#penalty box king

[1-800-iluvhockey]

HELLO

[samanthasgone]

Credit: penaltyboxpodcast

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Created by graphic designer: Grace Donovan

[jo-speaks]

please please please ft. jack hughes

in which...

you're aware of Jack's reputation with girls, but you know he'll be different with you.

track two in short n' sweet (hughes brothers version) series!

I know I have good judgment

I know I have good taste

It's funny and it's ironic

That only I feel that way

I promise 'em that you're different

Your sister stared at your phone, a picture of the one and only Jack Hughes on it. The look on her face was one of confusion and slight disgust. “That’s… your boyfriend?”

“Well don’t get too happy about it.” You answered, pursing your lips together as you turned off your phone. 

She rolled her eyes, “Y/N, he looks like a frat boy who drinks every other hour and fucks a different girl every night.” 

Before you could respond, her phone rang. She excused herself into the living room, leaving you pondering on your queen-sized bed. Your sister was partially right, he did have a reputation for being, for lack of better words, a fuck boy. 

Ever since he got drafted when he was 18, the number of girls that entered his dm’s was despicable. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t respond to them, getting a few relatively censored pictures in return.

But with age comes maturity. Once he met you, he knew he found his person. 

No more DM’s. No more hookups. No more girls. Just you, and only you.

Your sister reentered the room, “Sorry. Mom just wanted to know if I was showing up to meet your boy toy this weekend.”

“I promise you. He’s different.”

And everyone makes mistakes

But just don't

“Do you not trust me? We’ve been over this, babe.” Jack stated, wrapping his arm around your waist as you got into bed with him. 

You looked up at him as you rested your head on his bare chest. “I do trust you. But you have to understand why they’re worried about me dating you, Jack.”

His body tensed up, and his hold on your body loosened. You could feel the gentle rise and fall into his chest speeding into a rapid pace. Family meant everything to Jack and you knew that, so you couldn’t imagine how he felt at the idea of your family not liking him just because of stupid decisions he made in the past. 

“Sorry. Maybe when we all have dinner tomorrow I can clear that up. I want them to like me, Y/N.” He whispered. 

I heard that you're an actor

So act like a stand-up guy

“So. You’re Jack.” Your father said, eyes trailing up and down his figure.

Your boyfriend gulped slightly, trying to keep his composure. “Yes sir. A pleasure to meet you.” He didn’t reply, choosing to stare the boy down instead. 

“Dad.” You warned.

Wanting to break up all the awkwardness, your mother introduced herself, giving Jack a warmer welcome than your father. She took his hand and dragged him into the house, leaving you and your dad standing tensely in the doorway.

“I don’t like him. Who the hell does he think he’s impressing with that ‘yes sir’ crap?” 

You groaned softly, “Dad, I really like him. Can you please just give him a chance? I promise you he’s a really great guy once you get to know him.”

Your dad stared at you blankly, “How many girls do you think he’s gotten to believe that? Your sister came over yesterday to talk to us. Told us all about him.”

“Yeah, well he’s changed. And whether you choose to believe that or not, all I ask is for you to treat him with a little bit of respect. Please.”

He didn’t respond verbally, opting for a simple sigh and nod as he led the two of you into the house.

Whatever devils inside you

Don't let him out tonight

I tell them it's just your culture

And everyone rolls their eyes

Yeah I know

Maybe it was a mistake bringing your parents to the Devils vs. Kings game. You had never seen Jack as rilled up as he was tonight, but you were sitting close enough to the glass to hear his opponent chirping him about his size. Jack had enough of the cheap shots, choosing to slash and rough around a little bit with the bigger man. 

Your mom laughed softly as he got dragged to the penalty box. You looked up, pointing out the camera focused on Jack displayed on the jumbotron. 

“People pay to watch me play!” Jack yelled, his voice slightly audible from the other side of the rink at which you were sitting.

While you and your mom giggled about the comment made by your boyfriend, your dad shook his head. “Real classy.” 

You sighed, “Dad, please. It’s just hockey culture. He didn’t mean it. 

He simply rolled his eyes, “I’m telling you, sweetie. A temper like that doesn’t only exist while he’s playing.” He said, crossing his arms before pulling out his phone to scroll mindlessly on it.

All I'm asking baby

Please please please don't prove em’ right

Jack threw his equipment bag into the trunk of your car, shaking the vehicle slightly as you got into the passenger seat. However, he stopped you before you could buckle in. 

“Can you drive?” He mumbled, “If I get behind the wheel right now, I swear to God, I might crash it.”

You simply nodded, stepping out so he could step in. You walked around the car, seeing Jack inside the car, looking out the window into the dark, night sky. Since you didn’t lack common sense, you decided to stay quiet and let his mind run wild. Handling three straight losses isn’t easy on an athlete, especially if that athlete is Jack Hughes. 

The half-hour drive back to his Hoboken apartment was mostly silent, other than the occasional sniffle from Jack, his body getting used to being warm after almost six hours at the rink. 

After a few more minutes, it grew old. “You okay?”

He scoffed, “Yeah, I’m totally fine after losing, that makes total sense, Y/N.”

“Okay, no. I didn’t do anything to you, so lose the damn attitude because the only thing I’m trying to do is make you feel better.”

“Well maybe use your brain and don’t ask me stupid questions like that when you can clearly see that I’m not.” He retorted, turning his head to look at you.

You furrowed your eyebrows, severely disliking his tone but ultimately too tired to snap back, resorting to a deep sigh and a quiet, “Okay, Jack.” 

Pulling the car into the driveway of his apartment, you waited for him to unbuckle his seatbelt and get out of the car. He didn’t, rather letting out a breath and reaching over to grab your hand. “I’m sorry. You’re right, you didn’t do anything to me and I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

“It’s fine, Jack.” You mumbled, not meeting his gaze. 

He gently cupped your face with his right hand, softly forcing you to look at him, which you reluctantly did. “It’s not fine. You’re my girlfriend and I promise you that will never happen again.”

You nodded, silently thanking him before leaning in to kiss his chapped lips.

Please please please

Don't bring me to tears when I just did my makeup so nice

Heartbreak is one thing

My egos another

I beg you don't embarrass me

Mother fucker ohhh

Please please please

‘Jack Hughes seen with beautiful lady at local Jersey bar. New girlfriend in the NHL superstars’ life?’ 

You read the headline, immediately throwing your phone from your vanity seat onto your bed. The tears pricked at the corners of your eyes, threatening to spill over if you blinked. Unfortunately, you weren’t able to hold back the river that began spilling from your eyes. The mascara entering your eyes was a pleasurable burn due to it distracting you from what had caused the situation to unfold in the first place. 

Was he cheating on you? Is this just another gossip site desperate for attention? 

“Woah! Hey, what happened?” Jack called out, snapping you out of your spiral. 

Unable to form words, you just handed him your phone, looking up at him with an expression of hurt and worry.

You watched as his eyes shifted from left to right, reading the article with furrowed eyebrows. When he was done, he let out a sigh and wiped his face then ran the same hand through his hair. 

He set the phone down, squatting down to be on eye level with you. “Baby, I swear it’s not what it looks like.”

“Then what? Because to me, what it looks like is that you were getting nice and cozy with that girl.” You scoffed, trying to turn your chair away from him.

His reflexes were quick enough to stop that, not wanting the conversation to end before he had the chance to explain himself. “Listen to me. Lukey was eyeing her all night. I wanted to be a good big brother and try to set that up. That picture was just taken at a bad time, but I swear to you that’s all it was.” 

“Then why the hell was her hand on your shoulder like that?” You cried out, your sobs breaking your voice. 

“She did that! I took it right off immediately after, I swear. You have to believe me, Y/N. I would never even think about doing that to you.” He pleaded, not wanting everything the two of you had just because of some touchy girl at the bar. 

You tried to calm yourself, wanting to stop the tears but you couldn’t. You believed him, you truly did, but just the idea of him with another woman made you sick to your stomach.

“Okay.” You eventually managed to croak out. “I believe you.”

He pulled you into a tight hug, the mascara running down your cheeks staining his white dress shirt. “I promise I will never, ever, do that to you.”

Well I have a fun idea babe

Maybe just stay inside

I know you're craving some fresh air

But the ceiling fan is so nice

“Do you have to go?” You asked, intertwining your legs with his as you lay on the couch.

He chuckled, “Yes, I do. It’s an event for kids, Y/N. I can’t miss it.” 

“But it’s so nice in here! We’ve got Netflix and A/C. What more could you want?” 

“Fresh air, maybe?” He said with a teasing tone, “I haven’t been out in so long, I need vitamin D.”

You wiggled your eyebrows, “Or vitamin me.” Jack gagged at your joke, pressing himself away from you as you laughed maniacally from your spot on the couch. “I’m definitely going after that awful joke.”

Once you calmed down, you groaned dramatically, tightening your grip on him, “Anything I can do to convince you to stay?”

“Maybe one thing.” He smirked, leaning up to peck at your neck and jawline. “Grow three more heads and a penis and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

“Not funny, Hughes.”

And we could live so happily

If no one knows that you're with me

I'm just kidding

But really (Kinda)

Really

Really

“Can I post this?” Jack asked, crossing his arm over your waist to show you his phone. 

It was a picture of the two of you sitting on the boat and smiling at each other. A cute photo, truly, but your face was on full display. Jack noticed your questioning stare, leaning up on her elbow so he could see you better. 

“I don’t know, Jack. I’d rather you not.”

“Okay… can I ask why? I think it’s a cute photo.”

You let out a soft breath, “I’ve seen the comments under some of your posts. I just don’t want anyone saying anything about us.”

He nodded slowly, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why do you care so much? It’s just a bunch of fifteen-year-old girls who think they have a chance with me.” 

You let out a laugh at his comment, “It’s not that I care, I just don’t think I want to put us out there. Not yet, at least.”

“Gotcha. So I can’t post you at all? Or can I do this one?” He showed you his phone again after a few swipes of his thumb, his screen displaying a picture of him Titanic-ing you on the edge of the boat. Your back was to the camera, but he had turned around to look at his brother, giving Ellen the perfect chance to capture his laughter in the image.

Smiling at the picture, you nodded, giving him the okay.

Please please please don't prove I'm right

Please please please

Don't bring me to tears when I just did my makeup so nice

Jack’s rough hands over your eyes weren’t the most pleasurable feeling. He wasn’t paying attention to his subconscious choice to press the pads of his fingers into your eyes, so you were mumbling constant, “Jack.”s the whole way to wherever he was taking you. 

Why he couldn’t have just gotten a blindfold was beyond you.

After a few more steps and the familiar creak of the door, he removed his hands. You blinked a few times, adjusting to the light. Once you did, you saw a bunch of red, pink, and white decorations hanging in the kitchen, a small cake in the middle with little figures of you and Jack on the top of it. 

You gasped softly, taking in the scene. You knew Jack was never one to go above and beyond for silly little holidays like Valentine’s Day. He knew you were a sap for celebrating anything and everything, so he figured you would like it. 

Jack had turned to admire his handiwork, but by the time he turned back to you, tears were streaming down your face as an upside-down smile covered your face. He couldn’t help but laugh at your reaction. 

“You aren’t supposed to cry!” He exclaimed in between short laughs. 

You sniffled, “I know! But how can I not?”

He wrapped his arm around your shoulders, bringing you into a tight hug as he swayed you softly, your dramatic cries turning into laughs once you got over the initial shock.

“Thank you, Jack. I love it.” 

He placed a soft kiss atop your head, “Anything for you, sweet girl.”

Heartbreak is one thing

My egos another

Jack stormed into your apartment, startling you from your place on the couch. You had forgotten you gave him a spare key. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” You asked, immediately standing up once you saw the look on his face.

His eyes were red, as well as the rest of his face. “Shoulder.” Was the only word he was able to get out before tears of frustration began spilling from his face. 

You had never seen Jack this vulnerable, so you had no idea what to do. You guided him to the couch, gently pulling him into your arms. 

He eventually calmed down, taking a few deep breaths. You didn’t give him the chance to speak before you chirped in. “You wanna tell me what happened?”

“Talked to the PT guy. I’m out for the season.” He explained, his voice trembling. 

You let out a sympathetic sigh, “I’m so sorry, Jack.” 

He shook his head, “No. I should’ve listened to you when you told me to rest it. But my dumbass ego decided to ignore you. And now look what it got me.”

“Hey. This is in no way your fault. Could you have rested? Yes. But, if the trainers didn’t believe you were fine enough you wouldn’t even have had the choice to pick.” You placed your hand on his non-injured shoulder, “You picked your team. You picked the game that you love. You went all the way until it stopped you and that is not your fault.”

Taking a minute to process your words, Jack blinked, his eyes never leaving yours. He opted to not respond, instead just leaned his body into you, wanting to be held. 

“I’ve got you, my love. No matter what you have to do or how long it takes, I’m here for you every step of the way.”

“Thank you.” Was the last thing he mumbled before settling in the warmth of your chest, pushing you back onto the couch so the two of you could sleep.

I beg you don't embarrass me

Mother fucker ohhh

Please please please

“All right. Big impression number two.” Jack joked, trying to ease your nerves. 

He had met your parents. Now it was time for you to meet his grandparents. You had already met Jim and Ellen, but somehow meeting their parents seemed a lot more intimidating.

Jack noticed your eyes trained on the floor, so he gave your hand a reassuring squeeze, causing your gaze to shift to him. 

“They’ll love you. I’ve told them how helpful you’ve been throughout this whole thing and they said they can’t wait to meet you. Just relax.” He explained, his words calming you just a bit. 

One knock from the door was all it took before Ellen opened the door, immediately pulling you in for a hug. “Hi! How are you?”

You laughed at her joyful reaction, “I’m doing great, you?”

She let out a sigh, “Jim’s mother is driving me nuts. I swear, you can’t cook one meal without that woman getting involved. I love her but, jeez.” She turned her attention to her second son, “How are you, Jack? How’s the shoulder?”

“It’s getting there. As for your Nana problem, I’m sure Y/N could be a good mediator,” Jack suggested, sending you a wink as you turned to look back at him with wide eyes.

Ellen gasped, “Oh you’re right! Would you mind, Y/N?” 

You hesitated, “Um. Sure, why not?”

Jack’s mom pulled you by the hand into the kitchen, Jack’s laughter fading behind you as he stepped into the warmth of the house, shutting the door behind him.

If you wanna go and be stupid

Don't do it in front of me

If you don't wanna cry to my music

Don't make me hate you prolifically

Please x9

“Goddamn it, Jack.” You mumbled to yourself, seeing his sling on the kitchen bar with a sticky note with ‘sorry! <3” on it in rushed handwriting. 

He had told you he was just going to go watch his Dad and brothers golf but had a change of plans. You sighed and pulled out your phone, taking a picture of the scene in front of you and sending it to Jack.

y/n 

Seriously?

jack

Whoops

You let out a grumble at his response, grabbing the sling and the keys to the golf cart before driving up to the country club. 

After a few circles around the holes, you spotted Jack and his family. You stepped on the pedal, rushing to get up before Jack had a go. 

“Alright, Jacky. Your go.” Quinn stated, sitting in the golf cart, ready to observe his brother’s swing. 

Unfortunately for Jack, you were faster. “Jack Rowden Hughes!”

The Hughes’ men’s eyes widened at the sound of your voice, especially Jack’s. They all turned around to look at you, a look in your eyes that could only be described as crazy. 

You stomped over to Jack, ignoring the rest of the guys. You shoved the sling into his chest, crossing your arms immediately after. 

“Jack, you can’t be golfing right now! The doctor said you have two more weeks with that thing!” You exclaimed. 

Quinn spoke up, “Two weeks? Rowdy, you told us your doctor cleared you.”

Jack let out a sigh as his cover had been blown, “Just wanted to golf.” He mumbled. 

You scoffed, “I’ve worked my ass off for you and this is what you do? I’ve taken care of your meds, when you’re supposed to take them, washing that thing for you because you couldn’t. Doing all the work around your house so that you wouldn’t have to and Luke could focus on finishing his rookie year, and this is what you do?” 

Everyone was silent as you scolded Jack, knowing fully well you were right. You had picked up the slack around his and Luke’s shared apartment throughout his recovery, and the fact that he wanted to disregard all of that for a game of golf was disrespectful. 

“I know. I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath, “I just wanted to get out here before summer’s over and Quinn leaves for Vancouver and Luke and I for Jersey. All I wanted was a normal summer, leave my injury at the door, you know?”

You gave him a soft smile, “I get that, but Jack. You’re almost at the point where you can do all of this, without having to worry about anything else. You’ve worked so hard and sacrificed so many things for this, don’t throw it away for something you can do in two weeks.”

“She’s right, son.” Jim spoke, “We know you love golfing, but you love hockey just as much. Don’t ruin the progress you’ve made, all right?”

Jack nodded, “Yeah. Thanks, Dad.” He shifted his attention back to you. “Thank you, Y/N. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Probably light yourself on fire.” Luke chirped, gaining a laugh from all of you.

You pulled Jack into a hug, taking his hand and guiding him to sit next to his brother.

[residenthughes]

mad at me - jack hughes

pairing: jack hughes x afab reader

word count: 3.5k

tags/warnings: +18 nsfw, so minors dni, smut, unprotected p in v (don't be silly, wrap your willy!), creampie, praise, spitting & choking (nothing crazy, i promise!), use of pet names (my girl, sweetheart, baby, princess, sweetheart), slight degradation (if you squint?)

summary: jack's latest game has tensions running high and feelings left unresolved. lucky for him, you know just the solution.

notes: so...this is happening 😭 this is very much inspired by the devils latest game against the kings where jack got pretty heated 😵‍💫 who doesn't love a bit of angry! jack? 🫣 but yes, as i've mentioned before, i don't usually write smut, so this may not be the best so any tips or comments you guys have to share would be much appreciated! 💗this has been partially edited, so if you see any errors along the way, they'll be fixed soon! as always, thank you for reading and hope you enjoy! much love! <333

It takes a lot for Jack to get mad.

A sequence of events that all come to a boil, a mountain of incidents that snowball into an avalanche of his wrath. He’s so sweet, like sunny Sunday mornings that smell of fluffy pancakes and honey syrup - so, even now, so far into your relationship, you’re aware that moments like these occur. Of course, emotions wear thin like tired socks and you’re no stranger to your own and Jack’s that have seen all shades of the rainbow, but perhaps there’s something in the air, some electricity that changes the wiring of your brain because tonight is so different from the rest. Dissimilar from when you leave Jack be when his big emotions demand their place, unlike how you wrap each other in blankets of comfort when tensions have eased and everything is whole again. Because, again, this is not about you. It’s about Jack and how, as the universe has written it to be, gravity pulls straight towards him.

Things have been good - he’s come back from injury, back to his kingdom on the ice and the Devils have won back to back games - truly unheard of during their current season, beating their last opponent in regulation for the first time since 2009. It’s a big deal - the smile on Jack’s face says so, the satisfaction of his tone indicating so when he’s come back from his away games. So, you want this happiness to continue, because you love him and the happiness he illuminates but at the end of the day, his job is hockey. A coin toss of wins and losses that you’re trying to wrap your head around because you’re biassed and see all the commitment that him and his teammates put in everyday. As a result of this, Thursday happens; a dice roll of events that spiral into chaos.

You’re back home in Jersey, comfortably situated on the couch in the warmth of an ending winter that shows peaks of an upcoming spring. You’ve got popcorn in your lap because you’ve rediscovered how much you love the savoury snack, happily munching away as Jack’s game starts and the adrenaline kicks in. The first period is eventful with many saves that have you clawing at the couch, but then the second period starts and all hell breaks loose. Tensions run high and as level-headed as Jack is, he is not immune to agitation - subjected to a nasty hit into the boards, the opposing player purposely banging his elbow into Jack’s head. You’re about to start yelling at your TV screen like some drunken sailor because Jack’s been injured this season and doesn’t need more time away from what he loves, but Jack decides to get his lick back and you’re automatically silenced. Your jaw drags the length of the floor as you watch him crosscheck the hell out the guy, proceeding to rough the player up before referees interfere. Jack and the guy are arguing back and forth as they’re escorted into their teams’ penalty boxes and you’re just left bewildered, a mess of emotions with wide eyes as your stomach turns.

You watch astounded as Jack flushes in his temporary plastic home, eyes wide at he hurtles comments that leave the opposing player with a sour taste in his mouth. Jack’s shaking his head when he’s gotten what he needs off his chest, wiping away his sweat as his anger grinds to a simmer. Your eyes are glued to the TV, perched on the edge of your seat as your heart beats hard in your bruising chest. The power play continues on but you’re lost in a trance, awaiting Jack’s emergence from the penalty box that can’t come soon enough. Once he’s out, he’s sprinting for the puck and manages to get a breakaway that assures New Jersey a goal, but the loser in the penalty box with him is hot on his heels and Jack misses. He’s fuming once again, ranting to the referee that pays him no mind. Jack skates off, smashing his stick against the glass before he’s back on the bench and completely snaps it in half, a string of profanities leaving his lips. 

You sit there in awe, your grinding teeth sinking into the flesh of your fingers as your brain becomes an all-consuming pile of filth. Your precious boy, who loves his three hour long naps and looks at you like you hang the stars in the sky, the hopeless romantic who pulls out all the stops for you simply because you deserve it and who holds you as if you’re fine china - he’s almost unrecognisable now, wearing his emotions like the number of his jersey as his expression pinches and his azure eyes narrow. A rush of emotions you both experience that make a home in the chaos of your minds that long leave the remnants of their havoc.

The clatter of Jack’s hockey bag echoes from the doorway, bringing you out of the syrupy daze you’ve been submerged in far too long. You leap off the couch as your body carries you towards the front door, electricity rippling down the ridges of your spine as your skin tingles with the unknown. You keep your emotions at bay for the time being, unsure of what state Jack may be in as you creep around the corner and catch an eyeful of his demeanour - blinding annoyance. An exasperated sigh pushes from his chest as he slips off his trusted beanie, the ruffle of his wet curls bouncing as his fingers card through his hair. You gulp.

“Ro?” you test the waters - short and sweet just to gauge his reaction, anticipation hanging in the air. 

“Hey.” he bites, not bothering with looking your way as he shimmies his coat off with more force than necessary. 

You gnaw at your bottom lip, feeling helpless. “I saw the game…”

“The one I almost got fucking injured in?” he chirps, looking at you now with a pointed stare that burns with all the fire in his heart. No longer azure, his eyes singe with an almost midnight hue. “What a shitshow.”

“That was a dangerous hit, that guy’s got whatever’s coming to him,” you’re quick to reply, taking small steps towards Jack who hangs up his coat. “But that doesn’t change the fact that people pay to watch you play.” 

Jack stills in his movements, figure unmoving momentarily before his eyes throw you a lasting glance, the beginnings of a smirk working amongst his roseate features. “So, you heard?”

You blush under the heat of his undivided attention, gaze averted as you fumble with the hem of the hockey jersey on you. “Not necessarily.”

“Then what did you hear, baby?” he queries immediately, shifting so that his body now faces yours, an arm resting against the coat hanger as he sizes you up, unabashed and assertive.

Your stomach flips, the race of your heart undeniable. “You’ve got a mouth on you, so it’s easy to read lips.”

You’re chirping, working under his skin in a way that maintains some form of respect but has all the intentions of riling him up, which manifests into the beast you wish to see. A cocked eyebrow and a ticked jaw, flashes of disbelief flickering on his face. Once more, your emotions bear the weight of an anchor as excitement conjures up the swirl in your stomach, your masquerade crumbling at the seams as your nostrils flare, biting back a shit-eating grin.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” he questions with a hint of humour, because he knows you like the back of his hand. You give him no response, preoccupied with suppressing the misplaced giggle that threatens to leave your lips. “I can’t believe this.”

The seams fully come undone, a snicker or two bypassing your lips as you retreat from the situation, ending up with your back against the door leading to the basement with Jack hot on your heels. Mirth bathes you in delight and you let it, a plethora of chuckles falling into your hand as you avert your gaze whilst Jack forgets any concept of personal space. Perhaps you’re deserving of whatever damnation comes your way, a punishment you’ve fully brought upon yourself, but when your senses fill with the waft of Jack’s earthy musk cologne and the remnants of his apple shampoo, accompanied by the warmth of his body that leans towards yours, you can’t bring yourself to feel a shred of regret.

His arm, enveloped by his raven black dress shirt, raises as he cages you in, vulnerable and at his mercy. “What else did I say, since you can read lips and all?”

This is a circus of words, meaning riddled in optical illusions that would have someone think none the wiser. Except this is yours and Jack’s circus, an act tailored for two that entertains your minds that run wild. A wildness you feed off as you meet him with the same decisiveness.

“This number,” you start, pointing towards the digits printed on your sleeve belonging to him. “86 is what people go to see - sorry, pay to see.”

You’re not really sorry, the smirk on your face says otherwise. “I think I said a lot more than that, sweetheart.”

“Besides all the huffing and puffing,” his tongue pokes at his cheek, a playful smirk betraying his flaring emotions. “You asked if he was there to play or to hurt people - fair point to make.”

“And all the others weren’t?” Jack’s moved closer, his thigh situating itself between the gap of your legs. 

You bite your tongue at the friction. “You know the answer to that.”

“Maybe,” his caging arm leaves the door, the web of his hand sat against your chin as he holds your face, maintaining the same fiery gaze that unravels you altogether. “But, it’d be better coming from you.”

“Jack,” he’s flexed his thigh, your hand reaching for the button on his dress shirt as you wane in defeat. “Please.”

“I don’t follow.” 

Your bawled fist meets his stacked chest. “Don’t play dumb.”

Jack chuckles, holding all power in the palm of his hand. “I’m just confused as to why my pants are wet.” 

To prove his point, he draws his thigh away because he’s a selfish bastard and shows you the damp spot you’ve left after his thigh made its way between your legs. The shame that washes over you is unbearable. 

Jack’s cold hands find themselves underneath the material of his jersey, one hand dancing along the outline of your underwear with a finger hanging over the top of the seam. “Oh, what to do with you.”

He’s such a tease, his ego large and in charge as you’ve long forgotten any sense of game at hand as your eyes pool with only an anguish he can extinguish. “Fuck me, please.”

“Why?” his tone light and airy, his finger hooked around the seam of your underwear as the material leaves your skin

You shiver at the breeze, eyes closed as your weak fist manages to grapple onto some material of his shirt. “Because, I need you and I think that goes both ways.”

The band of your underwear snaps against your stomach as Jack retrieves his hand, head cocked to the side as he considers the weight of your words with a locked jaw. Your teeth are sinking into the plumpness of your bottom lip, nothing but pleading in your eyes as you gaze up at him with all you can muster. 

His hand lays against your cheek, thumb automatically caressing the skin - a touch that you not only lean into, but shiver towards. “Get upstairs.”

This is a fairly new playing field for you two -  a game of cat and mouse that brings out an unfamiliar side to you, so foreign in nature that you second guess your desires and where your lust leads you. Jack doesn’t allow for any hesitation though, hand in hand with you as he comes into himself too. His thumb brushes against the corner of your lips that lift, a soft smile surfacing amongst his features before you’re headed upstairs in a flash, scurrying towards your bedroom with a trail of your clothes left in your wake.

Jack doesn’t take long to meet you upstairs, his pinstripe blazer removed as he unfastens his tie around his neck. He spares you a lingering glance as you lay sheepishly on the bed perched on your elbows, legs ajar as your folds glisten in the soft bedroom light. Jack quickly rids himself of his clothing, slipping his boxers off to reveal his hard on. A comfortable length with all the girth to fulfil you, tip flushed pink as it brims with precum. It takes everything in you not to sink to your knees and fill your mouth with his cock.

As he approaches the bed, he motions for you to turn around and you do so with no questions asked, back arched as you wait in anticipation as you feel the bed dip with his presence. Jack comes up behind you, body so incredibly close yet somehow so far away as his hands make contact with your burning skin, giving the flesh on your back a brief massage. A surprised hum vibrates in your chest as Jack drags a single finger along the dip of your spine, leaving goosebumps in his wake before he adjusts himself behind you, to which you push your ass back against his hard on.

“Stop teasing.” you sound more desperate than intended, cheek squished into your cool silk pillow.

“Can’t admire my girl before I fuck her?” The nonchalance of his tone draws a mewl out of you, your hips jutting as they search for any more contact. “Besides,”

Hands resting against the mould of your hips, one shifts as you feel his cold index finger draw in between your folds, fingertips swirling around your clit. You moan brokenly, body curling into itself. “You’re just here to take it, aren’t you, princess?”

You’re nodding before your brain can even compute his words, humming along to accentuate your point as his fingertips continue to swirl along the shape of your clit. It’s too much and not enough - a tug of war of sorts that makes your hips rock into Jack, an action that at one point, has his tip catching against your wet entrance. A hiss from behind you sounds as you grapple onto the pillow beside you. 

Jack’s hand leaves you high and dry, but alias, his patiences dissipates into the night sky as he glides into you in one smooth motion, robbing you of your breath and sanity as your mouth gapes open and eyes roll. Sinking into the mattress, your spread legs accommodate for the snap of Jack’s hips as he starts to fuck you from behind, your back curving as you gladly take everything he’s offering. Face mangled into your hoard of pillows, your fingers cling to the duvet for some kind of security, at the mercy of Jack who pleases you in all the way he knows how. 

“How hard do you want me to fuck you?” he asks, maybe genuinely because his strength seems somehow restricted, but you’re keening high in your throat at how filthy his words fall from his rosy lips so easily. 

“Harder,” you plead, losing yourself in the pleasure as your one hand shuffles to rub against your neglected clit. “Harder, please.”

And, he obliges, bullying his cock into you as you gasp at the impact. A smack lands against your ass, the supple surface sizzling as your hips retract, Jack’s ironclad grip holding you from escaping any further as his fingers make indents into your skin like notches in a bedpost. 

“Hang on,” his pace slows, breath laboured as you feel him pull out of you reluctantly. “Turn around. I need to see you.”

You squirm against the sheets, easily complying with Jack’s wishes that suit you, your body turning as your sweaty-layered back sticks to the duvet. In the dimmed light of your bedroom, you catch a glimpse of Jack, whose wet curls fall in all the right places and how every outline of his well-built body drives you wild. You catch the shallow rises of his chest and the flush against his cheeks and as he tucks stray strands of hairs behind his ears, his hands find purchase at your thighs and draw you closer. It’s when he looks into your eyes, shameless in the pleasure written all over his face as he pushes into you again that you think you could never get tired of this view. 

Your walls mould to the shape of his cock, sucking him in entirely as you both moan at the feeling. To add fuel to the fire, Jack decides to unfold your legs and hoist them over his shoulders, the new angle burying him even deeper and bringing you closer to the edge. A huff of amusement sounds from Jack as he peers down at your parted lips, wasting no time in fucking you into the mattress as the bed creaks underneath the pressure. His earlier annoyance rears its head in his movements, unsettled irritation laced in the impact of his thrusts, your cunt leaking all around him as he pounds into you relentlessly. So close in proximity, Jack takes the opportunity to caress your cheek, a sweet gesture as your breath hitches, all before his hand slowly drifts down towards your neck. An affirmative nod from you is he needs to tighten his grip, your brewing orgasm intensifying tenfold as he maintains all the eye contact to make you shudder.

He’s balls deep in you, each hard thrust punctuated by the smack of the wooden headboard against the bedroom wall. You feel him all around you like some wicked embrace: in your stomach, your lungs and around your throat, the snug clasp his calloused hand holds against your pressure points lolling your mouth open, gasping at the sheer intensity stewing within you. 

Jack takes the opportunity, wet curls stuck to his forehead, leaning closer as he spits directly into your mouth, as he does onto the ice throughout his games. Something twists violently in you, back arching off the bed as your lips fall close to moan from the deepest parts within you, the taste of Jack on your tongue. 

“Taking me like such a good girl,” he praises, your reflection plentiful in his eyes. “If I’d known you liked this, would have done it a long time ago.”

Everything begins to blur at the edges like an old photograph, bliss engulfing you in its heavenly fire as your skin shimmers with sweat and your nails scrape at Jack’s shoulder - a futile attempt to regain control that had been long lost, your bodies movement forgotten as you squirm and shiver all over. 

Oxygen courses back into your deprived lungs as Jack releases his grip, burning hand against your cheek as his thumb brushes your cheekbone, catching your fluttering eyelashes. “I got you, baby. Got you, princess.”

“Never been fucked,” a whimper escapes when Jack notches that spongy spot that buries your nails into his skin, “like this. Feels-fuck, good.”

He laughs lightly, pace stuttering yet hitting all the right places. “Love giving my pretty girl what she wants,”

You clench around him, embedding your nails into the flesh of his back as your teeth sink into your bottom lip, gaze scattered. “And my pretty girl wants to come, don’t you?”

He poses the rhetorical question with a mean pinch at your clit before pushing a heavy hand down on your lower stomach, the pressure accelerating you towards your fast-approaching orgasm. The sounds pour out of you like a waterfall, eyebrows furrowed as you plead with begging eyes. “Kiss me?”

“Whatever you want, baby.” he breathes, almost whiny as his hand circles around your nape, your figure floating as your lips collide in a messy embrace, rhythm unmatched as your yearning seeps through your teeth. 

Jack captures all your moans in his mouth, the new angle of his thrusts adding to the sloppiness of your wet kiss. The smack of his stuttering hips knocks against your clit in a way that has you seeing beyond, swallowed whole by his galaxy of stars as he gives you one last jerky thrust, teeth nipping at your bottom lip to undo you. Frayed at the seams, you come undone, unravelling in a mess that perfectly matches Jack as he quickly comes after you, coating your walls as your cunt spasms all around him as he rides out his high. 

Once Jack’s shallow thrusts grind to a halt, he slowly pulls out a heavy sigh, locking eyes with you as he runs a finger down your sensitive cunt just to get a shiver out of you. Your eyebrows knit, a flare of annoyance mixed in with fatigue written across your face that draws a humoured snicker from your boyfriend. He collapses down next to you, a kiss pressed against your cheek before you both aimlessly stare up at the ceiling. 

Amusement tugs at the corners of your lips. “You should get angry more often.” 

“I was just about to say the same thing.” agrees Jack, laughter making its home between you two as nothing but sweetness lingers in the air.

“Come on,” he urges, his hand nudging yours, body prying itself off your bed as he goes to stand. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” 

[itsnotgray]

gray’s fic recs

my tagging/recommendation system is a mess beyond the point of fixing, so i made a masterlist. (i’ll slowly be adding fics to this!)

- an asterisk is next to players who play for the ahl team of said nhl team

- if works focused on more than one person, they’re listed under the other people, but only tagged in the first one you see in the list.

- also, apologies if the links don’t work correctly, it is in fact my first time making a masterlist

NHL/AHL

Anaheim Ducks

Jamie Drysdale

hey roomie by @emaanemaa

- trevor and jamie threesome. that's right, that's all it took to get you to go read it.

Trevor Zegras

chameleon by @hischierhaze

- listen- if you're someone who, whether it be consciously or unconsciously, changes themselves and their personality for those around them, or you have a history of it- please read this. I promise you, you won't regret it.

now that we don't talk by @sc0tters

- it's a toxic relationship with trevor, of course I'm gonna eat it up (she might end with trevor... or she might not. you'll never know if you don't read it.)

hey roomie by @ emaanemaa (fic linked above under jamie)

the penalty box series by @starsandhughes

I- if you're not already keeping up with this series... where have you been? every update is laugh out loud hilarious, and leaves you itching for more.

cruel weather- apart of the penalty box series by @starsandhughes

cruel weather gets it's own link because of the amount of emotional damage this inflicted upon me.

Arizona Coyotes

Boston Bruins

Buffalo Sabres

Devon Levi

like it very much by @jackhues

there aren’t many devon fics (which there totally should be), but the way i squealed when i read this one. further affirmed the fact that i think he’d be the best bf.

Calgary Flames

Nikita Zadorov

that scar hurt by the way by @swissboyhisch

- listen…. i’m the farthest thing from a flames fan, and can wholeheartedly admit it was an adorable read.

Carolina Hurricanes

Chicago Blackhawks

Colorado Avalanche

Columbus Blue Jackets

Adam Fantilli

to you, my adamo by @hischierhaze

- it's adam's birthday + his debut, can you blame me for crying?

his return by @hischierhaze

-this made me cry. but in making this, i'm convinced anything kei writes with the fantilli brothers makes me want to cry from either just how sickeningly sweet it is, or of course, sadness.

tiny dancer au by @letsgetrowdy43

god when i say sunny and adam have my heart- i mean it. they’re sososo special to me.

Dallas Stars

Wyatt Johnston

our song by @lovinbarzal

hands down one of my favorite wy jo fics/au’s. it’s wyatt x a barzal sister, a pairing i wouldn’t have thought of, but works so well!

Detroit Red Wings

Edmonton Oilers

Florida Panthers

Matthew Tkachuk

waking up in vegas by @doc-pickles

- matty t x hughes!sister is a dynamic i didn’t know i needed.

Mackie Samoskevich*

perfect girl by @dmercer91

- this had me feeling things like no other... a big hint as to why? she's shared.

Los Angeles Kings

Alex Turcotte*

who does it better? by @harry-hollands

one of the cutest social media au’s in a while (technically has two parts, but they don’t have to be read together)

Minnesota Wild

Montreal Canadiens

Kirby Dach

here with you by @sc0tters

- it's amber's writing + kirby, what's not to love? (if that's not convincing enough, maybe the line, "I will follow you to the ends of the earth," is.)

Nashville Predators

New Jersey Devils

Jack Hughes

timeless by @babydollmarauders

- if I hadn't originally read this in the middle of the grocery store, I can almost guarantee that I would've cried from just how heartwarmingly adorable this is.

out by @babydollmarauders

- equipment manager x jacky boy- aka a trope I never knew I needed, but now crave after reading this.

ballad of a homeschooled girl by @babydollmarauders

- hands down one of the best pics I've probably ever read in terms of conveying emotion. my stomach was in knots the entire time, attesting to just how realistic the writing is.

never grow up by @aliaology

- i'm sorry but you're not human if you don't get even the tiniest bit emotional at any fic with "never grow up" as the song. BUT A FIC WITH THE BROTHERS? this rendered me emotionally unavailable for a solid 20 minutes.

medía management au by @babydollmarauders

the media management au is an ongoing series staring mr jack hughes and his lovely girl, dove! the updates always bring a a smile to my face, and more than likely make me laugh out loud.

4:41 am by @sweetestdesire

listen, as much as i adore brynn’s smut like no other, her fluffy, soft and sweet fics just do something to me. she writes them so detailed, and consistently has me craving for soft moments with a significant other (a significant other i do not have)

John Marino

stay for a while by @sc0tters

- when i talk about made me feel things, i mean it. amber never fails in writing panty-dropping smut, while also having an thought-out plot.

Luke Hughes

welcome back by @leaentries

- this literally made me swoon. a protective lukey- what's not to love?

nobody's love by @eyesthatroll

- my heart was in my throat while reading, and my emotions were all over the place. regardless of how emotional it left me, it was amazing and deserves all the love.

never grow up by @ aliaology (fic linked under jack)

- older hughes sister watches her brothers grow up + never grow up = tears

summer aches by @starry-hughes

- this fic makes me want a luke to take care of me when i get headaches, triggered by heat or not

what’s not to like? by @starry-hughes

- queen ellen and jimmy are a little apprehensive of you…

jack’s best friend by @lvrzegras

okay listen- any of the brothers x their best friends is great, but jack’s best friend x luke… it just hits different, yk?

Nico Hischier

I never could've seen you coming (I think you're everything I could've ever wanted) by @writingonleaves

- this is probably as close to a literary masterpiece as a fanfic posted on tumblr will ever get

will you take a moment? promise me this (that you'll stand by me forever) by @writingonleaves

- listen- it's apart of the universe she began in the fic above. I have the fic linked under nico (because the oc eventually ends up in a relationship with nico, as seen in the part above), but this is sososo found family heavy. if found family is your trope, then this is your fic

New York Islanders

Mat Barzal

it's nice to have a friend by @youunravelme

- put me through the emotional wringer in the best way possible.

winnie martin's favorite person by @ilyasorokinn

- god- i cannot even begin to describe how cute this is. all i can say, is that I need more pictures of barzy with kids... for science of course.

New York Rangers

Ottawa Senators

Philadelphia Flyers

Pittsburgh Penguins

Sidney Crosby

she was the (red) devil by @crosbyscurls

- hockey meets f1 is already a dream combination… but sid x f1? absolutely amazing

San Jose Sharks

Seattle Kraken

St Louis Blues

Tampa Bay Lightning

Toronto Maple Leafs

Vancouver Canucks

Quinn Hughes

these michigan summers by @lukevangelista

i feel like the only way your not aware this series exists, then your new here. because if you haven’t read this, where have you been? this is for sure one of my top three series’ on tumblr, finished or unfinished. will in fact, forever have my heart. (currently unfinished)

the sun to my moon by @ghostfacd

this fic is part of an au! i highly, highly recommend checking it out- quinny + a grumpyxsunshine trope, what’s not to love?

never grow up by @ aliaology (fic linked under jack's name)

- older hughes sister watches her brothers grow up + never grow up = tears

Vegas Golden Knights

Washington Capitals

Dylan Strome

it's never too late to come back to my side by @lukevangelista (a series)

- one of my recent favorites. particularly geared towards those who think back on old friendships (...and constantly overthink on whether you should reach out. spoilers- it's never too late)

Winnipeg Jets

NCAA

University of Michigan

Luca Fantilli

missing you, quietly by @bitchinbarzal

- emotional torture in the best way possible. i re-read a concerning amount

i lost him by @hischierhaze

- made me cry- but in a good way

baby 101- name reveal by @hischierhaze

- it's dad!luca... yeah that's right, now that you have that cute thought in your head, you kinda have to go and read it

I tell you that I think im falling back in love with you by @writingonleaves

- this fic is sososo special to me for so many reasons- and I think you should totally read this fic to figure them out... just saying

opposites attract au by @dmercer91

this is a link to the head anons for the au- but please go read this sweet au. luca and landen are one of the sweetest pairings.

Nick Moldenhauer

sundays are for textiles by @drewsbuzzcut

- super cute read, and it's apart of an even cuter au

all american lace by @drewsbuzzcut

- also apart of that super cute nick au she has- but this part was not so cutesy (it was at the end). had me on the edge of my seat, and tears building in my eyes. the type of angst you physically feel- but with the type of ending that makes up for it (trust me, it does!)

Mark Estapa

icy roads by @nicohischierz

the simplest explanation i can offer is that this broke my heart- but i loved it anyway!

Boston College

Gabe Perreault

princess!gf x gabe perreault by @yankstrash

- these two are on my mind at least three times a week. i aspire to become amelia- aka find someone who is as down bad for me as gabe is for “his meels”

[starsandhughes]

Penalty Box— Trevor’s Caddies Edition

SERIES MASTERLIST

might regret posting at midnight but here we go!

yourusername

liked by trevorzegras, colecaufield, and 12,211 others

yourusername my baby boy daddy sir boyfriend went to the rocket mortgage classics a couple days ago and my best friend number two was his caddy (and i was his trophy almost wife)!

i got sunburned (dw trevy is taking care of me ;)) but my boys had fun together so it was worth it! i don’t understand golf, but trevor was happy at the end of the day, so WOOOO GOD BABY!!! SO PROUD OF YOU, KING! (he tries to explain it, but i simply cannot. i prefer to sit and look pretty)

the day was filled of me catcalling and teasing them and that obviously added to the amazing day we all had!

p.s. thanks for the big girl drinky drinks🩷

tagged trevorzegras and colecaufield

view all 222 comments

trevorzegras you calling me a zexy zaddy in public was definitely an experience❤️ i love you, forever, my preciously deranged almost wife!

yourusername i love you, always, my cuter than a basket of puppies almost husband!

trevorzegras why couldn’t you have screamed that?

yourusername that’s less fun

jackhughes @/trevorzegras that is less fun, zexy zaddy

trevorzegras @/jackhughes die

user44 oh i’m a whore for these pictures

lhughes_06 @/trevorzegras get your hand off my sister’s thigh

trevorzegras luke, when a man loves a woman…

lhughes_06 @/trevorzegras STOP

yourusername @/lhughes_06 don’t worry, lukey moosey! trevor wasn’t rabid at the golfy thingy

lhughes_06 @/yourusername that implies he’s rabid at other times

jamie.drysdale @/lhughes_06 so is she

yourusername and i wear that title proudly

user18 PEOPLE DIED THIS DAY

colecaufield my personal favorite y/n quote today is “swing the club harder than you swing at me”

trevorzegras this was not mine! she already bruises so easily it looks like i beat her!

yourusername @/trevorzegras so stop beating me

trevorzegras @/yourusername THIS ISN’T A JOKE! I TREAT YOU SO WELL! YOU’RE GOING TO GET ME CANCELLED!

yourusername 🙄 psa to everybody that trevor actually treats me like the princess i am and kisses the random bruises i wake up with

trevorzegras @/yourusername thank you!

colecaufield psa to everyone that y/n actually swings at trevor

_quinnhughes @/colecaufield you’re telling me she didn’t swing at you?

colecaufield @_quinnhughes no she threw a small rock at me

yourusername @/colecaufield and i’ll do it again

user26 fuck i’m in love with all three of them

_quinnhughes sissy tell me you didn’t get piss drunk off “big girl drinky drinks” at the golfing range

yourusername i did not get piss drunk at the golfing range

trevorzegras she got piss drunk at cole’s

yourusername that i did do

colecaufield she was watered and fed

yourusername but i didn’t grow :(

_quinnhughes @/yourusername good stay small forever

jackhughes @_quinnhughes you just like the fact that she’s shorter than you

colecaufield @/jackhughes i do, too

jackhughes but did you annoy larkin?

yourusername relentlessly 🥰

colecaufield he somehow found her “adorable”

trevorzegras @/colecaufield me too

jackhughes @/trevorzegras simp

yourusername @/trevorzegras SIMP

user4 cole as z’s caddy is everything to me

user16 aw they played hockey foreplay <3

yourusername AHA I’M SAYING THIS FOREVER NOW

jamie.drysdale i miss you :(

yourusername i miss you too, jamie baby! just a few more weeks til camp🩵

jamie.drysdale ditch trevor and come see me

trevorzegras @/yourusername please don’t

yourusername @/jamie.drysdale sorry jamie baby, my almost husband used please!

_alexturcotte @/yourusername and if i said i miss you?

yourusername @_alexturcotte please don’t bc i’d literally burn the world for you

_quinnhughes @/trevorzegras take her lighters

trevorzegras @_quinnhughes already done

yourusername i- i don’t actually know how to burn the world????

jackhughes @/yourusername we can’t take any chances

jamie.drysdale @/yourusername it’s something you would do

yourusername @/jackhughes @/jamie.drysdale you two are the first to go

user56 i need more sissy quotes of the day

colecaufield “i don’t know what a birdie is but if you don’t make it i will throw my drink at you”

trevorzegras “spice it up, cockfield! hit him with the flag!”

colecaufield “i will take the clubs and leave you if you don’t give me a kiss right now”

trevorzegras “good put, daddy!“ (she has never once called me daddy)

yourusername personally i liked “i will shove this club up your butt if you don’t make this”

trevorzegras @/yourusername stop saying you’re going to shove things up my butt

yourusername @/trevorzegras i need house decor

trevorzegras @/yourusername are you insinuating that you live up my butt?”

yourusername @/trevorzegras yes🩵

_quinnhughes i hate this

yourusername @_quinnhughes i love you

_quinnhughes @/yourusername yeah yeah i love you too

——

reblogs appreciated!

[puckpocketed]

So do you actually believe PLD is a good player or is that part of the bit?

The PLD Post

i spent a good 2 days giggling about this to friends. i cant tell if ur a curious caps fan, a person who knows me from my other teams, a disgruntled kings fan (i’ve mostly ruled this out because im pretty sure i know all of the active ones on here) or WHAT. but i’m laughing. the tone of this ask is hilarious and vaguely accusatory but i will take it in good faith and answer <3 tl;dr yes and no. he’s better than people think he is rn, but he’s likely never going to live up to the potential of his tools unless something . idk. recalibrates his entire being. who knows!

i was working on something longer and more complex but i thought about it for more than 5 seconds and i REFUSE to go hockey-bro mode and pull out the microstats and i don’t wanna make this into a full on PLD manifesto. so. caps girlies (gn) HERE are your adoption papers under the cut!

if you are looking at pierre luc dubois who is 6’4 + 220lb and thinking “Oh he’s a power forward” i have to inform you he is in fact THEEE smallest mouse to ever play hockey in the whole world and in all of history. he sips nectar out of a thimble and sleeps curled up in a match box and goes fishing in a boat made from nutshells and twigs . he’s big, but he sort of plays small.

this is not necessarily a bad thing — he relies on foot speed and skill over hitting.

he can throw hits but prefers to stick check. he leverages his big frame to guard the puck and to defend, and it makes him simultaneously VERY effective and very much what i like to call a Nexus Of Crime. he is either drawing ten thousand penalties because people have to do something to stop him from driving the net with speed OR he is taking ten thousand penalties because he gets eager in the corners.

PLUS he’s huge and refs do just assume he’s committing a crime when they can’t see what’s going on <3 hence, Nexus Of Crime! if there’s a penalty he’s probably involved LMAO

not a “dirty” player by any means. not physical unless he decides he wants to. and there is no violence inside of him unless he’s deeply horsebonded to his team <- IMPORTANT re; playoffs aspirations. you won’t see him put himself on the line simply for the love of the game, he HAS to be committed to the team.

to be committed to his team… i’m honestly not sure what that takes. i’d guess a combination of knowing his role on the ice and in the locker room (this was very unclear on lak) consistency of messaging from coaches (also seemed to be an issue on lak)

i know nothing about caps coaching or management or the team vibes but i’m sure you can fix him <3 i’m ready to fall in love and ride this team to the sunset

this failhorse will NOT shoot the puck and if he does it will be the saddest soggiest most pathetic shot you’ve ever seen. you will tear your hair out in chunks if you watch him expecting an elite goalscorer.

he’s a pass-first guy. likes to drop pass! likes to drive play from the middle but is also capable of getting pucks off the boards. he needs a finisher on his wing. i could pull up stats here, there are stats to be pulled up, but i know this in my HEART from watching dozens of kings games: he would have had 10-15 more points easily if he wasn’t stapled to the 3rd line and had better finishers. many times i watched him tee up a very good opportunity only for his guy to miss the net or fan or just get knocked off the puck

individually, he thrives in front of the net. his ass is fat and he’s about to use it to screen the goalie. hes good at catching loose pucks in the crease to send them home <3 see his performance at worlds. he scored basically all of his goals right up there!!

most media coverage/narratives will tell you his point production dropped off bc of effort (which is true) but even the MOST resentful kings watchers will say pld wasn’t given his best shot playing with inexperienced+fringe nhlers, being line shuffled the moment he got a bit comfortable, and also not getting ANY net front time on the lak pp. i factor this into all my judgements of his performance.

He’s def earned his diva rep LMAO!! this is personal opinion here but he seems like a sensitive and easily rattled little clam… like he will have a couple of bad shifts and if there’s nobody there to shake him out of it he’ll lose his grasp on the game and play like shit <3 a rolling joke on kingstwt was figuring out which PLD we were getting that game, and you could tell by his 5th if he was switched on or off!!

they hate him for this but EYE think this is nothing new for athletes and if he can consistently stay in the zone he’ll probably be pretty good. mental fortitude of a wet tissue my beloved….

moving onto the Vibes section!! he was always good humoured in media availability and didn’t shy away from scrums even when public opinion soured against him and critiques of both his hockey and his character had reached a fever pitch. i like this about him. he always gave authentic answers and tried his best to accomodate them, and never hid behind his captains.

he gets along quite well with teammates despite the narratives. no seriously!! some of the the kings had a hang out during off-season right before they went to worlds!! there’s bisexual lighting!!!!

there’s interviews from old jets teammates that are just like. “he used to turn up at my house with his dog and text IM HERE with no warning and that’s how we became friends” or “his obsession with euro soccer teams bewitched me”. he had control of the aux cord. he was a den mother and planned group gatherings. a genuine sweetheart to every teammate he’s ever had!!

I don’t think he’s some. idk. secret 100 point producing star 1C. but i truly believe with the right environment he’ll probably hit 60 points again.

thank you for your time if you made it this far and i hope to see you all in the trenches (caps lb) next season 👍

[onboardsorasora]

Thought of this last night, a sort of semi violent meet cute lool

Something something Max follows Logan, Oscar and Lando to a hockey game the week after the race. He had been planning to stay in Miami but Lando had begged using first time winner best friend privileges or something.

It was the playoffs, whatever that meant, so it was supposed to be exciting. That's what Logan said.

The game was exciting, even if Max couldn't follow it all. They sat behind the players benches and he was surprised at how often players were coming and going from the area.

He'd heard that hockey was fairly violent and crazy, but seeing it and hearing the crowd go into a frenzy for it was something else. Every time a player was rammed into the glass there was a whoop from somewhere in the crowd and when a fight broke out, it was like feeding the feral masses.

The home team, Logan's team, were winning. They were already up 3-1 to their opponents and so the air in the arena was charged. Max thought he finally got used to the blaring of the horns by the third period.

It was all action packed and chaotic, and of course Max didn't know who any of these players were. but there was one guy that caught his eye, Max had seen him going in and out of the penalty box, on and off the bench. Each time a ref pulled him off of another player, he had a wide grin on his face and was clearly reveling in the violence. The big C on his chest showed him to be the captain and he was like a king at court.

“Who is that?” Lando leaned over Max to ask Logan. Max was happy he didn't have to ask because he was too busy tracking this guy’s movements.

“Oh that's Daniel Ricciardo…” Max’s brain tuned out the remainder of Logan's response about goals and assists and other stats. Daniel was smiling again, playing with his mouth guard and showing a mouth full of teeth. Max felt a flush when their eyes met as Daniel clambered back into the bench. Daniel winked at him before sitting with his team and speaking to his coach.

The home team won and the arena went wild, throwing things onto the ice. An official collected the drivers and brought them back to the locker rooms to meet the team. Oscar and Lando were chuffed, and Logan was immediately pulled into a conversation with one of the half dressed men. Max glanced around surreptitiously looking for the one player he cared about. Daniel wasn't there.

Disappointed, Max posed for pictures and signed a few sticks and jerseys before they were led out of the room.

There was an interview wrapping up further down the hall and a honking laugh rang out when the cameras cut. Max watched as Daniel ran a hand through sweaty tangled curls, his face and smile were even better without the helmet to cover it. His jersey was also gone, and Max thought he looked smaller in just a loose tank and his lower pads. Max wanted to bite his corded shoulders.

Daniel walked over to them, with the waddle of someone wearing skates on carpet, and shook their hands.

“Fuckin killer game out there man.” Logan praised and Daniel grinned, bashfully pressing his hand behind his head. Max could only stare at the indecent bulge of his bicep. He wanted to lick Daniel's tattoos.

They chatted for a little bit longer before a handler came to collect Daniel. He took a few pictures with them and walked away, brushing his shoulders against Max’s jacket clad one along the way. When Max looked over at him, Daniel winked at him again with a smirk. Max felt his face flush in response.

[laterosal]

♤ unKing | Barou Shouei x gn!Reader

▽ featuring: barou shouei x gn reader … no repost on any platforms © laterosal 2024 … sooo bachira and his clown antics resulting in barou and you casually kissing—and hinted in a no-blue-lock!au where barou, bachira, nagi, and reader are in the same youth team (requested!) … word count: 969

… A/N: hii mike!! i hope you’re having a good day as well, i’m just surviving school as i gotta wake up early now. (very unfortunate) but i tried your first request—something did not click because it took me a week to get down a few hundred words… so i tried with the second request and maybe it did work? hope you enjoy this one :)

📌 AO3 | requested one-shot

Shoei Barou often thought his teammates in his youth team were chaotic, but not to the point where you would even have the thought of Barou, the “king” of the field, having chased down a small bee. A small bee, taunting Barou’s every move, realizing he was backed into a corner and had to feel the wrath of Barou.

You could practically feel that fury booming from a few meters away, as you leaned against the goal post, staring amusingly at these soccer players’ shenanigans. Surely it started with Seishiro Nagi, a somewhat unmotivated yet genius soccer player who decided to join a youth team out of boredom. His famed skill was trapping: hence, the Trap-Whatever-You-Can-Championship (Part 2) commenced amongst the highly skilled soccer players of their youth team. Held in the penalty box in the soccer field, Nagi started off with balancing his cellphone on his leg, moving on with a black-inked pen on his foot. Other soccer players attempted to do the same, though only a select few were even able to find the key concepts of trapping an item. One would include Shoei Barou—his effort of perseverance unwavering as some of his fellow teammates taunted him.

Bachira Meguru, who early on into soccer figured out their skill in dribbling, decided to take up a challenge and participate in Seishiro Nagi’s challenge of trapping items. You decided to try out this skill of trapping, although you long gave up and decided to hang around the goal post.

…

It did not go as well as planned.

Bachira, his bright highlights that flowed to the rhythm of his dribbling, seemed to not take trapping a skill so seriously. Rather, he attempted to balance a soccer ball on his ankle, then kicked it into the sky and chased after it. Only without noticing Barou behind him—the king of the field wiping the sweat dripping down his face as he squeezed some water out of his water bottle, who was conveniently hanging around you.

“Oops! I guess I should have known that trapping would kill me~” Bachira’s smile widened as Barou gave the former a death glare. Bachira looked up and attempted to follow the soccer ball, knocking Barou down. Like a pair of dominos, Bachira stumbled to the nearest patches of the grass near the goal post, and Barou tumbled into you, where his lips were pressed against yours.

Silence.

The soccer ball thumped against the grass, slowly rolling towards Bachira.

Bachira raised his eyebrows and scratched his head sheepishly, already scrambling away from Barou. They all did not want to mess with Barou himself—especially when his temper would blow away the feeble from the soccer field. You stared surprisingly at Barou as he slowly stood up, a pointed glare at all his teammates watching.

“S… orry?” You murmur as Barou narrowed his eyes at his teammates.

“Stop watching and get back to doing your—” Barou cracked his neck and knuckles, his voice a low and threatening one. Bachira whistled from across the world, teasing Barou to chase him. And like a small animal chase, the king of the field scrambled onto his feet and tailed the bee, easily dodging and swerving across the field. You grinned at the sight, touching your lips gingerly as you remembered the small kiss planted on your lips, leading to the king of the field with a murderous intent chasing…

“GET THE PHONE!”

“NO, HE’S GOING TO KILL US—”

“YOU DRIBBLING BEE, DON’T DIE TO HIM—”

The teammates were howling and screeching (in case Bachira gets jumped by Barou), while Seishiro Nagi stood on the sidelines, pulling out his phone to hop onto some video games.

“Oi, Y/N, want to help me out here?” Bachira yelled out as he ran towards you.

“Don’t. You. Dare. Y/N!” Barou screeched as he went for some other teammates who began to taunt him. You decided that if you wanted to see the golden light tomorrow, perhaps it was best to sit out today.

You didn’t want to get on Barou Shouei’s bad side, did you?

“I-hm, I won’t.” You promised Barou. “Bachira, how’s it going with Barou chasing you..?”

You didn’t even get a chance to hear Bachira’s response as he tumbled onto the field, as Barou violently shook his shoulders. He later stood up, clasped his hands together and brushed off some grass on his uniform, stalking towards you.

“You don’t need to be sorry, Y/N.” Barou lowered his voice as he put his hand on your shoulder, flinging off the towel slinging from his shoulders onto his head. You frowned as you wondered why he started off the sentence with those words. “That little busy bee… I swear… Next time he pulls any of those antics again…” Sorry..? Did you ever apologize to him—

“I’ll… help you.” You gave Barou an assuring smile. “Yeah?” Barou blew a heavy sigh out and hopped out of the field.

You soon realized that you had mumbled an apology after the kiss—

Oh.

“I’m surprised that the king even acts so uh, un-kingly in front of you.” Nagi shuffled over to you, leaning against the metal poles of the goal post. “Y’know, Y/N.”

“Uh-huh? I don’t really… understand.”

“Mm, sure. He doesn’t act so strict with you, unlike me.” Nagi groaned as Barou tugged on the back of his shirt, signaling to get up for practice. If Barou had heard Nagi’s words, the king brushed it off like they did not bother him at all. Nagi snorted, before a swift click on his cellphone screen—a VICTORY screen flashing on.

Maybe he was right.

Maybe Barou did act a little… less strict in front of you.

He seemed so much of an un-kingly soccer player in front of you who seemed to listen to you.

[slut4athena]

Luke getting into the penalty box for high sticking. Jack ready to fight with a player of the kings and getting a penalty for roughing. This is some game and honestly I’m living for it 😭

[mormontdacey]

OFFICIAL RIVERLANDS SCOREBOARD:

robb the (teen war)lord: 1

tywin lannister, former hand of the king and ultimate westerosi alpha male: 0

jaime lannister: -5 and serving time in the penalty box

[samanthasgone]

Credit: penaltyboxpodcast

Me whenever I watch hockey at home or whenever I get a chance to go to a game.

🎥 Posted on tiktok by: @itsmishyfishy

*Please DM or comment for credit/removal!*

[harry-hollands]

my boyfriend’s boyfriends

(a potential au stemming from ‘who does it better?’)

a part two to ‘who does it better’ but can be read as a stand alone.

part 1

alex turcotte x fem!hockey player reader

*PICTURES ARE FROM TWITTER, INSTAGRAM, AND MY OWN PERSONAL ONES I TOOK (10-28-2023)*

(inspired by faithlynn’s @babydollmarauders series media management and kaylin’s @starsandhughes series penalty box. if you haven’t checked them out, PLEASE DO THEYRE AMAZING)

yourusername

liked by quintonbyfield, _alexturcotte, and 42,752 others

yourusername: on today’s episode of “i had a day off at work and my boyfriend and best friend and son had team bonding today so i was left alone because my other roommates had a game tonight”, i decided that i, was going to support my boyfriend’s boyfriends—i mean roommates!

how generous of me right? i was in the upper bowl to watch the game so no one saw me but as is my job to be a professional nuisance to centers and defenders to keep the lethal flying piece of rubber out of my pretty net, i had to humble them somehow during warm ups.

for those wondering why i’m wearing my boyfriend’s boyfriend #2’s jersey, i lost a bet with him. for those also wondering what the bet was, it was on my boyfriend. i THOUGHT my boyfriend was a sweet person but apparently he took a page out of the enemy of silence’s book (@/trevorzegras) and got TWO penalties last game.

turcs was not impressed as you can imagine, and neither was homewrecker (@/jordanjs224) because apparently “homewreckers need to stick together and that comes with wearing my jersey” idk man im just their roommate that willingly has pieces of rubber shot at me at lethal speeds

despite my works of art, i also included other works of art from the professionals. (im legally obligated to make them look good like 3.8% of the time)

as much as i’d love to say that the boyfriends came out victorious, they did not 🥲

my boys played v*gas and lost in shootout but at least we got a point!

my cutie patootie laffy @/alaf14 (kings’s version, not to be confused with the rags’) SCORED HIS SECOND GOAL OF THE SEASON ON HIS TAYLOR SWIFT BIRTHDAY! you made me so proud 🫶🏼

next up, the infuriating maple leafs; auston matthews, I HAVE BEEF WITH YOU (i will be watching from home because it’s where my job is)

buckle up babes, turcs baby (@/_alexturcotte), my son (@/brandtclarke55), and my best friend (@/francesco.pinelli71) play tomorrow against the baby canucks and i don’t know if i’ll have the right mental state to watch them (i have to im their emergency goalie 🤠)

(ps m*rk st*ne, nicolas hague, brayden mcnabb, and ivan barbashev i hope you all suffer a 10 game losing streak you fucking bitch babies. DONT GO AFTER MY CUTIE PATOOTIE!!!)

tagged quintonbyfield, jordanjs224, lakings, anzekopitar, kevinfiala22, duber18, alaf14

view comments

quintonbyfield: WHY DO YOU HAVE THAT PICTURE OF ME?? HOW—?!

yourusername: @/quintonbyfield oh q baby, it’s all over twitter

quintonbyfield: @/yourusername oh, so you got it from twitter, got it

yourusername: @/quintonbyfield how do you think twitter got it? 🤭🫡

quintonbyfield: @/yourusername YOU LITTLE BI—

jordanjs224: oh my god. i look ATROCIOUS

quintonbyfield: @/jordanjs224 good. suffer.

jordanjs224: @/quintonbyfield alright listen here you little asshole—

_alexturcotte: @/jordanjs224 @/quintonbyfield babes, there’s no need to fight! cant we all just get along?

jordanjs224: @/_alexturcotte shut up, this ain’t about you

_alexturcotte: @/jordanjs224 🥲

quintonbyfield: @/_alexturcotte i would never treat you this way

yourusername: @/_quintonbyfield @/jordanjs224 if y’all are gonna fight, at least do it when y’all get home please? i need some entertainment in my life

francesco.pinelli71: @/yourusername am i not enough for you? 🤨

yourusername: @/francesco.pinelli71 YOU’RE LITERALLY LEAVING FOR COLORADO MONDAY 🤠

fan23: she’s feeding the jordan girlies 🤭

fan55: oh my god?? q?? holy fuck y/n KNOWS what she’s doing taking these photos

alaf14: y/n you didn’t need to threaten them, im okay 😭

yourusername: @/alaf14 you were practically thrown to the ice like a ragdoll and then you got HIGH STICKED and were BLEEDING and you’re telling me you’re “okay”??? dude…

alaf14: @/yourusername it’s hockey it happens. besides, YOU WILLINGLY HAVE PUCKS FLYING AT LETHAL SPEEDS AT YOUR FACE AND YOU STOP THEM WITH YOUR BODY

yourusername: @/alaf14 why are you YELLING?? im making sure everyone knows that if they hurt you that they are on my hit list. i will do what flower did to bedsy and trip them up

alaf14: @/yourusername that’s a sure way you don’t make it in the nhl

yourusername: @/alaf14 i will trip you up if you don’t shut the fuck up

alaf14: @/yourusername YOU’RE DOING GREAT SWEETIE KEEP DOING YOU 🫡

yourusername: @/alaf14 that’s what i thought <33

fan15: wait y/n is their emergency goalie?? how did i not know this information?

yourusername: @/fan15 it’s not widely advertised but im tryna be a big girl in the big leagues 🫶🏼

fan15: @/yourusername OMG THANK YOU

francesco.pinelli71: thank you for humbling them. clarkey and i have been dying of laughter for five minutes and turcs is looking at us like a disappointed father

yourusername: @/francesco.pinelli71 i live to serve, but i think it’s been established that turcs is disappointed father and im eccentric mother

francesco.pinelli71: @/yourusername YOU’RE SO RIGHT

_alexturcotte: @/yourusername @/francesco.pinelli71 i regret introducing the two of you

francesco.pinelli71: @/_alexturcotte i dont !

yourusername: @/_alexturcotte @/francesco.pinelli71 i don’t either!

fan12: y/n’s friendships with alex’s best friends >>>

brandtclarke55: MOM I WANNA BE LIKE YOU WHEN I GROW UP

liked by yourusername, francesco.pinelli71 and _alexturcotte

_alexturcotte: thank you for humbling my boyfriends. they’re not allowed to have their egos inflated.

yourusername: @/_alexturcotte of course, my love! expect nothing less!

quintonbyfield: @/_alexturcotte @/yourusername FUCKING OFFENDED???

jordanjs224: @/quintonbyfield @/_alexturcotte is this what betrayal feels like?

quintonbyfield: @/jordanjs224 fuck you.

jordanjs224: @/quintonbyfield time and place

_alexturcotte: @/quintonbyfield @/jordanjs224 without me?

quintonbyfield: @/_alexturcotte @/jordanjs224 never babygorl

yourusername: @/quintonbyfield @/jordanjs224 @/_alexturcotte 💀

_alexturcotte: i love you, my darling <33

yourusername: @/_alexturcotte i love you more, my love <33

~

a/n: i hope you enjoyed this little installment! i have a halloween one planned and am working on a blurb about worlds!! there will also be hopefully a blurb on turcs introducing her to the boys. I LOVE YOU ALL AND THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING

as always, reblogs, likes, and comments are always appreciated 🫶🏼

~soph <33

[foxymoxynoona]

To Kill A King (Chapter 14)

Banner and linebreaks by the talented @awrkives

Summary: What’s more charming than Prince Seokjin? Nothing, obviously. Except maybe the rotating palace guests who each smile and bow and charm in an attempt to hide their true motives. Fortunately Seokjin has a close circle of friends (well, servants) who watch his back and endure his humor and help him navigate the tumultuous seas of heartbreak, love, and an arranged marriage, not necessarily in that order. If only they had helped him keep a closer eye on his bride-to-be’s handmaiden, who arrives with her own agenda… or maybe it would have been better if he had noticed her less? One thing is certain as this royal drama of the heart plays out: there are many people competing to kill a king.

Main Pairing: Prince Seokjin x Female OC Genre: Historical Fantasy World, political conspiracy, romance Rating: 18+ Content Warnings & story tags: includes explicit sex (mxf, fxf), possibly graphic violence/injury later, love and sex triangles or uh quadrangles?, sort of e 2 l, sort of bodyguard trope, sort of arranged marriage, a lot of plotting murder (it’s literally in the title), maybe character death, grief, pining, angst, love, oral (f & m receiving), public sex, I don’t know everything yet as the story is long and still being written

PREVIOUS | MASTERLIST | NEXT

NOTE: check out the Character & Setting Cheat Sheet for a refresher on who’s who

Old habits die hard. Though Dulce had shifted her purpose to finding some way to prove Nasimiyu and her father were planning to overthrow the Kim family –a thing she hadn’t the faintest idea how to accomplish– an opportunity presented itself in her quest for information that was simply too good to pass up. King Dong-gun quit the palace to go on another of those maniacal cave hunting expeditions, and took most of the palace with him, including Nasimiyu and that ice-cold uncle. 

It had almost been funny, that brief moment in which Nasimiyu debated whether to take Dulce. Dulce was back on laundry duty –surprise, surprise– but was carting clean clothes up to the princess’ room. Nasimiyu called for something she could wear on a hunt, then informed Dulce they were going to the caves in the morning, then looked at her in silence for a long moment… before deciding Eula would go. Eula had cried about it all night because she was scared of caves and guns.

Mirta had given Dulce a day’s worth of tasks which she utterly ignored. Was Mirta going to fire her? That would suit her just fine; the only thing keeping her from quitting was needing time to find whatever she could take to Prince Seokjin or King Dong-gun. 

As soon as Nasimiyu left for the hunting trip, Dulce ransacked her room. She put everything back so it wouldn’t be obvious, of course, but she dug through all the spaces she normally didn’t care about –the drawers in the writing desk, the false bottom of her jewelry box, the tiara box in the wardrobe that used to house a secret supply of snacks until Nasimiyu ate through them within days of arriving in Priva. 

Rooting through the wardrobe made Dulce wonder if Nasimiyu would rat her out about killing the spying man at some point. She could. A princess’ word against a maids would result in nothing other than the death penalty for the maid. Nasimiyu could toss in that Dulce had threatened her about it. It didn’t even have to be true, Nasimiyu could say whatever she wanted and have Dulce’s head off in a moment. Rather than frighten her, this power disparity pissed Dulce off.

She clearly and obviously ought to leave immediately, before that could happen. What was holding Nasimiyu back from doing so this very day? She was clearly angry about Namjoon still, and hadn’t said a word to Dulce since she’d walked in on her and Prince Seokjin fucking. Was she waiting and hoping for Dulce to come groveling to her? Or just biding her time until she could surprise Dulce with an accusation and death?

It didn’t make any sense, and Dulce hated not knowing. She was too close to this one; she wouldn’t be able to leap away before Nasimiyu’s dagger plunged in.

She had to be fast. Faster than this.

But there was nothing incriminating to be found anywhere in Nasimiyu’s room. The letters from her mother were dull and saccharine. There were no letters from her father. She didn’t keep a diary, not even a fake, so there was nothing to betray her as a fiance either, no pining for Namjoon inked onto pages in her hand. Dulce had taught her too well, it seemed.

Dulce paid a visit to the old room Nasimiyu had stayed in, but there likely hadn’t been anything notable there either before it was wiped clean. Same for the rooms Prince Hamisi and Princess Simisola had lived in. 

What was Dulce’s next step here? She felt hopelessly out of options. She could approach Prince Seokjin and just tell him… but why would he believe her against his own fiance? He wouldn’t. Dulce was just an out of favor maid. Well, she could tell him more than that if she was willing to sacrifice her own security…

But how did one prove they were an assassin hired to spy and assassinate you? She had no written orders. No secret society brand on her shoulder. No poisoned dagger bearing Prince Hamisi’s emblem or any of the other clues that led to the capture of the villains in the Kalamouche novels. The emblemed dagger in the most recent book she’d read had really done her in, it was nearly enough to make her laugh, it was such a stupid idea. What idiot gave an assassin a clear and obvious connection back to the purse-holder? Dulce had found herself wishing she could meet the author and give him a good thrashing and tell him to do better –nobles were absolute idiots but in a very different way than that. But it had then led to the mental play of Prince Seokjin meeting the author and probably being so exuberant and excited about it because he probably read these ideas and thought they were genius and it had ticked her off so much, this day dream, the fact that she was daydreaming about Prince Seokjin. 

What was this man doing to her?! Why?! She had met so many men in her life and this one was… was ignorant and naive and too trusting and… honestly, a clown. And thoughtful and considerate and inappropriately chivalrous and unfortunately almost funny and generous and from what she could see, honest. If he was not honest, he had fooled her. Otherwise, he might be one of the only honest people she had ever met in her life. Everything about him seemed so sincere. Was that true? He did not seem to consider himself when he put himself forward to help someone –a maid who didn’t need rescuing, a crying child, a servant who was secretly his brother and an inherent threat to his throne.

Fuck that guy, he was messing with her head. She had to figure something out and then get the fuck out of here. She’d do her best to find some way to open his eyes to the dangers around him, but she couldn’t die for him. She needed to be gone before Nasimiyu figured it out. Possibly the only thing staying Nasimiyu’s hand right now was that she’d never directly caused someone’s death before. Could that be it? Was there some conscience after all beneath that ridiculous flower crown Prince Seokjin had given Nasimiyu for dinner last night?

She circled the palace trying to look like she had somewhere to be without actually having an aim. Prince Hamisi was too smart to leave anything incriminating in the Kim palace. Nasimiyu never had anything to leave around. She could try interrogating Nasimiyu’s guards or maids for anything but it would raise suspicion on herself unless she killed them afterwards, likely not get her anything, and another death around Nasimiyu would probably send the palace into another frenzy.

How ironic. Dulce was possibly the greatest threat to Nasimiyu, wasn’t she? It occurred to her that striking Nasimiyu down and lying in wait for Prince Hamisi to come running back would be the quickest way to ensure they couldn’t harm Prince Seokjin.

But actually killing Nasimiyu… It made Dulce’s stomach turn. She didn’t need to go that far right now. Dulce was efficient and purposeful, but she wasn’t wasteful. Death was inevitable, but that didn’t mean Dulce was eager to dole it out, not to someone she had so recently been so close to. Honestly, did Nasimiyu deserve to die? She shouldn’t be queen but..

Dulce was compromised. She was too sentimental. The objective truth was that no one person was worth more than the lives of dozens or hundreds of others, but right now Nasimiyu wasn’t a threat to dozens or even hundreds of people. If she died today, there would be a new and probably worse princess betrothed to the prince tomorrow. Nasimiyu was selfish and stubborn but supposedly had good intentions, so in a world where her rule wasn’t a threat to Seokjin’s life, Dulce would have left her alone. 

“I have a packet for the King,” a deep voice said, traveling closer up the hallway.

Another voice scoffed, “And I told you, he is not in the palace today so you will have to wait or leave your missives with me.” Dulce recognized the voice of Han-gyeol Jung –that weasley old man constantly looking down his nose at young men and squinting like he could see through the dresses of young women. Allegedly he served as a ‘deportment’ tutor for Prince Seokjin but seemed to leave his more palatable son to do most of the actual refining work. 

“I’m in a hurry,” the man said, which struck Dulce as odd. If you had things to deliver to the king, wasn’t that the most important thing you could do? Unless you were just impatient, but he didn’t sound impatient, he sounded… nervous. “They must be delivered directly to the King.”

When Lord Jung or whatever the fuck his proper title was refused to go and physically retrieve the King from the caves, the man snapped that he would try again tomorrow but he wasn’t spending a night here and stomped off. Dulce watched the elder Jung subtly around the corner. He looked completely unbothered by the man’s insistence, as if this sort of urgent entitled demand to see the king was a common occurrence. She found it more curious that he would act as a kind of butler or intermediary for the King in his absence rather than the Castellan or literally anyone else. It seemed outside of his job scope. But what did she know? Besides, most of those people had gone on the hunt. 

He strode off to do another task. So the King must not be lying in wait expecting anything urgent, otherwise surely he would let his butler know to fetch him at once should a messenger arrive. Unless Han-gyeol Jung didn’t know anything either and had just unknowingly thwarted something actually very important

Dulce had nothing better to do though (what, maid chores?) and decided to follow the man with the message. He’d not gone far and anyway his steps were loud enough to easily find him, the idiot. She tailed him out of the palace and down into the city, right out the front doors. Nobody looked at him, and she supposed she struck the right balance of looking like a nobody maid that nobody bothered with her either. The man did keep looking anxious around himself but he clearly wasn’t worried about an innocent looking maid with her hair wrapped in a white kerchief the only time he might have seen her over his shoulder.

They moved further into the city. He seemed to know exactly where he was going, which made it easier to keep up with him because his movements were purposeful and obvious. They passed through a couple neighborhoods before he entered an unremarkable tavern, the Bear and Beer.

“Need a room?” the innkeeper asked as the man went straight to the counter.

“Yes, only the night. Middle of the row if you’ve got it,” he said, already dumping coin on the counter as though he knew the cost. They didn’t seem to know each other but he must have been here before; he didn’t wait for further instructions about how to reach “Room 4” before taking the key and heading up. Locking doors meant this was a nicer place, though Dulce could have guessed that from the quiet and decently clean downstairs. The innkeeper kept the keys on a loop that jangled at his hip, which would make it harder to get the spare for Room 4 that he surely kept.

“What about you, need a room?” he called, unfortunately spotting her right away.

Annoyed, she said she was hoping to meet someone and ordered a beer for while she waited. Since it was early in the day, she had her pick of tables where she could watch the few folks who came and went. No one looked suspicious, or even remarkably unsuspicious which could itself be suspicious. Those who came down looked like they’d had a late night to sleep off. Three went up during the time she watched –a maid with an armful of clean linens and a pair with a massive bag between them and the air of disappointment, whatever their business had been that morning.

This was stupid. She was wasting her time on what was likely one of a thousand people who tried to visit the king on any given day and were turned away, and for what reason, because she was bored and frustrated around the palace? She’d have as much luck finding something useful blindly wandering the streets.

She paid for her beer and headed for the door but felt the shuffle of movement close behind her. Turning, she caught only the back of a figure heading purposefully for the stairs as several other people moved around the room at once, getting up to refill mugs of beer or empty tables or step closer to the fire. All normal gestures, but Dulce felt as if the world had thawed quite suddenly, which struck her as odd. Not everyone seemed to be orchestrating something, but rather like something predictable had happened –the waitress had brought in a large tray of food– just as she had risen from the table and others had moved in synchrony too. Coincidence. 

But the two people who slipped quickly up the stairs as if they did not wish to be seen felt more intentional. Like people trained to take advantage of a predicted moment of distraction.

Dulce strode forward and bumped into the waitress, who promptly toppled the whole tray onto the table. The patrons leapt up and the waitress leapt back and the innkeeper came running around from the bar squawking about the mess, shoving the waitress out of the way in his rush to apologize –which was just enough physical distraction for Dulce to unhook the ring of keys from his belt. It wasn’t even a twist latch! The fool.

She disappeared up the stairs in the chaos, shedding her cloak and the kerchief in the process, wrapping them into a bundle to mute the jingling of the remaining keys once she’d pulled off the one with the 4 scratched into it.

She put on her best oops wrong room face and rushed through door four… to be met with an empty room. The man had either left or met his fate, but it was definitely his pack still sitting on the bed. She frowned at the stillness and pulled her blade from her pocket, the little shitty one Nasimiyu had given her since it was the closet on hand. If she reached for her boot, he might rush out of the wardrobe or something.

He wasn’t there when she checked though, nor under the bed. Convinced she was alone, she promptly upended his bag. She shoved aside some light clothing, a miniscule bag of money, no more than a handful of jerky and a cheap necklace, and instead focused on the small leatherbound journal –oddly expensive compared to everything else– and a short stack of sealed envelopes. Everything else she shoved back inside, hoping it would buy her some time before the man realized he’d been robbed –of what was probably just a complaint about his neighbor. Dulce realized she was being very rash right now.

A noise in the hallway made her freeze, then leap into the wardrobe mere seconds before the door swung open again. In walked the man she had followed, pulling at his waistband as if he’d just pulled his pants up. 

Well shit.

If he had any wits about him, he was going to check the wardrobe in a moment to make sure his room was secure and find her, and what was she going to do? If he was rotten folk, she could kill him and be on her way, but if he wasn’t, she’d rather knock him out.

He didn’t check the wardrobe yet. Instead he sat at the table and produced some cheese and a hunk of bread from his pocket. She held her breath, expecting he’d open his pack for the jerky and notice his precious papers were gone– but he didn’t.

Were people really such fools they didn’t check their rooms first?!

Dulce set the keys in the bottom of the wardrobe with her cloak, moving slowly and carefully so as not to produce even the faintest brushing sound. Then, by the light creeping in through the shoddy cabinetry, she eased open the seal on the first paper and did her best to read. The hand was scratchy and rushed, masculine she thought but couldn’t be sure –her own hand was masculine, she’d been told long ago, as if that mattered.

HD not in Sartia as directed – SD alone

HD crossed border near Ft Gaysa, could not follow, gone 3 days

HD headed north

Dulce’s brow knitted. How annoying to be simultaneously in code but not really. Per request sure sounded like this man had been sent somewhere, to trail this HD to Sartia–

Hamisi Dabo. Dulce was no font of knowledge on famous or infamous persons, but Prince Hamisi had been headed to Sartia with his wife, Simisola Dabo. People were stupid and often the most obvious answer was right.

Her heart leapt into her throat. Was this important? That Prince Hamisi had lied about going to Sartia? What was at Ft Gaysa? If that wasn’t notable, the fact he had crossed the border down there sure was; no one was allowed to cross the southern Therepin border, it would nullify the very precarious treaty after the Therepin Border Wars.

She shoved the note down the front of her dress, blood pounding in her ears as she carefully opened the next. It was in a different hand and dated separately, sealed differently, as if the letters had been sent by two different people completely which left her unsure how they had both wound up with this man.

Summary report on investigation into recent Therepin skirmishes. Full reports arriving separately

1: No witnesses survived. Entire village dead and burned. Civilian deaths: 76.

2: Reliable eyewitness reports invasion of village at dawn. Military arrived 22 minutes later. Military deaths: 1, Assailants: 14 reported - bodies burned could not verify, Citizens: 7. 

3: Eyewitness claims assailants came around from the north not south!!! Military arrived in 11 minutes. Military death: 1, Assailants: 13 - bodies burned could not verify, Citizens: 18.

4: Two witnesses survived by hiding under floorboards, have gone missing since interview. Claimed to have heard assailants speak of belonging to Sons of Sunset. Military deaths: 0, Assailants: 32 reported - 3 bodies produced, rest burned could not verify; Civilian deaths: 49 + assuming 2 witnesses

Dulce’s mind was racing. These reports were exactly what she was looking for! Proof that Hamisi was up to something. He shouldn’t be crossing the border, and if the Sons of Sunset were attacking towns and blaming another country, the king needed to know!

But maybe he already knew? She couldn’t tell from just these notes if the King was investigating Prince Hamisi on his own, or if he was just looking into the skirmishes, or what. She knew the royal family had a network of spies, though they tended to be clumsy and easy to identify. This man seemed excessively clumsy though to be carrying such precious documents only to leave them unattended in his room for even a moment. He must not know what he had.

Damn she wished she knew more about what was going on at the border for the notes to make more sense. Namjoon had ranted within earshot at some point but she wasn’t very political and had ignored him. Nonetheless, she would now make sure these landed in the King’s hand directly. 

The third didn’t have a seal. Just a dashed, unsigned note on a thin slip of paper.

Delso dead. I’m followed. Take this copy in case I’m done. Watch your back cmdr dsk on the move hunting for squeakers

Cmdr Dsk… Commander Dong-suk Kim? These things weren’t even in code! Any good spy knew the point of code! Though she considered that if the point was to get this information to the King, maybe code wasn’t useful. After all, she was not part of his spy network but understood at least some of the message that needed to make it to the king. It wasn’t actually in the King’s interest for these things to be secret, it was only in the interest of the messengers themselves but by the point someone was reading them, you were likely already dead–

A knock at the door to the room made her head jolt up as quickly as this messenger’s. He rose slowly from the table at another knock. He took a step forward and drew his blade at an even harder knock, nearly enough to take the door off its hinges.

The man started to run for the window, but the act of grabbing his pack from the bed was too slow –he ought to have grabbed and run first, the fool! And he paid dearly for it as the door crashed in, the lock shattering right out of the doorframe as one of the suspicious men she’d seen slide upstairs earlier launched himself through.

A thrown dagger caught the messenger in the back of the neck and he toppled forward, metal protruding through the front. Still his body dragged him forward but there was no fight for life possible and by the time the large man carelessly ripped the bag from his shoulder, he was still and limp.

“Is it the right room this time?” a second voice demanded. He elbowed the door back into place after a peek down the hallway. “You sure it’s him?”

“This is the guy.”

“--Is what you said about the other.”

Dulce waited, calculating. If they’d made short work of someone in another room without even her hearing, they were a trifle better at their jobs than this careless messenger. She could remain hidden and hope they left, but only an idiot wouldn’t check the fucking wardrobe.

Two to one… she’d faced worse odds. All three notes carefully down her bodice, she eased her favorite dagger from under her skirt, touched the one in her boot to make sure it was at hand, took a deep breath, then launched herself from the cabinet.

They’d upended the backpack and the bigger man’s wrist tangled in the straps, which slowed him down enough for Dulce’s blade to slash his upper arm. His other first swung around and would probably have knocked her out cold if she hadn’t ducked just as the smaller man’s blade sliced at her back. Fabric caught and tore thanks to a hook on the tip of his blade that would do even nastier things to skin if she let it, but also presented a weakness. She tried to catch her blade in it to yank it away but misjudged the angle once, twice, three times; their blades struck and slid against each other, the metal grating noise making her skin crawl. It was too much thinking and not enough movement to keep her out of reach of the second man who wasn’t that bothered after all by his cut arm: he plucked her around the waist and threw her against the wall like a rag doll.

“Quiet,” the small man hissed at him after the thud. Dulce groaned and rolled onto her stomach, wheezing. But she’d managed to save some of the breath in her lungs by curling as she flew, and took advantage of their assumption she’d be down. She dragged herself deceptively slowly forward and when the smaller man lifted a leather boot to kick her, she stabbed her smaller blade right down into the toe of his boot as hard as she could. Those fine leather boots of his parted like butter; the toes she stabbed through put up more resistance. He yowled.

“Quiet!” the bigger man mocked and lifted Dulce from the ground by the torn back of her dress, his other blade already slicing at her middle as if to gut her. She slashed at his wrist with the second knife. He tried to knock it away, opening himself up to a straight stab to the gut with the blade from her boot, and another and another. Her blade sank in several inches each time, blood rushing out as she pulled it out, but nowhere deep enough to hit anything vital.

“Fucking whore!” he bellowed and dropped her just as the other man stabbed forward. They weren’t well coordinated and managed to knock into each other while she ducked down and spun away. It only saved her a moment though before both were on her again, small blades biting anywhere they reached. The room’s space was too tight to really maneuver away and they shoved furniture, blundered into the walls, tripped over the body of the messenger, crashed against the bed. 

“Just grab her!” the smaller man shouted. Dulce instinctively leapt away from the larger man as his fist clipped the back of her head, but maybe intentionally so, it had been a distraction and the smaller man slashed at her throat, just missing. Dulce struck back but another blow to her back pushed her right into the man’s blade; she knocked it away from her belly but he brought a second around to stab at her back. She slammed her foot onto his thigh and jumped high so that his blade sliced the side of her leg instead, tangling in her ridiculous skirt and tearing fabric and skin both. She returned the favor against the man’s face, an attempt to kill him that sadly missed.

Dulce felt a meaty hand grab the front of her dress and turn her for what was undoubtedly a death blow. She turned faster than the larger man expected and wrapped around him, the strings of her bodice ripping and tangling around his hand as she slid onto his back, her blade dragging across his throat like a caress. It was butchery; she couldn’t risk her cut being too shallow again. He threw himself backwards to avoid the depth, crushing her against the dresser as his blood fountained out and his body began to thrash in in a fit of primal survival. It took all the muscles of her arm to tear that pipe. She managed to slide away from him, diving after the other man who seemed monentarily shocked that she’d managed to down his companion –but not shocked enough to meet the same fate. 

He leapt towards her as the other man still flailed, blade extended. Dulce tripped on the dead messenger and it saved her skin; neither she nor the smaller man expected her to drop just then. She rolled around him instead and stabbed at his thigh; the blade sank in but her fingers were locked too tight so when he leapt away it jerked her along too, exposing her side. Her skirt twisted around her leg and later she’d curse herself for wearing such a stupid thing. He took the opportunity, blade going right for her ribs. Her turn dragged it instead across the tops of her breasts, a shallow slice that stung like a bitch. the other side of her torn bodice caught the actual hook of his blade. She stabbed in the direction of his arm. 

He surprised her, shoving his hand down the front of her chemise. She thought he was stabbing and tried to twist away. 

Instead he pulled out the notes she’d tucked, dashed with her blood and sweat and crumbled beyond belief. He flashed her a grin and was out the window in a heartbeat, unbothered by the knife she threw at his back. Dulce tried to stumble after him, to follow him out, but her legs refused and she merely crawled forward. By the time she reached the, he was long gone and she was alone in the bloodied, broken room with two corpses, the larger one still blinking and gasping but beyond consciousness.

Dulce panted for breath and felt herself, searching for anything fatal. It had all happened so fast. Bruises and cuts she hadn’t noted in the moment competed for attention but adrenaline kept her from surrendering to any of it just yet. 

The notes were gone. 

Fuck!

That’s what they’d been looking for.

She didn’t have time to think about it right now. They’d been noisy; any moment someone was going to crash through the broken door and she couldn’t be here. She refused to take the fall for whatever she had stumbled into.

Fuck, the notes were gone. It killed her. They were exactly what she had needed! She didn’t want to leave empty handed but pounding steps in the hall told her she had seconds to act. She grabbed the messenger’s coat he had previously hung on the chair and yanked it on over her torn clothes and with her braid tucked down, pulled his hat on low, and rushed towards the door. 

“Hey! What’s going on in there!! Open up!” the inn keeper or someone matching his anger shouted ahead of themself, storming down the hall. Dulce weighed her options. She could rush out but didn’t know how many people were there. The other man had gone out the window, so there was a way. He might be waiting but it was her best change.

She grabbed her favorite blade and leapt onto the windowsill, eying the likeliest path he had taken. 

Shake all you want, but you’re moving on, she told her legs and took the leap. It was a tight scrabble. Her fingers ached for purchase. She shimmied along the narrow ledge until she reached the lower roof, then tore over it before anyone from the ground would hopefully notice her. The stables on the other side had enough boxes to leap down like a cat and off she raced as soon as her boots touched ground. Some globs of blood dotted the hay-strew ground; she’d got the man good at least once and wished now she’d at least had a good look at his face. She would never recognize him in a room and that pissed her off. He might recognize her.

She noticed  the gasps and curious, nervous glances as she sprinted down the street until she knew her legs really were about to buckle. Then she slid into an alley, turned the coat inside out, and did her best to piece herself back together. 

In doing so, she discovered she still had one paper: HD not in Sartia as directed – SD alone

Useless on its own.

Now what to fucking do. She was injured, unclear how badly. She knew she looked awful and would raise too many questions if she limped into the palace like that, but where else did she have to go? She didn’t even have the money for a room to wash her face in.

Taehyung or Yoongi? Which could she get to without being seen? Which did she trust to help and not question? What a loss that Nasimiyu couldn’t shield her now.

Neither, she didn’t trust anyone. Ever. People were only loyal as long as it served them. No oath in the world was sacred, even one of love, and they had sworn her nothing.

But she had no other options.

She took her bet and set off, already crafting her story.

“Come on,” Drin cajoled, jostling Seokjin’s arm in the hallway. “You can’t avoid the hunt.”

“I’m not avoiding anything,” Seokjin lied, lied as big and strong as the angry surf that had crashed against the sea wall all night. It called to him, that sea. Only slightly in a macabre way –and not because of the wedding planning, that was fine. He wasn’t avoiding wedding planning. Why would he be avoiding wedding planning? Nor was he avoiding his uncle, as Drin now gracefully hinted it:

“You’re either avoiding your uncle or the caves but either way, you’re fucked. Your father has sent for you. A tummyache ain’t a good reason to skip the hunt.”

“Actually I find it a very good reason,” Seokjin quipped. “Would he have me shit my horse?”

“You can’t blame a stomach to avoid uncomfortable things, little prince. Turn right around and suit up for the hunt. Wear a baby’s swaddle to hold the shit, if you need to.”

“Does no one take me seriously?”

“We know you’ve a history of avoiding–”

“I’m not avoiding anything, except maybe the kitchen.”

Because god save him if he ran into Dulce there. Not after Dulce had walked in on him… with Nasimiyu… A cold shudder ran through his body, followed by the flush of a fever of mortification. It would have been bad for anyone to walk in –didn’t anyone fucking knock?! But of all people, for it to be Dulce, it just…

He wanted to scream. To cry. To throw up. He’d done none of those things. He had quickly dressed and fled to his room and taken a hot bath to wash the sex off and considered drowning himself more than once. For all he knew, his dick had shriveled into his body and would never emerge. Certainly he was never going to have sex again. He was private about sex, thank you very much, so for an unwelcome guest to intrude–

And for it to be Dulce– on or around her birthday, of all times!

Seokjin was not easy to embarrass. But this had done it. And, with little practice in recovering from an embarrassment he rarely felt, he was, in fact, hiding from a maid. Utter shock had emboldened him to hastily scribble the note with the book and send Jimin to deliver it to wherever Dulce slept and now his interactions with her were done and he would never look her in the eye again. Which meant avoiding any of the places they might ever run into each other, including but not limited to: the kitchen where she went for food, the yard where she sometimes passed by, any of the hallways near Nasimiyu’s room, and possibly the queen’s garden where she seemed to appreciate the flowers. He wondered if Nasimiyu would be willing to come to his room from now on… assuming this hadn’t just rendered him impotent for life.

Honestly wandering into a bullet’s path in the caves seemed like not the worst way to go right now.

Because in truth Seokjin also knew he could not avoid Dulce forever, particularly if she remained Nasimiyu’s maid. 

He felt like he’d assaulted Dulce. His note wasn’t enough. He didn’t know what else to do. He’d never been in the wrong in this way towards a woman before! And she might be around any corner in this palace, ready to turn to look right through him with those dark eyes that looked so warm behind a mug of hot chocolate. The whole thing was ghastly. How his father had allegedly carried on orgies in the dining hall was beyond Seokjin. Would it have been less devastating if it was someone else? He decided not to answer that, even to himself.

“Is Nasimiyu really going?” Seokjin asked Jimin over his shoulder. “Who’s she taking with her?” The question probably said too much but Jimin was sworn to loyalty and wouldn’t rat him out, even if he figured out the question behind Seokjin’s question. Which he probably did, seeing as Seokjin had told him what happened and had him deliver the book.

“She is, Sir, and expects you are too. She’s not taking any of her maids.”

That was good enough for Seokjin. 

“Fine, I’ll go,” Seokjin said to Drin.

“What now, really?”

“I’ll go change.” 

“No, you’re off to hide. You’re dressed fine, just take your jacket off. A fight doesn’t always wait for the prince go get changed into clothes he doesn’t mind bloodying!” Drin barked, and clapped Seokjin on the shoulder. He seemed shockingly sober, likely a result of Uncle Dong-suk’s arrival. The two had served together when they were younger, as peers. But Dong-suk was royal and rose to commander and Drin shattered his arm and decided to train the prince instead of remain on the battlefield. Dong-suk was of the mindset you should die on the battlefield instead of “give in to disability,” which Seokjin thought was rich to say when you had no such injury. As if being the private arms tutor to the prince was a mark of weakness!

“Why are you so eager?” Seokjin demanded, already regretting it. “We aren’t fighting, we’re hunting.”

“Is it different?” Drin cryptically asked and strode ahead, trusting Seokjin to follow to the courtyard where the hunting party gathered. 

“Did you really think you could avoid the hunt?” Jungkook asked, sidling up to Seokjin’s elbow as the prince dragged his feet but followed his trainer. Seokjin gave him a look, because obviously yes, he did and would have, even if it meant lying to his father and uncle that he was shitting his brains out. But also no, he had known he couldn’t, because Nasimiyu was going and he couldn’t leave her to hunt alone. Why had she decided to go?! It was that bit of information from Jimin that had dragged Seokjin from his hiding place. 

She sat atop her horse with only two of her guards at hand. Taehyung wasn’t far off, a horse lead in each hand, though he looked confused. Seokjin assumed it was concern over whether Seokjin would show and went right to him, hairs on the back of his neck prickling as his father and uncle no doubt noted his late arrival.

“I’m to go with you,” Taehyung said quietly.

“You? Why, you’re a stable boy,” Seokjin scoffed for any who might hear.

“I don’t know, your uncle said so.”

Seokjin glanced over at the two elder Kim men now. Uncle Dong-suk didn’t hide that he was watching. 

“Do you think he–” Taehyung broke off and looked away, poorly hiding his nerves.

Seokjin slapped a hand on Taehyung’s shoulder and announced loudly, “Congratulations on winning the honor of joining us on the hunt! Every month we’ll take along someone new from the household staff so that you may all experience the wonder and prestige of spending a day skulking around in the dark, looking for things to kill that aren’t even good to eat. You’ll ride with me today, aren’t you lucky?”

“So lucky,” Taehyung murmured. “Here’s your horse…” He glanced at the path down to the hunting caves as if considering whether he ought to just set out for Paloma now. Seokjin thought he should. This did seem suspicious, for Dong-suk to take any notice of Taehyung. He had visited Priva a couple times since Seokjin brought Taehyung to live here and never even looked at the stablehand, but Seokjin had always assumed his uncle knew and didn’t give a shit, as he didn’t have a direct descendent in line for the throne anyway. Nothing changed for Dong-suk if it was Seokjin’s ass on the throne someday or Taehyung’s.

But this was a change. Either he hadn’t know before and now did, or he was trying to make a point that something had changed now, and Seokjin didn’t like it either way. 

“Lady,” he called to Nasimiyu as he mounted his horse, one last prayer of bailing. “Are you well today?”

Nasimiyu’s brow knit as she demanded, clearly offended, “I am, why do you ask?”

“Are you sure this is how you want to spend a day? We might do… anything else your heart desires. Literally anything.”

“Oh there are Lord Jothi and Lord Theo, should we ride with them again?” Nasimiyu asked. “I do hope you’re able to catch something this time.”

“I caught your heart last time, can’t imagine what greater prize there exists then–”

“Let’s ride!” Seokjin’s father called as if recognizing his son was still trying to weasel out of this. The two dozen mounts in the courtyard moved as one, Taehyung rushing to swing into his saddle and pulling into line next to Jungkook in Seokjin’s wake.

Conversation with Nasimiyu ran dry during the ride down. She didn’t seem much inclined to talk, giving him the suspicion he’d done something to anger her, but he couldn’t fix it because he didn’t know what. She hadn’t seemed angry at dinner last night. 

“You decided to hunt alone?” he asked as they waited for servants to bring them weapons. 

“I have my guards and you. Who else would I want?” Nasimiyu asked with what he thought might be feigned confusion.

“Last time you brought a couple of maids, didn’t you?”

“Yes and they all begged not to come again.” She said it so casually, Seokjin had no reason not to believe her. With any luck, Dulce was avoiding him the same way, and they would never cross paths again despite living in the same palace.

Yay?

Once in the grand entrance cave, Jungkook pulled his horse close to Seokjin and leaned as near he could to murmur, “It’s going to be impossible to keep an eye on Taehyung and you at the same time.”

Seokjin knew he was right. This was the easiest place in the world to kill someone. He’d always thought how stupid that man who’d tried to assassinate him had been, sending a pig to do it, when one could just do it from a ledge or around a corner and no one would ever catch you. It was a wonder more people weren’t killed here –though he had his suspicions that the dark rumors his great-grandfather had hunted men down here for sport might be very true. He suspected Grandfather had too, though the old bastard had died when Seokjin was young enough to not remember much about him except his ice-cold hands.

“Watch him closer,” Seokjin told Jungkook.

“Than–”

“Yeah. I’ll be fine. That’s your order.”

“Ok…” Jungkook said as he leaned back in his saddle. He didn’t look pleased about this but he’d never disobeyed an order before.

“I mean it. Jimin will watch after me,” Seokjin said, turning to his right-hand man.

Jimin let out a guffaw and asked, “Did you just assign me bodyguard status? You must be joking, haha.” He hesitated to accept the gun handed to him by a staff of the hunt before taking it with a look of disgust.

Nasimiyu, having heard some bits of this, asked, “Is there a problem? Why is your butler being a bodyguard?”

“It’s just a joke,” Seokjin assured her. “Are we ready? Let’s get a head start.”

“Don’t we have to wait for your father to–”

“I’m the prince so I’ll do as I please,” he said, full of shallow bravado. “Besides, I don’t want to ride with Theo and Jothi again. They were flirting with you last time.”

Nasimiyu looked surprisingly thrilled as she argued, “No they weren’t… were they? I don’t think so…” 

“Eager to lead the charge, my son?” Dong-gun called, giving his horse a swift kick to catch up before Seokjin’s party made it through the first cave. Dong-suk pulled up beside his elder brother and Seokjin bit back his frustration.

Instead he teased, “Shall we make a competition of it, father?”

“I’d rather watch your technique and see the catch myself,” Dong-suk interjected, which was of course exactly the opposite of what Seokjin wanted. Did his uncle mean to shoot Taehyung himself?! He brought no guards, only the servant assigned to fetch his kills trotting along beside him, looking terrified by his assignment as if he too realized how disposable he was as a witness.

“Well you shall… certainly be in awe…” Seokjin stammered out as Drin too pulled forward.

“A full party, eh? Just like old times,” he beamed at Dong-suk. Dong-suk did not beam back. “He’s made good progress in arms since you were here last but his sharpshooting is second to none. Fantastic aim, that one’s got.”

Dong-gun clapped his hands and pulled his horse ahead, taking an uncontested lead that Seokjin had no choice at the moment but to follow –with every intention of carving Taehyung and Nasimiyu off to get “lost” down a side cave at the first chance.

Dong-gun and Dong-suk weren’t going to make it easy. They led them, practically boxed them in, down the central corridor, right past all the twisty windy smaller paths that would have made it easier to “take a wrong turn.” No one dared rush past them, so they were the first to enter the grand central cavern with its massive forest and craggy peak –not too dissimilar from the cavern he’d explored with Nasimiyu and Dulce and those bratty upstarts last time, so that an average person might think they were the same place. That was the danger with this place, it was a death trap if you didn’t have a good guide. 

Dong-gun and Dong-suk wasted no time along the way shooting anything that moved, no hesitation. Despite his uncle’s constant criticism of Priva and its excesses, he loved the hunt. It was about the only time he saw his uncle smile, just a tight-lipped slant when a deathcry followed the crack of his rifle. He scowled when Dong-gun would get one first, their array of servants running to and fro in the dark with low lanterns trying to find whatever they’d felled or take the long way round to chase what lay strewn against the far cliffs. 

“They’re going to shoot someone,” Nasimiyu gasped as a goat went stock still in the distance, illuminated by those shimmering blue lights overhead, then collapsed not too far off from a game master who raised his hands in a silent plea not to be shot next.

Seokjin’s father heard her and scoffed, “Never, Princess. You doubt our aim?” 

In one swift motion he’d turned his rifle towards Taehyung on his horse and fired, knocking Taehyung’s hat clean off. A pinch from taking Taehyung’s head with it, most likely.

Taehyung didn’t scream, just tightened his hold on his horse as it took a couple nervous steps.  

Seokjin screamed loud enough for both of them. He shouted, “Ah ya, what’s that!? You take aim at our staff guest? Are you confused, old man? Aim your gun that way!” His heart pounded in his chest, his fear urging him to take flight and trust Taehyung to follow and get away from this place. He’d brought his only living brother into a deathtrap, that’s what he’d just done. Was their own father the threat, not Dong-suk? Seokjin was shocked by what had just happened.

His father laughed and pointed out, “See? Horse or man, Privan stallions are made of stern stuff.”

Nasimiyu’s horror showed on her face and Seokjin was glad his father couldn’t see it, afraid it would only encourage him. 

“Onwards,” Seokjin gritted out and pulled his horse forward, nudging Taehyung to ride beside him, against the wall. 

Seokjin fucking hated it here.

It wasn’t long before Nasimiyu nudged her horse up beside him, forcing Taehyung to fall back, which was probably for the best anyway. 

“Shoot something,” she hissed at him.

“What?”

“We’re here to hunt, so hunt, or they’re going to be shooting at you next,” she whispered harshly. “The whole thing is a test, isn’t it? Your uncle is watching you so do something!”

Seokjin didn’t know how to explain a lifetime of misery and fear of his uncle to her. He didn’t think she’d be impressed anyway. What was he going to tell her, that anything more intelligent than a fish he found nauseating to kill? It wasn’t like they were killing to eat out of necessity down here. The game alway tasted like rocks. 

He was glad she realized there were politics going on but disappointed she wanted him to play into them, even though he recognized she was probably right. 

Drin was right that his aim was good; if he aimed true, he could fell something quickly, appease his father and uncle, impress his bride-to-be, and maybe protect Taehyung in case that had been meant as some kind of weird show of power. 

“Very well,” he murmured. “Yes, it’s about time I show off my marksmanship.” He took his time loading his gun as their horses dawdled after the others. He looked around for something inoffensive to murder, but the blue lights gave everything the same unearthly glow and made it hard to distinguish a mouse from a monkey in the trees. He looked at the ridge instead, and in doing so noted a something-or-other silhouetted against the stream trickling through the center of this stretch of cavern. 

“Perfect shot, I should think,” Dong-suk mused from ahead, his horse blocking the path for everyone. His gaze tore into Seokjin, digging in deep, finding him lacking as always.

Seokjin raised his gun and aimed. It didn’t matter what it was at this point, he didn’t have a way out without further ridicule. His brother’s life might be in danger. He had to pull the trigger.

He hesitated.

A crack erupted, bouncing around them, echoing in Seokjin’s ears. The black lump slipped from the tree branch. Seokjin wanted to do the same from his horse but remained frozen.

“Fantastic shot, my son!” Dong-gun cheered. “Go fetch it, whatever it was. An owl?”

“I hope not…” Seokjin joked vaguely, and resisted looking except out of his periphery at Taehyung shoving the smoking barrel of his gun out of view under the pretense he was looking down the barrel still trying to find something to shoot.

“That was a great shot, Your Highness,” he called over his shoulder to Seokjin.

“Marvelous,” Nasimiyu agreed. She gave him a smirk, leaving him unsure if she had been fooled or not.

“Hm,” his uncle said. Seokjin doubted he was fooled but either way, didn’t say anything.

It was a kestrel. Beautiful. Seokjin hadn’t even actually killed it and still looked away.

They rode on, into a smaller cave called The Aviary thanks to the hundreds of birds that roosted in the trees that grew up and the vines that dangled down and the clear space in between.

“Can’t miss in here,” Dong-gun called back. “Want a go, Princess? I think your rifle’s still cold.”

“Of course!” she called back. “I’ve just been watching to learn the layout of the caves.” Seokjin started to tell her she didn’t have to –he’d take the attention away– but Nasimiyu lifted her rifle and fired once– twice– nothing. She handed it to her servant to reload, hand waving for them to hurry. Seokjin didn’t think she’d aimed at anything and decided she must be firing wide.

Except her next shot connected. Seokjin didn’t see what it was as he had been watching her face, but the cheer went up, he heard the broken cry behind him, and he saw Nasimiyu’s face –shocked, horrified, for only a moment, and then triumphant. Had she had a change of heart or pulled on a mask?

The bird was brought to her, a beautiful yellow-feathered song bird that draped across her hands, a bright messy red spot on its stomach where her bullet had punctured and killed. She stared at it and then at Seokjin, like she wasn’t sure what to do with this.

“What is it?”

“We call them Sun Singers,” Seokjin told her. “They sing every morning when the sun rises but not down here. They can’t see the sun so they never sing.” Do you understand how fucking sad that is? He was afraid she wouldn’t get it. He felt an innate certainty Dulce would.

“My lady, do you wish to have it stuffed?” the servant asked her.

Her face flickered with emotions he couldn’t name as she asked, “Can it not be eaten?”

“No, they only sing, they aren’t good for eating.”

“Take it away,” she said, thrusting it back at the servant. Dong-gun and Dong-suk had both brought down geese and Taehyung a duck. Rifle cracks left and right made Seokjin flinch. And the niggling worry in his stomach that his uncle knew he’d faked the shot earlier. He felt his uncle’s eyes on him even when they weren’t, the man sitting proudly on his horse obnoxiously nearby, in between Drin and Taehyung. Shit, he didn’t want his uncle anywhere near Taehyung!

In a hurry to cause a commotion and separate them, Seokjin raised his rifle. He’d shoot a bird, a duck if he could manage it, and invite his uncle over to inspect the bird and feel his warm rifle for proof he’d shot it, and then growl at Jungkook and Jimin to bookend Taehyung and not leave his side until they got out of this place.

There, a bird perfectly arching into view. Seokjin aimed, calculated, and pulled the trigger.

No one would be able to say whether it was the shot that spooked the horse or not, except that Jungkook would swear the horse jumped before the shot and Seokjin believed him because Privan horses didn’t spook. It was too quick. He was certain there had been nothing even close to his line of firing at the moment he pulled the trigger and yet suddenly there was Drin, nearly taking a bullet through the head.

This time Seokjin didn’t scream, just dropped from his horse and ran over as Drin did the same, slapping at his head like a bee had stung him.

“Damn horse!” Drin shouted. 

Seokjin grabbed his arms but Drin shoved him away in his startle, leaving a bloody handprint on Seokjin’s arm.

I’ve killed him. I’ve fucking killed him.

“Your head’s still on,” Dong-suk called, his voice cutting through the chaos. Seokjin reached for Drin again but Dong-gun took hold of him first and shone a light to the back of Drin’s head where the bullet had grazed but not penetrated. A red line across his scalp wept blood.

“I… I’m sorry…” Seokjin stammered, stumbling backwards.

Suddenly Drin laughed and gestured at Dong-suk, “That’s right, old man. I told you he’s got a good aim, eh? Bends bullets in mid-flight. Could have blown my head off thanks to that damn horse startling!”

But it didn’t make sense. Seokjin was too horrified to figure out what would. All he knew was that he’d almost killed his arms master, one of his friends. He didn’t know how he would have dealt with that. He couldn’t comprehend it.

Drin planted a shaking hand on Seokjin’s shoulder and laughed, “Good one, Sir. Think I’ll head back and get my rock stitched up now, no more hunting competition from me today!”

“I’ll go back with you,” Seokjin insisted.

“Nah, don’t bother. Still need to get your duck for dinner like you vowed!”

A crack over their heads echoed, followed shortly by the thump of a carcass hitting the path not far off. Taehyung lowered his smoking gun.

“I saved you the trouble, Your Highness,” Taehyung said to Seokjin, his brow lowered and serious. “There’s a duck for you.”

Uncle Dong-suk slid from the horse himself to pick it up and mused, “Nice shot, boy.”

“Great. That’s the end of the day for me. Nasimiyu, will you accompany me back to the palace as well? You come too, my horse will only settle for you,” Seokjin rattled off, calling his people to him, prepared for his father and uncle to protest his rapid departure. But terror strengthened his blood to iron and he would have shouted down his own father to get out of there

He’d almost killed Drin.

By the time he was in his saddle, Dong-gun and Dong-suk were laughing at these “children with their brief stamina” and venturing further into the cave. 

“I’ll lead us out,” he said. “Drin, are you able to stay horsed?”

“It’s not that bloody bad, nothing a stiff drink won’t pull me through,” the man insisted, sounding more like himself as he fished a flask out of his saddlebag. He needed help getting back into his saddle after the servants finished tying the makeshift bandage around his head, but once there seemed stable enough. 

“Do you know the way out?” Nasimiyu asked. She’d been quiet for a while. Seokjin had forgotten all about her, to be honest. What would she make of this? But it almost seemed like she’d missed it all; she kept glancing at the game bag attached to her saddle. She reached out and pushed the golden feathers peeking out deeper into the sack.

“I do,” Seokjin said simply and pulled his horse ahead.

It wasn’t until they were safely in the sunny courtyard, Drin off to the hands of the palace doctors, that Jungkook came right to Seokjin’s side and said quietly, “The horse jumped before the gunshot.”

“I almost killed him,” Seokjin rushed out, grabbing Jungkook’s arm. He felt less steady now than he had in the cave.

“It wouldn’t have been your fault. I’m telling you, the horse jumped at nothing.”

“I don’t think it was nothing,” Taehyung argued. “But whatever he did, I couldn’t see it clearly.”

“Who?” Seokjin asked even though he already knew the answer.

“Your uncle. Had to be him, but I couldn’t see it…”

“There were other servants around and it was dark,” Jimin pointed out. “Could have been someone else.”

“Why would anyone else give Drin’s horse a kick? Everyone around here likes Drin,” Jungkook argued.

It was Taehyung who swallowed and suggested, “Maybe they didn’t mean to kick his horse. Maybe it was supposed to be mine.”

The suggestion made Seokjin feel even clammier than he already did. As bad as it would have been to kill his swordsmaster, to kill Taehyung would be worse. He wasn’t sure he could live with it. He didn’t even want to kill a duck.

Seokjin didn’t know what to do about any of this. He didn’t want Taehyung to go, but clearly he wasn’t safe right now. If Dong-suk wanted him dead, nowhere would be safe though.

“Jungkook, stay with Taehyung. I’m going to my room so I don’t need a guard. Taehyung you should… pack.”

Taehyung’s face shifted quickly into complaint, as if he hadn’t just faced his own death once or possibly twice. 

“But I can’t leave yet.”

“Or die? You have to go if I have to wrap you in a carpet and toss you on a ship myself.” He paused, watching Nasimiyu speaking to the servant near her own horse, gesturing with disdain at the game bag the servant kept trying to press on her. 

Taehyung stomped off without further comment but clearly pissed. As if Seokjin wanted him to go! He couldn’t put into words how much he wanted Taehyung to stay here. He’d never been good at expressing brotherly devotion of any sort, and Seok-ho was the brother he’d been with for most of his life, but Taehyung must know that Seokjin cared very much for him! They would always be brothers, even if they couldn’t be in the same city, at least for now. 

Nasimiyu was gone. Seokjin was glad. He didn’t feel like facing her right now either. He wished he could just disappear. Even his bedroom wasn’t far remote enough, but it’s the only place he had, and so he went.

Nasimiyu bit back her sigh when the summons from Lady Zselyke came. The summons. Obviously it wasn’t worded quite as such but the intention was clear, and for now she had to endure it because until she actually wed Seokjin, the two of them were in an odd inversion of their proper roles. Lady Zselyke was the only female member of the Kim family, and older, and clearly extending her hand in an attempt to be some sort of mentor.

Annoying.

Nasimiyu had begged off the last invitation(s), and planned to do so again, claiming exhaustion from the hunt that morning. A week wouldn’t have been enough time to recover from all that and it had only been a few hours.

But the invitation had included a warning that the party was at risk, and anyway what else was she going to do, pace her room and try to get that dead bird out of her mind? How stupid to be bothered by a dead bird. Not that she thought the bird was the worst part of it, but that was the ghost her mind chose to haunt her with in every still moment right now, rather than the almost two deaths she had witnessed, one at her own fiance’s hand and the other by her father-in-law’s atrocious bravado.

So she went. Lady Zselyke wanted to discuss some of the details of the wedding party –unavoidable. The wedding itself was being carefully managed by the planner, but the party afterwards was supposed to be planned by Nasimiyu as a first show of her critically important role… as the royal party planner.

Annoying.

Nasimiyu put herself into a dress that already had a tricky seam on the verge of ripping, intentionally, so she could do so after an acceptable period of time and excuse herself to have it fixed. That was something Dulce had taught her early on –Nasimiyu could recall it in vivid detail: shortly after they’d finished fucking, Dulce had gone to get her trousers and a heavy ball had fallen out of her pocket and emitted a horrible stench that drove them both coughing from the room. A literal stink bomb. Laughing, Dulce had explained one should always plan an exit, though it was regrettable, she had not intended to use it with Nasimiyu. At least not that day.

Always plan your exit.

Even from an romantic entanglement?, Nasimiyu had teased.

Always.

Nasimiyu frowned at the maid who stepped ahead to open the door of Lady Zselyke’s parlor. Babs. She had Babs, hated that name, hated how overly eager the woman was to do the things Nasimiyu wanted ahead of her even asking. She didn’t like maids who acted like she was a cruel or unfair mistress when she really tried not to be unreasonable. She tried to treat them kindly. For example, when they had all looked horrified about who she would take on the hunt with her since it wasn’t going to be Dulce, she’d decided to take none of them. Kindness! It wasn’t like she wanted to be there either, but she needed the respect of the king and that nightmare military brother of his. 

Anyway she had strongly believed Seokjin would beg off anyway and then she would decline the invitation without him… but he’d bloody gone! And shot nothing and nearly killed someone. What sort of man took credit for a stablehand’s shot? Not that she was going to point that out in the moment.

ANNOYING.

Nasimiyu sat across from Lady Zselyke in the elegant, tastefully decorated parlor. So much of the palace was ostentatious but these rooms were slightly less so.

“Did you decorate in here?” Nasimiyu asked when Lady Zselyke had said nothing, only watched with her hands folded, clearly waiting for something.

“I did.”

“Did you decorate the rest of the palace?”

Lady Zselyke’s lips gave a tight tremble before she answered, “Some… it’s largely set by the late Queen’s tastes and the King’s though, and the King requires me to uphold it.”

“That’s a shame. You have lovely taste,” Nasimiyu said. Then, realizing it would be easy to read an insult to her royal in-laws from what she’d said, she appended, “I just mean–”

“You don’t have to excuse flattery towards me. I appreciate a discerning eye. The Queen had other interests. The King has other talents.” She said it in such a coy way that Nasimiyu wanted to recoil from; it sounded sexual. As far as she knew, there was no sex between these cousins, but the gutcheck made her tread a bit more cautiously. She wondered what Dulce would make of that idea…

“Well soon it will be yours to redecorate the palace as you like,” Lady Zselyke mused, looking around her room as though trying to picture it with Nasimiyu’s style. “Will you make it look very different, do you think?”

“Do you mean like home? It would take a monumental effort to make this Privan palace look Marvonese.”

“You will have all the money and workers you could hope for at your disposal. You could make this palace look exactly like… there.” The word sounded loaded, like a single syllable conveyed all Lady Zselyke had to say about Marvonese style. In short, she didn’t like it.

Nasimiyu felt insulted and said archly, “It ought to reflect the convergence of mine and Seokjin’s styles, don’t you think? Where is it you spent your childhood, Lady Zselyke? I don’t think it was here, was it?”

“Sartia.”

“Is that what this style is? I’ve never been to Sartia.”

“I don’t think it would be to your liking, since you don’t like the sea.”

Nasimiyu found it interesting Zselyke knew that about her. She had certainly never admitted that to anyone except Dulce. It made her wonder if Dulce and Zselyke had gotten close. She certainly didn’t know everything Dulce had gotten up to. She couldn’t be trusted after all; maybe she was fucking the king’s cousin to get information, who even knew with that girl anymore?

“Sugar?” Lady Zselyke offered

“No, thank you. The tea here is already so sweet,” Nasimiyu quickly intervened, reaching for the tea cup Lady Zselyke had poured. 

“You don’t like sweet things?”

“Not particularly, no.”

“The world runs on sweet things,” Lady Zselyke said, which Nasimiyu didn’t even pretend to understand. Her face must have shown it, because Zselyke clarified, “Any party must have sweet things. The nobles here prefer them. If you mean not to have sweets…”

Nasimiyu’s nose crinkled before she decided, “Why don’t you just choose the sweets for the wedding party then. That’s what we’re here to talk about, right?”

“Yes, we need to, I’m afraid we’re woefully behind schedule, especially if you have any grand ambitions.”

“I really don’t.”

“You should.”

“I’ll be honest, Lady Zselyke, I love attending parties, but I do not love planning them,” Nasimiyu said because she might as well be upfront about it.

Lady Zselyke looked aghast and argued, “You must learn to love it then, because it will be the most important thing you do as queen.”

“I hope that’s not true.”

“The delicate balance of maintaining power by managing the nobles– do you think Seokjin will do that?!” Zselyke screeched at her.

“He’s… charming, isn’t it?” Nasimiyu tried. She had not expected this cousin to shout at her and it caught her off-guard.

“Charming my left foot!” In her anger, she yanked up the teapot and refilled Nasimiyu’s empty cup and seemed to have forgotten Nasimiyu didn’t like sugar because she spooned some right in as she continued to berate, “Do you mean to say you won’t learn these skills and plan to let the social structure of the palace just die? The nobles here expect a certain schedule of entertainment! When important guests arrive from other places, they must be tended to! They–”

“It’s not that I don’t recognize how important it is,” Nasimiyu assured her, lifting her cup. Her own mother had certainly never yelled like this and she didn’t know what to do about it. It ought to fill her with rage but she was genuinely just stupefied. “I just don’t…”

“Like it?!

“Well no, not the planning part. I don’t have any talent for it and you do. Do you like doing it?”

“It is one of the most sacred tasks I’ve had since coming to the palace after the late Queen passed. Her taste in decor may have been questionable but she threw marvelous parties and I knew I needed to carefully maintain that so that her death wouldn’t pitch the nobility and thus the country into absolute chaos.”

“Well if you like it and you’re good at it, why don’t you keep doing it?” 

Lady Zselyke’s brow knitted as she explained, “Because I will not be here.”

“Why not?” Nasimiyu set the tea cup down without sipping it, intending to ask for a new one without sugar.

“Because… because you will be queen and not want an older woman here interfering with your work…” Lady Zselyke had stopped yelling and suddenly looked uncertain. “You did not know I would be sent away?”

“Who would send you away? Not I.” Nasimiyu did her best to look sincere about it. Honestly she had no love for this stuffy older woman but it hadn’t occurred to her that Zselyke would be gone. She saw at once how dismal it would be to take on the things Zselyke already managed. Dreary enough that enduring her was likely worth it. Besides, she managed Dong-gun and Seokjin to a degree, and even Dong-suk. She knew a great deal. Maybe it was at least worth keeping her around until they were gone. Nasimiyu couldn’t see Zselyke supporting her as queen if the Kim men were dead, and she might not want that, but… she might. Zselyke might do it, if she didn’t think Nasimiyu had any hands in the deaths. Regardless of her personal feelings about Zselyke, she knew things, she seemed actually quite good at what she did. That could be useful.

Lady Zselyke was watching her with unmasked confusion now and clarified, “You would not make me leave? Queen Soon-hee did the moment she married Dong-gun.”

“Why?”

“Well, that… that’s not something I can know…” she instantly fumbled out, clearly hiding some truth or at least suspicion. “It’s tradition, though. A queen mother will be sent to retire in Sartia and I am almost like a queen mother.” As soon as she said it, she looked like she regretted it. 

Nasimiyu grinned. She felt like she had just found a very pretty knife.

“I think you are too,” she agreed. “In a good way. I can’t imagine running this palace without you, it never occurred to me I would need to. I don’t want to. I refuse.”

Zselyke’s light skin turned a fascinating shade of pink, like she’d sat in the sun too long.

“Oh! But…”

“Maybe if the King retires at some point to someplace nice like Sartia, you would want to go with him, but I expect he will remain on the throne for a long time even once Seokjin and I marry.”

“Yes, you won’t be queen but you’ll be the crown princess which is the same thing in the absence of a queen,” Zselyke countered. 

“I don’t think tradition should dictate what we do when it’s not… convenient. I don’t see why you should be sent away or robbed of the duties you enjoy just because I’m here.” She mindlessly picked up the teacup again. “I can easily see a world where you maintain your status here and oversee the things you care so much about and are recognized and appreciated for it, which frees me up to attend to the things I care about –like supporting Seokjin, for instance. Raising his children.” She suspected Zselyke would struggle to accept an ambitious political princess just yet.

“He does need a great deal of support,” Lady Zselyke said slowly. “The kingly duties don’t come naturally to him…”

Nasimiyu smiled and nodded, agreeing, “He can learn with a wife nudging him along, and King Dong-gun can rest easier seeing his son take his future role more seriously.”

“Two women have never run the palace together before,” Zselyke said. Her words seemed to be poking at Nasimiyu, trying to find a lie or a threat.

“Women in Marvono know how to work together and rely on each other. I very much want to rely on you, Lady Zselyke. I wouldn’t dream of replacing you. Your balls would be a crucial loss to Priva!”

“I…” Lady Zselyke blinked rapidly at her, heavily stained eyelashes leaving residue on the tops of her cheeks. Clearly none of this had occurred to her.

“Together we can keep the Kim line respectable and strong, don’t you think?” Nasimiyu suggested as her finishing move. She lifted her tea cup to take a dramatic sip.

“Oh dear!” Lady Zselyke gasped, lunging forward. “You don’t like sugar! I put sugar in there! Let me trade that for you.” She wrenched the cup out of Nasimiyu’s hand in the blink of an eye and set it hastily on another saucer. “I think eventually you will need to take over these things from me… but maybe not… and in the meantime you can learn from me. It doesn’t seem you’ve been trained in any of these types of things. Things must be done very differently in Marvono…” She sloshed a little tea out of the cup in her haste to pour Nasimiyu a new one.

The door flung open before Nasimiyu could respond and in strode Mindeulle. Nasimiyu did not miss the way Lady Zselyke’s face hardened, despite Mindeulle’s bright smile and polite curtsy.

“I’m so sorry to intrude, but I’ve been looking for the Princess. Might I have a word?”

“Why don’t you join us?” Lady Zselyke offered instead. “We need to discuss wedding plans and then you can have her.”

“It will only take me a moment.”

“It can wait, I’m sure. Have a seat.” There was an edge to Lady Zselyke’s words that got Mindeulle to promptly do so. “Sugar?”

“No thank you,” Mindeulle muttered as Lady Zselyke poured her a cup. Servants fluttered in at a snap of her finger to refill the pot, which was getting low. Flowers and leaves danced inside the glass pot, briefly mesmerizing Nasimiyu.

“We are discussing Nasimiyu’s elaborate wedding party and what will best capture the deep love she and Seokjin share.”

Do we? was on the tip of Nasimiyu’s tongue. She didn’t say it, but Mindeulle gave her an amused smile as if she had, which gave her a start.

“I’m sure it’s going to be beautiful,” Mindeulle said.

“The wedding of a century,” Zselyke agreed. Nasimiyu did not understand why Zselyke sounded so defensive about it, unless this was just her enthusiasm about remaining here as a royal party planner showing through. “Seokjin has told me to spare no expense, he wants the world to understand how deep his love and devotion to his bride are.”

“That’s lovely,” Mindeulle said.

“It is,” Zselyke agreed.

The fact they hated each other seemed very obvious to Nasimiyu and now it was her turn to smile. If they both remained in the palace with her after she married, that would be perfect. The two of them hating each other would make them eager to be her most trusted and relied upon, and she could trust they would never join forces to work against her.

It amused her to watch them politely bicker as more details of the party were discussed; Mindeulle seemed just as eager for it to be perfect and her own suggestions seemed to rile Lady Zselyke into even grander plans. Nasimiyu would have been happy to eat her olive and thyme biscuits and let them have at it and giggle through whatever resulting wedding party they planned but the door opened again and in came Lidmila.

“It’s a regular party isn’t it? I didn’t plan for this,” Lady Zselyke murmured as Lidmila curtsied and sat in the final chair at the table without being asked.

“I apologize for my unexpected arrival. My parents are here but I wanted to find the Princess for company instead. Is it all right if I join?”

“Yes yes of course. What business do your parents have here?”

“I don’t know, to be honest. Something with the tax collector or the city planner?”

“That seems like business for your father, not your mother,” Lady Zselyke said. 

“Sometimes my mother helps with those things, I think…”

Lady Zselyke shook her head at this and sighed, “It’s quite a business, being a wife.”

“Have you never regretted not marrying?” Mindeulle asked, a twinkle coming to her eye that hooked Nasimiyu’s attention.

“Heavens, no! Of course it’s a high calling to be a wife, however…” Lady Zselyke looked embarrassed by her answer and like she wasn’t sure how to respond. “I’m sure you will all make good little wives. My hands are quite full supporting the King.”

Honestly, did she hear herself? Probably Dulce could find out in an instant what the real relationship was there but Nasimiyu was not sure she wanted to know.

“But what will you do once Nasimiyu is queen?” Mindeulle asked. “You won’t be needed here anymore.”

“Actually I’ve asked Lady Zselyke to stay and support just the way she does now,” Nasimiyu quickly interjected. 

Lady Zselyke gave Mindeulle a smirk and agreed, “Of course I have accepted. Nasimiyu recognizes the value of this work and her own untrained skill for it so it will be an honor.” She dumped a spoonful of sugar in Mindeulle’s drink and poured more black for Nasimiyu. Lidmila had not yet touched the cup on her saucer, Nasimiyu’s discarded sugared tea from earlier, now gone cold.

“Oh, I don’t like sugar in my tea,” Mindeulle said. “May I have a different glass?”

“Dear, I forgot. Well it’s only a little bit of sugar,” Lady Zselyke dismissed. 

“I’m sure we can get a new tea cup,” Nasimiyu laughed. 

“I don’t mind sugar and I didn’t add any to mine. Why don’t we trade, Mindeulle? It’s a little cold though,” Lidmila suggested, passing hers across the table.

“Don’t be silly, that’s a perfect way to get sick.” Zselyke tutted and blocked the pass with her hand, nudging both cups back towards their original owners. Nasimiyu could not make sense of such crazy behavior but thought it was rather funny. Lidmila and Mindeulle seemed briefly mystified and set their cups back in their sauces.

“I’m not very thirsty. I’ll have a cookie instead,” Mindeulle decided. She nudged her tea setting closer to Lady Zselyke to make room for a plate, helping herself to several different pastries from the trays in the center.

“I’ve had enough tea and I can assure you I’m not ill,” Nasimiyu offered, pushing her cup closer to Mindeulle. “I’ve taken no sugar so you can have my cup.”

“Oh, there’s sugar in mine after all,” Lidmila realized, looking into her cup.

“Have you tasted it?” Lady Zselyke asked her, her voice rising so abruptly in pitch it startled them all. She pounded her chest and couch delicately into a napkin. “Did you like the tea? How much did you try?”

“I haven’t yet. Is it very special? Is it better to taste it without sugar then?” Lidmila considered.

Lady Zselyke nodded and reached for the cup, insisting, “Yes, you’ll like it better without. That’s the Princess’ old cup. We’ll get you a fresh cup.”

“I do like sugar and sweet things though, is it bitter? I don’t mind that it’s cold for a first taste so it won’t burn my tongue.”

“Try it without,” Lady Zselyke insisted, snatching the tea cup away from her. She went to set it on her own saucer but paused, hand hovering over hers and Mindeulle’s cups now right next to each other. 

Nasimiyu laughed, “It’s like a game. I’m not sure which is yours anymore, they’re all mixed up. It doesn’t matter though does it? I’m sure we’re all healthy here and close companions can share a tea cup.” She hoped it would encourage a sort of bond between the group to begin forming. Lady Zselyke was older but not old. It would be good to have some close companions who weren’t all younger than herself. She could learn to like Zselyke, probably.

“Oh nonsense, we don’t have to go so far as trading tea cups,” Zselyke immediately intervened. “We need another setting!” she called to the servants with a clap of her hands. “Take these three away,” she commanded. “And bring a fresh bowl of sugar, Miss Lidmila likes her tea sweet.”

Lidmila giggled and pointed to the full sugar bowl, insisting, “I don’t need more than that in my tea!”

“If you like sweet things, I think raw sugar will taste better than this refined stuff,” Lady Zselyke told her. “Minor details matter. A subtle change can have a great impact, it’s an important lesson for young ladies.”

“My brother says the same thing,” Mindeulle chirped.

Lady Zselyke looked down her nose at Mindeulle and insisted, “I don’t think we need to talk about your brother’s words to young ladies. There is more to discuss than men.”

Nasimiyu reached out to grab Mindeulle’s hand, fully expecting her to launch from the table. She did not, just stared at Zselyke so blankly that it felt menacing.

“Like Nasimiyu’s wedding! Oh, but that’s to a man…” Lidmila mused with a thoughtful frown. It was endearing. Nasimiyu found herself chuckling under her breath. Honestly she would have expected to find someone with Lidmila’s innocence obnoxious, but it was actually refreshing to be around someone so sincere and good-intentioned. Nasimiyu wasn’t used to those sorts of people. Lidmila might be one of the only truly good people she had ever met. Simple, but good.

Mindeulle must be on that list too, though the sharpness of her mind as she gradually revealed it made her seem less doe-eyed about the world. She too had that air of enthusiasm as she pressed Lady Zselyke on what else she was thinking of for Nasimiyu’s wedding, and if she intended to plan the honeymoon too. There was an edge to her Nasimiyu liked a lot.

“What do you mean by that? Of course I will, if you’d like me to, Nasimiyu darling.”

“You suggested Sartia before–”

“But you don’t like the sea, so… hm, I will think on it,” Zselyke said.

“You don’t like the sea?” Mindeulle and Lidmila both parroted.

“It’s all right. Maybe I should take Seokjin to Marvono instead…”

“Maybe you’d like Therepin more,” Mindeulle suggested. “It has the elegance and beauty and splendor of Sartia, but no seas.”

Zselyke looked repulsed and gasped, “Therepin is no place for a honeymoon!”

“Why, because you don’t like the government there? I’ve never honeymooned but I don’t think government is very involved…” Mindeulle tittered. Lidmila’s face opened up in surprised laughter and Zselyke seemed angry. “None of us have honeymooned, maybe we should ask someone else to plan it.”

“I am quite capable!” Zselyke scowled. “Less taunting me and more eating, girls, it’s important to keep our strength up until supper.”

“But our figures…” Lidmila pointed out.

Zselyke gave her a gentle smile and assured her, “You have nothing to worry about. And Therepin adheres to no such beauty standards, so Mindeulle’s prospects won’t be upset by some extra padding.”

“Not that I care about my weight, but why would I look for a husband in Therepin?” Mindeulle countered. 

Nasimiyu ate her cookies and felt like this was all rather a lot of fun, watching the back and forth. Dulce would hate this, but she found it amusing.

“I suppose your brother and parents will, regardless.”

“They take into account my wishes. They’ll let me choose the partner I want.”

“Will they?” Zselyke pressed and it seemed so pointed, Nasimiyu could tell she must know something and be taunting Mindeulle with it. She wanted to know too –not to taunt, but just to know. 

“What does that mean?” Nasimiyu intervened as Mindeulle looked troubled. “Do you have a personal tragedy, Mindeulle? You don’t need to say at the table but if you’d like to talk in private– if there’s anything I can do to aid you–”

Mindeulle pressed a hand to her flushed cheek and insisted, “No, Princess, there’s nothing. Lady Zselyke only speaks in riddles to make it sound like she knows more than she does.”

“Didn’t you come here to find a husband? To Priva, I mean?” Lidmila suggested, perhaps in an attempt to help. “There are so many men here who I’m sure would be honored by your attention.”

“I came with my brother,” Mindeulle said simply, even though Nasimiyu vaguely thought she’d heard Mindeulle mention before she wanted to marry here and remain. Hadn’t that been a hope she had for the ball? She couldn’t recall clearly now.

“Well you certainly aren’t going to find a husband spending all your time with your brother and Seokjin,” Lady Zselyke scoffed. “They are related and taken. I suspect your parents will call you home soon for a match.”

“Not if I don’t wish to marry,” Mindeulle countered. “You have never married, Lady Zselyke, and you spoke moments ago about it as a burden. Surely you had your reasons?”

Lady Zselyke filled their tea cups and said airly, “I did. There are many types of love which are worthy of a life’s devotion. Your devotion to the prince is admirable but inappropriate now that he will have a wife.”

“I–!” Mindeulle gasped. She looked quickly to Nasimiyu and insisted, “It’s not that, I promise. He is like a brother to me!”

“I know that,” Nasimiyu assured her. For all she knew, Mindeulle did have a crush on Seokjin, but it failed to trigger any jealousy in Nasimiyu. There didn’t seem to be anything adult about it if it was there, more like childish admiration. She hadn’t witnessed a single ambitious attempt, nor did Seokjin act any way towards her but brotherly. “I’m sure Lady Zselyke didn’t mean to be a gossip,” Nasimiyu admonished, arching her eyebrow at the older woman smirking to herself as she served Mindeulle more tea.

“Oh yes, I meant nothing by it, except that with men, you can never be too careful. You will have to curb your closeness with him so that it doesn’t cause… problems,” Zselyke scolded as she dumped a heaping spoonful of sugar thoughtlessly into Mindeulle’s tea. “I’m sorry I ruffled your feathers. Have some tea and settle down about it, have another pastry.”

“You’ve put sugar in it again,” Nasimiyu said, deftly reaching for Mindeulle’s tea cup and handing over her own. “Mine has none, we can trade.”

“You don’t like sweet things,” Mindeulle said. Nasimiyu found herself surprised each time the people around her knew things about her she had not explicitly told them. It made her feel very special and admired and flattered her into insisting,

“It’s not a hard rule. My lips are plenty puckered by now, some sweet on my tongue may be a relief.” 

“No, the tea is much better without that refined stuff–” Lady Zselyke said, rising from her seat and reaching for Nasimiyu’s cup.

Lidmila suddenly kicked the table hard and cried out, “Ah! My ankle got caught in my skirt and I’ve hit my shin…”

The flurry of commotion was all startling enough that Nasimiyu put her cup down, laughing, “Is there alcohol in the tea? Why is everyone so clumsy suddenly?”

“There is certainly nothing like that in the tea,” Zselyke sniffed. “But if you tire of it, I can bring coffee or wine or juice or–”

“Nothing else, thank you,” Nasimiyu dismissed.

“She’s right that the raw sugar is better though,” Lidmila said, still rubbing her leg beneath the table as she lifted her saucer and passed it over. “Let’s trade.”

“I really don’t mind.”

“You are going to be queen, Nasimiyu, you should let those around you take care of simple things,” Mindeulle insisted. So Nasimiyu was shamed into trading teacups with Lidmila, who looked adorably proud to have made the swap and settled herself with the apparently less-desirable white sugared tea. 

However before she could even have a sip, Lady Zselyke reached for a pastry but her dragging sleeve managed to upset the whole sugar bowl and Lidmila’s tea cup.

“Oh goodness,” Zselyke gasped. “I’ve made a mess of my own tea…” She gave Nasimiyu the kindest smile of their acquaintance so far and laughed, “Maybe the tea did get us all a little drunk! It’s only flowers in there… maybe it’s the talk of weddings going to our heads!”

The table was soaked now though, they’d all logged themselves with unsweetened tea, and the pastries were going stale. Nasimiyu thought everyone seemed relieved when she suggested tea come to a close for now, and promised to meet with Zselyke again the next day to resume their wedding chat, and suggested Lidmila take a turn with her in the garden, and Mindeulle too if she wished.

“I would love to, but I really only need to ask you a question and then return a letter to my parents,” Mindeulle said as the three women left Zselyke’s parlor. 

“That’s right, you said you needed to speak with me.”

“Yes… privately, if that’s all right? It’s about… some private business,” she murmured, glancing at Lidmila. “I hope you understand.”

“Of course. Why don’t I meet you in the garden, Princess? Have your servant bring a parasol though, it looks like it might rain.”

“Don’t you need one too then?”

“Oh… maybe I can share yours? I didn’t bring one…”

“I’m sure we can,” Nasimiyu said, or else she would bring another, or they could find someplace else to walk, it really wasn’t a big deal. Lidmila seemed content with this plan and flitted off, hopefully not to wander out into the rain before Nasimiyu arrived. She was sweet but perhaps not the brightest.

Mindeulle insisted on leading Nasimiyu into a room with a closed door before she admitted, “I’m sorry if I seem so cryptic, but I’m looking into this mystery with my brother and Çiğdem.”

Nasimiyu instantly cringed and suggested gently, “Does your brother know? He may not want you poking into his personal affairs…”

“So you think he did it then?” Mindeulle caught.

“I don’t know but…” Nasimiyu thought of Namjoon fucking Dulce at the masquerade ball. “I don’t know him well enough to say anything regarding his relationships with women but I think we can all move on.”

“We can’t move on. You saw how Lady Zselyke treated me at tea, and she’s not the only one.”

“You think it was because of that? I suppose that comment was rather… barbed.” 

“Lady Zselyke already dislikes me and Namjoon because of the trouble with the Prince’s former fiance… but he has you now, that can be behind us. But this… this wasn’t him either, I’m sure of it! And now the families here want even less to do with us because they think my brother has a habit of leading women on, which he most definitely does not! He’s been framed both times and I intend to figure out who’s doing it.”

“I think you should let it go,” Nasimiyu admitted.

“But we’re being ostracized.”

“Does he care about something like that?”

“No, but… but I do. If society here shuns me I’ll have to go back to Therepin. I want to stay here.”

“I’ll protect you and your reputation, it doesn’t need to be tied to your brother’s.”

“You don’t believe me and won’t help me,” Mindeulle frowned, taking a step away.

“I didn’t say that, I just think…”

“Çiğdem’s family are not kind people. They aren’t the sort of people I want as family enemies. They are going to make you choose and if I can’t prove my brother is innocent, you’ll have to choose them.”

“I don’t have to do anything.”

“There are politics here you don’t understand yet,” Mindeulle said. When Nasimiyu shifted unhappily, Mindeulle hurried to add, “Only because you are new here and you aren’t used to these families. They are sensitive and vengeful. The only reason they haven’t outright attacked us yet is because it means admitting Çiğdem was writing letters to a man, so they’re trying to figure out something else to pin on us.”

“I’m not interested in their petty accusations–”

“But if you anger them, they will interfere with your marriage,” Mindeulle insisted. “They’re powerful enough to do it.” Mindeulle paused and seemed to think about what she said, then shook her head to clear it. “I need to clear my brother’s name. Please let me at least try.”

Nasimiyu sighed and conceded only, “What help are you asking from me?”

“I need the letters from Çiğdem. So I can compare to my brother’s handwriting and language and prove they aren’t his.” Nasimiyu had to admit that was a good plan.

“What makes you think she still has them?”

Mindeulle looked stunned and nearly laughed, “Why wouldn’t she? Don’t you keep every letter anyone has ever written you?”

“No one has ever written me letters,” Nasimiyu admitted. “Is that strange?”

Mindeulle seemed to think it was very sad.

“Well… I believe she has them,” Mindeulle insisted. “I bet even though she’s angry, she still has them. She might give them to you if you ask.”

“I’m not that close with her.”

“Or if you ask Lidmila to ask for them, even better.”

“I don’t know…

“But Lidmila will do anything you say, she worships the ground you walk on.”

Nasimiyu had to admit that seemed true. So in the end, she agreed to try. 

And as Mindeulle predicted, when Nasimiyu brought the subject up of investigating things herself with Lidmila as they strolled through the warm summer rain under a shared parasol, Lidmila readily vowed to try, too –no, to succeed! It wouldn’t be easy but she would convince Çiğdem to let them see the letters under the guise of Nasimiyu wanting to understand Namjoon’s sins for herself. Lidmila admitted Çiğdem seemed to be having a hard time letting go of it all and probably would be eager to share.

All the moving of social chess pieces left Nasimiyu exhausted by the time Lidmila left with her parents and Nasimiyu could finally flee to solitude. She tossed the parasol to the ground and slipped off her damp shoes as soon as she was through the door. She’d take a bath to get that humid sea-city slime off her skin, she decided, and called for the maids to draw the bath.

As she moved around her room undressing, trying not to notice how quiet it seemed in here lately without Dulce emerging from the shadows to slide into the bed or bath with her, she began to notice things. Little things, small things that someone without her eye for detail might not: her gowns twisted in the wardrobe in a way she nor the maids would ever leave them; her shoes lined up too perfectly when she only ever lazily kicked them off; the papers on the wrong side of the desk from where Dulce had sat writing a coded message to send to Prince Hamisi (Nasimiyu sure hadn’t touched them since then), obvious because Dulce was left handed and scratched things out hunched over the right corner of the desk like someone who’d barely learned to hold a pen.

Had someone been here? 

She didn’t like that feeling. It didn’t just scare her, it angered her, this idea that someone had come into her room –somehow, despite the guards posted outside. She looked around herself, trying to determine what someone had been looking for, what they might have found, though there weren’t secret things to find. The letters from her mother were nothing but that, nothing notable in them. She didn’t think any of her jewelry was missing, at least none of her favorites. What else would they have taken?

“Did you girls clean in here today?” she asked as she shed her clothing for a bath. The two maids looked at each other, uncertain how to answer. “If someone did, they didn’t do a very good job. My gowns are tangled up in the wardrobe.”

“We’re sorry, Princess,” they quickly said. “We’ll fix it right away.”

Well, mystery solved then. Nasimiyu sank into the bath and washed it all away. 

The palace was stifling.

Seokjin had almost killed a man.

Taehyung had almost been killed too.

He had to get out of here. Hiding in his room with the comfort of his fur babies wasn’t enough, but Jungkook wasn’t on duty so Seokjin couldn’t pull off his disguised anonymous jaunt into the city. It would be too much for him right now anyway. He needed to be alone but not alone… he didn’t have a solution for that.

Muhtar followed him at a bothersome distance, not quite far enough, as he set out for the sea wall. The sun was setting, drawing some touristy crowds to admire the vibrant hues brushed across the cloudy sky, but for the most part the people of Priva did not find a regular sunset anything remarkable. They saw this every day. They had other things to do.

Seokjin, however, still found it remarkable. He hoped the day never came that he forgot about the miracle of a sunset, how the air itself became orange and red and that honey warmth seeped into your skin. He paused once a respectable distance from the palace to take it in.

And then saw her.

He should keep walking, he knew immediately. He had no reason to approach. She sat there, legs dangling recklessly over the edge, face cast towards the sun and a hood on so that he shouldn’t have even recognized her. He could not have explained how he did. And he’d been avoiding her for days now! Muhtar was with him; he didn’t trust any of his bodyguards to keep his secrets the way he trusted Jungkook, and sitting to enjoy the sunset with the maid of his fiance was one of those things that deserved to be a secret. The last time he’d seen her, he was fucking said fiance. The last time he’d spoken to her, she’d been furious. 

He should keep walking.

He fully intended to keep walking.

He eased himself down on the ledge beside her, careful not to lose his step and plummet to his death because that would just really be the icing on this shit-cake day.

She didn’t even glance at him, as if not surprised at all. Maybe she’d somehow sensed him standing behind him. She so rarely seemed surprised by anything.

She had looked surprised when she walked in on him and Nasimiyu.

“About what you saw…”

“I didn’t see anything,” she said, voice a low murmur weaving through the aggressive crash of waves against the rocks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

So it would be like that. Yes, that was for the best.

“I only see the sunset,” she told him.

“It’s a good one.”

They sat in silence for a while. Gradually Seokjin’s mortification settled into a dull hum in the back of his mind, beat away by the waves. That experience seemed fake. Nasimiyu seemed fake, his engagement seemed fake. Certainly less real than the hues streaking the wispy clouds dawdling over their heads.

“What’s your favorite color in the sunset?” he asked. She didn’t look at him, but he could see enough of her profile to watch her brow pinch. 

Why, why was he so desperate to reach out and smooth it down?! She was just some woman. It didn’t make sense. He barely knew her at all, as she had made crystal clear. Why was it so easy to think of a thousand things he wanted to say to her, and equally easy, for once in his life, to say none of them and simply sit there watching the sunset?

“Pink,” she finally said. He’d forgotten the question and gave her a confused look. “I don’t seem like the kind of woman who likes pink?”

“I like that it makes my hair look pink,” he told her. “I think I’d look really good with pink hair.”

“Your hair doesn’t look pink.”

“A little bit.”

“Not at all,” she insisted, so seriously as she looked at it that he couldn’t help the laughter. 

It died quickly as he noticed the bruise on her cheek, the bandage on the side of her neck.

“What happened to you?” he asked, quickly turning towards her, reaching only to hover because he had no right to touch her.

“Hm?”

“You’re injured!”

“Oh. Accident in the laundry room,” she said, lifting a hand to her cheek like she’d forgotten all about it. He thought he saw the shadow of another bruise on her jaw and resisted the urge to turn her face and confirm.

“What the hells happened in the laundry room?!”

“Everything is fine. How was the hunting trip?”

He didn’t answer, torn now between the dread of what had already happened and a desire to not be shaken off from her injuries. He wasn’t sure she was telling him the truth. He hadn’t heard of an accident in the laundry that had caused serious harm to a maid. If there were safety issues, they needed to be taken care of immediately! 

“What happened in the laundry room?” he tried again.

“How was the hunting trip?”

He narrowed his eyes. She stared a moment, then turned her gaze out at the sunset in a way that made clear she would not be answering his question. 

“You know,” he shrugged. “It was… unpleasant. It’s good you didn’t go along today.”

“Might have been better than the laundry room.”

“No.” He thought of Dulce witnessing what had happened. Or, worse, Dulce being involved with what had happened. He didn’t say anything more, uncomfortable with imagining it. A horrible thought came to him, of his uncle somehow figuring out that Dulce was… notable to him. She’d be in grave danger, he was sure of it. A princess had some protection from a sadistic uncle-in-law. A maid had none. He glanced back at Murtah, worried his own bodyguard might report this to his uncle. Could anyone be trusted? Murtah was older, kind, formal, serious. He looked up and down the seawall, always on alert. 

“I don’t think it’s safe for you to go hunting down there,” Dulce said, a rush of words he hadn’t expected. He raised his eyebrows at her unexpected concern. “It’s too easy for an accident to happen. It feels like it was designed for accidents.”

“Nowhere is safe from accidents. Apparently not even laundry rooms.”

“Your joke makes it clear you’ve never been in one,” she muttered.

He had to admit, “No. Are they dangerous?”

“Yes. But a hunting party in the caves is particularly dangerous for you, I think. You’re the crown prince. You’re never safe.”

“I have a bodyguard,” he said, jerking his head towards Murtah.

“He doesn’t look very good.”

“He is.”

“He’s not even listening to our conversation to know I insulted him.”

“He’s discreet,” Seokjin argued. “He’s like you, he’s not reactive.” Dulce scrutinized the bodyguard like a duel partner, then looked back out at the water. The wind tangled in loose strands of her long hair and danced it around her face. He wondered how wild it would look if she let the hood down and her braid out. It seemed to want to curl around her neck; a perfect ringlet had formed and he had that intrusive urge to reach out and tug it. The hood made her look particularly beautiful. 

Brooding. He’d meant she looked particularly brooding.

He felt so calm right now. It was strange, he’d come out here hoping to feel that way but not expecting too. The nervous energy that had kept him restless all day got washed out to sea with each tug of the tide below. It was almost embarrassing for Dulce to see him all calm. He had an image to uphold, after all. Funny, energetic, charming.

He was tired.

“Have you ever been fishing? What’s your favorite fish?” he asked, deciding to make an effort.

“Are you ever just silent– nevermind,” she said quickly. Then, “My apologies, sorry.” He wasn’t sure that she’d ever apologized for being blunt before and was surprised to see her cheeks darken with a flush.

“What?” he laughed. “Say what you were going to say. Am I ever just silent? Not really, even when I’m alone I talk to myself.” Her lips tightened. “What does that face mean?” he laughed. 

“It’s just my face.”

“No it’s not. Are you… blushing? About what?”

“I am not,” she snapped, scowling at him, and in any other lifetime he would have grabbed and kissed her right then. He couldn’t explain it. She was so put out with him.

You want to kiss her. You need to get and stay away from her. He knew that was true. He understood this clearly in a way he had danced around for days now. Weeks? He didn’t know how long but he knew he wanted to kiss the bruise on her cheek and the one on her jaw and her fingers and that this feeling of his would get her fired at best. He couldn’t think of the worst.

“You’re quiet when you fuck, that’s what I meant,” she suddenly said, tearing her gaze away from his and crossing her arms. “Maybe that’s the only time.”

“I thought you didn’t see anything,” he cried, now his turn to blush a bright red. Here he was contemplating the tragedy of this woman bringing out the romantic in him when nothing could ever come of it and then she had to wallop him in the face like that.

“I didn’t hear anything either, that’s my point.”

Now silence enveloped them again, a less happy one. Seokjin didn’t know what to say. The thought of having sex with Nasimiyu made him want to run away screaming. Not a great foundation for a marriage but one he was going to have to work through, just like he was going to have to keep distance from Dulce, and neither thing seemed possible right now. 

No, he could do it. He would. He was the crown prince, he did tons of things he didn’t want to simply because it was his duty.

He wanted more than a duty marriage with Nasimiyu.

He needed to squash these feelings about Dulce immediately.

“I didn’t mean to criticize,” she murmured, glancing nervously at him. Probably because he was staring. She had a very pretty profile. He bet she would hate it if someone pinched her chin but it was perfectly pinchable. “Nasimiyu speaks… highly of your time together.”

He grabbed for the lifeline she’d thrown him and laughed awkwardly loudly, “Oh, lovely. She speaks of it?”

“Brags, more like.”

He knew he should be flattered. A small part of him was. 

“Yes, well, good. What can I say? I have many talents and pleasing women is one of them.” Dear gods what was he saying?

“I don’t need to hear that. When I said you don’t know me, I didn’t mean we should get to know each other,” she said. 

He laughed, flat out laughed, “Dulce, why are you so mean?”

“I… sorry. It’s been a long day.”

“Yeah for me too but I’m still my pleasant charming self. You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had. I almost watched my father kill another of my friends. It was the shittiest hunting trip you can imagine.”

“Did you shoot anything?”

“I almost killed another of my friends, does that count?”

“Taehyung?”

“No… what made you think of him?” She shrugged. “No, Master Drin, my arms masters. His horse reared and threw him in the path of bullet right as I aimed at some mysterious creature in the woods that didn’t deserve to be shot at in the first place. Sliced the back of his head open but he lives.” The words poured out, a tirade meant to make her laugh even though it wasn’t funny and he didn’t even mean it to be funny. His laugh cracked as he repeated, “I almost killed someone today.”

“People die.”

“Come now.”

“People die in hunting accidents all the time,” she said again. “That’s what I meant by you shouldn’t go.”

He grinned and nudged her arm without thinking about it, teasing, “Are you worried about me?” She stiffened and he immediately leaned away. Oops. 

She didn’t comment on the physical contact, just asked, “Have you never killed anything before?”

“I’ve shot ducks.”

“A dark stain on your soul.”

“I see their eyes every night before I sleep,” he joked. “I remember their names.”

“I don’t,” she said thoughtfully. 

“Killed a lot of ducks, have you?” 

“A few.” She said it so seriously, he couldn’t decide if she was joking or not. That made things she said even funnier, when he genuinely couldn’t tell. He had an inkling she did it on purpose. He wondered if Nasimiyu knew that about her.

“We’re still talking about ducks, aren’t we?” he teased.

“What would we be talking about?”

“Didn’t you grow up on a farm? I don’t think I have the guts for it.”

“I didn’t tell you that,” Dulce said sharply and Seokjin felt a ridiculous victory at very clearly having guessed something correctly about her. “I seem like a farm girl to you?”

“Is there anything besides farms in Paloma?” Her eyebrows raised and he snickered, “Oh no, did I just insult you?”

“You don’t know anything about Paloma.”

“No but I know you grew up on a farm.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Your reaction gave it away.”

“I don’t react,” she insisted and he felt laughter bubbling brighter in his chest. He had the playful childish urge to knock her over and wrestle now, to crow about his victory.

“You’re wrong. You have very big reactions, if you know what to look for.”

“I do not.”

“The more you deny it…”

Her face twisted in what seemed like a fake rage. She kept her mouth pressed tightly closed and stared at the sky now sliding to purples and blues. What she said earlier might seem right, that darker colors suited her style more, but he loved knowing now that she liked pink. 

“I hate farms,” she said, possibly the closest to a confirmation he would ever get. He didn’t think it was a joke. There was an air of sadness to her voice that seemed shockingly sincere. 

Or was he projecting it all? He realized that was possible. He might be sitting here feeling like their hearts were stitching together in a way that was going to hurt very much when he stood up, and she was sitting there thinking what a nuisance he was. It wasn’t like she said or did anything that hinted at feelings for him. She endured him. Humored him at best. She had no choice. The power imbalance was real and he’d be a fool not to remember that his company might be less welcome than Namjoon’s –which she may have loudly hinted at before.

He stared out at the water, debating. He should leave her alone. He knew that. Everything in him knew that. But he didn’t want to just yet… could she endure him for a few more minutes? That was the least guilt and horror he had felt all day. He had almost killed Drin.

“You didn’t kill him.”

“Wha?”

“You didn’t kill the man so you shouldn’t let it haunt you. Even if you had, accidents happen.” 

He stared at her, eyes wide, stumbling over the words, “How did you–”

“I won’t reveal my methods.”

He was struck dumb for a moment, astonished at her acuity. Could she read minds? Oh, he’d be so fucked if she could read his mind right now. The threat of her seeing what kind of man he actually was –the kind who developed affection and desire for their fiance’s maid– was  horror beyond belief.

Just to test it, he thought of some really crazy things. Six foot tall rabbits and a throne made of spaghetti and a giant fish leaping from the water to swallow them and carry them down to meet the king of the sea. She did not seem to read those thoughts.

“If you don’t want people to know what you’re thinking, don’t think so loud.”

“Don’t listen,” he countered. Which clearly brought her up short. She gave him what could only be characterized as a scandalized look, then stared out again at the sunset as if it was the most compelling thing she had ever seen.

He still felt like she was listening. Worse, he felt like he could talk to her. He felt like she could say anything and nothing would surprise him and she’d tell him her direct thoughts, he could count on it. Alone but not alone, that’s how he felt with her.

“I don’t even want to be the cause of someone’s death,” he admitted, verbalizing it this time.

“You’re going to be king. You’ll be the cause of many people’s deaths.” Yep, just like that.

He blew air out and looked down, for a moment allowing the intrusive thought of what it would feel like to just plummet down to the rocks and die. Then he’d never hurt anyone.

“I’ll be a different kind of king,” he tried to convince them both. “No wars, no hunting, no more hunger or… no poverty. I’ll take care of Destin and Paloma and… we’ll just all have good lives reading books and playing games and…”

At least she was kind enough not to tell him what a fucking idiot he was. She struck a nice balance of silence and directness. He appreciated that about her.

“And birthdays!” he said, suddenly recalling. “Is it your birthday soon?”

“What?”

“Is your birthday soon?”

“No, why?”

“Are you telling the truth?” he pressed, leaning closer and scrutinizing her closely. 

She batted him away, revealing bandages on her hand that was quickly tucked back under her cloak despite the warm evening. 

“My birthday is in the winter,” she said.

“An answer! Or close to one. Look how far we’ve come,” he teased.

“Why do you think my birthday is soon?”

“Nasimiyu asked Yoongi to make a Paloman dish and he thought your birthday was soon.”

Dulce considered this before admitting, “Maybe she thinks it is.”

“She doesn’t know?”

“Do you know the birthdays of your servants?”

“Yes,” he answered easily. “Murtah’s is in late August and then Jungkook’s is September first.”

Dulce didn’t seem to know what to say to this. He watched the pensive look on her face out of the corner of his eye, trying not to look like he was watching her. 

“Are your injuries bothering you?” he guessed.

“No.”

“Are you sure? You were hurt at the palace, it’s understandable you should see the palace doctor to make sure–”

“I’m fine.”

“I don’t think you’re fine. You seem…” He couldn’t think of the word. Not that she was usually chatty but she seemed… “Weighed down.”

“So do you.”

“I think I’m my usual charming self.” When she didn’t respond, like she wasn’t buying it, he conceded, “I told you I almost killed my friend. I feel that on my handsome broad shoulders.”

She was silent for a while. He couldn’t tell if she was debating an answer or simply not going to give one. Which was fine. He would like for her to say but it was always unpredictable.

“I think you need to be extra careful,” she said. “You should be more concerned that your bodyguard went missing.”

Seokjin frowned and pressed, “What do you know about that?”

“You don’t think servants notice when one goes missing? You aren’t careful enough. People wish to harm you.”

“Well… yes. I’m the crown prince. That’s always been true and always will be true,” he admitted. “I’ve learned to live without worrying about it. If I die… well, I’ll be dead and won’t care about it anymore, will I?”

Her head snapped up, her face showing how absolutely incomprehensible she found his answer. It made him laugh again, he couldn’t help it. 

“Did you think I’d scream and cry and hide away? I don’t want to die but it happens to all of us eventually. My mother, my brother… it won’t change my fate to sit around worrying about it every day.” He couldn’t believe how brave he sounded about it, although the things he said were true. He tried not to think about death every day. He tried to live as best he could.

“You aren’t afraid to die but you’re afraid to kill?”

“Well see… yes. Yes, that’s about right.” He gave her a bright grin. “I don’t want to, but I can endure a lot. Of course I guess you don’t really endure death, at that point you stop enduring–”

“What is a lot to you?”

“I’m still alive, so I suppose I don’t know yet.” She was taking this so seriously and he felt bad about that. “You don’t need to worry about me. I was born into this life and I’ll die in it too someday. But not today. Some days closer than others but…” He shrugged. “Best I don’t go into the laundry room, I guess.”

She didn’t laugh at his joke and he realized it was a bad one. She’d been badly injured in one. He was inclined to march back to the palace and ask someone working in the laundry what the hells had happened, but based on the last time he intervened in Dulce’s well-being, he suspected she would not be pleased. Did he care? It depended how badly she was hurt… 

He sighed, not sure how to navigate anything. He wouldn’t intervene. She’d made clear she didn’t want him to. He was supposed to be putting more space between them now. He had promised to respect her wishes. Soon he was going to promise to love and devote his whole heart to Nasimiyu.

He wanted to say something but the longer the silence lasted, the less inclined he felt to. She didn’t demand anything of him, and he felt tired now by what he’d managed for her entertainment. Wrung out. This was a long day. He didn’t know what to do about his father shooting at Taehyung. Who was that a warning for? It would take a couple days to bundle Taehyung off to somewhere else since they were arguing about where that someplace else would be; was it better to spend those days in the palace or in an anonymous inn? Seokjin was debating having Taehyung just sleep in his room, gossip be damned.

“I have something for you,” she said eventually.

He immediately realized his gift must have felt like an obligation instead of an apology, especially since it wasn’t her birthday.

He waved his hand, “No, no, you don’t need to–”

“Not a gift. Someone gave me a letter to pass on to you.” She dug around and pulled it out of a bag across her body, looked at it a moment, then handed it over.

“What is this?” he asked. The front was blank, the envelope crinkled from passage. The red seal on the back immediately brought recognition and understanding –he’d recognize the imprint of his brother’s ring anywhere.

“A letter.”

“Yes I managed to figure that much out on my own,” he snickered. He had an idea who it was from, so instead he asked, “How did you get this?”

“Someone gave it to me while I was out walking here and begged me to put it in your hands,” she said. 

“A woman,” Seokjin guessed.

“Yes.”

“Do you know what it’s about?”

“I didn’t read it,” Dulce said. “She didn’t say.” She looked him right in the face as she said this, direct eye contact that made him want to believe her… and yet he had melted and reattached enough seals to notice the telltale sign of staining on the paper.

“Please keep the existence of this letter between us,” he said lowly, tucking it into the pocket on the inside of his vest so it couldn’t be stolen until he got a chance to read it. After which he would probably need to burn it, depending on what it said, and if he was right about the sender. After all this time, he figured she was dead, in which case this letter might be something different. Either way, it was probably something dangerous for Dulce to know.

“What letter?” she asked, holding her hands out to show they were empty. He believed she would keep the secret, anyway, whatever she could actually glean from the contents. “I thought about not giving it to you, in case it’s trouble,” she admitted.

“I’m glad you did. Not every prince is a damsel who needs protecting, you know.”

“I think you may be a particularly reckless one.”

“How many princes do you know? Nevermind, Prince Hamisi, that was too easy. Well, this prince would be happy to walk you back to the palace now.”

“I’m fine. I’ll stay here a bit longer.”

“Is it safe?”

“It’s no laundry room so…yes.”

He was loath to leave her, but at least guards roamed the sea wall and she was less likely to meet trouble here than anywhere else. 

Still, “Will you at least promise to stay out of the laundry room from now on?”

“It’s my job.”

“I can make it illegal for them to put you on laundry duty. I’m a prince. I don’t mind being an eccentric one.” She gave him a baleful look that felt like victory but she shook her head and he wasn’t going to push her. He didn’t want to undo what had felt like progress towards forgiveness.

“Thank you for your company,” he told her with a slight bow. He meant it. The events of the day still troubled him but he felt soothed, despite the fact she hadn’t actually had anything comforting to say –clearly she did not understand the magnitude of what it meant to take, or nearly take, a human life. He was glad of that though.

Murtah shortened the distance between them as they walked back towards the palace so that within a few minutes they were side by side.

“Your Highness.”

“Murtah.”

“This wasn’t wise.”

“I believe you are here to guard, not to advise,” Seokjin pointed out. “I was only watching the sunset.”

“With your fiance’s maid.”

“A coincidence,” Seokjin insisted, then quickly added, “But don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”

“It can’t.”

“No, it can’t,” Seokjin agreed with a sigh. He was projecting an attachment on a woman he barely knew. Was he just frightened by his impending promotion to husband and flailing about for diversion? 

Her bruises and bandages bothered him more than his own troubles, he couldn’t stop thinking of them.

The safest thing for them both was not to get close enough to notice them next time.

Maybe Taehyung wasn’t the only one he needed to find a safe, cushy place for, far from Priva. How much money would it take Dulce to go away and not tell Nasimiyu why?

Yes, that was the answer. Money. See? Seokjin was already thinking like a king.

PREVIOUS | MASTERLIST | NEXT

[devilsupdates]

Second period

Luke Hughes in the box for high stick

A big block by Curtis Lazar

First NJDevils power play is on its way. Turcotte to the box for LA.

With 3 seconds left on the #NJDevils  power play. Kings take the lead.

1-0 Kings. Kopitar scoops up a rebound.

#NJDevils  go back to the power play and start with Nemec's unit

Tie game!!! Tyler Toffoli! PPG

HOLY CRAP. NICO DAWS. WHAT WAS THAT?! WHAT A SAVE!!!!

Spicy Jack ! Jack Hughes almost dropped the gloves

Jack Hughes and Viktor Arvidsson are going to the box. Arvidsson is going to the box for elbowing. Jack did not like that situation one bit and went right after Arvidsson and got a roughing penalty. The two are jawing at each other from the penalty box. (Someone said they herd Jack say “ at least people pay to watch me play”)

Jack Hughes comes flying out of the penalty box and gets a breakaway, but Arvidsson, also out of the box is basically on Jack's back the entire way up the ice.

Jack is furious w/ no call. He jaws at the ref & on his way to the bench he smashes his stick & throws it on the ice.

We got spicy devils tonight!! (In my opinion I think spicy Jack and Nico is hot af)

End of two. And for how mundane that first period was, this second one had just about everything. #NJDevils  and Kings tied at 1

2: ✖️Kopitar (Kempe)

2: 🚨Toffoli (Bratt, J. Hughes)

Shots 21-12, LAK

[28dayslater]

after our tozer convo in the DMs i would really like you to give me a franklin expedition starting XI (formation of your choice). preferably with explanations for those of us (me) who don’t know ball

Here's my vision:

Crozier obviously gaffing like let's not take the piss here. He would probably play a Dyche style 4-4-fackin-2 lump it up to the big man none of this bullshit about half spaces but this is a 433. The midfield doesn't really work but let's ignore that

ST: Fitzjames. All the glory of being your team's star player, all the shame when you fuck up. He's flashy, he's the big man, he's got a crushing sense of shame that he's desperately compensating for. And his method of compensation? G/A per 90 stats and extremely brightly coloured boots

LW: Dundy and you know he's trying rainbow flicks and bicycle kicks and what have you, whether or not any of them are leading to a goal involvement is not the point. He is wearing a headband.

RW: You might think Hickey is a leg breaking defender but not to me. Fox in the box. Poacher. Dubious foul winner. He's done it again that Cornelius Hickey you dirty bastard you've done it again

CAM: Goodsir. Being a 10 is all about creativity... setting up your teammates... finding a way to break through defenses. You've got to be able to look at things differently. I feel like he would be very injury prone. Physician, heal thyself

CM: Jopson. I'm thinking of him as an 8... never ever stops running. The most boring job on the pitch but without him there's no team! King of the nice clean tackle and if he nips an ankle from time to time well that's their fault for putting it in his studs' way

CDM: Little. Episode 5 he was temping for Crozier and that's exactly what this is. Drops back into defense, adds numbers to the midfield, does his best to help with an attack here and there. Gets no thanks for any of it and always has a huge mistake in him a la Rice against the Netherlands other day

LB: Tartnell more of a traditional FB you forget he's there most of the time until he pops up and gets an assist. Alternatively Collins bc he's Welsh and sexy like my goat Ben Davies

CB: Irving. This is another mistake prone one bc he's so nervous. But it's not his fault... he's brave he tries his hardest. His positioning is shit he plays every fucker onside but he's TRYING. Flop era John Stones and you know he'd cry if he got caught eating a Magnum

CB: Tozer OBVIOUSLYYYYYYYYYYY. Big lad doing the dirty work defending everyone and getting fuck all credit it's too perfect. You just know his massive bonce is banging in headers from corners left right and centre. I see him as a very old school CB... progressing the ball? Line breaking passes? No, I don't think so. He's busy kicking the fuck out of some brittle boned winger in rolled down socks

RB: Armitage. Your modern fullback is always going forward and inverting and leaving the actual defence to the CBs. Big Toze has it covered you go overwhelm their midfield and- oh, no, it didn't work and every goal we concede is coming down the right side of the pitch

GK: Hodgson. Goalies are always weird. Much like vicario I do not respect him. Largely infuriating but a moment of brilliance once or twice a season so the fans start creaming over him again. Holding five against Scunthorpe United then saving a penalty in the 96th minute of a cup final by being so inherently off putting the other team's striker gets distracted and slips. Message relevant