#like the little shoulder sag in the beginning that a petulant child move

[nicoscheer]

Courtesy of @divstheturtle

Get out of here 😭🥹🥹🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽💕🥺🐢🐢🥰

#I will always be grateful to Rosie for all these little snippets of him being Miles #Rosie skinner #miles Kane #10/08/2023 #from Kingston upon Thames to Liverpool #him proudly showing off his new turtle necklace #him in the beginning not being overly convinced of needing to take a pic and as son as he notices it’s a video new energy #turtle head #like the little shoulder sag in the beginning that a petulant child move #not his ADHD brain completely digressing and vibing to the music #on the road at 3:30am #and Miles reposting at 4:30am before arriving at 6:30am #Liam Toon #he’s gazing so lovingly at that turtle pendant

[aliveanddrunkonsunlight]

food

Jaime x Brienne + alternate love languages

For @naomignome

Author’s Note: The previous ficlets, I was writing from their POV for each love language and how they receive that from the other person. Example: how Brienne hears/receives words of affirmation from Jaime. This is flipped, where I’m writing it from the POV of the person who is communicating the love (if that makes sense.)

*

They are both, somehow, alive. The sun peeks over the distant horizon. Carnage and ashes surround them, the stench of battle filling their noses. 

Her chambers. Armor coming off with shaky hands, dirt and sweat stained bodies sagging as they fall into merciful sleep. 

Jaime wakes, not in cold darkness as he expects, but with the quiet rustle of flames in the hearth. The floor is no longer littered with armor. It sits across the table and chairs, his and hers, polished so carefully, the firelight dancing in its sheen. 

Before his feet hit the floor, he knows where he will find her. She is in the moonlit yard, helping the other men build the pyres. He coaxes her back to bed, somehow, but the next morning, he wakes to find her side of the bed already empty. 

The circles under her eyes darken and grow deeper. The crease in her brow remains constant. It is on the third day when he touches her hand in passing, feels the cold clamminess of it, and worries she is turning into one of the creatures they fought. “Bed. Now.” he orders.

She objects, even as he steers her towards their room. She has to help rebuild. It is not your home, my lady. Unless you plan to stay. She has to protect Sansa. You are not Lady Sansa’s sworn sword. She has her guard. What will Pod think? The boy would not wish to see you ill.  

He brings her broth and the freshest bread (for the latter, he might have bribed the kitchen maid to set it aside for him, but Brienne does not need to know) and she swirls the spoon like a petulant child until he threatens to feed her himself. “You’ll end up with broth slung all over the bed sheets,” he teases her, gesturing with his stump. 

In the evening, Pod arrives with more hearty fare and another man carrying a pile of furs. “Before you object that we are stealing these from some unsuspecting soul who needs them when we have plenty,” he tells her after they leave. “Lady Sansa said she was happy to loan them.” He spends far too long arranging the furs and pillows on the hard stone floor in front of the fireplace before he approaches the bed and takes her hand. From the look on her face, she is too shocked to speak.

He arranges the furs carefully around her, Brienne leaning back against him, and he reclines against the legs of a chair. The somewhat uncomfortable seat is worth it for the little sigh she exhales when he wraps his arms around her and rests his chin on her shoulder, the two of them watching the fire. 

She dozes against him and his heart quickens, listening to her steady breath, noticing the way her fingers curl against his thigh. I love you. 

He has said it so rarely since they confessed their feelings to each other, afraid saying it too often would lessen its meaning.  

The next morning, when they wake together, he asks her about Tarth. “Do you mean to return?” 

A shadow passes over her face and her eyes shift away from his. “I should go and see my father.” It sounds like duty more than longing, and he is not sure what to make of that, so instead he kisses her and tells he loves her. It earns him a soft smile, and it is all so easy.

*

On the boat to Tarth, she is excited to show him her home. Her face is open and bright as she tucks her long body against his on the deck. They watch the island grow closer, Brienne pointing out things, her voice soft in his ear, making him shiver. 

When they step off the ship, there is a cavalcade of men awaiting them. Brienne embraces one of them before stepping back and taking his arm, introducing Jaime to her cousin Endrew. “Where is my father?” There is the shadow passing over her face again and an inkling of understanding begins to form. 

“He is waiting to greet you at Evenfall,” her cousin replies.  

Except he is not waiting, he is still meeting with whatever Tarth farmer needs counsel rather than his own daughter, returned from war. 

Finally, a man with broad shoulders and a portly belly appears in the doorway. He has the same broad face as Brienne, only his is half covered by a neatly trimmed white beard. He smiles and opens his arms for a hug, his gray eyes shimmering in the bright white marble of the entrance hall. 

Jaime does not expect her father to be thrilled that she has brought the Kingslayer himself home, but there is skepticism and disappointment on Selwyn’s face which he cannot hide. Brienne asks if he wants to accompany them on a walk before the evening meal, but he brushes her aside, saying he has meetings and duties and and. 

Brienne is oddly quiet as she shows him Evenfall. They take their walk through the grounds, just the two of them, but Jaime notices how she walks a few steps ahead of him, lost in her own thoughts. 

Selwyn is polite, but not warm. At dinner, he asks about their journey, fills Brienne in on trivial matters around the island, but after the small talk is dispensed with, he has little else to say. No questions about Brienne’s experiences on the mainland, none about the man she brought with her. 

There is an absence. An absence in him, an absence which echoes in the halls of this castle. Echoes of her brother, her mother, her siblings. How much grief Brienne has known, true grief, not the false feelings he felt at the news that his eldest son was dead, the mask he wore at his father’s vigil. The dutiful son, the dutiful soldier. 

No, Brienne still carried the memories of her loved ones within, a part of her so deep and recessed, even he did not have access. The longer they sit at her father’s table, the more Jaime realizes she never wished him to see it. Brienne did not want him to see how her father’s ignorance, his neglect, cast such a long shadow over his remaining child. But Jaime does see. The steel core of her begins to melt away. He watches those strong shoulders slump under the weight of childhood hurt. All those half-healed scars.

Brienne has never needed him to protect her. Not when they got taken by the Bloody Mummers, not even at the bear pit, not any moment since, but he wants to stretch his good arm down the length of the table, take up the Evenstar by his collar and shake him. Make him listen, tell him all the ways he should be on his knees thanking his daughter.

Jaime’s hand shakes, thinking of all the words he might use to explain what Brienne has done for him, much less half the kingdom. 

She told me to live. 

She allows him to simply be the man he always wished to be, because she knows he is capable. She does not discredit him for his faults, just as he does not discredit her for hers. It sounds emotionally distant to say they love one another justly, but it’s true. It is equanimity. Any space they are together is one where he can breathe, after decades of what felt like drowning.

He loves her more than he thinks he will ever be able to express, but he does not let it stop him from trying. Words and deeds and touch and the very air in his lungs.

I am so, so sorry, my darling, he tells her that night. She likely does not know what he means, it could easily be an apology for his reputation, the deed which cast the die for his life for so long. He means it as an apology, one which she will never get from her father.  

The next morning, Brienne has gone down to breakfast before he wakes. Standing outside the great hall, he hears their voices echoing inside. “Will you live at the Rock then?” 

“I--I always planned to serve in your stead, but I know that is not what you wished of me.” 

“Nonsense, I only wished you to be happy.” 

“I am.” After a moment, so quietly he has to lean towards the door to hear. “We chose each other.” 

Upon hearing that, Jaime walks outside, needing fresh air. She finds him in the gardens, hand clutched around the seat of a stone bench. He tugs her down into his lap. “I am very proud of you.” 

“Proud of me?” Her forehead wrinkles into that familiar frown. “Why?” 

“Do I need a reason?” he asks in the moment before his mouth covers hers.

*

Their wedding party is tiny and Brienne refuses to have the ceremony in the sept, so they wed on the cliffs overlooking the sea. It is near sunset and light spills across the water in an orangey glow, shimmering in the gold trimmings on her wedding cloak. 

At the small feast afterwards, her father reminds him that Brienne once swore she would only ever wed if the man could beat her in the yard. “She has already done that, my lord, I assure you,” Jaime replies in a voice which makes her whole body flush.

“That is when you were in shackles,” Brienne says, once they are alone in her chambers. 

He laughs. “Well, it is too late now, my love. We are wed.” 

Her blue eyes glitter at him from the other side of the room. “You mean you will not spar with me on our wedding night? I never knew you to be so dull.” 

Jaime chases her around the bed, making her shriek with laughter, and when he catches her, they wrestle against each other on the mattress, both of them grinning like fools. “I happen to know you are quite good at the other type of sparring.”

“Jaime,” she chides him, but a soft laugh falls from her lips as she bends down to kiss him. 

It is well past midnight when she drags him out to the yard. “You cannot let me win,” she warns him at one point as their tourney swords clash. 

He chuckles between his gritted teeth until Brienne breaks the hold they are in. “You forget I am much older than you.”

“No excuses, old man,” she winks at him. 

Jaime knows it is worthless to protest about his left hand. They both fought the dead. Only he likes when Brienne--his wife--can easily best him and it is difficult to summon up his usual competitiveness when she executes a particularly thrilling move. 

He ends up in a rather vulnerable position, on his knees in the dirt, her sword pointed at his throat, only to revel in the slow realization dawning in her eyes. She’s won. That is until he bats her wooden tourney sword away with his left hand and tackles her to the ground. “You cheated.” she accuses, once they both get their breath back. 

He smirks at her, slipping his hand underneath her tunic, delicate fingertips against her skin. “We’ll call it even.”

*

When her father passes, Brienne throws herself into all the things which need to be done. He is the one who coaxes her back to bed. She has to allow herself to rest. She has to allow herself to mourn. She’ll do no one any good running herself ragged. 

This time, he does not have to bribe the kitchen maids. They make Brienne’s favorite dishes and willingly wake in the middle of the night to show Jaime how to warm milk for her, served with a dash of honey, to help her go back to sleep. 

“We were very much alike,” she says to him a few days later, when they are walking in the gardens. “Headstrong. That is why we fought so often.” Jaime is tempted to tell her all the ways they were different, but it would not help anything. Right now, the most important thing he can provide is solace, not unwanted advice. “He tried so hard to understand me. He only wanted something to go right. To see me happily wed, except that was something he wanted. It was not what I wanted. So then,” she takes a shaky breath. “He finally let me go, even though I know he was mocked, chastised that he could not control his own daughter.”

“You represented him honorably. No one could accuse you otherwise.” He presses a gentle kiss to her temple. “And if they try, you can face them in the yard.” 

She has not laughed since her father died, but she smiles then and squeezes his hand. “Thank you.” 

*

Their fifth year of marriage, he arranges for their friends to travel to Tarth. It is an unrealistic request for most, he realizes, but everyone comes. Lady Sansa, his brother, Pod and Peck and Gendry, all of the people who know Brienne’s selflessness and his luck. There is cake and fruit and all manner of sweet things Brienne says she does not like, but which he knows she secretly enjoys. Meat pies and cheese and warm, fresh-baked bread. There is laughter and stories spun over a long meal and good wine. In some ways, it is a happier day than their wedding. 

She laces her fingers through his and they lean against each other, listening to the others late into the night. 

*

For her name day, he and the children bake a cake. Alex’s whole outfit is covered with flour and Alys’ hair is dusted with it. They insist on him writing the script in icing, even with his shaky left hand. When they present it to her that evening, she laughs in delight and kisses all of them, tears shimmering in her eyes. She presses an extra kiss to his cheek. “Thank you, darling.” 

#jaime x brienne #love languages #fic: food

[chaseatinydream]

pirate king (37) || atz

You step onto dry land and for the first time in your life, you’re not sure whether you want to kiss it or hightail back to the ship screaming.

The rocks are slippery and slimy beneath your boots, the stone worn away by the ages and the relentless sea. You nearly slip and fall flat on your face, but Seonghwa is faster and manages to catch you right before you can faceplant the ground.

“Careful.” He mutters softly, clearly on edge as the rest of the crew are. The tension in the air is so thick you could cut through it with your cutlass, you can see it in their tightly wound shoulders, how their hands are resting on their cutlasses, as if ready for a threat to spring at them from any second.

Only six people have disembarked the Treasure with you. Seonghwa and San, who have been with you in investigating this mystery from the very beginning, your captain and Mingi, who refuses to let him go into the unknown without him and finally Jongho and Yunho as your guards.

But Wooyoung…

Ever since you had heard the sound of that musket shot, you had been on edge, worry for Wooyoung looming in your mind. What had happened? What did your captain mean by ‘mood’? You had wanted to run out of the sickbay to see exactly what had happened, but then San had wrenched you back by the arm, a grim look in his eyes as he gazed at the door forlornly.

You stared at him in shock and confusion.

“Master-”

“Let Hongjoong-hyung handle this.” San had murmured softly, shaking his head, but his words were indisputable. When you had opened your mouth to protest, your master had added on, in a quieter voice. “Wooyoungie… he wouldn’t want you to see him like this.”

That had just made you even more worried about him, the anxious butterflies in your stomach were more like angry pigeons now, tearing you up from the inside. Even after the ship had dropped anchor at the rocky outcrop that was supposedly the entrance to the lair of the sea witch and you’d finally stepped onto the main deck once more, you hadn’t spotted that head of vibrant purple hair anywhere.

Seonghwa had reassured you Yeosang was staying with him to calm him down while the rest of you left the ship to meet the sea witch. For a moment, you had wondered if Seonghwa and San were conspiring to give you a heart attack, because all they were doing was getting you more and more perturbed.

If even Yeosang had to be involved, what exactly had happened to Wooyoung?

“Chin Hae?” Hongjoong’s voice comes from somewhere in front of you, and you raise your head in surprise to see him glancing at you over his shoulder. He’s already standing in front of the cave entrance, a lighted torch in hand. The other guys have joined him as well, all waiting expectantly for you. “Let’s go.”

Well, even if you feel like you’re about to chew through your entire lip in worry, there really isn’t much you can do now. You turn back to look at the ship one last time, hoping your thoughts will somehow reach Wooyoung even from here, before you move towards the cave entrance, Jongho helping you up the last set of slippery rocks.

You’re about to see a witch.

You honestly don’t know what to expect from this. All you know is that you’ve made a deal with the sea witch, one that likely gave the body of a golem and erased all your memories in the process. At the very least, she might have some answers for you regarding your identity. It’s got to be more than whatever you have right now.

The opening to the cave is large, tall enough that even Yunho wouldn’t hit his head on the ceiling and wide enough to fit four men abreast comfortably. But it is dark and creepy, and from the way Mingi’s teeth are chattering loud enough for the sound to echo around the cave, he’s completely terrified.

Seonghwa turns to look at the quartermaster with a genuinely concerned frown. “Mingi-ah, you don’t have to come with us. We know you’re scared about this kind of thing.”

Hongjoong nods agreement. The dim light from the torch flickers and bounces off the walls eerily, casting strange, shifting shapes shadows on the slick walls and making your captain’s face appear to be a ghostly apparition floating in the air.

And you’re still only at the mouth of the cave, where daylight is still streaming in from behind you.

You don’t know how far in the cave is, but from the way that you still can’t see the end, it’s probably very, very far in.

Mingi looks like a spooked rabbit, ready to bolt his way out of the cave as fast as he can, but he stands firm, well, as firmly as he can with his knees knocking every few seconds. He meets his captain’s eyes evenly, trying to keep his voice steady.

“I’d follow you anywhere, Captain. Even into the depths of hell.”

You’re stunned by how devoted Mingi is to his captain, before you remember that the quartermaster had told you himself that he had grown up with Hongjoong by his side. His whole life has been dedicated to serving his captain in every way possible, the two of them closer than brothers in blood by the history they have written and the memories they have forged together.

Hongjoong smiles fondly, standing on tiptoes to pat the taller man on the shoulder. Mingi towers over his captain in height, but lowers himself to see his captain eye to eye as Hongjoong shakes his head.

“You know I don’t need you to come with me, Mingi.” Hongjoong tries to reassure him, but from the defeated smile on your captain’s face, he already knows what his lifelong friend is about to say.

“But I want to.” Mingi insists like petulant child, crossing his arms. “I can be brave-”

Then there’s the sound of something falling behind you and all of you flinch, but then Mingi shrieks and jumps into the air as if he’s on fire, clinging onto Jongho fiercely. The poor battlemaster claws at the long arms locked around his throat, flailing about like a jellyfish attempting to escape a net.

“Ack! Mingi-hyung! Song Mingi! Let me go! I’m dying-” The last word is cut off into a screech when the two of them topple over like a felled tree, crashing heavily to the rocky ground is a mess of long limbs. Seonghwa squawks in horror, the resident mother hen of the Treasure flapping around them in concern while the actual healer just bursts into uncontrollable giggles in the back.

You give your master an evil side eyed glare but San continues wheezing from laughter, his infectious chortles eventually pulling in the rest of the group as well. Seonghwa bends over the two of them to see if they’re hurt, but apart from the groaning coming from the ground, they seem to be fine.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good.” Mingi grunts as he manages to get to his feet. Jongho sways behind him unsteadily, rubbing the bruise on his back with a playful scowl.

“Thanks, hyung.” The maknae mumbles dryly and Mingi automatically answers “you’re welcome”, much to your amusement.

To your relief, the earlier fear and tension has eased a little with their clumsy accident. You’re still terrified of walking to your potential death, but now, with them at your side, it feels a little easier to breathe.

Then you remember Wooyoung and for a lingering moment, you desperately wish he were here with you. Your pocket feels too large for only one hand, and there just isn’t the same warmth there without his. You sigh, turning back towards the darkness that lies ahead.

“Let’s go.”

The seven of you make your way forward, occasionally stumbling on the wet ground. The call of the ocean is left further and further behind you as you step deeper into the gloom, and the cave seems to be shrinking slowly in size because Yunho and Mingi have to bend down occasionally to duck beneath overhanging stalactites.

As you walk, you take the time to think about what exactly you want to ask the witch if you do see her. What do you want to know? And will she even be willing to answer your questions? You’re lost in thought as you continue to walk forward, when suddenly a shadow flickers across the wall right before your eyes.

You startle back, but before you can say anything about it, you realise you’re at the end of the cave.

Everyone stops in their tracks, your captain moving forward to inspect the wall carefully with the torch. He glances around, spotting two unlit torches at the side and hesitantly lights them with his own.

They catch alight slowly, burning a little before flames suddenly erupt into the air before you, the sheer scorching heat and blinding glare from the fire have you squeezing your eyes shut on instinct. Even through your closed eyes you can still see the intense light shining through, you feel like you’ve just stared into the sun itself in the eye.

Someone grabs you by the arm and pulls you back away from the fire. The fire seems to die down a little and you open your eyes to see your captain before you, fiercely staring down the raging flames, face cast in a flickering, hellish orange glow.

Mingi screams and you whip around to see him and the rest of the crew separated from you and your captain by a blazing inferno, the cave that was once damp and dark has transformed into a brimstone hell in a matter of seconds. Shock catches in your throat.

What the hell-

From beyond the wall of fire you see Mingi attempting to run to the two of you through the flames and terror almost swallows you for a moment, but Jongho and Yunho grab him by an arm each and haul him away from the flames. Relief sags in you, because you can feel that the fire before you is unbelievably hot, like nothing you’ve ever seen or felt before. It’s heat is so intense that the water around you seems to have evaporated, leaving the ground bone dry, and the very air that you breathe in scorches your lungs. There’s no way you could make it out to the other side alive.

Your own terror is reflected in your master’s eyes as he locks gazes desperately with you, so near yet so far, Seonghwa’s arms comfortingly wrapped around his shoulders.

You’re trapped.

You turn to stare at your captain in horror, but your captain doesn’t look fazed at all. Instead, he shouts very calmly over the roar of the fire.

“Everyone, leave the cave immediately and head back to the ship. Wait for us there till daybreak. If anything comes for you, be it sirens or storms or whatever that sea witch throws at you, survive.”

Reluctance is clearly etched into each of their faces, they really don’t want to leave the two of you behind. But they have no other choice, staying here waiting isn’t going to help you and Captain escape, it’s much smarter to get back to the ship and join up with the rest of the crew.

San meets your eyes across the wall of fire, his face bathed in flickering amber brilliance. His gaze conveys one message to you.

Come back safe to me, alright?

You know you can’t promise him anything, but you nod anyway. Fear is creeping over your whole body and you’re ever so grateful your captain is at your side, because his commanding presence is the only comfort you have in this place. The hand around your wrist keeps you close to him protectively as he continues to address the crew.

But Mingi grits his teeth, clearly unwilling to move an inch from his spot without his captain. “Hongjoong-hyung, I-”

But your captain cuts him off with one decisive sentence.

“Who is the captain, Mingi?”

The tall quartermaster falters momentarily in his tracks. You can see his internal battle in his eyes as he fights between needing to stay with his captain and his logical mind that’s telling him to follow Hongjoong’s orders. Hongjoong sees it as well, and continues to push him towards making the right decision.

“Get the crew back to the ship and keep them safe as my quartermaster, Mingi. That’s an order. Do you understand?” Hongjoong commands, his voice firm and unyielding. You’re actually shocked for a moment. You’ve never been able to understand how your captain can switch from a man so close and intimate with his friends behind closed doors, yet still maintain an air of such powerful authority over them when the time requires him to be.

Mingi swallows at such an indisputable command, before he bows his head, one hand over his heart. His loyalty to his captain outweighs any personal desire he might have, even if it is to stay with him. “Yes, captain.”

Then a small smile softens the hard line of your captain’s mouth as he gazes over at his oldest friend with fond eyes. “I will return to all of you. Now this is my promise to you as a friend. Do you understand?”

Maybe it’s a trick of light, but you see tears spill over Mingi’s eyes as he nods once more.

“Yes, Hongjoong-hyung.”

Then with one final look at the two of you, he turns around and ushers the rest of the crew out of the cave. Their footsteps echo down the flame lit tunnel, ghostly shadows dancing along the walls until even those disappear as well.

And you’re alone.

“Well, it was pretty easy to say all of that when they were there.” Hongjoong mutters softly as he slides to the ground. You glance at your captain in worry. “Captain…?”

“I wish Mingi were here.” He chuckles a little depressingly and part of you flinches. This isn’t what you expected from your captain. “I’ve never been without him by my side. Him and the other guys.”

Then it occurs to you that your captain, too, is afraid.

Kim Hongjoong is the Pirate King of the Seas, the unrivaled pirate, the undefeated one. He took a flogging for you and the crew without batting an eyelash and somehow saved the entire ship in the most hopeless of situations. He dove straight into the oceans without a second thought to save you from the sirens who had been trying to tear you apart. Your captain was small, but his presence to you had always been larger than life, fiercer than any storm and more terrifying than any enemy.

And yet, here he is, admitting to you that he is actually scared.

Something about your perspective of him suddenly takes a massive turn as you crouch on the ground beside him, taking his hand. The orange glow really highlights his face, making him seem like an unearthly, ethereal being born of the flames themselves, embers burning in his gaze. He looks up at you with defeated eyes, before shaking his head with a self deprecating smile.

“I’m sorry-” He begins to apologise, but then you look at him seriously.

“Captain, can I hug you?”

He freezes in surprise, staring at you confusedly for a moment. You don’t wait for him to reply and instead you embrace him tightly, basking in a heat that radiates from him, one that burns even more fiercely and intensely than the flames surrounding you. At first, he stiffens upon the contact, but then he eases into it relaxes, one hand coming up to rest on your back.

When you finally pull away, you smile at him, trying to convey all your gratitude to him in that one expression. “Captain, you literally sailed across the sea from Nassau to Eleuthera and then to this island all on a whim that I might find my memories here, put yourself and the entire ship into danger for me and now, you’re even stuck here with me in the sea witch’s lair. So please don’t apologise to me when you’ve done so much for my sake.”

Hongjoong stares at you for a moment before he starts laughing, shaking his head as he gets to his feet. You’re a little confused whether he got what you were trying to say or not, but then he turns to smile at you, that same, confident, self assured smile you see when he’s standing at the wheel of the Treasure, watching the oceans before his feet.

“I told you. We’re family, aren’t we? You’re part of my crew.” You nod as he pulls you up to stand with him, and then he gives you that boyish, cheeky grin you only see him wear when he’s with his close crew. Something in you warms. He really is very handsome. “And I told you before, call me Hongjoong.”

You return the smile with one of your own. “Yes, captain.”

He shakes his head in amusement and turns to face the wall before you, and suddenly you realise that contrary to what you had thought before, the rock face is actually a beautiful, elaborately done mural of a mermaid sitting upon a rock . Her tail one of intricately carved silver, a shade different from the sirens you had seen before with more brightly coloured jewel tones but not in the least more dull. In fact, this tail is the most beautiful one you’ve seen, tiny details on each scale resembling sea waves cresting and rising, almost as if it’s alive.

Hongjoong seems to think so too, because he reaches out to touch them, breathing out a awestruck “wow”.

“I don’t think I’ve seen art so magnificent in all my travels.” He whispers, and you tear your eyes from the tail to glance at the mermaid herself.

To your shock, her skin seems to be painted in a way that it seems translucent, like water. It reflects the light of the flames in a way that reminds you of fluid crystal. You feel like if you touch her, she’ll merely burst and disappear, so you refrain from doing so, eyes searching for hers instead.

They’re blue, but they’re also not. They’re the colour of the calmest sea on a summer day as the bright sun shines overhead, but at the same time they’re the colour of a raging ocean in the middle of a hurricane. They’re pitch black as sea when it reflects the night sky above it, sprinkled with stars and as clear as clean water running through your fingers. For a moment, your eyes hurt from looking at it, so you turn away and blink, wondering what has gotten into you lately.

Then Hongjoong lets out a cry of surprise, pointing towards the mermaid’s chest. Drawn around her neck is a long silver chain, dangling in the middle of her chest and resting against her navel, except there’s no ornament residing there. Your breath gets cut off when you realise what it resembles.

The necklace that you’re wearing.

You yank it off your neck, holding it to the painting of the mermaid. You feel like her eyes are gazing right into yours as you move forward with shaking fingers, pressing the crystal at the very end right where it should be.

Yes…

For a moment, nothing happens.

Then the stone wall before you groans mightily, and you yank the necklace back in shock as the mermaid seems to disappear into the stone wall right before your eyes. Hongjoong takes your hand protectively and pulls you behind him, his other hand drawing his cutlass from his belt, ready to face anything that comes your way.

But the stone wall merely sinks into the ground, revealing another dark passageway forward.

You and your captain exchange glances, before he grins at you, a determined glow in his eyes. Yes. You can face this with your captain at your side.

“Let’s go.”

The two of you step forward together.

#ateez #ateez fanfic #ateez fanfiction #hongjoong #seonghwa #yunho #yeosang #jongho #wooyoung #san #mingi #ateez pirate king #w; ot8 #w; pirate king #w; fanfiction

[blkpnkwriting]

first time | sadism/masochism | gags | baths

jennie x f!reader

NOTE: this is a little longer than the rest will mostly likely be because i wanted to honour the request someone made literally years ago for jennie x reader first time (i.e. i’m the worst)

Red splashed up the far wall of your bedroom, crawled over the carpet as Jennie switched on the small light source. So, it was a lava lamp. Someone sue you, you liked having it as a lamp even if it wasn’t the 90’s anymore. But there you went overreacting to the littlest thing again, and a lava lamp was the least of your worries. The clock read a late hour, but not late enough to condone Jennie facing back to you in evident puzzlement. Since the pair of you had left the house party, you could barely string enough words together through the muddle of your brain to explain why you had to leave. You just did.

“Are you okay?” the brunette asked, shrugging off the fur bomber jacket she wore against the nip of night air. Underneath was a sheer top that soaked up the ebbing glow of the lamp with an eerie crimson aura. The juxtaposition between the ominous light and the concern etched on her face was only furthering your confusion.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m good! I — well, I just… forget it.” It came forth as a scramble of syllables. You were pacing, running a hand through your hair and deciding it was best you took something off, too. Your fingers could barely undo the clasp of your skirt but was stopped when Jennie was suddenly at your side, taking your hand, turning you back to her. Your best friend knew you better than you knew yourself most times, and even if she didn’t, it wasn’t hard for anyone to discern you were downright flustered.

“Was it that girl? The redhead? What did she do — I’m going to ruin her life if she—!”

Jennie was on the right path, but leave it to her to jump to conclusions, hand squeezing yours protectively.

“No, no! It wasn’t like that…” You interrupted. You were going to have to explain the tangle of emotions if you wanted her to relax. And you did owe her an explanation for blanching abruptly and dragging her out of the building before either of you had finished your first cocktail. Now, you could feel it filtering out of your system, eased on by the anxiety pushing your blood faster through your heart. “She was… nice. Really nice. I think she might’ve even liked me?”

The look on Jennie’s face was cute. Cocking her head, “Why the hell did you run away then?”

You flapped your arms, appearing like a petulant child for a second. Then, “I don’t know what I’m doing!”

Jennie glanced around the dim room before landing her eyes back on you. “You’re in your room, talking to me?” A hand met your cheek. “Are you feeling alright? How much did you drink?”

“I’ve never had sex, Jennie!” You blurted out. It came with a heavy pant. Honestly, you could’ve done better explaining it with less simple terms, but it was the truth and it was out. Not like it was shocking. Jennie was the first person you told after each time you made out with a stranger in a bathroom or that one boy back in high school under the bleachers. There was no way she would have missed you having sex for the first time somewhere in there. “I don’t know what I’m doing in the bedroom…”

It still surprised Jennie. She blinked, open her mouth. Shut it. Finally, “She wanted to sleep with you?”

“No,” you admitted, sagging slightly. “I could just tell we were clicking and she was putting on the moves. She was interested. And I’m not sure what happened but it just got into my head that it could… lead to that. Sex. And I just sort of panicked.” It was your turn to blink. “Oh my god, I just walked away from her…”

Jennie’s giggle was enough to draw you back to the moment with her. Watching her, you knew the girl at the party didn’t amount to much in your world. Not when so much of it was occupied with your best friend. It wasn’t your typical ‘in love with your straight best friend’ bit, considering Jennie wasn’t exactly straight herself. But there wasn’t a whole lot to base any idea that she felt attracted to you. It wasn’t like you were freaking out about trying to impress Jennie in any bed with your utter lack of experience.

As the thought ran through your head, Jennie seemed to think the opposite. A step closer, she was reaching up to take a lock of your hair and twirl it around her finger. Those eyes, so dark, looked ever deeper as they lifted to catch yours. A cruel grin on her lips. If you didn’t know better, you’d say it was only because she was drunk that she was approaching you like this. Invading your space like this. Making your body vibrate like a magnet as she neared.

“You know,” she started, voice deeper. Sultry. You felt the urge to take a step back but a much stronger yearning kept you rooted to the spot. “We are in a bedroom.”

There was little more you could do than just nod.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” she continued. Shapes shifted in the red of the wall, slow, tantalizing. “You can say no to me right here and now, and we’ll pretend that I never said anything at all.”

Bone dry, you couldn’t speak to any sway in the decision. Jennie took that to mean you didn’t quite understand, and in keeping with the theme of complete clarity, she whispered.

“Do you want me to teach you how to fuck?” The hand playing with your hair now rested on your shoulder, fingertips warm and gently kneading the tense muscle there. “Do you want me to show you how to please a woman?”

All you could do was nod.

Something told you in the moment Jennie pressed her lips to yours and sought to make them pliant that she had been looking for this opportunity. It was almost too perfect.

It was a spell, how she kissed you. Made all those meddlesome thoughts and emotions that liked to control the heart disappear. Made your body respond before you could comprehend the way the two of you fitted together. Made time flit by from the second she started to peel your clothes off and you for her. Maybe those montages you saw in films held some measure of truth in the fluidity they portrayed sex. Abruptly kissing and then naked and then—

“On your bed,” Jennie instructed. A tone of voice unlike you ever heard, and had you backing toward the furniture obediently as she kicked off the last article of clothing around her ankle.

Aware that you were nude and about to part from her, that she would be able to see you in all your glory, you suddenly stilled. Nervous. What would she think? You couldn’t compare to some of her past partners, the men and women she’s bedded that she could have easily pulled from fashion magazines. That apprehension started its beady crawl back into your throat.

A gentle touch. Fingers on your chin. Bringing your eyes from the floor to hers again. Still just as excited about the prospect but with a blanket of care.

“You’re beautiful,” she murmured, kissing you again. Reading your thoughts. “I am attracted to you, mind and body.” Tongue lapping at your lip. “You have the power to stop whenever you like.”

As though the words thawed your insides with security of your bond, you broke the kiss and found yourself sinking down to the bed. Looking at Jennie expectantly. It must have been a sight she liked. A smile spread across her lush lips and she placed a hand on your shoulder to ease you back on the sheets. A pause taken to marvel at your form, one that gifted you the ability to do the same of her.

“Have you ever touched yourself?” Jennie inquired, face glowing in the light. It saved her the satisfaction of seeing you blush profusely at the question. Nodding, a hand smoothed up your thigh. “Then I want to begin with something you haven’t had the chance to practice yet.” Slinking upon the bed to level herself with your waist, “It’s better to show than to tell.”

Teeth tickled at your navel. You whimpered, silently chastising yourself for breaking so easily, and could hear Jennie chuckle darkly. Kissing, nipping, licking, she teased at your waist, biting tenderly at your hipbones, licking the invisible line of your waistband. The sensations unraveled low in your stomach, better than anything you could have ever made yourself feel, and she wasn’t even where your fingers had wantonly explored. Chestnut hair brushed over your skin, heightening the act, and when you started to writhe mindlessly did she take that as a sign you were ready. A hand splayed over your hip, holding you still, and then she was drawing lower.

You strangled out a gasp as you felt Jennie lave from your entrance to your bud. It was a good thing she had prepared with the hand on your body for you immediately tried to buck. The idea alone would have been enough, but for Jennie to demonstrate so willingly had you like putty. How did you taste? Did she like it? Or did she just enjoy how you responded? The questions started tallying up in your brain, losing track when she did the same ministration again, and then again, and fuck, again. The sounds of her mouth and you were obscene, the flush on your face a mixture of embarrassment and lust. And she was only picking up momentum. The dips into your folds came faster. Held more pressure. And she paused at your clit, sucking it between her lips, groaning from the den of her chest when a cracked cry fell from your mouth.

You wanted it to last forever. But it felt like no time at all before you were fisting up the sheets and openly moaning, attempting in vain to ride her tongue as she held you below and ate you like she was addicted. Blame laid on the virgin nerves driving you beyond sense. There was no moment wasted to ask what you liked, what she could do better, what more you needed. Jennie was bringing you close to an imperceptible edge composed all of her own and you wanted to fall already. Tossing your head to the side, chest heaving with a great inhale, legs shaking… it was approaching. Oh, you wanted it…

“Jennie!” You gasped out when she departed before finishing the climb. As if you had any jurisdiction to criticize her.

All she did was smirk that damned way that she did.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, baby,” and the way Jennie said the pet name so casually made you want to keen. “That wasn’t even the main event.”

With surprising strength, Jennie cupped the back of your head and drew you into a kiss. So that’s what you tasted like. An unfamiliar taste but not one unpleasant, and she didn’t seem to mind sharing. Distracted, you complied as she skillfully switched your positions until you broke apart and noted how she was now the one lying on the bed. Jennie was stunning, gentle curves and unobstructed flesh. A shine of the light and you were swallowing a knot to see how wet she had become from the opening act.

Reaching up, Jennie took a spare pillow at the head of the bed and brought it down so that she could fit it under her hips. You watched absently, brain fog too dense to allow any real thoughts to form. The cushion lifted her, and when she spread her legs for you to join her, it exposed more than your dreams dared picture. It was almost comical how your jaw dropped in increments. Hands gripping your hips, you allowed her to usher you closer.

“Put your hands on my knees, baby.” Were you trembling? Doing as instructed, thankful your hands could still, you listened as she continued with, “You can push them apart or up toward me if you need the space.” What was she talking about, so unabashed? You glanced down between your bodies and shuddered. Your cores so close to touching. And to drive home the point, Jennie pulled you tighter.

Stars sparked in your vision as you bumped clumsily together. Despite your copious desire, you could still feel her own hot, wet slick. God, you wanted to be closer, and following her advice, you gently urged her knees further into a fold toward her chest so you could press in earnest against her. Jennie hummed, eyes fluttering shut, hands never leaving your hips as she locked you there.

Eyes still closed and voice breathier, “Start grinding, baby.” You did, sighing out. “Yes, just like that… mmm, that’s good. You’re doing so good.”

The viscosity of the lava lamp trailed over your room, over your bodies as you worked up a rhythm. Abiding Jennie’s every instruction. You tried not to think about the awkward beginning, the uncertainty of what you were doing, what it could mean now that you had both passed a threshold of no returning.

It was easy when Jennie started to lose the ability to speak. Words ceased, coming in intervals of “Faster!” or “Like that, like that…” until they weren’t being spoken at all. At least not coherently. Tuned to her frequency, you began relying on the moans as they came to know what to do, and often found it correlated with what you wanted yourself. Jennie working you as close as she did with her tongue made holding on difficult, because there was no way you were about to finish before she would. Perhaps that had been her goal from the start, but grounding your hips into hers, the only thing that would bring you to that end would be hearing Jennie cry out her own climax.

When the jerk of Jennie’s hips to meet yours started to become unhinged, and the hands bruising your hips slackened with one coming to rest on your lower abdomen, digging nails, did you notice she was about to come. It made your chest tight, panting, beads of sweat running down the rivulet of your spine, and you just had to hold out. Head thrown back, you focused on keeping the pace as Jennie scratched at you, volume rising, whines sharpening and cracking. Then, your name, like she was calling for you. A quake ran the length of your body, and you cried out, unable to stop yourself if you had all the strength in the world.

Dark hair splayed over the sheets, hands scrambling on you for anything to anchor her in reality, Jennie came with nearly enough force to push you off her. You tried to fight it, keep her legs open just long enough to keep rutting until you were both finished. Ribs expanding to accommodate the inhales, Jennie tapered off into deep breaths. When she could manage, she opened unfocused, bleary eyes and smiled wide up at you. You were barely able to hold yourself up, setting her legs down slowly on the bed to stretch after holding the position for so long. Losing contact, you immediately missed the feeling of her against your centre, but couldn’t go another round if you wanted to. The second your high was finished, you were far too sensitive for anything else, and positively a mess.

Jennie didn’t care about the mess. A hiss escaped your teeth at the agony of having her grab your bruised hip again to pull you down onto her body. Sticky, hot, you laid together to catch your breath.

“I don’t think you’re going to have any problems,” Jennie finally said, laughing sheepishly at the end. Now that you were done, Jennie had lost the confident façade and became the mild kitten you had always known her as. It made your head spin.

You couldn’t voice it, even as she hugged you close and played with your hair to drift into sleep, but you weren’t sure you ever wanted to hear another person moan your name that wasn’t Jennie.

#k!nktober #blackpink #TIME TO CHURN OUT DAY 2

[tsuraiwrites]

Welcome to the DADWC! For the pairing of your choice, feed the angst machine: "Don’t cry.” <3

thank you for your prompt! I thought about cutting it off after the first scene but can’t resist happy endings. for @dadrunkwriting

Fic: Keeping Pressure

“Don’t cry, it’ll be okay,” Anders tries to reassure Hawke, doing his best to put on a smile despite the pain of being separated from the Fade and the deep, aching agony radiating from the stab wound in his side – it worsens as Hawke puts more pressure on it, trying to stem the tide of blood with a handful of bandages. 

“‘Don’t cry’? Fuck you, ‘don’t cry,” Hawke snaps, hands glowing with blue light for a moment before it flickers and dies from lack of mana. “Fuck, I don’t have any more lyrium!” 

Anders grimaces, tries to breathe but coughs, his mouth filling with the unpleasantly familiar tang of blood.

It was supposed to be a quiet smuggling job; another part of the Mage Underground had brought the child from the Gallows to Darktown, while he and Hawke took them the rest of the way to the Wounded Coast to a ship waiting for them. They’re lucky the Templars caught them when they did, on the way back from delivering the young mage to freedom. Anders, leading the way across the coast, was caught by a Silence almost immediately. 

The only upside to this Void-damned mess – that their thirteen-year-old charge wasn’t stuck in the cross-fire. But with his connection to the Fade cut, Anders had been forced to fight with his staff in close quarters, quickly going through his health potions as a result. Hawke downed all their lyrium protecting them both with magic, but a Templar still managed to stick a blade in Anders, and here they are. 

Spirit healing can do nothing when neither of them have the mana to power it. 

“One of those Templar bastards has to have lyrium on him,” Hawke mutters, but Anders can barely hear him over the pulse in his ears, his heart trying harder to pump as he loses blood. “Anders!” Hawke shouts, and Anders’ eyes snap open, not remembering when he’d shut them. “Stay with me, sweetheart,” he says when Anders blearily meets his eyes. Hawke sucks in a harsh breath, his broad shoulders tense as tears finally begin falling, disappearing quickly into his beard. 

“I’m with you, love,” he murmurs, and coughs again, his stomach cramping with nausea. This time he can’t swallow down all the blood, and it trickles out the side of his mouth. Even with the blurring corners of his vision he can see his lover go another shade paler, his mouth twisting in a grimace. 

“Good, that’s… good. Now, I need you to help keep pressure on.” He grabs one of Anders’ hands, then the other, pressing them to the bandages at his side. A lance of blistering pain stabs into Anders, nearly worse than when the original wound was inflicted, and he bites back a scream that has Hawke babbling: “Maker’s breath, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, sweetheart, but you need to endure it, just a few minutes. It’ll be okay, I just need to grab lyrium.” 

All the while his calloused hands firmly arrange Anders’s hands and arms until he’s able to brace against the sandy ground to put more pressure on the wound. Anders groans, but does his best to comply with his shaky, quickly waning strength. As soon as he’s braced, Hawke is scrambling off his knees, taking off at a dead sprint to the nearest Templar corpse. 

Anders waits, staring up into a sky going grey as dawn approaches. Despite this, his vision starts to darken.

Not like this, Anders wants to scream. Wants to rail at how much more he has yet to accomplish – mages are still imprisoned, turned Tranquil for no reason at all, are suffering under countless abuses–

He reaches for Justice, but the Fade is still far out of his grasp, his spirit companion the same.  

He breathes, presses his hands harder when he notices they’ve started to slacken, and waits for Hawke to come back, for his magic to return, or for unconsciousness to take him. He blinks slowly. The breeze is cool on his sweaty brow, but Anders can’t muster the strength to turn into it, and he realizes he’s panting, can’t seem to pull in enough air. 

His head swims, and Anders pulls in another harsh breath, trying to call out, but there’s blood in his mouth and he has run out of time. 

The black blooms across his vision and swallows him whole.

-

When Anders comes to, it’s to the sight of a familiar, deep red canopy hanging above him – he groans the next moment as a headache hits, making him squint with the pain of it. 

“You’re awake!” a voice exclaims, and when Anders finally manages to peek one eye open, he finds Hawke sitting in a chair beside his bed. Anders opens his mouth, but only succeeds in making a dry rasping noise. Hawke takes that as his cue, fetching water from the nightstand. He doesn’t offer it to Anders right away, helping Anders sit up against the headboard first. Anders manages to do so with only a few twinges in his abdomen, and he touches his side, lifting his shirt to reveal mostly-healed skin with only a red, puckered scar where the knife went in. 

Anders takes the proffered cup of water and after nearly draining it in slow sips, asks: 

“We’re back at the estate. How…?” 

Hawke sighs, and for the first time Anders takes in his rumpled appearance, his flyaway hair and red-rimmed eyes. 

“Carried you back, after I healed what I could.” Hawke’s face crumples. “You nearly died on me, Anders,” he says, voice cracking, and it strikes home. In the back of his mind, Justice rumbles, a wash of feeling reiterating the point and making his heart squeeze. 

“I’m sorry, love–” Anders starts, but Hawke reaches out, clasping one of Anders’ hands between both of his own.

“You don’t need to apologize, it’s… working with the Mage Underground is getting more dangerous and I’m worried.” Before Anders can form a response, he continues, “I’m not asking you to stop, just… take me next time, too, and we’ll both stock up on potions.” 

It’s the best Anders can possibly ask for, and he sags against the headboard with a thankful sigh, grateful he’s not about to lose Hawke’s support because of the close call. 

“Sounds like a good plan, love,” he says with a tired smile. 

“Excellent. Now, how about a late breakfast? Orana promised it would be ready whenever you’re able to eat it. No, no, stay in bed!” Hawke orders when Anders moves to swing his legs off the mattress. “Come on, you know not to move around so much after a stomach wound like that.” Flushing with embarrassment and not a little petulance, Anders sinks back into the bed. 

“So the student healer becomes the teacher,” he grouses, but he can already feel the way exhaustion is pulling at his bones. “Any more words of wisdom from our dear Champion?” 

“A kiss a day keeps the healer away?” 

Anders laughs, and turns to meet Hawke’s kiss obligingly.

#fic #dragon age #anders/hawke #handers #cartadwarfwithaheartofgold #dragon age drunk writing circle #not beta read

[lorilane33]

He’s Your Dancing Queen

Summary: Bucky is a man-child about indulging your want to watch Mamma Mia for the hundredth time, and when you come early a few days later you are met with something unexpected. 

Pairing: Bucky x Reader 

Word Count: 2,589

Warnings: Bucky being a cheeky little shit. Mamma Mia obsession, fluff out the wazoo because that’s my jam. Hilarity. 

A/N: This is my first every Bucky fic, and I’m super excited about it. Mamma Mia has recently become one of my favorite musical movies and ABBA has no shortage of amazing and inspirational songs :) This is the result of that. Please like and reblog, I live for that shit :) 

Saturday evening arrives in the house you share with your boyfriend Bucky and he lets out a groan while his eyes roll to the back of his head; you’ve made your choice for what movie you want for movie night.

“Y/n, doll. I get that it’s your turn to pick the movie we watch, but Mamma Mia? AGAIN?” Bucky settles into the couch and his arm goes around you, his mind flashes back to the last time you watched Mamma Mia. “Didn’t we just watch it on Wednesday?” 

“So?? Bucky, come on.” You stick your bottom lip out in a pout, knowing he can’t handle it when you ask so sweetly. “Pleeeease? I promise I won’t sing along too loudly this time.” 

Bucky knows you are taking advantage of him but he can’t bring himself to tell you no, especially when it’s something that continually brings you this much joy. Letting out a defeated sigh he responds, “Fiiiine, we can watch it again.” When he hears you squeal in response he smiles and adds on, “It’s so not fair that you use that pout against me, Y/n. You know that look coming from you breaks my heart.” 

You reach up and kiss Bucky’s cheek, the scratch of his beard against your lips a nice feeling. “You know you love me, no matter what. Now, stop being a punk if you want to keep cuddling with me.” A smirk gracing your features. 

A few songs into the movie, you’ve completely forgotten the promise you made Bucky and are currently singing along (loudly) to Dancing Queen with Donna, Tonya, and Rosie, wishing you could run away to Greece with Bucky. 

Suddenly you feel a heavy weight against you as Bucky sags into you and sighs with boredom. Trying to get him on board with the fun, you shove the air mic into Bucky’s face, and all you get is a grumble about how he’s heard this song a million times and he’s tired of it. Laughing, your whole body moves to the beat of the song and you serenade him through to the end of it. 

“Finally, that stupid song is over. Can we watch something else now?” you hear Bucky mumble, adding on another dramatic sigh for effect. 

Your eyebrows shoot up in response and you momentarily frown, the movie momentarily forgotten. “Excuse you, Bucky? It was my turn to pick!” 

“I feel like I’m going to be singing these songs in my sleep because of how often we’ve watched this movie,” Bucky replies. He rolls his eyes. “And the last thing I want is to be singing ABBA songs when I’m trying to rest, doll.” 

Rolling your eyes you turn your attention to the TV and realize you’ve almost missed the beginning of your favorite scene. “That’s great, hon. We can talk about it later, I promise. Now, please… shush.” 

An overly dramatic and indignant look crosses Bucky’s face as he realizes you’re blowing him off and he tightens his arm around you, “Now who needs to be excused, little missy? You think you can just -”

Suddenly a pillow collides with his face and he is momentarily stunned. “I said SHUSH!” You yell all while your attention remains on the screen, where Sky and Sophie are singing their duet, Lay All Your Love On Me.

“Y/n, are you ignoring me for Sky??” Bucky whines, glancing back and forth between you and the movie. “Oh my god, you totally are!!” He exclaims as he shoves your shoulder.

Smiling you laugh at his need for attention. “And what if I am, Buck? He’s so beautiful! Just look at him!” you cry. “His voice isn’t bad either... So there’s that,” nonchalantly you shrug in amusement. 

“How could you ignore me for him?” He reaches up and pokes you in the nose, and then he points to Sky onscreen as you turn to face him. “HE LOOKS LIKE HOWARD STARK, Y/N, IN CASE YOU DIDN’T NOTICE AND THAT’S WEIRD.”

At this, you burst out laughing. “Howard Stark?? Really, hon? He does NOT look like Howard! Now you’re just grasping at straws. NOW SHHHHHH!!” You add on as you turn your attention back to the TV, the chemistry between Sophie and Sky crackling on-screen. 

Bucky keeps up his petulant attitude. “You’re right, he can’t be Howard because he’s half-naked and the ugly sod is bloody British,” he mockingly responds.  

You pat Bucky’s knee in response to his obvious jealousy. “Awww, Sweetie. It’s okay to be jealous every once in a while,” you coo gently. 

“Jealous?! Me?! JEALOUS OF THE HOWARD STARK WANNABE??? Please.” Bucky huffs as his eyes roll again. “How much of this movie do we have left anyway?” 

Your grin grows wider as you break the news to him. “Bucky. Sweetheart. Babe. My love. We’re not even halfway through yet. You’ve seen this movie before, you should know!”

Bucky dramatically groans, adding another eye-roll in for effect, as he flops down to lay his head in your lap. His metal arm wraps around your waist as he mumbles into your leg, “Just wake me up when it’s over.” 

You roll your eyes fondly at his antics knowing he wasn’t actually upset about any of it. “Fine, Buck. Go to sleep, you brat.” Your hand finds its way into his soft, short locks, and gives it a firm tug. He lets out a small squawk of surprise and glares at you before he closes with a victorious smile on his face. 

Once the movie ends you shake Bucky to wake him up. “Hey. Wake up, it’s over.” 

“Oh my god, finally!” Bucky mumbles through a yawn. “I was beginning to think it would never end. Did you finally get enough of your boy Sky and his stupid British nonsense??” 

Giggling, you respond as you pinch him. “Maybe I haven’t, we should watch it again to make sure. You’re such a brat, you know that?” 

He gasps. “NOOO!” batting your hand away, he continues. “Excuse you? Who are you calling a brat, punk?”  

“Hey! I could have left you to sleep out here on the couch, ya know. But I didn’t, because I’m a loving girlfriend.” 

“A loving girlfriend, huh? I wouldn’t have to sleep through half the movie if you didn’t make me watch Mamma Mia all the time, Y/n. So technically this is your fault.” He begrudgingly sits up, glaring at you for waking him up. 

You smile and boop his nose. “How on Earth is this my fault, Buck?” 

A look of mild annoyance lands on his face when he pulls away from your finger. “How is this your fault? Gee, I wonder how this could, in any way, be your fault?”  

Pushing him off the couch, you smile and kiss his head as you walk past him, letting your fingers graze his bearded jaw.  “Awww, Buck. You’re so cute when you’re jealous.”

Eyes widening as he realizes what you said, he calls out to your form retreating into the bedroom. “I am NOT jealous of not Howard, Y/n! We’ve discussed this!!” 

____________________________________________________________

“Exactly, Stef! I don’t understand how she thinks she has the right to do that.” You continue your phone conversation while digging in your purse for your keys as you walk up to the porch. 

Listening to your friend’s reply, you walk up the front steps and successfully pull your keys from your purse. Suddenly you hear muffled voices, and it sounds like it’s coming from inside. 

“Hey, Stef, I’m gonna have to call you back. Yeah, I’ll talk to you later. Bye.” You end the call and dump the phone into your purse as you go to unlock the door. “Buck?”

Once you open the door the mystery of the blaring noise is solved as you hear the opening chords of Sky and Sophie’s duet coming from the living room, then Sky’s voice is heard too. But this time there’s another voice.  “Um, Bucky?” You call out, hoping to figure out where he’d disappeared to. 

You place your keys in the dish by the front door, confusion settling in. However, the mystery of the missing boyfriend, too, is solved momentarily as seconds later you turn the corner into the living room only to see Bucky, who apparently has no idea you’re home.

The man who complained about watching Mamma Mia only days previously is now singing along with the movie, giving it all he’s got, clad in nothing but his boxer briefs. Your mouth drops open at the sight before you as he whips his shorter locks to the song. Bucky’s hand that isn’t using the remote as an air mic glides down his body as he does a few body rolls, then his hips start swinging in time to the beat as he runs his free hand through his hair, making it stick up even more than it already was. 

You continue to stare, absolutely gobsmacked, as your boyfriend starts moving along with the words even more as the second verse builds to the chorus:

“It was like shooting a sitting duck,

A little small talk, a smile and baby I was stuck.

I still don't know what you've done with me,

A grown-up woman should never fall so easily.

I feel a kind of fear

When I don't have you near,

Unsatisfied, I skip my pride

I beg you, dear,”

Bucky finishes an attempt at an elaborate spin move as he sings the last line, and you finally snap out of your trance and begin laughing. 

His eyes fly open as he hears you, not expecting you to be home so soon. “Y/N?!? OH MY GOD, I THOUGHT YOU WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO BE HOME UNTIL SEVEN!?!” Bucky frantically tries to find the remote on the coffee table for a few seconds, only to make you slouch against the wall in laughter as he realizes he’s been using it as a mic. 

Suddenly your laughter is the only sound now as the TV goes silent when Bucky pauses it. He crosses his arms, drawing your attention to his chest, which is heaving with his heavy breathing and covered in a light sheen of sweat. 

Pulling yourself back up to a standing position, you wipe the tears that have been streaming down your face as you try to compose yourself. Giggling, you reply, “Yeah, Buck, I wasn’t. But if you had looked at your phone at all over the last hour you’d have seen my text that said I was coming home early. And lemme tell you, I’ve never been so glad to have you not read my text in our entire relationship.” 

You let your eyes now wander appreciatively over your mostly naked boyfriend, taking in the Greek god that is James Barnes, and when your eyes get back up to his face you see him scoff at you. “Hey! Quit ogling the merchandise. Geez, doll, I feel so objectified right now.” 

Smirking at him, you roll your eyes at his antics. “But what if your merchandise is really, really nice to look at?” You pause. “Speaking of merchandise, Buck. Umm. I’m assuming you know you’re running around in your underwear? Where are your clothes?” 

Without missing a beat Bucky says, “Pfft. Duh, Y/n! Of course, I know I’m in my underwear. It’s the best state to be in. And for my clothes, they’re In the dresser, where they’re supposed to be? Well. My sweats are probably on the floor, but whatever.” He shrugs like that’s the most logical place for his pants to be. 

Unable to keep a straight face, you break down into giggles. “So you’ve just been wandering around in your briefs since I left this morning?”

Dropping the remote onto the couch cushion, Bucky walks over to you, a mischievous glint in his eye.  “Yeah, pretty much. Got a problem with that?” 

With Bucky suddenly in front of you, blue eyes staring at you so intensely, your response is much breathier than you anticipated. “Nope. Not a single problem, Buck. But, baby.” Breathing deeply and arching your eyebrow at him you continue. “Last time I checked, you thought Sky was a Howard Stark wannabe and made fun of the fact that he’s British. What’s up with that?”

Bucky shrugs in defeat, chuckling as he responds. “What can I say? It’s really not my fault ABBA has killer songs. And it’s also not my fault that the story they’ve used the songs to tell is a damn good one.” His hands come to rest on your hips, lightly rubbing his thumbs over your hipbones, his eyes bright. “And it’s still not my fault that my irresistible girlfriend makes me watch the movie all the damn time. I’ve had it memorized for three months, doll.” 

Almost subconsciously your arms reach up to rest on his shoulders in response to his ministrations as he gently brushes his nose against yours. “But Y/n here’s the real question. It’s really important, so I need you to answer honestly. My performance. It blew a half-naked Sky out of the water, right? No contest?” 

“Oh my god, Bucky!” You slap his chest, laughing. “We were having a moment and you were such a brat and ruined it!” 

You lean your forehead against his shoulder in an attempt to gain some composure, but it fails because your head is bobbing along to Bucky’s laughter emanating from his chest. “Doll, it was an honest question. I just need your honest opinion, that I’m better than Sky.”

Pulling away from Bucky, you walk back toward the doorway where the two bags you brought home were strewn, forgotten, along with your purse. With an affectionate laugh, you look back at him. “Bucky Barnes, some days I haven’t the slightest idea what to do with you. You are such a man-child.” 

Smiling, he rolls his eyes at your retort. You walk up to him, resting your free hand on his bicep as you go up on tiptoe to press a sweet kiss to his lips. His hands reach for your ass, but you swat his hand away and smirk.  “Nope. Hands off, mister. I’ll never make it to the shower if I let you get your hands on me.” He chuckles.  

You brush past him, pausing for a second. “And to answer your super important question? Hands down better than Sky, doll. You’re definitely my dancing queen.” Suddenly Bucky yelps in surprise as the crack of your hand firmly slapping his ass echoes in the room as you run to the bedroom. 

“HEY! Get back here, you brat!” Bucky yells as he takes off after you, rubbing his ass the whole way. 

A couple of hours later, after Bucky finishes showing you just how much he loves you, and after finally, finally finishing in the shower, music can once again be heard blaring from the TV. If anyone were to walk up to the door at this point in time they would hear voices muffled through the door just as you had earlier that day, not quite sure what it was they were hearing. 

In the living room, though, unaware of anyone or anything outside yourselves, you find yourself in your underwear right beside Bucky in his, loudly singing and dancing along to Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again like there’s no tomorrow. Bucky may be a man child, but he’s your dancing queen, and you wouldn’t trade him for anybody else.

#bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes drabble #bucky barnes one shot #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction #marvel one shot #marvel imagine #marvel drabble #marvel fluff #marvelfic #marvel fic

[soobadnoonecanstopher]

Only the One You Love, part 7 (A Kyungsoo Series)

Genre: Angst / Romance

Characters: You X Kyungsoo

Only the One you Love[M]:  part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8  

“Are you scared of me now?”

Kyungsoo always saw too much.

It wasn’t even like you could deny it. He could feel it in the distance you kept during the kiss. He probably bumped up against the stout wall you had installed around your heart when he got close enough to be classified as a minor threat.

But this was something you could handle. You had prepared for this much at least. You knew that in coming to Korea, the chances of running into him again were very high.

You hadn’t quite figured out a plan of action in the off-chance that a casual run-in turned into a drunken hookup and subsequent morning-after love confession with whimpering apologies from both sides, but what you knew for certain was that you weren’t about to fall again.

You wouldn’t let yourself be put into the position to be hurt again. If you had to keep him at arm’s length to make that happen then that’s simply what you would do. The softness you saw in his eyes when he looked at you; the hurt you could read like a graphic novel on his oversized features could poke and prod at you all it wanted; you would not waver. You had survived the last six months, what was a few more minutes with him close enough to hold; close enough to touch; close enough for the warmth of his lips to leave a lingering tingle?

You took your time answering his question. It was a heavy one — Were you scared of him? — your tongue felt too dry when you finally coaxed some motion from it.

His eyes glanced down at your lips when you spoke.

“I would say,” you inhaled with the words as you searched through your vocabulary for the right one and midway through the exhale you continued, “I’m smarter now.”

Your answer sent him moving. His eyes fell from your face and his hand lifted to tap fingertips in an absent-minded drift over his furrowed eyebrows and he blinked fast with the harsh lighting from your bathroom vanity reflecting a flickering wetness in his eyes.

“I think I’m just going to focus on being more careful with myself from now on.” And with my heart — but, you held the word back.

“Because you’re scared of me,” he spoke again, repeating the same words as before only this time his hand fell over his eyes as he closed out the world for a moment. It wasn't a question this time. Your response had solidified in his mind the real reason for your reluctance for closeness. The real reason why you were so desperate now to get him out of your home. Kyungsoo could feel it and he was reeling as he took a step back.

His shoulder hit a door frame and he was out of places to go. This bathroom was tiny, just as the rest of your apartment was tiny and you listened to the sounds of the water from the shower behind you, running down the drain. There was a very slight mist in the air from the steam the hot water produced. It was hardly enough to fog the mirror even. Kyungsoo’s reflection looked clear enough for you to easily make out the pained lines on his face that his hands rubbed over. You could see the tremble in those hands and when he dropped them, his head sagged forward.

“I’ll,” he swallowed roughly and the words were interrupted by the breath he pulled, “fix it. I can fix this, please...if you—”

There was a war inside your chest. You hated the admission. You hated this truth.

Yes. You were scared.

“—if you just let me try—”

You were terrified. You were so frightened that he would reach out and rip the last bits of your heart out that you wanted nothing more to do with it. You wanted him to leave. You wanted the temptation of the warmth and kindness in his eyes to vanish so you wouldn't have to resist him any longer. How much longer could you possibly say no to him before the single syllable changed to ‘well… maybe.’

Kyungsoo’s focus was on you again and you caught a flash of movement in his posture. A shift of his balance that made him surge forward. It was minimal in depth yet when he moved you moved; only your legs carried you in the opposite direction. Away from his advancement. You stepped back as he stepped forward and he noticed it.

And he stopped.

Your ears were humming. The thick steam that poured from the shower clouded your peripheral vision and Kyungsoo lifted both of his hands to cover of his nose and his mouth as he gasped once softly and shook his head in a shallow rocking motion.

“You,” the hands muffled his words, “don't want me here. You don't want me close to you at all.” He sounded close to tears to finally know this ugly truth about you.

No. No, this was vulgar. This beautiful human before you should not feel such pain; you could feel the shards of your heart scraping and clawing inside of your rib cage and it begged and it pleaded for some way to comfort him but your mind would win with its common sense and timer that ticked down the minutes until this whole ordeal was over, the knowledge that he would leave and take with him every last chance you had at a love so painful and all-consuming — your rationality held on fast and you stood stubbornly on your own two feet, curled into yourself with arms wrapped tightly around your stomach to keep your insides from spilling out all over the floor. You had to try your hardest to keep yourself together right now. You were the only one you could count on for this.

“Kyungsoo,” you spoke over the sound of the running water and your heart and your mind were at war, “I just... I can’t.”

“You can’t what? You can’t be with me? You can’t forgive me? You can’t be in the same room as me?”

You felt like your voice had been snatched away and you hated this look on his face. It crushed you. It destroyed you. How had you gone from so determined... to this?

He still had your heart and all of the power of such an absolute ownership. But you had what was left of your pride and it would have to do.

The steam was beginning to thin now. The hot water was gone and nothing at all had been accomplished with it. What a waste.

So much time had passed that you were certain a few more minutes here and he would miss his second flight. The consequences of this were beginning to stack; mounted up high as each moment brought with it more and more real-life dangers. Greater than just the damage to your silly little heart.

“Kyungsoo, your flight.” You whispered it like the filthy word it was and you felt like a coward or calling upon such an excuse.

“I’ll go,” he said with his eyes wide and trained down at the floor below his legs. It was trance-like, the way he responded. “I’ll go because you want me to go, but I’m still going to fix this.”

When he looked up into your face you could see the clarity of the room written all over his face. And he was looking into your eyes with a different look; different than before. It was brazen and it was oddly strong. A new aura you hadn’t seen all morning was bursting through his big brown eyes and he aimed them in your direction.

“Look, I made a mistake. That was me...my faults, my insecurities— I’m the one that fucked this up. You said that you’re smarter now but there wasn’t anything dumb about falling in love and honestly when I thought that I’d never see you again...it fucking killed me.” He held you in his gaze as he spoke to you, legs no longer standing within the doorway of your bathroom. He had already taken several steps away from you the moment he noticed you flinch away from him.

“And I know you haven’t said it yet—” he was leaving as promised but your heart held onto him and pulled hard. It had no effect. His feet kept on retreating and he was leaving now. Just as you had wanted. Right?

“—but I know you still love me. You’re hiding it — trying to be strong or ..or stubborn—” His vision sharpened and he lost some of his gumption on the word stubborn when the mention of such a bratty word made your lips pull into a frown and you did not fight the urge to roll your eyes. As if this was mere stubbornness. As if a broken heart could be labeled with such a word. Stubborn was something a petulant child was. You had been nearly destroyed. You were trying to live now.

“—or whatever it is but it’s still there, I know it. You still love me too...you just have to remember it.”

As if you could ever forget. You were biting down on your bottom lip with such a force that it was beginning to feel sore between your teeth. Your arms were crossed over your chest so tightly your muscles felt the strain and he wasn’t waiting for any more of a response from you. He was leaving. You held him in your sights until he simply was not there anymore.

“I’ll see you in Japan.” He called out from the living room and you felt the forceful exhale of the breath you had been holding send your body downward as your legs sank and your used up body leaned against the bathroom wall.

The soft click of your front door closing was the final sound to come from outside of your bathroom and you took a full five minutes of existing in your own skin before you pulled your bones back up with your own muscles and pulled the T-shirt roughly from your body.

You leaped into the ice-cold stream of running water and your lungs gasped as the freezing cold inundated your every cell. You sputtered and you shook and withstood the shock of it until your persistence began to pay off and you could feel your body becoming numb to it. Growing used to the pain until you hardly even noticed it anymore. It was an excellent metaphor for your existence up until this point in Korea and if you could take this, then you might just be able to withstand whatever other bullshit was coming next.

Your rescheduled flight to Osaka was easy enough to arrange and by the time the wheels touched down on the runway you were beginning to feel the strong clutches of that morning’s hangover headache finally beginning to fade.

The headache medicine you picked up with the emergency contraceptive pills at the pharmacy on the way to the airport helped ease you into your recovery and with a little food in your belly, you actually began to feel like you might just live to see another day.

You didn’t usually travel alone on work assignments. Perhaps this slip of your memory had one benefit; your flight was peaceful. Not that you wanted extra time to sit and stew inside your own head particularly, but at least you didn’t have to converse with anyone in a language that took just enough effort to become exhausting after a while.

It was probably because you lived here now, in Korea, but lately, you’d been feeling more and more fatigued with the language. Not the translating itself, that was fine and only sporadically demanding, but spending day after day talking to so many people had begun to make you feel rather worn down. It hadn’t been like this before moving here and you attributed it to the change in your job. More responsibilities, more stress — that sorta thing.

Your mind wandered in the taxi to the hotel and you recalled the phone calls in the beginning. The long video calls with Kyungsoo in which you’d go on for what felt like hours about your day. The days when you came to visit him and you’d spend entire nights up late with him just talking and talking about anything and everything you could both think to talk about. The last thing you had longed for was peace and quiet. You craved his words and he pulled yours from your own lips with open-ended questions an insatiable need to know everything you possibly had to share with him. You’d never grown tired of it. Not like now.

It had to be the move. It had to be the full and total immersion in a new country and the demands of your new job.

When you arrived at the hotel you keyed a quick text to the manager in charge of on-location staff assignments and you were instructed on your reporting location to begin your preparations for the fan meeting. There were scripts to go over for final approval, teams of staff members who approached you for small tasks and larger tasks, and all at once you were back into it. There was a rush. This felt hectic just like it had felt with EXO in Europe last year and you felt at times that a single translator on staff might not be enough for all of the work. If only you could split your body into two and handle two of the tasks at once then perhaps you could sign off on these interview questions while simultaneously monitoring the group chats of which you had multiple notifications flashing; all of them needed your attention.

Time was moving too fast and you limped along trying to catch up with the rush of work your late arrival had piled upon you. You’d had to pee for the better part of an hour and you couldn't even think about sitting down to eat something. There was simply so much work and not enough time. There was equipment to wear; an earpiece and mic that would feed your voice into the ears of select staff and group members for you to provide real-time translations as the show progressed.

The hosts spoke and you spoke, usually reading along from the already pre-approved script of questions and commentary, but careful to pay close attention for ad-libs and changes and when it came time for you to translate for the members as they addressed the audience, the sensation of hearing your own voice echoing throughout the entire arena to raucous applause and screams was about as surreal as it could get.  

Your performance was far from perfect. You stumbled on a few words and especially upon hearing the sound of your own voice over that crowd, you could feel the pressure mounting inside of your chest. Your mind blanked on a few words and you had to scramble while still trying to sound as professional as possible to find another way to say things. The whole experience left you feeling hot in the face and flustered as hell and you have never been so happy to witness the final reluctant goodbyes at the end of an event in your whole life.

The members waved their hands and blew their kisses and the fans in the crowd screamed and cried and you felt like you might just collapse from the genuine relief that it was actually finally over.

You had done it. It was done. Bumbles and mistakes had been made. There was nothing you could do about that now. It was over. You pulled the wiring from around your neck, removing the earpiece carefully as you unplugged yourself and handed off the equipment to the member of staff who was collecting mics to carefully catalog and place into rightful locations and you honestly could feel a cold sweat all over your skin. Your hands were shaking and you felt just a little nauseated. You needed some downtime. You still had to pee but also you needed to sit in complete silence in a bathroom stall and not have to say another word to another human being for at least a few minutes. An hour was out of the question; your phone was already vibrating with message notifications.  

You left your phone inside your back pocket and made your way toward the bathrooms. It could wait. Whatever it was could wait for five minutes.

You found the bathrooms and your bladder was screaming as you pushed through the stall door, quickly pulled down your jeans and heard the sound before you felt the rectangle piece of technology that you had very thoughtlessly left in your back pocket vanish with a clunk and splash combination.

Shit.

Fuck.

Shit and Fuck!

You stood in a flash and turned to look inside the toilet bowl; every single wasted wish and hope you had used up from the falling stars and blown out birthday candles mocking you as you spun to look. Please, please, please no, not your phone. Not in the toilet, not the 3-year-old treasure you held closest to your heart that was so full of your entire life you never even considered going through the trouble of replacing it. It was an older model. Definitely not waterproof and there it sat at the bottom of the toilet bowl. Tiny bubbles were rising from the corner and you leaped into action.

Fuck hygiene, this was an emergency. You reached into the water and pulled it out and it dripped and dripped as the water drained from the inside pouring back into the toilet bowl. You scrambled for some paper. For anything to dry it, anything to save this and it was so blank and so black and so dead looking and it was still dripping.  

You pressed the buttons on the side. You pressed the home button, you held buttons down, you shook out the rest of the water from somewhere inside the bottom speaker and the toilet paper stuck to your fingers when you tried to blot and dry as much as possible.

Your messages. Your photos. Your whole life.

The phone had soaked up that water like a sponge and you could feel the stress from the day mounting over your head because you still had to pee, goddammit!

You stared down at the phone, sitting motionless on a pile of wet paper and even the relief of emptying your bladder could not have any sort of significant impact on you now.

You had the pictures with him in there.

There was an entire folder dedicated to him. Dated pictures that documented every single visit, every single dish you both made together, every single gift exchanged. Super secret folders with passwords to protect them with pictures you both took together. A kiss on the cheek, a sweet smile on his face. A giggle when his eyes disappeared completely. The video you snuck while he slept one night and you were elated to capture the sound of your name mumbled in his sleep.

All gone.

You sat on the toilet in silence. This wasn’t the kind of silence you craved a few minutes ago. And yet you were bathed in it now. With filthy feeling hands and a useless and broken phone and a useless and broken heart inside your chest and your emotions mounting the longer you sat here remembering everything that had been on that phone.

It was gone and he was gone too.

The burning began in your eyes and it only lasted a second before you felt the tears cresting and spilling down your cheeks. Your nose stuffed up almost instantly and you felt consumed by loss.

At least you were alone. Your lungs trembled and stuttered and you breathed through your mouth as the tears fell endlessly down your face and you cried. You cried for the memories, you cried for the love and for the disappointment of it all. You cried for yourself and you cried for Kyungsoo and you cried and you cried alone in this bathroom in an event venue in Osaka, Japan when you really should have been finding some sort of solution to this.

Maybe you could save it. Maybe you could open it up and dry it with a hotel blow dryer, or maybe you could find a kitchen and find some rice to soak it in overnight, you had heard once that that was the way to fix wet phones.

You couldn't just cry about this. You had to get up and out of here and do something to fix this. Weren’t there people who could fix these things? Cell phone repair shops who dealt with water damage and data recovery who would go into your phone and find your super secret photos of your super celebrity idol boyfriend and you locked in a fucking selfie kiss and possibly take that photo and spread it all over the internet and cause a career-ending scandal?

Fuck.

Still, you were up and out of the stall. Still, you were washing your hands and shaking every last drop of water from out of your phone as you attempted to somehow cleanse the outside of it with paper towels because of disgusting toilet water and all the potential bio-contaminants that involved.

You were thinking of e-coli and botulism and Ebola and any number of other things that could possibly attach to your face if ever you held this thing up to your ear once more.

You wrapped it in the paper towels and held it just a little more carefully away from you as you moved and a quick glance in the mirror told you that while it did look like you had been crying, your makeup had been waterproof and your face had an after-crying glow that honestly didn’t look too bad. At worst you looked a bit drunk maybe.

You vacated the bathroom in search of some solution.

What you found was a dressing room with the letters EXO on them and you knew you would encounter plenty of staff members inside to at least help you brainstorm your next move. Perhaps they had a stash of staff phones they could let you use for the rest of this assignment so you could log in to the messenger program and continue your work duties.

On the other side of the door was a flurry of movement and activity. Staff worked to de-wardrobe, label, and organize items and bodies were moving in all directions as people did their jobs quickly so they could be done with it and finally get to close out this day’s schedule properly.

A pair of eyes caught your own and having finished changing his clothes he looked up from his seated position on a sofa in the center of the room with a genuine double take at your state.

Had you really looked that upset? You were probably a damn mess. You could feel the remnants of your emotions sitting at the back of your throat and Sehun stood up and took strides in your direction with a question on his eyebrows.

“Hey...you okay?” his head dropped close to your level and you shook your head back and forth as you held your hands out to show him your dead phone carefully wrapped in several brown paper towels from the bathroom.

It hadn’t occurred to you that he wouldn't know what you were showing him. Something hidden inside paper towels. He reached forward, ready to receive your terrible offering and you pulled it back quickly, not wanting him to catch a public toilet disease by touching this thing with his bare hands.

“I dropped my phone in the toilet.” You spoke through gritted teeth but you could hear the whining complaint on your own voice.

Saying it though, out loud, with your own mouth was so much worse than the incredulous repetition you had been replaying in disbelief inside your head.

Sehun snorted instantly and his hand flew up to cover his mouth and he didn't try that hard to hide the laughter that was very obviously shaking his shoulders.

“Oh...my god,” he whispered with a dramatic pause between the words for emphasis and you groaned and stomped your foot that he would dare laugh at you in your time of complete and utter disaster.

“Sehun,” you whispered harshly but it was no use reprimanding him because he had already covered his face with his open palms and he openly laughed so much harder when you scolded him.

“I’m sorry,” he said between big gasps for air, “It’s just...the way you’re holding it seemed like you found a dead bird or something.”

“Oh shit, are you really crying?” His laughter quieted down when your lips frowned down into the saddest pout at your terrible, terrible luck and you were about to leave this useless man in search of someone else — anyone else who could actually help you when a second face appeared beside the, now concerned, Oh Sehun.  

His face was equally concerned to see you sniffling and wiping stray tears from below your eyes and you were trying your best to control this. The more attention your quiet sniffles garnered, the more you wanted to turn and run out of the room.

The wide eyes of the man standing beside Sehun turned on him and you flinched when a hand reached up and roughly smacked the taller man on the shoulder.

“What the hell did you do?” Junmyeon, the leader of the group was hissing angrily at Sehun and you lifted your phone up quickly to protest. But more faces were appearing beside Sehun and Junmyeon now and there was a bit of a circle gathering. Oh god, you were a spectacle.

“I’m sorry for whatever happened, but sometimes our Sehun, he seems very mad or angry but really,” Junmyeon addressed you with a nervous smile on his lips and reached his own hand up to wave over the length of his own face, “he has a sleepy bitch face. That is just his face.”

Sehun’s expression had shifted at being blamed for this and he lifted his head to toss it back in annoyance. A loud sigh vacated his lungs and he rolled his eyes hard.

“Resting, Junmyeon. It’s a resting bitch face. God, how many times...”

“Sehun didn’t do anything. I’ve...dropped—” you lifted the phone toward the center of the circle of faces that had gathered. The commotion was already set into motion and Minseok had joined in the investigation of what exactly Sehun had or hadn’t done to make you cry.

Only Minseok had noticed that you held something in your hands and your words were out of your lips just after he had grabbed the brown paper towel wrapped phone from your hands.

“—my phone in the toilet.” The paper towels had fallen open enough for Minseok’s hand to grip around your phone briefly and it took him a good three seconds to register what you had actually said. The motion must have shaken some more drops of water from the inside.

“Oh my god, it’s wet. Why is this wet? Why is my hand wet right now?” His voice had risen by octaves and he quickly opened his hand to send the phone falling back down where it missed your hands holding the paper towels and clattered down onto the floor between everyone’s legs.

Heads looked down.

“I dropped it in the toilet,” you whispered with your voice thick with shame and your face felt like you’d been lounging in the fire pits of hell.

Minseok was green. He was waving his hands up and down rapidly and making gagging sounds and you frowned down at the now cracked phone screen of your dead phone.

“Why is Minseok freaking out?” Jongdae had arrived at the circle and stood beside Manager Lee and Manager Park who both looked down at the device with matching disinterested expressions on their faces.

“Put it in some rice,” Jongin chimed in from the sofa he seemed to be glued to, “I’ve dropped lots of phones in water. You put them in rice and they wake back up.”

“Where is she going to get rice right now?” Sehun asked Jongin who rolled his eyes as he looked up from his phone screen for a moment.

“Uhh...this is Japan, Sehun. She can just, like, go outside and get some rice on the street,” and as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, he held his hands out like a game show hostess showing off the fancy prizes up for grabs. “We are in Japan.”

“Did you pee on it?” Chanyeol’s baritone chimed in and you shook your head vehemently with your eyes as wide as could be. He gasped softly and he leaned in closer to you. “Was it the other one?” Chanyeol held up his fingers in a V shape, quietly asking about the other bodily function that might have happened with the phone inside the toilet and you wanted to just die.

You wished for a hole to climb into. Everyone was talking at once. This was a terrible situation that was becoming worse with each new witness who arrived to gawk.

“Toilet water on his hands,” Junmyeon responded to Jongdae’s question and the later wrinkled his nose in disgust, “She dropped her phone in the toilet and Minseok picked it up...got it on his hands. He’s going to be washing for hours tonight.”

Jongdae clicked his tongue and shook his head back and forth.

You crouched down on your ankles to grasp the phone within the paper towels again and cradled it between your parted knees with great care; as if all of the damage that could come to the device hadn’t already occurred.

“It looks kinda old, maybe it was time to replace it.” Sehun offered as he joined you down on the floor where you sunk down to sulk.

“It had everything on it, Sehun. My whole life. Pictures, videos...work. I have so much work I still need to do and I need my phone to do it. How will I get through the fanmeeting tomorrow without a phone? Do you know how much work gets done while I’m on the move?”

“Maybe you can use a replacement for now and we can take that one to get fixed when we get back to Seoul...Hmm?” Junmyeon was speaking down to you like you were an upset child he tried to pacify. He bent in half at the waist to join the pow-wow on the floor and you looked around to see that most of the half-interested parties to witness the spectacle had lost interest by now and wandered away. Minseok had disappeared quickly and you were certain that the running water you could hear coming from the dressing room bathroom was him scrubbing his hands.  

“Does anyone have a spare phone on them? Baekhyun you have two phones right?” Junmyeon was asking the room and several faces looked away as soon as the question was raised.

Baekhyun, who had been sitting on a nearby sofa with his head tossed back in half nap, half exhausted coma lifted his head for a moment.

“Why is this an our problem and not a her problem?” Junmyeon stood and leaned in Baekhyun’s direction with his jaw clenched and his face pink.

“Because she’s the one that Sehun li— knows. Sehun knows, h-his friend. She is his friend so she’s our friend. Why are you like this?”

“I need my phones,” Baekhyun said dismissively, closing his eyes up tight as his head fell back into place to rest against the back of the sofa.

A hand appeared. A hand holding a phone, and you stared down at that hand that held the phone out for you to take. The owner of the hand spoke and you jumped at the low voice that coated your eardrums and your heart and your entire existence in warmth.

“Here,” he said and the phone in his hand illuminated with the movement.

“I have two. Use this one for now.” Kyungsoo spoke beside you and you looked at the phone he presented you with. The phone he offered was the kind of familiar that singed your skin and prickled your memory and you could feel the protest on your tongue long before you followed his arm up to his shoulder to look into that calculated and blank look on his face that he kept controlled as he interacted with you in front of the others.

“Oh good. This will work for now. So you can get your work done, right?” Junmyeon was smiling wide at the obvious display of teamwork before him — a valuable member of the group taking care of another member so they could get their job done, for the good of everybody involved, for the good of EXO (We Are One)  — you could see the relief and pride written all over Junmyeon’s face as he looked at Kyungsoo.

“K-Kyungsoo, I don’t think—”

“It already has the apps we use. You can just log in and see all of your messages and emails and everything. You won’t be able to get a replacement phone by tonight and tomorrow will be too busy. Just use it.”

He was waiting for you to take it.

Sehun, Junmyeon, Jongdae, Chanyeol, and Jongin all waited for you to take it. Even Baekhyun from the sofa peeled an eyelid open to watch you take it.

Manager Lee clapped his hands once and the members' heads turned to listen as he announced 15 minutes before the vans left for the hotel and people were on the move again rushing to pack up belongings and finish last minute activities and you reluctantly reached for the phone that Kyungsoo still held in his hands.

He watched your face carefully as you gripped it and there was a slow motion blink of his eyes that made a wave of heat travel through your chest.

He stood on his legs and reached down to grab your hand and pull you into a standing position and then he leaned close to whisper into your ear, careful to drop your hand from his as soon as you were in an upright position.

“Password’s your birthday.”

He pivoted on his feet, leaving you here in the center of the dressing room with his own personal phone, the one he’d used to call you with late at night when you dated him. The one he’d texted you with and video called you with and the one who’s screen he’d kissed many times when he couldn’t kiss you in person because of the distance.

The one he’d used to break up with you.

“Kyungsoo,” you called toward his retreating back and he spun to look at you with raised eyebrows behind his round glasses. “I’ll give it back as soon as we get to Seoul.”

He shrugged his shoulders, “Keep it as long as you need it,” he said with a concealed smile inside his eyes.

“I won’t look at anything in it either,” you said much quieter this time and with just a bit of sarcastic notes in your voice.

“You can look at all of it,” he said and the smile in his eyes was gone, “You already have the password for everything.”

Your looming work deadlines overshadowed your sense of danger. It didn’t mean you couldn’t feel it, but you honestly didn’t have much of a choice. Kyungsoo was the only person in the entire room to offer you a solution that wasn’t soak the phone in rice and pray and he had already left for whatever task he had been in the middle of when you had barged your crisis-having, weeping self into his dressing room.

So you turned to the phone — Kyungsoo’s phone — tried your best not to be too annoyed by the all of the unread messages and waiting texts and missed call notifications you saw all over the damn thing (what was wrong with him?) and you logged him out to log yourself in where you needed to be.

The messages had piled up. Had you really been offline for a whole hour directly after a high profile event in your target language where you were required to vet a huge amount of official statements and articles that represented the company, the group, and the brand of EXO? You were glued to the phone for the entire ride back to the hotel and paused only for a moment to search for your room key so you could get to your laptop and finally close out the last of your tasks from today’s fan meeting. You had planned on showering and having a quick in-room dinner before final script approvals for tomorrow’s event.

Your self-control was impressive if you didn’t say so yourself. Although being so busy that you didn’t even have time to go to the bathroom without taking your laptop with you probably helped fuel the self-control.

Kyungsoo’s phone — it had its own tempting little voice that called to you from the coffee table — had been left completely and surprisingly unexplored by the time you signed off on the final script translations and you’d watched it sitting there out of the corner of your eye as you grabbed the remote control and flipped on the tv. The phone lit up a few times as non-urgent group chat messages arrived for you and then a longer buzz sounded out. And it didn’t quit.

Oh shit, it was ringing. Kyungsoo’s phone was ringing. You looked at the screen and read the word Mom on the illuminated screen and that single word sent a wave of tension through your body that started at your head and landed somewhere deep inside your belly.

You shouldn’t answer it, right? Your hands were on the phone and your grip was faltering on the second ring.

What would you even say to her?

You did suppose that you could simply explain how you, a vetted S.M. employee, had his phone for the time being and her son was unavailable but you’d be sure to let him know she called.

That was the professional thing to do. It was the kind thing to do also. It was your fault that he didn’t get to speak with his mother right now after the schedule had been completed for the night and he would have had enough time for a talk with his mom. You knew how busy he was and how rarely he got to actually connect with her. Your guilt multiplied the longer the phone rang.

The call had rung it’s third and fourth ring and you watched as the phone went silent in your hands. The screen went black and after a few seconds of staring at the blackness, the phone buzzed again briefly indicating that she had left a voicemail.

What if it was something important?

What if something was wrong?

You no longer hesitated. A trek through his contacts brought up a sparse list. Mom, Dad, a couple of managers and some of his actor friends. Slithering by down the list was his dog sitter Sunny— as pretty a thing as she was annoying (ugh), and your frustrations magnified upon the realization that he did not have his work phone number saved in this phone. But then again, why would he? What reason in the world would he have to call himself?

What he did have saved was your name with a little red emoji heart trailing behind it.

You glared at the heart and the heart glared back at you.

And then your fingers were moving.

It was that damn heart. How could he still have that damn heart?

You jumped to his text messages and scrolled through the chains searching for the color red. It was far down on the list but it was there. The final messages exchanged with each other weren’t angry. They weren’t bitter or harsh. You scrolled and you scrolled and you saw kindness. You saw sweetness and splashes of love. Like a relic frozen in time — the unearthed bones of a pair of lovers — buried alive and in their final moment, their last breath was a kiss.

You hadn’t been able to delete them either.

You closed out of the text messages. You were already in this deep. Hadn’t he given you permission to look anyway? There wasn’t even a ceremonial pause in your movements where you second guessed yourself. How far had you fallen now?

His photo gallery was organized in folders and honestly, it was mostly pictures of food. Very few personal pictures despite the careful labeling system he used for his photos. You honestly felt disappointed. Your gallery had been full of pictures. Personal pictures and pictures of places you’d traveled for work. The really personal ones though...the pictures that stabbed and burned when you looked with your weakest moments to blame; those were in hidden folders with passwords for extra security.

He…would not have done the same, would he? His phone was a bit different than yours, but your snooping had unearthed what you were certain was a hidden folder within his photo gallery. A little trip through the phone settings and you were prompted for a passcode. It was four digits this time; different than the six-digit passcode to unlock the phone and you typed in the month and date of your birthday.

It did not work.

You tried once more with the same numbers; perhaps you had entered it wrong.

It still would not open and you sighed out in frustration that he would trick you like this. He said you had his permission to look and he said you had all of the passwords to get in, and yet you sat here now, trying every single four-digit number combination that you could think of feeling like a damn fool and a little bit like a bumbling novice phone hacker without a single bit of savvy to get the hacking job done.

Your frustrations mounted when the phone alerted you that after whatever number of failed log-in attempts you would now be required to wait 30 seconds before trying again and you tossed it angrily down on the table in front of you.

You had tried your birthday, his birthday, your birth year, his birth year, some bastardization of both of your birthdays combined, the last four digits of your phone number, even the last four digits of your passport number, which he had absolutely no way of knowing in the first place; you still tried it and came up completely empty as you stared at the stupid numbers on that phone counting down for your chance to stoop to even lower levels than you had already stooped.

This number couldn’t have to do with you. There was no way you were meant to view the pictures in this secret photo album of his. You really should just give up. What if there wasn’t even anything inside the folder? What if this was some elaborate Kyungsoo-esque prank designed to tempt and then torment you when you couldn't crack it?

You regretted taking the stupid phone from him in the first place.

Your timer was done and you felt like a trapped animal, unable to free yourself from the snare you were caught in simply because you were unwilling to let go of the tasty treat you held on to. If only you put it down, you would be able to remove your hand from the trap and get up and just walk away.

Now you were convinced that the passcode had nothing to do with you, you still aimlessly cycled through dates you remembered. Landing somewhere around the date the European tour began last year, the first time you saw him in person, the day you were running late to the introductory meeting and he claimed you as his own personal translator, refusing to allow you to leave with any member of EXO unless it was him, that date...the day you first sat down to eat with him in Paris.

Paris was first. Paris was the start; the romantic city you both explored together before even having shared a first kiss. The date of the start of the tour did not work to unlock the folder but your heart seemed to tingle as you sat up straighter and thought to try something new. What if it wasn’t a date?

It was a long shot; 7274 using the numbers on a telephone keypad would spell out the word for Paris in Korean. Pari when romanized.

You tried it and jumped to attention when the password was correct. 7274...Paris. His secret password was Paris.

The message on the phone informed you that all hidden folders would now be unlocked and viewable and your hands were trembling as you returned to the spot you had been so disappointed to find filled with only pictures of food before.

And...oh.

Oh — Do Kyungsoo, you frustrating, beautiful, stubborn man.

The change in content was staggering. You could hardly move your hands to scroll with how they trembled and shook from what you saw in the thumbnails.

He had plenty to hide. He had more than you had in your phone. It was like a shrine.

Pictures of you; your own smiling face, your silly faces, your sleepy eyes, your pouted and puckered lips, images captured in person, images saved from your facebook, screenshots from your Instagram (which you did not even realize he followed), pictures of you alone, pictures of you with your friends, pictures of you with his dogs during your visits. Pictures you hadn’t realized he was taking, but he must have taken them because there you were, asleep on his couch with a furry black poodle curled up high around your neck and a second grey poodle curled behind your knees. It was all here. He hadn’t deleted a single thing since meeting you and he seemed to compulsively save them just as you did.

More shocking than the old pictures were the newer ones. The picture of you with a forced smile as you posed with friends a week before moving to Korea. It was here too.

Apparently, you weren’t the only one who kept up to date even after the break-up. You weren’t the only one who did not understand the meaning of letting go.

Do Kyungsoo was in love with you. You knew this already, but the evidence of his feelings was so obvious — it was obscene.

If he was going to be this way; if he was going to refuse to let you go, then why had he done that? Why had he done this to the both of you if he was just going to have his stupid heart broken like this?

You had to close it down when you got to the screenshots he had saved from your chats. He had circled things you said, put in little finger drawn hearts around the words, or hand-drawn short commentary like so cute or pretty and saved them that way. Why?

Why.

Damn it.

Your heart was beating too hard. You stared ahead at the tv playing in your room, completely unaware of what kind of program might be playing. You were technically looking at it, but nothing registered.

It came back to you like a flood; the reason why you had ventured into his phone to begin with.

Why you hadn’t just gone to the messaging app to begin with instead of searching through his contacts was glaring evidence of your idiocy.

You found his name from the EXO members & staff group chat and opened the direct message chat window beside his name.

‘Your mom called.’

A minute passed before you saw the number beside the message change and you knew he’d read it.

Another minute passed before you saw the three dots appear beside his name that told you he was responding and your heart was in your throat by the time his one-word answer arrived for you.

‘Oh?’

… Really, Do Kyungsoo? It definitely had not lived up to the anticipation. You wanted to scream and flail about the familiarity of this feeling.

‘I didn’t answer but she left you a message. I did not listen to it.’

You could feel your own awkwardness as you offered up too much information when he hadn’t even asked for any of this. Yet his frustratingly short reply grated on you and you wondered how he ever got to any of his schedules on time or at all if this was how he communicated with people.

‘You didn’t answer?? :/ What am I even paying you for?’

He was joking. You were burning alive and he was playing with the flames.

You did not respond. You couldn’t open up that type of communication with him. Playing and joking with each other was definitely in the Don’t column of your Do and Don’ts of Do Kyungsoo.

Your adherence so far had been spectacularly bad; what with the sleeping with him last night and snooping through his private picture gallery that had felt like reading a diary. You didn’t need to add the fuzzy feelings that inflated your chest with warm air when he said something that made you laugh.

‘You can listen yourself. Room 228’

You’d expected him to knock on your hotel door after a few minutes of travel time. What you did not expect was an emoji response [o.O!] and literally seconds later the sound of a knock coming from somewhere else within your room; from a direction opposite of the door of your hotel room.

You’d never had reason to, or paid much attention to the inner door of your hotel suite. It was the kind of door that had double doors, with locks on both sides that you knew could be used to access an adjoining hotel room.

You stood up from your sofa and the disbelief had reached new levels because, literally, what the fuck.

‘That better not be you.’

‘!!!,’ Was all he said in response and he knocked again; three quick knocks to mirror the three exclamation points he sent you.

You unlocked the door and pulled it open slowly and Kyungsoo stood on the other side wearing his usual black on black on black with sock-covered feet and his black hair laid flat over his forehead and black round rimmed glasses on his face.

His expression was one of genuine surprise and the combination of his wide eyes and parted lips behind those glasses was almost enough to make you close the door just as soon as you had opened it up.

You pushed it a bit, in fact, and you felt the tiniest bit of resistance on the other side. He had already moved into the gap and you must be squishing him.

“Wait, why are you closing it?” He complained from the other side but there was a bit of brevity on his voice as he did it.

“I changed my mind,” you said, “you can’t come in with those glasses on.”

“Ahh...this again,” he murmured and you pulled the door open to peek around the edge.

“You’re wearing them to disarm me.” You were pouting. You were being irrational. You were very, very tired from the very long day and he was watching you with his big round eyes and with that adorable expression on his face and you would rather slam this door shut with every ounce of strength in your body than let him inside here with those glasses on his face. Were they new? God, they were nice.

“I’m wearing them to see you,” he countered and you scoffed, knowing better.

“I just want to call my mom.” His tone drifted into lower, more sincere waters. “She’s been sick lately and...and she stayed up late to call me tonight after the schedule. She’ll be worried.”

You gave up instantly; dropped your hands from the door and letting it swing open wide with a step back. You were being unfair to him and to his mom and he had done you a huge favor after all. He’d saved your ass really, the amount of work you were able to get done tonight because of his help would make tomorrow downright bearable.

“Sorry, sorry. I’m just...really tired,” you were retreating back into your room, toward the sofa where you had left his phone and he followed quietly behind, reaching down for the familiar, now shared device. “I hope nothing bad happened,” you whispered as he held the phone up to his ear to listen to her message.

His face was blank as he did it and he focused ahead on the opposite wall where the clock told him it was well after one in the morning and everybody in this room probably should be asleep instead of doing whatever it was they were doing right now.

He was moving; swiping on the screen and holding the phone up to his ear and you heard the voice on the other end of the phone answer before he began speaking to his mom.

You did not want to pry. You did not think you had the right to, but he was sitting here in your hotel room talking to his mom about something that was going on with one of the dogs. You heard the word for veterinarian and a dreadful feeling was growing in your belly. Was one of the babies sick? Had the youthfully beautiful Sunny finally neglected them to the point of illness and would soon be replaced with some sweet but friendly old man who was passionate about poodles and did not use every opportunity to touch the poodle’s owner liberally and flirtatiously to a soundtrack of forced laughter as over-the-top as a faked orgasm? [You hated her laugh about as much as you hated her face.]

You had been lost in your own thoughts by the time you came-to and realized that Kyungsoo had already disconnected the call and was just watching you standing here with your arms tightly crossed over your chest and your jaw clenched down so hard it ached around your earlobes.

“You okay?” He said once your realization shifted to him and away from the darkness of your own thoughts.

Okay? You hardly knew the meaning of the word anymore.

“Are the puppies okay?”

He was looking down at his phone as if something caught his attention on it, but he glanced up once at your question.

“Yeah, they’re just getting shots tomorrow. I said that on the phone. Your Korean’s getting rusty, baby. Should we work on it?”

Baby? How dare he. He had a look on his face. There was almost a fiery glare in the depths of his eyes and it was very late. You were very tired. He was very tiring. You should not have let him in wearing those glasses.

“I was trying not to listen.”  

“You can listen,” he said before holding up the phone in his hand which was open to the unlocked gallery of images which had once been so shocking to discover and already looked so damn familiar to see in his hands. “You can know it all,” he added quietly with his eyes back down on the phone again and his ears bright pink with the truth on the table for everyone to see.

“Kyungsoo,” you began. You felt worn down. He should sleep and so should you. In your respective hotel rooms of course.

“Why did you cry? What did you lose on your phone that made you cry so hard?”

You did not continue with where you were headed; to tell him it was time to sleep and so you could both rest enough for tomorrow's work. Instead, you found your words lost somewhere along the pathway to your lips.

“You can talk to me, you know. I’m still Kyungsoo. I’m still the same person.”

You bit down hard on your lip. It was a dangerous topic to approach this late at night. Especially with this person.

“Was it us? Was it our pictures that you lost? You didn’t save them anywhere at all? Was that why you cried?”

His prodding was soft and gentle, begging you to unfold and show what you hid inside of yourself. You had to look away from the softness you saw in his eyes and the urge to answer the many questions he had asked you burned in the back of your throat.

You had to speak. You needed it said like you needed oxygen.

“It’s like...like it never even happened now. At least before, I had something concrete that I could go back and see with my own two eyes. At least with that, it seemed like maybe it was real. We were really happy once.”

With each new word you spoke the room grew darker and colder and the thickness in your throat was coating your vocal cords. You spoke through it, but it was evident and obvious. You weren’t looking at him. You could not. You felt the burning return to your closed eyes and wetness built up and threatened the riverbanks and the well-being of the towns folks nearby.

And where it grew cold and where it grew dark came a warmth that encased around your bones.

You could smell him before you could feel him; strong and enveloping you entirely within his arms.

Kyungsoo had stood, closed the distance between your bodies and he was hugging you. His arms wrapped completely; his hands flat against your back did not rub in comforting circles, he was still and he was strong and he held on firmly and when you pulled much needed oxygen into your lungs you smelled the fragrance of the skin on his neck where your head had naturally tucked in. It felt like a dream.

His voice, this make-believe voice that narrated into your ear; using the voice of the man you loved.

“We can take more pictures. We can start again. Please, don't cry. We’ll make more memories together. We can do it again...right this time. I really loved you and you really loved me — that was real.”

He spoke with so much conviction, you longed to believe the fairy tales he told — all sorts of stories and your heart begged for you to believe them all. “It was real then and it will be real again. I promise you...I promise.”

Only the One you Love[M]:  part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8  

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[huphilpuffs]

flares

chapter: 21/? summary: Dan’s body has been broken for as long as he can remember, and he’s long since learned to deal with it. Sort of. But when his symptoms force him to leave uni and move into a new flat with a stranger named Phil, he finds that ignoring the pain isn’t the way to make himself happy. word count: 3343 rating: mature warnings: chronic illness, chronic pain, medicine a/n: a huge thanks goes to @obsessivelymoody for beta reading this for me!

Ao3 link || read from beginning

Dan wakes up alone.

His head is squashed into his pillow, mouth hanging open with drool drying at the corner of his lips, hair matted atop his head. His body feels weighed down, heavy on the mattress. The burn in his chest has faded to a simmer that sparks when his ribs expand around an inhale.

The air grates at his throat. So does the groan Dan lets out when it hurts.

He manages to roll onto his back so he can orient himself. Phil’s pillow is still sitting there, bright and blue and such a contrast to the dreary grays covering the rest of Dan’s room. On the nightstand, there’s a bright yellow post-it scribbled with black that Dan’s fairly certain is a note.

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.

He shifts towards the edge of the mattress, arms aching in their attempt to move his weight, until he’s sitting in front of Phil’s pillow. It hurts his shoulder, but he leans over and plucks the post-it from its spot. Phil’s messiest handwriting is scrawled across it in black sharpie.  

I had to go to work :( I called Taylor to make sure you’re okay so she should be here somewhere. I hope you’re feeling better.

The last few words are tiny, wedged into the corner of the paper. Above that, there’s a smudge of ink that looks almost like it was meant to be a heart.

Dan tries to tell himself it’s nothing, that Phil just pressed the marker to the paper for a moment too long, but his smile still grows wider.

He stares at the note for a really long time.

---

It takes Dan a while to drag himself out of bed.

His legs are still shaky under his weight and there’s a dull ache in the back of his neck that makes it hard to hold his head steady. He finds a pair of pyjama bottoms and struggles to pull them on so that he’s not in just his pants, but his chest still stings when it’s touched.

Besides, Taylor’s seen him shirtless before.

Pressing one hand to the wall for support, he leaves his bedroom, taking slow, steady steps into the lounge. He sees Taylor sitting on the floor between the sofa and the coffee table. Her hair’s thrown back into a high ponytail and she’s hunched over a book he can hardly see, a pen perched in one hand.

She was supposed to be at uni today. Dan swallows against the guilt that comes with the realization.

He manages to stumble halfway to the sofa before she notices him. Her pen clatters against the table as she bounces to her feet, and before he can take another step, she’s dipping under his arm and draping it over her shoulder.

“You could have, I don’t know, called out or something.”

Dan huffs out a laugh. Something twinges in his chest. “I was fine to walk, you know.”

“Phil said you almost fainted.”

“Yesterday. Then I got IV fluids and slept,” he says. They’ve reached the sofa by then, and Dan drops onto the cushions, lets his weight sink into the soft blanket laid over them. “You know my blood pressure does that sometimes, Tay. And then it recovers.”

Taylor shrugs. She drops back onto the floor without a word, and starts fidgeting with her pen. Dan counts how many times she clicks it.

There’s thirteen clicks before she speaks.

“Phil made it sound like you were dying or something,” she says. “I figured it was pretty bad.”

“Oh,” says Dan. “It wasn’t. That bad, I mean.”

He turns his head against the sofa, presses his nose to the blanket Phil got him. When his eyes drift closed, it’s to the image of Phil’s face last night, eyes gleaming with tears, staring at Dan attached a machine by so many wires. It’s to the phantom feeling of Phil’s goodnight kiss dusting across his hair.

“He was worried?” he hears himself ask.

Taylor huffs. “That’s an understatement,” she says. “He didn’t want to leave. I’m pretty sure he was late to work, actually. He just kept going around the house making sure everything was okay. There’s a smoothie for you in the fridge, by the way.”

“He made me a smoothie?”

Taylor hums. There’s a grin drawing at the corners of her mouth, happiness reaching her eyes. She looks good. She looks healthy.

Healthier than she has since Dan’s known her, at least.

Dan smiles back at her. He lets his gaze drift to the textbook that lies open, and it drops.

“More bio?”

“Yeah,” says Taylor. She sets her pen down again, but her head stays dipped towards the book of notes Dan couldn’t even try to understand. “You know how I’m seeing a counselor?”

It’s a whisper, too shy for the girl who would barge into his dorm when he was half-naked to do her homework and keep him company.

Dan forces himself to nod. “Yeah.”

“Well she thinks I should switch courses,” says Taylor. “I don’t know if I’m gonna do it.”

“Oh.” Dan swallows. His chest feels tight again, locked with uncertainty. It shouldn’t be a surprise, he thinks. But Taylor never talked about it, not of her own volition.

Then again, there were a lot of things Taylor didn’t do for herself. Things she couldn’t do for herself.

“I think you should, if it would make you happy,” says Dan.

He might be imagining it, but he thinks he sees her shoulders sag with relief.

---

They sit in silence for most of the day. Morning was already bleeding into afternoon when Dan woke up, and even now, with the day’s brightest sun peaking out from beneath the blanket curtain, he can’t muster energy to do much more than stare vaguely at the TV.

His vision goes out of focus every time there’s a flurry of movement on screen. Dan’s not even sure which movie it is that Taylor put on.

It’s not very good. At least, the bits his brain can pick up on aren’t very good.

He looks away. His neck feels weak and his head bobs a bit when he leans forward, but his gaze settles on Taylor. She’s still sitting on the floor, still reading her biology textbook.

Dan wonders how her brain can possibly be absorbing any of that.

“Taylor?”

She looks up, twisting so she’s facing him. Her eyes look a little hazy, but not nearly as much as they used to. Like maybe the prospect of leaving the sciences behind has reinvigorated her.

Not that the prospect of dropping out had done anything of the sort for–

“Dan?”

He blinks. Taylor’s still staring at him, brows furrowed in concern.

“Geez,” she says. “I thought you were gonna faint on me.”

Dan frowns. “It really wasn’t that bad.”

It’s starting to sound petulant to his own ears, but then his mind flashes back to one of the times he laid in the hospital sobbing as his chest seemed to want to cave in. Lightheadedness, though it makes anxiety curl tight in his gut, is nothing in comparison.

Taylor’s just staring at him now, and Dan wonders when he started feeling the need to explain himself to her.

“Really,” he repeats. There’s a pause as fingers catch at the edge of the blanket and he mumbles: “Did Phil really seem that worried?”

Her eyes go a little somber at that, and her shoulders a little tense. Dan’s hand wraps tighter around the fleece, thumb drifting over tiny furs in the fabric. He reminds himself that Phil bought it for him, tried to make his new home comfortable in the tiny ways he knew how at the time, in all the ways he’s learning to help.

There’s still a smoothie in the fridge for him. One that Phil left there.

“Honestly?” says Taylor, and Dan nods. “I think he was catastrophizing.”

“Oh,” says Dan. His chest feels tight again, because Dan knows what that means. He’s been there. Sometimes, in the darkness of nights where his body aches too much for his mind to drift off to sleep, he still ends up there.

Taylor, he knows, has been there, too.

She shrugs. “I don’t know. He didn’t say it,” she says. “It just kinda seemed like he was scared that if he left you, he would, you know, lose you.”

A lump wells in Dan’s throat. He swallows against it. All he manages in response is another quiet: “Oh.”

Taylor stares at him for a long moment after that, then shrugs one shoulder and turns back to her book.

“I could be wrong,” she says. “I don’t know him all that well.”

Dan shakes his head. He draws the blanket around himself, just a corner of fleece pulled pitifully over his chest because he can’t be bothered to stand and free the fabric from under his weight. Taylor’s not watching to see his eyes slip closed.

She wasn’t there to see the look on Phil’s face when Dan was hooked up to the ECG.

“I think you’re right,” he says.

Taylor drops her pen, turning to look at him again. “You do?”

“Yeah,” says Dan. “I just– There’s one thing that bugged me.”

He doesn’t elaborate. Part of him doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to place Phil anywhere near the doubts that lurk in the back of Dan’s mind. But the memory of the ECG fades into one from before, from back at the flat, Dan’s head still spinning and chest aching and Phil trying to help.

“Well?”

Something’s stinging behind Dan’s eyes, and he hates that he knows exactly why.

“He didn’t wanna go to A&E,” he says. “Like he seemed to get that it was serious, but he wanted to wait and see and I don’t know it just reminded me of–”

He clamps his mouth shut, but Taylor knows. She knows too much, he thinks, about the little things that linger, heavy, on his shoulders, about the memories he can’t entirely erase.

“Your parents?”

It’s a whisper, one they both know is true. Dan nods anyway, guilt twisting painfully in his gut.

She reaches up, rests a hand on his knee. Her eyes have gone soft, her gaze tripping over where Dan’s clutching the blanket too tightly, like a child.

“He’s not like your parents,” says Taylor. “You know that.”

Dan nods, because he does. He knows it so much it hurts, more than the lingering pressure against his ribs and the ache blooming at the back of his head, to doubt it.

Taylor squeezes his knee. “You okay?”

He’s not sure. But then again, Dan’s never sure when people ask him that.

He shrugs, and mumbles: “Yeah.”

---

Dan falls asleep to the sound of a boring film and the turning pages of Taylor’s textbook.

He wakes up to the TV gone silent, different voices drifting past his ears. His mind’s still hazy with fatigue, every thought a little blurry around the edges, mingling with the lingering vividness of some dream about college he doesn’t particularly care about.

He cares about the voices much more.

“Dan and I were talking,” says one. Taylor, he realizes a second later than he probably should. She must not be sitting on the lounge floor anymore because she sounds farther away.

He considers cracking his eyes open to check, but that takes effort.

“He said you didn’t wanna go to A&E,” she continues.

Dan’s stomach twists. If sleep wasn’t still rooted so heavily in his bones he would let them know he’s awake now just so she’d stop talking. In the same brilliance as a dream, Dan can picture Phil fidgeting, reaching up to comb his fringe out of his eyes like he always does.

He wonders if Taylor would notice that, too.

“He said that?” says the other voice, and Dan already knew it would be Phil but something shudders down his spine at the confirmation.

Taylor’s actually telling him about this.

There’s a hum, then silence. Dan wishes he could see. The dread has settled into a morbid curiosity now that he’s a little more awake, a little more aware, so he listens.

“Yeah,” says Phil. “I guess I was a little hesitant.”

“Hesitant?” says Taylor. “Or anxious?”

Dan has to count to keep his breath from catching. Four seconds to inhale and eight to exhale, once, twice, and a third time because his chest feels tight with knowledge he’s not supposed to have.

Knowledge he doesn’t have, he reminds himself. Phil still hasn’t responded.

Dan thinks that might be answer enough.

“I don’t mean to assume,” says Taylor. “I just have a bit of experience with that stuff. You can tell me if I’m wrong.”

There’s more silence. Phil still isn’t saying anything and Dan wonders if he’s staring at Taylor all wide-eyed and nervous like Dan did when she first asked him if he was ill. Or if he’s staring at the table, twisting his hand and letting his fringe cover his eyes the way Dan knows Phil does.

“Does Dan know?”

His breath does catch this time. And then he doesn’t breathe, too scared either of them noticed.

It’s not a yes, but it’s definitely not a denial either.

They must not have. There’s the quiet scratch of the chair against the floor, and a steady tapping Dan thinks must be someone’s foot. One of them, probably Phil, takes a deep breath, and Dan’s reassured enough that he does the same, easing some of the ache burning between his ribs.

“Dan has enough to worry about,” says Phil. “Besides, it’s mostly a resolved issue.”

And that’s it, a confirmation that shudders painfully through Dan’s chest.

“You should tell him,” says Taylor. “He’d want to know.”

Dan swallows. It sounds loud to his own ears, but no one else seems to hear it. His fingers twitch by the blanket still draped over his chest. He wants to pull it even tighter around himself.

He wants to wrap it around Phil and make sure he knows he can tell Dan things, too.

They don’t say another word after that.

Dan counts the seconds ticking by in his head until he thinks it’s been long enough that he can pretend to wake up.

---

Taylor stays for dinner.

Phil orders a pizza that they share as Dan sips at another smoothie. Taylor tells him about possibly changing her course and Phil offers advice far better than Dan could ever come up with. They laugh about how terrible they are at science. Dan joins in on that.

His chest aches afterwards. He’s not entirely sure it’s from the laughter.

When the pizza box is mostly empty and leftovers are being shoved into the fridge, Taylor tells them she should be heading out. She shoves her books into a backpack Dan didn’t realize she’d brought and thanks them for the food and the smile on her face looks real, looks happy.

She hugs Dan goodbye, the distant kind that doesn’t put any pressure against his ribs.

“Feel better,” she says. “And remember that he’s good for you.”

Dan watches her hug Phil afterwards, the tighter kind that has her standing on her toes instead of bending down. She says something against Phil’s shoulder, so quietly Dan can’t make out the words.

“Good luck with school,” Phil says in response.

Taylor laughs as she pulls away. “Thank you,” she says.

She looks like she means it.

Phil might be good for her, too, Dan thinks.

He wonders if either of them are good for Phil.

---

They sit on the sofa again that night.

It’s not even a conscious thing anymore when Dan presses himself against Phil’s side, letting his head drop to rest on Phil’s shoulder. Fingers thread into his hair and rub gentle patterns against his head and Dan stares at the TV screen, at whatever show’s playing now, but his vision can’t focus.

Neither can his brain.

The blanket is draped over both of them now, tucked in against Dan’s side and Phil’s thigh. Beneath it, Dan reaches over to rest his hand on Phil’s knee.

There was a time when that was the only part of Dan that Phil would touch. It seems like so long ago now.

“Can I ask you something?”

Phil looks away from the screen. His eyes look a little hazy. A soft smile curls at the corner of his mouth and makes Dan’s chest go warm.

“Of course,” he says.

Dan squeezes his knee. “How are you?” he says. His voice feels thick in his throat and breaks into a whisper. “I feel like last night was new for you and I just– Yeah. How are you?”

He watches Phil’s brows furrow, feeling something tighten in his stomach at the sight. White tears flash into his mind, a pale face and uncertain frown and Phil’s fingers gripping the hospital bed like he was even more unsteady than Dan had felt.

Dan wonders if his chest had ached, too. If something different had rooted itself between Phil’s ribs that night, took his breath the way pain stole Dan’s.

“I should be asking you that,” says Phil.

His fingers have gone still in Dan’s hair, his smile a little faded.

“I’m used to it, though,” says Dan. “You’re not, right? It was new for you?”

His hand tightens at the back of Dan’s neck. It sends a shot of pain down Dan’s spine, blooming across the back of his head, but he forces himself not to wince. He wants to hear what Phil has to say. He wants to listen, for once.

Phil deserves a friend that will listen,

“Yeah, I guess it was new,” says Phil. “But that doesn’t matter–”

“It matters to me.”

Phil’s eyes go wide and Dan wants to says of course it matters to me, you idiot, you’ve done more for me than anyone ever has, but it feels like too much. It all feels like too much, because Phil’s fingers move in his hair again so he’s cradling the back of Dan’s head.

Dan’s pretty sure he stops breathing.

But Phil just leans in closer and dusts a gentle kiss to Dan’s head.

Again.

He pulls away like it’s nothing, and tugs Dan back against his chest like he belongs there.

It feels like he does.

God, for the first time in so long it feels like he belongs somewhere.

“It was new for me, okay?” says Phil. “And maybe a little scary. Hospitals aren’t exactly my strong suit, and I don’t– It’s scary to see someone you care about attached to machines like that, even if they’re used to it. But I’m fine. I’d go there again tonight if you needed to.”

He sucks in a deep breath when he stops talking. Dan’s pressed so close to him, he can see, can feel the small stutter of his ribs.

“You would?” he asks.

Phil huffs out a laugh that makes no noise, but rumbles through his chest, echoes in Dan’s. “Of course I would,” he says, like it’s obvious.

Maybe it’s supposed to be.

Except no one else has ever been willing to do it before.

“You needed it,” says Phil. “I wanna help you when you need things.”

Dan smiles. His hand is still on Phil’s knee and Phil’s is still in his hair. He watches Phil’s chest rise and fall with a breath and forces himself to mirror it, past the pressure in his chest that burns bright and brilliant and new.

He’s used to a lot of things.

This, Dan realizes, isn’t one of them.

Maybe because, this time, something about it feels good.

He turns his head, hides his face against Phil’s shoulder so he can’t see the TV or the curtains or the silhouette of his hand on Phil’s leg through the blanket they’re sharing.

“I wanna help you when you need things, too,” he mumbles, pressing the words against Phil’s skin.

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