#wildnerness years

[gikairan]

THEYRE FINALLY LETTING MY GIRL PERFORM ON A STAGE

[wwilloww]

sh. | chapter twenty two | pjm

PAIRING ot7 x reader RATING Explicit. 18+. GENRE smut. fluff. angst. nonidol au. wildnerness au. roommates au. friends to lovers. SUMMARY Six months of quarantine have kept you apart. Somehow the distance sparks something new in each of you: questions, unfinished conversations, threads once chased now left cold. So when your roommate invites you to come with him to a mysterious house in the mountains with your friends, how could you even think of saying no? WC 4.8k WARNINGS AND TAGS no use of gendered pronouns to refer to reader. consensual objectification. d/s dynamic. over the panty sex (is this just called dry humping?) fucktoy-ification? teasing. orgasm denial.

AN hi :) i'm so sorry i made you wait so long for this. it's been a rollercoaster these last two years, and i hope you can forgive me for my long absence. if you enjoyed this chapter, i'd love to hear from you: what stuck out to you, what you're hoping will happen in future chapters, or just how you've been. i've missed you. and, as always, thank you for reading <3

← || series m.list || →

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO: RULE BREAKER

You don’t talk or think much about your childhood. You like to imagine that when you turned eighteen those years whispered away into the ether of time, as irrelevant and dusty as the old photobook that stays on the shelf, eternally unopened. 

As a child, home was multiplied and many. It was the many places you lived, as you moved often, following your father around with his job. But it was also many in the sense that you learned at a young age that home didn’t have to be a place you lived. Home was between the worn and finger-marred pages of the books you fell in love with, home was the wisping scent of fresh (if not often burnt) pastry in your grandmother’s kitchen each time you visited, home was the place you yearned to travel to but never made the time to visit. 

But as you close the book in your hands, the words echo in your mind: 

Are you going to come home? 

You feel far away from home, even though you find a great deal of comfort in the walls of Namjoon’s mountain house. Ahem, mansion. Confusion riddles little holes of worry through you. Where is home, anyways? The small apartment you left empty in the city? The question opens a void in you. Why bother with home anyways? Sure, home could be anything if you tried hard enough, but couldn’t the opposite be true too? That if you tried hard enough, you wouldn’t need a home?

Still, void and all, the question nudges you. 

Unsettled, you clamber down the tree and make your way back towards the house. The sun has risen higher in the sky and breaks through the chill ever so slightly. Worried that you’ve just abandoned Jimin this morning and that he’ll wake up alone, you quicken your pace. You creak the door open, waving at Jungkook and Jin and Taehyung in the kitchen, who are huddled over the coffee, waiting for it to finish brewing. 

“A watched pot never boils,” you call out to them, noting that Jungkook looks a little cheerier than he had the past several days. Jin’s hand rests on Jungkook’s lower back and a little wave of joy jolts through you as the older man throws you a little smile. 

“Watching it actually makes it go faster,” Jungkook says, his eyes glued to the coffee. ��A little motivation and encouragement always lends a helping hand.” 

You smile at that and continue making your way towards Jimin’s bedroom. You pass one room—a gym of sorts filled with a few cardio machines, a set of free weights, and a large mirror, and you’re surprised you didn’t notice it before—and pause. 

Namjoon is spotting Hoseok as the latter bench presses what looks like an unreasonably heavy weight. 

As you watch them, the dream from last night floods back to you. 

The music filtering through the night. The tightness of each man’s grip on you as they spun you through the ballroom, the floorboards creaking beneath you, the high of attention sitting heady in your chest. 

And too, you can’t forget, the way they stared at each other in single-minded competition, hackles raised, teeth gritted. You can’t forget the darkness that swirled at their feet, and you wonder too, if you’re letting your dream drift into the world of the living too.

But here they are, fondly smiling at one another. Had you made it all up? Well, of course you made it up. It was a regency-era dream for god's sake. But the tension? The competition? As Namjoon helps Hoseok lower the weights to the bar and hauls him to his feet, you’re sure it’s all in your head. 

“Nice, man,” Namjoon says, grinning and clasping Hoseok on the back. 

Before they see you, you continue on. Just as you’re about to open the door to the bedroom you’ve been searching for, it swings open before you. Jimin steps out. 

“Oh. You’re awake!” you say.

“I am indeed.” 

“I’m sorry I left this morning—“ 

“It’s okay,” he says, but there’s a tinge of sadness in his voice, a little dust mote of it that you catch. 

“I went to go read in a tree,” you offer quickly as an explanation, hoping it will make up for the disappointment of waking up alone after not spending a night together in a while. 

“In a tree?” 

“In a tree,” you confirm. 

He chuckles. “That seems like a good enough reason to abandon me. I gotta be honest though—“ He steps closer, lets his gaze flicker down, and toys with the hem of your shirt. “I was looking forward to waking up beside you.” 

“Were you?” you smile. 

“I was. I was even looking forward to potentially getting to wake you up.” He says it with a mischievous grin. 

“Oh? And how would you have woken me up?”

His hand drifts lower, beneath the band of your leggings. “You know, it’s really easier to show you, rather than tell you—” His hands pause. “What’s this?” Jimin sends you a knowing look. 

“What?” Your mind sputters as you struggle to come up with what he might be talking about. But he steps closer to you, a hand drifting down to your hips, a finger pulling your shirt up. With his other hand he plucks at the band of your panties. 

“This,” he emphasizes. 

“Oh.” 

You’d nearly forgotten the promise you’d made to Jimin. But now it all comes rushing back, how he’d made you promise in those early days in the house to forgo any underwear. At the time it’d been a silly dare, but the seriousness in his eyes makes you reconsider. 

“What? Do I have to remind you every day?” he says gently. “Or perhaps I haven’t been spending enough time around you, and you’ve forgotten your promise to me?”

“N-no,” you say. “I mean maybe. Maybe I want you around more.” You sidle up to him, running a finger up his chest. “Maybe… I want you to remind me.” 

Jimin steps closer to you, pressing you against the bedroom door. You gasp when he leans in close, close enough to kiss you, but doesn’t. 

“I think you forget too quickly that  I told you there’d be a punishment if you ‘forgot’ about our little rule.” 

“Oh?” You tilt your head as you look at him. “What kind of punishment?” Panties or not, it seems like you win. 

“Like I mentioned earlier, I think I’d rather show you than explain it to you. Let’s just say I’m a hands-on kind of teacher.” 

You think he’s going to kiss you, but instead he presses close, his lips a centimeter away from yours, his hands cupping your cheeks before wandering down to explore your body. You reach for him, struggle to bring his lips to yours, but he shifts his attention elsewhere, leaving you hanging. His hands rove over your body, his lips dip out of reach. So you change your plan of attack too. You let your hands wander over him. When you feel his breath quicken against you, you release him, dipping your head below his chin.

You glide your lips down Jimin’s neck, slow and intentional; a calculated move. You let your breath whisper against his skin, and you can’t help but think back to that night with Yoongi and Namjoon in which sensation—even the lightest of touches—had meant so much to you. To your body. You want to play Jimin like they played you. 

His hands tighten in your shirt, knuckles whitening. 

“Inside,” he gasps, and the desperation in his voice makes you think that he’s lost a bit of his fine-tuned control. His eyes are blown wide. He looks like he could eat you up. “Inside,” he repeats, but enacts the command himself as he pulls you through the door with him, making it sound a little more like a plea than you think he intends.

The pair of you tumble onto the bed, a mess of limbs and lips, teeth, hands. 

He captures your lips, finally, kissing you. The kiss is anything but gentle, nearing the edge of pain, his teeth knocking against yours, nipping at your lips. You groan into his mouth as his hips cant against you. 

It’s not long before he begins to tug at your clothes. 

Then he pauses, lifting your head from his lips. You’re sprawled atop him and you lift yourself up on your hands. 

“What?” you inquire curiously.

“I’m going to ask you to do something.” 

“Alright.”

With a leveled gaze, he says, “Strip.” 

He pushes you off of him, and you kneel at the foot of the bed, pausing a second, before making the executive decision to stand and undress. It’ll be more, well, graceful that way, you think. The alternative is flopping around on the sheets like a beached hammerhead shark trying to get your pants off. 

So you do as you’re told. There’s something about undressing before him, as he leans back against the headboard, watching you. There’s something about undressing for him, while he watches on, his gaze drinking you in that has sparks running through your body.

Slowly, slowly you slip off your top, and wiggle your leggings off your legs. You try to make it a little sexy, glancing up at him from time to time, to find that warm darkness swirling in his gaze that you love so much. You trip once, because you’re staring too much. 

“Keep the panties on,” he says when you go to pull them down.  

“Oh. Okay.”  Your brow furrows and you can’t help but let a little bit of the disappointment you’re feeling into your voice. You’re a little confused why he would ask you to keep them on when they were the problem that started all of this. 

He stands then, walking towards you. You hold your breath. He finally arrives before you and places his hands on your hips. His fingers toy with the trim of the panties, and goosebumps race along your skin from the delicate touch. 

“What are you going to do?” you ask, your voice breathy.

“You’ll see.” 

With that he hooks a finger under the band of your underwear and lets it snap against your skin. You cry out, more in surprise than anything else. 

“Did that hurt?” 

“No, not really.” 

“Good.” He grins. “Now, I want you to be honest.” 

“I’m always honest.” You correct yourself: “Most of the time. Most of the time I’m always honest.” 

Jimin chuckles at that. 

“Fair enough. But I need your most-of-the-time-always honesty now.” You nod, your hand drifting upward to grip his forearm. 

“Of course.” 

“I want to try something out with you. Something new.” 

“New?”

“A new kind of play.”

Your mind reels with the possibilities. What could he possibly suggest? Chastity kink? Tittyfucking? Technojizz? Ballcuzzi?  

“I want to use you like a toy,” he whispers. “I want to fuck you like a toy. I want to talk to you like a toy, treat you like one.” Your eyes widen when he says it. His eyes go wide too, drinking in your every microexpression, as he waits for you to respond. 

“A toy?” 

“Yes.”

“Where did this come from?” you say it with a little smile, and trace your finger along his jawline. He relaxes at the touch. 

“I saw the way you reacted during group play. When Jin was talking to you, saying things like, ‘You want to be our slut. You want to be our whore.’” Just hearing Jimin repeating Jin’s words sends a shiver through your body. “He didn’t say it like I would have said it, but I knew he wanted to.” He presses his lips to your ear while his hands rove over your body. “You want to be our toy, don’t you?”  

The answer is easy. “Yes.” 

“You want to be used by us, don’t you?” 

“Y-yes.” 

He chuckles. “That’s what I thought. So tell me. Tell me what you want to be.” 

“I want to be your toy.” 

“Good.” He grins. 

He lets his hand drift down to your underwear again, fingers trailing along the inside the elastic hem before plucking at them once more. He seems to like the way you flinch. 

His fingers wander down your skin. He traces your hip, before flicking his fingers beneath the hem that circles your thigh. Slowly, he creeps closer to where you want his fingers most, but before he can touch you, he pulls his fingers away. You nearly groan, and a fleeting grimace crosses your face. Jimin catches it. 

“Patience would look so pretty on you,” he says, and the sting of his words is delightful. 

“Hmph.” 

His fingers continue to explore the thin piece of fabric that separates you from total nudity. They’re not a particularly pretty pair of underwear: they’re nothing more than a tan color brief. 

You say as much to Jimin, and tell him you wish you were wearing something sexier. Lace, maybe. Something black. 

“True,” he replies. “But you know why I like these?” 

“Why?” 

“Because I can see you dripping through them.” 

You warm at the implication.   

“And when I push my cock against them, I’ll see me on them too. I’m a visual man, you know.” He kind of chuckles at that last bit, like it’s some sort of inside joke with himself. 

When he drops to his knees, like that first day in the forest with him, you gasp. Finally, finally, he’s going to touch you. 

But when his tongue presses against you through the fabric of your underwear, it’s only half the sensation you need from him. Still, it feels good, a gentle warmth spreading through your abdomen as he licks and presses against your clit and vulva. 

“You taste so good,” he murmurs against you. 

“I’m—“ 

“You’ve soaked your panties through.” 

You warm at the thought, such little stimulation getting you so ready for him. You wonder if he’ll fuck you hard and fast or if he’ll take you sweet and slow. If he’ll take his time with you. Whatever he decides to do, you know you’ll be happy to have him fill you as you currently clench and tighten around nothing. It’s an empty feeling that sifts through you. 

When he’s thoroughly soaked your underwear with his mouth, he stands and kisses you. You can taste the ghost of yourself on him, and it reminds you of the smell of first summer light hitting the ground at dawn. A space when it is neither day, nor night, but some third plane of existence. Like that, in this moment, you feel like some third kind of creature. Neither yourself entirely, nor Jimin, but some other, third thing that you could only become in his presence. You can feel the shit-eating grin that glides across his lips and presses into yours as he walks backwards, leading you back to the bed. 

There’s something different, too, about all of this, about the way he kisses you today. There’s an edge of desperation, of frustration that you can taste on him. His movements are quicker, less languid. His lids are lidded. His breath comes quicker.  It’s delightful. 

But it’s also brand new. It feels like he has let a part of himself loose from under his usual state of control, and you wonder if your most recent conversation with your friends—where you discussed emotionality and feeling—had anything to do with what he was going through. What he wanted. 

An edge of anxiety tickles at your throat as you think of it. Does he want something more? 

He seems to notice your hesitation. 

“I just want you right now,” he says, as if he’s read your mind. He stops you at the edge of the bed, turns you so that the back of your knees hit the mattress.  You’re not sure if he’s a mind reader or what. 

You fall back into the bed, Jimin leading you down gently with a hand against your back until you sink into the soft bedding. You can’t help but giggle at the gentleness. Not that you have anything against it, but in this moment you feel anything but a toy. The way he looks at you makes you feel, well, precious. 

He breaks his gaze to kiss you again, tongue pressing against your lips. 

“Open up for me,” he says. “Like a good kitten—Like a good toy.” 

You do as you’ve been told, opening your mouth and letting him swirl his tongue through you, swiping at the roof of your mouth and sending tingles down your spine. 

His hands drift down your body before slipping beneath your panties. You glow, so eager for his touch, groaning as his fingers swipe against your clit. Just once. But as if he’s just realized a mistake he’s made, he rapidly pulls his hand out. 

“Oops. Got a little caught up.” 

You pout. “What, you’re not going to touch me like that? There? At all?” 

He pulls back enough to flick his gaze between your eyes and your lips. “Be a good toy and just do what you’re told.” 

“Oh?” The bratty part of you flickers and rises up.

He silences you with a kiss, his fingers circling around your clothed entrance before trying to press in through the thin fabric of your underwear. It’s like he’s trying to finger fuck you through the wet cotton, pushing it into you with his fingers. The pressure surely is something, but it’s not even a hint of enough, and you find your hips bucking up against him, seeking more attention, seeking more pressure. 

“So needy. So desperate.” 

He continues until the yearn within you aches.

“Stop playing,” you gasp. “Just give me your cock. Want you. Want your cock. I’ll be your toy, just–just use me like one.” 

“Don’t good toys say please?” 

“Please, sir.”

He freezes above you. 

“Sir?” 

“I—I… It just slipped out!” 

He grins. “I kinda like it.” He hums, as if contemplating it, then nods. “And since you’ve asked so nicely—“  

Jimin leans back enough to begin unbuttoning his shirt. He takes his time, while the knot in your belly begins to recede. You sit up, eager to help him out of it, but he quickly swats your hands away. 

“Patience, kitten.” 

You don’t say it, but your crossed arms and pout say, “Fine, sir,”  loud and clear. He laughs at your expression. 

“Don’t you worry,” he says, tilting your chin up. “I’ve always taken care of you, haven’t I?” 

He takes his cock out, stroking it once, twice, his hand gliding expertly over the soft and sensitive skin. 

“I’m going to use you like you’re good for.”

“Like I’m good for?” You echo, desperate for him. 

“All you’re good for,” he whispers in your ear and the words send a shiver of pleasure down your spine.  

With one hand, he takes your ankles and pushes them over your head.

“Hold them.” 

He then settles between your legs, hand wrapped tightly around his cock. With a movement that seems far too familiar to him, he slaps your pussy with his hard and dripping cock, and you groan. Fuck. 

Lowering himself to you, so your thighs press into his shoulders, he finally aligns his cock with your clothed vulva. 

And then with one careful movement, he grinds against you. The simple movement is enough to make you cry out. 

“Fuck, Jimin.” 

At first it’s slow, his cock pressing against your vulva in rhythmic pulses, your clit. At one point he pulls back and presses the head of his cock to your clothed entrance and presses in. 

You whine against him, but he doesn’t acknowledge you. He simply returns to continuing his thrusts. You’re just as wet as he is hard, soaking your panties, his precome painting them too. 

“Maybe I would have woken you up like this. Wouldn’t you have liked that? Waking up to my hard cock pressing against your clit, me ready to come, just from rutting against you? Wouldn’t that make you happy, to know how good you make me feel?”

You look down to where your bodies are pressed together. His cock rhythmically pokes up, the head dark and heavy. Sometimes though, the head of his cock gets stuck on your underwear, pushing the fabric higher and tighter around you. You groan at the sight. 

“Don’t you love how good you make me feel?”  

Your hips buck together, finding a desperate, shared rhythm. Your breath, too, matches up. 

For a moment, your eyes lock. All you can think about is how damn pretty he looks when he fucks, his dark hair falling into his face, his cheeks flushed, his plush lower lip caught between his teeth. And he looks back. 

But then his eyes flicker away from yours. 

He fucks you over your panties, murmuring how good of a toy you are for him, how he wishes he could fuck you properly, fill you up.

“Please,” you gasp, desperate for more. “Fuck me.”

“When you behave,” he grunts. “I will.” Another thrust. “When you follow my rules, I will.” 

When he comes, he presses the head of his cock to your clit. You can feel it twitching against you as he groans and sighs, his come painting your panties white. 

With the head of his cock pressing so rhythmically against your clit, you’ve built up to a delicious pleasure, so close to coming. 

“Jimin, Jimin, I’m so close. Please.” Your hips tilt up, searching out the pleasure he keeps denying you. 

But Jimin just grins at you and sighs dramatically. His breath still comes a little quickly, he seems a little winded.  

“If only you hadn’t been so intent on misbehaving earlier. Maybe I could have let you come.” 

“Oh, come on,” you groan, about a second away from throwing your fists on the bed in proper tantrum form. “You’re in charge. You write the rules. Who said you can’t let me come?” 

“The rules I wrote say so, actually.” 

You huff. 

“Well then. Maybe I’ll just have to take care of it myself.” 

In a swift action, Jimin leans over you, pinning your hands above your head. Your breath leaves your lungs in a quick gasp. 

“Wha—” 

“I think you know you’re not even supposed to be thinking about that, let alone doing it.” 

You tilt your head.

Jimin laughs, a hint of playful hardness in his voice. “Don’t you remember?” You shake your head. “You’re forgetting all of your promises today, aren’t you? Jin had you promise that you wouldn’t be coming unless it was because of one of us.” 

Your eyes widen. 

“Shit. I forgot.” 

“I know you forgot.” 

You throw your head back and groan. “But I thought you said you’d always take care of me.” 

“I did. And I do. But sometimes it’s good for you to wait a little for your reward. Today you took your punishment—” He tilts your head up so you’re looking at him and the pout that had taken over your face fades a little. “And tomorrow, I’ll give you your reward.” 

You roll your eyes. 

“Fine.”

“You think you can do that? Wait until tomorrow?” 

“Yeah.” You sigh. 

“You’re so good for me,” he says, pressing a kiss to your lips. His hands glide down to your hips, dipping beneath the band and you think, oh, maybe he’ll do it now. But your hopes are quickly dashed when he tugs on them and says, “Maybe it was a good thing I had you wear these afterall.” He shimmies your come-stained underwear down your thighs. “Easy cleanup.” 

You can’t help but laugh at that, always surprised when Jimin’s practical side pops out alongside his gregariousness. But he balls the panties up, and before tossing them into the laundry basket near the door, holds them up in his hand, shaking them, as if directing attention to them. 

 “I should remind you why I asked you to do this?” 

“I know why you asked me to. You liked the secret of it—?” You think back to what he had said to you, all those days ago, though it feels like a lifetime ago:

“I like walking around, knowing I’m the only one who has your sweetness on my tongue. I love talking to the others while getting to taste you still. Getting to remember the way you squirm underneath my touch. I do it because I want to.”

You still shiver, thinking of those words. But that had been before everyone knew about you and Jimin. 

“I did like the secret of it,” Jimin says, breaking through your reverie. “But there’s more than that, too.” 

You raise an eyebrow, prompting him to go on. 

“There’s knowing you do it for me.” 

He grins, before strutting to the bathroom. You watch his ass as he goes. Plump, you think. When he returns, he’s cleaned up and still grinning. Mulling on what he’s said—”for me”—an image of all eight of you on the living room floor arises. What are the boundaries between one person and another with this set up? What are the lines? What is owed? Your head spins, and you settle into the pillow. You’re still humming in the sensation of your dwindling pleasure, receding far away from your orgasm, and you sigh. 

“If the only way people are going to punish one another around here is by giving them blue balls, I’m going to get tired reeeeal quick,” you murmur to yourself.

“Is that so?” Jimin says from behind you as he collects your clothes. “If that’s the case, we better start coming up with new forms of punishment.” 

“Yes, maybe you should,” you say, mock-grouchily. 

“I’ll start thinking up new and innovative ways. Maybe I’ll consult Jin—he seems creative when it comes to this stuff—especially if you’re going to be so quick to forget what you promised him.” He helps you into your clothes again, but remains naked himself. 

“But—” 

“No buts.” He seals your silence with a kiss. “Just do what you’re told.” The statement stings through you like a bolt of electricity. As much as you hate to admit it, you love when he tells you what to do. Even if you love fighting against it just as much. “You know why you should do what you’re told?” He continues, as he kisses down your throat.

“Why?” 

“Because then I can reward you. I can make you come again and again until you’re crying to stop, or hold you at the edge long enough that when you’re finally ready to tip over, it’s the best fucking orgasm in your whole life.” 

You can’t help but giggle. “Are you saying you’re the best fuck of my life?” 

“No. Not yet. But I can be.” He pulls away from you enough to see the shit-eating grin on your face. 

“I think some of your friends might fight you for that position.” 

“Maybe they should.” 

“Maybe they should what?” a voice comes from the door. 

“Hoseok—” 

Hoseok stands in the doorway, a confused look on his face. You imagine what he must be seeing, a naked Jimin in bed, and you, now entirely naked, too, now that Jimin stripped you of your panties, tangled up in each other. 

“What’s going on here?” Hoseok asks. 

“Do you really want to know?” Jimin asks.

“Um. Not really.” Then his gaze focuses on you. He lingers on your face, reading you, trying to figure you out. But then he catches himself. “Uh, maybe I should come back later.” 

“No!” you say, perhaps a little too eagerly, sitting up. “What is it?” 

“I just was looking for you,” Hoseok says, a little shyly. “I was hoping to steal you away.”  

“Let me get dressed.” 

You stand up, and pull your clothes back on, noting how Hoseok’s gaze flickers to you just in time to see you pull on your leggings without any panties on underneath.  

Jimin sits up quickly, pulling a pillow over his crotch for the sake of Hoseok’s modesty. “Just so you know—if you’re going to go together—I already said that if someone was going to wear panties that someone wasn’t going to be able to come.” He turns to you. “So don’t you go running off to lover boy, thinking you can get your rocks off.” Jimin turns his attention back to Hobi. “This one is very much not allowed to come. At least for the rest of the day.” 

Hoseok coughs. 

“Oh, I, uh, I wasn’t, I wasn’t presuming.” 

“Yes you were, asshole,” Jimin laughs. “We’re all presuming.” 

Hoseok flushes red all the way to the tips of his ears at the implication, but you find it charming. 

“You didn’t answer my question,” Hoseok says.

You glance at Jimin, who leans back with his hands laced behind his head. He looks like the perfect image of relaxation and… is that pride? There’s a soft smile curving at the corner of his lip, a kind of jesting smirk. 

“Go on,” Jimin says. “I’m already taken care of.” 

You roll your eyes. 

“Asshole.” 

But you stand and make your way to Hoseok nonetheless. 

“You have time?” he asks.

“I have all the time in the world.” 

← || series m.list || →

©wwilloww Do not repost, translate, or use my stories without my permission.

THANK YOU FOR READING! 🔆 if you enjoyed this, please consider telling me what you think by leaving a comment, sending an ask, or reblogging! i love chatting with you all! 🔆 want to read more stories?

PERMANENT TAG LIST @spicykoreantatertots @usuallynervoussheep @myimaginationsrunningwild @lucedelsole97 @yoong-i @kookieskiwi @ries-universe @minyoongiboongi @shameless-army @frisianqueen @emmmui @rm4lyf @kelly-luvya @baby-g @hobivore @elyte @twobirdsinabox @peonymoonchild @sweetmustardleduc @rkivian @boubourella @sugalaritae @herecomesjoon @hopelesslylivv @parkdatjimin @blairscott @mo0nchild21 @blueversaillesdreams @starlostjimin @augustbutwinter @illneverrecover @sugalaritae @minisugakoobies @bloviating-vy

[ksitalo]

Sorry for my bad english

Au where leo, piper , haze and frank get their godly parents and roles swapped

Piper being the child of pluto born from a broken pact and recently sent to camp jupiter by her father who was trying to protect her from something, she have to learn how to control her power and not hurt her friends while also tries to save her dad and thanatos who both got captured and inprisioned

Leo being the child of mars who lost his mother by gaia when her monsters found their home, esperanza fought the Monsters with a gun mad of celestial bronze to give him enough time to escape.

After running away from another foster home(some months before the events of SON) leo is found by reyna while looking for jason and is brought up to camp jupiter by her

Hazel being a child of aphrodite who was saved by nico from the underwolrd while he was looking for bianca but instead of being brought to camp halfblood hera steal her from nico before he can even notice, and give her fake memories after sending her to wildnerness school

And now she have to figure out her memories while tries to control her charmspeak

Frank the child of hephaestus who ironicaly born with both fire and shapeshifting powers and to balance that hera gave him the piece of wood tied to his life which made him terrified of his own powers his entire life

Even worse because his mother died into a fire some years ago trying to saving him and his wood so he is terrified of using it

His grandma sent him to wildnerness knowing that hedge was going there(hephaestus told her) and here she meets Hazel and falls in love with her

Their backstory still a little bit incomplete but i thought it would be a cool idea

And also jason and percy still the same which meas tha the trios are now

Percy/leo/piper and Jason/frank/hazel

[astrobbie]

what if i had a vision that you died so i gave you the bone that never burned from a dead animal to protect you. what if you turn it into a necklace and carried it with you. what if you were the first to see me as a prophet, a messiah of the wildnerness, and linked your devotion to your safety. twenty-five years pass and you still look as me as if i was god, as if i saved you that night, as if i can save you again.

[kinkshame-the-courier]

Trying to drag my ass into posting more of Chaye’s backstory!!

Chaye has only been in the Mojave for so long, arriving from a long wander in the western wildnernesses and various settlements in California only just after the first battle for the dam about four years pre-canon. One of the first people they properly met upon arrival to New Vegas was The King.

He quickly took them under his wing, under the promise that they’d do a few errands for him. (Really, that was Chaye’s stubbornness, they’d only accept his help if they felt they were doing something in return.)

What started out as a simple favor became many, Chaye taking on their Mojave Express status and continuing to use the name “Six”, having told nobody their real name since escaping their vault.

They and King became fuckbuddies pretty fast after that, continuing an intense relationship even in Chaye’s many weeks away at a time taking packages to Hopeville.

However.

Chaye’s intense struggle with CPTSD and various other mental and physical health issues drew them further and further toward extremely unhealthy habits, starting with alcohol and slowly devolving into chems, especially those that could kill their pain or blur their thinking and memory. Along this road they encountered Red Lucy, who would pay well for a dangerous set of tasks.

Bringing her Deathclaw eggs, as well as the spawn of other hostile animals.

At first it was a simple trade of goods for caps, supplying their everyday as well as the growing addictions. But Red Lucy began to take a fascination with them, leading her to coax them into her bedroom.

In the beginning of that particular arrangement, Chaye didn’t really care either way. They were still paid and the sexual aspect was appealing. But the ringmaster quickly became possessive of them, and payment in caps quickly became payment in sex and chems…

And when they started to try and pull away, she began to threaten them. She found their link to King and was furiously jealous of him, and would tell them she would bring him to harm or death if they refused to return to her.

And she stopped taking no for an answer.

Chaye would often return to King late at night, bruised and high and exhausted, unable to find a way out when they were afraid for his life. Promise after promise for safety if they just stayed with him never convinced them, thinking it safer to comply to Red Lucy’s increasingly aggressive and degrading demands.

This of course continued to worsen their already failing mental health, their only real anchor to keep fighting being their deep love and want for King.

But they ended up being incompatible by neither of their fault. Chaye is and was a deeply romantic person, wanting to build a life with him… and King was ever oblivious to this, having no interest in romance at all. He said something to the effect of rejecting a few of the women he’d slept with, stating he “doesn’t really swing that way. Or any way, really.”

Of course this broke their heart. They had placed so much hope into the idea of a future with him. They didn’t breathe a word of their still-concealed affections, and ended up leaving Vegas entirely, planning to only commute between Hopeville and the various Mojave Express outposts from then on.

But that fateful package utterly destroyed what little they had left, and that led them into a deep suicidal spiral and Benny’s trap… and the subsequent loss of their memories.

[melanielocke]

Book recommendations: horror

Horror & fantasy romance ended up in a tie in my poll. I chose to do horror first mainly because the book I'm reading right now will be on the fantasy romance first and I need to finish it first.

I have been reading some horror lately. It's not my most read genre, but I have a big enough pile that I could pick out the ones I think are really good. Most of these aren't necessarily so scary it keeps you up at night, but they can be eerie, very atmospheric, dark and occasionally very messed up. I'll mention the type of horror and what kind of scary elements are in there. All of these are YA, I don't have many adult horror books on my shelf.

I'll start with House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland

Iris is the youngest of the three Hollow sisters. When they were young, the three sisters disappeared from a busy street. It should have been impossible, but there was no trace of them. A month later they reappeared, changed, and with no memory of what happened to them. Iris has tried to forget what happened, and stay away from the weirdness that followed. But when her oldest sister Grey goes missing, Iris and middle sister Viv go looking for her. If they want to find Grey, they will have to uncover the mystery of the past.

This book is creepy and has a rather horrifying twist near the end when you learn what really happened in the past. I think this is one of the scarier books on this list, but it's done really well, with monsters chasing Iris and her sister around and an eerie parallel world

Rep: bi main character, lesbian side character; Korean side character

Other books from this author: The Invocations (horror, coming early 2024); Our Chemical Hearts (contemporary), a semi-definitive of worst nightmares (fabulism)

The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw

Two hundred years ago in small Oregon town Sparrow, three sisters were accused of witchcraft. Stones bound to their feet, they were thrown into the harbor and drowned. Ever since then, the sisters have returned once a year as ghosts. They each possess one young girl in town and kill one boy.

The town has long accepted their fate and Penny is no different. But then Bo Carter enters the town, unaware of the danger he's just stepped into. Penny can't trust him, but she wants to save him from the danger just the same.

This book has one big twist. It's not super scary perse, nor is there any gore, but very atmospheric and that's where this author excels. Would recommend it for people who aren't used to reading horror.

Winterwood is the next book by Shea Ernshaw

Once again set in a small, isolated town in Oregon, this book follows Nora Walker, a girl descended of a line of witches. She is connected to the Wickerwoods, dangerous haunted woods that only she can enter during full moon to collect lost things.

In the middle of winter, with the power out and all connection to the outside world lost, Nora finds a boy in the Wickerwoods. Oliver went missing from the Camp for Wayward Boys weeks ago. By all accounts, he should be dead and yet she found him. Oliver has no memory of what happened the past weeks.

Nora quickly bonds with him, but realizes she has to uncover the mystery of what happened to him and how he could survive so long in the woods. And it soon turns out Oliver was not the only boy who went missing.

Much like the Wicked Deep, this book excels in its atmosphere and the way it portrays a very creepy forest. It has an interesting plot twist, though not as strong as the one in the Wicked Deep. It's not keep you up at night scary, and also has a lot of focus on the romance.

Other books from this author: Long Live the Pumpkin Queen (Nightmare before Christmas book); A History of Wild Places; A Wildnerness of Stars

Next: Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand

This book is set on the isolated island of Sawkill rock, where girls have been going missing for decades, stolen away by evil no one has dared fight... until now.

Marion is new to Sawkill rock, trying to escape the tragedy that befell her family

Zoey's best friend was the last girl to disappear, and she is determined to find out what happened, and if Val has anything to do with it

Val is the queen bee, the daughter of the richest woman on the island. But she has a dark secret.

This book was not entirely what I expected when I bought it, but I loved it. This one is rather creepy, I think, though not what would keep me up at night (to be fair, movies are more likely to keep me up than books due to being scary). It creates an isolated atmosphere, but another strong point in this book is the relationships between the three girls and the development there. Marion and Zoey become friends and team up to uncover the mystery when Marion's sister disappears. Zoey hates Val. But Marion might have feelings for Val.

Rep: Sapphic relationship, Zoey is Black and asexual

Also by this author: Furyborn trilogy (epic fantasy); Extasia (horror); Winterspell (Nutcracker retelling)

House of Salt and Sorrow by Erin A. Craig

This is a retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses

Annaleigh is one of twelve sister. Or, she used to be. Four of them are dead due to strange accidents, and people are saying her family is cursed. Annaleigh becomes more and more suspicious that her sister's death were no accidents.

Then, her sisters start sneaking out, going to glittering balls and dancing the night away. Annaleigh does not know if she can come with them or stop them, because where are they really going and who are they dancing with?

If Annaleigh does not find out what happened to her sisters soon, she might be the next one to die.

It's been long enough that I do not remember exactly what happened in this book, but I do remember that it was eerie and there was an interesting plot twist when Annaleigh finds out where they really go dancing.

The book stands on its own, but there will be a companion coming out this year, House of Roots and Ruin, which follows one of Annaleigh's sisters

Also by this author is Small Favors

I read this solely because someone told me it would make a good comp title for the book I'm querying, and this is a retelling of Rumplestiltskin.

Ellerie is the daughter of a beekeeper in Amity Falls, a small town surrounded by mountains. They're very isolated and have to go on supply runs to a bigger city to make sure they have what they need. But during a supply run, all people on it die. More and more strange things start happening, slowly building up. Monsters in the woods, people acting strange.

Ellerie finds herself in a race against time to save herself and the people she loves before her town goes up in flames.

This book has a kind of strange pacing. The last part has a lot happening, but before then it's all a very slow build up. Most of the incidents with monsters, Ellerie does not witness, she hears about it second hand. She befriends a strange boy who has come to town as a trapper, catching animals in the forest to sell their hides. He won't give her his name, making me instantly suspicious, but their relationship builds up for such a long time that I was constantly questioning if he could be trusted or not.

My biggest criticism of this book is that I could not tell you when it was set. It took me a while to figure out it was America, though the religious small town feels very American to me, but I couldn't tell you the time period. Likely historical. But when? Who knows, certainly not me.

The Honeys by Ryan La Sala

Mars and his twin sister Caroline have always been inseperable. But that summer, Caroline went to Aspen summer school alone. Mars no longer felt welcome there due to his gender fluidity. But when Caroline dies unexpectedly, Mars decides to take her place at the camp to feel more connected to her. It does not go as expected, and Mars quickly remembers why he stopped going. But he befriends Caroline's old friends, a group of girls called the Honeys because of the bees they tend to. But he soon finds something is seriously wrong in the camp, and it might very well have caused his sister's death.

This is a book about grief for a large part, and I think inspired by the author's own grief for his sister. I especially loved the way the Honeys were characterized in this book, and their friendship with Mars, and the story is also about a very femme queer person being accepted within a group of feminine girls.

Rep: gender fluid MC; queer side characters

Also by this author: Reverie (contemporary fantasy); Be Dazzled (contemporary); Beholder (horror, coming in October)

The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould

The Dead and the Dark is a paranormal/horror mystery set in a small town in Oregon. Because apparently Oregon is where all the spooky paranormal mystery things happen? I don't know, it seems to be a popular location

Logan's two dads host a ghost hunting show together, and have traveled to this town, which is also their hometown, for the new season. But teenagers are disappearing and there might be something really spooky going on here, and Logan has the feeling her dads are keeping secrets from her.

Ashley is a girl who has lived in this town her entire life, and her boyfriend was the first to go missing. Now, Logan is her only hope to find him.

This is a sapphic story as well as a paranormal mystery, but the emphasis is more on the mystery, I think. There are ghosts in here and a pretty sinister and quite creative explanation for what is happening in this town and why.

Rep: sapphic relationship, main character has gay dads

Last on this list is Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

Trans boy Benji is on the run from a cult. A fundementalist sect that unleashed Armageddon, killing most of the population. They believe that one chosen one will end the world for them and they made the ultimate bioweapon to do this.

Benji is rescued by the teens from the ALC, a queer youth center, and their leader Nick. Benji is immediately drawn to Nick, he's slowly changing into a monster capable of destroying the world and Nick knows.

Still, Nick allows him to stay with them as long as he can control the monster and use it to fight on their behalf.

This is I think the goriest book on this list, with lots of details on the ways Benji is slowly transforming into a monster. It's written by an autistic trans man. Benji is trans, while Nick is autistic. There is a lot of creepy fundamentalist religion in this book, as Benji was raised in the cult and their whole idea is that they should kill everyone not part of their world with their bioweapons.

Also from this author: The Spirit Bares its Teeth (coming September)

@alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @life-through-the-eyes-of @astriefer @justanormaldemon @ipromiseiwillwrite @a-dream-dirty-and-bruised @amchara @all-for-the-fanfiction @imsoftforthomastair @ddepressedbookworm @queenlilith43 @wagner-fell @cant-think-of-anything @laylax13s @tessherongraystairs @boredfangirl16 @artist-in-soul @beyondlifebeyonddeath @ikissedsmithparker

[sheryl-lee]

could you touch more on the nat antler queen clues pls? agree with your take so much on the finale and season so much!

sure! there's a lot of foreshadowing via cool hints/suggestive and vague lines/editing choices in the pilot that i've noticed so i'll talk about those primarily, but there are a fair amount scattered throughout the show as well (i'm planning on doing a rewatch soon so i may even edit this ask if i find any additional nods. and of course, if you notice anything that i've missed please let me know <3)

spoilers for yellowjackets under the cut:

the one shot in the pilot that's super striking and totally hits different for me after the s2 finale also happens to be the very FIRST scene we get of natalie as a character (discounting the brief flash of her younger self in the opening soccer game scene); it's during the present day timeline when she's still in rehab:

she's sitting cross-legged, meditating, surrounded by water and trees (aka wildnerness imagery). the framing and symbolism of this scene is completely altered once we know that nat is the antler queen in the 96 timeline (it also explains much of adult nat's behavior in 2x06-2x08, where she's leaned into the culty wilderness mentality. she's done this before, out of survival or some other dark impulse within her, and she's spent years clinging to another addiction - drugs and alcohol - and filled with guilt and remorse for feeling responsible for so much of what happened out there.)

oh and what color is adult natalie wearing in this scene? purple!

this scene cuts back and forth between pit girl getting bled out by who we presume to be shauna, while misty watches, in the 96 timeline:

much of the pilot follows this same pattern; every adult and young nat scene is followed by the pit girl scenes, and our very first glimpse of antler queen in the series - seemingly hinting that natalie is the one who will take on the leadership role in the past.

jumping back to the rehab scenes, at one point adult natalie says

"after they rescued us, i lost my purpose". this also has a totally different (and darker!) meaning once we know what we know by the end of season 2. similarly, there's a scene later in season 1 when adult taissa says to shauna that they "wouldn't even be here if it weren't for natalie". i (and many other viewers) initially took that to mean that natalie had a hand in getting the team rescued or helping them "wake up" from the cannibalistic wilderness cult behavior, but it actually means the opposite - nat surviving, allowing javi to die in the process, and becoming antler queen saved the group because it kept them alive (and continued to, up until when they were eventually rescued)

later on in the pilot, there's the scene of young natalie tripping and seemingly having a vision of misty watching her at the party (which we now know was ominously foreshadowing that 25 years later, misty would be the person to inadvertently kill her):

the scene immediately flashes back to the pit girl sequence, wherein the remaining survivors chow down on the human meat, and we get our very first antler queen appearance in the series:

the framing of young natalie sitting by a bonfire and antler queen in the center of a fire is yet another subtle indication that the two characters are one and the same.

not long after, we get another adult nat scene:

she says "i think it'll be good to reconnect with some old friends" and then we instantly jump back to the pit girl cannibalism scene, which now shows us what happened right before. misty serves the meat and we see antler queen again:

we then go back to the present day and see adult misty for the first time. she leaves the hospital and nat is shown watching her:

we cut back to the 96 timeline once more, where we see antler queen framed right behind misty:

so, knowing what we know now, the show's editing in the pilot episode and the particular focus on nat and misty serve to subtly hint to the audience that not only is nat antler queen, but misty is the person who winds up killing her, decades later in the present day timeline. it's a self fulfilling prophecy, a deal with the devil, an unpaid debt on nat's part (it chooses, you were always its favorite, it's not evil just hungry, we've been here for years), trauma that has frozen her in time and simultaneously paved the way for her life to end tragically because it (be it the wilderness, be it her metaphorical demons, be it her inner darkness) was not finished with her.

the signs were there all along that natalie was the symbol of this darkness within herself and the other girls - it was just a matter of paying attention and reminding yourself that none of these girls are innocent, nor were they incapable of violence even prior to the plane crash. the show's writing and characterization of natalie in both timelines is so rich and compelling that it was easy to overlook any and all signs that she was more sinister than we believed. but the reveal clearly showcases what the girls are capable of, and that while natalie may be faking her beliefs in the wilderness, she has become a personification of that symbology to the other girls (most notably misty) and does horrible things in the name of survival.

there are many other hints throughout the show but i might have to make a separate post because this got so long! but yeah, that's everything that i found and thought was really intriguing in the pilot alone. i can't wait to rewatch and re-examine the elements of the series now that this season has concluded!

[moonspirit]

HI HELLO WOFE!!

For the questions game!

3, 7, 5, 12, 14, 20, 31, 35

-Clouds ☁️

HELLO WAIF!!! This got long cuz I can't shut up, so under the cut #_#

3 - 3 films you could watch for the rest of your life and not get bored of? OOOOkay! Interstellar, Titanic, and Your Name (although other equally strong contenders are the Avatar movies (james cameron), any Ghibli movie, and The Martian, which I remember you love too T^T Yay common movie!)

7 - what scares you the most and why? Forgetting. More than being forgotten, which doesn't really bother me, it's forgetting. Even if a portion of my life has been dark or bleak, there's been a lot of nice things to appreciate even then; I try to write it all down in a journal every day. I think life's value is really all the moments and memories that fill up over time; I'm scared of a day coming when I don't remember all the lovely things I've encountered in my life.

5 - what made you start your blog? Ahh... I've honestly been here a long time xD Since late 2013 or early 2014, I don't remember very well, but O L D. At first I just started one to post my graphic designing pieces, but then stayed for the fandom culture and very specific humour which made me feel at home. I've left now and then, but I've always come back.

12 - what’s some good advice you want to share? This is tricky, because I give myself advice, and don't follow it #_# But something that has helped me a lot is to see only the present moment as truly valuable, and to soak in every bit of that, in touch, taste, smell and seeing. That way you've lived that minute or that hour, fully, and even if you don't get to live the next, you can find some peace. Why I say it helped me is because I always fret about the future, about whether this or that will happen, etc, and this shut up all those unwanted anxieties. 'Now' matters. Tomorrow will come, but I'll deal with it when it comes.

14 - what’s something you’ve always wanted to do but maybe been to scared to do? I think... to live more spontaneously? XD I'm a planned/organized person, I need to see things on an agenda to breathe easy lmao. I envy people who can just live everyday spontaneously as it comes, without a care in the world.

20 - favourite things about the night? EVERYTHING!!!!! ALL OF IT!!!!! I love most the drop in temperature, the silence, the occasional owls and bats, and also the lights in the distance. I live in a suburb, and while the immediate vicinity isn't bustling with noise and is mostly covered with trees and wildnerness, I can see the city in the distance. I like watching the pinpricks of moving vehicles, and wondering where they're going and to whom. The best thing of course, is the night sky. I spend inordinate amounts of time studying the stars and constellations haha xD Still don't have a telescope to see Jupiter's moons, but! one day! soon!

31 - are you messy or organised? V E R Y organized. Though in times of stress, it devolves into organized chaos, but still organized. My phase of using colour coded memo pads and cute stationery has long gone (tho I still love cute stationery T^T), so I just keep things simple now. A list. Ticked off. Etc.

35 - do you trust easily? Yeah. I shouldn't, given some stupid shit that happened some years back, but I still do xD I like to believe people are good (which is strange considering I hate human interaction, but then I suppose it applies to people I form bonds with, like you!)

HAVE I EXPOSED MYSELF ENOUGH YET??? AM I STILL GOOD TO MARRY???

[starrynight-over-thepast]

Ok but can you believe coach Ben is still alive in the wildnerness at the end of s2 and it's Natalie who got accidentally killed in the year 2021 like in what universe does that make any sense

[witchcraftandburialdirt]

How is Robin's sense of self? Has it changed over the years, or does he still have good grasp on his identity? Has Abel influenced it at all?

═══ HEADCANON INQUIRIES ═══ LEAGUE VERSE

This is one of my favorite topics to explore with Robin (I probably say that a lot but I mean it) - its an incredibly deep dive that I'm happy you're interested in. It's also a part of Robin's character that I've been slowly inching my way into as I don't want it to come across as something sudden; it's a delicate subject matter that I truly want to capture in an accurate sense. There are so many repercussions of isolation by itself but also in relation to Robin's own traumas and physical condition?

He has practically lost what it means to be a person.

Something I, as a writer, have been dipping my toes into is really revamping Robin's character in terms of how much he genuinely lacks in terms of human interaction and how much his physical conditions impact his frame of mind. More recently I've been fiddling with the idea that Robin is, tecnically, a walking folklore or even a cryptid to the people of Ionia. He has too many weird attributes and if you describe him in a prose heavy way he immediately becomes horrifying; this is something I've been actively experimenting with in my threads with my mutuals and have noticed in a few other interactions. I'm not sure why I had never thought about it before, but I feel its quite a natural progression for him considering where he currently is.

Example; His words are not harsh as he stalks around the ronin, staring down at him with those horrifically wide eyes, the fire of the campside less a warm invitation and more a damning inferno within the reflection of his iris. Robin always did have that strange way about him, a strangely uneven splice of a man and something otherworldly. Perhaps he was now, simply something that never was supposed to return - a being who knew too much of what lay beyond, one who knew too much of what could be crawling within.

Example 2: The realization of a thief dawned upon the mage and he, with the slow creeping nature of an owl, rotated his blind gaze in the direction of the brush where the man hid. Irrefutably nightmarish was the hollow stare which locked onto the hiding jackal, one which screamed of death and horrific ends to all those foolish enough to steal from the land the mage had cultivated.

His condition erases more and more of him per day, and it plucks at his individualism as he merges further into the wildnerness of Ionia; he has no one to pull him from taking the same steps everyday. Much like how animals in nature practice the same motions from dawn to dusk - he is the same, he goes down the same paths, gathers the same berries and herbs etc. It can be easy to see how this has twisted his perception of himself; he gives himself "jobs" to do because it is his only way to see others and have a moment away from the mundane schedule of his life. He has always seen his worth in his work, every verse, every timeline - he is tied to what he can produce and without any interuptions he will never stop. And given that he no longer needs to eat or sleep anymore, he is consistently going without end. I imagine one of the only people to really tell him to slow down and stop would be @yanlei while he was with the Order of Shadows - perhaps one of the only people in his whole life to make him feel like a human being, instead of a workhorse, instead of a failure.

Even worse throughout all of this is how humans are cultivated and created through our memories, we are made from all of the little things throughout our lives. Big events, small events, every tiny little interaction changes our perception of ourselves and our lives. Robin is currently, and has been, gradually forgetting his life from before his murder; he hardly even remembers his family and they were his main driving force for everything he ever did. He remembers their names, how many siblings he had, how old they were...but their personalities are lost on him. Without those memories, what is he but the moss growing up the wall of his shack? How can he hope to ever properly heal without having the ability to open those memories back up and look at them with a fresh stare? What is left of life when the rest has gone?

His purpose in life is clear when there is a task; he knows little of who he is without it.

As for Abel he is a totally different story in and of itself. "Abel" originally formed when Robin was 15 years old and took over several spaces within his life that were empty. It became his mentor, his only "family" - even going as far as to use his father's voice from his memories, and it also taught him things he asked it to. Robin is acutely aware of Abel's nature and is generally mistrusting of it; however it has not lied to him even remotely as much as he believes. Abel taught him how to speak and how to navigate the deeper underbelly of Zaun that ROBIN WANTED TO GO INTO. Robin was disillusioned when he could not find the answers he wanted, and was arrogant enough to travel into a place of unethical work in order to try and find a solution to the loss of life tormenting him.

Abel simply gave Robin the tools in which he asked for, but every decision, every mistake, and every error was caused by Robin alone. Even in death, Bel pushes Robin to break his habits and find people to communicate with, it rewards him for it and offers him ways to heal but only HE can cause the change he wants to see and experience. Until he can find it within himself again that he is a human and not a beast within the woods, he will have moons for eyes, and a gait that follows the breeze swept through the trees - what comes after..? He has yet to see.

[deputy-morgan-malone]

Morgan’s Family

I’ve been thinking a lot about the OCs in and around Morgan’s story (potentially, at least), and the fact I never talk about them, so decided to make them in picrew, just to give people some background when/if they ever get mentioned.  All made using this picrew (which ironically I think I made a different OC, but not Morgan in)

There are quite a few at this point, but starting with the major members of Morgan’s family:

Rachael Sheridan - Morgan’s mother, 50.  Born and raised in Yorkshire, England, she came over to Montana (possibly in an exchange programme?) in her early twenties, and loved it and never left.  Works as a teacher in the city of Great Falls.  A few years into living there, she met Tim Malone, a local mechanic, and they got together, although they never got married.  A few years after that Rachael found out she was pregnant and they had a daughter, Morgan Sheridan.  Sadly, a few years after that, Tim died in a car accident, leaving Rachael and Morgan together.  Rachael changed Morgan’s surname to her father’s in his memory, and stayed in Montana, where Tim’s parents lived (they had no other children, and he only ever had Morgan).  She never remarried or had any other children.  She continues to live and work in Great Falls - Morgan moved out of their shared house directly to Hope County at the start of the game.

Lydia Malone - Morgan’s grandmother, a no-nonsense sort of woman who never fully emotionally recovered from her only son’s death, and might have pushed some of that grief onto Morgan.  She was born and lived all her life in Great Falls - she worked a number of jobs throughout her life, mainly as a shop clerk, and is technically retired now, but the chores never really stop in Montana, so she’s still a fairly active person.

Gerry Malone - Morgan’s grandfather, also born and raised in Great Falls, Montana.  He’s a bit of an outdoorsman - worked a few jobs in town, but spent a lot of his life hunting to put food on the family’s table.  He taught Morgan most of what she knows about wildnerness survival, hunting and shooting - he didn’t do everything he would have liked to with her (Morgan’s mum, coming from a slightly different culture, put the veto on a few things, and their regular summers in England scuppered a few others), but he taught her a lot, and she had enough talent to get to something approaching his level.  He taught her a lot of the things he tried to teach her father, when he was a kid, and failed.  Deep down he doesn’t quite know how he feels about that.  He’s proud of Morgan though.  A pretty stoic, quiet guy, Lydia does most of the talking for the two of them, and he’s always been pretty happy to do as she tells him and get on with the jobs he’s happiest doing in silence.

These three might turn up in Morgan’s canon story at some point - because they are all alive, and quite close with and protective of Morgan, and they live literally just a few hours away.  So I really struggle to see a world where they lose contact with her, right after she moves - and after they know she was attempting a ‘difficult’ arrest - and find out contact has been lost with pretty much the whole County, and no-one’s doing anything about it, and they just Do Nothing about that.  Most logical thing to me, it seems - in the wacky world of FC5 Montana - would be for them to just charter a plane and get into the county to try to find her.  Haven’t exactly finalised this idea though, and how it would go, from pretty much the time they cross the County line, is also undecided.

Ben Sheridan - Morgan’s cousin in England, 29.  He’s probably the person she’s closest to in the world (besides her mother), despite only seeing him during summers when she younger and not at all since she graduated from college, only on Skype calls or tweeting back and forth.  Protective and a pretty natural leader, he sort of took Morgan under his wing when she was younger and the only American kid around when she visited - he got her into a lot of the big influences on her life, socialist politics, punk rock, anarchist concepts in general.  As he’s grown up, however, he’s settled down a little bit more into a 9-to-5 sort of life.

Layla Malone - Ben and Morgan’s cousin, 27.  Also from Yorkshire, England, she, Ben and Morgan were a tight little group when Morgan visited from Montana.  A feminist, socialist, and a lesbian, she also encouraged Morgan into left-wing politics, and standing up for herself.  Still involved in a bit of activism, she’s probably managed to hold onto her politics (or at least put them into practise in her daily life) a bit better than Ben has.

Hannah Mackenzie - Layla’s fiancee.  They disagree on the institution of marriage - Layla doesn’t believe in it, but Hannah doesn’t mind, and her mother prefers a sign of ‘commitment’ in relationships.  So they’ve ended up in a years-long engagement as a sort of compromise.  Fairly shy and sweet, Hannah is less of an activist than Layla, but still more than willing to stand up for herself if she feels she needs to.

These three would probably only be directly involved in the story in a no-cult/no-arrest AU - but I have thought long and hard about them visiting Morgan for a few months in that kind of AU, a bit of an excuse for a free trip to Montana, but also a nice flip on the way she always visited them and England as a child.  And - in a cult-but-no-Reaping AU - I have thought long and hard about what the Project at Eden’s Gate might think of all of them, and their ‘sudden’ trip to the Project’s doorstep, when the Collapse is just around the corner.  And what Morgan might have to do in a situation like that.  I’ve thought long and hard indeed.

[spaceheelies]

flirting online with any men who seem non-threatening and outdoorsy because i didn’t go hiking at all last year and i miss the mountains. i miss the woods. i need a terminally OFFline bf to throw me over his shoulder and carry me into the wildnerness

[englishgiraffe]

My Love For The Eighth Doctor Books

Disclaimer: This essay is awfully long, the structure is terrible, and it probably shouldn’t have been over 4000 words, but hopefully, you’ll enjoy my insight of the Eighth Doctor Books.

Introduction

Trying to create a character around a brand new Doctor is tricky and Paul McGann’s incarnation is perhaps the biggest example for this. After 1996, he never had a TV appearance to fully flesh out the Eighth Doctor and remember: Big Finish didn’t use the Eighth Doctor until 2001. So writers in 1997 had a difficult task, especially when the Virgin Books lost the rights to the DW IP and were back in the BBC’s rights. Some Virgin New Adventure writers like Kate Orman, Justin Richards, Paul Leonard had come to write for the EDA’s, but new talent had to come in as well. They all had to intricately look at like, what, 40 minutes of McGann’s screentime in the TV Movie, half of which was the Doctor trying to figure himself out from amnesia and the other half is him being thrust into the plot without any way to truly develop his character. So… yeah, I actually can’t blame the writers finding their feet, at least with the VNA’s developing the 7th Doctor, he had 12 stories. Also, trying to pick up from the massive popularity of the VNA’s, and oh my God, I feel so bad for the writers. But, there could be a slither of a chance, maybe the magic they could have brought from the VNA’s can be replicated again. So, did it work? Hell yeah, it did!... just not under the guise of Uncle Terry Dicks. Just…screw everything about The Eight Doctors, it’s the worst possible starting point. But after that blip, yeah, it’s my favourite era of the Doctor Who IP, bar none.

Exciting Ideas

I’ll start off listing the sci-fi elements first before getting into character work. Much like the VNA’s, perhaps even more so, the EDA’s are not afraid to bring bold, extravagant ideas that TV Who could never do, perhaps not even what Big Finish could do, because of the novel format that allows descriptions and characters to fully grow. The Books are able to describe how a planet looks, feels, sounds, even down to taste so effortlessly, and a part of it is how unique, so bizarre, so beautiful these planets are, so… intimate. Could Doctor Who ever do planets like Albert (a planet entirely made out of Grimm’s fairy tales), Hitchemus (a colony world thriving on music and inhabited by intelligent tigers), The Crooked World (much like the Land of Fiction, except all the inhabitants and settings are cartoon-based). Not even Big Finish pulls off such weird and surreal settings and that’s because of the prose style allowing time and dedication to flesh out the multiple planets, without feeling clunky in its description and dialogue, which could plague early BF stories at times. But it’s not just the variety in the settings that make it great, there are also fascinating new ways to tell these stories with different formats. Narratives can be told in a Pulp Fiction-esque, out of order style (The Last Resort), told backwards (Festival of Death), books where the Doctor is barely in it but his presence is booming (Sleep of Reason), books told from the first person POV (The Turing Test, Frontier Worlds, Banquo Legacy), a narrative told from a non-fiction documentary perspective (Adventuress of Henrietta Street), a narrative told in a essay format (History 101), and that’s only a handful of the formats. There’s multiple pastiches and parodies; Trading Futures does Doctor Who crossed with James Bond harder than the Pertwee era, The Tomorrow Windows replicates Douglas Adams’ style down to a T, The Crooked World is basically Doctor Who crossed with Hanna Barbara Cartoons and many more. God, everything is so unique and wacky in this book range.

The Tone and Theming

As for the Books’ tone, it’s certainly interesting. In the VNA’s, because a lot of new talent, and a lack of the BBC reigning things in as well as major inspiration from 90s cyberpunk media such as Judge Dredd, a lot of the books, especially in its first half, were extremely grimdark and gratuitous in order to show shock value for its audience (Timewryn Genesys had Ace sexually assaulted and The Doctor told her to just shrug it off and claim that it was part of the times they’re in and Warlock had unconsented bestiality and detailed animal murder). It was too far in my eyes, despite me saying that DW can be more than a franchise that is just whirling around in a magic police box. However, in the EDA’s, yes there is more sexual content, swearing like bastard, bitch and shit is still a thing, and there can be gory violence. But here’s where the EDA’s success at compared to VNA’s; it attempts to earn it’s adult elements. With the VNA’s, the grimdark nature was so constant to the point of normalisation, with hardly any degree of wonder or wit, especially from its regulars (thank God for Bernice Summerfield bringing some happiness at least). It does address and deconstruct the grimdark nature near the end, but God, even as a depressing cynical man, the likes of Blood Heat, Parasite, Warlock were just too dour for me to truly enjoy. But here, there is moderation and it feels contextual to the overall story. It enhances the story, not pollute it. The Spanish Civil War of 1936 (History 101) is written maturely and handles its mature themes in a thoughtful manner, Suicide and Depression is handled with sensitivity and intimacy (The Sleep of Reason), and when gratituous violence is used, it is detailed certainly but never glamorised and often times extremely terrifying instead of gore for the sake of gore (Eater of Wasps). Hell, even the most comical story, The Crooked World, has introspective themes of free will, the concept of death, existentialism and the value of a soul. But, it’s not all bleak, as said, The Crooked World is perhaps the most comical story since The Romans, anything involved with Iris Wildthyme as well as being weird abstract, is just laugh-out-loud hilarious, Jonathan Morris’ The Tomorrow Windows is pure Douglas Adams wacky humour, and Lance Parkin’s Trading Futures is majorly inspired by Roger Moore James Bond movies. The way the Books tackle true adult themes like Morality, Honour, Sexuality, Gender, Trauma, Redemption, the Philosophy of Nature and Identity, whilst being imaginative, humorous and endearing is… just poignant and beautiful.

 The Regulars-Sam Jones

So… the regulars. Well, I’ll save the main two (The Eighth Doctor and Fitz) for last, because they will be the longest. So starting with Sam Jones (and yes, they do the ‘Smith and Jones’ shtick about a decade prior to Series 3), and off the bat, she’s easily the weakest EDA Companion and a bit of a inconsistency. She often suffered from writers who wanted to write her as the worst extremes of ‘Vegetarian Political Activist’, who constantly bitches and moans towards everything without any proper tact. And I don’t mind characters who don’t believe in tact, Cordelia from Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel is one of my favourite characters, but when Sam gives her opinions on everything in a pessimistic attitude without a degree of optimism… yeah my enthusiasm starts to drain really quickly. Doesn’t help that she’ll flip-flop between being a lovesick puppydog for 8, cynical activist or just… woman. But I will say that when she’s written under the likes of Kate Orman/Jonathan Blum, Paul Leonard and Paul Magrs, I absolutely love her character. She’s perceptive yet bright, naïve but willing to grow, cynical but willing to bring in entertainment. And I will say that her backstory is a fascinating deconstruction of the ‘Perfect Companion’ trope that Moffat loved to overemphasise. She had been manipulated, used as a pawn and twisted by the Doctor (although this is accidental) from the events of the TV Movie, and the real/correct one is just a junkie that couldn’t wait to stick a Heroin needle if it was given in front of her. It’s tragic, especially considering that when The Doctor fixes all his companions’ timeline much later down the line, Correct Sam becomes the correct version and it’s revealed that this version never travelled with the Doctor and died of an overdose, despite Fitz knowing her experiences they had together. I also love her exit story in Interference, she had become more enjoyable near the end and the story is able to show her resources. Unfortunately, the inconsistency up until Fitz joins just left me too much having a cold taste in my mouth for me to love her.

The Regulars-Compassion

Next up, the human-TARDIS hybrid and Ice Cold Queen, Compassion. This is a character that I definitely appreciated way more after a first reading. The first time, I thought Compassion was too cold and aloof but on a reread, while she’s never going to be high on my list for favourite companions and I find her the hardest to analyse, I find that she works great as a hard-edged character, her dynamic with The Doctor and Fitz remind me a lot of 2/Jamie/Zoe, only if Zoe was way more upfront about her intelligence and rudeness. Her dynamic with Fitz as well is interesting as at first, they clearly despise each other for their clashing personalities and find each other untrustworthy but overtime, Compassion learns to enjoy Fitz’s goofiness and even learns to apologise. She can be destructive and violent with no emotion put behind it. That said, she becomes a more interesting character once she becomes the first Human-TARDIS hybrid, with the Doctor and Fitz forced to rely on her, but because of her cold hubris and after The Doctor forces a Randomiser thus violating her body, Compassion can become terrifying to The Doctor and Fitz. She does get brilliant material in The Banquo Legacy as well, with her possessing one person and her personality conflicting with the possessed person’s. And she has a decent farewell as well. Overall, I enjoy Compassion, it’s just really hard to analyse her considering that she only has 12 stories with the combination of perhaps a too subtle character arc.

 The Regulars- Anji Kapoor

Now onto Anji Kapoor. If it isn’t for another companion that I’ll mention later, then Anji is certainly a close second in my rankings of 8th Doctor companions. And I also say with high praise that the 8th Doctor, Fitz Kreiner and Anji Kapoor team is my definitive TARDIS team… ever. You wouldn’t get that impression with her first story, as she has the trappings of an RTD Companion that you can pretty much guess a mile off. Stale relationship, life is going nowhere, working class, dead end job, jeez, I heard it all with Rose, Martha, Donna, Amy, Clara, Bill. The fact that she works in the stock market, an occupation I swear 98% of the population can barely figure out, and I felt like I was never going to like Anji. But Dang… Dang!!! The biggest glow-up happens in her very next story, and it practically sticks until her exit. I always felt that companions inbetween that period of Leela (arguably Tegan) and Anji never really basked in the pure absurdity of what world they were travelling in and never really gave any thought. The combination of new experiences around the universe and her haunting memories of her dead boyfriend was a lot to take in for her, to the point that she never really moved on (in Earthworld, she keeps writing emails to Dave, despite him being dead, and in Hope, she gives the secrets of the TARDIS over to the inhabitants on the exchange that they clone her boyfriend). She fell from grace multiple times, but with the Doctor and Fitz’s help, she was able to pick herself back up before spiralling down. What I love about Anji is despite her caring for The Doctor, she’s very distrustful to him because of his calculating and alien nature and both conflict with each other, their arguments almost feel too real. Anji often considers the options and is usually independent with her financial skills and intelligence. Over the 25 Books she’s in, she has become consistently enjoyable and a delight to read. Witty, clever, full of instinct, and humane, I did feel a proper sense of loss when she left.

The Regulars- Trix Macmillan

On the last companion, Trix Macmillan. She’s probably have the least amount of books in comparison to other EDA Companions (Sam had 25, Fitz had 51, Compassion has 12 and Anji had 25), with her only having 9 Books. Certainly not a lot of time to flesh out her character in comparison, but somehow the writers did it. What I love about Trix and what makes her a stark contrast to the first EDA Companion, Sam, is that Trix doesn’t want to be popular or well-liked. She’s logical, calculating, often devious, and often pretty tactless. She’s the kind of person who would steal a dead person’s identity and money. She treats The Doctor and Fitz not as friends, only acquaintances. But not just that, she can be (intentionally) a walking contradiction. Much like a showbiz actress, depending on what environment, time and crowd she’s working with, she’ll immediately change her personality. To the point that Trix doesn’t even know her true personality, and she is scared that she wants to know what she used to be. She likes being anyone but herself, wanting to become inconspicuous around the Doctor. Her relationship with the Doctor is interesting as well, he is judgemental towards her hobby as a conwoman, believing that she’s only with him and Fitz because she’ll steal whatever she can get. But as time goes on, he learns about her contradictory personality (most likely relates because of his own contradictory personality), and sees her, the real her. And despite her trying to detach herself from The Doctor, she slowly, but surely, opens herself more to The Doctor and Fitz, to the point that she feels hurt when The Doctor accuses her. Even with the short runtime, I found her relationship with Fitz to be really touching, and shows that Fitz’s open loyalty works in tandem with Trix’s cold secrecy. We don’t get much information about her past, but in a way I enjoy the lack of answers, whether she’s just a conartist or perhaps a chameleonic alien, what her relationship was like with her father. And maybe that’s the point, with her shape-shifting and unpredictable personality, she’s meant to be an enigma. At the very least, with 9 books, she had become a fascinating character that was wonderful to read and analyse.

The Regulars-Fitzgerald Kreiner

Now, my favourite companion in all of Doctor Who media, Fitz Kreiner. Better than the likes of Jamie, Donna, Sarah Jane, Ace and Evelyn. Before with Sam and The Doctor, the books were of varying quality, but as soon as he was introduced, even with a bit of a terrible debut story, he brought such humour that made the story just about bearable. He’s a bit of a goofball with some addiction for cigarettes and alcohol, but he starts becoming one of the most complex and special characters in the franchise. He begins as a bit of a James Bond-esque ‘Lady’s Man’, often trying to flirt and womanise, but by his third Book, Revolution Man, the development truly begins. He gets kidnapped, tortured and brainwashed under the influence of alien drugs and forced into shooting a man, with the Doctor forced to finish the job off for Fitz. He’s obviously going to have lasting effects that will damage him in the long run. But Damn, it doesn’t stop there, Interference leaves him in the absolute gutter with him being trapped in a membrane for 600 years, and resents the Doctor for failing to rescue him, and joins up to 8’s longlives enemy, Faction Paradox, and is converted to be a monster, becoming Father Kreiner. And it’s tragic, given his PTSD shown from Revolution Man. But that Fitz is gone, and what stays with the Doctor until the end is a clone of him, with full memories and everything. So thankfully, the loveable oaf never truly went away and only gets better from here. Much like how the 2nd Doctor was perfect for Jamie, or how Ian and Barbara are integral for the 1st Doctor, Fitz is ideal for 8. During the period with Compassion, he wants to prove that he’s the real Fitz, but can’t, because he isn’t. He may have the OG Fitz’s memories, but he can’t dream and thinks that some memories are missing. Even some aspects of his personality are different, like his skills of hiding and blending in easier. He may be a doofus, and hard to catch on certain things, but much like Jamie, he’s street-smart, and is able to spot simple situations that The Doctor wouldn’t give a second notice because of his desire for over-complicated situations. Even with him not being as bright, he’s able to hold off on his own from the Doctor, as in Trading Futures, he’s able to defeat Time Lord-wannabe Space Rhinos (no, not those kind of Space Rhinos) on his own without any of the Doctor’s help or knowledge by impersonating the Doctor, even willing to sacrifice himself. He’s the flame behind the EDA’s for me, the one who is willing to sacrifice everything he has to save whoever he considers family, and the bond that the Doctor and Fitz have together is inspired. He is fiercely loyal to the Doctor, even when he is kept in the dark. They both have a connection towards each other, like a mix between 2/Jamie and early 8/Charley, with Fitz even willing to hold the heavy memories of what 8 did to Gallifrey, even when The Doctor threatens to break every bone in Fitz’s body.  He was the best friend that 8 could ever have, I loved their kindred relationship and it was totally worth it having Fitz for 51 Books to become such a developed character. My favourite companion, bar none.

The Regulars-The Eighth Doctor

And now, finally the Eighth Doctor. Before, I used to cite the Eighth Doctor from Big Finish as the definitive incarnation. And don’t get me wrong, I still love him in the Charley, Lucie and even the Doom Coalition era. He has brilliant gravitas in showing intelligence (arguably the most intelligence since the 4th Doctor), dry morbid humour, the right amount of patronising, and enthusiasm, often excelled by McGann’s excellent performance and Shakespearean voice. But, as time goes on, the era becomes more… how do I say… schizophrenic and uneven. Big Finish sort of starts off creating arcs for 8, but then… sort of wander off and never pick up on arcs they’ve created, like the 800 year maroon in Orbis, the angst in Dark Eyes, then finally culminating with Moffat’s Night of the Doctor, not picking up on his hatred for the Daleks after Lucie Miller’s death, and making him too naïve to the Time War, making it as if his journey from BF didn’t even matter.

Then came my experiences with the books. And discarding the first novel, The Eight Doctors, and jumping straight to Vampire Science, Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman immediately gave 8 more nuance than 75% of 8th Doctor material in BF. I should preface by saying this as well: despite my grievances from the Virgin New Adventures, I still think that the character of 7, Time’s Champion and its character work are still crucial to the EDA’s and how it conflicts/supplements 8’s character. 8 is no longer Death’s pet, stuck to the chains of fate, but much like 7, in the eyes of others, he is simultaneously whimsical, dangerous and manipulative, albeit more flawed than 7. When 7 manipulates, it’s more out of logic, thinking about the bigger scope, while with 8, it’s out of passion and love. He often uses his good looks and often childlike grin as a front to scheme, as evidenced in Genocide. But unlike the 7th Doctor, it’s never constant to the point of predictability, and sometimes, even his manipulation messes up due to his conflict with his passion and childlike personality. I’d argue that 8 is the most anti-hero incarnation of all the Doctors, even more than the 7th Doctor, often obliviously selfish, privileged and at times very toxic and callous. He often doesn’t let other people in on his schemes (him faking his own death to his companions in The Banquo Legacy), often clings onto people out of fear of losing them (Sam in Interference), pulls strings for his selfish needs (uses Alan Turing’s sexuality as blackmail to make Turing help him help aliens but on the basis that the Doctor just escapes Earth in The Turing Test), puts others on the brink of death (orders a possessed wasp-human hybrid to kill one of his closest patients to test if his true personality is still there in Eater of Wasps), often be cold-blooded and violent (throws a medic against the wall head-first and then stuffs him in a cupboard in Vanishing Point). In the second half of the Book range, he had lost his memory from his battle and destruction/erasure of Gallifrey, but here’s why this memory erasure works as opposed to other ones, like in Big Finish. For Big Finish 90% of the time it’s used, it’s often to create false tension. At times, it’s fine, but when it’s used constantly to pad out the runtime, my enthusiasm starts to wane out quickly. But Justin Richards as Book Script Editor brings something interesting. For the first time, the Doctor isn’t bitching about where his memory is, but rather, he’s a mirrored version of the 1st Doctor (my second favourite incarnation): full of rage, irritative, deceptive, arrogant and willing to fill his hands full of blood. The difference is there is no Ian or Barbara to hold him back, to make him grow, 8 must be the one to grow and develop himself, he has to make the work into becoming The Doctor. That’s another reason why I adore the 8/Fitz/Anji team so much; they are all broken, damaged people with flaws, and call each other out. But they are also a trio of friendship, love, can bring unity towards each other and most importantly, feel like a family, in fact probably the most family-like team since arguably 2/Jamie/Victoria or even since 1/Ian/Barbara/Vicki. 8/Fitz/Anji have truly descended into tough times (Fitz especially), but this team shows that you can pull yourself back from the depths of hell when you have the right support going for you.

Writers like Lance Parkin, Paul Leonard, Lloyd Rose, Kate Orman, Steve Lyons, Mags L Halliday, Martin Day, Lawrence Miles live and breathe the 8th Doctor, a true Bryon Romantic, poetic and literal with words. He’s a diplomat, rather than a conqueror. He may be brutal, manipulative, and cold-blooded, but it’s equally mirrored with empathy, mischievous humour akin to the 2nd Doctor, and a lust for the unpredictability of humanity. Yet unlike how Modern Big Finish and Moffat’s Night of the Doctor made 8 into an ineffectual pacifist buffoon, Book 8 is certainly an optimist, but he’s also a realist. In Reckless Engineering, he was given the choice between saving the correct timeline in the universe but at the cost of his friends or let the universe collapse… he actually chooses the universe. It’s a shocking moment (especially for Fitz, considering how long he’s been with the Doctor), but even he knows that, but has a responsibility to save the right reality. And with some introspection, nearing the end, he realises that, because there’s a gorgeous insight in The Sleep of Reason, about focusing too much on the bigger picture and the few things is equally as important. To see 8’s goals come to fruition, he brings it to himself that his mission of helping even just one individual can be seen as the greatest thing in the universe. He doesn’t want to remember the events of Gallifrey near the end because at the end of the day, he’s a man who strives for the present and future, not the past. He may not be a good person, he may not be right sometimes, and he may not have a happily ever after with destroying Evil for good, but he’ll still keep going on just to make a difference. That’s why I adore the ambiguous ending to The Gallifrey Chronicles, we never get a confirmation as to whether the Doctor survives his plan against the Vore, we never get what his plan is supposed to be and whatever happens after the battle (besides a song from Fitz closing off the book). I prefer Doctor Who to have an ambiguous non-conclusive ending than what Marc Platt did for Lungbarrow or Colin Meek for Death Comes to Time. This version of Eight has now become the definitive incarnation of The Doctor for me, I adore this character so much.

Conclusion

To me, The Eighth Doctor Books, especially in the second half, truly encapsulates everything that I love about the franchise: superb prose, introspective themes, emotional moments, pushing the boundaries of what Doctor Who could truly do but never accomplish. The writers made something special, and made the range one of the most suspenseful, sombre, intimate, and beautiful pieces of fiction I’ve ever experienced. I love them, and to me, they are my Doctor Who.

[jem-in-eyee]

“He wasn’t the type of pretty young boy who immediately grabbed people’s attention, but one whose graceful beauty only became apparent over time.”

— ‘Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage’, by Murakami

[wwilloww]

sh. | chapter fourteen | ot7

PAIRING ot7 x reader RATING Explicit. 18+. GENRE smut. fluff. angst. nonidol au. wildnerness au. roommates au. friends to lovers. SUMMARY Six months of quarantine have kept you apart. Somehow the distance sparks something new in each of you: questions, unfinished conversations, threads once chased now left cold. So when your roommate invites you to come with him to a mysterious house in the mountains with your friends, how could you even think of saying no? WC 6k WARNINGS AND TAGS  reference to reader with she/her pronouns (once). nudity. dirty talk. oral sex. penetrative sex. exhibitionism. voyeurism. orgasm. creampie. explicit discussions about sex.

AN: readers, thank you for following along with this journey for so long. it's been a really fun ride these past weeks getting to post so frequently and i'm really looking forward to what you all think of this chapter. a lot is coming to a head! as always, thank you to @hesperantha for being the wind beneath my wings. i owe him the world for his unending support of this series!

← || series m.list || →

©wwilloww Do not repost, translate, or use my stories without my permission.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The rumble of lowered voices and the soft scratch of a needle dropping onto a spinning record, bringing music to life pull you from a dream of a kitchen packed full of your friends.

Half memory, half dream.

New Years 2020. There was something about the rounded numbers and the new decade that made it seem like this year was a year for all of you. Like the arrival of the next decade marked a blossoming for each of you, an abundance that none of you could conceive of. Eden, unspoiled. None of you understood exactly what was coming. How it would change everything in the world, in your minds, in your community.

But the dream, while it draws from the memories of raucous partying, also includes a pair of tigers swimming in a pool that Jin’s apartment definitely didn’t have, Jimin, dressed as a dark angel, reaching over his shoulder to preen the glossy feathers of his wings, and Hoseok. But not just any Hoseok. Hoseok, dressed in leather pants and a flowing shirt, pushing you up against the fridge at midnight to capture your lips. Capture them and hold them captive, his mouth moving against you so sweetly. You think you taste honey. Sunlight filtered through a cold winter’s day.

The dream drifts.

You peel your sleep-riddled eyes open again, the tendrils of dream wafting around you. The rumble of lowered voices has stopped. In fact, no one is talking. Your eyes must have been closed for more than a moment, caught in half-sleep. Friends are scattered around the room, some sleeping on the couches, some, like Jin and Taehyung and Jungkook, curled up together on the floor. Taehyung’s leg is thrown over both of them. You realize: you must have fallen asleep again.

In the corner, a record player still spins, a gentle old classic crooning out into the darkened room. The only light shining in comes from the moon and the crackling fireplace.

“Hmmph,” Hoseok grumbles and pulls you closer to him.

You smile, relaxing into his grasp for a moment, letting yourself feel the feeling of being held. It’s warm. Soft, even. A warm, bubbling feeling spreads through you as the whisper of a smile plays along your lips as you settle into his hold.

But it’s not long before the itch in your throat becomes too large to ignore. Reluctantly, you extract yourself out of his tangle of arms and legs and whisper, “Gonna get some water,” and head off towards the kitchen. When you look back behind you, his eyes are fluttering closed again, his arms wrapping around the empty space where you had once been.

The water is sweet and cold, pouring down your throat. You finish one glass, then a second.

The taste of burnt sugar on your tongue does not fade. You wonder if you’ve made some kind of dreadful mistake, partaking in the activities of last night. But then truly, you feel too tired to really wonder too deeply. It must be near dawn, but as you look out the large kitchen window, all you’re met with is a reflection of yourself. A panting in the hall behind you makes it look like something—wings, maybe—are spreading like darkness from your back. A memory of a dream? Either way, you don’t look too long.

When you return to the darkened living room, you find Hoseok gone.

And then there’s a hand on your shoulder.

You spin to find yourself face to face with none other than the man himself.

“I went looking for you.”

“I was just getting water.”

“Ah.” He says, scratching the back of his neck and flushing a delightful shade of pink. “Didn’t see you.”

“We must have just missed each other,” you say softly, suddenly aware of how close he’s standing. In the same moment the realization dawns on you that you’re both bared to the elements — minus Hoseok’s boxers. Your hands rise to cover yourself and he notices.

Stepping away, he grabs what must be Jungkook’s very oversized dress shirt and holds it open for you. “Here.” You step in, letting the lightweight fabric envelop you.

“We seem to keep missing each other,” you say.

“Hm?”

“Tonight, I mean.” You turn towards him.

“I didn’t expect anything of you, you know,” Hoseok says sternly.

“I know.” And you do know. Even in those moments when you can see past everything that he puts up between the two of you and into what you think he desires, you know he would never ask it of you. “But it seemed like a missed opportunity.” You’re not sure if it’s the high of sex or the darkness that’s making you so bold.

“Well then. Don’t let me miss it now.”

He offers you a hand, and after a moment of slight confusion you take it, stepping closer to him shakily. He leads you to the center of the room, away from your sleeping friends, but where the carpet is still plush beneath your feet.

The record on the record player croons an old song, dampened horn accompanying a whiskey-rich voice. It makes the darkened room feel warmer, more lived in. He pulls you against his chest, and for a moment the two of you just stand there, swaying side to side to the gentle beat of the music. For a moment, you lean your head against his chest, and his hands tighten around yours, pulling you to him as your bodies find the beat of the music. And when they do, it feels as if you’ve clicked into place. Against the rhythm, against him. It’s comfortable like this. Then he sighs.

You look at him, curious. He has a half smile on his face. Like he’s relieved. Like he’s taken a deep breath after so long of holding the air tight in his lungs. His hair has long lost its meticulously groomed shape and now falls into his face. And while he’s nearly bare and pressed against you, all that you know are his eyes.

As you stand there, hardly dancing, too lost in one another, it’s like he’s let himself look at you for the first time—really look—his gaze scanning your features, reading you, asking unspoken questions. Your instinct says to turn your eyes downward, to hide from him, to take a step back. But not tonight. Tonight, you stare back. Tonight, you voice the need that’s been scrambling in your mind, the one you hadn’t dared set free.

“I want you,” you whisper. When nothing in his gaze changes, you clear your throat.“Hobi, I want you,” you say louder. His eyes widen, as if he can’t believe it.

“Now?”

You nod.

“I don’t want to do this—” he says earnestly and your heart cracks in two— “if you don’t want to do this.” Your heart mends a little at the clarification. But still there’s that undeniable ache that you have no name for, throbbing in your chest every time you look at him. Is it nothing more than the fear of rejection? “I can, you know, go blow Jungkook awake or something,” he chuckles when he says it, his eyes flickering downwards, and you know he’s deflecting. Pushing the hurt off with a joke. You can feel the ache beneath the statement. “I can go, I can—”

“No,” you interrupt. “Stay. I…” Deep breath. Remember what Yoongi said: speak it. Out loud. “I want this. Want… you.”

Something softens in his gaze and he takes your hand in his. Presses a kiss to your fingertips. Your whole body warms as he glances at you over your hand, as his eyes burn with the same desire you feel burning in your belly.

“Really?”

“Really.”

Taking both of your hands, he gently guides you down to the loveseat where the two of you had been sleeping: a beautiful, sloping piece of furniture. It’s not the most romantic, this setup, the sounds of Namjoon snoring and Jungkook humming in his sleep on the floor. And yet, yet your heart is throbbing so excitedly in your chest it's nearly painful.

He leans over you, pressing a kiss to your collarbone, before looking up at you. Checking in. You nod. He kisses slowly but tenderly down the front of the shirt you’re wearing. It’s happening. It’s happening, you think. Time moves in hyperspeed, your breath coming quickly too. As he nears your parted legs, your mind skips ahead. You pull it back. Present. Stay present.

He bends down, lifting your shirt, ready to press his lips to your mound, but you reach down and lift his face up.

“I feel like I should be ready already,” you explain.

“I don’t care. I want to be the one who gets you ready for me.”

And with that he presses his lips to your clit and your back arches. His movements are well coordinated, practiced even, and your mind begins to wander down that old familiar road: who else has had your tongue pressed to them? But you snap your mind back to the present moment.

You cry out as his tongue lathes softly across your outer lips before circling around your clit, flicking at the head. He begins to build a steady but gentle pattern. As his tongue presses into your entrance, you can’t help but wonder what he will feel like, what he will look like fucking you. Will he fuck you slow and steady? Will he be furiously quick about it, desperate to fuck you, to have you all to himself, before your friends wake up? Will he bend you over the lounge chair, fucking into you desperately like he can’t get enough of you?

Before you know it, you’re about to come beneath his touch, racing towards the edge, your breath catching, your limbs tensing, you—Hobi glances up at you and you catch his gaze, the intensity of it and—

You’re not coming.

“Shit,” you curse, your body pulled back from the brink. You throw your head back, your breath coming in pants.

Hoseok is flushing, sitting up.

“Too intense?”

“No, no—”

“I know its weird fucking a friend,” he says softly.

“No, no, Hoseok.” Your face warms furiously as you struggle for words. Out with it: “I got ahead of myself?”

“Ahead of yourself?”

“I imagined…” Out with it! You make yourself speak the words, even though it would be second nature to hold back. “I was imagining it was… you fucking me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He slides a little closer. “And what did you imagine?” he asks, his brow raised.

No, no, this is not how this is supposed to go. But you’re hurtling towards this and there’s no stopping it now.

“You were… inside me.” You want to hit yourself for how dumb it sounds, but Hoseok doesn’t seem to notice.

“And? What was it like?”

“Good.” Better than good.

“What did it feel like?”

“Warm,” you say, flushing. “Full.”

“Full of me,” Hoseok hums, leaning closer to you.

“Full of you,” you repeat, as his face looms closer, as he gets so close that goosebumps race across your skin.

“Instead of imagining it, do you want me to show you what it would really be like? How it would really feel?”

“Yes, god, please.”

He grins, places a kiss atop your cheek and stands up, stripping himself of his boxers. You do the same, quickly taking off the dress shirt you had just minutes ago put on. Carefully he climbs back onto the lounge, settling his weight between your legs.

That’s when you look at him, really look. He’s warmed, his cheeks reddened, his eyes dark. He’s breathing heavily, like he’s been waiting for this. The man is svelte, but he’s got lean muscle decorating his body, giving the impression of someone who moves with intentionality. And his cock, god, his cock. It stands tall and at ready against his toned stomach. All this, for you, and you’ve barely even touched him.

Slowly he lowers his weight atop you, and you lean back.

“This is what you want?” he whispers. “Like this?”

You nod.

He nods back.

You reach to him, letting your fingers driftgently from his chest to his belly, where a light happy trail drifts from his navel to the base of his cock. You trail your fingers further downward, before wrapping your hand round his cock. It twitches in your grasp. He wraps his hand around yours and guides you both, before he gently notches the head of it against your opening, slick from what must be hours of arousal and now most recently, his tongue.

“You’re so wet.”

“For you,” you promise. “For you.”

Feeling him this close to him sharing this space again, intentionally so, all of the barricades you’ve built up between you and him suddenly feel physical. Like there’s a dense wall within your chest, each of your trysts with your friends behind his back feels like a brick added to the wall between you and Hoseok. You’re split. What you felt, what you feel for your other friends and the raging beast of emotion that rises up every time you’re this close to Hoseok. How can one body contain such contradiction?

Hoseok stares at you. Really stares. His eyes are warm. Safe. But within them is a kind of clarity. Like with that gentleness he has pierced right past any barrier you had built and seen straight through to you.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you whisper.

“Like what?”

His gaze flickers between your eyes and your lips, quick as a flame.

“Like you see something in me.”

He tilts his head to the side, unsure of what you mean.

“Of course I see something in you. We all do. How could we not?”

You flush at that.

“I didn’t mean—I don’t know.”

“Look at me,” he says. It sounds more like a plea than a direction.

The sounds of the room—the snoring, murmuring, the crooning record in the corner—seem to drown out as you meet his eyes, dark and burning with desire and (you think) questions. The only sound left in the room is that of your heartbeat rocketing through your chest—still, it is steady and knowing in its wanting. Head pounding, breath fluttering, you bring your hands to him and pull him closer.

There’s no need for directing. Your bodies move closer together, limbs fitting along limbs, forms finding one another. It’s as if you’ve danced this dance before, as if each of you know what the other is looking for.

You can feel the head of his cock at your entrance, but right now you’re focused on the way he so caringly brushes a piece of hair from your forehead.

“I want this if you want this,” he says. You nod. “But I need to hear it from you. What do you want?”

“I told you already,” you whisper. “I want you.”

“Such vague words for someone who says they know what they want.” He smirks. You can hear the teasing edge in his voice.

“Damn, Hobi,” you laugh, the sound like relief on your lips. And then a deep breath. And more seriously: “I want you to fuck me.”

He smiles. “Good. Because I’ve been waiting to do this.”

Still, he holds his breath when he pushes into you, your walls tight around him. You watch the way he watches your bodies meld and melt into each other. He only thrusts in enough to watch the head of his cock disappear into your body, saying, “I want to go slow,” before pulling out again and resheathing himself within you. With each thrust he goes a little bit deeper, until at last he reaches some deep ache within you and you can’t help but cry out.

When his eyes flash up towards you, you realize it’s because it’s the first time in a long minute that you’ve broken the silence, your cry shattering the shared and held breath between you.

“You oka—”

“It feels so good.”

His brows shoot to his forehead, as if he couldn’t possibly believe that this feels good for you too, but he’s quickly regaining his confidence, a small smile flashing across his features. He thrusts slowly into you, and this time you watch as his cock disappears into you.

“Fuck, Hobi,” you groan, your hands digging into the soft cushion beneath you.

“I’m trying to,” he jokes. You giggle.

It feels like the old him, the less serious him, the sunshine that you always used to know, used to hang around.

He hits another soft spot within you and you can’t help the sound that leaves you.

“You know, you’re going to wake up the others if you keep that up,” he says.

“Keep what up?”

“Crying about my cock.”

You roll your hips towards him, clenching a little bit around him. Just to see his reaction.

“Fuck,” he curses and his body falls atop yours, his face coming closer, his lips parting, so close— You think he’s going to kiss you. In the moment you think of it, memory rises like dust from that ancient January night. It’s just been a couple of months, but it feels ancient. Like a ghost sealed in a tomb. It hovers between you like snow, freezing the both of you.

At the last second he slips away from your lips, instead pressing his to the edge of your jaw. His lips part softly at your skin, his hips pumping in and out of you gently but without fail. And you feel it. You feel the absence of the kiss as if it hangs between you like a lead lock. Unspoken. Unready. Unopened.

“Fuck,” he breathes into your ear. “You feel so good.” And then he whispers your name, spoken so softly, like a prayer or something even more divine. A song of devotion; a psalm.

When you look at him, so enraptured, it’s as if you understand something new about him. Looking at him, Hoseok, is like looking at the winter sun, shining through the cold. Like catching a moment of respite in the midst of a long, hard season. It doesn’t ease any of it: the loss of this world, the turning of time in a direction that you have no control over or safety in, the difficulty of these relationships. But he, just like a winter sun, does ease the breath in your lungs as you breathe in against the frost. It does make you feel like venturing outside, like you can take the next step towards that brilliant goldence. Even when these days all you want to do is close your eyes, feel your feet firmly on the ground, firmly in the present, his presence is the golden warmth painting you warm and new.

His face is drawn in pleasure, like he’s trying too hard not to let it take over him. You feel similarly. But sometimes he emerges to look at you, tilting your head so he can stare straight into your eyes, to kiss down your neck, to lift your back to press your front against his chest.

“Does this—does it feel good?”

You want to curse at how good it feels, at how much it feels, but instead you say, “Yes, god, yes,” and he grins a little bit and thrusts into you harder.

“Like this?”

“Mhnnnmm—”

He hits a particularly soft spot within you and your back arches towards the ceiling, however, that doesn’t seem like enough for you, so you let your hands glide down his back, nails tracing across his skin.

“Goddamn,” he hisses. “You’re going to mark me up.”

“Let me,” you whisper. “Let me mark you up.”

“Yours,” he whispers back, and buries his head in your neck.

When you drag your nails down his back again, you press a little harder this time, the skin growing hot beneath your touch. He arches into the pain, his eyelids fluttering—gorgeous, gorgeous—his head thrown back. As his eyelids flutter with the pleasure of pain, you see it. See him.

There’s a moment when the mask drops. When he releases the air of perfection, of control, and you see straight through to his center. He is sipping this moment, taking it in slowly, rationing it like he’s running out of time, like judgment day is quickly approaching and he’s willing to throw it all away, to pay whatever price, for a moment of sin. But besides that too, is his pleasure, marked plainly and clearly on his face, unbridled and unhindered.

For god’s sake, this is missionary and yet it feels hotter than nearly anything you’ve done before.

Maybe it’s the secret, shared between you in this shared room. Maybe it’s his sudden willingness to show you every ounce of pleasure on his face. Maybe it’s the sleepy but determined rhythm he pounds into you, slow enough to relish in, but coordinated enough to hit every nerve you can imagine. He lights you up golden.

You want to reach for him, and lean to kiss him but pause. Even though his cock is pumping within you, the intimacy of initiating a kiss feels like a step too far –too bold. It’s easier to maintain a distance this way, to say that there’s nothing real between you. Friendship, pleasure, nothing more. And yet you want more than anything for his lips to meet yours – for him to push hesitation out of your mind. You could be the one to push through, but after yesterday afternoon, you want him to be the one to kiss you first. You wonder why he hasn’t kissed you, if the whole kissing thing between you is simply too complicated. If it’s a mistake.

Carefully, you pull your thoughts away from the winding, spinning questions—though aren’t they always there with Hoseok?—and back towards the way it feels for him to fill you up.

That’s when you notice that the sun has begun to rise.

It spills golden, like summer’s ripest nectarine, into the room. At first it’s just a single ray, flitting across the ceiling beams. But then there’s a second, a third, a whole choir of sunshine dancing across the room. One catches your gaze directly, blinds you for a second.

Hoseok chuckles.

“What?”

“You look gorgeous in the sun,” he murmurs.

Backlit by the rising sun, it’s hard to make out his expression as he moves within you, his pace loyal and gentle. And he keeps it up like that, leaning more of his weight into you so his pelvis grinds against your clit. The first time it happens your back arches. He kisses along your collarbone. The second time, you cry out. Lit from behind, there’s a slight halo around him, a kind of glimmering light where the sunlight kisses his body and radiates off of him.

You can hear your friends beginning to stir, sounds of ruffling and rummaging rising from around the room, but you don’t care. You don’t care one bit.

There’s something different about Hoseok now, the intensity of him. As he continues to circle his hips into you, you realize.

You can let go.

You can go over the edge.

And like that, you’re hurtling towards a darkness you haven’t known before, toes curling, arms gripping onto anything, anyone, — him. For a moment all there is is him, his body sweated and heavy atop yours, his eyes focused on yours. For a moment, your breath comes at the same time. The room goes quiet, quiet, all except for the sound of your shared breath and the rhythmic pace of him fucking you.

It’s enough to make you lose yourself.

You hardly believe in simultaneous orgasm, but he sees something on your face that has him thrown over the edge too, scrambling for purchase, his hips thrusting deep into you as he comes.

Orgasming around his cock, your pleasure reaches a heady peak, making your vision spark with darkness as your eyes blink softly. Your breath flutters in your chest.

Intensity shared. The only sound is that of your breath as it catches in your throat.

Like an orchestra warming up, the sounds of the room come crashing in, ripping the shroud of intimacy surrounding you and Hoseok. The sound of someone panting. Someone whining, near begging. The shuffling, smacking, grinding of bodies together. This is the sound of pleasure, exalted.

The sounds tug on your attention, urging you to glance around the room to see the state of your friends, but your eyes don’t leave Hoseok’s. He’s panting, still holding himself above you. His gaze searching yours, brows pressed together, like he is trying to unstring the secret of the moment. It feels like a secret. One that lies solely between the two of you. The thing is, you’re not entirely sure how to parse words to the vibrating, skittish thing that it is.

It hovers like a flying thing between you. And that’s when you realize.

The beast inside you is gone.

No, you realize, not gone. Quieted.

Satiated and purring in your chest, she now prowls between your bodies, in the space between that now feels like it’s widening, widening—because it is.

Hoseok is standing from you, carefully untangling his limbs from yours.

“Hobi—”

But he’s already gone, slipping from the room.

In a room with six other bodies, you’ve never been more alone.

Jimin, who you only now realize was awake and watching, though you’re not sure for how long, immediately notices your pressed brow and comes to your rescue. The empty skin of your body sings for touch, and he’s there, wrapping around you, gathering you into his arms, pulling you flush against his body as you shudder and breathe heavily. He combs his fingers against your forehead, parting the hair that falls into your eyes and pushing it away from your face. It’s a slow, rhythmic motion and soon your breath is matching his touch. The space that Hoseok left behind him closes up around Jimin.

You’re not sure how long you’re there, lying together, when Jimin finally speaks.

“What the hell was that?” he whispers in your ear so no one else can hear.

“Sex.”

“It sure as hell looked like something else.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that whatever the hell that just was seemed more like—Hoseok.”

“Um.” A familiar voice comes from the other side of the room. Hoseok is standing in the door, jaw gaping as he takes in you and Jimin, a wet cloth in his hand.

Jimin tenses, and you know he’s about ready to tear into your friend, that carefully wound control he’s known so well for ready to snap. And you know, it should be you doing it, but you’re so tired, so tired, body still ringing—

“Sorry, I–I didn’t mean to run off like that, I just—” He lifts the towel in offering. “Didn’t want you all, you know. Drippy.”

“Drippy,” Jimin snorts, his body relaxing. When your body still doesn’t, Jimin squeezes your shoulders, humming slightly. You take a deep breath. Then a second. Hoseok continues to stand awkwardly in the doorway of the living room, the blush of sunrise painting his features, until Jimin motions for him to come closer. “C’mere,” he calls, and reluctantly, as if he’s a little put off by how quickly Jimin claimed his spot, makes his way over to you.

Hoseok is tender as he cleans you up. Glancing at you from time to time to make sure you’re okay, he touches you carefully, as if he is afraid to break you, as if he knows how your body has been left ringing in a sea of electricity after the night you’ve had.

“She’s sensitive,” Jimin says.

“I know,” Hoseok responds too quickly, before glancing up at you. “Is this okay?”

You nod and somehow, this moment feels just as intimate as when he was inside you. The water beads on your skin, his eyes lock on yours, his fingers skate across your thigh.

“You’re sure this is okay?” Hoseok asks again.

You push his hand away and lean down closer to him, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“You’re okay, Hoseok. You’re more than okay. Everything tonight was… more than okay.” You cringe at the words as they come out. They hardly capture the scope of what you’re feeling, what you’ve experienced tonight.

Hoseok finishes up and, with a small smile thrown in your direction, leaves to put the towel away. Jimin shifts behind you and you remember he’s there, he’s been there, witnessing it all.

“I’m telling you, that was something else,” Jimin whispers.

Whereas nothing last night brought a flush to your cheeks, you now find yourself warming at the thought that Jimin saw what went on between you and Hoseok. Something else, he says. Like what happened between the two of you was somehow more than sex.

But that’s not something you can think of right now, it’s not something you want to think of right now. Not with the complexity of it all. You bury yourself deeper into Jimin’s hold, wishing, for just a moment, that it was someone else wrapped around you.

You start to drift off when a voice cuts through your heavy thoughts.

“I don’t think we’re very good at orgies, guys,” Yoongi drawls with a yawn in his voice. God, it’s been a minute since you had heard his morning voice, that deep, rough growl. “We’re all too distracted.”

“Agreed,” Jungkook adds, popping up from between Jin and Taehyung, wiping something suspicious from the corner of his lips. Ah, the moans from before. Maybe you weren’t the only one who was up and well, exploring. Though it’s clear that your exploring had you a little too involved. “It’s ah, um, it’s a lot,” Jungkook says.

Yoongi rolls off the couch and towards Jungkook. “So what should we do then?” When Jungkook doesn’t realize he’s being spoken to, Yoongi grins and adds: “Baby boy?” His voice rolls deep with resonance. Yoongi leans over Tae to lift Jungkook’s chin and wipe at the corner of his mouth. “You missed a spot.”

Jungkook flushes as red as the dawning sun as Yoongi’s thumb roves over his lips. “Oh, well, um—”

“Maybe it’s something that we build up to,” Jin rescues Jungkook as he sits up, rubbing sleep and pleasure, you think, from his eyes as blankets fall down from around him. “I don’t want to fucking orchestrate every orgy like a director, because we all know that that’s exactly the role I will end up in if it comes to that.”

Jimin rolls his eyes.

“As if you wouldn’t appoint yourself to the position,” Namjoon laughs, sitting up from the couch.

“I don’t want to have to appoint myself Orgy Director,” Jin says. “That’s the point.”

Everyone laughs at that.

“Well,” you say. “If we’re building up, then maybe we start small. Um, smaller interactions.”

“Interactions,” Taehyung chortles. “Ha.”

“Tae, that’s not even a good joke,” you say. “What? Do you need me to just say it?” Taehyung nods. “Sex? Fucking? Threesomes?” Taehyung doesn’t let his gaze leave yours and his eyes light on the last one.

“I like threesomes,” he says, his voice suddenly deep. Your eyes locked, you can feel Jin’s gaze on the both of you. A shudder of anticipation hums through you. Oh.

“Foursomes?” Jimin interjects, shattering the tension of the moment. “I’d like to get in on this whole arrangement.”

“There is no arrangement,” you say quickly.

“Yet,” Tae and Jin say at the same moment. “Jinx!” They grin at each other. Sometimes it surprises you how in love with each other they are.

Hoseok reappears at that moment, standing in the doorway.

“What’d I miss?”

“We were just talking about how… complicated group sex can be.”

“I’ll say,” Hoseok says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jungkook asks innocently.

“Just… Just that it’s complicated.”

“Go on.”

Hoseok’s eyes flash to yours as he sits down. He’s wearing boxers again, leaving him one of the few in the room who is clothed.

“It’s a lot to process. I didn’t think I would, um, feel so much.” His gaze flickers between you and Jin, whose cocked eyebrow would look casually sexy if you didn’t know him better. You do know him – maybe not as well as you like, but well enough to know that on him, it means he’s trying to hide worry. Not worry about his boyfriend, about whatever just took place with Taehyung and Jungkook, but about himself. Hoseok looks more than worried, he looks trapped. You can tell he’s shutting down then, so you throw Jungkook a glance not to push any more.

“But logistically speaking,” you cut in. “We can’t do this every night, can we?”

“Says who,” Yoongi grumbles. “I had a swell time.”

“That’s not to say we shouldn’t do it again,” you correct. “But what does sex even look like for us as a group now?”

Silence washes over the room.

“Maybe it can come a little more naturally,” Namjoon offers. “We did say, no more than five in a group if someone’s going to be left out. Maybe we can just see how it goes and check in again in a couple of days?”

“Yeah. Just, casual for a couple of days.”

“Casual?” Yoongi raises an eyebrow.

“Well that’s what all of this is, isn’t it?” you ask. “Casual sex?”

Silence, again.

You look around the room. You find some blank stares, some nods, some tilted heads.

“Casual.” Hoseok repeats. “Yeah.”

Slowly the others nod.

“And then we’ll check in,” Hoseok repeats.

“Yeah,” you say.

“Okay.”

An ear-splitting yawn echoes from Jungkook, who is cuddling back into the blanket heap on the floor at Jin’s side.

“Don’t you want to sleep in a real bed?” Jin asks.

“It’s early enough we ought to, you know, go to bed-bed,” Namjoon says.

You all agree and rise. You find yourself averting your gaze as you see your friends in the nude. Namjoon, in particular, surprises you by standing and stretching, with everything, everything hanging out. You glance once, then turn away. Taehyung offers you a shirt with a little sleepy smile, and you promptly slip it on.

Wandering out into the hallway, you’re not sure which direction to go in.

Then you see Hoseok.

“Hobi!” you call, beaming.

He turns with a tight smile. “Hey.”

“Should I come with you—”

“You should sleep with someone else tonight,” Hoseok says, looking down at his feet. “Right? If it’s casual—” he stops. Clears his throat. “I mean, it’s only fair.”

“Hobi—” Your brow furrows. Why is he suddenly so withdrawn?

“The others probably want a chance too.”

“Hobi.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. He presses a kiss to your temple and with a quick “Goodnight,” disappears down the glass hallway, shutting the door to the bedroom behind him.

“Fuck,” you hiss, pushing the hair out of your eyes.

Something feels like it’s breaking within you. This was supposed to happen, the sleeping away from him. You’d anticipated this. You’d talked about this. But this, this feels totally different. This wasn’t supposed to be hard. It was supposed to lighten the crushing pressure that you’d grown accustomed to finding at every turn. Instead, it feels like the walls are closing in.

“C’mere,” a voice echoes from behind you.

You turn around. Yoongi steps out from around the corner. You’re not sure how long he’s been standing there, but it’s clear that he’s been there long enough that he knows what’s going on. “Let’s get you ready for bed, hm?”

← || series m.list || →

©wwilloww Do not repost, translate, or use my stories without my permission.

THANK YOU FOR READING!

🔆 if you enjoyed this, please consider telling me what you think by leaving a comment, sending an ask, or reblogging! i love chatting with you all! 🔆 want to read more stories?

taglist 1: @hemmos-obrien @apollukee @fan-ati--c @hobeemin @ggukkieland @meowmeowyoongles @xjoonchildx @shameless-army @lucedelsole97 @heichooouuu @spicykoreantatertots @usuallynervoussheep​ @h0neyyn​ @carolsummerlove​ @letsgetitinbusan​ @hodginss​ ​ @chishiyascheshire @hodginss​ @iovemaze @peachyjk97 @disn3yfreak​ @btsmakesmehappy​ @rainbow-bunny-bts​ ​ @imluckybitches​ @safi4x​ @namjoonies-dimple​ @simplymemyself​ @stephluvsyou​ @sunkissed725​ @ironicarmy​ @fireflyinsummer​ @yoong-i​ @monetsberet​ @vantaescupid​ @mono-kookie​ @luminousrecs​ @cmon-spiderling @dreadity ​ @dapppphhhhh @ohgeezitsbreadgenie @idroppedthesope @gee-nee​ @rm4lyf @koremis @studycrastinating @ambersaesthetics @constipatedllamaz @celaenaelentiyavox

[some-stars]

i meant to do this a week ago but got distracted so. if you are newly interested in yennskier or geraskefer, here are all the things i've written (pre-S2) that may interest you:

children's work - this is a 3-part series, in the first one (gen + geraskier) geralt and yennefer get de-aged and jaskier cares for them, then the next 2 are yennefer-centric geraskefer. it is probably the best thing i've written in this fandom

i made it through the wildnerness - yennskier where they roleplay that jaskier is a 17 year old virgin and there are Feelings

heat of the moment - a/b/o PWP with alpha yen and omega jaskier (and perhaps a few feelings)

relevant chapters of my "misc snippets" work: six - yennefer and jaskier have their first real conversation the morning after they (and geralt) sleep together for the first time seven - yennskier BDSM PWP (dom yen obv) eight - jaskier kills a dude, geralt and yennefer find this extremely sexy of him eleven - tiny tender yennskier moment twelve - yennskier PWP where jaskier massages (etc.) yennefer's lovely bottom sixteen - yen and jaskier DP geralt

please enjoy, there is more coming....i want to say soon but let's hedge our bets and say "in the next 3-6 months"