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hongism · 1 year

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mists of celeste ➻ 49

➻ pairing: ??? x fem reader ➻ genre: space au, pirate au, space pirate!ateez, angst ➻ word count: 19.7k ➻ rating: M ➻ warnings: language, talks of abuse & violence, minor violence, smut ➻ summary: Sneaking aboard the ship of a renowned space pirate may not have been the best idea, but you’ll have to make do with what fate has handed to you

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act seven ➻ part one

What rots away at your insides in the days that follow is nothing pretty — a deep profound obsession that drives your hatred towards a particular man into the skin until it sits engraved there, with wounds oozing blood all the while.

“Have you seen Nightingale around?”

Soojin jerks her chin up at the sudden interruption of your voice cutting through whatever pretty silence she constructed for herself. You feel bad, though only mildly, for disturbing her without warning. It’s become somewhat common to find her in the mess hall these days, with Luca off to the side with the two resident Berserkers. Your stare lingers on Mingi for a few more seconds than necessary. The last conversation you shared with the man rings in your ears like it was mere minutes ago and not several days.

“Um, training room I think? That’s where he’s been hanging around at least.” Soojin passes you a little half-hearted smile. You don’t doubt that your discomfort and likely unabashed anger is on full display to her; however, she opts not to ask further about your reasons for asking, so you deign not to say anything other than a quiet ‘thank you’ and nod your head.

Mingi shifts where he’s kneeling close to the child. His gaze finds yours the second you turn to head out, stopping you in your tracks and forcing you to return the fierce eye contact for several seconds. You let it stagnate for too long, apparently, because the Berserker stands without warning and moves in your direction. You don’t consider your next move to be one of avoidance, though it must look like that to anyone else aside from you with how you retreat the way you came and head for the arched doorway leading out. Mingi persists still.

“Ghost.”

“Yes?” You only stop to turn when the two of you are far enough away from both Soojin and Jongho.

“I hope what I said to you the other night hasn’t been on your mind too much.”

“…Hardly.” Something else has been in its place — a messy conglomeration of anger, frustration, and other emotions you haven’t paused to address internally yet. You got to see the full picture Mingi had been painting for you that night days later in any case.

“That’s—” he inhales sharply and goes rigid for a moment, so still that you almost think someone has crept up behind you to interrupt the conversation but it’s still just the two of you near the edge of the room. A noise of realization slips from your lips. How hard is it to lie to a man who can feel every bit of the emotions radiating off you in waves?

“I understand what you meant now. I do.”

“I had wished to apologize and to… to let you know that what I said was untrue. I apologize for misleading you.” Mingi’s expression is surprisingly genuine in comparison to his words, though you know you won’t find whatever sincerity you seek in his tone regardless.

“I don’t believe that,” you start in a whisper, “and I doubt you do either.”

Mingi’s full lips twitch into what seems to be a fight against a smile.

“Ever so perceptive.”

“Were you ordered to apologize?”

“No.” Mingi smiles truly now. Without showing his teeth in any fashion, the gesture comes across as more terrifying than reassuring. “What I said to you was my personal opinion. I cannot be crucified for an opinion. I’m telling you that I was wrong because my opinion has changed. Although, perhaps there is nothing and no one more dangerous than a woman scorned.” You duck your chin as you laugh, trying to hide the noise behind your hand, though when you look back up at Mingi, he is chuckling too. “Yunho told me that once, you can blame him.”

“Noted. I’ll be sure to file a complaint. In the meantime—” Mingi raises his eyebrows at you as though echoing a silent question “—thank you for looking out for me. All is well between San and myself now.”

“But not you and the captain.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You get this certain look about you when you’re pissed at him in particular.” When Mingi grins at you next, you can’t keep your laughter in any longer. “I don’t know if it’s of any consolation to you, but if you do wish to speak with the captain, he has not been inviting any guests to the bridge these days aside from myself. So while there wouldn’t be total privacy, there would be some level of it at least with the lieutenant’s absence.”

“If I didn’t know better, Mingi, I might say you are trying to start a fight.” You keep your tone above the belt so to speak — kind enough to imply simple jokes if Mingi chooses to read it as such. The Berserker glances over his shoulder then over at you briefly.

“It might amuse me thoroughly to see you swing a few punches at him before having to intervene,” he says under his breath, and as surprise starts to hit and drag through your body, the man turns his back to you to walk back the way he came. Mingi at least seems to understand you on a fundamental level; in a regard to how you expunge your feelings with some form of confrontation, and perhaps you and the Berserker share overlap in such areas. He has been no stranger to confrontation himself in the past. The arena itself is the perfect example of such a thing, where he was driven by a simple desire to do something. Feel something, do something in return. Eye for an eye in a strange sense — you made me feel this way so I am doing this to you as a response to those feelings. He’s far from unintelligent by any means; if anything, Mingi is a lot smarter than all of the people you share the ship with.

Rather than complicating matters with seedy lies and interweaving half-truths to make things seem more honest than they are, Mingi allows for the perspective of “one plus one equals two, so why complicate it beyond that?”, and he pushes a compelling argument into your hands. The temptation of whacking your captain across the face is a delightful one. Even if there wasn’t an abundance of anger stirring in your gut because of his actions, you think he has fully warranted several punches just on account of his existence.

Simplifying things in such ways, however, is far from your forte.

And there is still the desire to address the sea of lies and half-truths Nightingale presented to you when you asked rather straightforward questions upon first meeting him. You could gain absolutely nothing from this confrontation or you could garner more ammunition to fire into Hongjoong when you inevitably seek out that fight.

Finding the man you’re after is indeed as simple as going to the training room, though the sight that awaits you beyond the door is not at all what you were anticipating. You’ve been in the room several times by now, becoming quite familiar with the layout of everything inside, and even though you have been slacking since you got back from Rathmos, you cannot imagine the room to have changed so much in such little time. Nightingale finds you, instead, frozen by the door with what can only be rampant confusion on your expression.

“Don’t give me that look, it’s only temporary. Need a firing range somewhere to keep sharp.” He motions behind him with his prosthetic arm, tilting his chin in a way that makes the choppy pink strands of hair atop his head flop around. “You’re welcome to use it as you see fit while it’s up though.”

With the explanation, the sight before your eyes makes much more sense. Haphazard targets that look to be crude metal cut-outs of vaguely human form now occupy the far end of the training room, where the (albeit very minimal) row of training dummies used to sit against the wall. Those have been moved as well, brought forward some to spread throughout what Nightingale has added.

“Is anyone aware of your interior decorating skills?” you ask as you push further into the room.

“Ha ha, no one mentioned that you’re the funny one around here. And yes, I was given permission to do as I please while I’m here. Thus—” the man waves a hand through the air in a rather dismissive fashion, tacking on a forced smile at the end of his response. Pressing your lips into a thin line, you return the gesture. “If you’re gonna just stand there, get over here and join me. Clearly you have some reason for being here.”

The bounty hunter extends a hand in your direction, fingers clasped around the barrel of a pistol, and he presents the grip to you without waiting for your agreement one way or another.

“I do want to ask you a few questions, yes.” He doesn’t let go of the weapon immediately, even after you try to take it from him. You still find it wildly unsettling to look at that fake eye so you dip your chin and clear your throat. He lets go seconds later without pushing the topic further, passing the metaphorical ball back into your side of the court for the next play to come. “Starting with an explanation of what your relationship towards Hongjoong truly is.” Part of you is nervous to ask such a thing because the man is full of so many unknowns, and in your mind’s eye, you could be traversing into very dangerous territory. Without knowing for certain that your safety is guaranteed in his hands, you’re left to eye the pistol that he takes into his hands and weighs carefully.

As though offering up a warning of your own, you take aim at one of the mangled metal targets and press your finger over the trigger, letting the gun fire its bullet forward. It hits as intended, and if the head had features attached to it, your bullet would have landed between its eyes. Nightingale huffs out a laugh through his nose.

“Now you know, huh?”

Again, you fire; this time at a different target though with the same intention. When your bullet lands again, you lower the pistol to your side and look over at the bounty hunter.

“Why did you lie?”

“Why are you believing every word out of San’s mouth?” he counters just as quickly, but it doesn’t catch you off-guard the way he clearly intends for it to. “He’s the one who talked to you, no? I doubt it was Seonghwa given how much he wants to avoid what Hongjoong and San both did back then, and it certainly wasn’t the man of the hour himself. So why are you hanging onto every word, taking every little thing San is telling you at face value?” Nightingale’s fake eye is oddly expressive for all the tech and hardware glowing through the sclera. “Did he not tell you how he manipulated me? What game did he play to do so, I truly wonder, Ghost? How did he tell you? Were you in bed? Were his hands on you, telling you foul and hideous words with his lips but touching you so gently with his fingertips?”

He succeeds now in pushing discomfort far into your veins. You lift the gun in your hand a second time if only to distract yourself from his words but he’s already accomplished his goal.

“He explained very gruesome details about it all,” you say through gritted teeth, “but it would be odd to lie about that.”

“But not impossible, no?”

You draw your lips together until your teeth start to ache from the pressure you’re putting against them.

“My eye was taken by your captain, Ghost, but my arm — my arm was taken by your captain’s dog.”

Your finger fumbles on the trigger at the shock revelation, and you don’t have the mind to correct your angle before the gun is firing off a shot into the wall adjacent to one of the targets. Nightingale lurches forward, artificial fingers pressing down hard on the barrel of the gun to lower it once more.

“Try not to go blowing holes in your captain’s ship unless you want the same done to you,” he offers. His hand stays attached to your gun, and now you can’t rip your gaze off the prosthetic. When your gaze flits up to his face, you take in the sight of his wry smile and that glowing eye. “Though I suspect San would sooner die than harm you. Suppose that’s where we differ.”

“Why do you still willingly work with Hongjoong? He takes your eye and your arm, but you still do favors for him?” If it were you, you would either swear to kill the man with your bare hands or put as much distance between you and him as possible.

“There’s more I need out of him yet, and he’s willing to make deals according to his needs. No one aboard this ship can compete with the services I offer.”

“What if he asks San to kill next time? Then what?” It seems bizarre that Hongjoong would allow a person whom he clearly considered an enemy at one point to lie so comfortably amongst his crew. That is, if Hongjoong’s claims about how desperately he wishes to protect his crew are true, and you think you can at least find credibility in that. If nothing else.

Nightingale flicks his bangs to the side as he jerks his chin upwards and grins in full at you.

“That’ll be the fun part.”

“Fun. You have a sick definition of fun!”

What you get in return is a half-hearted shrug that tells you the man does not truly care in the slightest.

“San pretends to be torn up about the things that happened between us,” he continues, and this at least doesn’t come as a surprise. “I think there is some sliver of the man that does feel guilty about it but maybe that’s hopeful thinking on my part. I’m not sure he’s capable of guilt at all.”

“He is. He is, he’s not—”

When your words falter, Nightingale looks towards you with raised brows and wide eyes, but the smile on his lips persists still. It makes your skin itch and burn with discomfort.

“He’s no monster. He’s capable of feeling things, and guilt is among those things.”

“He knows that the order to kill could come any day,” Nightingale speaks as though you didn’t interrupt in the slightest. “So he doesn’t let himself feel that bad. Pretending is easier anyway, no?”

In a stroke of what might be pure foolishness, you allow yourself to be vulnerable before this man here and now.

“How much of a hand does Hongjoong have in the things San does?”

“What do you think?” he asks in turn, and that grin finally drops.

“He’s admitted to me that he wishes to be Hongjoong’s weapon and nothing else,” you whisper.

“Do you feel safe with San?”

“I do. Doubtlessly.”

The corner of the hunter’s mouth twitches a bit at that. “I did too, at one point. Until San asked to take me to the brig one day. Even when I was fully in the mouth of a monster, I did not feel it. Not until he clamped his jaw down around me.”

“I run the risk of sounding delusional, but that’s different from the position I’m in now. I’m part of the crew. You said you aren’t and never were, so you were someone on the outside, someone with a rival crew, someone who posed a threat to this crew.” You gleaned that much from San’s distorted story and can only hope that it’s the truth. “I’m not like that nor am I in that position. My loyalty is already set in stone.”

“You’ve been taught well already,” Nightingale all but sneers back at you, but it devolves into a laugh seconds later. He doesn’t allow you the chance to ask what that means either. “Your loyalty is to San, but you have to realize by now that by dedicating yourself to him, you are dedicating yourself to Hongjoong too.”

“Truth, respect, and loyalty,” you throw out. “That’s what Hongjoong demands, but that doesn’t mean he should be allowed to get away with heinous things.” Nightingale hums.

“It’s easy to mistake leadership for coercion if you do not believe in the man leading you. Do not forget the company you’re keeping here, Ghost, or what marks have stained your ledger red with blood.”

“I would be first to admit that my morals aren’t all there.” Taking a deep breath, you do your best to put to words what it is that has been irking you so much about the man in command. “But doing these things to people he claims to care about — that’s not an issue of morality. He keeps telling me that every little thing he does is for our sake, that all his misdemeanors against me have been to protect his crew, so it seems like a contradiction to let him harm them just as much.”

For all your passion in saying that, Nightingale just shrugs.

“Could you at least tell me your real name?” Your ploy to fish for more information ends in disappointment.

“No. I won’t give it to you.”

“Why not?” The unfortunate side effect of pushing more feeling into your tone is that you end up sounding like little more than a petulant child who isn’t getting her way.

“I’m certain you can figure out why I’m not quick to trust others, especially those close to Hongjoong.”

“Hongjoong already knows these things about you though, I’m sure! What’s the harm in telling me now?”

“It’s about the concept of trust, and you don’t have mine.” As you scowl, Nightingale pulls the pistol fully from your hands. “I don’t have a crew now because of what your captain did to mine in the past. Every last one of them became fragments of debris in space. My trust is hard to come by and even harder to earn.” He waves his free hand towards the exit. “Now shoo so I can focus alone.”

There’s the distinct feeling sticking to your gut as you leave that you have upset the man in some way, whether on account of your questions or your answers to his own questions, but it’s also paired with the sick churn as you feel his eyes on you as you go. You wonder with which hand Hongjoong had taken his eye, and in what manner he went about doing so. Further, imagination takes over to wonder how San took his arm — what they talked about, what they did beforehand, how it all went down — and fills you with sick curiosity. You wish to know the ins and outs of how things turned out the way they did if only to know how to avoid the same fate for yourself later down the line.

That is not a privilege you get to have, however. Aware of that fact, you move on to other, much less pleasant business by your standards. It takes you to Minho’s door, and you barely get the chance to knock even once before it’s sliding open before your eyes to reveal the doctor on the other side.

“I was about to come get you myself. Here I thought you were being difficult again.”

“Justifiably, I’d say,” you mutter, stepping past him to get in the room. You certainly have no desire to do this presently, but Minho cornered you last night after dinner and all but demanded that you see him for another session.

“Hm, how has your day been so far?”

You hum as your head tilts from side to side in a nonverbal response to his question. He moves for that cursed table with the chessboard atop it immediately, but you choose to hang back and glance around the room as though anything will have changed since you were last here. And truly, nothing is inherently different about the décor of the room. What does catch your eye is a thing much more insignificant by all means — the bottle of pills sitting atop his bedside table. You have seen him with it before, seen him take pills from the very same bottle, and that alone should not be cause for concern.

“Ghost.”

Your gaze lingers in place even as your body twists to face the doctor. It’s the exact same bottle, and the pills must surely be the same inside as well, except when you saw him days ago, it was barely used. There had to be only a few taken out at that point. Now the bottle sits close to empty, with another identical container filled to the brim with more capsules right beside it on the table. Feasibly, there’s no way that he could have taken all those pills in such a short amount of time.

“Y/n, the sooner we talk, the sooner you can take your leave.” When you finally rip your gaze off the bottles and turn to Minho, it’s just to find that he’s looking back at you with such an intensely heated glare that you almost feel like a child being caught doing something wrong. “Come sit. We will not play today.”

“Um, have you been well too?” you inquire through the sudden tension hanging in the air. Minho offers nothing but a sigh, leaning back in his chair as you sit down across from him. “Or… I mean, your day, has your day been okay too?”

“It’s been fine, thank you.” The man smiles at last, and that gesture provides some relief for you. Not enough, it seems, because your gaze flicks back over to that nightstand and what sits atop it within seconds. “Are you distracted today, Ghost?”

“A bit.” It’s said through a whisper, and Minho’s stare makes you want to challenge him further but you decide against it. “What is it you wanted to talk about today?”

“You seem to suffer from PTSD,” he states almost out of nowhere. Something about both the suddenness and the bluntness in his tone makes you scoff. It’s akin to one of the very first things he said to you though, and the sense of familiarity with what he’s said makes you recall that now.

“Of course I do.”

“What do you mean by that?” He has that pad out once again, opened over his knee where he crosses his legs, and you see his pen move down to the tablet before you can even offer up a response.

“Looking at my history, wouldn’t it be a bit obvious for me to have PTSD?” Something about how methodical the man is in writing down words unbeknownst to you makes you violently insecure all of the sudden. You feel seen in an uncomfortable way, in a way you do not want to be seen, though he perpetuates the discomfort by shifting to look you in the eye.

“Only depending on who you are. There are those who wouldn’t, though they would fall under a different umbrella.”

“Something worse…?” you trail off without being able to finish the thought, mostly because you fear falling into that category yourself.

“Nothing worse. Nothing worse. We don’t use terms like that. While symptoms can have levels, the disorders themselves differ in severity. It is better to address them in tentative terms. Nothing is worse in this room. We are talking about you and you alone. No comparisons, no parallels, no odd faux psychology test meant to tell you whether you have the same mental disorder as some planetary celebrity.” Minho looks down at the screen below him, eyes scanning over the contents of whatever sits there, and you find yourself grossly curious about what he’s writing about you. “Yunho made heavy note of your trauma response and the symptoms you struggle with on a day-to-day basis. I’d like to hear it from your lips. Can you look back and pinpoint a particularly traumatic event in your life?”

In retrospect, there are plenty of moments you could bring to light now. Starting all the way from childhood and moving up until recently, for that matter, you find it difficult to count the memories of your childhood that you do not have. Even so, in the military, you have clear and distinct memories that jump out to you; however, the fog of not being able to distinguish the minute details of what’s accurate and what was fabricated by two men who suffered the same fate.

“I was a slave before joining the military. I imagine that would be a rather traumatic experience.”

“You imagine? That time has not been recovered in your memory yet, is that correct?”

“I have yet to remember it, yeah, but I’m sure that caused some extent of damage to my brain along the way.”

“If I may be so bold,” Minho starts, leaning forward in his seat and over his knees in a way that forces you to make eye contact with him, “I am of the belief that the most prominent event was the night you killed the King of Eros. Would it be alright if I asked you to recount what happened then?”

Your fingers clench and unclench against your thighs and releasing that grip feels close to an impossible feat. Minho notices the sudden increase in your breathing patterns, along with your frantic blinking as you entertain the mere idea of telling him such horrors.

“There are many ways in which I can offer you support, should you need it. Encouraging words, eye contact, I can even put a hand on your knee or hold your hand if need be — and you can allow yourself to be emotional here. This is a safe space.”

“Can you not speak down to me in such a way?” It’s an inaccurate judgment of his actions, and you are well aware of that fact. The words push their way out of you before you can stop them, even though you don’t believe them either — at least not fully. He is simply a man doing his job: the offer to assist you is part of the work asked of him.

“Why do you feel as though I am speaking down to you?”

You gnaw at the inside of your lip.

“Is it because of our last session?” Minho unfolds his legs and lays his tablet down atop the table between you two. “I will not bring that into conversation today, you need not worry about that.”

“It makes me nervous,” you admit through your teeth.

“Yes, I gathered as much. To put it bluntly and risk your ire further, you tend towards lashing out when you start to feel anxious. A completely normal, human reaction! Don’t get me wrong; nearly every person in the universe does so as well. I am genuinely trying to help you here, Ghost, but I can only do so if you let me in to some extent.” The doctor extends a hand across the gap between the two of you, palm up to the ceiling, and you blink between him and his hand several times before finding your voice again.

“That night, I waited until my team was asleep, pretending to be so myself, and when I thought the coast was clear, I got up and left our cabin. Jisung followed me out. I told him I would finish the job he started so that no one else would… fall victim to whatever it was he wanted. I asked him to take responsibility, to do it himself and stop me, but he didn’t. Instead, he told me that I could do it myself if I wanted to save Hyu—our team so badly. I went to the king’s quarters myself, alone, killing any and every guard I saw along the way. When I reached the king’s chambers, I slit his queen’s throat in her bed right beside him and then I waited. And waited.” Minho’s hand doesn’t waver where it remains above the chessboard. You hone your gaze in on his fingers rather than his face, solely because of the overwhelming sense of dread swarming your gut as you pour yourself out to this man. “And I waited until her blood soaked the sheets enough to wake him. Then when he finally woke, I climbed over her dead body and I reached into that man’s chest to break it open and squeeze the life of his heart. Once I had done that, I gathered what documents I could and what I thought was important at the time before going back to the cabin I shared with my team. Soojin took me to the bath and tried to get the blood off my skin and out of my clothes. Jisung stood above me and lied to them, claiming he told me not to do anything, that he had nothing to do with it, and that I ruined his plans. He put his hands around my throat and pushed me under the water with the intent to kill me.”

“Do you remember how you felt the exact moment you killed that man and his wife?”

“I felt powerful.” Perhaps such an admission makes you sick and deranged in the head but it does come from a place of honesty. “I felt afraid at the same time. I think I’ve only ever felt that once before, and it came long after that night.” You have a clearer memory of that instance — a day when everything that could go wrong happened to shatter around you all at once. San getting shot, Hongjoong pushing your hand through a door, saving Soojin and Luca, San almost dying, your hand going through a man’s chest and squeezing around his still beating heart.

“Power and fear have more in common than you might imagine,” Minho whispers as he finally pulls his hand back into his lap.

“All my time in the military, I was heralded as some sort of prodigy thanks to my skill with guns. Be it pistols or rifles or snipers, I understand them on a fundamental and mechanical level, to the point where I could tell you how far a bullet will travel before it begins to drop. I could tell you in numbers how much force is behind the recoil on a sniper or how a silencer affects the handling of a gun. I never felt powerful with that knowledge though. Not enough to feel fear in the same breath at least. But for the life of me…” your breath stutters momentarily, just enough to let you think over what you’re trying to get at, “I cannot explain how I can do such a horrific thing with apparent ease.”

“Does that make you afraid of hurting those closest to you? Those you care about, those who trust you, who put their faith in you and hope their survival is guaranteed in their hands?”

“No, I know I wouldn’t hurt them in any way.” You push force into your tone intentionally, with the hope to squash what it was he was implying you would do the last time you sat in this chair across from him. He does not give the reaction you hoped for, however — an acknowledgment of your forced honesty — and rather, you get a cat-like grin that pulls the corners of his lips upwards until it’s unsettling to look at.

“Do you fear yourself, Y/n?”

“Not in the sense that — I don’t fear that I will physically hurt the people close to me because I have a power I don’t fully understand. But sometimes I can’t shake the feeling of a heartbeat that is not mine on my fingertips, or I can’t unhear the sound of a thumping heart beating in my eardrums.”

“You fear becoming a slave to your own capabilities,” Minho concludes for you. Part of you is wildly grateful he took it upon himself to finish the thought because admitting it would only add to the weight bearing down on your shoulders now. “You fear becoming a monster.”

Pressing your lips into the thinnest line you can manage, all you can do is offer a series of meager little nods to confirm his suspicions.

“Y/n, tell me, when something you consider to be bad happens, do you hear and feel that heartbeat?”

“I imagine I do, but I’m certain I mistake it for my own from time to time.” Your fingers draw the fabric of your pants into your palms again, squeezing tight until you can feel your nails biting skin through the material. “Is there a word for that? Some diagnosis out of one of your long books and manuals?” You did not intend for so much sarcasm to push through your tone but it slips in nonetheless. Minho doesn’t so much as bat an eye at the attitude you send his way and instead pauses as though he is truly mulling over your senseless question.

“We in psychiatry ought to aim to help patients adjust to their current mental states. If the bad outweighs the good, then we determine treatments accordingly. If there are goods that cannot be had outside of that mental state, then we ask the patient to determine what’s best. Within reason, of course, we ought not to let anyone harm themselves with their own decisions, intentionally or otherwise. However, more often than not, the patient is the one best suited to figure out the right dosage of medications or treatments or therapies needed in order to maintain a good and healthy life. In my seat, from where I stand on this side of the dilemma, it is easy to preach to you, the patient, about how you should choose. How you lead your life, what medication you should take, to slap labels on you and tell you that definitively this — whatever the diagnosis we find is, I mean — is what is wrong in your head. Manual after manual, book after book, the list of articles grows day by day with new names for things that perhaps do not even need a name. Y/n, I will not place a name to whatever it is you are suffering with on any given day. Each individual case, patient, person should be treated separately, without a manual or an article or some doctor halfway across the universe telling me that there’s some title to slap on you. What you are is a human being who deserves the respect of being treated as such, not just another tick mark against the name of a disorder that may encompass your symptoms at a given point in time. Is that agreeable to you?”

This time the sigh you let out is one of pure relief, and the lingering discomfort you felt from being in this position with the doctor dwindles further.

“Refreshingly agreeable, yes.”

Minho dips his ear to his shoulder as he smiles less crudely than before. “Then, shall we dive deeper into that head of yours now?”

•─────⋅☾⭒☽⋅─────•

“I don’t want to go back after this.”

You look up from your bag to face the man who’s just spoken, and when you lay your sight on him, he’s sitting at the edge of one of the beds.

“Sorry?” you echo mostly out of confusion.

He lifts his chin and finds your gaze with wide brown eyes. If you didn’t know any better, you would resort to saying that he looks innocent of all wrongdoings in life.

“I don’t want to go back to Eros. Don’t want to report to some stuffy military official, don’t want Hyunwoo to give us a lecture about how we weren’t the perfect little soldiers, don’t want to keep doing things for people I don’t give a fuck about.”

Setting your bag aside, you move to sit on your own bed and face Jisung only after curling your fingers around the edge of the mattress to ground yourself. What version of Jisung will come out of this conversation is an absolute mystery to you as of yet.

“Aren’t you sick of it, Y/n?”

Despite the urge to shrug and wave off the question, you at least know better than to risk upsetting him this early.

“Defecting would be worse for us.”

“Us? So you feel the same?”

“I’m entertaining the idea for the sake of this conversation, Jisung,” you state in a rather flat tone. The mattress dips a bit further under your grip. “I’m content with the way things are. Who else is there for me to be loyal to? I’m well fed, taken care of, have protection—”

“All of that is only guaranteed if you give your loyalty and freedom in return.”

Your lips draw into a frown.

“Deserting is a good way to make sure freedom is never an option for you, Jisung. We have to stay until we’re twenty-one, those were the rules when we entered this line of work.”

“Letting fourteen-year-olds decide their own fates for the next seven years is bullshit too!”

“But it was a stipulation you knew upfront,” you counter. In a twist of irony, you’re the one losing patience here first. “I’m not saying that it’s ideal or fair, but risking the rest of your life because you’re tired now isn’t ideal either. We could wait, Ji… wait until we’re of age and can leave freely. I don’t want to be in the military forever either but I don’t want to lose the rest of my life because of a lack of judgment as a teenager.”

“You willingly lost the first fourteen years of your life because of the military too, Y/n!” Jisung gets to his feet now, in a flash of anger, and you glare his way with waning amusement. “You’re gonna give them more of those years too? Risk dying for them? Just to possibly guarantee some shred of faux freedom that they dangle in front of your nose?”

“Ji—”

“They make you stay on Eros after you leave, you know that right? You can’t even leave the system, let alone the fucking planet! That’s freedom to you? You don’t have to work for them anymore, sure, but you’re stuck under their noses so they can keep you pressed right under their thumbs for the rest of your life anyway.”

“Hyunwoo would throw you to those so-called rats for even entertaining the thought of treason! Do you think I want to see that happen? You’re one of us too, Ji, you are part of our team. Our team is our family. This is who we have. We agreed to stick together, we decided this for ourselves, and we committed to this together. I’m not doing all this shit because I love the man we have to call king, but I am doing it because it’s for the good of the people I care about. I had imagined you thought the same?”

“Those people would sell you out for a paycheck, Y/n. If I commit treason, then they’re throwing you in my court. We don’t have the golden ticket as they do — I’ve killed too many innocent people, and you’ve been a complicit player in my crimes for too long.”

You move to get up from your seat as well but Jisung crosses the short distance between the two beds before you have a chance to get balanced. It doesn’t keep you from being the one to make the first move, however, and you swing the back of your hand across his face without hesitation. Still, you knock yourself right back to where you were seconds before, pushing a wave of shock through your system in the same breath. Jisung remains frozen in place, no doubt out of disbelief.

“You want me to martyr myself for you so desperately that it’s made you beyond delusional. I’ve been loyal to you partly out of pity, you idiot, because without me, you would have been strung up in the streets by now. I know my place in our team and in our department. You play with your little toys, and I make the kill shots. Part of me believes that you only kill those innocent people in my name because you have somehow deluded yourself into thinking that I need to be protected. I protect you. I protect myself. And I will protect our family when the time comes. You decide now whether you’re included in that group of people or not.”

“And I will do whatever must be done to get us both out. You’re the coward. You’ve let them taint your mind and make you believe that leaving is a crime.” He drags his fingers across your cheek, pulling your chin up to look at him better, but all it does is earn him a glare. “You’ll see it one day, little lady. I promise you that much.”

The man before you has never taken responsibility for a thing in his life, though. Asking him to do so now would be an impossible feat at best. In fact, if you were in the business of making wagers, you would bet that Jisung would only admit fault at death’s doorstep.

•─────⋅☾⭒☽⋅─────•

“I can’t believe we’re losing so badly to a child,” you say under your breath even though said child is staring right at you from across the table. Jongho shakes his head almost imperceptibly as he looks over the cards in his hands before placing them face down on the metal with a shaky sigh.

“This is the fourteenth time in a row, and I’m not even trying to let him win against me.”

“Fourteenth?” You glance down at your own hand but the sight is dismal at best. There is much on the line, however, and it sits in the center of the table between the three of you now. The last handful of gourmet chocolates that Jongho had been stashing in his room all this time without even mentioning their existence to you. You’ll be damned if you lose out on some fucking chocolates to a child, even if he is a master at the art of poker. “My hand is terrible. I can’t even lie about it, it’s so fucking bad.”

“Be glad you can’t see mine because I don’t think either one of us is walking out of here with even a tin foil wrapper.”

Luca raps his knuckles against the metal table and drags your focus back over to him. He lays his own cards down on the table with a growing smile, gesturing to Jongho in a way you still don’t fully understand or know how to read yet.

“He said we can team up against him and split the chocolates if that gives us a better chance,” Jongho translates to you moments later.

“Oh my god, he’s gotta have a flush of some sort in that hand.”

“I’m not splitting the chocolates. They’re my chocolates!”

You sputter over air at the adamant defiance coming from the man and whip your head in his direction to stare him down. He’s insistent on not looking back at you, much like a child acting as though what he cannot see cannot hurt him. You’re of half a mind to whack him upside the head but you also don’t need to be giving Luca any bright ideas either.

“You’re about to lose all of them! Why not just settle for losing half!?”

“I have some pride, Y/n, there’s still pride left in me even after all this!”

“You’ve lost fourteen times in a row to someone who is less than half your age. There is no dignity or pride or anything left! This is about getting even just one chocolate!”

“I won’t do it. You can’t make me.”

“When he pulls out a straight flush—”

Luca grins from ear to ear as he turns his cards over, and one by one you watch your hopes of getting even a bite of the sweet treat sitting in the middle of the table dwindle into nothingness.

“—and look at that, it’s even worse. A royal flush! How’s that pride now, asswipe?” You reach over to pinch Jongho’s earlobe between your fingers, yanking him down a bit as you tug on the skin.

“In one piece because I didn’t split shit with you!” comes his equally immature retort. You’re only interrupted by Luca knocking on the table once again. Except when you both look up from whatever petulant fight it is you’re having, it’s to witness an almost pitiful scene of Luca placing a chocolate between the two of you. He makes a few gestures in sign language that you vaguely recognize but still wait for Jongho’s confirmation to come through. “…he said we can split the chocolate.”

“This is so embarrassing. Where did you learn how to play poker this well?”

Luca offers up a shrug and nothing else. He’s quick to take the bowl of remaining chocolates into his little hands, however, and hops up from the bench seconds later. Before completely turning away from the two of you he bows at the waist, smiling with both rows of teeth on full display.

“Thank you,” he says with one hand before using the same one to wave goodbye. “See you at dinner.”

You aren’t cruel enough to not return the kindness to him, but you do keep Jongho’s ear firmly pinched the whole time.

You release your grip on him at last once Luca is fully out of sight, letting him finally sit back on the bench more comfortably.

“It’s about time for his meeting with the good doctor,” Jongho explains as he rubs at the reddened skin you left behind. “They’ve been meeting every day since Minho got here I think.”

“When you said he steamrolled you in cards, I didn’t think you meant he was good.”

“Yeah, well,” Jongho sweeps the wrapped chocolate over to your side of the table, “I warned you.”

You scoff at nothing in particular as you do your best to delicately open the sweet, pressing down on it with your thumbs until it snaps down the middle.

“You shouldn’t have bet every bit of your good chocolate if you knew we would lose that spectacularly.” With a sigh, you pass over half of it to Jongho before popping the other into your mouth. “We can get more once we land though, right?”

“Yeah, but god knows what they sell down on Gorgon… I’ve never been myself.” The Berserker nudges you in the side with his elbow as he chews. “Have you?”

“Been to Gorgon? Can’t say that I have either. Nothing I’ve heard about the planet is particularly—” you wave a hand through the air to accentuate your point as your expression turns into a grimace “—pleasant, I suppose?”

“No, but Vida in general is nothing pleasant.” Jongho frowns when he looks down at the table with cards strewn across the surface. You press your lips into a thin line. It isn’t all too difficult to realize why he’s saying such a thing — not when Auriga lies within the same system and several thousand kilometers away from where the ship is drifting onward to its target. Even at such a distance, it’s enough for discomfort: a concept you understand wholly because the mere thought of being in Aurum made you ill. Mingi, too, may understand this feeling on a fundamental level the way you do. It’s hard to forget the fallout that came from Wooyoung mentioning Kebos by word of mouth. “It’s uncomfortable but that goes without saying.” Jongho passes you a smile, one that comes as a result of sensing the pang going through your heart right at this moment.

“It brings back memories I’m sure,” you say under your breath. You reach a hand up over the table to lay it atop one of Jongho’s, pressing your fingers into the gaps between his fingers.

“Lots of unpleasant ones. But it’s funny to think that of all the people on this ship, all the criminals living side by side, the one who is probably wanted by the most amount of people there on Auriga is me. Every kind of person in my hometown probably remembers my title and remembers my name in some capacity. Captain has done a damn good job of avoiding Vida for so long. I know he wouldn’t bring us here without good reason, and I suppose that I can only be grateful that whatever he’s after isn’t on Auriga. Still. It’s tough being back here still.”

“How long has it been since you were last there?”

“Ten years. Actually probably eleven at this point.” Jongho exhales through his mouth. “I’ve been running from this for a decade, and it’s still not enough time to feel at peace with what happened. I thought that—”

It’s hard to look at his face, even the side profile that you’ve got an angle of, solely because of how deep his pain is etched into the features there.

“Everything is much louder here. It makes me think… I should’ve been gentler with Mingi when we were on Kebos, or even Seonghwa when we were on Dorado. Was it loud in Aurum?” His voice is barely audible by now. He turns his hand in your grip, shifting just enough for him to curl his fingers further around yours and cling to you in an act of desperation.

“Terribly so. Horrid, wretched, terrific loudness. It’s like deja vu but your body remembers the exact feelings of agony you felt when you were last there.”

“Yeah, I get it a lot more now that we’re so close to Auriga. And I know our reasons for being on Dorado were certainly not good ones — and nothing that happened there could even be considered close to decent — but at least there, I don’t know. Part of me felt happy to be back. I mean, I worked in some random dive bar there for two years after leaving Auriga, and that’s where I first heard of Hongjoong and his crew. That’s where Hongjoong found Seonghwa too. I was there the night Seonghwa approached Hongjoong and asked to join his crew, remember being in the back of the bar and watching it happen like it was yesterday. It felt like returning to the place where things started when I know in reality that place is home. I wonder if Seonghwa views the place solely as something tied to the worst parts of his past or the start of his future.”

“I think that one day… you can see Auriga as the place where your future started too.”

“What place is that for you?”

“In a cramped box in the cargo bay?” you offer, partly as a joke but also because you aren’t sure what else to choose. Jongho snorts.

“We would’ve started the same then.”

“When you joined — or I guess, snuck aboard rather — was it on Dorado?”

“Oh, yes, but probably not when you’re thinking. I didn’t try to follow them that time I saw them meet. And Hongjoong avoids going there unless absolutely necessary. We’ve been back maybe three times max in all my years of being here. It was several months later that they returned briefly for business to get a few more hands on the crew for an operation. Captain and Seonghwa came through the bar I worked at, and I overheard them talking about going to Aegos for a quick warehouse raid, so I smuggled myself into cargo and they brought me aboard. You’ve heard that fun bit though.”

“San was the one who found you too, right?”

You don’t get a response straight away; instead, Jongho inhales and puffs his cheeks full of air as he looks towards the ceiling.

“Yeah,” he says after the silence starts to drag, “yeah, but he was very different back then. I don’t think I mentioned that last time I told you about being a stowaway.”

“How so?”

“He knew I was there for a while, maybe three weeks? Rather than getting me out, he would come through the cargo bay and taunt me. For the first week, he would bring a gun down there and shoot into the boxes around me, threatening to kill me. He knew where I was but he would avoid shooting me because he — wanted to see me come out? I think that’s what it was. He wanted me to come out and beg for my life. He got in trouble for damaging the goods, but what’s even more strange is that when Hongjoong came down and confronted him about it, he had the chance to out me. Instead, he said he was bored and needed target practice. Week two, he would sneak into the cargo bay and at that point, I had gotten out of the box I crammed myself in and made myself a little cubby down there to stay hidden. San would come in silently and scratch at the walls of the boxes around my hiding place. Some days he would sit at the entrance and stare at me through the darkness without saying anything. It was fucking creepy as hell, but when he finally started trying to speak to me in week three, I realized that he just… didn’t know how to communicate well. I remember feeling almost nothing from him at the time like he had no emotional aura whatsoever, and that freaked me out more than anything. It was like dealing with someone who hadn’t had a normal human interaction in his life. He wanted to help me but he wanted to make sure that he could trust me first. So he would threaten me and try to scare me to see if I would snap.”

“He wanted to protect his crew…” you mutter, and Jongho shifts to nod several times.

“San was their first — Hongjoong and Seonghwa’s very first crewmember. As much as Seonghwa is so prominent in the decision-making and plans that Hongjoong makes, San is right there alongside both of them. He’s so much more crucial to so much of what we do as a crew than anyone likes to let on. San will deny it outright if you ask him, and Seonghwa will try to cover for him to keep scrutiny off San, but Hongjoong never fails to remind us that San has the same authority as Seonghwa does in many circumstances.”

“Were you the second then?”

“No, I was the fifth. But something happened one of those nights while I was down in the cargo bay, and the other three crewmates who were there at the time never showed up again. I’ve got no clue what happened to this day, and nine years have gone by without me even daring to ask. I do remember an awful smell wafting down the corridors, and I remember smelling it for a long time even after I officially joined the crew.”

“You never asked about it?” you inquire, but Jongho just throws up a shrug and shakes his head.

“I think the only reason Hongjoong didn’t kill me on the spot for being a fuckin’ stowaway is because something happened to those crewmates. I was never gonna push my luck asking about it.”

You hum, crossing your forearms on the table. Your thoughts are running wild with theories and questions about what could have happened that night Jongho speaks of as you rest your chin atop your arms.

“How did he find out you were there? Was it San?”

“I think he started to notice how often San was going down to the cargo bay, especially after those three disappeared. There was no one else for him to keep track of, and he had already warned San off going down there weeks prior, so it was pretty much inevitable that he would eventually come down at the wrong time. And he did. He saw San talking to what looked like a wall of boxes, and San scrambled to cover for me and say that it was nothing. By then, he’d agreed to help smuggle me off the ship at the next stop on Mensa. It was the day before landing that Hongjoong caught us, but it turns out he knew I was down there the entire time because San had told him I was there. Hongjoong didn’t give him any orders solely because he wanted to see how San would handle things himself. San almost killed me in a panic because he thought he did something wrong in Hongjoong’s eyes by sparing me, but Hongjoong said he never intended to hurt me. Even gave me credit for having the balls to sneak onto his ship, though he wasn’t very well known back then. I got an ultimatum similar to the one you got, I imagine. Carry my own, I could stay.”

“Yeah, that sounds quite familiar.”

“I didn’t want to stay though. Told him outright too.”

“Huh? What?” Jongho laughs as you reel on him. “You really did have balls back then. He throws a hissy fit and a half every time I so much as disagree with him.”

“Yeah, well, I wanted to get to Mensa. Since that’s where Hongjoong was headed, I told him I’d be off at the next stop. And you know what he did?”

“Something stupid?”

“Changed course to fly to Yuki hours later and said that because I decided to smuggle myself onto the ship, I wouldn’t get what I wanted right away. I would have to either wait for the next chance to get to Mensa or I would get off at the next stop and find a way there myself. Funnily enough, I ended up sticking around. Only thanks to San! He still holds that over me too.”

“Has Hongjoong ever gone to Mensa since?”

“Not even once,” Jongho answers the question without having to think twice, and it does leave you to wonder how often that eats away at the corners of his thoughts. “As much as I harbored a nasty grudge towards him at first for changing course, it changed as time went on and I became actually rather grateful he did. I wasn’t even close to ready to face what I was after on Mensa, and even now I don’t want to. Maybe after I’ve made peace with what happened on Auriga, I’ll be able and ready to go there.”

“I mean, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to set foot on Eros again. Bounty not included.” Jongho cracks a smile at that, leaning over to nudge you in the side with his elbow. Granted, Ghost of Eros doesn’t hold nearly as much vitriol as Traitor of Auriga, and you aren’t dense enough to ask what he did to earn such a title right now anyway. If anything, you hope he can find some ounce of comfort in the knowledge that he isn’t alone in feeling the way he does, and that not being ready to face such a massive part of his past is nothing to be ashamed of. “It sounds like things were a lot different back then.”

“They were. San has gotten softer over the years, Seonghwa has gotten a lot colder. From the start, his emotional aura was so hectic in ways I’d never experienced with Elitists. As time went on, he gradually mellowed it out and got it under control. I can’t tell if he simply learned how to play the part so well that it’s indistinguishable now or not.”

“Has Hongjoong been this way forever then?”

Jongho purses his lips. He’s quick to busy himself with the cards on the table, pulling them all into a pile to organize nicely, and it implies that you may be toeing an unspoken line here.

“Hongjoong is Hongjoong. That’s all there’s to say about it really. Everyone’s changed in some way over the years. Mingi and Seonghwa the most, I think. Wooyoung and Hongjoong the least.”

You wish you could know who Seonghwa was before Hongjoong in many ways, but that is simply asking for the impossible. With a sigh, you push yourself up and away from the bench to get to your feet.

“I gotta wash dinner dishes, so I’ll see you later?” Jongho hums without looking back at you, and you lean over to pinch the underside of his bicep in retaliation.

“Ow! Hey, would you quit abusing me?!”

“Would you quit ignoring me?!” You pinch harder just to prove your point, earning a firm whack across the thigh as Jongho swings an arm back at you to counter your childish attacks.

“Yes, I’ll see you later, woman! We fuckin’ live together, it’s not like you’re going off to war,” he grumbles. You let out a dramatic gasp, one far from needed but very much so worse egging Jongho on a wee bit further.

“I’ll start one with you if you’re not careful, you little shithead!”

He fully turns to smack you now but you’re almost just out of reach, leaving his hand to glance across your ass instead of your thigh this time, but you severely underestimated the amount of force behind his swing because it stings.

“If you get an earful from San tomorrow because you hit my ass too hard, I’m gonna have no sympathy!” you shout over your shoulder, and Jongho returns your quip with an audible gag.

You aren’t expecting anyone in the kitchen when you walk in, which is partly why you’re still laughing to yourself as you cross the threshold, so finding the silhouette of another person in there already when you arrive is nothing short of shocking. You cut your laughter short with an inhale as you take the figure in, a quiet apology falling from your lips before you can contain it.

“No need to apologize.” Seonghwa’s hair is neat today, parted down the middle and longer strands pushed to sit behind his ears, but those dark purple, almost bruise-like circles still remain under his eyes. “I slipped in earlier, I’m sorry for not making myself known — I didn’t want to interrupt your time with Jongho and the child.”

“Ah…” you exhale, unsure of what else to say to the man.

“I already took care of the dishes, so you’re off the hook for today. I came to prep breakfast for tomorrow.”

“You’re cooking in the morning?”

“Yes, with Wooyoung. He asked to help.”

Even with the easy out, you don’t move from your spot by the sink. Seonghwa doesn’t budge either, clearly waiting for you to make the next move or say anything that might dispel the awkwardness now hanging in the air. It hasn’t changed, you note, that tension lingering between you two. Talking through what happened, discussing his mother, fucking each other in the presence of your own lover — it resulted in a cold shoulder and the same icy air as before. So what good was it all for besides fulfilling some cheap desires of the flesh?

“I spoke with Nightingale a couple days back,” you blurt. Seonghwa pauses with his hand flat against the cutting board.

“What about?”

“He told me that Hongjoong took his eye. That San took his arm.”

Seonghwa’s eyes flash with thinly veiled anger, and through the exhaustion, you’re able to catch the glimpse of frustration on his features.

“Some would say that it was San who did both.”

“Some,” you echo, and that’s when Seonghwa catches himself in the midst of his rage and pulls his focus away from your face. “Hongjoong, then.”

Seonghwa scoffs, “Don’t overanalyze what I’m saying, princess. I’m shocked Yeon—Nightingale was willing to pass any blame onto our captain’s shoulders.”

“Am I knocking on a door I shouldn’t even be in front of, pretty boy?” you ask next. The man waits for the words to seep into his skin and settle there before deigning to respond.

“You’re making a home in a house that does not belong to you, though that is not entirely your fault. San has let you in. Now Nightingale has pulled up a chair for you at the table. I suppose all that’s left is for either Hongjoong or myself to open all the closet doors so that the skeletons can fall out.” He squeezes his eyes shut so tightly that it’s painful to even look at. When they snap open again, there is far more ferocity behind his gaze than before. “But yes, this is one of those things I would not wish for anyone to know. Yet if not for those things, how would he have become the Scourge of the Black Sea? Where would his Lieutenant of Death be?” Disgust on his tongue and in his words, you find yet another version of Seonghwa that you’ve not laid eyes on before.

One that despises the man he loves.

“Seonghwa…” A simple utterance of his name nearly breaks his shaky composure. His next smile is a pained one. “Please talk to me, please tell me what’s going on with you these days. Every day you seem worse than before…? Are you not sleeping well? If you truly can’t speak to Yunho, then at the very least I can. Or Minho can. Someone else can if you are in need of help, Seonghwa, you’re—”

“It’s all catching up to me.” His tone cuts through yours, and you’re almost grateful because you weren’t wholly sure where your train of thought was even headed. “All at once. I thought — that I was already past the limit, that I already broke enough. At no fault of yours, Y/n, there are things I had thought that I came to terms with that are now rushing back in ways I am not ready for. I am uncertain if I will ever be able to mend my relationship with Yunho, Nightingale being among us is bringing back wretched ghosts of the past, and Hongjoong is so sickly engrossed in a game that I can’t stomach watching him play any longer. It used to be that I thought Hongjoong was draining me of my life in a twisted way because he wanted me dead but now I—” when his breath catches in his throat, a tear rolls from the corner of his eye and down the slope of his cheek, “—I must truly be a fool. I must truly have lost my mind after all this time. Whether the man I see in the mirror is a monster of my own creation or the expectations I fought to meet to be my captain’s lieutenant, it does not matter. Because regardless, I can’t distinguish Seonghwa from the Lieutenant of Death anymore. I’ve played this role for so long that it’s consumed me. How am I supposed to come to terms with that?”

“Hwa…”

“Y/n, I do not need anything from you, I promise. I will not try to take more than what I’m given again. And I-I am so deeply sorry for pushing myself to accept San’s offer because it was — it was something I wanted so desperately, please do not take my words for anything else because I did want to be there. I was happy to even be considered for such a thing and yet I could not take my mind away from a past that is long gone.”

When your expression contorts, Seonghwa reaches a hand in your direction. You disrupt his path to your arm by laying a hand down on the counter and squeezing it into a fist.

“Whenever we speak, you say these sorts of things. That I’ve done nothing wrong but we can’t be close again. That you want me and it’s okay for us to want each other, but your want is only a result of chasing something from your past. You want to hold me at arm’s length so desperately but you agreed to fuck me? Knowing what happened the first time around? Did you only fuck me because it reminded you of Hongjoong?”

“Y/n, do—”

“Because you couldn’t keep his name out of your mouth when you were balls deep inside me, then had the audacity afterward to chastise me like I was a child for wanting to understand San better! You treated me no better than a warm hole to fuck, and I’m sorry but the adoration I felt from you that night did not feel directed at me in the slightest. I’m thrilled that I could be a fitting substitute for you, Seonghwa—” sarcasm drips from your tone like venom at that “—and I was never after anything more than pleasure but I cannot be faulted for feeling slighted when it was clear that I was a placeholder for someone else in your head. Perhaps the fool is me for hoping that being intimate again would do anything for us because whenever we try to talk through things, you put up a wall that’s impossible to climb and — and I’m still attached to you, I still care for you, part of me still loves you which is why it’s agonizing to watch you try to give your heart to a man who clearly does not have the same care in return!”

“You were never after anything more than sex but you hoped it would change things?” Seonghwa matches the fire in your tone with an anger of his own as he steps towards you. Brows drawing together quickly, you watch his face turn into a scowl before he continues speaking. “How fucking hypocritical. I could tell you everything but even that wouldn’t make the slightest difference in the long run. You’ve planted yourself so deeply in hating Hongjoong that the moment anyone shows an ounce of care towards him, you consider them to be stupid fucking idiots. I’ve dedicated my life to this man, Y/n! I don’t give a fuck if you don’t like him! He gave each person on this crew a safe space and a home when they had nothing and no one to turn to. Yes, I’ll admit it if you truly wish to hear the words from my lips — the whole time I fucked you with San, I was thinking about Hongjoong. I was thinking of when San and I had Hongjoong in the same position you were in years ago, but you sat there above me and looked down at me with a hatred in your eyes that you reserve for Hongjoong alone. So don’t pretend to be some sort of saint when you were doing the exact same thing as I was. Only one of us had good reason to do so, what’s your fucking excuse?”

You push away from the counter to try to escape the conversation, stumbling over your own feet. All it does for you is corner you further, pressed up against the metal as Seonghwa closes in on you. It’s a sick game of chase that you can’t get away from thanks to both his height advantage and the ease with which he clears the space between you.

“I would tell you everything of the things Hongjoong has asked his two hands to do in his place over the years, and you would be horrified by every bit of it I’m sure. But I will not give you reasons to justify your disdain for him. You do that well enough yourself.” Seonghwa’s voice drops to a whisper as he traps you between his body and the metal counter. His hands come down on either side of you right as you try to move to the side, and your hopes of escaping now are hopelessly foiled. “I hope you hate him even more now, Y/n, knowing what he had San do to Nightingale. I hope Nightingale lied so nicely about his part in things, about his hand in his own destruction, that you’re blinded by your hatred. I pray that you fall apart at our captain’s feet so gloriously that no one can pick up the pieces because then… then maybe you would understand me. Hate him to the point of obsession as you’ve clearly already pushed yourself to that point. Did it feel good imagining his dick inside you instead of mine? When your hatred turns to infatuation, I’ll be sure to tell you all the ways in which Hongjoong has orchestrated the destruction of your psyche since your arrival here.”

“If your aim is to become a monster, Seonghwa, then you are doing a fine job at it,” you hiss through gritted teeth.

“Isolating yourself in San’s corner of this crew is a foolish and dangerous mistake too.” The words bring a scoff from your lips instantly.

“Why? Because he’s on your level? He has as much power as you do? Or because he’s known of your being a Siren all this time? Because that’s another tally of things you lied to me about! You wonder how things could possibly fall apart between us when so much of what we built ourselves on was a lie, when I poured my heart out to you about how I truly felt about San, you stood there and said nothing of any of this!”

“And I told you that I still loved Hongjoong.”

“After lying to me about it the first time we discussed it!”

“I guess we have that in fucking common then, don’t we? Lying about wanting our captain? Was it between your friends’ deaths that you were first dreaming of wetting the captain’s dick?”

Seonghwa’s body lurches as he’s thrown away from you, and he brings a hand to cradle his jaw almost immediately. Your knuckles burn from the impact you’ve just caused — a firmly planted uppercut to his face in a blind rage that you barely process. His words sit heavy at the forefront of your brain all the while, as your chest heaves with adrenaline that won’t settle. The first angry thought to arise is one that almost makes it past your lips. Something petty and nothing kind in the slightest, a dig at him aiming to accuse him of jealousy, but you withhold it now.

“As much as I am angry with you, trust and believe that I am far more disgusted by myself, Seonghwa.” With a flick of your wrist, you shake out your aching fingers by your side. “To taunt me for it is a new low for you, however.”

“And I hate myself for many things, Y/n, but I would not have you hate me for those same reasons. That is why I do not wish to share those things with you.” He pulls his hand away from his face, brushing over one corner of his lips that now sits split and glistening with blood from your thrashing. “I do love you though, for whatever that’s worth. I’m sorry that’s… I’m sorry.”

Unspoken words, empty promises. You wish he would choose some level of honesty about why he’s feeling this type of way towards you now. Whether it comes from a place of bitterness or jealousy or that disdain for himself that he just mentioned to you. You don’t care which it is; having some fraction of truth from him would be better than what he’s presenting to you now.

You feel violent again. The crawling urge to hit something or ram your head into a wall — whichever will hurt you enough to push the thoughts right out of your brain.

“I’m sorry too,” you say instead, quiet and reserved in comparison to what you just did not too long ago. Seonghwa lets you pass without issue this time as he settles back against the closest solid surface and nurses his lip further. You wonder if he will add this to the list of reasons as to why he loathes himself so wholly and completely.

There’s one thought on your mind as you leave the mess hall, heading in a direction that is opposite to initial instinct. Perhaps a bit predictable in the route you’re now taking to reach the bridge, it doesn’t stop you from continuing on said path. Alongside that, you have the intent to put your lingering anger to use, along with the concern that if you go back to your room and see San there now, you might unintentionally sling your anger in his face without him doing anything to warrant it. You can only hope to find the man you’re after there, and the mere realization that you’re chasing him down with Seonghwa’s accusations burning hot at your heels only serves to deeper your rage to a point of no return.

Hongjoong is both right where you expect him to be and where you want him. Your steps are slow as you approach his makeshift throne at the center of the bridge.

“I know what you did to Nightingale.” There is no use in announcing yourself in any other way; the sooner you address this and hurl your disdain at the man, the sooner you can return to the pleasantness that is your room. But Hongjoong simply turns his head towards you and stares. “Everything Seonghwa said about you was the truth. You aren’t capable of any sort of remorse.”

When the man doesn’t respond, you let your gaze flit to the figure at his side. Tall form, lanky build, kind features, and a gentle expression of confusion on his face, but not an ally right now. This is not Seonghwa (though you aren’t even sure he would be an ally to you at this moment either); this is Mingi, and should you earn the ire of your captain here and now, it might reward you an early grave. If it were San by his side, you wonder how different things might be.

“I believe you are recalling what San did to Nightingale.”

“What you ordered him to do.”

Hongjoong’s lips twitch in amusement. He shifts in his chair and folds one leg over the other while regarding you with the same humiliating expression, one that tells you he finds your outburst more humorous than serious. If not for the Berserker by his side currently, you aren’t sure you would be able to keep yourself from stepping up there to deck the man in the throat.

“I told him to keep Nightingale occupied. How he chose to exercise that order was up to him.”

“You murdered the man’s entire crew before taking his arm and eye. After subjecting him to psychological torture for months!”

Hongjoong stands abruptly, bringing your thoughts to a stutter that reads in the way you step backward once.

“Tell me you were so disillusioned by my hand of kindness, Y/n. Tell me you truly believed I was a gracious man. Tell me you painted an image of me in your mind that was benevolent, so that I may bask in that glorious misconception while I pleasure myself by my own hand at night.” The words revolt you so much that your face contorts and nausea creeps into your gut. You can’t bring yourself to conceal the emotions either, and Hongjoong takes them into his palm instantly with glee. His lips twist into a sadistic grin that showcases a row of white teeth. It twists instantly into something horribly childlike: a pout that pulls the corners of his mouth down and makes his eyes turn doe-like. “You do this to yourself, resisting and playing games like this with me. Submit to me, Y/n, so that this may be easier for everyone involved. San told me he warned you, told me you now know that he has gone to great lengths to defend you from my ire, but what more can I forgive? I have demanded respect from you—” his arm shoots out to point one finger towards your face “—respect that you swore you would give! Yet here comes our righteous savior with her sword of mercy intent on murdering me atop this hill I stand on, for what?”

This is far from the first time Hongjoong has been angry with you. Yet this time his rage takes a different tone: a calm storm that sweeps up everything in its path without cease. His tone carries weight to it too, and a loudness that makes your ears ring. His hand remains stagnant and extended as he continues with his tirade.

“For what? So that you can save these people? Rescue them from me, Y/n, I beg of you, see what good you can do for them. When you return to me in two days' time with blood on your hands, I will share no sympathy.” His hand careens toward his own chest, stabbing hard at his torso, yet even that doesn’t seem to phase him. “You come before me to spurn my name, to excuse the choices your beloved lover made, but that man is my dog! Do you wish to know how I made that of him?”

You shake your head, indignant in your silence. He does not accept your refusal.

“I made him kneel, Y/n! And I will do the same to you if you refuse to treat me as your captain.” Hongjoong turns back towards his seat and flops down on it rather unceremoniously. You only dare to lift your chin and look at him once you see one of his legs fold over the other in your peripherals. “Should I treat you like a dog too, Y/n? You sure do seem to love barking.”

The grin he gives you is borderline maniacal, and even though there usually isn’t much of a difference in your heights, he uses his leverage even while seated over you now to his utmost advantage. Leaning over the empty space between your bodies, Hongjoong reaches a hand towards your face — a sweet illusion that diverts his true intention of dipping that same hand down to clasp around your throat before you can think to act. His smile drops into a scowl in the blink of an eye.

“I do wonder — if I put a collar and leash on you, would you finally behave as intended?”

You can hardly breathe with the grip he’s got on your neck, and he only squeezes tighter as he continues his tirade against you. For every inch of flack you have given this man about his title as the Scourge of the Black Seas, you find yourself wrestling with a deeply seeded terror in your gut now. That he might actually have had enough, that even being a Siren is not valuable enough, that he will kill you where you stand now.

By the grace of whatever outer being is watching over you, Hongjoong decides to spare you and throws himself back in his seat once more.

“If she will not do so willingly, make her kneel, Mingi.”

It seems harsh to think of the man who has extended a hand of comfort and kindness towards you so often doing such a heinous thing. Mingi seems to agree with that sentiment judging by the look of horror that sweeps over his face.

“Insurrection is intolerable amongst this crew — I have warned you time and time again. Do you think I would so easily allow another mutiny to happen right under my nose? I will snuff out whatever flame you are trying to light with this pathetic show, Y/n. Whatever seeds you tried to plant in San’s mind will not take root.”

Mingi takes a step down from his spot on the platform, and your heart plummets to your toes.

“Mingi…” you trail off as you stare at the man’s face, desperate for any sort of reprieve from him.

“Do as asked, Ghost. I do not wish to use force on you.” He shakes his head slightly, as though a warning to stop things where they are now, but you cannot accept that defeat so easily. It is simply not in your nature.

“If Seonghwa were here—”

“Seonghwa would whisper pretty words in your ear as he pushed your face into the ground with his boot, princess!” Hongjoong hisses through his teeth. Fitting how he did something so similar not long ago. “You think these men have more loyalty to you than to me? That giving them your body is enough to martyr yourself for their faith?” Mingi lays a hand against your back and shoves you forward as gently as he can manage. It still manages to send you stumbling solely because of how distracted you are by Hongjoong’s words. “You have humiliated yourself enough before me. Consider this not a punishment but merely an extension of that kindness you believe I have.” Mingi’s presence at your back urges you to take steps forward until you run out of space before those steps leading up to Hongjoong’s seat at the helm. It appears that the Berserker is trying to make this pass as quickly as possible, either for your sake or for his own, because a sharp force hits the back of your knees and effectively sends you to the floor in front of your captain.

It is still humiliating, despite what Hongjoong says, and your retaliation is swift. You lean forward to angle your body over the stairs and hurl the saliva that has gathered in your mouth at his shoes. You consider yourself lucky to not receive the sharp steel toe of that boot on your jaw in the moments that follow. What he does do is almost worse, however.

Sighing, Hongjoong props his elbow up on one of the armrests and lays his chin atop a closed fist. His pose exudes a nonchalance you know is merely a farce. Then he extends the shoe you just spat on towards your face and jerks his chin. The gesture seems not to be meant for you as it is Mingi who shoves you forward once more.

“I tire of playing these games with you, Y/n,” Hongjoong starts, pushing his boot into your cheek. The leather is warm on your skin in a way that disgusts you more than the feeling of having your spit wiped across your face. The wetness of your saliva lingers there and drags over your skin as the man wipes himself clean like that. You have never felt lower on the food chain than you do now, before this cruel and sadistic man who grins down at your agony with no sign of remorse. “How far one can go versus how far one should go… I do not see a difference between the two. Whatever I do, it is done for the sake of my crew. You have been given chance after chance to simply accept that. Was killing Hyunwoo not enough of an example? Or forcing you to let go of Jisung?”

Your hands tremble against your knees. He twists his unoccupied arm in a way that showcases the back of his hand to you. Rings adorn his fingers, but that isn’t anything out of the ordinary in your eyes. The gesture is nearly lost on you. Yet just as a retort is bubbling up inside your mouth, your gaze catches on a glint of one of the metal rings. One you recognize, one with a white gem inlaid at the center. It’s the same one that sat on his hand when he pushed your arm through a door.

“I can have you be treated the way Nightingale was when he refused my offer to join this crew and fall under my command. But for San’s sake, I wish to remind you that there are people other than yourself who will suffer on account of that decision. You are the one who came into the care of criminals and pirates, dear. You should have left your expectations in that seedy box of threads you were rotting away in.”

“You made me drop Jisung!” Your wail comes out strangled as the realization sinks beneath your skin and takes hold.

“I freed you of that leech of a man, and the sooner you see that the sooner you will be free of those unimportant figments of your past.” Hongjoong lunges forward all of a sudden, planting both his feet on the ground with a loud thud. When he bends at the waist, he leans between his legs to angle his face in a way that makes him look more insane. “I will dismantle you from the inside out if that is what it takes to demand your loyalty, but I suggest you not keep me waiting that long.”

“Do you even intend to stop at Kebos or was that another pretty lie meant to make me docile?” you spat out at the captain. He laughs in your face.

“What does it matter what my intentions are?”

“You’re — you’re a sick bastard.”

Hongjoong extends a hand to you, taking your cheek in his palm and dragging his thumb over the wet trail he just wiped onto it. His expression is almost fond for a moment, a sort of sympathy in his eyes as he takes in the fat tears welling up and threatening to spill over.

“Look at me.” Carefully, he twists your chin towards him. His thumb traces along the line of your jaw until it rests on the other side. It’s sick, how you find comfort in that subtle touch that holds nothing more than a faux mercy meant to appease you. He pulls you ever closer until you are forced to lay your hands on his seat, left with no choice but to grip the small fragment that he isn’t occupying between his spread legs. Your gaze flits down to the soft pink of his lips, the gentle curve to them now that they’re resting in a neutral expression, and how the tip of his tongue pokes out to wet them for only a second. “Listen to me.” You have no choice but to do as told. His fingers pinch inwards until they’re no longer resting against your jaw but now dipping into the flesh of your cheeks and gripping hard enough to make your mouth pucker. “Call me whatever pretty names you like. Curse me and spit on my feet if you so wish. Whatever hatred you harbor against me only pleases me further. You may hate me, Y/n, but you can not disrespect me. I have killed my own men for less. Siren or not, San’s lover or not — your timer ticks ever closer to zero so long as you continue with these charades. I will have you obey, and you will respect me all the while. Do I make myself clear?”

You swallow and nod roughly to the best of your ability, but it isn’t answer enough for your captain. He grips your face tighter.

“I will not hesitate to humiliate you further before the whole crew if I must, Y/n. We can make a spectacle out of it. I would quite enjoy it, in fact. Now, do you understand?”

Bile climbs up your throat.

“Yes.”

“Yes what?” The syllables come out enunciated, and his underlying anger makes spit fly through his teeth.

“Yes sir.”

“How quaint,” Hongjoong laughs as he pulls his hand up from your cheeks to your hair, digging hard into the roots and yanking you back from your perch. “I was only looking for you to acknowledge your captain by his title. But sir? Don’t be fucking presumptuous.” He thrusts his hand against you hard enough to throw you back, and you land at Mingi’s feet where he still stands a little ways behind you. A flare of panic arises in your gut as you process his presence and the knowledge that he is hearing every word from Hongjoong’s lips. “Take a long hard look at yourself, Y/n. A woman who was just on her knees before me. Pliant, obedient, with no control to call her own. Isn’t that where you belong, Y/n? My pretty weapon, my pretty Siren, my pretty treasure.” Treasure. It feels wrong to hear him say that of you. It is not a title meant for you, after all, not in the slightest. “Now escort her out and fetch Yunho for me. I wish to have him in my room.”

Mingi answers the call without hesitation. His fingers close around your upper arm, and he hoists you to your feet in the same movement, gripping you with enough force to bruise. Somehow, it feels as though he is saving you in some odd and twisted way. He pulls you from the bridge with a sort of haste that doesn’t leave you any chance to look back over your shoulder at your captain. You are thankful for it. He only slows his steps once the two of you are far away from that room, yet his hand doesn’t leave your arm, grip only lessening slightly.

“Ghost.” His tone remains soft despite how it cuts through the palpable tension. “I apologize for being present for all of that.” A laugh escapes, one that sounds awfully dry.

“What can you do? Say no to your captain?”

“I will not speak a word of it to anyone. Nor will I share any of the contents of what he said to you.”

Ah, yes. The bit about you being a Siren, most likely. Unless Mingi has also been made privy to the ins and outs of who is what here on the ship too.

“He means w—”

“You do not need to defend him to me, Mingi. I understand your bond with him and what he means to you. I only ask that you understand that it is vastly different for me.”

“Why do you stay? If you do not wish to be under his command?”

“I made a promise to someone dear to me that I would not leave.” Wooyoung, Seonghwa, San. But why are you here? Solely to help a man you despise achieve his goals?

“And that is enough to subject yourself to something you do not feel good doing?” For a moment, you believe the man to be mocking you before you catch his tone and find genuine confusion in it. He is merely asking a question — nothing more, nothing less.

“That’s love, Mingi. Love and devotion both.” The Berserker stays quiet for a few more moments.

“…I see. Thank you for telling me.”

You let him guide you the rest of the way through the corridors, pausing as he does when he stops you both in front of a door that is not your own. His hand falls away from your arm as soon as he knocks, however, and the two of you nearly look normal standing outside waiting for Yunho to come greet you. The healer looks tired like you’d just woken him from slumber when you came calling for him. You opt to be the one to break the news to him.

“Captain wants to see you in his quarters.”

“He wishes to — what for?”

“He wishes to have you in his room, Healer,” Mingi clarifies for you, leaving you to roughly swallow around nothing and avert your eyes from the man’s face. “Promptly.”

“Ha… of course he does.” You hear the conflict in Yunho’s voice and glance up quickly to catch the tail end of his grimace. He nudges his way past you without bothering to even collect shoes from his room.

“Don’t listen to him,” you say through your teeth, as though it’ll have any impact. Yunho pauses.

“You of all people should know that that is quite impossible to do, Y/n. Would you deny San?”

Love, as it turns out, is the cruelest master of all.

“As strange as it may seem to you, I have been waiting for him to ask after me desperately,” Yunho continues, though his tone holds more shame than anything positive. “Maybe if only to prove that he still wants me in some capacity. Please do not tell me to leave him alone. Do not judge me or spurn me for going to him. You would do the same if you were in my shoes. If he needs me, then I wish to be there for him. Not because he is my captain but because… well, I’m sure you know why.”

She wields a knife so sharp that one slight cut would have you bleeding out across the floor in mere seconds.

Yunho steps away without another word and leaves you at Mingi’s side in the hallway.

Love and devotion both.

“Today… Ghost, today you made a very patient man angry.”

“That is what you consider a patient man?”

“Ask yourself what your defiance is really for, and why you find it necessary at all.”

“For the sake of the people I do care about, Mingi. I don't have to accept shitty leadership and the hand of a cruel and manipulative man when I know they’re suffering too.”

Mingi draws his lips into a delicate frown. He shakes his head.

“They are all happy under Hongjoong’s leadership, Ghost. What he does beyond being our captain… I cannot account for that, or for what suffering he has put Lieutenant and Healer through behind closed doors that do not involve him acting as Captain. But whenever he wears that mantle, everyone is content. It may seem egregious to you, I understand, but I am sorry to say that of everyone, you are the only one to be suffering.” Mingi buries his hands in his pockets and eyes you without saying anything for several seconds. You shift under his gaze, arms coming up to hug yourself. “What are you trying to save them from, Ghost? The suffering you’re inflicting on yourself? You saw what you did to Spectre that night you were arguing in the hallway — that was you, not Captain.”

“I know that. I know where his loyalties lie, it’s not that—”

“Then why are you trying to fight it?”

“I can’t just — j-just leave?” Your voice turns choked midway through the sentence, leaving you to fight the sudden tightness in your throat and chest.

“You could though. That love and devotion you speak of… I understand that I do not feel it in the same manner that you do, but if you are genuinely so miserable here under Captain’s command, would those people you love and who love you in return truly want you to remain in a place that makes you feel that way? Would they not wish for you to go find your happiness elsewhere? Even if it came at the cost of losing you, does love not beg for sacrifice?”

“I am too selfish for that, Mingi,” you whisper. Mingi pulls a hand free of his pockets and reaches out to lay it on your bicep, over the place where he gripped you so harshly earlier. His touch is gentle now, and he drags his thumb across the abused skin like he hopes to heal the damage he caused.

“I do not wish for you to leave either, Ghost. Our crew has changed in many ways since you arrived, and your fight to allow me my sense of freedom did not go unnoticed by me. I trust our captain with every fiber of my being, as does everyone here on this ship, and perhaps we have grown too complacent in allowing some of his more cruel acts of justice. That does not equate to us being miserable and suffering under his hand though. People make mistakes. Captain does feel guilt, and he does feel remorse over his actions. It’s just that he does not let you see that. Please do not judge him too harshly for the things that he does. Please understand that he is trying to protect the crew, his people, and his family all at once. The more you resist, the more you try to do what you did with Spectre that night, the more agony and strain you are placing on all of us. You do not have to agree with us, but please at least respect that this is our happiness.”

You offer up a series of rather pathetic nods but deep down you do understand every word he is saying. You cannot find the line between truth and a distortion of it for the sake of Hongjoong’s manipulation, but you decide (albeit questionably) to take Mingi’s words at face value. If he is lying to you now, or if it is all just a product of Hongjoong’s convoluted tactics, you will have to deal with those consequences later on down the line. Mingi squeezes your arm gently.

“I hope you are able to find your happiness too, Y/n.” In the back of your mind, you think perhaps Mingi is too kind, and he leaves you at the doorstep to your room without saying anything further.

It catches up to you the moment you lay your hand against the touchpad outside your door. Limiting the series of very unfortunate events to a simple… it is both generous and inaccurate on many levels.

San is where you expect him to be upon opening the door: propped up against the pillows with the lamp on and a tablet in his lap. You can’t see exactly what he’s doing but you do hear some residual noise coming from the speakers. He glances up to pass you a smile. Neither of you says a word. You wonder what emotion paints your features. You wonder what is going through San’s mind as he sees you. You wonder whether there will be a day when you wake up in the same bed as he and his loyalty will outweigh his feelings for you.

You wonder a lot of things it seems, and none of them are pleasant.

You take the fast track to the bathroom without bothering to wait around for San to speak. It’s as you’re splashing your face with freezing water and trying to rub away the lingering residue of both saliva and Hongjoong’s boot that he makes an appearance in the doorway.

“Is everything okay, love?”

Heaving a deep breath, you brace your hands on the counter and look up from the sink to find him in the reflection of the mirror. He’s leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his broad chest and dressed for bed as usual. Your gaze catches on yourself in the glass. Bloodshot eyes and tears rushing to join the water you splashed over yourself. The lie on your lips dies as you see yourself.

“I cannot bear to be humiliated by the captain any longer.”

When your lip wobbles, he shushes you and moves to join you by the sink. You don’t move as he twists the handle until the water stops or when he grabs for a towel. There aren’t any words exchanged while he pulls the towel over your face and sops up the mess you’ve made, but frankly, you aren’t sure what else you could say to drive your point home. San seems to be biting his words though, and it only takes one look at him to know that he has a great deal he wishes to say. He waits until he’s dried everything in sight that’s been touched by water to turn to you, setting the towel aside in favor of taking your face into his hands.

“I warned you so kindly, Y/n. Please do not do something that both of us may regret. Isn’t it easier to just do as asked?” His thumb glides over your cheek where he cradles you so gently.

“It’s pretty clear that I have a bad track record of doing that.”

San lets out the air from his lung and leans back to look to the ceiling.

“Back when you first joined us, back when we were in Echidna, you asked to be treated this way. You asked to be a weapon for Hongjoong. If that is not what you want any longer, then you only have to tell him as much. You have never asked to be anything different, have you?”

“There’s not one position on this crew that would see me getting treated fairly!”

He remains silent as he brings a hand down to clasp over yours and leads you out of the bathroom. You let him do as much without complaint mostly because you’re fighting to keep your breath from spiraling out of control and into hysteria.

“Come on, star, let’s lay down, yeah?”

It almost feels like any other night the way you crawl into bed with his hand resting at the small of your back before he slips in under the covers right behind you. He pulls the covers up over your body as you turn over to face him. The fight you’re trying so desperately to win slips through your fingers the second he pulls you into his chest and wraps a warm hand around the back of your head where your scalp is still stinging from the abuse Hongjoong put on it earlier. The tears come more freely then, and as your body shakes in San’s hold, you cry into the fabric of his shirt without relent. The comfort he offers is enough on its own, and you curse yourself for craving something more, something physical in place of kind and reassuring words.

“Please just try, my darling,” he whispers against your hair.

“I’m terrified of waking up one day to you asking to take me to the brig,” you choke out through sobs. Even though it’s muffled by his shirt, San still hears every bit of your words. You can tell that much by the way his grip tightens on you.

“I promise that won’t happen. I will fight that with all my might if I have to, I will not allow that to happen.” You can’t seem to find reassurance in the words at all though, and a burning pain sears its way through your chest as you choke on your cries.

“Why did you tell me that story? Why would you do that, why would you say that, why, San?”

“I wished for it to be — I didn’t want you to find out through someone else. I needed you to hear it from my lips before anyone else’s.”

“Why did you have to do that? Why, when he’s not even staying with us forever? You could have kept it a secret, you could have not told me, and I would never have known. Why did you have to m-make me—” a sob interrupts the thought, and you feel lips on your forehead, “—why did you have to make me doubt your feelings and intentions?”

“I’m sorry.” His breath is hot. When you try to lift your chin, he refuses to let you see his face. “I’m so sorry.”

His hands glide down from your head to your hips, and it’s with a gentle sort of coaxing that he maneuvers you onto your back. You cling to him desperately, leg pulling up to hook around his body so that he cannot even think to leave you now. The gesture urges him between your legs as you succumb to the desperation you’re feeling for something more. The tears fall more readily like this. You sling an arm up over your face to both shield yourself from view and to sop up the liquid with your sleeve.

“Star…”

“Please tell me you love me, even if it’s a lie.”

“I do love you,” he cries as he pushes hair from your eyes. “Are you sure you want me to…?”

“Please, San, I need you — I want t-to feel you.” Your hands can’t find a place to rest, jumping from his arms to his collar to clasp around the back of his neck like you’ve done so many times before by now. You know how San loves and how that love manifests; at least, you imagined that you knew all this time and now you’re faced with a crushing reality that that might not be the case, yet here he kneels, ever so desperate to prove his adoration to you now in the way he knows best. It makes you feel less torn about wanting him even while your heart is wrecked with emotion.

“I’m sorry, star,” San murmurs into your skin. He leaves a path of wet kisses along your arm, and when his cheek brushes along your skin, you feel a moisture there that is surely not from his lips. It pains your heart tremendously to have him crying above you like this, but deeper than that, there is some sick and twisted part of you that finds joy in the fact that he is feeling the pain you’re experiencing now, that he is tasting the bitter medicine of what he wrought on you. Perhaps you do understand Wooyoung better than you thought, perhaps you can feel the way Seonghwa ripped his own heart out to become a monster for the man he cherishes, why Yunho still chooses to walk into the lion’s den with his head held high — what kind of love hopes for suffering?

San moves down your body with kisses and tears both left in his wake. He whispers words into each bit of skin he can reach, tugging at your neckline to lay his tongue on your heated body before letting it snap back up into place.

I’m sorry.

I love you.

My darling, my star, my divine.

When he slips under the covers and takes your underwear to your ankles with him, his trembling fingers inch your legs apart to make space for himself there. He lays his tongue against you there too, at your most sensitive spot, and moans join the chorus of cries that won’t cease. Your body quivers at the stimulation like a chill passing through your whole system before he settles into a steady rhythm with his lips pressed into your sex and his tongue seeking something deeper. You feel his words again in his movements.

If he’s truly pretending, then you hope he acts the part for the rest of your life.

San pushes a finger against your walls alongside his tongue, and a second follows so quickly that you don’t have a chance to catch your breath. Desperate, you reach your unoccupied hand down through the sheets to find the top of his head. Your fingers tangle in his dark locks, and he moans into your cunt like a man possessed.

A moment of clarity pushes its way through the haze of arousal. San cannot be faulted for his loyalty, even if it pains you. You do not wish for him to suffer, not even for a second — if you did, then why would you have gone to such great lengths to keep him from doing exactly that time and time again? The man you truly wish to see suffer, the one you want to see in agony with his chest torn open, is none other than Hongjoong. At the end of the day, he is the cause of the cracks between you and San, the rift that grows too large to ignore now, and you wish to see him pay for it in full. A crueler thought enters your mind, but it cannot take a firmer root with San’s tongue pressing your further open to allow his fingers to curl deeper inside you.

Your nails bite at his scalp in ways that must sting and burn, but when you close your eyes, it’s Hongjoong’s face you see behind your lids and between your legs rather than your lover’s — a curling hatred that serves to deepen the pit already formed in your stomach. It disgusts you in many ways, makes you want to crawl out of your skin and scream, because as much as you despise him and everything he stands for, there will always be some part of you longing to satiate the curiosity for good.

Hongjoong was above you earlier, boot pressed into your cheek as you sat on your knees before him with no relief in sight. How much would it take to reverse the roles and have him in such a humiliating and debasing position? Beyond that, if he made good on his promise, what would that look like for you? And how deep are you willing to submerge yourself just to find out?

Isn’t that where you belong, Y/n? My pretty weapon—

He hums against you, and your thighs tremble around his head. Your fingers flex and curl in his hair like a heartbeat. It’s rampant, a speedy ba-dum ba-dum that matches the one beating in your chest right now. You wish to know how his sounds too.

—my pretty Siren—

His tongue leaves you, fingers remaining firm in their place along your walls as he rolls the pads over your sweet spot. You do not need to see his face to know that he is smiling; the curve of his lips is pressed to your clit.

“My treasure,” comes a breathy exhale from the man under you.

—my pretty treasure.

It’s enough to make you come undone, back curling up from the bed as an orgasm rocks you from head to toe. Disgust joins the euphoria just as quick, before you’ve even come down from your high, and the realization it brings with it makes you want to vomit so badly that you gag around nothing. San is quick to move with concern for your well-being no doubt, and it allows you the chance to roll onto your side until the spasms pass and you can breathe easily again. You don’t move from the fetal position you’ve taken, nor does San try to make you. He simply adjusts himself to lay at your back and molds his body around yours with an arm draped over your waist and fingers wrapped loosely around one of your wrists.

It’s as you’re falling asleep that you feel the soft pressure of lips against your head, and the words that follow make the lump in your throat swell to a point where you fear you might choke around it.

“I promise you that my love has never been and will never be a lie, Y/n.”

It leaves more questions unanswered than the opposite.

His love alone isn’t everything, and there is no confirmation that nothing he has done has been done with bad intentions. Or on account of external forces or voices telling him to do things outside of his control. You can only wonder which parts aren’t included under that umbrella and ask yourself if it’s worth ignoring for the sake of what happiness you have.

Mingi’s words ring loud in your ears.

Ask yourself what your defiance is really for, and why you find it necessary at all.

You think, as the room begins to fade into black and sleep settles in, that your will to fight is nothing more than a dull flame about to be snuffed out for good.

•─────⋅☾⭒☽⋅─────•

“Now, we will be here for quite some time regardless of how long the mission takes. This is vacation time, free time, time to rest and relax off the ship before we head back out into the thick of things.” Hongjoong speaks from in front of the airlock, dressed in his more formal captain’s attire down to his steel-toed boots. “We’re offloading cargo as usual, and we’ll be staying in the city across the gorge for our entire stay, but you all are more than welcome to pick up goods as you see fit. It would be quite hard to run us totally dry of funds. As for the mission, I’ll be taking a few of you with me, and it may require us to spread our time dedicated to the mission across several days. We won’t begin until two days from now, however, and you all will still have ample time to relax like everyone else. Mingi, of course, I would like you to join me.”

The Berserker in question passes his captain a nod from where he stands at Hongjoong’s side.

“Jongho, you as well, I wouldn’t dream of doing this without you. And Yunho, you. You’ll be my right hand for this mission.”

Seonghwa is staring at the back of Yunho’s head so intensely that you think Yunho’s head would catch fire if possible.

The airlock rolls to the side, and for the first time in weeks, you see and feel the fresh air. Hongjoong moves to the side and motions to the door, lips still pulled tight into a smile that leaves you thoroughly unsettled. Seonghwa is the first to step out of the ship, with Nightingale close behind him, and everyone else is quick to follow. You remain rooted to the spot not by choice but on account of San’s hold on your hand as he stays put until the other crew members have made their way out onto the planet. You take it as an act of politeness until your gaze shifts to settle on both Mingi and Hongjoong, who have not moved from their spots either.

“And you, Y/n,” Hongjoong calls out through his ever-present smile.

You jerk your head in San’s direction in the hopes that you will see some sort of shock present on his features. Instead, you receive a squeeze around your hand and a nod that seems to be encouraging you.

“You will be my left hand for this mission. Let’s see how tight I need to keep your collar, shall we?”

You do not reward him with a retort today. San guides you out of the airlock and into the new air, both your gazes stuck to the scenery around you the second you step out.

The gorge ahead is beautiful beyond belief, and in the distance, you catch sight of your destination across the chasm. It’s a city built into the side of the cliffs with buildings of reds and gold that stick out starkly against the endless green around it. Green water pours from the sides of the rock in many places, filling the air with the noise of rain, and it cascades down into the lake of green far below where The Horizon is now docked. Your transport is not far from the station though it is surrounded by the hustle and bustle of workers and visitors alike who have docked just like you have.

Hongjoong’s voice rises once again from behind you, loud and clear to address the whole crew.

“And remember… gas masks stay on at night.”

────────────

a/n: i sat and stared at this for like 17 minutes trying to figure out what in the world to say after this doozy of a chapter! first, hi. hello. how are you. welcome to act seven. it’s pretty unreal to be at this point honestly.. i’m so excited though i hope you guys are just as excited!! let me know your thoughts feelings and etcetc the one question i have for you all: was san calling her ‘my treasure’ something fully intentional or just happenstance?

but also just from me to you.. i want to say thank you to everyone who still reads and sticks around and is willing to be patient with me as i write. that means so much to me, i’m so so thankful, and there aren’t words for how thankful i am that people are willing to still read my story!! so thank you!!

next up on the docket is actually an interim :3 a hongjoong centered one :3 i know i said i was done with them but... brain worms win this time!

also! survey/questionnaire is still open here (of course not a requirement but it would be immensely helpful to me!)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

#mists of celeste #moc: spoilers #ateez x reader #ateez smut #ateez fluff #ateez angst #ateez series #hongjoong x reader #seonghwa x reader #yeosang x reader #wooyoung x reader #san x reader #mingi x reader #jongho x reader #yunho x reader #ateez fanfic #caly.writes

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