#needed each other at one point a million years ago

[bby-deerling]

Hi!! I was wondering, do you have any friendship HC’s for the Law/Bepo/shachi/penguin dynamic? We only ever really see them interacting in action so I’d love to know what shenanigans you think they’d get up to in day to day life around the sub because let’s be honest, those four together are probably chaos incarnate ^.^

Tysm for your amazing writings, they make my day! 💕

oh my goodness i have SO many thoughts so please bear with me, this will probably be so disorganized.

first of all, i think that they have a ridiculous amount of inside jokes as a result of them living so closely for so many years. i think that law is a lot more laid-back around his crew in general, and this is especially true around shachi, penguin, and bepo.

in my mind, they all have their specific brand of chaos, but shachi displays it in the most outward of ways and isn't afraid to tease or play pranks on the others. also, totally unrelated, but i headcanon that he has an on-again off-again relationship with ikkaku (they are endgame though, and law is secretly very invested in all of the drama). he keeps cutting hair even after they all become pirates, and takes care of everyone on the polar tang, even though most of them wear hats. he makes fun of law because his hairline is receding and gets away with it bc law loves him to death (he's secretly insecure about it).

penguin is a bit more subdued and calm, but when he comes up with pranks or witty remarks, they're usually very well thought out. he's a bit quieter than shachi, but they complement each other's energy well, and he's always willing to help out with whoever needs assistance around the ship. i think that he and shachi also continue to do a majority of the cooking on the polar tang, which probably makes all of them feel nostalgic about their time with wolf.

in my mind, based on the way bepo isn't afraid to push shachi and penguin around (which is a far cry from when they were kids), whenever someone new joins the crew, bepo probably makes a big deal out of telling them how mean shachi and penguin were when they first met, even when it happened years ago, just to see his friends get flustered about it (and gain sympathy points with the new crewmember). he isn't afraid to pull the "cute" card to get what he wants, especially from law, and shachi and penguin are the only ones on the crew that carry enough weight to call him out on this behavior (he won't stop though).

and law's chaos is the quiet kind, and he encourages all of his friends' shenanigans, participating when he sees fit. i also headcanon some of the dorky things about him that are shown in one piece party like wearing pool floaties and dumb hawaiian shirts and playing the tambourine while his friends sing karaoke as true. shachi and penguin probably buy him new horrible shirts all the time, and he wears them with pride. in my mind, law is so stressed out during the main events of one piece, but during the majority of the 10 or so years that he's sailing with his crew, he is able to relax and enjoy the time he spends with his friends, especially during the calm moments underwater.

and on the whole, i think that bepo, shachi, and penguin can get away with teasing law a lot more than anyone else can, and law not so secretly enjoys the banter. the heart pirates have their own breed of chaos, and to be honest, i think the one of the main reasons law is so grumpy when he's with the straw hats is because

he's no longer in charge of the chaos (he is so used to being the quiet ringleader of his little circus of friends)

he misses his friends dreadfully and is just anxious to get back to them.

anyways that was a lot and i have a million more thoughts so enjoy this lil disjointed ramble.

[maddy-ferguson]

unpopular opinion but one of the worst takes i've read is ''mike loves will because will makes him feel wanted and needed.'' it sounds like he loves will because of will's love and need for him rather than his own personal love for will himself for who he is.

it painfully sounds like the ''mike loves the person behind the painting.'' take lmao it is just... so bad i am not sure why ppl think these are good takes

yes it's so superficial i never liked it either! if you think like this you might like byler but i like them in a much deeper and more intellectual way than you ever will. and i mean that. will saying "el needs you" isn't the most important part, they're not ending up together because he repeated mike's words back to him, it's because of everything else he says in the scene that they're good together. i see you you're a great person here's one of your best qualities that has to do with who you are intrinsically not with what you can do for people and part of the reason why i love you...of course your girlfriend still wants to be with you.

there's a disconnect between what mike says about his relationship with el and the reassurance will gives him because will's words and feelings alone could never fix mlvn. because that's not his relationship lol. and saying that mike loves will because he makes him feel needed implies that he would love el if only she needed him and i just don't think that's true. mike is saying that el doesn't need him to survive anymore and that he's of no use to her now and while will has absolutely needed mike in the past and has survived thanks to mike before, that's never what their relationship was about. this post explains the way i interpret it very well. if mike was like normal he would've worried about el not loving him anymore (since that's quite literally what the note she left him implies) and then will would've said el loves you and she always will and it still wouldn't have been the reason why they're ending up together. because that's just silly. "mike loves will because will makes him feel loved" like...okay, he would love anyone regardless of their personality then.

what it boils down to #TOME is i want you because i need you vs i need you because i want you. i love you because you need me is not on my radar. it makes mike have no internal conflict and no arc beyond going from dating el to dating will just like "mike is in love with the person behind the painting" and "mike is just starting to like will in season 4" takes.

[joycrispy]

One thing I love about Crowley --never stated, but consistently shown-- is that he is, at heart, an engineer.

I have a few different things to say about that. Let's unpack them.

As the Unnamed Angel, we see his designs for the Pillars of Creation are millions of pages long, comprised of cramped text, footnotes, diagrams, schematics, etc. It's very...Renaissance polymath, in the way it implies a particular intersection of artist and inventor.

Also: in the naked romanticism with which he views his stars.

We already knew he made stars, but in s2 we learn that he did NOT sculpt each of them by hand. He designed a nebula ("a star factory," he says) that will form several thousand young stars and proto-planets, and all --aside from getting the 'factory' running-- without him lifting a finger. We also learn that these young stars and proto-planets stand in contrast to those made by other angels, which are going to come 'pre-aged.'

...I'm reminded of Hastur and Ligur's approach to temptations. Damning one human soul at a time, devoting singular attention to it over the course of years or decades, and how that stands in contrast to Crowley's reliance on, quote, 'knock-on effects.'

Ligur: It's not exactly...craftsmanship. Crowley: Head office don't seem to mind. They love me down there.

Hm.

I'm also reminded of the M25.

The M25 may not be as grand as a nebula (sentences you only say in GOmens fandom...), but LIKE his nebula it's an intricate, self-sustaining engine that does Crowley's work for him, many times over. Again.

That's some pretty neat characterization --and so is the indication towards Crowley's disinterest in victimizing anyone tempting individual people. It takes a considerable amount of planning and effort (and creeping about in wellies), but in accordance with his design the M25 generates a constant stream of low-grade evil on a gigantic scale.

Cumulatively gigantic, that is. Individually? Negligible.

But no other demon understands human nature well enough to parse that one million ticked-off motorists are not, in any meaningful way, actually equivalent to one dictator, or one mass-murderer, or even one little influential regressive. That's the trick of it. Crowley gets Hell's approval (which he NEEDS to survive, and to maintain the degree of freedom he's eked out for himself), and at the same time ensures that any actual ~Evil Influence~ is spread nice and thin.

It's some clever machinery. And he knows it, too:

The Unnamed Angel and Crowley are both proud of their ideas.

(musings on professional pride, Leonardo da Vinci, the crank handle, and 'the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale' under the cut)

In the 1970's Crowley gives a presentation on the M25, projector and all, to a room full of increasingly impatient demons. Maybe the presentation was work-ordered; the 'can I hear a WAHOO?' definitely wasn't.

Before the Beginning, the Unnamed Angel can barely contain his excitement about his nebula. Aziraphale manages a baffled-but-polite, "....That's nice... :)"

11 years ago, Hastur and Ligur want to 'tell the deeds of the day,' and Crowley smiles to himself because (according to the script-book) he knows he has 'the best one.'

(Naturally, his 'deed' has nothing to do with tempting anybody, and everything to do with setting up a human-powered Rube-Goldberg machine of petty annoyance. Oodles of 'Evil' generated; very little harm done.)

Hastur and Ligur don't get it, of course. That's also consistent.

Nobody ever knows what the hell he's talking about.

It didn't make it on-screen, but, in both the novel AND the script-book, Crowley was friends with Leonardo da Vinci. The quintessential Renaissance polymath. That's where he got his drawing of the Mona Lisa --they're getting very drunk together, and Crowley picks up the 'most beautiful' of the preliminary sketches. He wants to buy it. Leonardo agrees almost off-the-cuff, very casual, because they're friends, and because he has bigger fish to fry than haggling over a doodle:

He goes, "Now, explain this helicopter thingie again, will you?" Because he's an engineer, too.

(It is 1519 at the latest, in this scene. Why the FUCK would Crowley know about helicopters, and be able to explain them, comprehensively, to Leonardo da Vinci?

...Well. I choose to believe he got bored one day and worked it out. Look, if you know how to build a nebula, you can probably handle aerodynamics. And anyway, I think it's telling that this is his idea of shooting the shit. 'A drunken mind speaks a sober heart,' and all. He probably babbled about Aziraphale long enough to make poor Leo sick)

Apart from Aziraphale, Leonardo da Vinci is the only person Crowley has any keepsakes or mementos of.

Think about that, though. Aziraphale's bookshop is bursting with letters, paintings, busts, and personalized signatures memorializing all the humans he's known and befriended over 6000 years (indeed: Aziraphale has living human friends up and down Whickber Street. He's part of a community).

Crowley doesn't have any of that. It's just the stone albatross from the Church (for pining), the infamous gay sex statue (for spicy pining), the houseplants (for roleplaying his deepest trauma over and over, as one does), and this one piece of artwork, inscribed, "To my friend Anthony from your friend Leo da V."

To me, at least, that suggests a level of attachment that seems to be rare for Crowley.

...Maybe he liked having someone to talk shop with? Someone who was interested? Someone engaged enough to ask questions when they didn't immediately understand?

...Anyway.

There's also the matter of the crank handle.

This thing:

This is one of the subtler changes from the book. In the book, Crowley knows Satan is coming and, desperate, arms himself with a tire iron. It's the best he can do. He's not Aziraphale; he wasn't made to wield a flaming sword.

The show, IMO, improves on this considerably. Now he, like Aziraphale, gets to face annihilation with what he was made for in his hand. And it's not a weapon, not even an improvised one like the tire iron.

He made stars with it.

[both gifs by @fuckyeahgoodomens]

If you Google 'crank handle,' you'll get variations on this:

Crank handles have been around for centuries. Consisting of a mechanical arm that's connected to a perpendicular rotating shaft, they are designed to convert circular motion into rotary or reciprocating motion.

Which is to say they're one of the 'simple machines,' like a lever or a pulley; the bread and butter of engineering. You'll also get a list of uses for a crank handle, archaic and modern. Among them: cranking up the engine of an old-fashioned car... say, a 1933 Bentley. That's what Crowley has been using his for, lately. But he's had it since he was an angel and he's still, it seems, very capable of it's angelic applications.

Stopping time. For instance.

(This is conjecture on my part, but, I like to imagine that Crowley has the ability to stop time for the same reason I can --and should-- unplug my computer before I perform maintenance on it. Time and Space are a matched set, after all, and in his designs in particular, one feeds into the other.)

I know everyone has already said this, but: I REALLY LIKE that when he needs to channel the heights of his power, he does so not with a weapon but with a tool. Practically with a little handheld metaphor for ingenuity. One from long-lost days when he made beautiful things.

(And he loved it. Still loves it --he incorporated that metaphor into the Bentley, didn't he?)

Let Aziraphale rock up to the apocalypse with a weapon: he has his own compelling thematic reasons to do exactly that. Crowley's story is different, and fighting isn't the only way to express defiance. And if you've been condemned as a demon and assumed to be destructive by your very nature, what better way than this?

He made stars. They didn't manage to take that from him.

Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale are fighters, really --they have no intention of fighting in any war. They'll annoy everyone until there's no war to fight in, for a start. But between the two, if one must be, then that one is Aziraphale. Principality of the Earth, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, Wielder of the Flaming Sword... all that stuff. Even if he'd prefer not to, it's very clear that Aziraphale can rise to the occasion, if he must.

Crowley was never that kind of angel. He wasn't a Principality. He doesn't have a sword.

...And yet.

It's Crowley who protects. He's the one who paces, who stands guard, who circles Aziraphale and glares out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near.

In light of everything else I've said here, I think that's interesting.

Obviously part of it is that Aziraphale enjoys it and, you know, good for him. He's living his best life, no doubt no doubt no doubt. But what about Crowley? What's driving that behavior, really?

Have you heard the phrase, 'loved to the point of invention'? Well, what if 'the point of invention' was where you started? What if where you end up involves glaring out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near? What is that, in relation to the bright-eyed thing you used to be?

What do we name the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale?

...Thinking about how an excitable angel with three million pages of star design he wants to tell you all about...becomes a guard dog. Is all.

[fillinforlater]

Maknae Royale

Male Reader x Jang Wonyoung, Wang Yiren, Lee Gahyeon, Park Sujin (Swan), Jeon Somi, Shin Yuna, Kim Yerim (Yeri), Im Yeojin (9some)

Length: 10.000 words

Tags: live action porn, porn game, fucking for points, Team Battle Royale, squirting kink, edging kink, bimbofication, brat taming, doggy, fingering, face riding, blue balling, jerking you off, titfuck, standing sex, step-bro I'm stuck, anal, creampie, anal creampie, eating out, blowjob, face fucking, deep throat, rough sex, missionary, full nelson, against the wall, piledriver, mating press, overstimulation, porn_star!you / porn_rookies!idols

TW: even after editing, this is messy and chaotic and pure sex lol

Inspiration: the idea of a Maknae focused fic is not new, but I just went all in. This is also based on this vote I send out a while ago lol. I think I can name drop @writerpeach cuz I remember him saying sth like that.

Credit: @erospandemos for the cover art! Thabk you very much!

(A/N: One year after C.Ollection, I'm trying my best to celebrate and repeat that craziness, have fun! The beginning is a reference to Labyrinth of the Six. This is the same universe but not a sequel!)

-

"I was looking for copper and I found gold!"

You turn off the purring engine of your car. It is clearly not as nice as the purring of the girl you were in balls deep mere minutes ago, but let's be honest, those purrs should not be compared; one is mechanical, the other borderline maniacal. You let out a sigh as you kill the annoying lights in your car to focus on the call you just accepted.

"Hi, is this really how you're greeting me?" you respond, letting your fingers glide over the steering wheel as you watch a single car pass by in the middle of this warm, humid night.

"Oh, man, stop complaining!" the director says and laughs. You can hear him type something on an old keyboard, each tap of his fingers obnoxiously loud. "I'm going to give you the opportunity of a lifetime—something this great, it needs no greeting."

You rub your nose, then the inside of your eyes filled with tiredness and exhaustion. She was needy tonight, you gave her two rounds, 140 minutes of a hard pounding until the clock struck a merciless 3am. Yes, you were counting the minutes, it was necessary. Otherwise Jiwon’s cunt would have drained you early, which is unbecoming of a porn actor of your caliber.

"Look," you halt the director's enthusiasm with a groan. "I'm doing good right now. Money—I got enough; my love-life is good too. Maybe I'll take a break for a couple of months until my next—"

"No, listen!" he shouts in absolute excitement, like he has been enlightened by the truth. "This script, it's so fucking good! It lit a fire in me, I can already see the setting, the actresses, you—it's perfect. This can even top your Labyrinth performance—you remember, the six hotties—"

"Of course I do!" There you go. Your heart beat is picking up in tempo. How could you forget the pleasure, the absolute thrill of having sex with six gorgeous women at the same time? Don’t kid yourself, this already felt like one in a million—to flat out reject another offer that could be of this magnitude would be absolutely foolish. “Fuck it. Send me the script, I’ll get back to you.”

“Oh, you will,” the director says, absolutely certain that you will accept in a heartbeat after reading this ominous script. “I’ll start looking for actresses.”

#

The script is complex, wild, otherworldly—implementing it took weeks of preparation. Luckily, your part in this clusterfuck is rather simple: be hard, go hard and stay hard. The first two are deeply rooted within you. Seeing the girls’ incredible faces and even greater bodies has you ready to get a raging erection at any time, while some of their slutty mannerisms and lewd words dripping from their tongues like venomous drool urge you to go as hard and rough as you can. Hell, they’ll basically beg for you—why would you hold back?

The only issue is that there are too many of them. No matter how hot they are or how horny you are, at some point there is nothing left. You will be drained and there is no shame in admitting defeat to them. So once again, you’ll have to resort to some performance enhancers to stay hard like a diamond while drilling into cave after cave. It’s a pink pill this time, tiny, you barely notice it, both in the palm of your hand and in your throat. Take a deep breath and feel it surely doing its job already. 

You open your eyes in the midst of a studio room that looks like a submarine. Dim light, large, black holes around you, each with a large porthole-like door in the middle; it feels gloomy, mysterious, unsettling. A single camera is pointed at you, live streaming each droplet of sweat running down your face. Feel the artificial warmth of a nearby heater creep up your thin clothes, giving you chills. It cannot match the heat within you.

The red light atop the camera turns off. Sixty seconds from now, one of the portholes will open. The glass in them is blurry, obscuring any view of the chaos happening behind them. You of course know the script inside out, but the girls’ are still somewhat unknown. You’ve never seen them face to face, only in zoom calls, their bodies looked fantastic and because they are rookies, they should also be tight, but you don’t know how they will handle the pressure, all the eyes on them, the revealing outfits, the unbridled sex—

Around thirty seconds now. You grab your trousers and feel blood rushing out of your legs. Feet tingle, the tips of your fingers as well. This pill, it has your heart racing somewhere, racing from something, to anything. Eyes tremble, vision blurrier than the glass before you, behind you, around you. 

You’ve never felt more alive and dead at the same time.

With a loud hiss, the porthole to your left swings open, wide open, flooding your entirely empty room with copious amounts of fog and the smell of fresh fruits. The vibrant color scheme of pastel pink, magenta, light purple and white fills your view as you step into what looks like Princess Peach’s private castle, its kitchen, living room and bedroom. It’s like one explosion of cuteness and innocence, quite charming, very fake.

“Oh, he’s already here. Look, Barbie!”

“That’s not my name, Yiren. Hello, handsome stranger!”

The two girls fit the concept of the room perfectly. Such bright smiles, happiness pouring from their cute little faces; you knew they would nail this performance the moment you saw their pictures and heard their voices. Wonyoung, the tall girl with her incredibly long legs truly looks like a Barbie doll: tiny ribbons adorn her endless chocolate hair while the pink crop top and straight denim skirt make you want to play with her all night, undress her everywhere.

Yiren on the other hand blends in with the room to such a degree, you’d assume they cannot be sold separately. The chinese girl boasts hair the color of peaches, her tight white dress sparkles because of small, silver details spread across it, while her face leaves no doubt that she is, in fact, a princess. 

The two get closer to you, before Wonyoung starts to speak up again, her voice in a sassy, yet genuinely adorable pitch.

“Aw, are you shy? No need to be, we’re all here to have fun. Isn’t that right, Yiren?”

“You’re right, Barbie. Let’s play some games and make it a night we won’t forget,” Yiren adds, quieter and calmer than Wonyoung, with a smile that warms the heart.

“S-sure,” you respond to the two girls bouncing up and down in front of you like hyped up kangaroos. “B-but what are we going to play?”

“You see,” Wonyoung starts. “Yiren and I are a team and we have a mission to fulfill. Can you help us?”

“I’d love to, but what is the mission?”

Yiren turns towards Wonyoung, who’s already grinning at her. They share a nod and Yiren suddenly wraps herself around one of your arms, while Wonyoung occupies the other. Feel their slender bodies rub on your limbs, their natural heat and rapid heartbeats working towards your own, increasing it with every step they guide you towards a bed in the corner of the room. It’s at least double queensized, filled with pillows, blankets and stuffed animals.

“Let me explain it to you,” Wonyoung says and climbs atop the purple sheets. “Our mission is to make this bed as wet as possible.”

“Well that sounds easy,” you respond. “Just get some tap water and dump it on here.”

“That’s what I thought too,” Yiren whispers in your ear and suddenly places her hands all over your back and chest. 

“No tap water, only natural juices are allowed,” Wonyoung hums and her hands casually open her skirt. It falls on the bed and she is quick to kick it away. She looks even more tempting and ruinable in her tiny tight panties with a wet teddy bear on the front. “We need your help to get these juices out of us, pretty please?”

“Yes, pretty please?” Yiren adds and cups the bulge in your pants. “It will be so much fun, I promise. Doesn’t Barbie look tight? Don’t you want to fuck her until she bursts?”

“Fuck, yes.”

“Splendid,” Wonyoung laughs and throws away her crop top as well. Meanwhile Yiren finds the hem of your pants and tugs them down oh-so easily, the only resistance is your hard member, which Yiren promptly points at her team partner who has her legs spread invitingly. 

She’s so hot.

As if she read your mind, Yiren tempts you into finally going hard:

“She looks so hot. Go fuck her.”

Like a tiger desperate for food, you crawl onto the bed and tackle your prey into a mountain of teddy bears. Your fingers find the very specific teddy bear on Wonyoung’s panties, you push it to the side to find a pink slit. A final look at her glistening eyes before you press your cock onto her equally glistening slit and after some adjustments, you enter her. 

Wonyoung shrieks cutely, her thin fingers wrap around your biceps’ and she holds onto them as you start to slowly pump into her. The two of you need time to realize where you are, what you’re doing, how you’re doing it. All acting for the camera is gone in this bliss, at least for a couple of seconds. Then it all comes back with Yiren, eagerly who jumps on the bed as well.

“You need to hurry up, we don’t have forever.”

You slip a hand under Yiren’s dress to quickly shut her up. No panties.

“How about you start helping, princess,” you fight back. “Go rub Wonyoung’s clit while you ride my fingers. Oh, and Wonyoung.”

“Ye-yes?” the young girl moans.

“Open your mouth wide. I need you to drool on these.”

Both Yiren’s pussy lips and Wonyoung’s normal lips—though their lusciousness and thickness is far from mere ‘normal’—part as soon as your fingers graze them. The latter is quick to slobber all over them while you recklessly pump them into her; Yiren still has reservations and instead opts to look at you with adorable glassy eyes.

“I-I feel so full,” she moans, shivers throughout her entire body. You softly smile at her and start to curl your fingers, purposefully dragging them alongside her walls while your palm reaches her clit. “Ah, i-it feels—”

Holy shit. Whatever chemical they put into this pill, it has a tendency to just kill your patience. In what can only be described as a loss of all control, your body only moves towards fulfilling the mission. Your fingers start to violently pump into Yiren’s pussy and Wonyoung’s mouth, both quickly spilling liquids out of them. Especially Wonyoung, the Barbie girl below you, becomes a dispenser of juices when you violently fuck into her tight pussy.

“Too fast, ah!” Yiren screams, her hands wrapped around your wrist, unable to prevent the surge of lust in your body. 

“Fuck, sorry. I can’t stop me.” You groan, not really sorry about the stuff happening to you, to them and—oh God! Wonyoung’s tiny frame, those cute hard abs, get bulged by your massive erection. A bit of skin and muscles, pushed up by your relentless thrusts, and she is also seeing it. Is she panicking, losing her mind to how you violate almost her entire body?

Her pussy is quick to give you an answer: like a broken, public fountain, she shoots water at you, suddenly soaking your body in her warm pussy juices. With their strong, lewd smell they are the perfect liquid to stain the sheets, more than your balls or her drool can produce. Much to your dismay, most of the nectar gets stuck on you. 

“Fuck, turn around,” you command the thin fuckdoll and because she is too enamored by her heavy orgasm—her tiny thighs and long legs trembling up high in the air—you grab her hips and spin her around. Now in Doggy, you keep her upright by pulling her chestnut colored hair and plunge back into her still twitching cunt.

Wonyoung is completely overwhelmed. Instead of the cute, girlie moans you’d expect from her pretty lips, she grunts uncontrollably, her voice still hoarse from your fingers that played with her mouth. The grunts, however, are nothing compared to the wet sounds coming from her pussy as you thrust into the warm cavern, desperate to get more out of it. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” both you and Wonyoung groan. The tips of her fingers dig deep into a soft stuffed toy while yours knead her soft butt. The sight of it is amazing; not a big dumpy, like you’ve seen on countless actresses, but so flawlessly smooth with an impossibly tiny asshole you one day need to get your tongue into.

“Pl-please, me-me too.”

Yiren crawls closer to you, her skirt pulled up, her cunt a leaking mess that needs something inside it. The live action fucking in front of her has her on the edge, ready to do her part to fulfill the mission, but you are too mesmerized by Wonyoung. 

“Wony, lick her pussy. Get your tongue into her, fuck!” you shout, lost in your frenzy.

The barely thinking, barely functioning Barbie gets her hands onto Yiren’s thighs, at first only breathing, hissing, moaning into the princess’ crotch. It’s enough for Yiren to finally take the lead, forcing Wonyoung’s face straight onto her puffy lips, and the younger surrenders. She kisses and licks all over Yiren’s delicious cunt, the bundle of nerves atop it never left out. Yiren shudders.

“Oh God, oh Go~d, fuck!”

Yiren is louder than a fucking bomb when she explodes onto Wonyoung’s face and more importantly, the bed. Her nectar splashes all over the sheets, their color darkening beneath her knees. Finally, the three of you have made significant progress, and you are eager to make more. Especially Wonyoung seems to be more turned on than before; her pussy is even tighter, her walls ripple as she continues to eat Yiren out. 

“You like that, huh? Your face deep in her pussy?” you ask her and give her cute ass a firm spank. “Such a dirty princess!” 

“Yesh!” Wonyoung shouts, pressing her behind into your pistoning cock. 

“You like my cock fucking you senseless, getting into your insides? You want it all, deeper?”

“Yesh, pleash!”

“Try to push me out, Wonyoung, squeeze me with your stupid little pussy!”

“Ah, shit, fuck! I’m—”

Yiren shuts her team partner up by grinding on her face. It’s enough to send Wonyoung into an orgasmic frenzy—again—and the moment you pull out, she squirts—again—everywhere. It was amazing, absolute bliss for you, but you are not there yet. You need to cum, inside a hot, clenching hole and so you disrupt the two princess’ love making.

Yiren fits perfectly into your hand. She is almost as light as Wonyoung, so you pick her up and place her on the head of the bed. The young woman is still frozen in surprise, her eyes uncertain, then shocked when you spread her legs wide and align your cock with her pussy.

“Oh God, it’s t-too big,” she whines even before you’re inside her.

“You can take it, Yiren, you’re such a good and pretty princess,” you mindlessly groan as you stare at her, then her nipple peeking out above her increasingly bunched up dress. “Now cum all over me.”

Yiren is too easy. Only a few strokes of your cock alongside her velvety walls and her entire body ripples. It starts with her cunt, soon goes to her torso and limbs, before she squirts like a broken garden hose. If the bed was a garden, countless flowers would bloom in it—and Wonyoung wants to make sure you stay to help them. 

“You have to stay,” she whines. “Stay inside her and make her cum again.” She pushes you, forces you to almost slip inside Yiren again. From the corner of your eye however you see a red light, the indicator that you have to switch scenes right now.

“I think I did enough.” You pull away Wonyoung’s slender arms and Yiren’s feet trying to get you back inside her. “Get some toys or use your fingers. I’m not playing for your team, you need to play together.”

Yeah, sure, something like that was in the script. Luckily, even these two remember that the show must go on. At least Wonyoung does. The Barbie gets handsy, waving you goodbye while plunging her beautiful, long fingers into Yiren's cunt. What a waste that you won’t cum on those digits tonight.

"Have fun~" Wonyoung cheers as you disappear from her view, towards the next porthole which is already open.

Before you can take in the next setting fully, a nude, masked woman greets you by pulling your face down into her sizable cleavage.

"Quick, get him in here," another voice, feminine yet deep, straightforward yet mysterious, calls and you feel hands all over your body, as they drag you into the room. You only catch glimpses of its interior, a dark, unsettling dungeon with iron bars and cold, smooth walls, akin to the setting of certain Japanese videos you—a friend of yours—used to watch—for scientific reasons.

"Here, pin him down."

That voice just now is truly incredible, if only you could see who it belongs to. Unluckily, you only get to see the ceiling as four hands throw you onto a table. Those two are strong, you think, because your back hurts at the impact.

Suddenly, your view gets replaced by a smooth pussy and jiggly thighs trapping your head on the wooden surface. You take deep breaths, the strong smell of arousal quickly filling your nose. A finger boldly flicks your cockhead.

"Oh, you're really turning him on, Gah," the other woman says, your pulsating cock in her fist. "Ride his face, and I think we’ll get our first points soon."

"Wh-who are you?" you barely squeeze out, words drowned out by drowning in Gahyeon's pussy juice.

"I'm Swan, but we don't have time for that. We need to win this game, which is why you have to suffer.

"Sorry, by the way."

Before you can respond, Swan's fist goes up and down your length with the violence and speed of a raging tiger, ready to fucking destroy you. Tears spawn in your eyes, precum at your tip. She drives you to the edge and keeps you there with rhythmic pumps while you imagine her face in horny delight.

"Is he there yet?" Gahyeon asks, her voice raspy and cruel.

"Why don't you ask him?" Swan responds and twirls her tongue around your balls. You twitch.

Gahyeon lifts a leg and her deadly eyes stare through a terrifying mask right at you. "Tell me when you're about to explode,” she snarks and to put emphasis on her following words, she presses a long finger nail into your abdomen. “If not, I'll kill you.

“And start licking, for fucks sake.”

She plants herself back down before you can answer. She can live with your eager tongue on her thick folds as an analogical agreement. Through Gahyeon’s almost soundproof thighs you hear her passionate groans and Swan’s continuous spitting in her hands and on your cock to get you wet and ready for more of her soft hands. 

You can’t deny that they are excellent. Yiren and Wonyoung both had tight, cozy holes, but something about Swan grabbing your dick and mercilessly pumping and twisting it makes your spine tingle. She quickly gets you to arch your back and moan into Gahyeon’s pussy, which has started to glide back and forth over your visage.

“Such a nice cock,” Swan moans. “Look at it, Gah! The head is already burning, I can feel that he’s close.”

Swan puts her second hand on your base and presses her lubed up palm on your underside while she starts to destroy your tip with violent pumps. She is a vicious succubus, trying to get your seed out efficiently without care for your sensitivity. With Gahyeon using your face like a saddle, your mind is left on hold when you loudly tap the table to signal your imminent arrival.

“Swan, now!”

The moment Gahyeon shouts, Swan is gone. No more delicate fingers to hold you, no more fists to jerk you, nothing to stimulate you. You thrust your hips up into air, unable to cum, unable to get your well-deserved release. Those fleeting seconds where you want only one thing are absolutely ruined by not getting this one thing—and then it’s over. You come back down with a devastated sigh. 

“That’s one,” Gahyeon says and looks down at you in between her legs. “But we need more.”

“I agree,” Swan says, adjusting her position in between your shivering legs. “Get him to cooperate, I’ll do the rest.”

Gahyeon once again is faster than your attempts at remonstration. She puts her small hand on your throat and carefully increases the amount of weight on it. You gasp in dread before Swan places your still hard cock in the valley of her enormous tits. The valley then turns to a compressed trap where only your glans peeks out. 

'Oh fuck', you want to, need to scream but it's futile with Gahyeon's enthusiasm to rub her labia on your lips. Swan shows a very similar need to torture you, her hands eagerly digging into the flesh of her melons and moving them up and down—both at the same time, then at different times, faster, then slower but with more pressure—is she trying to get you killed? 

Death by titfuck. That will be an eyecatching epitaph. 

"Do it faster," Gahyeon orders her teammate emphatically. "We need to get the score up."

"I know," Swan says, her voice a bit strained. "It's just unfair, you know? Getting him ready again and all that. But I think, fuck, we’re getting there. Look at his tip, isn't it cute?"

Swan licks the slit on your cockhead, cleaning the precum from it and you have to tap out again. You are so close once more, but a terrible gut feeling lets you doubt that you will cover Swan's tits with your cream. You’ve never felt so sick about being right, when she pops you free from the heavens between her large breasts.

They are right there, God dammit.

"That's number two!" Swan gleefully shouts and looks at your pole, pointing at the sky, sensitive and ready to explode, but your balls turn blue again. This can't be healthy, with how frustrated it makes you.

"Use your mouth this time, Swan—"

"Oh yeah? Why don't you do something for once?"

"Huh? We agreed on this earlier! I'm doing my part! Look, he can't even say a word."

"Pl-please," you interrupt the girls' discussion. "Let me, please, let me cum already!"

"Sorry, pal." Swan's voice is soft, and her tongue on your dick is even softer. "But we need to ruin you even more. That's how we're going to win."

"Th-then ruin your own orgasms," you plead with numbness in your mouth, caused by Swan's mouth on your barely numb manhood. "Th-this is cruel."

"He's got a point," Gahyeon thinks out loud. "Ah, fuck this game. If you can get me close, boy, I'll let you escape."

This might be your only chance to get out of this vicious cycle of ruined orgasm and painful edging. So you actually channel all your focus of your lips, tongue and teeth—whatever Gahyeon likes—on her clit. It's surprisingly easy to make her thighs around your ears squirm; Gahyeon's pussy is now wetter than Swan's mouth wrapped around your cockhead.

Suddenly, Swan gives you everything. She forces you to bottom out in her mouth, grow to full hardness once more while she violently gags. She might have been in absolute control over you for the last couple of minutes, but she is perfectly able to make her mouth a slutty hole for your cock. A soft, dominant deepthroat queen with massive tits—she is going to be a super star.

In a surge of ecstasy, fueled by Gahyeon's sweet juice, you buckle your hips upwards and force Swan to choke a little longer on your length. The young woman is not irritated however. After a single breathe she is back to going up and down you cock, sucking along it until your fucking dead. 

You know she's going to ruin it again and the only way to pay them back is by ruining Gahyeon's orgasm as well. You finger the pussy above you and quickly flick the blood-filled lips and nub, until she cries out. Then you stop, then Swan stops. She is the only one satisfied—another two points for her team.

You blink a couple of times. Gahyeon, groaning like an enraged bull, has the busty Swan pinned to the metal bars of this dungeon and with all her hatred, slaps the younger's wet cunt.

"Now it's your turn, bitch!"

"Ouch, stop!"

"No. I want to win and you want to win too, so you better ruin yourself on my fingers. Now!"

This is your cue to leave. The dungeon fills with Swan's deep grunts and groans as she finally gets to witness what she put you through again and again and again. You'd love to help Gahyeon; there will be no need for it though. The masked girl is willing to do whatever is necessary to win.

Across from the dungeon, the second to last door is already open. The room mimics a dimly lit laundromat with a dozen or so washing machines. You step inside, cock in your carefully stroking hand. After all, you’ll have to be hard for the next scene, which will be the complete opposite of the last. 

“Hello? Can somebody help me?” someone cries (let’s be honest, it’s much closer to a desperate moan) from behind a pile of freshly dried laundry atop a clothes rack. There is a sincere lack of intelligence in that cry, like said person is unable to help themselves. Makes you feel chivalrous. 

“Hey, how can I—help you?”

The sight you find behind the pile has your speech a bit halted, interrupted by how, in a room made for washing clothes, someone is severely lacking them: A gorgeous, busty blonde, in nothing but modest, white underwear, though you notice that the bra is at least a size too small and unable to fully carry the weight of her tits.

"Oh, please help me," she moans again. "I think I've picked the wrong bra for me. Can you help me cover so no one can see my boobies while I look for the next?"

What the fuck? This is so fucking stupid on so many levels. How could she—and why would she suggest—what is even happening? The cliche about blondes must be true, because this one is not only dumb as fuck, but also hotness at it's peak. From bust to bottom, no, even to her toes, her body is amazing and tempting.

"Uhm, sure, why not. Can I know your name first?" you politely ask while not so politely getting behind her and cupping her breasts.

"I'm Somi. Thank God your hands are so big, no one can see my boobies now, hihi."

Is it innate for her to sound this silly? If not for this setting, you’d be worried; no human can ever be this stupid, only a buffoon would act in such a way. But maybe Somi’s IQ is just a bit lower than the average person—or maybe she knows no boundaries? The rules of public decency and inappropriate, sexual exposure might be foreign to her? You don’t know. You just know that her boobs are soft and bouncy, two handfuls of pillows to rest your head upon, of stress balls to knead when you are, you know, stressed.

You seem to know a lot more than her, especially because she still tries to find a bra able to hold up her breasts in the midst of clothes which all have two things in common: they are colorful and they are skimpy. It’s like the laundry of a whorehouse with how many short and skin tight skirts, dresses, fishnet stockings you find, let alone the short tops or all the lingerie. Speaking of which, Somi has finally found a bikini top that might be able to do the deed your hands are gleefully doing. 

“Do you think this one is good?” she asks, holding up a new, purple bra while you slightly press at the bottom of her tits to watch them wobble on your finger tips. 

“Try it out, because I’m not so sure with your massive boobs.”

Somi giggles and tries to put on the bra. You leave enough room, really, you do, for her to tie up the thin strands, but Somi is unable to. She mewls a couple of times before you go in and securely tie up the strands yourself. You are promptly rewarded, because the blonde decides to bend down and press her ass back against your crotch, your exposed cock, rapidly hard again at the touch of her cotton panties. 

“Thank you, again,” Somi says and pushes her chest up for all to see. “What do you think, is this good?”

“Somi, is it possible that you are fucking stupid?” Oh, that sounded a lot harsher than it should have. The tension is quickly palpable. You hear someone gasp from the other end of the room.

“W-why?” Somi’s question is abashed, a bit shocked; even in this state of complete bimboness, she still looks so good. 

“Because these bottoms don’t fit your top,” you say and pull at the side of her panties until they snap off of her hips. “You should change them. White and purple don’t fit together all too well.”

Somi looks down at her cleavage, the purple lace engulfing her tits, then to her thighs which have been parted by your cock. The tip peaks from in between her legs and you softly groan out the pleasure her perfect gap gives you into her ear. There is no mere hint of slickness from her heat, there are ridiculous amounts of evidence of it, proof spreading all over. It’s a clear case of horniness, you better resolve the issue immediately. 

“You’re right,” Somi mumbles, thighs swaying. “I should look for the right bottoms. They should be in here.” Things couldn’t get any better, because now Somi is bending over, hands in the pile of clothes, while your hands are in the plentifulness of her ass. You hold her steady, align your cock with a hole that looks so ready to get fucked and then push forward. Somi almost stumbles forward, but you save her from making an even greater mess of this place by continuing to make a mess out of her. 

“Oh God,” she moans, a pink crop top in hands. “I-I can’t find it.”

“Continue, continue searching,” you groan back and slam your hips forward, then backwards, your cock entering and exiting her cunt at will—your will is strong, overpowering every small exhaustion in chase of that first true release of this messy pornographic shoot, a shoot where teams fight to win, yet this “team” does not even have a target goal.

Somi’s goal is to be stupid, oblivious to your cock gaping her pussy open time and time again, and for this being her first time on cam, she is excellent. Of course, her dumb moans can’t be deactivated, you doubt even a ball gag can fully do that, but a benevolent interpretation of this scene allows for these moans to be of desperation. Somi just really wants to find these purple bikini bottoms—your cock spreading her pussy and the camera lens on it is just a side product. 

“Da-damnit, fuck,” Somi seems to give up, defeatedly grabbing the edge of the table while you hold onto her shoulders to get faster, deeper inside of her. “They are not h-here.”

“Maybe you need to take a step back and look at it from afar,” you tell her and all it takes is a pull at her shoulders and Somi stands straight up. From now on, your thrusts go upwards and Somi can casually bounce along while her dizzy eyes try to process the color purple amidst a pile so colorful, every pride parade would become envious. 

Your arms instinctively wrap around Somi’s small waist. You need to keep her here, can’t let her get away, not when you are this close to finally cumming. Your balls are aching, your tip is stimulated and you know that it will be glorious. Somi’s body, from a face that could make news just for its beauty, paired with a pair of perky, large boobs, amplified by a tight, muscular midriff, killer hips and strong, full thighs, she has to be everyone’s type. 

People will click on her videos millions of times, yet you are about to be the first to cream her, you can call dibs on that pussy, no male rival co-star stands a chance. Your cock is ready, your legs able to give more power into the final thrusts when suddenly—

“Oh, I found it!”

—Somi leans forward, hand stretched out, ready to grab what has always been on top of this entire pile, in your view forever, in everyone’s view forever, only Somi took forever to find it: purple panties. No, they can’t ruin your perfect orgasm. You heartlessly push Somi against the table, head first into the laundry. Her scream now muffled by a dozen of clothes in her face, you manically fuck your load into her doggy until cum floods her cavern and clothes flood the laundromat floor.

Every part of you is twitching, so is Somi and her pussy. A bit more, a bit more, she squeezes out of you, but she is full. In the midst of all this chaos, this silly, flushed bitch was able to grab the panties. You give her tits a harsh slap to awaken her from the cock induced slumber. 

“Put them on, quick, before we make a bigger mess.”

Somi obliges, though shaky. You help her by holding onto her hips, her tits, all those things you could grab forever. When your shaft falls out of her pussy and you watch her catch most of your load with the tight panties, you want to push them to the side and just fuck her full pussy again. That’s when you notice someone down the aisle of washing machines—is it Somi’s teammate?

“Who the fuck is th—”

“Help, I’m stuck!”

This one is a classic. A trope so beyond stereotypical, everyone knows it. Just like the dumb blonde, this one can be found on every porn site ever. The only thing missing is that she calls you stepbro. That would be a bit too much though. Her ass sticking out of one of the washing machines while she absolutely tries to get back out of it is already cliche enough to you.

Oh yeah, she’s also completely naked.

“Oh no, Yuna is stuck!” Somi states the exposition for the viewer, who is utterly uninvolved in the engaging plot they stopped paying attention to since this video's thumbnail. “We need to help her!”

Somi waddles towards her partner. You see trails of cum running down her legs,  unceremoniously dropping to the floor and making a lewd, sticky mess of it. She seems unbothered, just like you, and the camera absolutely loves it. The view then switches from this to a new, exposed and impressively large ass.

“Help, help,” Yuna shouts again, metallic reverberation unable to dampen the stupidness in her voice. You had filmed a scene like this one already, but there are no complaints whatsoever. As long as you can get your hands on Yuna’s ass, pull those cheeks apart and get the first view of those two smooth, clean holes, why would you complain?

“How did this happen, Yuna?” Somi asks worriedly, arms alongside Yuna’s frame, definitely ‘pulling’ on her teammate's waist, while your mind imagines all the ways you could rim Yuna for hours.

“I wanted to pull my underwear out of here,” she responds with a whine. “But now I am stuck!”

Go figure, she is brainless as well. Both of them are, but nature has instead given them the envy of millions of women: divine bodies that are effortlessly sexy and beautiful. Smooth skin, toned legs, curves to die for—in your admiration you notice that your energy is returning quicker than ever before. 

It might not fit the story, the narrative, the game, but in this moment of bliss, you couldn’t care less. Knees bend, cock guided by your thumb, you press your tip against Yuna’s ring and find the entry into her asshole to be a lot easier than expected. Her moan bounces through the washing machine just like her boobs bounce in surprise. 

Confusion has Somi frozen, her body only reacting when you put force in your thrusts, enough power to make Yuna hit her dumb head against the back of the washing drum. A profuse whimper made metallic, not that you care, but Somi seems to get back into the real world where she is still as moronic as before. 

“H-how is this supposed to help Yuna?” 

It’s not. Tell her that. Tell her and Somi will continue complaining like this without getting any pleasure from you. Serves her right, won’t make the scene any better though, thus you find her neck with your hand and find her eyes with yours. They sparkle knowingly. 

“You really are the dumbest thing alive.”

A pull and Yuna is out of the drum. Blonde hair flows down her back, hides her frail shoulders and in the reflection of the metal drum you see her lips in a light, glistening pink. They are full and made for sucking. In the sea of her endless, golden hair, your hand twists and twists until Yuna voluntarily raises herself from the ground and arches her back towards you. Your goal is not to kiss her lips (though that would be one hell of an experience) but to drown her in Somi’s cleavage.

“What are you—Yuna! No, don’t pull it down, I-I just found it.”

Sweat evaporates from your temple when you see those lips wrap around one of Somi’s nipples and begin to lewdly suck on it. The thrill is engaging, Yuna’s ass invites you back in and it’s with ease that you fuck her puckered hole. You poke the depths of this suffocating cavern and Yuna begins to poke all over Somi’s body. The dumber blonde hesitates briefly, hands first on her thighs, then Yuna’s until she ends up below her friend. 

“Now you are trapped,” Yuna giggles and drool leaves her mouth in purposefully large amounts, able to transform the valley between Somi’s tits into a canal. 

“You two are so fucking stupid, fuck, fuck your hot bodies.”

You are starting to lose it, for every word they utter, your intelligence gets insulted but your arousal heightened. You spank Yuna’s ass and she tightens to the point where you need to give it your all to fuck her faster. What an odd time to notice that they haven’t told you their task yet. How can you help them get points? Shit, what was in the script again? Are you really that much smarter if you can’t remember?

“Yuna, Yuna, that feels so good,” Somi moans out and sways on the floor from side to side until you press Yuna right on top of her. With their incredible bodies entangled and you nonstop fucking into the tight ass, their sensitive spots have to rub each other, nipples on nipples, clits on clits, and Somi is the first to collapse. “Oh my God, I-I’m about to wet my panties, oh no, Yuna!”

“Me too, my butt, I’m going to cum from my butt!” Yuna’s silly fucked body, and her silly face and her silly feminine voice have you on the verge to become silly as well. Both blonde’s indulge in their wet, heavy orgasms and you push your tip back into Yuna so many times that you flood her with a pent up load that momentarily shuts down your brain.

So this is how they feel all the time—brainless but blissful. At least stupid bitches fuck good.

“Oh, Somi, there, there is so much in my ass~”

“Really? Can I feel it?”

Somi puts two fingers against Yuna’s puckered hole, but before she can get a scoop of your load that is still hidden in the tightly clenching butt, Yuna stands up. “No, Somi, ew,” Yuna shouts, moans, something in between, again. “You have to eat it straight from the butt, like this.”

You are back in the hub room, all the rooms finally open. Before you make your way to the last room, you decide to take a quick look into each scene you’ve already participated in that only users that buy the premium pass (which is off 69%, only today on k-jizzers.cum) can still watch: 

In the first room, Wonyoung and Yiren sit on the edge of the bed, fingering each other's pussies until they violently squirt all over the mattress. Both of them look sweaty and exhausted, but they continue to drink water and share saliva to go for another round. Stay hydrated, everyone.

“Let’s do this, Barbie, I know your tiny body can cum again!”

“O-okay, b-but only if you kiss me.”

In the second room, Swan is fully naked, her backside turned to you. She is tied to the metal bars with handcuffs on both of her wrists. Below her is Gahyeon, thrusting a dildo up into that tiny tight cunt, while her own hole is stuffed with a loud bullet vibrator. They are really committed to this game.

“I swear, Swan, if you cum again, I’ll kick your ass, literally!”

“S-sorry, Mommy, I try, try, try—I’m so close!”

In the third room, well, those blondes finally found a way to snowball your cum, not from mouth to mouth, but ass to mouth. Yuna sits on Somi’s face, head thrown back, unable to not moan as your white spunk oozes out of her. Bon Appetit. 

“Oh God, don’t put your tongue in!”

“But he tastes so good, let me be greedy this one time.”

The final room is a classroom, unmistakably. It has an old blackboard, a long desk for the teacher, smaller desks and chairs for the pupils. No matter when or where you’ve been to school, this will surely evoke memories of forgotten homework, endless lessons and bratty students.

 “Ew, is that the new guy?” you hear someone complain from across the room, disgust in her voice, fingernails rapidly typing on her phone. 

“Oh yeah, but what did you expect? At least he gives some big dick energy,” a response follows promptly, though this time they both look up from their phones and stare at you. You quickly find coverage behind the teachers desk to hide your manhood. A miserable attempt that has one of the girls outraged. 

“Ayo, what the fuck? Do you think you’re some kind of teacher now?”

“Maybe he is here to teach us a lesson, lol.”

Did the girl on the left, in her messed up blouse and way-too-short checkered skirt, the waistband of a light brown thong on display, just like her midriff and navel—did she just say ‘lol’ out loud? Well, at this point the viewer will neither cringe or notice, too good is this material, too hot their bodies. 

“Maybe he is here to teach you a lesson for breaking the dress code,” the girl adds as she approaches the desk. 

“Yeri, you—you’re worse than me! Everyone can see your bra, what the fuck,” the other girl shouts and goes in for a slap on Yeri’s butt. The impact has you peeking out as a small melee breaks out.

“At least I tried, Yeojin, unlike you. Where is your skirt, your blouse? I can almost see your tits.” Yeri reaches for Yeojin’s chest, which is covered by this tiny, one piece swimsuit, so tiny in fact, even Yeojin’s small body seems to spill out of it. When there is so much shortness, of course Yeojin’s shorts are no different. Her shorts are actually shorter than Yeri’s skirt, which is already quite short—

“You tried?” Yeojin shrieks and tugs at Yeri’s blouse, accidentally undressing her. Who could have known, the bra below is actually a bikini top. “It’s falling off of your body.”

“Ts,

“Hey, you fucker! Get out already, we got some beef to settle.”

Yeri kicks the desk and you hear pencils roll down from it. They surely have not forgotten about you and your assumed big dick energy, so it was no use to continue hiding. You crawl out and straighten your posture, clearly taller than the two young women who don’t waste time looking up and gawking at the height difference. Both sets of hands go straight to your abdomen, your crotch, your cock. Yeojin is the first to pump, rubbing her fishnet sleeves carelessly over your sensitive tip.

“Watch it,” you hiss and get fistfuls of their hair, which to your surprise does not faze them at all. “You two are running your mouth, spewing bullshit. This is no way how you should treat people older and taller than you.”

Yeri frees herself easily from your grasp and you gasp when her knuckles dig into your stomach. It wasn’t really a punch, but somehow, she has you stunned. A smirk appears on her feisty features. “Watch it, asshole. This is our classroom, you’re the one below us. If you want some respect, don’t flex with your height. Flex with something else. Proof your worth.”

“O-oh yeah? And how should I do this?”

“Fuck us,” Yeojin casually says and pulls back the skin on your cock to the point it hurts and all the surging blood forces you to peak stiffness. “You get points for every position, the more creative, the better. Show us that this thing is more ‘do-er’ than ‘show-er’.”

Their eyes are the epitome of ‘fuck-me’ eyes, hell, they imagined fucked you the moment you entered, and in your mind, you’ve fucked them in every conceivable way possible. With all this imaginary fuckery, it’s about due time for the real fucking to start, though it’s definitely bugging you that these small, bratty girls get to start it off and lead the way. 

Guess your positions have to be rough.

“Fine,” you sigh and get ready to push Yeojin down to her knees, but there is no need. She takes the short fall and her lips aggressively wrap around your tip before you can overthink your decision. 

“No need to agree, it wasn’t up to you anyway,” Yeri laughs and you feel her fingers roam your upper body, everything from butt, back, nape to stomach and chest. She lingers there for a long time, cupping your pecs while you imagine cupping her surprisingly big tits—then Yeri dives in and starts to suck one of your nipples, while Yeojin bops her head back and forth. 

“You tiny bitches.” They make it hard to breathe, their sluttiness and sloppiness is excellent, their enthusiasm matches that of Wonyoung. “You greedy, evil little things. You’ll regret that.”

“We’ll see about that,” Yeojin moans when your cock pops from her luscious lips and you’re back to receiving harsh, painful pumps from her fishnet clad hands. “What’s stopping you, huh?”

Nothing, really, so you don’t keep them waiting any longer. You reach into the back of Yeri’s bikini bottoms while simultaneously finding a good grip on Yeojin’s ponytail. A bit of adjusting on both ends, suddenly there is nothing but sounds of horniness, of rampant, uncensored sex. Well, there is of course a lot more than that, but who could think of anything else—

—but Yeojin’s cock-sucking lips sucking cock. They are the only thick thing on this miniscule rookie pornstar. You jerk your hips forward and her nose meets your base. You keep it that way as her tight throat struggles with your size and saliva spills from her lips. 

Yeojin’s gags seem to turn on Yeri, her wet pussy dripping on your fingers as you rub it, never too fast, to keep her on the edge to—yeah, teach her a lesson. Look at that needy face, that heaving bosom, she is so desperate for more stimulation, but could never admit to it. Yeri’s pride keeps her from begging for your fingers to twirl inside her cunt.

“Is that really how you want to do it?” That’s as close to a beg as you will get from Yeri, nonetheless, you’ll give her more rubs. All this struggle is unbeknownst to the viewer, who can only see Yeri’ ecstatic face and wide open mouth as you finally insert two digits in her cunt. “That’s better, fuck.”

“Ride my fingers, Yeri. Impress me, and I’ll fuck you on the desk.”

“You, you will either way,” she chirps back, voice about to break when you thrust knuckles deep and curl, all while making Yeojin your sex doll. 

Those gags of hers have become too dangerous though, so you take a step back and intensely watch as Yeojin coughs up lots and lots of saliva, letting it run down her pretty little face, her throat that was just stuffed like some obscene christmas chicken. In disbelief you watch her wipe her tears away and grin on, as if she wasn't just fighting for her life. Nothing can get Yeojin down, her brattiness is unreal.

Yeri does not seem amused at the lack of attention you give her. She pulls your hand out of her pussy and waddles towards the desk. In a burst of creativity, you grab her and slam her on the desk, on her back. Yeri winces in pain, but you already have her entrance exposed and filled before she can complain. And complain, she shall never again.

“Fuck, so big, be ca-care-ful!”

“Now that’s—oh God, you’re tight—now that’s not what I expected from you,” you groan manically, as you pin Yeri down with both your eyes and hands. “Shut up and take it. I want to see your tits bounce.”

Out of nowhere, Yeojin’s thin hand creeps under the thin string of Yeri’s bikini top and pulls it off. Finally, you can see those modest breasts swing freely while you do what you’re best at: plunging your fat cock into a wet cunt. Yeri moans, in a deep craze, deep pleasure, her hips grind in circles so you have to pin her down harder, hands in the soft flesh above those hips—just fuck faster and lose your mind.

“Yeri, your pussy looks so full,” Yeojin giggles and brushes stray hair out of her friend’s ecstatic face. “Don’t tell me you’re already about to cum?”

“No-no, never—”

“Oh great, cuz I won’t let you,” you promptly say and pull out of that stretched hole, gaped and absolutely desperate for an orgasm that was right around the corner. A few more pumps and Yeri would have been gone, her first on cam climax was so close.

But now it’s Yeojin’s turn. After all you want those points—or is it their points? You don’t care, you just hook your arms underneath her thighs and pick her up. She’s as light as she looks and her pink cavern is as snug as you anticipate. Yeojin holds onto your neck for stability, while you split her open further and further and when she leans into you, you feel your cock bulge her.

“Fuck, fuck, that’s the spot.” Use Yeojin like a fleshlight, an upgrade to her sex doll mouth, and she surrenders to the pleasure. Wasn’t this supposed to be Team Bratty or something? This is more—

“Team Cockhungry, absolute sluts,” you shout at her but Yeojin is just mindless and her lips quiver anxiously whenever you’re not guiding her small body up and down your cock. “Yeri, get on the wall. Present your ass to me, if you want this cock again.”

Yeri nods, only focused on you. She needs a second to find orientation again, while you make Yeojin lose all orientation as you spin her around and fuck her full nelson. An insane idea by the producers, stand and carry sex for the finale, but with a girl this small, it’s actually possible. You are still the unrestrained engine that pistons and pistons until Yeojin is ready to burst.

“Not yet, not yet,” you coo as you ruin yet another orgasm. A wet pop when you remove yourself from what could be a perfect hole for cockwarming, breeding and many other lewd adventures. The industry will empty their pockets to get a video with this pocket pussy girl. But for now, she is all yours and quite dismayed.

“You, you dick, better make it up later,” Yeojin says, voice deeply judgemental. It has to be ignored, because first, you have to make it up for a certain someone who wasn’t satisfied with your fingers or a short missionary fuck. Yeri needs you again, deep and hard, while her fragile legs try to keep her upright.

You watch the side of her face, the lip bite, the palms flaking off the wallpaper, the thighs trapping you and your cock is already on her labia. Yeri rubs her love juice all over your rod and you follow her plea and take the lead with a thrust that can be heard around the world.

“Fuck, it’s deep, your cock is deep in my pussy.” The disbelief in her voice sounds genuine, just like the attempt to crawl up the wall to drop back down on your cock. Yeri wants you to hit her cervix, finally cumming all over you but you need to savor this position more.

“Deeper than anything else.” A hand in her hair, you press everything of her against the wall. “I know you like it deep, your best spots are there. You’re a slut for large cocks, you only want them while standing up.”

“No, I need them to pick me up! Lift me up and fuck me, break me open deeeeep!”

Yeri must have been so envious of Yeojin. You might have picked the wrong girl to lift on high and fill from below. You can still make it up though; Yeri’s tits are repurposed as handles to pull her back onto your chest, feet suddenly flying. You might be blinded by strands of her hair all over your face, but you can still feel the weight of Yeri down on your cock, while you’re still drilling into her. She is getting higher, not only physically, but mentally. She loves nothing more than to be watched while a huge shaft fucks her. The stimulation sends her into a sea of bliss, a deep ocean, like the puddle of girl cum beneath your feet. 

“I’m going to cum on your cock,” Yeri screams and tries to choke out a load from your balls, yet all she is choking you with is her hair on your face. “I love it, y-you can finish with me—”

The last time the camera captured someone cum so hard was about thirty minutes ago, either Wonyoung or Yiren, but unlike Team Princess next door, Yeri does it involuntarily. You pound the squirt out of her sloppy cunt until your legs become a slippery lubed mess and you almost slip on the cheap classroom floor. Yeri shouts and whines, the inside of her pussy still rippling when you pull out of it.

When you place Yeri back against the wall and feel the somewhat cold studio air brush past your erection, you realize that Yeri was close to getting you off too early. You are throbbing, surfing on the edge, almost getting blue balled. The only thing that can save you is Yeojin and the only thing you see is her ass, as she props herself up on all fours in between the chairs of—

Who counts chairs and who fucking cares? Just slam your cock into her ass and hear her screech in shock at the sudden fullness of her back entrance. There will be no ruined orgasm for you this time, Yeojin’s ass is your guarantee and you doubt her brattiness will return. Not when she moans so submissively. A question remains as you bury yourself repeatedly in Yeojin’s rectum: how can she be shocked when it's all lubed up and relaxed and eager to take you back inside like the pussy of a veteran porn star?

Yeojin really was born for this job. Her petite frame will be perfect for various porn sites related to kinks: size difference, stand and carry, small tits. The videos of her getting bulged will become legendary amongst the horniest or Reddit and Tumblr communities. Guys will have their way with her, her head will be spinning after some huge guys have her unconventionally spitroasted in the air or one of those tall, muscular women takes her for a ride on a strap-on. 

They won’t have to worry about anal from her, because Yeojin takes it legendarily, narrowing at just the right time to go beyond the audio-visual perfection that is her penetrated ass—in simpler words, it feels as good as it looks. She can rival Yuna or maybe form some butt slut dream team, that’s how fucking amazing fucking her ass is.

“Yeri get back here, I’m close,” you promptly announce whilst scoring again by forcing Yeojin into a prone position and marking her shoulders with tender bites. Yeri struggles to find footing, only able to push forward because of all the tables and chairs. When she finally reaches you, you give Yeojin your final pumps as her entire frame is struck by an orgasmic earthquake. 

In this day and age, everything has to be fast, even porn has to fit the 15 second shorts, reels, tiktok culture, so you start to cum in Yeojin and push Yeri to the ground at the same time. Then you reach for Yeri’s butt while holding back as many spurts as you can, to get her in this sweet piledriver and then paint both the outside and inside off her petite yet bubbly ass. It’s perfect for a short clip, that little teaser that plays when you’re about to click on the next JAV thumbnail on that shady site.

The HD or 4K settings across all screens can never do the real sight of a blissfully filled Yeri justice, as she eagerly spreads her own cheeks and everyone gets the awesome view of cum that seeps out of a gaped ass. The upside down (pretty, little, risky) baddie cleans off that hard-working cockwith her formerly bratty mouth. Deep exhales through her nose send a nice, warm stream of air around your base, which finally loses stiffness, the tension, it comes crashing down in the well-known post-nut clarity.

In this clarity however, you find Yeri’s final defiance; her lips will not let go of your cock and her tongue on your sensitive slit makes you curl your toes and whine out the agony which shoots up to your head like electric shocks. To top it all off, you feel Yeojin grin behind you when she wraps her slender arms around your midriff. This wasn’t in the script!

“The shooting might be over,” the tiny girl whispers. “But we are not done with you.”

“There are still a lot of points to be collected. 

“And you will collect all of them.”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Palantir’s NHS-stealing Big Lie

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then SAN FRANCISCO (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

Capitalism's Big Lie in four words: "There is no alternative." Looters use this lie for cover, insisting that they're hard-nosed grownups living in the reality of human nature, incentives, and facts (which don't care about your feelings).

The point of "there is no alternative" is to extinguish the innovative imagination. "There is no alternative" is really "stop trying to think of alternatives, dammit." But there are always alternatives, and the only reason to demand that they be excluded from consideration is that these alternatives are manifestly superior to the looter's supposed inevitability.

Right now, there's an attempt underway to loot the NHS, the UK's single most beloved institution. The NHS has been under sustained assault for decades – budget cuts, overt and stealth privatisation, etc. But one of its crown jewels has been stubbournly resistant to being auctioned off: patient data. Not that HMG hasn't repeatedly tried to flog patient data – it's just that the public won't stand for it:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/21/nhs-data-platform-may-be-undermined-by-lack-of-public-trust-warn-campaigners

Patients – quite reasonably – do not trust the private sector to handle their sensitive medical records.

Now, this presents a real conundrum, because NHS patient data, taken as a whole, holds untold medical insights. The UK is a large and diverse country and those records in aggregate can help researchers understand the efficacy of various medicines and other interventions. Leaving that data inert and unanalysed will cost lives: in the UK, and all over the world.

For years, the stock answer to "how do we do science on NHS records without violating patient privacy?" has been "just anonymise the data." The claim is that if you replace patient names with random numbers, you can release the data to research partners without compromising patient privacy, because no one will be able to turn those numbers back into names.

It would be great if this were true, but it isn't. In theory and in practice, it is surprisingly easy to "re-identify" individuals in anonymous data-sets. To take an obvious example: we know which two dates former PM Tony Blair was given a specific treatment for a cardiac emergency, because this happened while he was in office. We also know Blair's date of birth. Check any trove of NHS data that records a person who matches those three facts and you've found Tony Blair – and all the private data contained alongside those public facts is now in the public domain, forever.

Not everyone has Tony Blair's reidentification hooks, but everyone has data in some kind of database, and those databases are continually being breached, leaked or intentionally released. A breach from a taxi service like Addison-Lee or Uber, or from Transport for London, will reveal the journeys that immediately preceded each prescription at each clinic or hospital in an "anonymous" NHS dataset, which can then be cross-referenced to databases of home addresses and workplaces. In an eyeblink, millions of Britons' records of receiving treatment for STIs or cancer can be connected with named individuals – again, forever.

Re-identification attacks are now considered inevitable; security researchers have made a sport out of seeing how little additional information they need to re-identify individuals in anonymised data-sets. A surprising number of people in any large data-set can be re-identified based on a single characteristic in the data-set.

Given all this, anonymous NHS data releases should have been ruled out years ago. Instead, NHS records are to be handed over to the US military surveillance company Palantir, a notorious human-rights abuser and supplier to the world's most disgusting authoritarian regimes. Palantir – founded by the far-right Trump bagman Peter Thiel – takes its name from the evil wizard Sauron's all-seeing orb in Lord of the Rings ("Sauron, are we the baddies?"):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/01/the-palantir-will-see-you-now/#public-private-partnership

The argument for turning over Britons' most sensitive personal data to an offshore war-crimes company is "there is no alternative." The UK needs the medical insights in those NHS records, and this is the only way to get at them.

As with every instance of "there is no alternative," this turns out to be a lie. What's more, the alternative is vastly superior to this chumocratic sell-out, was Made in Britain, and is the envy of medical researchers the world 'round. That alternative is "trusted research environments." In a new article for the Good Law Project, I describe these nigh-miraculous tools for privacy-preserving, best-of-breed medical research:

https://goodlawproject.org/cory-doctorow-health-data-it-isnt-just-palantir-or-bust/

At the outset of the covid pandemic Oxford's Ben Goldacre and his colleagues set out to perform realtime analysis of the data flooding into NHS trusts up and down the country, in order to learn more about this new disease. To do so, they created Opensafely, an open-source database that was tied into each NHS trust's own patient record systems:

https://timharford.com/2022/07/how-to-save-more-lives-and-avoid-a-privacy-apocalypse/

Opensafely has its own database query language, built on SQL, but tailored to medical research. Researchers write programs in this language to extract aggregate data from each NHS trust's servers, posing medical questions of the data without ever directly touching it. These programs are published in advance on a git server, and are preflighted on synthetic NHS data on a test server. Once the program is approved, it is sent to the main Opensafely server, which then farms out parts of the query to each NHS trust, packages up the results, and publishes them to a public repository.

This is better than "the best of both worlds." This public scientific process, with peer review and disclosure built in, allows for frequent, complex analysis of NHS data without giving a single third party access to a a single patient record, ever. Opensafely was wildly successful: in just months, Opensafely collaborators published sixty blockbuster papers in Nature – science that shaped the world's response to the pandemic.

Opensafely was so successful that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care commissioned a review of the programme with an eye to expanding it to serve as the nation's default way of conducting research on medical data:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/better-broader-safer-using-health-data-for-research-and-analysis/better-broader-safer-using-health-data-for-research-and-analysis

This approach is cheaper, safer, and more effective than handing hundreds of millions of pounds to Palantir and hoping they will manage the impossible: anonymising data well enough that it is never re-identified. Trusted Research Environments have been endorsed by national associations of doctors and researchers as the superior alternative to giving the NHS's data to Peter Thiel or any other sharp operator seeking a public contract.

As a lifelong privacy campaigner, I find this approach nothing short of inspiring. I would love for there to be a way for publishers and researchers to glean privacy-preserving insights from public library checkouts (such a system would prove an important counter to Amazon's proprietary god's-eye view of reading habits); or BBC podcasts or streaming video viewership.

You see, there is an alternative. We don't have to choose between science and privacy, or the public interest and private gain. There's always an alternative – if there wasn't, the other side wouldn't have to continuously repeat the lie that no alternative is possible.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/08/the-fire-of-orodruin/#are-we-the-baddies

Image: Gage Skidmore (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peter_Thiel_(51876933345).jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

[holllandtrash]

haunted | daniel ricciardo

pairing: daniel ricciardo x driver!reader (part 2 to fragile line)

Can't breathe whenever you're gone Can't turn back now, I'm haunted

you're racing. daniel isn't, but he's not gone either, is he? word count: 7.6k (im so sorry) warnings/tags: angst really, more incorrect f2 stats but whatever, time jumps again, platonic love all around, not as big of a rollercoaster as part 1 but just wait till part 3 lol

“Do you know?”

“Do I know what?” You asked, wondering why that was the first thing your teammate said when you opened the door to your flat. 

Lando didn’t even bother with a ‘hey, how was your day, what’s up’, he was just straight to the point, only you had no idea what the point was. 

He was still on a high after coming in second place the other day, so you let the impoliteness slide. Usually Lando didn’t look like a mix between a sweaty mess and a confused child, but you assumed he was like this because whatever was on his mind was important.

“You haven’t- did you-” Lando stammered over his words. “When’s the last time you checked your phone?”

You felt around in your pockets and glanced over your shoulder with a bit of a shrug. If you were being honest, you hadn’t looked at your phone in a few hours. Your morning was spent training and running errands now that you had some time and were home for a little while before the next race. You were still carrying a lot of energy after your successful finish in Silverstone that sitting still and scrolling through your phone was the last thing you wanted to be doing right now.

“Can you just find your phone, please?” Lando asked, because he didn’t want to be the person to break the news. He came over to talk to you, to walk you through it, to be someone to vent to if you needed it, but the last thing he wanted was to be the one to say it. 

It took a minute, but you found it in your bedroom, the screen lighting up and vibrating with each notification. As you walked back towards Lando, you scrolled through them all, trying to see which was the most important. 

Eventually, you landed on one from the official F1 app.

Daniel Ricciardo Replaces Nyck de Vries

Daniel Ricciardo was returning to the grid.

Daniel was coming back. 

But did he ever really leave in the first place?

You hadn’t spoken to him since that day in Monaco, almost a year ago now. The day your relationship fell apart, crumbling to pieces around you. 

You thought maybe, maybe, he’d call you before the next race or at least try to find you somewhere in the paddock to have a civil conversation but that didn’t happen. 

Of course, neither of you had time for a conversation anyway.

Daniel released his video 24 hours before media day in Belgium, announcing he would be leaving the team. It broke your heart watching it in your hotel room, knowing he was only a few floors up and probably struggled to record it. You could picture him retaking it a few times, just to get the words right, his tone right. He didn’t want to paint McLaren as being at fault for this decision, even if that was the case. 

If you weren’t the driver who was set to replace him, you would have been there in that room giving him encouraging nods and telling him to just speak to the fans. You would have been there when his head fell back against the wall in defeat, eyes closed as the weight of his unknown future crashed down on him. You would have crawled onto his lap and held him, telling him that another team was going to be desperate for him. 

Instead you were in your own room, watching the video like the millions of other followers he had. The only difference was, none of those followers asked themselves if they were to blame. 

It was just you, wiping the corner of your eyes and asking yourself if this was your fault. 

Surely when your news dropped, people would start pointing fingers, people would talk. 

Daniel Ricciardo trained her, they would say. He helped her get to this point and now she’s taking his seat. 

They’d throw assumptions into the wind about how this was probably your plan all along. 

It wasn’t, of course. Your plan was to get a seat in Formula 1 and see Daniel as friendly competition when you stepped onto the grid. You wanted to keep the support system alive when you moved up, knowing you had someone watching your back when you climbed out of the car. You wanted to be able to go home with him at the end of the night on Sunday and watch the race back with him, playfully critiquing each other's moves and ideally celebrating your victories, together.

You never wanted to leave him without a seat. 

But part of you must have known he wasn’t driving next year, right? You never brought up the contract, he never talked about leaving, nor did he talk about potentially moving to another team, which seemed like something you’d talk to your partner about. 

Daniel said nothing. You said nothing. And in the back of your head you knew he wasn’t signed to another team, you just didn’t want to accept it. 

You didn’t want to admit that part of that was your fault. 

Zak Brown put you in the worst position possible. He was giving you the chance to make your dream a reality, but in doing so, you were losing the one person who shared that dream with you. 

It shouldn’t have been hard to put on a smile during that post-race interview in Spa. You finished second, your hot streak had continued despite the turmoil your heart was going through. So not only was the adrenaline pumping through your veins from the podium, but McLaren had decided that morning was the perfect time to announce you were replacing Daniel. 

They didn’t word it like that, though. They just stated that you were to race for McLaren for 2023. No mention of Daniel, even if that was all anyone had questions about. 

“Second place in Spa, how are you feeling?” The reporter asked as you struggled to get comfortable in the white leather chair, your trophy at your feet. 

You weren’t surprised he, Richard from the official FIA reporting team, jumped directly to you, bypassing any questions for Liam Lawson who finished third. No one had yet to get a comment on your official move to F1, not having any time this morning since the news was announced. 

“It's exciting, it’s good to be back as well,” you nodded, turning to Felipe on your right who nodded as well. “A break is always needed, but there’s really no better feeling than getting back behind the wheel.”

“You’ve never podiumed here before,” Richard pointed out, “There’s quite a difference in performance from last year to this year, we’ve all noticed.” 

“Is there a question in there somewhere?” You laughed, not caring at all if it sounded forced, and you knew it did because Liam raised his hand to mouth to hide his chuckle and tried to play it off like he was just scratching his jaw. 

“Well it’s just no wonder that McLaren has snatched you up for the 2023 season, with how much you’ve shown this year what you’re capable of. Care to comment on that?” 

There it was. The first official request to talk about McLaren. 

“I mean, we’ve all seen the news at this point,” another laugh but this time it was more out of discomfort. 

You looked at Felipe, he nodded again but it was short and encouraging, silently telling you it was okay to take the spotlight even though it was him who had won this race. 

You cleared your throat, thinking about what the PR team from McLaren told you. You’re focused on Prema. McLaren knows this. McLaren is supporting you while you finish your F2 season and by all means, shut down any topic regarding Daniel Ricciardo. 

“Really, I’m just focused on finishing the season off strong with Prema,” you told Richard, feeling your smile start to slip because how could you be excited over that or a trophy when you knew what he was thinking and what the whole world was thinking. 

You prayed he wouldn’t bring it up, but the media world was hell. 

“And Daniel’s departure-

Liam promptly lifted the mic to lips, cutting off Richard before he could finish that thought. “We’ll all miss her, I think that’s safe to say. But maybe it’ll be a bit easier for the rest of us to podium when she’s gone.”

Quiet laughter spread through the audience and you just turned to Liam and mouthed a quick ‘thank you’. He didn’t say anything back, just dropped his head to your shoulder for a second and smiled, playing up the whole we’ll miss her statement. It wasn’t an act, though. Most of the guys you raced with had stopped you at some point this morning sharing their congrats and giving you a hug, telling you that you deserved that spot in F1. 

Even Felipe said it and meant it, and he was on the fast track to win this year, also eyeing a spot in F1. You had a good support system in this series. 

He dropped his head to your other shoulder and your lips fell into a playful pout, raising your hands to the sides of both driver’s faces. It made a cute photo. The F1 social media team really played into the love you had from your competitors. 

You had a lot of support in the paddock, surprisingly, from other drivers. 

Mick found you before his own race started. He was your first teammate during your rookie season in F2, it only made sense he was the first current driver to congratulate you.  

“You deserve it,” Mick told you, arms tightly wrapped around your body as he gave you a comforting embrace that almost compared to the one you were craving from Daniel, but still something was missing. 

Mick’s contract was up at the end of 2022, and no one knew where he was going but he assured you that no matter what, he’d be on your side. 

You sort of interacted with Lando on Sunday after your feature race. When you passed him in the paddock, he held his hand out for a fist bump and gave you a wide smile. The cameras caught it, they caught everything apparently, and it was the first photo you saw on social media when you got to the airport late Sunday evening. 

First of many celebratory fist bumps, McLaren’s caption said. It was a nice photo, truly. 

Too bad the comments were anything but. 

Not McLaren hyping up the fact that Danny’s girlfriend is replacing himIsn’t she only fourth in the driver standings in F2 lol We don’t want her we want the honey badgerEven worse when you think about the fact that they are literally in a relationship and she’s taking his seatNo class from any of them

No one seemed to know that you and Daniel were done, but how would they know? Your relationship was private, your break up would be too. 

Your break up. 

And then it hit you. Right there in the airport. After the adrenaline of a podium had worn off. After the excitement of signing with a new team had passed. After you were finally left alone after being surrounded by your team and drivers and press all day, you broke down. 

It was embarrassing. The only saving grace was the fact that you were sat in the corner of the premium lounge, facing the windows, so at least no one could see you cry. You weren’t quiet though, you knew your faint sobs could be heard from anyone within a 3 metre radius.

And you knew how immature this was, crying in an airport. But when you felt things you felt them with every fibre in your being. You were overjoyed beyond words, shaking when you got first podium in F2, and then feeling that multiplied by fifty when you won in Monaco. 

You were madly in love with Daniel, despite only dating for a year. It wasn’t young love, puppy love, a whirlwind romance, or any of those sappy headlines. You were head over heels, ready to spend your life with the man who lifted you up above the rest of the world. Who not only put you on a pedestal, but made sure other people did too. He was always in your corner, even before you started dating. He loved you long before you even realised you could also love him. 

As an athlete, as a future world championship contender, as a friend, Daniel loved you. 

The day you knew you loved him, you knew you were screwed, you both talked about the risks. 

Fragile line, you called it, walking a tightrope, he joked. There was such a huge margin of error, so many things that could go wrong by falling in love with, not only a driver but the driver who mentored you. 

The media would turn against you. Sponsors would shake their heads. Your future could have been jeopardised. You’d be labelled as a poor role model for girls in motorsport. 

You walked a dangerous and delicate line with Daniel, but you didn’t think it would snap beneath your feet. You never thought you’d be the one to break it. 

So yes, you were full on sobbing in the airport as you waited to board your flight to Amsterdam. 

“Pretty sure podium winners aren’t usually this distraught.”

You heard the British accent and immediately sat up, wiping your eyes and sniffling to at least try and make it seem like you weren’t crying. You turned your head and watched as Lando sat down next to you on the dark blue chair, resting a leg over his knee. 

You didn’t say anything, you just stared at him, worrying that if you did try to talk, all that would come out would be more cries. 

Lando reached into the front pocket of his backpack and pulled out a travel size pack of tissues, tossing them to you without so much as a word. He waited a few minutes as you composed yourself, using some of the tissues and pocketing the rest for later. 

“You okay?” Lando asked, sounding concerned for your well being because he had a point, podium winners aren’t usually this distraught. 

“Am I okay?” You repeated back followed with a playful scoff. “Do I look okay?” 

“You look awful.”

“I feel awful.”

Lando nodded, clearly unsure what to do in this situation. His current teammate, his friend, was leaving at the end of this year and his new teammate, a girl he had barely had 5 conversations with, was having a breakdown in the airport. 

Lando, whether he liked it or not, knew he would be caught in the middle of whatever this mess was for the next few months or so. 

He knew you and Daniel were an item. Daniel told himself shortly after Silverstone, and only because Lando had asked, simply curious.

“You and Y/N,” he started off, hesitantly, seeing the two of you interact much more flirtatiously then you had before. “You two are..” he didn’t know how to word it. 

Daniel just winked, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

That pretty much confirmed it. And then when you started showing up in the back of the McLaren garage during race weekends, Lando sort of accepted it, quickly getting used to seeing you around. 

You were always friendly with each other, but your attention was always on Daniel, too. Lando saw the way you were quick to rush to his side after a difficult race. How you were the first one Daniel looked for when he stepped out of the car, eyes searching the sea of orange for you. Lando heard the way Daniel talked about you, the way he praised you, telling everyone who would listen that you deserved a spot in Formula 1. That man had a note saved on his phone of your stats, race wins, qualifying times, records broken, all of it. 

Daniel loved you. Everyone who knew him saw it, and Lando was no exception. 

So one could imagine the uncertainty he felt as he approached you in the airport. Surely you and Daniel weren’t together anymore, right? Or were you somehow going to work through this? Could you work through it? Taking his seat?

Lando, like everyone else, was dying to know. 

“Has he said anything?” You asked him before Lando had a chance to get a word out. That question alone confirmed that you and Daniel weren’t on speaking terms at least.

“About you?” Lando asked and when you nodded, he saw the devastation hit your eyes as he shook his head. “Honestly he wasn’t very talkative today, left right after the post race stuff.”

“How is he?” You then asked. “Has he- is there any word on him finding a seat next year?” You pulled your knees up to your chest, staring hopefully at the British driver. 

It pained Lando to shake his head again, “Not yet, but it’s still pretty early. I’m sure he’ll find a seat.”

You nodded, praying that Lando was right. When you dropped your chin to your knees, averting your eyes when you felt the tears well up again, Lando’s chest grew tight. He felt bad for you. This was a hard position for you to be in. 

“It’s not your fault, you know,” Lando assured you. “Danny’s one of the best there is, but the results just aren’t there. Zak didn’t see any point in continuing if it’ll just end up being more of the same.”

Lando tried to be encouraging, really, and you were thankful for that, but he got the hint after a while that you just didn’t want to talk about it. Before leaving you alone, he gave you his number and told you that if you needed anything, to just reach out. 

You were always friendly with Lando, but that was the start to your friendship.

It was Lando who shared your picture when you claimed first place in Zandvoort, celebrating your success with a cheeky caption stating how he better see you bring the hot streak to McLaren next year. He was the one who interrupted your post-race interview in Monza, spotting you in the paddock being interviewed by Will Buxton. Lando, despite needing to follow his own pre-race schedule, came and draped an arm over your shoulder and playfully interrupted whatever Will was trying to say.

“Look at that,” Will laughed when you struggled to shake Lando’s arm off of you, “Future teammates. Lando, how excited are you to be working with this incredible talent next year?”

“Oh extremely excited,” Lando answered, leaning into the mic gripped between your fingers. “She won’t be able to keep up with me though.”

And that it was it. He ruffled his hand through your hair and took off again.

He checked in on you between races, whenever a new headline was trending, whenever someone from social media had the audacity to compare yours and Daniels stats and pin you against each other as if there wasn’t already enough you were struggling with.

Lando didn’t want you to come into the new season already feeling defeated. He was still friends with Daniel, he always would be, but he had a kind heart. He wanted you to know that he wasn’t on anyones ‘side’, but more importantly, he saw you as a driver, as his next teammate. He didn’t see you as Daniel’s ex who was now stealing his seat like half of the world did.

It was also his car that you drove during the practice sessions in Austin and Abu Dhabi. Lando happily stepped aside for you, giving you a supportive pat on the back and strategically blocking your line of sight towards Daniel as he got ready for his sessions as well.

You still hadn’t spoken. You hadn’t even looked at each other. You tried, honestly, to catch his eye but he refused to even glance your way. He was in and out of that car so quick, finding any excuse to leave the garage while you were there.

It hurt. You knew his mind was made up. He was upset, he was hurt, he wanted nothing to do with you and seeing you in his garage sent him spiralling.

All you saw was Daniel turning his back on you, but what you didn’t know was this situation was giving Daniel constant headaches. He couldn’t look at you, the girl he loved, and watch you climb into the McLaren knowing that you’d be doing that throughout the entire next season and he wouldn’t.

All he ever wanted was to see you in a Formula 1 car, but not like this. 

You stood in Lando’s side of the garage during the last race. You wore your McLaren jacket, you had the orange headphones on as stared up at the screen. Your back was towards Daniel’s car, so you missed the way he did actually look at you. It pained him to see how well you blended in with the team, his team. He almost told himself it looked like you belonged there, but he quickly put his helmet on and climbed into his car, gearing up for the race.

He finished 9th. Lando finished 6th. And with that, the season ended.

Daniel was done.

You watched him celebrate with those closest to him. You stood off to the side and thought about how if things were different, you’d be clinging to him, sweaty race suit and all, waiting to congratulate him in your own way back at the hotel. You would tell him you loved him, that he didn’t need McLaren. You’d joke and say that you two could form your own team, because that’s what you should have been till the end, a team. 

But that wasn’t the case anymore. McLaren was your team now.

It was only a matter of days until Daniel spoke to the media about his departure. 

“I can’t speak ill of her,” Daniel said, shifting uncomfortably on the couch. He knew that coming on this podcast that he’d be asked about you and your contract. He was advised against it but the second his working relationship ended with McLaren, he agreed to talk, to share his side.

“But she’s the one who took your seat,” Jaycee so politely pointed out. “As happy as I am to see a female in Formula 1, it’s bittersweet knowing a driver such as yourself is left without a spot.”

Daniel sighed into the mic in front of him, “McLaren handed her her dream on a papaya platter and she grabbed it. I think a lot of drivers would do the same in that scenario.”

“But it stings a little more, doesn’t it?” Greyson, her co-host asked. “Because you two were-

“Friends, yeah,” Daniel interrupted. “Yeah we were close.”

“You mentored her,” Greyson pushed for more of an admittance as to what their relationship was. “You were seen with her and the Prema team during a handful of weekends. She even said you were her mentor.”

Daniel naturally hesitated, “I saw her potential early on and I wanted to help her grow. I really did want to see her in Formula 1, despite what anyone says about the situation she’s an incredible driver.”

“Everyone who follows Formula 1 knows you have a strong connection,” Jaycee said, subtly trying to pry for more as well. “After her Silverstone crash in 2021 you were in her garage. And then you were seen in Monaco together a few weeks later. You two weren’t just friends in the paddock, you worked closely together outside of race weekends too-

“Did your girlfriend take your seat or not?” Greyson blurted out, earning a glare from Jaycee on his left, but he couldn’t hold it in anymore. He wanted to know, the whole world wanted to know what was going on between you and Daniel now that you were signed for McLaren. 

And you had to give props to Daniel, he played it off about as smoothly as he could. 

“McLaren sees more potential in her than me,” he said, still smiling because that’s who he was. A people pleaser, always grinning, always a breath of fresh air. “If they can give her what they promised me, then that’s good for all of them. Do I like how the situation went down? No, but that’s the reality of Formula 1. You’re not safe unless you’re winning and I wasn’t winning.”

“And your relationship-

“She doesn’t need a mentor anymore, does she?” Daniel asked, disregarding any ideas of the two of you dating. “She made it to Formula 1. That was what she wanted. I wish her well.” 

That was the closest thing to confirmation of your break up that anyone would get. 

And the interview ended shortly after that, doing wonders on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You listened to it also, just waiting for Daniel to say something horrible but of course he didn’t. That wasn’t him. He was the good guy. He was the hero. He got you to Formula 1 and was holding his head up high, wishing you well and thanking McLaren for the last 2 years. 

You wished it ended there, the conversations surrounding you. It should have ended there. 

But fast forward to the awards dinner at the end of the year, just shortly after the last race of the season. 

You sat with your mum at a round table with Felipe and his partner and few other people involved in Formula 2. 

You had finished second in the standings, not first like you had dreamt of, but Felipe told you that first place in the championship would come in F1, don’t worry. 

And you weren’t sure who had made the seating chart, but from where you sat, you could easily see Daniel at his table, only a few metres away from your own. He sat with some of his friends and some people from his personal team. He was also purposely avoiding looking in your direction, knowing that if he did, he’d be making eye contact for the first time in months. 

He’d see your stunning features and bright eyes standing out among the rest. He’d see the low cut, thinly strapped black dress, showing off the collarbones he used to mark with his lips, the trail between your breast and down to your navel that he used to make with his tongue. If he looked at you, he’d think of all the ways the night would have ended if things were different. 

If he looked at you, he’d be reminded that the girl he loved was the one who broke him. He’d be reminded that as hurt as he was by your actions, by taking his seat, he couldn’t forget the memories you made, the moments he shared, the way he used to admire you. 

He didn’t love you anymore, though. He couldn’t. He forced those feelings out, replacing them with regret for ever deciding to help you because if he hadn't helped you, it wouldn’t have been you that took his seat. 

So Daniel looked at the stage, his friends, his food. He didn’t look at you. 

He didn’t even look at you when you walked up to collect your trophy, choosing that moment to be the perfect time to walk up to the open bar. He ordered a few more drinks and a shot on a whim, downing it back before walking to the table, 2 freshly poured glasses of rum and cokes in hand. 

Daniel got drunk that night. He didn’t mean to, but it helped him deal with all he had going on. It was a good way to end the 2022 season, to put it behind him. You, McLaren, all of it. 

Someone should have stopped him when he noticed you about to leave at the end of the night, a white coat draped over your shoulders. That should be my blazer, Daniel thought, thinking of the countless nights he had given you his jacket for warmth. 

You were in the middle of a conversation with someone from Prema when you felt a tug in your arm. When you looked up and saw it was Daniel who was pulling you off to the side, your heart sank. There were no butterflies anymore, just a lot of anxiety and guilt eating you from the inside. 

You could tell he hadn’t thought through what he was going to say. For a split second, his gaze was soft, almost like he thought about congratulating you for a successful season. For a moment, proud Daniel was back and for a moment, you got your hopes up. Maybe this line you broke could be fixed.

It was a bad sign when his eyes grew cold, features hardening along with them. This man, who was all you wanted, stared at you like you were a stranger, and maybe you were now. 

He opened his mouth and the room around you fell dark and quiet. It was your mind playing horrible tricks on you, putting a spotlight in this moment in time so it would haunt your memories after tonight. You knew the earth was still spinning, that people around you were still moving, but you couldn’t trust anything, frozen in this space with Daniel. 

“I hope you’re happy,” Daniel spoke softly, but his words cut through you like a knife. If someone told you that your heart was bleeding, you’d believe it. That’s certainly what it felt like.

He didn’t want you to be happy. He didn’t want you taking his seat. He didn’t want to see you live out his dream. He put on a beautiful charade for the press, but deep down you knew, he saw you as nothing more but a mistake. He no longer wanted you to succeed, despite telling the world he wished you would. 

"Daniel-"

You automatically reached for him and he flinched backwards. It hurt, seeing him react how he was. He didn’t want you touching him, he just wanted to get one more word in, wanted you to know that he was still bitter and would be for a while. 

You stood there and watched him walk away, haunted by the pain and broken trust in his eyes, a look that would become burned into your mind during your restless sleeps. 

And then there was the week where you just didn’t sleep. The week after Daniel’s contract with Red Bull was announced. 

He wasn’t driving with them, but he wasn’t leaving Formula 1 either. 

He’d still be around the paddock during selective race weekends. He’d be there, putting on a show for the fans because everyone loved him. Everyone wanted him on the grid, and if he couldn’t race, at least he was still there in the garage as a reserve driver. 

The same excitement couldn’t be said for you. 

Despite forming a close bond with Lando really early into the pre-season, it helped that he was only two years younger than you, you were not met with open arms and loud cheers. 

You had some supporters, a lot actually, but nothing compared to Daniel’s fans. You were pulled alert and critiqued for every move you made. You could understand the questions that circulated when you didn’t even finish the first race in Bahrain, retiring early because of an engine problem. Did Zak really make the right move by replacing Daniel with you? What could you bring to the team if this was how you started the season?

But it was the talk about what you did off the track that really got to you. You didn’t care if people weren’t a fan of your driving, you knew F1 fans had their favourites and you knew you weren’t everyone’s. 

However social media had a way of spinning everything. You lost count of the ridiculous rumours. Apparently, you were now replacing Daniel with Lando because that playful interview you did talking about red flags in relationships really gave away the fact you were sleeping together. 

Oh you were also sleeping with Mick Schumacher, because you had a thing for reserve drivers, it seemed. And the way he found you after your second race without points again in Saudi Arabia made it so obvious that you were with him. 

And you couldn’t forget about how big of a bitch you were, choosing to not acknowledge Daniel in Australia when you walked past him in the paddock. It was his home race, he was the reason you were even racing, and you couldn’t even stop and give him a smile? 

These rumours were truly getting annoying.

Of course, you couldn’t come out and tell people that Lando was seeing someone because it was so new and private and not your story to tell. No one cared that Mick was your teammate at Prema in 2020 and you guys had always been friends. No one would believe you if you said that you didn’t even see Daniel in the paddock, being too engrossed in your conversation to notice that the Australian was walking past. 

You grew to hate seeing him during race weekends. 

It was a constant reminder of what could have been. 

What if you had waited a year and signed with McLaren then? Would Daniel still hold this hatred towards you if his contract played out like it was supposed to? 

What if you signed with a different team like Williams instead, and someone else replaced Daniel? If Oscar Piastri had taken his spot, would Daniel be this resentful still to see you driving? Or would he happily walk by your side in the paddock, him in Red Bull polo, you in your Williams racing suit? Would he have accompanied you during the race weekends when he didn’t have Red Bull duties?

Was there ever a scenario where he stood in your garage and watched you race? Cheering you on, despite what place you finished? Despite where he was in his own career?

Or was that just a far fetched dream? 

Because let’s face it, if Daniel was still racing this year, it would be hard to support you and focus on his own season. How could he be happy if he DNF’d and you finished in the points? How could you be happy if the media would say that you were only using Daniel to get ahead? 

If you had signed for Williams and Daniel was still replaced, it would be difficult for him to watch you race, to watch you do what he loved. How could he be in your corner when he no longer had a corner of his own to stand in? 

Maybe you were doomed from the start. Fragile line, you said. How true that was. It was always going to snap.

You heard through the grapevine that Daniel had said you taking his seat before his contract was even up was the worst thing you could have possibly done. 

Was that in regards to McLaren? To your relationship? From a sportsmanship standpoint? You had no idea. You just knew Daniel wasn’t impressed that you were racing and he wasn’t.  

You hated seeing him during the few races he attended. You were petrified to run into him in the paddock, in the pit lane, in the hotel for christ sakes, you didn’t want to see him. At one point, you were desperate for even just a smidge of attention from him and now you felt sick whenever you heard he would be in attendance.

You went five races in a row without scoring any points. You could practically hear Daniel’s smug expression when you crossed the finish line each time. He was probably eating this up, knowing you were the one struggling now. 

The only difference was, you didn’t have him to turn to after a shitty run in the McLaren. 

Lando tried to be helpful, but he was struggling too. People called the car a tractor and honestly, so did you and Lando in private. You had a group chat with your personal trainers and the four of you called yourselves the farmers. The jokes made and lighthearted conversations shared were the only silver linings during this depressing start of a season.

Monaco was better, sort of. 

You finished 10th, so at least that was a point under your belt. 

But Daniel was everywhere. 

He loved Monaco, he lived in Monaco, of course it was no surprise he was there that weekend.

You found yourself jogging past his flat the Thursday before the race, and you didn’t do it on purpose but it was the same route you had taken all of those times you had spent days on end at Daniel’s. Sometime he joined you for those morning runs, sometime you’d return and he was making breakfast.

But you came to a stop on the opposite side of the street and stared up at it, recognising his balcony instantly. You saw the plant in the corner that you had given him a few months into your relationship and despite him claiming he wasn’t a plant guy, he managed to keep it alive.

Your heart felt heavy. All you wanted was to knock on his door and be welcomed in with wide arms and that stupid smile of his. You wanted to not feel anxious when you saw him in the paddock. You wanted to not be holding your breath every time you got out of the racecar, wondering what Daniel thought of your run. 

You were simultaneously on edge at all moments while also still dying to make him proud. You didn’t think that would ever go away.

Even during the weekends he wasn’t there, you were looking over your shoulder constantly. Even if you knew that he was on the other side of the world, he was still on your mind. He haunted your thoughts from the moment you walked into the garage to when you got out of the car at the end of the race weekend.

Lando called you out on it that Thursday in Silverstone.

“You’re in your head,” he told you, seeing how your main focus wasn’t racing, it was Daniel. You were unsure what he was referring to though and Lando just rolled his eyes, “Well actually, Daniel’s in your head. And he’s keeping you from being the driver I know you can be.”

That was all he said on the topic. 

And he was right.

You were so worried about Daniel. About what he would think of your races. About trying to avoid him during the weekends he was there. About still trying to make him proud but not too proud where he resented you more for taking his seat. About the hundreds of scenarios that could have happened if you had made a different choice.

Because of all of these thoughts, that seat at McLaren was still very much Daniel’s. You allowed it to be.

You needed to stop telling yourself you took his seat because that’s what it would always be then, his seat. Lando stood up, patting your knee after dropping those few words and you decided right then and there that it was your seat. 

You wouldn’t let Daniel haunt you anymore. 

And qualifying was where this new mentality really showed. 

You were buzzing with energy when your engineer told you that you had gotten P3 and were starting on the second row for tomorrows race. You climbed out of the car in parc ferme and ran directly to Lando. He hugged you, he was proud of you. 

“That’s the driver we all know,” Lando said when he pulled his helmet off. His hand was on your shoulder, both of you were wearing identical smiles of pure joy. “Where the hell has she been all this time?”

You didn’t even have an answer, too excited about what this meant for you, for the team. You post-quali interviews went by in a blur, your hands were shaking the entire time. You blacked out during it, still trying to process the fact that you had finished third in qualifying, but you did remember Lando reaching over at one point and dropping his hand to your knee. It was polite, it didn’t mean anything more than a playful stop shaking you’re making us all look bad, but god did the media run with it. 

You didn’t let anything on social media get to you, telling yourself that you had to stay focused for the race. In fact you even gave your phone to your trainer, Oliver, asking him to take it for the night and to just wake you up in the morning.

And Oliver was a good trainer, he had also become a good friend since you joined McLaren so you trusted him with your phone. 

Which meant he knew your password. 

So when he saw your phone light up that night with a text from Daniel, Oliver panicked. He knew the right thing to do would be to just leave it alone, you’d see it in the morning. You’d see the message. The short but seemingly sweet;

P3, nice job

But a text like that would send you spiralling and you didn't need that before one of the most important races of the season for you, Oliver knew this. He knew you were supposed to be getting over Daniel, he knew how much the Australian just being in the paddock messed with your mind. He knew you had to focus on racing.

There was so much uncertainty with the text. Was this him extending an olive branch? Was he genuine, or was this supposed to be taken with a bit of salt? Oliver could read it both ways. Either Daniel was truly happy for you, or this could be dripping with sarcasm. P3, sure, but remember who’s seat you’re in.

Oliver decided to delete the text. There was no trace of it when he handed the phone back to you the next day. 

Maybe that was for the best, no one knew. 

All you knew was you were starting third today.

All Daniel knew was you had ignored him, and now you were walking right past him down the paddock, side by side with Lando as you talked about today’s race. Daniel turned his head and saw the two of you, drawing his own conclusions. 

Whatever was going through his mind, one thing seemed certain. You didn’t need him anymore. You had the seat, the team, someone new supporting you, why would you still need Daniel?

You went about your day, the same pre-race rituals. Lando checked in more than normal, it was an exciting day for both of you, but he knew he was also a good distraction to keep your mind off of Daniel, he knew you would be struggling to keep from thinking about him. 

“It’s you and me,” Lando told you right before the race. “It’s our day, yeah? We’ve got this.”

Lando was in your corner. You were in his. 

Which meant you were there to celebrate after the race when he took home second place. You had claimed fourth, which was also something to be proud of, and you were, but you were also craving that podium. You could almost taste it, it was so close. 

“Next time,” Lando assured you, having full confidence that you’d be holding the trophy at the following race. He handed you a bottle of champagne, telling you to drink up and enjoy and for once, you did. 

You were happy. You finally felt like you could accomplish something amazing at McLaren, despite the horrible start. Lando had gotten a podium, yours was coming, you could feel it. 

You didn’t think about Daniel at all that night. It was the first night in a long time where you didn’t see his face when you closed your eyes. 

And you would have loved to keep celebrating after that night, to keep the high of Lando's podium and your 4th place finish last until the next race, but all good things must come to an end. 

You stood in front of Lando now, unsure how to take the news about Daniels’ return. Were you allowed to be happy for him? Of course you wanted to see him in a seat, this was the ideal situation, both of you driving this season. What would this mean for the two of you moving forward?

But he had done the exact same thing you had done by replacing a driver before their contract was up.

Daniel made you feel awful about that decision and now here he was, making the exact same one. He was no better than you. He was no hero, he wasn’t the good guy. He was a driver, desperate for a seat, as were you. As was every single person wanting to race in this series. 

You were on the same playing field now.

He was going to be at every single race for the rest of the season, as a competitor on the grid. Something you once dreamt of, both of you dreamt of, was finally coming true. 

But that’s all he would be. A competitor. Another driver. Another car to overtake. You always thought that when this moment came, you’d still be a team when you left the track at the end of the day and that just wasn’t the reality you found yourself in. 

“He’s back,” Lando said, hands shoved in his pockets trying to gauge your reaction. 

Daniel was returning to Formula 1, but you knew he was never actually gone in the first place.

He was in your thoughts, your dreams, your memories, he was everywhere all of the time. Even when you crossed the finish line in Silverstone, there was still a part of you that was wondering if Daniel was watching. As much as you tried to avoid him, your eyes still scanned every single crowd for him.

And now you didn’t need to look anymore. 

part 3 gone

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taglist: @yunnie-f1 @torossosebs @whatthefuckerr @jspitwall @oconso @tsarinablogs @landowecanbewc @somanyfandomsbruh @christianpulisic10 @storminacloud @sunnytkm23 @formula1mount @azxulaa @icarus-nex @spideyspeaches if i forgot someone im so sorry

[souliebird]

[[and then I met you || ch. 11]]

Series: Daredevil || Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader || Rating: Explicit

Summary:

A one-night stand years ago gave you a daughter and you are now able to put a name to her father – Matthew Murdock. Everything is about to change again as you navigate trying to integrate your life with that of the handsome and charming blind lawyer’s and Matt realizes he needs to not only protect his new family from Hell's Kitchen, but from the world.

pt: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Words: 4.3k

banner thanks to the wonderful @theradioactivespidergwen

You are folding laundry when Minnie gets up and starts waddling towards you, dragging Scooby behind her. You tell yourself you cannot be jealous of a stuffed animal, but Pig was what you gave her in the hospital, and you want him to be the favorite. But Scooby is really soft, so you'll admit defeat.

She comes up to your bed and climbs up. She crawls to the middle, then sits, laying Scooby beside her, “Hi, Mommy.”

You smile down at her, curious what type of visit this will be, “Hi, sweetie.”

She grabs one of her shirts from the pile of clothes and begins to try and fold it, making you huff in laughter. You let her help because she is making it into a square and that's all you really need. She purses her lips and you wait for whatever question you know is coming.

“Where is your Mommy?”

That slams into you in a way you do not expect and you have to clear your throat before answering, “Mommy’s…mommy and um…daddy, your grandparents, aren't alive anymore. They died a long time ago.”

Minnie takes this in, lips still pursed. She grabs another shirt and starts to fold it carefully. You wonder where this is coming from - you knew it would come eventually but you are curious about the trigger. But you aren't going to push. You want her to be able to come to you with these and any questions.

After about a minute, she gets up and crawls to you, reaching out to be held. You quickly scoop her up.

“Did my Daddy die, too?” 

Oh, this is it then. You've practiced this speech in your head a million times, you just didn't think it would be so soon.

You turn so you can sit on the bed and set your daughter on your lap, tucking some hair behind her ear as you speak, “No, he didn't die. I just lost him for a little while.”

Minnie screws up her nose and you don't know if it's from confusion or from judgment, “you lost him?”

You nod, offering her a soft sad smile, “I lost him. You know how sometimes, when we go to the park, you meet other kids and spend all day playing together, but then you don't see them again for a long time?” She nods and you continue on, “You just lost them for a bit. They aren't gone - you just don't know where they are and eventually, they will find their way back to you. That is what happened to your Daddy and I. We were at the same place and became friends, but then we lost each other.”

Mouse puts her fist into her mouth, and you know she's thinking hard. You hope she understands. You've read so many different forums and articles on the subject and just want to tell your daughter the truth in a way she computes. 

Finally, she looks up at you, dragging her fingers out of her mouth and letting them fall into her lap, “did you find him?” 

Your lips twitch into a smile and you nod. Her eyes get wider, and she practically begins to vibrate with excitement. You begin to gently rub her back, wanting her to feel all of your love, “I did. I found your Daddy. Do you want to know who it is?”

“Mister Matt?” Her voice is so hopeful that your heart swells to the point you can feel it in your throat. 

You nod, your cheeks beginning to hurt from your smiling, “Mister Matt.”

She throws her arms around your neck and squeezes you so tightly that for a moment you can't breathe. You hug her back, rocking her in your arms. You never expected to have this conversation like this - you've not really had discussions about family with her yet, but you suppose that doesn't matter now. Your daughter knows the truth and you can feel her smiling against your neck. Tears of joy are gathering in the corners of your eyes, and you fight to keep them from escaping. 

You don't know how long you stay there, holding and rocking Mouse, but eventually she pulls back to look you in the face, “does Mister Matt wanna be my Daddy?”

You cup her face and bring her close to start peppering kisses all over, “Yes, yes, he does. He wants to be your Daddy very much. Do you want him to be your Daddy?”

She nods enthusiastically, “I want him to be my Daddy! Please thank you!”

You pull her into a tight hug again and she dissolves into giggles. You don't know if she fully understands but you know this is the first step in her getting it, and you want it to be a good moment. You kiss her forehead, then decide this is a good opportunity to practice talking about feelings.

“How does Mister Matt being your Daddy make you feel?”

She stays nestled against you. You let her think and after a few moments, she whispers, like it's a secret between the two of you, “it makes me happy.”

“It makes you happy?” You confirm. 

She nods, before adding, “He has a happy heart. We make him happy. He makes you happy.”

You take in her observation and realize it's true. You find yourself smiling more when you are around Matt - mostly from watching him and Minnie interact. They are the sweetest pair. And you don't need Minnie or Matt's hearing to know how happy Matt is to be around Minnie. His entire being screams it. 

“He does make me happy,” you agree. “And it makes me happy he is your Daddy. And hey, Mouse. Look at me?” She pulls back and looks at you with wide eyes and you make sure you hold eye contact, “Our next Big Girl Talk will be about how things will change now that you have a Daddy, okay?” She nods eagerly, a serious look coming across her face. Telling her in advance about what you will be talking about helps with her comprehending it is a serious topic. 

You take a moment to look her over, noting in all the ways she looks like her father before leaning in to kiss her cheek again. “I love you, Mouse.”

“I love you, too, Mommy,” she replies, all smiles and sunshine. She mimics you by placing a sloppy kiss on your cheek with a big ‘mwah’ added for good measure, then she hugs herself to you again. You wrap her up in your arms, content to just hold her. It doesn't last long - she's still a wiggly toddler and she eventually wiggles away from you. She crawls back onto the bed, grabbing Scooby before dramatically flopping over.

“Can we has pizza for lunch?” 

You guess life changing news time is over now and you are back to your regularly scheduled day. You hum at her question, thinking pizza sounds perfect for lunch. “Do you want to make it or do you want to go by Tiny’s?”

“Make it!” 

You laugh and your wallet thanks your daughter's desire to make things from scratch. Luckily for you, you already have pre-made pizza dough. You just have to add toppings and bake it. 

“Okay, we can make pizza for lunch,” you tell Minnie, and she responds by making Scooby cheer, pushing his arms up into the air and waving them around. You smile at her excitement; glad everything is going so well. You know this would not be as easy if Minnie didn't absolutely adore Matt. You can't imagine how things would have gone if she started asking these questions months ago. 

You pull yourself away from your thoughts to focus back on folding laundry. Mouse rolls back up into sitting and snatches up something from the pile to help you. It takes her a full thirty seconds before she dives into make pretend and you both work as she narrates your adventures of tidying up before the big princess ball.

-----

You check in with Matt to make sure you are disrupting anything before you and Mouse start towards his office. Your sweet little girl wanted to bring her new Daddy lunch and Matt had not said no to the offer of homemade pizza. You hadn't hinted that the truth had been revealed to Minnie - you kind of want it to be a surprise for him and you want to be able to see his reaction in person. 

Your daughter is undeniably excited. She's swinging her arms as you walk, and every other step is a bounce. You are trying your hardest to not laugh at her antics and she has picked up on that and it has become a game. When you pause at the crosswalk, you look down and she sticks her tongue out at you. When you return the gesture, she gasps, then squeals with joy. You wrinkle up your nose at her, pulling a funny face to keep up the positive energy. 

She bunny hops across the street and keeps at it until you are in front of the building holding Nelson, Murdock, and Page. She seems to recognize she's been here before, pausing to look up at the building before hurrying up the stairs. You follow her inside and she keeps a hold of your hand as you go up to the right floor. 

This time, you let her knock on the door - you don't want to walk in on anything awkward again - and a moment later, it swings open to reveal Karen. Mouse practically teleports behind you, obviously not expecting someone other than Matt to answer. The blonde smiles warmly at you, a twinkle in her eye.

“Pizza delivery?” you say, hoping it will lighten the mood and Minnie will be less afraid of the woman in front of her. 

Karen steps aside with a laugh and you usher Mouse inside, “I heard it was homemade.”

You flush over the idea of Matt talking about you to his friends, but you had offered to bring his law partners lunch as well. “Uh, yes. It's just cheese, nothing fancy,” you tell her, hoping to not get her hopes up over it being fantastic pizza. Cooking for yourself and a toddler is far different from cooking for adults, and you are suddenly very aware of how high their expectations may be.

“No one in their right mind complains about pizza, let alone homemade pizza,” a voice says from your left and you turn to see Foggy and Matt in the conference room, both sitting at the table and gathering up remnants of their work. 

“Your cooking is amazing, don't sell yourself short,” Matt adds, his smile causing your heart to pound in your chest. The praise makes you a little dizzy and you tell yourself to stop acting like a school girl - he's probably just being polite. 

“He lorded that lasa-”

Foggy’s joking is cut off by the sudden pitter-patter of feet and the absolute toddler screech of, “DADDY!” 

Minnie is halfway to Matt before you even realize she's left your side. You hurry after her, Karen right behind you, and you make it in time to see Mouse crash right into Matt's legs. He looks completely dumbfounded - eyes wide behind his red lenses and lips parted in surprise - and your daughter uses his shocked state to scale him. She throws her arms around his neck and hugs him as tight as her little body will allow.

Matt returns the hug with just as much force once he realizes what's going on, burying his face into her hair. His shoulders start to shake, and you can just barely hear him confirm for her, “Yeah, baby. I'm your Daddy. I'm your Daddy.”

You can't help but let the tears fall this time, covering your mouth so you don't disturb the sweet moment. Movement in the corner of your eyes lets you know Karen is also covering her mouth and crying. You are pretty sure Mouse is the only one not crying. 

Your little one can only stand being crushed for so long and she pulls away from Matt but stays standing on his lap. She places her hands on his cheeks and you don't know if she's trying to keep balance or mimicking a gesture you frequently do with her. 

You can see Matt's tears from across the room and your heart twists. How long has he wanted this? How long have you wanted this? You want to hold them both and never let go - just so you can keep this feeling of overwhelming love forever.

Minnie breaks the symphony of sniffles, declaring, “Mommy said she lost you.”

Matt gives a wet laugh, his smile so bright and full of adoration for his daughter, “she did? She won't lose me again. I promise. I'm not going anywhere.”

You have to keep yourself from sobbing at his words. Too many emotions stir at his promise, and you have to remind yourself he's talking to Minnie and not you. As much as you want to hear the words yourself, to have someone say they'll never leave you - you know it isn't in the cards for you. You wrap your arms around yourself and watch Minnie search Matt's face.

She pats his cheeks with both hands, telling her father in a serious tone, “you have to stay close. Or Mommy will put you on a leash.”

It takes a moment for you to realize she's referring to her tethered backpack, but the damage is already done.

“You don't want her to put you on a leash, do you Matt?” Foggy asks, not missing a beat and not at all sounding like a crying mess despite being one.

Karen lets out a scandalized “Foggy!” while you bury your face into your hands, wishing the floor would swallow you up.

Matt doesn't even get to respond to the tease - Minnie whips her head around and her eyes get wide as she seems to realize other people are in the room. You can see the wheels turning in her mind before she crashes herself back into Matt's arms with a giggle, “Froggy!”

Matt doesn't seem to mind being used as a jungle gym and wraps himself around Minnie to hold her close. He kisses the top of her head and chokes out, “Yeah, that's Foggy, and that over there is Karen. Do you remember - I told you about them?” Your little one hides her face against his neck with a nod. You see her jaw move as she mumbles something to Matt, but you are too far away to hear but whatever it is, Matt gives a pleased laugh, “Yeah, his hair is too short to braid.”

Foggy scoffs at this reveal, “That is nonsense. My hair is long enough to braid!” He looks at you and Karen for confirmation, “Is my hair long enough to braid?”

“I mean,” Karen says, wiping away her tears with a smile, “They'd be pretty small. It would certainly be a fashion choice.”

“It's longer than Matt's hair,” he argues, a pout forming on his lips - but you can tell it's playful. 

Minnie peeks away from the crook of her father's neck to peer at Foggy. She eyes him before declaring, “Too short!”

“Looks like you've been overruled, Fog,” Matt says, resting his cheek against the top of Minnie’s head, happy to let her hide against him. He's stopped crying, but his voice is still a little wet. “You’ll have to go with another style.”

“Liberty spikes?” Your mouth offers before your brain catches up. 

Foggy and Karen both look at you and you fear they think you are insane. The familiar pounding starts in your chest and your mouth feels dry, but before panic can see in, Foggy shakes his head, throwing his arms up as he speaks.

“Do you know how much product those need? It's like a can of Got2B per day and I promised myself ‘never again’.” 

“When did you have liberty spikes?” Karen asks. She moves to sit at the table with Matt and Foggy and you quickly follow, not wanting to be the only one standing.

“High school was a weird and wonderful time,” is the reply and you try to picture this sweet friendly lawyer with a punk aesthetic. It doesn't really work, but the image makes you smile. 

“Daddy can do puffs,” Minnie mumbles across the table to Foggy and you are proud of her for being so brave, “and Mommy…. Mommy makes Moon Buns. She can make you extra pretty.”

Foggy grins at you, waggling his eyebrows, “Well, if she can make me extra pretty…”

Karen swats at Foggy's arm, “how about you keep your hair as it is - we don't need Marci coming after us.”

“Please, she appreciates my daring sense of fashion,” he scoffs.

Matt hums, then stage whispers to Minnie, “Mouse, can you tell Daddy what Foggy is wearing?”

Minnie turns slowly to look at the man in question. Her fist goes up to her mouth and she leans heavily into Matt as she examines him. The blonde man stands up and takes a few steps back, so his outfit is on full view. He even does a slow spin.

“He looks like Barbar,” she decides, and you snort with laughter because you one hundred percent see it. He's in a gray three-piece suit but his tie is a dark green. 

“I…I don't know who that is,” Foggy says, a somewhat panicked look on his face. He turns to you, “What does that mean? Is that a good thing or have I just been roasted by a toddler?”

“The elephant?” Matt questions, brows knitting together behind his glasses. You wonder if he read the books when he was a kid, before he lost his eyesight, or if he's been doing his research.

“He wears a three-piece suit,” you clarify, letting yourself start to relax as conversation flows. “He's very fancy.”

“Aren't those books banned?” Karen asks. She doesn't sound judgmental - just like she's clarifying the reference. 

You shrug and smile towards your daughter, “they made a new show a few years ago.” 

“I still don't know if this is a good thing.”

“You look…handsomes,” Minnie mumbles before turning back to tuck herself under Matt's chin. You read her body language easily - she isn't scared or upset at the interaction. She's just shy. You can see her hidden little smile.

“Oh, you are so his kid,” Foggy whispers, “That was smooth.”

You feel your cheeks heat up and you look down at your lap. Matt certainly is smooth. It is like he can't help himself, as far as you have seen. He's just naturally charming - and your daughter is sweet as can be. You are a lot more clumsy.

The man beside you chuckles and out of the corner of your eye you see him rub Minnie’s arms. With a slight cockiness in his voice, he asks, “Mouse, can you tell Daddy what Foggy had for breakfast?”

You can feel the shift in the air - Karen's interest in your daughter's assessment is practically vibrating off her.

You suck your bottom lip between your teeth, your anxiety spiking at the question. You trust Matt, but you don't know these people. You've only just learned what your daughter can do and already it is being shared.

But, you have no doubts about your daughter’s ability to answer the question. Matt had spent his entire day off playing ‘what's that smell?’ and ‘what's that sound?’ with Mouse and she just wanted to show off for him. Plus, she just likes to answer questions.

Still, she stays against his chest and for a moment you are worried she might just be too shy to answer, but then she starts to whisper.

“Froggy ate a banana. And coffees.”

Matt nuzzles into her hair with a smile, looking proud as can be, “Anything else?”

Your little one sways back and forth, clearly thinking over the question. Her little fist stays against her mouth as she adds, “Cookies.”

She gets a little chuckle from her father, and he kisses her hair before explaining, “That's close. When there are cookies and banana smells for breakfast, that usually means a banana muffin.” He tilts his head towards his best friend, “Right, Fog?”

Foggy nods as he sits down, pulling a face as he does, “Right, a banana nut muffin and coffee. I'm so glad there are two of you to know that now. You are going to give me a complex.”

You can see Minnie screw up her face in thought, then she turns around in Matt's arms to properly look at Foggy again. 

“Froggies can't have people food,” she advises. “Froggies eat bugs.”

“I'm not…my name is Foggy, not Froggy. I'm a people.”

You wonder how many times this will happen and decide that while the back and forth happens, you should start setting up lunch. From your purse, you start to pull out the tupperware containing pizza.

“Froggy.”

“Foggy. Fog-gy. Not Froggy. Buddy, help me out here.”

“This is out of my control,” Matt hums. He looks like he is having the time of his life and his smile is infectious. You look up to see Foggy looking at you, silently pleading, but you can tell it's all an act. If it was actually bothering him, you would correct Minnie. 

Instead, you simply add, “Ribbit ribbit.” 

There's a dramatic groan of “but I don't even like flies!”

“Froggy! Frog!” is Mouse’s adamant response. You are grateful Matt's friends want to engage with your daughter instead of just ignoring her. You know he thinks of them as his family, and you want a good relationship with them.

“I don't know, I think I like Froggy. It's better than Franklin,” Karen says with amusement in her eye. She leans forward and asks Minnie, “Did you bring a bug pizza for him?”

Minnie shakes her head, eyes going big at the idea of a bug pizza. 

“Okay, if I am a frog, what is she?” Foggy asks, accepting his fate as he points at Karen. 

All eyes turn to her, and the blonde woman straightens up and smiles brightly at your daughter. 

“A princess,” Minnie decides after a brief examination, “of Froggyland. Princess of Froggyland.” 

Karen absolutely grins at the assessment while the newly assigned amphibian looks scandalized. “The Princess of Froggyland? She rules over me? I reject the monarchy - I'm staging a rebellion.”

“Long live the Queen,” Matt teases and both you and Minnie laugh. 

“Excuse you, I'm a princess, not a queen. Yet.”

“Who rules over Froggyland?” You ask Minnie as you pass out the pizza. You get a chorus of ‘thank you’s as your daughter considers her options.

“Jimmy Cricket,” is the final decree. 

“A bug rules over Froggyland?”

“I mean, the physical embodiment of a good conscience would be a good king, right?” Matt theorizes. 

“All kings are unethical,” counters his law partner and Karen must sense a debate coming, as she puts her foot down.

“No politics while eating.”

“I didn't start this, your highness,” Foggy playfully bickers. As they start going back and forth again, you look over to the pair beside you.

Matt helps Minnie sit down in his lap and once she is secure, he goes to open his pizza. He's ducked his head so he can whisper to her as he does - you can see his lips moving but once again, you can't hear the words. You wonder if it is about the food, but part of you honestly doesn't care what it is. You are just happy that all of this is happening. 

You are happy your daughter knows the truth about who her father is and that she seems excited over it. You are happy you get to see them bond and you are happy to see Minnie be so social. You can already see the hints that this dramatic life change is going to be good for her, and that doesn't even include the new information you learned about her senses.

You scoot your chair a little closer to Matt's, preparing to bring Minnie over to your lap so he can eat. Before you can reach for her, Matt places his hand on your knee. You try to not turn into a blushing mess as he starts to rub little circles with his thumb - this isn't what you intended to happen and it's far too embarrassing to push his hand away.

Not that you want to push it away. The touch is awkward on your end, but only because you are so unused to being touched. It isn't unwanted. In fact, it's a little comforting, even though it is sending all sorts of mixed signals to your brain, heart, and cunt. You try to ignore the latter - those thoughts have no place in this moment. 

At least that is what you tell yourself until Matt turns his head towards you and gives you the softest smile. Your brain, heart, and cunt all clench before doing all sorts of flips inside of you. He mouths ‘thank you’ to you and the only thing you can think to do is wrap your hand around his and squeeze. He turns his palm up and laces your fingers together and it does nothing to soothe your pounding heart, but you don't think you mind. 

You squeeze his hand again and your entire being explodes with love when Minnie realizes Matt is looking at you and turns her head to beam up at you.

“Love you, Mommy.”

“Love you, too, baby.”

She tilts her head back so she can see Matt and in the softest voice says, “Love you, Daddy.”

You're pretty sure Matt starts crying again as he responds, “I love you, too, Minnie. I love you so so much.”

tags:

dnightreids @cloudroomblog @yeonalie @thychuvaluswife 

 @petrovafire39 @allllium

@dorothleah @mattmurdocksstarlight @mars-on-vinyl @mywellspringoflife @sleepdeprived-barelyalive @simmilarly @soupyspence @darkened-writer @akila-twt

@murc0ckmurc0ck @groovycass @sumo-b98 @just3rowsing @tongueofcat @zoom1374

@theclassicvinyldragon @aoi-targaryen @lunaticgurly @nikitawolfxo @shireentapestry @snakevyro @yondiii @echos-muses @honeybug-victoria @the-bisaster @ristare @mrs-bellingham @eugene-emt-roe @cometenthusiast @stevenknightmarc @hunnybelha @

Specialagentjackbauer @yarrystyleeza @ofmusesandsecrets 

@mayp11-blog @danzer8705 @thinking-at-dusk @remuslupinwifee @akila-twt  @mattmurdocks6thscaleapartment @dil3mma @allllium 

@

two-unbeatable-beaters @kiwwia-wiwwia @1988-fiend @xblueriddlex @loves0phelia @ninacotte @lovelyygirl8 @littlenosoul @ednaaa-04  @ astridstark13

[atzfilm]

winter blossom (m)

pairing/wc: k.yeosang x reader (10.1k)

genre: alien au, secret relationship

warnings: smut, mentions of murder/injuries, petnames

summary: earth abandoned centuries ago, you travel the cosmos alone. you land on a smaller planet, meeting an exiled dweller that calls himself yeosang.

— part of the ...and it's snowing collab!

Space has always been noisy. Ships riding past you in the low lights, stars sparkling in far away galaxies, the rumbling of your own engines enough to fill what small amount of peace you have alone.

You sit in front of the navigation screen, eyes flicking over the map. You have little fuel left and perhaps you overestimated how much you'll be needing before the next port. It's several hundreds of thousands kilometers away and you barely have enough to make it halfway there. Sure, there's planets in between that you can land at but it's a risk. Most hate humans, hate their existence entirely. Once they see you, you may be taken – either killed or used for parts. You rub your face, looking over your options. You won't make it to the next large port, that's for sure. Waiting out in open space is unreliable – pirates can get to you quicker than a space marshal would.

You groan, a planet close enough for you to land on. One you haven't heard of before.

Elysium.

You glance to the side, typing up the name into your database.

Elysium. Planet primarily consists of thickened forestry and large oceans, similar climate to the planet Earth. Population of three million, ruling under a monarchy. Temperament toward humans is neutral. Climate: Snow.

It ticks off enough boxes for you to decide to land, setting the destination point for Elysium as well as instructions and identification to the port for approval. You grab your telecommunicator and walk off away from the screen, readying yourself to land in the next few days.

“Hey pretty girl,” you walk past the framed photo of your passed cat, pressing your lips on the glass before moving on. Everything is tied down, thankfully, nothing out of place. You jog down the corridor, glancing in each room. All of it is secure since no one has lived in for ages, commotion from prior years of having a crew absolute. It wasn't anything bad for why they left – you all had different ideas on how to make money. Yours was simple, collecting mostly artifacts and lost space junk, getting a heap of coins every now and then. It's a simple life. Alone, yes, but it's fine. Nothing you've haven't grown used to.

After checking all of the rooms you move back into the navigation room, throwing yourself on

the fold up bed you've stored there. You can't remember the last time you slept in your own bed – it's probably been months. Being alone has made you more wary of leaving the room without an attendant. Anything could happen between the distance of your room and here. You'd rather deal with it straight on than wasting precious seconds running toward it. You tuck yourself beneath the sheets, eyes glued to the wide windows showcasing space.

The port is quiet as you land. Ships stationed in several spots, but you only see a few patrollers out and about. You grab your mask and place it over your face, suit already on as you exit the craft. An Elysium, taller than you by almost a foot, comes toward you. You read in the brief biography that they're quite tall in comparison to the average human. That you can clearly see as he stands in front of you. Most of the other traits are the same except for pointer ears, irises a lighter blue. Skin pale and almost translucent, lips a light pink. As if they haven't seen the light of day for ages. His head tilts as he looks down at you, surprised.

“A human on Elysium? I never thought I'd see the day,”

You bow slightly at the guard, holding out your identification and paperwork. “Yes sir. I have all the proper paperwork. I'm here to fuel up before the next stop.”

“Ah, quite far from Candor,” he glances over the paperwork. “It looks in order. Unfortunately for you, we no longer have enough fuel for an aircraft the size of yours.”

“Are you sure? I checked the database to confirm you had the capabilities for fuel and –”

“Oh we do have the capabilities, human,” he nods. “But we've slowed down on our supply since not many land on our port. We can give you fuel, yes, but it will take a few weeks in human time to fuel up that tank enough to get you to the next destination.”

There's nothing else you can do. You take your identification back from him, knowing what you have to ask next.

“Where can I stay while I wait?”

—

You hold the glass in your hand, staring at the seeds swirling in the water. The bartender insisted that it was made for a human's palate, but you almost gagged at the taste. Water this acidic couldn't possibly be water at all. Your helmet and suit rests on the seat next to you. After a quick chat with the guard stationed at the port, and a small device placed beneath your skin, your body is accustomed to the climate of Elysium. You’re all but ungrateful, the heavy material of the suit would only make your stay feel so much longer. Your eyes move to the table, wanted photos seemingly solidified in the glass. Your gaze strays to one in particular.

His presence stood out amongst the fugitives. Hair darker than what you've seen around, eyes staring into yours. His beauty is beyond any of what you've seen so far around here – and that's saying something. Skin covered in … glitter? A birthmark on the left side of his face. Some would say it would lessen his beauty, but it only exemplifies it for you. Your finger traces the outline of his figure, reading the description. It's conveniently in a language you can understand.

Kang Yeosang, Prince of Elysium. Wanted for the murder of the King of Elysium. Bounty set at 4,979,990 Elp.

He is a prince? It makes sense, you can see his commanding aura through the thin paper. But why would he kill the king? You presume it's his relative, father or uncle maybe. You can only snort to yourself, shaking your head. He should have had a maid or butler perform the task if he wanted the throne so desperately. The bounty is high, though. Higher than you've ever seen it. Enough to set you for life and then some.

“He has been forgotten for over a century, human,” A voice pulls you away from the table. You look up, meeting the eyes of another Elysium. His hair is a deep blue, skin covered in bandages. He sits at your table without even a hint of an invitation from yourself, humming. “Neither Elysium high guard or the most elite bounty hunters have been able to find where he resides. This planet has been torn apart for decades. Most have accepted that he is no longer alive. I doubt a human like yourself would be able to find him.”

“Well stranger,” you take another slow sip of your drink, wincing at the taste. “I never said I would be hunting for the forgotten prince and neither do I want to, seeming as he hasn't been found in so long. Trying to read the emotions of a person you don't know doesn't seem to be your strong suit.” You roll your eyes, looking away from him. All you're trying to do is stay under the radar, keep to yourself. Weeks of avoiding unneeded conversation is going to be rough, but you'd rather not start messing up your plan right now with an Elysium that's trying to read your mind.

“You were thinking it, I could tell.” He shrugs.

You narrow your eyes now. Taking the bait surely, you continue, “And how can you read my mind? Is that an ability many of you have? Because it doesn't seem to be working all too well.”

“Ignoring that snide remark of yours, it’s because of your ship,” he glances out the door for a moment. “Before it was just you, there was a whole crew. You were bounty hunters back then, finding lost men and growing. You were quite notorious too, until that crew of yours broke apart. Quite unfortunate now, you could have found the biggest bounty yet if you came here back then.”

“I only deal in antiques now,” you retort. The past is the past. And notorious? You doubt the crew was that popular. Maybe relatively known, but not famous. Just reliable. “And I don't remember seeing you around the port when I was parking.” You would have remembered a face like his. His lips curve at your words, shrugging.

“I'm forgettable. My name is San, by the way,” he holds out his gloved hand. You take it, shaking it. “I'm the owner of this bar, and the man who will be showing you to your room next door.”

“You own both?” Your brow raises.

He nods. “Family business. Whenever you're ready just find me. I’ll be out and about.”

-

You stare at the lack of clothing in your carry-on bag, knowing you’ll have to go back to your ship soon to grab some more supplies. You rub your face, sinking into the bed. This is exactly what you didn’t want. Familiarity, staying longer than necessary. If the government let you rest on your ship you would have. But instead, you’re stuck in a hotel, waiting impatiently for your fuel. You glance at the door. Secured with makeshift objects you kept on your person, a bell twisted around the doorknob. San insisted that this place is safe, but you’d rather not take the chance. Especially as one of the only humans on this entire planet.

“Hell,” you murmur, looking out the window. The planet is known to be dark at night, which only adds more sense to why their skin glows. You look at the streets, shimmering Elysium walking every which way, bright against the streets. It is beautiful, enough for your eyes to continue to wander, lids growing heavy enough to fall unconscious.

The rattling is what woke you up. You leaned forward almost immediately, fingers reaching for the knife beneath your pillow you took off your plate at dinner. Coming up empty handed, you slide off the bed, hands up slightly. Your eyes barely get a chance to adjust to your dark room, but you see them. Their skin brightens up the room, glowing against the walls. They hold up the knife, crushing it between their fingers. You swallow, shooting a fleeting glance at the door. They stand in between you and your escape. You could jump from the window, but it’s several stories above the ground. You doubt you’d survive the landing. They take a step toward you and your body stiffens.

“What do you want? Elp? Artifacts? I have none, they’re all on my ship.”

They hesitate for a brief moment at your words. “Your ship?” Their voice echoes around the room, smooth and deep. Pretty, despite the circumstances. “You have a ship?”

You curse yourself, nodding slowly. “I do. It has no fuel, so you won’t be able to get anywhere with it.”

“But you have a ship,” they confirm. “You can leave this planet.”

“Is that what you want? What are you, a fugitive?” Their skin's luminescence softens at your words. It's almost enough for you to make out their features. In that brief hesitance, they look eerily familiar. You don't get the chance to look any closer though, skin back to where it was. “I can help you.”

“I need to leave. When will you be free to go?”

Good question. “Maybe a few weeks? They said it'll take a while.” Why the hell are you negotiating with a bright spot? Just as you open your mouth again, they interrupt.

“I will be back.”

They dissipate in front of you in a blink, gone from your sight. You drop your arms, chest throbbing, breaths quick. You stand still for a few more minutes. After realizing that they're truly gone, you drop your hands. The smart thing to do is tell San what happened. But your gut is telling you otherwise. It was strange to say the least. But you can't think of leaving to complain to San about someone who might just be a figment of your imagination in your tired state. You convince yourself as such, moving closer to the door. The bell and other contraptions are still in the same place you left them. You walk back to your bed, a cold metal touching your foot. Glancing down, you see the pile of dust.

The knife they crushed.

—

You soon convinced yourself it was a dream despite the circumstances. The knife could have been fragile. You could have somehow imagined the pile of dust. All of these explanations ignore the feeling in your gut. It dwells. No one has bothered you much for the past few days. A little talk here and there, but most left you alone. San, you've grown to notice, speaks to everyone and anyone around his tavern and hotel. And it seems that everyone knows him well, his loud laugh echoing around every room he's in. It brings you comfort. Enough to hide that sinking feeling.

You sit outside, staring out into the thickened leaves and trees. They're nothing like what you've seen, vines tight, barely any signs of movement. As if it knows you're watching. So still that your gaze moves to the rustling of leaves. You tense, glancing around. No one is out and about. Only you in this area. Just as you begin to stand, you see him.

His hair is long, pulled back from his face with braided strings. His eyes are iridescent, still on yours as he makes his way to you. His movements are elegant, hands tucked into his jacket, hidden from view. There's only one person he could be – the Elysium from your bedroom. As he moves closer, you see it. The birthmark near his eye, extending to his temple. Pretty, but deadly, in these circumstances. He pauses in his movement, noticing your shift of focus.

“You know me,” his voice is softer, hesitance wrapped around each word. “You told me you were a human.”

You can't begin to speak, slowly standing up from your spot. Having the exiled crown prince standing in front of you, especially after all San said about his disappearance. What kind of luck do you have?

“I am.”

His eyes narrow, “Then how do you know me?”

“You are the forgotten one. How could anyone not know you? I –” You glance back. “I don't want to be involved in whatever you're planning.”

“I want to leave the planet.”

“Leave? You've been gone for a century, you could have left anytime you wanted. They forgot about you. Why are you trying to hitch a ride with me? What's your plan?”

He stares at you, silent. Your irritation makes your fear lessen, waiting for his response. He merely sighs, staring at the grass beneath his feet. “Humans have rarely landed on our planet. Each time, they refused to help me. Which is why I am asking you.”

“And why would I help you? If someone caught me, I could be killed. You murdered the king. That's not a petty crime.”

His jaw tightens at the mention of the past. Knowing you very much made a mistake, you backtrack. “I don't know you well enough to listen to what you have to say.”

“So why do you listen to what the others say? Do you know Elysium well at all? Why listen to the words of beings you have never come across? Why not listen to my words?”

You pause, unsure of how to answer. Sure, you can listen to the masses, take their word for it and report that you certainly have seen the lost prince. Or you can keep this quiet, decide on whether you want to save him. The longer he stares and waits for a response, the more you're sure of your decision.

“Did you kill him?” You ask.

“Yes.”

“Did you do it on purpose?”

“Yes.”

“Did you have no other choice?”

“...Yes,” he takes a breath. “If I didn't, more Elysium would have been killed. I had no other choice.”

There is no wavering in his tone. He says it strongly, a furrow of his brow. Lost, maybe hurt. But he is sure.

“Okay,” you glance around. “I will get you out of here. But once we land at the next port, you're gone. And we will pretend none of this happened.”

“I'll follow your words, human.”

“y/n,” you correct. “My name is y/n.”

—

“You’ve been out and about a lot these past few days.”

San glances up from cleaning the glass, leg resting on the edge of the chair. You have avoided him since your encounter with the lost prince. You doubt he can read your mind, mostly, but being around Elysium when you’re hiding the most sought out of them all is not exactly something you’d like to do. Especially since you’re growing a soft spot for San. Another thing you didn’t want to do. Unfortunately for you - he’s too kind not to.

“Am I not allowed to explore the planet I'm inhabiting temporarily?”

He purses his lips, leaning against the arm of the broom between his clothed fingers. “You are, of course. Just strange, the way you’ve been acting. Anytime someone asks where you’ve been, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost. Just what are you hiding, y/n?” His brown lifts, glancing between your eyes. “Or is it best that I not know about it?”

Do you trust him enough to spill what you’ve been hiding? Yeosang has warned you, especially tonight, not to say a word. Out of fear or otherwise. So though San is trustworthy enough, you can’t quite tell him. Not yet, or ever, really. You merely shake your head, and he nods in understanding.

“Fair enough. I hope you keep your radio line open, y/n. I’d hate to lose contact with you.”

You leave the hotel tonight after weeks of staying, petrol finally filled to the brim in your ship. You’ve spent all day filling up your storage with preservatives enough for your long journey and then some. The guard was curious that you had so much, enough for several people. He even inquired as to if you’ve found a life partner on Elysium. You denied it and he only waved you off.

San passes you a small bag of snacks you ordered earlier and you thank him, your hands brushing against each other. The leather encompassing his holds yours for a moment, a small smile on his lips. “There’s a small map in there to an entrance to the docks that no one takes anymore, out of commission. It so happens to be behind your ship, exactly where you parked it. No one would see it since it’s out of view from prying eyes. Someone would advise someone else to take it, using that little pill in that bag. It’ll show whoever it is as someone else temporarily. Not long enough to hang around for hours, but enough. In case, of course.”

He lets go of your hand, smile wavering. “Be safe, y/n. I trust you, even though I haven’t earned your trust yet.”

“San–”

He holds up his hand, shaking his head. “Don’t want to know my friend. Safe travels, keep that radio on. Don’t forget me and call if your journey is too boring, or if you’re tired of him.”

He doesn’t say anything more, grabbing his towel and broom, disappearing into the back of the bar. You grip the bag tightly, grateful that you’ve met him.

–

“It is safe?” Yeosang holds the pill in his hand. You’ve thrown a large coat around his body, the scraps of clothing that he has now not merely enough to make him look like a normal Elysium. The snow does not seem to bother him the way it bothers you, he himself ignoring how the flakes stick to his cheeks. “You’re sure of this?”

“I am,” There’s no need to expand on how or who gave you those pills, exactly. But you think you can trust him. You hope you can. Since he knows what you’re doing, he could have spilled it long ago. But he didn’t, and that’s enough for you.

His soft eyes watch yours. There’s fear of the unknown hidden between the irises, the slow blinks. He has trusted you up to this point. You’re not sure why he decided to grab a random human to help him, but he did, and it’s you. You’ve gotten this far, you wouldn’t betray him. Giving up your life for him is definitely a stretch, but you’d help him in any way you can. And those worried eyes do nothing but make your chest swell. You will help the forgotten prince off this cursed planet. Taking your silence as an answer, he swallows the pill, grabbing the bottle from your hand and drinks the water. You watch him as he stands very still. As if he’s waiting for his death to come. Instead what you see – you can only describe it as magical.

The dark, black hair of his disappears into a lighter blond, softer features hardening, delicate nose changing. Kang Yeosang is nothing like himself. He seems to have shortened in height as well, leveled with you. His eyes stay on yours though, now brown eyes hesitate. Without thinking, you reach out, brushing his wavy hair away from his face. It is not Yeosang in appearance, no, but you can still see him through the disguise. You reach into your pocket, pulling out your small pocket knife, showing him his expression through the reflective metal.

He laughs, shaking his head, “How horrid,” his voice is obscenely deep. Almost obnoxiously so. “What a relief you didn’t want to kill me.”

“I wouldn’t have, you know that,” you roll your eyes.

“I do,” he agrees simply. “Let us go?”

You nod, slipping your fingers into his. He stills for a moment, letting you pull him out from the forest. There’s plenty of people around but none pay attention to either of you. Yeosang’s grip tightens in yours, stiffer as he stands close to you. He hasn’t been around his people in so long, it must be jarring to see them not give him a second glance. Not shame him for what he’s done. You’d like to pick his brain on what he’s feeling right now but you have a task to complete.

You look around, entering the port through the back. It is as San said, no one around, no one to bother the two of you. You quickly open the back door of your ship, ushering him inside. He is a bit hesitant as he stands there, almost forcing you to push him into the ship. He turns to you, eyes widening. “You are not entering?”

“Not back here, I have to go around the front and grab my papers before leaving. I’ll be back.”

You take a step back and he moves a bit forward again, as if to follow you. “Hey, stay in there–”

“You wouldn’t leave me, right?” His words are soft now, the tone of Yeosang’s voice you’ve grown accustomed to. “You would come back?”

You look around, before stepping forward. You hold his face between your hands, “I will not leave you, alright? I am coming back, just give me a few minutes. I’m not lying to you. I promise you this.”

The tension in his shoulders dropped slightly, “Okay. I will hold you to that.” His lips press against the inside of your wrist, stepping back. You quickly move down the ramp, shutting the doors. Ignoring the beating of your heart in your ears, the warming of your face. There’s no time to worry about that now. You have more important things to do, like lie to the guard and smuggle off a fugitive worth more money than you can comprehend.

-

It’s been a few hours since you’ve left Elysium. You know Yeosang is still on, from the rummaging in the room you told him to stay in. You haven’t entered only to give him privacy. In fact, you haven’t seen him since you closed that ramp. The magic has definitely worn off by now. You did want to check but decided against it. Whatever he’s going through right now you’re letting him process it slowly. Hopefully carefully, knowing you have valuables in the room he’s staying in.

You sit at the control table, slowly eating a snack San handed to you. You radioed him just after you left to let him know that you were safe and everything was handled, and he sighed very loudly in relief, explaining that he definitely was not sitting around waiting for your call (he was) or that he thought you might have been taken (he definitely did think so). You reassured him with simple words, not enough to say what you mean, but enough for him to understand. The call was quick, ending with a simple goodbye. You will miss him endlessly, but landing on that planet again wouldn’t be in your favor. That’s your first and last time ever in that sector. Or near it at all. The next port is a couple weeks away, but you have enough fuel to go much farther. You want to discuss with Yeosang and see what he thinks, but he still hasn’t left his room.

Very smart of you to take a banished prince into your ship without knowing anything but what he’s told you.

The hum of the spaceship's engines echoed through the metal walls as you stared at the cameras. You glance at the closed door of the guest quarters, mind swirling with apprehension. The decision to let a stranger on board has always come with its own set of risks, and you just cannot shake the memories of a past experience that had gone terribly wrong.

A few solar cycles ago, you did something similar, made the mistake of extending hospitality to a different traveler stranded on a desolate moon. The person seemed fairly harmless at first, grateful for shelter and food. As the days passed, you noticed a few things off - stolen data from your harddrive corrupt, and before you could even confront them they took the rescue sub and left, leaving you to deal with the aftermath of compromised security, and lack of an escape. It took you months to get something to replace it. The weight of that previous betrayal still hangs heavy on your shoulders; sleepless nights spent trying to repair the damage, the sense of disgust that lingered long after the unwelcome guest had departed, regret that you even trusted a person enough to leave them alone around your things.

Your fingers trace the edge of the data pad, a holographic display of Yeosang’s past. The background check had little, just a brief history of what happened. Nothing to tell you about him, really, just what his people now think of him. Still, you cannot shake the feeling that history might be repeating itself.

"Am I being too paranoid?" you murmur yourself, glancing at the viewscreen that displays the vastness of space outside. "Hell."

Perhaps establishing additional security measures?

You hesitate for a moment. You think you trust him, you do. You trust him enough to leave him around your valuables without thinking twice. So you drop your hand from the screen, shaking your head. If everything messes up, it’ll only be your fault, no one else’s. You move from your spot, approaching the small bed in the corner. Deep sleep will evade you since you’re on board with a fugitive, but your lids are too heavy to ignore. You tuck yourself beneath the blanket, blinking slowly as you stare out the windows. You made a choice. A big choice.

You just hope it’s the right one.

-

“You’re quiet.”

You look up from your food, Yeosang slowly approaching you. He wears the clothing you’ve left in that room for him. Though a bit tight, and silly looking, it’ll fit for now. Nothing like what royalty would wear. You reach back, passing him a bowl that you’ve already made for him. In case he decided to appear in front of you.

He widens his eyes as you sit it across from you, gesturing for him to dig in. You take another bite as he slowly sits down. “You made this for me?”

“You haven’t eaten in days. I know Elysium aren’t the same as me, but you have to eat, Yeosang. You can’t survive on just water.”

“I can for a few months,” he says. Just as you’re about to apologize for your assumption, you see the slight smile on his lips. You roll your eyes, continuing to eat. “I’m grateful for your presence, and your thoughtfulness, y/n. I wouldn’t have been able to choose anyone better to help me leave.”

You shake your head, “It’s nothing-”

“It is something,” he interrupts, “I essentially forced you to take me off that planet. And you obliged without much hesitation. You risked yourself for me. There’s no way I can repay what you have done for me, nothing. I can only remain forever in your debt.”

You think for a moment before speaking. “I trust you Yeosang, I hope you know that. I wouldn't have let you on this ship with me if I didn't. I know that you’ve done it for a reason, and if you’re not able to tell me now, it’s okay. And it’s okay if you cannot say it ever. And do not place yourself into debt with me. Call us even.”

“You place far too much trust in me,” he whispers, looking away from you. “A stranger you barely know.” He takes a deep breath, eyes glued to his bowl. You can see the weight of his unspoken pain. “I wish to tell you what happened.” His eyes flick up to yours, holding your gaze with a mixture of gratitude and. He speaks of his father, the king, who had become corrupted by power and had posed a threat to the people of Elysium. And how, in an act of pure desperation to protect his people, he had taken the life of his own father.

"The council, the people—they didn't understand," Yeosang confesses, words laced with pain. "They saw me as a traitor, an assassin. I was banished, branded a murderer when all I wanted was to save them. I didn’t know how to deal with that, when I tried to save them all."

You can feel the depth of Yeosang's isolation and loneliness, the weight of the truth hanging heavy in the air. There is no doubt from you. You believe him.

"I was almost killed in the process," Yeosang continues, his eyes reflecting the memory. " And I almost let them do it, thinking that my sacrifice would be enough to prove my innocence, but then I pulled myself out of that. They would just let the royal line die, they wouldn’t dig into the past and see. I am the sole heir to the throne, it died with my banishment. If I died then, no one would care to see why. They would just celebrate my end."

Your expression softens, nodding slowly, "You've been through so much, Yeosang. I can't imagine how difficult it must have been."

"I miss being able to protect my people," Yeosang says, a hint of sorrow in his voice. "But now, all I can do is hope that they'll forgive me someday, that they'll learn the truth about the danger my father posed and the sacrifices I made to try and save them."

"You’ll find a way to clear your name, to unveil the truth. It might take time, but…” This is much to say, much too soon. “If you need me, we can face it together. I can help you in any way you need me to."

Yeosang meets your gaze, a mixture of gratitude and vulnerability in his alien eyes. "I've learned to trust only myself, to keep my guard up against those who might see me as a threat. But being around you... it's different. Easier. You've shown me kindness, understanding. And for the first time, I feel like I can breathe."

Pushing the dwelling feelings inside your own chest, you nudge him slightly. "You’re not alone anymore. I'm here for you, and we'll navigate these fucked up stars together."

“Until the next port?”

You pause. “Right. Until the next port.”

His head tilts. “I just would like to know why you’ve let yourself become entangled with me. Why you have yet to throw me off this ship.”

There’s no explanation you can give that would satisfy his curiosity. In all honesty, you haven’t the slightest clue. If it were pure idiocy that you let him on your ship, let his words convince you. There’s just something that you trust in him. Something that makes you believe everything and anything that he says.

Oh, you are just an idiot.

-

The first thing you hear is yelling.

It's low because of the incessant engine humming in the background. Cutting through the sound, echoing around the hull of your ship. Your eyes flick open immediately, feet slipping into your boots without much thought. Just as you stand, the cold metal of a knife presses against your throat. You still, thoughts flashing back to your past.

“A woman alone on a ship this large? Have you no concern for your safety?”

Alone? They haven't found Yeosang?

You keep your gaze to the floor, trying to think of a way out of this. You haven't the slightest inkling on how many there are, but there's bound to be more than three. You're severely outnumbered, and you doubt the prince has ever fought anyone like you have. Isolation for over a hundred years – the two of you will either be forced into slavery or killed within the hour. Well, at least you would be. Once they see the bounty on Yeosang's head, they'll take him back. And all of this would have been for nothing.

“Do you speak, woman?”

“My crew left,” you say. “We went our separate ways. They left me the ship as a gift.”

“And what a pretty one it is,” he sneers, forcing you to stand as he digs the knife into your neck. You follow his movements slowly, heart racing as the cold steel of the pirate's knife pressed against her skin. Your mind races, trying to come up with a fast solution to free yourself. Your security system is too far for you to run to, and he would very likely stab your neck before you can yell a command.

“The others are searching this ship,” he begins to explain, forcing you into a seat. Panic fills your body. His knife lifts from your chin, steel digging into your wrists as he ties you into the seat. The knife drags along your arm as you cry out. All of your plans of overpowering him dissipate into nothing. You're only a human, after all. There isn't enough strength in your body to rip apart metal confinement.

The door to the room swings open, and before you could turn to see, an ax hits the middle of the pirate's face, blood splattering against your cheek. You scream, leaning away from the bloodshed. Hands wrap around your constraints and pull harshly, dropping them to the floor. You have no chance to look back before arms surround your body, pulling you close against him. His sweet, calming smell is familiar enough to calm your heart.

“You're safe,” he whispers softly, lips pressed against your hair. “You're safe.” Taking in his own words, his arms drop from your body. You look at him, shocked at what you see. His lips are bloodied, body covered in cuts and slowly forming bruises. Shirt shredded, barely hanging on his firm build. He blinks slowly, eyes steady on yours.

He could have died. He could have died so horribly, and you were stuck in a room with one man. Your trembling arms wrap around Yeosang, holding him as if you could shield him from the wounds that adorn his skin. The smell of blood lingers in the air. Tears welled in your eyes, blurring the sight of the injuries that coat his body. He could have died. And you're not sure how you could have lived with that.

Sobs escape your lips as you press your face into the crook of Yeosang's neck, "I'm so glad you're alive," you whispered, carefully choosing your words.

Yeosang winces at your hold. You almost pull away, until his grip tightens, wrapping your arms around him again. His concern is etched in the lines of his furrowed brow, betraying his actions. "y/n, you're hurt. Your body," he rasps, fingers delicately resting against your arm. "I should have protected you better."

Your grip tightened, as if by sheer force of will, somehow you could mend both the wounds. “Protect me? You're the banished prince, idiot. I'm the one who should be protecting you,” you reprimand ever so gently. "You're the one who faced the brunt of it. I'm just glad you're alive. I only have small cuts here and there compared to you."

Yeosang's eyes, a mix of gratitude and worry, meet yours. "But you've risked everything for me already. I cannot bear to see you hurt."

A soft smile plays on your lips, "Yeosang, I know the risks as much as you do. I can protect myself."

You can see that he wants to argue more, but his expression relaxes, a silent acknowledgment of your words. You let your fingers trace the outskirt of his wounds. He watches you for a brief moment, before speaking. "I'm sorry for worrying you," he murmurs, voice wary.

You shake your head. "Worry about yourself for once.”

Your tears mingle with the stains of blood on Yeosang's torn attire, clinging to him fiercely.

-

The vibration of the spaceship's engines reverberated through the metal hull, creating a steady rhythm that accompanied your growing sense of unease. Something you’re not able to grasp fully. As a banished prince, Yeosang exchanged his endless roaming in Elysium’s forest for you. And as each day passes, you find yourself stuck, grappling with a strange and undeniable attachment to him. It’s not like you wanted this to happen. In fact, you actively avoided him every chance you got after what happened on the ship. But the silent nights sitting next to one another in the navigation room, the soft smiles shown between the both of you, somewhere in between, things just changed. It was subtle. Soon small smiles were nervous ones on your end.

You cannot avoid the inevitable, that you know.

In the vastness of space, surrounded by the glow of distant stars and the gentle hum of technology, you find yourself sitting in the main room, eyes glued to the television screen. It’s a bit older than newer ships, you never bothered to change it since you rarely watched it. The artificial gravity comfortably keeps you glued to the couch, legs tucked into your chest, blanket over your resting body. Yeosang sits on the opposite end of the couch, not daring to touch you. That’s another story in itself.

Yeosang never really touched you since the brief hijack, nor comfortably since that first time, his lips on your wrist. He actually avoided touching you, slowly taking things from your hand, shrinking himself against a hallway wall. You know it’s for your comfort, but it only makes you yearn for him even more. You never considered yourself a touchy person, not really. Not until now. You wouldn’t be able to tell how many nights you’ve stayed up, thinking about his eyes on yours as his lips covered the skin above your quickened pulse. How he stayed there, longer than needed, before disappearing in the ship. How you wish you can tell him to do it again.

How infuriating.

So as you stare at the screen, you cannot shake the unsettling realization that you are becoming tethered to the person that you sternly told needs to leave when you arrive at the next port. Vulnerability, unfamiliar and raw, creeps over your body, your stomach twisting. How silly that the unknown, uncertainty of the space outside these walls seems vastly incomparable to the fear of losing him.

“You haven’t said a word about the main character.”

You glance at him from your spot, confusion crossing your features. “Hm?”

“Whenever we watch this show, you comment on how annoying the leading man is. How he doesn’t deserve the leading woman. Then, you grumble and groan everytime he says another cheesy line, and sigh when she falls for it. But you haven’t done that at all this whole time. Are you alright?” His pretty eyes rest on yours, brows furrowing.

No, you aren’t okay. You aren’t sure if you’ll ever be okay.

“I’m alright, Yeosang. Thanks for asking.”

“You’ve become easily readable, y/n. I can tell when you’re lying to me. You can say it, you know. Who am I to judge?”

“Just… old times. Things. Stuff, you know.”

He frowns, “That is bigger than the last lie you’ve told me.”

“Yeosang, it’s fine.”

He sighs simply, head turned back to the screen. “Fine, I am not one to push. I just, I don’t know, perhaps I believed that we’ve moved past this hidden information phase. That you somehow trusted me enough to let me know when you’re upset.”

He’s picking at you, it’s clear. You know if you told him straight that you didn’t want to speak of it he’d drop the topic immediately, but you haven’t. It’s very clear to both of you that you want to tell him. But on your side, you’re just afraid to. Yeosang, though not looking at you, waits patiently for your response, unaware of the angst within your heart.

Your fingers nervously play with loose strings of the blanket across your body, trying to find the right words, fear pressing down on your shoulders. He will reject you. Yeosang, despite his status now, is still royalty. He may very much only see you as nothing more than a commoner. Though deep down you know for it to be a lie, your mind wants to convince you that it is true. That he will never stoop down to someone your level.

“I’m fucking terrifed, Yeosang,” you whisper softly.

His mild irritation disappears at your words, body turning fully to look at you. You avoid his gaze as best as you can.

"You’ve… you’ve lived so much of your life as royalty. And here I am, a reject from my former crew, confined in a ship with a prince," your voice is softer now, hesitant. “I’m scared of my feelings for you. And I’m scared that you’ll find me disgusting, gross, and try to leave as quickly as you can."

Yeosang's eyes soften, “y/n–”

“Wait, let me just… let me say this, please.”

He closes his lips, a silent invitation for her to continue.

"And I wondered, what if this feeling is just because you’re nice to me, you know? What if I’m so deprived of kindness that the slightest glimpse of someone remotely caring makes me want you? I never wanted you to pity me, and I don’t want you to say yes when it’s not true for you as it is for me. I like you, I like you so much that I can’t even look at you without feeling it. It aches me,” your eyes burn, tears threatening to fall. “But if you find me as insignificant as I think, please just let me know. Let me know so I can move on.”

Yeosang's expression is unreadable. It scares you even more. He uncrosses his arms, hand resting on the edge of your blanket. "You are not insignificant to me, y/n. You never will be," he smiles. "I just hate that you’ve said all of this before I could confess my feelings myself."

That stuns you for a moment. The way he looks at you is enough to make you look away. He has never made you this nervous before.

“Look at me, please.”

You turn to him.

"y/n," Yeosang begins, his gaze unwavering. "When I first saw you in that hotel, there was something different about you. I couldn't put it into words, but I felt a connection, a sense of trust that I hadn't felt with anyone in a long time."

Your eyes met his in a mixture of surprise and curiosity. You allow him to speak as he allows you.

"Back then, despite it being only weeks ago, I didn't know how to express my gratitude," Yeosang confesses, his fingers absently tracing patterns on the old couch. "You saved me, helped me escape. And in these past few weeks, spending time with you, I've come to see humans for who they truly are. Not just as a means of survival, but as individuals capable of kindness, understanding, and compassion."

A faint smile plays on your lips as you take in his words.

"I didn't realize it at first," Yeosang continues, "These feelings I've been grappling with—whether they were genuine or just a manifestation of attachment because you saved me. But right now, as you sit in front of me, gripping your blanket with such an enormous amount of strength, I just knew."

"Knew what?"

"That this would be it for me," Yeosang admits, "That I'm completely and utterly terrified of saying my next words, but I care for you deeply, and I want you to be mine. I have no reason to worry since you think the same, but I don't want you to have regrets. I don't care if you're not royalty as I was before. I cannot quite understand why you would think I ever cared about such a thing. I never even mention my former status to you unless you bring it up.”

He is right, of course.

“So what do we do now?” You ask after a moment of silence.

He shrugs, leaning further into the couch. “The same as we’ve done before, except now we know we both like each other,” his head tilts, eyes glued back to the television. “Ah, you’re right. He is quite a nuisance.”

-

And that is how it was.

Days melted into nights aboard the spaceship, neither of you mentioning what happened. The air shifted, no longer burdened by the weight of unspoken words. But still, there is a bit of awkwardness between you. Yeosang, no longer avoiding you or pressing himself against walls to avoid you, entered rooms you occupied and initiated conversations, his presence comforting enough. But other than that, he still avoided your skin. There was only one time he didn’t notice you around, your arm brushing against his to grab something from a cabinet. His skin flushed, body rigged as you lightly nudged him out of the way. After that, he rarely gives you his back, always sending you a smile, or keeping himself aware of where you are in the room.

The physical distance persisted, enough so that you could no longer handle being around him without bringing it up.

One night, as you tend to the plants in your nursery you finally sigh, looking back at him. He wears an old crewmate’s attire, tight against his fit limbs, leaving nothing to the imagination. It’s almost enough for you to forget what you were going to say, until his brow lifts, waiting for you to speak.

"Yeosang," you say, voice breaking the silence. "Is everything okay?"

“Hm?” he tilts his head endearingly, only making this much harder to bring up. You push past the unsettling feelings within you, glancing away from him.

“Do you not like touch?”

“What?” his voice is dripping with shock, almost appallingly so, brows furrowed so harshly they may as well rip his skin. “What makes you think that?”

“It’s hard not to when you avoid touching me every chance you get, Yeosang. I mean, I barely brush your arm and it’s like I’m some sort of disease? I don’t understand.”

“No, y/n, that’s not at all what I am thinking. I…” He rubs his face, moving off the wall, “I am filled with a never ending desire to touch you. It’s my fault that you don’t think so. I presumed that you knew of the mating practices of Elysium without even asking,” he rubs his arms, gaze sliding to the floor. “I don’t know if you noticed while on your brief time there, but on Elysium, all of us wear gloves to avoid touching each other. We only have skin to skin contact with prospective mates.”

You remember how his lips brushes against your wrist, his hand clearly wrapped around yours. How you pushed his hair away from his face, how you held it between yours. You’ve rarely touched him, but you’ve still done it, not knowing what it meant. No wonder he looks perturbed each time you’ve done so.

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry,” you whisper.

“And I should have presumed that you did not,” he murmurs. “Each time, every time you touch me, it’s an indescribable feeling. No one has touched my skin since my mother when she held me as an infant, y/n. You are the first since then,” his eyes land on your hands. “When I kissed your wrist, it was an act of confession. So when you told me a few days ago that you were scared I did not feel the same, I didn’t quite understand since I’ve already touched you. Again, another assumption that I didn’t explain,” he shakes his head. “Apologizes.”

“All we’ve done is assume,” you agree. “You don’t need to apologize.”

“I do, and I’m sorry again. I ... I didn't want to make you uncomfortable since touch as an adult Elysium with another is so much more than innocent. After what I said, though, if you’re uncomfortable, I can give you space."

“No.” You say quickly, an amused smile cast on his lips. “I mean, I don’t mind you touching me, Yeosang. You don’t have to ask. I’m comfortable with you.”

Relief washing over Yeosang's features, "Okay. You can touch me too, y/n.”

You snort, turning back to your plants, “Never thought I’d have a conversation like this.”

“Neither did I.”

The conversation fades into silence, your back to him as you dig out the leaves. You’re focused enough that you don’t hear Yeosang inching closer and closer to you, until a slow hand wraps around your waist. He pulls you into him with ease, breathing in heavily. You can hear your own heart beating against your eardrums, hands gripping the tools tightly. Sure, you expected him to touch you sooner or later.

But you just didn’t expect it to be this soon.

Yeosang’s lips brush against your neck, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake. “Can I touch you now?"

You lean into his body, humming, “Are you not already touching me?”

His free hand slips down, resting on the curve of your thigh. “Not in the way you want me to. Not in the way I desire, So,” his hand stills, “May I touch you?”

“Yes…”

His hand slowly drags against your pants. You watch as he does so, lips brushing against your neck. His lips caress your skin, breathing steadily. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says after a moment, causing a laugh to escape your lips. Though he does not move away from your body, you can feel his protruding lips pouting against your neck. You try turning around to look at him but he tightens his hold. “You’re not leaving, are you?” he whispers. “I can learn how to pleasure you.”

“Yeosang,” you try turning again, feeling how he reluctantly lets you go. You lean slightly against the framing of the nursery, stretching out your legs and wrapping them behind him. It pushes his body closer to yours, he himself grabbing the planters on either side of you, steadying his body against the framing. Entrapping you in his embrace. His eyes look nervous as they stare into yours. Without missing a beat, you reach up, cupping his cheek. His lids flutter, eyelashes brushing against his cheek.

“Why would I leave you alone?”

He swallows, gaze heavy as it rests on yours. “It is not an unfamiliar feeling.”

You lean forward, pressing a light kiss against the corner of his lips. He trembles. “I am not leaving you, Yeosang. I won’t leave you. As long as you want me around, I’ll be here. I won’t abandon you.”

His tongue drags against his lips, “You are sure of that? As long as you can be? I… You won’t leave me?”

“No,” your voice is firm. “I’m not leaving you. And I’ll teach you how to please me, pretty boy–”

An echo of metal cracking behind you stops you from continuing. You glance to the side, seeing his fingers digging deeply into the planters. Eyes widened, you turn back to him. His eyes are glazed over, glued on your every movement. Flicking down to your lips, he leans forward. You meet him halfway, hand resting on the back of his neck. Your tongue drags across his plush bottom lips, pulling him closer. A light gasp escapes his lips, and you take that chance to enter his mouth. He tastes sweet, as sweet as that smile of his. It’s something you very much can get used to.

You hear the planters crack again, his hands resting on either side of your hips, desperately clawing at the fabric. How delicate he holds you compared to the damage behind. He learns without you telling him how to kiss, clumsy a bit at first before calming himself down. Your hand slips down, following the curve of his broad shoulders, hesitating slightly as you touch the solid muscle of his arms. If there were any way you could be more enthralled with his very being you would have surpassed it long ago. You pull away to catch a breath, his head leaning against your shoulder, chest rising and falling quickly.

“Fuck me,” he murmurs, a strange set of words to come out of his usually proper speech. “We have done not a thing, but I am already too excited,” he lifts his head, thumb rubbing circles into your side. “How do humans fornicate? Is it like us?”

“Depends, what do you do?” Though he asked first, you cannot help but wonder about his answer. He pauses for a moment.

“From what I’ve learned, it is usually snowing outside. That is our peak fertility time. We strip bare, and fuck in the snow.”

“Yeosang!” You gasp, unable to hold in your laughter at his confused gaze. “You’re a riot.”

He continues on, as if you didn’t say a word, “We enter the mating partner through their anus and ejaculate after so much time. Depending on the Elysium, of course.”

“We are not having anal sex. Not now at least,” you say simply. “Humans, well, it depends on the genitalia of their partner. I’m assuming you have a dick?”

He tilts his head, thinking. “Yes.”

“Well, then…” After a brief history on what actually happens (brief as in, a forty minute lecture), Yeosang’s fingers are inside of you, moving quickly curving slightly. You moan against his ministrations, gripping the sheets beneath you, eyes flicking down to how easily he learned. His gaze never leaves yours, lips slightly parted as he watches you come undone.

“You’re so pretty, my pretty queen,” he whispers, a small smile gracing his lips as he feels you clench around his fingers. “So so pretty for me, my queen.”

“Yeosang, wait–” you grip his wrists, and he increases his pace. You’ve set boundaries earlier, your safe word being snow. “I’m going to cum if you continue.”

“Then cum for me, pretty. I want to feel you tight around my fingers,” he curls them slightly again, thumb rubbing against your clit. With warning, you moan, falling over the edge. He continues to move inside you, though much slower than before. Once you’re down from your high, he pulls out.

His free hand grips his pants, ripping them with eagerness. His hand wraps around himself, stroking his –

Two cocks rest between his soiled hands, his strokes slow and calculated. Your brain tries to wrap around where exactly in the conversation you had prior, when he told you exactly how many he has. He looks at your shocked expression, worry decorating his. “Darling?”

“You have two, Yeosang. I asked you if you had a dick and you said yes!”

“I do have one, y/n,” his expression still puzzled. “Humans do not also have two?” He swallows slowly, strokes slowing down. “Is this too much for you?”

“Ah, no,” you disagree immediately. “Just surprising.”

“I can only enter you with one, as to not hurt you,” he says quickly. “It’s what you prefer, of course. We can stop now.”

You think it through. Having one inside you is a job in itself, but two? They’re both pretty average and similar to a human’s, though a bit more prominent – skin softer-looking, and covered with shimmer, just as his skin is. You don’t want to end this, and clearly, neither does he. So with confidence, your eyes meet his nervous ones.

“We can try it.”

“…Both?” There’s a bit of hope in his voice.

Who are you to crush it?

“Both.”

-

note: no part two ;-;

[moonlit-imagines]

No One’s Sidekick

Jason Todd x teen!reader

warnings: needles and guns and death mentions ya know

a/n: ok i was gonna do headcanons for this but honestly it sparked a lot of inspiration so im actually writing a oneshot for it this is a ONE IN A MILLION CHANCE bc im very picky about when to write oneshots ily. might do hcs also just cuz arkham knight is my passion. (honestly i should have just done hcs idk if i like where i went with this LMAO)

prompt: anonymous: “hi idk if you write Arkham Jason Todd but if if you do is it possible if you can do a Arkham Jason Todd x fem teen reader and reader is his sidekick”

Imagine a life where you had nothing, you were the lowest anyone could go, and you were just a kid. Now imagine that there was someone standing in front of you, telling that same story, and offering you a chance to turn it all around because they knew how it felt to be you.

That someone was Jason Todd. You found each other by chance, somewhere in the Gotham slums. He walked past you down a dimly lit alley full of used needles and rotting trash, noticing a kid just a few years younger hiding from the world. You noticed a guy in a hoodie hiding a nasty scar on his cheek.

He reached out a hand, hoping you’d take it. He saw a look in your eyes that you’d been like this a while. And you might have noticed the same in his. Which is why after trusting nobody for years, you took this stranger’s hand. “I remember when I was a kid waiting in shitty places woth the hope someday it’d change. And it did one day. Someone found me and changed my life.” He explained after buying you a burger and fries.

“Was it for the better?” You asked him with a mouthful of food.

“I don’t know anymore.” He looked shaken himself, and you could tell by the bags under his eyes this may have been a subject that kept him up at night, maybe took up his waking moments, too. “How long have you been alone?”

“Practically forever. Every once in a while I felt like I was on steady ground and then…something always happens.” You sighed, taking a sip of your soda. “But I learned how to get by on my own. I had to. And I have to protect myself.” Jason raised a brow.

“You protect yourself yet you’re willing to go off with a stranger?” He asked, giving you a warm smile.

“Jason, right?” He nodded at the question. “Jason Todd?” His expression dropped. Before he could stammer out a response, you leaned back on your side of the booth and said, “everyone around here knows you one way or another, but everyone thought you were dead after you disappeared.”

“Did you know who I was when you came here with me?” Jason spoke lowly.

“Nope.” You flatly responded. “But I figured it out along the way. You used to live in my building when I was a kid, I knew I recognized you from somewhere.”

“3B?” He asked.

“That’s the one. You remember?” You smiled.

“I remember a scared little kid with dirt all over their face no matter what time of day.” You both chuckled. “Wow, it’s been a long time. I guess I’m glad we ran into each other.”

“It’s nice. I just don’t know where to go from here.” You took the last few bites from your meal, averting your eyes from his gaze, nervous for what was to come, but also hopeful. At this point, you didn’t care what you did or where you went, as long as you had some kind of purpose. Spending your youth in sleeping in wet boxes or crashing on a sunken-in, stained couch was no longer something you could stand doing.

“I had an idea. A while ago. But I just didn’t know how to go about it.” He revealed with a long pause, mustering up better details to share. “I dont know. It sounds crazy, but maybe not anymore.”

“Can you get to the point?” You tilted your head, eager for a bit more.

“Yeah, yeah…” He gulped. “I talked to this guy, it was after some really bad shit went down,” he brushed his scarred cheek, “this high-profile assassin wanted to train me—work with me. There are some demons I have to face, but I need some help to get ready.” You stared blankly for a minute, fingernail scratching the tabletop as you thought about his words. “It’s out of the country, somewhere in South America.”

“You’re crazy.” You stated. “I’m in.” Jason’s eyes widened. “Anything to get me out of Gotham. And you’re Jason Todd, I’d trust you with my life, even after all this time.” His expression softened and he kind of chuckled, in disbelief of you and himself.

“I—I guess I gotta go make a call.” Jason knocked his hand on the table. “Go ahead and order dessert, I’ll be back in a few.” He stepped out the front door and opened his phone, scrolling down to a contact labeled “S. Wilson.” It rang twice. “I’m in, and one more will be joining us.”

“I’ll make the arrangements for your travels, stay on the line.” Said Slade, there were faint keyboard clicks. “I have a private jet that awaits you at eight a.m. tomorrow. I will send you the address, don’t be late.” The phonecall ended abruptly and Jason went back to your table, finding you eating a slice of pie.

“Tomorrow morning we get to fly in a private jet.” Jason saw your face light up. “Never been?”

—————

Venezuela was incredible to you, even if it was a bit more humid than you were used to. On the plane ride, Jason told you everything. He didn’t spare one detail, he didn’t care. You were another Gotham City orphan with a dark past and a bright future. You two were ready for anything.

It was grueling. It was incredible. It was nothing you’d experienced before. Which was terrifying. But invigorating. You could tell Jason felt right back in his element, but you were desperately trying to catch up. He’d had much training before this, relevant to the current situation. You’re training went as far as standard Gotham Slums scuffling. Your skills included switchblade maneuvers, aiming for the crotch, running from trouble and climbing from trouble. Nothing like this ever seemed possible for you. But Jason knew what it felt like to be brought from your level to his. And as Deathstroke brought Jason to his level, he’d make sure you’d catch up.

—————

“I think you two are ready.” Slade announced as both of you stood before him. Straight backs, eyes forward, and arms behind your backs. “The plan is to be enacted soon, and you,” he turned his attention to Jason, “it’s up to you what we do from here. Gotham City finally meets its match?” He suggested. Jason nodded his head once and you followed. And so it began, the planning phase.

—————

You looked at Gotham from down below. Smaller than you remembered. The whirring of the helicopter blades lulled you away from reality for a few moments before Jason tapped you, motioning for you to come up front with him. You slid your headset on and heard him begin barking orders at the militia before setting your comms to private. “How’s it feel?” Jason asked you.

“I don’t know, actually.” You replied, doing a final check to make sure your guns were loaded and secured. “What about you?”

“It feels like I’m finally getting my revenge.” His voice modulator sent a chill down your spine and you soon landed in Gotham. The plan went off without a hitch. Gotham evacuated, scum running loose, Batman distracted, and his allies scattered. It was exciting, but something was off. Scarecrow’s plan didn’t sit well with you. It was gruesome, even to you. You never really cared about anyone but yourself, but as Jason lost his humanity, you gained it. “I’ve got your back, y/n. You got mine?”

“Always, Knight.” He chuckled as the chopper began to descend. “Let’s kill the Batman.”

taglist: @ravenmoore14 // @summersimmerus // @xoxobabydolls // @evilcr0ne // @thedarkqueenofavalon // @elenavampire21 // @deanzboyfriend //

[elryuse]

Yandere older sister Chengxiao x younger brother reader she obsessed with him and never wants him to leave her and stay with her forever with smut

FORBIDDEN DESIRE

Yandere Older Sister Cheng Xiao X Male Younger Brother Reader (Slight SMUT)

Y/n stared at the muted television, the blaring K-pop music a distant hum in his ears. Images of his sister, Cheng Xiao, flashed across the screen, her flawless face and captivating dance moves mesmerizing millions. Yet, to Y/n, she was just a stranger with a familiar face.

Cheng Xiao had been a whirlwind of fame ever since she debuted as a K-pop idol years ago. Their childhood memories were fragmented at best, stolen by her relentless training and packed schedules. He barely remembered the warmth of her hugs, the sound of her laughter, replaced by hurried goodbyes and forced smiles.

A pang of loneliness tightened his chest. He missed her, the sister he barely knew. But whenever he tried to bridge the gap, he was met with a polite smile and a dismissal disguised as work commitments.

Suddenly, a news alert blared on the screen, shattering the silence. It was a report about a car accident involving Cheng Xiao. Y/n's heart lurched into his throat. The details were blurry, but one sentence slammed him to his core: "critical condition, emergency surgery."

Panic clawed at him. He scrambled to his feet, phone clutched tightly in his hand. He dialed Cheng Xiao's number repeatedly, each unanswered ring a hammer blow to his chest. Finally, a voice, unfamiliar and strained, picked up. It was their aunt, informing him about Cheng Xiao's urgent need for a kidney transplant.

Y/n didn't hesitate. He volunteered, a wave of protectiveness washing over him. It was the least he could do for the sister he barely knew. The surgery was a blur of anxiety and hope. Days turned into weeks as Y/n recovered in the sterile hospital room. He barely slept, his mind constantly checking on Cheng Xiao in the adjacent room.

One day, the door creaked open revealing a pale, gaunt Cheng Xiao. Her eyes, usually sparkling with life, were dull and shadowed. But when they landed on him, a flicker of recognition ignited within them. Tears welled up in her eyes, spilling down her cheeks as she choked out, "Y/n… you saved me."

Her voice, usually strong and confident, was a broken whisper. Y/n felt a surge of warmth bloom in his chest. This was Cheng Xiao, vulnerable and real, a stark contrast to the distant K-pop idol on the screen.

From that day on, a change swept through their relationship. Cheng Xiao, discharged from the hospital, made a conscious effort to connect. They spent evenings watching movies, Y/n patiently explaining the plot points lost due to her years in Korea. She cooked for him, her laughter filling the once-silent apartment with a melody he never knew he craved.

One night, as they sat on the couch, a comfortable silence settling around them, Cheng Xiao reached out and took his hand. Her touch sent a jolt through him, a spark of something unfamiliar. He looked into her eyes, expecting warmth, but found a possessive glint that sent shivers down his spine.

"Y/n," she started, her voice a husky whisper, "You saved my life. You're my hero."

He smiled, his heart stuttering in his chest. "We're siblings, Cheng Xiao. That's what siblings do for each other."

But her grip tightened, her gaze burning into his. "No, Y/n," she breathed, her voice laced with a possessiveness he couldn't decipher. "You're mine. You gave me a part of yourself, and now I want all of you."

Y/n's smile faltered. He stammered, trying to pull his hand free. "Cheng Xiao, what are you saying? This isn't… this isn't right."

But she wouldn't let go. Her eyes, once filled with gratitude, now flickered with a manic intensity. "You saved me, Y/n," she insisted, her voice thick with emotion. "Now, let me save you. Let me be the only one you need."

Fear, cold and sharp, snaked its way into Y/n's gut. He tried to reason with her, to explain the boundaries between siblings, but her words fell on deaf ears. The sister he yearned for had morphed into something dark and possessive.

The nights that followed were a chilling descent into madness. Walls seemed to close in, the once-comfortable apartment transformed into a gilded cage. Cheng Xiao became clingy, her affection suffocating. She'd follow him around the house, her gaze an unnerving constant.

One night, Y/n woke up to the faint scent of lavender, his sister's favorite. He sat up, heart hammering in his chest, as he saw a dark figure leaning over him. It was Cheng Xiao, her eyes gleaming in the moonlight, a seductive smile playing on her lips

Y/n's breath hitched in his throat. Panic clawed at him, but before he could even stammer a protest, Cheng Xiao's lips were on his. The familiar scent of lavender mingled with the sweetness of her lip gloss, sending a confusing jolt through him.

The kiss wasn't gentle; it was desperate, possessive. Her hand snaked around his neck, her fingers digging into his skin as she deepened the kiss. Y/n froze, his mind in a war between confusion and a primal instinct to respond.

He tasted her fear, a strange undercurrent beneath the sweetness of her cherry lip balm. It was a fear that mirrored his own, a fear that twisted into something else entirely. He found himself responding, his hand hesitantly reaching for her waist.

Cheng Xiao moaned into the kiss, a sound that sent shivers down his spine. It was a sound of hunger, a yearning so intense it scared him. He pulled back slightly, gasping for breath. Her eyes, usually sparkling with mischief, were now dark and hungry, her gaze fixed on him with an intensity that made him feel like prey.

"Y/n," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "Don't leave me. You're mine now. We're connected, you and I."

He wanted to argue, to explain the lines she was crossing, but the words wouldn't come. He was trapped in the storm of her emotions, caught in the headlights of her obsessive gaze. Before he could find his voice, her lips were back on his, this time softer, more seductive.

She explored his mouth with a newfound urgency, her touch igniting a fire within him he couldn't explain. Her hand trailed down his chest, sending shivers down his spine. His own inhibitions crumbled like sandcastles under a tidal wave. He was drowning in her touch, a prisoner of his own conflicting emotions.

He found himself kissing her back, his own hands roaming her body, a desperate attempt to make sense of the situation. He felt a mixture of guilt, fear, and a strange, exhilarating thrill. The lines were blurring, and he wasn't sure he had the strength to fight the current.

The kiss escalated quickly, their clothes becoming an obstacle they both desperately wanted to remove. Cheng Xiao, fueled by a feverish obsession, undressed him with trembling hands. He was her savior, her hero, and now, she possessed him completely.

The night was a blur of tangled limbs and stolen breaths. Cheng Xiao devoured him with a frenzy that left him breathless and weak. Every touch, every kiss, was laced with a possessiveness that sent shivers down his spine. He felt like a doll in her hands, manipulated to fulfill a twisted desire.

When dawn finally broke, painting the sky with streaks of orange and pink, Y/n lay sprawled beside her, utterly drained. He felt a deep ache in his muscles, a physical manifestation of the emotional turmoil he couldn't process.

Cheng Xiao, on the other hand, seemed radiant. Her eyes glowed with a dark satisfaction, as if she had finally claimed what was rightfully hers. She cupped his face, her thumb tracing the line of his jaw.

"See, Y/n," she murmured, her voice laced with a chilling sweetness. "We fit perfectly. You'll never want to leave me now, will you?"

Y/n tried to speak, to voice the unease churning in his stomach, but no words came out. He was trapped, caught in the web of her twisted affection. As the days blurred into weeks, the nights became a relentless cycle of passionate encounters.

Cheng Xiao became clingy, her possessiveness reaching suffocating levels. She'd monitor his every move, his phone calls, his texts, a jealous glint in her eyes whenever he interacted with another girl.

"They don't understand you," she'd hiss, her voice dripping with venom. "Only I understand the bond we share. We're more than siblings, Y/n. We're one."

Y/n, exhausted from the emotional and physical toll, felt himself withdrawing. He craved normalcy, the company of friends, a life outside the suffocating walls of their apartment. But every attempt to break free was met with a silent storm of tears and accusations.

He was her lifeline, the living embodiment of her gratitude, a twisted version of love that kept him tethered to her side. He was a prisoner in a gilded cage, a trophy on her shelf, a possession she refused to share.

[piratekane]

(post-3x05 kacy scene)

Warm fingertips press down against the thin skin on the inside of her wrist, a melody she knows that she knows but can’t quite place in the early grey of the morning, the sun rising, muted, through the low clouds outside the window. She was asleep a minute ago and there’s a dream quickly fading away as her eyes open slowly and the room shifts into focus.

“Morning,” Kate whispers, still sunken in her pillow.

“G’morning.” Lucy pulls the words from the back of her throat like she’s pulling cotton from a cattail. “Time s’it?”

Kate doesn’t roll over to check her phone. “Early,” she guesses. “Too early for our day off.”

A day off. A present for her jungle excursion, courtesy of Tennant. A whole day to let her body come down from the high of being chased through thick vegetation with a life hanging delicately in her hands. Lucy lets her eyes close again and sinks back into her pillow. She goes back to focusing on Kate’s fingers looped carefully around the wrist between them. Tap, tap, taptap. Tap, tap. A song, then. One that she knows but can’t quite place.

“Is that Boot Scootin Boogie?”

Kate exhales a short laugh. “Taylor Swift.”

“Who else would it be?” Lucy feels the bed shift as Kate slides a little closer. She can feel the soft heat coming off Kate’s bare arms and wants to reach for it, pull it back over her, close her eyes and slip back into sleep for just a little bit longer.

It was a long day yesterday, her nerves pulled to their breaking point. When she stepped over the threshold to their apartment, the weight she had been working so hard to push off came crashing down on her. She doesn’t remember tasting the pizza Kate ordered, doesn’t remember picking Love is Blind on the TV or queuing up where they left off. She doesn’t remember brushing her teeth or turning out the light.

She does remember Kate’s body warm behind her on the couch, her own body pressed to Kate’s front as they sat wrapped up in each other. She remembers Kate’s arms and how they wrapped low around her waist in bed and held her tightly. She remembers soft lips to her bare shoulder and I love you against her skin as she let the exhaustion take over.

She remembers the Kate of it all, the steady and warm and loving presence she’s come to need like oxygen in her lungs. She remembers the overwhelming feeling of love—one she thought she’d never find in a million years.

“I could sleep another hundred hours,” she admits, eyes still closed.

She feels Kate’s smile against the back of her hand. “You can. We have nothing planned today.”

The thought is so tempting. She could pull Kate’s arms around her, drape them over her like the light comforter they’re sharing, and let herself sink back into sleep. It’s not too far off; she could reach for it and be asleep in moments.

But Kate is awake and tapping out a Taylor Swift song against her pulse point and that usually means banana pancakes and a Golden Girls marathon and pressing Kate against the counter edge and kissing her until either their lungs start to burn or the pancakes start to smoke. Lucy loves those mornings and the way Kate tastes like the bites of bananas she snuck before mixing them into the batter.

“Did I dream yesterday?”

“Only if we were having the same nightmare.” Kate’s free hand pushes back some of Lucy’s hair. “Otherwise, it was real.”

Lucy slides her foot forward, curling her ankle around Kate’s calf. “I thought so.” She opens one eye, studying Kate’s profile. She’s committed it to memory by now. “I feel like a truck ran me over.”

“It did,” Kate murmurs. “That very much happened.”

Lucy sighs. Yesterday wasn’t a dream. She can see it vividly in her mind and she closes her eyes against it again, trying to fill it with Kate—Kate so close and so warm.

“I’m not ready to talk yet,” she admits. She isn’t. She can’t. She’s still working through her family in her own mind; she can’t possibly put into words what they’re like and what they’ve done to her and to each other.

“We don’t have to talk.” Kate’s voice is soft and genuine and Lucy thinks again—again and again—how lucky she is. “We can just lay here. We don’t have to do anything at all.”

Lucy knows Kate isn’t lying. She knows Kate won’t push and she won’t prod and she’ll let Lucy set the pace for when and where and how. And it sounds perfect—a whole day in bed with Kate and their bodies pressed close together, hidden away from the world.

But someone told her to live her life yesterday. Someone who had the courage to throw theirs to the wind and start over from scratch. Someone who proved that there are still good people in the world who want to do what’s right for the sake of doing the right thing. And even if she can’t talk about it yet, even if she’s not ready to unlock the ugly parts of her past and lay them out on the table, she’s not going to lay in bed all day and let the world just pass her by.

“No.” She opens both eyes, staring deeply into Kate’s brown ones. “Let’s get up. We can make pancakes.”

“Banana or blueberry?”

“Both,” she says, feeling greedy and not caring. “And bacon. And toast. And—“

Kate laughs. “Okay. Remember we can only eat so much.”

“I can eat so much. I’m from—“

“Texas, yes.” Kate laughs again and leans in, kissing Lucy softly and pulling away too soon.

Lucy thinks about chasing her, pressing her deep into the mattress and not stopping until she has to come up for air. But she settles on letting Kate pull away and slide out of bed, pulling her hair up into a ponytail that exposes the long line of her neck. In her thin tank top and her soft shorts, no one has ever looked more beautiful than Kate does right now.

Lucy may be holding some things back, may be keeping some things close to the vest, but this? This she wants to scream from the rooftops. This she wants everyone to know. This she wants to tell Kate.

“I love you.”

Kate looks back over her shoulder, a smile on her face that threatens to break through the grey clouds outside their window. “I love you too.”

Live your life, Lucy Tara.

Lucy smiles as she gets up and stretches her arms above her head, feeling the tension break in her shoulders. She is going to live her life. She’s going to take every moment and hold it tightly in her hands. She’s going to love Kate with every part of her that’s capable of it and when she’s ready she’ll tell Kate everything she wants to know.

“Lucy?”

Lucy looks up. “Hmm?”

“I said, we can make toast too. If you want.”

She thinks about it for a moment before she smiles. “Life is too short to skip the toast.”

Kate rolls her eyes, pulling the sheet back up on the bed. “Where did you read that?”

“That’s a Lucy Tara quote, free of charge.” She winks when Kate laughs and scrubs her hair back off her neck into a bun. “There’s more where those came from, by the way.”

“Lucky me,” Kate grumbles, still smiling.

“Yeah,” Lucy says softly. “Lucky you.” She holds Kate’s eyes for a moment. “Lucky us.”

Kate’s smile slips into shy before she clears her throat and gives the neatly-made bed one last pat. “Lucky us,” she echoes. She slips out of the bedroom and heads towards the kitchen, humming something under her breath.

Lucy watches her walk away and thinks: this is a good life. This is a life worth living.

She follows Kate.

[charlesslut16]

-a second chance-

summary : max let you go years ago but then he sees you again after many years, his feeling come back up, and he tries for a second chance...

PAIRING : max verstappen x reader

WARNING : a bit toxic!max

note : Firstly thank you all for the birthday wishes on Thursday. You are all so amazing and i'm so thankful. And secondly HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAX!

masterlist 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It hurts like hell when you know that you needed to let go of someone, but you can't, because you're still waiting for the impossible to happen.

************************************************************************

You were running till the point max, never believed you would ever stop. And max could not stop himself from following you. His heart almost sank to his feet, as he saw you.

Looking so beautiful. So perfect. After all these years…

You took a curve, the panic in you leading you, as max panicked, thinking he lost you. Again. Max couldn't take it. He wouldn't: Max ran faster until he believed to collapse.

He was starstruck as he saw you again. It was as if he felt all his feelings for you again. And it made his heart ache. You were are his everything. And now that he finally has you back, he won't let you go that easily.

And then, he finally saw you. His beautiful, special, one in a million girl. On the ground, clutching your arms around your knees to stop yourself from shaking too much. 

Max began to shake with his entire body, fear of speaking to you after all those painful years that overtook him. Angst of losing you again, even though max never got you back, streamed through his blood.

He tripped over a small rock on a ground, your head shot up into his direction, your eyes wide and red from the tears you shed. But max does not stop approaching you.

Instead, max dropped to his knees in front of you, his hands already having the urge to reach for you. But he knew you weren't ready for that. You might never be. And it crushed max into pieces.

“What are you doing here, max?” You words weak, but your voice was a melody in his ear. He had missed you with every fiber of his being and the entirety of his damned heart.

“I'm sorry, mijn engel” he whispered so lightly that you almost couldn't hear him. “I'm so sorry” my angel

You shook you hear, tears he knew he was the cause for, left trails down your cheeks.

“Go.” you spit venomously. Another tear falling down your wet cheeks.

 “It's what you do best anyway, isn't it?” Max pressed his lips together, the urge to touch not leaving.

“I can't” Max croaked, sounding like an idiot. A humorless laugh escaped your cold, plump lips. You couldn't understand why. He had done it before, so why couldn't he do it again?

“Why?” your question was hard, bound with anger reserved for Max Verstappen only. Max was at a loss for words when your eyes connected with his. No sparks between the two of you.

Max Verstappen was drowning in the blue, drowning in the sight of you in front of him. A sight for sore eyes. 

“Because I can't let you go.” Max finally whispered. 

“Stop with this nonsense, max Emilian!” you snapped, your voice filled with anger and frustration.

“You let me go when you left four years ago!”

But Max shook his head firmly, his eyes never leaving yours.

“I did not. I couldn't. I wanted to, but that was before I knew you were EVERYTHING I needed to take a proper breath. You are the sun in the morning when I wake up and the moon when I sleep. You have consumed me whole.”

Max sounded helpless as he admitted his feelings. His true feelings. 

“It's like you are flowing through my veins. You are and always will be EVERYTHING to me! And I can't. Let. You. Go.”

Some people are meant to fall in love with each other… but not meant to be together. And maybe the two of you were never meant to begin with.

[arielburrow]

So It Goes

Your relationship with Joe seems to be a flame that was never put out.

“I just don’t see how this is ever going to work.” You struggle to get the words out through your sobs. Your hands cupped your face as you sat at the edge of your boyfriend's bed, his figure sulking above. “We keep telling ourselves we can push through but Joe we are miserable, and we aren’t anywhere near the end. You're going to Cincinnati in less than a month and I’m working out of Miami for at least the next three years!” Your cries become heavier as you feel his weight beside you as his head falls to your shoulder. You hear his silent cries as well.

“Your right…I hate it, but your right,” he mumbles into your shoulder. You pull him closer to you, grasping the fact that your relationship was inevitably at the end. “I mean really Joe, before I flew out here we shared what? Five texts in the last month? I barely made it to three games this season,” You whisper towards him. “I know, I know but baby you have to understand it won’t always be like that…just right now life is a whirlwind, and I just have to figure some things out but then-”

“Joey,” you cut him off. “You’ve been saying that for two years now…I mean i’ve accepted at this point your entire life is a whirlwind and I just don’t seem to fit into it.” You lift your head and stare blankly out of the window of his apartment. Thinking back to the first day you stepped foot in here and how optimistic you both were for the success of your long-distance relationship. You and Joe had been dating for two years back in Ohio and you’d be lying if you said those weren’t the best two years of your life. It started with innocent study sessions that eventually led to late-night conversations lying next to each other on his rickety dorm mattress. Before you knew it, he swept you off your feet and showed you what love really was. You remember the tears you wept when he first told you he decided on LSU. He immediately embraced you and you promised him they were “happy” tears and you were just so “excited” for his future. That being undoubtedly true, you never imagined how much Joe's life would change in the upcoming years, and how little you would be a part of it.

“y/n…I’m willing to wait, I promise you I don't care how much longer we’re apart for I’ll wait for the days when I get to wake up to you every morning.” he seemingly pleads as his head rises off your shoulder and you both meet each other's eyes. “Joe I am so beyond proud of everything this year has brought you and everything the next years are going to bring you. But, honey you know as well as I do that we are not the same people we were two year ago unpacking in this very apartment. Joe this is not a bad thing i need you to hear me, it’s just not healthy for either of us to keep dragging on a relationship that is fighting to keep its head above water.” You grab his hand and hold it close to you before you reluctantly stand and head for the door, tears streaming down your face as you reach for the handle.

“y/n…it’ll always be you, I promise even if we never see each other again, we both know deep down we were always meant for each other.”

That was four years ago

and as you stood in the mirror applying final touches to your face, it finally hit you. That gut feeling that you’ve had since you opened the invite but couldn’t quite put your finger on.

He’s going to be there.

There was no doubt about it. Sam was one of his best friends and it was the middle of the off-season. Hell he might even be in the wedding you think to yourself as you notice your face turn in the mirror. You both had lived about a million lives since you last saw each other which you know to be a fact due to your “surprising interest” in football whenever the Bengals were playing as your brother would joke. It was unintentional snooping on a life you swore you were putting an end to as soon as you got back to Florida. Of course your life carried on, you started dating again and made a great group of friends. But no matter what every Sunday you found yourself sat watching Joe through his brutal knee injury, Super bowl attempt, and current list of nagging injuries. Every now and then your mom would mention him over the phone but you were always quick to dismiss him, refusing to admit you still kept an eye on him. Besides the pit in your stomach, you were excited to watch your friend Sam marry his childhood best friend Ava and see all your friends you hadn’t gotten a chance to catch up with since moving back to the Ohio area. You moved back a couple of months ago, finding peace working with a new company that promised a more stationary enviorment for you. It was nice to be closer to family and friends and although it wasn’t considered Ohio, Covington was just under two miles from Cincinnati.

“Have you seen the gold hoops i laid out? I cant find them,” rachel comes into the room in a search. She was your best friend and you were so excited to be staying with her for the weekend, given she lived in down town cincy where the wedding was taking place. “here.” You hand her the earrings as she smiles.

“you look extra good,” she smirks bouncing your curls and flatting your dress once more. You roll your eyes knowing where she was going with this. “C'mon y/n, it’s been like a year since you’ve gotten laid, I just know tonight’s the night.” she laughs as she puts on her heels. “Your terrible, I’m not going to this wedding to get some, I’m going to celebrate our friends and-”

“you know he’s in the wedding right? I just wanted to warn you, Sam said he’s his best man,” she says looking up with a sympathetic smile. You sigh, “that’s good for him, glad him and Sam are still just as close.” You smile trying to brush off the conversation.

Arriving at the venue, you took in how beautifully decorated it was. White roses lined the entire isle and fairy lights were strung from each end of the ceiling. You and Rachel greeted familiar faces as you found your seats. You chatted for a bit with others, greeting both Sam and Ava’s parents. Soon after, silence fell as piano chords began to play and heads turned towards the double doors as they began to open. You watched as the party made its way down the aisle, some new faces, but for the most part, you recognized everyone.

Finally, you spotted him. His dirty blonde locks grown out long, framing his face in a way that brought out his features like no other. His frame was just as tall, just much more muscular in comparison to when you last saw him. He made his way down the aisle, arms locked with a pretty blonde with blue eyes. They walked with a sort of synchronicity, capturing every eye in the room even more than before. You couldn’t help but let out a smile at the fact that his eyes remained glued in-front of him, he seemed nervous. You felt Rachel poke your stomach, making you giggle a little. You hated to admit it, but he looked good, so good.

Finally Ava entered as everyone rose, she was such a beautiful bride and watching Sam’s reaction almost brought tears to your eyes. They looked so happy to be taking this step together and it pulled at your heartstrings knowing how far you still were from this step.

The ceremony started as you kept and eye on Joe, he still seemed to be in a trance just watching Sam, not taking note of the crowd. When they finally kissed, everyone stood in applause. You smiled as you scanned your eyes down the groomsmen once more, only to be stopped by a pair of blue eyes locked directly at you. You felt frozen for a moment, but forced yourself to let out a small smile, only met with a continuous face of shock from Joe. You would have probably stood there forever, however a shove from Rachel got you moving with the rest of the row out to the reception area.

Once everyone made their way to the much more open space with even more white roses and lights, you finally had a second to breath and take in what just happened. Everyone found their designated seat once again and watched as the bride and groom made their big entrance and began to make their way around greeting everyone.

You looked up to the wedding party table and immediately spotted him.

Well, not only him.

The same blonde you had assumed was only Ava’s maid of honor had her head rested on Joe’s shoulder and a hand on his chest. You took in her entire appearance. She was undoubtedly gorgeous and very petite compared to your taller figure. As your eyes scanned up you were met in a deadlock with Joe's eyes once again. His face was expressionless, but nonetheless, he had caught you in some sort of trance once again. Only shaking out of it when you heard Ava and Sam approaching your table. You greeted the two and chatted with them for a few minutes, trying to bury a growing feeling inside your stomach.

Before food was served, speeches were started by both sets of parents. All of them were beautifully worded and carefully thought out to honor the couple. As Joe stood to say his, you latched on to every word, secretly admiring the sincerity he had for his best friend. He kept it short but sweet, and of course, claps seemed a little louder after his. Finally, you watched as the blonde stood, introducing herself as Stephanie, she went on about her best friend Ava and you subconsciously tuned her out. You were brought back when Joe’s name was mentioned, specifically how, “thankful” she was for Sam bringing such a “special man” into her life. She smiled looking down at him and placing a hand on his shoulder as he looked up to her with a small smile. You couldn’t tell if you were more shocked at her words or the twisting in your stomach because of her words. The adoring coos from the audience didn’t help the feeling, and neither did the few glances you picked up from individuals who knew well of your past with Joe.

As the reception continued, the dance floor got more crowded and the music got louder as the night continued. Your mind was in a different place than it was an hour ago, you were actually enjoying dancing with your friends and catching up with people you hadn’t seen in years. “You want a drink?” you loudly ask Rachel over the music as she dances next to you. “No thanks! Still working on this one!” she shows you her drink and you nod, letting her know you’d be at the bar. You hopped up on a barstool greeting the bartender with a smile as you rattled off your order. Turning away only for a second to look at the dance floor, you were startled when you turned back, noticing who had joined you.

“vodka soda please.” Joe orders from the man and slowly turns his head towards you with a smile. You can’t help but giggle a little. “How are you still drinking the same thing from college? Some things really never change I guess.” You raise your eyebrows as you take a sip from your drink. “Hello to you too.” He sarcastically replies making you both smile a little. “I honestly had no idea you were going to be here, I mean i can’t believe Sam didn’t mention it,” he states. “Yeah well it was great timing, I moved to the Covington area a few months ago so I was excited to come see everyone again,” you reply trying to make casual conversation. “Wow…I had no idea you were back, I mean i’m just really surprised to see you after all this time.” His eyes softened a bit and you could’ve sworn he had gotten closer. “You look really great, y/n” his words are quieter and you swear you see a shift in his eyes. You blush a bit at his words and fail to hide it. “Thank you, so do you. How have you been doing?” you reply trying to change the path of the conversation. “I’m alright, just making it through the off-season right now after such a shitty season. Looking forward to some trips and stuff,” he reply’s with a shrug. “That’s nice, I’m glad you let yourself relax a little,” You give him a genuine smile. Your eyes both lingered on each other a little too long, leaving you both in a blushed giggle. “So are you still working the same job,” he questions. “No, I mean technically yeah, but for a different company. I wasn’t happy anymore and felt like I couldn’t move up at all. Now I can stay here and feel a lot more productive with what I’m actually doing.” you stop yourself from going on not wanting to bombard him with a vent. “That’s nice you can stay in one place now, wish it could’ve been like that a couple years ago.” He laughs to himself but immediately regrets his word choice seeing your reaction. You felt a ping of guilt. He was right, things would be so different if you hadn’t uprooted your whole life for a job you wouldn’t even end up settling on. “I’m sorry, that came out wrong.” His hand inched toward yours but he stopped himself, seeming to be fighting an internal conflict. “It’s okay” you give him a reassuring smile.

You two continue to catch up and throw back a couple more drinks which you couldn’t even deny you were heavily feeling. You both watched the movement on the dance floor and your eyes fell on Stephanie who you had caught suspiciously watching Joe a few times throughout the night. Your mind honestly no longer had a say in what your words were. “So…” you press on “Stephanie seems nice!” You say with a clearly high octave in your voice making Joe laugh and shake his head. “Yeah..Yeah you know Sam introduced us, and we basically went on a double date and all and you know, it’s all good.” He finishes off his drink and places it on the bar with a hint of aggression. You watch her make her way off the dance floor and towards you and Joe. She pulls him off the barstool, clearly ignoring you and drags him to dance. He was clearly just as drunk as you which you felt partially at fault for, but decided to go find Rachel. You searched around for a bit but couldn’t seem to find her anywhere. You noticed Stephanie taking a selfie with Joe from across the room which he seemed antsy to get away from. You figured maybe Rachel took a step outside so made your way to the lit-up back patio area. You felt a sharp breeze as you stepped outside, regretting not bringing a coat as you held your arms and began to walk in search of her. After a long walk around the venue, you felt less under the influence and took a deep breath before you were stopped in your tracks.

“you just seem to be everywhere tonight.” You Joke, causing Joe's head to turn from where he was leaning on the railing looking out towards the city. “You look absolutely freezing,” his eyebrows raise as you accept the spot next to him. “just a bit” you joke, not expecting what he does next. You feel his suit jacket rest over your shoulders and a feeling of warmth overcomes you, something greater than just the feeling of a jacket. You look up to him with a smile before looking back towards the city. You both stood there, in absolute silence, for what felt like an eternity. The sun was long set by now, and the city glowed as each building outlined its own unique story. Your eyes traced each one, you felt so in touch at this moment, probably partially due to the alcohol, and partially due to something much greater than that.

Joe was the first to break the silence. “y/n…I’m really glad I got to see you, I really thought I’d never see you again.” he admits keeping his eyes ahead. You take a deep breath before speaking. “Yeah me too Joe, i’m glad everything worked out for us you know? We both got what we wanted in the end.” You said trying to convince yourself your words held truth. Joe seemed happy and like he had it all, you on the other hand felt like a lost puppy. He lets out a breath as his head drops before he turns to you. “Are you happy?” he asks. You freeze at the question, such simple words left you so complexed. Your silence seemingly answers his question. “Y/n…I told you a long time ago how much you mean to me, I just want you to know that hasn’t changed.” You both turn to each other at his words. “Joe-” you start but he cuts you off.

“Just listen. You ended things a long time ago with us and I let you. But I shouldn’t have, I should’ve fought harder and you know, I guess I just wanted you to know I’m sorry, for not fighting harder.” he stares into your eyes in a way you knew all too well. A feeling you hadn’t felt in years crept back into your body as you felt yourself gravitate towards him. You feel him pick up your hand as he moves in. His other hand meets your chin as he lifts your head towards his.

Inches away,

You feel your nose graze his, and in a quick second, you are met with the only lips that have ever meant anything to you.

Part two here

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

The Birdcage

Jurassic Park: It's Ironic, by Meig of A-Dinosaur-A-Day

What follows is a retelling of the Jurassic Park story, mainly based on the 1993 film, with portions of the original novel used to supplement the story. The main point of divergence occurs when the park is unable to find workable nonavian dinosaur genetic material for cloning, since - as in the real world - dna degrades much too rapidly. Instead, the park consists only of extinct dinosaurs that can be brought back - birds from the last 2.5 million years. What happens after that is, as Ian Malcolm would say, an emerging pattern.

Thanks to beta readers @plokool, @killdeercheer, and @otussketching! Thanks to logo artist @i-draws-dinosaurs for the killer logo! Happy 30th anniversary of the Jurassic Park film!

Fic Chapter Masterpost

Prologue: The Peck of the Raptor

Robert Muldoon had seen much in his forty-odd years on planet earth. A pride of lions tearing into the carcass of a giraffe. An elephant kicking an African leopard into the air. A swarm of hyenas attempting to hunt the wildebeest, only to flee in panic from their hooves. Nile Crocodiles and Hippos fighting over river space, with no obvious winners. Wild dogs hunting him, with coordination and planning he wouldn’t have believed if he hadn’t seen it for himself. Indeed, if someone were to have asked Robert Muldoon if he had seen everything nature had to offer, he would be tempted to say yes.

At least, until today.  

It was a simple transfer operation. Take the new asset from the hatchery complex to their permanent enclosure. Introduce them to their new flock members. Try to not drown in the torrential rain, to hear each other over the violent wind. Remember that humans are warm-blooded and no matter how much the rain soaked to the bone, warmth would return. Go home in time for dinner.

The thought now, of course, made Muldoon snort out loud, though of course no one could hear him. Flock was the moniker the higher-ups had chosen, ages ago, but he knew flocks. This was no flock. Better, really, to call this grouping a pack. Not that it mattered. After this, Muldoon was certain of his course of action.

He had to recommend termination.

Everything had happened so fast. The loud calls of the other assets, anxious for their flock member far away. The container, raised to the pen entrance. Locked in, safety verified. The animal was silent, but they usually were during transfer. Muldoon had chalked it up to fear or hesitancy, though it was odd that it wasn’t calling back to the others. All workers were in their proper positions, so he called for the gate to be raised. And then, before he could register any of it, the asset had rocked against the container, shaking it loose. It managed to reach out, grab onto Jophery’s hand – the scream chilled Muldoon down to the marrow – and suddenly there was no more Jophery, apart from his second hand, grabbing for dear life to the side of the container. On instinct, Muldoon grabbed his hand, and pulled as hard as he could. Jophrey was still screaming, the other workers were shouting and scampering, alarms were blaring from the cage, a gun or two going off pointlessly. The asset, still, remained silent. It didn’t even bite, or claw, or crunch, or tear.

All it had to do was peck – at the temporal artery

Peck again – at the leg – near the femoral –

Peck again – on the neck – blood was everywhere –

A final peck, Muldoon couldn’t even see where, there were feathers and limbs and blood and screams and –

Jophery went still.

Only a few more seconds, and the asset was also down, multiple tranq darts sticking out of various places. Muldoon hadn’t even had a chance to insist on lethal ammunition, but there was no point now. The asset was neutralized. No one was in immediate danger. The alarms were still blaring, and Muldoon was starting to lose his hearing from it, as loud as it was in his ears. But he couldn’t undo Jophery’s grip – it had been so strong; it didn’t even need rigor mortis to lock in – and he found that the slippery blood oozing from Jophery’s neck and face down the arm weren’t helping matters. But Muldoon had been hired for this position for a reason – a few, actually – and he managed to take a deep breath, grit his teeth, and remove the hand from his.

Now he was walking, slowly, to his employer’s office, tracking mud and rain and blood down the hall with him. People were running, talking in hushed whispers, angrily arguing. He didn’t much care for these lab rats who never entered the tropical sun, never mind interacted with the very things they were working on. Even now, when their concerns should be one and the same, he heard mentions of rehabilitation, modification, and genetic integrity – worries from individuals who did not have blood on their hands refusing to dry in the humid air. So antiseptic they had removed their own humanity.

Muldoon couldn’t wait any longer. The image of Jophrey’s clouded eyes hung in his mind as he shouted into the hallway.

“HAMMOND.”

Ray Arnold stuck his head out from the control room, eyebrows raised over the rims of his glasses. “Hammond isn’t here. Shouldn’t you be getting cleaned up?”

“We have to shut it down.”

Arnold sighed, “You know he won’t do that, Robert.”

“This is the third worker.”

“Yes, but –“

“Third. If you think officials across the water will ignore it at this point, you’re out of your god-damned mind.”

“People die on construction projects, Rob. All the time, in fact.”

“Their corpses don’t usually come back littered with peck marks.”

“We’ve managed all crises up to this point. Hammond insists on moving forward with this asset.”

“All because his impossible pet project didn’t work out, we have to insist on these uncooperative, murder-minded –“

“They’re no more murder minded than a lion or a wolf.”

“Says someone who has never interacted with any of them.”

Arnold sighed, fidgeting with his tie. Muldoon had moved to face him directly, but Arnold continued to look at his computer screen, the lines of code reflected in his glasses.

“I’ll talk to Hammond. If we can’t even get them in the enclosure, maybe it is time to pull the plug.”

“Finally,” Muldoon spat out, “Thank you.”

“Uh-huh.” But Arnold was already back at his computer, not even facing his torso towards Muldoon. So Robert turned and walked back, through the hallway, muddy bloody footprints showing his short journey down the hall and back.

It was time to call up another family.

[httpknjoon]

taking chances | jjk

plot | After taking your chances with Jungkook three months ago, you two cross paths again. This time, the rockstar takes risks to ask Zafiro's royal princess out.

words | 4.7k+

genres | fluff, modern royalty!au, celebrity!au

pairing | rockstar!jungkook x princess!reader

note | a continuation. i made a playlist for this series! feel free to check it out :) I hope you'll enjoy reading this as much as I had fun writing this!

main masterlist | drabble series

“He totally likes you.”

Astrid immediately said as soon as you two were left alone in the palace. You know she has been itching to say that ever since you left Crystalline Stadium earlier. 

“Stop making up such a thing, Astrid,” you replied.

You don’t want to get your hopes high. But by the way that Jungkook acted earlier, your heart skipped with the idea that he might like you. Stop, YN. You warned yourself. This isn’t the first time you felt a brief infatuation with someone. It’s just that you usually took an interest in guys you bond with back when you were still studying. You never had a crush on someone you just saw singing and playing a guitar in a two-hour performance.

Unsatisfied with your response, your sister followed behind you as you walked up the stairs. She continue speaking behind you until you got in your room. She stopped on your room’s doorstep while you ignored her.

“I think everyone who was in that room can tell, YN. Jungkook tried to start a conversation with you! He was interested in you and your thoughts! He asked if you were a fan of their group even though you’re obviously not!  He even kissed your hand!” 

She was almost rapping with how many words she said in seconds. Her index finger points at your hand as if you were not aware of that. You rolled your eyes at how excited she seemed. 

“Can you lower your voice? I’m sure the house staff are already resting at this hour.” you quipped, trying to bury the topic away.

But Astrid was consistent. She went on, “And Mingyu! Mingyu tried to get our contacts. He tried! He also made Jungkook stand next to you before taking pictures with us.”

To avoid waking up other people in the palace, you just pulled her into your room and closed the door shut. A smile was stamped on her lips. You exhaled heavily, your shoulder rising up and down.

“Astrid, why are you pointing out all of these? What do you want me to do about it?”

Out of all the people in the world, you knew Astrid the most. You are each other’s partner in crime even though you have a six-year gap. You can read through her easily. That’s why she ran to you first when she needed help or advice. And based on that suspicious look on her face, her gears are turning for some crazy idea.

She grinned, “Give him a shot! Reach out to him.”

You immediately raised an eyebrow, scoffing, “Are you crazy?! Give him a shot?”

Astrid nods and you continue.

“Astrid, you don’t have to play Cupid for me. You didn’t even ask me if I–”

“Oh, you like him! You like him! I know it. I never saw you so timid and flustered with someone like earlier!” she cuts you off abruptly. “And the chemistry— it was crazy. I promise you, I never felt so thirdwheeled in my life.”

You bit your lower lip to stop yourself from smiling at what she said.

“You still have your Instagram account, right?” she asked.

You acted clueless, “Of course, why would I delete it?”

Astrid slowly squinted her eyes at you, “No, not your official account. You know what I’ve been talking about. Your secret one. The one where you post your art.”

Tired, you nod your head defeatedly. You knew she won’t get off your back until you do something.

“Great!” she clapped her hands. “Now, slide into his DMs!”

You blinked, “Again, are you crazy?”

“Chill! It’s not like he’ll read it right away. He’s in the largest band in the whole world. He has millions of followers and you will be using your Finsta. It’s honestly a needle in a haystack situation.”

She’s right. It’s not like he will recognize you with your secret Instagram account.

“Then, why are we doing this if this is just impossible?” You asked with your hands on your hips.

“I don’t know.” Astrid paused. But then her eyes light up again,  “But let’s just try. Let’s see if destiny plays out.”

“Destiny, my foot.” you scoffed before reaching for your phone.

You sat on the other end of your bed. Your younger sister watched as you think, type, and think again. Less than two minutes later, you showed her your screen,

“There, I messaged him.”

Astrid’s eyes squinted while she scanned your chats to her favorite band’s singer, “Why do you still feel formal even when sliding into someone’s DM?” she teased. “Is this how you flirt?”

“Oh, shut up. Just go out of my room right now,” you told her like you were offended, threatening to throw your fluffy pillow in her direction.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Send it!” she cackled, standing up from the foot of your bed. She turned to you once again, “But in all seriousness though, thank you for coming with me tonight! I had so much fun. I appreciate it a lot.”

“Anything for my favorite sister.” you quipped.

She grinned and enveloped you in a tight hug. And after she leaves and closes your door, you find yourself staring at your phone screen. As if your breathing got heavier and louder.  Is he going to reply? Is he? If not, it’s fine. It’s not a big deal. We only met now. And it’s definitely not. It’s not like I’m hoping for it.

Shaking your head, you turned off your phone to stop your head from having more thoughts. You changed into your comfortable clothes and head to sleep, hoping not to have any special visitors in your dreams tonight.

“What did he say? What did he say?”

As soon as you get out of your bedroom door, your little sister greeted you with elated questions. You looked at her. She was still in her favorite pajamas while you are already ready for your agenda for the day.

“And good morning to you too, Astrid.” you smiled before walking past her and down the stairs. Of course, she followed behind you.

“Oh, my god. Did he reply? What did he say?”

She had her hands clasped on her chest when turned around to answer her. You can tell she had her hopes up high. 

“It was left on read, almost at the same time I sent it.”

The moment you said that, you see how the smile on her lips falls into a small o.

“Oh.”

“Guess, I’m just some needle in his haystack.” you joked, which made her pout. You laughed, shaking it off,  “I’m kidding. It’s fine.”

You entered the dining area of the palace. The staff who were serving your meals and preparing the table greeted you and your sisters. You greeted them back as you sat on your usual seats out of twenty other chairs in this spacious room.

“Rosie, can I ask for lemons and honey for my water?” you asked one of the servants.

“Of course, Your Royal Highness.”

“Thank you.”

You ignored the baffled look on Astrid’s face at the same time you tried to turn a blind eye to that tightness in your stomach when you open your phone this morning. You don’t want to show Astrid that you were expecting so you try to play it off.

Before you can take a bite from your toast, your sister finally said something. “Maybe he thought you were just a random account.”

As much as you appreciate her effort to make everything better, you just want to move on from this topic. You were already sure from the beginning anyways that it was impossible to have such a connection with a world-famous rockstar like Jungkook. It was great to meet and see him perform live anyway.

“Sure, sure, Astrid. Now, let’s just have a peaceful breakfast and go on our day.”

“Turn here!”

“On your left!”

“Princess, here!”

The continuous flashes of lights and clicking sounds of cameras goes along with the requests of the photographers around you. You tried to accommodate their requests, turning your head and subtly posing for their lenses. For a quick second, you glanced around the white carpet, scanning among the unfamiliar faces, and eased off your shoulder when you spotted Nathalie, your assistant private secretary, in the corner. She was just behind you, fixing the tail of your gown as you move.

This year’s Met Gala theme is something along the lines of reimagining fairytales. Anna Wintour exclusively invited five royalties from around the world to come to the event. You and Astrid were among those five invited royalties. But your sister had to withdraw just four days ago due to flu. After learning that news, you almost didn’t want to go. 

You posed for a few more shots before you see Nathalie gesturing for you to go up the carpeted stairs. Before you reached the top, your eyes spotted the designer of your gown, who walked earlier than you. 

“You look magnificent, Your Royal Highness.” she greeted you as you shake hands with her.

“Thank you so much, Maria. This gown is marvelous.” you praised her. “I appreciate the adjustments you made.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. Fran and I just knew you would be perfect in that gown. So we accepted the requests you had before.”

The Dior gown was originally quite revealing on the chest part. As a royal, you were often required (but not limited) to wear something modest. So when you saw this yellow gown in the choices your stylist, Fran, presented to you, you chose it with the request to put a fine cover-up for that certain part.

“Anyway, we’re going inside for the tour. Are you coming, Your Highness?” she asked.

You paused, looking at her then to Nathalie, who is now beside you, “I’ll catch up.”

Maria smiled and bid her goodbye. You smiled at her before turning to your assistant. Your smile fades as you asked her,

“Are you really not going inside?”

“Yeah, I talked to other celebrity assistants here. Apparently, we can only stay here outside as we were not invited to enter the venue. Only the red carpet.” she explained.

Your eyebrows scrunched together as you bit your lip. You just air out your frustration through a small sigh through your nose. Nat smiled, handing you your purse.

“Don’t worry, Ma’am. Your phone’s in it. Taking personal photos was not allowed. But give me a call if you want to go after the dinner event. I’ll have our ride ready and I’ll meet you here at the outside.” she assures you, holding your gloved hand. “But please enjoy the night, Your Highness.”

“Astrid should have been here,” you mumbled, sounding like a kid about to throw a fit.

Nat chuckled with you. She knew your worries. This is the first time someone from your kingdom was invited to Met Gala. You are not only representing yourself but also your country. The pressure feels like you’re in a beauty pageant. 

“You don’t have to stay for too long, okay? Just mingle a little, sip some cocktails, and enjoy their dinner there. Then, you can dial me.” she tried to assure you again.

“Okay, okay.” you sighed. “Thank you so much, Nat.”

You began to walk away as she raised her two thumbs up. An event staff, who you mistook for a model who was just standing in the background,  gave you directions on where to turn and go. He said it was only cocktail hour, and the dinner will be starting later. He encouraged you to look around the exhibition. He also helped you with the trail of your gown so you to move more comfortably.

“Thank you–” you paused, waiting for him to say his name.

“My name is Drew, Your Highness.”

You nod as you gave him a smile, “Thank you, Drew.”

“Oh, Your Royal Highness!”

You turned as you heard someone addressing you in the busy background. There, you see the woman of the hour, Anna walking up to you. She was smiling and sans her fashionable sunglasses, different from what you would usually see in pictures. 

“Anna, thank you so much for the invite." you beamed before shaking hands with her. “Astrid sends her apologies for not being able to make it here tonight.”

“It’s fine. We will always have it next year! Let’s talk about this dress, it’s gorgeous!” she exclaimed while making you turn around for her. “The color suits you magnificently. And the tiara, it’s perfect! Who made it?”

“Oh, it’s from Zafiro. It was made by a local jeweler that the King commissioned.” you proudly replied.

With the image of a certain Disney princess in your stylist’s mind, your father gifted you a gold tiara with bejeweled red roses in it. Jewelry and such are Zafiro’s top products. It’s been your father’s goal to make your country known by producing delicate and elegant pieces of jewelry.

“Maybe we can feature it for our editorials in the future.” She suggested and finally, you. “Anyway, have you gone around the exhibition?”

“Not yet. I just got in here minutes ago.”

“You should look around here, Princess. There are a lot of wonderful works here, you’ll love it. I heard you’re an artist yourself too– Do you want some drinks?” she offered when a server passed by, holding a tray of various drinks.

“Sure. Red wine is fine.” you smiled and they handed you one. You carefully took a sip before continuing your talk with Anna, “I just paint and draw in my free time.”

“That’s what being an artist is, Your Highness.” she chuckled.

You two began to walk to the main exhibit. You were silently grateful to have company. She was graceful in describing and talking about the displayed fashion pieces. But of course, she is Anna Wintour. Other guests were approaching her. She then had to go and mingle with one of her favorite models.

“Please, enjoy. I’ll see you at our table later.” she smiled.

“I will. Thank you.”

And almost immediately when she walked away, you felt alone. You looked around and everyone know everyone. They were laughing and chatting while holding their glasses. Holding tighter to your own glass of wine, you took a long slow deep breath.

Just look around.

The place is amazing and if your sister was here, you would probably enjoy it. Still, you decided to look around.

“Do you think we can smoke in the bathroom?”

Jungkook simply chuckled at Mingyu’s mumbled question as they looked around the displays. Tonight was their first Met Gala. Jungkook was invited through Dior while his bandmate was invited through Balmain. They arrived separately but found each other inside the MET.

“Oh, hey, Jungkook! Mingyu!”

Before Jungkook can even recognize the owner of the voice, Louise was already standing in front of them. She smiled before kissing each of their right cheeks.

“You didn’t tell me you were coming!” she exclaimed, talking to Jungkook only. “I watched your band’s show last week in Nashville with my best friends. You were so good! We tried to congratulate you backstage but your manager said you’re not accepting guests.”

This time, her hand lands on his chest, feeling the texture of his tux. Mingyu was hiding his teasing grin as he take a sip in his cocktail. Jungkook forced a smile before holding the model’s hand. He played it off to remove her hand away as he replied.

“Yeah, I… was kinda sick.”

Louise's eyebrows raised as she awwed, “Oh, how are you now?”

“I’m good. I got better,” he replied awkwardly.

He side-eyed his best friend for a quick second. It was a simple signal for help as Jungkook felt claustrophobic in this current scenario he is in. Louise is no stranger to him. They have met before and became acquaintances, way too far than she claims in interviews. She slides in his DM whenever she can, which in that case is every week. Jungkook always tries to be polite to her, replying to her relentless greetings. But he always finds a way to excuse himself from her invitations to hang out. He’s just not interested.

Mingyu, who is aware of this, butts in, “You know, I think the dinner will be served soon. We should go to our table.”

“Really? Maybe we should.” Jungkook agrees.

Louise seemed to frown for a second before another celebrity greeted her and got her lost in a conversation. Mingyu took the chance to pull Jungkook away, mixing in the crowd.

“The last time you were sick, we were in Zafiro.” Mingyu scoffed. 

Jungkook rolled his eyes and as if it was fated, his eyes landed on someone in a yellow gown. He cannot see properly due to distance and a bit of dim light. But he can recognize who it was.

“Is… that YN?” he guessed, making his bandmate look in the same direction.

"She’s here?!”

You were chatting with a famous celebrity couple. His heart skips when he sees you laugh. To say that you looked wonderful would be an understatement. You were easily noticeable with the color of your gown that suits you absolutely. He wondered if you had been here earlier or later than him. He didn’t know you were making an appearance. But he’s not that surprised that you’re here as you were known to be a fan of the arts too. 

“Let’s go talk to her–”

“Please go back to your seats, dinner will be served.” a staff interrupted them.

Jungkook sees you being guided as well by someone who you seemed to know. He assisted you with your dress and Jungkook quietly eyes you two until he saw you seating at the same table as Anna Wintour and other major guests. 

“Oh, it’s an honor to meet you!”

One of your favorite musicians is now seating next to you. You cannot stop yourself from smiling as she introduced herself. You didn’t mean to be so excited to shake her hands when she offered it.

“Oh, my. The honor’s all mine! I do know who you are! I am a fan of yours.” you exclaimed. “I know jazz isn’t really your main genre. But I really adore every jazz song you performed. You and Tony Bennett were fantastic together when I watched you perform during your tour years ago ”

“Thank you so much, Princess YN.” Lady Gaga replied.

She was so nice as you express your love for her jazz endeavors. You felt more comfortable, sitting next to her. She even made conversations with you and complimented you with your gown. Your heart was happy. You almost forgot she was a co-host of the event if she didn’t mention it.

“I heard this is your first time visiting New York, Your Highness.” 

Another known designer, who was at the same table as you, brought up. Suddenly, everyone’s eyes are on you and you felt smaller in your seat. This is strange.

“It is,” you replied with a small smile.

“How are you enjoying it so far?” an actor asked.

“Oh, I haven’t really been anywhere than my hotel room.” you joked. “I just arrived here this morning.”

Then, everyone starts recommending what you should do and where you should visit. They mentioned popular spots and restaurants. They also added some seemingly fun activities. But as much as you like that, you will not be staying for too long in the country for your duty in Zafiro. But instead of telling that, you just replied:

“I will, I will.”

Throughout the whole dinner, Jungkook tried to remain engaged in whatever conversation was happening in their own table circle. He laughed along to their jokes while also stealing glances in your direction. He sees you mingling and laughing at the beginning of the dinner service.

But as the night gets older and almost everybody began standing up from their chairs to dance along to the music being played in the background, you remained in your seat. Jungkook thought of going up to you to invite you to maybe dance, but he saw you kindly declining a couple of people who tried to do the same thing. You just watched them quietly.

“Hey, JK.” Mingyu, who has right beside him, snapped him out of his gaze at you.

Jungkook turned his head around.

His friend continued, “There’s an afterparty hosted by Stell McCartney at Zero Bond. Let’s go. I think everyone’s coming there. It’s gonna be fun.”

“Yeah, sure. We just can’t stay too late. We still have to perform tomorrow.” Jungkook reminds him and Mingyu nods.

And when Jungkook looks back at the same spot you were at, your chair is already empty. One of his eyebrows raised and his eyes traveled around the place. After a quick scan, he spotted your back going in the direction of the main exhibit.

You don’t know why. But sometimes, being a royal makes you feel a bit isolated. It’s not that no one wants to interact with you– actually, a lot of people did. It’s just that you know every move you do will reflect your country and family.  So, you try to be careful in this large, crowded event. So, here you are, in one of the most significant and fabulous events in the fashion world, sitting on the same chair you have been sitting in thirty-five minutes ago.

Three men had already tried to invite you to vibe along with the fun music but you only smiled and gently reject them. You don’t really dance except for formal ones. 

“She doesn’t really talk much, doesn’t she?”

It was a whispered question that you managed to hear from someone not too close to you. Even though they didn’t mention any names, you knew who they were talking about. You felt glances towards you. So you turned, offering a small smile to them. They seemed surprised as their eyes widened before they smiled back, slightly bowed, and walked away. 

Maybe I should just call Nat.

You sighed, agreeing to that idea. But before that, you get up and silently make your way to the main exhibit. To at least look around one last time before you leave this magnificent museum.

It was quieter in this area. A staff bowed at you when your eyes met as you entered the room.

“I apologize, can I still look around here?” you asked them.

“Of course, ma’am. We just don’t expect someone going in here while the party is still going on there,” she said and you simply smiled.

You felt calmer as you take in the intricate designs of the gowns displayed. Even the suits for men were perfect for the theme. Without many people around, you were given more chances to focus on the displays. You simply examine every design that was brought to your younger years. You used to sketch unlimited numbers of clothes and designs when you got your first crayons and sketchpad. It’s nothing compared to these gowns but it showed your colorful imagination back then. You imagine the four-year-old version of yourself jumping up and down while looking at every fashion gown and suit.

“Enjoying the night, Princess?”

“Oh!”

You almost jumped in your gown when you see a certain man when you turned around. Your hand was clutched on your chest as you blinked.

“Jungkook.” your feeble voice murmured, still in shock at his sudden appearance.

“It’s nice to see you again, Princess YN.”

And once again, he held your hand and planted a small kiss on the back of it. You wondered if he felt how cold it was or how you froze with–again– the unexpected action. Maybe he can hear how loud your heart beats. Or how many butterflies played around in your stomach the moment you felt his lips on your skin. 

Does he really love doing this to everyone he meets?

You don’t want to think you were being treated specially by him through this action, especially since you got no reply after reaching out to him three months earlier. 

“You know for someone who has been attending massive royal events ever since they were little, you seemed pretty flustered tonight.”

Jungkook tried to break the silence. He was scared by your reaction when he looked at you after kissing your hand. You were just staring at him. But after he said that, you gently took away your hand as you straightened up your posture.

“Well, that’s because Zafiro is different from other places like these,” you replied in a joking manner, but you were just being honest.

Then suddenly, silence found its way between you two. It’s not awkward. Nor suffocating. It’s strangely peaceful. There was still this distant sound of the party away but Jungkook found himself in a staring battle against you. And admittedly, he felt conscious when you ran your eyes from his down to his outfit. Then back on his eyes again.

“Is that real?” you asked.

“Hmm?”

“The piercing on your lip.”

“Oh.” Jungkook touched the silver ring on the corner of his lips. “It is. Wanna touch?”

He said it as a joke and he smiled when he saw you finally smile and giggle.

“Thank you for the offer. But I would have to decline that. It looks great on you and so is your suit.” you told him, making him shyly scratch the back of his neck.

“Thank you, I could say the same thing with you. You’re stunning as always.”

As always. That one was embarked in your mind even though you tried to not think much about it. You cleared your throat,

“What are you doing here anyway, Mister? The party is happening inside.”

He slipped his hands in his pants pockets, “I can ask the same thing of you, Your Highness.”

“I’m just taking one last tour around here before I call for my ride.” 

His eyebrows raised, “You’re leaving already?”

“Uh, yes,” you answered, ignoring the question in your head that said: was he sad I’m leaving already?

“You’re not going to any after-parties? I and Mingyu is actually going to one of those. Maybe I can contact you through–”

But you cut him off before you can fully think, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mr. Jeon, considering that you didn’t respond when I reached out to you after we met.”

Lines were automatically between his brows as he heard, “What?! I didn’t receive anything from your communication office in Zafiro.”

“You took that seriously?” you scoffed.

“Of course, I did. I thought you don’t really give your number to anyone outside your family.”

“Well, okay. But I messaged you after we met.” you went on.

“What?!” 

“I DM-ed you.”

“What?”

“With my private account. You immediately read it after I sent it. Wait, let me show you.”

Reaching in your purse, you got your phone. You don’t know why are you even doing this. You tapped on your screen quickly, slightly feeling determined. This seems risky. You went straight to your secret account and opened the one and only message you had there. You showed it to the man in front of you and watched his eyes get bigger as read it.

He was fast to explain himself, “Oh my god, I remembered that one! But I was sick and drowsy in the following days later, maybe that’s why I didn’t respond. I forgot. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

You processed everything in your head. Jungkook stood there, waiting for you to say something when an idea popped into his head.

“How about this?” he began. “Our band will be performing for a night here in New York tomorrow. It’s one of our last performances for our tour.  Are you still here by then?”

“I’ll be flying back to Zafiro tomorrow, before midnight,” you replied almost automatically. Like you were programmed to do so.

“Okay, the concert will be starting at eight. It will probably end by ten. Maybe we can still meet backstage. You know… to hang out.” he pursed his lips by the last sentence.

You squint your eyes at him, “Is this a sorry gift?”

“No, just like what you mentioned in your message,  it’s an invitation. But with a backstage pass.”

Nat eyed you through the moving car’s rearview mirror. You were biting off a smile as you looked down, typing on your phone.

“Any plans to tour around the city tomorrow, Your Highness?”

Your eyes remained glued to your screen as you replied, “Maybe. But free up my last six hours here. I’m going to a concert.”

kindly read my taglist rules before u comment about being added to the list. tysm!

taglist rules

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[thedaughersofferrix]

Birthdays

(work is not nsfw, but this blog is generally intended to be 18+)

synopsis: cal forgets about his birthday. you don't.

pairing: cal kestis x gn! reader

content warnings: pining, fluff, reader is a jedi

word count: 1.5k

a/n: something short and sweet to say happy jedi survivor release everybody. game looks amazing & i'm so happy to see cal again. might be a part 2, but i'm not sure atm

if cal kestis has a million fans, then i'm one of them. if cal kestis has one fan, then i'm them. if cal kestis has no fans, that means i'm dead.

-

Cal decided that fighting the Empire would be a priority in his life five years ago.

After he destroyed the holocron so the force-sensitive children in the galaxy could live in peace, that was his vow.

The Mantis crew got to work; blowing up Haxion Brood bases and wiping out legions of stormtroopers at a time. The fight thrilled him and every battle only left him in anticipation of the next.

It got to the point where he struggled to think of anything but the fight. Every thought was the next move, their wrongs and the perpetrators. The scars, the injuries and the losses continued and Cal never wavered.

He knew it was an obsession, but he just couldn’t help it. It was a need, etched into his soul and a part of his identity. His was Cal Kestis. The rebel Jedi, the most wanted man in the Empire. And the most dangerous.

Then he met you. 

Well, he met you again, because he’d met you years ago, back when the temple on Coruscant was a Jedi temple. When Master Tapal was alive and little Cal’s mind couldn’t even fathom an Empire taking everything from him.

You’d been his crèche-mate and friend, long before either of you had been padawans.

In between lessons, you would spar or lounge in the dining hall, where most of the other younglings liked to loiter. He formed a puppy-love crush on you that made his Master chuckle. It’s only natural, Cal. The feelings will fade with time. He has half-right, Cal supposes.

He remembers vividly the last time he saw you when he and Master Tapal were minutes away from loading onto a cruiser with their clone troops. Thinking back, he’s embarrassed by how hesitant he was to leave you.

Don’t get all sentimental about this, you told him wisely. We’ll see each other when we get back.

It was so hard to tell himself you were dead. 

Cal Kestis was the last living Jedi, fighting against the Empire that deemed his kind a traitor and punished them for crimes they never committed.

You had died, so had your master and so had everyone else he once knew. That had been difficult for him to accept.

Merrin and Cere understood the pain and that helped, at times. Though sometimes he didn’t want to understand. He wanted to see you, feel your arms embracing him and hear your voice in his ear. He didn’t talk about you to them though. He wanted something for himself, a little what-if to hold on to during the nights he felt particularly melancholic. 

Then came his trip to Segra Milo, to speak with Saw Gerrera about his next move.

By that point, the Partisans recognised him on sight and offered him only a nod of acknowledgement when he passed by. 

There you were, in all your glory. Older, a bit more rough around the edges (like himself) and even more attractive than you’d been about nine years ago.

When the two of you locked eyes and time bowed at your feet, to allow you both this moment of silent disbelief.

“Cal?” you had whispered. He whispered your name back and you smiled widely. 

You embraced him like he had been so desperate for you to do. And he heard your voice, the one that had previously only reached him in dreams.

“I thought you died,” you told him.

“I thought you died,” he said, in a single breath. Emotion threatened to explode from his chest until Saw Gerrera cleared his throat.

“I hate to break up this lover’s reunion,” he said. “But we do have a war to fight.”

“Tonight,” you whispered into his ear and he felt like a padawan with a crush again.

Sure enough, the two of you made a rendezvous under the moonlight. The cavernous, dangerous terrain of Segra Milo felt so inviting that night.

You explained to him that you and your master had been ambushed by your own troopers. You and your master were separated when they received the orders and by luck, you weren’t the one in a room full of clones. Quietly you found an escape pod and left for the nearest planet. You cut your padawan braid and disassembled your lightsaber on the same day. The kyber crystal that powered it hung from your neck, hidden behind layers of clothing.

“One day I watched them string up a man for dropping his drink on a trooper's foot,” you recalled to him. “They claimed he had done it as an act of civil disobedience and that it was anti-Imperial activity. I rebuilt my lightsaber and started looking for the Rebellion the same day.”

You were the same person he remembered, only better. Now you were stronger and smarter, without losing your humanity. 

The next day, you were separated again. You were travelling to Devaron to provide the Partisans there with support. He tried to go with you, but you sagely reminded him of the danger of two Jedi being found together.

You exchanged comm links the night prior and hugged tightly before you boarded your ship and he the Mantis. It reminded him of the one you gave him before what he thought had been your demise. He prayed he wouldn’t have to remember this hug the same way. 

“Until next time, Cal,” you said, hopeful and bright.

“Until then,” he replied, leaving you with a smile.

The next time he saw you, he thinks he might have hugged you tighter than he’d ever hugged anyone.

There had been a next time, he thought. There could be another one.

And there was. In fact, there had been many next times. He couldn’t count on his hands how many times he had gotten to see you. On the good days, you spoke and drank together. On the days, you fought and mourned together. But you were together and it was so much easier than it had been before.

Recently he’d probably gone the longest without seeing you, which made him realise the effect you had on him.

The Empire was still are the forefront of his mind, almost always. It consumed his actions and words. Slowly but surely, however, you had been weaselling your way into an important position in his life.

He didn’t care about the Empire when he was looking at you and he may as well have not met an Inquisitor when he’s hearing your laugh. You were there and he didn’t need to think about any of that.

Then, when the gap you filled was empty again with your departure, he was consumed by the need to fight once more.

He forewent sleep and food, only collapsing when his body refused to preserve and eating when the hunger pangs came. Fight, fight, fight, was all he could think about. It never really occurred to him to celebrate his victories or even do simple things, like check the date. 

But you returned to him again and reminded him of what he was missing.

“A win like this is worth sitting down for,” you insisted, sitting beside him at the fire. “Besides, today is special.” His brow furrowed. 

“What’s today?” he asked you, which made you laugh, loud and beautiful.

“You can’t be serious, Cal.”

“I am! What’s today?”

“Cal,” you sighed. “It’s your birthday.”

His mind went blank as the gears started to turn. “Oh,” was what he came up with. You laughed at him again.

“Did you really forget?” you asked him. 

“I haven’t celebrated it in years,” he admitted and you frowned, making him wish he lied. He hated it when you frowned, though you did make a cute face when you were angry.

“Well we’ll have to make up for that, won’t we?” you announced, standing from your seat and downing your drink. “Stay here for a second.” He nodded and you slipped away.

You returned not long after, with something behind your back.

“Close your eyes,” you instructed. He looked at you curiously. “Just do it.” His eyes fell shut. He heard you shuffling and muttering something to BD-1. “Put out your hands.” He open one palm and pushed it toward you. “Both of them.” He opened the other. He felt a weight in his left hand, then in his right.

“Open.” 

Cal was greeted by a cupcake in his left hand and a multitool in his left.

“I tried to find a cake, but apparently Devaronians aren’t very fond of them,” you explained. “And this,” you pointed to the multitool. “I bought this for you back on Corellia, but you were gone before I could give it to you. It’s got everything you need to keep Beedee in working order.” BD-1 chirped happily at that.

Cal was starstruck. He hadn’t experienced softness like this since before the Clone Wars. Suddenly his chest felt fuzzy and his face was hot. 

“Thank you,” he managed. “No problem,” you answered breezily.

He shared some of the cupcake with you, but you insisted he had to eat at least seventy per cent of it. The multitool found a place on his belt, though with the amount of combat he saw, he’d be using it soon.

You sat beside him at the fire on his birthday and Cal Kestis felt hope again in a way like he’d never felt before. Hope for not just the present, but the future.