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jjungkooksthighs · 4 years

Text

Edacity | jjk (m)

Pairing: boyfriend!jungkook x reader

Genre: platter of smut, the barest hint of fluff and the tiniest garnishment of angst / nonidol!au / college!au

Rating: 18+ / nsfw

Word Count: 8.2k

Summary: After a rough day at college in your biochemistry class, you come home to your boyfriend, who is sweetly making you dinner. In his efforts to help calm you down, he only riles you up when you realize that it’s not the food you’re hungry for…it’s him.

Warnings: dom!jungkook, possessive!jungkook, jealous!jungkook, big cock!jungkook, sub!reader, lots of dirty talk (let’s face it I love that shit), praising, fingering, grinding, fellatio (cock sucking), cock worship (just a smidge), unprotected sex (reader has a birth control implant in her arm but Koo doesn’t like condoms, so yeah), breast/nipple play, nipping, marking via hickeys, sucking, pussy stretching, rough and possessive sex, begging, muscle kink, scratching, precum play if that’s a thing, manhandling, pinning down, cursing, wet and messy sex (kind of), degradation kink (koo calls you a slut a couple times but that’s about it), size kink, hair pulling

A/N: This fic is brought to you by 201008 Jungkook from the “Savage Love” video he posted. I saw it, got horny and then wrote this filth. Blame him for this, not me. Also, please let me know what you guys think. Your feedback means more to me than you know. Tagging @nervouskiwi , @tricethecharm and @nightshadevinter per their request!

The door to your apartment opens and shuts with a heaved sigh from you as you drop your bag to the floor with a thump, the day’s toil stemming from an unhelpful and unknowledgeable lab partner finally taking its toll on you while you rub your eyes as if to clear away the sight of the freshman boy who’d stared dumbly at the temperature probe and gas pressure sensor before asking you which was which in your biochemistry class. After that, he’d proceeded to clumsily knock over the catalase solution you were meant to measure enzyme activity with on several occasions in his ceaseless cloddishness.

Even your professor had not noticed your lab partner’s negligence despite the seven times that you’d had to go procure a new vial of solution from the back of the classroom and when you’d asked to just do the lab alone upon finding out that your lab companion didn’t even know how to work the magnetic stirrer, your teacher still had not yielded to your plea. You had ended up doing all of the work and your efforts had gone entirely unnoticed to all but yourself. Well, almost everyone.

“Bad day?” The mellifluous voice of your boyfriend of three years wafts over to your ears and you don’t have to open your eyes to know he’s in the kitchen directly to your left, your body instinctively wanting to seek the comfort of his warm embrace after such a long day. The sound of him already has the agitation crumbling, his voice the music to your ears that you are sure you will never tire of.

“Terrible,” you whine, “my professor paired me with someone that didn’t even know what the equipment we were using was called. I had to do all the work.”

“Aww…I’m sorry to hear that. Come here, babe. I’ll make it all better, yeah?” He asks.

Your body is already moving at that and there’s the distinct clinking of a utensil against cookware that dots the space of your shared apartment. When you breathe in the succulent smell of sundubu-jjigae (one of your favorites of his) the earlier irritation is drawn away as you take in the aroma that has your stomach rumble tellingly in hunger. You really hadn’t been in want of food before you walked in, so now you’re not sure if it’s the dinner that has you craving or if it’s the person that made it.

Wanting to look upon the source of the delicatessen, you open your eyes to find your boyfriend who is already gazing softly at you while he-with one occupied and tattooed hand-attends to the stew and it is as if the frustration is drained from you immediately as you drink in the sight of domesticity.

His hair has been drawn up in a manbun that would be an instant panty-dropper if he went outside right now with the way that he’s left some of his chocolate brown fringe to frame each side of his face. It is wavy with the water from the shower he must’ve taken in the way that it darkly curves to the sides along his eyes and that alone has you suck in a breath. You let your eyes trail downward, your own malnourishment throughout the day causing familiar hungry desire to begin to pool heatedly within you at the visage of the black pajamas you’d bought for him a week ago after he’d ripped his previous pair apart in one particular voracious spur of energy to hastily plunge himself into the silken depths of your pussy. The striped shirt he now wears is open deliciously into a perfect ‘V’ shape that boasts the luscious expanse of his chest all the way down before tortuously stopping at the crest before his navel. He wears the matching pair of pants, their length giving a salacious view of his calves that you are sure the gods themselves must have had a hand in crafting.

In the dimmed light of the kitchen, you can see the shadows that curl temptingly around his abdominals, your fingers inadvertently twitching against your sides in your want to touch, to feel him again.

You know from experience how defined his chest is. You know how hot his skin is against your fingers. You know the bliss his body grants, for he has reminded you timelessly in the way that his perfect cock finds its dwelling in the wet warmth of either your mouth or your pussy as he brings you to paradise. You’re quite sure that you’ll never be able to sate yourself of him, the memory of him driving his cock into you from this morning bringing a familiar wave of desire to wash over you. You’d left him on the bed with a hardened cock after round two upon deciding to ride his thigh, thoughts of his pleading words and strained expression living in your thoughts all day long in your decision to punish him for grinding his cock into your ass so early into the morning.

Usually he wouldn’t have gone so easy on you, but after all your texts throughout the day that were telling of your stresses, he couldn’t find it in himself to discipline you. Wanting to ensure that you felt better, he had decided to wait. After all, patience was a virtue, as you had told him before.

Before you know it, you’re standing before him, one of his arms winding around you to pull you close as you let your irises dip from his eyes to those lips of his that must’ve been created by the devil himself in how they tempt you. Your boyfriend watches with interest, arousal coloring him internally when you look back up at him, your eyes beginning to cloud over in lust as you slide your hand down the sliver of his chest that he’s left uncovered for you. His skin receives you as if it had been waiting for this very moment, his muscles flexing proudly as you stroke the heated skin with appreciation. He’s more taut than usual under your touch which means he must have gotten back from the gym some time ago in the way that his muscles are tightly tensed from such use.

It is that thought that has you press your lips to his in a heated kiss, your tongue sliding through his parted lips to kittenishly lick along the roof of his mouth to earn a groan from him, the sound caught between your lips and travelling with sonic speed right down to your pussy. He takes control when you try to wrap your tongue around his, the hot muscle plunging straight into your mouth as the other hand he’d been using to stir the stew abandons its earlier movements to find purchase on your ass as he squeezes you firmly between his fingers. When you disconnect, it is with a pant after the breath he has stolen from you.

You breathe, “You’ve already made it better, Kookie, but do you want to know something?” You question as you bring your lip between your teeth, enjoying the way his eyes fix on that action as the inklings of desire begin to manifest in his eyes, in the way the soft exterior he’d been showing earlier begins to melt into something darker and far more primal under your attention.

“Tell me, baby,” He husks as you close one hand around the silk of his shirt to bunch the fabric between your fingers as you dare to unearth the heated skin of his left pectoral, “If this is how you’re going to greet me, I would very much like to know.”

When your mouth descends upon him to give soft, featherlight kisses along the line of his exposed chest, you manage to utter between them, “I bet the food you made for us is delicious, but the only thing I want to taste right now-” you peer up at him through a fan of dark lashes “-is you. You’re the only one who can give me what I really crave.”

Your boyfriend’s eyes darken instantly at that, his other hand finding its place along your ass and you need no instruction to wrap your legs around him as he lifts you like you’re a feather only to prop you back down on the cold, hard countertop as he growls, “What a needy little girl you are. Didn’t have enough of this cock this morning, huh? God, you’re such a slut for me, aren’t you?”

He lowers his head and you instinctively bare your neck for him, your legs spreading so he can step between them as you let your head fall back while one of his hands is already there to cup your nape in his effort to hold you there. You both keep your eyes locked on each other the whole time, desire burgeoning to life wildly within you as he peers at you with a hooded gaze while he moves torturously slow to where you want him and finally, finally, his lips find their home in a hot, open-mouthed kiss on the sensitive spot on right under your ear.

The warmth of his mouth has you gasp, your back straightening as one of your hands finds purchase in his hair to coax him downward as you mewl, “Yes, Kookie…yes. I’m only a slut for you. It’s only ever been you.”

You hastily unbutton his shirt while he lets you and instantly you’re salivating at the perfect canvas of him that is presented to you as the offending piece of clothing is pushed off his shoulders. Your palms, magnetized to him, splay over his abs, catching on the ridges of the defined set of muscles as they jump excitedly under your touch while you trail your hands upward. He sighs in satisfaction against your skin when the pads of your fingertips graze his dark nipples and you nearly coo at the sound of that alone.

“That’s right, Y/N. No one else makes you this desperate, huh?” He manages between kisses.

You nod as much as you can in this position and you feel the way his lips turn upward in a smirk borne of the boost to his ego, his lips descending down the column of your neck in a wet trail and it is when he gets to the jugular notch between your collarbones that he presses the wet, heated muscle of his tongue to the delicate skin there that you keen, your fingers curling inward within his hair as he hisses at the pull and in punishment, nips you there.

You are utterly powerless to stop your juices from collecting along your folds that you know is going to ruin your underwear. Without thinking, your hips begin to search for friction and you grind against him, the warm bulge of his member hardening under your ministrations.

“A-ah, Kookie, please.” You beg for his mercy and his grin deepens as both of his hands run down your clothed arms. His mouth continues to trail across the sliver of skin over your shoulders and when his hands make another pass upward along you, you watch the way that his brows scrunch together as if disturbed by something and suddenly his devilish mouth is gone. The unforgiving cold is left in his absence and you whine at his loss, not understanding why he has stopped.

Both of his hands settle on the countertop to either side of you as he leans forward, his tongue hotly poking against his cheek in a sight that only makes you wetter when his eyes narrow, “You smell different. Why?”

Your boyfriend has always had a sensitive nose, but right now, you’re hardly in the mindset to think about what it is that he’s disgruntled about as you whimper, “Kook, I was doing a lab and dealing with chemicals. That’s all, okay?”

You watch his fingers curl inward until they’re white with how hard he’s gripping the marble, his jaw setting as he hisses, “This morning you left smelling like me after I fucked you,” he grasps your chin with one hand, “Now you smell like someone else. Explain or you will get none of this cock that I know you want so bad.”

You try to think past the haze of desire, you really do, but all you can do is blink owlishly as you try to navigate the sea of want for him that has filled your mind. Under his piercing gaze, you’re frozen in place and you swallow thickly to manage the only answer that your mind can supply with a stammer, I-I… It was my lab partner,” you watch his expression begin to contort in anger and before he can sink further into the emotion, you put both hands to either side of his face in effort to keep his attention on you, “He kept brushing against me when I was doing measurements for the assignment, Jungkook. It was nothing. He is nothing to me. I promise.”

You hadn’t really thought of the implications of the first thing that you’d said, but you could see the momentary fury that had begun to color his very irises and wanting to quell it, you urge him close, your hands falling to rest on his chest as you plead with your eyes for him to understand. You both have been together three years and deep down, your boyfriend knows you would never betray him like that, but the lion of possession within him had roared loudly and there was little he could do to quiet it without the reassurance you had been so quick to feed it with.

Before you have time to process anything, your shirt has been torn from your body and lands somewhere behind you, but you have no care for that right now. Instead, your focus is on Jungkook, the anger that had begun to set in his irises overtaken by something far more carnal as he orders, “Get on your knees, Y/N. I think you need to be punished for letting someone else touch what isn’t theirs. You’re mine,” he boldly wraps a hand around each breast to give a harsh squeeze, “show me you can be a good girl and suck me off until all you know is the feeling of me on your tongue.”

His words have fresh arousal depositing itself between your thighs and with a submissive nod, your body obeys. He watches you with a darkened, lustful gaze as you lower yourself to the hardwood floor, your hands still by your sides while your boyfriend, all in one go, sheds his matching pajama pants until they puddle along his feet abandonedly.

Your mouth waters at the sight of his thick, muscled thighs that you’ve fucked yourself on more times than you count, but your salivary glands do not fully exert themselves in hunger until your irises trail up to the thick shaft that arches deliciously upward as a constellation of veins scale along it all the way up the bulbous head that is already wet with precum. His tip rests artfully along his abdominals in some kind of lewd painting brought to life that you could stare forever and a day at, a whine coming from your lips as you lick them.

Your boyfriend watches with interest as you ogle him and when he sees the pink of your tongue draping itself sinfully against his lip, he declares, “If you don’t get your mouth on me right now, baby, I’m going to fuck your face later, yeah?”

That one has you moaning in thought, your boyfriend’s lips turning up in a smirk as you quickly lean forward, both hands trailing slowly up his legs and compressing around the thick, corded muscle as you do. When your hands find his member, you lightly run the tips of your fingers over his aching dick, the veins there throbbing energetically at your touch. He groans at that and then one of your hands encircles itself over his base where you gently squeeze the half of him that your fingers can reach, your other hand curling around him and stroking up and down as he grunts in pleasure, his eyes screwing shut.

You swallow with some effort when your thumb runs over his slit to collect more of his fluid before swathing it along his glans as you ready him for your mouth. He’s already substantially hard, but you have no doubt that he will become even more so when you finally do suck him off. He really does have the world’s most perfect dick and you don’t think you’ve ever seen a thicker, bigger and better one than his.

Granted, you’ve only ever actually seen and felt his, but you have never had a wish to have anyone else’s. You couldn’t possibly have room to want anything else when he fills you so deliciously, when he fits inside you like he was made for you.

“Such a nice, pretty cock, Kookie…thank you for letting me have it,” you praise.

As you bring him toward your waiting mouth, you blow out a puff of air to have him suck in a breath, his jaw clenching as one hand finds itself in your hair to guide you forward. With one final look up to his face, you take him into your mouth to watch his face contort into an expression of pleasure, his eyebrows scrunched together and his hair veiling his face to the point where you can only see his eyes based on the glint in each iris that flashes erotically at you as he takes a stuttered breath.

Your walls clench contract around nothing as his member fills the wet cavern of your mouth while you try to take him as far as you can. Even like this, your hand still holds his base in his profound length despite the fact that you’ve gotten him as far your throat will allow.

You’ve deep-throated him many times in the bliss that you have discovered you can grant him and now will be no different. There is nothing that you enjoy more than knowing that you alone can give him pleasure.

When you’ve fitted him inside your mouth a little bit more, that’s when you run your tongue along his length before sucking, your cheeks hollowing out as you do. Your boyfriend’s fingers tighten in your hair as he growls, “Yeah, that’s it, baby. God, you’re so perfect for me. That little mouth takes me so fucking well.”

You swallow around him, drawing him deeper into your throat as you all but guzzle him in your ministrations. He leaves a salty taste on your tongue in the precum that you collect and you can’t say you don’t fucking love the taste of him. You hungrily slide your tongue over his slit before kittenishly licking along the sides, a guttural moan tearing itself from the recesses of his body as he bucks under your ministrations.

When your boyfriend opens his eyes to peer down at you, it’s enough to have his cock throb inside your wet warmth. The way that his cock disappears beyond the cradle of your lips is sin itself, but the way that you stare heatedly at him with desire simmering hotly in those irises of yours…Jungkook thinks if eroticism had a picture, you would be it right now.

He’s just hit the back of your throat and because of that, drool has begun to pool along the sides of your mouth and fondness floods him at the sight, his thumb brushing away the spit only to lather it over your lips as he croons, “Look at my beautiful, messy girl starting to fall apart on my cock. Fuck, you’re so good for me, Y/N. Such an obedient little girl,” you suction your mouth intensely around him at that, “Think you can take me farther? I bet you can fit all of me down that tight throat of yours if you really try.”

His praises have your walls fluttering around nothing as you engulf him impossibly farther into your mouth with another swallow, the wet slurping sounds of your ministrations filling the room as he starts to massage your head through tightened fingers that pull at the roots of it. You inhale through your nose, unable to any longer breathe through your mouth through the cock that blocks your airway and in one fluid motion, you press forward and try, but fail, not to gag around him as his dick sinks further into your throat.

Tears instantly threaten to fall from your eyes as they water, your vision becoming blurry as you sputter against his dick. The sensation of your throat closing around him earns a hiss as he responsively thrusts his cock into you, unable to stop himself from chasing his pleasure.

You let him fuck your mouth, enjoying the sounds of rapture that tumble freely from his mouth and content in the knowledge that you are able to gift him this euphoria. Tears are quick to fall from your eyes as you suckle him, the wide girth of him easily hitting your gag reflex in the back of your throat as you trail your tongue along the underside of his shaft while you slacken your jaw to ease his access.

Your boyfriend coos while he watches your tits rise and falls with the efforts of your breaths, “Such beautiful tits, baby. If you hadn’t been a bad girl earlier today, maybe I could have used them as a cocksleeve. I bet you would have liked that, too, you dirty slut.”

You preen at his words with a moan, the vibrations of that heightening his pleasure and it is when you slide a free hand under him to grasp and fondle his balls that are extremely full in the seed that aches with need to be released that he grunts with fervor and when you roll them in your hands like dice before you gently run the pads of your fingers over them, he throws his head back, his mouth parting as he drives his cock into you one more time. With how far down his cock hits at your larynx now, you can’t see him any longer through the blurred vision as tears stream down your cheeks while you cry out his name.

“Fu-fuck, baby. I can’t l-last much longer if you keep doing that. You really love this cock, don’t y-you? Tell me how much you love it. I w-wanna hear it with my cock in your mouth.” He manages through labored breaths.

You hum in agreeance, the burn of his dick inherently insistent as he moves and the vibrations your sound makes has his cock throbbing dangerously as it begins to swell in warning of his impending end. He’s so hard already and your pussy aches to receive him, your walls contracting around nothing at the feel of his hot member between your lips.

“I love it, Kookie. I love it so much. Love how big you are.” You splutter despite the very large dick currently nestled between your lips.

You make a point to show him by swiveling your hand around what little of him is beyond the reaches of your mouth at this point while your other hand drags itself downward from his balls to rub at his perineum. That one has his back bowing inward, his fingers fisting in your hair as he groans and you can feel how his cock pulses in warning of his climax that you cannot wait to taste the fruits of as you flick your tongue along his length once, twice and then three times before suddenly, with a guttural sound, his fist pulls at your hair roughly to effectively extricate himself from your mouth as he breathes laboriously above you.

You both watch as your spittle clings to his cock in a thin line in its attempts to remain connected to him until it sadly breaks off and away. You whimper at the loss of him, blinking up at him far too innocently for someone that just had a dick rammed down their throat and you watch the way his eyes flash cravingly at you only to rub your neglected thighs together in search of some friction.

“As good as that was, baby,” he lowers himself down to your level to wipe away the tears that had collected along the sides of your face as he darkly declares, “there’s somewhere else that I want to cum in today and you’re going to let me, aren’t you?”

You nod without a thought, his hands are quick to wrap around your waist and lift you with ease until you’re splayed out on your back for him along the countertop that is mercifully long enough to support your torso. Your legs dangle precariously off the edge, but they never reach the floor and like this, you’re granted an unfettered view of him, his now engorged dick standing to attention along his abdominals and when you peer up at his blown out irises, you release a shaky sigh in anticipation as he licks his lips like you’re a meal he’s about to fucking devour.

“You know, I wanted to eat you out, baby. I really did,” he husks as he steps forward between your legs that you part in invitation, “but you sucked me off so good that now all I can think about is ramming this cock into you so hard that you won’t remember anything but my name and getting my fill of you until you milk me fucking dry, Y/N.”

Arousal ignites within you at that and you pleadingly implore, “I want you to do that, gods, I do, but first, Kook…kiss me. Please, kiss me. After that, you can fuck me to your heart’s content.”

You don’t know how you find yourself wanting even more of him, but you do. His mouth, you are sure, is the work of an incubus in the way that it can work sinfully against you. The words that tumble from them light the fires of desire within you and just want to feel the warmth of his lips again, honestly.

He arches a brow at this as he leans over you, one hand finding purchase along your waist as he rasps, “You want me to taste myself, baby? Is that it?”

You can tell by the lilt in his voice that he’s playing with you and you already know this is a game he will ultimately lose, for you have a trick up your sleeve that he forever and always falls for. You let your hand slither along your body, your index finger dipping between your wet folds while he watches with a hooded gaze as you bring your soiled hand to your lips to dapple your essence over them like a lewd lipstick before you angle your chin up invitingly to beseech, “Won’t you taste me, Kookie? Don’t you want to taste us? Please,” you whine,” all I want is a kiss. No one...no one kisses me like Jeon Jungkook. Please, Kookie. I want your mouth so bad.”

Your boyfriend brings his lip between his teeth at that as he lowers himself down to your level, his sinful irises burning heatedly into your skin as he utters, “That’s it, baby. I love it when you beg for me. So fucking hot.”

With that, his lips descend over your own, your arms wrapping around him as you mewl into his mouth. He consumes you and drinks from you like you’re his last means of sustenance, his lips capturing yours in voraciousness as his tongue runs boldly along them in quick movements of possession before he’s sliding the wet muscle everywhere he can reach in his mission to claim the depths of your wet cavern. He can taste the remnants of himself on your tongue and with the sweet juices of your sex that you’d lathered over your lips, it’s a combination he has come to thoroughly enjoy the taste of in how well flavor of you both coalesce into something so tangy.

When he’s satisfied with his mapping of your mouth, he draws your lower lip between his teeth before suckling the tender flesh to have you gasp at the sensation.

Distracted by that alone, you do not notice the hand of his that isn’t currently attached to your waist that snakes slowly downward to slip with ease under your grey sweatpants and between the silk panties that cover your womanhood. Your breath hitches upon the sensation of his long, tattooed fingers dragging themselves against your slit and you’re not surprised at the generous collection of your juices that make his digits glide along your folds, but he hiss he makes is delicious when he curses, “Fuck, Y/N. You’re this wet when I haven’t even touched you? God, you really are a slut for me, huh?”

With one hand, you entangle your fingers along the hair at the nape of his neck as you breathe, “Only for you, Jungkook. This is all for you.”

He plunges one finger inside you at your response and immediately sibilates at the way that your wet warmth welcomes his digit enthusiastically and energetically. With as wet as you are, you know that you will have no problem taking him, the considerable amount of slick between your legs tangible evidence of your need to receive and welcome him into your sex. It takes no time at all for him to add a second finger, one thumb rubbing at your clit as you moan his name, your eyes falling shut as under his ministrations. Warm waves of heat fall over you under his touch and you bask in his avid attention. Without extricating his hand from your pussy, he orders, “Take off your pants, baby. I want to see this pretty cunt while I fuck it.”

You heed his command, one hand disconnecting from around his neck to hurriedly discard your pants and underwear along the floor in one fell swoop as your boyfriend’s hungry irises flick downward to feast upon the visage of your dripping cunt. Something about the way that his fingers disappear into your wet depths transfixes him, the squelching sounds that your pussy makes going straight to his core as arousal flares within him. Wanting to prepare you for him as thoroughly as he can, he continues to swirl his fingers over your clit in measured circles before the two fingers he’s got inside you curl inward in a come hither motion. The sensation has you throwing your head back, a stuttered cry coming from your lips as your fingers tighten in his hair and your unoccupied hand latches onto his strong bicep in search of something, anything to cling to.

His vision darts upward to your face to catch your expression shift to one of pleasure under his touch, thick and heavy desire for you demandant in its need that manifests in the ache of his cock that pulses with need to find its home within your silken walls. He yearns for you so much now that it’s almost painful to bear it when the source of his relief is only a few inches away and, distantly, he thanks the gods above that you’d gotten a birth control implant before you’d both become intimate for there is no greater heaven, he is sure, than when he is burrowing his cock into you velveteen walls and finishing there where he belongs.

He lowers himself to your ear, his warm breath pebbling your skin as he husks, “What do you want me to do to you, baby? Do you want this? Or,” you whimper loudly when his fingers are pulled from your pussy only to hitch your breath upon the hot, hard member he is quick to slide against your generously lubricated folds, the edges of him torturously dragging just above your waiting slit as he smirks darkly, “do you want my fat cock? Fuck, you really just can’t get enough of me, can you?”

You mewl when he takes your earlobe between his teeth, his tip brushing along the tender bundle of nerves along your clit, words escaping you beyond his name as you manage, “Jungkook.”

You watch as he angles himself along your sopping entrance, the continued sweep of his dick across your folds an erotic sight that has heat lather itself like honey over your core as you wrap your legs around him in answer. Words elude you like your mind is caught in his maze and with every stroke of his cock between your sensitive labia, your mind is brought to a dead-end that you have the truest of troubles navigating.

Your boyfriend takes your silence as disobedience, both hands laying possessively over pierces you with his commanding gaze, “I asked a question, baby. I require an answer if you want to get fucked,” he punctuates this to mercilessly poke his tip against your entrance while squirm against him, “Use that pretty mouth and tell me what you want or else I’m going to tie you up and leave you crying for me on our bed while you get to watch me finish myself off with my own hand.”

His words have fresh arousal depositing itself within your folds as you mewl, but under his ministrations that have him running his cock along your sex, his dick catches your newly released taint when you wrap your legs around him in your effort to encourage him inside and he hisses at the sensation as your labia embrace and enfold around his member as he squeezes your sides tight enough that there will be marks there tomorrow in the shape of his fingertips.

“Tell me now, Y/N, or you’re going to be punished. You’ve been so good, baby. Do you really want to be naughty now?” He rasps as he uses the grip he has on your hips to pull you even closer, the promise of sin flashing dangerously in his eyes through the fringe that falls along them.

Powerless to resist his demand, you submissively whisper, “Want …want your big cock. Want you to fuck me so good with it that I can’t walk and for you to paint my pussy with your seed. God, Jungkook, I want you so much right now. Can I please, please have your cock inside me?”

Your boyfriend leans up to tower imposingly and commandingly over you, excitement flourishing within you in the anticipation of what he’s about to do to you as he smirks while he angles himself toward your entrance and with a flick of a dark brow, he warns, “Prepare yourself, baby, because I’m not going to go easy on you. I’m going to fucking ruin you because that’s what you deserve for getting me so fucking hard for you, (Y/N).”

That is all the caution he gives you before, all in one go, he propels his length inside you with a sharp thrust of his hips. You moan as he enters you and he doesn’t stop until he’s fully sheathed within you, his tip just barely missing the cluster of nerves hidden within your center as your mouth parts in an ‘o’ shape.

Your walls greet him eagerly and envelop him with fervor only to cause him to groan, “Fuck, baby. How are you still this tight after I fucked your little cunt this morning and last night?”

Lost in the sensation of him buried within you, you can’t find the words to answer him when he starts to impel himself into you without abandon, his irises glazing over in desire as he chases his pleasure. Like this, his bangs hang heavily over him and flit back and forth frenziedly in his ministrations, but you can see his eyes in their entirety now and their darkness seeps straight into your core in the lust that simmers there.

Captured in his consuming gaze, you notice the way that his irises dip from your own to the neglected breasts that bounce in the jostling movement he wracks on you, heat licking up your spine when you watch the tip of his pink tongue hungrily dart across his lips to wet them. Before you realize what’s happened, his hot mouth is upon one of your mounds, his lips suctioning your tit against him with avid voracity as he leaves a purple petal to blossom there under his ministrations. It joins the myriad of others that he’s left from your previous couplings like brands over your skin and you relish in the new addition that marks you as his.

“Shit, I love your tits so much. So soft and warm in my mouth. You really do have the most beautiful breasts, baby.” he mutters as you close your eyes at the sensation of him on you, your fingers leaving their own claim on him as you claw your nails down his back while he pounds into you with vigor. He seems to approve with the way that he speeds his movements like the rabbit he reminds of while in some kind of heat. You throw your head back when his velvety lips enclose around your areola, his hot tongue flicking against your pert nipple unrelentingly as you buck underneath him with a weak, broken mewl. The sinful chuckle that erupts from him is felt before it is heard, the deep thrum of the vibrations dripping right through you and straight to your core that clenches around him in response.

“Please…” You breathe out the only word that can come to mind through the haze of hormones that now cloud your vision.

When you sink one hand into his locks once more to pull at his hair, he makes a sound of disapproval, blown irises heating you like a furnace as he focuses his sight on you when he growls, “I’m not done yet, Y/N. I’m going to suck these pretty nipples of yours until they’re fucking swollen because of me. These,” he blows a warm puff of air against the sensitive areola of your left tit,” are mine. You need to be reminded of that.”

You whimper at that, his other hand palming at your other breast while he rolls your nipple with practiced ease between his fingers. When he punctuates a particularly acute slam of his hips into you with a long, wetted lick of his tongue in a stripe over your engorged bud, that’s what has your eyes rolling to the back of your head as you wail, his dick hitting your g-spot with precision that tears the sound from your throat in the way that he pairs it with an agonizingly delicious ministration of his tongue.

He suckles you through it all and when the warmth of his mouth finally leaves you, your breast is freed from him with a ‘pop’ from between his lips and don’t see the way that he’s painted you with his spit, nor the way that he peers longingly at the engorged, abused nipple he’s left in his wake before he’s moving to the other to latch onto your neglected tit like a newborn trying to coax the life-giving essence of milk from you. You cry out when he decides to nip at you, the hand that he’s left on your hip gripping you roughly in effort to keep you in place against his fierce thrusts of his hips inside you.

Before long, you feel your nipple harden under his ministrations and with a groan, he releases you from his mouth only to rise and watch your freshly marked breasts move laboriously up and down in your strained breaths, the gleam of his spit shining prominently under the dimmed lights in the kitchen. Your neck is arched back and your eyes are screwed shut in the picture of submission as you let him use you for his pleasure while he continues to pound into you with the strength of an ox every single time.

You feel fingers grasping your chin to urge you to angle your chin downward as he commands, “Look at me, Y/N. When you’re getting fucked by me, you’re going to watch me and keep those pretty eyes on me so you can burn it into that head of yours that there’s only one man who can make you feel this good.”

If you weren’t panting before, you surely are now as your body heeds his demand, his words playing you like an instrument as heat coils heavily in your core as you take him in cravingly while he coos, “That’s a good girl. So obedient.”

He’s leaning above you now, the muscles of his chest flexing and contracting as he rolls his hips piercingly into you to hit just the right spot time and time again, euphoria steadily building each time. His hair, from all of your attention, is mussed and somehow the man bun he’d been sporting before is looser to allow more of his chocolate tresses to frame his face, his lips reddened from lavishing on your breasts. Sweat sluices his skin everywhere, which somehow makes him even more irresistible as you urge him down for another kiss.

He denies you at first, deciding to smirk cockily as he angles his head and in the movement, you notice the attractive tint of rosiness to his cheeks in the blood that has rushed there through his earlier efforts as he clucks his tongue, “Words, baby. Use that mouth of yours and maybe you’ll get what you want.”

You whine as he rams into you, your vision jerking upward as you wrack your brain to formulate some kind of response through the sea of lust that resides there now. Somehow, you manage, “I-I want another kiss.”

His fingers sink deeper into your waist as he prods, “Yeah? Where do you want my mouth, angel?”

In answer, you take the hand he isn’t holding you with, your digits wrapping around his index finger as you bring it to your mouth to breathe, “Here,” you lower your joined hands in a slow trail down your throat that contradicts the rapid thrusts he impels you with,” here,” you drag his hand through the valley of your breasts until it’s splayed possessively over your stomach, “and here. I want you everywhere, Kookie. Please.”

Your boyfriend licks his lips as he lowers himself down once more to your level as he husks, “Fuck, the things that you do to me, baby. You’ll get what I decide to give you, yeah?”

His mouth descends upon you in a French kiss that puts others to shame, his traitorous tongue leaving no part of your mouth untouched and wrapping possessively around your own in a show of dominance that you have no wish to resist. He presses his lips insistently over yours, consuming you in his wet heat that you relinquish your own mouth to. The hand that had been draped along your side before slides along your waist to relish in your contours, his other hand moving behind your head to hold you there as he drinks his fill of you.

When he breaks for air, you’re breathing heavily and he gives you no time to recover before heavy, lingering kisses are rained down along your jawline and then he’s descending like a stream down the frontal column of your previously marked throat from last night’s exploits with him. He lathers his mouth over you in open-mouthed kisses, his tongue brushing over your sensitive skin while he keen, your back arching up and into him as you press your naked chest against his own to earn a hiss from him while he continues to pound into you relentlessly.

His name leaves your lips in a stuttered breath, “Jungkook.”

Your boyfriend croons, “Be good for me and take it, baby. If you do, I’ll let you cum around my cock.”

Your feel your core tighten and clench compactly around him when his mouth trickles down between your breasts, adding a few more hickeys on the way so that there are now entire constellations of his marks in mottled purples and reds all along your body. When he manages to get to your stomach, that’s when he administers a closed-mouthed kiss that is made domineering by the way his irises peer hotly at you before he parts his lips to lick heatedly above the area of your navel as you whimper out.

With his face inches from your own, you can see the blown out irises that stare hungrily at you, your gaze thirsting to drink him in as the sounds of your coupling fill your ears. With every roll of his hips into you, his balls slap against your pussy mercilessly in combination with the lewd squelches his dick makes as it drives itself into you without pause.

He rams into you now with the might of ten men, your core tightening around him as he groans in his ministrations. He pulls you into him with the hand that is wrapped around your side, your moans joining his when the hand he’d been holding your head with snakes heavily down your body in a hot trail from your neck and then down to your abdomen before stopping torturously just before your glistening folds.

You wrap your fingers around his wrist to urge him where you need him most as you breathe, “C-close, Kookie. I’m almost there. Please, let me cum.”

Your walls are beginning to tense around him with your impending end and he knows how to play your body like an instrument to get it to sing the tune he wants. He watches you plead with your eyes imploringly at him while he denies you what he knows you want most, instead choosing to plunge himself inside you especially hard to cause you to cry out. There is nothing quite like your pussy, nothing quite like the way that you suck him in and refuse to let him go until you’ve ensured that he has released inside you like an uncontrollable pubescent boy learning how to come for the first time.

You make him ravenous and in that appetence, the ambrosia that is you is a delicacy he will never grow tired of. So, he indulges in you and lets himself enjoy your sweet depths for as long as he can until you’re screaming nothing but his name in your need to come undone, your thighs trembling from under him as you curl your fingers unyieldingly around his wrist.

He finally obliges you, his thumb pressing deeply down onto your clit as you wail in pleasure before he’s quickly drawing figure-eight patterns along the bundle of nerves as he pistons in and out of you deliciously. Your walls begin to quiver with your oncoming end and knowing this, your boyfriend stares zealously at you to darkly command, “Come on, baby. Cum for me. Cream all over this cock that you love so much.”

It takes one final slam of his hips into you to have his cock bury itself so deep inside your pussy that it perfectly presses against your g-spot while his fingers rapidly attend to your clit before your body instinctively heeds his order, spots erupting behind your eyelids as thousands of tiny, warm presses inside your sex signal your orgasm while you throw your head back, your eyes still locked on him as your mouth parts and you shriek his name out for the entire apartment complex to hear as your climax explodes with the intensity of a firecracker within you.

He groans at that to utter, “That’s right, baby. Let everyone know who has fucked you so good. Tell them all who owns you.”

Your walls flutter and spasm deliciously around him and your boyfriend grunts at the sensation, loving the way you wrap around him like your pussy was made for this and before he knows it, he’s throbbing and following behind you with his own release as he colors your walls with his creamy seed in violent, energetic bursts.

“Mine. You’re mine,” he repeats over and over as you both ride out your orgasms.

You wrap your arms tighter around him to give him a light peck along his jaw as you say, “Yes, Kookie. I’m all yours. I love you so much.”

He catches his breath as you fondly wipe away the sweat that has collected in beads along his forehead while you tenderly tuck his fringe behind one ear before he earnestly tells you, “I love you more.”

Sometime later he feeds you the stew he made for you as you moan in delight at the warm trickle of it down your throat while he spoons it to you from your place on his lap. Your sounds of enjoyment had been quick to get him hard underneath you as you’d knowingly fidgeted in effort to drag your ass over his member that you found yourself longing for once again. Your antics had proven successful in the fervid way he’d eaten you out like a five course meal before you fed him the dessert of your sweet juices before he’d dragged you to the bedroom for round three.

Hours after that find you both well into the night with the window open so that the moonlight can spill in on the two of you atop your shared bed. You are sure to remind him just how much you love him then when he wakes to find you grinding on top of him as you welcome him once more into your wet warmth that has only and will only ever belong to him.

#bangtanarmynet #btsbookclub #jungkook x reader #jungkook smut #bts smut #jungkook fanfic #bts fanfic #bts scenarios #jungkook #bts

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wickedscribbles · 3 years

Text

Request #1 “Grow As We Go”

Request #1 for @macheremademoiselle -- fluffy oneshot of obi and ziva of their baby being born or her telling him she’s pregnant.

*This oneshot does NOT take place in the Come What May storyline!*

(I wrote this instead of finishing something else I was supposed to do, so it’s a little early :P Hope you like it!! )

Masterlist

Pairing: Obi-Wan Kenobi x Original Female Character, Ziva Courtee (Second Person Perspective)

Rating: Teen (some swearing)

Tags: mentions of nausea/vertigo/vomiting, overconcerned Obi, FLUFF

Word Count: 1.3 K (oops :P)

Be sure to let me know if you’d like to be tagged when I upload! :) I’ll add you to the tag list.

Requests are currently open! Send me a character and scenario and I’ll fill the prompt! Trying to do three a week, in the order they were sent in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your breakfast doesn’t taste right.

“Does this seem...I don’t know. Off to you?” you spoon a bite of your jogan berry parfait out for Obi-Wan, who’s busy reading off of his datapad. Not looking up, he opens his mouth and takes the spoon between his teeth. Swallows. Thinks about it.

“Er, no? I can’t say it’s my favorite, but it just tastes like jogan berry to me.” He relinquishes the now-clean spoon and looks up to meet your eyes. “Why?”

You frown. They only serve these parfaits in the Temple in early spring, when the berries are ripe, and you’ve just missed the peak of the season. Your best memories of springtime all taste like jogan berry parfait, and the sweet flavor is nothing like the bitter mess you’ve just put in your mouth.

“I don’t know,” you say sadly, and push the little bowl away.

-----

It’s a perfect night for stargazing. Here at the highest level of Coruscant, the air is clear and sweet in the early summer. What little traffic goes by at this time is so far away that it’s barely even noticeable. Obi-Wan has a blanket tucked under his arm, and you’re in charge of the telescope.

If only there weren’t so many kriffing stairs. Have there always been so many stairs to get to the highest spire of the Temple? Your heart is pounding, and Obi-Wan is several steps ahead of you after a few flights.

This is just embarrassing. Years of Jedi training, fighting in a war, and some stairs are handing your ass to you. You’ll be fine. You just need to lean your head against the cool, stone wall for a moment. With a sigh, you do just that, closing your eyes as you catch your breath.

“Ziva? Sweetheart?”

Only seconds pass before Obi-Wan’s concerned voice reaches you. When you open your eyes, he’s right in front of you. A flash of worry through your bond tells you that he had to double back, and had lost you behind him a good distance.

“What’s the matter?” the back of his hand brushes your forehead, and you realize you’re damp with sweat.

“It’s fine, I just --” you avert your eyes, embarrassed to even admit to it, “I got tired.”

He looks at you for a long moment. “Do you still want to -- should we go back?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Just had to catch my breath. Come on.”

Obi-Wan stays quiet, but moves to walk behind you, as if afraid you’ll faint and fall to your death so many floors below. Every once and awhile, when you falter, his hand comes up to steady you. You roll your eyes, but you’re grateful he’s behind you, letting you set the pace.

Looking back, you should have had your suspicions then. Since this is your body, you thought that surely the change would have been more monumental. Like a shout, not a whisper. But soon, things become too obvious to ignore.

------

Two weeks later, you wake up so dizzy that it’s hard to stand. Even moving your eyes is enough to make you whimper and curl deeper into the blankets, just wishing it would stop. Obi-Wan is in the middle of a Council meeting, but you comm and ask him to stop by the Halls of Healing for something to help with the vertigo.

Of course, darling. Back soon. You hungry? Want something from the refectory?

Oh, fuck. Even the thought of eating something sends angry waves of nausea roiling in your gut. You try to breathe through it, saliva pooling in your mouth, but it’s too late. Flinging the blanket off of yourself, you make a mad dash for the fresher, thankful that at least Obi-Wan isn’t here to hear you dry heave into the sink.

When the feeling passes, you wobble to the floor, pressing your cheek to the cool tiles.

“Kriff,” you mutter to yourself, miserable. You must have picked up some sort of stomach bug when you were off planet last week. The locals had warned you not to drink the tap water, but had you listened? No. Your Pantoran immune system has never led you astray. Until now.

Obi-Wan will be back any minute. If he sees you lying here, he’ll just worry even more than he already is. With a few steadying breaths, you push yourself up, arm muscles wobbling. That’s when it catches your eye -- the implant chip. The birth control that you’d had placed in your right arm, right when you and Obi-Wan had started dating.

It’s expired.

No. No, that isn’t right. The chip’s good for three years, and it’s been… You count in your head. Then count again, trying to remember the last time you had a period.

Oh.

You’re going to need more than vertigo meds.

At some point in your silent realization, Obi-Wan comes home, looking for you everywhere but where you sit cross-legged in the doorway of the fresher. He’s calling your name, but your mouth is having trouble forming words.

When he finds you, he frowns. “Gave me a scare. Why didn’t you answer?” He catches your expression. “Are you alright?”

You’re about to be a lot more scared, you think.

“I, um,” you say hoarsely, throat sore from bile. You clear it, unsure of where to begin. “You need to take me to the Healers.”

Obi-Wan kneels beside you, eyes full of concern. “Are you worse than this morning? What’s wrong, sweetheart? If it’s urgent I can just comm someone here --”

With a deep breath, you thread your fingers through his. “Obi-Wan. Um. I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant.”

He cycles through a myriad of different emotions. If you weren’t so terrified, it might have been funny. Shock, confusion, terror, surprise, hope. After you’ve sprung this on him, what settles on his face is a tentative mix of happiness and hope. Light and fluttery in his half of your Force bond, like believing it’s real would be too good to be true.

“Really?” Kriff, the way he’s looking at you. His eyes are all bright, darting from your flat stomach to your face. He places his free hand on your belly, like he could feel a difference when you can’t be any more than six or eight weeks along. “Are you -- you really think so?”

“My birth control chip is expired, and I can’t remember when I had my last period, and --” you stop, cocking your head. Obi-Wan is radiating gentle warmth and happiness, still looking at you like you’re the brightest of Coruscant’s four moons. “Do you -- you’re not scared out of your mind right now? What are we going to do?”

“Ziva, calm down.” The hand in yours gives a light squeeze. “We’ll go to the Hall of Healing, like you asked. You’ll get a pregnancy test. And if it’s positive, we will love and treasure this little one every second that they grow inside you.”

“You make it sound so simple,” you whisper, your throat getting tight with tears. The two of you had talked about children before, but it was all happening so fast. Were you even ready?

“You will be a wonderful mother, love. I know it.” He takes your hand and kisses it. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

About eight months later, on a crisp winter morning, you get to meet the little one who had caused you so much panic. Obi-Wan is inconsolable, fussing over you, fussing over his newborn son, always in motion to make sure that both of you have everything that you need.

As you drift off to sleep in the hush of the delivery room, you realize something. The galaxy is not as wide as everyone says it is. It is two people. The love of your life, and the child he helped you bring into it.

#obi wan fanfiction #obiwan fanfiction #wickedscribbles #obi wan kenobi #obi-wan x reader #obiwan x oc #obi-wan x oc #ziva courtee #not smut for once

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ddaenggtan · 4 years

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midnight wishes | knj [M]

Granny Park's Gossip:

That boy. Never met anyone as prone to disaster as he is while being so damned smart, except maybe that roommate of his. The two of them could probably cure cancer if they wanted to, but you leave them alone for more than a few seconds and you’re liable to come back to disaster. Jiminie did say they’ve been acting a little different, though, maybe they finally wised up and made things official instead of just humping like bunnies around that apartment of theirs. Oh, am I not supposed to say that?

pairing } namjoon x reader

word count } 10.3k { also on ao3

genre } Fluff, Smut, the smallest possible dash of angst; FWB au, Roommates au, coworkers au, slight idiots to lovers but like. lowkey.

warnings } smut, the most smut, all the smut. Namjoon In Glasses bc that deserves its own tag. there’s multiple smutty parts, several less explicit and then one very very super explicit so for those: oral female, oral male, fingering, deepthroating, protected sex, unprotected sex, mention of semi-public sex, mentions of a sir kink, some very accidental cum eating that is hilarious and disgusting all at once. Namjoon and Slick are both complete and utter idiots, like it’s genuinely a miracle that they’ve lived this long, especially when paired together.

{ The Snowball Effect Collab Masterlist }

a/n } hello it is i with yet another fic. it’s done. i. have a lot of emotions bUT that’s neither here nor there. This is part of The Snowball Effect collab, and while it can be read as a standalone, all the fics end in the same spot and there are so many crossovers that it legitimately hurts to think about for too long, so for the best and funniest and fluffiest experience, we recommend that you read all of them in order!! Special shoutout to ashley, kristi, and ryn (@taehyungforreal, @stutterfly, and @fortunexkookie, respectively) for letting me part of this wonderful adventure. i’m more honored than i could ever say with words, and i’m grateful every day that i got the chance to work with all of you on this absolutely phenomenal collab. for those of you who are just now seeing this, i implore you to read the others, as they are literal light years better than this, and i could not possibly live up to the absolute beauty of the other authors in this collab, but i still hope you enjoy my shiny garbage child aka this fic.

The first time you ever saw Kim Namjoon was on your very first day at the lab where you both work. You won't ever forget it, not because he's the walking embodiment of beauty nor because he's the most intelligent person you've ever met besides yourself. No, that day stays firmly implanted in your memory because that was the day the two of you nearly got fired for setting the building on fire.

In a genetics lab.

You don't even work with chemicals. Maybe if you did, they would have been more understanding, but you don't and instead, everyone was completely flabbergasted that the two of you very nearly destroyed the building because you tried to reheat your leftover Chinese food - and really, how perfect is it that he also prefers the place across town instead of on the corner, and that he eats all the vegetables you pick out of your rice while you eat the eggrolls he isn't a fan of - in the microwave at the same time. Sure, your IQ is close to 300 when combined, but also, how are you supposed to remember that the bottom part of the takeout is made of foil? You were trying to single out a gene sequence that might help cancer research. Microwaves were not important.

Until it exploded a little and set the fire suppression systems off in all the labs and affected several billion dollars worth of research.

Honestly, the two of you are lucky you still have your jobs.

Less lucky that the insurance company wouldn't pay for the entire cost so both you and Namjoon had to take pretty severe pay cuts to help cover the costs.

Even less lucky that it means you could no longer afford your apartment by yourself and subsequently had to try to find a roommate in less than a week, which the internet is not helpful for, it doesn't matter what your coworkers say.

Which really just highlights that it's your own fault that you're in this situation in the first place, you think as you slam back another shot. It's been months, and yes, you found a roommate, and yes , things between the two of you are working better than you could have imagined, but god , at what cost?

You catch a glimpse of dimples heading your way and down the rest of the Kamikaze that you've been nursing all night. You might regret that later, the alcohol might make you do something you'd never do otherwise, but you can always pretend you don't remember. Besides, it's so much harder to handle Namjoon while you're completely sober; you never quite know what to say or what to do.

He doesn't bother to sit in the empty stool beside you, just slides into the space between you and it and lets one arm rest casually on the back of your barstool as he leans in to be heard over the live band that's playing. You don't look at him, you don't trust yourself to look at him, not with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the top two buttons undone. You know he looks deliciously rumpled. You're entirely too familiar with the sight.

"Are you ready to go?" He asks. You shrug even as you start pulling your coat on, doing your best to ignore the way the heat of his breath brushed over your neck in the way that always gets you hot and bothered. "We don't have to if you don't want to," He says quickly, but you wave him off.

"No, it's fine, I promise. I'm not enjoying the band as much as I thought I would anyway."

When the ride you summoned stops at your apartment building, Namjoon pays and follows you up. The alcohol has started seeping into your bloodstream, and for a moment you regret that last drink. You're not drunk, not really, but you're on the farther side of tipsy and thoughts are swirling in your head that you wish would go somewhere else. Plus you're really fucking hungry now, and also kinda tired, and you're really glad tomorrow's Saturday so you can sleep in.

"What's got you in your head?" Namjoon asks as you fumble to unlock the door. You just shrug noncommittally, unwilling to tell him about it. He doesn't pry either, just sets to work pulling leftover tacos out of the fridge and sticking them in the microwave, remembering at the last second to take the plastic off the top so your food doesn't get coated in melted saran wrap. The two of you eat in relative silence before you manage to make yourself go into your room and strip out of your work clothes and then slide under the covers.

You don't listen as he goes into the room across the hall, you don't listen as the shower starts up, you don't listen at the off-key singing that he does. You don't. You can't let yourself, because then your drunk ass won't be able to keep your mouth shut the next time you see him - as you're both eating breakfast tomorrow, probably - and you'll say some super embarrassing shit like "hey I know it's partially my fault you couldn't afford your rent and you know I'm really grateful that you moved in with me, but you're also like hot as the surface of the sun and your dimples are really cute too, please fuck me stupid, I'm literally begging you."

Because that's the issue with living and working with Namjoon. There is no escape. Before you could come home and masturbate in peace while thinking about how his chest looks so utterly perfect in those button-ups, and how the muscles in his forearm flex when he's got his sleeves rolled up, and how his jaw does that muscle clench thing whenever he's focused on something.

But no. Now he lives with you , and not only are you both on the same schedules and therefore he’s never not home when you are, therefore depriving you of your precious Alone Time, but! You get a front-row view to how he looks in the mornings, with his hair all messy, and how he always forgets that the flavor packet goes in the ramen after you cook it, and how he bundles up every time he goes on walks with Moni, and-

The door to the bathroom creaks open and you force your eyes not to close. You inspect the stuccoed ceiling the entire time it takes his footsteps to make it into his room because otherwise, you're just going to remember that first week after he moved in, when he would have to go to his room with just a towel around his waist because his clothes were in boxes and he hadn't unpacked and he'd forgotten to take anything in the bathroom with him.

The memory of his absolutely fucking ridiculous pectorals dripping with water and his god damn superb biceps flexed and delicious-looking, none of it hidden under the slightly-too-big shirts he wears to work...it haunts you. To this day.

The sound of his door closing echoes through the hall and into your room. It’s through an incredibly impressive force of will that you don’t imagine what he’s doing right now, just across the hall. You resolutely do not imagine him sliding that towel from around his waist and revealing the gorgeous glistening golden thighs that strain against his work khakis so wonderfully. Nor do you think of the way he twists his neck to pop it while he does his after-shower stretches - because that’s a normal thing that normal people totally do - and you absolutely are not thinking of the way the scent of sandalwood and steam trails after him when he’s freshly showered and you are definitively not thinking about-

A loud, high-pitched moan followed by the slapping of skin on skin echoes through the apartment, jolting you upright and out of your thoughts as you stare in shock at the back of your bedroom door.

Something thuds against the carpeted floor of Namjoon’s room and the sound abruptly cuts off. The silence that follows is deafening, and your ears ring with it.

Surely….surely he wasn’t….

A thought, unbidden and cursed, flits through your mind before you can stop it. You can’t even blame the residual alcohol in your body for the way you stand and open your bedroom door, or how you slip your super soft silk robe over your shoulders and tie it loosely around your waist, nor for the way you take the two steps to stand in front of Namjoon’s, but you absolutely blame your quickly-returning sobriety for the way you hesitate in front of it.

He’s going to say no, anyway, so what’s the harm? Things are awkward for a day or two and then we move on, right?

You knock before you can talk yourself out of it. It takes a few minutes, but Namjoon does eventually open the door. His chest is still bare but he’s got on the soft-looking plaid pajama pants that you adore, albeit they are on backwards , and his face is flushed with color.

You're 98% sure that it's because he just had his hand around his cock. You're significantly less sure if you hate or love the fact that you know that.

“Hey,” You say awkwardly.

“Hey,” He responds, just as awkward.

You both stand there for a second while you work up the courage to ask what’s been going around and around in your mind.

“I just heard that thud and got worried,” is what eventually makes it out. Namjoon’s face flushes further, and his nose scrunches in the cutest way. “Just...wanted to make sure you weren’t, y’know. Dead. Haha.”

He smiles at your laugh, even though it’s dead and humorless, and warmth blooms in your chest.

“I’m alright. Sorry for any, uh…” He squints, clearly searching for the word he wants to use that won’t immediately give him away - like the entire apartment building hadn’t heard that noise. “Disturbances.”

“Oh, no, you’re fine!” You tell him, rubbing the back of your neck. “I was just. Uh. Y’know how bonobos will often have recreational sex with non-monogamous partners just because they’re bored or as a way to work out the tension between members of the unit-groups and they enjoy said recreational sex, even though there’s no real emotional attachment to the other parties involved?”

Namjoon stares at you for a long, silent moment.

“Yeah, I know about bonobos,” He eventually says. “I didn’t know that about bonobos, but I guess that’s the fun fact quota for the day.”

Your face heats and you’ve never quite wished the ground would swallow you up until this very moment.

“Oh,” You say, dumbly. “Well. That’s a thing. That bonobos do.”

“I got that,” Namjoon says. He bites down on his lower lip in what’s probably an innocuous way to not smile at how ridiculous you’re being, but when paired with the golden expanse of chest, it’s utterly obscene.

“Would you like to have recreational sex with me?”

“ What? ”

“No strings attached, no feelings, nothing but some nice fun recreational intercourse between two consenting adults of sound mind. Would you be interested?”

“I...why are you asking me? ” He asks incredulously, and you resist the urge to kiss the surprise off his face. How is it surprising at all when he walks around looking like that ?

“Because in the time we’ve known each other as coworkers, roommates, and friends, I think we could be very sexually compatible and even if we aren’t, I’m confident enough in our friendship to believe we could still be friends afterward.” You tell him firmly. “Besides, you’re literally the hottest guy I’ve ever seen, why wouldn’t I want to have sex with you?”

“You’re...serious about this? You’re not playing some kind of joke on me?”

“Why would I play a joke on you, Namjoon? I haven’t been able to get off for literal weeks - ever since you moved in, actually - and I’m at a bit of a breaking point.”

“And you’re not drunk?”

“Completely sober,” You assure him. He curses under his breath and runs a hand over his jaw, not making eye contact as he considers. It’s the same thoughtful expression that he gets when he’s trying to figure out some complex equation at work. With how long it’s been since you last came, however, it’s only making you wetter.

"Fuck it," He mutters, seconds before his hands cup your jaw to pull you into a kiss.

It's awkward at first, the two of you trying to find a rhythm that you both enjoy while still being able to breathe. His lips are slightly chapped and you both stumble as he starts walking backwards towards the bed, but it's so wonderful. His hand against your jaw is warm and comforting, even as his other hand is slipping teasingly under your robe and his teeth suckle a mark into your collarbone.

Movement on the bed catches your attention and you flush when you realize it's Moni, Namjoon's very sweet dog that came with him when he moved in.

"Uh, Namjoon?" You breathe. It's hard to focus on anything that isn't the way he's teasing at the band of your panties, but the way Moni is staring at you is captivating. "Dog."

Namjoon freezes, hands disappearing from your skin, and he either doesn't hear or doesn't acknowledge your needy whine at the loss of contact.

"What, what's wrong? Is that your safeword? What did I do?"

"No, Joon," You can barely hear yourself think over the stream of apologies pouring from his lips, and it isn't until you grip his shoulders and forcibly turn him to look at his dog that he shuts up.

" Oh ," He whispers. "The dog." He clicks his tongue a couple of times and Moni hops down from the bed, though not without giving Namjoon the saddest eyes possible. Moni disappears down the hallway, probably to go lay on the couch, and Namjoon shuts the door behind him. "Sorry," he says bashfully.

"Don't be sorry," You respond with a smile. " Do , however, fuck me until I can't move."

A growl vibrates in his chest, surprising you, and you're bouncing atop his mattress before you can think.

He doesn't say anything else, too focused on the way your folds feel against his tongue as he slides your robe up your thighs. Words are hardly possible for you when he makes you come the first time. Even less so when he turns you onto your hands and knees, presses your face into the mattress, and proceeds to pound into you so hard that the nightstand shakes. Still, your knees are made weak by something else entirely.

It's the tender awareness in his touch; he's firm and unyielding but so, so cautious, consistently testing your reactions before he continues. The way his voice - deepened and husky with desire - sounds in your ear when he asks if what he's doing is okay, if you like it, if you want to keep going. It's how he teases you gently about how wet you are - "God damn, is this all for me? You're so fucking wet, so slick and ready for me, sweetheart," - the way he's so absolutely tuned in to your own needs and desires, the way he coaxes orgasm after orgasm out of you like it's second nature, his own high an afterthought when you've clenched too tight around him.

It's the way he brings you water and some fruit afterward and gently cleans you up while you eat before sliding your robe carefully over the blossoming purple marks he sucked into your shoulders. It's the way he didn't close his bedroom door until yours clicked behind you.

"This was the best idea I've ever had," you sigh happily to yourself as you drift off to sleep.

“So you’ve got a sir kink?” Namjoon asks several days later, face pressed into a microscope more expensive than your entire apartment building. He doesn’t look at you, even as you tear your eyes away from the computer screen in front of you to glance at him curiously.

“I do,” You tell him. He shifts in his chair and you bite back a grin. “Is that a problem? We don’t have to use it.”

“No, it’s fine,” He says quickly. “Just thought it was interesting. I didn’t expect that from you.”

“Namjoon, we’ve only known each other for a couple of months, and in that time, we’ve hardly had a conversation about what kinks we enjoy and what we don’t. How would you expect anything?”

“Just...didn’t expect it, that’s all.” He’s quiet for a minute and a sliver of guilt lodges in your throat. You’re right, the two of you haven’t known each other for very long, especially not in a sexual manner, but you could’ve maybe phrased it better.

“I’m sorry-”

“We should-”

Both of you stop midsentence, turning away from your work to laugh with each other.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Namjoon says with a dimpled smile. “I know what you meant, and you’re right. We don’t know what the other enjoys, so we shouldn’t go into this with any expectations.”

“Maybe we should, though,” You say, marking a sequence that catches your eye so you’ll remember to come back and fully examine it later. “I mean, we can’t exactly fulfill our sexual needs without knowing what said needs are. For instance, how often do you orgasm every week?”

Something tumbles on Namjoon’s desk, and when you look over he’s got the microscope cradled carefully in his hands a few feet above the floor.

“Uh...maybe twice,” He eventually says.

“Hm. Duly noted.” You turn back to the monitor in front of you, marking another sequence for inspection.

“Well...how often do you orgasm each week?” He asks. His voice is hesitant, like he isn’t sure if he’s allowed to ask.

“Depends,” You tell him. “When I’m close to my period or ovulating, it’s usually once a day, if not twice, because my sex drive is higher, but otherwise it’s usually every other day or so.”

“Oh.”

“But don’t worry, I’m more than willing to take care of myself on the nights where you need a break. I don’t expect you to keep up with my sex drive.”

“I mean...I could .”

You turn away from the monitor to look at him, quirking a brow. He quirks his own in return and you can’t help the way your eyes travel down his form. He’s wearing contacts instead of his glasses - always does during the workweek, since it’s easier to use a microscope that way - but the light purple shirt sets off the platinum blonde of his hair and his thighs strain against the material of his khakis. It all adds up to make him look absolutely delectable, especially since you know full well what’s hiding underneath those pants.

“I could,” He repeats. “If you want me to.”

Your eyes meet his and you have no doubt he’s been eyeing you the same way you’ve been eyeing him.

“I think it might be time for our lunch break, Mr. Kim,” You tell him, eyes darting to the clock on your desk. “I was thinking of going out to get something, would you like to join me?”

Namjoon is already standing and grabbing his jacket, and you would laugh at how eager he is if you weren’t the same way. You can already feel heat beginning to pool between your legs and the two of you rush out of the office in such a hurry that you hardly notice when you run straight into the mail cart.

“Nice going, Slick!” Kihyun yells after you, and you wish you were ashamed of the way that your knees tremble at the reminder of how it felt to have Namjoon call you that while buried inside of your warmth.

“They have no idea,” Namjoon mutters, fingers twisting with yours so he can pull you down a hallway and towards an unused office. “If they only knew just how slick you really are.”

You shiver and slam the door closed as Namjoon sinks to his knees.

The amount of times the two of you fuck at work is utterly ridiculous after that. You have an actual conversation with him about kinks and hard limits and soft limits and all that fun grown-up stuff that’s necessary of an adult relationship, of course, and that only adds to the fire between the two of you.

He’s more than willing to let you call him Sir while you’re on your hands and knees in front of him, and you’re absolutely willing to ride him into oblivion in those moments when he doesn’t want to be in charge or when he’s had a hard day at work and just wants to relax. Those are your favorite times, actually; when he just sits on the couch and drives himself up into you while you’re fucking yourself back down onto him, eyes clenched shut as his hands glide up your spine and knead your ass.

The slow, lazy way his hips meet yours is absolutely addictive, you can’t even lie, but you can’t deny that it’s the moment after you’ve both cum that are the real danger. When you’re both panting and spent, laying against the soft sheets on his bed or the cool leather of your couch, and his arm drapes around your torso for those few moments it takes him to regain his breath.

It’s dangerous, so dangerous, because you’ve already agreed not to have feelings involved in this. You’re friends with benefits, nothing more and nothing less, and you cannot let yourself forget that. Not in the mornings when you wander out in his shirt to find that he’s made breakfast - ordered it, actually, but it’s the thought that counts - or when you walk into work together and he doesn’t hesitate to open the doors for you without even breaking stride, as if it’s second nature to do so. As if he’s used to it.

It’s when the two of you are at the mall together that reality hits you in the face.

You’re both on the hunt for different things; he’s got a birthday present he still has to buy and wants to pick up some new treats and sweaters for Moni, while you’re on the hunt for a new toaster to rival that of your old one - which you destroyed on accident by using a metal fork to dig a piece of bread out of. While it was plugged in. And hot.

Your hands still sting a little, but the ER nurse was adamant that you would be alright. So long as you didn’t try to electrocute yourself again.

“Wait, so you’re not going to be here for New Year’s Eve?” You clarify, popping a piece of chocolate into your mouth.

“No, I’m heading up to Taehyung’s cabin with the rest of the guys. It’s an annual thing, I don’t even remember how it got started,” Namjoon tells you as he peers into the window of some box store that you already know isn’t going to have anything Taehyung will like.

“Hm, I guess it’s good I work then, so I can walk Moni.”

Namjoon shoots you an odd look. “You don’t work, and Jackson’s watching Moni.”

“Uh...I’m pretty sure I work on New Year’s Eve, Namjoon. I would’ve made plans otherwise.”

“Slick, I’m exactly one hundred percent sure the office is closed for New Year’s because it is every year.” He sneaks a piece of chocolate and wrinkles his nose when he realizes it’s mint chocolate.

“No, because my schedule says-” You start, pulling your phone out to open said schedule so you can show him just how wrong he is. “That I work the next morning. That’s why I didn’t make plans.”

Namjoon just smiles and taps at the screen. “That’s December, Slick. You’re looking at December first.”

You pull the phone back and stare at it, horror washing over you when you see that he’s right.

You’re going to be spending New Year’s alone, for the first time in years, and loneliness fills you at that thought. Your parents are an entire plane ride away, on vacation for their retirement in some tropical paradise that you can’t remember the name of; your old friends are in an entirely different city, likely already with plans of their own, and you don’t know nearly enough people at work or outside of it to have any idea what people are doing.

“Oh man,” Namjoon breathes, clearly oblivious to the sudden onset of loneliness that’s hit you. “I knew it was going to be hilarious, but I had no idea it was going to be this good .”

You look up to find him focused on his phone, camera pointing at something you can’t quite make out through the small screen. You follow the view, a reluctant smile breaking out when you spot Hope on the Street dancing along to some holiday song while dressed as an elf.

“Isn’t that the news anchor that got in trouble for doing anal?” You ask. Namjoon cackles - there’s no other word for it, it’s a cackle - and nods.

“Yeah, Hoseok’s been forced into doing this as a publicity stunt. We’ve all been looking forward to seeing him do it, too, but god , I had no idea it would be this funny to see. Hobi as a Christmas elf, can you imagine?”

“Hobi?”

“Oh, yeah, he’s a close friend of mine,” Namjoon says, eyes never straying from the video as he plays it back. “He’s gonna be at the cabin too, with his girlfriend Cat. There’s like seven of us who all grew up in the same little neighborhood, and we all kept pretty close as we got older. It’s like a little mini-family.”

“Oh,” You say softly. Namjoon tucks his phone back into his pocket and looks around, lighting up as he spots something else. “I didn’t know you knew Hope on the Street.”

“Yeah, he’s a dork,” Namjoon says as he pulls you towards some children’s store. “Come on, I think Yoongi’s working and I like to watch his little dance when he makes the hearts.”

You barely pay attention as Namjoon hurries into the toy store. You don’t join him inside, too busy lost in your own thoughts.

You should’ve realized, you scold yourself. You should’ve known better. You got comfortable, you got complacent and happy, too enamored with the way Namjoon feels inside of you and the warmth of his hand in yours to realize that you’re still on the outside.

He and his friends are all going up to some cabin, with their girlfriends apparently, to hang out and have fun together for New Year’s. He didn’t invite you. You’ve lost yourself in the fantasy and complacency of how warm he feels, how it feels like coming home whenever you see him, even when you knew better.

You knew better than to get attached. You told yourself, every step of the way, not to get attached, don’t develop feelings, it’s just sex, and yet…

And yet your heart is breaking in your chest that he didn’t invite you along, that he didn’t even think to do so. It’s not even fair to him, it’s not his fault that you got too caught up in the domesticity and familiarity of him to remember that this isn’t serious. Why would he invite you? You’re his roommate, a coworker, the girl he fucks every so often. You aren’t his girlfriend, you aren’t anyone important to his friends.

You’re just the roommate.

“Hey, look at this bear I made, it’s got a little microscope and everything! It’s perfect for-”

“Sorry,” You interrupt, ignoring the way Namjoon’s smile dims ever so slightly. “I just realized that I’ve got to finish up some analyses before the office closes for the holiday, I’ve gotta go do that. But it’s cute, Moni’ll love it.”

“Okay.” Namjoon’s voice is hushed, and his brows are drawn together. He can obviously tell something’s off, but if you’re lucky, maybe he won’t be able to pinpoint exactly what. “I’ll see you at home then.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you back at the apartment,” You say quickly, not even looking at him as you hurry off the other way.

You just need space, you tell yourself. You just need some distance so you can get your emotions under control. You can’t be around him when all you want to do is kiss him senseless and tell him how much you want to wake up in his bed forever, how you never want to miss another walk with Moni. He can’t know.

He won’t know.

"I fucked up."

"You're going to have to be more specific," Jimin’s voice says from the other end of the phone.

Namjoon groans, resisting the urge to slam his head back against the cabinets. He's standing in the kitchen now, staring longingly at the fridge and whatever food it may contain, because you’re out grocery shopping now, and he would love for you to come back to a hot meal, but there’s a reason you’re grocery shopping this late at night.

"You remember how in college everyone teased me because I'm terrible at one-night stands and I bet Hobi a week's groceries that I totally could?"

"Yes," Jimin says slowly. Something clinks on the other end of the line, and Namjoon wonders what Jimin’s having for dinner. His stomach rumbles in response and he heaves himself across the kitchen to dig through the fridge while Jimin continues. "I also remember how you spent weeks pining over said one-night stand while Hoseok filled the cupboards with every single thing he thought he could get away with buying. Why are you bringing that up now?"

Namjoom stays quiet but hums in victory as he unearths a pizza that isn’t too terribly old. “How long can pizza live in the fridge before it would kill me if I ate it?”

“If you have to ask that question, it’s been too long,” Jimin tells him. Namjoon debates, eyeing the pizza before deciding it looks fine and turning the oven on before sliding the pizza in. “Now, why are you bringing up one night stands and then pizza?”

"You remember how that new girl started at work a few months ago and we ate lunch together and then nearly got fired?"

"Yes, I distinctly remember writing you notes on takeout containers for weeks reminding you not to put foil in the microwave. What does-" Jimin stops, and Namjoon gets the distinct impression that if they were having this conversation in person, he’d be getting the Look. "Joon, tell me you didn't."

"I didn't have a one night stand with her," Namjoon assures him.

"Good," Jimin says, heaving a sigh of relief. "God only knows what would happen with a one night stand with your roommate-"

"We're friends with benefits."

Jimin chokes on whatever he’s eating and Namjoon winces sympathetically.

"It's not that bad," The elder says before Jimin can scold him. "We're very sexually compatible. And she's amazing, Jimin, you don't even know-"

"Joon, isn't this the same girl you spent an entire four hours talking about the day she started working with you?"

"Yeah, so?"

The blonde gives a heavy sigh. Namjoon knows the younger well enough to know he’s shaking his head right now.

"Please be careful, Namjoon," Jimin eventually says.

"Oh, don't worry, we've both been tested, and we use condoms every time, there's nothing to worry about."

"That's not the kind of careful I mean," Jimin sighs. He's quiet for a minute as he eats and Namjoon waits for his pizza to be heated enough to eat. "Why do you say you fucked up if you’ve been careful?”

“I…” He hesitates. “I don’t know. I think she’s upset with me. We were at the mall the other day and it was fine, we were laughing at how Hobi looks dressed as an elf-”

“God that video was hilarious -”

“Right?!” They both laugh a little, fondly remembering the sight, before Namjoon sobers. “And then she just...changed. She got all quiet and skittish and ran off before I could give her the bear I made. She didn’t even look at it.”

“And it just happened out of nowhere? What were you talking about?”

“How she’s off work for New Year’s and I’m heading up to the cabin so she doesn’t have to watch Moni or anything, and then I saw Yoongi doing that dance at the store so I wanted to go watch him, and-” He stops, eyes focused on the air in front of him.

“Joon? You good?”

“Hypothetically speaking,” He begins, a realization hitting him all at once, “What would happen if I put a pizza in the oven to reheat without taking it out of the box?”

“Oh my fucking god, Namjoon, get it out!”

There’s a flurry of smoke while Namjoon does just that and rushes to open the window so he can let some of the smoke out before you get back home. Jimin’s still berating him - albeit fondly - when he picks the phone back up.

“It’s fine,” Namjoon says quickly, “It’s cool, nothing’s actually on fire anymore. And the pizza’s warm!”

“Oh my god, how have you survived this long.” Namjoon smiles at Jimin’s words; he gets a lot of shit for being wildly unobservant, but he knows that the others love him dearly. Why else would they still talk to him? Really, after the incident with the tub at Jungkook’s apartment, it’s truly a miracle he still has friends, and love is the only explanation.

“But seriously, I don’t know what I did with Slick. Do you think I was too...obvious?”

“Namjoon,” Jimin says seriously. “If this girl is anything like you, and based on that time she tried to screenshot a crack in phone screen I’m inclined to believe she is, then I think the issue is that you aren’t being obvious enough . You said she got all weird after you mentioned the cabin, right?”

“Yeah. I thought she’d be happy that she wouldn’t be stuck with Moni, but-”

“Did you consider that since she thought she was working, she doesn’t have any other plans and is now stuck in the apartment by herself since she just moved here recently?”

“Oh.” Guilt surges through him as the door opens and your voice echoes that you picked up some takeout while you were gone. “I gotta go.”

“Ah-ah,” Jimin says quickly. “My payment?”

“Yes, Jimin, I love you dearly, you are the light of my life, I would never have survived this long were it not for your sage wisdom, I owe you my firstborn.”

“Much better! Some of the others could learn from you.” Jimin’s laugh continues long after he’s hung up, Namjoon is sure of it.

You aren’t sure why the apartment smells like smoke when you get back, but you decide not to question it and just be grateful you had the foresight to pick up some takeout on your way back from the store.

When you get into the kitchen, Namjoon is there, with a smoking pizza box on the stove beside him. He’s not in his work clothes; instead, he looks comfortable and cozy in some sweats and a faded tee with his glasses halfway down his nose. Your heart lurches painfully in your chest at the sight and you force yourself to remember that he isn’t yours .

“Hey! Did you hear me? I got takeout, since I figured neither of us wanted to cook. And I’m glad I did, what’s with the smoke?” A thought strikes you as you set the bags on the table. “Oh no, did you try to use the toaster? I told you not to, it got weird after that night with the fork, we need to replace it.”

“Do you wanna go to the cabin?”

You freeze, halfway to the fridge to put away the ice cream that he likes. “What?” You ask.

“The cabin. Do you want to go with me for New Year’s Eve, with everyone?” Namjoon takes the ice cream and finishes your journey for you, sticking it in the freezer without a second thought. “If you don’t want to take advantage of a quiet apartment, that is. You’re welcome to join, and I figured that was obvious, but then I realized that it may not be, so I wanted to offer.”

“With you and all of your friends? I don’t really... know any of them.”

“That’s fine, they’re not that bad. They’re all pretty friendly, once you get to know them at least.” Namjoon says as he takes some vegetables out of your hands to put them in the fridge as well. “And I have no doubt that the others are going to bring some of their friends. Yoongi’s girlfriend will be there, she seems sweet. And Cat and Star are always nice, you’d love them.”

You hesitate, though you aren’t sure why. This is what you wanted, so why doesn’t it make you happy?

“Besides, they’ll all be happy to have another friend around to bother. Jin loves to feed people.” Namjoon flashes his dimples at you and your heart does something complex that you can’t explain. There’s the rush of excitement and the skipped beat that always comes with his dimples, but it twists and clenches as well. Because of course, he’s just taking you as a friend.

You’re friends. And that’s fine. If you repeat yourself enough times then you’ll believe it. You have to.

“Yeah, sure!” You say with a grin. “I’d like that. They always sound so fun, it’ll be nice to meet them for real.”

Namjoon beams and helps you put the rest of the groceries away before you both settle in to eat. It’s not anything fancy, simple and quick and just enough to get the two of you through the night so that you didn’t have to cook. You chat about work as you do, a few sequences that might prove promising if you can work them the right way.

It’s afterward, as you’re both curled up on opposite sides of the couch while some nature documentary plays in the background, that you notice it.

He’s been fidgety all night, even before you left to get the food, and you didn’t think anything of it before. But now he’s even worse, hands rubbing along his thighs nervously while he shoots you look after look, which you have no doubt he thinks you don’t notice.

“What is up with you?” You ask him eventually, ignoring the way some bug is eating another bug’s head onscreen.

“Nothing,” he says in a rush. “Just...ready for bed.”

“Then go to bed.” You say it like it’s obvious, because it is. If he’s so ready to sleep, then he should go; neither of you has ever expected the other to stay up and watch TV together. You’re individuals.

“Okay,” he says softly, adjusting his glasses as he stands. He gets all the way to his bedroom door before he comes back, hovering awkwardly in the hall entrance for several seconds before he finally sits back down on the couch. Now, however, he’s sitting with his thigh pressed against yours, the heat radiating through the shorts you’re wearing and searing into your skin.

He’s still fidgety, still uneasy for some reason, and it’s as you turn to ask him what the hell’s going on that he pulls you into a kiss. It’s soft and lingering and it makes your stomach flip in all the ways it isn’t supposed to.

“If you wanted to have sex, you should have just said so,” You whisper against his lips. You can feel it more than hear it as he starts to say something and then cuts himself off with a sigh.

“I wanna be inside you,” he says instead. “Please.”

Heat pools between your legs, even at such simple words, and you find yourself nodding. He kisses you again, frantic and much more heated than before, and you can already tell what it’ll be like tonight.

You’re right, too; it’s quick and dirty. You don’t even make it to the bed, not at first. He cages you against the wall in the hallway and slides a hand between your bodies to start to draw your first orgasm out. It’s the whine from the dog that makes you realize where you are, pulling apart long enough to stare at where Moni sits at the hallway entrance, head cocked to the side and watching you with a confused stare.

That gets you into the bedroom, the door shut behind you as you fall together onto the bed. The two of you barely get your clothes off before Namjoon’s sliding inside of you and groaning at the feeling.

“Fuck, Slick, you’re so wet,” he whispers against your skin as he thrusts. You can hardly make words, too focused on the way he fits inside of you and the absolute certainty that you cannot say a single word running through your head.

Not that you’re in love with the way he holds your hips so gently as he thrusts, not how he whispers praise and adoration against you with every press of his lips to your skin, and certainly not how you want to stay like this forever. That you’re absolutely positive you’ve broken the cardinal rules of being fuckbuddies.

Don’t get feelings.

But you were a fool, anyway. Because it’s easy to break rules, especially when you go into it with feelings.

The first orgasm hits you with a shockwave, and with the way Namjoon hits your g-spot, it’s followed by a second shortly after. Your hands claw into the sheets as he fills the condom, and it only takes a minute for him to clean himself up enough to relax in the bed beside you, but you hardly notice; you’re too busy adjusting to the emptiness that you’re left with now that he isn’t inside you, the yearning that fills you down to your bones with the need to be wrapped up in his arms and cradled to his chest as you both drift to sleep.

You force yourself up before you can get comfortable, fatigue sweeping through your bones.

“I’m, uh, I’m gonna go shower,” You tell him. It’s a feat to keep your voice neutral, but you think you manage. “And then head to bed, I think. Uh, thanks. For the orgasms.”

The door to the bathroom closes behind you before he can even get a word out, and you force the image of his confused face out of your mind as you turn the water on. It takes every part of you to resist the urge to linger in the hot spray for longer than you need to be there, but you manage.

By the time you’re slipping into bed, the light in Namjoon’s room is off and you can hear Moni settling into bed beside Namjoon. You can practically see them, curled up together all warm and settled in together. Content.

You slip between your own sheets and wrap the fluffy blanket around you. Emotions are swirling in your gut and you do your best to ignore them all. You don’t need to focus on the way you want to be there with them, the way you want to curl your body into his with Moni between you, just the way he likes on the couch.

“This is the worst idea I’ve ever had,” You tell yourself with a sigh as you try to fall asleep in your lonely bed.

You don’t know that across the hall, Namjoon lays awake with Moni beside him, wondering how he fucked up so badly that you’re not in his arms anymore. He’d have every intention to tell you about his feelings. He wanted to end this friends-with-benefits thing, put it to rest so that he could take you out for real. So you could be together , for real.

But you’d just bolted the second he was collapsing onto the bed, like you were running from something, and he wasn’t about to keep you here when you don’t want to be here.

Still, he thinks as Moni burrows under the blankets to get closer to him, he can’t help but wish you were up against him as well, with your breathing steady and quiet as you sleep and he can feel your chest move with it.

He just really wishes that you wanted that too.

The drive to the cabin is uneventful. You and Namjoon talk about work most of the way, chatting amicably about a few things that got corrupted in the data that have been frustrating to rebuild and how excited Moni was to see Jackson when he picked the pup up that day.

You’re only a little nervous when you spot the wooden sign specifying that it belongs to the Kims. You’ve heard a lot of stories about Namjoon’s friends, seen one or two in passing when they come by the apartment to see Namjoon, though you tend to give them space when that happens.

Still, nothing could ever compare to the welcome that greets you. There’s some kind of karaoke going on, with Taehyung and Star watching from the couch. There are crutches propped up nearby and you wonder what the story is there for the few seconds before your attention is drawn to the kitchen, where who you assume is Seokjin is scolding someone for shoving entirely too many cookies into their mouth. You catch sight of someone - blonde, giggling, followed by a sweet-looking girl - run out of the kitchen with his cheeks puffed out and crumbs on his lips, and you shoot Namjoon a look.

“Jimin,” He explains with a grin. “C’mon, let’s go claim the den before someone else can get to it.”

That night is hectic, to say the least. Namjoon was right when he said his friends are welcoming, though; everyone is friendly and talkative - except for Pumpkin, Seokjin’s best friend who genuinely looks like she’s about to murder someone for the few moments that you see her during dinner but Namjoon assures you “That’s just her face, I promise.” Even when the boys get to reminiscing about the days they spent in that cul-de-sac, they include everyone else in their stories.

Especially fun is when they all come up with theories about why Cat and Hobi are late, and while from what you’ve heard so far tonight, you agree with the proposal that they’re probably fucking, you still feel a sliver of worry for them.

It’s the mention of sex that gets your stomach churning, though. Because Namjoon shoots you a knowing look, the same one he gets when you wear those ultra-short shorts around the house that he adores, and you already know what he wants. You can’t even say you don’t want it, too, because you don’t think you could ever turn down the opportunity to have him like that. It’s just so bittersweet when it ends-

“I’m going to start on dessert,” Seokjin states as he gathers plates. Yoongi and Peaches are gone in record time, and Taehyung and Star follow not long after, though it takes considerably longer with the way Taehyung helps her. Seokjin calls after them all that he’ll have dessert ready in a little while, and Namjoon shoots you another look when Jimin and Pumpkin don’t move from the table.

“C’mon,” Namjoon whispers, grabbing your hand and urging you down the hallway. “Get our bags, we’re gonna steal Jin’s room.”

“That doesn’t seem like the best idea,” You whisper in return, though you do in fact grab the bags as he directs. “Isn’t that also Pumpkin’s room? Are we sure she won’t murder us?”

“No, it’ll be fine, Jin would never let her.” The thought isn’t as comforting as Namjoon means it to be, but you manage to get your bags in the room and their bags out without anyone the wiser.

You realize your mistake too late. This room only has one bed. A singular sleeping area. The den has couches, you would have been fine, but you can’t sleep here. You can’t share the bed with Namjoon; it’s entirely too dangerous. Getting to see him still completely sleep soft, warm against you as the two of you doze in the early morning light?

There would be no coming back from that.

The thought leaves nearly as quick as it enters, driven away by the slide of Namjoon’s arms as he wraps them around you.

"Do you want it, Slick?" His voice is deep and rumbling, almost a purr in your ear, and it makes your knees weak. It's truly ridiculous how easy it is for him to rile you up, but fuck , can you really complain?

Except you can, because it's not what you want. It's not everything you want. You can't ask for more, though, not when he doesn't want to give it.

His hands snake towards the waistband of your pants - fancy grey pinstriped pants that you bought specifically because Namjoon told you that Seokjin has a fancy dress code for New Year's Eve - and your heart jumps up into your throat. You spin in his arms, doing your best to look enthusiastic.

"I want to blow you," You tell him as you sink to your knees. He leans back against the wall and quirks a brow, but he nods his agreement.

You set to work almost immediately; you're determined to make this the best blowjob of his life. It's the least you can do. You don't tell him that, though; you can't tell him. Not this. Not that you're so deeply entrenched in your feelings for him that you're afraid if you don't get out now you won't be able to. Not that you can't bear to have him touch you because you're afraid of what will come out of your mouth, what you might say or reveal that he doesn't want to know.

Not when you're going to have to end this, as you decided while laying in bed two nights ago, cold and exhausted and utterly alone.

You focus again on Namjoon, reminding yourself to pay attention. His dick is big - big enough that your fingers can only barely meet when you wrap them around it, but it means your jaw aches deliciously when you go down on him, and you adore the feeling of it in your throat.

So you swallow him down completely, burying him to the hilt with one swift movement. You've been practicing, and it has clearly paid off if the choked moan that escapes him is any indication. His hands tangle in your hair, not pulling or pushing but instead just sitting there and moving with you as you pull off just to bury him again.

You look up and are pleased to find that his eyes are screwed shut, jaw clenched tight against the moans building inside of his chest. But that won't do at all. The best blowjob of his life can't possibly be one where he doesn't even look at you.

To rectify the situation, you bring one hand up to tease at his balls, squeezing ever so slightly in the way you know he likes as you swallow around his cock. He does moan then, fingers clenching in your hair as he opens his eyes to look down at you.

"Fuck, just like that, Slick," He pleads. "Again, please again, it's perfect." You comply, humming an affirmative around his dick that makes him shudder before you swallow around him again. "God, fuck , you're so fucking perfect. Fucking amazing, the best, I can't believe I get to have this-"

Namjoon continues, mumbling in and out of coherency as you bop your head up and down on his cock. He's thick and heavy in your mouth and it feels like heaven on your tongue - it always does - and just when you think you can never get enough-

"Fuck, I love you so much, Slick, you're a god damn angel."

You pull off his dick, staring wide-eyed at him. Namjoon whines and looks down at you, clearly not comprehending what's just come out of his mouth.

"Fuck," He mutters. "Fuck, shit, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...I don't...I'm so sorry I didn't want you to know, especially not like this. Shit. "

"Are you serious?" You ask as you stand back up. Namjoon makes a belated movement to help steady you, blood flowing back into your calves from where you were kneeled down for a while, but he stops himself. He doesn't even look at you, really, instead staring out the window nearby. "Namjoon, seriously. Did you mean that?"

"I mean…" He hesitates, rubbing a hand over his jaw. "Yeah. I did. I do. It's still new so I can't be entirely sure, but I think that's what this is."

He heaves a sigh and tucks himself back into his slacks before moving to sit on the bed, one hand running through his platinum hair.

"You weren't supposed to know," He mutters. "I thought I could keep it a secret. I didn't want to make it weird between us since you don't…"

"Since I don't...feel the same?" You ask as you sit beside him. "You really...care about me like that?"

"Yeah," Namjoon whispers with a grin. It's fond and sweet and everything you've ever wanted and it's so unbearably familiar because it's how he's always looked at you. "Ever since we almost burned the lab down, I think."

"Same," You breathe, and you can't deny the way that you love the light that sparks in his eyes at that. "Ever since you ate the vegetables out of my rice and gave me your eggrolls."

"Are you-"

"Yeah," You say with a laugh. "I guess we're kind of both at fault for this, then."

"Can I…" Namjoon trails off, searching for the words he wants. His hands move to wrap around yours, lacing your fingers together as he gives you a smitten smile. "We've been fucking for a while. As you know. But would you do me the honor of letting me make love to you?"

You gulp, an audible and atrocious thing, because his words send a surge of desire straight to your core. He's right, you have been fucking, because that's the only thing the two of you can call it. You don't make eye contact, you don't sleep over, there are rules , but god, the two of you break everything else, so why not this?

"Please," You whisper.

His lips are on yours in an instant, his hands following quickly after to strip your clothes off. You can't be sure when his clothes join the pile on the floor, just that one moment your fists are clenched in his shirt and the next, you're raking your nails down his bare back as he sucks purple marks into your neck.

"God, you're beautiful," He mutters. "Fucking divine."

"Then I match you, don't I?" You whisper. Two of his fingers slide into you, and both of you moan at the feeling. He glides them against your walls, teasing that one spot inside of you that he knows you adore, and you whine a little.

"Patience, my dear," He chuckles. When you whine again he grins, dimples making your stomach flip. "Alright then, Slick. Let me get a condom."

"No," You say quickly. "We've been exclusive, right? No risk or anything like that. I've got the implant. 98% effective. I want…"

"Say it, love," Namjoon breathes, eyes never leaving yours.

"I want to feel you. Please." He nods at your words and settles between your thighs once more. Your breath hitches in your throat at the thought of what's to come.

"Tell me if you want to stop," he says as he presses kisses to your neck, up your throat, and across your cheeks. He does it all to distract you as he slides inside, but he doesn't need to. You've been fucking him for months now, you know exactly how big he is, and you're more than ready for it.

What you aren't ready for is the way his skin feels against your walls, how you can feel every pulse and throb of his cock inside you. It's better than anything you've ever felt, beyond any descriptors you could find, and it only gets better as he slides out and then back in.

His pace is slow but steady, a rhythmic glide to it that's making you obscenely wet. It's a stark contrast to the gentle way he kisses you, the softness of his lips against yours. The sound of his skin hitting yours fills the room as he breaks the kiss, resting his forehead against yours.

"You are the best thing that's ever happened to me," You tell him, sliding your hands along every inch of skin you can get.

Nothing is loud enough to mask the sound of the door opening, however, and when you glance over you can see that Hoseok and Cat have apparently finished whatever the fuck it was they were doing.

You shy back, doing your best to cover yourself from their eyes, but Namjoon's pace doesn't falter.

" Taken ," He growls. He doesn't even break eye contact as he does so, and the way his hand tightens on your hip makes you think he isn't just talking about the bedroom.

Thankfully the couple disappears after that, closing the door behind them as they go, and it flips a switch inside Namjoon somehow.

His pace speeds up, pistoning in and out of you mercilessly. He starts to angle his hips, searching until you finally cry out with your back arching up off the bed itself. He just smiles and continues to hit that spot, one hand moving to support your back while the other rubs teasing circles into your clit.

"That's it, love," he purrs. "Wanna watch you come for me like this. Let yourself fall apart on my cock, Slick, I'll be right here. I've got you."

You really wish you could figure out what exactly it is he does then; some kind of swivel of his hips while his fingers do some complicated twist or something, you have no doubt, but nevertheless, it's got you unraveling underneath him. You clench around him, harder than you ever have, and you can feel the sheets soaking underneath you from the strength of your orgasm.

It takes barely two more thrusts for Namjoon to come as well, stilling slightly as his cum hits your walls for the first time. It's warm and you can feel it settling inside of you, but you can't say you don't enjoy it.

You're both panting, out of breath and exhausted and having worked all the food Seokjin made out of your system. Namjoon disappears for a few seconds before returning with a warm cloth to clean you up; his hands are tender as he does so, and you find yourself falling even deeper.

After a quick power nap and an even quicker quickie - because Namjoon insisted that it wasn't fair that you got to go down on him but he didn't get to go down on you - the two of you mingle with the others. Hoseok and Cat fit seamlessly into the group, filling a space you hadn't realized was missing during dinner. It's obvious to you, as you lean against the kitchen island and watch them all, just how much this group loves each other. Even the newcomers, like the new girlfriends, are absorbed so perfectly into the existing group that it's as if they never left.

Hell, even Pumpkin is smiling a little, although you can't be sure it's not just because Seokjin looks Like That.

"Ooh, icing," Namjoon says as he comes to join you in the kitchen. Seokjin barely gets a chance to say anything as Namjoon drags his thumb across the white droplet and sucks it into his mouth.

The baker looks horrified, and you wish you knew why. Namjoon agrees, based on the look on his face.

"What?" Namjoon asks. "It was good." Seokjin's face is as pale as it can possibly get when he waves Namjoon away, and you have a sneaking suspicion of just what your boyfriend put in his mouth.

You don't bother to hide your smile as said boyfriend comes over to you and hands you a glass of champagne.

"What are you so happy about?" He asks teasingly.

"You," You tell him honestly. It's worth it when he ducks his head, shy smile making his dimples stand out even as he tries to hide it. "I adore you."

Namjoon doesn't respond, just kisses you. He breaks away for a few minutes, saying something to someone else, and when the clock strikes midnight, he presses another gentle kiss to your lips.

"What are you wishing for?" He asks.

"Midnight wishes? Really?" You tease. He cocks a brow and you smile. "I don't need to wish for anything. I got everything I wanted this year."

"Really? Everything?"

You nod, straightening his tie ever so slightly. "And what about you? What are you wishing for?"

"Oh, that's easy." He wraps an arm around you and grins. "For you to finally accept the bear I made you that day in the mall."

"Moni loves that thing, I couldn't possibly take it from him."

"But it's got a microscope! And a lab coat!"

Well then," You tell him, dropping your voice so the others won't hear. "I suppose you'll have to make me another."

He glances over to where Yoongi and Peaches stand and then back to you.

"Covert mission to also get another for Jisoo?"

"Glad we're on the same page here," You tell him with a smile.

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risottoneroo · 4 years

Text

Between His Fingers, Ch. 4

a/n: i have removed all sexual scenes and references from the parts where the characters are underage. this fic is and will stay sfw in that regard. when i started writing this and wrote the aforementioned scenes, i was seventeen. however, posting it now that i am an adult is against my conscience. there will continue to be references to violence and smoking, but not any more than are already in the show. i am also restarting my tag list, please pm me, send me an ask, or reply here to be tagged. sorry for my inactivity, enjoy chapter 4!

warnings: teen boys being awkward, cuddling, fluff, pining, my canon now

Jotaro wasn’t asleep. He was grumbling to himself in his head, thinking about the conversation he’d had with his grandfather.

Joseph had shut the door behind you and Kakyoin, then looked at him carefully. “I know I never spent a good deal of time with you in your childhood, but these past days have shown me who you are, Jojo. You like her.”

Jotaro had looked down and refused to answer. Joseph sighed. “Good grief.”

Jotaro bit his lip. “Tch. Mind your business, would you? Bothersome old man.”

Joseph frowned. “Being nicer to her would help you a good deal. Maybe ask her out. Get to know her.”

Jotaro shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you, old man? Whatever I choose, she will never be mine. Kakyoin… He just looked at her and she was his.”

Joseph had put his hand on Jotaro’s shoulder. “You don’t give up a battle before it’s lost. She isn’t anybody’s but her own.”

Jotaro had closed his eyes. “Stop it, old man.”

He walked out and slammed the door.

Back in the room, you picked up your bag. “I’m gonna shower, Nori.”

Kakyoin smiled and nodded. “Okay.”

You walked into the bathroom and turned on the faucet, letting it run until it turned hot. As steam filled the room, you pulled off your clothes and stepped under the water. The stream ran down your body, soothing your tense muscles. You bit your lip, thinking. So much had happened since your last shower.

You’d met Jotaro, and Noriaki, and the rest of the gang. You’d gotten punched in the jaw by a… let’s face it, really hot guy. He was a dick, though.

You looked down at yourself. Jotaro was really attractive, and so was Noriaki. But Noriaki was the only one who really showed interest in you. But Jotaro seemed pretty reserved and bad at expressing himself, so… Maybe? Well, thinking about it like that wouldn’t do anything. You had to talk to him, get to know him.

You moved to wash yourself, quickly scrubbing and rinsing before stepping out and drying off.

You slipped into pajamas and stepped back into the room. Jotaro was the only one there, writing in a small, leatherbound book. Without looking up, he said in Japanese, “Kakyoin is out getting food for us to eat in here.”

You nodded, setting down your bag and sitting on the bed he was on. You said in Japanese,“Jotaro, I think we got off on the wrong foot-”

He glanced up and interrupted you. “Jojo.”

You stuttered, “Huh?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Call me Jojo.”

You flushed. “Okay, uh, Jojo. I’m sorry.”

He nodded. You cocked your head at him. “What are you writing?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “You were in the shower a while.”

You flushed deep red. “I- Uh. I take long showers.”

He nodded again, seeming disinterested. You sighed. “You’re goddamn hard to have a conversation with, Jojo.”

Jotaro looked up at you. “And you’re belligerent.”

You flared up. “Don’t be a dick.”

He shrugged, returning to writing in Japanese. “Don’t be a bitch.”

Luckily for you both, Kakyoin walked in the door at that moment, holding bags of takeout. You smiled at him and helped him put them out on the hotel table. You reached for a container of rice at the same time that he did, and your fingers brushed.

Kakyoin looked shocked and started to pull his hand back, apologizing. You shook your head and caught his hand. You entwined your fingers, smiling up at him. He relaxed and smiled at you. His hand completely enveloped yours, as large as it was. You let him go after a bit, looking back down at the takeout. “Jotaro, what do you want?”

He sighed and got up, walking up behind you and looking over you at the food. You felt yourself tense with his bulk so close. You began to move to let him through, but he put a hand on your waist gently to let you know you were safe. His hand reached from your side nearly to your bellybutton.

You turned and looked up at him, only to find him already looking down at you. His hand now rested on the small of your back, just above your ass. You flushed even deeper red. Kakyoin was looking between you two with unrestrained interest. Without looking away, Jotaro said, “That chicken is fine for me.”

He didn’t break eye contact, and you felt like you were being sucked in. Kakyoin coughed gently. “Not to quote Jojo, but if you two are done making eyes at each other…”

Jotaro broke eye contact to glare at Kakyoin. You breathed a sigh you hadn’t realized you’d been holding. You looked at Kakyoin bashfully. “Sorry, Nori.”

He chuckled. “That’s okay. It’s rare to see Jotaro show true interest in someone.”

Jotaro rolled his eyes and grabbed his food, walking away from you two. You looked up at Kakyoin, smiling a bit. He looked back at you, also smiling. You looked at the food and chose what you wanted, walking back to sit on the bed. As you all ate, there was a gentle silence. Not awkward, just an understanding.

Going to bed was a completely different matter. You were dressed in pajama shorts and a tank top, and after you brushed your teeth, you got in bed and snuggled into the comforter. You turned off the room lights, leaving you all in darkness. Kakyoin came out of the bathroom in his pajamas and stood in front of the bed you two were sharing. Jotaro was already asleep in the opposite bed.

Kakyoin got into bed, on the opposite side from you, deliberately not touching you. You sighed and scooted over to him. He was lying on his side, facing you. You wrapped your arms around his torso and snuggled into his chest, sliding a thigh between his legs. Kakyoin flushed cherry red and gingerly wrapped his arms around you. You looked up at him and asked softly in Japanese, “Harder.”

He flushed even deeper. “Uh- what?”

You smiled at him. “Hug me harder. I won’t break.”

He nodded and pulled you into his chest tightly. You breathed in deeply and smiled. He smelled good. You shifted against his broad chest. “I feel so safe with you already, Nori.”

He smiled. “I hope you know I’m not like the men you’ve been with before.”

You looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

Kakyoin was avoiding eye contact. “I don’t know what Dio is like with the people he’s close to, but from what I saw… He doesn’t have much respect for women.”

You frowned. “I never met you when I was there, so you didn’t see how he acted around me. It was very confusing.”

Kakyoin nodded. “What do you mean?”

You looked down. “He thought I was his ticket to- Heaven? I think.”

Kakyoin nodded. “He told me about that. Not much, though.”

You rested your head on his collarbone. “He called me a holy woman. Said I was pure, that he didn’t deserve to look upon me, let alone touch me.”

Kakyoin put his chin on your head. “He never let you out?”

You shook your head. “He trained me. Him and a few others. Vanilla Ice, the other vampires he’d made. He would make vampires to test my Stand. None of them could get close when I materialized her. He knew he couldn’t kill me. He taught me. I know English, Japanese, French, and Spanish fluently, and fragments of German and Italian.”

Kakyoin kissed your forehead. “Your Japanese is excellent.”

You looked up. “It was weird. One day I was struggling with just the alphabet, and the next I was fluent.”

Kakyoin shrugged. “Things like that happen around Dio.”

You nodded. “It was the day after he brought in that kid, Pucci?”

Kakyoin laughed softly. “Pucci’s Stand could take parts of someone’s soul and implant them into other people. Stands, languages, memories.”

You nodded, “That makes sense.”

He nodded. “What’s your most comfortable language?”

You shrugged. “I still like Arabic most, next English, but those were my first two. And I can only speak Arabic with Avdol. But I like talking to you in your language.”

He nodded. “Japanese is pretty.”

You agreed. “I enjoy the flow of it.”

You yawned and snuggled into his chest. “Sleepy time now.”

You passed out in his arms. The last thing you heard was his soft chuckle.

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alarawriting · 4 years

Text

52 Project #3: Graduation Day

Science fiction, superpowers, inspired by cyberpunk and also anime. Contains violence, gore, lots of made-up future slang.

***

Teal waited silently in her cell, trying to control the vicious excitement that coursed through her. Today is my final exam. I'll see Essell again. They had promised her that if she survived today, she would see her brother again, for the first time in five years-- for the first time since both their lives had been destroyed. Of course, one could not necessarily believe their promises, but they themselves had trained Teal as a killer, and they had to know that if they lied, she'd turn her skills on them. So she expected that they wouldn’t lie, not this time.

The door opened, and a Drone entered. "Teal A-3ß. Come with me."

Teal nodded once, sharply, and stood. She was a tall, androgynous 15-year-old, with short white hair crowning a pale face. She wore black today, a bodysuit made of a tough polymer fabric, somewhat resistant to bullets and knives and with lines of silver shot through it to diffuse lasers. They had offered her body armor, but she'd refused. Teal needed to be as light as possible, especially now that she'd gotten her growth.

She followed the drone down the corridor to the battle chamber. The door opened, and momentarily, Teal was blinded by what looked like sunlight, before the artificial film on her retina darkened enough to let her see. She stepped forward, staring about her in surprise. The simulation today was a replica of the Grove, where she and Essell had grown up. Why? Are they trying to remind me why I want to win? Or of what happened, the last day I saw this place? Do they want to throw me off my guard somehow? I can probably expect a trap of some kind. She breathed the air in deeply. They didn't have the smells exactly right, but close. Very close.

Standing, drinking in the air and the scenery, she showed every sign of fatal distraction. But the moment the door opened and the men with guns charged in, Teal was in the air. She'd been too heavy to fly for some years now-- her teek rating was 5, and she'd long been over 50 kilos-- but she could still boost. From a starting position she leapt, boosting, and flipped out of visibility into tree cover before the gunmen could track her.

Ten men fanned out slowly throughout the grove. All carried jectors, some machine, some sniper rifles. Some packed lasers or knives as well. Teal checked her weapons-- razor claws strapped to her fingers, blades on the edge and tip of her footgear-- and then leapt down on two men, backboosting to control her fall. The first saw her and swiveled to fire. Not near fast enough-- Teal slashed his throat open with her footblades on the way down, landed, and brought her hand down in a chop on the other man's neck, crushing his artery and dropping him.

The other men saw her. They turned and fired, but Teal was gone again.

She crept through the trees, using teek to bootstrap, lightening her own weight so that she could crawl along branches far too thin to take her full 62 kilos. She stayed high in the trees, on the thin branches, hidden by meters of foliage, and reached a point where she could peer down over the Grove. With her lens implants, controlled by her eye muscles rather than any kind of cybernetics, she could compensate for vision that was naturally not very good. She scanned the Grove, looking for the hunters to make them her prey.

By now, her opponents apparently had no idea where she was. In pairs and threes, they roamed, searching behind bushes and in the trees, far lower than she was. Perhaps they didn't realize she could stay up so high. Boosting was an obvious application of teek-- teek rating referred to how many kilos you could lift for a sustained period of five minutes, and anyone could figure out that you could carry more in short bursts of effort. But bootstrapping-- where you used sustained teek on your own body to lighten your weight-- was less evident to non-teeks. They might assume she couldn't be as high as she was, because the branches wouldn't hold her.

Should have done their research.

Three men in a small clump. Teal leapt from the top and waited until she was two meters over one man's head before backboosting to slow her fall. Even still, her momentum drove her into him, crushing his skull and collarbone. She boosted off him for a split second, landed on the ground, and took out the other two's guns with a circle kick. One of them grabbed for her, but Teal wasn't there-- boosting up and over his head, and flipping in back of him, where an elbow smashed down into his collarbone dropped him. The other lunged forward, swinging. She dodged back and kicked, ripping out his throat with the blades on her foot. Then she bent and drove her claws into the neck of the one on the ground. She got no points for disabling-- they all had to die.

Stupid waste.

The remaining men ran at her. Teal boosted up and hid in the trees again. Now they had wised up-- four of them were together, and she couldn't take four at once, especially since they were watching the air. Where was the fifth? Teal started to look for him, and her eye was caught by the ladder trees.

She and Essell had called them that because they were close enough together that you could string ropes around them, to make ladder runs. They'd been constructing a treehouse between the two-- had been working on it for weeks when the black day came. The treehouse had never been finished.

The black day... They'd been playing Air Tag. Teal had weighed twenty kilos less, but she'd had her full teek already, so she could fly and have teek to spare. Essell, also, had been smaller but at full power, able to make a wingspan large enough to fly with. They'd been flying through the trees, chasing each other, laughing...

"There she is!"

Machine gun fire sprayed at Teal's perch. Startled, she boosted up, out of the guns' range. There was the trap she’d expected. Everywhere in the Grove simulacrum brought back memories she hadn’t dared focus on for five years, and now, they were flooding in, distracting her.

I won't let myself think about it. If I win today, I'll be with Essell again... and we can avenge the black day, together. I can't let myself think about it until then.

From a higher vantage point, she searched again for the fifth man. He didn't appear to be anywhere. Maybe she had counted wrong, and there had only been nine to begin with? Unlikely – she wasn’t that careless. She checked the places in a direct line from where she intended to come down. He wasn't in any of them that she could see, which meant she could land and he wouldn't have a clear shot. Good enough.

She threw a broken tree limb down some distance away from her. All the men turned as it landed with a thud. Then she leapt down among them, hands and feet knocking guns out of the way. She inflicted bloody score wounds, but didn't manage to kill any with the first blows. That was all right-- without their guns, they were no match for her. She moved in‑‑

--and from hiding, the fifth fired a sniper rifle at her head.

Teal sensed it before it was really moving. That still didn't give her much time, though. Throwing up the full force of her teek, she caught it, in a split-second burst of power. The recoil threw her backwards onto her butt, as the bullet dropped to the ground.

A big blond man, closer to Teal than his companions, threw himself on top of her and pinned her down with his body, wrapping his legs around hers and holding down her wrists with his hands. He was close to 140 kilos, a big heavy man, and he was tangled with her tightly enough that a teek lift wouldn't work unless she could sustain it, and pry him loose. And of course he was far too heavy for sustained lift. And she had no leverage to use her physical strength. She battered at him with short bursts, trying to force him off her, but she couldn't pry his arms and legs loose-- she hadn't that kind of fine control-- and catching the bullet had exhausted her. She simply couldn't manage a burst of more than 120 kilos lift, max, and that for no longer than a few seconds.

He pulled out a Bowie knife, while she was still struggling to force him off her, and brought it around to cut her throat open. In desperation, Teal focused all her teek on the knife, and knocked it from his hand. He shifted himself slightly, trying to grab for the knife as it went flying, and with a burst of physical force and telekinetic panic, Teal threw him off in a violent spasm. She couldn't throw him far-- he fell off her to the side, a hairsbreath from pinning her again, and so she jerked away and rolled frantically, just evading his grasping hands. She got up and leapt from a crouching position, with no time to stand, boosting up. The force she could muster was almost not enough to reach the nearest tree branch, and when she pulled herself up, she found herself achy and weak, and so overheated she was close to feverish, with a savage headache. She'd overused the TK.

That was the simulacrum's second trap, she thought dizzily. The sniper had been hidden someplace that he shouldn't have been able to hide, that he wouldn't have fit in if this were truly the Grove. There would be subtle, minor differences that could kill her because she didn't expect them. Now she had five men to take out still, and she was weakened from overusing TK.

Teal climbed the tree with hands and legs, not bootstrapping at all. She was drastically overheated-- it was a warm day anyway, and overusing TK generated more heat than she could easily get rid of. There used to be a small lake in the Grove, she remembered, and prayed that it was in the simulacrum as well-- yes. There it was. If she lured them over there and dragged them into the water, she could cool off and recover more quickly from overteeking. Assuming there wasn't a hidden trap in the lake, too.

Teal crawled along treebranches, until she was near the lake, then dropped and began to run. The men, hearing her, pursued. She plunged into the water, letting its coolness close over her head, soothing her fever.

Gunfire sprayed the surface of the water. Teal went down, into the murky bottom of the lake, where she couldn't be seen. It was far easier to teek through water than land-- a relatively minor push could produce as much effect underwater as a big push on land, because of the way water buoyed flesh and clung to itself, and because of the fact that, being a denser medium than air, it was easier to push against. Push on water, and you could see the effects. Teal opened her eyes, trying to look up through the water to find the men on the shore, but no luck. She couldn't see them any more than they could her.

She rose to the surface at the center of the lake and sucked in air. The machine jectors that fired at her hadn't quite the range to reach her, and the man with the sniper rifle wasn't apparently by the lakeshore with the others. One of the men holstered his machine gun and pulled out a laser. Laser range was effectively limitless, but the refractive index of water made it almost impossible to aim one at a person underwater. Teal dove, with the men's positions fixed in her mind.

She needed a low-hanging tree. Her overteek headache was almost gone, soothed by the balm of the water. Once she got out and took her nutrient mix, she should be fine. It was time to finish up here. Fortunately, she knew of a low-hanging tree. She swam over to it, staying deep under, then boosted from the middle of the lake. Water was a better medium for teeking through, but didn't provide the support for leaps that hard land did-- she needed to boost against water for three meters of lake before she had the momentum to shoot up and grab the branch a meter over her head. That took an effort. Once she was up and in the trees, though, she quickly vanished into them.

The men were ranged along the shore, looking for her. None of them were close enough to each other for her to take two at once. The one with the laser, however, was under a tree, and all the trees linked to each other if you could bootstrap along high branches and jump across gaps. Teal reached the proper tree, leapt down on the man, and knocked him into the water.

Momentum and surprise gave her the overwhelming advantage. He barely had time to struggle before she'd slid her hand through the water and sliced open his throat. Blood flowed around her, crimson plumes in the water. She left the body to rise to the surface, as she herself dove for the deep water, heading back for her tree.

Same drill this time. She rose up from the bottom of the lake, six meters deep, and boosted all the way, up to the low-hanging tree, shooting out of the water--

--and a gunshot rang out from the hidden sniper.

Teal pushed against the bullet, but the fact that she was airborne meant she had no leverage. The speed of the bullet made it much more effectively massive than she was. It was Teal's trajectory that changed violently. The bullet went on its way, barely deflected in its course, but it missed Teal because she had knocked herself back into the water with all the force she possessed. She fell on her back, so the impact with the water didn't knock too much of her wind from her-- but she hadn't had time to get a breath, and now she was tired from overteeking again.

Stupid, stupid, going for that tree again-- you know better! Teal snarled at herself. Twisting her body and cupping her hands, kicking and stroking her way up, she broke her downward plunge and headed back up. She broke surface for a second, long enough to gasp a spoonful of air, before gunfire forced her to dive again. Lungs burned, and arms and legs turned to leaden weights, as she forced herself back to the middle of the lake. This time when she surfaced, she was able to get all the air she needed. None of the men left had lasers. The sniper made no attempt to hit her-- which made sense, as being in the middle of the lake she was on the lowest ground in the Grove. If the sniper was hidden in a bush, or on low ground himself, shrubbery and the contours of the land might block him. But he could move, and probably was doing so now. She dove again before he could get a clear shot at her, and swam to the shore, staying deep under. Then she let herself drift upward.

There was one man standing far closer to the lake than he ought to be. Teal let herself float to the surface near him, tucking herself so that her white hair and skin was hidden by her black-clad body, almost upside down. She controlled her ascent, coming up slowly enough that he wouldn't necessarily register the movement if he wasn't looking for it. Then she twisted upright and shot both hands out, grabbing her opponent and dragging him into the water. He screamed and tried to orient his gun, but she had only to yank him hard enough that he fell on his butt, messing up his aim. He couldn't get the gun positioned in time before she'd pulled him all the way into the lake. Teal slashed his throat, grabbed his gun, and leapt out of the water, aiming the jector at the one man within range to hit her.

She and he fired at the same time. Teal used teek to slingshot the bullets away from her, rather than trying to stop them. The other man, with no teek, died quickly.

Two left-- the sniper, and a man on the shore some distance away. The sniper fired again, but Teal was already boosting up, leaping into the trees above the lake.

Once safely hidden, she undid the velcro fastener on the inner thigh of her left leg and took out the packet of concentrates there. The packet was semi-permeable to water, so the lake water had gotten in and turned it to sludge-- but better sludge than powder. It might almost be palatable now. She opened it and dumped the contents into her mouth, gulping them down, trying not to notice how much the concentrates tasted like chalk. There were simple carbohydrates for energy, minerals and nutrients to replaced what she depleted through overteeking, and specialized painkillers for overteek headache. The stuff wouldn't take effect for several minutes, and so she might be overly optimistic in taking it-- several minutes from now, she could be dead. But if she lived, and if she won, she would suffer a terrible reaction to the overteek unless she took the packet now. And she had plans, for what to do after she won. She and Essell had things to do. She couldn't afford a reaction, later.

Only two more, and she would see Essell again... Teal searched for them. The one by the lakeshore had hidden too well-- she couldn't see him. She couldn't see the sniper, either, but him she had clues for. She replayed in her mind the two most recent shots he'd fired at her, and triangulated back from them. Right there, yes.

He'd moved, but not far. Once Teal knew where to look, she found him fairly quickly. Silently she crept through the trees, along branches, until she was directly above him. Then she leapt down.

He jerked with surprise, turning and trying to move back from her. Teal didn't give him a chance. Her claws dug into the sides of his neck and dragged down, slashing both carotid arteries. The sniper died instantly, pitching forward, with blood fountaining from the sides of his neck.

One more. She climbed back into the trees, to look for the last man.

Now that there was only one left, and the test almost finished, she had the time to allow herself to wonder who these men were. They weren't captured Corpsmen, since they weren't psi, obviously. They could be captured mercs from the minics or mils from some nash or another, or they could be Hands of the Bright goons who had failed and were given this as a last chance. They could even be desperate freelancers, gambling their lives on their skill for a huge sum of money. Some people would do that, though Teal couldn't understand how-- money wasn't enough for her to risk her life.

She rather hoped they were gamblers, or at least that they'd been given some sort of choice. That this was the lesser of two evils, for them. It hurt to think she might be killing people who were as trapped as she was. But it couldn't make a difference. They could be sole caretaking parents of six dependent babies, they could be world-renowned philanthropists, they could be saints and she would still need to kill them. It was her life or theirs, and the death she gave them was far easier than the one she'd suffer if she spared them.

Of course, she had some degree of a choice, now. She was skilled enough to run away. She didn't need to be here, committing murder. Except that if she ran, she'd never see her twin again. And she had been punished for Essell's transgressions, enough in the first days of their captivity, that she suspected he would be tortured and killed if she ran. No, she had to stay here, obey her hated trainers, until she saw Essell again. And then the two of them would escape together, and kill those that deserved it, for once.

I'm sorry, she thought to the one remaining man. She wasn't a teeper, but that was all right, since she didn't really want to speak to him. It was an abstract concept she was talking to. I'm sorry, but you have to die. It's my life and Essell's, or yours. I have no choice.

There he was, crouching with machine gun in hand. Teal crept up on him, the same way she'd gone for the sniper, and leapt down.

This one was faster than the sniper. He dodged back, rolled, and came up, aiming the jector. Teal flung herself at him, trying to knock the jector out of his from his hand before he could point it at her. He dropped it, caught her wrists, and flung her, fast and hard, making her smash into a tree before she had time to brake. Then he grabbed the gun again and aimed it at her before she could get up.

There was no time. Teal threw all the force of her teek against the gun, pushing it sideways, but she couldn't seem to knock it from his hands. His grip on it was like iron, and she was still weakened from overteek, her drugs not yet in effect. That didn't matter, though. Now that it was pointed away from her, she had a chance to get up and lunge at him.

He dropped the gun and grabbed her wrists again. Teal focused her strength and her teek on his hands, trying to break her wrists free. For a minute, at least, they were deadlocked-- him trying to flip her, her trying to break away. Then she attempted to bring her knee up into his crotch, but he used his legs to block hers. This changed both their balances. He started to flip her up. She boosted, so she could control the flip. As she went up over his head, she locked the serrated blades on the side of her footgear against the sides of his neck.

He screamed, released her wrists, and tried to pull her legs free. Teal's head fell as the wrists came free. She put out her hands, caught the ground before her head could slam into it, and braced herself, holding her legs tightly against the neck. She began to scissor slightly, trying to reach the carotids. The skin of the man's neck was broken and bleeding, but she hadn't yet hit the vital spots. The enemy managed to pry her legs free, pull them hard over his shoulders, and yank them down, pulling Teal up. What he intended was unclear; what he accomplished was to get Teal's hands in range of his neck, with his own hands locked around her legs. She dug her claws into the vital points and ripped.

As he toppled, releasing her legs, she kicked free of him and fell on the ground in an undignified heap. Quickly she righted herself. Her opponent was still not dead-- dropped to his knees, clutching the sides of his neck as blood seeped around his fingers. Teal walked over to him. He looked up at her with terror and hatred in his eyes.

She wanted to apologize. But apologies were worse than useless, when you were killing someone. Teal drove her claws into his jugular vein and killed him instantly.

Ten dead. How long had it been? She tried to think. About half an hour, and she'd used a gun, and they'd gotten the drop on her several times-- probably a B, possibly a C. But she'd passed. That was all that mattered. She'd passed. She was alive.

Jaxson unlocked the doors and came into the simulator. "Good work, Teal," he told her. His hawklike features were actually somewhat animated for once, though it didn't show in his dead flat voice. "You did well there. I think the evaluators will probably give you an A."

Yeah, and I'm the King of Quebec. She didn't deserve an A, and she almost certainly would not get one. But she didn't say this to Jaxson-- she'd learned to talk as little as possible to her trainers. "Where's my brother?"

"He'll be here in a few minutes. Relax, calm yourself down after your fight."

As if she could be calm. A few minutes! Teal was tired, but the excitement that surged through her dumped out the aches of the past half hour. She turned and ran for the lake-- she was sweaty and overheated, and if she was going to see Essell she would rather drip than stink.

The cool water closed over her head, and Teal fell back into it, relaxing taut muscles and letting the heat and smell wash away from her. Five years...

Five years ago was the black day, when her parents were gunned down by Hands of the Bright, when she and Essell had been dragged away and separated. They had tortured Teal until she learned to stop openly resisting, to accept their training and work to be the best possible assassin she could be. To hide her hatred, pretend she was loyal to those who tormented her. But she'd never given up her hopes for escape, for revenge. Since they'd completed her training, there was no force that could hold her here anymore. She'd mapped out an escape route already. All she was waiting for was to take Essell with her when she ran.

She surfaced and climbed ashore, where she lay on the grass to let herself dry in the artificial sun. Teal forced herself not to tense with anticipation, making a conscious effort to keep each muscle relaxed. She needed to rest, to get back her strength, to force down the waves of excitement that raced through her. Trying to stay calm.

Then the door to the simulator opened.

Teal jumped to her feet and faced the door. The young man who entered... was a stranger, a tall young man with broad shoulders and bronzed skin and a mane of beautiful golden hair. Nothing she remembered. But she knew the blue-green eyes, the color of the sea; and in his face, there were still shadows of the Essell that had been, five years ago.

"Essell..."

He was a golden lion. The sun to her moon, shining and gold where she was pale and white. He always had been.

She ran toward him, and threw her arms around him. "Essell!" she cried, being careful to keep the razor claws on her gloves away from his flesh. "Oh, Essell!"

"Teal,” he said in an amused tone, as he ruffled his hand through her short hair. “You're so emotional. When did that happen?"

His voice was strangely cool. Teal looked up at him. "Well, aren't you? It's been five years!" Urgently and softly she murmured in their private language, the twinspeech of their childhood, "Essell, let’s get out of here, now. I've made a plan--"

"What are you talking about?" Essell asked in English.

Teal blinked. "Essell? Don't you remember Mooganooga?"

Essell shook his head. "You're such a child, Teal. You mean you've been cluttering your brain by hanging onto all that crazy stuff from when we were kids?"

"Crazy stuff?" Teal whispered. She stepped back from him and looked at him, hard.

"Teal, we're Children of the Bright. We're adults now. Why would we need to cling on to things from when we were little kids?" He snorted. “You’d think that after you’d passed your final exam, you’d be mature.”

Children of the Bright. The Children of the Bright were the most loyal, most skilled servants of the Bright, verified by telepathic probe. Teal was a blockpath, and never could be so verified, therefore could never be so trusted. But Essell-- for Essell to be a Child of the Bright meant that he would have to be loyal in truth, no part of him hidden from the Bright. "You're-- a Child of the Bright?"

"Aren't you?"

Five years she had learned to bend without breaking. Five years she had borne everything, plotting secretly to escape and get revenge. Five years, she had only been waiting for Essell... but he was not here. They had killed her brother's mind. It was his voice, his face, but it wasn’t him anymore. Some impostor looked out from behind his eyes now.

Oh, she should have guessed. She should have expected this; she shouldn’t have allowed herself hope. Shapechangers were highly adaptable, and therefore easy to brainwash. And she would never get him back. Essell was a Child of the Bright, loyal and beloved servant of the creature that had killed their parents, stolen their childhoods, mutilated his sister and killed all the children she might ever have. That was not the Essell she remembered. Her beloved brother was dead. This creature only used the same name.

Tears blurred her vision. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, even though it was the only thing that mattered. “I love you, Essell, you know that?”

He shrugged, elaborately embarrassed, but he didn’t try to stop her from hugging him tightly. “I guess I—"

The sentence never finished. Teal drove her claws into his back, turning whatever he would have said into a scream. She slashed through his spine, cutting it in pieces, and continued to rip until she'd torn through his kidneys. Essell's scream cut off, and his body folded. She stepped away with bloody claws.

"Teal!" For once, Jaxson had some emotion in his voice. Teal flung herself at him, boosting, slashing out. He dodged back from her once, but her second swing took his face off, and the third ripped out his throat. Then she ran for the simulator doors and charged through.

She had very little time. They had to have been monitoring her. There were probably guards mobilizing to stop her right now. But she still remembered the escape route she'd plotted. Essell, why? Why did they brainwash you, destroy you? How could you have let it happen?

The Hands of the Bright murdered you. All I did was lay your corpse to rest. I'll avenge you and our parents both, Essell.

I swear.

There would be guards to kill and traps to evade on her way out, but Teal didn't care. They'd trained her to be unstoppable. They wouldn't be able to stop her themselves.

She ran for the exit and freedom, tears drying on her face.

#science fiction #cyberpunk #superpowers #52 project #alara original writing

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ofwolvesandbutterflies · 4 years

Text

every rose has thorns

Pairing: Huang Renjun x Reader

Genre: angst

Tags: medieval!au, knight!renjun, princess!reader

Warnings: none

day 07 of 30 day challenge

Synopsis: in which the life of a princess guarantees everything but love

// i’ll be fine if you don’t say it again // (x)

[09:08]

Cold, calculating, and… and sad. The eyes that stared right back at you were your own, yet you hardly recognized them. In the reflection you saw a prim, trim princess, sitting up with her back straight, the image of pure perfection. There was a deep set knowledge implanted in your leveled gaze from years of studious work. Those days were the worst because those days faded into each other as you wasted away in your study, ears filled with lectures on literature and history, music and dance, etiquette and social studies, arithmetic and… and time passed like precious grains of sand slipping between the glaze of an hourglass.

Chin high, gaze stern, face powdered and made up. You were a combination of your parent’s dreams and the hope of a better future for your people. You shouldn’t have been complaining, though. Growing up as the princess offered you every luxury a woman of your status and class could ever wish for. Fresh, fragrant roses decorated your living quarters every day. Different suitors lined the outer walls of the palace grounds, awaiting a chance to try and woo you. Ball gowns of every fabric, jewels - one string of each kind - sat embedded in precious metals, custom tailored to your very measurements.

Indeed, you owned every earthly desire. Which was why you felt sick to your stomach with guilt when a glassy tear rolled down the poreless and picturesque glazing of your powdered cheek.

Milady, what seems to be the trouble? Yerim’s voice, soft and concerned, floated past your ears like an unwanted melody. Refocusing on your lady-in-waiting’s reflection in the mirror, you said nothing, offering only a smile only few could see through. She brushed a piece of hair out of your face, running the ivory comb through the ridiculously large curls she had tied up just for this occasion. The look in her eyes told you she wasn’t giving up until you gave her an answer and a breathy sigh fell from your bright red lips.

I’ve never met him, Yerim. And I’m not sure I want to. The hefty confession sat in the silence between you and after a moment she placed the brush down on the vanity, grasping your shoulders in the comforting way only she could.

Prince Minhyung is known for being kind and chivalrous, milady. My sources also say he’s handsome and quite the dancer as well. You tried again for a smile, yet the gesture failed to reach your eyes. If there was anything you loved about Yerim, it was her sense of positivity and the friendship you had formed in the time she had known you. She knew your sense of duty was in the right place and that you would do anything for your nation. But she also knew your heart.

You are longing for someone else, yes? her light brown eyes held a knowing smile concealed from the rest of her face. A solemn nod shook more unshed tears to your eyes.

Is it wrong to say yes, Yerim? Is it wrong for my heart to yearn for... for him? The words dripped from your mouth, coated in the taste of melancholy. She shushed you, dabbing the tears so very gently as they ran down the make up she had spent so much time and effort in making perfect for this exciting day.

The heart wants what it wants, milady. And while I wish with all my being I could see you happy, my future queen, I know the his majesty would never approve of Ren-

All at once, the sound of a calm - yet purposeful - knock sounded at the door and the smile gleaming sadly in her eyes stretched to her lips. I’ll get it, milady. For there was only one person that could be. The steps your faithful lady-in-waiting took towards the person waiting behind that door seemed to last forever. Sickening and joyous at the same time, a mixture of excitement and horrification churned in your stomach as you fussed over the low collar of your rosy taffeta dress.

When the handles of the door finally twisted open, the racing of your heart and the frantic intake of breaths passing in and out of your lips halted. Because there he stood, dark eyes churning with the same deep sadness to be found in yours.

Renjun. His name tasted like the sweetest parcel of candy on your tongue.

Y/N. Your name sounded like heaven falling from his plush pink lips. A pretty rose color dusted your cheeks as vivid memories of those same lips latched on to the skin of your neck replayed at the forefront of your mind. Renjun. Your knight in gleaming armor, your most treasured friend, the only sense of freedom and happiness you had in this bedazzled dungeon.

All the cool and collected aura usually surrounding your body guard and closest companion vanished as Renjun rushed towards you. From the corner of your eye, you caught the bittersweet glance Yerim shot you before disappearing into her quarters. But you paid no heed to the warning in her gaze, just as you paid no heed to the seconds ticking away before your supposed betrothed arrived in the kingdom.

When his arms encircled you, pulling your corseted body to his with a desperation only you understood, all you felt was ‘home’. And the moment his lips covered yours in the most passionate kiss you had tasted on his mouth, all you could do was weep, clutching onto his arms in the foolish hope you would never have to let go. The muscles in his arms tightened as he brought you up against the ridges of hard work covering his torso from years of training and combat. Salty tears mingled with the intoxicating taste of forbidden love and you found your fingers tangling in his immaculately brushed hair, tugging at the strands sitting along the nape of his neck.

It seemed like not long enough when he broke away. Both of your eyes were wet, hurt intermixing with the beautiful dark brown of his irises. Knowing this would be one of the last times you would feel this completion, this unadulterated love, you gave into the strange urge thrumming in the pit of your stomach to brush the pad of your thumb along the line of his lips. A singular tear made its way down his porcelain skin.

When his eyes met yours, the message was clear.

And long after he withdrew from your quarters, your arms, you found yourself clutching at the expanse of skin covering your chest where your heart should have been, whispering a mantra of broken ‘I love you’s to soothe the gaping cavern he had left in your soulless body.

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kashimos-hajime · 5 years

Text

hour of separation | s.r.

Summary: And he hangs up with a final goodbye. He hopes he never has to see you again.

WARNINGS: blood, guns, drinking, implied sexy times, fluff, angst, some callbacks and stuff so that’s fun :^) swearing Pairing: Nomad!Steve x fem!Reader Word Count: 8.1k

A/N: for @softhairbarnes and her I Love You 3000 challenge. my theme was Secret Love. i fulfilled the prompt in a way, so i hope you can see it that way, too.

Steve meets you in some backwater bar on the border of Vermont and Québec. You’re knocking back tequila shots, he’s stopped after driving thirteen hours from the North back down, and he’s aching for something to get his hands on.

“You got a problem?” he asks not unkindly because he’s watched the bartender pour you what he counts as your fifth shot since he’s sat down at the counter, and you smile. You’ve got a pretty smile, full of dangerous intentions, and Steve, who is tired, bloody, and bruised, smiles back.

“Not one you can’t fix.” You shrug, tipping another shot back and exposing that throat of yours that he can nearly taste. You’ve got a black long-sleeve thing on that cuts across, bares your collarbones and brings out the spark in your eyes when you catch him staring.

“What’s your name, kid?” Because you’re young, way younger than he thought when he first decided to sit beside you, and the shady bar lights drench you in warm, synthetic yellow as you shrug and tell him.

“But I didn’t expect Captain America to walk in here, so I don’t look my best,” you murmur, and your breath ghosts across his lips when you turn to look at him. He can taste it, the alcohol that nearly stings his tongue, and you. You taste like warm cinnamon, and something sharp, too, that bites at the roof of his mouth.

“Steve,” he replies. “Not Captain America.” And he smiles into your mouth as you crush his body with yours.

“How’d you get these bruises?” you ask, sheets twisted around your body all messily, and he glances down at you with half a smile. His arm around you, he strokes the bare skin of your shoulder as your fingers dance over his ribs.

“Comes with the job.” Your fingers drag over his skin, feather-soft and nearly ticklish, and his lips find your temple, squeezing you closer. You’re so warm against him, soft and pliable, and you dust his bearded jaw and neck with kisses, palm sliding across his chest to grab at his shoulder. Your leg splayed across his waist, you nuzzle into his collarbone.

“You have anywhere to be?” you murmur sometime later, when the sun’s drifting through the blinds of the cheap-ass motel they’d stumbled into. Still naked, Steve can’t bring himself to move away from you. Not when you’ve melted against him, swollen lips kissing him every now and then. “Avenging, and all that?”

“No. Finished Avenging for now, kid.” He sighs as you hold onto him, nothing but heat and sweat and the sheets that just barely contain you. “Where do you live? I can take you back when you go.”

“I don’t live anywhere,” you say, voice deep in your chest. He can feel it as your words whisper against his throat, and his hand on your shoulder slides to your back, down to your hip. “I can go wherever you go, Rogers.”

“Just like that?” he muses aloud. You raise your head, your hair a gorgeous mess atop your head as you smile lazily, and Steve thinks you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. You press a kiss against his mouth, another gust of cinnamon pushing into his mouth and you roll onto him, fingers on a large purple mark on his ribs. His mouth opens beneath yours in a soft moan as your legs bracket his hips. Sitting up triumphantly, you rake the hair out of your eyes, and smile.

“Just like that.”

You’re a sharp thing, with calluses and scars and a smile full of secrets.

The first one makes Sam blow up in your face.

“So, we’re just gonna let kid of the guy who tried to have all of us killed walk in here?” His voice is too loud for the quinjet and you jut your chin out defiantly. Steve, arms crossed, stands and lets you soak it in. He knows you can take it by how the smile never slides from your face.

“I’m not my father. I’m on the run for a reason.”

“Yeah, right. They start ‘em off young in H.Y.D.R.A., don’t they? And I bet Alexander Pierce made sure his kid knew all about what he did—”

“Sam.” Natasha’s voice cuts across the heat like a freezing wind, and Sam backs off immediately, eyes flickering to the woman. “Steve, we can’t just pick someone up and go. It’s hard enough as it is with the four of us.”

“I can pull my own weight,” you say before Steve can respond, and his lips press together in a soft smile when you drop your hand from the red star inked into your bicep. Your hands hang loosely at your sides, and Steve pushes off the quinjet bench. Wanda tilts her head curiously, and he knows she’s reading your mind. “I was taught, y’know, to pull my own weight.”

“Nat?” Steve asks quietly and the blonde looks to him, a sigh spilling from her lips. One. “Sam?”

“Fine. But I got my eye on you,” he mutters and you shrug, your smile growing. Two.

“I like her,” Wanda announces, tilting her head up at Steve. Her eyes glitter with specks of red and you turn to her, eyebrows arched. “She is honest.”

“Yeah?” Steve cocks his head and meets your eyes, and the two of you share this smile that he can’t quite place the meaning of. Three.

The second one makes Wanda laugh.

You’re good at hustling, an innocent little thing in the dingy lights of the pub as the other four scrape by.

Your beer is perched precariously on the edge of the pool table as you lean over, squinting an eye. Steve watches from a distance at the bar, Natasha much closer at a table nearby, as you stick out your tongue and stand back up again, pouting.

“Show me how to do it again?” you ask sweetly to the guy standing way too close to you, and Steve turns his burning gaze to the dark beer. Wanda plucks a fry from the basket they share as Sam brings back a cute little pink drink for their resident Sokovian. Steve smiles at the bright orange umbrella balancing in the crushed ice.

“She’s being useful,” Sam comments, sipping on his mojito, and Steve turns to look at you again. Your mouth is curled into a laugh as you lean over, cue stick sliding between your fingers.

“Did you just admit you were wrong about her?” Wanda points out cheekily, and the man rolls his eyes. “She is very good, Steve.” Even from far away, cinnamon lingers around him, and the super soldier blinks.

“You like her a lot, huh?” he asks, eyes not drifting from your form as you fire the cue ball with deadly accuracy, landing two at once. Only the eight ball remains, and you barely give it a glance before it’s in the bag. Steve watches as the guys let out a chorus of groans, bills tossed onto the lit table and you scoop it up, counting.

Wanda chuckles into her fruity little drink, fingers twisting the umbrella between black-painted nails as she shrugs. You come over then, half-empty beer in your hand and a wad of bills stuffed in your pocket.

“Hey.” Your cheeks are flushed, a gentle sheen of sweat covering your skin, and Steve smiles as you ruffle his too-long hair. “I got two-fifty. How long are we staying?”

“Not too long.” Steve’s heart skips a beat when you flash him a wide smile. “Go.” You nod, turn around and prance farther down the bar where the guy you’d sweet-talked is ordering refills. Steve knocks back the rest of his beer and clears his throat. “I’ma head to the bathroom. Keep an eye out.” “‘Course.” Sam gives a nod, and Wanda can barely contain her smile as she waves him farewell. Steve doesn’t give it another moment’s thought because the second he’s heading for the bathroom, he sees you leaning against the guy as he whispers something undeniably stupid.

Whatever. He shakes away the little nagging pest biting at his ankles.

The third secret makes Natasha sigh in relief.

There’s an ambush in Bogotá, and gunfire leaves holes for bright light to stream into their dark hideout. A bullet tags Wanda in the shoulder, and Natasha presses her palm to the girl’s shoulder as Steve and Sam take them out from above. Blood seeps out of the Sokovian’s shirt and Steve scoops her up as Sam covers their six.

Running back to the quinjet, Natasha climbs onboard to see you sitting on the bench, the first aid kit cracked open beside you. You snap on a pair of latex gloves and stand immediately upon seeing the four.

“Bring her here.” Wanda groans softly, eyes squeezing tight as Steve sets her down and you shoo them away, snipping open her shirt. Your eyes narrowed, you barely spare any of them a glance as you set to work fixing the wound. “Natasha, come here.”

She crouches beside you and Steve watches you work, quick, nimble, already five steps ahead, and the corner of his mouth quirks up.

“You a doctor?”

“I have a MD-PhD,” you reply, gloved fingers inspecting the wound carefully. Natasha’s eyes widen, and she lets out a sigh as she holds onto Wanda’s knee in comfort. You press gauze against the wound as your other hand digs through the first aid kit. “Shit always happens in Bogotá. Honestly.”

“Yeah, Pierce mentioned something about that,” Steve mutters and you send him a look. “Fury rescued you from the embassy.” You press your lips together, smirking.

“That was my older sister, but yeah, he did. I don’t know if I should be insulted or not that you thought I was that old.”

“Well, Pierce was a wrinkly old man who did get up to illegal activities.” Steve shrugs and you roll your eyes. Your fingers work on their own as you merely supervise what has to be muscle memory. “Wouldn’t put it past him with biotech implants or something.”

“I was his kid. He may have been a terrible person, but he wasn’t a terrible father.” Your eyes linger for a moment, something dark flickering in your irises before you turn back to your work, and Steve lowers his head, swallowing. Natasha glances between the two of you but doesn’t mutter anything except small comforts to the bleeding girl.

“It’s gonna be okay, Maximoff.”

“Not a through-and-through, alright.” You pull out something that looks a lot like tweezers. “Nat, hold the gauze here. Okay, great. Wanda, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Alright. We’re gonna dig a bullet out of you, okay?” Your eyes dart up to meet the girl’s, who’s barely keeping them open and you turn to Steve. “Hold her hand. Keep her awake. She’s gonna need something to squeeze down on.”

“This… this does not sound fun,” Wanda whispers as Steve sits down beside her. He takes her hand in his and immediately, her fingers squeeze his palm tightly. Your eyes flicker across his face, and for a moment, your gazes meet and Steve nods, swallowing to wet his dry throat. Your hair is pulled tightly away from your face, your face an absolute effigy of concentration as you lower your gaze again to the pulsing wound. “It’s not going to be. No knockout drugs this time.”

There is no fourth secret. That is, if you don’t count all the different ways you know that make him tick.

That is, there is no fourth secret. Not one that Steve wants to admit to himself.

You throw knives with Natasha, and practice firing guns with Sam. You share recipes with Wanda and help Steve map out missions.

You’re the one who finds them an abandoned place they make into a base with stolen punching bags and yoga mats, a swimming pool out back. It’s somewhere in the outskirts of Zermatt, between two mountains and half-inside a cave, and Steve likes it more than he’d admit.

Steve likes a lot of things the team won’t ever make him admit.

They don’t know it, ‘cause this Steve Rogers knows how to keep a fucking secret, and he runs himself ragged hiding you around, sneaking you out of his room when Natasha stays up late boxing or Sam’s watching some old movie on the telly you snagged. And you go with it because you like the secret, this little thing that’s just you and Steve’s, and no one else’s.

“Why can’t I go out?” you ask teasingly, fingers tangled in his hair, arm strong around his neck, and he sighs with his nose pressed against your cheek, arms laced around you. You’re cocooned by all of Steve and the chill of the mountain snow as a radiator rattles in the room. “Always keeping me in the quinjet. Now, it’s here, and hell, I like here more with you in it.”

“‘Cause you think I don’t know people are trying to find you?” he asks, finger running circles on your stomach and he burns touching you, but damn if it’s the most delicious death he could ask for. You glance up at the steel ceiling and he sighs as he wraps an arm around your chest, hand planting on the tattoo on your bicep. “You were running’ when I found you.” You look at him, lips pressed together all childlike and he sighs. Your scent swaths him, pulls him in, and your hand runs through his beard, nails scratching skin lightly.

“Yeah, but I’m not running now,” you whisper, forehead knocking against his. You lift your chin, your lips brushing against the spot between his eyebrows and Steve’s eyes close as your hand flattens against his cheek. You hold him to your chest as his arms tighten around you. Ironwire muscle flexes beneath his palms.

“We’ll always be runnin’, kid,” he whispers, hot and heavy, and you sigh. Your lips press against his hair, hand stroking down the wavy brown curls. “At least until I can get you home.”

“Yeah?” you chuckle into your words and he raises his head, blue eyes blown at the sight of your face. You look ragged, with swollen lips and smokey eyes, hair tousled by his hand and god, does he want to kiss you and every-fucking-thing in the dictionary that involves you and him naked. “And where’s that?”

“I dunno.” His hand pulls back from your waist to cup your cheek, and his thumb brushes over your blooming purple cheek where Sam had gotten you two days ago in the ring. Steve’s fingers trail down your face, take hold of your chin, and his eyes rest on your parted lips. “Haven’t decided on that yet.”

“I don’t like it. She won’t be safe on a mission. H.Y.D.R.A. has eyes everywhere,” Natasha retorts, throwing her legs up on the dining table. Her chopped blonde hair swings around her jaw as she sucks on a lollipop at a ripe 6AM. Steve wrinkles his nose but doesn’t comment on it.

“I know, but none of us are safe outside. And, she’s always saying we coddle her too much. Come on, Natasha, let her live a little,” Steve replies. “She’s been running homebase since she got here.”

“Steve, you know people are looking for her.”

“She’ll be fine,” Sam replies, entering the room. He can guess what they’re talking about from a mile away. “If Steve’s there, she’ll be safe.” He throws clothes into his duffel bag that he drops on the dining table, sweats, balled socks, and tank tops filling it up, as you walk in, arms stretched above your head. Your earpiece is snug in your ear and your hair is tied away from your face as you walk past Natasha with a yawn. “Hey, girl.”

“Morning, Wilson.” You slump onto the couch, switching on the TV as you kick your feet up. Steve heads on over, collapsing beside you and you send him an easy smile. Your hair’s damp and you smell stronger of cinnamon than you did last night. He wants to just lean in, have a taste. You reach forward for the remote, flick through the channels, and the moment is gone. His eyes track you, though, and you know it. “How are you still packing for the trip? I told you like two nights ago that you were going to leave today for the supply run.”

“I leave things at the last minute, girl. You know me.” Sam zips up his bag, swings it onto his shoulder. “And Tulum, by the way? We still needa put someone on it, Steve.” The man sends the blond a knowing look before he goes, grabbing the keys for the hijacked jeep off the counter. “Peace out.” “See you in a few days, Sam,” Natasha calls out, swinging her legs off the table. She heads for the counter, opening the cabinet and grabbing a cup as you settle on some channel playing an animal documentary.

“I can handle Tulum,” Steve begins slowly, the gears turning in his head. When he looks at you, bundled up in one of Sam’s discarded hoodies and pajama pants folding over your feet, he can’t help but think of the girl he met at the bar who knows how long ago. Has it been a year, yet? It feels a hell of a lot longer.

“Alright.” Steve catches the edge on Natasha’s reply and he looks at her to see her glaring back at him.

“Sam could go with you,” you suggest, turning your head back to look at the both of them. “I could use a break from him.”

“Or you could.”

“Whaddya mean?” You tear your eyes off of an elephant rolling in the mud to meet Steve’s clear gaze. He half-smiles behind his beard, and his eyes crinkle in a way that causes a soft look to overcome your face. As the quiet draws on, your mouth drops open and you blink. “Me? You’re taking me out on a mission?”

“Yeah, kid. I am.” He thinks you might kiss him right then and there, blow your cover and the chance to head out on a nice summer vacation, just the two of you, but you simply bounce in your seat and reach over to hug him tight. He reciprocates it as platonically as he thinks he knows how, and draws back way too quick. “Excited?”

You show him just how excited you are later that night, between dinner and dessert.

“This is what I’ve been missing,” you sigh. The routine drugs bust had went on fine, and you’d been spectacular, flawless, and now the two of you lay on the beach near the motel you’re staying at, the white sand burning beneath your towel as you soak up the golden sun. Steve glances at you, so drop-dead gorgeous in that two-piece that he can barely keep his hands off of you. Your sunglasses perched on your nose, you smile against the faint wind. “Hell, I love my life with you guys, Rogers, but I’ve missed this.”

“You live somewhere hot, once?” he asks, hoping to add onto the list he knows about you. Wedged somewhere between pool player extraordinaire and your MD-PhD, the meaning of your tattoos inking up and down your arms, and the reason why you were running in the first place, he wants to know where you grew up.

“Mhm, yeah. L.A., actually, but it was a different kinda hot than here.” Your fingers cross on your stomach as you tilt your head back. Steve smiles, the sun burning into his back as he leans on his elbow. The giant crush on the ocean sends a wave of calm through him.

“You wanted to become an actress?”

You break into a tell-tale smile, and he smirks, leaning over to kiss your cheek. Your arms wrap around him and your sunglasses clash with his face as he rolls onto your towel. Your legs tangled up, you land on top of him and grin against his lips as he sucks a kiss onto your bottom lip.

“Maybe.” You pinch the arm of your sunglasses and tug them off, twisting them between your fingers. “I didn’t stay, though.”

“Clearly.” He noses your chin affectionately and you drag his abandoned towel towards yourself, flopping down beside him. Your fingers interlaced, you set your glasses back on as Steve raises his chin to the wind. It’s so quiet here, nice, peaceful. It smells fresh, and sunny, and bright. So unlike the battlefield of gun oil and sweat earlier. He blows out a sigh, content to just rest in the quiet for a while. “It’s nice being here, relaxing.” With you.

“Yeah.” You squeeze his hand. “You know, I trust you, Steve. I wouldn’t have gotten too mad if you kept me in there, y’know? ‘Cause I know someone could’ve found me if you didn’t find me first.” He turns to you, his free hand coming to trail up the tattoos littering your skin, and he presses a kiss to the red star inked into your bicep. You tense underneath his touch, and he strokes his kiss away. “Shit, I’m sorry.” It’s awful, not knowing what you’re apologizing for, and Steve’s lips press together as you turn your face away.

“It wasn’t your fault, kid. None of it was. You didn’t know,” he whispers lowly, and you look at him through the dark shades. He hooks a finger on the bridge, dragging your sunglasses off your face so he can see you clearly, and sighs, folding them and setting them near your interlocked hands. “It’s never gonna be your fault.”

“It’ll always be my fault,” you reply stubbornly, and he can hear your tears. Yet, your face is dry and Steve cups your face, eyebrows knitting together. “You think I don’t know what they would’ve done to me?” He takes you quick into his arms, pulls you onto him and rolls so he shields you from the sun. Your arms tight around his chest, you press your forehead against his chest. “I should’ve known about what he was doing. He was my dad—“

“Don’t think about that.” “They sure as hell were grooming me to take his place,” you continue, and Steve kisses your hairline, hand dragging over your back as he holds you tight. “They’d come for me if they knew I was here.” He pulls back, hand trailing over your neck to gently hold you away from his chest, and he swallows at the blankness in your eyes. “And they’d come for you, too.”

“We’d protect you,” he murmurs, brushing the hair away from your face, and you smile bleakly. “Hey, now. Come on. You sick of the sun?” His hand cups your face, and you lean into his palm as you nod. “Alright. Let’s head back to the room.” He sits up, grabbing the spare towel and you clear your throat as he glances back to check that you’re okay.

“I’m sorry, Steve.”

“Hey, kid, no.” His hand cusps your bicep, covering that awful star, and he kisses you softly, slowly, sweetly. He nearly loses his words when the taste of cinnamon floods his mouth. “Nothing to be sorry for, alright?” He kisses you between the eyes before standing, flapping the towel to beat out any dust. You stand, too, taking the other towel and doing the same. Stuffing the two into the beach bag, Steve slides it onto his shoulder and turns to you, hand outstretched. You take it and he finds your skin deathly cold. Squeezing some life back into you, he tugs you flush against him.

“I think it’s better if I stay inside from now on,” you mutter. Steve’s hand tightens on yours, and he nods. You’re a painted target walking around in the sunlight, and Steve takes out a towel, draping it around your shoulders before wrapping an arm around around you.

“If that’s what you want, kid,” he whispers into your ear, lips brushing your temple and your arm sneaks around his waist. Heat tingles along his skin and something snaps in his chest as he gazes down at you.

“It isn’t, but it’s better for the both of us.” You lean just barely on his shoulder, the smell of sea salt clinging onto the damp strands of your hair. “It’s safer that way.”

And so you stay inside. You run missions from homebase, crack jokes over the comms with Sam, and report back on what happens in town while the team’s away. And they’re away a lot.

Steve calls you because he just misses the sound of your voice, but he pretends it’s about weekly updates and has anyone seen you? A part of his mind wonders if you’re tired of his repetitive questions, but you never give any indication that you are. Your answers are always long and rambling, and he always feels that smile tug at his cheeks, the fire in his chest spreading down to his fingertips as you talk about how you’d spot a stray cat and wanted to take it back to homebase or about the new recipe you’d made up.

All of them are in Singapore without you in the heat of summer, a humid, buzzing island that has everyone restless. The nights are warm, and with Sam’s snores and the sound of Natasha and Wanda talking in the room next door, Steve can’t quite manage to catch the winks of sleep he so desperately wants. Even in nothing but boxers, sweat is slick against his back and he groans softly, pulling himself out of bed.

The room is drenched in black and Steve feels around for a shirt, shrugging it on. He doesn’t bother with the buttons. No one’s awake at this hour around here. He pulls over some shorts just in case, his phone in his pocket, stuffs his feet into his sneakers, and heads out. The walkway is lit with bright, burning lamps, and the walls are painted a pasty cream that’s scuffed with grey and black as he sucks in a wet breath.

Mosquitoes and flies buzz as a moth flaps past, and Steve sighs, feeling the air gloss over his cheek like honey. Descending down the steps, he heads out into the parking lot, glancing around. There are not a lot of cars parked, and the only thing he can see is the heat making shapes in the distance, so he leans against the cement half-wall, taking out his phone. He dials, waits for the line to click.

“Hey, Rogers.” Your voice comes out clearly over the speaker and he sighs, letting the sound of your voice wash over him. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. Just callin’ to see how your day’s been.”

“I went to town today,” you say and Steve smiles, crossing his feet at the ankles. “I bought some new books to read and I’m teaching myself German to pass the time.”

“Really? Sounds interesting,” he murmurs. A light is buzzing and flickering and Steve squints against the faded light. A bunch of flies are flitting around it, attracted to the little blinker. “I can help, y’know? Picked up a bit back in the War.”

“Really?” He hears you laugh, and then there’s a sharp pang of yearning. The stakeout has gone on for far too long, and he misses you much more than he thought he would. It’s different than when he knew he’d come back in three or four days. No, this has been two months, and just the sound of your laughter makes him breathless. “You can give me a few private lessons, then.”

“Guess so, kid.” Something clatters on your end and he frowns. “What are you doing?”

“Uh, nothing. I… I just knocked something over.” Something bleeds into your voice and he pushes off the half-wall. His shoes scuff against rough ground and he raises his head to the sky. The sky is midnight black, Aegean blue spilling into the stars as the sun rises to chase the moon, and an ugly knot ties in Steve’s throat. Chase.

“Kid, are you alright?”

“Of course.” You chuckle, like he’s silly to ever think that, and he exhales through his nose, hand shoved into his pocket. He paces up the length of the parking lot, shoe kicking a stray pebble. “Look, is there anything else you need?”

“No, but—”

“Great. I’m kinda busy back here.” You shuffle on the other end, and he closes his eyes, ears straining to decipher the static. Ice replaces the warm blood in his body as a deep voice pierces through the speaker. He hears your voice then, faint from your distance to the speaker as you hush whatever it is that made the sound. “Steve, look, I… I’ve gotta go. I… I’ll see you when you get back.” Your laughter replays in his head as you hang up, and his gaze drifts off to the asphalt. Your voice sounds hollow as he plays it back, and the knot tightens.

Steve keeps telling himself that he’d been imagining things as he walks back into the room and shuts the door with a soft click. His body numb and freezing, he clenches his jaw to stop his teeth from chattering. An uneasy tide of nausea swirls in his stomach and he swallows back acid.

“What’s up, man?” Sam whispers blearily, sitting up, and Steve just sits on his bed, pulling off his shoes and flinging his shirt off. Sinking into the hard mattress, Steve tosses his phone onto the nightstand and closes his eyes. His hands run roughly over his face and he takes a deep breath.

“Nothing, I… I went out for a walk. Can’t sleep,” Steve replies — lies. “Go back to sleep, Sam.”

“Alright.” The covers flap and Steve lets out a deep sigh, resting his head on his hands as he stares patterns into the ceiling. A current lances up and down his body, and the urge to punch something through a wall is nearly too much.

You don’t pick up any of his calls thereafter, and yet you still run comms.

It feels an awful like a break-up, but Steve knows you two were never dating dating in the first place, so he doesn’t know why the ache in his heart grows at the sound of your small talk with Natasha or Sam or Wanda, but never him.

No, not him.

“You alright, Steve?” Natasha asks, wiping the blood off her cheek from where a goon had died trying to swing at her when she’d been covering Wanda. “You’ve been in a bad mood these past couple of days.”

“No, I’m fine. Eager to get back to Zermatt is all,” he says, stuffing a bloody, dust-laden tee into his duffle bag.

“Eager to get back to her?” Nat asks, a small smile curling at the corners of her mouth, and Steve sends her a weary, fake smile.

“Yeah. She’s part of our team.” A hand squeezes his bicep, and his smile falters. Natasha’s eyes gaze at him earnestly, clear as ice and just as piercing. “What?”

“Nothing.” And the blonde turns away, a sack over her shoulder as she helps Wanda move her things back to the quinjet parked miles away. “I’ll see you on the jet.”

Homebase is empty, with just a card and wilting roses, and a stack of books you never got the chance to read. Natasha, Wanda, Sam, they scour every level, every room, for another hint of where you’re going, where you’ve gone.

Steve doesn’t even need to call out your name to know that you’ve disappeared.

I did it to keep you safe. You don’t know what they will do if they find out my connection to you. They’ll find you, and kill you, and I can’t let that happen. They won’t ever stop looking for me.

So I’m leaving, because this is the best thing I can do until you’re safe. Don’t look for me. I know you will.

I wish I could see you again, but it’s better if I don’t.

Steve reads the card before he goes to sleep every night.

He knocks his skull against the steel wall of his room, just imagining you. It’s been a month now, maybe more or maybe less. He can’t even remember how long it’s been since he’s last seen your smile, ran his fingers through your hair, and it feels like a knife has lodged itself in his ribs, twisting ever so slightly every time he reads it. He stares down at the black ink scribbled into thick card and your signature, the last he has of you and he wants to tear it apart.

“Steve!” His head snaps up, and his neck cracks at the sound of Sam’s voice. There’s three sharp knocks, and Sam’s shadow spills through the small slit under his door. “Steve, you need to see it.”

“What is it, Sam?” His voice scratches, tired, and he doesn’t even muster the strength to get up. He knows the other three talk about him, about you, but ever since you left, homebase has been so much emptier. There’s no echoing laughter, or shrieks from one of your prank wars with Sam, and Steve can only sleep, stuff his head beneath pillows to shut out your ghost haunting him.

“Look, man—” Sam crouches and slips something underneath— “It was mailed to us today.”

Steve gets up and the air around him moves like a wave, a rush of cold and wet and his knees buckle beneath him as he collapses. Grabbing the phone, he wipes at his face and blinks, clearing his throat.

“She’s somewhere we can’t get,” Sam whispers, and then his footsteps fade away, and Steve swallows back another bruise blooming in his throat, leaning against his door with a quivering breath. Legs bent, he opens the flip phone. The screen illuminates to reveal a single notification.

5 Voicemails.

Steve hits play.

“If you’re getting this, it means I’ve decided to leave. My time with you guys was… it really was the best time of my life, but even I can’t outrun my past. I need to face it, and I don’t want to live my whole life in fear.”

Steve lets your voice wash over him, head tilting back once more and the tears come, hot and heavy. The phone burns against his ear as you sigh, so alive, it's like you’re just on the other end and his heart bursts, eyes fluttering shut.

“If you’re listening, it means someone’s found me, and it means I’ve decided to go back home. I’m sorry. I… I couldn’t write all I wanted to in a note, so if you’re my favourite person in the world, Steve, press one. If you’re the best sister I could’ve asked for, Nat, press two. If you’re my favourite little witch, press three. And if you’re my partner in crime, Mr. Birdman, press four.”

The phone clatters to the floor, along with Steve’s knuckles as his arm falls limp. His bones have turned to solid blocks of lead and he swallows down burning acid. His thumb hits the speaker before he hits 1.

“Steve…”

“There’s so much I could say.”

Steve leaves his room, slamming the door shut behind him and Natasha, who’s wringing her hair through a towel, pauses in the hall to watch him pass. His name bubbles at her lips, and yet the ground shakes in his wake, and Natasha knows better than to speak your name.

“I don’t even know where to begin, really.”

He punches until he bleeds, and he doesn’t even realize it until the punching bag begins to slicken with blood. His fists slide along the tattered thing, and he swallows, rolling and curling his fingers. The sting is delightful, and for a moment, his fists ache more than his heart.

“I guess I should start off with I’m sorry.”

Wanda stitches his knuckles up later after dinner. Steve flinches when she pours alcohol over his wounds and digs the needle through his flesh. Natasha watches, pretending she’s only in the kitchen to grab the saltine crackers. Wanda’s magic fizzles along her fingertips. They’re both watching him like dogs, because there’s too much glass in this room, and too many sharp little things that remind him too much of you.

“I never meant to hurt you. I… I don’t even know how to begin to make up for this.”

“Steve.” Sam tosses a newspaper at him after a supply run with Natasha, and the supersoldier unfolds the print with a sharp snap. In dark block letters, he reads out your name, and the announcement of your engagement to the German chancellor’s son.

“But I was running for a reason. And… and you once told me about Siberia. About how an empire that topples from within is dead forever. The idea just came to me.”

Steve breaks his stitches when he uppercuts an arms dealer in Phuket. The blood runs warmly down his fingers, thick and sticky. He learns that you taught Wanda how to stitch flesh wounds and gave her a cinnamon roll recipe.

“Can you…” His voice fades and Wanda looks up at him gently as she wraps bandages around his bruised hands.

“I can try. It will not taste as good as hers, though,” she warns and Steve can barely muster a smile. That was not what he’d been asking for, and the warmth in Wanda’s smile makes something in him shatter. You’d had the same smile. Maybe. He doesn’t know.

Maybe he’s just searching for you in other people.

“This is my duty. Ever since my dad died, I thought I could outrun a shadow. But I can’t do that anymore.”

They televise your wedding since it’s a big deal. Steve watches bits of it, catches it in flashes, sees you in such a stunning white dress that he can barely remember to breathe. The air catches in his throat, and his lips part, eyes trained on your smile that looks so, so real, and suddenly someone is tugging on his hand.

“Steve,” Natasha whispers, “you’ve spilled your juice.” His gaze drifts from the screen to Nat, who only takes the carton of OJ, and grabs a paper towel roll. Steve looks down at the mess he’s made, orange juice spilling all over the counter, overflowing from his glass and dripping onto the floor, and he dips his head to the counter. The knot is hard to swallow again.

He feels like he hasn’t breathed in ages. He didn’t realize how much he’d miss you until you were already gone.

“I’m going to dismantle H.Y.D.R.A. And it’s probably going to take a long time, but my brother’s with me. I haven’t seen him since I was ten. Since Dad took me and left, and he’s… different. He’s good.”

Edinburgh is a mere spot in the distance as Steve watches Wanda and Vision speak to each other, hands laced, shoulders brushing. A bitter taste floods his mouth and he pulls out your card to give his hands something to do.

“I called him while you guys were away and we came up with a plan together. I couldn’t tell you because I knew you’d try to talk me out of it. And I didn’t want you to go through it, trying to convince me not to go.”

The card is ripping, foxing and wrinkled where he kept folding and unfolding it, and he closes his eyes, pressing his nose into the card stock. Just the faintest scent of cinnamon clings to the sheet and he can imagine your hand whispering over the card as you thought of what to say.

“I’m marrying the German chancellor’s son to clear my name. Ever since the Battle of the Triskelion, you know Alexander Pierce isn’t exactly a popular figure so I’ll be a target without his protection. He’s really nice and polite. He won’t ever treat me wrong. I know that. But I miss you.”

Wakandan winds caress his face as he walks back from the forcefield. The blue-faced alien’s stare burns into his back. Natasha looks down, steadying her breath, and Steve can only think about how he might die here, today, in Wakanda without even seeing you again. And if he fails today, you’ll be following him into whatever afterlife there is.

“I don’t even know if you ever felt the same, but I can hope that you did. Maybe I should’ve said it. Maybe things would’ve — could’ve — been different.”

The moment Thanos’ fist connects with his temple, his vision explodes in a frenzy of black stars and warm yellow light. His body goes before he can stop it, and mind-splitting pain spills from his head. The forest clearing floor is cool against his burning cheek and he barely feels the shockwave that runs over his body before his mind goes blank. His mouth full of ash, his fingers dig into the moist dirt and a warm wind swoops against his cheek. Your card bends his pocket, and he struggles, grabbing at the world with invisible hands while death stands behind him.

Exhaustion pulls him into the dirt, cuffing him to the dried leaves and the soil as his lungs heave for air. Agony trips down his spine and he lets out a soft groan as his eyes slip shut.

“But I love you.”

Time rewinds. Death is blasted away and his shadow no longer floats around Steve and he gasps, his brain burning from the wave that washes over him. He sucks in a breath, air stealing into his lungs and he blinks, squinting against the sunlight as he wiggles his fingers. Everything burns, and it pulses in oscillations from his split temple. Tears burning into his stinging eyes, he pushes himself up and nearly stumbles as the sun inside him sends fire burning down his legs. He feels like he’s been trampled over by a thousand horses and a grunt slips past his lips as his hand digs through his pocket.

Pulling your card out, his fingers shake as he unfolds it. Dirt has been smeared over the once-pristine cardstock and he swallows at the blood he streaks over the black ink as his fingers brush over your words.

“I’d like to think we could’ve been happy.”

Steve’s hand shakes as he slathers shaving cream along his jaw. He wonders what you’d think, to see him clean shaven — Captain America, again, but not really. And then an icy fist grips his stomach, wrenches him sideways. His phone sits on the edge of the counter, and he stares at it out of the corner of his eye. He’d left you a voice message to the number you used to have, silently begging for you to be alive, but with each ticking second, dread sinks its claws into his back.

He runs the razor carefully over his skin, one hand holding his other wrist to steady it. There are only two nicks along his jaw and neck, and they clot before he finishes shaving. He barely recognizes his reflection as he pats away the stray cream clotting at his neck. The light in his eyes has been snuffed out, and his skin sags in a way he’s not comfortable with as he stares at the hollow man before him.

“But it just isn’t meant to be. And I’ll have to be okay with that.”

“Bunch of tired old wheels! I got nothin' for you, Cap! I've got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options! Zero, zip, nada. No trust - liar.” Tony’s gaunt face stares back at him, dark, wide eyes hidden behind sunglasses but still, Steve can see past the shades. He thinks of Tulum, sandy beaches and sea salt wind, and how you’d looked an awful like Tony does now.

An unsteady man topples before him, and his lungs squeeze out every last breath as Tony rips off his reactor — his heart — and slams it into his open palm. Steve doesn’t even know where to begin and he barely opens his mouth before Tony collapses at his feet.

Steve hoists him up, swallowing the bruising blooming in his throat. The ache spreads to his bleeding heart, and he is nearly severed at the knees. Everything tilts, blurs into a plethora of color.

You failed, a voice in his head hisses. And she’s dead. She died believing in you. He sets Tony carefully on the bed that Bruce leads him to, shaking his head free of the devil lurking in his mind.

“I’ll take it from here, Steve,” Bruce murmurs and he nods, retreating out of the room. He doesn’t have a place here. Not anymore.

“I love you, Steve Rogers.”

Later that night, after his first trip into space and with his legs still gummy from the G-force, he sets the arc reactor carefully on Tony’s nightstand, lips pressed together. His eyes rake over the sleeping man’s body, and he wants to ask Tony for advice. About what, he doesn’t know.

“Even if you don’t love me back.”

His phone rings, shattering the illusion of peace in the room and Steve twists to grab his phone from his pocket, fingers slipping as his heart jumps to his throat. An unknown phone number burns across the screen and he walks out of the room, brushing past Natasha who barely has a question forming on her lips.

“Goodbye.”

He’s just down the hall when he answers, and the phone burns against his ear as he barely whispers, “Hello?”

“Steve, oh, thank God, you’re okay. What happened? What’s happening, Steve?”

“Kid—” Everything breaks at once at the sound of your voice. You sound so much older, voice deeper, darker, and it’s like the light’s been stolen from you as he closes his eyes, swallows, tries to tell you that somehow, he’d failed, and— “you’re okay.”

“Yeah. What’s happening? Why did people disappear?” you whisper and he shakes his head as the first of the tears begin to fall over red, flushed cheeks. It rushes back to him, hearing your voice. A voicemail he’d listened to religiously for days on end that by now he has memorized it, every pause and stutter and breath, bounces in his skull as he searches for things to say. Searches among the long list of things he wants to say for what’s most important.

“Are you alright? Are you safe?” His voice cracks and you sigh, sounding close to tears yourself by the way your breath comes in fragments over the speaker despite your voice remaining firm. The remnants of Steve’s heart are blown away in the wind. You sound exhausted.

“I’m fine. I… my brother, my husband and I, we’re flying to New York to meet with what’s left of the U.N. They called an emergency council meeting. His father disappeared and the people are looking to him.”

Steve’s throat tightens and he nods, sucking in his bottom lip as more burning tears slip over his skin. Your husband. Of course. It’s so petty, so small compared to what he’d just seen, but somehow, the two words have punctured his lungs.

“Steve, are you still there?” you ask quietly, breathily, and he exhales, shaking himself of the heat that clouds his face as his heart weeps. Some very broken part of him wants to convince you to stay far away where he can’t have even a remote chance of seeing you, but he ignores that voice in his head as the ache in his chest swells.

“You should have said it.” Steve does not need to clarify. Your wrinkled, blood-smeared card lays in the back pocket of his jeans, and he hates the weight it still carries. You inhale sharply, softly, and Steve wonders if you’re still the same. Cinnamon spice, sharp as a dagger, a smile full of secrets.

“Please, don’t.”

“You should have said it,” he repeats, eyes closing. He knows you will be just as he’s remembered you. If he sees you, he knows he’ll taste that sharpness in his mouth again, the warmth of cinnamon and the ironwire of your arms. He knows, and he should’ve said it, too. Tears balance on the tips of his eyelashes as he wipes them away with the heel of his palm. Eyes finding the ceiling, he blinks hard against his palm and leans against the wall, temple pressed into cold metal that seeps into his bones. His lips numb. “Have a safe flight.”

There is a long pause on your end where Steve balances the choices of hanging up the phone or not, and he wonders if he even has the strength to press End Call. Your soft breathing buzzes through the speaker as you let out a sigh, and then utter, just barely, something faint and so terribly final. “Thank you, Steve.”

You don’t ask if you can see him. You know his answer, and he knows better. Some things are better left just as they were. A year-long fling. He can tell himself that that was all it was as much as he wants.

Steve always had a problem admitting things to himself.

He sucks in his tears and a quivering smile forces its way onto his face, as if that’ll convince him that this is what he wants. But it isn’t. He knows it. It’s better for the both of us. It’s safer this way.

“Goodbye.”

308 notes · View notes

miss-spooky-eyes · 4 years

Text

Riddle (Part III)

The conclusion of my Imperial Agent Devinahl’s backstory.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Mentions of child abuse and child prostitution (in earlier parts); emotionally abusive adults; slavery; being torn apart by eels. It is not fun.

NOTES: All names by the Star Wars name generator; all Star Wars universe mistakes by me. I do not own the Star Wars universe.

PART THREE: SCHOOLGIRL

She has no name, and she is always moving.

When they make planetfall, when the doors hiss open and they step out on to a new world, they assume names - names that are written on official documents, printed on identification cards beneath photos of themselves in clothes they've never worn, tossed like scraps are to starving children because they cost nothing to give away. And when they return to the ship, when the engines start to fire and they rise up together, the names are left behind; they have passed over them like shadows on the sand, they leave no impression.

Even the ship has no name - more than that, it has no fixed form. She learns in amazement that precisely the same ship, with nothing more than a superficial alteration of hull markings and emitter beacons, can go from being a small passenger transport out of Ord Mantell to a cargo runner from the notorious junk pits of Yuuv Rata to a classic pleasure yacht lovingly restored by a rich merchant from Alon Prime. 'People believe what you tell them,' Helm tells her, lounging in the pilot's seat, one finger muting the transmitter as they wait for Alderaanian orbital control to clear them. 'If you tell them the right way.' He lifts his finger. 'Acknowledged, Rhu Caenus Control. Have a pleasant day.'

There are no names on the ship, but there are designations. Helm is the pilot; he runs things on the bridge, working most closely with Wheelwright, the Ugnaught who maintains the ship's engines, and Scrivener, who does everything with computers, on and off the ship. Then there is Barber, olive-skinned and with a dreamy smile that only vanishes when he is attending to one of the crew or working on her implants. Yeoman and Bailiff are both human males, but there the resemblance ends; Yeoman is the biggest man she has ever seen, barrel-chested, his arms thickly corded with muscle, and peppers his speech with strange words she learns are Mandalorian. Bailiff is tall but rake-thin, never too far from a vibroblade, and is the one among the crew who is most wedded to the Kaasian accent the rest of them assume and discard as easily as their planetside identities. And then there is Bowyer, short and stocky and unassuming, her own accent rich with Tatooine and her grey eyes perpetually ever-so-slightly narrowed as if against the desert glare - or to focus on something in the distance. Bowyer is the sniper.

They are all human, apart from Wheelwright the Ugnaught engineer, and Locket. Locket is the only one whose designation does not reflect her job on the ship, but then Locket does not have a job on the ship, or if she does, Sifter is the only one who knows about it. Locket can often be found practicing her dancing in an empty storage bay, or in the one large common area aboard when the storage bays are full, bare toes soft on the metal floors, lekku twirling; at other times, she flirts with everybody on board indiscriminately, except for Bowyer, who stops her short with nothing but the ever-so-slightly-deeper narrowing of her eyes. But often Locket is closeted with Sifter in Sifter's office for hours at a time, the only one who ever gets one-on-one time with Sifter. There is a closeness there which the girl senses, even if she doesn't understand.

She does not try very hard not to be jealous.

At first, the girl who had been Stanza and then Gella thought they were simply travelling somewhere, to some planet, some place where she and Sifter would stay at least for a while. But after some time, she realizes that the ship is the place they are going to stay. They do make planetfall, in plenty of places, but they never stay more than a couple of days, or as long as it takes Sifter to accomplish whatever purpose has brought them there. As she learns more about space travel, she begins to understand that sometimes they are travelling simply to travel, spending days or even weeks on journeys which could have been completed in hours. 'Too paranoid for planetfall,' she hears Yeoman mutter under his breath one day as Sifter leaves the bridge after issuing a course correction.

It is a strange life, but she doesn't have too much time to dwell on it, because while everybody on the ship except her and Locket has a job, everybody on the ship - including Locket - is teaching her something.

Helm gives her basic instruction in starship design and the principles of astronavigation, sets her to work manually plotting hyperspace routes. Scrivener talks to her about slicing, about electronic locks and seals, about ciphers and computers, although what Scrivener says is often as incomprehensible as the code which streams across her screen. Wheelwright, or at least the protocol droid that translates for him, talks to her about engines and systems, about critical junctions, vulnerabilities, exposed circuits, pressure points.

Yeoman teaches her about pressure points of a different sort. It's his job to teach her some hand-to-hand combat, a task he thinks is futile - 'You're never going to get much bigger than knee-high to a tuk'ata, little one, if anybody corners you without a weapon, or if you don't kill them within the first two or three blows, you'll be dead' - but nevertheless brings plenty of enthusiasm to. Bailiff is the one to gift her with a vibroknife, her first; he shows her grips and guards and strikes and makes her practice them over and over again, makes her practice throwing one-handed, left-handed, overarm, underarm, at the flimsy targets he fixes to the walls; he has her chopping fruits and vegetables in the galley under the eye of the protocol droid, looking to build up hand-eye coordination and her fearlessness with blades.

She thought Bowyer would teach her to shoot, but: 'Anybody can learn to shoot,' the woman drawls. 'Sniping is different.' She isn't given a blaster, but instead told to practice various different exercises - staying in the same position for a long time, or staring at something without blinking; keeping still and not flinching when Bowyer unexpectedly shouts in her ear or tickles the sole of her foot.

Barber is the closest to a conventional teacher - he gives her files to read on science, history, mathematics, languages - but that is still not very close. He is fascinated with her implants (apparently Doctor Korpil had told the truth about a few things, and one of them was how rare, expensive and high-quality her implants were) and, with his gentle encouragement, they begin to explore what her implants can really do, 'or rather, what you can do with them,' he corrects her softly. She had survived on Draavi Prime by learning to block out any more stimuli than a 'normal' human brain would receive; now she learns that she can, very carefully, widen her perceptual channels a little; not much, but even a fraction allows her to see and in particular hear much better than un-enhanced human eyes and ears would be able to. Before long, the whole crew are joining in the games with which he encourages her to test her limits; elaborate games of hide-and-seek, where she, blindfolded, has to hunt down the rest of the crew, or better yet, corner Devinahl, whose six feet make almost no noise at all as she moves about and who can jump from place to place with ease; or memory games, in which she learns that if she just glances once at something, her enhanced eyes somehow retain that information for a limited time.

Some days, Sifter joins in the games and tests with a vengeance; sometimes, they barely see her for days at a time as she remains closeted in her office, where nobody but Locket is allowed; sometimes she will suddenly appear for one of the crew's meals, sitting carelessly astride her chair, wolfing down food and trading bloodthirsty stories with Bowyer and Yeoman until everybody is laughing or looking faintly nauseous; sometimes she observes such strict protocol that there is virtual silence on board the ship from dawn till dusk. She does not appear to pay much attention to the girl she brought with her from Draavi Prime, but the girl is not fooled; everything that happens on board the ship happens under Sifter's watchful eye.

At night, she sleeps soundly in her tiny cabin. Sifter had showed it to her on her very first day on the ship, had spent time showing her all the locks that fastened the door, explaining patiently to her in great detail precisely how each one kept everybody out. The girl could almost have loved her for that. She never lets anyone into her cabin the whole time she lives on the ship, except for Devinahl. The little creature likes to sleep curled up in her arms.

Locket, the only member of the crew close to her age, at first showed no interest in teaching her anything, or in her presence at all. Then after three months, she suddenly turned friendly, prone to curling up next to the girl on the couches in the common area and paying her compliments, or inviting her back to her, Locket's, quarters, to watch holo-movies or play childish games or experiment with hair, clothes, makeup.

It does not take long to realize that these are lessons, too. It's not long before she and Locket are sometimes allowed out together when they make planetfall, often for shopping expeditions or recreational activities, the two of them trying to outdo each other in successfully pretending to be silly, carefree, laughing teenage girls as they try on clothes or flirt with boys in cafes or play holo-tag. She looks forward to these expeditions, because they are always followed by the same thing; she and Locket both eat dinner with Sifter in Sifter's private cabin. Sifter will ask her questions, testing her recall of the day - how many service droids were there in that food hall? How many exits did the boutique have? How many different alien species on that world? - and she gets better and better at answering. Soon, there are two games; trying to answer Sifter's answers correctly, and trying to pick up on the code that Locket was using to communicate to Sifter whether the answers she gave were correct - bites of her food, lekku twitches, blinks, finger taps. She gets to see Sifter's broad, generous smile if she deciphers the code before the questions are over; and she also gets to see Locket fume.

It's not until much, much later that she realizes that Locket was being tested as much as she was, and by that time, her life on the ship is over. IIn the end, it lasts barely two years before she is summoned into Sifter's office one day, and Sifter looks up from her datapad and says: 'Time to go to work, Schoolgirl.'

Her name is Karia Madeesh, and she is a bad girl.

As Karia, whose parents are both career officers in the Republic navy - there is a framed holo of the three of them on the bedside table in every room she's given - she enters a new world: That of the elite school for children of the rich and influential.

She had never realised that there was a whole industry dedicated to raising and educating the children of the wealthy and powerful, but of course there is. High-ranking career officers in the Republic navy; senior diplomats and bureaucrats; noble houses on worlds whose cultures still clung to aristocratic ideals; merchants running businesses and trading empires that spanned several systems - they all shared two things: A desperation for their children to be equipped with the education and skills to take their places in the same elite strata they themselves occupied; and no time to do it in. And so the institutions spring up, on a hundred worlds: Schools, academies, educational establishments which specialize in taking the offspring of the rich and powerful and educating them to become rich and powerful themselves.

Karia Madeesh attends the Coruscant Sunrise Academy. She spends a year at the Royal Areopagitica on Alderaan. Three different schools on Corellia - the Coronet City College, the Orailus Institute and the Minati Calfax Advanced School - are her home for various lengths of time. She studies on Makeb, and Ord Mantell, and Alon Prime, and Coruscant again. And wherever she goes, she finds herself very popular almost immediately.

When Sifter first explained the assignment to her, she had been sceptical: Why make Karia a bad girl? Even if it gave her an excuse to be constantly moving schools, when Karia's behaviour got too outrageous and she was invariably kicked out, wouldn't it keep her classmates from wanting to get to know her?

She knows better now. Sifter is a genius. Whenever Karia arrives at a new school, word inevitably leaks out that she has been expelled from her last one, and the aura of the 'bad girl' surrounds her. So, too, do her peers, after a short time, all of them wanting to be around this new, rebellious, dangerous girl, who smiles sweetly at the teachers and has no qualms about openly defying them in ways which are sure to call down the wrath of the authorities on her head.

She even finds a way to work her implants into the story. As she tells, or rather reluctantly confides it, they are repairing the damage done when one of the front-line bases her parents were stationed at came under heavy fire. 'They told him it was too dangerous for families, but of course the colonel had to think about his career,' she says bitterly to those huddled around her, breathless, agog. 'Hope the promotion was worth what this school is going to charge you when I'm through, Daddy darling.'

Once again, she is lying to the rich, and she is better at it than ever.

These children don't really know anything, of course. But it's amazing what the slightest crumbs of information can do when combined with others, Sifter says; and parents are very bad at keeping secrets from their offspring. A casual reference to a potential reassignment from the son of a Republic general - 'He said we might have to move again, can you believe it?'; a merchant's daughter showing off her knowledge of a non-aligned world supposedly closed to outside traders; a Nautolan bureaucrat's podling who passes along their uncle's highly unflattering opinion of a Republic supposed war hero they're studying in whispers to make them all laugh; it all adds up. All Karia has to do is pass along the information along agreed-upon channels, and bide her time until the signal comes from Sifter that she is to pull out. Then all it takes is some piece of mischief extravagant enough to get her kicked out, and the same pleasant-faced, nondescript couple who are in all her framed holos will be summoned to undergo a painful exit interview with the head of whatever educational establishment whose patience she has exhausted this time.

They are the same pleasant-faced couple who show up to parents' days (sometimes, though not often, accompanied by a dark-skinned, older woman who introduces herself as Karia’s old nurse); and it is they who welcome her back to an apartment on Coruscant for vacations. If Karia has done her job well enough, though, she is usually invited to a friend's home for weekends and holidays, and that only opens up further possibilities in terms of intelligence-gathering, as she makes one of a party ski-ing the Wokbenlau Alps, or sailing the Triblen Delta, or whispering and giggling in the corner with a group of other girls at a Coronet City soiree. If not, Sifter always has another plan for her, and she slips away unobtrusively from her 'parents' apartment to attend an intensive computer science course, or spend a memorable summer learning to shoot rabid kath hounds from speeder-back on Dantooine, or study Rodian martial arts on Ord Mantell.

If she ever feels bad about what she is doing - if she sees someone who counts her as a friend weeping about a parent lost to an Imperial ambush, or exposed for court-martial - Karia only has to remember the lines at the refugee camp, and her focus returns.

After a few years, her parents 'defect' from the Republic, and Karia starts attending schools on Dromund Kaas, on Avery Station, on Terrek Nor. It doesn't surprise her; the Empire has enemies within that need watching, as much as without, or so Sifter tells her in one of those rare meetings when she is posing as Karia's old nurse. Frankly, it makes little difference: There are fewer aliens among her classmates, but otherwise the rich and their children, Republic or Empire, are much the same.

She never goes back to the nameless ship. Nor does she see any of the crew again. She is almost sure she sees Locket in a holo-news broadcast about the new wave of wealthy Hutts moving in on Makeb when she is at a school there, collared and chained with her leash clamped in some crime-slug's fat fist, but the camera pans away almost immediately and though she studies the recording obsessively in secret, she cannot find a way to identify Locket beyond all doubt. The image makes her feel uneasy, but she tells herself: Sifter has her eye on Locket, just as she does on Karia. Sifter has her eye on them all.

If Karia had ever doubted this, she has her confirmation when things go wrong - the only time that things go wrong.

She really never thinks about her parents any more, about Draavi Prime or the refugee camp or Doctor Korpil and his clinic; those things are safely shut away in the recesses of her mind, and if they surface, it's as dreams, night terrors, rages, longings - things that she can safely process in the privacy of her own room, behind locked doors; harvest the useful emotions from, and shut the rest away. Discard everything that doesn't serve a purpose, Sifter had told her once, back in the days on the ship, and if you can't discard it, find a use for it.

It all works so well until one day, after she had been Karia Madesh for about two years and during her second stint on Corellia, she is strolling through the shopping quarter with her (current) group of friends during their free afternoon and sees her little sister Scerra walking down the street.

Karia stops dead in her tracks. Adrenaline slams through her veins. She cannot move for a moment or two, so great is her shock at having seen Scerra pass by, toddling along on her little legs, each hand held by strange adults. As soon as she can move again, she spins round, ignoring her friends' exclamations and questions, and searches the crowd, pushing through them as she tries to catch up with Scerra and the people who were taking her away.

She catches a glimpse of Scerra's back, the brightly-beaded band which holds back her ponytail, and starts fighting through the crowd to get to her, shouting at the top of her voice for people to get out of her way, swearing, pushing. Her friends catch up to her, a babble of questions, confusion, embarrassment; she ignores them and one by one they fall away from her. There is a rocket tram stop nearby; she vaults the turnstile, ducking under the guards' arm, running to catch up with the glimpse of Scerra's coat she's sure she saw disappearing between the closing doors. She gets to the tram just as the doors slide closed.

She howls in anguish as the tram begins to move, clawing at the doors. The guards have caught up with her, they are pulling her away as the tram accelerates, speeding Scerra away; two of her friends, more determined than the rest, have caught up with her too, trailing shopping bags and showering distressed exclamations. People are turning to look and staring; a crowd is gathering; it's everything she is not supposed to do, and she doesn't care. There is another rocket tram pulling in, and she has to be on it. One guard is holding on to her arms, and she twists out of her jacket, pulling it over his head and kicking him hard, twice; the other reaches for his stun stick, and with a move that comes straight out of the recesses of her brain, where her training is stored, Karia spins into him, driving her elbow into his stomach, then up into his chin as he doubles over, stamping hard on his foot at the same time. She has one glimpse of her friends, staring, wide-eyed, and she is on the rocket tram, racing down the cars to get as far away as she can before it pulls away.

Of course she has no idea where Scerra and the adults who were with her got off the tram, but she is panicking too hard to think about that, or anything except finding them. She tears up and down the tram, grabbing people's shoulders to look at their startled faces then racing away; she leaps off at a random residential district, runs out of the station into the streets, looking everywhere for the distinctive little figure, the pink coat, the bright beads in her hair, screaming her sister's name until her throat is raw. Startled passers-by point and whisper; her comm armband, linked to the school's systems, buzzes and buzzes until she tears it off and throws it into the street. All she can think about is that somewhere in this city is her little sister, her little sister being taken away.

It's hours before she comes to her senses. The frenzy that has been driving her ebbs away all at once, leaving her standing alone on a street corner in a part of Coronet City she's never seen, exhausted, every muscle in her body throbbing with fatigue, her face streaked with dirt, her eyes swollen from crying, her throat raw with screaming. She has missed curfew, thrown away her comm-band; the group of girls she has been so carefully infiltrating have seen her behave with total irrationality - worse, they saw her fight off those guards. She has ruined everything, and for what? She did not see Scerra. She could not have seen Scerra at all.

It's the first time she has been asked to leave a school ahead of Sifter's timetable. Her 'parents' are there to take her away; she sits numbly through the exit interview, gathers her things; the senator's daughter she was targeting won't even meet her eyes when they pass in the hall.

Karia is not surprised when her parents, back on Coruscant, tell her that she has an appointment with a doctor, and she is not surprised when that doctor turns out to be Sifter, Sifter in a white coat leaning back in the doctor's chair behind the doctor's desk as if she belongs there. As Karia sits across the desk from her, Devinahl leaps from Sifter's shoulder, snakes across the desk and leaps at her. Karia catches her, hugs the warm, little body close to her chest, lets Devinahl wind around her shoulders, trilling in her ear and nuzzling her cheek.

'Tell me,' Sifter says, without preamble, once the first flurry of Devinahl's welcome is over.

Karia does.

After she has told her story, as succintly as she can, Sifter shifts position so that she is leaning forward on the desk, her hands folded in front of her. The posture triggers something in Karia's memory, something she doesn't want to remember.

'It was stupid,' Karia says eventually when Sifter says nothing. 'I know, it was stupid.'

Sifter still says nothing for a minute. Then: 'Tell me why it was stupid.'

'I behaved irrationally. I drew attention to myself. I jeopardised my cover and alienated my targets.'

Again, the silence; again, Sifter says, 'Tell me why it was stupid.'

Karia looks down, unable to meet Sifter's eyes. She cannot say it.

'Tell me.'

'Because Scerra isn't a little girl any more.' Hot tears rise up and overflow on to her cheeks, and she cannot even force herself to wipe them away. 'The child I saw was ... was Scerra's age when I last saw her. That was seven years ago. She's almost thirteen now, she isn't - she isn't a small child.' Karia cannot stop the wail in her voice. 'She's - she's grown up without me -'

She cannot go on.

Sifter turns her chair away, turns her head away and studies the wall as the girl in the chair opposite her sobs uncontrollably.

Karia almost loves her for that.

She cries for a long time, and when she finally stops, it's only because she doesn't have the energy to cry any more. The paroxysm has left her boneless, light-headed, slumped in her chair, arms cradling Devinahl automatically as the little lizard creature blinks curious golden eyes at the tear-streaked face above her.

Only once Karia's breathing has returned to normal, with only the occasional hitch in it to betray her recent state, does Sifter turn to face her again.

'No one has taken your sister away,' Sifter says, gentle, steely. 'She is with your parents. She is home. They are Imperial citizens now. They have the protection of the Empire. If you want to protect your family - if you want to save your sister - then serve the Empire. Protect the Empire. Make us strong.'

Karia understands what Sifter is saying; she is still in Sifter's employ. She is still Sifter's agent. She is not being sent away. A wave of relief washes over her so powerful that, despite her exhaustion, fresh tears threaten to spill.

'You won't make this mistake again, will you?'

'No,' Karia promises, sitting straighter in her chair. 'No, I won't.'

She never does.

Her name is Akysa Rakto on Bemeth, and Verls Eldrel on Kries, and Swa-Lu Fothe on Yuuv Rata.

She studies mechanical engineering on Angavel, and galactic history on Mon Calamari, and exobiology on Aeos Prime.

It is not very different from what she did as Karia Madeesh, except that now she is attending universities, not elite schools. Her targets are still sometimes family members of important or influential people, but more often than not, they are protest groups, activists, student societies dedicated to political causes of one sort or another. She never knows whether the particular group she is infiltrating is one that Sifter wants to encourage, presumably with the goal of destabilizing one Republic world or another, or suppress; it's not her job to make that decision. She simply passes on the information she gathers.

More and more, though, she cannot resist adding her own analysis, drawing attention to weaknesses or opportunities she has spotted in the reports that she delivers to dropboxes, hard-encrypted on datapads. What Sifter thinks about this, she doesn't know; she only ever hears from her in the form of code phrases embedded in the mail she receives, and they can only mean a set range of things: Stay the course. Dig deeper. Change focus. Get out.

Her implants are a challenge; she has to come up with stories to explain them, and explain how she can afford to have them maintained. They also make her appearance far too distinctive. When she assumes a new identity, she experiments with different ways to disguise them, ways of wearing her hair, adding new phony prosthetics to change their size and shape, getting fake scars or tattoos or birthmarks to draw attention away from them. Fundamentally, though, they cannot be too well disguised. She simply has to be sure that she does her work so well that nobody suspects her enough to circulate a description of her appearance. It forces another layer of caution, and that can only be a good thing.

They are also invaluable in this work. Often she does not even have to join these societies; just find ways to be in a position where she can, with her enhanced hearing, overhear and record them. Sometimes she won't even get involved in whichever group she is targeting; simply pose as the girlfriend of one of the members, who has no interest in her lover's politics. It's amazing what you can do when you only need a single glance to carry away reams of data inside your head, or when you can overhear a murmured conversation without even being in the room.

Fraudulent intimacy is a part of her work now, of course. It isn't her preferred method, but it is effective. Besides, she wants to know about sex, all about it, all the different games people play, all the ways to find out what someone likes, all the ways to be good at giving it to them. If she knows about it, she can use it; it's a tool, it can't be turned against her.

And it's important to know, she thinks, just how good your body is at lying to you. She learns that it doesn't matter that you know all about hormones and chemical bondings and the rest of it; your body can still produce a wave of tenderness for a sleeping lover that almost brings you to tears, an agonizingly pleasurable aching longing for the touch of their skin, a giddiness at the sight of them, that has nothing to do with your cool, analytical brain. It's good to know this, and be wary, and be smart. For later, when her targets are more dangerous than student anarchists and rebelling adolescents.

She intends to be so smart, later.

In the meantime, she gets better and better at disappearing into the role she is playing (but not too far). She has learned her lessons well: Her family, so far away on Draavi Prime, are what she thinks about when she feels a pang of guilt for those she is betraying, and that silences her qualms. If she ever thought of going home, she does not do so any more; she doesn't want to think of the people they are now, of the grey that must be in her mother's hair, the lines around her father's eyes, Scerra growing into a young woman. She thinks of them instead as they were when she last saw them, but well-fed, healthy, happy, prosperous as they had never been in the refugee camp, unchanging as if they were embedded in crystal. Hers to protect, to watch over. She will be strong so they don't have to.

The only time she struggles is on Yuuv Rata. Her cover, Swa-Lu Fothe, is studying medicine, and when she walks into the medical lab, her body immediately betrays her: The smell of disinfectant, the sound of the tiled floor, the shine of the surgical instruments. She tries to force herself through it, but it's as if her implants are tightening around her head, a band of pain cutting remorselessly into her flesh.

She makes it about half an hour into their first dissection before going outside to throw up. She sinks down on a convenient wall, knees trembling too much to stand, and wonders if Sifter arranged this on purpose.

If it is a test, she passes it with flying colours. Because the young man who comes out to see if she's all right is not just a fellow student; he is a member of the group she is here to infiltrate, a group with ties to another, more radical organization which aims at liberating alien test subjects across the galaxy. Not only that, but he is the son of a high-up Republic bureaucrat, a bureaucrat with high expectations for his son ...

'Are you all right?' he asks her, eyes wide, full of concern.

She nods weakly. 'It's just ... I have a real phobia of labs and hospitals.'

'But you're studying medicine.'

She smiles bitterly. 'It's all my father cares about.'

That's all it takes to get him on side, and soon, their entire class is rooting for Swa-Lu in her brave battle to overcome her fears and crippling issues, and she has been invited to several meetings, and an individual she strongly suspected of being the local cell leader had taken her aside to commiserate with her about the tyrannical effects of parental expectation. (Never underestimate how much the children of the rich hate their parents.) Lying awake at night, curled against her classmate in his narrow bed, she lets the elation surge through her. She has passed the test. This is how it will be, when she joins Imperial Intelligence, when she makes it as an agent: She will take her weaknesses, and make them into weapons.

She is into her fifth year of this kind of work, taking an advanced psychology course on Bogano, when the message comes. Her aunt is dying.

If this moon has a name, she doesn’t know it. The shuttle from Station Zaboor drops her off at a small landing pad, over two weeks after she left Bogano; she’s in a walled compound, surrounded by jungle. There are a number of buildings, but only one of any size: This must be the clinic.

The place is deserted.

As she approaches the largest building, she hears a soft exclamation and turns to see an olive-skinned man in the uniform worn by the doctors here hurrying towards her. It is Barber; leaner than ever, his body feels almost brittle in her arms as he hugs her, but he still wears the same vague, dreamy smile.

'You’re not too late,' he breathes into her ear, the faint whisper a shout thanks to her implants. He pulls back, holding her hands, beaming at her fondly as if she was his long-lost niece. 'Look at you. You're all grown up.'

'How is she?' the young woman asks. 'My aunt?'

His smile fades. 'She's waiting for you.'

The clinic is spotlessly clean, but empty, except for one or two nurses they pass in the hallway. Barber will not respond to any of her questions, except with a shake of his head and a smile; he simply ushers her into Sifter’s room when they finally reach it, and shuts the door behind her.

She had not known what to believe until this moment, but now she sees it: Sifter is indeed dying.

In the five years that have elapsed since they last saw each other, the woman seems to have aged twenty. Her dark hair has not only turned solid white, much of it has fallen out, leaving only wispy strands which reveal plenty of flaky, wrinkled scalp. Her face seems to have collapsed in on itself, her cheeks sunken as if the flesh had been sucked from her bones. She cannot see much of Sifter's body under the blanket, but the full figure she remembers seems to have wasted away.

She looks around. The room is scrupulously clean, perfectly tidy; Sifter is being well looked after.

It is also blank, except for a pile of datapads which lie on Sifter's bedside table. There are no holos (not that she would expect there to be), no medals on display; no plants, no flowers. And there is no sign of Devinahl. The fibreglass stand, moulded to look like a forked branch, on which the little creature used to like to climb and hang stands in the corner, but Devinahl herself is nowhere to be seen.

She takes a seat next to the bed, and waits.

After perhaps an hour and a half, Sifter's eyelids flutter, and she turns her head. 'Schoolgirl,' she mutters, her voice faint and raspy. She coughed, and even that sounds dry and rattling. 'You took your time.'

'The route you sent me on was circuitous,' Schoolgirl retorts (she is hardly a schoolgirl any more, but she will be Schoolgirl for today, if that's what Sifter wants). 'I transferred twice through Nar Shadda. In different directions.'

'I gave my life to Imperial Intelligence, but they're not getting my death.' Sifter coughs again, and again; her body beneath the blankets is racked. 'Water.'

Schoolgirl pours a glass of water from the pitcher on Sifter's bedside, then, realizing belatedly that Sifter cannot hold it, lifts it to the woman's lips herself, tilting it gently. She has never done this for anyone before, and she does it badly, the water spilling down Sifter's chin and running down her neck.

As she apologizes, Sifter waves a clawlike hand, silencing her as she gulps down a few precious sips. 'That's better,' she sighs, her voice sounding a little fuller, a little clearer as Schoolgirl takes the glass away. She fixes Schoolgirl with a sharp gaze as the younger woman sits back down. 'You know I'm dying.'

She considers platitudes, encouragement, and decides against it. 'I know.'

'Nothing to be done. And believe me, I've tried.' Sifter stares at the ceiling. 'A hundred worlds.' Her eyes flick back to the woman sat beside her at the soft noise of comprehension. 'What?'

'I always wondered why you were on Draavi Prime all those years ago. It was a minor operation for someone in your position.' Schoolgirl remembered the very first time she'd seen Sifter, pretending to be another wealthy, bored woman seeking illicit treatments and prohibited remedies from the hospital world's doctors. 'You were looking for a cure.'

'Noval Jhcor Syndrome. It's a rare blood disorder. Incurable. You know how I got it?'

Schoolgirl shook her head again.

'Thirty years ago on Abaddon Prime. The Empire was fighting a rogue colony of Mandalorians. Not just any Mandalorians, either.' She coughed, but shook her head when Schoolgirl nodded towards the water. 'These ones were ... smart. Vicious. Gearing up to fight wars of sabotage and indiscriminate violence on a hundred of our worlds. Intelligence had managed to smuggle a complement of biogenic warheads into their base, but they needed to be armed and triggered. I knew I could get into their base, but the arming device ... the only way to smuggle it in was to hide it with the radiation from an unshielded power core. I got in, armed the warheads, and got out.' She coughed again. 'They never told me the core was using a halenium source. Halenium-1, and I carried it around next to my skin for seventy-two hours. It took twelve years of symptoms before they would admit it.'

Schoolgirl said nothing.

'These are the people I recruited you to serve. And I knew it when I found you on Draavi Prime.' Sifter plucked restlessly at the covers. 'They will use you. Poison you. Lie to you. If you obey them, they will sacrifice you. If you try to run, you'll find the chain already fastened around your ankle before you take your first step. If you disobey, they'll cut whatever they can use out from inside you, then toss you on the dungheap. The only things worse than the things they do to the Empire's enemies are the things that they do to its patriots. And you can't imagine the things they do to its enemies.'

She studied Schoolgirl's face, then snorted. 'You think you'll be different. I can see it in your face. You think that if you're clever enough, and loyal enough, and useful enough, you'll be the exception to the rule. Serves me right for trying to talk to the young.' She turned her eyes away to stare at the ceiling. 'At least I tried to warn you,' she muttered, and closed her eyes.

Schoolgirl let her breathe for a while, before asking: 'Where's Devinahl?'

'Mmm?' Sifter opened her eyes, blinking at her. 'Devinahl? She ran off a month ago. Idiot nurse opened the window a crack for some air and she squeezed through and was off into the jungle before you could blink twice. Doesn’t like the smell of death, my little riddle.' She sighed. 'Just as well. I don't want her to watch me die. The same goes for you, by the way. You're on a ship out in six hours.'

'Where am I going?'

'Mmm?'

'I said, where am I going?'

Sifter blinked several times, as if she was having trouble focusing. 'Oh ... the ship's going to Ord Mantell.'

'That doesn't really answer my question.'

Sifter waved a desiccated hand. 'Quiet. I need to rest. We'll finish this when I wake.' Her eyelids were already closing as she spoke.

Schoolgirl waited while Sifter slept, curled up on her hard bedside chair, listening to the older woman's laboured breathing. Nobody came to check on the patient, or the visitor; she guessed that Sifter had said she wanted to be alone, and Sifter's word, as always, seemed to be law.

After ninety minutes or so, she stood up to stretch cramped limbs and turned to look out of the room's one window, at the edge of the compound where the clinic stood and the lush jungle which pressed in upon it on all sides, threatening to spill over the walls and devour. If the window had been open, she was sure she would have been able to smell it; all that vegetation, all that life. No wonder Devinahl had taken her chance when it came. She briefly entertained the thought of going out to search for the little creature - taking some of her favourite foodstuffs, and venturing out; perhaps Devinahl had merely yielded to a momentary impulse when she escaped, and regretted it almost immediately; perhaps she was merely lost and wanted to come home. The little creature had slept in her arms every night for almost two years on the nameless ship; surely she would recognise Schoolgirl's voice, her smell ...

No. Devinahl was a wild thing. She had made her choice to vanish into the jungle, and it would demean them both, somehow, to try to tempt her back.

A series of those horrible dry coughs signalled that Sifter was awake again, and Schoolgirl turned from the window, hurrying to pour water and hold it to her lips. Sifter swallowed a few sips of water, coughed again, and began trying to push herself upright in the bed. Schoolgirl grabbed for pillows to put behind her back, to support her in some semblance of a sitting position, and Sifter waved a hand at the small cabinet that stood by her bed and wheezed: 'Top drawer, Hidden. Stim.'

It only took a moment to find the hidden compartment, release the latch with the pressure of one finger in the right spot; it slid open noiselessly, revealing a row of identical stims. Sifter beckoned impatiently, holding out one arm, and Schoolgirl grabbed a stim and let that first-year medicine training come to her aid, administering the injection without thought.

Sifter winced, then let out a long sigh as whatever had been in the stim passed into her bloodstream. Her papery skin was unpleasantly hot beneath Schoolgirl's fingers.

'Am I helping you die?' she asked.

'I'll help myself, soon enough.' Sifter's eyes were already growing brighter, her speech stronger. 'I'm almost done tying up loose ends. You're the last.'

Schoolgirl settled herself back into her chair, and waited.

'I manipulated you,’ Sifter said abruptly. ‘That day when we first met. Every time since.'

'I know.'

'Just because you know you're being manipulated doesn't change the fact that you are, Schoolgirl. You're still serving someone else's purposes. Don't forget that.'

'Yes, ma'am.' She said it with exaggerated meekness, hoping to amuse Sifter, and got her reward when the older woman snorted.

'You just remember that when I'm gone. I may not have taught you much, but at least you can remember that.'

'You taught me everything.'

'No, I had you taught. It's not the same.' Sifter sighed, staring blindly towards the window and the jungle beyond. 'I meant to teach you so much more. Keep you with me. Mould you. But I was on borrowed time, and there was so much to do ...'

She trailed off, her eyes straying now over Devinahl's empty perch. 'Maybe it's better that I didn't keep you close. Can't complain all those vat-grown assets can't think for themselves and then replace them with someone I've programmed, in my way.' She half-lifted one hand, then let it loll against the bedclothes in a weary gesture. 'It certainly didn't help the others.'

'How many have there been?' Schoolgirl asked quietly.

'I've recruited hundreds of assets for Intelligence in my day. But you mean my pet projects.'

'Yes.'

'Twelve, not counting you.' Sifter stared unseeing at Schoolgirl. 'Twelve I found, and raised, and groomed, and sent to Intelligence when their time came. Twelve.'

'Are they all dead?'

'Dead, or worse.' Sifter's eyes refocused on her face, and there was suddenly a gleam of humour in the dark depths. Schoolgirl found herself smiling back. 'I told you I'd never lie to you.'

'What about Locket?' Schoolgirl asked, remembering that half-glimpse of the Twi'lek chained to the Hutt, remembering too their shopping trips, nights curled on the couch. She had learned so much from Locket. Even now, when she needed to be carefree, flirtatious, effervescent, it was the other girl's mannerisms she reached for - her gestures, her sighs, her outrageously bright smile. 'What happened to her?'

The gleam died in Sifter's eyes. 'I put her in deep cover with the Hutts. She was going to leash a crimelord for us. Operation timescale was eighteen months. She barely lasted six before the Hutt caught her robbing the strongroom. He had her fed to Morustan eels. My dazzling girl. My jewel.'

To her shock, Schoolgirl realized there were tears in Sifter's eyes. 'Eight years I kept her with me. One more after she finished her training, just to prep her for that assignment. And she ends up torn apart by a Hutt's pets. All because she panicked and tried to run. Didn't trust herself, or me.'

'She loved you,' Schoolgirl said softly. 'As I would have. If you'd let me.'

Sifter blinked away the tears, and the sharpness returned to her voice as she said, 'Well, at least I protected you from that.' She showed her teeth in what was far more a grimace than a smile. 'Here's another lesson for you, Schoolgirl: If you want to destroy someone - I mean, destroy them utterly - let them fall in love with you. People like us are poisoned.'

Schoolgirl resisted the temptation to roll her eyes.

Sifter sagged back on her pillows. 'She was going to be my legacy. My last gift to the Empire. Now she's gone, like all the rest. Except for you,' she added as an afterthought.

She controlled the stab of hurt she felt, and smiled. 'Maybe I'll be your legacy.'

Sifter looked at her as if she'd only just become aware of her presence. 'Maybe you will.' She gave that mirthless smile again. 'My little wildcard. My last roll of the Sabacc dice. Maybe you'll be exactly the person the Empire needs, after all.' She closed her eyes briefly. 'Maybe you'll catch a stray blaster bolt your first time in the field. Either way, I won't be alive to see it.'

Schoolgirl watched the woman's lined face, carefully smoothing out her tone when she said, 'You're tired. Do you want me to leave?'

'Not yet.' Sifter opened her eyes again, and flicked her eyes towards the bedside cabinet. 'Second drawer. Find the datapadd.'

It took Schoolgirl longer this time to find the hidden compartment, which turned out to be a cunningly disguised fake bottom to an innocuous-looking macrobinocular case. She held it out to Sifter, who wearily lifted one skeletal arm and unlocked it with a thumbprint and a cipher code she didn't even bother to try to keep Schoolgirl from seeing. 'Thumb. There.' She watched as Schoolgirl pressed her own thumb to the scanner, locking the datapad to her own thumbprint. 'That's what you came here for. Consider yourself tied up, loose end.'

'What's on it?' Schoolgirl asked.

'Your ticket to Intelligence. If you want it.' Sifter pushed herself painfully upright again, her eyes feverishly intense on the younger woman's face. 'As of now, you're no longer in my employ. You can go back to your family, or you can go somewhere - anywhere - else; if you haven't learned enough by now to make your own way in the galaxy, then you never will. The choice is yours. But if you do want to serve the Empire, that's how you do it.' She pointed at the datapad with one finger, too weary to raise her hand more than a fraction off the covers. 'Go to Avery Station. There's instructions in there for how to contact a particular man, and the phrase to say to him. He'll bring you into the training programme.'

'And who will I be?'

'That's on there too. I've given you the best cover I could work up. It will stand up to anything except the most rigorous scrutiny, and anybody senior enough to order a probe like that will see certain ... details that signal my handiwork. They'll know not to look any further.' She slumped back on her pillows again; her voice was growing rougher, more ragged, her breathing more laboured than it had since she had taken the hypospray. 'It's up to you now, Sch-- Stanza.' Sifter smiled at the look on Schoolgirl's face. 'You should hear your name one last time.'

'Maybe you should hear yours, too,' Schoolgirl suggested tightly.

'Nice try.' Sifter squinted up at her. 'Stay for just a minute. Until I fall asleep. Then be gone by the time I wake up.'

Still nettled by Sifter's use of that name, Schoolgirl nevertheless sat down by the older woman's bedside once more, watching as Sifter painfully settled herself into a comfortable position, her eyelids closing. Schoolgirl sat and listened to her laboured breathing. If it wasn't for the relentless plucking of Sifter's hand at the covers, she would have thought Sifter was asleep. The minutes lengthened, and Schoolgirl was just beginning to wonder if Sifter really had fallen asleep when suddenly the older woman spoke, her voice barely more than a mutter. 'Schoolgirl?'

With her implants, Schoolgirl did not have to bend over Sifter's bed to hear the dying woman better, but she did so anyway. 'Yes, Sifter?'

'Do you remember the day we met? The office? The ugly curtains?'

'I remember,' Schoolgirl said softly.

'You told me you wanted to be nobody.'

'And you said you could arrange it.'

'Looks like I lied to you after all.' Sifter's eyes opened briefly to study Schoolgirl's face, then drifted closed again. 'You are someone.'

'Yes, I'm someone,' Schoolgirl answered. 'I��m just not quite sure who.'

Sifter's lips just quivered faintly, as if she wanted to smile but didn't have the energy. 'You'll find out, believe me. Once you get into the field ... you'll find out.'

Her voice trailed off, and her breathing deepened.

Schoolgirl stayed where she was, bending over Sifter, until she was sure the older woman was asleep. Then she bent closer and pressed her lips to the sleeping woman's forehead. 'Goodbye, Sifter,' she whispered, and left.

Outside, in the hallway, she unlocked the datapad and read the instructions for the contact on Avery Station. Then she opened the file containing the basic details of the false identity Sifter had created for her.

And smiled at the name Sifter had chosen.

'Bystran Sangha? I have a priority order for you from Dromund Kaas.'

The factor turned to look at the woman who had just entered his office. She saw his eyes flick to her hips, her sleeves - checking for weapons - then to her implants, her face, and her implants again.

'I wasn't expecting any big orders today,' he said cautiously.

'I didn't say anything about big. Just fast.' She gave him a pleasant smile while she delivered the code phrases Sifter had given her. 'Sixty-four bushels of crystallised leola root. direct to Kaas City.'

'I think that can be arranged.' Bystran Sanghra waved her inside. 'Come in, let's talk about the details.'

The door slid shut behind her as she stepped into his office, and the smile slid from his face just as swiftly and smoothly, leaving only alertness behind. 'Dromund Kaas,' he murmured, once again peering curiously at her implants. 'Yes, that can definitely be arranged.'

'Good,' she said crisply, and saw with satisfaction that the clipped, military delivery she had been practicing snapped his heels involuntarily shut as if he was on the parade ground before he caught himself and reassumed his sloppy, hunched posture.

'Right, right.' He shuffled through a stack of files next to his terminal. 'Dromund Kaas. And ... what name shall I put on the package?'

'Devinahl.' It came out of her mouth as smoothly as if she had been introducing herself this way for years, and she smiled.

'My name is Devinahl.'

***

Thank you to anyone who read this! Literally any feedback welcome.

#swtor #fic #i wrote a thing #oc: devinahl #imperial agent #and we're done with this

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tran5rightsos · 4 years

Text

Forget Your Feet and Where They Fall

Summary: Awsten hangs out with his friends Ashton and Luke and ponders the nature of the universe.

Tags and Warnings: Capitalism, Body Horror, Outer Space, Angst, Brain Damage

Word Count: 1602

Leave Kudos?

“Hey, Luke,” Awsten called as he approached the airlock.

Luke started, as if Awsten had broken him out of deep thought, and turned his head so that he could see him with his right eye. He’d lost his left and a degree of put-togetherness years ago, the scar running from his lip to his eyebrow hinting at what had happened to it. If you looked at the scar from the right angle, it was perfectly straight.

“Awsten!” Luke grinned and stood. “Going out?”

“Nah, I just finished up at the drills. I got you something,” Awsten told him, digging through his pocket. He pulled out a piece of stable dranix and handed it to Luke. “It’s waste from the engines,” he explained.

Luke turned the glassy substance over in his fingers, transfixed by the rainbows glittering within. It looked much cooler in bright light, but the lights along this hallway were kept low to minimise Luke’s headaches and prevent seizures.

“Woah. Why is it small?”

“One of the waste coolers was leaking and some cooled on the floor,” Awsten explained, “Ashton’s fixing it now.”

Luke grinned. “Ashton’s good at fixing engines.”

“Yeah, he is.”

A buzz sounded over the speaker above the door and Luke pocketed the stable pranix. Once his gloves were on, he gripped the lever for the outer door and pulled it closed for whoever was waiting, muscles straining with the effort. People could say what they wanted about Luke being deadweight, having someone whose only job was to open the airlocks was a fucking gift. On most vessels Awsten had worked on, you’d have to wait like half an hour for someone to become available to do it. On one vessel, the airlocks would only be opened every six hours for shift changes. Awsten shuddered at the memory.

Luke flooded the airlock with oxygen and opened the inner door, allowing Otto to step inside as he took off his helmet and shook out his hair.

“Hey Otto,” Luke greeted, flopping to the floor with a huff.

“Hey,” Otto returned as he set off to wherever the fuck he was going.

In a way, he and Luke had the perfect friendship. Otto was bad at being friendly and Luke was bad at telling when people were coming off as unfriendly, happy with just getting brief hellos from anyone who passed.

“You wanna go to the bridge when your shift ends?” Awsten offered when Otto was gone.

Luke looked confused, probably needing a moment to switch from door-opening mode to conversation mode. “Why?”

“The stars are really pretty from this asteroid. We can see them if we go to the bridge.”

Luke’s face lit up. “Can Ashton come?”

“Sure.”

Luke and Ashton were both at least five years older than Awsten, but they’d been cryofrozen partway through a mission when an attack on the vessel they were working on had left them grievously wounded, Ashton by a cleaver through his wrist and Luke by a saw to the face. They were a package deal when it came to employment as Ashton refused to take any job that wouldn’t allow Luke to go with him. Most people would never bother to take on someone who could barely walk without getting dizzy, but Ashton was hard-working and a genius with dranix engines and he made it worth allowing Luke to tag along.

Awsten had been skeptical of their arrangement at first, wondering why Ashton would bother working to support them both when he could just drop Luke off at some station or outpost and set his sights on retiring before his body broke down and left him penniless. Luke was talkative, though, and Awsten quickly got the impression that Ashton likely blamed himself for Luke’s “brain getting sawed in half,” as Luke had put it with a big, crooked smile.

When it came to reattaching Ashton’s severed hand, something had to be said for the miracle of modern medicine, but, even with all the implants they’d put in to alleviate symptoms, Luke just hadn’t been as lucky. Sure, being friendly and optimistic was nice, but it didn’t buy food.

Usefulness aside, Awsten had to admit that Luke had grown on him in the past months. It was nice to have someone on board who was always excited to see him and Awsten had learned that they could have some pretty good conversations if he didn’t change the subject too quickly.

Ashton showed up a few minutes later, sweaty, grimy and somehow making his short-sleeved utility jumpsuit, welding goggles and boots look almost sexy. In another life, he probably would have been a model. Luke too, now that Awsten thought about it. They were pretty attractive men.

“How are the engines?” Awsten asked conversationally.

Ashton shrugged as he took off his goggles. “They’re shit.” He always said that and Luke always laughed. “The artificial gravity might fuck itself up tomorrow, so watch out.”

“We’re going up to the bridge to look at the stars,” Awsten told him, “You wanna come?”

Luke looked between them, eye gleaming. “Really? Can I come?”

Awsten pat his shoulder and gave him a tight smile. “Yeah, of course!”

Ashton looked like he wanted nothing more than to pass out in his bunk, but he nodded. “Sure.”

While docked at asteroids, Captain Hand liked to keep the doors to the bridge open so that crew members could come and go whenever they needed anything from him. Awsten liked that he was a lot more laid back than other captains he’d had, never demanding appointments and shit.

“Hi, Captain!” Luke said as they entered, thrilled to see him even though a moment earlier he’d looked like he was about to throw up from the dizziness of walking here.

“Hey, Luke,” Lucas returned, “What are you guys doing up here?”

“Just looking at the stars,” Awsten told him as Ashton led Luke to a seat.

Luke gazed up through the windows in wonder, already a million miles away from the bridge, the asteroid, the endless struggle to survive. Awsten wished he could do that too, just look at something pretty and forget that the universe was cruel and life was agony. Maybe Luke’s inability to focus on more than one thing at a time was actually his greatest gift, an art form everyone else could only dream of.

Unfortunately, even Luke couldn’t remain at peace for long. After a few minutes of silent staring, he grimaced and rubbed his head.

“You okay?” Lucas asked worriedly.

“Head hurts,” Luke mumbled.

“C’mon,” Ashton prompted, heaving himself up from his seat, “Let’s get you showered and lay down, yeah?”

Luke nodded and allowed himself to be helped up and led out of the bridge, less balanced on his feet than he’d been a few minutes ago, though he still smiled through the pain at everyone they passed. Maybe he was onto something there.

Awsten shook his head. Luke Hemmings had the secret to the universe figured out and he didn’t even know it.

“Lazy dumbass,” someone muttered in response to one of Luke’s greetings, not even looking back as they turned down a corridor.

Luke’s face fell as he stopped and looked where the guy had disappeared. “I’m not dumb,” he said softly, “It just takes me a while to think.”

“Hey, he’s just an asshole,” Awsten assured him, “He’s bitter ‘cause you’re prettier than him and you have a badass scar.”

“I used to be good at fixing stuff,” Luke told him sadly, “It’s not my fault I can’t do it fast enough anymore.”

“I know,” Ashton murmured as he nudged him to keep walking, clearly convinced that it was his own fault.

Awsten frowned. It wasn’t right for Ashton to silently punish himself for what those pirates did.

“Where do you wanna live one day?” Awsten asked Luke, hoping to lighten the mood.

“Huh? Oh.” Luke thought hard. “Maybe Venus?”

“That sounds cool. Living underground. Maybe you could get a cool Venusian girlfriend who doesn’t know what the sun is.”

“I’m gay.”

“Boyfriend, then.”

Luke looked dreamy. “Yeah.” He nudged Ashton. “We could be neighbours!”

Ashton smiled at him. “That’d be cool.”

It was a nice fantasy. Awsten looked at his hands, at the dirt that he could never get out no matter how hard he tried. Maybe one day it would mean something, the years of sweat and pain. For now he could just fantasise, imagine all the lives he wished he could have and hope that he was heading towards one of them.

#au: raw #5sos fic #my fic

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gumx395 · 5 years

Text

Ya Veremos (We’ll See)

So Tumblr won’t let my link show up in any of the tags, so here is my first ever fanfiction. It’s about the film Hobbs & Shaw, hopefully it’s not terrible. Can also be found on Archive of Our Own.

After defeating Brixton and successfully extracting the Snowflake from Hattie, there was really nothing more for Luke and Deckard to do other than make their way back to the Hobbs family home, bickering all the way with Hattie playing referee when things got too heated. Back at his family’s house, Luke sees that his brothers had successfully subdued the rest of Eteon’s team.

With his family being, well, them, Luke didn’t even bat an eye when Jonah suggests they all celebrate, and somehow got his hands on enough beer to serve the whole island. It doesn’t take long for most of the Hobbs family to get completely plastered. Luke even sees his mother dozing off in her chair while Hattie politely tries to hold a conversation with her. He has to laugh at seeing his big, tough brothers singing and stumbling around after too many beers. He couldn’t put into words how much he missed this - being home.

Luke can’t stop himself from noticing Jonah laughing with Deckard, no doubt telling him some embarrassing story from when they were kids, running around and getting into trouble wherever they could. Luke is sure he’ll never hear the end of it from Deckard tomorrow. Somehow, he finds himself looking forward to it.

He also finds himself thinking over how his relationship with the insufferable Brit had changed over the years. He still remembers the smug satisfaction of locking Deckard up and throwing away the key when the Toretto family apprehended him. At the time, he had always assumed that would be the end of ever having to deal with Deckard Shaw. If someone had told Luke at the time that a year later he would be mourning the man’s supposed death, he would probably laugh in their face, right before knocking them out cold. But the grief and frustration he had felt when Little Nobody had confirmed Deckard’s death had been almost unbearable. Luke couldn’t help but blame himself, thinking that he might have been able to save Deckard if hadn’t been wanted by the police.

The shock he had felt when he saw Deckard just waltz right into the Toretto family BBQ had been like no other. He had felt so incredibly happy and angry at the same time. He was shocked at how happy he was to see Deckard alive. He had to physically stop himself from walking over to him and wrapping him up in a bear hug right then and there. What shocked him even more, though, was the anger he felt towards Deckard. Even though logically he understood why they had to fake his death and tell as few people as possible, he couldn’t help but feel lied to and that he had put himself through all of that guilt for nothing. Luke ended up barely saying a word to Deckard the rest of the night, despite the fact that they were sat right next to each other during dinner. He could feel Deckard’s eyes on him throughout most of the party, but he couldn’t bring himself to meet them.

Luke brought himself back to the present at the sound of one of his younger brothers calling him over to help bring their mother to bed. It seems that he had been in his own little world for a while now, and that the impromptu party was finally winding down, with most of his brothers either already in their own beds or having taken up one of the chairs or couches as their bed for the night. After helping his brother guide their mother to her room, he turned to the Shaw siblings, both much more coherent than any of Luke’s family.

“You know, I never got a chance to give you guys a good look at the place. How about a tour of the Hobbs Family Home?” Luke was excited to take a look around, wondering how much his home had changed while he was gone.

“You know what, after having a super virus implanted and then removed from my body in the span of two days, I think I’ll take the morning tour. Your mum was kind enough to offer me the spare bedroom, so I think I’m just gonna to head off to bed.” Hattie gave both men a hug before wandering off towards the bedrooms, leaving Luke and Deckard alone for the first time that night. Luke clapped a heavy hand on Deckard’s shoulder and started showing him around.

Now that the world wasn’t ending, Luke was able to show Deckard the ins and outs of the house and garage. Luke quickly got lost in telling a different childhood story for every room and broken piece of furniture on the property. If he had looked over, he would have seen the warm look Deckard was giving him, clearly enjoying watching Luke get excited about his home. Neither of them even noticed that, besides the occasional playful jab and nickname, this was the longest the two had gone without threatening serious bodily harm to the other. There was a casual comfort between them that just felt right to Luke. Of course, both men would rather die in a burning car than admit it out loud.

“Have you found somewhere to sleep yet?” Luke knows that despite the house being fairly big, there weren’t many spare rooms to fit people other than the large Hobbs family. Deckard shrugs him off. “Don’t worry about me, She-Hulk, I was just gonna crash on a couch somewhere.” Luke pointedly looks back into the living room, were every remotely comfortable piece of furniture has a Hobbs brother sleeping on it. “Yeah, looks like my brothers had the same idea.” Deckard shrugged again, looking aimlessly around the house. “I’ll find a spot for myself.”

Luke waved him off. “No way, c’mon, we’ll figure something out.”

Luke briefly considered letting Deckard sleep in one of the bedrooms his brothers left empty, but quickly rejected the idea when he thought of how his brothers might react to being hungover and finding a random British dude in their bed.

Luke went to see if his own bedroom was free, but saw that his mother had turned it into the spare bedroom, and was already occupied by the other Shaw sibling. Luke thought for a second, and then was struck by an idea. “You know what, follow me.”

Luke led Deckard to a large, beat up shed behind the house. He had to break the rusty lock on the doors with a hammer from the garage, and was silently grateful that the alcohol was keeping the rest of his family asleep.

“If this is your plan to kill me, you’re gonna have to do a lot better than this, Twinkletoes.”

Luke chuckled. “Very funny, Princess. Trust me, if I wanted to kill you, you wouldn’t know it ‘til you were already dead.”

Luke pushed open the heavy doors, revealing a smaller version of the Hobbs family garage, with tools and engine parts laying around, and an old, worn-out mattress shoved up against the corner.

“This is where my brothers and I used to mess around and blow shit up when we were kids. We would stay here all night trying to attach engines to our bikes to make them go faster. My mom eventually locked it up after we almost burned the house down one too many times.” Luke looked around, grinning at the memories of himself getting into trouble as a kid.

“Sounds just like the type of shit Hattie and I got up to when we were kids.”

At the mention of Hattie Luke’s mind goes back to the kiss they shared, back when they were pretty sure the world was gonna end that night. After all his big talk on the plane, kissing her ended up feeling like kissing his mother, and he could tell just by looking at her she felt the same way. Despite what everyone around them was saying, there just wasn’t any chemistry between them. The thought crosses his mind that perhaps he had been going after the wrong Shaw sibling.

Deckard looks from the mattress over to Luke and takes a step closer. With nowhere else to look, Luke can’t help but notice how good Deckard looks wearing his clothes. Before Luke can stop himself, he thinks about what it would be like to take them off of him. From the look in Deckard’s eyes, it’s pretty clear his mind is going in the same direction.

“So, if you’re not planning on killing me, why did you bring me here?”

Almost unconsciously, Luke’s eyes flicker down to Deckard’s lips. The Brit catches on and reaches his hand up to pull Luke down to him. It was like a floodgate had opened. Before either of them could think twice about it, they’re locked in a heated kiss and impatiently pulling at the other’s clothes. Luke has enough sense of mind to walk them towards the mattress. He makes a conscious note not to think too hard about how old and dirty it probably is. Once they hit the mattress, Deckard pulls them both down onto it and wraps his legs around Luke’s wide, muscled torso.

Luke didn’t know if he would feel the same way about Deckard tomorrow. They’d gone back and forth so many times, from enemies, to reluctant to partners, to something there wasn’t even words for. He had no idea where the next mission will take them, and this was sure to complicate things. Hell, come morning they could realize this whole thing was a huge mistake and go back to hating each other. All he knows is right now this feels good, this feels right, and that’s good enough for tonight. Tomorrow morning? Well, they’ll just have to wait and see.

#shobbs #luke hobbs #deckard shaw #hattie shaw #hobbs and shaw #hobbs x shaw #fast and furious #fast and furious franchise #f&f

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jpat82 · 5 years

Text

Nameless

Chapter 6

The smell at first was light and lingering, and at first Bucky wasn't sure he actually smelled it. He could barely see the next town on the horizon, the sun was getting low in the sky, which was great because he could feel the bit of skin on his exposed forehead was starting to burning. The odor was familiar, and bought a feeling of disgust and discomfort to him, somewhere lodged in the back his mind he knew it, even if at the moment he could remember why.

The closer he got, the stronger it seemed to get, no doubt the source of the smell was coming from the town just ahead of him. The soil beneath his feet was dry, and crunched as his heavy boots made contact. Sulphur held strong in the air, the scent of death and decay came through like undertones. Anger welled up in him, memories buried surfacing through feelings. His eyes landed on a building, leveled to the ground, smoking drifting slightly upward, slim wisps of black moved gently in the wind.

He unclasped the side of the nightshades, and pulled them from his face. The remaining glow from the sun caused him to squint as long shadows from nearby buildings slowly casted him in their darkness. Wood splintered about, the broken sign on the ground that read Motel rested gently on a part of collapsed roof at his feet. A hint of cooper was vaguely noticeable as he walked the edges of the wrecked building, fear and anger pulled at him as he caught the scent of Steve, traces of the wolves and once in a while a waft of you.

He reached his fingertips at the bottom of a broken wall and flipped it, more rubble laid beneath it. Again Bucky leaned down grasped the edges of splintered wood and hurled it to the side, wood implanting itself into the near by brick building. Steve's form, was beneath it, his body covered in dirt and blood, the scent of sulphur poured from the area making the ancient one queasy.

"Shit! Steve." Came out of Bucky's mouth as he bent low and pulled the other vampire up into sitting position, the other man's head lolled back. Eyes slowly opening, blinking slowly. "Steve."

"Buck?" He questioned, slowly his muscles contracted on their own as he attempted to sit up on his own volition, Steve grabbed his left side wincing in pain. "Where's y/n? The hounds?"

Coming from the other side of the wreckage wood shot straight up skyward, raining back down with a hallow thunking sound. Black paw like hands clawed their way up through the opening, slowly shifting as he pulled himself out. Loki's face was set as stone rage blistered in his eyes as he brushed the dirt from his torn suit. The cuts and scrapes slowly healing before the vampire.

Behind him the hulking golden fur of Thor jumped from the opening, teeth bared in anger. He shook and chips of wood fell from his coat as he breathed heavily, blue eyes darting around.

"Loki, what happened?" Bucky snapped, looking around wildly.

"Dead disgusting and foul beasts once I get a hold of them as they have utterly destroyed my suit." Loki spoke sharply, taking a good look at the rip in the shoulder of the jacket.

"I could care less about your suit, where is y/n?" Bucky's voice rose, as he helped Steve to his feet while glaring at the wolf.

"They took her." Thor seethed in his wolf form, the wood crack under his weight as he leaned forward on his front paws allowing his body assume the more natural state. "We didn't know, they weren't human."

"Bucky, there was something about them, they were stronger and faster." Steve added, grabbing his friend by the shoulder.

"Gods be damned," Loki muttered to himself, lifting his arm and sniffing his coat. "I smell like those heathens."

"Loki!" Bucky snapped before turning and looking inward at the desolate town. Dread welled up in his chest as he looked from boarded up building to boarded up building. He had thought they had been hunted into extinction, a breed to beings that had died out long ago.

"Buck, do you know what they are?" Steve questioned.

"Yes, I do." He replied simply looking back out over to the road he had come in on. A small speck in the distance and a trail of dust being kicked up behind it.

—-

The throbbing in your head was intense, and the retched scent was making you queasy. Slowly you opened your eyes, surrounded in darkness, but you could still make out the un-even wall line caused by rocks. A soft dripping sound echoed around you and it became very apparent that you were in a cave or cavern of some sort. The ground you laid on was cold and damp.

Your mind willed around the lay out of the lands near your forest home, having once been an outsider. You knew that there were caves through the woods and in the out skirting area to the south lay multiple mines. But beyond that you had no idea if you were in an old abandoned mine or a cave close to where you lived.

Wincing you attempted to move only to find chains wrapped from your wrists to your elbows. Slowly you rolled to your side, and sat up. The throbbing intensified again, as you tried to ignore the jackhammering in your skull.

“Tisk, tisk, oh pretty one.” The deep voice echoed through the chamber.

Your head willed around and you saw a vague shape in the darkest corner, it pushed itself off the wall and slowly walked closer. Who ever he was, he was tall and had a stocky build and closer he got the stronger the smell of sulphur became. He stopped just in front of you and knelt down so his face was closer to yours.

Even in the dark you could make out his pale features, and onyx eyes. His head tilted to the side as he look down at you, slowly a grin spread across his face.

“Who are you?” You demanded, your voice shaking slightly. For the life you you couldn’t remember how you got here, the last thing you remembered was the man with black eyes while Steve and the wolves were fighting the others.

“We, my dear, are The Black Rose.” He replied, the pungent odor of rotting flesh poured from his mouth.

“What do you want with me?” You asked turning your head away from him, holding your breath so not to vomit.

“You are a pure, something I haven’t seen in ages. Though I can smell you are a fairly young one.” He replied as he inhaled deeply. “My men tell me about a nest nearby, a child has been seen with them.”

“You stay away from my family.” You snapped turning to face him again, your eyes glowing a bright blue as you glared him down.

“Oh sweet pure, you have no power to command me.” He chuckled as he stood.

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alitheamateur · 5 years

Text

Party of Three

TOMMY CONLON ONESHOT

Characters: Tommy Conlon/OFC

Warnings: NSFW. Explicit Sexual Content. Language. Brief mentions of childbirth. Fluffy fluffy fluffy.

Party of Three

*Quite lengthy. I just got carried away with Tommy Conlon. It happens to the best of us*

(GIF NOT MINE)

The strobing of a weak streetlight bulb flickered as the haze of dawn drew pink and orange waves of the sunrise in the Pittsburgh skyline. While most 31-year-old, sensible men were still tucked into their Egyptian cotton sheets, nuzzled into the crook of their college-sweetheart turned lawyer wife, Tommy was jogging alone before daylight half withdrawn from the 8 days without Oxy. The sweat sagging neck of his hoodie smelled of exercise and rock-bottom, and his stomach churned from the lack of practical nourishment his breakfast of whiskey and dry-toast lacked. His night-shifts down at the new factory mended his bank account enough, so he had finally relocated from the mildewed, night-mare stained childhood bedroom at his pop’s place. The paint was chipped, the carpet was slimy and stonewashed, and the bathroom sink seemed to be eternally clogged, but his name was on the lease. It belonged to him, and it was his own to tarnish, and morph into a lifetime den of twisted memories.

He rounded the final corner of his 3-mile journey, approaching the two-stepped stoop of his gray townhouse and the chugging engine of a garbage truck roared up the street beside him. He turned, nodding an empty ‘good-morning’ to the driver exhaling his nicotine morning breath out the window, when a yelping body apparently below his peripheral line of sight collided with his stalky glide.

“What the fu-“

His dry-worked hands skidded across the crumpling sidewalk to keep his teeth from implanting into the concrete, and smashing whatever lightening quick object had made its way under his running feet.

“Cole! Oh my God, are you alright, sweetie?!”

Tommy felt a squirming, snubbing mass finagle free, to run towards the safety of the panicked, flailing arms of the fitful brunette galloping down the driveway. A small boy with a shaggy bowl haircut, decked in the white-cotton threads of a karate suit, wiped the streaking tears down his flushed cheeks, and wrapped his lanky arms around the waist of what appeared to be his older sister. Aunt, maybe?

“I’m so sorry. He’s a little excited. He ran ahead of me out the front door before I could wrangle him up. Are you hurt?” The striking hazel eyes of a petite face framed in chocolate, wavy mane knelt to assess the child for bruises or blood.

“I’m uh… Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry ‘bout it. Is he… is he okay?” Tommy stuttered, searching his face for injury.

“No blood, no foul. Right, sweetie?”

“I’m not hurt, mommy. Boys who know karate are tough, ‘member?” He peered up at his young mother, puffing his chest to allude imaginary muscles there.

“That’s right, how could I forget?!” She conked a fist to her noggin at the little man beside her. “I’m Whitleigh, by the way. And this is Cole. We live next door now. Just moved in a few days ago.” The lady outstretched a shaking hand, and Tommy noted the lack of a ring on her left hand.

“Oh yeah? I saw some movin’ trucks out front. I’m Tommy. Tommy Conlon.” His clammy palm met her feminine skin, and he might’ve even weakly smiled at the sensation of her touch. “So, karate, huh? You prolly a real scrapper, ain’t ya’?”

“You’re um, you’re a fighter or something, aren’t you? I’ve seen you in the paper before, I think.”

Tommy dropped his head diffidently at her inquisitiveness, peeling back his hood to palm the back of his blotched neck.

“Really? You fight people? Like, like a real-life wrestler?!” Cole yipped, eyes widening at Tommy like he was some superstar in the flesh.

“Uhhh, somethin’ like that, I guess. But, I couldn’t take you, that’s for sure.” Tommy weak fisted the boys bicep, and he chuckled with a snaggle-toothed smile.

“Well, we better get goin’. Cole has a big meet this morning down at the Y, and we’re already running late. See you around?” She suggestively hurried the boy up the drive towards her black sedan parked near the front porch, combing the blonde hair from his eyes.

“Right, yeah. Um, I’m sure I’ll be seein’ you guys.” Tommy cleared the lump in his throat. He hadn’t exchanged a conversation of this length with another human being in months, and his mouth felt tired from the foreign amount of chit-chat.

“Mommy, can Mr. Tommy come watch me today? My friends would think I was the best if a tv fighter came to my match!”

Whitleigh’s mouth fell open into a slack smile as she clicked the boy into his back-seat booster. Her eyes caught the rising sun, and Tommy felt an unfamiliar stir somewhere near his heart. Like, maybe there was actually a beating organ inside his scathed, tattooed chest.

“Not today, buddy. I’m sure he’s got lots to do. Maybe another time though, alright?”

Tommy coughed, and scratched his five o’clock shadowed jawbone. “You can show me those skills some other time, Cole. Good luck today, though.”

The adolescent lad nodded with hopefulness, and she latched the rear-door while coyly smiling at Tommy from a distance.

Tommy turned his back, stomping up his porch and beginning to peel loose the ratty confines of his sleeveless sweatshirt. This newfound, sudden appearance of tangible emotion had him questioning his insane decision of recent painkiller sobriety.

……

Whitleigh and Cole settled nicely on the block, and next door to Tommy, the man they both had inherited a specific soft spot for. The impressionable, aspiring karate kid carefully noted his fighting role models routine, and would wake up every morning before the birds even began stirring, to watch Tommy stretch, and yawn as he jogged down the sidewalk, only keeping track of him when his shadow would fall into the glare of a streetlight. Then, he’d settle back beneath the rumpled covers of his plaid patterned sheets, and wait for his mother to rouse him for school.

Whitleigh’s sprouting intrigue for the brawny man next door however, was certainly one of a more adult rated nature. She found herself tip-toeing passed the living room window more often than necessary to check for stirring in the house next door. Was he home? Was he home alone again? She waited specifically unnervingly for another excruciatingly hot evening hoping the sticky summer sun would have him washing his motorcycle shirtless on the curb again, covered in sweat and cool drippings from the water hose. He was like living, breathing, X-rated erotica for her to enjoy at her leisure. Not only had he been candy for her eye, but his extreme observance, and need to protect she and Cole moved her greatly. If the motion light she nailed over the backdoor detected any movement, and clicked on, she’d find Tommy peeping through his own curtains as she did the same, investigating the surroundings. And when the mailman seemed to be lingering on her porch one morning while she drank her coffee in the swing, Tommy ran him off quite harshly, informing her the guy was a no good, ex-con.

One Saturday evening, she was scurrying, and tripping over her own two feet trying to wag in grocery bags with the help of her as always very active 6 year-old. The thin strap of her black, flowing tank top was sliding over tip of her shoulder, and she blew a lock of her untamable hair from her eyes, giggling as Cole’s hiccups from gulping his slushy too fast on the car ride home echoed from behind her.

The trunk of her car slammed to a close, and she heard the rustling plastic of more bags being unloaded.

“Tommy! Hey, Tommy look! My tongue, is it blue?!” Cole’s toothless lisp screeched at the man walking up the steps with an impressive amount of cargo lined on each arm.

“Yeah, buddy. It is. Whatchu been into, ya’ lil smurf.”

“He insisted on a slushy at the grocery. And he did so well at practice this morning I just couldn’t say no.” Whitleigh smiled, pinching her tongue to aid in concentration as she maneuvered for the front door key.

“I got a medal, too. Most ‘intuned’ in the class!”

“Most-improved, baby. You’re most-improved.”

Tommy, and the child’s mom chuckled to themselves, careful not to discourage Cole and his little blunder. She kicked the door open easily, Tommy catching it with his own foot to prop it open for Cole and the measly two bags he carried.

“Hey uh, how would you feel about maybe takin’ a run with me in the morning, Cole. It’s gonna be a hot one, and I could sure use somebody to go with me. You down? If your mom says it’s okay, o’ course.” He tousled a noogie over the boys head, and looked side-eyed to Whitleigh as she lunged upward to store the unloaded contents in the cabinet.

The waistline of her light-washed, denim capris clung perfectly fitted to her displayed backside, and Tommy caught a glance of her tanned lower back. Her figure wasn’t toned, and gym-fit like the twenty-something, single women around town. But the way her womanly hips curved, and her thick thighs from the exercise of chasing the likes of a hyperactive kindergartener moved, very much had Tommy’s approval.

“Oh, Tommy… I don’t think you really want him tagging along. Won’t he slow you down? And you’d have to keep a really close eye on him. It’s barely daylight when you leave.”

She turned away, mouthing curses to herself for giving away that she had seen him leave the house a few times before dawn when she heard the pattering racket of his front door closing. Cole wasn’t the only person on dutiful neighborhood watch. She may, or may not have been checking to see if it was indeed a female making her break for it after a night of tantric rolling in the sheets with her unannounced crush.

“He’ll be fine, Whit. I’m not incapable of taking care of a kid, y’ know…” He rolled his eyes, trying and failing to appear insulted.

“MOMMA, MOMMA! Please, please, can I go wif’ Tommy? Please!”

The mother hen sighed, and reluctantly nodded the granting consent and Cole began hipping and hopping circles around the kitchen counter, throwing in a few of his martial arts kicks, and grunts to boot. His erratic spinning of circles weighed heavy on his balance, and Tommy caught his wheezing, giggly body before he toppled face-first onto the floor.

“Alright, kid. You better get to bed early for ya’ mom tonight. I’ll be here for you bright and early tomorrow morning.”

Whitleigh’s heart, among other things were warmed watching the way this mysteriously gentle, yet rough around the edges man had already taken such a liking to her young son. Friends for a single-mother were rare to come by, and she intended somehow to relay her gratitude to Tommy for his blind kindness to the both of them.

She sat her alarm for 4 a.m., allowing herself 30 minutes extra to peel Cole from underneath his plethora of stuffed friends in his bed, but was taken aback when she found him sitting cross-legged in the floor of his bedroom when she opened his door.

“Cole! What do you think you’re doing?! We don’t play with scissors, do you hear me?” She yanked the ragged blade of her kitchen shears out of his grips, and scolded his disobedient act.

She assessed him thoroughly, searching for any nicks or cuts on his arms or legs, then groaned out when she realized what he had done. A still tagged sweatshirt she had bought him back at Christmas was missing a sleeve, and the other hung on jaggedly by a thread.

“Honey, what did you do, huh?” She sighed, and searched Cole’s explanatory eyes.

“I wanted mine to be like Tommy’s, mommy.”

Cole had abstractly chopped the leaves of his hooded shirt to mock Tommy and his DIY running attire. She wanted to be angry, and she would be internally. But, she couldn’t help but laugh at his clever thinking.

She wet his toothbrush and watched him brush, then double knotted his tennis shoes before stepping out the front door to wait for Tommy. The silken robe tied around her waist covered her braless chest, and the men’s boxer briefs she unconventionally used as pajama bottoms.

Next door, Tommy was readying his post-run protein shake, setting aside some ingredients for a kid-friendly edition, thinking Cole would want his own when they returned. He couldn’t make sense of what he felt for the boy, or the fact that he was feeling anything period. Maybe, he saw flashes of himself in Cole’s fatherless lie? Did he want the kid to have some male in his life that encouraged him, and taught him the way a man should behave, and treat people? Sure, maybe Tommy wasn’t the most equipped man for the job, but he knew not to beat women, or lay hands on children. Which was more than his own father ever bothered to teach him.

He poked a finger through his kitchen blinds, the window that looked directly across the driveway into Whitleigh’s bedroom, and saw some lamp light peeking out behind her darkened curtain, alluding she was awake and readying Cole. He wondered aimlessly if he should extend the invite for her to join he and Cole, but remembered how she often teases him for his ‘meathead’ lifestyle. Tommy knew she appreciated his workout habits more than she let on though. Her sideways good morning glances at him while he did his routine 100 jumps of the rope before his 8 a.m. spar told him so. However well his stupid abs, or bulgy biceps usually helped him reel in the brainless groupies down at the bar he frequented, he knew Whitleigh needed more. His grunts, and sulks wouldn’t be enough to impress her.

He shook himself out of the spiraling abyss of questioning, and almost grabbed a shot glass to smother the thoughts. But, he’d need to be sharp, and responsible with Cole if he wanted to remain in good standing with the beautiful family next door.

He left his side door unlocked behind him, as he walked the minimal steps from his house to the residence next door. Cole was bouncing up and down the steps, spitting impersonations of an airplane, or a tractor maybe, chasing an imaginary object around the yard. His mom sat arms crossed on the stoop, her half-exposed thighs fidgeting with the morning chill. Tommy admired her without the touches of makeup, and with the lingering dark circles of a less than restful night.

“Tommy, hey look! Look at me!” Cole galloped into Tommy’s arms, grinning ear to ear, and pounding his chest.

“I caught the little troublemaker in his room with scissors before I got up morning. He took the liberty of nixing the sleeves from that brand-new sweatshirt. Wanted to look like Tommy, didn’t you, bub?” Whitleigh sarcastically smirked, standing at Tommy’s arrival.

He looked at Cole in his arms, giggling uncontrollably at the boy’s miniature hoodie cut to resemble the one he was also wearing. He became instantly afraid, dazed with pressure even. He hadn’t realized the intense way that Cole had indeed been noting him, and observing his every move. A duty to tow the line, and keep on his toes for the sponge of a child settled hard on his heart.

“You look badass, buddy!”

“Tommy!!” Whitleigh scolded with lightening speed.

“I.. Uh, I mean… You look awesome, bro. Real uh.. real cool. Yeah, that’s what I meant.” Tommy coughed and clambered to bury his little expletive mistake.

“Watch him. Please…” She cocked her head, pleading to him with a crinkled nose. “You listen to Tommy, Cole. And stay right by his side, got it?”

“Yeah, momma. I be good, won’t I Tommy?” Cole yanked on Tommy’s long arm, pulling with all his might to hurry him down the road.

“We’ll be fine. No worries, okay? Be back in a couple hours or so. I’ve got my cell if we need ya’.”

She peered down the empty, slow streets of Saturday until the pair turned the corner out of her sight. Tommy glanced back a couple of times, with Cole following suit to wave at her smiling on the porch. She trusted her son was in good hands, and it was safe to squeeze in a least another hour cat nap before breakfast.

Her cellphone vibrated and buzzed off the side of her end table next to the couch, awaking her with an incoming call. The lazy slumber passing immediately at the disturbance, as she feared the worst expecting trouble with Cole. Tommy’s named lit up across the touchscreen, and she said ‘hello’ before the call had even connected.

“Incoming. Just wanted to make sure you were awake.” Tommy meekly whispered.

She abruptly stood from her couch, peering out the glass storm door, to see the man shoving his phone down into the slick pocket of his shorts, and Cole’s legs dangling around Tommy’s waist.

Jumping barefoot outside, Tommy lifted a hand to calm her, and slow her down before she woke the snoozing child.

“Shhhh.. Hey hey hey, he’s fine, Whit. He’s fine. He got sleepy about 2 miles in, and said his legs were tired,” he smiled sweetly. “So I just carried him back. He fell asleep about 10 minutes ago, I think. At least that’s when he stopped talking about Power Rangers, so I think that’s when anyways.”

Whitleigh reached forth, opening her arms for Tommy to pass the petite, sleeping mass to her so she could settle him inside. But he shook his head under his hood, and continued towards her house.

“I got ‘em. Just lead the way.”

He walked quietly on her heels down the hallway, barely lit with the yellow glow of the sun’s onset towards Cole’s bedroom. Posters of MMA circuit fighters, and a few baseball stars pinned to white walls, and a nightlight near his bed in the shape of a boxing glove. He imagined it would’ve been a room much like his own had he not had to share the small, attic space with his older brother who cared more about women and cars rather than fighting. On Cole’s nightstand, stained with the wet circle of last night’s glass of water, was a portrait of he and Tommy dressed in matching karate garb, drawn in faded marker.

“Best friends, huh?” Tommy nodded towards the misspelled words on the work of art, catching Whitleigh’s eye as she nestled him under the comforter, kissing his reddened cheek.

“He made it last night,” she answered. “I couldn’t get him into bed until he finished. He was planning to give it to you after the little jog this morning.”

“The kid has good taste in friends. What can I say?”

“I guess so. The verdict is still out.” She winded a hand through the tangled ends of her hair, leaving a tiny crack in the door as they scurried out so she could peep in on him later.

“Well, share that pot of coffee I smell, and I’ll see if I can convince ya’.”

He watched her dainty, painted toes stick to the cool floor as she swayed slowly into the kitchen, and he wafted his shirt to let some cool air onto his perspiring chest. He let his brain simmer on the possibilities of what was hidden prettily under the pink robe that skimmed just above a thin scar on her knee.

“Cream and sugar?” She peeped as the pour of coffee flowed into the bottom of a ceramic mug.

“Nah, black is good.”

Whitleigh served two cups, and tucked her leg underneath her as she sat in the wooden chair across the table from him. She fiddled with the silver chain hanging from her neck, only more attracting Tommy to the fluttering gape of her robe as she moved in her seat.

“Was he good for you? Didn’t give you any trouble or anything?”

“He’s a real good kid, Whitleigh. Honest. You done a real good job wit’ him.”

His lips squished on the rim of the cup as he slurped the bitter brew, and she felt her center ignite.

“Thanks, Tommy. It doesn’t hurt that I’ve got somebody like you around to be an example to him either…”

Her lashes cast a fluttering, unmeasurably lengthy shadow over the rim of her lower lid onto her cheek, and Tommy had to situate his visibly growing attraction to her. The strength and steady head she displayed in raising her son alone, the way she held her composure day in, & day out with work and managing a household. What wasn’t to like? The heavy swell of her bosom, and the way her smile seemed to be effortlessly seductive no matter the occasion didn’t hurt matters.

“Trust me… My shit isn’t together even half of what yours is. But, I like the kid, so I’ll help any way you need me. I kinda like hangin’ around you two.”

Tommy didn’t want her to mistake his comments as a come on, but the other half of his shifty brain hoped she would, and maybe he’d get some clarity on how she felt towards him. He couldn’t handle the subtle exchanges, and cheeky stealing looks. Tommy wasn’t the type who played well at cat & mouse, unless he was standing in the cage toying with his next victim.

Neither had really noticed how many wordless seconds had ticked by until the rhythmic drip of the kitchen faucet splashed towards the drain, shaking them to reality. Tommy gulped, scratching his forearm nervously and looked around the room pointlessly, while Whitleigh raised to tend to the leak. She shook the handle, jiggled the spout, and Tommy heard her murmur a ‘piece of shit’ under her breath. He scooted the chair from under him, and rounded the table sitting his empty glass there, to take her side.

“I can fix that, if you want. Not a problem at all.”

He meant to stand to next to her and estimate the appliance issue, but instead he settled his feet behind hers on the kitchen mat, and extended around under her arm. He saw the hairs on Whitleigh’s arm raise, and his exhales ensued goosebumps where her shoulder met her neck. Her fruity scent tickled his nostrils, and a chill rolled up his spine as the sweet aroma nearly instigated a sneeze. She slowly set free the tension his closeness brought to her bones, and she whimpered as he pushed the loose crotch of his pants into the center of her cheeks.

“…..it’s….it’s fine. Just a little shake of the handle usually…usually takes care of it.” She choked, and heaved a struggling breath. Her head fell weightless to his shoulder, and she white knuckle gripped the counters edge to squeeze out some of the pent-up need.

One of his broad, promiscuous hands pulled on the ribbon of her robe, while the other probed up the back of her thigh, tickling the curve of her round ass with calloused, worked fingers. Whitleigh’s nipples poked from the confines of her t-shirt and Tommy envisioned the pink bulbs wet between his teeth.

“Let me tend to some other things around here that need seein’ to then, hm?” He suckled on her earlobe, the gold bulbs of her earrings clanging gently against his teeth.

Her shutter sent the bathrobe cascading from her arms to topple gracefully around their feet. Once Tommy’s hands got a feeling of her soft skin against his, his hunger became irrepressible. He tugged at her legs, rushing her to climb his body. Their lips crashed into each other, their desire screaming at the introduction. Tommy reached his hands into her hair, massaging into her scalp, and his tongue took note and moved seductively against hers. Her mewls of his name, and the breath tossed from her mouth into his enticed Tommy to furthermore explore her every crevice.

“Quiet, Tommy. We have to be quiet. Cole…”

He nodded, lowering her back to the white, chipped tabletop. Her toes curled as her licked up her leg, leaving imprints of his crooked bite on the fleshly meat of her inner thighs. He pulled away to push up the hem of her shirt, and her eyes peeled shut with reluctancy.

“Woah, woah. Hey, whatsa matter, Whitleigh. Talk to me, babe.” He froze, careful not to further intrude if he had done so.

“Nothing. It’s.. I’m fine. Really. Keep going.” She answered surely, but the reluctancy still hid in her underlying tremble of her voice.

He chewed his lips, and carefully continued to peel back her remaining attire. He pulled loose the fabric, and she raised herself to assist him in the undressing. Her hands coyly slid to cover a scar drawn into the lower of her belly, and Tommy’s eyes followed whatever shame she felt there was to hide. He kissed tenderly on her fingers, and eased back her hands to lay behind her head.

“This what you’re so worried about?” He curiously sketched over the marking.

“I’m sure most women you get with don’t have ugly battle scars from childbirth, Tommy…”

He blinked repeatedly, exaggerating his look of taken aback confusion, and almost offence. His palms leaned flat on the table, carrying his weight as he dangled above her.

“First off, you ain’t just somebody I wanna ‘get with’, Whit. Second, don’t ever be ashamed. This,” he pointed. “This scar gave you that badass little boy in there sleepin’. The one that you’re doin’ a damn good job of raisin’, too. Don’t ever feel like you gotta hide that wit’ me. Okay?”

Whitleigh blushed, and her fitful heartbeats bringing a swell of reassurance over her body. To hear that Tommy hadn’t intended on her being just the bed buddy next door eased her worries. She saw potential in Tommy, and whatever this could turn into with him, as well.

She nodded her head, smiling and sighing a loud release of the worrisome pressure she’d been choking on moments ago. Once the exquisite man gathered she had relaxed once more, he began petting over the soft, feminine curves of her body’s edges. His licked his pouting mouth, and journeyed upward to the round handful of her breasts, leaving his hands to work down below. He moaned, stroking the wet patch that stained the warm center of her panties and Whitleigh nearly jolted from the table when his tongue devoured the sensitive line of her ribcage.

Tommy hooked his fingers into the band of her shorts, cheekily popping the elastic before tugging them down her tanned legs.

“I like these, by the way. They look much sexier on you than me..”

He dropped his own shorts, the clunk of his phone in the pocket hitting the floor, revealing a nearly matching pair of his own boxer briefs. Only his, screaming at the seams trying to trap the large member he was stroking beneath them.

Without so much as a hint of warning, Tommy clutched the backside of her bended knees, and drew her forth toward him. Her feet now weightlessly suspended over the tables edge. Glittering rays of sunlight illuminated through the curtains, catching the speckles of green hiding in the eyes she stared hungrily into. The demanding, heated cosmic pull his body exuded excited Whitleigh more than any desire she had ever known for a man. She withheld a giggle, knowing breakfast every morning seated at this now tarnished kitchen table would never be the same.

Anxious for a quick taste of her pink folds, Tommy kneeled face-to-face with his warm breakfast. Fuck that gritty, bland protein shake he had in the blender at his own house, he thought. Whitleigh was more his flavor. Her hips bucked seductively when the vicious laps of his tongue separated her lips to prime her with another layer of wetness. Delight and orgasm poked her nauseous belly like a prodding finger. She grimaced, but welcomed every nibble of his lips over her blossoming bulb.

“Upstairs, Tommy… let’s go upstairs.” The volume of her needful pants echoed off the hollow ceilings, and she feared their elicit noises would stumble upon the ears of her hopefully sleeping son just down the hall. It took all her mighty efforts to piece together a sentence amongst Tommy’s feasting murmurs smashed between her thighs. The hum, and suckling sounds of him devouring her sopping mound hypnotized her wholly. His touch would be burned there at the most private corner of her body forever.

“I can’t make it that far, Whitleigh baby. I gotta have you. Now. Here, bite down on this to keep quiet.” Tommy tossed her the tee he had discarded, and chuckled. Relishing in the fact that he had her body running on amped speed. She nearly lost all control when he caught a stray trickle of her juices escaping from the side of his mouth with the tip of his thumb, and sucked it dry.

He clung to his thick erection, and lead himself to her steaming entrance, teasing her with slow in and outs. He felt her deep, and so satisfyingly warm squeezes twitch around him, already milking forth his first release with a female in months. He hadn’t really had time for a hookup lately, and thinking about the filth that he typically attracted only made want to down capsize a bottle of narcotics.

The angsty thoughts that had always swam in his mind suddenly fled when he admired Whitleigh’s blissfully reddened cheeks, and rosy, swollen lips gaped open with the sound of his name. She was reeling him in, damning his demons back to the hell they came from, and shocking his soul back to life, and she had no idea.

He gripped her forcefully by the hips to secure a steady rhythm so her breasts would continue that perfectly timed, spellbinding bounce. He didn’t want to split her painfully in two, but the faster he lunged inside her, the more he could feel the rough flickerings of a hard onslaught approaching.

“More. More.” She read his mind with expert timing. “More!”

The legs of her antique table scuffed and creaked against the floor below them, and Whitleigh wondered whether the weathered wood was a match for Tommy Conlon. She knew Cole would be stirring soon, but she needed to feel this way, in this moment with Tommy, for hours before it would ever be enough. He brushed, and touched her lips with his fingers, grazing her cheeks thoughtfully. His face nuzzled the tips of her nipples, and his lashes tickled them to an even higher peak while his two-day old scruff chapped her sensitive skin. Whitleigh wanted to feel the sweat of his hard-work fall from his perspiring brow and leave his scent on her like a dirty secret.

She hinted sparks flying inside her belly, instigating the release ready to reach the surface. Every raw, barely noticeable taste of delicious pain that came with his every lunge kidnapped her further towards the explosion of orgasm. A pulsating vein in Tommy’s neck protruded from his straining, broad neck and she sensed he was holding back his own ending for her sake.

“Tommy, I’m close. Really… really close.” She whispered, nearly biting her own tongue between gnashed teeth.

He closed his eyes, his back now standing straight to give her a hearty, heavenly view of his tattooed pecks, and insultingly large shoulders. His harsh sucks of air, and vice-grip squeezes on the bone of her hips gave her the push she needed to climb the summit. Using the shirt she still held onto, Whitleigh quickly shoved the cotton between her jaws to absorb her curdling screams. Her eyes watered beneath sealed lids, tears dripping from the corners, and Tommy covered his own mouth muffling what was the most beautiful portrayal of climax she had ever had the pleasure of witnessing.

“Now, I already won Cole over, we know. So, what’s that verdict you were talking about earlier, huh?” Tommy suggested.

Hoping not to offend him with her abrupt dismissal, and nixing of post-cuddle, she stole a fast kiss from him as she hopped from the table to dress. He rubbed over her bare backside once more before she stepped into her bottoms, then shooed her down the hall, understanding the importance of her motherly duties. He speedily decked himself in his own shed clothes, and placed the kitchen back to it’s original tidy state before the observant young boy came for his breakfast.

Whitleigh came leisurely down the hall moments later, holding the hand of a slightly disorientated blonde boy who smiled ear-to-ear once realizing his new best friend Tommy was seated at his kitchen table. He climbed into the empty chair next to Tommy where his booster seat waited, eager to chat all about the things they had seen while on their morning stroll. Whitleigh stirred the batter of chocolate chip pancakes near the stove, stealing smiley glances at Tommy when Cole was caught up in one of his stories.

As Tommy watched the wild-eyed kid stutter and sling his busy hands throughout the air, pretending his fork was a spaceship. All the while also falling in love with the big-hearted, slightly bashful, head-spinningly beautiful woman across the room. He had never known true family in his entire life. But silently observing the lazy comfort he felt of that Saturday morning with Cole, and Whitleigh, he decided it was worth the wait.

TAGS: @eap1935 @torialeysha

#tomhardy #tommy conlon #tom hardy fanfiction #tommy conlon fanfic #tommy conlon imagine #Tom Hardy #tommy riordan #warriorfanfic #warriorfanfiction #tomhardyfanfic

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words-writ-in-starlight · 5 years

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aeondeug replied to your post

“Tag Game: Post the last sentence you wrote and tag as many people as...”

MASS EFFECTYRATH???

So when I play ME sometimes my partner hangs out in my room with me and I commentate to him, and he was hanging out with me while I was doing the Reaper IFF mission in ME2. And if you click around during that mission you can find the journal fragments from the scientists who boarded the dead Reaper and fell under its indoctrination, which features one of the most DOWNRIGHT CHILLING lines of the entire series: "Chandana said the ship was dead....but even a dead god can dream. A god--a real god--is a verb....it's a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does."

And I paused the game, abominations and husks all over my team, and turned to my partner who knew nothing about the Kencyrath, and said very intensely "I AM GOING TO WRITE A KENCYRATH AU OF THIS WHERE TORI IS SHEPARD AND THE REAPERS ARE PERIMAL DARKLING AND JAME IS THE VANGUARD OF THEIR INVASION WHO BROKE FREE AND RAN, AND I AM GOING TO TITLE IT 'EVEN DEAD GODS DREAM'"

And now I am doing exactly that. Some high points below the cut, in which I approach Mass Effect canon with my usual tender disregard for the rules and Kencyrath with an uncommon disregard for spoilers.

High Councillor Gerridon was one of a long-extinct, broadly human-like alien species, looked to as brilliant scientists and the creators of the mass relays and the Citadel by the current Council races. His people, the Shanir, were wiped from existence mysteriously about fifty thousand years ago, and no one knows why. The truth of the matter is that Gerridon betrayed the previous Citadel to the Reapers in return for immortality. He sort of got it--he's the heart of the Master, a Reaper made from the genetic material of his people. Jamethiel Dream-weaver was his twin and consort, who aided him in the annihilation of the Citadel and everyone aboard by using her species' natural biotic abilities to hold the entire populace in thrall until the Reapers came. For this service, and for the potential she showed to be a weapon in future cycles, she was spared. However, this massive expenditure of power began to erode her control over her abilities, and in turn her mind, and so Jamethiel was placed in stasis when it became too much for her to bear, until the next cycle came to an end and the Master decided to try a new method of harvest.

The new method of harvesting a cycle is named Jamethiel, for her mother, and when she's seven years old, the blood of her mother's ancient race finally comes to full bloom. Jame sees her father, the disgraced general of the First Contact War who has been court martialed and drummed out of the Alliance for his recklessness that obliterated the Fifth Fleet, point a gun at her nursemaid's head, and without help, without an implant, without anything, she throws up a suddenly clawed hand and hurls Ganth into a bulkhead with a biotic shove. The explosion of power is gone as quickly as it appears, and when Ganth picks himself up, he drives his daughter out into the void in an escape pod. Aliens are less than animals, in Ganth's opinion, and while lashing out against him might be an unforgivable betrayal, it's the new, strange claws on Jame's hands that earns her exile.

Jame hasn't lost all her memories entirely, although they're horrifically hazy for the first decade and change after her escape pod is lost in the black. Something about indoctrination at such a young age seems to have eaten away her ability to form memories at the time, although she's retained quite a few skills whose origins she's not quite sure of. Somewhere in that fuzzy time period, she was given a biotic implant lightyears more advanced than anything the Council races can boast, so that she could focus her abilities with more ease--the splice of human and Shanir is dicey at times, and she seems to have gotten all the power and none of the biological road blocks that would normally keep her from becoming a living supernova. It took a long time, the labor of years, for Jame to pull herself out of the endless black water of indoctrination. One breath at a time, building biotic walls around herself. It was impossible. She did it anyway. Then she heard that the latest cycle was almost ready for harvest....

Back on Ganth's ship of exile, Torisen grows up. People die. Torisen is not a biotic, is not an alien, is nothing like his sister. He is a loyal and obedient son. Until he's not. Torisen Talissen, possessing the clothes on his back and not a single credit more, finds the turians before he finds the Alliance, and it's Primarch Adric Ardeth who sees to it that this young boy doesn't starve before he's old enough to become a soldier. It's also Primarch Ardeth who gets him into the Alliance. There are more strings on that arrangement than Torisen knows.

His father's name is Torisen Talissen's greatest secret, when he finally reaches Earth, the Alliance, because Ganth Knorth is a war criminal whose methods in the First Contact War were notoriously brutal, whose final stand with the Fifth Fleet cost thousands upon thousands of lives and left every ship under his command shattered and drifting. Only a small handful of his commanders know the truth, and then Torisen is hand-selected for N-7 and half his life is classified anyway. He's not a biotic, he's not an alien, he's a good soldier and the most stubborn bastard any of his comrades have ever seen, and the mystery of where he came from fades under the glamour of his exploits. The Urakarn colony is the one everyone knows about. No one questions why Torisen fights tooth and nail to take Burr, his most trusted lieutenant, and Rowan, the medic he dragged from the sand, everywhere with him, after Urakarn. Even when he's assigned as XO on the Gothregor, second in command to Captain Sheth Sharptongue, they go with him.

On the Gothregor's maiden voyage, they're assigned to Spectre Ashe, no last name given, an asari that Torisen knows as a friend of a friend (the friend is Harn, he's already on board because Ashe requested some muscle), and orders to take her to Eden Prime.

While the Gothregor plots her jump to the first mass relay, Jame steals a data chip and her armor and the first assault rifle she gets her hands on, and runs, not stopping even when she blunders into a Beacon that the Master has been experimenting with. Her shuttle's navigation doesn't survive her rather explosive escape from the Master, so she slaves the thing to the first geth ship she sees and hopes for the best.

The geth ship is headed for Eden Prime.

Other highlights:

Tori actually super is a biotic, don't tell him, Shanir bloodlines allow limited biotic use without an implant and he's been unintentionally using it for years

I wanted Harn to be the captain of the Gothregor before she's given to Tori, but then I realized that the Best Outcome here is that Harn and Marc are both krogans but on diametrically opposed ends of the Self Control Spectrum. Harn is your classic krogan berserker, Marc is a really good cook who is also prepared to fuck you up with a shotgun if you mess with Jame. Also I just. Really love Sheth and wanted him to be here.

Pereden is Saren, the Ardeths are all turians, you know I'm right

Torisen is the first human Spectre

The first narrative arc here (the contents of the first game) mostly feature Tori's in-group as squad mates, ft:

Lt Burr, a sniper/assault rifle specialist

Kirien J'ran, an asari biotic who specializes in the history of the Shanir

Harn Griphard, a krogan mercenary whose record is actually pretty legit, shotgun specialist and berserker

Lt Cmdr Donkerri Caineron, disgraced grandson of an Alliance admiral, assigned to the Gothregor as a spy, pistol/shotgun specialist, he dies on Virmire

Grimly nar Weald, an upbeat quarian machinist, a friend of Tori's who's been on his Pilgrimage for a bit, a shotgun/tech specialist

Not a squadmate, but in the whole first arc the pilot of the ship is very quiet and unwilling to talk but over the course of the narrative Bel-tairi warms up to people a little

Jame is not a squadmate, she and Tori are both main characters in the first arc and if this was a game you'd have to take both always, but Jame is a biotic powerhouse and Tori is an assault rifle/melee specialist, don't question me

Tori and Jame stop Sovereign the Horde and still no one believes them about the Reapers, even though they make Torisen a whole-ass Council member and Jame a whole-ass Spectre (she doesn't even HAVE a military rank, she's not even PART of the Alliance, everyone on her ship calls her "boss" or "Jame")

It somehow does not improve things, re: Jame and Tori's relationship, to be more or less imprisoned on a ship together fighting the geth, and they'd die for each other but also everyone learns real quick to keep their heads down when they start fighting, until....

The Gothregor is destroyed not long after the Horde, and Jame Knorth (Tori and Jame take their real last name again, after everything, might as well redeem the family line while they're at it) is one of the casualties, killed saving Bel-tairi. Tori has two years to become intimately familiar with the fact that he may, actually, have fucked up. Then his sister shows up in his office with a new ship called the Tagmeth, new scars lacing her face and shoulder, and new horrible information about the fate of the galaxy.

Admiral Caineron is not actually running nearly as much as he thinks he is, he is being puppeteered by Matriarch Rawneth of the asari, but he's the one bankrolling the Tentir program and technically speaking Brier and Rue are his spies. In the second arc, squadmates include:

Marcarn, an unnaturally calm krogan mercenary who's an intermittent presence in the first game and takes an intense interest in making sure Jame eats regular meals, shotgun specialist and Local Tank

Brier Ironthorn, genetically engineered perfect soldier, stolen from her father by her mother at a young age, orphaned not that much later (Tori brought her mother’s tags back to her), Tentir officer assigned as Jame's XO who turns on Caineron pretty quick-like, biotic mostly specializing in your standard push/lift/slam assortment rather than Jame's more intense reave/warp/singularity skillset, she refused to place a control chip in Jame's implant during the resurrection

Rue Mindrear, Tentir officer and self-appointed quartermaster of the Tagmeth because Jame has no idea what she's doing, assault rifle/tech specialist

Bane, ex-prisoner with unusually erratic biotic abilities (Jack, okay, he's Jack, Ishtier tried to replicate legends of Shanir biotic powers and Bane hates/loves Jame enormously even before they figure out that they're related, he dies on the suicide run no matter what)

Grimly again, he and Jame are kinda tight by now and she politely pretends not to know that he's keeping Tori elaborately posted on their activities

Timmon Ardeth, grandson of the Primarch, looking to prove his father's ultimate innocence, sniper/electronics specialist, insufferable due to constantly hitting on Jame

Kindrie Walker, not a squadmate but the new medic, who grows a spine over the course of a year of yelling at Jame to sit down and let him look at her broken ribs, Rowan got a job at Huerta so she could be close to Torisen

Aerulan, a geth mobile platform named after the quarian word for Legion, sniper/electronics specialist

Probably some other people but Jesus this is long already

Tori comes back to the Tagmeth for the third arc, after the Reapers start to hit hard, because he's in some minor-to-moderate hot water with the Council on account of using his accesses to help Bel steal the Tagmeth and break his sister out of her own trial. This is also where they finally get to make full use of the datachip Jame stole waaaaaay back at the beginning, because the Reapers are here and she is the only person in the galaxy who has a record of previous cycles, including some odd schematics they can’t unravel.

They find a Shanir in stasis, his name is Terribend, and while he's too weak to fight for them, he might be able to help decode some of those schematics...especially the one labeled as the Ivory Knife.

The third game includes a Greatest Hits squad assembly of those left living and also features Jame and Tori actually functionally working together for once.

Um...I have no idea if I'll ever write this whole thing because I’m realizing it would be forty bazillion words, but I'll probably yeet snippets of it into the void from time to time.

#aeondeug #replies #mass effect #kencyrath #mass effectyrath #me: 'i'll just write a quick rundown of what i'm picturing'#LITERALLY TWO THOUSAND WORDS LATER #anyway yeah i'm writing A Scene right now #(it's jame and burr waiting for tori to wake up after his first encounter with a beacon)#but YEAH anyway jame and tori are both shepard and they mutually save the galaxy #i impulsively finished this massive write-up because (you guessed it) i have feelings after reading by demons possessed!#take it away from me #if you want any SPECIFIC scenes from this i would be happy to fill specific requests but otherwise idk #i'll just write whatever my little heart craves most from it #(......what my heart craves most is tori getting the report about the gothregor)#(proooooobably gonna write that one)#(ANGST! HELL! NOW!)#(i'm very tired because i slept terribly so my brain just spat out 'my tyr-ridan my tyr-ridan and me')#(mtmtam? MUH-TIM-TAM????)#(please stop me)#(i'm a monster)#queue deeper than the sea of stars

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