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indigosunsetao3 · 3 months

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Prompt 25 - Say it again

My submission for for @glitterypirateduck‘s ‘SoapItUp’ challenge. I leave for vacation the 19th so I wanted to submit at least one early. I have other ideas that may come later.

Title: Brutal Bruises

Pairing: Soap X OC (Emma/female)

Warning: This is 18+ only. Contains injuries (nothing too graphic) and hot & heavy teasing.

Summary: Soap and the rest of the team, sans Alex, have returned from their mission after it went wildly off the rails. Alex is still in the hospital recovering while Soap ignored his doctor's advice to stay under observation so he could get back to the base and back to Emma.

This is actually a chunk of chapter 8 from my 20 chapter fic "Would It Be Enough?" that I finished back in November. I honestly love the "say it again" trope/idea/quote what have you so when I saw it won as a prompt I knew I had to join in.

I think the chapter can stand alone without the rest of the story...there's nothing too 'fic-centric' in here as far as background or setup..stuff is recapped/explained that you may need to understand in the chapter itself.

You can find the rest of my story on AO3 if you'd like to read more! It's a slow burn story with a traitor element.

Emma abandoned her pursuit of a change of clothes in her closet when she heard Soap’s voice on the other side of the door. Instead, she turned toward her bed and grabbed the blue shirt there and pulled it roughly over her head. She didn’t care that she wasn’t in a bra and after she double checked to make sure the shirt covered her backside, it went halfway down her thighs, she didn’t bother with pants. She crossed to the door in two steps before yanking it open wide, feeling a bit breathless with her heart hammering in her chest. “Soap,” she breathed as she took him in, the tightness in her body easing a bit at the sight of him.

Soap’s eyes flared when he took in Emma standing there in nothing but his shirt, her hair a tousled mess and legs on full display. “Sorry I’m late,” he said as Emma stood aside to let him come in. Somewhere down the hall a door clicked shut and Soap could hear Gaz dumping his stuff onto the floor of his room. They were all so wiped Soap had done the same, kicking his vest under his bed before going right to Emma’s room, skipping the shower for now. His movements were slow and deliberate, his right hand moving under his jacket to hold his ribs on the left. Each step hurt and he knew that Emma was clocking his grimaces.

Emma assessed Soap as he walked in, her eyes zeroing in on how he was cradling his side and the exhaustion that lined his face. He was in a pair of jeans that were covered in dust and dirt, his shirt underneath the jacket didn’t look much better and Emma could see remnants of black and green war paint in the corner of his eyes and along his hairline. He had ditched most of his gear somewhere before coming to see her but he still had the gun holster strapped around his thigh and Emma spotted a knife hilt poking out of his boot. “What happened?” She asked shutting the door and quickly moving to his side, nudging him toward her bed. He had made to go sit at her desk chair like before but the exhaustion and pain on his face she wouldn’t be surprised if he passed out and she couldn’t catch him before he hit the floor. “Are you alright?” She continued to prod as she watched him sit with a wince.

“I’m fine,” Soap lied as he sat on the bed, his eyes squinting shut for a moment as he shifted back, the pain in his ribs radiating to his back and even up to his jaw. Once he was settled he opened them again to take in Emma who looked a mix between anger and concern with her arms crossed over her chest. He knew she didn’t believe his lie since it was an obvious bad one; he could barely move without pain. “Alex got hurt,” he explained and he saw the panic on her face before quickly adding, “he’s okay now. He’s in a hospital in Sweden for a few more days before they can transfer him safely to your care.” Emma’s face turned to confusion since she had no idea where they had been. That location was the only scrap of information of their whereabouts and she looked like she was going to question more about that but Soap kept talking. “We walked right into an ambush,” Soap continued before moving to shrug off his jacket.

He was able to get the shoulder off and down his right arm but struggled with the left side because of the radiating pain. Without a word Emma quickly bent down to help him, her fingers soft as she pulled back on the material and slid it down his arms, hesitating as Soap screwed up his face in a painful grimace. “Alex took a shot to his lower stomach. Stupid bastard was covering me when I laid down some explosives,” he huffed as Emma pulled the jacket free. If Alex hadn’t covered him, he probably would have been the one shot and injured, or worse. “There was a lot of blood, we could have used you out there,” he added with a small smile as his now free hand went to his side again. “Gaz got it under control though and we were able to get Alex out, Price called in a few old favors. But we couldn’t all leave,” Soap explained, “we weren’t exactly supposed to be there so we couldn’t bring too much attention to ourselves. It was easier to sneak out one man versus five.”

Emma tossed Soap’s jacket, which had a large tear down the back now, onto her desk chair before kneeling down in front of Soap. His stiffness, grimaces and all-around gingerly movement told her that he was hurt more than he had been trying to let on. She wasn’t having it anymore though, she wanted to see and make sure that he wasn’t trying to put on a bravado to cover up something that was actually extremely serious. “Let me see your side,” she interrupted him as he opened his mouth to continue to tell her what happened. Soap tightened his lips at he looked at her and she could tell he was going to be stubborn. “Do not fight me on it because right now I could easily win,” she threatened, her hands reaching out to rest on his thighs waiting.

“Fine,” Soap answered a bit frustrated before he resigned his fight. Emma was the medical professional of the group after all so he may as well let her do her job. “Before you see it, I am fine. I saw a doctor when we took Alex in. Just a couple broken ribs and bruising, it looks worse than it is.” He shifted on the bed and moved to pull his shirt up, moving slowly and precisely.

Before his shirt was even a few inches up Emma could see a huge black and blue mark on Soap’s lower ribs that had angry red splotches around it. She hissed and moved to help him pull the material above his head. He bent forward a bit and pulled his good arm through and Emma winced as he grunted with pain to get his left arm through but she was swift in pulling it off so he could rest his arms down again.

“You call this fine!” Emma exclaimed as she bent the light on her nightstand toward him to get a better look. The bruise was gigantic and his side was such a deep red it looked purple. “They never should have let you leave the hospital like this,” she breathed her fingers gently running over the skin, which was hot to the touch. She was gentle with her feeling, checking for any lumps or obvious broken bones poking under the skin. Luckily, she didn’t find any on an initial feel before pulling back. “You need to get x-rays, get this wrapped, pain meds and rest,” her brain moving right into work mode and she moved to stand up again, pushing up off his thighs with her hands to a standing position. She was taking him to the hospital wing right now, even if she had to drag him there.

“They didn’t want me to leave,” Soap answered her truthfully as he smirked at her instantly going into medical mode. “But I told them as long as I wasn’t dying, I was leaving whether they wanted me to or not. They took x-rays, I have some broken ribs but nothing that’s going to kill me,” he reached his right hand out and grabbed Emma’s wrist before she could get out of range, his thumb brushing over her wrist. “I told them I had someone waiting on me and I was already behind schedule, it’s bad manners to stand a lady up,” he said as he tugged on her wrist to get her to look at him again. He knew it was going to take some convincing to get her to relax again, her need to fix things overpowering everything else.

Emma didn’t pull against his hand as he tugged on her, not wanting to hurt him, but still bent on getting him to the hospital. “You should have stayed Soap,” she breathed as she twisted back around to him. “I could have waited; you could have had Gaz or Crane tell me what happened. You must be in so much pain. I hurt just looking at the marks,” her voice shook on the last few words, the emotions of everything the past few days getting the best of her. The anxiety of not having word of what happened, the relief of seeing him again, the guilt of not being there to help Alex and the horror of how badly Soap had been hurt. He hadn’t even told her how that happened, it looked like he had been hit by a car or fell from a very high height at a minimum.

“I couldn’t wait,” Soap answered simply. He pulled Emma toward him, his booted feet spreading on the floor so she was standing between his legs. Him sitting on the bed while she stood allowed them to be face to face and his eyes roved over her face as he slid his hand up her arm, over shoulder and to her neck before cupping her cheek. He felt her lean into the touch and watched her close her eyes, still internally warring with herself. “I couldn’t wait another day to see you,” he said his thumb gently brushing over her cheek.

“Soap,” Emma responded, her voice half protesting as he tried to distract her, though it was working. She slid her hands up his chest before they came up to rest on his shoulders. She was having a fight with herself to do the right thing, though at the moment being held by him felt like it was the right thing. At his words about not being able to wait to see her Emma to smiled and opened her eyes again to look over his face. Then she caught the bruises on his neck she hadn’t seen before and she wanted yell at him and drag him to the hospital by the ear to get another proper look over. She opened her mouth to fight him again on going to the hospital before he spoke.

“Johnny,” Soap replied as the hand on his hurt side grabbed her hip to pull her fully against him, the hand on her cheek sliding into her hair. Her chest was pressed against him now and he could feel her breath quicken at the touch, at the closeness. “When it’s just us, it’s Johnny,” he explained smiling a bit. He didn’t allow many people to use his actual name, only those he was close with but he wanted to hear her say it. Want to watch her lips as she said his name, moaned it.

“Johnny,” Emma said quietly as she moved her own hands behind his neck to slide down his back. She had known his name since she had seen his file but never tried to use it because none of the other guys did, least not that she had heard. It felt nice though to actually call him by his name, more intimate than a nickname, more intimate than just colleagues.

“There it is,” Soap said before he closed the gap between them and kissed her slowly. “Say it again,” he murmured against her lips, his own curved into a smile she could feel. His hands tightened to hold her firmly against him, as if now that he had her, he wasn’t going to ever let her go. With her body molded against his he could feel through the thin material of the shirt that she had on underwear but no bra, her breasts pushed up against his bare chest. He nearly hummed with excitement at the thought of seeing just what was under the shirt, his shirt, as he gently kissed her again.

Emma inhaled sharply as Soap kissed her, her fingers on his back curling for a moment to dig into the skin before releasing quickly not wanting to hurt him. She had seen the bruises on his side and near his neck but she hadn’t seen his back and could only wonder how bad it could possibly be. At his request to say his name again she smiled before breathing his name against his lips which had given him the opening he wanted to sweep his tongue in. She met his movements with her own and she could feel the hand at her hair tightening into a fist, as if it were restraint to keep himself in check. She nearly groaned at the gentle tugging of her hair, the subtle control he was exerting as he held her so tightly against his body she could barely move, let alone breathe.

That line that she had been so worried about crossing before he had left for this dangerous mission was gone. They had both obliterated it without hesitation, and to be honest she felt it was only a matter of time before they stepped over it. Emma had a feeling it happened sooner rather than later because of what had happened over the past few days. The fact they had gone without seeing one another for over a week after a charged last conversation caused the desire to build. Then there was the fear of the mission running long and Soap almost losing one of his best friends that brought mortality to the forefront.

They were both growing breathless at the kissing and Emma could feel a heat between her legs that was demanding some sort of release. Emma could also feel Soap had grown hard under his jeans, it was pushing against her stomach and she involuntarily huffed thinking about what it would be like to finally get him naked. Ever so slowly, still not ready to stop kissing him, Emma slid her arms back up over his shoulders and to his chest where she gently nudged him, keeping her palms far away from his bruises. Soap’s hands loosened on her instantly and he pulled back, his eyes looking onto hers in a searching manner, the blue iris’ barely visible from his lust blown pupils.

“Everything alright?” He asked, concern evident in his voice as his chest heaved to catch his breath. He seemed to have forgotten everything that had happened to him, or was ignoring the pain, as he shifted a bit on the bed.

“Everything is fine Johnny,” Emma said, not really recognizing the huskiness in her voice, “I promise I’ll tell you if it isn’t.” She smiled at the genuinely happy grin that spread across his features at her saying his name, a smile she could get used to. “Scoot back on the bed,” she instructed and he raised an eyebrow as he looked at her, hesitating for only a moment, before using his feet on the floor to move himself back. The rubber of his boots squeaked on the linoleum floor at the movements and her eyes shot down to them, completely forgetting that he was still half dressed. “Hang on,” she said and she knelt down to remove them.

“Lass, don’t,” Soap protested, realizing what Emma was about to do. He leaned forward to do it himself but cursed and straightened back up instantly, his hand going to his side. His ribs were not going to allow him to bend down and do it without pain and Emma knew that. “Just leave them,” he protested and reached a hand down under her chin to try and coax her back up to him. He didn’t want her undressing him, not like that anyway, it felt infantile.

“I don’t want your dirty boots in my bed,” Emma replied with a smirk as she undid the knot on the first boot one and quickly unlaced it then moved to the other. She allowed him to kick them off himself, giving him a little independence, and they fell to the floor with a clatter. The knife that had been in one of them slid under the bed in its sheath. “Or your dirty pants,” she added as she stood up and looked at the jeans which had definitely seen better days.

She was going to be the death of him Soap thought as her hands moved up to his thigh to undo the gun holster he hadn’t bothered to remove earlier. Her movements were deliberate, her fingers grabbing his upper leg and twisting it to the side a bit to get on his inner thigh to undo a clip. He was pretty sure she was going slow on purpose because she had a thigh holster of her own that she snapped on and off without even looking at it. It was fucking sexy to watch her prep a gun, holster it, unholster it and unload a clip into a target. Gaz had teased him to no end when he caught Soap adjusting himself after one target practice they all did as a group, laughing all the way to lunch and smirking at him randomly the rest of the day.

“I’m not going to be able to,” he started to explain about his pants but Emma looked up at him already knowing. Fuck, the way she looked at him from under her lashes was going to cause him to combust right there. With fumbling fingers, like a goddamn teenager, he undid his belt, button and zipper as she watched him. The gun holster finally freed dropped unceremoniously onto the floor.

“Lift up,” Emma instructed as she slid her hands up his legs, her fingers digging into the waist band of his jeans and tugging once he finally had everything undone. Soap was extremely aware of every place she was touching him, her fingertips grazed the bare skin of his hips above his boxers before she gripped the denim and pulled the material down. The jeans slid down a bit but not enough and she pulled again as Soap groaned at the effort to hold himself up, the twisting and adjusting was putting strain on his injuries. Emma didn’t take her time like she had done purposely with the holster and a final tug had the pants loose and down his legs. Soap kicked them off himself as well, the belt clanking on the floor a little too loudly. He hoped Gaz had passed out when he hit the bed or he was going to be able to piece together everything that was happening.

Now that there were no jeans to constrain him Emma saw just how turned-on Soap was under his boxers and she grinned before flicking her eyes back up to his face. He was watching her, his fists curled into the bedsheets before he reached out and grabbed at the collar of her shirt to pull her toward him. Emma let him lead her forward as she crawled onto the bed to meet him before throwing a leg over his to straddle his lap. His back was now pushed up against the wall for support and Emma searched his face for a moment more, before she leaned back into kiss him again.

Soap’s hands moved around to her backside and without hesitation he grabbed her ass and pulled her tight against him, groaning deep in his throat at the friction he had just created. Emma had also gasped into his mouth at the contact made on her center and he pulled on her ass again to get her to roll her hips onto him. She didn’t need to be told a third time; she undulated her hips on her own and one of his hands slid up her back to rest between her shoulder blades to keep her trapped against him. His hand fisted the back of the shirt which pulled it tight against her chest, making her hardened nipples visible.

“Fuck,” he uttered against her already panting lips. His voice drawn out on the vowel until the word was almost a hiss. The fingers of his hand that were still on her ass curled into the soft skin of her backside, though it was still on top of the shirt not wanting to push her too far too fast. “Emma,” he muttered as she whimpered against him, her hips moving faster but still careful to not hurt him. She pulled out of the kiss to breathe for a moment before she bit his lower lip gently and tugged softly, another groan escaping her as her clit ground down hard on him. “You’re going to end it before we can even get started if you keep doing that,” he responded to the bite, before moving to kiss along her jaw then down to her neck.

Emma arched her neck to the side to give him better access as his kisses slid down her jaw to her neck and right to that sensitive spot where it met her shoulder. She was breathing hard and could feel how wet she had become from just making out and dry humping like high schoolers. Had it really been that long since she had been with someone that just this little attention got that rise out of her? Or was it Soap? Her mind was too fogged to think on it just yet, her current focus on his mouth sucking on her skin, but she was pulled away from any thought at all when he nipped at her causing her to jump slightly.

“I didn’t tell you to stop moving, did I?” Soap asked curiously, his hand moving her hip impatiently as he licked over the spot he had just bitten. Soap was doing his best to leave a small subtle mark, one that would blend in with the other bruises that peppered her skin. He had seen the marks all over her legs and arms, bruises from Ghost training her he knew, and he wanted to leave his own. He would have a discussion with Ghost later about how rough he had been, but that could wait. He didn’t want to think about his lieutenant touching Emma right now.

She groaned again as she leaned her head back and continued to glide her hips over his, her ministrations continuing to build up the tension low in her stomach. Emma gripped his shoulders hard, knowing her nails were going to leave little divots in his skin as he shuddered a breath into her neck, his breathing almost a pant now. The thin layers of fabric between them weren’t leaving much to the imagination and Emma dared to glance down between them to just watch herself move on him. Imagining what it would look like when there were no barriers and he was buried inside of her.

The shirt had bunched up to her hips at this point and her bright white underwear was on display against the strain of his black boxers. Soap took that moment to rest his forehead on her shoulder to glance down as well, a growl forming in his throat as he spotted the wet patch that had spread between her legs, causing a darker patch on the otherwise pristine white material. “Fucking hell Emma,” he rumbled as he took it in, knowing that he had done that to her, “all that for me?”

Emma felt a blush on her cheeks but she wasn’t going to let it get the best of her. “Yes,” she answered boldly, slowing her hips so he could get a better look and the answering feral grin from him nearly had her falling to pieces. His hand that was on her hip pulling her to move slid to the top of her thigh and his thumb ran up the inside of it painstaking slow, causing Emma to stop moving all together to watch in with needy expectation. His thumb continued going up, up, up, Emma feeling every slight movement as if his thumb were on fire. Soap hooked the top of his thumb just under the edge of the elastic strip, hesitated as he watched Emma’s face and how she bit her lip in anticipation before he moved away his thumb away again, too quickly.

Emma let out a small noise of disappointment which earned a chuckle from Soap, “impatient,” he admonished as his thumb swiped back up again slowly then back down just as quick as the first time. “But you’re going to have to wait a little bit longer before I strip you bare and get you under me,” he explained before moving to kiss her lips again. At that Emma leaned away to protest his latest statement and he scoffed at her, narrowing his eyes before the hand at her back went to her hair to pull her to him to kiss her.

“I’m not going to have the first time I get you naked be when I can barely move to fuck you properly,” Soap growled against her lips and he felt her melt into him at that, she apparently enjoyed his filthy mouth, something he noted for next time. “I’m going to take my time when I do it,” he breathed as he rested his forehead against hers as he looked her right in the eyes, which were heavily lidded. He wanted to watch her reactions, see what his words and fingers did to her, even above the fabric.

His thumb went back to its ministrations, sliding back up her thigh and feeling goosebumps. “I’m going to make you squirm,” his thumb slid away again, dragging his nail lightly over the sensitive skin. “Make you beg me,” his thumb went back up and stopped right at the elastic, “and make you come multiple times. Until you can’t walk. Or talk from screaming my name over and over.”

At that last sentence Soap saw Emma’s eyes flare and he wanted to feel how wet she was, his own self-imposed restraint wearing on him. Swiftly, Soap moved his hand so his index finger brushed right against her clit over the fabric of her underwear. She was completely soaked and he hummed at the feel of it, knowing he had done that to her and she was more than ready for him. The light touch caused Emma to moan loud enough that she bit down hard on her lip to stifle it, and Soap grinned as he gently circled his finger knowing the touch was torturously light.

Emma thought she was going to climax right there. Just his words and his teasing touches were enough to put her right on that edge, that low feeling in her stomach almost ready to be unleashed. Then he kept gently kept circling his finger over her to the point was she struggling hard to keep the sounds to herself. She was silently praying Gaz was asleep or had his headphones in and not being tortured with this. “When?” She asked, her voice practically begging as she shifted her hips not so subtly to get more pressure from his finger which he obliged, running it down to her center before coming back up again and pressing down right where she wanted it. Fuck, just a little more and she knew she would see stars.

“When my doctor says I can,” he answered unhelpfully knowing full well it was her job to clear him for active duty, and to get into her bed. “Good thing I know my doctor would never let me do anything strenuous until I’m fully healed.” Soap said as he pulled his hand away for the final time and rested it atop her leg, his fingertips gripping her legs lightly.

#soapitup #call of duty #johnny soap mactavish #john soap mactavish #soap mactavish #soap cod #cod soap #soap x oc #soap call of duty #call of duty fanfic #soap smut #soap modern warfare #soap mw2 #soap mw3 #ao3 writer #ao3 fanfic #my fic #fanfic

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toadbreath · 3 months

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dear john;

simon keeps a journal to grieve johnny's death and we all have to suffer for it..

✒ w.c: 3,5k

✒ pairing: ghost x soap // simon riley x john mactavish

✒ rating: m

✒ archive of our own: link here

✒ genre: angst

✒ warnings: mcd!! soap is dead in this fic. suicidal thoughts, alcoholism, implied self harm, emotional distress

✒ author's note: this is only the first chapter, the rest is on ao3, i might add more to it but i'm not sure yet. all ur comments and tags mean the world to me omg

JANUARY 19th, 2024

They call it longing because it takes forever. It is a yearning without an answer and a desire without a satiation. But that is not the whole truth. Longing is only the beginning of it. Longing is a seed in your belly that sprouts the roots of love, but even as the plant begins to grow, you don't know if it's going to bloom a red rose or a poisonous weed. When you're a kid, you think you will know the difference when the time comes, and you will choose the rose, but the older I get, the more I realize that it's not up to me. There is no rhyme or reason to who blooms a flower and who is pruned instead.

I never thought I'd find myself standing among the dead waiting for the flower to bloom. I always assumed I'd be the one with my hand on the sheers, trimming back the branches that would never bear fruit. But I am a soldier, not a gardener.

It’s been three months since your funeral, Johnny. I know you're not listening, and even if you were, there's no way for me to send these to you, but the psychologist said it would help, and I'm running out of ideas.

I'm not used to having something to lose. You changed everything, you changed me. You were a brother, a comrade, a friend, a leader. But you were never just any of those things, and now I don't know how to find my balance again.

I didn't know how much of my weight you were holding up until the ground fell out from beneath my feet. And now, every morning, I wake up, and I forget. Just for a moment, I forget, and the world is right, and the sun is shining, and then I remember. And the loss is the same as it was the day you left, only, now, the wound is festering. I'm rotting, and nothing I do is enough.

There is no honor, no pride in your loss. I cannot make a martyr out of the memory of you. Your death was senseless and meaningless, and I cannot find peace in the knowledge that it was in the name of a noble cause.

There was no nobility in the way he killed you. He didn't kill you because you were a soldier or a terrorist or a man. He killed you because you were in the way. The only comfort I have is that you went out the way you would have wanted, fighting, saving lives, being a hero. But the way you died doesn't erase the way you lived, and no matter how hard I try, I cannot separate the two.

The first time I met you, I saw the same thing in you that I see in myself. You were a killer, and I didn't want to like you, but you made me laugh. It's hard to hold onto your ideals of goodness and righteousness when you've had your hands around the neck of a man begging for his life. But you reminded me what it was like to have a heart, to be human. You made it okay to be the things I was.

There's not a lot of things in this world that scare me. I've stared down the barrel of guns. I've been beaten, tortured, starved, shot, stabbed, burned, and I've survived. I've faced down monsters in men's skin, and I've killed them all, and yet, I don't think I've ever been as afraid as I am right now. I'm scared of who I'll become without you. I'm scared that the last few years will have been wasted, and I'll turn into the kind of man that I would kill. I don't know who I am without you. I don't know how to be alone.

You told me once, after our first mission, that there was no room for regrets on the battlefield, and that there was no point in dwelling on things that could not be changed. At the time, I thought you were being flippant, but I think, now, you were trying to prepare me.

You knew, didn't you? That one of us was going to end up buried.

I wish we could go back, to those first days when the war was new and so were we. Back to the nights of playing cards and talking shit and watching cheesy American movies. We were young and invincible, and we knew everything. It feels like a lifetime ago. I was a different man then, and so were you.

Now, I look at myself, and I don't recognize the person staring back. I'm harder, colder, angrier, and there is a blackness inside me that I'm afraid will swallow me whole.

You were a light in the dark, a candle burning in a window that I could find my way home by. I was lost without you, and you found me. You saved me, and I will never be able to repay you for the debt I owe.

There was always a part of me that wanted more, a part that longed to burn up in the fire of you, to be consumed and destroyed. The only time I have ever felt alive was when you were in my arms. You were the only thing that made sense, the only thing that was good and pure and true, and now you are gone. And I'm left standing in the darkness, waiting for the storm to pass.

I hope that wherever you are, you are finally at peace. I hope that, somehow, you can hear me, and that, maybe, you understand.

I'm not sorry for loving you, Johnny, but I am sorry for saying it too late.

Yours, Simon Riley

read the rest of the chapters on the ao3 link up top~

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masterwords · 10 months

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the shape you take

Summary: Hotch is sad. Jack is just about to turn 18, Hank is spending the summer with his mom and he's dwelling on the empty nest. Morgan has just the ticket: sea, sand, food and naps. Fun in the sun and the sack. While exploring a nude beach one night they find a little more than they bargained for. (Part of The Chicago Times series)

Pairing: Hotch/Morgan

Words: 8.8k

Warnings: sex (not explicit details, just "hey they're having sex" type thing), food & alcohol, mentions of Foyet’s knife, scars (both of them), murder/corpse/blood, an inappropriate boner situation...

Read on AO3: the shape you take

Notes: This is my first entry for @imagining-in-the-margins CM Summer Sunshine Fic Challenge. I used one of the NSFW prompts but this is basically PG-13 because I don’t really write smut, just some sexy vibes. The prompts I chose were: Character A finally convinces B to go to the beach with them. Turns out it's a nude beach mixed with The sun makes Characters sleepy, so they take a nap. (They take a lot of naps. They're old.) There are a couple more from the list that I hope to write for before the challenge is finished, but we’ll see where the summer takes me! The end here is purposely left open for a special surprise...another collab with @domestikhighway58! Because writing with hwy58 is a dream and I want to do it all the time. To be unveiled soon-ish. (How's that for noncommittal?) (I'm posting the whole thing here, I haven't done that in a while...do you want me to go back to that or keep just linking AO3?)

Win by persuasion, not by force.

All spring Derek had been dropping hints. Little ones at first. He would add feta cheese to salad one night at dinner, or watch Hercules with Hank when he knew Aaron was going to be coming home from work or a run. Nothing big, but he knew Aaron would pick up on it eventually.

As they approached summer, the tactics became a little less subtle. There was a brochure stuck to the freezer, and a bottle of Greek red wine opened after dinner on Derek’s last day of work for the summer. Aaron had been done a week earlier. They waited to celebrate until everyone was finished and on summer break.

“Are you trying to tell me something?” Aaron asks, pouring the wine and watching the boys set the table. Hank likes to fold the napkins while Jack sets out the silverware. Too many years separate them and yet Jack has been drawn closer to him in the last few months as he realizes how close he is to moving out, not seeing his little brother every day. He’d waited years to have one and it feels like it’s over way too soon. He wants to go to college in New York, but Hank makes him want to stay in Chicago instead. The thought of not being here, of missing big milestones, is crushing. Some small part of him thinks he knows how his dad must have felt missing his milestones for work – first words, first steps, first day of school, first everything. He’s going to move to New York and he’s going to miss all sorts of big moments.

“I’m not trying to tell you anything,” Derek replies, scooting between the counter and Aaron, pressing in so close they barely have room to breathe. “I am telling you something.”

“When?” Aaron asks, because he knows better than to ask stupid questions. If Derek has the brochure and he’s laying it on this thick, he’s already booked the trip. And that’s okay, because Aaron spent too many years in complete control of everything and watching it all fall spectacularly to pieces...he’s shockingly willing to go with the flow these days.

At least to some degree.

“Jack leaves for New York on the 19th, Savannah’s picking Hank up on the 22nd, and my mom and sisters leave on the 25th. So, we’re leaving on the 25th. We’ll drive them to the airport and then hop on a plane ourselves.”

“When do we come back?”

“I booked the hotel for two weeks but...let’s just play it by ear huh?”

Play it by ear. That phrase would have struck fear into Aaron’s heart a few years ago. Sometimes he still feels like he’s going to make plans and then get a phone call that pulls him back to the BAU. It’s a hard habit to break even after all of these years.

“Two weeks in Greece. Where?”

“We’ll fly to Athens, spend a few days there, and then take the ferry over to Milos. I booked us an ATV rental so we can go wherever we want. We can do some day trips to other islands, go hang out on Crete and do all your nerdy shit...plus beaches, food, hiking, nightlife. Our room on Milos has its own private saltwater pool.”

“Private?” Aaron likes the sound of private. He’s not very interested in all that nightlife type stuff but a private pool? That he can get behind. Of course, if Derek asked him to dance he could hardly turn him down.

“I’ll show you pictures after dinner.”

Jack’s going to be 18 in a few months. This is his last summer of high school. He’s decided to skip sports and summer camps in lieu of spending two months living with Sean who has done good things with his life in his time since being released from jail. Sean who has earned, in Aaron’s eyes, his shot at redemption. What Aaron learned as a young teenager being packed off to boarding school, Sean had to learn through just over three years in a small cell, stripped of his liberties. Better late than never. Jack is old enough now to handle himself anyway, he’s more than proven his own responsibility in their years living in Chicago. He drives all over the city, he doesn’t break curfew, he’s really a little too good. It scares Aaron sometimes that he’s not out there causing trouble. Giving them hell. Just another way he thinks he’s broken his son.

He knows that isn’t the case though. Since Jack turned twelve, he’s had Derek and Fran and Sarah and Desiree and Savannah. He’s always had Jessica and Roy, he never doubted his mother’s love for an instant. His support system is full of incredible strength. Aaron knows that even if he’s failed, none of them have. But this trip to Greece, he can tell it’s Derek’s way of trying to pull him out of this spiral he’s sauntering into. This deep well of sadness at his son growing up and moving out, this empty feeling that he’s losing the last part of Haley that was never his to keep in the first place.

“What are you hiding?” Jack asks over dinner. He can tell they’re sitting on something. They’re terrible at keeping secrets.

“Not hiding anything,” Derek says, handing Hank his plate full of cut up steak and salad. “I just told your dad where I’m taking him for summer vacation.”

Jack rolls his eyes and huffs, visibly relieved. “Finally. I thought you’d have to take him all the way to the airport for him to get it.”

“I had a lot going on,” Aaron says a little defensively. It isn’t like he didn’t see Derek’s hints, but his mind was simply not present enough to try and guess why Derek was going crazy for Greece. “Final exams, your trip to New York…”

“Dad.”

Aaron throws his hands up in exasperation and smiles. “Take it easy on your old man. This is a hard time.”

Jack stops at that, he knows the idea of him moving out is killing his dad slowly. They’ve been on their own together for so long now he’s a little scared himself. “Well, you guys have to send tons of pictures.”

“Of course.”

Aaron cries when he hugs Jack goodbye at the airport. He manages to wait until Jack is far enough away that he doesn’t see it, but Jack knows it’s happening, he knows his dad cries easily so he doesn’t turn around. He saves him the trouble of trying to hide it. And he calls the minute his plane lands at JFK to let his dad know he’s safe and just as planned (and on time), Sean is waiting for him.

Savannah shows up a day early unannounced, her flight was changed due to weather. She sleeps in Jack’s room and spends a little more time in the city with family than expected. It’s a nice surprise for them all, and keeps Aaron from feeling too gutted at Jack’s absence. Having a full house means he’s making coffee and planning meals and making sure everyone is taken care of, it hardly leaves him any time at all to worry about whether Jack is getting into trouble in New York. (He’s not. Nothing too bad anyway. Sean might have encouraged him to live a little...but they’ll keep that to themselves. Sean is reformed, he’s no angel.)

When Savannah takes Hank, and it’s just the two of them for a few days, they spend their time preparing their house to sit empty for weeks. They have people lined up to come check on things, get the mail, mind the yards but for the most part it’ll just sit. They pack their bags and eat off of paper plates in the days leading up to their trip. They empty their cupboards and refrigerator. It feels like working in the BAU, never being able to keep anything perishable on hand just in case. Aaron always joked that it was incredible that none of them ended up with scurvy.

At the airport, they walk Derek’s mom and sisters to their gate. Off to Hawaii, a vacation paid for by he and Aaron. A sort of thank you for taking care of them, for helping with Hank, for everything. “All inclusive means all inclusive, mom,” Derek says as he wraps her in a hug. “You put on the little bracelet and you don’t pay for a damn thing. You want a piña colada? You get one. You want a meal? You get one. Don’t skimp okay?”

“Oh, believe me...I won’t be…” Desiree says with a smirk and Sarah agrees.

“Gonna make sure I drink every drop you paid for.”

“Girls!”

Fran still can’t believe she’s going to Hawaii. She’s never been on a plane that’s gone farther than Virginia. She’s never been west. She’s anxious to fly over the ocean, but more than that, she just can’t believe her son is in a place now that he’s married and buying tropical vacations for her and his sisters like it’s nothing. If you asked her where she saw her life going when her husband died and she was thrust into being a single mother struggling to survive on the south side of Chicago, this wouldn’t have ever occurred to her.

“Be safe on your trip,” she says as she hugs Aaron around the neck. “Don’t let him do anything dangerous. I don’t want any pictures of him jumping off of cliffs or swimming in the open ocean.”

“I don’t want any of that either,” Aaron says, knowing with absolute certainty that if Derek wants to do either of those things he won’t be able to stop him. He’d like to say that he wouldn’t be doing those things, but if Derek grabbed him by the hand and asked him to jump off of a cliff into the crystal blue water, or climb down off of a boat and swim in the open sea...he isn’t sure he could say no, even if he wanted to.

“Don’t let him eat too much cheese, it makes him sick,” Fran adds, still holding Aaron’s neck. He nods.

“I know.”

“And you! Don’t you worry about Jack or the house or...anything. Don’t get sunburned. Eat good food. Smile. Have fun. Make memories.”

“You too.”

(x)

He’s drunk on sunshine and the sound of waves. On blood red wine and salty, briny cheeses and oil soaked olives. Decadence never appealed to him, but being here on their private patio, his feet dangling in a small private pool and staring out at the Aegean Sea that’s about as lazy and warm as he feels right now he wonders why. Derek is sleeping on the bed just inside the sliding doors, bathing in glorious sunlight. A cat nap, he said over an hour ago. At their age a cat nap tends to turn into an afternoon lost to dreams.

They started the nap together, lazy and lounging, twisted tangled limbs and feather soft kisses as they drifted off. But he was hungry so he got up before he managed to fall completely asleep. Untangled himself from Derek’s sweaty grip and padded barefoot toward the fridge for some food. Cheese and olives left over from their breakfast, an apple sliced with some honey. He’s practically starving by the time he’s sitting on the balcony with a plate on his lap watching the seagulls and the cats battle for scraps that the tide left behind.

He’s never loved the beach. Sand gets everywhere, it smells bad, and people are rude. They rarely stay in their own areas, you have to fight for a space. Too crowded. He wonders how people find it at all relaxing. But this? Overlooking the beach from his own balcony, this is good. No sand, all ocean as far as he can see. Islands in the distance. He counts them off mentally, notes which ones they’ve already traveled to, visualizes his way through them. Storing those memories tight in there. He doesn’t want to forget a moment and he’s afraid he already has.

Beside him is a journal, just a little notebook filled with shorthand and chicken scratch, things he wants to do and things he wants to remember to tell Jack about. It calms the storm in his mind to have it all written down.

Jack is pulling away, naturally, but Aaron got a text the day before with a photo of him eating with Beth and Sean. She insisted on seeing him when she came on a work trip, and Aaron thinks she’s more beautiful than ever. He still loves her a little, he never really falls out of love with anyone. People imprint on him and he can’t let them go. It doesn’t make any difference, he knows Derek still feels the same about Savannah. It just works for them.

“How long did I sleep?” Derek’s voice floats through the room, out onto the patio on the breeze. His words are jumbled and muffled by the pillow his face is still smashed into. Aaron smiles.

“A while,” is his reply. He’s trying to let go of itineraries and timelines. He’s trying not to look at clocks at all, really. Clocks remind him of time passing and he’s better off without that on his mind. “Not too long.”

“Mmmfff…” Derek mumbles and Aaron can hear the sleep smile, the way his eyes are still closed and he’s considering whether to let himself go back to sleep or get up and rummage through the cupboards himself. His shoulders are a mountain of bronze and Aaron glances back into the room, thinks about the way they would taste, the skin salty and warm against his lips. He’s tempted to get out of the pool, and then he decides he might lay a trap instead to get Derek to come to him.

“I have a snack,” He offers. It’s almost too easy. “I might share it with you.”

“What’s the catch?” Derek asks, sitting upright and scrubbing his hands down his face. He’s sweaty, the humidity drenches his skin and he needs a shave again already. Aaron can’t take his eyes off of Derek out here, it’s like the light is in love with him, it paints him in a way that Aaron can’t resist. He’s carved from the cliffs and chiseled by the hands of the gods. Meanwhile, Aaron is pretty sure he just looks like a drowned rat. His hair, a little too long for his taste, hangs limp where it would normally be mussed up and messy against his will. An unruly mop, now tamed by humidity.

“No catch.”

“Alright, then what’s it gonna cost me?”

Aaron smiles and tilts his face to the sky expectantly. He’s waiting for Derek to appear above him. “A kiss.”

A kiss is a dangerous thing and as they slip easily into the still pool water unclothed, Aaron thinks they’re bound to end up back in the bed sooner rather than later. The water is a cool break from the oppressive heat of the afternoon sun. Aaron dunks himself first, goes under like a torpedo and slicks his hair back from his eyes when he surfaces. Derek put a headband on him the other day and on principal he hated it, but he didn’t take it off either, at least not for a while. It kept the hair out of his eyes. Derek said he looked cute. The water works just as well now. Derek stares at him in awe and smiles, thumbs smoothing over the droplets that cling to Aaron’s eyelashes.

“You are gorgeous,” he muses, hands cupping Aaron’s jaw, leaning in for a kiss. They wrap around one another, limbs tangling, turning and bouncing weightless in the aquamarine. “Do you even have any idea?”

Aaron hums. It’s a delighted sound that Derek craves, it means he’s in the mood for a little more than kissing. Moving together in unison, their bodies making ripples across the otherwise calm surface, they can’t seem to keep their hands off of each other. Aaron envisioned historical site visits and hikes, ferry trips between islands, all sorts of excursions and so far the thing he’d explored the most was the expanse of Derek’s body. With two kids at home, they don’t get as much alone time as they’d like and it’s just about all they can think to do now. They’re going to have to stay an extra week just to actually experience more than just the inside of a hotel room.

“Wanna go inside?” Derek asks, nose pressed against Aaron’s shoulder, littering kisses amid saltwater droplets. Aaron moans deep and sonorous.

“Absolutely,” he smiles, head lolling back, adam’s apple bobbing dangerously. Derek licks and bites, lifts Aaron into his arms and turns until he’s floating on his back, Aaron on top of him. He kicks and pushes them toward the steps, dipping below the surface once or twice, turning until he’s on top, acrobatics they’re old pros at a week into this hotel. Dancing in the water has become a sort of specialty. Naughty synchronized swimming. Neither of them wants to get out, the foreplay is just as fun, chilly fingers working at delicate skin, hips rocking and muscles twitching.

Inside, they dry off quickly and leap into the bed before their skin adjusts to the temperature of the room again. The sex is languorous and slow, they have nowhere to be, no one expecting them. Afterward they shower, still touching, still kissing, they almost head back to bed except they’re both starving. They come to an agreement that they need to make their way into town for dinner after discussing the possibility of one more quick fuck. It isn’t in the cards, though. Derek is about to gnaw his own arm off he says, so they dress and start their slow evening walk. The ATV sits in its spot waiting for them to take some interest in something other than sex and a walk to town.

They’ve eaten at the same restaurant the last three nights in a row, it’s never as busy as the others and the owners don’t mind the way that they want to just sit quietly and eat their way through small plates of everything with bottles of wine. They’ve tried a lot of the menu, and now the cooks are just sending the plates on the fly. Testing things out.

The owners, an elderly couple with gnarled hands and twinkling eyes the color of the Aegean, like to listen to their stories (the less terrible ones anyway, they spare them that). They look at these two men, Aaron with his salt and pepper hair that’s definitely got a lot more salt these days lighting up his temples and Derek with his goatee that’s shimmering with silver sparkles and they can’t believe they carried guns and caught serial killers. “It sounds like a movie,” one of them says in a thick accent that makes Aaron melt. “It can’t be real.”

But they have pictures. The two of them in the office, candid shots that remind them of days gone by. Days they miss with every fiber of their beings but wouldn’t repeat for anything. Days when taking a nap seemed as absurd as the sky suddenly turning bright yellow. Now, missing a nap is ludicrous. They get off work in the early afternoon and siesta before they even decide what to make for dinner. Vacation just means more naps, and it does seem crazy that there was a time in Aaron’s life that he needed to carry two weapons or that he was put in the hospital by a serial killer. It’s like a different life, a different person. He can understand why they don’t exactly believe him.

“Baba ganoush,” Derek says as soon as they sit down. It’s become his favorite food in the world since they landed in Athens. Since they made their way from Athens to Milos. He’d eat it with a spoon if that were socially acceptable, he likes it that much. And here, they drench it in olive oil and pine nuts and thick green parsley. Aaron chooses small plates of seafood that make Derek squirm in his seat, prawns with their eyes still staring at him and octopus tentacles purple and swirling and spiraling over the edge of the plate dramatically. Aaron is an adventurous eater now. He always had it in him but his job made him paranoid and sick, ulcers eating away at him from the inside. There are still plenty of days when he walks around with an ache deep in his stomach, but it’s less to do with food and more to do with how his body functions after Foyet played mad surgeon with him.

Aaron’s favorite is the fried anchovies. It’s the only thing Derek has tried that he won’t touch again. “It’s like cat food with extra salt. The bones are like little razors,” he’d said, swallowing it only because he didn’t want to be rude. He really wanted to spit it into his napkin.

Their table is full of tiny plates, dips and seafood and breads. Olive oil and bread is a constant. Derek can’t remember the last time he ate so many carbs so happily. They’ll get full and lean back, sipping their wine contentedly until there’s room and then eat a little more. Whatever doesn’t get eaten is taken back to their little hotel fridge and they’ll snack on it the rest of the night and maybe even for breakfast, though they do like wandering into town to find food for breakfast just after the sun has crested the horizon.

“So, I was thinking,” Derek says as they walk back to the hotel hand in hand. They each have a to-go box in the other hand. “You wanna go check out that ancient theater they got up on that hill? Go drop this off, grab the ATV and explore?”

“You mean leave the hotel room for more than food?” Aaron asks with mock surprise.

Aaron smiles and nods before Derek can respond. He can’t imagine anything better than absorbing more history. They’d made plenty of stops while in Athens but nothing so far here. He’s nowhere near his limit. “Leave the notebook,” Derek tells him when they drop off their food and grab a blanket. “You can write it down later.” It might be hot during the day but it gets chilly at night, the briny wind coming in off of the sea is bound to make Aaron shiver. He used to poke fun at him for how his blood seemed to run like rivers of ice, a blessing in the heat when he wants to wear his suits on a case in Florida but when they’re in Alaska and his lips are nearly blue even in his big puffy coat it’s a little problematic. He’d always run cold, but after Foyet, after his heart stopped and too much of his blood was spilled...he can’t seem to shake a chill when it settles in his bones. Here it’s only a minor inconvenience, nothing a blanket draped around his shoulders won’t fix in a snap.

The ATV ride is nice. Aaron clings to Derek’s back, relaxes against him with his hands on his hips and watches the scenery creep by. They don’t go fast, this is the most new that they’ve seen in days. He’s taking it all in.

They’re the only ones in the carved marble and stone theater for a long time. It’s just before sunset, close enough that all of the tourists have ambled away from the other sights and headed for the higher ground, the places they can get their pictures so everyone they’ve ever (or never) met can see what they see. Selfies are king and everyone wants the shot. They aren’t interested in that, they don’t even have social media. For a variety of reasons, perhaps, not the least of which is simply that they covet their privacy.

That doesn’t stop them from taking hundreds of photos, though. They just keep those photos close.

Derek takes pictures of Aaron, his aquiline profile against the glow of dawn, his feet in the sand, his thick fingers against the delicate stem of a wine glass...all of the little pieces of him that he adores so much. A former bomb tech, Derek obsesses over small details. The way the early morning sun plays with the silver at Aaron’s temples or the band-aids he’s always got over skinned knuckles and broken nails. Aaron favors a wider angle, candid shots from far away, admiring the way Derek seems to fit into the strange lunar landscape, terrain created by ancient gods. He looks crafted from their sunbeams and Aaron can’t get enough of the way the sun plays with his skin. He aims his camera as Derek splashes through waves, as he jumps from the highest rock he can find with slicing precision, as he leaps into the ocean from a small boat. He captures Derek napping on a hammock on a boat in the middle of the sea before he lays his camera down to do the same. He clicks the shutter when Derek is laughing at a story he’s being told or learning how to do something new with that intense look of determination and curiosity.

In their old age, they’re kind of obsessed with each other. And neither of them feels bad about it.

“Let’s take our clothes off and have some fun tonight,” Derek says with a slow grin. He’s not even worried Aaron is going to say no, they’re too far in now. Aaron has scaled rock cliffs for him, climbed down (and then back up) ladders and ropes and through steep canons of red rock to get to a secluded little beach. They’re sitting alone in the center of an ancient Greek theater and Aaron is so wrapped up in the idea of watching a performance or a speech here that he doesn’t even give Derek’s question any thought, he simply agrees. Fun sounds good. Fun with Derek always sounds good.

“What kind of fun?” Aaron asks curiously, already knowing that he’s going to do it regardless of the answer. He’s loosened up but he’s still Aaron Hotchner. He doesn’t like to be kept in the dark. Surprises make him uneasy. And more to the point, the idea of sex on the beach is less than appealing no matter what. It doesn’t matter that his husband is a bronze sun god, he doesn’t want sand in his mouth or his ass and that’s pretty final.

“We’re pretty close to a beach that lets you drop your trousers...go all natural...”

“Nothing too crazy. I don’t want sand inside of me but...maybe just…” he starts, ready to suggest that they start fooling around at the beach and head back to their hotel for the rest. He stops mid-sentence when an elderly couple amble past them, two rows down, hardly seeming to mind the conversation they’d been privy to moments before. They lower their voices anyway.

“Please. I did all those boring castle tours.”

“They weren’t boring,” Aaron mutters a little indignantly. Derek kisses his knuckles and smiles.

“No, they weren’t. They were awesome. I just think you’d have a great time...it’s really freeing taking your clothes off. You could use a little freeing.”

Aaron thinks about Jack going off to spend most of his summer in New York. His last summer at home as a child and he wants to be away for most of it...Aaron can hardly begrudge him that, he saved up money all year in order to do this on his own. He’ll be home next summer and they’ll spend the whole thing together as a family, doing everything and doing nothing, Jack promised him that. It’s a give and take with a grown child. But then he thinks about Jack going to college in a year and it makes his chest ache. Around that kind of tightness he thinks he can’t handle any more freedom. They still have Hank. Sweet little Hank who went from only child to youngest and is about to go back to only in many ways. His grasp of the situation is tentative at best, it’s going to be a big adjustment. Derek sees the darkening in Aaron’s eyes and pulls him close, kisses him on the temple. “I know. You don’t need more freedom. I get it. But I want you so bad I can hardly stand it…I’m your ball and chain, baby...you can’t get free of me.”

“I don’t mean to eavesdrop,” the woman says, startling both of them. The couple is now closer, standing over them from behind. Aaron freezes against Derek’s chest, mortified that these people heard them talking about their rabid libido, but he can’t be bothered for long. Her husband looks mortified. She looks pleased. She’s wearing bright blue pants and a white shirt, she’s clearly gone out of her way to match her surroundings. He can’t quite place her accent. “But I overheard you mentioning finding a...natural...beach? We go every night. You’re right, it is freeing. I’ll show you the beach we like, Harold get the map. It’s busy in the daytime but it empties in the evening. Most families head up to the church to see the sunset, leaving the beach to us.”

Aaron is mortified but Derek is beaming. “What’s your name?”

“Catherine,” she says and Aaron watches the flush in her cheeks when Derek takes her hand and kisses it. “This is my husband Harold.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Aaron says, shaking Harold’s hand.

She hands them her map and Aaron looks at it intently, though he doesn’t bother to tell her he’s already practically memorized the thing. It’s folded in his journal back at their hotel. She points to the beach and to the cove with a smile, her massive collection of gold bracelets crusted with jewels dragging and making the sound of wind chimes. She smells like peonies and roses with a faint underscore of denture cream. He likes her instantly.

“Will you be there tonight?” Derek asks. She smiles bright with her crimson painted lips and nods. Harold, a little more reserved but no less flashy in his brown suit and gold chain, gives a little shrug.

“More than likely. We just can’t stay away. You take a bottle of wine and a blanket, you find yourself a little nook and you enjoy yourself. What more could you want in life?”

Derek nudges Aaron with his elbow. “What more could you want?”

Aaron can think of a few things, perhaps, but he smiles and offers agreement.

The sunset is glorious, and Derek really wants to head down to the beach right away but Aaron looks tired. He didn’t take a nap earlier and it’s catching up to him now. There’s a special little flicker of premonition that comes with knowing a person as well as Derek knows Aaron, and he can see the future: they’ll get to the beach, and Aaron will fall fast asleep if they lay down on the sand. The conditions will be too perfect. He’ll have to practically carry him back to the hotel, and there will be no sex.

That won’t do, so he compromises. “Let’s go take a little nap,” he says, pressing his nose to Aaron’s cheek. “We’ll head down to the beach when it’s almost dark.”

“Set an alarm.” That means he’ll sleep all night if they don’t. Derek heeds the warning and sets his alarm for one hour.

There isn’t anyone on the beach when they show up and make their way around to the little cove their new acquaintances told them about. During the daytime they imagine the place is flooded with people, flesh and kissing and as Harold put it with his wry little smile: “debauchery”. He’d told them about their first time, showing up just after lunch and feeling as though they’d joined an orgy. They enjoyed themselves fine but prefer the solitude of dusk. Derek thinks the daytime hours would be a kick and a half and plans to get around to a trip on his own down that way, but with Aaron he’ll stick to the dark.

“How about right here?” Derek asks, spreading the blanket up next to the cliff wall. They have a perfect view of the sea, the last bursts of sunlight barely cresting the horizon and fighting with the silvery shreds of moonlight filtering through blinking stars. They each have a bag full of provisions, snacks and drinks, flashlights and other beach necessities that they set down on each side of the blanket to pin it in place against the breeze skating in off the sea. Derek wastes no time at all stripping, his shorts are around his ankles immediately and he’s tearing at his shirt before he even steps out of them. Aaron is a little more timid, but he gets there. He’s looking around, over his shoulder, out at the sea for fishing boats, anyone whose eyes might be on him.

He hadn’t been cold before, but now his skin is flush with goosebumps and his nipples could cut diamonds. He folds his arms over his chest and bounces on the balls of his feet a little. Derek wraps his sun-soaked arms around Aaron and shares the warmth from his internal furnace.

“You’re a big baby.”

“I know.”

“Huge.”

“I’m aware, thank you.”

Aaron has always been self-conscious, his scars are huge and eye-catching. They look exactly like what they are: knife wounds. They don’t look like they could be anything else. He imagines how he’ll explain them without frightening people, and it inevitably ends up with him leaving his shirt on to save everyone the trouble. It makes people visibly uncomfortable. And his back? Well it’s a little easier to explain away through lies – bicycle wrecks, falling out of tree houses, the kind of stories that indicate an idyllic country childhood spent in the open air getting into all sorts of trouble. He doesn’t feel bad lying about those to strangers. They’re messy. But the scars on his front, there’s no good excuse for those. They’re severe and precise and there’s no palatable explanation for them.

But Derek’s chest is scarred too, a huge track of melted skin all the way down his sternum. Hotch looks at that and sees incredible strength and resilience, he sees triumph over his captors, he sees survival. What Derek accomplished in that cabin on his own makes Aaron swell with pride for him. Derek oozes confidence – the scar is a story that belongs to him, and when people ask he just says it was an on-the-job injury the same as the bullet scars, the same as anything else. And he says it so casually that no one really bothers to ask for more information, they just stare in awe at this miraculous man in front of them. But Aaron can’t seem to gather that same kind of confidence without his suit and tie. An on the job injury that involved nine stab wounds? What kind of thing is that? And all he really had to do to get out of it was stay awake. It’s hardly as impressive.

He doesn’t have much time to consider it because he feels a soft tickle at his ankle and looks down to find a cat. Scruffy and orange, the cat purrs loudly and slides against his shin one direction and then back. Glancing around, he realizes it isn’t the only one. They’re surrounded by curious cats. “I read about this,” Hotch says in awe. “They live in these caves.”

“Just a bunch of cave pussy, huh?”

Aaron gives Derek a disapproving look but cracks a smile anyway, he’s funny, he can’t help it. His crass humor has only gotten worse as he’s gotten older. In mixed company it makes Aaron blush.

“Let’s see where they live,” Aaron says. Derek jumps at a chance to explore a little of the area and honestly the idea of wandering through a cave completely naked is a little thrilling. Aaron digs around in his shoulder bag, past the bottle of wine and plastic cups and to-go container of bread and oil and cheese from dinner earlier until he finds his flashlight. They had headlamps too, but he didn’t think they needed to go that far into the cave. Not at night anyway. He’d heard that some of these caves connected directly to the sea on the other side, more like a tunnel, but he isn’t keen on going that deep tonight.

The follow the trail of cats back into a large cave not far from where they set up their little evening rendezvous. Aaron’s flashlight sends a flood of hazy yellow ahead of them and throws the walls and rock formations into striking shadow figures. “You smell that?” Derek asks. He was prepared for the smell of cats, this cave was probably a natural litter box but this smell...isn’t cat-made. He would know this smell anywhere.

It’s death. More to the point, it’s blood, the sickly metallic tang of fresh blood. It doesn’t immediately call their attention to danger, it could be anything. An animal the cats killed, they have to eat too and these cats are scavengers.

“I might not hear well but I can smell just fine,” Hotch replies, noting that the further in they go the worse the smell gets. He’s picturing another cat, maybe, or a mess of seagull and feathers. He’s anticipating a gory mess...but what they find is worse.

There is no mess. It’s a body, sure, and there is blood...but it’s not cat food. It’s a young man, younger than they are anyway. Probably in his thirties though it’s hard to tell in this light. He’s lying on his back with a stab wound in his chest, a crimson bloodflower spreading slowly over the white linen of his button down shirt. Aaron can’t even help it, he lets out a long, miserable sigh and looks at Derek in the sickly yellow glow of the flashlight. “Damn.”

Aaron instinctively crouches beside the body and reaches out to check for a pulse, knowing with certainty that he won’t find one. Still, if there is any possibility at all of life, he can’t stand and watch it fade without doing anything. There is no pulse, no breath, the skin is cooler than it should be. He hasn’t been dead long but he’s absolutely dead.

“So much for sex on the beach,” Derek mutters, and Aaron shakes his head. All thoughts of wine and picnics and making out in the ocean breeze are dashed from his mind. He hasn’t been with the BAU in years, and yet the change is almost instant. He goes from Aaron enjoying his vacation to Hotch working the case. Derek’s change is immediate as well. Just like putting on a new pair of clothes.

“Did you bring your phone?”

“It’s in my pants. Stay here with him.”

“I’m naked, Derek. Bring me my clothes or the blanket or something to cover up with. Please.”

“We’re both naked. It’s a nude beach, Aaron. If we’re down here in clothes don’t you think they’re going to immediately suspect us? Check out more of the area, see if you can find anything useful.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. I’m going to wander naked and barefoot alone in this cave. That sounds smart.” He’s biting back with sarcasm and he doesn’t like it. Derek doesn’t deserve that. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Where is SSA Hotchner?” Derek asks, returning the sarcasm in spades. Aaron groans.

“He’s old and retired, trying to avoid dead bodies and killers. He’s tired.”

Derek hums, content in the knowledge that he’s bullied Aaron into at least scoping out the site to see if he can find anything else. That’s a stab wound, he could tell, and the weapon wasn’t in the victim. He hurries back to the blanket, suddenly worried that he left Aaron in the cave unarmed and barefoot – what if he steps on the knife? What if the killer is still in there? He moves faster, rifles through the bag for another flashlight and finds his phone hanging halfway out of the back pocket in his shorts. He thinks about putting them on but remembers what he’d said and doesn’t. He does grab a towel from the bottom of the bag and decides he’ll offer it to Aaron. He’s not worried about being naked in front of the police but he knows Aaron battles with his insecurity and he’s not eager to make it worse. Not right now.

He calls the police and directs them to their location before going back into the cave and offering Aaron the towel to cover himself up. Aaron looks at him with so much love in his eyes, sparking embers in the shadowy cave and once again he mourns the ruined plans for their evening.

It doesn’t take long for police to show up with huge flood lights they set up at the mouth and string along the craggy roof of the cave. The whole place is lit up like daylight and Derek scoots until he’s shielded a little by Aaron and his towel. Maybe he should have grabbed one himself. He’s never been self-conscious but this harsh light makes him feel like he’s been put under a magnifying glass.

While they waited for the police to show up, Aaron managed to find few footprints that don’t belong to he or Derek, some blood on the wall, and a knife half buried in the sand about ten feet from the body. He had nearly stepped on it. Still, potential danger aside, he can’t believe it’s this easy.

The police, three of them, rush toward the body and push Aaron and Derek back while they examine it for themselves. One of them, the man in charge, speaks English.

“You found him? How long ago?”

“About ten minutes. We called right away.”

“What were you doing in the cave?”

“We followed some cats in. We were curious about where they lived and how many there were.” It sounds flimsy even as Derek says it, but it’s the truth. He doesn’t make his pussy joke.

“The body is still warm. The killer can’t be far away.”

“There’s a knife in the sand over there, and footprints leading further into the cave. I don’t know how far in they go.” Aaron stops himself before he goes into everything he’s already figured out about the body. He can’t help it, this is second nature. Derek asked him where SSA Hotchner was, and it turns out, he may be incredibly tired and rusty but he’s right here.

“I don’t think the killer meant to do this.”

Derek shoots him a funny look, eyebrows raised. He recognizes the tone of Aaron’s voice. He’s already got a profile. That fast. He’s naked, wrapped in a terrycloth towel, ready to deliver the damn profile to police officers who barely speak English in a cat filled cave. Aaron has taken control of the entire situation, and even though he’s a naked tourist they’re all listening to him. They’re all looking to him. Derek has to think about baseball statistics being rattled off by his grandmother in order to keep the resulting erection at bay. He uses the flashlight, turned off now because there’s plenty of light in the cave, to hide it. He’s barely successful.

The best part is that as he watches, he realizes that Aaron is standing taller. He’s not trying to hide his scars, his stories. He seems to realize that standing there the way he is, those scars tell a story that is riveting and the officers can’t look away. Maybe there is some power in them and what he’s survived, maybe they’re to his advantage after all. Maybe the way they make these officers uncomfortable is useful.

“What makes you say that?” the lead detective asks, tearing his eyes away from this scarred man in a towel to glance at the body again. Aaron feels bad for him, it’s pretty obvious they don’t deal with things like this here very often and they’re all visibly shaken. Probably petty theft and some vandalism, tourists behaving badly, that sort of thing. Not murder.

Aaron would rather be just about anywhere else in the whole world right now but he’s here, and he’s going to help them out the best he can. At least they seem, so far, to believe that he didn’t have anything to do with it. Either that or they think he’s about the stupidest man they’ve ever come across and eventually he’ll just give himself away. The thought almost makes him smile but he maintains his composure.

“This crime scene is messy. It looks like there was someone here, maybe two people, and my guess is that the victim surprised them while they were otherwise occupied. The victim doesn’t have any defensive wounds but he does have some hair caught between two of his fingers on his right hand and a smudge of what looks like lipstick on his arm.”

Bright red lipstick. Aaron’s stomach fills with a kind of dread that he used to thrive on. The kind that leads him right to the person who held the knife.

The police are all staring at him with their mouths open, incredulous. The detective who speaks English is translating to the other two quietly, at least he hopes he’s translating and not condemning him.

“I think his killer was older, probably a man. Most likely self-defense. The state of the scene makes me think that the person who killed this man was afraid and as soon as the knife went in, they ran away. They most likely didn’t stop to see if the man was dead before they ran. I would look for an older couple who seem rattled, or who check out of their hotel room abruptly and leave the island. They’re afraid of what they’ve done, but I think you’ll find this wasn’t premeditated. This man most likely threatened them in some way. I would expect that the knife probably belonged to him.”

“How do you know all of this if you are not the killer?” the officer asks. Aaron and Derek both expected that question a lot sooner. Aaron had been thinking about telling the police to check the man’s pockets where they would likely find jewelry or something from the woman, perhaps the man. A gold bangle bracelet or a chain. But they’re starting to suspect Aaron knows too much so he keeps that to himself. They’ll find that on their own.

“I’m a retired FBI Agent.”

“We both are,” Derek chimes in, ready to stop being just a naked bump on a log. He’d been enjoying Aaron somehow running the show but he wants in on the action now. He’s kind of an adrenaline junkie. “We worked with the Behavioral Analysis Unit hunting serial killers all over America.”

The police stare at them for a moment and start laughing. “You retired and came here on vacation to relax only you cannot get away, the killers follow you,” the officer says. “It’s amusing, no?”

“Is it?” Derek asks with a laugh. He gives the officers all of their information, including the number to Emily’s desk at the FBI to check their references. Their alibi for the estimated time of death was flimsy, they’d been napping in their room until they came to the beach. No one could vouch for their whereabouts, but they were complying and it didn’t seem like the police suspected them.

Back at their hotel, they ready themselves for bed. Washing up, brushing their teeth, going through the motions. Aaron takes his mess of evening pills and Derek checks that their doors are all secure. When they meet up in the bed, they both lay silent side by side, exhausted yet wide awake. They’re both buzzing with the excitement of a case they don’t get to work and the only way to alleviate that kind of charge is by getting physical. That part is easy. The bed sheets are peeled back and in they slide, ready to settle the score. “Back there,” Derek says between hot breathy kisses. “You were so damn hot I could barely handle it.”

“Yeah?” Aaron asks, a little coy, smiling into the next kiss. “How close did you come?”

“My grandma had to tell me all about Hank Aaron’s stats…” Derek whispers desperately, rocking his hips against Aaron’s thigh. He’s thinking about the cave again, about the way Aaron became Hotch, about the power in the way he stood. About the way he squared his shoulders and didn’t shield his scars from sight but claimed them, claimed his survival, claimed a showdown with a prolific serial killer. Aaron smiles and knows exactly what to do.

“Hank Aaron had 3771 hits in his career,” Aaron whispers hot and slow against the pulse in Derek’s throat. He moves lower, dusting kisses along his collarbone, along the ridges of his scar. “755 home runs…”

Derek moans as Aaron glides down his abs and finds his destination, and with one hand Derek pushes Aaron’s head so he’ll stop ruining the stat trick, so he has something else to do with his mouth. Even that’s turning him on now.

The phone rings as they lay panting in bed, spent and happy, ready for another shower and a dip in the pool. Muscles twitching, chests heaving, neither of them any closer to being ready for sleep. Derek answers, hums a few times, nods and thanks whoever is on the line. Aaron has a guess.

“That was the police, they caught the killers.”

“Harold and Catherine?” Aaron asks and Derek nods, feeling that same pool of warmth spread again in his groin.

“They were in the cave to feed the cats and probably to get busy. You remember all their bling. Catherine and all that gold, I’m not surprised. He grabbed her by the hair and Harold knocked the knife out of his hand and stabbed him. They ran through the cave to the main beach, the police caught them by Catherine’s engraved necklace under the guy half buried in the sand. He ripped it off her neck. Doesn’t sound like the police are gonna do much to them, this guy had a record and is wanted in Athens for the rape and murder of a tourist a few years back. Sounds like a piece of shit that got what was coming to him.”

Aaron smiles and nods before yawning. “Shower?” And just like that he’s turned it off. Case closed. Hotch is back in retirement and Aaron just wants to shower and take a dip in the pool with his husband. He wants to resume vacation mode. They get into the shower and wash the case off of them with ease, soap suds and slick skin and smiles. It doesn’t take them long before they’re dancing slowly in the shower, just small sways and circles, Derek’s hand settled at the curved small of Aaron’s back, Aaron draped over Derek’s shoulder.

“Let’s have a snack” Derek says, always thinking about food. Aaron nods. “I have something I want to run by you...”

“I have a guess,” Aaron replies with a smile, turning his face toward Derek’s and kissing him. He’s been waiting for Derek to bring it up. “You want to extend the vacation. You’re not ready to go home to the empty house either.”

“We’re already all the way over here...what if we just pop over to Italy and spend some time there?”

“Just pop over to Italy huh?” Aaron smiles dreamily and rests his cheek against the mound of Derek’s shoulder, swaying again beneath the shower. The water is lukewarm and feels heavenly against their sandy sticky skin. He’s content to stay here for a bit longer dreaming of more travel. They don’t have kids who will be home for another month, they’ve got plenty of time and resources. There’s no good reason not to. “Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s go to Italy. Why not?”

#aaron hotchner #derek morgan #hotchgan #criminal minds #hotch x morgan #aaron hotchner x derek morgan

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yelenasdiary · 1 year

Note

hey, if possible could you make one about the advent calendar with the autistic reader where natasha makes christmas programs with the reader so as not to escape the routine?

☃️ Festive Calendar ☃️

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Autistic! Reader

Summary: Nat helps you enjoy the holidays without any stress.

Fluff | 0.6K | No Warnings |

Translations: dorogoy (darling)

AC: I hope you enjoy this, my apologises for it take a little while to write, I did some research before writing. If I offend you or anybody by this fic I’m so sorry! I never want to make anybody uncomfortable or offended by my work, I hope all this is okay.

Day 22 | Advent Calendar Masterlist 🎄

Natasha knew with Christmas coming up that you'd be stressing quietly about the change in routine, she could see it on your face even though to the others you hid it very well. She wondered how she could help make things a lot easier for you but still keep your original routine. It wasn't easy for Nat to watch you try to avoid holidays and events as they would come and go, she wanted you to always feel your best and enjoy yourself in any way you wanted to.

"Baby, can we talk for just a moment?" she asked you while standing in the doorway of the living room, you looked up at her and nodded slowly, unsure what she would want to talk about. "So, I was thinking, with December starting next week, how about we have a look at the calendar and work out days where we can do something for Christmas and which days, we don't need to do anything. Does that sound okay?" she asked as she sat down beside you on the sofa. You smiled softly, "I think that sounds good". Natasha quickly got up and grabbed the calendar from the kitchen and a blue inked pen to fill the month of December with things.

"Is there anything you'd like to do during the Christmas holiday?" Natasha asked you, wanting you to be in complete control over the holiday. "I'd like to help decorate the tree and the house" you smiled at the thought, "but, I don't think I want to go shopping for the tree, it might be too busy and too loud with all the children running around" you added.

"That is completely okay, dorogoy" Nat smiled as she wrote down 'Christmas decorating' on December 1st, "I'll go with Wanda and the twins to get us a tree and when I'm back we can start decorating it, I'll go early in the morning, so we don't have to rush anything" she explained which you nodded in reply.

"I would also like to bake cookies and build a gingerbread house with you"

Natasha's heart melted at the suggestion, making her smile once more. "Which day would you like to do that?" she asked before gently moving the calendar towards you so you could work out which day you thought would work best. "Uhm, 19th?" you answered after a few moments of thinking. "Perfect!" Natasha couldn't help but gently place a kiss on your cheek before she wrote down 'Baking Day' on December 19th.

"Oh and before I forget, let's keep our room a Christmas free-zone, so that way, if you need to take a break our room will completely Christmas free, no decorations, candles or anything like that" Natasha explained instantly putting that worry to rest and earning a warm smile from you. "Is there anything else?" she asked.

"Could we do gift shopping online? Please?" you asked as you remembered all the horrible times you had to shop with your family in the mall. "Of course, we can! We will need to allow time for delivery so how about December 5th?" Nat asked, again you nodded in response.

When everything was all done and planned out carefully, you felt better about the busy time of year and a hint of excitement to be spending the holiday with Natasha who you could see only wanted to make this a perfect Christmas for you.

"Thank you Natty, for this. It will help a lot" you smiled as she placed the pen down, "Anything for you honey" Nat returned the smile before you slowly snuggled up close to her for a few moments as your own little way of truly thanking her.

#natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader #fanfiction #marvel #christmas

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mareenavee · 6 months

Text

The Other Half

Hello hello another prompt fill! This one is for Heart(h)fire!

@changelingsandothernonsense gave me some caveats for this one:

Okay, Athis's POV, 1st person. He's going to pop the question. What's going through his head?

So of course, this is World Canon (and contains spoilers for that one.) It occurs just before the events of Chapter 6.

Title song inspo: Northern Wind by City and Color:

You're the northern wind Sending shivers down my spine You're like fallen leaves In an autumn night You're the lullaby That's singing me to sleep You are the other half You're like a missing piece

Without further ado~

The Other Half

19th of Heartfire 4E 201

Curse the Nords for their height. Especially curse this one, for thinking himself so very clever, hanging the Amulet of Mara he’d purchased above my head like it was some kind of joke. Well, joke’s on him—I was headed down toward Riften to buy a real one for myself, anyway. But he knew that. I’d told him. And, though I didn’t want to admit it, the entirety of Jorrvaskr knew where my head was at. But curse Farkas, nevertheless.

Though it was playing exactly into his hands, I leapt for the thing, twisting the copper chain through my fingers so he would have no choice but to let go, or it would break. The room exploded into a cacophony of laughter. Once I had the amulet, I left in a huff and let him and the others cackle and chortle like the fools they were.

“Come on, Athis! We were just messing with you!” Farkas called. His voice, as usual, echoed through the long hallway of the sleeping quarters. When I didn’t respond—because it didn’t require more of my time—his thought concluded with the opening of a bottle of mead and a giant sigh.

“I give him two weeks, if that,” Ria said, her voice sharp and laced with a challenge.

“Nah. Six or eight days at most. He’s smitten,” Farkas laughed. “Plus it’s Nyenna.”

The sentence cut off before I could parse what exactly that last bit was supposed to mean, but it wasn’t worth it to turn around and find out. In spite of myself, I grinned and slipped the chain over my head. This amulet was the real deal. The warm, soft buzz of its enchantment felt strange on my skin as I settled it under my tunic. It was different from the enchantments on Nyenna’s armor or the shock of her own magic. This one felt somehow…comforting. Hers felt more like an invitation to fight, but such things seemed practical for battlemages.

My back cracked as I settled down on my bed. It was just a spare straw mattress tossed on the floor in the last remaining corner—I’d let Nyenna take my old spot. She needed the shelf and nightstand for the sheer amount of books Farengar had her hauling around at any given time. The relative quiet of the empty sleeping quarters lulled my thoughts into some semblance of order as I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the wall, listening to the fading chatter of my friends in the other room. -> read the rest on AO3.

#MareenaWrites #The Other Half #Athis #Nyenna #LDB/Athis #Dragonborn and Far-Star Marked #skyrim #skyrim fic #prompt fill fic #tes #tesblr #elder scrolls #fanficblr #writblr #writeblr

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flaray25 · 6 months

Text

GOING back from the AU

The Rise of The New Antagonist

I doodled some stuff after I finished my English exam.

Got home right there and I didn't even posted this- I was so happy to make more angst and stuff!

It's just how I like to feel making nowadays

Spongebob's hair is naturally black

(We know about that thing I told about his hair color I remember discussing this before but to refresh your mind this hair color happens in different aus where he's not okay at all)

So Imma give a fresh rewind on that-

When Spongebob is a small kid- he was often bullied and that no one stuck up to him. That is when he met his first and "forever" BFF, Patrick Star.

Time skips to his 17th of age- Spongebob himself will almost turn 18 after finishing the day of their highschool graduation and everything will change around him.

Spongebob is missing from the day of the graduating ceremony while Patrick tried searching, to find that he's on the janitor's closet. Weeping and crying because his foster parents never even came/attend at his graduation.

To see that every single one of his classmates have parents that attended but for him his parents didn't.

Patrick tried to give positive words for Spongebob to put that up from his mind and never give up.

That was the first time Spongebob never thought about something stupid or even feel down from himself and tried standing up from his knees.

After graduation without his parent's appearance. Spongebob went along with moving out of the house and get a small apartment not that far from the college he's been wanting to enroll.

Spongebob had finally got his eye checked from the doctors and said that he could get eye contacts for better vision and not use glasses anymore.

Spongebob changed and tried to be a better and act like a more nicer-optimisstic person that gave people questioning looks.

Who does this guy think he is?

So creepy-

Whats with that face-

Ew what does he think this is? A show?

He looks so pathetic!

What a wimpy kiddo

Cry baby!

But Spongebob ignored those words and thought about them funny, he kept it inside that he'll never forget.

On his 19th birthday it was Spongebob's birthday and Patrick's gift for him was dye-ing his hair blonde because it matches from the way he 'acts'

Spongebob loved it very much but he didn't noticed that the hair dye is a permanent color that will never come off.

Time skips to a decade now he graduated college and owns a new house from the town called Bikini Bottom, got himself a job. He'd been working from the krusty krab with a low paycheck and tried working multiple jobs outside to earn more money.

Spongebob felt like the day goes on and on that it doesn't end at all. He was starting to think that working from the krusty krab is the one thing he regrets, he didn't expect that customers would still complain or even talk bad behind Spongebob.

He didn't know what he did wrong- he didn't know why they were being so mean...

On the same side, he also regret meeting Squidward.

Yes- I said it- he shouldn't have met Squidward.

He knew how much Squidward changed into the meanest and the most coldest person he knew, ever since Spongebob as in HIM came in from his door and ruined everything.

Once the time Squidward had enough calling him out.

"I HATE YOU!"

Spongebob couldn't do anything but just smile and hide them.

But deep down from his heart it really wasn't nothing, it hurt him terribly.

"I know"

"I hate me too..."

Getting all of that negative energy- gave him something he never even felt before...

Anger...

Hatred...

Revenge...

Spongebob had enough after Patrick treated him badly like how everyone did.

So he proved everyone from the town what would happen if there wasn't a 'certain-weak-simple sea sponge' to save them from disaster.

HE becomes the new Villain, not with Plankton's help but him only.

He decided to dye some of his hair black and have those dark-dirty blonde hair...

His mascara stays from his lower eyelid resembling that he weeped from the negative words that had been hiding from his smile for so long that it made him feel with pity and rage...

There his name is Robert...

Whenever he sleeps- he would always dream about someone calling his name... A little girl with a blurry face that called his name on loop...

Robert couldn't remember- how could he remember such an old memory? Who was that girl?

He didn't care but it remains stuck on his mind...

After a week from the town's destruction, the Krusty Krew- (without Spongebob) tried to chase Robert and make him change. But he didn't- he didn't even care about his 'friends' after pushing them down to the ground and shutting them out.

He didn't care if they got hurt badly

He didn't care if they got injured

All that mattered to him was that they would feel bad about how much he's been hiding the pain...

The painful words and such negative ones that he got- used them for anger...

But he will kept one thing from his heart...

The blue ribbon...

He had kept that ribbon hidden from his gloves it made him feel somewhat special whenever he remembered the moments of him and Squidward

He can't just forget about Squidward but it hurts so much ever since how much he's treated him badly

At some point or another he doesn't want him to die

Because he still cares has something from him...

Somepoint from his sleep kept him feel busy-

He finally put things into pieces that- it wasn't a dream at all...

It was a memory... a little girl calling out his name when he was a small child...

Couldn't remember much- but her face is all blurred out... all he could see were ocean emerald eyes that looked at him in tears

Who was that girl?

Okay turns out Robert has a sister- just the same age as him

Her name is Abby Z. Squarepon

Her voice sounded just the same as when she was a small kid but more pitched down

The eye color and her voice that matched the memory from Robert's dream, he finally completed the pieces and looked at her in shock...

"ROBERT?!"

"Wait... sis?"

#spongebob #spongebob squarepants #squidward #squidward tentacles #spongeward #art #drawing #spongebob au #my art #fandomizer25 #squidbob

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hwan-g · 2 years

Text

chapter one ( forget ) ANTHOLOGY.

‘forget everything. open the windows.’ — frank kafka.

pair. hyunjin x reader x felix | warnings. mentions of cheating, angst, heartbreak, mentions of depression, profanity, suggestive behavior, mentions of food and drinking | word count. 10.7k

synopsis. fresh out of your breakup with their best friend, the duo decide it’s time for you to get out of hibernation; so the plan begins. only problem—neither of them drive.

tags. @cb97percent, @ughbehavior, @lix-ables, @hyuneater, @hyun-bun, @j-0ne25, @hellishmoons, @danyxthirstae01, @enluc, @skz317cb97.

June 19th.

Summer shuddered outside your room, trees peeking through the pale curtains.

Wake up, will you? Enough.

You stir in your sleep, face nuzzling the pillow, brain shifting the fog away. And face another day? you groggily think. Maybe tomorrow, maybe when the sun leaves me alone.

No, it must be now— “hey, don’t turn away from me!” Huh?

Your eyes fall open, a familiar figure coming into focus. Distantly, you think you’re cold, so you try to locate the AC unit above your desk, see if it’s still on. It was off. So, a different coldness, then. Or, perhaps, the same one that’s followed you since March. The icy cloud of heartbreak and all its symptoms.

Hwang Hyunjin is standing above your bed, studying the mess of you. Half of you feels apologetic, almost. The other half wants to return to your dream, grapefruit flavored. There, it’s warm. There, there are no lurking shadows, no golf sized hail descending from the sky, no apocalypse swallowing the Earth as you know it.

There, everything just is. As it should be—as you want it to be.

He sighs, and reaches for your arm, sitting you up. You blink at him. He blinks back, raising his eyebrows. Your chest deflates, giving in.

“Alright.”

Hyunjin grins, messenger bag hitting against his hip as he moves towards your closet. “That’s my girl.”

You smile softy, fondly at his back. His hair is back to black, a midnight silky wave framing his pretty features. Fair, lovely—the dictionary bows before him, offering its infinite words. A porcelain doll that came alive as a birthday wish once, or a foreign prince that escaped a children’s fairytale book and has tried to adapt to real life ever since.

Not quite corporeal, not yet. Soon, you think. He’s not ready yet.

He holds up a floral dress for you. A dainty thing, green all over, with thin straps. You grimace, pulling the covers over your legs. Your arms are freezing, the tips of you going numb. This is how it happens—the unfortunate, the terrible.

Your heart. Your stupid heart.

“Jeans, or forget about it,” you threaten.

“I’m doing you a favor here,” he fights back, waving the piece of fabric. “I was kind enough to not mention the state of this place.”

Your eyes squint at him. “Your apartment is covered in paint.” But you knew it was a weak retort, and he’d eventually win.

He was better at this than you. You threw the towel in too fast, grew tired of wit games if they showed to be futile from the start. And you knew, most of all, that Hyunjin was, indeed, only trying to help. Him and Felix filled your inbox with daily worried remarks, most going unanswered, though that never seemed to stop them. The resilient pair, the two of them. Always together, strong in their unity.

Felix had even attempted to bake cookies for you, using his emergency key to come in your house as you remained hermetically locked in your room, your grief contained with you. He’d cleaned a bit, thrown out expired food from your fridge, and made a big bowl of bibimbap, with a note on it.

‘At least eat this, yeah? It’s made with lots and lots and lots of love. Please?’

You did eat it. Two days later, when you noticed it next to the carton of eggs. When your spoon scraped the bottom of the Tupperware, a decision had been made. That night you answered all their messages, reassuring everything would be okay. It had to, eventually. Before you lost your mind, preferably.

A breakup with Bang Chan was tough business, but you’d known all along. This man would be hard to get over—perhaps because you never expected the blow. But you cannot procrastinate the inevitable, no matter how you wish otherwise. Things happen and they stay, they are all you can see, they drown and castrate, sweep you up and down, sideways and all ways, until one day they just—don’t.

Until they seize or subside. So, it would be okay. With time. Always, endless, unmeasured time.

June was a good place to start.

Later, dread showered off, you wore that silly flower dress per request, and sat on the kitchen table eating the sesame bagel Hyunjin had brought you, and was so avidly forcing you to try, when he asked if he could do your hair.

It brought back the memory of him absentmindedly putting your hair in a braid all those years ago, before you run across scorching sand to swim in the vibrant blue of the sea. He’d sat you between his long legs, as Chan threw a frisbee back and forth with Changbin, feet dipped in seafoam.

Now, he does it consciously. Every finger finding its way through your damp locks, pulling it back in the familiar style, away from your, sticky with moisturizer, face. The bagel is nice, perfectly toasted, and the yellow light falling through the kitchen window above the sink doesn’t feel like such a punishment anymore. A dream, this seems, the world has stopped spinning. Hyunjin weaves magic through him, so much so, everything looks a shade brighter, there’s glitter on the ceiling, the flowers bloom on your mini dress.

A moving painting. The power of the artist.

“Felix is stuck in traffic,” he mumbles, tying the hairband on the end of his finished work. “You’d think the taxi driver would go through the streets. Such con men, these people…”

You smile, chewing. “He wouldn’t be, if one of you would just go get your driving license.”

He sighed behind you, patting your head mockingly. “Sweetheart, I am a painter—I can’t possibly be bothered with such a mundane thing, now, can I?”

With an eye roll, you look at the empty paper bag in front of you. “You’re the one complaining…” you trail off, sulkily.

Hyunjin ignores you. “Do you have a ribbon? I think a ribbon would look cute with this dress!” And he’s off, in his own fantastic world of ribbons, and colors, and swirls—patterns, and brush strokes, and ideas.

You wonder what it would be like to live in a world where all is animated, all vivid and quite unreal. Perhaps there, the heaviness in your heart would feel like cotton candy, melting into nothing in your mouth.

Perhaps.

You stare at the duffel bags on the pavement in bewilderment.

When did this happen?

Felix was talking with the driver, ‘It’ll only be a few minutes, thank you for waiting,’ before his face broke into a smile that would put the sun to shame, and rushed to gather you in his arms. Apparently, you were to rewrite the whole planet green, alive with summer, glistening like leaves on a wild field—

Hyunjin smirks down at you, as you look at Felix’s mint colored Converse, wondering how much more of your life went unnoticed by you, how you kept getting coaxed into these peculiar situations unbeknownst to yourself, a stranger in a body you’ve hosted all your life, suddenly forgetting your lines, or how limps moved.

What a strange realization.

“I got the tickets on my phone. The ride is two hours, and then we’ll have to get on a bus,” Felix was excitedly informing Hyunjin of your trip, never once pausing to see your surprised expression.

Hyunjin was nodding along, amused smile tugging on his lips, as he loaded the bags in the trunk of the orange car. When he shut it closed, he turned to your unmoving frame.

“Are you coming?” he asked you. As if you had a choice, when all was packed to go.

Words had left you, but you managed an incredulous “How?” to which he chuckled.

He offered his hand, and you eyed it hesitantly. Felix saw the whole encounter, and his demeanor changed immediately.

“You were supposed to tell her!”

“She’d say no.” Brown eyes pierced you knowingly, hand patient, waiting.

“Well, she’s not saying yes,” the blonde sighed. “We thought you needed a way out. So, we’re taking you away to sea,” he smiled warmly at you.

This is the second part. Lee Felix is made of star powder and pixie dust, absolutely. The garden of him continues to grow over everything, could not be put behind fences, and does not abide by any human rules. Like Hyunjin, he was dreamed up by fairies in a magical forest, where birds sing, and deer can talk. At least, that was the general impression of him. Like a spell, you lay defenseless, agreeing to every word coming out of his mango lips.

Once, for your birthday, he’d given you a friendship bracelet. He was already wearing his, the colorful beads circling around his wrist cutely, the smiley face staring at yours disapprovingly. You think that was when the magic bonded together, when the spell was cast. Yet, taking off the bracelet was out of the question, had never dawned on you.

So, you went. Took Hyunjin’s hand and followed the two of them inside the taxicab. The ride to the train station was filled with Felix’s recommendations of restaurants, and the small history lesson Hyunjin gave the both of you, what he’d heard from his parents of Sokcho, how it has existed B.C, how it started a small fishing village and has come to now be one of the most popular destinations in all of South Korea.

You and Felix listened intently, drinking every word in. When Hyunjin talked, it was water on a stream. Everything became alive, leaned closely. His voice was made of the same magic that existed in your bracelet. Secret, ancient witchcraft, the kind that bewitched the soul, run through your veins acting as your own blood.

Hyunjin was like that—a young God. His actions could only be justified as mystic, coming from an elsewhere, a place that couldn’t possibly endure in the human realm. No one could understand his ways, if they weren’t hooked directly into the heart tree that consists of him. It is why he does not have many friends—

It is the very reason he paints. If Hyunjin did not have an outlet, he’d be a terrible man. Felix knows this best.

The station was chaos. Families on vacation, sleepy children moving sheepishly across the ticket kiosks, holding their parents’ hand; people dressed in formal attire, likely off to business meetings, and thirty story buildings. But the couples—you stopped dead in your tracks, staring at the stolen glances, the intertwining of their fingers, the synchronicity of their steps. So romantic love hadn’t died after all.

You’d thought if yours and Chan’s relationship could flicker out, then no one stood a chance. Or perhaps you’d been fed a lie; you’d played the part that had been given to you a little too well, believed it a little too much. In any case, no Chan standing next to you, holding your hand, carrying your purse on his shoulder. No one at all for you. Not anymore.

Just an excited Lee Felix, followed by photographer extraordinaire Hwang Hyunjin.

Your first friend—first love. Beginning of time, Hwang Hyunjin, and everything that exists in the in between.

The platform for your destination only had a handful of people waiting, the clock reading ten minutes to spare before boarding. By that point, the day had grown unbearably warm, sweat threatening to drip from every pore, sunrays shading everyone a faint flush of red. It was nice, you thought stupidly, it felt very much like being alive, five years old, running around in the backyard of your house growing up, no care for sunburn, or anything, really. Mud on your shorts, wet hair from the water guns that had been an early birthday present the year prior, and popsicle juice leaking down your chin.

Lee Felix swinging his lemonade glass up high, big eyes shining, mischievous expression—poor, much shorter you and your big, dumb emotions spilling out of you even then, even in play, even in pretend. On the first sight of tears, the boy caved, terrified of your sobs, scared he’d get in trouble. He’d never been good at intimidating, anyway, never wanted you to think he was being for real.

What had been real—Hyunjin grabbing the plastic gun, spraying away at the strange boy that had entered their life suddenly, having moved from a place called Australia, so far from where you were. The glass spilling, the boy soaked, you laughing at the two of them, silly silly boys and their silly boy games, tears forgotten, summer raging on and on and on, forever in your memory—

Boys. Your entire life had consisted of them, of all that makes them, all that involves them. You’d been swept away, grown into the shape they’d made of you, waited for their instructions and words that could raise or break you, always them them them, and so little of you, yet if you were to deconstruct everything that was until now, you’d be left with absolutely nothing if they hadn’t been there. If the inner workings of you were to be altered.

“AC would be great right about now,” Felix commented miserably, swiping the back of his hand across his forehead.

“Dare I mention it again, in fear of being dragged—the DMV is like— thirty minutes away from your place.”

Hyunjin groans, slamming the palm of his own hand against his face. “Not this again.”

“It stands true, you are both adults—” “I don’t see you having a car, love,” Felix interjected, staring pointedly at you.

You scowled, pursing your lips. “I don’t possess the kind of wealth you two have.”

“So, if we bought you a car, would you drive us around then?” the black-haired man turned to look at you, eyes suggestive and smiling.

“No.”

Another protesting exclaim, this time mirrored.

“Oh, thank God!” The train arrived, grand and multi travelled, taking its time to come to a stop, the sudden breeze blowing the three of you back.

“Let’s go,” Felix guided you through the doors, all the way to your seats, Hyunjin trailing behind, a feather of a touch on your shoulder.

Once the conductor checked your tickets, you deflated in the tight space, checking the carry-on underneath you with the heel of your shoe. Hyunjin grinned at you, eyes turning into crescent moons, holding entire planets within them.

“Do you need to look so breathtaking all the time?” you voice your thoughts to him, almost annoyed.

He laughed a full sound, long, slender fingers hiding his mouth, rings adorning them, heavy with meaning. Felix’s identical ones glint under the summery brightness coming from the wide window next to you.

“Not something I can exactly help, sweetheart.”

You see it, then, the meeting of hands between them, the long slender fingers and the shorter chubbier ones, the crescent moons, and the sunbeam smiles. It’s absentminded, it’s nearly muscle memory for them, impossible to miss, like a thought in the back of your head that had once been on the tip of your tongue—a soulmate connection.

The silly boys had grown up to be dreamers, admirers of art, and art themselves under a certain light, in the right angle, at the proper place, and then, before you could’ve even blinked—lovers.

Sometimes. When the darkness is unbearable, when the sky is devoid of its stars. In those spaces of time, they meet halfway, souls bared, hearts beating as one. Your beautiful boys, the forest fairy tale. Who could’ve known, and yet it was so very evident. Still, they never once separated you from their magic, never alienated you from your place in the center, always the center, vital for their existence as much as they were for yours.

You must’ve drifted off after a while, staring at the action of surrender, wondering— if Bang Chan had ever loved you even half as much as you’d loved him, his hand wouldn’t have felt so heavy on yours, weighing, tugging. A cruise anchor on top of a house roof.

Or, perhaps, was it a different love? A love between a man and a woman; Atlas, and the World? Not the push and push back, the warrior and his armor, but the war and Helen of Troy.

Hyunjin’s sketchbook is propped on top of his knees, legs pulled up, pencil dancing on top of rough paper.

Felix was passed out next to him, head resting on the artist’s shoulder, belonging, impetuous. You blinked, and rubbed at your eyes, grabbing Hyunjin’s water bottle and gulping a sip of it down.

A baby was crying in the background, the moving of the train barely a whisper to you now.

“How long was I out?” you ask quietly, not wanting to disrupt the magic.

“An hour and a half,” he replies without lifting his gaze.

Fields stretched out of the window now, acres of them, all wild with color, greengreengreen, endless, shouting. You didn’t bother Hyunjin for the rest of the time on the train, letting him stew in his ideas, and faraway places, his own greens, and blues, suns and universes, the pale haired boy with him, joined, clasping.

When you reached Gangneung, it was already past noon, a few clouds making their way over the light, blue turning pastel. Hyunjin put away his drawing materials, gently shaking Felix, wiping sleep from his face, a secret passing between them in hushed voices.

Felix nodded, and looked at you, the softest smile painting his pink lips. His hair looked fluffy—you wanted to reach out and pass your fingers through it.

“To the bus we go, yeah love?”

Sleep still felt like a good idea, until you sat stranded at the bus station, waiting. And waiting.

And waiting.

“You think we’re at the right place?” you ask an amused Hyunjin, looking around at the absence of people.

“I think we are, angel,” he confirms, that annoying smirk of his growing bigger.

You sigh. “Well, then, where is this cursed bus?”

Felix chuckles next to you, crossing his arms over his lean chest. “Should I ask my magic map?”

“Perhaps. Something of yours is bound to answer one of these days.”

Hyunjin barks, laughter bubbling from the pit of his stomach, as he doubles over with it, a coughing fit following soon after. You watch in confused amazement as he recovers, pushing onyx hair out of his face, eyes animated.

“Felix, our appointed Tinker Bell! Should I shake you a little, see if I can wish a private jet?”

You snort at that, leaning back against the plexiglass. “Now you’re thinking.”

“Neither of you are funny.”

“You’re right—we’re hilarious.” You high-five with your partner in crime.

The bus does come eventually, and you board it at once, becoming random passengers in the humdrum of it all, clutching to your destination as tight as you can, delirious with purpose. You sit next to Hyunjin, while Felix becomes friendly with an old woman, offering her a dashing smile and asking if the sit adjoining her was empty.

Of course, it was. For him.

Hyunjin nudges you, chortling, hands clapping soundlessly, like a seal on mute. You smile, throwing a wink toward Felix’s way, before sitting down, and nuzzling into your friend.

“What a heartthrob.”

“Can I show you something, sweetheart?” He took his sketchbook out of the messenger bag between his legs, opening it to a coal full page.

“Hyunjin.” You looked up at him, mouth hanging. His brows rose at your tone, taking in your reaction.

It was Felix. But it was Felix reimagined as Icarus, free falling into a darkly sketched sea, waves cut sharply, menacing, the wings expanding, beautiful but melting, reduced down to candle wax facing against the scorching sun. The face was disappointed, furious in its failing, but somehow peaceful in the fall, like the fate of him and his father’s wings were dawning on him all at the same time.

It somehow managed to catch the innocence of the action, the naivety. The pride of an unsuspecting boy, and his death because of it. The shading of the features, though, the curve of the shoulders—there was adoration laced in this drawing. A knowing that run deep, deeper than you understood, and deeper still. Why would Hyunjin draw this? Was he trying to tell you something?

A boy lost, blinded by ambition. The inevitable falling. It couldn’t be a coincidence…

“Is everything okay, Hyun?” you ask, hand wrapping around his forearm, trying to meet his gaze.

He gave a small, cryptic smile, but said nothing, closing the book, and his eyes with it. Your mind went over the image of the sketch in your head, and then revisited the moment of their hands on the train. Hyunjin had been busy with his exhibition, and Felix was—well, Felix was Felix, doing whatever he pleased, his bank account loaded with zero’s. He travelled, saw the world, met people, and then met some more, always excited, always searching, curious, energetic.

That’s who he was, who he’s always been. And then a terrifying thought struck.

What if Icarus wasn’t really the pale, the bright, but instead the midnight black, the timid? The Felix that couldn’t be held back, and the Hyunjin that is paying for it.

A sinking, a sacrifice.

You stayed like that, chilled, wrapped around the fusing candle, thoughts of quicksand, and hungry Mediterranean waves enveloping you down under.

By the time you reached Sokcho and got in the cab to the Airbnb you’d be staying at, you were exhausted. The sun beating down on you in combination with all the transportation changes had you feeling nauseous, and craving sleep. In an actual bed.

“We have to try the seafood here. There’s a place by the sea.”

Felix kicked the door open, bags in each hand, checking the place out. White, spacious, smelling of bleach and something sweet, fruity. A dining table, adjacent to a small kitchen, and a living room with a decent sized TV. A staircase led to the bedrooms, while a full wall was replaced by a glass, patio door, leading outside to the small yard with the grill and chairs you passed coming inside.

It was beautiful, felt just like summer vacation. You’d only stay for one night, but as was the true twin style, the accommodations were more than satisfactory. Perhaps a bit extra if you might add.

“Don’t look at me, it was Hyunjin’s idea. He’s stayed here before, apparently.”

Hyunjin took the messenger bag he’d been carrying all day off, placing it on the long table, and rounded his arms around your shoulders, locking you into a giant back hug. You stayed like that for a while, his chin resting on the top of your head, looking out into the scenery.

You could see the beach from where you were. It looked to be walkable distance, and Felix had been nonstop talking about that damn clam soup since before you even left, so you gathered whatever energy you had, and started for the bathroom to freshen up.

Until Hyunjin shot a hand out to stop you. You looked at it, looked at him.

“Come here, will you?” This was your first love, speaking to you.

You went, and he took you in his arms again, this time his head on your shoulder, one hand rubbing circles on your back, the other holding your wrist down. Hyunjin had this ability—he could calm you down with one touch. One look. One word. In no way did you have what he had with Felix, but in your own way, you were soulmates. No one got you like he did, and vice versa.

Nothing more, nothing less. Except at times like these, when lines get blurred, when both of you are wallowing in sadness. You’d been fooled this morning, thinking all was alright with him. Seeing him now, next to the blue of the sea, he looked eternally sorrowful.

“What’s wrong with you, Hyun?” you whisper to him, wanting—needing this private time with him.

He knuckled his eye, sighing deeply. “Nothing. Everything.” And you understood. You understood.

“These rooms are huge!” Felix shouted from upstairs. You smiled without meaning to.

Hyunjin did too, but his looked different. It was that special smile reserved only for Lee Felix. “I love him, you know? But he keeps leaving. I will not keep him down.”

“Love isn’t a cage, Hyunjin.”

He leans back to stare at your face. His eyes are tired, face drained. Mask fallen. “You’re wrong, sweetheart. It is the worst kind of cage. I have the key in my hand, and I keep doing this to myself.”

You kiss him, then. A simple kiss, no meaning behind it. It was meant as a comfort, as a ‘I love you, you’re not alone in this.’ He kissed back, and it felt like you were seventeen again, falling in love with him, not knowing what it meant, what it would be.

“Come on.”

You went. You always went.

Cheongchosu Mulheo was a small restaurant, overlooking water. A little bit after lunch time, it remained crammed with people sitting in big groups around metal tables, laughing over Coke and grilled squid. The atmosphere was lively, the outside warm but not unendurable anymore, and your stomach was absolutely growling its way out of your body.

Hyunjin ordered a platter of raw fish, and noodles, enough for three people, and you all decided to drink later, somewhere more quiet, closer to the sea. Drinking at night was healing, an entirely different experience.

“Alright,” Felix turned to you after all the food arrived. His soup had vanished in minutes, and his smile was restored back to the blinding spitting image of the sun. It hurt to look at him straight.

“What would you like to do? It’s pretty early still,” his deep voice couldn’t contain the excitement, the pure delight that travelling, exploring brought him.

“We should check out the market,” Hyunjin suggested, seeing your lost expression. “Perhaps the Port?”

“Sounds great,” you reply, yet have no idea what any of these places are.

You never travel. You could count the trips you’ve taken in one hand—Seoul was a set ship, your job taking most of your time. Bang Chan hoarding the rest.

But no more of that now. No more of him. No more.

Felix leans over the table and waves his hand over your head. You look up at him. He furrows his eyebrows at you, lips in a thin smile.

“Keep the clouds away, love, no time for that.”

Hyunjin’s hand slips into yours underneath the table. You nod between the two of them, repeating the words out loud:

“No time for that.”

The market was not as crowded, many shops already closed for the day, mainly the fish stands, and some tiny restaurants. You passed a few places selling teokbokki and sliced fruit in bowls, colorful banners hanging all around you, big letters in italics and exclamation marks inviting you left and right. Hyunjin had totally bought into everything, observing, and engaging in conversation with the people.

For no reason at all, you now had a bag of potatoes, and green onions from a friendly grandma that insisted her items were of the best quality and the lowest price. There were other things too—hair accessories, and bracelets, toys, and clothes. Felix picked up a cute claw clip in blue, and pulled Hyunjin’s hair back with it, stepping back to see how it looked on him. Hyunjin modeled for it. The selling couple laughed at the silly poses and gave it to you for free. After thanking them, the three of you got a serving of squid sausage that seemed especially appetizing, after Felix exclaimed rather dramatically that he’s never tried it before.

“(Y/N) how about this dress?!” A maxi floral dress in dark blue, with a peter pan collar, three times your size.

You giggled, but put it on your body, extending your leg, looking at the boys through your eyelashes.

“Exquisite, sweetheart,” Hyunjin commented lovingly, hands still busy with the claw clip.

“Wear it for tonight! Here, I’ll wear this!” Felix snatched a leather vest from the pile of clothes, passing it through his arms. “How about it?”

You and Hyunjin nodded, slowly, marveling at the piece of fabric swallowing your friend whole. “It’s…something, for sure.”

Felix laughed, not a care in the world. “I’m buying it.”

And that was how you three left that local market, each carrying something new, ridiculous in the way happiness feels after a long episode of numb, numb, numb. A season passed amongst dull, grey buildings and customer service, sinking in self-pity, and wishing something, anything, would change, take this weight off your heart, and kickstart it, give you a small push—or a whole kick to the gut—anything if it got you moving, and out of that room.

The kick ended up being Hwang Hyunjin throwing the covers off and grabbing your hand, but it felt all the same at the end. As long as the veil lifted, the clouds dispersed.

It was a sixteen-minute walk from where you were to the Domyeong Port, and you took your time, enjoying the scenery, eating the spicy snack you’d bought with toothpicks. The sound of the waves crashing on shore, a slight breeze blowing your hair away from your face, horns of Vespa’s and pickup trucks alarming you every so often—it was getting hard to differentiate between dream and reality, the endless blue and smell of salt in the air, and the other side, the town, the reminder of people around you, their yelling and jostling. The time on your phone said a bit after six in the afternoon, and yet you swore time did not exist, was not a concept in your own little made-up world, with the boys made of magic, and your friendship bracelets.

Was the wind blowing through you or around you? Were the people all the same, backdrop to your invisible soap bubble with the rainbow edges, held together by spells and soulmate rings or were they talking to each other, individuals with their own voice and life, decisions and choices taking them from one place to the next?

Were you to finally take ahold of the wheel of your story, accept it as it is, and forget about anything that doesn’t turn the pages forward, anything that holds you back? Is it really that simple?

Looking out at sea, watching the waves—it is. It is.

Hyunjin is busy taking pictures with his gigantic, professional camera, while Felix ties his shoelaces, and you realize you’ve reached the Port. The big rocks running across the path to the fishing boats that are floating side by side, a barely visible skerry in the stretch of boundless blue that Felix points out to you.

You’re overtaken with nostalgia, memories of summer vacations when you were a child flashing through your mind, photographs in sepia, the same boats floating, the same shade of blue, the salt in your face, the wind transporting—you feel like crying. You feel like laughing. You feel like running to the lighthouse all the way on the end of the dock.

You take off, the boys yelling after you.

“Be careful, will you?” Hyunjin shouts, a smile evident in his tone.

“Why are we running?!” Felix laughing, angels rejoicing, clouds parting, skies clear.

“Why not?” you answer, your voice suspended in the air, cutting through the silence of the port.

The Lighthouse is monumental, you feel microscopic next to it, but you don’t let it faze you, instead you climb the stairs up to it, hoping for a door, hoping you can see the beacon from up close, see how far it reaches, let the luminescence of it wash over you, wrap around you and carry you over the waves, over the rock islet, past the horizon, further and further, oceans away, until you are transformed, until you too are nothing but light, helping, guiding the way.

It won’t happen, of course, not how you want, the sun is still high up in the sky, the moon barely showing its head, and the Lighthouse does not accept visitors on a Sunday, a sign with black capital letters tells you.

You’re panting by that point, breathing labored, and you double over, hands on your knees, inhaling deeply, shamelessly. The boys reach the top of the stairs a few minutes later, collapsing on the last step, lying their heads on the dirt path.

“I am never running again,” Hyunjin states, fingers clenching his heart.

“You can’t deny—it felt good—right?” More heavy breathing.

“Hyunjin—take a picture. This is beautiful!” Felix steals the camera, snapping a picture as he’s sprawled over the stairs, forehead shiny with sweat, pearly white teeth in display.

The black-haired man has his eyes closed, focusing on the sounds surrounding you.

“Do you hear it?”

“What?”

“Siberian stonechats. Listen.”

The chirps invaded your ears with a sharpness unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before. It was nowhere, and then it was everywhere, it was all around you, there were so many birds, all up in trees, flying over bushes, and then more, different kinds, over the coastline, so very alive, demanding to be heard.

“How do you know their name?” Felix asks, amazed by the clear sound.

“My dad liked birdwatching.”

The incantation breaks. Liked—past tense for a person who’s passed, who’s not here anymore. Someone who’s elsewhere, beyond. You look at the hair sprawled, the messenger bag on his hip, the arm over his eyes, and you think it hasn’t been long for him either. And yet here he is, and yet he moved on before the hole turned poisonous, before it swallowed him down under, before it trapped him in a room and locked the door.

Something protruding from the pier caught your eye. It looked like a pavilion, along the coastline, red with a traditional looking rooftop. Felix noticed it as soon as you did.

“We should go,” he told you, and you agreed.

“Help me pick the body up.”

With his help, you brough Hyunjin back on his feet, dusting him off. Wasting no time, he immediately caught both of you in headlocks, pulling you against him. Felix surrendered, but you fought back, tickling his sides as the three of you descended the stairs, making your way to the pier.

“Let’s watch the sunset there.”

“Deal.”

Yeonggeumjeong was the name of it, Hyunjin informed you. He’d gone there once, two years ago, to find inspiration for his paintings. When he went back to Seoul, he was busy for a whole month. Then, finally, around Christmas time, he had his first exhibition.

That’s where you’d seen it before. The bridge to get to the pavilion was beautiful, coming to a curve in the middle, a few couples scattered, leaning over the railings. The couples again. You didn’t know why it was so triggering to you, and this time you waved your own hands over the clouds. You were on a mission here, a mission that had been orchestrated, and you wouldn’t let your efforts, your friend’s efforts, be dissipated by the mere sight of love.

You would stop letting love scare you to a corner. You would open the windows, allow it to flow from everywhere, welcome it inside for tea, a familiar thing that had once been essential for you, for your existence. No more of this frightening, of this hesitancy to acknowledge, to face.

What was the truth—Chan hadn’t contacted you in months. Chan had ended it, because there were three people, not two. Three, so more than a couple, which meant no space. Someone had to go, and even though you weren’t the one doing the leaving, weren’t the one severing ties, doing the hard part, staying felt to you a worse punishment than death.

Staying in love. A graveyard made entirely by being the one left behind. Perhaps that was the fear itself.

Hyunjin accompanied the waving, long fingers picking the stubborn clouds one by one and flicking them off, far away from you. He smiled down at you, moons for orbs, pressing a kiss on your forehead after the hourly ceremony was over, and caught both yours and Felix’s hands, walking you over to the edge of the pavilion.

The beach stretched for miles, sand wider than a highway, people waiting to bear witness to the sunset, feel a little closer to God through the marvel of nature, and all its abilities to appear otherworldly, separate from humans.

“We should rent a car,” Felix spoke, leaning against the railing. “Teach us how to drive, love.”

You eyed him. “Where? I don’t feel like going to jail today.”

“Here,” his hand gestured at the beach. “I trust my teacher.”

The sky was a thousand colors, all blending into each other, and from the corner of your eye you caught Hyunjin taking a seat at the bench in the middle of the decorative building, legs crossed, sketchbook open on top, pencils already in motion. You let him be, figuring now is the time of the painter, the magic crenscendoing to its peak, God collaborating.

You’d take one picture, just one. To remember everything as it was right at that moment; Felix in the background, the couple, always the couple, photobombing on the far left, and you— cloudless, in the center, weightless against the wind, at peace with the unknown at least for that one singular second in time.

Then and then gone. Always.

When it finally happened—the oranges and lilacs replaced by dark hues of blue, moon white in its phantom form, Hyunjin awakening, lifting the blanket of mystical inspiration—there were no words to describe the aloofness in your chest. You didn’t feel quite corporeal, taken away by the actions of the day. Your body was tired, but your mind worked overtime, refusing to let go, to give up, and in its struggle, exhausting you beyond reason. You almost collapsed on the stoned bridge, Felix holding you up by the arm.

“Are you okay?” Voice full of worry.

“Yeah. Yes.”

“We should head back,” Hyunjin’s eyes pierced through you. “Rest for a bit.”

“I’ll call a cab.”

With Felix on the phone, walking ahead, your knees gave way, hands finding your face. Hyunjin didn’t seem surprised, instead squatting in front of you, waiting meekly, guiding people around you with a kind smile. He’s used to this, knows you better than himself sometimes.

“No time for this, yeah?”

You exhale shakily, hiding still. “I know.”

“You’re overwhelmed,” a statement, tone kept calm, steady.

“I need a drink,” you huff out a laugh, peeking through your fingers. You see his lips, the curve of them.

“Yeah,” the word drawls, his head nods. “Sweetheart, I love you, alright?” You feel his fingers around your wrist, there as a comfort, not to pull, not to reveal. “This isn’t you, and you know this. Fight it.”

“I’m tired, Hyunjin.” Finally, the eyes meet. And he understands, he sees it in himself as well. “Somedays I can’t even physically—move. I can’t fucking move.”

His fingers tighten, his handsome features softening. “Because he still matters.” You nod, cheeks wet, green ribbon swaying with the breeze. “He always will. But, angel, let me tell you this. If you do not move—you will die. I can’t let that happen. Not to you.”

It seems Hwang Hyunjin will always be pulling you to your feet, always shun the rain away. He’s better at grief than you. Better at a lot of things. Concealing, especially, but you wouldn’t dare be the first to bring it up. You let yourself cling to him, wishing it will be the last time. If you could just do it this one time, and then you’ll figure out a way to be stronger, move on from this.

The drive was a full twenty minutes back to the house, and with dusk officially covering everything with its thick layer of half-darkness, there was no reason to pretend anymore. While the two boys took turns showering, you slept, tears continuing to fall out of you, dress sticking to your body. Felix stared at your figure curled up on the couch, and threw a blanket over you, telling Hyunjin not to wake you until after they’d got ready.

“Have you talked to him at all?”

“A week ago,” the taller one replied indifferently, slipping into baggy jeans. “He’d gone to Australia.”

“He came back yesterday,” Felix informed him. “He called me because he visited my parents.”

Hyunjin nods, jaw clenching. “Good for him.”

Felix stopped him mid movement, forcing him to look into his eyes. “I know you’re angry. She didn’t deserve any of it, and he still hasn’t apologized. I know.”

Hyunjin shrinks, can’t be mad at the pale haired boy with the freckles to save his life. He kisses him, fast and rough. “I’m sorry, this has nothing to do with you.”

Felix wears the oversized leather vest, smiles at the memory from earlier today. “You still love her. I get it, Jin.”

Hyunjin freezes, hadn’t thought it was obvious to anyone but himself. He’d tried really hard to make it come across as platonic—you were his oldest friend, after all. But you were more than that, and you’d always be. The protectiveness he felt over you never seemed to go away, so eventually he gave up on resisting it. But it didn’t mean anything; he loved you, yes, with all of his heart, but he wasn’t in love with you. Felix owned him by soul. It was fucked, but it worked for him, and that’s all that mattered.

“I just never thought Bang Chan would go back on his word. He didn’t strike me the type.”

They both stopped talking about it as soon as they heard you move up the stairs. But in Hyunjin’s mind, it wasn’t over. It wouldn’t be over until that fucker was on his knees, begging for you to take him back.

God knows you won’t live without him.

Renting a car had been easy. Felix paid to have it for the entire rest of the night, and you’d gone to pick it up with the employee. You couldn’t quite believe it until you saw it—an Audi convertible, probably the nicest car in the parking lot. Tinker Bell was fucking crazy for this.

In any case, you wouldn’t complain. It felt nice to know you wouldn’t have to wait for taxi cabs anymore. You just hoped the boys would take it easy, something easier said than done. You pulled in front of the rental place, honking at the both of them standing right outside, staring at their phones.

“Get in, lovebirds.”

You’d forget. For tonight, you’d live.

Felix hopped in, while Hyunjin at least had the decency to open the door. With him in the passenger seat, you felt reassured. Everything would be okay. Putting the car in drive, you repeated that, over and over, the night air feeling good against your face. Streetlights glinting, you sped through the roads, going for the beach.

Hyunjin put a slow song on, a jazzy guitar playing as the soundtrack to this dreamlike vacation to Sokcho. You had to pinch yourself at a red light, just to feel real again. Felix was singing along to the lyrics, while the black-haired boy secured his locks up and away from his face with the blue clip from the market.

“Who wants to try first?” You asked once you pulled to the docks, slowing down for the rest of the way to the sandy ground.

“I think you know the answer to that,” Hyunjin tilted his head towards the beam of sunshine in the back.

Felix all but squealed. “Aw, me, really? You didn’t have to—but okay!”

You shake your head, laughing at the way he climbs to the front seat as you move to the back. “Alright, it’s fairly easy. This is an automatic, so you only have to worry about driving and reversing. Parking is the P all the way to the top, yup, that’s the one. Gently press on the brake, while you put the car back to D. Yes, and then just very lightly press on the gas—FELIX!”

You were gone. You knew you shouldn’t have trusted him, that boy run on a sugar rush at all times. You tried to guide him, tell him to slow down, but he was too busy having the time of his life, drifting, and doing donuts in the flat sand, tornadoes of dust swirling all around you. Hyunjin held on for dear life but was laughing the hardest out of the three of you.

“Fucking hell, Lix, you’re a natural!”

“I fucking told you!”

You drove all the way to the Lighthouse and back, the landmark stealing your breath at night, the light you’d wished to become part of now shining bright under the myriad of stars, winking down at you.

You let go, then, head falling back, as you held onto your seat belt; tiny you in the universe, in a car with two boys you absolutely adored, possibly about to die—but it all felt like blue fire. It couldn’t possibly burn you—injure you, maybe, but you felt invisible, then. Untouchable. The sound of your screams made your heart swell in ways it hasn’t for the longest time.

You welcomed it. You let go. As simple as that.

“Let’s go drink!” Felix suggested, coming to a sudden stop. You almost hit your head on the back of his seat, but even then, you were too drunk on adrenaline to even register the danger of it all.

“Love of my fucking life, Lee Felix,” Hyunjin declared, bringing the freckled boy in for a kiss.

The smile on your face stretched so wide your cheeks hurt for the entire ride to the restaurant. Being back on the wheel brought you back down to Earth, your sanity soothed. It was only a five-minute ride, the place being on the other end of the beach, the only restaurant directly next to the sea. Tables placed on top of the sand, with an orange tent to cut the course of the wind, you were glad Hyunjin had suggested it.

“Finally, my clam soup,” Felix was jittery from the car ride still, his knee bouncing against the plastic table, shaking the utensils that had been laid out for you.

“Soju or meokgolli?” Hyunjin asked you two, smiling politely at the old lady that came for your order.

“Soju with beer,” you suggest, and his eyes lit up.

“You’re talking my language, sweetheart,” he slid his arm across the table, to you. You took his hand, playing with the ring on his index. “Two bottles please, and we’d also like…”

Waiting for everything, you watched as Felix documented everything; the dark sea, the tent, zooming in to catch the name of the small restaurant. And then again, when the drinks and appetizers came, he took pictures of those too, turning the phone around to snap a selfie of the three of you. You waved your chopsticks to it, in the middle of chewing. Hyunjin made a peace sign, his smile that of a sleepy cat.

“Oh my God,” you pointed at the sweet potato. “Try this!”

You hadn’t realized how much you were starving. You didn’t even touch your drinks, too focused on wiping the plates clean. When the main dishes came—buckwheat noodles with squid, the much-awaited clam soup, and Red Snow crab— you wasted no time to devour it all, the sound of waves crushing on shore accompanying your every bite.

“This night calls for a toast, don’t you think?” Hyunjin raised his glass. “To us, being together in this very moment.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Felix approved. “To us!”

“To us,” you joined in, smiling affectionately at them.

The cicadas felt like part of you, their noise incessant, the night warm. You’d easily went through the two bottles, ordering more, Hyunjin teaching you how to shake soju, and mix it in the beer. It was funny—he wasn’t usually the drinking type, his limit preventing him from getting drunk. And yet it felt like tonight would be an exception because tonight wasn’t real—you refused to believe, even after everything you’ve done to ensure you’re not hallucinating. After all, you couldn’t possibly have nice things like this—you didn’t feel deserving enough.

Alcohol made you emotional. Perhaps you should’ve thought twice about downing so much of it so quick. But with these people, two of your childhood friends—you felt the most comfortable you’ve felt since the breakup. You can’t even remember the reason you kept them at a distance for so long. Sadness should be shared, to lessen the burden.

“…so, I told Seungmin he shouldn’t move in with him if he doesn’t like cats this much,” Hyunjin was telling the story of doomed roommates. Felix was snorting beer through his nostrils. “But you know him and his ‘It will all work out,’ so I dropped it because he’s stubborn as fuck, but now apparently, he has a cat allergy! My guy.”

“No!” your mouth falls open. “Shouldn’t he move out then?”

Felix is slamming his hand on the table, wheezing. “That’s such a Kim Seungmin predicament.”

Hyunjin widens his eyes in emphasis and crosses his legs. “Right?! But no, he says the rent is too ideal to give up on the apartment. Plus, having a roommate is convenient.”

“Oh, well then. Serves him right. I remember when I was roommates with Chan. He kept everything so neat and tidy, I was actually so scared of making a mess.”

And then the realization of what he said. Of whom he mentioned. Felix’s mouth snapping shut, gaze apologetic, Hyunjin scowling at him. Your smile froze but did not disappear. You wanted to tell him it was okay, this much was okay, but you’d be lying straight to his face.

Lying to someone you love—it didn’t feel right. Not to you. To other people it came as easy as breathing. You caught the petty, bitter turn your thoughts were taking, and finished your drink at once, forking some squid.

“It’s been three months,” you comment, but it sounds wrong, and they both catch the dejected tone, so you curl into yourself, and then you’re biting your lip.

Before you know it, the tears come again.

“Is he even okay? I haven’t—he hasn’t called me once. I was his friend, too.”

Felix fills up your glass, and Hyunjin hands you napkins, getting up to come sit next to you, rubbing soothing circles on your back. You haven’t cried in front of them about this once, and yet today you can’t stop doing it. Was this why you barely met with them in the months following the Heartbreak? Because you felt embarrassed?

“He’s fine,” the blonde-haired boy assures you. “But fuck him, love. You’re not.”

Everything looked a blur through your wet eyes. You wiped them in hopes they’d stop, but they just—kept—coming. You didn’t want any pity, you fucking hated feeling sorry for yourself, and yet how else were you supposed to feel? If it wasn’t for that, you’d feel nothing. Somehow that’s even more horrifying than sympathy.

“Drink, will you? I said fuck him. He messes with you; he messes with all of us. She wasn’t even fucking worth it—they never even got together.”

“I thought we’d never break up. I’ve known him for so long…he was all I’d known. Felix, how can you do this to someone and not even care?”

“He does care,” Hyunjin speaks this time. “I swear to you, he does. But caring is not enough, angel. Not always.”

You drink to that. You stay like that for a while, quiet, each with your own thoughts, observing the invisible waves, trying to make them out through the shadowiness, until Felix breaks the silence, suggests a game.

“How about twenty questions? Adult edition?” He wiggles his eyebrows, a rainbow after a nasty thunderstorm.

You crack a smile, and Hyunjin exhales deeply in his seat, thinking there’s still hope for you tonight.

“Adult as in sexual experiences or adult as in bottomless fucking pit of despair?” he questions.

“Both. I need therapy.”

“Me, too, baby.”

“Me three,” you reply as well. You all look at each other—and laugh.

It starts drizzling.

“Fuck,” Hyunjin rubs his face raw, stretching his long arms upwards. “We’re too young to be this fucked up.”

“Fucking tell me about it,” you finish another drink, dabbing the napkin in your hand on the edges of your eyes. “I’ll go first. Felix—what’s your favorite memory with us?”

Felix ponders over it for a short minute. “Graduation day. The party Changbin threw for us,” he looks at Hyunjin. The older boy nods, remembering. “You guys were still together, and I remember officiating your fake wedding in the backyard, drunk out of my mind.”

“Oh, yeah,” Hyunjin smiles. “Remember the ring pop?” he asks you.

“I do. I kept the wrapper.”

“If you can’t beat them, join then,” the freckled boy mused, twirling the contents of his glass.

“He was so in love with you,” you tell your fake husband. “The hoodie you’d left at my house after the senior field trip? He wore it every time he came over. It smelled nothing like you by that point, but—you still have it, don’t you?”

Felix nods, a blush creeping up his neck. “I love you for never freaking out on me about it.”

You giggle, feeling loose. “Why would I? You guys are made for each other.”

Hyunjin takes a straight shot of soju at that, wiping his mouth after. His face is somber, eyes dark. You change the subject, knowing the reason for his demeanor.

“My turn,” Felix grins devilishly. “Jin—have you ever painted (Y/N) naked?”

You choke on sweet potato, and Hyunjin hits your back, endeared by the question.

“Huh…have I?” he pretends to think, though you already know the answer. “Was it for your birthday? Should I continue?” he turns to his other half.

“Be my guest. I did ask.”

“Can I tell, sweetheart? We’re all mature here, aren’t we?” his hand is on your thigh, and it reminds you of the times before.

“Of course. It’s only Felix.”

“I fucked you on top of the dryer and filled your hair with flowers from the bouquet I got you. Then you sat naked for me for two hours until I was done with the outline of your body and let me fuck you again after I was finished.”

“Fuck me,” Felix rasped, his voice considerably deeper, imagining the scene.

You blushed. “It sounds way more brass than it really was.”

“No, it doesn’t. I say this in the most respectful way—no girl will ever do it for me like you did.”

You squirm in your seat. “That was years ago, Hyunjin,” you try to reason.

He nods, seeing your point, and fixes himself another glass of beer. “And yet I’m sitting next to you, even when the boy I love is right here.”

Felix says nothing but drinks a lot. You can’t tell if this excites him or is making him jealous.

“Hyunjin.”

“(Y/N).”

“Stop it,” you demand, your defenses weak. “You’re being mean.”

He cocks an eyebrow at you, swallowing the cold alcohol. “Mean? He knows.”

“It’s true.” You turn to the blonde’s indecipherable tone. “He’d never hurt me like that.”

You sit back in your chair, sensing an entirely different game has started now. “We’re going to need more alcohol for this.”

Hyunjin smirks at you and calls for the lady.

“Let me ask you, sweetheart—does Bang Chan fuck better than I do?”

“What are you playing at?”

“It’s a simple question.” His eyes are burning holes through you.

This could set you off—take you places you haven’t even dared go to in months. The way Chris fucked…sometimes it was fucking, but most of the time…most of the time you made love. You’re sure Hyunjin knows the difference, but since he’s never done that with you, since the love has never run as deep, has never taken such an ugly turn, he knows nothing of what he speaks. Chan touched your very soul every time he was inside of you, just thinking about it could destroy everything you’ve build against him, to keep him out, to keep you sane—

“You’re not pitting yourself against him. Next question.”

“He’s no competition for me, I’m not fighting for your heart, angel—but neither is he, yeah?”

That shouldn’t have hurt. But it fucking did.

“Jin,” Felix warned.

“No, she needs this,” he snapped at him. “Tell me.”

“You’re different,” you give in, tears brimming. “Would you say me and Felix are the same? We’re not.”

“What’s the difference?” he asks you, curious. Already knowing.

“Besides the obvious?” Felix mutters to himself.

“He’s of your soul, as Chan is of mine,” you admit to yourself.

Hyunjin seems content with your answer. “And yet you doubt his return? You think he’ll never come back.”

“He doesn’t know,” you say stubbornly. “Why would he leave otherwise?”

“Oh,” Felix inhales sharply. You look at him. “Love…have you ever thought you might terrify him?”

Hyunjin points his finger at the blonde. “You think a love like ours is a walk in the park, sweetheart? Sometimes I feel like splitting myself open.”

“Like shooting myself in the leg,” Felix continues.

“But we’ve known each other since before we knew what a boner was,” the boy sitting next to you explains. “Chan barely just found you…in the grand scheme of time, two years is nothing at all.”

It felt like an excuse. And yet you knew these boys were not on his side—they weren’t on anyone’s side, they just said things as they were. And this might just be the truth you needed all along. But for the empty space he’s left, you need to move on for the very sake of your heart; so, life expands from the small room with the door—so the windows open and stay open.

You were lost again. Point zero.

“What do I do with this information?” you ask, pleading.

Hyunjin feeds you, placing a hand under the fork. You accept the food, chewing slowly.

“You wait. You sit with us.”

“And you drink,” Felix adds with a wink.

A little past midnight, the drizzling turns into full on rain as you leave the restaurant. Your car is parked on the other side of the street, but the alcohol in your system makes you feel miles away from it. And you’re the most sober of the three of you.

The old lady offers to call a taxi for you, but Hyunjin politely refuses, holding Felix upwards. He blows her a kiss, bowing deeply. She shakes her head, but the smile on her face betrays her. No one can resist Hwang Hyunjin—his charm is undeniably irresistible.

“Get in!” you usher them, laughing, pressing the button to close the roof of the car. It takes them a while and a lot of stumbling, but they make it in the drenched backseat, where the dark-haired boy lays Mr. Sunshine on his side, and then proceeds to plop in the seat next to you, climbing his way to the front. Drunk logic, you think, but you can’t even personally find the hole to insert the key.

You sit staring at the steering wheel, praying to somehow sober up, even a little, so you don’t crash and die. This car will be a lot of money. But then again—these two idiots have that. Money. A lot of that.

“Hey, (Y/N), question for you—what do you think about me?” Felix slurs.

Cute, you faintly think. “Forest pixie,” you say out loud.

“Oh. Is that so? At least I upgraded from Tinker Bell.”

“Ha, no, you didn’t. You’re still mine,” Hyunjin says, and hiccups.

“That I am,” Felix giggles.

“What about me? What do you think about me, sweetheart?”

That hand on your thigh, again. The rain hitting against the windshield is making you sleepy. You start the car before it’s too late. Hyunjin plays music—this time it’s lo-fi.

“The whole fucking forest, Hwang Hyunjin,” you admit as you pull out of the parking spot. “All of it.”

He puts the hazard lights on, and you drive at twenty miles per hour, everything turning watercolor outside. You’re very aware of the fingers tapping your skin over the thin fabric of your dress, very aware of the alcohol running through your bloodstream—you think you might do something stupid.

You grip the wheel with both hands, force yourself to focus on the road. There’s barely anyone around at this hour, not in this side of town. The sound of your blinkers fills the entire car, Felix’s soft snores blending with the droplets on your windshield. Magic hour.

The time to swallow your heart and cover your ears. Anything alive will touch back now. Be careful.

“Should I stop now?” the only boy awake spoke. “Pretending? Should I stop?”

You take the turn, drive the straight line that comes, wish for the car to turn into a boat, the rain into river, so you can float, away away away—

“He’s leaving, isn’t he?” The truth. The only truth.

There are no words to follow it. Nothing he can say. So, he cries. He could drown you all if he wanted to, so big his sadness—the sadness shared, the sadness burdened into two—you cannot unsee it once you know. Do not dare.

And where to put it? Where to put it?

“Don’t you think you should address it at some point?”

“And risk him hating me forever? I’d rather burn myself alive.”

You put your signal on. Stop at the side of the road. You cannot stand his tears, cannot stand his despair. You get out. The rain seeps through your clothes, drips from your hair, and you run. Towards the sand, towards the waves that feel like the night sky in motion, and then you halt, sniffling, wiping your face.

Perhaps you’ve gone crazy. Perhaps you’re only drunk. No matter. No matter at all.

“You’ll catch a cold, angel.”

You’re shivering, and he’s right, but you don’t care. You thought lying to yourself wasn’t an option. For him to do this, it was hypocrisy—it was treachery.

“You’re ignoring your own heart and it will betray you, you’ll see. What good will it do if you wait one more day? One more month? You cannot prevent the inevitable, Hyunjin—I tried, okay? It doesn’t work.”

You don’t look at him. He doesn’t look at you, either. These words are too personal, cut through the magic into reality, somewhere the both of you cannot bare return to.

“I don’t know how to live without him.”

“Well, what are you going to do? Die? Because if so, let me go first, Hyunjin. I’ve been suffering longer than you have.”

His body slams on yours, knocking the very breath out of you. It’s a desperate attempt for closeness, but you get it. He needs this, needs a hug, a fucking hug, and you know what? You need it, too, as plain as it sounds. To know you’re not alone. To know it will be okay.

Your stomach is turning, twisting, and flipping on itself, uncomfortable with all the misery—so you spill out. You cannot forget, but you can cry, so you do.

You cry together, embracing in your shared wretchedness. His arms envelop you whole, take you down. Together you lay in the wet sand— a problem for later.

Sokcho is beautiful in all of its water. All it did today was wash away, clean, reveal.

You cannot forget, but you don’t think you have to. Not anymore.

#stray kids scenarios #skz scenarios #hyunjin scenarios #felix scenarios #stray kids #skz hyunjin #skz felix #kpop scenarios #stray kids hyunjin #stray kids felix #skz fanfic #stray kids fanfic #hyunjin x reader #felix x reader #—mine.

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softlycandescent · 3 months

Text

𝖲𝗍𝖾𝖺𝖽𝗒 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖤𝗏𝖾𝗋𝗅𝖺𝗌𝗍𝗂𝗇𝗀

𝑖𝑘𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛 𝑣𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑖𝑟𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑛-𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛

𝗌𝗒𝗇𝗈𝗉𝗌𝗂𝗌: 𝖽𝖾𝗌𝗍𝗂𝗇𝗒 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗆𝗈𝗓𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝗀𝗈 𝗂𝗇𝗍𝗈 𝗍𝗈𝗐𝗇 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗐𝗁𝖺𝗍 𝖾𝗇𝗌𝗎𝖾𝗌.

content: pre relationship fluff, loosely based on chapter 15 (normal story) from Mozart's route! (2.7k words)

In the short amount of time that Destiny had carefully gotten to know Mozart she’d come to learn a few things about him. For instance, how much he treasured his music and devoted himself to it. He also didn’t leave the mansion much, especially if it involved a carriage ride.

I can understand why he’s afraid of them, Destiny mused, glancing out the window of the carriage. It’s even scarier than my car, but I really don’t want to tell him that.

“Do you have any other plans after this?” Mozart asked thoughtfully.

Plans after this? How do I express that I would switch around all of my plans for him? Destiny turns towards Mozart. Of course she wouldn’t let her thoughts show on her face, she was good about that.

Or, well, she thinks so at least.

She shakes her head, “No, no. Sebastian gave me today off.”

“Perfect, then.” He smiles in such a way that made her not want to look away. Well, not that she was thinking about it anyways. “Let’s drop by town, you shall come along.”

Destiny stepped out of the carriage and couldn’t help but be in awe.

The last time she’d left the mansion it was for the ball and that time she hadn’t gotten to explore the town.

Her brown eyes flickered from sight to sight.

Everything about here was so different, it really felt like she’d stepped foot in another world.

She wasn’t quite convinced she hadn’t.

“Careful,” Mozart’s voice blew past her ear, he was close. Really close.

When she looked back at him she noticed he’d grabbed her arm and pulled her back just before the growing crowd could sweep her away.

“T-Thanks,” Destiny mumbled, a tad embarrassed. “So was there something in particular you needed in town? A specific shop or..?”

“No, no that’s not why we’re here.” Mozart pauses, his voice slightly awkward as he continues. “Come on, don’t you want to see what life in the 19th century is like while you have the chance?”

Were they here for her? No, that couldn’t be it. She tried to think of another reason why Mozart spontaneously brought them into town when she knew that he would much rather be in his music room at the mansion. But she had problems convincing herself, even with the way he was lightly tugging her along.

His words repeated in her head:

“Come on, don’t you want to see what life in the 19th century is like while you have the chance?”

Okay, maybe they are here for her. But she didn’t understand why he was going to the trouble.

“Definitely,” Destiny finally focuses her gaze on Mozart instead of all of the unfamiliar sights around them.

“Let me know if anything catches your eye, if there is a shop that interests you.” His lips quirk upward slightly. It was so subtle that if Destiny hadn’t been looking she might have missed it. “And there is absolutely no need to be shy. Understand?”

“Oh okay,” she breathes, for some reason her heart was beating so fast. She manages a small nod.

In truth, Destiny didn’t currently have a desire to tour the shops right now. Walking the path accompanied by the warm glow of the sun was enough for her. The golden glow hitting Mozart’s hair and glittering on his skin was arguably more breathtaking than the collection of shops.

Wait, what is she thinking?

Where did that even come from?

Destiny went back to taking in absolutely everything she could about this moment. The stone path, the scent of home-made snacks, and people passing by that are without a doubt far different than anyone she’d encountered before coming to the 19th century.

That’s when she made eye contact with a specific shop that made her stop walking.

“You’re staring,” Mozart quipped. “Did you want to go in?”

The string and wind instruments are on display in the window. Which, surprisingly, even included some guitars.

“Yeah,” Her voice was dreamy and soft. “I haven’t been to a music store in years, let alone one in the 19th century. Can we?”

Mozart nodded and held the door open for her so they could go inside.

Destiny had, of course, been inside music stores. But it wasn’t something she usually experienced herself. But, that's to say, it’s not that she doesn’t like them, either. A lot of her instruments were ordered online or custom made, so there was no need to browse in a music store.

But, honestly, she didn’t like that, but it was really out of her hands with her tight schedule. Concerts, tours, meetings, and hell, even practicing. Wiggling in trips to the music store seemed silly when she could easily get what she needed within two business days and all she had to do was press one button.

No risk of being recognized, no risk of missing something important.

It was convenient.

But here that wasn’t a problem at all. Her only obligations at the mansion were helping prepare meals and the occasional extra task that was asked of her, but other than that she was pretty much able to do as she pleased.

Meaning, of course, she could go to the music store.

“You look like you’ve never been in a music store before,” Mozart teased. “Your guitar is almost brand new, no?”

Destiny smiles, approaching a violin on display, her fingertips grazing the wood.

“Well, that’s true, but I didn’t come to a music store for it.” She decides maybe not really isn’t the time to talk about the internet or go into a spiel about how much easier it is to get her instruments in the 21st century. “Or, well, I don’t get it myself, in my time I’m way too busy.”

“Mhm,”Mozart hummed in agreement. She’d already explained to him what her life was like in her time. The obligations of being a full-time musician, that something that he could understand.

With a little skip in her step she approaches a piano in the corner of the room, her fingers glide across the keys, just not quite enough to produce a sound. She really enjoyed the piano, especially thinking back to the nights she’d fallen asleep listening to Mozart play. It’s not that she didn’t like the piano before, she always thought it had a beautiful and sometimes whimsical air to it, but she never appreciated it quite like she does now.

Or more accurately, since she’s heard Mozart play.

All of her thoughts today keep coming back to him for some reason.

She timidly glances up at Mozart before moving away from the piano.

Maybe I’m overthinking it, Destiny decides. After all, it’s been a few days since we’ve spent so much time together, so it’s probably that.

“Destiny.”

“Y-Yes?”

“Did you want to look at something specific?”

She shook her head. “No, I think I’ve looked at everything I wanted to here. I think next time I’ll have to think about picking up a new instrument. Maybe the violin or piano.”

“Have you played before?”

“No, but I always wanted to.”

Mozart exhaled and definitely looked like something was on the tip of his tongue, like he was on the verge of saying something: but he didn’t. He stayed quiet and let the words remain unsaid.

Was he going to..offer?

Definitely not.

He probably thinks it a fruitless task since I’m leaving so soon.

Or just… a fruitless task in general.

Destiny didn’t say anything else until they walked out of the music store, she felt far too awkward. She bet Mozart could feel it too, there just wasn’t really anything to say. That, and, with her thoughts drifting to what might happen after the month was over: it was better she didn’t say anything.

She didn’t even want to even think about that.

“Watch it!”

Destiny looked up when they’d walked past the music store only to have pumped into somebody who was making their way through the crowd.

That’s strange, it wasn’t that crowded when they went inside. Everyone seemed to be going in one direction.

She took an excited step forward only to be pulled back gently by her arm. When she looked back she saw Mozart’s hand wrapped around her arm, keeping her from stepping forward.

She was one step away from walking directly into a lamp post, but luckily Mozart had pulled her backwards just in time.

How in the world did I miss that?

Destiny took a few steps back so she was standing side by side with him and a very comfortable distance away from that lamp-post.

“T-Thanks,” she mumbles.

She was embarrassed for a minute, brown eyes lingering on his soft hand on her skin for far too long. He didn’t touch her often. Though he told her he didn’t hate touching her, it still caught her attention when she did.

Never the kind of touches that would get big reactions out of other people, but she couldn’t help the way her heart started thumping faster when he pulled her back from an almost accident. Or..when his hand was on hers protectively, if even just for a minute.

When Mozart finally retracted his hand, she tried not to sound or look disappointed. Instead she continued to try taking in her surroundings.

The sun went down just a little more and the sky was now set ablaze. She loved this time of day. There were birds chirping and the sounds of chatter from other people on the street.

A lot of chatter, actually.

Wait.

“Mozart!” Destiny couldn’t help the way her face lit up in an excited smile. Not a first for her. They were standing so close she didn’t even think about the way her arm curled around his bicep to get his attention. With her other arm she eagerly pointed in front of them. “I think it’s some sort of festival?”

“Seems like it.”

“You two aren’t from here!” A woman with a smile almost as bright as Destiny’s own approached them with a grin. “I can tell by the way you’re looking around. Are you here for the festival?”

“So it is a festival,” Destiny smiled, subconsciously tugging on Mozart’s arm.

“That’s right. Twice a year the market sponsors a festival. “ The woman says gleefully. “The local vendors come out, there’s music and dancing, it’s a lot of fun!”

The woman walked off after that, prpbally to spread her cheer elsewhere.

Destiny seldom had the chance to enjoy these kinds of events in her own time, and when she did it boiled down to a lot of its occupants getting absorbed in their phones and using it as just another thing to post on social media.

But this…this would finally be how she could experience something like this to the fullest. A day to remember. And Mozart did suggest she see what life is like in the 19th century. So, really, this is technically his fault.

“Come on, we have to join in!” With a big smile followed by a string of giggles, she moved her hand from Mozart’s upper arm to his hand with every intention of dragging him with her if he didn’t agree with her. “What do you say?”

“What?” Mozart sighed and looked at her.

She almost didn’t believe he’d heard her. She was almost tempted to repeat herself. Instead, in a fit of laughter, she drags him through the crowd where the music and dancing was coming from. It was a sight to behold to watch live music without speakers or a stage, just the music.

Men clad in lavish suits twirling their ladies with smiles on their faces.

“What’s wrong? You’re frowning.”

Was she? She didn’t even notice.

“I..” Destiny lowers her voice. “I don’t know the steps, I feel like any of the dances I know aren’t applicable here.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Mozart squeezed her hand slightly. She thought he definitely would’ve let go by now. But instead he twirls her and smiles teasingly. “Though, you will have to worry about keeping up with me.”

She let out a yelp when he pulled her towards him so that they were closer. She shouldn’t have been surprised that he was a good dancer, in fact, she should’ve expected it. It was just that she’d only seen him dance to slower music, she didn’t think he was the type to enjoy the quicker steps to this type of dancing.

And yet he took the lead, his grip on her hand was firm.

The warmth of his hand on hers was the only thing convincing her that she wasn’t imagining things, that this wasn’t just one vivid daydream.

For what felt like hours she struggled with keeping up with him. She could dance on her own and meet the beat of a song for sure, but with a partner it was completely different. She felt like she wasn’t in tune with him, she kept stumbling over him, stepping on his feet a few times. Yet, he didn’t complain. Which, she wouldn’t be surprised if he had.

After maybe the third time of her stumbling into him, Mozart wrapped his other arm around her waist to keep her steady. He didn’t say a word, even when she met his eyes with her starstruck ones. He just flashed another slight smile at her.

Dancing with Mozart is really fun, I wonder..if he does this often. He’s really good at it, I wouldn’t even be surprised. Destiny couldn’t help but relish in this moment. It was really fun! She felt much less nervous than she did when waltzing. She couldn’t stop smiling and inwardly begging for the day to keep going on.

“This style of dance suits you much more than the waltz,” Mozart says with a grin, twirling her around and then drawing her back close to him.

“What? What do you mean by that?” She pouted, her eyebrows furrowing. Was he teasing her again? “Look, I know my style isn’t exactly giving ‘elegance’, but I thought I caught on to the waltz pretty quickly. Or..kind of quickly..”

“No, that’s not what I meant-”

“Then what did you mean?”

Mozart lets his smile slip a little. “Not telling.”

A few beats pass and the current song comes to a close. Then, Mozart speaks up again, his eyes meeting hers and his voice taking on a much more shy tone, “I just meant..you look happier. I think you look better smiling than you do when you’re nervous.”

Her heart pounded in her chest and her cheeks turned a telltale shade of red. Mozart’s shy gaze fixed on hers paired with his slightly flushed cheeks wasn’t helping at all. She forced herself to look away, she didn’t want to give away what she was feeling right now.

Though, through the warmth of her palm against his, he might be able to tell, anyway.

She hoped not.

Though, the longer she stood there, so closely with Mozart. She was beginning to sort through her emotions.

This was much more than just a bout of embarrassment after he’d teased her.

This was much more than just the aftereffects of him being sweet with her.

She was…falling in love with him, wasn’t she…”

What she originally thought of as haughty remarks just to make her feel bad have turned to teases that became routine for them. In a way, they were sometimes endearing.

His rare smiles which hadn’t become so rare anymore.

She treasured each and every single one, selfishly wishing she could keep them all for herself.

His beautiful dedication to his music. The way he loses himself in his music, his love for it practically flowing from every note he plays.

Something they have in common, she would like to think.

She met his violet eyes again. They appeared softer, dipped in the golden light from the setting sun.

Oh god, she definitely was falling in love with him.

There was no question about it.

Her heart ached. The one person she absolutely couldn’t have has her heart in his hands. He would never know it, either.

#des.mozart #ikevamp #ikemen vampire #ikevamp mozart

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glass-expanse · 1 year

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January me was an anxious mess. I think she probably had 3 big questions. In other words, I want to raise the ebenezer of what God has done this year in my life. This year has been INSANE. God has showed up in AMAZING ways and I'm so blessed He has a hold on my heart. So... the 3 questions January me would ask December me if she could.

"Do we EVER get healthy again? It's been half a year and I'm tired of being sick."

It gets worse before it gets better, beloved. But it's worth it. It takes another half year before you get back to the health you knew. It takes several months of arthritis, it takes failed diets and different fitness levels. You will experience the worst physical pain of your life this year. But yes, praise God, we get healthy again. It's an absolute miracle that the illness that stumped doctors and defied tests would be cleared away almost exactly a year later.

"Really? So do we get back to horses?"

It's not a linear path, lovely. In fact, you're less than a week away from a job offer as a stablehand. You stay there for 4 amazing exhausting exhilarating painful months before horses take a back seat again. But don't worry! You only have a couple months before you sign up for a CHA certification. You get level 2 english and western! And not everything looks like you expected, and you change your mind a lot, and you're still trying to decide. But the important thing is, you have the doorway back into horses, even if you don't ride much right now. And whatever you choose, God is orchestrating everything in your life to His glory. He has been so gracious to allow us to blossom in this passion, and as we seek Him more, the idolatry will fall away and we will be able to follow Him more fully.

"Wow, that's so much better than months without horses at all. So how is married life?"

You're not married. Sorry. But you're not ready! And neither is he. No, God orchestrates things in a way that will make you cry for months. We're still working through some of that. Your engagement will be broken in a month, three weeks before your elopement. And then by the end of March, he'll have made up his mind to break things off entirely. And all the better for him! It's high time he made his own decisions based off his own convictions. Even if that choice breaks hearts. And as for you? You as you stand right now are already an anxious, and little do you know it, manipulative, mess. God uses this experience to break you away from sinful worry. You are more at peace than you have EVER been. And that dark cloud of depression? Beloved, you go to a very dark place. But on your 19th birthday, all of that is cleared away in an absolute miracle. God silences all those dark voices in your head and gives you complete confidence in the hope of Christ! And now you're aware of your manipulative tendencies, so you can fight it! So you're not married... and you don't mind. Because you got something that is So. Much. Better.

"That's... a lot."

And the best is yet to come. You're still imperfect-- you struggle with speaking out of turn more often than you want. Right now you're in an antisocial-to-boys phase, but I'm confident that will pass. You've grown your relationships with the girls at church and we're investing in it so much more than you are now. Our pride is blinding you to a lot of your issues, but we're starting to work through it. This year is worth it, I swear. Even if we were to die on the 31st, that would be okay. Because God has a hold on your heart. And He has orchestrated the broken pieces of this year and last into something beautiful, as He will do next year also.

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badboytwink · 3 months

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Chapter 2: His Feelings Are My Feelings

Izaac Jensen

Tuesday, December, 19th.

This seating plan is frustrating. Our English teacher is such a stupid cunt, why can’t she understand that I can pay attention and talk at the same time? Now I’m across the fucking room from him and it’s driving me nuts. I can’t tell him what I’m thinking, I can’t make fun of the material we’re going over, I can’t do anything. This teacher is trying to make my life a living hell. Anger is boiling in my veins as I try to concentrate on this stupid novel we’re researching, what a load of bullshit. I don’t care about Sherlock Holmes and his gay ass roommate Watson. I care about the sandy-blonde hockey player that I’m separated from. I lift my head from the page I’m reading, glancing in the direction of the aforementioned hockey player and suddenly all my anger is gone. He brings me peace, peace from the irrational rage I’m going through like he’s a little stress ball for me.

…

Okay.. maybe, that wasn’t the most amazing analogy I could've come up with, considering I have a bad track record with stress balls, but the point is that I need my best friend to keep me from tearing this place apart like an estranged primate. It’s just a class, only an hour of my life dedicated away from him every day, it’s not that bad.

Thankfully, my imagination shows me a picture of our English teacher as a grotesque crimson imp, burning in the fiery pits of hell, being overworked by demons just like she's doing to all of us in this classroom. A small gust of air escapes my lungs, I find this to be the funniest shit I've seen all day. It's because she deserves it, I'm not a sick person, I believe that every action has an equal or opposite reaction, it's one of that science guy's laws, right? I don't know, science is Ayden's thing.

My gaze intensifies on the clock on the wall, watching the seconds tick by, while I plan my amazing escape from this hell of a classroom. I get to walk home with Ayden today because his mom is at work and can’t pick him up, otherwise I would’ve also gotten a ride home. Before I knew it, the chimes of the end of the day bell ring in my ears and I’m scrambling to put away my shit to get out of here as fast as possible.

We were having a casual conversation on our walk home, I took notice of the way the red hue danced along his cheekbones and the tip of his nose, likely caused by the cold December air. Turning onto the Southridge neighbourhood another conversation struck up. It was his excitement over hockey starting up again, which meant we could play together.

“What are you gonna do if we get on different teams?” I asked curiously, before his eyes met mine, and a chuckle breezed through his lips. “I dunno, probably kill myself or something like that.”

As we reached the interior of his house a gust of warmth brushed over our shivering bodies, immediately combating with the piercing December cold. His house was almost always warm. He had one of those big houses on the edge of Southridge. Right in the front a big sign read "The Backstrom's" it was flashy and as if his family was parading around their nuclear relationship, perfect, rich, the family of my dreams. I would kill to live in this house, with a loving dad, a stable income, and a family that sits down for dinner every night and discusses their day.

The moment we were inside his golden retriever ran up to me, coming to greet me enthusiastically. “Ryder, chill,” Ayden grumbles under his breath, probably still salty about the seating plan from this afternoon, but he doesn’t need to take it out on the poor dog.

I've never minded when his dog mauls me like this. I love animals, like dogs and cats and stuff, but I’ve never been allowed to have any of my own, this dumb little golden retriever has always filled that empty void in my heart, though.

Ignoring the blonde’s distaste for the dog jumping on me I began to give it attention, petting it leisurely, barely thinking about how much this little fucker sheds, and how it will affect my black outfit. With closer inspection, I start to see the resemblance of Ryder and Aiden, the big brown eyes, and the sandy hair. It’s almost like they were made for each other.

“Shit!” Ayden gasps as his eyes widen. My eyebrows raise and I watch him practically throw his shoes off his feet. “What’s up?” I respond, still absolutely bewildered as to why he’s in such a panic. His jacket falls to the floor as the words rush out of his mouth. “I forgot to take out the trash this morning. My mom’s going to fucking kill me, dude.” A soft chuckle leaves my lips as I observe the sandy blonde who’s now dashing into the kitchen to retrieve the trash bag. I love how over-the-top he is, the way he's able to dramatize everything he can never ceases to make me smile.

About five minutes of the blonde panicking, he managed to complete his task, and was able to relax, which was something I definitely appreciated more than the average person. Ayden was such a dick when he was all up in his head like this, stressed and distressed, anxious and tentative. It made me want to rip my hair out, his stress was always my stress, and it was like we had this empathetic connection. I don't believe in all that spirit shit, but sometimes late at night, I think about how connected we are, it's probably because we've known each other forever, but I can't help but think about a witch cursing us as babies, sleeping beauty style, to be able to read each other like books, now that I'm discussing it out loud it doesn't sound that much like a curse and a little more like a blessing.

His feelings are my feelings.

#fanfic #writers on tumblr #Bad Boy and Twink #mLm #lgbtq #my universe #eventual romance #slow burn #original character #ao3 fanfic #ao3 #my own work #oc #boy in sports

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sxugaryx · 4 months

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The idea of Love (Fanfic)

New chapter from my main series 🩷

January 19th 18XX

Pinocchio was still asleep, Sophia and Geppetto had woken up early and didn't want to disturb him.

“I hope this isn't too much to ask, since I know after what transpired you would like to keep a close eye on him…” Sophia began to speak, “But could I spend this day with him?”

Geppetto knew this was about, “Well, the project is almost finished, so I will have to attend to those matters and I trust you to protect my son, as you did and have done many times before”

“Thank you” She was very thankful, it must be hard for Geppetto, he probably wants to stay close to him and never let him go again.

But there is something she must tell Pinocchio and his father knows that well.

“Gemini I know this is too much as well but, could I and Pinocchio spend some time alone?”

Gemini agreed of course, they both should get to spend this day by themselves.

When Pinocchio woke up, his father hugged him and said to him that he must work for now but that he would spend the day with Sophia.

“Just as promised, we can spend time together, just the two of us” Sophia could feel her heart and her gears moving fast.

Pinocchio nodded and they made their way to leave, saying goodbye to his father goodbye for now, as he and Sophia spent the day together.

—--

Sophia didn't plan this at all what was she thinking?!

She had no idea where to go first and Pinocchio ended up suggesting going to Hyde Park again, she gave out a sigh of relief, that place was nice, it could work, it was a place that couples frequented after all.

Pinocchio excitedly showed Sophia everything he had seen before, he was almost dragging her around but Sophia found it cute, she found it cute how much he loved even the smallest things, and how he was so filled with energy.

“Oh, and this is where I got back at those two bullies!” Pinocchio pointed at a spot near the pond, Sophia laughed when Pinocchio recalled the story, those two deserved it, the audacity of some people.

Although both of them had a great amount of stamina due to their circumstances, they decided to take a break, Pinocchio was talking about so many things, and she was glad that he enjoyed this vacation, even despite everything that happened.

Sophia looks at Pinocchio talking and she feels… that her feelings betray her, she feels selfish, she doesn't even understand her own emotions.

She looks back at the past, he was so quiet at first, to everyone. Yet over time, Pinocchio started to open up, yet compared to back then, this is on a different level, she is happy at how far he has come. When she talked with Pinocchio, she truly felt happy, it made her forget what her true situation was.

Everyone could tell that she was happy, sure Geppetto spied on them and it was obvious yet she caught everyone giving them a few glances from time to talked when she spoke with him.

Sophia is so thankful for everything he did for her…

And she feels selfish again.

Because she feels like she just used him, just like everyone else used him.

Pinocchio stops talking, finally taking a break, and he looks at Sophia, expecting her to start talking about how her life is going, but instead, Sophia stays quiet.

This is it, Sophia, you can do this.

“Pinocchio I… like you” Sophia finally got enough courage to say it.

“I like you too Sophia, you are a great friend!”

Sophia was screaming internally, okay, time to be extremely direct.

“No Pinocchio, I like you as in like, I’m in love with you”

Pinocchio looked confused, “I also love you Sophia not just like you”

Sophia facepalmed so hard it almost worried Pinocchio that she had hurt herself.

“Romantically, I love you romantically, I want to be in a relationship with you” She paused trying to further explain “Like how Polendina is in love with Lady Antonia? And they are together? Like that! I want us to be in love like that!” She was shouting, Sophia was finally letting all of her emotions out.

Pinocchio was quiet, the realization was finally hitting him after all this time.

“Oh” that’s all he could say, he didn’t know what to think.

“Look…” Sophia was an emotional mess, she was always calm and collected, she wasn’t used to expressing her feelings so much like this, “I just wanted you to know, and a part of me wants you to say yes, that you do love me back, and that we could be together, but, I’m sorry we can’t be together”

Pinocchio was even more confused now, he didn’t understand what Sophia was talking about now, “Um, why not?”

“Because I don't even know if I really do love you-

“But didn’t you just say that-“

“Or the idea of you!”

Sophia’s face was red and Pinocchio couldn’t tell if she was embarrassed or angry, maybe both “Sophia, I’m sorry I don’t understand, what do you mean by the idea of me?”

Sophia took a deep sigh, she wished she didn’t have to explain this, but it was the truth.

“Pinocchio, for the longest time, I only saw you as a friend, a good friend, and a part of me didn’t want to look at you because…”

Because he reminded him of Carlo, Pinocchio just gave her a nod, he understood.

“I stopped looking at you like him because you aren’t Carlo; you never were, and I appreciate our true friendship” She has always seen him as that, a friend, it was a bit strange when Geppetto would give her glances from time to time because in those moments, she wasn't in love with him.

Sophia paused to try and compose herself.

“But then you saved me, I was so selfish in giving you the burden of taking my Ergo, my life, and then, you brought me back, you gave me a new chance, you gave me the life I always wanted, I’m traveling, I’m seeing the world, I’m learning about so much stuff, trying new things, trying new foods, I’m not…. I’m not stuck in a damn chair in complete agony waiting for it all to end!”

Sophia was happy, she was sad, she was a complete mess, a few tears falling down her face.

When he took her Ergo, at that moment, she was happy that someone had ended her suffering, she thought it was the end. But he brought her back, she doesn't like thinking about the fact that her uncle Simon had an exact puppet replica of her, but when she woke up, it felt like a dream. It was too good to be true, she was free, free from Simon, from the pain, and eventually free from everything that held her back.

Free from the pressure to hide her powers, free from the social pressure that came with her last name. Truth is, all her life Sophia felt trapped as if when she was born she was meant to be someone she wasn't, she remembers graduating and how her parents constantly asked her what she wanted to do and they were truly good parents and she would always treasure them in her heart but, they didn't realize the pressure they had put on her to be someone they could be proud of.

Sometimes she envied Carlo, Carlo didn't care what anyone thought of him, he didn't care that he was seen as “Geppetto’s troublemaker son”

But Sophia cares, she cares too much about others and she learned the hard way that it's not worth it to set yourself on fire to keep others warm. She was about to tell her parents what she decided to study that day, although what she was choosing was never really her choice, it was something she thought they would have wanted. But then they were killed, and she was held captive, trapped, with all of her hope lost until Pinocchio rescued her.

“So what I mean is, maybe I don’t actually love you, maybe I just love what you did for me”

Everything was quiet now, and Pinocchio was left with his thoughts.

“Does he love Sophia in that way? He has learned so much about the world, he has learned so much about emotions and how to express them, but like his father told him, emotions are complicated, he had never seen himself in a relationship with Sophia, but unlike the others, he never saw her as family, and Pinocchio for a long time felt bad about that, he didn’t understand why he didn’t see her as part of his family, he is starting to realize that what they had was always a friendship, a deep-rooted friendship, maybe like the one he has with Gemini, but not quite like that, to Pinocchio she was unique, different, she was someone he could always count for, but she was someone with many secrets, and Pinocchio couldn’t blame her for that, but after what they both went through… how they are both connected, it makes sense, they are also unique beings, neither fully human, or fully a puppet.

And yet…

“I’m sorry Sophia, I don’t know, I don’t think that…”

Sophia began to cry, she wasn’t sad about the fact that Pinocchio had said no, she was sad because it was all too much for her. Although she felt like the pressure had finally been lifted off her shoulders because now that she said it out loud, she realized that it was true, that she was just in love with the idea of him.

Pinocchio stared at her, he wanted to make Sophia feel better, he didn’t want to make her sad, he thought hard and hard and came up with an idea.

“Sophia, let’s get married!” Pinocchio shouted excitedly.

“Uh?” Sophia stopped crying, she was completely taken aback, “What?” she was the one who was confused now.

“Well um, in books when a character really likes another character they ask to get married, and then they all are very happy about it, because they promise each other to always be there for one another and, so, well…” Pinocchio was very naive, he had never talked with anyone about the concept of marriage, and fairy tale books aren’t exactly the best source of information.

“Pinocchio that’s not how marriage works at all, this isn’t a story!” Sophia shouted at him, but it wasn’t an angry shouting, she was just so bewildered about what Pinocchio had said.

“But isn’t getting engaged like making a promise to always love each other help each other, and make each other happy?” Pinocchio genuinely believes that’s the true point about marriage.

Sophia doesn’t know where to start.

“Pinocchio yes but it’s not just that, it’s about commitment, it’s not even just about being in love, marriage also has laws, you have to sign paperwork, it’s just a union of love, it’s also about assets, it’s complicated, and because it’s so complicated, engagements get broken all the time”

It’s easier to break an engagement, not so much a marriage due to social pressure, but she didn’t want Pinocchio to feel forced to be with her.

“I just can’t ask you to do this for me either, I can’t return to Krat right now, I want to do so much, I’m finally free, and being in Krat is too painful, maybe I won’t ever go back to Krat, and asking you to leave your family behind for me it’s just not fair” Sophia now feels selfish, she feels she should have just kept quiet in the first place.

“Sophia” Pinocchio grabbed her hands, and he looked into her eyes while holding them; “There is this story, where a man and a woman fall in love, but the man leaves for war and he promises the woman that they are going to get married when they come back, but he never comes back, but she is still happy that she was still just engaged, and she always waits for him at sea, and, and-“

Pinocchio was talking too fast trying to explain whatever story he read.

“I don’t care if that’s not what marriage is really about, maybe we don’t love each other that way, but, maybe we will one day, or maybe not” Pinocchio was fumbling his words but Sophia was managing to follow along.

“What I’m trying to say is, if we get engaged, just like in the story, and we never see each other again, we can at least… be happy, that we promised each other to be together forever, right?”

Pinocchio had so much to understand about the world, he maybe didn’t understand those feelings, but he understood that this was something that could make Sophia happy, that was enough for him, he was smiling at her, “So, will you marry me or well, get engaged to me?”

Sophia let go, they were no longer holding each other, she looked away for a second before speaking to him again.

“Pinocchio, you are an idiot” A sweet naive idiot who didn’t understand the world. Sophia laughed, “Yes, yes let’s get engaged!”

Sophia finally realized what Pinocchio was trying to tell her, his proposal wasn’t about Romantic love, it was the sentiment, it was the idea, it was the intention he had.

Because one thing is telling someone that you will always be by their side, and another is showing proof of that promise.

Sophia smiled at him, they held hands again, maybe if the circumstances were different, maybe if they both truly had romantic feelings for each other, they would have kissed each other, but they didn’t, this wasn’t the point of that.

While walking back to the hotel, Sophia and Pinocchio stopped by a ring shop, they chose simple rings, just two gold bands, that weren’t actually made of gold, but it felt just the same.

“You are my best friend Pinocchio”

“You are my best friend Sophia” Pinocchio paused, “And Gemini! Also Gemini!” He felt panicked for a second, for forgetting about him.

Sophia gave a small chuckle, “Pinocchio you can have two best friends”

They made it back to the hotel, entering the room, both Geppetto and Gemini were waiting for them.

“So when’s the wedding?” Gemini said, trying to tease them.

Pinocchio and Sophia both lifted their hands, showing their rings.

“Wait, WHAT?” Gemini was sure they skipped a few steps in the relationship, Geppetto was just speechless.

“Probably never,” Sophia said while smiling.

“It’s the thoughts that counts,” Pinocchio said while smiling as well.

#lies of p #lop #liesofp #lies of p game #lies of p fanfic #lies of p pinocchio #lies of p geppetto #ao3 link #this is in ao3 too #lies of p gemini #lies of p sophia

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