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blossom-hwa · 2 months

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in the absence of heartbeats | k.th

pairing: Taehyun x gender neutral!reader genre: angst, fluff, vampire!taehyun, medium!reader warnings: violence word count: 4.8k notes: — been thinking of this idea for a while but the idea of writing a whole fic for it is very tiring so I decided to just write out this scene lol — for some clarification, my definition of a "medium" is just someone who can see and speak to ghosts! nothing more than that :) After a harrowing night, you find comfort in the cold arms of one with no heartbeat, but much warmth in his heart.

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It's close to two in the morning when you finally decide to leave the library. Your eyes are burning from the light of your computer and there's an ache in your neck from hunching over a desk for way too long, so even though you're not quite done with your essay you end up calling it quits. You haven't written anything substantial in the last half hour anyway.

All the while you're packing up, a prickle of unease won't stop rippling up and down your spine. It doesn't stop when you leave the room, footsteps echoing loudly in the halls, nor does it stop when you actually exit the library and step into the cool night air. A light wind breezes past your face, but it doesn't soothe you like it normally does after hours spent cramped in one of the quiet study rooms. You find yourself tensing up instead.

Experience tells you not to ignore the feeling. If the hair on your neck is standing up, it means something. What it could mean right now, you aren't sure—you've left the library late and made the short trek back to your apartment many times without issue—but something is wrong.

You look out at your dark campus, its sidewalks lit only by lamps and the moon. You look back at the library and its windows full of warm light. Almost unconsciously, you find yourself drawing the silver knife you always keep tucked away. You feel a little safer with the blade in your hand, but the prickle of unease doesn't fade away.

It's just so...empty. So quiet. Which shouldn't be that weird—it's nearly two in the morning, of course campus is going to be empty and quiet—but something about tonight's silence still feels unsettling. You glance around the expanse of campus again, and then it hits you.

There are no ghosts.

Instantly all of your exhaustion disappears, replaced by a heightened wariness at the situation. There aren't many ghosts who linger at your university—not compared to other places, at least—but there are usually a few hanging around. In fact, you've never been in an open place where there no ghosts, period. As you scan the campus perimeter again, your heart begins to race when you confirm that there are indeed no ghosts around, not even one trailing morosely over the quad.

Ghosts go where they wish. They usually tend to linger around their place of death or somewhere important to them when they were alive, but that's by their own choice. They're not bound to any one place like so many people believe. For them all to be avoiding your campus...

What—or who—could have chased them all away?

You swallow. Whoever they are, whatever they are, you don't want to meet them. Which means you need to get out of here as soon as possible.

So you hurry down the library steps, then start speed walking back to your apartment as fast as you can. It's just fifteen minutes away. You'll be fine.

Except, five minutes in, you realize that you haven't left the strange absence of ghosts behind.

In fact, it might just be following you.

You fight the urge to look back. Someone or something must be following you, but who the fuck would follow you from the library back to your apartment? Why the fuck would anyone want to? As far as anyone except a select group of people knows, you're just a regular college student struggling through finals week like the rest of them. The people who know you can see ghosts, or who at least know that something about you is linked to the supernatural, have no reason to follow you home.

Except...

Except one.

Your heart drops. Sanya. The guy who's been pestering you for weeks—the guy who asked you once if you could see ghosts, and who kept trying to catch you unawares to ask over and over and over again. Each time you said no. Each time you asked if he was feeling alright in the head. You're a good actor and you know it, but he just wasn't buying it for whatever reason until a couple weeks ago when you finally blew up on him and told him to stop invading your damn space. He hasn't bothered you since then, so you thought he finally believed you, or at least got the message to leave you alone.

Maybe not, though. You didn't think he was unhinged enough to have chased away all ghosts by virtue of his presence, but right now you have to consider all possibilities. Desperation can make people do crazy things. Talking to ghosts...you should know that.

You should've stayed back at the library with its warm glow and well-lit rooms. At least there was a security guard there. But you didn't know, and it's too late to go back. All you can do is keep going and hope you make it back to your apartment before Sanya—or whatever it is that's following you—gets you first.

...The streets are really quiet right now.

The sick taste of fear rises in your throat. You're already walking as fast as you can but you try to go a little faster, all the while clenching your knife so tightly your knuckles feel like they might split. With shaking hands, you also pull out your phone and dial a number as fast as you can with numb fingers. Answer, you pray. Please answer, please, please please—

The call goes through.

"Hey, Kai," you say as normally as you can. Thank god, thank god, thank god—Kai won't ask questions, and he'll catch on easily. "Where are you? I'm just ten minutes away—"

"Y/N?"

That's not Kai.

That's Taehyun. Taehyun who always felt a little strange to you, a bit like a ghost but physical and solid and real. Taehyun who has no heartbeat. Taehyun who laughed when you confronted him about it, and challenged you to figure out what kind of supernatural creature he is without him telling you. Taehyun who found you talking to a ghost and asked what kind of supernatural ties you have, which birthed the stupid little bet between you two about who would figure out the other's identity first. Taehyun who is infuriating. Taehyun who is kind.

Taehyun, who is a friend and can still help.

"Oh, hey Taehyun," you say, praying your voice stays steady. "Kai's not there?"

"He went to the convenience store and left his phone," Taehyun replies. "Did you need him? He'll be back in a few."

"No, I—just letting you all know that I'll be at his place in ten minutes," you say. "I'm at 117th, was just heading back from the library. Sorry—" And here your voice catches, like an idiot—"Sorry I'm so late, I just got caught up with an essay."

Taehyun remains silent for a second. Then—

"Y/N, are you okay?"

A sob almost bursts out of your mouth, catching you by surprise. You're so scared—your heart is racing faster with every street you pass that is still devoid of ghosts—you hadn't realized it until he asked that simple question, are you okay, but you're scared. So scared.

"No," you say lowly. "I think someone, or something, is following me." You swallow hard around the fear rising in your throat. "There—there aren't any ghosts."

"Ghosts?"

"I'll explain later," you say, panic creeping into your voice. "I don't know who or what is fucked up enough to have them all avoiding the area, but I think it's following me and I'm still like ten minutes away from the apartment and I'm freaking out—"

All the hairs on your neck stand up.

MOVE.

You don't even think before flinging yourself to the side just as something—someone—barrels into the space you just occupied.

You're back on your feet in a second but so is the figure that jumped out at you. Adrenaline rushes through your veins and you start sprinting, clutching your knife like a lifeline—and all the while Taehyun's yelling into the phone, asking what's going on, but between the running and the adrenaline you don't have enough breath to answer except with sharp gasps—

Something lands heavily on your back. You go tumbling down and your knee explodes in pain. Your phone skitters onto the street but you still have your knife, which you swing wildly until it connects with flesh and the mass pinning you down lets go, if only slightly, with a sharp yell. Kicking out your good leg, you manage to pull yourself free, ignoring the sick squelch of flesh as you drag the knife out with you.

You force yourself to stand. A streetlamp illuminates an unpleasantly familiar face contorted in pain as he also rises, blood flowing freely down one arm.

"Y/N," Sanya says, and you take a step backward even as your knee screams. "Y/N, I just wanted to talk to you—"

"What the fuck?" you snarl. Your hands are shaking so much you wonder how the knife hasn't fallen to the ground yet. "You want to talk, so you follow me home from the library and try to attack me—"

"You wouldn't talk to me otherwise!"

"Because you keep asking me about ghosts, ghost, fucking ghosts—where the fuck did you get the idea that I can talk to them? Where did you even get the idea that they were real?" You point your knife at him, praying that he doesn't see how badly you're shaking. "I've told you so many times to just leave me the fuck alone—"

"I saw you talking to one," he interrupts, lips curling in a snarl. "I saw you—don't deny it! You were talking to one after class, I heard you call it by name. Lilia." Sanya takes a deep breath. "Lilia Taylor. Committed suicide almost thirty years ago. She's dead, and you were talking to her. Don't fucking deny it!"

You can't say anything. Your voice isn't working. You can only stand there in horror, because there is a ghost named Lilia and you've definitely spoken to her before, even if you can't quite remember the specific occasion he's talking about.

You're fucked. So fucked. In the past ten years, you've only made the mistake of being caught talking to a ghost twice. You learned that lesson from childhood. Taehyun thankfully ended up being harmless. But Sanya—

He must take your silence for affirmation, because his voice turns desperate, more pleading than anything, and it breaks your heart. "Please, Y/N," he begs. "I just—I just want to talk to my mother. One more time. I didn't—didn't get to say goodbye before she died, it was too fast, I just want to talk to her one more time—"

You shake your head. "I can't do that," you say roughly. "That's—that's not how it works. I only see ghosts. I can speak to them but I can't command them to talk to me. I can't even speak to a specific one if I don't know where to find them first, and that's assuming they're here. That they haven't passed on." You swallow. "I'm sorry. I couldn't speak to your mother for you even if I tried."

For a long moment, Sanya remains silent, his head bowed. You hold your breath. He'll understand. He has to. He can't—can't force you to do something you can't do in the first place. Right?

Slowly, he lifts his head. You take a deep breath, ready to continue soothing, until you see the glimmer of menace in his eyes.

"You're lying," he snarls. "You're lying."

"I am not lying," you snap, anger and adrenaline powering your voice. "I can't do it. If there even is a way, which I doubt, I don't know it—"

"YOU'RE LYING!"

This time you don't manage to dodge. Your fucked up knee buckles and the full force of his weight knocks you straight to the ground. Your knife clatters on concrete. Your head smacks the sidewalk and pain explodes in your skull but Sanya doesn't even seem to register the blood running down your face as he jerks your head back up. "You're lying," he hisses, staring straight into your eyes. "You fucking liar. You know you can, you have to—"

"I can't," you snarl back through the pain. "I can't! And no matter how much you fuck me up, you can't make me do something I do not know how to do!"

"You can see ghosts!" His voice is rising, hysteria coating every word. "You can talk to them! You have to be able to do this, you have to—"

"I can't!" you scream. "I can't fucking do it! What else do you want me to say, Sanya, what the fuck else?"

"I want you to STOP LYING!"

For a moment, there's just the night air, the silence, your heavy breaths snarling through the air. You blink blood out of your eyes, silver flashing in the corner of your vision. Your knife. If you stretch just a little, maybe you can get to it.

You try to focus on Sanya, even though two of him are starting to swim in your vision. "You're crazy," you say quietly, stretching out your fingers. "You're crazy—crazy enough that even ghosts avoid you. You can't force me to do something that I just can't do. You can't bring your mother back." Almost there—you can feel the handle at your fingertips. "You don't even know if she's still here! She's probably already passed on!"

"Shut up!" he screams, and your head hits the sidewalk again with a sickening crunch that echoes in your ears. There goes the knife, you think vaguely. "Shut up, shut up—you're lying, you're fucking lying—"

He raises your head again, and you brace yourself for another hit. But just as you feel yourself going down again, all of Sanya's weight leaves you at once.

Body numb, vision blurring, you manage to lift yourself up just enough to see Sanya splayed out on the street, a familiar figure standing over him. Your hands aren't cooperating much so you can't wipe the blood out of your eyes, but from this angle it looks like...

Taehyun?

The figure turns just enough for lamplight to fall on its face and your breath catches in your throat. It's Taehyun, but it—it's not. Taehyun doesn't have gold eyes that glimmer in the moonlight. Taehyun doesn't have fangs that extend past his lips, shimmering white against the night. Taehyun doesn't move that fast, doesn't have nails that shred right through skin, doesn't have a voice that could produce that deep snarl from his chest as he stands over Sanya's prone body like a predator in the night.

Out of the muddled mess of your mind, one word emerges. Vampire.

Of all the times to figure it out, why now?

Your weak lungs heave out something like a laugh. Taehyun's head jerks towards you and then all in a second, you're being gathered up in strong, familiar arms. The fangs have disappeared but his eyes remain a glittering gold, mesmerizing, and your aching head just wants you to sink into them forever but Taehyun's talking and he keeps on talking and it's really hard to just let your eyes close and relax when his voice is so distracting—

"Y/N. Y/N!" He's shaking you now, and fuck that hurts. You must make some sound of protest because he stops, thankfully, but then those gold eyes are suddenly so close to yours and he's talking again. "Y/N, stay awake. You can't go to sleep. Stay awake, don't close your eyes—"

Thinking is so hard right now. So is keeping your eyes open, especially when the world keeps blinking in and out of sight. Why can't you just sleep? You're trying to keep them open, you really are, but it's so easy to just not, and when your eyes flutter shut yet again you hear what sounds like a panicked curse before suddenly you're being lifted up and then you're moving. The night air is cold and so is Taehyun but with the last vestiges of your energy you burrow into his chest, chasing a comfort you never thought you'd find in the absence of a heartbeat.

No heartbeat. That stirs something in the depths of your mind, and then you remember something that, to your muddled brain, is very, very important.

"Taehyun."

Your name comes out in a panicked gasp. "Y/N?"

You blink again with immense difficulty. Gold eyes, fangs, no heartbeat. "Vampire," you get out.

He snorts, though you don't miss the panicked edge to it. "That's what you're worried about?"

Worried? Why would you be worried? Taehyun would never hurt you. But that train of thought is too difficult to chase down, so instead you focus on what you were going to say in the first place. "...Did I win?" you mumble into his shirt.

"Stop talking," he hisses, something like a half-hysterical laugh rising in his throat. "Stop fucking talking, and don't close your eyes—"

Of course, that's when your eyelids decide to fall shut, and you hear no more.

. . . . .

Your dreams are filled with ghosts, pain, and mesmerizing gold eyes. You're woken up several times and each time is just as annoying as the last—lots of hushed voices telling you to keep your eyes open, things poking you in different places, and at some point someone is shoving something at your mouth and you think it might be someone's wrist? Which is stupid, because why would anyone be shoving their wrist at you, but then something tangy and metallic starts entering your mouth and even though the taste is terrible a voice that sounds a lot like Taehyun's is whispering for you to swallow, please, please, please so you do, even though it's fucking gross.

When you finally wake up for good, it's to a dim room, lit only by a small lamp in the corner. Your head feels like it's been filled with cotton, your eyes are crusty, and your mouth tastes like something died in it. You try to speak but all that comes out of your parched throat is a dry croak.

"Y/N?"

You turn your head to the sound of the voice and come to three conclusions.

One: Moving your head hurts a lot less than you thought it would.

Two: Someone is sitting by your bed.

Three: Taehyun is sitting by your bed, holding your hand.

"...Taehyun?"

Relief cracks across his face. "Oh, thank god, you're awake." He turns to a nearby nightstand that holds a pitcher and an empty glass. "Are you thirsty?"

You do your best to nod. The glass of water that Taehyun pours you tastes like heaven.

Several glasses later, you aren't so thirsty anymore, and your mind feels a little more focused. You look around the little room, then at Taehyun.

"...Your eyes aren't gold anymore."

"What? Oh." He blinks. "Yeah. That only happens when I'm...in my other form."

"As a vampire."

He nods, a little smile curving his lips. "Yeah. And before you ask again, yes, you did win our bet."

Fuck yeah. You beam up at him. "Sick." Then you frown. "Wait, have you not figured out what I am? I thought the ghosts gave it away."

"There were still a few options, even with that hint," he says, taking your hand again almost absentmindedly. You glance down but decide not to say anything. It feels nice, anyway. "Necromancer. Medium. Witch, maybe."

It would be funny to keep him in the dark, but that's also a little cruel. "I'm a medium," you admit. "I talk to ghosts. Can't really do much else, though."

"So you weren't just talking to yourself the day I caught you," he says with a little snicker. You snort, but he's not done. "Did that guy find out? That's why he was after you, wasn't it?"

The room suddenly feels cold. You shiver underneath your blanket, hand squeezing Taehyun's almost involuntarily. His skin is also cold, but the pressure of his palm against yours comforts you more than the thin warmth of the blanket.

"Yeah," you get out. "Yeah, he...he'd been bothering me for a while. Asking if I could see ghosts and whatever. I lied, obviously, and at some point I thought he got the message to leave me alone. But he saw me talking to one of them. I didn't know." You take a deep breath. "He thought I'd be able to help him talk to his mom. I told him I don't know how to summon specific ghosts. I don't even know if it's possible, at least for me. But, uh." You try to smile, but it fails. "He didn't really like that."

Something like a snarl sounds in the back of Taehyun's throat. "I could tell," he says, and there's no mirth in that statement.

A blurry memory comes to the forefront of your mind. Sanya lying in the street, arms and legs splayed at strange angles, Taehyun standing over him. "He's...is he dead?" you ask, mouth dry. You're not sure if you want to hear the answer.

"No." Taehyun spits out the word bitterly, like he almost wishes the opposite were true. "No, he's not. I didn't kill him." He looks at you almost hopefully. "But if you want me to, I can finish it."

You swallow. Relief and fear do a strange little dance in your chest. "No, I don't think I want him to be," you reply, and Taehyun nods, albeit a little disappointedly. "But I don't really want him coming after me again, either."

"Don't worry. Kai said he would take care of that, if you decided you wanted him alive." Taehyun gives you a half smile. "One of our friends is a witch. Memory alteration spells can go a long way."

Most of the fear dissipates, and you let out a sigh of relief. "That's...good." You stare at the blanket. "He just wanted to talk to his mother. Grief can drive even the sanest of people mad."

"...I know."

A little silence falls. "Where am I, by the way?" you finally ask. "Your apartment?"

"Yeah. It was closer." Taehyun shrugs. "Also, I hope you don't mind, but I called my witch friend over to take a look at you earlier. His name's Soobin."

Hm. You vaguely recognize that name from your intermittent wakings. Which brings back the memory of something else, a tangy and metallic liquid in your mouth. Instinctively you wrinkle your nose.

"Is something wrong?"

"Oh, I just remembered a dream I had." You shake your head. "I was drinking something really weird. It tasted bad."

Taehyun's face turns a little sheepish.

"...Not a dream, I guess," you get out. Right, in dreams you can't taste anything. How did you forget? "What was it?"

Taehyun raises his wrist, revealing two fading marks against his skin. "Vampire blood has healing properties," he says guiltily. "It was the only thing we could think of without sending you to the hospital. You had a major concussion and your knee was pretty busted, too."

You stare at his wrist, at the marks that seem to be fading before your eyes. "I drank blood. From your wrist."

"...Sorry?"

"No, no, don't be sorry." You pinch the bridge of your nose for a second. "I...appreciate it? It kept me alive. I'm just trying to process things." Then you realize something. "God, I haven't even thanked you for saving me." All at once you remember the fear, the terror, the pain, and then it hits you, really hits you, just how close to death you came. "Thank you, Taehyun," you say in a much smaller voice. "I...I really owe you my life."

Taehyun clasps your hand between both of his and looks at you, his dark eyes deep and serious. "You don't owe me anything, Y/N," he says quietly. "I came because I was worried. Because I didn't know what was happening, and I was scared for you. It was my choice to come," he says, voice brooking no argument. "I don't believe in exchanging lives. I'm just glad that you were okay, in the end."

That does it. Just like his simple question when you were walking home—Y/N, are you okay? His words release the floodgates and all the tears start falling, the full terror of the moment hitting you like a truck—but he's holding you, cradling you close, and you're curling into him again as you soak his shirt with tears, finding comfort in his voice, in his arms, in the absence of a heartbeat in his broad chest.

By the time you're cried out, you're exhausted again, but you don't really want to go to sleep just yet. So instead you stay curled up against Taehyun, his arms holding you close, and take in shaky breaths until you feel a little steadier. "Sorry for crying," you mumble, even though you make no effort to pull away. "Your shirt's going to be gross."

"I don't care about the shirt," Taehyun says sharply, though his voice softens when you look up, startled. "Sorry. I just meant that...I can replace the shirt, Y/N." He takes a breath, and you notice he looks a little nervous. "But I can't replace you."

His words strike a chord deep within your heart, bringing a sort of funny feeling to the front of your chest. "Damn right you can't," you try to joke, but it falls a little flat.

"I'm serious." And then he's pushing you away a little, but only so that you have the space to look him in the eyes. "I'm serious," he repeats, large eyes dark and somber. "You almost died, Y/N. And if you...if you did die..." He swallows. "You know why I agreed to that stupid bet?"

You blink. "...For fun?"

"No. Well, yes." He huffs a little. "Y/N, I wanted an excuse to talk to you more."

A little warmth curls in your chest, spreading slowly outwards to the rest of your body. You don't say anything, though.

"You're a fun person to be around, Y/N," Taehyun says, and he's smiling a little in a way that's more mesmerizing than his golden eyes. "I liked you. I wanted to be around you more, and talk to you more. I'll admit, I was definitely curious about what exactly you were, but I didn't care about that as much as I pretended to." He leans in a little, and you don't flinch away. "I like you a lot, Y/N. And before you have—I don't know, some other near death experience—I wanted to tell you that." The smile slips away. "If you died, I never would have told you. And I would have regretted not telling you for a very long time."

He's looking at you in a way that warms you, even though his hands are cold, even though there's no heartbeat in his chest. So you let the quiet warmth of his gaze spread through your body, let yourself lean into him a little more before you press your lips softly to his.

Taehyun kisses back firmly but gently, never pushing, never yielding, as steady as his arms holding you against him. You don't kiss for very long, but when you do break away, you're warm all over, and you can't stop smiling even with eyes still sticky from crying.

"I'll tell you that I absolutely cared about this bet as much as you thought I did," you say, and his laugh only makes you smile more. "But I can't lie, Taehyun, I liked you a lot too. I tried to dislike you on principle. You were so fucking annoying about it," you emphasize, eliciting another lovely laugh from his lips. "But I couldn't, because you were sweet, and kind, and even though you teased me all the time, you were still always there. Even when I almost died."

His eyes on yours, dark and sweet. Like the lamp glowing softly in the corner, gentle and quiet.

"You may not have a heartbeat, but mine can beat for both of us," you say quietly. "If you'll let it. If you'll let me."

Taehyun kisses your forehead, your nose, your lips. All feather soft, like butterflies lighting on your skin. "Is that answer enough?" he asks.

You smile back in reply and curl back into his chest. Taehyun's arms close around you again, his head coming to rest on top of yours, and there you sit, and breathe.

One heart beating for two, two breaths sounding as one.

Reblogs and comments are deeply appreciated! Hope you enjoyed this, and have a lovely day :)

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uglypastels · 1 year

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Not Wholly Evil |X| pirate!Eddie au

a/n here it is. the final chapter. I am so excited to share it with you all, just as much as it pains me that it actually is coming to an end. I've worked on this story for almost a year, and it had been a risk I had no idea how it would play out, but seeing how much everyone has enjoyed this story and supported me in my little experiment really made all the days I say in front of my computer screaming worth it <3 thank you all so so much for trusting the process

Series Masterlist

word count: 14.3k

"semi dark fic" - READ the warnings:. (gun/sword)violence. blood. mention of severe wounds. minor character death. allusions to suicide. kidnapping. imprisonment. alcohol. open and deep sea. near-death experiences. hanging. men are pigs: implied mentions of past abusive experiences [of background characters]. malnourishment and weight loss. paranoia. mention of poisoning. abuse. manhandling. lying. prison. capital punishment.

there will be several mentions of other ST characters in this chapter, and some instances might not be the most favourable of portrayals, but this is not to indicate my opinion on them. I am simply intertwining universes. there is also a name spelled differently than in the shows and that's just for the sake of the setting.

Chapter 10: Lock and Key

“Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.” ― Terry Pratchett, The Color of Magic

Everything went into chaos, happening so quickly that you genuinely got the sensation of being frozen in time and space, just letting everything around you go by, unable to intervene. Your mind could not work at that speed to understand everything that was happening, too far down into a shock to catch up. But when you finally did, you screamed.

‘No, father, no.’ You tried to push yourself away from him, but his grip was too firm. Even if you had, the chances of getting past the barricade of armed bodies to Eddie was impossible. ‘You can’t do that!’ you trashed around in his arms like a wild fish out of water.

All your father did was pull you closer, further away from Eddie, who you could just make out from between the uniforms and bayonets. The glimpses you got of his face showed a stoic expression. He wasn’t even trying to fight it. The last thing you saw before you were turned around and practically handed over to someone was the chains on his wrists.

‘Take her away from here,’ your father told his closest guard, ‘she’s hysteric.’ And perhaps you were, as you kept screaming at them to let go of you. The pleas quieted down the further from the harbour you got, changing into silent sobs by the time you reached the gardens of your home.

‘It’s alright, miss,’ the guard tried to calm you as best as possible. ‘You’re safe now.’

The pearly white building towered over you as you entered its shadows, and as soon as you did, you saw almost the entirety of the house staff standing in the main hall, awaiting you. Their faces blurred with their welcoming greetings and sweet words of comfort. A woman took you from the guard, immediately guiding you up the stairs, mumbling something to him and shouting about to the rest of the people around. You could not place any name to her face, and having always been quite good with remembering people, you could only assume she had been a new addition to the staff since you had last been home. Looking over everyone around you, most of them must have been.

That’s right. Your father had always been keen on replacing the staff but usually had been around to witness it, take in the new batch from the beginning, and, most importantly, say goodbye to the old ones.

You wanted to protest at every corner you turned up to your room, but the group of maids that had accumulated around you was like a forcefield, unbreakable. One of them opened the large double doors that led to your room. There was barely any time for you to sink in the feeling of being back in it after so many weeks as you were pushed through another pair of doors. There, a bath had already been prepared, the water steaming hot. You let yourself be dragged to the centre of the room and mechanically put your arms up for the ladies to take your dress off. Had they always been this rough?

They mumbled about the state of your dress to one another as if you weren’t even there, and in their defence, you weren’t. Your mind was miles away, barely aware of what was going on. The only thing that pulled you back into the room was the gasp of the women as your dress fell to the floor. You looked down at where all their eyes had locked in on.

‘Did they do this to you, miss?’ One of them asked, pointing in fear at the scar on your ribs. It had gotten much smaller over the weeks, but compared to the rest of you, you could imagine how grotesque it might look to people like them.

‘Uhm, no,’ you mumbled, ‘I tripped. On our ship.’ You barely recognised your voice as you spoke, too tired to put any emotion into them. The women looked at each other hesitantly before continuing on with their tasks.

You just about felt the hot water burn as they got you into the bath or poured it over your head to wash your hair. The scrub of the cloths over your limbs did practically nothing. All you could do was stare out ahead of you at the hawk engraved into the wood panelling on the wall across from you and how you had always seen it as a sign of comfort but now noticed how angry its eye looked. Staring directly at you at all times. You lulled your head slowly, trying to get it to look away, but it just followed you around until someone grabbed you by the side to stop you from twisting.

‘Sorry, miss. Just trying to get out this knot.’ One of them said as she combed out your hair, tugging your entire head back against the edge of the bath.

You had not even realised how much grime came with being on a boat full of pirates for weeks. Even though you had tried to wash yourself regularly, there was never enough fresh water. By the time the ladies were done, the water had gone cold, and your whole body was red and sore from the scrubbing. You could barely feel your fingertips, but your nails were perfect again.

Trembling, you got out of the bath and quickly were wrapped up in linen to soak up the water. Like any other day, they began to put your undergarments on, preparing you for a dress that you could not even think about the weight of, but no matter how many layers they put on you, you were still shivering.

Someone, you had no idea who, pulled a blanket over your shoulders and put a large cup of lemon tea into your hands. It used to be your favourite, but the sips tasted bitter no matter how much sugar you poured. You stood in the middle of the room, holding the cup and felt all their eyes on you, drinking your tea with a shaky hand. No matter how you held it or steadied your arms, the porcelain clinked together louder and louder until it smashed onto the ground, the hot liquid pooling around you. Before you could apologise, someone was on their knees cleaning it up.

‘I am so sorry,’ you cried out, tears already threatening to return despite it being only a few minutes since they had dried up. With water pouring over your face and hair in the bath, the tears would have been washed away, but now there was nowhere to hide them.

‘No worries, miss,’ one of the maids said. She looked you up and down, a corset in her hands, clearly seeing a mess of a woman in front of her. ‘We should get you ready; there is a meal waiting downstairs and I am sure you’re famished.��

‘I am alright, I just want to—’ you wanted to disappear. Get out of everyone’s sight. You wanted to lock yourself in your room or run away, just be anywhere but here, surrounded by these strangers. You wanted Eddie. Where was he now? He must have been dragged into the dungeons.

You pushed back the next load of tears that were breaking through.

‘Miss, we must insist.’ The maid said, somewhat concerned, and hesitated. ‘The food will do you good.’ And yet, the idea of eating now made you feel quite ill to the stomach.

‘I would really just like to be alone now.’ If you had more energy, your statement might have come out more pointed, giving you more edge over the staff. You would have fought them until you’d slam the door behind the last one, but instead, you let yourself be trapped into a dress—a beautiful green garment that the women were not shy to praise as they put it on you—and sent you off to the dining room.

Once, you would have walked these halls alone, with your head held high and letting the steps of your heels announce your presence in any room, but now the clicking against the marble floors made you wince and the presence of the maids and guards following you certainly did not help to put your mind at rest.

The dining table was set, filled from one end to the other with dishes, but you could barely stomach a spoonful. The same happened at dinner. You could not think of eating these extensive meals knowing that Eddie was kept locked up somewhere, most likely not given anything to eat since he had been arrested. Your mind was whirring with ideas, but each and everyone was immediately halted when you saw that there was nowhere in the house you could go without onlookers. The chances of you being allowed into the dungeons and speaking to him were close to zero.

Having eaten exactly two bites from your plate, you excused yourself back to your room, where people were ready to get you out of your dress and into your nightgown. Once done, one of the maids was prepared to blow all the candles out, but you quickly stopped her.

‘Wait,’ you called, ‘could you leave one on, please.’

The woman nodded and left one of the candles in the holder burning before leaving the room. You sat down on the edge of the bed, trying to catch your breath, but the room felt so stuffy—a ridiculous thought considering the room was bigger than Eddie’s quarters, possibly the double of it. The candle only gave light to its nearest surroundings, letting the rest of the space, and you with it, be eaten up by the night. It was overwhelming, together with the hot air swallowing you whole. As your chest tightened, you ran to the window, pushing it open. You greeted the cool night air with a sigh.

Nights at home were never quiet, but unlike in Saint Claire, it was not drunken brawls that kept the shores alive but the rustle of waves and the chirping cicadas. The streets buzzed with the sounds of nature, illuminated in silver by the moon, now an almost complete sphere.

You had always loved the view of your room, but now it felt more like a cruel joke as you could look out at the harbour and the gates of Star Port. It was like a million pinpricks stabbing into you. The Hellfire was nowhere to be seen. You didn’t expect anything less. With Eddie arrested, it would have been mad of the crew to stay behind, risking their own capture.

Still, the feeling you got at the sight of the empty harbour sank deep into your stomach, not helping with how you had felt before opening the blinds, and when you closed them again, the room seemed to have grown in size. Large, cold, empty, with you standing in the middle staring at your bed. Sitting on it, let alone sleeping, was impossible. The second you touched the mattress, you were scared you’d sink straight through the cotton, and the sheer size of it…

You lay there for hours, deciding whether to curl up and make yourself as small as possible or to spread your arms out in a poor attempt at taking up some of the space meant only for you. Every time you moved, your hand would grab for the sheets, hoping that one of those times, you would feel more than air. If you opened your eyes, you would see him sleeping peacefully by your side.

Most of your pillows had met the ground as you threw them in frustration. You had spent years in this bed, perfectly fine, and only several days with Eddie. So, why were you feeling this profound loss over his absence besides you? It wasn’t fair.

Eventually, you managed to fall to sleep, quite literally, as pure exhaustion tipped you over and made your head finally hit down. There were no dreams, nightmares or memories to haunt you, as you were awoken before any of them could take shape. Firm knocks on the door announced your maids, and they filled the room in their designated corners.

‘Good morning, miss.’ They said chirpily as they got you dressed and ready for another day. All you replied with throughout the entire process was a mumbled ‘’morning,’ which you hoped could be blamed for having only been awake for a few minutes.

‘Breakfast will be served soon,’ you heard. The mention of food again twisted at your guts, but an idea began to bloom in your mind.

‘Will my father be there?’ He seldom dined with you, leaving you to eat your meals in the company of the staff, but you assumed he would want to see you after all these weeks.

‘I assume so,’ the woman brushing your hair said. You nodded curtly, as much as possible, when someone held on to your head. The prospect of speaking to your father face to face brought a new energy into your step.

You walked out of that room determined and with your head held high, only to be disturbed by footsteps parallel to yours. Two pairs. At first, you thought it was a coincidence, and they just happened to be walking there, too, but they followed you down the hallway, around all the corners. By the time you reached the dining room doors, you had grown tired of it.

‘I am quite capable of walking on my own, thank you,’ you said, coming to an abrupt stop, making the two men behind you ‘have done it all my life, in fact.’

‘Yes, of course, miss,’ said one of the guards who you bumped into at your sudden halt. ‘It is just—’

‘Just what?’ You crossed your arms.

‘Well, your father—’ he stopped speaking at the sight of your unimpressed, somewhat annoyed expression. He cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable with the confrontation. ‘We are here to protect you.’

‘From what exactly?’ This was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

‘From any danger, miss.’

‘I was not aware this house was so full of threats.’ You rolled your eyes. ‘I appreciate the efforts, gentlemen, but I doubt you will be needed.’

‘But your father, miss.’ The other man tried to argue, but you were not having any of it.

‘I will not be patrolled in my own home!’ You shouted, pushing the doors to the dining room open. Your father sat at the opposite end of the large table, fork mid-air to his mouth. ‘Father, this is absurd.’

‘I think it is perfectly reasonable to want to protect my daughter. What is absurd,’ much to your annoyance, he spoke in his usual collected and cool-toned manner. He waited to continue speaking until you sat at the table. ‘Is you being held hostage for weeks at the hands of some barbarians.’

‘They are not barbarians, Father,’ you ignored the hands that spooned food onto your plate. ‘They took rather good care of me, actually.’ You bit your cheek, trying not to think of the days you spent in a cage. But even considering that, you were aware of your fortune with the circumstances you had been put under. Many more people had encountered enemies at sea, and few had been able to return home and live to tell the tale… or the preferred version of events, at least.

‘Is that why you look so sick and frail?’ he spoke bluntly, taking you back. ‘Because of how well they treated you?’

‘They did their best with what they had,’ you believed. It was your choice to starve yourself for the first days on board, refusing to eat anything they gave you. And you could hardly expect a feast such as you held in front of you now, every day in the middle of the deep waters. Even on board the Red Tail, the meals had been somewhat shoddy. ‘I just do not think that…’ you stopped yourself from using his name. ‘That man deserves to be in prison.’

‘Of course not.’ Your father took a bite. ‘He will be hanged for his crimes.’

‘W-what?’ Your fork clattered onto the ground. ‘Father, you cannot— I know he had tried to take money from you but—’ Murder and high treason. That is what he was arrested for. Had your father somehow found out about the Red Tail? But how could he… there were no survivors.

No survivors. He killed them all. He had—

‘Do you know who that man is?’ Something in your father’s voice sounded sharper, more pointed.

‘I thought so,’ you hesitated. Yes, you had spent your days and most tender moments with him, but what did you know about Eddie Munson?

‘Then you should understand the severity of this situation.’ Only if you were to believe hearsay and talk of the people on the streets that shaped this image of a blood-thirsty monster that roamed the seven seas, killing everything in his path. It is what you believed him to be yourself until not very long ago until practically every fibre in your body had been proven wrong.

Or at least, God, you hoped you had been wrong.

Your father sighed, ‘I know it is difficult, after all you must have spent a lot of time with them on that ship, and I do not know what lies they had fed you, but these are serious matters that begun long before any of this and need to finally be taken care of.’

‘Well, explain it to me because I would like to know what is happening.’

At this, he scoffed. ‘All you need to know is that man is a dangerous criminal and should be treated as such.’ But then, what about everything Eddie had told you? What about all the pieces you had managed to gather of the crumbs he and everyone else left you? There was more to it all, and maybe you did not understand yet, but you would.

‘When?’ you plucked at your food on the plate, defeated, ‘when is the hanging?’

‘In four days.’ If you had been well enough to eat, you would have choked. You had barely come to terms with returning home, if at all, and now this. Prisoners were usually held for weeks before a date was set for an execution. They were clearly adamant about taking care of him quickly.

For the sake of everyone else, you ate a bit of your breakfast, each bite sticking uncomfortably heavy in your throat. After that, you got up without saying another word. The two guards who had walked in with you were on high alert again, ready to follow you, but stopped to look nervously at the governor when you glared at them.

‘Let her go,’ he waved them off, ‘but keep an eye on her.’

You huffed out a breath and walked away.

The rest of the day you spent walking around the town, mainly the alley of the market that led to one of the entrances to the dungeons. You had no idea why you were there, considering there was nothing you could do. Besides the fact you could clearly see the new set of guards appointed to follow you around the streets, they seemed utterly futile, considering all eyes in the street were on you. Every person there was highly aware of your presence.

You used to walk around the market nearly daily, making polite chats with the salesmen as you bought fresh fruit to later eat at the shore or in the garden. Most people knew that you had decided to join the Red Tail on their voyage primarily because of your enthusiasm to finally leave the island and go on an adventure.

It must have taken quite some time, they would say in some form or another, to convince your father.

I can be quite persuasive when I have to be; you remember how proud you had felt. After months of begging everyone around you to let you go, promising them that you would be safe and careful and not get in the way of anyone, finally, they let you go. Under Admiral Carver’s watch, you spent weeks enjoying the breeze and the waves, awaiting what the rest of the world would bring.

The ship sailed for four weeks to another naval post. You did not know their exact business, nor did you care, as you now had a whole new land to explore. The city was larger and nothing like home. The people looked different and spoke an entirely different language, but you still managed to get around and on the market behind your house. It had been excellent and eye-opening, only making you more eager to see what else to discover. But unfortunately, there was only so little time, and before you knew it, you had to return home. You remember the last day. It had been raining, but it did not stop anyone from loading the new supplies. Somehow it seemed like much more needed to be brought on board for this half of the journey than the first.

What’s in those barrels, you asked, but no one ever replied. They barely ever did. It wasn’t your place to ask questions in these matters. You were simply a passenger on the ship, verging on stowaway, spending your days in the quiet of your own room for the most part until…

It was the middle of the day, and the sun burned above you brightly, yet you shivered. You had always known to trust your father’s judgement and his decisions, but there was no possible way in which this was right. That this was how it would end.

The alleyway practically screamed at you for you to go and run in and get him out of there, but with so many people watching, it would be hopeless. The guards would get you before you had even reached the stairs. You would have to wait.

‘It’s good to see you again, miss.’ A voice pulled you out of your thoughts. It took you a few slow blinks to realise who it was.

‘Oh, you too, Mr Bowman.’ you smiled towards the merchant as he smiled at you through his bushy beard. He was sitting next to his table of… you were not sure what to call them. The man was quite the eccentric, and you had barely ever seen him actually make a sale on any of his products, but you doubted he was there for business anyway. ‘Have I missed much in the past months?’ You could always count on him for good stories about the townsfolk. The man had all his senses on sharp, constantly vigilant of everything around him.

‘I think your return is the biggest news we’ve had in a while.’ He scratched his beard, ‘That, and well, the upcoming execution, of course.’

‘People already know?’ You blinked, not having expected that to be public knowledge yet. Then again, it is an event like no other. Preparations have to be made.

‘Edward the Banished gets arrested, and you expect people not to know?’ He laughed almost mockingly as he usually did, but you looked at him blankly.

‘The Banished?’ you had heard much about Eddie, but this name was new to your ears.

‘Yes, ridiculous name, if you ask me,’ he waved it off, ‘Pure sensationalism as it rolls smoother on the tongue than deserter or runagate, quisling, traitor—’

‘I understand,’ you stopped him nervously. ‘But how did he get this name? What did he do?’

‘HA!’ he startled you with volume. ‘What didn’t he do, you should ask.’ This caused many of the other merchants around you to weigh in on the subject.

‘I heard he abducted the governor’s daughter.’

‘That’s her. She’s right here.’

‘Oh. Well, he had attempted to assassinate the king of England!’

‘The Prince, you blockhead. And he did kill him!’

‘He has burned entire islands down. All over a game of cards.’

‘Stole an entire fleet and handed it over to the Spanish, just like that.’

‘He drinks the blood of his enemies!’

‘Sold his soul to the devil!’

Everyone looked at the old man that shouted this out. You were afraid to ask more questions, so let the others do this for you. ‘What do you mean, he sold his soul?’

‘He did! Did all those things to offer himself to Satan and do his dirty deeds here on earth. He is cursed to sail the seas in his wicked ship with the unrighteous crew for all eternity.’

‘Well, that eternity won’t last much longer.’ Someone commented, resulting in a chuckle around the street. Most of the people laughed, but you stayed quiet, your mind going back to Eddie, his body covered in unexplainable scars. The wind suddenly grew stronger.

‘I’m telling you,’ the man continued, ‘we won’t get rid of him yet! Not until Hell freezes over!’

‘Someone give the man a hat; he’s had too much sun,’ Mr Bowman called, rich coming from him, whose balding head was burning bright red. He then turned to you, shrugging as the rest had clearly proven his point. ‘And that is why I do not mess around with pirates, deary, no matter how charming they may seem.’

‘Excuse me?’ were the first words coming out of your mouth in the last few minutes, and you quickly regretted having them form into another question.

‘I saw you two yesterday at the arrest.’ Of course, he had. Nothing around here ever escaped this man. He looked proud of himself for having witnessed the events. ‘It was quite dramatic, seeing lovers have to be broken apart like that.’

‘I think you might have had too much sun today,’ you tried to sound casual as you laughed it off.

‘I am not here to judge,’ he said, putting his hands up in surrender, ‘simply to advise.’

‘Thank you, Mr Bowman.’ You smiled politely, ready to escape the conversation. You had been used to him often throwing around false and farfetched accusations, and even listening to this conversation, you knew it was nothing if not complete nonsense, just gossip gone too far along the years. So now that he had actually been correct, it stunned you, even maybe scared you. What would the people around you think if they knew what happened between you and Eddie? How would they react if they knew how you felt about his death sentence? You would be deemed mad.

Of course, the not-so-inconspicuous guards followed you back to your room, where you stayed for the rest of the day until it was time for dinner. Your father did not join you this time. As hunger finally struck you, fighting nausea caused by the stress of the last few days, you ate everything served to you.

On the ship, you had thought that once you came back, you wouldn't be able to stop eating all the things you had been missing for months, but nothing tasted as good as you remembered. In fact, nothing was as good as you remembered. The food was bland, the flowers not as vibrant, and the people not as joyous. Once, you had heard laughter and chatter, but it seemed like the streets grew cold and silent, leaving you alone to your thoughts.

After your meal, you walked out of the room but turned left instead of taking the right towards your room. People immediately caught on.

‘Miss? Where are you going?’ A guard called out.

‘Oh,’ you attempted to sound like you had not expected this exact conversation when you moved, ‘just thought of going on a stroll. The night air does me rather well.’ You grinned in a way you hoped would come off naive.

‘I do not think that’s a good idea.’ The guard said. ‘I would suggest that you return to your room,’ he spoke in a tone telling you that it was not a suggestion at all. Not in the slightest.

‘Am I on house arrest?’

‘See it more as a curfew.’

You scoffed at the idea, or more that you had very little choice but to obey. There was a moment in which you stared up at the guard, switching between expressions to get him to crack and let you go, but to your disappointment, he cocked his head toward your room.

How were you ever supposed to get to Eddie if they constantly watched you? The question kept you up another whole night and the next day. Just for the sake of it, since they so desperately needed to be with you at all times, you decided to sit in the library for about four hours with no book in sight, just staring out the window, letting them stare at you. At a certain point, you had caught one man actually yawning.

‘I am absolutely certain that there are at least fifty things that would be more productive for you to do then this,’ you broke the deafening, maddening silence, still looking out the window. You had counted all the leaves on the tree branch that kept hitting the pane in the breeze and had recollected every corridor and door in the house. In the reflection of the glass, you could see the guards glance nervously at each other, and with a smile, you turned to face them. ‘You can just go. I won’t tell anyone.’ But they stood their ground. With a groan, you sank back down into the chair.

It would take much longer for them to break, so much more time that you—that Eddie—did not possess. Three days left before the execution. Three days left for you to take the chance and do something. Save him. There were a million ideas, one worse after the other, with so many risks and problems that it could eventually end in your own hanging.

You shut your door at the end of the day, and it must have sounded through the entire house. Another day gone, and you had gotten nowhere. You could see the shadows of their feet come through the gap underneath your door, and they would be there the next morning when you awoke. Sleep deprived from tossing and turning as long as the sun was down. The bed still felt too big for comfort. At one point, they had run into the room at the sound of muffled screams, just for you to pull your head out of your pillow to yell at them to get out.

You walked towards the dining room for breakfast, this time wearing a rose gold dress, surprised not to be followed by a parade of footsteps but halted at the sound of voices coming from inside the hall.

‘I think it is safe to say that she does not require any supervision, sir.’ one of the guards said. You never bothered to learn their names, too frustrated to care, but you learned to recognise their voices from the amount of squabbling you had done.

‘Is that so?’ your father munched away.

‘She does nothing but mope around all day, quite harmless, I’d say… uhh, sir.’ The other added.

Mope? You did not mope, if only because they sucked your life out with their constant “supervision”. As much as you wanted to burst into the room, you composed yourself and listened on.

‘Does she seem well, in the head, I mean?’ Your father asked, but they did not reply. Not verbally, at least; you could imagine them looking at each other in the way they did, and just the idea made you clench your fists until they turned pale.

‘She’s stubborn, a bit immature, a bit aggressive.’ One of them chose his words carefully and slowly.

‘So that’s a no, I take it,’ your father concluded. You took this as your opportunity to announce yourself with a few loud steps, moving back a few paces to repeat them with exaggeration.

‘Good evening, father,’ you said as you took your seat, not giving him or the other man any more of your attention. The guards glanced at you nervously before leaving the room.

‘Terrorised the guards, I see?’ he asked.

‘No more than they did me,’ you replied in the same emotionless tone as you ate.

‘I just wanted what’s best for you. It had been a tumultuous time, and you had gone through quite– ’

‘Is that a reason to… to lock me up and have me followed around like some kind of—’ You were at a loss for words, so instead, opted for a frustrated groan and stuffing your face with a forkful of lamb.

‘Well, you’ve proved me wrong. Clearly, you can still care for yourself.’ he wiped his mouth with a napkin and stood up. ‘I’ll make them let you be from now on,’ and with that, he walked away. You couldn’t suppress the smile that rose to your lips once the doors closed behind him, immediately knowing the first place you were heading to with your newfound “freedom”.

The kitchen.

Well, that is not exactly the first thing. You had to wait for all the dishes to be cleared from the dining room, so you wandered around the corridors and then headed down the stairs as quietly as possible to not raise any attention to yourself.

As suspected, the kitchen was empty. Most of the food on the plates still untouched. Quietly, you grabbed a basket and began picking things out here and there, those that would go unnoticed by anyone walking in to grab a midnight snack. The only thing that might have caught someone’s attention by going missing was one of the larger bottles of rum stacked on a shelf.

You placed a napkin over the basket's content and grabbed one of the staff member’s hoods to cover yourself up with before heading outside. It would help against the cold night air and hopefully make you a bit less noticeable, as the grey hood did not stand out as much as your extravagant dress. As you took the first steps out into the garden, the idea came to you that maybe that was another idea of them trying to keep you inside these walls. After all, while you had always had nice clothing, it did not compare to the dresses you’ve worn since your return. It could be seen as a welcome home gift, but it was undeniable that the dress you wore now could be spotted from miles away.

You pulled the cloak tighter over yourself.

Besides a few men who were too drunk to notice or care who you were, the streets were also empty. The men standing at the prison doors were half asleep, and either way, you were not too anxious about them as they were usually more preoccupied with keeping people in than out. You slipped through the shadows into the alley and only dared to breathe once inside. The steps leading further into the building were uneven, especially in the dark. The only light was half-burned-up torches lining the path. A crinkly small corridor that eventually led to a crooked staircase. You could barely keep yourself up straight, almost tripping over your feet. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, where the dungeon's entrance stood, took almost longer than the walk to the building across town as you held onto the cold wall, doing your best not to fall.

Now, you could only pray that the final door was not locked. The handle wiggled and creaked open.

You hesitated. What would await you inside? This whole trek had been based on your intuition that he would be put in one of the isolated cells, away from the petty criminals. But what if they kept him somewhere else? What if they had done something to him and… well, there was only one way to find out.

As you stepped into the caved-out room and almost instantaneously, never before had you felt such a cold fall over you. Maybe it was due to the thick walls absorbing all sound or how the slit-like windows below the ceiling only let through the tiniest slivers of moonlight, obstructing any of the day’s heat from entering the room. Or maybe it was the sight of him in the pale torchlight that chilled you to the bone.

He was seated on the ground, framed by a cell jagged from rock and steel bars. The moonlight managed to just about frame his face, exhausted and fragile. His eyes were closed in pretend sleep. You could tell that much as his brows furrowed at the sound of your footsteps. You tried to call out to him, but your throat was stuck. But you didn’t need to say anything. He called your name in a weak voice, in a hesitant manner, as if he was making sure that what he saw was real. If you were really there.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked in disbelief.

What were you doing here? You had been asking yourself this the entire walk up to the cells, trying to find a reason why it meant so much to you to see him again, to help him, and yet you still could not come up with anything. There was no response besides holding up the basket with a weak smile and saying, ‘I thought you would like some dinner.’

Eddie sat straight, pulling himself up by one of the cell bars. As you walked up to his cell and sat down on the ground beside him, you could feel his eyes on you. Pure disbelief at your presence, the food. You held the meat out to him, but he did not move.

‘It is not poisoned,’ you smiled sheepishly, ‘if that is what you’re wondering.’ Even when you handed him the food to eat. He did so slowly, apprehensively at first, still unable to look away from you. Perfectly understandable. You had barely gotten used to this. How the beading and frame of the dress poked at you from every angle. Your feet hurt, and your hair had been pulled into an intricate hairstyle, causing you to walk around with a headache for hours. Not that it was anything to compare to Eddie’s circumstances. He sat in his cell, too small to stretch his body out in, with no bed, just the cold hard ground. They had removed his jacket and belt, leaving him to sit out the cold of the night in just his shirt. You also noticed a new bruise forming on his jaw, which certainly had not been there when you last saw him. All this to break him down, yet the way he looked at you—you could have sworn you were still lying together in his bed, far away from all this.

He glanced down at your dress, how it pooled around you, almost leaking through the cell barriers up to him in all its opulence. ‘How the tables have turners, haven’t they, princess,’ he chuckled, and you had never thought to be so happy from hearing such a simple sound. The nickname felt deliberately chosen at this time, too. You pulled at the edges of your dress, collecting it closer to you.

‘I know, I look ridiculous.’

‘I think the word you’re looking for is beautiful,’ he said between bites, but you ignored the compliment, knowing that if you let it get to you, it would come together with a shower of tears. As he kept on eating his food, you sighed, letting your side hit the wall as you leaned up to him. You handed him more of the food that you had brought him and the rum, then let him finish in silence. His mere presence beside you already was more than enough. The sound of his deep calm breaths was enough to put you to rest, and it pleased you that the sea had not left him just yet. He still smelled of it. That fresh sea salt air was simply stuck in his hair. You refrained from combing your fingers through it.

This was already so far from what you had expected things to go like. You had thought that once you came home, even with his request for a hefty payment, he would still be welcomed as a hero. That you could make things work and somehow, maybe, naively, be together. Even now, you thought that if he saw you here, you would have some kind of moment of clarity where everything became crystal clear and easy to understand. That you would know exactly what to do, and it would be glorious. You thought he would be happy to see you. Never had you imagined him asking you again, ‘What are you doing here? Really.’

‘I wanted to see you,’ you said, but he could read past all your layers. ‘And… over the past few days, I have heard things. About you. Things that I can hardly believe to be true and yet are seen as such by the majority of people, so I hoped you could clear some things up for me.’

‘You don’t believe your own people but would believe me?’ He took a swig of the rum, already handing it back to you, but you declined, giving it back.

‘I have given you my trust more times than I should have, and so far, it has not led me down any dark paths, but I can only hope that you will not break that bond now.’ After all that you had been through? Was he in any position to do so? ‘So I hope you will tell me what really happened. I—I remember you, years ago, meeting with my father and Carver. You were in the military, right?’

Eddie let his head roll back, hitting the wall behind him with a shallow thud. ‘You remember me?’

‘It came to me during the storm. A memory of you walking with them in the garden. For the longest time, I could not make sense if it had been real or if my mind playing tricks on me, but I realised now what it was. You looked different, but it was you, wasn’t it? You were like them?’

‘Turns out, maybe I still am, and more than you’d think,’ he sighed, ‘or less, depending on how you look at it.’ He took another sip of the drink.

‘Will you tell me, please?’ You pleaded, eagerly awaiting the answers to what you had been trying to figure out long before you had returned home. Eddie looked apprehensive.

‘What good will it do?’ He turned his head in your direction, still leaning against the wall. You moved over to be closer to him, your legs almost touching.

‘Perhaps nothing, but—’ you sighed, ‘All my life, I’ve been protected. I’ve had everything handed to me without any trouble. I had spend most of my years never further away than these shores and always under someone’s watch. I had never had the space to make risks or mistakes. There was no such thing as danger. Even now, I had been under constant watch. No one will answer my questions or even listen to me because they want to protect me. Because they think I’m fragile and cannot handle it.’

At this, Eddie scoffed. ‘If anything, they cannot handle you, darling.’

‘Meanwhile, you,’ you smiled, ignoring the heat burning over your cheeks, ‘Well, perhaps not all your methods were ideal, but you never treated me like I was made of glass. You pushed me, and it actually, for once, made me feel alive and like I am worth being in the room with.’

Eddie reached for your hand. ‘You’re worth so much more than that,’ he mumbled against your knuckled as he kissed them. He held on to you as he began talking slowly, choosing his words wisely. ‘I had joined the navy younger than anyone should have—my parents couldn’t afford me, so I had to make myself useful quickly, and that felt at least somewhat commendable, no matter how it would end.

‘Started right at the bottom, but I wanted to prove myself. I followed orders, did everything what was asked of me, and more, and I moved through the ranks. As I gained more of a position, I got more of an insight into the men I was working for and with.’

As he spoke, you watched his eyes pale, haze over with memories. The dam he had built around them had broken up, flooding out, and he could not stop it anymore. He wanted to continue, but he hesitated, glancing your way, but you encouraged him to go on with a nod of the head. Even then, he scratched at his face nervously and took a deep breath.

‘We would find ourselves everywhere around the world, and a certain power comes with wearing a uniform. It is universal, one that everyone understands and is willing to abuse. It was easy to see yourself as better than the poor locals, to excuse yourself from the import taxes and all the bureaucracy around the travel. I had done it myself, flashing a grin with the mindset of superiority.’ He hid his face in his hands, groaning. You reached out for his arm.

‘Hey, it’s okay,’ you hushed, but was it really?

‘When you get that taste of power when it hits right, it is hard to let go. It had never sat well with me; every time I got away from a port without paying for my ship, I stayed up entire nights as the guilt ate away from me, but it had been what everyone else was doing, and you don’t want to fall behind. It had become a pressure to boast your power over those who did not have any.

‘And this power…. it turned darker as simple actions of business turned to abuse. Swindling merchants of their products, conning drunks with games, and stealing their money. Taking advantage of… everyone. It had become a sport to them.

‘I was aware of it, but it had somehow never seemed that serious—it happened so gradually—until one day I saw one of the commanders with this girl…’ his breath hitched. You squeezed his hand to remind him that you were there, that you were listening. ‘She was just a child, and when I saw what he—I lost control of myself, lashed out at him. It had been stupid trying to argue with someone that outranked me. There was no one I could tell that would do anything about it, not when they were all just as bad.

‘Then Carver came up to me one day. Said that together we could make a change.’ Eddie’s jaw clenched. ‘I should have known better. He had always been too close with the rest of them, but we planned on making a change.

‘But on the day we were about to tell your father about everything that happened on our voyages—the day we saw each other in the garden, in fact,’ he squeezed your hand back. ‘We never got the chance because I was sent away.’ Something in you caught your breath, making him smile lightly.

‘There had been talk of a war, and so I was sent out with a fleet to take charge. Carver had promised me he would take care of everything in my absence, but—’

‘He didn’t,’ you finished the sentence for him.

‘In a way, he did. Of course, it was all a hoax. He had needed an excuse to get rid of me. It took me three months to get back, having found no signs of possible ambushes, and when I did, I returned to the news that Hargrove, the commander I had attacked, had been found dead that same evening I left. And there was the missing gold and the rumours of a coup, among other things. Somehow, he had convinced everyone I had gone above and beyond in betraying our country, but the murder charges hit the heaviest. They thought I had killed one of our own.

‘The only people on my side had been those on the ship with me, and they had given up all they had by giving me their trust. They were marked as traitors just for standing up against the accusations. I already had lost everything I had to lose and could not stand by it, so I left. I took my ship and my crew, and we sailed off.

Bowman’s words rang through your mind as Eddie said this. Deserter. Runagate. Quisling. Traitor. You still wanted to ask him so much, but you let him speak before interrupting.

‘The sea was a liberation. We were free to do whatever we wanted, so we did, but I always felt like I was tied back to this place. Like…’ he laughed, ‘like a rope was hanging around my neck, dragging me back here. At first, I thought it was guilt, so I did my best to reprimand everything they had done. I wanted to do something for all those men and women we had hurt, give them some form of protection against those uniforms.

‘But no matter what I did, who I helped, that feeling did not stop. In a way, it grew worse. I got angry and felt like the only thing that would help me was revenge; I stayed up most nights thinking of unimaginable things. I got lost in the darkness of it. If it wasn’t for Harrington, I don’t know what would have become of me.’

‘Harrington?’ You could see how that would happen, but the mention of him somehow startled you. It's another piece of the story that made it feel so real.

‘He had been in a similar position as me. His commanding officer had been asking him to do all these dirty jobs until he had had enough. It had only been a couple of days since he had given up his post when we met one night at a tavern. He wouldn't have joined us if it had not been for a game of cards. Neither would have Robin.’

You had no idea how long you had sat there, just enough for your body to grow cold and stiff on the ground, but you could not care less about any of that, too focused on his story. As he mentioned Steve and Robin, his smile reached his eyes for the first time since you had arrived, revitalising you, knowing that there was still something in his life that left fond memories behind. You leaned forward, resting your chin on your hand as you listened on.

‘Either way, I had fallen into a deep, dark pit, and Steve pulled me out. He showed me what I was doing did no good for anyone but them. It was eating me alive, killing me from the inside.’

‘But you still killed them all.’ The words left your mouth sooner than you could think them through. Knowing his reason behind it all made you understand, but it did not lessen the impact of the deed.

Hearing you say that, Eddie quickly turned his entire body to you, pulling himself as close to you as possible, almost pushing himself through the bars. His eyes were full of an intensity that burned through your soul.

‘I am not trying to make excuses. I did what I did—I led my crew towards the Red Tail and let them sink that ship, but not for myself. That is what Harrington made me realise. I did not need to see them die, but they needed to pay for everything they had done. For ruining all those people’s lives. You must understand that?’

He didn’t need to see them die. Moments flashed before you of your very first seconds on the Hellfire. Of Eddie walking up to you, the words he spoke in front of you.

– Carver? Where is that pesky little bilge rat?

– Bled out on the ship.

– Shame. Would have like to have seen that. ‘You weren’t even there.’ you whispered.

‘It wasn’t about me.’ He shook his head. ‘Besides, if I had been the one to kill them, it would have only satisfied them. To see me become what they had told the world I already was. All I wanted was for them to be gone. Just gone.

‘None of this,’ his eyes darted over your face. ‘Was meant to happen to you. My men were simply looking for the things in the office that had already been stolen. But then they saw you under that table, they couldn’t leave you. You were innocent.’ His hand reached out to brush over your cheek. Only at his touch did you realise that you had started to cry as he wiped down your tears. ‘And to you, I am truly sorry for everything I put you through.’

You had nothing to reply with but a kiss, pulling him close to you. The steel bars of the cell caused an awkward distance between you, yet you never felt closer. It was as if now, you finally, truly, knew who it was you were touching. The kiss had been brief, but the silence that followed stretched on. The two of you sat there, sinking away from reality, but the questions you still had kept you grounded. Just as Eddie had said, a noose dragging you back.

‘Eddie,’ you called him carefully. ‘What about the letter?’

‘What letter, princess.’ His hand kept rubbing over your tear-stained cheek.

‘You know which one I mean,’ you pulled back slightly to be able to look properly at him. ‘Who was it for?’

He laughed, the saddest laugh you had ever heard come from him, and it pained you from within. ‘What does all this matter? I will be dead soon. The less there is left of me here, the better.’

You watched him pull himself up again to sit, tap his knuckles on his knee. His answer had angered you. ‘Because…’ you took a deep breath, taking the leap you had been too afraid to take. ‘it just gives me that much less time to know the man I have fallen in love with.’ You wanted to keep as much of him as possible. That is what you could do by listening. To give him that voice in his own story.

Eddie fell silent. His mouth opened to speak, but no voice came out for several tries. He searched for the right words until he finally blinked slowly and looked up at the ceiling. His jaw clenched once again, in the way that he sucked in a deep breath. As he released it, he said: ‘Her name was Christina.’

‘Your wife?’ Again, you thought of what he had told you earlier. I already had lost everything I had to lose. He must have had people who cared for him before all this had happened.

‘Fiancée,’ he corrected, not that it mattered to either of you. ‘We had known each other our whole lives, having grown up on the same streets. We kept each other strong with this promise that one-day things would get better. That we would escape from all the burdens and create our own paradise. She was the reason I—’ he couldn’t speak of it out loud, and you didn’t need him to. You didn’t tell him to continue the story when he eventually did.

‘Foolishly, I had not told her anything of what went on. I told her things would finally be good for us when I returned. We would leave and never turn back. I thought I was protecting her by keeping it all from her, but it was the final nail in my coffin.

‘She had been the first person I saw after my return, and I could sense that something was wrong. Then the guards knocked on the door, and she opened it like she had been expecting them.

‘I could only assume it was Carver. That he told her what he told everyone else. She wouldn’t look at me, touch me, speak to me. No matter how hard I tried to prove myself, he had poisoned her with his words. In the end, she only saw me as a monster.’

The last word stung you in your chest, knowing how often you had used that exact word to describe him yourself. How often have you called him a monster or even worse? But his openness triggered more memories to come up. Your conversations with the crew of the Red Tail. Their stories and lives.

‘Christina…’ you mumbled the name with familiarity. ‘That was… that was the name of the admiral’s wife.’

‘It does not come to me as a surprise,’ he chuckled that sad laugh again. He had clearly expected to hear those words eventually. You looked at him, feeling the sting in the corners of your eyes. The tears were coming right back, but he quickly wiped those too. ‘Please, don’t. I do not need your pity. I have told you everything there is to know about me, and that is all I could or ever will ask of you again.’

‘I don’t—’ you wanted to speak, but he quickly went on. As he held your face in his hands, his thumb brushed over your lips,

‘And I will cherish these moments, every second I spent with you, until my last breath. I will think of you as the sun sets, I promise you.’

‘What—what are you talking about?’ your voice choked between sobs.

‘I never expected you to come here,’ he kissed you, passing all the feelings he had voiced earlier over to you with the touch of his lips, ‘but don’t come here again.’

‘What? No!’ You pushed yourself away. This wasn’t the plan. You were going to help him. You were going to get him out of here. As you got up to your feet, so did he, reaching for your hand again.

‘Listen to me.’ he gritted his teeth in desperation. ‘There is no way out of here, and it will only get worse for me.’ As he said so, your eyes flashed back to the bruise on his pale skin. ‘I do not want you to see me like that. Let this be where we say our goodbyes.’ He held your hand, finger over your knuckles, soothingly. You hated that he was comforting you at this moment.

‘No,’ you whimpered, head shaking. You turned your hand around in his to grab onto his fingers. One of his skull rings slowly began to slide off, and so you stopped before it dropped.

‘Please,’ he squeezed your hand.

‘No!’ you shouted, not caring if the guards outside could hear you. They might storm inside any second now and drag you out, they could try, but you wouldn’t let them. ‘I won’t let you die.’

‘It’s okay.’ He said. With every sentence he spoke, a new piece of the puzzle had been allotted to its place, but the final picture still blurred before your mind. It only seemed like even more gaps needed to be filled in, but it was slowly coming together, and when it did… You wanted to cry out.

Eddie held you as best as he could through his restraints, the faintest smile painted over his lips.

‘You knew, didn’t you?’ you stood there, defeated. ‘That if you would come back here with me, that this would happen. You knew you would be arrested and hanged.’

‘At least now I truly deserve it.’ All the crimes he committed at sea trying to help others, what he had let happen to the Red Tail. ‘So, please, just go. I promise, it will be alright.’

You wanted to scream at him. Hit him, punch him, and much more for all of this. You wanted him to hurt as much as you did as he told you to leave, but in reality, you doubted anything you could do to him would match even half of the pain you felt as you stood there. You wanted him to hurt, but all you could do was take one last step forward and pull him in to kiss you.

When you left, you could still feel him on your lips. That feeling let you move step by step out onto the street. Everything else felt not quite right, not quite real. You walked mindlessly across the empty market, barely aware of your surroundings, until you suddenly stood in front of your room door. You dropped the empty basket at your side and practically floated onto the bed.

It was late; you had no idea what time exactly, but too late for anyone to help you get out of that corset. You lay on the bed, now unable to get up, unwilling to move even if you could, staring up at the ceiling. Maybe you never stopped staring or fell into a slumber, but the next morning you still lay on your back, barely changing position over the early morning hours.

You sat in your room, looking at the tide coming and going, pushing the sand and the rocks through the hours. The hours blurred; days became night, and the moon turned into the sun. The following two days passed, and you spend them in silent disbelief and confusion, just fighting to not return to the prison cell.

There must be something you could do. People you could convince or pay or bribe in any other way to not let the execution take place. Help him escape.

This could not be the end.

But Eddie had made his final wish clear. You were not to see him again, and what could you do when no one would listen to you? When everyone on the island had his mind set on what Eddie was? You were paralysed with helplessness, and no matter what you tried to do or what to think about, it just would not go away. It grew inside you, impossible to ever leave you again, and you were slowly making peace with that. Your own price to pay for not being able to do anything for him when he truly needed it.

Even when you arrived at the square, which was filling up with an audience hours before the event, were you trying to look for escape routes, but the more people arrived, the more challenging a wall they created to penetrate. You would never be able to run through it, but you thought of it. Holding his hand, never looking back.

The sun that afternoon was flaming hot, burning through all the layers of your dress that pinned into your ribs as you sat down. The governing families got the best seats on the raised platform in the house, with plush chairs to wait on while everything was prepared. There was only the cool breeze of your fan to cool you down, but it did nothing on your nerves. They burned within just as much as the sun's rays.

You had not been sure if coming was a good choice or if you were prepared to witness Eddie’s death, but your absence would surely be questioned and… and you could not pass on the ever last possibility of seeing him. The dubiety ran through you with a threat of tears.

But more and more people came around to see, and you traced each face to find someone who could help you. Someone on your side. A familiar ally, but no luck. They were all prepared to see a man die tonight. The mumbling amongst them turned into chatter, and the conversations of local gossip turned to absolute mudslinging.

‘I heard he has killed over a thousand men with his bare hands.’

‘Well, I heard he had planned on taking over the army in order to become the next king!’

‘And I heard—’

‘I heard—’

I heard… One thing after the other, each one worse than the last. Could they not see this? All of it nothing but hearsay. They were putting a man on death row for things overheard at the market. Of course, no one would listen if you were to say this.

The sky slowly turned a warm orange, glowing on the buildings like a soft fire. The bell in the church tower struck seven times, half through instinct and half through custom, people’s heads turned in one direction. All but yours because as they all looked at the procession—the court man carrying a large scroll of parchment, followed by the executioner, who pulled the chains that were locked around Eddie’s wrists and the two guardsmen behind him, weapons at the ready—you stared ahead at the gallows. The rope hanging on it looked short and could only mean one thing.

A slow and painful death.

The clanking of the shackles echoed through the entire square with each step Eddie took. He was barely visible through the crowd, but the length of the executioner in front of him ensured everyone could follow the death march.

Eddie looked ill—pale and fragile. His steps were shaking, not improved at all by the heavy chains that pulled him forward. He stumbled around up the stairs to the gallow. You could see his eyes look up in fearful amazement at the construction of the gibbet. His Adam’s apple choked up and down, and then his eyes caught sight of you.

Everything began to move at a slowed-down pace.

He must not have expected you to come or hoped you wouldn’t because the brave and confident facade cracked for the tiniest moment. The sadness dominated his features for a glimpse of time, but it was all you could see. Too occupied by his view, he had missed his call to step up. The hangman shouted something from underneath his black hood, kicking Eddie forward. You flinched as Eddie kept his balance not to fall to the floor. You couldn’t do this. You could not watch this go down, but you did not want to leave him behind. Not ever. This could not be the end.

The court man stepped forward, unscrolling his parchment as he cleared his throat. It was enough for the people below, standing on the pavement, in the shadows of the buildings, on the balconies, to quiet down and listen as he read:

‘On this day,’ his voice carried through the entire square, ‘we bear witness to the punishment of Edward Munson, pirate, for his admitted crimes of theft, perjury, extortion, abduction, desertion, high treason and murder, sentencing him to death as decided by the governing council.

‘He shall hang here for God to give his final judgement and remain a reminder for any wrong-doers and sinners to come!’

You glanced at your father, who sat by untouched. Was Eddie’s body here to stay forever? You could not imagine having to walk around this town every day just to see his body be taken by the elements.

The sun was nearly at the horizon, shining bright at all of you, its heat still heating your skin.

The people cheered as the rope was put around Eddie’s neck, who waved to them as if they were not cheering on his demise. One hand pulling the other up, making the chain between them clink. A smile pulled at the corner of his lips, and it astonished you to see that he managed to stay his entertaining self even now. Always playing a role for the other man. Here to entertain. To provoke. To distract.

But the smile faded, body stiffened as the noose was pulled taut.

‘That’s a bit tight,’ Eddie commented, and in response to that, the hooded man pulled it even tighter. It dug into his skin. He looked down at where the floor would soon disappear from underneath him, then up at the sky and with a slight choke, he spoke out his final words, embellished by the last spark of his life:

‘To reign is worth ambition though in hell: Better to reign in hell, then serve in heaven.’

People gasped, mumbling amongst each other once more until hushed to silence by the hangman walking up to the lever that would set everything into motion. As Eddie took his final breath, everyone held theirs in anticipation. Your hands were shaking; every breath you took felt like a betrayal to him and like a stab in your lungs. Your fan moved faster, the small gushes of wind barely doing anything to cool down your face. This could not be the end. Not this. Not now. It couldn’t be—

The arm was pulled, and it was as if it had removed the ground from underneath your feet; that’s how deep the drop in your stomach was as you saw Eddie fall. It was as much as you could bear seeing before you turned around, hiding your face in your hands, hiding your tears from everyone else.

When hanging a person, two types of noose could be used. With the longer drop, the fall's impact would cause the neck to break and bring instant death. The shorter rope prolongs the act of dying as the rope digs into their throat, cutting off their air. During this, the square is filled with the sound of choked gasps, encouraged by the hundreds of onlookers.

If you had been one of them, down there on the ground, with easy access to the podium, you would have stormed it. Cut the rope loose. But you sat on the balcony, surrounded by your father and the other gentlemen and guards, unable to move anywhere. So you could only hope that there would be someone to do what you wanted to do. That someone would show up and save him like you wish you could. But when no one came, and his strangled groans became more sporadic, you had had enough. You couldn’t do this. You could not sit by and watch or even listen to what was happening before you.

Your father’s call of your name was muffled by the public, and your own internal screams as you ran out. Arms reached for you, but you pushed past them all. As soon as you were out of everyone’s sight, the tears started to flow, and they would not stop no matter how far you ran. And you wanted to run as far away as possible, as far away as your legs could take you. Off this island, away from these people. Yet, you eventually carried yourself back to the square. Each step made you dizzy through the corridors and down the stairs, but you could not stand still.

You had thought you were faster, but as soon as you pushed the heavy doors open and saw the stream of people walking away, the truth sank into your bones. You pushed your way past the crowd back to the open marketplace. As soon as it was done, people lost interest and continued with their evenings as if nothing had happened, ready for whatever next was to come eventually. By the time you reached the foot of the gallow, there was practically no one else around you.

The sun was saying its goodbyes, and his body was a dark shadow across the obscuring sky, hanging limp, still swinging from side to side but with every second coming closer to its final halt. Something about the movements looked so serene that you could not come to terms with that this was really it. Just like that… he was gone, but it happened so quickly, so easily. Too quickly.

You stood in front of him as the last people left, and the sun disappeared at the end of the world until the real darkness fell upon you, and your tears finally dried out until your throat screamed for water and air, and you could barely stand up straight.

This could not be the end.

And you were one of the first people to hear of it.

First, there was the prickling of the fire in the reading room, the flipping of the pages as you stared ahead at the words of the book, making yourself seem present in the room as your father sat by. Then there were the rushed footsteps in the hallway. The hushed whispers of hesitance behind the closed door as the men contemplated what to do. A creak of the door as they walked inside towards your father and leaned in to whisper so you would not hear what they had to say.

But the room was so quiet, you heard it quite clearly.

‘Sir, there is an…a problem.’

‘What is the matter?’ Your father, as always, did not find much need to express himself largely, but at the guard's response, his eyes grew wide, and for a moment, the glow of the fire seemed that much cooler.

‘The body…. It’s gone, sir.’

‘What do you mean,’ he composed himself quickly, ‘he is gone? How can that be?’

The guards never looked so small. ‘We do not know sir, but he is. It is like he has disappeared into thin air.’

‘Absurd,’ your father got up, and so did you. Before you got to say a word or take a step forward, he quickly stopped you. ‘You stay here.’

‘Absolutely not.’ Was all you replied as you rushed out of the room ahead of anyone else.

You had already made your peace with never stepping a foot inside the town square ever again, not if you would have to be reminded of that afternoon, of everything that happened in the last months, but as you walked back up to it, you could not have been happier that you had returned.

Only the rope left was where his body had hung and where it had meant to hang for days to come. Its perfectly knotted noose swayed like he had the last time you saw him.

Everyone else was right behind you, but just before they reached the platform with you, you noticed something in the corner of your eye. A shine against the moonlight on the wooden beams. You could just barely reach it, but with a stretch of the arm, your fingertips just about managed to get a grip on it. Before you could look at it, you heard your father shout orders at the guards, making them search everywhere in the nearby surroundings. Maybe whoever had taken the body was still somewhere nearby.

Whoever took it… was that what happened? Before you could look around for more signs that could clarify the situation, you were called to return back home. It would do little good to argue now, so you followed the guard tasked with escorting you to your room. Only when he closed your door and you sat down at your drawing desk that you opened your fist to reveal what it was you had found beneath the rope.

The pair of hollowed-out eyes of the skull ring stared back at you. There was no possible way for you to know what this meant if it even meant something, but you couldn’t help but smile. The ring was loose on your finger, but you kept it on.

This could not be the end of Captain Eddie Munson.

It wasn’t.

For most people, he lived on as a ghost story, and as you had learned from a very young age, dead men tell no tales. The living pass their stories around, mouth to mouth, page to page. Blurring the truth with their urgency for clarity, they try to make sense of things they cannot understand. Secrets become myths and legends that barely resemble the truth.

In most cases, it takes years, decades, if not centuries, but here, on this small island, the conversations on the street already trickled with gossip and rumours the following morning.

I did not want to believe it, but it must be true, what they say. He did sell his soul to the devil! And it came to retrieve his body.

I told you! It is useless to try and kill the unkillable! No, did you not hear what he had said? “Better to reign in hell!” But he is the devil incarnate!

Well, I’m surprised they caught him in the first place! Why he must be a ghost. The lot of them on that wicked ship. All cursed, and now he will return to haunt us for the rest of our lives!

Who was to say out of all of them what happened on that square once darkness fell? No one was there to see it or tell the truth, as all who could had long left the island.

They left at night, days after everything went down after the search for Eddie’s missing body had been called off, “officially” said to have been stolen but never confirmed. Those who knew what happened to it stayed in hiding until it was safe to come out until all suspicions were blurred with the gossip and basically forgotten. Quietly, they ran to the harbour, unseen by anyone, swift as the wind.

Unnoticed by anyone…but you.

Like most of the nights, unable to fall asleep, you had been looking out your window out at the harbour and the sea. The ships that calmly stood anchored there and the waves that pushed against them. Slowly, they put you to sleep, and so at first, you thought it was just a blur of your tired gaze, the dark spot in the far distance. It wasn’t a ship. And there, on the shore, there were no people preparing a boat. Not this late…

You rubbed your eyes, trying to better understand what they were doing. Packing in a hurry, throwing things into the bottom of the rowboat. As you watched, you told yourself that it was just the exhaustion speaking, that you were fooling yourself with this hope, but you could not let the chance pass you by.

You left your room without bothering to put anything on over your nightgown. Quietly to not gain any attention, but still as quickly as you could manage. Who knew how much time you had left before they would leave? Then once out of the house, you ran as fast as you could. The past few days, it felt like it had been all you had been doing, running to and from things, running after something without even knowing what you were looking for, but now you knew. You ran until your lungs began to burn from the warm and dry air. Until your feet were ready to give in and until you reached the sandy beach.

As much as you wanted to scream and shout, you kept quiet. You walked carefully up to the two figures at the shore until they noticed you next to them. It happened when you were only a few feet away; they heard the scuffle of your feet or your shaky breath and pulled their guns out. They were ready to shoot, but the second they needed to notice you in the dark saved your life. That is when you locked eyes with the man in front of you.

‘Eddie?’ you cried. Before he could say anything, you took the final few steps and closed the gap between you, pressing your lips against his. Just to know it was real. Just to make sure you had not gone completely mad. You pressed yourself against every inch of him that you could.

With the need for air, you pulled back, and instinctually, your palm met the side of his face. ‘How? I saw you—’ You both breathed heavily, chests raising drastically as he turned back to face you with a smile and press his lips against yours again. Like the last pieces of the puzzle, his hands fit on your body perfectly.

Then he pulled you apart, with his hands on your face, wiping away the tears that had formed along the way. ‘I know,’ he whispered, but the words were so close you could feel them. You could feel him. Just the feeling of his fingertips on your cheeks assured you that this was real and that it was really him. ‘And I’m so sorry.’

‘But why?’ You were trembling in his arms.

‘I had realised very early on that the only way to truly escape this place was to die,’ he smiled the smile you thought you would never see again, ‘but, well, I was not ready for that just yet.’

‘But I saw you— I watched it all happen there—how did you—’ his being broke you. You could not stop staring at the man in front of you. At all the little knicks and cracks in his skin. The fading bruises, the scars, and the long red gash along his neck that proved everything that much more.

‘I told you everything would be alright, didn’t I?’ And he never broke his promise. But still, as the truth settled in around you, it opened up a space for a new kind of hurt.

‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why let me believe that you were gone?’

‘It was the one thing that actually killed me, believe me,’ he pushed the loose hair out of your face, ‘but I needed you to believe it like anyone else. If you believed it—it would make everything so much easier.’

You wanted to ask him what on earth that was supposed to mean, but that is when you remembered the boat at his side. And when you noticed Steve waiting impatiently behind him, the oar already in his hand.

‘You’re leaving.’ It wasn’t a question. Of course, he was. He couldn’t hide here forever. Out there, in the waters, he would be genuinely free.

‘It’s all for the best, and with me gone for good, you could live on; move on,’ he said somberly.

‘Do you think I could forget about you that easily?’ Your fist had clamped onto the material of his shirt. ‘Do you really think I think so little of you? That I had not spend every minute of the past days mourning you? Missing you?’ and now you had him… just to lose him again.

‘But it would all pass. You can find someone else, someone better, and be happy.’ He looked down at your hand to see the ring you had kept on your finger for the past few days. He kissed his ring and then looked back up at you. ‘Let me go, darling.’

‘No,’ you shook your head, much like you had in the dungeon, but this time, you were more adamant this time than ever. ‘I won’t let you. Not this time.’

He mumbled your name, trying to argue, but you were ready with a rebuttal before he even said anything.

‘I do not want to spend another day without you. Not if I know you are somewhere out there—’ you had been looking at the ring too, but then looked at him again as an idea formed in your brain. ‘Take me with you.’

‘I can’t do that,’ his smile was airy and light but filled with regret. ‘You belong here.’

‘No, I don’t. Remember what I told you when I came to see you?’ You pleaded with him. ‘Do you remember?’ You pushed the words out when he didn’t say anything.

‘Yes.’

‘So, please, don’t leave me. Not again.’ At this point, you punched every word into his chest weakly as you began to cry again, and he let you. Then, when you were finally done, he held you, telling Steve off when he tried to put this to an end, even though he was right. There wasn’t much time left. The sun would come up soon again, and people would awake and see you, and it would all have been for nothing.

‘I wish I could give you the world, darling,’ he said, ‘I call you a princess, but we both know you should be treated as a queen and get anything you ask for, but I can’t do that for you. I am not the man you should be with.’ He kissed the top of your head. ‘Please, forgive me.’ And with that, he let you go.

You had let him do many things in the past, but not this time.

‘Well, I don’t forgive you.’ He had already turned around to get to the boat, but you just stepped past him, stunning him and poor Steve, as you got in. ‘If you wanted the easy way out, Munson, you should have thought twice about who to kidnap.’

The two men looked bewildered momentarily, too stunned to respond, but Steve was the first to respond. ‘She’s right,’ and he followed you in. The boat rocked from side to side. You sighed as you looked at Eddie as he stood in the sand.

‘I’m not scared, Eddie.’ you reached out your hand to him. ‘I want this.’ You wanted him. You wanted this life with him. You wanted to travel the world and have a life of adventures. You wanted to be free.

Eddie looked at you, still in apparent shock at your sudden assertion. You might have thought you had changed so much, but he still saw the same stubborn woman as that cursed day when you were hauled aboard his ship. On the contrary, he had been the one that changed, and he realised that as he cursed himself there on that beach. He knew he might come to regret this, but he thought he had regretted most of his choices, most of what he had done in the past months, and yet, he could not have been happier with where his life had led him, as it all led him to you. So, he took your hand and pulled himself into the boat.

You dropped the weights that had kept you anchored and made your way out into the sea where the Hellfire lay by patiently, waiting for her Captain and his Princess—despite what their titles actually may be—to return home.

The End.

thank you so much for reading!! if you want more of where this came from, check out my masterlist.

and please support your (not so) local creators by liking AND reblogging. I would love to know what you thought of the story, so please consider leaving a comment, or maybe an ask or even an anonymous review ;P

taglist:

@spiderrrling @nope-thanks @seventhlevelofhell @strangerfreak @hangmanscoming @blueberrylemontea-fanfic @vintagehellfire @raven-rust @eddiesguitarskills @imjusteddietrashatthispoint @lunar-corgimon

@theglitterymess @dorianelizabeth @theletterhart @pastel-abyss-x @ghoulsgraveyard @lovesickollie @xbreezymeadowsx @meaganjm @mischiefmanagers @capybergara @brother-lauren @h0sh1verse @ghostlyreads @croweaterr @ladyapplejackdnd @bilesxbilinskixlahey @liltimmyst @hellfire-state-of-mind @escape-in-time-x @sweetpeapod @eddiemunsonbby @mydearzero @overthewhiteclouds @wroteclassicaly @celestialsxturn @hoe4eddiemunson @inanausomewhere @scoops-harrington @fluffyharrington @billyhargrovesprincess @annikin-im-panicin @

@kaitieskidmore1 @yesv01 @princess-aries @m4riesworld @thesebitcheslovesosadotcom @dixontardis @nataliastranqe @dark-academia-slut @3am-waterbottle

#eddie munson #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson series #eddie munson au #pirate!eddie #pirate!eddie munson #pirate!au #au #eddie munson angst #eddie munson imagine #fanfiction #enemies to lovers #slow burn #pirates

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crookedkryptonitebeliever · 5 months

Note

Ok regarding that “can i make Yves do my homework if I give him my childhood pictures” ask, exactly how much access does Yves have to our lives? Does he have images or videos from when we were still a baby or would they be new information to him?

A bunch of my baby pictures and videos are lost because my dad lost the computer that had them but we recently found my aunt’s old camera filled with our childhood pictures, it was a pleasant surprise for us but would it be for Yves too?

It absolutely is. If Yves was there with you while your aunt showed you the photo gallery of her old camera, Yves would momentarily lose a bit of inhibition and let his pupils dilate to a maddening degree before instantly constricting it back to appear normal. It's a rare, super deluxe edition photos of you, there isn't anything else like it out there as they're most likely not uploaded to the internet or a cloud based service, where he could easily hack.

Him coming across media from your childhood or at least during those early days where people still go to and get their photos developed, is like winning the lottery for him. Because, although he tries to collect everything relating to your existence, there is only so much he can do in a day. He rather prioritizes the present and the future, as the past is the past; neither you nor him can change it, he can only understand or connect it to your current behaviours or thought patterns.

He does have some information about you as a baby or a child, but that is if they're "readily available" to him. (I.e., it can be found in predictable places like in your childhood home.), that is why, Yves would try to build a good relationship with people you grew up with, to extract information.

Despite being reclusive as he is, Yves would never fail to attend every and any family gathering he is invited to or expected to come. Encouraging that drunk uncle to drink more if he knew he has something to say about you, bribing your relatives with gifts and career opportunities, perhaps even drugging that really difficult and combative cousin to make them more bearable to interrogate.

As soon as he knew your aunt could be another goldmine of your data, he would get to work. Wasting no time building a rapport with her, it's a piece of cake given how obsessive and manipulative his nature is.

Inevitably, your aunt will come to love him and see Yves as family. By extension, her relationship with you will skyrocket too, she will invite you to her place much more often even though she might not be the most sociable person in the first place. Yves will find a way to make her bend to his whims.

The majority of their conversations would be about you, only sometimes Yves would talk about something else if it meant he could keep the drive to spill more about your lore going. His sharp ears and mind will pick up on clues as to where he might find more pictures or writings about you. He would then break into your aunt's home to give it a thorough shakedown and leave without a trace. Yves would repeat this process until he's positive that she has nothing left to offer. That camera is getting fucking stolen and replaced with a duplicate.

It didn't matter if your aunt was a minimalist or a severe hoarder, he would go through all her things just to try and find pieces of your puzzle. He would wade through cobwebs, dust piles, rat droppings and mould if he had to, Yves isn't scared to get dirty to obtain what he wants, "squeamish" isn't in his vocabulary.

When she is robbed of all your essence, Yves would become distant. Not hostile towards her, just cold and indifferent. He would still maintain some sort of relationship with her though, in case she becomes useful again later. As of now, he either puts his entire focus on your current peripheral and direct life, or start to hunt other members down- from his snooping, he had learned of other people who may have valuable input about your childhood.

All of this is happening in the background. You wouldn't suspect a thing, there wasn't a dip in his attention for you. In fact, he may have gotten a lot more smothering, as Yves would be shaking at the thought of testing out his new theories and hypothesis that were birthed from his new knowledge.

He just loves you so much that he couldn't help himself but to get greedy. Yves wants all of you; past, present and future. And any version of you that could have been.

#yandere #yandere oc #yandere x reader #yandere male #oc yves #yandere concept #tw yandere #yandere oc x reader #yandere x you #male yandere oc x reader

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hairpintvrns · 1 month

Text

TERRY LOWENSTEIN + Birdforum.net profile.

Terry recently celebrated 20 years of engaging in their first birding forum. As an active participant in the community, they enjoy a relatively large following on the platform and have met up with several people on it. (In the first few years, Terry used to be accompanied by Micah, because, well, stranger danger—and they are not the best at reading social cues, to say the least.) In July 2024, they changed their header profile to that of their new Maine coon mix, Samson, replacing their years-long header of the Natural History Museum in Utah, the favorite building they'd ever designed.

EverydayTerry: Supporter / An architect now teaching future architects / 53 / From New York City Joined: August 17, 2004 / Last seen: Today at 10:45 AM / Messages: 28,634 / Gallery: 189 / Reaction score: 14,396 Find: Profile posts / Latest activity / Postings / Gallery / About

Tips and tricks for spotting birds in dense forests

A strategy I've found works best particularly in hilly paths is finding a trail path that sits along a ridge. You will be afforded with a better vantage point, as the trees will have gone down the slope. In some cases you might even be eye level with higher parts of the tree -- perhaps that can be an option… EverydayTerry · Post #539 · Sunday at 9:44 PM · Forum: Tips for New Birders

Instagram problem

Has anyone else had the problem of getting too many followers on Instagram? I'd checked my follower list and very few of them seem to be interested in birds. I'm not sure if "removing followers" is acceptable. Tonight I'd gotten a comment about 'catfishing' for changing my profile picture and I'm almost at the point of giving up … EverydayTerry · Post #28,634 · Saturday at 9:51 PM · Forum: Computers, Birding Software And The Int …

Happy 20th anniversary to our good friend Terry!

Many thanks Jack, Euan, and Ilya for the anniversary wishes. it is hard to believe I've dedicated 20 years towards this forum … and yes, Euan, you are correct in recalling that I've met my ex-partner here. We separated some two years ago. And yes, Ilya, I still recall your invitation to drinks in Chicago. Perhaps we can settle the arrangement soon. Let us talk … EverydayTerry · Post #11,239 · Friday at 10:36 PM · Forum: Members Faces

Happy 20th anniversary to our good friend Terry!

I opted for a smaller celebration. There aren't many folks I know who live in the Chicago area just yet. Terry (yes, we share the same name, we've heard it before … ) and I attempted to take photos of some black-bellied whistling-ducks we spotted over the lake but the ripples on the water seemed to throw the focus off. Think now I might have used so much zoom but we live and learn … EverydayTerry · Media Item · Friday at 9:20 PM · Comments: #23 · Category: Members Faces

#musings. terry #socials. terry #//done for utterly own self-serving purposes thank you. i was inspired by everyone sending me bird stuff.#//my draft count is at the trenches but we push on #//some angst content here if you squint but terry is emotionally constipated. so. <3

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dirtypuzzle · 5 days

Text

i am a linux fan. i started using it in 2012 when i was in middle school, and while i've jumped back to windows at various points over the years for brief periods, i really enjoy using linux.

that being said, i don't recommend people to use it. mostly because, i have found anyway, that the people who are going to like it already found it/use it. nobody else really has much reason to bother, ime.

i find that there's two ways to get into linux: you become a developer and find a genuine interest in it, or you were traumatized by windows/mac so badly that you rage quit and found linux as a last resort.

you might ask what that means. well for me, i originally ran ubuntu in 2012 to get some more life out of an asus notebook with 2GB of RAM that just could not run windows' bloat, but went back to windows when i replaced the computer in 2015. however, windows blue screened on me for no fucking reason within a few days, and i couldn't find a way to recover the windows product key, and i lost every single fucking file i had (mostly school stuff), so i swore off windows and used my brother's computer to make a bootable ubuntu drive. i was familiar with it anyway and that was that. i used ubuntu until i replaced that computer (RIP to that Dell - that's a computer tangent that genuinely still makes me mad to this day and i could've kept using it for years) in 2019. my brand new razr came with windows 10 on it, and i've since been too lazy to replace it even tho windows bugs the shit out of me.

now windows is trying to get me to update to windows 11 and security will soon lapse, so i'm getting ready to go back to linux. bc fuck windows 11 and its bloatware and spyware and corporate bullshit.

but i also don't game, don't use any critical windows-only apps, and otherwise don't need any of the functionality that a lot of tech gear only has with windows. so. for me linux is an easy solution to a fucking annoying problem.

#dirty talks #linuxposting #i might do more of that idk #one thing that bugs me abt linux users is theyre just Thee most insufferable assholes for no reason #nonna isn't gonna use linux just give it up #i love linux but pls be serious

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joongernaut · 2 years

Text

I.O.U

⇢ pairing(s): school secretary!ten x school administrator!reader x dean!taeyong

⇢ genres: SMUT, light humor, barely-there-plot, enemies-to-enemies that fuck, coworkers-to-coworkers that fuck (i just made that up LMFAO)

⇢ warnings: threesome (F/M/M), switch!ten, sub!taeyong, unprotected sex, light hair pulling/choking, vouyerism, degradation, creampie

⇢ word count: 8056

⇢ author note: first fic posted on here after that very long hiatus... woo! 🫰🏾 this was made 2-3 months ago as a secret santa gift for a friend and she gave me permission to post it! i'm kinda happy with how it came out and that she loved it so i hope y'all like it too ❤️

✧

Winter break. It’s all everyone had been looking forward to as the season changed from that windy, cool atmosphere to the more frigid cold with the beginning of snowfall starting to blanket the city.

Students and teachers alike had wished for nothing more than for the days to go by faster, relieving them of the stress of work and end-of-year assignments and tests if even for a brief couple of weeks. Now that the time had finally come, everybody was giddy and ready to head home for the holidays to spend some much needed time away from all of the chaos ensuing due to the year starting to come to a close.

Today was the last day for high schoolers before their break officially started and it was now an hour since classes had been dismissed. The only people left on campus were mostly teachers and staff, with the occasional student here and there for last minute discussions or for some after-school activity that would inevitably be cut short so everyone could get home as soon as possible.

You were part of the administration staff and your time and attention had been split today. You floated frantically from different classes to help monitor the students, dropped off files for some of the teachers here and there, and eventually ended up at your desk finishing up your own personal work on the computer, completely drained because of the previous back to back tasks. It wasn't any easier any other day having to deal with rowdy, prepubescent teenagers (or the occasional pretentious adult) but you seemed more tense than anything today.

And that tension only seemed to grow as your eyes skimmed over the text on the computer screen in front of you for the fourth time.

“Are you serious?” You muttered low to yourself, standing hunched over your desk as you re-read the email again addressed from the dean. Something about a stupid ass staff ‘get-together’ he had planned a few days from now, very clearly just a replacement word for ‘meeting’. And to make things even worse the word ‘MANDATORY’ had been highlighted in bold letters emphasizing that the people that received it were not going to be able to back out of it.

‘Why me though?’ You thought in exasperation, pinching the bridge of your nose causing your glasses to shift up on your face as you let out a heavy sigh. This was in no way how you wanted to spend even a portion of your winter break. What could possibly be so important that they had to come back to the school in the middle of holidays to attend, especially a day before christmas?

“So, you got that email, too.” A voice came suddenly from behind and you jumped, nearly springing yourself backwards right into the body (the firm chest, to be exact) of said voice. Ten let out an amused chuckle as you shot him a glare from over your shoulder.

“Don't you have some business to mind? More specifically Dean Lee’s?” You hissed through nearly clenched teeth, straightening yourself up as you turned to face him. His somewhat lax demeanor would've put you at ease if it weren't for the fact that he absolutely pisses you off just being near you.

“Oh, I’ve finished up my work already,” He responded at once, taking interest in picking under his nail and inspecting the cuticles rather than looking at you, “And you? Looks like you might be spending your break doing even more mundane work than usual. Although, I guess that's to be expected from our resident busy bee and little ass kisser. Tragic.” He pouted with faux sympathy, your glare only intensifying towards him.

This has always been the dynamic between you two. From the very first day you started working there when Ten had introduced himself casually then proceeded to question whether you were ‘dressed to go to church or something’ right after as he looked you up and down like you were something at the bottom of his shoe, it's been a constant back and forth of snide comments.

How you survive in a room with him, his own desk being a few feet away from you located near the back of the shared space and conveniently next to Dean Lee’s private room, you never understood.

“What's this party even for, Chittaphon? Why is this shit even mandatory? I thought he wanted all of us to enjoy our breaks…” You questioned him, figuring that since he is essentially the man’s right hand that he would know the answer.

“Well, if you really wanna know so bad…” Ten leaned forward and you took an instinctive step back only to bump right into your desk as he caged you against it with one arm out by your side. He was too close, even more so when he leaned down close to your ear to whisper into it. “Show up and find out.”

You should've known better than to ask Ten for anything. Of course he would give you a hard time just because he knew he could. “Not like I have much of a choice.” You groaned, shoving at his shoulder to get him out of your personal space. He barely moved from the action but took a step back as he rolled his eyes. “It’s one day out of the break and it's not like you have anything better to do,” He scoffed, folding his arms over his chest, “Also, you're not the only one that has to suffer, you know. Almost all of us have to be there, too.”

You let out a faint gasp and he arched his eyebrow. “Wait, you’re gonna be there, too? Oh god, this just got so much fucking worse.” You whined to yourself while running a hand down your face, immediately feeling the heat of his stare once the comment left your mouth. You mentally pat yourself on the back for it as he finally walked off (not without saying something under his breath) and left you alone, a minor victory of getting under his skin.

You spent another hour and a half finishing up some documents and clearing your desk, packing up for the day before locking the room up and heading out. You’re glad, at the very least, that you weren't the last staff member to get out of the building. You also successfully avoided bumping into Ten again with the last encounter only slightly souring your mood until you remember getting the last word, the thought making you smile to yourself childishly.

It’s evening now and just like how the weather was this morning, it’s absolutely freezing outside. You tug your coat tighter against yourself as you sling the strap of your bag over your shoulder, fighting against the harsh wind as you make your way to your car. Walking across the parking lot as you slowly approach the designated staff member parking spaces, you notice a figure standing by their own car directly next to yours. And as you get closer, they become even more recognizable.

“Ah, Y/N, you’re finally done for today I see.” Taeyong says with a friendly smile, and you shoot him a polite one back. “Dean Lee,” You acknowledge with a nod, “Why yes I am. I was just getting ready to head home.” You added, clutching your car keys a bit and making them jingle.

Taeyong shook his head with a laugh, a huff of warm air coming out as a small cloud in the cold. “Y/N, it's been years. You know you can call me Taeyong, right? I don’t mind.” He says it so easily as if you’ve been his close friend this whole time.

You didn't mean to always be so formal with him but he was your boss after all. Standing around the same height with a lean, muscular frame and a strong, handsome face with looks that could kill, you had to admit that being around the man was a bit intimidating.

Anyone would be with how attractive he was while also holding all of the authority over everyone in the school. He never gave you the vibe that he was a power hungry asshole and you wouldn't normally judge a book by its cover but in this case (with how little you knew about him despite your few years of working under him) you couldn't help yourself.

“Right, sorry… Taeyong.” You reply to him with a nervous chuckle, his name rolling off of your tongue hesitantly despite his reassurance. He lets out another laugh at your slight awkwardness and you can't help but think how sexy it sounds.

Before he can say anything else though, you decide to ask the question that has been plaguing your mind since earlier, “Hey, about that meet—I mean the staff get-together… I was wondering what that would be about? Since it’s mandatory, I would presume it’s something important.” You decided to ask it safely rather than the accusatory ‘What the hell are we doing having a meeting between our supposed winter break’.

Taeyong mulls your words over for a few seconds, eyebrows slightly furrowed before giving you an unreadable expression. It’s neither a smile nor a frown but it makes you shift on your feet nonetheless. “I can’t go over the details unfortunately but I guarantee you it is important. You especially need to be there. So… see you then?” He says before bidding you farewell, hopping into his car before cranking it up and driving off leaving you puzzled.

‘You especially need to be there.’

What the fuck did that even mean? The words repeated over and over in your head even as you got into your own car and headed home, more stressed out than you were before the short conversation. You guessed you’d get your answer on that soon, a few days from now to be more specific. Whether you felt like you were gonna be prepared for that answer or not, you weren't sure.

✧

You spent the first couple of days of the break spending time with your family and friends or at home getting into the holiday spirit with a christmas movie and a glass of wine to fill the time or doing some last minute shopping online for yourself. Last night you had finally decided on what you wanted to wear to the staff party, leaving it out for today so you can get dressed quickly.

The email specifically asked for staff members to get a little dressed up for the occasion and you hoped you didn't overdo it or underdress. You don't meet up with a lot of your coworkers after school hours so having them see you outside of the normal business casual look is a bit daunting. Not that you care about how they see you but you did want to look your best.

Really, if it weren't so damn cold, you would've worn a nice little cocktail dress to turn a few heads but you decided warmth was the better choice to achieve especially with the temperature dropping as the sun sets and the moon rose higher in the night sky.

You wore black, thick tights with a cream colored oversized v-neck sweater, heeled black boots, a long brown coat with a plaid thick scarf around your neck. Accentuating the look with a pair of gold earrings and a gold necklace, you had given yourself a quick once over in your rear view mirror and applied a fair amount of lip gloss before exiting out of your parked car and approaching the school’s front entrance.

After getting buzzed in by security, briefly greeting Johnny and Kun as they directed you toward the auditorium with a gesture, you made your way down the hall with your heels clicking against the tiled floor.

The halls were a little too quiet for a place that was supposedly having a party and you double-checked the calendar on your phone to make sure you didn't get the date mixed up. That couldn't have been the case though since security was on campus and seemingly on standby.

You shook the feeling off as you continued around the corner, greeted by the double doors of the auditorium decorated in gold and silver streamers just a few feet away. ‘Let’s get this shit over with.’ You hyped yourself up, mentally preparing for whatever greeted you on the other side as you pushed the doors open and stepped inside.

It was mostly dark at first, nearly as silent as when you were walking through the halls just a moment ago which only added on to the eeriness. “Uh… Hello?” You called out loud and clear, hesitantly taking a step forward. Immediately the room lit up with more lighting from overhead, almost blinding with how bright it was and you let out a startled yelp as a chorus of cheering and clapping started to sound throughout the space.

With your eyes finally adjusted to the lighting, you look around to see the room filled with a lot of your coworkers as they beam at you while your body froze in place. There were balloons and confetti scattered in the air and on the auditorium floor, a sign hanging up across the room reading ‘Congratulations!’ in glittery text. Right under the sign, your eyes trail down and you see Taeyong standing under it with a big smile of his own as he gestures for you to come up towards him. You're still very confused, and very much in shock, but your feet somehow carry you to him with a mind of their own.

Now standing next to him, with Ten standing off to the side of him as well with his hands clasped behind his back and an unreadable expression on his face, your mouth finally decides to work again as you face Taeyong. “I’m not sure I’m understanding any of this right now… what are we celebrating exactly?” You asked him curiously as he gently shoved a glass flute into your hand to take. Assuming by the color and the fizz, it had to be champagne or something rather expensive. “Your promotion, Y/N.” Taeyong answered with a soft pat to your shoulder as your jaw went slack.

“My? Me? I’m being promoted?” You questioned in disbelief and Taeyong chuckled. “Yes, you. That's what all of this was for. Sorry I had to keep it a secret but surprise!” He replied, taking a small sip of his glass as more cheering came from the rest of the staff members and you let the words sink in. You weren't expecting this at all, let alone a whole party being thrown in your honor.

Despite your constant complaints throughout the years of working at the school, to say you put your blood sweat and tears into this would be an understatement. So, finally finally getting some kind of recognition felt overwhelmingly good. So overwhelming that you could feel your throat tighten up as your eyes slightly stung with the formation of tears.

“I don't know what to say,” You started with a smile growing on your face, swallowing the small lump in your throat before continuing, “I’m just really grateful for this opportunity, to be able to do what I’ve grown to love. Thank you so much.” You said with a shy nod of your head towards Taeyong.

“You deserve it for all of your dedication. And no need to thank me, I'm happy Ten brought it to my attention so I could easily set this in motion for you. Again, congrats!” Taeyong said before walking off to mingle with the other staff members leaving you with another surprising detail. With him out of the way, you were now facing Ten who seemed to be looking in any direction but your own. Before you could speak up however, he fully turned away and started walking off towards the double doors.

You were going to call out to him, stepping in his direction to follow, but you were immediately stopped by coworker after coworker offering their congratulations and attempting to make small talk. Trying to be polite, you turned to face each of them to personally thank them while giving short, polite responses.

Hearing the sound of the double doors snapping shut, you looked up from the faces surrounding you and saw the one you needed to see the most right now disappear. The answer you had been looking for may have come out in an unexpected way but now, with the knowledge that you had currently, you had another question you needed an answer to.

✧

Finally slipping out from the auditorium (assuring the others you just needed some fresh air and weren't just trying to sneak out of the celebration) you started making your way to the place you could only assume Ten would be located at.

You reached the room of your shared space in haste, noticing the door already slightly ajar as you carefully pushed it open.

Your assumption had been correct.

Sitting atop his desk, a flask of alcohol in hand and in mid-swig, Ten immediately darted his eyes towards you as you stepped into the room and shut the door behind yourself.

“Coward. Why’d you run away like that?” You huffed out in irritation, making your way across the room to him with your hands on your hips. He stayed silent for a moment, his Adam's apple bobbing as he took a few gulps out of the flask before letting out a sigh of annoyance.

“I knew you’d ask stupid questions.” He answered with a shrug and you scoffed loudly. Unbelievable.

“That's a lame ass excuse but that's the least questionable thing about all of this,” You take a few steps closer to him until you're nearly standing between his legs, “You talked to Taeyong about me which, in turn, got me a promotion rather than somehow getting me fired… Why? Better yet, how did that happen?”

Ten took another long swig from the flask before capping it and setting it down beside him on the desk, hopping down from his spot to now stand close in front of you. “Does it fucking matter? I made it happen and now you're getting what you wanted. You should be thanking me, really.” He said condescendingly and you will yourself to not break the intense eye contact.

“I didn't force you to talk to Taeyong or tell him whatever the hell you told him. You did that yourself, of your own accord. It’s almost like you secretly like me or something.” You retorted, noting the clench of his jaw as his mouth formed a thin line. You couldn't help but smirk, clearly striking a nerve.

“Oh my god, that's it isn't it? You don't hate me, you actually like me! All this time, all the comments and insults were just a way of you coping with your little crush on me.” You rattled on with an incredulous look, smirk only growing bigger as Ten stood silently with his jaw clenching. There was nothing that filled you up with satisfaction more than angering the king of bitchiness and ‘nonchalance’ himself.

So, you kept going.

“What are we in, elementary school? Have you not been taught that that's the weakest way to try and pick up girls?” You shook your head in disapproval, not noticing the step he has took forward, “Really, I knew you were capable of stooping this low for attention but this is just fucking pathet-”

Your words were cut off before you could continue and you made a sound of surprise as Ten gripped the back of your neck and crushed his mouth against yours harshly.

Yet another turn of events the night had brought to you that you didn't see coming.

Ten was kissing you. Or rather, he had his lips against yours as you stood there shocked for what felt like the hundredth time tonight. But what came as even more of a shock was the way your body (once your mind finally caught up to what was happening) responded by pressing up against his frame as your lips pressed into his harder.

You were kissing Ten back. You were kissing him back and you were enjoying it because fuck was there so much sexual tension between the two of you. You knew it was there, you always felt it, and you weren't blind to how good-looking Ten looked all the time. Coming to work in his collard shirts with the buttons unfastened to show a peek of the smooth bare skin on his chest, the peek of his tattoos you would catch a glimpse of when his cuffs were slightly rolled up, the way his jeans would hug him in all the right places.

And Ten had felt all of that tension, too. It was like a chord snapping inside of him in that moment as he listened to you run your mouth before deciding that he had enough. To him, this was the best possible way to get you to shut the fuck up.

Once he realized you weren't immediately backing away in disgust and even seemed to want more with how urgently you kissed him back, he decided to indulge himself. Biting and pulling at your plump bottom lip until it was tender, licking along the seam before finding his way into your mouth and mapping out the inside with his tongue. He tasted like the alcohol he had just consumed when you first stepped into the room, a slightly strong liquor taste you were sure you’d probably gag from drinking by itself but on Ten’s tongue you couldn't get enough.

He pulled back finally, allowing yourselves to breathe as he dropped his head against the junction of your shoulder and neck and trailed his lips along the skin making you shiver. “Must not hate me that much if you're letting me kiss you like that.” Ten mumbled, his other hand moving to the back of your knee as he hoisted your leg up over his hip. He stumbled back until he was pressed up against his desk, dragging you along with him. He continued to do so as he sat down on top of it again and brought you into his lap to straddle his waist.

You inhaled sharply at what you felt between his legs in the new position, subconsciously rolling your hips and earning a low groan from the man at the friction. “Yeah, no fucking way. You want this just as badly as I do.” He hissed out, his hands gripping even harder to keep you firmly against him as he pushed his hips upward to match your motions.

Even with the thick layer of your tights and the rough texture of his blue jeans, you could feel how hard he was starting to get as the outline of his dick began to fill out with every movement.

“Fuck, wait, are we-” You tense up at a particularly hard roll, “Are we really doing this here?” The question came out as a breathy moan when he bit down at your neck. Ten’s hands creeped up under your sweater to grab ahold of your waist tightly, the skin there erupting in goosebumps at his cold hands. The question left unanswered as he continued to bite and suck along your throat surely enough to leave a good mark or two with the intensity of the action.

Carding your fingers through the hair at the back of his head, you gripped tightly before tugging and pulled his head back away from your neck. A noise of protest came from his throat as he relented and you took in the hazy, half-lidded look in his eyes as his bottom lip caught between his teeth. A look of pure sinfulness as you forced him to look into your eyes.

“Ten.” You had hoped for his name to come out of your mouth as a warning, a threat even, to get him to answer. Instead, it came out as a near whine full of neediness and the corner of his lip quirked up in a smirk. “Y/N,” He purred back with a lick of his lips, “Don’t be a coward. Don't run away from me now when I’m so ready to be under you like this.”

You hated him. You hated how his words made your thighs close together instinctively, only to be obscured by Ten’s body between your legs. You hated how warm you felt, body temperature increasing with the heat starting to pool in your lower stomach just from those words slipping out his kiss-swollen lips. And boy did he have a way with words.

You couldn't help yourself, though, as the little voice of reason nagged at the back of your mind.

“This is a school, Ten–”

“We're on break.” He pointed out, thumbs rubbing circles into your hip bones firmly.

You sighed heavily, slinking more into his hold. That was true but…

“I know that–”

“Nobody’s here in this room right now except us.”

“We could still get caught–”

“Maybe. If we do, though, it’s your fault. You’re the one wasting time by talking when I could easily be fucking you by now.”

Also true. You wanted this so badly, you really didn't have the brain capacity to think logically at all. It’s not like you’ve never had a quickie before and although not all of them ended in satisfactory for both parties involved (unfortunately) you just really wanted to feel Ten inside of you if even for just a quick fuck.

If you really wanted this to happen right here and right now, you’d have to hurry.

“Stop making sense.” You muttered, scooting back a bit in his lap to reach down between your bodies. Your fingers fumbled with the button of his jeans and the zipper, his intense stare not helping in the slightest as you clumsily unbuttoned and unzipped him. He leaned back and lifted his hips slightly to give you more space as you tugged them down enough along with his boxer briefs, a curse leaving his lips once his dick sprang free and smacked against his lower stomach. “Then stop talking and fuck me.”

You could confirm now that everything about the man under you was pretty. Even his dick. Not too thick but definitely impressive in length. Trimmed, one shade lighter than the rest of his body, and currently shaded pink at the tip where precum had started to bead.

In the position you currently were in, it was rather awkward as you wrapped a hand around his length. Ten didn't seem to mind it though as the contact made his hips buck up into the ring of your fist, a small moan escaping him.

Ten’s hands that were situated at your hips had taken to supporting his weight briefly as he leaned back a little bit more before he brought one hand up to push the front of your sweater up. Just enough so he could find the waistband of your leggings, attempting to tug the material down with one finger hooked inside. It was hard and it didn't go down much before it stopped at your mid thigh but he didn't need them completely off yet. You flinched at the feeling of his fingers trailing your thigh, up to your hip bone, teasingly past your belly button until he slid lower to fully cup your panty-covered pussy.

Through the dampened lace material, he rubbed at your outer lips and ghosted along your clit with practiced ease. Like he had done this before with you, as if it were muscle memory, like he knew your body well already. That had to be true to an extent as you rolled your hips, grinding against his fingers every time he applied enough pressure to elicit a moan out of you.

They grew more once he hooked his finger into the center of the material, pulling the lace away enough to expose your hole, and proceeded to ease his middle and ring finger in without much of a warning. He figured you were wet enough with the way you were making the palm of his hand so slick with your juices. He nearly growled at being proven right.

“Thought I’d help stretch you out a little but I see there’s no need for that.” Ten rasped, sitting up so you were chest to chest as he pushed his fingers in to the knuckles and your grip around his dick tightened just a hair. It was enough to notice though and Ten curled his fingers inside of you as retaliation, the rough pads of the tips of his fingers brushing briefly against that spongy spot hidden deep inside of you.

Your whole body trembled when he did it once more before you quickly abandoned his length in favor of tugging at his hair again, a little harsher.

“W-We really don't have time. Come on…” You pant breathlessly, flexing your walls around his digits for emphasis and earning a strained curse from his lips. “So eager. That’s cute.” Ten taunted, the usual banter coming out more teasing than ever. He can't contain himself any longer either though with how his dick throbs and aches for some type of release so he eased his fingers out of you before tugging your leggings further down.

It's a brief struggle as you try and help him wiggle them down and off of you while still hovering over his lap but the second you kick the article of clothing from around your ankle, Ten grabs you by your ass and pulls you flush up against him.

“Don’t have a condom on me... Is that okay?” He questioned with an arch of his eyebrow. You think for a split second until you feel him grab ahold of his dick and brush the tip along your folds, your brain turning into mush when it snags on the entrance. “It’s fine! Please, just…” You replied with an impatient roll of your hips, sinking the head just a bit more inside of you.

This is all the permission Ten needed before he used his hands to spread your cheeks apart as he lowered you further onto his dick and the stretch of it made you lean your torso forward until your face buried into his shoulder with a muffled whine.

“Fuck,” He shifted a bit, allowing you to adjust as he wrapped an arm around your waist while keeping you spread open with one hand, “You’re really gripping me.”

He was all the way inside of you now and you felt everything as you clenched around him. You still can't believe this is happening with Ten of all people, but the throbbing you feel makes the situation that much more real. And usually you’re a stickler for wearing condoms but the thought of taking Ten raw had you throwing caution to wind. Actually getting to feel him without any barrier now felt too good.

“Is this a reward? I got you a little promotion and you give me this?” Ten asked rhetorically with a sickly sweet tone, gripping at your ass hard to make your body rise up a bit before pulling you back down onto him. “I would've been a lot nicer before.” He added, nipping and tonguing at whatever he could reach on your neck while helping you glide along his dick at a leisurely pace.

“B-Bullshit!” You half-heartedly sneered as you let yourself sink down all the way, swiveling your hips in an almost slow grind. “I think being a mean bitch is in your blood. Especially to me.” You said as you started to pick up speed, grinding harder with him deep inside of you as the fingers you carded through his hair gripped tightly making him tense up.

Ten’s eyes rolled back for a second before a large grin broke out on his face. “Oh, baby, I thought you liked me mean,” He purred low, rolling his hips upward in a languid manner as he allowed you to take most of the control, “Isn't that what got you this wet?” He questioned, his fingers that helped spread you open brushing along where the two of you were connected making you both moan out loud.

He winced as you gripped his hair somehow harder than before sending a tingle through his scalp and his spine. His breath hitched when your free hand came up to wrap around his throat giving it a gentle yet firm squeeze.

“You like it mean, too. I bet you got hard after every argument and got yourself off just dreaming of doing something like this.” You retorted shakily but your movements got braver, the grinding turning into you fully bouncing in Ten’s lap with the faint sound of skin slapping against skin filling the empty room now.

“Y-Yeah, yeah, yes,” Ten’s voice came out strained as his own thrusts started becoming more vigorous, “Fuck, it turns me on. Made me want to bend you over the desk and fill you up.” He nearly gasped when your pussy clenched around him tightly in response, bouncing even harder in his lap while the pressure around his neck and the grip on his scalp persisted. “I’ll cum in you r-right now if you let me.” He rushed out, almost whining as you faltered with a whine of your own.

You really shouldn’t. You know you shouldn't. You were already fucking him without a condom and, although you were on birth control, this was still risky as hell.

And yet your brain couldn't be more clouded than it was now, the faint desperate ‘please’ slipping out of Ten’s mouth egging you on to ride him faster as you leaned over towards his ear to whisper into it. “I dare you.”

Ten let out a string of profanities as he pulled you slightly up in his lap by your hips, halfway pulled out, before fucking up into you at a speed that left your mouth hanging open. You felt his dick starting to pulse inside of you as he pounded up relentlessly.

The sounds inside of the room were nothing short of pornographic, heavy breathing and moaning coming from the both of you. You had half a mind to remember your surroundings as well as your combined volume of noise.

That was until you heard a faint, audible creak, the all too familiar sound of the room’s door, making the two of you abruptly stop.

You shot Ten a look to make sure you weren't the only one that heard it and you realized his eyes were already looking over your shoulder with narrowed slits.

The proper response to the possibility of you being caught having sex with your coworker in your workplace (even if there were no students in the building) would’ve been to scramble off the desk out of the compromising position and attempt to get some clothes on. Maybe even hide if you hadn't been caught yet and hopefully save yourself the embarrassment.

But Ten’s grip tightened around your waist before you could even think of slipping him out, keeping your body in place. “Come in. Right now.” He said out loud, the words clearly not directed to you. You gawked at him for a second and then craned your neck to the side to look over your shoulder.

For a moment, you thought maybe the door creaking had just been a figment of your imagination and no one was actually there. But after a few more seconds the door creaked open a sliver, allowing the eavesdropper to slip in before shutting the door behind them with a ‘click’.

“How long have you been listening?” Ten accused, his tone laced with something that would've made you shiver if it weren't for your body sitting still in complete surprise at who your eyes had landed on, now on this side of the door.

Taeyong wrung his hands together, the rings on his fingers shifting with the nervous movement as his eyes diverted to everywhere else in the room but the position you and Ten were in on top of the desk. “I’m sorry,” He muttered, “I didn't think… I-I just came to come look for you two and I–” He shook his head. “Sorry.”

You made another attempt to get up and Ten pinched your thigh, causing you to yelp. This made Taeyong glance over and your eyes locked for a second before he looked away with a flustered look on his face.

“What the fuck are you doing?” You whispered in a hiss at Ten as he smoothed over your skin with his thumb. “Are you trying to get us fired?” The question came out and you realized how silly it sounded. Why wouldn't you get fired? You were literally caught fucking by your boss during your promotion celebration, one you hadn't even been able to celebrate for more than 2 hours at that.

This was an unemployment speed run. Better yet, a speed run for an arrest.

“We’re not getting fired.” Ten said matter-of-factly as he tried not to roll his eyes. As if you were the one being unreasonable right now. “Isn't that right, Taeyong?” He called out to him over your shoulder in a sickeningly sweet voice.

“Of course not…” Taeyong replied and Ten smirked up at your bewildered face. “See? He just wanted to watch, that's all.” He reassured you. Like being watched by your boss while you got fucked was something normal. “You two… do this often or something?” You asked, the pieces of this confusing puzzle slowly falling into place and giving you some type of clarity.

“Not often. Not too many people get to see that side of him,” Ten answered thoughtfully before giving your sides a squeeze, “Enough talking, though. You wanna keep going or did the little pervert ruin it?” He asked and you shot a look over your shoulder at Taeyong again, taking in his timid appearance. This was different from how you normally saw the man, intimidating in appearance and usually keeping a calm demeanor.

You’d be lying if you said it didn't interest and spike something within you.

“Is he gonna join?” You asked, starting to roll your hips slowly as Ten grunted and squeezed at your sides harder. “If you want him to, he can.” He answered, nails starting to dig into your soft flesh. You rested your forehead against his shoulder with a sigh, nodding in agreement before Ten directed his attention to Taeyong. “Hey, pervert, come here.”

Taeyong flinched at the name, the flush on his face deepening from being called out. Nonetheless, he slowly made his way across the room until he stood a little distance from the scene in front of him. Ten shot him a glare and his body stiffened.

“Thanks to your interruption, we didn't get to finish. So, I think a little punishment is needed, Hm?” Ten hummed, hands running up and down your thighs as you lightly trembled at the sensation. “Take it out.” He ordered and the next thing you could hear was the sound of a belt unfastening and the rustling of pants. You heard Taeyong groan softly and you clenched around Ten at the noise.

“Now jerk yourself off and try not to cum on yourself while you watch. Don’t stop until I’m done filling her up like how I was supposed to be doing. Got it?” Ten instructed, starting to lean back onto the desk again as he began grinding into you.

Taeyong whimpered in response but he must've gave Ten a nod of his head in understanding because he started up his pace from before, gradually fucking up into your pussy with more energy.

Your eyes found Taeyong’s again, wanting to watch the man with peak curiosity as you rode Ten. His dick was more flushed than his face, an angry reddened color on the tip as he stroked himself to full hardness. He had barely started and he already looked dazed and fucked out of his mind, it made you start to bounce on Ten’s dick faster.

“Getting off to this too?” Ten teased and you bit down on your lip hard as he delivered a slap onto one of your ass cheeks. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn't expecting this to happen. I’m glad you’re into it, though.” He said, another slap coming down onto your other cheek making you moan.

A whine could be heard from Taeyong and you gave him an intense look, his hand stuttering in its movement. “Don’t tell me you're gonna cum already?” You asked mockingly and the hand around his dick stopped briefly to squeeze at the base.

“I’m trying.” He sounds breathless when he responds back, a little pathetic if you’re being honest. It only makes you want to see him crumble more.

“Try harder. Or you're not gonna cum at all.” You threatened, feeling braver with every passing minute. You really don't know what's possessing you. Maybe it's the little position of power you seemed to have fallen into that makes you say, “Why don't you come over here and help?”

And he doesn't hesitate. Taeyong immediately comes up behind you, pressing his chest to your back and essentially pinning his erection between your bodies. His hand snakes around to the front of your body where you and Ten are still connected and he gathers enough slick before rubbing circles onto your clit.

It’s like a chain reaction once his fingers press down onto your sensitive bud. You feel like the air has been punched out of you as your walls contract around Ten in a vice grip, in turn causing him to thrust into you harder and faster. You feel the coil in the lower part of your stomach wound up tightly as you were approaching your release.

“Fuck, I’m close.” Ten groaned out with furrowed eyebrows, likely teetering right on the edge of his own release as he desperately chased it. He finally tipped over when you wrapped your hand around his throat and tightened, a chorus of curses and moans and ‘just like that’ spilling from his lips as he came deep inside of you.

Feeling the warmth pooling into you paired with the fingers still rubbing at your clit and the hard length pressed between your ass, subtly grinding into it, it was only a matter of time before the coil in you snapped. Your walls spasmed around Ten as you cried out and followed him in releasing, the glide becoming wetter as you fucked yourself through your orgasm.

Both of your bodies trembled from slight overstimulation and once you both started coming down from your highs and stopped your movements completely, you lifted yourself to slip him out of you and felt the first trickle of Ten’s cum dribble out of your pussy.

Taeyong stopped grinding against you and held the base of his dick again so he wouldn't cum on himself but you promptly grabbed at his wrist on his free hand to bring him closer. Ten watched and let out a scoff. “How nice. Looks like you're getting a reward now.”

Blinking profusely, Taeyong looked between your body then up at your face and then at Ten’s. “I-I… Please. Can I?” He questioned in a strained, pleading voice and you simply tugged on his wrist again until he prodded at your entrance with his tip.

“Make it quick.”

✧

It’s a bit awkward.

No. It’s very fucking awkward now.

It had been an hour or so after that happened and the three of you went back to the auditorium as if absolutely nothing happened.

You didn't say much as you got yourself together nor when you made it back to continue the party. You half expected them to act as if that whole thing didn't happen and just never talk about it again. Maybe you were hoping that's what would happen if that would save you from the awkwardness you felt.

But it seemed like tonight was just not gonna go how you expected to at all.

You can't help but shift on both feet as you and Ten wait outside of the school’s parking lot for Taeyong. Once he concluded the celebration and everyone started heading out to leave, he caught you before you could sneak away and asked to talk once everyone had left. A sense of dread crawled up your spine and made a home within your chest as you started to think about the worst possible outcomes.

“You look like you're about to piss yourself.” Ten snickered, hand stuffed into his coat pockets casually. If looks could kill, you would be sure to take him out quickly with the glare you gave him. “He already said you're not getting fired. Stop worrying.” He pointed out as he shook some of the hair falling into his eyes’ view.

That was easier said than done, you were sure you would pass out from overthinking if the man didn't hurry up and say what he needed to say.

And as if speaking him into existence, Taeyong exited out the front door entrance before making his way through the parking lot to where you and Ten had stood waiting.

He gave a silent nod in greeting and you nodded back, unsure of what the fuck to do, while Ten just stared emotionlessly. “Look,” Taeyong sighed, his voice calm and even and nothing like the submissive whiny man who was wrapped around your finger just a few hours ago, “You can never do that here at the school again. Ever.” He said firmly, eyes shifting between the two of you.

“We.” Ten corrected, smirking smugly when Taeyong is unable to retort back and begins stuttering as his face reddens. You decide to cut in before Ten says anything else. “You’re right. We won't do that again here, I promise. We’re really sorry.” You said quickly with a tight smile. Ten opened his mouth to say something but you jabbed him in the rib with your elbow making him wince.

“Yeah, sure,” He said through gritted teeth, rubbing at his side with a huff, “So, does that mean we can do this again outside of the school?” Ten asked, earning a look from both you and Taeyong. One look of shock and the other something akin to murderous.

“That’s not what he meant at all-”

“-Would you be okay with that?”

…Huh?

You looked over at Taeyong with a tilt of your head. “You want to do this again?” You asked him, not entirely convinced you heard him correctly. But he looked away with a deepening blush that reached his ears only confirming what you had heard. “I’m not opposed to it… I’m pretty sure we all enjoyed what we did. We just can’t do that here.” He said, stressing the last part again.

It made sense, he still was your boss at the end of the day and it was pretty risky to do it where you could've easily gotten walked in on. And you weren't too keen on getting yourself in trouble after only just getting promoted. “Alright… We can talk more about this after Christmas?” You questioned, being met with immediate agreement.

You exchanged numbers to keep in touch, something you couldn't help but chuckle at since this would be the first time having any of these men’s numbers after all these years, before Taeyong headed off towards his car to leave first.

“God, I’m really two for two. A promotion and dick. You kinda owe me.” Ten giggled, walking alongside you as he walked you to your car. A little act of kindness you couldn't help but find cute despite the shit coming out of his mouth. He moved out of the way before your elbow could connect with his ribs again, cursing at him as you let a little smile grace your features.

How this new dynamic would play out between the three of you, you would have to just wait and see how things would turn out. But just like Christmas and the New Year approaching, you couldn't help but anticipate.

#taeyong x reader #lee taeyong x reader #ten lee x reader #ten x reader #nct fics #wayv fics #nct 127 fics #nct reader insert #taeyong smut #ten lee smut #nct smut #wayv smut

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savventeen · 1 year

Text

purple, white, grey, and black

pairing: idol!seungcheol x gn!reader rating: M wc: 2.9k summary: you're asexual and proud, and have been for a while. so why does seeing ace pride posts sometimes churn something within you? or, the one where reader talks about where/if their asexuality and trauma intersect. warnings: implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced sexual childhood abuse, (these things are only talked about in the vaguest sense but please be careful), anxiety, mentions of acephobic family members tags: asexuality, asexual reader, established relationship, dialogue-heavy, emotional hurt/comfort a/n: this is a rewrite of a fic i wrote for a bts queer introspections fic fest, and i want to preface this by saying everyone's journey with asexuality is different and the one reflected here is based purely on my own personal journey. if any of you struggle with any of the same thoughts/questions reader does, that I do, i hope this can remind you that you're not alone 💜

jimbo the himbo @spaceace9393

just a friendly reminder: asexuality is a valid identity. it's not any kind of disorder, and it has nothing to do with disability, or trauma, or mental illness. we are not sick, or broken, or in need of "fixing.” we're just people who don't experience sexual attraction, that's it.

You stare at the tweet for a long, long time. Long enough that your phone screen dims before shutting off entirely, leaving you with only your reflection for company.

Your chest feels... you're not sure how to describe it, exactly. It might be a little bit like when you accidentally clogged the bathroom sink the other day — like there's something cold and murky sloshing around inside your lungs, bits of feelings you can't quite name sinking down to rest on something that's been building unseen for a while now.

Closing your eyes, you breathe in, slow and deep, and then release a shaky exhale. Your fingers start tap-tap-tapping away on your thigh as you realize that you kind of, maybe, really want to talk to someone right now.

You have your kakaotalk app open between one blink and the next.

you

cheollie? are u still at one of the hybe studios?

cheollie 🧡

yeah i'm still here not working on anything too important rn tho so you can swing by if you want i have extra ramyeon packs that soonyoung dropped off they're the spicy kind you like

You can't help but smile softly to yourself. Even though the anxiety of what you want to talk about makes your heart race, you don't think you'll ever stop being endeared by Choi Seungcheol.

you

cheollie ur the best ily ❤️ see u soon ~

cheollie 🧡

love you too ❤️

You quickly throw on your comfiest hoodie, threadbare and fraying at the seams, and you make your way over to the Hybe building. You also stop at a convenience store on the way, grabbing a canned coffee for each of you because you're a good partner like that.

By the time you get to the door of the studio, though, what little confidence you'd built up for yourself starts to fizzle out, replaced by the anxiety simmering on low just beneath your skin. The confusing feelings are still sloshing around inside your chest, so much so that you think about knocking even though you haven't knocked in months — not since Seungcheol started texting you the code of whatever studio he was working in at the time.

Groaning to yourself, you smack the edge of your phone against your forehead a few times before quickly punching in the code and opening the door before you can talk yourself out of it.

Seungcheol is slouched comically in the chair, head so low it's practically leaning against the armrest as his socked feet rest propped up on any empty corner of the desk. The computer's wireless keyboard is cradled against his chest and stomach, keys down, and he's using its smooth back as a makeshift mousepad. ...To play Solitaire of all things, you realize.

You stand there, just blinking for a moment as you process the image in front of you. He looks so stupid and cute and you can't help the grin that pushes against your cheeks.

"Cheol," you giggle. "What the fuck."

"Shhhhhhhh..." Seungcheol's eyes don't leave the monitor. "Don't question the process."

You snort as you finally close the door and walk over to set his canned coffee on the desk, on the opposite side his feet are propped up.

"What process?" You stand over him, folding your arms across your chest as you try to keep a straight face. Raising an eyebrow at his posture, you ask, "The one where you turn into a slouchy slug?"

"Hey!" Seungcheol swings the keyboard into your hip like he's trying to chop down a tree, making you double over even as you start giggling. "I am not a slug, how dare you!"

You just laugh louder and playfully shove his chair away from the desk. He yelps in surprise as his feet suddenly fall to the floor and he nearly topples over, and then he turns the full force of his pout upon you.

"I can't believe my very own partner is trying to kill me," he laments. "What did I do to deserve such betrayal? Did Jeonghan put you up to this?"

"Aww, poor aegi," you coo. You walk over to him and squish his cheeks between your palms so that his lips pucker out comically. "My poor little guppy wuppy."

His dark brows furrow harder and you let out an oof when he jabs you in the stomach with the wireless keyboard he'd managed to hang onto in the chaos, letting go of his face. It wasn't hard enough to hurt (never is) and you just stick your tongue out at him in retaliation.

He rolls his eyes and points to the couch. "Go have a seat, traitor."

You acquiesce with a soft snort, burying yourself in the corner while Seungcheol tidies up the studio. You pull one of the throw pillows into your lap and very quickly end up hugging it tightly to your chest.

For a few blissful moments, you'd forgotten about all of the confused, anxious things swimming around inside of you — forgotten the main reason you'd come here in the first place.

You must zone out, because the next thing you know, Seungcheol is squatting in front of you and trying to catch your eye, one hand gently squeezing your knee. "Hey, Y/n-ah. You doing okay over here? Want me to take you home?"

His eyes are wide and earnest, worry lightly furrowing his brow, and you will never cease to be grateful for how much he embodies unconditional care and comfort.

Shaking your head, you reach out to clasp the hand on your knee. "No, 'm fine." You tug on his hand, a silent request to come sit next to you. "Just wanna talk to you, if that's okay."

"Of course it's okay," he promises. "Always."

When he sits, he leaves a sliver of space between the two of you, leaving it up to you to decide how much (if any) physical comfort you want right now. That simple, little act of thoughtfulness is like the glimpse of a lighthouse amidst the storm that's brewing within your ribcage, and it gives you the courage you need to hoist your metaphorical sails and let the wind take you where you need to go.

You waste no time in anchoring yourself to Seungcheol's side, throwing your legs over his lap and burying your face into his collarbone.

"Hey, jagiya, hey, you're okay," he soothes automatically. His hands come up to wrap around you, pulling you close and rubbing soothing arcs up and down your back. "You're okay. I'm here to listen, yeah? I'm here."

He doesn't say anything else after that, just settles a bit more into the couch and waits for you to speak, always so full of patience when it counts.

It does take a while for you to say anything, mostly because you don't really know where to start. There's still so much swirling around inside you, murky and confusing, that you're not really sure if there is a start.

And a part of you wonders if it's even worth opening up your mouth at this point — the same part of you that's always walked hand-in-hand with your shame and doubt.

But Seungcheol's breathing is a steady rise and fall against your chaotic thoughts, his heartbeat a siren song reminding you that he has always held your hopes and dreams and fears and questions oh so carefully in the palms of his hands.

Eventually, you realize that it doesn't really matter where you start as long as you jump in. So jump you do. "Cheol?"

"Hmm?"

"Do— do you remember when I came out to you and the rest of the group as ace?"

" 'Course I do," he assures warmly, giving you a small squeeze. "Still so proud of you."

You hum happily. But your anxiety is making you feel fidgety again, so you pull one of Seungcheol's arms down into your lap so you can play with his long, sturdy fingers. He lets you do it without complaint, and something within you settles.

You let yourself breathe in, breathe out.

"After you guys," you start, bending and unbending his fingers one by one, "the first person I ever came out to was my mom, you know? And it's— it wasn't that she wasn't supportive. Or like, I think she was trying to be supportive, at least, but." You take a breath. "Do you wanna know what the first words out of her mouth were, after I told her that I was ace?"

Seungcheol hums an encouragement, pulling you impossibly closer with the one arm he still has wrapped around your back. You take another breath, uncurling all of his fingers and holding the spread-out digits in both hands, almost like you're going to try and read his palm.

You breathe in, breathe out. "She said— without any hesitation, she said, 'Oh, is it because of your trauma?'"

You feel the way Seungcheol tenses beneath you, watch the way his fingers twitch between yours like he's trying not to curl them into a fist.

"And I didn't know how to respond to that," you continue, keeping your eyes down, "so I just said 'I don't know, probably.'" You give the same little helpless shrug you'd given then, small and defeated, and you use the motion to hunch your shoulders a little more.

"Y/n-ah. That's..." Seungcheol starts, voice a little rough around the edges like he's trying to keep some big emotion from breaking through. "I can't imagine what that must've felt like."

And you know, you know, that he's filling in the blanks. That he's taking the words 'trauma' and 'asexuality' and drawing conclusions that probably aren't too far from the truth.

You grip his hand tightly between yours and tuck it against your chest like a child clings to a favorite stuffed animal; he presses a gentle kiss to the crown of your head. You both breathe — in, out.

"Yeah. It didn't— it didn't feel great," you admit, an understatement. "And she's not the only one, either. Every single family member I've come out to, every single one of them— that question has always been the first thing to come out of their mouth."

The faces of those family members flash before you, all carrying the same expression — pity, one etched so deep it felt (feels) almost condescending. "Is it because of your trauma?" "Is it because of what happened to you? Did he make you like this?"

"And I just..." You flail the hand not clutching Seungcheol's, searching for a way to put into words what you've been feeling for so, so long. "I have this knowledge living inside me at all times that, to the family members that I'm out to— they'll never see my asexuality as something to celebrate. All they will ever see is my trauma and how this part of myself is something that comes from a broken place."

You think about the tweet from earlier, the hundreds of others you've seen like it, and feel tears begin to gather.

Sniffling, you continue. "And then I'll go on the internet and see all kinds of ace pride and posts about how we're valid and don't need to be fixed and... and I know that. Logically, I know that my ace-ness isn't something that needs to be changed, isn't something that could change, even if I wanted it to, but..."

But.

For so, so long, you have had no idea how to finish that sentence. And it feels like some kind of defeat when you realize you still don't have an answer. "...I don't know," you shrug, helplessly.

Seungcheol presses another kiss to the top of your head, staying silent like he knows you still have more to say. He keeps a steady rhythm of slowly rubbing his free hand up and down your back, a tactile metronome for you to follow.

After a few minutes, you continue with a sigh. "About once a year, I'll talk with my aunt, and she never fails to ask if I'm "still ace" and... I just..." You cut yourself off with a frustrated groan.

"S'okay, aegi," Seungcheol whispers, squeezing the hand you're still holding close to your chest.

"Sometimes it feels like my ace-ness is tainted, you know?"

Even as the sentence feels punched out of you, it's such a bitter relief to finally admit it out loud. Because even though you've never really let yourself put it into words, you are finally able to recognize that this is one of the murky feelings that has been weighing you down — collecting in your subconscious like debris in the gutter. "And it's why bringing up my past can be so difficult for me. Because I'm so scared that people will go from just accepting my asexuality to thinking 'Ah, that explains it.' Like I just gave them the missing piece to a puzzle or something, when before it was just a part of who I am.

"And there's also a part of me that feels like... I don't know, that I'd just be adding fuel to the fire for all the people who like to shit on asexuality. That I'm just an example of why people who think they're ace are just traumatized and need therapy. But... I think I would have always been ace, no matter what happened or didn't happen to me as a kid. And I just...

"I don't know, Cheol," you croak, the tears you've been trying so hard to keep in finally starting to cascade down your cheeks. "I don't know how to feel anymore. I don't know where to fit. If I fit. If it even matters whether I fit or not."

And really, now that you've talked it out a bit, it essentially boils down to one thing.

"I guess— I guess what I'm saying is that I just want to be able to feel like I can be ace and a little bit broken at the same time. That I can be a work in progress and still something... worth celebrating."

You tuck your free hand into the sleeve of your hoodie and use it to wipe away the tears that are still falling. Seungcheol's next exhale shudders a little bit out of his chest, and then he's letting go of your hand so he can cradle your jaw and tenderly wipe at the tears himself.

"Hey, jagiya, will you look at me, please? Will you let me look at you?"

You nod, the lump in your throat having doubled in size between one moment and the next, and he gently lifts your chin until you're eye-to-eye.

"There you are," he murmurs, with a sad lopsided smile. You notice he has tear tracks of his own, and looking into his big, glassy eyes aches and soothes in equal measure. "I'm going to tell you something very important, so I need you to listen carefully, okay? Can you do that for me?"

Again, you nod, swallowing thickly.

Seungcheol's expression quickly melts into something serious. Not something scary, but something solid — a firm foundation for you to rely on.

"Y/n L/n. You will always, always be something worth celebrating. Being a work in progress is a part of life, and you and I and everyone else on this planet will be one until the day we die. I may not know all the answers, and we might never find the ones we're looking for, but if I know anything, it's this: not a day has gone by since getting to know you that I am not so, so incredibly proud of you — of the person that you are and that you are continuously becoming. More than I can really put into words."

You think you could drown in all of the love and support and affection pouring out of Seuncheol, overwhelming you in the best way. It's like your heart has capsized and all of the ooey-gooey feelings are flooding in, pulling you down deeper, deeper, deeper still.

But you've hit your emotional threshold for the day and decide to cut the moment the best way you know how. "Even when I'm an annoying little shit?" you choke out past your now-stuffed nose.

Seungcheol laughs wetly and wraps his arms around you again, tilting you both over so you're both mostly lying down on the couch. "I think maybe especially then," he murmurs, mostly to himself. Louder, he says, "I think we've earned ourselves a nice nap, what do you think?"

You think that sounds heavenly, and you both adjust your positions until you're comfortable and you can feel sleep pulling at your consciousness. Before you let it claim you, though, you take a few moments to breathe.

It feels a bit easier than before, the breathing. The stuff sloshing around inside your lungs doesn't feel as murky as it did before, doesn't feel as suffocating now that you've been able to bale some of it out. You don't have any more answers than you did before, but you have a bit more peace.

And as you finally drift off to Seungcheol's quiet, snuffling snores, you think that having a bit more peace might be enough for now.

#svtsource #seungcheol fanfic #seungcheol oneshot #seungcheol x you #seungcheol x reader #seungcheol x y/n #scoups fanfic #scoups oneshot #scoups x y/n #scoups x reader #scoups x you #asexual reader #savv writes #savv fics #giving you all a big piece of my soul with this one

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drgngutz · 1 year

Text

Cybernetic Soulmate - I

BEN Drowned x Reader: Part 1

Soulmate AU – Implied Feminine Reader

Note: BEN is my favorite creepypasta, and lowkey I never see enough of him in the fandom. SO, I’m taking it upon myself to give this a try. Can’t promise it’ll be finished, but I’m having fun with it right now. If you’d rather read this on a website, ima post it on quotev and wattpad soon. Right now i’m vibin here. If you don’t like scary shit, this one might not be for u but we’ll see how it goes. Thanks for reading :)

Description: Having the name Benjamin Lawman inscribed on your wrist until the age of 11, you had to live the rest of your life as one of the unlucky few who woke up one day with their soulmate mark crossed off. Devastated didn’t properly express the feeling of emptiness at the loss of connection between someone you had grown so close to. Ten long years have passed since then, but a new name has shown up just underneath the butchered one: BEN drowned. Soon enough you’ll figure out your old soulmate is now more demon than he is man.

Masterlist

Benjamin Lawman

BEN Drowned

The pads of your fingers swiped over the newly printed name on your wrist in absent-mindedness as you scrolled through page after page on the internet, causing subtle goosebumps to rise up on your skin as the bold letters brandished a light tingling with the friction. Old memories bumped around in your brain of producing the same feeling when the name you used to have was touched.

It wasn’t feasible. It wasn’t something that had ever happened unless a soulmate had clinically died and been resuscitated within minutes. But over the span of ten years? Impossible.

So why was this name here now? And why on earth was it different?

Returning to the old articles- the ones that you hadn’t looked at in years- yielded no results.

‘Benjamin Lawman, aged 12, has been missing since around 6p.m. yesterday. Reports have mentioned he was wearing…”

‘It has been just over a month since the young boy, Benjamin Lawman, has gone missing. If you have seen anything in relation to his case…’

‘Benjamin Lawman declared deceased. “The search has gone on too long.” - Officer Hubris states…’

Hours and hours of looking at the same stupid newspaper clippings, public records, and news outlets was doing nothing besides digging up old memories that you didn’t want to relive. The times where Ben would talk to you, laugh with you, when you would play made up games with each other through the connection you both had created over a short time. He was always showing you his games on the console he had been gifted for his tenth birthday; you could still see the hazy image of a little boy with blonde hair swinging a sword at all kinds of different monsters, with Ben reciting each one of them as if he had memorized every detail of the game. You had talked to each other through the connection every day, and then he was just… gone.

Exhausting your emotional and logical thinking, you ran your fingers through your hair before dragging your fingers down over your face to rid yourself of the stiffness. Glancing at the darkened letters on your wrist, you sighed in exasperation. Flopping the limb down onto your lap like a ragdoll, you traced the letters once more. It tingled again; that was the only grounding factor telling you that you weren’t dreaming all of this up. But, what kind of a name was BEN Drowned?

You swallowed thickly at the implication of both names showing up like that, how one replaced the other, and then opened up a new tab on your laptop.

Immediately searching the name led you to a page on 4chan. Clicking on the site led to a very in depth and lengthy story, accompanied by multiple videos of a fucked up version of Ben’s favorite game, which took you about two whole hours to complete and understand.

“...It already has proven to me that Ben can access my account/password and manipulate my computer, and like I said I have no idea to what extent it can do this, but know that it will do anything to break free. He is desperate. I’m going to do something, something rash that may not work. But, if it can keep everyone safe from him, I’m willing to try it. I’m going to make sure he stays in that fucking cartridge, so just forget about me, please…”

It’s nearly dark out at this point, and your head is stuck spinning in place like a globe as you try to swallow the massive amount of information that you’ve been presented with. And still, none of it makes sense. But, really, did any of this? The newly branded name on your wrist certainly made no sense. Was it so odd that maybe there was something going on with this man, Jadusable, as well? And somehow it was all lining up together that this…thing shows up, and then its name shows up on your wrist just below where your old soulmate's name was crossed off, further implying that your soulmate was whatever BEN Drowned is.

“Oh god. I need to go lay down.”

Benjamin Lawman

BEN Drowned

After the day that the name had appeared, you had been doing more research than you had ever bothered to do during your schooling. Each and every piece always led to the same two destinations; a declared dead little boy and a 4chan page that no longer had any active comments or replies from its author.

You had since resorted to using the connection to try and make a breakthrough.

The first time was difficult for you. Something that had laid dormant for so long felt… wrong. To try and open it again meant the possibility of connecting with someone who you’d assumed was gone forever. Now what? What if he answered? What if he didn’t answer? What if it wasn’t him?

It took a lot of thinking, and a lot more courage, to open up that connection again.

Hands shaking, you clasped them together and closed your eyes, brows furrowing in concentration as you felt the familiar sensation flip like a switch in your brain. Clenching your teeth, you felt your eyes water beneath your eyelids as you let yourself fall away from your own consciousness for a moment, the familiarity nearly making you pull out of the sensation in discomfort. But, you pursued. You had never gotten this far, not after he disappeared.

It was dark. That was the only way to explain it. Pitch black, with no source of light or sound to be observed. You dug a little deeper, trying to find the point of communication again… Only to be stopped. Confused, you tried to move forward again, only to be pushed back again. You tried over and over, poking and prodding at the connection, but to no avail. It was like something was specifically keeping you out; as if Ben didn’t want you to make a connection.

You came back to your own consciousness with a start, eyes flashing open and feeling breathless as the connection dwindled and then faded away without your focus to keep it going. But, it was there. You had never been able to enter our connection like that before. Now, there was at least something.

It continued like this for the rest of the week; you trying to make a connection happen while something forced you away. But, you weren’t about to give up anytime soon. You were just as stubborn as Ben could be, pushing and pushing to no avail. You felt insane to be reaching out to somebody that was dead, somebody that wasn’t alive anymore, but you refused to give in.

Then finally, it worked.

You had gotten better at it the more you had practiced, gotten used to the familiar feeling that was at first melancholic; this time, you entered without bothering to close your eyes. Apparently, he had his guard down.

A box shaped view, bordered in complete darkness. The light that peered in did nothing to illuminate the surrounding area; the light was coming from a window. Your window. You recognized it as the one in your living room that overlooked the couch opposite of the TV. And there you were, sitting straight, a focused look on your face as you stared at the wall, as you had done time and time again over the past few weeks. You watched yourself flick your eyes up to the TV in astonishment–

You were slammed out of the connection so hard that it sprouted a headache at the front of your forehead, and you flung your hand upwards in order to cater to the sudden feeling. Debilitated, you groaned tearfully before you could open your eyes again, blinking away the sting and glancing up at the TV.

Stop trying.

The words were written in white, in a small text box at the bottom of the screen. You were only able to read it once before they disappeared as quickly as you had seen them.

“What… What the fuck?”

Benjamin Lawman

BEN Drowned

He’s been watching her for a while now, observing, debating, keeping her annoying attempts at contacting him at bay; she was relentless in that particular field.

Soulmates had always existed on this earth, apparently. And, although the fragmented memories of the soul he had ‘borrowed’ managed to save them from being imprisoned again via this aggravating connection, he wanted nothing to do with her.

He was called many names; demon, ghost, vengeful spirit, poltergeist, cybernetic entity – Something born from a mixture of code and the aftermath of an abominable act – so they were not entirely wrong, but they were never right, either. Regardless, they were right about one thing. He had no room for care, or sympathy, or love. Not anymore. It was not programmed, not a part of his ideals.

That was what he assumed, until the annoying little prick that he chose to resuscitate from that watery grave started to rekindle the connection he had before, when he was alive. The little bits of his host that still existed within him now crawled and zapped within the numbers, disagreeing with how he was treating the girl. He assumed this was some form of rebellion from the kid, and it was affecting them a lot worse than he understood.

They weren’t supposed to feel the way he was toward this human, he wasn’t capable of having emotion at all. It wasn’t possible. And yet, here he was, watching her from the screen of the television that they had been trapped in ever since Ben’s last ditch effort at escape; it had worked, they were out of the cartridge, but they were missing pieces. That made the effort useless.

Perhaps he should’ve chosen a better host for ascension.

Benjamin Lawman

BEN Drowned

WHAM!

You jolted awake at the loudness of the sound, feeling it reverberate through the ground and walls with the force of it. Sitting upright, you stayed still as a statue and listened closely, in the case that you had dreamt the sound.

“Shit.” A voice whispered harshly against the silence, raspy and low.

“We- We gotta make this quick. Hurry up,” Foot steps followed the higher pitched voice heading down the hallway.

Swiftly, you ripped the covers off and dove for the closet, being as silent as possible as you settled below the hanging clothes and behind a hamper of dirty ones, trying to ease your breath and keep calm. Soon after, the two men barge into the bedroom and begin scouring your drawers.

Addicts, you assumed. That was the likely situation, given your shitty location and even shittier apartment, they frequented the area and often ended up breaking into places that they figured were either abandoned or no one was home. A few of her neighbors had some close calls, while a few others were not so lucky. Flashes of ambulances and white sheets came to your mind, and you pushed them away, instead listening to the two of them argue in some kind of whacked-out dispute.

“There’s no money, no jewelry; where the fuck is it all?” The first one started, slamming the drawer so loud the whole cabinet stuttered against the wall.

“M-Maybe we got the wrong number,” The other replied, dumping something onto the floor, “is it the wrong apartment?”

“If it is, we’re fucked. C’mon,” The two pairs of footsteps went further down the hall toward the kitchen, and you sighed gratefully.

Hearing them rummage through the kitchen drawers now, you felt your heart beating in your veins as you slowly opened up the closet door and peered around. The room was empty, and you could hear them starting another argument about something else. Now was the time to move before they could come back and check the closet; there was no point in waiting like a sitting duck.

Just as you were starting to silently make your way down the hallway and towards the front door, in the process realizing that they had burst the damn thing open in order to get inside, you heard the shuffle of footsteps in the kitchen begin to grow closer. Your blood ran cold, mind running wildly at the possibility of what would happen if they saw you.

Wordlessly, you bolted to the living room, relying completely on instinct as you locked your eyes onto the black screen of the TV. You hesitated a second, debating if hiding somewhere would be a better option, but a quick glance around the room told you there wouldn’t be a place for you to do so. They were getting closer, the scuffing of their boots on the tile spurred you forward.

“I am so fucking crazy for this…” You whispered, eyes flickering all over the screen as you gripped its edge in a vice. Fuck it.

“If you’re in there,” You took a deep breath, faltering out of fear, “I need help. Please, some men broke into my house and–”

“Did you hear that?” You nearly stopped breathing from how close they were now.

“Yeah, came from that room, there.” Hurried, heavy steps started toward the rooms entrance.

“Shit.” You turned and gazed desperately at the screen, no response.

“God damn you,” Frustrated, you began to scream and bang at its dark surface with your fists, “Fucking answer me!”

“The hell’s wrong with you?” The two men had finally made it into the room, just staring at you as your slammed your fists repeatedly against the TV. One of them, a smaller, scruffy looking man, looked confused and concerned. The other, much taller and larger, looked pissed off.

“What does that matter?” The bigger one began to advance, and right before he pushed you to the floor, you saw the screen light up. Hissing at the sting of the impact, you glanced behind the man towards the now lit-up screen.

Fine.

“Tell us where you’re keeping all of your shit. Now.” His harsh tone made you flinch, feeling spit hit your face as he loomed over you.

“I-I… I don’t have anything. I swear… I don’t have–” You stuttered, but couldn’t complete the sentence in time.

SMACK!

The burning of your cheek registered before you realized what had happened, feeling tears fall down your face at the shock of the pain. You heard something clicking against itself, the harsh noise berating your ears and making you look back at him before freezing in place.

“Don’t fucking lie to me. You’re hiding something, I know you are. Hand it over!” You’re left staring down the barrel of a hand gun as he shouts at you, and if you weren’t crying before, you definitely are now.

“Hey… Hey Jim.” The soft voice of the other man interrupts the exchange, and the angry man, Jim, nearly blows a fuse.

“Something’s wrong, man.”

“What the hell are you on about now, Mike?” With a rage in his eyes, he turned around, the gun turned safely away from your face. Before he could say anything else, however, he stilled.

You peered up at the screen, where they were both looking, as you trembled at the prospect of being shot.

You shouldn’t have done that.

“What the hell? This some kinda game?”

You wish it was.

“Jim, lets go.” Mike practically begs his friend, inching towards the door.

“There’s somebody else here. They’re probably watchin’ us, right now.” His voice trembles at the thought.

“Don’t be such a pussy,” Jim spits, angry at the idea; “I’m talking to you too, creep! Come out and show yourself instead of hiding behind a fucking screen.”

If you say so.

There’s a moment where the screen goes dark, before another message pops up on screen.

Close your eyes.

You obey the message without a word, clenching them as tight as you possibly can. Then, you hear the front door slam shut, despite it being broken off of it’s hinges before.

“What the fuck was–” Jim’s words are cut off by his own strangled screams. Something drops to the ground with a clatter, shortly followed by Mike’s shrill screams that fade as he moves towards the front of the apartment. He begins to plead for something to open as something begins to snap and pop in the living room. You flinch at each noise, nearly sobbing as the man’s screams from in front of you are reduced to garbled grunts and groans, before he goes silent with one final crunch.

Mike’s murmured ‘no, no, no’ can be heard from he hallway as he slams rhythmically against something over and over. The words are chased by his own screams that echo one final time before it’s swiftly cut short, only to be replaced by a deafening silence that leaves your heart beat thrumming in your ears. Ragged breaths help to filter out the lack of sound as you stay glued in place, not daring to open your eyes.

A moment passes, then another; What feels like a few minutes go by before you hear anything else.

“You can open them now.” Your eyes snap open at the almost robotic tone that instinctively feels familiar.

A quick sweep around the room showed that there was nobody there; in fact, there was no sign that they had ever been there in the first place. The only thing that was different was the TV, which was still lit up, the same words that were spoken to you depicted in white letters in the textbox.

You can open them now.

The screen dropped to black, and then lit up again.

All done. You’re welcome.

The screen went dark for the final time that night, and all that was left was the silence.

Next Part

#bendrowned #xreader #creepypasta #fanfic #ben drowned x reader #ben drowned #x reader

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