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januaryembrs · 2 months

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THE KID SWINGS BACK | Spencer Reid x Prentiss!Reader [4]

Description: The THREE times things feel weird between Spencer and you because you're just best friends.

Length: 21k (this is HALF of what I wrote for this chapter before I split it into two parts :0)

Warnings: explicit hints of suicidal ideation, as I have said in the last two chapters, Bugsy has really struggled with losing Emily and has been in a bad place. it is mentioned once or twice but please read with caution if you feel topics of mental health, not vividly described but the effects of it, are mentioned. Spencer's addiction is also mentioned. Violence, blood, swearing, usual CM warnings. Also there is a brief mention of SA (bugsy gets spanked by a stranger in a casino), again if this is triggering please be cautious. EXPLOSION. Emily and bug argue + fight. Bug + hatch fight. Bugsy takes no prisoners in this one won't lie. Spencer and bugsy turn each other on accidentally.

authors note: this was supposed to be a lot longer (I've had to split it with the next part released in a few days time) and yet every time I tried to upload to Tumblr, it crashed because it was over 30k words ;-; OTHER HALF IS COMING SOON.

previous chpt | next chapter

‘If you take a swing, the kid swings back,

she say I’m not your punching bag,’

The one where Emily comes back.

She felt the headache as soon as she woke up. She’d experimented with Molly her first week of college, hated every second of it after she had prattled on for two hours to some other random freshman about the breakthrough research in enzyme-replacement therapy like she was catching him up on an episode of the Kardashians. She’d tried the odd few brownies, though they usually turned her stomach the next day and made her paranoid for about a week, before she swore them off entirely for their yummy, sober counterpart.

She should have known what to expect when she woke up, but then again, if she had been smart enough to pre-empt how awful she’d feel the next day, she probably wouldn’t have taken the little pink pill with a candied love heart on the top at all.

The duvet was soft against her face, and for a moment she didn’t care about anything except chasing the warmth it provided; just that she was cosy and it smelled nice, smelled familiar.

Her eyes pinged open when she realised that whatever that familiar smell was, it was very much not her own sheets. And she was very much not in the clothes she left the house in last night.

Bugsy sat up too fast, that much she knew, because in the time it had taken her to swing her legs over the edge of the bed, reach for the side table where she hoped to find her phone, a home phone, or just any working phone she could call someone off, she felt the room that smelled like a dream spinning around her.

Her legs turned to jelly, her stomach tossed with a mix of nerves and nausea, and, graceful as ever, she fell face first to the ground with a thud, smacking her temple off the corner of the bedpost on her way down.

“Fuck,” She whined, raising a hand to her brow that thudded with more than the side affects of last night, and she was quick to hear footsteps approaching as if in a half run. The door to the bedroom dragged on the thick sherpa carpet as it swung open, and she blinked wearily up at the culprit.

“Alright, up we get,” There were hands slipping under hers before she got a chance to see anything that wasn’t a blurry mess of brown hair and worried eyes, and it wasn’t until she heard his voice she felt herself sigh in relief, “Of course you wake up the second I turn around,”

“Sencer?,” She cleared her throat, hands latching onto his shoulders as he lifted her back onto the bed, “Spencer?” She tried again, her lips chapped, her skin clammy.

“Good morning, to you too,” His voice was soft, quieter than usual, like he knew just how delicate her head was and changed his tone accordingly, “Did you sleep well?”

“Morgan- where’s Morgan, I thought we…” She murmured, turning her head in confusion to the window where Spence had gone so far as to pull the curtains closed for her, seeing just the smallest crack of daylight filtering over the bed sheets. Her hands ran down his chest, her eyes lost and dazed, like someone had taken her batteries out, and Spencer took it as an opportunity to hand her the glass of water he’d got her and two advil.

“Morgan’s safe; he went home, he said he had a wonderful night,” Spencer lied, hoping she was just a little out of it that she didn’t catch him in it. She always knew when he was lying. But, as he’d suspected, she barely picked up on it, her lips pouting in confusion when she took note of the medicine he’d given her, “Drink up, Morgan said you did a lot of dancing last night, you’re probably dehydrated.”

“I did…” She echoed him, trailing off when the blur of the nightclub caught up to her, and she remembered exactly the last time someone had handed her a little tablet like those ones. Her heart plummeted, her eyes widening into saucers, and she swore she might have felt the glass crack beneath her palm with how tight her grip became. She looked up at him, and instantly picked apart the pity and the sadness swimming in his honey pooled eyes, “You know,”

He nodded softly, his hand coming up to stroke her hair away from her face, his gaze falling to where she felt something sore and achy forming on her forehead, bleeding into her brow.

“Spence-” Her own groan of pain cut her off when he brushed over the bump on her temple, and she understood she had perhaps hit it much harder than she’d initially thought.

“Let’s get you breakfast, and then we’ll talk,” He whispered softly, concern thick in his voice, and for the first time in months, she didn’t fight it. She just listened, and let him love her.

“God, I am truly pathetic,” She muttered, sipping her coffee with a scowl in between the maple ladened pancakes going down with a vicious chomp on her fork. Her other hand was occupied holding a bag of frozen peas to her head, where a nice dark bruise was spreading its way over the right side of her face, spider webbing out into a black eye.

“You’re not pathetic, everyone makes mistakes,” Spencer tried reassuring her, but he couldn’t help but smile as she devoured breakfast with the anger of a raccoon being dragged from a garbage bin, “You’re safe, that’s all that matters,”

She sighed, and Spencer didn’t actually think she had ever been so grumpy around him before, “Spencer, look at me,” He did, he had been all morning, but he did as he was told anyway, “I’m a federal agent who took molly from a frat boy all because I can’t just grieve like a normal person and cry my pathetic little heart out and be done with it. I crashed your night because I can’t even handle a little ecstasy without needing supervision and I just got into a fight with your bedframe,” She finished with a huff, dipping her next mouthful of pancake in the puddle of maple syrup she’d created on the plate, “And the fucking bedframe won.”

He smiled despite himself, reaching out to hold her wrist gently, making sure it was her turn to listen to him now, “Bug, I grew up being shoved into lockers and swirlied my whole life. I was the only kid in a classful of seniors that used to wedgie me so hard I had to have the school librarian, Mrs Addler, walk me between classes. Believe me, I’ve seen pathetic and you’re not- why are you crying, Bug, don’t cry,”

He remembered this bit, the mood swings, when he would pendulum between exhaustion and irritation straight into sadness and hopelessness, like there would never be an impasse between them unless he did more of the thing that had made him feel so awful in the first place. Still, he gently took the bag of now slightly soggy peas from her head, wrapping an arm around her back and scooching his chair to sit next to hers as she dropped onto his shoulder with a weepy sniff.

“I’m crying because I just thought of baby you all alone with Mrs Addler-” She sobbed loudly, and his heart bled out in his chest with warmth. No one had ever cried for him. “How could they be so cruel to you, I swear if we ever see those bastards, I’ll show them how we settled things in Russia-”

He chuckled, shaking his head, and she snuggled closer to him the way she had last night when the only thing keeping her on earth had been his body heat.

“It wasn’t all bad, she used to share her butterscotch with me,” He said with a small smile when she raised a wet glance at him.

“You know, you never have to be alone again, right?” Bugsy murmured, and he swore his heart might have just jumped right up into his mouth then and there, “You’re my best friend in the whole world, and I promise I’ll never leave you again. That was… selfish of me, I’m sorry I was so selfish.”

Spencer felt his throat tighten as he looked at her, innocent and entirely truthful, like he could ask anything from her right this second and her god’s honest words would be ‘Anything for you, Spencer, I’d do anything for you.’ He had never had anyone look at him like that, nothing even close.

“You’re my best friend too. And you weren’t selfish, you were grieving,” He choked out, and she tucked herself beneath his chin then, satisfied with the response, but his stomach turned sour when he remembered what he was going to tell her last night, what he should have told her months, years, ago instead of lying to her. Because he knew she would understand, knew she would get him the way no one else had even tried to, because she was just her. “I have to tell you something,”

She sat up straight, sensing the seriousness in his tone, and looked at him with imploring eyes, still sleep-addled and slightly wet around the edges.

He cleared his throat, “When I told you I was allergic to narcotics since I was born, that wasn’t entirely true, and I’m sorry I lied to you,” Her brows softened, creasing in a way that told him she was worried, or she knew where he was heading but couldn’t find a voice in her to say anything. He ran clammy palms over his pyjama pants, “There was a case, a while back, where we were tracking an UnSub to this farmhouse in the middle of Atlanta. Me and JJ got split up and the UnSub took me hostage in his father’s shed,”

She stayed quiet, but she quickly took his hand in hers when she saw him fidgeting with it in his lap. He smiled at her weakly, and squeezed her fingers gently, telling her he was okay to talk about it no matter if his chest was rattling and his face felt like fire.

“He was very sick, the UnSub. Tobias. He took on an alter of his dead father because he couldn't handle life without him. Even though his father was extremely violent and abusive, he still loved him enough to never want to let him go,” His lip pulled between his teeth for a moment, and he couldn’t look at her for what he was about to say, “Tobias tried giving me something to stop the pain of his father’s beatings when he would front and being a drug addict himself, the best thing he had was dilaudid. So, he gave it to me for the three days I was with him before the team found me,”

“Spence,” She said softly, knowing he would hate to hear an ‘I’m sorry’ because she hated those two words with a passion, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,”

“No, I want to, it’s just a little… fuzzy in parts,” He whispered, and she nodded, gently knocking her head against his jaw to let him know she was there to listen, “After the case wrapped up, everyone got home and just sort of pretended things went back to normal, even though I felt like I was drowning in everything that had happened, and the only thing I could think that had stopped the pain was the dilaudid. So I took more, and more, until I was using every other day, sometimes even at work to cope with the cases,”

“Did anyone know?” She asked, lips pressed tight as she scolded herself for talking, but he stroked her hand with his thumb to show he didn’t care if she asked questions, “Did Emily know?”

He nodded gingerly, “Everyone knew, but no one could do anything, or say anything, because otherwise Hotch would have to file a report on me, and I’d be forced to leave the team,”

“So no one helped?” She said, and there was an unexpected trace of anger in her tone that he knew too well. He’d be lying if he said that there were more than a handful of times when he was at his lowest he didn’t curse the team out for not giving a single shit about his condition. But when he’d sobered up, when he’d got clean and back to his usual self, he knew they were trying to do what was best, that they were in uncharted waters as to what would be the correct approach to helping him that wouldn’t diffuse a bomb that could ruin all of their careers.

“There was nothing they could do, Bug. If they said anything they would be just as liable as me for what I was doing, the same way Morgan and I aren’t going to say a word about what happened last night,” He pointed out, and she seemed bitter as if she knew he was right but hated the point of it anyway.

She held onto herself for long enough hearing that, and he saw it coming before it came as a shock when she threw her arms around him, hugging him tighter than she ever had before, not crying like she had been, but full to the brim of sadness and grief and mourning, as if she was trying to squeeze it all out of him so she could take it on for herself.

“You’re never going to be alone again, I swear, Spencer,”

And he believed her with everything in him.

–

Bugsy had been back in the field for five weeks now, looking healthier than ever thanks to Hotch’s insistence she joined Beth for triathlon practice despite the fact she really had started feeling more like herself.

It had only taken six months, but who was counting, right?

Sure, walking past Emily’s desk had stopped her in her tracks the first day she got back, and Morgan had quickly jumped in to distract her with a cup of coffee, leading her over to the kitchenette and far away from the empty table her sister’s things had once been on.

She was still adjusting to this alternate reality version of the BAU where Emily wasn’t there to protect her and watch out for her, and where they didn’t bicker about who got to ride shotgun with Hotch because Bug loved when he would drive fast (he pretended not to notice but would floor it when they hit the freeway), or when they would butt heads over who finished off the biscuits Emily kept in her secret stash (it was almost always Bugsy sharing them with Spencer and Penelope, when the three of them would gossip in Pen’s lair at lunchtime.)

She was adjusting, slowly yes, but there was one thing to keep her going, to keep her holding her head high as she walked past Emily’s picture on the way, full of smiles and dark hair the day she’d been instated in the bureau, her excitement tangible even through a piece of paper and a thin sheet of glass.

There was one thing keeping her going, and it wasn’t Penelope’s cheerful good mornings she showered her in the minute she entered the building, it wasn’t Beth’s runs that would take everything out of her even though she felt stronger than she ever had, it wasn’t Rossi’s insistence on cooking for her once or twice a week because ‘he had more wine he could ever need alone and she could stir the pasta while he chopped the meat’, and it wasn’t even Spencer sticking to her side like damn velcro since she had been back. Although, they played a pretty big part in it.

No, the one thing keeping her going was revenge.

Morgan had let it slip accidentally, the morning she had come back into the headquarters to fill in some forms with Hotch and Strauss before Hotch was reassigned to Pakistan, when she had slinked into his office with an apology ready at her lips for the way she had behaved, to which he was going to say he had no idea what she was talking about because that was how things had to be, only to find file upon file upon caseload on Ian Doyle splayed all over his desk, and she quickly realised Derek was not one to let sleeping dogs lie either.

And, reluctantly, he had let her help, because he hated the idea of them keeping secrets from her. Especially ones that involved them secretly tracking down the guy who killed her sister, who had threatened to abduct, torture and kill her if Emily hadn’t gone after him first.

Because Bugsy was always going to be her little sister, no matter how grown and headstrong and stubborn as an ass she was. And Emily had had zero intention of letting Bugsy come even close to danger at the hands of Ian Doyle or any other motherfucker dumb enough to think they’d get away unscathed making threats to her sister. Which was why Emily had been the one to track him down first, no matter who she had to trample on, what lines she had to cross.

And now it was Bug’s turn to reciprocate the favour.

The one thing that bounced around her head with every step she took across the BAU floor was how Ian Doyle would look when she dragged him to hell and back and everything in between, when she made him burn the way she had burnt.

Hotch had been away on temporary duty for the month, bar the occasional phone call where he checked in on her directly or through Spencer, and it wasn’t until she walked into Morgan in a blunt exchange with his own cell that she realised he was perhaps closer to coming home than she’d thought.

The man nodded, and bid the mystery caller goodbye before he flicked a look up to where Bugsy had entered his office with a cup of to-go coffee and an expression of intrigue.

“We got him,” Morgan said, and it was the three words she had been waiting to hear for two hundred and fifteen days.

They had found Doyle.

She was in the back of an SUV not even two hours later, strapped to her neck with tactical gear and two loaded pistols holstered at her hips.

“You’re sure you’re alright to do this?” JJ asked from her place beside her, noting the way the girl’s leg was bouncing, her fingers twitching as the three of them crowded around the screen linked to the surveillance camera set up outside Doyle’s apartment, Spencer and David watching an identical feed in the next block over, outside the safe house his son, Declan, was supposed to be in.

Only, when they’d arrived, the little blonde haired, blue eyed boy that was the only thing Doyle gave a damn about in the world was gone, two agents and his nanny lying dead on the floor.

“Put it this way, JJ, I’m going in after that son of a bitch whether you guys cover me or not, and it would be real nice to have back up,” Bugsy said simply, like she was reciting the weather, not ready to rain hellfire on anyone who got in between her and wringing Doyle’s neck.

The blonde woman exchanged a look with Derek, the two of them cautious about her behaviour, but thought better than to try stop her when she had just as much right as any of them for justice.

Before any of them could say another word, a car sped around the corner of the cul-de-sac, veering and wavering between parked cars, narrowly missing theirs by an inch, and red-blue blaring lights came racing after it within seconds, the siren full blast and no doubt waking the neighbours.

Or at least one neighbour in particular, as they spotted the curtains twitching in Doyle’s apartment, and they had their first sign of life in hours.

“He’s in there, someone’s in there,” Bugsy pointed to where the fabric moved in the dead of the night, unholstering one of her weapons and bursting the back door to the SUV open.

JJ clicked her radio on, speaking into her shoulder as Morgan was a hair width behind Bugsy, equally armed and ready, “We got movement on Doyle, we’re heading up to search his apartment,”

“Be careful, keep an eye on the kid,” Rossi ordered, he and Spencer adjusting their positions in their SUV, waiting for forensics to show up and investigate the nanny’s house. Spencer licked his lips nervously, and he could only imagine what was going through Bugsy’s mind at that moment, wishing more than ever she could have just stayed with him and let Morgan and JJ catch Doyle.

But she would never. She had nearly ripped Rossi’s head off for suggesting it even.

–

She’d seen him move up to the roof, had taken the stairs in twos, and she felt like kissing Aaron the second she saw him for all that cardio paying off a treat. She heard Morgan panting behind her, urging her to wait up so she wasn’t going in alone, but she didn’t listen, not when she was this close to getting that rat in her grasp and squeezing the life out of him barehanded.

She kicked down the door leading to the roof from the stairwell, her pistol drawn high and sharp and Morgan’s steps racing up behind her were the only sound for a moment.

He was here somewhere, watching them, god only hoped they had caught him unaware before he could call in his own backup.

Taking a careful step out onto the concrete, willing herself to take a deep breath and calm herself; she checked her nine o’clock, checked her three, before her boots crunched under her and she moved further out onto the roofing. Flicking a look around again, her eyes squinted against the moonlight that did little to no good, searching for even the smallest movements that would give him away.

“I heard you wanted to see me, Doyle,” She said loudly, hoping he would fit the profile they’d put together and want to tie up his loose ends once he realised who she was, “Truth is, I’ve been wanting to see you too,”

She had barely a second to react as she felt something hard slam across the back of her head, and she realised he had hit her with a rogue, loose pipe, hard enough for her to stumble forward, dropping her pistol when his body soon followed to tackle her completely to the ground in the effort to grab for the gun himself.

But she felt like body was alive with excitement, like the pain in her skull didn’t ache, didn’t matter, because she had him in her reach.

It took her barely a second to bring her elbow into his stomach, winding him hard enough he weakened his grip on top of her, then another hit square across his jaw, another to his temple, one to his already crooked nose and she threw a downward thump into his groin for good measure.

He hissed, cursing her something vile, and it was only then she saw the grey-blue eyes of the man who had killed her sister with no remorse, who had taken the person she loved unconditionally within a blink of an eye.

“You recognise me?” She said, a manic smile on her face as she raised the other gun from its holster, kicking him hard in the knee she’d seen him limping on, a bullet wound shaped scar giving his weakness away in seconds.

She wasn’t the only enemy he’d made in that business of his, but she sure as hell would be his last one.

He fell to the floor, his eyes wary as he looked up at the girl he had spent weeks collating photos of, the girl he’d had two of his best men tracking, snapping pictures of her going about her day to day life before he sent them to Emily. Because she would know what that meant no words needed.

This was her sister. Her little sister she had fought tooth and nail for, that she had given her life for. Her sister, who had the same rock solid loyalty to her family as Lauren had.

“Do you want to know where you went wrong, Doyle?” She asked, and her voice wasn’t calm like her body was, it was hiding the glee she was taking from his alarmed expression, like they both knew she was the last person he would have expected to be grabbing him in the night, “Your mistake, Doyle, was not killing me first,”

She raised her finger to the trigger, feeling for a second the same thrill as when she popped that molly just to forget everything that was happening. Because she had tunnel vision, and pulling the plug on Ian Doyle’s pathetic existence was the solution.

Until Morgan’s hand came over hers, and his voice was closer than she’d expected to her ear. She’d barely heard him creep up on her, she realised with a jolt.

“Don’t do this, kid,”

“He deserves it,” She spat, hating the sorrow in his voice when he pointed the gun away from Doyle who wiped his fingers beneath his nostrils and pulled back with a wince and a blob of blood over the back of his hand.

“I know he does. But we need to find Declan, and we can’t do that without him,” Morgan’s voice was deep and bitter, knowing full well he had to be the one to take the reins as much as he would love to just let her have at him.

Her nose scrunched in disgust when Doyle laughed at her annoyance, and she quickly holstered her weapon, pulling the cuffs out of her back pocket and helping Morgan yank him off the floor.

“I got some friends that would love to meet you, honey,” Doyle said through a wheezing breath, despite Morgan’s rough hands shoving him forward towards the stairwell.

She chuckled however, her face still bitter, her eyes something nasty and wild as she flanked his other side, “Don’t worry, I have some friends for you to play with too, Doyle.” She tightened her grip on his arm just to make it hurt, “I wonder how the Chernuses would feel about you and your men being so close to their turf. You ever fucked with the Russian Mob, Ian?”

His smile wiped clean off his face at that.

“How’s it going?” Hotch asked, and she barely had time to comment on the fact he looked rather dashing with a beard and a tan, or that he had lost ten pounds, before he was straight back to business, even after an eighteen hour flight.

“He won’t talk. He said the only person who could have helped us find Gerace would have been Emily.” She replied, rubbing her hands over her eyes with a huff, “Just another dead end,” She threw the file onto the roundtable, which was slowly piling up with documents relating to anyone Ian Doyle had ever had relations with.

Hotch’s face tightened. He took a single moment to enjoy the calm that overcame the room, took a second to enjoy the fact she was looking normal and healthy compared to when he had all but barged into her apartment to force her on a run.

Because he knew the normalcy they had found themselves in now was about to be flipped on its head, JJ confirming with a nod from the other side of the room that she was on her way.

He turned to look where Morgan, Rossi and Reid had walked in, Reid stroking a gentle hand over Bugsy’s hair where she hunched over the table and flicked through some files for anything to keep her mind off of going into that interrogation room and ripping into Doyle. She flicked a small smile up at him as he passed her, leaning over her shoulder to take half her workload off her.

She looked happier than she had in months, and he was about to take it all away again. Hotch swallowed the self loathing that threatened to choke him alive, and opened his mouth.

“Everybody have a seat,” The team looked up at him in confusion, but followed orders, JJ moving around the table to stand beside him, the same reluctant look on her face when she saw Bugsy’s frown.

“Why?” Morgan asked, seeing as no one else was going to, “What’s going on? Everything alright?”

“Seven months ago, I made a decision that affected this team,” Hotch began, his eyes immediately flicking to where the youngest Prentiss faltered, “As you all know, Emily had lost a lot of blood after her fight with Doyle. But the doctors were able to stabilise her,”

Bugsy’s ears started ringing just hearing her sister’s name coming from his lips, said so casually and blunt that it felt like he had punched her in the stomach and she thought she was maybe over estimating how well she had overcome the grief.

And that hadn’t even been the worst part, she quickly realised. The doctors were able to stabilise her.

“And she was airlifted from Boston to Bethesda under a covert exfiltration. Her identity was strictly need to know. She was reassigned to Paris where she was given several identities, none of which we had access to for her security,” Hotch said, avoiding the piercing eyes that were slowly melting between confusion to heartache to one she finally could land on, horror.

No one breathed for a moment, no one said a thing as the words sunk in, and she felt her entire body wash over with a gut wrenching numbness as it dawned on her what he was saying.

Emily never died on that table like JJ had said. She had never died at all.

“What?” Her voice was tiny and childlike when it came out, and she felt like she was stuck in the world’s worst nightmare, like she could claw and scratch and rip at her skin just to wake herself up from this terrifying dream where Hotch had lied and Emily had left her and everyone who was supposed to care about her had kept her in the dark.

“She’s alive?” Garcia asked, tears in her own green lined eyes, looking at Hotch with utter shock.

“But we buried her,” Spencer found it in himself to murmur, because none of this made sense and if any of what Hotch was saying was true, then he knew things were about to become really ugly.

“As I said I take full responsibility for the decision; if anyone has any issues, they should be directed towards me,” And it was only then he looked at Bugsy fully, properly, since he had opened his mouth.

He could have swore he had never seen such complete and utter betrayal written across someone’s face, let alone directed towards him. Because he knew that’s what it was. He knew he had taken every scrap and shred of trust she had placed in him since that day she ran away from her own wedding and found herself stuck in that very same office, hugging him tightly with her sodden veil and even more soaked white dress, he had taken everything vulnerable she had ever given him and spat it right back at her.

He felt like crying but before he could think too hard about it, he saw Emily walking down the hall and her own face was just as, if not more, devastated than his own and he knew he had to be the one to stay strong.

Garcia’s head snapped to the doorway, the sight of it leading Spencer and Rossi to do the same, and Morgan’s face morphed into anguish when he took a look for himself.

Because there, looking like a glowing beacon of everything they’d been missing in seven months, was Emily Prentiss, alive and well.

She seemed lost for words, her eyes falling to her sister who seemed to force herself to look up at her from where she was staring in wide eyed terror at the table, as if she was struggling to comprehend any of this, or like the building was falling down around her and she was in complete fight, flight or freeze.

But she did, she looked up at her after a second, her face unrecognisable to Emily for a moment, and it took all of three moments where she seemed relieved to see her, before it curled into a vitriolic anger Emily had never, never seen from her.

She looked like she was ready to kill her with her bare hands herself.

Penelope was first out of her seat, practically flying across the room to grab her close friend in a hug, a complete bubble of sobs and wails, her pigtails shaking with her rattling chest as Emily hugged her tight to her.

“Oh, my god, it’s real-you’re real- like I can actually touch you and you’re safe and not in that god awful box-” Penelope was a catalyst for the rest of the team standing up to take their turn crying on the woman’s shoulder.

That is, the rest of the team except Bugsy.

She remained in her seat, her gaze falling back to the mess of files that all of a sudden felt a complete waste of time, felt irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Who cared who was Doyle’s financial advisor between the years of 2005 and 2007 when Emily was alive and they had known the whole time.

And the more she thought, the more furious she got. And then the more furious she got, the stiller she became; an atomic bomb ready to detonate at the slightest prod.

“I am so sorry, I really am,” Emily said as Spencer had wrapped his giant arms around her tentatively, smelling her perfume and feeling his heart ache with how warm and alive and healthy her body felt. “Not a day went by that I didn’t-”

But a sound cut her off, one none of them were expecting in the slightest.

Bugsy was laughing.

Not the sweet chirp she normally gave, or the hearty one that came from her gut that they hadn’t heard in months, but something manic. Something frenzied, beserk. Deranged.

Hotch’s head snapped to her, Emily’s too, though she had already taken note of the fact her sister hadn’t so much as moved from her feet, and stupidly she had hoped it was the shock sinking in.

But her eyes were cruel, her teeth more of a snarl than a smile and the laugh she gave was that of a person over the edge.

The straw that broke the camel’s back, she believed it was called.

“She never made it off the table,” Bugsy imitated woefully, her eyes snapping to JJ, who felt smaller than she ever had under the hatred in them, though the girl’s nasty smile hadn’t let up, “You are good, Jennifer. You really got me there, hey maybe if the agent thing doesn’t work out then acting is alway an option for you,”

“Bug-” Hotch started, only for her to stand up so harshly her chair nearly tipped back, but she didn’t seem to care as she rounded the table towards him in a bitter chuckle.

“And you! I didn’t know you had it in you. But very good, Hotch, very well played out. For a second I thought you actually gave a fuck about me,” She fist bumped his shoulder, a little harsher than something innocent behind it, before something spiteful settled in her tone, “But then again, you are nothing if not professional, aren’t you? I guess a suicide on your team would look terrible on your report card,”

“I think you need to calm down and let’s talk about this for a second,” Hotch tried to jump in, his brows furrowed enough to make him look annoyed but anyone with two eyes could see the worry that brewed there, that chased her as she retreated to where her jacket was slung over the back of her seat. She laughed again viciously, shaking her head. Grabbing her coat, she headed for the door where Emily stood helplessly, not knowing what to say for the best, and she thought for a minute her little sister was going to address her.

But she didn’t; didn’t even look her way as she approached, and it wasn’t until Hotch rounded the room after her with a fixed gaze she showed any sign of stopping. Not until he reached for her arm with a tight grip, a call of her name, did she even halt in her step.

“Stop, let’s just talk,”

“Let go of me,” Bugsy snapped, and it was the first time she actually gave way to the anger she felt, the amusement coming from a place of distraught long gone. She sounded pissed.

“Listen to me, we had no choice here,” Hotch barked, because it was the only way he could communicate when he felt this lost. And that’s what he was; he was losing her. They all were. “And I would have thought you’d be able to stop being so spoiled for one god damn second to see we were protecting-”

Her palm whirled around faster than he could have ever anticipated, slapping clean and sharp against his cheek, hard enough the air was sucked out of the room and his words died in his throat.

Penelope gasped. Spencer’s eyes widened. Emily took a heavy gulp.

“Bugsy!” Emily said in horror, and it was then her little sister’s eyes actually set on hers, every bit as cruel and hateful she’d expected.

“I want nothing to do with you, do you hear me? I don’t want to talk to you, or see you, don’t even speak that name, I don’t want it from you anymore,” Bugsy pointed at her with crooked, bitten nails Emily knew all too well, “You left me. You left me.”

With those three choked words, the other’s could only watch hurricane Bugsy whirl and burn and crash her way out of the room.

–

She sat on the steps to the federal building, perfectly dressed agents filtering around her with the occasional tut in disgust.

She couldn’t really blame them; her face was wet with tears, she was pretty sure there was snot running out of her nose hastily, and between her free hand, the other of which was pulling at her hair, was a cigarette that swirled its grey smoke around her head with a horribly addictive smell.

She heard footsteps approaching her from the back, different from the rest, and felt someone stop beside her, sliding to their ass on the step.

“Spencer, if you’re going to tell me this is taking seven minutes off my life then please can it wait for another day-” Bugsy started with a tearful cadence, only to be cut off by a woman’s voice.

“I was actually going to ask if you had a lighter,” Erin Strauss said, pulling her own menthol cigarette between her lips, and Bugsy dug around her pocket for the cheap ‘I <3 Virginia’ lighter she had snagged on New Years, clicking the flame out long enough for her boss’s boss to light the tip, “I heard you gave Aaron a shock,”

Bugsy stayed silent, taking a drag that burnt her lips and tasted awful, but it was the only thing she could turn to that would calm her even in the slightest, even if it was just the chemicals.

“Bit of an understatement,” She mused, exhaling softly with a frown, “Did you know?”

“Are you going to slap me too if I said yes?” Erin asked, and Bugsy gave a small, wet chuckle, shaking her head, “Would it matter if I did?”

“No, I guess not,” She replied, breathing in through her nose, “I want to feel sorry, but all I feel is just … empty. Why did JJ and Hotch know what happened to her but she didn’t think to tell her own sister?”

“Probably because you’re the one she loves the most,” Strauss picked over the hem of her navy blue midi dress that had been pressed neatly just that morning, and now here she was sitting on the steps to her building helping a girl in crisis chainsmoke, “It was how she ended up there in the first place, right? Because she wanted to protect you,”

“She left me torturing myself for months that her death was all my fault; believe me protection was not what I needed,” Bugsy said harshly, her final drag reaching the brown stub, and she scowled as she doubted it on the concrete floor below her, tucking her knees up to her face and resting her head on them.

Erin sighed, patting her on the back gently, not wanting to cross any lines for such a fragile girl, but not wanting to leave her entirely alone either.

“Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family.” Strauss quoted, taking one more breath of her own cigarette before she squished it under her heel quickly. “Paul Pearsall,”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bug asked quietly, tilting her head onto her cheek to look over at the woman.

“It means you can hate her as much as you can right now, but sooner or later, you’re going to need her, or she’s going to need you, and you’ll wish you never pushed each other away,”

2. The one where you pretend to be a couple.

Her hair was shorter, Bugsy noted, where she saw the back of her sister’s head from her desk. It looked nice, not that she would tell her that.

She wouldn’t tell her anything.

It had been eight weeks, three of which Bugsy had spent taking a leave of absence and been forced to see the designated federal councillor for her behaviour towards Hotch. She had gone to the handful of sessions to keep him off her back, but had stayed quiet for most of them, except the one where she got the psychologist to tell her the dirt on her recent, messy break up so they’d have something to talk about at least.

She had only really been speaking to Spencer the weeks since she had returned to work, had handed the slip of paper that declared her fit to work to Hotch with a smug look on her face, daring him to extend her sick leave as punishment for the tantrum she’d thrown.

She knew it was dragging, knew most of the team were at least trying to adjust to the shellshock of Emily being back from the dead, but then again, the rest of the team hadn’t been writing their own eulogy so the burden wouldn’t fall onto someone else if they ever found her unresponsive.

In the time Emily had supposedly been dead, her mind had wandered someone cold and dark and alone. Worse than any of them had ever thought it had been, worse than they gave her credit for.

Only for it to be fake. As though she was the star of her own Truman show, with a laugh track playing on loop in the back; her own friends, people she’d considered family, watching her kicking and screaming and fighting through every breath for some sort of relief from the pain, a pawn in their little sitcom of horrors.

Morgan had forgiven her sister with little resistance. She’d always known that, to Morgan, trust was higher than anything in his books. Yet with some soft words and tears shed, Derek had cracked and accepted Emily back warmly like nothing had happened. Rossi and Penelope had just been happy to see her, happy to have her back and very much not dead, so convincing them she was innocent had been no big feat. The only other person who had put up nearly as much fight as her had been Spencer. He had told her about the spat he and JJ had gotten into for being an accomplice to their pain, but even he was beginning to warm back up to her sister, not that she could really blame him.

Emily was putting in overtime trying to get back into her good books, while she couldn’t even stand to look at her without remembering how hard she’d cried when she realised Nico and Sergio would be in her apartment alone and confused if she had been sad enough to do something rash.

“Good Morning,” Emily’s voice was nails in a chalkboard, two arms winding over her shoulder to plonk two take out coffees in front of her and Spencer, one with his name written in black ink on the lid and the other with a dozen hearts dotted over the cup, a little doodle of a lady bug and a bumble bee cuddling. What she supposed was meant to be the two of them.

Spencer watched Bugsy fight the urge to roll her eyes, surprisingly somewhat progress for her since the first two weeks of Emily even being near her resulted in the two of them screaming at one another until they were separated. Emily was growing tired of being punished for trying to keep her sister safe, Bugsy was full of hatred for every lie they had told her.

But he saw the way she immediately knocked the coffee into the trash without a second thought, ignoring the fact she would need to take out a very heavy and wet bin liner later, if only to drive the point home to her older sister. I don’t want your charity.

Emily faltered for a second, her eyes snapping to him as if he could do or say anything to help her out, but he could only give her one of his awkward, straight smiles, because he had absolutely no intention of pushing Bugsy to heal any faster than she was doing like everyone else was, nor did he want Emily to feel like he didn’t care she was hurting too.

Emily gave a resigned nod, daring to pat her sister on the shoulder. “Better in the trash than thrown over my face, right?”

She moved away from the woman’s desk, shooting a disheartened look at Reid as she passed him and he murmured ‘thankyou’ for his own coffee, until the sound of JJ calling them into the round table room cut off whatever she was going to say back.

Spencer thoughtlessly handed Bugsy his own latte, smothered with caramel and cream the way he liked it, and she took an appreciative sip without a word.

He hadn’t brought up that night, hadn’t spoken about the way she’d pressed her lips to his for a split second the night Morgan had dragged her over to his apartment to sober up. And because she hadn’t brought it up either, he assumed she didn’t want to talk about it anymore than she wanted to talk about what had got her there in the first place.

He had helped her brush her own teeth more than once in the early days of her grief, hell he had even had her lips against his, so when she handed him the coffee cup back, he didn’t think much of it when he continued drinking the hot caffeinated goodness.

Bugsy was wired differently in his brain, everything about her was different than how he felt about everyone else. So if she didn’t want to talk about kissing him, if she wanted to forget it ever happened, then he would swallow his feelings and accept she didn’t ever want to do it again. If she wanted to keep the bond they had carefully crafted through days and months and weeks of being each other’s solace, then he wouldn’t fight it. Because he didn’t want to ruin it either.

He just nudged her gently with his shoulder as they meandered up the stairs to the round table room, looking at her with the puppy dog eyes that usually followed her around when she was in one of her silent moods.

“You okay?” He asked carefully, noting the way she tugged her files to her chest, smiling up at him nevertheless. Because she could never be mad at him, it was Spencer.

“You don’t have to do that, you know?” She said, lowering her voice as Morgan trailed behind the two of them his own mug of fresh brewed coffee sloshing in his hand, “Pretend like you don’t forgive her for my sake. I want you to be friends again if that’s what you want,”

She’d noticed his sheepish glances when he met Emily’s gaze, unmoving from her side like he wanted to make it clear he was there for her above everything else. But she saw how he would smile and joke with her sister when he thought she was in the bathroom, or when they would return from a crime scene, working together again like a well oiled machine.

They were still friends, even if she felt sick every time she saw her sister’s noir black bangs flick her way, even if her heart was aching and her chest heavier than she would have ever let on.

“But you’re upset with her?” Spencer muttered back, with a frown on his face, “I’m upset you got so hurt by the whole thing. I’m essentially hurt by proxy,”

She snickered, leaning into his side for a moment, pulling away when they reached Rossi’s office and began walking past the long window she saw everyone settling down behind, “I appreciate that, Spence, I do. But you were her friend first, and she’s my sister. It’s different for you guys. And it’s not like we’re dating, because then I’d be allowed to be upset if you were still friends with her,” She explained lightly, though she felt her chest pick up at the very fact she had let that silly little dating word slip past her lips.

She had no idea where they were. He was the only thing keeping her together some days, the only one who understood her for all her silly, complex feelings and didn’t make her feel dumb or crazy for feeling the world so deeply. He was special to her in a way no guy had ever even come close.

She just wished she hadn’t made such an idiot of herself that night with Morgan; wished she remembered anything of what was said or done, because things had felt electrified since then and she had no idea why. All she knew was she was falling harder for him every time he stood so close, or offered her his drink, or every time they had a movie night at his and fell asleep on his couch pressed together like they were meant to be that way forever.

He sighed, still stuck on the situation, and shot her a frown, “I’ll never understand the rules,” Though he hoped she didn’t see how his cheeks tinged pink at the fact she’d brought up whatever it was between them too.

Because he wasn’t entirely talking about her and Emily. Sometimes, he really didn’t understand the rules of telling your best friend you were in love with her.

The press was calling him “The Circle of Eight killer,” no matter how much media liaison JJ had tried to do to stop them from giving him notoriety and possibly boosting an already inflated ego. But the team had already managed to profile that the killings were some sort of ritual the UnSub was using to turn his luck on a gambling addiction, or whatever suspicion he had mentally linked from the victims needing to die and being dealt a royal flush.

“Eighty eight dollars, the UnSub’s getting generous,” She said grimly, her gloved fingers counting the wad of cash tossed over the victim’s body. Where they had usually found eight, single dollar bills and an eight card of any suit, his signature seemed to have changed on the most recent body and he had dumped a much larger sum of money, “There’s more remorse with this kill too; shot from behind so he didn’t have to see the victim when he did it,”

Bugsy slipped the cash into a clear baggie to send to forensics to see if they could pull prints, but then again bills usually gave a million possible UnSubs with how many people touched them. “There’s less rage here, an undoing,” Emily chimed in, her own gloved fingers checking the victim’s pockets for anything off.

When they were in the field, Bug could hold her eye rolls and sharp tongue and resting bitch face for the sake of helping the victim’s families find closure. Because, despite how much she seethed in private about how Hotch, JJ and her own sister had conspired without her, she knew she could choke it down if it meant she could help someone, if it meant no one else had to grieve as deeply and gut wrenching as she had when Emily ‘died’.

“There’s no sign of robbery either, wallet is still intact except his ID,” Spencer added, standing back from the body while Bugsy handed the evidence off to CSI and the chief on the case headed their way.

“Is it even the same guy?” Agent Goslin asked, looking between Hotch and Emily for an explanation, Hotch shaking his head with a stoney look on his already tired face.

“The ritual’s too similar to discount,” He said, Bugsy frowning and tugging her lip between her teeth in thought.

“The change in MO makes sense if the UnSub is still refining his system, maybe killing the cashier at the gas station didn’t work so he’s back to the drawing board.” Emily speculated, her little sister nodding along with her in the first sign of agreement she’d seen all day.

“Two eights instead of one could also be significant; I know in China the number eight symbolises prosperity, the more eights the better. As a matter of fact, in Chengdu, a telephone number consisting of all eights recently sold for over a quarter of a million dollars,” Spencer said, and Bugsy flashed a look up at him, her eyes thoughtful.

“In ancient Egypt, the number seven represented completion in this life while the number eight represented success through ambition and determination in your reincarnated life,” She replied, peeling the gloves down her hands as they clung to her skin with tight clamminess, “And the eight pointed star is associated with the Babylonian goddess, Ishtar, or the light bringer,”

He nodded with her and he hated to admit that he loved that she managed to fill in the gaps in his own knowledge, like they were two puzzle pieces finding a way to fit together; like they were two halves cleaved from the same brain that hadn’t stopped growing in the entirety of her twenty seven years.

That, and he’d always found her brain one of the most attractive things about her. One of the long list he could think of.

“Why would he be doubling up on his luck out here, away from all the casinos?” Emily asked, because she was trying not to stand in awe of her sister’s fat brain that rivalled even their pretty boy.

“There’s been another killing,” Agent Goslin stated, hanging up the phone with a tense frown on her face, “A guest in his room at the Sapphire Lady,”

“Same ritual?” Hotch asked without a pause, because they were on body number five now and they were barely closer to understanding him than they were a few hours ago.

“No. His neck was broken. And he was robbed of $50,000.” Goslin replied, shaking her head, “Strange thing is? The killer left another $20,000 behind with the body,”

“Money isn’t his motive here,” Bugsy input, crossing her arms while Hotch got on the phone to Garcia, “Atleast, not that guy’s money,”

“Garcia, is there a casino in the neighbourhood of Penrose and Morningside Avenue?” He asked, clicking the perky woman onto speakerphone.

They heard a quick clatter of typing, “Uhhh, No casinos per se, but there’s a private gambling establishment right around the corner.” She replied helpfully, with another bout of her long, delicately painted nails against her keyboard.

“Is it legal?”

“Yeah, but it’s ultra exclusive. They have a monthly high-stakes poker tournament,” She paused for a second, “Today being the day for the month, coincidentally enough,”

“Or no coincidence at all,” Emily said, as they began putting together exactly where this chain of events had come from.

“What’s the buy in?” Bugsy asked, though she already guessed the answer.

“Yikies, $50,000,” And with that Bug and Reid exchanged a knowing look, her suspicion confirmed, “But, it’s a million dollar guarantee if you win,”

“What time does it start?” Hotch asked, Bugsy already rubbing the bridge of her nose with her fingertip, willing herself not to be right about what they were going to do.

“Later this evening,” Pen replied and Hotch thanked her, hanging up the phone. A second of silence spread around the crime scene.

“So, if anyone’s got fifty k lying around, now would be a great time to share with the group,” Busgy humoured herself with a straight face, realising the paperwork that would almost definitely be declined if Strauss had anything to say about it the would enable them to borrow fifty thousand from the government.

Because if they missed their chance tonight, she had no clue when they would get another.

–

“Any luck?” JJ asked, Emily sat to her right, Rossi across from her. Spencer and Bugsy sat on the end of the table, the girl breaking a KitKat in half to share with him, which he accepted happily.

“No, they don’t want to allocate emergency funds for the buy-in, I’m still working on it,” Hotch said shortly, his phone blowing up with messages, no doubt needing a lot more details if they were really going to get the money they needed.

“Well, I can’t imagine why not, we’re only asking for fifty thousand bucks of taxpayer money, so that FBI agents can play Texas Hold ‘em,” Rossi drawled, shaking his head with a cynical humour that was all they had to hold onto while they waited in limbo.

“Hey, what about you?” Emily asked, something mischievous in her eyes as she watched David freeze in his seat, so like the old Emily that Bugsy felt her stomach turn.

“What about me what?” David said with a frown, pausing in his writing for a moment.

“You could stake us the buy-in,” She suggested, and the other three members of the team turned their attention back to Rossi’s palling face.

“You’re a best selling author,” Spencer chimed in, devouring the last of the chocolatey biscuit snack as she pulled another out of her bag.

“No,” Rossi replied, slightly wide eyed at the suggestion of it, to which Emily jumped in.

“Why not?”

“One, it’s against regulations and I’d like to hold onto this job for a little while longer.” David said, his arms out in a defensive stance towards the four people who suddenly felt like his kids asking for the newest IPhone on the market for Christmas.

“It’s a minor administrative violation,” Bugsy pointed out between bites, offering the second half again to her best friend who took it without delay.

She could have given the whole thing to him to start with, and had the first one for herself, it would have ended the same, but she liked sharing with him. She liked being the one to split things with him when he cringed in horror at other people touching his food.

“And, two, I prefer to spend my money on actual things, like single malt scotch, a fine cigar, beautiful artwork,”

“Poker chips are things!” Emily tried to reason, but it only ended with David scoffing in her cheeky, hopeful face.

“Maybe just think of it as a new experience, I mean at your age how often does that happen?” Spencer said innocently, licking the chocolate from the tips of his fingers, noticing how Bugsy tensed up and Rossi slowly turned in his seat to face the BAU’s youngest members.

“At my what?” He asked in an aghast tone, Bug grabbing onto Spencer’s forearm with a gentle squeeze.

“Reel it in, reel it in,” She whispered, and he looked at her with a lost expression, willing her to explain to him where he had gone wrong, because he knew she would, “What he meant to say was this may be our only chance to get this guy,”

David chewed his words for a second, as if he was trying not to bite at the kids who looked between one another hopefully, and he wondered if this was what being a father felt like; handing his credit card over to two twenty something year olds and watching his bank deposit plummet in seconds.

“All right. Fine.” He sighed heavily like he’d seen the fifty thousand burned there and then, “I’m a decent poker player, but I can’t promise that I can stay in the game long enough to…”

“You know what? I bet you’re a great poker player,” Emily started kindly, her gaze drifting over to the hazel hues that watched between them curiously, “But what if we sent in Reid?”

“I am banned from casinos in Las Vegas, Laughlin and Pahrump because of my card counting ability,” Spencer said, and Bugsy rolled her eyes.

“They can’t ban you for maths, that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard,” She said, nudging his side with her shoulder, “They hate to see an underdog win, it’s Rocky all over again,”

“Tell me about it,” He murmured back, even though he had never watched any of the Rocky movies, he just liked humouring her.

“Look I know I’m not a genius like the boy wonder here, but poker is not black jack. It’s about bluffing; reading human nature, head games.” Rossi pointed at Reid, who badgered over Bugsy’s shoulder for the cookies she had packed in her rucksack, “The kid does not have a poker face.”

“Which is why we’re going to send him with someone who does,” JJ chimed in, and it was then that the youngest members of the team looked up from where they had cracked open the packet of chocolate chip delights, near identical looks of innocence painted on their faces, like they really were kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

Bugsy looked between JJ and Rossi, who had equal parts hopeful and worried looks on their faces, before she glanced over to Spencer to see if he had any explanation. He looked as lost as she did.

“Huh?” She asked cluelessly, as Rossi buried his head in his hands.

At this rate was going to have to remortgage his house for wedding number four, he thought sourly.

–

“I swear to god if this dress rides up anymore, it will be me who’s charging fifty thousand per head,” Bugsy growled, her hands frantically tugging the dress down her legs more. She couldn’t deny it was a beautiful dress, bunched around certain areas that made the most of her body, but goodness was it shorter than she would have ever picked out for herself. She was the last person to be a prude when it came to showing off just how alluring she could look when she made an effort, but this was something else.

It was a striking red, meant to match the ruby of her lipstick and the vermillion of the diamonds and hearts on the cards spread around the tables in the room, flushed in between little plastic chips worth thousands of dollars, handfuls of dice being tossed over the green velvet surfaces, deciding whether the players lost their cars or paid off their kids college fund.

They queued up to be patted down, as if they were heading through airport security or into a packed nightclub. A handful of bouncers waved metal detectors over patron’s clothing, dipping hands into coat pockets, trousers, even some shoes were ordered off in the name of a fair game. She swore she had never seen so many sets of weighted dice confiscated off one man who swore blind as he was kicked out.

“Only fifty? You could rinse them for a hundred at least,” Spencer replied, his arm entwined behind her back, if not to hold her up in the clunky heels one of the women on Goslin’s task force had loaned her along with the dress. She smirked at him, pressing herself closer to him when they both saw a dozen eyes shoot towards her as they entered the building, and he tightened his grip just the slightest with a calculating coolness.

He wished his cheeks didn’t feel so hot feeling her body so close to his, wished she hadn’t made such an effort to look the part of the expensive call girl they knew the UnSub had a history with, not because he didn’t like it, but because she made everything a little more difficult when she looked like that.

He was having a hard time trying to calm the way his manhood brushed against his pants whenever she showed some of that saccharine affection, even though he knew it wasn’t real. Or atleast, was an extreme version of the love she usually showed him.

The bouncers called them up next, and he let her go first, because getting her through would be easy. He was the one with the panic alarm disguised as a shot of Halitosis in his pocket.

Spencer would never admit that his eyes fell straight down to the curves of her butt that seemed to be spotlighted by that damn dress.

Why did she have to look so irresistible? He supposed that was the point; he was the mysterious young gambler that was going to keep them in the game long enough to spot the UnSub, she was the attractive, woman of the night brought only to boost his ego and as his good luck charm. She certainly wasn’t the only one, she’d already seen a handful of other women, tall as models and so toned it looked as though they hit the gym every morning and didn’t leave until sundown, primped and primed for their player’s delight.

They were ten times better looking than she was, but to Spencer, she was the only woman in the room who he was envisioning ripping that dress right off.

She was making it very hard, no pun intended, for him to accept the idea of them as just friends.

The bouncer patted her down, Bugsy flashing him a cheeky smile just a little too forced for it to be one of her real ones, when the woman patted around her waist and hips for any hidden pockets or stashed bills.

“You wish this was you, huh, baby?” She teased him with a wicked look in her eyes, and he could only smirk back, hoping his blush didn’t give him away as quick as he reckoned it did.

He felt his knees weaken, worrying he might just fall to the ground there and then and be forced to crawl towards her if he had any hope of getting into the casino alive, but even that sent a new wave of lewd thoughts through his head, and he was grateful when the other bouncer called him forward to inspection.

The muscled guy waved a metal detector over his torso, moving down to his trouser legs where he wondered with cynical humour if the rod he now sported in his pants painfully would set off the alarm. It didn’t, and he begged his crotch to let up even the slightest if he had any hope of keeping his head on his shoulders during this game, but the detector sprung to life the minute it waved over the alarm in his pocket.

He produced the medical looking device, one they’d already planned and checked for faults, showing the fake prescription clearly to the guard, “Halitosis,”

The guy seemed to frown, took another look over the gangly guy who was with a woman way, way out of his league. A woman who waited for him after her own inspection, a very real diamond necklace that had been a sixteenth birthday present from Steph around her neck, courtesy of her dad’s bank account and ten years worth of emotional distance. Whether he took pity on Spencer because Bugsy looked like the kind of girl who could chew up a guy like him and spit him right back out, or he really didn’t care about his medical condition, he didn’t know, but he waved him through without another thought, and they both took a sigh of relief.

“You want a drink?” He asked nonchalantly as possible, wrapping his arm around her waist again, and he tried to not let his flustered demeanour show when he found slits cut into the side of the fabric, and he felt the softness of her hips under his fingertips.

“My treat, to get you started,” Bugsy replied, something unreadable in the teasing of her eyes, and she leaned up to his jaw to steal a quick kiss there like any other girl wanting to be paid the full sum of her night would have done.

At least that’s what she told herself, pretending as if her brazen action hadn’t caused her heart rate to spike.

She got him an iced tea, because she knew he wouldn’t want alcohol, and got herself a half shot Moscow Mule, sipping the lime rim appreciatively.

“See anything yet?” She asked under her breath, one hand trailing over the back of his neck, playing with the curls that sat there with vixen sly eyes that scanned the room.

He forced himself not to moan at the sensation, and he worried it was too obvious to the other patrons in the gambling room just how easily he melted beneath her fingertips. He felt like a dog drooling after a bone, like she was shaking a lead in his face and asking for walkies, and he was panting beneath her, tail wagging and dopey eyed.

Not the look of suave, mysterious stranger they were initially going for when they were coming up with identities for their covers. But at least it sold the part of a man desperate to win the jackpot if it meant he could spend the night with the siren woman that clung to him with a giggly sip of her pink straw.

“No one looking particularly suspicious,” He noted; everyone was almost too good at a poker face, though he supposed that it made sense seeing the value of the prize pool, “You are getting a lot of attention however,”

And she was. In fact, he was quick to take her hand in his own free one when he saw a group of men dressed to the nines, solid gold rings along their knuckles, diamond encrusted Rolexs staring back at him from their wrists, their faces dead yet starved when they drank in every inch of her skin, their eyes falling to where her dress rode up high, as she had whined about the entire way there.

She chuckled, and something about it sounded like her own, not the woman she’d had to become for the evening, and she kissed where his jaw clenched in annoyance, “Not from anyone that matters, boy wonder,”

And he felt his heart rest for a moment, because as long as she was with him he knew he could shift that big brain of his into gear. He loved nothing more than the click he felt when he was with her, like their brains and bodies just seemed to bluetooth to one another and they weren’t Spencer and Bugsy they were just them. A since cell amoeba.

He smiled at her, and she preened under his attention, so genuinely her that he felt the vignette that had clouded his vision shift into focus, and he knew he could find their UnSub if she was there with him.

He sat at the nearest table to them that was about to deal in, and within twenty minutes he was racking up a nice, fat pile of poker chips next to his iced tea.

Bugsy knew he was a smart man, knew he was good at magic tricks, but if he had turned to her then and there and pulled a rabbit out her ear hole she wouldn’t have questioned him otherwise. Watching him play was something else.

It was entirely sordid, the whole hour of his first game was spent trying to keep her focus on any patrons sat at their table and the rest that seemed to be twitching, whilst also trying not to look awed at just how amazing his brain was when he won damn near every time.

But she did manage to rip her eyes off him when she could, not enough to seem suspicious, just enough to scan the area for someone who could be their UnSub, her eyes quickly jumping to the guy on the table across from them with a large magic 8-ball tattoo across his bicep, unsurprisingly already looking her head to toe as he waited for his hand to be dealt out. He winked at her, a smarmy, cocky grin on his face, almost too confident in his ability to be someone to turn to suspicions and rituals in order to win.

A serious contender, but nothing that screamed their UnSub.

She looked around a little more, ignoring the handful of men who tried to grab her attention, who thought they were somewhat validated or interesting for having her look at them for a split second. They were just part of the wallpaper compared to Spencer anyway.

It wasn’t until she spotted a guy in a baseball cap a few paces away from them fiddling with yet another magic 8-ball, though this time a key chain, giving it a gentle touch every time he picked up his hand as if it really had the power to change the values once they’d been dealt.

From the quick glance she got of his face, he seemed to be running on an hour’s sleep tops. His eyes were rimmed redder than her lipstick, and his hair was damp with sweat and grease against his temple.

Unstable if there ever was a man for the word.

She quickly looked back to Spencer’s cards, her hands weaving over his shoulders to rub his muscles gently, the signal that she’d seen something important masked as an affectionate gesture.

The House called the end of the round, Spencer being awarded a heaped pile of tens, hundreds even a small few thousands thrown in there, to which he collected onto his tray they had handed him at the door.

Bugsy leaned down with a girlish squeal, giving him another big, cherry lipped kiss to his cheek, to which he felt himself blush under immediately. Quickly dodging to whisper into his ear, it looked to the other patrons as if she was simply promising him an even bigger reward later for his winnings in exchange, “Nine O’Clock at table two, guy in the green jacket has an eight ball keyring he ritually plays with before drawing,”

Spencer nodded, standing from the table with his winnings, using Bugsy’s as an excuse to angle himself to where she was talking about. He pulled her to him effortlessly, his long arms wrapping over her bare back, his neck craning over her shoulder to serveill the table she had indicated, and she quickly hugged him back with that fake giggle of hers, her body pressing to his desperately like the other ladies of the night he had seen with men three times their age.

He clocked who she was talking about almost immediately, running a hand down her spine and squeezing her waist gently to let her know he’d seen him.

They moved in tandem, just like they always had.

A hostess came over to them, all big smiles and a tight fitted black dress, a log book in her arms of where everyone was sitting in the next round to keep a fair game. Bugsy took a look at him, wiping away the smudged lipstick on his cheek with a loving swipe of her thumb, nodding at him for a small bout of reassurance.

“I’m going to go get another drink, honey,” She said loud enough for the hostess to hear, as she flashed him a flirty smile, “Don’t forget to wait for your lucky charm,”

He bristled, a smile twitching at his lips at that, “I wouldn’t dare,”

Because her message was clear. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m updating the team.

She swanned through the crowd as if she owned the place, but then again a packed scene had never been an issue for her. She felt through her concealed inseam of the tiny cardigan she draped over her shoulders, until she felt the long bullet shaped object stuffed into a tampon wrapper that Penelope had geniously planted there to look like a feminine product.

Her own alarm, the one meant to let the team know they had sights on the guy and to be ready. It was Spencer’s that would give them the signal to enter.

She was fiddling with the damn thing when she felt it, a sharp crack across her ass as she was walking towards the bar, heard the laughter in the second she froze up.

Turning on her heel with a tight expression, the anger burnt hot in her eyes when she saw the guy with the tattoo who had been trying to get her attention not even a half hour ago, watched him sidling up to her with a conceited smile.

“So, has that twiglet over there paid for you in advance or are you going home with the highest bidder?” He said, his head flicking to Spencer who now sat at table two, counting his chips out onto the table and paying himself in.

She smiled at the assailant widely, and it would have been pretty had it not been for the crazy look in her eye that twitched when he made a move to step towards her more.

“I’m spoken for in advance,” She said lightly, eyes trailing down his outfit like she was trying to commit it to memory, over his defining markers like the slit in his brow and his tattoos that looped over his hands, “But I’m sure I’ll be seeing you real soon, sweetheart,”

And she flashed him a toothy smile again, yet something was wolfish about it this time, like she was ready to lunge for him there and then.

The guy wasn’t their UnSub but he had made it to the very top of her hit list in a split second decision.

She waltzed away, securing herself another Moscow Mule she had no intention of drinking, and headed back to where Spencer was being allotted his hand of cards. Their round started, Bugsy keeping a close eye on the UnSub who sat directly to Spencer’s right, and she found a little solace in the fact he couldn't have brought in any weapons since they had all been patted down at the door.

It didn’t shake the feeling of edge the guy with the tattoo had put her into when she watched their guy flick a look over Spencer’s shoulder to look her head to toe, glancing back at Spence who was already glaring at him.

“Is she part of the winnings?” The other guy to his right chimed in, sliding a stack of hundred dollar chips into the centre, two of the players already bust as they watched the others play on for the house.

She saw her partner tense in his spine when he heard the man’s drawling voice, and she knew he was struggling to keep a lid on the facade they were putting on for the evening.

Snickering, she ran a gentle hand through his hair, down the nape of his neck with a sickeningly sweet simper, “Sorry, boys. Only person who’s taking me home tonight is the pretty boy,”

One of the guys who had already busted out scoffed, grumbling under his breath, “Lucky fucker,”

And Spencer knew it too. He felt almost rejuvenated just feeling her near, a damn near cocky smile on his face when he pushed his chips into the centre of the table, barely flicking a glance at his hand when he realised he had almost certainly secured a winning run.

Maybe she was his lucky charm, he thought cynically. Maybe he couldn’t blame the guy to his right for carrying a silly little trinket around with him in the name of luck if he was no better.

“I’m calling,” The guy on the far right declared, shuffling two piles of his chips into the middle with the total pooling.

“I’ll raise,” The UnSub cut in, grabbing some of his black thousand dollar tokens and clinking them one by one next to his opponents, “Eight thousand,”

What a surprise, eight thousand, Bug mused, squeezing onto Spencer’s shoulder again as he was quick to match the bidding and then some with his own checks.

“$8,000, that’s fifty six months’ wage for the average person in Bangladesh,” Spencer said, doubling the bet with a flick of those long fingers of his. It was heinous how much his brain managed to warm her insides, Bugsy thought, hoping she kept her poker face intact, “Kind of makes you think, doesn’t it?”

The two remaining players, UnSub included, looked at him like he’d grown a second head, and Bugsy fought off the urge to laugh in their face, because for a minute he was so Spencer like all she wanted to do was quip something back equally as smart.

“Look, it’s eight thou’ to you, are you in or are you out?” The first man snapped, perhaps seethin with jealousy that the pretty woman wanted nothing to do with him or perhaps just pissed that the fresh faced teenager of a man was serving their asses up cold.

“I am in,” He moved some more chips towards them, his eyes falling back to the guy they suspected was their UnSub with a challenge in his eyes, “And I raise,”

“Three raise,” The dealer declared, and the first guy huffed in defeat.

“That’s too rich for my blood,” He growled, crossing his arms and flipping his dead cards over.

“Sir, are you in?” The dealer asked the UnSub, and for a minute his eyes snapped to Bugsy’s where she was keeping a calm look on her face despite the fact her insides were stumbling with nerves. But she never doubted Spencer’s maths, she would stake her life on it in fact.

“I’ll call,” The UnSub replied, flicking his cards over with another small token of a hundred, an okay run of cards but not an entire failure.

Spencer met it with a couple hundreds of his own, revealing his four and his eight that met the five, six, and seven he already put down. A winning flush. “Straight.”

Her smile was genuine, dazzling, when the pile of chips were pushed over to him, and she would have laughed with glee had the UnSub’s face not dropped into something devastated, borderline demented, when he saw his ritual had meant nothing. That he had lost despite killing his own friend and four more people as a sacrifice.

He was unravelling fast, and it was then Bugsy knew they had only moments to confirm he was their guy obsessed with his suspicions and that damn lucky number eight.

“I guess you won’t be needing this anymore, will you honey?” Bugsy reached over for the charm with a cheeky grin as the other patrons grumbled at their losses, only for the guy’s hand to come slamming down on top of hers with a brutal grip, hard enough she knew it was going to bruise by morning.

“Don’t,” He hissed at her, and it seemed to click with confirmation in Spencer and Bugsy’s mind there was no doubt this was their guy.

Spencer stood up to defend the woman, only for both of them to be grabbed by security second’s later.

“You’re going to let a man put his hands on a woman like that- would you relax I can walk,” Spencer snapped, watching the other security guard manhandle Bugsy just as roughly, pinning her arms behind her back, though she complied with a victorious grin, “Real tough there pal, grabbing on a woman half your size,”

“Relax honey, I got a taser in my pocket if they really want to behave like bad boys,” The bouncers looked at her in alarm, and it was the distraction Spencer needed to reach into his jacket and trigger the signal. She gave the three of them a shit eating grin, and Spencer thought he might just love her even more, “Don’t shit your pants, I’m kidding. I charge extra for the rough stuff,”

Spencer was still laughing when Hotch and Emily barged past them after the UnSub, who was by now leaving out the back door.

–

“Spencer, really, we can go back to the hotel and forget about it,” After revealing their cover with the bouncers, courtesy of one David Rossi and his famous face clearing their names, and the UnSub caught and well on the way to the nearest jail cell for questioning, Bugsy was more than tired and ready to strip out of the impossibly tight dress.

“I want to see this guy brought to justice, think of him as another UnSub,” Spencer said, his arms crossed over his chest as they sat on the bonnet of a squad car out the front of the building, the tournament slowly trickling to an end with its patrons leaving for the night.

She rolled her eyes, his jacket over her arms the only thing keeping her warm against the evening air. It would have been so much easier if they had been allowed back in, but FBI agents or not, the guards had clear rules against breaching the peace in such a high stakes game. A bad rep for having the feds show up on their busiest day of the year was not welcomed, just as much as they weren’t.

“Except he’s not murdered anyone,” She replied, eyes darting between the guests leaving with their earnings spilling out of their pockets, “He’s just some dumb asshole who can’t keep his hands to himself and- it’s him,”

The guy with the tattoos, Mike Folio as would later be printed on the police report, had barely a second to grieve his losses of the night before Spencer had him cuffed against the squad car, yelling and spitting about his rights as an American citizen.

It wasn’t until he saw the gorgeous woman donned in the candy red dress looking down at him with amusement that he felt the colour drain from his face.

“Hi sweetheart,” She smiled viciously, “I told you I’d see you again. Spence, read him the Mirandas,”

3. The one with the bank explosion

The tweed trousers irritated her thighs, the head band fluffed her hair away from her face in a way she kept trying to fix, and the brown pumps squeaked every time she walked, but her smile was dazzling nevertheless.

“Okay, the TV movie is at Hall H at nine, can we go to that?” Penelope asked, reading from the pamphlet as Bugsy and Spencer all but ran to keep up with her.

“Absolutely!” Spencer chimed in, “Do you think we can make it to the Captains of Enterprise at eleven?”

“Obvs,” Penny replied, fixing the bow tie necklace her and Bugsy had made not even the week before. She looked over at the younger woman, who had a matching K-9 pendant, because apparently FBI salaries did not take into account life sized robot dogs, “Thanks for coming with me,”

“Ofcourse, I’ve been knitting this scarf for weeks,” Spencer replied, his eyes falling down to where Bugsy donned a Sarah Jane Smith cosplay.

“Who are you going as?” She’d asked, the minute he’d asked her to go, because there were few things he did these days without her.

“The Fourth Doctor,” Spencer replied, because he had explained in length to her about the concept of regenerating and had even flicked on some of the newer series for her to watch with him, “Tom Baker’s Doctor, he’s a fan favourite,”

He showed her a picture of the time lord stood outside the TARDIS, a younger girl stood opposite him in a pink suit, large white peter pan collar hanging wide over her chest.

“Who’s that?” She asked, pointing the girl with the cute bangs and pleated skirts.

“That’s Sarah-Jane, or Sarah-Jane Smith. She’s one of the longest starring companions since she was the Third Doctor’s companion first and also was in the spin off show for her dog, K-9,” He explained, warming inside when Bugsy listened with raptured interest.

“So like, is she his girlfriend or-”

“No, no! The Doctor is often speculated to be asexual when it comes to relations with humans. Sarah Jane was one of his closest friends however, and in the Tenth Doctor’s third season he even comes back to rescue her from a wedding set up by one of his enemies,” He said, and her smile pulled out widely when an idea popped into her head.

“Well, can I be her? For your convention?” She asked, somewhat shyly, still a little unsure how the show worked in the fine details, “You know, since you saved me from my wedding?”

He paused, because she’d never really spoken about that day she’d jumped into his arms in the elevator, holding him to her like he was the only thing that made sense. Bugsy was like that alot; giving him everything he ever dreamed in the moment and then acting like it was never a big deal the next.

“S-sure! Yeah, that would be really nice.” He said, and she immediately started searching up what she should wear for it, “I didn’t really save you though, you know, you saved yourself,”

She snickered, nudging him with her shoulder, “You all saved me, I don’t know what I would have done if Em-” She stopped herself, swallowing thickly, and he saw the glow leave her eyes.

If Emily hadn’t been there.

Things were still awkward between them. There were no more catfights, thank goodness, though there also wasn’t any doting between the sisters anymore. It was like a clean break had slit between them. Emily had given up trying to warm to her, given up trying to get her to come around, and had instead taken the high road of waiting for Bugsy to make the first move.

But Bugsy was nothing if not stubborn. So Emily would be waiting a while longer.

“Hey, listen, next time I promise I’ll be the first one to object and then you can say I saved you,” Spencer joked, because he knew the subject of Emily stung her, because he knew she needed to stop thinking about it or she’d unravel into self hatred.

She chuckled aghast, “Next time? I was kind of hoping to keep the next one, Spence, whoever the unlucky guy is,”

He shook his head, a fake look of disapprovement, “Sorry, rules are rules. You wanted to be Sarah-Jane, I have to crash your wedding with the TARDIS I’m afraid,”

She laughed, resting her head on his shoulder as they flicked through the TV some more together.

“Well, I mean if those are the rules,” She simpered, snuggling under his chin, “Does this mean I get a sick robo-dog too?”

She looked every bit the part he would have ever expected her to look. Down to the maroon tie, and the white dress shirt, and the matching tweed blazer and pants that made her look embarrassingly hot.

He was about to tell her just how great she looked because she still seemed unsure, being a casual fan of the show not nearly as religious as some of the surrounding guests were, when Penelope cut them off in a near gutted voice.

“Oh my god,”

“Penelope?”

Bugsy and Spencer looked up to see Penelope’s ex beau, Kevin, dressed in a nearly identical outfit to her (though in Bug’s opinion he didn’t have the same pzazz as she did with the glitter and the sparkliness,) a red headed woman beside him donned in a police woman uniform.

“Kevin, hi, you came,” The blonde woman replied, her face mortified as she took in just how pretty the other woman was, “And you brought a friend, CSU technician Sharp, how are you?”

Hannah Sharp, from two floors below them in the BAU, grinned tightly, as if she could sense just how disastrous the situation had suddenly become, “I’m fine, uh, you?”

Bugsy gripped onto Spence’s arm tightly, hating the turn this was taking, every second of it.

“I am also fine,” Pen replied, though she looked as though she was ready to float outside of her body any minute now. “Okay, well, see ya,”

“You’re not gonna go in?” Kevin asked, his eyes crestfallen when he saw Penelope also grab onto the boy genius’ arm, and he cursed Spencer Reid for getting so many attractive women.

“Actually, we just went in and it’s super lame,” Bugsy interrupted, flashing a disjointed smile at the two of them, turning to usher her best friend away before he could call her out in her lie. “So we’re leaving,”

“Oh, okay,” Kevin replied, his date all but forgotten as the three of them made a sharp exit, a wince on the youngest Prentiss’ face when they got far enough that the girl could cringe in peace, “Well, great costumes,”

“Yeah, you too,” Penelope called back, her heels practically leaving tire marks with how fast she had sped away from her ex that was opening fresh wounds as they spoke. At work they were separated by a whole floor, so it wasn’t quite so scathing to see each other around or even hear of one another, but to be brought out in front of what she could only assume was his new woman was horrifying.

Bugsy was at her side immediately, grabbing onto her hand with a squeezing grip.

“Well, that was awkward,” Spencer noted aloud, and Bugsy lightly slapped his arm for him to shut up, her eyes wide with worry.

He looked at her in alarm, but her face told him everything he needed to know. Girl rules.

He hated girl rules. He never understood them.

“Oh my god, we used to come every year, I can’t believe he brought someone else,” Penelope sighed to the younger girl, who watched her with furrowed brows.

“Well you brought someone else,” Spencer pointed out, only to have his arm whipped at again in a chiding motion, and he watched Bugsy stroke Pen’s back with a bite in her tone.

“Girl rules, Spencer, girl rules,” He tutted at her, rolling her eyes as if they were a married couple and she was nagging him to wash the dishes.

Sometimes it felt easy like that with them. Like she really was just his best friend and not the only girl who held any sort of romantic connection to his heart.

“Yeah, someone I couldn’t possibly be attracted to,” Penelope stated, “Besides, he always thought the two of you were a thing anyway, oh god what if he thinks I’m your guys third-”

“Woah, woah, what?” Bugsy asked with wide eyes, “He thought me and Spencer were, like, dating?”

Penelope nodded, and Bugsy couldn’t even look at him without stumbling over her words.

“Well he knows we’re- like I mean we’re not even each other’s seconds so how could you be our third you know?” She said with a forced laugh, because she could feel her face going hot.

Spencer watched her tongue tie herself into oblivion, thinking of any and every excuse as to why she didn’t want dating associated to the two of them. Because how could she ever feel the same way? He was just him and she was, well, her. So incredibly, beautifully her.

It wasn’t until she bumped into an older gentleman waiting for his valet she even shut herself up.

“And I mean Kevin shouldn’t have just assumed- oh sorry,” She whirled around to apologise the man she presumed was a fan of the early seasons of the show, perhaps even around when they first aired, though the thought died in her throat when he turned around, “Oh, Rossi?”

David Rossi looked suave as ever in his age, a blazer thrown casually over his shoulder, a neat shirt and dress pants ensemble at his hips as he looked between the three of them, their costumes staring back at him entirely too colourful for a Saturday morning.

He sighed, hard.

“Why doesn’t this surprise me?” He asked with a tired voice, as Bugsy bounced back over to Spencer’s side with an incredulous look on her face.

“Are you here for the convention?” Spencer asked, excitement bubbling in his tone as Bug grabbed his forearm gently, already sensing Rossi hadn’t had nearly enough coffee to put up with them today.

“Who schedules a cigar aficionado event back to back with this?” Rossi asked, his eyes clamping on the pendant around her neck, “What is that, a robot dog?”

“K-9,” The three of them replied, and it was as if it tipped him over the edge, his hair growing whiter by the second.

“Kevin brought another woman, I’m plotting revenge. Do you want to help?” Penelope asked, her face still warm from running into the guy who was almost her fiance.

“Know where we can get any horse heads?” Bugsy asked, her expression lost in though as Penelope gasped, “What? I’m thinking go big or go home. Also, horse head in the bed means they can't have sex-”

“I’m taking that as my cue to leave,” Rossi cut in, just as his valet arrived, “Now you know I love all three of you, but this is Saturday, and it is my day off, so I’m going to love you from afar,”

He ruffled Bugsy’s hair fondly as he took his leave, throwing his blazer over the passenger seat and bidding them a wave goodbye.

They watched him go, wondering where it left them for a moment before Bugsy spoke up again, “So are we saying a definitive no to the horse head idea, because I’m sure I know a guy in college-”

“No, Bugsy,” Penelope hissed, her face scrunched in disgust, and Spencer swore she turned green, “Definitive no,”

–

They had been half way through breakfast when Spencer got an emergency call from Hotch for a team of serial killers robbing a bank downtown, hostages and guns on scene.

She had barely had time to whip the tweed blazer off her shoulders, keeping the shirt and pants on as Derek threw her a kevlar vest.

“It’s definitely them,” Will said in his soft Southern drawl, JJ embracing him tightly to her with a worried expression. It had been him and his partner first on the scene, though unfortunately things had not ended well for her when they had ran into the three UnSubs slipping out the back of the bank and had engaged in a shoot out; Will’s partner getting a bullet to the head almost immediately, and Will narrowly escaping unscathed, but not before he managed to gun down one of the UnSubs in the stomach.

So there they were, the UnSubs back inside the bank for safety since they were now surrounded by the city police, the FBI, the SWAT team and a handful of ambulances and medics on standby.

“I only saw the King and the Jack but I figured the Queen’s inside too,” He added, JJ peeling herself from his side as they headed towards the building.

“The media's calling them the face cards,” Hotch informed his team, all eight of them decked in their thickest vests and weapons loaded in full, “Seven bank robberies in seven months. They’ve killed one person at each robbery,”

“MO?” Rossi asked, now dressed out of his smart, Saturday wear and something more akin to his usual business attire.

“Single gun shot wound, each of the victims has bled out,” Hotch replied, and it wasn’t until they turned the corner towards the bank did Bugsy realise just how packed the street was with law enforcement.

Three or four choppers circled overhead with snipers and back up SWAT teams at the ready.

“Serial killers with a thirty day cooling off period, and we’re only just hearing about this now?” Emily asked in an incredulous tone, her voice raised to accommodate the shouting between other chiefs and their units.

“Headquarters characterised them as robbers first, killers second,” Hotch said, his hands on his hips as they all assessed the situation from afar. Naturally a few new anchors had pulled up to the scene as well and were setting up their equipment despite the officers trying to corral them away.

“Oh yeah? How did that turn out for them?” Bugsy grumbled behind her thick, dark sunglasses, biting her lip from saying worse.

“I disagreed with the original assessment, I was overruled,” Her chief shot back, because things had been just as cold between them since that day as they had with Emily.

JJ was slowly reaching out the olive branch in her direction, and if it wasn’t for Henry being so darn cute every time he begged ‘Buggy’ to come play with him, she reckoned JJ would have taken even longer to forgive as well.

“Why are we here now?” Rossi chimed in, eyes locked on Aaron’s frown, that seemed to harden every step they took closer to the bank.

“Because crisis negotiation is overseas.”

“What do we know about them?” JJ jumped in straight away with the problem solving, because even if they were out in the field and not in their pretty little round table room anymore, the UnSubs were still just pictures on a white board needing that red string to connect them all together.

“They’re organised, they're efficient,” Hotch fired off, mentally running through whether he had loaded the pistol he kept around his calf for emergencies, “Each strike lasts about two minutes,”

Derek’s face scrunched in confusion, “They gotta be scouting out the banks in advance, why haven’t we been able to ID them off of surveillance footage?”

“They hacked the security feed and turn off the cameras both during the initial canvas and during the robbery, until the masks come back on and then were allowed to watch” Hotch replied, and the eight of them slipped into the base of operation for the day; a wide trailer converted to house the high tech computers Penelope needed to keep an eye on the cameras with those magic skills of hers.

Bugsy’s eyes landed on the black and white feed of inside the bank, her heart lurching in her throat when she saw well over forty men, women and children lined on their knees execution style, facing the doors to the bank to act as a shield if the snipers did happen to get a shot through the windows.

The woman took the lead, a mask over her face with a doll-like expression on it, the other men soaked in blood as one fought to hold the injured one up for dear life.

“Why haven’t they cut the feed now that they’ve been cornered,” Derek said with a shake of his head, his lips pulled into a grimace, “Letting us see inside gives us a tactical advantage, they have to know that,”

“Unless they want the audience,” Bugsy suggested, watching the jack slowly growing weaker and weaker as they discussed tactics, “Although the only one who really strikes me as the attention seeker is her, he seems more prioritised with the other male,”

“The masks add to their narcissism,” Spencer input with a nod, “Their personas are the royalty of poker,”

“JJ, you, Bugsy, Reid and Prentiss, look at past robberies, that’s going to be our victimology,” Hotch ordered, and they did as ordered with little delay, heading to the office they had set up in the opposite trailer.

This was going to be a long day.

–

“I can help,” Bugsy offered herself before the team even had a chance to protest.

It hadn’t even been an hour into them pulling research from InterPol as to who their UnSubs were before they had made their next dramatic move; they had shot a hostage.

Which meant they needed medics in there fast, fast enough to save the hostage and the jack if it kept the king from unravelling into a massacre.

“What do you mean you can help?” Emily said with a scathing tone, “Bug, you can’t just throw yourself in harm’s way if you have no clue what you’re-”

“I did three years of a medicine degree alongside my biochemistry before I got bored of doing both and gave up on it,” Bugsy snapped at her sister, brows contorting into a harsher frown than she’d had in months. She preferred it when they weren’t speaking at all.

“Because you were bored?” Derek asked, his face incredulous at the gall of the twenty year old they’d plucked from college and sent into the midst of the Russian Mob five years ago, “Did you not have anything better to do like partying or making out with guys- a whole medical degree on the side is your idea of downtime?”

She shrugged, looking back at Emily with a glare who seemed to bristle at the information.

“Can I speak to you outside please?” Emily said in the coolest tone she could muster, though even that sounded like a bite.

Something shifted in the air of the tiny, makeshift office and the other inhabitants tensed up at the sight of the Prentiss women gritting their teeth almost identically, staring daggers at one another for a moment before they stood from their seats and waltzed out of the side of the trailer to where there wasn’t the bustle of squad cars or media to be seen.

JJ looked to Morgan, who looked to Spencer, who seemed to have paled for a moment, and the three of them were out of their own seats to linger at the doorway in case things really did get ugly between the sisters.

“Do you honestly think that throwing yourself into the line of danger today is a good idea or are you trying to hurt me to get back at me?” Emily seethed the minute they had stepped foot on the ground, and the scoff that left her little sister’s throat was something nasty.

“Oh, please, don’t make yourself sound so important.” Bugsy snapped, whirling around on her heel to glare at her sister, “I’m not doing any of this to get back at you, I’m trying to save those hostages in there-”

“So I just happened to have never heard about this medical side quest you set yourself on until now because, what, it just never came up?” Emily laughed, laughed, in her sister’s face, and Bugsy saw red even more, “I thought you were a better liar than that,”

“Maybe if you’d bothered to even speak to me before you needed something from me that day with the Russians then you would have known anything about me that wasn’t being your dumb little sister you can just walk all over like you’re my mom or something,” Bugsy’s voice was getting louder, and Emily’s smirk wiped right off at the sound of that, because she knew she could have been ten times a better sister had she not wanted to get as far away from her mother as fast as possible. “Same with Hotch, he never wanted much to do with me until his wife died and then who did he come to needing help grieving, none a single one of you, and who gets bitten in the ass and punished when I find out I spent seven months grieving like some idiot to that uptight prick who lied to me-”

“Do not speak about him like that,” Emily was shouting now too because Bugsy was truly holding nothing back on her.

“Why? Are you going to pick him over me, Em?” The younger woman snarked, her eyes hateful and narrowed, “Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest given your track record-”

Emily shoved her, like, truly shoved her back and it robbed the words out of the girl’s throat. Yet it made JJ gasp where they were watching from the crack in the doorway, wanting to break them apart but knowing they needed to fix it for themselves.

The three of them hissed when Bugsy’s hand swiped against Emily’s cheek in a territory neither of them had ever wandered into. Emily was always too old to argue with her sister, too big to fight the way most siblings did with slaps and hair pulls and scratches, but Bugsy was a grown woman now; they both were.

Emily swatted the same back to her own cheekbone, after a second of shock washing over her face, and it was like they were two cats fighting in a back alleyway over a scrap of chicken.

Bugsy shoved at her around the tits, because she knew it would ache, Emily pulled at her braid with a yank that made Bugsy’s eyes water, the two of them banging against the wall of the trailer, their heads clunking together.

“Fucking punishing me after months like some insolent child-”

“I would never have left you thinking you were to blame for my death- I would never fucking do this to you-”

This was childish, entirely childish, playground offences and girlish curses in between. The worst part was they knew they could do much worse, they knew they could truly hurt one another if they wanted to. They were both trained to kill, and yet Emily had Bugsy grabbed in a headlock like they were two infants fighting over a sandpit.

Because they didn’t want to properly hurt one another in any way that would last. Never.

“Get the fuck off me or I’m punching you in the crotch,” Bugsy barked, trying to wriggle her way out of her sister’s freakishly strong arms with a frown, “EMILY- I SAID-”

“I was trying to protect you- just get your head out of your ass for two seconds and listen to me- I was trying to protect all of you-” But by the time Emily had somewhat gotten her to stop squirming, the girl had grabbed her by the calf where she had been forced to bend at a forty five degree angle, holding her one leg up off the floor while she sweeped at the second one to knock her off balance.

She had been known to shoot an assailant in the foot from twenty feet away to stop them from getting away, and yet she was resorting to simply pushing her sister over as a way to get one up on her.

She felt like she was ready to finger paint and take a nap time next; like they were about to be sat in the headmaster’s office and have their wrists slapped with a ruler for not keeping their hands to themselves.

But it worked, and in seconds the Prentiss girls were on the floor, puffing out of breath, Bugsy’s lip bleeding where Emily’s ring had caught it on the corner, Emily’s cheek red and raised from where her sister had a surprisingly strong right hook. They took a minute to breath, Bugsy glaring at the awfully clear blue sky, much too happy and cheery for the travesty that had been her entire day. And it was only then did she hear the other three members of their team exit the trailer, JJ going to help Emily up while Morgan's face appeared in the middle of the powdered clouds, something sad and sympathetic in his eyes and it was then that he held out his hand to get her up.

She didn’t want to, had every intention of laying there and staring at the broad daylight until she managed to float far away from there and from where her chest hurt with betrayal and her lip bled with lies.

He yanked her off the floor, offered her a cold can of coke for where she felt her lip swelling already, and she resigned to sit on the stairs to the trailer with her head in her hands until her temple stopped pounding or at least until she felt herself calm down in the slightest.

Emily shuffled to sit down next to her, her breathing still uneven but she could tell because she felt a tentative hand on her thigh rubbing gently, in the motherly way Emily had always watched her.

Because Bugsy had always been her baby, whether she wanted to admit it or not.

“Bugsy?” The younger woman huffed in indignance, pouting as she stared at her lap, because she felt the tears welling up already, “I’m so sorry I left you, you know I never, ever wanted to, you know that right?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice cracked as she finally looked over at her sister’s solemn face, “You told JJ and Hotch but you couldn’t even tell me? Did you just not want to come back for me?”

Emily’s brows pulled up into a sorrowful frown, and she felt her eyes start to burn too.

“No, that was never a part of it, I swear, there wasn’t a day when I didn’t want to come home to you,” She replied, taking a deep breath in through her nose as not to start bawling her eyes out there and then, “I had to tell Hotch and JJ as a matter of precaution, not because I wanted to tell them and not you. Bug, I missed you every day, I missed Niko and Sergio and those dumb documentaries you made us watch,”

Bugsy smiled despite herself, wiping a finger under her nose to stop the tears that had already started rolling there, “Well, I don’t know about Niko but Sergio missed you a whole lot,” She sniffled, rolling the Coke over to a cooler side to sooth her lip some more, “But I think he feels like you kind of abandoned him, and like you maybe don’t love him as much because he can be kind of annoying and, like, he’s real torn up about me telling him you died only to find your you’re not, like you can’t just do that to Sergio, Em, he doesn’t deserve that,”

Bugsy’s lip was quivering by the time she’d finished, but Emily chuckled wetly, wrapping an arm over her shoulder and pressing their pounding heads together.

“Are we maybe not talking about Sergio anymore, Bug? Are we talking about you-”

“No, we’re definitely talking about Sergio,” She cut in, wiping under her eyes with her sleeve, looking back up where Emily’s face was glistening with tears though it seemed like she had somewhat calmed under her sister’s gaze that wasn’t so full of vitriol hatred anymore.

Emily nodded, a humoured smile on her lips, “Right, okay, my bad. Definitely Sergio,” She held up her hand, stroking down Bug’s cheek for her where her tears had started pooling, “Well, I want Sergio to know that even if he is annoying sometimes, that there’s nothing that could ever take me away from him again, cause even though I’m not his mom, he’s still always going to be my kid, you know?”

Bugsy’s face crumpled in pain for a minute, sniffling and meeting Emily’s eyes, dark brown hues watching her sadly, imploring her to know how much her heart called out for her.

“Really? You promise?” Bugsy whined, and Emily nodded with a sad smile, stroking the back of her braid that looked a little ratted and wispy from where it had been yanked at. She took a shaky breath, looking down to her shoes where they scraped against the steps, “Well, I’m sure he’ll love to hear that, I’ll tell him when we’re home-”

Emily laughed, kissing her sister’s forehead, and pulling her into a side hug.

“Alright, tough guys. Let’s get back to working on the profile, Sergio can wait for a minute,” Morgan said, though his face fought off the smile that crept on his lips seeing two of his favourite girls finally at peace with one another.

Bugsy looked five years younger within seconds, and they clicked back into place, hopping up off the steps to get right to work, cursing herself for wasting so much time on silly things like hating her sister, because forgiving her felt cathartic in a way she didn’t understand she needed.

Maybe they had a chance after all.

–

Bugsy swore she would never have an optimistic thought a day in her life again.

Because just as they had thought perhaps things could look up; just as they had sent in a different agent medically trained enough to save the jack, their UnSub, that they’d identified as Oliver, had bled out before he could have done anything to save him. Without a second thought, the king, Chris, had shot the agent, and demanded he wanted Will next as retribution for his brother’s death.

They had of course turned down the offer in a heartbeat but the moment everyone turned their backs, Will, ten times the cop Bugsy could ever hope to be, had walked into the bank with his arms raised in surrender despite JJ screaming for him to stop from where Morgan and Hotch held her back from following him in.

Bugsy and Penelope watched from the CCTV in blood curdling horror when Chris put two bullets in him before he could even declare he was unarmed.

“Did you see where he was shot?” JJ asked, her tone empty, her eyes bloodshot where she had broken down into a fit of wails as soon as the gunshots had sounded through the street.

Bugsy opened her mouth to speak, losing all hope as soon as the bluebell gaze fell to her for an explanation.

“Is he alive or dead, Bug?” JJ snipped, but she knew she didn’t mean it, knew she was just worried out her mind and grasping at straws.

“I don’t know, I’m sorry,” Bugsy replied, Emily’s hand at the small of her back in a comforting gesture because she sounded scared. She wished Spencer was with her, he always knew how to make people feel better, but he and Kevin had gone back to their office uptown to use Penelope’s personal lair for better coverage on the BAU’s resources.

“He was wearing a vest,” Emily jumped in, because Bug was tense and upset enough as it was, “He might be okay,”

“Might be?” JJ said humourlessly, her face hollow with sadness, “Alright we need to get inside,”

“JJ, it’s too risky,” Morgan tried as the woman stood up, a new found determination, because she refused to accept her partner, the father of her child, was dead until she saw him in a body bag for herself, “We don’t have eyes in there anymore,”

Jennifer’s eyes welled up again, and she turned to their unit chief; he was the only one who could understand just how desperate she felt right now if there was even the smallest chance he could still be alive. “Aaron.”

Hotch took a breath, nodding to her with complete empathy, “Let’s go in,”

Bugsy leapt for the medical kit they’d kept in the cupboard, because if she could stop the bleeding as soon as possible he might have a chance. She was taken back to when she had gotten to Emily that night with Doyle, when she had nothing but the clothes on her back and a loaded gun to treat her sister with, when she had felt completely helpless.

She refused to feel like that again, not now she’d been lucky enough to get Emily back. She refused to let JJ and tiny Henry go through what she did.

Will wouldn’t die if she had anything to do with it.

“Seeing what’s going on outside doesn’t help us inside,” Spencer said, standing behind where Kevin sat in Pen’s office, his hazel eyes falling to the surveillance footage of the bank live streaming from one of the choppers, where the familiar woman he worried for more than he could ever tell her moved behind a SWAT unit towards the front doors, a large med kit strapped to her back, a pistol at her side.

He looked down at the blueprints of the bank because if he watched her get even ten feet away the bank he thought he might just throw up, even if there were four armed men shielding her.

“Kevin, can you possibly pull up each of the surveillance feeds prior to Will being shot?” He asked, quickly diverting his attention away from where they were at an impasse waiting for something to happen, Emily’s SWAT team moving slowly towards hers.

“Sure, what are we looking for?” The other man asked, his fingers sprawling over Penelope’s keyboard as he did as requested, playing the older footage on the opposite screen, though even he was getting cold feet watching their team getting ready to breach the perimeter.

“The female UnSub disappeared once before, if she wasn’t looking for an escape, what was she doing?”

Spencer paused, because he couldn’t help when his eyes flicked back to the footage of Bugsy shuffling closer to the entrance behind one SWAT agent, and the doors burst open, the entire street pausing for a second to see what the movement was.

The hostages. The civillians caught in the crossfire at the bank slowly trickled out of the doorway, their arms raised in peace, some crying in relief though there was no sign of Will anywhere.

This was bad. Though he felt utmost care that the hostages had been released safely, he knew that the UnSubs keeping Will meant one of two things. One, that Will was already dead and useless to them, or two, keeping him bleeding out as a bargaining chip was their final play. Meaning they had no intention of releasing him, otherwise they would be left with nothing.

If he wasn’t already dead, he would be any minute now.

Spencer’s chest crashed in devastation for his friend and his godson, though it soon took a turn of terror when it seemed the same thought ran through Bugsy’s mind and she began stepping forward towards where the hostages were shuffling out in floods of tears.

He saw Morgan and Emily yelling at her to stop, two of the SWAT team trying to follow her because they had no idea what had come over the twenty something year old rookie with a death wish. Spencer tried to ignore the way his chest clawed in horror, his eyes snapping back onto the surveillance of the female UnSub disappearing into the back rooms of the bank, completely ignoring the vault and the very clearly marked exit, meaning she had no intention of using either.

So what was she doing?”

Spencer felt his head rattling with a horrid thought, hoping his intuition was wrong when he held the blueprints up to the screen, his skin turning to gooseflesh when he realised just exactly where she had been dipping out to with that backpack of hers.

“Gas mains,” His voice was numb with fear, his body diving for their comm link to Garcia, where she sat in the trailer with Strauss and Rossi, watching the surveillance just as he was, “Garcia, get them out of there now,”

But no sooner had he said anything, Bugsy’s figure disappeared into the building, the SWAT team confirming that the entrance was clear, JJ and Morgan moving after her with their own agents protecting them.

But she was already inside, his head screamed at him. Even when he heard David’s frantic voice through the radio they had linked to their kevlars, “ABORT, ABORT!”

Even when he heard Hotch swear hastily, calling to his team to hold back, trying to yell loud enough JJ and her team could hear his orders to take cover.

Spencer couldn’t truly take any of it in as he watched the large glass windows wobble for a second, a shock wave of what he knew was about to come.

The lines went dead, and he thought for a second his heart stopped. Because he hadn’t figured it out fast enough, hadn’t warned them before she had chance to throw herself head first into danger the way he should have known she would.

Because Spencer watched the footage with a terror he had never known, not even in his eight years on the team, not even in his own situations as a hostage, not even when he was at his lowest and he thought the dilaudid was going to finish him off, alone and high in his apartment’s little bathroom, a burnt out drug addict who had so much going for him.

Spencer had never felt the sheer, spine-chilling dread that he did when he watched, useless and heart broken, as the bank went up in a colossal explosion, a plume of flames bursting out of every window, shattering glass and cracking the brickwork, hard enough he watched part of the building start to crumble inwards.

And Bugsy went down with it.

Taglist:

@release-your-sweets @smileykiddie08 @caramelised-onions. @the-tpd-bau @stephthepeach @sunflowersndpeaches @sammy-4103 @starmansirius @yeonalie @delusionallooney @hades-disappointment-child @sadbae-33 @mdanon027 @swag13r @frickin-bats @bilesxbilinskixlahey @mindfullycriminal @mrsbellastyles @nilopillo @imagines--galore @bluejaysaysstuff @imaginexred @flow33didontsmoke @spicyspirit @mywellspringoflife @lovelyygirl8 @pleasantwitchgarden @star-girl-interlud3 @rosylnsworld @jamieolivia27 @halcyonwithletters @waywardhunter95 @ineedtosusoutmyreadinglist t @theoraekenslover @niktwazny303 @bliindmattmurdock @alyeskathewave @littlemadamred

#spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfic #dr spencer reid #matthew grey gubler x reader #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fic #Emily Prentiss x Sister!reader

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janovavalen · 5 months

Text

✧HER FAVORITE COLOR|| percy jackson x fem!reader

part one!

part two!

part three!

summary: percy jackson’s first days on camp were hell to say the least—fist day and he got bullied, but when he sneaks away to be alone he finds an interesting girl in the forest.

word count: 2825!

warnings: small curses (literally like one word and it’s not really a curse but it’s considered one) reader is daughter of athena, sister of annabeth, horrid flirting, reader lowkey not felling percy for the first half’s of this story line.

taglist: @pleasingregulus , @sometimesminsan , @alidear

the next day percy had his plan set in motion. right when he got up he was quick to grab his long time favorite (f/c) sweatshirt that he had seen in a store a while back on one of his older quests.

when he had that on, he placed his jean pants on and his regular converse like always. while sighing percy made his way to the front door to leave but caught himself running to the water to see his reflection.

fixing his hair while whipping some previous drool off his face, he was finally proud of his appearance and set himself off to eat breakfast.

ㆍ୨୧ㆍ

as percy walked to the small open dining circle with a small fire set in the middle. he started to grab a plate behind some of the people in line. while he did he happened to look up and see the familiar hair color with the streak of (f/c) in her hair.

it’s y/n. y/n is standing right in front of him. looking down subconsciously to fix his jacket to make it more neat he clears his throat. making himself known.

she didn’t turn around.

doing it once more to hope she did—she didn’t at all.

‘ahem!’ he spoke out—very loudly making her turn around in an instant’ y/n had thought someone was going to throw up on her but she immediately calmed down to see it was percy and not some sick person.

‘oh…percy, good morning’ y/n mumbled while she grabbed some small fruits and other breakfast items. he smiled a bit, happy she looked at him and overall interacted.

‘good morning…uh-uhm you sleep well? it was pretty quiet last night’ he stumbled to grab the tongs that she had previously had in her hand to grab fruits as he grabbed some blueberries.

‘oh, yeah i guess? you?’ she looked back at him, waiting for his response which was replied with a smile and nod.

‘yup, very good—very! i actually had the craziest dream ever. i was like in the ocean and uhm…i see this like weird looking fish—‘

‘that’s nice’ she mumbled. walking away from him before he could get the best part of the story which was him being eaten.

‘yeah…nice’ he mumbled. holding the plate in his hand a bit tighter. upset at the fact she walked away. her presence going to a smaller table with annabeth and luke at.

sighing in dread, he walked his way over to his best friend, grover’s table who had been eating his breakfast.

‘hey grover’ he introduced. grover looked up and smiled at percy—‘hey perc! how’d it go—‘

‘don’t…please’ percy silently begged as he leaned down into the table with his plate set down first.

grover winced and tried not to laugh—‘guess she didn’t stay to speak back?’

‘she didn’t stay at all. i was telling her my dream and she walked away immediately’ percy whined while grover laughed.

‘dude! you try to start a conversation, the last thing to do is talk about your dream’ he laughed while percy groaned.

‘i didn’t know! i mean…it was a pretty good dream though’ he shrugged while eating his blueberries.

‘oh do tell?’ grover leaned in. percy smile and shook his head.

‘later, later.’ as grover nodded and continued to eat his food, he noticed percy looking back at y/n who sat eating her breakfast. smiling occasionally to her sister and to luke who told some joke.

what joke could he have possibly told that made her smile like that? it couldn’t have been that funny.

‘what’s so funny?’ he asked out loud, making grover look up from his plate with his eyebrows frowned.

‘uhm…i didn’t laugh?’ he looked around to make sure he wasn’t talking to some other person.

‘no—i mean her, what did luke tell her that was so funny? she literally almost spit out her breakfast.’ percy rolled his eyes while he practically forced himself to watch as y/n laughed at luke’s jokes non-stop.

‘i mean…was my joke with my dream not good enough? i mean, if she stayed she may have actually laughed because that dream was totally laughable.’ percy rolled his eyes once more when y/n placed her hand—well, more like slapped luke on the arm for the joke he told…again.

‘gross’ he mumbled. while picking at his food that happened to lose its flavorful look.

grover smiled and could feel himself almost bust out laughing at seeing percy’s new mood. percy fell unnoticed as he moved around the circular blueberries on his plate. occasionally hearing the laugh that belonged to y/n.

ㆍ୨୧ㆍ

later that morning it was time for percy to have his most waited training session with y/n.

for the first time…ever? percy was actually ready and kind of excited to see her…well, not her but he was excited to be training of course! not that he wouldn’t be happy to see her because he is but that would be kind of weird—anyways.

walking to h where y/n told him to meet, he noticed the more farther he got the more less people got. and the more farther he got the more quieter and more spacious it got.

‘uhm…hello? it’s percy? percy jackson?’ he yelled out while looking around the small trees that curled around the huge patch of green hill he stood on.

‘hello?’ he yelled out once more—‘y/n? it’s me per—‘

‘i know it’s you percy i just thought it would be funny to watch you look around while yelling your name over and over as if the whole camp don’t know who you are’ she spoke. as he turned around he saw y/n in different attire.

her hair was on her shoulder into a braid while she smiled a bit.

she was smiling at him?

score one, luke one.

‘oh right! typical. i should’ve guessed you were just lurking there. you always are. kind of weird right?’

‘not really…not unless you make it weird…that is’ she grinned a bit while tilting her head to the side. percy smiled back and shook his head while he watched her walk a bit closer.

‘so…now is when we start.’ she sighed while bringing the satchel of bows and arrows around from her back to her front half. as percy watched she easily took out three arrows and a simple made bow while handing it to him.

he was quick to retrieve it and position it in the way it’s supposed to be. once ready he looked out for the target only to see—there wasn’t any?

‘uhm…i’m not a expert in archery or anything but i’m pretty sure there is supposed to be a…target to shoot at with the little red dot?’ he squinted his eyes while y/n smiled at him with her eyebrow raised.

he felt his heart stumble again but ignored it—‘there is a tar

get…there’s always one. i just placed it…right—‘ as she closed one of her eyes, a hand on her hip and the other pointing straight ahead, he looked where she did to only see a sack of sand with a red dot on the middle of it—‘over there’

percy wouldn’t have a problem with this…the only thing was, the sack of sand was a bit away. like far away. so far his eyesight got blurry when he looked at it.

‘uhm—whoa? i thought this was training’ he turned to her with his mouth agape.

‘this is training’

‘yeah but there’s always a level one and stuff( for beginners? i’m a beginner! i can’t shoot that far—‘

‘you can, you just don’t think you can, your always capable of doing what you think you can’t’ she mumbled while walking next to him, waiting for him to shoot.

he looked at y/n’s eyes while turning chest to chest to her so she could see him fully and he could see her—‘there you go again, with these poet moments or something…you don’t have to sugar coat anything with me…you know that right?’

she looked at his eyes with nod—‘yeah i know, i just like saying those things. sometimes it freaks luke or grover out’ she smile at the mention of their name which made percy roll his eyes.

‘okay, rule one. keep calm talk away from training talk, we’re here to bond—‘

‘to train you to get better at archery—‘

‘same thing! don’t you see those movies where the master becomes close with the student? like in karate kid?’

‘i’ve never…seen a movie.’ she bashfully admitted making percy’s jaw drop.

‘oh no, we definitely can’t have that—we’ll definitely be watching a movie somehow someway.’

‘we need to focus percy—‘

‘okay! okay but wait…one more thing okay? but don’t get mad because it kind of sounds stupid—‘

‘dude…’

smiling a bit he walked a bit closer to her with confidence in his voice and body—‘what’s your favorite color?’ he tilted his head a bit while she did the same.

confusion running all over her face he smiled more as she looked away.

‘(f/c).’ she simply answered.

‘this color?’ pointing down at his jacket she nodded.

‘yeah that one—wait, you had a jacket this whole time? i never noticed’ she admitted while looking down at his jacket and back up into his eyes.

he smiled and nodded—‘yeah. i am a lot more things than a jacket, you just have to notice them’ he mumbled while she shook her head with a eye roll.

‘ew, set up your bow and arrow, weirdo’ she turned him with a hit in his shoulder a she smiled and laughed.

‘yes, ma’am!’ he yelled out making her shake her head once more.

score board—luke one…percy two.

ㆍ୨୧ㆍ

percy was nearly dying. the reason she gave him only three arrows was for every one missed him and had to retrieve them. since he missed poorly, had to make it up by taking a couple of laps around the small mountain they had been standing on.

percy wasn’t regretting the fact she offered to train him. he wasn't at all, not even a little. why would he?

hw just wasn’t built for the whole running and exercising. he can blame that on third through all grade bullies. and primarily on the fact he probably had terrible ptsd everytime he got close to a gym room thinking there would be people to throw basketballs, volleyballs and any other ones—not all…—right at him.

y/n had taken the liberty to stay cool in the shade under the sun as she watched him run laps, go again and again at shooting. the whole process was a never ending cycle.

‘i have a feeling…i can do it this time!’ percy breathed heavily as he aimed his arrow across the field.

‘you said that the last three times…and the other times before those three’ y/n crossed her arms over her chest—her signature pose—and watched percy as he turned around with his jaw dropped.

the look of shock witten over his features.

‘i mean a little enthusiasm and encouragement wouldn’t hurt you right?’ he tried to get at least one nice thing out of her. she shrugged and looked at the grassed floor.

‘it would though! i think ill melt if i be nice to you’ she grinned as he rolled his eyes.

‘come on? please?’

‘you said you didn’t want my poetry words’ she reminded him as he set the arrow down to his side.

‘well…yeah but a simple you can do it percy, will work just fine’ he shrugged as y/n rolled her eyes with a grin.

‘try your best’ she simply mumbled.

percy felt his face warm up and his chest beat a bit faster as he replayed her words in his mind. maybe it would have been best if she actually didn’t say anything.

how could he focus now?

smiling at her he gave her a nod while turning around and giving out a deep breath he had been holding while hiding his face from her view.

‘go for it percy’ she told him as he outstretched his arms. the bow and arrow ready for his control.

looking straight ahead at the sack of sand he squinted and pulled back on the arrow and string. his grip tightened around the bow, exhaling a breath, he sucked in and released the arrow.

watching it fly across the field, percy gasped when he sat it hit the red dot in the sack. immediately turning around to look at y/n who had her eyebrows raised, he laughed out.

‘i got it! i got it, i got it, i got it! he yelled out with a laugh as she held her hand over her mouth to hide her own laugh.

as he jumped a bit with excitement. y/n couldn’t help but let out a genuine smile as she watched his childlike antics.

‘you did, good job’ she told him while percy watched over to y/n who had her hands on her hips one more.

‘i mean not to brag or anything but you know, i’m kind of a pro now’ he bashfully told while y/n scoffed, shaking her head with a grin.

‘a pro?’

‘yup, did you see how i just did that? i mean…after a couple of tries—‘

‘a couple? we started this thing five hours ago’ she admitted. he frowned and turned to see the sun was setting over the water that had been in view of them.

‘five hours? how? it felt like…at least two, and don’t act like you haven’t been training to be able to aim that good for a couple of hours’ percy raised an eyebrow at y/n who simple hummed in reply.

he watched her carefully to see she didn’t deny nor try to back up which revealed a lot of things—‘you got it on your first try?’

‘i got it on my first try, but that’s okay! y’know, just keep practicing’ y/n smiled as percy and her began walking back to camp.

‘but how long will it take for me to get as good as you? your literally good at everything’ he bragged for her as y/n shrugged.

‘i’m not that good at everything, I'm just multi-talented, and who knows how long it will take. you could be as old as grover in ten years and you can still be practicing, but you’ll never know that’ she turned to him as he looked her in her eyes, laughing a bit at the loose joke she just told.

she did the same as the two finally arrived at camp. the small crowd getting ready for dinner as they sat with their siblings and friends.

‘well, i guess this is we’re we spit? i have to get to annabeth and my siblings…so’ y/n held her hands in front of her as percy stood almost chest to chest with her.

‘oh! right…right, well. i’ll see you later? maybe we can hang out instead of training tomorrow? i know a place in the woods—i mean! it doesn’t have to be the woods! i don’t want you thinking im some creep or trying to kill you or something! my mom watched documentaries about the woods and they never end well, trust me—‘

‘percy!’ she stopped his small rant with a smile on her face. her smile was so fitting and so beautiful. the slight orange and pink lighting of the sunset defined her face more than the morning sun and the moon at night. her hair was tossed to the side in its braid as she held her hands out on his arms.

‘i’ll see you tomorrow after i’m done with training…okay?’ she said. tilting her head a bit with a smile she let her hand linger on his forearm a bit more before letting go and walking to annabeth.

percy stood, shocked. reaching to his arm with his hand he let it stay there for a bit before widely smiling.

as he ran over to grover who had been eating once more—he smiled and laughed a bit into his hands to conceal it. grover looked over at him with a scared expression. it’s almost like some teenage girl just possessed percy.

‘uhm..i’m guessing it went well?’

‘it went so well!’ he banged his hand on the wooden table causing some people that sat near them. he ignored them though, to happy to even care at the moment.

‘she agreed to hang out tomorrow in the words, i need to sleep! i need to get ready early—‘

‘dude calm down your not getting married’ grover laughed as percy gave him a look which made grover roll his eyes.

‘dude!’ he laughed as percy stood up and walked over to his cabin.

getting ready for bed so he could be energized and awake for his hang out tomorrow with y/n.

score count,

luke one, percy three.

#percy #percy series #percy jackon and the olympians #percy jackson x reader #percy jackson #percy pjo #grover underwood #annabeth chase #luke castellan

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b-o-e · 1 year

Text

snorrrk mimimi

Wally Darling x Reader

Warnings: he watches you sleep bro :’) fluff though, nothin weird.

although it is not necessary, I highly suggest reading my fics in their recommended order for the best experience! here is the link to all my silly lil wally fics in order. this is #1 :)

When you wake up in the morning, something is different…

“Good morning,”

A familiar sing-song voice gently coaxed you from your sleep. With a grunt and some shifting around, you settled back down, a deep sigh of content releasing from your nostrils.

“G’mornin, Darling,” you mumbled the surname of who you knew that voice belonged to. Your tone sounded more endearing than simply his last name, though.

Gosh, what a nice sleep you had. You were warm and cozy, blanket pulled up and around you, arms hugged around something comfy while a hand carefully rubbed along your back.

A few more minutes wouldn’t hurt, right?

Another deep breath left your body, your mind slipping back into its relaxed, thoughtless state, until a peculiar thought disturbed just that.

Why was there a hand on your back?

Your brows twitched in confusion. Actually, let’s back up even more:

Why were you hearing Wally’s voice, and now his quiet giggles?

Groggy with sleep, you grumbled words incoherent to even yourself, forcing your heavy eyes open and looking up.

“Hi,” Wally’s eyes peered down into yours, his smile spread slightly wider than usual. Based on his expression, he seemed quite amused.

“Hi,” you muttered your reply, laying your head back down, satisfied you got your answers. Now it made sense! You heard his voice because he was here, and felt a hand because it was him. Easy peasy, and back to sleep you go!

…

But it didn’t make sense.

Why was he here? Why was your bed raising and deflating? Why hasn’t realization struck you yet?

…

A gasp tore through your lips. Your eyes darted open, and you quickly pushed yourself up. Ah, there was the realization!

“Wally!” You exclaimed, staring at the close-proximity face of your very familiar neighbor.

“Yes?” He responded.

You looked down at where you’d been resting. Wally’s body laid underneath yours, plonked on your couch. Your lower half had been situated in the couch space between his legs, your head having rested on his chest, where you spotted a small damp circle on his shirt.

“Please tell me I’m still dreaming,” you begged who knows what as a pool of embarrassment filled your stomach.

“I’m sorry to disappoint, but I don’t believe you are,” Wally gave a little chuckle. “Are you well?”

“I am so sorry,” your hands covered your face as you sat back onto your legs. “Oh my goodness, this is so embarrassing…” you grumbled out, red in the face.

“What is there to be embarrassed about?” Wally’s voice rang out with perplexity as he was unable to find anything wrong.

“I fell asleep on you!” You exclaimed, hands removing themselves from your face. “And drooled on you, among-- other things, probably!” You groaned, shaking your head. How could you have let this happen?

The last bits you could remember were watching TV with Wally last night. He had stayed during the evening for a visit, but you don’t remember discussion of a sleepover. You must’ve trapped him whenever you passed out!

“That’s no big deal, silly,” Wally smiled. “It’s nothing more than a bit of drool. I get paint on me all the time!” Not quite the same, but you don’t point it out.

“But I basically trapped you here! You should’ve gone back to Home, but you had to deal with me instead,” you huffed, lost as to how he failed to see the problems.

“I could’ve gone back to Home,” he corrected, “but I didn’t wish to disturb you and wanted to stay here,” he added, before at least something seemed to click. “Oh, I suppose I see what’s wrong now. I’ve overstayed my welcome. I’m sorry,”

“No, that’s not—" you gave up, letting yourself lay back on his chest with a long groan. What did it matter anyways? You’d been there for a multitude of hours already.

“That’s not the issue,” you grumbled after a minute, more composed after getting that out of you. “You’re always welcome here,” you admitted, the flush on your cheeks partly for a different reason now.

“Ha ha, and you’re always welcome here, if you’d like,” his voice rumbled gently, his hand finding itself atop of your head this time. He loved to drown you further in your embarrassment, didn’t he?

Nonetheless, you relaxed a little, sighing. “I owe you an apology, though. I’m sorry if you felt obligated to stay overnight for my comfort, and I’m sorry for whatever odd things I probably did while asleep,”

“And I’ll tell you once again not to be,” he assured calmly. You could practically hear the amusement in his voice. “You’ve done nothing wrong at all. I hope you don’t mind this.”

Your eyes fell shut. Honestly? You didn’t. Although you were flustered, consciously aware of your current position now, it was… nice.

“… I’m not heavy, am I?”

“Not at all,”

Silence followed Wally’s promise, his thumb drawing shapes on your shoulder.

…

“… Your eyes move a little while you sleep,”

Your eyebrows raised in surprise, body shooting up to attention. “Do I sleep with my eyes open?”

“Ha ha! No, they move underneath your eyelids,” he shut his eyes, tapping his own eyelids for emphasis. “They moved side to side,” his fingers demonstrated the movement, eyes flicking open after.

“Oh thank goodness,” your body deflated in relief, lowering against him once more. “Yeah, they do that. It’s called, uh…” you paused, racking your mind for the term. “Oh, REM sleep, rapid eye movement,” you said as it came back to you.

“Is there a reason they do that?”

“I won’t lie, my minds too foggy to remember right now,” you shrugged with a light laugh. “Did I do anything else funky?”

“You talk,”

“Right, that quirk I knew about,” you giggled, rubbing a hand against your face, flustered by someone else learning your sleeping habits. Especially him of all people…

“Did I say anything eligible?” You asked. Most times you would only mumble, not too often understandable words or phrases.

Wally hummed in thought, looking up at the ceiling as he seemed to try to recall. “Well, for the most part, no,” he decided. “Just some random words. No deep, dark, secrets, ha ha,” he assured with a playful tone.

“Once again, thank goodness. I need to remain somewhat mysterious or else you’ll lose interest in me,” you jested, earning a pout.

“As if that would ever happen!” Wally smiled, shaking his head as he disagreed.

“Yeah, yeah,” you giggled, a blanket of silence falling back into place. You felt content, even a bit giddy to be in your neighbourly crush’s embrace. His clear lack of judgment or concern was comforting, as were his soft hums and gentle touches to your body.

Eventually, after you figured you’ve used poor Wally as a pillow for long enough, you finally pushed yourself back up. “Well Wally, I suppose we should start the day now, shouldn’t we?” Your sentence finished with a yawn, your arms reaching to the sky as you stretched. Wally only hummed as he watched you, head tipping to the side with interest.

“I suppose so, neighbour.”

You sure were a mystery to him, one that he’d like to unravel. There was so much about you he had yet to find out, but couldn’t wait to learn as he spent more time with you! So, for now, he’ll leave out the details of you murmuring his name in your sleep to save you the extra embarrassment. It was cute you were thinking of him, anyway.

here is a lil thing for welcome home B) here is a link to my silly lil wally fics in their recommended order if you would like :) these can also be found on my ao3 B) I also have a ko-fi if you'd like to support me! I hope you enjoyed, likes and reblogs are appreciated <3 (gimme dopamine boost RAHHHH)

Posted Friday, April 21, 2023 at 2:35 PM

#welcome home #wally x reader #wally darling #wally darling x reader #yuhhhh #solid chance of me never posting anything related ever again after this cause my brain hates me B)#welcome home x reader #y’all interested in a howdy fic? I MAY have one in the oven ;)#we will see how I feel about it #if it gets finished aoOuuGghhh

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mingirn · 2 months

Text

only lovers alive

song mingi x reader

synopsis: you return back home after graduating college to a new relationship you have to navigate with your childhood best friend

warnings: smut, a lot of mentions of sexual acts, drinking, insecurities, jealousy, dirty talk, phone sex, sort of (very brief) exhibitionism, gender neutral reader

word count: 20,3k

notes: hello. i’ve had this sitting in my drafts for 1-2 years and saw a tweet that said ”i’d pick you up from the airport in every universe” and decided to let this out of jail bc of that. although the fic itself is inspired by this song. fic title comes from this song. i’m gonna schedule this to post while i’m asleep because i’m terrified to post after not being on here for such a long time. please be gentle with me >:(

It’s dark outside your window, but the streets are lit up by countless glimmering lights. Even though the day is turning into night, there’s still plenty of traffic. Beaming headlights join the streams of light from street lamps, and it’s just your apartment that is missing a glow from a lamp on its windowsill. You’ve got all yours packed up and sent away already, and you’re taking in the city for the last time.

”Are you going to miss it?” Mingis's voice is soft on the other end of the phone. You’ve got him on speaker, lying right next to you.

”I guess, yeah. It’s been nice, even though I haven’t spent much time exploring or enjoying the city.”

It’s true. You’ve just finished your last semester and finally graduated after moving hours away from your hometown to go to your dream school. It feels like eons since then, when you had to say tearful goodbyes to your friends and family and settle down in a cramped little dorm room. You’d been lucky enough to get student housing in your last year, a bigger place where you’d been living for the past two semesters. This city wasn’t just a stark difference to your hometown, it was the definition of complete and total opposite.

The town you grew up in was the type to hide, not really forgotten, just barely there. Small and tucked away between long stretches of forests and fields. You’d be blessed to live there your whole life, yet lucky to get away. You’d go home to visit during summer break and just bask in how simple life was back home, but beyond all, how it was still home to all the things you held most dear. Top of that list: Mingi.

”You’ll always be able to go back, maybe we can go during the summer and you can take me to that Chinese place you’ve talked so much about,” Mingi says. He’s starting to sound a little sleepy, and it’s a reminder that you should probably get to sleep soon. You’ve got an early flight to catch, then it’s just a span of a few hours separating you and Mingi. He’ll be coming to pick you up, so you suppose you better let him go too so he can get some sleep.

”You know I’d love that,” you smile, and slump down on your bed. ”I think we should head to bed though, maybe we should leave this future talk for some other time.”

He hums in agreement, and the line goes quiet for a minute. You can hear his breathing through the speaker, slow and steady. When you close your eyes it’s almost like he’s here.

”Hey, uh,” he begins, and he swallows audibly. ”Do you think it’s gonna be weird?”

Ah, there it is. You’ve almost been waiting, expecting, him to ask it.

”No, I don’t… It’s not like we haven’t seen each other since I moved away. We’ve spent almost all of the last three summers together, right?” you reason. It’s not really what Mingi is referring to, but you have to start somewhere. Soften him up, reassure him.

”Well yeah, yeah, I know. It’s just different because we weren’t doing those things then, and now it’s… well, different.”

”Mingi,” you say with firmness in your voice. ”It would only be different if you said and did all those things just because it was over the phone. If you didn’t mean any of it.”

Mingi takes another moment of silence, and you can imagine that he’s probably chewing nervously on his bottom lip. It makes you a bit nervous as well, the fact that you can’t see him. You’d always been so good at reading his face and figuring out what he was thinking. You need that more than ever now, the ability to read him, because so much has changed.

”I’ve meant every word I’ve ever said,” he says, and something about the words feels so heavy and serious, and he seems to realize it too. ”I really, really want to fuck you, not just over the phone.”

Mingis voice is normal when he says it, not a hint of underlying desire or desperation, but the words themselves send a flash of warmth through your body. It’s become regular at this point, this shift in your friendship. The first time you guys crossed over that invisible line had been under the influence of alcohol, you had come home drunk from the bar after celebrating good test results with some friends and Mingi had been celebrating getting a new job with your mutual friends back at home. It just sort of happened, you dialing his number and gushing about how much you missed him. The conversation went on for half an hour when you started trying to undress from your bar clothes and Mingi had asked what you were doing. He’d asked about what you were wearing, and what color your underwear was, then he informed you that he was just in his boxers, and for some reason you found yourself telling him about how sexually frustrated you had been lately in hopes that he’d offer help. And he did.

That first night it was quick and needy, neither of you initiated it, it just happened in perfect symbiosis. You checked the call log the day after and saw that you guys had been on the phone for hours, the last of which you had both eventually fallen asleep on call until your phone battery died. Tentatively, you had called him during the afternoon and asked him if he had any recollection of yesterday night's events. His voice had been raspy and breathy, throat raw from drinking and moaning, and you can still remember every inflection in the tone of his voice when he asked if you had liked it. That had been the start of it all, of an almost full year of phone sex, sexting, and swapping pictures.

”I’m glad to hear that,” you say, trying to sound just as casual even though you can feel butterflies swirl through your stomach. ”I really can’t wait, Mingi. Can’t wait to fuck you and can’t wait to see you, I’ve missed you so much.”

”I’ve missed you too… Get some sleep and I’ll see you tomorrow at the airport, just look for a handsome tall guy!”

You fall asleep with Mingis laugh ringing in your ears.

The next day, your plane lands at a far emptier airport than the one you’d set off from. It’s early in the day and the sun is high in the sky, occasionally passing behind weak and thin clouds. The air is so different out here than in the big city. The sounds are clearer, the people are kinder, and everything feels so much more simple here.

You sit on a hard airport bench and wait as your phone connects to the internet after having been turned off, seeing all your missed messages coming in. You’re just about to type up a response to Mingis ’You there?’ when a call from him pops up on the screen.

”Yeah, I’m here!” you chirp into the phone.

”’Here’ where? I’m just walking around and-”

”Mingi, you idiot, turn around!” you call out loud enough for him to hear it on the phone and in person, though he’s quite a distance away from you. You could recognize the back of his head anywhere, even though it’s short and bleached blond right now, it’s undeniably Mingi.

He spins around and spots you right away, making eye contact with you across the big, open space. Seeing Mingi in person for the first time in months washes away all nervosity, all the same as it stirs up a new sense of anticipation. You jump to your feet and you're both rushing towards each other, crashing together in a tight hug.

You find yourself closing your eyes, tucking your head into his chest, and inhaling his scent until it makes you lightheaded. He smells just like your Mingi, that same cologne he’s worn since he was 15, the same laundry detergent, and he smells faintly of sunscreen. It’s not the first time you’ve hugged him, not by a long shot, but it feels like the first time you’ve held him like this. Your arms around his middle, taking note of how big he feels in your hold, and you’re thinking about every little detail you’ve missed out on by being away from him. His warmth, his touch, his size, his voice.

”Hi there,” he murmurs, and his voice is so different up close. It’s deeper and darker, it reverberates through his chest. ”Was the flight okay?”

Something about the conversation he’s initiating makes you feel like now is the appropriate time to pull away, and that in turn has you questioning how appropriate that hug had been on your part. Mingi, however, feels cool as ice when he grabs hold of your bag and slings his arm around your shoulder to guide you out of the airport.

”Uh,” you begin, feeling a bit stumped. You continue, ”It was as good as you can expect, but the food sucked, I can’t wait to get home and eat my mom's cooking.”

”Tired of ramen and takeout?” he asks, chuckling.

”You could say that.”

You try to move on past your own weirdness. Mingi is normal and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be as well. Still, there’s a sort of buzz igniting under your skin from being in Mingi's presence again. You suppose it’s always like that, this initial excitement of seeing each other again and getting to update each other on all the things you’ve been up to while knowing you’ve got all the time in the world to hang out. But there’s this nagging voice at the back of your head that is frantically going through all the conversations you’ve had with Mingi on the phone. Late at night, underneath your covers, with Mingi moaning and speaking filth on the speaker. It doesn’t match up with the Mingi in front of you, the Mingi that has been your closest friend for years, and it makes you feel electric.

Mingi pops his trunk open and you load your bags into his car, then get inside and start the half-hour drive back to your hometown.

You only dare to steal little glances over at him. Watching him in the rearview mirror, seeing the sun set his brown eyes ablaze and paint his skin golden. His fingers strum along to the song on the radio on the steering wheel, he’s wearing a single ring on his right hand and his skin is already tanned even though summer has just begun. It’s almost like you’re meeting him all over again with the way you’re soaking in every inch of him, yet it’s forcefully clear to you that none of this is new. Perhaps that would have made it easier if he had just been a stranger where the slate was clean, but this is Mingi and there are things you’re both gonna need to navigate.

You’d foolishly expected that he’d lean in and steal at least a kiss but perhaps more right away, when you were still parked at the airport. More accurately, you had hoped so. It’s all you guys had been talking about for the past months, all the ways you’d want to ravage each other when you finally were face to face again. Apparently, Mingi thinks that can wait.

So you turn your head away, try not to look over at him or imagine his hand holding your thigh instead of the steering wheel. Instead, you focus your attention on the trees outside, and Talking Heads on the radio.

”Do you still like this song?” Mingi asks you. He takes a turn, and this is where the road gets lonesome and there’s more nature than buildings. The song playing is ’This Must be the Place’, and you know Mingi is asking because you’d been the one that bought him this CD for his birthday.

”I could never outgrow Talking Heads, you know that,” you smile at him. You’re starting to settle in now. The fields and the trees are so familiar, the air smells like your childhood, and Mingi is humming along to music you’ve listened to for years. You can do this, it’s not going to be weird, it’s still your best friend Mingi.

The ride back home starts to fill up with idle chatter. You’d think that you’d have run out of topics to talk about by now, seeing as you’d talk on the phone almost every day, but you still find new things to bring up. He parks his car in the driveway outside your house and helps you carry your luggage, all while giggling and joking with you.

It’s only been a year since you’ve been home, you hadn’t been able to come during Christmas, but that’s the longest stretch of time you’ve spent away from this very house. Not much has changed, your parents have kept your room exactly like you had left it, but something just feels different. It feels smaller, or you feel bigger. You catch a glimpse of Mingi in your doorway as you start unpacking your bags and for a second your abdomen flutters when you notice just how much of the door opening he can shield with his body. He has filled out a lot, and this shouldn’t be a surprise because you’d noticed it plenty of times before when you came home to visit. You suppose it’s not a surprise, but it’s the first time you’ve felt appreciation for it.

Of course, you had fantasized about his body since you entered his whole thing, and he had sent a lot of pictures that had helped you out with that, but seeing it in person is an entirely new ordeal. You feel your face heat up as your mind flicks through memories of pictures he’s sent you of himself naked, knowing what he looks like underneath his clothes. You have to wonder if Mingis mind is running in the same circles, if he’s as hyperaware of your skin as you are of his, and how he’s able to contain himself as well as he does if that’s the case. You hardly can’t.

”So,” Mingi begins. Your stomach lurches and plunges every time he pauses between words, fearing what may come next. Maybe this is when he breaks your heart and tells you he can’t do what you’ve been speaking about, that it’s just not the same when you’re face to face. You try to seem unbothered by your racing thoughts and decide to hear him out first. He continues, ”Uh, what now? Do you need any more help?”

”No, I’m all good, Mingi,” You’re rifling through clothes and belongings, lining them up on your bed. You can physically feel him behind you in your room as if he’s radiating this electricity and warmth that has your skin tingling.

”Maybe I should get going then. You know, to let you settle in.” You can hear him shift his weight between his feet. It suddenly feels unbearably awkward and strained between you two, and you know that if you keep your back to him it will only get worse. You need to face this head-on, cut through the tension, or at least pretend like the heavy atmosphere isn’t weighing you down.

You don’t want to let Mingi leave like this, without either one of you addressing things. If he leaves like this, with things unspoken and forgotten, the next time you see him it will be like nothing has ever happened. He’ll be right next to you but somehow further away than ever.

You guess you shouldn’t have expected to jump each other's bones the second you saw each other. Maybe that was unrealistic, but it had just felt that way on the phone. You suppose this is more natural, maybe you just have to stick it out until you’re used to being in the same room.

This Mingi in front of you is an entire world different than the one you’d grown up with. Despite the fact that everything is the same, that he’s in your childhood room and the sun is shining through the window just the same. The beam of light illuminates him directly, making his tan skin radiate.

You’re admiring him when he steps forward and closes the distance between you. Only the birds are singing outside your window, but in the total silence of your room, you can hear Mingi suck in a shaky breath before he leans forward and kisses you.

Time stills, the earth feels like it’s tilting or tipping, as if the very makeup of the universe is now irreversibly changed. Mingis mouth is warm and gentle but he’s keeping a pressure that has your mind whirling, just the way he’s kissing you with so much intent. You’re both breathing heavily and the air escaping his nose is so sweet that you can’t stop yourself from inhaling as much as possible, dizzying yourself to consume every bit of him that you can.

He’s already close, but he shuffles even nearer without breaking apart from the kiss. You can now feel his body against yours and Mingi moves his hands up to hold each side of your head, keeping you in place as he kisses and licks into your mouth. For some reason you’re so very present inside your head, thinking about each little detail of the way he kisses, reminding yourself to remember this moment forever.

You can feel when he starts to pull away so you chase after him, deepening the kiss for another second before he parts from it entirely. He’s just as breathless as you are, and there’s something in Mingi's eyes that you’ve never seen before. He focuses on your lips and leans in for another kiss that ends a moment too quickly.

Mingis hand ruffles your hair up, and his voice is laced with a laugh when he says a drawn-out ’bye’ and leaves your room.

You can feel your heartbeat in your throat, can hear the blood pumping and wooshing from it all the way through your body, throughout each delicate vein in your ears. Your lips are tingling when you reach up to touch them, almost in disbelief at the fact that Mingi had just been kissing you right there. Your mouth is slick with his spit, and your finger moves cardinally to gather it up and plunge into your mouth so you can savor it.

You fall down on the bed, staring up at your ceiling, and close your eyes to relive the kiss as you imagine what it will be like the next time you see Mingi.

Almost a full week passes until you see him again. Your family practically swarms you for the first few days, your parents being overjoyed to have you back invite your grandparents to welcome you home and your favorite aunt comes to see you with your two young cousins. You get unpacked quickly enough, when you manage to find time between family visits and long drawn-out meals, and before you know it five days have passed. Mingi stays busy too though, he sends a few occasional texts about work and though he lives right across from you, you never even catch a glimpse of him.

Sometimes you lay in your bed at night and feel your heart race up at the thought that there is only a few yards of grass and asphalt road between the two of you. It’s a massive change from the last three years when you had been miles and miles apart. Now, it feels almost like you can sense him. Just across the street, breathing and shuffling in bed. You can picture him so well, long eyelashes resting against his cheekbone, his skin flushed from sleep, his long limbs tangled up in a thin blanket. Your hand slips inside your underwear with a hot fire fueled by embarrassment and insecurity burning in your stomach.

Your imagination moves between recollections of words he’s spoken and pictures he’s sent, to the image of him in his bed right now. He’s so very close, but so very unaware of how much that precise fact affects you. Each day away from him only tightens the strings in your body and you grow more frustrated that you haven’t actualized any of the promises you’d made on the phone. At the same time, you find yourself quietly thankful for the imposed distance. Mingi isn’t even here, but he still has such an impact on you that it has you rushedly getting yourself off with your face buried in your pillow to keep quiet.

You’re so deeply affected by all this, while Mingi is fine. You’re the one busy, but when Mingi comes home from work and has some downtime he doesn’t even text to see if you can spend time. Seemingly, he doesn’t care to find out when you can see each other again.

On day six you’re sitting in your garden with your mom and aunt. Your cousins are playing in the grass in front of you and calling for your attention. The sun is high and hot in the sky, and Mingis car has been home for a few hours. You’ve checked your phone multiple times to make sure it’s not on silent, or if you’ve somehow missed a text from him, but it’s been quiet all day.

Then, a car pulls up to Mingi's house. You recognize it in an instant, it’s Yunhos old Camaro that he had inherited from his dad when he got his license, the same car he’d posted a thousand pictures of on social media. He had even let you drive it for an entire block two summers ago. The paint job has sparkles of blue in it that glimmer in the sun, and you somehow feel like it’s taunting you. The front door of Mingis house opens and he emerges in a pair of short shorts and a t-shirt that he has cut the sleeves off of, and he’s got a pair of sunglasses sitting on his face. A feeling worse than rejection rushes through you when Yunho rolls down the window and waves to you, finally prompting Mingi to also notice you sitting there.

Mingi raises his hand to wave but the movement is cut shorter than Yunho's enthusiastic full-bodied gesture. Mingi gets in the car and the engine roars as Yunho drives away. The warm air feels bittersweet when it’s filled by the smell of exhaust fumes.

That night you’re lying in bed and you’re inching close to sleep when your room lights up for a second. In the haze of sleep, you assume it to be the headlights of a car, but it happens again until the stream of light persists entirely and you finally get up to look outside your window. It’s clear instantly where it’s coming from because Mingi is hanging halfway out his window with a flashlight in his hand.

Though he’s quite a distance away, you can see him well enough to tell that he’s shirtless and his hair is messy, but your focus is pulled from that to trying to decode what gesture he’s making with his hand. You shrug, and he disappears from his window for a few seconds before he pops back with his phone and starts pointing to it.

You search for your phone and open it to find 4 missed calls from Mingi. His contact picture pops up on your phone and you hurry to answer.

”What the fuck, Mingi?” you whisper into your phone.

”Were you sleeping?” he chuckles, and you can see his shoulders shake with laughter. Every little bit of this makes you want to hang up, or scream, or march right over to his house and have a go at him. How dare he go days without speaking to you, then call you up in the middle of the night and laugh as if you haven’t been in agony this past week? How dare he kiss you breathless in this very room and make no attempts at reliving it?

”No, I was just about to fall asleep!” you huff.

”Why are you whispering?” Mingi asks.

”Because my parents are asleep, dumbass.”

”Hm,” he ponders. ”So that would be a no if I asked you to sneak out and come over?”

You hope he doesn’t hear your breath hitch at the thought that he wants you to come over in the middle of the night.

”Of course, it’s a no! My mom is already peeved because of Yunho coming by earlier today. She hates how loud that car is. She’s gonna think you’re a bad influence, riding around in that and making me sneak out.”

”Imagine her reaction when she finds out you drove that car before you got your license, and I wasn’t even there. It was all Yunho,” Mingi jokes.

”Shut up! God, my mom has been warning me about him for years. She used to be convinced I was going to end up with him and it was her biggest nightmare,” you say. Your window is cracked to let in some air now that it’s cooler outside. The night is quiet, and all you can hear is Mingi breathing at the other end of the call. It’s quiet for a moment, and you can see that Mingis face is scrunched up.

”You and Yunho?” he scoffs. ”Why would she think that?”

”I don’t know, it’s not like she had any reason to. She’s just weird like that, you know how my mom is.”

It’s silent yet again, Mingi just sighing.

Your stomach does a somersault when a thought strikes you and you have to ask, ”You’re not jealous, are you?”

”Jealous? Of- of Yunho?” Mingi laughs breathlessly. You just hum, and you can’t take your eyes off of him where he’s sitting in his window. Mingi sucks in a deep breath and regains his voice, ”I have no reason to be jealous of him when I’m the one with your nudes in my phone.”

Something about that makes you curl up on yourself, suddenly feeling very shy that you’re only in your underwear and a thin old tank top. It brings up another thought that has plagued you. The pictures you’d sent were all meticulously posed and manipulated to be as appealing as possible. It had been your body, yes, but the most perfect version of it possible. Here, in your pajamas with your skin glistening from sweat, hunched over yourself, you hardly think Mingi can find any resemblance between the picture-perfect version and the one in front of his eyes.

”Oh yeah?” you murmur. You can’t let him see you falter, can’t let him call your bluff. You straighten your back and pretend to be more interested in something under your nails. ”You could have a lot more than just pictures, you know.”

Mingi lets out a noise that’s somewhere between a moan and a breath, just audible enough for his phone to pick it up.

”Fuck, look at me,” he says, and you do. You just do.

Mingi stands up, keeping his phone pressed to his ear with one hand while his free hand moves in a long, slow caressing motion down his upper body. It’s your turn to feel jealous now, stupidly jealous of Mingis own hands for getting to touch him. His fingers reach the waistband of his boxers and you nervously stop breathing as you imagine them dipping inside. His hand moves just a bit further down though, where Mingi wraps his entire palm around his dick.

”Can you see that?” he asks. He uses his hand to move his hard cock under the light material of his underwear, making sure to jut his hips out towards the moonlight so you can see every second of his show.

”I can see you, oh my god. Are you out of your mind? Mingi, what if-”

”No one’s around, no one’s gonna see except for you,” he assures you. You lick your lips, thinking back to what Mingis mouth had tasted like.

”You’re crazy,” you whisper to him.

”You make me crazy,” he says with a smirk. ”Would you lift your shirt up for me?”

Your fingers have dug into your thigh without you noticing until now that Mingi is directing attention to your body. There’s so much tension inside your body that your breathing feels labored as if there are coils fastened inside you and everything Mingi says and does tighten up every bit of your internal structure. He has you feeling lightheaded with words alone.

Sensing your hesitance, Mingi speaks again. ”You don’t have to, I just really want to see you.”

The last sentence has you moving without thinking, getting up on your knees on the seat under your window. You take a quick glance around the street and in the windows of nearby neighbors. The whole world is asleep, only you and Mingi are awake.

You use your free hand to pull your tank top as high as possible, exposing your stomach and chest to Mingi who has stopped touching himself and is keeping razor-sharp focus on you.

”You-… Thank you, you’re gorgeous, do I ever tell you that?” Mingi’s voice is low and hushed. Until now he has sounded loud and confident, and if you didn’t know any better you would think that Mingi has gotten shy. He probably didn’t expect you to follow through with his request.

You haven’t spoken in minutes and you’re not sure if you could make any noise without it coming out as a whine, but luckily Mingi speaks up once more.

”Can you get into bed? I’m gonna lay down, please join me, please, would you touch yourself with me?” Mingi pleas. He waits a second for the words to register, for you to spring into action before he does so himself. Part of you wants to stay and keep drinking in the sight of his body, but the expectations of what he’s going to have you doing has you obeying his words.

”I’m in bed now,” your voice is still hushed, and there’s a layer of excitement in it that brings on a wave of embarrassment.

”I am too, I’m gonna- I’m taking my underwear off. It’s been so long, I just need to…” Mingi trails off. His end of the call is muffled, and a little distorted, and you can hear him shuffling to get his boxers off.

”It’s been so long since what?” you ask to clarify.

”Since we last did this, since I last came…” he answers. Fuck.

”Have you not been cumming since we last had phone sex?”

Mingi quiets down for a second before he lets out a breathy laugh.

”Have you?” he asks with a tone in his voice you can’t make out, but it has your cheeks heating up and your entire body running ice cold.

You turn silent now, but it’s clear from how Mingi is laughing under his breath that he doesn’t need an answer from you to know the truth.

”Oh my god. Well, tell me then, how many times have you made yourself cum since our last call?” Mingi asks. He sounds so cocky, so full of himself that you don’t know whether to roll your eyes or shove your hand between your legs and revel in this stupidly hot version of Mingi.

”Maybe two or three times,” you mumble, hoping that he doesn’t catch it.

”Let's just pretend I believe that. What have you been thinking about?”

You whine, feeling your entire body surge with shame and humiliation. Despite all of it, you’ve bunched up your blanket between your legs and without thinking about it you’ve started rutting against it slowly.

”Mingi, please…”

”Tell me.”

”I think about you. I always do. I’ve been thinking about that kiss, and-…” Your thought is interrupted by a sound on the other end of the line, along with Mingis soft hums. ”Mingi, are you jacking off to me telling you I fantasize about you?”

”I’m jacking off to your voice,” he says so matter of fact it knocks the air out of you. He continues, ”The fact that it’s about me only makes it better.”

”Oh my god,” you sigh, closing your eyes and letting your hand move where you need it most. Mingis voice is sweet and gentle as he moans with each stroke, and his phone is so close to his mouth you’re tricked into believing he’s right next to you, breathing and huffing.

”I wish you were here right now,” he says, sort of under his breath, a little quiet. It feels a little secretive when he says it, like when you were younger and he would have you turn your back to him as he did the same. With your backs pressed together, he would tell you all his deepest secrets, and when you’d turn around again you would both pretend like nothing had happened. It’s a memory you have replayed a lot more recently than ever before, just due to how similar it feels to this arrangement you have with Mingi. As long as you aren’t faced with each other, as long as your backs are turned you can do and say whatever you want.

Instead of sulking about it, you force yourself to play along.

”I do too, I need you so bad,” you whisper, and none of it is a lie.

”Need to see you cum for me, fuck, I need you to make me cum,” he moans. It echoes through your entire head, that moan and those words, and it has you rolling onto your back and pulling your underwear down your legs so you can touch yourself properly.

”You’ll make me cum just by saying that, Mingi,” you say, pathetically so. Something about Mingi has you reaching the edge faster than anything else.

”Fuck, me too. Just hearing you say my name is enough to make me cum right now. I’ve never felt this fucking good,” Mingi groans.

”Mingi,” you let out again, out of pure instinct. ”Mingi, please give me permission to cum, I need it, please!”

He does, in a string of words and breathless moans he allows you to cum with him. Your orgasm rolls through your entire body in a blinding flash, and by the time it’s over you can’t gauge if multiple minutes or just a few seconds have passed. Your phone is pressed so tight to your ear that pearls of sweat coat the screen.

”You there?” Mingis voice is raspy, all fucked out.

You come to, clearing your throat, ”I’m here, sorry. Holy shit.”

”What are you doing tomorrow?” he asks. You don’t have time to feel overjoyed or even finish your train of thought (of oh, fuck, it’s finally happening) before Mingi continues, ”Yunho’s throwing this… thing, at his house. There’s gonna be a barbeque, we’re gonna get drinks, and he says it’s going to be chill but you know how he is. It’s gonna end up being a party by the end of the night.”

You’re staring up at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers Mingi helped you set up when you were 15, and the answer is so obvious you don’t have to think about it.

”Yeah, I’ll go with you,” you respond.

”Well… I’ll take you, but maybe we shouldn’t make it too obvious when we’re there. All of our friends will be there, maybe it’s best to lay low?”

You clench your eyes shut. It makes you want to scream so loud it’d pierce your wall and travel across the street and through to his bedroom. A week ago he had been so concerned about things turning weird between you two and you’d written it off as a worry about your friendship, about how things would change after all the words and naked pictures you had exchanged. You hadn’t considered for a second that Mingi would be concerned for his reputation.

”Yeah,” you mutter. ”No, yeah, you’re right.”

”Okay then,” he says, so cheerily that you feel shame wash over you. ”I’ll pick you up tomorrow at five then?”

You hum in response and swap goodbyes before he ends the call and the beeps ring through your ear.

Your sleep that night is weighed down by a worry you can't dispel even after you wake up. You hardly feel rested, and your parent's voices barely register when they speak to you at breakfast. A lot of thoughts linger in your head, unshakeable doubts about whether things with Mingi are really going to be as okay as you had thought when you were in school.

Things had felt so much simpler then, like this steadfast belief that it would be just as it had always been. You had returned every single summer and were able to pick back up your friendship with Mingi with no trouble, despite all the months you had spent apart.

At least you would get to see all your friends again. Summer being in full swing would mean that everyone would be at their happiest, most free, possibly stupid, and risky behavior.

The day passes by sluggishly, you're merely counting down the hours. You try to read a book while lying in the sun in your backyard, but find that the words just flow together. You check your phone and see the half-hour call in your log from yesterday night, you’re just staring at Mingi's name and contact picture. It's just letters and numbers on a screen, but it's also a journal of your entire relationship. You can go back and see every single one, remember where things had started and where things had escalated. It took you weeks to send the first suggestive pictures to each other and they had been modest back then. A picture of your dark silhouette in the mirror, and Mingi replying with a blurry picture of his thighs in the dark of his room.

It's just another reminder that what you've got with Mingi is all contained in this piece of technology you can fit in your hand. Nothing is real or tangible, except for a few minutes of kissing. That's all you've got that counts as something; Mingi kissing you in your childhood bedroom for a few very good minutes before departing and ignoring you for days.

The kiss lives vividly in your head as you shower and get dressed.

You're sitting on your windowsill and watching the clock tick closer to five when the front door of Mingis house opens and he walks outside. He's got a pair of sunglasses on that he lifts off of his nose to peek up at your window, and when he spots you he waves and motions for you to come down.

You float down the stairs and out your door. The air is light and breezy outside despite the way the sun has been beaming down all day. Mingi is dressed in yet another shirt that shows off his arms, the slight tan line from his work t-shirt that he tries to even out is obvious to you up close and you squeeze his arm to tease him for it.

Both of you sit down in his car. The windows are rolled down to let air flow through and Mingi sets the car stereo to a low volume so you can faintly hear Tears for Fears play in the background. The engine hums pleasantly in comparison to Yunhos Camaro when Mingi starts the car. You watch his hands, waiting for him to shift the stick into first gear, but it doesn't happen.

Instead, time moves in both directions, very slowly but all too quickly as he wraps his hand around the back of your head and pulls you in for a kiss. Every single thought that has plagued you throughout the day vanishes the second his lips are on yours. It's replaced by the fact that these same lips had moaned your name less than 24 hours ago, that he had sounded so desperate when he told you he wished you were there.

Mingi deepens the kiss this time, letting it go on for longer than last time. When you have to part from it to take a breath Mingi trails his kisses from the corner of your mouth to under your ear. The kisses are chaste, barely there, but every single one leaves your skin tingling.

He doesn't return to your lips, he pulls back and regains his breath and his smile is so cocky when he reverses the car out of the driveway. You can't help but giggle then, and Mingi turns up the volume to let the music blare through the entire car. This is the Mingi you've missed, the one that drives through your neighborhood and ignores all the grouchy people who turn around and stare disgruntedly. He sings along too loudly, straining his voice to hit notes that sound awful even though you know that he's a great singer.

Everything feels as it always has when you pull up to Yunhos house and there are cars parked up and down the street. Mingi parks and as you're unbuckling your belt you see him look in the rearview mirror, grooming his hair and then wiping his mouth to remove your lip balm. It stings for a second but you don't let it persist. You just get out of his car and the two of you walk towards Yunhos backyard.

There is a voice in the back of your head that reminds you of the distance Mingi puts between you, this very conscious measurement that would leave no doubt for all your friends that you're strictly platonic. You push that away too, and make way towards all your old school friends instead. Seonghwa is the first to pull you into a hug, and it's all you need for the bubble to burst on all your worries.

Soon enough you're all laughing, the backyard is quickly filling with people and Yunho is having a hard time keeping up with all the people demanding a burger. The afternoon air smells just like high school, and the cheap alcohol mixed in the punch is just like the one you used to drink back then. The only difference is that everyone looks so much older, and the conversations have switched from homework, crushes, and drama to future plans and jobs.

"So what now?" Seonghwa asks you when a few hours have passed and the sun is setting. It's not getting dark, the sun is just changing from blue to lilac. You turn to him, feeling the way the alcohol has affected your vision, the way it's swimming a bit.

"What now?" you ask.

"I mean, are you back for good? Are you gonna settle down, get a job, do the whole small-town thing?" he jokes, but the question he poses is a valid one.

"Hm," you ponder for a second, looking up at the sky as if an answer is gonna rain down on you. "I guess I don't know. I need to get a job, but I'll give myself the summer to figure it out. It feels like the last one before things truly.. you know.."

"Change," Seonghwa interjects. "Before we truly grow up."

The conversation quiets for a moment before you both burst into laughter.

"Jesus, we always get so somber, don't we?" Seonghwa laughs.

"Remember prom? We went out for some air and you couldn't stop talking about the universe because you looked up at the stars for a second," you say.

"I don't remember that, I just remember Hongjoong going off on me because I teared up and ruined the makeup he spent an hour doing on me," Seonghwa recollects. You could remember that. You also remembered the eyeshadow Hongjoong had smeared across Mingis's eyelid, the messy dark brown he had lined his eyes with because Mingi refused to stay still for too long.

None of you had brought any dates that night, your entire friend group had decided to just go together and spend the night dancing with each other. When you had gotten a dance with Mingi towards the end of the night his makeup had started running and you had brushed your thumb under his eye. Nothing about that action or the dance, or the night as a whole, had been close to romantic. He had just been Mingi, the same Mingi as always, he walked you home that night with his arm around your shoulder just like he had every day after school.

It's only with the wisdom of hindsight you can identify little actions to speak otherwise. You can't recall what Sans eyes had looked like when you danced with him, but you remember in great detail how the lights had twinkled in Mingi's irises. All you remember from your dance with Wooyoung is that his hands had been too sweaty to hold, but you can go back in your memory to when Mingi had leaned his head on your shoulder and sang along softly to the song that was playing.

"What is it like when you talk to Mingi?" Seonghwa pulls you out of your thoughts. You don't know when your eyes close, but when you open them again the sky is starting to burn a vibrant pink.

"Well... I don't know. It's good. We talk about all sorts of things," you try to sound matter of fact, very casual. Reminding yourself of Mingis words, lay low.

"Yeah, you must," Seonghwa remarks, a chuckle sounding through his voice. It has you turning to him, eyebrows pulled together in confusion.

"Meaning?" you question.

"Just that there must be substance to your conversations, seeing as Mingi excuses himself from every night out when you call," he says.

"Yeah," you attempt to brush it off as a meaningless piece of information, but it feels like a lot more. You didn't know Mingi would rush home to talk to you.

Seonghwa hums, and your eyes are pulled to the ground where you've been digging your heel into the grass.

"I guess you guys have always been closer than the rest of us. Living across from each other, being childhood friends, all that," he says. There's no hidden meaning or intention behind his words, you know Seonghwa well enough to deduct that, but it still feels like he's trying to catch you out.

"Yeah," you repeat, absent-mindedly. "Suppose so."

Seonghwas mouth twitches a little as if he wants to say something else, but he keeps it shut. You're thankful, because even if he can read between the lines of your and Mingi's strange relationship, the fact that he doesn't say it out loud serves as reassurance to you. It's the same thin veil that you and Mingi drape yourselves in. Unspoken meaning unchanged.

A friend comes over and offers to top off your and Seonghwas glasses, and you decide to get up on your feet and move on from the sudden gloom that took over.

The music is loud and the air gets chillier as the clouds twist amongst pink and orange. You’re talking to Yunho and telling him the story about your mom's disapproval of his car when he notices your shoulders quiver with the drop in temperature. He fetches one of his flannels for you, helping you thread your arms through and telling you that you need another drink to warm up. Yunho makes you something stronger than the diluted punch, and it goes to your head with haste.

It does warm you up, and it pulls you from reality a little. It’s easier to laugh along with Yunhos jokes this way, without thinking about the tension between you and Mingi. It feels good and safe to just be worriless, to feel the wind in your hair and be surrounded by the sound of your friend's voices mixing together.

Your legs are getting wobblier, but Yunho catches you before you fall and he lets you stay posted against him.

You’re just watching the conversation your friends are having without joining in when you feel two hands on your waist. You don’t have to look back to know that it’s Mingi. The smell of his cologne is familiar enough to alert you.

”I think I better get them home,” Mingis voice is warm and round behind your ear. For a second you feel a little bitter, you kind of want to shake his hands off of you and scoff at him because he’s intervening just when you’re truly starting to enjoy yourself without spending a single thought on him. Is that not what he wanted? You’re keeping the secret, you’re not drawing any eyes towards you two. He’s doing that all on his own.

Had it been three years ago, you think your friends had been protesting your leave. You’re all grown up now though, and everyone is understanding when Mingi wraps his arm around your waist, and you both wave goodbye.

Mingi helps you into his car. Tears for Fears is still playing when he turns the car on and starts driving, and you feel a sort of agitation that you can’t place. He doesn’t speak a single word for a minute or two, and the mood inside the car is unbearable.

”I don’t think anyone could tell,” you say. Mingis face is bare of emotion, and you find yourself with an urge to placate him. ”We did well, don’t you think? I didn’t make anything obvious.”

You don’t know what response you expect to get from Mingi, but there’s a palpable shock within you when he pulls the car over to the side of the road and turns to you.

”What?” you ask. Mingis eyes soften when they flick over your entire body, to then end up at your face.

”Did you really.. worry about that?” Mingi wonders softly.

”Huh? I thought-… Yes, I worried about it, because you did. I mean, you told me we needed to lay low.” You’re starting to get thoroughly confused and frustrated.

”I know, but I didn’t think you’d drink so much and cuddle up to Yunho because of it,” Mingi says, his tone quickly working up to a sharpness you’ve never heard in him before.

”Drink so much?” you gasp. ”I was just having fun! It had nothing to do with you! Not everything is about you, Mingi, or about us. I don’t worry about it as much as you do. Believe it or not.”

”I don’t worry about it,” Mingi sounds accused.

”Clearly you do though. You take me to this party and give me instructions on how to behave, then spend the whole time ignoring me. Just like you did all of last week. Clearly, you have to feel ashamed, or- or…” you trail off, feeling your voice crack. Mingi sucks in a deep breath and leans closer, putting his hand on your knee.

”Please,” he urges, and there’s something in his voice that breaks your heart. ”Please, don’t think I could ever be ashamed of you.”

”Then what, Mingi?” you ask quietly, starting to feel yourself break now. Tears are starting to well up and cloud your vision. You continue, ”Do you just not want me? I get if it’s different when we’re face to face, I know it might not be what you expected, I understand if you don’t find me-”

”Stop it!” Mingi is almost shouting now, startling you. ”It’s nothing like that, you have to believe me. Stop saying these things.”

His hand lifts from your knee to hold your face where he wipes away a tear from your cheek. You don’t know what to say, even though there’s a part of you that wants to keep insisting. Mingi isn’t offering any kind of explanation or even an excuse, he’s not saying anything to quell your worries, and his hands on you are not enough.

”Kiss me. Please,” you whisper. There’s more you want to say, like prove it, prove that you want me. Kiss me and mean it.

”I’m not going to kiss you when you’re drunk and I’m sober,” Mingi says, offering up a solemn smile.

”I’m not though,” you argue. This entire conversation has been sobering. You’re still tipsy, your head feels a little heavy and your vision is still floating but you think you can blame it on your tears as much as you can blame it on alcohol.

”Well, you’re drunk enough that I don’t feel comfortable kissing you.” Mingis thumb strokes over your cheek to comfort you. It’s enough to calm you a little, because that you can take. You don’t think you’d want to kiss him either if the roles had been reversed.

”Okay,” you mutter. ”Are you sure it’s not because you don’t want me?”

Mingi sighs, ”We’ll talk about it tomorrow when you’re not-”

”I’m not drunk, Mingi.”

”Okay, okay. But I still want to do this tomorrow, when we’re both thinking clearly. We’re just misunderstanding each other, and this isn’t how I wanted it to go,” he tells you. He leans forward and kisses the top of your head instead, just above your hairline. It must be calculated on his part, to kiss you where your skin can’t feel the warmth of his lips.

”Okay,” you say again. This time Mingi lets out a little laugh at your dissatisfaction.

He starts the car back up and takes off to go home, leaving his hand on your thigh throughout the drive. When he pulls up to his house and you get out of the car your legs feel like jelly, and you realize you’re probably not as sober as you’d like to believe.

”Mingi?” you ask. He rushes to your side to hold you up, though that’s not what you meant. ”Can I sleep here tonight? You know how my mom is, she’d flip if she saw me-”

”I wasn’t planning on letting you go home like this, don’t worry,” he laughs.

So, with his arm around your waist, Mingi guides you inside and up the stairs to his room. It’s dark and you have to remind yourself to be quiet to not wake Mingi's family. While he leaves the room to fetch another blanket you sit down on his bed and look around his room.

It’s been a while since you’ve been here but not much has changed. You know for a fact that Mingi is still just as entertained by his action figures now as he had been at 13. It makes you laugh to see them all lined up on his shelf, right next to a couple of books that you had gifted him. He had forced his way through a couple of them and called you to complain about every choice the main character made.

You’re comforted by how much of his room remains the same. This is a place where you can remember and picture Mingi. By his big stereo, switching CD’s. Cutting out pictures of his friends to add to his collage wall.

Mingi comes back to his room with a blanket and a pillow that he throws next to you on the bed.

You’re watching his every move. When his eyes land on you he lets out a sound you can only read as disgust.

”Of course he gave you that,” he complains, more to himself than to you.

You can’t help but follow his line of sight though, finding that he’s looking at Yunhos flannel shirt.

”What’s so bad about it?” you wonder. Being under Mingis gaze always fills you with a sort of insecurity that has you twisting and turning.

”It's like, his move. Lending out his shirt. And then letting you lean on him like that..” Mingi mutters.

”Why would Yunho ever pull a move on me?” you ask incredulously.

”For the same reason I would, I assume,” he says. ”You’re really hot.”

A heat rushes to your abdomen and you can’t meet Mingis eyes anymore. Today has left you feeling anything but desired by him, but you don’t think he’s lying right now. He wouldn’t lie about finding you hot just minutes after refusing to kiss you.

”It wouldn’t matter what Yunho thinks of me. Like you said last night, you’re the one who has my nudes. Right?” you say.

Mingi sits down next to you, looking at his hands in his lap instead of at you.

”What if he wanted more than just your nudes?” he asks. This, too, feels like he’s asking himself the question. And you don’t know what to answer.

You don’t think Yunho poses any threat whatsoever, he’s just friendly and flirty by nature. But you let yourself think about what Mingi is implying for a second. What if he - or anyone else - would want more of you than Mingi does? Someone who could offer you a relationship that wouldn’t require secrecy. Someone who would bring you around his friends and hold your hand for everyone to see. Someone who would properly date you and want a relationship, as opposed to dirty phone sex at odd hours of the night.

You realize you’d always pick Mingi above all that, no matter if you had to have him only partially. If he was never yours.

You open your mouth to respond but shut it again when you can’t find the right words.

Mingi looks over at you. He speaks, ”Can’t you take it off?”

”Take it off of me,” you whisper back.

His mouth twitches into a small smile.

”It’d be a lot sexier if I wasn’t taking Yunhos clothes off of you the first time I undress you,” he still sounds displeased, but his hands work the shirt off of you anyways. He discards it to the floor, as far away as it can come.

”These are all mine,” you say, meaning the clothes you have on. ”You can take those off.”

Mingi lets out a drawn-out breath, something to collect himself. His hands pause at the hem of your top even though you’ve already given consent, waiting for you to nod until he starts pulling it over your head.

Silence permeates in Mingis bedroom as he continues undressing you. It’s just the wind rustling his curtains that disrupts the quiet. He guides you to lie down so he can unbutton your shorts to take them off. His hands are so gentle and his touch is soft, when he has finished taking your socks off and all your clothes are on the floor except for your underwear he leans down and presses a sweet kiss right above your knee.

”Take yours off too, please,” you say softly. He’s not quite as delicate with himself, he doesn’t make a show of it. You can’t help but stare though, trying to really commit this to memory since it’s the very first time you’re seeing him strip for you, even if you know it won’t be followed up with all the things you’ve talked about on the phone.

Your eyes flick all over him, down his toned arms and up his torso as he pulls his shirt over his head, across his broad chest. You watch his fingers work the button on his shorts open, revealing his dark underwear. He’s not hard, at least not fully, and it’s strangely intimate to be so close to his dick for the first time but not in a sexual manner. Everything about it makes your heart feel heavy, you’re somehow aware of each pump of it, how it’s speeding up at the mere sight of Mingi.

Mingi, your Mingi, that hasn’t ever been yours. Not really, not properly, but still somehow.

You want him on top of you so bad, to finally feel him in the ways you’ve dreamt about for a full year. Instead, Mingi climbs in bed with you and pulls you close.

He is soft and warm in all the spots your bodies are connected and intertwined. You fall asleep to the sounds of his breath coming out slow and steady.

You wake to a breeze of air over your face. At first, all you can hear is the chirps of birds outside and the distant noise of cars driving around. You don’t need to open your eyes to know that it’s the middle of the day, the sun is bright in that midday way, bright enough that there isn’t a total blackness even when you screw your eyes shut further.

You just turn around and try to escape from it by burying your face into the pillow. The texture of the pillow feels strange and unfamiliar, and the more you come to you realize it also doesn’t smell like your bedding. It smells like Mingi, you realize, and shoot up in a startle.

You don’t have time to wonder why the bed is empty next to you, because you can hear steps on the stairs and seconds later the bedroom door creaks open. Through a squint you can see Mingi in the same state you remember him falling asleep. In just his underwear he walks up to the bed and sets down a glass of water and a plate, before petting his hand over your hair.

”Good morning,” he greets you, smiling big.

”Mm, yeah,” you hum back, still drowsy. It’s far more comfortable to let your eyes close again and just lean into Mingi's affection.

”You okay? Are you hungover?” Mingi asks.

”Yeah, but not from drinking,” you murmur. ”It’s from you yelling at me.”

”I wasn’t yelling!” There’s an undertone to his voice, an actual worry and fear that you’d be feeling a certain way today after last night's conversation.

”I know you weren’t, Mingi. I’m just messing with you, I remember every bit of that conversation,” you assure him. He lets out a sigh of relief, his thumb stroking over your temple.

”That was going to be my next question,” he tells you. ”So you remember the whole night then?”

You nod your head under his hand.

”Do you want to talk about it?” he asks you.

The question stabs at something inside your sternum. Of course, you want to talk, in reality, there are a thousand times you’ve held yourself back from saying to him and there would be nothing more freeing than telling Mingi all of it. There’s just never a time and place for it though and you’ve come to terms that there never will be. It would take astronomical changes to allow you to say what you want. Yes, Mingi, I’m in love with you and probably have been all my life. Mingi, it took us sexting to make me realize you’re the only one I could ever picture myself with.

You had of course let yourself fantasize a couple of times, but the details of any imaginary and hypothetical relationship between you two would quickly obscure, and Mingi was often a perpetrator in that. It would present itself on days when you lived in the afterglow of a nighttime call. You’d walk on clouds with the memories of Mingi moaning your name, then check social media and be greeted with photos of him with his arm around your lifelong friends and strangers you would get nauseous picturing Mingi talking to. Your name wouldn’t even come up in conversation, he’d appear single to them because after all, he was.

So you wouldn’t often entertain the idea of being something more. You’d just treat it as a passing thought, boil it down to what it was, a neuronal connection gone to grief.

You guess you had hoped to see something in Mingi to completely deny these thoughts. Like, a first kiss that you wouldn’t be able to break away from. Or the moment you finally have sex for the first time and it being this out-of-body experience that ends with both of you crying and confessing your love. Like a scene out of a movie.

You could even have survived the opposite. If the first kiss had gone sour and the spark died before it even ignited. At the very least, you would have an answer to all your questions. Instead of being tethered to this middle ground where there’s an undeniable passion and need for each other, but a considerable distance keeping you apart.

Though there were things you’d want to say, there are none you could verbalize.

”I don’t think there’s anything to talk about,” you say, finally. To convince Mingi of this, you open your eyes and roll onto your back so you can look at him. He looks unconvinced, so you continue, ”I think I was just confused and upset. I don’t know why. Maybe because you’ve barely spoken to me since I came back home. I had just… expected more.”

You find yourself surprised that you’re telling the truth. It’s not what you had meant to say, but it’s true and innocent enough. Mingis hand rests on the side of your face, where his fingers fiddle with your hair, and for a second his eyes focus on that, before coming back to yours.

”I don’t have any excuse,” he says. ”I guess I could say that I kept seeing your relatives show up at your house and I thought it’d be rude to whisk you away from all that just to fuck you. But I think the more time passed, the harder it got to..”

”Yeah,” you agree. ”To fuck.”

He smiles at your choice of words and nods.

”Have you not happened to notice I haven’t initiated a single kiss between us, Mingi? I’m nervous too. It’s different in real life. It was much easier on the phone to just do things,” you say.

”Would it make it easier if I told you I’d really like to kiss right now?” Mingi asks.

There won’t ever come a time when the prospect of Mingi wanting to kiss you won’t send a jolt of electricity through each and every vein in your body. Nor will there ever be an instance where you won’t act on that will, especially since it seems that there will be a finite number of them. As you prop yourself up and lean in to kiss Mingi you realize that, along with this being the very first time that you initiate a kiss with him, you’re also one kiss closer to the last kiss you’ll ever have with him.

Because there will be a last time. If you keep going like this there is no other possible outcome, there will simply come a day when Mingis's eyes set on someone else and your arrangement is concluded. There’s not an if, it’s simply a when, and every kiss from now on is going to lead up to that last one. You can’t decide if you should hold out and stave off that last one for as long as you can or fit in as many as possible until then.

All these thoughts disperse when your mouth meets Mingis and he kisses you back. It’s hard to think of anything other than his warm lips or his tongue softly licking against yours. It’s more playful this time compared to the last two, today you’re both feeling each other out and learning what to do, what feels good.

You find yourself out of rhythm at times, the position you’re in is a little awkward, and you fumble through a few kisses to lean closer to Mingi. You feel your stomach swirl when you realize that none of this deters Mingi, that you can in fact feel him smile and breathe out something between a hum and a moan every time you come crashing against his mouth. His big hand comes up to your jaw, long fingers curling around the back of your head to deepen the kiss.

Things get heady so fast with Mingi, he works you up so incredibly quickly, and it’s obvious from the sounds he’s making that he’s just as affected. He doesn’t pull away for a second, his hand keeps your head in place and he continues to clumsily kiss you as he guides you down onto the bed.

The air in Mingi's room is hot from the summer sun shining through his window. It’s not until now you realize that the only thing separating you from Mingis body has been his thin blanket. He starts peeling it away, and it’s then you remember that Mingi had undressed you the night before. A jolt of panic shoots through you now that Mingi can see you, entirely nude except for your underwear, in the warm, bright light of his room. You find comfort in the fact that he’s undressed too, but with Mingis eyes taking you in it’s hard to feel relaxed.

Mingi leans in for a long, passionate kiss, and against your mouth he muffles, ”You’re so fucking beautiful.”

Your head is swimming, Mingi keeps on kissing you, getting softer and more careful as he moves down your neck and continues to lavish you with compliments. So pretty, kiss, gorgeous, kiss, breathtaking, kiss. And if you had any doubts, he squashes every single one when he kisses from your collarbone, over your chest and down your stomach, all the way down to your hips.

He plants his hands on each of your thighs, not grabbing or putting any pressure, but you can still feel the weight of them.

”Is this okay?” he asks quietly. He kisses just above the waistband of your underwear, and at the same time, his hands nudge your legs apart. Your breath catches in your throat and you can only nod and let his hands move your legs to where he wants them.

”What about your family?” you ask him, suddenly realizing the reality of where you are.

”No one’s home. It’s just us,” he says. ”So don’t hold back on me please.”

His shoulders are big and broad between your legs. The sun illuminates him so prettily, his tan skin glows, and every little hair on his body is lit up by the sun. The heat has left a thin layer of sweat on his skin and it highlights his muscles in just the right way. He’s just glowing, near angelic, and you’re moved with the need to worship every part of him.

Mingi is still so tender with all his kisses, there’s no sense of rushing as he takes his time by really letting his lips linger. His mouth trails along your entire thigh, stopping now and then to lightly suck your skin into his mouth and have a taste of you. He only falters when he gets to the junction of your thigh, to where your skin is covered by the fabric of your underwear.

You’ve been short of breath for a while now, but when Mingis fingers dip into the waistline of your underwear you cease to breathe entirely. Your head is rushing, watching as Mingis hands pull your underwear down your legs, leaving you completely naked. You’ve sent him pictures before, he knows what every little inch of your body looks like, but Mingi looks at you as if it’s the very first time.

A thousand thoughts whirl through your head between the seconds your underwear hits the floor to when Mingi springs into action. A thousand worries now culminating, whether he’ll realize that it was better over the phone, if he’s disappointed by what he’s seeing, or if he’s repulsed by how aroused you already are.

”You’re,” Mingi begins, stopping to press a kiss at the seam of your thigh. He adds, ”Beautiful.”

His eyes aren’t even on yours, he’s single-mindedly focused on what’s right in front of him. His breath is fanning across your entire crotch, tickling your inner thighs, and as you feel it get closer and closer you instinctively close your eyes and let your head roll back when Mingi finally puts his mouth where you need it most.

He’s still so gentle, using his tongue and lips to tease you and explore what you like best. It feels like hours pass of Mingi lightly sucking and pressing wet kisses all over you, he’s really and truly taking his time and you have to believe it’s for his own sake because he’s only building up a frustration within you.

”Mingi,” you whine, reaching down to grab hold of his hair. It’s an objectively insane feeling, to have his hair in your hand and head between your legs, after all this time of dreaming of it. It’s enough to have you getting close, even though Mingi is still lapping carefully at you, and it's nowhere close enough to what you crave.

When you start bucking your hips against his mouth it’s like he releases all restrain and just goes for it. His hands wrap around your legs at first, pressing them towards his head, to then wedging underneath your ass so he can get all of you into his mouth.

Mingi moans out ”You taste so good” with a mouthful of you at the same time you tell him how good he is with his mouth, prompting him to smirk against your pelvis. It really doesn’t take long for him to learn what gets you closest to the edge, just where he should put his tongue and where to apply some pressure.

”So good, Mingi, you’re so good. Oh my god,” you sigh. You tug on his hair hard enough for your fingers to cramp, and Mingi only moans against you. Every sound you make seems to spur him on further, Mingi only getting more eager with the way he’s circling his tongue around you.

His tongue is getting you closer and closer, your stomach is splitting in two to hold onto the edge and trying not to cum. You’ve been waiting for this for so long that it feels a shame to cum just minutes after Mingis mouth is on you, but there’s no holding back. His hands grip your hips, pulling you flush to his face, and the second you lift your head to look down at him between your legs you start orgasming in his mouth.

He understands what’s happening before you do, applying enough pressure to get you over the edge before letting up and licking you slower to help you come down. All while he keeps his eyes on yours, letting your fingers scratch his scalp. Mingi listens to every little noise you make and stops the second your heavy breathing turns into an overstimulated hiss.

”Mingi, Mingi,” you whine. His cheeks are flushed a deep pink and his lips are slick with his own spit and your cum, and you can’t stop admiring him. All you can do is pray that Mingi looks into your eyes and mistakes your all-consuming love as the afterglow of a great orgasm.

He pulls himself up enough to crawl on top of you, and though he’s just spent minutes between your legs, this feels a lot more daunting. He hesitates for a moment as if he’s unsure if he’s allowed to kiss you, so you wrap your hands around the back of his head and pull him towards you.

Mingi is breathing heavily from the effort he’s just put forth, and instead of letting him catch his breath you only grow more desperate. Your hands clammer onto his shoulders, pulling him against you, then down to his waist, and finally around his ass so you can pull him against your core. He’s got his underwear on, but you don’t let it stop you as you grind up against him. He’s hard and you’re still wet with spit and cum, it doesn’t take long before you’ve soaked his boxers and the barrier between you both is practically nonexistent. You can feel every bit of him against you.

”Mingi,” you moan into his mouth. ”Fuck me, please.”

He pulls away and sucks in a deep breath.

”Don’t you want me to… uh, prepare you?” He sounds small and insecure. You watch his brows burrow and his eyes flick across your face, and you’re struck by how much he looks like Mingi. Your best friend Mingi, who you’ve built up in your head as a confident sex god, even though you’ve always been aware that he’s more careful and vary than any other person you know.

You suppose you’d just assume that that version of him would disappear in the bedroom, that he’d be the same as he is over the phone when he’s telling you all the different ways he wants to fuck you.

”I’m- I’m embarrassed to say this, but I’m so worked up you could just slide inside me,” you tell him, and Mingi moans in response.

”Are you sure?” he asks. You pick up motion again, sliding yourself against the entire length of his dick.

”I’m not just sure, I’m begging,” you plea. You hook your fingers into his boxers, trying to tug them down even though you know the position you’re in won’t allow you to undress him. You just need him to act, now, you can’t wait any longer.

It happens fast, Mingi pulling his boxers off and getting back on top of you, to then lining up his dick to enter you.

”Fuck, I forgot how big you are,” you mumble. The sight of him in comparison to you, lined up against you, is enough to make you cum untouched.

This is what you’ve been dreaming about for a whole year, this very moment. For Mingi to push inside you, hook your legs over his shoulders and fuck you until you can’t see straight. Actually being here, with the tip of his dick against your hole, it feels much different. It’s not the actual sex you’re looking forward to, it’s the fact that he’s finally going to be inside you. It feels like you’re claiming him, that the moment is finally here and he’s going to be yours.

”Are you okay? Are you ready? Can I-?” Mingi asks, searching your eyes for uncertainty.

”Please,” you nod.

He starts pushing inside, watching his dick slide with ease until he’s got the entire tip in. The stretch feels amazing, you could take all of him in one go but the fact that he stops and leans down to kiss you as he slowly thrusts his entire cock inside is way better. And god, he kisses you as if he’s not currently buried inside you. His lips barely brush against yours, and the kisses are short and sweet. Finally, he pulls back to watch himself bottom out.

The sun is shining on the side of Mingis face, and this is just not at all how you had pictured it. In your fantasies, there had always been a dark bedroom and Mingis body had been on top of yours, only distinguishable by faint lights outside the window. It was quick, rushed, and dirty, maybe Mingis hand would be clamped over your mouth to keep you from making any sounds since it would have to happen at one of your homes. Sometimes you’d imagine it happening in his car, parked somewhere secluded at night, it would be bumpy and awkward and sweaty and the focus would just be on both of you cumming as soon as possible.

You hadn’t pictured it like this. Like, Mingi looking at you as if he’s seeing you for the first time.

His hair is messy from your hands grabbing it, and the sunlight lights it up like a halo. Time feels unmoving, you’re drinking in the sight of him and trying to memorize every small detail.

He starts thrusting carefully and slowly. His back is upright, leaning away from you so he can watch his cock go in and out of you. You can’t stop watching him though. He’s so beautiful, his hair is a mess, and beads of sweat are starting to trickle down his chest. You reach your hands up, caressing his skin.

You wonder if you’re breaking some sort of unspoken rule. The two of you hadn’t discussed or set any boundaries, but when you slide your hands over Mingis chest and stomach, you wonder if you should have. This isn’t just fucking, you’re worshipping him and looking at him with intense adoration. He’s going so slow too, really taking his time. You’re not fucking, this is making love.

”I’ve never felt this good, you feel so good,” he moans under his breath. He curls his hands under your ass, picking you up so he can get better leverage to thrust as deep inside as possible. The new angle makes him groan, ”Fuck, you were made for me, weren’t you?”

It has you sobbing with pleasure. Mingis fingers are digging into your flesh, and he fucks you at this torturous pace for tens of minutes. You can truly feel the drag of his dick inside of you, when he bottoms out all the way inside to when the tip of his dick is at your entrance.

”You’re so good, oh my god! So good, you’re so handsome, Mingi,” you praise him, causing Mingi to pick up the speed.

You’re grabbing at his arms and shoulders, trying to pull him down, to get him closer. He lets you down on the bed and leans down, coming chest to chest with you, shoving his arm under your head instead. Your bodies are flush with each other now, Mingis pelvis rubbing against you and getting you close to cumming again stupidly quick.

His mouth is right by your ear, pressing a few sloppy kisses to your neck and temple. He is moaning your name and though his voice is hushed and strained you can still feel it reverberate through his chest, right against yours.

It’s precisely that which has you cumming, the sound of his voice calling your name over and over, telling you how good you feel. Your ears start to ring when your orgasm rolls through you and Mingi only picks up the pace to intensify it. You can faintly hear him, somewhere far away now, this otherwordly being showering you with so much affection it has tears forming in your eyes.

”You’re so perfect,” he’s telling you, fucking you faster. ”Just for me, all for me, you’re all mine.”

Somewhere through it, you realize he’s picked up the speed because he’s close too, but he wants to make it good for you before he pulls out. His eyes are on you, watching your breathing return to normal and feeling your hands unclench from his shoulders, and only when he’s certain that you’re coming down from the orgasm he leans back and pulls out. He only manages to get his hand around his cock before he cums all over your stomach, cumming so hard he shoots all the way up to your chest.

Mingis other hand is grabbing your waist and you can’t stop looking at the way he’s marked you up. There are red marks on you from the tips of his fingers, and little marks from his nails all over your hips, and you’re covered in his cum. Just seconds ago he’d told you that you’re all his, and in this moment you feel it.

”Fuck, that was…” Mingi is the first to speak. ”Shit, let me get you cleaned up.”

He scrambles for his underwear, starting to wipe his cum from your stomach.

You’ve managed to blink away the tears that welled up when you came, but there’s still a sob within your chest that you’re fighting to choke down. Everything about what just happened was about a thousand times more intense than you had ever dreamt of. Had he not pulled away you think you might have confessed to him right then and there.

”How are you feeling?” you ask him, clearing your throat and hoping Mingi reads it as just being fucked out.

”Very good,” he responds, without a hint of hesitance or a second of stalling. There’s a faint laugh in his voice, and he’s starting to smile. Nothing about him looks like you currently feel.

”Oh,” you say, struggling to find words. It’s not like you had expected him to just bare his heart and pour out confessions. You’d just expected something more to follow, after all of that. You had made love. There’s no other word for it.

Mingi leans down and kisses you once, so chaste you barely have time to kiss back.

He gets up and pulls out a pair of new boxers from his dresser, stepping in them.

”Fuck, I made you breakfast earlier and forgot all about it,” he tells you. You look over at the nightstand, where your breakfast sits forgotten.

”Oh,” you repeat. Your head drops back down on Mingis pillow. You speak again, ”I think I’d rather have a shower.”

It’s all so thoroughly strange. Mingi clasps his hand in yours and pulls you up from the bed, and you feel perturbed. You’ve seen Mingi greet Yunho with more affection than the way he helps you up on your feet. At least he joins you in the shower, but you feel weirdly disconnected from him. Even when he jokes and suds up his hair into silly hairstyles you can only manage halfhearted laughs.

Your body aches to have him closer, to feel him pressed against you and to have his lips back on yours again. The kisses he’s giving you now feel cheeky, as if he’s kissing you just because he can, and not because he truly wants to.

You suppose there’s reason to feel thankful, because at the very least Mingi hasn’t rejected you. His casualty is worth a lot more to you than the possibility that he could have pulled back and realized that everything about this was a mistake. He ruffles your hair after the shower, and it stings, but each second you continue to remind yourself that this is how things are supposed to be.

He lets you have one of his shirts after the shower, and he cooks you a very late lunch, then Mingi has to leave for work. Your legs are still unsteady when you make the walk back home to your house.

You prepare yourself to be ignored again. You busy yourself with cleaning your room, reading a book, cleaning out weeds in the garden, sending out job applications, anything you can to make the hours go by. You don’t want to check your phone, but your fingers itch to see if Mingi has texted you.

Nothing.

It’s not until late that night when you know Mingi's shift has ended that he calls you.

”Hey,” you answer, walking over to your window. Mingis car is in the driveway, but you can't see him in his room.

”Hi there,” he greets you. ”Busy day?”

”Oh you know, the usual,” you say. ”Mom wasn’t too happy with me spending the night but she was very relieved to hear it was with you.”

You’re still dressed in his t-shirt, and throughout the day you've been bringing the collar up to your nose to smell him on it. You find yourself doing it now too.

”Her head would explode if she knew what you were doing at my house this morning,” he teases you.

”Good thing no one will ever know then,” you joke, though it is the truth. It was always meant to be a secret.

”Right,” he says. ”So, do you think maybe you could come over tomorrow? My parents will be gone, I start working in the afternoon again, I was thinking maybe-”

”Yes,” you interrupt him.

Mingi laughs, ”Okay. Uh, do I sound desperate if I say that you can come over as soon as you wake up?”

”A little, but I like it,” you giggle.

”Good.”

”I’ll see you tomorrow then!”

You sleep so much better when you know that you’re seeing Mingi tomorrow. You wake up feeling completely rested, and you’re giddy as you sort out your bedhead and get dressed.

Mingis parents aren’t home, and there’s a spare key resting atop the frame of the front door that you use to let yourself into their home. It’s still early, early enough that you know that Mingi is probably fast asleep in his bed. You try to keep your steps light as you trudge up the stairs and into his room. The curtains are drawn, only letting in a stream of sunlight that lights up a sliver on his bed. The orange morning sun is casting a few inches of light on his thigh, so you let it lead you.

It’s where you first press a kiss. He smells of sleep and Mingi, you inhale the scent of his skin between kisses you trail all over his thigh and over the front of his underwear. Mingi sighs softly in his sleep, hips twitching when your lips kiss the tip of his dick through the fabric of his boxers. You’re looking up to watch his face, but when he’s still asleep as you mouth over his entire cock, you crawl up and kiss his lips.

Mingi huffs and puffs, twisting underneath you. You continue to kiss all over his sleepy, confused face. He cracks an eye open, transforming from a groggy confusion to a content smile.

”Morning,” he mumbles happily.

”Hey,” you whisper, kissing the corner of his mouth. ”Can I suck you off?”

He lets out a drawn-out moan that tapers off into a sigh, nodding fervently. His hands are weak and his fingers fumble to find purchase in your hair when you pull his underwear down his legs and take him into your mouth right away.

He sounds so lovely, all raspy and deep from his sleep. Even though he’s just come to consciousness, Mingi makes sure to tell you how good you are making him feel. He moans your name, over and over, giving you so much praise it’s making your head swim.

It doesn’t take him long to get close, so you choke out permission for him to cum in your mouth, and Mingi listens eagerly. Even as he cums he’s vocal, talking you through it and reminding you to breathe all while he praises you for how well you take it. He’s so gentle it’s making you moan as you swallow, and when you pull off his dick you scramble to get his thigh between yours.

Mingis hands guide your hips over his thigh, setting the pace for you to hump him. He keeps the praise coming, and when he feels you getting close he pulls you down for a numbing kiss. You cum on his thigh while deep in a kiss, and Mingi holds you close to his chest as you come down from it.

Somewhere in the post-orgasm haze, you both fall asleep. It’s peaceful and quiet, Mingi lulls you to sleep with the sounds of his breath and his fingers drawing patterns on your back. When you wake up again it’s in a sweat. His little bedroom is swarming with heat, so you decide on a shower, where Mingi has your chest pressed against the white tiles while he fucks you until you’re cumming a second time, this time while full of his cock. He bites down on your shoulder to keep from cumming until he knows you’re fully satisfied, and only then does he pull out and let himself cum on your ass.

When you’re pulling his shirt over your head 10 minutes later while he cooks you lunch, you catch sight of marks on your shoulder. His teeth had dug hard enough to bloom bruises on your skin, and your mind reels at the fact that he has marked you up.

Mingi has you coming over the next morning too, after you’d spent the previous night sending him pictures of the bruises his teeth left on your skin. His responses had been sporadic as he focused on work, but it didn’t stop you from going into detail about all the things you want Mingi to do to you.

It’s like all the limits have finally vanished, neither of you are held back by the fears and worries of before. It’s just like it had been before you moved back, when you only had phone calls to rely on. Back then, the comfort had come from the fact that you didn’t have to actualize all the things you spoke about. You had time to feel each other out and discuss what you want, all without having to put yourself on the line for possible failure. Now, you’ve found reassurance in the fact that you do have a physical relationship.

You know each other in your bones. You can read all the queues his body gives you, and you know what every little expression on his face means. You can sense differences in his sighs and you know what his voice sounds like when it’s getting to be too much. There’s no room for doubt when Mingi is in front of you, you just intrinsically know what he needs.

The two of you fall into a routine. When morning comes, you skip over to Mingi's house and usually he’s still asleep, tired from his shift the day before. You wake him up with kisses or gentle touches, and if he’s hard by the time you get there, Mingi loves to wake up to you already taking care of him. Some mornings you simply lay beside him, tracing his face with your finger. His hair sticks to his forehead so you brush it back, giving soft kisses to the side of his temple. Your pointer finger follows the contour of his nose and lips, feeling the warmth of his breath exit his nose.

Even though he’s asleep and unaware of your worship, you can’t bring yourself to stop. It’s in these moments you can be fully truthful with your affections. Letting your hands linger on his chest for a moment longer, focusing on his heartbeat underneath your palm. You whisper things to him you’re too afraid to say when he can hear you, just to release yourself from the need. It satiates you enough, like this airing out of your system, enough to keep you going until the next morning when you once again get overwhelmed with the sight of his sleeping form blanketed by sunlight. There is only one thing you forbid yourself from saying, three words that you vow to never let yourself speak.

A full two weeks pass of this. Every day you explore something new, things you’ve spoken about on the phone over the last year. With Mingis parents working daytime, you have full freedom to be as loud as you want. Mingi also takes full advantage of a free house. One morning he bends you over the kitchen counter while breakfast is still cooking. His mouth is always right by your ear, moaning and telling you how bad he needs you, despite fucking you upstairs in his bedroom just an hour earlier. Another day he has you ride him on the couch right before he leaves for work. You love it most when Mingi randomly decides to go down on you, whether it’s in the shower or he makes you lie down on the kitchen table. When he’s got his mouth on you he’s possessive, making sure to mark up your thighs and hips. It happens so often that he sometimes ends up darkening the hickeys he left a few days earlier.

Then Mingis schedule changes, and he has to work in the mornings. It doesn’t stop you, but it puts a damper on things as you know them. You have to meet in the afternoons instead, and with Mingi's parents home you end up sitting through long dinners with his parents, reminiscing and talking. It makes sex a little difficult, and Mingi hates the fact that you have to be quiet. He picks you up in his car a few times, but quick head while parked at the edge of the woods is a harsh contrast to the hours of sex you’d been able to have a few weeks earlier.

You’re caught by surprise one day when your phone calls and you rush to pick up only to find Yunhos voice at the other end. You’re so surprised that you pull your phone away and check the name on the screen, and sure enough it’s Yunho's contact name.

”Hey,” you reply, trying to play off the shock.

”Not happy to hear from me?” he teases.

”Shut up, you know I am!” you joke back.

He laughs in return and makes some small talk, telling you how much fun it was to see you and asking you how you’ve been.

”But, hey, uh,” he interjects. ”You ended up leaving with my shirt, is there any chance I could get it back?”

”Shit,” you curse, squeezing your eyes shut in embarrassment. ”You’re right, I totally forgot. Uh, do you want me to bring it by today?”

”That’d be perfect, thanks!”

When Yunho hangs up the phone, you chew nervously at your lip. Getting the shirt back to Yunho wouldn’t be an issue, it’s just that it’s in Mingi’s room somewhere, and asking him to locate it would probably lead to another weird moment where Mingi says something petty. You’re pacing around your room when your eyes land on his driveway and you remember that Mingi is at work. You’re just about to call Yunho and tell him today’s gonna be impossible, before the solution hits you.

Mingis mom opens the door to their home when you knock, and beams at the sight of you on their doorstep.

”Sweetheart! Hi there, Mingi is at work right now, I’m afraid,” she tells you while wrapping her arms around you for a hug. She always does this, even though you’ve been spending a lot of time over at their house recently, Mingis mother hugs you every time she sees you.

”I know, it’s just that I left something in Mingi's room that I need to get if that’s okay?”

So she lets you run up to his bedroom. You feel a little bad while rummaging through his room, but it doesn’t take you long to find Yunhos flannel shirt bunched up halfway underneath Mingis dresser. Mingis mom tries to convince you to stay for dinner, but you tell her you have to get going, and within moments you’re in your car on the way to Yunhos house.

It’s another picture-perfect day outside, the sky is a pristine blue and the wind is blowing just enough to bring some relief in this heat. Yunho is outside in his front yard, with the rear of his car jacked up.

”Hey, you!” you call, getting out of your car. ”Car trouble?”

You can tell by the fact that he has picked apart the entire wheelhouse that it’s not just something routine, but Yunho shrugs his shoulders.

”Not something I can’t fix,” he smiles. ”Dude, you’re quick. I called you, what, 30 minutes ago?”

You nod, sitting down on the tire Yunho has removed.

”Honestly, I was losing my mind at home. I’ve been doing jack shit for days now, I think I might die out of boredom,” you complain.

”Oh, so you’re saying you left the minute you got my call just because you had nothing better to do? It’s not just because you love me?” Yunho quirks an eyebrow, wiping grease from his forehead.

”Can’t it be both? And anyway, I had to go over to Mingis to get your shirt, so I didn’t leave ’the minute I got your call’,” you say, sticking out your tongue at him.

”It was at Mingi's house?” he asks.

Something comes over Yunhos face that you can’t pinpoint.

”Yeah.. I left with him during the party, and we went to his house afterward.” You hope he buys it as a reasonable enough explanation, it’s at the very least true. Just not the entire truth.

Yunho shrugs, and his eyes lose the edge they just had. He smiles, ”Leaving in one man's shirt to go to another dude's house, all in one night.. Impressive, I’ll give you that.”

”Fuck off!” you huff, kicking Yunhos shoe.

He laughs, slapping down a greasy hand on your knee to let you know that he’s just joking, even though you already know that.

”Although…” you trail off. ”Mingi did say that it’s your move.”

”Oh yeah, it is. I wasn’t expecting you to fall for it, though.” Yunhos's voice is still teasing, but not in the same way that Mingis usually is. You can tell that Yunho is just friendly, that there’s no flirting laced in his words or tone. It makes you miss Mingi.

”I don’t fall for things like that,” you retort, but quickly find your mind going to all the shirts Mingi has let you borrow these past weeks. You wear them all day, every day, even when you come back home after spending time with him. You even sleep in them, and you frequently bury your face in the collar to smell his laundry detergent. The few times he gives you a shirt he’s already worn you end up getting so worked up about it that you think you’d be getting yourself off while smelling it, if it wasn’t for the fact that Mingi now has you cumming at least twice a day.

So, perhaps you do fall for tricks like that. But only when it’s Mingi.

Yunho goes silent, and you can see that he’s chewing on the inside of his lip.

”What’s wrong?” you ask him.

His eyes flick over to yours for a second, then he looks at his hands. You’ve never seen Yunho this deep in thought outside an academic setting, and something about it is making you uneasy.

”You know,” he begins, but the words die as quickly as he says them.

”Yes?” you try again.

He pauses, looking up at you.

”You know that Mingi is my best friend,” he says. ”And I love him, I do, but sometimes he acts like an idiot. And I can’t- I just hate seeing it, you know?”

”Okay,” you mumble, only growing more confused with every word Yunho says.

”I don’t think it was right how he came here with you, then spent the whole night talking to everyone but you. But, he just gets so weird sometimes, right? And like I said, I love him, he’s my best friend, but- we just thought it would be different when you came back home. So, Wooyoung and I decided to see what would happen if I lent you my shirt, and-.. Yeah.”

”What… What are you saying?” Your voice is getting quieter. The cheery happiness from before has retired, and there’s something strange in the atmosphere now. You can’t understand what Yunho is getting at, but there’s a part of you that wonders and wishes. A part of you that can read between the lines of what Yunho is too afraid to say out loud.

”It’s not my place to say,” Yunho says, looking everywhere but your eyes.

”At least tell me what you intended to do with this shirt.” It’s still in your hands, his flannel, and your fingers are tightening around it.

”We just figured that maybe he needed a push,” he tells you, sounding so sheepish.

”You wanted him to get jealous?” you finally say it out loud. Yunho doesn’t meet your eyes, but it’s a clear enough answer. So you ask, ”What do you know about me and Mingi?”

”In all honesty? I don’t know anything. And it used to hurt me because Mingi is my best friend and I’ve known him since we were kids. But that’s what clued me in because I know for a fact that he would have told me if you were dating,” Yunho says. You’re holding your breath while listening to him. He continues, ”I, uh, I accidentally saw the preview of a text you sent him once. Something about.. well, that’s not important. But, I realized it then. We all thought it was just a matter of time, and that you’d make it official when you moved back home.”

You’re hearing every single thing Yunho is saying, but the words just won’t stick. You’re becoming more aware of the birds singing and the sound of the wind among the treetops.

”Mingi is in love with you,” Yunho says. At last. The rest of his words blur together. He has been, a long time, doesn’t know it. Yunhos mouth is moving, and you know what he’s saying, but the rational part of you that knows this can’t be true has stopped listening long ago.

Mingi is not in love with you. He’s just not, that can’t be true.

Yunho scrambles towards you, hands landing on each of your knees. He looks so concerned and his mouth is still moving.

”-you okay? What’s wrong?” You hear once your brain stops blocking your ears. You’re crying, tears falling from your cheeks down onto your hands.

”What did I say?” Yunho asks frantically.

And the confessions start rolling. You tell Yunho about everything, from that first night to everything that has happened since you returned back home. You tell him about the weird moment when Mingi drove you home after the party.

”Don’t you hear it though? He’s in love with you! My god, I think he always has been,” Yunho says.

You scoff, ”He ignored me for four whole months during my first semester away. He’s not in love with me, this is just.. out of comfort, it’s just easy.”

”You’re both in denial. You know what I’m hearing? That Mingi was so heartbroken when you moved away that he couldn’t even be a good friend. That didn’t just extend to you, by the way. He barely hung out with us during that time, and it only changed when you came home for Christmas,” Yunho tries to lay it out for you.

”You’re wrong. You’re wrong-”

”I can’t tell you what to believe,” Yunho says. His hand squeezes your knee, leaving dirty marks of grease on your skin. It’s a gesture of comfort, and you appreciate it for what it is. ”You need to talk to Mingi. Maybe disarm him by telling him that you’re in love with him first.”

The air feels different when you drive back home. It feels heavier, somehow. Yunhos words bear an incredible weight and no matter how many times you run them through your head they don’t get any easier to process. It would be different if it had come from Seonghwa or Hongjoong, who would say practically anything to comfort you. You don’t think Yunho would sweeten his words like they would, or even at all.

You sit through a quiet lunch with your mom, unable to get your thoughts in any other direction than the conversation you just had with Yunho. For some reason, you feel absolutely stuck there, and you can’t see a way for things to work. It feels as if time has been suspended in wait for your next move. The hours tick on though. You lay in your bed and watch the numbers on your alarm clock change. Seconds turn into minutes, and then hours, and your mind is still stuck in the same place as it has since you left Yunhos house.

You don’t realize when the clock indicates that Mingi is ending his shift. The numbers are just ticking, hypnotizing you. You startle when your phone calls and the pit in your stomach grows when you know that it’s probably Mingi.

Your fingers move on pure muscle memory as you pick up your phone and swipe to answer the call, then raise the phone to your ear. Through the phone, you can hear Mingis car running.

”Hello?” Mingi asks. ”You know, it’s usually the person who picks up the phone who speaks first.”

”Sorry,” you croak. You don’t even recognize the sound of your voice.

”Are you okay?” Mingi sounds so concerned it makes your stomach twist. It’s still the same Mingi you have known all your life, and he’s the same man you’ve been fucking the past weeks, but something feels as if it has fundamentally changed. You try to listen to his voice, read it for any hint of tenderness you’d have previously missed. You can’t make out any, it’s the same Mingi as always.

”It’s been a weird day,” you settle for.

”Then what do you say about changing into your swimsuit and we go to the lake? It’s so hot out, I can’t stand to be home. And maybe it can take your mind off of things?” he suggests.

”Yeah, sounds good.”

”I’ll pick you up in 5, better hurry!”

Mingi hangs up. Your head feels all fuzzy and distant, but you pull yourself out of bed and get changed. While putting your clothes over your swimsuit you realize you’re in one of Mingis t-shirts. Every single bit of this feels like a divine punishment. To be dressed in Mingis clothes and have marks in the shape of his mouth decorate your chest and the insides of your thighs, to be so thoroughly claimed by him but yet not be his, is agonizing.

You’re aware that Mingi would park in your driveway and come knocking at your door, wanting to impress and appease your parents at every turn. You just can’t deal with that today, so you hurriedly make your way down the stairs and out your door to wait for him outside. You’re just in time, because Mingi is making the turn up your street and it’s only half a minute before he’s pulling up to your house and you’re getting in his car.

”Hey, I missed you!” Mingi sounds cheerful, sporting a smile so big it’s splitting. You hate the way that time and space curl around Mingi each time you see him as if he presents to you in technicolor and slow motion. Your eyes pass over each feature, trying your best to handle what just seeing him does to your body.

Mingi keeps a pair of extra sunglasses in his car for you, and when you’re sat down he leans over to place them on your face. The gesture is enough to make your breath hitch, but he uses it as an opportunity to lean in for a swift kiss, and you feel as if you’re floating.

Today, Mingi has Fleetwood Mac playing softly throughout the car.

You’re just looking at Mingi with this pit in your stomach, this sense of impending doom sitting heavy in your abdomen. The world feels slow and strangely saturated. The seconds stretch on infinitely, allowing you plenty of time to watch the sunlight adorn Mingi's skin.

You’re aware that you can’t stop staring. When Mingi parks the car and you start making the short walk through the trees to get to the lake, your eyes are always set on him. From the towel slung over his shoulder to the sweat that has broken out and is trickling down the nape of his neck. You’re trying to make sense of the sight in front of you, the same Mingi you’ve made this walk with a hundred times, the only difference being that he’s had you in the most intimate and tender ways now. It forces you to rewrite history, the memories of your childhood innocence are permanently changed. If only you had known then, while sitting on the big rock and throwing pebbles out to break the still surface of the water if you had only known that the boy handing you rocks would end up being the man you fall in love with fifteen years later.

Your stupid, stupid heart. Sometimes you think the ribs, flesh, and muscle containing it won’t be enough to keep it in place. It beats so hard and fast it billows from your chest, through your arms, and out to the very tip of each finger. You have to flex them to stop that lovesick tingle from numbing you.

The water is beautiful. The lake looks just like you remember it, the wind is blowing slight ripples upon the surface and the trees are swinging lightly. Besides the gentle hum of nature, the place is completely undisturbed and it’s just you and Mingi here today.

You're placing your towels down and undressing in silence, barely glancing at each other. You sneak little glances at him in the corner of your eye, wondering what he’s thinking. Yunhos words are still echoing through your head, getting louder and more unbearable for every minute that passes.

Mingi is wading into the water before you know it, covered up to his knees, then thighs, then his waist, and eventually he points his arms and dives in entirely. He erupts back through the surface with a shriek that echoes over the lake, and you can’t stop yourself from laughing.

He rushes back up to where you’re laying on your towel, shoulders bunched up in reaction to the cold water. Mingi shakes his head above you to force droplets onto your bare skin, laughing loudly when you yell in protest. Things feel so extraordinarily regular, it’s as if you have transported back ten years in time. Even when Mingi gets down on his towel and leans over to kiss you, it still feels so normal. It just feels so right with Mingi, like this is what you’re meant to be doing.

Mingis's mouth is cold and wet from his dip in the water, and his hair continues to drip onto your face, but you find it hard to care when he wraps you up in a long, passionate kiss. He’s on his stomach on his towel now, as close to you as he can get. Your heart beats with a discernible nervosity at the fact that you are laid out in the open with Mingi making out with you. There would be quite a walk for anyone else to get here, and you would probably be able to hear branches breaking or even a car parking way before anyone could walk upon the scene and spot the two of you. The risk of getting caught here is low, but you still feel like you’re on display.

Mingis cold fingers wrap around your jaw where he keeps you firmly as his tongue enters your mouth. The kissing goes to your head very quickly, dulling all your senses as all your thoughts are replaced by what Mingi is doing with his mouth. He knows you so well that he pulls away seconds before you lose your breath, letting you regain it while he kisses the corner of your mouth softly. His hand trails over your chest and down your stomach carefully, feeling the way your ribcage heaves as your breaths get steadier.

Mingis eyes follow the path of his hand before he abruptly stops by your knee.

”What’s that?” he asks you. You have to crane your neck to see what he’s looking at. Not much remains of it, but there are still faint marks of dirt and grease on the top of your knees. Just on the outside of your leg, there’s an unmistakable fingerprint.

”Oh,” you mumble. Mingi detaches himself from you with a quickness that makes you lose your breath, and you scramble to get up too.

”I don’t- I feel like I don’t even need to ask who left that on you,” Mingi says.

”It was Yunho,” you rush out, wanting so badly to resolve this before Mingis thoughts spin and twist so bad that you can’t untangle them. It’s clear from the look on his face that your words and their haste only have the opposite effect.

”Yunho?” he questions, getting quieter.

”It’s not all what you think. He called me about that shirt he let me borrow a few weeks ago, remember? I went to his house to give it back and we got to talking. You know, just.. stuff, about life. I ended up getting emotional and he comforted me. I was crying and he put his hands on my knees, that’s all.” You read Mingis's face for any changes, but nothing happens. He only looks at you, taking in your half-truth excuse of an explanation.

”What is it that Yunho can comfort you about, but I can’t?” Mingi asks, his eyes staring into yours with so much intensity you feel like crying. You had expected everything but that. You’d rather Mingi accuse you of getting intimate with Yunho, that you’re lying and it’s a terrible cover story you’re spinning. You could defend yourself from all that, but not this.

”That’s not… Mingi, it’s not like that. I didn’t just choose to go there for comfort. It just happened, I just started crying, and that’s it,” you urge.

Mingis legs are drawn up to his chest and his arms are wrapped around them. He looks so small and vulnerable. His eyebrows are starting to furrow together, and you’re finding it hard to tell if it’s anger or sadness that is starting to show on his face. Both possibilities terrify you equally.

”Why?” he wonders, simply. ”Why did you cry?”

You can physically see the restraints he’s putting on himself to hear you out, to not race away with his worries. You wish it means what you want it to mean. That Mingis vulnerability was an act of love instead of self-preservation. He’s probably sat there worried at the threat of Yunho taking you away and replacing his role. That the fun you’ve had the past weeks, and the year before that, would be over, just like that. You wonder if he views it as a hindrance more than anything. Mingi has finally scored a way to have sex on the regular, without the commitment or worries of starting with someone new. What you have is a lot of comfort, and you suppose he doesn’t want to lose that.

Still, even this feels like a lot more than you deserve of him. If you can’t have Mingi in the ways that you want, you’ll have to do your best to preserve the arrangement you have now.

”It’s not important,” you mumble. You know it’s not a good enough answer.

Mingi lets the word hover in the air for a moment, pondering on whether he should let it go.

In the end, he decides to speak. ”There’s nothing you can tell me that would scare me off. You know that, right?”

”That’s not true,” you whisper, so quiet it’s almost a hiss. ”There is something I can’t ever tell you.”

Tears start to fall down your cheeks and it’s now a conscious effort to keep your sobs contained within your chest. The lake is still breathtaking, the wind is still and the sun is bright in the perfect blue sky. It’s a beautiful day to get your heart broken, at the very least.

Mingi stretches his fingers and you watch the tendons twitch and flex. You’re brought back to what you were doing earlier, shaking off your nerves.

”What if I say it first?” he says. You look up at his eyes.

”What?”

”That I love you,” he tells you. His eyes are big and dark, brimming with tears of his own. ”If I say it first, will you say it too?”

”Mingi-”

”I do love you,” he begins. ”It’s stupid, looking back, because I think I’ve loved you since before you left. I loved you that first night, I already knew it, and I felt so stupid when I woke up the morning after. Doing that with you when I was drunk out of my mind made me feel like shit. And then I felt even more like shit, because- because, it made me realize that it hadn’t been the way I wanted it to be. So I took comfort in the fact that it was over the phone, and I still had time to do it right. To start right, with you, I mean. I wanted our first time to be perfect. I knew I loved you when I kept thinking about it. But then, when you finally came back, it truly clicked. For a while, I had figured that I’d know how I felt about you when we had sex for the first time. But I was wrong because all it took was me seeing you to know that I’m in love with you.”

”Mingi,” you whisper, again, over and over. It’s all you can bring yourself to say, like a prayer, before you crawl over to him and press your lips to his. It doesn’t matter that it takes him a beat to respond, you don’t care at all anymore about how things get awkward or strange. You continue to kiss over his mouth until he’s ready to kiss you back, when time finally catches up to you and it dawns on you both that this is real.

You can’t stop kissing him, breathing out his name every time you part.

”I love you,” you mumble into his mouth. ”I’m so in love with you.”

Mingi smiles into the kiss. Your senses are overwhelmed with the taste of both your tears and the fact that you’re both now smiling and giggling, repeating ’I love you’s until the words merge.

He pulls you into his arms, tumbling over into the grass. He stops kissing you to just look at you, and you watch him too. Your Mingi, in the grass by the lake. Finally, your Mingi.

#mingi x reader #ateez angst #ateez imagine #ateez x reader #ateez smut #ateez fanfic #ateez fic #mingi x y/n

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thepersonnamedsam · 1 year

Text

mornings spent well - cl16

pairing: charles leclerc x reader (basically gn, just one mention as bride)

summary: You woke up in a bed, where the sheets felt like a bad night out with your friends. And that’s exactly what happened the night before.

pt. 2 / pt. 3

word count: 1.5k

warnings: none, maybe a bit angst, generally fluff, google translated french

note: it’s weird writing about existing people, so just ignore the awkwardness plus it’s not proofread

masterlist / taglist

Your head was spinning, and you felt like you would throw up any second if you moved your body more. You closed your eyes in hopes the world would stop spinning. Breath in, breathe out. You tried to remember what happened last night, but all that came to your mind, or more your mouth, was that awful taste of tequila.

You didn’t like tequila, its taste is weird, you don’t understand the salt and lime thing and it makes you do questionable choices. Like waking up in someone’s bed. That’s exactly what happened, because those sheets weren’t itching like crazy, and they actually felt cozy.

You lifted those cozy sheets to discover nothing. You weren’t naked, you were wearing shirt and underpants? And your socks are still on? Who undressed you last night and they were too polite to actually undress you? Not that you complained, you’d rather wear this than nothing.

With a sigh you wanted to get up without puking. But the moment you were ready to take the first step of sitting up the door opened.

You looked to your left and there was an empty bedside. The covers were pulled back and you saw the crease in the pillow, obviously from someone sleeping on it. You still weren’t sure where you were. This wasn’t the bedroom of your best friend nor was it of someone you knew and had been at their home.

The person standing in the doorway watched your every move, from looking at the bedside to wandering your gaze over the bedroom and finally landing on him. He saw you looking at him and locking eyes. A familiar feeling overtook both of your bodies, and you just couldn’t place what that feeling was.

The handsome man was still looking at you and you couldn’t lift your gaze from him as well. His hand reached his neck where he scratched it. As he took his hand back down you saw it, a silver wedding band. You slept in a married mans bed?! You lifted both your hands to your face to rub your eyes and that’s when your silver wedding band sprung in your eyes.

You had a wedding band? And the same one as the man standing in the doorway?

He cleared his throat and you looked at him. “This is awkward”, he said as he was scratching his neck once again, this time with his right hand. You cleared your throat too, nut trusting your voice after too much tequila from last night.

“Qu’est-ce qu’on va faire, merde. What are we gonna do, shit.” So, he spoke French. But you still didn’t know his name. “I guess, I mean looking at the evidence on our hands, I guess we are married?” Your voice went quieter the more you spoke. You were still hoping it wasn’t true or a dream, but his answer let those hopes disappear in a second.

“Oui, I guess we are married. You woke up in my bed and we both have a ring on our ring finger, that counts as something right?”

You let your body hit the mattress. Your head still hurting, not spinning as much, but still hurting like a bitch. And it made processing the new information very hard. “Okay, so let me get it straight; we don’t know each other, but we got married last night?” Your questionable look made him scoff.

“I know you, what are you talking about?” Now it was you who was scoffing. What did he mean by ‘I know you’? You were thinking hard, where could you have seen this man before. “Charles, Charles Leclerc, we met last week in that coffee shop where you work, and you gave me your number on the coffee cup? Do you recall?”

It hit you like a brick, of course you remember! You couldn’t believe you forgot that gorgeous face. You gave him your number, but he never texted you.

“You never texted me”, you stated. His face twisted into an apologetic look. “I texted you last night?” He was shrugging and you could see his whole upper body tense under the action. This man was built like a Greek statue. “I was in this club with my friends, and I was feeling lonely, that’s when I remembered I had put your number into my phone, so I texted you.”

“And what happened next?”, you had to ask, how did they go form texting to marrying? “You showed up and we took some tequila shots and that’s all I can remember.” His face said it all, the look of confusion and sorrowness. He didn’t know how they got from shots to this.

This was a disaster. All of this is not how you like to spend your mornings. And he didn’t like it that much as well.

He lifted his body from the doorframe and started to walk towards you. He was just a breathtaking view. “Au moins j’ai épousé une belle mariée. At least I married a beautiful bride.”

He looked at you like you were the most beautiful thing on this planet. And he thought you were, he thought it the moment he saw you behind the coffee machine. He was so glad he discovered your number on his cup, because he was too afraid to ask for it. Though he was confident in most of his tasks, especially girls, he just couldn’t seem to find his confidence when he first looked at you.

He has no clue how he ended up marrying you a week later. He asked himself where the hell you two could’ve gotten married. You were in Monaco and not Las Vegas. Did you just go to the registry office and asked to be married? You were drunk as hell; how would any civil servant legally marry you? Were you even legally married? You were just wearing rings, that doesn’t mean you two actually got married.

His body hit the bed as he sat down, and you felt the mattress dip down on his side. And as he took his phone form the bedside table you admired his back. His muscles flexing under his every move. Fascinated by his back you didn’t notice how he had sighed multiple times after another.

“We are legally married; I just found the certificate in my emails.” His head now turned to look at you. His eyes staring into yours. Realization hit, you were no longer single and are actually married to this man in front of you. You blinked, once, twice, a hundred times maybe, you didn’t know.

You couldn’t believe it, you were married. “Do you think we should like, get a divorce?”, your voice was shy, you didn’t want to insult him. You didn’t want him to feel like you wouldn’t be married to him. Because you would.

Would you not have married him if you weren't drunk? Because he would have. He would marry you again in heartbeat. “If you want to, we have to be married for at least 12 months until we can get a divorce. I say we at least try to live a life as a married couple?” He looked at you with hopeful eyes. And you couldn’t say no to those eyes, it would be cruel.

“12 months? How do you know that?” - “ I just googled it”, he shrugged his shoulders again. “I guess we could try, I don’t think I would mind it”, your voice once more shy, not sure if he heard what you just said. His eyes lit up; “Really? You would try?” You smiled at him and just nodded your head.

“Can I kiss you?”, he asked with hopeful eyes. You nodded again and before you even closed your eyes, his body was turned towards you and his lips on yours. His lips as soft as a cloud and the kiss so sweet like sugar. You couldn’t believe it, kissing you husband, what a weird sentence going through your brain.

“I guess I have to put your new name into my contacts”, you laugh at him as he removed his lips from yours. He smiled and said: “And what would that be?” As you typed in his new contact name he tried to sneak a glance but he didn’t succeed. Husband was now gracing the top of they're messenger chat.

He smiled as soon as he saw it. And he couldn’t stop smiling. He was smiling like a little boy who just got ice cream. His face even started hurting a bit after smiling so much. He was sure he’d have muscle ache the next day. But you were smiling too. He was making you happy and you didn’t know how or why. He just did and you were content with that. You didn’t question why your heart fluttered every time you looked at him or how he made you smile with just a short glance. Everything just felt normal and right, like it had been that way for ages.

°°°

next part

#charles leclerc x reader #f1 x reader #charles lecrelc #f1 #genderneutral #charles leclerc x you #imagine #wedding #accidental #angst #fluf #x reader #f1 smut #ferrari

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luna-writes-stuff · 7 months

Text

As The World Falls Down, Nikolai Lantsov

Song link

Fanfic, fem! reader

Hurt/comfort, angst with fluff ending

Word count: 2650

Tw: IS IT STURMHUND OR STURMHOND BECAUSE IT SOUNDS GERMAN SO I’VE ALWAYS SAID/WRITTEN STURMHUND BUT NOW THE TUMBLR TAGS ARE TELLING ME IT’S STURMHOND (yes I’ve read the books). Unintended infidelity, marriage, slight heartbreaking, Luna is an Alina-defender 4 life. Let me know if I missed any????

Summary: Nikolai’s proposal to Alina was strictly political. It made for a perfect alignment, even if love was lacking. Both parties agreed to this. However, Alina doesn’t know Nikolai is technically already married, though not on his birth name. He didn’t think much of the proposal, but you did. And after days of avoiding him, he finally talks with you, and you have a much-needed heart to heart.

Requested by @naushtheaspiringauthor

Buy me a coffee/force me to write more

“There's such a sad love Deep in your eyes, a kind of pale jewel Open and closed Within your eyes.”

Sturmhund’s wife. Those were the words echoing around in your head. Sturmhund’s wife. Not Nikolai’s; Sturmhund’s. And the reality of it came crushing down after those awful words left his mouth.

You hadn’t officially married Nikolai. No - your contract stated his pseudonym. This was to ensure no hunters would come after you, trying to sell you for ransom or power. It was a very strategic move. Legally, you were bound to Sturmhund, but it was never something you and Nikolai had any difficulty with. He was Sturmhund after all, and between the two of you, that never stood in the way. It was weird to consider, but after only a couple weeks, you realised that the contract was the only thing that stated otherwise. Truth for you still was that you were married to Nikolai, and that had never been a lie.

Well, that came to stab you in the back after only a year.

“I'll place the sky Within your eyes.”

A reasonable part of your brain told you it was logical - it was smart. Of course Nikolai would propose to Alina. Politically, it made sense. It was a genius move. But the other eighty percent of your brain stenched from the betrayal. Seething fury and pain was buried deep underneath your skin, and no matter how nice and loving Alina had been, you couldn’t escape sneaking glares her way.

You never meant to. She was sweet and kind - she didn’t deserve it. But she was going to marry your husband. And he hadn’t even discussed it with you. That might have been the most painful about the entire ordeal: he never asked you.

It was never brought up in conversation, nor had he hinted towards it. It made you begin to wonder how long he had planned this out. And if he ever was going to tell you or ask you before proposing. Years spent with Nikolai before your marriage should have told you he would never do this out of love, but it felt like rubbing salt in a wound.

You hadn’t spoken to him in three days. In truth, you hadn’t seen him in three days. It might have been pettiness, but you were frightened you might do something stupid when you saw him again. So, you tried your very best to avoid him for as long as you could.

“There’s such a fooled heart Beatin' so fast. In search of new dreams A love that will last Within your heart.

Unfortunately, Nikolai wasn’t stupid. He knew you were avoiding him. He also knew exactly why. Then, every single time he tried to find you, something came in between. It was late at night, when he finally felt enough was enough. He had laid in his bed, staring up at the ceiling endlessly. Sleep hadn’t come easy to him these last few days. You weren’t even showing up in your shared room anymore. Your pillow had gotten uncomfortably cold, and the clothes in your shared closet hadn’t moved since he made his decision.

Sitting up straight, he ran a hand through his hair, casting a glance to the empty spot beside him. Then, he stood up, hastily pulling on his robe as he left the room. Everyone had gone to sleep already, and the last people in the halls were either half asleep or keeping a watchful eye. A brief nod of recognition was given his way as Nikolai walked through the chilling halls.

He had no idea where to even start looking. You wouldn’t be in the most obvious spots; he knew you better than that. Tolya and Tamar had refused to tell him anything, even though he was sure they knew something. Their attitude towards him had changed slightly after his exchange with Alina, and he was sure they didn’t agree either. He didn’t mention it. He knew they’d shout at him, and he had enough on his shoulders as it was.

“I'll place the moon Within your heart.”

At night, Tamar would visit you, sometimes going with you to get some food in the late hours of the night. It was the only moment you could be given any peace. Right now, though, you had been alone.

Sitting at the long empty table, you chewed on a sandwich, topped with your favourite condiments. It was the most enjoyment you could get out of your day, and it was best celebrated in silence.

Papers of negotiations and terms were sprawled out across the kitchen, some weapons sitting in the corner of the room, hidden from plain sight. It never surprised you. You knew everyone had to be on their toes. It made it easier for you to focus on other things.

Like this delicious sandwich. “As the pain sweeps through Makes no sense for you. Every thrill is gone, Wasn't too much fun at all.”

“I might have known,” You heard from the entrance of the dining room, successfully drawing your attention. An unwanted scowl climbed onto your face as you stood up, holding the sandwich in one hand and the plate in another.

“I was just leaving,” You spoke with a full mouth, placing the plate in the sink, before making your way to the doorway. Not giving him another word, you pushed past him. “Wait,” He mumbled, grabbing your shoulder, forcing you to stop. You shrugged it off, turning around to face him. He looked slightly betrayed at the gesture, but composed himself quickly. “Can we not talk?”

“About?” You asked, disinterest in your voice. “Your new wife? She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” “Darling-“ Nikolai tried, but you had already turned around. “Goodnight, your highness.”

So, maybe you wanted to run up to him, sob into his shoulder and voice all your worries. Maybe, internally, that is what you needed most. But the mere sight of him now caused your blood to boil. And you could weep around that thought. Where he had once managed to make your heart skip a beat every time he looked at you, it now caused it to sink in agony. He made an oath to love you and no other. He made a promise. And political or not, it stung.

“But I'll be there for you. As the world falls down. Falling in love.”

You weren’t surprised when his quick feet caught up with you almost immediately, then slowing down to match your pace. You hated that he did that. He always did that. Asshole.

“Listen, I should have discussed this with you,” “Should you?” You interrupted, not halting your movement. “I don’t know. It’s not as if I am your wife or anything.” “Darling, please,” Nikolai pleaded, now grabbing your upper arms and keeping you in place, turning you to face him. “I love you, and only you. You know this.”

You didn’t respond to this, your eyes casting to the floor instead. You couldn’t see the change in Nikolai’s features upon your silence. You didn’t see how his eyebrows furrowed in heartbreak as his eyes reflected the same sadness you had felt this entire time. “You know that I love you, right?” He repeated, his voice now unsure.

The silence that followed was as terrifying to you as it had been to him. He hadn’t meant to make you feel this way. When he proposed, he didn’t think much of it, expecting you wouldn’t think much of it either. But the opposite finally appeared to be true, and now being directly faced with it, Nikolai cursed himself for not seeing it earlier.

“I'll paint you mornings of gold. I'll spin you Valentine evenings though we're strangers 'til now. We're choosing the path Between the stars.”

“Hey,” He tried, his hands gently falling from your arms as one of his fingers tapped your chin, causing you to redirect your gaze from the floor to his face. “You know I love you, right?”

Your lower lip trembled lightly as you let out a shaky breath. “I don’t know anymore, Nikolai.” “Oh, darling,” he sighed, wrapping his arms around you as he forced you into his embrace. And finally, after three days, you broke, your eyes breaking its dams as tears began to stream down your face, your shoulders shaking with your sobs.

“There is no one in the world I could ever love other than you,” Nikolai assured, his head resting atop yours as his fingers began to rub soothing patterns on your back. “Please, do not think you are anything less to me than everything.” “Why wouldn’t you ask me?” You sobbed, not looking up at him, instead keeping your head buried in his chest.

“I don’t know,” He answered truthfully. “I didn’t mean much by the proposal. I didn’t think too much of it as anything other than a paper.” He continued, placing a comforting kiss on top of your head. “And because of that, I didn’t think you would make much of it either.” “You were wrong.” You countered, your hands now grasping the back of his robe. “I know that now.” Then, he moved his head, looking down at you. “And I should have asked you before. I see that error.”

“I'll leave my love Between the stars.”

“If you had asked,” You started, your voice unsure. “And I would have said no, would you have still asked her?” A beat of silence echoed, before you felt him shake his head. “I wouldn’t have.”

You raised your head at this, your teary eyes forcing contact with his, seeking his face for any hint of deception. When you couldn’t find any, you sighed heavily. “I want to understand,” you muttered. “But part of me feels so betrayed.” “I know,” Nikolai whispered, one hand making its way to your face, wiping away stray tears. “And I do not blame you for this.”

“Alina is lovely,” you continued. “She doesn’t know we’re married. She doesn’t do this to harm me. Yet, part of me envies her so much. Every time I see her, I just want to punch her in the face.” That got a tiny chuckle out of him. “She doesn’t deserve that, Nikolai.” You scolded. “No, but it’s a little funny.”

“As the pain sweeps through Makes no sense for you. Every thrill is gone Wasn't too much fun at all.”

When his laughter died down, he looked at you in sincerity. “I can break it off,” He decided. “Easily. It wouldn’t hurt her feelings. In truth, I do not think she feels anything for me. She is lovesick over Mal.” “Nikolai,” You interrupted him. “As someone who wishes to end this war, I see that this would be a good solution.” He shook his head. “And as my wife?”

When you thought about it for some time, Nikolai filled the silence. “The brutal truth.” He clarified. “Don’t make me feel good about myself.” You shrugged at that, your features falling slightly. “I’d ask for both your hands. Not just one.”

With those words, Nikolai’s hands intertwined with yours, squeezing them affectionately. “Then, you shall have them.” A heavy feeling settled into the pit of your stomach, the ominous truth lurking over your shoulders, almost laughing at you menacingly. “The people need an end to all of this.” “There are other ways to solve this war. Other, peaceful ways.” Nikolai countered, pulling you back into his embrace.

“But I'll be there for you. As the world falls down. As the world falls down. Falling in love.”

When he didn’t feel you copy his hold, he continued talking. “Marriage was option one. There are a hundred others.” “You could have started with these.” You mumbled, wiping the final few tears off your face. “Well, this one was the easiest,” Nikolai explained. “But I think that keeping my one true wife is worth the struggle.”

The lump in your throat began to slowly vanish at those words, anxiety still there, although less severe. As if he sensed it, Nikolai broke his hold on you. “Come morning, I’ll talk to Alina. You have my word.” Your hand shot to your arm as you rubbed it, trying to distract yourself. “I think it’s just the looming threat of the darkling.”

Cocking his head from side to side, the prince agreed with you. “It is terrifying.” “What if we cannot win this?” You questioned, doubt heavy on your mind. You knew it was on Nikolai’s too, but he had always been better at hiding it. Royal training tends to do that to you. “For the first time in years, we have a chance,” he assured. “And if not, I’ll die protecting that which I love.” You raised your eyebrows at this, already knowing what was coming, but you gave him the chance to say it out loud: “That’s you.”

Finally, a small smile climbed onto your face. “Sap.” “You married me for it.”

“As the world falls down Falling in love. As the world falls down.”

The late hour had started to dawn on you, exhaustion slipping back into your features. You were too tired to think more of the war, and make the issue bigger than it was. You spoke with Nikolai, which hadn’t been on your list of things to immediately get to. Be that as it may, it brought enough relief, and you found yourself slightly grateful for him stalking the halls late at night.

“Promise to not propose to anyone ever again?” You asked, trying to leave the matter for what it was. “Not ever after I asked you?” Nikolai retorted in a joking manner. You didn’t laugh at this. “That was a joke.” He clarified.

“It wasn’t funny.” “I know,” He quickly corrected himself, wiping the smile off his face, sincerity shown once again. “That was too soon.” You nodded at him, but leaned into his side, offering him some form of assurance.

“Makes no sense at all. Makes no sense to fall. As the world falls down Falling in love.”

“Come back to bed, my love. I haven’t slept well in days.” He muttered, an arm wrapping around your figure as he held you against him. “Neither have I.” You confessed, which caused him to look at you in slight confusion. “Truly?” When you nodded at him, he nodded his head, seemingly lost in thought. “Well, you wouldn’t say. You still look absolutely breathtaking.” You couldn’t suppress the heat rising to your face at his words, your heart skipping a beat.

When he didn’t speak after that, you took it as your queue to fill it. “I’m sorry.” You voiced. Furrowing his eyebrows, Nikolai squeezed your shoulder. “You have nothing to apologise for,” His feet began to walk through the halls, dragging you with him as he made sure to match your pace. “You were completely in the right to question my decisions and feel hurt because of it. My mistake was thinking that my reason for actions would be interpreted the same for everyone.” He cleared his throat as he thought over his own actions of the past few weeks with regret. “Clearly, that is not the case, and I know that now.”

The second smile of the night climbed upon your face as you looked up at him. “Are you apologising to me now?” “Shh,” He shushed you quickly. “Don’t tell the others.” You shook your head, nudging his side slightly. A content grin spread on Nikolai’s face as he looked down at you. “I love you, darling.” He shared. “Will you say it back?”

Giving him one fake-hesitant look, you gave him a joking nod. “I love you too.” His free hand grasped yours, bringing it up to his lips as he placed a light kiss on top of it.

“Thank you.”

“As the world falls down. Falling in love.”

#november writings 2023 #shadow and bone #shadow and bone netflix #grishaverse #Nikolai lantsov #sturmhond #nikolai lantsov x reader #patrick gibson

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mymoodwriting · 4 months

Text

Request for Anon (Yandere Demon Chanhee) 4.2k, yandere, supernatural, demons, soul contract, possessiveness, manipulation, kidnapping, magic (@starillusion13)

“You called?”

You and your sorority girls screamed, immediately moving away from the strange guy that had suddenly made his presence known. You were all in one of the bedrooms, having a little sleep over and playing games. Of course the others decided to try some darker things, turning off the lights and getting some candles, chanting weird things. You didn’t participate in any of this but now there was a stranger in the room. He chuckled at your reactions, looking around the room while remaining in the shadows.

“You summoned a demon.” He stated. “Did you think I wouldn’t show?”

“You… you’re a demon…” Sal stuttered. “Like… for real…”

“As real as it gets. So, what is it that you want?”

“Wait, so you’ll grant our wish?” Yaz asked. “Anything we want?”

“For the right price of course.”

A flame apparead from the palm of his hand, leaving behind a scroll when it disappeared. He unrolled the thing, holding out a contract and his hand, baring his claws.

“A wish, in exchange for a soul.”

“We sign with blood?” You questioned.

“Of course. So, who shall pay?”

You didn’t like any of this, but before you could voice your concerns your friends grabbed you and pulled you forward. You cut your arm on the demon’s claws, bits of your blood splattering onto the contract. Your eyes went wide, and when you looked at the demon you could see a satisfied grin on his face. You were still processing when your friends pulled you back.

“I want to get into my dream job!” Sal exclaimed.

“And I want to get my inheritance early!” Yaz added.

“And you?”

“Please leave…” You breathed out. “Now…”

“Of course.”

The candles went out, plunging the room into darkness. Then you gasped awake in bed. You looked around in a panic, able to confirm you were in your room and calming down. Last night lingered in your mind, but it all felt like a dream. You quickly checked your arm, and to your relief there weren’t any marks. It really was just a weird dream. You took a moment to compose yourself and then got out of bed, getting ready for the day. As you went downstairs you greeted your sorority sisters, wanting to grab something from the kitchen before going to class. When you heard screaming coming from that direction you rushed over, but you merely jumped to conclusions. You found Sal and Yaz cheerfully yelling and jumping about.

“I got in! I got in!” Sal chanted. “I got accepted as an intern at my dream job! I’m gonna get to work there!!!”

“Yas! I’m so proud of you1”

“I’m so excited! I start tomorrow.”

“I’ve got good news too!”

“For real? What is it?”

“I woke up to a very important call this morning. My mother told me that my grandfather passed away last night.”

“Oh my gosh, Yaz, I’m so sorry.”

“I know. I’ll be going home this weekend for the funeral, but you know what else this means?”

“What?”

“They’re gonna read the will.”

“Wait, you’re gonna get your inheritance? Aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Yaz! You’re gonna be rich!”

“Right!”

The two started screaming again and you decided you’d skip breakfast today. You made your way out of the sorority house, heading to your first class of the day. You were kinda lost in thought over what you had seen. Last night was a dream, but it was such a coincidence that Yaz and Sal both got what they had wished for the next morning. You had to remind yourself that demons and all that stuff isn’t real.

“Morning, did you sleep well?”

Some random guy pulled you out of your thoughts, trying to initiate a conversation with you. Of course you ignored him, not wanting to give a weirdo like him attention. You walked right past him but he was soon to follow and get in your way.

“Don’t you think you’re being rude?”

“Do I know you?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Can you just leave me alone?”

“Nope, you’re mine now.”

“Excuse me!”

The boy gave you a big smile, baring his sharp teeth, his eyes turning black. You inhaled sharply and took a step back. Fire emanated from his hand and he held up a contract with blood on it, showing it to you.

“Last night wasn’t a dream.”

“You… you… you can’t…”

“I’m very real.” His eyes returned to normal, and the contract went up in flames. “So, have you thought about your wish?”

“My wish?”

“Yes, you signed the contract after all.”

“You granted Sal and Yaz’s wish.”

“I did no such thing.” He chuckled. “It’s just a coincidence, but between you and me, this weekend is gonna be very fun.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That girl won’t make it to the end of the week at her internship, and the other, she’s gonna be very upset when she finds out grandpa left her a penny.”

“You’re lying.”

“Just wait and see, but back to you. What is it that you desire?”

“For you to leave me alone.”

“Ouch. Like I said, I can’t do that. Your soul, your very being, is mine now, and I take care of my things.”

The boy stepped closer, brushing his fingers along your cheek before you slapped his hand away. He chuckled but stayed put.

“The name is Chanhee by the way.”

“And you’re a demon?”

“In the flesh.”

“What if I don’t wish for anything?”

“That’s your loss. In ten years I’m taking your soul, regardless of where you’re at in life.”

“Then I wish to keep my soul.”

“Sorry, you already signed a contract, and you can’t wish to undo it.”

“I didn’t do it willingly!”

“Your blood sealed the deal, all that’s left is for you to make a wish.”

“How do I break it then? Everything has rules, so there must be a way.”

“I’m afraid there isn’t. You can’t wish for anything that would break the contract, and you can only wish for things that would directly affect you.”

“Then I wish you never existed.”

“You wound me, but like I said, you can’t wish for anything that would break the contract. You’re stuck with me.”

“I hate you.”

“Well you have to get to know me first. Now that we have eternity together we-”

“Eternity?”

“Yup.”

“So… what happens when I die?”

“I take your soul.”

“But what happens… to me…”

“You’re mine, so I can do whatever I want. I can blink you out of existence and use your soul for power, or… you could roam the Earth with me as my companion.”

“So I am stuck with you.”

“Forever.”

“I’m gonna kill those girls.”

“Oh, do you wish to get away with murder?”

“Fuck off.”

You shoved Chanhee aside, not wanting to think about any of this and focus on something else. For now you were just a normal student with nothing supernatural going on. You had some time between your first class and the next so you went to the library, wanting to go over your things. It was still early so it was mostly deserted, but you weren’t alone for long.

“Hey y/n, you busy?”

You looked up to see one of your classmates, offering them a friendly smile. Before you could answer their question Chanhee had appeared, shoving them to the side and pulling up a chair next to you. He draped his arm across your shoulder, pressing a kiss to your cheek.

“She’s busy, and taken, so get lost.”

“What the fuck, Chanhee!?”

“I… I’ll message you later.”

The boy awkwardly excused himself, leaving you alone with Chanhee. You were quick to shrug him off, glaring daggers at him after you wiped away his saliva from your cheek.

“What are you doing?”

“Protecting what’s mine. Can’t just have some random guy try to hit on you.”

“He wasn’t hitting on me.”

“Are you sure? Cause that’s what-”

“He’s my project partner and we need to get together to work on the presentation.”

“Ah, so he is trying to get some alone time with you.”

“For fucks sake, leave me alone.”

“You should really stop saying that, cause it’s not gonna happen.”

“A girl can dream.”

“Or make a wish. You can have any career you want right now, you’d just have to wish for it. I think ten years is long enough to make a name for yourself.”

“But I don’t want ten years, I want my life.”

The library wasn’t the place to be, so you packed up and left, grateful that Chanhee got the hint and didn’t follow. You waited in the empty classroom for the rest of your peers and for the professor to arrive. For the rest of the day you didn’t run into Chanhee, but he was still on your mind. When you got back to the sorority house you tracked down Yaz and Sal. Although you could only find Yaz, as Sal had her first day at her internship and wasn’t around.

“Yaz!”

“What?”

“How did you know about a demon summoning ritual?”

“Why? Do you have regrets now? You should have made a wish when you had the chance.”

“I don’t care about that, just tell me how you summoned a demon!”

“It was Sal’s idea. She got a book from one of her classmates.”

“Where’s the book?”

“No idea, her room maybe, unless she gave it back.”

“You two are unbelievable.”

You went up to Sal’s room, going through her things until you found a very odd book at her desk. There was no title and the cover was made of black leather. This screamed danger, but Sal didn’t seem to care. You opened it up, seeing all kinds of demonic drawings, the writing in a language you understood although there were some parts you didn’t. You really couldn’t believe those two thought it was a good idea to actually follow one of these rituals. Eventually you found the bookmark Sal had left, seeing the instructions for summoning a demon. It was stated there that any wish could be granted in exchange for a soul.

The book didn’t specify if the wish maker had to give up their soul, but you weren’t sure who to trust between a book and a demon. Still, you took the book with you, needing to examine it some more and figuring out whether or not it could help you. That night you looked over the entire book, but it was nothing but rituals and spells with the bare minimum of information. It was a dead end, but then you realized that other books like this might exist, and those could have the answers you’re looking for. You continued your search online, looking for any other source of information, even checking your own school library to see if they had such books.

No luck on that, but you found a bookstore nearby that carried what you were looking for. The next day during your free period you went to the bookstore, keeping to yourself as you browsed the shelf of demonic books. You were trying to see if there was any similarity between the one you had and the ones here. You thought you were alone until someone appeared and snatched the book out of your hands. You were ready to explain yourself, and that all this was just for a research paper, but you merely glared when you saw Chanhee flipping through the pages of the book he took from you.

“I didn’t think you’d be interested in all this.”

“What do you care?”

“Well, I’m touched, you’re doing research on me.”

“As if.”

“You know, you didn’t need to go looking, you could just ask me.”

Chanhee gave you a smile as the book in his hand went up in flame, disappearing into nothing as if it never existed.

“Why did you do that!”

“Cause I’m an open book, so tell me, what do you want to know?”

“What is wrong with you!?”

“I’m a demon, I’m not exactly a nice person. I’m from hell after all.”

You were so done with Chanhee at this point, but it wasn’t like you could do anything to him. Still, if he was so willing to talk, maybe you could get some information out of him.

“How old are you?”

“Don’t you think it’s rude to ask such a question.”

“You said you were an open book.”

“Touché. Let’s just say I’m hundreds of years old.”

“Woah, so you’ve been around to witness a lot of things.”

“I have. It’s a good life, just going around making deals, getting more power, and I’m very handsome. Sounds cool, don’t you think?”

“Cool? You’re going around ruining people’s lives.”

“Quite the opposite in fact. I grant people’s wishes. They get whatever they desire, and the same applies to you too. So, you should make a wish to better your own life soon, time is wasting.”

🖤

Despite losing the book, it didn’t deter you from continuing your research. The bookstore was a bust as all they had there was legends and vague information. In all honesty none of those books were like the original one you had, so that meant you had to move your search to the internet. Although you couldn’t fully immerse yourself in that as you still had to focus on your own studies. The extra work certainly exhausted you as everything was important. By the end of the week you were completely spent. You got back to your dorm room and collapsed on the bed. You thought you’d just fall asleep, but you had an unexpected visitor.

“It’s way too early to go to bed, especially on a Friday night.”

“Fuck off, Chanhee.”

“Awe, I love the way you say my name.”

“Go away!”

“Are you gonna make a wish?”

“No.”

“Hm, then let me grant you one anyway.”

“Huh?”

When you opened your eyes you were no longer in bed, but found yourself seated at a table, Chanhee across from you. He had his elbows on the table, fingers interlaced as he rested his chin on them, a big smile on his face.

“How about a delicious dinner?”

“What?”

You looked around and realized you were at some high class restaurant, and most importantly your clothes were different. You were in a fancy dress, and Chanhee matched your outfit. This place was way beyond you, and not somewhere you would go on your own.

“Chanhee, where the heck are we?”

“It’s nice right.”

“How did you change my clothes?”

“I didn’t peek, I swear.”

“Take me back.”

“We just got here. Besides you must be-”

“I don’t wanna be here. Please.”

“Fine.” Chanhee sighed. “Something else then.”

Chanhee snapped his fingers and then everything changed in the blink of an eye. You weren’t back in your room as you wanted, but somewhere else. The whole change was disorienting, but this place looked familiar.

“How’s this?”

“Where…”

“It’s your favorite, right?”

“How did you know?”

“You’re mine, so I know everything about you. Let’s order, and it’s on me tonight.”

Before you could say anything more a waitress came over to the table. Chanhee ordered and then he looked at you. This was your favorite place, so you didn’t need to look at the menu, but you weren’t sure this whole thing was a good idea. It was quiet for too long so Chanhee just ordered for you instead, giving the waitress a smile and thanks.

“Why are you doing this?”

“You looked like you needed a break, so I figured I’d provide. If you make a good wish you wouldn’t have to work so hard, you know.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that.”

Even if this wasn’t your plan, you actually quite enjoyed the night. Some good food after a long week, and it being free, it was nice. Afterwards Chanhee walked you back to the sorority house. You still had homework to do, but when you got to your room you noticed a note on your desk.

Get some sleep.

You were confused, but then you noticed all your things laid out on the desk were complete. He had done your homework for you. It sounded ridiculous, but you double checked everything, and it was good.

“Unbelievable.”

A demon did your homework, that was certainly a first. Since you had nothing else, and it was late, you got ready for bed. For once you’d have the weekend to yourself, and you couldn’t help but feel grateful to Chanhee, not that you would tell him. If anything, this gives you more time to focus on your research and find a way out of that stupid contract.

🖤

The weekend was nice, but come Monday things fell into chaos. You were woken up by Sal and Yaz screaming in your face.

“Y/n! Where is that damn book!”

“Huh… what are you-”

“The demon book!” Yaz yelled. “Where is it!?”

“Uh… I lost it…”

“How!?”

“Why, what’s wrong?”

“We need to talk to that demon, it tricked us!”

“What are you talking about?”

“It lied!” Sal screamed. “I lost my internship this weekend cause apparently I’m not a team player, whatever that means.”

“My whole family got screwed over with the inheritance.” Yaz added. “We just got a couple pennies.”

“Well… can’t you-”

“No! Since he left us something, we can’t contest the will, this fucken sucks!”

“I… I don’t have the book.” You stated. “But maybe you can ask the guy who gave it to you? He might know something.”

“I haven’t seen him since that day.” Sal said. “He must have dropped the class or something.”

“Oh…”

“Gosh, you don’t remember the spell, do you Yaz?”

“Why would I?”

“Ugh! What are we gonna do?”

“At least you still have your souls…” You commented.

“Whatever. Never trusting a demon again.”

That was quite a wake up call, but you were also very surprised to learn that Chanhee had been telling the truth. The two of them getting their wishes was just a coincidence, and false hope at that. Your name, your soul, was on the contract, so the wish was really yours to make. Still, you wanted no part of this, so you’d continue looking for your way out. As you were walking to class Chanhee suddenly appeared next to you.

“Did you have a good weekend?”

“I spent my time well.”

“I see. And how was this morning? Anything interesting?”

“Why are you asking when you already know the answer?”

“Cause I’m curious to know how you took it?”

“Well the girls were upset they lost everything, and I told them I lost the book since someone swallowed it up in flames.”

“If they had the book it wouldn’t do them any good. The spell just summons demons, there’s no guarantee the same one will show up.”

“I’m sure they’ll figure something out.”

“And what about you? Any wishes yet?”

“You know you can just drop that. I’m not gonna make a wish.”

“You’re wasting a great opportunity.”

“I am trying to save my soul here.”

“Why? Are you so sure you’ll get into heaven?”

“I’m certainly not gonna go to hell with you.”

“We’ll see about that.”

It was a slow Monday so after your classes you returned to the sorority house to relax and continue your extra curricular activities. Searching the web for information on demons wasn’t any easier, but at least there were more options. Most websites seemed to be for show or people interested in the occult, but nothing concrete. That is until you came across an interesting file. It seemed to be a scanned copy of a book, and just by the look of it you had hope. You could tell the pages were old, and there was no proper title.

This actually looked like the original book you had, so you paid close attention as you read the pages. It was a large file, but given the detail you were very hopeful. Other types of rituals and information on the supernatural were mentioned here. It seemed legit, and then you found what you were looking for. This was a different type of spell to summon a demon, but it spoke of the contracts one could make. It specified that one had to give up their own soul, and that they could only make a wish that would directly impact their lives. The biggest point to note was your way out. Even if a contract was signed, if a wish isn’t made within the ten year time frame then it is rendered void.

“Oh my gosh…”

You read it over and over again, unable to believe your eyes but also feeling such immense relief. No wonder Chanhee kept pushing for you to make a wish, without one the contract isn’t technically sealed. You were so excited to know you could keep your soul.

“So, what are we celebrating?” Chanhee asked, randomly appearing on your bed. “Do you finally know what to wish for?”

“I know you’re a liar.”

“Huh?”

“Y/n!”

You heard someone shout your name and then Sal burst into your room. She immediately started asking you about the book again, wondering how exactly you lost it, but stopped when she noticed Chanhee.

“It’s you…”

“Yeah, he’s the-”

“You gave me that book!”

“I’m sorry, he what?”

“You’re the guy from my class who told me about the spell to summon a demon.”

“Awe, you actually remember my face.” Chanhee giggled. “And how’s life treating you?”

“You lied! The demon didn’t grant my wish!”

“Well, to be fair, the wish was never for you.”

“Huh?”

“You gave her the book… why?” You questioned. “What reason do you have-”

“What are you talking about, y/n?”

“He’s the demon you summoned! And he’s the one who gave you the book, I just don’t understand why he’d do that.”

“You’re the demon?” Sal asked. “You tricked us!”

“I am a demon after all, and I’m done with you.”

“Well I’m just-”

“Shall we change things up?”

Chanhee raised his hands and snapped his fingers, taking you somewhere else. It took a second to settle down, taking in your surroundings. You had been at your desk a moment ago, but now you were sitting on a bed. The sheets were smooth and red, and the room itself seemed very luxurious. It was just you and Chanhee here.

“Where am I?”

“My room.” Chanhee explained. “In hell of course.”

“What! No, I can’t be in hell!”

“Well, you already have one foot in the grave.”

“I don’t.”

“You signed a-”

“The contract is incomplete.” You stated. “Unless I actually make a wish, my soul is still mine.”

“Hm, what makes you-”

“That’s why you keep pushing a wish on me, you don’t actually own my soul yet. The only thing I don’t understand is why you would trick the others into summoning you and making a deal.”

“The answer is quite simple love. Who did I make a deal with after all? Who signed?”

“I did but-”

“Your little friends forced your hand.”

Chanhee came over and sat beside you, leaning in close. His hand gently caressed your cheek and the grabbed your chin.

“Such a pretty and intelligent girl can have whatever she wants. There’s no need to ever summon or make a deal. It made me want you so bad, but I had to use other means. Your little friends weren’t hard to trick into doing what I wanted.”

“You’re crazy.” You pulled yourself away from him. “I’ll never be yours! You’ll never have my soul! As long as I don’t make a wish, the contract is void.”

“Is that so?”

Chanhee suddenly pinned you down, black eyes staring back at you with a sinister smile. There was this dark aura around him, and for once you actually felt scared. Next thing you knew you felt chains around your wrists going taut and keeping you in place.

“It was very annoying to get those two to offer you up to me, and I expected us to be having a good time by now, but instead you’ve been looking for a way to get rid of me.” Chanhee growled. “I spent months watching you, waiting, and I won’t lose you over a fucken technicality. The best wish you could make is to be mine, so you won’t suffer in hell and live like me.”

“I’m not making a wish!”

“Is that so? Are you so sure that you’ll never utter the words ‘I wish’ in the next ten years? I’ll be watching closely, and accept whatever wish you make as sincere. So it’s better if you make a good one now while you still can.”

“Fuck you! Now that I know the contract is void, I’ll focus on finding a way to kill you, then I’ll truly be free.”

“If you’re so hell bent on denying me, then I’ll take matters into my own hands. I won’t lose you!”

Chanhee pressed his lips against yours, kissing you deeply. Your eyes went wide and you squirmed beneath him, but that didn’t get him off. Instead you felt something thick and irritating going down your throat, as if you were breathing in smoke. Your head started to spin, and when Chanhee pulled away you took in a deep breath.

“Y/n, can you hear me?”

“Uh… what… what did you…”

“All I need you to do is to repeat after me.”

“Hm…”

“I wish to belong to Chanhee. Now you say it.”

“I… I…”

“We’ll be the perfect companions. Now say it.”

“I wish…”

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likeabulldigidigibombombombom · 4 months

Text

Open Window (Part 1)

Pairing: (non threatening) thief!Hyunjin x fem!reader

Trope/Genre: Non idol au, fluff

Summary: You’re nearing the end of your gap year, and you decided to spend your last month of it at your aunts house. Unfortunately, a very stupid criminal has struck your house many times and you need to figure out who they are and why they did it.

854 words

Warnings: Hyunjin LITERALLY ROBS YOU. DO NOT DO WHAT Y/N DOES SHE IS A DUMBASS. Usage of pet names, swearing.

Lee know is mentioned

You were so bored. So extremely bored. You had completed your third walk around the block, which you normally would be too tired to do, but you had to do something that didn’t include death-scrolling on your phone and making small talk with your aunt.

You thought that taking a gap year would include traveling and spending time with your close friends, but it was really just a whole lot of nothing.

When you were preparing to unlock the door to get into the home that you were staying at for a month, you noticed the weird gnome on your doorstep was missing. ‘Eh, whatever’ you thought to yourself. The next day, while going on another walk around the block, half of the garden decorations were gone. You just brushed it off, because who the fuck would steal garden decorations.

A few hours later, you had gotten ready for bed because ‘if you can’t entertain yourself it's better to just sleep’ you thought, but you had left the window open. It was extremely hot and you were lying on top of your bed sheets, trying to get to sleep when you heard a noise. You looked up to see a person, halfway inside of your room.

As soon as you realised what was going on, your hand flung to your bedside table to turn the light on. But the shadow of a man was gone. Thinking it was just a dream, you slept peacefully.

“Did you hear anything last night Y/N?” your aunt asked, while washing dishes by the sink. “No, I don’t think so. I think I went to sleep immediately after getting upstairs.” “Oh, I must have been imagining things then.”

The nights were uneventful for a while, until you slept with your window open again.

Tossing and turning, you couldn’t sleep. It was around 3 am when you heard a noise again. This time, you were sceptical and terrified. The fear was so intense that you felt like you couldn’t move your hand to turn on the light.

“Who are you?” You said. It came out quieter than intended, but it was audible. “Uh, a ghost. This is all a dream.” You could see a silhouette of a man wiggling strangely and you couldn’t help but laugh. He looked about 5’11 and his voice was strangely attractive.

“Okay, what the fuck is going on? Because I’m weirded out at this point.” He shrugged. “Yeah, that’s fair enough.” You could hear someone take a deep breath and then blurt out. “I’m robbing you.” “Sorry, what?” “I’m robbing you, well, attempting to.”

Your fear was slowly melting away as you realised how stupid the criminal was. “What do you want me to do with that information?” “Whatever you do, please don’t tell the police, Minho will kill me.” “Who?” “The guy who organises this shit, whenever I fuck up, he stuffs tissues in my mouth.”

“That seems pretty civil for a robber.” “Well, we don’t usually hurt people. Unless they want us to.” “Was that meant to be a threat, or an attempt at flirting?” “Flirting, but it obviously didn’t work since you didn’t even realise I was trying to flirt.” He said, sounding slightly embarrassed. “Well, maybe you should try harder.” “We can save that for another day angel.” You felt your face flush a little after hearing that.

“Another day?” “Well you’ve left your window open these past few nights, so your house is the easiest to rob.”

“Oh this isn’t my house, I’m just staying here for a bit.” “Are you sure you should be telling me that?” “Honestly, you don’t seem that much of a threat so I don’t really care.” “You don’t seem like much of a threat either.” “What do you mean?” “You haven’t attempted to kill me yet. I mean, someone has chased me down a road with a guitar before, so compared to that…” You cut him off with a giggle and sat up a little bit.

“You also haven’t called the police yet, unless you’re planning to.” You thought to yourself for a second then looked back at the robber. “I’m actually enjoying this.” “Damn, you must be really bored.” “Yep.” He rocked back and forth awkwardly for a bit and then finally spoke up.

“Well, I’ll just take this.” He held up an item. “What are you taking?” “I genuinely don’t even know, I can barely see.” “I think-” You squint trying to figure out what the object is. “that’s an empty bottle of Mountain Dew?” “Ah. Valuable!” He picked it up and started climbing out of the window.

“Wait! Are you gonna tell me your name?” “I’ll tell you next time, as long as you leave your window open again.”

And with that, he was gone. You began to berate yourself for the absolute stupidity of what you just did.

‘You let a burglar into your aunt's house!’ ‘What would she think!’ ‘What if he comes back and gets violent?!’

But with all of that, you couldn’t help but feel excited for the next time you leave your window open.

Author note: Thank you so much for reading! I seriously appreciate it. This was actually based off of a dream I had! (which was a lot more chaotic but whatever)Like always, constructive criticism is wanted! I'm planning to make a part two to this so if you found it interesting stay tuned! If you liked this, please follow me for more fanfics like this one <3 Thank you!

Masterlist

#skz imagines #skz headcanons #skz x reader #stray kids x reader #stray kids x y/n #hyunjin x reader #straykids fanfic #stray kids x female reader #hwang hyunjin x reader #hyunjin x y/n #skz hyunjin x reader #likeabulldigidigibombombombom

85 notes · View notes

corinthianism · 7 months

Text

last kiss | sam winchester (5)

pairing: sam winchester/f!reader additional tags: best friends to lovers (?), fluff, angst warning(s): implied/referenced non-con

masterlist | previous chapter | ao3

CHAPTER FIVE: TEN SECONDS

You didn’t know where you were. You didn’t even know how much time has passed since Lucifer took you away. He stashed you in some house. It looked like a normal suburban home, except it seemed he used his amped-up archangel abilities to essentially create a whole pocket dimension for you. On a surface level, every day felt like a normal day. Night and day passed just the same as it would in the real world. You had neighbors, and they were both familiar and unfamiliar. “Dean” lived right across the street whilst “Bobby” and “Cas” lived right next to you. The other houses were occupied by random people you didn’t know. It was like a bad djinn hallucination.

The routine was always the same: wake up, eat, try to kill time, sleep, repeat. In the beginning, you thought you were just having a bad dream; that Dean, Bobby, and Cas were really there with you. However, when you tried talking to them, they were way too out of character. Dean acted like a stereotypical macho man with absolutely no personality whatsoever, Bobby’s parental instincts towards you were taken to new heights in an almost cartoony way, and Cas was a helpless imbecile.

Then there was Sam. Sam was the only one who acted like himself. You’d wake up next to him, eat meals with him. You did everything you normally did with him, except in this weird world, you weren’t hunters. It felt eerily similar to the dreams you’ve had before.

He kissed you, touched you in ways the real him would never have the courage to do, but you refused to sleep with him. No matter how many times he tried to initiate it. He wasn’t real, and this was all wrong.

He would leave at exactly 9am everyday. Those first few days, you tried finding a way to escape. You tried talking to your “friends”. You tried hurting them. You tried pleading with Sam. When nothing else worked, you tried killing him.

And he was dead. For a while. The very next day, you woke up next to him again, as if nothing happened. After that, you resigned to just doing whatever you could to not be present in the moment. You played the role of housewife, because there was nothing else you could do.

Until now.

You woke up again, expecting to see the same cream-colored walls and smell the same ever-present smell of lavender. Instead, you were in an unfamiliar room.

The first thing that hit you was that it was rancid compared to what you were used to, as if somebody tried to hide the smell of a dead body with some berry-scented perfume. You turned around, and there was Sam. He donned a fully white suit, his hair uncharacteristically slicked back.

“You’ve been very impressive,” he winked at you, taking his hands out of his pockets to give you a mocking slow clap. This was Lucifer and when you looked into his eyes, you couldn’t find a trace of Sam. “For someone so in love with him, you did a bang-up job of… well, not banging him.”

You didn’t answer.

“Aww, come on now. Giving me the silent treatment?” he stepped forward. “What if I told you… he could still hear you if you talked to him? Not that he would be able to answer. Not unless I wanted him to, of course.”

That got your attention, and it gave you a boost of courage that had otherwise been taken from you. You ran towards him, grabbing him by the collar.

“Sam? Sam! Listen to me, if you’re in there, you’ve gotta fight it! Take back control, Sam!” you pleaded desperately, your last attempt in getting your best friend back.

His expression changed, and suddenly, he grabbed your shoulders. His body language and the cadence of his voice changed as well, and for a moment, all hope was not lost. It was as if the clouds parted to reveal the sun. This was your Sam.

“You’ve got to get out of here,” he pushed you away, looking around frantically for an exit for you to use. “You have to stay away from me, you have to—”

You took several steps back, turning around to grab the doorknob, only to find that the door was just part of the wallpaper, “What—”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” it echoed from behind you. You turned around slowly, and “Sam” was standing perfectly still and upright once again. “Naughty Sam. Naughty you.”

He approached you, stopping right in front of you before he looked you up and down like a predator assessing its prey.

“So, it’s just you and me now, princess,” he tilted your chin upward to have you look at him. “You know, I can see inside Sammy’s head, and my, my, my… the thoughts he has about you aren’t as innocent as you think they are.”

You scowled at him, even if it was unnatural for you to do such a thing to Sam. This wasn’t Sam anymore, you had to remember that.

“Remember… Jessica? Oh, I bet that one broke your heart. The love of your life going off to some fancy Ivy League and getting a pretty blonde… well, if it’s any consolation, he was always thinking of you. I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason he could get off whenever he was inside her.”

He laughed, as if he said the funniest thing in the world. He traced hearts and random shapes on your cheek, his laughter dying down into a contented sigh.

“You and I are gonna have a lot of fun together,” he finally said, his hand sliding down to your neck, and then to the collar of your button-down plaid shirt. He unbuttoned it once, “Sammy’s screaming at me right now. It’s very annoying.”

He unbuttoned another one, “I don’t see why he’s not enjoying this more, honestly. After all, this is what he wanted. If anything, I’m doing him a favor.”

He leaned closer, and you desperately tried to slow down your breathing. Your heart was pounding, so much so that you were almost sure that Lucifer could hear it. You always wanted Sam, but not like this. Lucifer knew that, and so he would do exactly what he wanted.

Lucifer, in a mission to ruin you forever, took more and more of your dignity with each button he removed. Finally, when your skin was on display for only him to see, a wide grin appeared on his face. Sam’s face.

“You’re never going to be the same after this,” he promised, and all you could do was hide somewhere in your mind where even the devil couldn’t find you.

▼△▼△▼△▼△▼

Lucifer took you to a cemetery, whispering in your ear about how once Michael showed up, you were gonna see the greatest battle in history. Of course, Lucifer would win.

Ever since that night, you felt like a prisoner of your mind. It was both your safe place and your punishment. You tried to remind yourself that it wasn’t Sam; that it was Lucifer who stole your dignity. Sam would never… Sam could never hurt you the way Lucifer had.

Even in the presence of two archangels, you stayed silent, and accepted your fate. Half of the world was gonna burn to the ground when this was all over, and you just hoped that your death would be quick. You felt sick when Michael looked at you, something akin to both disgust and pity written all over his face.

Then, the familiar rev of Baby’s engine reached your ears. Your head shot up, seeing the Dean riding the Impala into the graveyard, right in front of Michael and Lucifer.

Dean got out of the car, his eyes immediately flickering over to you in worry, but he pressed forward and marched right up to the two archangels.

“Hey, we need to talk.”

Lucifer scoffed, “Dean. Even for you, this is a whole new mountain of stupid.”

“I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to Sam.”

“You’re no longer the vessel, Dean. You got no right to be here.”

Dean turned to Michael, his voice filled with sincerity and regret, “Adam, if you’re in there somewhere, I’m so sorry.”

“Adam isn’t home right now.”

Castiel and Bobby arrived, with Cas throwing a can of holy fire at Michael to keep him at bay. This irked Lucifer, who then snapped his fingers. Cas exploded, leaving behind bits and pieces of blood and flesh.

“You know… I tried to be nice, for Sammy’s sake. But you are… such a pain in my ass,” he threw Dean against the windshield of the Impala.. Bobby shot at Lucifer’s back, prompting Lucifer to twist his hand. Bobby’s neck snapped.

Your eyes widened, two of the people you cared about was just murdered by Lucifer, and you’d be damned if you weren’t gonna do something about it. You ran towards Lucifer, trying to get him away from Dean. With a flick of his hand, you were thrown against a nearby tree. The impact was enough to knock you out for a few seconds, your vision falling in and out of darkness.

You laid motionless on top of the pile of dry, dead leaves, unable to do anything but watch. Lucifer got closer to Dean, grabbing him by the legs and then punching him.

“No!” was what you wanted to say, but nothing came out. You could feel a branch poking at the skin of your back.

Lucifer kept punching Dean, over and over until Dean’s face was barely recognizable.

Then something happened.

His fist was still raised in the air, and you could see the internal war raging inside him. His hands shook, and his grip on the collar of Dean’s shirt loosened. There was a glint in his eyes, one that told you whether or not the body you were talking to was Lucifer or Sam. You held your breath, eyes lasered in his face, not sure if the person in front of you was your Sam.

For him, it felt like time had stopped. There was no apocalypse. No Lucifer. No Michael, no nothing.

All he could see was the toy soldier stuck in the Impala’s ashtray. That was enough for him. The sight of the toy, the memories etched into the car, the image of his bloodied brother in front of him who, even then, was still unwilling to fight.

The memories didn’t hit him like an outside force, they came from him, blossomed from a place he forgot about. Locked in a treasure chest he kept in the deepest corners of his soul, where not even the devil could touch it. Clear as day, he relived every single one, and with each memory, the clearing grew wider. He could crawl out and push Lucifer back.

He saw it all: the good, the bad, and the ugly. He remembered sticking that toy in the ash tray, and the stern, drunken scolding that he got from his dad soon after. He remembered him and Dean etching their initials on the car door. He remembered the fireworks. The countless nights of booze and fastfood takeout. Lying down on the hood of the car to watch the stars whenever they were in between cases. All the times Dean saved his ass, yelled at him, laughed with him, and everything in between.

His eyes met yours, and the sight of you broke his heart all over again.

Sam didn’t have much time. This much he knew. He could feel the mind-melting, soul-breaking pain of Lucifer scratching at his walls— no, he was tearing them down, howling to be in control once more. Sam could hear every single scream and whisper that Lucifer was filling his ears with and it was too much. In his gut swelled the familiar hatred that the fallen archangel harbored for humanity, and it wasn’t the boiling hot rage that most people would expect. It was the kind of hatred that flowed through each and every single blood vessel in your body; the kind that only a being as old as the devil could feel. It was quiet, deadly. It was the kind of hatred that consumed you, built up from eons of being locked in a cage like an animal. Lucifer blurred the lines between his anger and Sam’s, and that scared the younger Winchester.

But standing there with you, seeing you as if it was the first time, Sam thought he could bear it, if only a little while longer. Standing there with you made it clear that that hatred couldn’t possibly be his own, because how could he ever hate you? No, Sam Winchester loved you, and it came to him as easy as breathing.

More memories broke through, and this time, they’re of you. The way your eyes crinkled when you smiled. The sound of your laughter in the early morning. The time you helped him make a girl jealous in 8th grade when it was really just an excuse to be close to you. The time you kissed him when you were as high as a kite after getting your wisdom teeth removed.

If he closed his eyes, he could feel the ghost of your lips on his and pretend that everything was alright. Lucifer would not take this away from him.

Finally, Sam lowered his fist and gasped as his senses were flooded with everything. You could almost sob in relief, if it wasn’t for the fact that it wouldn’t be long until Michael and Lucifer came back with a vengeance, but nothing could ever be worse than what would come next. Sam took several steps back, rummaging through his pocket to retrieve the Four Horsemen’s rings. Your muscles ached as you tried to get back up, but nothing could trump the pain in your chest as you watched Sam slowly back away from Dean.

It’s cruel, probably the cruelest thing that the universe threw at you. You had seconds of clarity, and they were the seconds counting down to the love of your life’s suicide. Sam looked at Dean, and then at you, and you almost wished he didn’t. For a moment, you thought that maybe this was all some one sick, twisted nightmare and that you were gonna wake up any minute now. You blinked, but Dean was still beaten and bloody and Sam still felt so far away. There were tears in his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. Even now, he still tried to keep on a brave face for you. It almost made you smile. A tiny part of you hoped that maybe the apocalypse wouldn’t be so bad as long as you went down with him. Almost as if you wanted Lucifer to win just so you could keep Sam in the only way you could. The thought passed as quickly as it came, all while feeling like a knife had been twisted in your stomach.

“It’s gonna be okay, I got him,” he breathed heavily, stepping away from you and Dean even further. “We’re gonna be okay. Everything’s gonna be alright.”

He sounded as if he didn’t really believe himself either.

He pulled out the Horsemen’s rings from his pocket and threw them on the ground, chanting the incantation to open the cage. The ground shook, and before you knew it, a large pit had opened up in the soil. From where you stood, all you could see was a black void, but you knew what it was. It was hell. It was the deepest, darkest, most depraved part of hell and Sam was going in with a one-way ticket.

“Sammy,” your voice broke. He turns his head to look at you again. You didn’t know what to say. Did you want to stop him? Jump into the pit with him? Profess your undying love for him?

None of those options seemed right. The clock was ticking.

Ten.

You could see how scared he was, his hands trembled with the weight of what he was about to do. You wanted to go up to him, hold him, tell him that he was going to be okay, but you couldn’t. It was dangerous, yes, but you knew that if you took even just one step closer to him, you wouldn’t let him go.

Nine.

“I’m sorry,” he called you. “For everything.”

He took another step back. He knew what Lucifer did to you, and it crushed him. It took everything in him to not go to you and protect you the way he wanted to. To beg for your forgiveness.

Eight.

“Sam, please,” you begged, though you weren’t sure what you were begging for. You looked over at Dean, trying to get him to back you up. World be damned, you won’t fucking lose Sam. Dean could only stare back at you, his head hung low in defeat. He was letting go, and he was telling you to do the same.

Seven.

The air seemed to grow heavier, and Sam yelled at you and Dean to stay back. Even though it broke your heart to do so, you did as he asked, scurrying over to Dean’s side to help him get away from Sam. Dean grunted in pain, clutching your hand that was on his chest. You could feel the rapid beat of his heart under your palm.

Six.

Sam called your name, and nothing was more important. You stood up, heart clenched in anticipation.

“I need,” he took a deep breath. “I need you to know.”

Five.

“Need to know what, Sam?” a cry escaped your lungs.

“That it’s always been you,” he smiled sadly, voice barely heard over the chaos. “It was always gonna be you.”

It was odd, the way the heat rushed to your cheeks. The way your own heart beat twice, thrice as fast than it already was. You could almost let the world around you fade away. There was only Sam.

He spoke again, a little louder, a little braver, “You know that, right?”

Four.

“I know,” you tried to stifle your sobs. His admission hung in the air, filling your lungs with everything that was him. He loved you, and you always knew.

“That’s my girl,” he kept smiling, determined to make sure that that was the last thing you saw. He didn’t want you to remember his death. He just wanted you to remember him.

Sam knew why you didn’t say it, and it was for the same reason he did. It was better this way. Saying those three words would set things in stone, and especially now that he was seconds away from his death, he didn’t see the point of hurting you that much more.

Three.

Michael returned, a wave of unseen energy washing over you and Dean at his arrival. His anger distorted Adam’s young face. Panic overtook the anger, however, when he noticed just how close Sam was from jumping off the edge.

Two.

Sam closed his eyes, letting gravity pull him in. Michael screamed, rushing over to stop Sam from falling in. For a split-second, you feared the worst would come to pass. That Michael would save Sam and just resume his world-ending battle with Lucifer.

Sam’s eyes shot open when Michael’s hands tried to get him away from the pit but immediately, his gaze flickered over to you.

You, with the pain of a thousand lifetimes weighing on you, and the cuts and bruises and tears to show for it.

You, with the laughter that pulled him out of every nightmare on the days when his own mind wouldn’t let him rest.

You, with the proud, contagious smile after every hilariously bad joke, all because you wanted to see him smile, too.

His heart was yours, perhaps it had been since the beginning, but Sam knew one thing: this world was better with you in it.

With all the strength he could muster, he grabbed Michael by the lapel of Adam’s jacket, and pulled him into the pit.

Sam was gone.

One.

When the pit closed up and left nothing but the Four Horsemen’s rings behind, you forced yourself to move away from Dean and approach the rings, kneeling by the spot where the pit just was. The world was safe again, though you didn’t know how long that would last. The grass was soft under the palm of your hand, as if there wasn’t a massive doorway to hell there just moments prior. You let yourself cry; to truly pour your heart out for someone who wouldn’t be able to hear it.

You would never have another morning coffee run with him or another all-nighter spent on researching monster lore. No more pop culture debates or stitching up each other’s wounds. You would never make him smile, ruffle his hair, or hold his hand again, nor would you feel him keeping an eye on you while you slept.

Since before you hunted your first monster, Sam had been by your side. Now that you didn’t have him, it felt as though you weren’t a whole person. Like your very soul had been torn apart and its pieces were lost in the wind, never to be complete again.

Castiel returned, seemingly resurrected by none other than God Himself, and immediately helped Dean and Bobby get back up on their feet, all shiny and new. When he walked over to you, his hand reaching out to touch your cheek and heal all your wounds, you moved away. Your face was littered with small cuts from being thrown to the side by Lucifer, and you were sure there would be a massive bruise on your back from the impact.

You still refused to be healed.

“Let it be,” you told Cas quietly. He frowned, hesitant to heed your request, but he obliged anyway.

Seconds. It only took seconds for you to lose everything. You didn’t know what you were feeling; if only there was a word, any word, for you to explain to Dean, Cas, maybe Bobby, the way you felt everything and nothing at the same time.

Truth be told, you were lucky to have only lost one person, but the lingering question in your mind was why did it have to be the person who meant everything to you? There was no answer, and the silence was the worst of it. Sam wasn’t there to tell you that he’s okay, and he won’t be able to ever again. Your injuries ached. You almost welcomed the discomfort, desperate for anything to keep you grounded.

A large hand rested on your shoulder. It was Dean. You shared a look with him, a silent exchange of “I’m sorry” and “I’m here” to each other. In your grief, it was easy to forget that Dean had lost his baby brother, just as you had lost the love of your life. Moments later, Bobby stood beside the two of you. Three people brought together in grief that they weren’t sure they could ever recover from. You knew then and there, that you’d spend the rest of your life picking up the tiny little pieces of your heart, trying to be okay. Because that’s what Sam would’ve wanted.

You would never know so many things. The pain he’d go through. The fact that as he fell into the darkness, white-hot flames burning his flesh, he thought of you. Poked and prodded, stabbed and skinned, broken and put back together just to be broken again. What Sam knew, even if you didn’t, was that he’d make this same choice again and again because he knew you would be okay.

Sam Winchester died, and it came as easy to him as loving you.

#sam winchester x reader #sam winchester #sam winchester fanfic #supernatural fanfic #supernatural #dean winchester #jared padalecki #reader insert

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limedane21 · 1 year

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It's God's Will [Vash x Reader][1/3]

Word Count: ~3.5k Description: The gang wakes up after a night of celebration. Problem is no one remembers the night and there might have been a wedding? A/N: Lowkey a crackfic but it got out of hand. No Roberto, he didn’t fit into the story so he isn’t in this one lol. [Part 2] [Part 3]

You didn’t want to wake up, willing yourself back into the dream you were slowly rousing from. You haven’t had such a nice dream in a while, even as you realized how actually bizarre it was as you replayed it in your head. Wolfwood was officiating you and Vash’s wedding with Meryl being the only attendee, cheering on from the church benches. Your bed was so comfortable and the sun warming you just right, you could almost imagine Vash lying behind you as you pretended the dream was real.

Sadly you aren’t able to stay asleep so you opened your eyes. You were in a hotel room you had no recollection of getting into the night before. It was very musty with a good amount of dust and rusted metal. In front of you was another bed, untouched, with a dresser between. The sun shone through the only window above the dresser, casting light on the floor where you saw your pack and boots and a very familiar-looking red coat.

Suddenly you felt a breath behind you making the hairs on the back of your neck stand. You cautiously turned your head over to see Vash, facing you as he slept on his stomach. You blinked trying to distinguish memory, reality, and dream. You slowly flipped over and spotted the ring on Vash’s finger. Your confusion grew as you looked to your own hand to see you too had a ring. They were both clearly part of a pair with red inlays that decorated the simple gold bands.

You had to figure out what happened last night. All you know for certain is that after everyone saved the town from a gang overlord, the townsfolk treated you to a party where everyone got wasted. And there might have been a wedding? Not wanting to explain that if you had to, you slipped off your ring. You carefully grasped Vash’s hand and slowly removed his ring. His fingers twitched and you knew your time was short. Once the ring was off, you quickly left the bed.

You and Vash were still wearing your clothes from the night before and with all your stuff on the floor you imagined you and Vash probably immediately went to bed. You stared at the rings in your hand, questions floating in your head. The weirdness of your dream could be explained by the alcohol, so does that mean it did happen? Will anyone remember? Is Wolfwood even certified to perform weddings?

You heard Vash take a deep inhale and start to move in the sheets. Panicking, you quickly messed up the sheets on the other bed, hiding the rings in your hand behind you as you sat on said bed.

When you looked back to Vash, he was yawning, his eyes fluttering open.

“Morning,” you greeted, sticking the rings in your back pocket, “Did you sleep well?”

“Mmm, yeah,” Vash smiled, sketching out, “I had a really nice dream.”

You couldn’t help but smile back at Vash’s cute face, “That’s good.”

You took a look out the window as you heard Vash sit up. It looked to be late morning or early afternoon.

“What about you?” Vash yawned.

“Oh, I slept well—” You turned back to Vash, your eyes widening.

Vash’s prosthetic arm was mostly missing, everything from the elbow down was gone. He looked at you confused before following your eye line. Lifting the missing arm, he just stared at it, probably trying to remember where it was.

“Do you remember anything from last night?” You prompted.

“I remember drinking,” Vash said before putting his hand behind his head as he turned to you smiling, “But that’s about it. You?”

You shook your head until you are a hundred percent sure what happened you will not bother Vash with the maybe-not-a-dream wedding, “Not really. I only remember early in the night. Mostly just us drinking at the bar and you had your arm then.”

Vash hummed before suddenly paling. You lept up, knowing that was Vash’s ‘I had too much to drink’ face. You grabbed his mostly missing arm as he put a hand over his mouth. You made it to the bathroom in time and left to give Vash some privacy. You quickly found a small bag to store the rings in and hid them at the bottom of your pack as Vash emptied his stomach.

“How about you relax in bed for a bit while I get you some breakfast?” you said as he walked back into the room.

Vash sat down on his bed, “Yeah, maybe see if the others are up and know anything?”

“I’ll see,” you grabbed your boots and sat next to Vash as you put them on, “Though I don’t even know if we are all in the same hotel. I just hope we paid for this and didn’t just barge into a random room and fell asleep.”

Vash laughed which made you smile, you were hoping to keep his spirits up.

You stood up and waved at Vash, grabbing your pack, “I’ll be back soon. Take it easy.”

You exited the room and looked down both ways down the hall. You really don’t remember getting here. You turned right and walked to the end of the hall. Luckily there was a staircase you went down and walked to the clerk.

“Morning,” you greeted.

“Oh god it's you,” the clerk replied.

You paused, “Uh… I’m sober now? Please tell me I paid for the room, if not—”

“No, no you did,” your shoulders relaxed, “But your whole group could barely form a sentence. I was shocked you all could get to your rooms.”

“Oh so everyone’s here?” that made things easier, “Has anyone else come down yet?”

“Nope,” the clerk shook his head, “You’re the first.”

“When did we come in?” you needed to get some sure of timeline started.

“About five am,” he replied.

You nodded and bid the clerk a good day before heading out into the morning sun. You put your hand over your eyes, you may not get as hungover as everyone else but your eyes still didn’t like how bright the sun was. You decided to go to the last place you remembered, the bar. There weren’t a lot of people out as you walked, probably because of the big party that happened the night before.

The bar was a mess when you entered. Many of the chairs and tables were overturned and puddles of you didn’t even want to know littered the floor. You saw the bartender from yesterday cleaning glasses behind the counter so you walked up to her.

“Morning, Y/N,” she smiled as you approached, “I hope you aren’t too ill. Seems like everyone else is.”

You chuckled, “Nah, I’m fine. I do have some questions though.”

“Oh? I hope they aren’t hard ones,” the bartender replied.

You leaned up on the counter, “Depends. Do you remember what happened last night? Specifically me and my friends?”

“Ah, well. You all stayed here for a while, drinking. Drinking a lot. The undertaker would come and go later in the night. Honestly, around one AM your whole group disappeared, no one knew where y’all went. We just assumed you and your friends went to the hotel.” the bartender said, “Oh, I do remember that little reporter taking a lot of photos that night, maybe they’ll have the answers to your questions?”

You felt your eyes light up in both happiness and dread. On one hand, you’ll learn if your dream was real (and you are believing more and more, it is) but on the other, you don’t want the others to remember. You and Vash were good friends sure, but you didn’t know if he felt anything more like you do. And you certainly didn’t want to ruin what you have. But on the other, other hand, you really needed to find where Vash’s arm went.

You thanked the bartender and went back outside. You figured you would talk to Meryl about the photos later. You doubted she got them developed while blackout drunk. You found a small sandwich shop and ordered a few for you and Vash. On your way back, you see a dark figure stumbling around on the porch outside the hotel. It was Wolfwood.

“I see you lived,” you said, walking up to him as he pulled out a smoke.

He just grunted in return.

You didn’t want to ask but you had to, “Do you remember anything from last night?”

His brows furrowed, “Not really, I remember the bar.”

You pressed your lips together, how did the majority of your group just lose several hours, “Well, Vash is missing his arm so if you remember anything that’ll be helpful.”

His eyes widened, “Needle-noggin lost his arm?” he laughed, “That idiot. Wait, you’ve seen him?”

You definitely didn’t like the glint in the priest’s eyes, “Yes, I’ve seen him,” you tersely replied before heading into the hotel, trusting you’ll get nothing more from the undertaker.

“Hey, wait for me” he called out, following you.

You found your hotel room and knocked on the door.

“Come in!” Vash called from inside.

“Wait a minute,” Wolfwood started, “How do you know what room Vash is in?”

You ignored him as you opened the unlocked door and walked through it.

“Ohhhh, I see,” Wolfwood smirked as he walked in with you.

You turned around and glared at him to shut up which thankfully he did if only to grin at you, signaling he wasn’t done messing with you. Vash was sitting up in bed already. It was weird not seeing the prosthetic. You sat next to him and pulled out one of the sandwiches, unwrapping it and handing it to Vash. He immediately started scarfing it down.

“Careful, you wouldn’t want you to throw up again,” you cautioned as you unwrapped your own sandwich.

“So,” Wolfwood started, leaning against the far wall with his cross, “How’d you lose your arm, Needle-noggin?”

“I don’t remember,” Vash replied, peeking inside the bag you put on your lap and grabbing another sandwich.

“Does anyone remember last night?” Wolfwood asked, crossing his arms.

Vash was struggling to unwrap the sandwich so you set aside yours and took it, unwrapping it for him. He smiled and muttered a quick ‘thank you’ before digging in.

You turned back to Wolfwood and shrugged, “Maybe Meryl? She’s the only one who I haven’t seen yet.”

With that, a loud slam of a door sounded in the hall outside you and Vash’s room. Everyone’s heads turned and Wolfwood pushed off the wall and walked over to see what was going on outside.

“Oh hey, Wolfwood,” you heard Meryl’s voice outside the room.

You couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation as you finished your sandwich. You glanced over at Vash, to find him looking at you. You were immediately lost in his blue eyes before noticing his bedhead. His hair was going in every which direction so you ran your fingers through it, hoping to fix it. It didn’t help much but Vash hummed contently, his eyes closing.

Meryl and Wolfwood returned to the room and snickered at you and Vash. You just glared as Vash waved to the two.

“Hello, Meryl!” he said.

“Where the hell did your arm go?” Meryl asked, pointing at Vash’s missing arm, apparently that wasn’t part of the conversation outside.

“Uh, I lost it?” Vash laughed, rubbing the back of his head, “Do you remember anything?”

Meryl facepalmed before answering, “No… Most of last night is lost to me.”

“Great so everyone got blackout drunk,” Wolfwood said, sitting on the bed across from you and Vash.

“I already asked the bartender this morning if she knew what happened,” you explained what you found out, “She said we left at one am and the clerk downstairs said we checked in at five. Which means we are missing quite a few hours.”

Everyone was silent as they were trying to remember those hours. Vash was peeking into the sandwich bag again.

“Hey, Meryl,” she turned to you, “The bartender said you took a lot of photos, do you have the film?”

“It should be in my room,” Meryl said, “Do you think there’s a development place in town?”

“There’s one,” Vash looked around for a second before pointing in a random direction, “That way.”

Meryl clasped her hands together, “Great, you can go and drop the film off. I need to write a report on what happened last night with the whole gang thing.”

With that, Meryl spun around and left the room. Vash was back digging into the bag, pulling out the last sandwich. He stared at it lost for a second before you plucked it out of his hand and started unwrapping it. This one was yours but you can get a snack later. At least Vash is eating, you reasoned.

“Are you well enough to go out?” you asked him, handing the unwrapped sandwich back to him.

“Yeah, don’t worry about me,” Vash replied, taking a big bite into his now third sandwich.

“Now you’re making me hungry,” Wolfwood commented, getting up from the bed, “I’m going to find something to eat. Let me know how that arm hunt goes.”

As Wolfwood left, Meryl returned with the film in hand and handed it to you, “Let me know as soon as you find anything, alright? My room number is 221.”

“Will do,” Vash replied, as you put the film roll into your pack.

“Thanks, bye," With that Meryl left, leaving your room door open.

You shook your head and got up from the bed, grabbing Vash's boots that were scattered on the floor. You set them in front of Vash and helped him put them on, lightly smacking his hand away when he tried to do it himself.

"I'm pretty useless without my arm, aren't I?" Vash said with a sad smile on his lips.

"That's not true," you immediately replied, you hated when Vash would get all self-loathing, "I'm just helping you out since you had a rough morning. Besides, I need you to show me where the film development place is."

"It hasn’t been that bad of a day, " Vash countered, "Waking up with you sl—" he cut himself off.

"Hmm?" You prompted, finishing off tying his boots and looking up at him.

"Ah, nothing," Vash wasn’t looking at you, "It's nothing."

Vash was hiding something but you decided not to press. He may not be good at hiding things but if he decided not to say something you’ll never get it out of him. You stood up and grabbed Vash's coat off the floor, patting off the dirt and dust. Vash got up from the bed and let you slip it on. While you slung your pack over your shoulder, Vash took his glasses off the dresser and put them on, grabbing his own pack.

You both checked out at the front desk and made your way outside. The truck was parked nearby and Vash went, putting his pack in the back. He returned to your right side, his eyes squinting in the sun. His hair glowed in the sunlight and you became entranced as you looked at him. He noticed you staring and smiled at you. You smiled awkwardly back, embarrassed you were caught. His left shoulder moved and confusion flashed across Vash’s face as he remembered his arm was gone. He then walked behind you to be at your left and took your hand in his.

“Wha—”

“C’mon, let’s go,” Vash laughed, dragging you down the street.

“How far is the development place anyway?” you asked; you and Vash now matching pace, hands still together.

“Not too far,” Vash replied, “Say, what do you want to do while we wait?”

“I don’t know,” you shrugged, “I might get a snack soon since you ate one of my sandwiches.”

Vash’s left shoulder moved again and his expression soured a bit, “Sorry about that. You should have said something.”

“It’s fine,” you and Vash turned a corner, “I still have some double dollars left to splurge. Surprisingly, it wasn’t all spent on booze yesterday.”

“That’s good,” Vash stopped, “Oh, here we are.”

You looked up at the worn sign that read ‘Phillip’s Photography and more’. It was a smaller shop near the outskirts of town, mostly made of metal and sandstone. A bell rang as you pushed the door in, holding it open for Vash. The customer area only had a few chairs and the front desk and the walls were covered in photos. Behind the counter were several printers and a separate room for photo development. You walked up to the counter as an older man came from the back room, ink covering his apron.

“Hello,” you greeted, pulling out the film from your pack, “I was hoping you could develop this film as soon as possible.”

“Hmm,” the man looked at the film roll, “There’s a fee for rush orders.”

“Ah, please,” Vash whined, “Those photos could help me find my arm and we aren’t exactly made of money here.”

The man looked up, his serious expression changing in an instant, “Oh my, I didn’t realize our savior was here. Of course, I’ll get this film developed in fifteen minutes, no charge.”

Before you or Vash could respond the man rushed into the back. You turned to Vash.

“Just give people the puppy eyes and they’ll give you anything,” you commented.

Vash smiled nervously, his hand on the back of his head, “I just didn’t want you to pay the fee.”

A bang on the window behind you made you jump. Vash and you saw several children waving. Vash waved back and walked out to greet them. You stood at the doorway as the children excitedly talked to Vash about everything and anything.

“Hey, what happened to your arm,” one of the children noticed the loose sleeve.

“I seemed to have lost it last night,” Vash said before kneeling to their level, “Say, do you think you can look around and see if you can find it? I’ll get you all some ice cream if you are able to find it.”

The children immediately became detectives and started the search, splitting off in every direction and recruiting more to the search party.

“It’s going to be a lot of ice cream if they find it,” you said.

Vash made an eek sound before turning back to you, “I didn’t think that through.”

You sighed, the puppy eyes working on you, “I’ll cover it. I just hope it’s in town and not buried in the sand somewhere.”

“What do you think happened anyway?” Vash asked.

You both returned inside and sat on the chairs.

“Well,” you started, figuring how to word it right, “none of us had any wounds. Other than the missing arm,” you quickly added, “So no fights. We might have just partied at some other location. If we find it, that could give us some clues.”

Vash looked at his hand, “It must have been one hell of a party,” he laughed.

You chuckled, “Yeah, the best ones are the ones you don’t remember the next day.”

Several minutes passed as you and Vash waited for the photos. You occasionally saw a child run by the store. Vash had gotten bored and started looking at the photos that littered the walls. You closed your eyes and lightly napped.

You heard the shop owner walk over, “It looks like one of your friends had your arm, Mr. Vash.”

You immediately swung your legs as you got out of your seat and walked to the counter. The shop owner held the photo he was referencing and an envelope with the rest. Plucking the envelope out of his hand, you looked at the photo the owner held out to Vash, who took it and angled it so you both could see it.

The photo was of the group still at the bar, you and Vash were front and center, smiling at the camera with drinks in your hands. In the background, Wolfwood held Vash’s arm above his head, saying something. Clearly, Vash didn’t care that his arm was either stolen or given to the priest.

Vash chuckled, “Do you think Wolfwood remembers what he did with it?”

You shook your head, “I have no idea, maybe showing him the image will jog his memory?”

Before Vash could reply, the gaggle of children busted in and started yelling and grabbing onto Vash’s coat.

“We found it! We found it!” the children yelled, “C’mon, follow me, follow me!”

“Hey, wait a second,” Vash handed you the photo as he tried to keep the children from dragging him out the door, “Y/N!”

“I’ll catch up with you,” you called back, “Go get your arm.”

“Okay, I’ll see—” Vash was dragged out the door before he could finish.

You sighed in relief; you couldn’t have timed it better yourself.

“Congratulations by the way,” the shop owner said, winking at you.

[Part 2] [Part 3]

#vash x reader #vash x gn!reader #vash x you #trigun stampede #vash the stampede #vash

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i9messi · 7 months

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Begin again — Frenkie de Jong

You and Frenkie used to be together, until miscommunication tore your relationship apart. Now you cross paths again in Hawaii. Is it too late for a second chance?

Word count — 1,2k

a/n: it's been a long time since the last time I wrote about frenkie, but here i am! this is for those who wanted to read something about him<3 i love frenkie

You grabbed your bags and got on the plane, not looking back and not worrying about anything at all. Traveling to Hawaii was a dream coming true, something you had dreamed of since you were practically a child.

You had hesitated to get on that plane and travel to the island. At the moment of planning your trip, you weren’t thinking of going alone. Your ex-boyfriend, Frenkie, was the one who had planned it with you. You had chosen the destination, the hotel and even the activities you were going to do. Since your relationship had ended, you didn't speak again. You didn’t want to miss the chance to visit Hawaii, so you grabbed the bags and decided not to miss the opportunity.

However, when you sat in your place on the plane, right next to the window, a while later you saw a face you knew very well approaching you. His blond hair, his pale complexion and his eyes that could pierce your soul. It was Frenkie. Frenkie was there and it wasn't a hallucination. It wasn’t like those times you walked down the street and thought you saw him in the crowd. This time it was real, your eyes weren’t fooling you. His eyes met you and there was a moment when none of you knew what to do.

"Frenkie."

To see the one who had once been your boyfriend wasn't probably something enjoyable, but the truth was that things had not ended badly with him. Your relationship used to be beautiful, but your jobs, distance and poor communication had made you decide to take different paths. You had never spoken again, expecting the other to make the first move. None of you made the first move, until now, when both of you met each other after so long.

"Hi, how have you been?"

You smiled, "Well, I guess. And you?"

"Well."

You missed him. Your friends knew, you knew. Frenkie had always been the one, the man you’d fallen in love with.

"It’s good to see you. I didn’t know you were coming too."

You admitted, seeing him sit on the seat next to you. Your arms brushed for a brief second, you felt a stream of energy that went straight to your belly, where you felt butterflies.

"I love Hawaii. I wouldn’t miss it for anything in the world."

"Me neither, I want to swim with the dolphins."

Both had spoken so much about your journey in the past, that as long as time had passed and you were no longer together, your feelings about the journey had not changed.

"Will this be awkward?" he asked, when both kept silent.

You shook your head. "We can be friends, Frenkie. We used to be friends."

He smiled. A sincere smile, which made him shine. Frenkie was much more than an ex-boyfriend, he had been your everything. He was the kindest person you knew, someone who had supported you in everything you did. Before being a couple, you had had a nice friendship that lasted a long time, until you fell in love and none could hide their feelings for much longer.

"I’d like to be your friend again."

The rest of the way on the plane was pleasant, while all the people slept to kill time, you two talked like never before. However, upon arriving at the hotel, the two of you realized a detail you had overlooked. There was only one bed.

"I can go and ask for another room. I don’t want it to be awkward for any of us."

He kept his gaze on you and saw your reaction. You accepted, but when he came back, you saw that he seemed a little hesitant.

"What happened?"

"There is no other room."

It wasn't what either of you expected. Sleeping in the same bed was not among your plans, long ago you had stopped having intimate touches and sharing privacy. It was like taking back something you’d lost. But you had no choice. The first night, it was pretty weird having Frenkie so close to you. The second night, you slowly got used to it. And the third night, you woke up hugging him, with his arms wrapped around your body, as if he never wanted to let you go. Not again.

During the day, you went to the beach. As he went into the water, you looked at him from a distance. He was beautiful. Frenkie was beautiful. Your heart had never stopped beating for him, and having spent those nights together, sharing again the closeness, made a part of you want to get him back. You wanted to stay there, spend your time with him in Hawaii and forget you ever broke up. Everything felt right, you were by his side and nothing else mattered.

When Frenkie returned to your side, you were sitting on a blanket, looking at the horizon. You were holding a smoothie with a little alcohol in your hand.

"How is your family? I forgot to ask." he said.

"They’re fine, they’re sure to go crazy when I tell them you’re here too. They miss you so much."

"And I miss them."

After a while, he spoke again.

"Have you adopted a dog?"

You had once shared to him the idea of adopting a dog, just once.

"Do you remember that?"

"Of course I remember that, did you really think I’d forget?"

You smiled.

"I was thinking of adopting a dog, but..."

"But?"

"Nothing."

Frenkie took your hand, an involuntary move. You had been so used to holding your hands when you used to be together that to stop doing so had been the worst thing in the world. Now that he had you around, it was as if his body couldn’t forget that you were no longer together. It was a reflex, a muscle memory.

"I know we’re not as close as before, but you can tell me things."

You knew it. It was Frenkie. Frenkie would never judge you for anything, he was probably the only person you could be honest with. He knew you better than anyone. So you decided to tell him the truth.

"It feels weird to adopt a dog that’s not yours and mine. When I imagined adopting a furry animal, I imagined the two of us being parents. I figured you’d come back from training and we’d welcome you, — I thought when I got back from work, you and him would be in the kitchen, the dog would lie down or maybe he or she would be playing with toys and you’d be making dinner. I thought we’d take him for a walk, the two of us holding hands and knowing that everything was fine."

He was silent and so were you. There was a pain in your heart. You wanted everything to be what it once was, you wanted to begin again.

He called you by your name.

"Yes, Frenkie?"

"Can I kiss you?”

You looked at him, you couldn’t hold it back, so you nodded. Frenkie closed the distance between him and your lips. It was a kiss you had long longed for, a kiss you did not know how to explain. In the midst of the moment, you asked yourself what was happening. At the time, you wanted Frenkie to be yours and you his. Why couldn’t things be like before?

When your mouths split, you tried to get your oxygen back. You listened to the sound of the water and your heart beating.

"Frenkie, what’s all of this?"

"Listen, I think, I think we found each other again for a reason. It’s our second chance. Give me a second chance and we’ll do this again. Everything will be fine this time."

You knew that in a world of boys, he was a gentleman. That he was your soul mate, that no matter what, you would still be in love with him.

"I don’t think I ever stopped loving you. Ever." you admitted.

He smiled, a nostalgic smile. His eyes gleamed.

"I never stopped thinking about you. I just didn’t have the courage to call you. Maybe my subconscious knew you’d be here, that I should get on the plane and get you back. I’m glad I came here."

"I love you."

"And I love you, Frenkie. We’ll make things right this time."

#frenkie de jong preference #frenkie de jong x y/n #frenkie de jong fluff #frenkie de jong imagine #frenkie de jong x reader #frenkie de jong #de jong #barcelona fc #barca fc #frenkie de jong one shot #frenkie de jong one shots

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apparitionism · 9 months

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Tabled 7

And with this at-long-last final part, Tabled (my lengthy @b-and-w-holiday-gift-exchange offering for @barbarawar ) comes to an end. Does that end justify the tortuous (and torturous) trip? Probably not, but something something journey destination... it all began with “Myka sits at tables and tells lies,” and part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, and part 6 gave what I hope was a reasonable explanation for how Myka might have so fallen, as well as how she could have begun to scramble up (spoiler: with a lot of help). Anyway, she’s just got back to South Dakota—having come to a tentative understanding with Helena—only to find Mrs. Frederic waiting for her at the airport (!!).

Tabled 7

Myka has spent an evening, a night, and the entire subsequent day on her trek back to South Dakota, so her trip as a whole has now stretched to over thirty-six hours, during which she’s had emotional nadirs, shocks, and acmes; adrenaline overloads, ebbs, and re-overloads; minimal amounts of minimally palatable airport food; and far too much coffee, both interior and exterior. She desperately needs a shower, clean clothes, and, above absolutely all, some sleep lying down in a bed. Some sleep that way.

So she’s having trouble processing what she sees. Has Mrs. Frederic divined her ultimate intention and thus appeared here to prevent her from burning it all down? This possibility should strengthen her resolve; instead, it makes her want to turn and run away.

Unfortunately, she’s now through security, and she can’t turn around. Thanks a lot, DHS.

But please, she goes on to pray, not another table. And: Extra-please, not another lecture about children.

Can the people around her in the airport see Mrs. Frederic? They seem to be moving more slowly, less noisily, than reality usually offers. Or are they? It’s hard to know, here in this quiet, draggy little transit-place...

Mrs. Frederic puts a bow on the weird by pronouncing, “I have spoken with several people today. Yet you are my determinative interlocutor.”

That sounds like Myka might be a very few words away from being sent to a penal colony. Or, no: bronzed. The ultimate irony. Utterly Warehousian.

“I have for you the following salient information,” Mrs. Frederic continues, and Myka doesn’t even bother bracing herself, because she’ll have to take it, regardless. She might as well be rattled by the full impact. “I am prepared to have words with Agent Lattimer.”

She should have braced. “You are?” she asks, wishing she could sound indifferent about the prospect, wishing the idea of such words didn’t add fuel to her gut’s terror that Mrs. Frederic knows all about Myka’s meeting with Helena, a terror now compounded by the prospect of her telling Pete of it, and the further prospect that his having been told will be an additional, far higher bar over which Myka must clamber.

“Should those words occur,” Mrs. Frederic says, and now Myka does brace, “your brief liaison will seem but a dream to him.”

What... what? No bar, no clamber? Instead, deliverance? Myka, whiplash-befuddled, is struck dumb.

Mrs. Frederic waits. Her patience, as long as it lasts, is admirable, if surprising. Then she quirks an eyebrow.

It makes Myka think of Helena—and that allows her to breathe. To soften.

Mrs. Frederic softens too: she lowers the eyebrow. “Is that truly what you wish?” she asks, carefully, as if she’s prepared also to withdraw credit from the source who conveyed to her the substance of Myka’s wants. As if Myka, given one last beneficent chance, can surely be gentled into exercising her better judgment and choosing the certain path.

The sliver of solicitude allows Myka to consider Mrs. Frederic’s motives with a new charity: she may have been driven not by stereotype, as Myka has suspected, nor malice, as she has feared, but rather by a thoughtful assessment of availability—i.e., here are the Warehouse’s extant resources, and here is how they may best be deployed to ensure an acceptable balance of efficacy and safety.

Myka has spent a great many hours on airplanes and in airports preparing herself for the burn-it-down possibility, but the fact of the matter is that she, too, cares about efficacy.

She cares even more about safety.

The additional fact of the matter, however, is that she wants a future untethered from such calculations—except as reckoned by, and between, her and Helena.

So if Mrs. Frederic is willing to help fix what she had a heavy hand in breaking? There’s probably a downside, but Myka will suffer it for this unexpected upside.

“Yes. It is. Thank you,” she says.

“No,” Mrs. Frederic says, now differently severe. “Agent Jinks.”

“Steve? What about him?”

“Thank him.”

****

Myka finds the B&B dark and silent, lacking even a video-game glow and hum from Claudia’s room. Sadly, the quietude doesn’t yield sleep; rather than knitting up her exceptionally raveled sleeve of care, she tries and fails to keep “here’s how this might go” scenarios from playing in her head until she can reasonably go downstairs and begin making morning noises.

As the others appear, she tries to act as if nothing has changed.

Claudia enthuses, “Storms no match for you!” which is flattering but of course entirely untrue.

Pete is in his too-early-to-do-more-than-grunt mode, but he seems to care more about his bowl of Lucky Charms than he does about anything to do with Myka, which tells her that Mrs. Frederic has almost certainly had the promised words with him. The way that buoys her—her shoulders move down and away from her ears, where she hadn’t even realized they’d taken up residence—is probably unseemly, but she doesn’t care.

Then Abigail walks in, and her eye-flick between Pete and Myka suggests she knows everything, which she probably does, but even if she all she might have had were suspicions, they’ve probably been confirmed by Myka’s radical change in posture.

A twinge of guilt at having allowed her body to reveal her relief visits Myka... but she quashes it. That guilt is about parts of the past she’s supposed to be ignoring. Practice. Practice.

When Steve emerges, he busies himself with the first steps of making scrambled eggs. Myka reads this as a tactic, for on workdays Steve generally eats two unheated Pop-Tarts at speed. On lazier mornings, he might undertake toast, but eggs are the rarest of production numbers... and indeed, no one but Myka waits through his meticulous preparation.

“You want some?” he asks, but he’s already sliding his results onto two plates. “Airports,” he says, handing her one.

“So hard to find something normal,” she agrees, “and even when you think you might have, you’re still in a place that isn’t.”

“Sounds like you’re talking about every day here.”

His affect effortlessly encompasses both “perpetually surprised new guy” and “perpetually resigned old hand.” Myka loves him for that facility. “Not about these eggs, though,” she says around mouthfuls, “so thanks.” She pushes her empty plate away. “And, also, thanks.”

“I’ve never seen anyone eat food that fast, so thanks back for the demonstration. But also thanks why?”

“You’re welcome, and also you know why: I have you to thank. Or so I hear from someone who miraculously shifted her thinking about what’s best for me,” and she concludes, “you miracle.”

He gives a little smile and head-shake. “You said to protect you, so that’s what I did. Differently. Once I figured out you were telling me things had changed.”

His figuring? Correct, regardless of anything Myka might have intended to be saying. “Things did change,” she acknowledges, “like you said they would. But listen, what you did. The risk. You shouldn’t have taken that risk for me. In fact people in general should stop taking risks on my behalf.”

His smile grows wider. “We will when you will. Reciprocally.”

“No, no,” Myka says, “I need to take more. On my behalf and everybody else’s.”

“All the more reason you should have the right backup.”

“Well, so should you,” Myka says, fully aware, and fully remorseful, that she hasn’t provided any such thing.

Steve’s smile shifts in a way she doesn’t understand. “I think I’m going to. Maybe in not too long? You know Claud’s doing a lot more Caretakering now.” The doorbell rings. “Oooh, if that’s who I think it is, somebody’s timing is something.”

“Is it?” Myka asks. She trails, a confused duckling, behind Steve as he heads to the door.

“I think you’re about to meet my new partner,” he says.

Myka doesn’t bother asking “Am I?” as he swings the door open, because questions are not being answered sensically.

Her exhaustion is comprehensive, so it’s no surprise she’s hallucinating. She says it aloud, directing a slack-jawed “I’m hallucinating” at both Steve and the doorway-framed Helena as they stand before her, their smiles bizarrely rhyming blends of sheepishness and pride.

They don’t respond. This supports the hallucination conclusion.

Myka moves her right hand, minimally; in this way, she touches Steve, a little backhand to his torso. The purple cotton of his shirt is softer than her knuckles expect.

With her left hand, she reaches out, reaches through the doorway, and pushes, probably harder than she should, against Helena’s right shoulder. Nothing there is soft. The shoulder resists.

Fine. Not a hallucination. Not even a hologram. Everyone’s physically here, breathing and taking up space.

“Her timing,” Myka says to Steve. She’s not quite ready to speak directly to Helena. “It’s definitely something.”

Helena says, “Ssh. Let me reveal my shortcomings to my new partner in my own time.” She’s surpassingly beautiful, here in this moment: glowing with mischief and morning sun.

It’s too much. Myka squints and looks away, back to the comfort of Steve. “Your new partner?” she asks him. “Really?”

“Seems so,” Steve says, right as Helena offers, “As I understand it,” and Myka hears a harmony as their voices overlap. She hadn’t seen this coming, but she might have heard it, if she had thought to listen close enough.

But how could she have thought to, before today? “You both make the world turn a little faster than I’m comfortable with,” she tells Steve.

His smile persists. “Call me on that, no problem. But you really want to argue with H.G. Wells, who by the way is standing right here”—and he gives her a little “you really are, right?” look, which she answers with a minimalist palms-up “I suppose” shrug; more harmony—“about how time moves?”

“If history is any guide,” Helena says to him, “that and many other elements of the oeuvre.”

“I just didn’t think I’d be doing it this morning, is all,” Myka says. She’s trying to bring herself to speak to both of them, but Steve remains her direction of safety.

His brow wrinkles. “If this isn’t okay...”

It would be nice to be able to reassure him, but. “No idea if it’s okay.”

His face clears. “I appreciate your telling the truth. And I guess your voice is less agitated than it could be.”

This garners a snort from Helena. “My dear new partner. Your understatement is a balm.”

“We’ll see if I can keep that up,” he says, visibly nervous.

Myka is, now, able to address Helena. About Steve. “He can. Not always understatement, but the balm part.”

“I’m glad to know it,” Helena says, directing at Steve a formal incline of head.

That incline. Its sweet propriety. Glad. Glad. “I’m glad you’re here,” Myka tells her.

“Thank you,” Helena says. She doesn’t need to add “for saying.” Her hair is shining, here—here!—in this morning sun that illuminates the entryway. Such light visits this space every morning, but Myka has never before seen it ignite Helena’s hair.

This day: new.

“I have something in the car for you,” Helena goes on. “Wait.” She exits the doorway, moving out of the sunbeam’s path. A bright loss.

Myka turns back to Steve. “Wait,” she echoes, shrugging. “There’s not enough time in the world for me to explain to you why that’s ironic.”

“Your own private irony.”

“But you did spare me some waiting. Some not-knowing waiting. And way more than that,” she says, because it needs saying, “you spared me the hard part.”

“I don’t know her very well yet, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t.”

“Oh,” Myka says, because of course she’d meant detaching herself from Pete, but Steve is (also of course) wise and right: each day, however few or many she and Helena manage, will no doubt have its hard parts. Each day of those few or many might itself be the hard part. “But how did you... I mean, did you have this plan all along? Partner and all, and Mrs. Frederic started nodding along as you said it all out loud?”

“Oh god no. I was just trying to ease her away from the you-and-Pete thing, as gently as possible. Turns out she wanted H.G. back ages ago.”

No. No. “She what.”

Steve nods, looking sick. “But—and I hate to be the one telling you this—she thought you didn’t want H.G. back.”

Myka feels sick. The non-sense of this day... no: of these days. “She what,” she says again.

“Because you left her in Boone, she said.”

“Helena was forced to stay in Boone!” she protests, or tries to.

“But you didn’t fight anybody on it. So she thought you were okay with it.”

Of course. Here’s Myka’s inaction again, kicking her legs out from under her. “But if she wanted to bring Helena back, why didn’t she just... do that? Once she decided it was safe to let her out of Boone?”

“Like I said, she thought you didn’t want H.G. to come back. So she was trying to make sure it wouldn’t matter so much to you. If it happened. If you had something else to focus on.”

“Pete,” Myka says, the very idea a heaviness. “Kids?”

“I’m not saying I can read her mind, but yeah, I think that’s how that went. I can tell you she was really surprised to hear you were meeting with H.G. yesterday.”

“In a hotel room in an airport in Chicago,” Myka says. The base fact of it. “Do I want to know how you explained that?”

“All I explained was the airport in Chicago,” Steve says. “I didn’t know about the hotel room part.”

Right. Myka hadn’t said that part out loud. “It’s not what it sounds like.”

“Interesting utterance,” he says, cocking his head, like he’s waiting for more. “Not an immediate lie, But the eventual truth-value, plus my possible eventual headache, depend on what you think I think it sounds like.”

It’s a privilege, this glimpse into the complications of his gift; nevertheless, Myka winces. “I think you think it sounds like what I think it sounds like,” she says. “Like I wish it didn’t. Because I swear to you, it’s not that.”

She prepares herself to dig in and hash out the truth-values, but Steve says, “I get it. No dirty work in those words.”

No dirty work: it’s a diploma. In reverse. Disqualification.

“Anyway I don’t think I made a lot of sense explaining any of it to Mrs. Frederic,” he finishes.

“Enough to save me,” Myka says.

“Yes. Because if you could be happy.”

“You said that before.”

“I did. But now I mean, if you could be happy.”

“If... then?” she asks, logic being what it is.

“Then maybe I could too,” he says.

Myka wants to put an immediate stop to the idea that he would look to her, for that can’t help but end in abject failure. But she gets out only a weak “Don’t” before he continues, “Because I was thinking of a saying: ‘Happy wife, happy life.’”

“I’m not your wife.”

“Better for both of us. I’m just saying it’s a saying. About a person and somebody else. There might be a better word for where you and somebody else are—or, I guess, where you might be headed?—but it wouldn’t rhyme with life. And it’s probably important to rhyme with life.”

Myka’s heart hears him, but she shies away, scoffing, “That’s a leap. Not the rhyming. The saying.”

“Isn’t it always?”

“I don’t want to give you false hope.”

“But if we could both acknowledge that there is hope.”

She’s not sure. She’ll probably never be sure, but in the face of doubt and fear (and “endless wonder,” that misleading canard), she determines to acknowledge it. For Steve’s sake. “Okay,” she says. “In the full knowledge that you’re the one who made the hope possible.”

“No,” Steve says. Serious. Simple. Unfraught. “That’s not what I did.”

Myka has no counterargument. All she can do is say “thank you” yet again, quick and quiet, for suddenly Helena is appearing in the doorway, taking over the space. Myka suspects she’s been waiting for their conversation to end—speaking of timing, this reminds her of the hotel lobby—and she doesn’t know whether to hope Helena was eavesdropping their words or simply their tones.

She’s holding two cardboard coffee cups. Myka gestures for her to hand one over, but Helena shakes her head. “You haven’t texted me.”

So Myka dashes to grab her phone, and “Gh” says the message, the first purchase her fumbling fingers could find, sent as fast as she could remind those fingers how to do that.

Helena sets the cups down on the hall table when her own phone noises (and now Myka doesn’t know whether to be pleased or distressed that a text from her yields a generic ding). She extracts it from the interior of her jacket and smiles. “I bought these, in hope, in the Sioux Falls airport,” she says, “but they’re now cold. No doubt terrible.”

“‘Worth every penny,’ I once heard someone say about coffee,” Myka says.

“Fewer pennies here. In any event, worth to be determined.” Helena is jaunty; it’s very her, but on the edge of too her, hinting that she’s less certain than her initial doorway presentation implied. As Myka now meets Helena’s gaze, she imagines—but hopes she isn’t only imagining—that their vulnerabilities might for once be commensurate.

Helena doesn’t look away.

Steve says, “You know, ‘I was making eggs’ buys you only so much late-for-work in this job.” It’s a transparent attempt to excuse himself, but he does add, “I’m really looking forward to getting to know you, partner.”

“I hope to impress you,” Helena says.

He snort-giggles, then composes himself. Minimally. “H.G. Wells—who isn’t lying!—hopes to impress me. Okay.”

Myka can’t begrudge him his surprised delight, even if it does delay his departure. “Welcome to a world of endless... surprise. She kind of wrote the book.”

“A lot of books,” Steve augments.

Helena waves a hand. “That was Charles. So wordy.”

Steve’s brow furrows—which Myka reads as a bit of confusion over how to negotiate the Helena/Charles disjunction. He says, “Okay. I’m going to the Warehouse,” clearly (smartly) choosing not to start now.

This time he does leave, though Myka is tempted to stop him, to cling to the surer footing afforded by his buffering.

Coward.

But. Then.

Alone, precariously so, Myka and Helena situate themselves across from each other at the dining room table, their promised-coffee cups before them.

Myka supposes she should have foreseen this arrangement—table, coffee—and she should at the very least have queried the book as to what would ensue. Not that she’s had any time for that, which probably means she should now do that, should go and do that, before she finds a way to undercut its foreseen future and make blunders that will prove unsatisfactory.

“Surprise,” Helena says.

“Yes,” Myka concurs, trying for Steve-ish understatement. It doesn’t work; she knows she sounds distressed.

“May I explain?”

“I wish you would.” That comes out better, but Myka realizes that she is literally on the edge of her seat. She sinks backward, trying to make the movement look like relaxation. That probably doesn’t work either.

“The invitation from Steve,” Helena begins, but upon saying his name, she stops. “Before I continue: ‘H.G. Wells who isn’t lying’?”

“He can tell if you are,” Myka says, and she’s gratified to see in Helena’s ensuing eyebrow contortions that she’s conducting the “what exactly have I said to Steve” inventory everyone does when introduced to that fact.

Its result: “Well. Then it’s fortunate I haven’t. To him.” She seems inclined to reflect on the revelation’s full compass.

Myka does love (love!) to watch Helena think. But right now... “Explanation?” she prompts.

“It isn’t complicated,” Helena says.

“That’s unusual.”

Helena bows her head; she smiles, from that bow, up at Myka. It’s flirty. It’s beautiful. “It is,” she says, and she seems to be affirming Myka’s words and her thoughts. “Steve and I had a conversation during which I explained how you and I had left our... situation. And then, a bit later, came his invitation, which I understand was extended at the behest of Mrs. Frederic. The opportunity—the freedom—to be myself again? It was too enticing to refuse. Of course I never would have accepted in the absence of our rapprochement, but given that? Steve was so convinced, and convincing, that all would be well.” She raises her head fully now. “And it cut short the waiting.”

“I said I would hurry,” Myka says, resentful, unsure of why she’s jumped to that.

“Your return required so many flights. Any number of delays might have ensued.”

“Due to the flights?” Myka asks, but she can’t unhear the clear disjunction between those sentences.

“And everything else,” Helena acknowledges, with a head-duck.

Myka knows that duck; it’s worry. “You didn’t trust me?” she asks, but in the question she finds the reason behind her resentment: offense at the idea that Helena had such worries to begin with.

“Can you blame me?” Helena asks this with a little flinch, as if Myka’s judgment must be harsh.

“Yes I can,” Myka says, but soft. “You were supposed to be ignoring all that.”

Her answer causes Helena to raise her head again and smirk—or, no, this isn’t her smirk; rather, it’s a lip-twist that’s more... conspiratorial. She says, “And yet the foundation of trust is past experience. If I ignore the past, on what basis could I trust you?”

Playful, but a jab. Myka retreats into sarcasm, acknowledging it hit the mark: “There’s a flaw in my big idea? Shocking.”

Helena nods, slow with a sigh, as if in sadness at Myka’s imperfection. But she turns serious to say, “In any case, after all that’s happened, I certainly didn’t trust fate either.”

Fate. How they’ve been subject to it... but are they now trying to chivvy it, in a way that will backfire? Myka pushes her fear into words: “What if it’s too soon?”

“Then regret will haunt us to the end of our days,” Helena says, and Myka has to nod to the truth of it. “But consider this: rather than wasting precious time on such questions, shouldn’t we rather be grateful that, after such complications, there is even a whisper of a chance that it may not be too late?”

Too late, too late, too late. Those words have truly haunted Myka. Miraculous that they might not apply. “I don’t want coffee,” she says. Truly.

“What do you want?” Helena asks, like she might really not know.

Well, maybe she doesn’t anymore, given the vast conceptual distance between Myka’s initial saying and now. “I did tell you. I don’t know how many hours ago; I haven’t counted. I’d have to use my hands.”

“Save your hands, but tell me again. I challenge you, however: change the vocabulary.”

Myka can do that. Only a little, here and now, but she can do that. “To save the world. Our world.”

They are breathing at each other and the table is in the way; Myka ideates the drama of grasping its edge, flinging it sideways, clearing her path—but that’s not who she is. Now, more than ever, she needs to be herself.

She stands up and steps decorously to the side and around, slow, savory, even as her body threatens to effervesce.

“Can we do this?” she asks, but she knows, through her inexorable movement, with all its effervescent potential, that they will. Regardless now of consequences.

“I have no idea,” Helena answers.

These could be words of delay, but not here and not now, because regardless, regardless, they will—and at once they’re both moving, as if pressure from a familiarly heartless authority will relegate Helena yet again to disembodiment if they don’t make this fast, and thank god, god, god this once they’re fast enough; they meet and hands are at waists but they’ve touched with hands before... even so, the infinitesimal pause they both take before those hands pull and define is understandable but then over, and their at-last kiss begins as an action but swiftly transforms into a state of being: pressure, presence, soft, sharp, warmth, weight, low, lasting...

After some time—how much time? is this kind of time measurable?—they break apart into staring silence, in the stunned after of the prospect they have spent so long before.

“I can die now,” Myka is moved to murmur, even as she feels its banality as a response to this experience, this knowledge. Because she has at last truly gained the knowledge: she had hoped to gain it, and yet she now understands she had never fully believed she would, if only because fundamental questions—e.g., “what would it feel like to kiss Helena?”—aren’t often answered.

“You most certainly cannot,” Helena ripostes, bracingly practical. “One kiss is no culmination.”

Myka might object to the description of what just happened as “one kiss,” but she’s too busy being unable to process how an actual culmination might feel.

In fact she’s unable to process anything. “I have to sit down,” she says. Of all things, lightheadedness had not been among her expectations. It should have been: because of course her blood is nowhere near her brain.

Passing out will help nothing. Probably. So she backs awkwardly around the table, her logic, such as it is, being: I have to sit, and that is my chair; if I reach it, then I can sit. Fortunately, her reasoning bears out. She breathes into the relief, as she sits, of still being conscious.

Helena says, “If you can’t stand, then I’ll sit beside you.” More logic, here spoken as indulgence.

She situates herself in the closest chair and scoots it nearer, inch by accommodatingly sweet inch, and then she’s in fact sitting beside Myka, like they’re on a carnival ride together, and now they’re both turning sideways—with Myka devoutly grateful for her continued (seated) consciousness—as they steal (back) these kisses, these presses and exultations, that should so long before this have belonged to them.

“This is not enough,” Helena breathes, sultry against Myka’s mouth.

Myka makes a noise of agreement, and she moves for more, to start the movement to more.

Her hands have made their way to Helena’s shoulders, and are anticipating her hair, when she and her hands are startled by a crash-clatter from across the room.

Myka wishes she could simply ignore whatever such noise signifies... but that wish is unrealistic. She removes her hands and opens her eyes.

Claudia is standing in front of the sideboard. Much of the china that had previously adorned it lies around her in ruins. “I swear to god, this is not what it looks like,” she says. She glances down, then shakes her booted foot. A teacup handle falls from it, producing a tiny clink of pain as it hits the floor.

“It looks like you were trying to blink in but got the coordinates wrong,” Myka says. “That’s happened before. But this time you got tangled with the plateware?”

That yields an eyebrow-raise and a finger-point, then: “What I should’ve said was, ‘This is not what it looks like even to someone who knows all the words to my extensive back catalog of Caretakery mistakes.’ The thing is, I blinked in, saw something I was in no way supposed to be seeing, turned my back on that—faster than fast, and I swear I would’ve tried to blink back out but I can’t reset that quick—and I guess I did Wonder Woman arms, because...” She waves down at the china. “This stuff. Or ex–stuff. Unless you’ve got a lot of glue? Which you might. You were pretty stuck to H.G just now, like in a way I’ve never seen before and like I said was in no way supposed to be seeing, but it’s the most spectacular news of this century or any other because all the feels I can’t even!” She clasps her hands up high and squeezes her eyes shut, as if the scene Myka and Helena are presenting is too glorious to behold.

Myka turns from this emotional show to look at Helena. A half-beat later, Helena turns to Myka. Lacking any ready response, they both turn back to Claudia, who opens her eyes, drops her hands, and says, “Your faces are telling me all those words happened out loud.”

“Unfortunately,” Helena says.

“Hi?” Claudia offers, with an apology face.

Helena smiles. “Hello, darling,” she says, warmly.

Their interaction is lovely to witness, but: Warm, Myka thinks, because that’s how Helena’s body is, next to hers. Why, why, why has Claudia appeared now?

“I’d run over and hug you,” Claudia says, “but I see that seat’s taken. Instead I’ll just say I missed you.”

Myka can’t help herself; she accuses, “Not enough, you spy.”

“She called me. Was I supposed to be like ‘oh, it’s H.G., I better not pick up’?”

Myka’s immediate thought is YES. She says in its place an umbrage-laden, “You could have told me.”

“Maybe you don’t understand what you looked like every time you came back from seeing her,” Claudia says. “You think I wanted to make you look like that?”

Helena shifts position beside Myka, legible as a “you are failing to ignore the past” caution; Myka adds to it a self-admonitory on this day of all days. “Fine,” she says. “Not fine at all, but fine.”

“Anyway Artie’s already shouting about how you’re both late for work,” Claudia says.

Myka sighs. “Artie. Shouting. So everyone knows?”

“Well not about this. Which I double-pinky-swear I never meant to know about, even though it was always something to hope about. All Artie knows about, and probably even hopes about, is who works here. There. At that place. And is late. For it? So I guess we should get going?”

Myka can easily imagine agreeing that yes, yes they should get going: result being that she and Helena would proceed to the Warehouse. That place. Additional result, as history has shown, being that something would happen to once again put the promise of this day out of reach.

She sees, now, that she has to act against such results. Act against them. Act.

And she sees something else, something both sickening and enlivening: all her lies, those interventions against truth? They were acts. Sinful ones, but her agency in telling them has fortified her with the necessary heft for this moment.

Her lies were practice.

Morally inexcusable practice, but: she was a feral little fabulist. Now she must put ends before means. Use the muscle; ignore the exercise by which it developed.

So. “No,” she says.

Her refusal disturbs the space, shaping it into a new kind of silence.

In its wake, Claudia offers appraisal: eyes narrowed, jaw tilted. Eventually, she says. “Not entirely sure who I’m talking to now.” She squints tighter, sly-red-fox. “By the way,” she says, calculatedly casual, “your book buddy says hi.”

If anything could knock Myka out of her certainty... certainly, it’s guilt. “Oh god,” she says.

Claudia’s narrow tension relaxes. “Steve and I figured out you were the one doing ‘unauthorized use.’ And it took us a while, but we also figured out what you were unauthorized using.”

“Thanks for not telling on me,” Myka says.

Silence again, until Helena breaks it with, “Myka used an artifact? Was this for personal gain?” She doesn’t look at Myka.

“I literally would never. And neither would Steve.”

Myka wants to say Could we ignore that too. Instead she confesses, “For personal... desperation.”

Now Helena looks. “So at last you understand,” she says. It’s a softer condemnation than Myka might have expected, not that she had expected anything, because until this moment she hadn’t made the connection. Not through the clean line of “so at last.”

But then a new connection, or rather consequence, strikes her: “What’s its downside?” she asks Claudia.

“You don’t know?”

“I didn’t care.” At that, Helena grasps Myka’s hand, tight, and Myka knows she’s going to have to think very hard at some point about this newly realized kinship between them. Right now, though, she’d rather think about the fact that Helena is holding her hand. But for that niggling consequence. “Do I need to care?” she asks.

“It’s a downside, so yeah? But with this guy, it’s a downside-with-a-twist.” She pauses, as if waiting for... guesses? Applause? When neither Myka nor Helena responds, she says an aggrieved, “Anyway, it’s the same as the upside.”

This baffles Myka. “Seeing the future? How is that a downside? I mean maybe in the Cassandra sense, if nobody believes you, but—”

Claudia interrupts, “OOC of you to get that wrong. But I guess OOC is your new IC thing, Ms. ‘No’? Anyway I don’t think you grokked what the artifact is.”

“A book,” Myka says, because... it is? “A future-seeing book.”

“Book, schmook. And future-seeing... schmuture-seeing? It’s an oracle. It doesn’t see the future; it predicts it. Literally, it says in advance: you ask it a question about the future, and it answers. It says it. In advance of that future.”

Helena chuckles. “Etymology strikes again.”

To which Claudia nods. “Right?”

“I still don’t get it,” Myka says. “Saying versus seeing? In my defense, I’m very tired.” She is sorely tempted to put her head down, heedless, here on the table, but she feels Helena tighten her handhold again, a press intelligible as Stay with me. She breathes deep and refocuses.

“Its answer is a decision,” Claudia says. “About the future.”

Helena looks at Myka, then at Claudia. “Now that is power.”

“Also right,” Claudia says. “But it can’t make that decision if nobody asks it to. Myka.”

“I did ask it,” Myka concedes, “but now my head hurts. Are you saying that if I hadn’t asked, then none of this would have happened? Would be happening?” She can’t argue with the outcome, but: upside, downside? Her head does hurt.

Claudia’s face empties. She says, “Asking questions has consequences, Agent Bering.”

Has Claudia been taken over by... something? Myka can’t help it now: “What?” she asks. The word rings a little less desperate, here at home, as a thing she tends to say. But she’s no less lost.

“Sorry,” Claudia says, turning back into herself. “I was trying on my spooky-Mrs.-F suit. Bad fit so far.”

“The art of the gnomic utterance,” Helena intones. Her own utterance doesn’t quite rise to gnomic, but Myka can see more clearly than ever the helios toward which Helena-as-Caretaker might have troped. Losses. Gains. How can Myka place herself in relation to so many competing ledger columns?

“Did you just insult Mrs. F?” Claudia asks, her obvious confusion breaking into Myka’s reckoning. She might as well have said her own Myka-esque “What?”

“What?” Helena then asks, thus squaring that circle.

“The red hat?” Claudia says, gesturing at her own head. “And doing magic or whatever in your garden?”

Sense at last. Myka doesn’t quite suppress a laugh. “Gnomic,” she says. “Means terse. Mysterious. Not gnome-related... or actually, it is, but not those gnomes. Different derivation.”

“Etymology strikes yet again,” Helena says. She suppresses her own laugh—Myka hears it behind that overly serious observation—but not her smile.

“I’m really glad you’re here,” Myka tells her. The fact and experience—correct, appropriate—of their speaking together. “Claudia,” she says (and Claudia is looking at them like they’ve both lost their minds, which they probably have, but not about this), “go to the Warehouse. Keep everybody there. All day. Please.”

Claudia brings her hands together once again in a dramatically audible clap. “I get it. I mean I’d say something about a booty call, but I know that’s not it. You need your day.”

Our day? Our days. Our days, our weeks our months our years.

“Yes,” Myka says.

Helena follows up with, “We do.”

“Hey, but I’m no oracle,” Claudia says. “No predictions here.”

Myka and Helena give her incomprehension again.

“Not ruling out booty call,” she clarifies, laughing, but she backs away as she speaks, now blessedly making her exit—unlike her entrance, through the B&B’s front door.

That means Myka and Helena can—must—make their move. And they do, rising from the table, stepping toward the stairs—but not yet up them, for Myka can’t wait; her hands are at last finding Helena’s hair, and as they do, as she touches and feels, she says, in wonder, “It’s just us. It’s never been like this.”

“Why would you comment on it?” Helena demands, as if Myka taking even an instant to reflect threatens to make the entire situation evaporate. Her hands are busy too, running along Myka’s arms, not quite grasping, but then grasping, and then Myka can’t comment on anything, because her lips are busied, back in that new state of being.

The journey to her bedroom: she had in the past allowed herself to imagine such travel, but carefully, the fantasy within strictures. Policed possibility. The walk, but not its end... not, in fact, the culmination, the sense of which had increasingly eluded her, a frustratingly constant receding of possibility, as if her body were teaching itself over time to echo Helena’s incorporeality, her sensation waning, from body to limbs to fingertips alone, until all vocabularies of touch became words not near enough the tongue.

But now everything is nearing, nearing and blurring, boundaries dissolving, everything her body, her body everything, the stairs the hallway the room the clothes the hands the lips the skin the stumble the fall...

****

Myka slow-motions into consciousness, unable to discern where she is, knowing at first only that wherever it is, she was exhausted before she got there. Got here.

That’s mostly because she can’t remember the preceding events, and experience has established that extreme fatigue is one of the few states that interferes with her otherwise reliable recall.

So she begins to sort it out, blinking sleep-weighted eyes. Her initial perception is that she’s lying in a bed—a bed blessedly recognizable as hers—yet she also seems to be perceiving something else, something absurd: that Helena, of all people, is speaking to her. Speaking unclear words, near to her, while she is in this bed that is hers.

I’m dreaming.

The words resolve: “Are you all right?” Helena asks, and Myka snaps to.

Not dreaming.

She is in her bed, and Helena is here. Their skin is... together. Helena, propped on an elbow, is regarding Myka in full recline.

Myka wants to answer Helena’s question with a strong “yes.” But she isn’t at a table and she doesn’t want Helena to be reminded of her feral fabulisms, not here not now, so instead she dares to ask, “What happened?”

“I believe you fell asleep,” Helena says. “In the middle of things.”

Myka’s first thought is that she can’t imagine a worse blunder. Her second is that of course she can. Her third, which she formulates second by second and piece on piece as her memory returns, is the one she says out loud. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

Helena shakes her head. “I brought you coffee. That was all.”

It’s a damning pronouncement. “You’re saying I could have caffeinated, but instead I ruined everything.” Myka raises her left hand to cover her face. She’d use her right one too, but Helena’s body is trapping that arm. Move, she wants to say. I need both hands. To cover her shame.

Helena uses her free, unpropping hand to remove Myka’s, revealing her face. She interlaces their fingers. “Your sleep has addled you. I’m saying that I brought you a small gift, but in return you’ve given me a far greater one.”

New bafflement. “I have?”

What could possibly be sufficient penance here? “Not the right one.”

“Witnessing your fulfillment of a bodily need.”

Helena offers a considering head movement, a cerebral back-and-forth. “Isn’t it? Proof that you trust me enough to lost consciousness—in this way—so near. Differently meaningful, but meaningful all the same. Particularly to someone who, as you know, occasionally forgets to ‘ignore it.’”

Her words have such depth, in sound and meaning, that Myka can barely process any of it. Particularly given that they are lying down in privacy... and far more.

“What am I supposed to do now?” she asks. Blunder some more, the book would no doubt reiterate... but she’d rather get her guidance, here in this moment, from Helena.

“Enjoy it.” Helena says, and she laughs—this sound not deep but high, high and so happy.

Myka has never heard this laugh from her. It’s as much a directive as her words are. “Enjoy it—I didn’t know,” she says. That comes out more terse than she intends... because she can barely speak. The joy in the room—occasioned by everything, but especially by that new, new laugh—is so thick, interior and exterior to bodies and souls, that forcing words through it takes great effort.

“Know what?”

Myka would worry about her answer sounding too intellectual, if this were anyone else. In her bed. But it’s Helena. Thank god, it’s Helena. So she feels safe to say, “It’s a corollary. Follows from ‘ignore it’? I think?”

“Yes,” Helena says, gratifying Myka immensely, “yes, ignore it, about the past; enjoy it, about the present; and thus one additional corollary, this one about the future.”

“Ask an oracle about it?” Myka tries.

Helena frowns—exaggerated, comic. “That doesn’t follow, either poetically or epistrophically.”

“It does follow epistrophically.”

“Minimally so,” Helena sniffs. The acknowledgment, itself minimal, further pleases Myka, even as Helena goes on, “But it should scan as well. My proposal does.” She pauses, doubtless for effect. Myka tries to think out what the teased proposal might entail, but she doesn’t get far before Helena pronounces, “Absolve it.”

“That does scan,” Myka acknowledges.

“Thank you. This next doesn’t, but I know you’ll want to take on blame for how our future unfolds, so I add: absolve yourself as well.”

Ignore it; enjoy it; absolve it. These strategies—despite Myka’s having insisted on the first—are all antithetical to her way of being in the world.

But she’s been unhappy, being in the world. Unsatisfied.

Now she is being satisfied, a new state that only this skin-to-skin with Helena could possibly have brought about.

She deliriously doesn’t care whether Claudia has kept, did keep, is keeping everyone else away.

This is hers and she can and will enjoy it.

This is hers and Helena’s and she can and will see to it—she can and will ensure—that they both enjoy it.

She has never before ideated such power—could never have, but here it is, in her hands, in her body, in giving and taking: power. And if she’s still too tired to remember, on next waking, that she had it, it’s all right. She’ll have another occasion to exert it. More anothers.

“Did you just say ‘more anothers’?” Helena asks, speaking and breathing with exertion.

Apparently there’s still room, in and amongst the joy and the power, for embarrassment. “Out loud? Are you sure?”

Helena calms enough to say, with indignation, “My hearing is quite good.”

“Evasive answer,” Myka says, recovering a little. “I’ll take it as a no.”

“Evasive?” More indignation.

“It wasn’t a yes,” Myka points out.

Helena runs a hand through her hair, as if in preparation for more argument. “I propose we table this debate,” she says instead.

“Good idea,” Myka says. “Because instead of talking, or asking about talking, you should be kissing me.”

“So should you. Vice versa. Me. Kissing.”

Transportingly charming near-incoherence... “You’re right,” Myka says, her heart overflowing. “So be quiet.”

“You first,” Helena ripostes, with what sounds suspiciously like a giggle.

Myka wants to keep that sound active, so she doesn’t comply. And they continue to speak together. Through it all.

This time, Myka stays awake. That’s probably a blunder too—but it’s most satisfactory.

****

In the weeks and months that follow, Myka takes time, as she finds it, to visit the book. Often, its pages ruffle and sigh, their invitation clear: Don’t you want to know? To know more?

The temptation is real, compounded by what she feels as an exertion of pressure from the volume: Did I not gift you this future? it seems to whisper. Surely you could gift me the opportunity to exercise. To provide still greater definition.

Then again, that could simply be her guilt—her ongoing struggle to absolve it—talking.

On one such occasion (though not the only one), she hears footsteps. The rhythm, the particular ring of heel-strikes: she knows the confidence of those strides. The knowing is calming, if not itself absolving.

“Back already?” she asks without turning around.

“Absurdly simple retrieval,” Helena says. “Steve found the entire exercise an insult to the considerable intelligence he and I bring to bear on any mission we undertake.”

Helena’s interpretations of Steve’s thoughts are often baroque—often, seemingly, more suitable to her own thoughts. But when she offers such interpretations in Steve’s presence, he doesn’t wince. “Really?” Myka says, just to make sure.

“He said aloud that he was bored.”

“That’s something,” Myka concedes.

“And you?” Helena asks. “Have you contrived to place new parameters on the future?”

“I keep telling you I won’t.”

“And yet I continue to find you here,” Helena says. More seriously, she offers words that have become customary: “If you could be happy.” Steve’s utterance, shared among the three of them, has become a mantra.

“You know that’s a work in progress,” Myka says, and although that’s customary too, it’s also true: while she knows she can be, and while at certain times she genuinely is, she is by no means consistent in that achievement.

Nevertheless she has to admit, now as always, that the book has been right. The blunders—the many, many blunders, even as she’s perpetrated them, even as she’s dealt with their aftermath—have been satisfactory. Such are the components of that work. Of its progress.

Helena nods. She lays her hand upon the book, as it lies there on the shelf, as if swearing an oath. “Everything is,” she says.

****

Myka sits at tables. She tells lies. But the sitting and the lying, as activities, are now uncoupled.

Coffee, too, has shed its significance; it’s a beverage, not an event.

However: she keeps a stained shirt in her closet as a reminder of earlier, pained, connected times—of, also, the work that was even then in progress, even as she was failing, spectacularly, to recognize it as such.

She needs the reminder, because with regard to the past, “ignore it” doesn’t always work. Nor does “absolve it,” as the future unfolds.

But on the best of present days, ignoring and absolving intersect. And on those best days, Myka does, in fact and in practice, enjoy it.

END

Instead of shoehorning thoughts into tags, here’s what I’ve got:

Did both Myka and Helena get let off the hook too easily? Your call... but I’m inclined to embrace the idea that instances of grace might manifest as the reward for hard work, and acknowledging culpability may be the hardest work of all. I mean, Elton John wrote a song about it, so put that on whichever side of the ledger works for you. Also, I like it when people help Myka in ways she doesn’t know how to ask for. She seems (to me) to be very bad at asking for help. Or maybe I mean that she seems disinclined to ask for help even (or especially) when she should.

Generally the only way to come out the other side of the hard stuff is to go through. But sometimes you do have to set some things aside if you want to move forward... and that’s what this story, at base, has been about. I hope. I offer all gratitude to @barbarawar for giving me the impetus to think it through in this particular way, at my snail-in-a-school-zone pace. Finally, if there’s a timeline in which Helena becomes an agent again and she and Steve don’t become partners, I don’t want to know about it. The potential perfection of their pairing thrills the bejesus out of me.

#bering and wells #Warehouse 13 #fanfic #Tabled #B&W holiday gift exchange #part 7 #barbarawar #at least it's done now #certainly did not intend to focus on this for over half a year #but I'm sure it happened because I needed to learn some lesson or other #and a narrative takes as long as it takes #now back to work on other tales #which are obviously taking as long as they take #Confection Run Propagator Sound I see you

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