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rmnamjoons · 5 years

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Castaways [KNJ Oneshot]

➳ summary: You’ve always hated the ocean. Open water terrifies you, and you stay as far away from it as possible for self-preservation and peace of mind. Despite this, your friend somehow convinces you to go on a luxury cruise with her, her boyfriend Hoseok, and Hoseok’s nerdy friend Namjoon, who’s almost cute enough to distract you from your debilitating fears. When a sudden storm hits, however, you and Namjoon are swept overboard and find yourselves castaway on a desert island somewhere in the vast South Pacific.

➳ pairing: Namjoon x reader

➳ genre: smut with plot, slow burn, fluff, a pinch of angst, and a happy ending

➳ word count: 25.5k (this is a completed oneshot)

➳ tags: so much teasing, non-completed foot job in public, sensual massages, cuddling for warmth, nursing ur loved one back to health, relying on each other, face-riding, oral (f receiving), multiple orgasms, overstimulation, breathplay, cumplay, biting, rough sex, sweet gentle loving sex, fucking in water, sex outside, a small hint of a daddy kink, so much dirty talk, like 6k of this is just dirty talk

[read on ao3]

➳ a/n: Though I do try to make this somewhat realistic, this isn’t at all meant to be some dark, gritty tale of survival. They’re super lucky in their circumstances and everything is fine. This is basically just two people fuckin' a bunch on an island. Bon appétit.

➳ warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of almost drowning, having a panic attack in a terrifying situation (y/n is afraid of open water and they’re swept overboard during a storm without even life jackets), and dehydration symptoms including vomiting. They find an island with freshwater and everything is fine and peachy pretty quickly if you can make it through the rough stuff. I had to make it at least like 15% realistic, guys.

You fucking hated the ocean.

Like, ponds were okay. Streams? Great. Swimming pools, ideal. Rivers and lakes were fine, you guessed. It was the ocean that you hated and were downright terrified of on a pathological level. You had no idea what was down there, you didn’t know how deep it went. Reading about it made you want to throw up. Being out in open water you knew was deeper than five feet made you panicked and anxious and sweaty. You just couldn’t do it.

You had agreed to go on a cruise with your best friend Mina because she loved the ocean, for some fucking reason. When you’d gone on your senior trip back in high school together, you’d compromised: high school senior trip you’d go to New York for you, and college senior trip you’d go on a cruise for Mina. A selfish, immature part of you had figured you probably wouldn’t even be friends that far in the future, because that’s what happened when people went to college. People naturally drifted apart as they grew. You’d also figured that Mina would forget or find a new thing to fixate on. Maybe in four years she’d really love London or Bali or the desert and not the fucking ocean.

Instead, you’d remained close friends that whole time, and Mina still loved the sea. She’d majored in marine biology and spent most of her time down by the bay, where she met her lifeguard boyfriend Hoseok, a ray of sunshine, just like Mina. You had no way of knowing for sure, but for some reason you were willing to bet money the two of them had done some kind of mermaid sex fantasy roleplay before, as cheesy as they were and as much as the two of them loved the ocean.

You and Mina both finished your undergrads and then boom, just like that, you found yourself on your way to Sydney, Australia for the “South Pacific Grand Adventure,” just like you’d promised Mina four years ago. You distinctly remembered never ever promising to a fucking three week cruise, but, as always, you couldn’t say no to Mina.

Hoseok and his friend, a man you didn’t know, had been invited to come along as well. Once you knew she wouldn’t be by herself, you’d debated faking a serious injury or illness, but Mina was onto your tricks and dragged you along, insisting you’d have a good time once you were there and that you’d probably forget you were even on a ship.

Hoseok’s friend, a tall man with thick glasses and a backpack full of paperback novels, seemed to be as equally thrilled to be here as you were. Mina had introduced him as “Joon,” and he’d quickly corrected her, pushing his glasses up his nose and saying that his name was Namjoon, thank you very much. You noticed the way he grimaced when Hoseok and Mina openly made out on the too-long plane ride and how he rolled his eyes when they called each other over-the-top cutesy pet names. Namjoon seemed much more willing to show his distaste for the happy couple’s antics than you were, and you were now debating taking a page from his book.

You and Namjoon ended up stuck together pretty quickly, and you both seemed to realize that at the same moment, sitting beside each other in silence on the shuttle bus heading over to the port, while Mina and Hoseok sat together a few rows away, baby-talking to each other and cuddling and giggling. They were the only people on the bus making any noise this early in the morning, and they seemed not to notice that fact.

It was going to be a long cruise.

You’d had to wake up entirely too damn early to get on this bus, you were jet-lagged to shit, and the moment you saw the harbor and the cruise ship there waiting for you, you just knew you were going to very deeply regret this. The only solace you had was that Namjoon was stuck here with you. Maybe you could at least come out of this with a new sarcastic friend.

The four of you got off the shuttle and went up the ramp onto the massive cruise ship, and checked in at one of the front desks. You attempted to pretend this was just a normal hotel and was not going to take you out into the middle of nowhere in the awful ocean.

Mina did all the talking during the check-in process, Hoseok right by her side with his arm around her. You and Namjoon hung back with all the luggage, and you kept catching yourself staring at him and having to force yourself to look away.

Namjoon was tall, his messy dark hair sticking out from under a backwards baseball cap, his black thick-rimmed glasses slightly crooked on his deceptively cute button nose. He crossed his arms, his muscles there making you bite your lip, and you figured he was a man of contradictions. He was nerdy and kind of awkward, but was absolutely jacked, his chest nearly bulging out of his shirt. He had a cute, seemingly innocent face, but his resting expression seemed to be rolling his eyes at Mina and Hoseok’s expense. You decided you liked him.

After getting the keys to the rooms, the four of you went down and dropped your luggage off and then went to grab some lunch in one of the ship’s restaurants, and on the way there you only thought about jumping off the ship into the harbor and swimming back to Sydney once.

Hoseok and Mina sat beside each other and kept giggling and touching their foreheads together and cuddling, even giving each other a few quick kisses as they grinned at each other. Across the table, you and Namjoon sat there, just watching the two of them. Mina and Hoseok were lost in their own little world, while the two of you sat in an awkward silence, too embarrassed to say anything to your friends or each other. You mostly stared at your phone or the table in front of you, while Namjoon seemed very fascinated by a painting on the wall across the room. The waitress showed up and you ordered a mixed drink, figuring the only way you were going to make it through this trip was if you were highly intoxicated for most of it.

As you sat there during the course of the meal, you watched Namjoon’s reactions to different things Mina and Hoseok did as he leaned back into the corner of the booth, sprawling out, one arm across the back of the booth behind you. The two of them nuzzled their noses together, and Namjoon rolled his eyes. Mina leaned her head on Hoseok’s shoulder and snuggled in, and Namjoon tilted his head back, his tongue sticking out to the side and eyes rolled back in his head as he silently pretended to keel over and die. Everything the two of them did with each other, Namjoon reacted to it in some quiet passive aggressive way, mostly to amuse himself, but definitely amusing you.

Halfway through the meal, he realized you were watching him and silently giggling. When Mina and Hoseok started baby-talking and feeding each other, Namjoon looked at you with wide eyes and bit his lip, his body almost shaking as he tried so hard not to laugh at them. You put your hand up and hid your face, turning toward Namjoon so he could see you trying to hold in your laughter, too.

So far, Namjoon was more than making this trip bearable. He was turning out to be the best part.

***

Two days at sea passed. The ship was headed to New Caledonia and was set to get there the following morning, where you would have almost a full day to explore the port town of Noumea. After that, you’d be heading deeper into the South Pacific toward Fiji, another two days out on the open sea. On the map, it all looked so close together, but you saw at one point that it was over twelve hundred miles just from Sydney to Noumea. You tried not to think about it.

The next morning, you’d be on land again in Noumea, at least for a few hours. You just had to last until then, and then you’d have a brief break from the ocean. You tried to stop yourself from wondering if New Caledonia had an airport that could get you back to Sydney, where you could just hang out until Mina finished her cruise.

That being said, you actually weren’t having too awful a time, you had to admit. The ship was nice and had a lot of fun stuff to do, and Mina wasn’t spending every second of her time with Hoseok.

You did spend most of your time with Namjoon, though. You knew you were definitely attracted to him, and you’d caught him looking at you enough times to wonder if he was attracted too. He was so funny, and you’d grown to find his nerdiness endearing, and good lord did that man have muscles. You wondered more than once where on earth a little bookworm like him got a chest and arms like that. Every time he awkwardly pushed his glasses up his nose, his muscles in his arms bulged under his shirt. When he lounged on the ship’s deck reading yet another one of his novels, which he seemed to go through one of a day, you just stared at his thick thighs, imagining yourself riding them.

You learned a few things about Namjoon very quickly, the first being that he was very awkward and shy around new people. With everyone, from you at first to waiters to the random women who tried to flirt with him at the pool bar, he couldn’t look them in the eye and stumbled over his words, not knowing what to say when someone attempted to have a simple conversation with him. The man was terrible at small talk, though you could tell he was really trying his best. You’d tried so hard not to laugh at him on the first night at dinner when the captain came around to all the tables and introduced himself, and Namjoon had stuck out his hand for a handshake and the captain didn’t see him at all, and Namjoon had just sat there with his hand out for a few seconds until he dropped his hand to his lap, looking like a sad little kicked puppy.

The second thing you learned about Namjoon was that once he was comfortable around someone, he was a sarcastic, flirty tease, and this seemed doubly true for his interactions with you. At lunch on the second day, he’d taken a sip of your drink without asking, and when you’d turned and caught him, he’d just smiled at you smugly and winked, your straw still in his mouth. He’d then offered you a bite of what he’d ordered, holding up a piece of food on his fork, and when you’d opened your mouth and leaned in, he’d smeared it all over your cheek, apologizing profusely and insisting it had been a complete accident while smirking to himself the entire time. Underneath his shy awkward nerd exterior, he was all teasing and winks and sarcasm.

You dished it right back to him when you could. You’d stolen his book when he’d gotten up to get a drink at the pool, just for him to come back and see you reading it and refusing to give it back to him. You’d rubbed a bite of your dessert on his nose after offering him some at dinner. His eyes always lit up when you teased him right back, and with Mina all but ignoring you, Namjoon was proving to not only be your perfect distraction from the ocean, but a wonderful way of entertaining yourself on the ship.

It was now the third day, and you and Namjoon went to the pool together while Mina and Hoseok did some expensive couple’s massage all afternoon. As you walked out onto the pool deck together, you caught yourself staring at him yet again. Namjoon was shirtless, his swim trunks obscenely low on his hips, his chest so large, his big arms defined so beautifully. You were nearly drooling by the time the two of you found two lounge chairs together in a nice spot.

You had an idea for how to get some more attention from him, and you decided now was the perfect time to begin your plan.

“Joon? Will you do me a big favor, pretty please?” you asked, overly fake-sweet, as the two of you sat down and settled in. He’d unsurprisingly brought a book and was already laying down and opening it, but he tilted his head to look at you.

“What do you want?” he said, matching your sarcastically sweet tone.

“Will you put some sunscreen on me?”

“What, like on your back?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at you.

“All over me,” you said. “I don’t want to get sunscreen on my hands.”

“Neither do I,” he protested, pouting. “I’m the one reading a book, with paper. Do it yourself.”

“Ugh,” you huffed as you sat up. You reached into your bag and pulled out your sunscreen. “Please?” You made your voice higher and more feminine, almost a moan as you pouted and begged, holding out the sunscreen and batting your eyelashes at him when he looked over at you.

“Why can’t you do it?” he said flatly, pushing his glasses up his nose.

“I told you,” you said, “I don’t want to get sunscreen on my hands. I hate that feeling.” That was partially true. You were much more focused on the prospect of Namjoon’s big strong hands rubbing sunscreen all over your almost naked body, covered only by the skimpiest little bikini you’d brought on the trip.

“Fine,” he said, grumbling as he set his book down on the little table between you. “Where do you want it?”

“On my skin,” you said, smiling up at him innocently as you leaned back, reclining lazily in the lounge chair, your body on full display as you put your sunglasses on.

“But of course, your highness,” he said, sarcastically over-serious as he opened the bottle and squeezed a bunch of the sunscreen out onto his hand. “How could I not have known that?”

Whatever you were going to say was cut off by him suddenly smacking his hand down on your stomach, the cold sunscreen splattering out equally as surprising as his sudden movement. You gasped, squeaking in surprise, and Namjoon smiled to himself as he started moving his hand.

"Oh, I’m so sorry. Did I surprise you?” he deadpanned, spreading the sunscreen out across your skin.

“Not at all, Joonie,” you replied, relaxing under his touch. As sarcastic as he’d been, he was actually being normal about it now, sitting beside you on your chair as you laid back and let him touch you. He was also letting you get away with calling him “Joon” or “Joonie” lately, not correcting you or even reacting most of the time.

Namjoon was gentle yet firm, the cold sunscreen contrasting the warmth of his large hands so wonderfully it made goosebumps spread across your skin. You took in a deep breath and held it as you felt the tips of his long fingers slowly skim along the bottom of your bikini top, just barely going under the fabric and teasing the underside of your breasts as he rubbed the sunscreen in across your ribs. You sighed as he moved down your stomach to oh-so-gently massage your hipbones and navel, running his tips of his thumbs under the waistline of your bottoms just enough to make you raise an eyebrow at him.

He noticed your questioning look and smirked, moving back up to more neutral ground on your sides and massaging there instead.

“That feels good, Joon,” you murmured, relaxing again under his touch, and you noticed the way Namjoon slowly looked up at your face at your words, his lips parting as his eyes drug up and back down your body, drinking in the sight before him.

After getting more sunscreen on his hands, Namjoon started on your legs, touching you slowly and firmly, spreading his fingers out as he moved across your inner thighs. Your eyes nearly rolled back in your head, and you were thankful you were wearing sunglasses so he couldn’t see that. You wondered for a split second how much trouble the two of you would get if he fingered you right here on the pool deck in front of all these people.

Namjoon moved up to the top of your chest, spreading the lotion out there, and then up to your neck, where he stopped for a moment, his palm over your throat. You held your breath as his hand just rested there, and you knew he had to be able to feel how fast your heart was racing. He squeezed so gently, barely at all, and your breath caught in your throat, not from the tightness of his squeeze but from the intimacy and dirtiness of this moment. There were so many people around. All he’d have to do was squeeze a little harder. You were dripping wet for him, biting your lip and struggling to keep your eyes open. And then Namjoon moved his hand like he was rubbing in the sunscreen there completely innocently, stroking up and down your throat and then across your shoulders, returning to normal.

Namjoon moved back down to your legs. He put it on your inner thighs for the second time, and you noticed that but said nothing. You spread your legs just slightly, giving him easier access, and you could almost hear the small moan that escaped his lips when he touched the stitching of your bikini between your thighs.

He growled at you to roll over, a noise that went straight to your already throbbing core, and when you complied, he spread the cold sunscreen there, even pausing to carefully untie your bikini straps so he could cover your back fully. His massage was rough and thorough, rocking your body slightly with each of his movements. You almost moaned out loud, feeling his fingers digging into your flesh as he kneaded and spread out more sunscreen.

Namjoon used both hands on the backs of your thighs, dipping just his fingertips into the back of your swimsuit bottoms as he stood over you, stopping just before he was fully grabbing your ass with both hands under the fabric.

When he finished, Namjoon wiped his hands on his knees and then carefully tied your bikini back together. Before he even sat down, you jumped up and grabbed the bottle of sunscreen from his hands.

“Your turn,” you said, throwing your sunglasses down onto your chair. Namjoon’s eyes were dark, glinting with desire, and he immediately leaned back in his chair, ready for whatever you were going to do to him.

You straddled him, pouring sunscreen directly onto his tanned chest, making him hiss from the surprise of the cold liquid. He held you by the backs of your thighs as you rubbed it in with both hands slowly on his hot skin, feeling his muscles forcefully, spreading out your fingers. Namjoon didn’t take his eyes off of you the whole time, his jaw set as he watched you so intently. You felt his firm chest, his strong shoulders, his tight muscles, his large body seeming even bigger under your small hands. The whole time you worked, his chest steadily rose and fell, his breathing thick as he watched you with hooded eyes, his pupils blown.

You made him roll over. As you rubbed his back, you sat gently on his ass, still straddling him. You reveled in the feeling of massaging the cool liquid all over his warm skin, and you swore you felt him almost groan at one point when you really dug your palms into his lower back.

When you finished, you got up, smiling down proudly at him.

“There,” you said. “Now neither of us will get sunburnt.”

“That’s good. Skin care is important,” he said, rolling over slowly onto his back once again. You hadn’t touched him there, but somehow his hair looked ruffled and slightly messier than normal, his eyes almost satisfied, as if the two of you had just finished something much less innocent.

You could feel him staring at you intensely as you bent over, putting your sunscreen back in you bag. You bent at the waist and faced away from him, giving him the perfect view of what he wanted.

“I’m going to get a drink,” you said when you stood back up. You looked over your shoulder at him. “Do you wanna come?”

He blinked a few times, staring at you like you weren’t speaking a language he knew.

“Yeah. Yes,” he said when it finally processed. He stood up and followed close behind as you took his hand and led the way over to the bar.

While the two of you ordered, he stood close behind you, moving with you when you stepped off to the side to wait for your drinks. When you accidentally took too quick of a step back, partially bumping into him, you felt him through his swim trunks and realized that he was attempting to hide the fact he had a semi.

You definitely weren’t thinking about the ocean right now.

***

When you got dressed for dinner that evening, you picked out your skimpiest little dress, ready to taunt and torture Namjoon. You knew that packing your stockings, garters, and suspenders was a good idea, and you hoped Namjoon would potentially get to see them tonight if all went well. When packing, you’d anticipated a potential one-night stand with a crewman or fellow passenger, but this situation with Namjoon was far better than anything you’d imagined. You were sharing a room with Mina, but maybe you and Namjoon could sneak off together to some deserted part of the ship and he could fuck you against a wall, or something else equally sexy, passionate, and depraved.

Mina and Hoseok were meeting you at dinner and had already left, and Namjoon had texted you earlier, asking if you wanted to head down together. He came to your room to pick you up, and, when you opened the door, you grinned when Namjoon’s gaze immediately fell to your chest, his eyes wide. He quickly looked back up at your face, blinking in surprise as if shocked he’d let himself do that so openly. His cheeks were bright red, his lips parted as he tried to say something but couldn’t. He was so thoroughly flustered, and you stepped out of your room, brushing past him and knowing he’d follow.

You walked ahead of him down the hallway, accentuating your hips as you walked. You could practically feel that filthy boy’s eyes glued to your ass. This was going even better than you’d anticipated. Maybe he’d snap and fuck you against a wall before you even got to dinner.

You eventually found Mina and Hoseok, and the four of you sat together in a small booth near the center of the busy dining room. Waiters buzzed around like honeybees, and every last passenger on the ship seemed to all be here in this grand room. It was lively and exciting, a live band playing on the second floor and the kitchen staff loudly preparing course after course in the next room. If you were to look up, you would’ve noticed the chandelier swaying oh-so-slightly from the waves outside, nearly undetectable here in the belly of the ship.

You sat across the table from Namjoon. Part of the way through the meal, you decided to play with him some more and slipped off one of your heels. You continued eating normally, not letting your face or upper body show any signs of what you were doing.

You moved your foot up the inner side of one of his legs, feeling him jump only slightly when he first felt you. Your foot traveled farther and farther up until you were at his crotch, slowly moving the heel of your foot so that you pressed against him, teasing in a slow, circular rhythm.

You didn’t look up at Namjoon, but you felt him grab you by your ankle and squeeze. You cracked a small smile and tried to keep moving your foot despite his grip, and you could already feel him growing hard. He didn’t move or push your foot away. He held you right there in place, biting his lip as he moved forward in his seat, pressing his chest against the table as if he were simply sitting up eagerly.

“What did you two do this afternoon?” Mina asked politely, smiling at the two of you.

“Just hung out, mostly,” you said. You glanced up at Namjoon and saw his cheeks flushed red, nostrils flared, and you kept slowly moving your foot against him as he held your ankle. “Joon did some reading and I tanned.”

“It’s Namjoon,” he said, his voice deeper than normal, and when you looked up at him he was glaring, leering at you, eyes dark under those thick glasses you’d grown to adore. Mina and Hoseok seemed not to notice Namjoon’s suffering.

You smiled at Namjoon politely. You took a slow sip of your drink before speaking, maintaining eye contact with him the whole time.

“How could I forget? Namjoon,” you said, tasting his name on your tongue as if for the first time. You stroked him through his pants with your foot faster now, and you could almost see how fast his heart was racing in the veins in his neck and forehead. He was squeezing your ankle so tight you felt like you were losing circulation there, but you kept going.

Namjoon suddenly stood up, dropping your foot and turning away from the table and walking away as fast as he could, not looking back. Mina and Hoseok both looked confused, turning and watching him as he left, asking where he was going.

You slipped your shoe back on and excused yourself, saying you’d check on him, and quickly followed him outside.

Namjoon wasn’t hard to find. He stood out in the hallway, facing away from you when you walked out, arms crossed. You were in your own private little part of the ship, right near a balcony and where nobody could see or walk in on the two of you talking.

Before you could say anything, Namjoon turned around and looked at you.

“How would you like it if I just touched you like that while we’re in public, around all those people?” he said, glaring at you.

“Do you not like it?” you asked seriously, watching the way he set his jaw and looked away. Behind him, you could see out a large window that the sky was darker than it should be at this time. You could feel the sway of the ship way more than usual, but Namjoon’s distress pulled you back and made you focus on him.

Namjoon sighed before speaking. “You’re playing games with me,” he said, his voice deep and gravely. He shook his head like he was disappointed, but you saw how he looked back at you, his eyes falling to your legs and how short your skimpy little dress was.

“Do you not like games?” you asked, tilting your head and smiling now. He stared at you for a moment, his eyes now lingering on your mouth.

“I don’t think I like being played with,” he said, not taking his eyes off your parted lips. He watched you lick your lips slowly, and you swore you almost heard him growling.

“Well that’s a pity,” you cooed. “Because I love playing with you.”

Namjoon sighed, turning away from you and running a hand through his hair. “Fuck,” he mumbled, mostly to himself, and he walked out of the hallway away from you and out onto the deck.

You followed as he went out onto the balcony to get some air, both of you still under the large overhang. You froze in the open doorway, though, eyes wide and horrified as you looked out at the ocean, finally seeing the full scale of the situation.

Rain poured down as the dark waves churned and threw themselves against the ship, the angry water covered in white caps and sea foam. The sky was black, the roar of the wind and rain near deafening. The humidity out here was suffocating, even as you still stood in the doorway. You’d barely noticed it before, but now that you were paying attention and away from the center of the large ship, the vessel was rocking with the waves, your stomach lurching with it. You grabbed onto the doorframe, holding on for dear life.

“When did it start storming?” you said distantly, eyes wide as you stared out at the large, dark swells in the water.

“I don’t know. While we were eating,” Namjoon said. “Jeesh, it’s really coming down. It must’ve started up in just the last ten minutes or so. It was so nice this afternoon.” He continued talking about something, but you didn’t listen. Instead, you braced yourself there on the doorframe, eyes wide as you stared out at the water, feeling only the ship rocking side to side. The rocking wasn’t even that bad and you were both more than ten feet from the railing, but even being exposed to the outside air just this much was overwhelming.

You needed to get out of here. So many people had told you that you could barely feel the intense waves of a storm when you were in the middle of a ship, so you just needed to turn around and go back to your room. You heard an announcement on the ship’s broadcast system vaguely in the distance, but couldn’t hear what they were saying over the wind, rain, and the pounding in your ears. Beside you, Namjoon seemed to finally notice how you were reacting.

“Hey, are you okay?” he said, resting a hand on your shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” you said, voice cracking, not looking up at him. You were pretty sure you were going to throw up. After a few seconds of Namjoon not saying anything, you spoke again, now trying not to hyperventilate. “Okay, I’m really really afraid of the ocean, and right now is like my worst nightmare, and I think I might pass out.”

“You’re afraid of the ocean?” he said in disbelief. “What the hell are you doing on a three week cruise?” When you didn’t respond, Namjoon moved so that both hands rested on your shoulders gently, grounding you. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked, his voice much softer as he tilted his head to look at you better.

You didn’t answer. The ship swayed and rocked with the harsh waves, and you tried to get used to it, swaying with it. Instead you just felt sicker. You knew it was near impossible, but you felt like the ship was going to flip over or break in half, and it kept getting worse by the second, the rain only coming down harder and harder. Lightning cracked and thunder immediately followed, making the whole ship rumble.

You needed to get out of here. You needed to go lay down in comfy pajamas and listen to music and not concentrate on the ship rocking and the sound of rain and thunder and huge waves. You needed to forget you were on a ship.

You stepped away from the doorframe, and Namjoon stepped back from you, giving you space.

The ship suddenly jerked side to side exactly three times as huge rogue waves hit it on each side, tossing it around like it was nothing, the ship tilting back and forth and making dishes inside fall off of tables and shatter.

The first wave threw both of you forward against the railing, nearly ten feet away from where you had been standing, the ship listing so dramatically so suddenly that you weren’t sure if you’d been thrown or just fallen. You fell into Namjoon and Namjoon fell against the railing, and he cried out as his back hit it sharply and you slammed into him.

The second wave threw both of you in the opposite direction, away from the railing and back towards the middle of the ship, the large wave coming up over the railing and soaking both of you. You coughed and gasped as Namjoon tried to both grab onto you and grab at the wall you’d been thrown against, both of you nearly tripped over each other on the now slick floor. You’d hit the wall beside the door you’d walked out of, and Namjoon had crashed right into you, unable to stop himself, both of you being tossed around like children’s toys.

The third wave threw you both back against the railing again as the ship tilted dramatically, and both of you, while still holding onto each other, fell overboard.

You felt like you were falling forever. When you hit the water, it felt like slamming into concrete, and a huge wave immediately sucked you under, into the darkness.

You couldn’t feel Namjoon anywhere. You were thrown against the side of the ship, pressed there, still underwater, the back of your head hitting the ship so hard you saw white. The force of what held you there felt like enough to grind you into nothing, and then, just as quickly, you were sucked back out away from the ship.

You didn’t know which way was up. Wave after wave hit you from every direction, making you spin and twist and throwing you around like you were a ragdoll. You didn’t have time to think, you just tried to find the surface, survival instincts taking over.

Your lungs burned. You couldn’t breathe. You felt like you may as well be a hundred feet underwater, and for all you knew, you were. For a split second you felt like you got your head above water, but you were immediately swallowed by another wave before you could even take a breath.

This felt like it lasted for hours, but in reality it was less than a minute. Eventually you got yourself above water and took in a deep, agonized breath, gasping for oxygen and coughing up seawater. A huge wave came toward you but hadn’t crested yet, so you floated with it, letting it bring you up and back down again.

Looking around in all directions, you tried to find the ship or Namjoon. You saw neither.

Your isolation and terror hit you like a freight train.

You were in the middle of the ocean. Alone. During a storm. With no ship in sight.

You had no idea if Namjoon was even alive. You couldn’t see the ship anywhere — had you been under that long? Had you been pulled one way while the ship sailed another? Or was the ship lost to the storm too, everyone else now drowning and being pulled to the bottom of the ocean?

This was you worst nightmare coming true. Your imagination and intrusive thoughts kicked into overdrive; you imagined what could be underneath you, what monsters and leviathans could be swimming up toward you right now, ready to swallow you whole. You screamed, trying to swim upwards even though your head was already above water. You kicked your arms and legs furiously, hyperventilating and gasping as you entered complete panic. The waves still tossed you around, but they were big enough and most were not cresting, so you could float and stay above the surface mostly. The rain poured down on you, and you felt like the rain alone was going to drown you.

Namjoon surfaced then, about twenty feet away from you. Gasping, he saw you and swam toward you, and you swam franticly toward him, you arms and legs moving violently. As soon as he reached you, you grabbed onto him, wrapping your arms and legs around him and moving like you were trying to climb on top of him to get yourself completely out of the water. You were kind of vaguely aware of the fact you were screaming and gasping and maybe sobbing.

What you were doing made Namjoon’s head go back under the water again, and he tried to get you off so he could breathe. You curled up into a little ball, twisting your body so that your legs could stay up near his chest and your arms could wrap tightly around his neck and shoulders.

“Help me! You’ve got to help me!” You were screaming near-gibberish, holding onto Namjoon as tight as you could as you wept and gasped, a small part of the back of your mind recognizing you were having a panic attack.

Namjoon hadn’t even had the chance to react yet other than his basic survival skills keeping himself above water and keeping you from drowning him. His feet were treading water desperately, his neck twisting as he looked around for the ship. His hands went up to hold you in place as he looked, his attention not really on you as he tried to find your way back to safety.

“I don’t see the ship,” he said loudly to be heard over the storm, eyes wide in horror. “Where’s the ship?”

You didn’t respond, instead twisting yourself so that you were wrapped around him again, clinging onto his body as tight as you could with all of your limbs. You were crying and gasping for air, your mind simultaneously blank and full of every panicked thought you’d ever had as you wept and hyperventilated.

A huge wave crested above you, pulling you both under for a moment. You kept yourself on him, and Namjoon got both of you to the surface. You clambered up him wildly, trying to climb him again as you gasped and cried, tears streaming down your face with the rain and seawater.

“Y/N, stop—” Namjoon started to yell, but you accidentally pushed him under the surface, cutting him off short. He got himself back up and wrapped his arms tight around you, if only to stop your movements, using just his legs to tread water. You held onto him like a leech, shaking, hyperventilating, sobbing as your panic consumed you.

“I can’t keep us both above water,” Namjoon said loudly, thunder crashing around you. “You’re gonna have to swim. You’re going to drown us both—”

A wave swallowed you both then, sucking you deep under yet again.

You lost consciousness before you reached the surface.

***

When you woke up, the first thing you were aware of was that your face, arms, and legs were sunburnt to hell, your mouth unnaturally dry, your tongue like sandpaper. Your entire body felt bruised and sore, the back of your head throbbing, the dull ache intensifying with each pulse. You felt like you’d been hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat, and, remembering how you’d been thrown against the side of the ship underwater, you kind of wished you’d been hit with a bat instead.

The second thing you realized was that the sky above you was now clear and blue, and it was daytime. You were floating in the water on your back, the hot sun beating down and filling your corneas, all but blinding you. You were partially submerged, the gentle, calm water lapping at your sides.

Beneath you, you felt Namjoon holding you in place against him as he gently tread water, floating on his back as you laid on top of him. One of his arms was around your stomach, the other slowly moving in the water as he kept you both above the surface. Your head was back on his shoulder, strands of your hair floating loosely in the water.

“You’re awake,” he said then. His voice was lazy and deep, and you realized his movements weren’t just slow, they were sluggish, exhausted. You tried to shift your head and look back at him, but couldn’t at the angle you were at.

The sun where it was in the sky, perfectly above you, you guessed it was midday. Namjoon must’ve been awake since the storm last night, which meant he’d been awake for almost thirty hours, keeping you both above water during and after the storm all night and all morning, treading water all this time.

“Jesus, Joon,” you said as you realized that, but started choking on the dryness of your throat.

“I haven’t… seen the ship,” Namjoon said slowly. He sounded like he was drunk or half out of his mind, moments away from giving out from exhaustion. “I saw a plane, a few hours ago. I… I tried to signal it.” He held up his hand weakly, showing you he was wearing a watch. You didn’t catch the time on it. “I tried to use it, like a flare. A light flare, a re… reflection, from the sun. I don’ think it saw us though.”

“That was smart of you,” you croaked, your voice almost gone from dehydration and dryness.

“My phone… it fell out of my pocket las’ night, or maybe I forgot it at the table,” he slurred. “I don’ remember.”

“Namjoon…” you started. You wanted to ask him to trade places with you so you could tread water instead and he could rest and lay on you. The thought of being the one on the bottom, the one much more exposed to the ocean sent a shiver of pure terror down your spine, but it was the absolute least you could do for him. You could give him the chance to rest after keeping you both alive this whole time.

He kept talking, apparently not hearing you.

“I’m sorry I did this, but I… I checked to see if you ‘ad your phone. I’m sorry… I know some girls, keep it in your bra. I didn’t look much.”

“That’s fine,” you said. You completely understood and would’ve done the same. “Hey, Namjoon, here, let’s trade places.” You started to move, but he held you in place.

“No, 'is 'kay,” he said. His speech sounded like it was becoming more and more slurred every time he spoke. “I know you’re… 'fraid of the water. Jus’ keep looking up at the sky. 'Is okay.”

“Namjoon, really, let me take a turn. You need to rest.” You moved off of him and his arm fell off of you into the water, as if he were unconscious. You felt almost lightheaded as you shifted, moving upright instead of laying down for the first time in so long. You held onto his hand so he wouldn’t drift away as you started treading water on your own, your muscles sore and stiff.

Namjoon was worse off than you’d thought. His eyes were bloodshot and vacant, like he’d been forced to keep them open way too long in the bright sun. He looked exhausted and drained, deathly pale yet sunburnt to a crisp. You swore you could almost see his veins through his skin. You knew it wasn’t possible in the time frame, but he looked like he’d somehow lost a little weight.

His sunburnt skin was somehow already peeling, though one spot on his cheek looked more like a saltwater sore than a sunburn. His lips looked as dry as yours felt, and his lower lip was chapped, split, and bleeding, the blood just starting to run down his chin toward the water.

You immediately brought your hand up and wiped his chin with your thumb, keeping his blood from touching the water. You brought your thumb up to your mouth and sucked. You knew that bleeding in the water, especially warm waters like this, was a very, very bad idea. For all you knew, ten sharks were already circling the two of you below the surface right now.

Namjoon breathed slowly through his mouth, nearly wheezing, like just breathing agonized him. In your clinical paranoia and anxiety, you’d read a lot about surviving in open ocean: you knew that spending a lot of time in water like he had — and he’d kept you mostly out of the water for a lot of this, so you weren’t feeling it yet — the pressure, even at just a foot or so deep, started to affect the body. It constricted breathing, changing the way the chest cavity moved and expanded, and was even used as a torture technique in some places: making someone sit in water until they couldn’t breathe, even though their head was above water the whole time. That, plus the fact he’d been treading water for two people and exerting himself that much over such a long period of time, was more than enough to drain a person.

Being in saltwater this long also affected the skin, and you knew that if you didn’t find a way to get out of the water within the next day, your skin would start to deteriorate, loosen at the pores, and rot away. That was if dehydration and exhaustion didn’t kill you both first.

“What are we going to do?” you said. You really didn’t want to become panicked again. You held yourself back, refusing to let yourself break down now, but you still asked him that anyway, just to voice your fear.

“'Is okay,” Namjoon said. As he spoke, his eyes blinked slowly, like he was starting to nod off. “Don’ worry. We’re okay. We’ll jus’ float an’ find an island, or a ship’ll find us. It’s okay.” Namjoon was not a talented liar when half-dead.

You refused to let yourself cry or even think about the water, your odds of survival, any of that. You needed to focus. Namjoon had kept you above water all last night and this morning, and now it was your turn to return the favor.

Fish. You knew your best chance right now at not dying of dehydration was catching and eating fish, and using the fish oil you consumed to stay alive. If it rained, you’d need to find a way to collect the water. Now, though, you needed to focus on a way of finding, attracting, and catching fish, which you’d have to then eat raw and alive.

Wait — you also remembered that shark attacks, especially in warm waters, were something to stay alert to, and leaving bloody fish guts in the water was a very quick way to attract predators.

You were going to die.

Before you could say or do anything, you watched Namjoon suddenly slip out of consciousness, his eyes all but rolling back in his head. He slumped forward in the water, face down, and you caught him, pushing him back up so that his mouth and nose weren’t in the water. You moved behind him and held him the same way he’d held you, laying his head on your shoulder and keeping him flat on his back, just floating.

You floated like that for at least an hour. At one point you pulled Namjoon’s arm up and checked what time it was, but his watch was waterlogged and had stopped working at 9:15, and you didn’t know if that meant it had broken last night or this morning. You checked for his pulse a few times, each time finding it still going steady, albeit very slow.

At one point, something suddenly touched your arm. You screamed in surprise, pulling your arm away and trying to get yourself and Namjoon away from whatever it was, but stopped when you looked over and saw it was a piece of driftwood. Namjoon hadn’t stirred, even when you’d screamed.

You didn’t know what for, but you figured the driftwood could be useful at some point. You didn’t have a free hand to hold it, so you laid it on Namjoon’s stomach. It was light enough you could barely feel it in your hand, like it was made out of something just slightly heavier than styrofoam.

You started talking to Namjoon, blabbering on and on just to keep yourself entertained and to keep yourself from thinking about how deep the ocean was beneath you.

“I don’t really like tap water. I feel like it tastes really different, from whatever they put in it. Fluoride, right? I hate the taste of fluoride. I could really go for some fluoride water right now, though. I think my favorite kind of water is Smart Water. You know those really big bougie bottles? I love those. Or Fiji Water. We were supposed to be in Fiji… three days from now? We were supposed to be in Noumea today. I bet Mina and Hoseok haven’t even noticed we’re gone.” You laughed at that dryly. “I bet they got up and left while we were gone at dinner, and haven’t even left the room since then. Oh man, last night at dinner, I ordered this big ol’ tilapia with mashed potatoes and green beans. I’m so hungry right now, I might eat this driftwood later.”

You felt like you were losing you mind. Namjoon just floated there, still unconscious, and you kept checking to make sure he was still breathing.

Something else hit your arm, making you jump in surprise. When you looked down at it, you saw three little fish swimming by. You watched them go, and you realized something here was very off. You looked down in the water and didn’t see a dark abyss. You saw golden sand.

You could see the bottom of the ocean, and the water was only ten feet deep, maximum. You’d drifted far enough to find shallow water.

You spun around, looking around wildly. Above your head, two large white birds flew by. You saw it then. Maybe a football field’s length away was a small island, overflowing with green.

You nearly started crying in relief as you pulled Namjoon along, swimming as hard as you could.

“Joon, Joon, wake up, there’s land! We found land!”

Namjoon remained unconscious, but you dragged him with you as you swam with your legs and free arm. You almost cried out when you felt your feet touch the bottom, and as soon as you were in shallow enough water, you stood up and started pulling him, splashing through the warm water.

You immediately fell over, your muscles weak from exhaustion and not being used to gravity and normal weight. The top half of Namjoon’s body fell on your legs, and you shifted yourself and him so that you were pulling him along, dragging him and yourself up onto the sand.

You managed to get both yourself and Namjoon up to where the water just barely washed over your legs before collapsing. You laughed, nearly hysterical, feeling the wet sand between your fingers, holding onto it in handfuls. Tears streamed down your face, your heart bursting from joy and relief in catharsis.

After probably a half an hour of just laying there on the sand and just breathing, you managed to get yourself sitting up. In front of you was the ocean and nothingness on the horizon. To each side, beach curving away. Either the island was small or you were on a peninsula. Behind you was dense jungle. You could hear birds and noisy bugs — there was definitely an ecosystem of living plants and animals, which meant there would be fresh water and some kind of food supply.

Standing on shaky legs, you got to where you could move behind Namjoon, who laid on his back, arms out where you’d dropped them. Even while unconscious, he looked so weak and fatigued, the saltwater sore on his face and his split lip now both bleeding.

You still had on one of your heels. You must’ve lost the other one at some point in the storm, and you were shocked you hadn’t lost both. You bent and took off the one you still had, tossing it behind you further up the beach. Digging your feet into the sand, you dragged Namjoon up onto land by his arms. The white sand burned the bottoms of your bare feet, and you moved as fast as you could to get him up into the shade, only falling over from exhaustion a few times during the process.

The piece of driftwood was still on his stomach, and when you got him under a cluster of palm trees, you moved it from his stomach and used it to support his head, moving him as gently as you could. You took off his soaking wet shoes and socks, not wanting him to get whatever it was, that disease World War I soldiers got back in the day from walking in wet socks, and his belt, to help him be more comfortable.

You took off your garters and suspenders, peeling off your hose. You hung your hose and Namjoon’s sock on a branch nearby. You figured your suspenders would be useful at some point, as well as maybe the wire in your strapless bra. Namjoon’s belt would definitely be handy. Maybe you could use some of this stuff to make something to go fishing, maybe a net with the hose and—

Your thoughts were cut off when Namjoon, still unconscious, started gagging. You froze in shock and uncertainty, watching as his body shook, convulsing upward as he began throwing up. He was on his back so it had nowhere to go, and you watched, still frozen, as he began choking. Hearing that made you jump-start, and you quickly turned him onto his side, moving him so that he threw up onto the ground instead.

You felt Namjoon’s forehead, holding his head in place so he didn’t slide facedown into vomit. He was feverish, so hot to the touch you felt uncomfortable just touching him. His skin felt strange, deathly dry but also covered in a cold sweat, and it felt as if his skin were less movable and elastic. You gently pinched his arm, and his skin was unnaturally slow moving back, like his flesh was made of loose putty.

When he stopped throwing up — and he didn’t throw up much, just bile — he started moaning weakly, barely opening his eyes. His breathing was fast and shallow, catching in his throat with each agonized breath.

You moved your hand to his neck, feeling his pulse. You had trouble finding it, but when you did, it was racing and irregular. He moaned in agitation, weakly trying to move away from you, like just your touch was bothering him.

Namjoon showed every sign of severe dehydration you’d ever heard of, plus you had no idea what he was going through from exhausting himself so much and treading water that long. You needed to find him water and you needed to do it right now.

“Joon, I’m going to go find some water. You’re gonna be okay,” you said sweetly, trying not to speak too loudly and surprise him.

Namjoon mumbled a string of words you couldn’t understand. The only words you caught were “tree,” “dark,” “sun,” and “sea” between his harsh gasps. He looked back at you, barely able to keep his bloodshot eyes open, and said something else. He wasn’t making sense or saying anything coherent, just quiet gibberish as he breathed hard, lost in delirium.

You needed to go, but you didn’t want to leave him laying here alone. He could just roll over onto his back the second you walked away and throw up again, or he could get worse. Well, you figured, he was going to get worse no matter what if you didn’t go find water.

“Namjoon, you need to stay laying on your side,” you said, gently rolling him back over so he wasn’t looking at you. He moaned in irritation. “I know,” you cooed, stroking his hair back out of his face.

You couldn’t do anything for him here. You had to go and find the spring. You knew there had to be one, with this much wildlife, and it was your only chance at staying alive or helping Namjoon.

As you ran into the jungle, the end of your dress snagged on a low-hanging branch. It ripped, a few inches of it splitting. You’d all but forgotten you were still in your fancy skimpy dress, now discolored and faded from being in saltwater for so long. You were lucky a shark hadn’t tried to eat you, thinking you were a big colorful fish.

It took you about ten minutes to find it. The ground became wetter and wetter, the flora taller and stronger. You felt around with your bare feet, feeling your toes almost sinking into the wet moss. You turned around, looking around yourself wildly, and tripped backwards, falling on your ass right into water.

You were sitting in a pond. A small waterfall fed into it, the water coming out of a crevasse near the bottom of a large rock jutting out of the ground. The water was perfectly clear, probably only five feet deep at the lowest part. Tall palm trees and tropical leaves and ferns surrounded the area, shading it, the clearing surrounded with colorful flowers, bamboo stalks, and light gray rocks. A fish the size of your pinky swam by where you sat, not at all concerned by your presence.

You needed to find a way to get this back to Namjoon. Thinking fast, you stood up and walked over to one of the leafy plants, your dress dripping down your legs and onto the jungle floor. You found the biggest leaf you saw, pulling it out. When you cupped it and shaped it with your hands, it probably had enough room for about a bottle’s worth of water.

You waded into the water, heading straight for the direct source of the spring water, figuring that was the best place to get the cleanest water. You held the leaf there, letting water gently collect, and once you had it full you slowly and carefully made your way back toward Namjoon.

When you found him, he was unconscious again, thankfully still alive and breathing. You sat behind him, careful not to get yourself or him in the vomit still laying there, and had him sit up a little so he could drink as he leaned back on you. You held the leaf up to his mouth, but he didn’t wake up, sending a spark of panic through you. You moved so that his head tilted back and forced some water into his mouth. A lot of it ran down his chin and onto his chest, but at least some of it went into his mouth and down his throat. You saw him swallowing after a moment, and let yourself sigh in relief.

You got him to drink about half of the water before he started gagging. He threw up again, but was self-aware and awake enough this time to turn himself to the side and not throw up on himself or you. You held the leaf up above your head, careful to make sure he didn’t knock into you and spill it.

You drank the rest of the water and then went back to the spring, this time making a path for yourself on the way. You used rocks and large branches to move the foliage aside, leaving behind a clear trail you could easily follow. This would also help you get back faster, and you wouldn’t have to move around the thick plants while holding a leaf full of water.

You got Namjoon to drink about half of the next leaf too, and you figured that was enough for right now. You swore you remembered reading that giving someone too much water when they were dehydrated would make them sick, so you’d give him more very gradually.

You now focused on setting up a shelter. You were in survival mode, not allowing yourself to think about anything except your next move and how you were going to keep yourself and Namjoon alive.

A little bit down the beach, you found a tree near the tree line with a branch about four feet off the ground, and another tree maybe six feet away with a similar branch. You walked into the foliage, looking around for a huge, narrow stick. When you found one, you brought it back to your two trees and set the stick on the branches, making a bar. Now, you just needed to find more large sticks to lean against your bar, and then you could tie leaves to those sticks to make a thick barrier that could protect you both from the elements. You always knew your years in Girl Scouts would eventually pay off.

Setting up your plan took a while. You stopped part of the way through and went back to check on Namjoon, still laying there unconscious or sleeping. His breathing was normal now and he seemed more relaxed, but he was still feverish. You went back to the spring and drank a lot yourself before bringing water back to Namjoon. Even while not awake, he drank without hesitation this time, immediately swallowing instead of just laying there unresponsive. You stroked his hair back from his forehead, wiping away the sweat there.

Before standing up to leave him again, you leaned in and almost kissed Namjoon on top of his head, but caught yourself. What the hell was that? You shook your head and got up, gently easing him back down on his side.

The shelter was done by sunset. You cleared the ground underneath the slanted roof — it was still sandy there, so you figured you probably wouldn’t have to worry about bugs too much. You still laid down a layer of large leaves anyway, setting up a kind-of mat to lay on. This was about as good as it was going to get right now.

Your stomach felt like it was trying to eat itself. You didn’t have time to find food now, though — wandering around the jungle at night sounded stupid at best, and you still had things you had to do before the sun went down. The hunt for food would come tomorrow.

You went back and found Namjoon again. He seemed closer to sleeping than unconscious, and that comforted you. You went back to the spring one last time, filling yourself up and then taking one more leaf back to Namjoon. Once you got him to drink, you dragged him down the beach to your shelter, which took quite some time. He was a big boy, and you were fucking tired, your muscles still weak from being in water so long. You pulled him by his arms, though, and eventually got him there and rolled him under the lean-to.

After that, you went and found your discarded heel, garters, and hose and Namjoon’s belt, socks, and shoes, and brought them all back, keeping your stuff together and close. The spring was about a five-minute walk down the path you’d made from the shelter. Everything was fairly close together, and for that you were thankful.

You laid Namjoon on his side in the shelter and then climbed in behind him. You didn’t know how cold it got here at night, but you laid behind Namjoon, spooning him, partially for warmth and partially to make sure he didn’t roll onto his back at any point in the night.

The sound of the ocean was eerily lulling. You listened to it, the gentle waves lapping against the shoreline in the dark, and when you really listened you could hear Namjoon’s steady breathing. The jungle behind you was silent.

***

When you woke up, your arm was asleep. You’d used it as a pillow because of your lack of anything else, and that had been a minor mistake. You stretched it out as you got up and climbed over Namjoon, looking out at the early morning ocean.

The sun was just coming up, which meant with its position, your spot on the beach was facing north. You didn’t know why knowing that comforted you. Maybe knowing more about the situation, even inconsequential stuff like that, made you feel a little bit more in control of everything. Your head didn’t hurt as much today, and you felt your energy coming back, albeit only slightly.

You looked back at Namjoon. He hadn’t thrown up in the night, which meant he was keeping fluids down, finally. You felt his forehead — a little warm, but not clammy and feverish like he’d been yesterday. He had to be a little warmer than usual because of his sunburn, too, so that was okay. At least you couldn’t see his veins through his skin anymore.

Your own skin was peeling, too, your face and shoulders the worst. It itched so bad, but you kept yourself from touching it. You knew in the back of your mind that going into the ocean would help heal your skin — living with Mina, you knew all the little things about the ocean like that, about how clean saltwater healed wounds and made sunburns not hurt. Right now, though, the last thing you ever wanted to do was go back into the ocean.

You were hungrier than you’d ever been in your life. You needed to find food today. Namjoon wouldn’t be able to take anything besides water for a little while, so this was just for you. First order of business, though, was getting more water in both of you. Your number one priority was keeping both yourself and Namjoon hydrated.

You made your way back to the spring. As you walked, you thought about how you would try to make a fire today, and maybe start using big rocks to spell out “HELP” on the beach. Your mind kept wandering to food; not even you favorite foods, but basic stuff — bread, red meat, and fruits. You pictured a big, juicy steak and nearly whined out loud.

When you got to the spring, you saw something that made you freeze in your tracks. A wild boar, about the size of a fat house cat, was drinking from the pond.

Your mouth started watering just looking at it. Your mind just saw sizzling bacon as you stared blankly at the boar, unmoving as you stood there at the tree line of the clearing. It looked up at you and didn’t really seem to be afraid of you, just going back to drinking after a few seconds of a glance.

You pushed it out of your mind. The meat would probably go bad before you could even make a fire to cook it. You’d just find something easier, like fruit, and hold onto the knowledge that there were boars on this island for a time when you’d be more prepared to cook it. You’d probably also need to make some kind of defense weapon, in case this little guy was just a baby, and papa boar was around and angry.

You drank directly from the spring for a moment, letting yourself feel almost full, and then found another leaf and filled it up. When you got back to Namjoon, he was almost stirring awake.

As you sat down behind him, he tried to sit up, but was too weak.

“No, shh, stay down,” you cooed softly. You brought the leaf to his mouth and he drank slowly, a few drops spilling down his chin. When he finished, you set the leaf aside and looked down at him, wiping his chin and stroking his hair back off of his forehead.

You took his dress shirt off of him — it was long-sleeved, and you didn’t want him to overheat during the heat of the day today. You moved him onto his side again and bundled up his shirt, using it as a pillow underneath his head. Namjoon drifted back to sleep as you moved him.

You saw a large yellowish-purple bruise across his lower back and remembered how he’d hit the railing so hard when the ship had been tossed around in the storm. Reaching out, you let your fingertips skim against his skin, feeling his bruise. There wasn’t anything off about the way his spine looked, at least externally, and he’d been using his legs just fine when you saw him treading water. You hoped his kidneys were okay, since the railing must’ve hit him hard there, but you knew you had no way of telling what kind of pain he was in until he woke up.

Sighing, you stood up, leaving him. You then began your search for food, walking down the beach.

After a few minutes of walking along the tree line, you saw a plant you thought you recognized. A tree about three feet taller than you grew right beside the sand, fruit growing out of the top of it below its leaves. You recognized the fruit, but the name wasn’t coming to you. It was shaped like a fat eggplant and was a mix of green and yellow in color.

Papaya. You knew that’s what this was.

You reached up and pulled one off, and brought it down to look closer at it. You squeezed it with your hands, looking at it intently. You had no idea how to tell if papayas were ripe or bad, but this one looked as good as any.

You just bit right into it. The skin was hard to chew, like eating an orange peel, so you spat that out into your hand and bit off the meat of the fruit, leaving behind just the skin. You repeated this all over the papaya until the skin was gone, and then you devoured it. When you got to the seeds, you spat them out, unsure if they were safe to eat, but you ate every last bit of the meat of the fruit until there was nothing left.

You ate two more papayas before you moved on. About ten feet down the beach you found a banana tree, but all the bananas were small and green.

You kept walking. You wanted to see how big the island was, and see if there were maybe other inhabitants there. For all you knew, you were on a resort island, and you’d walk around a bend and see a big five-star hotel.

You found a few more papaya and banana plants, some of the bananas even ripe, and saw some coconuts and a few things you didn’t recognize. One looked like a huge blueberry, another like a bumpy green lump, and another like a small, light pink pear. You only gathered the ones you knew for sure, and figured that eventually you could test the others to be certain.

You kept walking and walking, and then you saw Namjoon laying under the lean-to. You’d walked around the entirety of the island, seeing no signs of civilization, and had done so in an hour at most, and that was with you stopping and looking at fruit. The perimeter of the island could only be a mile or so. You and Namjoon were definitely alone here.

You took your armful of fruit over to the shelter. You didn’t want to waste anything by picking it too early, so you’d only brought two yellow bananas and a papaya. You planned to get just a little bit of food into Namjoon tomorrow if he seemed up to it, starting with banana, since people could usually eat that when they were sick.

Namjoon was still asleep. Judging by the sun, it was nearing midday now. You went to the spring in the woods and drank, and brought some back for Namjoon, methodically keeping him hydrated, and then moved on, starting your call for help.

You spent a large part of the afternoon finding large rocks to arrange in the shape of HELP across the beach. Each letter was probably fifteen feet long and half that wide, and you only got halfway through the E before getting too tired to keep going today. The last thing you wanted to do was wear yourself out, so you figured tomorrow you’d finish E and do L, and then do P the next day.

You continued your routine. You checked on Namjoon. You went to the spring and drank some water, and then brought back a leaf full for Namjoon. You ate two bananas and called that a late lunch.

Late in the evening, you sat on the sand a few feet from the shelter. You faced out toward the ocean, watching the waves as the tide slowly went out and the sun set far to your left. At the highest point of high tide, the water was about forty feet from you. That comforted you, being that far from the waves.

You were thinking about how you could try to make yourself go fishing eventually when you heard Namjoon stirring, and you turned around, looking back at him.

“Hey, sleepy,” you said, smiling warmly.

Namjoon opened his eyes slowly, blinking as he got used to what he was looking at. As far as you knew, this was the first time he’d been aware of what was going on since that first night in the water.

You moved and went to sit beside him.

“You’ve been out for about a day,” you said. “There’s a spring a few minutes away, with clean freshwater. I found a bunch of fruit, too. I checked and the island’s small, no people. There are animals, though.”

Namjoon blinked a few times slowly. “Animals?” he asked, his voice deep, gravely, lethargic.

“I saw a boar,” you said, smiling. “That means there’s more, unless this guy swam here like we did.” You giggled a little at that, trying to lighten the mood, but Namjoon just laid there for a moment, thinking and looking out at the water behind you.

“What happened?” he said, his face blank. You bit your lip, not sure if you wanted to scare him, but figured you may as well tell him everything.

“You kept me alive until I woke up,” you said, watching his face to see if he’d react to anything you said. “It was afternoon when I woke up, and you seemed delirious. You passed out, and I kept you above water until we drifted and found this island. You were really dehydrated and sick, and I found the spring and got you to drink some water and rest. You’ve slept for over twenty-four hours. Probably twenty-eight, if I had to guess.” You added the last part nervously.

Namjoon nodded slowly, listening to all that. Behind you, the waves hit the shore steadily. You were getting sick of hearing that noise.

“I didn’t feel your pulse after that big wave,” Namjoon started, staring out at the water, speaking slowly. His eyes were blank and vacant, still bloodshot, though not as bad as they’d been. “I kept your head above water, just in case. I figured you’d swallowed some water, or maybe drowned. I tried to do CPR but it was kind of hard, with the waves and the rain.” He took in a few deep breaths, as if just speaking that much had worn him out.

“Thank you,” you said quietly, looking down at your hands in your lap. Your heart swelled from his words, and you almost felt yourself tearing up. He’d worked so hard for so long to keep you both alive. It must’ve been terrifying, thinking he was alone in the middle of the ocean, the only person with him potentially dead.

You glanced up and saw Namjoon slightly shaking his head, brow furrowed.

“When you didn’t wake up the next day or the following night, I started to get really worried. I felt you breathing, though, so I kept going.”

You looked up at him suddenly, eyes wide, heart all but stopping in your chest as your blood ran cold. “Following night? What do you mean?”

Namjoon shook his head again slowly. “The storm happened and we had that night in the rough waves, and then there was a full day and another full night where you were out, and then I don’t really remember anything after that.”

“Jesus, Namjoon,” you said, eyebrows about in your hairline from your shock. No wonder he’d been so exhausted — he’d had another twenty-four hours more than what you’d thought, and just what you’d thought he’d gone through was enough to kill him. Another twenty-four hours of keeping himself and you above water. Another full day of being alone with his thoughts and fears while adrift in the ocean, keeping an unconscious person above water just in case you were still alive. How the hell had he survived?

This meant that you had been unconscious for almost two full days. Didn’t being unconscious that long mean brain damage? You felt fine now, but shouldn’t you not be fine? You remembered hitting your head on the side of the ship, and you were certain going into shock from your panic hadn’t helped that at all, but your head barely hurt anymore, other than when you were exerting yourself too hard. Had you been in a coma or something? What the fuck?

Namjoon started to sit up then, but you stopped him, moving over to him and putting your hand on his shoulder to make him lay back down.

“You need your rest,” you said.

“I’ve rested enough,” he said, trying to sit up again, but he was too weak to even push against your hand just barely resting on his chest. You didn’t say anything, instead just watching him huff and lay back down.

A few moments of silence passed between you. The sounds of the ocean and waves mingled with distant birds and the gentle wind moving the leaves on the tall trees.

“I wrote ‘HELP’ with some rocks,” you said lowly. “Or at least, I started to. I’ll finish it in the next few days.”

Namjoon rolled onto his side and stared out at the ocean blankly. Just moving that much seemed to wear him out.

“That’s good,” he said flatly. “I’ll help tomorrow.”

“No you won’t,” you said. “You need to keep resting and recovering.”

“I’m not dying, I–”

“You were,” you shot at him, your expression and words turning harsh. You stared at him intensely, all but snarling. You were prepared to make him keep resting, even if it meant tying him to a tree with vines from the jungle.

“Well, I’m not anymore, and I want to help,” he said, not giving up on it.

“Too fucking bad,” you said, setting you jaw.

Namjoon glared at you. Apparently just to spite you, he sat up, pretending not to be dizzy once he was upright as he braced himself.

“I’m going to get more water,” you said coldly, standing up. “I’ll be back in a few minutes so I can put water in your mouth for you and help you drink, again.”

Without waiting to hear a response, you turned and walked down the beach to your path to the spring.

***

The two of you didn’t speak much the rest of the day, both of you too stubborn. That night, when Namjoon found out what the sleeping arrangements were, he huffed and pouted but didn’t comment, apparently still annoyed at you for refusing to let him help.

The two of you did talk for a little while seriously. You figured it was warm enough at night without a fire, but you’d need one to cook any eventual meat or fish and to keep warm if it rained or the temperatures dropped, and it would of course be great for signaling rescuers. You planned for Namjoon to work on that tomorrow while you worked on the “HELP” letters, since beating rocks together to make sparks was stationary and he could sit down and take his time with it. He seemed like he really wanted something to do, to feel helpful, and being put in charge of the fire seemed to please him. He tried to pretend he was fine, but he was still so exhausted.

You’d found some baby coconuts earlier and were fairly confident you’d be able to get them open, and tomorrow you’d have Namjoon try the milk to start getting used to something besides water, and then you could use the husks as tinder for the fire.

When the sun went down, it was a little bit colder than the night before. You curled up against Namjoon, who’d laid on his back, and he wrapped his arm around you, gently pulling you closer to him as he also felt the chill, your head on his chest, your hand over his heart. You used his dress shirt as a blanket, laying it over both of your upper bodies. You hooked your leg up over him, your thigh resting across his thighs, and he put his large, warm hand on your knee. He moved his thumb in small circles on your skin, sending sparks to your core. He was so warm, and you tried to remember and focus on how he’d been warm on the ship too, when he’d put sunscreen on you at the pool. His fever wasn’t so bad anymore. He was just a warm person. You didn’t need to worry about his fever anymore, you told yourself.

The ocean was so loud right now. Your mind drifted to how close to death you’d both been, especially Namjoon, and how you were probably going to die on this island. How could you possibly survive here long-term? What would happen if one of you got a little cut that got infected, or if one of you got seriously hurt? Just a broken bone or toothache could kill you. What if nobody every came looking for you? The ocean was so fucking big — how could anyone find anything? How had you even managed to find this island at all?

You felt and heard him sigh then, your hand and head both rising and falling with his chest.

“What are we gonna do?” you asked. Your voice sounded so small, nearly cracking as you spoke.

He didn’t answer for a moment. You wondered if he was actually asleep.

Namjoon did answer, his warm voice a low, comforting noise you could almost feel rumbling in his chest. “We’ll stay alive.”

He turned his head and kissed the top of your hair, resting his mouth there as he breathed slowly. The ocean didn’t sound as loud now.

***

Namjoon’s snoring only woke you up twice. You found yourself getting used to it, much preferring it over the awful sound of the waves you knew were going to eventually drive you crazy. You almost found his snoring comforting after a while, because now you knew for certain he was alive and sleeping, not unconscious or worse.

In the morning, after you’d gone to get your and Namjoon’s first drink of water, you went and found Namjoon some rocks to try to make his fire. You set up the pit, circling up some larger rocks to contain it and arranging some dry leaves and sticks. You helped Namjoon move over to where you’d set it up, since you didn’t want it right beside your very flammable shelter, and you helped him get settled in his new spot.

He started working, and you went and got one of your baby coconuts. You hit it against a tree nearby, and after only two hits it started to burst. You hurried over to Namjoon and held it as he drank from it eagerly. He brought his hands up to hold the coconut tighter, his fingers on yours as he drank up every last bit of liquid. A small amount of it dribbled down his chin, running in a long, thin line down the column of his neck, which you tried very hard not to stare at as he drank and swallowed, his large Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

You peeled the coconut open and found the meat inside. You saw the way Namjoon was staring at the meat intently where he sat, mouth watering, and you reached in and brought some of the meat up to your own mouth.

“No solids for you until tomorrow at the earliest,” you said between bites, and he huffed, annoyed with that.

You put the dry parts of the cleaned out husk in the fire pit and went and cracked open another. Namjoon drank, you ate, and you threw it in the fire pit again.

You got to work on the “HELP” letters, working slowly not to overstrain yourself. Around midday, you took a brief break to get some water to Namjoon and get him another coconut. You had two papayas plus a leaf of water and the coconut meat.

In the afternoon, you continued with the rocks. Namjoon wasn’t having much luck actually starting a fire, but he was starting to make sparks and absolutely insisted that he’d eventually get it.

When you walked out of the jungle with yet another rock, back to the beach on what you told yourself was the last trip, you saw Namjoon standing and walking into the ocean, only in his boxers and already up to his knees in the water. You threw the rock in your arms off to the side and ran to him.

“Namjoon!” You sprinted, moving yourself as fast as your legs could carry you. You didn’t know what he was planning on doing, but with him as weak as he was, there was no way he’d be able to fight a riptide or maybe even just the normal waves pulling him out.

You splashed into the water and when you got to him, you wrapped your arms around his waist, physically dragging him back to shore.

“Stop it, get off,” he grumbled, trying to wiggle free. “I’m just trying to get clean. Neither of us have bathed in days.”

“Sorry, buddy. There’s a rule about this,” you said, still attempting to pull him back. “No swimming in the ocean when you almost died two days ago.”

“I’m fine,” he whined, begrudgingly allowing himself to be pulled backwards until you both stood with just your feet in the water.

“Nuh uh, Joon,” you said, letting go of him and walking around to face him. You were ankle-deep in the water and tried to ignore the small spike of fear even just this now brought you.

“Yeah huh, Y/N,” he said, matching your tone.

“If you’re fine, do ten jumping jacks right now,” you said, putting your hands on your hips. Namjoon didn’t say anything and definitely didn’t do what you’d asked, instead just setting his jaw and glaring out at the water behind you.

You smirked at him, knowing damn well that he wasn’t able to do that right now, and he knew it too.

“I’m going in and you can’t stop me,” Namjoon declared. He moved to step around you, and you sidestepped, standing right in front of him. He tried to do it again, and you just sidestepped again, smiling now.

“I can do this all day, Joonie. You getting tired yet?” you said.

Before he could say anything, you felt something touch your ankle and you screamed, jumping out of the water and up onto the sand. Namjoon used your distraction to walk straight out into the waves.

“Namjoon, stop,” you begged, walking in after him. You saw what had touched your ankle: a little piece of seaweed maybe an inch long.

You went right into the water after him, ready to pull him back again, but he moved down, dunking himself under where it was only about three feet deep. He stood back up, running his hands through his hair.

You looked down at his muscular, broad body as he faced away from you, his caramel-toned skin glistening from the water in the bright sunlight and thoroughly distracting you from your worry. It didn’t seem to fit, him still looking like this but you knowing he’d been starving and dying the past few days. You knew logically that of course he wouldn’t change size too much or in any way reflect his complete lack of food yet, but still. It felt odd seeing how muscular he was and remembering how frail and weak he’d been.

Namjoon dunked himself back under one more time, and then walked back onto shore.

“See? I was fine,” he said as he walked by. You ignored the way the droplets of water ran slowly down his firm chest and stomach and the way his smug smile made you want him to bend you over something.

“And if you’d been caught in a riptide, I’m sure you would’ve been a-okay,” you said, turning and walking back up to the shelter with him. When you got there, you decided to give him some privacy, and to go off and take a bath of your own.

You went to the spring. On your way there, you saw a low-hanging palm tree with more baby coconuts, just off the path. You got one and carried it with you.

You had nothing to use for soap, but maybe using coconut milk on some of your body would be the same thing as coconut oil or lotion. You knew that was an ingredient people used in soaps and stuff, and had read about fresh coconut milk being used on the skin. You could just rub it in and then wash it off with water. You were probably doing something really stupid, but you didn’t even care. You just desperately wanted to not smell like sweat anymore.

When you got to the spring, you stripped off your dress and took off your strapless bra and panties and laid them all out on a large flat rock near the edge of the water. You cracked the coconut against a tree and carefully set it on the rock beside your clothes.

The first thing you did once you were in the water was wash your panties. You didn’t want to fully transition to full-time commando, especially not with your short dress, but the time you’d been wearing them now was already far past way too long. You soaked and scrubbed them with just water, and then laid them out to dry.

You leaned back and dunked most of your hair in the clear water. Getting a little coconut milk on your hands, you ran your palms over your shoulders and upper body, rubbing it in and pretending it was a nice body wash back home in your shower.

It smelled so good and pleasant here. The little waterfall from the spring was the only thing you could hear besides the leaves and flowers moving in the gentle island breeze. You dunked yourself completely under the water, letting it soak into your skin. You ran your hands all over yourself, and felt, for the first time in days, almost clean. Your skin had been so dry from the salt water and pained from the sunburn, and the coconut milk felt like a thin lotion, exfoliating you skin.

You moved toward the deepest part of the pool, where you could still touch the bottom if you were on your tiptoes. You really didn’t mind being in this water. It was clear and you could see around you, and it was small enough you could see all of it. There was nothing hiding here.

“Hey, you.”

You nearly screamed in surprise.

Namjoon had followed your path and now stood near the entrance to the clearing, still dripping wet in his boxers, which were so low around his hips you could almost see a bit of dark hair. He seemed completely unconcerned with the fact you were naked — you had been facing the other way before, but when you’d spun around and saw him, you’d covered yourself, knowing the pristinely clear water would do very little to distort his view of you. You covered your breasts with one arm and crossed your legs, wrapping your other arm around your body instinctively.

“Fuck, Joon. You scared the shit out of me.”

“Language,” he said sarcastically. “And it’s Namjoon to you.”

Namjoon walked around the clearing, looking at the different plants and making his way over to the spring. He didn’t seem to notice or care that you were on edge, turning yourself with him so he wouldn’t see your ass.

“Uh, do you mind?” you said after a moment.

“Not at all, go ahead,” he said, sitting down on a rock beside the crevasse where the spring water flowed out. He cupped his hands and drank some before continuing. “I can’t see shit without my glasses, which I lost in the storm. You just look like a little skin-colored blob to me right now, especially this far away.”

You rolled your eyes and huffed. You’d been so relaxed and calm before he showed up, and now you were standing here covering yourself. Though, realizing that he’d lost his glasses and couldn’t see well without them did make you feel almost bad for him.

“So I was thinking,” Namjoon began conversationally, and you bit the inside of your cheek, preparing for a full conversation with him like this, with you covering yourself. “We can use your pantyhose as a fishnet. Nothing big, but enough to catch something we can eat. We don’t have enough for a mosquito net, but I haven’t really seen any mosquitos, even here with all this sitting water. We don’t need to make a rain filter since we have the spring, so our only real use for your hose is fishing or drying foods.”

“You know how to dry foods?” you asked. You were still covering yourself fully, but relaxed some as the two of you talked seriously. He wasn’t leering or trying to catch a glimpse, and he couldn’t see that well anyway, but he did look over at you and make eye contact when you spoke. His expression was serious and businesslike.

“Yeah,” he said. “Just hang it up and keep it in the sun for two days or so. It’s easy, I used to do it all the time when I hiked more. Bananas would probably be best, but we’d have to cut it up somehow. I’m not sure mashed bananas would be very good dried.”

“We can use the wire in my bra,” you suggested. Namjoon raised an eyebrow, but nodded after a moment in agreement.

“We can also use the prong on my belt, if we can get the buckle off, as a spear tip. Just tie it to a nice stick, and boom, we have a spear to use on that boar you saw. Twenty-first century arrowhead. We can probably tie it with your sexy little leg straps.”

“Sexy leg straps?”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding seriously. “You know, your hose thingys?” He made a straight line motion with his finger, drawing up and down the side of his outer thigh.

“They’re called suspenders.”

“Whatever. You knew what I meant.”

You looked at him for a moment. You were still standing there in the water covering yourself as much as you could, and he didn’t seem to have any plans for leaving any time soon.

“Yes?” Namjoon said when he noticed you staring at him. You could see the smallest hint of a smile on the corner of his smug mouth.

“Get out,” you said simply, smiling fake-politely.

“I’m just here to drink water,” he said, feigning innocence. “Remember the whole dying of dehydration thing? Plus we were talking about plans to survive. You plan on wearing that dress every day?”

“Were you planning on going permanently naked any time soon?” you said.

“Pants don’t last forever, and neither will that pretty little dress of yours.”

You set your jaw. Before you could say anything to him, he stood up, eyeing the water beside where he stood.

“Uh, what are you doing?” you said in surprise, realizing what he was doing.

“Going for a swim,” he said, like it was obvious. He pulled down his boxers, and then there he was, completely naked before you. You only looked up at him in short glances, your eyes wide, careful not to let him catch you staring. Even in the cool water, you felt the heat and slick wetness starting to build between you legs. You didn’t let yourself look at him anywhere below his stomach, but you could see even when not looking directly at him that he was a big boy, short dark hair surrounding his thick length, so big even when flaccid like this. He seemed completely at ease, this moment not sexual to him at all as he eased himself down into the water.

“Didn’t you just swim in the ocean?” You made yourself look only at his eyes.

“You barely let me go in at all, and I see you invented some coconut soap, which you didn’t share,” he said. “I wanna be clean and not smell bad, too.” Namjoon waded over through the waist-high water to where your coconut was sitting on a rock. You watched him glance at your panties drying there, the corner of his mouth quirking.

Namjoon got some coconut milk on his hands and rubbed it on himself. He was still facing away from you, so you stared blatantly as he rubbed his hands across his arms and shoulders, the muscles in his back moving and stretching.

He continued talking to you as he worked. “So, when are you going to let me start eating? Or is your plan to starve me out?”

You snorted. “How are you feeling with the coconut milk you had earlier?”

“Good.” He glanced back over his shoulder at you for a second, and your eyes snapped up to his eyes from where you had been staring at his ass through the crystal clear water. “Hungry as hell, and ready to start eating something.” He spoke normally, apparently not catching on to your leering, thankfully.

You didn’t answer him. You relaxed yourself a little, still keeping yourself covered but not letting your muscles stay as tense as they had been. After a moment, Namjoon spoke, still facing away from you and rubbing coconut milk on his upper body.

“I gotta ask. Where was all this shyness and modesty when you nearly jerked me off in public with your foot? Or is it different for you if you’re playing a game?”

You froze. You’d all but forgotten about how much you’d teased him on the boat. All of that seemed so long ago now.

“What game?” you said.

He turned around and looked at you, one eyebrow raised. You smiled at him innocently.

Namjoon moved slowly through the water, coming toward you. His dark eyes were so intense, you couldn’t look away if you wanted to, though his smile was playful. Your legs were still crossed and one arm still covered your breasts, but as he approached, stepping closer to you, you dropped your arm and moved to stand firmly on two feet. You were where the water came up to your breasts, the water level teasing your nipples as the gentle waves from your movements swelled around you.

To his credit, Namjoon didn’t look down at your breasts. You were standing nearly chest-to-chest now, though he was so much taller than you. Under the water, his hands moved slowly to touch your sides low on your hips, his fingertips just barely skimming against your skin as he gazed down at your eyes. You stood up straight, eager, leaning back just slightly as if presenting your chest to him.

Namjoon leaned in a little, looking down at your mouth with an absolutely depraved look in his eyes, his lips parting. You parted your lips too and watched his eyes darken as he took in a deep breath. This close to him, you could see the freckles he’d gotten from the sun, and the little moles he’d had before that you hadn’t really noticed before this moment. You studied the curve of his nose, the lines of his plush lips, all the details of his handsome face. You wanted to touch him, you wanted to feel his face with your hands, your breasts, your inner thighs.

One of his hands moved slowly around your hip toward your ass, lightly tracing his fingers there, his touch so gentle you could barely feel him. He moved around the swell of your ass and straight up your spine, watching you shiver as he moved. You looked up at him through hooded eyes, arching your back and wordlessly begging him to touch or even just look at your breasts.

Namjoon looked down, admiring you finally, and he leaned in so that his mouth was less than an inch from yours. You closed your eyes and could almost feel his mouth on yours. You felt his warm breath on your skin and nearly whined, a small moan escaping you. His hands traced up your ribcage, resting just below you breasts. Other than his hands, he didn’t touch you, though the rest of him was close enough to tease your skin with light touches and traces in the water.

His hands were so big and strong, you thought you might pass out just thinking about what he could do to you. His fingers touched the undersides of your breasts, moving upwards so slowly.

“This game,” he said then, pulling back completely and smirking at you.

You should’ve known.

You sighed and rolled your eyes as he moved back in the water, looking at you with a shit-eating grin on his face. You knew you were flushed and hot and bothered, and he’d gotten you so desperate in such a short amount of time, all but begging him to touch you.

Two could play this game.

***

It had to have been about ten days or so on the island by now.

You had yet to see a boat, plane, or any hint of other humans existing within a hundred miles of you. You would’ve been nearing the end of your cruise by now, you thought with a sigh. You had yet to get your period, guessing that was about due next week, and you were not looking forward to that experience at all.

The day after your game with Namjoon at the spring, you’d finished making the “HELP” letters and Namjoon had gotten a fire going. He’d eaten some bananas that night and didn’t get sick, so you considered that a success.

In the following days, you both got used to your routines. Namjoon worked on getting his strength up. He ran laps around the island, did push-ups, swam in the ocean — staying close to the beach, at your insistence. You even caught him lifting large rocks at one point, and made fun of him for that quite a bit. He’d insisted that he was doing it just to test if his strength was fully back yet or not.

You both went fishing and hunting. Namjoon made a spear like he’d said, sharpening the point on his belt buckle and using one of your suspenders to secure it there. He found and killed a small boar, which you roasted over the fire and split between the two of you. Namjoon made a joke about you eating a baby Pumbaa, which made you want to hit him. The following day you caught a huge fish and split that, too, though Namjoon seemed to not like seafood all that much.

You tested one of the fruits you didn’t know over a few days and found it was edible and wouldn’t kill you, and when you brought it back to your little camp proudly, Namjoon was sitting by the fire, cleaning the fish he’d caught that day.

“Noni?” he said, looking up at you as you walked over.

“Huh?”

“The thing you’re holding,” he said, motioning up toward your hands. “It’s called noni fruit.”

You looked down at the fruit you were holding. You’d spent days testing to make sure it wasn’t poisonous, and had wanted to present a new food to him as a nice surprise, and Namjoon had known the whole time what it was. Figured.

You had a fish and noni fruit dinner, finished off with coconut meat and milk and a leaf of water split between you afterwards. You didn’t have many complaints food-wise. You figured the two of you were about as lucky as you could get not to have ended up on an island with nothing, and even luckier to have ended up on an island at all. The place you’d landed pretty much served up all you needed to eat, and the only thing you really had to work for was meat, but even that helped give you something to do.

That night, you both sat by the fire talking for hours. You’d done a lot of that since you got used to your routines and set everything up. There wasn’t very much to do, besides hunt, collect fruit, and keep the fire going so potential rescuers could see it and the smoke.

Every night, you slept right beside each other, cuddled together. In the light you both were cocky and play-fought each other, teasing and bickering, but at night you held onto each other, neither pointing out aloud how much you depended on each other. A few times, you’d started crying in the middle of the night, and Namjoon always hugged you tighter and stroked your hair and told you it was going to be okay. You’d done the same for him when he’d broken down, and learned that night how much he liked and was comforted by you stroking his hair and humming to him. You were both so terrified, and at night you clung to each other like you were still lost and adrift in the middle of the sea.

When you went to bed that night, Namjoon just wore his boxers and you your panties and his dress shirt. You washed your clothes in intervals, wearing one outfit for two days or so and washing the other at some point in that time period. Namjoon was pretty much always shirtless now, to your delight, so he alternated between his dress pants, which he’d ripped into shorts, and boxers. You’d basically torn apart your bra when you got the underwire out to use, so now you alternated between your dress and Namjoon’s shirt. Both of you were clinging to the last semblances of modesty and normality you had left for as long as you could.

Tonight you laid facing in, turned away from Namjoon and the ocean, and after you’d been laying there for a while, you felt him turning toward you. He wrapped his arms around you, nuzzling his face into your hair, the tip of his nose touching your scalp. Your legs were bent and he bent his too, right along behind you, fully pressing his body against you from nose to feet. He was so gentle with you, and you immediately, reflexively, melted back into him. Namjoon exhaled, a hint of a small moan in his deep sigh.

You only ever felt truly safe at night, like this in his arms.

***

You woke up in the middle of the night. Namjoon was asleep, his erection pressed hard against your ass, and you sighed, snuggling back against him, using the slight friction for warmth. You loved when you woke up and could feel he was hard. The tension between the two of you had yet to be resolved, and nothing had happened after that day in the spring. You wanted him so bad your pussy almost ached when you looked at him, and when you woke up and could feel his huge length hard against you, it always made you shift and snuggle back into him, loving the feeling and idea of him being aroused by you so much, even if he was asleep.

He groaned in reaction to your movement. Still asleep, his arms tightened around you and pulled you even closer against him, holding onto you firmly with his muscular arms you loved so much.

He smelled so good. Earthy, like sea salt and smoke from the fire still burning a few yards away, with a hint of coconut and his musky natural scent and pheromones. You wished you could just lay here and smell this forever.

You turned over slowly, careful not to wake him. Once you were facing him, you nuzzled in against his chest. Namjoon tightened his arms around you again, sighing.

Facing him was even better. He was so warm and smelled so good, and you were right up against his bare chest. This close, you could see the hints of very slight stubble on his chin and the freckles across his face and shoulders from all the sun he’s been getting. Namjoon was so broad and muscular and big, and you brought one of your hands up to rest over his heart, very subtly feeling his pectoral muscle and heartbeat.

At your touch, Namjoon’s eyes shot open and he rolled both of your bodies, moving so that he was directly over you, straddling you, his face buried in against you neck.

You let out a small squeal in surprise, grinning and gasping in delight. He moved slowly, grinding his erection into you as he let out a low growl. You moaned, your eyes rolling back in your head as you felt his thick, hot length pressed against you through his boxers.

“What are you doing, Y/N?” he murmured against your neck, moving so that his lips brushed your skin while slowing down the pace of his grinding to downright torturous. He had to know that he was rubbing right against your clit, every sudden movement making you gasp.

“Nothing,” you said, your voice high-pitched and breathy.

You couldn’t see his face — the only thing you could see was the low light from the fire yards away dancing across the ceiling of the shelter above you — but you could feel him. The tip of his nose touched your pulse point on your neck. His breath both warmed and made goosebumps spread across you skin. He braced himself with both arms, caging you there, his hips grinding into yours.

“Are you sure?” he murmured right against your ear, his breath hot.

“Yes,” you said, closing your eyes. Right after he’d finished speaking, he’d taken your earlobe between his teeth and pulled gently. Your fingers dug into his bare shoulders, holding onto him desperately as he moved against you still.

“Tell me to get off,” he said, his voice so deep and gravelly and low you had to close your eyes. The tip of his nose traced your jaw playfully as he spoke. “Tell me you don’t want this, and I’ll get off and never touch you again.”

You wrapped your legs around his waist, your centers pressed together fully through your thin clothes.

“Don’t get off.”

He didn’t even respond. Namjoon thrust so hard against you, your entire body rocked. He did so repeatedly, quickly humping and grinding against you through both his boxers and your panties. All you could hear was his breathing directly against your ear, low growls and breathy moans escaping him through the exertion of how forcefully he was moving. He was saying something you could barely understand, though you thought you heard “Yeah, you fucking like that?” after you moaned loudly.

You tried to meet his thrusts but he moved one of his hands down to grab your hips, roughly holding you in place.

“You’re so fucking good, so beautiful,” he growled, biting along your jaw. “I wanna fuck you forever, baby. God, I wish we could, so fucking bad.”

Before you could say anything, a sudden loud thump hit the roof of your shelter, and you both jumped and froze, waiting and listening for any other sounds.

Your heart raced. Namjoon looked down at you, eyes wide, and slowly moved off of you, shifting to his knees and then to a standing position outside the shelter.

He grabbed the spear from where it leaned against the tree, slowly walking where you couldn’t see him. You quickly jumped up too, watching him walk around the shelter, looking for what had made the noise.

He bent over and you couldn’t see him, and then stood up again, holding a coconut. You both looked up above you: you had set up your shelter underneath a palm tree that now had three coconuts hanging from it, and a fourth had just fallen and hit the roof of your lean-to.

You both laughed in relief, and Namjoon tossed the coconut behind him into the jungle, since you had no way of cracking into a non-baby coconut.

Namjoon walked straight for you then, throwing the spear off to the side. His eyes were dark and intense, and when he reached where you stood, he picked you up by your thighs, wrapping your legs around him as he sucked on your neck roughly, carrying you back to the shelter. His hands ran over your back underneath the shirt as he walked, feeling your bare skin desperately, and you tilted your head back in ecstasy and gasped, completely willing to let him do whatever he wanted to you.

He laid you down inside the shelter, his mouth still connected to you. He kissed you roughly, hungrily, claiming your mouth with his own, his tongue so deep inside you. You wrapped your legs around Namjoon tighter, pulling him down against you harder. He kissed you ravenously, one of his hands behind your head, knotting in your hair, holding your head just how he wanted you.

You could feel his erection through his boxers and your soaking wet panties. He ground himself against you roughly, bucking his hips, again nearly fucking you just like this through both your clothes.

“I’ve wanted you under me since the moment I saw you,” he growled against your ear, biting at your jaw. “So fucking beautiful.” He dipped his tongue into your mouth, so deep you swore you felt him in your throat, growling again.

You loved every moment of this. He moved so desperately, he was rough with you without hurting you, and god, the things coming out of his mouth were obscene. Namjoon brought his lips to your ear and whispered all the things he wanted to do to you, all while grinding himself against you harder and harder. You nearly cried out, just his words and his hips bringing you close already as you felt him moving against your clit through your clothes. His voice was deep and gravelly, contrasting his usual smooth-as-honey tone. You felt his growls and moans deep within you, all the way to your tight, throbbing core.

“–And then when you’re writhing and begging me, your beautiful legs spread so wide, I’ll kiss your pussy, taste your sweet, wet cunt. I bet you taste so fucking good, don’t you, baby? I can feel how wet you are right now, and it’s all for me. I wanna kiss and lick every inch of you so bad, I swear I could swallow you whole. Do you want me to call you ‘baby girl,’ sweetheart?”

“Yes,” you gasped, clawing at his back.

“I knew you would,” he growled against your ear, still thrusting against you, and you could almost feel his smile. “I want to kiss every inch of your beautiful skin, baby girl. I want to bring you pleasure with just my mouth, I want to please you, praise you, worship you. I want you to know what I can do to you. I want to feel you cum for me and taste you as you cum all over my face. I think about that so much, baby.”

His hips bucked faster, spreading his knees apart to spread your legs even farther as you whimpered from his filthy words.

“You think about me?” you managed to say, your voice so much higher than normal, you barely recognized yourself.

Without answering, he brought his mouth to yours, the tip of his tongue nearly touching the back of your throat again as he tilted his head, trying to dive deeper still. He kissed you and fucked your mouth with his tongue, groaning obscenely into your mouth when you sucked on his tongue.

He parted from you after a moment, gasping for air. He kissed along your jaw as best as he could while trying to get his breath back, and bit at your earlobe playfully again before answering.

“You’re the only thing I think about, baby girl,” he growled, bringing one hand to your breast, squeezing roughly. “I imagine fucking you on your hands and knees and making you scream for me, stuffing you full of my cum ’til it’s dripping out of you. I imagine making love to you, so fucking sweet, holding you so tight to me as I take you over and over, holding you like you could break. But I know you can take it. I know you like it rough, princess. And I’ll do anything you want. You want me to make you feel good, even if it hurts too, because you like it. You like pain with your pleasure, don’t you, princess?”

“Yes,” you moaned, arching your back up against him, so far gone by just his words and him dry-humping you through your clothes. How he’d managed to work you up this much without even touching you under your clothes was beyond you.

“I wanna fucking drown in you,” he growled, your earlobe between his teeth again. He pushed himself fully against you, so hard you could feel his cock throbbing. “I bet you feel so fucking good, and taste even better. I wanna fuck you every moment of every day.”

You couldn’t take it anymore. You brought your legs down from around him, and Namjoon started to move off of you, surprised and confused. You only let him move enough so you could get your panties down and off of you and the buttons on your shirt undone, and then you brought him back down to you, pulling his boxers down to his knees and letting his erection spring free, bobbing up against his stomach, painfully hard. God, he was big, so long and thick and perfect. Your mouth watered just looking at him, already so eager to be filled up and stretched out by him.

“I don’t have a condom,” Namjoon said, biting his lip and holding himself off of you as you wrapped your legs around him again.

“Obviously,” you deadpanned, looking up at him. You giggled, shaking your head. “What? You mean you didn’t run down to the store and buy any?”

“Shut up,” he grumbled, hiding the smile he had from your teasing.

“Don’t worry,” you said, sobering after a moment of your giggles, your need for him taking over. You spoke quickly, nearly babbling in your excitement and need. “I have an IUD. Birth control for two years, no condoms needed. The doctor said it’s more than ninety-nine percent effective and it’s the most effective of all the birth controls, bla bla bla, and it may be stupid but I’m definitely willing to take that risk right now. Now get inside me.” You tried to pull him closer to your throbbing core where you needed him so badly with your legs, but Namjoon stilled above you.

“Huh?” he said, tilting his head and looking down at you. He didn’t follow, mostly because he was completely lost in a haze of lust, barely seeing straight, and you realized that you had kind of spoken about a hundred miles a second. His eyes twinkled in the light of the fire, but they looked glazed over, lost in his desire. He was breathing hard and already breaking a sweat, and you could feel his heart racing, his whole body throbbing from his need.

“I have a birth control implant in my uterus that lasts two years,” you said much slower, calming yourself down and looking him in the eye. You put your hands on either side of his face, making him focus. “Basically, I can’t get pregnant for at least another eighteen months. Now get inside me, daddy.” You added the last bit with a smirk, watching his reaction as all of that slowly sunk in.

Your words registered with Namjoon, and he immediately jumped into action, apparently also willing to take the less than one percent risk of pregnancy. You figured this island might be the actual worst place on the planet to get pregnant, but you trusted your IUD enough and were so far gone in your lust, you were willing to be stupid.

Namjoon reached down and lined himself up with your entrance, and then thrust into you in one smooth motion. You cried out as he stretched you, and he kissed you, swallowing your moans. A deep, broken noise escaped him as he felt your walls clenching down on him and adjusting to his size.

“You feel so fucking good, I knew you would,” he groaned, his words turning into a whiney moan as pleasure almost completely overwhelmed him. He was so big, and even though you were soaking wet, it was a tight fit. You’d had a while of intense foreplay and dry-humping, and now both of you were barely holding on by a thread.

“Keep talking, naughty boy,” you said, pulling his hair. You tightened your legs around him, and he began slowly moving, muttering praise and more dirty talk, his nose and mouth directly against your skin on your neck.

“Your pussy’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever felt, baby girl. You’re so fucking good, I’ve wanted this for so fucking long. I wanna make you feel so good, sweetheart, that’s all I want, I–” He cut himself off as he picked up his pace, and you arched your back and brought your legs up even higher around him. One of his hands held onto your thigh, bracing himself and holding you in place exactly how he wanted you. “You feel so fucking good, Y/N…” He moved his hips so quickly, you knew you both weren’t going to last.

You knew exactly what you needed for him to do to push you over the edge. You reached down and took his hand he wasn’t using to support himself, and brought it up to your throat. You squeezed your hand around his, making him choke you.

Namjoon took the hint and squeezed his hand tighter, and you gasped, your vision going blurry as he pumped pure bliss into you body. Every stroke filled you perfectly, the head of his cock hitting you deeper and deeper with every thrust, stroking a spot within you that made you see stars as his thick girth stretched you out. You tried to bring your legs up even higher around him, and then he was hitting you at the exact perfect angle.

You tried to scream out in pure uninhibited pleasure, but his hand on your neck made the noise choked off and broken. The hand that wasn’t around your neck was in your hair now, and he squeezed his fingers there too, just hard enough to hurt. He pulled you so that you head tilted back almost painfully, showing off your neck to him as he squeezed there tighter.

Namjoon’s movements were becoming erratic and brutal. He wasn’t speaking anymore, just moaning and grunting. He loosened his grip on your neck just long enough for you to wheeze in a shaky breath. Tears streamed down your cheeks from the force of it all, your eyes watering from asphyxiation and pure pleasure. His thrusts filled you so hard, you were sure the sound of his skin smacking against yours could be heard on the other side of the island, if they weren’t drowned out by both of your moans.

Namjoon buried his face in against your neck, his nose against your rapid pulse and feeling you trying to breathe and moan, his hand now squeezing your throat harder again. You couldn’t even see anymore, the only things your mind registered were his voice and the feelings of his cock moving inside you and his hand on your throat.

“God, you’re so fucking tight,” he groaned. “Your pussy’s so fucking perfect, I could fuck you forever. I wanna cum in your tight little pussy just so I can lick it clean. You want that? You want me to eat your perfect cunt, princess?” He paused long enough to lick once up the side of you face, slowly, his tongue wide, which would’ve made you gasp if you could breathe.

He rubbed his cheek against yours roughly, completely animalistic and primal, as he continued. “I’m gonna make you fucking scream, I’m gonna make you cum so hard you can’t see, can’t walk, can’t think. I’m gonna fuck you so good, the only thing you’ll know how to say is my name. Fuck, you’re so good. Scream when you cum for me, baby, or I’ll spank your ass raw.”

If you had any air within you, you would’ve screamed as you came. Instead, you tried to gasp, unable to inhale at all with Namjoon’s hand tight on your throat, and he only moved himself harder and harder, savagely pulling every drop of pleasure from your body. You’d never felt anything like this, your orgasm completely overpowering you. He must’ve loosened his hold on your throat, because you somehow screamed, and he came right as he heard you and felt you clenching and spasming around him.

Namjoon quickly pulled out, finishing himself off with his hand on your stomach, his head buried in your neck as he kept himself mostly up off of you. You gasped desperately, his hand gone now as he stroked himself furiously with it, thrusting into his own fist as if he just couldn’t make himself stop, moaning in pure ecstasy as he fucked his own hand and spilled his cum all over your stomach.

Namjoon let out a noise from deep within him and just barely managed to keep himself from collapsing on top of you when he finished. Instead, he held himself up with his arms and knees, giving you plenty of room to breathe and recover as you both gasped for air. His arms and legs shook like at any moment his limbs might give out, but he focused solely on keeping himself up. You noticed, and you turned your head and kissed the corner of his mouth, trying to pull his body down onto you with all of your limbs wrapping around him.

He reluctantly let himself rest his weight on you, only partially. You didn’t mind; if anything, you loved feeling him on top of you. Feeling the weight of his big, perfect body was so comforting, and you still just wanted to be closer to him. His cum pressed between your bodies, smearing on both your stomachs as he let himself put more of his weight on you. It was a sticky mess, but god, it felt so dirty and filthy and good.

After a moment of catching his breath, Namjoon started kissing your shoulder. He peppered your skin with his love, his breathing still deep and slow, his voice in his breath muffled against your skin as he moaned with almost every exhale, and the sound was music to your ears.

He made his way down your body slowly, and you only had the energy to lay there and enjoy being worshipped. His tongue circled one of your nipples, and you brought your hands to his hair, knotting there. He sucked your nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it lazily, and you arched your back, letting out a lazy moan and closing your eyes.

He kissed down to your stomach and started licking you, tasting his own cum and your sweat from the exertion of what you’d just done. He held you with both hands, holding you perfectly in place, his hands nothing but gentle as his fingertips skimmed along your ribs and his tongue lapped up every drop on your stomach, licking you clean, just as promised.

As Namjoon licked his cum off of you, he moved his mouth so slowly, so gently, so sweetly, like he wanted to do just this for days. He moved down your body slowly though, and dipped his tongue into your belly button playfully when he reached it. You felt him smiling against your skin when you giggled in reaction.

He got to your legs and spread your thighs gently. He kissed your cunt so chastely, his lips pressed together like he was a gentleman kissing a lady’s hand. He tilted his head and kissed your folds, his mouth opening and his tongue moving on you. You knotted your hands in his hair and moaned as he dipped his clever, evil tongue into you.

“Joon,” you moaned, spreading your legs wider, and Namjoon moaned back to you in response, the noise muffled against your pussy.

He opened his mouth as wide as he could, covering you from entrance to clit, and then he started sucking roughly, drinking you, tilting his head as if kissing you deeper as he slowly moved his lips back together and slurped. You cried out, pulling his hair roughly as the new source of such intense pleasure overwhelmed you. As he sucked, he thrust his tongue in and out of you rapidly, fucking you with his tongue and moving his whole head around like he was trying to fucking motorboat your pussy, or maybe attempting to bury his head inside you.

He closed his lips on you with an obscene wet slurping noise and started drinking at your entrance, his tongue quickly lapping into you as you felt nothing but his talented mouth.

“Joonie, that feels so good,” you moaned, trying to thrust up against him. He groaned against you and moved his hands then, grabbing your ass with both hands and pulling you tighter against his face. Namjoon sucked and drank and fucked you with his tongue, every moment such sweet bliss.

He’d planned to work your entrance for a while before going up to your clitoris, but you didn’t even last that long. Your whole body shook when you came, holding onto his hair with both hands. This time you did scream fully, and you thought you heard birds all over the island flapping away from the trees, as if spooked by the noise. You scream-moaned with every exhale, and Namjoon kept moving his mouth and holding you close to him, working you through your orgasm roughly.

You laid there gasping, staring at the ceiling of the shelter, dazed and fucked out and so far gone. As you recovered, you felt Namjoon leaving hickeys on your inner thighs and hipbones, entertaining himself with marking your skin.

You glanced down at Namjoon when you felt him pulling back. He stared up at you, eyes dark and mouth nearly dripping from your wetness. After a moment of eye contact, he leaned in again and licked you slit, as if he were trying to lick up the new wetness that now dripped from you from your orgasm. He watched your reactions as he slowly worked, seeing you spasm and squirm as you moaned and arched you back again in overstimulation.

Namjoon pulled back again and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand before climbing on top of you. He moved in close, pulling your legs up around him and nuzzling his face in against your neck.

“You taste so fucking good, baby,” he murmured, his deep voice a low rumble, grinding his erection against your stomach, hard again just from eating you out. “I knew you would. So fucking sweet, princess, I can’t get enough of you. I’m gonna eat your beautiful pussy forever.”

Namjoon slid into you again and you screamed, full-out actually screamed, crying out in ecstasy and overstimulation as you gripped at his sweaty shoulders. You swore he was going to kill you, he felt so good.

“God, baby, keep sounding like that and I really will fuck you forever,” he groaned, his hands on your body squeezing you tighter.

This time he moved so much slower, holding himself up with his arms and spread knees. He kissed your mouth, slowly moving his tongue deep within you, hitting the deepest corners of your mouth and completely dominating you as he moved his tongue in time with his hips. His large arms caged your head, and he was the only thing you could see or feel at all.

He pulled his mouth back enough just to say, "See how good you taste?” before dipping his tongue back into you, hungrily, so slowly claiming your mouth. He growled when you started sucking on his tongue, thrusting in hard once and circling his hips when he was inside you as deep as he could get.

You moaned into his mouth and he moaned right back, not taking his mouth off yours as he kissed you and rolled his hips over and over, just fast enough to keep you desperate. He pinned one of you arms down above your head by your wrist, holding it down tightly but not painfully, lacing his fingers with yours.

As Namjoon moved, you felt him becoming more and more desperate. He began bucking his hips, kissing the corner of your mouth sloppily. His breathing picked up as his pace did, and he gasped, the two of you cheek to cheek as he brought one of his hands down to hold onto your hip.

You started encouraging him. “Yes… fuck, you’re so big. Fuck my tight little pussy, Joon,” you groaned, tilting your head back as he slammed into you so hard and fast you could barely breathe. He moaned with every exhale, so far gone, only moments away from falling apart again.

“What’d you fucking call me?” he growled, not stopping or slowing his pace at all.

“Joon?” you moaned, closing you eyes.

Instead of answering, he suddenly bit down on your neck so hard it had to have broken skin. You cried out, and as Namjoon kept biting down and kept thrusting, going even faster somehow, you kept screaming, short cries with each exhale between desperate gasps for oxygen.

“Joon,” you repeated, loving every moment of this, and he bit down again, harder, now where your neck met your shoulder. You felt the sharp pain in your shoulder throb, and it felt incredible, the pulsing matching that in your aching cunt. He licked at the part of your skin between his teeth, and you swore you felt him moaning.

You repeated “Joon” one more time, and Namjoon stopped suddenly, pulling back and glaring down at you, seething. Saliva and traces of your wetness covered his chin and lips, a wild look in his eyes.

“Call me that one more fucking time,” he snarled, “And you’ll fucking regret it, you little slut.”

You must’ve looked scared, because Namjoon’s eyes immediately softened, a concerned, terrified look on his face. He leaned in and kissed your cheek gently, murmuring against your skin.

“Only if you want to, sweetheart.” He kissed your cheek again. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you just surprised me,” you said, your voice so small and high-pitched you barely recognized it. “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, angel. I’m sorry I scared you. I’ll never do that ever again.” He nuzzled in against your neck gently. He was still inside you, your bodies joined so perfectly, and he shifted his hips, trying to get even closer to you.

“You can do it again, I was just taken by surprise this time,” you said. “I’m sorry I kept calling you Joon.”

“No, it’s my fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. You can call me anything you want. I won’t do anything like that ever again, I promise, sweetheart. I’m sorry.” He kissed along your neck, avoiding the bite marks he’d left there before.

“I want you to do it again.”

Namjoon froze when you said that. He pulled back just enough to look at you and see your serious expression.

“Yeah?” he said, watching you carefully with a small smile spreading on his face.

“Yeah.” You nodded, biting your lip and looking up at him through your lashes. “I want you to fuck me like I’m your little slut, daddy.”

He flinched when you said that, apparently no longer in that kind of mood, so you corrected yourself.

“Namjoon,” you corrected, smiling up at him. “Joon,” you added, smiling, and Namjoon smiled too.

Namjoon moved to the other side of your neck, pressing kisses on your skin there. One of his hands went up to your ribs, just under your breast, resting there lightly as his mouth teased you.

“Tell me exactly what to do and I’ll do it, angel,” he murmured, his breath hot in your ear.

You could tell that he was trying to make up for his perceived wrongdoing by saying he’d do anything, and that he really just wanted to take it slow and gentle right now, scared out of his rough ‘daddy’ mood he’d been in before.

“Make love to me,” you moaned, holding onto his shoulders, and Namjoon complied.

Rolling his hips, he moved slowly in you, not lazily, but deliberate. Every gentle thrust brought your bodies closer together, the head of his cock stroking you so deep, exactly where you wanted him. You moaned, encouraging him with how good he made you feel.

He whispered soft praises in you ear. “You’re so beautiful, Y/N. I’ve never felt anything so good, ever. You’re so tight, so wet for me, so perfect,” he said, holding your body tightly to his. “I could make love to you forever. You taste so good, and feel even better. Your pussy’s like milk and honey. Like warm, wet silk.”

Your orgasm was gentle this time. Namjoon had to work for it, making love to you exactly as you’d asked, and when you finally came you let out a long, anguished moan that made him gasp and still, cumming into you as he felt you clenching down on him so tight. You froze when you heard what he was saying as he came, muttering almost unintelligibly as he spilled into you and hugged you.

“Don’t leave me. Please, don’t ever leave me here alone. I need you. Please, please, I need you, I love you. Please….”

This time he did collapse on you, completely spent. He breathed in sharply, rasping for air, and got himself off of you as soon as he could, propping himself up on his knees and forearms. You breathed steadily and tried to will your heart to stop beating so fast and hard as you looked up at him.

Namjoon started to roll off of you, but you leaned up and kissed him, holding onto the back of his head. He rolled anyway, keeping your mouths connected, both of you rolling until you were on top. He hugged you tightly, your breasts squeezed against his chest, and he moved one hand behind your head to hold onto your hair, pulling it back from your face for you.

You pulled back just enough to look down at him. He looked completely love-struck, hearts in his eyes as he gazed up at you, a lazy smile on his face. You could barely see his face in the darkness, the dying fire and the moon’s reflection on the water your only light. The warm red glow of the fire covered one side of his face and twinkled in his eyes.

You cupped his face, stroking your thumb on his adorable round cheeks. Namjoon closed his eyes and snuggled into your hand, letting out a small sigh. His hands rested on you lower back, his fingers drawing small lazy circles. You turned and kissed his cheek gently, closing your eyes too.

***

You weren’t aware of it, but you’d fallen asleep like that on top of him. When you woke up in the morning, you were still laying on top of him, your face turned in toward his neck, your cheek on his shoulder. Your hand rested over his heart, feeling his steady heartbeat, and you rose and fell gently with his breathing. Namjoon was still asleep, but his hands were where you’d last felt them, on your lower back.

He must’ve felt you stirring, because started Namjoon waking up slowly, too. You heard his deep sigh-moan as he stretched his muscles, and when he realized what was on top of his body and under his hands, he smiled lazily, bringing his arms up to squeeze you in a lazy hug.

“Good morning, baby,” he said, his husky voice so deep from his sleep.

You pulled yourself up, sitting up and straddling him as you stretched your arms. The ocean seemed louder today, the waves nearby crashing on the shore. The breeze was just a little stronger than normal, but the sun was bright, not a cloud in the sky.

You looked down at Namjoon and saw him staring at your breasts, mouth all but watering, eyes darkening from lust already.

“I see you staring,” you smirked, rolling your eyes.

“I wasn’t hiding it,” he said, matching your playful tone but still not taking his eyes off you chest. His hands rested on your thighs, holding you in place where you straddled him, his thumbs drawing small circles on your hipbones.

“I slept on you last night,” you said then after a moment. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” he said quickly, looking up at you. “Don’t be sorry. Do it again, as much as you want.”

“Really?” you asked, incredulous. “It doesn’t bother you, having a person laying on top of you as you sleep?”

“It feels amazing. Kind of comforting, too. And not to be rude, because I know talking about weight is a bad thing for a lot of girls, but you barely weigh anything and I love feeling you on top of me,” he said, his eyes so dark and intense and loving and playful all at once.

You shifted. You knew you didn’t weigh nothing, but hearing that he loved feeling you on top of him made your heart flutter.

You knew where this conversation was going, and you cut it off before it got there. You had shit to do today before more fucking.

“All right, we need to get up,” you said.

Namjoon groaned, his hands on your thighs gently massaging you. “Why?” he whined.

“We need to eat breakfast so we can keep our strength up, and I want to take a coconut milk bath at the spring.”

Namjoon’s eyes lit up. “Can I–”

“Yes, you can join me,” you said before he could finish.

Namjoon sat up, kissing you deeply and wrapping his arms around you.

***

After breakfast, your bath at the spring consisted of ten percent bathing and ninety percent fucking in the water. You wrapped your legs around him and he thrust up into you, holding onto your hair and pulling your body closer to his.

Namjoon carried you back to your shelter bridal-style, both of you giggling the whole way. When you got there, Namjoon fucked you on your hands and knees, his hand resting on your lower spine as he thrust into you savagely, his hips smacking against your ass so hard it sounded like he was spanking you. He did actually spank you at one point with his hand, and you came near instantly at the feeling.

After that, he laid you down and got down beside you on his side, propping himself up on one arm and looking down at you as you laid on your back. He leaned in and kissed you while his free hand moved down your stomach, his fingers playing with your curls as you spread your legs for him.

You gasped when he stroked your folds, and he smiled, sighing as he looked down at your face. You bit your lip and barely held in a groan as he curled two fingers into your soaking heat.

“You look so fucking beautiful like this,” he groaned. You held onto his wrist with both hands, feeling his tendons moving as he pumped his fingers inside you.

The two of you just laid there, Namjoon fucking you with his fingers and watching you as you reacted, moaning and writhing. His thumb circled your clitoris, pressing hard and moving slowly. You felt his erection against the side of your leg, and he seemed to be holding himself back, not wanting to lose control of himself but already so desperate for friction.

“Please, Namjoon, please,” you moaned, hips rolling, trying to fuck yourself on his hand. “I need you.”

“I’m here,” he murmured, leaning in and kissing the corner of your mouth as your lips fell open, breathing roughly as you felt yourself drawing close. “Let me take care of you, baby.” His fingers picked up their pace and you gasped, coming with a long, breathy moan.

Namjoon almost came just from watching your face in pleasure and feeling you squeezing his fingers. He quickly pulled out and moved on top of you, and even as you gasped for oxygen, you brought you legs up around him, wanting him, wanting this. You cried out when he slid into you, and he brought his fingers up to his mouth and sucked them as he started bucking his hips, desperate to finish himself off.

He held himself up higher off you, not trapping you and keeping you immobile with his body so that this time he could look down at your breasts bouncing with each quick, hard thrust. You arched your back, giving him an even better view and presenting your breasts to him like a gift, and you moaned and squeezed his cock purposefully and brought your legs higher up around him. Namjoon’s breath caught in his throat, his mouth agape and eyes nearly rolling back as he spilled himself into you, his thrusts sloppy and erratic.

Namjoon let out an agonized moan that almost sounded like your name before collapsing on top of you. You held him there with your legs, stroking his hair with one hand and resting the other on his shoulder. You loved feeling him on top of you just as much as he did you.

When he had the strength, he rolled both of you so that he was on his back and you were on top of him, just like how you’d slept. You leaned up about halfway, but Namjoon moved both his hands to your breasts and you stopped. He basically just supported your weight with his hands as he felt you, massaging slowly and watching your flesh between his fingers as he squeezed and kneaded you, your hard nipples against his palms.

You moaned, closing your eyes, and Namjoon lowered you down so that one of his hands was still on your breast while the other held you up by your shoulder and his mouth moved to your nipple, sucking and licking and biting.

After a moment, Namjoon suddenly pushed you up so that you were upright, and then pulled you forward by your thighs. He moved you around his arms and you let him, Namjoon moving your whole body like you were nothing. He positioned you so that you were straddling his face, and you gasped when you felt his tongue moving along your folds, surprised by all he’d just done but immediately tangling your fingers in his hair when you felt him sliding his tongue inside you.

You tilted you head back and closed your eyes, trying to spread your legs even further as Namjoon tried pulling you down on his face harder, both his hands on your ass as he sucked your cunt and fucked you with his tongue, making it rigid for you as you ground down against his face. You could hear him moaning against your pussy, the waves hitting the shore, the obscene slurping noise he always made when he sucked you dry, but there was something else you were hearing, too.

You suddenly froze as you listened, realizing this sound was something new. Namjoon kept going, unaware, but you looked out at the water, biting your lip to hold in a moan.

Out in the distance, a huge ship sat just on the horizon, and your heart skipped a beat when you saw it and realized you weren’t hallucinating. You thought you could see shipping containers on it, and the whole thing had to be the size of a football field. A small inflatable boat with a motor was headed directly for you, and would probably be here in a few minutes, its motor a quiet buzz in the distance.

“Namjoon!” you said, quickly moving off of him and jumping to your feet outside the shelter.

“What..?” he said, dazed, lost in his lust, looking only at you, still laying there on his back. His cock was half hard against his stomach already, his mouth, chin, and cock all glistening from your wetness. You grabbed your dress from its spot hanging on a tree nearby and quickly pulled it on, and Namjoon must’ve looked over and seen the ship and boat too because he started pulling on his boxers as fast as he could, jumping to his feet as well.

You both ran down to the surf, making yourselves much more visible to the people on the smaller boat, waving your arms. You were jumping up and down in your joy, holding onto Namjoon’s arm as you tried to hold in your tears, looking back and forth between him and the boat. Namjoon was grinning ear to ear, moving to hold your hand as he waved his other arm wildly at the smaller boat. You looked up and saw him tearing up too, and when he realized you were looking at him, he turned and kissed you, both of you barely able to press your lips together from smiling so wide.

The boat reached your shore a few minutes later. A cargo ship on its way to New Zealand had seen your fire earlier that morning, and had finally made its way to you after preparing its small rescue boat. You really really hoped they hadn’t seen any of what the two of you had been doing that morning in your lean-to, if they’d been looking at the beach with binoculars or something like that.

The three men on the speedboat had shock blankets and water bottles for the two of you, one of them realizing who you were and saying that the two of you had made big news all over the world the past few weeks. You and Namjoon gathered up your scarce belongings, each carrying the remainders of your clothes, and were escorted onto the little boat to be taken over to the ship.

As you sat in the back of the boat together, you in your faded, torn party dress and Namjoon in his boxers and his unbuttoned, worn-out dress shirt, the two of you cuddled close together, sharing one shock blanket. Namjoon closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against your temple, smiling softly.

“We made it, sweetheart. We’re safe,” he murmured against your cheek before kissing you there. He could tell you were nervous being out on the water again, so he held you close to him, his arm around you and nose nuzzling your cheek.

You tried to stop yourself from crying, but holy shit, you were saved. You weren’t going to die on that island. You were both safe and healthy, and you were together.

#btssmutclub #namjoon smut #bts smut #namjoon #kim namjoon #bts scenario #kim namjoon scenario #namjoon scenario #rm scenario #rm smut #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #marnie text #my writing #i wanted to write some fuckin on a beach and accidentally wrote a fully developed short story

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lilatreus · 3 years

Text

All of my thoughts on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla!

Of course there are major spoilers for the game and ending. I know it’s been out for like three months now but you never know so I’m putting it all under the cut. And yes this is pretty long. A summary is at the end of the entire text.

also pls don’t send me hate like y’all did for what I said about odyssey literally these are just my opinions on the game if u dont care for them pls just skip I have a lot to say about it and there is actually quite a few things that I really enjoyed when playing the game and if u do read it pls don’t hesitate to shoot me messages and talk to me about the game bc I really enjoy the franchise and I need some more people to talk to in this fandom.

What I enjoyed about the game!!

The blending in with the monks/prayers in the streets to get pass the guards!!!!! Dude!!!!! I know it’s like a really small detail but it just made me so happy because it reminded me of when you had to do that in the first assassin’s creed game. It’s a nice touch of nostalgia and really liked it.

The “glitches” (while some were annoying) I’m super super happy that they were kind of bringing back the glyphs from assassins creed two. I loved doing them because I loved trying to get the little movie. It was really nice of them to bring that back so we can get another little movie like the one from AC2 again.

I think we can all agree: Hytham was a great character. I wish he was more involved in the story than already but that’s just me. I really liked his character so much he’s my favorite from the game.

Desmond having some Easter eggs and basically coming back into the series again was great. It was also a nice touch to see the vault from assassins creed three (the place where des dies). It really makes me miss connor and his band of assassins. I miss assassins creed three :( I want more about Connor please put out some more comics with him in it or some easter eggs please I’m begging you. Also fuck u haytham kenway I hate u.

Shaun and Rebecca being back and now it’s canon that they’re together is fucking awesome. I’m actually really happy about that and I missed them so much. I’m glad they’re in the story again. (Rebecca dude I was so worried that she died like no fucking joke I was so upset I thought syndicate really killed her off).

The game itself actually did very well keeping with the lore we were given from assassins creed origins and was actually doing pretty well trying to connect it to the first assassin game.

Speaking of lore I do think they did the best they could to expand upon the not so well liked lore from odyssey and try and fix it but also it did feel a little confusing but I guess that’s just because i didn’t finish the Asgard missions yet so who knows.

The scenery was very very beautiful and I throughly enjoyed walking around and just admiring the view no matter where I was on the map.

Reda just becoming immortal is so funny and the fact that he was just sitting there telling stories about Aya and Bayek.. please my heart. I love them so so much. The letter Bayek wrote??? Soulmates I’m telling you.

Also I did like that they fixed their plot hole for why Bayek and Aya aren’t known for anything history wise in the story (or mainly why Bayek isn’t in the assassin’s history books and Aya, as Amunet, is really the only one written down). I’m very glad that they explained it and I really think I’m just super happy that Bayek was brought back for some easter eggs within the game.

Basim is very handsome and I liked him but I don’t know how to feel about the ending with him. Yes I do love his character and it was super cool to hang around him and do a couple of missions with him but also it felt weird that now you’re technically playing as the bad guy.

Eivor was really cool to play as. I enjoyed running around as them and doing missions. I like the fact that Eivor was basically like “yo you guys [ pointing to the brotherhood ] are fucking crazy but you guys [ pointing to the templars/order of ancients ] are really fucking crazy and weird.” I really loved basically being an assassin and using the hidden blade again. (Yeah I know they technically aren’t an assassin but yknow just an honorary one).

The Canterbury Tales!! The fucking pardoner’s tale!! That was super cool to do I loved those stories and being able to do them in the game made me super happy. I know it doesn’t actually fit the timeline given it wasnt written until like centuries after the game took place but I just thought that side mission was neat!

Fulke was a very cool templar and I thought her character was really really interesting. I wish they did more with her honestly.

What I didn’t like about the game:

So! Speaking of templars! Boy oh boy I have a lot to say for that subject. So for “the order of ancients”:

— I think my biggest problem with this game (as well as odyssey) is that the templars (“OOA”) aren’t actually important to the game anymore. They’re barely in the story now like out of all 20 or so people you have to kill within their order only like 5 or 6 are actually important to the storyline and that’s my biggest problem with it, because now killing the templars is just like a “well since you’re in the area you can kill this dude” and I really hate it. I truly believe that’s why I didn’t like odyssey that much solely bc they made doing the most core part of the video game series a damn side mission and that also goes for Valhalla.

— Also so many of the templar stories, like scenes we get after you kill them, were just so bland. They don’t make them like they used to and that’s another big core part of the series lost.

— They’re straying very far from the main plot of the series and that’s why these last two games didn’t feel anything like an assassin’s creed game. (And you can’t say that “it’s just different because they’re taking place in a time way before the templars were called templars” bc assassins creed origins did very well to changing their game and how they play but also keeping the main goal from previous games: To be an assassin and kill the templars.)

— Also they need to not show us the outline of who the templars are because I could tell who “the father” was as soon as I was able to see the order tab. Please Ubisoft do better.

I know I said this before however the fucking Beowulf mission. My God Did I Hate That. I was really looking forward to the dlc and to see what they did with the story sucked. In Odyssey we got actual Greek monsters and gods and I expected to be given that in Valhalla for the norse deities. And it didn’t happen. (As of right now I can’t comment on the Asgard missions because I haven’t finished them but I’ll probably edit the post and put them in later)

As of right now with the ending and lore shit I’m really kind of indifferent with it. On one hand they are trying to fix the lore that they kind of fucked up in Odyssey by adding more things to explain it better but also that means they added on unnecessary stuff that makes no sense. On the other hand I really hate that Layla is now technically canonically dead because shes now in the grey and basim now has the one thing that would’ve kept her alive. I really wanted them to do more with her like they did with Desmond. I genuinely enjoyed her as a main protagonist and it sucks that she is now dead. Layla deserves so much better honestly!!!!

Also on des: While I don’t want to smack away a fan service gift that includes desmond; it did kind of feel weird that he’s back in the series. Honestly I don’t know how to go about this. I’m super excited that technically desmond is back in a way but on the other hand I wanted them to focus on Layla more and :( Idk man it’s complicated. They have to stop changing the story’s main protagonists Layla deserved to be in more games and hopefully she will be because her “death” felt so cheap. I also wish they explained what happened with her during the year apart from odyssey and Valhalla.

The side missions I have no problem with except for the fact that the little side mission icon just stayed in the place you first show up to to get the mission. I miss the old side mission mechanic bc this new one felt really really confusing and it made me get lost quite a few times.

This one might just be me but I guess they’re expanding more on the gods reincarnating but they’re not focusing on the sages anymore? Like when will Elijah Miles (the newest sage) be shown?? Odyssey fucked up that lore bit but now they’re not even talking about it because any isu god can reincarnate or can take ahold of anyone if they interact with a piece of eden or something. Idk this one little bit is super confusing for me right now and I don’t like that it’s confusing so I will be doing more research on the isu (again) to understand what the fuck is going on with this damn part of the lore.

I know that this is a game where you kill people but this whole game felt so gore-y that I like had to drop it for a bit. Like dude I didn’t really expect that. This one I really feel like is just me. I did not expect to like hear bones breaking when I played it.

The storyline felt kind of all over the place like yes I could understand the big part of the story but also it was all over the fucking place. I just miss the old plot I really do that had a system that was so good it caused several games to follow it’s lead. (I miss AC1 please remaster that damn game)

Also maybe it’s just me but the story felt so slow at the beginning when ur going to England. Literally I hate to say this bc I love this whole series but I was more happy about finally finishing the main storyline than I was while playing the game.

All in all: I did like the game. I did have fun even though some parts were rough. I’m super glad that they got rid/fixed the ship mechanic because I hated every fucking naval battle in assassins creed and that’s something I was worried about doing when I saw that we had longships in the story. The game was enjoyable and it had a lot of great side characters like Hytham, Gunnar, and Yanli. Basim was a treat, though I hope they explain more about him bc I’m going to be honest he’s a bit confusing with this whole loki thing. But yeah this is all I have so far on the game. If you actually read all the way down here comment or like shoot me message to talk about it bc I really really want to talk about the game. Pls pls pls.

#assassin's creed valhalla #ac valhalla #assassins creed #eivor wolfsmal #layla hassan #desmond miles #assassins creed origins #assassins creed odyssey #I’m tagging those two bc I do talk about it within the entire text #I really hope these make sense bc if not they’re just going to sound like ramblings by a crazy person

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artbymintcookies · 4 years

Note

if ur taking requests still.. could we get foggy antagonizing matt in the office? i read a fic once where karen didn't know about dd and came back in the middle of an out of control throwing-shit battle instigated by foggy who kept throwing things at matt's head to see if he could catch them (he could) anyway matt didn't want to out himself to karen so he took a textbook to the face n that scene lives within my brain forevermore

hope you don’t mind more words! Also Idk if this is what you had in mind but these boys are straight up mean to each other. under the cut bc long

wait how did this lowkey turn into a full kinda sad fic i’m so sorry

Foggy was angry at him. He knew this because Foggy had told him as much, but also because there was no way any person who was not driven to insanity through passionate rage would put rancid coffee in the coffeemaker. It was from the tin at the back of the cupboard that no one dared touch, liquid tar sitting in their kitchenette just to waft into Matt’s nose until someone did something about it.

Foggy, meanwhile, had a nice steaming cuppa from the coffeeshop across the street. He had bought one for Karen as well.

Finally, noon rolls around, and the stench had been looming around the office for long enough that he broke. He dumped it into the sink, worsening the smell as it coated the drain.

Tersely, he brought the empty carafe into Foggy’s office and plopped it down onto his desk.

Slowly, Foggy looked up to him.

“Can I help you?” he asked sweetly.

“Do I have something to apologize for?” Matt shot back.

“Was there something off about the coffee?”

“I’m not doing this right now,” he said, storming out of the room and trying to focus.

Foggy clicked his pen when he was peeved. It was usually only semi conscious, with the added benefit that it bored into Matt’s skull every time.

Matt could take precisely 6 minutes of it before he stormed into Foggy’s office, felt around for a capped pen, and replaced it in Foggy’s hand.

“This is a red pen. I’m not writing notes with this,” Foggy said flatly.

“As long as the clicking stops, I don’t care,” Matt retorted. “Is this also part of my torture?”

“I’d hardly call it torture.”

“You’ve been rude to me all week, and I don’t know what I did wrong.”

“If you don’t know, you don’t know.

Foggy continued not to talk to him for another week. Matt developed an urgent need to punch something. So he did, repeatedly and hard, every night for a week, and then he stumbled into Karen’s apartment with bloody knuckles because he sure as hell wasn’t going to talk to Foggy about it.

“Woah, hello there, Mr. Devil. Doesn’t your partner usually look after you?” Karen asked, opening the window to let the man enter.

“‘Usually’ being the operative word,” Matt spit bitterly.

“On the outs again?”

“Rough patch,” he corrected. “I’ll fix it. I just need to find out why he’s being so pissy.”

“Ouch,” Karen deadpanned. “Why can’t he just be legitimately upset at you?”

“I haven’t done anything.”

Karen sighed. “What do we know? Inaction can sometimes be as harmful as action. Willful ignorance, negligence leading to serious harm, what have you.”

Matt paled. “What did I miss?”

“Well, a couple weeks ago, you were supposed to meet Foggy for dinner with his mother.”

“The Rosalind dinner,” he said, horror dawning on his face. “I had to stop a bombing on the other side of town. Did he do it himself?”

“I had to come to his rescue, a half hour late. Apparently, when he had told her she’d be meeting his partner, she had assumed he had meant business partner. She congratulated us on our engagement, by the way.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean, she hated that I was the tardy type. She said she’d ‘loathe to have her son tethered to a flaky type.’ Now, usually, I would hate to agree with the reason Foggy has to take Xanax, but just this once, I see where she’s coming from.”

“I’m so sorry.”

She shrugged. “Don’t tell that to me. I wasn’t the one losing out there. Foggy is a surprisingly good kisser.”

“Okay, yeah. Just invite me to the wedding,” Matt waved at her over his shoulder, booking it out the window.

“You owe me one!” she called after him.

The window to Foggy’s bedroom had a trick lock. Normally, it wouldn’t matter because he lived on the 11th floor and no one was ever trying to open it from the outside. Matt thought maybe he should let Foggy know as he shook it open and climbed inside. He could hear Foggy in the kitchen, which wasn’t good because it smelled like he was eating sugar cookies at 11pm, which was a definite depression meal.

“Hey,” Matt said, tapping Foggy on the shoulder. He dropped his plate and it shattered in a deafening noise.

“Get out.” Barely a whisper, and barely concealed irritation.

“I came to apologize.” He put his hands above his head in a show of surrender. “I’m sorry I missed dinner. I’m sorry you had to suffer Rosalind alone.”

Foggy paused for a long moment and shoved him out of the way to get a broom.

“I wasn’t alone. I had Karen.”

“Congratulations on your engagement, by the way.”

It earned Matt a jab in the ribs. It wasn’t gentle, but it wasn’t as violent as it could have been, so he took it as a good sign. “Shut up, I’m still mad at you.”

“And how can we expedite your anger so you go back to loving me?” Matt was suddenly glad no one else seemed to be able to hear heartbeats, because it was hammering in his chest. His palms were clammy in his gloves. What if Foggy still refused?

Foggy was silent as he cleaned up the stray ceramic. The pieces jangled into the trash before he spoke. “Just be better, Matt. I’ve been begging you for years.”

Shedding his gloves, he places them carefully on the counter, and his mask along with it. He felt all the ways his hair is disheveled, the myriad directions it was being pulled. He wanted to look away, but he needed Foggy to see his face.

“I can’t do that if you don’t give me another chance.”

“How many more will it take, Matty? How many other chances am I supposed to give you?”

“I’ll get it right one day, don’t you think?” He tried to smile sheepishly, and hoped it didn’t read as smug.

“Your track record says otherwise.”

Matt frowned, felt his muscles lurch downward grotesquely. He took a step forward and reached for Foggy’s hand. It was selfish, but he wanted to chase it when Foggy slipped out of his grasp. “I can’t lose you, Fogs. Don’t tell me that ship’s already sailed.”

A sigh. “You know, for the first time since maybe ever, I think Rosalind was actually proud of me. She was happy that there’s a firm out there with my name on it big enough to have employees, and that it’s competent enough to win cases more than it loses. I mean, I’m still poor as dirt, but at least I’m not a failure. She was proud that I found a smart and pretty woman to love me. You know what she said?”

“Foggy-”

“She said, ‘thank God you’re not so attached to that Murdock fellow anymore. You were getting a little codependent, were you not?’ I mean, what can I say to that? It’s not like it wasn’t true. She had investigators look you up. Came in with a stack of files three inches thick on everything that you’ve done that might reflect badly on me. And that’s just the Murdock side of you. Can you imagine if they found out about Daredevil?”

Matt felt his chin quiver.

“She called it a proposal. She wanted us to split. And it was so tempting, you know? All these years later, chasing her green light. Pathetic, don’t you think?”

“Is this a break up?”

Foggy shook his head. “No, Matt. I told her to fuck off, and that you’re my best friend and that she won’t be the one to split us up. Stormed out of there faster than Rosalind could be billed. Because I show up, for you, Murdock. I can’t do this if it’s not reciprocal.”

“It’s reciprocal I swear. I had- I’m sorry, I know it’s not an excuse, but there was a bombing on the other side of town.”

“Yeah, in Queens. You could have let Spider-Man handle it. Hell, he showed up to the scene faster than you did, according to the Bugle.”

Matt scrubbed at his face. “Okay, maybe Rosalind scares me a bit,” he admitted.

Finally, it got a chuckle out of Foggy. Dry and barely amused, but present nonetheless. “Yeah, she scares me, too.”

Before they could help it, they were laughing and collapsing onto the floor, and melting into each other’s arms.

“I really am sorry, you know. I’ll never let you face her alone ever again,” promised Matt, finding Foggy’s pinky finger to loop it around his own.

“See to it that you do. And you’re paying next time.”

“I can work with that. Just don’t leave me. Please.”

“It’s a deal, I guess.”

#under the cut bc long #mattfoggy #but hardly #matt murdock #karen page #foggy nelson #gen fic #Anonymous #matt fucks up and everyone's upset about it #there's a bit of karenfoggy because guess what i ship that too #daredevil #marvel #my fic

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vldsakai-blog · 4 years

Text

and i’ve finally joined the four muses club. this time, let me introduce you to sakai manalo-tanaka, also known as kai or saweol, the lead dancer, lead rapper, vocalist and maknae of mon:star! here is his bio (tw death mention), public profile and private profile. you can also find a few very vague open connections here. if you’d like to plot, just give this a like and i’ll come to you!

sweet filipino-japanese baby.

born in the philippines, moved to japan when he was a year and a half years old.

his parents were never together, he was the result of a fling between coworkers. his father and step mother were on a break when his mom got pregnant, but got back together not long after.

his immediate family consists of mother, father, step mother, half brother and half sister.

TW DEATH MENTION

when he was seven his mother passed away suddenly and it kind of broke something inside him. his step mom wanted him to come live with them but his father said no, saying it would be too expensive to have three kids in the house.

END TW

his step mom wanted to take him in after that, but his father said it would be too expensive because they already had two teenagers in the house so he ended up getting shipped to busan to live with his maternal grandmother.

meanest woman in the world. the first korean word sakai learned was ‘hAjImAaAa’ bc she used to pull him by his ear and tug his hair when she thought it was too long.

loved him like her own son tho.

ended up going to the atlas auditions in busan because a friend was going and didn’t want to audition alone.

was super surprised when he was taken, even though he’d been practicing since they announced the autitions.

he was made the maknae of mon:star, and he did everything to prove to his hyungs that he deserved to be there. he worked so hard, sometimes to his own detriment. in their first year after debut, he almost passed out on stage more than once because he pushed himself too hard.

2016 was............rough. the mon:star lawsuit hit him hard. being a non korean member, there was pressures from both sides to join the lawsuits and to denounce it. being barely nineteen, he had no way of emotionally dealing with all of that, so he kinda shied away from the limelight really bad around this time.

this is also around the time that his stage name was changed. from debut to now, he’d been known as kai but it was changed to saweol to make him seem closer to the rest of the group.

very much considered leaving mon:star at this point. he’s still not sure why he stayed.

since then, he’s kinda gone off the deep end. he still works hard and gives his all to mon:star (and mon:unique) but he’s also..... a Mess. covered in tattoos. from his neck to his hands. they were all done impulsively, which has been a pain for the mon:star staff to deal with.

honestly someone just Help Him

RANDOM TRIVIA

speaks too many languages. spanish is his mother tongue but he can speak japanese and english fluently. his korean isn’t bad bad any sense of the word, but he’s clearly not a native speaker. his tagalog is also bad, since he doesn’t have anyone to speak with anymore.

used to have Big Maknae Energy but has really quieted down since 2016. during interviews and variety shows, he’ll only speak when spoken to directly

also really dumbs himself down in front of cameras. he’s not sure why he started doing it, but it’s kinda just stuck.

super impulsive and chaotic, but it’s all a coping mechanism. he’s never really dealt with how the mon:star controversy affected him, nor does he even know how.

loves his mon:star hyungs so much. he does. even if he tests their patience on the daily.

says he hates skinship. says it all the time. yet the number of pictures of him all over his hyungs?? literally endless. What Is The Truth

also kinda commitmentphobic. no, he doesn’t wanna talk about it.

also u can look at his pinterest if ur interested. tw anxiety mention, depression mention, smoking, alcohol, bruises, cats, wrist, and like, a general sakai tw.

#honey's back with their needlessly long intros wooooo #vldintro

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chvmberlain · 4 years

Text

whaddup it’s ur fave admin emily ( i’m legally required to be ur fave it’s part of being in the rp ) & here comes ur fave sinnamon roll... MONTY CHAMBERLAIN ! i’m shocked he’s still around on account of being the most annoying ever.

BACKGROUND ! tw for death & car accident.

little mr richie rich, first born son of triplets ( yes, triplets ) & was always regarded as the golden boy heir to his parents’ socialite ways & his dad’s many investments

carina & quincy, his fellow triplets, were his absolute bffs and the three of them did everything together

his parents were always a little distant, busy with, like, rich people parties and stuff. they only doted on the triplets when they were brought out to be shown off to their friends and then sent them right back w the nannies :/

monty was diagnosed with dyslexia pretty young, which is like... not a big deal at all, but his parents viewed him as Defective and Bad for it. instead of actually being there for their son, they just threw money at specialists to deal with The Problem & called it a day

here’s where carina & quincy come in ! the triplets were determined to be there for monty when their parents weren’t, and they did a pretty good job of it. eventually, they all went to monty’s specialist as a group, and learned exercises and activities to help him.

when he ended up also being diagnosed w dyscalculia, the kids adapted like it was no big deal. meanwhile, monty’s dad didn’t even bother to show up to the meeting

as they grew up, the triplets started making more of a splash at their parents’ parties, vibrant and beautiful whenever they made an appearance. they caught attention and held it, and when monty’s dad noticed this, he decided to take advantage of it

he asked monty to distract a fellow businessman for him, telling him to keep the man occupied as he talked to the chairman of his company’s board. monty, at that point still in the phase of his life where he wanted his father’s approval, eagerly agreed. he managed to hold the man’s attention long enough for his father to buy out his company from underneath him — and so began his career, long before bishop ever entered the picture

he only got better at it as his father pulled him into his schemes again and again, a charming young man capable of talking circles around anyone who’d listen ( and when monty smiled and opened his mouth, everyone would listen. he was magnetic )

the triplets remained joined at the hip over the years, all the way up until college, when they separated for the first time — carina went to harvard, quincy to princeton, and monty to yale. it was rough to adapt at first, but they called each other often to keep in touch

freshman year came & went, and the triplets were shipped off to their summer home in spain for their birthday at the end of july. each of them received a brand new car for their 19th, and monty won the game of rock paper scissors to determine that he was the first to take his new ride for a spin

on the drive, it started to rain, he took a turn too fast on the side of a hill — by the time he woke up from the crash, there was nothing monty and carina could do, pinned in place by the wreck. quincy died a couple hours later right in front of them, and it devastated monty & carina

though carina went back to school at the end of the summer, monty took a semester off, barely able to get out of bed, much less go to class. a semester turned into a year, and after a year... he stopped answering yale’s calls, letting his education fall by the wayside

he dove back into the game he’d always played on his father’s behalf, showing little remorse for what he was doing. he drifted farther away from carina, which is :/

until he got RECRUITED !

for the first time in a long time, monty feels like he has a purpose beyond fucking people over when his dad points and clicks. though he has yet to repair his relationship with carina, he feels like he’s found a sense of family again, and he’s really soft abt it okay

he’s Loud, talks a lot, thinks he’s hot shit, but also... is pretty charismatic ngl. a wiz with words, if u will. has a string of lovers and makes lots of friends who never seem to really get to know him bc he’s chasing that sense of #connection

angsty sad boy who doesn’t really know who he is :/ can’t have it all ig

it’s important to me that u know he currently owns an expensive pink house in new orleans. yes. pink. he regularly hosts pool parties there for the group, so do with that what u will. striker calls it the barbie dream house and that is absolutely 100% accurate

HEIST SKILLS !

DECEPTION & MANIPULATION: can lie like his life depends on it. he’s spent, like, a decade crafting elaborate lies to manipulate people into doing what he / his dad wants, so he’s pretty damn good at it

can also craft elaborate false identities for himself, including speaking other languages w flawless accents if the situation calls for it ( he grew up speaking english / spanish / french bc of his parents but also has others in his repertoire )

DISTRACTION: extension of above tbh but he’s fantastic w/distracting guards, employees, random passersby, etc bc he can make so much shit up on the spot. he’s also generally just persuasive and charming so people tend to listen to him when he opens his mouth

could probably also make a molotov cocktail if the situation called for it. distraction at all costs am i right

SEDUCTION: i mean.................................... it happens

MEMORY: homie regularly memorized guest lists for his parents’ parties & basically never forgets a name or face. don’t ask him to memorize the capitals of the 50 states or anything, but if it’s regarding people... he’s got that shit on lockdown

that’s all for now love u all xoxo

#heistintro #someone teach me how 2 shut up

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johnny-and-dora · 5 years

Text

tell me you can’t bear a room that i’m not in

“I came to see what was taking so long - did you tidy up in here?” He’s wearing her blanket like a superhero cape and he’s got that stupid little smirk on his face and strictly platonic thoughts are few and far between.

or, the one where amy decides showing up unannounced at her flu-ridden best friend's/totally platonic co-worker's apartment to take care of him is a totally platonic activity to do. (late s2 pining)

for the wonderful erica @startofamoment <3

Amy can’t help it. She’s worried.

She’s been trying her best to fill in her paperwork with her usual diligence, even making rare use of her favourite fountain pen in the hopes it would set her back on track – but, frustratingly, her head is completely somewhere else today. No matter how hard she tries, the unsolved arson case sitting in front of her can’t captivate her attention like the unbearable abnormality of the desk opposite her can.

She glances at Jake’s empty seat and feels a twinge of nerves flutter in her stomach.

Amy’s been worrying about him a lot, lately. She’s barely seen him in these last few weeks, and between him getting his heart broken, being kidnapped and then being run over by a car (in that order), she’s had more than a lot to be worried about.

That being said, she also knows that she’s being irrational. Not everyone has an aversion to using up their sick days like she does – it would probably take a direct order from a superior officer to send her home even if she was on her deathbed. She’s immune to diseases most people haven’t even heard of, and she has a stronger immune system than everyone she knows.

But Jake’s not “everyone”. She goes through the facts she knows like she’s trying to solve a case - He loves his job as much, maybe even more than she does, and he hobbled into work with three cracked ribs and three broken toes a few weeks ago like it was nothing. He’s as ridiculously stubborn as she is so he usually needs to be forced to go home. He never takes time off.

The point is, his absence is just weird, and not because there’s no one around to make fun of her or throw paper aeroplanes at her or send her that stupid video of a screaming sheep. She hasn’t seen him in a while now, and she’s worried. She’s allowed to be worried.

It’s a normal thing for a friend to be worried about another friend and their wellbeing. Completely platonically. As a friend.

Amy frowns.

“Is something the matter, Santiago?”

“Captain!” She says, practically jumping out of her seat to greet him. Holt’s face is, as usual, unreadable, though she could swear she detects a hint of concern. That or he just won a radio contest.

“No, Sir. Everything is tip-top. Ship-shape. A-Okay.” As usual, her mouth keeps going without her brain’s approval - she inwardly curses herself, glad that Jake isn’t actually around if only because he can’t see her embarrassing herself in front of the Captain again.

“I was just wondering, do you know where Jake…Detective Peralta is today?” - She asks, trying to sound as professional and nonchalant as possible – “We’re meant to be working the Mulligan arson together, and I…” Amy trails off, not sure how that sentence was supposed to end. Luckily Holt just nods slightly, which she assumes is her cue to stop letting words fall aimlessly out of her mouth.

“Detective Peralta called in sick this morning. I am sure he will be joining us again tomorrow. I assume you can continue your work in his absence?”

“Great. I mean, yes. Good. Thank you, Captain.” She sits back down as he returns to his office, sighing deeply, dismissing her anxieties the best she can. Her beloved paperwork is a welcome distraction, especially as she can actually fill it in without distraction from her desk partner for once.

Somewhat inevitably, though, the worry still lingers that he might actually be on his deathbed or something. She glances at her phone, wondering whether she should make sure he’s okay.

She dismisses the thought after a quiet moment of deliberation – smiling slightly despite herself, feeling her face flush a little. He can never know how worried she gets about him sometimes – Jake’s unbearable enough without any more ego boosts. She’d never hear the end of it.

Amy gets on with her work – but she’s still worried, and she’s still trying to deal with how much she misses him and how weird she should feel about that.

As if on cue, it can only be a few minutes later when her phone buzzes, like he was thinking the exact same thing. Maybe he can hear her thoughts.

God, she really hopes he can’t read her thoughts.

From: Jake Peralta, 11:24am [photo attached] i think i might actually be dying. bet ur gonna miss this beautiful face when i’m tragically struck down in the prime of life

Amy smiles at the photo of him - hair adorably chaotic and floofy, wrapped in a pitiful thin grey blanket, looking both very sorry for himself and slightly like ET. Something flutters in her chest again, but she doesn’t think it’s worry.

She bites her lip, sternly chiding herself for the feelings she doesn’t want suddenly weighing heavy in her gut, guilt and dread saturating the seemingly inevitable rush of endorphins she gets whenever he does something cute (which, recently, has been frustratingly frequently).

It’s not going to happen. Dating a cop ended pretty disastrously for her the last time, and she & Teddy didn’t have a share a desk. They’d be putting their professional relationship – even worse, their friendship – at risk, and it’s just not a risk she’s willing to take, especially as she can take Sophia as shiny, irritatingly beautiful proof that whatever feelings Jake had for her are now in the past.

Whatever might have happened between them has to stay as just that – a hypothetical. Some kind of alternate reality Amy finds herself wondering into far too regularly for the logical part of her brain’s liking.

They’re in such a good place right now. The last thing she wants is for that – or anything, really – to change. Even if she does stupid things like worry about him when he misses one day of work and laugh at his stupid jokes and smile whenever she sees his stupid face, like right now. She’s had these feelings before and they always go away after a little while.

To: Jake Peralta, 11:27am You look rough, pineapples. It’s weird without you here. It’s almost like work is actually getting done.

From: Jake Peralta, 11:28am rude santiago i feel like a corpse that someone murdered, reanimated n then murdered again my body is a temple how could it betray me like this??!

She exhales a little laugh, and, by instinct, tucks her hair behind her ears.

Of course, those feelings also have a tendency to come back, which makes her wonder if they ever really went away in the first place.

***

Amy exhales, knocks firmly on his door, and starts to wonder how - of all the places she could and should be on a Thursday night after a long shift - she ended up here.

It just sort of happens – the day slowly passes without any real incident, except the funky smells that permeate the bullpen after Charles’s failed attempts at a normal human lunch. She gets nowhere looking at old bank statements and scanning CCTV footage trying to track down this perp, and continues to glance at his empty seat every once in a while, wondering what kind of joke he’d crack.

It’s weird to think that last year he spent six months not sitting in that seat and now one day of absence feels almost as jarring. Apparently, it’s so jarring that it’s enough for her to make an unannounced house call, because she’s still worried about him and she still misses him and, if nothing else, he at least deserves a better quality blanket than that grey thin rag, for god’s sake. He deserves to be taken care of.

Of course, she’d spent twenty minutes at home trying to talk herself out of it whilst simultaneously raiding her cupboards for the thickest blanket she owns and putting her stovetop kettle on to boil. She’d spent the whole time driving to his apartment sternly muttering to herself that this was a bad idea - and now she’d spent a good five minutes just standing outside his door before knocking, trying to think of what to say.

She’d like the record to show that when it comes to Jake Peralta, she can average a total of about thirty-five minutes of self-restraint. Maybe it’s a good thing that she hasn’t seen him in a while.

She doesn’t have much time to dwell on that thought, however, as a clearly sleep deprived Jake opens the door and stares at her like he’s not convinced she’s actually real. It’s kind of adorable.

He’s a few shades paler that usual, his hair is a gloriously disastrous mess, and his grey t-shirt and sweatpants are a museum of stains of all different shapes and sizes - but he’s alive, and healthy enough, and visual conformation of those two facts takes a world of weight off her shoulders. He’s also genuinely surprised to see her judging from that cute dopey expression on his face.

The logical part of her instantly switches off like she’s blown her rational fuse. She also, somehow, seems to forget how to talk.

“…Ames? What are you-“

“I, um, brought tea. And an actual blanket. I thought…you might be cold.” She interrupts, hyperaware of the heat creeping up her body, suddenly unable to look him in the eye. Amy feels a sudden overwhelming urge to just throw the teapot she’s been cradling down at his feet and run for it, but she holds her ground.

“You…you brought tea?”

“It’s my abeula’s recipe – it’s really calming. I thought it might help.” There’s a pause, agonisingly long enough to make her certain that this was a mistake. “I can, um, go if you don’t-“

“No! No. It’s okay, come in.” Jake finally smiles, and she relaxes, stepping in to his apartment. It’s messier than usual, plaid scattered everywhere, various bowls and plates and cups in places where bowls and plates and cups shouldn’t be – but she lets it go, for now.

He stands a little awkwardly, a little self-consciously, as if he’s waiting for her to judge him on how he or his apartment looks - but she just smiles, diligently busying herself with making space to set the teapot down carefully on his coffee table. He’s uncharacteristically quiet until she looks up at him and clocks the way his hands seem to practically shake with nervous energy.

“Did you come here just to…take care of me?” He says it with this cute kind of half disbelief, half amusement, and she almost blushes. It’s the hesitation that gets her, the way he can’t quite believe it that moves to unearth her from the solid platonic ground she’s firmly rooted herself in.

This was definitely a mistake.

“Maybe.” Amy says, trying not to sound as self-conscious and/or as ridiculously obviously obsessed with him as she feels. “Do you want the blanket or not?”

There’s a beat of uncertainty before he nods - she takes her neatly folded blanket out of her bag and throws it at him.

“It’s my warmest one. If you spill anything on it, I will murder you.” Jake stares at the blanket, sniffs slightly, and stares back at her again before breaking out into a real, proper actual genuine smile that may as well set her on fire.

“Am I hallucinating you?” His voice is groggy, a little deeper than usual, she’s noticed. It makes her laugh.

“Nope. Lucky for you. Do you have mugs?” He gestures to the kitchen and she nods, weaving between his massage chairs, using all her willpower not to look back over her shoulder to see if he’s still watching her.

Jake’s kitchen is just about as chaotic as the rest of his day to day life seems to be – she throws open almost every cupboard she can find looking for what she needs. When that fails, she instinctively starts tidying things away, putting plates where she thinks his plates should go and putting his ridiculously large collection of empty orange soda cans in a separate bag for recycling. It’s a nice challenge, and she gets so into it that she barely notices him come in.

“I’m doing you a favour.” She says, defensive; he just shrugs, opening a cupboard Amy didn’t even know existed and grabbing two mugs – one with a very large print of Charles’s beaming face that she recognises as an old Secret Santa gift, and a handmade one that looks like his mom’s ceramic work.

She takes them gladly, walking back to the coffee table while he follows her, clearly curious in a way that she loves. Amy pulls the tea cozy off and pours the tea out, softly exhaling, highly conscious of the quiet intense look he’s giving her that she can’t quite read.

There’s still this underlying awkwardness that undercuts everything she does, like they’re both not really sure why she’s doing it. It’s a familiar awkwardness – it’s been fizzling, on and off, between them since the Maple Inn - it hangs in the air, a question unspoken and unanswered by both of them.

Neither dare acknowledge the tension, the infinite potential of more that so often permeates their interactions, made worse by shameless flirting and the ease in which they work together – and they do, work so well together, and that’s what makes it so hard to not at least give it a shot.

But they won’t, or at least Amy won’t. Because now would probably be the least romantic time for a first kiss possible, and because if it didn’t work, the loss of what they already have might just split her heart in two.

So she doesn’t acknowledge the way he’s staring at her like he’s trying to solve her, and interprets it another way. Any other way is something she’s woefully unprepared to talk about.

“If you say anything mean about my tea cozy you’re not getting any tea.” Amy glares at him pointedly and he holds up his hands in mock surrender. It’s normal and easy and familiar and she can breathe again as some of the tension dissipates.

“I don’t even know what a tea cozy is. Did you handknit that?”

“Maybe. Yes - I like knitting. I have actual interests outside of work.”

“Hey, I have cool other interests!”

“Die Hard doesn’t count.” She shakes her head – he’s about to challenge her but he’s interrupted by a abrupt coughing fit that goes on for slightly too long. She feels her own chest constrict with anxiety as he winces.

“Are you really dying?” She says, careful to be softer than she’s been since she got here - It’s hard not to be defensive when she feels like she’s defending her entire heart from just beating out of her chest. He sits down on the couch and smiles, if a little weakly.

“Nah. It’s just flu, but my ribs are still sore from my epic incredible car chase, so, y’know. I’m in agonising pain every time I breathe, I’m a martyr, it’s no biggie.” She rolls her eyes but her concern still aches in the pit of her stomach, and she thinks he can tell.

He gestures for her to hand him a mug and they take one in unison. Jake raises his like he’s proposing a toast.

“To health or whatever, and to Amy’s old lady tea.”

They clink the mugs together and both take a sip – it’s warm, comfortingly so, and does wonders to calm nerves that she’s not even sure why she has in the first place. She cautiously glances at him for approval and the small content smile on his face is more than enough. Amy wants to do everything she can to earn that smile forever.

The two of them exchange quiet small talk in-between sips, like the few updates she has on the arson case in his absence and how bored he’s been holed up in his apartment for the past two days like he’s carrying some kind of zombie plague, like what’s happening on that crime drama Amy got him into and how they think Holt & Wuntch’s rivalry might escalate.

It’s so wonderfully normal, after a while - Amy curled up in a motionless massage chair laughing into her tea while Jake lies underneath her blanket on his couch, recounting old crazy stories from his beat cop days amid a few minor coughing fits. They fit together – it fits, her coming around unannounced just because she missed him and she wanted to check if he was okay, like it’s a totally normally thing for a platonic co-worker to do.

He finishes the story with a grand flourish, grinning as she laughs, his hands collapsing back down to rest on his stomach – but when there’s a lull in their conversation for the first time that night, he just looks at her. It’s warm, and a little intense but not in a way she minds, and in a way she’s half-conscious she’s probably returning. It’s almost happy and sad at the same time, if that’s even a thing, and it takes all the willpower she has not to just completely and utterly melt.

“You’re staring again.” She says, never breaking eye contact for a second. He shrugs.

“So are you.”

It’s almost enough to undo her completely. Almost.

“I should, um, go. You need to get some rest.” She says, biting her lip, eyes quickly darting down to her feet so she doesn’t have to see how his face falls. They stand in tandem, Amy quickly gathering her things.

“Right. Yeah. Can I…”

“You can keep the blanket.” Amy smiles, waves a hand when he tries to protest – “Jake, I’ve got loads, it’s fine. You need it more than I do.” And, just like that, just for the sweet way he looks at her, it’s worth it. Tension and awkwardness, mistake or not - it’s all worth it.

“Thanks, Ames. For everything – for the miracle old lady tea, and the blanket, and just…being you.”

“You’re welcome.”

The ache is only intensified when the door closes and she feels like sliding on to the ground and never moving again. But it dulls by the elevator - and, by the time she gets home, it’s only relief that lingers as she puts her teapot in the correct place in her perfectly neat and organised kitchen, a small smile never leaving her face. It definitely wasn’t a mistake.

Amy doesn’t know what’s in their future. She doesn’t know whether the tension between them will eventually fizzle completely or keep mounting and mounting up until it’s a unbearable weight that makes the air so thick they’ll both choke. Maybe she’ll continue to affirm that it’s just not worth the risk, and maybe, just maybe, some chain of events she has no control over will lead to them giving it a try, if there’s anything to try at all.

The thought of having no control over their future is almost enough to give her an aneurysm – but, behind all the anxiety, behind all the uncertainty and the awkwardness and the bad ideas, there’s a tiny, shining, glimmer of hope.

Whatever ends up happening between them – Amy’s not so worried anymore.

#b99 #b99 fic #peraltiago #jake x amy #brooklyn 99 #brooklyn nine nine #my writing #shut up sian #PINING AMY RISE #hope you enjoyed this 3k of pain and shameless flirting #i had a lot of fun writing this thank you erica <3

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howlingheartdemigod · 5 years

Note

if ur still taking prompts how about any of the m-9 realizing beau's dad was physically abusive and trying to comfort her abt it and/or Fighting her parents on it

thank you for this anon.

i am very proud of the first ¾ths of this. and okay with the ending. it is long. and it is not happy.

I lack the ability to keep my ships out of shit as well so, light beauyasha. But very light. this is mostly a story about Beau.

TW for descriptions of abusive behaviors, gas lighting, abuse typical negative self talk, and mentions of alcohol

title from milk and honey

the weakness to fall

Beau stumbled back into the house early Wednesday morning, wrist clutched to her body. she’d been steadfastly ignoring the pain for an hour and a half of the two hour drive, just focusing on getting away, getting back. The cold night air chased her into the front hall of their rental, all too small for the eight of them, but feeling like home nonetheless. She leaned against the wall buy the door, toeing off her shoes. she closed her eyes, taking careful breaths to stop of the tears that threatened to fall. She’s been biting them back since the argument with her father grew from their normal fight to the more nasty cutting bites. She forced ragged breaths to steady, pretending the tears on her face weren’t there.

“Beau?” Nott’s high reedy voice was unexpected, causing her to jump, causing the pain in her ribs to rear its ugly head from where her father had gotten in a good jab before twisting her arm up behind her.

Nott’s small thin form appeared from the darkness of the kitchen, a glass of amber liquid clutched in her hands. Beau didn’t even have the sense of mind to think about Nott’s promise of no drinking during the week. Nott blinked at her, her light brown eyes almost seeming to shine yellow in the flickering porch light. “I thought you’d gone home for the holiday. Are…” Beau felt Nott looking her up and down, gaze growing heavy with worry. She set the glass on the entryway table. “Are you alright?”

Beau took a breath and pushed herself away from the wall. “I’m okay, Nott.” her voice was rough, raw with the swallowed sobs. She didn’t want them to know. Didn’t want them to see her as weak. She’d hid it from them for over a year, she could keep it up.

Going home had been a mistake, but her mother had called repeatedly in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, talking about tradition and family and just how happy it would make her father. The guilt of not going home that summer, of instead taking a mission trip with Darion and her other Physical Therapy majors that had taken her to another continent, won out over all reason. So, while all her friends, the Mighty Nein, as they had dubbed themselves, prepared for friendsgiving, Beau packed to go home.

It was two days. She could make it through two days with her parents. She could come home Thursday night and fulfill her duty as a child and it would be fine.

Except, it wasn’t. Except a year of not facing her father had left her careless. She’d started to forget rules, started to become comfortable with herself. She’d gotten in trouble within an hour of being home. The longer she spent there the more tense she felt. The more bullshit he hurled her way the more she wanted to snap back at him.

As soon as she did, she felt the familiar sting of his backhand, heard the familiar disappointed tutting of her mother. She didn’t let it stand this time. This time she swung back. He’d paid for years of martial arts training, and just because he couldn’t lower himself to show up to her tournaments doesn’t mean she won them any less. She got in three smart good jabs before his height and anger beat out her skill handedly. He twisted her arm, bruised her ribs, and bashed her lip, then pinned her face first to the wall.

“You insolent child!” He roared, trying to manhandle her towards the stairs, towards her room where he would certainly try and lock her away until Sunday night. “You don’t deserve the Lionette name.”

Beau had never been so thankful for Jester insisting she and Nott go with to the self defense course one of the sorority houses had put on. She swallowed, and ran through the way to break this sort of grip in her mind, then tried her best to execute it. Apparently, she hadn’t learned well enough. She ran out the door, of the house, and realized as she fumbled with her keys, that it was already swelling. She took off anyway, watching her father fume in the doorway as she backed down the drive as fast as she could.

“Beau,” Nott’s voice pulled her back to reality. Her gaze was stern. “You are not fine. Let me help.”

Beau almost ran, almost darted up the stairs and locked her door behind her. This could only be deceitful kindness. She could nearly feel her mother hands turn from soft and careful, applying bandages and ointments, to hard and cruel, digging into her bruises, telling her that this wouldn’t happen if she would just behave.

But this was not her mother. This was Nott, her friend. This was Nott, who’d never been unkind to her before. Who’d helped patch her up after drunken fights at frat parties, who’d held her hair back when she was puking her guts up, who helped her learn how to recognize her mistakes and apologize. Nott had never been unkind.

Beau slumped against the wall, defeated, and gave a nod. “Alright.” She relented, sliding down to sit on the floor.

Nott let out an audible sigh of relief, which only started up the guilt kicking in Beau’s gut. “I will be right back with the first aid kit.” Nott said, as she turned to scramble up the stairs.

Beau nodded, swallowing. She could let Nott help. Not understood secrets. She’d get Beau cleaned up and then they could pretend this hadn’t happened in the morning. It would all be fine. She wouldn’t have to let them all know what a wreck she was. How undeserving she was.

“Beau,” She hadn’t realized that she’d let her eyes drift shut until she opened them to see Nott, and behind her, another tall figure. Beau let out a groan of protest at the sight. “Oh, come on. I need help to get you to the kitchen. And Fjord was already awake.”

Beau Shut her eyes, and heard Fjord come closer. “Come along, now Beau.” He hooked an arm under her, shifting his grip when she hissed at the contact with her ribs, and hauled her up. This was the worst, this was horrible Fjord knowing was nightmarish/ She opened her eyes again, and limped along side him towards their brightly lit, light yellow kitchen. That stupid paint color was normally so comforting, but now it only seemed to magnify the light Nott had turned on, it only seemed to expose her more. Fjord helped her into one of the mismatched chairs, as Nott flipped open their expansive first aid kit.

Fjord dropped to a knee next to her, trying to get a good look at her. She refused to meet his stare. “What the fuck happened…” He muttered, pushing to his feet, to go dig in the freezer for an ice pack.

“Ask her when she isn’t bleeding.” Nott replied, voice a little louder than Beau would have liked.

She closed her eyes again, wishing she’d slept in her car, or gone to Darion’s to crash, or… She didn’t know She just wished she hadn’t come home. Wished she could have kept them from worrying so much.

“Guys?” A familiar accent voice called from the door. Beau turned to see Jester, bleary eyed, dark hair half tied up and mussed, in the doorway. Guilt washed over Beau as she watched her state settle over Jester. “Oh, Beau, what on earth-”

“Ask when she isn’t a mess.” Nott said, caring and stern all at once. Beau was thankful for that, for Nott, and her unspoken understanding. “Jester, could you deal with her wrist while I get the blood off her face?”

Jester nodded, and moved quickly, her instantaneous switch to business mode reminding Beau firmly that she’s Pre-Med for a reason.

“This is unnecessary.” Beau complained. “I just need to take an ice bath and I will be fine.”

“You look like absolute hell, Beau.” Fjord said, handing her an ice pack. “Put that on your ribs and let us help you.”

Beau pressed her lips, trying to come up with another argument when they all heard the front door crash open, hitting the wall. There were muttered voices, like someone who is bad at being quiet trying to be quiet. Beau stiffened and curled into herself all at once, terror creeping through her. Of course he followed her. Nothing like the chance to show her friends that she was worthless. She ducked her head, muttered “No, no, no.” to herself.

Fjord moved quickly, holding up a hand to tell them all no to move. He peaked around the corner, and his defensive stance dropped. “It’s Yasha, with drunkass in tow.”

Molly’s voice rang clear as he walked towards the kitchen. “Of course it’s me, handsome, who else would it- Oh dear Gods.” Beau curled deeper into herself, head away from the door, not wanting hear whatever snarky thing about losing a fight Molly had to say. He didn’t get it, this was her fault. She didn’t want them all to see her like this. To her shock, she only heard him call, “Yasha, make sure the door is locked.” then the sound of his feet on the wood, heading deeper into the house.

“I always lock the door, Mollymauk.” Beau could hear the fond smile on her lips, and shuddered at the thought of that fading as soon a she saw Beau. She closed her eyes before Yasha reached the room, but heard the soft, shocked, “Beauregard,” regardless. Yasha drew near her side, where Fjord had been standing. Yasha’s fingers grazed the tender, bruised skin of Beau’s face. “What happened?”

“I have to ask the same.” Caduceus’ low voice called from the door.

Molly had returned with him and tow. At Beau’s groan of annoyance, Molly shrugged. “Two pre-med students equal at least an intern, right?”

Caduceus joined them, sliding in as Nott ducked away, darting out of the room off to who knows where. He and Jester discussed her wrist, deciding that it wasn’t broken, just badly sprained, and the splint they had would be fine until they could get her to a proper clinic in the morning.

Yasha didn’t move away, just kept trailing her fingers over Beau’s face, avoiding the bruising and swelling. “What happened, Beau?” she asked, voice soft, calm, the clear blue before the sky started raging.

That’s what broke Beau, ultimately, caused the sobs to start up in her chest, which caused the pain to kick up, which only caused more tears.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” she rasped, leaning into Yasha’s touch, as someone moved around behind her. “If I was just, if I was just good this wouldn’t have happened. I don’t-” She gasped in a breath, looking through tears at Yasha, who seemed horrified of her. Gods she couldn’t even apologize right. She was worthless. “If I had just behaved then you wouldn’t all be up worrying about me, and, and if I could have behaved he wouldn’t have touched me, and this is all my stupid asshole self fucking everything up again.” Beau dissolved into sobs, leaning forward onto Yasha’s shoulder. There were several seconds where the only sound was Beau’s sobbing. Beau could only assume that they were sharing knowing looks, understanding how pathetic she truly was.

“Perhaps,” Caleb’s voice was soft from the door, and Beau shuddered to think of how much of her outburst he’d heard, that he too knew she wasn’t worthy of the kindness they showed her. “Perhaps, we should talk in the morning.”

There was a moment as that suggestion, really more of a warning it seemed, settled over them. They moved slowly, dispersing out of the room. Jester secured the brace on, then took Fjords hand and led him away. Caleb disappear into the darkness of the hall, Nott following once she’d dumped the drink she’d been awake for down the sink. Caduceus gave Beau a firm command to come talk to him first thing in the morning, then he retreated down towards his room. Yasha took a breath, and waved Molly over. Together, they helped Beau back to her room. Yasha lowered her onto the bed, as Molly checked that her window was locked.

Before Yasha could move away, Beau caught her wrist. “Stay.” she pleaded.

Yasha swallowed, the unspoken thing between them sparking with the force of her worry. Beau knew she didn’t deserve that, didn’t deserve Yasha, but she wanted it. Gods did she want it.

Yasha nodded, her agreement washing over Beau in a wave of relief. Yasha went over to whisper something to Molly, who nodded, came over to press a kiss to Beau’s head, then disappeared, closing the door behind him. Yasha settled into bed with Beau, careful of her injuries.

Beau certainly didn’t sleep well that night, but she slept, and that alone was nearly a miracle.

Beau woke up with a warm weight on her chest. She cracked her eyes open in the pale light of the room, and saw Frumpkin curled up, right on top of her. She smiled, moving to pet him. The brace on her wrist, however, reminded her what had transpired the night before.

“Fuck.” she muttered. Beau looked over, finding the other half of her bed empty. “Fuck.”

Beau coaxed Frumpkin to her lap, then pulled herself upright, breathing through the pain in her side. She scratched the cat behind the ears, looking around the room. Someone had brought her bag up from her car, and set it by her desk. She dragged herself out of bed, and went to change out of her day old, slept in clothes. She knew a shower would really do wonders but as soon as she left that room she was certain it would be something of an interrogation, or maybe just a firm ‘move out.’ She always paid her share of the rent, but maybe they really did just keep her around because they thought she was strong. Maybe this was a tipping point.

Beau stared at herself in the tall mirror Jester had moved in there when she got a new more ornate one. She was a mess. She lifted her shirt and ran her fingers over the her side, blooming with red and purple. It was an ugly one, probably a broken rib, or at least fractured. It hadn’t felt that bad the night before, but sleeping on it without wrapping it had definitely aggravated it. She dropped her shirt, and looked to her face. Her lower lip was busted, on the left. Nothing much to do there but let it heal, maybe apply some ointment. She darted her tongue out, tasting the rust from it. At least he hadn’t cracked a tooth. That would have been hell to deal with. The bruise on her cheek was almost familiar, almost reassuring. She could see where his wedding band had hit, the slightly darker line among the red. It looked like the bruise she’d been sporting in her yearbook photo senior year of high school. She’d told everyone she wiped out on her skateboard. Her mother had told her she’d wiped out on her skate board. She’s insisted she’d wiped out on her skate board. She forced Beau to repeat it back, through tears. Beau had kind of started to believe it.

Beau turned away, feeling dejected. Frumpkin had laid in the warm spot she’d vacated, and was staring at her with wide eyes. “Mrph,” he blinked, head tilting.

“Yeah, bud.” She replied, moving to scratch behind his ears. Frumpkin pushed into her hand, then jumped off the bed and headed towards the door. He waited patiently, looking back at her. Beau took a breath, nodding a little, realizing Caleb’s cat was right; she needed to face the music.

She cracked the door, and Frumpkin trotted out ahead of her. She padded softly, hearing the quiet murmuring of voices, and the sounds of cooking from the kitchen. She moved quietly, dragging her feet, listening.

“…saying we need to know the story.” Fjord was saying. “We need to know what she wants to do not just want we feel.”

“We can’t just let this go.” Yasha now. Beau would have felt bad for eavesdropping if they weren’t clearly talking about her. “I’m not going to let this go.”

“She’s not going to want to talk about it.” Caleb sounded tired, sounded like he hadn’t slept. “She has spent this long hiding it from us, probably from everyone, and… It messes up your head.”

“I am going to kill the bastard.”

“Yasha, as much as I’d love to, we don’t know for certain he did this, we might just be making assumptions.” Fjord replied.

“I think it was pretty clear, seeing as she’d gone home, been there for a few hours at most, and got back bloody and bruised. I don’t understand why we’re sitting here discussing this instead of burning the house down.”

“That isn’t our decision to make.” Caduceus now, sounding like his back was turned from the group.

Caleb spoke up again. “It takes a lot of, uh… a lot of time to get to a point where you can talk about it, especially if you’re alone in it.”

“She isn’t alone!” Jester replied, sounding haughty. “She has us.”

Molly cleared his throat before speaking, and Beau knew how he ran his hand through his obnoxious purple hair when he did that. “I think his point, love, is that she is has been alone.”

“Secrets isolate you.” Nott added.

“That’s true.” Fjord said. “I just wish we knew what to do.”

“How about we ask her?” Caduceus’ voice was accompanied by the soft sounds of a plate of food being set out. “Her door opened a few minutes ago. I’m sure she’ll be down soon.” Beau took a few quick steps back down the hallway, swallowing. She tiptoed backup a few steps, then took heavy stomps, making it clear that she was only just now coming down stairs and in fact had never been down stairs ever before in her life. It was stupid, but it made her feel better.

She ducked into the room, to all eyes on her, and nearly ran. “Hey.” she said, voice strained. “Uh, I think I may have a cracked rib. I need to first aid kit.”

“Oh, I put it back away, I’ll go get it.” Nott said, pushing to her feet.

“Thanks Nott.” Beau said, moving towards the sink. She wanted to grab a glass of water, but it was frustrating with the brace, and the tense silence in the room. She dropped the cup, clattering it into the sink. She jumped, gasping a little. “Sorry,” She muttered, almost on instinct.

“Beauregard.” Yasha had moved closer. She looked soft in the daylight, she looked worried. Beau swallowed, not looking at her. Yasha reached past her, grabbing the cup. She filled it, and pressed it into Beau’s good hand. “I think you should sit.”

Beau pressed her lips, head shaking a little. “I’m… I’m alright. I uh…” she stared down at the cup, turning a little towards the rest of the kitchen. She couldn’t bring herself to look at them. Couldn’t force herself. “I’m fine.” she said.

Before anyone could speak, Nott came back in the room, digging through the kit. Yasha put a hand on Beau’s back. “Please sit.” She said softly.

Beau swallowed, and relented. Jester came over, band-aids in hand. “Beau, can I wrap your ribs?” she asked. Beau nodded, and Jester dropped to a knee in front of her, making her lean forward to wrap around her middle. Yasha sat next to her, and the room fell silent again. Jester put the clips into place, and settled down on the ground. “Beau.” she said. “Will you tell us what happened?”

Beau bit her lip. “It doesn’t matter, It’s…”

“You matter to us, Beauregard.” Caleb replied softly from the other side of the table. She met his eye, seeing the deeply furrowed brow, the worry, the… she must have been projecting, but she could swear she could see understanding in his eyes. She looked from him to Molly next to him, to where Nott was settling down next to him. She was surrounded by her friends she realized, protected by them. Caduceus was by the stove, turning the burner off, Fjord leaning by the door, protecting her. She heard Caleb snap a little, and heard Frumpkin make a noise of reply. He muttered something in German, and Frumpkin trotted under the table over to her. She let out a little huff as the car jumped up on to her lap.

She swallowed. “I’m sorry.” she said again. “About last night. I’m sorry. I… I went home, and I picked back at my dad and he just… he just gets upset. If I didn’t upset him this wouldn’t have happened.”

“This isn’t your fault, Beau.” Yasha replied without hesitation.

Beau scrunched her nose, head shaking. “It’s… If I had behaved, I hadn’t spoken back, if I hadn’t hit back he wouldn’t have escalated things.”

“Your… Your father?” Jester asked from the floor. “Your father did this?”

Beau looked at her, guilt welling up. Jester had so much faith in the world. Her mom had always been so good to her. She’d always taught her to expect the best. Beau was ruining her. She forced herself to nod at Jesters question.

“Oh, Beau.” Nott’s voice rang out. “And your mother…”

Beau shrugged. “She, uh… I mean… She doesn’t fly off the handle like him. She… she isn’t… it’s… everyone’s parents are assholes, right, mine are just, worse than some.”

“No, Beau.” Fjord said. “That’s… when people complain about their parents it’s because they got in an argument about curfew, or about like… I don’t know, over using their gas card.” He shook his head. “Not this.”

Beau looked around the room, scowling as she realize they were all making faces of agreement. She dropped her eyed back to the drink. “Oh.” She said.

“It’s okay, Beauregard.” Yasha said softly. “It’s not your fault.”

Jester put her hand on Beau’s knee, nodding.

Beau took a breath, trying to accept that new reality. She looked around the room, swallowing, then shrugged. “But, upsetting him, that, it was my fault, though-”

“Step one for you is going to include a lot of positive self talk.” Molly said. He’d taken to leaning his chin on Caleb’s shoulder, not quite meeting Beau’s eye. “And learning to keep from ever thinking that what they did to you is your fault.”

Caduceus brought a cup of tea over, trading the glass Beau was holding out for the warm ceramic. “We’ll help you on that.” He promised.

Beau felt almost dizzy, almost sick, but she looked around the room, and realized that if they were willing to go to all this trouble for her, to help her, then maybe, just maybe she did deserve it.

Beau remained on edge all of Wednesday, as they talked through things, moving from the kitchen to the couch, talking about options and if she wanted to go to the police, and when she could get in at the student mental health clinic. She kept expecting it all to fall apart. But the more they deconstructed it, the more they talked, the more she realized the way her family treated her was not normal. She realized it, but it was still hard to keep from pulling blame to herself. It had been drilled into her so long that it was just habit. Yasha never really left her side, Frumpkin wasn’t ever far from her either. (She really didn’t understand how Caleb had so effectively trained a cat. It almost seemed impossible.) They decided, late Wednesday night, to call it good, seeing as Beau hadn’t called herself an asshole or apologized in nearly an hour, and they’d finally remembered to eat. Jester hugged her as tight as she could without making her rib situation worse before she skipped up to bed. Fjord gave Beau a nod, smiling a little before he followed her. Caleb gave her a firm pat on the shoulder, that she returned. Molly, a kiss on the head. Nott hadn’t really strayed too far from Beau either that day, but she gave Beau’s hand a squeeze before heading off to her room. Caduceus took a breath, and promised her that things could only get better, before disappearing down the stairs.

Yasha stared at her from the corner of the couch. Beau stared back.

“Beauregard, I…” Yasha cleared her throat. “I have to be honest, I’ve never been this angry in my life. I want to drive out there and kill them for what they did to you. You didn’t deserve any of that.” Beau swallowed, feeling too many emotions to parse how she felt about that. Yasha dropped her eyes before continuing. “I just… I wanted to say that… I will never let anyone hurt you like that again as long as I’m in your life. And I plan to be in it for a long, long time.”

Beau swallowed, nodding a little. “I want you in for for a long, long time.” She replied.

Yasha looked back to her, and Beau could swear she saw a weight shift on her shoulders. She knew that Yasha had lost someone dear, though she didn’t know the details, and she hoped, she prayed, that she wouldn’t ever make that list longer.

Yasha pushed to her feet. “Let’s go rest.”

To Beau’s shock, Yasha joined Beau in her bed. To her amazement, she fell asleep so easily when Yasha was there. To her wonder, Yasha was still there when Beau woke up again.

Beau should have been expecting the loud insistent pounding on the door. It was after their thanksgiving dinner, where they (Molly, loudly) had mostly discussed the hypocrisy of early European settlers, and they were half way through Love, Actually. Jester had insisted, declaring that it was the only way to start off the Holiday season right. Beau had nearly forgotten about the pain in her side, and the brace on her wrist. She was tucked in to Yasha’s side, and Caleb was on her other side, and she felt safe. She felt good. And then there was a violent pounding at the door, and the sound of the doorknob being rattled, and she immediately felt that being taken away from her.

“Beauregard!” A voice roared from outside, and Beau could do nothing but freeze as Fjord scrambled for the remote. “Beauregard Lionette, I know you’re in there! That piece of shit car of yours is parked right out front! Answer this door immediately.”

“That’s it.” Molly muttered, pushing to his feet. Yasha was spurred to action at that, pulling away from Beau. She tried to cling to Yasha’s shirt, but she was too slow. She watched Jester push to her feet as well.

“Guys.” she said, voice a half broken whisper. “Guys, don’t…”

“Beau,” Caleb said, turning to face her as their friends stormed down the hall. “Unfortunately, you don’t get to choose who cares for you. That’s not a choice you get to make.”

With that, Beau was silence, shocked. It was a conversation they’d had freshman year, it was what she’d said to him when he was trying to hard to push them all away. His reply had been cutting, about how the trouble with friends is that you have to care about them, but all of the sudden she saw it, saw what he’d meant. She swallowed, head shaking, as he stood, putting himself between her and the door, arms folded.

She pushed to her feet shakily, moving to stand just behind Caleb, as Molly unlocked the door, backed by Yasha and Jester, Fjord and Nott a few feet back from them. Caduceus stood behind Beau, and patted her shoulder. “We’ve got you.” He promised, before taking a step back, his tall form creating a wall of security behind her. She reached a hand out and set it on Caleb’s shoulder, like he often did to her when the stress and panic got to be too much.

“Beauregard-” Her father’s voice cut off as Molly swung the door open, his other fist curled at his side.

“You have no right to be here, and should get off out property before we call the police.” Molly said, glaring.

Beau’s father returned the stare, sneering, in fact. “I don’t care much for what a fag college boy has to say. Where is Beauregard?”

Yasha seemed to grow a foot, rage bubbling up. “Don’t say her name.” She cautioned, voice a deadly sort of calm. “Don’t so much as think of trying to push past us or touch her, or you’ll be leaving with bruises much worse than hers.

Beau almost wished she’d been closer, been able to see her father recoil with fear more clearly. He looked at the assembled group, then past them. His eyes locked on her, and he raised a finger, a tiny gesture that felt like a threat. “You, you are a rotten beast. You run off with no warning, then don’t come home for dinner. This is a sacred holiday, Beauregard.”

Yasha stepped a little bit towards him, and Jester, arms folded, did the same. “We told you not to say her name.” Jester reminded.

He looked from Yasha to Jester, then back to Beauregard. “Come with me this instant. We are going home, and I will think, think of allowing you to return to your studies on Monday.”

“She isn’t going anywhere with you.” Molly said, sounding incredulous. “You think after what you did to her we’re going to let you come anywhere near her? No. In fact, I think it might be a good idea for you to turn tail and run.”

His eyes snapped to Molly, anger bubbling up. “You dare to speak to me like that-”

“Yes, I think you’ll find he does.” Fjord spoke up. He was leaning on a wall like a hero in a western. “See, we don’t tend to stand on manners when abusers are involved.”

Nott, Beau realized, was flipping a kitchen knife in the air. She hadn’t noticed her pocket it, but the threat in the action was clear.

Beau’s father swallowed. “Beauregard, I’m giving you one last chance to come home, then I’m cutting you off. No tuition, no allowance, no trust fund, no nothing.”

Beau scowled at him. “Those-” Her voice broke. “The allowance I’ve refused since I was ten, you mean? The trust fund you already changed the name on so I only am allowed it if I take on the family business?” She felt like a coward, shouting retorts from down the hall, but it was better than nothing, she figured, or at least it was a first step to feeling brave again.

“I think you’ll find she’ll be fine when it comes to tuition.” Jester replied. “She’ll be just fine without you and your bullshit.”

Beau swallowed, feeling like she was about to fall apart.

“In case you aren’t getting the point,” Caduceus called from behind her. “You aren’t welcome here.”

“It is time for you to go. Now.” Caleb added. She saw his head tilt forward, and saw fear settle into her father eyes. She didn’t know what he was seeing, but she knew she never wanted to be on the receiving end of that look. “And if you ever dare to come back here, or reach out to her in any way without her reaching you first, you’ll find that all your anger and brutality, it is nothing compared to what we will do for our friend.”

Beau watched her father tremble. She saw how small he looked. Molly was a good inch taller than him, Yasha a few more than that. He looked so weak. His eyes, the steely grey that had scared her so much for so much of her life, flicked to her. He swallowed, seeing the hardness in her face, seeing how every line of her body, even in her terror, was giving him no room for leeway. Then he turned tail and ran.

Molly waited until he saw the taillights turn the corner down the street to close the door. Beau waited until he’d locked the deadbolt, and slid the chain into place to completely fall apart.

Beau cried, feeling like that’s all she could manage anymore. But even as she did she was surrounded by her friends, her family, and she realized, all at once, that it would be okay.

#my writing #mine #critical role #beauyasha #critrole #a couple of things #trying to balance every single person in a scene #is hard #i might rewrite parts of this #but right now i'm happy to have finished it #caleb comes in the room right as beau's breakdown is starting #Caduceus lives in the basement #Marion pays 50% of the rent on their brownstone #Beau had a roommate #then Jester and Fjord started dating #Nott was in with Caleb #then she found out that they had an attic they didn't use #they're siblings in this i know that isn't clear sorry #there are only four rooms #plus the attic and the basement #I am building the brownstone in the sims because I can #frumpkin is probably still a magic cat in this #don't worry about it #also Molly cares very much about Beau and is just incredibly bad at expressing that #i probably have other notes #or things I should say #about the guild abuse victims feel #about how beau's mom sucks too and I should probably have included her in that last scene #but it made more sense not to because that's the kind of abuser she was and it's complicated #but I need to go change my laundry over now

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didsomeonesayventus · 5 years

Text

okay long time spending in gestation but I imagine that someone out of the followers I have wants to know my onion on KH3 is

Overall, good!

so consider wordbarf of very repeated and tired onions no one actually actively asked for below:

Alright so I’ve been trying to figure out how to make these words and what my opinions even are considering this game has been out for almost a year now (KH3 existing is wild imagine it turning a year old) so this will be. mostly bullet points + incoherent and unorganized rambling forgive me

BAD THINGS FIRST lets get the salt out of the way

Literally everything with Kairi was oof. I still feel her relationship with Lea is incredibly rushed given the last time they were interacting in canon he was literally kidnapping her but go off I guess nomura they’re brother/sister friendsy now at least the fandom can sell me on that better than you can. I seethe with rage recalling that they didn’t even try to hide that killing her off was a classic case of fridging (“You lack motivation” FUCK OFF) and I have been angry since the day I was spoiled by leak stuff accidentally. I wouldn’t have minded her getting her ass handed to her if they made it look like she tried and gave us some moments where she did defend herself and get some victories and not conveniently cut away from the actually badly needed training montage (surprise! this is why we have training montages!!!!) and I get she was instrumental in rescuing everyone and the fact she wasn’t THAT bad speaks for how much she improved but it still just. bites that she still feels more like a satellite love interest than ever.

Kairi was bad enough to get her own thing but tbh everyone who isn’t Sora also.. really suffers. The writing is really Sora-centric here and that’s not inherently bad (see good list) but it leaves a lot to be desired, especially since they dog pile the extended cast moments in at the end. There was no big confusion at Ven and Roxas sharing a face, no talks between characters who would have interesting interactions given their histories and circumstances, no obvious sign of development from anyone except maybe sea salt family and Aqua. They’re here to be more one-note than usual and resolve their arcs. Ven in particular (I’m totally not biased clearly /sarcasm) I feel is a big example given he was kinda in a really rough mental state at the end of bbs?? and 3 is exceptionally vague on just how conscious ventus was during his nap so I can’t even answer if he was able to give himself therapy the past 12 years or whatever

Anti Aqua is a damn cool concept but ultimately kinda pointless and I think we could have received it better if it wasn’t spoiled in trailers and wholly out of left field. Plus Sora coming in after what was pretty clearly set up as a Riku moment- while it gave us the incredibly gay press triangle to Sora + use a big keyblade made from ur love moment -was uh! really cheap!!!! and ruined what was clearly set up for being Riku’s thing with an almost nonsensical SIKE ITS SORA (it’s saved from being wholly nonsensical by 0.2′s opening foreshadowing + it still kinda makes sense for sora to at least help but damn if the narrative wasn’t leading us towards a riku moment)

Also everyone was hit really hard with the nerf effect in-narrative so unless you’re the dream team you’re screwed I guess and that. doesn’t quite work since it makes everyone else look... not great. And I think this is kinda a miscommunication on part of Nomura and the fans (IM MAKING ASSUMPTIONS TAKE WITH SALT) in that we kept saying we wanted people “saved” but meant having their arcs resolved in a reasonable way that preserved their agency and power and relationships, but got interpreted literally as “alright Sora comes in and solves every problem, is tough on stains, and makes julienne fries”

And yet there’s also a lot of mean spirited “oh no sora’s dumb and helpless w/out a second braincell” which was kinda funny the first couple times and I failed to pick up on it first go I’ll admit, but honestly? Yeah. they pick on sora too much. Donald and Goofy are the most guilty, and everyone else by virtue of not seeing Sora that much actually in-narrative are off the hook from me because they probably didn’t know how much teasing he’d been getting from his pals, but it felt kinda like they didn’t know what to fall back on between the three besides “oh donald and goofy pick on sora” which is cute once or twice but the amount he gets and how it clearly leads to his breakdown at the end is uhHHHHhhhHH hm.

As always the pacing is pretty awful where the disney worlds are somewhat relevant at best and then the end is 0-1000 but that is a usual KH gripe so its pretty low on the bar

Attraction flow is cute and neat at first but it gets.. really wearing towards the end and in the serious fights at the Keyblade Graveyard BOY are they a mood breaker

the “repeat the plot” worlds- Tangled, Frozen, Pirates -REALLY stick out like a sore, ugly thumb compared to the worlds that went out and did their own creative thing, and Big Hero 6 was.. cute? but kinda maybe too much of a breather.

Frozen also get an extra award for “Audio mixer most in need of firing!” because who the hell allowed the do you want to build a snowman scene.

They did nothing with Scala and I want a refund on that aesthetic if they’re not gonna do anything besides a framing device with it

HEY WAIT THERE WAS GOOD THINGS TOO!

Good news point that may or may not come to pass: Re:Mind DLC might fix some of the above salt! We shall see and probably know by the time this post is a year old sfjhdsakjgh

SORA! Sora was actually a character again!!!! holy cow they pulled up from the utter nose dive that was DDD!! god i love this dork and it was really fantastic to see him back to normal.

The graphical upgrade lost a lot of the squish and stretch that the OG graphics had but you know what? pretty. tastey. good graphics and better at doing more subtle emotions and hey have i mentioned Pirate’s glow up? Pirate’s glow up. The details in Olympus to recreate the swirly aesthetic of the clouds and explosions and lava is a great touch.

Worlds as far as levels go?? really good! They feel legitimately like worlds and explorable and with their own flavors and I LOVE battle and field themes x2 its really great I’m down for less worlds if they keep the quality. Hell we have NPCs!! maybe even too many npcs.

Writing OVER ALL/ON AVERAGE I’d say has improved a lot! It’s still not a literary masterpiece or anything but I found the disney worlds really cute and easier to get invested in even if long term they were less relevant than I hoped they would be. In every world there was at least one scene I found myself actually invested in. Like there was something to the writing that was legitimately more endearing than usual on average, and toy box and monstropolis were strong contenders for really good overall imo

honestly there were moments that- as moments -were incredible. Wayfinder reunion scene will haunt me, and Sea salt’s was good too, final world and rescuing everyone was jaw dropping, getting the LoD Back was also good, Union X, Xigbar exiting left stage pursued by a bear, wayfinder trio making a grave for eraqus, all the gummi ship scenes had great chemistry, beach party ending, hanging out with rapunzel for the first half of Corona is adorable as hell, all the nods to scenes in the movies, the easter eggs, like the game is not consistently amazing but it is peppered with stuff that I feel in a bubble ignoring surrounding context just work really really well

Damn if the end boss rush wasn’t thrilling as hell and honestly??? really good. Hard to parse out first flush but I think this was a good decision and added a lot of blood roaring urgency and wild turns, and even if I want to overhaul a number of things about the endgame I think this can definitely stay

Kingstagram is a beautiful gift man

OST? A fucking banger all around and I love how they’ve made cutscene-specific tracks that play with the leitmotifs throughout KH’s illustrious musical history

Over all there’s some really glaring issues, but overall it’s KH really at its best. I’m not sure if it’s my favorite entry and I’m still really mixed + befuddled on just how exactly I feel and I think a lot of that is I had pretty high expectations and my own ideas of how it would play out since like. 2012. it’s really hard to detach from those feelings and ideas sometimes. But KH3 wasn’t bad! It could’ve really been worse, and the fact that it got out the door in the state that it was is a good deal

now here’s to the wait for Re:Mind and to see if it’s basically the content we’d get in Final Mix that could definitely bump up my opinion

#Katie rambles #long post #((in case this fucks up on mobile which it likely will))#but yeah I'd say 7-8/10 #solid entry did remarkably well for what it needed to do but not really amazing favorite entry ever sort of love #got its pros got its cons. its solid and good and enjoyable for what KH is #anyways obviously this is my opinion and you're not obligated to agree but yeah! KH3.. exists.. its a thing.....

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maribelsawyer · 5 years

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- ̗̀ * ( ella purnell + cisfemale + she/her ) have you seen ( maribel sawyer ) walking around campus ? they are a ( nineteen ) year old, studying ( journalism ). we hear they are in ( delta gamma chi ), and can be ( benevolent & impressionable ), maybe it’s because they are a ( gemini ). they sort of remind us of ( scraped knees , magnifying glasses , vintage oxfords ), maybe we can find out more ! * ̖́- + newspaper writer

god okay looks like i’ve fallen in love w ella purnell and i want to b her. anyways maribel is my newest baby n im sorta making her up as i go so pls bare w me lmao

TW: eating disorder mentions, subtle abuse?

{she is not currently in that mindset ^}

gen. info

full name: maribel ottoline sawyer

nickname(s): mari, bell, lottie b/c middle name, etc. etc. just sawyer sometimes idk

b.o.d. - june 1st, 19 yrs old

label(s): the marionette, the demure, the prevaricator, etc. etc.

height: like 5′3″ prolly tbh

hometown: duluth, minnesota

sexuality: shit she don’t know

bio. info

her dad’s in the air force, her mom’s published three diet cookbooks and two different DVDs--maribel is the only middle child

one of those conservative, all american families, they were strict and definitely made it known that they were parents and not friends by any means

9pm curfew, not leaving the dining room until all ur food is gone, grounded if ur grades were below their expectations, etc. etc.

her older sister can evoke emotions in others thru her acting like no other. has taken the hearts (and leads) of all her acting directors since childhood. her voice is broadway material.

and her older brother? has been the best linebacker on any high school team he’s joined; hopes to make it to the big leagues. but if he doesn’t? he’s been taking college-level classes since he was a sophomore.

and...maribel?

maribel is...just, maribel.

for the longest time, there was nothing special about maribel

she couldn’t sing, or dance, or compose words in pretty prose

her grades were only satisfactory after hrs n hrs of studying everyday

homegirl can’t even cook w/o smth exploding

in short, maribel has never been good at anything. can’t draw within the lines, can’t follow the line, opens her mouth at the wrong time. etc. etc. shit? rough.

ANYWAYS

her family moves around a lot b/c of her dad, so she’s never really been in one place long enough to really prove herself? always been the quiet girl in class while her siblings brought home gold stars everyday

the kinda girl others would sorta push around n bully a lil bit bc she would never know what to say; prolly just cried a lot tbh

grew up w a lot of insecurities b/c of this

definitely doesnt help that her mother is obsessed w beauty n fitness n like

their mother p much forced her lifestyle onto her children, mari has a rough relationship w food b/c of it

ANYWAYS part 2

grew up always in the shadows of her siblings and their accomplishments, and spent a lot of her time tryn find something to be good at just so somebody could give her a stamp of approval

was always the ~wannabe~, the girl who would just endlessly suck up to the most popular girl she could find and try to mimic her to the best of mari’s abilities, just so she could survive her school experience

by the time mari was a freshmen in high school, her parents had divorced and she finally thought she could have a normal school experience and make something for herself

obv not. her mother shipped her off to a boarding school in nevada and that was it; her sister had already graduated and her brother was still in middle school.

it was finally just mari.

of course like she tried to suck up to others but it wasn’t really helpful, everybody was a lil too boujie for her and she always froze up when she tried to speak to the ~popular kids~

they only rly spoke to her b/c she’s got this knack for forging shit, like i dont think she even has her own handwriting; she always copies other people’S b/c she’s just. so used to tryn to mimic others n be them as much as possible

around this time she found herself fucking around in her computer class more often than not; it’d been the only elective left b/c she arrived in the middle of the year

but she surprisingly enjoyed it, like, a lot

her parents never really allowed much computer use b/c like. rots ur brain or whatever.

got into programming, but when she found out that u could ? hack shit ? kinda peaked her interest.

her shift into programming to hacking was subtle but before she knew it, she was fucking around on websites for the fun of it. never anything severe

computers became her friends, y’know

that was until her sophomore year and there was another loser fucking around on the computers during lunchtime

and like...they just started kinda talking, y’know? became friends, prolly mari’s first legitimate friend in...forever, really

the kid was kinda weird but she didn’t mind b/c fuck, mari couldn’t be picky n she didn’t mind weird

like...they were obsessed w conspiracies n mysteries n shit

it started to rub off on mari too, b/c homegirl is an idiot but. an observant idiot.

so she started getting reeeally into mysteries and shit. started acting like a mini investigator w/ her pal; solving stupid things like ‘who wrote ‘mindy is a whore’ in the bathroom stall’ and ‘does mr. roberts have a secret obsession w kpop’

no mindy is not a whore it was slander

yes mr. roberts is into kpop

ANYWAYS part 3

so they were these nancy drew, scooby doo, veronica mars knock off duo

by junior yr her partner started getting into like. drinking and minor drugs and other things that the other boarding school kids were smuggling in, y’know.

this meant that mari was getting into that shit too, y’know. cant stay innocent forever.

became a lil bit of a pothead lmao

so like now theyre just stoners who go around solving shit and prolly also stirring shit up for the hell of it

so like . . . . . one night they were doin’ their thing, right? and her partner brings up this...completely wild idea

they live in nevada. y’kno what else is in nevada?

area 51

these fucking idiots want to go break into this fucking. air force base. to find area 51.

guess what they did?

they attempted to break into the air force base. like. of course they tried.

they failed like, super miserably, got arrested for trespassing and had to be bailed out of the county jail by their parents

her dad almost lost his job so he was mcfuckin PISSED esp once they figured out she was high as shit

her partner? disappeared. nobody knows where they went.

mari was moved from the boarding school to a public school closer to where her mother could, begrudgingly, keep an eye on her

kinda spent the rest of her high school career p miserable, she gave up on her whole ~detective~ thing and resorted to making fake IDs for her fellow high schoolers

was drug-tested like every week or so, too

around this time her mental health and relationship w food got worse, she barely made it to graduation. took a gap year to recover, worked a buncha jobs but usually gets fired from them b/c she’s really fucking bad like most things besides her two (2) unconventional talents that are decidedly useless

came to ucla b/c her mother p much made her, her mother’s a legacy and that’s about the only reason why she got into delta gamma chi

doesn’t want ppl to know she was a loser and also like . fucked up her dad’s life a lil, b/c it was def a thing that made the news and the only reason why her name wasn’t in the articles was b/c she was a minor at the time

so she like...lies abt her childhood a lot

tells a lotta lil white lies b/c she just. doesn’t wanna b her

uuuhh wanted to do computer science bc she loves it but her parents were both like ‘lmao we’re not paying for shit if u do that’ bc they don’t think it’s very ~ladylike~ n they still want her to like. just be submissive and obedient n shit.

so she took up journalism b/c neither her parents think it’s like a real career and they just want her to find a husband n get married n settle down n stop being troublesome

fun fact: she has a scholarship for being lefthanded so that pays for Some of it esp b/c she’s an out of state student

still struggles a lil bit w food but she’s like. doing a lot better. goes to group therapy, probably

uuuh that’s it for now i think ??

OH SIKE !! she’s a writer for the newspaper and writes ADVICE columns on various topics b/c she’s good at offering advice but only when she can sit down n think abt it lmao

^^she goes by an alias b/c she just. doesnt want ppl to know its her idk she thinks its embarrassing

other than that she’s probably like ... doing campus tech support b/c that’s her current job but who knows how long that’ll last lmao

knowing her she’s going to accidentally switch into her phone sex voice (another, old job she doesn’t do anymore) n get fired for tryn seduce a man with ‘did u try turning it on and off again?’

OKAY i think that’s all lmao

personality

mari is just. awkward, man

i mean like...she’s sorta bad at talking to others a lot of the time??

like ppl r kinda like ‘how tf r u a delta gamma chi girl’ n she’s just like i mean u h h h h

prolly stutters a lil bit b/c she’s usually rly anxious

but she’s v v nice, like, she tries her hardest to be a good friend n everything

but she also kinda switches her personality to appeal to whoever she’s talking too ?? like she wants to be. likable. she’s not real w/ others v v often

if ur boujie yeah she’ll pretend to be boujie too

she prolly still sells fake IDs to high schoolers n some of her college peers, she has one herself n hasn’t gotten caught yet sooo

always fidgets like she can’t rly sit still often b/c she’s so nervous

is a lil bit of a stoner but i feel like u can’t ever tell tbh

a lil shy n hesitant at first i’d imagine, or maybe just always lmao

has a bit more of a personality once she sucks it up n gets closer to u but she’s always v v cautious abt befriending ppl just b/c she’s had a bad time w bullies n her one friend in life disappeared so like...bummer, y’kno?

can never say no. like, i dont think it’s in her vocabulary. she’s a yes gal.

will p much do anything u ask of her b/c she’s constantly seeking approval

can ramble a bit when she’s nervous which is always but she also apologizes like a lot.

squeaks like a mouse

present at parties but it’s always kinda like. who r u. n she has to remind everybody that she’s a sorority gal too

considers herself v v forgettable, like, just v unimportant

like she’s just rly insecure

still does computer shit n is still rly good at it but she hasn’t done anything srs w/ it so it’s just wasted potential

going to use her journalism degree to do investigative journalism and maybe escape her parents, eventually

she just. bends easily to other’s wills, y’know? she’s hashtag soft

even tho she’s like. shy n awkward n shit it doesn’t take a lot for her to like, laugh, or smile

like she tries rly hard to appear happy n an optimist n just like. unfettered

a lil plain jane we stan

i cant think of anything else but she’s. she’s a good kid

OH she’s rly good w numbers n math but like that’s abt it. she’s a whole dumbass on everything else sometimes

is bad w talking n giving advice like in person but like ?? in her column or ovr text or smth ? she’s good. she’s concise.

is a good team player/good w/ projects/etc. etc.

OH OKAY YEAH

she’s rly observant n b/c she’s a lil bit of a compulsive liar she can usually tell when ppl arent honest

depending on how close y’all r she’ll prolly crack down on ur bullshit

but she’s also timid so like who knows tbh

this isn’t a personality trait but she wears like medium hoop earrings all the time n it’s cute ok bye

OK OK LAST THING

she’s so. fucking. clumsy. she will bump into everything. she’ll bump into the air. fuck, she prolly falls over just standing straight. usually has bruises n scratches from just being a clumsy idiot

like she can b a lil ditzy y’know ?? doesn’t have much common sense, sometimes, n can b naive but idk it’s all rly dependent on her n who she’s w n just. how i end up playing her lmao

lovs vintage. is cute.

wanted connections

her roommate uwu

ppl she’s interacted w/ during her childhood !! she’s moved around a lot so like . . . . they could kno each other

mmm sorority sisters

um gimme a ride or die or like a best friend or smth PLS she needs more friends

just more friends in general. she’s awkward but she needs ‘em

?? a one night stand ?? she’s not really . . . known for hooking up w/ ppl but i think an accidental occurrence would b fun!

idk somebody for her to just. crush on from afar. prolly stutters whenever they come near or talk to her or smth

^^i mean like an unrequited crush

SOMEBODY USE HER ! RUIN HER !

FRIENDS OR FUCKING OR WHATEVER

fake friends too! use her for her ~kewl skillz~

bad influence

let her b a good influence

some kinda...skinny love idk what that means. a will they wont they. smth cute. smth pure

it’d be wild if her partner just popped up outta the blue like that b/c mari 100% thinks they were like killed by the government

ppl she gets high w n talk abt conspiracies w/ tbh

ppl she gives or has given advice to w her column pieces ! love it

idk partners in a class

enemies or smth. i want conflict.

a tutor for her dumbass

but also anybody who needs help in math? she can tutor u

idk like this we can work a lil smth smth out

i give u one penny, if u plot w me. pls. i am poor.

#uclas:intro #like if u'd like to plot w her !!#pls give her love i think i love her

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artificialqueens · 6 years

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Here I Go Again! (Group Fic) - Epilogue - pureCAMP

A/N - important notice!! there is some smutty smutty smut smut in this, but i didnt write it!! plz send ur love to citrus aka @pianowired bc she wrote it and its absolutely excellent. plz enjoy! (and let me know if a part 2 is needed! <3)

Raja had seen a lot of action, in her time, both for her friends and for herself. She remembered her first was skinny and scrawny as most fifteen year olds are, and he hadn’t impressed her. He was too excited to actually be inside a girl, and barely lasted two minutes. Of course, she’d told her girls all about it, how it wasn’t really worth the hype, but still worth trying.

Then was her second, around her sixteenth birthday, and if she remembered correctly, Jinkx had gotten laid that night too. Her ginger friend had admitted that she could barely look the nameless girl in the eye when she awoke, but had enjoyed it nevertheless. In the meantime, they teased Sharon about her chastity, despite it not being her choice. The poor girl was convinced her religious mother had eyes everywhere, and she wasn’t too far from the truth. Whenever the three got up to no good, there always seemed to be someone to report back to Sharon’s mother and get her into trouble.

For the next two years, Raja lived her life as a hoe and was thoroughly enjoying it. Her experiences ranged from poor to… satisfactory, at best, and she detailed each one to her girls, occasionally expressing her sympathy for Sharon. It wasn’t from lack of interest or trying, bless her, but her mother’s insistence on wearing that damn cross around her neck every day tended to keep boys away. Which was, of course, what the religious old trout wanted it to do.

Both herself and Jinkx applauded Sharon when she dropped out of high school, all three of them knowing she’d fail regardless, and started to rebel a little more. Their music group was the perfect opportunity to do that - to dress up fashionably, ditch all religious memorabilia and dance away from her mother’s prying eyes. The island a little way off the mainland was their solace, and a great place to pick up boys.

Around the summer, things changed. Their performances began to bring in more customers to the little tavern, resulting in more ‘fans’ and more guys and girls for Raja and Jinkx to have fun with. One night, she remembered seeing a young guy in the crowd, around their age, watching the show. Normally, Raja would’ve jumped him as soon as the set was over, but his eyes were on Sharon, and Sharon’s eyes were on him, and if this was her friend’s chance to get laid before she turned eighteen, then she’d have to let it happen.

It was so much more than that in the end. Sharon, now glowing with this new life, detailed all of her experiences to them with her eyes shining. She didn’t retell the stories like Raja did, mentioning the rough movements and emotional detachment from the whole thing. It seemed as though she loved him. Of course, she told them all about going rough and hard and fast, but it always seemed to end with cuddling, with kisses, with romantic walks on the beach as the sun set around them.

So now all three of them were living the hoe life. It was fun, but it didn’t last.

After Justin left, Sharon became solitary. She was never around in the daytime like she normally would be, to laugh with Raja and Jinkx and listen to stories and just have fun. Raja shared with Jinkx and Jinkx shared with Raja, and they only saw her when they were performing and a few times in between. She seemed distant.

Looking back, Raja knew now that it was because her sly dog of a once religious virgin friend had in fact been sneaking off to have rebound flings with two other guys in order to cope with her heartbreak. Back then, they’d just assumed she wanted to be alone.

So, to cut a long story short, the last of their group to lose her virginity, and the first of the group to ever be in love with someone she’d had sex with, had fallen pregnant. For a good year after the news was revealed to them - through a skin-tight costume that wouldn’t zip up and a tummy that seemed just a little too round to be puppy fat - the hoe life died down. Raja didn’t feel like she could just run off to find a guy and fuck him when her best friend was miserable, heartbroken, hormonal and alone. Call her selfish, but she also didn’t want to be caught in the same predicament.

With one of her best friends then busy with a newborn, Raja got back out into the dating pool, so to speak. At twenty one, she met her first husband. He was okay-looking, really, tanned with black hair and piercing eyes. Her father paid for the wedding, and he paid for Raja’s surgeries to enhance her bust, and he didn’t fuck too badly, but his lips were larger and faker than her own, and it started to put her off a little. One and a half years later, she divorced him.

“You paying him back for those?” Sharon had joked, tickling her then-five-year-old Trixie with one hand as she gestured at Raja’s chest with the other.

“Oh, please.” Raja had responded. “He paid for these and they’re still not as big as yours.”

Husband number two was a little better, but not much. He owned an international cruise line, so combining Raja’s family wealth with his was pretty luxurious. For a couple of years, she hardly saw her friends, communicating mostly through letters from wherever the cruise ship took them. It was a time of expensive face creams that contained flakes of gold, designer shoes, and world tours to places she’d never even dreamed of seeing.

But he was boring. Rich, handsome, and oh-so-boring. His every word was a drag, he was a complete drip, and he had the personality of wet toilet paper. He had to go, and two years later he was gone.

“Gold flakes…” Jinkx had mocked. “And what else? Donkey testicles? Mashed up goats liver? None of my girlfriends have ever cared if I look a little strange.”

Raja had shrugged and laughed. “If I want to day drink all year round, it’s the price I have to pay.”

“God, I haven’t day drank in forever. I haven’t night drank in forever. I’m busy being an adult whilst you guys go off and single-handedly date the entire planet.”

Husband three had taken a while to propose, which was getting on Raja’s nerves, but other than that minor flaw he was perfect. Handsome, well-off, and just the right amount of emotionally involved. He wouldn’t cling, he wouldn’t ignore her, it was just as close to perfect as she could get. That was her happiest wedding day, even if her father had drawn the line and refused to pay for it.

It really seemed like this one would stand the tests of time and Raja’s ever-changing nature.

“So you’ve finally found the one?” Sharon had asked, flipping through Raja’s years of wedding photos. In each picture from each wedding, Raja had a different husband and Jinkx had a different lady-friend (she wasn’t very into commitment), but Sharon had the same plus one - her daughter. It was no secret that her days of dating and sex seemed to be over already. She never expressed the feeling, but Raja could tell that it hurt her a little.

“I hope so. You think your man is waiting for you somewhere?” Raja had replied.

Sharon laughed mirthlessly. “Yeah, he’s out there.” She’d said bitterly. “With someone else, telling her she’s his soulmate.”

It really did last. Eleven years they were married, and Raja was pretty content. But it seemed that all good things came to an end, whether she wanted them to or not.

Truthfully, it was her fault. He was kind and sweet and he wanted to be a father. Raja, having intimately witnessed a pregnancy, the birth and watched the child grow up, didn’t want to be a mother. Of course it was magical for Sharon, and she’d never bash her friend for her decision - not after so fiercely defending her to people, even all these years later. Besides, she knew it would be different for her than it had been for Sharon, considering she was thirty six, twice the age that Sharon had been, but she was still put off. She’d never wanted children anyway, and the whole process freaked her out. For others, she was supportive. For herself, she was an inch away from disgusted.

It was just one of those differences that tears people apart. Their arrangement was no longer working, not really.

The divorce was a painful one. As she sobbed into Sharon’s chest, Jinkx awkwardly rubbing her back, it seemed to hit her at once that her friend was something of a superhero. Now that she was experiencing heartbreak, she finally understood what Sharon had been through and how hard it must’ve been to carry on. Yet the way she so expertly comforted her showed just how incredible of a mother she’d been, and how she’d relaxed into the role and learned exactly what to do.

Last time Raja had checked, even though she swore she wasn’t going to, his new wife - blonde, pretty, the works - was six months pregnant. Fine, that was fine. He’d moved on. Raja moved on too.

Her tricks were getting younger, truth be told. In recent years, the younger men had become even more open about their admiration for older ladies, and whilst Raja was in no way old, she appreciated the attention. With a little bit of Botox, she was pretty much the young man’s dream.

Still, hooking up with one of Sharon’s hotel slaves, as she so affectionately had nicknamed them, felt a little strange. Karl had told her that he was twenty one, so at the very least he was older than Trixie.

Admittedly, he was one of the better ones. He wasn’t disgustingly hairy, like some men who tried to approach her, but he also wasn’t pre-pubescent and hairless. Clean shaven, the way she liked it. He was fairly muscular, Filipino, and had a strange streak of blonde in his dark hair. Whether that was a fashion of the youth or not, she didn’t care. Raja still tugged on it in bed with him after the hen party had been infiltrated by the stag do.

He was skilled enough that, the next morning when Raja crept away so that she didn’t have to sleep besides him any longer, she simply went to beach and lay out in the sun to relax. Her energy was somewhat spent and she needed the ache to subside before she got ready for the wedding.

“Hey, babe.”

Raja didn’t even bother opening her eyes. “Babe?”

Karl lay down next to her, getting sand on the beach towel. “You heard me. I called you babe.”

“Oh, lord.” Raja scoffed. “Babe indeed. I could be your mother, near enough. Speaking of, where is she? Does she know you’re out?”

Karl rolled his eyes. “You can’t ignore the chemistry between us, Raj. I know you feel it. I know you felt it last night.”

He smiled, blindingly white teeth flashing in her direction. Raja hadn’t seen teeth that white since she’d flown out to the clinic to pay for a whitening herself.

“You’re so cute,” She teased, watching how he tried and failed to compose himself. “I know what you want, sweetcheeks. But you’re playing with fire, and your fingers are gonna get burnt.”

Karl seemed unfazed. “What if I’d walk through fire for you? What if I’m fireproof?”

Raja laughed, surprised at his persistence. “I like your style, kid. Just make sure you let your mother know that you’re out, honey.”

In one smooth motion, Karl rolled over so he was positioned above Raja, kissing along the marked spots on her neck and collarbone. He might’ve been young, but he smelled like sea-salt and he tasted like honey and he sent waves of fire rolling through her body. In all honesty, he was the first to actually make Raja feel young again. Like any minute now she’d be caught, messing around in the sand with a guy she knew almost nothing about. It was thrilling, but she couldn’t exactly let him win.

“Nice try,” Raja breathed, flipping him over. “Take it easy, slow down. That’s no way to go, now is it?”

Pinned underneath her, Karl smiled wickedly. “I don’t suppose you wanna show me how it should be done, then?”

Raja considered it. She could teach him a few new tricks, that would be fun. Combining the young man’s stamina with the older woman’s expertise would definitely, definitely be fun. But on the other hand, they had all the time in the world. It wasn’t like Raja had a stuffy old husband to go home to anymore - she didn’t have anyone waiting for her. Right now, the only person who wanted her attention was Karl, and he seemed happy to wait.

Besides; she had a wedding to get ready for. She’d wasted enough precious time fooling around in the sand. If she was going to look suitable for this wedding, she needed to start getting ready early. Plus, Sharon would throw an absolute fit if she knew that Raja was distracting one of her hotel slaves.

“Meet me after the wedding reception.” Raja told him, extending a long, tan leg close to his face. “Maybe then I’ll dance with you.”

—

Night had fallen by the time Trixie was changed, packed, and down at the docks ready to leave. Sharon had been rushing around in a flurry to ensure her daughter had everything she’d need, and then some. Call her over-protective and paranoid, but her little girl was leaving home for the first time, going out into the world to find adventures and experiences. It would be nerve-wracking for any mother.

Around the four of them, a chilly sea breeze blew. The sky was inky, the sea like molten silver as the moonlight glittered off the surface. Everything was still and silent, besides the bobbing of the little boat that would be taking Trixie and Brian to the mainland. Stars twinkled high above.

“You sure you’ve got everything?” Sharon worried, shivering on the deck. She rubbed her arms to try and warm them, and only moments later, Justin’s suit jacket had been placed over her shoulders.

Trixie smiled, humouring her. “Yes, mom. I was sure the first time, long before you triple-checked it all.”

Brian and Justin shared a laugh, their matching grins widening as Sharon playfully shoved them both.

“Alright, alright. Sorry. It’s a mom thing, I guess. Worrying so much.”

Shaking his head, Brian smiled. “Sharon, I’ll take good care of her, not that she needs it.”

Justin chuckled. “I’m sure after being raised by you, she could take on anything.”

“You’re probably right.” Sharon grinned. “Well. Don’t let me keep you waiting.”

Her tone changed; quieter, a little more forlorn. It had been the most perfect day ever, and there was no denying that, but goodbyes were always difficult. Sharon’s last goodbye had been tinged with heartbreak, and this one just felt like letting go. She’d always known, really, that the tiny baby who was lulled to sleep by her heartbeat and the gentle rocking of the chair would one day have to leave home. She herself had done it, albeit under different circumstances. Even so, as a mom, she wanted to keep Trixie wrapped up in swaddling blankets forever.

Trixie threw her arms around her in a hug, squeezing tight the way she always did. Sharon blinked back her tears when she pulled away, offering a weak smile and leaning forwards to hug Brian, too. Her heart skipped a few beats when she noticed Trixie hugging Justin, planting a kiss on his cheek and whispering her goodbyes.

It was like they were a real family.

“Go, go on already!” Sharon half-joked, pushing the two lovers towards their boat and trying to ignore how choked up she felt. “God, you kids… Driving me crazy, I tell you. Go on, go and see the world.”

Justin kissed the top of Sharon’s head and began to help Trixie and Brian loading their bags onto the boat. Before long they were waving goodbye, growing smaller and smaller in the horizon. Sharon didn’t stop waving until they were a mere dot in the distance, not visible against the night sky nor with Sharon’s rapidly-blurring vision.

“Hey, hey… It’s okay. I’m here.” Justin’s voice was gentle, calming. He pulled Sharon against his chest, sparing her the embarrassment of crying in front of him, and soothingly rubbed her back.

“My daughter just left home.” Sharon sniffed, muffled against his shirt. “I feel like the definition of not okay.”

He leant down and kissed the tip of her nose, making her giggle. “I know. But she said she’ll write, and she’s so excited for this. She’s like how we used to be.”

Justin began to walk away from the docks, one hand in Sharon’s, heading towards the taverna. “Remember? Life was so exciting. The world was this brand new place and we’d get to discover it all.”

Sharon snorted in spite of herself. “Of course I do. But don’t you think we’re a little old for that now?”

“Old? You make us sound like pensioners.” Justin laughed. “Babe, we’re both thirty eight. Not even forty yet. That’s not old. Some people call it the prime years.”

He nudged his wife suggestively, to which she burst out laughing. “Uh huh, sure. You really think we’re better now than we were twenty years ago? I’m saggier, fatter, wrinklier… the list goes on.”

“You’re so stupid. I don’t see any of that.” Justin defended her, squeezing her hand. “You’re curvy, you’re beautiful… you still have those slutty lips that I love.”

Sharon gasped and covered her mouth with her hand, acting scandalized. “Slutty lips?! And you call yourself a gentleman?!”

Justin shrugged. “So you’re saying that when we fuck, it won’t be as good as it used to be? You’re not slutty anymore?”

“No! I’m not saying that!”

“You sure?”

“Yes!”

“I don’t know, it sounds like that’s what you’re saying.”

“It won’t be worse! It’ll be better!”

“Prove it.”

The challenging gleam in Justin’s eyes sent waves of heat rolling through Sharon’s body. Fuck, she’d missed him. The taunts, the teasing, the dirty talk and the mischievous behaviour. It was ridiculous that she could still feel like she was eighteen even now, just being in his presence. He hadn’t changed a bit, and he was making her run wild.

“We’re not going to make it to my house, are we?” Sharon asked, half-joking, half-sultry and narrow-eyed.

Justin’s face was a picture of bliss. “Mmm… I don’t think so. But hey, I see our cabin is still standing. Maybe we should re-acquaint ourselves.”

Sharon shook her head, laughing. “You… you’re the reason I’m so bad. Cabin it is, before I fucking explode.”

The two of them all but ran to the cabin, Justin’s arms flying to Sharon’s waist as she kicked the door closed. As soon as they were alone he kissed her, and it was everything and nothing like she remembered. It was the same passion, the same fire, but his soft lips were accompanied by scratchy stubble and his arms were stronger and more defined than they’d been twenty years ago.

“Bed,” Sharon demanded as she broke the kiss, pulling Justin across the cabin and into the small, doorless bedroom. The bed was decently sized, fitted with clean white sheets that told Justin that Sharon had been taking care of the cabin even after all this time. He kissed her again, laying her down on the bed and slotting a leg between her thighs as her tongue dipped into his mouth.

“Told you I love these slutty lips,” he mumbled against her mouth, hands pushing her skirt up her hips. Sharon chuckled, unbuttoning Justin’s shirt and shoving it off his shoulders before trailing a hand down his chest. He was softer than he’d been before, no longer skinny and gangly, and he shivered under her touch after twenty years of deprivation.

“You’ve certainly aged better than I have,” Sharon grinned as he tossed his hair in mock vanity.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, babe, you don’t look a day over twenty-five.”

Sharon scoffed. “Sure.”

“I mean it,” he insisted, moving the top of her dress down too so that the garment was bunched around her waist. “You’re gorgeous no matter how you look. Also, no bra? Really? It’s like you planned this.”

Sharon laughed and shrugged, her giggle turning into a low moan as Justin rolled her nipples between his thumb and forefinger. “You’ll be happy to know I decided against going commando while we sent our daughter and her boyfriend off to travel the world.”

Justin smiled, snapping the elastic of her underwear against her hip and grinning wider when she yelped in surprise. “You’re so beautiful.”

Sharon rolled her eyes, pulling him in for another kiss.

“Can you cut the crap and fuck me already?” she mumbled against his lips, pulling his hands down to rest on her thighs and placing her own hands on his hips. He laughed as she cupped his growing erection through his trousers, squeezing lightly and making him groan.

“So needy, always so needy,” he teased, shucking off his trousers while Sharon freed herself completely from her dress. She let out a low moan as his long, slender fingers teased her through the fabric of her panties, feeling her beginning to get wet from his touch. “Shh, patience, love. I’m gonna make you feel so good. Just like old times, eh?”

“I’d say a bit different. I’m not the skinny little slip of a thing I used to be.”

“Sharon Needles, can you stop putting yourself down for a moment and let me worship you the way you deserve? God, you’re still so stubborn.” Sharon nearly protested, but then Justin’s fingers were pushing her underwear aside and grazing over her folds, and she could only let out a soft moan. “That shut you up, huh?”

“Shut up and fuck me,” Sharon demanded, pushing his hand away and her panties down with it. Justin shot her one of those stupidly adorable grins of his as he slid out of his own underwear and kissed at her jaw and neck again. “Jesus, babe, age made you slow.”

“If you want to get fucked, you’ll stop complaining,” Justin growled softly, one hand squeezing lightly at the sides of her throat. Sharon felt another rush of heat pass through her body; she’d always been a sucker for Justin showing dominance, and it seemed as though nothing much had changed in the two decades they’d been apart. His hand moved to rest at the base of her throat, barely even touching her, and she raised an eyebrow.

“You’ve still got it,” she said appreciatively. “Thought you might.”

“Course I do,” Justin replied, sliding his hand down her body to spread her open and press a finger into her, making her whine. “You drive me crazy, Sharon.”

“More, Justin,” she complained, arching up into his touch as he added a second finger and his thumb found her sensitive bud. “Christ, fuck me. I’ve waited long enough.”

“We both have,” Justin agreed as he drew his fingers out of her and lined up with her entrance. “You sure you don’t wanna change positions?”

“It’s not gonna do my back any favors,” she answered. “Told you I wasn’t the kid I used to be.”

“Shush,” Justin bade her, running his thumb across her lower lip and gazing into her eyes with so much love she thought she might melt. She hadn’t seen him look at her like that in all their years apart, and if she was telling the truth, no one could ever fill the gap Justin had left in her life. But he was here now, his hands on her thighs, his lips on her lips, and oh, how Sharon had missed him. He was hot and hard against her, and when he pressed just past her entrance she sighed.

“More, baby,” she encouraged, pulling him down by the shoulders to kiss the corner of his mouth.

“You sure, love? It’s been a long time and I-”

“I’m sure,” Sharon promised, all but a whisper against his skin. He pushed a little further, and Sharon’s back arched to take him deeper into her warmth, kissing him deep and hard. She didn’t stop until his hips were flush against hers and he was buried inside her completely, and he panted against her neck as they both adjusted to the sensations wracking their bodies.

“You… oh, Sharon, you feel so good,” Justin groaned, gasping when she clenched around him with a smirk. When he rolled his hips, she whimpered loudly, kissing him desperately.

“I’ve been desperate to have your cock inside me for the last twenty years,” she mumbled roughly, “Memories are never as good as the real thing. I’ve never- fuck– I’ve never been this full.”

“No one else,” Justin promised as he withdrew a few inches before pushing back in, making Sharon gasp. “No one else can do it like you, babe. No one else can take it like you.”

“Please, baby,” she begged as he began to increase the pace and depth of his thrusts, his grip on her hips so tight she was sure there would be bruises later. “Fuck, J-Justin…” Justin was perfection, he always had been; he filled her so completely and took her apart effortlessly, making her feel like she was coming apart at the seams and melting into the mattress. She didn’t know his history after he’d left the island– there would be time for that later –but there was no doubt that he’d only grown more skilled with age. It was like he could see right through her and into the place where she kept her deepest desires; every single thrust was perfect, his steady rhythm sending waves of pleasure through her body unlike anything she’d experienced since their last time together. He knew exactly what she wanted, what she needed, and he kissed her with all the passion and sweetness of a first love that had never really faded.

Desire coursed through Sharon like a wildfire, igniting every nerve in her body and setting her alight with pleasure. She could tell Justin was nearing the edge from the way that his hips began to stutter slightly, but he was doing an astounding job of keeping his steady pace. Sharon pulled her legs to her chest, changing the angle and allowing him to move even deeper inside her, speeding up and fucking her harder and faster. The bed rocked against the wall of the cabin as Justin lost his controlled rhythm and gave into his body, letting Sharon pull him down for a kiss as his hips slammed against her soft thighs.

Sharon came first, a hoarse shout of ecstasy leaving her lips as every single thrust of Justin’s hips allowed him to ram against the spot deep inside her that made her see stars. Her nails raked down his back as she threw her head back and sobbed with the sheer pleasure of it all, drawing a hiss from Justin and resulting in him planting sloppy kisses all over her mouth like a teenager with poor aim. He finished with a rough cry of “Sharon,” and a final snap of his hips, coming deep and hard inside her and all but collapsing on her chest. The two of them lay like that for several moments, completely spent and trying to catch their breath, and Sharon’s lips lingered against Justin’s cheek, her fingers running over the angry red marks she’d created on his skin.

“I’m sorry about that,” she chuckled, “I guess you really do make me feel young again.” Justin let out a breathless laugh at that, carefully pulling out of her and moving to collapse on the bed beside her. She nestled herself into his arms, slotting her thigh between his legs.

“Just like old times, mm?”

“Just like the good old days,” Sharon agreed teasingly. “I have to admit, I didn’t think you’d be able to do better than we used to. I’m impressed.”

Justin smiled lazily, shifting slightly and kissing Sharon’s cheek. “Wanna know what pushed me over the edge?”

“Sure,” she laughed, “But proceed with caution.”

“I was thinking about how beautiful you looked under me, and then I just had the thought pop into my head that wow, that’s my wife. You’re my wife.”

Sharon let out an airy laugh, snuggling into his chest as he wrapped his arms around her. “Mhmm,” she hummed contentedly, “Never thought I’d see the day.”

“…Sharon?”

“Hm?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, baby.”

—

Justin wasn’t an idiot.

For his first move after the wedding, he’d told Sharon in no uncertain terms that she needed a break. After all, he’d witnessed how frantic she was for the few days that he’d been on the island. He could’ve sworn that she didn’t sleep, eat or relax at any point, just work work work. She needed a break, some time off.

Of course, time had slightly altered his memories of just how stubborn she was. There was no way she was going to be leaving her hotel, not a chance in Heaven or Hell. She’d put her foot down and that was it, decision made.

Only Justin wasn’t that much of a pushover, and so began their at-home honeymoon. The young men, guided by Raja and Jinkx, were in charge of the hotel for a while, whilst Sharon and Justin roamed around the island, enjoying their time together.

It was nice to watch her relax, really. In the sunlight, with her hair cascading down her back rather than tied up, and her face smooth rather than pinched with stress, she could’ve passed for eighteen again. He’d forgotten just how captivating her eyes were, a deeper blue than any expanse of ocean they could see. He’d forgotten how funny her laugh was, the utter cackle that came out of her. He’d forgotten the beauty in her smile.

Really, he could spend all day listing off the beautiful things that he started to remember during their at-home honeymoon, but Sharon wouldn’t give him the chance. She was as needy and desperate as the day they’d met, and he certainly wasn’t complaining.

It wasn’t all sex, though. Sometimes they both needed a break, and they had twenty one years of talking to do.

“Jinkx took this, about two hours after I gave birth. Look at her tiny little fist around my finger.” Sharon held up the photo so Justin could see. Heart squeezing, he wrapped his arms around his wife even tighter.

“I can’t believe I never knew about all this.” He replied, refusing to take his eyes off his then-newborn daughter. “She looks so much like you.”

Sharon chuckled. “She always did. I miss her so much.”

That day, Sharon had taken Justin on her proper tour of her tiny home. He already knew what the rooms looked like, having stayed there since the wedding, but she took him around to the lumps and bumps and chips and cracks, naming each one as incidents that had happened when Trixie was little - all the parts of their lives that he’d missed. Now, he saw the house in a whole new light, full of life and memories and little remnants of the past.

“This one is sweet.” Justin picked up another of the photos spread across Sharon’s - their - bed. “How old is she here?”

The photo showed Trixie, cheesing at the camera from her perch on Sharon’s shoulders. Her blonde hair was in two plaits, with a pink cowboy hat on her head and a blue princess dress. Sharon was giggling up at her daughter, seemingly unaware that the photo was being taken, in a summer dress that matched Trixie’s.

Sharon studied it, smiling faintly, then flipped it over. On the back, almost illegible writing read ‘Princess Trixabelle Parton (3) and Mama Sharon (21) go on an adventure to the marketplace to find some lunch (MS) and defeat some evil (PTP).’

“Those were the days.” She murmured, biting her lip. “I used to wonder how different my life would be without having Trixie, but she made everything better. I’m sure drinking at twenty one is fun, but playing with Princess Trixabelle Parton was fun too. There’s no comparison.”

Justin kissed her forehead. “God, you’re fucking magical, you know that?”

Sharon’s eyes were bright with unshed tears, which she dabbed at in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent them from falling. In spite of herself, she giggled a little.

“I can’t believe she’s all gr-grown up, I still worry about her so much. She better send me another letter soon.” She paused. “I really miss these days.”

Unable to stand the sight of her tears, Justin pulled Sharon closer and closer until her face was buried in his chest yet again. Once he could feel her sobs gently deteriorating into laughter, he pulled her away and tucked the photo into his pocket.

“I’ll tell you what. We should go on our own market adventure today. Let’s buy something weird and make a day of it. We could even take a boat to the mainland and see if Trixie’s sent anything for us. I asked the guy on the boat when he gave you the letter last week, and he said that he’s happy to pass on letters but we’ll have to collect any parcels for ourselves.”

Sharon considered him. “You know what… that sounds nice! I’ll get dressed, hold on.”

In a matter of moments, she’d removed her pyjama top with an extravagant flourish, causing Justin to burst into laughter.

“I swear I’ve put weight on, this is your fault.” She balled the shirt up and threw it at Justin’s head, childishly blowing raspberries at him when he ducked and missed it. “Look at me!”

She poked her stomach, puffing her cheeks out. Rolling his eyes, Justin threw her shirt back.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Put some clothes on, nympho.”

Sharon laughed appreciatively. “Fair, fair. Do you think we could skip the market, though? Recently the smell of all the fish has been making me really nauseous, and I don’t wanna throw up on you in that shirt. You look good in that shirt.”

It wasn’t long after their day out that Justin started to suspect. Of course, he’d never blindly say a thing out loud, for fear of castration via kitchen knives, but he was definitely beginning to notice a few telling changes, even if Sharon wasn’t. The nausea, for example. The breath-taking way she’d started to fill her clothes.

In fact, he tried to mention it to her once. She was having none of it.

“Nope. Where did you get that from?”

“I just thought maybe-”

“You’re crazy, Justin. I love you, but you’re crazy.”

“I mean, we have been-”

“It’s just not realistic, babe!”

“It’s possible, I guess I just-”

“Possible? At my age?”

“You’re not old! In fact, you’re perfectly-”

“You’re off your head, babe. I think the sea salt is getting to your brain.”

“But don’t you think-”

“Nah, it can’t be. Justin, I’m not pregnant.”

So they dropped the subject. She wasn’t, because Justin was clearly crazy and seeing things that weren’t there. She continued to deny it even when he hadn’t brought it up, which made him laugh. Justin knew Sharon wasn’t exactly… bright. Eventually she’d catch on.

‘Eventually’ turned out to be a week from their debate. Justin was sprawled across the bed, half-asleep in sweatpants and a face-mask that she’d insisted they both try. He was forced awake as the bathroom door slammed open, revealing a distressed Sharon with a mouthful of toothpaste foam, a toothbrush in one hand and a pregnancy test in the other.

“‘Ow did thi’ ‘appen?” She managed to say, leaning into the sink to spit and then returning. “How?!”

Justin shrugged. “I guess someone decided that the best way to clean your teeth is with a little brush on the end of a stick, so you can really get in there and scrub.”

Sharon dropped the toothbrush. “Not that, doofus. This!”

“Did… Did you forget that we’ve been having like… a lot of sex?” Justin tried.

She shook her head. “Well, of course not.”

“And the fact that we ran out of condoms within a week?”

“No.”

“And that when I told you, you said it didn’t matter and we didn’t need any more?”

“No.”

“Well… that’ll be why.”

Justin watched Sharon’s face, trying to gauge her feelings. She was almost impossible to read sometimes, what with years of hiding her feelings under her belt. He decided to tread carefully, pushing down the rising excitement that he felt inside him.

“But… we’re old!” She protested. “I really didn’t think this could happen, if I’m honest.”

Smiling gently, Justin beckoned her to come and lay on the bed with him. The sun was just starting to set, and as she nestled into his arms, golden sunlight filtered through the window and made patterns on the wall. Sharon kept staring at the test in her hand, encompassed by Justin’s warmth.

“How do you feel about this?” He whispered.

Sharon swallowed. “It’s… unexpected. How… how do you feel?”

“I feel amazing.” He admitted quietly, his heart softening as Sharon smiled. “I can be here for you this time, every step of the way.”

He placed his hand on top of Sharon’s, both of them on her stomach. For a few, peaceful moments, they lay there in silence.

Sharon was first to break it. “God, I can’t believe those bitches were right. It’s like Raja and Jinkx can predict the fucking future.”

Justin laughed. “Well. As I’m sure you’ll remember, I’m in if you’re in.”

The nostalgia registered on Sharon’s face instantly. The first time they’d met - all those years ago - the two of them said it a lot. When faced with a freezing cold plunge pool and no clothes, Justin simply shrugged “I’m in if you’re in.” When coming up with a plan to cause some minor havoc, the two of them in pain from laughing so hard, Sharon managed “I’m in if you’re in!”

It had been years since either of them had said or even heard those words.

“I’m in.”

#purecamp #here i go again #trixya #shalaska #rajila #smut #sharon needles #alaska thunderfuck #raja gemini #manila luzon #trixie mattel #katya zamolodchikova #rpdr fanfiction #submission #m/f au #mamma mia au

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