#but now that he’s been out and has got a taste

[rosesaints]

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* IT'S GETTING HOT IN HERE — jjk men and summer

// now playing the songs of the summer: g. satoru, t. fushiguro, g. suguru, c. kamo, n. kento

summary: hot, filthy, nasty sex with the jjk sex inspired by hot summer things and my summer 2024 playlist! warnings: 18+ mdni, fem!reader, degradation (gojo), public sex, rough sex (all lol), oral f!receiving (choso), all of them are literally matching each other's freaks in public, it's crazy

: ̗̀➛ GOJO SATORU

now playing: SUNDRESS by A$AP ROCKY .ᐟ

shopping sprees after seeing you in a pretty lil' sundress, grabbing your ass in public, sneaking kisses in the fitting room, curious hands sliding up your thighs on a picnic surrounding by dozens of designer bags, laughs muffled against the sunkissed skin of your shoulder.

the first time gojo sees you in a sundress has him urgently dialing up his bank to increase his credit card limit. "listen, i don't give a shit, make it happen—" shuts his phone off and looks at you in that devious smile you've grown accustomed to seeing when he has something up his sleeve.

he looks you up and down, lingers on the silky smooth expanse of your legs and lets his scorching gaze travel up to where you're showing off a generous amount of cleavage. he resists a groan, settles for grabbing you by your waist instead. "you down to go shopping, sweetheart?"

a fucking menace to retail workers everywhere, barely tries to hide the fact that he's sneaking into your fitting room, just shoves several hundred dollar bills into the hands of the nearest worker. "satoru! there's people outside—"

"just gotta stay quiet, yeah?" he rolls up the backside of your dress, hurriedly pressing you up against the nearest surface as you feel his hard length rubbing up against your cunt, excited and eager and already dripping with pre-cum. despite yourself, you moan. "already bought out the store anyway. fuck, you're so hot."

he's so mean, pinching and rolling the bud of your nipple in that rough way that he knows drives you crazy, sends you gasping and squirming for more. slaps your ass—vulgar, obscene, filthy—chuckling behind you when you yelp.

"been thinking about fucking you in this slutty little dress all day. gonna fuck you in every single one of these dresses."

: ̗̀➛ TOJI FUSHIGURO

now playing: I DON'T WANNA FALL IN LOVE by KYLE .ᐟ

the fleeting feeling of a summer fling, scorching gazes under the sun, straps falling over your shoulders, watching muscles flex under tight compression shirts, letting ice cream dribble down your lips.

sometimes, toji just makes it so easy. he doesn't wanna do anything serious? fine. you've been at it all day, bending down in your tiny little tops and shorts when you know you're in his line of vision, licking your popsicle slowly and sensually, making eye contact with him as a drop falls on your chest and scooping it up with a lithe finger, sucking it clean. to his credit, toji doesn't break. barely even reacts.

but you see the way his fists clench and the subtle way a vein pops out of his forehead, and it makes you grin in victory. you walk away from him with more sway and confidence in your hips, and he follows after you nevertheless like a looming rain cloud.

when you close the door behind you to finally, finally confront the consequences of your actions, he only mutters three simple words. "are you done?"

"not quite."

later, when he wraps a heavy hand around your hair, and forces you to look at the mirror, at your debauched and wrecked state, eyes rolling back and drooling as he fucks you hard from behind, victory somehow tastes even sweeter. "this what you want, sweetheart? this what you wanted to get out of teasing me all day? brat. you've got some audacity. where's all that fire now, huh?"

"make me yours, toji," you babble, grasping onto nothing as you push your hips back to meet his punishing thrusts. "'s what i want, all i want, please."

"too fucking bad," he emphasizes each word with a thrust. "only good girls get what they want."

: ̗̀➛ GETO SUGURU

now playing: SEX ON THE BEACH by PARTYNEXTDOOR .ᐟ

bass reverberating through your skull at a house party, hazy with smoke and that flighty, weightless feeling of seeing someone across the bonfire, dancing up against someone you don't quite know, smoking a cigarette together behind the house, rings that leave goosebumps on your skin.

"that's it, there you go, get them wet for me," geto's pushing his ringed fingers into your mouth, and you can feel the cold metal clashing against the hot velvet of your mouth. he tastes like bergamot and tea and leather. when he goes a little too far back, you gag, and the noise sends an electric shock down his spine. he pulls his fingers out and appraises them, digits shining in the moonlight. it makes your throat run dry. "think they're soaked enough for you?"

he hums, looks you up and down with impossibly dark eyes. "guess we'll see."

it should make you feel a little bit scared, the way he's got you spreading your legs for him just outside the party. you can literally hear people on the floor above you, laughing and blasting music. salt air and cigarette smoke lingering in the air as he pulls your panties to the side and circles your cunt, once, twice, before one finger slips in, relishing the way your eyes go wide and lips fall slightly open.

"you're shameless, aren't you?" his question has you clenching your legs, closing your eyes as the lewd noises of his fingers pumping in and out gets louder and faster. "letting me do this to you where anyone could see?"

"m—mhm," your head's going fuzzy at the edges, rutting into his hand and eyes rolling back at the delicious friction. you know how desperate and depraved you must look, but you can't find it in you to particularly care, not with the way geto's looking at you like you hung the moon itself. "give me another one, i can take it, please—"

his fingers stop in their tracks, and you find yourself whining, begging him to continue. geto's eyes darkens. "you think you deserve it?"

"prove it to me."

: ̗̀➛ CHOSO KAMO

now playing: TIME TO PRETEND by MGMT .ᐟ

spontaneous road trips at 2 AM, running through a gas station in the dead of night, slushies and cotton candy and junk food, sugar rushes, like hanging out of the sunroof while the love of your life drives through a windy tunnel, laughs echoing around you.

choso is just so fun to hang out with. usually so calm and reserved, you were surprised when he agreed to a day full of stereotypical summer fun, driving around doing dumb shit together and allowing him to just feel. "i'll go where you go."

something was so effortless, so easy and comforting about the feeling of his hand on your calf as you hung out of the sun roof, his arms around you as you watched the sunset, sharing a snow cone together in the car, laughing as it dripped down on to the hot leather seats of his car.

of course, all sugar rushes have to come down. but they don't necessarily have to just yet.

it's what leads you to reach across the console and clamber on to his lap, lips meeting his to taste the artificial sweeteners that lingered on his tongue. you pull back to momentarily glance at the dumbstruck look on his face, smiling slyly, "tastes delicious."

"oh fuck, oh fuck—" he's got you spread over the backseat, and he's licking hot, searing stripes onto your cunt, ravenous and insatiable and tongue pumping in and out of you at a pace that has you seeing god.

you watch, mesmerized, as he takes another bite of the snowcone before plunging back in, the mixture of his hot tongue and the cold ice of the cone sending delicious, exquisite shivers down your spine.

"you're so sweet," choso hums into your pussy, smiling when he hears you gasp and writhe underneath his tongue. "you taste like a dream come true."

: ̗̀➛ NANAMI KENTO

now playing: SUMMER BUMMER by LANA DEL REY .ᐟ

night swimming in pools, drinking expensive wine and having dinner by the beach, the feeling of a hand on your back, lounging on soft sand with the breeze in your hair, head in his lap as he reads to you.

nanami wines and dines you like he's still pursuing you. for him, it means reserving that seaside restaurant he knows you've been eyeing for months, helping you get ready at your apartment, zipping up the long dress he specifically bought for you for the occasion, and pressing a kiss to the top of your head. holds your hand all the way into the restaurant, pulls your chair back for you, and looking at you with so much love and adoration it hurts.

he loves you so much, that he lets you tease him under the table as you look over the menu. his breath hitches when your free hand goes to unzip his pants, but tries not to let his expression betray the filthy, depraved things you're about to do to him.

you order your appetizer and drinks without breaking a sweat but pumping him with so much ferocity that he stumbles over his words multiple times while trying to order for himself. you smile at him sweetly nonetheless, like nothing's wrong.

he comes with a silent gasp when you rub over his tip in just the right way, eyes widening in shock as you pull your hand back just when the server sets your appetizer down. watches intently as you delightfully take one of the hors d'oeuvres and take a bit, tongue brushing against your fingers, the ones that have just finished him off. "thanks, nanami!"

something in him snaps.

nanami takes a sip of wine and readjusts his tie. he'll deal with you later.

© ROSESAINTS ! — do not repost, translate, plagiarise or claim any of my works as your own. requests are open.

#🎞️ writing — me when i write. #gojo satoru #gojo satoru smut #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x reader #gojo smut #geto suguru #geto suguru x reader #geto suguru smut #geto smut #geto x reader #nanami kento #nanami kento x reader #nanami x reader #nanami smut #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jjk x reader #jjk smut #mdni #toji fushiguro #toji fushiguro x reader #toji fushiguro smut #toji smut #toji x reader #choso kamo #choso kamo x reader #choso kamo smut #choso x reader

[sunrizef1]

Monaco Green

Pairing: Lando Norris x fem!reader

Warnings: suicide jokes in relation to a happy relationship? (Yall know what I mean)

Authors note: more Lando!

Requested: Yes/No

———————————————

yourusername

📍Monte Carlo, Monaco

liked by user1 user2 and 13,800 others

yourusername took a day-trip away from London to go visit Monaco, bit posher than I’m used to, vlog coming soon xx 💚💚💚

In the meantime, new cooking video is up now, we made pesto pasta! 🍝

load comments…

user1 I’m actually in love with her

user2 she’s so pretty!

user3 who’s behind the camera in the pasta video???

user4 is it her editor???

user5 James??? Nah, he’s American, the guy in the video is British

user6 secret boyfriend???

user7 why Monaco?

yourusername visiting a friend! It was quite nice, might have to consider moving 🤔

user8 no offense but how tf would she afford Monaco rent

user9 yk these influencers and their rich parents

user10 so pretty 🥰

yourusername thank you, love 🫶

user11 I love her phone case 💚💚

user12 “we” made pesto pasta 🤔

user13 I loved the new karting vid!!! James had no chance lol, how r u so good?!

yourusername I had a good instructor haha, helps that James is absolutely abysmal at it

jamesedits that’s rude, we don’t all have experienced go-karters to teach us 😒

user14 I want to be her friend so bad, omg her life seems so cool

———————————————

landonorris

📍Monte Carlo, Monaco

liked by jamesedits maxfewtrell and 3,008,996 others

landonorris Monaco green 💚

load comments…

user15 the soft-launch????

user16 who is that??????

user17 not Lando posting his secret girlfriend on a random Tuesday

user18 ooh but she’s got good taste in nails I’ll give her that

user19 and who tf is that then

maxfewtrell ah, bold innit?

landonorris 🤐

user20 wtf is max talking about

user21 all we get is hands????

user22 some Twitter detectives about to figure out who that is just based on the hands i bet my life

user23 and if I told you I know who that is, then what

user24 now how tf do you know that

user23 pure vibes and delusion

user25 who taught this man to soft-launch???

user26 I can tell she’s pretty

user27 NOOOOOOOO

user28 what about our marriage and kids???

oscarpiastri she’s lovely

landonorris you have not met her

oscarpiastri this is your sign to change that

oscarpiastri and from what you’ve told me, she is lovely

landonorris she is

user29 awww I already love her

———————————————

TWITTER

INSTAGRAM

yourusername

📍Monte Carlo, Monaco

liked by user1 user2 and 31,998 others

yourusername supposed to be a one day trip but now it’s been three days 😅

Day 1 Monaco vlog is up now! 💚

load comments…

user30 is this the girl that Twitter thread was about????

user31 she has the phone case!!!!

user32 you can’t tell me that the “tour guide” in the vlog isn’t Lando

user33 love that James was so against the sunshine the entire time lmao

jamesedits I’m white and from London, I can’t survive in the sun 😔

user34 I love the green 💚💚💚

user35 is this landos girlfriend????

user36 are yall just harassing this poor girl because she has a popular phone case??!! 😭😭

jamesedits can I go home now

yourusername pls do, you third-wheel too much

user37 third-wheeling???? I sense landooo

user38 are you staying with that friend you mentioned

user39 pretty girl 🤩

user40 if you go to the part of the vlog when they’re walking the circuit and go over the grand hotel hairpin, on my life you can see Lando for a split-second in the background

user41 are you sure that’s him and not James?

user40 James was wearing a black jacket, that guy was wearing like a beige hoodie

user42 I just binged like 20 of her videos because I heard she might be dating Lando and now I’m in love with her 😭😭😭

user43 I’m convinced it’s her just because of the phone case and yall can’t change my mind

jamesedits I had to work overtime to get all that footage cut quickly so you’re welcome

yourusername “work overtime” you are on vacation it’s hardly working

jamesedits don’t police my stress

yourusername 🙄

——————————————

yourusername added to their story

landonorris

🤩🤩🤩🤩

yourusername

🫶

————————————————

landonorris

📍Monte Carlo, Monaco

liked by yourusername charles_leclerc and 3,006,001 others

landonorris 3 days of Monaco with a guest 💚

load comments…

user44 GREEN AGAIN

user45 and if I told you that phone case girl had that same hat in her Instagram post then what

user46 “three days of Monaco” “supposed to be a day-trip but it’s been three days”

user47 that third picture must be from day 1 because someone’s wearing that same beige hoodie in the back of her day 1 vlog

user48 and the green ny hat???

user49 y/n was wearing green converse on her insta story!!!

user50 AND SHE LIKED!!!!

user51 I recognize those shoessss

user52 this is so cute 😭🫶

oscarpiastri she’s lovely!

landonorris now you can say that

oscarpiastri it was lovely to meet her 🫶

landonorris I’ll tell her you said that

user53 the green aesthetic is so adorable omg I love it so much

user54 LANDO DONT BE SCARED TAG HER

user54 OR POST HER ACTUAL FACE

user54 OR EVEN A STRAND OF HAIR PLEASE LANDO

user55 bathing with a toaster tonight dhmu

user56 wdym my husband has a gf? 😭

user57 what about our kids Lando?? What about the kids?

user58 I’ve never even seen her face but that’s my mom now I don’t make the rules 🤷‍♀️

——————————————

TWITTER

INSTAGRAM

yourusername

📍Monte Carlo, Monaco

liked by landonorris oscarpiastri and 78,661 others

yourusername Day-trip —> full-time stay

More Monaco vlogs to come, then 😅

Monaco day 1 vlog (Lando’s version) is up now, thank you to James for re-including all the clips of him that he'd previously cut out 🫶

load comments…

user59 AWWWWWWW

user60 where’s the user who guessed this from the start

user61 James I going through it

jamesedits it’s bad enough I had to scrub through all the clips of them being lovey-dovey but then I had to look at all of them again to put them back in the vlog

jamesedits and NOW she’s gonna put these clips in EVERY VIDEO! THEYRE SO GROSS!

user62 oh my god poor James 😭

user63 somebody get James a pay raise

yourusername don’t listen to him, he’s like a dog, he’ll act sad to strangers but in reality he gets treated perfectly fine and gets fed on time every day, he doesn’t need any more treats

jamesedits I don’t appreciate being compared to a dog

landonorris dw about it mate, you’d be a nice little yorki

jamesedits 🤨

user64 LANDO!

user65 they both look so good im frothing at the mouth

landonorris glad I could convince you to stay

yourusername you’re very convincing

user66 sleeping on train tracks tonight

——————————————

landonorris

📍Monte Carlo, Monaco

liked by yourusername maxfewtrell and 5,000,881 others

landonorris might have to get her a different phone case…💚

Tagged: yourusername

load comments…

user67 SHE GOT A TAG!!!!

user68 Y/N!!!!!

user69 awww they’re adorable 🥰

user70 I’ve followed y/n for years and it’s so nice to see her so happy 😭

user71 HES PESTO PASTA GUY

user72 knowing it’s him makes it make sense as to why he never actually cooks in the video

user73 man moved to Monaco and still found an English girl

user74 I wish my rich athlete boyfriend would convince me to move in with him in his Monaco home… 😞

user75 I’m in love with both of themmmmm

maxfewtrell she made the main page! And you can see her face! Congrats mate!

landonorris 😐😑😐

maxfewtrell seriously though, happy 4 u

landonorris thanks max

user76 now I need to know where she got the phone case

yourusername wildflower!

user76 omg I wasn’t expecting a reply! Tysm!

yourusername 💚

user77 I’ve never been more interested in a relationship

user78 HARD-LAUNCH

yourusername 💚💚💚

landonorris 💚💚💚

user79 oh my god they’re so perfect

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@casperlikej @evie-119

#scheduled #f1 fanfic #f1 fic #f1 imagine #f1 x reader #f1 x female reader #f1 x y/n #f1 x you #f1 smau #lando norris x female reader #lando norris x you #lando norris x y/n #lando norris fluff #lando norris fanfic #lando norris x reader #lando x reader #lando imagine #lando norris imagine

[noisilyscreechingsong]

Damian is de-aged to a baby and lost in Gotham. A magic user hit him with some kind of spell. His legs don’t work as well and he has trouble walking. That’s when a man appears and squats down with a tilt of his head.

“Yea, you are definitely not supposed to be out here, little guy.”

Damian glares at the man, early twenties, stubble along his jaw, ragged clothes, and dark bags under his eyes.

The man turns his head to look at the brick wall.

“Are you sure?”

And now he was talking to a wall. Curses. Of course he would be found by a crazy person.

The man suddenly hangs his head with a deep sigh. He regains himself quickly and stands. Moving closer to put his hands under Damian arms to lift him to perch on his hip.

Damian squirms to get down but refuses to make a sound. The last time he opened his mouth like this it was a pathetic baby sound. He couldn’t let this man see him like this.

“Looks like you’re coming home with me, little guy. I can tell you’ve got some spirit in you. Good, you’ll need it.”

Not ominous at all.

Damian stays with the man, mostly because he couldn’t physically drive a car, but also because he was almost always with him. The man would talk to air at the most random times. Obviously a schizophrenic. But Damian had to admit this man, Danny he comes to find out through a neighbor baby talking at him, has been genuinely trying to take care of him and take care of him well. Well, to the best of his abilities anyway. 

He feeds him organic purées that don’t taste half bad, except the carrots, that one was unacceptable. Danny cleans him regularly despite his crappy apartment and makes sure he is dressed appropriately for the weather. He makes an effort to take him out to the park to play in the sandbox or just walk around discovering ‘new’ things.

Damian doesn’t need a parent, he outgrew the concept when he was five and technically he already had one, but he could tell Danny would make an excellent father. Some mistakes can be overlooked compared to the effort he was putting in.

The only concerning thing was the talking to thin air. It took Damian an embarrassing amount of time to figure out the reason Danny was visiting all these random people and the graveyard. (Sometimes he will set Damian down to ‘play’ in the grass at the cemetery. It was quite odd.)

He was talking to ghosts. It wasn’t thin air or imaginary friends, no it was actually dead people. The reason Damian actually believes this is for two reasons.

One, Danny shows true results. Damian observes closely whenever they visit a ‘client’ and Danny always has accurate information despite never looking up or researching anything going in.

Two, he never calls himself a medium or psychic. He doesn’t boast about his ability to see ghosts. He does what he does to help the ghosts move on to the other side. Closure is what Danny always says. Closure for the family and the victim. In Gotham, there are a lot of victims.

Damian adjusts to his new life with Danny. It’s been five months and he’s getting used to being small and vulnerable. He’s allowed to be messy and whiny and childish. Danny never scolds him like Mother did. The man has never hit him or raised his voice at him and never expects anything from him. He encourages his progression to speak and walk, but doesn’t expect the best out of him.

It’s… nice. A good break if anything.

They are at the park when one of the bats spot him and pauses. Danny is blowing bubbles into the air and Damian tries to pop as many as he can. It’s a silly game with no clear rules, but Damian finds it entertaining nonetheless.

“Hi there! Is he yours?”

Dick Grayson wears a bright smile, but Damian can see the tightness around his eyes.

“Huh? Oh, yea, this is Damian,” Danny answers.

He had written it with the wooden blocks Danny had given him one week in. Danny took one look at the name on the ground, laughed loudly and ran with it.

“Do you mind if I say hi? He’s so cute.”

Danny looks puzzled by the request but ends up shrugging his shoulders, not seeing a problem with letting a stranger get close to Damian. (Damian knew Danny’s intense eyes were watching Dick’s every move. He was very protective like that.)

“Sure.”

Dick squats down to search Damian’s green eyes. Damian stares back just as intensely.

“Hey there, Damian. My name is Dick.”

Damian gives him a flat look at Dick’s terrible introduction.

“Grayson.”

Although with his little baby teeth not fully in it sounds more like ‘way-shah’.

Relief flashes across Dick’s face and he gives Damian a reassuring smile. It’s not as reassuring at he thinks it is. It promises to bring him home and restore him to his original age. Damian doesn’t know if that’s what he wants anymore.

Dick stands and gives Danny some imaginary excuse to leave quickly. Damian watches him go and so does Danny.

“Funny guy, huh Dami?”

Damian doesn’t respond and Danny notices his change in mood.

“Come here, little guy.”

He knows what Danny is going to do and willingly goes. He is pulled up into the man’s lap and held between two surprisingly muscular arms. Danny’s hugs are nice and warm. They aren’t too tight like Dick’s nor are they stiff like Bruce’s. He never thought he could enjoy human contact, but Danny has been showing him things about himself he didn’t ever know. Turns out he does like hugs and playing airplane and when Danny runs his fingers through his hair when he’s really sleepy.

“Let’s go home a little early today, huh? I’ll make spaghetti and you can be as messy as you want,” Danny promises.

Damian hums. Yes, that sounds nice.

That night Batman comes in through the window. Damian is waiting.

“Damian,” Batman whispers.

“Bah-mun.”

The flat, unamused stare is what gives him away.

Batman lets out a breath silently and reaches into the crib Danny had gotten him.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Batman jerks into action, twisting to face Danny who had appeared suddenly. The door behind him is still closed.

Batman stays quiet, silently studying the man before him dressed in pajama pants and a worn t-shirt.

Danny tilts his head as he does the same. Damian has never seen the man so serious. He silently worries for the man. He didn’t want him getting hurt to unnecessarily protecting him from his father.

“I’d have to break your arm if you tried to do what it looks like you’re doing.”

Danny says it so plainly. So simple.

Batman straightens.

“He isn’t yours.”

He doesn’t say Damian is his. He doesn’t claim him as his own. Just that Danny shouldn’t have him.

Damian silently agrees because technically he’s right. He doesn’t deserve Danny. He can’t keep playing house like he’s an actual baby. But Damian is also selfish and over the last few months has been taught that it’s okay to ask for things he wants even if it’s not inherently beneficial. The stuffed dog he sleeps with every night is proof of that.

So Damian says nothing.

“He is now,” Danny answers simply like there was no other answer to such a statement.

“He needs to go back to where he belongs.”

“Over my dead body,” is the immediate response.

They stare each other down until Danny scoffs.

“Don’t think I’m not petty enough to fight you, Batman. I’ll fight anyone who wants to take him from me. Damian is mine.”

When Batman tries to forcibly take him, he ends up with a concussion, a blood nose, and two broken arms. Red Robin finds him in a dumpster the next morning.

The story continues with Damian learning how to be a child his age, Danny protecting him and doting on his brilliant son, and the Batfam’s frequent failed attempts to kidnap Damian back to them.

#dp x dc #danny phantom #danny fenton #dc x dp #dp x dc crossover #damian wayne #bruce wayne #batman #Damian is learning to be a kid #and enjoying it #Danny finds a lone baby in an alley #the ghost that lead him there says he was left there #Danny: okay #guess I’m a dad now #Bruce is in for a rude awakening

[loremaster]

happy belated mermay! i drew that final pic after i went with my family to the new england aquarium recently, and picked out something they had there for each of the nocturnal detectives - plus kurumi! more description (spoilers) under the cut:

kurumi - piranha! it fits her color scheme, and her little freckles… and well, you know *bites you*

yuma - emperor tetra. actually i lied this one wasn’t at the aquarium i had to look it up

yakou - anemone man. ouughhh so sillyyyy

desuhiko - tried to ID the guy I took a picture of and it looked closest to the crosshatch butterflyfish. could be wrong though.

halara, fubuki - i could not find the labels for either of these fish unfortunately

vivia - electric eel (yeah he’s there, look again)

———-

the mermaids were kinda based off these species, except fubuki changed to a betta fish. bred for glamour, not for function. she is out there living her best life tho!!! nothin gets this mermaid princess down!!!!

obviously squid shinigami (squidigami) is based off ursula. but also i liked her having squid tentacle hair. woomy!

i imagine it would actually be kind of a reverse ursula situation though (reversula?). poor unfortunate amnesiac yuma would go up to sea witch shinigami asking her for his memories back, but she reveals she was the one who took his memories in the first place, and they’ve actually already made a deal. which she’s not going back on, sorrynotsorry lol!!! of course he’s actually not a mermaid at all but a human under a spell to go investigate…. something underwater. idk. maybe the mystery labyrinths are still a thing in this universe?

vivia, i’m sorry to say, would be a hundred times more miserable than we ever see him in canon, because guess what. no books. he’d still have some sort of coping mechanisms like watching other fish, watching stuff above the surface of the water, wanting nothing more to join them and fly someday. (the dragonflies, of course, are a reference to the famous water bugs and dragonflies story.) he’d still find something to get distracted by… although if he had his forte he probably would ghost up to the surface and read whatever the humans are reading up above. i guess this would make him the real ariel of the story.

kurumi of course is still based on a piranha, because it’s cute. of course these fish shouldn’t all live together but whatever. it’s mermaids. she probably is still some kind of informant, and probably hangs out near yakou’s place a bunch.

i could see yakou running some sort of shop. or if he’s still into detective work, he’d probably need kurumi as an assistant since he’s uh. not much of a swimmer. (he claims he can too swim, but it’s really silly looking. google swimming anemone. you’ll thank me.) he considers those little teeny fish to be pests (or at least claims they are. they’re probably helping him hide some sort of secret in there.)

desuhiko is a wandering trader with a keen sense of fashion. he’s great at repurposing sunken sails into mer-clothing, not so great at making sales. also the fact that his hair is gelled is way more obvious when everything is underwater. he’s basically got a helmet.

halara of course puts up an intimidating front, but has a secret soft spot for cute sea creatures. i asked my irl friend what she’d consider ‘the cat of the sea’ and she said pufferfish. i do think they are very cute and make a lot of sense as an allergen. but i don’t think halara’s taste is limited to pufferfish only, no no no. they like anything cute.

fubuki has got to have been kept captive before the story - by humans? or other mermaids? but either way, now she’s free and having a blast exploring the deep blue ocean. she really wants to know what kind of exciting creatures live in the deep!!!

and that’s it. hopefully all this description makes up for being 2 days late to mermay LMAO. i guess now it’s merGAY

#rain code #master detective archives #mdarc #rain code spoilers #yuma kokohead #shinigami chan #kurumi wendy #yakou furio #vivia twilight #desuhiko thunderbolt #halara nightmare #fubuki clockford #mermay

[percervall]

finding their partner’s sex toy/toys and making them play with it in front of them w carlos 🙏🥰

funnily enough I've been trying to write a fic for him with a similar trope and got stuck about halfway through 🤭 hope you enjoy babe! Big thank you to @norrisleclercf1 for helping me figure out the details!

warning: masturbation, oral (f receiving), use of toys

A triple header was hard on everyone involved, not just the drivers’ families. You just hadn’t expected it to be this hard to be away from your boyfriend for longer than a week –you’re pretty sure you would combust if the ocean breeze touched your bare skin. It had been impossible to.. take care of business.. without Carlos and so in a fit of desperation you threw this tiny pastel pink bullet vibrator in your basket when out shopping, cheeks flaming the whole way home. Which is a feeling not too dissimilar to how you feel right now as Carlos calls your name from the bathroom.

“What’s this baby?” Carlos asks, casually leaning against the door opening. His eyes are dancing with mirth as he brushes his hair back.

“Uhm. That-.. That’s my vibrator,” you reply but it sounds more like a question.

“Is it now?” Carlos muses, and the intensity of his gaze has you clenching your thighs shut.

“I missed you and-and tried using m-my fingers, but I couldn’t-..” you trail off.

“My poor baby, so desperate you had to buy a toy, huh?” he pretty much coos. Pushing off of the door jam, Carlos stalks closer to where you’re standing and the only place for you to go is backwards onto the bed. 

“Can you show me, amor? Can you show me how you took care of yourself while I was away?” He could have asked you anything really, and you probably would’ve said yes. Nodding, you move further up onto the bed, resting against the pillows. Carlos hands you the vibrator and sits down at the foot of the bed, eyes locked on yours. Biting your lip, you slide your shorts down your legs before repeating the same motion for your panties. You swallow hard, tightening your grip on the toy as you drag it through your folds to collect your arousal. The vibrator comes to life when you push the button at the base and you can’t help but whimper when you nudge the tip against your clit. You grind against it, your other hand sliding your t-shirt up so you can pinch a nipple.

“Carlos..” you breathe out, head thrown back. Being watched so intensely shouldn’t be as hot as it is, it makes absolutely zero sense, and yet you can feel it building already. 

“Yes, amor?” Carlos replies, voice rough. 

“I’m close..” you whisper, vision blurring as the knot tightens in your stomach. 

“Good,” Carlos all but growls as he surges forward, pressing the toy firmer against you while he laps at your wetness. Burying a hand in his hair, you shamelessly grind against him, his name on your lips like a broken prayer as your orgasm washes over you. Carlos drops the toy, but gently coaxes you through the aftershocks with gentle licks. Tugging on his hair, you manhandle him up so you can kiss him, moaning into his mouth as you taste yourself. Carlos breaks the kiss so he can pull his sweater off. 

“Mm, you thought I was gonna leave it at that? No, baby. I have three weeks to make up for, we’re not leaving this bed until I have done so.” 

#carlos sainz smut #carlos sainz x reader #carlos sainz x you #mar's feral fics

[raisedbythetv89]

Buffy has always been VERY intelligent and clever. She’s a quick thinker and very resourceful.

When Anya becomes a vengeance demon again Buffy doesn’t take action against her until she causes a massacre that also traumatizes a young girl so can we PLEASE stop this narrative of Buffy just easily and carelessly deciding to kill Anya?

Because not only was it not a quick and easy decision HER GOAL WAS NEVER TO KILL HER THAT’S WHY SHE GRABBED A SWORD SHE KNOWS SWORDS DONT KILL VENGEANCE DEMONS AS IS ESTABLISHED IN SEASON 6!!!!!

She recognized self destruction after heartbreak because of her own and Willow’s in season 6 and she knew talking with Anya would get her NO WHERE just like Spike trying to talk her out of turning herself in to the police when she thought she killed katrina because she believed she deserved to be punished and trying to reason with dark willow was completely pointless

She uses the fight to force Anya to confront the reality and what the consequences will be if she continues down this path while ensuring this fight won’t actually kill her. Buffy knows she can’t ignore this and she can’t waste time struggling with the decision of whether or not to kill her because she did that with Angel and so many more people died in the process.

BUFFY IS GROWN!!! SHE HAS LEARNED FROM ALL HER EXPERIENCE AND MISTAKES AND IT SHOWS!!!!!! But everyone is so used to her TORTURING herself over these kinds of decisions they’re unable to recognize she has gained the wisdom and experience to act instinctively and decisively even when no one else agrees because SHE KNOWS it’s right and that is always proven to be true!!!!!! She is finally not letting a bunch of people who are not the slayer tell her how to be the slayer because she never should have been listening to anyone else in the first place. She’s proven to be right time and time again with Spike, Anya, Caleb and y’all still are doubting her….. SHE KNOWS WHAT SHE IS DOING!!!!! AND IT ALWAYS ENDS UP BEING THE RIGHT CALL!!!!!!! How anyone can watch her owning her shit as a leader and a slayer clearly demonstrating the last 6 years of suffering weren’t for nothing as she is now confident in herself and her judgement and think she’s heartless or stupid or careless or biased I just CANT. USE YOUR BRAINS!!! LOOK AT THE ENTIRE CONTEXT OF THE SHOW IM BEGGING YOU FOR THE SAKE OF MY SANITY

It’s also the perfect way to show xander how cruel and heartless him always telling/shaming/guilting her to kill angel is at the same time. He finally got a taste of his own medicine and he couldn’t handle it even a little. She showed what a fucking hypocrite he’s always been because everyone else? If you love someone who’s done evil you’re a horrible person and they need to die but if it’s someone HE loves it’s different even though Anya has definitely caused more deaths than angel and spike combined and was forced to be good rather than it being her own choice and went BACK to being evil of her own free will after he actually fucked up and caused all of this in the first place while never taking any blame himself even though he blamed buffy for angel and spike’s actions any chance he could even the ones directed at her when the blame never lied with her in the first place

Y’all see a woman not torturing herself over every little thing and being confident and you’re like wow what a cold heartless bitch and that’s GROSS and just absolutely reeking of misogyny

#buffy summers #buffy meta #btvs meta #meta #buffy summers i love you #btvs season 7 #anya jenkins #selfless btvs #season 7 ep 5 #anti xander harris #xander harris I hate you forever until the end of time #btvs #buffy the vampire slayer

[bakughosts]

how real hunger has a real taste

Trigun Stampede ✮ Wolfwood/f!Reader, 18k. Also on AO3!

You want everything. You want the real and the not, who he is and what he sells people. You want to run your thumb across his jaw without the expectation of anything else afterwards. A touch for the sake of a touch. You’re struggling with understanding whether these thoughts are because of who he is or because he’s the closest thing you’ve had to an object of affection since—ever. Maybe if you closed your eyes, it wouldn’t matter if it was him or someone else. (It matters. And then he inevitably betrays you.)

notes: mutual pining, angst, wolfwood in early twenties but looks older & reader implied to be in mid-to-late twenties, a little praise kink for the both of you, love confessions (but who knows if they're real? definitely not you), spoilers for all of trigun stampede s1 (HEAVILY canon reliant so it probably won't make sense if you haven’t seen it; if you don't have the time etc. and still want to read this, reading on from 'before julai' should be just un-confusing enough to work for you hopefully???)

The Fall of JuLai

It’s not like Nick thinks he’s a good person by any means. 

He delivered Vash to JuLai Tower like he was supposed to, and even though he begrudgingly likes the guy, Nick knows that he doesn’t stand a chance against his brother. His ‘do no harm’ bullshit is gonna put paid to that. Meryl and Roberto are there, too, because they're nosy and got swept up in all the things happening on this hellish planet that Nick has too much to do with. You’re there for the same reason—and when you had your chance to leave, to get out of the city safely, you didn’t. Because you’re entirely too idealistic and you’re delusional enough to believe that Vash can save the world.

The streets of JuLai are crawling with vines and blooming flora, petals and leaves black as the heart of a killer. Fluorescent blue pestles illuminate ruined homes, collapsed buildings, bodies. Some moving, some not. 

People are crying out, begging for help—from others, from God, which is funny considering Nick has known since long before he signed his pastoral contract that there’s no way any God could’ve seen this planet and not been disgusted enough to destroy it.

Navigating the streets is easier now that there aren’t guards shooting at him every five minutes. He ignores the people around him—the moving ones and the motionless ones. Kicks rubble as he walks much too slowly towards the exit of the crumbling city. The cigarette that he bummed off of Roberto is mintier than the Skulls he usually smokes. He didn’t know you could get menthols these days. The taste is unpleasant. Explains why the old man always smelled a little like toothpaste under all that stale tobacco.

Roberto’s dead now. His blood is still drying on the floor of the elevator where his life abruptly ended. These people are going to die if they haven’t already. Meryl is going to die. Vash is going to die. You are going to die.

So no, Nick doesn’t think he’s a good person. He never has.

But his freedom is his own. The orphanage is safe. His family—whatever remnants are left, without Livio—are all safe. That’s what being the bad guy gets you, because no one gives a rat’s ass about how good you are. No one cares about anything but themselves. No one was gonna give Nick his freedom, give the orphanage its safety. Not without something in return.

He’s moving so goddamn slow that you wouldn’t expect him to have just given up everything—to have betrayed the only people that were kind to him, that cared about him when he saw his brother die, when his childhood home was almost obliterated. If he doesn’t start running, he’s gonna go down with this city, and all of it will have been for nothing.

He can’t stop thinking about the look on your face when you realized what he’d done.

Meryl’s nattering is something he hardly remembers, something about him being unbelievable, I thought better of you, why isn’t everyone a goody-fuckin’-two-shoes like me, but every time he blinks, he can see you in perfect resolution, like there’s a screen on the back of his eyelids replaying his worst memories.

You hadn’t even said anything. That was the worst part.

The street beneath his feet shudders, the entire city groaning, the metal hull on which it stands screaming out in protest. Nick stops. He stops moving, all because he can’t get you out of his goddamn head, like you’re some sort of worm that’s crawled its way in there, all cozy and nested where he wants you least.

Knives is gonna tear you apart. You and the bratty reporter. You’re strong—you’ve shown that to him in your travels, that you’re not one to back down from a good fight, and he liked seeing a gun in your hand, fire in your eyes, blood on your teeth—but Knives is on a whole other level. Even Nick couldn’t take him out, and he’s a freak of nature thanks to all the shit Conrad did to him. 

He and Vash moved a fifteen-ton ion cannon with their bare hands because they were built to, and you’re up there in that tower all soft and kind and human . 

“Fuck.” His cigarette burns down to the filter, the taste more like plastic than mint. His cross is heavy, shoulder protesting the one-handed hold with which he carries it. He’s not going back there. He did all this for a reason. He saved his own hide because he’s a bad person and that’s what bad people do. You shouldn’t have expected more from him. 

Even though you did. Even though sometimes you looked at him and he really thought—and don’t get him wrong, it’s because you’re delusional—that you might’ve actually believed he could be a better person.

“Fuck.”

He’s back in the building before the butt of his cigarette has a chance to hit the ground.

Following Meryl seems to be a bad idea, but you do it anyway. Even as she calls after Vash, climbing through the broken window of JuLai Tower’s penthouse office, even as you hear the sound of metal hitting metal, knives and bullets clashing in violent bursts of embers, even with Doctor Conrad behind you—a man who, not even fifteen minutes ago, you would have ripped apart with your bare hands—you keep going.

What else are you going to do? What else is left?

There’s the gleam of silver, the sound of something very sharp slicing the very air, and before you’re able to get outside, Meryl is thrown across the roof of the tower, the dome of the office collapsing inwards. Glass tumbles down on your shoulders and you have to move—that’s all you’ve ever known. Just keep moving.

You’re out of the window frame and running towards her in an instant, lungs burning, but Meryl is still rolling, still sliding towards the downturned side of the roof edge, and you’re going to lose her, you realize—she’s going to fall.

Maybe you call out to her—you’re not sure. Your throat is raw already from yelling, your bones aching from the multiple injuries you’ve sustained. You’ll die here too, most likely.

The realization feels peaceful in a very empty way.

But before it can settle in, you see a familiar figure—a dark suit, a too-large gun in the shape of a cross, and Meryl is yelling, “Undertaker?” and Nick is there and you hate him for coming back.

When you reach them, he barely looks you in the eye. Just motions to his shoulders, asks, “Think you can hold on?”

You don’t want this man to be your salvation. You don’t want him to have anything he can possibly use to redeem himself. But you’re not going to die because of your pride. You let him turn and kneel before you, and your arms are around his neck and he’s got his gun in one arm and Meryl in the other and you’re flying—

Honest to god flying through the air, falling far off the top of the tower and then further, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, Nick taking the brunt of each fall. You have to close your eyes or you’re going to throw up, and your legs are wrapped so tightly around his waist that you think you could cut him in half, and he smells like Roberto’s menthol cigarettes—and you knew something was different about him, that he was inhumanly strong, but the way he waltzes through the city from rooftop to rooftop while carrying a couple hundred pounds of extra weight is simply incomprehensible.

Things don’t feel real because there’s no way this could be really happening. You feel the wind against your face, the dulled impact of Nick’s feet hitting hard concrete and metal, and you can hear his labored breathing, hear Meryl scream for him to hold her tighter or she’s gonna fall, hear the gunshots of soldiers on ground level who have still, for some reason, decided that you are the enemy they should be after and not the miles-tall Plant aberration that’s growing out of JuLai Tower.

You can’t open your eyes even when Nick stops moving, when you’re far outside of the city. Even when his gun is on the ground, when he’s put down Meryl and lowered himself so your knees are on the desert floor. Prying your arms from around his neck would feel the same as dying.

Gently, Nick does this for you—moves your arms, but not off of him completely. Enough that he can turn so you’re both kneeling and facing each other, and only then do you open your eyes. He lost his sunglasses at some point during the escape. JuLai is a mess of pulsing blue behind him. He says your name very, very quietly. Your hands are curled at the back of his neck, fingers carding through the hair at his nape because at this point it’s instinct. His eyes are so dark they look black, and there’s blood smudged on his cheek, and your first instinct is to wipe it away for him—to remove any sign of hurt, any sign of injury. 

But Vash is gone, and Nick's the one that made sure it happened. 

You push away from him so quickly that you fall on your ass, sand dusted in a cloud around you. Maybe he was going to say something, some other half-assed excuse, but the hull of the ship that JuLai grows from groans loud, its metal body screaming for help into the desert night as if it’s not far past the point of salvation. The roots that pulse from the city begin to recede, crawling back through the holes they’ve made in infrastructure, curling back up to the top of the tower.

Much more quietly than it should, the largest city on the planet creaks, falls, and goes completely dark.

Before JuLai

Nothing annoys Nick more than routine gun maintenance, and the fight on the Sandsteamer had really done a number on the Punisher.

He always hated the way the doctor called him that—this is your duty, Punisher, this is what I created you for—as if he was nothing but an extension of his weapon. Though that’s all he’s really supposed to be. An executioner, an undertaker, a priest. A sentient trigger.

He doesn’t let things like that get to him. Seeing his brother as what he’d become, seeing him kill himself to escape the life he was living because he wanted to be just like Nick—

None of it gets to him. He doesn’t let it. He doesn’t care.

You sit down next to him when he’s in the middle of oiling one of the crossgun’s many chambers, kicking up sand in your wake. He probably shouldn’t have decided to sit out here to clean his gun, but where else is he gonna do it? In the car? Everything on the planet is covered in sand. He’ll have to deal with it. Still, he gives you a nasty side-eye for putting him back about three minutes of work.

“Am I interrupting? Sorry,” you say, and he can tell you’re not. “Thought you were gonna help us set up camp.”

“I’m busy.”

“You can get hot and heavy with your cross later. Meryl needs help getting a fire started.”

He doesn’t look at you. Doesn’t want to. The cloth he uses to clean the chambers is black with grease and he wonders when he’ll have to tear a piece of his shirt off to replace it with and he wonders if you got hurt earlier keeping the Bad Lads Gang off the reporter duo and he wonders what he could possibly do to get you to quit staring at him. His collar feels too tight even though the buttons start four inches down his chest. “Get Blondie to do it.”

At the top of the dune closest to camp, Nick has an excellent view of the stretch of absolutely fucking nothing that surrounds you all. Vash said his home was near here—needed to get his prosthetic arm fixed up by the people that built it. He probably isn’t in good shape to help anyone do anything. You both know that.

The wind pushes the dunes further out, transforming the desert into a rippling, golden sea. The sun is about to set, the sand already cast a shade of light pink by oncoming dusk. You’re silent for long enough that Nick is forced to look at you, which he doesn’t do often because it always makes him feel a bit hot under the collar, a bit hunted. He can’t explain it. Sure as hell doesn’t like it, though.

You’re not even paying attention to him. Instead, you take in the wide open desert as if it’s the first time you’re seeing it, and the sun touches your face soft like a lover and—there’s a pang of something in his stomach. Like jealousy. 

He can’t escape you. It isn’t like the others don’t try with him—he has to deal with Vash, who thinks he can befriend the entire fucking planet and bombards Nick with friendly remarks that he’s dying to see turn into banter; Meryl, who isn’t interested in him as more than a journalistic pursuit but still asks some very pointed questions; Roberto, who offers him a smoke every now and then and thanks him for doing shit that he didn’t do for anyone but himself in the first place.

And then he has to deal with you, too, but you approach him in a different way. A way he isn’t used to—not that he’s used to any of it—but that he can stomach. You’re open with him, but you don’t inundate him with things he doesn’t care about. You ask questions when they’re necessary. You give him disapproving looks when he runs his mouth a bit too much and much more pleased looks when he lets Vash wax poetic about saving the universe from evil. He finds himself shutting up sometimes just to see it—the slight curve of your lips, fond exasperation at Vash’s unyielding hope, a silent thank you in the pointed look you send his way.

“You grew up there?” you ask. “At that orphanage?”

You’ve decided, it seems, that these questions are necessary. He’d talked about the orphanage at some point in front of you, so he’s not exactly surprised that you know about it. Still, he’s in a shitty mood and he doesn’t want to talk about this with anyone. Especially you, even though most days you’re the person he’d be most willing to tell. “I never liked twenty questions. Too much talking involved.”

“I already know the answer,” you say.

“Then you shouldn’t have asked the question. That’s not how you win.”

“I’m trying to—I don’t know. Is it so ridiculous for me to ask you something personal every once in a while?”

He scoffs. “You’ve got more questions than bullets. And you fire them quicker, too.”

You fix him with a look, and he can only hold your eyes for a moment before looking back at his gun. Too much shit to do to get distracted, anyways. 

“How long have we been traveling together?”

“I dunno,” he says. “Couple months. Why?”

You shrug, and he can see it in his peripherals. You move fluidly, in a way he catches himself noticing too often. “Are you gonna tell any of us something real about yourself?”

“You should talk to Meryl,” he says. “I’m sure she could find you some kind of job in investigative journalism. Or maybe you could do some cam work, since you’re so far up my ass.”

“Fuck off, Wolfwood,” you say, but he can see the edge of your grin, hear the mirth in your voice. Something he likes about you: his attitude doesn’t piss you off. You take it in stride and on occasion, give it back. 

“I was here first,” he reminds you. “You should be the one doing the fucking off.”

You don’t fuck off. You sit next to him and things feel heavy but no heavier than they always do. 

He wants to hear you say his first name—a misplaced thought that he shouldn’t have had, like finding a coin in your pocket after it's already been through the dryer. (He’d kill to find a town with a laundromat, but they’re few and far between.) Wolfwood is so impersonal, what everyone he’s ever traveled with has called him. Punisher is out of the question. Nicholas he likes even less, somehow, because it feels like a name that was taken from him when he was too young to ask for it back. But thinking about the idea of you saying fuck off, Nick, or Nico, or whatever the hell you want to call him and trying badly to hide that little smile from him has his heart racing a thousand miles a minute. He looks at you and realizes what a bad idea it is because once he starts, he can't stop.

You frown—ruminative. Something’s on your mind. Something he’s worried you might try to tell him. “Are you ever, maybe…” you begin. Your words are quiet, measured. “Would you ever tell me something real?”

Nick’s hands are too clammy to keep working on the intricate parts of his gun. You’re setting him back even more. He hates it when you ask questions like this. He hates it when you mention the thing that sits between the two of you, the quiet understanding that even though you’d been a gun-for-hire traipsing around the planet and Nick had been tortured until his fucking eyes bled, you can somehow understand each other. He wants to knock you down a peg. To get you to leave him alone before he says something he’ll regret telling you. “I don’t know how you got the idea that you’re special,” he says, and the air in his lungs feels like too much for his body to hold, “but you’re not.”

You stare at him, hurt slowly curling your lips downwards. He shrugs his shoulders as if this isn’t how he wanted you to react and goes back to cleaning his gun. Tries to let himself breathe. It’s difficult. His big fucking mouth is gonna get him in trouble again if you don’t say something soon, or slap him, or leave, or—something. Nick doesn’t apologize for things. Never finds himself wanting to like he does right now.

“Forget it,” you say, standing to leave. “You—fuck. No, forget it.” 

You won’t look at him and he hates that you won’t. Some days it’s all he wants.

Traveling with Wolfwood is torture when he’s in a bad mood. He’s barely spoken to you since your conversation a few days ago—hasn’t even looked at you. That sucks for multiple reasons, but partially because today it’s you, him, and Vash in the backseat of the car, Roberto in the passenger (as always), and Meryl driving. 

You like Meryl—she’s sweet, and she has a lot of grit—but you don’t like the way she drives. The three of you slide all over the backseat like butter across a hot pan, your seat belts barely holding you in place each time she takes a hard turn—you’re in a desert, for Christ’s sake, and your destination is a straight line away from you, so you have no idea why she has to steer somewhere new every thirty seconds.

Vash had (without Meryl noticing, which would save everyone an earful) arranged the order of seating so you wouldn’t get crushed between him and Wolfwood, and took the driver’s-side seat so his prosthetic wouldn’t smack into whoever sat to his left and leave them with some nasty bruises.

Every two minutes your entire body slams into Wolfwood’s side, and he was already in a sour mood—by the time you reach the town you’ll be staying in for the night, he’s steaming, practically shoving Vash out of the car so he can leave the enclosed space he’s been forced to share with you.

Sometimes—or maybe more than sometimes, because you think about it often—you want to tell Wolfwood how childish he can be. You want to tell him that there’s more to life than smoking and sulking. But you prefer him when he isn’t giving you the cold shoulder, so you keep it to yourself.

The motel you find is cheap and clean. Well—clean might be a strong word, but at least it isn’t bug-infested like the last place you stayed, so everyone agrees to stay in town an extra day in order to rest. 

You all have lunch together (where Wolfwood ignores you), play games of pool in the motel lobby (where Wolfwood decides to go back to his room when you and him are finally up against each other), and even share a few drinks at the town’s bar after the sun sets (where Wolfwood flirts with any person that even so much as glances his way all night).

It’s not like you want to watch him shoot whiskey, head back and the long line of his throat exposed. It’s not like you want to hear the depth of his voice, its seductive edge, when he gets the bartender wrapped around his finger in under a minute flat. There’s just nowhere else to look, nothing else to listen to. The bartender leans in, smiling softly, as Wolfwood tells her something secret that has her face dusted a pretty pink. 

There’s a hand in front of you, snapping, and Meryl is asking you, “Are you even paying attention to me?”

“Yes,” you lie, “of course I am.”

She rolls her eyes. “What’d I just say?”

You genuinely have no idea. You didn’t even realize that Vash and Roberto had left the table, both fully concentrated on a game of darts across the bar.

“Yeah, thought so. Look—can you do something about it?”

“I still don’t know what you were talking about—”

“New subject. Keep up,” she says. “Can you and the Undertaker stop fighting? His moods drive me up the wall.”

Your eyes narrow. She’s doing that Meryl-thing where she asks you a question about something you’ve never established because she wants you to confirm whether or not it’s true. The amount of times Vash has been caught out by this technique is comical. 

“We’re not fighting,” you say. Fighting implies more than lukewarm camaraderie and routine disgruntlement. Fighting implies caring enough about each other to fight about something.

“Uh-huh,” she says, and you both watch as Wolfwood looks at the bartender and grins, all pretty white teeth, before glancing back at the table where you and Meryl sit. “So he’s doing this to, what, make me jealous?”

“I’m not jealous,” you say, and the speed with which the words leave your lips has already damned you. “And he’s not—it’s not for me. It’s—he’s just being Wolfwood. What else do you expect? He likes the attention.”

Meryl only looks smug when she gets someone to say something she wants them to say, and she looks very, very smug. 

“We’re staying here extra time to rest,” you tell her, “not to—do whatever he’s doing. I’m not jealous, I’m annoyed. If I have to cover his ass in a firefight because he spent his spare time with some—some random, then I’m gonna be pissed.”

“Some random,” Meryl parrots, using her fingers to put quotes around the word. “Would you rather it not be someone random, then?”

You stand too quickly, the booze going to your head. You haven’t had that much to drink, you don’t think, but you sway a little on your feet. “I’m not going to be the one that lets down the team,” you tell her. “So I’m gonna get some sleep. For the team.”

Meryl hmms, amused, playing at believing you. “Go get some sleep for the team. We all appreciate your sacrifices.”

You laugh, and though you can only see him from your peripherals, you think you see Wolfwood’s head turn just a little. Probably looking for back-ups in case the bartender loses interest.

The walk to the motel is brisk and cold with the sun finally in bed for the night, and you hate the way you think about the slope of Wolfwood’s throat and the points of his canines when he grins and the darkness of his eyes peering over the rim of his sunglasses when he glanced back towards you—

You sigh, stopping outside your door and pushing your thumb and middle finger against your closed eyes, as if you can massage the images out of your sight permanently.

You can’t. No matter how hard you try. And you know why—really, it isn’t even buried that deep down. You like his cocky grin and dry sense of humor and the way his inky hair falls soft across his forehead. You like the way his hands look when he cleans his gun, long and pretty fingers removing and reloading clips of bullets that he clicks into place one-by-one with his thumb, quick and confident. You like talking to him in the middle of the night when you camp out in the desert and everyone else is asleep, and even though you’re both in your sleeping bags, you look up at the same stars and tell each other about your worst fights or about the people you used to know, and sometimes he makes you laugh so hard that you have to cover your mouth in fear of waking everyone else.

Sometimes, you think that—maybe he feels something like that too. Maybe there are things he likes about you that he keeps to himself, little secrets lined up like cigarettes in a pack. But he keeps you at arm’s length and it kills you. No matter how much he gives you, it’s never enough, and he knows it. You know a lot about him, but you don’t know him.

So when he flirted with the bartender, it wasn’t him trying to make you jealous. Because making you jealous implies that he wants something from you. 

Maybe he just wants to fuck you. That’s another fairly viable option, but not your favorite. It’s not like you’re asking him to profess his undying love—that doesn’t exist out here. You meet people and you form tenuous connections and you enjoy the time you have until it inevitably finds its end. Law of the wasteland. 

You just want something a little more real. You want him to like things about you the way you like things about him.

If it’s a physical connection he’s looking for, he can find it with the bartender once her shift is over. You’re in travel clothes still, cargo pants and the most worn shirt you own, and you’re covered in desert grit besides. The bartender is clean and pretty and much more accessible.

He can do whatever he wants. He just lost someone. Even if you were on the other side of the Sandsteamer, you’re positive you could've heard Wolfwood cry out when Livio’s body tipped over the side of the ship and melted into the sea of sand below. Maybe fucking away the pain is what he wants to do. And that’s fine.

When you get to the door of your room, you hear hurried footsteps and your hand is on your hip, finger already ghosting the trigger of your holstered pistol—but it’s him. Not enough for him to plague your thoughts, apparently. He had to follow you back to the motel and remind you that you aren’t going to be able to escape him for the foreseeable future.

“Why’d you leave?” he asks. Blunt, for him. You wonder how much whiskey he’s had. There’s a cigarette in his mouth and the smell of tobacco overwhelms you, makes you want one yourself. Smoking’s an expensive habit.

“Got tired,” you say. You’re pretty sure he knows you’re lying. It’s hard for you to not speak out of bitterness after you've had a little too much to drink. “I didn’t think you’d care that I left.” 

You don’t know how to define what you feel for him. It’s a soft spot, maybe. You like the way he looks at you. You like the way he seems to enjoy you looking at him. Maybe you’re both vain. Maybe you’re both lonely. Whatever it is, it’s been going on for too long and you’re tired of the uncertainty. 

“Nightcap?” he asks. You hadn’t noticed the bottle in his hand, some unlabeled, murky brown liquid.

“Have one with Vash.”

“I don’t want one with him.”

“What do you want, Wolfwood?”

He meets you at the door, and sometimes you forget how tall he is. But not right now. His hand covers yours on the door handle, cigarette between two fingers, and he’s standing closer to you than he ever has outside of a fight. Nothing you’ve felt has been as warm as his skin against yours. The ash that falls on your hand burns a little. “I want to have a drink with you,” he says. “And I want to tell you something real.”

“You’re drunk,” you tell him. His palm is softer than you expected it to be. “But I’ll humor you.”

When he grins, there’s something animal to it—something on the wrong side of feral. He pushes your door open and you follow him inside, sealing your fate for the evening.

There are no chairs in your room, so the both of you sit on the floor, backs against the foot of the twin-sized bed. There are no glasses either, so you both take turns with the bottle, choking a little after each sip. Whatever’s in there could level even the rowdiest bars in November, where you’ve seen more bourbon consumed in one night by your then-traveling companions than you’ve seen altogether in one location since.

“This your way of apologizing to me?” you ask.

He laughs a little then takes a long swig of liquor, inhales sharply through his teeth as the liquid burns down his throat. “I owe my fair share of apologies. What am I sorry for, exactly?”

What are you going to say to that? He hurt your feelings? He didn’t call you special, like some sort of child that needs the recognition, the assurance? He gave you the cold shoulder for a couple days? The way he’d laugh himself to death would definitely bruise your ego more than you can handle. “Tell me what you want to tell me or get out.”

“Don’t sound too eager,” he says. He hands you the bottle, whittling down his cigarette. The smoke that escapes his lips seems to sit between you instead of floating upwards and dispersing. Everything is hazy, soft-edged. “What do you wanna know?”

You wonder if you’ll only get one question, or if he’ll have patience for more. You wonder what the hell you’re even doing here, sitting on the floor with him, making progressively worse decisions. “Who was he to you?” you settle on. “The person that attacked us on the Sandsteamer?”

“No foreplay, huh? Getting right to the main event?”

You try to hide the choking noise that wants to escape you by taking a sip of the booze, but this makes you choke harder, and you have to cough for a few moments before you can even begin to consider a response that doesn’t bring your mind closer to Wolfwood and foreplay. Once you’re able to breathe again, you manage to say, “You were the one that said you wanted to tell me something real.”

He pulls one knee up, leaning forward to rest his elbow on it, and you watch as he cracks his knuckles slow and loud. Not a threat—a nervous tic. You’ve seen him do it after confrontations with Vash, after Meryl asks a question that hits too close to home. “He was, uh… someone I knew when I was a kid. Someone I was supposed to take care of. But I didn’t do a very good job.”

You’re sure he’s also thinking about Livio falling hundreds of feet to the planet’s surface, the sound of the gunshot when he killed himself, Wolfwood calling his name, crying out as he watched this person that he was supposed to take care of meet an untimely and awful end.

Guilt is something that everyone on Gunsmoke is familiar with. Its constant presence doesn’t make it any lighter to carry, any easier to share. Wolfwood bears far more than the cross on his back. The look on his face tells you he already knows where your mind is going and that he doesn’t want to talk about it. He holds out his cigarette to you in lieu of speaking.

You accept what he offers. Close your lips around the filter, try not to think about his lips touching the same place, about the nicotine you could probably taste on him. The drag you take doesn’t feel deep enough. 

“Your turn now,” he says, his deep voice almost too loud in the small room. “I want something real.”

You clear your throat, hand the cigarette back. “I give you real things all the time. You just never reciprocate.”

“My stuff comes with a price. Not my fault you give yours out for free.” Without his sunglasses, his stare is piercing. It makes you feel warm all over. 

Your fingers brush his as you both reach for the neck of the bottle, and neither of you move away. As if the liquor is a safe-ground where contact is okay. It doesn’t have to be questioned, because there’s reasonable doubt when it comes to either of you wanting to touch the other. The problem is that you’ve never wanted so badly to touch someone before now. 

“Tell me something,” he says.

“I want you to kiss me.”

His brows raise, shocked by your boldness maybe, but the cigarette is already out of his mouth and he’s flattening it against the floorboards beside him. His tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip and you need to know what he would feel like against you more than you need to breathe. “Yeah? You want that?”

You nod and everything else is forgotten. The liquor is pushed aside, his body flush against yours, his big hand cupping your jaw, and—how long has it been since you’ve been touched like this? 

His lips find yours too easily, the first kisses slow, exploratory, but he’s impatient—this shouldn’t surprise you. His tongue slides against yours, permission for more granted without the question ever being asked. You want him messy—you want him warm and whole and unrestrained. Every slide of his skin against yours feels electric, sparks flaring and wires buzzing. 

“This good?” he asks—as if he’s worried, as if this isn’t what you’ve wanted for weeks .

You can only hum in response, pulling him back to you by the lapel of his blazer—his dumb fucking blazer that he fills out so perfectly, all wide shoulders and strong arms and—it needs to come off. 

Pushing it down his arms yields little in terms of results, but he takes over for you, carelessly tossing it across the room before returning to the kiss, allowing your hands to run across his chest, up to his muscled shoulders, twining your fingers in his soft hair.

He doesn’t push—just takes what you give him, which means you have to give him more, breaking the kiss and hooking your leg over his lap to straddle him. 

“Fuck, okay,” he says, more to himself than you. His hands find your hips and squeeze, eyes locked on the touch, pulling you closer to him. Through his slacks, you can already feel how painfully hard he is for you. “Okay,” he repeats.

His uncertainty begins to worry you. You tilt his head up carefully, forefinger crooked under his chin. His stubble is rough against your hand and you can’t help smoothing your thumb across the cut of his jaw. “Wolfwood—you know we don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“Are you—? Of course I want to,” he says, incredulous even though only a moment ago he looked absolutely at a loss for what to do with you. His hands move past the boundary of your shirt, warm palms against your sides, fingers digging into your skin a little desperately. “Fuck, baby, of course I want to.”

“But there’s something on your mind.”

From the way he pauses, you gather that there’s more than just one thing on his mind. He looks conflicted. His hands are still warm against you, and he squeezes your sides once again, warmly, before responding. “Use my name.”

“Okay,” you say, soft. You move your hands to the back of his neck, carding your fingers through his hair. It feels so good to touch someone after so long—but it also feels so good to touch him, specifically, after wondering what it would be like for all those months. “I can do that.”

“Nick.”

Something about the way he tells you this makes you laugh. “Do you think I didn’t know your name?”

He looks up at you, unimpressed. Even if you’re joking, he doesn’t like to be made a fool. “Didn’t want you to call me Nicholas.”

“Okay,” you concede, leaning closer to him. You won’t ask the reason because you’re sure it’s locked behind at least six boundaries you aren’t allowed to push. Into his ear, you whisper, “Is there anything else you want, Nick?”

You can feel his cock twitch against you, and he tries and fails to bite back a groan, exhaling hard, his lips ghosting your neck, the curve of your jaw. “Can you, uh—I just need to know that you… want this. You’ve gotta tell me. Keep telling me.”

Seeing him vulnerable is something you’re not used to. You get the sense that he’s not entirely comfortable with it either. He kisses your shoulder, bites softly at the junction of your neck, intent on not looking at you, you think, before you answer. 

“I’ve wanted this for a while,” you tell him, because it’s easier for you, too, when you don’t have to look at him as you say these things. “I’ve wanted—I want you.”

Before you can say more he takes your chin in his hand, pulls your mouth to his and kisses you hard, his teeth knocking against yours, and stands—stands while you’re in his lap, inhuman strength displayed in such a careless action. Your arms tighten around his shoulders, but his hands are on the underside of your thighs, holding you as if you’re lighter than air. He takes you to the bed and your back hits the mattress, a little dust springing up from the threadbare comforter. 

Looking at him above you is a religious experience. His eyes are black, clouded with lust, lips kiss-reddened, face flushed.

There’s an unparalleled need in his expression, his movements. He pulls your cargos off impressively fast, his knees hitting the wood floor hard enough that the impact rings through your bones as well as his. You’re wearing boxer briefs, you realize, because underwear is at a premium out here in the desert, and they’re fine but they don’t exactly make you feel sexy. Your face flushes a little, suddenly so worried about what he thinks of you, what parts of you appeal to him. “Nick—”

“What do you need, pretty girl?” He kisses the inside of your thigh after asking you this, eyes never leaving yours.

Christ—the pet name alone could kill you, but the look on his face is worse. Desperation doesn’t even begin to cover it.

His long fingers dip into the top of your briefs, and suddenly whatever you’re wearing doesn’t feel all that important. “I’m gonna take these off. That okay?”

You nod because you’ve been rendered unable to speak and he takes care of everything for you. He returns as soon as he’s physically able, kissing the inside of each thigh with a reverence you wouldn’t have ever expected to see from him. It draws a sigh from you, and it’s so nice to be touched, to feel Nick’s skin against yours, to feel the heat of his breath between your thighs.

The second his tongue is against you he groans, vibrations running straight through your body. “All for me, huh?” he asks, half-lidded eyes meeting yours, and you miss the heat of his mouth already. “I’m gonna make you feel so good. So good, I promise.” 

He kisses the inside of your leg once more and wraps his arms around your thighs, pulling you closer to the edge of the bed, closer to him, and he eats you out like a man starved—there’s some sort of technique to it, but it’s lost in the fervor of his movements, in the desperation of his mouth, in the depth of the noises he makes, like he’s been waiting for this for months and now doesn’t know what to do with all the pent up want inside of him.

You tell him he’s doing so good, so perfect, treating me so well, and the encouragement spurs him on, but when he’s opening you up with his long, pretty fingers, when he curls them inside of you just right, your words lose their shape. 

You’re at the edge before you realized you were approaching it, and Nick doesn’t stop his movements. He’s intent on getting you off, tongue moving in rhythm and fingers hitting the perfect spot, his other hand gripping your thigh hard enough to bruise. There’s nothing you want more right now than for him to mark you, to stake some sort of claim on you. To want you for more than just this. 

On instinct, your fingers curl into his hair, guiding him to where you need him—and a second too late you worry that it’s too much, that he won’t like it, but when your grip loosens and you begin to pull away, he grabs your wrist and places your hand back on his head, urging you to take what you need.

And you do—his soft hair thick between your fingers, your grip tightening as you pull him into perfect position, as he lets out a half-broken noise against you, grip tightening painfully on your thigh. His fingers reach a feverish speed and that’s all it takes—you cum hard against his face, your legs tensing around his head, and he couldn’t pull away if he tried. 

But he doesn’t—he works you through your orgasm until you’re oversensitive, until you’re tugging at his hair to get him to stop, until words come back to you and all you can say is please, please, Nick, please.

When he finally relents, he’s breathless, his mouth and chin shimmering and slick. He wipes his face off on the inside of your thigh, which instinctually you want to give him shit for, but immediately after he licks up the mess, placing a kiss to your sensitive skin when he’s finished. “Was that good, baby?” he asks, his breaths heavy, arms still loosely wrapped around your thighs.

He can’t possibly be serious. Yes, it was good. You don’t think anyone will ever be able to follow that up, and all he’s done so far is eat you out.

His face lights up wickedly, and—you said that out loud, you realize, without meaning to. You can’t find it within yourself to care. It would be embarrassing if it wasn’t so wholly true. “So far, huh?” he asks. “Think you can take more?”

You tug at his shoulder because you want him close—you want to kiss him again, because you’ve gone so long not kissing him that even now, only five minutes feels like too long without. He follows your commands with no complaint, a knee up on the bed, leaning over you to kiss you and you can taste yourself on him, on his swollen lips and the wet slide of his tongue.

“Nick,” you say when he gives you a moment to breathe, and—you had an idea of what you were going to say, but you can’t fully reach it. Any time you’ve slept with someone, it’s been quick and perfunctory. Either you ask them to fuck you or they do the same, and that’s that. But this is so different. You want him to fuck you more than anything, but telling him that you want him to fuck you feels too small for what you actually want from him. 

You want everything. You want the real and the not, who he is and what he sells people. You want him to kiss you when you’re not in a bed in a cheap motel, and you want to sleep next to him, and you want to run your thumb across the stubble on his face without the expectation of anything else afterwards. A touch for the sake of a touch.

You’re struggling with understanding whether these thoughts are because of who he is or because he’s the closest thing you’ve had to an object of affection since—ever. You want him to touch you again. Maybe if you closed your eyes, it wouldn’t matter if it was him or someone else.

“I know,” he says, and he doesn’t because he can’t, because everything that’s going through your head isn’t allowed because that’s not how the world works. Because you think even if you closed your eyes, he’d be the only thing in your head, just his name on a loop and the sounds he makes behind it. He kisses the corner of your mouth and you wish you were in a different reality entirely. “Give me—five minutes, and I’ll be good.”

So he knows what you’re asking for. And he can’t give it to you right now. “Did you already—?”

He stops you before you get further. “It’s—I, uh. Fuck.” His olive skin hides any blush that’s not very deep, but there’s pink staining his cheeks, painting the tips of his ears. “Yeah. You just—yeah.”

“Oh my god.”

“Look, if you’re gonna have an attitude about it—”

“I want you so badly,” you say, and nothing has ever been more true. You’re kissing him before you can stop yourself and you’d thought five minutes was a generous estimate, but that’s really all it takes, his body pinning you to the bed, your hips moving beneath him, your hands running up his back and fisting in his hair. You pull at his shirt, barely buttoned now. “Take it off?”

It didn’t even need to be a question. He stands and his shirt is on the floor in seconds, his slacks following quickly behind. His skin glows in the low light, dark hairs peppering his chest and trailing lower, and you can’t stop yourself from reaching out, running a hand up his stomach, feeling the indents of long-healed scars and the coarseness of his hair. When he breathes out, it’s shaky, poorly controlled. He, too, is wearing boxer briefs, and even though this is normal because they're best for the heat, you somehow feel less self-conscious about anything from earlier. He’s hard again, the boxers stained dark because he came while eating you out which you wouldn’t have believed possible before right now and he’s so disgustingly sexy without even trying that you need him to fuck you right now, actually.

You’d been too enraptured watching him to undress, and his patience is short. Your shirt is pulled up over your head and quick work is made of your bra, and Nick’s breath comes out a little less steady when he palms your breasts, when one hand runs up your sternum, up the column of your throat, before tilting your head up for a surprisingly soft kiss.

He smacks the side of your ass lightly, herding you up the mattress, laying you out fully. When he’s fully undressed, when he’s completely yours to admire, you can’t take your eyes off the precum rolling down the tip of his cock, down the incredibly pretty length of him.

The things you would do to this man if you had time—which you do, but it really seems like you don’t, the pent up energy making you both hazy, rushing you towards what you need. With him on top of you there’s barely any room to move, the twin not built to hold a man as large as Nick, let alone a second person. 

He kisses down the length of your neck and your eyes flutter closed. You tell him how pretty he is, how badly you want him, and his hands squeeze your hips in response, pulling your body so, so close to his. He’s hard against your thigh and you need him right now—you could die tomorrow and be happy if you could just have him inside you this instant. He sucks a bruise into the skin right above your collarbone, and you’re too far gone to worry about whether or not your traveling clothes will cover it tomorrow. “This okay?” he asks, moving a hand between the two of you to position himself at your entrance and ever so slightly push.

“You don’t ever have to ask,” you tell him, voice almost too breathy to be heard, because you would have him whenever, wherever—whatever he wanted. 

Slowly, he thrusts inside, and each inch has your legs clenching tighter around him, your nails digging into his perfect shoulders, most assuredly leaving marks. When he bottoms out you basically whimper—it’s embarrassing, the sounds he’s coaxing from you. 

But you can’t help it—he’s so deep you can barely breathe, and his face is buried into the curve of your neck, moans muffled by your skin, teeth digging into your shoulder.

“Kiss me,” you manage to stutter out, the pace he sets slow and deep, and you want him closer, somehow, as if you could have him living in your skin and it wouldn’t be deep enough. 

He does what you ask, hips snapping to yours, the old mattress squeaking in protest beneath you. The kisses are sloppy, wet, at some points your tongues simply pressed together. He pants something against your mouth—your name, you think, though it’s too quiet for you to know for sure—and with each kiss his thrusts get sharper, deeper, hitting spots you didn’t even know existed. 

Your vision spirals at the edges, white and black stars sparkling in your peripherals. And in the center, Nick: pupils blown, lips a perfect pink, cheeks reddened, and his eyes always, always meeting yours when they can, as if it’s essential whenever your lips aren’t slick against his, like he wants to be connected to you in every way possible.

“Want you to cum again,” he murmurs. “You can do that for me, right?”

All you have to do is hum an affirmative and his hand is between your bodies, thumb honing in on your clit and rubbing tight circles, his pace measured and even and so, so deep, and the closer you get the harder it is to keep your eyes open, to stop yourself from curling into him.

His forehead is flush against yours, his explicit groans all breaths against your mouth. “Look at me, pretty girl,” he says. “I wanna see you.”

You moan his name like a prayer, your eyes opening, still so close to him and he’s beautiful—sweat dripping down his forehead, face so open and earnest, as if this is the closest he’s ever come to being completely vulnerable with you.

It only takes a few more thrusts, his cock curved in the perfect way to hit the right spot inside of you, and you’re coming apart, arms wrapping around his neck and fingers gripping his hair and his name on your lips over and over, because he’s the one that did this and you want him to know that you’re only thinking of him. 

Your vision is blank, head hazy. It takes a long moment for you to feel like you’re a part of your body again, Nick still fucking into you, thrusts becoming sloppy, his hands gripping your hips, fingers digging in so hard you’d be surprised if they weren’t meeting bone. He mumbles something into your neck that you can’t hear, and you can feel his muscles tense, and you say please don’t pull out and he’s cumming inside you while holding your hips flush to his, and he keeps saying things to you like he can’t stop himself. When your senses return to you, you realize he’s saying so good, baby, knew you’d take me so good—and then, out of nowhere, “Love you. Fuck, I love you.”

After a moment, Nick pulls out, his chest heaving with heavy breaths. He lays his head against your chest, one hand curled into your hair, the other gently tracing your side.

You can feel the exact moment that he realizes what he said. 

His entire body tenses, his hand stills, and it reminds you of the way a prey animal locks up when it knows it’s been spotted. When panic fills it so intensely that all bodily autonomy is removed.

What he said isn’t true, obviously. The words barely faze you. There are people in some towns that you can pay to sit in a room with you and tell you how much they love you, that they would do anything for you, that they would die for you. There are so few people scattered across the desert. If you’re a lonely traveler passing through, or even someone city-based but just as alone, being able to say you love someone and hear it back is intoxicating. The chances of anyone saying it to you organically are essentially non-existent. 

It’s certainly not something you’d have expected someone like Nick to be into, but who are you to shame him for the things he likes? He wants praise, he wants to feel wanted, he wants to tell someone that he loves them—there are much crazier things he could like. You’re fine with this.

What you’re not as fine with is the strained look on his face when he pushes himself up on his elbows, the way his words tumble out so quickly when he says, “I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s okay,” you say, but a stupid part of you stings in the face of such an emphatic rejection of any feelings he could have for you. “I know.”

Connections on Gunsmoke are forged fast and broken bullet-quick. You could meet someone and travel with them for a week and convince yourself you were in love with them because they’re the only person you talk to, the only person to offer you kind touches and pretty words. But those connections aren’t real. They don’t have weight to them, a foundation to stand on.

You and Nick don’t really know each other, despite the nights you’ve spent talking. Despite the ways he’s made you laugh and the ways you’ve made him smile genuinely—even if it’s a small ghost of a thing that doesn’t often grace his handsome face. Logically, he doesn’t love you. You don’t love him. There’s not even a fraction of you that’s tempted to say it because you know it’s not true. 

And yet, a small part of you yearns to have something like that—to have Nick tell you he loves you and mean it, and for you to love him back.

His face is red despite the aplomb with which you handled everything. He doesn’t quite look you in the eyes. “I’m, uh… Damn. I’m sorry.”

“For what?” You still like him being close to you. You like the way he touches you, the way he looks at you. You don’t want this to ruin the chance of getting to do this again.

“That was—a lot.”

You run the back of your knuckles across his stubbled jaw, pull him towards you with a hand on the back of his head. He follows without any complaint, even kisses you back when you lean up to kiss him, which really was a gamble because some people don’t like any kind of affection once the sex is over. “You can tell me you love me if that’s what you like,” you murmur against his lips. “I can say it too, if you want.”

He breathes in deep—his exhale almost sounds like a sigh, as if he’s about to deliver bad news but has to gear up for it first.

“If you want to do this again,” you say, pulling back to look him in the eyes—to make sure he knows you’re serious. Maybe you shouldn’t have been so presumptuous. “If you don’t, we can go back to how it was before. That would be okay.”

“I want this,” he tells you, eyes flicking to your lips for an instant. “I mean—I want to do this again.”

Smiling at him is easy. Identifying the warmth you feel in your chest is harder.

He kisses you and you sink into the comfort of him, his easy grins and soft moans and light touches. He only stops to ask you very quietly if he should be worried about finishing inside of you, but years of radiation exposure from the dual suns have taken care of any risks there. In turn, you ask him to stay the night. The questions both somehow feel extremely intimate even though they’re normal questions to ask someone you’ve just slept with. He doesn’t hesitate to say yes, and you think—maybe this will end well. Maybe it’ll be exactly what you need for the limited amount of time you have it. 

When he falls asleep, he has one hand on the back of your head, holding you to his chest, and the other in yours, your fingers loosely intertwined. It’s sweet in a way you’ve never experienced.

Maybe this will end well, but you’re almost entirely sure it won’t.

For the next three days of travel to Ship Three—or Home, as Blondie calls it, which is a stupid name—Nick feels like he’s dying. He chain-smokes faster than normal, burning through a pack every couple hours. It’s like his skin is being express-washed with sandpaper and bleach. He wants to touch you so badly it burns.

And you just sit there all pretty, in the back seat next to him and in front of the campfire and on the car’s hood when you have to pull over because Roberto gets too sick from the driving and the alcohol. You sew up the bullet holes in his blazer because of course you’d do that for him, and you laugh at Vash’s jokes and talk to Meryl about the time you both spent in November and you look at Nick and smile like it’s nothing—like your eyes on him don’t drive him insane. 

He gets lucky on your final night of travel, everyone asleep except the two of you, and he takes his time kissing you against the side of the equipment trailer, the car shielding the two of you from your snoring companions.

He’s not gonna ask you to say you love him—when you told him you’d say it if he wanted you to, it felt like there was a bug crawling around in his stomach, an unnameable feeling that he didn’t ever want to experience again.

Saying he loved you in the first place was embarrassing as hell for multiple reasons. First off, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t. Secondly, it was his goal when he approached you that night to play it cool, and he ended up finishing before he’d even started because of how good you tasted, how much he liked the way you pulled his hair, how pretty you sounded saying his name—and then on top of that, you let him cum inside you and you felt so good, so fucking right, and he spilled those words because in that moment, he loved you like absolutely nothing else.

He’s half-hard thinking about it, kissing you slow and deep because fuck, he loves the way you sigh into him when he kisses you like this, the way your hands grip the open sides of his shirt right below the collar as if you wouldn’t let him pull away if he tried. 

There’s not a second where he’s not tempted to mark you, to suck a deep bruise into your neck right below the jawline so everyone knows exactly what’s happening when they’re not looking. But he won’t. He won’t. He’ll be good. He’ll stop kissing you, he’ll ask if you want to lie with him for a little before you go to sleep, he’ll talk to you until you begin to nod off.

Let it never be said that Nicholas D. Wolfwood isn’t a paragon of restraint. He’s the king of it.

The only slight relief he gets is when you all arrive where Vash grew up, when you get to stay in rooms that are a little more private. When he can sleep next to you at night, sometimes after he fucks you as quiet as possible so no one but him gets to hear the noises you make and sometimes after he doesn’t. 

He thinks it should only be about the sex—that’s what everything else he’s ever done with someone has been about. But he gets possessive over your time. He likes to listen to your soft breathing as he falls asleep, likes to feel the weight of you against his chest. Likes when you wake up before him and trace the angles of his face and the planes of his chest with a feather-light touch until he’s up too, and he could never be mad about losing sleep over you.

And he’s a shitty person for doing this. For letting you sleep in his arms, for enjoying the way your hands feel on his skin. There’s so much you don’t know about him, but that doesn’t stop you from asking. He can’t tell you his actual age, he can’t tell you exactly what made him into the freak he is, he can’t explain to you why Livio was after Vash and how he was like a brother to Nick. He doesn’t want to disappoint you, doesn’t want you to pity him. And most importantly—

He can’t tell you what his mission is. The cost of his freedom. You’d never forgive him.

He tries not to lie to you. He avoids questions, omits information where he can. And he knows that this is essentially lying. It’s the same as a broken promise. He’s a hypocrite for calling out Vash’s lies while adding on to his own burning pyre.

This doesn’t stop him from wanting you. He takes back all the paragon shit—Nick has never been very good at denying himself what he wants.

It’s when you’re having breakfast with everyone on an unremarkable morning that Nick reaches his breaking point. Vash’s foster parents are keeping you all fed well, vegetables grown in actual gardens and meat cloned from animal cells on your plates every day.

Nick doesn’t eat breakfast—doesn’t need as much food as other people. He has his coffee like always, a cigarette soon to follow. He sits next to you because that’s his unspoken and permanent spot during meals and at the campfire and absolutely anywhere else. He leans back in his seat, sips from his mug, chimes in on the chatter when he has something to say. Everyone else is chowing down, and Vash says some stupid joke about forgetting what greens taste like when they’re not covered in sand, and you laugh—and something snaps in him.

Nothing big. It’s wishbone-small, the slightest crack. But it’s enough.

He drapes his arm across your seat, cups the back of your neck with his hand, strokes his thumb over the dip of your spine right below your hairline. You swallow hard and he can feel the vibration in his palm.

Everyone is silent. You turn to look at him slowly and he can feel the heat that crawls up your neck. He thought you might be mad—but your eyes are wide, mouth parted in surprise, as if you thought he wouldn’t want everyone to know you were his, as if he’d never claim you publicly.

He’d do a lot more to you publicly if you’d let him, but he doesn’t want to push his luck.

“What?” he asks, as if this is something perfectly normal for him to be doing. He looks between the four of you, and every single one of you is looking at him dumbstruck. “Guess staring problems are an epidemic.”

Vash’s face is a deep pink. He stutters out, “Wow, guys—congrats. Or, uh—I mean. That’s nice that you’re… that—”

“It’s just puppy love, kid, you don’t have to make it awkward,” Roberto says—and Nick barely stops himself from bodily flinching at that word. It shouldn’t be spoken in the context of the two of you so soon after his mistake. “Let the Undertaker have his moment in peace.”

Peace isn’t what Nick was aiming to achieve by touching you like this—but he still got what he wanted. You and Meryl are staring at each other, communicating in a series of complicated eyebrow maneuvers. Vash is looking anywhere but Nick. Roberto, somehow the voice of reason in all this, is already shoveling the rest of his breakfast into his mouth.

He’s itching for a cigarette. He slides his thumb over your soft skin once more, then stands, curling a finger under your chin to tilt your face up. You don’t protest as he leans down, as he kisses you softly and extremely chastely. It’s not like he doesn’t know that he’s pushing boundaries right now, that you might be pissed at him for this. He’s not gonna stick his tongue down your throat in front of everyone. But he couldn’t stop himself from having just one kiss. 

Whatever broke inside him couldn’t be patched up, and he just—he needed everyone to know what you were. That you were something. That he was the one that’d take care of you if you needed it, that he was the one you were sleeping next to every night, that he was yours.

“Nick…?” You don’t look angry with him. Just confused. Concerned, maybe.

“Gonna go out for a smoke.” He knows you don’t like him smoking next to you while you’re eating, or he’d already have a cigarette lit between his fingers. His thumb swipes across your lower lip because he has a hard time keeping his hands off you once they’re on. 

He turns from the table and heads towards the hallway—where he’ll be breaking out his smokes, because he’s not walking through the entire damn ship to have a cigarette if they haven’t complained about him smoking inside yet. 

Before he makes it to the door, he hears Meryl loudly whispering at you, questions pouring from her lips, and Roberto saying, “Christ, Newbie, let her breathe.”

Outside the mess hall, Nick turns to the wall of the hallway. Presses his forehead against the cool metal. He’s an idiot for doing things like this. For acting on impulse. For not being entirely honest with you.

Maybe if he could get his contract from the church, you’d understand. You’d see the clauses on there that he remembers watching Conrad write— if this contract is breached, the Hopeland Orphanage will be destroyed and the lives of every child that resides within will be forfeit. You’d see the thick black line at the bottom that he was forced to sign when he was too young to know what a signature was. Vash wanted to see his brother anyway. All he had to do was deliver the kid to Knives. It wouldn’t even be extra work on Nick’s part. 

But he knows you well enough now. Too well to ignore the fact that you don’t forgive easily.

And this still doesn’t stop him, because he’s an awful person. Blondie’s arm puts you back a few weeks—weeks spent gathering materials and waiting for the old scientist to finish his repairs. 

And even as you spend more and more time with him, holding his hand when you walk into the mess hall for breakfast, laying against his chest as you read old books from the ship’s small library, kissing him goodbye when you or he take turns helping out on scavenging trips, he doesn’t tell you the entire truth. 

Even as he finds such simple happiness in talking to you about your day, even as he finds some kind of divinity in the way you moan his name, in the way your nails scrape against his scalp when he fucks you—always face to face, because he loves the way you look at him, like he’s the only thing that exists to you—even then, he doesn’t give you the most delicate, secret parts of him.

Just once—just one time while he has you laid out beneath him, while he has you in his ear telling him what a good job he’s doing, he considers taking you up on what you’d proposed to him all those months ago. He thinks about what it would sound like if you told him you loved him, even if you didn’t mean it, and he cums so unexpectedly that his vision whites out, that he feels a tipsy sort of dizziness, that you ask him if everything is okay after.

You mess with his head. He doesn’t know whether he likes it or hates it. Doesn’t matter how he feels about it, really—wouldn’t stop it from happening every time you smile at him after you’ve been away from him for a little while, the first time you woke up in his arms and said morning, handsome and every time after that.

When Brad finally tells everyone that he’s almost done with Vash’s repairs, Nick is disappointed. He wants time. He’s only had a month of this. He wants all the time in the world and more because he’s greedy and needs every part of you.

Only a few days later, you’re in the mess hall for dinner and Wolfwood is coming back from helping Blondie scavenge around for old ship parts. There are specific metals the scientist needs for his final repairs, all located in burnt out scraps of fallen spaceships that litter the wasteland around Ship Three. He’s been gone for eight hours and it’s been too damn long with you out of his sight.

It’s later in the evening—most of the crew have cleared out, but stragglers sit at the tables around the edges of the room and chat tiredly. You’re already done with your meal and Nick is so ready to pick you up and carry you all the way back to his room and get you in his shower, because he can’t wait to touch you until after he’s clean, free of the sweat and sand that feel like a second skin at this point. 

Except you’re talking to some asshole with a lopsided smile on his face, obviously already half in love with you. The guy isn’t even your type. Too soft, baby-faced, completely untested by Gunsmoke and its inhabitants. He looks like he wouldn’t know how to shoot a gun if Nick put one in his hand with the safety off and positioned his finger on the trigger.

He leans the Punisher against whatever’s closest to him and its weight causes the metal table it falls against to scrape across the floor harshly. You turn to look at him and you smile so softly despite the loud noise, and maybe he’ll just hoist you out of your chair and carry you to his room right now even though you’d complain about him being rude to this wet rag that wants to fuck you.

You greet him when he sits in the chair next to you and he missed your voice so much. The guy you were talking to looks at Nick, brows raised, as if expecting—what, that you’d actually want this asshole? Over him?

Nick shoots the guy a withering glare, then puts his arm around your shoulders lazily, murmuring hey, pretty girl into your hair while this idiot keeps staring at him as if it could intimidate him into leaving.

“I’ve heard about you. The Undertaker, right?” the guy asks, holding his hand out, as if Nick would actually shake it. “I’m—”

“Leaving,” Nick says. “Unless you’re looking for a problem.”

You turn to look at him, his name a protest on your tongue, but the guy is already getting up, muttering to himself about Nick having awful manners. Doesn’t matter—he’d rather have every person on this ship hate him if it meant keeping you to himself.

“You can’t talk to people like that,” you say.

“I didn’t like the way he was looking at you.” He could see the hunger in that asshole’s eyes, no matter how well he was hiding it from you. “He wanted something that wasn’t his.”

“Nick…” You pull back a little further away from him to really look at him, and he curls his arm around your shoulder because he doesn’t want you further away. He wants you against the wall of his shower right now, and then maybe on the countertop next to the sink, and then preferably in his bed for the rest of the night. “Maybe… we should go somewhere more quiet. To talk.”

Dread settles into his stomach so quickly that it’s like being hit by a bullet to the gut—and Nick’s taken plenty of those over the years, but none have felt quite as cold and heavy as this. He refuses to panic right now. “To talk,” he repeats.

You must see it in his eyes—the fear. Your hand is on his cheek in an instant, and you kiss him so soft and chaste, exactly like the first time he kissed you in front of everyone, and he feels safer. His heart stops beating out of his chest, the dread in his stomach warms to a tepid anxiety. He’s beginning to like kisses like these. Still not as much as when he can really kiss you the way he wants, long and deep and thorough, but there’s something in the simplicity of them that pleases him. They’re a message more than anything. An assurance. You still like him. You still want him.

Regardless, he follows you to your room with a stone in his throat. He’s not a big talker. Not when it comes to serious stuff. And this feels serious. You start pacing and his pulse quickens again, a raging beat against his sternum, an echo that rattles around his head.

When you stop, it’s sudden enough to rock you in place a little, as if you didn’t realize you were going to cease moving before it happened. “Sometimes,” you say, not looking at him, “you say things.”

He waits, but you don’t continue. “I tend to do that.”

“Nick—unless I’m not understanding things right, we’re not… we’re not together.”

Refusing to panic seems to be something he’s no longer good at. “We’re not together,” he repeats, because he’s an idiot that can’t string two words together if you haven’t already said them.

“Okay, that’s—that’s what I thought. I didn’t think you… yeah.” You still won’t look at him. You’re picking at your cuticles so hard that there’s already a little blood on your fingers.

His immediate instinct is to stop you—to step forward and take your hands in his, to smooth his thumbs over the wounds you’ve given yourself. “Look at me.”

When you look at him, your eyes are full of an emotion that Nick can’t name. Not desire—but want, on a certain level. There’s something you want that he can’t give you.

And he knows what it is. He’s not an idiot. He knows that the way you smile at him isn’t the way you smile at someone you’re not together with. He knows you don’t give him those reassuring kisses because you don’t want to be together with him. You don’t ever press him about it because this kind of stuff doesn’t happen. People don’t connect like this. Whatever the two of you are doing—it’s fragile, and you’re ready for it to fall apart at a moment’s notice. He is, too.

If there wasn’t so much he wasn’t telling you, then—he doesn’t even want to think about it. Because maybe he’d like that too. Maybe he’d be able to give you parts of what you want, to be enough of what you need in order for you to be happy. 

You’d do it for him, no question. You already do it for him. 

“I’m not great at this,” he tells you. He’s not. He’s slept with a lot of people, but that’s easy on Gunsmoke. If you’re even a little good looking, half the planet wants you. But he hasn’t held anything more real than that, hasn’t felt the weight of it in his palm. “But I want… just you.”

You bite the inside of your lip, unsure—because what has he given you, really, beyond vague answers and truths that aren’t fully fleshed out? He can understand your hesitance. You’re so devastatingly beautiful and he wishes he wasn’t a piece of shit.

“Okay,” is your eventual response. 

He can tell that what he said wasn’t enough. But it’s all he can give you. It’s selfish of him to want reciprocation, he knows. “Do you…?” 

“Yes,” you say, but you look so sad and he keeps fucking up more and more. “Just you.”

He wishes he could see what kind of thoughts are running through your head—whether you hate him now, whether you’re okay with just this, whether he could ever make you forgive him for everything he’s about to do.

“Kiss me,” you tell him. “Please.”

How could he deny you that?

He doesn’t take you to his shower but you don’t seem to mind the grit and sweat of the desert on his skin—you’re pliant underneath him, you come apart on his hands, you kiss him like you mean it, and when he’s inside you and he whispers I love you, I love you, I love you into your skin, you don’t question whether it’s real or not and he doesn’t tell you.

You don’t say it back, but he didn’t ask you to.

After JuLai

There’s nowhere you can go but Home.

The entire coast of the Great Sand Ocean is covered in the debris of JuLai, and even then—no Sandsteamer is going to stop on a random stretch of coast to take you somewhere safe. If you can all make it to Home, Meryl can go north to November, Nick can go back to December, and you can figure out what you’re going to do since you didn’t have the good fortune to die.

So many people didn’t make it. You should be happy you’re still alive. But traveling with Nick makes you wish that someone else was here instead of you.

Vash is nowhere to be found. You don’t think he’s dead—because it’s him. Even with everything that happened to him in that tower, you have such a strong belief that he lived through Knives’s torture, through that bright pink light in the sky that exploded up into space, through the collapse of the world’s largest city.

Maybe that’s naive. But if you can go look for him after you get situated, that’s—something. You can do something and not feel so empty. Or you could follow Meryl to November, become a gun-for-hire like you’d been for so many years.

It’s a week's journey to Home on foot. You barely sleep. You and Meryl take turns keeping watch at night, always right beside each other, because there’s no way you could trust Nick to keep the two of you safe after everything.

But you can’t kick him out of your little group, either, because you’re without cover and without your weapon, lost somewhere in the escape, and Meryl’s Derringer only has three low-caliber shots before the bullets Roberto gave her are gone.

As much as you hate it, he’d be your only chance of survival if you got caught in a firefight out here.

Nick doesn’t seem willing to leave, either. He doesn’t speak to either of you—out of shame, you wonder, or because he simply doesn’t care?—but he nods when you say that Home should be your next destination, follows quietly when Meryl begins to lead the trek with her unflappable sense of direction, smokes cigarette after cigarette until his borrowed pack of menthols runs out and he gets twitchy, bouncing his leg whenever he sits down, toying with the buckles on the cover of his gun tirelessly.

The noise doesn’t bother you when you’re walking, but in the middle of the night, it sounds like a fucking alarm going off. And he doesn’t sleep—at least, you never see him unconscious during your trek, even though you know firsthand that he’s capable of sleeping—but obviously there’s a lot he hasn’t told you about himself.

The night before you get to Home, it’s too much for you—you’re about to wake Meryl for her watch, and you haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a week, and he’s flicking a buckle open and closed, and you find the half-finished pack of cigarettes in your pocket that, before everything, you’d been holding for him.

There are no campfires these nights. You don’t have the resources, and you sure as shit don’t want to be spotted by anyone that might be heading to JuLai to scavenge its corpse. In the shine of the five moons, you make your way over to him—he’s never too close, maybe because he’s trying to be conscientious. 

He looks up at you, surprised, and—he’s terrible enough to have something like hope on his face. It’s not a good look on him.

“Here,” you say, and you hold out the crumpled pack of cigarettes. He takes it from you slowly, like you’ll scare if he moves too quickly. “You need to stop fiddling with shit so I can get a good night’s sleep.”

“Thanks,” he says, but you’re already walking back towards Meryl, shaking her from sleep. 

The sound of his lighter clicking, the sound of him taking a deep drag and exhaling a long moment later—it’s so familiar. You’ve fallen asleep to that many nights over the past month or so, when Nick hadn’t been able to rest without a little nicotine to calm him down. He was always thinking hard when you were quiet in his arms, something in his eyes that spoke of conflict. You wonder now if he was thinking about the things he was keeping from you. The way he was about to betray you.

Meryl eyes the lit cigarette in Nick’s mouth when she wakes up, but she doesn’t look at you with any kind of judgment. She squeezes your hand and smiles at you, quietly says, “It’s okay. You need some rest.”

Maybe she’s talking about the noise that kept you awake every night—maybe she’s talking about something less tangible, an unrest that lives deep within you. You still don’t sleep well, and it’s his fault. Without the sound of the buckles clicking, you can hear him smoke, hear his deep breaths in the silence of the night. When you dream, it’s a hazy memory on loop, Nick holding you close and whispering things he didn’t mean.

Luida cries when you arrive and tell her what happened. You can’t blame her—you want to cry too. It’s all you’ve wanted to do for days. You just want to get to a room where you can be by yourself and finally, finally be allowed to feel.

Brad tells you that the room you’d stayed in is exactly how you left it, and you leave Meryl talking to the two of them, leave Nick leaning against the wall next to his gun, quietly smoking one of the last cigarettes from the pack you’d given him.

You get to your room, untouched to the point that it still smells a little like the body wash you used the last time you showered here, a little like stale smoke from when Nick would come to you at night because he basically refused to sleep if it wasn’t next to you, and you find that you can’t even do what you’ve wanted to do this whole time.

There are no tears. There’s no terrible cracking of the makeshift foundation you’d built to hold yourself up over the past few days. No collapse, no city falling dark. There’s nothing.

You shower and sit on the tiled floor, letting the spray hit your hair, your back, until the water goes lukewarm. Even after you’ve scrubbed every inch of your skin, you can still feel the desert on you, sand under your nails, baked into your hair, seared into your bones. You lay in your bed in clean clothes—truly clean clothes for the first time in more than a week, comfy pajama shorts and an actual sweater—and all you can do is stare at the ceiling, waiting to sleep, or to sink into the sheets and melt away, or to simply cease to exist.

He comes to your door in the middle of the night, knocks and waits outside, as if he couldn’t simply open the door himself. They don’t lock. People on this ship are respectful about privacy. There’s a large part of you that wants to leave him out there. He won’t come in if you don’t let him. You may not know a lot about him, but you’re at least sure of that. 

When you open the door, he’s flicking the butt of a finished cigarette to the ground. It bounces, crosses the threshold of your room. “Shit—didn’t mean to do that,” he says. I didn’t mean it, you hear. “Didn’t even think you’d see me, to be honest.”

“Do you need something, Wolfwood?” you ask. Whenever you’re not speaking your jaw is clenched so tightly that you can hear your molars grind against each other. He’s doing irreparable damage to your teeth. “Or are we done here?”

His face falls—not that it hadn’t been in a state that could be classified as ‘fallen’ before that—and he jams his hands in his pockets, swaying back on his heels, looking more above you than at you. The mask he wears to hide his thoughts from you doesn’t fit very well anymore. “I’m leaving,” he says. 

It’s what you wanted him to do, but it doesn’t stop you from inhaling sharp, from feeling a sudden pain against your ribs. 

“Thought I’d, uh…” He shakes his head. He’s replaced his sunglasses, or maybe he had them the whole time, and you can’t see his eyes in the hallway’s ambient night-time lighting. “Nah, never mind. Get some sleep. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

He turns to leave and the lapel of his jacket is suddenly in your hand, sandworn and stitched through. You sewed up the bullet hole that rests snug beneath your thumb. You ran your fingers over the skin of his chest not long after that, marveling at its smoothness, the lack of scars to follow the wound. You thought then: was he disappointed that he didn’t have any marks to show for the trauma he’d endured? Or did he prefer that—a blank canvas that let him pretend that everything he’d ever known hadn’t really happened?

You had eventually come to the conclusion that he didn’t care. His scars were littered across bone and organ, never to be shown to another person. The cross he bore was his own terrible burden to shoulder.

Back then, you had been okay with that. After everything that happened, you shouldn’t care. You should let him shoulder the weight. You should let him leave. 

There are more holes in the blazer now, wounds he picked up on the way to his betrayal. “Let me fix this for you.”

He says your name small, quiet, the same way he’d said it when JuLai was burning with life behind him, exploding in flowers and vines.

“Before you go,” you say. You have no idea what you’re doing. “I want to fix it before you go.”

He swallows, nods. You can tell he wishes he had a cigarette right now. “Alright. If you want."

It takes a moment for you to let go of him, as if he’d melt into sand once you let go, as if this is only an apparition before you and your grip is the only thing tying him to the physical realm. 

He doesn’t melt. He doesn’t fade away. He follows you into your room and shrugs off his blazer, offers it to you. 

You take it from him silently. The sewing kit you use is somewhere in your travel bag, right where you left it before you were stolen away to JuLai. The sooner it’s unearthed from your stockpiled life, the sooner he’ll be gone. You should get it. “What did you come here for?”

He leans back against the doorframe, arms crossed, fingers drumming against his side. After a moment he takes his sunglasses off, puts them down on the table at the end of your bed. Drags a hand down his face like he’s the most exhausted he’s ever been. “There’s not a lot I can give you. I don't have much.”

You weren’t asking him for anything. You bite your tongue when you go to remind him of this.

“But I have answers now. The ones you wanted. Before.” He clears his throat. “If you still want them.”

You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t. 

When you don’t stop him, he continues. “I had a contract.”

“A contract.”

“The people that drew it up weren’t above breaking a couple bones to get me to sign it. ‘Cause I’d just heal up, right?” He laughs, and it’s an awful, bitter noise. “I’d be back in one piece so they could break the same bones again.”

You’re quiet.

He holds out a crumpled piece of paper, obviously balled up at some point in time—at the top: Pastoral Contract. At the bottom: Nicholas D. Wolfwood in a series of childish curls and shaky lines. Nick had written the terms of his contract out in the careful cursive of someone still learning to use it. The word ‘receive’ is misspelled. “How old…?”

“Nine,” he says. “I’d just turned nine.”

The first thought that crosses your mind: how many people has he killed in his time as a pastor, and could he remember each one if he tried? “How long have you—”

“I’m twenty-two.”

You’re stunned into silence. There had been no question in your mind that Nick was older than you by at least four or five years. 

If things weren’t the way they were, he’d probably make a joke about looking good for his age. If things weren’t the way they were, you’d be examining how much his age matches up with the way he acts, his impulsiveness and brashness and possessiveness, the way he couldn’t even handle someone else looking at you.

But this is how things are, and you can only stare at him. “How.”

“Conrad created his perfect weapon. I paid a price.”

You sit on the floor. You’re not sure why. You just can’t be standing anymore. 

Nick looks at you for a moment, quiet—then slides down the doorframe, joining you. The room is small enough that there’s only a foot or so between you. His knees are bent, forearms resting across them, and he somehow looks small like this. Like there’s a weight compressing him, curling his edges closer to his center.

“You weren’t—when we… was it your first time?”

His eyes snap to yours and he’s incredulous, amused, unable to stop himself from laughing. “You didn’t defile my innocence, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Something about his smile makes you want to scream. He looks so soft when he’s not being entirely too serious, the kind of soft you can’t fully comprehend until it’s felt, like the leaves of lamb’s-ear you touched in Home’s gardens when Vash told you I have something to show you that you’re gonna love. Because you’ve always longed for softer things, for things that have no chance of survival in the desert. “How long have you… looked older?”

“Since I signed my contract.”

You try not to think about it and fail. How old did he look when he was nine? How old was he when the church he worked for sent him out on his first terrible assignments? You know what he’s done—you’d known the reputation of Nicholas the Punisher long before you met him—and though innocence isn’t something you find in spades on Gunsmoke, you can’t help but feel a gut-wrenching sadness because his had been ripped from him so early. When did he take his first life? When was the first time someone took advantage of him at such a young age without even realizing they were doing it?

Nick hates it when people pity him. He knows he was dealt shit cards—he didn’t hesitate to let you know that anytime he told you the smallest details about his childhood. Now you have the big details, and you’re positive he wants you to pity him even less. 

You toy with the collar of his jacket, resting atop your crossed legs, because you have to do something with your hands. You have to have somewhere to look other than him. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“You really think that would’ve gone over well?”

How could he even be asking that question?

“Yeah, I do. You know how Vash is.” Was, your mind supplies. You’re so, so tired. “He would’ve understood. He would’ve gone with you anyway if he knew what you were being forced to do. He would’ve jumped at the opportunity to help you. He cared about you so much.”

He cared about all of you. And you’d all failed him. He was the only fully good person you’d ever met and you all failed him.

“He knew,” Nick says. “Before he got to Knives—we talked about it.”

You know without having to ask that Vash forgave him. He’d probably pieced it together already and forgiven Nick long before they even got to JuLai. There’s cotton in your throat, your tongue is a stone. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

A memory crosses your mind—sitting in the desert with him atop a sand dune, his gun laid out before him, telling you that you shouldn’t think you’re special.

If he’d told you everything, maybe you’d be sitting with him and Vash and Meryl and Roberto in a bar in JuLai, drinking to your victory. Maybe you’d be here with everyone, and Luida wouldn’t have let out that awful noise when you told her about Vash—a long, drawn-out note that she couldn’t hold inside, a keening that begged the question of why? and tapered off into silence. 

Maybe nothing would have changed at all.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I should have. I just—I didn’t want to disappoint you. I thought that if I didn’t give you all of me, then it’d be easier when we… when I did what I had to. When things were over.”

So he’d also known from the start that things wouldn’t end well.

“I would’ve done anything for you,” you tell him. It’s embarrassing to say out loud. You shouldn’t have said it in the first place—shouldn’t have even thought it. But you’re past keeping things from one another, it seems.

He stretches out his long legs, leans a little closer toward you. His hand reaches out towards you, an invitation to be taken or refused. “C’mere for a minute?”

You let him hold you. Your legs are across his lap, your body pressed into his chest, your arms curled around him so tight that it can’t be comfortable on his end. He has your head tucked beneath his chin, one hand on your hair and the other pulling you closer by the thigh, like he could crawl into your skin if he just had you close enough. 

“Was it easier?” you ask him.

“No,” he murmurs into your hair. “I think it made things worse.”

“How?”

“I didn’t want things to be over. Still don’t.” His hand tightens on your thigh, his entire body shifting to get you closer. “I know I’m selfish for that. You don’t have to tell me.”

Maybe you’re selfish, too. Maybe the words are softening the wall around your heart because if you were in his position, you probably would’ve done the same thing. You still can’t forgive him. “Nick,” you say. Pull back and look at him. 

“What do you need, sweet thing?” His voice is quiet when he asks this. It reminds you of the first time you kissed him—the first time he said those three heavy words to you, accidental whispers that held no meaning. 

“I want you to tell me you love me.” Even if it’s not real. Even if it’s just for right now. Even if it’s something he only murmurs into your skin when he’s between your thighs, when he makes you see the face of God in the way he touches you.

You expect him to kiss you. To start this final goodbye. But he doesn’t. He pulls you close to him again, lays his cheek against the top of your head. “‘Course I love you.” 

It’s nothing above a whisper. It’s a breath released into the air, something you wouldn’t hear if everything else wasn’t completely silent. But it makes you feel like crying and maybe you don’t hate him like you thought you did, but why shouldn’t you? All this wasteland has taught you to do is never trust people. Nick showed you exactly what Gunsmoke had already shown you a million times over. There’s not a person you know outside of Vash and Meryl that hasn’t betrayed you at least once. 

You’ve committed your fair share of betrayals, too. Law of the wasteland.

When you pull away from him, he looks a little panicked—but all you do is perch yourself on his lap, your knees boxing him in on either side, your face above his. “Could you ever mean it?”

He looks up at you blankly.

“If we stayed together. If we traveled. Or settled down, whatever,” you say. “Could you ever be able to say that and mean it?”

His brows scrunch, confusion painting his handsome face. “I mean it now,” he says, as if it’s obvious. 

And it’s like everything comes to a screeching halt inside you: all the hurt, all the exhaustion, all the emptiness. Emotions flood into the cavity of your chest so quickly that you’re drowning, your lungs full of too many things that aren’t air. 

Because this doesn’t happen. Not on Gunsmoke. Not to you.

“How do you know it’s real?”

“How would I know it’s not? Is there a checklist I should be consulting?”

You don’t know how to answer that because you feel like there should be a checklist, something that was left behind on the planets before Gunsmoke, burnt up in the crashes of the ships that populated the planet. Something you’ll never know the contents of—only that it existed.

“I know because it’s how I feel. Not gonna argue with myself on that,” Nick says, and maybe it’s that simple. He cups your face with a warm, careful hand and you melt into the contact. The first time you’d touched him like this, you worried that it might’ve been the contact alone that you liked. Not the person providing it.

But you know now that anyone else could touch you like this and you wouldn’t feel even a shadow of the way he makes you feel.

“You’re being awful quiet,” he says.

“You hurt me really badly, Nick.”

“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

You think he is. You want to stay angry with him but he makes it hard. He made a mistake. He didn’t trust anyone enough to share his burdens. And could you blame him for that? You know firsthand how frightening it feels to trust someone. To want to.

“Would you want that? Us—together?” you ask.

“Yeah, I want that.” He laughs, as if any of this is remotely amusing. “Thought I made it clear.”

“You’d have to tell me everything,” you say. “Be honest about whatever I ask.”

“For you, anything,” he says, because he’s a corny idiot who likes his one-liners too much and it’s this stupid line above anything else that actually brings tears to your eyes, that makes you realize how badly you would’ve missed him if he’d left without saying goodbye, how much you want to keep him and how much you want him to keep you.

You still don’t know what to do, so instead you kiss him and he kisses you back and he feels exactly like he did the last time you’d been together like this. Things devolve quickly, as they often do between you. He pulls your hips against his to create friction and you missed him. It’s messy and his teeth find their way into the kisses a little too often and he can’t even stomach moving from the floor before he touches you, it seems, because he’s already pushing your sleep shorts to the side, feeling exactly how badly you want him. 

“Shit,” he breathes. “Shit, I’m sorry, baby. I can’t wait.”

He unzips his slacks and pulls them down along with his boxers, just enough for him to free his cock, and you inhale sharply when he pulls you further into his lap, ruts against you, coating himself in your slick wetness. The noise he makes is haunting, a little broken.

You cup his head with your hands, fingers twined into his hair, and kiss him hard, licking into his mouth, grinding against his pretty length. He makes sounds you want to lock up and keep under your bed. He says your name as if it’s the name of God. “Can’t wait,” he repeats. “Need you to take it. Be good and take it for me, pretty girl.”

He positions himself so you can sink down onto his length, shorts pushed to the side, strong hands guiding your hips slowly. It hurts a little more than usual, but everything is so rushed, so feral, that it doesn’t really bother you. The warmth of having him so close, the delicious stretch of him inside you, the way he groans when he bottoms out—it’s all worth the pain. 

It’s almost a disappointment when he goes still, when he waits for you to acclimate to his size. “Okay?” he manages to ask, because he always has to make sure you’re okay with things, even when he’s being reckless. 

You nod and you don’t even get a chance to move against him—his feet are planted on the floor, still in his dumb little loafers, and his hands hold you exactly where he needs you for him to thrust into you over and over again, root to tip, so fucking deep that you can feel him in your stomach. 

Your hands are pressed flat against the wall behind him, your face buried in the crook of his shoulder to muffle the noises you can’t keep yourself from making. He just feels so good—so perfect inside of you and against you, where he was made to be, and you tell him this because he needs to know.

His hand finds the small of your back and pushes you into an arch that has you seeing stars with every thrust. Not even pressing your mouth to his skin can quiet the moans he’s eliciting from you, so you bite down on the junction of his neck and shoulder and he whines, body tensing, arms circling your waist to pull you against him in a crushing embrace as he buries himself deep inside of you. He twitches hard, talking without a thought like he always does when he finishes, saying that he needs you, saying that you’re the only person that's ever made him feel like this, saying that you’re the only person he ever wants to do this with for the rest of his life.

After his body loosens up, after he pulls out and his breathing slows to something manageable, he says, “One of these days I’m gonna be able to last more than a minute. Just need you to stop feeling that perfect.”

You laugh—honest to God laugh, and you want him so badly and you’re still so turned on and he’s exactly what you’ve always wanted. “You think that’s ever gonna happen?”

“Oh, absolutely not,” he says. His teeth nip at your bottom lip, the ghost of a bite. A hallmark of want. “Are you gonna let me take care of you?”

Always. You’ll always let him take care of you.

He carries you to the bed and your shorts are gone, your sweater is gone, your sense of dignity is gone because you would give this man anything right now. He lays you out and takes his time pulling you apart, breaking you down with his tongue, his hands, his long, pretty fingers.

When he finally gets you off he keeps going, driving you to a point where you can’t handle any more and then pushing you through it, and when you reach your second peak, he laps up everything you give him, sighing soft against you.

He tries to wipe his face off like usual and you stop him, pull him to you, gaze at the shimmering mixture of your slick and his cum that covers the lower half of his face. You run the flat of your tongue up his chin and you could get drunk simply off the taste of the two of you together. His eyes are half-lidded when you pull away, and he whispers, “Christ, you’re perfect,” almost more to himself than you. When he kisses you, he holds you so close you can hardly breathe.

The after with him is always soft. He undresses himself because you’re undressed, then holds you gently, kisses your hair, tells you sweet things that he’d never say in public.

At least—that he wouldn’t before. Maybe things are different now.

You’ve been lying together, quiet, for a long while before he says, “I’m not gonna ask you to say it back.”

The air conditioning kicks on, a low drone that hums through the room like a distant insect swarm. You feel frozen, unsure what to do with your body.

“But do you think you ever could?”

You sit up because everything suddenly feels too heavy. Your face feels hot. You’ve never been good at thinking through your emotions because you haven’t had to. You’ve been a mercenary for a long time. You’ve killed a lot of people for a lot less than they were worth. You’ve traveled with so many companions over the years that you can’t remember all of their faces anymore. There’s never been anyone you’ve had to think over your feelings for—it’s been either like or dislike for so long that it feels like it’s all you know.

The things you feel for Nick, though—would they be classified as like? Or something more? He makes you laugh. He makes you so frustrated you could scream. He makes you want to travel to places you’ve already been just so you can see them together. He makes you want to cry, sometimes, because you’re scared of this, and you forgot what fear was much too long ago to feel comfortable with it now.

“How can I know?”

He looks a little hurt by this. He’s terrible at hiding his emotions even though he thinks he’s good at it.

“Genuinely, Nick. I haven’t… had anyone like you. I haven’t wanted to be with anyone like this. I haven’t cared about anyone like this.” You look at his jacket, discarded on the floor, still riddled with bullet holes that you were supposed to fix. “But how do I know if that’s enough?”

He sits too, takes your hands in his. He’s always so beautiful like this—when he’s taken off all the armor he shields himself with and lets you touch what’s underneath. “It’s enough for me.”

You look at your hands, fingers intertwined with his. “I could, I think.”

“Don’t want you to feel pressured,” he tells you. “Just—if it happens, you know, I’d appreciate it if you’d clue me in.”

“I can do that,” you say, and you can, because he doesn’t look disappointed that you didn’t do something you weren’t ready to do. He doesn’t look angry. He smiles at you, so warm and genuine that your heart feels like it’s cracking open, like everything inside you is spilling out. “I do. I already do.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I love you.” You cover your mouth with a hand after you say it, because it feels so heavy and damning. But it feels so right , too, and you don’t know what to do with that. How to fit the rightness into the way you’ve built your life on the foundation of so many wrongs. After a long moment where he waits for you to collect yourself, you’re able to lower your hand. “I love you,” you tell him. “I want it to be enough.”

“It is,” he says, thumb caressing the back of your hand. “It’ll always be enough.” 

You’ve never expected to get everything you want in life, and you most definitely won’t. But you can have this. This delicate thing that you’ve been building together, despite the missteps. Despite the fear. And it’ll be okay, because there’s no checklist. No requirements. You just love him, and he loves you back, and you're both allowed to decide what that means.

It’s enough. It’s more than enough.

#wolfwood x reader #nicholas d. wolfwood x reader #trigun stampede x reader #yall idk..... idk how this happened. it just happened #let me get back to the massive bkg fic i'm working on rn sdlkfjdslkfjlsdksdfjlkjs #thank u for ur time sorry this is outside of my usual wheelhouse #fics

[sommerregenjuniluft]

@jegulus-microfic june 1st — pride — 1804words — nsfw! aka regulus purchases something and james is fortunate enough to unpack for @itmeanssungod & @veryinnovative

It’s been a while since Regulus started toying with the idea of trying out packing for himself. 

He doesn’t have too much dysphoria during sex anymore—which he is grateful for—since he’s completely healed from top surgery and especially with partners he knows. 

But lately Regulus has found out it feels really fucking good to just- keep the strap on afterwards. Just haphazardly yank on his boxer briefs once they’re done, purple tip peeking out over the top of the hem, and sex drunkenly stumble into the kitchen to get himself a gatorade from the fridge. Evan prefers water, which they keep in the room, and Barty prefers to crank open a window and smoke one.

It’s empowering in a way, he guesses. He’s still living with his brother and James is over more times than he is not. Just liking the company of a busy house full of people he reasons with a shrug every time the topic comes up. Missing the old days in a dorm.

Regulus is pretty sure there’s truth in that statement but he’s also not stupid and convincing himself he’s only imagining the looks James is sending his way has only worked for so long. It’s near ridiculous to think he’s been oblivious to it for so long.

But Regulus isn’t anymore because when he’d gone to get his gatorade James had, to spell it out politely, nearly died from choking on his pasta salad when he’d looked up from his phone and at Regulus.

So with the arrival of pride Regulus had saved up and treated himself with the purchase of a flaccid strap on. It matches his skin colour nearly perfectly, the head showing from under the foreskin. It’s got a nice feel to it, it’s proportionate to his body when Regulus looks at himself in the mirror and it’s comfortable where it’s hanging between his legs and resting in his underwear when he puts his clothes back on. It’s a little ridiculous but he knows it’s important so Regulus allows himself to tear up about it a little. About how bone deep good it makes him feel about himself.

He’s in grey joggers and a form fitting black T-shirt. Regulus turns to the side in front of the mirror, cups himself through the soft material of his pants. Barely audible he can hear James humming to himself in the kitchen. Regulus smirks.

“James,” Regulus greets as he enters the kitchen.

“Oh, hi, Reg,” James says, lifting from over the stove and taking out his airpods from where he was bobbing his head to the music playing on them. 

Regulus plops himself on a free spot on the counter and picks up a bottle of sauce he doesn’t recognise to busy himself with reading the label. “What are you cooking?”

James hums and proceeds to explain to him where he found the recipe on social media and what health benefits it has and how good it’s going to taste.

Regulus half listens and half plots internally how he’s going to subtly make James aware of his newest possession.

“Can I do something to help?”

“Err,” James blinks for a moment, then he lets out a chuckle, “The Regulus Black offering to help in the kitchen on his own volition? How much money do you need?”

Regulus rolls his eyes and swats him in the chest. “I was very much being sincere, for your information. But I can go of course, if my presence is not needed,” he says and makes to stand up.

“No no,” James replies quickly, raising his palms in a pacifying manner. They’re closer now and Regulus can see where James’ brain has momentarily paused its task of persuading Regulus to stay in favour of simply staring at him. His curls, his eyes, his lips. 

Regulus raises his eyebrows.

“You– ehm,” James starts, swallowing, “You caaaan– set the table?”

“Are you asking or telling?” Regulus inquires, taking another half step closer and delighting in the small intake of breath from James.

“Telling,” James answers. “Please.”

Regulus nods, biting back a smirk, and steps around James to get cutlers.

After he’s set those out he waits for James to go back to stirring the pasta that’s cooking on one of the back burners, right underneath the shelf with the plates. 

Regulus comes up from behind and sets a hand on James’ hip. “Pardon,” he murmurs and then stretches up on his toes, pressing his crotch right into James’ backside.

It has its desired effect immediately.

James’ breath hitches and in the next second he’s making an aborted noise deep in his throat.

Regulus’ lips twitch upwards at the corners, “Something wrong?”

James shakes his head, his voice cracking on the m-mh he makes, not opening his mouth. His hand is completely still where he’s got the wooden spoon gripped.

Regulus hums, leans in impossibly closer, really rubbing himself into James’ ass. James lets out a wheeze. Regulus tilts his head, mouth right next to the other’s ear, “How many do we need?”

“Hm?” James’ voice is thin.

“How many do we need, James?” Regulus repeats, fingers over his hip tightening marginally.

“Ah- um, what? Sorry, I’m—”

“Plates, James,” Regulus tuts, grinding his hips forward slightly, “How many plates?”

“O-oh,” James seems to take a deep, steadying breath, “Five?”

Regulus hums and then with one last little thrust grabs the plates before lifting back down and extracting himself.

He can feel James’ eyes glued to him the whole while Regulus is setting them on the table, neatly next to the cutlery. It fills Regulus’ entire body with a warm feeling. Eventually he saunters back over, coming to a stop right next to James, who is currently indecently staring at Regulus’ crotch. If it was anyone else in any other situation Regulus would have already punched them in the nose but this is different. This is Regulus purposely instigating and James stepping right into the trap Regulus has carefully placed between the foliage.

“Something you wanna ask?” Regulus ducks his head, catching James’ gaze where it’s evidently trained on his lap. 

He doesn’t quite manage to suppress his grin this time. James seems to notice that, sputtering at first before realisation dawns on his face.

“You– oh, you’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” James replies, eyes narrowed slightly, flush high on his cheekbones regardless.

“Doing what?” Regulus asks innocently. He sets his elbows on the counter behind him, jutting out his hips teasingly.

James groans obscenely and then proceeds to cage Regulus right in, settling two palms on either side of Regulus’ elbows. 

“Regulus.” There’s a warning quality to the way James presses out his name.

“James,” Regulus purrs, angling his face to look up at the older man through his lashes.

James breathes out roughly through his nose, pupils dilating. “You’re packing, aren’t you?”

“I might be.”

“And you wanted me to know.”

Regulus makes a non-committal sound.

“God,” James curses, “You’re so infuriating. Do you know how hard it is to not—” 

He doesn’t finish the sentence. James’ eyes are roving over his face for clues and Regulus guesses if James is taking the inch, Regulus might as well give him the mile. Or, rather, the rest of the inches.

“You wanna see it?”

James’ mouth opens soundlessly. It takes a moment before he answers. “It?”

“My cock,” Regulus explains, licking his lips. “It’s new.”

James moans quietly, “Yeah, Reg, I wanna see your cock, fuck.”

Regulus sets his hands against the muscle connecting James’ neck and shoulder, “Can you get on your knees for me?”

“Is the sky blue?” James retorts, eyes glazing over as he sinks down in front of Regulus without further prompting. When he looks back up at Regulus with big, Bambi brown eyes from behind his glasses he looks so sweet Regulus considers briefly if he might be in over his head. “Can I?” James asks, gently hiking his fingertips into the band of Regulus’ sweats. 

Regulus nods and with that James pulls the clothing down.

There’s a little bit of nervous yet excited sweat breaking out on Regulus’ palms but before he has the opportunity to overthink, he already hears the groan punching out of James. 

“Fuck, Reg,” James whispers. “Oh, Christ, you’re so gorgeous. Look at him.”

Regulus sucks in an unsteady inhale and twists his fingers into the unruly mess that is James’ hair, having to hold onto something suddenly.

“You like it?” Regulus rasps.

James answers with a slightly delirious laugh tumbling out of him. He shakes his head in awe, fingers digging into the soft muscle of Regulus’ thighs. “Reg, don’t slap me, I’m just being sincere when I say I wanna take you into my mouth so badly.”

Regulus dampens a moan into a sigh, “You can.”

James rips his gaze away from his cock, a starstruck look in his pretty, dark eyes when he gapes up at him. Regulus nods his reassurance.

“Oh fuck.” 

Then James is sucking Regulus’ flaccid strap into his mouth. Working his tongue around it, hallowing his cheeks and really giving it his all. Like his goal is to get Regulus as hard as fast as humanly possible.

And Regulus knows it’s logically impossible but he swears he can feel James tonguing at him, getting terribly aroused by the image and feel of James giving him a fucking blowjob right there in the kitchen. A small noise slips out of Regulus and he accidentally tightens his grip in James’ hair. James responds beautifully, moaning around Regulus in his mouth and eyes fluttering like he’s getting off just as much on all of this as Regulus is. His lips stretch prettily around the silicone and Regulus thumbs softly at the stubble on James’ jaw.

There’s a moment where their eyes meet when James takes him all the way into the back of his throat, making the end of the strap push back against Regulus’ centre, where Regulus has the sudden realisation that he’s going to come if James keeps this up.

And that is decidedly the moment the front door opens, the laughter of their friends echoeing through the hallway.

James keens when Regulus pulls him off and quickly tugs the waistband of his sweatpants back up and pulls on James’ shirt until he stands as well. He looks like a kicked puppy as Regulus ushers him back to the stove, shoving the wooden spoon against his chest to stir the probably totally overcooked pasta. His mouth is twisted into a pout or maybe that’s just them being swollen from having Regulus in his mouth. 

Fuck it.

He takes James’ jaw in a loose grip to get his attention again. “Finish this after dinner?”

James’ answer is a bright smile and a quick kiss he steals himself against Regulus’ wrist.

#hehe Unpack. get it? because regulus is #yeah anyway #jegulus #jegulus microfic #lune is back in the game i thinks #trans regulus #trans regulus black #sunseeker #starchaser #james potter #regulus black #jegulus fic #lune’s tiny fic #james potter x regulus black #regulus black x james potter

[annwrites]

we're home

— pairing: billy hargrove x fem!reader

— type: ficlet

— summary: you've finally reached california & found your happily ever after.

— tags: settling down, love, happiness

— tw: none

— word count: 1,092

— a/n: thank you all so much for the support. it has meant the world to me.

find my other posts concerning billy here

You lean over Billy’s chest with crossed arms, studying. You look at him. “Does it hurt?”

He glances up to you, shrugging his right shoulder slightly. “Not really.”

You roll your eyes. Tough guy.

He looks up to you again then. “Don’t tell me you’re ready to chicken out.”

You shift on your feet. “No.”

He smirks. “Good, ‘cus you promised me forever.”

The tattoo artists glances between the two of you with a raised brow, then continues. “The ink will be, if nothing else,” the man throws in.

Billy closes his eyes. “I know what I’ve got.” He smiles to himself, rubbing a thumb along his wedding band.

You glance down to your wrist, the name Billy written in small, delicate cursive across the width of it. You then glance across the car, to his bare chest—your name inked across his left pectoral. You smile to yourself at the sight.

It’d taken the better part of a day, but you’d finally made it. You were in California, sitting in a parking lot in Billy’s car, just looking out the windshield at the ocean in the distance. Something you’d never seen before. Never thought you’d set eyes on. You listen to the waves crash against the shore.

You turn in your seat, looking at your husband. Husband. He was your husband now. And you his wife. It still felt so strange to even think the words. But every time you did, you filled with warmth and happiness. And maybe your panties with a bit of wetness…

He rolls his head to the side, reaching up, gently running his knuckles along the soft skin of your cheek. “We’re here, baby. We’re home.”

You nod, leaning over, pressing your lips to his. When you pull away, there’s a gentle smile on his face.

“Do you remember that dream I told you I had? The one before…that day in Texas?”

You think back. That had been the morning he’d apparently realized that he was in love. With you. Something about making love in his car, wasn’t it?

You nod, smiling.

His caresses your cheek. “Want to help me make one more dream come true?”

“Daddy!” You clutch your pregnant stomach as your son’s hand slips out of yours, running in the direction of his father.

Billy drops his surfboard on the sand, smiling, picking up the four-year-old spitting image of him, tossing him in the air—your heart jumping nervously at the sight—then settling him against his hip.

When he sees you, he smiles, whistling. “Man, that is one hot mama.”

You roll your eyes, coming to stand in front of him as he lowers Warrant back to the sand. “Yeah, I feel hot. What is it that does it for you, huh? The big belly, swollen ankles, or the-”

He smirks. “Whole package, really, baby.”

He reaches out, cupping the back of your head, crushing his lips to yours, which taste pleasantly of salt water.

“Ew, what the hell dad?”

You pull away, looking down at Warrant, who’s staring up at the two of you from under a mop of blonde curls. You look at Billy then. “Do you see what you’ve taught him?”

He smirks, shrugging. “Going to punish me for it?”

You shake your head. “I should be spanking someone.”

He raises a brow. “Mm, pick me.”

He pulls you in again, kissing you, then moving his lips close to your ear. “You’re lucky I’ve already got you knocked up. Because if I didn’t?” He pulls back, staring down at you. “You’d be on your back right now getting bred.”

You flush, but tell yourself it’s only from the heat.

Warrant speaks up again. “So gross. Stop kissing.”

You both smile at each other.

Billy speaks, tenderly tucking a lock of hair behind your ear. “Trust me, kid, you could do a lot worse when it comes to parents.”

A few years after your daughter is born, Billy stops competing in surfing competitions, telling you it was time. You’d tried to encourage him otherwise, but he’d said he had more important things to think about now.

He still did it for recreation. Had even taught you shortly after arriving in California, which had involved a lot of cursing and you nearly drowning once or twice, but it had been fun while it lasted, until you told him you preferred watching. Unable to help himself, he’d of course made a filthy joke out of that comment.

Warrant loved it, however. Living on the beach gave them ample opportunity every day to get out in the water. And through that—teaching his son, watching him thrive on the waves—is how he realized that he wanted to do it full time: teaching, training. Particularly kids. You knew why: he saw himself in all of them. Young and full of passion for something so much larger than themselves, just needing someone else to show them the way.

He did mechanic work on the side for a bit of extra cash, but also because he still loved getting his hands dirty and messing around in a garage.

Speaking of which, he kept the Camaro. Took it out for a spin every now and again. Usually just the two of you in the front seats. Sometimes you’d sneak away just to screw in the backseat of it. It’s how your daughter had been conceived. Not that you hadn’t been trying.

A few years after Warrant was born, Billy had suggested that the two of you stop using protection. That ‘whatever happened, happened’. And during that time, you’d barely been able to keep him off of you. But you’d repaid the favor when you got pregnant again. Your hormones taking the driver’s seat for months. Billy didn’t complain once.

As for you? You were a full-time housewife. You and Billy had discussed it very early-on after coming to Cali. You had worked some to help with saving up enough to buy a house, but once you became pregnant, Billy made it clear that he’d never stop you from continuing to work if that’s what you wanted, but he ‘never wanted you to feel like you had to’. That he intended to keep that promise to take care of you. Both of you. All of you.

So, you settled into a daily, yet hectic life. But every time you felt overwhelmed—like maybe at times you had a bit more than you could handle—all you had to do was look at them, your family, and know: you had just exactly enough.

The End.

#fic: stranger things (billy hargrove x reader) #billy hargrove x reader #billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove x female reader #billy hargrove x y/n #stranger things x y/n #stranger things x you #stranger things x reader

[alchemistc]

tastes like (he) might be the one

an: So this post made me feel some things and the drabble I started out underneath got wordy enough that I decided not to fully hijack the post.

Tommy is just now realizing has no idea how to prepare a meal.

Evan had told him where the spare key was and Tommy had wanted to do something nice for him but he is a forty year old man with NO concept of how to make a meal.

What do you put in a salad? Kale goes into the bowl and he finds Evan's cheese grater and a Romano wedge, but there's no bread around and Tommy eyes the bag of premade croutons in his pantry with unease before he calls it good.

The caprese is easy, he's made it a million times, a quick snack that reminds him of afternoons on his grandmother's back porch, drinking the thimble of espresso she'd allowed him while she spoke in her heavily accented voice.

He doesn't actually know how to tell Evan he's avoiding gluten without disappointing him, yet, (God he's down bad, the thought of Evan's bright smile faltering a bit like he's disappointed he hadn't thought to ask makes Tommy want to launch himself into the stratosphere) so he throws the pan of lasagne back in the oven on low and just... takes a deep breath.

Evan won't be back for at least another hour, though, and Tommy is fighting the itch to snoop, so he takes a quick glance at the supplies on hand and ends up whipping up the stracciatella recipe his mom had used to make him when he was sick. He's halfway through prepping it when he realizes he's fucking insane, but it's too late now.

The text hits his screen before he can contemplate hiding the evidence of the soup.

Be there in twenty.

So Tommy stirs, and rubs his suddenly sweaty hands on his thighs, and then he stares at the disaster he's made of the kitchen and starts sweeping things into the sink.

Evan, Eddie, everyone always thinks he's so cool, but the reality is that behind closed doors he's a fucking disaster and his head is a jumble of nerves. This is too much. Cohesively, it might make some semblance of sense in the range of 'this is all vaguely italian' but a minestrone would have been better, he just hadn't had the time. This is too much -- too much food, too much effort, too much like ripping open his chest and guiding Evan's hand to wrap around his pumping heart and squeeze.

The locks on the doors tumble open just as Tommy is drying the cutting board, and Evan presses in with a tired smile.

The smile goes wider at the sight of his table, laid out in some semblance of order Tommy doesn't remember, but it had made sense at the time.

Be cool, Kinard, Tommy thinks to himself, but he can't help but melt a little when Evan tosses his keys carelessly to the side board and then slides across the room, no unease in his face as he sidles up, hands curling around Tommy's hips, head tilted in the way Tommy absolutely knows is a flirt, now.

"Hey."

Tommy blinks. He's disarming, unreal, Tommy has known him for barely any time at all but he'd bend over backwards to make that smile stay on Evan's face forever.

"Hi."

Evan's thumbs are playing with his belt loops, and his grin dimples his cheeks, and suddenly he's slightly less alarmed that he'd cobbled together a disaster of a three (four?) course meal like a crazy person.

Tommy wants to hand him his spare key back. He also wants to grab his key ring and add the spare to it, full eye contact going while he tucks it in between the truck key and his own house key. He wants to bite Evan's neck, and tug him into his chest and never let go, he wants -

"Smells good in here. Did you make something? You didn't have to make anything, I would have -."

"I wanted to," he manages, around the blinding flare of Evan's smile.

Tommy is cool as a fucking cucumber. Evan presses his lips to the junction of Tommy's jaw, darts around him before Tommy can reciprocate. Grabs two wine glasses from a cabinet and when Tommy turns to look at the broad expanse of his back, Evan has his head ducked bashfully, and Tommy can see the edges of his grin, the swell of his cheek in profile.

At least he's not alone in this, Jesus.

Evan pours them wine, fingers curling around Tommy's. He stares at the meager offerings on display, and Tommy can see him ticking off serving utensils in his mind. He doesn't say a word about the monstrosity that is a kale and Romano salad (???), just dances around Tommy again, wine glass balanced in his hand, to grab some dressing from the fridge.

"Hey, there are oven mitts in that top drawer, there, can you grab the lasagne? It's gluten free, Chin mentioned something about you avoiding it?"

Tommy contemplates sinking to his knees right there in front of his sad sack salad. Why hadn't he looked for ingredients for the caprese first?

Instead he pulls the lasagne out, lays it out across the wicker hot pads he'd set out earlier. The moment it's securely on the table, Evan presses fully against his back, and Tommy wonders if he should have stopped to get flowers. Or condoms.

Both, probably.

"Did you make me soup?" he asks, lips pressed to the knob of Tommy's spine.

"From what I hear you've had a rough day. Soup always makes a rough day better." He wishes his wine glass was still in his hand, and not next to the oven where he'd left it. He twists to face Evan and Evan gives up zero ground, toe to toe and a delighted little gleam in his eye Tommy knows is going to get him in trouble one day.

"Hi," Evan says, again, and Tommy curls a hand around his hip and drags him half an inch closer.

#sorry you can't tell me tommy isn't secretly an overthinker #also sorry for the terrible BE lyric title but not actually sorry #bucktommy #bucktommy fic #911 fic

[clubdionysus]

[BAD DECISION #37] Faking It

warnings: pleased be seated for THE JANITORS CLOSET hehe, and iconic chapter in the bd universe. seokjin! pregnancy scares! tittie worship, thigh riding, semi-public, a lil self-pleasure, multiple orgasms, kissing <33, cum in panties??, idk, one of my fave bd smut scenes and they don't even shag! there's a lot of plot in there. all the fave characters!! and the biggest villains!!

a/n: i figured out the wrong headers!! this header was actually the og 36 header and the og 37 header is what I used for 36 lol

also also also i knew i said there would be more updates tonight buuuut I finished write #60 today so I'm editing that instead hehe. there's a direct reference to something said in this chapter in #60!

wc: 18k

bd total wc: 540k (ongoing)

AO3 | MASTERLIST | MINORS DNI

In the quiet bustle of Jeongguk's favourite downtown cafe, Yoongi frowns.

"Are you even listening to me, Gguk?"

On the table sits a half-drunk coffee, the bitter taste a little too much for Jeongguk at this time in the morning. Notebooks open, pens scattered on the driftwood table, Jeongguk has spent the morning earnestly scrawling down revisions to his business plan.

The centrepiece of the table - a single white rose in a thin vase has been put on an empty seat. Just would have been in the way.

Also kind of made Jeongguk's blood boil, but he knows he shouldn't be irrationally angry at a fucking flower. A nice one at that. An expensive one.

Just like Seokjin had made sure to remind you on his calling card.

Happy Birthday, Darling. Exquisite roses for an exquisite girl. You can pretend they're from your new guy if you like - I'm sure he agrees you deserve the best that money can buy. All my love x

Stupid prick hadn't signed his name, but he has set a precedent. There's only one person who'd send you white roses. Not just a dozen. Not two dozen. Three fucking dozen. Thirty-six.

36 identical, soulless roses destined to die within a week or so, already embarking on their demise.

Danbi had snorted. "What's that? A rose for each time he cheated?"

You had smiled. Shook your head. "Think four dozen would be needed for that."

Jeongguk had been with you when you'd redistributed the roses to your CU ajumma aunties, and had to deal with their scrutinising eyes. Had smiled, and played nicely, even when they called Seokjin the 'handsome one'. As much as he might hate that tall mother fucker, he's got a pair of eyes. Knows he's a bloody god.

And so Jeongguk had moved the rose on his table out of sight before he even realised that he would need to.

The display of his iPad, which is still covered in your small fingerprints from lazy days wasted in his bedroom, has dimmed. It obscures the last revision of the plan. Hides it away from prying eyes.

A work in progress for years, now, he started planning for the samgyeopsal restaurant during his first semester of university. Had been a hypothetical project that he just hasn't been able to let go of. Like a first love, it kept coming back to the forefront of his mind.

For a little while - he's not sure how long; three, maybe four minutes - Jeongguk has been watching the beads of condensation sweat down the side of his glass. The straw, given to him by a barista with a warm smile and nothing else remotely interesting about her, lays beside the glass, still encased in its plastic wrapper.

He hears your voice and its tone of concern each and every time he raises the now-wet glass to his lips.

Careful, Koo. It'll hurt your teeth.

With every fabricated iteration of your concern, his mile-a-minute heart temporarily eases. For those scarce moments, it doesn't feel as if it'll burst straight out of his chest from the sheer exhausting stress of the unknown; His future. Yours. The one that you may or may not have together.

Funny how you're the main source of his stresses right now, and yet are the only thing able to ease them.

And so the straw remains as it is - still, untouched - just so he can pretend you care.

Dazed and most definitely confused when he looks up, Jeongguk's vacant eyes land on Yoongi. There's a frown on the older mans face, but a softness to his eyes.

"Hm?" Jeongguk hums. "Sorry?"

Sighing, Yoongi reaches for the straw that Jeongguk has so purposefully left discarded. Snaps the thin plastic wrapper apart. Reaches over and pushes the straw through a cluster of stubborn ice that just refuses to melt. Helps his friend in a way that makes total sense, and yet Jeongguk's mind is so jumbled up that it almost feels an attack.

It's him who frowns, now. Dimples form in the creases between his lips and cheeks, a thick line making itself known in the ridge between his eyes. Yoongi pays it no notice. Simply says, "Coffee'll stain your teeth. You'll thank me when you're older."

Perhaps he will. For now, Jeongguk's teeth are still pearly white. He's no need to worry about them.

"What wrong with you, huh?" Yoongi presses. "Spent all of last week badgering me to help you out, and now that I am, you've been a world away all morning. What gives?"

For all of the words that he could use to rabbit on about you for hours upon hours, they all seem to be stuck in his throat, dryly swallowed down like bitter pills sticking against his oesophagus.

To mention you now would be to admit that you occupy all vacancies inside his brain, in each and every waking moment. You're there in the moments he doesn't spend awake, too. A constant. Just as permanent as the glitter that's trapped between the woven threads of his cotton comforter, and as deeply embedded into him as the tattoos on his skin.

Pressing his lips together, piercing flipping in the corner of his mouth like it so often does, Jeongguk shrugs. "Sorry. Think my brain is shutting down."

If Yoongi suspects anything other than this as a viable excuse, he doesn't mention it. Just nods. Accept the white lie, and Jeongguk hopes he knows there's a white flag tied around it, too.

It's not that he wants to lie to Yoongi. He just doesn't want to be honest with himself.

Phone face down on the table, Jeongguk's device holds a whole host of contradictory search terms in his browser history. Questions he could probably ask Yoongi, but won't. Questions he should ask you, but most definitely won't.

Girlfriend - cause he figures it will bring back more results than fwb, or whatever else he could equate you to - missed her period, what should I do? Do girls miss periods often? Missed period, meaning, what? Having a baby with fwb, what now? Abortions? What if an abortion doesn't work? Is adoption good for the baby? How to be a single dad? What if only one person wants to keep it? What the fuck oenejoiegohhfo e.

The final result is still open in his browser. Was about three in the morning. Jeongguk had been sweating beneath his duvet, skin just as clammy as the condensation rings that have soaked into the wooden table from his iced coffee glass.

Nothing is confirmed. No test has been done - and yet he's thinking about where a playmat would fit in the living room, but also knows the name of the clinic downtown that would quickly and effectively prevent that from ever being his reality.

"We've made good progress," Yoongi tells Jeongguk. "Can take a break, if you like? Got a couple weeks till your meeting with the bank. Still got time."

There's no place in Jeongguk's business plan for a baby. He half wonders if maybe he should ask Yoongi where to factor it in. Knows better.

So instead, Jeongguk nods. "Yeah. Think that might be good. Sorry."

Yoongi just dismisses it. Tells Jeongguk it's fine, and really means it. Knows that trying to straighten out the fine details of a hypothetical business is harder than it would first appear. They've been troubleshooting; thinking of problems just for the sake of it. Making sure that Jeongguk's application for a business loan is airtight.

Of all of his friends, Yoongi is the only one who's ever been through anything similar. Is a fountain of knowledge with a wealth of experience that he's lucky enough to have access to.

Jeongguk half-thinks he must be mad for jumping in head first with this restaurant idea of his. Isn't sure he's got what it takes. Just knows he has to at least try, so he can say he can. So that even if he suffers the lows of failure, he will have experienced the highs of hope. Maybe even the uncharted territory of success.

"Could be a good idea to talk some things through with other people," Yoongi offers. "Someone in hospitality. Maybe DB. Get different scenarios neither of us have thought of yet."

Jeongguk doesn't need any more make-believe scenarios where you're involved. Has already thought of far too many all by himself.

But Yoongi doesn't know that, and Jeongguk would like to keep it that way. "Yeah. Maybe you're right."

It's this encouragement from Yoongi that has a text from Jeongguk pinging through to your phone a quarter of an hour later. Phone in your back pocket, you'll check the notification that buzzed quietly in a moment or so.

For now, you're locked in conversation with a woman who is both everything you fear and everything you want to be. Peachy-cheeked, with a crystal white smile and lips that are somehow perpetually glossed, Jina has been talking you through the upcoming event that Taehyung is showcasing for at the Ryu.

"I was really impressed - hold on," she huff a little through the strain of reaching across the desk for her file. You immediately get to your feet to help her out. Her peach cheeks are now pretty pink apples. She exhales a deep-rooted breath and plonks back into her own chair. Laughs at herself, and her inability to do even the simplest of tasks, then rests her hand adoringly over the incredibly large bump that protrudes from her stomach. Is appreciative as she says, "Thank you." Looks down to her bump, and laughs again. "Hurry up, now. Mummy has jobs to do."

The way Jina speaks to the little life that's growing inside of her makes you want to violently vomit. Not for disgust, or anything negative, but for the fact that you're terrified of a similar fate.

Well-put together, still in designer garments, Jina has her life together. Is the Lead Gallery Coordinator at the Ryu. Spent her twenties working her way up, only to land her spot at the top two weeks before she welcomed in her thirties. She's distinguished. Had worked damn hard to stay at the top, even when her assistant is consistently trying to fill the shoes she hasn't even taken off yet.

It's why she's still working, even when her due date is within touching distance. Will be damned if some jumped up twat that studied illustration at the expense of his wealthy parents, and has never actually produced an illustration worthy of any praise, ends up behind her desk. Perhaps she's jaded, and perhaps she's bitter that she never got an easy ride, but she did at least have passion - which is more than can be said for her assistant. The only reason she keeps him on is because his parents are benefactors of the gallery. Can't fire him, even if she wants to.

"Sorry," she smiles back up at you, then hums. Ponders. Pregnancy brain is not being kind to her these days. "Where was I?"

With a kind smile, you happily remind her. "You were saying you were impressed?"

"Ah, yes! I was. I am. With the both of you, actually. Kim Taehyung is producing art that actually entices people, which is a rarity these days. I'm surprised his portfolio wasn't passed onto me sooner."

Although when she considers her assistant, the surprise wanes.

"And you," she continues, then looks down to flick through the proposed show in the file you put together earlier that day. "You say you're just doing this part-time? As a favour?"

Nodding, you explain, "Taehyung's a friend, and this is my area of interest. Should have gone down this route straight after university, but you know what the industry is like."

With a pitiful smile, Jina nods. "No money in it unless you already have money."

It's no secret that the arts are a luxury for those who can afford them - not just the masterpieces themselves, but the time to indulge in them. Apprenticeships and internships pay poorly, so in order to get your foot on the ladder, you have to come from money. Have to be able to rely on parents, or aunts, or uncles to fund your living expenses while you live out your dreams.

Wasn't an option you'd had, so a compromise had been made in the form of the art cafe. It's minimum wage, but you do at least enjoy it and can pay the bills.

At such a point in her career where the money is good enough for her to never worry about finances, Jina's heart bleeds for you. From one creative to another, she wishes there was a way she could help.

"You've got everything I'd look for in an assistant," she tells you, and the compliment just serves to make you feel disappointed. Success has always been a goal of yours, and you regret not working harder towards it. The past year has taught you many things, but mainly it's reinforced the idea that you shouldn't spend time on things or people who don't enrich your heart.

And so you throw caution to the wind; chance a suggestion that you know is beyond your capabilities.

"Well, perhaps I could help out when you're on maternity leave?" You chance. Know that you don't have enough experience nor credentials to take on her role, but fuck it. What's the worst she could do? Say no? "Help keep things running smoothly?"

When Jina smiles, you know that rejection is coming your way - but at least you tried.

"No money in the job," she sighs. "The gallery director hasn't opened up a vacancy. My assistant is stepping up."

Even saying it out loud makes her blood boil - but she knows it's bad for the baby, so tries to cool it.

"I have a sneaky suspicion that they'll open up a vacancy in April. Maybe May. When it does, you'd be top of my list for recommendations," she offers. Knows that things are gonna fall apart without her there. The higher-ups won't realise what a fundamental error of judgement they've made until it's too late. "That if you'd be interested?"

You don't think you've ever been asked such a stupid question.

This is a lie.

You've spent time with the Dionysus boys. Have been asked a million questions than this one.

"Of course!" You enthuse. "I mean, I don't get me wrong, I love my job - but an opportunity like this would be... I don't even know," you laugh, unable to articulate yourself properly, so try simplicity. "Yes. Please. If that happens, please pass along my details."

She nods. Understands your excitement. Was in a very similar position, once upon a time. All it took was someone taking a chance on her. She'd like to do the same for you. Has seen your work ethic for an unpaid favour to a friend. Knows you wouldn't let her down.

"Now," she smiles, moving along the conversation as to not dwell on a situation that might never happen. "We're about a week out from the next show - has Taehyung finished the new piece? Any causes for concern?"

"Yes, and no," you assure her, even if it is a little lie.

Taehyung scrapped his piece last minute and has been in the studio ever since your birthday. Had a new wave of inspiration, apparently. Declared as such about twenty minutes after the knocking from Danbi's bedroom had eventually come to an end, so you dread to think of what this new piece could be like.

Still, you trust his creative process, so know that whatever he produces will be more than enough to satisfy the gallery execs.

The meeting runs smoothly; no hiccups to iron out. The subway ride back to the middle of town has to contemplate what life could be like had you met Taehyung earlier; if you could have a career to be proud of by now.

But there was no Taehyung without Jeongguk, and no Jeongguk without the devastating impact of Seokjin. Funny, how the entire time you were with Seokjin, he'd wished you had a better job. Lamented the minimum wage, and your irregular working hours. Would steer the direction away from what the pays the bills whenever you'd meet one of his friends, and they'd ask, 'what do you do for work?'. He'd never been proud, and so in turn, nor had you.

You wonder if he'd be proud now. It's bittersweet.

And as you arrive at Jeongguk's favourite cafe and spot him immediately - chin in his palm, a soft pout on his lips, papers scattered all over his table - you're the one who feels proud.

Seeing the ones you love chase their dreams is a special sort of pride. One that makes your heart swell. So much potential. So much hope.

Ordering up fresh drinks before you head over, there's a thick tension in the air. Jeongguk doesn't even realise you're here yet. Is too consumed with thoughts of you, like the idiot he is. Thoughts you, and his future, and how he doesn't know how to plan anything when he doesn't know what life will look like a year from now.

He clocks you as you're confirming the order with the barista. A hot flash of panic disrupts his body, but it cools just as quickly. Fucks with his body temperature regulation. Makes him feel all clammy and horrible despite the aircon in the cafe.

There's a smile on your lips, and Jeongguk finds one on his, too. There's a shine to his eyes that only glitters whenever you're nearby, and it's noticeable all the way from across the cafe.

Coffees in hand, clothes remarkably formal for a day off, Jeongguk narrows his eyes as you approach.

"What have you been up to?" he queries instead of greeting you properly, not caring for small-talk. Wants to know the big stuff. His brain has been cruel to him today. Hopes you can help remedy it slightly.

"Gallery," you simply say, taking the seat beside him.

There are four chairs at the table. Yoongi had been sitting opposite Jeongguk. You could have chosen to sit there, too.

He doesn't mention it.

"Everything going alright?" He asks, reaching over for his coffee with a small, appreciative smile. "Thanks."

"All good, I think," you say, sucking a little air between your teeth.

He cocks a brow. "You don't sound convinced."

With a bit of a defeated shrug, you purse your lips together. "I just..."

The way you trail off is all too familiar. Jeongguk's used to it. Has been a while since you struggled to find your words so badly.

"Big girl words," he teases softly, which earns him a small laugh from you.

"Fuck off," you smile, then shake your head to realign your thoughts. "No, I just... Sorry. Did it again. I just don't know how sustainable this all is, yanno?"

Jeongguk doesn't say a word. Knows that you aren't done formulating just yet - and when you sigh, before launching into a little ramble, he's proven right.

"I mean, I'm already a shift down this week to help with prep, and next week I've had to book two days off work. And like, honestly, it's fine," you stress. "I enjoy it so much, but long term? When Tae's shows get bigger and bigger? I just dunno, Gguk. Dunno."

You want it to be long-term. Never knew it was something you wanted until you realised maybe you can't have it. Seem unattainable now in a way that you knew before you started helping Taehyung out. The thing so wonderful about dreams is that you fool yourself into thinking they can come true. You neglect rational thinking.

Confronted with the restraints of the industry, it's hard to ignore. Hard to pretend like you could still have it, if you really want it. Things like that don't happen for people like you.

"Well just wait until I get the restaurant going," he smiles, knowing he doesn't have a solution for you - but that he does have the ability to talk about the future with you in a way that doesn't feel all that terrifying. "When I'm super successful and have queues out the door, I'll hire you. Will pay you above minimum wage and let you work with Tae on the side."

"Oh yeah?" You grin, enthused by the childlike excitement in his sparkly eyes. "Gonna be a big hot shot restaurant owner?"

"I'll have you know, I'll be the CEO," he nods his head smugly.

"Oh, that's sexy," you tell him.

"I know."

You hum a little and then decide that a little flirt is okay. "Would be kinda hot, fucking the boss, wouldn't it?"

He raises a brow. Swipes his tongue along his bottom lip, wetting his lip ring as he toys with it. "Would be a HR nightmare."

"Would give me a reason to call you Sir."

"Don't," he smiles, eyes closing, teeth showing. Sweetness encapsulates him despite the stickiness of the scenario that's playing out inside his head right now. Shakes his head. Slowly opens his eyes to find you again. Laughs. "You're fuckin' trouble, Byeol."

"S'why you like me."

"True," he admits rather shamelessly. Doesn't fancy denying it today. Not to himself. Not to you. Not to the world around him.

The air between you gets thinner. Feels like you can only keep breathing if you keep your eyes on one another. Up, and up you go into the atmosphere. Any higher, and you'll be in the fucking stars.

"I hate to ask..." Jeongguk murmurs and you immediately feel your floating soul crash back down to earth. The stars are off-limits today. Your feet must remain firmly on the ground.

"Then don't," you say sharply, not wanting the conversation to go in the direction you know he's steering it in.

"Byeol," he simply reprimands, knowing that it's a conversation that needs to be had. "You've not given me any updates."

"'Cause there's been nothing to report back," you say, as if it's no big deal; as if you haven't spent every waking moment thinking about it. As if your daydreams aren't getting more and more concerning. "I've skipped a month. That's all. It's not that uncommon."

"Well, according to WebMD, apparently some women get periods even when they are pregnant - like, certified, tested, proven true pregnant," Jeongguk states, his late-night research coming to the forefront of his mind. "That's not supposed to happen. Just like you're not supposed to miss your periods when you're not pregnant-"

"Gguk," you plead. "It's not that linear. All sorts of things affect periods."

"I know," he replies, and bless his heart, he really does think he knows. "Stress, eating habits, exercise, medical issues - I've read, like, 6 articles about PCOS in the last 24 hours. Didn't even know what it was last week."

You're fond as you smile over at him. "Why have you been reading PCOS articles?"

" Because ," he stresses, but gives no immediate follow up. Looks over to you with pleading eyes, like a puppy dog waiting for scraps. "Look B, I don't know what's going on. You won't tell me what's going on. The best I can do is try and understand."

"I've told you, Gguk. It's fine. Please. Just trust me."

It's a naive ask, for him to trust you, when you don't even trust yourself.

"Will you please just take a test?" He asks. "The longer it takes, the less options you'll have. We'll have."

You know he's right. Know that there's a test waiting in your bedroom, and that you've spent hours looking at because you're terrified of a result. A positive result, that is.

You won't admit to the way that the idea of a negative result makes you feel. Not to Jeongguk, nor to yourself. It's not what you want. You know that it wouldn't fit into your life. You know that the idea of being in Jina's position would wreck any goals or plans for your life.

And then you're feeling defensive. Pressured. Overwhelmed.

"Look, I said it's fine," you insist, trying to reassure not only him, but yourself too. "I know my body. It just does this sometimes. If anything, I'm probably less fertile than I should be."

"Yeah, but you don't know that-"

"And you don't know that I'm not."

"B, this affects us both," Jeongguk says, his patience waning, tone firming. He's right.

"I know that!" You snap back, 'cause it feels like he's backing you into a corner. "You think I'm not aware? Gguk, if I am-" you refuse to say the word, then quieten your voice. Look around. Get a little closer. "If I am , then I'm the one who has to deal with it. I'm the one who has to live with it. I'm the one who has to experience it."

"Oh what, so suddenly I play no part in this?" He argues right back, but keeps his voice quiet. Mirrors you. Is right there in the corner with you. If this is a boxing match, then he's not your opponent; he's the coach giving you water in the break and patching you up. There's no need to see him as the enemy. "I'm not just some random fucking guy, B. I'm not about to jump ship."

"Okay, hypothetical," you say, encouraging him to use his imagination a little. Try and see things how you see them. "It's positive. I don't want it, you do. Then what? What do we do?"

He's silent for a moment. Looks a little defeated as he shrugs. Doesn't look at you. "We'd get rid."

And even though it's what you think is the correct answer - putting priority on the carrier of the child - it still makes you a little sad. There are layers to such a decision. It's not straightforward. The complexities are beyond what you're capable of considering. There is no 'correct' answer. There are just choices; the one that you take, and the ones that you don't.

It's a curse how vivid your imagination can be; how you can imagine the rough skin by the tips of his fingers as he'd hold your hand in the waiting room, the look in his eyes as you turn to steal a glance at him before going through a pair of double doors that would ultimately change the outcome of your future, and the sterile scent of a medical facility that you'd really rather never visit.

You can picture his smile; pretty but ever so weak. Gorgeous little lies of 'it's okay' wrapped up with bows that could have maybe one day been tied in a child's hair instead.

Pull yourself together, you scold yourself. You don't even want a kid!

"If I were to get rid of it, while you wanted it... Gguk, you would resent me for what I took from you until the day you died," you say solemnly.

The gravity of it all is setting in. A positive result would ruin your lives regardless of whichever option you choose.

The pair of you have been gambling, and it seems like your luck is out.

"I wouldn't," Jeongguk frowns.

"How do you know?"

"Well how can you be certain that I would?" he counters. Is desperately trying see your point of view, but it's obscured by his own opinion on the matter. "Look, none of this is worth us getting worked up about until we know what the fuck we're dealing with. You might not even be pregnant."

He's right. You know he's right. The word makes your stomach lurch regardless.

So you nod, but plead, "Just give me a little time. Please."

He agrees. Knows that you do at least have a little more time before any certain decisions would need to be made. Walks you home. Tells you to keep him updated.

But then one day turns into two, then three, then four - and before you know it, you're ignoring one another, trying to pretend like all of this isn't happening; as if nothing has changed, and as if you haven't potentially fucked it all up just 'cause you couldn't stop messing about.

It's laughable, really. Your insatiable need to fuck one another has become its own form of birth control. Jeongguk isn't even waking up hard these days. Too stressed. No worry of fucking, now. Dick seems to be broken.

In all reality, he knows that it's nothing to do with his cock. He's not waking up hard, 'cause there's a lack of blood flow. Heart isn't pumping it like it normally does. Goes with the territory of not having you around.

But if he acknowledges that, he acknowledges everything he stands to lose before he's even had a chance to have it. Have you .

It's what he's thinking of now - cock limp, scowl hard - the night before Taehyung's art show. It's been five days. You've not kept him updated. He's not asked for updates.

You've both been pathetic - but he's attributing it to you. Thinks you're deliberately being childish so that he won't think having a kid is a good idea - as if he even wants them right now.

Sitting on the couches of Taehyung's studio space, the usual suspects are up to nothing much. Just having a few drinks the night before the show. It's a bit of ritual - nothing set in stone, just kind of what happens. The easing of Taehyung's nerves means he always wants to indulge.

Stewing in the corner like a little parasite, Jeongguk's face of thunder hasn't eased all evening. He never gives a straight answer when he's asked about these little moods of his, so no one has bothered to press too hard. He is at least in attendance - which is more than can be said for you.

"It really doesn't matter," Taehyung smiles, unphased by Jeongguk, stroking Danbi's back as she scrolls through her phone, looking for outfit inspiration.

"Yeah, no offence Danbi, but everyone's gonna be looking at the art," Jimin mumbles through a mouthful of overpriced breadsticks. "No one is gonna care what you wear."

Rolling her eyes, Danbi doesn't care for his opinion. "So? I want people to look at me, which is why my outfit needs to good."

Still stroking her back, Taehyung is so incredibly fond of her unwavering self-assured place in the world. "People will be looking at you," he supports her. "What's DB wearing?"

Flicking through to your message thread, which had ended earlier that afternoon with a very blatant bullshit excuse for your lack of attendance, Danbi scrolls up to find the picture you'd sent her earlier that day.

"Oh, it's nice," Taehyung downplays it. Knows exactly why Danbi is desperate to find something showstopping. Will never let her be aware of this, though. What he does do, is make sure it reaches the right people. "She shown you, Gguk?"

The grunt that Jeongguk makes is barely audible. If there's one thing he doesn't want to see right now, it's you. Especially you looking all fancy and shit.

He's still annoyed. You haven't spoken to him since your fight other than to send him dumb instagram reels. Rabbits hopping about. Shit like that. He smiles every damn time and it only serves to piss him off even more.

But, like the true nuisance she is, Danbi forwards the picture through to Jeongguk. She hasn't heard directly from you that you're fighting with Jeongguk, but anyone who has spent time with the both of you in the last few days will be able to figure it out.

Jeongguk knows better than to click through on the notification. Knows that if you wanted him to know what you're wearing, you would have shown him.

But he misses you.

Wants to see you, even if he knows it will only serve to annoy him even more.

He's proven right.

Standing in front of your mirror - the one used for your first selfie with the bird necklace on Christmas Eve, and also used for your own sadistic pleasure on that very first evening Jeongguk learned what it felt like to be yours - you're in a black dress.

Satin, he thinks. Something silky. It's short, like your dresses so often are, cutting off midway down your thighs. Fitted. Sweetheart neckline that blooms over the top of your chest, with sleeves that follow this same structured line. Shoulders fully exposed, there is a small tickle of satisfaction when Jeongguk notices your bird sitting prettily in place, right where it should be.

Even if you are annoyed, like he knows you are, you're keeping him close. It's more than can be said for last time. You've no intention of pushing him away or so it would seem. He takes comfort in this, a self-indulgent smile on his lips - until he realises and flattens them once more.

"S'fine," he just says as he locks his phone, as if his heart isn't beating all irregularly. "I'm sure she'll look nice."

Danbi glances over to Taehyung, who just rolls his eyes, and encourages her to show him more of her own options.

Jeongguk pretends to scroll through his phone. Is really just looking at that picture of you again. Hates the way it makes him feel. All fuzzy and out of sync. Perfectly safe and yet terrified all in the same fleeting moment.

Has him thinking about what he should wear, too, even if the other boys are telling Danbi that it really doesn't matter.

You look so well put together, he thinks. So intentionally gorgeous. He would say unintentionally , and knows you'd look just as gorgeous in one of his old shirts, but is well aware that you've put effort in. It should be appreciated.

It's decided - at two-thirty in the morning, all alone by himself, contents of his wardrobe piled onto the floor - that Jeongguk will also be wearing all black.

He will match you. It will be intentional. He will hope you notice.

'Cause even if he is a little pissed off with you, it doesn't matter. Had grown up with parents who'd bicker, but would always say 'there's no one else I'd rather argue with.'

He thinks the same could be said for the pair of you.

If your worst fears are confirmed, and you're forever tied to him, then it's something you'll need to learn to navigate. Neither of you are perfect, but neither of you are pretending to be. You're showing him exactly who you are by showing him nothing at all, right now.

And he adores you all the fucking same.

Jeongguk decides on black slacks, and will pair them with a thick belt. A satin shirt will be tucked in, unbuttoned just enough for a little bit of his chest to show. Nothing too indecent. Just wants to match your neckline.

The jacket he's chosen is red. Hopes it'll dare you to look at him, and prevent you from ever looking away. He's being bold, 'cause he stupidly thinks he needs to be, as if you won't be searching for solace in the form of him all night.

He also thinks he needs to consider the kind of man you want . The kind you need . You seem to go for the prim types. The proper. Well-dressed, well-groomed. He's got the outfit sorted. Knows he's being a little risky with the lack of a top button and tie, but he also knows he looks good - so fuck it.

Which is also what he says to his barber on the morning of the show.

"You've been growing it out for a while," she hums. Only re-permed it a couple of weeks ago. Hadn't been expecting him to come for a walk-in appointment so soon.

He shrugs. "Fuck it. It's just hair. It'll grow back."

She laughs, and tells him that he's right - but double-checks before she goes in with the clippers. He's not had anything so close to the scalp in about a year. Started growing it out around the same time you started showing up to the bar.

He braces himself. Grits his teeth. Don't let fear get the better of you.

"I'm sure."

Time stands still within the walls of the Ryu. Moments of life - fleeting expressions of biased emotions - are preserved for voyeuristic viewing pleasure. You're a guilty participant. Salivate over the mixed media, and equally mixed messages. Have a desire to understand. To decipher. To know.

The walls are dark. Slate grey when the floodlights are on, they look black under the diffused bulbs that focus solely on the works.

'Unplugged: The Lonely Hearts of the Digital Age' reads the exhibition branding on the front of the paper guide in your hand. There's an evocative nature to the pieces; an exploration of intimacy and isolation in the modern landscape of smartphones and high-speed internet.

"Oh, entirely," you smile pleasantly at the gentleman twice your age, who had come to stand beside you while you had been observing some of the work. He's been asking your thoughts, and you've been bullshitting spectacularly. "In a world where we're more connected than ever before, there somehow seems to be this... disconnect . A real lack of interpersonal relationships that stand the test of time."

He nods, half-moon glasses resting across the bridge of his short nose. "Too easy these days. Dating apps, and whatnot."

You cast your eyes down to the fingers he has wrapped around a champagne flute. He's without a ring. You wonder if he's a victim to them, too.

"The grass is greener mentality," you agree. Know all too well what it's like to be on the receiving end of such a dilemma. "Always searching for something... more."

A small chuckle emits from his thin lips as he continues to agree.

One of the serving staff, no older than a high school senior, offers their tray of champagne in your direction, but you decline. It's unusual of you - but it's no secret you've not been feeling exactly 'usual' lately.

From across the room, Jeongguk glances in your direction as you shake your hand and head, a polite smile on your lips as you refuse a drink. Your eyes don't flash to his, but he doesn't need them to.

When your gaze falls back to the artwork in front of you, he can easily see your perplexion.

He also notices how your skin doesn't sparkle like it usually does beneath gallery lights. A tight frown forms on his face to match yours.

The paintings you're looking at aren't Taehyung's. Jeongguk doesn't know the artist. Oil, he assumes from this distance. Hyperrealism. Enlarged. A matching pair with stark differences.

The first, to the left, is dark. Navy blues and deep purples depict the foils of condom wrappers, each with a name and date scrawled into them. They're scattered atop what looks like a legal document.

He can't work out the words from where he is. Doesn't realise they're divorce papers.

None of the wrappers match the name of the document, yet all of the wrappers are dated during the duration of the marriage.

On the right hand side, the other painting is clearly part of the same collection. A packet of oral contraception. 28 days worth. Includes the placebo days. Like the condoms, each empty window of the contraception has a name. Some repeating. Some not. There are no names written during the placebo week.

It begs the question; is the taker of the contraception just using the men when it's convenient for her? Or are they just using her when it's convenient for them, and leaving her in the dust when her body is unavailable?

You're not sure which scenario makes you sadder. Reminds you of this time last year. Reminds you of Seokjin. Reminds you of the people that you used to forget about him on the lonely nights.

If you were to think about your own pills, and the names that would inscribed, you know you'd have packet after packet with only one name. Everyday of the week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, every night. Over the placebo days, too.

Not because Jeongguk has been fucking you all day every day - although sometimes it does feel like that. No. It's not that all.

Instead, it would be because he gives you the intimacy you need to make those pills worth it. He doesn't have to constantly be in bed with you. Quite often isn't. It's just that you'll keep taking those pills 'cause you always want to be available for him in any capacity you can be. Those pills are his just as much as they are yours.

And you hate it.

Hate that you feel this way. Hate that indulging in such intimacy with the person you hold closest has resulted in such a clusterfuck of emotions. Hate that he isn't beside you right now, deciphering the names and making up ridiculous stories about the fictional people in front of you. Hate that when you glance over to his direction, you find him engaged in conversation with a group of people you consider friends, only to notice that Hayun is there, too.

Your arms fold a little tighter into your chest as your eyes fall back on the painting. You're alone, now, the man who had been chatting with you also now distracted by associates.

"Hey," a soft, feminine voice sounds next to you. Seoyeon. Hair loose, but with pretty little plaits running through it, she's wearing white trousers and a fitted blazer. Looks demure as ever. "You okay?"

A simple question that calls for a simple answer - yet it feels all rather complex.

You nod. Say you are. Return the question. She returns your answer.

"Gosh, that's depressing," she says of the artwork, and it makes you laugh. She's not wrong.

"Makes you feel something, at least," you offer, to which she hums in agreement.

"I suppose - but I was feeling perfectly happy before I saw it," she giggles, nudging your shoulder, seemingly aware of your less-than-stellar mood. "Watcha doing over here all alone?"

It's a great question. Fantastic question. Devastating answer.

Oh, so I've been fucking Jeongguk for months and he's convinced himself that I'm carrying his spawn and now he's mad at me because I haven't done the test to confirm nor deny. Oh why? Why I haven't done it? 'Cause it'll change the trajectory of my whole entire life and I'm fucking terrified. And I skip periods all the time. No biggie.

Now isn't the time for such honesties, though.

"Just wanted to read all the names," you say, nodding towards the art.

"See any you recognise?"

"Well, there is a Jimin on the first Wednesday," you grin.

"Why am I not surprised," Seoyeon laughs. "Our very own Casanova. Oh - speak of the devil!"

"Devil?" Jimin questions as he approaches you both with fresh champagne flutes in either hand. "Me? Please. You both know I'm an angel."

The way you incredulously both raise your eyebrows at him, bemused smirks on your faces, would suggest that no, you don't 'know' he's an angel.

"Oh, piss off," he laughs, standing between you both, offering you the champagne flutes. When you decline, he's curious. "Oh? Dry night?"

Nodding, you decide that you'll give as few answers as possible when it comes to your lack of drinking - not that it matters, given how much you've abused your body with star fuckers in recent weeks. Any damage is already, inevitably done.

"One of us needs to be the sensible one," you joke, and ignore the burning gaze you can feel from across the room.

His stare is sweltering, like early May heat after a freezing spring, regardless of the cool air that's currently circulating around the room.

It's stuffy, the way his eyes follow you. Suffocating.

And yet you love the warmth. Want evidence of him on your skin like the burn of a summer sun.

Turning your head as Seoyeon and Jimin natter, you're surprised to find his shamelessly dark eyes still on you.

Hair pushed back, he's wearing it shorter than usual. It takes you a moment to realise it's been cut. You think a part of you dies from such a devastating loss - but it's revitalised within the same millisecond. It's criminal how handsome he looks. How mature he seems. Jaw tense, bone structure highlighted, he's a vision. Heaven. Ethereal.

Matching your all black attire, there's one keen difference. One that throws you off entirely: his jacket. It's one you've never seen before. Red. A kaleidoscope of different tones. Dappled, they bleed into one another. You can tell it's expensive. Tell it's being worn with a purpose.

It's unusual for him, and yet he holds a beauty that can only be compared to that of Venus herself. The jacket was made for him.

But you don't like the idea that maybe actually it was made for him, by the only seamstress you know. See no other reason for him to own such an item.

Stupidly, it upsets you how good red looks on him. Pisses you off.

Across the circle of people he stands with is the seamstress herself.

Just as you match him with your silky black dress, she matches him with her scarlet nails and deep ruby cocktail number. Gorgeous in the way that her hair effortlessly waves over her shoulders, she pays your judgemental eyes no notice.

They look good together. Like they belong. A good girl. Upper class. Bad boy. Her bit of 'rough'. Jeongguk likes a good Romeo and Juliet type story. You're sure he loves the romanticisation of their coupling.

So caught up in your own head, you almost miss the way Jimin deliberately chooses to include you in on the conversation once more. Just asks your opinion on the piece, then asks if you know the artist. He wants to check that he's not the Jimin scrawled into the pill packet.

"I'll find out," you promise him - but you're certain he's not. Park Jimin isn't exactly the most unique of names, but you don't want to hurt his ego.

"Legend," he grins, before roping Namjoon in for his opinion on whether or not it's his name.

"It's nothing to be proud of," Namjoon assure him. "If it's you, you're being branded as a hit it and quit it kinda guy. You're only on there once. Most of them are on their a few times. You not good enough for round two?"

Scoffing, Jimin looks to you for defence.

You just smile. Make your excuses and leave. Bless him.

As beautiful as the show is, there's a sadness to it. It revives unpleasant memories. Provokes parts of your brain that have been well trained to not make a noise.

Schmoozing with some of the higher ups from Shilla finances, you're going for the hard sell. Telling them all about Taehyung, and how he's hotly tipped to be one of the most successful artists of this generation.

It's all bullshit, of course, but someone has to have that title. Why shouldn't it be him?

"He certainly does have a gift," one of the older men acknowledges. His name evades you now, but you remember him from networking events with Seokjin. Would always treat the serving staff with kindness, which is more than could be said for most of them. It's the only reason you're entertaining the conversation - the other men you recognise from those events have been avoided by you at all costs.

You're about to call Taehyung over, when the looming intrusion of a bowing gentleman makes itself known in your personal space. It's his presence you notice first. Aftershave second. Stoic, burly voice third.

"Director Choi," he interjects from behind you. "It's good to see you here."

Smiling, with just as much kindness as he shows to everyone, Choi nods back. "Kim Seokjin! I didn't realise you'd be here tonight."

"Ah, well," Seokjin smiles. You can hear it in his tone, even if you daren't turn to face him. Your skin suddenly chills as his large hands rest over the tops of your bare shoulders. "Was back in town, and couldn't miss it. You're speaking with the city's best curator."

The way he squeezes your shoulders, skin on skin, makes you want to be sick. It's as if you've had far too much of the champagne you've been turning down all evening - but your stomach is empty. All you'd be able to do is gag.

Yet your body is entirely frozen.

And neither of the men care enough to notice.

"It's quite the collection," Choi nods, but doesn't keep his focus on you. Like the serving staff, he's always polite to you, but will always see you as a second-class citizen. You're not a man. He doesn't respect you. As human? Yes, he does. But as a person? Why would he waste his time if he can't profit off of you? "Tell me Seokjin, how have you been? I hear your department is up by 3.7% this week?"

The conversation around you is stuffy, like that sticky summer heat clinging to your skin once more. It's unpleasant, but inescapable. There's nothing you can do, except let it ruin you.

One breath in; through the nose. One breath out; through the mouth.

Repeat.

One breath in; through the nose. One breath out; through the mouth.

There's a squeeze of Seokjin's hands; a silent instruction to not move your shoulders so much.

Half a breath in. Half a breath out.

You've an inability to focus on anything other than basic survival.

In the times you've seen Seokjin since the breakup, he's always been so good at acting as if it never happened. He touches you just the same. Speaks with just as much fondness that always made you think you actually meant something to him.

For so long, you wished he would be like that with you in public. Would proudly claim you as his own.

But now that he is, all you want is for him to look at you with remorse. Regret.

Sort of like Jeongguk is doing, as he spots you from across the room. Was just doing his quarter-of-an-hourly checks to make sure you're still okay - even if he is annoyed with you. Thinks that anyone who has ever spent even a smidgeon of time with you should know that the look in your eyes is far from okay.

They're downcast. To the floor. Your nostrils flare ever so gently as you inhale. Mouth forms a delicate pout as you exhale. Breathing exercises. He recognises them instantly. They're the same ones Jeongguk does when he's frustrated and trying his damn hardest to not break another display case.

It's been working lately. Not a permanent fix, no, but it's been going okay. Has finally been reading one of Namjoon's self-help books that's been on his bedside table for months. Fills the time that should be spent on you doing that, instead.

But Jeongguk thinks all of his hard work might just go down the fucking drain when he realises what's happening. When he notices exactly who has a possessive grip on you. When, from across the room, he hears Seokjin laughing at some vapid joke that he knows mustn't be even remotely funny.

"Hey, Dan," he calls over to your best friend, breaking her from her conversation with Taehyung. When she looks at Jeongguk, she follows the direction in which he nods.

She gasps. Drops her hold on Taehyung's forearm, and doesn't hesitate to beeline straight for you.

Jeongguk knows it should have been him - but he also knows you're stubborn. Knows you might have chosen to stay put just to spite him. Also knows that stress if bad for the body. Says so in another one of those webMD tabs open on his phone. You're stressed enough as it is. Don't need him causing a scene. Danbi is what you need right now.

Not him.

But he needs air - so heads out towards the stairwell and just keeps on going up. Up and up, until there's nowhere left to go. Closer and closer to the stars. Further and further away from his very own.

Elbows resting on the wall of the rooftop, Jeongguk lets a deep-rooted sigh exhale from his body. Lungs heavy in his chest, he's in need of respite - yet even that seems like an unattainable goal these days.

He wishes to be back in Busan; where the sun shines and so do you.

The darkness of the city envelopes him, now, much like it obscures his heart. Confuses it. Tells him all sorts of lies. She loves you. She loves you not. She loves you. She loves you not. He's not sure what's the truth, anymore.

He's not plucked at daisy petals since he was a kid, but he does occasionally pull glitter from his skin. That's when the rhyme repeats. That's how he knows he only has space in his heart for you.

And so when the bustling sound of the city is interrupted by a voice that isn't yours, he frowns.

"Watcha doing up here, buddy?"

The roll of Jeongguk's eyes is so damn weighted he's surprised it doesn't sound like stones are being turned. Of all the people he wants to be alone with right now, Hayun would be towards the bottom of the list. Likely beaten only by your shitbag of an ex.

"Needed some air," he lies. Doesn't look at her as she takes the space beside him, then shuffles over a little. Doesn't wanna touch her. The intrusion of her perfume is enough to make him feel sick. Has done ever since she approached him in the courtyard of Dionysus.

"Could have gone for a smoke with Tae," she says all rather pleasantly.

Jeongguk is well aware of this. Truth be told, he could do with a cigarette. Could do with many things right now.

Could do with a few shots, or even a high. MDMA, maybe. Something that'll have him thinking death is inevitable before he manages to reach his come up. Could spend the whole night pinging. Wouldn't have to think about you, or your ex, or the fact his heart already feels like it's got a little ecstasy running through it these days.

But you're not drinking, and so Jeongguk isn't smoking. Is finally actually trying to make some good decisions for a change, to atone for all of his questionable ones.

He shakes his head. Bunches his face up ever so slightly. Is dismissive as he simply says, "Didn't fancy it."

Just like he doesn't fancy engaging in this conversation.

She nods, pretending to care. Fabricating a persona that matches how awfully pretty she is. "You don't seem like yourself."

Mentally, Jeongguk sneers. Physically, he remains unchanged. Statuesque.

"You've been saying that ever since you came back," he eventually sighs. Looks over to her. Doesn't mean to be so cold, but frankly no longer has the patience. "You can't fuck people over and expect them to welcome you back with open arms. Doesn't work like that, Yun."

Hayun's laugh is parasitic. Gets under his skin. Crawls about. Makes him feel sick. His body rejects it.

"She's inside your head," is all she says. "Never used to be like this before she came around."

In the far distance, a police siren sounds. It's swallowed up by the fumes of rattling exhaust pipes and the posing arrival of planes from foreign lands. In a city that never rests, Jeongguk thinks it mad that Hayun expected him to remain exactly as he was.

Doesn't even register what she says about you. Pays it no attention.

"I don't wanna keep doing this, Hayun," Jeongguk says quietly.

It's strange, because he knows it's the 'right' thing to do, but it still doesn't feel entirely correct.

Years of knowing her - of loving her - have been reduced to nothing but resentment and wasted time. Everything he experienced with her equates to emptiness. The good - of which there was plenty - and the bad - of which there was marginally more.

"What do you mean?" she asks, as if she doesn't already know.

"I don't wanna pretend like we're still friends," he simply states. "It's doing nobody any favours."

It's something he should have said a long time ago. Something he's known for far longer than he's wanted to admit. Something Jimin has been telling him for years.

"Gguk," she tries, and reaches out for his hand - but Jeongguk tears it away from her.

"No," he reaffirms. Is setting boundaries. Is being as firm with her as he wishes you'd be with Seokjin. He keeps his voice measured. Sensible. Wastes no more energy than is needed. "I'll be perfectly cordial with you, but I'm not gonna act like we're anything more than strangers. Said it yourself, you don't know who I am these days. Please stop trying to find whoever you think I used to be."

"So I guess the marriage pact is vetoed?" She tries to joke. Thinks that making light of the situation will ease things. Make them less awkward.

He doesn't dignify her with a direct response to that. Instead, he stands a little straighter. Taps his ringed fingers against the wall so that a clunky pat sounds against the urethane coating that covers the entire roof area. Turns to face her. Looks down upon her. "I'm asking you nicely, Hayun - but if I have to ask again, I won't be."

There's nothing she can say to reel him back in. Not anymore. Not like she used to. She knows this. Hates this.

But one thing Hayun refuses to ever do is embarrass herself. Not for a man. Especially not for one she didn't even want that badly in the first place.

That's exactly the issue at hand, though. He was always the one chasing her. Always. Must have worn through a hundred pairs of shoes in pursuit of her - but he's stopped running now, and she can't quite wrap her head around it.

"Okay," she simply says. Smiles. It's insincere. Jeongguk doesn't realise this, 'cause it looks like every other fuckin' smile she's ever cast his way. "Look, emotions are high. I won't take this to heart. Whenever you're ready, you know where to find me."

Glancing over to the door, Hayun's ruby-red lips falter. Her smile almost cracks, but she holds herself well.

"Oh, goodie," Hayun hums. "Suppose I should leave you to it."

Jeongguk doesn't follow her gaze. Knows that there's only one person who could evoke such a reaction - and right now, he's annoyed with you, too.

He does, at least, say, "I suppose you should."

It's not until Hayun begins to strut away that Jeongguk turns to the door. Not to watch her walk away, no.

To watch you walk towards him, instead - but you don't.

You stay leant against the door frame. There's a sultry smile on your lips, and he's surprised to see they move a little as Hayun approaches. He can't hear you, but he knows your lips almost better than he knows his own. Can work out exactly what you're saying.

Lipstick's a little smudged.

Jeongguk knows that it absolutely is not - but the way Hayun's hand lifts to her lips suggests that she doesn't know this.

It's evident you're trying to evoke some sort of insecurity in her. Seems to have worked. Also seems to be incredibly mean-spirited - but he's not gonna hold it against you. Knows that it's the least Hayun deserves. It's not like he was exactly kind to Seokjin upon meeting him, either.

The sounds of the city echo out around you as a small breeze carries the scent of the trees that are finally starting to rebloom after a harsh winter. There's hope to be found in the darkness of this night. The promise of rebirth.

Or at least there is, until you begin to make excuses to leave.

"Just came up for some air," you explain, not looking to engage in conversation with him. If anything, you just feel like you're losing your breath.

He nods. Purses his lips. Turns away from you. Hopes you'll come to join him.

There's a you-sized spot right beside him. Hayun had tried forcing her way in, but the fit just wasn't right.

His broad shoulders widen as his elbows rest back upon the wall, body silhouetted in the skyline. Something about him today feels so new. So different. Maybe it's just the hair - but hair holds history. You feel like he's cut you out of his. Is starting afresh, maybe.

Whatever the case, he's clearly not concerned in inviting you into his current narrative. Is quite literally blocking you out.

You had arrived to find him locked in conversation with Hayun. Engaged. He'd watched her walk away, and the moment she was gone, couldn't stand the sight of you, or so it seems.

And so as Jeongguk waits - wishes - for you to walk towards him and slink your arm around his waist, you decide to cut your losses. Hadn't even come up to the roof to see him. Had been hoping to be alone after the whole Seokjin debacle.

It's not like you hadn't known Seokjin would be in attendance tonight.

He had messaged you to confirm the date. You just hadn't expected him to waltz in like a proud partner, parading you around in front of his colleagues.

So yeah, you had been shocked. Had been unable to respond in a way that accurately conveyed how you felt. Had panicked. Had cried in the storage room that Danbi had dragged you into while she gave you a pep talk and wiped away your stray tears, before suggesting you get some air.

You wonder if perhaps she knew Jeongguk would be here. Seems likely, knowing her.

Your lip trembles as you go to speak, unspoken words vibrating between them. There's no sound. Just the city. The cars, and the revellers from a bar a few blocks down. Jazz music echoing up the stairs to the rooftop, too.

And then there's Jeongguk's voice. Quiet. Controlled. Commanding.

"The first bird," he says. Looks down as he does so. Builds his confidence, then turns around to look at you. Is displeased to see your body facing away from him now, about to walk away - as if you hadn't instantly turned your head to look at him. "The first one. We went to the water park. Some guy looked at you in a way you didn't like, and you went straight on over and told him to stop being a perv. Remember?"

Of course you do.

But you say nothing. Do nothing. Just turn your body. Let him know you're listening. He continues.

"You know your limits, B. You know your boundaries."

You nod, now. Still stay silent.

Jeongguk's jaw grates, tongue pressing against the inside of his cheek. You're avoiding his confrontation, just like you've been avoiding all talks of anything serious since that day at the cafe.

And it's pissing him off.

"So why do you let him overstep them?" Jeongguk continues - and finally, this accusation gets a rise from you.

"I don't let him do anything," you scoff - and then you accuse. "You're the one I've just found hiding up on the rooftop with your ex. What about those boundaries, huh?"

Jeongguk rolls his eyes. Turns away from you. Looks out over the city, and wishes it would swallow him whole. "You've got no fuckin' idea, B. No idea."

"So then tell me!" You say, as if it's as easy as reciting your ABC's. "I'm not a mind reader-"

"And nor am I!" He says sternly, but doesn't raise his voice any higher than yours. "You've spent half the week ignoring me, only for you to barely even look at me now. You're not even wearing any glitter -"

"Why does that even matter?" You interrupt, unsure exactly of what he's trying to say.

Is the lack of glitter intentional? Yes.

Is it for the reasons he assumes? Probably not.

"'Cause we both know he fuckin' hates it," he snaps, decidedly far more pissed off now that he's speaking his thoughts into existence. "We both know you didn't wear it because of him in the past. So for you to show up with no glitter? Let him leech all over you? After he sent you all those fucking roses, and you won't fucking talk to me? Tell me what I'm supposed to think, huh?"

"Why does it even matter to you?" You fight back. It takes two to tango, and he seems to know the steps pretty fucking well. "You've been ignoring me too-"

"It matters to me because you might be fucking pregnant, B!"

Silence shatters around you both. Steals any words that could be said in the wake of such a declaration.

You roll your eyes. Do a fantastic job at pretending as if you don't feel like your world is caving in on itself.

"No, you don't get to treat me like I'm being irrational when you've been drinking cranberry juice all evening," he scathes, the frustrated gestures of his hands letting you know just how upset he is - and rightly so. "You don't get to act like you've not been thinking about it too."

"We don't even know if I'm pregnant-"

"And who's fault is that?!

"Gguk-"

"No, you're being such an asshole about this, B. This doesn't affect just you. This affects me too, okay?

Shaking his head, Jeongguk turns away from you. The way you're behaving is so unlike you, or so he thought. Maybe he didn't know you as well as he thought. Maybe he did get wrapped up in fallacies of you; in the what if.

"I fucking defended you," he says quietly. Isn't even sure if you can hear him. Doesn't care. Shakes his head and lets it dip between his disappointed shoulders. You'd be forgiven for think he was giving his next words careful thought. In all reality, he just starts ranting. "When he was at the tennis club, and was chatting shit, I defended you. Me . And yet you're more concerned with keeping up appearances for him ."

"You did what ?"

Now that he's started, Jeongguk can't stop. Not when he turns around. Not when he looks at you. Not when he starts to walk towards you.

"I insinuated we were together to get him to shut the fuck up," Jeongguk scoffs, thinking about his former self. Is embarrassed, now. Is letting his frustrations show because fuck it . He's hurting . Feels like a deer bleeding out on the side of a road, left to rot by some asshole driver who rammed straight into him at a hundred miles per hour. "So he's out here, showing up to your event, putting moves on you - even though he thinks you're with someone else - and you're fucking giving him the green light. Real fuckin' nice of him. A stand up guy. Respect must be his middle name. You really know how to pick 'em, B."

"Literally, how was I supposed to know any of that?!" You ask, eyes wide, brows furrowed. These new revelations are just as devastating as they are infuriating. All you can do is repeat a previous sentiment. "I'm not a fucking mind reader!"

But Jeongguk's irate now. Comical, almost, in how he downplays his anger.

"Oh, well, forgive me for assuming that you wouldn't bend to your exes every fucking whim!" He exclaims, a sarcastic smile on his face that snaps to a scowl within an instant. "I didn't think it was important because I thought you were beyond that point-"

"You're being cruel," you interrupt him, because he is. He knows how hard you've worked. Has been with you every step of the way - but this is how he views you?

"Me?" He laughs. It's cold.

"Yes," you say. "You."

"Nah." He shakes his head. Casts his eyes to the floor, 'cause looking at you like this only makes him feel even more frustrated with the current state of affairs. "Cruel is what Seokjin's doing right now - but you're giving him a free pass."

"I'm not. I don't want him leeching all over me," you say quietly, ashamed, turning away from him as you walk across the roof. Crouching, you bundle yourself up protectively, as if it'll make a difference. As if you can shield yourself from your friendship with Jeongguk as it comes crashing down on you both.

The only thing that makes any fucking sense to either of you right now is that you'd do it all again.

He'd ruin the friendship a million times over.

Not because he doesn't care, or because he's okay with losing you. Quite the opposite.

He'd ruin the friendship because - fuck it - that isn't what this is. The friendship flew out the window months ago. Maybe he was too late to realise it. Maybe he should have tried to claw it back in - but what use would that have been? It would have been wounded. Scratched to smithereens. Damaged.

Standing up straight, you curse at the sky. Are saddened by how few stars are out. Feels like they're shying away. Maybe they're ashamed, too.

"I have to head back," you say. Are defeated as you turn to face Jeongguk. "Tae's doing his speech, soon."

Jeongguk nods. Looks to the floor. Doesn't want you to go. Knows he hasn't exactly done anything to make it worth staying.

Both struggling with the current state of affairs, there's no one to blame. Joint bad decisions have led you here.

But he wants you close. Wants things to feel normal. Is willing to do anything.

"Look, your ex is down there being a prick," Jeongguk sighs. He waits for a moment. Lets you work out what he's gonna say in your own head. Wants to see your reaction before any of his bias comes into play. "He thinks we're together.... The best way to get him off your back?"

Your lips part ever so slightly. A crease forms between your brows, but your eyes remain kind. "Gguk..."

Shrugging, he plays off the weight of a suggestion he hasn't even vocalised yet. "He thinks we're together. Makes sense for us to act like we are."

For reasons you can't explain, the idea of other people seeing you and Jeongguk act intimately towards one another fills you with fear. It's not like it's an abhorrent thing - but to see the way your friends look at you as you present yourselves as a couple is to see their genuine reaction to it. If they're disgusted, you'll know that you're not suited. If they're elated, it will only play into these weird feelings that you've been having and are so desperately trying to avoid.

Eyes scanning him, you try and work out what he thinks of it all. If he's disgusted, you could probably live with that.

If he's elated?

Makes you feel queasy. Scared.

He holds out his hand. Knocks his head to the side. "C'mon. Face those fears of yours. Hold my hand."

It's bizarre, how Jeongguk has quite literally licked your arse, and yet this feels like the most obscene thing he's ever asked of you.

When you arrive back in the main room, Jeongguk stands behind you, ever so slightly to the side. Loops his arm around your waist. It's unintentional, the way his hand comes to rest over your stomach. Fingers splayed, he pulls your back to his chest, and you pretend like you're able to stand up straight without his support. Pretend as if the world around you isn't caving in on itself.

It wouldn't matter, even if it was. You're safe here. Safe with him.

And yet you insist on pushing him away.

"I wouldn't stand like this with a boyfriend," you say. "Too overbearing."

"Well, I would stand with a girlfriend like this," he assures you. The fingers that aren't firmly keeping your stomach protected come to your chin. Encourage it to the side. Get you looking at him. "I'd stand with her like this," he whispers, glances behind you so briefly that you almost miss it. "And when her ex boyfriend is looking in our direction - of which he is now - I'd kiss her."

"That wouldn't be very professional," you whisper.

"No," he acknowledges. "I don't suppose it would be."

He pulls away.

"I'll let you get on," he says. "The second he even so much as breathes in your direction, you come to me."

"Gguk-"

"You make your excuses and you come to me."

"I can handle it."

"Fine then," he shrugs. Begins to turn away, but makes sure to say, "I'll come to you."

And despite the deep-rooted need for you to prove yourself, there's a stranger sitting next to your determination. She goes by the name of Desire. And all she does is fucking laugh.

As Jeongguk rejoins his usual crowd, he's met with silence.

"Hmm?" He hums, reaching over for the glass Jimin is holding. Doesn't know what he's drinking. Doesn't ask. Downs it. Hands it back. "What are we talking about?"

Mouths a little ajar, neither Taehyung nor Danbi quite know what to make of what's happening, nor the foul mood that so clearly has a grip on their friend.

"Riveting," Jeongguk says sarcastically, when the silence lasts for a little too long. "No, really. Please go on."

But then, right on cue, Seokjin is heading in your direction, and Jeongguk may as well be bleeding through his tear ducts, given how red his sight is.

Bolting for you, Jeongguk almost knocks into one of the waiting staff. Spends a short moment apologising, then makes sure to interact with the people standing behind you. Has never seen them before in his life. Has no idea who they are - yet he greets them like old friends. Wants Seokjin to question his place. Wants him to think that Jeongguk is so much more important than he actually is.

And when he arrives to find Seokjin already speaking with you?

Yeah. Ain't no way he's letting him win.

Jeongguk does not give a fuck. Does not care about the opinions of anyone else. The world around him is burning red, flames that refuse to flicker out - and you crash through them like a beam of white light. A shooting star that offers the promise of something better. Something new.

Imposing in his stance, Jeongguk comes to stand beside you. Offers his hand out to Seokjin.

"Ah! Seojoon," he says, deliberately getting the wrong name, and not caring that maybe it's indicative of the fact your former fling has also been on his mind. Fine! Maybe he's obsessed with the fact other people have more of a claim on your romantic history than he does. Sue him. "We met at the golf course, remember?"

Seokjin doesn't correct Jeongguk on the incorrect name, nor the incorrect location. Knows exactly what he's doing. Shakes his hand.

"Jeongguk, yes. You had to run off pretty quick, no? Didn't get a chance to rally."

Oh, but we did, Jeongguk thinks. Knows it's a good job he didn't stick around. Would have probably thrown a racquet at Seokjin's face. Accidentally.

"Mm," Jeongguk nods. Protectively grips the nape of your neck. "Had plans. Maybe next time."

Seokjin nods. "Maybe."

The tension between the men is getting thicker.

Soon, you won't be able to breathe.

So you smile towards your ex, and say, "Excuse us."

Which only serves to piss Jeongguk off. This is your shot. Your chance to show Seokjin how little you care - and instead, you want to run away. Un-fucking-believable.

Still he smiles at Seokjin, as if he knows something that he doesn't. Wants him questioning this interaction for weeks. Regretting. Lamenting.

"See you around," Jeongguk says pleasantly, as you lead him down the hallway, your pace getting angrier with each step. He rolls his eyes. Knows you're gonna wanna fight, and thinks fuck it. Will just let it happen this time. Can't be fucked with keeping the peace.

The janitor's closet you had visited with Danbi is down this hallway, and it's where you're headed. Want privacy. Need it.

Especially 'cause Jeongguk's spouting off like a facetious twat before you're even inside. "Worst fake girlfriend I've ever had."

"I don't know how I'm supposed to pretend to be your fucking girlfriend!" You hiss quietly once you're inside, as Jeongguk knocks across the latch on the door, as if anyone else would even think to be in a janitor's closet right now.

You only know the door passcode from when you had been setting up, and even that was a lucky guess. Had just tried the code that works for another door in the gallery when Danbi had dragged you here, too.

"Well, it's not that fucking hard!" He hisses back, trying the handle just to make sure it doesn't open.

"Apparently it is!" You reply childishly.

Turning to face you, Jeongguk is obscured by the lack of light coming in through the small window on the back wall. You can barely see one another, 'cause neither of you have flicked the light on - and quite frankly, you don't want to. It's easier to fight when you can't see how delicate he looks, or how handsome his jaw is when it flexes out of frustration.

"Oh fuck off," he laughs, but it isn't humorous. "Even the caricature artist in Busan had to ask if we were a couple. We are perfectly capable of looking like one."

"I'm sure she asks everyone that!"

"Oh, piss off-"

"Fine!" You say defiantly, barging past him. If he wants you to piss off, then you will. He's the one who got you into this mess. Frankly, you don't give a shit at this point - but the door won't budge. Lock won't move. You yank on the door, as if that will help.

For all of Jeongguk's internalised frustration, he smirks, now. Folds his arm. Perches his ass on the counter by the sink.

Trying to prize the latch open, you're stupidly worried about breaking a nail - but you refuse to ask for help. Look to the side for something you can use for leverage. Can only see mops. Half think about throwing one at Jeongguk.

He doesn't interrupt your struggle. Doesn't tell you that there's a second latch towards the top of the door.

"If you don't let me out, then God help me, Jeongguk, I will scream," you threaten. "I will scream so fucking loudly that everyone hears, and then I'll let you explain why you wouldn't let me out."

Jeongguk laughs. "Go on then."

But you don't. You won't. This is somewhere you hope to work, one day. You can't risk embarrassing yourself over something as pathetic as this.

If you do, then it means Seokjin has won.

Jeongguk is many things. He's frustrating, and confusing, and yet simple and straightforward. He's an oxymoron, and on occasion, just a moron. At the crux of his identity though, is a good human. There is one thing he is not, and that is cruel.

So he stands. Sighs. Walks towards you and leans up to the latch you've neglected to touch. Puts a hand on your waist to steady himself, not that he really needs to. Pulls the lock free. Doesn't let go of your waist, but he isn't keeping you trapped. You're free to fly.

And yet you stay put, breath hitched in your throat, time standing still for a moment.

"Go," Jeongguk says quietly, his raspy voice affecting you in ways that it shouldn't be right now.

But to go would be to give him what he wants - and you absolutely do not want to do that.

Most importantly, you don't want to leave. Would gladly fight with him right now, 'cause at least you're actually talking.

"You go," you reply childishly.

"Me?" He laughs. Comes a little closer. Practically whispers in your ear. "B, you're the one who wanted to go. So, go."

"Maybe I've changed my mind."

He scoffs. "Fine."

It's a childish back and forth. One of you needs to grow up, and take control of the situation - and as Jeongguk's hand grips your waist a little tighter and spins you round, it's evident who is taking that role.

There's a dominant assertion to the way he moves you. You've seen this side of him a few times, but it never fails to take your breath away.

Hands pinned above your head all rather suddenly, a single one of his palms can keep both of your wrists suspended. It's always driven you a little wild before - but he's pissing you off. Every little thing he does will annoy you, now. Even the sexy shit.

In fact, especially the sexy shit.

The hand of his that isn't clamped around your wrists comes to the base of your throat, and you can't help but gasp a little in surprise.

His voice is deep and low as he tells you to 'say chess.'

But you shake your head. Won't do a damn thing he tells you. "No."

He grips tighter. "Tell me to stop."

"No."

"Fine then," he husks. Presses his knee between your thighs. Spreads them. Drops the hand from your throat to your hips. Get you positioned just right. Pulls you further up his thigh. Encroaches on your personal space.

"Stop acting like you don't know how to fake things." His voice is dulcet. "Your ex should be pretty used to it."

"Hardly the same thing, is it?" You hiss back, but Jeongguk laughs, and presses a kiss to the side of your ear. Then the lobe. Then beneath your ear. Down your throat. Stops only once he reaches your collarbone. Raises his eyes. Looks directly at you.

"I'm gonna make you cum," he tells you with arrogant certainty. "For real. You're not gonna fake that. Gonna make you cum, and then you're gonna hold my hand in front of your ex-boyfriend and fake that like a good girl."

The energy he's radiating is electric; the right amount of jealousy and desire making you the only thing his brain can focus on for longer than a second at a time.

"Gguk-" you gasp as he pushes your hips down. The leverage is crappy, the angle not quite right, but the intention is there.

Jeongguk glances over his shoulder, to check he wasn't imagining the chair he swore he noticed earlier, and almost thanks the God he doesn't believe in when his eyes land on it.

He turns back to face you. Lets your hands drop from above your head. Cups your jaw. Brushes his lips against yours.

"You're gonna be a good girl for me, aren't you, B?" He says, pressing a delicate kiss to your lips. Doesn't it let it linger. You don't get a chance to kiss him back, for he's moving you both to the chair. He sits, legs parted, and gets you straddled across his thigh. You're right where he wants you. "You're gonna ride my thigh and cum like a good fuckin' girl."

The satin of your panties rubs against his slacks without him even trying.

Hands beneath your dress, he squeezes at the flesh of your ass, spreading you. Pulls you up his thigh. Lets you build a motion. Encourages it.

He doesn't complain when your hands tangle in his hair. It surprises you at first, just how short it is. You've never experienced it like this. It almost distracts you from what's actually happening.

But then one of his hands comes to toy with your chest as you continue to ride his thigh. The neckline makes it so fucking easy for him. He gets you exposed, but doesn't keep it that way for long. Latches onto your nipple as soon as he fucking can. Groans against you, and then the sensation of his vibrating tongue forces the wetness to seep from your cunt.

Your rhythm against his thigh is well-established, now. Both of his hands are free to tug down on the top of your dress.

It's a pretty dress. Gorgeous, in fact, and you look incredible in it - but all he wants to do is take it off. Wants you naked.

For now, he'll settle with your satin-covered cunt rubbing up against him, and your tits nice and exposed for him to toy with. He's using you for his own gratification, and you're doing just the same.

His tongue flicks against your nipples, hands squeezing your tits firmly together. He sucks. Squeezes. Grazes his teeth. Makes you feel so fucking good. Part of you thinks he'll get you cumming just from the contact of his lips with your hardened nipples - but the way his strong thigh is acting as the perfect ridge? Fuck .

"I'm close," you promise as the pleasure trickles through your bloodstream like warm honey. Sweet, and delicate, there's something about orgasms earned by Jeongguk that always makes you feel like you've ascended. Heaven really is a place on earth. Remarkably, it appears to be in a janitor's closet with all of your closest friends just down the hallway.

Jeongguk nods. Slowly pulls away from your nipples, the suction so pleasurable you can't help but whine. "I won't stop you."

He means it. Keeps your nipples wet with his spit, tongue lapping against them, as your hips buck against him. Your whines get a little deeper. Friction stronger. Breaths needier.

And then, as soon as your body begins to shudder that tell-tale way, he lets his tongue loose.

"That's it, beautiful," he husks. Looks at you with stark adorned eyes. "Come on me like the pretty slut you are. What would they think, huh? If everyone here knew what you were doing? Be louder, baby. Let them know. Let them know how much you like to cum for me."

You whimper his name as your grind begins to ease - but Jeongguk doesn't let it. Uses both of his hands. Grabs your ass. Is intentional with the way he bounces his thigh up against you, forcing the sensation to jolt through you once more. Elbows on his shoulders, head buried in the crook of his neck, you're whining as he overstimulates you.

"God, I'll cum again," you tell him, teeth grazing his neck. He kinda likes the pain. Likes that he'll be waking up with a hickie, no doubt.

"Good," he grits. Is rough with your body. Wants that second orgasm, and he wants it now.

"Gguk-" you whimper, but can't manage to say anything more, the wave of pleasure taking over you so much faster. Chest heaving, you're unable to do anything other than languidly grind until your body stops. Hearts beating in sync, Jeongguk is so overwhelmed by how good it is to feel you come undone for him, he almost doesn't notice the way you begin to palm his incredibly hard crotch.

"Shit," he hisses. This was supposed to be about you. He shouldn't be letting you do this - and yet he's reaching for his belt. Is frantic as he unbuckles. Opens up his pants. Takes over from you. Dips his hands into his underwear. Wraps his hand around his hard, leaky cock. Smears the precum from his tip all over his head. Wants it in your mouth - but has other, more pressing ideas. "Can you stand for me, baby?"

Barely. Shaky on your legs, you do your best. Let him guide you - thankfully, to the door. Back pressed against it, Jeongguk gets you to hold the skirt of your dress up. Pushes your panties down, but only just enough to expose a small amount of your cunt. They're still around the top of your thighs, slick with evidence of your orgasm.

Jeongguk lines himself up. Rests the head of his cock against the edge of your underwear. Tells you, "I'm gonna cum in them. Gonna cum in your panties, and then you're gonna wear them all fuckin' evening."

"Please," is all you pathetically whimper.

It doesn't take long for him to get there. He's been worked up all week. He wanks himself off for you. Whines. Whispers shit about how hot you are. How much he likes doing shit like this.

Jeongguk grips onto your arm as his climax hits. Body doubling, he has no choice but to let his forehead rest on your shoulder.

"I'm cumming. Fuck. Fuck," Jeongguk curses. Tilts his head. Presses a wet kiss to the base of your neck as his body jolts and the first rope of cum spurts into your underwear. "Fuck, baby."

"That's it," you encourage, obsessed with the way he's whimpering, body all weak and feeble as it shakes for you.

He groans now. Grips his cock even tighter. Milks himself for all he's worth. Fucking ruins your underwear. Lets the top of his cock rub up against your clit. Massages your slick and his cum together. "Fuck."

When he finally pulls away, he says nothing. Immediately pulls his pants up as if he can't believe what he's just done, then pulls your panties up, too. Hooks the sides over your hips, pulling the mess he's made tightly to your soaked cunt. Cups his hand over your heat. Presses. Rubs. Teases little circles over your clit. Presses down more firmly. Builds speed.

"Gguk," you whine, grabbing onto his shoulders.

"Again, baby," he says softly, pressing a kiss to your forehead. "Cum again for me."

"I can't," you whine, the overstimulation about to kick in - but he dismisses it. Knows that if you wanted him to stop, you'd say 'chess'.

"You can, baby," he promises. Uses the hand that isn't massaging your clit to angle your jaw. Doesn't even think as he steals a pretty little kiss from your lips. Doesn't realise it begins to send you over the edge. "You're gonna cum like you're mine."

And how can you do anything else but succumb to his demands?

Lips on his, brows furrowed together, he swallows all of your pretty little whines, as your body shudders for him. He keeps you steady. Keeps you supported. Keeps his tongue in your mouth, and his hand rubbing your panties. Doesn't ease up until you pull away from his lips.

"Gguk," you pant. "Please."

Nodding, he eases slowly. Doesn't wanna let go too quickly. Keeps kissing you. Won't stop that. Never wants to stop that. Is still annoyed with you, yes, but knows he has a duty of care, now. Also knows he'd never forgive himself if he didn't take every chance he gets to kiss you.

When he finally pulls away, forehead resting against yours, he's spent. You're both panting, both struggling to formulate any words in the wake of such a devastating orgasm.

Brushing a few strands of hair back from your face, Jeongguk closes his eyes. Nudges his nose against yours. Shows a little restraint. Whispers, "You've got a show to return to."

Nodding, you shake a little from his grip. Say nothing as you adjust your dress. Try your best to ignore the thick pool of his cum that's gathered in your panties. The tops of your thighs will end up smeared in the evidence of him, and, quite disgustingly, it only serves to make you even more turned on.

"I'll follow behind you," he promises as he begins to sort himself out, too.

Nodding, you're a little unsure of exactly what to do. You're scared that someone will know. That you'll leak.

"I'm scared," you admit. Explain your worry. He rolls his eyes, but smiles as he does, so.

He tugs on your hands, and props you up against the counter towards the back of the small room. Spreads your legs. Assesses fuckin' nothing, 'cause it's so dark in the room - but knows your pussy almost as well as he knows his own name. Licks to the left of your lips. To the right. Ends in one thick stripe up the centre. Sucks ever so gently once he reaches your clit. Knows that your cunt - your leaky, needy, hole that he loves to stretch out so much - must be going insane from the lack of attention it's getting.

"You'll be okay," he assures you. Stands, and gives your pussy a playful spank. "C'mon. You've got horny old dudes to schmooze."

"Is that gonna get you off?" you tease slightly, your annoyance with him a little subdued.

"Maybe," he shrugs, already knowing it mostly likely will. "You're gonna walk around that gallery covered in my cum, and no one else but us is gonna know it," he smirks, the gravity of what he's just done finally kicking in. Cups your jaw. Presses a kiss to your lips. Husks, "You're gonna go out there and act like you're mine - 'cause right now, you are."

You don't argue against it.

The pair of you meander down the corridor in near silence. His hand is on your back, but your arms are tentatively folded across your chest. Each step is accompanied by your keen ears checking for audible evidence of your sin.

So caught up in your own worries, you don't notice how quiet the gallery itself is. How few people seem to be milling about. How the main lights are on now, and how it only seems to be those wearing 'staff' lanyards within the main space.

Pursing his lips as he realises, Jeongguk tries not to laugh.

"Oh, shit," you whisper, pulling on his wrist so you can check the time on his watch. 10:13. The show was scheduled to finish at 10, but you're sure most people will have filtered out before then. Have no idea what the time was when Jeongguk had dragged you away from the main room.

"S'fine," he mumbles. Grips a little tighter on your waist. Doesn't let you pull away, like he fears you will now that appearances don't need to be kept up.

You don't. Instead, your arms drop from their position over your chest, and reach for his hand, guiding him the direction of the (now unmanned) cloak room.

There's little chatter as you grab your coats - the only ones left there.

"Need to show you something," you mumble, digging into your pockets, and pulling out half a dozen empty tubes.

Jeongguk looks at you with a sense of frayed confusion - but if he were to thread the strings together, he'd see the bigger picture.

Dusted in fine glitter of different colours, the tubes don't seem out of the ordinary for you. Is totally the kind of thing he'd expect to see in your pockets.

Quietly, you grit your teeth together. Suck in a little air. Are embarrassed to admit what you've done.

But the person in front of you is your best friend. Even with judgement will come acceptance. There always is. Honesty is the least you owe him.

"I know I'm not wearing any glitter," you start slowly. Hold the empty tubes up, then toss them into the bin beside the concierge table. Knock your head to the side and encourage him to start walking with you. He does.

He also reaches into his own pocket, and pulls out his car keys. Passes them over to you. "Might be above the limit. Can you drive?"

Glancing over to him, shocked by the request, you double check. "Are you sure?"

He nods. "You can crash at mine. It's fine."

Despite it all, there's still no one else he wants to end the night with. No girl he'd rather take home. Platonic or romantic.

"Sleep, I mean," he adds. "Not physically crash the car. Please don't crash my car."

You just smile. Nod. After the hideousness of the week spent barely talking to him, there's nothing you want more than to just feel like things are still normal.

"So the tubes?" he asks as you reach the car. He lets you unlock it, but adjusts the seat for you before letting you get in. Also puts his jacket down on the cushion, just in case your underwear gives up on protecting your decency.

"Thanks," you say, stroking the side of his waist tenderly as he makes way for you and waits for him to get in before you start the car up. You get onto the main road, and make sure you've got your bearings before finally explaining yourself. "It was plausible deniability. The lack of glitter, I mean. Was deliberate."

"What do you mean?" He asks, reaching for the gearstick. Doesn't care if your hand is on it. Wants to hold it. You ignore his actions. Just let him intertwine his fingers with yours.

"I mean, the less glitter on me, the less credibility Jin would have when it comes to arguing that I'm the person who's emptied half a dozen tubes of glitter into his incredibly expensive formal winter coat."

Jeongguk says nothing for a moment. Plays out the idea of you stealthily depositing millions of glitter specks into a jacket that costs more than his yearly rent. Is slow to ask, "...which pockets?"

And you're slow to reply, "... All the ones I could find. Outside, inside. Secret pocket in the lining."

And then Jeongguk is laughing. Really fucking laughing. Looks over to you, and your bunched up little face, and is overcome a sense of pride he usually only feels for these gallery shows, or when a bird of yours is completed. The kinda pride that is reserved for you, and for your accomplishments.

"Shut up," you giggle now, too. "I know it's childish but-"

"No," he shakes his head. Can't stop smiling. "It's brilliant. Dunno if you've heard, but apparently glitter is a bitch to get out."

"Yeah," you grin. "I've been told that a few times."

And suddenly the events of the evening seem to feel less burdensome. Warmer. More pleasant.

You don't bother with small talk, and nor does he. Are just happy to exist together, and this state of ease lasts right up until you're in his apartment, shoes off, standing a little awkwardly in his living room.

Jimin is out. Everyone is. There are a million messages in your group chat asking where you are. You'll just reply in the morning. Too busy, now.

"I need to shower," you say, a little timid.

Jeongguk nods. "Same."

"Join me?"

To your surprise, he hesitates.

"You're the reason I need one in the first place," you remind him. "Please."

He looks down. Shakes his head. "I don't trust us."

"Nor do I," you tell him. "But this whole thing has been hell on earth, Gguk. I've hated it."

"Me too."

"I don't think..." you sigh. Don't want to share your conclusion, but know you need to. "I don't think careless fucking around is worth it. It's definitely not worth losing you."

"So what are you saying?"

Gesturing towards yourself, you grimace a little. "I'm saying we sort out the current... mess. Get showered. Whatever. Head to the pharmacy in the morning for the emergency pill, just in case - and then a few days from now, I'll take an actual test. Just wanna make sure my system is settled, first. And then, providing it all goes well, we sort ourselves out. Stop fucking around."

Jeongguk says nothing. Just sort of looks at you as if you've just hung up a new star in the sky, or something absurd like that. Nods. "Alright."

You're well aware that you shouldn't look at Jeongguk in the way that you do; that you shouldn't stand in his living room, and let the dress that you've been hoping would keep him focused on you all night drop to the floor.

He's well aware that he shouldn't look at you in the way that he does; like you're some kind of star to wish upon.

And yet you both do. He wishes. You grant his wishes.

There's a mess to clean up in the morning. Jeongguk can't shake the look on the faces of his friends from his mind. Knows that you need to cover your tracks.

But for now, he doesn't care.

Your dress is on the floor, and his heart is yours.

Though he'll always define you as his best friend, he knows that the way he wants you goes beyond the scope of that. Knows that there's no going back.

"Byeol," he whispers.

"Koo," you whisper right back.

He smiles. Shakes his head. "I love it when you call me that."

You nod. smile, too. "I love the way you smile when I call you that."

He's right not to trust the pair of you together. Right to assume that a shower is a bad decision. Right to think that the second he has you naked, he won't care about the consequences.

Quite frankly, he couldn't give a fuck. Skin on skin, he indulges in you. The way you feel, the way you sound. Pretends like it's normal, holding your waist as he peppers kisses up your neck. Tells himself it's not unusual for friends to let their hands roam. It's all about trust. Mutual adoration. Desire. Want. Careful carelessness.

You don't kiss him, at least. Not in the shower.

No, you don't kiss him... until you're in his sheets.

Neither of you got dressed after the shower. Went to bed naked with the promise of sleep - and yet somehow you're straddled across his lap at two in the morning, hips slowly grinding to get the feeling of fullness you love so much from Jeongguk.

"After this-" you husk into his lips, but he breaks your sentence with yet another kiss. You don't mind. "After this, we've gotta start taking shit carefully."

He nods. "Mhmm. Whatever you say."

"Gguk-"

"Byeol, please," he smiles. "I'm literally inside you. Can you at least wait until we're done to give me ultimatums?"

Laughing, you cup his jaw. Kiss him again, just because you want to. Because you can. "Yeah. My bad."

Sitting back up, Jeongguk watches on in a state of adoration as your body moves for him. So often the one to take the lead, he's letting you have control, now. Letting you ride him. Letting himself succumb to everything you are.

"Shit," he whines, back arching, head pressing into his pillows. Fingers gripping your hips, he thrashes his own upwards. Thrusts up into you like a man possessed. Gets your body all weak and feeble from the overwhelming pleasure he's delivering - and when your hand dips to toy with your clit? Oh, it doubles. Trebles.

"You're so fucking hot," he tells you. "Yeah. Play with yourself for me. That's it, baby."

Panting, you tap on his chest with your spare hand. "Hips. Slow."

He does what he's told even if he absolutely doesn't want to. Let you bounce slowly. Reaches up to hold one of your tits as you do so. Wants them in his mouth. Finds himself grinning when he thinks of how much he's changed since you first started fucking around together.

"God, I fuckin' love this," he whines a little mindlessly. Doesn't bother clarifying what 'this' is.

The hand of yours that's wrapped around his wrist begins to tighten. Nails dig in. Tiny pretty whines of satisfaction escape your lips. Eyes close. Speed of the hand rubbing circles on your clit increases. Sitting on his cock, he's keeping you stretched. Full. Lets you do whatever the fuck you like, 'cause he knows you're working your way up. Loves to watch it more than anything. Gets himself off sometimes thinking about it.

Leaning forward a little, you reach for his phone. Slide it open to his camera.

He narrows his eyes. "Whatcha doing there?"

Whiney as you manage to speak, Jeongguk thinks you must be a direct descendant of Aphrodite. "Giving you permission," you hum, passing his phone back to him, already recording.

He looks to the screen, a little red button in the middle and a time running through on the top. Raises his brow. "Sure?"

You're putting on a show for him, yes, but none of it is faked. This is as real as it gets.

"Oh, fuck yeah," he husks as he can feel your walls tighten. "Like that. Like that. Fuck ." Pulses his hips ever so slightly. Sneaks his hand to join yours. Takes over. "Cum all over my cock, baby. Yeah. Yeah, that's it, babe."

"Gguk, I'm so close."

"I know," he coos. "Let yourself. I'm here."

"You're so big," you tell him, just so he has evidence of it. Know it will do his ego wonders. "Makes me feel so good."

"Show me how good it feels. Cum for me. Please. I need this. Need you ."

And when you finally do?

Oh, it's glorious.

"There she is," Jeongguk praises. Doesn't bother to stop recording. Tosses his phone to the side. Pulls you in for a million kisses. "God, you're so pretty when you cum. So fuckin' pretty."

His hips continue to gently rock, his orgasm far less violent than yours. You only really know it's happening cause he grunts. Gets a little breathless. Hugs around your back as his legs begin to shake, and eventually he manages to shakily whisper, "it's yours. All yours."

You just assume he means his cock, or cum, or something vulgar like that - and while it would be correct, it's not what he means. Not at all.

He holds you as you sleep that night. Has no interest in pretending like he wants to be less than what you are right now.

But come the morning, you're cracking jokes together like you've never nearly made declarations you'd never be able to take back. Hang out, as if he wouldn't rather eat you out. Make a to-do list. Laugh, as it's titled 'Fixing the Star-Fuckers Fuck-Up'.

You make a trip out of the list. Go to a pharmacy a few towns over. Grab a drive-thru Maccies breakfast. Get absolutely slated when you order a Shanghai Snack Wrap instead of a classic egg McMuffin.

"Can't believe we're friends," Jeongguk says, disgusted by the fact you're choosing to have something from the all-day menu. "Can't believe we fuck ."

"Fucked," you remind him, and remember that you've a pill you need to take. Pop it out of the foil, and swallow it down with a chug of Jeongguk's drink. "Past tense."

"Yeah, sorry," Jeongguk grins. It's easier to pretend like the idea of not fucking doesn't phase him. "My bad."

His pretty grin swiftly disappears three days later as he paces around your apartment living room, waiting on the result from a little pink stick that's sitting on top of your toilet. You're in the living room, too. Don't wanna check it. Nor does he.

So you play rock paper scissors.

Jeongguk loses.

And as you nervously await your fate, all you hear from your bathroom is a single word.

"Fuck."

[spaceorphan18]

Romy Fic: Intrusive Thoughts

Rating: T for suggestiveness and one bare ass ;)

Summary: Taking place during XM #4 post-Basketball game. How exactly does Remy get Rogue to agree to go on a date?

Notes: Next piece in my canon series. Wanted to write about how we got from the charged (literally and figuratively) basketball game to Rogue agreeing to actually go out with him. Thus this scene was born. Also, it was an excuse to write Remy in the shower. ;) Thanks @ludi-ling for the beta!

I decided I'm adding a panel to go along with each entry...

****

Intrusive Thoughts

Remy LeBeau is in the shower, deep in thought.  It had been a hot day but that hadn’t stopped them from playing a good game. It had almost felt like being among friends instead of teammates.  Who would have guessed Jubilee would be good for his ego? And showing up the Wolverine is always a plus.  The physicality had felt good, so much more satisfying than the drills in the Danger Room the professor made them run.  Even as the game intensified, it had all been in playful fun.  They had been accepting of him more than he realized.  

Unintentionally, his mind starts to drift.  Starts to dig around in the dark parts that he prefers to keep hidden.  They tolerate him now, but if they knew…?  There are so many factors that may come into play, so many that may blow over his carefully stacked house of cards.  The Thieves’ Guild, would they take him back? (It’s been long enough - surely they would welcome him home?)  Sinister might want another favor.  (The screams of those poor mutants still keep him up at night).  Belladonna… (He doesn’t want to think of Belladonna… How long has it been since they’ve spoken? How long has it been since they’ve touched…).

He closes his eyes, trying to reach out onto something that isn’t connected to his past.  She is the first thing that enters his mind.  Rogue.   She has been on his mind constantly since he had arrived at the mansion.  A welcome distraction to the darkening intrusive thoughts that have been haunting him lately.  

Stormy had brought him to the X-Men, misguided faith that she had in him. And it’s been nice, for a while, pretending to be the hero.  Pretending that there is some actual good in the world he could do.  Pretending that this might be a family worth keeping.  He knows his track record though, and if he was to be smart about it, he’d take off and not look back.  It’d be better for them in the long run.  Maybe better for him, too.  

For as much as he feels the need to go, he doesn’t. Because she’s there.  A beacon of light enticing him.  A smirk climbs on his lips as he thinks back to the court, about holding her in his arms, about what it would be like if she were really under him.  Or above him.  Or anywhere close to him would do.  The beautiful apple of Eden; forbidden to touch despite knowing how sinfully delicious the taste would be.  He knows better, he does.  But she’s not just another pretty girl.  There’s something more going on with this one.  He just doesn’t know what it is yet.  

…Or maybe he does just have a death wish.  

He turns the shower to cold, needing to cool off.  They are, after all, community showers.  

The sound of a muffled jazz song floats through the air.  Intrigued, he finishes his shower. He then grabs a towel off the rack, giving himself a quick dry down, before wrapping it loosely on his hips.  If he’s hearing it right, the music is coming from the room next door.  And he knows whose that is.  He steals a quick look in the mirror, grinning at his own form, wondering how she will react when she sees him.  

Just his luck, Rogue’s bedroom door is wide open and welcoming.   The stereo on her dresser is playing a slow, soulful tune as she sits curled up on her armchair, reading a book.  She’s changed out of her uniform, and looking relaxed in a pair of sweats and an oversized t-shirt that hangs off one shoulder.  God have mercy on his soul. She doesn’t have to do a thing to be breathtaking.  Wanting her is a constant state he doesn’t mind having to contend with.  

She’s so buried in her book that she doesn’t notice him standing there, casually leaning up against the doorframe.  He takes a moment, just to watch her, just to enjoy the wonderful creature that she is before he lets himself be known.  

“That a good book, chere?” he asks. 

Startled, she looks up, finally noticing he’s there.  Her eyes bulge when she sees him, in shock but not with disinterest.  It’s enough to make him grin wider.  

“Gambit,” she says.  There’s a blush on her cheeks as she turns her head away.  “You have no clothes on.” 

“I was just walking by from my shower,” he says, ignoring her observation.  “And heard Glen Miller on the radio.  Beautiful sounds that old boy makes, I just had to stop and listen.”  He takes a step into the bedroom.  Her eyes narrow, but she doesn’t stop him.  “Surprises me, though.  Figured you’d be the type who’d like something a little more…country.” 

She rolls her eyes at him, but smiles.  “I’m allowed to like more than one thing, you know.” 

“So, country isn’t off the table?” 

She bites her lip, looking towards the ceiling as he walks in a little further.  “What do you actually want, Gambit?” 

He comes in close and leans over, nearly whispering in her ear.  “You already know what I want,” he says.  Her entire body tenses as he lingers over her.  He makes her nervous.  He enjoys that he makes her nervous.  He knows when to push and he knows when to stop.  The fact that she hasn’t kicked him outright from her bedroom is a score for the day.  With Rogue, it’s the long game he’s playing.  “What’s this book that has you so engrossed?” 

“Oh,” she finally faces him, surprised.  “It’s nothing.” 

“A Duchess in Need,” he says, intrigued by the title.  “A romance book?” 

“I doubt you have any real interest in my book.” 

“Nothing wrong with a good romance book.” he licks his lips. “I find them inspiring.” 

“I’m sure you do.” 

“So, you wouldn’t mind me having a look?”  He makes a grab for the book.  She tears it away, just out of reach.  He goes for it again, this time using both hands.  The lunge forward causes the towel drop.  

“Gambit!” she cries, dropping the book in order to cover her eyes.  She’s scandalized but he doesn’t much care as he scoops down to pick up the towel and grab the book.  He loosely holds the towel up to cover himself as he flips open the book.  He knows his ass is hanging bare.  He knows, as she peeks through her fingers, that she can see it in the reflection of the vanity mirror.  He wants her to.  

“Oh, this be a dirty book,” he says, very amused as he starts reading.  “Her lips tremble and quiver with desire…”

“Gambit, give it back.” She jumps out of her seat, attempting to get the book out of his hands.  

“His manhood throbs in her hand...” 

“Gambit, I swear, I’ll…” 

“She finally submits to her lust.” 

“Gimme that.” She finally tears it from his hands, pulling it close to her chest.  “I get that this may seem silly to you, but I’m allowed to enjoy my books.” 

He may have pushed a little too far this time.  She is more closed off than ever, holding herself tightly, her eyes once again looking off in the distance.  Only this time there is anger.  “Chere, this book - it’s no good for you.”  

“Why? Because they should only be reserved for perverts like you?” Her voice is sharp.  Cutting.  

“Because it isn’t real romance,” he says.  It’s the seriousness in his voice that gets her to pay attention.  Up until now it’s been all flirty games and teasing words.  Most women he’s encountered, that’s all they need.  Not Rogue.  She’s going to need more.  How far is he willing to go? He isn’t sure.  But he knows there’s something stirring in his heart.  Something he can’t quite figure out.  

He wants her.  He’s known that much since the day he met her.  But he’s learning he may want all of her.  And that’s a much more dangerous game to play.  

“Like you know what real romance is,” she spits out.  

“I do.”  He takes a moment to pull the towel fully around his hips, securing it tightly.  The gesture is not lost on her.  “We get dressed up nice.  I take you to a nice dinner.  We can find some live jazz and dance in the moonlight.  We can talk…” 

“And then?” 

He gives her a suggestive glance.  “And then I take you home like a proper gentleman.” 

She scoffs at him.  “I doubt that.” 

“Your call, chere.” He plays it nonchalant, but his chips are all in.   

A long moment passes. Her eyes flicker as the wheels turn in her mind. It’s like he can see them. Whatever she’s thinking… 

“Okay,” she says carefully. 

“Okay?” He almost can’t believe it.  

“But if you try anything, I’ll break you in two.” 

“I would expect nothing less.” 

He turns to leave, knowing that her eyes are lingering on him, and smiles.  

#xmen #x men #rogue #gambit #anna marie lebeau #remy lebeau #romy #rogue and gambit #roguegambit #s.o. writes things #i need to come up with a name for this particular series

[evita-shelby]

The Two Buck Special

Aka the Bucky x Diane x Buck smut fic

Cw: smut, voyeurism, p in v sex, oral sex, anal sex, double penetration, repressed bisexuality, threesome m/m/f

How Bucky got Buck to agree is beyond her.

But here he is, in their rented room with a nervous look in his face as his hand hesitantly undoes the bow on Diane’s dressing gown.

It was a short sexy thing that matched the red bra and satin French knickers underneath. It had been meant for just John as a birthday gift, but then he had to tell her of a fantasy of his.

God, you’d look so good in a Bucky Sandwich, he’d groaned as he fucked her ass and used her dildo on her pussy. Di hadn’t been able to get that image he painted so vividly out of her head ever since.

And now, as a special gift for Bucky’s 28th birthday, his Lady Di was gonna make that dream come true.

It had taken John a while to convince Gale Cleven for it. Convinced him that it wasn’t cheating if John was there and an active participant in their sexual escapade. And both had sworn to never breathe a word about it to Marjorie once he agreed to it.

John had tweaked her plans of a threesome to make it something Hollywood would kill to get their hands on. The witch had gotten turned on by the itinerary her lover had planned she’d humped his thigh like a bitch in heat when he wouldn’t fuck her as he spoke.

“Go ahead, Gale, for tonight, she is as yours as she is mine.” John assures the blond as he sits back and enjoys the show. His hand already palming his magnificent cock as Diane slowly stripped Buck of his clothes.

“Pretend I’m Marjorie.” Di whispers with a very convincing American accent as she kissed every inch of skin she exposed and with his permission fondled that wonderful thing between his legs.

To her parents’ horror, Diane has racked up such an impressive record, that she might as well call fucking her talent. Gale may even get an encore of this performance if they’re still alive by his 26th birthday this December.

“I’d, I’d rather not.” He wouldn’t last long, his skin had turned to gooseflesh the second he felt the sensual touch of a woman, he’d swallowed thickly as he spoke while she marked his fair neck with a bite like those John wears with great pride.

The blond looks to his dark-haired friend for something akin to permission and once John nodded, Gale turned the tables on her.

Instead of letting her continue this exploration of his torso in her way down, Cleven pulled her face up to his and kissed her like John does ever day. He peels off the robe from her shoulders, undoes her bra with ease and tossed it at John as they continued kissing and feeling each other up as if they didn’t have other people.

He's naked by the time the back of her legs hit the bed, she’s only clad in her knickers ---already sporting a wet stain to John’s delight--- and good grief does it feel good to have John’s eyes on hers as Gale worked his way down from her clavicle. Cleven was as good at fucking as he looked.

“Forgot to warn you, darl’, Gale’s a gentleman. Its not fucking unless the lady has her fun too.” Bucky is springing his prick free as Buck let his actions do the talking.

“Lucky woman.” Di can’t help her delighted gasp as the blond lavished her with attentions only the future Mrs. Cleven would enjoy. The sight of him between her legs as he removed her knickers to feast on her is one that has her thanking her lucky stars John wants to fuck Gale as much as she does.

“Bet you haven’t tasted pussy as sweet as hers since we left the states, huh?” John took a good whiff of her wet underwear, not shying away from how turned on he is by knowing Gale had caused it and how good his best friend tongue fucks his girl.

The blond's good with his mouth, fingers too as he readies her up for him.

The first act was supposed to be her seducing the morally upstanding Gale Cleven, giving Bucky a show as Buck surrenders to her attentions. How great of him to change her plans like this!

It’s not long until Di’s shutting her eyes and pulling his hair while staring at John right in the eye as she cries out Bucky’s name.

“Bad girl, Di, ‘sposed to thank our good friend for his service.” Bucky grins, his hand working at a slower pace because the first part is long from over as he praises her for being such a good whore for Cleven.

Gale kisses her, giving her a good taste of her own pussy, like the proper gentleman he is, as he slots himself between her legs with purpose. Both men are huge in comparison to her and neither disappoint when it comes to making her feel as if her insides would be rearranged in their fucking.

Bucky’s eyes are dark with arousal and groans as he asks her if Gale’s dick feels as good as it looks. “Go on, sweetheart, call out Gale’s name like a proper lady.”

She doesn’t need to be told twice, with Gale being spurned on by John’s dirty talk and admitting to wanting him that way, Di can’t help but get lost in the pleasure of it all.

This time she cries out the right name. Gale doesn’t pull out of her, fucking her until she’s filled with his cum. Good thing she had her special tonics for nights like these, unlike John she’d not like to explain why the Egan baby looks like the wrong Buck.

“I hope you aren’t tired yet, boys, the main event has yet to start.” Diane says once she’s recovered the ability to speak.

Bucky had yet to come, he wanted to hold out for the next part. John had been as excited as a kid on boxing day as he told her what he wanted as the main course for tonight.

She’s taken two men at once before, one in her mouth while the other took her cunt usually. Sometimes it would be two women or a woman and a man at once. All those times had been enjoyed, but she hadn’t tried double penetration yet.

John had been so eager to give her a taste of it with the rubber sex toy, but, God, she wanted to be the meat in a Buck Sandwich just as bad as the Bucks wanted each other.

“Is the bed big enough for the three of us?” Gale still avoids her eyes as he asks. He looked so beautiful laid by her, face still pink from the exertion and sweat making his pretty hair stick to his face.

Oh, what she would give to marry both these men!

“You bet your ass it is, Buck.” John grins wickedly and lays on her other side, goes as far as reaching over to Gale’s and caressed his face on the excuse of brushing his matted hair away from it. “We’re gonna have such a good time we won’t even notice the bombs.”

And they do, if she isn’t kissing Gale, she’s kissing John and at some point, the boys are so into it they kiss each other with a fiery passion they pretend not to notice.

John’s taken great care to prepare her for tonight, going slowly as Gale once again buried himself to the hilt and says the most beautiful words he’s said all night, “You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do this. My girl and my Buck, at the same time.”

Diane can’t even keep the names straight as John sets the pace for the three of them. Both fucking her in perfect synchrony until all three are on the edge of passing out from the ecstasy of it all.

“Don’t stop, John!” Gale grunts as his thrusts out of rhythm and works to get Di to join him in this orgasm to end all orgasms. “I can feel you, Bucky, fuck!”

This time it’s Buck being so gone from the pleasure that he admits to his desire for his best friend. They wanted each other, but society wasn’t ready for them to take that step with each other. They’d lose their posts, their freedom and might even get killed for it.

“Use me, for tonight,” Di can barely make sound come out of her as they ram into her as they push each other to the finish line. Her men don’t need to be told twice; her pleasure comes as a side effect from the two of them chasing after that glorious high. Not that she judges them for it, she’d do the same in their shoes.

The bath couldn’t fit all three of them, but luckily the bed was big enough for her two Bucks to sleep on either side of her. The Bucks steal glances and caresses as they try to enjoy the hard-earned peace before they return to the base in the morning.

“My birthday’s in November.” Di mentions when John thanks her and Gale for the best birthday he’s ever had. “You can thank me then.”

#bucky egan x oc #buck cleven x oc #john egan x oc #gale cleven x oc #bucky x buck #diane shelby #mota fic #masters of the air fanfiction #paper moons series #smut fic #mota fanfic

[xylianasblog]

A time to remember.

Pairings: Jake Sully x FemHuman reader

Summary: uhh uhh

Warnings: MDNI, face sitting, oral (fem receiving), maybe edging?

A/n: Day 12 of pandoras glow! I’m sorry it’s so late babies, my son has been sick as well as myself so my time has been occupied. Not proofread.

꒦꒷❀꒷꒦ ❀✿❀꒦꒷❀꒷꒦MDNI ꒦꒷❀꒷꒦❀✿❀ ꒦꒷❀꒷꒦

You had did very little to muffle your small moans as you worked your fingers in and out of your drenched cunt. There was no need for you to be quiet you had your own room to yourself within hells gates.

Biting down on the palm of your hand to muffle the louder your cries got, your frustration grown with each pump of your fingers inside yourself. You were so desperate, the need to come filled your entire being. “Ya know, I could have you comin instantly babygirl.” The sound Jake’s voice had your eyes popping open, and as quickly as you could you pulled your fingers free from your cunt and pressed your legs together.

“For fucks sake Sully, don’t you ever, I don’t know Knock?” You grumbled as the embarrassment of getting caught showed on your face, Jake could only chuckle as he took in your disheveled form, his eyes looking over every detail as if he were engraving the image of you slightly fucked out into his mind.

“Yes, but not when my favorite person has been MIA for the last few days.” He filled walked into your room, the sliding door closing behind him. He crouched down in front of your bed. “Here I thought you were hurt, nope.” He tilts his head to the side a little. “Turns out you just need to be fucked.” He couldn’t help but chuckle at the pout on your lips as you looked around shyly. “You should have told me, I’d have you fucked dumb and coming back for more each time your pussy needed a fillin’.”

His words played over and over in your ears, him saying this and offering was definitely something you never imagined to come from him. You lowered your legs as you stared at him a look of surprise on your face, you contemplated it, how you had always wondered how good it would be, how good it would feel to be touched by Jake in any sort of way. You tilted your head letting your eyes trail over his crouched form. “Get on the bed. We’re gonna do this my way.” The order from your lifts was soft, sweet, Jake instantly knew despite your surprised demeanor you meant business.

Jake chuckled quietly to himself as he positioned himself on his back, legs hanging off the bed bent at an awkward angle as he tried to make himself comfortable. You eyed his form, taking in just how tall he is before your eyes subconsciously trailed down his stomach and over his budge. You looked away you couldn’t eye him much longer, no matter how many times you’ve fantasized about him this was different, real. Your mind wasn’t coming up with scenarios, you glared down at him once more as you clumsily made your way over to him.

Placing your hands on his chest, Jakes hands immediately found your thighs and effortlessly lifted you up. Your slick cunt in his view now, he felt himself twitch in his loincloth. “You look so good for me, babygirl.” He took a deep breath as he filled his lungs with your scent. “Can’t wait to taste your pretty little pussy.”

You were unprepared as he lowered you down onto his face with little to no effort, his hot breath fanning over your folds before you felt his tongue licking a long strip along your slick cunt. You gasped, body jerking forward as you tried to collect yourself. “Fuck.” You grumbled.

Your hands scratched at his stomach, trying to find your bearings as you tried to place to keep yourself grounded. His long slimy tongue thrusting in and out of your soaking wet pussy after he got a good taste of you. Your whimpers and whining filled the room, mixing with his grunts. His hands gripped tightly onto your thighs as he held your body down over his mouth.

“Fuck, you taste so good.” He groaned. The feeling of his fingers digging into your skin, the feeling of his tongue thrusting so deep inside your cunt had your mind reeling, your body lurched forward as you came, juices making a mess of his face. Jake all but purred as he devoured you, sucking and licking to his heart's content. Not even caring about your limp body, face pressed into his abdomen as your body shook. “Fuck.. This is definitely my new favorite meal.”

꒦꒷❀꒷꒦༻❀✿❀༺꒦꒷❀꒷꒦༻❀✿❀༺ ꒦꒷❀꒷꒦

Taglist: @pandoraslxna @neteyamsoare @criticallybella @sunfyresrider @neteyamsyawntu @tiredmamaissy @headsincloud9 @etherialblackrose @blue-slxt @justcaptiannoodles @neteyamyawne @oakbuggy @eywaite @luvv4j4ybe11 @quicktosimp @cardi-bre91 @torukmaktoskxawng @rivatar @thepeonysbackup @tallulah477 @anemonelovesfiction

#jake sully x y/n #jake x you #jake x reader #2009 avatar #avatar jake sully #jake sully smut #pandoras glow 2024 #pandoras glow

[mrsoftthoughts]

Usually When i say that i like Solangelo, i mean what they could have been, instead of what we end up getting

I really don't like TsatS (i don't hate it, i just don't like it, in fact i wouldn't mind this existing if wasn't canon)

And during Toa i have a bittersweet taste in a lot of the scenes were they appear ( especially the first because i feel Nico a bit ooc here) and feels a little rushed

But I love both Will and Nico as their individual characters, and despite the bad execution of their relationship I'm happy everytime that i remember that they are a couple, because they deserve to be happy and knowing that they can do that together it's pure joy for me

I like the couple or friends that can help each other or at least tried to do it

I love see how both are fuked up and have not the most healthy cope mechanisms in so opposite but sometimes similar ways, but can try to help each other or be side by side while they learn how to be better for themselves

I love the couple that due to not have been in immediate mortal danger while they were knowing each other can choose to show a vulnerable side whe they are ready, instead of being forced to do it, and that would take a while ofc, but the bricks of trust need to be placed carefully in order of the wall don't fall in the future, but most important they-can-choose

The boy that was outted by the god of Romantic love himself in front of someone that he didn't trust at the time, and the boy that after see the bridge were his brother was being destroyed and immediately was pulled out to accomplish his dutty as a healer ,without a chance to go and look for his brother. Now they can have the chance to chose what to do and what to show and when, without pressure.

The couple that maybe would have communication problems at the start, because both are bad asking for help and are even worse for believe that someone apart from their family ( the ones that least want to bother ) would grant it, that maybe could pass a hard time for that, but they have two options; or they drop the things there, or grow up out of this together because no couple is perfect at the start and learn things how it's required may be hard but it's worth it

The couple that may need to reassure the other that it's not for convenience or Charity that they are together but because they love each other and despite all the bad toughs that say that those words are just a gentle lie, deep in them knows thats the true

But i also love the fact that they can be one of the most "normal" couples around, just teenagers in love being teenagers in love

I love the cringing teenagers with a crush on each other that aren't in immediate danger to die like other couples in the series, just silly puberts that probably had made a storm in a glass of water trying to be perfect due to the nerves while talking to each other, that maybe sometimes were catch up looking for a little too long the other because both find the other beautiful, or that maybe like a lot of teenagers had Catch up themselves thinking things that make them feel embarrassed because hormones

The teenagers in love that maybe had nights of not sleeping in order to organize their thoughts talking with their siblings or friends about it or just because they where daydreaming about each other, that probably were on the cloud nine the first week after they started dating

The sarcastic and little a bickering teenagers that love each other deeply and often joke bettwen them

The idea of Will flirting in jokes with Nico but don't dare to go serious because he's so oblivious to not notice that Nico has been courting him the last weeks

That would have to deal with their parents comments, not because they don't like the relationship, but because they got the version of 100% approval and are embarrassed about Hades Apollo or Naomi always asking about their boyfriend

#nico di angelo #will solace #solangelo #pjo #hoo #toa #riordanverse #headcanons that should be canon #Mrs soft rambling #Mrs soft headcanons

[somewhereincairparavel]

I think the reason Rick fumbled with writing Jason's abilities/personality is because he was too focused on Jason existing as Percy's rival to focus on Jason as an individual character. And the funniest thing is, in the end, Jason was not considered satisfactory rival to Percy by the fandom either, which is ironic since that was the whole point of his character.

Rick seemingly screwed up the whole rivalry thing because, though he wanted someone to challenge Percy's power, he didn't want that person (Jason) to be more powerful than Percy or more enjoyable than Percy either, in the fear that the audience might start enjoying Jason more.

When you write a rival, you have to make sure that the rival character has equally powerful personality and strength/abilities compared to the person that they're rivalled with.

But Rick? The way he wrote Jason was like a half done updo. He dumped all the cool power on Percy (like potentially implying that Percy has bloodbending,can control water inside of someone, making sure Percy wins ALMOST every fight (and i mean, almost, there is a very rare time Percy ever loses) while limiting his power with Jason in every way possible, making the stupid brick jokes to make sure Jason always passes out in a fight, the whole "I only get one lighting bolt a day from my father" (it's a dumbass logic too, Jason should've been able to summon that much power of lighting on his own, he does NOT need his dad for that shit c'mon now) like it's an obvious effort to make jason appear weaker. Rick did all of this while lazily trying to shoehorn Jason's achievements in the plot by implying it but not actually showing it, like a "yeah he did this cool shit once ig" which makes it less impressive compared to Percy's achievements, which is something we've actually witnessed firsthand. Rick intentionally never brought up or expanded upon Jason's achievements much. He only emphasized everyone's awe of him being the son of Jupiter, which made it seem like Jason had the 'big three child privilege' where people didn't give a fuck about his efforts but instead his position.

Alright Rick, don't give him power, but atleast give him a personality? Nope he isn't getting that either. Jason had the potential to make DARK jokes about his controlled millitary life in Rome, and explore his past. Like I badly wanted a passage of Jason getting his memories back in fragments, Rick could've added flashbacks of Jason's past in his pov in a way that he gets his memories back. Instead he went "yeah yeah jason got all his memories back, it's all good" like SHOW us that wtf?? sure let's make sure he's as stale as possible to the audience, we can't have anyone liking the underdog over Percy Jackson!

He also made sure that Jason had it super hard in life aswell but never emphasized it or gave him anything good compared to Percy.

Don't get me wrong, percy definitely had it rlly hard, but Atleast Rick made sure Percy had a loving mom and a stepdad, a loving girlfriend and a cute adorable sister that he could play and spend time with, he got to celebrate birthdays with Sally, he got to eat her tasty blue food, and he actually had an ambrosia taste. You mean to tell me that Jason's sister barely had time for him, that he hasn't had a single birthday and that ambrosia tastes like sawdust for him while you give the other members of the seven, delicious ambrosia taste? 😤

Jason Grace has gotten the worst life in his own story, he wasn't "powerful" enough for a child of Zeus, he was "boring" , nobody properly trusted him, he died painfully, he didn't have parents, he barely talked to his sister, he didn't have a childhood, he was abandoned to blood thirsty animals when he was TWO, he didn't have a birthday, he didn't have an ambrosia taste, his girlfriend dumped him, he never got to see his best friend before he died, and he is terribly hated by the fandom who are simply turning a blind eye to his struggles because "no Percy will always be better in every way" yeah. I could go on and on.

#Rick Riordan I actually like your work okay? But why. #You fumbled jason in every way ever #But don't think I'll stop loving Jason. ha #Jokes on the people who think I'll find jason 'boring' NOPE not happening buddy #Jason is my top favourite Hoo character apart from Percy and Annabeth and nobody's going to bully me into changing it lol #pjo #pjo fandom #percy jackson #pjo series #jason grace #pjo hoo #pjo hoo toa #piper mclean #leo valdez #annabeth chase #frank zhang #hazel levesque #reyna avila ramirez arellano