “It’s weird seeing frank bonding with someone else, he’s usually cautious...”

“Well that because I saved his life, his wing was all messed up and I helped him out, then these guys appeared and began to hurt him.” Y/n explains as he gently stroked franks beak and smiled softly before frank nuzzled his hand.

Newt fiddled with his hand and cleared his throat. “If you’ll like I can help you out. Frank won’t seem to listen to me but he does to you.”

Y/n glanced up at the thunderbird who only stared back before he Male nods. “Alright.” He says as he crosse dhis arms, newt nods in response and began to walk towards his hidden place where he kept his case safe.

“Oh, you never told me your name.” Said newt as he turns back around to face y/n.

Y/n bites his lip. “Y/n. Y/n L/n.” He answers and only gets a smile from newt.

“Welcome to the wizarding world, looks like you and frank will get along quiet well.” He Said before leaving towards his case.

Y/n raised a brow and sighs. “This is gonna be a long day isn’t?” He looks up to frank who only squeaks and began to follow newt.

“Yep, it is.” He grumbled out as he followed the other two.