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#(because they’re in the afterlife. There’s literally no one else to talk to but each other 😭 they still slightly hate each other but are a

chainelunaire · 1 year

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what kind of a ghost they would be pt. 3

pt1 pt2

albedo

the curious one. you’ll notice him very soon, since he’s so nosy and so interested you. you did not expect to meet any ghosts in you new apartment, yet here he is. he’ll intoduce himself in the most gentle manner, you probably won’t be scared of him. he looks like the most polite ghost you’ve met, and he’s the only ghost you’ve met. he’s very interested in the fact that you’re actually seeing him, since no one before you could do that, let alone hold his hand. he’ll spend a lot of his time near you, asking his questions and answering yours. you had learnt that he was a scientist, years ago. you assume he’s centuries old, because of the way he speaks. he told you that he did his research about past life and he doesn’t know when it comes, but for now he’s still there. you become friends fairly soon, because of how friendly and curious he is. actually, he really enjoys talking, since he had not had a single conversation in years, because he is, well, a ghost, so now he’s literally drowning you with information he can’t wait to share. to be honest, some parts of this information may sound quite disturbing to you, but you’ll make nothing of it. albedo is so nice, it probably doesn’t mean anything serious. he has his quirks, for example he likes watching you sleep, and it creepes you out, but he’s just like that. there’s a lot of things actually that creep you out, but you assume it’s because he was kind of all alone for years. he’s naturally curious. after some time he starts to make some remarks about how he did not expact this and that from you. you’re so interesting, he wants to know more. he needs to know what you’d do in certain situations. that’s what you need to remember: he likes to observe. he had spent years searching for missing info, he needed that to finish his research, and now, somehow, there’s a person who he can talk to. he’s always, always observing you. he, sure, won’t let you forget that.

xiao

the quiet one. actually, you won’t notice him. there’s just a feeling of somebody else’s presence, which of course, scares you, but soon you’ll feel better. he has no intentions of interacting with you, it just happens. it’s very small things that he does: putting your dishes in place when you forget, watering your plants, adding the exact amount of sugar cubes in your coffee, whe you forget to do so. he does this just because he can and there’s nothing to do in the afterlife really. he already thinks that this - him being a ghost no one can see - is a punishment for his sins. at first you feel like you going insane, noticing thing that you definitely did not do, yet they’re always done for you. plus constant feeling of somebody’s presense - you soon realise that someone really lives with you here, and this someone certainly doesn’t want to hurt you. so you create a sort of an altar, out of gratitude. you put a lot of snacks here: spicy, savoury, yet you notice that the sweet ones are the only ones that disappear. xiao doesn’t really need food, but your actions amuse him, and those sweets remind him of good times. he feels better when he takes them, so he does. he also feels better when he helps you, so he does. you both truly feel warm with one another, even though you have never seen each other. you know someone’s really kind watching over you, and you’re happy to show how grateful you are. every time you feel somebody’s presence near you, you say thank you - and it shatters xiao’s heart, because he rarely actually heard such words. time truly flies like that, with you believing you live here and somebody protects you and guids you, and xiao, who feels lighter, and lighter, and lighter, until one day he’s finally able to push himself from the ground and see, what’s behind the door.

tighnari

the grumpy one. you’ll hear from him a lot even before you meet him in person. it’s always noisy in your new house, and at first you can’t figure out why. you hear somebody’s mumbling and grumbling constantly, and you’re scared a bit, because you think there’s a robber. you’ll meet him at the most random time, so casually it almost scares you more than the whole fact that there’re a ghost in your home. he had lived in this house for far longer than you, it’s His house, yk, so he let’s you know you need to play by his rules. which means you clean the house, you watch over his plants, and he says all of this to you like... like he’s not dead in the first place. he shushes you if you stay late, he teases you if you get bad grades because you were too lazy to study, he truly gets furious and scary if you don’t do your dishes. he will throw books at you if you try to ignore him. he’s very annoying, because he’s always pushing you, but still in a very endearing way. somehow it still fells like you live with a friend of sorts because with time you sure grew fond of each other. he’s very unique even for a ghost. he does not remember why he died and when, but he remembers his friends and family well, that’s why he kept his caring nature. you don’t talk about afterlife, because you personally never thought of it, and he does not tell you everything, yet you know that plae is not where he belongs. he tries to give you everything he can while he’s still here, even though sometimes it comes out as harsh, it’s just that he doesn’t have much time. and he wants the best for you, so he tries to share his knowledge. and even if you complain a lot because of his nagging, you still feel a void in your chest, when one day you can’t find him anywhere in the house. suddenly the house is too quiet, so eventually you move out, unable to bear the constant silence. you’ll miss him a lot.

scaramouche

the lost one. this strange doll you found in your basement - maybe this was the cause of your sleepless nights? you’ve always heard somebody’s crying, a child, probably, yet you’ve never found anyone. and you’re actually right - the doll is the problem, just not in the way you had expected. so now you have a ghost in your house, to top it all. a very annoying one - the one that throws your things around just to piss you off, the one that doesn’t let you sleep, the one that steals your food even though he definitely doesn’t need it. he refuses to tell you his name, so you come up with something equally as annoying as him. few weeks later your house and your mental state is a mess. and you still hear the cries, from time to time. since you see the ghost constantly, you can’t but notice how he usually watches you carefully, as if expecting something from you. he once asks you why you still haven’t moved out. the question in itself is confusing. you thought it was his main goal. he was always so mean to you, and even if he did not directly endangered your life, he still managed to truly make your life here a living hell. but you have nowhere to go, and, frankly, you don’t want to go anywhere. this is your home, however bad it is. he does not believe you at first, and his pranks are getting more and more malicious, until you literally can’t take it anymore and just ask what’s his problem with you, why he so desperately wants you out. little do you know, it’s actually the opposite. he fears loneliness more than anything, he brought his abandonment issues with him even after his death. he had spent so many years alone, with people leaving the second he starts his pranks, because of course he first needs to see if they’re really worth staying, and none of them has passed. he’s afraid he crossed the line this time, so he appologizes for the first time. he’ll finally stop with his mean behaviour, and soon you’ll find out he’s actually quite nice, when he’s not the most terrible person to ever exist. with time you’ll learn how to se right through him, you’ll learn how unintentionally funny he is. and how much he cares about you, even though he denies it. he’ll make meals for you, whe you’re overworked, he’ll help you with cleaning. he complains a lot, but it’s him who sggested it in the first place. he’s pretty clingy too. he can’t leave the house with you, and he’s terrified you won’t come back, so every time you leave the house he waits for you in the front door. sometimes he’ll hide your clothes so you don’t go to work and stay at home with him. it's a long journey for him to finally believe that you won’t go anywhere. you’ll always come back. it took a lot for a doll to finally stop crying.

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ghostxraven · 2 months

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stuck in funpoison world rn and you are The funpoison guy to me so please.. any spare funpoison thoughts for the poor?? 🥺

WHEE i’m honored!! and YES i would love to talk about them ❤️❤️❤️

FIRST AND FOREMOST i’ve been rewatching the mandalorian so i’ve been thinking about the fab four mandos au again which means that i’ve been considering mando’a again which MEANS i’ve been thinking about funpoison + “Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum” (“i love you” in mando’a, literal translation “i will know you forever”). AUGH AUGH AUGH AUGH AUGH AUGH. they are SOOOOOOO.

in unrelated thoughts, stream of consciousness style. they love each other SO much like before they’ve started dating kobra likes to make fun of poison because they will straight up just Stare at ghoul with this really big goofy smile just SO “anything you say, baby” but he also makes fun of ghoul because he’s always making excuses to touch them, to brush hair behind their ears and clean up their makeup for them and squeeze their hand. once they’ve started dating they’re SO shy with being affectionate around each other just because it’s so new but poison really loves being held and ghoul makes them feel safe so it’s not uncommon to see them curled up together on the couch with their hands wound together. and ghoul will blush and grin and roll his eyes whenever jet or kobra walk by but just sweep poison’s hair out of their face and tuck them a little closer.

ghoul likes to say they’re soulmates not because their love story lacked any hardship or was fairytale perfect from the beginning but because it WASN’T. and even though it wasn’t perfect, because life isn’t perfect, they kept running into each other. their lives kept meeting and intertwining for better or for worse. and ultimately what came of that was them both gaining an understanding of each other that blossomed into friendship that then slowly turned into being in love with each other. because they’d seen of the worst of each other right from the start and still ultimately said “you’re the one that i want”. for ghoul it means that the witch set their feet on a path towards each other, for poison, who doesn’t believe in the witch and barely believes in the idea of a higher power at all, it feels like maybe they could believe in destiny if nothing else.

oooohhh my god. i do not use tiktok so forgive me if i’m getting the source wrong but the one adventure time clip that’s like “you were a wonderful experience”/“you were everything”. in terms of personal flaws, poison is not necessarily always 100% healthily attached to their loved ones and i honestly think that ghoul’s death ends up being a kind of world-shattering life-altering event for them because he WAS everything. it’s like sometimes they don’t even know how to breathe without him. between the two, ghoul would have been better equipped to deal with poison’s death than poison was for ghoul’s not because he didn’t love them completely or because it wouldn’t have meant as much to him but because ghoul has been dealing with death of his loved ones from a very young age. it’s part of why he became so spiritual, because he let that belief that he would see his loved ones again, that they were safe and protected in their afterlife, be a comfort. poison doesn’t have that, and has never dealt with the death of someone so close to them before in a meaningful way. so it kind of breaks something in them. they don’t handle it very well in any sense.

on a less serious note i think ghoul loves to take poison dancing because it’s one of the only times that they’ll let their mask come off in public. they love to dance, they’re not fantastic at it, and unlike other times where they’ll feign disinterest in a skill if they know they aren’t good at it to save face publicly, if ghoul asks them to dance they’ll do it and they will honestly not focus on anyone else except for him. ghoul likes seeing them when they’re sweaty and breathless and happy and not caring if their makeup is running or if they look silly or how their clothes cling to their body. so a lot of date nights end up being “hey, there’s a band performing at this bar tonight” or “want to go to this party in zone two?” or “the roller rink is having a disco night on friday, want to go?” in fact, i’ve mentioned it before but their first official date is a couples’ night at the zones’ premier roller rink, Mega Moon’s, which used to be a lesbian bar before the wars and now is a locale for all sorts of folks but mostly LGBTQ-oriented :]

another thing i’ve mentioned before but ghoul loves to cook and party is not so great at it. HOWEVER, party DOES like to bake, though that’s not as feasible always in the zones. on the rare chance they get the opportunity though, they’ll get ghoul to help them — their excuse always being that they could use the extra hands but the real reason being so they can hang out together (and steal sugary kisses). i think their favorite thing to make is cookies but brownies are a close favorite just because those are GHOUL’S favorite & he’s written down his grandmother’s brownie recipe which is a hot commodity in the diner.

OH AND I HAVE TOUCHED ON THIS BEFORE but i don’t think i ever properly mentioned that they’re sun and moon coded. TO ME. more specifically day and night coded. i try to push that personal agenda with my writing when i can. when the day met the night……….

i think that’s all i have for you tonight. feel free to put a quarter in another time and see what i have to say then 👍

#pi's personal #marz tag 🔮#query on top #danger days #funpoison #YAY I LOVE TALKING ABOUT THEM

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osc-confessions · 2 years

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Alright my friend wanted me to rant about Sodapack to the blog because they were worried about how it'd come out if they did it, so I'm doing this now!! They'd do a perfectly good job themself but whatever I guess smh /j /lh

Note: If you wanna ship Sodapack I will not be against it, do what you want, besides the content for them is really nice!! Back to the rant.

Anyway, Sodapack. I think it is a theoretically good dynamic that could’ve had a lot of really well done healing paired with it, so I understand why they’re a popular pairing. Soda Bottle’s apathy paired with Liam’s… I really don’t know, his silly guyness, is fun, and the idea of them helping each other recover is super neat!! However, in canon, I feel like it would be much healthier for both of them to cut connections with each other because they just fought. Constantly. Sure, couples and friends in general can fight, no relationship is perfect, but it is in every, single, episode except 14 and 15, and nothing changes each fight. In episode 14 they conflict anyway because Bryce literally just wants to pass on to the afterlife. Anyway, it’s the same fight over and over again, and neither of them are improving from this because they don’t want to. Liam really didn’t have any concern for Bryce’s well-being either.

Side note: Bryce is always the reasonable one, but because Liam is the protagonist and right about the notes, Liam is considered in the right. Sure love writing hahahahahh. /s

Liam guilt tripped Bryce several times using Amelia, who was just a minor amount of information that he got from yelling at Bryce through the door. That was most of what he remembered in concern to Bryce, information he could use against him.

Liam didn’t care to ask anything about him, he didn’t even ask for Bryce’s name until Bryce said that he had one, expressing discomfort to being called Soda Bottle. He didn’t care a single bit about Bryce’s own well-being and life repeatedly even after Bryce mentioned it many times because Liam’s plans went against it. He didn’t care about Bryce’s life and just operated under the idea that Bryce would want this just as much as he would, assuming things based on himself. And that’s despite the fact that Bryce has told Liam that he doesn’t want to be involved many, many times. Liam just doesn’t care about what’s happening with Bryce, he just wants to stop Airy in his tunnel vision (which, as i have said before, is inconsistent).

Bryce also doesn’t seem to particularly care about LIam, he just doesn’t want to be in the situation. Him telling Liam not go to the smokestack comes across as less of concern about that Liam could literally DIE and more of the fact that it is illegal. He talks about how this is dangerous and illegal but he’s mostly referring to himself in this situation and how it’s too far. He doesn’t want to get Liam to the smokestack at least because he doesn’t want to be Liam’s getaway driver and not because he’s concerned for Liam’s safety. That proves that him being worried about safety and it being illegal was mostly out of concern for himself. Neither of them actually care about each other.

Bryce following Liam up the smokestack on the otherhand, could contradict this–But wait a minute! A contradiction? Hmm, maybe this was just a writing issue, weird how it seems to span across 4 episodes. /s

Anyway, I do think that it’s possible that Bryce literally just wanted his car keys back, but that would be an overstep. That scene can be a valid proof that Bryce does care about Liam, but considering everything else, it could potentially just be out of obligation because Liam is the only person with a way to stop Airy and a way to save Amelia. You can take this paragraph with a grain of salt however, I’m just suggesting some possible reasons.

Liam then get’s them both killed which takes Bryce’s hard earned life away again after Bryce JUST SAID that he couldn’t afford to lose it again. Uhm. Good job Liam forrrr ruining Bryce’s life again whoohoo. I’m sure he’ll suffer consequences for it and Bryce will be upseOh nevermind theres episode 15.

Bryce then thanks Liam and suddenly cares about everyone on the plane despite not knowing any of them well and only caring about Amelia for 4 episodes straight. Fun actually, I’m glad to know that all the messed up shit Liam did was for “the greater good.” /s This episode is nice for Sodapack fans, but for people who cared a lot about their conflict and Liam being a fucking jackass, this episode was. Bad. Because every single thing Liam did, is now good!! He is now in the right for it and will suffer no consequences for guilt tripping Bryce. Liam stops being a jerk to Bryce because Bryce now completely wants to work with Liam on this and he no longer objects to Liam. Hmm. That sure is . Interesting. And definitely not sudden and badly written. /s

Now all of this isn’t to say that Liam isn’t irredeemable or a villain, he is just a very flawed person in part because he is traumatized and wants revenge out of rage. The issue is that he is not portrayed as wrong for anything he has ever done and will not get consequences for it. He did not deserve closure from Bryce and that doesn’t mean he couldn’t recover without it. I think Liam recovering and healing without Bryce and without closure would be substantially better and would send a good message. Being forgiven is not required for moving on and becoming a better person. Of course recovery isn’t a theme in the show in the first place, but I wish it was !!

Tl;dr Liam does not regret his harmful actions towards Bryce and will not get consequences for it, neither of them care about each other on a personal level, and most moments where it is shown, have flawed writing because of set up, or is it just badly written in general and doesn’t make sense. Sodapack is great in a theoretical setting, but not in a canon.

- Sun anon

it's honestly not surprising that the osc see the most unhealthy dynamic ever and think "they should kiss". you and your friend are so based about this.

#sun anon #osc confession #hfjone liam #liam hfjone #hfjone bryce #bryce hfjone #sodapack #long post #★

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starkcanvas · 1 year

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Ethereal Route AU

I have multiple questions, so hope it’s not too much trouble

1. Is it possible for living beings to see ghosts and still make contact with them physically or with other methods such as Ouija Boards?

2. If a living person has done “a-lot of bad”, are they an exception and can be hit with a mass haunting?

3. Is it possible for humans/living beings to enter the Spirit Realm?

Oh not at all! I’m happy someone’s taking such a big interest in Ethereal Route so I’ll do my best to answer any questions :D

1. So this one can kinda depend on MANY things. Firstly, I thought that there would be people in the world of Omori who can just, see and hear ghosts naturally. Like that movie Paranorman :) an example of this is that I thought Old Beardy in the Cemetery can see ghosts lol since he talks about what the spirits are doing each day you interact with him.

But people can use ghost hunting stuff too to try and contact with them. Like Ouija Boards and stuff. But the other BIG factor here is that if a ghost’s connection with their core is strong enough, they’re able to make themselves the same level of Opacity to be seen in The Living.

An example of this being maybe Mari’s Ghost friends wanna mess around in Faraway, they can make themselves be visible and solid to the Living and “play along” in being alive too lmao Ash gets a kick out of teens seeing their fashion styles since it’s very futuristic and modern looking xD

———

2. If a person has done a lot of bad things in their life, sure ghosts who know them are welcome to haunt them until they kick the bucket but most ghosts don’t because not only does it really do them any good in the long run, but if anything, haunting is considered a waste of time since they could LITERALLY be doing anything else due to the massive and gorgeous dimension that is The Afterlife. There’s so many more worthwhile things they can do rather than haunt and be bitter. So most just don’t bother.

Especially since once these bad people die, they go straight to either The Abyssal Plane for Eternal Punishment OR if they’re really bad, they’re tortured for Eternity by Mr. Grimm himself.

———

3. No. It is not possible. Well… at least, that’s what Mr. Grimm thought until a certain black-haired, single eyed boy started to appear and explore The Afterlife through his sleep after telling the Truth…

#omori #omori game #omori spoilers #omori au #omori au lore #omori: ethereal route #omori sunny #omori oc #omori mr. grimm #omori ghost friends #ask response #text post #text response #mod mack #mod ask

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nerdyenby · 1 year

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Blue time :D I’m watching Shelby

Thank you Shelby!! Hair is normal and it’s so weird that society tries to make afab people feel bad for how their body naturally exists

Shelby talking about needing a reminder to take her vitamin D when I’ve been out of mine for over a week now 👀

STARLORD!!!! Oh my gosh, I just remembered I’m seeing gotg3 this weekend

Blue’s skins for this event are so cute I could freaking explode

When will my husband (buildmart) return from the war (hiatus)???

MCC is about the vibes first and foremost, if you’re not in it for a good time then why are you here lmao??

Wait when was there a 3-player team???

Shelby’s chat is so silly and for what (me not knowing who that was either)

Yeah no, they do sound alike, I didn’t think they did but ummm yeah

I too forget meltdown exists lol

“I didn’t vote, oh my gosh, I’m a bad ciziten” I can’t believe you Dave, smh

Grid Runners

A bit rough but it was such a smooth grid runners overall

They did so good on the Minecraft one!!!

Dave trying to craft a daylight sensor with their minecraft in Spanish 😭

I feel like this is a good sot team, why do they want it so early??

Parkour Warrior

This team is so chill until Shelby just starts screaming lol

“I can’t do that one- that’s not even parkour, that’s like mind games and I have a small brain” Dave 😂

“You got 30 seconds, no pressure” I love False

“I played so bad, how is that number one?? These guys honestly need to step up, I played horribly” we stan a humble/self-deprecating king

Dave calling out Fruit’s hypocrisy, as he should!!

Did I know Shelby has adhd? I’m not sure if I did tbh, we’re literally the same person tho

That fox dissociated into the afterlife, same dude

Sands of Time

Dave sandkeeper arc my beloved

Dave’s saying all the right things, be more confident, man

Why didn’t Shelby get that sand??

“I’m coming for you, sir” Dave what is that voice????

Why are they so flustered?? This team has experience and are all strong sot-ers, they just need someone to take charge

Shelby you need to rush red vault, everyone else is busy, you got this queen

Fruit praying to the timer and giving the gold key as an offering 😂

Trust yourself Shelby, you had it, you just need to believe in yourself

“I like [sandkeeping] because all I have to do is talk the whole time which is… what I do anyways” Dave my beloved

Ace Race

*Giving Shelby all my asexuality* “now have him home by 8”

REAL!! Ace race is so hard to commentate

Tridents broken, real and true

Purple is stacked, fear them

Identity theft?? In my minecraft tournament???? /j

Halftime show my beloved

Meltdown

The most polite power negotiation in history

They are merely cruising

It’s the bare minimum but people actually using both sets of pronouns for Ranboo means way too much to me as a fellow he/they

NOOOO

That was such a tragic way to go :((

Dave popping off!! As she should!!!

It’s easy for them!!!

Dave going absolutely insane and Fruit just sounding so concerned 😂

“This is my game, baby!!” YEAH IT IS!!!

“Dave you’re so insane!!” “I don’t know what I’m on today, I’m just three beers deep” “I like it! Wait, beers?” “Who said that? Not me” I swear I could hear the 👀 in Dave’s voice

Blue 2nd and Dave 2nd individual!!!

Battle Box

I’m so ready for them to pop off

Oh that first round was so smooth!!!

“They’re a piñata” IM WHEEZING

Aimsey and Shelby screaming their love for each other my beloved

“I kinda love this map” “Yeah, I could see how people could hate this map” real

“Our comms make no sense but they work” seriously, they’re killing it!!

Dave is such a good igl, I’m glad they’re leaning into it :))

Good calls on better comms False :)

“Ori” 😭😭😭

That’s was sooooo close against cyan, my goodness

Gosh this event was SO close

Sky Battle

“Mr. Fruit ridge over here” the temptation to make a gay joke is nearing max capacity

“I was reviewing the map ‘cause I’m a dork” I love her, you don’t understand, Dave Krtzy my beloved

False advocating for hermit on hermit violence, as she should lol

Dave popping off!! He’s insane!!!

“Alright, new plan for me: not miss the jump” I love you False

Shelby’s death was so sad what

That second round territory battle was so tense, sad how much it threw them off though

Good eyes and good comms, rip to lime but blue handled that sneak attack like absolute champs

Fruit popping off???? Not unexpected by any means, but it was so chaotic and he was just running around like ‘mhm yep and dead’ what a king

Dave and Fruit holding hands, real

Dave only has banger opinions, MCC is about the silly goofy first and foremost

Not the AirPods 😭😭😭

Hole in the Wall

“Whatever happens, we did great” “Whatever happens, I love you guys” what is this, the finale battle to defeat the Firelord???? /lh I love them

They’re too in the zone to do meaningless things like so called ‘bodily functions’

Oh the way Shelby went out was so tragic, she bounced and slipped all the way off the edge ;-;

“Purple! No- I wish I never said that, I’m shutting up” Shelby 😭

NOOOOOO why does Shelby always go out in the saddest ways

“We did our best” real and true!!

Dave s-tier real and true!!! If you disagree you hate nonbinary people /j

Dodgebolt

I think they’re getting confused on who’s saying “purple” vs “Purpled” lol

“This is what [All Stars] should’ve been” Shelby spitting absolute facts

Gumi insane!!!

False changing sides just as her new pick loses rip

Ah yes, reverse psychology on reality as we know it

“I have faith in Purpled, which probably means he’s gonna miss these… yep”

GGs, great team, great time

#mcc #mcc 30 #mc championships #mc championship #nerdy’s mcc reactions #shubble #krtzyy #falsesymmetry #fruitberries #cw caps

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no-droids · 4 years

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Rumors, Freebies, and a Race for Last Place

Part Two of The Bet series

Pairing: Poe Dameron/Reader

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 22.5K DONT say shit alright just don’t

Warnings: Okay. There is degradation in this, some name calling and heated interactions. There is a LOT of smut, dirty talk and rough sex. If these things offend you, please do not continue reading.

***

It’s recommended to read part one first.

***

Getting into the x-wings is always fun.

It actually might be your favorite part. Granted, alarm bells ringing and thousands of jumpsuits scrambling in all directions is never typically a good thing, but there’s also an inherent rush about it, a thrill in launching up the metal paneling as quick as you can and suiting up to provide aid. It’s a side-effect of camaraderie, of being surrounded by like-minded individuals willing to do everything they can to help. You never feel like you’re going to your death, even though that’s often the grim reality for at least one of you on a good day. There’s always a roaring in your ears while you do it, adrenaline sharpening your senses and preparing yourself for conflict, not thinking anything beyond gogogogogo—

But getting out of the x-wing is… not great. At least for you. It’s sluggish. Your body is always completely drained and you never come out of it feeling the same way you went in. Even in times of victory, there’s a somberness inside you after battle. As much as you tell yourself you’re fighting for good, for prosperity against an evil machine hellbent on enslaving the galaxy, there’s only so many explosions lighting up in front of your eyes and screams cutting out through your comms you can take before winning just doesn’t really feel like winning anymore. Most pilots are able to handle it better than you are, but since you joined the Resistance, you’ve never truly felt the desire to celebrate. Not even when you serve a massive, glaring defeat to the other side. There’ll always be at least one missing x-wing, one empty seat at the table, one person not here to celebrate with you.

You came back in one piece this time. Barely.

The whole mission went sideways—literally. You’d purposefully stationed the tandem just outside the coordinates you were meant to be surveilling so that you’d be hidden from sight and dead to the scanners should the fleet arrive, but something must’ve happened. You must’ve powered down a few seconds too early after he turned the thrusters off, because apparently the ship drifted in dead space for close to eight hours without either of you noticing, having no working computers to actively read your location and correct it. You were sitting ducks right in the hyperspace drop zone by the time the First Order showed up, and by that point you had no choice but to engage.

“Gold-Ten,” a voice murmurs from behind you, and you blink, suddenly seeing the base landing platform stretching out long in front of you, hundreds of docking ships and boisterous pilots scrambling out of them to hug their comrades and congratulate them even as medics rush past with white coats and gurneys. They’re never for the pilots, but they dispatch healers anyways whenever a convoy returns in case a straggler gets picked up. There’s an unspoken understanding in space battle—pilots never get injured. They either come back unharmed, or they don’t come back at all.

Dameron.

You turn around and watch him slowly approach you with an unreadable expression, his jumpsuit still bunched halfway down his torso. The once bright white sleeveless undershirt is now greasy and damp with sweat, his dark curls sticking to his forehead. He winces with every bow-legged step—you know the feeling—before he’s standing directly in front of you and something is carefully being pulled out of your hands. You didn’t even realize you were holding onto anything.

Your helmet. You forgot to leave it in the x-wing, and you’ve been carrying it around under your arm aimlessly while mentally checking off the squadrons as they return, counting the numbers you lost today while everybody else hugs and whoops and claps each other on the back.

It’s not as bad as you were expecting it was going to be, not as bad as it seemed just an hour earlier when you were listening to Dameron bellow out evasive flight maneuvers a millisecond before he enacted them and you adjusted your firing at the TIEs accordingly. You used to think you were quick with how rapidly you could suit up and fly out, drop in to assist and engage, but on the other side, it felt like your reinforcements lollygagged for ages before arriving. You were left to defend against an entire fleet in one stupid ship, more lines of TIEs sinking like flies from launch decks every second.

“Gold-Ten,” you hear again, and you blink a few times, needing to focus your vision before you can find his gaze.

Dameron’s palm, previously hovering a few inches above your shoulder, suddenly drops to spread along the curve of it and you take a deep breath, almost wanting to shudder at the feeling of something touching you. You channel all your focus into it, feel his fingers branch out strong along the tight muscles in your neck, giving you an anchor you automatically lean into.

You and him are no strangers to touching. Before today it was mostly reserved to poking and prodding and flicking and light slapping in an effort to piss each other off, but now… you can’t even think about it right now, your body will just fucking glitch out on you. After everything that just happened, you cannot think about where else that hand has been recently, not right now.

“You did… you did really fucking good today,” he tells you quietly, slowly trailing his hand down the length of your entire arm until he catches your wrist and a few of your fingers in his loose grip. “Seriously. That was… we were…”

His touch is so present, so reassuring. Grounding, when all your mind wants is to just float away. You glance down at where his fingers are gently tangled with yours and you feel your hand tighten just slightly, the smallest squeeze while he blinks down at you.

“We almost died, like… every single second,” you barely manage to croak, not really having the words to express it right now. You always need at least an hour or two after missions like this to just sit in one place and regroup. Usually you find yourself wandering back to your room to lay on the bed and stare up at the ceiling while you consider your own mortality, but Dameron interrupted you this time before you could process it by yourself. “We…” Your voice sounds absolutely shredded. “W-We shouldn’t even be alive right now.”

“I know,” he nods in soft agreement, taking a small step closer to you. “But we are alive. Hey.” He dips his head as soon as your gaze starts to drift, catching your eyes once more and drawing your attention back to the present with a squeeze of your hand. “We’re alive, right? Be alive with me.”

You take a big breath in and close your eyes, feeling the oxygen fill your lungs once more, but this time, it’s… restorative. A wonderful, beautiful reminder of your existence. You’re alive. Usually the word just feels like a synonym for persevering. Pushing onwards despite trials and tribulations, not looking back. But the way he says it, especially with his hand in yours and a quiet invitation to tag along, it sounds… breathtaking. Full of light, and hope. It suddenly leaves the dim shadows and slides into a completely different category of feelings, feelings you’d never imagine being able to conjure so quickly after such a close brush with death. Alive—it slots right in next to words like colorful, radiant, sunshine, and butterflies. Enchanting words, ones you’d like to hear again and again.

Your eyes slowly open and there he is, the man you were sure was going to accompany you to the afterlife. You were stuck with Poe Dameron in one of the closest calls you can remember, and strangely, his presence was nothing if not… a comfort. For the first time in your life, you were grateful he was there.

You open your mouth, suddenly feeling the needy, unfounded urge to tell him that. “I’m gla—”

“Dameron!” You hear a series of voices call from somewhere to your left, and he immediately drops your hand to whip his body around and place himself directly between you and the approaching onlookers, using his large frame to hide you from their sight.

“What’s up, Briggs?” Dameron projects to one pilot in particular that seems to be leading the group, his back oddly close to you in this position. Your fingers still feel tingly from where he was holding onto them.

A chorus of congratulatory, “Nice flying, Captain!” and the like can be heard floating through the air from beyond his shoulders, before the leader speaks loudly over them. “Hey—me, Seven, Six, and Twelve were gonna grab some drinks in the mess hall with a few of the Blue girls,” he tells Dameron, slowing to a stop as soon as he sees you standing awkwardly behind him. “Oh hey, Goldie.”

You lift a hand and clear the remainder of the dissociation from your throat, not knowing him well enough beyond the squadron he and his group fly with. “Greenies.”

“Anyways, I guess they wanted to know if you’d come too. These idiots are convinced they’re never gonna give us the time of day unless you—”

“Uh—fine, whatever, just give me a few minutes alright?” Dameron quickly assures him with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’ll meet up with you guys later.”

A few of them take turns giving him heavy claps on the shoulder and acclamatory words before the group eventually disperses, and he waits a few more seconds for their attention to fully scatter in another direction before turning back to you.

Shit, he’s standing really close. Why is he so close to you? You take a step back and blink up at him, the noises of the landing deck gradually amplifying back up to normal volume as you retreat back into your own space. Since when did he have that effect on you? You suddenly feel wide awake, and the chorus of happy chaos surrounding you is something you’re finally able to take in. You knew it was happening before, but it was like it just existed outside of the creeping numbness. Now, the knot of internal turmoil has untied itself a bit and you feel your surroundings start to fight for your direct attention.

Dameron continues to look at you the same exact way, though. Like you’re still the only one here.

You look down at his half-suited figure and blink at the helmet loosely held in one of his hands. Hey. Hey, that’s yours—

“Give me that,” you hiss, suddenly snatching it from his fingertips. “You have people waiting.”

The cutting words serve to snap him out of whatever spell he’s under. Dameron quickly lifts his head and looks around a few times with sharp eyes, before hooking your elbow and twisting you into a complete 180 until your back faces most of the excitement. You resist, immediately trying to push him off you and worried he’s going to confront you about… things, but he’s determined.

He doesn’t say anything to you at all, though. His fingers quickly grasp the baggy fabric of your jumpsuit even as you sputter and start to ask what the fuck he thinks he’s doing, and you glance down just in time to see him yanking the gaping velcro closed at your crotch.

Your cheeks instantly start burning as he tugs and smooths the fabric down until it’s seamless once more, especially when his eyes flick up to yours without moving his head. Fuck, you’re instantly hot with some wicked emotion, a mixture of embarrassment and outrage and… something else. Maker, you almost wish you were numb and disoriented again, if only so you could avoid feeling whatever the fuck this is.

You quite suddenly shove your helmet back into his stomach with an infuriated sound even as he doubles over with a shocked whoosh of air, changing your mind about returning it to the ship yourself before storming off without another word.

***

Okay, so you’ve done some thinking, and. Well. Fuck him, that’s what you’ve decided.

No—not… fuck him. But like, fuck him. You know. In the negative sense of the word. The bad fuck.

There’s a full tray of food sitting in front of you but you’ve so far been unable to touch it. Mostly you’re just wondering why the fuck you’re even here. Well, you know why you’re here—you should eat, it’s dinnertime and this is the mess hall. You’ve been known to skip out on meals after heavy missions, secluding yourself away and just wallowing for a bit, but you… strangely didn’t feel like doing that today. You don’t want to self-isolate when you feel okay enough to avoid it, not again. So you’re here, because the clock says your tummy should want food, but you can’t bring yourself to even look at it.

No, you’re looking at him. Glaring, actually.

Across the mess hall and beyond the transparisteel divider that separates the cafeteria from the bar area, Dameron is all eyebrows and smiles and side nudges and winks right now. You can’t hear him—the sound won’t travel this far, but you can see him situated in the middle of a rowdy group of pilots. He laughs in that disgustingly charming way of his, where his stupidly cute nose scrunches up all cute and stupid and you want to just ask the Maker why he’s doing this shit to you. What have you done to deserve this torture? Sure, you may have willingly agreed to it, even… conceived and propositioned the idea, and sure, absolutely nothing is stopping you from forfeiting and walking away at this exact second, but does that make it okay? No, you’ve decided. It’s not okay. He’s not allowed to… to make you feel like this, so fuck him. In the bad way.

“Just fuck him already,” a voice suddenly grumbles as someone plops down into the seat to your right, plastic trays of food clattering loudly on the table and snapping you out of your reverie. Gold-Sixteen blocks your view as he silently drops into the seat in front of you and wraps his green lekku around his neck a few times before immediately beginning to shovel food into his mouth, while Gold-Three opens her box of blue milk next to you and continues. “The Blues never fucking shut up about it, it’s getting annoying.”

“Don’t listen to her, Dime,” Gold-Eleven tells you, quickly occupying the seat on your left and biting into a crunchy piece of fruit, talking loudly over the chatter even as he chomps. “Rossi just knows her pool is up tomorrow, she doesn’t want to lose any of her precious credits.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Gold-Three immediately snaps, leaning forward and around you to point the prongs of her fork at Eleven threateningly. “Zhang’s pool starts on Sunday.”

“Oh fuck off, you guys are betting on this now?” You groan, shoving your plate away with a flick of your fingers now that you’re certain you’ve completely lost your appetite. Sixteen immediately snatches up one of your bread rolls while Zhang swipes your juice and Rossi goes for a packet of glockaw sauce.

“You’re the one who announced it in front of everybody, we’re just being active spectators,” Rossi returns, ripping the packet and pouring the sauce on her vegetables with a shrug. “How the fuck do you bet against fucking each other though, that’s my question? It’s a paradox, wouldn’t you both just lose at the same time?”

“Dameron and I aren’t going to fuck,” you tell her very slowly and clearly, starting to get a headache. Why is it impossible to avoid this conversation topic, even with an entire Resistance base to roam around in? “Ever. The bet never had anything to do with fucking each other, it’s about not fucking other people.”

“Literally what is the difference?” You hear Rossi ask with her mouth full, but Zhang speaks over her.

“Somebody should probably tell Nine that, she’s the bookie,” he tosses out carelessly, dropping the core of his piece of fruit to his tray before wiping his hands on his jumpsuit. You bury your face in your hands and let out a loud, exhausted sound into your palms, not knowing which response serves to aggravate your already emotionally overloaded ass even more. Nine is the bookie, of fucking course she is. “But hey, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think any of it actually goes outside of Gold, so.”

“I’ve heard the Blues talking about it, but that’s it,” Rossi chimes in while chewing some of her veggies. “Maybe some Reds. Point is everybody else thinks it’s already happening, honestly.”

“What the fuck,” you whisper, using your knuckles to rub at the backs of your eyes until bright spots appear. Where are stress headaches localized? Are those the ones right under your brow bone? Because stars, you feel it. “Fucking… why? Why do people think that me and Dameron are…?”

Nobody at the table immediately responds, and you drop your hands after a moment to look at each of their astounded faces in turn.

“You fucking serious, bitch?” Rossi blurts first, her voice completely deadpan, and you growl in vexation.

“Have I not been vocal enough about my severe dislik—”

“And yet you kicked Nine out of your room to let him bunk with you,” Zhang immediately suggests.

“You request mission assignments together,” Rossi adds.

“Spend your off-days together,” Zhang continues.

“You’re both really weird about how long it takes the other person to shower,” Rossi tacks onto the list Zhang is now making on his fingers and you shake your head frantically.

“No—no, that’s so that we know neither one of us is cheating,” you try to explain, and you already know it sounds unconvincing without needing the two quick, lofty and sarcastic nods on either side of you. “Showers and off-days are prime masturb—no, you know what? No. I’m tired of the assumptions, I don’t owe anyone shit. This is super fucking uncool of you guys, you know that? It’s insane that this is what counts as gossip in the Resistance nowada—”

“There’s only so much bad news people can take, Ten,” Gold-Sixteen grunts down at his almost finished plate, and all three of you snap your gazes across the table at him. The forest-tinted twi’lek doesn’t speak much, it’s uncommon to hear his voice without distortion over the comms, but you blink as his sharp teeth continue to form words without looking at you. “Quit being so sensitive. Rather bet on this shit than which system is getting demolished next.”

And with that, Sixteen excuses himself with a silent nod, having gobbled down his full plate while you, Three, and Eleven were bickering. You feel your cheeks flare with anger and shame—you didn’t deserve that, you immediately reassure yourself, but the hidden self-doubt the comment sows just further contributes to your upset. You want to call out to his back that just because the First Order exists doesn’t mean you have to put up with your own fucking squadron turning you and your mortal enemy into glorified race fathiers, but he’s already leaving the mess hall while Rossi and Zhang have moved on to other topics, both of them continuing to grab more food from your tray as they talk.

You have a tough shell. But today was… a lot. You bite your lip down at the table against the sudden wave of emotion, blinking quickly to clear the weakness watering your vision.

See, this—this right here is why you use last names. These people aren’t your friends. Betting on who you fuck for laughs, using you as a source of entertainment without your consent just because they’re in the middle of a war, and then guilting you into feeling like you’re the one acting like a stuck up bitch about it? You’re fighting in the same fucking war—you’re on the front lines just like everybody else and nobody gets to lecture you on the devastation of battle. You almost died today. You fought tooth and fucking nail to stay alive and by all accounts, you shouldn’t even be sitting here right now, much less dealing with this childish shit. This is your squadron. These people are supposed to be the ones closest to you out of everyone, the ones you’ve been flying into chaos in formation with for years, and yet not a single damn person has even mentioned your performance to you today, all anyone can ever seem to talk about is—ugh.

Unfortunately, your unobstructed view also allows you to look at the source of your bad mood once more, immediately noticing the way more people have crowded around him now, and the headache continues to throb painfully behind your eyeballs. You were in the same ship, does nobody realize that? You were gunning, he was flying—you were offense, he was defense—that’s the only fucking difference, and yet, it’s like that side of the mess hall is just completely lit up with hearty laughter and music playing from someone’s holopad and congratulatory drinks being passed around, while yours is… well.

You continue to fume inwardly, struggling somewhere between bitter and hurt, and you can see your reflection through the transparisteel giving him a death glare, wondering how many of the people surrounding him have made bets with Nine. How many of his little entourage have their money wagered on Dameron getting in your pants by a specific dat—

You stop short while staring at his handsome face, an infuriating, horrifying thought suddenly striking you. No… no, he wouldn’t…

“Does he know?” You immediately interrupt the chitchat between Three and Eleven to ask with a deadly edge in your voice, tipping your forehead at pretty boy. Ooh, you can already feel it burning. It would be so fucking typical. Oooooh, Maker, if he’s heard even a fucking whisper about this outside wagering going on amongst the pilots, you will fucking smother his ass in his sleep tonight. How could he not know? With as many friends as he has? If you’re just being made aware of it, then it’s a given that somebody has to have told him by now, which just means that it’s all the more possible—shit, even more likely—that he’s… participating, too. You do your best to keep your voice even, but you can hear the quiet fury shaking in it. “The bet about when me and him are gonna fuck, does he know about it?”

“Who—Dameron?” Zhang turns his head. “No, I don’t think s—”

“Yeah,” Rossi says at the exact same time, and your blood instantly turns ice cold as Zhang leans around you to blink at her stupidly.

“No. Yeah? What?” He says, sounding genuinely confused.

“Yeah, remember?” Rossi confirms with a shrug. “Nine was mad as all shit, came at me in the rec room a few weeks ag—fucking Maker, Eleven, you were there.”

“Oh,” Zhang suddenly exhales, “yeah, that’s right. Oh, yeah, Dime, he knows.”

You’re—fuck, you’re about to rampage. You’re burning a fucking hole through Dameron while he converses animatedly with his numerous buddies, waving an open hand and shaking his head at someone with a smile and then gesturing broadly to this side of the transparisteel. His pool is probably up soon, you figure. That’s why he came onto you so strong earlier today. He was going to get two weeks of your pay, plus whatever he must’ve offered up to Nine that says he’d get it to happen within a certain amount of time. Perfect, your old roomie and the arch nemesis you stupidly agreed to trade her for, two asshole peas in an asshole pod.

“—she thought I was the one who told him—” You know Rossi is still talking but you’re not actually hearing any of it. Nobody has any fucking idea. Nobody has any idea what he did to you today, how unbelievably close you were to… to actually… “—was all just for fun, but then he had a few choice words for her and told his squad that if any of them had made a—” You don’t know why you’re so surprised honestly, you should’ve expected…

Wait.

“Wait,” you suddenly blurt, and while she shuts up immediately, your mind starts whirling even faster. Dameron had some… what? “Wait. Explain. You’re saying he didn’t…” You slowly shake your head, furrowing your eyebrows and trying to piece it together. “He didn’t… place a bet with her, or anything?”

“What? No,” Rossi shakes her head a lot more forcefully than you, getting frustrated. “No, fucking—didn’t you hear anything I just said, Ten? He got all high and mighty for some stupid reason, totally reamed her ass out for it.”

“But…” You blink, stunned. “But… why? Why would he…?”

Rossi shrugs. “Fuck if I know. All she said was that he ordered Black not to throw in, made her lose a fuckton of money from it. Had no idea Dameron would be so touchy about his sex life, honestly.”

He… he isn’t. He isn’t touchy about his sex life—you feel like he never shuts up about it.

Rossi continues talking, but you’re not listening again. You stare stupidly at yourself in the clear transparisteel as Dameron’s voice comes back to you, repeating something you specifically remember him saying earlier today. Something you thought was just a careless jab at the time, aimed blindly at one of your comrades with nothing more than the intent to piss you off.

…I swapped housing assignments with your shitty roommate and slept in the bunk below yours for a month and a half…

You blink beyond your own reflection to focus on him once more, still lost in his own little world, not paying a single lick of attention to you while you’re essentially having a fucking crisis over here. You didn’t think the insult had any real substance to it at all. You just naturally assumed that was the result of him wanting to lash out at anything or anyone remotely close to you, if only to get a reaction, so you never gave him one or paid it any mind.

This is why he said that about Nine? Because he knew she had organized this fucked up betting pool behind your back?

Stars, you need to get out of here, all these rumors are fucking with your head. Your assumptions and the hairpin turnarounds are giving you worse whiplash than Dameron’s… well, admittedly spectacular flying today. You were wrong about wanting to avoid isolating—in fact, that suddenly sounds like a phenomenal idea.

So, you just get up and leave right in the middle of Rossi’s sentence, needing some time alone. Neither of them call out to you as you quickly walk around the table and through the barrier towards the exit, thank the Maker, and you’re just about to retreat with no interruptions until suddenly two Greenies step in front of you and block your path.

You halt immediately, looking up at them with a furrowed brow. “What now?” You grunt, not having the patience to even wait for a response before attempting to squeeze around them.

“Hey, so you really saved our asses out there today, Goldie,” the one on the left quickly sidesteps in front of you and rushes to say, and you settle your weight back on your heels with a huff.

“What are you talking about?” You glance back and forth between them, not recalling a time you’ve ever spoken to either one, before jerking your head to gesture over your shoulder. “Go congratulate trophy boy over there, he was the one flying.”

“We did,” the one on the right tips sideways to look at Dameron behind your shoulder, likely still laughing and joking with someone about something, something super fucking dumb probably. “Well, uh. We tried.”

“What?” You let out a heavy sigh and rub your temples. “The fuck is that supposed to mean? I don’t have the time.”

“He won’t take any credit, just keeps saying that all he did was steer you around,” the other one shrugs as his companion straightens and looks down at you once more. “Wouldn’t accept any drinks we offer him, nothing. So we thought we’d buy you one instead. Unless you’re… leaving?”

It takes you a few seconds to process that, even as he allows the open invitation to hang in the air. You can’t stop the way your torso automatically twists around to study your copilot from across the mess hall in baffled silence, suddenly realizing that they’re… they’re right. Dameron has no congratulatory drinks sitting in front of him even though more and more people have made their way into the bar. He’s just sitting there grinning and nodding along to something someone else is saying, completely and blissfully unaware of the extent to which he’s fucked with you in the past twenty minutes. The past… whole day. Month and a half. Or… fuck, how long have you known him? Two years?

But then Dameron’s gaze gradually drifts this way, before suddenly locking with yours. His eyes flick behind you to look at the two Greenies blocking your exit, and then back to the way you’re staring at him, wide-eyed and startled.

He suddenly stands up and starts to take a few steps towards you, and the sheer abruptness of the movement causes you to react immediately. You stumble your way backwards through the two pilots, feeling a few hands reach out to steady you through the awkward fumbling, but you slap them away and announce loud enough for Dameron to hear beyond them that you’re taking a shower, and you don’t give a fuck how long it’s gonna be this time.

***

The knob squeaks as you turn the water on. Usually you’d step back and wait the grueling five minutes or longer it takes for it to heat up with your arms crossed over your naked chest, but this time you move directly under the freezing spray, hoping to use the ice cold to shock your system.

You're finally alone.

Technically solitude doesn’t really exist within this base. You’ve heard of others that are a little nicer, having a little more room for the ranks, but not here. Housing assignments, showers and restrooms, mess and recreation halls—they’re all communal. Everyone is given rotating shifts, so while that means there’s never any true quiet to be found, it also means that showers are spread out well throughout the day and night.

But, at least for this moment, there’s nobody else around. At least in here, in the tiled chamber with multiple shower heads stationed around you—you’re sure there are a few girls lingering in the locker room and the entry area beyond it, but for right now, you’re blissfully by yourself.

And yet, you can’t seem to enjoy it.

You know you should be basking in the isolation. You should be thrilled at the rarity of only hearing your own flipflops slap against the floor as you turn around and drench your hair with the icy spray, but the lack of an immediate distraction for your focus allows it to wander to things you don’t want it to.

Explosions, mostly. Lighting up like fireworks in front of your eyes even as they flutter closed and let water drip down them. Constant, never-ending. Some of them small—TIEs you shot down, allies drawing fire away from you and then subsequently getting overwhelmed, zipping through dense debris from deadly collisions so quick that you had trouble distinguishing friend from foe. Some of them were massive—star destroyers splitting apart, warp drives overloading, enormous casualty counts. You don’t know how many lives you took today, not directly.

The beginning was the worst—when you were still slightly disoriented, when you were panicked and screaming into the comms for assistance. Then the closest stationed tandem showed up first—Red-Two and Eight, you think it was. Doesn’t matter now. They took some heat off you before the cavalry arrived, but you remember Dameron barking out your name the second their left thruster got nicked and they started spiraling, a ferociously deep, “With me!” cutting through the white noise. It was enough to snap you back, forcing you to instantly flick your eyes away and focus dead ahead without witnessing their demise.

It wouldn’t have normally been necessary. You’ve been flying with the Resistance for years, you’ve seen way too much bloodshed by now. But you’ve never been the catalyst of it—you’ve always been able to confront threats accompanied by your squadron, right between Nine and Eleven, the flight controls rumbling steady under your palms. You’ve never faced down an entire fleet in one single ship. You’ve never had to rely so directly on the skills of another pilot in order to stay alive.

The water slowly heats to a lukewarm while you reach for the shampoo.

Surprisingly, for as much as the two of you clash in normal interactions, it was like everything eventually became… synchronized. Spectacularly so. Dameron started off the enemy confrontation by calling out his flight patterns to give you a chance to adjust your firing in real time, but then at some point, it just stopped being necessary. There was a moment where you both were able to suddenly… get it. Get each other. He didn’t have to say anything after that—you could predict each other without second guessing, react instantaneously, and work your way through the littered battlefield accordingly. You never thought it would be possible to collaborate so well with someone you’ve spent ages despising. Sure, you’d both die if you didn’t—shit, you’d probably still both die regardless—but this kind of teamwork extended beyond the need to survive. It doesn’t matter how much you want to stay alive when reading someone else’s mind is physically impossible, but for some reason… You have no idea why, but it apparently came naturally between you. It fell to pure instinct, pure reaction, and remarkably, his would somehow match yours perfectly, every single time.

You lather the shampoo in your hair, remembering how his voice changed over the course of the mission. How it gradually shifted from panicked roars and barked orders into ecstatic cheers and genuine praise after landing a difficult shot, how he just couldn’t seem to stop whooping.

You smile softly as the tepid water rinses away the dirt and sweat from your body, until the temperature is brought up to a gentle, comfortable warmth raining down you and echoing in the empty shower room.

And, your first name. Dameron kept calling you that, the whole time. The one you’re now absolutely certain you’ve never personally given to him. The one he would’ve had to have listened for specifically. Remembered, or at least asked the right person about. But why? It’s not… it makes no sense, he doesn’t give a shit. He’s notorious for not giving a shit. He can’t even be bothered to remember the names of the girls he’s actually with—so why did he go to the trouble to figure out yours? You’ve been nothing but a thorn in his side the same way he is to you, right?

Right?

Your mind starts recollecting more recent events, trying to work through and process it by yourself. He was… singing your praises today. He was openly giving you credit for the win while you pouted in the corner and assumed the absolute worst of him. As much as you’re frustrated that nobody else seemed to give voice to your contributions, you’re even more surprised that he was the one who did.

And then even earlier. Gold-Nine, holding wagers with members of your squad (and others, apparently) about when you’re going to fuck him. Dameron, tearing her a new one for it, forbidding Black Squadron from throwing in and not attempting to hide his disdain for her from you. He… he defended you. Stood up for you when your own squad was being a bunch of dicks behind your back. And nobody ever fucking mentioned it to you. What did Rossi say—a few weeks ago? He’s known all this time and only today, only after you… openly showed more interest in him than you ever have, after you worked up enough nerve to try in your own little way to flirt back this time instead of responding to his casual comments with contempt and disgust, only today is when he decided to make a real move on you.

…Your mind is completely blank and yet you still feel yourself start to heat up just a bit at even alluding to the events that took place earlier. The way his fingers felt—

Steam begins to fill the open concept chamber while you shake your head against the train of thought and reach for the soap, beginning to circle the bar along your arms and shoulders with a sigh. This is already the longest shower you’ve taken in almost two months, and your body slowly relaxes under the mist and heat as you take forever cleaning yourself, slowly and hypnotically rubbing the soap along your skin.

The second you let your eyelids dip shut at the feeling, you immediately shiver at a flash of Dameron dragging his finger out of his mouth and blinking dark eyes at you through the transparisteel.

Fuck. The soap slips from your hand and you quickly catch it against your body before it falls to the ground completely, suddenly feeling the need to breathe in the misty air a bit harder. Shower, you’re in the shower. Come on.

The dirt and grime is scrubbed from your face and you tilt your head to move the bar of soap across your neck. As it lathers, you can’t help but remember the way his lips felt against the skin right there, the scratch of his beard. You keep working the soap against that same spot for a while, not knowing if you’re trying to wash away the sensation or simulate it, until you gradually slow and make it lighter, softer—yes, that’s closer to how it felt, that’s—

Soon the water is boiling hot and you’re trying not to boil along with it, remembering everything he said against this spot, the filth he whispered to you here. Your pussy starts to throb between your legs as the memories play out in your mind, how close he got you to shattering bliss without even really working for it. If you put it all together collectively, you don’t think he actually touched you for more than a minute or two total today. Mostly he just talked to you, but stars, he hit buttons you didn’t even think you had, had you a split second away from cumming harder than Maker knows while his finger rested just above your clit and provided no stimulation whatsoever.

Fuck, you enjoyed it. You did, you’ll admit it when there’s no one else here but you. You enjoyed the fuck out of it. You wish he’d do it again. Force you to lose, force you to cum so you can at least blame him for it, remove your responsibility from the equation and allow you to put just one more thing on his shoulders, to taste ecstacy instead of expecting you to bear the weight of pretending you don’t need it any longer. He was doing you a favor, you realize that now. Your body is staging a fucking coup and you wish you could’ve called mercy before it got to this agonizing point. He turns you on, you fucking admit it. He inspires violent emotions in you—jealousy, arousal, anger, temptation—thoughts you don’t want to have and consolidating it all into various forms of hatred makes the finer details easier to ignore. Your perception of him has always been skewed by your iron will, but he all but took a fucking sledgehammer to it today, dented it beyond all recognition. You want him, you want to him to take it all away, you want him to fuck you—in the… fuck, in the good way.

You don’t have a thought beyond that. Your hand quickly falls down the length of your body to wash your private parts, biting your lip as your hips slowly start to rock into it. You’re getting clean, you’re getting clean, this is how you clean yourself, this is… yes, as long as you keep the bar of soap pressed between your palm and the top of your curls like this, you’re cleaning yourself and you can just… ease your finger down just a little bit and—

Flipflops suddenly echo from the twisting hallway leading to the tiled freshers, and you immediately snatch your hand back up again, not needing to turn around to know another girl is walking into the room. A knob somewhere to your right eventually makes a dull squeak as you quickly finish washing up and turn your showerhead off, grabbing your towel and wrapping it around yourself.

Maker, you feel like your pussy is plotting your demise. Fuck, you can’t believe you almost cheated in the fucking showers just now where literally anyone could walk in, you thought you would’ve had more self-control than that. You make your way into the changing rooms and grab your pajamas, starting to tug them on without fully drying your body and having only one thought in mind.

Dameron will probably be celebrating late tonight. You can tuck in early, scurry back to your room and cheat there.

Well, no, not cheating, because you clearly remember making a very compelling argument about wet dreams earlier today. Maker, a freebie, the word has never sounded so enticing. What you’d say amounts to a… bye-week orgasm basically, since you know he’s already lost at least one match against his own body and you’re meant to be competing on the same level. It’s only fair to let you persevere through the toughest part of the challenge if he was allowed to throw a game early on and still stay in the competition. Maybe he threw multiple games, you never got a straight answer concerning that, so it’s still under review. He could’ve thrown… three games, even. Or four.

You dress as quickly as possible and then nearly bolt through the entrance area to the restrooms with all the sinks and stalls. The balled up dirty clothes and wet towel in your arms allow you to hide the way your nipples are stiff and tender against your thin pajamas, and you can’t wait to climb into your bunk and take everything off under the covers. You’ll be able to cum, at least once. It’ll relieve so much stress, get rid of this nightmare headache, rip through your body like lightning and paralyze it until you can start over from square one and think like yourself again.

And, you’re just about to power walk your ass back to your quarters when a body nearly slams into yours as soon as you step foot outside the door, your shoulder jerking back just in time to avoid a collision.

A mechanic, you think. You’re not exactly sure, you don’t hang out with too many of them—he’s Chiss and his glowing red eyes don’t even land on you as you gasp and sidestep him at the last second, but it’s not him that catches the majority of your attention. He just exited the men’s room at the same time you left the women’s, and the door takes a moment to swing shut behind him.

You freeze. It can’t be more than a few seconds—but it feels like everything slows down and it lasts a fucking eternity.

Dameron is standing at a sink in the far corner of the room, naked except for a towel identical to the one in your arms wrapped loosely around his waist. He cradles the base of his own throat with one hand and gently drags a razor down the smooth contour of it with the other, his chin tilted up high and regal while his eyelids dip low to concentrate on his movements. He glances down and holds the foamy blade under the running faucet, tapping it twice against porcelain before the door slides him out of frame.

I can shave, a low, silky murmur slowly fills your ears, heat swelling low and hot in your tummy. Tonight, I’ll shave it off. Make it nice and smooth for you.

You feel like your body is just a collection of rigid knots all tied together, and the one between your legs is the tightest it’s ever been. Stars, on another day you’d say it feels like a bad cramp, even though you know your injection makes your period rare and like clockwork. Regardless, the split second image makes you shudder and clamp up painfully, and you just stand there and stare at the closed door for a second, trying not to shake.

Fuck, this is so fucking… presumptuous of him.

Realistically, you know it could have absolutely nothing to do with you. It’s his face—you’re not self-centered enough to have completely lost your concept of autonomy. He can do whatever he wants to his body, and that includes facial hair, full stop. You also know that he’s not being… obvious about it, no matter how much it feels that way to you. He’s using the sink and mirror at the very end of the room, not any of the ones nearest to the door—but even if he was, it’s not like he could’ve planned for you to walk out at the exact moment the metal hinge was angled wide open. He couldn’t possibly have intended for this, for you to see him doing this. He wasn’t making a show, didn’t even notice you standing there. You blame literally everything on him, or at least you always try your absolute best to—but this one…

It sends a hard shudder down your spine and you clutch the fabric in your arms tighter, trying not to drop it. Fuck. This is torture. Fuck him. Good and bad—both ways, all the ways he can be fucked, fuck him. Your head is spinning, you’re sweating fresh out of the shower, you need to cum. Maybe if you hurry, you can get that precious orgasm before he’s finished, because if Dameron is able to intercept you before you can tend to this, you’re… you’re not sure how you’re going to say no to him.

You don’t even think you want to anymore.

You feel like you’re just… holding onto it on principle now. Too stubborn and hardheaded to want change. Too stuck in your own ways to recognize how much everything already has changed.

Somehow, you end up making your way back to your room, but the whole thing is a blur. Your flipflops plap against your heels as you navigate through hallways as quick as you can, emptier than you’ve seen them in months. You know most of the pilots are probably out celebrating in either the mess hall or rec room, but the thought doesn’t really presently register. Almost nothing registers besides your continuous forward motion and the way you feel yourself throb with every step, aching for something you are going to get tonight. Fuck, you are so attached to this orgasm now, it’s not going anywhere and neither are you. You deserve this, you deserve some relief. Come hell or highwater, it’s happening tonight.

As soon as you step into your room and slap your hand blindly against the wall panel to close the door behind you, you’re carelessly dropping the bundle of fabric to the floor and then shrugging out of your pajamas in the cool pitch darkness, having exactly one mission in mind. You don’t bother with lights, with brushing your hair, with literally anything besides clamoring up the ladder to your top bunk and wiggling under the thin bedsheet, making sure to pull it up to your chin before your legs butterfly open. The tip of your finger wets itself on your tongue and then you’re dropping it down and sliding it against your poor clit, the pleasure arcing and flaring so sharp and sensitive even from your touch that you have to give it just a second.

…No, no you don’t. You don’t have to give it fucking anything. You keep moving your finger hard and quick even as your hips naturally want to jerk away from it, shoving yourself through the sensitivity with gritted teeth and a ferocious will.

Fuck, how long do you think you have? Was Dameron shaving pre or post-shower? You can’t remember, all you know is he had a towel around his waist. And that thin gold chain hanging down his neck. Was his hair wet? Fuck, why can’t you remember? His chin and jaw were smooth as silk, you know that much. Post-shower, then. Probably. Probably?

His chin and jaw were smooth as silk. You keep getting stuck on that no matter how chaotically your thoughts whirl; they fling out in different directions at different velocities but all somehow manage to go in a perfect circle and end up at the same place you started. His chin, his jaw, his mouth, his neck, his chin, his mouth, his jaw, his mouth, his mouth, his mouth—

You feel yourself start to clamp down and you speed up, chasing it. The pleasure starts burning deep inside you, the fire slowly licking down your thighs and rising up into your abdomen, and then—

And then a series of quiet beeps from the hallway practically blare like alarm bells to your frantic mind.

You immediately stop moving your finger, snapping your legs tight together and flat to the mattress as soon as the door to your room shifts open and fluorescent light spills inside, and you feel like you could actually fucking cry right now.

All this edging is just a form of self-flagellation at this point. You lay there and try not to make a sound, try not to tremble hard enough to shake the whole bunk with it, but even your breathing feels like it’s going to give you away. Dameron, shirtless with his towel draped over his shoulder, slowly steps into the room and then pauses almost immediately, making your heart stutter for a second at what so blatantly caught his attention.

One quick glance down towards his feet confirms the simultaneous hope and fear—you left everything on the floor. The towel, the dirty clothes, and your pajamas are strewn about haphazardly right where he needs to walk.

You know what it must look like to him. A trail of clothes leading directly to an occupied bed isn’t exactly subtle, even though you didn’t necessarily intend it that way. Still, what can you say? Your hand is shoved in between your legs right now and you’re in your birthday suit under this thin sheet, what the fuck can you say to him? Sorry Dameron, got too caught up with how stupid wet you get me that I left those there on accident on my way to cheat, but totally not because I lowkey want your help doing it. Convincing, that’ll go over great.

Dameron slowly lifts his head to look at you. Or, at least you think he does—the light from the open door behind him casts his body in a dark silhouette, but you know your face is perfectly illuminated for him right now. Blinking down at him from the top bunk with your brows pulled up in the middle, wide-eyed and desperate and caught red-handed. Fuck, you don’t know if he can see the way your knees are clamped tight together and your hand rests perfectly still against your pussy like this from the angle he’s at, but you know it has to be super fucking obvious either way. You’re breaking the rules, you’re touching yourself, and you both know it. You can’t lie, you can’t even sit up without confirming his very valid suspicion. He can call the game at any point, but…

You watch his head fall back down to study the mess you left for him once more. Fuck, are you positive that was an accident? Normally you wouldn’t second guess anything about your own understanding of the interactions that occur between you and him, but—you’ve never done that before. You’ve lived with roommates on this base for years, you don’t just… get naked before getting into bed, that’s bad form. How are you going to get up in the morning without having your pajamas shoved near your feet while you sleep? Wrap this thin bedsheet around yourself and scamper down the ladder until you can snatch them up from the floor, and then what? Climb all the way back up just to wiggle the clothes on underneath the blanket before going back down again? Maker, you fucked up, your pussy is plotting your fucking demise.

But then everything inside you pulls taut as Dameron suddenly decides to move. Slowly, he leans down to catch your orange jumpsuit closest to his feet with a few fingers, before he stands upright and carefully begins folding the fabric without saying a single word to you. Electricity buzzes through you as he very obviously takes his time with it, using nearly his whole armspan to lengthen and fold the sleeves while his chest and chin meet for support. When he’s eventually satisfied with it, he takes a few steps toward the empty desk on your side of the room and then sets the neat rectangle of fabric atop it where you usually keep it.

You bite your lip and you can’t help it—you start to move your finger as he goes back to sort the pajamas you wore for barely two seconds from your dirty clothes, folding and putting away whatever is clean and then tossing the rest into the shared laundry basket that gets collected every week. Somehow it makes you feel even more naked, seeing all your clothes be returned to their proper places, realizing that this is your base state now, this is what you’re going to wear tonight. Nothing. You left everything on the floor and trapped yourself up here, he’s simply shifting a pawn forward two spaces in kind now that you’ve made your first move.

You can feel yourself pulse threateningly against your own fingertip while he collects your wet towel and drapes it over your closet door to dry, and your breath comes louder through your nose while you bite back the noises you want to make, the way your movements so desperately want to speed up. Your hand working the way you want it to under the white sheets would be too much, too revealing, but you don’t know how much longer you’ll be able to care.

But then of course, the asshole has to go and put away his towel and clothes, and you endure through the whole thing while pressing back and forth against your clit so hard and slow that your toes curl and pull the sheet tucked under your chin taut. After that’s done, he makes his way over to the portshade above his desk and slowly slides it open a few inches, the light of three moons outside gradually filling the room. However, when Dameron goes back to press a button on the wall panel and close the door to the hallway, you immediately see how much softer it is in here, how the artificial fluorescents have thankfully disappeared and the room illuminates more than it blinds, glows more than it beams. He presses one more button as the lock inside the paneling slides into place.

You bite your bottom lip and try your best to hide the pleasure you’re building for yourself while he makes his way back to his desk, quietly swiping the radio off it and lowering the volume knob completely before he flips it on. The noise slowly amplifies until you’re able to catch two distinct voices conversing in Huttese—it’s the only lingua franca that still broadcasts on this old technology in this part of the galaxy, but he’s already flipping through the stations in search of something specific.

If you were thinking straight, you may have actually recognized this for what it is, but you’re having trouble even processing the details of your general surroundings right now, your mind is lagging and too slow at reading between the lines. Dameron’s doing exactly what he said he would do. He laid it all out earlier for you in the x-wing, telling you exactly what he wanted plain as day, and now he’s checking the whole list off one by one. The shade is open and the room is lit just enough to make him out, the door is locked, and he’s finding something to listen to. Something quiet, and easy.

If you were thinking straight, you’d realize that there’s a much more obvious reason why he shaved his beard—you never told him the truth about how much you liked it. You never tell him the truth. You allow—even encourage him to think the sharp things you say to him are exactly how you feel. He did it because he believed you.

Oh, but you’re not thinking straight. Your thoughts are scattered and the only thing they can agree upon is how good this feels, even as your breathing starts to grow heavier, grow louder underneath the sound of the radio. The thought stays right beneath your consciousness, tugging at your preoccupied mind. You work your finger with just a little more verve now that he’s flipping through the stations, knowing he’s distracted by spinning the dial through intermittent white noise while different voices and songs fill the room for just a second at a time.

Your bed, his voice suddenly echoes through your thoughts, originating from your subconscious but almost sounding like it’s coming from the radio in your delirious mind. I want you comfortable.

Fuck, the understanding finally clicks the second he flips to a slower song and you start to burn at the thought of what’s next. The silent promise that his actions allude to. You have the realization way too late but at least it still comes at all with the state you’re in. Your hand slows down immediately, not even needing to consciously consider the choice between achieving orgasm through your finger or his mouth. Still, it’s hard to stop touching yourself completely when it feels so fucking good to your deprived body.

Fuck, it’s barely been a few seconds since your realization and yet you immediately bristle in distress at how fucking long he’s taking.

So you open your mouth. You’re desperate and needy and on the verge of something, and it comes out without thought. You don’t think it’s loud enough for him to hear, but his head immediately lifts and looks unseeingly at the wall in front of him for a second, as if he’s questioning if he imagined it. A soft melody plays on a bluesy guitar while you hiccup and wait, but he doesn’t move.

And then you say it again, higher and tighter in your throat, pitched up to an impatient, girlish whine. “Poe…”

The radio is tossed onto the bottom bunk as soon as he spins around and walks towards the ladder, but it’s like your finger has a mind of its own the moment he disappears underneath your line of sight. Your legs spasm against the mattress and you bite your lip, not caring about the frantic way your hand begins moving under the sheet as his muted footsteps climb up the rungs.

Your eyes snap to his as soon as you can see him beyond the railing at your feet, heaving himself up until everything above his waist is above you, too. His pauses there and his lashes quickly dip to the shameless movements between your legs as you work yourself towards that approaching bliss, and then flick back to the way you’re biting your lip and looking at him so torn, wanting so badly to wait for it but not being able to right now.

Slowly, he begins to move forward, crawling his way up the mattress and over your body, noticeably careful with where he places his limbs. You’re not hard to dodge, though—you’re like a rigid stick of desperation under him, knees and ankles still clamped tight together and your arms streamlined as close to your body as possible with tension as you keep rubbing your clit. Not to mention the sheet is thin and shows your figure almost perfectly with how tight you’ve hooked it under your chin, only leaving the finest details to the imagination.

But then there starts to be a little strain against the fabric, an unspoken question he’s still bothering to ask even though you could’ve told him to fuck off ages ago. Poe could yank the sheet down and flip your shit over and destroy you right now if he wanted—fuck, like you want him to do—but his face slowly appears in front of yours instead and his dark eyes search your features for answers. The length of his chain dangles from his muscular neck and glows against his golden skin, his whole upper body stretched long and bare over you.

From the gradually increasing tightness pulling on the fabric, you expect the sheet to rip down your body as soon as you lift your chin and let that resistance go, but instead… stars, it’s slow. Why is he going so fucking slow?? The bedsheet barely flutters down to your collarbone before he’s able to stop tugging on it so hard, and then he just gently inches the hem down from that point on.

Fuck—your eyes drop to his lips as he eventually reveals your shoulders and sternum to the room, and then lower to your cleavage while you let out a hushed whimper, praying he understands the extent of how vulnerable you’re allowing yourself to be. You don’t do this often—and you definitely don’t do it with someone like him. He’s the one who said you needed this, isn't he? So why the fuck is he dragging out the anticipation? Pretending like he doesn’t see the way you’re begging for help in the middle of another warzone that’s breaking out for the second time today?

Poe’s head drops down to give the contour of your neck a long drag of his tongue, slow and hot and wet, the sheet eventually dropping beneath your nipples and exposing them to the cool air. You bite your lip and keep working yourself under the fabric even as it’s led down the length of your tummy, and you just get wetter and wetter feeling him mouth at your skin as the radio continues to play soft from the bottom bunk. He follows the skin as it’s revealed, licking down from your collarbone and working with the increasing rate of your breathing. His lips never feel like they vary in pressure, even as your chest heaves up and down and your lungs work hard for air.

His open mouth slowly drags down the curve of your breast and it makes your blood burn fire through your veins. You nearly choke when your nipple is enveloped in soft heat, his tongue quickly fluttering up under the stiff peak and giving it to you so gently, contrasting so light and vernal with how brilliant and neon bright the need between your legs is. Your hand starts to work quicker, and fuck—you can hear it now, your desperate movements audible over the shallow breaths and the sound of one song gradually fading into another below you. You’re just too fucking wet and your pussy is smushed with how tight your legs are pressed together—the noise is unavoidable, and Poe’s knees are planted too close to either side of your thighs to spread them really at all.

Fuck, you knock against the resistance regardless to let him know what you want, but he doesn’t budge and it makes you just about lose your damn mind. Does he have to make everything so fucking difficult? You couldn’t close your legs earlier and now you can’t open them, and it’s like he’s able to take perfect advantage of each opposing position to prolong your torture.

But then his tongue leaves you even as his jaw opens just slightly, and that’s the only warning you get before his teeth graze your nipple with a sudden arc of sensation and you flare up all at once.

It’s a miracle and a curse that you’re able to stop at the very last second, your hand jerking away from your pussy and flexing into a fucking death claw on your thigh at how close you were, and you don’t know why. Why did the fuck did you stop? There’s nothing standing in your way right now, you’ve consciously given yourself express permission to cum, but still. It must just be learned instinct at this point—hammered into your muscle memory for weeks on end to not allow the pleasure no matter what, especially when you’re this fucking close to it.

Nonetheless you garble out nonsense and cinch inwards on yourself to fight it off now that you’ve apparently decided against it. There’s nothing worse than a half-assed orgasm, and you have to quickly summon the conviction behind your split second reaction before it’s too late and your body takes the pleasure any way it can get it.

Poe’s mouth releases your nipple at the way your whole spine suddenly hunches in and he drops his forehead to your chest, breathing heavy down the slope of your breast as you tremble and grapple for your sanity.

“Did you just cum?” Is the first thing he says to you, his voice is so ragged and stony it’s practically gravel crunching as he speaks.

“N-n-no,” you quickly stammer at the ceiling, trying to remember how to breathe correctly. Inhale, exhale—fuck, which one is inhale again, which one comes first? Maker, does he need to call a fucking medic? “Huhhhhalmost?”

Poe takes a deep breath and slowly releases it with a bassy and warm mmmm rumbling against your skin, so coarse but pleased enough to sound like melted chocolate dripping down your body. The noise sends a violent shudder through you and it’s almost enough to knock you back to that edge again, even without your fingers assisting it.

His head dips and the sheet pulls down even more, just below your belly button now, and you let out a quiet gasp in anticipation, nearly on the verge of begging him to keep moving downwards. But when Poe’s eyes close and his mouth suddenly moves back up to open over your other nipple instead, your patience snaps.

Fuck him, bad way. This is your orgasm, you’re done waiting.

“I’m gonna cum,” you snarl furiously down at him, shoving your hand between your legs even as Poe’s lips quirk against your skin. It’s not a warning, it’s a threat. If he’s gonna be like this, he doesn’t get to share it with you. It’s your orgasm, you’ll give it to yourself if he doesn’t give a shit about it. “Thought you wanted it, guess not.”

You immediately feel his teeth again in response to your admittedly slightly bitchy comment and this time he lets your nipple roll just a bit between them, making you jerk at the sensation and quickly find your clit again. Oh, you’re soaking fucking wet, you’re wet everywhere. Slick and swollen and burning, and it’s not going to take much at all. The sheet sticks to your overheated body and you can’t tell the difference between your sweat, his saliva, or wetness from between your legs—it all just feels damp and slippery as you gradually lose your bearings under his mouth.

“Fuck this, I’m gonna cum,” you breathe once more, possibly nothing more than a mindless reiteration but most likely just one last veiled plea for him to give you what you both want. As if he can tell, Poe quickly lifts his mouth and suddenly the sheet is ripped the rest of the way down your naked body completely, sharp and frustrated, and then his lips brush against your elbow as it twitches, nipping the sensitive skin there.

“Brat,” he growls quietly against your forearm as he keeps dragging his lips down further, following the path it makes along your tummy. “Just likes making shit difficult.”

“You’re the one—” you hiccup, trying to sound angry but just melting into a puddle at the tip of his tongue slowly trailing down your frantically moving wrist, “—you’re the… the o-one who… who…?”

But you’re already sprinting towards that edge, feeling him drop even lower and his hot breath fan against your fingers, and at this point you’re too far gone. Poe gently kisses at your closed thighs, in perfect position and ready for you, but you can’t stop yourself anymore unless he makes you stop, and the longer he waits down there without grabbing your hand to replace it with something better the more you don’t give a shit about whether or not it’s going to happen. You can feel the orgasm rising, you can feel your toes flex and everything start to lock down for the approaching tsunami. You’re going to get it this time, you’re going to cum, you’re going to—

“This is—” you rasp, “—this is a f-free, a fffff-ffreeeeb—”

His tongue softly grazes your knuckle as it works.

And then there’s a moment. A suspended moment that seems to go on forever, where you’re launched directly over that cliff and yet you still seem to be gaining altitude. Where’s the drop? You’re already cumming—you can feel it, there’s absolutely no fucking going back now, but it’s like your sheer desperation has so much momentum that your body tricks itself into believing there’s nothing to land on, no gravity to immediately rip you straight down to your demise.

You choke out his name and your back arches with it and that must be the signal, because Poe finally pulls your hand away and lets his chin dip, and then his jaw falls open and allows you just enough time to catch the glimmer of his pink tongue before it slides wet and slow through your swollen folds.

Heat. It sears through your whole body with a wracked shudder, the slick glide over your clit as his eyes flutter closed, and within the very first second of feeling his mouth on you, you’re instantly cumming inside it.

There. There’s the drop.

The burning erupts into molten chaos, crumpling your whole body on impact like an accordion, but he sinks all his weight down on your legs and forces you to endure it with everything below your waist pinned to the mattress. It’s fucking mayhem. You feel like your voice actually rips itself in half with the ragged cry of blinding relief, so enormous and soul wrenching in power that you couldn’t even hope to muffle it. You can’t move your hips through it, you can’t stutter up to ride it out—you have to experience the whole thing with your lower body completely still while his tongue takes slow, gentle licks at your throbbing clit, only able to sit your shoulders up and slam them back down and grab his head as you endure.

You cum hard. Fucking hard. It’s daunting and explosive and utterly devastating in the havoc it wreaks, and just when you think you’ve seen the worst of it, it’s just so slow. Creeping along and obliterating everything in its path, taking an eternity to pass because of how fucking big it is.

When you’re finally able to float back down into your own body again, the first thing you notice is how tight his hold is. Poe’s arms are wrapped around your thighs to keep them pressed tight together and you can feel the wetness all the way down to your fucking knees as they tremble against each other. Stars, what did he do to you? You feel like you actually wet yourself, there’s way too much dampness on the mattress underneath you to feel anywhere close to normal for you.

His mouth eventually leaves you but his head doesn’t move, nothing else moves. Even his hot breath feels like rough stimulation to your throbbing pussy.

And then Poe shifts and adjusts his body just enough, catching the backs of your knees and slowly spreading your legs up and apart like you wanted to do ages ago. They feel like jelly, wobbly and unsteady even as his thumbs hook right under your knees and easily support most of their weight. Your pussy is soon exposed completely, and his shoulders move down just before his head drops to lick the collection of wetness right from your entrance. Fuck, he couldn’t get it from the previous angle your legs were at, just your clit at the very top—but this is deep and personal and you know he’s probably getting mouthfuls of how hard he just made you cum, using the tip of his tongue to scoop your arousal up and swallowing it quietly before going back for more.

“Poe,” you whisper, and he rumbles low in his throat in response without stopping. This isn’t for you, this isn’t for your benefit right now. Your pleasure receptors aren’t concentrated right here, just the physical evidence of them being overloaded just a few moments ago, but he stays for longer than necessary. He keeps his mouth here far longer than you need to push past the throbbing sensitivity and start to crave the sensation again, forcing you to bite your lip to stop yourself from telling him to move back up just a couple inches.

So you seek it out instead, the lower part of your body clearly not listening to a damn thing your mind tells it right now. Your hips drop and his velvet tongue catches your clit at the apex of its repetitive motion, and you gasp and rock upwards again as Poe groans and immediately rises with you to chase it. He attaches to the swollen flesh and sucks at it gently for you, following your lead, letting your wet fingers comb his hair back from his face and clutch a good fistful of it as you plant your feet and slowly grind up into his mouth.

Fuck. He was right. You needed this. Everything about it is heaven—endorphins pour off you in waves as you roll your hips against his face, and he lets you do it. He’s not just pliant, he’s willing. His tongue works diligently, his eyes close and he moans into your pussy, allowing you to tug his hair and fit to his mouth exactly how you want.

Oh, everything burns. Everything smolders and sparks, because he’s always been so withholding and now he’s just going for it. He’s reading your mind better than he did during the battle today, not necessarily submissive in his approach but… servicing. Accommodating. Finally giving in and putting real effort into helping you chase after another shot of ecstasy without being so stingy about it like before.

As soon as you feel another familiar swell of something deep down, your mouth is suddenly dropping open.

“How many—” your ragged voice comes out without thinking, and it takes so fucking long to actually attach the train of thought to its conduit of translation. You swallow thickly and flex your fingers in his hair, tugging at him to ground yourself, trying to anchor yourself to the very thing that’s about to fling you into oblivion again. “—fuck, how many times did you… how many fr-freebies do I—do I…”

Poe eases his chin back just enough to respond, and the slick sound his tongue makes leaving your clit makes you shudder and miss the wretched words at first. “Mm. Just the one.”

And then his tongue is already sliding back through your pussy by the time your eyes pop open in immediate panic, and your clit is in his mouth again as soon as yours drops to frantically contest.

But the words aren’t coming, it feels too fucking amazing. Your jaw goes slack and your fingers tighten in his hair. Maker almighty, the orgasm swells up so sharp and quick that you have to fucking kick him at the very last second to get away from it. Thankfully Poe’s mouth abruptly leaves you with his oof of shock at your audacity, lifting his head as you snap your legs together and grit your teeth through your miserable retreat from ecstasy. You don’t even notice the way your knee almost knocks into his jaw with it—you just focus on shamefully easing your way back down again from the platform overlooking bliss like you’re too afraid of the high-dive. After a second, you actually have to turn on your side and rock yourself like a child as Poe slowly sits up with a grimace, lifting his arm to rub at his ribcage where your heel slammed into him.

You peek an eye open to watch him do it and oh no, it’s not a good plan. He’s so… fucking hot. Fuck. He’s unbelievably good-looking—his hair curls and frames such handsome features, his body is lovely and warm and seeing his chest bare and up close like this makes you want to reach out and slowly drag your hand down the smooth curve of his side. But then your gaze catches on the dark sweatpants tented shamelessly between his legs and how he’s glistening with perspiration, too, and how he tugs at the fabric covering his crotch and sighs softly, blinking down at you slow and intoxicated with lust.

You have to close your eyes and bury your face into the pillow because your body is latching onto anything to keep you within inches of that edge. The mere sight of him is enough to make you worry for yourself. You take deep breaths and do your best to tune his existence out entirely. Just you, just you in your bed, trying desperately not to cum without even touching yourself. You’re naked and curled up and there's no one here to look down at you with deep brown eyes, no one else breathing and especially not equally as loud as you are. Just you, just you.

And, just when you think you might finally get to the point where you’re not teetering anymore, where you’re at least mostly certain that moving around and looking at things and just existing in general isn’t going to make you completely unravel hands-free at any moment, he has to fucking… go and be himself.

You peek up to see him staring down at you, dark and intimate and devouring, before his hand gently brushes down the curve of your hip. “Maker, you are so fucking hot right now. Was that a close one, pretty baby?”

Your hand snaps out to grab his wrist with a whimper and you don’t know if your intent is to stop him or just hang on for dear life, but your grip is weak and you shake and Poe takes the opportunity to grab a handful of your ass while you do absolutely fuck all to stop him.

“Mmmm. Open your legs,” he murmurs, releasing your flesh just to give it a soft smack. “You’re only making it worse like this.”

“What? W-What do you—” you stammer, but Poe drags his hand down your thigh to catch one of your knees and pull it up without waiting for your babbled reply. Both knees go with him, your pelvis wound too tight and frozen to do anything but rotate your whole entire body on your tailbone.

“You’re just adding more pressure by keeping them closed,” he explains, wiggling his fingers in between your knees to try and get enough of a grip to pry them apart. “C’mon—open your legs, let yourself breathe.”

“Nnnnnnstop talking,” you groan, trying to slap at him, but he’s strong enough to force the movement regardless, levering your knees apart and then pushing them tight to the mattress. And, though he would normally be right about it, you’re fighting your mind to get away from the orgasm just as much as you are your body. The sudden exposure and the positioning and the way he automatically drops his gaze down at your needy pussy with his cock still hidden in his pants like that only serves to displace the cause instead of eliminating the effect. Closing the door and opening a window, shifting the stimulation somewhere else but allowing it to throb steady and aching regardless.

“Much better,” he sighs lowly, digging his fingers into the sore muscles inside your thighs and you just keep your hands loosely attached to his wrists as he works. “Fuck me, baby’s got such a pretty pussy doesn’t she?”

“Poe,” you wheeze up at him, hearing him rumble at the sight of your cunt contracting around nothing, probably shining and glistening with your desperation for him. By this point, you’re worrying again. You have no doubt whatsoever that he could talk you into cumming just like this, with your hands trembling and clutching at his wrists. If he keeps murmuring filth while holding your legs open and staring at your pussy like this, you have no doubt you’ll find a way to get there somehow.

Thankfully, he seems to understand. He goes quiet and just keeps massaging your sore muscles while you try not to writhe underneath him. Stars, it’s like he’s genuinely doing what he can to take it easy on you and you’re still all kinds of fucked up about it, still frantic and desperate while all he’s doing is just squeezing your legs.

“Calm down,” he gruffs, but you can’t. “You’re working yourself up, don’t—”

“Stop talki—” your ragged growl is cut off by your own hiccup as you quickly find the strength to shove at his hands, knowing they’re at least mostly to blame for your prolonged tightrope walk. You can’t fucking think when he’s touching you, you become too hyper-aware of your own body, it feels too good in a way that’s hard to describe and impossible to explain. Poe’s palms immediately listen and raise in front of him in surrender, his back lifting to give you space while you hide your face from him with shaky hands and gasp. It’s pathetic and your legs are still held wide open and your fingers tremble hard enough to resemble a malfunction.

You just. You need a hard reset. You need that thirty seconds of complete idle, of figuring shit out on your own without an electric current running through you before you can start working properly again. It can’t be rushed, it’s necessary when most people just want to power down and then right back up again. The wires connecting your parts are all criss-crossed and tangled and sparks are lighting up at the slightest stimulus, you just need to experience absolutely nothing for thir—

“I’m sorry,” Poe murmurs, still staying in his own space but the gravelly voice shooting a bolt of lightning down your spine. Thirty seconds, of course he couldn’t give you thirty fucking seconds. “Fuck, you’re so hot, I’m sorry—”

“Please stop talking,” you beg him, your fingers curling against your face, “Maker, I—I don’t want to cum—”

“Fuck, I know, it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever fucki—”

You go to kick him again and even though it collides wrong and does nothing more than get your message across, the jostle is enough to knock you back from the approaching oblivion just slightly. It serves to wake you up way more than it remotely hurts him, the equivalent of someone just smacking a piece of machinery and fixing the problem temporarily.

You heave an enormous breath and blink your eyes open behind your fingers, immediately locking with his. Poe’s teeth are digging into his bottom lip but he’s mercifully silent, even when you drop your shaky hands down to your spread thighs and stay equally silent another full minute while you make the effort to right yourself. After awhile though, you realize he must be taking cues from you, waiting for you to speak.

Only, you suddenly don’t know what to say. You’re at a complete loss, looking up at him through your eyelashes in uncertainty now. Something you’ve never been around him, even as your pussy is wide open for him to look at. He hasn’t recently, though, you don’t think. He’s just keeping his eyes on your face, watching you bite your lip and blink up at him while your mind whirls, the only sound that can be heard is the radio continuing to lull from the bottom bunk.

You wish he’d say something. How come he’s choosing right now to listen to what you tell him to do? You don’t… you don’t know what to say to him. Why can’t you figure out something? You fidget but then suddenly feel your expression lose all its struggle and just look… innocent. Needing his help.

“Do you want me to leave?” Poe eventually asks after another moment, tentative of breaking the silence, and you frantically shake your head before he’s even finished speaking. Fuck, something drops in your stomach at how desperate you’re probably coming off right now, but you’re so lost and you know that’s at least one question you know the immediate answer to.

Poe tilts his head thoughtfully, slowly reaching a hand towards your thigh without removing his eyes from yours. “Want me to make you cum again?”

You shake your head again, wide-eyed and worried. He immediately pulls his hand back and blinks slowly at you.

“You want to be edged more?” He asks lowly, and you shake your head vehemently for the third time. Poe sighs and sits back, planting his palms to his thighs and pulling at the fabric of his pants in budding frustration, clearly tired of playing twenty questions. “Well what do you want, baby? You wanna just hang out? That’s fine, I don’t care, but you gotta tell me.”

Fuck, he’s right, what do you want? The only thing that’s standing in your way of feeling better, you soon realize.

“Want you to cum first,” you mumble, cheeks warming at how childish you sound.

“Not a fucking chance,” Poe immediately scoffs, crossing his arms over his bare chest. “And pouting at me isn’t gonna help.”

“Why not?” You breathe, dipping your gaze down his body. “I can use my mouth.”

“I don’t—” he stops short, suddenly registering what you said and switching gears. “You can—?” Poe narrows his eyebrows and looks suspicious. “You’ll let me… cum in it?”

“Okay,” you whisper in breathless agreement, sitting up and reaching for him, but Poe groans and pushes you back down on the mattress with a flattened palm against your shoulder like you just aced a test he was hoping you’d fail.

“Fuck whoever’s idea this was,” he grits darkly to himself while you arch up against his hold, wanting him to grab your tits but knowing it’s not a good idea right now. “Maker, I’m so fucking hard—fuck whoever’s idea this was, making me turn that down—”

“You said,” you pant, licking your dry lips and blinking up at the ceiling, trying to control yourself, “before, you said that you’re… you’re not doing this for a bet, right? So why not?” Your voice goes softer when you flutter your gaze back at him, even though the accusation feels like it should be sharper if anything, since it comes from a very real place of distrust. “Were you just… lying to me about that?”

“Fuck, come on,” Poe groans, his voice starting to waver as he shakes his head and squints one eye at you, exasperated. “You don’t get it. You can’t think of a single fucking reason I don’t wanna blow my load just yet? Really?”

The sentence coupled with his rock solid hold on you skitters a thrill through your body and you automatically reach up to run your hand along his forearm. He looks down at the caress and then back to your face and fuck, even you feel like you’re sending mixed signals right now.

“You could… fuck me,” you whisper, and Poe’s dark eyebrows pull up as his gaze falls down your naked body, nodding and digging his teeth into his bottom lip. An agreement backed by so much unspoken desire that it looks like it almost hurts him just to hear you say it out loud. “And we can just… see who cums first.”

“Yeah?” He croaks, his eyes pinned between your open legs. “Just say fuck it all and race for last place? Okay.”

Your heart pounds, having just enough wherewithal to preemptively establish a safety net for yourself. “And—and we can’t finish at the same time or we both lose.”

“Fuck,” Poe groans, reaching down to catch the hem of his sweatpants with his thumb and lifting his hips until his cock is exposed to the dim room. “We can’t stop once we start, then, we’ll have to see it through.”

Except you don’t catch any of the last part because, uh. Well, to sum up. May the Maker have mercy on you all.

Just like that, the only thought in your mind is… you get it. Okay, you get it. He told you before that girls were only interested in him for his cock, and it actually… stars, it makes so much fucking sense now, you totally get it. You thought maybe he was just boasting as a form of overcompensation at first—or, to put it another way you’ve probably used in conversation with him before, talking big talk but walking small walk. Only now, you’re… humbled. By a fucking dick, you’re humbled.

You haven’t seen more than a few of them in this context, so you know you’re not necessarily qualified to give an informed opinion, but heavens it’s a sight. It’s thick and swollen and just a shade darker than his complexion and everything inside you rockets to attention as soon as he wraps his hand around it. It’s big. It fills his whole palm without much room to spare. Far larger than what you’re used to, and you know that no matter how he fucks you with it, you’re gonna feel it tomorrow. Next weekend, probably.

Your eyes must betray you, because Poe suddenly loosens his grip and breathes your name softly, causing you to flick your eyes back up to his. You didn’t realize you were staring so openly.

“I’ll go slow,” he reassures you quietly, voice gentle and knowing. The complete lack of sarcasm or aggression in his tone is enough to snap you back to yourself, knowing that can’t possibly be right. He’s talking to you like he did when you stumbled your ass out of the x-wing today, when you were barely responsive and lost in dumb shock. He doesn’t have to… be nice to you right now, like you’re still only moments away from losing it. It’s offensive.

“I can handle it,” you harumph, widening your legs while Poe immediately suppresses a grin.

“'Course you can,” he sighs with the slightest note of fondness creeping into his voice, dropping his hips as he lines up at your entrance. “And I’ll go slow anyways.”

You open your mouth to respond but at the first push of his head inside, you inhale sharply and your palm immediately shoots out to press against his chest on complete instinct. The stab of pain is impossible to mask from your features and Poe instantly stops with a shaky breath, watching how your jaw drops at the intrusion and your face contorts.

“Ahh. Shit…” he whispers as his head tips down, dark eyes clamping shut and his hold on you tightening. “What—shit, what the fuck…”

“Keep going,” you growl out, even though you know you’re just making it more difficult on yourself. You can take Poe’s cock, you can take it, he has absolutely nothing to brag about, it’s completely normal-sized—

His hips inch forwards and you gasp at the excruciating arc of sensation, slapping at him harder.

“Keep going,” you babble while locking your elbows and shoving him back, “fuck, keep going, keep going—”

“Baby,” Poe groans, wrenching one of your hands from his chest and bringing your wrist up to his mouth to kiss and breathe hot air on it, “baby, you gotta let me—”

He moves a little more and you cry out, jerking your hand back from his lips and knocking it hard against his chest before you even realize it. Oh shit, you can’t handle it, you haven’t been fucked in so long—

“I’m sorry,” you choke out, trying to be nicer by flattening your palm but then immediately digging your nails in, “fuck, I’m sorry, it’s just—it’s been awhile since I—”

“Shit, I can tell,” he pants brokenly, his fingers dropping back down to flex hard on your hip. “Hoooolyfuck, I can te—ah, fuck, it’s alright, it’s alright, just—nnnnnnshit, okay, just relax, don’t tense up too muuuh… much—”

His cock pushes deeper even as he keeps rambling through it and you feel yourself being rearranged to make room for the slow movement, giving way to a rich pleasure even as the discomfort increases.

Poe stops once more when your hands shove up against him, somehow simultaneously shakier and firmer than all the other times put together and a little more than half of him inside you at this point. You’re so slick and hot between your legs that there’s no resistance besides the stretch, nothing to stop him from slamming home besides your weak hands trembling at his collarbone, but everything about the way he stays completely frozen for ages says he’s controlled and patient.

Everything except his face, you soon realize.

When your body is finally able to come to terms with the sensation and you blink up at him, Poe isn’t looking at you anymore. He’s staring directly over your head at the wall, tangible regret manifesting itself in seething frustration marring his expression. His eyebrows furrow and he scowls but all of it is silent and directed at himself, as if he’s asking why the fuck he actually agreed to do this. You know then that it must be really fucking wet. You know then that you must be just blazing hot and tighter than sin and as if in rhythmic agreement, his cock jumps inside you with each pounding rush of blood through it. You can see the sweat beading at his hairline as he continues to ignore you for the moment, choosing instead to silently lament at the wall like it did something to mortally betray him.

You could… make this a sprint, something devious suddenly whispers to you. He’s struggling through the pleasure and you can outlast. From the severity of that look alone, you can put an end to it before it even starts.

Admittedly, you don’t even let the devil finish his damn sentence before you decide to take your own initiative. You clamp down around him as hard as you can and Poe whips his attention down to you and punches out a curse that sounds like you wrenched the word from his throat before he was anywhere near ready for it. It comes from somewhere high and defenseless in register and then quickly falls down into a growly pit as his hips automatically lurch forwards the rest of the way inside, hard, smacking into yours as you squeeze wickedly around him.

You keep squeezing through the sudden upward shove of bliss, you keep tightening up even though you’re making agonizing noises and your eyes clamp shut and it hurts. But stars, it feels good, why does it feel so good when it hurts so bad? It makes your throat scrape and your face twist up, but you can hear his cursing getting louder and more desperate so you still don’t relax your viselike hold around him.

“Stop it—” he snarls down at you rabidly, “—oh fuck, stop or you’ll make us both cu—”

Shit, he’s right. You know he’s never been more right about anything as soon as his hips stutter and kick up to a full blown gallop in the middle of his furious scolding, and the sudden build of ecstasy is so fast and intense that you sob his name, not being able to loosen your muscles anymore as soon as it overtakes you. But it’s like a closed circuit, you’re both recycling the same pleasure without knowing how to shut it off. The harder you bear down on him, the faster his hips work, the vicious cycle compounding and circling and manifesting in the perfect typhoon within just a few tumultuous seconds.

But then suddenly he rips himself out of you with a gasp and it’s not a moment too soon, because both of you have to scramble and grab onto things to brace yourselves through the worst of it. You choose the mattress and he chooses the railing, and through the searing discomfort and settling of the chaos that’s becoming more and more familiar to you as this exhausting day passes, you know you fucked up. You underestimate his self control, time and time again. But, exactly like earlier today, you feel a thrill skitter up your spine at how he’s going to respond to your brazen treachery in the face of a newly established truce.

“Fuck,” he jerks his head to spit the obscenity at you, sounding more pissed off than you’ve ever heard him, the shredded anger in his voice starting to burn through you. “Fuckfuckfuuuuck—you make me so mad. You make me so mad. I wish I could fuck you right now, on Maker, I’d ruin you. I’d wreck your shit until you learn and you’d deserve every single fucking second of it, you—”

He stops short and growls jagged sharp in frustration, but you can’t help yourself.

“Say it,” you whimper on a dare, feeling your heart pound. The words quiver with an inexplicable sort of excitement as you dig your fingers into the mattress, wanting to hear his voice snarl the mysterious profanity. “Say it. ‘You…’—what? Say it.”

Shock suddenly paints his previously tense expression blank, even though his pupils blow out and his chest heaves. Your voice is too breathless, it’s too needy to sound nearly as antagonistic as you want.

And then Maker, it’s as if the sheer control he’s clinging to serves to spark his vexation even more. Mad that you would ask for something so enticing at a moment like this. Your heart thunders as Poe nearly flashes up close to you and points a threatening finger at you.

“You’re not going to get what you want from me,” he snaps, quiet and furious. “Not tonight. I don’t give a shit, I told you I’d slow fuck you and now I’m gonna do it until you act right.”

“You’re an asshole—” you move to lift up onto your elbows, but his hand suddenly plants against your clavicle and shoves you back down flat on the mattress.

“Not even ten minutes after I make you cum and you’ve already got a fucking attitude problem again,” he shoots back, positioning his cock at your entrance with his other hand once more, and Maker you’re drowning between your legs. His sharp rebuttal and the firm hold on the upper part of your chest makes it that much wetter, knowing you can’t do much more than lift your legs the way you need when he eases his way back inside.

“P-Poe—” you gasp breathlessly, but it's like he doesn’t hear you.

His expression tenses and he shudders out a low growl. “Fuck. Tight little baby. Rude little baby, just wants everything her way but doesn’t know how to behave herself.”

You have to bite your lip hard to hold back a whine when he’s completely sheathed and his hips connect to yours, and… shit. You already feel it. You already feel that simmering starting to take hold deep down once more, that monstrous second orgasm you’ve been fighting now digging its claws into you and licking the base of your spine with fire. And, as if he can tell, his demeanor instantly changes.

“Uh, oh,” Poe murmurs quietly, equal parts lilting and baiting, slowly dragging his cock out and then starting up the laziest pace you’ve ever experienced with his hand still planted high on your sternum right below your collarbone. “Can you feel it coming? Fuck, I can,” he shudders. “Already. Fuck, you’re so wet, you’re so wet—wish you had let me eat you out mor—”

“You can’t c—umm,” you hiccup, grasping his wrist and writhing through the building ecstasy, and you don’t know who you’re talking to at this point. Your other palm slaps at his shoulder with increasing urgency—fuck, he’s been fucking you for barely ten seconds and you’re already struggling to hold everything back. Only, his hand quickly grabs yours and pins it to the mattress, his face dropping closer as he rolls his hips achingly slow. You feel his back working with the steady pace, you see his neck flex as his cock drags so thick inside you, and then your gaze starts to lose focus a bit. It slides up his throat as lazily as he’s augmenting your pleasure, following the contour of his smooth skin until it reaches his face.

And mercy, Poe’s tongue comes out to wet his lips and a dark curl hangs down his forehead, concentrating hard on fucking you steadily without giving into the same creeping euphoria you’re feeling, and you have to turn away and bite back a whimper at the metal railing when the image starts to burn you alive.

“No,” Poe gruffs and his hand slides up a few inches to frame your jaw, twisting until you face him directly once more. “Right here, you stay right here with me.”

Your eyebrows pull up weakly and your eyes flick across his stunning features, the way he’s so present, so focused and determined while you’re starting to drift. His skin is so smooth, so golden when his jawline used to be dark, and—

“I—” you choke, starting to lose it, “—I-I…”

“What is it, baby?” Poe growls, staring down at you with unwavering, intense concentration. “Tell me. You gonna cum?”

“I…” you whimper, blinking at him slowly, “I… liked your… b-beard…”

Poe’s eyes, previously hardened and steadfast, suddenly go a bit dumb, a bit dazed. After a second, his eyebrows lose all strain, his gaze turns warmer and he rolls his hips deeper—

But the swell begins to become the only thing you can comprehend—that and the fact that you should be fighting it. You should be revolting against it, but now he’s looking so softly down at you and you can’t remember what could possibly be so bad about letting him take away all this ache and desperation again. Let him continue to take it away, over and over and over until it’s nowhere to be found at all.

And then Poe leans down and kisses you. And it’s… nothing like you’d expect.

It’s gentle. It’s tender. It goes on forever while he rocks into your soaking wet cunt, easing his throbbing cock in and out of you with such a smooth, repetitive motion that sends sparks of ecstasy down your spine at the apex of each thrust.

You handle it silently. At first. You don’t audibly react to any of it, you force your voice to at least keep quiet if you can’t hide the pleasure from your face or body, but then true to fucking form, he has to go and ruin it all. Poe uses his knees to scoot up just the slightest bit, and then his moan breaks through the absence of the desperate sounds you’ve been holding back as his tongue slowly slides into your mouth.

Your pussy flares, contracting painfully around his cock as it hits a spot that makes your legs shake against his sides. Your eyes roll back as his soft tongue dips into your mouth and everything just gets tighter, and tighter. Poe moans again and his hips push a little bit harder into yours on the next thrust, and it’s almost like a domino effect, except that doesn’t do it justice. It doesn’t topple one by one, it doesn’t take any time at all for the beginning to reach the finish—it’s a house of cards, the whole thing collapses and crashes down in on itself all at once.

You cum.

You lose. Fair and square.

You make a long, anguished whine into his mouth as you just start spasming, clutching hard at his shoulders and drenching his cock with it, your eyes squeezing shut as you cum so slow and fucking helpless around him. Oh Maker, it’s fucking devastating, it feels even more destructive and powerful than the first one. You pull and shove and claw at him equally, mouth slack as Poe tightens his hold and keeps tasting your whimpering cries, fitting his hips snug to yours as he slowly pushes you down through the debilitating ecstasy. You sob in euphoric defeat and a low, bone-shattering groan of satisfaction rumbles through his chest in response, grinding his cock into you and holding it deep as your pussy convulses.

All those weeks of holding out, just to lose. You had a freebie, he gave you an orgasm already and it was like a massive dose of spice to your deprived system—all it did was make your body want it more. Even worse, your orgasm doesn’t immediately inspire one in Poe like a part of you hoped it would, if only so you could reasonably contest the validity of the outcome. He’s able to ride out every twitch and flex as you shudder your way through it, continuing to lazily slide his tongue into your mouth while it’s held open and slack. He tastes like you. He tastes hot and slick and everything about your body feels the same way, damp and unbearably warm from your nape to your elbows to your cunt to the backs of your knees.

You lay there for what feels like a lifetime afterwards, powerless to the way your thighs tremble violently against his hips and letting the tip of his tongue slowly trace the bottom edge of your teeth while he firmly keeps his cock buried inside you. It pulses thickly and you know he wants to cum, you can feel the tension pulling at his shoulders as he keeps perfectly still. But then Poe shuffles his arms up until they’re braced around your head, using himself to box you in completely without moving his lips from yours. His teeth close on your bottom lip as he inches his hard cock out long and aching from your sensitive channel, and then groans and goes back to the same exact dragging pace from before.

Your expression furrows, even as he keeps kissing you and the movement lights up your oversensitive nerves. Fuck, you want him to speed up, it’s all the more shattering and viseral when he takes his time. What is he doing? What is he waiting for?

“Fuck me,” you whine against his lips, demanding a quicker pace. You don’t know why he isn’t just letting loose on you now, giving into his body’s need to cum. He’s aching for it, still rock hard inside of you. “Come on, I already l-lost, just fuck m—”

“Told you before,” Poe whispers back, refusing to speed up. He keeps his pace dragging and steadfast, no matter how much you work to entice him. “Never… fuck. Never gave a fuck about that stupid bet. Suffer though.”

The complete lack of harshness in his tone sears through your nerve endings even though what he said wasn’t exactly nice. You never thought hearing him tell you to suck it up could be delivered in a way that inspires so much arousal in you, but then his tongue is in your mouth again as his hips work slow and easy, and your eyes roll back at how… overwhelming it feels. So intimate. You’re completely surrounded by him, his forearms propped next to your head and his mouth on yours, and… Maker, there it is again. Your body is so deprived that it’s already gearing up to go again. He’s being lazy and you can’t fucking stand how it’s breaking you down. Gradually, with incredible stamina and a patience you never expected from him. When you first feel that pull, part of you still wants to pick up the other end and start a tug-of-war with the sensation. You’ve been fighting for so long that your body almost doesn’t know any different, its automatic reaction is to resist.

A distraction, that’s what you need. That’s what guys do to stop themselves from cumming too soon, right? Fuck, think of something, think of…

—Poe, you can't think of anything but Poe. Fuck. His cock sinking deep, the way he tastes, how his fingers thread into the damp hair at your crown so you can feel him that much more, how you can hook his biceps with both hands and swirl your tongue around his while he fucks you open. Your hips roll up with the pace and almost immediately stutter back down again, not sure if you can handle the wicked shot of oversensitivity—but then Poe groans and shifts up until his thighs are under your ass and he can curl you in more, lift your feet a bit more and make you feel smaller. And—stars, the next thrust in is enough to nearly make you bite him on complete accident, an unexpected sound ripped from your throat as he keeps that specific angle.

Poe keeps going. He keeps kissing you, keeps rocking into you. He lets you claw at him, lets you grapple helplessly while his cock shreds molten hot euphoria deep inside you, and then everything tightens up again.

“Ah, fuck,” Poe breaks away and curses a whole few seconds before you descend into mindless chaos once more, garbling out broken syllables with the absense of his mouth keeping yours occupied. Your voice crescendos and breaks at the same time you do, the pleasure arcing through you over and over and wringing you out repeatedly around his throbbing cock. Poe’s lips quickly move forward and give your whole cheek an open kiss while your expression crumples with it. Teeth drag down your skin as he moans hot air across your skin, his hips slowing to a complete stop with an obscenely slick sound.

You throb and clench around him and his lips are suddenly on yours again, his tongue sinking deep and dominating. Your mouth is slack and all you can do is squeeze him through the bliss, scrape your fingernails down his back and hope it leaves a mark.

Eventually the tremors pass and you’re dead in the aftermath, you don’t have energy. Your body is starting to acclimate to the slow orgasms and just let them steamroll you flat, fully accepting now that you can cum but still putting everything you have into it like every single one might be your last for a while. You come back to yourself enough to feel Poe’s cock solid and achingly hard inside you, and your bottom lip is being tugged between his teeth.

And then he eases out and goes back to fucking you. Same speed, same control.

Your eyes nearly fucking cross. “P-Poe—”

He immediately makes a noise of disapproval with his mouth closed, a nuh-uh but kept tight in his throat. He doesn’t want to hear it, he’s not even letting you finish your thought.

You can’t take it, though, you didn’t think he was capable of this. This is torturous in an entirely different way, overstimulating and shattering you with every thrust.

So, you think back to the one thing that got him to nearly snap earlier, the one time you really got to see that fire you love playing with. Only now, you need that fire, you need him to take everything out on you. Your floor muscles clamp down without warning and squeeze him as tight as possible, squeeze squeeze squeeze until you feel his hips stutter to a halt once more. Your breath catches—fuck, is this gonna work?—but then Poe breaks away from your lips to drop his head and sink his teeth into your neck.

You nearly squeal at how careless he is about it—an animal that bites you lazily even though it sends sharp agony rocketing through you. Again, your attempt at sabotage backfires spectacularly as a subsequent flare of pleasure swells up, and oh, that’s what you want, you want him to be mean—

“Please,” you whimper, hooking your ankles behind his back and locking down hard enough to make your toes curl. Poe groans as you grab a fistful of his hair and tug at the way your skin pinches between his teeth—you know you’re gonna have a bite mark for a few days and it thrills you. “Fuck, please, Poe—please just fuck me, please, I want you to fuck me until it hurts, fuck me the way we both nee—”

“You and me almost died today,” Poe grits into your neck, cutting off your desperate whimpers with a short growl. “Maker, it was so close, I don’t think anybody has any f-fucking…” His hips pull out and then spear deep and you choke, tightening and tightening. “But—shit, we didn’t, we lived and now—oh fuck, now baby’s finally letting me fuck her and I’m not cutting it short, no matter how pretty she sounds asking.”

His words sound slurred against your neck and you can’t tell if it’s his delivery or your perception that’s lagging. But when you feel Poe inch his cock out and start to slowly fuck you through the tightness, you let out a weak little whine and feel yourself drifting… somewhere else.

Things subtly lose their clarity, your eyelashes dip and you stop talking because words won’t come. You can’t tell if you’re staring at the ceiling or your eyelids or the back of your head, but Poe’s voice abruptly breaking through the silence makes you realize you don’t have a concept for time anymore. You couldn’t tell him how long you’ve been floating, but you almost don’t understand what he’s saying at all and it takes you a remarkable delay to fully comprehend. But judging from what he says, it sounds like it hasn’t been long.

“Shit, are you cumming again?” He suddenly gasps into the crook of your neck and grinds his hips achingly hard into yours, “O-Oh—fuck yeah, you are—baby’s cumming again—”

“P-Poe?” You stutter and smack your hand against something, him maybe, not knowing literally anything else. Not knowing what he’s talking about, not knowing where you are, not knowing your own name, “Poe—oh m-my… God—”

“Whhh—W-What—?” You hear him breathe a split second before everything compresses down tight, and then it all shoves forward at once. All of the buildup makes itself known the very moment it becomes too much to control, like a flash flood but the downpour happened miles away. You think you might actually squeak this time, helplessly cry out like it hurts because stars, it does. It hurts so fucking good, it spiders pure plasma through your entire body with rhythmic jolts and wipes your mind completely vacant. Your shoulders shoot you up and knock your chin into something and you think you might be crying? You don’t know anymore. Your spine comes back down to the mattress like the damp fitted sheet covering it is made of pure ice—your body is overheated and you keep tensing and jerking back up until Poe forcefully pins you tight against it, growling filth under his breath as he slow fucks you through it.

You feel his hand dropping down between your bodies and you sob pitifully at the ceiling when the tip of his calloused finger brushes your clit.

***

You lose count.

It’s just… constant, there isn’t a point in keeping track anymore even if there happened to be the ability—which, nope. Not even close.

He ruins you slowly. Meticulously, with nothing more than steady, unwavering determination. Every structure you built, he takes apart by hand instead of bulldozing it the way you beg him to when you find the words. You’re certain you find them—you must find them at some point, but they’re interspaced between babbled gibberish and breathy whispers of his name.

Even though it’s slow—Maker, it’s so slow—you’ve never been so fucking exhausted. He makes you give him everything and then he drains the reserves, the hidden ones you weren’t even aware existed. He never goes fast enough; in fact, you think he’s actually slowed down over the unknown amount of time it’s been since you first called out his name and asked for this. If you were in a frame of mind to notice, you’d probably realize he’s trying harder and harder to not cum, but in your wild headspace, it just feels like a prolonged punishment for you. It still feels like he’s depriving you for his own pleasure, even though he’s actually depriving himself for yours. But you always do manage to find some way to read things wrong with him.

Eventually, he begins to waver. He stops talking so much, stops chastising you when you plead with him. He hasn’t looked at you since he first kissed you—he’s either hidden his face in your neck or closed his eyes as his soft tongue slides across your bottom lip before dipping inside.

But then there comes a point where even you realize he’s struggling not to let go now, and in your faded traces of sanity, you hear your broken voice cut through the sounds of the soft radio.

“Y-Y-You—” you gasp, trembling under him, “—youneedtocum. You need to—”

“No,” Poe grits against your chin, sounding shaky and weak no matter how sharp he makes his consonants. “Fuck, not yet, I—I-I don’t want to yet.”

“Oh no,” you wheeze out, feeling the swell begin again, the familiar flicker of warning you get as his cock slowly rocks into you. Maker, the pleasure is getting raw and painful even as your pussy is drowning his cock with it, allowing him to glide slow and deep into your sensitive channel and letting the sheer tightness of it be the only resistance your body puts up. You can feel the wetness on your cheeks though, the tears of frustration gathering as your body prepares itself for yet another wave of attack. “Oh no, ohhhhhnononononono—”

“I don’t want—” Poe gasps, his hips stuttering just a bit and one of his hands coming down to smack the pillow next to your head as he chokes, “—don’t want this to… e-end yet, I—”

Your next orgasm suddenly slams through you and Poe immediately rips himself out of you before it’s too late. He shushes you frantically while you sob in distress and writhe side to side through the contractions solo this time, having nothing to clamp down on, not even able to grind up into him because he keeps his leaking cock elevated far beyond your reach.

Oh, that’s it. That is it.

“Fuck me!” You wail up at him, water blurring your vision and tears streaming down your cheeks, “Stop fucking around and just fuck me, you asshole! Fuck me and fuck me hard Dameron or I swear to every fucking star in the sk—”

You don’t get too far. He’s immediately scrambling over top of you and a strong hand is clamping down tight over your mouth, muffling your high-pitched cries against his palm. Your legs are shoved apart and one is caught under his arm and wedged back as far as it can go. His head drops to your neck, and then he snarls a ragged, “Brat—“ under your ear before ramming his cock back inside you.

Stars. Stars light up, it’s so much—the angle, the force, the speed, the sound his hips make as they start ruthlessly colliding with yours. Your eyes screw shut and you dig your nails into the meat of his back, but he doesn’t slow down—he speeds up—

“Fuck, you still think that throwing your little fucking fits works on me?” He hisses, drilling into your g-spot with such blinding hard precision that you can’t do anything more than just claw at his chest, gasping for air that just won’t come into your lungs. “Huh? Think you can just be a little bitch to me about it and it’s gonna change anything? You still don’t have any fucking idea, do you? Look at me—” he snarls, grabbing your face and shaking it to get you to respond, “—look at what you fucking do to me—”

But you can’t. You already came countless times and he’s lurching you up the bed with every single rabid thrust into your blindingly sensitive cunt, fucking you into the railing and then the wall behind it. You still feel his fingers grasping at your jaw, forcing you to address him, to look at him, and you can’t seem to focus your vision on his blurry features even when your eyes flutter open. You’re too dumb with grinding pleasure to see anything besides blurs and stars, to say literally anything back to him. But that’s not what he cares about.

“Oh fuck yes, there it is,” his voice whines, pitching up something vulnerable as his hips ram you into the corner hard and unyielding, “fuck, there’s those pretty eyes, that’s what I wanted, baby, that’s all I wanted—th-that’s—fuck, that’s—”

They must cross, or roll back, or something, because suddenly you can’t see him at all anymore. You don’t know what happens—but you know it’s wet. You know it bursts forth something fierce and you shriek his name with a hoarse and shredded voice like he steals the last part of your whole fucking soul with it. Fuck, you’re not even there for most of it, you might actually black out.

In your conscious moments, you can feel his whole body flexing over and over again on top of you. He empties his load deep inside you and takes a fucking eternity doing it, so many breathless praises leaving his mouth so quickly that they slur together and you can’t understand any of it even if you could hear him. All you can do is feel your cunt tighten and convulse in tandem with the throbbing of his cock, rhythmically working the cum out of him until Poe stops stuttering his hips, until he finally trails off into nothing but labored gasps and slumps down on top of you in exhaustion.

You both lay there for a while, dead weight breathing.

You want to hold him, your cum-struck mind quietly provides in the comedown. You want to feel his body now that you can finally think straight and take a moment to enjoy this blissful relief. He fucked you so good and you want to touch him, you want to run your fingers through his hair and massage the tight muscles at the base of his neck.

But then you just start giggling.

It’s stupid. It’s so fucking stupid. You smack your hand over your mouth but the garbled noise easily floats beyond it, completely elated and having absolutely no explanation at all.

Poe quickly pulls his head back to look at you and you try to twist sideways under him to hide it, but you can’t stop—like a complete loon, you snort and start to laugh harder at the ridiculous sound. Oh, you don’t just float, you’re the air itself, so light with endorphins that you close your eyes and get lost in the fit until water wets the outside corners.

After a moment, a hand gently grasps your wrist and slowly pulls it down until he can see the way your mouth opens as you giggle, hear it unobstructed and let the sound bubble up at him and fill the room. And you blink your eyes open just in time to see him slowly break into the most dazzling smile you’ve ever seen him bestow a person.

And… you’ve seen him grin a million times. He’s almost always smiling, as long as you’re not right in front of him. He smiles at his squadmates, he smiles at girls, he smiles at complete strangers, and you always thought it was pretty. Always knew that he could light up a room with it, you always knew he could get anything he wanted with it, but this… this isn’t that kind of smile. That one is practiced and alluring. It wasn’t fake, necessarily, but that smile’s purpose always had more to do with making anyone who happens to witness it feel a certain way than it did about signifying his own emotional state.

This one is… goofy. Amazed, and uncoordinated. Thunderstruck in a way, except the clouds all part at the same time and let you see a rainbow. It makes you feel… alive. Colorful. Radiant. Sunshine. Butterflies.

Poe quickly drops his lips to catch yours and you moan happily, sliding your tongue into his mouth this time. You both adjust, you arch into him as he pushes your damp hair back and makes a deep noise of satisfaction, letting you explore while he wraps his arms around you and finds a way to make this atrocious position comfortable. Every part of you is smushed up against him and there’s absolutely no space to be found, and you’ve never been happier.

“We made a mess,” he groans against your lips, rocking his hips into you with a disgustingly slick sound as if to illustrate, and his cock is soft but it’s still so thick that it stays buried inside your sloppy entrance. “Shit, I—I think I might be bleeding.”

“What?” You ask breathily, and he heaves himself up with his elbows just enough to reveal his chest. You both tuck your chins unattractively to look and you don’t immediately see any blood, but your claw marks are clearly red and visible scraping down his pectorals. “Oh. Pfft. You’re fine.”

He drops back down with a huff and your head is tilted at the perfect angle catch on the tiny droplets of blood decorating the marks criss-crossing his shoulder blades. Oops.

But he’s already kissing up your neck and over the curve of your jaw and making out with you again like he can’t get enough of it, and you forget. You forget everything. You forget every disagreement, every gripe with him you’ve ever had. It’s all wiped away and replaced with giddy, childish adoration. Resetting completely and starting off on the rightest foot imaginable.

“Let’s go to my bed,” he murmurs, and you make a tight noise of disapproval. No. This is good, this is how you want to stay. The railing is digging into your lower back and he’s heavy but you’re perfect like this, this is perfect. “Baby,” Poe pants against your lips in exasperation when you quickly clutch the back of his neck and keep him glued to you, “mmph—you got everything all wet—”

This time you make a low hum of agreement and drag your hand down the bare curve of his spine to his ass to give it a squeeze. A testament to how hard and raw he fucked you. Poe shudders hard enough for you to feel his body tremble but you just kiss him harder, pulling him down onto you more.

“You’re gonna have to give me, just like—I don’t know, at least an hour or two,” he chuckles, grabbing your hands to make it easier to peel himself from your body and groaning when his cock finally slips out. “Come on, let’s hang out in my bed.”

You’re so boneless when he pulls you to sit upright, you roll a little bit and Poe has to catch you, and you laugh again. Maker, you’re a complete mess and absolutely delighted about it. Your attempts at grumbling and complaining don’t hold any sway when you’re still trying not to giggle, and Poe is able to pull you to the top of the ladder and make his way down first.

As soon as he’s out of sight and calling up to you, you weakly slide into position with a groan and feel yourself leaking at the movement. “Gah—look what you did. I’m all… gooey.”

“I know, s’the hottest fucking thing,” he says under his breath from the floor, before beckoning you by tapping on the closest rung a few times. “Come on, be careful.”

You do as he says, easing your naked body down one step at a time with wobbly legs. It’s clumsy and you whine the whole way through, wordlessly grousing and mumbling.

“Oh, I just know it,” he comments on the sound, “nice clean sheets, I’ll get the violin.”

Normally, you probably would’ve snarked something back down at him, but you’re still so loopy and shaky-legged that you just start laughing again. The fact that he’s absolutely right and you’re being ridiculous about something like moving beds suddenly strikes you as incredibly fucking funny for some reason. You don’t realize his hands are hovering inches away from your hips until your legs buckle and Poe quickly supports your weight.

“Maker,” Poe chuckles before giving you a firm yank, and then catching you before you can tumble down the ladder in your naked, teary-eyed mania, “let’s go, giggles.”

He carries you a few steps to the mattress and plops you down on top of the comforter, letting you take up the whole bed while he sits on the end and puts your feet on his lap. Poe grimaces for a second and then shuffles until the radio is pulled out from under him, and you can hear the soft sound of it playing once again. You bury your face into his pillow, inhaling the warm scent lingering there while he tosses it carelessly to the side and rubs your shins for a little bit, watching you stretch out naked on his mattress.

“I’m not giving you two weeks of pay,” you suddenly grunt, and he just grins down at you, not arguing. Not saying anything. Sitting in comfortable silence with you when you’re expecting him to bicker. So you stay like that for a long time, breathing deep and relaxing, until Poe’s hands leave you for a second…

… to pull a bag of chips out.

Maker, at the first squeaky sound of the wrapping assaulting your eardrums, you want to roll your eyes. You want to tease him about how fucking typical it is. Like clockwork, you could probably set your watch to his middle of the night cravings. You don’t know why you thought fucking him would change any of that.

You want to give him shit for it. You even open your mouth, the snark on the very tip of your tongue. But then your stomach growls as soon as he rips the thin plastic apart.

Poe’s eyes shoot to yours and neither one of you move, but apparently your tummy doesn’t get the memo. It takes forever to trail off into silence again, and he blinks. Fuck, you know you should’ve forced yourself to eat at least something earlier. Warmth floods your cheeks and you scramble for something to say, but there’s no way to play it off.

“Would you like some chips?” Poe suddenly asks with a boyish grin, raising his eyebrows and tipping the open bag freely in your direction.

The corners of your mouth pull downwards even as the inside of it waters. You wouldn’t call it stubbornness necessarily as much as it is a… a desire to stick to consistency. After the unbelievably hard time you always give him about midnight snacking, you’re hesitant to partake.

Though, the chips rustle against each other and sound absolutely fucking delicious as Poe shakes the bag and bounces his eyebrows, and you know what? Fuck it.

You snatch it without thinking, cradling the precious food to your chest as you dig your whole hand in and shove a bunch into your mouth at once. You catch him smiling again, but he doesn’t comment.

You both take turns, and by take turns you obviously mean you take turns stealing the bag from each other instead of just setting it equidistant between you and openly agreeing to share it, but it works for you. It seems appropriate. And then it’s quiet again, just munching and crinkling, except for the radio continuing to play from its place in his lap. You have to work to listen over the loud crunching vibrating through your skull, but when you finally manage to stop chewing and catch a few bars, you suddenly find yourself trying not to smile again. Fuck, it’s been years since you’ve heard this song, you love this s—

“Fuck, I love this song,” Poe promptly exclaims with his mouth full, licking the tips of his fingers before scrambling to pick the radio up and twist the volume knob without using his wet fingertips. He starts humming over the melody, loud enough to almost drown it out completely, because of course he does. The one damn time you actually want to listen to his radio and he still finds some way to mildly irritate you.

But this irritation is almost… fun. You want to laugh just as much as you want to yell at him.

“Hey, who sings this song?” You immediately ask over the sound of him clearly not knowing the lyrics, already ready with it. Oh, the round is in the chamber, your finger is on the trigger, you are ready, and Poe’s eyes sparkle as he seems to stop and think about it.

“Mm, not sure,” he eventually shrugs, just before you rush, “Let’s keep it that—”

And then he’s slapping a hand on your leg and belting out the chorus while you scoff, giggling. He ruined the punchline on purpose and is now getting chip dust all over you, but you know any complaint you make will be drowned out by his suspended notes and backing track, so you just roll your eyes and swipe the bag of chips from him while he continues to serenade you.

“My ears are bleeding,” you mutter under your breath.

He has a nice voice, you think.

#poe x reader #poe dameron x reader #poe dameron #reader insert #Smut #no-droids

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astaroth1357 · 3 years

Note

More undateables with a demigod hades mc???

By request, have yourself a part two!!

Demigod MC Series: Hades Pt. 2 (Un)Dateables Edition!

I will ask that y’all please don't ask for continuations of other gods unless I say it’s okay to do again. This series already fills my inbox something fierce and this is a one-off that I allowed for during the request window. If I have to make ideas for new gods while continuing a bunch of old MCs, it'll burn me out fast...

Demigod MC Series: Intro, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hades, Dionysus, Demeter, Athena, Hades Pt. 2

Diavolo

Oh, he has no problem at all hosting a child of the Underworld, hell he even throws them a welcome banquet when he finds out! Hades is a dear friend - and practically a parental figure to him growing up - so he's more than happy to take in one of his children for a year.

Diavolo is actually one of the few people that the MC can talk to about their home with any kind of fondness. Usually when they bring up things like the comforting wailing of the River Coctyus, the brothers will give them weird looks... but Diavolo knows where they're coming from!

He spent numerous summers in the Underworld growing up doing things like pestering Charon on the River Styx or playing games with Cerberus (the other one) in the Asphodel Meadows... His beach house is actually modeled after his childhood summer home in the Isles of Paradise! Really, it can be a lovely place if the gloom doesn't bother you!

So in the spirit of his fond memories, Diavolo really tried to make their time in the Devildom a fun one!... in his maybe trying a little too hard way…

Poor MC found themselves offered pretty much everything under the moon… Tickets or exclusive passes to different cultural events/festivals, invitations to gala events, and tours of nearly every inch of Hell by the Prince himself - it was… it was a lot for the poor introverted thing…

It didn’t help that Diavolo would have a hard time gauging if they were having any fun due to their naturally melancholic nature, which only pushed him to try harder… He means well, he does. He’s just not the most in touch with what would make an anti-social doom child happy...

It took Barbatos and Lucifer stepping in for the mortal to actually start getting some much needed space and that improved their experience significantly. Sometimes less is more, Dia… Less is more. But they appreciate his efforts anyway.

Barbatos

Also has a pretty amicable relationship with the Ruler of the Underworld, though his is much more professional compared to Diavolo’s. He actually has a good deal of appreciation for the man for taking good care of the Prince during his visits, so he sees this as an opportunity to return the favor.

Like Diavolo, he’s rather focused on making sure the MC is having a good stay in the Devildom, but he’s much more subtle about it. He’ll come by the House often to check up on them and make sure everything is to their liking...

Even the brothers notice that he treats them like anothering visiting Lord/Lady in that way, which he would argue they very much are and should be respected as one. It’s the least the Devildom can offer their father at this point.

His visits may also be an excuse for keeping an eye on the brothers to make sure they don’t do anything to inconvenience their “young guest…” To be honest, the entire House is a little paranoid about that… Nobody wants to know the punishment for hurting MC if Barbs is the one dishing it out...

Apart from watching out for them, Barbatos tries to encourage the MC to accept the Young Lord’s gifts (while also actively advising Diavolo to go easier on them at the same time). It would be so disheartening to him if his Prince feels like he hasn’t offered them the best experience that he could… He’s sure they understand.

Any time that he invites the MC to tea, they usually end up talking about their father in some way. Barbs knows a surprising amount about the god… He’s been around about as long as Chronos - preceding the birth of Aether and Chaos themselves - so he has some stories to tell.

The MC did once ask him why he doesn’t just run everything if he’s really been around for so long... his answer was: “Kings and their kingdoms will rise and fall… Worlds upon worlds are born, then cease to be. But time is what brings about all changes… So, I think I’m perfectly content with the power I possess. Wouldn’t you be?”

Annnd they never asked Barbs another question like that again… and people think death is scary…

Simeon

He was honestly a little worried for their new companion for quite a while… It’s not like there’s never any sadness in the Celestial Realm or anything, but they seem to have something else entirely…

He’s heard stories about the Underworld. He’s never been himself, that’s usually a job for the Seraphim due to the… dreary nature of the place - but he’s heard it would make the Devildom look downright festive…

If he were being honest, he had half expected the MC to be obsessed with skeletons, ghosts, and other elements of darkness but that wasn’t the case. They certainly knew a lot about those things, but they appeared to have a healthy interest in the afterlife in general, so they asked him a lot of questions about the Celestial Realm, angels, and how the souls of the blessed are treated up there… It was surprising to say the least.

Of course he did the same and, frankly, Simeon found it incredibly wasteful that so many Greek followers find themselves just wasting away in a field of nothing for so long… but that’s neither here nor there.

He was also surprised by how gentle of an influence the MC ended up being on Luke as well. He had always suspected that the little angel just needed a bridge between him and Devildom to start finding appreciation for it, and the MC fit that bill perfectly - nothing he was used to, but still approachable enough to make everything less frightening. He thanks them a great deal for that… but...

It’s just that… Well they’re just so… depressing sometimes…! He doesn’t want to blame them because it hardly seems like their fault! They’re a very kind person, it’s just an atmosphere around them… It brings him to tears if he isn’t careful…

He’s invited the MC to Purgatory Hall on multiple occasions to chat and try to make them smile… When they do, the gloom is dispelled - even just a little - and they’re a truly beautiful creature regardless. It’s just so unfortunate that their life brings so much sadness...

Even so, he actually likes the MC enough to consider basing a character on them if he ever wrote another book. Something about a gloomy but sweet protagonist at home in a world of darkness sounds appealing… doesn’t it?

Luke

He didn’t know how to feel about the MC when they met. At first, he actually thought they were just as unhappy as he was to be there due to how depressed they looked but when they told him that wasn't true, he was really confused...

The Devildom is a dark, brutish, and dangerous place. Why would anyone feel at home down here??

But… well… He would spend time with them at RAD between breaks (partially to help scare off their many, many demonic suitors) and it might be weird to say, but they really made the Devildom look beautiful… literally.

The world just looks better when they’re around! It’s really hard to describe because it’s not something you notice much until they leave, but when the MC is around everything looks more vibrant and inviting! The grass gets greener, flowers grow bigger, and butterflies/birds hover around wherever they are like they have their own gravity - the realm loves them!

It started getting hard for Luke to hang onto his disdain for the place when they made it look so appealing… And then they started talking to him about the Underworld and the creatures they’d befriended there… creatures a lot worse than any demons he’d seen there...

Like. If the MC can be good friends with a bunch of rude walking corpses, then he could probably make friends with a demon right? There’s nice ones… kind of…

Beel. He can make friends with Beel.

Like Simeon, he does feel bad that they seem so sad all the time… but unlike the older angel, he’s a bit more understanding that this is just how they are and enjoys his time with them regardless. (It helps a lot that just being around this little bean of a boy can lift their spirits anyway).

And you know what’s even better for him? When Lord Diavolo gives the MC tickets to things that they don’t want to go to, sometimes they’ll invite him along or give them to him instead!

He’s gone to the Devil’s Coast with MC and Simeon sooo many times by now and he loves it!! Maybe the Devildom isn’t so bad after all, I mean, it can be a lot of fun when you go to the right places, anyway.

Solomon

Oh, he finds them both deeply fascinating and utterly terrifying - so just his sort of test sub-er, person!

He kids (somewhat), Solomon isn’t that dumb/lacking in self-preservation instinct. Experimenting on a child of death in a land of the dead (even if it’s not their “home turf”) would be asking for trouble. They’d have more than enough ammunition to fight him off and if their father found out? Immortality wouldn’t even begin to save him...

That being said, questions aren’t necessarily experiments… and oh boy, does he have a lot of them.

If the MC isn’t being pestered by Diavolo or the brothers, then they’re probably having to put up with Solomon nipping at their heels trying to get them to use their powers or answer all sorts of “innocent” scientific questions…

“MC, reanimation of Greek dead requires a blood offering, correct? Do you have to sacrifice animals for that process or do you allow them to feast on your own?”

“MC, when you’re controlling a skeleton do you move the body as a whole or do you have to animate each individual bone due to their lack of ligaments?”

“Think fast!! Oh look, you just caught the skull of my good friend, Richard! Could you bring him back from that, or should I fetch the rest of him?” 🙂

They put up with it because, believe it or not, he’s not nearly the weirdest person they’ve ever met (a lot of crazy people drift in and out of the land of the dead…) and well… they’re a pretty lonely person too so it’s not like they have a lot of standards when it comes to friendships anyway.

But the second they breathe a word of this to Barbs or Diavolo, this boy is on his way to a royal restraining order… Where does he even get those skulls…?

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me undateables #obey me datables #obey me diavolo #obey me barbatos #obey me simeon #obey me luke #obey me solomon #obey me demigods #obey me requests

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deepdarkdelights · 3 years

Text

Solar Eclipse (Hoseok x Reader)

Pairing: Hoseok x Reader

Word Count: 16.9k

Warnings: 18+, Yandere, Stalking, Obsession, Forced Relationships, Fear, Panic/Anxiety, Devious Intentions, Talks about Mental Health, Mentions of Suicide, Dub Con, Forced Implants, Death, The Afterlife, Heights, Jumping from Heights

I do not condone the acts displayed in this story nor do I believe any members of BTS would actually engage in this type of behavior. This is simply written for entertainment purposes and should not be taken as a reflection of my own values, opinions, or morals.

Preview: His smile drifted away, it was like watching the moon slip over the sun into a solar eclipse. The Hoseok you were left with was one that had a cold, stricken expression that bled disbelief.

This look on his face, although more genuine than anything else you had seen, was capable of sending your entire body into a panicked frenzy. Something in the back of your mind was telling you, no, begging you to run. The instincts that had been fostered in you from generations before were telling you this man was dangerous, and you were better off fleeing than sticking around to see what would happen.

“I dare you, say that to me one more time baby and you won’t like what happens next.”

A/N: This was supposed to be 10k...how did we get here. This story was heavily inspired by Beautiful Accident and Wonderful Nightmare! Both amazing movies I recommend that never fail to get me in my feels. I hope you enjoy this wild ride! See you in the comments! 💜💜💜

Your hands were hurting again.

The light from your computer screen was blaringly bright, causing you to momentarily cease your endless scrolling and remove your glasses from the bridge of your nose. You pressed your cool fingers against the warm flesh of your eyelids and tilted your head back against your seat, giving yourself a moment to relax.

The once cacophonous tapping of another keyboard suddenly halted as your assistant leaned forward in her seat, sliding her laptop shut.

“You okay, boss?” She asked, her brows pinched together in concern. “Is it a migraine again?”

You exhaled deeply through your nose as you flexed your fingers in an attempt to dispel the ache from them. You were far too young to already be experiencing so many aches and pains.

“No, I’m just tired.” You admitted as you folded your glasses up and pushed them aside.

“That’s because you work too much, honestly do you ever sleep? When was the last time you went home?” She chuckled in amusement.

“Ha ha ha, very funny. I’ll have you know I’m faithful to my sleep number, I come home to him every night.”

“Him? You refer to your mattress as him? Somebody hasn’t gotten laid in a while.” She snorted.

“I could have you fired for that, that’s sexual harassment you know.” You shot back, amused yet annoyed she had hit a little too close to home.

“Please, you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if you fired me.” She laughed, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

Before you could shoot back your response, an abrupt knock on the door stopped the both of you in your tracks. Without saying anything, she rose from her seat and began to cross the room. Knowing she would be able to handle it for you, you reclined deeper into your office chair and slipped your phone out of your desk drawer to sort through your endless amount of notifications.

You didn’t look up as you heard the door click shut, two sets of footsteps approaching your mahogany desk.

You could hear somebody clear their throat, their breaths coming out rapidly as if they were anxious. “Y-your coffee, miss.”

Without looking up you merely held out your hand, the warm cup slotting itself into your waiting fingers. You mumbled out a rough thanks as you continued to scroll through your phone, rolling your eyes at the amount of missed calls you had from your mother who, despite knowing your work schedule, persisted in calling you during your office hours.

You could faintly hear your assistant walking the man to the door, whispering a soft, “Thank you, sweetie,” as the door clicked shut.

“Really?!” She hissed, once she was sure the man was gone. “You didn’t even look at him!”

“Who? The coffee boy? I didn’t think it mattered.” You said with a shrug, taking a sip from your coffee.

“That wasn’t a coffee boy! That was your intern, jackass!”

“He’s just an intern, Jenny, he won’t be here for long. None of them last around here anyways.”

Jenny sighed, flopping down into the seat across from you with a pout. “The poor thing was so nervous, you really should be nicer to him. He has such a sweet smile…”

“Oh no, don’t you start one of your schemes again. I don’t have time for men and the last thing I need is for you to start playing cupid. And didn’t I tell you to stop hiring people just because they're attractive?”

“Sweetie, I don’t know if you’re aware, but you're not as young as you think you are. When are you going to settle down, huh? Find a husband, have some cute kids for me to dote on.”

“Jesus, you’re starting to sound like my mother. I don’t have the time for marriage or for kids, not when I’m busy with this place.” You replied with a stiff tone, this was not the first time the two of you had this conversation.

“I’m just saying you’re hot, rich, and a CEO, you could literally have any man you want.” She pointed out, the tips of her fingers pressing together in the shape of an arrow.

“You literally just called me a Sugar Momma.”

“I mean, they do have websites if you're interested…”

“Okay, you win, I’m leaving early. I can’t deal with your obnoxious ass anymore.” You said, standing up so quickly your chair shot back and turned on its wheels.

“Jenny: 72, You: None.” Your assistant laughed, adding a point to her imaginary scoreboard.

“I was going to say call me if you need anything, but please don’t.” You chuckled, grabbing your blazer from the coat rack and sliding it around your shoulders before picking up your purse.

“Don’t worry boss, I’ll hold down the fort.” She said, giving you a quick salute as she stood and began to gather her things. “Don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.”

You pressed your lips together tightly in an attempt to hide the hint of a smile on your mouth as she exited your office. She was the only person you talked to like that, you were a rather antisocial boss. You tended to come off as cold and callous to your employees, but in reality you just really didn’t like talking to others when it wasn’t necessary. It had taken four years for you and Jenny to become as close as you did, in fact she was the only person you could truly call your friend.

You had grown up in an isolated world, one filled with tutors and home schooling as you were groomed to take over one of the branches of your family's business. You had siblings, but you rarely ever saw them. They too were consumed by their work and their families, in fact you were the youngest of them and couldn’t remember a time where all of you lived together in one household. There were four of you in total, you only saw each other at holidays and your parents annual Christmas gala. You were by no means close.

You had grown comfortable being alone and frigid. It was safe and it was efficient.

Your entire life had been one of isolation, the only amount of warmth bleeding into the bleak monotone schemes of your world was Jenny. And the amount you had let in was minimal.

It was better being alone, you told yourself.

You adjusted your purse on your shoulder as your office door swung shut behind you. The building was still fairly active, everyone was in a rush to complete their work before the sun completely dipped below the horizon. That was something you enjoyed about your building. The walls were littered with floor to ceiling windows allowing the ochre tones of sunlight to bleed into the bright white and concrete interior, soft dappled light dancing over hard edges.

You paused for a moment by the windows, your eyes fluttering shut as you felt the warmth of the sun caress your face, its fleeting light still permeable through your closed eyelids creating a golden halo in your vision. You gave yourself two breaths worth of silence and stillness before your eyes snapped open once more and you hastily made your way to the elevator that would send you to your floor of the parking garage.

You waited patiently for the elevator, one of your legs extended in front of you as you rolled your foot from side to side on the precarious talon of your red bottom heels. Once you heard the doors sliding open and the familiar ding of the elevator you raised your chin slowly, your eyes half lidded in boredom as you met the expressions of your employees. There were two of them inside the metal contraption, their eyes wide in alarm at the sight of you. You tilted your head slightly to the side, and like you had cracked a whip they scuttled out of the elevator and hurried past you without a word.

You huffed in annoyance to yourself as you headed inside, you had no idea what their problem was and you pondered if there was any reason to write them up for their bizarre behavior. Perhaps not.

The elevator hummed as it steadily dropped floors, the soft music effectively worsening your mood. You hated elevator music.

As soon as the doors slid open you jetted out of them, your heels tapping noisily in the quiet garage. You slid your bag from your shoulder and busied yourself by trying to find your keys. You hissed to yourself as you tripped and almost went flying, multitasking and heels did not go together. You stopped for a moment, opening your bag wider as you tried to find the little ring of keys buried in the depths of your purse.

The second your fingers brushed the cool metal you released an annoyed breath, throwing your purse back over your shoulder as you flicked through your key ring, grasping the fob that went to your car.

Despite having what you had previously been looking for, you did not move. Instead, you looked around warily, pivoting on your heels as you scanned the area around you.

You could have sworn you heard footsteps.

You waited silently for a few more moments, listening for signs that another person was there with you.

You heard no other breaths, nor the sounds of approaching or retreating footsteps.

You weren’t going to wait around any longer just to find out you were wrong.

You swiftly made your way to your VIP parking spot, unlocked the doors, and threw yourself into the car while making sure to lock the doors as soon as you were seated.

Your mother had begged you for months to get a bodyguard. You were a young woman with lots of money and the heir to a massive enterprise. You should not be walking around as if you were a normal person. It was only now that you were beginning to think that your mother was right.

Not wanting to dwell on dark thoughts any longer, you pushed your key into the ignition, and peeled out of the parking garage a little faster than normal.

As your anxiety slowly drained from your body, you began to feel the effects of lack of sleep. Jenny was not wrong, you were considering the fact that maybe you had a touch of insomnia. Either that or you were simply a workaholic. Honestly, it could be both.

You switched the radio on, picking a classic rock station and dialing the volume up to the point you could feel your leather seats vibrating beneath you with each clash of the drums emanating from the speakers.

But even that was just barely doing its job. Your eyes were still stinging like they had been moments before at your desk. You were undeniably as exhausted as you were a safety hazard. You clenched the steering wheel harder, the flesh of your skin pulling tightly over your knuckles as you attempted to stay awake. It wasn’t that far of a ride, you could make it home.

But that thought didn’t stop your eyelids from drooping shut, it was nearly impossible to keep them open, they were so heavy you were struggling to reopen them every time you blinked.

Your eyes stayed closed much longer now than they had before, and upon opening them again a scream of shock bubbled up your throat.

A flash of black fur shot across your narrow vision as you frantically spun the steering wheel and slammed on your breaks. A band of horns beeped behind and beside you as you swerved dramatically into the next lane.

Your car had been mere inches from swerving right in front of an eighteen wheeler.

Your hand fluttered frantically against your chest, your heart pounding back against it in shock.

You had almost died.

You gathered yourself up before stomping down on the accelerator and speeding away, dodging the massive vehicle you had almost hit in the opposite lane. The shock of adrenaline you were experiencing from that frightening event was more than enough to keep you awake now. You only had one goal in mind and that was to make it home in one piece.

The minute you slid back into your regular parking spot you allowed yourself to slump back into the driver's seat, blinking wildly as you recalled the sight of the headlights and the cacophony of car horns from moments prior. You really need to get your shit together.

~~~~~~~

By the time you made it up to your apartment the exhaustion had returned full force. You toed off your shoes tiredly, stumbling over them with an annoyed grunt as you threw your purse down to the floor. You could really do without your sudden lack of coordination.

Far too tired to even care, you immediately began stripping your clothes off at the front door. You carelessly threw your blazer aside and shimmied off your skirt as you began to walk, leaving a trail of clothes behind you as you headed for your bedroom. The housekeeper would deal with it in the morning anyways, it didn’t matter where they ended up.

Your pajamas from the previous night were waiting for you at the foot of your bed, folded up into a neat little pile contrasting greatly from your current care for your clothing. You happily sighed as you pulled the creamy, cashmere sweater over your head and stepped into a pair of silk sleep shorts. This was what you had been waiting for all day.

That, and the bottle of Cheval Blanc tucked away in your liquor cabinet.

You ran your fingers through your hair tiredly as you made your way to the kitchen, the sound of your bare feet patting against the floor echoed down the long, empty hallway.

You wasted no time, eagerly pulling open your cabinet and retrieving the expensive bottle of wine along with a crystal glass. You eased the cork free from the bottle, allowing it to roll over your granite counter as you poured the wine into your glass, the liquor bubbling as you filled it to the very top. You were a guilty self medicator, that was for damn sure.

You hurried back into your living room, wine glass in one hand and a small tray of macarons in the other. There was one thing you were certain of, you were definitely going to drink your fatigue away and indulge in your favorite cookies until you passed out on your couch. You deserved it, after all you were a CEO, an overworked one at that.

So, there you sat, taking languid sips from your glass and delicate bites from your cookies as you began to catch up on a show you hadn’t had the time to watch in weeks. It was incredibly relaxing, the soft hum of the TV, the feeling of your favorite blanket wrapped around your bare legs, and the soft tapping of rain against your windows. You were set on not moving for the rest of the night. That was of course, until you had to pee.

You groaned in frustration at the thought of having to move, but the call of nature was much stronger than your will to remain sedentary. You leaned forward, setting your food and drink on the coffee table before you violently kicked your legs, fighting your blanket as you attempted to untangle yourself from it.

The second your toes touched the lush carpet beneath you, a shock of lightning suddenly splintered it’s way through the sky, shards of light refracting through your windows and lighting up the dim room. The soft rumble of thunder followed soon after.

You froze at the sight, the light rain still tapped against your windows, a dull contrast to the sudden shock of light you had witnessed.

But, what was even more unexpected, was the sight of dark fur and glowing jade eyes staring back at you. There was a cat sitting on your balcony. That should have been impossible, there was no possible way that cat could have made its way there, your building was pet free.

The sight of its slick coat of black fur tugged at your heart strings. He must be so cold, stuck out in the rain like that. In fact, he looked almost exactly like your childhood cat you had loved to dearly growing up. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to let him in, let him get dry and warm and fill his belly.

With a new goal in mind you carefully made your way to your sliding glass door, not wanting to spook him too badly lest he jump. The drop would not be a survivable one.

Despite your valiant efforts, the minute the door clicked and slid open he jumped up onto the fencing and rails that surrounded your balcony.

“Hey, no, no, no, just stay right there, kitty.” You cooed gently, taking slow and careful steps in his direction.

The cat fixed you with a penetrating gaze, his bright jade eyes trained on you, watching every step you made as his tail flicked from side to side behind him.

“That’s a good boy, just stay right there.” You hummed, your hands held up in a show of no malintent as you carefully approached him. “Come on, I just want to help you.”

Just as you were within grabbing reach, your fingers mere inches from touching his silken fur, he lept away, settling on the ledge against the building. He was dangerously close to falling off, the distance from the ledge to the ground far enough to make your toes and fingers tingle.

“Fuck.” You hissed.

The cat remained there, his gaze still trained on you. Those bright eyes seemed to be beckoning for you to come and join him, to meet him up on the ledge.

You quickly shook out your hands and feet as you stared back, your vision tunneling in on him. You could feel the cold air nipping at your bare flesh, goosebumps raising on the skin of your thighs. You could do it.

You wiped your palms against the fabric of your shorts before grasping the metal railing and carefully lowering yourself over to the other side. You could feel the wind stronger now as it swirled around you, a flash of light overtaking the sky once more as a steady rumble of thunder bounced off of the surrounding buildings.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” You mumbled to yourself, taking in a sharp breath through your nose as you attempted to calm yourself. Just don’t look down, for the love of all that is holy do not look down.

You steadily rose up on to your toes, shimming your way over as you held on tightly to the railing. The sliver of stone beneath your toes was slick from rainfall, as was the metal of the railing beneath your tense fingers. The closer you got to the cat, the further away it seemed to be, either that was the truth or the reality of how high up you were was messing with your head.

The thought you had from earlier suddenly came rushing back to you, the drop wouldn’t be survivable. What a sobering thought.

You had come to a point now where you wouldn’t be able to hold onto the railing anymore, not if you needed to be able to reach the cat. So, with a shaky breath you released your grip from the railing one hand at a time and quickly latched onto the stone architecture surrounding the windows. The only thing keeping you from falling was the tiny inches of stone beneath your arched feet, and the architecture you were desperately clinging to.

You slowly turned your head, your gaze meeting the cat’s once more. It’s eyes were almost mesmerizing, there was something about it that was telling you that you needed to get him, that you just needed to pick him up and stay with him. You had no choice but to retrieve him, you felt like you would die if you had to leave him all alone on this ledge. His eyes were drawing you in, causing you to spiral downwards into their hypnotic depths. You needed him.

He was not moving anymore, he was settled down on his back legs, his tail flicking out dangerously over the edge of the building. You were certain that you could reach him if you tried.

You slowly lowered yourself into a crouch, releasing your one hand from the side of the building as you reached out, the other hand still holding onto the stone of the window. You leaned forward as calmly as you could, your arm burning from the stretch as you slid over slightly to grab the cat.

This time the cat did not move away, it remained still, waiting for your touch.

Both of your arms were completely spread out, your fingers just barely holding onto the building as you finally made it within grabbing distance. And then, it all fell apart.

As soon as your fingers brushed his midnight fur, he jerked away from your touch causing your feet to slip out from underneath you, and your weak hold to completely detach from the wall.

And then you were falling.

A violent scream ripped its way free from your throat as you went airborne, the last thing you could see was the penetrating emerald glare of the midnight black cat as you plummeted towards the ground.

No one would know that you had never intended to end your life when you stepped out onto that ledge.

Unwillingly, you had.

~~~~~~~

You never felt the impact of the ground, and when you opened your eyes you did not find your body mangled or feel any pain. In fact you were no longer even in the city.

You were already standing, and you were all alone. You turned frantically, spinning as you tried to find out where you were. There was nothing all around you, just cloudy skies, stretching fields of tall grass, old dilapidated fences, and a dusty road of dirt and rocks beneath your feet.

And then of course, there was the bus stop sign beside you.

You approached the sign in curiosity. The closer you got the more you noticed how strange everything was. Despite there being stones beneath your feet you didn’t feel pain, and the environment wasn’t cold or hot, it was just neutral. And, it was extremely silent. Not a gust of wind blew, no crickets hummed, and there wasn’t a single chirp from a songbird. There was nothing.

You leaned your upper body forward, looking from side to side for any signs of life. Both ways you could barely see anything, the field seemed to disappear into thick clouds of fog that were impermeable to your sight.

You decided in that moment you were better off looking for signs of life than you were waiting for them to come find you. But, to your surprise, the second your foot touched down onto the dirt road a bus came rumbling down the road and screeched to a stop in front of you.

The doors slid open and light flooded the space around you. You squinted as your eyes adjusted to the exposure, your hand creating a visor on your forehead.

“You getting on or what?” A voice called from inside the bus.

“Me?” You asked pointing to yourself.

“Of course you, does it look like I’m talking to anyone else?” The voice huffed in annoyance. “I’m already running late. I'd prefer if you didn’t hold us up any longer.”

“Running late?” You whispered to yourself. “And where will you be taking me?”

There was silence for a moment and then suddenly a raucous laughter that made you jump. “Where am I taking you?! That’s a good one. Come on, let's go.”

You blinked slowly in irritation, the last thing you needed was to be laughed at and dismissed like a child when you had serious questions that you needed answered.

“Come on newbie! Today!” He yelled, causing you to jump in fright before scurrying onto the bus.

Upon entering you were met face to face with the bus driver. He had fair skin and pitch black hair with an amused, gummy smile on his face. Apparently, he thought you were hilarious. He said nothing to you this time, he just merely jerked his head in the direction behind him, signaling for you to find a seat.

Once you turned to face the passengers of the bus you realized it was far longer than it appeared from the outside, in fact it looked like it stretched farther beyond what you could see with copious amounts of passengers.

The passengers themselves were of all sizes, races, and ages. You could see mothers holding infants and elderly couples cuddled up to one another. Some people seemed to know one another, others looked sad and lonely like the little boy a few seats back.

You were incredibly confused.

Unsure as to where you should sit, you finally decided on sitting next to the little boy.

The second you sat down, you felt his gaze train on you and his little body shift closer to you.

“Hi,” He whispered, his fingers curling around the fabric of your cashmere sweater and tugging, “My name is Minho.”

You have him a soft smile in return with a gentle whisper of your name.

“Where’s your mommy, Minho?” You asked, curious as to why this little boy was all alone.

“I’m going to meet her now.” He replied, with an excited smile, his legs kicking out energetically before he suddenly calmed down. “I wish daddy came with me.”

“Why didn’t your daddy come with you?” You asked, your eyebrows pinching together in confusion.

“He said I had to go alone, he can’t come with me for a while. He said I’ll be happy with mommy, that I’ll feel better with her.” He said sadly, his lower lip pouting as he rubbed at his teary eyes.

“You’ll feel better?”

“Mhm, I was sick for a long time. Daddy said it was time for me to see Mommy, he told me it was okay to go to sleep.”

Oh, oh no. Everything was suddenly starting to make sense. You quickly looked over your shoulder and caught sight of the elderly couple you had seen earlier.

“Hey! You two! What were you doing before you got here?!”

The older man looked up at you with a kind smile as he continued to rub his wife’s shoulder. “We were driving down to visit our son, he was never too good about coming up to see us. Some bad weather hit, we couldn’t see out of the windshield very well. Next thing you know we’re rolling over the guard rail and down the side of the hill!”

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!

“You! Where were you?!” You yelled at the woman seated across from you.

“Hm? I went in for surgery, what’s it to you?” She asked with an annoyed grimace on her face.

“What’s it to me?!” You echoed with a hysterical laugh. You were fucking dead that’s what it was! All of you were!

Your thoughts were racing a hundred miles a minute as you tried to gather yourself, your heart beating frantically as a sick feeling settled in your stomach. You needed to get off the bus, you needed to get far away from all of these people.

Without thinking you lurched to your feet and gripped the cord above your window, yanking it harshly to signal the bus to stop.

The bus halted immediately, sending you stumbling forward into the back of the driver’s seat. The bus driver met your panicked face through the reflection of the mirror, a curious light to his pitch black irises.

“So, we’ve got a challenger? I knew you’d be a stubborn one.” He sighed, hitting the button that sent the doors swishing open. “The guy in charge is out there, you can voice your complaints to him.”

You were far too shocked to vocalize anything, your feet just blindly leading you to the doors. You stopped for a moment, looking over your shoulder to get one quick look at Minho. His little legs were still kicking out in front of him.

“Bye miss!” He called with a little wave and a smile, spurring you off the bus with a quick wave in his direction.

Upon stepping foot off of the bus, you were faced with a dimly lit four way intersection that looked like it had been abandoned for years. You quickly headed towards the center of the road as you caught sight of a tall man waiting for you.

His face was relaxed, a neutral expression taking over his features. He was dressed fairly well for a man standing in the middle of nowhere. You took notice of his crisp three piece suit and the high shine of his shoes. He was obviously someone who was important, if the bus driver had indicated anything by his statements.

You didn’t waste any time to hurl your questions at him. “I’m dead aren’t I?! Who are you?! What is this place?!”

“Relax.” He commanded, his voice immediately sending a wave of calmness crashing down over you.

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath, before reopening them and waiting in silence for his response.

“My name is Namjoon, this is the crossroads.” He said, gesturing to the four intersecting roads surrounding you.

“That is Life,” He said, pointing to the road behind you, “That is Punishment,” the road to his right, “That is Reward,” the road behind him, “And that is Retrial.” The road to his left.

“Right, that’s fantastic, how do I go back down that road.” You blurted out, pointing to the road behind you.

“Normally, you don’t. But luckily for you, or not so luckily, there was an error made.”

“An error?” You asked.

“Yes, one of our reapers made a mistake. You aren’t scheduled for processing for quite some time, someone by the same name, sixty years of age, was scheduled for processing today.”

A reaper? What reaper? You hadn’t exactly seen the classic skeletal face cloaked all in black with a scythe in hand had you? Your face screwed up in irritation as you flicked backwards through your memories from earlier that day, trying to remember if you had seen anything that remotely resembled a reaper.

And then it hit you.

“That fucking cat!” You screeched, spinning around as you dramatically yelled into the void around you.

Namjoon winced his posture slightly wilting at your realization. “Yes, that was one of our newer reapers, Taehyung.”

“What kind of operation are you running here? Do I look like I’m sixty years old to you?” You yelled, the panic quelling up in your chest. “You’re going to fix this aren’t you?!”

“Of course! I take my job very seriously!” He shot back. “The only issue is, I can’t send you back to your life just yet.”

“And why not?!”

“Time is a very sensitive and precious thing, as a woman of business I am sure you understand. The other woman still needs to pass and be processed, the events that lead to her demise must be tailored perfectly and set up with the correct timing. Only then can you return, once she is passed with the correct timing the two of you will switch. You can live again and she can be sent down the proper road.”

“And how long will that take?”

“A few weeks.” He replied vaguely, his body tensed as he waited for your response.

“Weeks?! And what will I do during that time? Do you expect me to follow you around everywhere?”

“Thankfully, no. In the time being, I will have to put you somewhere else, some other place and time. Are you willing to do that?”

“Yes, I’m more than willing. As long as I get my old life back, I don’t care what it takes. Just make it happen.”

“You will, in due time. But listen to me very carefully, you have to follow every aspect of this other life perfectly. You cannot act out of character, you have to act exactly as everyone expects you to. You cannot have contact with anyone from your previous life as well. Understand? If you can’t do that, then you can’t go back.”

You swallowed harshly, a sense of anxiety creeping up inside of you. You had no choice but to accept, your life and had been wrongfully ended far too soon. If that meant doing whatever Namjoon asked of you, you would do it.

You gave him a swift nod, your hand clenching up into fists.

“Perfect, I’ll have Taehyung escort you down that way.” Namjoon replied, pointing down at the road to his left, Retrial.

Upon hearing his name, Taehyung appeared. He was tall, with honey skin, midnight black curly hair, and bright green eyes.

The fucking cat.

Taehyung met you with a sheepish grin and an embarrassed wave, hesitantly coming to your side. He looked nothing like the reaper you had been anticipating. If anything he was a sad excuse for a reaper with the bashful attitude he was presenting you with.

“Did you really have to use the appearance of my childhood pet to kill me?” You asked, your voice dripping with venom as you crossed your arms over your chest, your bare foot tapping in annoyance. You weren’t exactly the picture of intimidation you normally were.

“I’m sorry.” He replied softly, bowing his head forward in an apologetic manner still refusing to meet your burning gaze.

“I’ll be checking in with you every now and then, please, try to play along with this life.” Namjoon begged, a serious expression evident on his face. Not only did he appear serious, but you could tell he was also stressed. The fuck up Taehyung had made was evidently a big one.

“I’ll try my best.” You replied, you knew you had to, or else there was no going back.

Namjoon gave Taehyung a quick nod, and with that gesture Taehyung grabbed hold of your hand and began to lead you down Retrial. From your perspective, each road was identical, this one too was dusty and littered with stones leading into a seemingly never ending fog.

The reaper beside you was quiet, his gaze pinned ahead as he focused on his task, leading you down the path of Retrial.

If only you had known how much of a trial this life truly would be.

~~~~~~~

You were boiling hot.

You could feel a mattress beneath your back, one that was far softer than you normally liked. Your body was swaddled with thick blankets and sheets that were sticking to your sweaty skin. You groaned in irritation at the feeling and attempted to bat away the blanket and turn onto your side.

A sudden grunt behind you had your heart stuttering to a stop, your entire body frozen as you came to the realization that that was not a blanket you had just smacked, but somebody's arm wrapped around your waist.

Slowly, you turned onto your side to see who was in your bed. The moment you flipped your body over you were met with deep brown eyes that were just barely open and the sight of a lazy smile as your body was suddenly dragged forward and pressed tightly against the strangers.

A sharp scream bubbled up past your lips as you threw yourself backwards, smacking the man’s hand away from your body as you fumbled out of the bed. In your haste your foot was caught in the mess of blankets, sending you tumbling backwards off of the bed, spurring another cry from your mouth.

“Baby?” A voice called, it was raspy and deep from just waking and wrought with concern.

You quickly yanked the sheets off of your sprawled out form and ushered yourself to stand on shaky legs. The man in the bed was propped up on one elbow, the sheet slipping down off of his chest to settle and pool at his waist. He was absolutely shirtless, revealing a stretch of honey skin and a toned abdomen.

Holy shit, what the fuck was going on?

“Baby, what’s wrong?” He asked you again, this time he appeared to be more alert, all signs of sleepiness dissipating from his body.

Worried from your lack of response, he rushed to stand up, the blankets falling away to reveal he was clad in boxers.

What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck? It had to be illegal to have thighs like that, right?

“Stay right there!” You yelled, throwing your hand up in fear as he ignored your command and quickly began to approach you. The closer he got the more steps you took backwards, tripping over stray clothes on the floor until the wall at your back stopped you from retreating any further.

The man, clearly ignoring your pleas to be left alone, walked right up to you. He was so close that his bare chest was pressed up against you effectively sandwiching you between him and the wall as heat flooded your cheeks. His hands fluttered around you worriedly, checking you for any signs of injury before he rested his hand on your forehead checking for a temperature.

“Are you sick, hunny? You’re acting...off?” He asked, petting your hair in anxiety as he tried to meet your gaze.

“Don’t touch me.” You finally said, brushing his hands off of you once more as you attempted to slip away from him.

“Why are you acting like this?” He asked, obviously confused before a sudden smile overtook his features. He had a sweet smile, one that made his entire face light up in joy. “It reminds me how you used to act around me all those years ago. Are you trying to get me going this early? We really shouldn’t, you know, I have to be at work soon.”

Holy fuck, what kind of person are you now?

The man in front of you pulled you out of your stupor at the feeling of his hand on your jaw as he leaned down to your height.

Realizing what his intentions were, you let out another scream of fright and shoved him away, darting for the bedroom door. As soon as your hand gripped the doorknob you ripped the door open and slammed it shut behind you.

You leaned your head back against the wall as you rested, you hand over your heart, taking shallow breaths as you attempted to collect yourself.

That didn’t exactly go as planned.

With your eyes closed you didn’t see the incoming form running up to you until it collided with your legs, winding around you tightly in excitement.

“Mommy!” A little voice cried.

Your eyes snapped open in surprise as you looked down at the little child wrapped around your legs. Despite his small and non threatening form, you couldn’t stop the scream of fright that escaped you as you unlatched him from your legs and raced to the first open door you saw, yanking it closed behind you and twisting the lock shut.

You were in the bathroom. Finally, a place where you could gather yourself. You stood at the sink, resting your forearms on the counter and your head in your hands as you breathed in sharply through your nose. You needed to get your shit together and stop panicking.

You couldn’t help but feel cheated, panicked, and pissed all at once. Not only had you died, made a deal with some crossroads entity, but now the life you had been plopped in for the time being was the complete opposite of your previous one and you had not a single clue as to how to navigate it.

You let out a few more huffs before standing back up and raking your fingers through your hair. A sudden sparkle of light caught your attention, causing you to pull your left hand free from your hair. There was an engagement ring and a wedding band on your left ring finger. You hissed at the sight of it, your entire body shuddering.

You were married and a mother.

“Are you fucking serious, Namjoon?!” You whispered to yourself in the bathroom, knocking your head back against the wall three times in frustration. Jenny would be having a field day if she knew about this.

Jenny.

You wondered what her reaction was, when she heard that you had flung yourself from your balcony. You wondered if she blamed herself for sending you home early even though it wasn’t her fault. You wished you could tell her you hadn’t done that to yourself, that it wasn’t her fault. You just hoped that she was okay and that she wasn’t crying over you.

You could get through this, you had no other choice. It was time to get your shit together.

You straightened your spine and shook out your hands with a deep breath before you unlocked the door and swung it open. Standing outside the door was your “son.” He was practically the spitting image of your “husband” who had yet to leave the bedroom. He was staring up at you, with big brown eyes, as he raised his arms up and clenched his hands in a grabbing motion.

You knew what that meant. You plastered on a forced smile as you bent down and picked up the small boy before settling him on your hip. He easily nestled his head into the crook of your neck, his eyes fluttering shut as he basked in your warmth.

At least he was cute, you could manage that.

You curled your arm securely around his back as you walked into the kitchen, your bare feet padded dully against the cool tile of the floor.

“Are you hungry?” You softly asked the little boy. You could feel him nod into your shoulder slowly, his fingers curling around the collar of your sleep shirt.

You carefully unhooked him from your clothes and gently set him down in one of the chairs at the kitchen table. He whined in refusal, reaching out for you once more before becoming distracted by a coloring book that had been left at the table.

Unsure as to what exactly you should make for the young boy, you searched the kitchen cabinets before settling on toast. Simple and easy. As the bread sat toasting, you decided to investigate the new environment you had been put in.

You could tell you were still in the city, just a different section of it. You could see the towering skyscrapers through the windows of the apartment. This apartment was definitely not your own. For one, it was much smaller with a completely different layout. And, it looked to be in disorder with toys scattered everywhere in the living space. It certainly was not to your standards, but you could manage it for a few weeks as Namjoon had instructed. All you had to do was follow this life perfectly, and it couldn’t be that hard. Right?

You pulled yourself away from the windows, the drop off sending a familiar shiver down your spine, and rushed back into the kitchen to finish up the breakfast for the boy coloring away furiously at his book.

Once you had the plate situated in front of him, you caught sight of a wallet on the opposite side of the table. Without hesitation you rounded the table and snatched it up, rifling through the items inside until you caught sight of what you were looking for. An ID.

“Jung Hoseok.” You mumbled, the name tingling on your lips and echoing in your mind. So, this was your temporary husband.

“What are you doing?” A voice asked from behind you causing you to jump in fright.

You pivoted on your heels to face the man, your husband, Hoseok. Despite the fear his voice evoked in your body, he was presenting you with a blinding smile. One that sent chills throughout your body for reasons that were unknown to you.

“Hoseok?” You said, although it sounded more like a question.

“Hoseok?” He chuckled, “What did I do, am I in trouble? What happened to Hobi or hunny?”

Well shit, you were already fucking things up weren’t you?

“You know if you need anything you can always ask me, baby. No need to go sneaking around.” He said, his smile still pinned to his cheeks as he struck you with a penetrating gaze.

He said nothing for a moment, he just stared at you with that smile in absolute silence. It was so quiet you could hear the blood pulsing through your ears and the soft ticking of the clock in the corner of the room as you tried to avoid his gaze. Despite the high position you once held in your previous life, you had never been very good with eye contact. He was really testing you today.

He remained quiet as he grabbed the wallet from your hand and slipped it into his pants pocket before straightening his jacket out.

“Jihoon, you’re going to be late for school. Go get ready.” Hoseok said, his voice and face still appearing cheerful as the little boy shuffled out of his chair and darted down the hallway to his bedroom.

You didn’t know why, but you were struck with the feeling that something was very wrong here.

You remained motionless as Hoseok raised his hand, cupping the side of your face rather gently, much softer than you originally expected.

“You’ll be good for me while I’m gone, won’t you baby?” He whispered, his lips lightly brushing your cheekbone as his fingers gently swiped over the smooth skin of your cheek.

You said nothing, you merely nodded in agreement so that he would finally release you and leave you alone to process what you had gotten yourself into.

Without warning, he pressed his lips to your own in a hard kiss spurring a cry of surprise from you. You attempted to pull away from him only to find his hand at your back, keeping you pressed close to him as he sighed against your mouth, a shudder shaking through his body. His grip was becoming stronger, borderline bruising the more you squirmed against him as he tongue swiped over the flesh of your lower lip.

“Ew! Daddy!” Jihoon yelled as he reentered the room, fully dressed for school with his little backpack slung over his small shoulders.

Hoseok pulled away from you with a laugh, allowing you to stumble away from your supposed husband, your hand cupping your mouth. You took back whatever you had thought about Jihoon before, he was your saving grace.

“Sorry buddy, Daddy just loves Mommy so much!” Hoseok said, his voice full of glee as he gave his son a quick hug before standing up again. “I’ll see you after work.”

Hoseok headed to the door, stopping for a moment to look you over one last time. “I’ll be seeing you later as well.” He said with a wink before exiting the apartment.

Thank fuck he was gone.

Jihoon quickly approached the now closed door, sliding his shoes on and reaching for the door knob.

“Where do you think you’re going?” You asked as you watched the young boy open the door.

“School?” He asked slowly, his little brows furrowed in confusion.

“By yourself? No, give me a minute to get dressed. I'll walk you to the bus.”

“Mommy, you can’t!” He cried, causing you to come to a stop.

“I can’t? And why not?”

“Because, you never do.” He replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

What kind of mother was this person? She didn’t even walk her own kid to the bus to make sure he didn’t get kidnapped? Jihoon was so young, he couldn’t have been older than six by the looks of him. He was practically still a baby.

“Well I am now, wait right there Jihoon.”

You were still dressed in the baggy T-shirt you had woken in, the fabric rumpled and hanging loosely over your shoulders revealed a fraction of your collarbone. It didn’t take a genius to figure out this was Hoseok’s shirt. You hissed in annoyance and ripped the shirt from your body, filing it into a corner of the bedroom.

The closet was filled to the brim with clothes, both yours and your “husband’s.” You swept the various suits and shirts aside until you stopped at your own clothes. You found it strange the amount of formal attire Hoseok possessed and your lack of it. Your side of the closet was filled with comfortable clothes, the only “formal” attire you owned was a wedding dress tucked all the way in the back of the closet and stored away in a plastic case.

You sighed in frustration, settling on a pair of leggings and a large hoodie. One that was, presumably, your husbands as well. Did this woman have no desire to take pride in her appearance? Apparently not.

“Come on, Jihoon!” You called with a clap of your hands as you made your way to the front door where he waited, his small hands wrapped around the straps of his backpack.

Jihoon didn’t say anything in response, he merely held up his hand and slipped it into your own. He was a cute kid, a perfect reflection of Hoseok, but eerily enough you could see your own features reflected in him.

You released a deep breath through your nose, pushing those thoughts to the back of your head. You needed to focus on getting him to school for now.

The door clicked shut behind you as the two of you began making your way out of the building. The weather was still warm, not that much different from what it had been in your past life. It was nice, being able to take in the fresh air for a moment and be able to process what exactly you were going through.

Jihoon had taken the initiative for the both of you, considering you had no idea where the bus picked him up for school everyday. His hand was still clutched in your own, his arm outstretched as he walked quickly in front of you. He was talking a million miles per minute, the most random things leaving his mouth. And, just when he was about to get to the point, he would find something new to distract himself.

“Oh, Mommy! Look at that butterfly!” He was painfully cute.

“Oh, it’s very...pretty.” You said, unsurely. At first glance, the creature was beautiful. It’s wings wide yet delicate, painted with bright colors like paint splatters on a fresh canvas. But, it had a large chunk missing from it’s right wing. The injured wing fluttered every now and then with the gentle breeze. The poor thing was trapped in the flower bed it was lying in, it would never be able to fly again.

You were pulled from your reverie as Jihoon tugged on your arm sharply. He beckoned you to lower yourself down to his height. As soon as you had settled down on your haunches he threw himself against you in a tight hug, squeezing you twice for good measure.

“Bye Mommy, I love you!” He yelled before pressing a kiss to your cheek and turning on his heels, darting towards the school bus.

You stayed there for a moment, your hand frozen on the spot he had left a kiss. So, that was what it was like to have a family. To have someone love you. You had never had that before.

You rose back up to your feet, taking a moment to gather yourself back up again. You could see there was a park nearby, and getting yourself over there seemed like a good enough idea. You didn’t want to go back to the apartment just yet, you still had no idea what you were supposed to do. You didn’t like the thought of just waiting at “home” for Jihoon, or worse, Hoseok to come back.

Jihoon was easy, predictable. But Hoseok, he was uncharted territory. A raging sea you didn’t know how to navigate.

Damn you and your incapability to foster stable relationships.

It was only day one of this temporary life and you were completely out of your depth. A husband? A son? A stay at home mom? You had and were none of these things, but now you had every single one of them. Whether you wanted them or not. Namjoon gave you orders, and if you wanted to survive, you had no choice but to follow them. You had to play along.

You walked slowly, tiredly, through the park. The tips of your sneakers were dragging against the ground, kicking loose stones off to the side. A few weeks he had told you, just how long exactly was that?

Lost in your thoughts, you didn’t hear the incoming footsteps approaching rapidly. It was the feeling of fingers gripping your shoulders and violently spinning you around that finally caught your attention, a cry of shock escaping you.

“What are you doing?!” A voice cried, their hands shaking you to garner your attention.

The sun that had blinded you finally lightened as it slipped behind a thick cover of clouds, disappearing out of sight. You could see now, and the man that was holding you so tightly was none other than Hoseok.

“H-Hoseok?” You stuttered, your hands gripping his wrists as he ceased to lessen his hold on you. What was he doing here? He had left for work no longer than half an hour ago.

“Did you hear me? I said, what are you doing?!”

“I’m going on a walk? I just dropped Jihoon off at the bus.”

“You did what?!” He yelled, his face stricken with panic and a deep, hidden anger. His hold on you was only becoming stronger, near bruising as he shook you once more.

“Hoseok! Stop it, you’re hurting me!” You yelled, taking a step back from him.

That seemed to do the trick, his voice quieted and his hold became much lighter than before. What the fuck was wrong with him? Why was he acting like you had just committed a crime.

His eyes slipped closed as he took a deep, calming breath, his shoulders rising and falling with the motion. “Baby, you don’t leave the apartment. You know this, we’ve been over this.”

“What?” You asked, utterly confused.

This seemed to shock Hoseok, his brows raising and his eyes widening. The both of you were standing there, a gap between the two of you as you stared at one another with equal states of confusion. You not knowing what he meant, and him wondering if you were experiencing some sort of memory loss.

“Come on, I’m taking you home, you need rest.” He finally said with a gentle smile, he was firmly set on the idea that you must be sick from how strange you were acting.

You didn’t trust him or that fake smile he was giving you. Something was going on here, and it was terribly wrong.

“No.” You said firmly, taking a step backward when he tried to grab hold of you again.

His smile drifted away, it was like watching the moon slip over the sun into a solar eclipse. The Hoseok you were left with was one that had a cold, stricken expression that bled disbelief.

“What did you say?” He asked you, slowly.

“I said, no.” You spat back, your voice sharp and firm despite the tingles of fear and anxiety creeping through every muscle in your body.

“I dare you, say that to me one more time baby and you won’t like what happens next.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Hoseok.”

That did it. As soon as he took one step in your direction, you spun around and booked it like a track star. You paid no mind to where you were going, not caring who you had to shove aside to clear a path for you to get away. You were trusting your gut, and it was screaming at you to get as far away as possible. You could hear Hoseok behind you, yelling your name and telling you to come back, but you paid him no mind. You just knew that this was your one and only chance to get away from him before you lost it.

Everything he had said and done had raised red flags in your mind, the way he talked to you and touched you, it was all wrong. It was possessive and dark, whether he intended it to be or not.

What husband doesn’t allow their wife to leave their home? What father lets their six year old child walk themselves to school? What caring man demands you obey his every will? There was something wrong.

You couldn’t hear Hoseok behind you anymore, the crowd had thickened substantially the further away you got from the park and the deeper into the city you were. People were staring at you strangely as you shoved through the crowds, grunting in annoyance as you squeezed yourself through them.

The crosswalk was fairly empty, you could make it through and keep going, you had no time to stop and question how far away Hoseok was. So, you broke through the final band of people and began to sprint through the road, despite the sudden cries and warnings that were being shouted behind you.

Fuck, there was a reason the crosswalk was empty, wasn’t there?

You turned your head to the side as you ran, only to come face to face with an oncoming car, coming in so fast you knew it wouldn’t be able to stop. No matter what you did, it was going to hit you. You threw your arms up in front of your face, blinding yourself as you squeezed your eyes shut and prepared yourself for the impact.

But it never came.

“Day one and you’re already fucking things up, aren’t you?”

The sounds of the city had fallen silent, there were no more car horns, no people talking, nothing. It was dead quiet. You slowly peeled your arms away from your face and opened your eyes.

Namjoon was there, still dressed in that three piece suit of his as he leaned up against the hood of the car that had almost hit you. He looked beyond pissed with you. You looked around, taking notice of your environment. There were people still looking at you, their faces frozen in shock and horror. There was a bird above you, it’s body frozen in midair with its wings spread wide open. And there was a little girl on the corner of the street, her popsicle stuck freefalling a foot above the ground.

Time had been suspended.

“Namjoon! You don’t understand, this life you put me in, I can’t do it! I’m not a wife or a mother, I can’t do it! And my husband? There’s something wrong with him, I don’t know what but he isn’t right in the head.”

Namjoon rolled his head back, a sharp sigh leaving his lips before he righted himself and pressed his fingers to his temples.

“You need to go back.” He simply said, his frustration evident.

“I just told you I can’t -”

“It’s either you go back to him and play house for a few fucking weeks, or I take you back to the crossroads and process you!” He snapped.

You jumped in surprise at the sudden intensity of his voice. When you had first met Namjoon he was calm, collected, even a little embarrassed at the mess up that had occurred. Now, he was frustrated.

“I told you before, you need to follow this life perfectly, you cannot let anyone know that anything is amiss. That means you need to be Jihoon’s mother and Hoseok’s wife. Whether you like it or not, that’s reality. So, you need to decide right now what you are going to do. Are you going to grin and bear it for a few measly weeks, or are we both leaving right now?”

You remained quiet for a moment. You already knew what your answer was going to be before you even opened your mouth. You needed to stop panicking and start thinking efficiently. What was a few weeks of unease and fear in comparison to years of your life you would gain in return. It was a good investment.

“I’ll do it.” You finally said.

“Good,” Namjoon breathed a sigh of relief as he popped off the hood of the car, “No more fuck ups, for my sake and yours.”

And then he was gone, disappeared into thin air.

The world was moving around you again, and you were no longer standing on the crosswalk but instead in the middle of the sidewalk as the crowd of people that were previously waiting to cross the road dissipated and made their way to the other side.

And then, those same hands were on you again, but this time they pulled you into a warm chest, crushing you like a boa constrictor in a desperate hug.

“You scared the shit out of me!” Hoseok cried, his hand settling on the back of your neck as he pulled your head into the space between his neck and shoulder.

How ironic, you had scared him.

~~~~~~~

Hoseok hadn’t even taken the risk of walking you back home, instead he flagged down a taxi and ushered the both of you into the back seat. The ride was spent in silence between the two of you. You sat there, the side of your head pressed against the window as you listened to the music from the radio and the feeling of Hoseok’s hand on your thigh keeping you immobile.

You allowed him to grip your wrist when the cab arrived outside your apartment and when he dragged you back inside. It seemed so much darker now after you had been outside. You really didn’t want to be trapped in that small apartment with just you and him and no Jihoon to protect you.

His hold didn’t lighten until he had dragged you into the bedroom you had woken up in the morning. It was then that he pressed his hand against your shoulders and shoved you backwards on the bed, quickly climbing on top of you as you began to flail your limbs wildly in surprise.

“Calm down, hunny.” He cooed, a genuine, sadistic smile on his face now. All the other smiles before had been so fake now that you had seen this one. This one was beyond thrilled.

You flinched as you felt cold metal encircle your wrist and snap shut. He had you handcuffed to the bed, there was no running away now that was for sure.

Your heart was thumping frantically in your chest, your limbs shaking as the adrenaline that had once faded was flooding through you again. Your instincts had been dead on accurate, you should have kept running when you had the chance.

“Baby, baby, baby,” He laughed, tilting his head to the side as his eyes shone with glee. “I haven’t seen you in so long, I thought you were gone.”

You were shaking beneath him as his eyes traced over every inch on your body, his fingers playing with the loose strands of your hair.

“You’ve been acting so different today, almost like how you were when we first met all those years ago.” He hummed, his face pressing closer to yours as he lightly brushed his lips down the side of your cheek before stopping to press a kiss at the curve of your jaw.

You flinched to the side in discomfort, spurring a delighted giggle from his lips.

“As fun as it is to have you like this again, that doesn’t mean I can let your bad behavior go unpunished. You left without my permission and you said no to me, I can’t have that baby, I just can’t.” He sighed, the puff of air against your flesh spurring goosebumps to rise in response.

“So, be a good little girl for me, and don’t move.” He instructed, pressing a lazy kiss to the bared column of your throat.

“You’re in timeout, a couple hours to yourself should help you think long and hard about what you did today.” He laughed, pulling himself off of you and retreating towards the bedroom door.

“I’d think of a good way to apologize to me if I were you.”

And then he was gone. Once the door shut you could feel your heartbeat steadily falling and returning to normal. “Play house,” Namjoon had said, “Grin and bear it,” he told you. You weren’t so sure if those sentiments applied to your situation anymore.

It was confirmed, you were married to a sadistic sociopath.

Hoseok had left you chained to the bed for hours on end like the asshole that he was. You were rightfully scared of him, like you had previously thought, he was unpredictable. One moment he was kind and gentle and the next he was angry and after that he was filled with a corrosive glee.

How were you supposed to make it through the next few weeks like this? It was impossible.

All you could do was lay there, stewing in anxiety as you were drowning in your never ending stream of thoughts about your fate at the hands of your so-called husband.

By the time you heard the front door unlocking the sunlight had completely shifted in the room. The light was now entering at a different angle casting long, dark shadows over the room. It looked like the light was being chased away by the tendrils of darkness curling at its soft edges.

You could hear a loud thud coming from the main room and the sound of little footsteps approaching the bedroom quickly.

“Mommy!” A voice called before the door was shoved open. Jihoon. “Found you!” He giggled, kicking his shoes off before scrambling up the side of the bed and crawling over to you on all fours.

Jihoon seemed undeterred by the sight of your wrist bound to the headboard behind you as he curled up against your side, his head resting on your shoulder as he wrapped his small arms around you. A chill traced its way up your spine, this wasn’t the first time he had seen his mother like this. No, this was common for him.

Jihoon was already prattling endlessly about his day, much like he had on the way to the school bus that morning. His chatter suddenly came to a stop as he ran out of things to say, instead he let out a little hum and asked you: “Daddy put you in time out?”

“Yeah, Jihoon, Mommy’s in time out.” You replied, your jaw clenched and your eyes pressed shut.

“I told you, you can’t leave. Daddy always finds you.” He said, nodding his head in agreement with himself as he began to play with your hair.

Your eyes snapped open, you head turning to the side to look at Jihoon. That definitely meant something, didn’t it? In fact, how had Hoseok found you at the park in the first place? Or on the sidewalk you had run to?

“Jihoon...how does Daddy find Mommy?” You asked him.

Jihoon continued to play with your hair, his tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration as he twisted and knotted your hair in a sloppy braid. “Your boo boo.”

“My boo boo?”

Jihoon stopped his shaky braiding for a moment, meeting your eyes as he grabbed your free hand and led it to the back of your neck. That was when you felt it.

Right there, at the nape of your neck, was a small bump beneath the flesh. You smoothed your finger over it a few more times in disbelief, making sure that what you were feeling was actually real.

He had microchipped you, like a dog.

A pit settled itself into your stomach as the reality of your situation finally hit you. The life you had been injected in was far more dark and twisted than you had first thought. This went beyond overprotectiveness and time outs, this was a clear show of obsession and possessiveness. In Hoseok’s eyes, you belonged to him.

And, upon having that realization, your husband returned home from work.

The bedroom door had been left wide open, giving you a clear view of Hoseok entering the apartment as he shimmied his jacket off of his shoulders and loosened his tie. Your arm curled around Jihoon tighter, pressing him even closer to your side like he was a life preserver, the only thing keeping you from being dragged down into the dark trenches of the sea. He felt safe to you.

The minute Hoseok looked up and caught sight of the two of you, the bleak and tired look that adorned his features drifted away and was replaced by that same fake smile, the one that never reached his eyes but lit up his entire face.

“There’s my two most favorite people in the world!” He called, pulling a laugh from Jihoon who raised his arms up in a gesture suggesting he wanted Hoseok to hold him.

Traitor.

Hoseok bounded into the room, lifting Jihoon up from underneath his arms and spinning him around before settling himself on the bed beside you with Jihoon on his chest, excited giggles shaking his entire body.

It startled you how normal this would have looked from the outside, minus your hand being cuffed. To anyone else it could have looked like any other family spending time together after a long day. A stay at home mother with her busy husband and their young son. Oh, how far that was from the truth.

“You hungry, buddy?” Hoseok asked, tickling his son's sides. “How about take out tonight?”

“Yeah!” Jihoon agreed enthusiastically.

“What do you think, Mommy?” Hoseok asked you, pivoting his head to the side, his dark eyes fixing you to your spot.

Play along.

“That sounds good.” You nodded, attempting to do some damage control from your actions earlier that day.

“Good answer baby,” Hoseok smiled, popping Jihoon off of him as he slid over to you, fishing the keys to the handcuffs out of his back pocket. His thumb gently stroked the reddened flesh of your bound wrist before freeing it. He held your wrist in his hand for a moment before pressing a long kiss to the irritated flesh.

“Behave.” He whispered into your skin, looking up at you through half lidded eyes before he flipped his switch again and bounced off of the bed in glee. “C’mon Jihoon, you can pick where we order from!”

~~~~~~~

The air had been thick with tension for the rest of the night, unbeknownst to Jihoon who was too excited to be with both of his parents to realize that there was anything wrong.

Jihoon had become a buffer between you and Hoseok, the little boy seating himself between the two of you on the couch with his food in hand while his legs kicked back and forth excitedly. A little hum of happiness left him with each bite of his food, completely oblivious to the dark look Hoseok was sending you over his head.

You had somehow managed to equally piss him off and excite him all in one day. You were scared of what it would be like when Jihoon had to inevitably go to bed, he wouldn’t be there to protect you anymore.

There were few things you had been scared of in your previous life, and they were normal things for a person of your stature. You had been scared of being mugged, being kidnapped for ransom, having someone break into your apartment, or becoming a disappointment to your family.

Most of those things could have been remedied with a bodyguard. Never in your entire life did you ever think you would come to rely on a six year old boy, your “son,” to be your protection. It was strange how much could change, all in the course of one night, one mistake.

Once again, you had found yourself cradling Jihoon to your side, his body relaxing under your touch as he snuggled up against you. He gently guided your hand away from your lap, and onto his head, a sign that he wanted you to play with the short strands of hair.

You pulled your hands away from your legs and allowed your son to lay his head down as you softly stroked his hair in a calming, soothing motion. The light of the television was flickering, casting a blue glow onto his young features. His eyes had fluttered shut, his long lashes casting smooth shadows against the skin beneath his eyes. His breath was coming out slower now beneath your touch, the rise and fall of his chest becoming slower and deeper than before.

Jenny had been right about one thing, you would have had cute children. When you went back, a part of you was certain that you would miss Jihoon. Your little protector.

You jolted at Hoseok’s unexpected touch, his arm sliding behind your shoulders as he moved closer to you on the couch. An annoyed whine sounded from Jihoon at the sudden motion causing him to press his face against your legs in an attempt to escape whatever was disrupting his sleep.

Hoseok leaned closer, his warmth seeping into your side. He joined your hand on Jihoon’s head, lightly smoothing over his hair before speaking. “I think it’s time for bed, little man.”

“Noooo!” Jihoon whined, “I wanna stay with Mommy.”

“Not tonight, buddy. You need to be a big boy and sleep in your own bed.”

“I don’t wanna!” He cried.

Sensing an impending tantrum, Hoseok scooped Jihoon up into his arms and cradled him to his chest. He started rubbing his back in slow motions, bouncing lightly with each step that he took. Miraculously, you could see Jihoon’s eyes begin to droop shut, his fatigue returning in full blast.

Your parents never did that for you.

You watched as Hoseok retreated into Jihoon’s room, presumably to get him ready for bed.

Shit, your bodyguard was falling asleep.

Your body moved before you could think, flinging itself from the couch and sprinting for the bedroom. You couldn’t think of what to do, you knew that as soon as Hoseok was done with Jihoon he was going to come after you and you didn’t know what to expect. So, you did what any other grown woman would do.

You hid under the covers.

Your heart was beating loudly in your chest, the sound echoing through your ears as you squeezed your eyes shut in fright. All you could do what lay there and wait for him, you were doing nothing but delaying the inevitable.

When you heard his footsteps rounding the corner you tried to slow your breathing, forcing your chest to rise and fall slower to make it seem like you had fallen asleep. If he bought it, then maybe he would leave you alone.

Unlikely.

He did the exact opposite. You could hear him close the door behind him, shuffling around the room as he got ready for bed. Your breath hitched in your throat as the lights flickered off, and the mattress dipped beside you from his weight.

It was dead silent in that pitch black room, the only sounds you could hear were the ringing in your ears, your breaths, and his.

You flinched in surprise when he latched onto you, dragging you backwards into the warmth of his bare chest.

You tried your best to remain calm, to breathe lightly, and to not move. But Hoseok was no idiot, and you were daft if you thought you could fool him.

“I know you’re awake.” He whispered, his nose pressing against your hair as he took in a deep breath, sending a sharp chill down your spine.

He remained quiet for a moment, his arms wrapping tighter around your body. The feeling was the same as if a boa constrictor was curling around you. Slowly increasing the pressure, tightening its grasp in an attempt to squeeze the life out of you. Slow, calculating, and intimate.

The arm that had looped around your middle lightly drew backwards, allowing his hand to slide beneath your shirt and rest on the bare skin of your waist.

“I think I know a way you can make it up to me.” He mumbled with his lips pressed against your throat.

His palm smoothed over the skin of your lower abdomen, just above the hem of your underwear as he buried his head into the crook of your neck, lips and tongue tracing over the bared flesh. Like a little lamb you had found yourself caught in the jaws of the predator, one snap away from the clutches of death.

You remained frozen from a blend of shock and fear, all sense of fight or flight leaving you and rendering you immobile. Every nerve in your body was screaming at you to move, to pull away, to throw yourself off of the bed. But your muscles were tense, frozen in a state of pure anxiety and fear, you knew nothing more than the thought of keeping still like a rabbit in the face of danger.

He moved to the side, dragging you onto your back so he could settle himself on top of you. He braced himself with his arms on either side of you, caging you in with no room to escape. He gave you no warning of what he was thinking of doing, he merely swooped down and pressed his lips to your own.

A muffled squeak rattled in your chest, your heart suddenly thudding louder than before like an alarm sounding to wake you up. Your hands moved first, sliding onto his chest and barely applying any force, struggling to push him back. His skin was warm and smooth against your palms, an alluring honey shade that you would have been enamored by like you had been that morning, had you not been exposed to his true nature.

“Hoseok.” You said, finally breaking free of his kiss.

Your call of his name had the exact opposite effect of what you had hoped. A deep groan rumbled in his chest as he pressed his hips against yours, effectively pinning you to the mattress beneath him.

“Hoseok!” You tried again, trying to grab his attention.

“That’s it baby, keep saying my name.” He sighed, expertly rolling his hips against yours.

Oh. Oh no.

The sudden wave of arousal that washed over you was unwelcomed and even more frightening than anything else. You weren’t even in control of yourself anymore, that was what his presence did to you.

“Play along,” The words that Namjoon had told you were suddenly echoing in your mind.

Your breath got caught in your throat as he pressed himself closer to you, you could feel the smooth roll of his hard length pressing against your core, light sparks of pleasure tingling throughout you. Shadows of fear still crept around in the back of your mind, the nape of your neck throbbing in a twisted reminder of the chip that lay beneath the skin.

Hoseok was in his own world, hell bent on teasing you until he grew tired of it. He shifted his weight onto one arm allowing his hand to delicately trace up the length of your body. His fingers just barely brushed your thigh, trailing upwards to trace the hollows of your hips before settling on your waist and rising up over the barrel of your ribcage that was exposed so nicely for him from your arched spine.

You were laying there, helpless for him, frozen from a state of arousal and fear that was blending perfectly into its own dark, tempting cocktail. You pressed your lips together firmly, smothering any whine that tried to force its way free from you when he pulled back, the motion of his hips stilling as he played with the hem of your shirt. You didn’t know if you wanted to yell at him to go away, or scold him for stopping.

Either way, you didn’t have much say on the matter.

He tilted his head from side to side, his dark eyes tracing over your form from head to toe. A small smirk tugged at the corners of his lips as he watched the heavy rise and fall of your chest, your wrinkled shirt, and the way your thighs and hips jerked from the loss of his touch. You looked adorable to him, he couldn’t deny the powerful feeling it gave him to see you so helpless beneath him. He was sick, and he loved it.

His fingers were still tracing the hem of your shirt, like he was contemplating removing it despite the both of you knowing it was inevitably going to come off. Hoseok was an impatient man, that much you could tell. He firmly gripped the bottom of your shirt and began to roll it up agonizingly slowly, that satisfied smirk still pinned to his handsome features.

“Whaddya say, hunny? Should we give Jihoon a sibling?” He laughed, his tongue flicking out to swipe over his lower lip at the thought of getting to see you full with his child again. He would be a liar if he said the thought didn’t turn him on.

All of the blood rushed to your face, your thighs tensing reflexively against him where he was settled between your legs.

“Is that what you want?” He hummed, hands settling on your hips and roughly pulling you down the mattress against him. “You want me to fill you up again, sweetheart?”

You didn’t get a chance to even consider answering his lewd question, a sudden shock of lighting and a deep roll of thunder caught the two of you off guard. The once pitch black room had been lit up by the blast of light, the windows shaking from the boom of thunder.

And then, there was the sound of crying and little footsteps.

Hoseok hung his head backwards in distress before rolling off of you with an annoyed whine echoing through the room. “God fucking dammit.”

“Mommy! Daddy!” Jihoon yelled before throwing the door open and scampering up over the foot of the bed, his little face wet with tears as he scrambled over the sheets and settled himself in between the two of you.

If you had questioned it before, you weren’t questioning it now. Jihoon was your savior.

“Jihoon, it’s just a little thunder, it’s nothing to be scared of.” Hoseok said, his voice a little sterner than normal, most likely from his case of blue balls.

“It’s scary!” The little boy rebutted, “I wanna sleep with you!”

“Jihoon -”

“It’s okay you can sleep with Mommy and Daddy tonight.” You cut Hoseok off, opening your arms for Jihoon to snuggle into.

The look on Hoseok’s face would have been humorous if you didn’t know you were going to have to pay for it eventually.

Everything came with a price, eventually.

~~~~~~~

Hours melted into days, and days slowly migrated into weeks. You had begun to lose track of how much time you had spent in this other life of yours. But you knew you couldn’t stand it for much longer.

You could handle Jihoon, you liked Jihoon, you could stand even being there because of him. Hoseok...he was another story. He never hid his true intentions from you, that was for sure. But the more time you spent trapped inside that apartment the more you began to feel like you were going to lose yourself.

Sometimes you could forget what Hoseok really was, and other times he made sure to remind you. In this life, whoever this person was before you took over, they had never left the apartment since Jihoon was born. That was six years of their life spent trapped within these walls with no one to talk to except for two people who were only home for a few short hours a day.

It was isolating. It wasn’t unlike the lonely life you had lived before in those regards.

You were trapped, chipped, and alone. Any attempt you had made to leave by yourself, for any reason, had been swiftly thwarted by Hoseok. The knowledge of the tracker embedded in your neck reminded you that there was no point in running anyways, he would always find you.

You tried to remind yourself that this would all be worth it in the end, that you could handle these weeks if it meant getting your old life back. But as each week passed, you weren’t so sure that was true any more.

You were in a cyclical hell that you couldn’t manage.

You had opened the door one day at the sound of someone outside it, it had been a new neighbor, a young man with full lips and an unusual laugh. Your heart had soared at the opportunity of being able to speak to someone other than a six year old or your possessive husband, but that had been quickly thwarted.

Hoseok had pulled you back into the apartment and exited into the hallway, shutting the door behind him with a grim glare.

You never spoke to that neighbor again.

Hoseok had become more needy as each week passed and you had taken to sleeping in Jihoon’s bed with him as often as you could, feeling protected by the boy you called your son. But your distance didn’t help in any manner, Hoseok was becoming more aggressive and more irritable. Not with your son, never with your son, but with you.

He grabbed onto you more, touched you more, kissed you harder, and eventually forced you back into sleeping in your bedroom.

You faked an illness for a few days to keep him at bay. That was how you got to this point. He was desperate.

Hoseok was taking you on a work trip, just you, without your son. It was a city or two over, you would be staying at a hotel and having dinner with his coworkers there that same day. He was a desperate man calling for desperate measures to be alone with his wife. That meant that you had no more excuses and no Jihoon to protect you.

Jihoon had cried when you said you had to go away with Hoseok, he didn’t want to go and stay with Hoseok’s mother, he wanted you two. And that part of your heart that had grown to accommodate him was slowly breaking with each tear that rolled down his cheeks.

You would be lying if you said you didn’t love him.

You knew that you weren’t the best mother, you didn’t know what a good mother was like. Yours was efficient at best. So you dug down deep for what maternal instincts you had, held him close, dried his tears, and kissed his chubby cheeks.

And you told him you loved him. The first person you ever loved.

So, that was how you found yourself here, at a table with a bunch of boring men and their partners talking about their work with Hoseok’s hand gripping your thigh, his finger rubbing circles into the skin beneath the length of your dress.

You were incredibly bored of this ordeal. All of these men were business executives and their concepts of how to run a business were rudimentary at best. It took everything in you to keep your mouth closed to not correct them in front of their higher ups and embarrass them for the everyday mistakes they were making.

“Play along.” Namjoon had said, so that was what you did.

Although you may be a mother now, you would always be a business woman and a successful one at that. They didn’t deserve your expertise.

Your eyes lazily drifted away from the table, zoning out as their voices became reduced to a low rumble. And that was when you saw it, a flash of black fur and glowing jade eyes on the ledge outside the window.

Taehyung. It was time.

Your heart leapt with joy, a smile carving into your once stony expression. You could go home now, you could finally wake up from this nightmare. A sharp squeeze to your thigh grounded you, a pit rolling in your stomach. You had to get away from Hoseok.

He was staring at you, confused by the sudden appearance of your joyful grin.

You leaned close to him, whispering lowly, “I have to use the ladies room.”

“I’ll take you.” He replied, going to scoot his chair away from the table.

You gripped his forearm, bringing him to a halt. “No, this is important for you, I’ll only be a moment.”

He stared at you in silence, assessing you and trying to figure out what you were getting at before he spoke. “Behave.”

You nodded quickly before excusing yourself from the table and rushing down the hallway. You had seen a large balcony on your way to the restaurant on the top floor, it was only a little ways away.

As soon as you stepped foot onto the balcony, you saw him. Taehyung was there, resting on the balcony as the sun slowly drifted away behind a cover of clouds, a gentle rain was beginning to tap the marble floor beneath you.

You approached him quickly, your heart pumping in time with the gentle rumble of thunder above you. Taehyung came to a stand on the railing, the sharp drop off beside him glaring at you.

“We have to do it this way, again?” You asked, your hands wrapping around the railing beside him as you peered over. You were even higher now than you had been the first time, sharp tingles were shooting through your hands and feet as you stared down at the streets below.

Taehyung stared at you in silence, his eyes blinking slowly twice. You would take that as a yes.

So, you carefully sat yourself up on the railing and turned, allowing your feet to dangle over the ledge. You watched in horror as your heels slipped off and went plummeting down to the ground. It took them a long time to meet the pavement, it would be a long fall for you.

“Fuck, are all of you reapers this dramatic?” You hissed at the cat. He looked amused at your predicament.

“Okay, let’s do this thing.” You huffed, reaching your hand out to touch the reapers silky midnight fur.

And that was when you heard the panicked call of your name. You looked over your shoulder, your eyes meeting Hoseok’s. His face was ashen, his hands held up as he attempted to approach you. Your eyes caught sight of his phone held up in one of his hands, a blinking dot on a grid staring back at you. He had accessed your tracker.

“Baby, what are you doing?” He asked you, taking small, slow steps in your direction. “Come here, let’s talk, okay?”

“You can’t stop me,” You replied, “I won’t do this any longer.”

“You don’t know what you're saying, you're just stressed and scared. We can get through this.”

“I know what I’m doing, Hoseok. I’m done, my time is up and I need to go.”

“And what about me? What about Jihoon?”

Jihoon. A chill spread through your body, your eyes suddenly stinging. You didn’t know that would be the last time you would hug him or say goodbye. He didn’t know that was the last day he would have a mother.

“Jihoon will be fine.” You said firmly, Taehyung was creeping closer to you now at the same pace that Hoseok was. Your time was coming to a close, Hoseok was trying to compete with death. It was obvious who was going to win.

“I won’t let you do this.” He snapped back, frustration, desperation and fear taking over him as he flung his phone aside and began to run to you.

“You don’t own me.” You spat back.

And then you grabbed Taehyung and clutched him to your chest before slipping off the edge of the balcony, Hoseok’s fingers just brushing your skin before you plummeted off the side of the building.

Death was easier.

~~~~~~~

First, there was darkness.

And then there was the sound of monitors beeping around you.

Your eyes felt as heavy as lead, refusing to open on your command. And for a small, brief moment, you were afraid that when you opened your eyes he would be there. You were afraid that you had missed the window and you were trapped with him again.

But when you did manage to open your eyes, the person sleeping in the chair beside you was Jenny.

You did it.

Everyone was surprised by your survival and your recovery. The fall you had should have shattered your bones, mashed your brain, drained you of your blood. But you survived with minimal injuries. Some people called it a miracle, others thought you were a medical mystery.

And Jenny though you were stupid.

“What the fuck were you doing on that ledge? Were you that drunk or are you just that fucking stupid!” She yelled through her tears.

“Both.” You answered, your face completely deadpan as she rained down a series of hits to your arms in retaliation.

You laughed through it until she finally calmed down, a huffing mess in her chair beside you. “In all honesty, there was a cat on my balcony and I was trying to save it.”

“Oh my god, you are that fucking stupid aren’t you?” She said, shaking her head. “If you want a cat’s attention you lure it with food you dumbass! You are the dumbest smart person I know.” She sighed into her hands.

The two of you remained quiet for a moment as she collected herself and you took in the room around you. There were no cards, no balloons, and no flowers.

“So, I guess none of my family could clear some time in their busy schedules to come see me.” You said, quietly.

Jenny raised her head, sympathy etched into the features of her face. “Do you want honesty, or do you want me to sugar coat it?”

You bit your lip in thought before making up your mind. “Honesty.”

Jenny took in a deep breath before scooting her plastic chair closer to your gurney. “Your family is...distancing themselves from you for the time being.”

“Distancing?” You echoed in confusion.

“The media hasn’t taken too kindly to your...accident. Every tabloid is talking about the woman who has it all trying to throw it away. The public isn’t very happy with you at the moment.”

“The same wouldn’t be said if I had died.” You mumbled, because that was the truth. Nobody cared until it was far too late, their true intentions hiding beneath their masks of sorrow. It didn’t matter how much money you had, you had never been happy, and had your accident truly been an attempt well, maybe it was only a matter of time.

“And what does my family think?”

“They aren’t too happy with you either. Your mother and father have put on a face for the public, wishing you a speedy recovery, but they left you a memo. They aren’t ready to speak with you yet, not until you do something to find your way back into their good graces. Your siblings, on the other hand, have said nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

You had forgotten how lonely this life was. Thoughts of Jihoon tugged at your heart strings, his little whispers of “I love you’s,” your after school snacks and cuddles, and the soft voice he used when he would wake you up in the morning with a gentle: “Mommy?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you!” Jenny said quickly.

Your brow wrinkled in confusion before you felt it, the cool, wet, glide of a tear rolling down the side of your cheek. You were crying.

“It’s not you, Jenny. I’m just thinking about someone I love.”

~~~~~~~

You had returned to work almost immediately upon being discharged from the hospital. Jenny called you stupid, you called it trying to return to your only family. You knew you shouldn’t care about their opinion, not when they so clearly showed their disappointment in you and their lack of care. But they were all you had, they were your family, your blood. They made you what you were.

Right?

So there you were, back to wearing those red bottom heels, those tailored suits, and those glasses you hadn’t touched in so long, hidden behind your desk in your office.

You had kept your cool and your composure when you entered the office, doing your best to show you were unfazed by the shocked stares and the hushed whispers between your employees. You kept your composure only to throw your office door shut and slump against it with panicked pants for air.

No matter how hard you tried, you knew you were never going to be the same anymore. Not after your fall, not after the crossroads, and not after Hoseok. You were broken in ways you couldn’t even comprehend.

Even now, sitting at your desk, eyes trained on your computer, your finger swept over the skin at the nape of your neck, mindlessly feeling for the bump, the tracker that was once buried there. You were only met with seamless skin and irritation from the constant rubbing. You wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up rubbing the back of your neck raw.

A soft knock to your door had you sighing in relief, you needed some respite from the thoughts that were racing a million miles a minute in your mind. You were mentally exhausted from everything you had gone through. You removed your glasses, pressing your cool fingers to your eyes. Your hands were hurting again.

There was a loud crash as the door clicked shut, the sound of liquid spilling violently all over the floor of your office and the thick, strong odor of coffee. And then, there was the shocked gasp of your name.

A familiar chill traced down your spine at the voice, your heart kicking into overdrive. No, it couldn’t be. You rose from your chair causing it to spin away, your breathing quickening as you began to panic.

It was Hoseok, standing there in your office in a puddle of coffee.

Jenny’s words from all those weeks ago came flooding back into your mind. “The poor thing was so nervous, you really should be nicer to him. He has such a sweet smile…”

You stepped backwards in fear, your world suddenly crashing down on you in one fatal swoop.

He called your name again, a similar panic on his face as he crossed the room in distress. “Please! You, you have to help me! I don’t know what's going on but it feels like my head is being torn apart!”

Tears were rushing down your cheeks in endless rivers now. You had walked so far backwards that you were pinned against the tall windows behind you with nowhere left to go.

“I have two lives, two sets of memories running parallel in my head and I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t!”

You closed your eyes, your body shaking and shutting down the closer he got. And then his hands were on your shoulders, shaking you in his grasp as he began to hyperventilate.

“Where’s Jihoon?! Where did he go?! He cried, his body trembling in tune with your own as he was bombarded with memories he knew and ones he didn’t. He was too close now, his body pressed tightly to your own in that same suffocating manner as he panicked, his mind being torn apart for reasons unknown to him, holding onto you to ground himself.

You were beginning to understand now amidst the haze of panic. Namjoon had said he was putting you in a different place, in a different time. He had never said in a different life. You hadn’t become someone else, you had been moved six years forward in time. Those painful weeks you had lived through with the guise of them being temporary had all been for absolutely nothing. You were doomed to live out the life you had been trapped in.

It was fate.

“Where is our son?!”

#bts #bts hoseok #bts x reader #hoseok #jung hoseok #jhope #hoseok x reader #jung hoseok x reader #jhope x reader #yandere #yandere bts #yandere hoseok #bts fanfic #yandere hoseok x reader #yandere kpop #yandere bts x reader

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stellocchia · 3 years

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So, since we got that revival stream there are A LOT of takes that I’ve been seeing popping up regarding c!Wilbur. From straight up wrong takes like “he was worse then Dream” and “he manipulated Dream and made him a villain” to some more understandable but still very much wrong takes like: “Willbur was never a villain” and “Wilbur’s mental health spiral means we cannot identify him as a villain”

Since I’ve already spoken on other posts of mine about the first kind of statement, I want to focus on the second today.

Let me preface this by saying that c!Wilbur is most definitely not an irredeemable character (a redemption arc for him is most definitely POSSIBLE, though we’ve gotten quite a lot of clues by now that that’s not the route cc!Wilbur seems to want to go down). I honestly think that the only TRULY irredeemable character in the smp ic c!Dream and that’s because of a mix between the level of harm he caused and his reaction and motivation for it.

BUT he was a villain. A sympathetic one for sure, but a villain nonetheless. Being redeemable doesn’t make him any less of one, just like having understandable motivations or his harmful actions being a response to trauma or mental health related problems doesn’t make his actions and their consequences any less severe.

I mean I don’t see anyone out here having a problem with calling c!Jack a villain even if the harmful actions he tried to do or did are responses to isolation and trauma, why is Wilbur different when he’s caused much more harm?

Same with Niki: we all recognized that her planning and trying to kill a child in cold blood was most definitely villanous even with her being extremely sympathetic. And, once again, she suffered from similar conditions to those Wilbur was in: a lack of a system of support, loosing her country, isolation in a base underground and we can add loosing a dear friend to that for her. So why don’t we give her a pass for everything? Why isn’t (well, wasn’t, she seems to be better off now that she is with the syndacate) she JUST a tragic charact but ALSO a villainous one?

Well it all comes down to the goal and the impact of someone’s actions. While the declining mental health of a character is important to keep in mind when deciding if they’re sympathetic and to understand what motivate their actions, it’s irrelevant to establish if they’re a villain.

Let’s take c!Jack again as an example: he griefed multiple buildings trying to pit Dream and Tommy against each other, pre Tommy’s exile, and cause an all out war between them because Tommy’s actions had caused (in Jack’s mind of course, as what Dream did is entirely Dream’s responsability and in no way the fault of Tommy) Dream to burn down part of Manifold Land. He was angry at both of them in an understandable way, but his goals and actions were both immoral. And his actions didn’t cause harm ONLY because Tommy had already been exiled, otherwise they could have been taken by Dream as a reason to exile him either way later on.

Now, for another example, c!Quackity: his announced goal with him torturing c!Dream is taking away the power that grants him the ability to harm others while still within Pandor’a Vault. But, truth be told, he IS mostly doing it for selfish reasons, either be it because he lost a bet to Schlatt or because this IS part of the bet it’s still a completely callous reason for torturing someone. The person he is harming is undeniably a villain who’s hurt a lot of people, but that’s irrelevant when judging the morality of Quackity’s action.

Now let’s talk about Wilbur’s actions:

- He abused and manipulated Tommy, there is no way around it. He was extremely verbally abusive towards him. He tried to isolate him from everyone else and he tried to control Tommy’s emotional responses. He’s still doing that as a matter of fact by straight up dismissing any emotional response Tommy has that doesn’t suit him (by, for example, ignoring his clear signs of dicomfort back during their conversation post season 2 finale and by ignoring and making fun of his panic attack in their discussion in the afterlife). We know this caused long term trauma for Tommy causing him to have night terrorse about him and being terrified of ever becoming anything like Wilbur. Trying to find a way to avoid Wilbur’s path was basically Tommy’s whole arc in season 2.

- He retained vital informations from Techno (retaining information from him about his allies, and from his allies about him). This one is a bit more up for discussion to be honest, but Ive seen quite a few people make the point that Wilbur made sure that the info he gave Techno was the only one he had about Pogtopia’s intetions. He also was the only one who knew about Techno’s withers and about his anarchists ideals and he never revealed them to ther allies, which definitely helped in causing the rift later on.

- He mistreated Tubbo quite a lot as well (the whole scene at the festival is just painful). But, basically, he had him spy for them and basically treated him as a pawn. He described him, to his face, as just a “yes man” with no free will of his own. Then he used his death just to bring forth discord and violence between his allies. He also pushed on him all the pressure to decide on wether to blow up the country or not.

- He kept keeping L’Manburg hostage to his allies, increasing the already incredible pressure on them immensely. When Schlatt said he moved the tnt to Pogtopia he started doing the same with that place by constantly clicking all the random buttons while they were all trying to plan. That is blackmail my dudes. Blackmail done to an extreme.

- There is the whole pit scene that deserves a point on it’s own where he literally kept spurring on both Techno and Tommy (all the while blatantly putting down Tommy in an extremely manipulative way) to beat each other to death (albeit non-canonically). Re-watch that one and pay close attention to him if you have any doubt about him being abusive towards Tommy.

- And, for last, he also did blow up L’Manburg and he had fully intended to do it also as a last slight towards Tommy, just to add on to how much of a d*ck he was to him.

It’s true that he needed help and that he had spirald. He had become self-destructive and paranoid, but that DOESN’T erase what he has done, nor what that paint him as. His actions were all done with the spcific goal of being harmful to others and have all had long lasting effects. He hurt A LOT of people. He is, by all intents and purposes, a villain.

Also I want to add that if they do give him a redemtion arc it will have to be done carefully to be done well. And also none of the people he hurt with his actions should be forced to forgive him. As a matter of fact I’ll go further and say that Tommy in particular shouldn’t even be forced to TALK to him as he has already expressed extreme concern about ending up being manipulated again. No matter what he went through and what his mental state was, none of his victims owe him any understanding either.

#c!wilbur critical #wilbur soot #tommyinnit #jack manifold #niachu #quackity #dream smp #/rp #tw manipulation #tw abuse #tw torture #character analysis #my post #I've been wanting to make a post about c!wilbur for quite a while now #because there seem to be recently way too many takes that are a bit too lenient towards him #so here it is!#long post

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iphoenixrising · 3 years

Text

DickTimWeek2021 Day 2

** Day 2: Time Loop | Jealousy | Stray AU

Welp. Time to break some hearts.

They’re laughing like assholes as they climb through Timmy’s penthouse windows.

“Did you see that thug punch himself in the face?”

“That’s the right way to get out of an ass beating by the Batman.”

Tim, still in Red Robin, doesn’t even bother, just lets his knees buckle so he can slide down to the floor and laugh until tears are rolling down the dominio still plastered on his face.

He’s riding the concussion train with

(J)

Josephine and she’s not as bad as some of them are.

Dick at least tosses the gloves and gauntlets before hauling Timmy’s bruised ass up off the floor, throwing the arm around his shoulders.

“C’mon, you butt. Really Timmy, just laying here in your suit? Alfred would be appalled.”

“S’why I don’t go to the Manor much anymore.”

“Ooh, I’m telling. You’re going to be in so much trouble,” as he gets Tim down the hallway to the bathroom.

“Y-You can’t! You’re the oldest! Dami’s supposed to be the tattle-tale!”

“Nu-uh. As the oldest, I can do whatever the hell I want.”

And does he tell on Timmy? You bet your ass he does.

It’s nice when Alfred can look at someone else in the family with extreme disappointment.

Tim comes by the Manor the day Alfred video chats him, shuffles down to the Cave behind the butler and absolutely sticks his tongue out at Dick’s smarmy grin.

His apartment is a literal mess and Dick can’t be bothered to do much more than flop on the overstuffed couch with a groan.

Still in his uni from the day shift, he’s too bruised and battered and tired to even think of suiting up for the night. He’s been running himself ragged for two months, the day and night shifts blending together along with the usual bullshit of daily human life, and he desperately needs a night of terrible television, junk food, and snuggles.

Like he’d been reading the room, Timmy walks out of his bathroom, towel around his shoulder and hair just this side of damp.

“Hey, you made it home in one piece.” Tim’s long fingers in his hair literally pulls a noise out of Dick he can’t ever remember making.

“Yeah, I drove down because you looked like death warmed over when we talked last weekend. Luckily for you I went grocery shopping, did a few loads of your laundry, and cleaned up a little so you don’t have to worry about housework.”

“I love you. Have I told you that recently? Like, so, so much–” is muffled by the couch cushions, but he thinks Tim can probably still make it all out.

“Mmhm, I know,” and the gentle scratching against his scalp doesn’t stop, and Dick goes a little boneless with it. “I even brought my Roku so we can binge watch terrible television while you eat something more substantial than cereal. Alfred is going to be so proud of you.”

A pat to his head and Timmy is off, slinging his towel on the rack, turning on the shower again to make sure it’s nice and hot for all those bruises and contusions.

He’s no-nonsense about picking up his previous mentor and best friend, literally stripping him down and manhandling him in the shower after a low whistle at the span of blue/black across Dick’s chest and ribs, the scrapes across his back and shoulders.

The first aid kit tackle box makes an appearance because Tim plans for literally everything ever, and Dick finds himself sitting on his sink wearily while his injuries are meticulously treated.

He knows he eats something super tasty with meat and vegetables, his belly full, before Tim pulls him down on the couch and lets Dick lay against his chest, between his legs to sleepily float while watching God-awful B-movies.

It’s the most relaxing weekend he’s had in a while.

Dami sneers at Tim, arms crossed over his chest, the expression on his face begging Tim to try to deny it.

The third Robin however, is looking over at Dick with horror that the big secret is finally out in the open.

“Th-that isn’t– it’s not–” Tim fumbles desperately, “he’s been my big brother forever, that’s it!”

“Tt. Grayson may be painfully oblivious, Drake, but the rest of us are detectives. Even Todd knows of your feelings and he rarely even comes to the Manor!”

Tim’s soul literally leaves his body.

Dick blinks, completely taken back, mouth open without anything coming out.

Damian raises his eyes skyward and prays for patients dealing with these two. “What I am saying,” he tries, he really is trying here, “is that you two must cease and desist this pointless–” vague hand wave– “pining for one another. It is getting to the point of absurdity. I demand you two either discuss your need for one another or take this ridiculous mooning elsewhere. The rooftops of Gotham is no place for this,” another hand wave, “utter nonsense.”

Tim’s mouth goes dry, subtly backing away to be closer to the Ducati’s waiting for tonight’s ride. He’s pretty sure he has enough energy left in his shaky knees to hop on one and be the fuck out of the Cave before his face literally bursts into flames.

But, well. Dick was Batman.

His strategic retreat is stomped into the ground by acrobatic leaps and a very well done joint lock to keep him from immediately taking off.

Dami scoffs at them on his way up the winding staircase. He stops Pennyworth on the way and turns the butler to return back into the Manor proper, citing those two needed time to figure themselves out.

After several weeks under deep cover, Nightwing wearily hacks into Titan’s Tower and makes his way through the maze of hallways until he hits a hidden panel.

Tim is sleeping on his desk, only one empty coffee mug at his workstation. Even dead in his boots, Nightwing can take a second just to look, just to sigh, just to enjoy how much every inch of this boy is his.

He journeys down the hall, flips the bed covers up, carries his sleeping partner in and tucks the blankets around him, a quickly there kiss to the top of messy, too-long hair. A shower in Tim’s perch literally makes everything in life a little less awful and exhausting, not enough for him to do much more than crawl in bed against Tim’s warm body and snuggle up close.

He gets breakfast in bed and blue-violet eyes looking at him with fondness rather than awe, gets coffee flavored kisses and a slow-paced back rub that continues down to his thighs and calves and feet. Later, he gets a date night in a nice restaurant and a sweet San Fran club scene for dessert. He gets to let loose and hold Tim’s body against him, to play them both until the gazes are intense and the low key UST between them makes other people on the dance floor give them space.

Witty banter is a primary weapon against megalomaniacal bad guys of any flavor. For some former Robins, it’s an art form.

Over the years, they’ve cultivated their dip and distraction to bounce off one another like a well-oiled vigilante machine.

It should have been a standard take-down because it’s not one of their more dangerous, deadly villains. It’s not one of the Rogue Gallery baddies. It’s not one of the mobster families, not one of the super powered groups come to call. It’s not someone with hordes of thugs and deadly science waiting to take them down.

It’s a simple B&E, just Nightwing talking it up to draw gunfire while Red Robin is creeping up from behind to get the last laugh.

It’s one of a thousand times they’ve done this.

It’s a guaranteed win.

It’s the last hour of patrol before they get to go back to Red’s penthouse and snuggle together, eat and show, probably have some fantastic sex before passing out.

The .45 shell, however, cuts through the suit, between armored plates.

Going after the running baddies is automatic, taking them down, zip ties, and viola. They’re ready for GCPD to pick-up, all kinds of gift-wrapped.

When N finally realizes Red isn’t with him, isn’t answering comms, isn’t waiting for him on the roof, he goes back inside. He hits up B for a ride in the big car in case he missed –

– anything.

The pool of blood around Red Robin is more than he can afford to lose, and Nightwing has been in the vigilante life for over twenty years, has been official with Red Robin for a little over two, has personal experience on how his Baby Bird can take a mostly-fatal beating and still keep moving. He’s seen Tim come close with the Clench, with horrifying injuries, with any of the many bad guys they fight holding him hostage.

Nightwing has seen him perform literal miracles.

And tells him so the entire time he’s got Red Robin up in his arms, carrying him through Gotham’s skyline to the waiting car, falling in with Red on his lap when the familiar hatch slides back, the tourniquet already applied before he even shot a grapple. The struggling pulse is enough of a concern to get it together.

And even if they all gather to strip off the suit, and now it’s on to get vitals back to an acceptable range. Even if the Bats cry overhead, even if the equipment is top notch in the Cave, even if Dick is still talking the whole time, and Alfred is keeping a cool head and Bruce is gripping a hand and Damian is standing at the ready to hand implements and Cass is biting her thumbnail while she hovers and Steph is moving from empty space to empty space around the gurney –

The consistent beep of the flatline cuts through it all.

The Titans make it for the service.

Each of them make a point to hug Dick for as long as possible, holding on tightly.

Bruce is silent and stoic, a little boy again when he has to watch someone else he loves being lowered into the cold, unforgiving ground. Another Robin taking a piece of his heart to the afterlife.

Steph is red-eyed, a ghost moving around to individual circles, listening to stories she might not have known.

Cass grips the coffin with bruised knuckles, her whole body wound tight as a string ready to snap. She doesn’t move the entire service, is already convinced leaving him to his own devices caused this whole thing. She doesn’t blame the thugs or Dick or Bruce. She blames the boy that never understood how much it all means.

Duke Thomas is back in Gotham, taking leave from the Outsiders to be here for the family that took him in after the Joker drove his parents insane. He hovers in the doorway to welcome mourners, direct them toward the book to sign-in, talks about Tim Drake with regular humans and other metas in disguise, accepts condolences with his throat tight and his eyes watery. He makes sure Dick has a bottle of water after the first hour, pats Damian’s shoulder, grips Bruce’s arm, weaves an arm around Cassandra’s back to give her a squeeze, obediently looks at the old pictures of Tim on Steph’s photo roll when she’s overcome and has to see that smile again.

In the back, Jason Todd wears dark shades and a clean black suit. Roy Harper is beside him, a hand on the broad back to keep him grounded, to keep the Pit rage at bay. If anyone knows how far Tim and Jason had come over the years, it’s the former Red Arrow. If anyone knows how much agony Jason is in at this moment, at another fallen brother, another Robin gone, if anyone had held the Red Hood while he screamed and cried and broke the utter fuck down, it’s Roy Harper.

Damian Wayne hovers right by Grayson’s side, silently supporting his first Batman, his first brother. Whenever Dick’s eyes start going hazy, glazing over, Damian gently grips a wrist to bring him back, allows fingers to lace through his own and tolerates the tight squeeze that obviously assists in grounding the oldest Robin.

(Later when the night is crowding grief-stricken Wayne Manor, Damian will be the one to open Grayson’s bedroom door, lift the covers to crawl in behind him, to wind both arms tightly. He will be the one to take the onslaught of grief, to be soaked in tears and snot, to listen to the broken, hoarse voice, to make soothing hums that ultimately mean nothing.)

Alfred Pennyworth quietly talks with the funeral director about the arrangements. Of course Master Timothy would want to be laid to rest with his parents, and the family appreciates all the support and ease of process as the deceased was an important part of the Wayne family.

When he gets a phone call, he firmly verifies the name on the tombstone is Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne Grayson.

Exactly four days after the service, the Flash is staring at him helplessly, gripping Nightwing’s arm tight, “please, please, Dick, don’t do this. You can’t think this is the answer!”

He can barely hear Wally with the absolute destruction going on around them, the machine they’d inadvertently stumbled upon (which is a lie, Nightwing had been looking for it and the Flash basically caught him red handed).

“You know you aren’t going to be able to stop me.” Standing between the glowing portal and Wally, debris from overhead crashing down on them at intervals, Nightwing is at his peak stubborn, “no matter how fast you are.”

“You don’t understand what’s going to happen,” Wally yells desperately as the vacuum starts pulling at Nightwing’s other arm, pulling him into–

–the Speed Force.

“You don’t have the lightning, Dick, you won’t be able to get yourself out, and I won’t have any way of tracking you!”

The small smirk as the machine’s panel starts going haywire, lights blinking and readings off the charts, makes Wally’s heart clench hard in his chest, makes him try to dig in his heels, makes his stomach tremble.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve already done this, Wally. And I’ll do it as many times as it takes until I change everything.”

The pellet Nightwing palmed before the Flash grabbed his hand goes off the same time the machine hits the highest ratings and a low boom is followed up with an intense swirling suction, pulling the heroes closer to the portal’s surface.

The light grenade goes off without a hitch and the Flash has no choice but to let Nightwing go.

They’re laughing like assholes as they climb through Timmy’s penthouse windows.

#dicktimweek2021 #dicktim #dick grayson #tim drake #sad times #time loop #winter writes #my ficlet

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fruitless-nonsense · 3 years

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would you analyze haylijah?

You read my mind (literally I was just thinking about this last night)!

Firstly, I’m sorry how long I took to answer, work was killing me. I also wanna say how appreciative I am that people like you are interacting with me, so thank you!

Okay, so Haylijah! What I take from them is a simple issue that the writers continue to make in to and tvd: beating a dead horse. Confession time! I genuinely liked these two in season one. They were cute, had good chemistry, a connection that wasn’t inherently toxic, and just cause they were paired didn’t mean they were tied to each other (I.e - had different storylines and stuff to do). I also liked how they took their time with it (like I said, they had stuff to do). I mean, I guess Hayley falling for the brother of her baby daddy is a bit weird of a dynamic, but it’s not like Klaus owns her just cause they slept together once. It also helped that I enjoyed both characters at the time. That’s really it, just a surprisingly unproblematic pairing. So what happened? A lot, a lot happened.

In season one, we are introduced to Jackson (who’s his own can of worms, believe me) and is immediately presented as a love interest for Hayley (love triangle oh boy!). It’s not really until season two that Hayley shows signs that she might feel things for the man, and then they have to get married. Couple that with Elijah inexplicably being distant towards Hayley for reasons I can only guess are to raise conflict and nothing else (cause seriously it made no sense). So they sleep together (I don’t know either, guess they patched things up and love each other again. You’ll notice that’s a theme) after Hayley explains that she’s marrying Jackson and they can’t be together. We skip to the wedding and they both have a heart to heart and end their relationship for good. I have to be honest, as a finale to this ship, it was perfect! It wasn’t just Hayley repeating “I’m marrying Jackson for the pack, we can’t do this anymore,” Hayley brought up her issues with Elijah. He’s the kind of guy who isn’t good at showing his feelings (to each their own), and Hayley wants more. She gave her entire heart to Elijah and got barely anything in return. Maybe she doesn’t love Jackson now, but he’s what she wants and perhaps she can learn to. Good scene, good episode, good season. This talk was expanded a bit in the finale when Gia had gone to Elijah, and just when it looks like he’s pushing another person he cares for away he goes back and kisses her (this might be me stretching but I have an overactive imagination). So what happened? It wasn’t over.

Season three had these two interacting a lot more (I mean Hayley didn’t have her own storyline at this point, so it’s unsurprising), and the writers decided to give them this lingering tension as to hang onto the pairing. Now I don’t know about y’all, but at this point in the show I had moved on. Why can’t these two just be friends, why is this still a thing? This is the nature of every scene they share (which is a lot of scenes, Hayley do you have nothing better to do? Wait, I just remembered thanks to the writers you don’t!) until Jackson dies, and suddenly things go from lingering tension to will-they-won’t-they. Now, I don’t have a problem with this trope when done well, but the problem is this is less of potential and more dunking it in the water and taking it back out over and over. These two were together, but now it’s over, wait never mind it’s not over but we can’t be together, now the obstacle keeping us apart is gone we can do this, but I have to respect his memory, wait never mind let’s do this. It’s not even exhausting, it’s just boring. This is all during season three! They finally hook up again after Elijah tells her he murdered Marcel and Hayley just doesn’t react. Who cares that the man who saved her as a baby and has done everything in his power to protect her and her daughter was killed by this man? Hayley needs to assuage Elijah’s man-pain. Then she has the audacity to demand Klaus forgive him, and when he addresses the irony she just ignores him. This is the moment it got through my head that Hayley was no longer a character, and was just a puppet for the writers, but tbh it happened way earlier than that. The season ends with the fate of the Mikaelson’s falling on Hayley. Does this mean Hayley gets her own storyline again in season four? You see where I’m getting with this.

We get the first episode’s A plot starring Hayley exclusively as she fights to save them, and it was actually pretty fun, especially when she went into wolf form to tear apart some vampires. Unfortunately it doesn’t last long as she reunites with Elijah immediately. Okay, so at this point Elijah is dead to me and Hayley has ceased to be a real character. Outcome, they’re together now and I couldn’t care less. I could say it’s infuriating that Hayley doesn’t care that Elijah contemplated killing a bunch of children no older than Hope or actually killed four innocent teenagers for the harvest ritual (she does bring them up with him, but it’s always in a scolding manner that doesn’t affect how she feels about him), but what he does to her in the necklace is what makes her believe he’s not safe to be around Hope. Okay. Not much outside of this, they end things again shortly after he returns from the dead (another cliche that y’all keep doing!) The finale has them separated by the hollow and Elijah’s amnesia. So how are they gonna bring this back for season five? It’s much worse than that.

So season five skips to seven years later, and they both appear to have moved on with respective partners. Declan is boring (more of a Matt clone than people keep insisting Cami was) and Antoinette is interesting but also problematic, not that either of these people matter. They’re only plot devices (another female character who doesn’t get to be a character? Nice one guys!) to put a wrench in Haylijah despite Elijah’s amnesia already doing the job just fine. Surprisingly their relationship isn’t relevant at all for a good few episodes (mostly due to Hayley being missing. And then, he kills her. You know what I’m talking about. X character being responsible for loved ones death while they don’t remember said loved one cliche. Remember when this ship wasn’t inherently toxic? Tbh it hasn’t been harmless in a while. So we get stoic Elijah, and the others trying so desperately to make him and to the extension me believe that him and Hayley were this unbreakable love story for the ages, when in reality their relationship was a hot-and-cold nightmare. Take notes, if you’re gonna do a slow burn, don’t get them together and break them up over and over again unless you’re planning to spice up the relationship in some way every time. Because I lost interest so early, and I don’t think I’m the only one. So once Elijah gets his memory back his story arc is over for the season and he spends the remainder moping around (we could have gotten an entire story between him and Hope instead of one episode and a scene in another). He almost doesn’t go to his own sister’s wedding cause he’s man-paining too hard. Finally, he decides last minute to undercut Klaus’ self sacrificing so they could die together (cause who needs actual growth between these two?). It is speculated that Elijah reunites with Hayley in the afterlife and they live happily ever after (I say speculated because we didn’t get to see their afterlife even though we saw Hayley and Josh’s?).

So what is there to learn from this? Elijah was an interesting character who’s arc inverted Klaus in a clever kind of way, but would not stop hanging on Hayley. And Hayley herself is yet another female in this show who’s agency and character is stripped away to service the man. The main problem with this couple is how repetitive and predictable their story became. Unlike kolvina their beginning had promise, but they never grew from there, they only shrank.

#anti haylijah #I was pro it in the beginning #hayley marshall #elijah mikaelson #the originals #klaus mikaelson #marcel gerard #hope mikaelson #freya mikaelson #anti to writers #female character assassination

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petersthree · 4 years

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Will I ever shut up about TUA? Probably, but not today, because I’ve been thinking a lot about Five and Ben and how their stories parallel each other and I am emotional.

It’s so interesting to me, the common things that they share - they both were probably the closest/most supportive to Vanya, and both of them “left” the family in a sense. Five’s disappearance fractured the family, and Ben’s death cause it to completely break apart. They both have an interesting arc of isolation, wanting their siblings back, and being “stuck” down to the point that they’re literally stuck in the clothes that they were wearing when they disappeared from their families.

Let’s start with Five - I was surprised, at first, that he seemed calm in his talk with Reginald. That he said he gave Reginald a hard time, instead of putting blame on Reginald. Because sure, yeah, Five is a little shit but Reginald is literally an abusive parent, why would Five, who’s arguably smart and seemed to not care about Reginald’s death in the first place, say that he was the problem? And then I thought about it and honestly - it make sense. We’ve seen an episode on Five’s life, the isolation that he felt and how badly he wanted to see his siblings again. And well, I guess he did see his siblings but their bodies, a reminder that they were in danger somewhere back in time and that he couldn’t get to them. Five is left alone with his thoughts and bodies of people he couldn’t save, and like he tells Diego, all he hears is Reginald’s voice, every day, saying “I told you so.” He has the proof that Reginald is right, he goes back and narrowly avoids it only to immediately see yet another future where his siblings die, and he’s constantly trying to go above and beyond to save his siblings.

We even see it in his scene with Vanya - when she asks him who started the apocalypse, Five hesitates and says an asteroid, because he doesn’t want to hurt her, as blunt and detached as he’s seemed this whole series. Five probably doesn’t even really blame her, but himself. He’s convinced himself that he needs to be the one who saves his family, he goes at a lot of things alone and without their knowledge, he tries this because his isolation led him to believe that yes, Reginald was right and Five was wrong. Maybe if hadn’t been stubborn as a kid this wouldn’t have happened, maybe if he had practiced instead of being overeager they wouldn’t be in this situation. It strikes me that Five is in his same clothes, something we joke about, but Five keeps himself in this by choice. It’s a reminder of when he left, when he realized he’d made a mistake, a symbol of what happened and a reminder that he needs to save his family no matter what.

And now looking at Ben. Ben has Klaus, yes, but we see, especially in season 2, how much Ben struggles with isolation. He only has Klaus, and as much as I love him, Klaus straight up denies Ben the autonomy to interact with other humans based off of pettiness. Ben has been a passive observer for 17 years, he’s stuck in his clothes because he literally cannot change them. But you know what else? We don’t see a whole lot on Ben outside of Klaus, but we get a good glimpse on how life (or well, the afterlife) is for him when all the siblings are together. When they leave and we see Ben say, “I missed you all. So much.” He’s there, seeing everything that they do, trying to be there but unable to, and he loves them, he knows them, he understands them. Ben is the least “resentful” sibling outside of his occasional resentment towards Klaus - he wants to see his siblings succeed and be okay, and I think it’s an important look on how he lived as a ghost while they were all in the house, because they all didn’t leave right away.

In the house? Sure he’s stuck to Klaus, but he could still see his other siblings, see how they were doing and coping. Reginald did a great job of turning the kids against each other and making them feel alone in their trauma, but Ben as a ghost got to see that Vanya was being drugged and isolated, that Luther and Allison felt like they only had each other, that Klaus needed to dope himself up to not feel the pain, he saw everything the siblings were going through and how Reginald was treating them, and you know what his conclusion was? What he said to Vanya - that Reginald was afraid of her, drugged her, made her suppress her emotions, and that was messed up. He lets her know, Vanya is surprised to hear it and probably never even realized that it was messed up, but Ben lets her know. He’s recognized that Reginald is an abusive father but that it is not their fault and that they are not the monsters because of Reginald’s bad parenting. Ben has had this time to think about who’s at fault and it wasn’t him, it wasn’t Five, it wasn’t Vanya, they were all children, it was the grown man who was supposed to be a father.

It’s just so amazing to see and I don’t know if they’re intentionally contrasted but I think it’s so cool and heartbreaking to see how these two had to deal with isolation and came to different conclusions on their father, yes, but also came back with so much love and care for their siblings even if they express it differently.

#ben hargreeves #five hargreeves #the umbrella academy #tua meta #tua spoilers #tua #long post for ts #janie overthinks media

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ratsoh-writes · 3 years

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Oh man I got another one- say everyone is monster hunting (like Bigfoot or mothman- whatever you like) who’s the one who hears a sound and just books it? Anyone have a fight reaction and start swinging? AKSKJFJAJDH WHOS THE ONE TO TRY TO RUN AFTER IT WITH THE CAMERA ALL UP IN ITS BUISNESS AKSKJDJSJS

I don’t know how you want to format this- so if you just want to put them under categories- superb; longer version? Dealer’s choice

Here’s how everyone reacts/roles during monster hunting:

Sans: in a monster hunt, he’s the guy who stays in the van to “keep watch” on all the electronics. Instead sans falls asleep of course and misses all the action. His team could straight up see a ghost and he won’t believe them lol

Papyrus: he’s more likely to go Bigfoot hunting then ghost hunting. And for some reason papyrus brought a metal detector like that’ll help? It doesn’t but he also found two dollars in lost coins so he counts it as a win.

Star: he uses superglue to line a butterfly net with salt to catch the demons in. It doubles as a blunt weapon if they fight back.

Honey: he’ll break off from the group and wind up getting lost in the woods. He’s the guy who actually meets moth man and gets directions back to the campsite from him. It’s not till days later that honey realizes that moth man wasn’t actually another monster from the underground

Red: he also stays in the van, except red is watching those radios like a hawk. He’ll be extremely disappointed and relieved if nothing happens.

Edge: he calls everyone else an idiot for going monster hunting, but winds up leading the group instead because no one else is qualified enough for it. Every sound edge hears is just a raccoon. There’s no other explanation and you can’t convince him otherwise.

Mal: he decided to wear all silver jewelry today just in case! No vampire is taking a chunk out of mal! Plus this is his sharp set of rings so it doubles as a shank.

Cash: he’s the one who breaks from the group and then terrorizes them with mysterious noises and throwing pinecones. Until something grabs cash’s shoulder, and when he turns, there’s no one there. Now he’s sprinting home.

Oak: out of everyone he’s the most likely to get possessed. Oak will freeze, loose the red eye-light, and utter some creepy-a*s prophecy before coming to. Then he just keeps walking. He didn’t even notice lol

Willow: he’s not taking this seriously and will be enjoying his nature walk until his brother gets possessed. Now willow is taking it very seriously. And they’re leaving Right. Now. Heaven help the ghost if they try that crap again. Willow will exorcise them.

Charm: he really really really hopes they find a vampire. A vampire hickey would be the ultimate trophy!! But if the vampire is a jerk, charm can always throw the garlic salt he bought at Walmart at them.

Sugar: he genuinely does not want to be here, but someone’s gotta keep charm alive. Besides, call him racist, but sugar isn’t comfortable with a vampire getting cosy with his brother. A werewolf is fine though.

Lord: he genuinely does not want to be here, but once again wine and mal have dragged lord into the strangest kind of trouble. Sneaking into a government building is more expected by him than monster hunting. Oh well, at least he knows wine is the monster guru. If they ever find one he’ll know what to do.

Mutt: he came into the forest with friends to find Bigfoot, but left with four baby raccoons. Mutt is praying to the stars that lord will let him keep them.

Wine: HE IS READY. Wine was made for this day!!! He already has survival kits, flashlights, a bible and silver cross, extra batteries in case the flashlights go out, and like 30 disposable cameras. If anyone is going to find a cryptid it’ll be him!

Coffee: he was the one to scare cash. Cash was bugging the old lady squad, and coffee didn’t want his brother to get mad at his friend. Plus it’s always fun to get one on the other prankster.

Pop: he takes to the trees. But unlike in movies, the tree branches move a lot each time pop jumps on one. With all the racket he’s making, no wonder he never gets to meet mothman.

Rhythm: it only takes one loud noise for rhythm to run all the way back home. He’s too easily spooked. You might want to pick someone else for this.

Pluto: he doesn’t believe in the supernatural at all, but pluto does believe in science! He brings a pocket guide on local rocks and plants and will turn the monster hunt into a lovely treasure hunt. He finds a pretty quarts right add to his collection

Jupiter: he’ll take to the sky as his buddies walk. If there’s anyone Jupiter is the most likely to go monster hunting with, it’s Star. Both of them have almost endless energy which can be a problem. They end up exploring too far and will be exhausted by the time they circle back.

Peaches: he’s very superstitious and definitely believes in ghosts and such. And ghosts terrify peaches. He’ll be hanging off of ranchers arm all evening. If anything pops out of the bushes, peaches will shout and start running.

Rancher: he’s ready. Rancher is equipped with a metal rod, his shotgun, his most aggressive pig, and some salt and garlic to make peaches feel better. Rancher is gonna find that thieving coyote if it’s the last thing he does.

G: he likes to tell people that he’s met ghosts during his late night drives. In reality, they were the drunk college kids who party in the woods, but ghosts make a cooler story. G is unphasable and will have a grand time telling scary stories during the hunt to rile up his teammates.

Green: he’ll absolutely refuse to go cryptid hinting in the woods. Not because of ghosts or Bigfoot. No, green isn’t scared of those at all. You see, it’s the spiders. If he walks into a spider web he’ll literally die. Green is a total arachnophobe

Snipe: occasionally Don will kick snipe out to go on a manhunt so he can get some fresh air. He usually takes butch with him on these because ace is a jerk who likes playing mind games. He’ll always convince snipe that there’s a ghost about. Anyways snipe doesn’t like ghosts

Bruiser: he’s super down to go cryptid hunting until he hears it’s in the forest. You see, bruise knows the city like the back of his hand, but the forest is uncharted territory. Bruiser will be super clumsy and steadily more and more frustrated as the night goes on. If he actually meets a cryptid, he’s real likely to fist fight it right now

Ace: he loves ghost stories and the supernatural. I’f ace was invited on a ghost hunt, he wouldn’t be able to keep himself from scaring everyone else with his creepy stories lol.

Slim: as the only papyrus who can shortcut, slim loves to use and abuse that privilege. And use it he does. The second he hears a suspicious noice, slim is grabbing his favorite group member and blipping away. This is a good way to tell if you’re the favorite friend. If it was between his brothers, he would save boss

Butch: he ain’t afraid of no ghost!! Ghosts are just floating souls right? Then all he has to do is grab them with blue magic and yeet them right back into the afterlife. Butch is disappointed in everyone who hasn’t thought of this yet.

Boss: oh hell naw. Boss absolutely is terrified cannot stand all this talk about things that don’t exist! He’ll be staying right here until you guys start to come crawling back.

.........

Maybe on second thought he better come with. You guys might get mugged or something. As a leader he has to protect his friends of course!

Rust: and chance some creepy pedo ghost trying to haunt his daycare. No thank you!

Noir: rust never pulls the big brother card, but if noir started messing with the supernatural, you bet he would. Besides noir is more then happy to play the “my legs hurt” card that get out of it. Monster hunting isn’t really his thing.

Lilac: he so very wants to keep up with Star and Jupiter, but there are some things lilac can’t do with his prosthetic leg. It would be too dangerous. Instead he mans the campsite, keeping watch for any suspicious activity and the cops.

Basil: the supernatural is one thing that basil has zero fear of or belief in. He’ll come, and just to be annoying he brings backups of everything. Flashlight keeps going out? He’s got two more and extra packs of batteries. Strange animal noises? Let’s see them make that after his dog whistle. Getting colder? Basil is ready for extra scarves for everyone

#undertale imagines #undertale headcanons #undertale #underswap #underfell #swapfell #horrortale #underlust #fellswap red #fellswap gold #dancetale #outertale #farmtale #gastertale #mafiatale #mafiafell #mafiaswap #horrorfell #horrorswap

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script-nef · 4 years

Text

#bokutoisblessed | Bokuto Koutarou

Category: crack, fluff

2.2k words; MSBY fans dying over Bokuto and his family

Bokuto uploaded another photo

It seems like just yesterday little Hana was swaddled in his arms and now look at her. Like. Holy [censored] look at the [censored] post.

Dudes like. She can walk now. Her steps are so wobbly but also so cute and my heart like????? Just exploded when we were gifted with the sight of her??? AND THE WAY SHE GIGGLED WHEN SHE ARRIVED AT HER MUM’S LAP A SAFJAKFDL I CAN’T BREATHE

Comments [Anon]: Honestly we the fans of Black Jackals are so blessed because we get to experience this joy and bundle of life thanks to our lord and saviour Bokuto Koutarou and his amazing wife, who will hereby be named Kami-sama. Because God is a woman I called it.

[Anon]: I agree with 97% of this, except for the Kami-sama part. She said it’s uncomfortable and embarrassing so we have to call her something else. How about Wife-sama. That should be fine, right?

[Anon]: Oh I saw that post Bokuto put up! Saying how much he’s thankful for the support but not to call her that! The upload was a short video of her turning red after he called her Kami-sama and it’s a treasure I will keep for the rest of my life. And into the afterlife. Death can try to pull it out of my cold, dead hand but I won’t let it. YOU HEAR ME DEATH???? YOU CAN’T TAKE THIS FROM MEEEEEE

[Anon]: Bokuto said Wife-sama is fine! Apparently she was still red and it was the cutest thing ever. Bokuto is so biased (*cough cough* whipped *cough cough*) but hey I’m not complaining. I don’t think my imagination will ever come close to the actual reaction but I hope it does.

[Anon]: Do you guys remember, when he just started dating her, how he flooded us with posts of her and her only? Like, practically 95% of my feed was her since he was putting so much of them up. She could literally be doing nothing and he’ll be like “HOLY [censored] LOOK AT MY GIRLFRIEND!!!” Without swearing because he doesn’t do that, but still.

[Anon]: OH AND THEN HE GOT INTO TROUBLE WITH HIS SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER ASKJDSKDJF THAT WAS GOLD

[Anon]: THEY LITERALLY PUT A VIDEO UP OF THEM TRYING TO TELL BOKUTO WHY HE SHOULDN’T DO THAT AND HE CONSTANTLY SAID “BUT I’M DATING HER AND THIS IS MY WAY OF SAYING I LOVE HER!!” LIKE BOI WE GET IT EVEN ALIENS WILL GET IT

[Anon]: And it started up again when she was pregnant with Hana. Like I could make a time-lapse video or whatever of her pregnancy just from the photos he put up

[Anon]: I honestly wonder how many photos he has of her and Hana

[Anon]: Probably a couple thousand. I mean like, I have a couple thousand of MBSY members but my love for them pales in front of Bokuto for Wife-sama, so.

→ Continue thread

Holy [censored] I just met Bokuto

Okay so there was news about a new resident coming into our apartment, more specifically my neighbouring unit. It was previously occupied by this really old couple and we had this small farewell party. They dropped hints that the new residents might be kind of loud but that they were great.

A few days later, my doorbell rings and who do I see? It’s [censored] Bokuto. Like, straight up. In his casual clothes. Exactly the same as the photo on his Insta page where he said he was moving. Which I liked practically a few hours ago.

He was standing there with the biggest smile and saying that he’s the new resident and that they’re giving out homemade cookies because of the baby and Bokuto’s volume. And invited me to a small dinner. And I’m. Like my brain. Literally. Like my brain is even blank now. Bokuto. Invited me. To his house. So I could have dinner. And see his wife. And little Hana.

So I am here now, raiding my wardrobe to see if I have anything wearable because HOLY [censored] [censored] [censored] I’M GOING TO HAVE DINNER WITH BOKUTO AND HIS FAMILY I’LL REPORT BACK LATER IF HE’S FINE WITH ME SHARING THIS EXPERIENCE OKAY I REALLY GOTTA GO BECAUSE MY HEART IS BEATING WAY TOO FAST AND I NEED TO HAVE SOME MEDICINE

[Edit]: This was riddled with spelling mistakes because my hands were shaking from the aftershock.

Comments [Anon]: ???? What did you do in your past life to be awarded the opportunity of being neighbours with Bokuto???? Did you like, save the country or something? Is that what it takes to be blessed with him?

[Anon]: No you gotta at least save the entire Earth for this damn dude thanks for your service I guess

[Anon]: But if you gotta save the world to be neighbours with Bokuto, then what the hell did Wife-sama do to be married to him?

[Anon]: She saved the universe

[Anon]: But I think Bokuto will be the one to say he saved the universe to be with her that cheesy dork ugh I love you

[Anon]: LMAO I CAN HEAR HIM SCREAMING THAT

[Anon]: Are you back yet? Are you alive? Are you blinded by the magnificence that is Bokuto Koutarou and his family? I know I would be. So in order to kill me as well, TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED YOU CAN’T KEEP US OUT LIKE THIS I AM KNEELING ON THE FLOOR AND BEGGING FOR THE INTERACTION PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I BEG OF THEE I WANT SOME MORE SIR

[OP]: That’s really weird so stop that. I’m just about to go out now! I’ll spend the dinner over there, experience heaven, hope I don’t die of heart failure and possibly come back with a war story. If they allow me. Wish me luck guys.

[Anon]: GO BRAVELY SOLDIER AND MAKE US PROUD I AM PRAYING THAT THEY’LL BE KIND ENOUGH TO LET YOU SHARE THIS WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE

I’M BACK

Okay so that could only be described as one of the best moments in my entire life. Don’t worry, they said it’s fine if I share this. #actualsaints

So I finally found an outfit and took the chocolate that I was saving for myself, but since I can give my arm and leg for Bokuto what the [censored] is a chocolate, right?

I’m greeted by Wife-sama herself. Like. Less than a metre from me, saying “good afternoon” and smiling like the saint of tranquillity. (A side note but how do you have that when you live with Bokuto? And a child? My brother wants to know your secrets.) And she’s wearing what I think is Bokuto’s shirt since it’s way too big for her, I mean the end comes to her thighs. Sharing shirts is the most romantic thing a couple can do I don’t make the rules I’m just the messenger.

Anyway she invites me into their house, their amazingly aesthetical and cozy house. There’s a display case for all of Bokuto’s trophies, awards, certificates and everything. There are photographs of them together all over the walls, hung from strings spanning the entire house. There was a wall section dedicated entirely to Hana-chan. I felt like an uncivilised cave gremlin there.

Wife-sama was still making dinner and I was going to help her but little Hana-chan came to me. Like, she tottered over to me in the blue frilly dresses and tugged on my pants, babbling and smiling. Y’all I nearly died. I literally saw the gates of heaven and had a foot in but Wife-sama saved me by pulling me back into reality. By asking me if I wanted to play with Hana-chan. Which killed me again. And she was apologetic about it too? Like she doesn’t think I would give my kidney to spend time with her?

So I was playing with Hana but sneakily looking at the two of them being cute as hell in the kitchen. Bokuto was attached to her at the hip for the whole time except for when she asked him to get some ingredients. He was a puppy incarnate. They were sneaking kisses, whispering to each other and it was honestly so cute like I was getting diabetes just from one night.

The food was amazing, the dinner talk was so fun and delightful, Hana-chan was the cutest little angel ever, this was probably the best day of my life. AND WHEN I LEFT FOR THE NIGHT, THEY BOTH HUGGED ME AND IT WAS LIKE BEING HUGGED BY CLOUDS BUT THEY SMELLED SO NICE!!

I shall never forget this day. Mark my words y’all.

Comments [Anon]: How beautiful was their place? I feel like she would go with a pastel tone or black and white. And have cute things littered around everywhere.

[OP]: The house was really unique in the sense that it felt like two houses smashed together. Like they took turns decorating each section of the house. Looked like polar opposites. It was kind of weird at first but the aesthetics flowed well the longer I stayed there, if you can understand what I’m saying.

[Anon]: The fact that Bokuto and Wife-sama are practically opposites in many things but still formed a romantic relationship with each other and the fact that their taste or preferences complement each other perfectly is proof that they are soulmates. In this essay I will

[Anon]: Where’s the essay. Dude where’s the [censored] essay

[Anon]: HEY MAN COME BACK WHERE’S MY ESSAY

[Anon]: NOOOOOOOOOOO THE SACRED TEXTS

[Anon]: Bruh just a kidney? Take my [censored] liver. Take my heart. Oh no wait, she already has it in her squishy widdle hands.

[Anon]: I bid my left arm

[Anon]: Right arm

[Anon]: Lungs

[Anon]: I really love my brain but I barely use it so off it goes I guess

[OP]: ???? Guys? What are you doing? Stop this illegal organ trade in my post.

[Anon]: Shhhhh we’re showing our love

I saw Bokuto shopping and it was so cute

I do not do clickbait, it was genuinely adorable and my cheeks are about to fall off. As was everyone else’s in the entire mall.

I was just doing some shopping, getting some snacks and popcorn for the movie marathon I was going to have and who do I hear? Yeah, it’s Bokuto. And little Hana-chan whining to Wife-sama about how she’s not getting the snacks they want. It’s from memory since I didn’t take a video, I’m not a creep and I understand boundaries unlike some of you assholes, but it went something like this.

Bokuto: But think of all the caramel popcorn we could eat! Hana: Mama, sweeties. Sweeties. (What an angel, am I right?) Wife-sama: I already said no, it’s going to ruin your dinner. Hana: But it’s tasty! Bokuto: Pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase? I’ll do all of the dishes and cleaning today! Wife-sama: You already do that every day, Kou. It’s not much of a bribe. (Husband goals) And Hana, we have other snacks at home. Caramel is bad for your teeth. Bokuto: But babe! Wife-sama: I said no, and that’s it. Hana: Mama!

It was just this repeated for like 10 minutes with Bokuto and Hana-chan alternating their whines. I would have snapped after 5 times but wow, this lady has the mental fortitude of Fort Knox.

They both sulked and followed her around as she finished her shopping. I can tell Hana is Bokuto’s daughter because her hair droops down like his and a cloud forms over her head. It was practically magic.

In the end, they bought one (1) salted caramel popcorn because Wife-sama is too soft-hearted and they literally clung onto her for 5 minutes peppering her with kisses. And Bokuto actually lifted her in his embrace. In the middle of the sweets section. Where everyone was looking.

Needless to say, she was very very red.

Comments [Anon]: Conspiracy theory: factoring in Bokuto’s godlike physical ability, inhumane and endless sunny disposition, his hair’s ability to reflect his moods, it can be concluded that Bokuto is, in fact, a God.

[Anon]: Well someone has a big brain

[Anon]: Wait then Wife-sama would be a Goddess. Gasp SHE DIDN’T WANT PEOPLE CALLING HER KAMI-SAMA BECAUSE IT WOULD BLOW HER COVER

[Anon]: Oh yeah, it’s all coming together

[Anon]: I can kind of see Bokuto and Hana sneaking in sweets and snacks into the trolley while Wife-sama isn’t looking lmao

[OP]: THEY ACTUALLY DID THAT I nearly ran into them again and heard her berating Bokuto for sneaking in chocolate and shoving it beneath all the meat so she wouldn’t notice. My man, please. You can never outsmart your wife.

[Anon]: Next time I go to the MSBY fan meeting, I’m bringing all the sweets I can for Bokuto and Hana. It’s the least I can do.

[Anon]: They’re so cute and I can’t wait for the MSBY match in three days where Bokuto’s family is going to attend. I promise I’ll post about it afterwards.

#bokuto x reader #bokuto imagine #bokuto koutarou x reader #bokuto koutarou imagine #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu imagine #haikyuu!! imagine #haikyuu one shot #haikyuu!! one shot #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#bokuto #bokuto koutarou #SNS format #crack #fluff #female reader

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sodone-withlife · 3 years

Text

i know who i am

summary: really, he never saw himself ever willingly letting anyone in on his broken past, but here he was, sitting in across from Waipo in the tiny cramped office at the back of the shop and nervously sweating about what he was about to tell her

read it on ao3: chapter 1 is the original version with Mandarin, chapter 2 has everything translated into English

the movie really hit me hard as an ABC, and I really wanted to write something for it. even though she barely had any screentime, I loved Waipo—she reminds me of so many of my relatives—so I decided to make her be one of the most important people in Shangqi’s life, and it turned into this wonderful mess (i had to stop writing this for a bit because I literally made myself cry). there is mandarin in this, it's kind of intended to be a physical manifestation of how my bilingual brain works (i did put the English-only version first, the original version with Mandarin is under that one but the formatting for it one is better on ao3, so i suggest reading it from there). apologies for my shitty mandarin; I have mediocre language skills, but I'm still so excited to be able to incorporate it in my writing. in regards to the character's names: I only know for certain the Chinese characters used for Shangqi and Wenwu, but for Xialing, I'm going to go with what it apparently was in the hong kong release (夏灵, with 灵灵 as the nickname)

English Translation:

“Waipo, do you have a bit of time?” Shangqi stood in front of Katy’s grandma, fidgeting nervously as fluent Mandarin rolled off of his tongue with an ease he's never felt in any other part of his life. “I want to talk to you about something."

She pinned him with a knowing stare. “Does it have anything to do with the trip you and Katy went on this past week?" she asked, Not waiting for his answer, she got up from the shop register and beckoned him into the back office. Feeling oddly like the first time he came into the store years ago as a teen—when he first met Katy’s family who had since taken him under their wing—he followed her into the familiar, cramped space.

He wasn’t exactly sure what within him prompted this interaction. He had come to San Francisco for a normal life, to get as far away from his father’s reaches as he could and to outrun the blood that stained his footsteps.

Never did Shangqi imagine that he would end up claiming the ancient rings that now sat in a heavy-duty (thanks to Xialing, with whom he now keeps in regular contact because of the promise they made to each other before he left the compound because he already left her behind once, and he’s never doing it again damn, my baby sister is running the Ten Rings now, and she’s trying to turn it into something better) and a very well-disguised (thanks to the sorcerers in the New York Sanctum and holy shit he’s in contact with famous superheroes now) back in his mess of a studio apartment.

Never did he imagine letting anyone in on his broken past, and even though his hand had been forced when it came to telling Katy, here he was going to the second person who truly saw something in him when he first started his new life and planning to tell them everything.

(Okay, fine, Shangqi wasn’t actually planning on letting anyone else in on it after telling Waipo, not even the rest of Katy’s family, but he really didn’t want them to be so involved yet—he still had no idea what he himself was doing and he wants to preserve what normalcy he can.)

(Also, he’s been reliably informed that anyone close to a public figure is bound to be targeted for attacks—which he figured out when the mercenaries attacked on the bus because yes, Lingling, he does have brain cells thank you very much.)

“Little Dragon, what’s on your mind?”

Little Dragon.

He started at the nickname, the one originally given to him by his mother. Somehow, it had completely slipped his mind that Waipo also called him that, starting a few weeks after he first met the Chen family. He barely kept it together, the long-unused nickname dredging up memories he had thought left him forever.

You have the heart of a dragon, she had declared firmly when he asked her why she decided on that particular nickname.

(That was exactly what his mother had told him right before she died, and yet he stood by, hidden behind a door, and did nothing while the men beat and killed her, the heart of the family.)

(He would carry the guilt with him for a lifetime.)

It was a while before he could bring himself to visit the family again—there were a lot of awkward excuses before Katy reluctantly backed off—and it took even longer for him to get somewhat used to the name again, but he eventually started seeing it as a gift with each faint impression of happier days that he got every time Waipo called him that.

Old, weathered hands gently covered his own, which were shaking and clammy with nervousness. Shangqi wondered how Waipo would react to the darker side of the lost boy she had basically adopted all those years ago, wondered if the legends of Ta-Lo and the Great Protector were known outside of the rather insular communities that continued to tell the stories, wondered if she had heard about his father through the stories that were passed down for thousands of years, from generation to generation…

(It can’t be wrong to miss him, can it? Even with the years of hell Wenwu had put him through, he was still his father. Shangqi still faintly remembered the man his father had been when his mother was still alive, the happy times they shared as a normal family…)

(But those times were long gone, ripped from their grasp by the past Wenwu wanted so badly to leave behind. Grief had shattered the whole family, and it ultimately led to the children fighting the father who had been driven to near madness in his denial, in his quest to put his broken family back together again.)

Mom, I miss you so much.

(And now Wenwu is dead, just like his beloved wife.)

(But just as she died to protect her children, he did the same. Now, his children are reunited and in contact again, getting ever closer despite living as far apart as they did, and he was reunited with his love in the afterlife.)

Finally, he straightened his posture and took a deep breath, looking directly at Waipo, who he’d come to view as the grandmother he never had.

“Waipo, have you heard of the legend of the Ten Rings?”

And Shangqi told her everything.

He told her everything and more,

She listened.

She listened as he described the legends behind the Ten Rings, Ta-Lo, and the Great Protector; his father’s history; his own history, from witnessing his mother’s death to ripping open the throat of the man who killed her when he was barely a teen, from leaving Lingling behind to seeing her again in the fight club she built from the ground up, from returning to the compound after a decade away in San Francisco to the battle in Ta-Lo…

Finally, he fell silent and stared at his hands but it wasn’t long before Waipo moved, slowly standing up with one hand on her cane. He made to help stabilize her but was quickly waved off with a stern look. He sank back into the chair and felt her move behind him. The shaky weight of her hands on his shoulders as she gently pressed down and straightened his posture was familiar, even after years of not having his posture deliberately—so gently—fixed like that every time he saw Waipo.

“You are the legacy of all who came before you, but you are your own person.” she finally said gently, and the tension in his shoulders slowly loosened under her familiar touch. “You decide your own fate.”

~~~

That night, Shangqi knelt before the altar he had in his apartment, the only part that was carefully maintained in all the years he had lived there. But now, two smiling faces stared back at him, a joy reflected in their eyes that he knew would disappear in less than ten years after the photo was taken.

Am I still your pride and joy? Lingling grew up, but I didn’t even take care of her like I should have.

I swear to you, I will never abandon her again

Even as his life got even more unbelievable as the years went by, the altar and his copy of his parent’s wedding photo would remain a constant. He and Lingling dove deeper into their family history—of the Ten Rings, of Ta-Lo, of both the good and bad—and both worked to carry on their parents’ legacy.

(With all of the proper discretion agreements and threats when needed, of course.)

Lingling is dating my best friend now, and they’re so happy together. Mom, I know you would have loved Katy. Dad, I know you didn’t like her much, but she really is a wonderful person.

Life went on.

There were the good days, when he went out with others and could almost feel normal, and there were the bad days, when phantoms pains plagued him and he woke up from a restless sleep expecting to see bruises mottling his body like they did so often when he was younger.

(Also, he was considered a superhero now and holy shit that’s still insane, even years after he first got in contact with the Avengers and the sorcerers in New York. Now he was going all over the West Coast, to help the locals take care of whichever crazy supervillain decided to wreak havoc that day.)

Dad, I hope you find this story as funny as I did: I helped a group of American superheroes yesterday. They’ve never been to San Francisco before and were extremely unfamiliar with the roads, especially Lombard Street. They spent half an hour trying to drive down the street, but I ended up driving them down myself.

(San Francisco was still home, and he had found a life there with all his friends and Xialing whenever she visited. He had a job now, too, at the local youth center teaching martial arts and self-defense, teaching and guiding the youth in a way he wishes his father had with him.)

People came into his life; some stayed, some left, and some even got together.

Mom, Dad, Lingling and Katy are getting married today and everyone is so excited for them. I’m taking over the Ten Ring within a month so Lingling can take a break. She’s led the organization for so long, it’s my responsibility now. I hope I can live up to her standards, she’s done really well. She’ll be back in a few years, but even after, I’m going to be much more involved to lessen Lingling’s workload.

Shangqi walked the path knowing who came before him and who was still with him.

Most importantly, he walked the path knowing who he was—demons, flaws, strengths, and all.

Mom, Dad, don’t worry. I’ll take care of them.

I hope you’re happy together in the afterlife.

~~~

Don’t be afraid, Shang-Chi, for you have heart of a dragon and the power of the Ten Rings.

We will always be with you and Xialing.

Original Version w/Mandarin

“外婆，您有没有一点儿时间？” 尚气 stood in front of Katy’s grandma, fidgeting nervously. “我想告诉您一些事情。”

She pinned him with a knowing stare. “是不是跟你和瑞雯这前个星期去的旅行有关？” Not waiting for his answer, she got up from the shop register and beckoned him into the back office. Feeling oddly like the first time he came into the store years ago as a teen—when he first met Katy’s family who had since taken him under their wing—he followed her into the familiar, cramped space.

Never did 尚气 imagine that he would end up claiming the ancient rings that now sat in a heavy-duty (thanks to 夏灵, with whom he now keeps in regular contact because of the promise they made to each other before he left the compound because he already left her behind once, and he’s never doing it again and damn, my baby sister is running the Ten Rings now, and she’s trying to turn it into something better) and a very well-disguised (thanks to the sorcerers in the New York Sanctum and holy shit he’s in contact with famous superheroes now) back in his mess of a studio apartment.

(Okay, fine, 尚气 wasn’t actually planning on letting anyone else in on it after telling 外婆, not even the rest of Katy’s family, but he really didn’t want them to be so involved yet—he still had no idea what he himself was doing and he wants to preserve what normalcy he can.)

(Also, he’s been reliably informed that anyone close to a public figure is bound to be targeted for attacks—which he figured out when the mercenaries attacked on the bus because yes, 灵灵, he does have brain cells thank you very much.)

“小龙，你有什么心事儿？”

Little Dragon.

He started at the nickname, the one originally given to him by his mother. Somehow, it had completely slipped his mind that 外婆 also called him that, starting a few weeks after he first met the Chen family. He barely kept it together, the long-unused nickname dredging up memories he had thought left him forever.

你有神龙之心，she had declared firmly when he asked her why she decided on that particular nickname. You have the heart of a dragon.

(That was exactly what his mother had told him right before she died, and yet he stood by, hidden behind a door, and did nothing while the men beat and killed her, the heart of the family.)

(He would carry the guilt with him for a lifetime.)

Old, weathered hands gently covered his own, which were shaking and clammy with nervousness. 尚气 wondered how 外婆 would react to the darker side of the lost boy she had basically adopted all those years ago, wondered if the legends of Ta-Lo and the Great Protector were known outside of the rather insular communities that continued to tell the stories, wondered if she had heard about his father through the stories that were passed down for thousands of years, from generation to generation…

(It can’t be wrong to miss him, can it? Even with the years of hell 文武 had put him through, he was still his father. 尚气 still faintly remembered the man his father had been when his mother was still alive, the happy times they shared as a normal family…)

(But those times were long gone, ripped from their grasp by the past 文武 wanted so badly to leave behind. Grief had shattered whole family, and it ultimately led to the children fighting the father who had been driven to near madness in his denial, in his quest to put his broken family back together again.)

妈妈，我太想你了。

(And now 文武 is dead, just like his beloved wife.)

Finally, he straightened his posture and took a deep breath, looking directly at 外婆, who he’d come to view as the grandmother he never had.

“外婆，您听说过 ‘十环’ 的传说吗？”

And 尚气 told her everything.

He told her everything and more,

She listened.

She listened as he described the legends behind the Ten Rings, Ta-Lo, and the Great Protector; his father’s history; his own history, from witnessing his mother’s death to ripping open the throat of the man who killed her when he was barely a teen, from leaving 灵灵 behind to seeing her again in the fight club she built from the ground up, from returning to the compound after a decade away in San Francisco to the battle in Ta-Lo…

Finally, he fell silent and stared at his hands but it wasn’t long before 外婆 moved, slowly standing up with one hand on her cane. He made to help stabilize her but was quickly waved off with a stern look. He sank back into the chair and felt her move behind him. The shaky weight of her hands on his shoulders as she gently pressed down and straightened his posture was familiar, even after years of not having his posture deliberately—so gently—fixed like that every time he saw 外婆.

“你是所有在你之前的人的遗产，但你是你自己的人，” she finally said，“你决定你自己的命运。”

You are the legacy of all who came before you, but you are your own person. You decide your own fate.

~~~

That night, 尚气 knelt before the altar he had in his apartment, the only part that was carefully maintained in all the years he had lived there. But now, two smiling faces stared back at him, a joy reflected in their eyes that he knew would disappear in less than ten years after the photo was taken.

我还是你的骄傲吗？灵灵长大了，但我也没好好照顾她。

我向你发誓，我再也不会抛弃她。

Even as his life got even more unbelievable as the years went by, the altar and his copy of his parent’s wedding photo would remain a constant. He and 灵灵 dove deeper into their family history—of the Ten Rings, of Ta-Lo, of both the good and bad—and both worked to carry on their family’s legacy.

(With all of the proper discretion agreements and threats when needed, of course.)

灵灵跟我朋友最近开始谈恋爱，他们俩可开心了。妈，如果你还在我们身边，我保证你会喜欢她。爸，我知道你一开始不太喜欢她，但她确实是一位精彩的人。

Life went on.

爸爸，我希望你跟我一样觉得这个故事很好笑：我昨天帮了一组美国超级英雄开车。那是他们第一次来旧京山，对道路非常陌生—尤其是 Lombard Street。他们开也开不好，花了半个小时慢慢的开下去。最终，我把他们的车开下去的。

(San Francisco was still home, and he had found a life there with all his friends and 夏灵 whenever she visited. He had a job now, too, at the local youth center teaching martial arts and self-defense, teaching and guiding the youth in a way he wishes his father had with him.)

People came into his life; some stayed, some left, and some even got together.

妈，爸，灵灵她今天会跟我最好的朋友结婚，我们都很兴奋。我一个月之内开始接管十环的业务，让灵灵休息休息。她干了多少年了，现在是我的责任。我希望我能辜负她，她管的非常棒，帮了许多人。她几年后会回来继续当领导，但我好像在领导方面发挥更大的作用。

He walked the path knowing who came before him and who was still with him.

Most importantly, he walked the path knowing who he was—demons, flaws, strengths, and all.

妈，爸，你们放心吧，我会照顾他们。

我希望你们俩来世都幸福。

~~~

尚气，你别怕，你有神龙之心，十环的力量。

我们��远会在你和灵灵的身边。

#i’m so sorry if the mandarin is shitty #the format is better on ao3 #but i’m so excited to be able to at least try it #shang chi spoilers #shang chi and the legend of the ten rings spoilers #shang chi fanfiction #shang chi #shang chi and the legend of the ten rings #marvel fanfiction #mcu #shang chi imagines

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