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oddinary4bts · 11 months

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Love is a Laserquest | choi san

☆summary: years after your break-up, Choi San comes to you for help. In an attempt to save his life, you escape to your uncle's cabin in the woods far from civilization. Will nostalgia and longing make you fall again, or is Choi San just spinning more lies to you?

☆pairing: gangster!Choi San x female!reader

☆rating: 18+ (minors DNI)

☆genre: gangster au, exes au, angst, smut, a smidge of the one bed trope

☆warnings: guns/gun violence (mentioned), knifes/stabbing (mentioned), a bounty over San's head, death of a minor character (named Jungkook my bad), blood, injuries, stitches, probably some wrong medical terminology bc optometrists don't stitch up people lmao, a panic attack, cursing, pet names, explicit content: oral sex (female receiving) -> face riding, let me know if I forgot any!

☆word count: 16.5k

☆a/n: Here's my submission for Outlaw: The Project hosted by @ssaboala. It is coincidentally my first time posting about another group than bts, so I hope this won't disappoint! I really enjoyed writing it (even though it's really sad oop). Also my first time making a moodboard so hopefully it works haha

☆a/n pt2: thank you to @moonleeai for being my ever-so faithful beta reader, love you lots <3

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And do you still think love is a Laserquest? Or do you take it all more seriously? I’ve tried to ask you this in some daydreams that I’ve had But you’re always busy being make-believe

Love is a Laserquest – Arctic Monkeys

☆☆☆☆☆

The diner is silent, unoccupied. It always is on late weekday evenings, when most patrons have gone to bed, the city falling under a carpet of hushed silence only night can bring forth. It makes the diner feel like it’s straight out of a 70s movie, and it makes for the perfect study sessions too.

Night isn’t always soundless in your part of town. Hence why you’ve been trying to escape, pursuing an education that has been leaving you penniless, but with a bright future ahead. If you make it out of med school at a certain point, that is.

Tonight, you fear the peace that night usually entails has been ruined for you – there were gunshots earlier, close enough for you to see the police cars racing past as the law officers made it to probably yet another gang fight.

There’s been a gang war on your side of town. The diner has always been safe, a refuge for both sides of the war, where they aren’t allowed to fight. To carry in weapons and hatred. No, the moment they cross the threshold of the diner, the gangsters become one family, sharing struggles that only poverty can cause.

You wipe a table clean before walking back towards the counter. Your open laptop waits for you, and you quickly read the study guide you’ve made for yourself, the cardiovascular system and its pathologies forming a maze in your mind that you’ve yet to decode. Luckily enough, you still have a week before the bloc ends and you have to take the exam.

Plenty of time to cram everything about the heart in your thick little skull, you’d say.

Your lips move in time with what you’re reading, attention solely focused on the bright screen when a thump is heard right outside the door. It startles you, and you turn around to see the empty street out of the glass door.

It takes you about ten seconds to notice the dark form sitting on the ground. They’re leaning against the door, head lolling to the side. You assume it must be someone that’s ended unhoused, something that happens far too often where you live.

You’ve always been kind. When you were younger, you were told your kindness would be your demise. Yet you’ve never been able to be anything but kind, even though sometimes it might put you at risk. So you can’t resist but walk to the front door, trying to push it open.

It’s useless – the weight of the person is keeping it tightly shut, though they do straighten a little, as if coming to their senses. They turn, and the moment their profile comes into view you’re brought back eight years in the past. To a time when the world was still a beautiful place, void of violence and cruelty. To a smile so sweet it made flowers blossom on your heart, and to eyes so sharp you knew they had read your soul.

Choi San is sitting outside the door, and the caked blood on his cheek tells you enough – he’s injured. He pushes away from the door before slowly getting up. He clutches his side as he does it, yet when he turns back towards you and faces your horrified eyes, he still offers you a smirk.

You push the door open, thinking about the years between then and now. You had dated him for a few months that had felt like forever, until you had realized in what kind of business he was getting involved with. You had tried to convince him to flee before it was too late, and he kept promising that he would.

Only he never did, hiding lies with beautiful words that made your teenage self swoon, until your parents had realized and forced you to break up. It had been a nasty break-up, filled with hatred and words you didn’t mean yet had needed to say for him to leave.

You remember breaking his heart like it was yesterday.

“Choi San,” you greet him, and when he lets go of his side, you notice blood on his hand.

Something runs cold inside of you, even though he still sports a smirk on his lips.

He says your name, bowing his head. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

Months, in fact. Because he does come to the diner sometimes. He usually ignores you, and so do you, so it feels strange to have him speak to you. To hear his voice as his words are addressed to you.

“What…” you trail off, glancing down at the ripped fabric of his black tank top.

He’s got a mean cut on his ribs, and it’s only then that you truly realize that he’s badly injured. Because there’s more – one of his biceps has been sliced open too, though blood is barely oozing out of it in small rivulets. The blood on his cheek is from where you assume he’s been punched with rings, and there’s already an underlying bruise under his eye.

“Got beaten up,” he states the obvious, and you immediately open the door wider to let him in.

He limps in, heading towards the nearest booth, where he plops down and lets out a pained grunt. You make sure no one is outside before shutting the door and locking it, flipping the hanging sign on it so it says closed in case a patron decides to show up.

You take a few steps towards San, hands shaking slightly at your side. Because that’s a grown man, bleeding out on the leather seat of the booth, and his eyes are shut though he looks in pain. You don’t know what you’re supposed to do. You haven’t yet started your residency, haven’t really gone from theory to practice… Yet you’re studying to be a doctor, are you not?

“Why are you here?” you ask, though you’re pretty sure you know the answer.

“Didn’t know where else to go,” he says, wincing as one of his eyes opens. He tilts his head to look towards you. “Word around the block says…” he pauses, takes a deep breath before continuing, “that you’re studying to be a doctor”.

So you are right. He’s here because he needs your help, and you’re not quite sure how you feel about it.

“Why…” You look for words, and it takes you a moment to realize that it doesn’t matter.

For all the history between you and him, Choi San doesn’t deserve to bleed out to death on a cheap leather seat in a forgotten diner on the dangerous side of town.

He has the decency to chuckle at the start of your question, which only makes him wince in pain once again.

“Don’t move,” you tell him, and it’s a little stupid because clearly, he’s in no state to move.

He doesn’t question it, and you run to the kitchen to thoroughly wash your hands and grab the first aid kit. At night, no cooks stay around, and you usually only reheat food if needed, which doesn’t really happen. You haven’t had any client coming in at night in weeks… until San, that is. So no one is there to see what is going on, which you reckon is a relief. Because you have no idea what’s going on.

You return to the booth where San is waiting, patiently. He’s clearly wiped his hand on his face because there’s fresh blood on his forehead, and you almost balk at the sight of it.

“What have you done?” you mutter, more to yourself than to him.

It seems he’s still in sync with you because he still hears. “Got involved with the wrong crowd.”

You put the first aid kit down on the table, ignoring his eyes when they flutter open, and he rests his gaze on you.

“I don’t know if I can help you,” you say as you unzip the kit and throw it open. You spare his side a quick glance. “This looks like you’re going to need stitches.”

He makes an effort of looking down at himself, though it mostly fails as he doesn’t raise his head from the seat. “Right.”

You grab everything you think you might need – alcohol swabs to clean his skin, fresh linen to bandage his side and arm, and stuff for his cheek too. He carefully observes you, with that piercing gaze of his that used to make you go crazy inside when you were young and impressionable.

You vaguely motion at him, and he cocks an eyebrow. “What?”

“Are you able to sit up?” you ask. “I can’t reach you if you’re lying back like this.”

His pink tongue darts to wet his lips, and he nods curtly. “Let me…” he trails off, resting a bloody hand on the table while he grabs at the back of the booth to push himself up. It has new blood appearing on his side, and you quickly move towards him, putting some linen against it.

As if it’s going to do anything. He clearly needs stitches, and you’ve got nothing with you to stitch him up.

“Fuck,” he curses lowly as he’s finally sitting. You just keep the linen on his side, eyes a little wide.

Your gazes connect inevitably, and time slows. You think about how he used to smile, how his eyes used to hold a softness you haven’t had the chance to see again since he’s walked out of your life.

Or rather, since you kicked him out of your life.

“I don’t think I can help,” you whisper, and his eyes flicker to your lips.

“I can’t go to the hospital,” he admits, shame turning his features into a mask of regret. “They… If they find me, I’m dead.”

Dread fills every ounce of your being. “San, what have you been doing?”

He looks away from your insistent gaze, scoffing slightly. “You don’t want to know.”

He isn’t wrong; you genuinely don’t want to know. Because he means nothing good, even with all the memories you share with him.

“Is it going to put me in danger?” you ask, as he still obstinately avoids your gaze.

He seems to freeze in front of you, as if you’ve pressed pause to your favourite show. To avoid the awkwardness, you busy yourself with grabbing one of his hands so he can hold the linen in place before you start washing the cut on his arm. It’s not deep, but you’re pretty sure it’ll still leave a mean scar, especially considering he can’t go to the hospital.

The thought has a drop of cold sweat roll along your spine. People want him dead. People want Choi San, the man you know as a young, scared teenager just trying to find a way to make his life better, dead. You remember the innocence in his smile – has he smiled at all in the years apart?

“I should go,” he says flatly. He moves to stand, but you hold him down, two hands firmly placed on his shoulders. It makes him wince, and you quickly release your grip.

“Don’t,” you tell him. “Let me at least patch you up.”

His eyes shut again as his head hangs low. “I am so sorry.”

You don’t even know who he is apologizing to, or why he is. All you know is that it causes your heart to clench in your chest, stealing the breath from your lungs.

When you were younger, you believed San was your star-crossed lover. You believed your high school sweethearts romance would grow until you’d be old and grey and at the end of a very long road. You had dreamed of a future with him, the way only teenagers can dream – with no sense of reality. Because your reality had never been to end up by his side.

His choices had been proof enough of it.

You still remember the day you first kissed. Under an August meteor shower, with just the night sky as your witness. It had been hesitant, slow and soft, just like everything with San. And you had believed the lie, trusted it with every beat of your little heart, until your parents had found out the truth about him.

Until they had broken your heart, even before you had broken his.

If the stars had known then, what was going to happen to you and Choi San, would they still have shone through the night?

He lets out a pained sound as you gently dab at the cut on his bicep. You clean the skin around the wound in and of itself, and he watches you carefully, piercing gaze not missing how your face clouds with memories.

“How have you been doing?” he asks so softly you think his words are a gentle summer breeze on your features.

You can almost still smell the summer night air of that field where you had stargazed, where you’d always meet so long ago.

“I’ve been okay,” you answer, truthfully. Because even though you haven’t seen him, you have lived your life apart from him. Have evolved without him by your side. “Better than you, visibly.”

He didn’t expect the joke. It makes him snort, and then a soft smile grows on his lips, softening the edges of his hard features. “You haven’t changed.”

You have, and yet you haven’t. Like him, you think there’s a part of you that is still sixteen, and will forever be. A part of you that remained stuck in the moment when you watched him walk away in the rain, as if even the sky had to cry for his broken heart.

“Wish I could say the same about you,” you murmur, nostalgia a melancholic song in your words.

He chooses to remain silent, because the proof of how much he’s changed is sitting right in front of you, wounded and bleeding and hurt. The hurt is behind his eyes, in the shadows of the past that have also been obscuring your vision.

“Yeah,” he lets out, barely audible.

And then silence reigns between you, because as much as you once loved him, eight years have made you strangers. You don’t know anything about his life except the dirty, obvious darkness that surrounds him, and he doesn’t know anything except that you are studying to be a doctor…

Which leads you to wonder how does he know in the first place?

You ask him, as you’re wrapping the linen around his bicep to make a makeshift bandage. You’re proud of the result, though your fingers can’t resist but linger on the taut skin over his muscle, surprised at how soft it still is.

“I’ve heard you mention it,” he admits, as you take a step away to look at the material on the table, as if it’ll suddenly make stitches appear for you to put them in his skin. “One of the times I was here.”

“You never said hi,” you reproach him, unable to hide the ghost of a bite in your tone.

“Neither did you,” he points out, and he isn’t wrong.

All you can do is purse your lips as you finally decide to clean his skin. But for that, you have to rid him of his tank top, to make sure there’s no fabric in the wound. You look at him, cheeks somehow burning even though all you’re doing is taking care of a patient.

Though he’s not a patient, and you’re not in a hospital. You’re just a server at a dusty, old diner and he’s just your teenage lover, wounded by his dangerous actions.

“Should I grab scissors to remove your shirt?” you ask, though you’re speaking to yourself more than to him.

He still finds it in him to tease. “You want me out of my shirt?” he enquires, smirk gracing his lips again. “Say no more.”

He tries moving, but you hold up a hand to stop him. “Don’t,” you warn. “You’ll make it bleed more.”

He purses his lips, because nodding. “Right.” He glances at the first aid kit, before his eyes trail to your face again. “You got scissors in that?”

There are. You grab them, before turning towards him. It feels strange: you’ve never undressed him before. You had always wanted to wait, back then, before you slept together. You believed you were too young, and San had always respected it.

“Let me know if I hurt you,” you tell him as you take a step closer to him.

He slightly leans back, furrowing his eyebrows. “What do you plan to do with those that might hurt?”

You roll your eyes, playfully, before taking the two other steps leading to right in front of his legs. You notice that they are slightly parted, allowing you to come closer, and you take a steadying breath before reaching between you, pulling at the fabric of his tank top.

“Stay still and you shouldn’t get hurt,” you whisper, ignoring the heaviness of his piercing gaze on you.

It burns right through you, and you have to tame the beats of your heart at the feeling of the warm skin of his shoulder against the back of your fingers as you bring your other hand forward, until you’ve started cutting his shirt.

It’s stuck to his side where blood has dried, and he winces but remains still and silent as you keep going, pulling on it a little harder to be able to cut. The moment stretches into infinity, because you can’t help but take your time. It reminds you of how you’d used to run your fingers on his back, under his shirt, when you napped in the field in the summertime. In an idyllic world where gangs and violence and war were mere inventions of the media, and not a reality that surrounded you.

You’d loved the field. The wildflowers, the open air, the way it was just you and him and a few lazy bumblebees as clouds lazily crossed the sky above. You were so young then, so innocent. Hands unstained from blood, from his blood.

Because as you cut, the hand touching his shirt stains with blood. You pale at the sight of it, but you keep going, pushing through until you’re done, gently pulling the fabric from his body until he’s sitting there, shirtless, with a long wound on his ribs.

You can’t help but notice his toned chest and the defined abs on his stomach. Though blood mars his skin, turning it into a piece of violence, Choi San is still beautiful. Beautiful in a dark, dangerous way that has you glance outside, making sure no one is looking.

But the streets are empty, void of life at this time of the night. At least, they mostly always are.

“You will need stitches,” you state again as if you both don’t know already.

“I can’t…”

An idea forms in your brain. It’s a stupid idea, and you don’t even know why it crosses your mind.

Your uncle has a hunting cabin far in the woods. He’s a nurse himself, and he’s always kept everything over there in case someone got injured and he had to stitch them up. You haven’t gone in forever, but you still remember the tall trees, the deep forest scent that reminds you of autumn and leaves and grey days spent reading by the fireplace.

You never went hunting, but you did accompany your father when he went, needing an escape from the city once in a while. An escape from a life that was slowly becoming too real.

Your uncle is currently halfway across the country, so you know you’d be alone at the cabin. You glance at your laptop over your shoulder – you have three days off in front of you before your next class on Monday. Indeed, the Friday class is pre-recorded and to watch online in your free time, and you figure you can always watch it some other time.

So you turn towards Choi San, almost surprised that he’s real and he’s still sitting in front of you, honey skin cut open on his ribs.

“I might know a place where you can go,” you admit, with a small voice, surprising both you and him. Because you doubt he expects you to want to help, after tonight.

“What?” he asks.

“My uncle’s cabin,” you remind him, because you’ve told him about it all those years ago. “He should have all that I need to stitch you up.”

San looks down at himself. “You’ve just cut my shirt open.”

It sounds a little dumbfounded, and you can’t help the nervous laugh that falls from your mouth. Because even though it doesn’t look too deep, the wound still is terrifying in and of itself.

“I’ll bandage it,” you whisper. “Before we go.”

He seems like he ponders for a time. You watch the debate across his features, his eyes falling to a spot on your chin. He looks sad, troubled and defeated. “I can’t… I can’t do this to you.”

You ignore his words, carefully washing his side. You avoid the cut and try to be as gentle as you can, but his muscles still flex as he clenches his fists from the pain.

He’s strong. That much hasn’t changed. Because he doesn’t make any sound as you finish washing him and then patch him up with those same careful hands. And when you move to his face, cleaning the blood, his eyes flutter shut, and he sighs softly.

He looks so much like he looked then that your heart aches, and you find yourself blinking away tears for this man who’s had it so rough he believed joining a gang would save him.

“I should have come to you before,” he murmurs. “You’re much gentler than Hongjoong.”

You don’t know the guy he mentioned, and you don’t feel like asking. Don’t feel like acknowledging his words, so you just finish with his cheek before stepping away from the peaceful aura that was treacherously pulling you in.

Like all those years ago, you reckon.

“Let me make a call,” you say, turning away from him as you move to the counter. You feel the weight of his eyes between your shoulder blades as you get your phone from next to your laptop. You call your boss, and as someone that’s never called in sick before, you feel anxiety flush through you.

Because you’re not sick. And how could you tell him that you need to take care of your ex-boyfriend of eight years ago?

Seokhyun picks up on the first ring, voice groggy with sleep when he mutters, “Hello?”

“Boss,” you greet him. You scrape your throat and spare a look towards San who’s watching you curiously. “An emergency came up, and I have to leave the diner.” You swallow the lump in your throat that’s formed from lying, and then you add, “There haven’t been any customers all night, so I was wondering… would you be comfortable with me closing for the rest of the night?”

Your boss says your name, a little reproachfully. But then he sighs, because he knows just as well as you what a good employee you’ve always been. “Are you going to be able to come in tomorrow night?” he asks.

You pull at dry skin on your bottom lip, assessing San’s state. You could always come back to the city for work…

“You know what, I know you’ve got that big exam coming up,” your boss says, sighing into the phone. “Why don’t you take the next week off so you can take care of your emergency and focus on your studies?”

If Seokhyun wasn’t a fifty-three year old married and father of three children man, you think you’d ask him to marry you right now.

“That would be really helpful,” you tell him, gratitude dripping from your voice. “Are you sure that won’t be a problem for the diner?”

“The diner won’t lose profit if it closes for three nights in the week,” he points out. “I’ll see if I can get you replaced for the evening shift on Sunday.”

You thank him again as he grumbles that it’s nothing. He wishes you good luck, and when the line goes silent, you finally meet San’s gaze again.

“All sorted out,” you tell him, offering him a nod. “Let me just close the diner, and then we can go.”

He nods, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips. He observes you as you do so, quickly closing the diner like you’ve done about a hundred times before, though this time you’re far more excited to go. You grab a plastic bag to put away the bloody swabs, and though he groans in pain, San gets up to help you clean the blood that stained the cheap leather of the booth.

Soon enough, you’re ready to go, and you walk outside with the plastic bag in one hand and your backpack on your shoulders as San chuckles, looking down at himself.

“Do you have a shirt for me?” he asks as he follows you out.

You lock the door behind you before glancing at him. He’s quite the sight, naked from the waist up and bandaged like he is, and you can’t help the small chuckle you let out as you glance towards your car, that’s luckily parked right in front.

Though it’s a deadbeat car, you trust it enough to know it’ll make the trip to your uncle’s cabin, even in the middle of the night.

“My ex left some sweaters on the back seat,” you admit as you unlock your car doors and open the trunk to put your backpack and the plastic bag in there. There’s no chance in hell you’ll leave a plastic bag full of bloody swabs near your work.

You see San nod from the periphery of your vision, and then he’s opening the door to the backseat. “Your ex, huh?” he mutters as he grabs a sweater you used to love wearing and that you haven’t convinced yourself to give back to Hyunmin.

He carefully puts it on, and you’re pretty sure just the motion is going to make blood seep through the bandage. Somehow, you don’t care that it might stain Hyunmin’s sweater.

Hyunmin was a cheater, and even though you never really loved him, it took you months before you found the strength to break up with him. Needless to say, he doesn’t deserve his clothes back.

“Yeah,” you flatly say as you move towards the driver’s seat. You sit, and San follows you, naturally, as if you’ve done it a thousand times before.

As you turn the keys in the engine, San asks, “Have you dated a lot?”

You bristle at the question, shooting him an embarrassed look. “Have you?”

“No,” he replies, features fully serious.

You purse your lips, focusing on the road as you start driving. You need to put gas in the car if you want to get to your uncle’s cabin, so you make your way towards the closest one. It takes you a moment before you register how San has stiffened next to you.

“Can we…” he trails off, and he sinks in the seat, trying to hide. “I can’t be seen here.”

You immediately press on the accelerator, and your car speeds down the street as you pass in front of the gas station. You glance at San only when you’re stopped at a red light. He’s pulled the hood of the sweater over his features, and he’s doing his best to hide.

“Where can we stop?” you ask.

“Next town over,” he answers. “I just can’t be seen in Bangtan territory.”

Right. You have no knowledge of how the gangs have divided your city, but you’re not surprised Bangtan has this part of town. It’s the industrial area, and you assume there’s a lot of money to be made around here.

“Sounds good,” you gently say, and then you’re driving again, the light turning green, allowing you to speed away into the night.

You drive silently all the way to the next town, watching your city disappear to be replaced by trees until buildings reappear. San is looking outside the window, and you can’t help but wonder how he’s been doing, truly. How he managed to get injured like he is right now, and mostly, if his dreams of running away still occupy his thoughts.

He had begged you, the evening you had broken up with him. Told you he’d make enough money to be able to move with you across the country and build yourself a nice little life over there. You had wanted to believe him for so long, until your parents had opened your eyes on just how he was trying to make money.

“Do you need anything?” you ask as you finally reach the gas station, pulling into the driveway. You park next to a pump, turning to face him only to find him already watching you.

“I don’t have money to pay for food,” he admits. He shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I lost my wallet in the… altercation.”

You gently put a hand on his forearm. “Hey, my treat. We have to eat.”

He inhales deeply, letting out the breath slowly, before he nods. “Alright. I owe you.”

You reckon he’ll owe you for a lot more than just food at a gas station, but you choose not to say it. Not when you feel like someone’s watching over your shoulder, watching you drive away in the night with the person they are looking for.

You know it’s paranoia. No one followed you out of the city and into this town. It just feels too strange to have him here, with you. In your car, on the way to your uncle’s cabin, as if eight years have gone out the window. As if you can still be young and innocent.

It’s stupid, because you can’t. Time has changed him; time has changed you. And in just a few years you’ll be a doctor, and you’ll finally get out of this hellhole of a city, of its dangerous streets.

Of its equally dangerous man, that you know could probably pull you back in with one of his many well-crafted lies, one of the dreams he weaved expertly, whispering it into your ear.

You take a deep breath before getting out of the car. You go into the station, grab snacks for the next few days and then head to the counter. The guy behind nods as you approach, and you pay for the food and for gas before wishing him a good night and returning outside. San is still squatting in the car, clearly trying to hide, and you put the food on the backseat before putting gas in.

You watch his profile as you put gas in the car. Back when you were dating, his features weren’t as sharp, as glass-cutting as they now are. He used to sport a rounder face, but today you wonder if you’d get a papercut on his jaw. You wouldn’t even be surprised.

When you’re done with gas, you sit back next to him, and you quickly bring the engine back to life before pulling out in the street. As soon as you exit the city, darkness falls on the two of you, tall trees standing on the two sides of the road again. San doesn’t speak much, and it doesn’t take you long to realize he’s dozing off next to you.

“Hey, everything okay?” you ask, suddenly worried that he might have lost too much blood. Which, you reckon, you should have thought about earlier.

He sighs, glancing towards you. “Just tired.”

“Don’t…” you trail off. “Don’t fall asleep.”

He chuckles. “You’re afraid I’m going to die on you?”

“Choi San,” you warn. “Don’t you dare say stuff like that.”

He smiles, but you reckon he’s a little pale. Or at least you think he is, in the silver light of the moon up above. “I think I’m fine. Just…” He offers you a weak smile, though you’ve returned your attention on the winding road. “Just exhausted. I haven’t slept in three days.”

Worry clutches your heart, and you nibble at some dry skin on your bottom lip. “What’s been going on?”

He slightly shrugs. “I can’t tell you. I don’t want to put you in danger…”

“Am I not already in danger by just helping you?”

The silence is telling enough. And it remains for a while until San finally speaks.

“I was in a gunfight a week ago. Accidentally shot the youngest member of the other gang. He didn’t make it, and the gang has put a bounty on my head. Ateez took my gun and told me to run; I laughed in their face and said I wasn’t a coward. Then I got attacked by two guys with knives earlier, and I made it to the diner because I had nowhere else to go.”

Now the silence is deafening, heavy, and you think you’ve altogether stopped breathing. You’re struck with an image of San in the summer sun, smiling wide as he put a flower behind your ear, claiming you were the most beautiful girl he had ever met. The contrast with who he is now – a product of night, shrouded in darkness with no hint of that smile on his lips – is stark. And you wonder when’s the last time he has seen the sun, when’s the last time his life wasn’t violence like this.

When you say nothing, he scoffs, resting his head against the window as if it’d allow him to escape. Because clearly he wants to escape – he’s just told you that he’s killed someone after all.

And you don’t know what to say. Don’t know how to react to someone confessing murder. All you can do is stare at the street ahead, hoping you won’t end up in a gunfight with San. Because where would that lead you, other than in the dramatics of death?

You don’t speak for the rest of the ride. You don’t think he sleeps either, and dawn is clinging to the far horizon when you get to your uncle’s cabin, in a secluded forest that seems straight out of a fairytale. Instead of bringing you awe like it usually does, the sight of it makes you think of all the murder mysteries you had been obsessed with when you were younger, before you realized how horrible the real world truly is.

Neither of you move, as you turn off the engine of the car, and you fall into even more of a tensed silence, though this time you can hear the chirping of the early birds. It’s peaceful, so peaceful you can barely even grasp how tangible the presence of San is next to you. The presence of his actions too, looming between the two of you like a sword of Damocles.

You move first. Putting a hand on the knob, hoping to escape the heaviness into the dawn. San speaks before you can though, and your heart stops in your chest.

“I never meant for him to get hurt,” he murmurs, and you think he’s speaking to himself more than to you. “Everything went too fast, my gun was in my hand and I just… in situations like these, you don’t have time to think.” He leans his head against the headrest, eyes closing. “All I can picture since it’s happened is him falling and blood. Like a fucking blossoming rose, all around him.” He rests his closed fist on his forehead, rubbing it hard. “I haven’t been able to sleep; I’ve been sick every time I’ve tried to eat…”

“San,” you interrupt as you break and break for him. Because this is the San you know. This is the young boy that just wanted to escape and live in a better world. You can almost taste his remorse, taste his regret and shame. It’s poisonous, treacherous, a slippery slope that can’t lead anywhere good. “Let’s get you in. I want to get that cut on your ribs checked.”

He falls silent, and for a moment you feel guilty. Because what if he had more to say? You don’t even think you would have been able to listen. You need the escape, and you know he’ll permit it. Because the man next to you is a broken man, a fracture of what he could have been.

You step out of the car, blinking away tears – from the anxiety, from the exhaustion, and perhaps even from the pain you feel for him. He follows you, wincing as he swings his legs out of the car. He stumbles a little as he stands, but soon enough, he grows steady on his feet, and his attention moves to you. You climb the stairs of the cabin, lifting the rug to find the small trap that leads to the spare key. The padlock is rusted, but it stands strong as you put in the code, and a click is heard when you pull on it.

A few seconds later, you’ve unlocked the front door, pushing it open to reveal the cabin as you remember it. Not a single item is out of place, though dust covers everything, a clear indication that no one has been here in years. You let San in, before going back to the car to get the food you bought, bringing it in and putting it in the fridge. Three full gas canisters hide under the counter, and you sigh in relief – you’ll be able to get the generator on for some electricity.

You motion to the kitchen table. “Have a seat,” you tell San, who somehow looks like a lost puppy. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”

He nods, remaining silent, eyes downcast. You only move when he’s seated, heading to the bathroom area of the cabin, where you startle a spider that almost makes you scream out loud. You keep it in, heart beating out of your chest as you get the kit before moving back into the main area.

San is leaning against the chair, eyes closed. He senses you approaching, and one of his eyes cracks open to watch you carefully, a little like he did earlier, at the diner. It looks so similar to how he used to look at you, when you joined him at the field, that you stop in your tracks, heart squeezing once again.

You don’t like the way Choi San is making you feel, that’s for sure.

“Take off the sweater,” you tell him, putting the kit down on the table. You put some clean linen next to it, to put what you need over it, before washing your hands with the disinfectant you find in the kit. You put latex gloves on after, and then you fish wire and a surgical needle from the first aid kit that you carefully put down on the linen once you’ve torn the packages open.

As you were doing all of that, San took off the shirt, struggling a little as it meant he had to lift his right arm, which pulled at the skin of his ribs, where the cut clearly has started bleeding again. Though, if you’re honest to yourself, you’re pretty sure he’s been bleeding this whole time, even though it probably was just some fine rivulets.

Indeed, the cut isn’t all that deep, you remind yourself. Mostly because you don’t want to even think about the consequences of the blood loss. As long as he stays awake, you figure he’s fine – he would have lost consciousness a while ago if he was losing a lot of blood.

You remove the bandage you had carefully put in place earlier, wincing at the sight of the blood that’s seeped through it. San keeps his eyes close, lets you clean his skin again in peace, and you feel sick to your stomach as you realize you don’t have any anesthetics for the pain that stitching him up will cause. Indeed, the pocket in which your uncle usually leaves the lidocaine is empty, and you remember that he’s had to use it for your dad when he accidentally cut himself with a machete last summer.

“Huh,” you let out. You chuckle nervously. “It’s going to hurt like a bitch.”

His eyes narrow, and he clenches his jaw. “Don’t worry about it.”

You worry at your bottom lip, holding his gaze as you gauge if he’s serious. When his gaze doesn’t falter, you offer him a curt nod, before getting the wire and needle ready under his watchful eyes.

You hand him some linen. “To bite on,” you explain as he just cocks an eyebrow quizzically. That makes his gaze widen a little as if he’s just now realizing how serious you were about it hurting, but he takes it nonetheless.

You think about the theory of how to stitch someone up. It was in your previous block – you watched hours of videos of it in an attempt to desensitize yourself to it. You don’t think it compares to the real thing, but at least you’re somehow confident of what you’re doing when you start.

San startles, groaning in pain, and you offer him a glare. “Don’t move, or it’ll be worse.”

A drop of sweat rolls down his temple, but he still nods. Even as you keep on stitching him, he remains as still as he physically can, though you don’t think he even notices how he’s trembling. Or maybe that’s you – you don’t even know.

Somehow, you make it through the whole thing. You think San might have passed out at some point, but he’s wide awake when you finish the knot to keep the stitches in place, looking up to meet his face.

He’s panting and tears of pain wet his waterline. He blinks them away as he takes the linen out of his mouth, dropping it on the table.

“Fuck,” he curses.

“Let me…” you trail off, mind set on getting something to at least help him cool off, because he’s clearly been heating up.

You grab a washcloth and a small bucket, and head outside to walk down to the lake. You fill the bucket halfway, and take a few seconds to observe the calm surrounding you, hoping that it can ease the nerves rolling inside your heart like dark clouds do on the horizon whenever a storm is coming. You feel it in your bones – you have a murderer in your uncle’s cabin.

You have to keep that in mind. To not let Choi San in like you did when you were a young impressionable teenager.

You sigh, closing your eyes to breathe in the fresh morning air. The sun is peaking over the horizon now, and you bask in its hesitant rays for all of twenty seconds before you convince yourself to go back in. You’ve got a patient to take care of, after all.

San hasn’t moved an inch while you were outside. The only indication that he hasn’t died on you is the groan he lets out as you put the wet washcloth on his forehead. You tap his cheek gently, as if to say, ‘suck it up, I’m just trying to take care of you’.

Which is exactly what you’re doing, isn’t it?

You watch him carefully for a few seconds before tapping his shoulder this time around.

“There’s a bed,” you remind him. “You’d be better passing out in a bed.”

He groans again, cracking an eye open. “I’ve just been repeatedly poked with a needle,” he drawls. “Give me a second.”

It makes you laugh. Because of the nerves, maybe. You’re not quite sure. All you know is that you’re laughing, and San opens his second eye to look at you as if you’re crazy. And you laugh for longer than you should – you’re exhausted after all, especially considering you haven’t slept since yesterday morning. So far, adrenaline has been keeping you going, but you can tell you’re about to crash.

“Sorry,” you apologize once you calm down. “This has just been…”

“A lot,” San finishes for you. “I know.”

You nod once before glancing at the doorway to the bedroom. It has no door, as your uncle and your dad usually come here alone and they don’t mind sharing a bed. It makes you realize that you’ll have to share it with San, which you reckon you should have thought about before. Because there’s no way in hell you’ll share a bed with him, especially after he’s told you why he’s being hunted.

There’s always the option of going into town later today so you can get a sleeping bag and floor mat to sleep on. But you’re far too tired right now to even consider driving, so you motion to the bed once again.

“Stick to your side; I’ll stick to mine.”

He smirks though he’s extremely pale. A lot paler than he was before, and you swallow a sudden lump in your throat. Because what if he dies? What are you supposed to do with him if he dies?

“You’ll have to help me to get to the bed ‘cause I don’t think I can move,” he says once his smirk dies. He curses under his breath. “I’m so pathetic.”

You put your hand on his shoulder again, reassuringly, eyes holding his. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re hurt. Everyone is pathetic when they’re hurt.”

He gulps before nodding once. It takes everything in you not to offer him more comfort because you feel like the slope would tilt forwards far too much if you did. Instead, you help him to get up, wincing as he puts most of his weight on you, clutching his side with one hand. You’re infinitely aware of how his skin is sticky with sweat, but you ignore it as you slowly walk to the bedroom.

You can only hope the stitches will hold because you don’t think he’d be able to withstand another round of them.

You finally reach the bedroom and help San sit on the side of the bed. He sighs, eyes shut tightly, and he doesn’t move for a time. When he does, it’s to stiffly lie down on his side.

“You might want to sleep on your back,” you inform him. “I don’t want you rolling around and messing up the stitches.”

He glares at you, though he looks like he’s already half out of it. You hold his gaze until he gives in, turning on his back with a deep sigh. You arrange pillows around him to make sure he’s not moving, and by the time you’re done, his breathing has already evened out.

For a moment, you just watch him sleep. You see him in the field where young love blossomed like a trillion wildflowers. You can almost breathe his pollen again, can almost feel the softness of his skin under your fingertips.

But he’s not what he used to be. Back then, you felt like you had discovered something new. Love, infatuation, affection, and desire, all in the form of the man sleeping next to you. You’d used to kiss, dance and sing to a song only your souls knew, and now you don’t think you recognize him anymore.

As much as he is him, he’s also but just the ghost of what he was. He’s trouble, danger in the shape of innocence, and you recall his words from earlier. You recall the despair, the regret and sorrow that haunted him after he told you. You can’t let him get to your head.

You reckon sleep might help. Though you’re afraid he’s going to waste away in his sleep, so you set up an alarm every hour, before climbing on the other side of the bed. You don’t pull on the covers, mostly because the cabin is warm, and you can imagine it’s just going to get hotter as the sun goes up and the summer heat slowly sizzles into the countryside.

It’s a good thing you put an alarm on. Because when it rings an hour later, you don’t even remember falling asleep. You’re pretty sure the second your head touched the mattress, you were out to the land of dreams. You groan, mostly because you’ve got a slight headache, but you power through it to make sure San is still breathing.

When you see his chest moving up and down steadily, you let yourself fall back asleep.

This goes on for the whole morning, and you only force yourself to stay up when your phone shows that it’s passed noon. As you had suspected earlier, the cabin has gotten extremely warm, so you force yourself out of bed to open all the windows, and then you use the washcloth from earlier to gently wash San’s face of the sweat.

He doesn’t even flinch in his sleep, but he’s still breathing and for now, that’s all that matters.

You head back to the main room, grabbing a pack of chips from where you had left the food earlier, and then you move outside to sit by the lake. Mostly because you need to put distance between you and San, but also just because the childhood memories of this place have you in their hold, and they’ve decided to make you miss the times when you’d swim around with your cousins before both of them had moved out of town.

One day, it’s going to be you too. You already know where you’d go – on the other side of the country, as far away from here as possible. You just want to forget all about the place you grew up in, and you know that, in a few years, you will have forgotten.

Though you’re pretty sure a certain piercing gaze will haunt you forever, especially after the events of today.

When another hour passes, you head back inside, putting the empty bag of chips in the trash before you check up on San. He’s still asleep, but this time he doesn’t look as pale as he did earlier. You assume it’s going to take him a while before he wakes, so you head to the nearest town to grab more food. Mostly to busy yourself, but also just because you know San will need a place to hide for a lot longer than just the weekend. Might as well make sure you have enough for him to survive a couple of days. In town, you also stop to eat at a small café on a small terrasse in the shade of a few trees, and then you grab the food you think you might need at the grocery store.

It’s the middle of the afternoon when you get back, realizing that you forgot to buy a floor mat. As you spy San, who hasn’t moved an inch since he’s fallen asleep, you figure that sleeping next to him tonight should be fine.

As long as his presence in your vicinity doesn’t drag you down memory lane again.

You bought some meat in town, so you head to the little shack outside where the generator is hiding. There’s a gas canister right next to it – also full – and you busy yourself for the next twenty minutes trying to figure out how to get it started. When it finally rumbles to life, you head back inside to put the meat in the fridge, which has finally come to life.

When you hear a groan, you quickly jog to San’s side, fully expecting to find him awake. Surprisingly, he’s still asleep, and you stay next to him for a full minute, thinking he might groan again, though he remains entirely silent.

If it wasn’t for his chest moving up and down steadily, you’d believe him to be dead. But now that a few hours have passed, you’re pretty positive he’ll make it, though he’s probably going to sleep through the day and possibly through the next one too.

Which leaves you in the most peaceful atmosphere you’ve been in for a while, with the opportunity to study as you listen to the rush of wind in the leaves of the tall trees surrounding the cabin. You sit outside, this time near the fireplace, and you study until your stomach grumbles, indicating that it is time for you to cook.

You cook the meat you’ve bought on the grill outside, feeling thankful that your dad once showed you how to use it. You go back in to grab a bottle of water before you eat, and you’re bent in the fridge when you hear San moan again, and this time it sounds like he’s saying something.

You gently close the fridge, making your way to the bedroom. San hasn’t moved, but his features are creased in a frown, and sweat is rolling down his temples. You wet the washcloth, gently wipe his face, and you’re about to leave when he moans again.

It takes you far too long to realize he’s apologizing. What for, you can’t really tell. Though you remember his troubled eyes this morning, you remember his story, and your heart breaks in your chest.

He’s haunted. You think the ghost of the dead guy will probably haunt him for the rest of his life. And suddenly you’re struck thinking maybe, maybe if you hadn’t broken his heart all those years ago, you could have saved him from the gang.

Maybe you could have opened his eyes.

You still remember the break-up like it was yesterday. You remember the rain, him leaving without once looking back, but mostly you remember the words you had uttered. Ghosts of their own, that feel more real now that he’s come back into your life.

*****

“You’re going to get hurt!” you yelled. “You’ll get hurt, San. What are you thinking?”

He scoffed, shaking his head, and little droplets of water shot all around him. “I’ll be careful. We need the money if we ever want to make it out of this shit town.”

You blinked away tears, folding your arms on your chest as you tried to keep your heart from breaking. Though you reckoned it had broken when your parents had told you what they knew about San. When your father had mentioned Ateez, and you’d truly realized what it meant that he was part of a gang. San, your sweet, soft, and bubbly San, in a gang that had murdered someone just a few weeks ago.

“But that’s not a way to make money!” you screamed, hoping he’d understand. Hoping he’d hear the truth in your words, hoping he’d change his mind before it was too late. “Why don’t you get a part-time job, like me? Then we can go to college and get jobs in a nice city on the other side of the country!”

“It won’t work,” he drawled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I want to be out soon, not in a few years. I barely even have a roof over my head, Y/n…”

“Come live with me,” you choked out around the lump in your throat.

You both knew fully well that your parents would never let him come near you again.

“I can’t.”

You cried, hiding your face in your hands. You cried thinking of the field where you usually met, thinking about its beauty now fading into ugliness. You thought about the wildflowers, withered and dead as autumn had come. You thought about how you were convinced you knew what love was.

“What’s the point?” you asked then. “What’s the point of putting your life in danger? Life isn’t some sort of a game, Choi San. Worse, what if you have to hurt someone? Do you think you’ll be able to pull the trigger?”

He clenched his jaw, hard. “Do me a favour and stop asking questions.”

You closed your eyes, feeling sick to your stomach. Because it couldn’t be. Not San. Not your smiley San, who’d always weave dandelions crowns with you, as you’d pretend you were a queen and a king of that field you had found. An empty field, an abandoned farmland that was just yours and his to explore. That had been home to your first kiss, and all of those that had followed.

Now you wondered why he had always wanted to meet there in the first place. Was he trying to hide?

"If you love me, you’ll get out while you still can,” you said as your tears suddenly ended.

There was a weird sense of clarity in you, suddenly. You remembered the day you had fallen in love, the moment you had first kissed. You remembered the stars in the sky above, the meteors falling for the two of you. You remembered the music on the radio you had brought. Some Arctic Monkeys song about heartbreak, about moving on and failing to do so. As a joke, when it had ended, you had asked San, “Do you think love is a laserquest?”

His answer had been cryptic, mysterious, things that had made you believe he was the one. “Maybe. Maybe it is, and I’ve shot you in the back while you weren’t looking. Maybe I’m that annoying player that won’t leave you alone.”

“I’ll never find you annoying,” you had replied.

But today, watching the rain rolling down his face like tears, you realized that maybe, maybe you should have seen the warning behind his words. Because this betrayal, it came like he had shot you in the back – you didn’t think you’d be able to recover from it.

The past dwindled away as San spoke again, reminding you of the question you had just asked him. “It’s not a question of love, Y/n. I do love you. But it’s a question of survival.”

You laughed, coldly, and then you said, “You know what? You’re full of shit.”

“Alright then. Do me a favour and tell me to go away.”

“Go away.”

A long silence had lingered between you, voided of that summer warmth that had you falling in love. Like a piece was missing from the contract of you loving him, and him loving you. And you realized, maybe you had never really loved each other anyway.

He nodded once when you didn’t say anything else, before turning away. And you watched him walk away. You watched him thinking he was going to turn around and tell you this was just some twisted joke, the prank of the century. Only, he never turned around, and he disappeared behind the bend in the road, never to be seen again, cracking your heart open and splitting it in half.

*****

The sun sets, like an ending to a dream. You’ve always liked the end – you think if you could choose, you’d want to witness the end of the world. The nostalgia, the beauty of endings… it’s something you understand now that you didn’t understand when you were younger. Because you and San ending, it had led to you focusing on high school. It had allowed you to get in the good college in town, with a scholarship that covered most of your expenses before you made it to med school.

There’s beauty in knowing losing San has allowed you to live out your dreams.

There’s less beauty in knowing that San has been sleeping for almost thirty-four hours now. Last time you checked, he was still breathing, but you’re starting to be afraid that he just won’t wake up. It’s irrational, you know – after the blood loss it makes sense that he’d sleep for a long time.

But it leaves you with far too much time on your hands to think and revisit the past. You’ve been doing it all day – thinking about the fight with your parents that had led to your break-up with San, thinking about that damn rainy evening he had walked away without once looking back. Thinking of the field, of sunshine and star falls and the sweetness of a first kiss. Thinking that, then, you thought you knew what it was like to be in love.

You haven’t dated anyone serious since San. Hyunmin was a distraction for a while, but you never were into it. Not like you were into San. There’s a guy in your class though, that you’ve been chatting with for a couple of weeks. He’s sweet, innocent, and the perspective of a future seems less scary with him around. He’s mentioned he wants to move across the country once too, and since then you’ve started talking more, the similarity of your wishes drawing you closer.

All day today you’ve been feeling like you’re slowly drifting away though. Slowly getting entrapped in a web you’re not sure you’ll be able to walk away from.

You decide to swim, seeking the fresh clarity only cold water can bring to you. You don’t have a swimsuit with you, but since San is half-dead in bed you figure it doesn’t matter. So you strip naked, feet making squelching sounds in the mud by the lake side as you step in the water.

The sharp cold has you holding your breath, but you don’t slow down. You’ve never slowed down in life – when you make a decision, you bring it to completion. And you’ve decided to swim, so swim you will.

The warm summer evening breeze catches in your hair as you take another step forward, the water now lapping at your thighs. You dread the moment it’ll hit your core, knowing that that’s the worst part, but you breathe in deeply, moving forward. Because there’s no moving backwards now.

When the water hits, your eyes flutter shut, and you hold in the wince that threatens to escape the mask of calm your features hold. Soon enough, you get deep enough to swim, and the movements bring welcomed warmth to your limbs as you flop on your back, tits out of the water.

Your uncle’s cabin is the only cabin in a fifteen miles radius. You know you won’t be interrupted, and so you let the water cool you down. Calm you down, hold you in its fresh embrace. It undoes knots in your back that have formed from worrying about San, but also from worrying about college.

From worrying that you will never be enough. You think it’s a normal anxiety to have, something most people must feel as they go through the trials of college, not knowing what to expect on the other side. A nice career, perhaps, though the perspective of failure is there too, looming over the horizon.

You sigh, and your eyes flutter open as your legs move mindlessly under you, making sure to keep you afloat. You look up at the azury ceiling over your head, so far away as it slowly turns gold. Out of touch, out of grasp. You watch the fluffy white clouds that are lazily crossing the sky, turning fiery in the sunset, as if they have all the time in the universe. And you wish you were them, up above. With nothing to worry about.

Without a Choi San on the brink of death lying about twenty meters away from you. You sigh, and you turn in the water, with the purpose of swimming again. Though your gaze catches movement by the cabin, and your head snaps towards it to see none other than the supposedly Choi San, standing on the deck with a hand clutching his side.

You shriek, looking down at yourself. Most of you is hidden, but you don’t know how long he’s been there. Don’t know if he’s seen you naked as you looked up at the sky.

He doesn’t move, only watches you where you’re swimming.

“Can you please look away?” you say from the water, and he has the nerves to lean against the railing, eyes still boring into where you’re swimming. You think his gaze might be so hot the water will boil, and it startles you into action.

You start walking out of the water, pointing towards the door. “You shouldn’t be up, Choi San.”

“I feel fine,” he says as you take another step forward, and the water barely hides your tits anymore.

That makes him turn around, as he offers you a little bit of privacy. You’re quick to get out of the water and wrap yourself in the towel you brought outside, and then you collect your clothes to head back to the cabin. San dutifully keeps his gaze away until you’re climbing the three steps leading to the deck, and it’s then that his eyes trail to you again.

“Thank you for the water,” he says, offering you a tentative smile.

You left water by his bedside earlier today hoping it will coax him to wake up. You’re strangely surprised that it worked.

“You should go sit inside,” you scold him, only half-heartedly. Because seeing him up and about reassures you, somehow.

He cocks an eyebrow, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. “The weather is beautiful, I’d rather sit outside.”

You roll your eyes, but you do let him walk down the stairs to sit by the fireplace while you go inside to take a quick shower and get dressed. You decide to make some food for him, though you know he shouldn’t eat too much right now, after not having eaten for a while. He has to start slowly, and you don’t even know if he’s hungry anyway.

You settle for preparing a cup of chicken noodle soup for him, so at least it isn’t too heavy on his stomach. You bring it to him outside, as he’s just calmly observing the lake.

“Thank you,” he says, voice small as he grabs the cup and the spoon.

You sit next to him, trying not to watch him eat too much. His hair is sticking to his forehead in some places, and you have the distinct thought that he’ll probably need to shower. At least there’s plenty of rain water in the bucket for the water pump.

“What have you been doing while I was out?” he asks.

You spare him a quick glance before losing your gaze in the rocks of the fireplace. “I’ve studied. Checked up on you. Not much honestly.”

He chuckles. “I’d argue that caring for someone is a lot.”

You glance at him, cheeks burning at the sight of his teasing smile. “Not really.”

He chuckles again, but doesn’t say anything more before eating another spoonful of soup. He’s almost done with the cup when he actually does speak, asking, “How long was I out?”

“A day and a half,” you answer. “I’m actually surprised you haven’t slept longer.”

You can hear the smirk in his voice when he says, “I’m made of tough stuff.”

You snicker, but you don’t say anything, just focusing on where you’re kicking at the dirt. When he’s done with the cup, he puts it down on the ground next to him, before sitting back in the chair. He stretches out his legs in front of him, sighing deeply.

“I still feel out of it,” he admits, and you meet his gaze.

“You can sleep more,” you tell him. “I’d just like to check on the…”

You don’t even have to finish your sentence. He immediately turns so his side is to you, and you have to admit you’ve done a perfectly good job with the stitches.

“So?” he asks.

“All good.” You pat his shoulder. “You can sit comfortably again.”

He’s smiling when he does so, and his gaze wanders to the lake once again. “I’m sorry I…” he trails off, and he chuckles softly. “I’m sorry I interrupted your little swim earlier.”

You have the decency to flush furiously red, and you shrug your shoulders. “No worries, I wasn’t expecting you to be up so soon.”

You fall in a comfortable silence, surprisingly so. Rare stars dot the darkening sky up above, and all that can be heard for a moment is the flap of a bird’s wing as it moves from branches to branches in the trees by the water. The breeze picks up as you watch the little bird, and the leaves dance, loudly so. You’d think it’d be deafening in the silence between you and him, but it’s strangely reassuring.

As if, after all, you found your way back to the field. Only this time it’s completely different, as if decades have passed between you. At least, that’s how it feels like.

You notice San has dozed off in the chair next to you when you were about to speak to him again. To ask him how he’s truly been, in the years between then and now. Hoping to avoid mentioning what led to him coming to you, yesterday, a whole eternity ago.

You watch him, heart aching in your chest. Aching to reach out and brush his hair away from his forehead, aching to heal the cut on his cheek with a gentle swipe of your fingers. If only medicine was so simple…

It seems the peace of the early evening wasn’t going to stay around, because you notice dark clouds rolling in the distance, streaks of lightning cutting through them. Slowly inching closer, menacingly so, and you gently wake San up with your hand on his wrist.

He startles awake, hand shooting to his waist, finding nothing there. It startles you, and you both stare at each other for a moment until you realize what he was looking for.

His gun.

“San…” you let out and he runs his hand through his hair, eyes falling shut as he breathes in and out raggedly.

“Sorry.”

“San, I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t open his eyes, refuses to let you see the vulnerability you glimpsed behind his piercing gaze. Refuses to acknowledge that he’s terrified, deadly so.

“Let’s go in,” you tell him, softly. Because you’re afraid you’ll spook him, when he’s clearly been living in fear long enough. “There’s a storm coming.”

He nods, carefully getting up without sparing you a glance. He heads inside, hand clutching his side again, while you pick up the chicken noodle soup cup before following him.

You’ve refilled the generator before swimming, so you know it’s been charging the batteries for a while now. You don’t fear ending up in the dark with San, and there’s also always the option of using the lamps and candles your uncle always leave here in case of an emergency.

The storm doesn’t roll in until a little later. You’ve forced San to put a shirt on – mostly so your eyes would stop betraying you, dropping to his toned body whenever he talked to you. You’re currently sitting on the couch, and as the rain starts, hammering against the window behind you, you pull your legs to your chest, wrapping your arms comfortably around them.

“How hard do the storms hit here?” he asks, eyes trailed to the world outside.

You follow his gaze, right as wind picks up to make the water hit the window even harder, creating a cacophony that forces you to speak louder for him to hear. “Pretty hard.”

He nods, and he glances once at you. “Fun.”

You smile, because you’ve always liked storms. Have always found them electrifying, energizing.

“Do you remember when we used to go to the field when it rained?” San asks, taking you by surprise.

Making your heart clench so hard in your chest you have to take a wobbly breath in. If he notices he doesn’t say.

“We were always in that field,” you remind him. “No matter the weather.”

It’s his turn to smile fondly. “It got so pretty with all the wildflowers. But you were afraid of the bees.”

“Bees are scary!” You laugh, and he echoes it with a soft chuckle. “You’re the one that almost pissed yourself when we saw the rat.”

That makes him laugh, and he winces in pain clutching his side. “Gosh, is it supposed to keep on hurting like this?”

It douses your enthusiasm and your smile falls. “Well, it was a solid cut.”

His eyes get lost in the void as he takes on a wistful expression. “I’m surprised I didn’t die.”

You gulp, watching his profile carefully. “It wasn’t deep enough for that…” you trail off, even though you spent most of yesterday and today being convinced he’d die. “At least they didn’t… stab you.”

“They would have if… Wooyoung didn’t shoot.”

You remain silent, not knowing what to reply to that. San interprets that as discomfort, and he quickly adds, “He didn’t shoot them. Just… in the air. It attracted the police.”

You remember the cars zooming past the diner a lifetime ago, and you nod your head. “I heard.”

He seems surprised, and his gaze finally finds yours again. “You did?”

“Yeah.” You chuckle, a little awkwardly. “I hear a lot of shootings, in the diner.”

His eyes widen, mouth falling open cutely. “You do?”

You don’t know what he expected. The diner is right between Ateez and Bangtan territory, and as much as it is a safe space, it is also near enough to dangerous grounds, and you’ve heard plenty of shooting in your time working there.

“Always,” you admit. “It can get scary sometimes… but you also get used to it.”

He looks sad. Infinitely so, like a lost puppy. That’s when the first thunder hits, so sharp and sudden you startle. Not quite as much as San, who ducks, wincing in pain as he clutches his side.

“Shit,” he curses. “Sorry.”

“What’s wrong?” you ask, in time with another thunderclap, though this time it’s more of a rumble.

You watch his chest as he breathes in and out quickly. “Just… fuck.”

Now, concern grows in you, and you gently put a hand on his shoulder. “San…”

He meets your gaze, and there’s so much white in his it makes you think of a terrified prey. And then it clicks: he thought it was a gunshot.

“Hey,” you quickly say, moving closer to him. You’re on the side of the stitches, so you still keep a safe distance between the two of you, but you grab his hand nonetheless. “You’re okay.”

“Fuck,” is all he’s able to say.

“I promise, no one’s going to find you here.”

He remains silent this time around, eyes still boring into yours. You take that as a cue to continue, because you don’t want him to panic. You want his thoughts here, with you, and not miles away in a city he should have escaped from years ago. You wish he had, knowing the atrocities that he would have avoided.

Would he have escaped with you, had you stayed just a little longer?

“I killed someone,” he says, and you balk at the silver lining his gaze. “I fucking killed him.”

You don’t know how to help. All you can think to do is cup his cheek, right as he starts breathing even faster. “Breathe with me, San.”

He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes fall to your mouth. You make a good show of inhaling slowly, before exhaling even slower. It takes him a moment but he eventually follows your lead.

It breaks when there’s another sharp thunderclap, and he flinches, eyes shutting instinctively.

“Hey hey hey,” you say again, even more gentle, softer than before. You move even closer, and when a tear slips out of his closed eyes, you pull him into a hug, careful not to brush his side.

His head falls on your shoulder, and one of his arms wrap around your waist. A thunderclap later, he starts sobbing, fist balling the fabric of your shirt in his tight hold, and you let him do it. You let him hold onto you, hoping it’ll keep him here with you. Hoping it’ll keep him afloat during the storm that’s raging both outside and in his mind.

“It’s going to be okay,” you breathe, and you feel like you’re lying to him.

Because how can he ever be safe from the ghosts inside of his skull? The ghosts wandering the halls of him, tainting his soul with their presence?

“He’s never going to smile again,” San chokes out. “Everyone loved him. Even in Ateez… Jungkook was the best of us. The only one who had a shot at getting out of it.”

You don’t know how good he could have been, if he was a member of Bangtan. In your mind, you’d always seen Bangtan as the bad guys, mostly because they weren’t with San. Even when you had been struggling to evade that life, you’d still rooted for him.

It’s strange how you just realize that now, as you’re holding him while he breaks.

“You didn’t mean to kill him,” you remind San, still speaking with the calmest voice you can muster up. “You didn’t want to, San. You’re not a murderer.”

“I’m still a killer,” he says. He sounds angry, and you reckon he might be angry at himself. Might be consumed with his actions, dragged to hell before his time as his mind gets stuck replaying the events.

“Maybe,” you answer. “But,” you quickly add when he stiffens in your arms. “But you can spend the rest of your life making up for it. Repenting.”

He doesn’t respond right away, as he breaks some more, sobs rocking through him. You’ve never seen him like this, not even when you were younger and in love. It makes your gaze wet, yet you hold on strong for him. You keep your head held high, and you allow him to break in the safe haven that your arms represent.

Because to him, you’ve never been tainted. You’ve always been the ideal he was trying to pursue, albeit the wrong way.

“I don’t know how to repent,” he admits when he calms down. He turns his head, and his nose brushes along the skin of your neck, slightly tickling you. You ignore the feeling, especially as he adds, “Ateez… it’s all I’ve ever known.”

You run a hand on his back, soothingly. “It isn’t.”

Because there was you, too. There was the summer field and the twinkling stars and Artic Monkeys on the radio. There was the two of you, petal-soft kisses exchanged in the dead of night and in the brightness of day. There were rainy days, and then there was rain. There was him walking away, and you hate yourself then.

You wish you had stopped him that day, had kept him from going on to become what he’s become now. A person he clearly hates, someone that has a bounty on his head. Someone that doesn’t even believe they’re allowed redemption and you reckon you don’t even know if he is.

You only know that seeing him break is bending your will, the way the wind outside is bending the trees. All you can hope is that, like the tall trees, you won’t break.

*****

The storm calmed down sometime around midnight. San ended up falling asleep on the couch, as you’d reassuringly ran your hand through his hair, trying to keep him with you. Though you think he’s been slipping through your fingers, into his demons.

You’ll find a way to bring him back. You have to. Turns out it comes faster than you think, as the electricity runs out and you busy yourself with lighting some candles throughout the main room. When you’re done, you put a blanket over him, and you almost let out a startled scream as his eyes shot open.

“Hello,” you say, resting a hand on your heart to tame the wild beats.

You’re about to move away, but he grabs your hand, forcing you to sit next to him. You don’t really resist, though you think you probably should. You’re weak – weaker still when he murmurs your name.

“San,” you whisper in return, and you’re aware your voice carries too much longing. Longing for a past when life’s atrocities hadn’t changed either of you yet.

“I’m so sorry,” he apologizes, and a tear rolls on his cheek.

You dry it, fingers lingering there. “It’s okay.”

“Angel…”

The nickname brings you back to laser quests and favours and warmth creeping up your stomach for the first time in your life.

“I’m no angel,” you breathe.

“You saved me.”

You hold his gaze. There’s something hiding behind his pupils. The need, to forget. You don’t think you have the ability to run his mind through amnesia, but still you brush his cheek again.

“You deserved saving.”

His eyes glaze once more, though this time no tears fall. “It’s hard to believe it.”

“Do you still believe love is a laser quest?” you ask him, out of the blue.

As if you’re a line straight of that Arctic Monkeys song you listened to the first time you kissed.

“Maybe,” he says, a parallel to that first time you had asked the question. “Maybe it is.”

You can’t resist. You lean down, and you press the gentlest kiss on his lips. His are dry, but the way he sighs with you against him is soft, for your heart and for your mind, and you kiss him again. He lets you lead, follows the dance of your lips, lets you run your hand through his sweaty hair.

Even if you shouldn’t. Even if you know everything you’re doing right now is a mistake, you still find yourself deepening the kiss, opening your lips to slip your tongue out, teasing his mouth. One of his hands finds your thigh, and he squeezes ever so slightly as his tongue finds yours, and you let out a breathy sound.

When you pull away, eyes fluttering open, you find San’s gaze. You think about the boy he was then, the girl you were then. You think about who you were, together. And when he says, “Please make me forget”, you lean again, capturing his mouth in a languid kiss.

For a reason unknown, the summer sky and falling stars pale in comparison to this kiss. Maybe because it holds longing, nostalgia. Hope that life would have turned out differently. For a moment, you picture what it would have been like, without Ateez. With you and him in the field, in your family house, in a car driving by the beach, windows down as the sun sets and you sing along to the radio, wind blowing in your hair.

You see a whole life there, with you and him marrying in the field, under the sun that had been the host of your first love. You imagine growing up by his side, attending college with him in the big city. You imagine how he would have become the owner of his own construction company, like his dad before him. You picture kids laughing, running around the house he would have built for you. You see Christmas light, late nights antics by the firelight.

You see it all, and you know you’ll never have any of it. But if you can have tonight, then you’ll grab it before it slips through your fingers. Before he walks away in the rain again, only to be a memory you cherish in the deepest corners of your heart.

“How?” you ask him when you pull away.

Mostly, you’re asking how to make him forget. But you’re also asking how it is that the feelings are still there, even stronger now, as if they’ve grown up with you, yet haven’t changed like you have. Like they are a constant of an ever-changing universe.

“Kiss me again,” he asks, begs, and you give in. You kiss him wildly, always making sure not to touch his side and the stitches.

You know sex would be a stupid idea, especially with the fresh stitches. But also because he’s barely had time to recover. But he doesn’t really give you a choice, pulling you on top of him until you’re straddling him.

You sit back on him for a second, eyes trailing to the spot where you know the stitches are. “This isn’t a good idea,” you whisper through the ragged breaths caused by the ministrations of his mouth on yours and of yours on his.

“I’m fine,” he says, and you know you shouldn’t believe him. But when he pulls you down again, large hand holding the nape of your neck firmly so you don’t escape, you want to believe him.

Want to believe the beauty of his lies, like you had when you were younger.

From where you’re perched, you can feel the start of his erection pressing against you, and you moan softly in the kiss, rolling your hips. His mouth falls open, and you capture his tongue, sucking on it once before you pull away, leaving hot kisses on his jaw.

“Sit on my face,” he says, and he sounds out of his mind. Crazed, a little like you too feel at the moment.

“What?”

“Can’t get hurt if you sit on my face, angel,” he explains, and then hisses when you suck a hickey on his neck.

You let him pull your shirt off, unclasping your bra yourself as you sit back on his lap. He cups your breasts, rolling your erect nipples between his thumbs and indexes. You moan again, grinding your hips into his, and he hisses once more.

“You want to taste me?” you ask, head throwing back as he pinches your nipples hard.

“I’d fuck you, but you’re the doctor. Can’t risk fucking up my stitches, huh?” he replies, voice low and husky.

Your core heats up, pussy clenching around nothing. This is a side of him you’ve never seen, though you spy desperation beneath it. Like he thinks he doesn’t have forever, when it comes to you.

He’s right. Because tomorrow, you’ll have to go back into town, into the hellscape you call home. What will be left of the two of you then?

So when he tugs at your pants, you give in and get up, taking off your pants and panties in one swift motion. You step out of them, blood heating up by the way he’s looking at you through half-lidded eyes, gaze burning on you.

You have half a thought that you could probably ride him instead of his face, but when you see his pink tongue darting out to wet his lips, making them glisten in the candlelight, you need to know what it’ll feel like against you.

So you straddle his face as he guides you down, large hands pushing on your thighs until your pussy is a hairsbreadth away from his lips. He blows on it, and your eyes shut with sensitivity. You clutch the cushion of the couch, hoping it’ll help steady you, but the moment his tongue flicks at your clit, you realize nothing will be able to steady you. Yet you still hold onto it, especially as he dives his tongue between your folds, lapping up your juice. He moans in contentment, before moving to your clit again. And his tongue is wicked down there, like it knows exactly what you like.

You grab a handful of his hair, grinding into his face. You’re pretty sure he’s chuckling down there, and then he unleashes himself. Sucking hard, alternating circling motions to teasing you with his teeth. You’d expect the latter to hurt, but the way he does it just makes you see stars, and your pussy clenches around nothing again.

San is deadly good with his mouth. Both with crafting lies and pulling moans out of you, and your thighs tighten against his face as he sucks particularly hard, before dipping his tongue inside of you. His nose brushes your clit, and then he forces you to properly sit on him.

The way his tongue moves inside of you, lapping up your juices while opening you up, has you on the brink of an orgasm in no time. Especially as he makes you grind again, holding you tight into place. When one of his hands moves from around your thigh to reach your clit, you cry out, head throwing back.

He’s quick to rub at your sensitive clit, and you grab one of your breasts, massaging it mindlessly before you pinch your nipple, hard, right in time with a skilled swipe of his tongue. Your orgasm meets you there, shaking through you as it explodes in a blinding flash of light. You moan, loudly, something that resembles his name, and he keeps you going, guides you through your high until you cringe with oversensitivity.

Only then does he let you climb off from his face. You stand on wobbly legs, before deciding to sit next to him, and you catch sight of the smirk on his lips. It makes you blush, right as you realize what you’ve just done.

When you realize what kind of sinful activity he’s dragged you in, this time around.

“Gosh,” is all you manage to say.

He chuckles, clearly proud with himself. “That felt good?”

You worry at your bottom lip, eyes going down to the tent in his pants. You want to pleasure him too, to take him in your mouth and make him feel good, but he stops you with a hand wrapped around your wrist.

“Don’t.”

You still and you meet his gaze with slightly-widened eyes. “Why not?”

His features turn somber, haunted, and the heat of the moment passes so quickly you think it might have been a figment of your imagination.

Were you really riding his face just a moment ago?

“Please just lay next to me,” he says, barely even a whisper.

You don’t know a lot of men that would choose cuddling over getting a blowjob, but if that is what he wants, then you’ll give it to him. You lay next to him, glad that the injured side is closer to the couch. That way, you can cuddle up to him, resting your head on his shoulder while he wraps an arm around you.

“Angel,” he murmurs after a time. “You’re a fucking angel. I think you’re my salvation.”

You highly doubt you hold this kind of power, but you don’t want to tell him. Have never been good at weaving beautiful lies for him to believe.

“We should stay here,” he continues. “Forever.”

And you wish you could. Wish reality didn’t exist, didn’t call for you to go back to your regular life like you’ve never been here with him. But you know tomorrow exists, and you’ll have to leave.

“We should have stayed in the field,” you choose to answer. “Under the shooting stars.”

“I wished for a lifetime with you, then,” he admits. “I wished I’d never have to let you go.”

You’d wished for a similar thing, but life is far too cruel to allow a world of first loves.

“Why did you…” you trail off. The question has haunted your sleepless nights for a long time after the break-up. Even years later, you’d still think about it sometimes, wondering if nostalgia would choke you up. “Why did you decide to join the gang?”

He tenses next to you. But you start tracing a mindless circle on his chest, through the shirt, and it distracts him enough for him to reply. “I thought I didn’t have a choice.”

“Did you?”

His voice holds the weight of the world when he says, “I did. And I made the wrong one.”

You want to cry, but you’re older now. You’re not the teenager who thought she was going to die from losing him anymore. You know what living without Choi San is like, and as much as it hurts, you know that it’s doable.

“You made the one you believed was right,” you say carefully. “But I do wish you had made a different one.”

He holds you a little tighter, as if that will make it so tomorrow never comes. “Me too.”

There’s an eternity of flickering candlelight on the ceiling, of the circles you trace on his chest and of your breathings forming a melody. Outside, the wind has died down, and the world is silent except from an occasional cricket braving the world after the storm.

“Where will you go, once you graduate?” he asks, taking you by surprise.

Because he knows. It’s one of the few things that hasn’t changed.

“As far away from here as I can.”

“I hope you find peace, wherever you go,” he whispers. “I hope you forget all about how we grew up in a hellhole.”

Do you feel bad for saying it? Maybe. But you can’t help saying it anyway. “I will, San.”

And like that rainy day years ago, you think you can see him walk away.

*****

Seven years later

The winter sun is strangely bright, up above. You’d think it will warm you up, but the cold is relentless, violent, and it sneaks into your coat as you walk out of the hospital. You’ve just finished a thirty-hour shift, and you can’t wait to be home.

To take a shower and forget that you’ve lost a patient today.

But you’ve saved another. A young man, with a stab wound in his ribs that should have killed him. But you saved him, stabilized his condition to the point you don’t have to worry about him anymore. Which is the only reason why you’re allowing yourself to leave now.

You’re never able to leave until you know your patients are okay. It’s been that way since your first patient, in a cabin in the woods you’ve done your best to forget.

You’d let San stay, after that weekend. He had given you the number of one of his friends, so you could get some clothes for him, and you’d gone back the next weekend. Bringing him the clothes, making love to him under the moonlight as if that would change the ending.

The following week, you had gone back to find the cabin empty. He’d left a note behind.

I hope I can find you again, wherever you go.

You kept the note. It’s in your bedside table, back at home, in the nice apartment you’ve been able to rent for yourself with all the money you’ve been making now. Enough to pay back student loans from med school, enough to reassure you that never again will you struggle.

You’ve never seen San again after. He hasn’t found you, and you haven’t searched for him. Have only looked up his name a couple of times, in the months following his disappearing, scared you’d find out that he was found dead in a ditch. But his name never came up, and you wondered if he had managed to escape, if he had managed to find a place where Bangtan couldn’t reach him.

You found peace, on your side of the country. Life is kinder here, though it still holds the same atrocities. You wonder if it’s the novelty of the city, or maybe if you’ve just grown old enough to be able to withstand the bad that the world throws your way. It’s hard to tell – you haven’t kept contact with anyone from back home, except Jae-on.

Jae-on, who’s moved with you when you’ve decided to come here, like he said he would. Jae-on, who asked you to marry him in late October, and you said yes. The ring sits heavy on your finger, and you mindlessly play with it.

In another world, you would already be married to Choi San. Sometimes, you catch glimpses of that world – a piercing gaze in the morning, a smile and a kiss to your temple. Talks about angels, children screaming in happiness. In another world, you’d be pregnant again, waiting patiently to add another piece of you and him to this world.

It’s fun to think about, sometimes, but you’ve been good at forgetting. Like you told him you would – most times, you’ve forgotten all about Choi San.

But today, you had a patient that reminded you of him. So you allow yourself to feel, you allow yourself to think about that note tucked in the bottom drawer of your bedside table, hidden under the thick socks you never use.

You allow yourself to think about the cabin in the woods, about the field where you would have gotten married had you been in that picturesque world you like to imagine. You think about laser quests and first kiss and rainy days and meteors. You think about summer, about wildflowers and him.

You’re so lost in thought you miss your stop home, and you begrudgingly get out at the next one. You’re tired, and your hands are shaking as you pull your phone out of your tote bag, wanting to text Jae-on that you’re going to be home late because you missed your stop. You walk to the other side of the tracks, sighing when you see a five-minutes wait for the next subway.

At least the sun is high in the sky, even though it is dreadfully cold. You shiver, putting your phone back in your tote bag so you can hide your hands in your sleeves again, hoping it’ll preserve them from the cold.

In your exhaustion, you forgot your gloves back at the hospital, you realize. It’s strange that you only realize now, and you reckon you really need to sleep, because your brain isn’t even working right anymore.

You sigh, glancing at the display showing the time. Still four minutes to wait. You think at this rhythm you might freeze in your spot before the next subway comes. You try to hide your face in the lapel of your coat, but a movement on the other platform attracts your gaze.

A man is helping an older woman climb down the stairs. She’s speaking loudly, which might be what attracted your gaze in the first place. You follow them as they walk down the stairs, and then when the man turns towards you, you meet his piercing gaze.

He smiles, and you realize that maybe, all those years ago, he was not spinning lies to you after all.

☆☆☆☆☆

Gosh yeahhh rereading it had me ralize that it is a lot sadder than I remembered it to be. At least we got an open ending ... :') What did we think? Should I write about other groups more often? Let me know what you think! All rights reserved to @/oddinary4bts, 2023. Do not copy, repost or translate

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prettymindset111 · 10 months

Text

how I study & practice the law of assumption as a busy student

introduction

as a busy student who is re-learning the law after practicing a false version of the law . I realize grasping the law is more important than applying , applying is the easy part but really understanding this law is the most important part & that takes building faith that imagination is the creator for me that means studying the law and understanding it so I can apply it & see the power of my imagination .

overconsumption

I have been in the overconsumption trap quite a lot and I got nothing done in school as well . so what I started implementing is sticking to just one resource which is edward art I find his work concise and easy to understand compared to neville ( although I have read his books and still read them now & then ) .

the routine

like I said i’m a BUSY student & I found a way to stay disciplined ( david goggins 💌 ~ can’t hurt me author ) . but here’s how I actively study and apply the law while being a good student .

wake up & I do the edward art I AM THE CREATOR MEDITATION it’s only 10 minutes . try it out for yourself & youll know why .

when i’m on breaks i’m re-listening to his lectures ( I have 20 videos of his that I have a playlist of )

before bed I read his series for a short amount of time .

SATS while falling asleep .

importance of understanding the law

the reason why I repeat and repeat is because I truly want to understand I AM or my imagination and grasp it .

ending note + a goodbye

I urge you guys to do the same these “ tumblr bloggers “ will not help you as much the source will even I can’t help you as much as the source aka neville goddard or edward art . I will be going on hiatus to focus on my life & apply & study the law like mentioned I don’t know if i’ll be back but to anyone who’s reading this & made it this far … don’t give up on the law & I know you won’t because you want your dream & that desire that means so much to you so bad and I know that feeling …. my only advice is to study the law truly & straight from the source . my asks are always open and I will be answering so send me asks … bye angels <3

©prettymindset111

#edward art #law of assumption #neville goddard #manifestation #manifesting #haitus #bye my angels ! 💌#I don’t know when ill be back #checking my inbox one last time 📥 before I leave !!#BYE ANGELLSSS ILL MISS YAA ☔️

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angelltheninth · 8 months

Note

Hii i saw request open can i ask for hsr men who is denial with their feelings, how do they realize they love you. Tysm

Combining pining and confessions, angst and fluff, the perfect combos.

Pairing: Blade, Caelus, Dan Heng, Gepard, Jing Yuan, Luka, Welt x Reader

Tags: fluff, pining, feelings realization, kissing, confessions, jealousy, protectiveness, mention of friends with benefits, dangerous situations

A/N: Including Luka again cause I think he's really, really cool.

Blade is initially happy with your friends with benefits situation. If you can even call it that because lately he'd been leaning way too heavily into the benefits part and shying away when you'd ask why. One morning you asked if he even saw you as a friend anymore. That question cut straight through him, no actually, he hadn't for a long time. He saw you as someone much more important: his lover.

Caelus wasn't in many relationships and therefore was just a little dense when it came to people flirting with him. There was something different about the way you spoke to him, that was obvious but he couldn't put his finger on it. It scared him a little, this new feeling. But try as he might he couldn't avoid it or you forever. Facing you when he had so much to say yet didn't know what to say was scary for him. The only thing that gave him courage to lean forward and kiss you was the way you looked at him.

Dan Heng will pine from a distance, only interacting with you when he has to. He knows he's already falling for you and he doesn't like that. Oh he likes you, quite a bit really but how could he give you the love that you want? Not without putting you in danger. He would avoid you talking to you unless needed until you asked him why he was avoiding you. He couldn't handle the pain in your voice or hurting you more, he had to take a risk and face his own feelings for you.

Gepard realizes how much he loves you when he sees you being carried back injured from a mission. How could he have been late? Or so dumb to not realize that all those looks you gave to each other meant something? No, he did know, he just didn't want to see it until now. But you risked everything for him, your life, he can't deny his feelings anymore after seeing that. If he does the surely one day he'll regret it. This is a bad time given that you're injured but when you're better he wants to take you on a date.

Jing Yuan flirted with many people before so that's all he thought this was, just two people teasing each other. He didn't know when the cheek kisses turned into mouth kisses or when simple playfulness turned into passion. Neither did you. You couldn't place this change but you could see that he was hesitant to embrace it at first. Well he didn't get where he was by being a coward, he had to take this kiss, this confession, this leap of faith that you felt the same as he did.

Luka usually doesn't date. He flirts a lot but that's it. With so much to do, so many fans, so many fights he tells himself that he doesn't have time for these feelings he has for you. But it was your cheers that he heard the most when he got knocked down, your face that he saw first in the crowd, your voice that gave him the strength to get up and win. And it's you that he'll be taking out on a celebratory date later that night, if he doesn't pass out that is.

Welt really wants to think he's just being protective of you. But he knows that look you're giving him, it's the same one that he's been trying to hide from you. It doesn't help that he can't stand seeing other people flirting with you and not interfere with it. Will someone like him be good enough for you? If you think so then he will push through his doubts and take your hand, no matter the consequences.

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catt-leya · 9 months

Note

for the smutty may : 17 and 40 from the new prompt list👉👈🥺 smt with a size kink and rick going feral but seeing the reader nervous he just has this need to calm them down and assure her 💞 some praise here and there😩😩 <3

Pretend (all 8k words of it) || Rick Grimes 18+

Like I promised the whole edited stuff...I feel like I rushed through the acutal smut part but I just feel that the story is more about the "pretendig" than the acutal smut 💗

Delayed Smutty May 19/05

Summary: Rick is tying to save you from being raped by pretending to fuck you.

Prompts: Is it gonna fit?, I'll make it fit.

Warnings: darker content, oral fixation, dirty talk, chocking (?) mention of rape (not Rick being the sick dude doing it) and my usual smutty stuff

"Put her down," the pretty blue-eyed one stares coldly into the eyes of the guy who grabbed you.

The guy with the vise arms grumbles, "Oh come on. There's more than enough of her for all of us."

"I told you to put her down," you can tell he's reluctant, but the guy lets go of you and shoves you in the handsome man's direction.

Interesting to note that the vise arm is significantly larger than the handsome one, but as you turn around to face the guy again, you can see that he is actually afraid of the guy with the blue eyes.

Which, of course, now makes you wonder why.

How bad does he have to be for a beefy guy to duck his head and mutter, "Whatever."

Smiling gratefully, you turn to your savior, "Thank you. He certainly would have-"

"Shut up and come with me," his voice gives no room for argument.

When you don't move, he hisses, "Either walk yourself or I'll throw you over my shoulder and just take you with me."

Your eyes dart to his hands.

He's not holding a gun or an axe in his hands to threaten you, but your head is screaming for you to do what he asks because you could do a lot worse if you don't.

Hesitantly, you walk up to him and ask uncertainly, "What are you going to do?"

As you come within his reach, he grabs you by the hand and drags you behind him, away from the others.

This handsome man and his group of men attacked you and before you could save yourself, you were grabbed by the men.

You are not stupid and you know exactly what is in store for you. Especially because the group of the blue-eyed one is an all-male group.

However you imagined this man could be your savior is now completely forgotten as he shoves you behind a brick shack and stands up in front of you, "You need to be loud."

Your lower lip begins to tremble, "Loud?"

He looks down your body, "Yeah, you're pretty, so it makes sense to everyone that I want you for myself."

The first tears leave your eyes, "Please let me go."

At the last word, your voice breaks and the man in front of you sighs softly, "I can't."

Now it's not just your bottom lip that's trembling, no, pure fear floods your body and you shake all over, "Please."

"What's your name?" he keeps his voice low and soft and you tearfully bring out your name.

"I'm Rick and I'm not going to touch you, so please don't be afraid of me," he says it so lightly, but you don't believe a word he says.

Even as he lets go of your arm and takes a small step backwards, "I'd like to help you, but in order to do that you'll have to pretend I'm forcing myself on you."

You wipe your tears from your face, which are quickly replaced by new ones, and sniffle, "Is this some twisted tactic now to make you feel like you're not raping me?"

He sighs and puts his head back, "I know you're scared, but I swear I won't hurt you. As long as you stay with me no one will hurt you. But for that, they must think I have unequivocally laid claim to you. So you can choose if you want to pretend to fuck me or if you want to go to Jack to really get fucked."

Silently, you stare at this Rick.

You remain tense and ready to fight back with everything you've got, but irritatingly, you have some faith in him, so you say quietly, "Okay, I'll stay with you. What do I have to do?"

He looks relieved and nods once quickly, "I need your panties and before you think again that it's a twisted way to get into your pants. No it isn't. It's a trophy I need for the others to believe me."

Surprisingly, you don't object and murmur softly in a tear-choked voice, "Turn around, please."

"I won't turn my back on you. I can only promise you not to look down," again his voice is so velvety soft it gives you goosebumps.

Slowly you nod and reach down.

Motionless he stares into your eyes and you have to give him credit that he really doesn't lower his eyes even once.

Only when you hand him your pink lace panties does he look at your legs covered by a pair of short jeans: "I want you to moan and scream. Pretend I'm fucking you. Pretend I've got your face pressed against the wall and I'm sinking my cock so deep inside you that tomorrow you won't be able to walk."

With your mouth open, you stare at him and he hisses, "Go."

The fact is, his words have embarrassingly turned you on a bit and you take a few seconds to realize what you're doing.

Eyes fixed on your lacy panties in his hand, you groan softly and he hums, "Louder. The others need to be able to hear you."

Again you groan, but he shakes his head. You're still too quiet.

He takes a step toward you and rams his fist into the wall next to your head and you cry out.

"That's it," his praise relaxes you and you stare at him with huge eyes as you moan loudly, "Please."

Rick nods and exclaims, "You dirty whore, want it that way."

You moan and realize how close he still is in front of you.

So incredibly close.

"Rick," your voice is getting rougher now and he looks down at your lips: "Take it all."

He moves closer to you, "Fucking good girl."

His chest brushes your shoulder and you whimper, which in turn makes him murmur, "Louder..."

Rick's body radiates so much heat that you push closer to him and he growls, "Imagine me pressing you against the wall with my whole body. You could barely move while I fuck you."

Your body trembles and this time it's not out of fear.

"I'd put my lips to your neck and mark you to show everyone you're my property while you spill over your thighs like a good girl," now he shields you completely with his body and with each breath your breasts press against his torso.

He leans forward until his lips graze your ear and he teases you in a low voice, "You're too quiet. The others will be wondering why you're not screaming."

His curls tickle your cheek as he lifts his head again, "But I already know how we're going to solve that problem."

Before you realize what's happening, he lifts his hand to your face and places his thumb on your bottom lip, pulling it down. Slowly, you open your lips and notice the heat rising into your cheeks.

You are so incredibly hot and yet you are shivering all over.

The tip of your tongue brushes the tip of his finger and he murmurs, "Dirty girl."

Then he raises his second hand and unceremoniously pushes your pink panties into your mouth.

Your surprised cry is muffled and he leans forward again, "You look pretty with your panties in your mouth."

You completely freeze as he presses his upper body tighter against you, "When we're about to join the others you'll stay close to me the whole time and I mean it. Even if you want to go pee, I'll come with you. If you disappear alone I can't promise you that one of the others won't find you and you'll have to suck a dick. You won't say anything but "Yes, Rick" and "No, Rick" and if I want something from you, you do it without question. Got it?"

Broad and tall he stands in front of you and even though a little voice in your head tells you he'll 'save you' you're still intimidated and nod with tears in your eyes.

Your panties in your mouth are degrading and the wetter the fabric gets in your mouth, the wetter you get between your legs.

Again he raises a hand and you visibly flinch, "Shhh, remember, I'm not going to hurt you."

With huge eyes, you stare into his blue eyes as he places his hand in your hair and gently tousles it. You realize he wants you to look like fresh sex as he reaches into his thick curls as well, and when he's done, they fall deep into his eyes.

Still shaking all over, he grabs your arm with a sigh, "It's probably not even that bad that you're still so scared of me. It makes it more believable."

He pulls you up next to him and you stumble along beside him as he walks up to his friends.

You feel the greedy stares of the men on you and press yourself against the lesser evil next to you.

"Had to shut her up, huh?", Jack, the guy who wanted you at the beginning, grins at Rick, but Rick just drags you to a big tree.

Rick leans over your shoulder so that his gray beard scratches your neck: "You don't talk to anyone about the fact that I didn't touch you and now sit down on the floor like a good girl and wait until I come back to you. If someone should approach you, call for me. That's all, okay? I will stay within earshot. Just call my name and don't say another word."

You nod and he pushes you to the ground.

There's something inside you against giving in to him, but in some twisted way, you trust him.

Trust him so much that you don't say a word as he pulls your panties out of your mouth and stuffs them into his pants pocket, "I'll be right back. Remember what I said."

You nod, but he doesn't even see it anymore because he's already turning his back on you and walking to his colleagues.

At least, you think they're his colleagues.

Your eyes are glued to Rick's back so you don't lose sight of him in case you need him.

The whole situation has escalated so quickly that you've barely had time to think straight.

Until now.

With your eyes firmly fixed on your 'savior', you try to think about how the hell you're going to get out of here.

The fact is, you trust Rick to some degree.

He hasn't touched you in a lewd way, and he hasn't left you at the mercy of the other guys.

Still, you can't stay here forever and trust Rick to keep his dick in his pants.

"Well, sweetie," you jerk your head around to the sleazy guy at your side.

He bends low over you and saliva flies into your face as he purrs kinkily, "I bet I can fuck you better than that stud. Come on, let's get out into the woods and I'll show you."

He reaches out for you and you flinch, calling out hoarsely, "Rick?"

Your voice isn't loud, but not 5 seconds later, he's standing by you and you stare at him as he juts his chin and looks the guy coldly in the eye, "She's mine and you know it. I. Don't. Share."

Still looking at you, the spitter says, "Don't act like that. She can easily handle another cock."

Rick takes a step forward, shielding you like this, "That's my pussy. Mine alone. I'm not going to stuff my dick in something that had yours in it and if you try I'll rip your balls off and then you can have a go at taking something that's mine."

You make yourself as small as you can, but Rick blindly grabs your shoulder and drags you to your feet.

He pulls you roughly in front of him and grabs one of your titts, "Whose are you?"

Your heart hammers way too fast in your chest and you mumble anxiously, "Yours."

With his hand he squeezes tighter and with tears in your eyes you repeat, "I'm yours, Rick."

The guy stares at your chest, which Rick is clutching, then snorts, "I get it."

With one last look at your terrified face, he shrugs and then turns around, once he's a few feet away from you, Rick lets go of your chest and mumbles a soft, "I'm sorry. Really."

You're shaking all over, and oddly enough, his chest, pressing against your back, reassures you, "I had to do that, or he wouldn't have let go. Of course I don't own you and I'm sorry I had to touch you like that."

You take a deep breath and he asks softly, "Do you want me to let you go-"

"No!" your voice almost rolls over and a couple of the guys turn to look at you.

With Rick, no one will hurt you.

With Rick around, you'll be fine.

Panicked, you cling to his arms to make sure he doesn't leave you alone again.

He has to stay.

"Okay, okay," gently he pulls you to him and slides down the tree you were leaning against earlier with you between his legs.

Your little body seems so fragile in the way you cling to him, and it breaks his heart,

Granted, you are beautiful and that is why he wanted you, but he is not sick and would never force himself on you.

He's counting the days until he can rip everyone's head off.

Just not yet.

Now he has to play along.

His warm body presses against yours and at that moment you don't care if it's a sick game on his part to get you into bed after all, because you just want to close your eyes and forget that it's really happening right now.

You take a deep breath and ask softly, "Do you swear not to hurt me if I sleep now?"

Gently, Rick presses you closer to his body, "I swear to you."

Slowly you let yourself sink further against him and murmur ashamedly, "You're staying with me, aren't you? Until I wake up? Don't leave me alone."

You sound whiny, but sleeping is a damn vulnerable position to put yourself in, and you can only pray that Rick really won't hurt you then, and that he'll protect you from the others.

Sleeping while the other men are just waiting to yank your pants off your hips seems impossible, so you sigh in relief as Rick growls, "I'll stay with you. If I have to leave, I'll wake you."

You nod and lean your head against his shoulder, squinting your eyes.

He's not going to hurt you.

He won't hurt you.

He won't.

Rick stares at you for what seems like an eternity, until your breathing calms and he's sure you're asleep, before he leans his head against the tree himself and lets his eyes slide through the group of men.

He will slaughter them all.

A hand gently pulls at your hair and you hear a deep voice, "I have to get up."

Grumbling, you press harder against the heat source and squeeze your eyes shut only tighter.

The underground lifts a little languidly, "You can sleep later."

Then it comes back to you.

You remember what happened and where you are.

Immediately you tear your eyes open and push away from Rick, who smiles slightly at you, "There you go."

You stare at him.

He must have just woken up because his dark curls are sticking out in all directions and his blue eyes are beaming tiredly at you.

Damn, why does he have to be so handsome?

His looks obviously bring him advantages.

If only for the fact that you like to let him touch you, as you are doing now.

You don't flinch as he leans toward you and pulls you back against him.

He doesn't seem bothered and wants to treat you respectfully, but by the way he looks at you from under his lashes, makes you give in and let him pull you against his chest.

"I thought you had to get up," your voice is rough because you're still so tired and you wince as he laughs harshly, "Changed my mind."

Still you are between his legs, as you fell asleep yesterday, staring at his chest that rises and falls regularly.

The fact is that he hasn't moved an inch and has spent the whole night leaning against the tree, while also allowing you to abuse him as a pillow.

There is a comfortable silence between you and him and at that moment you realize that nothing is stirring in your camp.

Confused, you look up at Rick, "Why is everyone still asleep when you have to get up already?"

One of his hands is on your hip, squeezing gently as he reaches with the other to smooth his hair, "Why are you so curious?"

Rick pushes his hair back, but it immediately springs back to its previous place and without much thought, you raise your hand and reach into his curls yourself.

Surprised, he blinks at you and drops his own hand as you fix his hair, "Well, if you're waking me up in the middle of the night because you really need to get up, I do wonder what the reason could be."

His soft curls slip through your fingers and you tug lightly as you pull out a leaf.

"I need to meet with someone," Rick's voice deepens as he speaks more quietly.

You push his hair behind his ears in one last motion and then nod slowly, "Okay, but take me with you."

So you sit up in a way that disengages you from him, he still keeps his hand on your hip and somehow you don't mind.

"Why?" his question is logical.

Why would he take a stranger with him?

But you wonder who he wants to talk to, so you tell the truth: "It may be that my people skills are completely crap, but I have a feeling you don't fit in with the guys here at all. I'm not stupid and I can see that they're scared of you, but I'm pretty sure it's not because you're brutal towards women. So I'd like to know what you're doing because I kind of trust you and actually would hate to sit here separated from you until you come back or one of those bastards rapes me."

Dumbly he stares at you and you pull a face, "Please? I'll also do exactly what you want me to do and shut up, of course."

For a moment he still says nothing and when you already think he's really going to leave you here he sighs softly, "Fine, you can come with me."

Smiling broadly at him, you push yourself to your feet and stand up.

From above, you look down at him as he grumbles and ponderously stands up, and curiously you ask, "How old are you, anyway?"

Immediately his eyes dart back to you before he turns and leads you deeper into the forest: "Old enough to be your father."

Stumbling, you jog behind him and reach for his hand in the darkness, "Is Rick your real name?"

He doesn't pull his hand from yours and instead slips his fingers through yours, "Yes."

His hand is large and warm in yours, "Is it a short form? For Richard?"

Rick sighs, "Didn't you say you wouldn't talk?"

"When we get to your meeting place. Soooooo?" your voice is soft.

Gently he pulls you closer to his side as he dodges a branch, "No. Just Rick."

Your hip brushes his leg and you smile broadly at him, "The name suits you."

There's silence for a moment, then he sighs, "Okay, you've got my attention. Why does the name suit me?"

You can barely see his face in the darkness, but you look at him anyway, "Oh, I just couldn't imagine a soft and melodic name with you. You're...too hard."

His soft laugh fills the forest, "I'm hard?"

Immediately, a blush rises to your face as you realize what he's alluding to.

Gently, he pulls you closer to him again and squeezes your hand, "So? I thought you wanted to talk to me. Don't you want to tell me what's going on in that pretty little head of yours?"

You keep quiet about the fact that you're thinking about his cock, even though you imagine he knows what you're thinking about, or he wouldn't emphasize it so much.

He lets go of your hand and puts his arm around your shoulder. You know he's teasing you and wants to tease you, but you suddenly feel boiling hot and bite your lower lip, "Why are the others afraid of you?"

Rick is pleasantly warm beside you, "Why aren't you?"

Good question.

Why aren't you afraid of him?

Respect? Yes.

But you're actually not afraid.

You don't mind him touching you and you have to admit that you even like feeling his hands on your body.

"Don't avoid my question," you tug on his jacket and he sighs, "Yeah, okay. I've had to do some things to survive so far. As have we all. But it seems like what I've done is probably pretty scary."

You absently slide your cold hands under his jacket hem and he winces.

He's so ridiculously warm that you sigh softly, "What did you do?"

His stomach feels tight and flat under your palms, and you can't believe he's letting you do this to him.

He remains silent, then says in a low voice, "I bit out their former leaders' throat and gutted another one of them alive."

You trip over your own legs and Rick stops to catch you and you pull your hands from his body, "You what?!"

Cocking your head, you look up at him and he tilts his head, "I bit his throat out and spit the piece on the ground while he bled out at my feet and yet I'm a better man than the group I'm with. Yes, I have massive amounts of blood on my hands, but I can proudly say you actually have nothing to fear."

Blinking, he lowers his gaze and leans forward so that his lips graze your ear, "I won't hurt you."

You freeze as he leans in even further and you feel his teeth against your neck, "Do you know how pretty you are?"

The jump in subject is so huge that your brain can barely keep up and all you can feel is his lips on your skin.

His body is so close to you that you realize again how much taller Rick actually is and when he reaches for your wrist and clasps it in his big hand, you whimper softly.

Not from pain, but from pure excitement.

Just being near him makes you so ridiculously hot that your voice is all husky, "Your meeting."

Gently he walks towards you and you take a step back.

"He can wait," and he takes another step toward you and you back away again.

His fingers still encircle your wrist, but you make no move to pull away from him either. Instead, you let him push you up against a tree and stare up at him.

He lifts his head and looks down at you.

Nothing more.

He just looks at you, and in the dim light breaking through the trees, his eyes seem unnatural.

It's completely silent around you and the only thing you hear is his quiet breathing.

Slowly you lower your gaze, because you can't look him in the eyes all the way through, and let your gaze glide over his neck and broad shoulders.

You feel him staring at you as you look at his chest and stomach.

He is a handsome man.

That's clear.

Slowly, he releases his fingers from your wrist and slides them through your fingers again, "Come."

Completely perplexed, you let him pull you further through the forest.

You could have sworn he would kiss you.

Wouldn't pretend, but would really put his lips on yours and you would have let him.

He pulls you through a bush and then you're at a road and across from you you see a guy pacing back and forth, "Where have you been?"

Rick pulls you to his side, "I got a little distracted."

You try to make out the guy with the raspy voice a little better in the dim light.

His longer hair brushes his shoulders as he lowers his head a bit and looks at you, "Who is she?"

The two men speak as if you're not there, but as you promised, you shut up and grit your teeth as Rick growls, "She insisted on coming along."

The guy with the long hair raises an eyebrow, "And you couldn't just say no and leave her behind?"

You tense up and Rick squeezes your hand, "She would have run after me."

Now you feel like a dog, but he's not wrong either.

The guy finally looks at you and then rolls his eyes, "Dude, you could be her father."

Rick snorts, "It's not like that, Daryl."

This Daryl throws an arm in the air, "Of course it's like that. You can't sell me that you don't want to fuck that girl."

Stiffly, Rick takes a step toward Daryl, but you're quicker, digging a finger into the long-haired ass's chest, "I can take a lot of shit. For my sake, you can talk over my head like I'm not even there, but I swear I'll rip your dick off if you even mention whose dick I let inside me and whose I don't one more time."

Dumbly staring at you, Rick chuckles softly behind you, "See? I didn't stand a chance."

Slowly, Daryl takes a step back and grumbles, "Fine by me."

He shoulders the crossbow you're only now seeing and asks quietly, "How's it going?"

Rick removes his hand from yours and steps around you, "Slow as hell, but I should be able to get it in a few days."

You look up at him and cross your arms, "What do you want to get done?"

"You'll see when the time comes," Rick's eyes flash and you grit your teeth. Of course, he wouldn't tell you what he wants to do.

For a few minutes the two men talk and you have no idea what they're talking about when Rick finally murmurs to you, "We've got to get back or they'll start wondering where we are."

Sure enough, the sun has risen in the meantime and Daryl slowly backs up, "I'll be back in two days."

Rick gives him a slight nod and grabs my hand, "Come on."

He pulls me back into the woods and I look back over my shoulder at Daryl who disappears into the woods on the other side, "You're actually with another group, aren't you?"

Rick growls in agreement and you squeeze his hand, "Knew you are."

You notice how tense Rick is as he mutters, "I'm sure the others noticed we weren't there."

He lowers his head and pulls you back against a tree.

Unresisting, you let him push you against the tree a second time in a short time, and he sighs, "We've been out too long."

You bite your lower lip and dare to ask him directly, "Then why don't we just get out of here. Take me with you and let's go."

Rick shakes his head, "I can't."

You look at him questioningly, but he just shakes his head and then puts it to the side a little, "Come on." He points to his neck and you stare at him, completely perplexed, "Huh?"

You have no idea what he wants from you and he rolls his eyes with a sigh, like you're slow on the uptake, "Give me a hickey, sweetheart."

'Sweetheart'.

That's the pet name he gives you and you like it.

Maybe you took a liking to him.

"Why?" your voice is low and weak and he growls, "Proof."

His bright eyes bore into yours and you nod, "Okay."

You stand on your tiptoes and place your lips on his neck.

On the spot between his neck and throat.

Tears well up in your eyes as you start to nibble on his skin.

Not because it's so bad, but more because you're a bit ashamed of how much you enjoy putting your lips on his body.

Gently, he places his hand on your back to pull you closer to him and murmurs harshly, "Good girl."

Your breasts are pressed against his chest and with tears on your cheeks you whimper against his skin.

He feels the tears land on his skin and his heart tightens, "I'm going to get you out of here soon."

You suck on his neck one last time and then lick over the red glowing spot before looking into his eyes and he stares at you languidly, "You even look pretty when you cry."

You blink and he presses you against a tree with his body, "So beautiful."

His body against yours feels so good and you lick over your slightly swollen lips as you look briefly at his neck and murmur, "You think I'm pretty?"

"Fuck, yeah," he stares at your lips and you're afraid your heart is going to jump out of your chest.

Yes, he pushes you against the tree and constricts you, but otherwise he doesn't hurt you.

He wouldn't touch you.

His beautiful eyes bore into yours and you feel the need to lean forward again and press your lips to his collarbone.

He's so strong and so damn manly that you press your legs together and lick your lips again, "One hickey will do?"

His eyes flash and he takes a deep breath, "What do you want?"

So many possibilities.

Endless possibilities.

The thought of him giving you almost anything you want crosses your mind and you swallow hard, "Kiss me."

Slowly he leans in and growls, "I shouldn't. We're just pretending."

With a pout, you bat your eyelashes and press closer to him, "Pretending?"

His nose brushes your cheek, "Hmhm.."

As a few leaves rattle, Rick flinches and lets his gaze wander to see if anyone is watching you, but you lift your hands and place them on his cheeks to turn his face back to you.

You've never touched him so intimately before.

It's intimate in a different way than his hand on your titts.

His gaze softens and you pull his face closer to yours, "If you want, you can pretend to kiss me."

His breath hits your lips as he breathes, "Sweetheart."

"Please," you lean forward yourself to join your lips.

He flinches but applies pressure into the kiss himself.

Your fingers slide through his beard and he moans harshly into the kiss.

He's warm and hard and when he presses his leg between your legs, you gasp against his lips.

It's bold and direct, but not overbearing.

Gently, he pushes your head back a little and that gives him the opportunity to kiss you deeper.

So much deeper.

His tongue is in your mouth and you can taste him.

Can taste the mint leaves he chewed earlier.

He puts one hand low on your hip and the other slips a few inches under your shirt as he hums at your mouth, "I'm not taking advantage of you. We're just pretending."

His hand feels rough on your soft skin and you reach for his waistband.

Immediately, he releases his lips from yours and murmurs, "We don't have to do this."

Rick is a good man, you're sure of it by now.

You have no idea what he's doing among all the assholes, but he's not one.

Frozen, he doesn't resist as you unfasten his belt and undo the button, "Rick, I want you."

And you don't want to just pretend he's fucking you.

His blue eyes dart over your face, "Aren't you afraid of me?"

Gently, you lean further into his touch and kiss his jaw, "No, and I don't want a show either. I want it to be real."

Your hand slides into his pants and he gasps hoarsely.

His cock is hard in his pants and so fucking big, "Do you want me?"

Your little hand closes tighter around his cock and his brain shuts down, "Fuck yeah."

It's been ages since he's been inside a woman and he's probably never wanted anyone as much as he wants you.

He presses his hips harder against you, not giving a thought to whether or not he's smothering you with his body.

His movements become frantic and needy.

He pushes your hands aside and grabs your pants.

It's all happening so fast.

One moment you're asking him if he even wants you, and the next you're standing half naked in front of him, with a big cock wedged between your bodies.

Your confidence disappears with each twitch of his cock and you look up at him nervously, "Is it gonna fit?"

Rick bites his lower lip and stares at his twitching cock against your belly, "I'll make it fit."

You wince and immediately he looks you in the eye again.

Your whole body tenses and the wild look he was giving you before softens, "Are you nervous, sweetheart? When was the last time you had a cock in your pussy?"

Briefly your eyes dart back to his cock, "It's been a while...and it's never been this big either. Rick, I'm small...I don't know if you can push into me."

Gently, he puts a finger to your chin and lifts it a little before kissing you softly, "That's okay. I'll go real slow and if you want me to stop, I'll do it without you having to explain yourself."

Lasciviously, he leans even closer and murmurs hoarsely against your ear, "And your pussy is made to take cocks inside you. Most of all, your pussy is made to swallow my cock."

Your knees go weak and all you can do is nod.

His cock is so hard against your belly, you start rubbing against him pathetically.

Panting, he presses against you even harder and you slide your belly up and down his cock as you grab his upper arms and whimper, "Please, Rick."

Breathing heavily, he leans forward and presses his lips to yours.

His beard scrapes across your chin and your movements become more choppy and needy as Rick slips his tongue between your teeth and you groan hoarsely.

His cock twitches between you and he growls into your mouth, "Fuck, you're so pretty."

Hectically, you nod and kiss him harder as he pulls his hips back slightly and instead of his knee, slides his cock between your legs.

The length of his shaft slides lengthwise through your labia and feels so good against your clit that you bite his lower lip hard and your body trembles.

Without thinking, you rub against his cock and with each moan he hears from you he rewards you with, "Good girl. So needy for me."

Shamelessly you press your breasts against him and he murmurs, "That's it."

Purposefully, he pulls back his cock, glistening with your wetness, and then adjusts it so that it presses against your wet pussy entrance and you throw your head back into your neck.

His broad tip pushes an inch inside you and your whole body tenses.

He's too big.

Without you having to say it, Rick knows and slides his lips to your ear, "I'm not going to hurt you. Just relax and let it happen. Just let me take you."

Gasping, he presses a little further into you, widening you so much that you can barely see straight.

All your senses are focused solely on the stretching that Rick's thick cock is causing inside you.

Trembling, you try to relax, "Rick."

Your voice is rough and far too fragile, but as he gives you more of himself his name is lost in a moan and he gasps, "Oh holy shit, you're tight."

It feels to him like you're crushing him and he has to pull himself together to keep from slamming his cock into your tight cunt in one thrust.

With circular motions you try to lower your hips further onto him, again teasing your clit that pulses between your legs and literally screams for Rick.

You barely notice as Rick lifts his hand and reaches for your neck.

He presses the back of your head against the tree and looks at you from under heavy lids, "You're going to take every inch, right?"

"Yes, Rick," your voice is a gasp as he presses further into you.

He kisses you on the cheek, "That's my pretty girl."

Almost languidly he pushes himself into you inch by inch and you squirm and moan his name over and over until he growls, "Oh fuck," and is up to his balls in your cunt.

You can't manage another sentence and just mumble, "Full. So full."

He fills you completely and nods at your words, "Shhh, I know."

His thumb glides over your pounding pulse and then your jaw.

Quickly, you turn your head a little to the side and grab his thumb.

Gently, you suck it into your mouth and feel Rick wince and move inside you.

Sucking on his thumb while his cock is inside you feels dirty, but it also turns you on and you animate him to finally move inside your pussy and give you both what you desperately want and need.

Rick stares at your mouth as he pulls his hips back and then thrusts into you again, "You like the dirty stuff, huh? Like it when I use you."

Your eyes roll into the back of your head and he hisses, "You want to be mine."

You groan.

He feels good.

Too good.

With each thrust his cock rubs against your clit and trembling you get closer to your climax.

With each thrust he comes closer to his climax.

He presses his thumb flat on your tongue, "Make me cum inside you. I want to mark you."

You gag slightly and nod.

Hard he rams his hips against you and you can barely think as the knot loosens in your stomach and you squint your eyes.

You tighten around him and Rick moans, "That's my girl. Perfect little pussy."

With one final thrust, he presses his whole body against your small body and pulls his thumb out of your mouth to kiss you hard as his cock twitches and pulses inside you.

You cling to Rick and whimper into his mouth, "So good."

"I know," his voice is low and his accent heavy.

Slowly he pulls out of you and with him you feel his cum drip out of you down your thighs.

You feel dirty.

And so fucking hot.

Snorting, he rests his forehead against yours, "We really need to get back."

"Yeah," neither of you move.

Rick searches your gaze: "I'll get you out of here as fast as I can. I promise."

You nod and in silent agreement you get dressed and you follow Rick back to the camp and the people you met him with, not knowing why he's even with them or what his plan is.

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#rick grimes #rick grimes x reader #rick grimes smut #twd #rick grimes imagine #twd x reader #the walking dead #request #andrew lincoln

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punkshort · 7 months

Text

Chapter warnings: smut (18+ MDNI), language, lots of smut, fluff, did I mention smut?

Epilogue

September 2005

"Are we almost there?" you asked Joel, who looked back over his shoulder at you from atop his horse.

"Almost," he assured you, turning back to the road in front of him.

He had wanted to keep it a surprise, but you saw the signs on the highway and figured it out a few hours into the trip. He was taking you to Yellowstone for "a few days", and it had taken you almost a full day on the back of a horse to finally get there. Your back and legs were sore, but you didn't complain. You were excited at the idea of getting away with Joel, just the two of you, the way it used to be.

You wondered where he was planning on taking you, having ridden by several campgrounds at this point as you made your way down the twisty road that led you through the entire park. You began to see signs for Old Faithful and your face lit up.

"C'mon, this way," he called over his shoulder as he steered his horse onto a road that led to a massive parking lot peppered with buildings. He led you past a visitors' center, a restaurant, and a general store until he stopped in front of a huge hotel.

"Whoa," you said, sliding down from your horse as you gawked up at the huge building, which was made to look like a giant log cabin.

"Me and Tommy came up a week ago and checked out the area, should be safe," he told you as he tied your horses to a railing.

"The whole building?" you asked incredulously. There was no way they could have gone through each room.

"Well, no, but we cleared the first floor and barricaded the stairs after we checked the hallways," he admitted. "Still should be on alert, though."

He led you up the steps and cracked the front door open, peeking inside for a minute before opening it all the way and letting you in. He held his rifle in his hands as he checked out the dining hall and kitchen before returning to you in the lobby. You had plopped down on a couch to rest, your head twisting around as you took in the artwork and informational signage on the walls.

"Tired?" he guessed, arching an eyebrow at you.

"A little," you admitted guiltily. "Guess I got too used to a life of luxury."

He laughed and held his arm out to help pull you up from the couch.

"C'mon, I already picked out a room for us," he said, leading you down the hall with his arm slung around your shoulder.

"I feel bad you did all this work and it's your birthday," you told him.

"You don't know if it's my birthday," he reminded you, and you shook your head.

"According to Maria's calendar, it's tomorrow," you said as you gave him a gentle poke in the ribs. No one was really sure what the actual date was. It had struck a big debate in a town hall meeting, various people swearing up and down they had kept track since the outbreak, but no one could agree on the same date. Maria compromised and picked a date in the middle, and it had been that way ever since.

"A few days all alone with you is well worth it," he said. Once you reached a door marked 19 all the way at the end of the hall, he dropped his arm from your shoulders and gripped his rifle.

"Lemme double check it's clear," he told you, pushing the unlocked door open and advancing into the room, doing a quick sweep before coming back out to the hall, ushering you inside.

"This is nice," you said, shrugging off your backpack and kicking off your boots. It was a standard hotel room: one king sized bed, a dresser, end tables, and a bathroom. But it looked like he had taken the time to clean it. You noticed there wasn't much dust on the surfaces in the room, and the bed looked freshly made.

"It's not much," he said as he walked to the covered window. "But this is why I picked it."

He flicked the curtains open so you could see outside. It was getting dark, but you could see a massive, open, rocky terrain directly outside your window. You squinted, trying to figure out what you were looking at when suddenly a huge gush of water shot straight up into the sky.

"Holy shit!" you yelled, quickly walking over to press your face against the window. Joel laughed. His timing couldn't have been more perfect.

You watched the geyser erupt for a few short minutes before it slowed and disappeared, and the quiet of evening enveloped the area once again.

"That was so cool," you said, looking up at him leaning against the window frame.

"We can get a better look tomorrow," he promised you. He pushed off the window to return to his pack, taking out a lantern and putting it on top of the dresser so you could see as the sun began to set.

"Is this where you and Tommy stayed when you came here?"

"No," he chuckled. "We were practically still kids. Thought we were tough roughin' it in the woods. First night we thought we heard a bear, next mornin' we booked the tiniest cabin you've ever seen, spent the rest of the week tryin' not to kill each other."

You laughed at the image he painted for you then flopped on the bed with a groan.

"Comfortable?" he asked you, standing up from emptying his backpack and turning around.

"Mhmm," you hummed, turning your head to look at him across the room. "Come here."

He strode over to you with a smirk and leaned down, his fists pushing into the mattress to hold him up on either side of you. He bent down to press his lips softly against yours, your eyes fluttering shut at the tenderness behind his kiss. You ran your hand up his exposed forearm, lightly tracing his veins under your fingertip while your other hand wrapped around the back of his neck, your fingers carding through his curls as you pulled him down further to you.

"Y'know, it's the anniversary of our first kiss," he mumbled against your mouth before pulling back and standing up.

"Oh, that's right," you said with a grin, then sat up on the bed as you watched him tug the curtains closed. You dragged your eyes up and down his body, thinking back to that night outside the bar and how much simpler life was back then.

"What're you thinkin' about?" he asked you, the corner of his mouth tugging up when he turned around and caught you staring.

"I was just wondering what would have happened that night if I went home with you," you told him. You giggled when his gaze darkened, his mind clearly taking what you said very literally.

"I mean, with us," you clarified. "And the outbreak. What our lives would have been like, if we would have even found each other that day..." your voice trailed off, leaving out the darker thought you had. What if Colleen had bit you?

Joel could tell you were overthinking when he saw your unfocused eyes trail around the room and your teeth sink into your lower lip.

"I always woulda found you, no matter what," he assured you. When that didn't seem to snap you out of it, he continued. "Besides, if you had come home with me that night, there was no way we were leavin' my bed the next day. I can promise you that."

That finally made a grin pull across your face and your eyes light up.

"Oh, yeah?" you pressed him, wiggling your eyebrows. You crawled across the bed, laying flat on your stomach and beckoned him to join you. He shook his head but walked back over to the bed anyway.

"Thought you were tired?" he murmured, his fingers gently trailing from the back of your neck down your spine.

"Not that tired," you said, turning your head to the side so you could look up at him standing above you. "Tell me what would have happened that night."

He felt his cock move in his jeans, and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from groaning. It always amazed him how you could bring him to his knees with just a few words.

He swung his leg over yours so he was kneeling on either side of you, his hips resting on the back of your legs. He ran his hands up your sides before slowly dragging them back down to your hips, giving them a squeeze.

"Assumin' I didn't fuck you in the elevator first," he said lowly, his fingers dipping underneath the hem of your shirt. "I think I woulda laid you on top of my kitchen counter, pushed that little black dress up," he said as he lifted your shirt up to your shoulders, his hands massaging your sore back. "Then I woulda fucked you with my tongue til you were screamin' my name."

"Hmm," you moaned, wiggling your ass enticingly. "You do seem to have a thing for kitchen counters."

He grinned as he gently yanked your shirt over your head, leaving your top half bare and pressed into the bed.

"What else?" you asked breathlessly, your eyes sliding shut as he continued to rub his rough hands along your sore muscles.

"You remember those red shoes you were wearin'?"

You nodded and let out a soft whimper when his fingers found a particularly tough knot in your back.

"When I saw those, I thought about fuckin' you with 'em slung over my shoulders," he said, his erection straining against his jeans now.

"I should've packed them before we left my apartment," you muttered with a half smile. "I'm sure they would have been useful in the middle of the woods."

"Oh, you wanna talk about what went through my mind in your apartment?" he asked, reaching underneath you to unzip your jeans. He could feel the anticipation bubbling inside him becoming unmanageable, desperate to bury himself inside you.

"What about it?" you whispered, lifting your hips so he could pull your jeans off, leaving you in just your underwear. He hissed through his teeth when he saw the lacy pair you chose to wear for him, leaving very little coverage. His huge hands stretched out over each one of your cheeks as far as he could before curling his fingers and giving your ass an aggressive jiggle.

"Shoulda at least packed those little red panties stashed away in your drawer," he growled, his hands massaging your ass before traveling down the backs of your thighs, his movements becoming erratic. He felt your body still under him, and he froze, wondering if he crossed a line.

"What the hell? You went through my underwear drawer?" you asked sharply without turning your head to look at him. He cleared his throat before answering.

"Well, I-I didn't mean to, I was lookin' on top of your dresser and the drawer was open..." Joel stammered, feeling embarrassed until he felt your body shaking under his hands, your palm covering your mouth to stifle your laughter. He exhaled harshly when he realized you were just messing with him, his mood quickly changing back to playful.

"Oh, you're gonna get it now," he said darkly, making you yelp when he grabbed the sides of your underwear and roughly pulled them down your legs.

You tried to turn over, but his hand splayed across your lower back, effectively stopping you with a tsk.

"Nah, I think you're good right where you are, sweetheart," he said as he hurriedly unbuckled his belt. You heard the telltale sound of a zipper, and you thought you were going to jump out of your skin. Not being able to see him but to hear and feel everything was driving you wild.

He only pushed his jeans down far enough to free his cock, stroking it in one hand while his other hand curled around your hipbone, giving you a firm but gentle tug. You immediately obeyed, lifting your hips off the mattress but keeping your arms and head flat against the comforter. Your breaths were shallow as you anxiously waited for him to touch you.

Joel watched your arms reach straight out, your fingers gripping the duvet as your braced yourself for him. He looked down to admire your ass propped up in the air. He kept a firm hold on your hip as he slid his cock between your folds, collecting your arousal all along the length of him. You let out a low moan when his tip pushed up against your clit, and he couldn't help the smirk that danced across his face.

"You like messin' with me, hm?" he asked, dragging his cock through your folds again before his tip found your entrance, and he paused.

"Answer me," he demanded, his brows furrowed as he stared at the back of your head. You felt a shiver run down your spine at his tone. It was one of the things you loved most about him: his duality. The way he could be so gentle and soft, but also rough and harsh.

"Yes," you said breathily, and you felt his cock twitch against your cunt. Before you had a chance to think, his hand came down on your ass with a loud smack, followed immediately by him sinking into you with one swift motion.

"Fuck!" you cried out, waiting as the sting from his hand and cock slowly subsided into pleasure. Your fingers gripped the duvet so tight, they felt numb. You panted against your arm, waiting for him to move.

Both his hands gripped your hips lightly as he tried to ground himself, the sensation of your walls squeezing him making him dizzy. He watched, slack jawed, as the red handprint he left on your cheek slowly faded. Once it was gone, he swallowed and steadied himself.

He pulled back almost completely and paused before he pushed back into you as deep as he could, eliciting a moan from your throat. The angle caused him to get so deep that his tip was pressing against your cervix, making your eyes roll to the back of your head with each deep, powerful thrust.

He began to roll his hips steadily, his grip on you tightening as you whimpered under him. He could tell he was hitting that sweet spot by the soft noises you made and the way you clenched around him, causing him to quickly approach his high.

"Joel," you whined under him, desperate to hear his voice, still unable to see him.

"Would you have let me fuck you like this?" he gasped, his head tilting back and his eyes sliding shut as he continued to fuck into you. "That night at the bar? Would you - "

"Yes!" you cried out, your hips bucking against him now, desperate for release. "I wanted you so bad that night, baby, please..."

A switch flipped inside him when he heard that name - baby. He groaned, his eyes flashing open, his jaw clenched as his fingers left deep bruises in your hips.

"Fuck, y'know what that does to me," he muttered, slamming his hips into you over and over until he felt your cunt flutter around him, and you choked out a gasp, letting your orgasm wash over you as he continued to jerk inside you relentlessly.

He felt your body sag, but you fought to hold your hips up on shaky legs as he chased his release.

"That's my girl. Such a good girl, always make me feel so good," he murmured more to himself than anything. A few more thrusts and he pulled himself out of you quickly, spilling himself all over your back as you panted for air underneath him.

You both collapsed onto the bed: you on your stomach, him on his back, as you each attempted to catch your breath.

"Jesus, fuck," he rasped, staring at the ceiling. You turned your head and gave him a quiet giggle.

"I should mess with you more often," you teased, pulling the hair back from your face.

"I'm gettin' old, you know," he said, turning his head to the side. "You might kill me."

You hummed as your fingers danced up his still clothed torso, your eyelids drooping. With a groan, he pushed himself off the bed to fish out a rag from his backpack, cleaning you both up before tossing it on the floor and shimmying out of his clothes. He collapsed into bed naked, pulling you against him and yanking the sheets over the top of you both.

He buried his nose in your hair, inhaling deeply before he drifted off to sleep.

You woke up the next morning to Joel's rough, calloused hands lazily drawing circles over your stomach. You were both still naked under the sheets, Joel's arms wrapped around you from behind as you slept on your right side, tucked against him. His warm breath fanned across the back of your neck, sending a shiver down your spine as you pressed yourself into him further. You were both barely awake, eyes closed as you enjoyed each other's gentle touch under the cool, white sheets.

Joel pushed his hips against your ass, craving your warmth while his hand slowly traveled to your ribs, stroking the old scars that served as a reminder of what you were willing to do for him. You sighed, eyes still closed as you pushed yourself back against his hardening length. His fingers continued to blindly trace your scars until he slid his hand down to your hip, pressing a small kiss against your shoulder. His beard tickled your overly sensitive skin, giving you goosebumps. Joel yanked the covers over you further, thinking your reaction meant you were cold. He returned his hand to your hip, his massive palm gripping it lightly while he encouraged you to roll your ass against him slowly, and you happily obliged.

His right hand spread across your stomach and pulled you close, while his left hand found its way from your hip to between your legs. He let out a soft moan when he felt your wetness collecting there, all for him. He kept his eyes shut and rested his face against the back of your neck, lazily teasing your clit with the pad of his middle finger. You sighed, your hands reaching up to grip the pillow you had been sleeping on as you continued to slowly rock your hips against his cock.

You could feel your slick spreading over your inner thighs, your legs still pressed together while Joel continued to work you slowly, like he had all the time in the world. You felt the telltale stickiness of his precum leaving a trail on your lower back while you continued to rub up against him.

You lifted your left leg in the air, your ankle resting on the side of his knee. Reaching down, your fingers wrapped around his cock, notching his thick head against your aching cunt and sighed with relief as he pushed himself into you. His hand left your clit to steady your hip against him, his other hand still pressed firmly on your stomach.

You both kept your eyes closed, savoring the slow, languid feeling of his cock sliding in and out of you, filling you up. You could feel every inch of him from this angle, fitting so perfectly inside you, rubbing his tip slowly and steadily against that one spot only he managed to find.

His left hand slid down your inner thigh, his hips still rocking gently against your ass, until his palm reached your knee. He pulled it up towards the ceiling, your foot falling onto the bed behind his legs, opening up your hips to deepen the angle.

You gasped softly and your grip tightened on the pillow. His chest was pressed up against your back, and you could hear the stickiness on your skin from your combined sweat with each of his slow thrusts and roll of your hips.

His hand remained on your knee, spreading you open for him as he steadily fucked into you from behind. You could tell by his exhale on your neck that his breath was coming quicker now. You felt the familiar coil tightening in your lower stomach, and you tipped your head back, mouth hanging open, eyes still closed.

Your movement must have finally made him open his eyes to look at you because he craned his neck over to claim your open mouth with his, his tongue lazily swirling around yours.

There was no rush. No frantic, hurried movements. Just the two of you enjoying a peaceful, serene morning.

You whimpered softly against his mouth. He could feel your muscles tensing under his hands, a sign warning him you were close. He kept his hand on your knee but reached his right hand down to your clit, two fingers working you back and forth until the coil finally snapped.

You moaned, the loudest noise either of you had made so far that morning, as your hips stuttered against him. He felt your release coating his already soaked cock as he forced his eyes open to watch you. He kept rolling his hips into you steadily while you came down from your high, gasping for breath and covered in sweat.

He was so transfixed on your face, so obsessed with the way he could unravel you, that he didn't even realize his own climax had snuck up on him. He groaned into your neck as he felt his thick ropes of cum shooting inside you.

Reality came crashing down quickly, his eyes widening as he pulled his hips back aggressively, watching the rest of his spend coat your back and the sheets.

"Oh, fuck," he gasped, scrambling to sit up on the bed. You gave him a confused look over your shoulder, still lost in the afterglow of your orgasm. He grabbed your ankles and twisted you around so you were flat on your back, pushing your legs apart and peering between them to confirm his fear.

"Fuck!" he said, more panicked now. You sat up when you realized what happened, looking down at the trail of cum that was leaking out of you and onto the bed.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to - fuck!" he said for the third time, his jaw clenching while his hand angrily raked through his hair.

"Wait, just calm down, let me think for a second," you told him, your hand over your chest. Your eyes scanned the room as you mentally did the math, trying to remember the last time you had your period.

"What's there to think about? Christ, I'm such a fuckin' asshole," he said as he stood from the bed and paced around the room, rubbing the heels of his palms into his eyes.

"I think it's fine," you said timidly, still counting the days in your head. "Yeah, it's fine. We're fine," you said more confidently now.

"How?!" he exclaimed, clearly still in a panic. You kneeled on the bed now, holding out your hands to try and quiet him down.

"Joel, there's only a handful days a month where this would have been a problem, and fortunately for us, this is not one of those days," you explained calmly. He looked confused, so you continued.

"I'm supposed to get my period in like, 4 or 5 days. I'm not ovulating, it's fine," you emphasized, and you watched as his eyes softened, absorbing your words.

"Oh, shit," he muttered, tipping his head back. His body sagged with relief as he flopped back on the bed, his hand on his heaving chest.

"Relax, it's okay," you cooed, running your fingers gently through his hair. He sighed and looked up at you.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he repeated, and you shook your head.

"Don't be. It was such a nice way to wake up, let's not ruin it," you said softly, leaning down to press a kiss against his lips.

"Mmm, it was, wasn't it?" he said, smiling against your mouth.

"Except now, you made a mess, and I need to clean myself up," you teased, sliding off the bed to head into the bathroom.

"Wait," he called out, and you turned around. "Before you do... c'mere."

You walked slowly back over to his side of the bed, his gaze raking up and down your naked form.

"What?" you whispered, his hand reaching up to grasp yours.

"Let me see," he told you, his gaze flicking down to your cunt and then back up to your eyes. Your breath hitched in your throat at his request.

"You already saw," you teased, and he grunted, dropping your hand and pushing himself up so he was sitting on the edge of the bed.

"I wanna see again," he said sternly, his gaze dark. His hands reached out to grip the backs of your thighs, pulling you toward him so you stood between his knees.

You placed your hands on his shoulders and took a step to the side, parting your legs. He watched with his lips parted as a trail of his cum dripped slowly down your thigh.

"Fuck," he whispered to himself, his hand coming down from your leg to palm his half hard cock.

"Oh, now you like it?" you chided him, but he just nodded and swallowed, still staring.

"Would it be bad if I wanna do it again?" he whispered, looking up at you.

"I'm not sure we should celebrate it, Joel," you muttered, your nails grazing his shoulder. You shifted your weight, trying to hide the familiar ache growing between your legs.

"You want it, too," he said, noticing how you tried to keep yourself from pressing your thighs together.

You bit your lower lip as you stared into his eyes, pupils blown wide with lust. Your gaze flickered down to his cock, fully hard now and waiting for you. His hands massaged the backs of your thighs, his eyes never leaving yours as he waited for your response.

You re-counted the days in your head hurriedly before you nodded.

"Just this once," you whispered, knowing it was a lie the moment the words left your lips. He growled, one hand sliding up your back while the other firmly held your thigh so he could twist you around, tossing you on your back behind him.

He crawled on top of you feverishly, a wild look in his eye as his mouth lunged down to cover yours. You could hardly keep up with his tongue before he dragged his mouth down your jaw, sucking and licking the sensitive skin on your neck.

"Joel," you whined, your legs spreading under his weight. It felt like his body was vibrating with excitement, the urge to claim you in the rawest sense taking over. He reached down to line himself up, and with barely any warning, buried his cock inside you all the way to the hilt, making you cry out underneath him. He groaned into your shoulder, his arms wrapped around you tightly, his pace merciless. Your fingernails left marks on his back as you held on for dear life, a stark contrast to the lazy way he fucked you earlier that morning.

He was lost in his own head, pounding into you like an animal, the thought of filling you with his cum driving him crazy. You whimpered, trying to adjust your hips to ease the sting with no success. It occurred to him he was being too rough when he heard the noise you made, and he slowed his hips, lifting his head from your shoulder to look down at your face, which was trying to mask the pain.

"I'm sorry," he gasped, rolling his hips a little slower.

"It's okay," you squeaked, your eyes screwed shut. "Keep going."

"Don't wanna hurt you," he murmured, holding your hip down and rolling his cock inside you more deliberately, the way he knows you liked.

"Not hurting me," you told him, forcing your eyes open and blinking back tears.

"Liar," he said, planting a soft kiss against your lips. You moaned and tipped your head back while he continued to thrust into you slower, your nails easing up on his back.

"Think you can come for me, sweetheart?" he panted, watching your face closely for any more discomfort.

"I-I don't know," you admitted, your brows furrowing in concentration. He pulled his hips back so his hand could travel between your bodies, the pad of his thumb brushing against your clit.

"How's that?" he asked, causing you to squirm underneath him and gasp.

"Better," you groaned as his thumb built up your second orgasm of the morning. "Yeah, like that, fuck - talk to me, Joel," you begged.

"You like it when I talk dirty to you?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yes," you hissed, arching your back as he continued rolling his hips into you.

"What'dya wanna hear?" he grunted. "Want me to tell you how tight your pretty pussy feels, even though I already stretched it out last night and this mornin'?"

You moaned and pinched your eyebrows together, his words washing over you, making you climb higher.

"Or you wanna hear somethin' sweeter?" he asked, his hips slowing a fraction. "Wanna know how much I think 'bout you all day? How I can't focus on anyone else when you're in the room, hm? How I've never loved anybody the way I love you?"

You felt the tears prick your eyes again, but this time it wasn't due to pain.

"Joel," you whispered, bringing a hand up from his shoulder to rake through his hair. His thumb picked up the pace and your eyes rolled to the back of your head.

"That's right, say my name," he groaned, loving the way he alone could make you come undone. "Wanna hear you scream it when you come for me, can you do that, sweetheart?"

You nodded obediently, eyes squeezed shut and jaw slack as you felt yourself about to let go. He felt your walls tighten around him, and he smirked, his thrusts picking up the pace again.

"Oh, fuck," he gasped, his hips stuttering. "C'mon, let me hear you."

"Joel!" you yelled out, just as you promised, your back arching off the bed and your hand yanking his hair violently as you felt the wave of your climax wash over you yet again.

"That's my girl," he said through gritted teeth, his hips snapping into you again, the hand that was previously on your clit found its spot back on your hip, keeping you in place.

"I'm gonna come, sweetheart," he panted, his vision getting spotty. "I'm gonna come in this tight pussy, make a fuckin' mess."

"Do it," you whispered, your body lax underneath him, eyes slid shut.

"Need you to say it," he pleaded, his voice pained. You opened your eyes and looked at him. His forehead was dripping with sweat, his eyes wild as he stared down at you, waiting for your permission again.

"Come inside me, Joel," you murmured. You felt the goosebumps pop up under his skin at hearing your words. He hung his head, giving you just a couple more thrusts before his body stilled with a deep groan.

"Fuck!" he growled, looking down as he throbbed inside you, watching as his slow thrusts eventually pushed his hot spend out, collecting at the base of his cock. His arms gave out, collapsing on top of you, catching his breath against your shoulder.

"Goddamn," he croaked, turning his face towards you after a minute. "I like bein' inside you after."

"Yeah," you whispered, your eyes closed, enjoying the feeling of having him everywhere.

"Happy birthday," you added with a smirk. He let out a huff that sounded like a tired laugh, and he gave your shoulder a quick kiss.

"Thank you," he muttered, dragging his lips over the curve of your shoulder, making you shudder.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked as his hand wrapped around your waist.

"No, I would have told you to stop if you hurt me," you said, opening your eyes to look at him. He searched your face for a moment before nodding and shutting his eyes.

You let him stay like that for a few minutes until the stickiness between your legs became too uncomfortable.

"Joel," you murmured, and he hummed in response. "I gotta clean up."

He let out a groan of protest before he shakily pushed himself up on his arms and slowly slid his cock out of you with a hiss, staring at the mess he left between your legs.

"Nuh uh, don't get any ideas, I need a break," you warned him, pushing on his shoulder so you could stand. He laughed, helping you up on unsteady legs.

"Couldn't do it if I tried, I ain't Superman," he joked as you wobbled towards the bathroom.

"Coulda fooled me," you called back over your shoulder before you shut the bathroom door behind you.

"I thought we were going to see the geyser again?" you questioned wearily as you watched Joel unhook a canoe from inside the cabin he had just broken into. He dragged it out onto the grass before turning back to find paddles inside.

"It goes off like every hour or somethin', we'll see it a bunch more, I promise," he said, handing you a paddle. You took it gingerly from his hand as he tossed his own into the canoe and began pushing it on the grass towards the water.

"You sure the horses will be ok?" you asked, not thrilled about the idea of floating down something called Firehole River.

"Yeah, they're good. I got them all set up in a shed. Plenty of food and water. You alright?" he asked, finally noticing the discomfort on your face.

"Yeah, I'm fine," you nodded. You wanted to do whatever he wanted to do. After all, it was his birthday.

"Don't look fine," he said, giving the canoe a final shove but keeping one foot inside so it didn't float away.

"I'm just not really good on water," you finally admitted. "I get sick, the waves make me nauseous."

"Oh, don't worry about it, sweetheart. You'll be alright. River doesn't have any waves, it's slow. But if you do start to get sick, we can go back."

You agreed, if only because he seemed so excited for whatever he had planned and you didn't want to ruin it. You took a tentative step into the canoe, your hand flying out to grab onto Joel when you felt it shift under you.

Once both feet were inside, you quickly sat down so your weight didn't rock the boat. Joel jumped in with ease after he gave the canoe a shove from shore, and he began to paddle north. It was a cooler day, but the sun warmed your skin to the point where you ended up shedding your coat after a few minutes.

"Hardly even need to paddle, current's takin' us fast," he said, setting down the paddle and leaning back, admiring the huge trees that lined the river. He turned his head to watch a small herd of deer drinking from the river as you floated by a clearing in the woods.

"This is actually very peaceful," you admitted, closing your eyes and leaning back against his chest.

"Feelin' sick?" he asked as he rubbed a hand up and down your arm.

"Nope, I'm good," you told him. "Where are we headed?"

"It's a surprise," he said with a grin.

"It's your birthday, you're supposed to be the one surprised."

"I seem to remember bein' surprised this mornin'," he teased, and you swatted at his arm.

"Fine," you grumbled, closing your eyes again.

All of the physical activity from yesterday and that morning must have caught up with you because the next thing you knew, Joel was whispering in your ear, waking you up.

You squinted up at him, the sun still powerful overhead.

"Must've wore you out," he joked as he tried to paddle the canoe to shore. Your body was still draped over his and clearly in his way, so you sat up to free him, stretching your arms with a yawn and looking at your surroundings.

"How long was I asleep?"

"Maybe half an hour," he said with a grunt when the canoe hit land. He stood up and hopped on the shore, leaning forward to haul you and the canoe halfway onto the gravel before reaching out his hand to help you up.

"What a rugged, sexy boyfriend I have," you giggled, and you swore you saw his cheeks flush when he smiled.

"C'mon, grab your backpack, we gotta walk a bit but it ain't far," he said, waiting for you to be ready.

"What's not far?" you tried again, adjusting your shoulder straps as you fell in step next to him.

"You'll see," he said with a smirk, and you rolled your eyes.

You walked for maybe 15 minutes on rocky, white terrain before you saw the steam in the distance. You squinted, trying to figure out what you were looking at. It wasn't until you passed by a sign that said "Grand Prismatic Spring" that you figured it out.

"Is this a hot spring?!" you exclaimed, and he nodded, the corners of his mouth turning up as your excitement bubbled over.

"Largest one in the country," he said as you got closer.

"Oh my god!" you cried out, unable to contain yourself when you saw it. It was huge. The steam was thick as it hovered over the water, but you could still see the size of it, and the colors. It had to be the most beautiful thing you had ever seen. The vivid oranges on the shore that faded to bright yellows, then greens to a deep blue took your breath away.

"Can we swim in it?" you asked him, and he shook his head.

"It's too hot, you'll burn," he told you regrettably when he saw your face fall. "But there is another spot a bit of a ways over there called Opal Pool. Me and Tommy swam it in when we were here."

"Sounds beautiful," you told him, leaning up to give him a quick kiss on the lips. "Lead the way."

It was only a ten minute walk from the hot spring to the small body of water. Joel warned you as you yanked off your shirt that it wasn't a hot spring, so the water was a bit cooler, but it should still be comfortable. You shimmied out of your pants, eager to soak your sore muscles in the crystal blue water.

You tested the water out briefly with your toes before going all the way in as quickly as you could, submerging yourself up to your collarbone. He was right, the water was a little chilly, but it still felt good. You turned around just in time to watch his fully naked form come in after you, a quick puff of air leaving his mouth once he realized the temperature before he made his way over to you and wrapped his arms around your ribs, pulling you close.

You hooked your legs around his waist and rested your arms around his shoulders. Leaning forward, you pressed gentle kisses against his neck and a contented sigh left his mouth.

"This might be the best birthday I've ever had," he murmured into your ear.

"I don't know," you said, leaning back. "That Beefaroni I found you last year was pretty good." He laughed before pressing a kiss against your lips.

"Yeah, that was a good one, too," he relented, bringing a wet hand out of the water to brush back the hair from your face. You leaned into his touch with a sigh.

"What would it have been like if we ended up living here, like you wanted?" you wondered out loud as you stared into his deep brown eyes.

"I'm sure there's pros and cons," he said, his eyes traveling down to your tits just barely concealed by the water. "This is definitely in the pro column." You laughed as you rested the side of your head against this shoulder.

"Woulda been harder to survive. Constantly havin' to hunt and trap. Woulda been lonely. Not that I feel lonely when it's just us," he corrected himself quickly, and you rubbed his arm, letting him know you understood. "Sometimes it's nice to have other people around, is all."

"And the pros?" you asked him, your breath raking over the skin of his throat.

"Pros are easy," he said with a smile, and his hold around you tightened. "Just you and me. And all this. No threats. No danger. Just... peace and quiet."

You hummed and brought your head back up to give him another kiss, your lips slotting perfectly against his.

"It's nice that we can have both," you whispered against his mouth.

"Just as long as you're happy," he murmured, pressing his forehead against yours.

"I'm happy," you assured him. "I'm beyond happy."

Tag List: @chiogarza, @sparklejumpropequeen-777, @shotgun-shelby @partyofone3413 @nana90azevedo @ninaminaromina

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arisuworld · 8 months

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LAW OF ASSUMPTION : AN EPIPHANY-Ⅰ

⋆ ☾ : What is the law of assumption?

Law of Assumption in it's simplest form is: WHATEVER YOU ASSUME, YOU WILL HAVE IT IN YOUR REALITY. Now, for example : if you were assuming that you're a billionaire, then BY LAW you're a billionaire. You will have it in your reality in no time!! ALL ASSUMPTIONS HARDEN INTO A FACT.

⋆ ☾ : If it’s that easy, then why do people fail?

First of all, you cannot “fail” in the law of assumption, there is never failure in the law of assumption. The LAW CANNOT FAIL YOU!! People simply don’t get their desires for many reasons, which i will discuss thoroughly :-

1. THEY ARE IN THE “WAITING” ZONE.

This is a common mistake and i see it all the time, you are NOT WAITING FOR YOUR DESIRES, your desires are already YOURS. Once you assume it, then your desire is yours, thats it. It's done. Start maintaining the state of wish fulfilled.

State of wish fulfilled isn’t being happy or excitement, it's the fulfilment and acceptance that your manifestation is yours, it's a natural feeling.

2. THEY GO BACK TO THE OLD STORY.

“Your assumption to be effective, cannot be a single isolated act, it must be a maintained attitude of wish fulfilled” — Neville Goddard

You cannot serve two masters at once, to successfully manifest you must kill the old beliefs you’ve had, you must get rid of the limiting beliefs you’ve entertained. For example: if you’re manifesting a new desired appearance, you can’t keep persisting in the assumption that you’re ugly and start tearing yourself apart, you must persist in the assumption that you HAVE your desired appearance.

3. THEY ASSUME THEY HAVE TO DO A LOT OF THINGS TO GET WHAT THEY WANT.

THIS IS WRONG! You do not have to lift a finger to get what you want, you can stay in the comfort of your bed and home to get your dream life, the only thing you have to do is get out of the comfort zone of a victim mindset. Methods, yes they’re helpful but are they necessary? no. You do not have to do the void, SATS, scripting, 5x55 or 3x33 or lullaby method to get what you want. You just need yourself and your mind.

4. THEY HAVE A FEAR OF FAILURE.

As i mentioned before, you cannot fail. So, GO ALL IN, start taking that leap of faith, nothing bad will happen, start believing in yourself and start having faith within yourself because trust me YOU CAN. You can do it. Majority of people have this longing fear that they’re wasting their time but it WILL WORK and it's NOT A WASTE OF TIME. The biggest risk is sitting there idly by not doing anything and staying in the same position when know all this power you have!

5. LACK OF SELF CONCEPT.

Self concept is something everyone will benefit from, no matter what, take it from me. When i focused on my self concept i got better treatment from other people, people treated me with respect, i treated myself with respect, toxicity out of my life, fortune and luck everywhere i go.

Our concept of ourselves revolves around our manifestations; if you always thought of yourselves as ugly, a loser, stupid you don’t have that self respect for yourself and you dont feel worthy enough. Look at rihanna, rihanna treats herself highly and so does everyone else around her. why? because she has a high concept of herself and SHE KNOWS that she deserves to be treated with the upmost respect and she reflects that.

⋆ ☾ : So, it’s really that easy?

YES! it really is that easy, a lot of people don’t think its easy because of the way they VIEW it. Some people view law of assumption as a job or a chore when it really isn't. We assume everyday without even realising it, when we see food that looks gross to us, we assume that it most-likely tastes like absolute garbage and because we assumed it so....IT IS!

That girl in your school who you think is a snobby little privileged bully? if you changed their assumption on them and replaced it with new beliefs and maintained those new beliefs then they would change.

[There will be total four parts of this series!! Also, THIS POST IS NOT MINE. I just edited this and posted here because a lot of people need to read this]

#manifestation #manifestation blog #void state #law of assumption #loa blog #loassumption #manifesting #loa #manifesation #void #law of manifestation

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comradekatara · 14 days

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If you're still doing the ship opinions, could you do jet/katara?

I think they’ve grown on me bc when I was a kid I was just like “katara can do so much better 😤” (and that’s true!) but I also think what he means to katara (whether or not he truly lives up to her image of him in her mind) is really interesting. like something that I think is really crucial to understand about their relationship is the fact that the reason she feels betrayed by him isn’t because he’s “a bad revolutionary” but because he treated her like a naive child and lied to her face about his methods, manipulated her into trusting him by exploiting her tendency to dismiss sokka, tried to kill her brother (which is something she immediately understands judging by the way her eyes well with tears as she asks “where’s sokka”), and played her for a fool. “I trusted you, you’re sick and I trusted you.” yes she takes issue with his methods, but she mostly hates that she trusted someone who didn’t deserve it and didn’t truly respect her.

she hates putting her faith in someone and being taken advantage of, especially because it’s one of the points that sokka is especially condescending towards her about, and she always wants to be proven right in their arguments (which is natural, who doesn’t), so the fact that sokka is usually right when it comes to reading people is particularly infuriating. and it’s especially egregious in this circumstance, because katara’s trust in jet over sokka is what directly led to jet killing sokka (or at least, the attempt to). in her pursuit of winning the lifelong argument against her brother, she nearly got her brother killed. so jet is interesting insofar as he informs katara and sokka’s dynamic, and also as he reflects a major part of katara’s psychology as someone who genuinely wants to form connections with others over shared trauma, which is an incredibly noble and beautiful tendency of hers.

I think the way he sweeps her off her feet (literally) is kind of adorable, not because he’s a likable love interest (imo), but because her reaction is nonetheless very cute. the ugly ass hat she makes him after they kissed (offscreen, but canonically) is soo precious to me I think about that all the time (and the fact that aang is also the one who ends up wearing it…. my heart). and her reaction when they reunite later is fascinating, because even though it’s in such a different context and jet is literally brainwashed, katara acts like a scorned lover while sokka (number one jet hater in the world) approaches the situation in a more detached and logical way. it’s clear that her feelings for jet were incredibly strong, and the terror and guilt she felt over nearly letting sokka die at his hands has stayed with her and impacted in a very profound way, whereas sokka never actually felt like he jet had his life in his hands because he always knew that jet was a con artist who doesn’t really pose a threat to him.

but katara actually held a lot of respect for him, and he betrayed that trust and shattered her admiration irreparably. and then, of course, he nearly redeems himself, helps her in a major way, and dies in her arms. she cannot save him, and suddenly whatever could have been is gone not because he failed her, but because she failed him. and it’s subtle, and hardly mentioned, but I do think the trauma of that, in both instances, really informs katara’s perspective in many key ways, if not consciously, then subconsciously. it informs how she reacts to aang’s death only a few weeks later, and it informs her anger at zuko when he betrays her. jet is a key player in katara’s life and how she approaches her relationships going forward, and for that, he cannot be discounted.

#but I made him this hat……..#asks #twitterpat #katara #jet #sokka #jetxkatara #katara&sokka #analysis #I don’t like jet but I do love the idea of him #so thankfully. we also have hama <3

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starrysvn · 1 year

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married in vegas | choi san

pairing: choi san x gn!reader genre: exes2lovers synopsis: choi san had been your first true love and who you'd hoped would be your last. but things don't always work out. too bad your friends were his too, and jung wooyoung was hellbent on spending a long weekend birthday trip in las vegas. never mind your poor heart. warnings: drinking, swear words, a lil angst, dramatics, fluff, unedited word count: 5.2k author's note: fourth installment is here! hope you like this one, i recently rewatched that one episode of friends (iykyk) and just thought i'd put the final dialogue from it in here, kinda. ngl i feel like on the whole i could've done better but i hope you'll enjoy your read anyway! :3

series masterlist | regular masterlist

The breakup was amicable. You stayed friends and, sure, you didn’t hang out as much as you used to - for obvious reasons - and, yes, you did try to get out of any gathering that you knew he was going to be at. Still, you were civil. You could be in his presence.

And yet, all of that didn’t explain why the mere mention of him joining his best friend’s birthday trip to Las Vegas, had you circling around the room like a madman.

“I hope you’re fucking joking” you whine through the phone, earning a sigh from Yeosang.

“You’re blowing this way out of proportion”

“Am I?”

After talking your best friend’s ear off for minutes on end, that sounded wrong to your own ears.

“How did you not realize? San is Wooyoung’s best friend, of course he’d be there!” he reasons, as if you need a reminder that you are being ridiculous. “Plus, he’s taking a huge leap of faith in inviting you both”

“Listen, it was months ago, he didn’t use the group chat to invite us, I didn’t put two and two together. I had a lot on my plate! And hey, we’re civil!” The silence that meets you is so loud. You sigh. “Sorry for the dramatics, it’s been a long day”

After all, you are still recovering from having to dash home in a downpour. And having to stay after hours to have a long, unnecessary meeting with your head of department. Realizing your ex-boyfriend would also be joining your long weekend getaway was just the cherry on top.

“I’d say sorry for springing this up on you at the last minute, but then again, I could’ve just waited to see your face tomorrow” you hit him back with a real funny, Sang, smiling when you hear him snort. The line goes quiet for a second. “Do you want me to come over? We can head to the airport together in the morning” Yeosang says softly, a silent peace offering.

“Are you kidding? Have you seen the weather?” you look out the window, the rain’s still unforgivingly pouring down.

“Unlike you, I don’t refuse to drive in dire conditions” he pokes fun.

“You’re on thin fucking ice, Kang Yeosang”

“I’ll be over in ten” you could basically see his amused grin. You let out a chuckle hanging up. Then you press a hand to your forehead, trying to soothe the headache starting to form.

Choi San is the boyfriend. The one you never thought would leave. The one parting from hurt like nothing you ever experienced. The one you eventually bounced back from, but did you really? Because it still feels as if he was a part of you, just as much as you are a part of him. And when he left, you had to re-learn how to go through life with a missing piece.

He’d been your best friend, the person you ran to for everything. Someone you loved so much that it scared you sometimes because you knew just how much it would kill you to lose him.

Choi San is the one that got away and took a piece of you with him.

But what could you do, after months of healing and avoiding him, when your friends were his friends too? Declining invitations got old fast. The first time you saw him again, you thought you could handle his presence for the night. And you did but cried the whole way home. After that, no more. With time, it got better. Seeing him no longer left you with a sinking feeling. Of course, it isn’t like before, but it never could be, and you made your peace with that.

Still, after one year, you microdose on San, afraid of what could happen to your heart if you spent too much time close to him. It’s for your own sake, your peace of mind. That’s why, when it finally clicked into place that you’d be spending a whopping four days in his presence, you flipped.

The doorbell pulls you from your thoughts, and a smiley Yeosang holding a bottle of wine greets you. You should have known better than to accept alcohol as a peace offering from your best friend. Most of all, you should know that it never really ends with just one bottle. Because now you are incredibly hungover, severely nauseous and totally late for your flight.

“This is all your fault” you hiss as Yeosang asks the Uber driver to please hurry. Both your phones are annoyingly dinging with unread text messages, not helping your headache at all.

“Excuse you?” he turns around, tone accusatory. “As far as I remember, you were the one who brought out the tequila”

“Well, you didn’t stop me”

“You were crying!”

“Even worse!”

Your bickering is brought to an end by the screeching halt of the car in front of the airport. You ignore the severe wave of nausea it causes and get out, Yeosang right in tow. Incessant teasing and half-hearted blame tossing accompanies your run through the airport.

With just five minutes to spare, Wooyoung’s screeching hyena laughter welcomes the two of you at the gate. Surely the matching sunglasses and coats thrown over your pyjamas are a sight to behold, you think as you hug your friends hello.

“Birthday boy!” you pull Wooyoung into a big hug, giggling when he sways you both back and forth.

“Thank you for coming” he already said that months ago, when he first proposed the idea, but right now - with San’s eyes on you - the sincerity in Wooyoung’s somehow shines brighter.

“Thank you for having me” you smile genuinely. The breakup put a strain on your group of friends for a little, and you wanted to make sure he knew how much you appreciated him wanting you here. He squeezes your hand, before moving to Yeosang.

“We need to go, you’ll say hi in eleven hours when we land. Chop, chop!” Seonghwa rushes everyone to join the last few people in line. You let go of Mingi, laughing, hearing Yunho say something along the lines of they literally just started boarding, and follow the rest. You finish saying your hellos through boarding, finally facing San.

As you always do when it comes to him, you push down whatever mixed feelings bubbled up in your chest and put on a smile.

“Hi, San," you wave, so you're stunned when he just spares you a quick side hug, smiling curtly after greeting you.

Your friends had long stopped holding their breath whenever you two are in the same room, but this feels off. Like a splash of cold water, it sends you back to the first, awkward time you met up again. Nobody seems to notice though, apart from Yeosang. Unlike the rest of your friends, his gaze still lingers on you carefully. You subtly nod at him, like you always do.

Sighing, you keep walking beside your best friend, not really able to shake the disappointment San’s cold greeting leaves you with. Despite your best efforts, you let it eat away at you during the flight, the car ride to the hotel and the moments you unpack. No amount of berating does it. Why would he behave like that? Is this all in your head?

It’s not like you two would usually have heart to hearts but you talked, at least. You were friendly. So you don’t get why suddenly San is being so distant. For Wooyoung’s sake, you promised yourself you’d do your best to ignore it all. Be the bigger person and not get involved with whatever bullshit had his panties in a twist.

A whole day into the trip and you had to resist the urge to punch him in the face for behaving like an immature teenager multiple times. But you keep contact to a minimum. Complain to Yeosang in the comfort of your hotel room. Take several deep breaths. You aren’t good at this whole maintain-inner-peace thing.

“I just wish he would stop ignoring me”

The view from the panoramic terrace of the hotel is breathtaking, but, margarita in hand and sunglasses on, you find yourself not fully appreciating it. Not when you are using your time away from the rest of the group to vent to your best friend. Again.

“Ah, so you do care” the way Yeosang wiggles his eyebrows makes you want to wipe off that smirk on his face.

“No, I don’t” he doesn’t look too convinced. “Seriously! He’s just making it hard to get along with him”

“Or is his distance making you think about stuff you don’t want to think about?” you hate how much your best friend knows you. You let out an exasperated sigh.

The last thing you should be thinking about was your ex, but you can’t help it. He wouldn’t usually behave like that and, you had to admit, it threw you for a loop. Not to mention how you despise the way you still catch yourself thinking about him. It’s subconscious at this point and it's been hard to accept. Had he finally moved on? Were you the only one left running in circles inside your head?

No matter how much distance there is between the two of you, he’s still there, in a corner of your mind. Like a phantom pain, he follows you in the most mundane of things. The frozen aisle at the supermarket still reminds you of his favorite ice cream brand. When buying Christmas presents, your brain immediately goes to the one thing he’s been obsessing over. The reminders zap you like an electric shock, bringing you back to reality. San is a friend now - they say. Nothing more, nothing less. And so you’d berate your heart for acting like he wasn’t. You’d put down the tube of mint-choco ice cream with a sigh, and choose fucking socks as a present.

“Promise we won’t change?”

It was hard to make out the look on his face through the tears in your eyes. You never thought breaking up would hurt this bad, like giving up a piece of you. It felt like the end of the world. Of your world. One where you could no longer navigate life with San.

“You’ll always be my best friend” he murmured, lips against the skin of your neck. You felt the wetness on his face, too. “We’ll go back to how it was before”

But how could it? Now that you knew what it was like to be loved by him, and what a thing it was to love him. Against all hopes, that night, you hoped he was right.

No amount of space was ever able to lessen the strain the break-up put on your already existing friendship. You keep it amicable, for everyone else’s sake, but it just isn’t like before. It could never be. You both broke that promise, one that perhaps you shouldn’t even have made.

You’ve long realized that it’s closure that you need. Because the two of you healed separately, but never really talked about it together. It’s a conversation you need to have if you intend on being around each other. What scares you the most, though, is the possibility of something happening. Or rather, of you letting it happen. You aren’t so sure about San. If you truly want to let go, you need to know.

The dings of your phones pulls you from your thoughts.

meet in the lobby in an hour-ish? we’re going out!

You share a look with Yeosang, knowing birthday celebrations are due tonight, and Wooyoung isn’t about to hold back.

“Let’s go” your best friend offers an encouraging smile, walking back to the room with you.

The second you go down to meet with your friends, you feel yourself stumble on your heels and almost wish to find a way out of this dinner party. Now, you aren’t a stranger to San’s beauty, you never were. But holy fuck, how you wished that he was still yours. If he were, you could saunter up to him and tell him just how breathtaking he looked with his unbuttoned white shirt and slicked-back hair. The knowledge hits you like a train and leaves you breathless.

You need a drink.

And, boy, do you get one.

You don’t remember the last time you had this much fun. Wooyoung sure knows how to party. The dinner went quite smoothly - safely hidden between Yeosang and Mingi, you didn’t spare much attention to San, not that he spared you any - and soon after the birthday boy dragged you to a club.

“Sunshine!” Wooyoung appears out of nowhere, stealing you away from your impromptu dance battle against a buzzed Mingi. “Don’t you look stunning” he compliments, twirling you around, flirty as usual. You cackle, throwing your hands on his shoulders.

“Thanks Woo, you look dashing” you wink back, dancing with him.

“You shouldn’t be saying that to me,” he laughs. The confusion in your eyes must be enough for him to elaborate. “I noticed you’ve been eyeing a certain someone… who happened to be eyeing back”

“Who?” you’re going to fight this. No way.

“Don’t play dumb now” his face gets closer until his lips are pressed against the shell of your ear. “If looks could kill, I’d be dust right now. So would be Mingi” you gape at him, watching as he smiles amusedly.

“Wooyoung, we’re not going to talk about me and him during your birthday party”

“Oh, please! My birthday wish is for you two to get back together already!” homeboy is drunk. Your jaw hits the floor, and you smack his arm. He just laughs harder.

“Wooyoung, what!? You can’t be serious”

“Come on! You’re both incredibly oblivious about your feelings. It's getting sad” he groaned in frustration. “You’re still obviously hung up on each other and I can’t take it anymore, it’s excruciating! Take me out of this misery”

“There’s a reason we called it quits, Woo” you deadpan, taking a step back from him.

“And it’s a stupid one,” he looks like he’s about to say more, but he can’t.

“Alright enough” because Yunho, your saving grace, intervenes. “We’re going back to our booth” he shoots you an apologetic smile, half dragging the birthday boy away and back to the others. You don’t know how much of the conversation he caught, but judging by the good-natured scolding he’s doing, it was enough. You sigh, deciding it’s time for your well-deserved drink. As soon as you reach the bar, you claim the last free stool for yourself.

Wooyoung’s words won’t leave you alone. They keep bouncing around in your head louder than the booming music. Was it really a stupid reason? But most of all, how drunk does he have to be to insinuate that San is still in love with you? That you are still in love with him?

You nod to the bartender when the drink lands in front of you.

The night you broke up is a tangled up mess of emotions and memories you rarely ever allow to resurface. At first, it hurt too much, and then, just like everything else San, you tried to forget in order to move on. But if you think long enough, you still feel him slip away from you, the hollow in your chest when you woke up the morning after and his head wasn’t resting on the pillow beside yours.

Lazily, you toy with the straw of your drink.

It was something about work and it keeping you apart that drove a wedge into your relationship. The nights when one of you would pass out waiting up for the other started to become the norm. The arguments that the lack of each other’s presence fired up outnumbered the sweet talks you used to have over dinner.

Bitter words were spoken, and everything crashed and burned to its fateful end. The mutual decision to break it off before you broke the other seemed the best option. You never truly gave yourself time to think if you regretted it, afraid that bringing it up would only prevent you from letting San go. So, you foolishly swept it under the rug.

And now, here you are, downing your drink in response to the wave of emotions Wooyoung’s words elicited in you. Trying to ignore how your skin crawls every time the man sitting beside you lays his eyes on you. Inching away every time he tries to talk to you.

“We’re leaving” there is no mistaking his voice, but it feels so foreign. You turn around, facing him. His unreadable eyes send a chill down your spine. You lift a brow in question.

“You’re drunk,” San shrugs. “I’m taking you back to the hotel”

Who does he think he is? Looking down at you from his high horse of righteousness, worrying about you like he cared. You scoff.

“‘M not and you most definitely aren’t” you turn around in your seat, facing away from him.

“Are too, come on” San’s hand reaches for your arm, turning you back around and trying to safely get you off the stool.

“And what’s it to you?” you finally snap, shrugging him off. “You haven’t spoken more than two words to me the whole trip, why do you care now?”

Despite your resolution not to cry, or not to care, you feel tears stinging in your eyes. So much for not letting him phase you.

“Yeah, let go man” all hopes of getting out of this situation are ruined the second the guy sitting beside you speaks. You roll your eyes, bracing for what’s to come and cursing yourself for not leaving the bar after getting your drink. “Who are you to ruin their fun?”

“I’m their boyfriend”

Of course.

But you can’t deny that the way he says it - like he very much believes it - moves something inside you.

San doesn't waste any time and doesn’t wait for a reply. His fingers wrap around your wrist delicately, making goosebumps cover your skin. His hold is familiar, warm and it makes you feel like crying. Too stunned to speak, you let him carry you through the stuffy club, not even bothering to apologize to the people you bumped into.

It takes way longer than you’d like to get out of the club, and the lump in your throat is getting harder to ignore by the second. Suddenly, you don’t feel like blaming San all that much for ignoring you.

Once the cold air of the night hits you, you free yourself from his firm grasp. San stops dead in his tracks, looking at you. You can’t do this right now. You worked so hard to keep things civil between you two, you can’t fight with him on Wooyoung’s day. Knowing that one more word from him would break you. You take a deep breath.

“You just had to do that, didn’t you?” Clearly, it didn’t work.

“And here I was, thinking I was going to get a thank you”

You point a finger at his chest. “I can handle my own, San” and there it is, that look on his face that tells you he knows better. He knows you. And for a moment, you hate that he’s right. For a moment, you hate him for fucking with your head. “And you know perfectly well what I’m talking about”

“Do I?”

“What do you want me to tell you, San? You’ve been acting all distant and righteous these past couple of days, and then you pull this stunt?” This is most certainly a conversation you don’t want to have in the middle of the street, but oh well. “You could’ve just asked if I wanted a ride back to the hotel, there was no need for all that”

A gust of wind blows by, making you shiver. When San moves closer, all traces of his anger gone, you stand still, holding your breath. Dumbstruck, you follow his every movement. San peels his jacket off, only to drape it over your shoulders. Something he’s done a million times before. A melancholy so strong pulls at your heartstrings. You didn’t think he noticed. His touch lingers a second too long, eyes looking into yours as if asking if what he just did was alright.

“Thanks” you mumble, watching him step back. The warmth melts your anger away as much as it messes with your head. You don’t like how the air shifts and becomes heavy with the weight of words left unsaid.

But what would you even tell him? That, apparently, for how much you tried, you can't move on? That he lingers in your mind, in your heart, your apartment. That he’s still all over you, and you don’t know how to shrug him off – you aren’t even sure if you want to.

“I miss you” the words leave your lips before you have a chance to stop them. You definitely shouldn’t have drunk tonight. San’s eyes are on you in a split second, but yours stay focused on the pavement. You can feel his gaze putting you on the spot, begging you to say more. You don’t.

“Me too” he speaks so quietly that his words almost get lost in the night.

San waves a taxi over and helps you in. The whole ride back is quiet; you’re a second away from bursting into tears, having finally realized the extent of your feelings for San. Only cursing Wooyoung for being right keeps you in one piece until you reach the door to your room.

You go to unlock it and turn around to give him his jacket back. Not being surrounded by his scent sends your heart to your feet. You can’t believe all the work you did not to feel like this anymore has gone to shit.

“Thank you,” you say once more, before turning to step into your dark room so you can cry to your heart’s content and pretend none of this happened in the morning.

San’s hand grips yours, stopping you in your tracks. When he whispers your name, you’re done for. One second you’re about to hide in your room and the other he’s turning you to him. You can see how he's looking for the words to say. You know that expression all too well, you recognize the furrow of his brow. Then e pulls you closer and the breath gets knocked out of your lungs. He’s closer than he’s ever been in a year and pressed as you are against his chest, you’re afraid he might hear the way your heart is furiously beating.

His sorry eyes are scanning every inch of your face, or so you think, blinking back tears. Under his gaze, you’re burning. Because you want him to let you go and hold you closer at the same time. His hands on your hips are still delicate, you can break free at any time, but you’re not sure you want to.

Your breath hitches when his forehead connects to yours, you can’t breathe, you can’t think-

And then he’s kissing you, and it’s like coming home. It tastes sweet like your drink and bitter like the whiskey on his tongue. You’re unsure if the saltiness is from your tears or his. It’s familiar and your gut tells you that it’s so right, so good that you push yourself closer, lose yourself in him. San’s hold on you is almost bruising, and he’s kissing you like you’re the only thing he’s ever known. Like he used to when he wanted to show you just how much he loved you-

You push away from him like you’ve been stunned. His confused eyes search your face, asking what’s wrong. You clear your voice, but no words leave your mouth. So, when he calls your name with a voice so fragile that it makes you shiver, it’s all you can do to bid him goodnight and finally lock yourself in your room.

Your lips are still tingling, you still feel San’s mouth on yours. In the darkness, a sob wrecks you. You’re supposed to be over him. You spent so much time trying to be. Your heart shouldn’t be breaking this way; for the time you lost trying to forget him, for how all your efforts were in vain.

“Let me in” though muffled by the door, his voice makes you jump. “Please”

Another loud sob escapes you, and you curse yourself for not stepping away from the entrance. Of course, he’d stay. Of course, he’d hear. Well, you can’t run now, can you?

When you open the door, San’s head shoots up. He goes to take a step but hesitates. You simply open the door wider, and he visibly relaxes. After letting him in, you close the door and turn on the lights. The silence is thick, and you almost can’t breathe.

“I’m sorry” he starts, catching your attention. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have done a lot of things these past few days” despite your tears, you manage a scoff.

“Why?” it’s all that leaves your lips, but you know he’s caught on. You’re met with silence. Disappointment spreads like wildfire in your heart. He doesn't even have an answer - you bitterly think.

“So you’ve got nothing to say for yourself?” you push, starting to feel the anger bubble up inside. “You know how hard I’ve tried to make this trip work for Wooyoung's sake? For all our friends' sake? So that they don’t have to walk on eggshells around us, or invite us out one at a time?”

“And I haven’t!?”

“Oh, don’t sound so surprised, San!” you take a step closer. “We were doing alright, why’d you have to go and act like you have a stick up your ass whenever I’m around? Wooyoung’s your best friend, for crying out loud!”

“Don’t act all high and mighty! Have you ever considered, hell, even ever stopped to think-”

“Have I?” oh, if he only knew. “Have I? All I ever do is think, San! You’ve haunted all of my what-ifs ever since we broke up. So you can’t go ahead and pull shit like this when I’ve been trying my damn best”

Your voice is thick with emotion and your throat feels tight. The deafening silence that meets you makes your ears ring. San visibly deflates and the way he speaks is in open contrast to how you just did.

“Would you keep trying?” you don’t remember the last time you heard him sound so small. Still, his eyes are so full of determination.

“Why would I?” you ask, defeated. It’s like a flip switches inside him.

“Because I love you! I still love you”

Time stops, and for a moment nothing exists but you and your racing heart. It’s going so fast you fear it might beat out of your chest, or that he might hear it. It’s so loud that it rings in your ears. A surprised gasp escapes your lips: you understood perfectly fine, you just can’t believe the words he just so desperately uttered.

“I’ve been in love with you longer than I can remember. I loved you when I thought I’d never get to tell you again. I loved you when loving you quietly and at a distance was all I could do, but it was alright as long as I got to love you”

“San…”

“I’m sorry for earlier. I’m sorry for these last couple of days. There’s no excuse, but I just…” he sighs, closing his eyes. You go to take another step, but all determination to do so dies when you see him produce a little velvet box from his pocket. Your breath hitches and a sigh of his name leaves you. “All I could think about leading up to this trip was our first anniversary. You remember how we joked about eloping in Las Vegas?”

It seems your tears won’t stop flowing. You can’t believe he remembers. It was such a small thing, it takes you a second to connect the dots. It was a comment thrown around, something you said to make him laugh. Though you remember thinking that if he’d asked, you would’ve said yes in a heartbeat.

“I’ve had this since then” hope sparks in your heart, though you’re not really sure you’re even breathing right now.

“San-”

“Don’t. I know this is so incredibly stupid, I don’t even know why I brought this with me-”

“Ask me” finally, finally he looks up at you and there’s no doubt in your mind. You still love him, you always have. You always will.

“What?”

“Choi San, ask me or I will” he’s blanking, frozen in his spot. So, you get down on one knee. His eyes widen and you hear sounds of protest. Suddenly it’s a race on who’s speaking first, both on your knees, face to face. You’re giggling like idiots, tears in your eyes.

“I thought that I could manage life without you” he starts, and you let him intertwine your fingers. “I thought we could go back to being happy without being in love. That we’d be better at a distance, but I was so wrong. The only thing that matters is that you make me happier than I ever thought I could be, and if you let me, I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make you feel the same way. Fighting to make us work. I already made the mistake of giving you away once, I'll never make it again"

"Will you marry me?”

You waste no time in kissing him, big smiles barely making it a kiss, but you don’t care. You don’t care because San just asked you to marry him. Because he’s lifting you up and spinning you around and kissing you like he’ll die if he doesn’t. And for the first time in a while, you’re happy. So happy you could burst, laughing like you haven’t since you let him go.

“Do you think we should go get married?” he asks, swaying you around in his arms. You stare up at him, snorting.

“Maybe let’s wait till tomorrow, when our friends aren’t drunk off their faces, you know?” he chuckles, looking at you like you’re the only thing that could ever hold his attention. How could you ever convince yourself even for one second that you didn’t want to fight for him?

bonus:

Yunho’s slowly munching on a croissant, head resting on Mingi’s shoulder – who’s barely awake. You fear Wooyoung’s not even on your same astral plane right now, forehead against the table and hand gripping a coffee cup for dear life. Yeosang’s head is thrown back against the wall, he’s sipping slowly at his own coffee. It almost makes you think that you and San walking hand in hand could go unnoticed.

“Is that a ring?” you should’ve known Seonghwa’s sharp eyes wouldn’t miss it. After all, he’s the only one remotely awake. That, and he’s the only one not wearing sunglasses at the breakfast table. Lethargically, your friends’ faces emerge from behind the shades. Various sets of eyes squint in your direction as you come closer.

“Holy fuck you got back together” surprisingly, the voice is Wooyoung’s, though he sounds exactly like he just came back from the dead.

“Technically, we got engaged,” San points out. The words have barely left his mouth that suddenly his best friend is up and asking what, how, when, and why?! Eliciting various groans and shut the fuck ups.

“My birthday wish came true!” he throws himself at you both, squeezing you in a hug. Over his shoulder, you look at Yeosang. Despite his tired face, he smiles at you. So do the rest of your friends.

“Alright so, wedding tonight before we leave?” Wooyoung smirks all too enthusiastically, and you hear Seonghwa mumble as long as we drink juice, eliciting a round of quiet laughs.

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aziraphales-library · 2 months

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Hi! Your account is so great and I really appreciate what you guys do here.

Im not sure if there are many of these out yet, but I’m looking for good fics of what season 3 could look like. Like the events of 1 and 2 are the same but then we get to see them dealing with that ending.

Thanks so much!

Hello! Here are some series three speculation fics...

Armageddon Part 2: The Second Coming by Halfling (M)

Takes place immediately following the end of season 2 of the show. Crowley just wants to be left alone but he keeps getting interrupted. Heaven is MIA, Hell is up in arms, and no one can get a moment's peace.

what we could have been (and what we one day shall be) by meetmeatthecoda (E)

The next time Crowley sees Aziraphale after the day he broke his heart, entered a blinding white lift, and left him behind, it’s in almost the exact same place. Three interminable months later. That awful day, driving aimless and slow in a silent Bentley, Crowley wasn’t sure if he would ever see Aziraphale again, let alone so soon, considering the way they left things. He tried to tell himself that he didn’t care if he ever clapped eyes on his white blonde curls, steel gray eyes, and ridiculous tartan bow tie ever again, but the tears threatening to spill out from behind his sunglasses betrayed his true feelings. (Not to mention the random but persistent spots of bright yellow paint on his car’s otherwise pure black sheen, ruthlessly rubbed out with an index finger the temperature of an open flame.)

Bad Omen by lavender_mo0n (T)

There is a common misconception that owls are a bad omen, a warning sign for death and destruction that is to come. On the contrary, a better way to describe it is to say that they are a symbol of change. That change may come in the form of death, but perhaps that is more in reference to the death of life as we know it. And perhaps a certain angel is about to experience a ~very~ big change.

On the Side of the World by profdanglais (M)

The demon Crowley has gone rogue. Precisely what “rogue” looks like on a demon who was never anyone’s idea of “manageable” is something neither Heaven nor Hell is currently equipped to deal with. Hell is rebuilding and Heaven, under the auspices of the Supreme Archangel Aziraphale, is focused on spreading the Word of their prophet, known as the Second Coming--of what, exactly, remains unspecified. Neither side seems to remember who Crowley used to be, nor have they bothered to change the passwords. The Metatron has no interest in demons, rogue or otherwise. His Plan is going swimmingly and he couldn't be more pleased. Now if only he could figure out who’s responsible for all these unauthorised miracles that just keep happening, far and wide, on planet Earth.

Of Gardens and the Second Coming by Serenity_Black (E)

Starting moments after S2E6... The new Supreme Archangel Aziraphale is in Heaven, juggling the Second Coming at The Metatron's behest. Crowley is wrestling with his romantic realizations, and losing. What is it going to take to get our lovestruck beings back on track so that they can save our favorite Libra and all its inhabitants? And where are God and Satan in all of this? There’s a lot of ground to cover before this ends, as it was always going to, in a garden.

The Better Book: A Brand New Testament for the End of Days by HollyGhostLightly (T)

The Second Coming is underway and it turns out there are competing plans to determine the fate of the world! An unofficial/unauthorized Season 3 of Good Omens… to stop the bleeding. 💔 Excerpt: Aziraphale frowned as his intelligence was insulted once again, “How can you expect us to put our faith in something that lacks any detail whatsoever?!” “Let’s try to remember the plan is still technically ineffable. I’m doing my best to make it effable for you guys but some things are obviously outside of my abilities.” The angel growled, “Oh, the plan is effable alright! If you ask me, it’s completely fucked!!” “Real nice language, coming from an angel! You’re putting money in that thwart jar!”

- Mod D

#good omens #good omens s2 #ineffable husbands #fix it #good omens s3 speculation #mod d

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bloodynereid · 7 months

Text

Reapers & Ravens

<< prev | chapter iii | next >>

pairings: jordan li x oc

tw: swearing (like A LOT but come on it's gen v), seizures, mentions of death, drinking of alcohol, mentions of sex, iffy morals, bad parents

description: the story of a girl. a girl cursed by compound v to live a life without touch.

a/n: so this chapter is a little shorter that the rest cause i tried to stay as faithful to the ep as i could! hopefully u enjoy the addition of vic's dad and some more convos and interactions between jordan and vic. lmk if you wanted to be added to the taglist and my asks are open if you feel like chatting :) also one of my wonderful mutuals (the same one who created gemma) helped me write a few of their interactions so writing credits to them as well <3

The harsh white light that illuminated the stairwell cast strange shadows on Cate’s face as she convulsed. It had already been over 3 minutes and she wasn’t stopping, Andre and I were completely lost on what to do. We couldn’t just call an ambulance - we were in a restricted area of the school where a top secret Vought bunker was literally placed.

Then I remembered the incident with Luke’s blood, the way that his power seemed to have soaked into my veins when I absorbed the remaining energy in his cells. If I could control it, I could save Cate. Control over greed. Control over greed. Fuck okay I can do this.

Taking a deep breath, I looked over at Andre, watching as he scrambles to do anything and everything to get Cate out of her seizure. Goddammit. I start pulling off my gloves and stretch out my now naked fingers.

“Andre… I have an idea.” He looked up at me with pleading eyes but then he realized that my hands were uncovered.

“What- Vic, you know what don’t tell me, just do it.” I nodded and inched my hands closer and closer to Cate’s convulsing face.

“You need to be prepared to pull me away if I can’t stop myself.”

“Wha-” Before Andre could finish his exclamation my fingertips shakily laid on top of Cate’s forehead. As soon as I felt her energy start entering my body I wrenched my hand away and took a deep breath. I could feel everyone’s life force around me, even the ones behind the concrete door.

“Vic what the hell did you just do?”

Ignoring Andre’s voice I focused on the foreign force that tingled in my brain. Unlike the cold fire that corresponded to Luke’s powers this sort of felt like spicy chocolate. Sweet but also imbued with something peppery.

I focused the power on my hands. I delicately placed them again on Cate’s face, this time I didn’t feel any of her life force seeping through. Only human skin. Oh wow so that’s what it felt like.

“Stop Cate. Relax.” Once the words left my mouth Cate stopped spasming and the spicy chocolate feeling left my brain, suddenly replaced by a rush of my power which instantly started to absorb her life force. I jerked my hands away and rubbed my wrists. I did it. I actually did it.

“Oh my god Vic, what the fuck?” I blinked up at Andre and pulled on my gloves, taking extra time to do up the clasp.

“I- I don’t know Andre. Something happened when Luke’s blood hit my body and I took a chance.”

Andre opened his mouth to respond, thankfully his eyes didn’t seem to hold anger, just a whole lot of confusion and something like… awe but then Cate let out a loud groan.

“Uh guys?” My eyes left Andre’s and looked down at the blonde, she had a confused but weak smile on her face and her eyes were all bloodshot.

“CATE! You’re okay, oh thank god.” Andre gingerly encased her in a hug and a fragile laugh was heard in the corridor.

“Aww thank you I wasn’t aware that I’d been raised to the status of god.” I said with a chuckle and Cate looked at me with a confused look on her face.

“What exactly did you do Vic?” Andre asked while we both helped Cate to her feet, I unrolled my sweater from where it laid on the floor and pulled it onto my shoulders. Carefully maneuvering around the guards, we stealthily (not really) walked up the staircase.

“So you know how I told you ages ago that I never once absorbed a supe?”

“Yeah… what does that have to do with this?”

“Well, a few days ago when he umm died, I was sort of able to siphon some of his power from the blood that hit me. I don’t have any idea how I did it but if I didn’t do anything Cate could have gotten really hurt so I needed to at least try.”

“You two are literally going to be the death of me. It’s like looking Reckless #1 and Reckless #2 over here.” Andre said with a roll of his eyes but a teasing lilt in his voice.

“Oh and you’re one to talk.” Cate adds meekly, a teasing tone evident in her statement. I laugh slightly and make her lean more of her weight against my side.

Once we got Cate to her dorm room, I left Cate and Andre to talk. They had this tension between them that I very much didn’t want to get involved in. Then a realization hit my brain like a freight train. The fucking interview! Shit I had promised Jordan.

I twirled around in place and started sprinting to the auditorium where we had the shoot earlier today. My heels clicked hard against the concrete and my enhanced stamina helped me stay at the same furiously fast pace until I reached the doors.

Slamming them open with as much force I could muster (with supe strength it ended up with the doors being knocked off their hinges slightly) and walking into the now darkened auditorium. The only things in sight were not camera equipment, a talk show set or even any other people. At the end of one of the rows, I heard whistling and saw one of the school’s janitors mopping the floor.

I let out a frustrated sigh through my teeth and rubbed a hand over my hair. Pulling on a couple of the blonde strands, I twirled around and made my way back out into the warm night.

“Fuck!” I moaned out, kicking a stone into the green grass surrounding the walkways. I needed to find Jordan. I needed to find them quickly.

I ran over to the junior dorms, knowing that Jordan’s dorm was only a few rooms away from Cate’s. Pounding on the steel door, I prepared myself for the inevitable backlash my decision was going to result in.

“Fuck off.” Jordan’s voice seemed almost distant because of how muffled the door made it.

“Jordan look I just wanted to say I’m sorry.” I heard some distant scuffling inside before the door was unlocked and pulled open. There stood Jordan, eyes rimmed with red and in pajamas. Still looking as stunning as ever.

“What?”

“I don’t really know how to explain this without fucking things up but uh Cate and Andre needed me.”

“Oh really? So you just decide to go against your promises for a quick fuck?”

“WHAT? No, no. Where the fuck did you hear that? I didn’t sleep with them.” I frantically tried to explain myself, stumbling over my words like there was no tomorrow.

“Yeah sure.” Jordan’s face was now covered in a mask of annoyance and indifference, a sarcastic smirk trying to cover the cracks of her vulnerability.

“Jordan… Cate had a seizure, Andre was busy doing something illegal again and dragged me with him. Cate tried to help but she pushed too much. I was trying to help her.”

“Oh. Shit. Is Cate okay?” Jordan’s face no longer looked angry instead pure worry seeped through their pores, they instantly shifted with a soft pop.

“Yeah uh Andre and her are in her room.” I chuckled slightly but Jordan just rolled his eyes.

“Sorry for assuming I just thought-”

“No you’re good, I would have done the same thing. Probably would have blown up more to be honest. I should be the one saying sorry.”

“Oh it’s fine, not like the trustees would do anything different.” Jordan answered in a self-deprecating tone.

“Did Marie at least say something?”

“Oh no she was playing her part like a perfect little puppet.”

“God I’m really fucking sorry, Jordan.”

“The system’s fucked what can I say? At least we have the memorial ball tomorrow, I can try to get some sponsorships and stuff there.”

“Fuck right the ball. My dad’s supposed to be coming to that.”

“Shit I’m hoping and praying that my parents don’t show up. Uh do you want to come in?” A smile immediately blossomed on my face at their suggestion.

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“Nah come on in. It could be like our first meeting of the shitty parents club.”

“Oh do you have stories cause I have plenty?” I aaked as I shut the door behind me and stood slightly awkwardly in the middle of the room.

“I’ll give you one better, I have stories and weed.” He said as they held out a bag of gummies.

“Fuck yeah!”

I, as silently as I could, carefully opened the door to my shared dorm. The sun had risen about an hour ago and it felt like I was living the literal definition of ‘walk of shame’ even if Jordan and I hadn’t actually done anything yesterday.

Somehow I had completely forgotten that Gemma was an early bird so the second I stepped through the heavy door, my roommate jumped up from her bed.

“Ah Vic where have you been? Did you sleep with someone? Ooo was it Andre? Tell me everything.” Gemma said as she joyfully jumped up and down around me, before I could even take notice of her barrage of questions I realized that her hair had changed. It no longer was her usual shade of red instead it hung down her shoulders in strawberry blonde ringlets.

“Your hair? Also wait- Andre? Why does everyone keep thinking I’m sleeping with Andre?”

“Oh right, I got bored last night but come on! Tell me what happened. And I don’t know you guys just have this vibe.”

“We do not! I think we’re going to need all morning for me to clarify the fact I’m very much not sleeping with Andre.”

“I don’t have any classes and I’m pretty sure you don’t either so stop making me wait.”

“Alright, alright.” I let out a laugh at her contagious joy and spent the next hour discussing every minute of last night’s adventures, even the illegal bits.

After our little catch up, I decided to get changed out of my day old clothes and finally get some softer gloves on my hands. When I had inevitably crashed on Jordan’s bed last night, I wasn’t able to change into my usual pair of sleep gloves. So after having leather on my hands for more than 24 hours I was more than glad to welcome the feeling of soft and pillowy cotton.

Once I had put on a whole new outfit and washed my face I felt like an actual person again. The soft sheets crumpled around my body as I readjusted my reading position. In front of my eyes stood the text of a psychology book on conspiracy theories. It was actually pretty interesting and so far removed from my usual school readings that the world around me just disappeared for a little while.

Unfortunately, my little moment of solitude was disturbed by our dorm room’s door flinging open and as I turned to look at who the intruder was I recognized her to be Emma. Emma who hadn’t even realized I was there so she just kind of threw herself onto Gemma’s bed. Since the divider to our room stopped me from being able to see what was going on I just decided to rely on my senses. Closing my eyes, I blindly shut the book and focused.

“Gemma, I- fuck I need you to shift into me.”

“Uh okay sure?”

A second later I hear sounds of kissing and my mouth drops, oh OH shit. The sounds of moaning and whimpering seemed to start increasing in volume and I realized I probably should leave. Two sets of loud moans made me make up my mind instantly. Yup definitely leaving.

As silently as I could, I grabbed my books, iPad, headphones and phone before shoving them into my canvas bag. I also put an extra pair of gloves, purple this time, in case they were needed for whatever reason.

Tiptoeing my way over to the door, I risked a glance at the couple with a slight smile on my face. Gemma deserved the fucking world and hopefully Emma would be able to provide some of it. I twisted the knob of the door and just as I stepped through the door I turned back one last time.

“Wear protection!” I said with a teasing lilt in my voice and let the door slam close as a loud ‘fuck’ echoed through the hallway.

Group Chat with Cate, J, A.A. & Luke

Me: anyone free?

don’t have classes until the afternoon

i’m boredddd

J: can’t

got some stupid essay i need to do for a fucking extra branding seminar about lunchboxes

Me: lol what

why r u taking that?

J: fuck if i know

it’s mandatory supposedly

Cate: WHAT

no it’s not

who told u that?

also vic i’m free meet me @ the tables outside the caf

Me: k omw

J: ITS NOT MANDATORY?

fuck that little fuck louis

A.A.: really?

u trusted louis?

J: he’s my academic advisor u bitch

ofc i trusted him

Laughing, I locked my phone and tried to spot Cate at the tables. My eyes caught hers at one of the end tables and she waved with a smile on her face, urging me to join her.

“Hi. It’s good to see you’re doing better.” I said once I put my bag down on one of the benches and got a good look at the blonde. She looked absolutely radiant today, clad in a sage green blazer and dangling pearl earrings.

“Yeah, thanks for that. You quite literally saved my life.”

“Hey that’s what friends are for right?” I asked as I laid my gloved hand over hers. She smiled and tugged a flyaway strand of her hair away from her face.

“Of fucking course, now tell me all about what happened with Jordan last night.”

“How did you know?”

“I have my sources.” She says in a sing-song voice as a smirk paints her face. I huff out a laugh and shake my head fondly.

“Fine, keep your secrets but… you have to tell me everything that happened with Andre.”

“Deal.”

Cate and I talked for what seemed like hours (in the best way possible) and we ended up ordering lunch. A pasta dish that was probably one of the best things I had ever tasted.

“Vicky, I didn’t realize you had already made some friends.” The familiar voice made my spine seize up and goosebumps appear on my arms, and not the fun kind. Cate’s mouth had dropped open as I swiveled around to look directly at my dad’s hazel eyes.

“Hey dad.”

“Kiddo! Come on, give me a hug.” He had a wide smile on his face, he looked genuinely happy - not buzzed happy. That was probably one of the only reasons why I actually decided to hug him. After he left me out of a slightly too tight embrace, he looked towards Cate and smiled.

“Oh right dad, meet Cate Dunlap. Cate, meet my dad.”

“Uh hello Mr. Oaks or uh Frostbite, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” She said, politely offering her gloved hand.

“Nice to meet you as well Cate. These are beautiful gloves, similar powers to my daughter then?”

“Uh kind of, I can mind control people using my hands.” Dad’s eyes widened as he whistled appreciatively.

“Wow, now that’s a cool power. If you can excuse us, I need to pull my beautiful daughter away for a bit. We have a fitting.” Right, the memorial gala. Ugh.

“Yeah sure. I’ll see you there.” Cate quickly encased me in a hug and then leaned close to my ear, “I forgot how hot your dad was.”

“Cate!” An outraged gasp left my mouth as she just laughed while she walked in the direction of her dorm.

“Well isn’t she a charmer?” He was watching her walk away with a smirk on his face causing my mouth to turn into a disgusted sneer.

“Dad, really? I told you I had a rule about my friends, plus you’re like decades older than her.”

“I know, sweetheart. Come on, I found the perfect dress to match my suit. After your little interview stunt you’re going to need all the help you can get to stay in the top 10.”

“Yeah dad, I get it.”

I rubbed my temples as we made our way to one of the many cars that are in dad’s collection. This one was an Aston Martin DB5, the James Bond car. It was a wrap gift from one of Vought’s many rip off movies my dad starred in, he had gotten to play James Bond-type for 3 movies and somehow managed to still get roles.

My heels sunk into the plush of the red carpet, flashes of the many cameras seemed to permeate my eyes and kept me changing my poses. I was wearing a beautiful sleeveless dress that made me seem like I was floating. The folds of bluish gray mixed perfectly with the pearly white, even my gloves were designed specifically to complement this outfit.

Sometimes you had to give my dad some credit, he did have an eye for fashion. He stood next to me with an open white shirt and steely gray suit. Once I had done enough solo posing I skipped my way over to dad and gave him a one armed hug, painting on a cheerful smile for the cameras. I was careful not to let any exposed skin near his hand because that would be bad… not for me but for literally everyone else.

It was like the cameras exploded, so many flashes were now directed towards us that it was blinding. I endured it for another minute before thankfully dad dragged into the ball… where we were greeted by even more cameras. I adjusted the ribbon that dad insisted I wear and gave a little smirk to the cameras. Dad walked next to me until finally the cameras focused on Marie and the dean behind us. Now that was a weird pair.

“Good job sweetheart. You ready to mingle?”

“Are you?”

“Always.” He flashed me his politician smile and quickly grabbed two glasses of champagne before handing me one and moving towards a group of old white guys, the trustees probably.

I took a sip of champagne and looked around the room, spying quite a few familiar faces before I landed on Gemma’s, she was standing off to the side with a glass of water - staring out into the sea of people with a thoughtful look on her face.

I weaved my way through all the trustees and potential donors until I finally sidled up next to her and offered the glass of champagne in my hand.

“You look like you need this more than I do.” Gemma jumped slightly at the sound of my voice and turned to look at me.

“Shit you scared me. Ooo champagne thank you.” She passed me her water and then proceeded to down the entire flute in one go.

“Okay wow, what is going on?”

“Nothing. You look incredible by the way.”

“You do too,” I looked down at her impeccable suit, it had bubbled sleeves and a sheer patterned shirt under the white blazer, “but there is clearly something up. Come on, you know I’ll probably just ridicule you slightly and not actually judge you for it.”

“So you know how I slept with Emma…”

“Yes? I was there for like the first bit of it.” She cringed back for a second and took back her glass of water, taking a sip before she continued with her admission.

“I don’t think I can actually have a serious relationship with her.” Oh okay wow, heavy topics already and I had only had a sip of champagne.

“Okay do you mind if I ask why? You know I support you in anything you might choose.”

“Well… she’s really hot and sweet and so goddamn nice but I can only see us that way in the short term. I was able to help with the whole video thing and I’m actively trying to help her realize how fucking incredible she is but I don’t think we would be good together.”

“Gem, for the short time that I’ve known you, you are quite literally the most selfless person ever. That’s really fucking rare for people like us so if you feel like this is something that is going to help you then I think you need to choose it. Keep being friends with Emma and have fun but do what you need to do.”

“Yeah, I just don’t feel like I’m at a point in my life where I can be a serious girlfriend. I literally just made it to university and everything is already pretty fucking insane. We talked about it a lot... afterwards. Emma knew that I was happy to help her get through this and to learn to love herself - a bit literally I guess - but we both decided that she needed an actual partner and not a shapeshifting fuckbuddy therapist. She needs someone that is going to be there for her in ways I can’t. I just… I feel like I change too much. ”

“Woah hey, you’re perfect how you are but honestly I agree with you, getting into a serious relationship right now might actually mess up everything else so I’m glad that you actually know what is good for you. I’m so fucking proud of you Gem, and it’s good you talked about this with Emma so now you’re both on the same page and weird shit won’t go down.”

“Aww stop it. We’re going to make each other cry and our makeup will get all kinds of fucked up.” I laughed wetly and pulled her into a hug, gingerly maneuvering so none of my very exposed skin was touching hers. The single problem that this dress had was that I could literally kill anyone instantly.

“VICKY! Darling get over here, look who I found.” Gemma and I both turned to look in the direction of the voice that just shouted my name. My dad was standing next to Andre and his dad and was frantically waving me over.

“Your dad?”

“My dad. I’ll talk to you later okay?”

“Yeah thanks for checking up on me. I think I really needed that.”

“Anytime.” I smiled at her and then started making my way over to the little group, dropping off the champagne flute on a passing waiter’s tray.

“Hey dad, Mr. Anderson. Good to see you again.”

“You too Victoria. You look absolutely beautiful tonight, as always. Doesn’t she Andre?”

“Hmm yeah Vic, you look incredible. The color really looks good on you.”

“You have to thank dad for that one, he picked out the entire thing.”

“Aww Vicky you give too much credit to your old man, I have way too many designer friends that were happy to finally design something for you.”

“Right, Adrian - you and I have some catching up to do. Let’s leave the bright young heroes of tomorrow to mingle.”

“Yes, let’s see if they’re serving any of that top shelf whisky.” I heard their chuckles as the pair walked off towards the bar and I turned to Andre.

“So… you and Cate huh?”

“Fuck off.” He answered with a laugh clearly slipping into his voice as we started making rounds around the groups of trustees. Better to be a united front against these people.

I grabbed two glasses of champagne and made my way out of the main reception. There were too many people and everyone’s clothes kept brushing against my naked arms. All I wanted to do was grab someone’s exposed hand and take away every inch of their life force just to feel a little less staticky. So I thought that the next best thing was to absorb any and all of the plant life outside the building.

Sitting down on the stone steps I pulled off one of my gloves and eased my fingertips into the soil. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and focused. The little pulses of the underground root systems started to sing against my power, each cell produced enough energy that after a few minutes the static that filled my mind faded away. I dusted off my hand and pulled my glove back on and was about to head back into the hall when I heard some leaves rustling.

“Uh, is anyone out there?”

“You know if this was a horror movie you would definitely be dead right now.” Jordan’s unmistakable voice rang out into the night making let out a laugh.

“Aww don’t kill me Jordan, I want to make it to season 2.” Jordan walked out from behind one of the bushes and ran a hand through their hair. It made her look so fucking good that it should be a criminal offence.

“Of course you like Scream. What are you doing out here?” They asked as they took a seat next to me and grabbed one of the champagne glasses, shifting as their mouth made contact with the rim of the glass.

“Killing some plants and trying to get away from all the people. Why are you out here?” I took a sip from my own glass and leaned back so my elbows made contact with the cold concrete floor.

“Trying to get away from my parents. They’re just so fucking frustrating, like I know they’re trying but I’m not just their son. Fuck you really don’t want to hear this.” Just as they were about to get up, I extended my hand and grabbed her forearm.

“Hey look, I do want to hear about it. You don’t need to pretend everything is perfect all the fucking time cause it’s not.”

“I- yeah thanks. I just don’t want to be too much and we literally just met.”

“Hey! We got high and have gone through more trauma than most people have in their lifetimes. I think we’re bonded for life now.” He lets out a chuckle and traces a hand over my gloves. A giddy little smile appears on my face.

“Yeah I guess we are.” His eyes level up with mine and something softens in them, they are about to open their mouth again when I hear a loud shout from inside.

“Vicky!” Fucking hell not again.

“Seems like someone is calling you.”

“Yeah my dad is having fun showcasing me like a prize trophy to all the trustees. We’ll talk later?”

“Definitely.” They switch with a pop and extends their hand. My leather gloves stop the contact from feeling too intimate but it still felt like sparks were extending all over my body.

“Vicky!”

“Fuck, see you in a bit.” I blow them a kiss as I dash inside searching the crowd for my dad, once he sees me he points at the people next to him with a smile and mouths: ‘trustees’. Great, just perfect.

I leaned my head against the cold bar top, the dean’s speech had grated my already raw nerves and dad had almost started giving me an entire lecture on why I should have been up there with Marie. I was happy for her truly, but this whole situation was fucked.

“Oh wow you two look rough.” Cate’s voice made me look up from my position on the bar to see that Jordan had silently joined my side and was downing a glass of champagne.

“I hate this.”

“What happened to you?”

“Parents.”

“Dad.” I said at the same time as Jordan and we sent each other empathetic looks.

“Say no more.” Cate took off her glove in a swift move and pressed her fingers to the bartender’s hand. “Vodka. The expensive shit you save for the big swinging dicks. Oh and three glasses.”

I got up from my position and smiled gratefully, grabbing the extra glass I followed the duo over to one of the more secluded sections of the room. We spent the next few minutes, while everyone pretended to give a single fuck about Brink, steadily downing multiple shots of vodka and talking about campus gossip and the latest shitty show Vought had put out.

“Hey Moreau.” I turned to look in the direction that Jordan had directed her spiteful tone at, there stood Marie, looking stunning in that red dress. As their argument progressed I silently poured myself another shot (if you could even consider it a shot) of vodka.

“I didn’t know I had powers until my first period… I couldn’t control the blood so it sliced right through my mom’s body. My dad came, same deal.” My heart dropped, holy shit - and I thought my situation was bad.

“Fucking hell.” I said I took a sip of my glass.

“Yeah so if you can excuse me, I have just spent the entire night being dragged around like a fucking showpony.”

“Hey.” Cate pulls up one of the seats to the table and pats the cotton cushion.

“My family and I were on a camping trip, my little brother kept kicking at my shins. I didn’t know about my power so I grabbed him by the arm and told him to go away and never come back. He did just that - they sent out search parties and everything but… we never found him. My mom never touched me again. Neither did my dad.” I swallow dryly and move a drop of condensation along the rim of my glass. Why the hell would Vought do this to us? Greed probably. It’s always about greed and power.

“I had no idea. I’m so sorry.” Marie stuttered out and I cleared my throat.

“It’s not your fault. Your parents gave you a dangerous drug as a baby to make a buck off you-”

“No, no they weren’t like that.”

“Yes they were, they did this. You didn't, so don't you spend a second crying over them.”

“I- uh. I know the official story is that my mom died giving birth to me and that I got my powers much later but umm that didn’t exactly happen. I don’t remember it much because supposedly I was just a few days old but she touched my hand while singing me to sleep one night. My dad puts on a show for everyone most of the time. He expects perfection because that’s the only way he can cope with the literal murderer of his wife living under his roof.”

I felt a tear slip from my eyes and wiped it away quickly as the entire group just looked at with guilt in their eyes.

“So yeah there’s my little sob story. I still feel responsible even if dad gave me these godforsaken powers, which fucking sucks.” I laughed wetly and took a swig of vodka, letting the burning sensation cloud my thoughts.

“Vic, holy shit. I’m so fucking sorry.” Cate rubbed my shoulder and I smiled at the feeling of warmth that radiated from her gloves against my skin.

“You know… I killed my grandpa with my powers.” I turned to look at Jordan who was staring at me with a neutral expression on their face.

“No you didn’t.” Cate responded.

“Yeah I know… I was just feeling left out.” I let out a loud snort and covered my face with my glove as I continued to giggle. Jordan smirked at me and nudged their pinky against mine.

“Hey… umm guys - I fucked up.” Andre said as came up to the table, panic clearly showing in his eyes.

“Andre…” I started, a clearly annoyed tone seeping into my voice.

“What did you do?”

“It’s about her roommate.”

“Emma?”

“Who the fuck is Emma?”

“Andre…” I repeated as I realized what he had done. Oh no.

“I think she’s stuck.”

“You didn’t.”

“Where? Where is she stuck?”

“You know where.”

“Andre. You promised.”

“Andre, you fucking idiot.” I leaned back in my chair as I uttered the words and closed my eyes tightly. This nightmare seemed to be never-ending.

links to the outfits cause i was bored: vic's dress but greyer, vic's dad's suit, gemma's suit

lmk ur thoughts <3

taglist: @neapolitantoebeans @scorchedfangirl @losers-club6 @vvyuqi @bubblebuttwade @fix5idiots @ponypickle @nellyboosworld

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that-stone-butch · 8 months

Note

hi, i have a question and i mean this in good faith, but why do some butches get top surgery? you mentioned it in some of your recent posts and i’m just trying to understand. i 100% believe in bodily autonomy so i’m not judging anyone for that decision, i’m just trying to understand so i can support people better. obviously there’s a lot of overlap between butches and transmascs but i don’t really understand why someone who still identifies as a woman (not all butches do, but “lesbian”/“wlw” still implies some connection to womanhood) would want to have that surgery unless it was to prevent breast cancer? i have chest dysphoria too but i guess it’s not bad enough for me to understand this. is this higher level of dysphoria common in butches? again i mean this in good faith and i just want to understand. i wish you well for recovery and i hope everything goes smoothly!

my pal you have like fifty gender biases here that you're gonna want to unpack. this pile of questions has so much added baggage it's going to take so many steps to unpack holy shit

not all lesbians are women/have an 'implied connection to womanhood'

'top surgery' may mean mastectomy but there are also people out there who get 'top surgery' meaning breast implants, among whom some are butches, and for whom that is an equally momentous instance of gender-affirming care. is this a part of your question?

you don't have to understand why someone would want a procedure in order to support them

i cannot speak to whether or not butches experience an especially 'high level' of chest dysphoria

even if i could produce some statistic that indicates that we do experience a 'high level' of chest dysphoria, i am not especially equipped to speak for all of us as to why

i have no idea what amount of people counts as 'high' to you. is one in five high? one in ten? what if it was one in ten sure about getting top surgery, but an additional two in ten were considering it? would that be high, to you? i have no frame of reference for you

'has tits' does not necessarily mean 'is woman' and some women do not want to have tits. period

other people's chest dysphorias are going to look different from your own. there are as many different reasons to feel dysphoric about one's chest as there are people

like i'm taking your good faith seriously, but even if i wanted to answer these questions i couldn't. i'm just one person. so let me reiterate the only answer that matters:

you don't have to understand why someone would want a procedure in order to support them

#ask #anonymous #butch #trans

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seasonsbloom · 2 years

Text

bad habit (hangman)

read part ii, read part iii

pairing ; hangman x female!reader

synopsis ; the moment you meet hangman, you know you hate him. and then suddenly, you're not so sure anymore.

“Sweetheart,” he drawls, “when you look like me, you don’t really need any lines.”

wc ; 15k

warnings ; angst, explicit language, mentions of previous character death (reader’s mother dies of cancer), mentions of sexual activity, (some) explicit sexual activity, horrible dirty talk, age gap, hangman is sort of an asshole but not really, inexperienced reader

note ; i cannot believe i am posting this, it is so LONG and i am so embarrassed... at first it was just supposed to be pwp and then it suddenly had a LOT of plot and backstory and then i was at 15k and hadn't even really gotten to the smut part yet and now... i'm thinking... part 2? maybe? let me know if you're interested lol. anyways... first fic... yay?

Fightertown is all sand, suntan lotion, and contrails crisscrossing like latticework across the endless stretch of baby blue that is the Californian sky.

At first, you don’t know how to handle it. You’re from Seattle, which means an average of 156 rainy days a year, and here it feels like the only water you’re ever gonna feel again is the Pacific Ocean and the layers of sweat drying sticky on your skin when you wake up every day. You’re too stingy on your electrical bills to leave the fan spinning circles that herd stale air through your room all night, and it gives you a stuffy nose anyways, so you just suffer through it. Then, in the morning, you spend ten minutes standing under ice-cold water until your teeth chatter with enough force to hurt your jaw, only to forget once more what it feels like not to be hot minutes later.

Penny says you’ll get used to it eventually. But, two months in, you’re wondering if maybe she’s wrong.

“‘Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,/ Men were deceivers ever,-’” you read from the book in front of you. “‘One foot in sea and one on shore,/ To one thing constant never.’ Now, what does Shakespeare mean by that?”

Amelia is starting to look like she’d rather be anywhere else. You’ve been at it for about 55 minutes, meaning you’ve got approximately 5 more left for today’s session. Usually, you’d call it quits by now and let her enjoy the remainder of her afternoon because she looks tired enough to fall asleep right here at the dinner table, but you don’t want to leave yet. You’d like to think it’s because you’re a sensible teacher. Most likely, though, it’s because the Benjamin residence is airconditioned, and Penny keeps that shit racked up to a moderate 71 degrees all day, and apparently, you’re a selfish bitch who will put her own need for heat relief before her student’s need for a reprieve from Shakespeare.

Which, like. Semantics.

“I don’t know,” Amelia says, chin resting in the open palm of her hand. She probably would know if she’d listened at all, but you’re pretty sure her mind is as much on the popsicles in the fridge as her eyes are on the clock on the wall.

“It means men are moody assholes who can’t stay faithful,” Penny says as she steps into the living room, ignoring her daughter’s scandalized Mom! “Pretty self-aware for the 16th century, don’t you think?”

You hum. “Pretty true, too.”

Penny laughs. “Don’t you know it? Take it as a life lesson, Amelia.” Then she extends something wrapped in colorful plastic in your direction. “Fudgesicle?”

Maybe some part of you should feel bad about exploiting the Benjamins for their aircon and free ice cream, but you’re sort of past that point.

“Thanks.” You take the fudgesicle and start unwrapping it without any further ado.

“Mom,” Amelia, her phone in one hand and her own ice cream in the other, asks as she gets up, “can I go upstairs now?”

“Ask your tutor,” Penny responds with a thumb pointed in your direction.

You shrug, preoccupied mainly with the flavor of chocolate and fudge melting on your tongue. Your bank account doesn’t really allow for luxuries like popsicles anymore, but, God, this must be heaven.

“Yeah, we’re pretty much done with Shakespeare today. Go over those pentameters again before the test, okay?”

“Sure.” Amelia smiles at you, already halfway to the door. “Thanks. See you next week.”

You wave at her turned back, and wait until she’s disappeared before you say, “She’s a good kid.”

Penny snorts. “A little glued to her phone, maybe.”

“I think that’s sorta par for the course.”

“Not very good with Shakespeare, either.”

“Now that’s definitely par for the course with a fifteen-year-old. Be glad they aren’t reading Hamlet.”

Penny laughs. She sinks into one of the unoccupied chairs at the dining table and stretches her legs out with a sigh. She’s already switched her usual cotton shorts for jeans which tells you she’s about to head over to her bar for the rest of the night.

“I guess I should count my blessings,” she says. “At her age, I’d already hijacked two planes with two different pilots.”

Penny’s stories about her teenage transgressions are always enough to make you feel stuck somewhere between awe and profound jealousy. Your own life is downright dull in comparison.

Then again, your life - and especially the romantic aspects of it - are downright dull compared to most things.

“You must have given your parents gray hairs,” you say, packing up your pencil and notebook in your tote bag. It’s not easy with only one free hand, but somehow you manage without leaving a trail of chocolate across Penny’s tabletop.

“I sure hope so.”

You’re down to the part of your Fudgsicle where the wooden stick pokes out of the ice cream, and try to avoid licking at it accidentally. You hate the feeling of the wood against your tongue, but the whole thing is a bit difficult, as you’re also trying to eat at a pace you know will give you a stomach ache later.

You have to get out of here before Penny sinks her talons into you and…

“You should come by the Hard Deck today,” she says, and you bite back a groan.

Too late.

“I can’t,” you say semi-automatically, “I’ve got work tomorrow.”

Roughly a month ago, you pinned a sheet of paper to the bulletin board at the gas station where you’ve been picking shifts up since you arrived in town, advertising Tutoring for English, Grades 1 to 12. Penny was the only person who answered. Since then, you’ve been coming to the house once a week to tutor Amelia and, unofficially, to be lectured by Penny on all the joys life has to offer.

Her words, not yours.

“No, you don’t. You never work Sundays,” Penny shoots back immediately. Then, at your frown, she just shrugs. “You can’t lie to me, sweetie. I used to do it professionally. It takes one to know one.”

You sigh. “I don’t know that I feel like going out tonight.”

“You’ll feel like it once you’re actually out.”

Having finished your fudgesicle, you place the stick carefully in the wrapper before getting up. You reach across the tabletop and heft up your complete edition of Shakespeare’s plays. The thing is thick enough that you like to keep it by your bedside, just in case you ever wake up to an intruder in your apartment. It definitely doubles as a defensive weapon.

Penny lets out the long-suffering sigh of someone over going through the interminable motions of this spiel the two of you have inadvertently established. “What are you going to do then, tonight?” she asks. “Eat Cup Noodles and read Shakespeare?”

You can feel your face heating up. That really had been the plan.

“Jane Austen, actually,” you mumble without looking at her, clutching the book to your chest like a shield.

“Just… come down tonight, yeah? It’ll do you good to see some people. You’re twenty-three, sweetie. You shouldn’t be sitting around all on your own,” she says gently. “Please?”

The thing about Penny is that beneath her cool-girl veneer, beneath the tough-as-steel attitude of a bar owner, beneath the badass single mom allures, she’s really, really kind. It lets her get away with stuff that would be unacceptable coming from anybody else, but it also means she’s coming from a place of love, most of the time.

You know this. Which is why the next thing you ask is, “Does your bar have aircon?”

The dress was a mistake.

You know it the moment you step out of your Uber. It’s too short, so you just know you’ll be spending the rest of the night tugging at the hem every few minutes. It’s also low in the back where the tightly tied straps of the halter-neck slap against your shoulders, and that means everyone can probably see the patch of acne your dermatologist promised would subside after puberty. Turns out, all men really do is lie. So you’re also going to have to find a wall to perch against and maintain that position until it’s socially acceptable to leave without Penny being angry with you.

In short: you’re deeply uncomfortable.

You don’t even remember why you picked this out earlier, let alone why you bought it in the first place. A mixture of misplaced bravado and alcohol on a night of online shopping, probably. It’s just that there’s this thing you sometimes get, this peculiar tug in your stomach, this strange desire to be seen at the same time that you’re terrified. You want to be invisible, but sometimes you think you’ll die if you don’t get any attention.

Maybe you just want people to perceive you, but without any of the negative consequences that might come with it.

That’s not how the world works, though, a voice at the back of your head tells you that sounds so much like Penny it scares you.

You spend a good five minutes idling by the parked cars, turning your keys over and over and over in your hands. You have half a mind just to go back home.

The Hard Deck is spilling buttery yellow light into the darkness of the night, and people migrate to it like moths to a lamp. You can hear the music and the chattering of voices even from where you’re standing in the gravel parking lot. It’s the sort of thing that should probably make you excited, but instead, you feel the familiar swoop of anxiety in the pit of your stomach.

Ridiculous, you scold yourself. You can’t honestly be afraid of a night in a bar.

Even past ten o’clock, with the sun set beyond the horizon in a display of pinks and oranges and blues so ostentatious it bordered on smugness - like the sky was saying, hey, look what I can do! - it’s still too hot. You can feel pearls of sweat beading in the nape of your neck, the tops of your thighs, the peak of your hairline. If you don’t go in now, the make-up you spent an embarrassingly long time perfecting will melt down your face in a puddle of mascara and lipgloss.

I’ll just stay for a while, you think. I’ll let Penny make me a pink and fruity cocktail, and then I’m going home in an hour. It’s gonna be okay. I’m gonna be okay.

You’re really trying to hype yourself up as you climb the few steps to the front porch. A few people are milling about here, nursing beers, a couple making out towards the railing where the light doesn’t reach.

Inside, the air smells like sweat and beer and good times. There really is air conditioning, but it doesn’t do too much to dispel the heat of too many people pressing into too little space. People crowd towards the bar, a throng of them, as they nudge and poke to beat each other to the next drink order. It’s mostly people from the Army base, you realize, a little taken aback. A sea of short hair and tan uniforms, beers in hands, and smiles on faces. The jukebox is playing a Springsteen tune.

You’re distracted enough that when somebody bumps into you, you let out an actual yelp and almost lose your footing.

Large hands come up to steady you by the elbows. “Sorry, sweetheart,” someone says from behind you.

You turn on your heel quickly. The guy is beautiful, because of course he is. The sort of beautiful you can recognize even when you get only a glimpse of his jaw and shoulders. Tall, tan, fit.

Your heart skips a beat.

He’s also not looking at you at all, hands already gone from you, neck craned to presumably look for someone in the sea of people.

“Didn’t see you there,” he says, and then he’s strutting away from you just as quickly as he’d come.

And, okay… ouch.

Now you regret wanting to be invisible earlier. Turns out the actual thing does not feel good. Not one bit.

A pit opens up in your stomach, and you need to swallow down whatever emotion is rising in your throat. You have the sudden, embarrassing, debilitating urge to cry.

Then somebody calls your name across the room. It’s Penny, waving at you from behind the bar with a massive grin on her face, and you could fall to your knees with relief.

You push your way through the crowd, fighting elbows and knees until, finally, your palms hit the wooden counter. It’s sticky beneath your fingers. You cringe.

“You made it!” Penny cheers. She draws a perfect glass of beer from the tap even as she talks to you.

You’re reluctantly impressed.

“Yay!” you agree, miming sad little jazz hands.

Penny laughs, never one to let even the most pitiful excuse of a joke pass her by. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t show.”

“I did promise,” you say. You didn’t mean for it to come out as defensive as it does.

Penny shakes her head, still smiling. She deposits the beers in the waiting hands of a Navy pilot, then turns to you. “I don’t doubt your integrity, sweetie. Just your commitment to having fun.”

“Yeah,” you agree, slowly letting your gaze wander over the overstuffed bar. “Fun.”

This time, Penny actually snorts. “Just have a drink, yeah? Relax.”

People have been telling you to relax for years now. You’re too tense, you’re too uptight, you gotta loosen up a little. They did it in high school. They did it when you were studying for an English degree in college you haven’t used even once in the year since your graduation. Hell, you’re pretty sure somebody did it when you were still showing up to kindergarten Halloween costume contests dressed up as a Math teacher while everybody else was a Power Ranger or a Princess.

It’s just a little difficult to relax when all you’ve got is childhood trauma, an apartment you can’t afford, friends you don’t talk to anymore, and student loans to pay off until the end of your life.

“I haven’t been relaxed a day in my life,” you say drily.

You can’t be sure because she’s turning to fill a row of shot glasses lined up neatly on the countertop, but you’re almost positive Penny is rolling her eyes.

“I could help you relax.” You know it’s the guy from earlier before you even turn to confirm your suspicion. He’s sidled up behind you, leaning half over your shoulder. This time, he glances down at you and has the audacity to send you a wink. “I’ve been told I’m quite good at that.”

Now that you know he’s a total sleaze, you feel better about how he ignored you earlier.

“Seriously?” you say. “Has that line ever worked for you?”

A grin spreads over his features. You realize he has an incredibly punchable face.

“Sweetheart,” he drawls, “when you look like me, you don’t really need any lines.”

You bristle. A remark you hope will be scathing builds up on the tip of your tongue, but you’re interrupted before you can let it loose.

“Hangman.” You’re seriously confused by the tone of genuine affection in Penny’s voice. What the hell is that about? “What can I get you?”

“I’ll have a round of beers.” He lets his eyes drift down to you again, and his grin grows impossibly wider. “Plus whatever the little lady’s having. You can put it on my tab.”

Little lady. You’re about to vomit on the countertop. You’re definitely not feeling a strange tightening sensation in your stomach. Nope, no way.

“No, thank you,” you say pointedly. “I can pay for my own drinks.”

Never mind you know for a fact you have about ten dollars left in your wallet.

“Come on,” the guy says, nudging you a little where he’s still hovering over you. He’s so goddamn close. You can feel the heat he radiates, can smell the scent of his aftershave, something spicy yet sweet. When he speaks, his chest rumbles with the sound inches behind you. “See it as an apology for knocking into you earlier.”

So he does remember. You’re not sure if that makes you feel better or worse.

Penny is watching the exchange with a raised eyebrow and a twinkle of something you can’t name in her eyes. It’s enough to inspire actual fear in you.

“Let me guess…” The guy pretends to think about it for a moment or two. “You want something pink and fruity, yeah?”

You can’t believe it’s that easy for him to read you, can’t believe the way it has instant, white-hot shame flashing through you. Now you really want to punch him.

Shoulders actually, genuinely shaking with all the anger piling up inside of you, you turn to face Penny. “Scotch,” you say. “Neat.”

Penny is staring at the two of you as if she’s watching a tennis match. Then, you become suddenly and uncomfortably aware of a bar full of people tailgating behind you, waiting their turn to order their drink.

While you’re starting to feel your skin itch with all the attention, the guy seems to have no qualms. His finger appears in your field of vision as he points at you. “You heard the little lady, Penny. One scotch. Neat.”

He over-pronounces the word, the t crisp and sharp, mocking you, and you grab the countertop hard enough your knuckles protrude white beneath the skin.

Penny shrugs and reaches beneath the bar to retrieve a glass and a bottle of scotch. Then, as if calling back to some inside joke, she says, “You got it, Hangman.”

That stuns you.

“Your name is Hangman?” you ask, and you can’t keep the genuine disbelief out of your voice. “What, did your parents hate you? What the fuck kinda name is that?”

He raises an eyebrow, but the smirk remains unrattled. “You got a pretty dirty mouth, huh, sweetheart?”

“I can curse as much as I like, thank you very much.”

He hums, says, “We’ll see about that.”

And when you look over your shoulder, you find him staring at your lips.

You whip back around, elbows squished between your body and the bar, heart beating a hundred miles a minute. Blindly, you stare straight ahead, through the open back doors, to where the moonlight reflects off ocean waves. Something is itching beneath your skin now. You have to calm down before you blow your fuse.

“Hangman,” he explains after a moment of silence, “is my callsign.”

That clarifies just about nothing to you. “Callsign?” you repeat. “What are you, a phone sex operator?”

It was supposed to be an insult, but he throws his head back, laughing like you made the funniest joke he’s ever heard. Then he leans forward, all the way into your personal space, chest pressing to your back, shoulders brushing yours, his breath hot against the shell of your ear as he says, “If you want me to talk dirty to you, sweetheart, all you need to do is ask.”

It sort of wipes your mind clean. No thoughts, only your body reacting - stomach tightening, hairs standing on end, a shiver down your spine. Penny sets the scotch down in front of you, then breezes off to serve some other customers. You barely even see her. Your breaths are coming a little faster, your heart is beating a little harder.

Then he straightens up again, all points of contact suddenly gone. If you weren’t sandwiched between him and the bar with nowhere to go, you think you might tip over backward. It’s all so sudden it leaves you dizzy.

He chuckles, and you hold your ground. Refuse to look at him. If he has picked up on just how rattled he’s got you, you’d rather at least not know about it.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not a phone sex operator,” Hangman says. “I’m a fighter pilot. More dangerous, just as sexy.”

You twist around to get a better look at him. Then, for the first time, you take note of the khaki uniform. Nobody, you think, absolutely nobody, should be able to make that color work for them. And yet somehow, it brings out the green in his eyes.

“Bigger environmental footprint.”

It’s pretty weak, admittedly, but this whole night has spiraled into a realm you didn’t plan for so quickly that you can’t come up with anything else. As a result, you’re uncharacteristically out of your depth.

“Bigger everything,” he shoots back, raising a single eyebrow in challenge.

You don’t know how to counter that, so you take a sip of your scotch and then have to concentrate way too hard not to spit it right back out. The first time you ever tasted alcohol, you snuck a gulp from your dad’s class of Whiskey on the rocks. This is almost as vile, if not worse. Years of consuming margaritas exclusively seem to have dialed your tolerance for straight, hard liquor down to a solid zero.

“You still sure about that drink?” Hangman asks. The amusement is so evident in the upward turn of his mouth that it makes you want to kick his teeth in or hide behind the counter with Penny. One of the two, just as long as you don’t have to keep looking at him. “I’ll buy you something else. Maybe Penny serves juice boxes.”

Just to spite him, you down the whole thing in a single, long drink.

It burns a trail of fire down your esophagus, and you have to fight a coughing fit so violent you’re not sure you aren’t about to choke. Big mistake, definitely. Huge.

You try your best to keep your face neutral, but your muscles aren’t cooperating. At least if Hangman’s smirk is anything to go by, he’s definitely called your bluff.

“Well, you took that like a trooper,” he says drily.

Anger lodges in your throat.

“You must be the most insufferable pilot in the whole Navy,” you tell him, hoping all the distaste you feel for Hangman translates into your voice.

Not that it matters. He seems to be one of those guys so infatuated with themselves that everything just rolls off their shoulders, like water off a duck’s back.

“I like to think so,” he says amicably. “I excel at most things I try. Always strive for excellence.”

You’ve never considered yourself a particularly violent person, but you’re pretty sure you would have broken his nose right then and there if it hadn’t been for Penny choosing that exact moment to swoop in.

“Here are your drinks, Hangman.” She places them on the countertop, then jabs a thumb towards the back of the bar. Her voice goes a little pointed as she says, “I think your friends miss you.”

He doesn’t look annoyed to be interrupted, and you can’t believe it, but it puts a little dent in your pride.

Just how stupid am I? you ask yourself, making a point to face away from him again.

Hangman twists his upper body to reach around you, somehow balancing three bottles in each hand, clamped between his fingers like he’s the alcoholic version of Edward Scissorhands. For a moment, you’re completely enveloped by him, in his arms, and it’s too much, definitely too much, goes straight to your head. You can smell him again, the aftershave and the body spray and the sweat, and as his chest presses flush to your back, you swear you can feel the beat of his heart against all that bare skin exposed by the dress.

“You ever need some help relaxing,” he says into your ear, and for an instant, you feel the ghost of his lips tracing against your ear lobe, “you just ask, yeah, sweetheart?”

And then he’s gone, leaving you clutching at the bar desperately. Your legs feel like jello, ready to give out beneath the weight of your body.

What the fuck just happened? you ask yourself silently. Your mind is still completely, absolutely blank.

Penny pops up out of nowhere like a meerkat. Something on her face tells you you’d better run for cover right now unless you want to get wrapped up in one of her schemes, but you’re rooted to the spot.

“So…” she drawls, and the grin blooming on her face is downright devious. “Hangman, huh?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you mumble, rummaging through your purse just to have something to steady the tremors in your hands.

“He was so coming onto you.”

“He was not.”

“Oh, yeah, he totally was. That was aggressive even for Hangman standards, and, lord, that’s saying something.”

“Can I get, like… a glass of water?”

Penny ignores you. “You should totally go for it.”

She nods her head in the direction he disappeared, and you can’t help but follow with your eyes. A group of Navy pilots is shooting pool in the back towards the opened doors. Even among all the uniforms, Hangman sticks out to you - blond hair, tan skin, smirk you want to slap right off his face. He’s laughing at something the only woman in the group said - a real, full-bellied laugh - and then, out of the blue, as if he can feel your gaze, looks right up at you.

Across the chaos of the bar, across the scattered tables, across the people swaying to the ABBA song playing from the jukebox, across the raised beer bottles and lowering shot glasses, he sends you a wink.

Feeling caught, you turn away instantly. Your cheeks feel like they’re on fire.

“No way,” you say. It doesn’t come out as firm as you want it to, your voice wavering, and you have half a mind to ask for a bucket of ice to thrust your head into. Maybe that could clear the cobwebs.

Penny laughs. “You sure, honey? You look like you’re about to spontaneously combust.”

“I’m sure I do,” you agree. “From anger. I’ve never met somebody that obnoxious.”

It’s pretty clear you’re grasping at straws here.

“I’ve known him since he was a student at Top Gun. He’s a good guy,” Penny says. “Deep down.”

“How deep are we talking? Like Mariana Trench? Center of the earth?”

Penny rolls her eyes. “Come on. Stop thinking so much. Go and have some fun.”

You point at the sign hanging above her bar, the one she’s so proud of she has mentioned it to you several times. “I thought you were supposed to help out when somebody disrespects a lady in here.”

It makes her laugh, a genuine laugh full of amusement and affection that bursts out from deep in her belly. She pets your hand gently.

“You can handle yourself. I know it for a fact.” The smile goes from genuine to mischievous. “Besides… you could stand to be disrespected a little. In the bedroom.”

You gape at her retreating back for a moment.

Then you drop your face into your hands and mutter to yourself, “Oh, God.”

Again… what the fuck just happened?

“Hangman asked me to give him your number.”

Penny doesn’t even wait until the end of the lesson this time.

You’re at the Benjamin dining table, watching over Amelia’s shoulder as she writes a short paragraph on misogynistic themes in Much Ado About Nothing. All the ice cubes in your water glass have melted, and the condensation leaves rings on the tabletop and damp against your palms.

When you glance up from Amelia’s work, her mother is standing in the doorway to the kitchen, arms folded in front of her chest. She’s grinning. You look back at the notebook and pretend your heart hasn’t just started racing.

Amelia, whose pen has stilled, asks, “What’s a hangman?”

“Who,” Penny corrects. “He’s a guy interested in your tutor.”

“There’s only one c in unnecessary,” you say. “A shirt has one collar, two sleeves.”

Amelia doesn’t seem to have heard you. “Oh my god,” she says. “Is he cute?”

“Very,” Penny answers at the same time that you grit out, “Not at all.”

“Is he a pilot, too?” Amelia asks, shooting her mother a look you don’t miss.

For all that she is just a teenager with all the eccentricities and dramatics that entails, Amelia has what some would call an old soul. She’s always looking out for her mother, always thinking things through to the bitter ends that Penny would rather look at through the lenses of her perpetual rose-colored glasses.

It reminds you of yourself, and sometimes you want to hug Amelia, hold her, tell her she doesn’t need to take on all these battles. That she deserves to be a child, should revel in it for as long as she can. You don’t want her to end up like you, all this baggage and no one to help you carry it.

“Of course.” Penny, unperturbed, pushes into the room and pulls out a chair for herself. “Nobody can resist those Military men.”

You hide your snort behind a coughing fit just so you don’t give Penny the satisfaction of thinking she’s actually funny. She doesn’t deserve that.

“When did you meet him?”

“Saturday, at your mom’s bar,” you explain, pulling her notebook towards you. “And we didn’t meet. He almost knocked me over and then proceeded to mock me for ten minutes. Not exactly romantic.”

Penny rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. He was flirting with her like crazy.”

You pretend to be busy scanning over Amelia’s writing, but you don’t register much past the words Hero and Claudio.

“Which one is Hangman again?” Amelia asks. She sounds much too invested in this for your liking.

“The blond one.”

“Oh, with the green eyes?”

“That’s the one.”

“Wait, he’s so cute.”

You groan and drop your head onto the tabletop.

So yeah, maybe there are people out there with real problems. People that are starving or people that have lost their homes. Compare your situation to them, and your toil will seem like nothing. All that is true. But right now, at this moment, you can’t imagine a fate worse than having both Benjamin women pouncing on you like this.

“Don’t be so dramatic, sweetie.” Penny pats the top of your head like you’re a small dog. A miniature poodle or something. “If anything, Hangman will be a good time.”

You turn your head so your cheek is pressed against the wood of the table and glare at her. “Maybe we shouldn’t discuss this in front of your teenage daughter.”

“This isn’t the worst conversation she’s had in front of me,” Amelia says. She’s doodling something in the top corner of her essay. At your skeptical look, she shrugs. “Mom gets chatty when she’s drunk.”

“What I’m saying,” Penny continues, voice rising just a little, “is that you won’t regret giving Hangman your number. You need to loosen up a little.”

“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t notice that innuendo,” you mumble under your breath, then sit back up abruptly. “Absolutely no way. He’s not getting my number.”

“I think it would be cool if you had a boyfriend,” Amelia interjects.

“You and me both, baby,” Penny agrees, leaning across the table to take a sip of Amelia’s sugar-free Mountain Dew.

You are going to start screaming spontaneously any minute now.

“I’m perfectly fine being single.”

Amelia grimaces. “You literally know half of Much Ado About Nothing by heart.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” Penny reassures quickly and gives her daughter a placating look. “Just that you might have a bit too much time on your hands.”

“That’s not true. I work six days a week.”

“Exactly!” Penny smiles from ear to ear. It’s almost angelic, that smile. You can’t believe there’s an actual demon hiding behind it. “Which is why I should give Hangman your number. You have to have some fun at least one day a week.”

“I agree,” Amelia says.

“Am I still getting paid for this?” you ask, glancing at your phone to get the time. “Does this stay on the clock?”

Penny doesn’t answer your question. “I just think anybody in Fightertown needs to go on at least one date with a Navy pilot. It’s a rite of passage, really.”

“Aren’t there any other eligible pilots around then? Somebody nice? Literally anybody else?”

Penny’s smile turns soft. “You’re not seriously trying to convince me you’d be content with a nice guy, are you?”

That gives you pause. “What’s wrong with nice guys?”

“Absolutely nothing. Just… I don’t think nice is what you need at all, sweetie.”

You exhale loudly and then sit up, shaking away the strands of hair plastered to your cheek. “I don’t think I could stand being around Hangman either.”

“I’m not saying you should get married to the guy,” Penny acquiesces, “just… go on one date.”

You think about it for a moment. Think about dressing up in your prettiest dress, waiting outside your shitty apartment complex for Hangman to pick you up. Would he wear his uniform again or civilian clothes? You imagine him in jeans and a t-shirt, a hoodie for when it gets colder, the way the fabric would hug his broad shoulders. Would he take you to a restaurant or to the movies? No, Hangman seems like the type of guy to take you somewhere he can show off, you decide, to go bowling or surfing or something equally embarrassing for you, gratifying for him. You think about sharing a bottle of beer on the beach, the ocean spreading far and wide and blue in front of you, waves cresting, the moon gleaming, his warm hand on your back, his voice so close to your ear. Think of drawing him closer, his breath on your mouth, his touch on your hips…

You shake your head to banish the thoughts.

No way, you think, and something inside of you flutters with the sudden fear of it all, no way I can do this.

“I don’t think so, Penny,” you say. Your voice has gone quiet, dispassionate but firm, and you know Penny will know not to push further. “We should get finished with this lesson.”

Penny is quiet for so long that you know she’s swallowing down words. So you make it a point not to look at her.

There’s a fear inside of you, a fear that stands in doorways and won’t let you pass. A fear that blocks the pathways of your life. You’ve been static for so long now that you don’t know how to shake it. Sometimes you don’t even know if you want to.

There’s something reassuring about not moving. It means you won’t get lost.

Finally, Penny sighs. “Alright,” she says, rapping her knuckles against the tabletop. “Be good, you two.”

You concentrate on the words blurring and sliding off the page in front of you and ignore the insistent, nagging voice at the back of your head chanting coward coward coward.

It’s Friday, but you’re not feeling at all inclined to thank God for it.

The gas station is deserted, which, in your humble opinion, is much worse than when it’s busy. Because no costumers mean nothing to do and nothing to do means nothing to occupy your mind with, and nothing to occupy your mind with means thinking, thinking, thinking.

You’re like a broken record - getting halfway through a thought before you circle back to the beginning, endless loops cartwheeling around and around.

It goes: Penny, Amelia, Hangman, Saturdays at the Hard Deck, Arizona Ice Tea spill in aisle four, Hangman, Hangman, Hangman… record scratch, pause, tape spooling, rewinding, replaying.

You’re so bored you’ve counted all the ceiling tiles four times. On the radio, they’re talking about the weather. The slushie machine is spinning cherry-colored ice with little, gurgling sounds.

The bell chimes, and you barely look up from your phone screen. A few lowered voices, the sound of laughter, and shuffling feet on linoleum floors as the group approaches the glass walls behind which row after row of drinks stands huddled can to can in the blessed cool. You blow a strand of hair out of your eyes.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?”

And you must have done something really horrible in a past life - there’s no other explanation for why the universe keeps doing this to you.

Hangman is leaning against the counter, one elbow braced on the top, the other arm lifting to flick his sunglasses down to the tip of his nose. He’s smirking, and the expression has become so familiar already that you think it might be melded with his face. You pretend not to notice the sleeve of his uniform straining against his bicep.

“Are you stalking me?” you ask.

“Definitely not.” Stepping away from the counter, he lifts a sixpack into the air. “I’m buying beer.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You got any ID?”

It punches a laugh out of him, and you don’t like it. You weren’t aiming to amuse him - you want to annoy him. You want to make his skin crawl the way he does to you. You want to slip inside his mind and burrow there, stay there, get lodged there. A splinter in his finger. A thorn in his side.

The intensity of it scares you, and when you reach for your water bottle, playing with the cap, your hands are shaking.

He reaches into his pocket and gets out his wallet. The picture on his driver’s license is old; He’s younger in it but no less handsome. His hair is just as blond, his eyes just as green. There's nothing ridiculous about it, unlike the botched photo you took at the DMV years ago.

You glance at his date of birth belatedly, almost like an afterthought, then do the mental math quickly. Not because you think he isn’t old enough to buy the beer. Just to find out how big the gap between him and you is.

Seven years. Seven years… you don’t know what that means. You don’t know why you care.

“Alright.” You move to ring up the sixpack, but he shakes his head.

“Waiting for my friends,” he explains with a thumb thrown over his shoulder.

“You have friends?”

He laughs again. “You’re funny.”

“I’m not trying to be,” you mutter and, resolved not to engage with him any further, pick your phone back up and settle in against the shelf of cigarettes behind you to ignore him.

He is having none of it, and you’re not even surprised.

“I liked the dress better, but those shorts aren’t half bad either.”

You look down at your work uniform of white denim shorts and a hideously orange vest with your name tag pinned to the chest. It is a downgrade from Saturday’s outfit, that’s for sure, but you haven’t settled on how you feel that he remembers it yet.

“I didn’t think you noticed my dress,” you say.

“Sweetheart, you’d have to be an idiot not to notice that dress.”

It has you lifting an eyebrow, seeing an in. “Oh, so you admit you’re an idiot then? Since you ran into me and all?”

His smirk goes just a fraction wider. “Maybe I did it on purpose.”

“You run into girls on purpose often?”

“Only the real pretty ones.”

It makes your head spin because… things like this just don’t happen to you. Not with guys like Hangman, at least. And it’s not even because you think you’re ugly or unappealing. Rationally you know you’re not. It’s just that he’s so… he’s so…

“What, am I so handsome you’re speechless?”

He’s so goddamn insufferable.

“You torturing this poor girl, Hang?”

You recognize the woman from last Saturday, her sharp cheekbones, the glossy hair sleeked back into an army-mandated but nonetheless impressive coil at the back of her neck. She’s pushed her sunglasses up to the top of her head, which already makes her less of a show-off than Hangman by a mile. The smile she gives you is genuine and warm, and you feel yourself relax.

Anything’s better than being alone with Hangman.

“Oh, hardly.” Hangman shuffles to the side to let the woman heave another six-pack onto the counter. “If anything, she’s the one torturing me.”

There’s a literal ball of fire in your stomach, radiating heat all the way up to your cheeks. You must be looking like a deer caught in headlights right now.

The woman purses her lips. There’s so much derision in this one minuscule expression that it has actual jealousy jolting through you. Man, if only you could look at Hangman like that, you might actually make some sort of impact on him.

“Stop lying, man.” The woman rolls her eyes and then shares a look with you, something conspiratorial, something long-suffering only women can share in the presence of a man severely overestimating his own desirability. “She’ll punch you before she lets you take her out.”

Hangman shrugs. “Fine with me. It’s a fine line between love and hate.”

“What the fuck,” you mumble and busy yourself with the register.

“Is he bothering ladies again?” Two other men in Navy uniforms step up. One, tall, dark-skinned, mustachioed, dumps a whole armful of snacks on the counter, then grins at you a little sheepishly.

“Always,” the woman answers without missing a beat.

Hangman says, “I’m not bothering her if she enjoys it.”

You’re almost entirely positive that he winked at you again, but you make it a point not to look up and start scanning items instead.

“You guys need any bags?”

“That’s alright,” the woman answers.

They chat among themselves as you ring them up, but you can feel Hangman’s eyes on you the whole time. It’s enough to make you feeble, clumsy, and try your best not to drop anything.

You don’t know what compels you to say something. By all means, you should stay quiet. Let him leave. Never think about it again.

Instead, you pick up a bag of flaming hot Cheetos and say, as casually as you can manage, “Are you having a party?”

“Bonfire,” Hangman corrects. His elbow is still balanced on the counter, all that tanned skin, and you let your eyes follow the trail of his arm, up to his chest where his name tag spells SERESIN, all in capital letters. You pause there, staring at the name. “On the beach.”

You think that’s going to be it, that you’re going to ring him up and send him home. You’ll bite your tongue bloody before you say another word.

But then he continues, “You should come.”

He hasn’t been exactly subtle in his flirting, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise, and yet somehow it does, enough to stun you. Maybe it’s just your lack of self-confidence, but such a blatant invitation to spend an evening not just with him but with all his friends, makes your brain short-circuit.

“I have to work,” you answer almost automatically, brain operating completely on auto-pilot.

He lifts his shoulders in a noncommittal shrug. “After work, then.”

You open your mouth but can’t come up with another excuse, so you just settle on, “Your total is 42,98.”

You think he will fight you on it like he’s been fighting you on everything since the first time you met. But he just smirks, only one side of his mouth lifting, and gets his card from his pocket.

“I’ll pay,” he says.

When you accept his card, you take painfully meticulous care not to let your fingers brush against his.

The woman watches the whole exchange, and as you glance at her, something unreadable, some tiny flicker of emotion crosses her face before a genuine, slight smile replaces it.

Hangman stores his wallet in his pocket and starts collecting snacks in both arms, as do the other two men. You watch it all with a strange feeling fluttering in your chest, something that grows in your throat, threatening to choke you.

You wonder what it would be like to live in the moment, to stop thinking of consequences, stop weighting every decision with scales, overthinking every issue until you’ve looked at it from every angle and still haven’t found a single solution. You wonder what it would be like to throw your hands up in the air, say fuck it, who cares, wait for the end of your shift and drive down to that beach, get drunk on the beer you sold to the most obnoxious pilot in the history of the Navy, to take him home later and then have him inevitably never call you or text you or even speak to you again.

You wonder what it would be like not to feel the weight of the world drag you down, down, down.

“See you around, sweetheart,” Hangman says, smirking, pushing his aviators back up the bridge of his nose until the green eyes disappear behind the dark shades, until he’s obstructed from view. Until he becomes once more just a guy you pass on shopping streets, too beautiful to be real, too beautiful to ever talk to you. He turns towards the door, the other two in tow.

If he looks back, you think, torn between wishing and dreading, if he looks back, I’ll go.

He doesn’t look back.

Only the woman hangs back, looking at you with the same expression you can’t make light of. Curiosity, maybe. Interest.

“He’s not giving you too much trouble, is he?” she asks after a moment.

Her voice is different now, less harsh somehow. Softer.

You can’t even imagine what it must be like to try and make it as a woman in a world that’s still as obviously run by men as the army. You suppose there’s some amount of adjustment involved, some posturing. A shell as thick as armor.

“It’s… it’s fine. He’s harmless.” You’re surprised at your own words but not as surprised as you are to find that you actually mean them.

No part of you feels threatened by Hangman; no part of you feels unsafe or intimidated. You’ve been hit on by enough sleazy men in bars to know that that’s a rarity.

“He can be a lot, sometimes.”

You snort. “I can tell. If anyone’s in danger here, though, it’s him.”

She raises an eyebrow, and her sunglasses, still pushed into her hair, climb with the movement. “How so?”

“If he keeps going as he has been, I’ll punch him in the face.”

She grins and says, “I don’t doubt it.”

It’s nice. Pleasant. Easy.

You can’t remember the last time you spoke to somebody close to your own age like this, almost like you’re friends. At the realization, your heart gives a painful pang.

“I’m Phoenix, by the way,” she says, offering you a hand across the counter.

You take it without hesitation and smile at her as you tell her your name.

She nods. “We usually hang around the Hard Deck on Saturdays if you ever want to come by.”

“Oh,” you say, “Thank you.”

It’s a genuine offer, you can tell. She doesn’t strike you as somebody who says things she doesn’t mean, and that’s why it’s special to you.

She nods again, says goodbye, and pushes off the counter.

By the door, she pauses suddenly. Then, with one hand already on the handle, she glances back at you.

“He’s not a bad guy,” Phoenix says, face gentle, and you don’t need to ask who she’s talking about. “He’s just… he’s just Hangman. He acts like an asshole, but he’s a softie on the inside.”

You sink your teeth into your lower lip, unsure how to answer.

Phoenix shrugs. “I just thought you should know,” she says.

The bell above the door rings as she steps outside. A gust of warm wind blows in. The aircon groans once and pumps more stale, cool air into the room. The radio is stuck on a Katy Perry song. You tap your fingers against the countertop in a rhythmless pattern, squeeze your eyes shut, and think of the long, long stretch of nothingness that extends before you.

Three months ago, you packed your life into a car.

It had never been part of the plan. Because that was a thing you used to have, once upon a time - a plan. You knew exactly what you wanted, from the job to the dog breed to the car. There was a house down the road from your parents, a house with a blue door and a white fence, and a tire swing dangling from the branches of an old, twisting willow tree, and you had known you’d buy it one day since you were five.

When you were eight, you used to run past that house every day to catch the school bus, thinking what it would be like to be up on that swing, kicking your legs and soaring higher, higher, higher, up into the blue of the sky. When you were fifteen, you wondered what it would be like to live in a house with two stories, a house where things wouldn’t be cramped, where you didn’t have to spend fifteen minutes waiting for the only bathroom to be free, where you didn’t hit your elbows and knees and shins and toes on all the nooks and crannies and rusting nails protruding from wood. Finally, when you were twenty, you wondered what it would be like to come home from work to a husband who loved you and kids who smiled at you.

So you used to have a plan. Go to college, get a job, grow up, get married, buy that house. You used to have things figured out.

And then your mother died.

You remember watching her as she began to fade, as she went translucent like the paper she used to wrap your sandwiches in. As cancer dissected her, flayed her open, ate away her edges, a little more each day. As she went from vibrant colors to shades of gray, film history reversing itself. You remember when it got so bad, you left college to go back home, to sit by her bedside every day, to feed her by the spoon as she had once fed you, to read to her from the books you had once studied in 8 am classes, from Bronte and Joyce and Fitzgerald.

One morning you walked into her room, expecting to see her awake, and found that she’d gone cold in the night instead. To this day, you’ll never forget how that felt - the grief of it, instant and cleaving you in two, the panic of practicality, of not knowing what to do or who to call. And then the relief, that horrible, warped thing that welled up inside of you, that you still can’t forgive yourself for, because at least it was finally over, all that suffering and all that waiting around for the inevitable.

It was a small funeral. Your parents divorced years ago, back in the cartoon and apple juice days of your life, and your father was clumsy as always, a stranger in the face of the familiarity you’d shared with your mother. Just a touch of his fingertips to your shoulder at an open grave, a downward twist to his mouth, whispering sorry, kiddo, before he disappeared back into the lovely townhouse with his new family and the younger, more agreeable versions of you, the children he’d actually wanted. Back to sending you a birthday card a week late or a month late or not at all and never calling and never visiting and scheduling Facetime calls he forgot about in favor of dance recitals or school plays.

So then you were alone. Resoundingly. Irrevocably.

You finished college in a daze, graduated just because you had gotten halfway there, and dropping out seemed like a bigger hassle than finishing. Found yourself with a degree you no longer remembered what you had wanted to do with in the first place and all those crippling student loans.

That house with the blue door and the white fence and the tire swing on the willow tree had lost its meaning. Your plan had turned to dust and slipped through your fingers, had been buried right alongside your mother.

So you sold your mother’s place (because who wants a house full of ghosts anyway, a house where each room reminds you of something that will spend the rest of your life missing from you) and got in your car, and you drove. You drove along the coast, through the thick trees of Washington, past the streams of Oregon, through the deserts of California, and when your car finally broke down in Fightertown, you said, fuck it, whatever, might as well, other places suck too. And you stayed.

It has remained the only time in your life you have ever acted on impulse, ever let your heart decide instead of your head, and you’re still not sure if it was the right decision.

You spend your days now trying to scrape together enough money to pay for your electricity bills and your rent and your gas. Just enough to get a frozen yogurt every once in a while. Just enough money so you don’t have to think about money all the time, counting it, saving it, missing it.

It’s sad, you think, when you’re alone at night, spread-eagle on your bed, limbs dangling off the sides of the mattress, staring up at the water stain spreading like a plume of smoke across your ceiling. A sad, little life with no direction.

You’re wallowing, and you know you are. Your penchant for dramatics is getting the best of you.

Most days, it’s not so bad. You like Penny, and you like Amelia, and the other day you went to see a movie at the theater, and that was nice. You like your books and your music and the Reese’s peanut butter cups you buy with your employee discount at the gas station. You like the beach, the taste of salt on your lips, and how the sun feels on the tip of your nose.

So most days, it’s not so bad. And then sometimes, it is.

Then it settles around like a dark cloud, like a fear you just can’t shake. That nagging anxiety in the pit of your stomach that seems to have no cause and no solution gnaws at you, yaps around your ankles, sinks its fangs into you, and won’t let go.

That’s when you curl into bed (but not under the covers because it’s still California and still too hot and still too expensive to keep the fan spinning) and blink into the nothingness and don’t move. And that’s when you dream, or else the dread of it all will swallow you whole and never spit you out again.

So you tell yourself that’s why you’re here again, at the Hard Deck, for the second week in a row, choosing to spend your Saturday with a bunch of sweaty drunk people instead of a family-size pizza. It’s just because you want to avoid the maelstrom of your mind.

It’s definitely not because you couldn’t stand the echoing loneliness of your shitty apartment anymore. It’s definitely not because Phoenix invited you and just seemed so goddamn nice. And it’s most definitely, a 100 percent certainly, cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die, not because of Hangman.

You’ll go to your grave swearing that.

When you shuffle into the bar, Penny stares at you like you’ve grown a second head. It’s early enough that there’s still space to move.

“What the hell?” she says, abandoning her task completely in favor of turning to gawk at you. “What are you doing here?”

You shrug your shoulders, trying for nonchalance even as you feel like there are tiny bugs wriggling beneath your skin. Too many eyes on you. “I was craving a drink.”

Penny raises an eyebrow in what you recognize as the international sign of not convincing enough.

“Who the hell are you,” she asks, “and what have you done with my daughter’s tutor?”

Ducking your head, you clumsily climb onto one of the barstools and fold your arms on the counter. Then you try to look around the bar as inconspicuously as possible.

“He’s not here yet,” Penny says.

“Huh?” Feeling caught, you busy yourself with adjusting the hem of your skirt, so it covers as much thigh space as possible. “What?”

Penny doesn’t even pretend to buy it for your benefit. “Hangman,” she says. “That’s why you’re here, right?”

You stiffen, alarm bells going off in your head. If she can read you this easily…

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you lie.

“Oh, come on, sweetie.” She pats your hand in a gesture you can’t describe as anything but pacifying. “It’s alright.”

Your face feels hot. “It’s not like that,” you say, but even you can tell it’s a feeble attempt at an argument.

Penny chuckles. It’s not a mean sound, quite the opposite, actually, but it still makes your heart sink an inch or two.

“There’s nothing wrong with being attracted to someone, you know?”

That has you bristling. “I’m not attracted to him,” you protest. “I hate him.”

Utterly unbothered by the note of distress that has snuck its way into your voice, Penny shakes her head, an affectionate smile playing about her mouth. “There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of hate-fucking either.”

The gasp her words elicit from you is downright scandalized. You throw a furtive look at the patrons around you to make sure nobody heard, but that just makes Penny’s smile grow.

At least one of you is having fun.

“I’m not going to hate fuck anybody,” you say and then immediately wish your voice had sounded more firm. Less squeaky.

Penny shrugs. “Alright. It’s a fine line between love and hate anyway.”

“Why does everybody keep telling me that?” you whisper.

Either Penny doesn’t think that worthy of an answer, or she didn’t hear you. Which is fine either way. It was more of a rhetorical question anyway.

“So what do you want to drink, then?” Penny asks, finally seeming to decide to indulge you just a little.

Finally you perk up. “Can you make me a Mojito?”

You spend the better part of an hour sitting at the bar, telling yourself you’re definitely not waiting around for him. You’re only here to get drunk.

But the longer you sit alone, watching people around you enjoying themselves, watching as the chatter goes from quiet to deafening, as the place fills up with a steady stream of patrons, the worse of an idea the whole thing seems like. You can’t remember what provoked you to come in the first place for the life of you.

Suddenly, your bed, a gaping, looming lion’s mouth earlier, seems like the most inviting place in the world.

“Penny,” you call, leaning across the counter and waving your hand to get her attention. “Can I just pay, please?”

“You’re going home?”

“I… yeah. I think so.”

With the way Penny is frowning at you, you can tell she isn’t too pleased, but she doesn’t fight you on it.

“I’ll let you go home, but you’re not paying,” she says.

“Penny, you already pay me. You don’t need to let me drink here for free, too.”

She chuckles. “Oh, I’m not. Hangman said to put anything you drink on his tab if you ever show up again.”

That gives you pause, your stomach tightening. “I can’t accept that,” you say, and your voice comes out strangely choked.

“Oh, but you can.”

It’s Hangman, because of course it is. He seems to have an uncanny ability to show up whenever you do so much as think of him. Like he can sense any mention of his name even from miles away. His ego is certainly big enough.

Grinning, he claims the empty space at the bar next to you, leaning his back against it with both elbows braced on the wood. “I wouldn’t be much of a gentleman if I let a girl as pretty as you pay for her own drinks, now would I?”

“Gentleman,” you repeat under your breath. “We’re just saying whatever now, huh?”

He ignores that, twisting around instead to chirp, “Penny, darling, light of my life, will you get her another… what is that, a virgin Mojito?”

You wish you could come up with something witty, but you’re distracted by the long, long stretch of his legs, and all that comes out is, “I drink them with alcohol, actually.”

“Really? Is it only scotch you have trouble with then?”

Now this reminds you just why you hate this guy. Who cares if he’s handsome? Who cares if your heart starts cartwheeling every time he smirks at you? He’s a certified, purebred bastard, and you’re seriously considering if the satisfaction of breaking his nose would be worth the inevitable lawsuit.

“I don’t need you to pay for my drink,” you say, voice firm this time.

“I know,” he counters, still smiling, “but I’m pretty sure the Navy pays me better than whatever you’re making at that gas station, so I don’t mind. Just stop being difficult and let me pay for whatever you order.”

The anger settles in your throat, already familiar. It’s difficult to keep it down, to keep your head from exploding.

“Fine,” you grit out from between clenched teeth. Then you turn away. “Penny? One round for everybody. It’s on him.”

The smile slides off Hangman’s face, his expression morphing into something stunned. For a moment, he actually looks impressed.

Then he laughs and shakes his head. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say there was something like begrudging admiration flickering across the planes of his face.

“Alright,” he says, “I’ll hand it to you, sweetheart. That was well played.”

He gives Penny the okay, smirk once more firmly in place. And you, triumph so short-lived that it dies inside you like a pathetic little candle snuffed out by a typhoon, consider letting loose a long, echoing screech.

Is there anything that will break that steely resolve of arrogance he carries everywhere he goes?

Penny rings the bell, and the answering cheer almost pops your eardrums. You turn away from Hangman before you do resort to violence and drain the last of your cocktail in a single sip.

“I’m going home,” you say and hop off the barstool. It brings you inevitably closer to Hangman, your thighs brushing his, and you pretend not to notice.

“So soon?” he asks, and you don’t need to turn to know he has raised one eyebrow. “I only just got here.”

“Hence my leaving,” you counter drily.

“And here I was thinking you wore this dress for me.”

He doesn’t touch you, but for a moment his fingers hook into the soft pink fabric of your dress, where it flares out around your hips. It’s enough to send a shiver down your back.

The worst part of it all, you think, is that he isn’t wrong. You upended the contents of your wardrobe earlier tonight until every available surface in your room - from the bed to the chair to the floor - was covered in clothes you deemed just not right. This number - flimsy, tight, low in the chest but a little more modest where the hem hits almost halfway down your thighs - was buried at the back of your closet, practically forgotten and with the price tag still on. Even as you laughed at how ridiculous you were being, part of you hoped he might notice.

And now that he has, you’re wishing you could rewind time and exchange the infernal thing for sweatpants and an old flannel.

“You’re way too full of yourself,” you tell him.

“So I’ve been told.” He gives you another once over, and suddenly you feel as if you’re standing naked in the middle of this bar. “This one’s spectacular, too, sweetheart, but I still maintain that first dress was my favorite.”

Somewhere between flattered and fed-up, you shoulder your purse. “Goodbye, Hangman.”

“Oh, come on.” He steps to block your path but makes no further move to touch you. “Have another drink with me.”

You’re about to protest when a gentle hand lands on your shoulder.

“You really need to learn how to take no for an answer, Bagman,” Phoenix says. “The lady’s not interested.”

You can feel the smile spreading on your face. Just in time, you think.

Ignoring Hangman completely, she turns to you. “You wanna shoot some pool with my friends and me?”

You glance at Hangman from the corner of your eye, unsure whether you hope she counts him among those friends or not. Then you nod because Phoenix is still nice, and you don’t actually want to go home to your empty apartment, and playing pool sounds fun just about now.

“Sure. Why not?”

As Phoenix leads you toward the tables in the back, you feel Hangman’s eyes on you like hot irons.

You’re five drinks in by the time you give up on pool.

“God,” you whine, lowering your cue. “I suck at this.”

“I’d disagree,” Payback says, staring down at the green felt of the table like he might be about to cry, “but I think you’re right.”

“Hey, we’re supposed to be on the same team!”

He grins. “Sorry, but my mother didn’t raise me to be a liar.”

There’s a warmth flooding your chest, something liquid and light. It might be the alcohol or the unfamiliar levity of it all. You’re more used to intense fits of worrying and anxiety than laughter with people you met only about an hour ago but still almost feel like friends.

“Want me to teach you, sweetheart?”

Hangman’s sitting on a barstool not far away, nursing his beer. He’s been staring at you since you started the game, and maybe it's part of the reason your cue stick kept going in directions you didn’t mean for it to. Now you can just hear the smirk in his voice.

If you were less drunk, you’d come up with a witty response. But, as it stands, you just say, “No.”

Hangman ignores you. You can feel him behind you even before he steps up, your fingers tensing around your cue, your whole body locking up as if in anticipation, as if in dread. And then he’s there, solid and warm behind you, fingers curling around your arm and moving it backward.

The place he touches you seems to tingle.

“Like this,” he says, voice low and chest rumbling with the sound. He’s speaking right into your ear again, and suddenly it’s impossible to talk, to think, to breathe.

He brings you into position with one hand on your waist, and you can’t believe it, but he’s practically bending you over that pool table in the middle of that bar, and you’re just letting him. His hips press into your own, an insistent weight that makes your head spin, makes you feel like you’re about to slide right off the face of the earth. The table's edge cuts into your abdomen, but you barely even feel it. You can’t register anything past the feeling of his skin gliding against your own as he lets his free hand wander slowly, slowly, down the expanse of your arm.

“Now, just gently…” He guides your arm backward as he speaks, his voice right in your ear, right in your head, his breath against your cheek, the side of your mouth, and you’re dizzy, can’t even see the ball that’s right in front of you, have no idea what he wants you to shoot at. “... thrust.”

The ball lands in the pocket with a resounding thunk.

For a moment, you just blink at where it disappeared.

“Good girl,” Hangman says, so quietly that only you can hear, fingers squeezing just once where he still holds you by the hip, and then he steps away.

It sends a jolt of molten heat through you. Your knees, which felt wobbly before, threaten to buckle. You just stay there for a moment, frozen, bent over that table, feeling like the earth beneath your feet is rolling in waves. A sound escapes you, something from low in your throat that gets swallowed up in the bar's noise - all the chatter and the music and the sounds of the engines running in the parking lot.

And then it’s an ice-cold panic that has you scrambling, standing upright, stepping away from the table, turning towards the group of people around you, and pretending you’re not trembling all over, that your panties aren’t soaked through.

“I’m done, I think.” You raise your cue above your head like a sports trophy. Your voice is remarkably firm for how frail you feel. “Who wants to take over for me?”

There’s a shuffle as a few of the guys whose names you can’t remember start fighting each other for your spot on Payback’s team. You give up after a while and just drop the cue. Somebody catches it before it can clatter to the ground, and you turn your back on them.

Tugging at the folds of your skirt, you try desperately to regain control. The evening is slipping through your fingers like wet rope. You feel unmoored.

Phoenix, grinning from her perch against the jukebox, offers you a swig from her beer bottle. “I think you weren’t too bad.”

“Well, I did keep forgetting if I was supposed to hit the stripes or the solids, so, like….” you admit, accepting the bottle and taking a tentative sip. Maybe this will help calm you. The taste hits your tongue, and you grimace. “Ew. I don’t get how you guys drink this.”

Phoenix laughs at you. “It takes practice.”

“I don’t wanna practice that,” you say. “I’ll just get another Mojito, I think.”

You’re not going to survive this night unless you have another drink. Hell, you might not survive this night even if you have another drink.

You don’t think you’ve ever been this confused. Your mind is a thicket of thorns that bite your skin at any move.

Hangman leans forward in his seat until he’s in your field of vision. His eyebrows are furrowed in a way you haven’t seen before, but beneath them, his eyes glint. It hits you suddenly that he knows exactly what he’s done, that he is perfectly aware of the effect he has on you.

You consider getting that cue stick back and whacking him over the head with it.

“You sure you want another one, sweetheart?”

You frown and say, more forcefully than necessary, “Why? You don’t wanna pay for it?”

“Oh, I’ll pay for it,” he says. “I’m just thinking somebody will have to carry you home if you have another one.”

“Don’t act like you wouldn’t love to carry her home,” Coyote chimes in, grinning and wiggling his eyebrows. At least you think that’s Coyote. Things are starting to go a little blurry.

As you approach the bar, you say, a bite to your words, “I’ll make your dreams come true, then.”

Penny is busy at the opposite end, so you order from a girl who seems a lot less interested in serving you than the group of aviators currently trying to get her attention. Which you can’t really blame her for.

From behind you, maybe-Coyote keeps going, “You should make some of his other dreams come true, too.”

Phoenix lands a well-placed elbow between his ribs. “Shut up, man. You’re being creepy.”

“I don’t sleep with drunk women,” Hangman says as the bartender deposits a dispassionately assembled Mojito in front of you. “My mother raised me to be a gentleman.”

Your snort is decidedly unladylike, but you couldn’t care less. You’re so far gone.

“You keep saying that, but I haven’t seen you act like one even once.” Then, as an afterthought, you add, “Also, I’m not drunk.”

You pull your drink towards you, the glass cold with the ice cubes swimming in it, and promptly spill a healthy stream across your own arm and the bartop.

“Sure you’re not,” Hangman agrees smoothly. He procures a stack of paper napkins from somewhere and starts dabbing at your elbow, soaking up the worst of it. You stare at his movement with your head spinning. Why is he being nice? “I’m not a gentleman in the bedroom, though, I’ll have you know.”

He winks at you, and that’s more like the nefarious Hangman you know. It lets you relax a little.

“Christ.” Phoenix looks like she might hurl. “You want to lay it on any thicker, Hang?”

He just shrugs, so casual about it all. You wonder if he’s ever been rattled by anything. If he’s ever felt as out of his depth as you do every time he enters a room.

“Who doesn’t like it a little rough in the bedroom, Phoenix?”

You can’t believe he said that to her. Part of you expects Phoenix to roll her eyes and give him a piece of her mind, but she just grins, shaking her head.

“Me, actually,” she says. “Just leaves you sore. I prefer it slow.”

“Slow?” Hangman repeats. “You and Rooster would be a match made in heaven. Masters of the geriatric pace.”

“Who’s Rooster?” you ask, wondering if Hangman is trying to set Phoenix up with someone running a poultry farm.

Nobody answers your question.

“It’s been my experience,” Phoenix says, “that most guys only like it rough cause they have no idea how else to do it.”

Coyote laughs at that. It’s obviously meant to taunt Hangman, but he doesn’t react much beyond a tiny upward twitch of his mouth.

You’re left wondering if these are normal conversations people have with their friends. Are you just a prude? You feel like you’re going insane.

And then Bob, who has been quietly snacking on peanuts for most of the night, pipes up, “I think it just depends on your partner. You gotta listen to them.”

Hangman stares at him like he’s just revealed he likes to take his clothes off and perform an Irish jig on top of an aircraft every Sunday. “Am I just supposed to believe you’ve had sex with multiple partners?”

Before you can stop yourself, you slap Hangman’s chest. Admittedly, both the alcohol and the way your head is still reeling have the move lacking any real vigor, but it still leaves you a little stunned at yourself.

“Don’t be mean,” you say. His chest feels very firm beneath your palm, muscles hard and heartbeat steady. Then you realize you’re still touching him and withdraw your hand as if you’ve burned yourself.

Hangman is grinning from ear to ear. “Oh, don’t act like you don’t like it when I’m mean.”

That almost makes you choke on your Mojito.

“Right,” Coyote says. His teeth gleam white when he smirks at you. “So, how do you like it?”

You freeze. Your mind stumbles, then short-circuits.

“Oh, god, boys. Just leave her alone,” Phoenix sighs. She gets up to sling an arm over your shoulder. It’s a reassuring presence by your side, one that makes you feel a little less like you’re about to levitate off the face of the earth. “You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.”

Hangman is staring right at you. He’s still smiling, but something in his eyes has shifted.

You can’t look away from him. Your heart stutters in your chest.

“I… I don’t…” you falter.

Across the distance between you, Hangman raises an eyebrow. “What are you, like a virgin?”

It hits you square in the chest.

You know you need to laugh it off, know you need to counter with another quip, another insult, another jab, but your mind is blank. Time seems to freeze for a moment. You can’t breathe.

Your eyes burn, and you realize with a sudden, horrible lurch that you’re going to cry, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Several emotions pass over Hangman’s face in quick succession. The glint is gone from his eyes now, replaced by something like genuine guilt. That’s how you know he was just joking around, but it doesn’t soften the blow at all.

Anger, humiliation, and, worst of all, the remnants of your earlier desire pump through your veins. You feel weak and tired and helpless. A snowglobe shattered on the floor. All of it hits you at once.

You’re painfully aware of all the eyes on you. You’re painfully aware you haven’t said a single thing in way too long.

Hangman says your name, his tone caught somewhere between concern and apology.

I can’t, you think. I just… can’t.

So you turn on your heel and all but sprint for the open doors.

Out back, the air has cooled down to a more bearable temperature, but it does nothing to calm you. Your skin feels several sizes too small, the world is tilting a little bit to the left, as if everything’s written in cursive. In your ears, your blood rushes like a roar.

You’ve never been so embarrassed in your life.

A few tiki torches light a path from the Hard Deck’s back entrance towards the sand of the beach. You follow almost blindly, stumbling down the two steps. The ocean stretches endless and dark blue in front of you. Your sandals fill with sand that scrapes against the soles of your feet.

You walk a few steps until you reach a weathered tool shed with the blue paint eroded by years of wind and salt spray. Only when you’ve found shelter behind it, when you know you’re hidden from view, do you allow yourself to cry.

They’re bitter tears. You’re embarrassed about your display earlier, about letting Hangman get to you, embarrassed because everybody saw. Embarrassed that you didn’t deny it when it isn’t even really true, not technically. Embarrassed that you’re twenty-three and practically a virgin, embarrassed that it matters to you. It shouldn’t matter.

Virginity is a social construct, you remind yourself, and then you just cry harder.

Most of all, you’re embarrassed because you want Hangman.

It’s the first time you admit it, even to yourself, and the truth of it settles heavy in your stomach. You don’t think you’ve ever wanted someone as much as you want him, and you don’t even like the man.

It’s ridiculous, humiliating, mortifying, and suddenly you wish you had stayed home tonight, had never come here in the first place.

And then he says your name.

The moonlight paints his hair a blueish shade of silver. He looks impossibly handsome, standing just a step or two away from you with his hands in his pockets, backlit by the flickering of the torches.

Immediately you straighten up and rub your cheeks to get rid of the tears. Your fingers come away stained black with the remnants of your mascara.

For a moment, you and Hangman just stare at each other. The distance between you gapes like an open wound, like a canyon, like an ocean.

Finally, he asks, “You okay?”

You don’t trust your voice, so you just nod.

He looks torn. His jaw moves as he grinds his teeth.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

You don’t have to ask him to clarify. You know exactly what he means.

“I don’t know you,” you say quietly.

He makes a strange, strangled sound at the back of his throat, then buries his face in his hands for a second. When he re-emerges, he looks honestly distressed.

“If I had known,” he says softly, “I would have stopped being so aggressive.”

You don’t know how to tell him that that’s the opposite of what you want. You don’t know how to tell him that you don’t know what you want.

You don’t know how to tell him that you know exactly what you want.

Everything’s a mess.

Shrugging, you say, “It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t matter?” he repeats, disbelief in his voice. “Of course it matters. I never meant to make you uncomfortable.”

That makes you frown.

“I didn’t say you make me uncomfortable.”

Aggravated, sure. Annoyed, wound-up, frustrated. All of that. But uncomfortable? Never.

That gives him pause, but only for a moment. He goes on, “I shouldn’t have… it was too much. I’m sorry.”

You can’t explain any of this, but you want to. You wish you could just make him understand, but you can’t even make sense of yourself.

Your insides are all tangled.

“It’s not like… it’s not like I’ve never done anything,” you rush to explain. “I did sleep with someone when I was sixteen, but I just… and then there was always so much other stuff that I didn’t have time to date, and then other stuff happened, and I didn’t even want to date, so I just….”

At the look he gives you, you trail off.

“So you’re not a virgin, then?”

“Not… technically,” you confirm, then cringe at how ridiculous it all sounds.

He just stares at you.

“It… what does it even matter?” Suddenly, you’re angry. “Even if I was a virgin, there wouldn’t be anything wrong with it. And it’s none of your business. Why do you even care?”

One of Hangman’s eyebrows raises. “I don’t care if you’re a virgin,” he says, voice perfectly calm. “I care that you’re comfortable.”

That staggers you. “I… why?”

He shoves his hands back into his pockets. “Because I happen to like you.”

Now you’re the one staring.

That can’t be right. Hangman’s not supposed to like you, not when you’ve just established that you can’t stand him. Not when you’ve spent every night since you’ve met him listing all the reasons why you need to stay as far away from him as possible.

When you don’t answer, he starts talking again. “Why didn’t you just say you’re not a virgin in there?” he asks, jerking his head back in the general direction of the Hard Deck.

You shrug and look away. “I’m not… experienced.”

He waits for you to continue.

“It was just once, with my first boyfriend, and it wasn’t… I didn’t… well, after it was over, I never wanted to do it again.”

Hangman’s expression is unreadable. The breeze picks up, and you shiver, crossing your arms over your abdomen.

“I’m not…” You swallow. “I’m not confident. I can’t talk about it the way you guys do. So easily.”

He looks at you for a long moment, and when he speaks again, his voice is gentler than you’ve ever heard. “I’ll stop, then. This was too much. I’m sorry.”

But there’s something there, in the words. A challenge. He’s giving you a way out at the same time as he’s giving you an in.

The way he’s looking at you seems to say, Ball’s in your court now, sweetheart.

In your life, you’ve always taken the familiar path. You thought things through thoroughly, made decisions with your head and not your heart. You liked to be safe, too scared to step out of your comfort zone. And so the house with the blue door stayed a dream, one that eventually moved so far out of reach it lost any appeal it ever had.

But then you think of your life stuffed into a car. Arriving in an unfamiliar city and deciding to stay. Diving headfirst into the unknown.

If you have done it once, you tell yourself, there’s no reason you can’t do it again.

“I don’t want you to stop,” you say, voice quiet, hands shaking. “I like it.”

It might be the hardest thing you’ve ever done. Being honest. Here in this moment, with him, bathed in moonlight that dips the worlds in shades of mercury.

It’s almost impossible to get the words out, and then they dangle awkwardly in the air between you. You feel exposed, stripped, flayed open in front of this man who is practically a stranger to you.

Over the beat of your heart hammering away in your chest, you can barely even hear the roar of the ocean.

And then Hangman steps closer to you, bridging that distance. His features are dipped in half-shadows, but you see his eyes flickering down to your lips.

You swallow around the lump in your throat.

“When I saw you for the first time,” he says, and his voice is husky, low, “in that little dress… I wanted to bend you over the bar and fuck you right there. With everyone watching.”

It knocks the air out of you. You let out a choked sound that might be the beginning of a gasp. A jolt goes through the core of you.

He comes even closer, and, instinctively, you stumble backward. He crowds you against the wall of the shed. The wood is rough and cold where it presses against your back.

The stupid nametag is right in front of you then, and it occurs to you suddenly that you don’t even know his first name.

“Look at me,” he says.

In spite of yourself, you listen immediately. There’s something in his voice, not just demanding but commandeering. You don’t think you could disobey him even if you wanted to.

And Hangman’s so close now. Close enough that you can see the specks of gold swimming in his eyes, close enough that you could probably see yourself reflected in them if it wasn’t so dark.

One of his hands is braced against the wood by your head, palm down, and the other goes to cup your cheek. Fingertips trace across the jut of your cheekbone, down, down, down over the planes of your face, avoiding your mouth to ghost toward your chin and then the line of your throat.

You don’t dare breathe.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says softly.

It’s such a stark contrast to his earlier words, so crude, that it leaves you light-headed.

You can smell him; over the lingering ashes of burnt-down bonfires, over the salt of the ocean, there’s the scent of his aftershave. Cinnamon and spice. You think you could get drunk on that smell.

“Hangman…” you whisper because you can’t think of something else to say for the life of you.

He shakes his head, tuts gently. “My name’s Jake.”

“Jake,” you repeat. It’s like you’re in a daze, dumb with the intensity of it all. If this night is giving you anything, it’s a severe case of whiplash.

He hums in response, eyelids going heavy. Lets his fingers trail from your throat, where your pulse is beating like a sledgehammer, down your chest, between your breasts, over the flimsy fabric of your dress. He pauses on your stomach, lets his fingers spread out like a starfish, and just watches for a moment as his hand moves with each breath you take.

When he speaks, his voice sounds almost pensive. “Has anybody ever made you come?”

The sound you make is much too close to a whimper for your own comfort. Involuntarily, your thighs clench together, and you realize faintly just how wet you really are, the skin just below the lines of your panties sticking together.

You don’t need to look at Hangman to know that he’s noticed your reaction.

“It… no,” you admit hesitantly. You’re going to spontaneously combust, you just know it. “Just… myself.”

He grins at that, but it’s not a mean expression. “So you touch yourself?”

It’s so hard to swallow. Even harder to talk, to find words, even to form a coherent thought.

Jake leans closer still, so close his breath traces across your face. “Answer me.”

“Sometimes.” Your voice has gone so quiet you’re sure he wouldn’t have heard you if he wasn’t standing so close to you. Like he wants to climb into your skin.

You’re becoming painfully aware of all the points where he isn’t touching you. A minuscule but safe distance between your hips, your faces, your chests. That arm curving around you, braced against the wall. No point of contact except for the large hand on your abdomen.

You shudder.

“What do you think about? When you touch yourself, what do you think about?”

The muscles in his arm flex, straining against the fabric of his uniform, veins protruding blue through the skin, and it shouldn’t be this hot, but it is. You’re on fire and he isn’t even touching you, not really, but you’ve never been so turned on in your life, wound so tightly, a kite dancing higher and higher into the sky.

You shake your head quickly, unsure if it’s supposed to be an answer or just a way to get rid of the fog that’s descended on you.

Jake’s hand wanders a little lower, almost imperceptibly, just about half an inch, but you think your heart almost fails you.

“I…” you swallow again. Your mouth is dry, and your palms are sweating. Your core pulses with the sort of desire that’s impossible to ignore. “I don’t know. I don’t…”

God, if only you could be casual about this sort of thing. You wish you could say something sexy, something teasing, something that would make Jake feel even a fraction of what he’s making you feel. But you’re just you. Inexperienced, unsure even of what you want.

You choke up, and, to your mortification, tears pool in your eyes again.

“Shh,” Jake immediately shushes you, and his face is almost tender. “That’s okay, sweetheart. I’ll give you something to think about.”

“Oh,” you say dumbly, blinking up at him.

And then it’s back, that signature Hangman smirk, the same one you’ve wanted to slap off his face so many times, only it’s making you weak in the knees now, makes your lips part, makes you wish he would just touch you already.

“I’m not going to kiss you tonight.”

It’s almost shameful how quickly you try to protest, really. If it hadn’t been for those five and a half Mojitos, you would have stuck your head into the sand right here.

Hangman laughs at you, the sound just a little mean. “You’re much too drunk, sweetheart.”

You suppose it doesn’t make much sense to argue. Now that you think about it, you really are drunk. The fuzzy, warm sort of drunk. Just on the right side of intoxicated, where everything feels packed in cotton, and nothing feels impossible.

Even that someone like Hangman might want to dirty talk to you behind the Hard Deck’s tool shed.

“Can you do something for me?” Jake asks.

You can just bite down on the anything that threatens to spill from your mouth the moment he’s uttered the question, and, god, what’s wrong with you? This is getting out of hand.

Dumbfounded, you nod silently.

He leans impossibly closer, his nose trailing along your jawline, and whispers, “The next time you touch yourself… When you’re alone, I want you to lie down on your bed. I want you to spread your legs, and I want you to touch your pretty little pussy for me.”

You clench your eyes shut, breath stuck somewhere in your throat, as Jake’s hand lifts from your stomach. He takes a fistful of your skirt and pulls it up, using his other hand to hold it away from your body. The cool breeze caresses your legs, but that’s not why you shiver.

His fingers slide along the inside of your thigh, from kneecap up to the very tops of them. You can’t breathe, can’t blink, can’t do anything but stand there and hope you won’t dissolve into a puddle.

“And when you fuck yourself,” he whispers, “I want you to think of me.”

And then he touches his fingers to your core, over the lace of your panties.

If you weren’t so far gone, you think you’d never forgive yourself for your reaction.

You all but squeak, back arching off the wall, pushing yourself into his palm, mouth dropping open as pure heat spreads through you, like an ache, like a tightening at your very center.

“Jesus,” Jake says, and his voice sounds breathless. “You’ve soaked these through, sweetheart.”

It’s the first indication that he’s affected by this, too, that you’re not the only one impacted, and somehow that’s enough to make you want him even more.

You wonder what it would be like to get him off. What he would look like, sound like. Taste like.

Your exhale is a tiny, shuddering thing.

“Can you do that for me?” he wants to know. “Touch yourself for me like I asked?”

“I…” You think you would have agreed if he had asked you to lasso him down the moon.

Anything you say, Hangman. Anything you want. Just keep touching me. Please.

“Yes,” you agree. “Yeah, I… okay.”

“Good girl,” he says. His lips press to the side of your throat just once, right where your pulse is pumping at a rapid pace.

And then he steps away, fingers gone from your panties, mouth gone from your neck.

The loss of him leaves you reeling, dizzy, plastered to the wall like roadkill.

Even Hangman looks a little disheveled, but it's minimal comfort.

Again, you feel on the verge of tears.

Hangman clears his throat and asks, “Do you have a ride home?”

It takes an uncomfortable amount of time for the question to even register. You just stare at him at first, blinking owlishly.

You barely even remember your own name. How are you supposed to answer this?

“I… Uber,” you say.

It’s not even a complete sentence, no verb at all, but it seems enough for Hangman.

He nods once. Then he takes a moment just to watch you.

Finally, he says, “I changed my mind about the dress.”

He takes a step back to admire you head to toe. As he looks at you, the torches reflect in his eyes until it looks like they’re gleaming. You’ve never felt so exposed in your life, and it makes you squirm.

You’re still so wet, wetter than you’ve ever been, and you’d do anything for him to touch you. Slide his fingers into you and fuck you right here, behind Penny’s bar, out on the beach where anyone might see. Think you might just die if he doesn’t.

Jake reaches once more for the skirt of your dress, but this time he doesn’t pull it up. Instead, he just lets his fingers dance through the folds once, the touch featherlight. Just a whisper of his digits across your thigh. You barely feel it.

You’re going to shake apart right here and now.

“I think this is my favorite after all,” he says, grins that Hangman grin, and then he’s gone.

You’re left leaning against the shed, breathless, panting, head and heart a mess. Alone, as you stare out at the white foam cresting on the waves, wondering what the fuck just happened.

read part ii

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