#of my worst fears is losing my hair. or just that it’s weak and idk. that’s happening

[bonnieisaway]

man idk if this was more blatant and I've just been slow as hell to analyzing Redtooth but giving up the blood demon really is his worst nightmare isn't it. I mean he took it in cause he was weak, he made the deal he did because he wanted power, and then ironically enough Huilian sealed that power as best she could to limit it.

But he was required to forsake the Heaven Lily kung fu and everything else to take the blood demon, and he was already seen as fairly weak when he was learning it. If he gets rid of it he really has nothing left, and he's weaker than he ever has been before. I mean he only really found Huilian again for the first time so he could remove the seal she put because he wanted more power and wasn't strong enough. I mean he claimed Seven could've never hurt him without the seal, pretty much his only driving motives during the series have been to murder people for various reasons and get the seal removed. And the seal was to protect him. How insult that has to be from his perspective, calling him weak enough to not handle himself.

And he really does idolize the leader a lot it seems. Sorry btw this entire post is gonna be an unholy ramble about his general character (again). He has such an allegiance to the leader, who I imagine has to be one of the definitions of power in Xuanwu. Three active and alive Shadow Killers reacted to Green Phoenix's movements, but Shimen seems to only be there because Manjusaka is, and Manjusaka seems to only be there because she can one, fuck with Thirteen, and two, for just the fuck of it. Nobody really comments about why or anything, except Redtooth: who wants Green Phoenix's head on a fucking stick. I mean, he constantly says "-that traitor," and Green Phoenix most often manipulates him bringing up the rules the leader has in place. And it's not just about the fact he almost killed Redtooth, because aside from the fact he constantly says "that traitor" and not "that son of a bitch who tried to fucking murder me and frame it on a dude who fucking cuts hair for fun", he critizes White Fox for not also thinking about Green Phoenix. The Shadow Killers hardly seem to give an inch of a fuck about each other, so why would that matter to White Fox? I mean White Fox hardly gave a lick of a fuck the man was still alive. Like, White Fox hadn't known yet about what happened, sure, but these fuckheads hardly get along so goddamn much that expecting White Fox to go White Knight for the leader with no reward involved feels out of left field, because they only went for Seven again for personal vendettas or the reward. Shimen and Manjusaka had orders to go for Green Phoenix, and Redtooth had spite that ran so deep not about the kill but the inherent betrayal that he almost expected White Fox to react too. Fuckin, what does it matter? He's the strongest motherfucker around and no one threw a hissy fit when we all wanted Seven's head on a fucking spit. Redtooth is so insanely loyal to the leader. Which might've also caused his hatred for Seven, again, imagine losing the entire life you wanted and sacrificing everything to become the most feared motherfucker, pulling up to become a shadow killer, and then bro walks in with a fifteen year old who's never killed anyone before, bro would have lost his damn mind, but just. I kinda lost my point I feel like I've repeated it nine times but Redtooth sure is a leader dickrider and I wanna know why because aint nobody else in the league gives THAT much of a fuck

[andreycoded]

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[selfobsessed-godcomplexed]

Requested by: @akira-rattan

-> Snynopsis: Fyodor finds out about your ability and asks you to use it on him, thoughtless of what'll happen.

-> Other notes: Ooc Fyodor??

Request type: idk what you were wanting but imma just make it a drabble/oneshot if that's okay! ^^

Warnings: Death, angst

Fyodor believes abilities are sin, even his own. As much as he wishes to rid the world of such sin, he can't help but pique interest in your ability. A single touch and you could make anyone live their worst fears. Oh how many people he could torture with your ability (with your consent of course).

"Myshka." He calls your name. You walk over to his desk. "Yes, Fedya?". He pauses, looking at your gloved hands. He takes them in his own. "Take off your gloves, darling." You look at him confused, pulling your hands away harshly.

"T-take them off? Why?! You know my ability works through touch..." You pout, you don't have the heart to use it on him. Sure, it's nothing deadly, but you couldn't force the love of your life to live his biggest fear, whatever it was. Fyodor seemed like a fearless man, but you didn't want to take that risk.

"I want to see how it works, Myshka." He takes your hands in his again. Slowly pulling off that glove. "It'll be fine dear, I promise. What's the worst that could happen?" He smiles at you slyly, take your bare hand in his.

Nothing happens.

"Hm." His hold on your hands linger a while longer as he waits for it's effects; they never come. You yank your hand away, placing the glove back on your hand.

The day goes about normally, nothing changed. No nightmares, no fears. Does your ability not work on him? Was he truly fearless? He didn't understand, but he waited, for nothing to arrive as he had expected.

You and Fyodor had another mission.

You hadn't been by his side, as he finishes up his mission he looks around for you. You're no where to be found. "Myshka? Darling?"

He hears a faint, weak cough.

He follows the sound, curious. His eyes widen as he finds your body on the ground, shaking and bleeding. He runs to you, taking your cold, weak body in his arms. He pushes your hair to the side. Blood pouring from the gash in your chest/stomach as you're body turns pale. "Myshka...?" His voice shook, almost like he was on the verge of tears.

"Fedya...". You smile weakly at him, placing a bloody hand on his cheek. Your body falling limp in his arms. He can't do anything but stare at your lifeless body. How could this happen, how could they take his darling away.

Fyodor was a fearless man, but this truly was his worst nightmare. He rests his head against yours, tears threaten to fall down his emotionless face.

"Fedya." He could still hear your voice, almost like you were genuinely there.

"Fedya!"

He snaps back to reality as he feels you pulls your hands away. It wasn't real. You guys haven't even left his office. He stares at you blankly. "Fedya?" You wave your hand in front of his face. Shocked as he takes you in his arm, his grip on you tightly. What had he seen? You wondered. What could possibly scare him?

"Myshka..." He pulls back, pulling you into a kiss. The thought of losing his darling makes his blood run cold, but his ego could never let him admit that to you. Maybe you'll never know what he say, but whatever it was, he had treated every day with you like it'd be his last.

[whenwordsmakesense]

Another first sentence + 5 sentence fic, "I hate it when you're being a martyr!!?"

Lol, next time just send me a sentence. I don't think I'll ever be doing "only" +5 sentences xD

Okay, okay, so this isn't from my *THE* time-travel fic, but the thing is... I just love the idea of a bamf!sterek that go back in time and don't tell anyone about the truth and then comes this CONFRONTATION and everyone else is confused/in awe.

Quick rundown of dynamics, just because: Alpha Talia Hale. Human/Alpha Mate Nathaniel Hale. Betas Peter Hale, Laura Hale, Cora Hale, Claudia Stilinski. Human Noah John Stilinski. Alpha Derek Hale (but he presents as a beta to everyone except Stiles). Human Stiles Stilinski (but he is actually a spark, the strongest there is).

Idk their ages, but you can imagine Stiles as a 15/16 year old teen (he's mentally older, of course, think like... hmm... let's say he came back in time at age 21. So he should be 30, mentally). That makes Derek 21/22 (mentally 36).

Okay, enough rambling, now let's get down to the fic!! I'll be writing this from Laura's POV. Also, tell me if I should post this one on AO3? Now it's on AO3!

The Moon's Come Out

"I hate it when you're being a martyr."

Stiles' voice is a soft whisper underneath the chaos of blood and death, but it's not quite enough to drown under. It's a resigned exhale of breath, a truth so absolute that it's no longer just a truth. It's a fact.

Laura Hale wonders when her baby brother aligned himself to such a fact. She wonders lots of things about her baby brother.

She remembers the day when it all changed. When Derek changed. It was subtle, but it was prominent.

She remembers when she'd helped Derek with his flirting skills. Paige, she remembers; the same Paige who had once held Derek's eyes had been rendered into nothing that day. No, not nothing—something else. Something deeper. Something like grief.

But why would Derek grieve someone living? It's a mystery, but more than that it's an act shared between Derek and Stiles—like they're barely tethered to the world, and every moment with anyone but each other is like a gift and a curse, all in one.

But this isn't the time to think about it, how it feels like she's lost Derek once.

It's time to save him.

"Mom," her voice is a barely there sound, but her mom, her Alpha, she's here.

And she's silently crying.

"Mom, we need to- need to help him,"

Her mom is nodding her head, and they're moving between the bloody bodies—hunters, who'd come to kill them, only to die by Stiles'... everything.

Laura feels she can save him.

"Stop." Stiles' voice is still a whisper, but it's an order. A command.

Her mom—Alpha Talia Hale—stops in her tracks, and Laura, with her injured leg has to stop with her.

Dad is shouting at Cora to stay back, and John is trying to free Claudia and Peter from their confines, and Laura can hear all that. But right now, her world boils to where Derek is. On the ground, only a few feet away but so, so far away, spitting blood out of his mouth as his healing tries to kick in where the bullets are lodged on his body.

Bullets. Because Derek had jumped in front of the hunters when they started shooting at Peter and Claudia. And they're all wolfsbane laced.

Laura opens her mouth to protest, to shout, but Stiles doesn't let her.

He's always stopped her from talking.

She hates Stiles.

He's taken Derek away from her. From the pack.

"I can deal with this, you don't have to worry,"

"You can't order me around." Laura's eyes flash at her Alpha's tone, and she bares her neck.

Stiles' jaw sets with a determined look. "Oh, yeah? You really think so, Talia?" Laura watches him as he speaks, words fast paced and laced with worry and fear and anger. It's an ensemble of emotions, but even Laura has to admit that there's always been something special about this kid. His hands work as he talks.

"I mean, maybe you do. You Hales always think you know the best, don't you? It's like you think nobody else has any brains but you. Well, except Peter. That fucker is just too clever for his own good and he knows it. But he at least knows not to underestimate others. That's more than I can say for you, Talia. Or Laura. You two are so similar, you know?"

Laura does. She does know. And she is proud of that fact. But Stiles says it like a curse, like being so similar to her own mother—her Alpha—is nothing short of the worst thing.

Laura wonders why. She wonders a lot when it comes to Stiles.

"Stiles," everyone stops at that voice, as if freezing in place would freeze time itself.

Laura has been tortured, she's seen more blood than she needs to today, and she'd cried herself hoarse when they'd started to torture her previously unconscious mom. And then she'd wanted to die when the hunters turned their guns toward Cora, Claudia and Peter. So much so that she'd barely noticed Derek somehow escaping from his own personal confinement, the shackles he was in, all of it covered in wolfsbane. Neither had she witnessed Stiles breaking the literal cage the humans of their pack had been put in. But the thing that truly, truly scares her isn't any of those things. No.

It's losing Derek. Her baby brother (he used to hate it when she called him that, but when he changed, that hate turned into a grieving sort of fondness, like this was something he'd missed), who feels more like an adult than she is, her Derek. She can't lose him. She just can't.

It would break her. It would break the pack. Derek has always been the heart of it, the sweet little kid who is adored by his sisters and trusted by his parents; the man who even Peter respects, and Claudia cherishes like her own son, and John who calls him a good man.

It's no surprise they all just stop when Derek speaks for the first time since he was shot. And oh, was it only minutes ago? It feels like hours.

"Finally coherent, huh?" Stiles asks Derek, like Derek speaking right now is no big deal. Like it's that easy to try and repel the poison of wolfsbane.

"Shut up," Derek coughs out, voice throaty and weak.

"Derek," someone calls out. It's choked with tears, and it's a female, and it's her voice. "Derek! Please don't die,"

Derek tries to move his head, but falls back on the ground with a thump. Stiles swats at him, and Laura only now notices that Stiles' hands are covered in blood, one anchored on Derek's chest while the other digs around one of the holes. There's a host of bullets lying on the other side; Stiles throws another bullet there.

Perhaps everyone notices the same thing just then, because everyone makes a noise, a wail of pain and disgust and fear, all of it mixed in one sound.

Her mom has lost all her fight in herself, and Laura deflates, too. Stiles seems to know what he's doing.

And he doesn't seem to care what he sounds like.

"No, shut up? Me? Shut up? I swear to the fucking moon, you asshole, if you die on me I'll follow you. I'll fucking follow you there, because nothing is left for me here, okay, and I know you know that. You know this. How could you even do this to me? I told you to wait for my signal! I never would have let them get hurt, Derek! No, no, shut up! You keep your words to yourself and you listen, you goddamn martyr, you listen.

You made me a promise. When we came back, you promised me we'd be together. Always. We'll fix things, then we'll live, and then we'll die. Together. But you-you broke that promise, Der. You did tha-that,"

Laura is missing something. They all are.

Stiles' voice is a steady stream, a flow broken only by the cracks in his voice and the anger in it. And then it's a whisper, the height of his voice toppled down by his sorrow.

Derek smiles softly, as if Stiles worrying himself to death about him is not a new thing. Like Derek almost dies on a constant basis, and this is a routine they have—Stiles worries, Stiles shouts, and then Derek smiles because he's still here. He isn't gone yet.

Laura watches as Derek puts his weight on his elbows, brings his face close to Stiles'. Nobody interrupts them, still frozen in time, still processing what they just went through. Stiles shuts his eyes.

"I am here. I am here, Stiles," Derek tells Stiles, and Stiles takes a shaky breath, and it hangs there, that breath—the worry, the anger, the pain, everything—between them, before Derek lunges forward and presses his lips against Stiles'.

There are a few sharp breaths, and a hysterical giggle from Claudia. "I told you," she says, and Laura thinks she's saying it to John.

Laura isn't exactly surprised. She's caught them kissing multiple times, and she's always wanted to tattle on them. And she would have, because this is wrong—Stiles is a teenager and Derek is an adult—but Stiles is clever and somehow always a few steps ahead of her. He knows all of her secrets, and she'd rather he didn't but that's not the life she has. No, the life she has is—

—clearer in hindsight. She thinks back on those kisses, shared in the early mornings or late nights, between whispered words that Laura couldn't make out and with a desperation that went beyond the desperation of wanting a good time.

And she looks now, looks at the way Stiles' breaths are shaky and labored, but his hands are steady, even as he brings flames appear out of nowhere and presses it against Derek's bullet wounds. She looks at the way Derek has his forehead pressed against Stiles', and how he moves his head to Stiles' neck at the precise moments that the fire touches his skin. Like he's done this before, knows how to keep his pain between him and Stiles. She looks at the way Stiles' other hand, still bloody, tangles in Derek's hair, comforts him, like he's the only comfort Derek needs in this world.

She looks at the way Derek's body heals, like even his body is used to being hurt like this.

"It all makes sense," Peter's voice brings her out of her thoughts, and she turns to look at him. He's vibrating with excitement. "The way they talk—the way they behave—it all makes sense!"

Laura doesn't want to know. She doesn't want to know how this much blood and death and crying and confusion could ever make sense.

But if knowing is the answer to ease the burden on Stiles' and Derek's shoulders, she'll take it. She will know.

[moonlit-imagines]

Headcanons for being Patrick Hocksetter’s Older Sister and being in the Bower’s Gang

Bower’s Gang x Hocksetter!reader

warnings: i mean, it’s the bower’s gang so like, blood and guns and knives and shit, alcohol too

a/n: i don’t typically write for them but i wanted to give it a shot! reminder to everyone to check out this post before requesting! i actually changed it to older sister though, hope you dont mind!

prompt: @jinxed1398: “Hey, i was wondering if you write for the bowers gang(it)? If so can you make a headcanon where you are Patrick's older twin sister who is in the gang? If not then you could totally just ignore me”

you were friends with henry first, way back in second grade

you introduced patrick to him and after that, you, pat, henry, vic, and “belch” were good friends

the boys grew up a bit violent, you were one of the only sensible people on board

“patrick, give me the lighter”

“no, you’re not the boss of me”

“if you don’t give it to me, i’ll take it”

*gives you lighter*

they feared you just as much as they feared henry, which led to some rivalry down the road

and a lot of arguments

“y/n, back off or i’ll gut you!”

“i’d like to see you try, henry! sure your daddy won’t drag you away?”

patrick being scared you’re gonna snitch to your mom when he does something stupid

“are you kidding me, pat? i’d be in just as much trouble as you since im ‘the older one’”

getting the gang to call him “patty cakes”

he HATES it but he wont do anything about it

belch....burping in your face

and you smacking him

because he burped......in your face

“do it again, i dare ya”

tell me that patrick hasnt stolen your hairspray. that’s right, you cant.

“patrick, if i look under your goddamn bed and find my missing cans of hairspray its OVER FOR YOU”

“wait, don’t go in my room!”

going to henry’s house to hang out

his dad thinks youre...okay

not great, but not the worst

but he didn’t suspect a THING when you were stealing beers and whiskey from him

shaking your head when they terrorized those kids, but not really stepping in

“dont you guys have better things to do than bully a bunch of kids?”

“what, like braid each other’s hair? is that what you have in mind?”

patrick RARELY every stood up for you unless henry was trying to do something that crossed lines

“henry, cut it out”

“patrick, i can handle myself”

the rough week after school ended when patrick went missing

the boys were a little nicer, but not really

“he’ll turn up, y/n. he’s probably just trying to get away from you”

“im gonna bash your skull in, bowers”

vic backing you up and IMMEDIATELY regretting it once bowers snaps on him

but he thought he’d be less likely to be stabbed if he was on your side which didn’t work out too well in the long run

bowers sneaking off with the boys to terrorize kids again

“you’ve gotta be fuckin kidding me, you guys act like children”

“we don’t answer to you, y/n”

“well, maybe if you did, we’d know where patrick was”

fist fight with henry

the boys had to pull you off of each other

henry stealing his dad’s gun

and his dad getting a bit pissed about it

but he let you do the honors and take the shot that proved that henry was weak

“you would’ve froze up too if you had a bullet shot at you!”

“well, i wouldn’t have made the mistake that led to getting shot in the first place, dumbass”

your mom made you stay home the day that vic and belch got killed because she was worried about losing another kid

and thank god for mother’s intuition because you’d have been murdered if you’d gone with bowers

you did think about that day often, though. maybe you could’ve stopped bowers and still had your friends

idk if you’d care for this headcanon but i feel like y/n would get some sort of redemption after she lost all her friends and became an outcast. maybe the losers club would take her in? just a thought. the end.

taglist: @locke-writes // @sweetheartliz07 //

[yoondoze]

coin toss | jjk

you and jeongguk go way back, even before you were the menacing duo many knew you to be, even before he brought you into the mafia and left you there to join the city’s detective agency. a call for cooperation comes out of a common enemy, requiring the two of you to reconcile for one last mission.

pairing: jeon jeongguk x reader

word count: 25.4k

genre: soft and hard angst, mafia/detective agency au, complicated exes (?)

warnings: language, violence, blood, character death, sexual implications, little bit of gore, jimin has a weird hatred of yoongi idk don’t take it seriously, mentions of torture, grief, too many italics

a/n: long time no see everyone, hope you’re doing well! this story was inspired by my favorite anime, bungou stray dogs (it’s got a soukoku type beat & you’ll recognize some structures). it’s my first back in a while, and it’s also the longest piece i’ve written, so i hope you all enjoy it! <3

To be called to the Boss’s office for a quick word is almost always a sealed exit ticket from this world. One, because regular meetings of necessity are always held in the boardroom and discussed amongst the executives. Two, one on one meetings mean no witnesses. You’ve been there once before and barely made it out alive. To make it out a second time? The chances are practically nonexistent. 

The room feels less like an office and more like an 18th-century study, a dark academia dream with the coffee-toned furniture and ceiling-high shelves stacked with books. The only sign of modernity is the pristine silver laptop sitting perfectly on his desk. The guards to the side of the room look straight ahead, no indication of how this will end for you.

“My dear, good to see you,” The Boss purrs, eyelids falling into tender crescents as you place yourself gently on the cushion of his ornate bergère. Typically there are two of a kind that sit across from his dark oak bureau, but at this moment one has been removed from the space so yours could be positioned parallel to his own chair. 

The Boss has an intimidating air about him. From the gentle yet feline-like movements that look like they mask something sinister, to his signature verbosity that’s almost professorial, he’s the perfect paradigm of a godfather.

“And you, Boss. It’s been a while.” You maintain a cool tone, not breaking his eye contact. He was a dog that could smell fear and would drag it out of you if he thought it could sate his twisted desire for control.

He sighs as his cheshire smile fades. “I don’t like beating around the bush, as I’m sure you know. You... must have heard the rumors of a third party organization stepping foot in this city, yes?”

The whispers started only days ago, and the most you heard was only an assumption from another underling at the bar. Considering how much people loved to gossip and how boring it got around here, you were just going to brush it off. However, if it was enough to bring you here, it had to be something worth your attention.

“Yes, it’s been floating around.” You clear your throat. “Is it something to be worried about?”

He puts his elbows on the table and clasps his hands together, sucking a breath through his teeth. “This has happened before, when a new group tries to disrupt our hold on the functioning of our territory, and we have always squashed them from the picture quietly. But unfortunately, those who call themselves the Syndicate play dirty.”

It seems as if things were not heading in the track you imagined when being escorted on the long walk here. But then he orders the guards at the sides of the room out, and your heart jumps to your throat.

As the large doors close behind them, he resumes talking.

“Last week, twenty-two of our men were killed and one taken during a weapons exchange with a western group...who we thought were a western group. All they left behind was a handful of playing cards.” His wrist flicks up suddenly, a black card tucked between his two fingers. The shine on the back glints under the dim lamplight. He stares in disdain.

The nervous habit of jumbling your fingers started up in your lap, asking, “Who was it?”

“Underlings of the Syndicate,” he brushes past, holding up a single finger before continuing, “The key is that the missing one was a trusted man in our central intelligence unit. He was carrying knowledge of our expansion plans within the next year. When backup came, he was gone. Intelligence then reported that the Syndicate was also responsible for the crisis of our allies in the Midwest, Fox Lodge, two years ago. And a year before, the Federacy in Europe. They crumbled in a matter of weeks.”

The man sweeps his dark hair from his forehead, an undetectable motive flaring in his eyes, the one person you could never read. 

“Simply,” he shrugs, “this fish is too big to fry on our own.”

You couldn’t help but swallow. “And that means…?”

“I’ve spoken to the director of the Detective Agency. A temporary ceasefire has been agreed upon... Similar interests, a common enemy, you see.”

Existed an extensive list of things that did not have the capacity to surprise you anymore in this life. But a ceasefire? That was impossible; The Detective Agency and the Mafia had always been at odds like a fated grudge of the gods above. The fighting had been continuous for all your time spent in the organization.

“I know,” he nods, “It is a miraculous thought. But they have the resources and we have the manpower. While it would be great to let Syndicate take them out for us, we would ultimately be next on their list. Cooperation is our best bet.”

And the thought of what this conversation may be coming to strikes you like lightning on waiting sand. “I thought you didn’t approve of betting, Boss.”

“Hmm… I see you’ve caught on,” he says pensively, a smile rising on his face as fast as it disappears. “This gamble is one I have much faith in. It used to be our ace in the hole, you remember?”

Weakly, you mumble, “I do.”

“You must realize that our situation is grave. I would not suggest it if there was another way. In the kindest manner I can put it, dear, your willing partnership is required.”

And there’s the kicker, the whole reason why. A sick feeling seethes in the pit of your stomach, makes you want to gag or throw up or pass out. You have a choice, of course, but not a real choice. To clarify, it was agree, or be squashed out quietly, as Boss liked to say. On the off chance you would choose death over discomfort, he had to call you to his office for safe measure. 

“I understand, Boss,” is all you could manage. 

“I’m glad,” he smiles. “Though we have all turned a bit sour since Jeon’s departure, I’m sure you are capable of uniting for the sake of our city. I wouldn’t mind if you killed him after the mission is complete, either, but I will leave that up to your judgment.”

The name is awkward coming off his tongue, even with the chuckle he throws in to lighten the mood, implying an air of distance and estrangement. 

Jeon. That bastard. The thought of working with him… incredible. It was silly of you to think that you’d never see him again while fighting for control of the same city, but there you were, awestruck and in embarrassing shock. “Thank you, Boss. I’ll do what is needed.”

“Get some rest. I’ll be calling a meeting tomorrow with the other executives and we will talk about the plan. You are excused.”

With an obedient nod, you are lifting yourself from the chair and heading toward the door, the sound of your heels muted on his burgundy carpet.

“Oh, and dear?”

You pause, turning your head over your shoulder and clearing your throat. “Yes?”

Out of the corner of your eye, you watch as he traces his thumb along the blade of his knife, glinting in the dim glow of the moonlit window. “You know I trust you.”

“Yes, sir.”

Without a falter in his expression, he makes a swift movement with his wrist. Before you can blink, the blade flies past your ear and lodges itself in the door in front of you. “Don’t make me regret it.”

A threat not to be taken lightly.

“Of course.”

As you tread down the hallway on your way out, you can't help but chastise yourself. How dumb could you be? Of course he would try to intimidate you like that. Any other day, you could have sensed it and caught it before it even parted with his palm. That was how it was supposed to be, as the renowned Scorpion, right? Was the thought of Jeon and having to see him again so debilitating that you let your guard flounder like that? Pathetic.

Hopefully he’d only take it as a slip-up. Take it as a respectful allowance and understanding as opposed to weakness. If you were losing your skills, your value was lost, as was your privilege to live.

The ride back to your apartment is the worst you had in years. Even the radio station you listen to regularly for mind-numbing background noise has you wanting to burst. The traffic lights make you want to scream, the sound of the air pushing past the open window has you bubbling with fury, the blinking advertisements circulating building perimeters driving your mind blank. Somewhere in a moment of clarity, you know it all starts with fear. 

Truth was, you and Jeon were partners once. In crime, the trump card the Mafia put down to play dirty, no way to get around you. In tandem, a menacing duo, the bold and the lethal, the Lion and the Scorpion. In the sheets, from time to time, after a few too many drinks or a few too many flirty looks on a sober night. Two sides of the same coin. But that was then, in a different time and a different world, and in a way that you hated how your mind had retained him so perfectly in his bitter absence.

☆☆☆

To be honest, the atmosphere of the first meeting really couldn’t have been any better than expected. It’s the furthest thing from civil, of course, but it can be considered a blessing that everyone participating was still breathing.

For protective purposes, office space had been rented out for a few hours for the intents of the meeting. There were only eight of you gathered in the small space; From the Mafia, the four top executives and from the Agency, the VP and three head advisors. One of them, none other than Jeon himself. The president and the boss stayed out for this meeting in an attempt to lower the tension, which was certainly an effort taken. Personal affairs mixing in would have resulted in at least one dead body within the first thirty seconds.

While there is some sort of discussion occurring around you, you are only focusing on how pathetic you feel in that you’re actively avoiding Jeon, as well as the discomfort in the pit of your stomach that appeared as soon as he did. You always thought that you’d be strong and bold the next time you met, but now that the time has come, you’ve let yourself down. Seeing him face to face after all this time is a reminder of everything you’ve been pushing to the back of your mind for years.

Meanwhile, Jeongguk isn’t sure what the playing field looks like just yet. He’s resting his head on his fist, sneaking a glance at you when he can and wishing you’d speak up so he’d have a good reason to look at you for longer than a blink, but you’re awfully quiet. He hates to think it might be because of him.

“We received an anonymous tip this morning about an underground base in the Coral District. Supposedly, there are multiple entrances from bars in the surrounding area, creating a tunnel system.” Namjoon, the VP, pushes his glasses up and closes the manila folder in his hands he had been referencing. “As our only lead, I think it is in our best interest to take a look.”

Namjoon is by far the most uptight man you had ever met. A little pretentious, of course, but in a way that almost made him cute. His calculative nature made him a good asset, but you couldn’t imagine how much of a bore he must have been in his daily life. You could bet without a doubt that he had been the most opposed to collaboration - if not by the countless moments he had spent sighing in your past encounters, then surely by how his condescending tone went into overdrive the second he sat down.

Yoongi, one of your fellow executives, states plainly, “That means nothing.” He seems more focused in the dirt tucked beneath his fingernails than the meeting at hand.

“It’s anonymous. For all we know they’re trying to trick us,” adds Yeji, personality plagued with suspicion. She doesn’t want to be here as much as you do, but she’s trying. Yeji is scrutinizing and not impressed by the image of naivety that stems from such a simple deduction, and that’s on top of her personal problem with the righteous narrative of the detective agency. You don’t blame her.

“And for all we know, it could be useful. The people of this city are our eyes and ears.” Jimin shoots back, stare unwavering. “It’s not like we should just ignore it. Do you have anything better?”

The strain in the air is almost unbearable, pulling up the hairs on your arms with all the tense energy circulating. It’s as if lightning was about to strike any second. No one says another word, only dirty looks being exchanged between headstrong personalities until a defiant knock comes to the door, startling the aggression into temporary submission. Taehyung raises an eyebrow at you, the only movement he had made this entire time. You only shrug at him.

“Who is it?” Namjoon asks, standing from the table.

“Just clean up. I’m here to take out the trash.” Silence engulfs the space like a dense fog hanging in the air, until the man behind the door calls again, “It’ll only be a second.”

Hesitantly, Namjoon makes the call for him to come in. All eyes flick over to the man, who cautiously enters the room with a nervous laugh. He is clueless to what he’s walking into. He waves a hand of greeting before fetching the bin from the corner of the room, taking it to the main dump on wheels in the hallway. After a few shuffles and plunks, he comes back in to put it in its place.

Namjoon adjusts his tie and clears his throat as he sits down again, resuming the meeting.

“I don’t care what we do as long as we can be done with this,” Taehyung mumbles, resting his head on his palm with half-mast eyes. He’s practically falling asleep, like a cat resting in the sunbeams pouring through a window.

Wendy, another advisor, rolls her eyes at him, responding with a scoff, “Of course you don’t care…”

“Oh, like you’re such a saint.”

The boardroom erupts into yet another argument, different groups spitting words at their own personal targets. All you can do is sit and listen, your hope for this mission decreasing exponentially as the seconds tick by. At least if it didn’t work out, you won’t have to see Jeon again after this.

“Creep,” mutters Yeji under her breath from the chair next to you. She had been removing herself from the argument like you save for a few special dramatic sighs and trivial insults that you didn’t condone, but didn’t exactly scold her for either. After all, she is the closest thing you have to a best friend.

“Huh?” you inquire wisely. “Who?”

She tilts her head to the hallway. Your head whips around to see the janitor through the walls of windows walking away with a peculiar bounce in his step, one he most certainly did not arrive with.

“What’s his problem?” you whisper, leaning in.

“I don’t know, but he was laughing to himself while they were arguing. He’s probably just another weirdo,” she snubs with a sigh. “You know how people are in this city.”

Though you had a slight feeling of discomfort from the commencement of the meeting, since stepping foot in the lobby of the building even, you simply brushed it off as paranoia, or nervousness from who you were about to see. But it just seems too strange to ignore anymore. Wasn’t the building supposed to be completely empty today, aside from those in the conference taking place right now? Your instincts scream at you through a closed mouth, wariness freezing your limbs, but why?

You hold your hand up discreetly as you stare at the simply dark grey bin across the room. It’s the only thing that seemed out of place - besides the meeting table and chairs, the room is completely empty. The pristine board room, black and grey and sparkling clean. And then, the cheap plastic bin.

The argument settles when Yeji whistles, getting their attention. 

“What’s wrong?” Wendy asks obliviously before you shush her with a raise of your pointer. All focus zeroes in on the bin… and that barely noticeable line trailing from it to the door handle.

One tick is all you need to hear.

“We gotta go, now,” you state, standing up hurriedly from your chair. Chatter and confusion ensue again as you drag it behind you over to the floor-length window. You pause, narrowing your eyes at the distance down from the second story. Considering there were no other exits from the room and you suspected that no one here was a part of the bomb squad, it was the only way to go. You drawback, hands gripping tightly around the armrests and hoist it up, swinging it around your side. it effectively shatters the glass, the piercing noise as shards clatter to the floor making you squint. 

“Woah, woah, what are you doing? Do you know how much that’s gonna coast?” Namjoon shouts, becoming frantic as you further knock the glass out from the surrounding area.

“They knew where we were. Look at the bin,” you explain quickly. Their surveillance of you averts to where you had been looking moments before, realization dawning as their sight finds the transparent cord set tight.

“Taehyung, you first.” The boy trails to the make-shift exit without question, blond locks bouncing in front of his face as he hurries over. Carefully, with a hand on the frame, he peers out to see what he’s working with. He’s made do with worse before. He lowers himself out onto the ledge one foot at a time, cautious not to cut himself on the jagged glass poking out. With a deep breath, he commits to the jump and launches off, landing cleanly on the flower beds below.

He cranes his neck up to you with disgust written all over his features.

“It’s new still,” he complains with a frown, toeing the dark mulch which must be fresh and with a rotten stench. You don’t have the time to admonish his behavior as you usher the others out, keeping an eye on the bin and the hallway. Yeji is out next, hitting the ground lightly with Taehyung’s guiding arms.

You fish a compact walkie from your pocket, tossing it down to her. “Find the janitor. Evacuate anyone else you see. Channel Six.” She catches it with ease, only providing a nod before sprinting off around the corner, ponytail whooshing behind her. Namjoon, now on the ground with Jimin, spares a word with him before Jimin takes off after Yeji to catch up. 

“You run a well-oiled machine, Y/N. I’m impressed.” Jeon’s voice from beside you grabs your attention, to which you can only hold his eyes for a moment before breaking it off. He stands smugly with his arms crossed in front of him.

He immediately cringes internally at the way it comes out. It was just supposed to be a compliment, genuinely, but the tinge of complacency in his voice took it all away. The way you don’t respond clamps his heart, but only pushes out more awful dialogue with an inappropriately playful tone.

“What, you’re just gonna ignore me?

Swallowing your nerves, you insist, “Get down.” Now, of all times, he chooses to chat you up? The chipper attitude had your nails imprinting half-moons to the base of your palm.

But he can’t stop himself. Even as he reads your growing impatience, he acts like a whiny toddler, emphasizing, “No, no, ladies first of course.”

“Get down.”

He’s trying not to let your firm edge get to him, playing it off with, “God, so cold. You’re hurting my feelings-” “Get down, Jeongguk!”

The once fluid movement of the world slows as you shout at him, your own voice becoming muted as you listen for it. A blinding light bursts from across the room, ripping through the walls and bursting the glass like balloons, growing brighter and brighter as you watch. In a split second you’re falling, tearing through open air while barely sensing your entanglement in something soft before hitting the ground with a blunt stop.

He had pulled you into him instinctively as the blow forced him off his feet, but the regret is instant in Jeon’s mind as he struggles to move. Not for grabbing you, but for the stupid words he couldn’t close the dam on as they poured out. The threat completely left his mind in the effort to get you to respond to him. He wants to smack himself, but his body hasn’t had the chance to recoup yet. 

You groan, body practically frozen in ache. Rolling off of him, you rub your lids and scratch the hair out of your face, looking up to see smoke pouring out of where you just stood moments before. Jumping to your feet, you brush the small shards of glass from your clothes and ignore the dizziness, aiming to put as much distance between the building and you as you could, but not before pulling a disoriented Jeon to his feet to take him with you. He’s coughing and clutching at his rib, your weight hitting him as an extra beating once he had landed.

Collapsing on the curb out front, you try to catch your breath. That bastard. If it weren’t for his necessity to uphold such a jackass mentality, you wouldn’t have needed the extra painful push out of the building. Without even needing to look, the sound echoing alone let you know that the building was collapsing in on itself. While you can’t feel it now because of the adrenaline, you know you’ll be hurting later.

A muffled noise comes from the walkie in your back pocket. It’s Yeji, who is suspiciously breathing fine as her heavy footfalls transmit as loud as her voice, reporting, “Finally caught up to him. It looks like he’s heading to Coral District, we’re on his tail but we don’t know what we’re going into!”

The device jumbles in your shaky hand as you scramble to get back to her. “We’re on our way, don’t worry. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.” 

You bring yourself to your feet, your fleeting moment of recovery already gone.

“Namjoon, can you stay behind for cleanup? Rest of us will catch up to Yeji. You heard her, right?”

He nods solemnly, and you suppose the blast to the building also was one to his ego. His notorious calculative nature had failed him this time around with that poisonous hatred in the way. Maybe he’ll reference it next time.

You think that Jeon is going to come up with another snarky comment to make, but all he does is pinch his nose bridge and massage his temples. He chooses to stay behind also as you, Wendy, Taehyung, and Yoongi follow in quick pursuit. It’s no surprise that Yoongi, one of the most sloth-like yet efficient strong suits of the Mafia, is already pulling over a civilian vehicle to take. 

“Yeji, current location?” You ask into the radio, trying to keep up an acceptable trot behind the group.

It only takes a second for her voice to crackle back through. “Corner of Park Ave and Third. It’s weird though - he’s not just running away from us, he’s running to somewhere.”

Up ahead, Wendy is pushing Yoongi aside as she shows her ID to the astonished woman floundering for words, admirably commandeering the car rather than stealing. No surprise, but smart nonetheless. One less lawsuit to worry about.

It only takes a second to envision a mental map of the city. The Corner of Park and Third is heading toward an unfamiliar side of town. What was even over there? The subway station, a shopping center? No place plausible for a bar, and definitely not near the Coral district. There was no place you could think of he might be leading them to - unless, of course, he was leading them away from something.

In fact, his direction is almost exactly opposite from…

“Tae!” you shout, just as he’s getting into the car. “Corner of Park Ave and Third. Get on your walkie, I’m taking a detour!”

He tips his head back in understanding as he jogs backwards to the car, soon ducking in slamming the door shut behind him, the car speeding off with a squeal. The thought of being in that car with them makes you shudder, but it’s not like where you’re off to is any better.

The location is printed on the backs of your lids in vermilion red ink. You had to know it regardless of whether you were a frequent visitor or not, because being aware of your surroundings when doing the kind of work required for your job was just as necessary as the job itself. You couldn’t be making arms deals in the alleys behind the Detective Agency unless you were aiming to spend some time behind bars.

Your heart drops as you round the corner to see the building absolutely sacked, your sprinting pace coming to a standstill with disappointment. A small crowd of people have surrounded the area, phones out to snap pictures and take videos. The windows lining the building are smashed in violently, and small plumes of smoke wisp their way out of what remains, the alarms that alerted no one still ringing. 

Light footsteps approach from behind you as your own step carefully over the glass to get a closer look. He’d been in his head for only a few minutes after you left, but when he saw you crossing back over to the other side of town, while he was stuck pathetically on the curb, it sparked his brain back up into working condition.

“Huh. Smart cookie,” states Jeon, seeming to finally be back to reality. Enough to make it here, anyway. In less than a second your blade is against his neck as a firm warning. All he does is smile cheekily, raising his palms up so you could see them.

“No need to be hostile,” he tries, hiding the way he gulps when you look away. “Just a compliment.”

“We are nothing more than work partners. I advise you to drop the act now,” you spit, sure you’d break your jaw with how hard your teeth were pressed against each other, hearing the sandpaper sound grinding in your ears. You lower the blade and tuck it away, exchanging it for your gun in hand as you approach the entrance.

It’s a mess inside. The walls are dented, desks broken, drawers and filing cabinets sprawled all over the floor. Random papers make a muddle of everything visible. The computer screens are cracked and wires mangled as if someone with a bad temper had taken a baseball bat to them. Even the potted plants had been bashed in, fragments of terracotta and clumps of dirt spread out everywhere. 

“Was anyone working?” you ask, fingers tracing over the splintered edges of the welcome desk.

“No,” replies Jeon, in awe of the state of the office. “The President doesn’t come in, and two of our teams are off carrying out other tasks. We sent our office staff home to keep them out of danger.”

Not one thing untouched. Such great care was taken to ruin every piece of the space - but when no one was home. If the office staff were here, would they have hurt them? Or was it a purposeful decision in favor of the empty building?

Jeon’s shoulders slump, bottom lip jutting from his pout. Upon your questioning brow, he says, “They took my octopus pen.” He stares longingly down at what you assume is his desk, or what was his desk.

You squint in confusion, about to prompt further explanation, but Taehyung comes in through the radio. “We caught the janitor. Don’t know anything yet, but he’s being taken into police custody. We looked for the tunnels, but there’s nothing so far. I think it was a misdirect.”

“I think it was too,” you sigh. “The DA was ransacked.”

The waves flatten into grey static. You can picture the confusion that was rising among the group with Tae’s relay of information. When it comes back on, it is a different voice.

“Ransacked, you said? How bad?” It’s Wendy, the panic blatant on her tongue.

“Everything in it was destroyed…” you say, knowing this was just as much a loss for you as it was them. “They knew where we were and bombed us, and then led us on a chase so they could eliminate one of our bases. Let the others know and we’ll regroup later.”

“Copy that,” says Yoongi shortly, and that ends the exchange.

One of your strongest pieces was impressively knocked off the board. There was no way to get the building back in operating shape in the time span you had to eliminate the threat. While you still had their people and outside resources, the building was essential to the functioning of the agency, and the city along with it. If they had already taken down the home base of the detectives, wouldn’t the Mafia be next? Granted, there was no one set base, but things would surely get fishy if you didn’t act fast. Like Boss said, Fox Lodge crumbled in mere weeks. Whatever your opinion was, you couldn’t deny the Mafia was integral in monitoring the underground of the city, and letting control fall into the hands of such self-serving villains would be far worse than anything already occurring. 

Jeon sighs loudly from across the room, spinning on his heels to catch your gaze. He tsks and sweeps a stray strand of hair behind his ear with a delicate hand. “What are you thinking?”

You hum in thought. “It’s a warning,” you conclude, observing the rows of overthrown furniture. “They wanted to show what they’re capable of. Intimidation.”

He purses his lips innocently. “...What next?”

“I don’t know everything, Gguk,” you snap, sending him a fierce glare. “The Agency has to figure out what’s missing, if anything, and then we’ll go from there. Try to figure out a motive or something.”

You’ve been asking for a challenge for years, always unsatisfied with the ease it took to get your way. Laying in bed wide awake all night wanting things to be different, wanting things to have meaning. But with the high stakes, with so much at risk, this was certainly not what you intended.

You have to reassure yourself that you’re capable regardless. Once you get in the rhythm, surely things will be fine. Surely you’d get yourself together and pull through for the sake of the town. When you’ve been biting your nails and staring blankly at a ripped magazine for who knows how long, Jeon interrupts you again.

“Y/N?” The way he speaks your name is gentle and soft, a fondness to it that never failed to pluck at your heartstrings. It’s that special quiet tone of his that you haven’t heard in so long yet could always recall so clearly. It’s a sign of candor coming your way. “It’s good to see you.”

And it boils your blood.

“The park by the marina. Tomorrow at five. Don’t be late.”

☆☆☆

Penny has already started making dinner when you step through the door, just about to slump against the hardwood floor and resign yourself to the eternal slumber. Though she’s only ten, her palate is more tasteful that yours was last year. In times like these, you are grateful for the way she takes care of you sometimes. 

“You look tired,” she observes, sparing you a welcome look over her shoulder as she stirs the contents of her pot.

“That would be because I am,” you breathe a huff of laughter, slowly and carefully sliding off your jacket as to not irritate your sore muscles more than necessary. Taking a peek into the pot, your brain allows you a taste of serotonin that you welcome with open, starved arms. “Fettuccine alfredo? Pen, that’s my favorite.”

A small smirk appears on her face at your amazement. “I know.”

You plant a chaste kiss at the top of her head. “You need a trim soon, kiddo. Can barely see your eyes anymore.”

“That makes me look more mysterious though, doesn’t it?” She allows herself a giggle before turning off the heat, giving the pasta one last mix before transferring it to the two identical bowls on the counter. Her technique is a little awkward as her arms reach up to maneuver the tongs, but that’s to be expected of a kid who hasn’t fine tuned her motor skills just yet. Your mouth is absolutely watering as you fumble through the draws for two forks and some sort of napkin.

She hops up on the stool next to you and digs in, splattering sauce all over her chin nonetheless, but as long as she was fed and having fun.

Taking Penny in was by far the best decision you had made with what your life had come to. It was about two years ago when you stumbled upon her crying in a back alleyway during a job, her parents' lives the casualties suffered in a drug trade gone wrong. Further than that, you didn’t pry. You had those moments, too, the ones that felt better tucked inside a secret place in your heart.

Your only option was to take her with you. While he was incredibly beneficial to the Mafia, Yoongi was also hopelessly cold-blooded. He wanted to kill her to end the trail, to avoid suspicion directed at the organization. You ultimately made the call, because while what you did for a living was in no way guided by a moral compass, you still had your boundaries. Fortunately, it was just when you had gotten your current executive position and started making your fair share for the work you did - and while the both of you knew what went on outside of the apartment, inside was a safer space with more love than you could ever afford to show anywhere else. 

Housing people was one of the organization’s biggest costs. Most who joined did so out of necessity, whether they were out of work or a place to feel welcome. As long as you took care of her, it was an unspoken rule that they’d go easy on her. Occasionally they made her run errands and do deliveries, as children were an easy way to escape qualms from authorities. More often they used her for bait and leverage over those they needed the upper hand on; There’s no better way to manipulate someone than pretending a little girl’s life depends on their next decision. Usually it worked out the way they wanted and she was sent home, but there were times when you noticed bruises or scrapes adorning her thin arms, or hidden beneath her bangs. At least you could provide her with hope.

“So what went wrong today?”

Were you too obvious, or could she just read you inside and out?

You twirl the pasta on your fork before downing a big bite. 

“Got stuck in a pickle for the first time in a while. There’s a lot more on the table than I expected there to be.”

“Obviously,” she says, still shoveling her food down her throat. “I mean what happened?”

You sigh, letting yourself sink into your chair as you recount the order of events that unfolded today. Trying to simplify it as best as you can, you settle on, “I can’t say too much because I don’t want to get you in trouble, but it’s not just the Mafia and the Agency running things around here anymore, so there’s some collaboration going on right now that is getting tough to manage. And these new people moving in on the city… they’re smart. They led us on a goose chase today while they took out the DA.”

“Well, you’re smart too. You can manage it. You always do.”

“I know I’ll have to. It’s more the teamwork thing.” Mindless fingers tap at the countertop. “It was a little bit of a curveball they threw at me.”

“Is the curveball what caused all the bruises?” She looks at you slyly, a teasing simper just begging to make an appearance.

Your eyes roll breezily. “Yeah, it is.”

And all of a sudden the air turns quiet, her demeanor more timid. She looks to you for encouragement before she can even get the words out. With a small prompting nod, she asks, “Is… is it your old partner?”

An awkward chuckle bubbles its way out of your throat in surprise. “Um, yeah. How- how do you know about that?”

It’s a little bit of a shock. You don’t want to make her feel bad, but having this conversation is not one you are completely prepared for. Jeongguk, though his existence in your mind is stormy, is one of those things you always wish you could just keep to yourself, like a small love letter sealed in an envelope and tucked away under a mattress for you to pull out when you want to reminisce, but unfortunately everyone has read that letter and its contents seems to perpetuate underground gossip wherever you walk.

The atmosphere returns to normal when she shoots you a playful look, correcting it to the way it should have been. “I don’t just go to work and come back, you know, people talk to me. Especially some of the other kids my age. They sometimes mention how it’s so cool that I’m living with this legendary assassin, and they tell me supposed stories of… what was it, the Lion and the Scorpion? Yeah, and that he left.”

You bob your head along as she explains, somewhat in awe of her level of awareness of who you were outside of your relationship with her. The observant and lethal disposition you take on at work is a rude juxtaposition to the looser, lively personality you allow out at home. Above all, you wonder if she still thinks you’re cool.

“And what do you say?”

That she laughs at. “Well, it depends on the person who’s talking to me about it. Sometimes I say that you’re really scary and strict and sometimes if I like them I say that you’re really nice… I’m careful about it though, don’t worry. As long as you’re cool, I’m cool.”

Bingo!

“Hey, I trust your judgment,” you state through a mouthful of food, “I condone messing with people sometimes, and if it can harden my reputation around the place, I’ll take it.”

Lighthearted laughter ensues as you eat. The topic fades away and relief starts to take its place, but nothing good can ever last, can it?

“But Y/N…” she trails back, “Why is the Lion a curveball if you worked with him in the past?”

You click your tongue, tapping your fork at the bottom of your dish trying to stitch together the splinters of words floating around your mind into a cohesive answer.

“I’m sure some kids told you about the rumors,” you say, propping your elbow on the table to support your head as you looked at her. “But he and I… weren’t really just work partners.”

“You were dating?” She exclaims loudly, eyes widening. 

“Shh! No, no… well, kind of. But not really. Things were just a little bit more than work-related, that’s all. Listen, it’s not all black and white, and you’ll understand what I mean by when you start to care for people like that.”

“Well did you love him?”

She says it casually and straightforward, as if it didn’t weigh the emotional turmoil of years spent heartbroken and yearning. As if it’s that easy.

Penny’s expression floods full of curiosity. She is so investigative and eager, you wish she could be going to school and learning from real teachers that could give her a real education, not just snippets from your memories that you pulled up for her from time to time. If this wasn’t her life, you can’t imagine what she’d be doing because there’d simply be too many possibilities.

“Yeah, I did.”

And yet, as the words spill, you can’t not remember the pain of his desertion. You can’t not remember the one morning you woke up and he was gone, panic floating through the hallways about him, confusion and worry swirling in your head. Just to find out he had defected without giving you a clue. Not considering what it could mean for you. Not even a goodbye. 

“Do you still love him?”

You purse your lips, meeting her eyes softly. “That’s why I called him a curveball.”

Penny grasps on to the fact that that was the most she’d be getting from you today. It was a lot more than most days - you blame it on your tattered spirit from today’s tiring occurrences. She leads in the kitchen clean up, scooping the leftovers into tupperware for tomorrow’s meal and tossing her dishes in the outdated washer.

You pass behind her in the tight space, carrying your own empty dish with you. “You don’t repeat a word, got it?” you whisper.

She visibly sinks in vexation, head coming to a tilt as she stares at you. “C’mon, you just said you trusted my judgment! I’m almost insulted you feel the need to say that.”

You let yourself indulge in another laugh. The credit of her sharp vocabulary character no doubt belongs to your influence. “You know I have to.” Nuzzling the top of her hair, you add, “Don’t stay up too late. I love you.”

And for leading a life that was so cruel and devoid of light, crowded with guilt and regret, lacking most that makes you human, nothing ever felt more like home than when she says, “I love you too.”

☆☆☆

The next meeting is only better because of the fresh air separating both sides and the imminent fact that last time’s events have everyone so weary they can no longer think about arguing. It has started to sink in that this is no longer a piece of cake, or maybe that it never was to begin with. As well, a park full of citizens going on walks and taking their day slow is no place to expose yourself. It’s warm for spring, one of the nicest days you’ve had in a while, and you’d hate to ruin it.

There is a large circular expanse of white concrete with different pathways branching off into the park, green shrubbery lining each walkway. Pillars on both sides of each one hold up an awning providing much-appreciated shade. You no longer have to squint and can see everyone clearly.

Namjoon, sulking on a decorative cement bench, kicks off the meeting with a depressing statement on the Agency. “They didn’t take anything physical, but we traced their footsteps back through our computers. It looks like they downloaded a lot of our reports from the past few years and files on both our members and yours.”

“What do you mean?” Yeji’s eyebrows furrow deeply in confusion. “What kind of information was in the reports?”

“A lot of profiles. Skills, incidents you’ve been involved with, current standing position… things like that. On nearly every important person in the Agency and in the Mafia.”

“Why though?” asks Jimin, leaning back against one of the pillars beside Namjoon. “Can’t they find that information anywhere? A lot of it isn’t a secret. Ask anyone around here and they’ll tell you Min Yoongi is a lazy bastard that-” Jeon gives him a light punch on the shoulder, his disappointed grimace almost saying, “c’mon, man.” Yoongi looks like he couldn’t care less.

Taehyung, who has been pacing the narrow concrete walkways, speaks up. “Get to know your enemy better, I guess? Can’t hurt.”

“To be honest, I don’t think they really needed it either. It looked more like it was meant to be taken as a threat. They probably just did that because they could and they had the time,” You say, recalling the attentive wreckage of the Agency.

“Well, I don’t know about that. We know that they’re tricky, obviously, but they can’t know everything. I think they were also trying to get a better idea of what they were up against. Plus, it’s always intimidating when you come into contact with someone and it seems they know every detail about you when you don’t even know your name.”

Namjoon’s take makes sense. His frustrating attitude is an easier pill to swallow if he’s able to make conclusions like that. Not much could scare you off, but if a random person approached you in a fight and began talking about your past, or your personal life, or mistake you’d made, you’d definitely be unsettled, maybe just enough to slip up. With this group, you’re sure that a slip up is all it takes.

Wendy looks like she has something to add, but there’s a frog stuck in her voice box. She gives a shy look to Namjoon and then continues, something perhaps he was planning on leaving out. “To be specific, there were multiple traces of the words “Lion” and “Scorpion” in the information they stole... It makes me think they’ve heard of your, um, past reputation and wanted to see what they could dig up.”

“Oh, great.” You’re unable to help yourself from rolling your eyes. 

“Wow,” Jeon muses, “Didn’t know we were so famous.” His playful regard meets your own, but you’re too down to react with anything else but a blank stare before flicking your eyes away as soon as they meet.

He looks good today. You hate how much your brain keeps begging you to take another experimental glance as if one wasn’t enough. His button-up drapes gently over his shoulders and is tucked loosely into his trousers, sleeves folded all the way up to his elbows. Not that you’re paying such close attention.

Namjoon clears his throat. “I wasn’t going to say anything because I didn’t want to alarm you without any pretense, but…”

You raise an eyebrow at him, crossing your arms over your front. “Well, I’m glad she spoke up. What if they target us because they think we’re a threat? They already know we’ve been working together.”

Wendy offers a small smile of appreciation, but it is not to ignore how the agents all share looks of hesitation toward each other, visibly uncomfortable with Namjoon’s secrecy.

“Yeah… that seemed kind of important,” Yoongi says, squinting into the sunlight as he tilts his head up. “You can’t keep things from us if we’re working together. I hate this just as much as you do, but we aren’t gonna win if we aren’t honest.”

Jimin sighs. “He’s right. If one side tries to get an upper hand it’ll just cause a rift that makes us easier to pull apart.”

“Okay. That’s fair. I... apologize.” Namjoon is stiff, refusing to look anyone in the eye. He wants to avoid further questioning, but for the time being, you won’t press it. There’s enough on your plate right now.

“Anyway… what’s our next move?”

Yeji’s question goes unanswered. It sits under the afternoon light, the peaceful chirps of birds and casual chatter and boat horns filling in the blank space that no one knows what to do with.

“We don’t have a lot to go off of. The investigation is still looking for identification factors, but it could take time, which, as I’m sure you know, we don’t have a lot of. The most we can do is conduct some interviews with witnesses and passersby, but…” the Vice President looks up at you, “we are counting on them slipping up somehow.”

The dejection in the air is hard to ignore. Everyone feels it. Regardless of how impossible it might be for the two sides to see eye to eye, they can see how hopeless the fight has gotten in a span of mere days.

With the DA out of the picture, all of their employees are either working from home or in last-minute rented offices with limited resources. Never in a million years did any of the executives think they’d see the building that represented their struggle go up in flames. Yet the day it did, they couldn’t be happy about it. It only struck fear.

“So there’s really nothing we can do?”

No one needs to answer for you to know.

“Okay. Let’s wrap this up then. Just be careful from here on out. You know, be cautious of what you say, where you say it. They might be monitoring radio waves, might have bugged places you think are safe.”

 In times like these, you have good reason to be a little paranoid. They already knew where your office space was and the time it had been rented. The Syndicate was skilled and definitely had their reach online, and you didn’t doubt it extended to the personal world. There’s nothing money can’t bribe.

It’s disheartening to see how downcast the group is on a day so bright. Everyone begins to mobilize, though slowly, but they get a move on, going back to wherever they need to be or where they want to be. For now, you decide you want to be here.

Waving goodbye to Yeji and the others, you find a nice spot under some shade on a well maintained wooden bench. It faces the water, today clear and calm, and out in the distance is the gleaming modern drawbridge that closes off the port. To the right, the port terminal stretches out long into the river for the large ships that come in, the marina docked with boats of all shapes and sizes tucked in closer to the city behind it. The boats flood in and out, passing you by, the sails floating in the breeze so temptingly you can just see yourself hopping on one so easily and going along to wherever it may take you.

The dream is short-lived, because Jeon’s presence beside you tugs you from your imagination.

“What do you want?” You can feel him looking at you, but you can’t pull your eyes away from the ships drifting by.

It’s a hit to the confidence he strode over here with, but he continues. “What, we can’t make small talk? We’re partners for this, Y/N.”

Any opportunity he sees to make contact with you, he’ll take. He knows why you’re the opposite, but he’s dying to see you, and not just from across a meeting table or a park.

“Partners don’t need to make small talk, they just have to do the job they’ve been assigned and be done with it.”

He exhales tiredly, disappointed in your lack of engagement, like he expected at least a small something more. “Listen, I just wanted to talk to you. I know how things are, and-”

“No, Gguk, you don’t know how things are,” you snap, finally facing him. “You had the past three years to talk to me, but you didn’t. You don’t get to come and take care of things now while it’s convenient for you.”

“It’s not like that.”

“It sure looks like that.”

“Well it’s not.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s me wanting to talk to you. Because it’s been a long time and I miss you.”

You make a sound caught somewhere between a scoff and a laugh, feeling even more let down than you thought you could be. “Yeah, okay.”

It sounds like bull to you. Does he really think you’re that gullible? Does he really think you were going to see him again and run into his arms like a bride who's been tying yellow ribbons around an old oak tree? The anger you felt at the agency yesterday returns, for what happened in the past, for what’s happening now, for all of it. How he can say he missed you when he had all the time in the world, when he was clearly happy after running away from what he had with you, you can’t understand.

Meanwhile, Jeon feels his heart palpitating as he waits for a reply. The explanations want to roll right off his tongue, but he knows this is not the time and place to bring up the subject matter he’s really urging to talk to you about. That conversation will be held soon as he finds it possible. He thought it might be worth it to just start the build-up with trivial chatter, but it’s not working, and probably never will with you.

He picks at his nails, scraping the minimal dirt out. Should he say it? A part of him wants to go for it, and another wants to wait in fear of scaring you. Unfortunately, he thinks it will either way.

“I heard you’ve been taking care of a girl.”

Unbeknownst to you, he’s right.

It steals the breath from your lungs, that residing anger booking it to make room for fear. Though you try to conceal it, you’re sure he’s seen through it, already felt how the atmosphere has shifted. He shouldn’t know about Penny. In fact, no one outside the Mafia should. You can’t meet his eyes, taking more interest in trying to count every strand of fine hair on the space between your knuckles.

It feels just like what Namjoon had talked about, and though you’re sure deep down he wouldn’t try to hurt you like that, it plants a seed of dread in you. In any other world, it might be similar to someone asking, “How are the kids?” and there would be nothing out of the ordinary about it, just a friendly gesture. This instance, however, is layered with a cocktail of warning and concern.

 Penny can fend for herself, she’s responsible, of course, but no one is invincible. It’s only up to a certain point, especially knowing that she’s only a child. 

“How do you know about her?” 

“I still get around,” he says, letting the pause marinate before adding faintly, “Don’t worry. No one that’s gonna try anything knows. I made sure of it.”

The way he still knows what you’re thinking makes you shiver. Or want to throw up. You pass over the slight relief of his last statement in favor of the bliss that comes with ignoring it.

When you don’t reply because you simply don’t know what to make of it, he continues. “It’s honorable. But that’s dangerous for you. To have someone important to you.”

“I know that,” you admit.

It wasn’t like you were stupid. Sure, you were an executive, but what did that mean when Penny made you so vulnerable? The same way they used her against their enemies could be used against you in a heartbeat for tenfold the amount they wanted. She was your weak spot.

“You have to be careful.”

“I know that.”

Jeon winces at your icy inflection. He’s like a child being scolded by his mother. His eyes squeeze shut, thoughts circling back to all the words that were just aching to pour out of him.

“Listen, Y/N, maybe we can go get some coffee? Or-”

You have to cut him off before he gets too out of hand, palms hitting your thighs. “I think that’s enough for today, Gguk.”

He wants to object to your leaving, but he doesn’t want to push you. Your deep sigh is proof of the distress he caused in the past and still continues to leave behind.

So much for some nice quiet time on your own, huh? You stand up and turn from him, heading down the exit path. Realistically, you’re glad he doesn’t call out after you, because you know it would just get you worked up and that was the last thing you needed. When you were around him, you felt the piercing image your reputation had created crumbling to ruins. It pains you to think of the consequences of an emotional err during times like these.

Yet still, it breaks your heart to leave.

☆☆☆

“He’s been really getting to you, huh?”

Yeji’s voice is quiet above the cacophony of clinking silverware and incoherent conversation, but intelligible enough for the both of you to hear in your own space. 

You smear some whipped cream on your forkful of waffle, placing it in your mouth and letting both the fluffy texture and immaculate taste sweep you off your feet for a moment, as brunch is everything good and great in the world. Or at least in your world, at this very moment.

You swallow before answering, your usual temper tamed by the sedative of a certain portmanteau of breakfast and lunch. “Of course he has. He won’t leave me the fuck alone.”

“Well, he does have to work with you.”

As you chew, you shake your head in wide, dramatic arcs. “No, I mean he keeps acting like we’re old friends. After the meeting he asked me If I wanted to get coffee with him!” you exclaimed, “Like no, I’m not getting fucking coffee with you, who do you think you are?”

Yeji flashes her pearly whites at your short fuse, the one she’s versed in remedying. Deft hands lift up her mug for a thoughtful sip.

“Maybe his intentions aren’t that bad. He’s always been happy-go-lucky like that and he’s probably just too oblivious to think about the consequences of what he did. Yeah, pretending like it didn’t happen hurts, but because of what’s going on right now... it might be a blessing in disguise.”

Despite her intimidating appearance, Yeji was an exceptional conversationalist and particularly thoughtful in her advice. It feels more like a talk between two childhood friends catching up over some food, gossiping about people from high school and boy drama. Though it’s not quite that simple, it lets you take a back seat for a little while. Yeji is one of the only people you’d consider a friend.

“What, like making it easier for the mission?”

“Yeah, 'cause if you can push that issue out of the picture temporarily, you can get the job done and either deal with it after or forget about it entirely. And hey, you’re the Scorpion!” Yeji leans across the table in an enthusiastic whisper. “Scorpions are badass and vicious and don’t spend their time getting worked up over men. In fact, Scorpions reel men in and then kill them, especially you.”

You know she’s trying to encourage you, but the thought is spectacularly unappealing. While she was right in what you did, it’s not like you enjoyed it or were proud of it. You hate to be described that way. Perhaps that is your character among the mafia and the image you spread to protect yourself, and perhaps it’s even true when you get in the work mindset, but is that really you? Talk about an identity crisis.

You reach for your water, the condensation slippery on the glass. “That’s just my reputation.”

She sighs, slumping back into her side of the booth. “Okay, scratch that then. What I mean is that, besides the people you’re close to like Penny and I, you’re this astute, intelligent, skilled executive. You’ve accomplished a lot to get where you are. Why are you letting him get under your skin and uproot that?”

Yeji wouldn’t let someone make her feel like that, and she wishes you wouldn’t either. As much as she secretly admires you - for both that reputation and the real you - she cares about you all the same. Maybe one of the only people that does.

“I guess you have a point.”

“You know I have a point.”

“It’s not that easy though, Yeji,” you say weakly, staring down into your glass. “Every time I see him, I don’t know whether I want to kiss him or beat his ass.”

She laughs at your comment, making you crack a smile too. “It happens, Y/N. Love and hurt go hand in hand.” When you look up at her, she reaches a slender hand over the table and interlocks her fingers with your own with a squeeze. “Just tolerate it for now.”

A troubled exhale leaves you at the prospect, but you squeeze back nonetheless. 

“I can do that.” 

☆☆☆

It's two days later when you get a call from none other than the Lion himself. The time has been passing unbearably, slower than a soul train passing an ambulance. You and Penny relaxed by bingeing an ungodly amount of shows and movies, even delving into your weekly budget for a stockpile of snacks and drinks. But with every laugh that tumbled out of you and blended into the live audiences’, the nervous thoughts of the situation lingered in the back of your mind.

But hopefully, this call will have some good news.

“What’s up?”

“Good news.”

Eureka! For once, you’re happy to be speaking to Jeon.

“Like Namjoon said, they slipped up. Someone wasn’t wearing gloves and left a fingerprint in the DA. Intelligence was able to track it down to a random guy living in the Gambling District. I’ll tell you more about him, but I’m coming to pick you up now.”

You to your feet from your seat on the couch, wedging the phone between your shoulder and ear so you could throw your stuff together. Penny pauses the show for you, sending a raised brow. In silent conversation, you shrug.

God, it’s too early. You’re rummaging around the room for your wallet and trying to process cohesive thoughts simultaneously, and it’s not working out.

You stop to let your hands rub at your eyes. “Okay, but how do we know this was an actual slip up? We don’t have footage to check… it might have been on purpose to lead us somewhere.”

The one thing you had learned in all your time was to play like your opponent. Never underestimate them - especially the Syndicate, who clearly wanted that message to reach you. But if you were trying to get the upper hand on the people you were trying to eliminate, it wouldn’t be far fetched to give them a false lead the same way you had before.

“It’s all we got. And if we are led somewhere, we’ll figure it out.”

“Okay. Talk to you in a bit. I’ll meet you in the parking garage?”

“No need. Already walking up.” In the background, you hear Jeon’s keys jingling as he strides. “Also, we’re stopping for food first. Bye.” A blunt click signals the end of the call.

Shit. He’s coming to your apartment? The current state is an indescribable mess - hopefully he wouldn’t call CPS on you. More importantly, you are still in your pajamas, and there is no way he can see you like this.

“Was that the curveball?” Penny asks with an impish interest.

Your eyes squint. “Take a guess.”

Hurrying down the cramped hallway to your shared bedroom with Penny, you trade your sweats for some comfortable jeans and, with the time ticking down, throw a moto jacket over your hoodie. As the knock on the door sounds, you’re gathering your hair into a ponytail.

When you reach the living room, Penny is already pulling the door open. You hear a greeting, and then Jeon’s head appears around it comically, peeking into the apartment.

“There you are,” he says, looking at your current state with confusion. Not exactly what you might wear to base, but it got the job done. He snickers. “What, did I catch you off guard?”

Trying to hold back your minor pants from running around so much, all you can muster is, “Yeah, a little bit.” You turn to the mirror and pluck a bobby pin from your lips, tucking it into your hair to keep the flyaways down.

“Okay, let’s hit it. Penny, super sorry about this, I’ll finish watching with you later when I get home. There’s food in the fridge, you know where the money is, and I’ll call Yeji to check in on you if it gets late, okay?”

She pouts. “Okay.”

“Hey, you remember the safe word?”

Penny nods dramatically, her dark bangs bouncing, standing on her tippy toes to whisper in your ear, “Cherry-cola… also, he’s really cute.”

You pull away laughing, giving her a light noogie with your fist as her nose scrunches up. She wasn’t wrong, of course. Your time apart did him well, and you assume he must have gotten tips on how to dress because of how effortlessly put together he looked these days. But that's beside the point.

“Love you, Pen. Bye. And make sure your ringer is on.” With a small peck on the top of her head and bidding goodbye with a promise to return, you’re pulling away and leading Jeon out the door, being careful in locking it behind you.

“What’s with the safeword?” He asks, starting down the hall to the elevator. An uncomfortable tilt to his lips fixes on his face. “Isn’t that… kinda inappropriate?”

You roll your eyes, swatting at his shoulder. “Ew. Not that kind of safeword, dumbass. It’s so she knows who she can trust and let inside. There’s a lot of people that I trust that she doesn’t know, so if I have someone swinging by I tell them so she knows she can trust them too.”

He makes a sound of understanding, slipping his hands into his pockets. The way he ambles is spirited yet composed, shoulders relaxed with purposeful steps. Jeon always came and went like low tide in the morning, a calmer view of his personality considering his notorious “devil may care” attitude.

“Can you tell me?” Once he sees the disapproving expression on your face, he continues, “Listen, I already know about her. What if something happens and you need me to get her and you’re too busy dying to tell me?”

Crossing your arms in front of you, you shake your head. “Hopefully that will never happen in the first place, but god forbid…” you cautiously lower your voice, “Cherry-cola.”

“Cherry-cola?” he repeats casually.

You shush him loudly, glaring and speaking through gritted teeth. “The point of a safeword is that not everyone knows it!” 

“Sorry,” his lips purse as you press the button and begin waiting for the elevator. “Why that one?”

“It’s our favorite drink. Goes with anything.”

“Well...”

You cut him off with a hand as the thick metal doors slide open and the two of you step inside. “Not a matter of opinion. I don’t want to hear it.”

He raises his hands up in defense. “Okay, okay. I will respect that, but you know...”

It’s then that you see him giving you a look, an impish smile adorning his cheeks. The dimples that gently poke his skin are the kind that make you feel lucky.

“What?”

His eyes avert, head shaking as he turns away and exchanges his view for his sly reflection in the metal. “Oh, nothing.”

“Gguk.”

A teasing tone coats his tongue as he speaks. “Well, I don’t know, it just reminded me, you know, just pulled the thought from the deep recess of my brain, that.... we used to have one too.”

You almost couldn’t believe your ears, even considering asking him to repeat himself.  The arch look in his eyes told you everything you needed to know. “Yeah, we did,” you agree. “Not like I ever had to use it...”

He faces you with a disbelieving breath of laughter leaving his open mouth, astonished. “What, did you want to have to say it?”

You shrug nonchalantly, raising your voice to say, “No, no… you were always just a little soft about it, that’s all.”

You can’t help the grin growing on your face as his lips part in offense, one corner slowly turning up in a knowing open-mouthed smile. His lids drop in the slightest manner, barely noticeable if you didn’t pay such close attention, and you have to turn away before your face starts to blaze too unbearably. “Oh, you know I was not soft.”

Both of you are thinking the same thing, no doubt about it. Memories roll back like pristine tapes on a projector, ones that most definitely prove his point.

You clear your throat, unsure of where the conversation is going and not bold enough to let it brew. “Anyway, about the guy…?”

He’s disappointed in your choice to change the subject, the tell in the way his head drops and chews at his lower lip for a split second, but abides nonetheless. “Twenty-six years old, been working at lots of casinos around as a dealer but his most recent job was three months ago at King’s Crown. After that, no record. Unfortunately, we have to take him alive since the investigation has the police involved.”

“Unfortunately?”

“Well, kind of. It’s just limiting when there’s a stipulation.”

“Okay. I will respect that.”

Your callback is the cause of a smile taking over his face. You’re glad he doesn’t mention your attitude - if he did, your dignity wouldn’t let you continue. Maybe it’s your good mood paired with his unexpectedness, maybe it’s Yeji’s advice telling you to tolerate him, but regardless, you won’t deny that it feels better than the anger. With hope of a lead comes hope that this could work out.

“By the way, what’re you in the mood for?” Jeon asks casually, turning to you. “We can do fast food, we can do Firehouse...”

As soon as he says the word, memories from long ago that almost don’t even feel like yours resurface. Firehouse was always your and Jeon’s go-to pizza place on lunch break or for celebration after a job well done. Though you haven’t been there in years, the delectable taste of their pies is still fresh in your mind. It’s tempting, but you don’t want to make the decision. You weren’t that hungry, anyway. Jeon stares, awaiting an answer.

At your shrug, his patience runs out and he fishes his hand into his pocket. “Okay, I’m flipping a coin. Firehouse is heads, tails is the nearest drive-thru.”

He says it naturally, but you know he’s testing the water by the way his gaze lingers, measuring your reaction to see if you’ll be angry with him. Not one, but two fond tokens from the past, all in the span of thirty seconds? At one point, flipping a coin was an everyday occurrence to settle disagreements, whether it be where to eat, what time to close up shop, or whose plan to follow. You know he’s trying to jog your good memories, but maybe it’s not such a bad thing.

The metal flings from his thumb and lands with a muted tap in his opposite palm. He slaps it over to the backside of his hand.

“Heads. Firehouse it is.” His eyes flick up to yours, an eyebrow raised in curiosity.

You grin. “Sure. Wanted that anyway.”

He rolls his eyes. A shy smile crawls up his face, the faint hallmark scar at the edge of his cheekbone shifting. “Yeah, alright. Tell me next time before it lands on something you don’t want.”

The elevator doors open with a ding, freeing you into the open world. If you let the resentment subside for a few minutes, it feels just like it used to when things were okay - you and Jeon against the world.

☆☆☆

“So this is it?”

You’re staring up a beat down brick building four stories high. It’s dilapidated and nearly falling apart, in contrast to the virgin casinos, modern and flawless with intricate architecture and an ambiance of expense just half a mile away. Supposedly, your guy was somewhere in there, and it was your best bet that he had something of value to give you.

Jeon slams his side of the car door, still licking at pizza grease on his forearm, and comes around to stand next to you. “Yeah. Floor two, apartment two.” You laugh to yourself incredulously at his casual antics, but he doesn’t seem to care as he walks right up to the door.

He finds that no buzzer is needed for entry, so with your guns at the ready, you take slow steps inside. Jeon leads, you trailing to the side of him. It’s eerily quiet, not a single person out to encounter, none of the hustle and bustle a usual apartment would contain, not even the sounds of footsteps or moving furniture. Did anyone actually live here?

The floors of the hallways are decorated with faded forest green carpet, stains and dust covering the washed-out fabric. There is an ugly floral strip of wallpaper at the top of the beige walls that are dented and scraped in random places.

You’re careful to keep down the volume of the creaking stairs as you shift your weight over them, but it’s nearly impossible. Upon further inspection, the door frame of apartment two was covered in scratches and markings, thin cobwebs joined in the corners. The door itself looks cheap and it has what seems to be a few drops of blood splattered near the knob. You and Jeon share a look of uncertainty, those gut instincts kicking in to let you know that something was off.

He begins to count down, and on three, you’re pushing in the door. He rushes in first with you on his tail to scope out the sides. The apartment is empty, except…

“Well, that’s fucking fantastic.”

There’s a dead body occupying the chair in front of the television. It’s the man, alright, but his throat has been slit, red coating his neck and clothes, head hanging back over the seat. There’s no smell, though - it couldn’t have been that long since others were here, especially due to the slight glisten of blood not yet dry on his skin.

They didn’t bury him, either. Just left the body out in the open for you to find. One alarming step ahead, just like last time.

“Covering their tracks. They knew he fucked up and took care of him before we could,” says Jeon, scouring the rest of the beaten-down unit. No signs of a struggle, no mess, no nothing. A dead end.

When you pat the body down, reach into his pockets, there’s nothing. When you move to his bedroom and start to search through his nightstand, it strikes you that there might be something invasive about rustling through a dead man’s belongings, but you’ve done it too many times to still be sensitive to it. You peer around his closet, look under the mattress, filter through his drawers, until a certain glint of light catches your eye.

On the side of his bed closest to the window, a small card lies on the carpet beneath, hidden by the frame if it weren’t for the shiny sticker on the back. You bring it up for a closer look in the light.

It’s got his name, picture, and contact information as well as a barcode at the bottom. Not a driver’s license, but an ID card for the Belvedere Casino. The sticker in the top corner makes out a small icon of a spread of playing cards.

You’re about to shout out to Jeon, but stop yourself as soon as you open your mouth.  You take a slow once over around the room. Namjoon’s words echo in between your thoughts - Could the place be bugged? They were here not so long ago, and considering how they kept seeming to be a step in front of you at all times, it wasn’t a far stretch. There was no way to be sure, but you had a hunch.

Walking back to the main room, you catch his attention from where he is snooping around the shelves. 

“Didn’t find anything. I think we’re out of luck.” When he turns to look at you, you widen your eyes and make an intense gesture with your finger to your lips before pointing a finger from your ear to the ceiling and directing your eyes around the room. You’re grateful when he understands immediately.

“Seriously? Nothing?” he asks timidly.

“Yeah. They got us. We should head back and call for cleanup, see if they can find anything.” You start for the door, pulling it open.

He hums, eyeing the item in your hand as he walks out behind you. “Good idea… I don’t really want to be here anymore anyway. Feels too weird.”

It’s silent all the way down. Was it too obvious? Was the dialogue too strange, too choppy? The two of you reach the street, careful of your surroundings, before getting back in his car. 

“What was that about?” he asks, shutting the door as he slides into the driver’s seat.

You hold out the card for him to take. “Look. You know how you said there was no recent record of employment besides at King’s Crown? He’s been working at the Belvedere the past three months.”

He looks at you incredulously. “And?”

For whatever reason, he makes you doubt yourself. Suddenly, that solid idea you had in mind that made you split from the apartment is no longer so solid.

“The Belvedere has to have something. That’s our new lead!” Pulling your seatbelt over your body, you reach for your phone to give the Boss an update.

“He could have just been working off-record and gotten involved with the Syndicate some other way.”

You turn to him seriously. “Jeon. If it’s separate, why bother? Why would he be working for the Syndicate when he has a stable source of income as a dealer unless the two come hand in hand? They have to be hiding in plain sight.”

“And you’re willing to bet all your cards on that?” You almost find the doubt in his voice offensive.

You exhale deeply, trying to push down your temper. “The people in the Syndicate who killed him made sure there was nothing left on him to tell us who he was. No wallet, no keys, no license, no nothing, because they wanted his identity hidden. If he was working for them separately, why would they bother to do that? They would have just killed him and left. But it was about who he was and what he did. Which was dealing at The Belvedere.”

The car goes silent, and Jeon doesn’t reply. He only looks at you blankly, his poker face hard to break through, but not impossible. You know when he lets a hand slip up to tug at the strands at the nape of his neck.

“Good job,” he grins, hooking the key in the ignition and rumbling the car to life. He pulls out of the parking spot and onto the road casually. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” You cross your arms in front of you protectively, glaring at him from the side.

“Oh, come on. I never actually doubted you, I was just messing around.”

You scoff loudly, turning to the window. “You’re such a fucking liar, Gguk. You didn’t get the connection until I explained it and the fact that you can’t even admit that you’re wrong, the fact that you have to act like you always knew, blows my fucking mind!”

He makes a left turn, looking out at the road, clearly avoiding you even though you’re stuck in the same damn car a foot away. “Calm down, Y/N. It’s not that serious.”

“But it is that serious! It was going so well, Gguk. We were finally acting like regular partners on a job. You always have to ruin everything, don’t you? It always has to be about you, and how much of a hero you are-”

“I never said I was a hero.”

“But you sure act like it.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“Oh, I’m being ridiculous? Comes from the guy who claims he was ‘just joking around’ during a serious case like this when you know it’s not like what it used to be.”

“Okay, fine!” He shouts, hands slamming down on the steering wheel. “I did doubt you. I thought it was far fetched.” Jeon's voice booms as he rambles quickly in aggravation. “And then you explained it and I remembered that you’re really fucking smart and I wouldn’t have made that connection myself. And I lied because I didn’t know what else to say. I’m sorry, okay? Are you happy?”

Jeon’s free hand, which had been jerking around as he yelled, finds itself gripping the wheel again regretfully. Silence fills the car, hanging in the air as heavy and solid as concrete. You’re almost scared to breathe in face of all the tension. He looks like he’s about to say something else but stops himself before the words fall out. 

The way you were fuming brings tears to your eyes. When your parents died, all you had was Jeongguk. But Jeongguk’s heart had been rooted in the mafia since he was young. The two were mutually exclusive, and your best option was following after him. It was hard to believe the boy you put your trust in so blindly all those years ago had grown into the man sitting next to you now, bringing you to tears with the way he infuriated you. Where did it all go wrong?

“No. I’m not.”

☆☆☆

You’re tired when you go to bed that night, and you’re tired when you wake up. Though you’re barely awake, you can feel Penny nestled into your side, body rising and falling as she breathes. It’s a small comfort, especially after the rough day you had. Last night had been a mess as you tried to hold it together for her, but simply couldn’t. 

Today, you’ll be heading over to a motel in the Gambling District to stay at indefinitely with Jeon while you work on the case. You have no clue how long it will take - you’ll be taking a look at the Belvedere, but what comes after that, you don’t know.

It was important to note that somehow, the two of you had moved up to the faces of the mission, even though both sides were working tirelessly in the search. 

The last thing you want to do right now is see him, but you have no choice. The sooner you start working and get it done, the sooner you can get home. But for now, you have to start packing. You take another moment to lay with Penny, because when you’ll next feel this safety and comfort again, you can’t be sure of. Then, you carefully unlink her from you and begin laying things out.

Something nice to wear for the casino, clothes to sleep in, essentials for hygiene, an extra pair of socks… 

Eventually, Penny stretches out and groans to inform you of her awakening while you roam around the room. Her feet shifting under the comforter push a t-shirt off the bed.

“Sleep okay?” She rubs her eyes. “Yeah, you?”

“Eh. Could have been better.”

While you are away, Penny will be home by herself. The Boss said that she wouldn’t be required for work while you were gone - she could stay home and safe, for your reassurance. It still makes you nervous, of course, but bringing her with you isn’t an option. Yeji promised she would stop in from time to time, and you would be leaving her with a sum of money in case she needs it to order food or something of the sort.

“When are you leaving?”

“I have to be there by one, so probably in an hour or so.”

“Can we make waffles then?”

You sigh, letting your arms go limp at your side. Waffles were a hassle, and the cleanup could be a nightmare, but… something told you it was worth it over the potential mess.

“Sure, go get the machine set up and I’ll come out in a sec.”

It takes a few more minutes to get everything packed, take a few extra bottles of soaps and gels just in case, quickly zipping up your duffle bag and tossing it down onto the bed for when you return later.

Out in the kitchen, Penny has gotten more of a move on. She has already retrieved the ingredients from the pantry, even started measuring amounts out accordingly with the instructions on the back of the box.

You let her have a little fun and crack the eggs this time - though some shell gets in there, it’s nothing you can’t pick out. She makes jokes and you can’t help but laugh, and something about it has its way of calming you down. It reminds you of how precious moments spent together are. Something about the girl just makes you let go of the burdens you carry.

But it’s much too soon that you’re cleaning up. A small ending for a small fragment of your day bound to be filled with things much larger than you’re ready to handle. 

The rain falls like feathers when you pull into the lot, plunking consistently on your windshield. You turn the key and take it out, shutting down the vehicle’s rumbling engine, the lights dimming out all around you. You should get inside sooner than later, before the weather worsens, but you can’t seem to bring yourself out of the car. Jeon’s is already parked, meaning he’s inside waiting. But there’s no other choice you have. You’ll have to see him at some point, anyway. Postponing will only anger you further.

You push open the car door quickly, grabbing your bag and darting up the stairs as they clang under your shoes. The droplets smack against your skin and drip down relentlessly. It could be worse, but it is certainly not pleasant. Once you find shelter under the awning, you raise your hand in preparation to knock, but Jeon is already yanking open the door and stepping aside to make way for your entrance.

Inside, you dab at your hair with your sleeve carefully, fixing it in the mirror opposite to you. As clued in by the backpack and laptop already set up on the right side of the singular bed in the room, you deduced he had already claimed it. Therefore, you take the initiative to place your own bag on the left side, closest to the wall.

“So… how are you?”

“I’m fine.” You reach into your bag to begin unpacking a few of your essentials, feeling his eyes glued to you as you move around the room. Even as you plug in your charger, toss your computer on the bed, you could sense his firm yet uneasy presence behind you.

“Have you started yet?” you ask, brushing back the hair that had fallen forward onto your face. You’d prefer to start your work instead of floating around the elephant in the room awkwardly. 

He tucks his hands into his pockets. “No, I was waiting for you.” Jeon has been stuck to the same spot near the dim lamp beside the door since you stepped through the threshold. It inclined you to think that maybe he’s as nervous as you are, but you’re sure it’ll pass over in a matter of minutes once he gathers himself. 

“Okay.” You exhale in thought, sweeping yourself into a comfortable position on the bed. “I’ll start doing background on the casino and it’s ownership records. You can look into workers or people associated with the man who was killed. Or call the agency, I don’t know. You do you.”

He makes a small noise of agreement, flipping open his laptop. However, with the slow movement of his fingers across the keyboard, the air void of purposeful clicking, you can tell he’s not getting much done. In fact, you can see in your peripheral his stillness, as if he’s waiting to make a move.

When you spare a glimpse over to him, he offers an expression of deep thought, only to say, “There are snacks, too. In case you get hungry.”

Your scampering flow of typing pauses. “Okay.” All you can offer is a brief, tight pull of your lips, what you could barely define as a smile.

Luckily, he seems to receive your message loud and clear, turning back around in his chair to start up whatever he was planning on. You know what you want to get - the information most valuable to doing what you needed to do and confirming what you already suspected, which was in the past records of the proprietorship. It would also be helpful if you could find current workers and see what they were doing; Maybe even more helpful if you could find nothing at all.

The records you stumble upon are nothing short of interesting once you finally break down that barrier. Ownership of the casino had been consistent up until three months ago, when the deed holder - a healthy man of only fifty-six years old - made a business deal and swiftly moved out of the country, only to be found dead in his home a month later. The new owner’s background appeared without even the slightest scratch. The lack of suspicion is suspicious in itself - you don’t think the Falcon would have the place under his own name, but having it under someone who is pristine as a newly minted coin is dubious all the same.

It’s the shut of Jeon’s laptop that sucks you back into the reality of the motel room from your online sanctuary. He stands up to stretch and makes a move for the bathroom. The room is shrouded in the darkness of nighttime, save for the moonlight streaming in through the windows and the sorry excuse for a lamp on your night table. It wouldn’t kill you to call it a night either.

When he emerges, you take your turn, bringing a change of clothes with you so you won’t have to face the tension that might arise if you came back out in just a towel. The shower is pleasant; For a second, if you close your eyes, you’re no longer in the same space with him and can enjoy the time for yourself. 

Your heavy heart can’t be kept at bay for too long. Outside the bathroom is a surprisingly accurate reminder of old times, when scenes just like this were the regular, and the feeling was the same. But at this moment, the way you’re avoiding his eyes while you braid your hair in the mirror is a show of just how much things have changed.

“Why are you looking at me?” you pipe quietly over the steady padding of your feet on the carpet, his watch following you hesitantly.

Jeon sits back at the head of the bed, not sure where to direct his gaze anymore now that you’ve verbally interrupted it. His constant attention, and especially the way he doesn’t deny it even in the face of your attitude towards him, leaves you with a weary ache that you’re quickly getting tired of feeling all the time.

A charming, shy smile fixes on his face as his head tilts endearingly, testing the waters. “What, I can’t look at you?”

“Not like that,” you mumble, barely above a whisper, lifting up the sheets to crawl in, leaving as much space as possible between the two of you. When you turn your back to him to look at the wall, you think he might make another teasing comment, but he doesn’t.

“It’s the braid,” he elaborates, as if it’s some sort of excuse sufficient enough to play flirty and cool with you when the situation is anything but. “It reminds me of when we were kids… you used to wear it like that every day.” 

It’s almost as if to say, do you remember? But of course you remember. Afternoons spent at the playground, your hair in a loose braid thrown over the front of your shoulder. Mornings spent in the courtyard, scribbling down answers to work that was due in ten minutes. Evenings spent wandering around town, laughing and joking together as kids should. But nothing offered by the times of the past could dismiss the times of the present.

You lean over and tug the chain on the lamp, darkness enclosing your small room.

“Go to bed, Gguk.”

He doesn’t make another sound that night.

☆☆☆

The storm has proven its resilience yet continues to torrent, horribly testing the aging logs of trees and endlessly splattering your windows. Even still, it has something to say, residing anger it wants to make you feel, trapping you inside your room and limiting your options. It’s a deep pain, but perhaps if you were a storm, you’d let yourself drain out every ounce of deplorable wrath until there was nothing leftover, too.

Jeon sits at the small table near the door. He’s been there for who knows how long, flipping through pages, making phone calls that connect no dots, wasting his time. There is nothing that can be done at the moment, not with the state of the weather at least. Weather, a trivial matter, the most popular topic choice for insignificant conversation, heeds your course of action without a known resumption.

In the meantime, you enjoy yourself as much as you can. You make popcorn in the less than appealing microwave and settle in to watch whatever piques your interest in the slightest, meaning there is not a wide selection. Right now, you’ve got on a show about the aliens who have supposedly visited ancient Egypt and other societies bygone, and have been consistently present throughout the timeline of human history.

“Y/N. Let me ask you a question.” Jeon rubs his forehead, slumping over in his chair. “Did you come here with the intention of helping this case, or just to vacation?”

You nod in thought, humming. “Good question. I’d say the former, but I don’t think your question was intended to have an answer. Let me ask you a question then.”

His tired face turns to you expectantly. 

You take a pensive breath before raising your hand and asking slowly, “Do you think that aliens provided advanced technologies to the Germans to build new weapons for the Third Reich?”

He stares at you blankly, meeting your still and inquisitive expression for just a moment until he cracks, shaking his head and looking away toward the window, as if he’ll find something better to say out there.

“No, I’m serious,” you insist as you toss another kernel into your mouth, hoping he takes your biting satire to heart. “Because, this guy is saying that the Germans built a flying saucer. A whole fucking flying saucer, called the Haunebu, and no, wait, listen, it was said to use mythical technology from old Indian texts.”

You stare, intent on waiting for a response. Jeon pinches the bridge of his nose, the way his fuse was quickly shortening keeping you bitterly entertained. “You have to work with me, Y/N. Can you please just work with me?”

The joke dissolves and you blankly turn to flip through the channels. “I am working with you. There’s just nothing to work on.”

He puts his head in his hands. “For God’s sake, can you stop? I know you don’t care for me, but if you could just cooperate-”

Your eyes widen in surprise. “Care for you?” you repeat, your smile fueled with gallons of flammable offense, sitting upright on the bed. He spins in his chair to face you again, eyebrows knitting together before confirming, “Yeah, care for me!”

A sour laugh escapes you, arms folding over your front. “I don’t care for you? That’s rich, Gguk.” 

“No, you don’t! And I don’t think you ever have, quite frankly, because you’re acting like such a bitch to me and can’t even give me a chance!” Jeon stands now, leaning into his words as his hands stretch out in dramatic gestures.

You jump to your feet. ”Why should I give you a chance? What good has that ever done me?”

Jeon’s jaw visibly clenches, his hand shooting up to meet his chin as he eschews your scrutinizing eye. You feel your nails digging into your palms as your fists clench, but you’re sure you’ll swing at something if you stop.

Your throat begins to sting, masking your cracking voice with a low tone. “I almost died for you, Gguk. And a week later, you left me.”

The room collapses under the weight of the elephant. It’s everything you’ve wanted to say for years bubbling to the top.

As soon as the venom leaves your mouth, you know he remembers. The guilt washing over his features says it all, awful clips of the last mission you ever went on together passing through his vision.

It was supposed to be an easy interception of a deal, but Jeon’s inability to differentiate between necessary risk and recklessness cost you your covers. He got away. You were captured.

It was torture at the expense of his safety. Excruciating pain in order to protect him from his own mistake. Your blood spilled, your tears cried, your body hurt. Yet at the end of every video, every call, every threat, your only message to him was that it was okay.

They were the worst you had ever encountered. They wanted leverage over the Boss; They wanted Jeon. And the only way to him was to you. At the time, it was worth it. You wouldn’t give him up, you wouldn’t let yourself become a part of an exchange for his life. You put his over your own in a heartbeat.

And where had that gotten you?

Your depth of a breaking point had provided that desperately needed time to organize a plan of attack, and even though you hadn’t been there quite yet, even though you had been trained and it was far from your first rodeo, it wasn’t anything less than scarring. 

Even though the mafia infiltrated and rescued you successfully, the inner turmoil never fully recovered. Though you moved past the nightmares and the flashbacks that hid in your damaged subconscious, the memory never stopped hurting. Especially when he up and left you to deal with it on your own.

“I know,” is all he can muster. 

A thrilling laugh of spite rips from your throat. He hates it.

“What? That’s all you can say? You can’t even give me an explanation?”

“I… I was out of options for us, Y/N. After the mission, I knew it was me making you vulnerable. People were hurting you over me, and I didn’t want that for us anymore. I made a plan to leave, and I thought that you could come with me… but I was stupid and in a rush and the deal was only for my cooperation if the Agency helped me out. They wouldn’t let me take you.”

Your usual crisp verbosity fails you now, everything you need to say stuck in your throat. A stabbing anguish falls like bullets in a downpour, a storm born only in the bitterest winter. 

“I know I fucked up, Y/N, I know I did. And I’ll always be sorry and I’ll always regret it. And I’ll spend every second of my life trying to make up for it.” Jeon’s lip quivers through his shaky breaths, his eyes now soaked, the ache in his heart unforgiving. “And I know I can’t ever take it back, but you hate me so bad…”

A pained upturn of your lips feeling the grudge of a thousand wrongdoings phases over your expression, for him, for you, for everyone you’d ever known in this sickening lifetime.

“I don’t hate you, Gguk,” you sob through your teeth, wiping furiously at your eyes, “I hate… I hate that I love you regardless of what you do.”

He winces. “Please don’t do that to me.” “Do what?”

Hot streams of tears trickled down his supple cheeks, voice cracking as he whispers, “Say that you love me when you know how I feel.”

“Oh shut up, Jeongguk!” you yell, wet rage prickling your veins as it courses through you. Your cheeks are now just vessels for a dam breaking loose. “I have always loved you!”

And it hurts so bad to say it. The way he makes your stomach flutter feels like a betrayal to yourself. But that smile he wears like a medallion, those eyes that are always searching for you, that golden heart that loved you so well - everything you hate is everything you love. Even when you want to ignore the truth for everything it’s worth and all the weight it heaves on its shoulders, it’s impossible to escape the way you love him even when you wish you could just hate him.

You calm yourself with a shaky breath. “I loved you before, and I loved you after, even when you left and I knew you weren’t coming back.”

“That’s not true,” he sputters, taking a step toward you. “I was always going to come back. Every day, I begged for help to get you out. But the deal I made with the agency was only my rescue for my cooperation, and it didn’t include you, no matter what I tried to do.”

It stings your chest. You have to turn away when your head drops to your palms, but he’s quick to reach a hand to your shoulder for your attention. 

“It’s been over three years, Gguk,” you whisper, sniffling as you wipe your running nose with your sleeve. Your voice is clogged in disappointed acceptance. “Don’t lie. Just say my relevance to you faded and you forgot.”

He grasps your arm gently, beckoning your eyes to meet his. While your tears are slowing from tire, his are an endless faucet left on in negligence.

“No,” his tone softens, “No, I was waiting until it was safe.”

You shake your head, the soreness in your chest present as ever as you try to hold it all in. “It was never going to be safe.”

“Maybe. And maybe it won’t ever be. But you have to let me make it right.”

“How do you intend on doing that? Putting snacks in the fridge doesn’t do shit, Gguk.”

He inhales deeply as his lips press together. Jeon takes a careful glance around the room, eyebrows furrowing as he silently pleads with you. 

“I made a plan to get you out after the mission is completed. The higher-ups at the Agency agreed just in exchange for you to give a private report with as much as you know for future reference. From there, it’s you going wherever you want, no strings attached, no extra deal you have to make.”

“That won’t work,” you scoff.

“Yes, it will! I promise it will! Listen, everything is already planned. My friends are taking extra care because they trust me. You’ll have new records, a new passport and a license, new everything, and even…”

“Gguk...” You whisper as he continues rambling. “Gguk. Jeongguk!”

He takes in a sharp breath as his words are cut off mid-stream, feeling his heart drop to his stomach.

In a quiet, calm whisper, you explain, “I can’t. I have Penny and other people here that I care about. For god sake, I have money I've been saving for years in that apartment, all our stuff is there, I can’t just leave and not come back.”

The desperation in his voice is now out in the open. “I know. I wasn’t expecting that, but I’m working on her now, too. You just have to trust me.”

For a second, he lets himself swell with hope, but your deep, despondent sigh crumbles him right back down to where he started. 

“Gguk…” you start, but he can’t bear to hear it, leaning down to meet your hesitant eyes straight on. Distress clouds his watery pupils as he implores you with every ounce of sincerity he can muster to the surface for you. He doesn’t know how else he can make you see he’s being more honest now than he ever has been in his life. 

“It’s okay if you can’t forgive me. I understand, and I’ll never stop being sorry. And, and I’m sorry for how I acted when I saw you again, but I was just so scared.” His lip trembles as he searches for eyes for something, anything. “I didn’t know what I was supposed to do because I was so scared of what you’d say and how you’d feel and I thought if I acted like it was fine, it wouldn’t hurt as bad.” 

He swallows on a dry mouth, trying not to stammer but his heart denying him that ability.

“I, I thought about you every day. Every day. And I knew it was complicated and everyone told me I should just let go and, and I just couldn’t! I just knew it was you. It was always you. And I am so, so sorry I made you feel it wasn’t.”

By now, you can’t restrain your tears, no matter how hard you clench your teeth or comfort your face. In a moment of deep affliction, there’s no other place to turn but him. The second you pull him to you is relief synonymous with the feeling of when a battered castaway finally spots a plane coming for their rescue; it is joint. 

“I wish I could trust you, Jeongguk,” Sobs muffled by his comforting chest, you cry, ”But I don’t know if I can do that. I want to believe you so bad, but I… I don’t know if it’s worth it.”

The comforting warmth of his body is a mean juxtaposition against the harsh sobs that rack through it. Jeongguk smells of something sweet and nostalgically familiar, like sunny beach days spent down by the salty water, plucking seashells from the sand and digging for hermit crabs once the waves pull away from the shore. Light sunscreen and grainy memories that flash by as your brain slides through like film.

“That’s okay,” he mumbles into your hair. Your will splinters in his arms. “Just think about it. That’s all. Just think about it.”

Though you nod against him in shaky assent, it’s not a promise. 

☆☆☆

Not the next day, but the day after, is when you decide to make your move. 

The casino is a home base, hidden in plain sight. Not even that - crowded by the public eye, and yet not a suspicion raised despite its astronomical numbers being reported over the past few months. Sure, it was bustling full of rich men in need of something to spend their money on, but not enough to sustain those incredible reports.

And under that brittle, flimsy assumption comes your similarly brittle, flimsy plan. Go in, see what you can see. Scout for suspicious activity, chat up drunk patrons and loosen their lips, explore the building a bit. See what you see.

Your fingers are nimble, but your prickling nerves make them fumble as you try the clasp on your necklace. The nail on your pointer can’t seem to hold the small lever down for long enough, even when you twist the chain around so you can lean forward to do it in the mirror. You even consider just tossing it to the side and going without the necklace.

Jeon, standing awkwardly to the side and already having fixed his sleeves in place countless times, glances over to you in the mirror briefly. You sigh when you catch his hesitant watch in the reflection - his shy offer goes unspoken, just a reminder that it’s there if you want to take it. All it takes is a minuscule top of your head to give in.

 Resisting Jeongguk is like resisting gravity. It pulls you down sooner or later, no matter how high or far you push yourself off. But at the end of the day, it keeps you grounded.

His footsteps are barely audible on the carpet as he approaches timidly. Light on his feet, as always. You surrender the ends of the necklace to him and tug the pendant back around to the front. The pads of his fingertips are rough as they drag lightly across your skin in the exchange, igniting a flaming feeling in their path. You can feel the hairs on the back of your neck prickle as he pushes them out of the way with the back of his hand. Considering his extensive training and incredible eye, you’re sure he notices it, but you’re grateful he doesn’t say anything.

You try not to let your eyes wander in the mirror for too long. For your excursion tonight, your dress is one of the best you own - a simple, dark satin gown with a generous leg slit to steal some eyes, but not enough to make you uncomfortable. The deep cowl neck is flattering in its pristine v-shape, especially with the way the pendant hangs itself just above.

Jeon is sporting all black. His shirt is ironed smoothly, fitting well over his shoulders and tucked with care into his trousers and secured with a sturdy belt. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows to reveal his skin, tattoos peeking out in a shamelessly appealing way, and the collar…

Okay, too much. You’ll go into sensory overload if you look any longer. He’s caught onto it, the way a smirk creeps onto his face. He lingers a second longer after he’s clasped the jewelry in place. The Gguk you know flicks his eyes up quickly and throws a small, short smile your way, hands reluctant to pull away as they take the time to drift over your bare shoulders.

You clear your throat, taking the initiative to get on your way. He hides the way his spirit dips at the rejection, but he knows he can’t expect more. Once you’re outside and have locked the door behind you, the night air hits you, cool and fresh and promising. But for what exactly, you can’t be sure.

☆☆☆

The Belvedere is one of the most expensive-looking places in the city - in the months since you’d last worked a case around the gambling district, it had certainly been renovated. At the very front, the casino’s name glows light blue in a thin font while large ivory columns hold up a wide intricate ceiling to shade the pavilion. A wall of luxe glass doors lines the entrance, so sparkly and reflecting you think it can’t be just glass. 

As inviting as the front entrance seems, it is not your way in. Too many scrutinizing eyes, too many cautious cameras, too much security for your type of job. That leads you to the side of the building, a small alley between buildings with one side entrance. The agency already looped the footage twenty minutes ago just to be safe.

But of course when you try it, it’s locked.

“And… what now? They’ll notice if we just break in.”

Jeon shrugs. “Maybe not until a little while. Besides, we’re covered.” His pointer finds the camera up above the two of your for reference.

“I’d rather hold off on the damage we do.”

As he racks his brain for another option, your brain tunes in to the muted sound of shoes on linoleum. He raises a question just as you put your ear to the door but your shush quiets him immediately. The footsteps are coming your way.

Just as you feel the door about to open, you tug Jeon to the side next to the door’s hinge, pulling him down by his collar into a kiss. The door opens loudly and his hands, after his initial shock dissipates, find themselves on your waist as your own snake their way around his neck. You make sure one hand covers the side of his face generously and that your hair masks your own, meanwhile Jeon can’t help himself from getting swept up in you.

A guard, you think it is, halts when he sees the two of you, but takes it off his radar when he can no longer stand to watch your shamelessness. Or rather, Jeon’s shamelessness. His lips persistently press themselves to yours, nipping and pulling all the while his large hands push into your waist. Something about it makes you think it’s not just for a distraction.

The man shakes his head and turns the opposite direction, walking out toward the street. Before the heavy door falls closed behind him, you reach an arm out to grab the handle. Jeon pulls back slowly, blinking dumbfoundedly. He never thought you’d do such a thing - but clearly, it wasn’t such a thing to you by the way you were grinning like you’d only told a joke. He swallows, mentally slapping himself in a note to get himself together. You’re already stepping inside, and he picks up to follow suit.

You follow the hallway down the main room, and no one raises any concern, probably unable to sense suspicion in their state of inebriation. The two of you weave your way through crowds of people with too much money to spend, quietly thinking of how easy it would be to pickpocket them - but that’s for another time. 

A quick scan of the room provides you with the bar, rows of slot machines, pool tables, and a large lounge area filled with the sounds of mindless chatter and glasses clinking. You order drinks to blend in, nothing alcoholic, because as much as you wish you could get drunk and have fun in a casino, that wasn’t the reason you were here. Jeon hands you your coke with a practiced movement.

In a cheesy sort of cheers, he says, “To… the Lion and the Scorpion? Or is that too soon?” He purses his lips, half scared you’ll agree its too soon. It’s relief when he hears the laugh he missed so dearly.

“Not too soon, just a little embarrassing.” You clink your glass to his and take a sip. Jeon leads you over to the dartboards in excitement, one of his favorites to partake in. He chooses the one at the end of the row so you can stand beside him, supposedly to be impressed by his skills and praise him.

“God, this reminds me of Macau,” he sighs out contently. His coffee eyes roam around the large expanse of the hall, seeming to glitter under the crystal chandeliers hanging above you as he walks back from the controls, darts in hand. He gets into position and throws his first, landing for two points in the ring of red. As if you didn’t already know, he adds, “I loved Macau.”

You scoff. “What, because of the way our covers were blown and we had to massacre the lobby, or the sex?”

“Why not both?” He shrugs, smirk creeping onto his face. Another dart leaves his grip, expert aim leading right to the bullseye.

You take another sip of your drink. “Careful,” you warn, “Can’t be too good at this. It comes with questions.”

He hums, and you wonder if he’s even listening. “And you still had blood on your chest. Weirdly sexy.” His eyes narrow jokingly as he speaks just low enough so only you can hear it, and the reaction it pulls from you is exactly what he wanted when he starts to laugh. He lets go of his last dart with a shake of his head, either at the memory or his bad throw that says he’s going fishing.

He turns back to you. At your annoyed expression, he takes another swig of his drink and leans down to your ear. “Seriously though. That was hot.”

You roll your eyes before sending a scowl his way. “I’ll make sure to be extra messy tonight, just for you.” Your eyes crinkle peevishly. The sarcastic tone doesn’t escape him, but he does look hopeful.

“Hey, speaking of, this could be my New Macau. If you’re feeling frisky after the mission.” He throws you a flirtatious wink. While your poker face implies disinterest, your stomach is somersaulting head over heels, and you have a feeling he knows it by the way his eyes linger on you when you raise your glass to your lips. 

The phone in your purse vibrates. It’s a text from Yeji - need to get a move on. Jeon already has your gaze when you look back to meet him, but he knows it’s time from your expression alone. With a small nod, he goes up to end the game on the machine’s screen. Instead of coming back to you, though, he subtly taps your arm as he walks past and heads off to the door of the main floor, disappearing from your sight. You wait for a good thirty seconds, let people pass across the camera view at random, before hopping down from the barstool to follow in his footsteps.

You find him waiting in a secluded hallway, away from crowds or casino-regulars. He looks solemn, back pressed against the wall, and you have a feeling that what he has to say might upset you. He thinks so, too.

“Listen, you have to make a decision now. Before we split up, because there’s a chance I might not see you after this.”

You shrug. “I haven’t decided yet.” His eyebrows draw together as he gives you a pleading expression. His eyes flick to both sides of the hall before coming back to you, releasing a deep breath before pushing his hair from his eyes.

“I gave you the time, Y/N. You have to before it’s too late.” Jeon gulps, fumbling for the words. “Just come with me, please. I know it’s a lot to ask and I know you’re scared but you can trust me. I can help you.”

“No, Gguk. You don’t get it - It’s not possible. It’s not an option.” You sigh in resignation. A depleted smile surfaces as you shake your head. “Not in this life.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“You did it once, you can do it again.”

“I’m not… I- I won’t. Y/N, please…” His lip quivers, his eyes glossing over.

He can’t accept the answer your silence provides. It’s not enough, not something he’s willing to endure. If it’s going to be a no, he has to hear it loud and clear.

He purses his lips tight. “I’ll flip a coin then.”

“...What?”

“I’ll flip a coin. Heads, you come with me. Tails, I’ll go,” he says shakily, swallowing, “...and I’ll never speak to you again.”

Before you can stop him, he’s wiping away the tears that have not yet had the chance to escape and aggressively fishing a quarter from his pocket, placing it on the tip of his thumb. Desperation burns in him, but you’re paralyzed. All you can do is stare, a fish out of water being held in the grip of an angler who just can’t let go. Or maybe one that’s urging you back out to sea.

His thumb flicks and the coin flies, the sound barely audible in this corner of the building but piercing to your ears. It flips in the air, every rotation executed with purpose - in that moment, as its arc nearly completes, the thought strikes you like lightning and without a second thought, you hand reaches up and snatches it midair.

Jeon is awestruck. He searches for something to say as his fountain of hope runs dry.

Weakly, you mutter, “Okay.” Its compliance, but a strange relief that makes you feel guilty the second it washes over you.

“Okay?”

“I’ll come.”

A tight-lipped smile spreads on his face - it’s the best he can do after such stress. In a heartbeat, he embraces you tightly, broad shoulders enveloping your form. His grip is familiar and only full of good things, even if it might suffocate you. His long, wavy locks brush lightly against your jaw as he buries his face in your neck. For once, you let yourself have that rare moment of comfort. 

“I won’t let you down,” he says, a vocal assurance for himself maybe more than for you. He thinks that maybe he shouldn’t say it, but he has to. “I promise.” 

It’s his first small triumph tonight. If nothing else, it is a debt repaid. He won’t push for more. He pulls back, lets you fix your hair and readjust your dress.

“Let’s get a move on. I’ll search the main floor, you take a look around the building. Keep in touch.”

You’re about to turn away from him, but his arm catches your wrist at the last second. When you look back to see what he has to say, he has trouble finding the right words.

“Listen… Y/N, I don’t know what it is, but I have this awful feeling. And I’m trying to ignore it, I know I’m probably just nervous, but I just want you to know in case. You don’t have to say anything…”

The hair framing your face bounces as your head begins to shake, trying to deny him before he can even say it. “No, Gguk, I know-”

“No. I...I love you. And you gotta know that, no matter what happens.” His thumb traces small circles on the patch of skin where yours meets your index. Before you have a chance to respond, he gives your hand a tight squeeze and plants a chaste kiss to your cheek, lips plush and sweet against your dimple, his last action as your token of remembrance. 

He doesn’t know why he feels so frail as he walks away, wiping away the wetness leaking from his eyes as he tries to calm himself down. Maybe it’s the lack of information, maybe it’s you possibly being in danger again. He tries to push it down as he struggles to resist the urge to look back at you; He’s just all up in his head, right? You can defend yourself, you’ll be fine without him, he reassures himself. You can make rope from kitchen twine.

You’re stuck on your own as the distance between you grows, heart racing as your time to say it back runs out like sand in an hourglass. In less than seconds, his figure has already disappeared around the corner.

A delicate finger reaches up to press the small button on the spyware piece tucked behind your ear. The whisper is low but you mean every syllable, regardless of the leftover turmoil that has consistently tempted you into anger the past few years - “I love you, Jeongguk.”

It’s a shot in the dark for you without his physical presence, but he hears it. It’s barely audible, but he hears it, and rings in his mind for moments after. It makes him feel right, like the moment when everything sifts into the bowl perfectly, no clumps of doubt left behind in the minuscule metal crosshatches. Even if just for a few seconds, the feeling of relief stays frozen in time.

You’re on your way back to the main hall when a buzz from your purse alerts you to an unknown number calling your phone. Typically you’d let it ring, thinking it was spam - but considering this was an agency phone, that wouldn’t make much sense. Your finger hovers over the green accept button, hesitantly pressing down and lifting it to your ear. 

The response is immediate. “The Scorpion,” a man on the other end addresses you, sounding much too enthusiastic for your taste. His voice is masked with a changer, the tone fluctuating as he speaks. “I’m glad you could make it tonight. I’ve spent a lot to make this place nice.”

The theatrics elicit an impatient eye roll from you. “Who is this?”

“Who do you think? You’re a smart cookie. There’s a reason they call you the Scorpion, isn’t there?”

He lets the pause marinate and continues, “I actually wanted to meet with you. I need to discuss something vital to you in person, but you’ll have to do some things for me first.”

You begin to turn around, spinning on your heels and intent on heading to Jeongguk downstairs, but the voice on the phone stops you. “Where do you think you’re going?”

You freeze, an eyebrow raising at the voice’s inquiry. Keen eyes scan quickly, landing on the faceless lens of a security camera - 

“It’s my casino. Of course I can see what you’re doing.”

A skeptical breath escapes you, squinting at the camera focused on your position. “...What do you want?”

“I just want to talk.” It’s casual.

“How do I know it’s not a trap?” “You don’t. But you don’t have any other option, really. If you need convincing… why don’t you check your home security?”

The dubious persona falters as your heart stops. It couldn’t be. You exit the call and open the app on your phone right away, and a sinking feeling hits you like a truck on the freeway, full speed and with reckless abandon. The view from the camera, grey and grainy, displays the apartment in pieces, furniture overthrown and papers scattered. The dread crawls up your spine as your worst nightmare, the one thing you always prayed for despite the lack of faith, comes to life; Penny is gone.

You call the number back.

“What now?” you say, jaw clenched. trying to calm your breathing.

“Take out your earpiece, toss it to the floor, and crush it. I need to protect my location somehow, right? Just a precaution.”

You slowly remove the receiver from its spot nestled in around your ear, thumbing the tiny matte black tech. It’s your connection to the outside, to safety. It’s your connection to Jeongguk. But the Falcon has played his cards right, leaving you with no other option. It falls from your fingertips, clatters to the linoleum, and you crush it underneath your heel.

“Now, your weapons. My guards will come to escort you - hand over your gun and any knives you may have on you. I know you’re sneaky, but now… really isn’t the time. I’ll see you in a bit.” A cold click ends the call and he’s gone.

On cue, two masked men dressed in all black emerge. They don’t frighten you, you know you could take them if you needed to. However, the priority is Penny, so you have to. You surrender your weapons and phone to them, and then they begin to shuffle you away to wherever the Falcon had made his nest.

Despite the nerves prickling like electric shocks, uneasiness itches in the back of your mind. Something about the phone call - was it the strange familiarity that made you feel so nauseous? You couldn’t quite place your finger on what was so off, on what about it pulled the alarm, but something besides the obvious situation at hand was wrong.

☆☆☆

Jeongguk doesn’t have much to go off of. He’s looking for something, anything, that can clue him in. He finds a creepy looking stairwell and decides to take it down. That’s how you find everything in need of being found, right? By following what feels off?

He comes to a storage room full of dusty metal shelves, all lined with boxes upon boxes. He takes a quick sweep of the room, shrugging to himself before delving into one. It’s just piles of text he doesn’t understand, pages and pages of orders and receipts dating back years and years. Maps of the building, information of repairs and inventory and renovations. It doesn’t mean anything useful, until he sees orders under names that ring a bell.

But from where? People he went to school with, maybe? For the life of him, he can’t remember where he knows them from.

He’s frantically flipping through pages, pulling boxes from the shelves and trying his best to read under the dim light. It’s not making any sense, until he lands on orders filed under the name… Jeon?

He freezes, all alone in the middle of a storage room full of thousands of documents, a sickly feeling washing over him.

A trembling hand reaches up to press the button on his earpiece.

“Y/N? I think I just found something.”

He waits, and no response from you.

“...Y/N?”

☆☆☆

The penthouse is in the heart of the city, just a few blocks away from the Belvedere. The view is enough to tell it to you - it overlooks miles of blinking lights and busy streets with which you have an archetypal love-hate relationship with. 

You’ve stepped fresh off the elevator into an open room that is in dire need of an interior decorator, or at the very least some basic furnishing. It’s basically empty, the dark hardwood floors even coated with a light layer of dust. Nothing except the moon and the fireplace at the other end of the room illuminate the space.

There’s shuffling, and the guards on either side of you are grabbing firmly onto your arms.

“What the fuck are you doing?” You struggle against them, fighting to get out of their grip, but one of them mutters how it’ll be better for you if you cooperate. You strain against the instinct to escape, every bone in your body screaming disgusted by the forced submission. Handcuffs click into place, and pressure on your shoulders pushes you to your knees. Then, they resign themselves to the back corners of the room.

A door creaks open at the far side of the room. The man sports a dark coat that obscures his figure, and long, dark hair hangs over the man’s face. His steps are slow and calculated on the wooden floor as he makes his way to the fire. Slender, practiced fingers grab onto the poker and stir the fire, glowing orange embers soaring in a blizzard of an inferno. A silver ring glints in the moonlight - one you’d recognize anywhere.

The details flood back, chains of connections like dominoes tipping over the edge of gut-wrenching betrayal - 

“...Boss?”

The man pauses, followed by a sudden clasp of his hands in… delight?

He spins on the heel of his oxfords to face you, hair sweeping back as he smiles at you.

“Keen as ever, my dear. You truly are the Scorpion. I know how you feel about your title, but you’re deserving of it.” 

A shaky breath leaves your throat, eyes stinging as you make out a low, “What is this?”

At the sight of your panic, the boss hurries over to you, making a show of how he takes your jaw in his hands. Though you flinch, he wipes the escaping tear with a calloused thumb.

“No, dear, no need to cry! This doesn’t have to be difficult. You are just leverage - you won’t be hurt as long as what needs to happen, happens.” The way he shakes his head, the twisted compassion in his eyes, makes you sick.

“Then where’s Penny?”

His sigh is accompanied by a sad smile. “Penny is the leverage over you. In case you get any funny ideas.”

“For what? What is this about?” you press, “What about the Syndicate, huh? Aren’t you gonna tell me what this is for?”

A rush of air, and then a sharp pressure on your throat. The Boss’s blade creeping up your throat - a small burn as he nicks your skin. 

“I’d watch my mouth if I were you. You should remember where your loyalties lie.”

You swallow thickly, and he continues.

“The Syndicate is real. Their presence in this city is real - but we are on good terms with them. I help them, they help me. They sacrifice a few men because they do what’s needed for the terms of the agreement, just like us.”

He blew up a building, ransacked the agency, led you on a wild goose chase in search of a threat that didn’t exist? There was always something psychotic about the Boss, that’s why he instilled so much fear in you - his lack of empathy, the lengths he’d go just for a show of power, but a ploy like this?

“And what’s that got to do with me?”

He scoffs. “It’s not about you, my dear. It never was. It’s about your connection to who it is about…”

His grin grows inverse to your pained frown, lips quivering as the realization dawns on you. “Jeongguk.”

“You’re the link, Y/N. I know how much you hate to love him. Only if you were forced to for the sake of the city. The reconnection wouldn’t be easy, but that boy is persistent, and the moment he heard you say those words back, it was sealed.”

You’re choked by the weight of his words crashing down on your throat. It’s horrifying, the way the tears well up and spill recklessly, finding it hard to breathe with your arms restrained. You focus your hardest on the effort to stay conscious, but the nausea is eating away at you.

“He was honest, too. He’s tried multiple times to fish you out of here. And it always rubbed me the wrong way. He’ll leave me behind, but not you? You’re my best, Y/N, but I despise you simply because of what your existence means.”

“You’re going to kill him?” you bite your lip to hold back the sob trying to crawl its way from your chest.

The Boss blinks, tilting his head in a faked compassion. “Only if he makes the same mistake again.”

An alert sounds out from his pocket. He fishes out his phone and holds it up to show you a map with a green dot steady on a location, seemingly yours.

“And it looks like we’ll find out right about… now.”

The elevator behind you opens, and the guards point their guns straight at the figure stepping off. His gun is held up protectively, but he has nowhere to go, face falling as he reads the situation - reads the pain on your face as you stare back at him on the floor.

He lowers his pistol, glaring at the man waiting smugly in front of him.

“Nice to see you again, Jeongguk.”

His lip turns down in disgust, spitting rancor - 

“Can’t say the same for myself, Dad.”

☆☆☆

The tension in the air is tight, like a thousand strings of yarn pinned wall to wall and floor to ceiling and impossible to maneuver. The Boss tsks at the cold reunion, more bitter than he had hoped. 

“What, you didn’t miss me all these years? I raised you, after all.”

“Raised me?” Jeongguk scoffs incredulously. “Try training me into your personal pawn, like some fucked up trophy for you to flaunt.”

“It was only so you could someday take my spot, son. I treated you the same way my father did me.”

The bitter timbre of his voice is laced with venom, so uncharacteristic of the Jeongguk you know. “Well, I worked out my daddy issues with a therapist. Maybe you should give it a shot. You should also probably mention how fucked up you are to plan a scheme like this just to bring me here.”

“You left, Jeongguk. I’d do anything for my son.”

“Oh, please-”

A loud click, and cool metal pressed against your forehead. Jeongguk freezes, and he knows the stakes. His blood boils from the blatant manipulation. There was a reason he left - he hated feeling this exact moment, and he hated reliving it even more. It was a place he thought he’d never be in again.

The Boss rolls his eyes again. “Always with something to say, forgetting I’m your elder, your father no less. Plan on letting me speak soon?”

His eyes are as cool as Jeongguk’s now. Dark, disappeared from dramatic frills or drawn-out tones. The resemblance is stunning, strikes fear in your heart, both physical and the mannerisms long-buried by time now resurfaced by each other.

When you meet the Boss’s eyes, they show no remorse for someone he claimed thinks of as his best.

Jeongguk’s eyes flick down and back up. Cooperation.

“Thank you.” He pulls the gun away, letting you catch a breath. “It’s simple, son. You agree to come back, and everything goes smoothly. If not, you won’t be leaving this room alive, and neither will she. Can’t have my trump cards playing against me.”

“Leave her out of this.”

“She’s the reason you’re here, how could I leave her out of this?”

“This is you and me. Not her.”

His father muses the idea, chews it up, spits it out. “Okay,” he grins. “Just us. I’d say go until one surrenders, but that’s not how us Jeons do it. If you can kill me, you’re free to do what you want.”

The guards lower their weapons, leaving the room at a snap of the Boss’s fingers, and Jeongguk’s grip on his tightens, knuckles turning white as he nods sharply in agreement. He’s been caught, a three-year-long game of cat and mouse finally come to a standstill. The man he looks at is just another cruel, cold-hearted crook on a power trip. The last thing he wants to do is fight him, because as skilled as Jeongguk might be, his father is equally such. He also has the upper hand: No feelings of remorse.

But he sees you on the floor, and when it comes to your life on the line, he knows he’d do anything. No matter the risk or the cost, he’d play a losing hand if he had to, if just to keep the fear from your mind. He steps past you, eyes speaking of reassurance when they meet yours, but it’s not a promise. 

Once Jeongguk has made his way around you to the center of the room, the Boss’s attention falls to you.

“Hear that, dear? This is a family issue. But in case you need any more convincing…”

The same door he creaked through minutes ago flies open, and in shuffles two people. Penny’s figure mirrors your own, arms tied behind her back. Her eyes are red and puffy, hair mussed and clothes wrinkled. There’s no blood or bruising visible, but it kills you the second you lay eyes on her. Your chest heaves silently, panic rising as she is brought in front of the fireplace, led by… Yeji?

The sleek, dark ponytail is unmistakable, and her cat eyes flick over to you in guilt as your words confirm her presence.

“I’m sorry,” she mouths, tears clouding her eyes. “I didn’t know.”

It was impossible to believe how easily everything was collapsing. Maybe your foundations were not as strong as you once thought. Wasn’t it just a week ago you had last spoken to her, taken her advice on working with Jeongguk?

“Again. No need for anyone to get hurt as long as you don’t interfere.”

But would Yeji hurt Penny, even at the Boss’s command? Was she that scared of him? Penny finds you, and you try your best to communicate reassurance, but you fall short. She trembles in fear the same as you.

Without warning, the Boss’s blade flies across the room. Jeongguk side steps, but the red gash sliced along his cheek taunts him for being a second too late. He reaches up a finger to dab at the blood in awe.

His anger fuels him forward. He raises his gun, ringing out shots that bury themselves in the drywall as he closes the gap. The Boss dodges each one. Slender fingers pull the gun from its holster, firing back immediately, glass shattering behind the younger.

Jeongguk zig zags on his feet, blade swinging up viciously at his father while he pulls the trigger in his left hand. The Boss is quick despite his age, no hesitation to his wide, ruthless swings. Jeongguk ducks and spins, changing their positions, knocking a knife from his grasp.

The man laughs. “That was good, but you can do better!” he yells, evading Jeongguk’s relentless swipes. As he taunts, a shard of glass reaches your vicinity. “Or are you too scared to hurt your old man?”

Your fingers bleed hot as you force the shard into the keylock, lifting up the metal lever.

It only fuels Jeongguk’s fire. A firm kick to the chest sends the Boss stumbling back. Jeongguk progresses, his knife dropping around in his grip, taking the slim moment to drive a sharp ice pick stab to his father's shoulder.

His eyes flick to you, and he doesn’t have the time to pull it back out. His father parries his left wrist outward and the gun is knocked from his fingertips, skidding to the floor, arriving kindly right in front of you. A single shot blasts out and Jeongguk lets out a clipped yelp. Your wrists free from the lock and reach for the solution just inches away.

But it’s already checkmate. The Boss’ blade is pressed up against Jeongguk’s throat, who is on his knees as he clutches at his thigh, crimson seeping through his fingers.

“Has the Lion been tamed since I last saw him?” The Boss mocks. There is nowhere for Jeongguk to go. “I’m disappointed, son. Love has made you weak.”

It steals the breath from your lungs. His eyes dart to your figure, mirroring his son’s actions just moments ago. He dares you to make a move. With his play, you can’t.

But that’s where the Boss is wrong. The man void of love sees it as a shot with a predetermined course from point A to point B, easily interfered with by the right tools, by the right move. However, love should not be mistaken for something meager. It’s an ever-weaving thread, crossing and connecting each and every way. Love does not have to be star-crossed and dire, it is not always a fated, tragic romance. There is no one love to outlast all others - not when it can be one you choose.

Yeji meets your eyes from across the room. The Boss has only a bluff catcher against her, the mistake of expecting loyalty before knowing for sure. It’s a twisted collusion that you never would have chosen, but it’s not your hand to play anymore.

Her vision is blurry through her tears. Yeji takes a breath she’s sure will be her last and releases it shakily. She has to do it now. She thinks of every other woman roped into his scheme, every future Penny that will be taken if it doesn’t end here, and she knows you can do it, because she was never strong enough to.

“Forgive me,” she croaks. 

An enraged bellow leaves the Boss, but all too late. She has already fired, breaking the lock that has held you captive all these years. A scream rips from your throat as Penny’s body falls forward and collapses to the hardwood.

Yeji is shredded by the entourage of bullets ripping from the Boss’s gun. She stumbles back, hits the wall, sinks to the floor.

Your hands instinctively reach for the weapon in front of you, hands fumbling as you pull the trigger with the weight of a thousand lives behind your index alone. The Boss falls, knife slipping from his fleeting grip, the third and final seal to the game.

The silence is stunning. Nothing feels real. It’s all shock before the pain rushes in, the inability to breath, the feeling of drowning. It’s utter anguish as you fight to the other side of the room, but Jeongguk holds you back. Pushing past him, only for him to spin you around and make you look him in the eye.

“We have to go,” he says through gritted teeth, voice cracking. His eyes plead with you as they blink away tears. Blood coats his hands, urgently dripping down his wrists as they grip yours. “Y/N, we have to go.”

 It dawns just as the day on the glowing horizon behind him that it’s over, but there is no victory in sight.

☆☆☆

The coming days are a whirlwind. Most of the time you’re numb, finding yourself stuck in your mind replaying memories over and over, and wincing to pull yourself out of them to the real world that is not much better. The funerals are a blur, long and tiring processions of black and sympathies you are not capable of accepting that leave your head pounding by the time you finally can sleep. But the dream world is not as kind to you as you would have hoped. 

It isn’t the memory of her death. It’s the memory of her smile, bright and tender, that could not see another day to shine. You haven’t stepped foot in the apartment yet. You will at some point, but not yet.

Yeji is another story. It’s a moral dilemma of what your inner compass tells you is wrong and your love for the only friend you ever had. Yeji was not bad, you know that. But it was murder, and perhaps that was why it did not go unpunished. Were her actions the results of weakness, or strength? Of personal desire, or wide-scale consideration? You could spend hours wondering whether things might have been different if she hadn’t done it, but at the end of the day, you would never get the chance to know. 

In the meantime, the mafia is collapsing. Those who wanted to leave took their chance the second the news of the Boss’s death came in. Ran away to other cities, shelters, anywhere they could to get away from the struggle of the organization. Others who had nothing else are stranded picking up the pieces. They won’t be able to make a comeback, you know that. They’ll turn to other forms of crime, maybe even those that you’ll have to face again in the future.

You can get away from it all for a few moments of peace, but not much more.

Jeongguk’s apartment is close to the marina. He’s lucky for such a beautiful view. This early in the morning, the world is silent, relaxing without the mindless bustling of life. Boats float calmly across the harbor, sails reaching up to the sky streaked with blossoming pinks and clement oranges. Daybreak’s retiring light glitters as it touches the surface of the water with a gentle hand.

The glass door slides open slowly behind you, and Jeongguk’s presence enters to calm your thoughts. The slight limp in his step is barely visible, and he’s lucky that his father’s bullet avoided his femoral artery. If it did, he’d probably be in a much more dire situation than he has now. Since that night, rumors have surfaced that the Boss missed due to nervousness, or fear. Jeongguk knows that his father’s aim was too sharp to miss, and also that he was a hypocrite.

He takes a seat in the chair beside yours. His hair is mussed from a long night of tossing and turning, the same as yours.

“Couldn’t sleep,” you mutter, tongue coated with exhaust.

He hums. “Me neither.”

The flux of air from his sturdy chest is a comfort that relieves the pain for just a little while. Lifts it away like a fog being cleared, and the weight falls off your shoulders so you can breathe again. His eyes swim with affection, and you’re sure that a thousand particles of stardust must be locked away behind his irises.

It never fails to amaze you how Jeongguk always seems to know what you’re thinking. “It’s not your fault,” he says.

“I know.” It’s weak, barely a whisper. Your head drops to your palms despite your claim. “But it really feels like it.”

He takes a deep breath, atmosphere placid and unassuming. “You did everything you could. Some things are just out of your control, no matter what you do. It’s not fair, but just because you couldn’t stop something bad from happening doesn’t mean you caused it.”

You swallow blearily. “I just don’t even know where to go from here. It’s never going to be the same. So what do I do now?”

“I don’t know,” he speaks gingerly, “Maybe you should get out of here. Start again, somewhere else. I’ll probably do the same eventually.”

Your head begins to shake at the thought.

“I don’t want you to go,” you pause. “I told you that.”

Jeongguk softens. “Oh… okay. I, I won’t then.”

Finally, your head raises to see him properly. His calm guise masks the need of reassurance beneath. “I mean it. Do you remember when you said to tell you the next time so it didn’t land on what I didn’t want?”

He nods slowly.

“When it was in the air, there was just this split second watching it that it hit me. I knew what I wanted. Despite everything,” the corners of your mouth upturn, but not all that happily, “I wanted to choose you.”

Dark, wavy hair falls in front of his eyes, brushing at the healing cut that will certainly leave a scar. His gaze is tender and soft and all that’s good in this world. He looks at you like you’re the only thing he’s ever wanted. And if you asked him, he wouldn’t hesitate to agree.

“I forgive you, Jeongguk. For everything, I don’t care. I’d go through it again and again if I had to.” A fleeting smile pushes the tears from their deep wells. “‘Cause I need you.”

Jeongguk suffered the subtle heartbreak of unknowing for years on end. He’d sit on his balcony just like this, mild evenings under the setting sun, knowing you were out there living under the same sky as him, yet so far apart. He thought of you crossing city streets, breathing the air of the home you loved and hated simultaneously, maybe even sitting out on the fire escape of your own apartment. You were within a radius of just miles, which sounds like nothing compared to how far he’d go for you. 

He saw you everywhere. Saw you in every crevice and crack of the city. When the sun was shining brightly, when rain poured like bullets. From the window of the train, from the coffee shop. Retracing his routine steps was hard when he always saw your footprints right beside his own.

It was the feeling he’d been waiting on. At last, he feels contentment in his chest. It’s all he’s ever wanted. His pulse stutters as he thinks that he might just be dreaming, but when he reaches out to touch your clasped hands, steady fingers curling over yours, he knows it’s real. You’re real. It’s pure, unadulterated sunshine splintering over his soul.

Jeongguk stands, holding out his hand for you to take. He pulls you up with care and tugs you into his embrace, warm and kind. His arms around you are safe and sound, and the gentle beat of his heart eases the noise in your mind. It’s the heart that wouldn’t quit on you, the one the angels must either admire or envy. It’s the only thing that feels okay.

One day, things will be better. It’s far away and hard to grasp, but it’s there, waiting for you. Things that are meant to be will find a way, no matter how long it takes, just as Jeongguk and you found your way to this very balcony. But for now, sharing the weight of a heavy heart soothes the lonesome burden of loss, and what it means to love.

[xo-cuteplosion-xo]

The Ending of The Everlasting Sun.

Soukoku angst: will have 2 parts, one is Chuuya pov another is Dazai pov (Dazai is part 1 aka this piece. I'll start chuuya's tomorrow)

I’ll do a version for Dazai after (not pov but version so Chuuya can have the dose of Dazai’s pain T_T).

Warnings: Death, gore, violence, angst with just more angst. (idk if i consider dazai ooc but towards the end is mostly how i feel the situation would happen, so kinda ooc)

TBH, I don't know why I wrote this but hey I love feeding peeps and myself angst so, here you go.

The Ending of The Everlasting Sun. | A Soukoku Angst one-shot |

words: 4264

Dazai’s pov- (it swaps between third and first. I know my writing style is weird af)

The sun, a forever gleaming light in life. They say even in death, the sun won’t fade from your view. For light, something that brings reason to a life so pitched in black is everlasting. There is a place that resides within a person the sun that will never leave. Like the memories that one left behind shall forever hold. Memories will not fade, even as the deceased are placed within mounds of dirt, their body left to neatly decompose.

They say it is natural to feel your heart so heavy. To feel so pained when death washes over. Death can change a human, they say, death is rebirth, something shall always come from it. In some ways, Dazai knew the truth of such words. For he’s experienced the death of his light. At least he had thought the brunette, who’d stuck by his suicidal tendencies, his cruel ways, he thought that man had been the light. He had changed, he’d moved on into the light of this world. His heart may still be shadowed in the darkness the mafia left. The memories of those he left may never leave, but he was in the light. He was the light for another now. Still, dark himself, he’d help lead his news pupil to the light. He repeated this so often, yet why, why did his mind travel back to those days, the days when he was alongside that small ginger boy? The boy with anger issues could be heard a mile away, was he important? Why must he feel as if he left behind something important when he’d listened to a friend's dying wish? Surely he was better off now? He felt better, life wasn’t as black or as unlit as it had once been. So why? Why was it always that ginger that popped into his head on those restless nights? He worried so much if he was okay. If he was out there using that uncontrollable side without him. Ever since he left, he’d worried that ginger would do something as stupid as that. So maybe, just maybe, this world had blessed him with two lights. A light to change, that light had left him to save him. Then the second light, the light that showed him he could love and be loved. This world could take both lights to make such a realization, and eventually, this world, so cruel and dark would. Not by fate, but by the hand of an enemy who sought out Dazai’s weakness.

I stood beneath pelting rain, my mind held within it one thought, where was he? Never had the small boy I'd fallen for in my early teens missed a chance to torment me as I had tormented him. Never had he let the phone, to which we still held each other's numbers unblocked, reach the full number of rings before the voicemail kicked in. I had never felt this before. Nor had I the courage to admit such a thing. For feelings were only a danger to men like myself. I am undoubtedly cruel. Even now, in my early twenties, I stand beneath the rain alone. The mistakes of my past hanging over me for somebody to eventually discover. The past profession I had tried to hide and had hidden well for many years was creeping to my heels. The man whom I'd sought help from was gone, his final words my reason to be in the light. If neither side means anything, he told me to help the defenseless, to help the orphans. That is what I did. I left behind the ginger-haired boy whom, I now say with hesitance, I loved. It is a fine point that I was able to decline such things until after I left the mafia, for otherwise, I may have tried to do good whilst in the mafia, so I could stay with my final light within my life. Many have shed their light on me. The orphan I took in has shocked me many times, reading me in a way I thought only Oda, my extinguished light, could. He knew I was mourning that past friend when he found me at his grave. He continues to shock me to this day, the only one who can occasionally see past the mask I've worn since I was 14, since Mori found me. Kunikida has taught me responsibility and morals. There is still a bottle of things I shall never change. Some people can’t change. My mind prevents me from collecting such information about being human. My ability says it all, does it not? It is a perfect description of myself. The intelligence I share with Dostoevsky is merely one of the many things that keep me behind the wall of change. I may do things for another reason, but I am still a shadow over the people around me. I curse them all, I have brought heavy burdens onto the agency, I harm all of those around me. Love is a feeling I'm incapable of. At least, I can not recognize true love, only conclude that is what this pain is. It is a pain like no other, it is not physical, but no sense of being can push away the tangent throb of every beat. It is my mind, and the way I was brought up so young, that initially warped me beyond repair. That is why I am here, running in the rain despite my coworkers protesting to stop me.

Dazai understood the trap he was headed for, but he knew the trap would result in a fatality either way. If it was his death that waited for him, then he was alright with that. If it was painless, and he died a quick death before his mouth could run to say final bidding words to Chuuya, then he’d die. If this taunt was to break him, if he were to be late, he would drop to his knees and beg his old friend, who lay watching over him, to be forgiven for his actions tonight. If some awful being really did oversee this world, let it give Dazai one moment of peace. Let him have one good light stay until he is gone. He couldn’t do it again, the pain of holding a bloodied body within his arms, it would be hell. He knew not of true mourning, the pain of losing the one, who in a storybook, could be considered a soulmate. He knew it, others knew it, so many people knew the way he stared at Chuuya was not a friendly matter. There was lust within his soft chocolate hues, a hidden cave behind closed doors. Secret thoughts hidden in his mind. The things he wished he could have done before he left, the way he wanted to fix things, to regain what he had lost by leaving the mafia.

With every soft patter, Dazai flew between streets and yards. With every step, he grew closer and closer. With every new step, he felt his heart sink. For the area around was brittle and frail. The ground was crushed and indented. Some buildings lay in tattered pieces. Holes the size of beds lay stretched in the buildings and grass. The worst began to form in his head as his legs picked up into a pace he thought he could never take into. His lungs burned with the inhaled drips of water that turned to flames within his lungs. He pushed past the pain, the burn, the tired flail of limbs. His legs grew numb, but he refused to stop until his arms were flying open doors to a building that looked so horribly damaged.

As if I were the show that night, I could remember the lights. My lungs felt like fire, and my legs were ready to buckle beneath my frail body. I had not eaten a proper meal for weeks, my pockets empty from money spent to cover the scars I had littered my body with. The night is a haze within my mind. An unwilling nightmare I wish to set aside and to never look at again. A night I wish could be rewritten. It was a night that even I had thought the same way as Destoveski. My mind was no longer set right, that side of me to which was feared, had ripped from its confines and torn through to confine me to my own mind. I had truly wanted to tear a sheet from the book spoken about so much in this little town of Yokohama. If it meant my lights could come back and this world could change, then I would, I would do it without a blink. I’d make myself the villain to free my light. I would do it for the right reasons. Yet, I could never ruin the lights of others. There would be too many sacrifices to do such a thing at that moment. To this day, I curse myself for thinking like that man, thinking about such things would make me like him. Dostoevsky was no man I wanted to be.

The light pulsed for a moment before illuminating the room in a sharp glow of white. Dazai stood blinded before the room came into focus, the empty space warm in comparison to the pelting rain. For a moment, the world had paused, allowing his mind to make a sharp halt and think. Though his thoughts were not something he wished to hear. The thoughts inside his head screamed an equal verse to the night he’d lost Oda. He had no more time to pause, as soon as he’d adjusted to the blaring lights, he was scanning the room, finding the spots of blood, the corpses littered on the ground. Then, he was running against his will again. The next thing he knew, he was diving forward too quickly brush against the ginger, who’d consumed his thoughts since they reunited all that time ago.

The first thoughts I had when I felt the cloth of his jacket, the same one I had sown hat-rack into when we were 15, were thoughts of panic. I was always the type of man who wore a mask, but that mask only masked my depression. I yearned for death, I lived to be human, and that feeling you have right as you fall victim to death may be my only chance at life. My co-workers were never worried about me. At first, I had shocked them. I remember the way Kunikida halted with his trust, how on my first job he watched me with a hawk's eye. Never once did I not feel the burning gaze of his judgment. I never blamed him, I was a man with an erased past. There was nothing to tell whether I was good or evil. The day I entered the agency, I would have said I was that darker gray that wisps on the side of black. Today, I would tell you I wanted to be the light, to be good, but I am far from it. It shall always be my nature to look up into another and dive within their soul. My hands are skilled in ways of torture. I could shoot down an enemy with my eyes closed. These pieces of me still exist, even though I had locked them to the confine of my mind, a faraway nightmare that haunted me. The faces of the victims who plead because they had family, haunt me. It’s not remorse I feel, it’s a haunting reminder that I shall never see that friend again. When I die, I shall not meet him in the afterlife, if there is one at all. I like to believe that one can look up and think there is such a place. These thoughts, wishes, all suddenly reappeared the moment his body fell to the floor. Yet, even coated in his own blood, his breathing so unsteady I feared he was only a few breaths from death, he remained beautiful. How could I, a genius strategist with an inhumane IQ, let this happen? Why had I not called him, this ginger, ocean-eyed slug? Chuuya, he’d always be those names to me. I still wonder why we call each other such things, but it makes us both feel alive. With him, I could act like a child, as I never had a true chance to be a child. Even now, if I could muster up the courage as I write, I'd twist the narrative so it looked as if I did not care. If I did that, I would dishonor the words we had shared that night.

Dazai rushed over the pavement to grab hold of Chuuya. His hands sliding over the boy's body to pull him over his lap. His eyes are a sea of worry and panic. One of his hands grabbed the boy’s wrist lightly, his pulse was so slow, his eyes were already slowly dropping, but Dazai stayed confident. “Hey Chibi, you’re an idiot.”

The frail form of the boy beneath him cracked a small smile. “You’re the idiot you- his body racked itself with a spurt of coughs, his lips dripping crimson to join the stains on his perfectly pale skin.- d-damn mackerel.”

Dazai dropped the boy's wrist with a chuckle, pressing his hand to the boy's lips. “Yeah, I know Chibi, I know. - The ginger's eyes began to flutter shut.- No Chibi, your eyes have to stay open. Look, I've got people coming to fix you up. So just try to keep yourself awake.” Dazai’s hand moved to cup the other's cheek. “You’ll be okay.”

Chuuya’s breath staggered a wheeze interrupting the shallow breaths he’d been going through. “I’m dying, aren't I?”

Dazai shook his head, feeling his chest sting with the familiar pain of grief. As if somebody took a microscope over the feeling, it continued to grow. By now, he was sure the pain exceeded the total amount of grief he’d gone through with Oda’s passing. “No Chibi, you’re not… you're not dying.” He paused in that sentence looking down at Chuuya, who laughed dryly.

“So fucking optimistic.” They sat in silence, and Chuuya's eyes fixed on Dazai. Though it was unnoticed by Dazai, his clouded tired eyes were on his lips. He was taking into memory the parts of wishes he’d never get. Every passing second, Chuuya felt his eyes threaten to drip shut. He was trying to listen to Dazai, but his eyes were bricks; sleep a melody that sang to him. With the fear of never waking up again, Chuuya lifted his hand from his side to reach Dazai’s cheek, his blood leaving a mark. “Hey, Dazai.” His voice lacked anything but sincerity.

“No Chuuya. No, you’re okay! Just a few more minutes and Yosano will be here! Fuck, just stop moving, keep your eyes open, keep breathing because you’re alright.” Chuuya had never seen Dazai act like this before. So as Dazai’s hand warmly wrapped around his, his head pressing into the cold touch of Chuuya’s, words were spoken.

“Dazai, I. Never. H-hated… you. I. lov-” before those words could finish, his body was shaking. Tears were forming, he was still conscious and very much alive, but his entire system of organs and cells were rejecting him. The use of corruption had been at its limit long before Dazai had touched him. Before his ability had been canceled out, he was beyond death. The way he coughed his hands, flailing out to grab Dazai’s shirt and press their bodies together, made even Dazai emotional. Dazai managed to still the boy's movements. His eyes half-open as he tried to hold onto whatever string was left. “Lo-” this time he was cut off by Dazai’s hand. His head shaking, hearing Chuuya speak would make this far too real.

He wasn’t ready to let him go. For the first time, he wanted to be far from death, far from the pain and suffering of humankind. So as Chuuya smiled and looked to the ceiling, his hand continued to stroke Dazai’s cheek. A reminder he was still alive.

That moment ended all too quickly when Chuuya took a final staggered breath and looked to Dazai. “Loved you.” He finished his sentence before his eyes dropped shut. His hand slipped into a limp state within Dazai’s hold.

It took the brunette no time to jump to compressions. He continuously screamed. A voice that had never once mourned, or shed a tear, now sat in a contorted expression between agony and doubt. His mind was static, for the first time nothing clear could form within his head. He shrieked out for Chuuya. Open your eyes, he had chanted and begged before he no longer had the strength to continue. He simply fell on top of Chuuya, his ear to his chest praying to hear a soft thud. Three minutes passed before his body, devoid of any, and everything was yanked away. Had he been shown a mirror, one would not have recognized Dazai. His clothes were bloodied, his hair disheveled and wet from the rain he’d run in only a handful of minutes ago.

Dazai sat numbly as his co-workers looked around trying to find if there was any danger left. When the scene was clear and Yosano made the final statement, the world truly crumbled. Still, despite having started CPR and rescue breaths, despite having felt the cooling touch of his skin, Dazai had held onto the hope that Yosano would fix this. He watched as she put on a work face. Her heels clicked across the ground as she walked over to Dazai with a doctor's approach, not a friend's approach. She bent before Dazai and began to speak. “Dazai, I need you to focus your eyes on me, alright?” Dazai could read her mind like an open book. His mind, in his numb state, had returned to his 17-year-old self. Devoid of any real feeling, bent on causing pain and suffering. He tilted his head like that child-self would in this situation. For once, he genuinely felt human. “I understand you were close to Nakahara-san. You were also here at the scene. It’s with much regret-” before she could finish, Dazai’s eyes grew cold and clouded, his lips a snarl as he shoved her.

“He’s okay! Chuuya is okay, he’ll wake up! He always does, even when I have to change things in a second advance because I fucked up. He's okay! We’re soukoku, double black. We can’t be put down. We’re partners, we need each other." even Yosano froze at the sudden outburst. The way Dazai cried without realizing the tears were falling. The way he tried to look happy as if he hadn’t watched Chuuya die within his arms. “Right… he’s okay right?” Dazai hardly knew what he was saying, his head foggy, his mind trying to stay collected.

If one could compare him to anything, one would say that moment he'd looked like a child, no older than fourteen, who’d watched a death before their eyes. Yosano collected herself before shaking her head. She decided to take the approach she’d have with a child instead of an adult. For in this moment, Dazai was experiencing what one could call his first-ever truly emotional loss. This was the first time his mind was catching up with him. “Dazai, Chuuya cared very much for you. You know that right?”

Dazai seemed to calm slightly at the thought as he focused on Yosano. “Yeah, he loved me… he said he loved me.” Suddenly, the situation became worse than she’d thought.

“Mhm, and you loved him too?” Dazai took his time to slowly nod before gulping and shrinking down.

“And now… he’s not coming home. No more loud, annoying comments. No more nights at the bar…” Dazai’s voice choked before the sounds of more footsteps followed in.

A high-pitched female voice screamed in a shrieking roar. “Where is he!” Dazai knew that voice. Kouyo, his Ane-san. At least, at one point she’d been his Ane-san. But his eyes stopped looking at Yosano and instead took a glimpse at Chuuya, whose corpse still lay there.

Once more, Dazai’s emotions took control, and he placed his hands over his eyes and shut himself away. Yosano swore under her breath and stood up. “Which one is he?” Yosano stood up rather angrily. She disliked her conversations being so rudely interrupted, even if it were somebody she had a small connection with.

“Chuuya…” the red-haired female stormed over before spotting Dazai first. His body cradled in like a child. A position she’d never seen him in. Her heart could only lurch to the worst. Hesitantly, she looked off to the side and saw it. The bloodied corpse. She spent no more time looking, she couldn’t.

She shoved Yosano away from Dazai, a boy she had once helped to look after and almost raise. Though she resented the boy for abandoning his role as an executive, she knew how much the pair had been connected. So she’d be a mother or older sister for a bit. Something Dazai had never seemed to have. “Dazai, it’s Kouyo, can you look at me? I just wanna make sure you’re alright.”

Dazai peeked from his arms, sniffing in his delirious state as he lunged towards her. Not in a hostile way, but an embrace. Something he never thought he’d need. He felt so human, so alive, but at the same time, he felt so dead inside. He felt as if his life had been torn and replaced within seconds. This feeling he couldn’t place a name on. “I was too late… I couldn’t, and now he’s and I… it’s all my-'' Kouyo was quick to shut him down, muffling her own sobs as she rocked Dazai in her arms.

“Hush child, these things happen. The fault is never that you could not make it in time. The fault lies within the bastard who did this. He always took extremes to protect you, Dazai. So hush now, let yourself grieve.” There was a slight pause as the agency starred in shock. This woman, who most of them knew as a vengeful woman with no remorse, sat cradling a grown man from an opposing organization as if he were her child, no more like an older sister cradling a younger brother. “Dazai, I won’t criticize your reaction, I've seen it many times in the mafia. Little children who witness death at such a young age think they are immune to it. They find another blame or they say they are monsters. You were 14 when Mori took you in. You never had somebody to teach you to grieve. You never needed to, not until now. So listen to me child, you’re going to let it all out, the years of pain and suffering, the years of grief for lost friends, even I have cried in my life. Nobody is immune to pain, some of us just think we are.” As Kouyo spoke, she noted Dazai’s breathing reached a slowing point. He was fast asleep before she finished her words. Her touch was gentle as she brushed a lock of his hair behind his ears.

Next, she walked over to Chuuya and hung her head, murmuring words of mourning. She walked off quickly, but came back moments later with his hat. “He’d want somebody to have it.” Yosano stood beside Kouyo, who choked back her own tears.

“I think it should go to Dazai. He always mocked his hats, even though he loved seeing Chuuya in them. They really were meant for each other. It’s unfortunate such a great pair ended up… in a life like this. Perhaps they will be reborn in an era where they are nothing but students who fall in love. I like to think there is always a second chance for lives that end too short.”

With a nod, they both looked to Dazai, who looked at peace sleeping on the ground.

~

When I woke up that day after, I could hardly remember anything. I had lost myself completely to the side that was human. I truly did try to live on, but it was difficult. No matter where I looked, I could see his laugh, I hated it. The pain that constantly wrapped around me. Hence, why I sit here with a pen. I never took myself to write my thoughts down. Oda had once ruminated about being a reader, he died before he ever could. I miss them both. I say that, but when I look down at the tear-stained paper, so many of them were for Chuuya. A love I never got to kiss or truly love. Today, I will not wake up. I no longer care about things like making my death overly complex and comfortable. I shall go to sleep with Chuuya’s hat at my side. I shall die with him at my side. That is how it should have been. Chuuya should have lived that night. I shall never know what sparked him to use corruption without me there. All I know is the worst person in the world, Destovesky, who now lay in a ditch from my own pistol, threatened the ginger to such an extent he felt the need to use it. In a way, I have solved several problems with one action. I killed the criminal, and I'm killing the single person whose blood runs more mafia black than any other.

Tag list If you want to be added when I upload fics/HC etc., just shoot me an ask: @jadegreenimmortality

[supersilversleuth]

To Kill, To Die, or, To Live by SuperSilverSpy

Fandoms:DCU, DCU (Comics), Batman - All Media Types

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Category: Gen

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Hurt Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson-centric, Dick Grayson Whump, Whump, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, I have used these tags so much lately, I could probably write them in my sleep, Hurt No Comfort, maybe? - Freeform, I don’t remember writing any comfort…, Hurt, Angst, Jason Todd is a good bro, usually, sometimes?, idk - Freeform, he wants to be a good bro in this fic, Possession, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Whumptober 2021, SuperSilverSpy, SilverGrayson

Summary:

Red Hood showed up in the Batcave after helping out with a quick op one night. Everyone seemed to be looking at him with distrust and suspicion, even though he’d just helped them out. Everyone except Dick, of course, who offered him a tight smile, but whose expression was otherwise unreadable.

Kill kill kill...Dick Grayson shall die...

“What? Why the oh so serious faces?” Jason’s voice drawled.

OR Jason wakes up one morning, and there’s a voice in his head screaming for the death of one Dick Grayson

No. 4 - TRUST FALL “Do you trust me?” | taken hostage | pushed

Published: 2021-10-04 Completed:2021-10-04 Words: 3091 Chapters: 3/3

Chapter One: To Kill

It happened out of the blue one day.

Jason woke in a cold sweat, but he didn’t immediately sit up in bed. In fact, he didn’t move at all. He just stared up at his ceiling, a single thought running through his head, a single emotion coursing through his veins.

Dick Grayson must die.

Distantly, a part of him felt appalled at the notion, but most of him was running with it. Anger clouded his mind but it was unlike any he’d ever felt before. It was different, colder somehow, not like the usual searing heat of pit madness.

He heard a new voice in his head spewing insults about the Golden Boy left and right. Some felt familiar, as if taken from Jason’s own mind. Most of them were new, and he did his best to ignore the most unsavory ones.

He didn’t actually hate Dickface, did he? N—

Jason sat up, and began preparing for the day ahead of him. Put bread in the toaster, remember the meetings he has with several of his informants— Dick Grayson deserves to die— now that didn’t sound right…what was he thinking about again? Put butter on the toast when it’s done, start eating, think about that case that’s been stumping him lately— take Nightwing hostage —what was that? He does have a pretty busy nightlife… Do the morning’s dishes, brush his teeth, get dressed. He had a drug ring to bust tonight, that’s right. Some scumbags needed a little visit from the esteemed crime lord Red Hood— kill them all— what? N—

Jason went through the rest of his day in a haze. He met with some informants, gave food to some people on the streets. He got everything done quickly and efficiently, he even managed to make time to buy groceries. With every interaction, he acted just like he normally would. His movements were comfortable, voice at just the right level to suit each situation. People seemed easily swayed by him, to do as he asked. And yet...he felt detached somehow, as if watching through someone else’s eyes—someone who acted exactly like him.

He couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it though, couldn’t open his mouth and say something out of character, or just talk to himself when no one was in sight. Distantly, a part of him felt alarmed, something was just off.

Still, he made it through the day just fine. Whatever had been bothering him earlier that morning seemed to fade, and he started to feel as if nothing had changed. And nothing had, right? He didn’t remember anything different between today and yesterday…

Night came, and the Red Hood went out to save the day, or at least crash some a**hats’ day, he wasn’t picky. Everything went to plan too, which made him elated. The bats could say all they wanted about him, but no one could deny his clear skill and competency.

Everything was going well, the drug traffickers were all passed out on the ground and Jason was getting ready to call the police, when it happened.

His thumb withdrew from the call button, burner phone slipping back into his pocket. His hands went instead to his guns, and he felt his body turning, moving towards the unconscious bodies of some of the worst that he’d taken down. Kill. Kill. Kill. Chanted that new voice in his head. Kill them all, they deserve it. Just like Dick Grayson.

What? N—No, that didn’t make sense. Why was—Why was his hand still moving? What was his finger doing on the trigger? Jason didn’t understand. I don’t want to kill them, he thought. He pushed against that voice, that—that presence in his head.

It pushed back .

Jason was left scrambling internally, as he watched his own arm lift and aim. A body lay on the ground, motionless where splashes of crimson decorated the floor.

Jason felt as if he’d been booted out of his own body, like his actions weren’t his to control anymore. He felt sick, but no bile would rise in his throat. No feeling would stir in his stomach. He didn’t understand.

Two bodies, on the ground, it was like he was seeing double, than triple, then several many more. He started to lose count. At one point, he noticed there was a knife in his hand, that his face was twisted in an expression of satisfaction. His hands were covered in blood, and so were his pants. He’d have a hard time washing that out, Jason realized distantly. Death here, death there, death death everywhere, said the voice in his head. He knew he was feeling things, actual emotions. But they didn’t really seem to be there . They were foreign, unfamiliar, not his own. Jason could think of all the synonyms he knew to describe just how out of place the anger and the bloodlust and the malicious satisfaction felt. How out of place he himself felt. Kicked out of his own mind, out of control of his own body.

Even with past experiences in mind control and mind-twisting pits of torture, this still was like nothing he had ever felt before.

—

Jason didn’t know what day it was, what was happening, he just couldn’t tell. He couldn’t seem to keep track . It had been like this ever since the massacre, since he’d fought and lost the battle in his own mind.

Red Hood showed up in the Batcave after helping out with a quick op one night. Everyone seemed to be looking at him with distrust and suspicion, even though he’d just helped them out. Everyone except Dick, of course, who offered him a tight smile, but whose expression was otherwise unreadable.

Kill kill kill...Dick Grayson shall die...

“What? Why the oh so serious faces?” Jason’s voice drawled.

“Those drug traffickers on Monday,” began the big bat himself. Jason’s hand waved as if to wipe it all away. “Lay off it, B. I promise it wasn’t me, alright? I left before whoever murdered them all showed up.” The Replacement was frowning at him, and the Demon brat was scowling his way as well. Bruce thinned his lips, looking at him in that insufferable judgmental way he had. Jason felt himself scoffing, “I don’t owe you fools anything. ”

Please, he thought, this isn’t me. Please, I know it sounds like me but I swear it isn’t. His body went straight for his motorcycle, hopping on and driving away with the squealing of tires.

There are TWO POSSIBLE ENDINGS, the first one is Major Character Death, the second is “everybody lives”

Read the next chapter for tragedy, read the chapter after that for somewhat happy ending

Chapter Two: To Die

“Hey Jay? You alright?”

The prey has fallen into the trap...

Jason felt his head swivel in Dick’s direction, “What are you doing here, Dickface?”

“I don’t know, you just seemed to be acting a little off yesterday. I was just wondering if—”

“I’m fine.” Jason’s voice growled. “And I didn’t kill those people. So there’s nothing for you to report back to ol’ daddy bats up there on his high horse.” Dick scowled briefly, but then his expression smoothed. “I’m not here to spy on you, Jay. And I know it wasn’t you who killed those people.” His brother looked at him steadily, right in the eyes. No! Dick, you have to get away from me, he wants to kill y —

“It wasn’t you,” continued Dick, “It was whatever's controlling you.”

For a moment, Jason panicked. But whoever it was in his head let up quite a bit, and Jason suddenly felt lighter than air. It was like the first taste of water after days in the desert. Like he could finally breathe after an eternity of going without.

“Wha—” Jason stumbled, knees feeling weak. Dick rushed forward, catching him as he fell. “No...N—No, Dick, you can’t be here. ‘m a killer, that thing in my head, it—it wants to—”

“Shh, it’s okay, I’m here.” His hand carded through Jason’s hair. “We’ll figure this out, okay? We’ll figure this out.”

“It…it seems to have left me.” Jason said, voice trembling in awe as he flexed his fingers. It’d been so long…

—

Dick smiled down at his brother.

“It’s okay, Jay.” He said, “It must’ve fled when it realized I knew it was there.”

“How…how did you know, anyways?” Jason asked.

“I just…I had a feeling. You were acting off, and that look in your eye…”

“Thanks, Dick,” his little brother replied, but then his voice changed, sounding almost…fearful? “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” He asked, straining his ears, “I don’t—”

There was a loud roar and the sound of large, stomping feet. Dick frantically looked around, noticing as shadows creeped in from underneath the door. The air was charged with magic, power flowing throughout the room.

“It’s back,” whispered Jason, clutching Dick’s arm, “we should run.”

“Yeah,” Dick said, as if in a daze, “let’s go.”

It seemed so surreal, the supernatural monsters bursting through the door. Dick wasn’t sure what surprised him so much about it, he dealt with this kind of thing every other day. It’s just…

“Dickie,” said Jason, pulling him towards the window. “Snap out of it, they’re gaining on us.”

He shook his head, looking back—and yeah, the strange magical creatures were right behind them.

Jason jumped through the window, Dick following closely behind. They fired their grappling guns, arriving on the roof opposite in what felt like the blink of an eye.

“Hurry,” said a voice and—oh, it was Jason. It was coming out of Jason’s mouth, right? It must be Jason’s. “We should go that way.”

Dick looked his little brother in the eyes, grounding himself there, before following Jason’s lead as they ran across rooftops.

Dick felt like he was doing everything underwater, but it was…nice. Pretty great actually. He barely even noticed the burn in his legs, or how the monsters chasing them had odd-looking shadows.

Each time he looked back, all he saw was claws and teeth. Masses of fur and strange golden markings.

They paused for breath a few blocks away.

Dick wondered at Jason’s plan. It felt like there was something he should be doing…“Jay? What should we do? Where do we go?”

“That thing in my head seemed afraid of tall places…”

“The—The Wayne Enterprises building.” Dick replied almost immediately.

“Of course,” said Jason, bumping him with his shoulder, “How about a race?”

Dick grinned back at him, “Sure, why not.”

Adrenaline flooded his veins, and for a moment, he almost forgot about the monsters chasing them.

Jason nodded to him, and then they took off, running and jumping, grappling all across the city, heading for the tallest building around. Dick pressed himself to go faster, run harder, jump stronger .

He could see Jason out of the corner of his eye, also going considerably fast.

Jason wasn’t the only one Dick noticed, he also spotted several of them on Jason’s tail. The monsters seemed to move just as fast as they did. He could only hope his little brother could go fast enough to outrun them.

Dick reached the WE building first, skidding to a stop on the roof. Jason arrived soon after.

The monsters gathered a roof away, preparing to jump.

“I—I don’t understand, I thought you said they wouldn't follow us up here.” Dick looked at Jason, searching for answers in his expression.

His little brother’s features were soft, his eyes glittered with something strange and otherworldly. His voice was smooth and heavy with something familiar… “It’s okay, I have a plan, but there’s no time. Dick, do you trust me?”

“Of course I trust you, Little Wing.”

Darkness creeped up along the edges of the building, sliding onto the roof. Claws scraped against the ground, glowing gold eyes began to surround them. There was a single opening, a small bit of edge that had nothing on it.

Jason smiled, grabbing Dick’s grapple gun. And then pushed him off the roof.

Dick Grayson fell over 1,000 feet to the ground, all the while believing his brother would catch him.

Above, on the roof of Wayne Tower, Jason Todd’s eyes flashed gold.

Chapter Three: To Live

“Hey Jay? You alright?”

The prey has fallen into the trap...

Jason felt his head swivel in Dick’s direction, “What are you doing here, Dickface?”

“I don’t know, you just seemed to be acting a little off yesterday. I was just wondering if—”

“I’m fine.” Jason’s voice growled. “And I didn’t kill those people. So there’s nothing for you to report back to ol’ daddy bats up there on his high horse.” Dick scowled briefly, but then his expression smoothed. “I’m not here to spy on you, Jay. And I know it wasn’t you who killed those people.” His brother looked at him steadily, right in the eyes. No! Dick, you have to get away from me, he wants to kill y —

“It wasn’t you,” continued Dick, “It was whatever's controlling you.”

For a moment, Jason panicked. But whoever it was in his head let up quite a bit, and Jason suddenly felt lighter than air. It was like the first taste of water after days in the desert. Like he could finally breathe after an eternity of going without.

“Wha—” Jason stumbled, knees feeling weak. Dick rushed forward, catching him as he fell. “No...N—No, Dick, you can’t be here. ‘m a killer, that thing in my head, it—it wants to—”

“Shh, it’s okay, I’m here.” His hand carded through Jason’s hair. “This thing is here to test me Jay, I didn’t have a choice. I know you didn’t either, and I am so, so sorry for that Little Wing. We’ll figure this out, okay? We’ll figure this out.”

Jason opened his mouth to reply, when suddenly the presence was back, the voice along with it. Jason could feel his consciousness collapsing back, dissociating once again. He vaguely registered as one of his hidden daggers was swiftly drawn, and pressed harshly against Dick’s neck.

“Do you trust me?” asked Jason’s voice, a smirk spread across his face.

The question was meant to be mocking, but Dick answered seriously, “Of course, I know you’re still in there, Jay. I trust you.”

—

They stood on the roof of the WE building. Whoever was controlling Jason had used his strength to give Dick a good beating, and sent a picture of the aftermath to the bats. It was only a matter of time before they showed.

“One as special as Dick Grayson, must be able to trust at least one member of his family. Jason Todd is least likely to accept this trust, which makes my job so much easier. I look forward to his death,” said Jason’s voice while they waited.

Dick, all tied up, sporting a black eye and what were likely bruised ribs—grinned like a maniac. “I recognized your presence, didn’t I? I could tell there was something off with him, you nasty little f***er. You may think you chose your victim well, but you’re making a big mistake—Jay will pull through for me, and you will be torn away as if it were nothing.”

Wow, Dick just sounded so—so confident in Jason’s ability to do whatever it was he was supposed to do. Jason wasn’t sure he’d be able to overpower this thing, let alone destroy it.

“The rest of your so-called family will arrive any minute now, will you weep at their demise?”

Dick scowled, “The rules that you are bound to state that you can’t kill any of my loved ones before me.”

“I may not be able to kill them, but I’ve been doing this awhile, and I know all the loopholes to this little game.”

Behind them, the bats touched down on the roof. Jason felt himself turn to face them. It seemed that Bruce, Tim, Damian, and Steph all showed up for the party.

“Here to save your favorite Golden child?”

“What do you want?” Demanded Bruce, stoic as ever.

They never cared about you , none of them do. Hissed the voice in his head. Nobody trusts you

Nobody trusts you , Jason thought back at it, you murderous lying b****** .

It chuckled, ah, but it is not my face I’m wearing. It’s your's.

Outloud, Jason’s voice addressed the bats, “This is the price you pay for not trusting me, for letting Dick down. You didn’t even notice there was something different about him, did you? You didn’t even notice when Jason Todd was no longer Jason Todd.”

Bruce and Dick were the only ones who didn’t look confused at the words. Dick, because he seemed to know what was going on, and Bruce, because he was, well, Bruce. Batman’s face was as stoic as ever.

Jason felt his face twist into something surely ugly and murderous-looking.

Power surged through him, coming from seemingly nowhere. But Jason could feel it at his fingertips, being pushed into him and pulled out, he had no control over its course. The air around him became charged with magic, and then the bats were engulfed in a bright, golden light.

A moment later, Jason's eyes opened to find that all four of them were frozen in various positions and turned into a shiny golden color, standing still like statues.

The look of horror on Dick’s face hurt to look at, when Jason felt himself turn back to the man.

Quickly, Dick’s expression turned to that of anger, “What did you do to them?” he seethed. “Turn them back!”

“It’s too late, Dick Grayson. Once you are dead, your family will remain this way forever.”

Jason’s arms reached out, grabbing Dick and picking him up.

His feet took him to the edge of the roof, holding Dick out over the ground far, far below.

“J—Jay, listen to me, you can fight this. I know you can. You’re still in there, I believe in you.”

“Alright, that’s enough.” Jason watched as he dropped his brother over the edge.

Time seemed to stop.

No! He thought, pushing back as hard as he could against that malicious presence in his mind. Jason pictured Dick’s face, looking at him sincerely, a bead of blood forming where Jason’s own knife grazed his throat. “I trust you ,” he’d said.

Jason followed him over the edge before he even knew what he was doing. Shooting out his grapple instinctively, cutting through the air rapidly as he fell.

This is going to hurt , he thought, as he set himself on a collision course with Dick, but I think we’ll live.

[sedated-love]

VillainDekuxReader smut

Eighth post of October!! 

Alright, Hear me out- I wrote this after not sleeping for 30+ hours and I don’t wanna talk about it uwu

TW- Necrophilia, Kidnapping, body mutilation, noncon, cheating, Dark shit idk, please read at your own discretion 

If you have any suggestions for what I write in the future, please feel free to leave them in my ask box!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“The next time they touch what’s mine, I’ll cut their arms off”

That was the warning that you got and yet you still didn’t listen. You belong to the number one villain in Japan. ‘Belong’ being the key word in that sentence. Deku kidnapped you a little over a week ago claiming stuff like soulmates and that he knew at first glance that you were meant to be his. You had tried to escape numerous of times, but it was impossible. Even if you did somehow manage to get out of his grasp, he would have someone bring you back to him in less than an hour.

He was the all-powerful. No one out ranked him in strength or in brains…and that included you. Though, despite knowing this, you couldn’t help yourself from finding a someone to try and keep you happy during all the bad. He was a nice guy that you met at the bar one night. He offered to buy you another drink and you offered to stay the night… but Deku has eyes everywhere and by the time you made it back, he already knew everything that happened down to the miniscule details, almost as if he had watched the entire thing himself.

You took your punishment with pride. You were used as a cock warmer for three days straight but for some reason you couldn’t help but feel a since of gratification in the fact that for the first time since you got kidnapped, you got to make your own decision. You would even go as far to say as you were happy, and it was that lingering happiness that had you wandering back to the man from the bar despite Deku’s warning. If only you had listened- then maybe things wouldn’t have turned out this way.

“Deku, please!” “I warned you, princess.”

He was standing with one foot on the male’s back, keeping him pinned against the ground as he held one of his arms behind him, making sure to keep it steady as his other arm held the axe above his head. You closed your eyes when you noticed the axe drop, the ear-piercing scream that followed being enough to tell you that Deku had kept his promise. “Ah fuck…” The curse had you opening your eyes but as soon as you did, you regretted it.

“Guess I’ll have to try again~”

Deku held the axe up again, holding the arm that hadn’t gotten lopped off all the way and was now only hanging on by a spare piece of flesh. Though not for long as Deku dropped the axe once more, taking it the rest of the way off as he ignored the sobs of the male below him. He tossed the dismembered arm at your feet, a sadistic smirk spearing across his blood covered face.

“How does it feel to know you could have prevented this entire thing, princess~?”

“S-St..op…plea…se..”

You were trembling where you stood, eyes wide in horror as you felt your stomach churn. You couldn’t stop yourself from puking right next to the arm that laid at your feet, feeling dizzy as you witness the most blood you have ever seen in your life spilling from where his arm use to be. Despite your pleads, Deku wasn’t finished yet. He grabbed the other arm, pulling it back the same way that he had the other before looking at you with a calm expression.

“I’ve dedicated myself to you. It’s only fair you do the same.”

He dropped the axe, taking off the other arm as the screams of pain haunted your ears. You weren’t sure you were ever going to be able to unhear them as they stained their way into your soul. You stood completely frozen in horror as you had always known Deku was a villain by hearing him speak of things but witnessing them was something completely different.

You took a step back as he walked towards you. His face was still calm, but it was covered in blood as he threw the second arm to the side, completely ignoring the now armless man who was bleeding out on the floor not even 6 feet away from you. “Now, it’s time you learn your place.”

He grabbed you by the collar of your shirt, dropping his bloodied axe before dragging you back over to the body that was still offering soft sobs below you. You felt your own sobs escape your throat as tears streamed down your cheeks. Your chest heaved rapidly as you felt panic and fear making themselves at home in your bones. The guilt that you felt looking down at the innocent man below you was overwhelming. None of this would have happened if you had just listened to Deku’s warning but you were greedy, and you did what you wanted without heading the consequences. Now you were pretty sure his life was on your hands as he was losing blood fast and Deku didn’t seem to have any interest in saving him.

“You wanted to fuck him so badly, right~? That’s why you caused all of this”

He turned the half dead man onto his back, yanking down his pants and boxers in one pull. “Suck him off.” Deku’s expression turned dark as he stared at you with a deadly serious expression on his face. “W-Wha…” He grabbed you by the back of your head, yanking you down to your knees next to the bleeding body, his voice turning into almost a growl as he spoke.

“You wanted him so suck him off.”

He spoke in a lower octave than normal that told you it wasn’t a suggestion but there was no way you could do it. You bent over to puke again but all you could manage was some dry heaving as you had already puked up everything you had. Tears were still streaming down your face and you looked at Deku with a pleading look, silently begging him to not make you but he already had his mind made up and he never was a very patient man.

“I suggest you start sucking…unless you wanna lose an arm as well~”

He yanked your head down so that your face was rubbing against his bare crotch before you could even respond. You squeaked and tried to pull back, but he had a tight grip in your hair, keeping your face firmly in place. “I won’t tell you again.”

Defeated, you whimpered as you took the flaccid penis of the half dead man in your mouth, giving soft sucks in between your sobs. “Come on, princess~ Suck it like you mean it.” He bobbed your head with his hand still entangled in your hair, making you follow the motions as if you were giving an actual blow job. “Isn’t this what you wanted~? This is why you cheated on me, right~?”

He let go of your hair only to yank down your pants and underwear, making quick work of his own as well. “Don’t stop sucking.” He lined up his hard member with your entrance, shoving all of himself in without any prep or warning. A muffled weak moan left your mouth as you continued to suck the soft dick, knowing what would happen if you let it leave your mouth but you were pretty sure it would be impossible for any guy to get hard after having both of his arms sliced off.

“You feel so good wrapped around my cock, princess~”

Deku purred as he started thrusting inside of you, grabbing roughly onto your hips so that there were bound to be bruises in the shape of his hands there tomorrow as he slammed his thick cock deep inside of you, pressing right against your soft spot with every thrust so that you had no choice but to moan despite your circumstances.

“Awe~ He died so fast~”

Deku didn’t stop pounding as he said this, but you yelped, pulling your head off the cock in your mouth as you looked up and saw the now breathless corpse that was laying underneath you. A panicked yelp left your mouth as you tried to push yourself away from the corpse but Deku’s tight grasp on your said otherwise.

“Oh no, princess~ You can’t blue ball him~ You gotta finish the job!”

He roughly pushed your head back down against the cock that you had no way of finishing, not seeming to care. “I-I ca…nt…” You choked out weakly between your slight gasps as Deku was still thrusting inside of you as if you weren’t fucking on top of a dead body. “I don’t remember giving you an option.”

He stopped thrusting just to grab your face, pinching down on your cheeks until he forced your jaw open. He then shoved the cock back in your mouth before keeping a hand placed firmly on the back of your skull so you could do nothing but keep it deep in you mouth as he went back to thrusting deep inside of you.

You felt absolutely awful and you wanted to hate it but he was thrusting right against your soft spot with every thrust in the way that had you moaning pitifully against the corpse settled in your throat. He reached around with the hand not holding your head down to rub your clit in time with this thrusts as he let out his own moans of pleasure, hips bucking rapidly against yours as the sound of your skin colliding combined with the lewd wet noises of him entering you got progressively louder.

“Your sucking in my cock so greedily~”

He purred as you started to melt in the pleasure. The more you surrendered yourself to it, the less pain you were in and soon all you could feel was the pleasure of his dick hitting the deepest parts within you. Loud pleasured moans escaped your throat as you weakly bucked your hips against the hand that was rubbing against your clit. Worst of all, you even began idly sucking at the cock that was still in your mouth as your brain turned to utter mush. You felt the recognizable heat building in your stomach, your vision going white as you cummed roughly from Deku’s manipulation.

His hips never stopped, though. He continued to pound into you, sending over stimulation running hot over your entire body as you began to quiver under his touch. He used your body to get himself off, not stopping until he was cumming himself almost an hour later, leaving you broken and twitching underneath of him as you had no choice but to take it.

“Fuck~”

He slowly pulled out, watching as his cum slowly started to dribble out of you as he finally let go of your head, letting you pull your now sore jaw off of the cock that was in your mouth as you went limp against the lap of the dead man that you had cheated on deku with. He purred, running his fingers through your hair as you looked up at him sleepily and completely out of it. A pleased rumble left his throat as he leaned down and kissed your forehead.

“You’re all mine~”

[todourouki]

Some Chick Like You (2) | Bakugou

a requested one shot | part one

✰ the people asked, and I delivered (: thank you so much to the anon that requested part two— here you go <3 also isn’t the anon asked thing cute? Should I keep doing it? Omg idk lmaoooo but yea enjoy!

✰ SUMMARY the one where you don’t really know what to do with yourself when you find your friend kissing your neck on top of you in nothing but pure desire— especially if he’s one of your boyfriend’s biggest rivals.

PAIRING Pro-Hero!Bakugou x Fem!Reader & Angry-Boy!Izuku

WORD COUNT 2.1k

WARNINGS explicit language, a little bit of physical shit, angst (I’m so sorry bby Izuku), and fluff bc I’m a weak bitch no I don’t take constructive criticism!

You weren’t sure what it was about Bakugou’s lips that captivated you so much, but even with the brainwashingly sinful way his lips moved against yours, the knock on the door brought you back to your senses.

As if on queue, you pushed his body away from yours as you panted roughly and searched for some source of air in the room. You watched his face flush, eyes narrow as a smirk began to lift onto his once soft features.

Somehow through the turmoil, his fingers itched into your folds, squeezing all of what was in you out and now silking across his thick, long fingers. You almost passed out when you saw him suck his fingers and slip them out your mouth with a pop.

“Next time,” he stood up, hovering over your body for a second to grip your chin roughly with his wet fingers in a way that made you gasp, “you’ll clean my fingers for me.”

Without a second glance, you watched his muscular body push your head back and walk towards the door across the couch you were currently resting in. You took this as a sign to gather yourself up a bit, your cheeks still flushed from the intimate acts done moments ago.

With a quick adjustment of both your bra and t-shirt, you heard him open the door and immediately watched as his back tensed up. Without even getting a chance to ask who it was, the voice you heard made your heart fall to the ground and practically explode.

“Hello Kacchan, is Y/N here?” You didn’t miss the malice behind the word Kacchan, the way your boyfriend said both of your names as if there was venom laced within each letter.

You sat up, gulping as you watched a scarred hand plant itself against the door and push an awestruck Bakugou to the side.

“Y/N,” a familiar voice that once rang with such excitement said in the driest tone you had ever heard, and you found yourself gripping onto the couch with white knuckles to keep yourself from exposing what had just happened, “I didn’t expect to find you here. I’ve been calling you for a while.”

“Yea,” you struggled to say, the air leaving your lungs as you fell under his harsh stare, “I was just h-here with Bakugou to get some advice.”

Izuku’s voice never scared you. He never raised his voice at you, never spoke with an attitude or with a scowl, never called you by your first name even. Yet watching as his eyebrows drew forward and watched you plainly made your own eyes gloss over in fear.

“I-” you picked your phone up from the floor, seeing that a phone call was still ongoing and your eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “I didn’t get a call—”

Your voice froze as you unlocked your phone and watched the time frame continue on. Forty-five minutes. You had been on the phone with Izuku for forty five fucking minutes.

Your throat got dry, breath hallowing in a way that made you feel as if the room had started spinning and stopped over and over again. The seconds continued, mocking your horrified glare as your lip began to quiver.

There was no way Izuku didn’t hear anything— he had to have heard everything. There was no way you could escape this, even with the fact that he has your location on and probably stormed over here as soon as he heard you lewdly moan Bakugou’s name.

Oh god, he heard you beg Bakugou to fuck you. Your boyfriend of two years heard you beg another man to fuck you harder than he ever has.

You couldn’t stop the single tear from falling down your eyes, the guilt and shock stopping you from being able to thoroughly respond to anything being said.

You eyes snapped up at him, watching the freckle-faced boy glare at you as if you were the scum on the bottom of his shoes. Nobody said anything, both you and Bakugou avoiding each other’s faces as you watched Izuku take a step closer towards you and toss a bouquet of flowers on your lap.

“The worst decision I ever made in my life was consider you to be someone I loved.” He snarled, the flowers seeming to have been destroyed in anger as you glanced over at them. A cry left your lips, shoving the flowers off your lap and quickly standing up in fear of him walking out.

“Izuku please, I-I..” You couldn’t find any words to explain yourself, and the hickey on your neck only showing more as you motioned your way towards him to grab his hand.

The minute he saw it, his body erupted with lightening as he zoomed forward and gripped your neck into the wall. Izuku wasn’t thinking straight, the anger fogging his mind as he snapped your neck towards the side to watch the hickey in disgust.

“Please what, Y/N?” He yelled, his soft voice turning into one of anger as his voice cracked in the midst of his words.

You could see the tears pooling at his eyelashes. Your heart was broken. You never wanted to hurt him, if anyone deserved to be okay and not be hurt and just be happy, it was Izuku Midoriya. The words you wanted to hush his tears with refused to come out as instead a whimper did at the way his hands gripped your neck.

You watched Bakugou from the corner of your eye tense up at the position, taking cautious steps over to the boy with his hands in fists. The bright flash of yellow-orange made you realize he was beginning to get angry and that just frustrated you more than your lightheaded brain already was.

“Deku, let go—” Bakugou began to warn him, his body inching closer until Midoriya’s hand slammed into the wall next to you.

A hole was dangerously carved next to your head and a breathless sob left your lips. The air of the punch repeated next to your ear and you could still feel the intensity of both of their eyes as your head began to lose consciousness. You weren’t even mad at him, how could you be.

“Get the fuck away from me, Bakugou!” Midoriya yelled, making Bakugou raise an eyebrow unamused and place his intently hot hand on top of the one gripping your neck into the wall.

“I said let go of her.” Katsuki now spoke with more authority, the hand now gripping onto Izuku’s letting smoke rise from the crevices and you realized he was literally burning Izuku’s hand.

You wanted to yell and tell him to stop— just get them both to stop but the words couldn’t leave your throat. Nothing could once your body dropped down to your knees the minute Midoriya let you go harshly and faced the unphased blond across from you.

“Why the fuck were your filthy hands on her?!” Izuku yelled, the lightning around his body becoming more and more visible and green in a way that made the hair on the back of your neck stand.

Bakugou was still unphased.

“Maybe if you fucked your girlfriend right, I wouldn’t have had to.” The hothead’s voice was smug, and you gasped the minute you heard Izuku yell and pull his hands into electrifying fists.

“You two fucked?! That’s what I heard?!” He exclaimed, your body gripping the coffee stand next to you as you regained balance and made your way back to a standing position.

“No,” Bakugou scolded, a smirk then raising up to his lips as his gripped hand then opened and errupting in small cracklings noises to showcase his disguised anger, “but I would have if you didn’t come inter—”

It was like slow motion, and you weren’t fast enough to stop it from happening. Before you could react, Izuku’s hard fist slammed into Bakugou’s cheek in a way that threw his head over to the side. You yelled for him to stop, grabbing his arm back to try to deescalate the situation, yet Izuku’s hand shrugged out of your grasp.

“Get your fucking hand off me, please.” Izuku threatened, making you release his hands and lift yours up to signal you were backing up.

Bakugou spit onto his floor, a visible cut beginning to exude blood from the bottom of his eye to his jawline. You felt a pang in your chest, ignoring it as you turned your attention back to Izuku. He only avoided your gaze, tears still running down his face as his breath only wavered more and more.

“You know, it fucking shocks me.” Bakugou begins, spitting again as some blood slipped through his lips and now into a puddle on the ground. Izuku said nothing, glaring at him with his fists ready to strike again.

Slowly, Bakugou turned his head towards Midoriya again, his red eyes visibly growing in fury as he clenched his jaw with that same smug smirk as before that got him punched in the first place.

“It just shocks me that Y/N would be with someone like you, Deku.” The minute the nickname slipped off his lips, he spat onto the ground in disgust as the smirk returned once again.

You winced are his words, watching the situation with a certain guilty pain in your chest. Why am I enjoying the fact that they’re fighting over me? What is my fucking problem?

“You don’t take care of her, that’s something that she fucking needs.” His words were rough, the anger he once learned how to resolve returning again.

You hadn’t heard Bakugou yell the way he did in high school and in the beginning of his career in years, and the return of it made your eyes widen. This wasn’t getting any better and that worried you.

“I do take care—” “Oh shut the fuck up Deku, if she didn’t she wouldn’t be here with me. I planned on taking care of her the way someone like her deserves.”

Bakugou’s voice rang through your head, a gleam in his eye as he glanced at you quickly and turned back towards the shaking boy in front of him.

Izuku stood quiet, his anger seething through his chest as he surprised you by unclenching his fists. He said nothing, walking over to the counter that held his phone and freezing when his back faced to two of you.

“Your things will be packed away in whatever bags I find and will be sent back to your apartment. Don’t bother coming back, the locks will probably already be changed.”

“Also, I’m sorry about your neck. I’d never do anything to hurt you in that way, and I wasn’t thinking.”

More tears streamed down your face as you wanted to beg for him to stop. His words mocked you, the pain in your chest growing with guilt. You knew that what you did was wrong, and you knew he would never forgive you for this. How could he? He literally sat through 45 minutes of you moaning another man’s name. There was no way of changing his mind and you knew that.

You watched as he slammed Bakugou’s door open, pausing as if he was going to say something else the way he had before but simply slamming it shut again and disappearing into the hall.

A strangled cry left your lips, your hands reaching towards your neck to feel at the bruise you knew was growing. Bakugou fled towards you, softly questioning you to see if you were okay and dragging you away from the holed-up wall and to the sink in his large bathroom.

All while his hands attended to the bruise on your neck with a wet cloth, your eyes trailed over the dry blood on his cheek. His words rang through your head, repeating as you somehow managed to get Midoriya’s crying eyes out from your conscious.

‘I planned on taking care of her the way someone like her deserves.’ ‘Maybe if you fucked your girlfriend right, I wouldn’t have had to.’

You gulped, eyes meeting his red ones as you watched the tips of his ears redden and the same scowl he loved to wear ran across his bruised face one again. As you watched him, soon switching positions to attend to the blood on his cheek, your brain raced all over the place yet always came down to the same thought you desperately wanted to push away.

Even after being caught with Bakugou, you didn’t regret it once. Not when you realized Midoriya heard, not when he gripped your neck into Bakugou’s wall as he saw the hoodie, and not when he kicked you out without any second thought.

You didn’t regret the way he made you feel, and it scared you to think that you actually wanted him to have kept going.

—

And we’re going to end it there for the sole purpose of letting you all imagine what happens next 😗 I hope you enjoyed, anon!

[writemywaytoyourheart]

Get To Know Me

Thank youuuuu @gukieater for the tag ❤❤ I enjoyed reading your answers!!!

I want to lighten things up a little from the past few days soooooo let's get itttttt~

when is your birthday?

March 14🥰 aka pi dayyy

what is your favorite color?

Peach!

what's your lucky number?

3 and 7 dk why just always been my fav and lucky

do you have any pets?

A bichon frise ❤ she my bestie fa life

how tall are you?

5'4 or 165 cm I think?!?!

how many pairs of shoes do you own?

Uh a lot of ones that i dont use but most used is 3 or 4

favorite song?

I don't have a fav song, but at the moment I really love In My Arms by Plumb :))

favorite movie?

Lord. Of. The. Rings. Hands down the best films ever made.

what would be your ideal partner?

Someone that genuinely loves me for who I am and will accept my faults. Someone who is raw and real with me, and will always be there for me. Someone loyal and caring. And funny hehe. Someone that makes me a better me

do you want children?

Absolutely I do!!! People think I'm crazy but I want LOTS of kiddos. And I want to adopt and foster too if I can.

have you gotten in trouble with the law?

Nooope, I'm a good girl 😉

what color socks are you wearing?

No sockies rn I'm afraid :(

bath or shower?

Mmm, efficiency wise shower. But comfort wise, bath. Idk why but I've always been scared of taking a shower since I was a kid. I deal with it now.

favorite type of music?

Pop. Specifically kpop but ya know.

how many pillows do you sleep with?

One, sometimes two

which position do you sleep in?

I flippity flop all over, left side right side left side back right side back left side

what dont you like when you're sleeping?

Clothes.

I cant stand any clothes on me at all. Like literally not even undies. I sleep buck booty neked, sorry tmi.

what do you have for breakfast?

Depends. My favorite is maple oatmeal with fresh cut up apples and cinnamon 🤩

have you ever tried archery?

Indeed I have. Funny story. I was shooting arrows in our backyard when I was about 12 or 13, and a wasp got under my arm and took a literal bite out of my arm. Like there was a chunk missing. That's how we found out I was allergic 🥴

favorite fruit?

Cherriessssss

favorite swear word?

Banana, donut, walnut, and walnart

do you have any scars?

Yeh. A few. One very very very very very faint one on me arm from my sis which was an accident.l, it might actually have disappeared idk. And one on my hand from glass. It's pretty small tho. And some I dont want to elaborate on but yeah

are you a good liar?

I can be if I need to be. It makes me physically ill tho.

what your personality type?

Uhhh I'm shy. And uhh, I like to take care of people, and im pretty silly once you get to know me. I'm loyal as a dog.

what's your favorite type of girl?

Every girl 🥺 just girls who are themselves and genuine

left or right handed?

Righttttt

favorite food?

Korean and Chinese

are you clean or messy?

Both lol

favorite foreign food?

Besides korean and chinese... Indian! I love butter chicken 😭😭

how long does it take for you to get ready?

Very much quick.

most used phrase?

I feel sick.

I'm so stressed out.

HAHAHAHAHA OH NO THATS SAD

are you a good singer?

I'm not the worst but I ain't no dolly Parton

do you sing to yourself?

Heck yeah baby. Well mostly to my dog.

biggest fear?

Losing my loved ones, including my doggo

do you like long or short hair?

On me? Long, but once I had shoulder length hair and it was beautiful.

are you into gossips?

No. F that.

extrovert or introvert?

Introvert

favorite school subject?

Meh. Reading and writing lol

what makes you nervous?

Boys.

Men.

They scare me.

And cool girls.

who was your first real crush?

Ok HAHAHAHAHHA I HAD TWO. One was the neighbor boy and his name was Jacob. He was so so so cute my goodness and we made cherry cobbler together 😳🥴 and one was at my dance school, his name was Kimber. My laaaaaaaawd he was cute. But never spoke to him lmaoooo he was too cool for me. But once he was making funny faces at me and being goofy and I swooned.

how many piercings do you have?

0. They always got infected no matter what I did as a kid, do I gave it up.

how fast can you run?

I can run faster than you'd think if somethings chasing me but I won't get very far before my asthmatic lungs kill me.

what makes you angry?

Bullies.

Abusive fuckheads.

Cheaters.

do you like your own name?

I do I do I dooooo

do you like your own name?

I'm not sure why this is twice but I'll count this one as last name. Funny, I got so bullied for my last name my entire life, even the professor in college mocked me. Its embarrassing to say to people. But I'm learning to be okay with it.

what are your weaknesses?

I get overwhelmed easily bc I overthink things.

I have a hard time asking for help.

what are your strengths?

Perseverance

Loyalty

And ohhhhhh idk, I'm not good at this.

what is the color of your bedspread?

Peach hehe

color of your room?

White. Lolol

💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

This was fun!!! Got a lil deeper than I thought I would on some but ya know, you're my honeybunches so idc.

I'll tag; @flowerprincejin @moo-mama @today-we-will-survive @gaeguuliii @sierra-fics @jinfused @krystle1990

[halpertstuna]

motorbikes and mazes - jj maybank

request:

A/N: thank you for requesting! i hope this is what you meant, enjoy <3

and i’ve already said this before but PLEASE, don’t hesitate to send me requests, questions, messages whatever you want. i would love to make friends and mutuals on this platform plus i love feedback and would really like to hear your opinions(:

-> prompt list <-

summary: motorcycle accidents aren’t that rare, you just never thought you’d get into one, especially not with your boyfriend.

pairing: jj x reader

word count: 2,426

warnings: cursing, blood, mentions of injuries (nothing too graphic), a bath(? idk if that’s a warning lmao i’m sorry), angst, fluff, platonic John B., Pope, Kie and Sarah.

oh and probably typos cause i suck😎 and i’m too lazy to go over this again 😔🕶🤏🏻

-> masterlist <-

(gif credit: @ptersparkers )

—

The sense of mortality.

When riding a motorcycle you truly are aware of your mortality, your life is in your hands and if you act carelessly, it could be over.

JJ was fully aware of that, which was why each time you were sat on the back of his motorbike, gripping tightly onto his torso, he was extra careful.

He knew motorcycles scared you quite a bit, ever since you were a child your mum told you how dangerous they were, and as a result you were mildly intimidated by them.

You trusted JJ more than anything in the world and you knew he would never put you at risk, he cared far too much.

And as true as that is, some things are just out of his hands.

It was mid December, the wind outside howled, causing the tree near your bedroom window to rapidly tap the glass.

You laid in bed, drawing, as you awaited a text from your boyfriend, JJ, telling you he was outside.

Like every thursday, the pogues made plans to meet at the chateau for movie night. It was your turn to pick a movie and you were thrilled, you wanted to watch the maze runner series again, so you saw this was a great opportunity.

Just as you were adding final touches to the sunflower you drew, the screen of your phone lit up and with the corner of your eye you caught a glimpse of JJ’s contact name.

You swiftly got off the bed and slid into your beat up vans. You made your way down the stairs and slung your, more accurately JJ’s, jacket over your shoulders, slipping your arms through the sleeves as you shut the door behind you. You skipped down the porch steps, approaching your favorite blond boy, whose hair was rumpled from both his helmet and the wind.

You ran your hand through his golden locks, gently tugging, as your lips met the warm skin of his exposed neck, greeting him with intimacy. He smiled at your antics, kissing your temple sloppily, then handed you your helmet and put his back on.

As soon as you placed it on top of your head, you hoped onto the pillion seat and wrapped your arms around him, resting your head on his build back. You placed a soft kiss on his shoulder blade, missing the grin he gave you.

He turned the key in the ignition, starting the bike and the two of you rode off.

The wind whispered through your hair when all of the sudden you felt droplets of rain fall onto the exposed skin of the nape of your neck.

Neither of you thought too much of it, as you were already half way there and it was just a couple of drops. But not long after, the rain got violent, and the road got slippery.

JJ knew it was dangerous to ride a motorbike in such weather conditions and so he searched for a place with shelter, in which you could wait until the rain came to a halt.

“Hold tight” he shouted and you obeyed, tightening your grip and holding onto dear life. “JJ we have to stop it’s getting dangerous” you affirmed, voice laced with fear. “I know, I’m looking for a place where we can wait out the storm” he explained.

The pouring rain was bucketing down harshly and the drops covered JJ’s visor almost completely, blocking his sight.

As a result he didn’t see the puddle you were heading straight to.

Lifting up your head, you peeped over JJ’s shoulder, noticing the puddle.

“JJ! LOOK OUT!” You alarmed him, but before either of you could process anything, he lost control over the bike.

The wheels slid, you reluctantly took a wild left turn, losing balance and hitting a tree, causing the bike to flip over to the side.

JJ lunched forward, slamming his ribs onto the twist-grip, then hitting the ground, his shoulder breaking his fall, delivering all of his weight to it causing him to whimper in pain.

You on the other hand, weren’t so fortunate.

You spent your entire life frightened by mishaps like this one, certain that if you were ever to be in a vehicle accident, nevertheless a motorcycle, the only thing you would be able to focus on would be the pain.

But to your surprise, it wasn’t.

To be honest you couldn’t focus on anything, because the second you tried moving, you felt a dull pain wash over you, and your eyelids suddenly felt like they weighed 800 tons.

The pain traveled through your body, and you could feel it in your bones, it completely drained you of any power you had left from the adrenaline. You blinked slowly and heavily.

JJ rushed to you and placed your head on his lap, taking off your helmet and brushing the strands of your disheveled hair out of your face. He noticed there was blood on your forehead, caused by a tree branch after your visor was torn off. It made him absolutely hysterical.

You couldn’t move, you couldn’t speak, all you wanted to do in that moment was sleep. He immediately called 911, waiting for an ambulance as he brushed your hair ever so lightly, terrified of hurting you more than he already had.

The sight of your delicate, weak figure shattered his heart, he kept telling himself this could have been prevented. If only he listened to you, if only he had accepted back then that motorcycles are dangerous. You looked so fragile, vulnerable, and worst of all, in pain. He couldn’t stand the thought of him being the reason.

He noticed you started closing your eyes for longer periods of time and it caused him to freak out even more, if possible. “Y/N?” You tried responding but the tiredness just wouldn’t let you. “Hey! Don’t close your eyes- don’t you dare close your fucking eyes!” He seethed, furious at himself for putting you in this situation.

The last thing you remember was the faint sound of sirens and a sharp pain in your arm, then your vision went black.

The next thing you knew you were on a small, lumpy bed, you shifted uncomfortably, the smell of cleaners enveloped you and you were woken up by the sound of someone shutting a door, audible sounds of chatter came from the other side of the wall. The bright recessed light coming from the ceiling blinded you and you squinted your eyes, feeling an indistinct ache in your head.

You felt giddy and let out a frustrated groan farrowing your eyebrows causing a sharp pain above them. You hissed in pain, then touched your forehead, where you felt a thread, figuring out they stitched up a deep wound.

You casually moved your hand to scratch the odd itch on your elbow, but your fingertips were met with solid plaster instead of soft skin.

You looked down at your right arm and noticed it was in a cast, and your ankle swathed in a bandage, which got stuck under the engine, fracturing it when the bike flipped over.

“Well that’s just fucking great” you muttered under your breath sighing in exasperation.

“Shit! JJ!” you squealed, panicking as you scanned the room. You were so distracted by your pain that for a second you forgot he was there with you.

Five seconds barely passed by and the door was swang open revealing a worried JJ.

You sat up, relief washing over you as he rushed towards your bed and cradled your head tenderly in his arms, squeezing you ever so slightly, as if you were made of china and he was scared that if he added any more pressure, you’d break.

“How are you feeling?” He asked, his voice mellow, calming you down.

“Well, my head kinda hurts and i feel a bit nauseous but pretty numb overall” he stroked your hair as you spoke. “It’s because of the medication” a doctor chimed in as she entered the room “you’re on quite a lot of pain killers”.

“Oh, well, thank you so much for helping us” you trailed off, “but we really should get going”, not wanting to stay there any longer than you had to since hospitals gave you the creeps.

“Actually, I’d prefer you stay here overnight for supervision, both of you” mentioned the doctor before leaving you and JJ alone in the room.

“Well, you heard the lady, guess we’re sleeping here tonight” JJ noted plopping down on a chair beside your hospital cot. “Na-uh” you scoffed, struggling to get off the bed “there is no way in hell i’m spending the night in a hospital”.

JJ gave you a concerned look “but the doctor ordered-“ “no no no, she recommended, see the difference?” you cut him off, motioning with your hand that you need help standing up.

JJ felt so bad he didn’t even argue, and you knew he would be able to take care of you if anything happened during the night.

The two of you started walking, well, he walked, you limped, clutching onto his bicep for support, as you searched for the exit for what felt like forever, all of the corridors looked the same and you were worn out.

“Dang, I just wanted to watch the maze runner, not be in it” you whined and he chuckled at your despair filled tone.

Eventually you found your way out, recognising the VW you’d grown to love so much, parked in front of you. The doors opened and four frames of what you made out to be your friends came running straight towards you and JJ, clasping you in their arms, careful not to hurt either of you.

“What are you guys doing here??” You asked, giggling at the intense feeling of your heart swell.

“I’m JJ’s emergency contact. The second we got a call from the hospital saying you two got in a motorcycle accident, we rushed here” John B. explained, “We were really worried” Sarah added as you made your way towards the van.

“I’m just glad you two are okay” Kie admitted helping JJ lift you into the van. “Yeah, both of you got really lucky” Pope pointed out, “I’m surprised the doctor didn’t ask you to stay overnight”

“Oh she did, I just really didn’t want to” you confirmed, eating the piece of chocolate Sarah handed you knowing it’s your favorite, as John B. started driving towards the chateau.

“Are you crazy?! What if you have a concussion??” Pope yelled panicking, astound by your stupidity, not a surprise “You know they ask you to stay overnight for a reason! The adrenaline your body releases after an accident can mask symptoms of an injury!” He revealed.

“Well that’s why we keep you around, Dr. Spock” JJ joked causing you all to laugh.

When you arrived at the chateau, you and JJ went to the spare room, both desperate for a shower. He helped you with your cast, sealing it with a trash bag and assisted you in stripping out of your clothes. He washed your body for you, and felt horrible knowing you won’t be able to do it normally by yourself for a while.

When you got out of the shower JJ wrapped a towel around his hips then helped you wrap one around your torso. When you turned to him you noticed he had a huge bruise on his abdomen.

You grazed your fingers over the the dark purple swollen skin, brushing it gently, then let your fingers skim over JJ’s wounded shoulder travelling down to the palm of his hand, linking his fingers with yours.

You averted your gaze to his eyes only to find them already on you, filled with awe and remorse as a single tear escaped one of them.

You immediately opened your arms pulling him to you, as close as you possibly could. He buried his face in the crook of your neck sobbing, littering your clean skin with his salty tears.

“I’m so sorry, this is all my fault” he apologised, he could never describe the feeling of guilt he had, knowing he hurt the one person he loves most in this world, the one person he never wanted to see in pain, let alone be the reason for it.

“J, this isn’t-“ “no this is! If only I’d listened- y-you wouldn’t be hurting, and we wouldn’t have bumped into that stupid tree in the first place-“ he started swallowing his words “I don’t know what I’d do to myself if I ever lost you- I-“ he choked on his own tears.

You knew nothing you said mattered cause he wouldn’t listen, he was far too convinced this was all on him. So you just held him tightly for as long as you could, you tried soothing him by placing tender, lingering kisses to his nose, cheeks and forehead speaking only in a hush tone, reassuring him “it’s okay, I’m okay. I’m not going anywhere”. You stayed with him like that until he calmed down.

The two of you got dressed and headed towards the living room where you were met by the others spread across the couch. ”Aren’t you two tired?” Kie asked signaling you to sit. JJ plopped down on the couch beside you, letting you lean your head on his unharmed shoulder.

“Oh sweetheart, in the last five hours I managed to get in a motorcycle accident, go to the hospital, get drugged by so many pain killers, which by the way are still affecting, I managed to escape the labyrinth I was in and get to the chateau alive with a broken arm, fractured ankle, not to mention my stitched forehead and now, I will watch the maze runner. And all of you are going to sit your asses down and enjoy the goddamn movie with me, because I fucking deserve it, thank you very much” you finished your rant of breath.

They all looked at you with wide eyes and parted lips, slightly scared. “Yes ma’am” John B. agreed and turned on the tv. One movie turned into two and eventually you watched all three movies until the sun came up. By the end of the last one, you were all in tears. You fell asleep on the pullout couch on top of each other.

Maybe you were in physical pain, but being surrounded and cared for by your favorite people made you forget all about it, they made you feel whole.

—

A/N: by the way i decided to make a taglist!

feel free to add yourself <3

[irrealisms]

thoughts on (pick what u like) wilbur dsmp, angsty fanfic tropes, romance novels

wilbur dsmp...... my precious little meow meow........ pspspspspsps cc!wilbur soot you wanna go live and do lore SOOOOO bad

seriously though i'm a sucker for tragic heroes and s1 wilbur? yeah. people try to paint early s1 wilbur as the same person he is now (possibly including current wilbur. lmao) but i just.... i don't buy it? and some of this is doylist, right, during the first l'manburg war i doubt wilbur had already planned out the direction his character arc was going to go, he was just playing a revolution leader in minecraft and quoting hamilton. & that informs his acting for moments like when he decides to surrender to dream or when he's telling tommy not to put himself in danger & to follow his heart! i genuinely don't think he was being manipulative for the sake of power there! or when he says he never cared about l'manburg, i don't... believe that. lmao. he cried for l'manburg! he killed himself over losing l'manburg! this is a server full of unreliable narrators & wilbur is NOT an exception lmao

and his confrontation with phil in the button room is like..... my absolute shit. and the fact that before his breakdown he had been sending phil letters regularly informing him that Everything's Fine!!!!!! ugh. wow.

and revivebur!!!!! revivebur who has NO coping skills and flies from emotion to emotion because everything exists so much constantly and it's such a rush and he's putting charisma on over it but he's just on a ridiculous emotional roller coaster constantly. i think a lot about how the two times we heard from him when he was dead (talking to tommy at the end of the s2 finale, talking to tommy in the afterlife) he was in favor of death and being dead & felt that it was for the best whereas now that he's back he's all :DDDDD THIS IS GREAT AND EXCELLENT

(and. something something-- him being bad for the server means that the only way he can be happy is for him to embrace his role as the Villain. he tried doing the right thing by killing himself and replacing himself with a Nice Person once, and look where it got them!)

((AND. something about how niceness=weakness in his mind. when he first founded l'manberg they didn't fight with weapons! where did that get them? dead. all ghostbur wanted was to make everyone happy! where did that get him? lied to constantly, his home destroyed, suicidal as well, and then... dead again. he says dream's the only one who gets it, and i'd argue that 'it' here means 'the importance of throwing away everything you have in a desperate grab for power because otherwise they will take it all from you'. can't be hurt by others if you've already hurt yourself, and maybe, maybe, maybe, if you're evil and cruel and heartless, you'll eventually get enough power that you'll be able to feel safe again. bc wilbur can say that he doesn't care, that he never cared, but honestly i don't think that was ever really an option for him like it was for dream. he cares so much about everything all the time. it's just a question of whether he'll get power quickly enough to protect the things he cares about or whether he'll destroy them himself because it's better than letting someone else have the power to do that))

and! his black and white thinking!!!! honestly i think the only person on the server with as intense of black-and-white thinking as wilbur is tommy, and.... to some degree tommy's working on that and realizing that people can be and do both good and bad things? but. while tommy was working on that, wilbur was in hell. for decades. and so he has done the opposite of improving on this point, and it....shows. people are either heroes or they're villains and they can swap in his eyes so quickly. including himself. especially himself. boy does NOT have any mental stability

and i do think he manipulates tommy a lot and his relationship with tommy is not healthy at all tbc! but imo-- it's very clearly from a place of fear and vulnerability and not wanting anything else to be taken from him? it's very Frantic Attempts To Avoid Real Or Imagined Abandonment. cf the double parenthetical earlier abt his attitude towards power. also i like crimeboys, so sue me

idk i like wilbur "frantically plastering charisma over his blatant crazy" dreamsmp quite a lot. i'd also like to thank him for being a terrible father and for having so very much constant sexual tension with quackity dsmp and for the white hair streak. very sexy of him if i do say so myself

this specified wilbur dsmp so you are not getting my thoughts on ghostbur (light of my LIFE) or cc!wilbur (terrible boy (affectionate)) but rest assured. i love them too.

wow this got long. uuuuh. angsty fanfic tropes: in favor. sickfic? delicious. mental illness? good stuff. grief? fuck yes. injuries? yeaaaaah boi. i don't like it when they're poorly characterized or shoehorned in but that also applies to non-angsty tropes.

i don't really read romance novels honestly? the closest i come is that i read mxtx novels and fanfiction and i used to read a lot of YA. which, okay, yes, is kind of like saying "i don't read romance novels except for all the romance novels i read", but in terms of central examples of the genre, i genuinely don't? i find them boring at best and painful to read at worst, and the adjacent things i read more of i usually read for aspects other than the romance. idk man i'm just not that interested in romance for the sake of romance

[i-write-shakespeare-not-disney]

Directory’s Commentary- Love for You, Keith and Lance talk in the car

You know the drill :)

A while later, Keith came back and shut the console off mid-game. Keep in mind that by now, Keith has been sitting with the information that Lance had a panic attack AND never told him for a while. After everything else and trying to do better, he’s annoyed as hell now and hence... no patience. “What the hell?” Lance snapped. He wasn’t so much angry that he’d been playing, but the fact that Keith had hardly talked to him since he got back and simply decided to disconnect the game instead of asking Lance to pause it. “What was that for?” 

“We need to talk.” Lance stared at him, and Keith gestured to the door. “Outside. The last thing I need is for the kids to wake up.” And also, he wants to stop fighting in front of them, because the last time they argued inside, Violet got really upset if I recall correctly. It’s an attempt to shield them from arguments. 

Lance scoffed and got up to follow him outside. They got into Keith’s car and stared at the front of their house for a while. “What the hell happened?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you’ve been getting panic attacks in the middle of the day?” Keith asked in a flat voice. Y’all ever realize how when someone is pissed, it’s scarier for their voice to be all calm and quiet as opposed to loud and angry? Yeah. Keith is now at quiet voice anger. Lance frowned, unsure of what he meant. “Why didn’t you tell me… you can’t handle watching the boys?” He only got Violet’s understanding of it, so to Keith, it’s like Lance couldn’t handle the boys on his own because of the trauma, which he feels Lance should’ve told him. Lance meanwhile takes this as a jab at his parenting. Keith finally turned to look at him, his face bathed in moonlight. “Why do I have to hear it from my concerned, eleven-year-old daughter?” Then what upsets Keith is that Violet got subjected to seeing it and dealing with the worry on her own for Keith’s sake. There’s things younger children should have to do or feel obligated to do, and Keith- having never gotten a decent childhood- doesn’t want his daughter sacrificing any bit of childhood for them. Plus what he says later-

Lance clenched his jaw and ran a hand through his hair. “I can handle taking care of my sons,” he muttered. “And she’s my daughter too. The whole “My eleven year old.... etc” felt like another jab. Like he wasn’t part of it or something. And granted, because Keith had them, he has this extra sense of protectiveness, which isn’t to say he loves them more than Lance or anything, but y’know for Lance it’s like... what I didn’t have them so I’m not part of this conversation? It feels territorial which isn’t fair because they’re his kids too. What did she tell you?” Lance just wants to know what he needs to clear up, but of course to Keith it’s like wjhkadsjfakfj WHAT DO YOU MEAN just tell me what the fuck happened like you should’ve WHEN it happened!!!

“Why don’t you tell me?” Keith snapped.

Lance looked over at him and glared. “I freaked out for a second, okay? It happened once; it doesn’t mean I can’t handle my kids. Violet freaked a little, but I was fine-”

“You told her not to tell me!” Keith yelled. THIS is a big yikes. From personal experience, there is ALWAYS a sense of guilt and confusion and fear when a parent tells you to keep something secret from the other. Lance had NO malicious intentions, but it’s still heavy for a kid, and once Keith found out it just felt.... well like being lied to and roping their kid into it. 

“Because you don’t listen!” Lance yelled back. Lance does feel justified because he DID want to tell Keith himself, but Keith never opened a space for him to talk. So now they’re both just pointing fingers at each other. “Because no matter how many times I tell you I can’t sleep or I don’t want to, it just seems so easy to you. Just send me to sleep every time I get a little frustrated, because you’re not the one with the fucking nightmares!”

“They would go away if you-”

“No they won’t!” Lance shouted, hitting the dashboard. “Fuck. Keith, come on. I don’t want a fucking psychologist because I know what’s wrong with me. I know I’m traumatized, I know that…. Talking about this shit with someone isn’t going to make the nightmares stop. I don’t want to be given medication meant to numb my brain until I sleep. These aren’t stopping until I make it past the fucking cycle. What I want is to be comforted by my husband, to be with my family, not have my brain picked at by a stranger telling me I’ll be okay!”Per usual, I really want both sides to make sense and be justified. I need Keith’s side of “you should have told me, why did you hide this AND tell Violet not to tell me” to be valid and I need Lance’s pain and anger of everything he just said to make sense too. And what makes them clash is the lack of communication and the different stages they’re in. Keith is expecting Lance to be able to just act on the problems and work for a solution and tell him things, but Lance needs him there giving him a space to safely tell him what he’s going through and give him the comfort he needs at a pace. Keith isn’t giving Lance a chance to say what he needs, but Lance also isn’t bringing it to Keith’s attention and he’s putting on a face so Keith doesn’t realize what he needs. As you can see it starts to go in circles. And right now that he IS telling Keith, it’s like.... Keith is in a very angry and frustrated state now and he’s taking Lance’s tone and words as an accusation. Like he’s not a good enough partner or parent rather than a cry for help.

“What happens if the next time you panic, you hurt Charlie or Oliver?” Keith said in a quiet voice. “What, I’m supposed to come home and shrug and say it’s fine because you’re having a hard time?” Another fair point. Things could have gotten really bad if Violet hadn’t arrived, and it’s a valid concern. Keith as a parent definitely prioritizes the kids over anything, so while he’s now aware of what Lance says, he’s also pointing out that by not telling him before, the kids could’ve been in danger in some way because of a PTSD episode. 

“I’m not going to hurt them.”

“You don’t know that.” Keith sniffed and ran his hands through his hair. “God, Lance. You think you’re the only one traumatized? I was in the war with you. I jump when I hear certain ringtones and alarms because they sound like the sirens in the Castle. I have to stop and breathe when the construction workers next door are a little too loud demolishing shit because it sounds like the blasters. I’m there with you. Keith’s trying to say “we’re in this together” but with how upset he is, it’s not coming across. But he’s also trying to remind Lance that he’s not weak or dumb for struggling, that he is too. Because Keith thinks that shame is part of why he won’t say anything. I get nightmares too. But you’re…. You’re losing sleep. You’re having these panic attacks and flashbacks in the middle of the day when you’re alone with the kids-” The argument was STARTING to de-escalate here, or at least Keith was trying to reel it back and take on a more comforting approach, but again, to Lance it just sounded like Keith was blaming him. For not handling it, for struggling too much with PTSD in comparison, for bad parenting, etc. 

“Maybe if you stayed home I wouldn’t be alone.” Then this happened.

The change in Keith’s face was immediate, and it made Lance’s stomach churn. He knows Keith’s expressions by now. He knows that this means anger there’s no coming back from tonight. “Goddammit. This again?” he hissed.

“I-I know you want to provide for us, Keith, but…. God, I don’t care about how much money we have or how many luxuries we can afford. I just want you here with us like you’ve been this week-”

“You’re the one always talking about giving the kids more than what we had!” Keith exclaimed. “For fuck’s sake make up your mind! It is a lot of back and forth with of them, isn’t it? I don’t like being home all day, Lance, I need to be doing something. So.... The “I don’t like being home” came across in the worst way for Lance. To Lance, this was “I don’t like being home with you. I don’t like our home. I need to be away from the house, from you.” But Keith meant it in the sense that... he can’t be still. He can’t be stagnant. He has to be doing something besides trying to figure out how to pass the days, especially when Violet’s at school. While Lance enjoys being home with the kids and figuring out games and knows how to pass the hours, Keith just can’t. Sit still. Working gives me a routine, and it gives me the chance to give the kids things they need and things they want. And even then we’re still barely making it because we spend on so many pointless things-” I just hear this from so many adults in my life. They’re always working for more money, and when they have it they get so excited they spend it all, and then it’s a struggle with no money again and over and over. 

“Alright! Whatever. You’ll go right back to work Monday and it’ll be the same as ever,” Lance muttered. In my head, the underlying message in that sentence was “Shut up, soon you’ll go back to work and none of this will matter because you won’t have to deal with it.” “The nightmares will stop soon. We’ll just go right back to normal.” Normal for Lance is... well, the routine. But as mentioned before during the sleepover, normal isn’t okay for Keith anymore. It’s scaring him. So he stays quiet.

Keith didn’t say anything to that. Lance wasn’t sure if he expected him to. But he knew what he didn’t expect was for Keith to get out of the car and leave him alone. The silence says a lot. But leaving I think says more. I can’t even put into words the emotion or the intent or the unspoken words I wanted here. I think that sense of someone just walking out on you says a lot and I hope that it causes the emotion I wanted. I just know my heart falls to my stomach at the concept of Keith leaving Lance alone, and Idk. It’s something I can’t fully express in words, so I left it as an action. Lance stared at the dash for a moment, feeling sick to his stomach. Then he got out of the car, manually locking it before he went back into the house.

[crapitskizaru]

Anxious!Sub!Eustass Kid x Dom!Fem!Reader

HOO BOY YOU WANT SUB ANGSTY KID?? HAVE I GOT A PROMPT FOR YOU. How about kid is feeling insecure/has a shit day and just wants his fem so to dom him/make him feel better, so like a comfort smut?

Warning: well - upsetting themes, miserable kiddo, soft filth (: + it kinda took a turn idk

Word Count: 1,9k

When you’re sailing on the open ocean, no day is the same. There’s always something to do - something to check, something to repair. And even though the captain looked bored, standing on the quarterdeck and bouncing his leg up and down while staring off at the horizon, boredom was the last thing on his mind.

She observed as Kid briskly marched below the deck, finally giving up. He rarely let anything overwhelm him, but this time stress seemed to get the better of his rationality. 

“I’ll go,” Killer said, muscular arms crossed on his chest. He must have seen his captain’s uneasy expression as well. 

“No, I will,” she replied. “I know exactly how to cheer him up.” 

She found him in his cabin, hunched over the maps sprawled carelessly on the table. He couldn’t have been paying them much attention - when she came closer, he seemed spaced out. 

“Hey,” she muttered, rubbing his shoulder. “How are you feeling?” 

“Great.” 

He could feel the tension in his body. But what worried him even more was the almost tangible fear clouding his mind, messing up the rational thoughts, reversing his judgement. 

How was he supposed to be a captain? How can he lead his crew to another battle if he’s already losing the one he’s fighting with his own self? 

“Wanna take a nap together?” She wanted to rest her chin on his shoulder but he kept fidgeting, so she settled for loosely hugging his arm. He needed contact, touch, affection. 

His grumpy response was barely audible. Thankfully, he didn’t oppose when she started dragging him towards the bed. Before she managed to as much as feel the texture of the sheets, Kid was already buried in the blankets. For a while, the only sounds in the cabin were his steady breaths. 

He needed to rest, to escape from the anxious thoughts. But there was one thing he needed even more than that. 

“Kid,” she said, keeping her voice low and gentle. “I can help. You know that.” 

His careless grumble got muffled by a pillow. Despite the wrinkles on his forehead, his sleepy expression oozed with calmness - she wished it wouldn’t go away the moment he decides to leave the bed. 

“Wake me up when you find One Piece,” he mumbled. “And I get to be the Pirate King. And I also get to take the treasure.” 

She started stroking his hair, furrowing her eyebrows upon hearing the demands. “What’s in it for me then?” 

“This world is so fucked up. Does everything need to be a good deal for you? Can’t you just help me for free?” 

His heart felt a little bit lighter when he heard her laugh. And when she tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, he was ready to forget about the whole world and focus on her. 

“Nothing comes for free,” she said with a smile. Then she leaned in and kissed him. “Maybe besides this.” 

Just when he felt her wanting to pull back, he bit down on her lip and deepened the kiss.

“You know I’m a sucker for free shit.”

She laughed again, brushing her lips against his. The warmth radiating off of him already seeped through her clothing. Somehow, it felt familiar, as if she was coming home. 

He didn’t give her time to savour the moment. His arm threw one of the blankets around her body and tugged her closer. She could feel how pure excitement was boiling inside him when she looped her arms around his neck. He was so close, so warm and so familiar. He must have been her home. 

“Wait,” she managed to mumble in between the kisses, just when he was getting ready to get on top of her. “I came here to help you.” 

“You are helping me.” His hand maneuvered around the blankets and landed on her butt, squeezing it shamelessly. “See? That’s my kind of therapy.” 

A part of her didn’t want him to stop - his lips kept caressing her neck, hands rubbing her body in all of the right places, it felt so good. But there was something more important than her pleasure. 

“I thought you’re a good liar.” 

This time he was the one confused, pulling away from her. “I’m not lying. I really wanna fuck.” 

She cupped his face and studied it with a worried look. He was obnoxious, yes, rowdy and wild and just so brave. But he was also young, far too young to carry such weight on his shoulders. 

“Tell me what’s bothering you then,” she whispered, slowly climbing to straddle his lap. “I want to hear everything.” 

“And if I do? Are we going to fuck?” 

“No, you asshole. I will make love to you. You deserve it.” 

He rolled his eyes and moved his hands to rest on her hips. “Same deal.”

Her eyebrow raised expectantly. When he became silent for a few moments, a writhing coldness started to spread inside her stomach. What if she was wrong? What if she’s just embarrassing herself, trying to find a hidden meaning behind his recent, seemingly nervous habits? 

And then another thought came, way worse than all the others. 

What if he just wanted sex? What if that was the only thing he cared about?

Meanwhile, another sort of anxious questions started appearing in Kid’s mind. Being her captain, he shouldn’t reveal his insecurities, shouldn’t let his weaknesses show. No one cared about that anyway. 

And yet, she kept on asking. 

“We’re in the New World,” she started, breaking the silence. “It’s dangerous. Are you scared you’re not strong enough?” 

He snorted with contempt. “That’s the only thing I’m not worried about. I’ll crush anyone who stands in my path.” 

At that moment, speaking with a firm, low voice, he seemed fearless. Being alone with such man in the cabin, having him underneath her sent a rush of excitement down her spine. 

She leaned in for a kiss. The sudden friction caused her to sway her hips, almost unconsciously, against his groin and the strike of pleasure immediately pushed her to speed up the movements. 

He didn’t even try to restrain the loud, shameless groan. 

“Oh? Does someone want to be pleasured?” she cooed, caressing his cheek. Her thighs tightened their grip around him and when she started rubbing against him again, the friction increased. 

He bit down on his lip and nodded; the simple action only reassuring her that he was already in the mood - willing to let go of his constant obligation to be the one giving out orders.

The sight of her on top, being in control, her wary gaze and confident manner put him at ease; it felt as if all the responsibility shifted, even for a short moment, to someone else. 

“You deserve a good captain,” he said, eyes focused on her face. “All of you. Not a coward.” 

“Are you calling yourself a coward?” 

Instead of waiting for his response, she indulged in claiming his lips harshly, feverishly. Violently. One thing she was sure of, learned from the time she spent on this ship, was the fact that Kid had no mercy for cowards. They were the ones receiving the worst kinds of torture when captured by the crew, they were the ones sure to be murdered first - they were mocked, insulted and despised by him. Could he really think the same of himself?

He scowled. “I’m not running away from anything.” 

“But you are scared.” 

She studied his pained expression, the way he averted his gaze and pushed his hips upwards against her, impatiently, as if wanting to shift his attention to something else. 

She couldn’t blame him for that. His hardness had been becoming more and more obvious in the past few minutes, rubbing against her inner thigh - she wanted nothing more than to ride him until she starts crying out to the heavens. 

“Follow my lead,” she whispered, biting his ear. Her legs began trembling from nerves and anticipation when she set the pace of her movements, humping directly against his groin each time. 

Every single thought suddenly evaporated from her mind, apart from the one that kept repeating over and over again - it feels so good. She gripped the sheets - the slicky sound their lips made while connecting spurred her on; she wished the pleasure and this moment could last forever. 

His hips started to reach upwards to meet her and he soon found the right rhythm, his fingers tightening on her waist. 

“Mmh, what a good boy you are,” she purred, holding back a moan. “It feels good, right?” 

“Fuck, yes.” It came out as almost a gasp as he fell silent once again, producing only the slightest pants and breaths.

The thin material of his pants must have been a literal gift from heaven; she could feel how hard he was and how the warmth of his cock spread along her abdomen and thighs as she swayed on top of him in fluid motions. 

“I want you to come for me.” She forced her voice to be strict and steady. “You’re such a good boy, I know you can do it.” 

His hands fell to deliver a harsh squeeze to her butt, only to drop even lower and embrace her thighs; he felt her muscles clench and strain with each of the movements. 

He growled a string of curses under his breath, already getting close to the edge. And when her fingers gripped on his hair, tugging harshly, a sudden feeling of safety took over his heart. 

Yes, it felt safe. With her in charge, he was ready to comply for as long as he could last - which, apparently, wasn’t going to be much longer. 

“Fuck, baby-” His quiet gasp was barely audible, as if he was afraid of how vulnerable she made him. “Yes, keep doing it.” 

“Cum for me,” she ordered, picking up the pace even more and holding back her own sounds of pleasure with the last bits of self-restraint. “Be a good boy and cum right now.” 

And he did, almost in sync with her words; his loud groans ringing around the room as the warm cum stained his pants and his hips snapped forward, pushing his cock in between her legs even more. 

She couldn’t help but smile with pride when his orgasm finally subsided and he fell back against the mattress, the look of satisfaction on his face. 

“You’re not alone in this.” Her finger traced his jawbone as she looked him in the eyes, trying to ignore the wetness in between her legs. “It’s normal to be scared. But you’re no coward. You’re the bravest, the most courageous fool in the world.” 

Before she managed to finish the sentence, he flipped her on her back, his face in her neck. 

“What is this, a shitty pep talk? I didn’t sign up for-” 

“Shut up and listen,” she scowled, wrapping her legs around his waist. “You can’t lie to me. Being a captain, especially of such crew, requires a lot of responsibility. I want you to know you’re doing really well.” 

“Mmhm.” He pushed her harder against the bed, one arm looping around her waist. But, finally, he gave up on marking her neck and met her gaze. “Of course I’m doing well. And I fucking swear to anything that is out there, one day I will make it to the top.”

She saw the rebellious spark in his eyes and the way he smiled while thinking about the future - it became obvious that, no matter how many demons come at him, whether from the outside or his own inside, his mutinous nature won’t let him surrender to them.

She looked again, this time at the scar on the left side of his face and the way it ran down across his chest; her fingers touched the cold metal of his prosthetic arm. 

He was just so young. 

[minbobs]

Bad Guy

SUMMARY — you were the best recruit they had on the team, and they decided you were finally ready for your first job as an official officer, but your heart was bigger than your brain and ruined it all for you.

TYPE — criminal / officer au

PAIRING — lee jeno x reader

WARNINGS — jeno being an annoying little shit , robbery , idk bad shit , kinda sexual tbh

WORD COUNT — 4k

A/N — i apologise if there’s any mistakes, i haven’t read over and will probably forget to later.

you'd been training for this day for almost three years now, and you felt as if you were ready for it. you'd spent majority of your time learning the different procedures and techniques of law enforcement, what it meant to have leadership and how to show it, the defensive tactics you needed and many other things that took time and practice to completely understand and perfect. the amount of time you'd spent at the academy led to you slowly losing friends, only leaving mina, the other girl at the academy. however, the loss of friends didn't affect you, in a bad way at least. it motivated you to carry on, because it didn't matter about others, it was for you and you only.

when talking to other recruits, taeyong always used you as the prime example of what the perfect student at the academy should act like and look like; it may have caused people to somewhat dislike you for being so 'perfect', but if taeyong liked you then they also had to like you, because they'd get a lecture on how it's bad to despise your peers.

it was a wednesday morning, around eight thirty am when you'd received a phone call from the academy. you weren't supposed to be there that day, so you were still fast asleep in your warm, comfortable bed — the one thing that could possibly stop you from wanting to leave the house for training.

when the ringing started, you opened your eyes and sat up, stretching as far as possible to stretch every muscle to the point where it was satisfying. eyeing up the phone, you wondered if you should even pick it up, when you could really just lie down and go back to sleep, because you were asleep and it was a perfect excuse.

despite that thought, you yawned and grabbed the phone.

"hello?" you spoke sleepily, putting your head back down on your fluffy pillow, resting your eyes. you were so uninterested in the phone call already, that you almost fell asleep until you heard the voice on the other side.

"hello? this is y/n l/n isn't it?" the voice of taeyong asked, and you quickly rose from your bed and was immediately wide awake.

"uh, yes it is!" you spoke almost too enthusiastically, making you cringe. that'd definitely be on your mind later.

"i just called to say that we'd like you to come down the the station at around twelve pm. we have some important news to speak to you about, we hope to see you there." before you could get any words out, the call ended abruptly.

was it good news? was it bad news? the possibility could go from you getting your first mission on the team to getting kicked out. not to be too vain, but you could see it leaning more towards your first mission.

you had time, but you were way too excited to go back to sleep. finally, you left your bed with a small groan because you really didn't want to leave it, but there was really no point of you being in it so you should do something productive.

that's if you call mixing different cereals together in a bowl and eating it while watching the umbrella academy for the second time productive.

eventually, it reached eleven am, meaning you should probably get moving. so at that, you got up finally and changed into the uniform the academy had given you and grabbed your keys from the side. you'd only just gotten your drivers license, so you were still wary about driving. you didn’t actually want a car when you could just get mina to drive you places because she’s always free, but it was part of the job.

"we've decided that you're ready for your first job. we've been tracking down a group of young boys that have been going around to different stores and stealing a different assortment of items. they've even been caught on cctv threatening the store owners for the money in the tills. we have an idea about where abouts they are, and we need your help to find them." taeyong took a seat in his chair, and yours eyes widened from what he said.

"are you sure? what if i completely mess it up and don't find anything?" you asked and he gave a small smile.

"don't worry, this isn't like school y/n. you won't get in trouble for it. as your first job it'll make it much easier for jaehyun and i to give you pointers on what to do next time." you nodded, you felt less nervous from that. "but as officers, you get jobs whatever time, whenever. so unfortunately for you, you don't have enough time to prepare. the job is starting right now." he spoke and you almost felt like shouting at him — the nerves had one hundred percent come back.

all you did was say 'ok', before standing up to walk out of the door, going to one of the meeting rooms. before you had a chance to leave, taeyong spoke up.

"just, don't worry ok? we don't know if it's their actually hide out, so please don't feel upset with yourself if you don't find anything.

now you were in a car, of which mina was driving. she was basically your designated driver, you really didn't trust anyone else to drive you places; not even yourself yet.

"i don't understand why you're so nervous, taeyong told you not to worry and it's your first time doing something like this. if it makes you feel any better, i overheard taeyong and jaehyun and they said not even yuta could catch them. apparently they're really smart kids, i think they're around your age too." mina spoke, and you gave a sigh. yuta was the best at his job, and the idea of him not being able to catch a bunch of sixteen to twenty year olds.

when you arrived on the 'site', jaehyun, taeyong, yuta and a few others were already there.

"ah y/n! we're going to send you off with jaehyun down that way. you'll go down the right side of the building and he'll go down the left side. if you need help, use this." taeyong passed you a walkie, then walked off only leaving you with jaehyun and mina.

"remember what i said, you'll do good y/n i promise." mina whispered in your ear before walking off back to her car. being reassured by mina was nice and something you needed. all through your life since you've known her she's always reassured you and it's brought you to be who you are today; strongly disliked by most people, but it didn't hurt you in any way.

"come on, let's go." jaehyun said and you followed him to the building. it was quite small, not as big as all the others ones in the abandoned place. it was all wrecked, parts of the walls had collapsed and it seemed really unstable and unsafe to go inside — it was probably why they were only letting you go around the outside. "if you need anything, use the walkie. it's connected to mine and taeyong's." jaehyun walked off to his side of the building, leaving you by your used and with a fast beating heart.

you had completely forgotten these were actually criminals, these people had actually committed crimes and you'd only just remembered that. you'd left your thoughts finally, and had a feeling you had eyes on you, you thought that maybe jaehyun was still here secretly, but when you looked the person standing around the corner definitely wasn't jaehyun. when they noticed you saw them, they quickly went back around the corner.

you breathed in deeply and closed your eyes, replaying everything you'd learnt in your head, every single piece of information you remembered, you felt ready. so you walked with a hand on your gun in your pocket just in case. the closer you got to the corner, you were starting to think about backing out, and just saying you didn't find anything. but you knew that was wrong, and you couldn't do it.

as you turned the corner of the building, you were pressed up against the wall, and a hand over your mouth; your arms were pressed behind your hands so you could reach for the walkie to even get anyone's attention. the person in front of you had black hair parted in the middle — you couldn't lie by saying he wasn't the most beautiful human being you'd ever seen.

"please, please don't tell them you found us. please, i'm begging you." he whimpered, his eyes beginning to water. you started to become less tense, and you were starting to feel some sort of sympathy. he removed his hand off you mouth, and you gave him a glare.

"why shouldn't i? you've been stealing from stores and threatening people. you should be in jail." you tried to push his arms off you, but he was clearly much stronger than you, and you were starting to feel fear.

"we only do it because we don't have anything else, just leave us be. i promise that if you ever find us again, we'll let you take us." he was breathing heavily, and his eyes were becoming teary. he was a criminal, and he shouldn't be forgiven, but you had a weak heart and you were starting to realise, maybe you just weren't fit for this job.

"go." you spoke almost emotionally, and you looked down in guilt thinking about how taeyong would feel if he found about this — his best student let him down, on purpose. you didn't even try hard.

"thank you so much." he mumbled, then ran off down the side of the building. i sighed, wiping the sweat from my forehead, that wasn't even the worst something could have been.

"did she fall for it? dude, if she did i'm signing you up as an actor, because you just tricked a cop into having sympathy for you." jaemin jumped over the ripped up couch they had in what they would call a living room. jaemin was one of the boys that usually stayed put, he would be the one flirting with the store owner while some of the others stole whatever they needed.

"of course she did, i really deserve an oscar, i even fake cried. it was quite easy to be honest, because it wasn't leader boy taeyong or their 'best cop' yuta, what cop doesn't know how to chase down a bunch of teens? i think she was new, i haven't seen her before." the boys had been in trouble with the police on multiple occasions, at this point they were now the main criminals the police were after.

a bunch of young boys they just wanted to spend their life in the most adventurous way.

"you probably scared the poor girl to death, you really could've just pretended you were a random guy walking around, this place isn't blocked off. because now she knows what you look like, well done." renjun rolled his eyes, eating a packet of doritos that they'd recently stolen from one of the stores. 

renjun didn't really do much to do with the boys, he just took care of them all. he cooked for them with the help of jaemin, he made sure they felt safe where they were. all because he was scared of losing them.

"they're invading our privacy, i'd just say were six, innocent boys that got kicked out of our parents houses because they didn't care about us." renjun rolled his eyes at donghyuck's response, the orange haired boy looked like the fluffiest person alive, but he really wasn't — he was the most dangerous one of the group, the one who was treated the worst. he wasn't scared to go up to someone and threaten them, hurt them. and that scared the others too.

"renjun where are the other doritos, i swear we took more than one packet." jisung walked into the room, smiling when he finally saw jeno was back. jisung was a lookout, he stayed at their, well home, watching out for any people and jeno was the first to leave to lead them away when jisung was worrying over the police outside.

honestly, jeno really could not care less if he went to prison, but there was no way he could leave his friends behind and be split from them because it would have broke him.

"i ate it, sorry." chenle giggled, running away as jisung ran after him shouting over the face he claimed that packet.

"i kinda feel bad about it you know? it was easy to get rid of her, but she was new clearly and probably trained for that shit for years, and i just ruined it for her." he mumbled, taking a seat and taking a deep breath. jaemin patted his back with a smile on his face.

"well you did it buddy, we're proud of you." renjun stood up whispering 'it was a stupid decision' under his breath. renjun really hated the way they did things, but he knew it was the way they survived, and he was already in a bad mood today after jaemin and donghyuck had a bad argument of which he had to spend time sorting out.

"i guess i'll just have to hope i don't have to do that again."

when you got back, you told taeyong you hadn't found anything and the whole place was abandoned, that one comment had threw off the whole job because they decided to search in other places on the other side of town, where the group of boys weren't set.

it had been a couple of days since then, and everything was starting to get messy for you. you couldn't concentrate nor could you sleep at night thinking about the boy you'd encountered. you'd learnt so much about how important it was to check people's body language, but you hadn't once looked at him below his face because he scared you. you weren't fit to go against criminals.

one night, you decided to just go on a little walk in hope that it would calm you down a little bit. grabbing your coat, you walked outside and breathed in the fresh air. it was late at night, maybe around eleven pm. when you still lived with your parents, you used to sneak out a lot when you were younger for these types of walks. you used to go to the same park every time but you moved farm far away from there and it saddened you that you couldn't go there now — you would've been a lot calmer there instead of walking down the streets walking past closing shops, making it become slightly darker as the light from the shops were off.

behind you, light footsteps were heard and you swallowed the lump in your throat, starting to walk faster. looking around, you looked for any signs of open shops you could go in but there was nothing. everything was closed. you brought up the courage to turn around, and noticed an extremely tall man behind you.

"are you following me?" you asked and he gave a small smirk, yeah, he was definitely following you. "are you going to answer or not? i don't have time for this."

"i just couldn't help myself, you just looked so delicious." you gagged at his words, you almost laughed. it was disguising, he looked disgusting, his teeth were pure yellow and his clothes were ripped, his hair was extremely greasy.

"i'd appreciate it if you left me alone, i've got things to do and you're interrupting it." you didn't know where this sudden confidence in yourself had come from, but you liked it. he reached in to grab your arm, and you tried to move from his grip but he was much stronger than you. "get  your hands off me, in work at a police station and i could get you sent down right now with one push of a button. now get the fuck of me." you scowled, but the man continued to drag you into the alley way right next to you, how convenient for him.

pushing you up against the wall, his face was getting closer and closer to you, then you remember, he has a dick. so, you lifted your knee up high and used all of the energy you had to knee him, causing him to groan in pain and pull away from you. you tried running, but it didn't work as he grabbed you leg, pulling you back and pushing you down on the floor.

"i like the ones who try to get away." he whispered in your ear, dragging his lips from your ear down to your neck and you whimpered, you were absolutely terrified. that was until the man was ripped away, but your vision had gotten blurry so you had no idea who it was and could only hear the voices of others.

"jeno, get off him you're killing him!"

"no,no i'm enjoying watching this, this dick deserves to die. i swear we've come across him about five times doing the same thing, i think we should let him kill him this time."

"jae, we'll get in trouble. jeno will be in deep shit do you want that?"

"yah, i didn't think of that... hyuck pick up the girl, we can't just leave her here."

you felt arms wrap around your waist and you wanted to fight back but slowly, you were passing out. and everything was black.

when you finally opened your eyes, you were in a somewhat familiar place. it felt like you'd been there before. it was kind of bright so your eyes were hurting, but you sat up quickly to the smell of food.

"oh, she's awake. hi, i'm chenle!" a blonde haired boy appeared in front of you causing you to fall off the couch you were on and let out a small squeak. "woah, are you ok?"

"am i ok? i have no idea where i am!" you shouted, making the blonde haired boy flinch. you felt sort of bad, he seemed innocent enough, and you'd basically scared the crap out of him.

"jesus fucking christ could you be any loude- oh, that wasn't chenle making all the noise this time." another boy appeared from behind the couch and you were official in complete confusion. you remembered everything that happened last night, but you don't remember being in an abandoned building. and it hit you, these were the boys you were supposed to be searching for. "i'm jaemin, do whatever you want with that information i guess."

"i have food!" and now more people were walking into the room, and you recognised one right off the bat.

"it's you! you're the one that i almost arrested but didn't!" you shouted as you stood up, and the dark haired boy rolled his eyes and groaned.

"and you're the one that almost got me in shit when i was doing nothing wrong." he spoke and you placed your hands in your face.

"do you realise how much trouble i could get in for being here? i could get fired and i've hardly even started yet. i need to go-" you stood up and grabbed your stuff which was placed next to the couch, your coat was folded nicely and your phone, credit card and things like that were placed on the table in front of it.

you were sort of confused of why they didn't steal from you, put parts of your brain were telling you it was rude to assume they stole from everyone.

"no, before you go, promise you won't say anything about us." one of them grabbed your arm, and he looked slightly more petite then the others, less stronger, but strong non the less.

you sighed and looked at them all, "i promise i won't say anything about you."

and from that day on, you became the six boys favourite person. you become good friends with them despite it being a sin to your job, but they were the cutest things alive, you wouldn't think they'd be going around stealing, you really couldn't get over it.

something unusual had developed between you and jeno to which you didn't understand, it was like you disliked each other but we're the closest in the group at the same time. despite that, everything was getting better for them because of you. you'd helped them furnish the place a bit better, with the money you were getting from your job as an officer — ironic.

"y/n! donghyuck keeps hitting me again! i swear i didn't take your pillow, why in the fuck would i take your pillow?" jaemin shouted from across the room and you almost had ripped donghyuck's hair. today had been ten times harder to cope with them all.

"i'll take care of it, don't worry. maybe you should go take a nap or something, you seem really tired today." renjun smiled and placed a hand on my shoulder, i nodded my head and walked to one of the back rooms where the beds were. there were only six beds, so you just jumped on the first one you set eyes on.

after a few minutes, you heard a small chuckle, "what are you doing in my bed?" jeno asked and you felt the bed dip when he sat down.

"i'm tired, hyuck and jaemin won't shut up, jisung and chenle are being hype and it seems like you and renjun are the only sane ones around here." you mumbled, turning around to face him.

the more you turned up here, the more you realised how pretty each and every feature of jeno was, and just looking at him made you happy.

"why are you staring at me?” he asked, you quickly looked away and you could feel him smirking at you, he knew exactly what you were thinking. “hey, look at me.” you turned your head, and soon enough jeno’s hands were on your waist with your hands around his neck and his lips on top of yours.

even just from that, you were scared. it reminded you of that night all those weeks ago. you trusted jeno wholeheartedly, but even just his hands going under your shirt, making your burning hot skin freezing cold whenever he moved them.

“j-jeno...” you moaned lightly as his hands moved from your lips down your neck.

“it’s okay.” he mumbled on your skin, his hands were slowly moving to the waistband of your pants, but the mood was quickly interrupted when jaemin had burst into the room.

“guys, renjun made us food an- oh my god i knew this was going to happen but jesus, i didn’t want it to happen in front of me. i’ll just tell renjun to put your food i-” jaemin was rambling, and his face was slowly becoming redder and redder at the sight.

“could you, like, leave jaemin.” jeno asked and jaemin nodded, and shut the door.

you and jeno looked at each other, and immediately burst out laughing. there was no way the mood was going to go back to how it was before jaemin burst into the room.

“i was thinking, maybe i should leave the dream of being a police officer behind.” you lay next to each other, but jeno quickly sat up to look at you with a shocked face.

“what? why? when you first started coming here often you’d talk about all the things you did, how long you spent working for it.” he asked and you shrugged.

“i like you guys more than i like my job, i like you a lot more than my job.” she smiled, as his lips placed on yours again.

“i like you a lot too.”