#tom hard fanfiction

[compacflt]

if you're open to angsty prompts - tgm mission goes bad and Ice gets to accept Bradley and Mav's flags at their funerals? (but only if you're feeling angsty. if not, feel free to ignore!)

San Diego, California. November 2016.

It should not be surprising that the complicated politics of a funeral like Mitchell’s supersede even the national grief of losing him, but of course it is. The Defense Department and the new administration (loudly Tweeting out of their asses because the President-Elect hasn’t yet been sworn in) want to hold it in Arlington. Do it in D.C., show American unity, show how proud we are of our fallen aviator, who sacrificed himself for America’s national interests, bury him in Virginian soil next to Kennedy’s eternal flame… It’s not a terrible idea, geopolitically speaking. But the Republican leadership of the state of Texas wants a piece of him, too. Why not bury him in the National Cemetery in Dallas? That’s where he’s from. Lay him to rest in the soil of his forefathers, as all good men should be. But the entire Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy, it is argued by people who aren’t Kazansky, also has a stake in this. Bury him at sea. He gave his life for the Navy. This is how it ought to be. Bury both Mitchell and Bradshaw at sea the way we buried other American Navy heroes like John Paul Jones. (When he hears this argument, Kazansky also remembers that we buried Osama bin Laden at sea, too.)

The whole political clusterfuck is put to rest at last in mid-November, when someone bothers to ask Kazansky what he thinks, and Kazansky says, “I’ll remind you that there’s absolutely nothing left of him to bury. But Mitchell lived in California for the last thirty years of his life. He told me he’d want to be buried in San Diego. I don’t really care where you put him. But that’s what he said he wanted.” And after Pacific Command leadership hears this and communicates it to the White House, everyone all of a sudden bends over backwards to organize a joint funeral in San Diego, where Bradshaw’s parents are buried, anyway. Maybe it really is fitting. Okay.

It’s a funny thing, ritual. The military’s full of it. A funeral: that’s a ritual. So, too, is promotion, retirement, commissioning in the first place. So, too, is the everyday ritual of getting dressed, donning battle gear, which today is dress blues, the way it was the day Mitchell died. Medals instead of ribbons. The President posthumously gave Bradshaw and Mitchell Medals of Honor. Their bodies would be wearing them, if there were bodies to bury. The President prehumously gave Kazansky and Seresin Medals of Honor as well. Kazansky’s is sitting around his throat like a noose. He feels like nothing but a body himself, no soul, already passed-on. They’ll lower Mitchell’s empty casket into the ground this afternoon and Kazansky’s already thinking about climbing inside it before they do. He’s not so un-self-aware that he can’t see the absurdity in that thought. But he’s also not so self-aware that he isn’t having that thought.

It’s the highest-profile funeral Kazansky’s attended in a few years. The Secretary of State is here. The Secretary of Defense is here. The Secretary of the Navy is here. The Vice President is here. He, too, has only recently lost a son; he, too, has already lost someone he thought he’d spend the rest of his life with. They don’t talk, but when they shake hands, it feels like stronger solidarity than all the Sorry for your losses Kazansky’s received over the past couple weeks. Everyone here knows about him and Mitchell, in a way that had once been Kazansky’s worst nightmare; now, his actual worst nightmare having been realized, he can’t bring himself to care, and no one’s making a big deal out of it. When they say, Sorry for your loss, they don’t mean in the “loss of two highly strategic assets for the U.S. Pacific Fleet” sense, they mean in the “loss of the only two people you cared about more than your career” sense. Sorry for your loss. It’s not so bad. And because everyone knows, in a way that had once been Kazansky’s worst nightmare, no one bats an eye when Kazansky realizes his actual worst nightmare and accepts Mitchell’s folded flag. No, they weren’t legal family. But everyone knows they were close enough.

He tacks his own Naval aviator wings onto Mitchell’s empty casket. Twenty-one guns fire. He salutes. They lower two empty caskets into the ground and he’s still standing. It doesn’t really mean anything. It’s not really a goodbye, because neither Mitchell nor Bradshaw are actually inside. He watches Seresin struggle not to cry. He stands before a few hundred people and makes a short boring speech about service and sacrifice that he did not write. This is all political. This is all just for show. Most ritual usually is. So who gives a fuck.

He disappears before anyone can pin him down to apologize again and again, but finds that his intended hideout location has already been claimed: by the time he makes it to Goose’s grave, Seresin’s already standing there alone, his hands in his blues pockets, his cap tucked under his arm.

“I just,” says Seresin stupidly. His eyes are red-rimmed and his face is sallow. They’ve never really spoken, the two of them, but Kazansky’s heard the rumors about him and Bradshaw. And he’s sure Seresin’s heard the rumors about him and Mitchell. They’re in the same leaking boat, here. “Bradley talked about him all the time.” Gestures down to the grave. “And about you. And about Maverick.”

Kazansky says, “Would you want to have lunch with me? I’m not very hungry. But maybe we can talk.” He’s trying. Too little too late, but he’s trying.

He exchanges his jingling blues coat for a regular suit jacket in the armored Suburban. Takes the Medal of Honor off as he does. Seresin, still only a lieutenant, doesn’t have the luxury of a general staff who will carry around a wardrobe change on his behalf. He’s gonna have to make do with his dress blues. He’s nervously fingering the Medal of Honor around his neck, and will continue to do so long after they’ve taken their seats in a restaurant downtown where Kazansky used to take Mitchell out for dinner, not so long ago. He can hear his chief flag aide kindly whispering to their waiter: Somewhere in the back. Where they won’t be bothered. Everyone’s being so kind.

“I could kill him,” Seresin says after a few minutes.

“Who?” says Kazansky incuriously. He’s been running his fingers over the condensation on his water glass. Now his fingertips are wet. Actions and consequences.

“Cyclone. He’s the one who refused to send me. And he didn’t launch search-and-rescue, either.”

Kazansky blinks, then looks down at his menu. “No, son, that was me.”

Seresin’s Then I could kill you goes unsaid. It’s quiet for a long time, long enough that Kazansky’s read through the menu—every word—twice. Then Seresin says, “Why?”

“You would’ve searched for the rest of your life and rescued nothing, and blamed yourself.”

“I blame myself for not going anyway. For not disobeying orders. —Maverick would’ve gone.”

Yeah, he probably would have. Kazansky remembers, in a split second, a story Mitchell had only told him a few years ago, lying next to him in the dark, a little tipsy after dinner and touchy-feely as he always was lying next to Kazansky in the dark: I don’t think I ever told you the story of how I saved Cougar’s life. His warm hands, gentle and unhurried, sliding up and down Kazansky’s abdomen: it’s so funny the details you choose to overlook at the time, and only remember when you lose them. / Well, I never wanted to ask. You hate telling those stories, I thought, Kazansky had said. Because it was true. At any party, Mitchell could tell the stories of how he saved Cougar’s life and how he ejected out of a flat spin at TOPGUN and how he shot down three MiGs not two weeks later—but he’d always have nightmares about all of it the night after. He hated telling those stories. He’d only do it if people asked, so Kazansky never asked. / You’re here in bed next to me, Mitchell said, so I’ll sleep just fine. Let me be a hero for you for once. —It was the day I saw that first Soviet MiG up close. Remember that? Negative four-G inverted dive? That was real, baby. Scared the shit outta Cougar. Messed him up bad. I mean, he thought we were all cooked. He wasn’t gonna land, I mean. Or if he tried, he was gonna plow right into the side of the boat. Couldn’t see straight. You ever been so scared you couldn’t see straight? He was dipping his wings, power too low, basically drunk-driving his Tomcat, I mean, it was freaky. So I touch-and-goed my F-14. / Against orders, surely, Kazansky’d said. / Oh, of course. You’ve met me, haven’t you? Of course, against orders. We were both outta gas. But I took off again and circled around to find him, and guided him in, you know, level off, call the ball, there you go, Coug, you got it, you got it. Don’t know if he ever told you this—he probably did ten million dollars of damage to that plane. Fucked up the landing gear and snapped off his tailhook and ground up into the fuselage. / But he lived. / But he lived, Mitchell said, and that’s how I got sent to TOPGUN. And that’s—with a soft sweet kiss—how I met you. / My hero, Kazansky’d said.

“Yeah,” he says noncommittally. “Maverick would’ve gone. —But he’d have searched for the rest of his life and rescued nothing, and blamed himself.”

Seresin says, “Is that what happened with him and Bradley’s dad? Is that what happened with Goose?”

“Yeah.”

They sit in silence for another while. The waiter comes by to take their orders. Kazansky’s not hungry and orders a beer. Seresin’s starving and orders a burger and a side of onion rings and a glass of wine.

“Can I ask you a question?” Seresin says after another few minutes. “Are you, like, a coward, or something? —That speech you gave was pretty neutered, sir. You loved him and you can’t even say it at his funeral?”

It’s a stupid, immature question. The Navy doesn’t deserve to hear that out loud. Nor does Mitchell’s empty casket. Only Mitchell did, and too late now. Kazansky shrugs. “If I were a brave man,” he says, “do you think I would have let him go?”

“I’d like to think I’m a brave man,” says Seresin. “I let Bradley go because I trusted him to come back. —Honestly, I’m kind of fucking pissed about it, to be honest. Sorry for the language. But it’s the truth. The night after he died, I mean, I went apeshit. Tore up our photos, punched the wall, cried myself fucking dry, that kind of stupid shit. I was so mad. I trusted him to come back, and he didn’t. Thought he was a good pilot. —Sorry. Is that sacrilegious to say? We aren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead, are we? I don’t care. I’m still mad about it. I know I shouldn’t be. But it’s the only thing I know how to be, is angry. Does that make sense?”

“It makes sense.”

“Are you angry?”

“Yes, but not at Mitchell. You know that saying, we have old pilots and bold pilots, but never old, bold pilots? Maverick was an old, bold pilot. We both knew he was living on borrowed time. That’s how he lived.”

“Pretty fucking defeatist.”

Kazansky shrugs again. He is a man defeated.

Seresin says, “Are you gonna be okay?” Then, in the resulting silence, he says, “Sorry, stupid question. Sorry. It’s just—“ He hesitates. It’s only now that Kazansky sees the dark circles under his eyes, the tremor in his hands, the desperation in the stiffness of his shoulders. “Look, it’s just that I don’t think I’m going to be okay, and you’re a lot older than me, and I keep thinking you have, like, the answer. Some wisdom, you know what I mean? How am I gonna be okay? You’re the Commander of the Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy. Aren’t you supposed to know what to do? Aren’t you supposed to give me orders? What do I do?”

“If I were a wise man,” Kazansky says, “do you think I would have let him go?”

Seresin is quiet. His food comes. He immediately launches into it, eats ravenously and silently for a few minutes.

Then he says, around a bite of his burger, “You know, I was gonna ask him to marry me.”

“Bradshaw?”

“Who else?”

Kazansky blinks. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Yeah,” says Seresin. “You know, fucking everyone is.”

“Lunch is on me,” Kazansky says.

Home, afterwards, is silent and lonely. Of course it is: Mitchell’s not here. Of course. Kazansky’s settling into it. Life so rarely gives you a choice, when assigning you ritual, routine. There’s still legal paperwork to fill out. That he can do. And there are still letters of condolences to respond to: Thank you for your kind words. Maverick was… figuring out how to end that sentence will give Kazansky a way to occupy his time for a while. And there are flowers to throw out—no one wants flowers after someone they care about has died. They stink up the house and permeate everything with their reminder of grief and mourning, and you’ll find the dried petals even months later and grieve and mourn all over again. Kazansky throws them all out before they can start shedding. There are friends to call and thank for coming. “I don’t know what to say,” Slider says over the phone. / “Yeah, neither do I,” says Kazansky, so they sit in silence on the line together for a while, and that’s pretty nice. / “He was the best of us,” says Sundown, and Kazansky thinks about what Seresin had said a few hours ago: Thought he was a good pilot. It’s a cruel thought, but sometimes the only thing you can be is angry: if Maverick really was the best of us, he should’ve come home. / “You know, I’m still in his debt,” says Cougar. “He saved my life thirty years ago. It’s so fucking stupid, you know what I mean, this idea that I should’ve saved his in return? Feels like it’s my fault that he died. Maybe I’m too superstitious. I’m indebted to a fucking dead man. I’ll never be able to pay him back. —Sorry, Ice. Sorry. I don’t mean to make it all about me. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now. I’m so sorry.”

“That’s okay,” says Kazansky. “Don’t, um—look, I’m just curious. How did he save your life? Would you mind telling me?”

“I don’t remember too much of it, to be honest,” says Cougar. “That’s why I quit, isn’t it? Something wrong with me. I was so scared I couldn’t see straight. You ever been so scared you couldn’t see straight? I wouldn’t have landed if it weren’t for Maverick. Or, if I had tried, I think I would’ve plowed into the side of the boat. Dipping my wings, power too low, basically drunk-driving my Tomcat. There was something wrong with me. You know, they could’ve kicked him out for that stunt, touch-and-going his F-14 like that. We were both outta gas. It could’ve killed him, too. But he guided me in. Saved my life. —I don’t think I ever told you this. I probably did about ten million dollars of damage to that plane. Fucked up my landing gear, snapped off my tailhook, ground up into the fuselage.”

“But you lived.”

“But I lived,” says Cougar. “And I came home to my family. Only ‘cause of him.”

“He was a hero.”

“He was a fucking hero,” says Cougar. “To the very fucking last. Sorry you had to go and fall in love with him. They advise against that, don’t they?”

“What, falling in love with heroes?”

“Yeah. —Sorry. Not funny.”

“A little funny. In a cosmic sense. Means it’s my own fault.”

Cougar pauses. “It wasn’t your fault, Ice.”

There’s still a Fleet to be run. Still work to be done. Kazansky can do that. People will laud him for the rest of his life for his professionalism under duress. He works when he should be grieving. Work is a ritual, too. Take some time off, sir, one of the Chief of Naval Operations’ aides had begged him. You need time. But he can’t. Only thing to do is keep working until all the work is done. The geopolitical situation after the mission, which was still classified as a success, is quite bad. They knew it would be. A bombing mission on Russian territory right near the American general election? Yeah, that’s bad. Russia’s Foreign Ministry has openly stated that if they find any remains of Mitchell and Bradshaw’s bodies, they will not extradite them home to the United States. I’m sorry you had to hear that, the President e-mailed him personally. But it’s fine. Kazansky likes the chaos. Means there’s work to do. He works.

When he can’t work anymore, because he’s done all the work that needs to be done, he takes care of another ritual. Life assigned him this one without giving him a choice, too. It’s past 2200. He turns no light on. He’s not sleeping in their bed, which is pretty cliché, and maybe he should be stronger than that, but you do have to make some concessions to your own grief when something like this happens. But he’s strong enough to sit on the side of it that had been his and open his phone and dial the number of his only favorited contact and hold the phone to his ear. It gives the dial tone five times, as is routine, and then Mitchell picks up the phone, as is routine. Hi! Captain Pete Mitchell here! Unfortunately I’m not able to come to the phone right now. Leave a message, or if it’s Navy business, you can shoot me an e-mail at C. A. P. T. dot P. dot Mitchell at navy dot mil. Thanks! Bye. Maybe Mitchell’s just busy. Maybe Mitchell’s somewhere without cell service. Maybe Mitchell’s just out flying.

Kazansky considers leaving a message, as is routine; realizes he doesn’t know what to say, as is routine; and hangs up, as is routine.

He takes all his medals off the rack of his double-breasted blues coat, packs them back into their clear-plastic-velvet boxes. He considers, momentarily, throwing out the Medal of Honor with the flowers. But he’s too self-aware to do that. He hangs up his coat on its felt-lined hanger, steams it straight, does the same to his slacks, slips the ensemble back into its garment bag, hangs it up next to Mitchell’s in their closet. This is a ritual, too. He takes a shower. He eats something. He answers a couple e-mails. He climbs into a bed that is not his own. He holds one of Mitchell’s college sweatshirts over his face and breathes in. He takes stock. His fuel gauge is reading pretty low. He knows his wings are dipping. If he really thought about it, he’d say he’s so scared he can’t see straight. And the truth is—he’s not so un-self-aware that he can’t recognize this, however numbly—Maverick’s not coming home to guide him in to land. Maverick’s never coming home again. Thought you were a good pilot. He closes his eyes. He tries to sleep.

#major character death #death #pete maverick mitchell #tom iceman kazansky #top gun maverick #top gun #icemav #top gun fanfiction #asks #sorry to start out my prompt fills with maybe the most soulcrushing thing ive ever written #ngl writing this yesterday fucked me up hard #sorry to sneak more pro-brandon propaganda in here but the parallel was too good to pass up #rip beau biden i guess #forgot to tag: #bradley rooster bradshaw #jake hangman seresin #hangster #soundtrack for this one is Judy collins’ send in the clowns

[moonbafoon]

The only particular business skill Tom had was being able to watch his own kindness drain away with less remorse than most.

ko-fi • commissions • etsy

#succession #tom wambsgans #succession spoilers #WHEN THE HORSE YOU BET ALL UR SAVINGS ON DROPS DEAD ON THE TRACK ⭐️🌟⭐️ #good luck tommy. i hope things go poorly and you gove up and move to a small farm and learn to be good again through honest hard work with #your hands and the earth. #anyway exerpts from the fanfiction i will never write bc its tom

[topgun-imagines]

Does it ever just occur to you that Ice is dead? Like, no more. Cause same 🥲😭

#it’s so sad #seen one too many sad TikTok edits #slightly hard to picture young!ice dead.. #im fine 🥲 #send help 🥲 #😭😭 #top gun #top gun fanfiction #top gun x female reader #top gun x reader #top gun fluff #tom iceman kazansky #top gun 1986 #iceman x reader #iceman #Val Kilmer

[thatsrightice]

chapter 3 word count: ~3.5k

main themes: iceman AND slider angst, icemav, major platonic slice, hurt/comfort, the boys ™️, flyboys being flyboys <- to the max, flyboy shenanigans, things have gotten worse and will get worse before it gets better, iceman knows he’s in love but refuses to do anything about it and maverick doesn’t know he’s in love but is doing everything about it <- that’s it, that’s the fic

pain: exists

summary:

He remembered holding a gloved hand over his mouth in an attempt to stave off the smoke that had almost completely consumed the air that he was breathing, threatening to find a way into his lungs to consume him from the inside out. He wished he could call out for Ron to switch the air source to vent to clear out the phantom smoke that felt moments away from swallowing him whole much like it had in that cockpit. He longed for that smallest bit of relief.

#hi I’m late and I’m so sorry #iceman knows he’s in love but refuses to do anything about it and maverick doesn’t know he’s in love but is doing everything about it #flying is hard but falling (for you) is easy #fanfiction #f-14 tomcat #top gun #top gun maverick #tom iceman kazansky #ron slider kerner #pete maverick mitchell #icemav #fanfic

[topgunruinedme]

Iceman: "You look so goddamn beautiful"

Maverick, Taking off headphones: "I'm sorry, what

was that?"

Iceman, panicked: "You look like a butthole bye."

#top gun fanfiction #top gun imagine #top gun fandom #top gun 1986 #top gun incorrect quotes #top gun headcanons #iceman kazansky #hard deck #iceman #tom iceman kazansky #icemav

[cardiac-agreste]

A Small But Stubborn Fire, Chapter 2

Hey all, I've posted chapter two of my @mlbigbang 2023 fic, which is all about Sabine (the POV character!) trying to figure out what's giving her daughter nightmares, and how she can help her.

Summary

As she reviewed the advance orders they had to contend with, the memory of last night gnawed at her like a rat in the walls, chewing through the wiring, threatening to burn the house down. She let her notes drop to the countertop and she leaned on her hands. But the countertops were bright white, which reminded her of the sketch, so she spun around, putting that memory behind her for the moment.

--

Tom and Sabine discuss Marinette's nightmare, and then Sabine has a heart-to-heart with her daughter.

#miraculous ladybug #sabine cheng #marinette dupain cheng #tom dupain #trauma #hurt/comfort #angst #parenting is hard #ml fic #mlb fic #mlb fanfic #ml fanfic #fanfiction #miraculous fanfiction

[isalisewrites]

Hello, my little darlings. I posted this sneak peek in the discord server today, but I think ya’ll should see a little peek to the Twink Fight coming up in chapter eighteen of Terrible, But Great, right? You’d like that, I’m sure.

---

Tom was out for blood - and Harry responded in kind.

He wanted to see this boy bleed. He wanted to see this boy cry, scream. He wanted to see him writhe at his feet, beg for mercy until his throat became hoarse with overuse. He wanted to see tears streaming down his cheek, blood decorating his lips.

At the end, would Tom give him mercy?

He didn’t know, but he wanted to find out.

Debris scattered around the classroom.

“I am finished with your nonsense,” hissed Tom. Equal or not, I will make you submit. “You’ve made a mockery of the house of Slytherin for the last time. Scorning your own, making company outside of the house. No respect for anyone. No respect for tradition of this school—”

“Fuck you and your traditions!” snapped Harry. “I’m sick of them!”

“I will make you learn why I am the one who rules Slytherin.”

Harry rolled his eyes, wand flexing in his hand. “You can’t pitch a damn fit when someone doesn’t do what you want,” he said, sounding thoroughly exasperated. “You can’t shove a kid off the stairs because you’re mad or jealous!”

Tom inhaled, the fury burning inside. “I will make you kneel,” he spat furiously, “and you will acknowledge me.”

Harry tilted his head to the side; the color of his eyes seemed ethereal. “You haven’t yet - tried multiple times, but failed. What makes this time any different?”

“I’ve been lenient with you—that’s all!”

“Have you? Or are you just not powerful enough?” said Harry, taunting him.

#terrible but great #tom riddle #Harry Potter #fanfiction #fanfic #tomarry #snippet #mywriting #getting spicy and they're not even friendly yet #what cute dumbasses #we're getting there #working hard over here #twink fight

[darklydeliciousdesires]

Not One of Many - Chapter Twenty Eight.

A thousand thank you’s for your patience with this, guys! I am so bowled over with the popularity of this, I truly am. It was a risky undertaking, to write a modern day Alfie, but I’m glad you all seemed to enjoy him as much as I did writing him. 

Previous chapters - Prologue  One  Two  Three  Four  Five  Six  Seven  Eight  Nine  Ten  Eleven  Twelve  Thirteen  Fourteen  Fifteen  Sixteen  Seventeen  Eighteen  Nineteen  Twenty  Twenty One  Twenty Two  Twenty Three  Twenty Four  Twenty Five  Twenty Six  Twenty Seven

Tag list - In the comments

Words - 5,119

Warnings - 18+ content, adult audience only. Minors DNI!

“So, I’ve said to this girl, you don’t bloody come into my wardrobe and start calling the shots, no way, petal, not happening, and I don’t bloody care who you are, what agency you represent, or which rich footballer you happen to be getting your leg over, I ain’t having it!”

Models. Oh, if they even dared try and test Magda’s authority within her sacred space, how quickly they got shut down for it. The ELLE wardrobe department was her chapel, and she didn’t allow anyone to sully the sanctity of such. It also made for some very amusing brunch conversation, especially for Mimi, who was sitting next to Beth, meeting both Magda and Kinga for the first time. The former she found a little scary, but very entertaining, it had to be said.  

“So, darling,” Kinga began, dabbing her mouth on a napkin as she looked across at Mimi. “I hear from Beth that you landed a role at London Life and Style! How is that going for you?”

Mimi politely finished her mouthful of toast before replying. “It’s going very well, thank you for asking. I’m learning the ropes, mostly over office dynamics, who to be in with, who to avoid, and how to keep my schedule running for the most efficiency, timekeeping wise. But yes, I’m really enjoying myself.” For Mimi, it all felt so wonderful, sitting there at a lovely restaurant, enjoying food that she’d paid for, feeling so professional with the three powerhouse career women in her company, invited into their world and accepted as an equal.  

It was a real shot in the arm for her, to be someone on her own and not just one of a rich man’s three girlfriends. She saw the way people viewed her so differently now she was out there under her own merit, and she partly had Beth’s friendship to thank for that.

“For you,” she spoke a little while later, holding out something wrapped in pink tissue paper. “Sorry it isn’t wrapped properly, but here. I thought you’d like it.”  

“Oh, you sweetheart,” Beth hummed, stopping their little tour of the small shopping arcade, taking her gift and unwrapping it gently. There inside was a dainty silver bangle with a heart charm from the small jewellery shop they’d just visited. She’d wondered why Mimi had suddenly scurried to the counter without showing her the purchase she was about to make. “Mims! It’s lovely! Thank you so much!” she cooed, placing it on her wrist and pulling her into a hug. “You shouldn't have, though! Didn’t you mention your rent was going to be a struggle?”

“Not any longer! We found a fourth person for the last room in the house, so that’s saved me a hundred quid a week, and even more with the share of the bills, too!” Her original plan to share with friends in Notting Hill hadn’t been successful, losing out on the property. They’d since found a lovely townhouse in Islington to rent, though, the fourth person now making such a property a much more pocket friendly abode. It also only took fifteen minutes on the tube to get to work.  

“Oh, that’s great! I’m so pleased for you! Oh, and before I forget, Alfie suggested the 18th for our night out, if you and Josh can make it then?”  

Mimi nodded brightly. “Yes, I’ll put it to him when I see him later, but I think that should be fine! He’s a bit nervous, bless him, but I’m so glad he’s fine with the idea of me and my ex being friends. I mean, no disrespect to Alfie, he’s my bestie, but like I told Josh, I’m becoming more your friend now as we see each other quite often.”

She was right, too, Beth thought, since she did usually see Mimi once a week now, for brunch and shopping, or to go and ride the horses together, sometimes a mix of it all, as they were doing that day after their shopping trip had concluded, Beth driving them out to the stables for a couple of hours riding over the fields. After their lovely ride out, they returned to London to have a nice afternoon with Amira, meeting up for a coffee and a walk through Richmond Park before Mimi went out on her date with Josh, the women all taking a seat and enjoying the blissful warmth of the late summer sunshine.

“Isn’t it a bloody beautiful day, girls?” Amira chirped, adjusting her sunglasses, her face absolutely pristinely made up. She’d been on a photoshoot since the early hours of the morning, so had arrived in full glam to meet her friends, Mimi sitting with her bag in her lap, rummaging through all the free skincare samples she’d received courtesy of the company she’d worked the job for.

“Can I have these?” she asked, Amira waving her hand.

“Get in there and take anything you want!” she enthused kindly. “They gave me so much, and I’ll never use it. Beth, there’s some lavender setting spray in there, wait a minute.” Reaching over into Mimi’s lap, she rummaged, pulling the bottle out and passing it over. “Here, I know you love the smell, and I can’t bloody stand it, so go on! Oh, and try this lotion as well, it’s so nice! They gave me above five of the same one!”

“Well, first Mims treating me to jewellery and now you giving me skincare goodies,” Beth began, Amira comically continuing.

“Face mask, toning water, pillow mist.”

“I feel very spoiled!” she finished, laughing at the rate the products came her way. “You’re only doing this so you don’t have so much to lug home, aren’t you?”

Amira widened her eyes. “Ahh, shit. You caught me out!” The women shared laughter, Mimi finished with her raiding for freebies and handed Amira her bag back, falling into conversation as they caught up with one another. Beth was having fun doing just that, when the incessant ringing of her phone disturbed it.  

“I’m so sorry,” she began, polite as always. “If I don’t take it, they’re just going to keep on calling me.”

“No, it’s fine,” Mimi reassured her as she answered her phone. They chatted between each other while Beth took the call, her exclaimed cry of ‘what?’ making them sit up and take notice, Amira kindly shuffling her hair around to place a caring hand on her arm when she noticed tears pooling in her eyes.  

“Are you okay, chick?” she asked, as soon as Beth had finished the call.  

“No, I’m not. I’m bloody furious!” she began, Mimi quick to offer a paper napkin across the table, Beth thanking her with a sniff. “That fucking woman! She’s now taken to emailing one of my editors about me, apparently warning him off hiring me!” she took a breath, drying her eyes and swallowing hard. “That was Piers Taylor on the phone, editor of Southside City, one of the magazines I freelance for. Luckily because we’ve had a sterling relationship for many years, he paid it no mind, only calling to give me the heads up on it, but still! She’s interfering with my bloody work now, and I will not have it!”  

Amira shook her head, continuing her affectionate rubbing of her arm, while Mimi picked up her own phone. “This ends now.”  

“Mims, what are you doing?” Beth asked.

“I’m calling her, putting a flippin’ stop to this!” Opening FaceTime, she was connecting the call before Beth had a chance to stop her, but by the time Talia had answered, she wasn’t entirely sure whether she did want to cease what Mimi was about to do. “Right, you listen to me, and you fucking listen good! We had the grace to part ways with Alfie amicably and not try to wreck his new girlfriend’s life, and I’m telling you now, you need to do the same!”

“Mimi, what the fu...” This was as far as Talia got.

“No, I’m talking, right!” Beth and Amira shared wide eyes there, neither having witnessed that amount of ire come from their cheery little friend before, not ever. “What you’re doing, yeah, it’s bloody wrong! He isn’t going to get back with you, no matter how much you hate Beth. Interfering in her work now too? Spraying Alfie’s car? Like, what the fuck? Where do you draw the line?”

“I draw the line in stating to you what I did to Alfie, this isn’t coming from me! It really isn’t! I’m fucking done with being accused of something I haven’t had anything to do with. Now, will the lot of you just fucking leave me alone! I’m happy, I’ve moved on, got a new boyfriend, I don’t need this shit, Mimi! Don’t call me again, in fact, I’m blocking you. Piss off!”

“Oh my god!” Amira cried once the call had ended, covering her mouth with her hand. “Shit, babe. You really gave it to her!”

Beth was too stunned to speak for a moment, but when she did, it was with an observation that cut the lingering anger from the air entirely. “I think you channelled Alfie a bit there, using the words right and yeah as punctuation.” They all shared laughter, Mimi shaking her head as she slipped her phone away. 

While she might have felt better for chewing her out to begin with, something just wasn’t sitting right with her, that something being that she honestly, deep down, didn’t think Talia was lying. She knew when she was, and seeing her there on the screen, her vehemence had been so very clear. She knew that sharing such a doubt would likely upset Beth, though, so for the sake of her friend, put it away at the back of her mind, but made a mental note to broach it at a later time with her.  

“Right, well I’m going to love you beautiful ladies and leave you,” Mimi began, getting up. “Give me hugs, you gorgeous people!” They instantly granted her such. She wanted a long bath before going out with Josh later that evening, so was heading back to the front of Richmond Park, where they’d met up, Amira and Beth walking with her before turning back the way they came, Amira picking them up a couple of fresh coffees from the small outdoor cart by the main gate.  

“Don’t drink it yet, babe!” she warned, Beth about to take a sip. “It’s fucking steaming hot, I just burned my bloody lip on it!”  

“Appreciated, thanks,” Beth chirped, the women taking the small path that led them away from the main hub of activity, out towards where the many wild deer of the park grazed contently.  

“So, what articles are you working on at the moment?” Amira asked, falling into step at her side.  

“Right now, I’m up to my ears in researching about a huge one relating to what we’re learning is likely considered cult like activity, a group of people over in America we’re researching. Myself and Kinga are working on it as a team, in fact, since it’s such a huge undertaking.” Amira’s eyes widened.

“What, are we talking an expose or something?”

Beth nodded, raising her eyebrows. “Yes, so we need to get our ducks in a row. It points a finger at a certain prominent individual within the corporate investment world, hence why we have a lot of ground to cover, people to interview, you know, the usual. It’ll be the biggest piece in my career to date, and I’m even receiving advice from Steve as I go, over the legalities of such, since it’s obviously an undertaking with many legal ramifications.”  

“Blimey!” Amira exclaimed, looking bowled over by the magnitude of it, asking what she could as they continued to walk.  

Meanwhile, Mimi was keeping an eye out for her Uber, watching the car move slowly along on the app, thinking he was likely stuck in traffic leading down towards the entrance to the park, since a horse-drawn hearse had just passed by. She thought how grand it was, the beautiful, black horses with their full plumage, pulling the immaculate carriage containing a coffin covered in white lilies. What a fitting way to give someone an elegant send off.  

Noticing that through her own equine endeavours (namely riding out in the rain without her gloves on) she was beginning to get chapped fingers, she rooted around in her bag, having a look through the many samples for the tube of hand cream Amira had gifted her.  

“Avocado oil, eye cream, exfoliator, peanut oil. Oh, shit. I didn’t ask her if I could have one of those,” she began, muttering to herself. “Ahh, doesn’t matter. I saw she had another.” Continuing her search, something suddenly hit her like a thunderbolt. Peanut oil. It wasn’t something commonly used in skincare. It also wasn’t a sample size. As all the little pieces that didn’t make sense suddenly fitted together, Mimi’s eyes widened in horror.  

She was sure Talia wasn’t lying.  

The harassment had to have been coming from someone they both knew.

Beth was deathly allergic to peanuts.

“Oh, Jesus!” she gasped on a sob, turning at a run, almost knocking a lady behind her clean off her feet. “I’m sorry!” she called back as she ran flat out down the path...

“Awwww, Beth look at the baby!” Amira cooed as the women came to a stop to watch the deer in the middle distance, one of the small fawns haphazardly trotting along after its mother on brand new, shaky long legs.  

“Absolutely precious,” she confirmed, taking a sip of her coffee, glad it was now cool enough to do so. Immediately, she felt that something wasn’t right, her lips starting to tingle, her throat starting to itch. She swallowed, feeling her airway beginning to tighten, panic setting in.  

“Beth, what’s up?” Amira asked, grasping her arm gently.  

“Peanuts... in the coffee... something with nut extract.” she rasped, Amira’s mouth falling open.  

“Those stupid people! I told them one was for someone with a nut allergy and checked that nothing had bloody peanuts! Fuck! Right, give me your bag. You’ve got your EpiPen, haven’t you?” Beth nodded through a wheeze, her throat tightening dramatically, passing her bag over, Amira crouching as she opened it and began to root through. “Bloody hell, mate, you’ve got so much in here!”  

She frantically rooted through until she found the orange tube containing it, straightening up again, watching as Beth fought for air. “Is this it? Beth, is this what you need?” Her rapid nods through each panicked breath confirmed it, Beth reaching, a feeling of cold dread snapping through her when Amira’s face darkened in an instant, snatching the EpiPen away. “You took what was mine, so now it’s only fair I take something of yours. Bye.” Dropping her bag to the ground, Amira turned and ran, leaving Beth standing there, with no lifeline, nothing to stop her throat from rapidly closing. It was her... it had been her all along.

Blind terror hit her square in the chest, trying to fight for air, not able to get as much as her tingling lungs required, her tongue and lips inflating, falling to the ground, searching her surroundings for someone, anyone who might have noticed her drop, suddenly then hearing her name being screamed over and over.  

“Beth! Beth, I’m here, I’m here!” Mimi, thank the stars, she wasn’t alone. “Where’s your EpiPen? I know what she did, I bloody worked it out!” Grasping Beth’s bag, she upended it onto the path, searching, panicking when she couldn’t see it anywhere, the vital piece of kit needed to prevent her friend from going into full-blown anaphylaxis. At not seeing it there, she knew then there was truly no limit to what Amira was prepared to have done in the name of cold-blooded revenge, obviously swiping it before hightailing it away, leaving Beth to her fate. “It isn’t here, it isn’t here! Fuck, what do I do? Fuck!”

No. This couldn’t happen.

“Help us, please! Help!” Mimi screamed, trying to lift Beth’s head back to open her swollen airway. “She can’t breathe! Please help us, someone! I need an EpiPen!” Turning back to Beth, she clutched her hand, stroking her head. “It’s going to be okay, babe, it will! Try to keep calm.” Pulling her phone out, she called for an ambulance, just as she witnessed two ladies running over to them, a man coming from another direction. “It’s my friend, she’s having an allergic reaction and she can’t breathe! We’re in Richmond Park, about three minutes off the pathway leading from the front gate, first little path on the left,” she began to tell the operator after dialling 999. “No, someone took her EpiPen, please hurry, she can’t breathe!”

“It’s okay, I have one, I have one,” one of the ladies who arrived with her told her, pulling it from her bag, the operator hearing and telling her to stay on the line to assess her reaction once it was administered, telling her she was sending an ambulance right away all the same. Even through her frightened tears, Mimi breathed a sigh of relief as she watched the lady prepare it, plunging it down into Beth’s thigh, a few seconds passing before she heard her take a breath, her airways opening enough to allow it.  

Mimi was shaking so hard, the man who crouched with them took her phone, explaining to the operator that the pen had been administered, his words muted to Mimi as she sobbed, stroking Beth’s face. “Are you okay, are you alright?”  

“Yes... no... I... god, Mims! If you hadn’t come back!” she sobbed, pulling her darling friend into a hug, feeling dizzy and taking her to the ground with her when she lay back, the two women crying with a mixture of residual fear and relief. They had a little moment to fall apart before Mimi helped her sit up, the two other ladies assisting, the man asking if they wanted him to wait as well, and if there was anything he could do. They told him no, but thanked him profusely, the man handing Mimi her phone before wishing them all well and departing, continuing on his jogging trail.  

“Thank you so, so much. You saved me!” Beth exclaimed, swallowing, her throat sore and still a little tight as she reached for the lady who had administered the EpiPen, watching her take her hand with a smile.

“My little boy has an almond allergy, so I have one in my bag at all times, even when he ain’t with me! You alright now, though? How do you feel?”  

“Shaken up!” As rightly anyone would, going through such. The women, who Beth and Mimi learned were called Angela and Helen stayed with them until the ambulance turned up, the paramedics assessing her at the scene and decreeing it likely the safest option to have her looked over by a doctor. Mimi cancelled her plans with Josh while Beth was being checked, telling him there’d been an emergency and she’d call him later on, making a call then to Alfie, telling him of what had happened.  

She rode in the back of the ambulance with Beth, telling her that Alfie was on his way, Mimi the first person to see him after she’d popped outside the A&E entrance, Alfie bundling her up in a hug.  

“You bloody saved her life, treacle,” he told her a little shakily, squeezing her tightly. “I know everyone used to joke about you not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, but the way you put all that together. Fuckin’ ‘ell! I just can’t... and is she alright? Can I go see her?”

Mimi kissed his cheek, squeezing his shoulders, remembering whenever he was tense, that’s exactly where that tension went to. “She’s fine, she’s obviously quite shaken up, but she’s seeing the doctor right now. I just came out here to call her mum for her and let her know what had happened.”

The truth was, Mimi only had little guesses to go on with the evidence she’d witnessed, Beth being the one to fill them in over it all after the doctor had discharged her, deeming her well enough to go home, but remain vigilant for anything further. It was as the three sat in Alfie’s lounge, the man himself bundling Beth up in a blanket and a massive hug that she shared with them exactly what had happened after Mimi had left.  

“So, we were just walking along, talking about work and watching the deer, and I took a sip of the coffee she’d bought me, which I now know why she told me not to drink while we were up on the main path, because she obviously wanted to get me far away from anyone who could help, or see what she did. I felt my lips and throat itching and swelling, and she made like she was trying to help me, looking for my EpiPen.  

“When she found it in my bag, she asked if this was what I needed, and then told me that since I’d taken something of hers, she was taking something of mine. The way she looked, her face, god, the hatred! She ran off then, I suppose from her standpoint thinking she’d just committed the perfect crime. She knew, of course, that my peanut allergy is deathly, that I could die within minutes from anaphylactic shock. She knew that right from the start, back when I was here as a journalist and she offered me some peanut butter on toast, I explained it to her then.”

She took a moment, waving her hand, feeling teary again as she leaned back against Alfie’s comforting bulk, but equally reaching for Mimi’s hand. “I know it was Angela’s EpiPen that did it, but ultimately, you saved my life today, Mims. If you hadn’t had that little wondering about the peanut oil in her bag, then all of this could have taken such a turn. I owe you a huge debt. Thank you, I love you.”

Mimi’s lip trembled, shuffling closer and throwing her arms around her, Alfie jointly hugging them both. “Aww, I ain’t had a group hug off of a few beautiful ladies in a while now!” Both women reacted at the same time, but with different words.

“Oi, enough of that.”

“Don’t you be getting any ideas!”

They shared laughter, Alfie pinching Mimi’s cheek. “Nah. I got me a great woman, and one hell of a brilliant little bestie, here. Wouldn’t change that for the world.”  

Mimi stayed only for half an hour longer, both Beth and Alfie thanking her again and again, the former telling her she’d keep her posted in case the police wanted to take her statement, Alfie calling them not long after they’d seen her into a cab at their expense at the door. With her being a little shaky still and Alfie reluctant to take her to the station in light of such, an officer came out to them to take her statement, asking too for Mimi’s details, as well as what they could give him about Amira.  

Once it was just the two of them, they sat and quietly reflected on the gravitas of the culmination.

“It’s fucking knocked me for six,” Alfie lamented, rubbing a hand over his beard, Beth next to him, Cyril half lying in her lap. He knew something different was afoot with his mummy. “I don’t half owe Talia a fuckin’ massive apology, accusing the poor cow of all this, and she ain’t even had a hand in it. I mean I know, yeah, she wasn’t exactly squeaky clean in her behaviour, but she weren’t lying when she said she’d moved on from it all. But bloody fuckin’ ‘ell, for it to have been Amira, all this time?”

Beth felt for him, to have yet another ex behave in a way that showed loud and clear that ultimately, he hadn’t known them half as well as he thought he had. “I know, she had everybody fooled into thinking she was something she wasn’t. But look, I’m fine, and it’s over now, all of this that had been hanging over us. We’re free of her messing around, her stalking, everything she was doing in an attempt to hurt me. We’ll feel the shock of it for a while, but at least we have each other. And Mims. She’s become so important to me, and she’s testament to the fact that at least with some girls, you bloody did make fantastic choices.”

He smiled then, turning to her. “I made the best one when I knew it was you I wanted my future with, though.” In the months that followed, right up until and beyond Amira facing a judge for her actions, Beth would only continue to solidify that notion, too...

Epilogue

The Burj Khalifa; it was perhaps one of the most impressive masterpieces of modern architecture in the world, the impossible height deeming it the world’s tallest building, the view from the balcony upon the 117th floor testament to that, even if it had taken Beth Solomons three days after her arrival to be brave enough to venture out upon it.  

“Ahhh, look at that,” Alfie chimed from the apartment, smiling as he watched his new bride finally step out into the sunshine. “She’s found her balls!”

Shaking her head, she blew the steam from her coffee, taking a careful sip. “Yes, admittedly I perhaps should have conquered it upon our arrival, but better late than never!”

They were in Dubai as part of their honeymoon tour, fresh from spending a week in Bora Bora, stopping off for another week in the emirates for Alfie to check in on progress at his resort currently still under construction, the huge complex now two thirds finished. His most important endeavour, though? Enjoying the break with his wife, both of them actually setting aside their need to throw themselves into their careers and instead, enjoy their life together as newlyweds.

After the chaos with Amira the previous year, Alfie had decided to propose to Beth on her birthday, just a week after Hannukah. Their families had thought it was a little rushed, but had been very happy for them all the same, Beth’s darling bubbe decreeing it to be bashert. They’d married in a beautiful ceremony in New York, at one of the most stunning synagogues in Manhattan, before they’d had their reception at The Plaza, Alfie happy to fork out the thousands upon thousands to fly all of their loved ones out there first class.  

The wedding itself had cost an eye watering seven hundred thousand dollars, and Beth hadn’t protested a moment of it, like he worried that she might. She’d eased into being the fiancé, and then the wife of a multi-millionaire with ease, once she’d gotten used to it. In fact, Alfie was well underway to making his first billion at that point, so why not celebrate with a huge, luxurious wedding? As long as he’d let her buy him a pint and lunch a few days a week, and pay her way with what she could manage, all was fine in her mind.  

It had truly been a lavish affair, Kinga and Magda acting as bridesmaids, and Alfie having Steve and Marcus as his groomsmen. His best man? Mimi. “Well, you are the best woman, ain’t ya?” he’d spoken upon asking her, his dear friend bursting into tears and hugging him as she’d accepted. Her actions in saving Beth’s life had truly cemented them as wonderful friends, Alfie standing there at his reception, watching her, Beth, Kinga and Magda dancing to Hava Nagila together, telling Steve and Marcus how unbelievably fortunate he felt, to have married a woman like Beth, and got to keep in his life someone he thought as highly of as he did Mimi.

They’d finally been able to set aside the events of the previous year just over three months previously, when Amira’s criminal case had resulted in her receiving a custodial sentence of fifteen years for attempted murder. It was what their legal team had anticipated she’d receive at best, of course all thought she should have received a heavier sentence for the cruel and vindictive premeditated plot to try and take Beth’s life, but within the legal parameters, and taking into consideration that Beth didn’t suffer any long-term harm or deliberation as a result, this was realistic. She wouldn’t be eligible for parole for at least ten, either.  

Amira was behind them, now, though, only a beautiful future ahead, Beth’s journalism going from strength to strength. Her work with Kinga to expose a cult had been one of the vital pieces of evidence to bring the figureheads of the organisation to justice for many offences, such as money laundering, human trafficking and slavery, Beth and Kinga having their names flushed to the forefront of gritty, British journalism, both even featuring in the documentary series that would air later that year, once the case had been brought to trial in America. Alfie had never been prouder of her.  

“It really is a stunning view up here,” she spoke, running a hand through her hair, the gorgeous, cushion cut diamond on her left-hand glittering in the morning sun. It still made him laugh, when he remembered her reaction to opening the box containing it and having him swiftly propose. Stunned didn’t cover it, Beth nearly scaring Cyril half to death after she’d screamed ‘yes!’ at about a thousand decibels.  

“Yeah, but it ain’t nothing compared to this one.” Turning her, he smiled, nodding. “Yeah, that’s the best view in the world for me. Whenever I’m looking at the missus.” She leaned in close, receiving the kiss he granted her with before he left her to it to go and answer his phone, Beth hearing him chatting to Marcus about how things were going with the resort.  

Sometimes, she still couldn’t believe that the decision to enter that high end bar in Chelsea to drown her sorrows in a bottle of wine she couldn’t really afford had put her on the path to where she’d ended up, but she wouldn’t change anything for the world. She was exactly where she needed to be. And then she made the critical mistake of looking down.

“Nope!” Back inside she speedily went, placing her empty mug down and wrapping her arms around her husband. Now she was exactly where she needed to be.

The End.

#alfie solomons #alfie solomons fanfiction #alfie solomons fanfic #alfie solomons fic #alfie solomons smut #alfie solomons x ofc #modern alfie solomons #tom hardy #tom hardy fanfiction #tom hardy fanfic #tom hard fic #tom hardy smut #tom hardy x ofc #peaky blinders #peaky blinders fanfiction #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders fic #peaky blinders smut #peaky blinders au

[smolvenger]

Me writing Miss Narracott and the Captain which features a more niche movie and character from something less known and popular:

Vrs Me Writing I Say Nothing That Frightens Me which is based on one of the most watched shows with the most popular franchises and one of the most beloved characters

My Masterlist

#why is writing the latter series so hard??? for no reason???? #and meanwhile with Miss Narracott I go WHOOSH #carrie writes #fic recs #tom hiddleston #loki #loki tv series #loki fanfiction #war horse #fanfiction writing #fanfic writing

[compacflt]

wip wednesday: here, have some icemav stuff

#just scrolling through my 75k gdoc looking for items of interest #1. ice having a physical reaction to mav flying the darkstar #for my own peace of mind i have to assume the darkstar is saf compatible. let’s make it green. carbon neutral Mach 10. #2. mavvy baby’s 40th birthday <3 #3. post tgm debriefing who really cares #4. scene from a prompt one shot that’ll come out tmr or the day after #sorry i haven’t been posting a ton i just don’t have a lot of updates #tom iceman kazansky #pete maverick mitchell #top gun maverick #top gun #icemav #top gun fanfiction #the former secarmy is a lifelong civilian so doesn’t hit as hard #but still

[wild-lavender-rose]

Downton Abbey Masterlist

- Hurt/Comfort -

Thomas Barrow

I’ve Got You (part 1)

I’ve Got You (part 2)

I’ve Got You (part 3)

Tom Branson

Gift of Safety

- Drabbles -

Tom Branson

#1- Roof Assistance

#2- Survival Kit

Fanfic Masterlist

#downton #downton abbey #downton abbey fanfiction #downton abbey tom #downton abbey mary #downton abbey fandom #downton abbey series #downton abbey tom branson #downton abbey thomas barrow #gwen harding #downton abbey masterlist

[rottingbite]

Midnight Succumb

A Cinderella (band) short story

We headed to Moscow, Russia where a second fascinating event was waiting for us and everything was ready, we just needed to get to the place … or that was what should happen.

We needed two buses and ours was full. Two full tour vehicles took us to our destination, and the snow threatened to fall soon. When it began, I must admit, that the surroundings looked beautiful with the dark sky and small snowflakes covering everything that the sight could appreciate. Almost everyone slept in their seats, or at least on my bus, they did while I watched over Tom towards the window. That image of peace was perfect, perhaps too much, and I came to think >> what can ruin this splendid view? <<. Sometimes it is better not to question or challenge nature because this can be explicit in their explanations.

When I was about to fall asleep with the calm silence, I felt a small tremor that, as I opened my eyes, became potent. The bus began to shake violently and after hitting something we went flying suspended in the air. The silence turned into the grinding of the vehicle, shouts of panic, and the second bus crashing into ours and pushing us farther. While time froze for me, and I was detaching myself from the seat, what I may be able to contemplate was the complete chaos of people flying around and glass breaking.

The bus was completely turned over when I was able to react, and several of my colleagues were lying all over the snow. I had that buzzing sensation in my ears when the next scream I heard was Tom’s. It was not necessary to get up a lot when I found my partner hung from a window screaming in pain, and how could he not? He was hanging from a window, his arm was separating, leaving him suspended only by tendons and ligaments that were slowly cut. I ran to him, intending to help him and to secure him to prevent him from falling or getting any more hurt. He broke off his limb in a burst of gore and a heartrending scream that froze my blood. He fell over me in a second but smaller, disgusting explosion of vital fluids. I was in pain, but Tom’s suffering did not compare to mine. Furthermore, I listened to the most horrible shrieks that in my whole life I had heard and that were impregnating my head. I was motionless on the ground holding Tom who was losing blood every second and scream-crying in pain. I felt impotent, I could not do anything but be covered by the beautiful snow that turned red, and the sky hid the moon with thick clouds. My friend was still screeching at the sight of his arm holding on tight but disembodied as the last drops of blood fell. I felt so helpless just by staying on the ground holding him and watching the sky amid the screams of everyone.

It took a little while for a man from an ambulance to take Tom away, and I was still there like a damn useless dog … I could not stand up and follow everyone, other cars kept crashing because of us. The snow changed its white innocence by the color of death. It was when a man put me on a mask and I fell asleep while my head played ‘The Sound of Silence’ as a macabre background music, and my tears spilled. I closed my eyes, fearing the idea of never waking up, or that any other of them won’t open theirs either.

When I woke up, it was another night and I could only ask myself where all of them were. I was alone in a room, I didn’t know how, but I ended up alone with a small blow on the head that left a bruise on a large part of my face. I left my room and found several nurses and doctors who did not complete themselves on that cold night. The concert no longer mattered and well, with so many broken bones, I would not worry about moving anymore.

I was still watching my hands, I felt guilty. I felt that I had torn Tom off his arm, and I wanted to run, cry and vomit, all at the same time, while a cough was drowned in my throat.

“It was not your fault,” said a voice behind me, and with wet eyes, I found Richie Sambora with a collar and his left eye full of blood.

“It was my responsibility” I replied with a low and weak voice tone. “No, it was not” he insisted and sat next to me in the waiting room while a Russian newscast was projected on the television and a nurse ran, carrying three coolers to the hospital center.

“Do you know if the others are fine?” I asked with difficulty.

“Well … Fred lost several teeth and fractured an ankle pretty badly. Jeff is fine, but it will be hard to carry that guitar with a broken collar bone” he answered by clearing my face of my blonde bangs, a nurse shouted things that we couldn’t understand.

“Will they cancel the concert?” he asked and with the little strength that I had, I answered “No band can move, and it will be difficult for everyone. I hope this concert go the fuck away right now” he just looked at the floor and then at me,“ Jon’s arm, did you see it? One shoulder came out from his body.”

-----------------

In a small bedroom, fortunately, Bon Jovi members were together in a place for two, for a small hospital at the side of the road, it was a miracle to have a place where they could stay during the snowfall and was more than filled.

“Hey Tico!” Jon yelled, but his friend did not respond, he was under the effect of some medication to calm the pain which also made him asleep “Alec! Do you know if someone died?” David asked.

“Just a reporter, the organs exploded inside him. Or that’s the only thing that I’ve heard so far.”

------------

I was sitting in the waiting room watching the world go by. Tommy Lee was shouting at a doctor, two nurses were crying inconsolably because a small child couldn’t be saved after our buses caused so much damage. I was convinced that I was responsible for all this. What could I do to fix my errors? I cried for the last two hours, enough to feel that I have no tears left.

My heart seemed to stop when the first funeral hearse arrived to pick up several of my companions. I was terrified, and I felt my blood dropping and making me dizzy slowly. I wanted to cry, but I hyperventilated instead. I took strength and ran to the bathroom to vomit for the next few minutes and go back to the waiting room to torture myself.

Tom was dying, he lost lots of blood, and it was getting too late for him after almost 5 hours of surgery. The news affected me badly, and I went back to the bathroom crying and puking again. Time passed, and I did not leave the cubicle to be able to help my friend. I wanted to die and stop suffering, the funeral floats did not stop arriving and in each of them, my heart broke more.

“Get out,” a voice said outside, and I wiped my tears, thinking the worst had arrived, and a doctor had called me to notify my best friend’s death. Instead of, outside, an elegant redhead man was looking at me with a polite smile.

“Are you thinking about taking him back to America?” I said, crossing my arms, and the man laughed. “What’s so funny?” I asked.

“I’m the devil and I want to help you” The redhead spoke and took off his hat revealing a couple of horns that made my heart beat fast, giving me pain.

“Is a joke! A SICK FUCKING JOKE!” I screamed at him. The redhead looked into my eyes and I suddenly had no injuries on me.

“How you did do that?”

“I’m the devil, I can do anything”

“Even/save/Tom?”. The man smiled and nodded, “But I need you to give me life for a life”. I looked down and noticed a gun in his hand and grabbed it. Inside I was sure to do that, but outside was scared. I wasn’t controlling that, though, but I grabbed the gun and bit it with my teeth.

“You know. The only good way to commit a perfect suicide is shooting at the back of your head,” he said, taking out the gun from my mouth. I was sweating and shaking, but I was committed to do anything to fix my error and bring everyone back to life.

Then, the man was no longer a man. I was looking at the most perfect creature in front of me, blinded by its beauty. He guided my hand with the shotgun to the back of my head, and in a second everything was over.

---------

Tom woke up by miracle feeling good and his arm was back. He looked at a corner where a fancy redhead man stared back.

“You know you can save your band, right?” the devil said and walked at Tom, “But I would need… a life for a life…”

#cinderella #cinderella band #eric brittingham #tom keifer #fanfiction #horror fanfiction #cw: gore #drama fanfiction #bon jovi #jon bon jovi #tico torres #richie sambora #Tommy Lee #mötley crüe #the leather vampire #80s hard rock #deal with the devil #short story #the cinderella cult

[saturnns-star]

Grrrr read my shitty fanfic now 👿👿👿👿

(I ONLY HAVE 3 CHAPTERS OUT RN SO DON’T EXPECT MUCH-/the introduction/setting the story chapters are very short)

(Also I apologize for you guys having to deal with my uncontrollable hyperfixations-)

#fanfics r hard #fanfiction #wattpad #wick hellbent games #tw trauma #tw cursing #tim weaver #tom weaver #lillian weaver #caleb weaver #Benny weaver #wick lillian #wick tom #wick tim #wick caleb #wick Benny #wick sam

[thatsrightice]

penguins are flightless birds and so am i

word count: 4.8k

main themes: iceman angst, surprise homecoming, hurt/comfort, big fluff, flyboys being flyboys, found family, some military lingo

pain: yes

summary:

The words on the paper he pulled from his pocket weighed heavy on his shoulders, hurt more than all of the physical and mental pain from the last two weeks combined. He was officially grounded, placed on convalescent leave and still not sure he'll be able to take the temporary assignment. He despises the feeling of being stuck on the ground for an eternity with his wings clipped while everyone around him danced in the sky, teasing him like the flightless bird he is.“-f**king penguin,” he mumbled to himself as he exhaled, eyes shut because he was just so tired.

or

Iceman returns home from deployment early, but not on his own terms.

READ ON AO3 NOW

#finally posted it!!! #tagging is so hard btw #forgive me for any mistakes or issues it’s been a hot sec since I’ve posted a fanfic #top gun #tom iceman kazansky #ron slider kerner #pete maverick mitchell #sam merlin wells #leonard wolfman wolfe #rick hollywood neven #takes place in the early 90s #hurt/comfort #fanfiction #just a little thing i wrote #soft iceman #protective slider #implied eventual icemav #but can he read as slicemav or slice #icemav #TUMBLR WHY

[cardiac-agreste]

A Small but Stubborn Fire, Chapter 3: Dark Cupid

Hey all, I've posted chapter three of my @mlbigbang 2023 fic, which is all about Sabine (the POV character!) trying to figure out what's giving her daughter nightmares, and how she can help her. Thank you to @wehadabondingmoment for the help getting one scene right! And thank you so much again to @uptoolateart and @raspberrycatapult for beta reading this chapter. Y'all don't know how complete poop it would be without my friends' input!

Summary

It was times like this that she regretted—only in the darkest recesses of her heart—that she didn’t have more control over her daughter like her mother had once had over her. She felt guilty for even thinking it, and she’d certainly never tell Tom. But she understood how a mother’s fear could turn into a spear, jabbing away, intent on subjugating a defiant daughter.

But Marinette wasn’t defiant. She was determined. Those two character traits were the same object, just viewed from a different perspective. And she couldn’t afford to lose perspective.

---

Sabine worries at home while Marinette and Alya go shopping. And when they return home, Sabine gets more to worry about.

#miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #mlb #mlb fandom #gabriel agreste #ladybug #sabine cheng #tom dupain #alya cesaire #panic attack #mlb fanfic #trauma #hurt/comfort #angst #parenting is hard #oc #fanfiction #chinese names #chinese culture

[forlix]

𝐜𝐫𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠・h.h.

— you're uninviting, there's no doubt about that, your resolve like unpolished diamond and tongue like broken glass. but hyunjin finds you're not half as impossible as everyone assumes you are.

words・11.1k

pairing・idol!hyunjin x female stylist!reader (inspired by this)

genres・fluff, angst, eventual smut so MDNI, some hurt/comfort, some humor, mc is a bad bitch and hyunjin is a #simp, enemies? to lovers, sexual tension, workplace relationship, mutual pining, slow burn, nonlinear narrative, alternating perspectives

warnings・cunnilingus, overstimulation, creampie (practice safe sex!!), mild dacryphilia. again, MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS THAT INTERACT WITH THIS POST WILL BE BLOCKED.

warnings (cont'd.)・reader vividly remembers an anxiety attack. alcohol is consumed. lots of compartmentalization and imperfect communication. latter half is just kind of sad in general tbh but what do u expect from a fic based off alex turner lyrics

playlist・farewell, neverland by txt・like crazy by jimin・black friday by tom odell・collide by justine skye・crying lightning by arctic monkeys

a/n・call me victor frankenstein bc i've given birth to a MONSTER (except i actually love and care for mine ofc). this was easily the greatest challenge of my fanfiction-writing career and it feels like my magnum opus; i hope it's worth the wait! also a huge shoutout to sahar for being my voice of reason and my biggest supporter :’) i don’t deserve u i love u

Present day. Cannes, France. 5:54 P.M.

You’ve long made peace with the fact that Hwang Hyunjin is incapable of shutting up for more than five minutes.

As it is, the man has a mouth that runs like a cross-country marathon; then throw in his uncanny aptitude for annoying you, and what do you get? A nonstop slew of terrible jokes and teasing quips, tailored according to his thorough mental manual of what gets under your skin hardest and fastest.

This is the reality you live in, presumably because you were evil in your past life, and you’ve steeled yourself to see it through.

But twenty minutes have passed since you and Hyunjin ducked into the back of a cab and gave the driver the show’s address—and, as stunning as the red rooftops and lazuline coastline of Cannes are, you find you’re more interested in Hyunjin’s peculiar silence.

You move your gaze to his face. He’s looking outside, his chin resting upon the palm of his hand, the afternoon sunlight dusting over his chiseled features like polish on pottery; his complexion an exuberant gold against the cream-colored linen that makes up his clothing.

Maybe it’s because you opted for a simpler makeup look today, leaving the most telling contours of his face warm and bare, or maybe it’s because you’ve spent the last year committing his every mannerism and expression to memory. Nevertheless, you see through his pursed lips and tight brow right away.

“Nervous?” 

Hyunjin’s head swivels towards you with a small snap, like he’s forgotten you’re here. His lips fall open, their glossy peach color glinting with the small shift.

“No,” he replies reflexively, but then his facade flickers. “Fuck, maybe a little. It’s just hard to believe, you know?”

You do know. It was a huge honor for both of you when Hyunjin was named the newest global ambassador of Versace. For you to be attending the brand’s pop-up show in one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, among some of the world’s most prolific creatives, is truly incomprehensible. Even you’ve been feeling antsy since you landed; you can only imagine Hyunjin’s anxiety.

You have never been good at consolation. You think your mouth is too coarse, your propensity for honesty too strong. But you’ve always known just what to say when it comes to him.

“Just remember who you are.”

Hyunjin takes a few seconds to process your words, but his understanding washes over his whole body; straightens his back; hardens his gaze. You don’t see this change in posture, though. You’re too busy looking anywhere else, all of a sudden feeling quite embarrassed.

Nor do you see the private smile that disperses across Hyunjin’s lips; his eyes softening so, so marginally when they peer at your profile; his hand twitching where it rests on his knee, as if contemplating reaching for you with a mind of its own.

Thirty seconds. That is the amount of time you have left to bask in this otherworldly tranquility. And then he speaks.

“I want you to meet my parents.”

Your arm reacts before your mind can. Without having to turn your head an inch, you smack him squarely in the bicep, sending him crumpling against his door with a bark of a laugh; “please,” he adds, and you’re biting back a smile as you hit him again, with less conviction this time.

The cab driver nearly misses an exit, too busy wondering about the peculiar pair in his backseat and the nature of your relationship. He can’t tell if you hate each other or if you’re married.

One year ago. Seoul, South Korea. 8:42 A.M.

“I still can’t believe you’re abandoning me.”

“For my newborn daughter.”

“Yeah, okay. I still can’t believe you’re abandoning me for your newborn daughter. What does that brat have that I don’t?”

“My genes, to begin with.”

“That’s unfair. She’s using—”

An important-looking pair of women step out of the nearest elevators, the clacking of their heels ricocheting sharply off the lobby walls. Hyunjin straightens his back so quickly he thinks he pulls a muscle. He and Seojun incline their heads in perfect sync, their “good morning”s prim and professional.

“She’s using cheats,” Hyunjin hisses the second the women are out of earshot again, and this wrests a laugh from the older man at last.

Around one month prior, Seojun confided in Hyunjin that he and his partner were expecting their first child soon, and that he would be putting his career on indefinite hiatus to welcome her into the world.

Hyunjin had never felt so conflicted in his life. On one hand, he’d grown closer to his stylist over the last two years than he’d thought possible, and he knew it was stupid to be anything but delighted for him and his expanding family. On the other hand, it was precisely because they’d become so close that he wanted to grab the man by the ankles and shake the decision clean out of his body. He couldn’t imagine a dressing room or tour bus without him.

Today is a Saturday, but it’s also Seojun’s last day with the company. Hyunjin dragged himself to the JYP building at half past eight with much less reluctance than he let on. He wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

“Fourth floor,” Seojun instructs after the pair enter the elevator, and Hyunjin presses a knuckle to the according number. “Thanks.”

The doors slide shut; the floor numbers tick upwards.

“What was her name again?” Hyunjin asks.

“Y/N,” Seojun returns. “Y/L/N.”

“Is she here already?”

“No, she’ll be here at nine.”

There’s a small pause. 

“Hyung.”

“Hm?”

“I feel like I’m being married off to another family for political reasons.”

“God, I can’t wait to be free of your theatrics.”

At this, the two men make eye contact; exchange smiles. The elevator announces their arrival to the fourth floor, and they step through the doors.

“You’ll be in good hands,” Seojun reassures. “She’s the best of the best. I hear she’s basically running the industry these days. I’m surprised she agreed to take you on.”

“I’m surprised an old fry like you knows someone like her,” Hyunjin replies, and the look Seojun gives him is so withering that he thinks he pulls a muscle again with his apologetic bow.

“You’re not wrong, though,” Seojun concedes. “We happened to work on the same project back when she was still a small name, and we’ve kept in touch ever since. She’s a great kid. Ambitious, hardworking, strong as hell—”

They arrive outside their destination, and Hyunjin holds open the door to the conference room. Only to find that Seojun has stopped in his footsteps, temporarily stunned by a new realization.

She reminds me of him.

“He’s forgotten how to walk,” the him in question whispers like he’s narrating a nature documentary, and the moment is over. “Is this what fatherhood does to a man?”

Seojun kicks Hyunjin into the room by the seat of his pants.

The minutes pass slowly. Seojun moves his eyes between the door and his phone every few seconds, visibly antsy about the imminent meeting. In the meantime, Hyunjin makes the groundbreaking discovery that these office chairs are absurdly and almost suspiciously comfortable. All it takes is a chin upon his palm and a few seconds of shut-eye, and he’s suddenly slumped over the table, snoring softly into the crook of his elbow.

At 8:57, Seojun’s phone lights up with a new notification. At 8:58, he notices that Hyunjin is asleep, and closes his hand around the crumpled receipt in his pocket. At 8:59, he scrunches said receipt into a ball and launches it in Hyunjin’s direction. It hits him squarely on the head, and the boy is nearly knocked to the floor like a bowling pin.

“For that,” Hyunjin sputters, “I’m the godfather.”

“Absolutely the hell not.”

Then, it is 9:00.

When the door of the conference room opens, Hyunjin is still trying to gather his wits, wondering if the bastard is leaving the makeup industry to secretly pursue a career in professional basketball. He just barely notices the unfamiliar figure who steps into his line of vision.

“There she is,” Seojun greets warmly, rising to his feet right away. “God, how long has it been? Two, three years now?”

You’re not doing anything remarkable when Hyunjin sees you for the first time, simply walking across the room and bowing graciously in Seojun’s direction, but he is immediately under the vague impression that you’re cutting through space as you move, scorching the particles of air that dare obstruct your path. 

With his head cocked slightly to the left, like a fascinated puppy, Hyunjin watches the stunning smile that forms on your lips when you take Seojun’s hand; your finger as it tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear with the elegance of rippling silk. His mind feels impossibly slow, like you’ve tapped open his skull and robbed him of his ability to think.

Then, you toss Hyunjin a look over your shoulder, and he’s reminded of lightning forking towards the earth. Terrifying, volatile, beautiful.

“Something like that,” you say, turning back to Seojun, and time starts to move again. “It’s great to see you again, Mr. Lee. Congratulations on the baby.”

“Please, Seojun is fine,” he answers hastily. “And thank you. Thank you for all of this, actually. I can’t tell you how excited we are to have you.” 

“You’re too kind—I’m excited too.”

Upon uttering the word “we,” Seojun delivers Hyunjin a fleeting side-eye; he takes the hint and pushes himself to his feet, feeling uncharacteristically clumsy as he moves towards you.

The second time he meets your gaze, it feels wrong, almost, for him to hold it for as long as he does. Like he’s approaching your throne with his chin held high and eyes fixed forward instead of his head sweeping the ground.

Except he swears he senses a strange warmth within the rings of your irises, and he spends every second of eye contact following, chasing it, almost craning his neck with how badly he wants to get a closer look. Until he’s as close to you as is socially acceptable for a first meeting and comes to a halt.

He ends up losing its trail, but he won’t forget that it’s there. 

“My client, I’m guessing?” You say, extending your hand. “Y/N. It’s a pleasure.”

Your fingers are freezing cold where they meet his, and Hyunjin already knows that melting the permafrost that coats your flesh and guards your soul will be the tallest task of his life.

But he finds his next words accompanied by an involuntary smirk; he’s nothing, if not tenacious.

“Hyunjin,” he returns. “Pleasure’s all mine.”

Nine months ago. Paris, France. 6:16 P.M.

Hyunjin isn’t sure why—maybe you forget that he can still steal glances at your reflection over your shoulder or through the gaps of your fingers—but he’s learned over the last four weeks that you’re different, gentler, when you’re doing his makeup.

Your cold hands request instead of demand that he angle his head a certain way or suck in his cheeks. Your syllables are rounder somehow, your voice never traveling above a murmur. Even your eyes mellow out when you move in really close, your pupils dilating as you detail the final touches to the fresco you’ve painted upon him.

Your expression doesn’t give you away (it never does), but his hunch is that there’s a sprinkle of doting somewhere among the intense focus. That would explain why he feels like a flower in the moments when your fingertips and gaze move so carefully over his skin, like you’re touching his petals, trying not to tear them.

Too bad you never let him daydream for long.

“Close.”

“Huh?”

“Your eyes. Close them.”

His lashes have hardly brushed his lower lids when you begin to empty what feels like an entire bottle of setting spray on him. At the moist surprise, Hyunjin’s features scrunch up around his nose and he lets out a distraught hack like an old man.

A few seconds later, the barrage stops, and he cracks open a wary eye to scope out his surroundings. You wait until he does this to give his face one last spurt.

“Witch,” Hyunjin mutters, clawing back up the vanity chair.

“Thank you,” you reply, completely earnestly.

And whatever Hyunjin was going to say next suspends instantly on his tongue when you bring the pad of your thumb to the very edge of his lower lip and drag it across the soft flesh. He wonders if you know how hard he tries not to look at your mouth whenever you tend to his. He wonders if there’s anything you don’t know.

“You smudged your lipstick already.” There’s a small streak of coral pink on your hand when it falls back to your side. “See? That’s why we need the setting spray.”

“Uh huh.” And Hyunjin spots a ghost of a smile flit across your face, gone nearly as soon as it appears. The only evidence of it ever existing is the quickened heartbeat it leaves behind within him.

“You’re done, by the way,” you say, stepping aside. “Take a look.”

He slips out of his seat and moves closer to the vanity, peering at his reflection as curiously as if he’s never seen it before. But that’s how he’s felt since he started working with you.

Seojun was right: you are the best that the makeup industry has to offer. Hyunjin has come to understand this for multiple reasons. Your phone screen is incessantly illuminated by new notifications and incoming calls. The other stylists heed your advice like it’s the law. Brushes and pencils move like water when it’s you maneuvering them. And then some.

He would call what you have “talent,” but he knows it’s more than that. You show him a new version of himself every time you turn a mirror in his direction, like there are facets of him that are visible to you and you only. As much as he delights in the notion that you have such intimate knowledge of him, it should be impossible, considering you’ve only known him for two months. So no, it’s not just talent that you possess. It’s some combination of talent, hawkish perception, and raw artistry that is utterly inhuman—and sexy as fuck.

Speaking of sexy. Hyunjin’s look is relatively rudimentary tonight, the makeup light, the outfit a simple black tank top beneath a jacket and pants made of bright red velvet. But it’s the details that tie the whole thing together: the wide, loose sleeves causing the jacket to slip continually off his shoulders; the inner layer tight in all the right places. His face doesn’t look half bad either, with the sultry carmine powder that fringes his eyes and the intentionally mussed state of his hair. He pushes a hand through the dark locks, regarding himself with thorough appreciation.

You appear in his periphery as you start cleaning up your work station. “You can just take the jacket off when your sweat glands start malfunctioning, by the way. I thought you’d appreciate that detail.”

At this, his smize cracks into a laugh, the sound loud and uninhibited and uniquely yours to hear. “You suck.”

He looks away from his reflection just in time to glimpse another of your phantom smiles, and he thinks it’s so painfully on brand that the two times it’s appeared tonight have both been from you making yourself laugh. You might be the most insufferable person he’s ever met. He might be obsessed with you anyways.

“Well?” You implore. “What do you think?”

“No notes.” 

It’s the answer you’re expecting. You survey him from head to toe one last time, decide that you, too, are satisfied, and slip your makeup into your bag; hike its strap over your shoulder.

“I’ll see you after the show, then.”

You have an important conference call to attend before tonight’s concert, hence why Hyunjin had to come in early for hair and makeup. This is also the reason why the two of you have been the only people in the dressing room for the better part of an hour. 

It’s rare that he ever gets you alone, and he doesn’t want it to end. Not just yet.

“I lied, actually,” he calls. “I do have notes.”

You already have one foot out the door when you hear this, and you turn around so slowly and in such disbelief that he has to fight to constrain his laugh—the concept of imperfection is truly unthinkable to you. Insufferable, like he said.

“Do tell,” you say, dropping your bag back onto the floor.

“You have any jewelry for me?”

You chew on this for a moment. You did have a selection of necklaces prepared for tonight, but they were heavy and numerous, not exactly the best-suited for the group’s dynamic sets. You still like them, granted, and you know Hyunjin would as well.

You articulate all of this to him, and he asks if he can take a look at them anyways. “Come here, then,” you say, the words so tantalizing when they fall from your lips that nearly trips over himself trying to obey.

You take out a flat rectangular box from your bag and set it down in front of the lightbulb-studded mirrors. Hyunjin observes quietly as you show him its contents: three thick, gold chains with varying lengths and boasting different pendants, plus a beaded bracelet and an assembly of rings of the same material. His devious plan aside, he does love the selection.

“You’re sure you won’t be uncomfortable?”

He nods, and you pick up the longest of the three chains; turn to him expectedly. He takes this as his cue to move closer to you, except he overshoots a little, and he feels the tips of his shoes accidentally bump into the ends of yours; discerns the warmth emanating from your body against his own. He expects a withering glare, a kick in the shin, maybe, but you don’t seem bothered by the proximity at all, unblinking as you bring your hands around the either side of his neck and fasten the first necklace with a soft tap. Your fingers then brush over his collarbones to adjust the pendant, and he thinks your hands would have to be numb not to perceive the frantic heartbeat threatening to burst straight out of his skin.

Entire minutes pass before Hyunjin musters the courage to actually look at you. By then, you’re already working on the third and final necklace. It’s not a surprise that your face is mere inches away from his; he’s been watching your reflections out of the corner of his eye; he knows you’re closer to each other than you’ve ever been. But there are parts of you that the mirror doesn’t show—the soft curve of your lashes, the concentrated narrow of your eyes, the shapely protrusion of your pursed lips—and these surprise him so thoroughly that he slips and slides out of his right mind.

You are the type of beautiful that’s been around longer than humans have, the same as that of the true blue color of forget-me-nots. And Hyunjin feels enveloped, intoxicated by you from this minuscule distance. The idea forms numbly in his head that maybe, just maybe, he was put on this earth to admire you.

In this inebriated state, he makes a venturesome decision.

When you finish centering the last pendant upon the his chest, you are about to take a step back and review the updated look, but you’re debilitated by the feeling of fingers grazing over your hip—lightly, so lightly that you mistake them for a gust of wind at first, but the contact is enough to push the small of your back against the edge of the counter. Then, both of Hyunjin’s hands reach behind you, pressing flat against the marble surface, and, just like that, he has you right where he wants you, ensnared between cold stone and hot flesh.

And so begins an equilibrium so fragile that it’ll shatter if one of you so much as blinks the wrong way, your rattled breath fluttering against his lips, his eyes dark and hooded and out of focus as they survey the fine lines of your expression. It still doesn’t give you away (it never does), but he finds that in this moment he just doesn’t care.

“Let me take you out,” he murmurs. “One date.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” You reply under your breath.

“You know what I’m talking about, beautiful.”

Upon uttering that last word, he angles his head almost imperceptibly, the movement challenging, daring you to say something about it. But you don’t. You merely hiss out a whetted “you’re fucking crazy,” and that’s his opening to drag this on a little longer; push your limits a little more.

“About you? Damn straight.”

At this, finally, fucking finally, there is a semblance of something in your face that isn’t just your usual mildly-irritated nonchalance. Instead, he detects surprise in the whites of your eyes as you widen them; as you part your lips with a response that only comes much later.

And he’s surprised by your surprise. Surely, with your skills of observation, you would’ve noticed long ago how his world shrinks down to only you and your gorgeous voice and your confident glare and your shitty sense of humor whenever he’s been granted the privilege of your presence.

This might be the first time he’s admitted it out loud, but he hasn’t tried—hasn’t been able—to hide how he feels about you, not now, not ever. It’s been that way since the moment the sole of your shoe met the carpet of that conference room on the fourth floor of the JYP building.

 “Hwang—” You begin.

“Hyung!”

At the sound of a third, new voice, your arms tense like you’re about to shove Hyunjin off of you, but he only leans in further, so that his lips almost graze your jaw and your hands have nowhere to go except the taut surface of his chest. The surprise is gone; now you’re just pissed. He can feel the heat of your furious eyes and the tremor in your hands as you form fists around the fabric of his top. But he takes his sweet time in scooping up the bracelet and rings, and only afterwards does he pull away from you and straighten to his full height.

“Hey, Innie!” Hyunjin chirps, and Jeongin materializes in the doorway, looking thoroughly perturbed by the older boy’s sunny tone. “What’s up?” 

In the meantime, you turn around to snap the lid of your jewelry box shut, and it takes a singular glance in the mirror for a truly horrible realization to settle upon your shoulders. You don’t think anybody would be able to tell even if you announced it outright, but you know yourself and the little nuances of your face all too well.

You’re flustered.

You feel like a horror movie heroine breaking the fourth wall. 

“Nothing, weirdo. I was just announcing my arrival,” Jeongin says. Thank fuck you did, Hyunjin thinks to himself, completely unaware of the epiphany you’re having behind him. “Chan-hyung mentioned you were here already? Why?”

“She’s in high demand.” Hyunjin points out the she in question by jutting his chin in your direction. “The usual.”

“Ah.”

Jeongin inclines his head towards you in polite greeting. You return his hello, but your expression starts to feel tight when his eyes dart between the strange smile on Hyunjin’s face and your awkward stance (still glued to the edge of the counter) as he drops his duffel by the couch. The boy isn’t stupid, unlike his older counterpart.

“I saw a vending machine on my way here,” Jeongin says, turning to leave the room again. “You want anything, hyung? Noona?”

“I’m okay, thank you,” you say.

“I’ll have whatever you have,” Hyunjin says.

Jeongin flashes a thumbs-up and dips out of the room, perhaps a little more hastily than he intends to come across. And then there are two. Again.

You wait until you can’t hear his footsteps anymore, and then you turn to glower at Hyunjin so intensely that he thinks you’re about to place a curse on his whole bloodline.

Then, your phone starts vibrating, and he knows he’ll live to see another day.

“You still owe me an answer,” Hyunjin calls as you turn around and leave the room.

“Don’t hold your breath,” you reply.

One day, I’ll break her, is the predominant thought that resides in Hyunjin’s head as he slips on the remaining jewelry; watches your figure disappear around a corner. One day, I’ll break his face, is the predominant thought that resides in yours as you stalk away. That’s the two of you, in a nutshell.

Six months ago. Osaka, Japan. 3:03 P.M.

When you walk into the dressing room, you find Haeun hunched over an overflowing photo album with her hands forming fists in her hair, muttering to nobody in particular, “I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing.”

There’s an amused look in your eye as you set your bag down by Hyunjin’s empty vanity chair. She hasn’t noticed your presence yet; approximately three hallways down, the members are rehearsing for tonight’s performance on the main stage of the Kyocera Dome, and the music is so loud that you think you actually saw the walls vibrating while you were in the hallway moments ago.

You rise to your tiptoes and encroach upon her, waiting until she’s within reach to tickle the back of her neck. She nearly flies out of her seat with a shriek that can be heard over the heavy bass.

“Never gets old.” You hand her the photo album that went soaring also, and Haeun snatches it back with an affronted flourish.

“I can’t remember the last time you said hi to me normally, unnie.”

“Me neither, now that you mention it.”

Haeun and Han are your favorite stylist-idol duo in the world because they’re so eerily similar—and it’s adorable. They both illuminate every room they walk into; they both have grins too big for their faces, laughs too loud for their lungs. You always regret leaving your sunglasses at home when you catch sight of the effulgent pair.

But today you cannot detect the usual radiance in Haeun’s voice, nor so much as a hint of her easy grin. Then again, that’s another quality that she and her client share; they’re both well acquainted with the burdens that come with unwavering passion.

Every stylist has their own modus operandi. Haeun’s is a scrapbook of images that she cuts out and saves from catalogs, advertisements, newspapers, et cetera. You’ve seen it many times before, but never in such a state: messy handwriting stuffing the margins to their very brims, numbers and symbols like clusters of rainclouds over a sea of different outfits, arrows and circles and squares highlighting pant cuffs and cascade collars and dangling earrings. Telltale signs that Haeun hasn’t a clue as to what Han will be wearing tonight.

You gnaw on your lower lip, deliberating your next move. You end up placing a firm hand against the album’s cover and pushing it closed.

“Come with me,” you say. “We’re gonna try a new approach.”

Haeun opens her mouth to protest, but unfortunately you have an extensive track record of being right.

“What do you have in mind?” She sighs instead.

“You’ll see.”

With that, you stand up, tuck a small towel under your arm, and angle your head in the direction of the music.

The two of you make your way through the labyrinth of hallways that comprise the venue’s backstage. Eventually, the color of the floor changes from speckled white to solid black, and you step onto the part of the stage that is concealed from the audience by drawn curtains and heavy equipment. You say a quick hello to the group’s manager as you dip past him, and eventually reach the edge of the curtains, where you and Haeun have a good view of the eight members as they run through their setlist for tonight’s concert.

Haeun settles into the spot beside you, still confused as she follows your gaze. 

“Let me ask you this,” you say, just audible over the din. “Can you style a performer if you don’t know how he performs?”

And understanding seeps over her features like poured tea.

“I want you to watch him,” you continue. “Tell me how he performs.”

Han’s part begins, as if on cue. His voice rings out through the empty stadium as he ducks to the front of the formation, a microphone held loosely to his lips, his face taut with focus. Haeun stares at him for some time, silently trying to fathom her observations, but she sees you shaking your head in the corner of her eye.

“Don’t think, Haeun. Just speak.”

She blows out a deep breath before obliging. “It’s hard to picture Han doing anything but laughing or making other people laugh, he’s so goofy and lighthearted most of the time. But he’s like a different person on stage. He’s so intense, it’s almost intimidating. Not intimidating in a douchey way, though—you just get the impression that he’s very confident in himself and his music.

You don’t say another word, but don’t need to. She’s hit her stride.

“His voice and enunciation are so clear. It’s crazy how he sounds exactly like the studio recording. Plus, his delivery feels genuine; he’s not just reciting lyrics, but speaking straight from his heart.

“And this is gonna sound bad, but I didn’t know Han could dance. Like, yeah, I knew that he could dance, but not like this. His movements are so sharp that I feel like my attention is being—”

Right there.

She cuts herself off, reaching the same conclusion.

“It’s his turn to talk, and he wants you to cling to his every word," Haeun articulates slowly. "He’s demanding your attention. He needs you to listen. That’s how he performs.”

A satisfied smile bolts across your face like lightning. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Haeun pictures her scrapbook again, and there are now only a few articles of clothing and accessories that fit the framework you’ve helped her forge. She’s almost dizzy with disbelief, tearing her eyes from Han to look at you instead.

“You’re brilliant, you know that?”

“I do, but I appreciate the reminder.”

She can’t help but giggle. It’s a you answer if she’s ever heard one. “Do you do that with all of your clients?”

Haeun asks the question arbitrarily, without thinking. But you respond in a way that she doesn’t think she’s ever witnessed before, and she’s momentarily baffled by the sight: you hesitate.

As the song’s final chorus approaches, Hyunjin is the one folding himself into the center of the eight-person throng. You can only see his back from this angle, but even then it’s palpable how expertly and effortlessly he molds his body to the modulations of the music; how much fervor and feeling he expresses with every jerk of his spine and flex of his hands.

Within a few short seconds, innumerable descriptors and sensations skim the surface of your mind—but one word knocks the rest clean out of the water, the way it always does when you watch Hwang Hyunjin perform.

Artistry.

“No,” you reply. “Not all of them.”

And where better to find inspiration than inspiration himself?

Haeun furrows a brow, understandably puzzled by this response, but you don’t elaborate. Partially because you feel like being coy, but mostly because you know that any explanation you offer will sound like a confession.

The song ends, leaving your ears ringing with the abrupt absence of sound. The members hold their poses with heaving shoulders, staring out into the empty stands until the stage manager’s voice comes through the monitors.

“And that’s a wrap! We’re all set for tonight. Good work, everyone.”

There is a ripple of movement around the stage as the boys relax. Jeongin jogs over to Minho, hoping to review a particularly challenging dance break; the manager asks Chan if he has a second to discuss travel logistics; Seungmin plops onto the edge of the stage and downs the rest of his water; Hyunjin beelines toward you the second he sees you, because of course he does.

You get a good look at him as he skips closer. Stray blonde locks plastered against his damp skin, tank top dyed several shades darker by the perspiration rolling down his neck, the muscles of his arms actually rippling as he swings them around stupidly, a shit-eating smile plastered across his stunning face.

You’re annoyed before he says a word.

“I didn’t know they were letting fans backstage now,” he hums happily. “Want an autograph, gorgeous?”

“Put a sock in it.” You whisk the towel you’ve been holding in his direction. “Wet freak.”

But he catches and tosses it over his shoulder straightaway, and your heart sinks to your fucking ankle. You’ve seen this movie before. You know how it ends.

“No.” You take a shaky step back. “No, nope, don’t even think about—”

The next thing you know, Hyunjin is lunging towards you and winding his arms around your waist, nearly sweeping you clean off your feet as he pulls you into his sweaty embrace. To your complete dismay, your face presses flat against the clammy plane of his chest. “Call me a wet freak again, go on,” he manages to say through his laughter. 

In response, one of your hands wriggles free of its slippery prison and snatches the cuff of Hyunjin’s ear with impressive accuracy. He yelps and loosens his hold on you, but doesn’t relent completely, not even when he catches sight of the murderous expression on your face and cackles so forcefully his whole head is thrown back.

You tighten your grip. “Wet,” you seethe, “freak.”

“Ow—okay, don’t make it hot, what’s wrong with you?”

“Wha—what’s wrong with YOU?!”

As the two of you dissolve into your fatuous arguing, Haeun is no longer sure that she’s still standing here. She’s not even sure if she’s in her right mind anymore. She thinks she might be hallucinating the way everything about Hyunjin softens next to you, or the way your biting tone only seems to nibble when it’s him on the receiving end.

“Psst. We’ve been placing bets on them. You want in?”

Han suddenly materializes next to Haeun, and she would have been jumpscared into a different dimension if she wasn’t so fixated upon the bizarre occurrence before her.

But what if she’s not hallucinating?

No, not all of them, you’d said, like you were disclosing a forbidden secret.

“Yes,” she says, and Han beams. “Absolutely.”

Three months ago. Seoul, South Korea. 2:26 A.M.

On a tranquil Saturday night, you’re sitting at your desk, your knees tucked to your chest, the newest episode of your drama playing quietly on your laptop, a half-empty glass of rosé and open sketchbook laid before you. This is your happy place—a safe haven that the trials and tribulations of the real world can’t reach. But you think you’ve really gone and lost your mind when you find yourself thinking about your job.

Well, not your job, exactly. More like the man who makes your job feel fucking Sisyphean.

You know your way around fabric and foundation better than anyone, but you have never struggled with anything as much as you have trying to navigate Hyunjin. You show up to work every day ready to just put some makeup on the man; instead, you wind up stumbling around the potholes of his dimples and the hills of the veins that run over his forearms and hands like a hopeless drunkard. Scouring the creases of his smile and the oscillations of his voice like they’re topographical maps. Mentally replaying your interactions with him time and time again like you’re monitoring security footage, trying to detect illicit activity in every casual touch he leaves on your shoulder or waist; every babe or gorgeous he throws your way, seemingly without a second thought.

You’ve been trying to understand him and his intentions for seven months now, and your efforts have yielded no fruit whatsoever, save for a few theories that you feel insane for even humoring.

You down the rest of the blush-colored liquid, and as you set down your empty glass you notice your fingers itch with a familiar urge. The pen that you’ve been twirling over your knuckles stills, then swivels; its tip hovers over the last free corner of the sheet of cartridge paper below you. And then it presses upon the surface and starts to move, as naturally as if on its own.

When you were little, you came across a children’s book that you no longer remember the name of, about a little girl with a magical pen that brought her every drawing to life. You decided then that you would one day be that girl.

At some point, the subjects of your incessant sketching became almost exclusively runway models and makeup advertisements. You cemented that you wanted to work in fashion as early as your high school graduation, and by then you already possessed the conviction and charisma of the industry’s most experienced members. Your portfolio was stellar; your personality prophesied of wild success. So your career took off, propelled by the neverending positions and projects that various companies continually laid before your feet.

You stand and pad to your kitchen to refill your glass, only to bring the entire bottle of wine back to your room instead. With one hand, you flick the cap off and lift the whole thing to your lips; with the other, you seize your pen again, not wanting to lose momentum.

For the year or so after you joined the industry, you basked in your idyllic prosperity. Even the doodles you scrawled on random napkins during banal business lunches would appear on some of the world’s most renowned faces the next week. You had indubitably become the little girl from your story; made a career out of giving your imagination tangible form. And what a fruitful career it was going to be.

If only you knew how it would strengthen you in ways you never wanted.

The first time someone called you cold, it took you a while to realize that they were talking about you. The phrase was said so casually and lightheartedly that it sounded at first like a piece of unimportant small talk. But the whisper of cold bitch was then followed by a bout of stifled laughter and what was undoubtedly your name. Your heart stopped along with your footsteps, and you looked towards the source: two interns whose names you had yet to learn, while yours was already in their mouths.

You felt nothing until you were three stops away from your apartment, and then the bottom of the subway gave out beneath you and suddenly you were feeling everything. Only confusion, hurt, and rage at first, but then the other emotions that you’d been smothering tirelessly for who-knows-how-long tore free of their cerebral shackles too, and together they formed an amalgamation of anxiety that closed up your throat within seconds. 

As your pen studs details into a shapely jawline, you remember how you’d shoved your way off the subway and made a mad dash into the night air. You remember how you collapsed against a utility pole in an unfamiliar neighborhood, how your knuckles paled around the ashen wood, how your tears tumbled over your lips and salted your tongue. You remember wanting to go home so badly that you thought your ribcage would cave in on itself with the weight of it. You remember begging for air, for you.

By the time the oxygen had returned to your lungs, the streets were empty save for you, crouched on the curb, your face buried in your arms, spent, shattered, and alone. You were only nineteen at the time.

You are now twenty-two, and the word “cold” has become a regular guest in the lodgings of your heart. You never invite it over, but you’re no longer surprised to find it at your door. It’s a thief, swiping pieces of you when it thinks you’re not looking—a fragment above the fireplace, a scrap from the cracks between the couch—and you know whenever you’re being robbed, know that you lose parts of yourself upon its every visit. But better that than acknowledging what you lose.

You allow it to walk away with full pockets every time.

Hyunjin does not.

“Three words to describe yourself. Go,” he said a few days ago, the two of you heading back to the tour bus after a filming session. 

You were so used to these irrational inquiries of his that you didn’t bother trying to dodge this one. “You first.”

“Smart, sexy, suave,” he said immediately, but burst into a sheepish laugh at the sight of your weary glare. “Fine, fine, let me think. Ambitious, for one. Introspective, definitely—maybe overly so. And artistic. I’d like to think so, at least. Satisfied?”

The most creative person you knew doubting his own ingenuity was absurd to you, but you nodded begrudgingly. It was a good answer, for the most part.

“Now you.”

Honestly, the thief had surfaced the moment you heard the question, but you weren’t sure if you wanted to inform Hyunjin of its existence. Not because you didn’t trust him—you did, more than you had anyone in years—but because you didn’t know what you’d do with yourself if he agreed. You weren’t sure your heart would be able to take it.

When you met the boy’s gaze, though, the carob brown of his eyes was so curious and so comforting that you suspected that was never a possibility.

“Cold,” you mumbled. “I’ve been called cold before.”

There was a pregnant pause. You found yourself holding your breath. And then—

“That’s a joke, right?”

Hyunjin began to count off his fingers.

“Mean. So mean. Impossibly, infuriatingly confident. Talented, stubborn, strong. Funny, sometimes, I guess, though I’d rather you hit me with a metal pipe than admit that ever again.”

At this, you caved; a laugh erupted from your lips, leaving a genuine smile in its wake.

“Determined. Eloquent. Bossy. Some kind of evil, twisted genius. Contemplative, caring, compassionate. Fearless,” he went on. “You get my point. You’re a lot of things, Y/N, but cold isn’t one—”

He was about to say something mind-numbingly stupid. You could sense it in the air.

“—and not just because you’re hot.”

You smacked his bicep, the smile on your face now an uninhibited, helpless grin. And as he vanished into a fit of high-pitched laughter, you thought you sensed him crack open your door and slip your missing artifacts back to their rightful places.

Hyunjin began to climb into the bus, and you caught the cuff of his sleeve, your feet still planted on the pavement.

“Thank you,” you said.

The tremors of his fond chuckle traveled to your very core.

“Idiot,” he sighed softly.

Idiot, you write, and the drawings are complete. 

When you stand up, the bottle is mostly gone—and so are you. You splash some water on your face in lieu of your skincare routine and prod the inside of your mouth a few times using a dry toothbrush, and then you dive beneath your duvet and are dead asleep in minutes. Your slumber is interrupted only by dreams of a world where your theories about Hyunjin aren’t just theories.

If you’d had even one mouthful less of rosé, you might’ve remembered that you picked up your phone and opened your most recent conversation somewhere between steps two and three.

[3:10 A.M.] To: Hwang Hyunjin (Stray Kids, JYP) Audio Message.wav

Hi. I’m drunk and I’m going to regret this tomorrow. But that’s tomorrow’s business. There’s something I need to tell you tonight.

After I moved to Seoul, I used to get these bouts of homesickness. Not in a standard ‘I wanna go home’ kind of way, but in a way that felt like a hole had opened up in the ground below me. I was always ready for it to swallow me alive. I would’ve been happy for it to.

But I haven’t felt that way since I met you. I realized this not too long ago, and it threw me for a fucking loop. I’ve never felt seen the way you see me. I’ve never been known the way you know me. Every time I look at you or hear your voice, it feels so much like returning home that I don’t have to dream of it anymore.

You called me fearless the other day, but you’re wrong. I’m terrified. I’m terrified that history is going to repeat itself, that another home will slip through the cracks between my fingers and there will be nothing I can do to stop it. And that’s why I’m so hesitant towards you, towards whatever this is, because I don’t want to go through that ever again.

So the thing I need to tell you is that I care about you. I care so much that I’m scared speaking it into existence will make it real and vulnerable to all the worst parts of the world. But it’s not speaking it into existence if I’m drunk, right? Maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about. Maybe you’ll never even hear this. So it doesn’t count. That’s how that works, surely.

Sorry if this was totally nonsensical. And sorry that I’m so bad at feelings. You must think I’m impossible, and I don’t blame you.

Good night, Hyunjin. Thank you, again.

One month ago. Los Angeles, United States. 12:37 A.M.

When Hyunjin steps out of the hotel’s tall glass double doors, he’s wearing a teatree facemask, and his bags are draped over the crooks of his elbows like he’s an upper-echelon socialite on his way back from a lavish shopping spree. And then he sees you standing next to the curb, and the situation dawns on him in bits and pieces.

You’re the only one here. The vans that were supposed to take you to the airport are nowhere to be seen. Boarding begins in four minutes.

A soft flinch crimps his features. Oops.

“Tomorrow night,” you’re saying into your receiver, but your attention is on him only, your penetrative gaze putting the dead in deadpan. “The absolute earliest. You’re sure?”

When you finish listening to the manager’s response, you heave a sigh that sags your shoulders and end the call with a jab that should’ve splintered your screen protector.

Then, you start walking towards him.

“Hi,” Hyunjin says, his eyes pleading for mercy. “You are so talented and beautiful. I don’t tell you that often enough, do I?”

He expects you to grab him by the cuff of his ear again, to throw him a retort that’s twice as mean as it is witty, something along those lines. But you merely push your suitcase in his direction, and it is then when he notices that your face is hard enough to chip enamel; that your eyes are eerily, entirely empty. The tendril of warmth that’s always dancing among the subtleties of your expressions, that he’s always pursuing to the very borders of his dreamscapes, is nowhere to be seen.

A shiver travels down Hyunjin’s spine as he curls his fingers around the plastic handle.

Something’s not right.

“We’re gonna have to stay here another day,” you say. “Can you check us in? I have some calls to make.”

“Us?” Hyunjin repeats.

“Junghan could only reserve one room,” you reply, your phone already glued back to your ear. “The hotel is fully booked for the next few months.”

With that, you’re already preoccupied with the next thing, turning to the side to reschedule a meeting. But Hyunjin can only stare blankly at your profile, trying and failing to grasp that he’s going to spend a night with the subject of his every daydream. Though you might be leaning more towards the nightmare end of the spectrum at the moment, considering the way your head snaps back in his direction like a woman possessed.

Go, you mouth, and he obliges.

A few minutes later, Hyunjin is in the elevator by himself. He speculates it’s an ingenious, intentional choice that the lights are turned off, so that whoever’s inside can watch the psychedelic lights of Los Angeles sprawl further and wider the higher they go. But he can’t think of anything except for the subzero nothingness where your irises should’ve been.

Hyunjin’s initial guess was that he crossed a line with this missed plane, but the more he thinks about it the clearer it becomes that this isn’t an isolated issue. It’s the culmination of something bigger. Something continuous.

You have become as familiar to him as the lines of his eyes or the ridges of his knuckles. He’s learned where to look for your feelings when he can’t find them in your face; studied your words and the undertones of your voice like they’re verses of scripture. Yet, it was around two months ago when Hyunjin looked at your side profile and couldn’t recognize you. He’d blinked, startled, and then you’d asked why he was looking at you so strangely, and everything returned to normal. He wrote it off as a side effect of sleep deprivation and paid it no more mind that day.

Except it happened again a few days later; again, not too long after, and Hyunjin began to suspect that he was losing his mind. You didn’t seem all that different—a bit more taciturn than usual, maybe, but you’d been busier than usual, too, your workspace always full of empty coffee cups by the end of the day, the pages of your planner more colorful and crammed than ever. The minor variances never struck him as a reason for worry.

“Stupid,” Hyunjin whispers bitterly.

He replays your interaction one more time. You, shoving your suitcase against his palm, telling him to go check in. Him, fastening his hand around the handle, sensing the bottomless void within you, feeling like he’d been dismissed from before your throne.

As he steps off the elevator and walks towards your designated room, he doesn’t understand how or why—but he can’t shake the feeling that he’s failed you.

Nearly an hour passes. The room only has one bed, so Hyunjin turns off the lights, folds himself onto the armchair by the floor-to-ceiling window, drapes a complimentary robe over his shoulders, and tries to sleep. He doesn’t know why he even tries. He’s exhausted, but he knows damn well there’s no hope of him getting any rest until he has you in his proximity again.

He doesn’t look at the door when he finally hears it open, but the knot of tension in his chest comes undone as soon as your silhouette appears in the hallway. He takes out his first real breath since leaving you at the hotel’s entrance.

You hear the sound it makes. You fall still.

“Hyunjin?”

His heart physically aches at how tired you sound. “Yeah?”

“Oh, you’re awake,” you answer. “Move to the bed. You’re not sleeping on that thing.”

He remains where he is, his chin resting on the side of his fist, his eyes glued to the flickering panorama of neon lights below him. You crouch to unzip something, and there’s a heavy thud of metal meeting cloth, presumably your laptop being tossed onto the bed’s mattress.

“Hello? Did you—”

“Is everything okay?”

A short pause follows his interruption.

“I still have a few emails to write, but everything’s been rescheduled, so as long as you don’t miss tomorrow’s flight, too, we should be—”

The robe slides off his lap as he pushes himself to his feet. “That’s not what I mean.”

The only source of light in the room is the lone light above the entrance, but it’s enough for him to see your face and the surprise etched upon it. You open your mouth, utter one syllable, and stop yourself immediately after, stunned into silence by the sobriety in Hyunjin’s expression.

“Enlighten me, then,” you say finally.

“You really don’t know?”

“What is there to know? That you missed a flight and pissed me the fuck off? Trust me, I’m aware.”

“No, that’s not—”

“So what are you talking about, then? Why are you talking in riddles? Fuck, what is it that you want from me?”

There’s real frustration in your voice, and it’s the first time you’ve shown him any emotion in pure, unadulterated form. With this, Hyunjin understands that he was right; this conversation is heading towards a culmination of some kind, and so are you, with the devastating force of a natural phenomenon.

He wonders if you’re prepared to destroy yourself, too.

“I know how you are around me,” you whisper. “You’re always acting like you’re trying to unearth something, and I figure this ‘something’ must be wonderful, because you look at me like I’m made of stars; you speak to me like you’re serenading a lover. But I am constantly, ceaselessly haunted by the possibility that this ‘something’ doesn’t exist, that you’re looking for the wrong thing in the wrong person. 

“I know it’s selfish to ask for anything more than what you’ve already given me—you’re so kind, Hyunjin, and you’ve been nothing but since the day we met. But grant me one more wish, even if it is the last time you ever do.

“Tell me what you see in me,” you plead. “Otherwise, I will spend the rest of my life mourning the months of yours that you wasted on me.”

With that, it occurs to Hyunjin, falls upon and cracks open his mind like a piece of firewood, that you have never been aware of—never asked for—the throne you sit upon.

For an indeterminate amount of time, the two of you stay there, standing in silence on opposite sides of your dark hotel room. You haven’t felt anything like this in a long time, your chest heaving with your heavy breaths, your vision muddied by both the lack of light and the desperation searing through your windpipe. 

When Hyunjin finally begins to speak, his words wrest the oxygen from your lungs.

“After you moved to Seoul, you used to get these bouts of homesickness.”

Your mind careens; your heart reels. 

“They came in a way that felt like a hole had opened up in the ground below you.” He takes a tentative step towards you. “You thought it was going to swallow you alive. You would’ve been happy for it to.”

You never got to listen to your voice note. You were blacked out when you recorded it and horrified when you discovered it in your chat logs the next morning; the wretched thing was unsent so quickly that you couldn’t check for a read receipt.

But there’s not a doubt in your mind that these are your words falling from Hyunjin’s lips.

“You haven’t felt that way since you met me, though.” He is only a few feet away from you now, and getting closer still. “You’ve never felt seen the way I see you. You’ve never been known the way I know you.”

God, you said that? Did you propose to him too?

“You’re terrified that another home will slip through the cracks between your fingers and there will be nothing you can do to stop it.” Hyunjin flattens his left hand upon the drywall next to your ear; pushes you back ever-so-gently against the hard surface. “I must think you’re impossible.”

And he brings his face so, so close to yours; looks at you with so much adoration, so much tenderness, that you feel the final bulwark around your heart fracture—

“I don’t,” Hyunjin breathes, cradling your cheek, “because you’re not. And I want to prove it to you, even if it takes me the rest of my life. That’s what I see in you.”

—and crumble.

You form fists in the lining of his hoodie. Hyunjin’s hand tightens where it lays over the curve of your jaw.

When you crash your lips upon his, he tastes the metallic sheen of electricity and the salt of tearwater both; he witnesses crying lightning, for the first time in human history.

Present day. Cannes, France. 9:15 P.M.

Hyunjin never thinks when he fucks you. 

One part of it is that he physically can’t; his cognitive facilities shut down when he has you quivering beneath him, like his desire to pleasure you is too overwhelming for his mind to bear. The other part is that he doesn’t want to. He’s afraid that the voices of cynicism and trepidation that plague his mind every waking moment will taint the actualization of his wildest dreams.

Lucky for him, you manage to erase his mind on a daily basis with only one accidental touch or an apparition of a smile, so he doesn’t stand a chance whenever you let him between your legs.

“Trust me?” He whispers, imprinting the words upon the inside of your thigh.

“More than anyone,” you breathe, and just this has him tenting against his satin slacks.

Hyunjin used to see you scolding managers or moving racks twice your weight and think that was you in your element—tonight, he learned otherwise. You were so confident that even just the way you puffed your chest out prompted heads to turn and low voices to ask for your name; so charming that even by the end of your self-introduction you had every guest you spoke to eating out the palm of your hand. 

Eating out your pussy, though, is Hyunjin’s privilege alone.

He wraps his fingers around the hem of your dress and pushes it upwards, creating a halo of red fabric around your midriff; slides your panties off your legs and tosses them over his shoulder. All obstacles out of the way, Hyunjin winds his arms around your thighs and pins your hips to the mattress, slotting himself between your knees as they fall apart. Your ankles fold over the top of his head, and you’re about to ask if he’s okay like this, but then you feel the hot muscle of his tongue trace over your dripping folds—and every word of every language you’ve ever known is dispelled from your brain and your mouth in the form of a stuttered, euphoric moan.

He teases you first, drags his mouth over you so that he’s lapped up all of your slick, and just when you feel your patience thinning he pulls you apart with reverent hands and begins to suckle on your clit, as attentive to your every solicitation as always. You arch your back so high off the bed that your ankles knock Hyunjin’s head down a few inches, but the new angle is even better; grants him access to more of you.

He reinforces his grip around you, presses his torso right up against the side of the mattress, and gorges: sluices your labia until you’re spilling from his chin onto the sheets; flicks against your bundle of nerves until it’s pulsating and swollen on his mouth; fucks his tongue against your favorite spot until you’re curling your toes, seeing the whole solar system. 

“Coming,” you blabber after some time. Tell me something I don’t know, he thinks to himself. “Coming, Hyune. I’m—fuck—”

Hyunjin is aware of the way you clench so hard around nothing that your pelvis hurts. He is aware of the way you’re so dilapidated from pleasure that you’re genuinely struggling to breathe. He doesn’t care. He wants to get the cadences of your climax tattooed into the gray matter of his brain, and there can’t be rests in the sheet music, can there?

He presses a hand flat on your stomach in preparation for your body’s protest, then returns his face to its place between your thighs; starts to leave kitten licks around the edges of your puffy folds before you can finish riding out your high. You press your tongue against the back of your front teeth, emitting a pained hiss as you draw a sharp breath, tears stinging at your eyes.

“Son of a bitch—”

“Trust me?” He asks again, his voice vibrating against your sore cunt, and your complaints quiet into whimpers as you bring a hand over your quivering mouth, and nod. 

At least Hyunjin bridles his thirst the second time he eats your pussy open, his lips smacking openly and slowly over your every inch except the one that would be truly unbearable for you right now. He’s so rough and so fucking careful at once like he can’t decide between obliterating and worshipping your cunt.

He’ll end up doing both.

Within a few minutes, your legs have gone slack on either side of Hyunjin once again, and another coil has begun to tighten behind your bellybutton, equal parts pain and pleasure—but he knows your pussy just as well as he does your person by now, and it’s not long before the former is compounding with the latter.

Round two has a faster ascent and a steeper drop. He finds your spot again with the precision and ease of a trained marksman and fixates upon it like a man starved. It has your cries devolving to incoherent profanities and, to his unfettered delight, your foot actually shaking, your heel tapping against the back of his neck every time it comes down.

As if referencing a metronome, Hyunjin matches the rhythm of his tongue to your accelerando. Only when your leg is nearly convulsing does he wrap his lips back around your clit; slide two fingers into the place he leaves empty and pumps them into you until you are liquifying, igniting around him, your mewls lamenting the second orgasm he plucks from your core.

After your body has stilled, Hyunjin lifts his head, his face drenched in perspiration and saliva and you. His eyes travel over the slopes of your arms and the hills of your breasts, over the tears streaming from your eyes and staining the pillow you lie on. It is this last bit that has him shrugging off his shirt and undoing his dress pants with one hand, palming his throbbing cock with the other.

He clambers over you, and the kiss that follows is filthy, your mouth falling apart when he rolls your nipples between his fingers, strands of spit suspending between your tongues before dripping down onto your collarbone. You can sense what he wants in his craving lips, his pleading tongue—and you know he won’t ask for it. He’s tested you enough tonight; he’d rather your comfort than his pleasure.

But you guide his leaking head to your entrance, returning his stupefied look with a watery smile.

“Love me?” You ask this time, for the first time.

There is not even a nanosecond of hesitation when he answers, “with everything in me.”

He comes inside you the moment he bottoms out, your name leaving his lips in breathless, desperate repetition like a broken prayer as he topples off the same cliff he’d dropped you from moments ago. You curl a hand in his hair as he stutters against you, bring your lips flush against his ear, and whisper that you love him too—and the sight of you beneath him blurs he also starts to tear up.

This is the reality Hyunjin lives in, presumably because he was a saint in his past life, and it would be his utmost pleasure to see it through.

Two years later. Milan, Italy. 11:28 A.M.

For the last half hour, a ray of sunlight has repeatedly struck the diamond that sits between the second and third knuckle of your ring finger, and the Vogue journalist on the other side of your desk thinks he is slowly losing his vision. But when he asks his final question, your hand comes to a much-appreciated stop, the fountain pen you’ve been twirling around clattering to your tabletop.

“Where do you find your inspiration?” 

As the journalist blinks the phosphenes from his eyes, he finally manages to get a good look at the face of Versace’s newest designer, and he detects something ineffable and warm in your expression.

“My inspiration, hm?” You fall silent for a short time, thinking. “If you asked me this at the start of my career, I’d have said ‘people.’ Their postures, their expressions, their wardrobes. I knew I was a goner when I watched a fashion show for the first time and noticed how the models’ attire helped them harness their innate power and grace—I wanted to orchestrate that kind of symbiosis, too. In that aspect, nothing has changed, actually. I still find wonder in human beings, and not just the ones on the runway. I think it would be difficult not to, don’t you?

“Some time ago, a good friend of mine was having trouble with an outfit for her client. She asked me a similar question, and only then did I realize that it was no longer just people that inspired me most, but a singular person. I had always been skeptical of the idea of a ‘muse’ until I met him. But I could only spend so long denying how he ventured closer to my soul than anything ever had, how he knew me and saw me like nobody ever could. He understood my art. He was my art, so—”

Your eyes dart over your ring, and the journalist would’ve flinched out of habit if he wasn’t so mesmerized by your eloquence.

“—where better to find inspiration than inspiration himself?”

A few seconds elapse, and then you clear your throat and straighten your back, returning to your office from your trip down memory lane. 

“That’s the long answer, anyways. The short answer would be my fiancé.”

The journalist laughs, and he doubts you’ll give him this next piece of information—but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try.

“And who would that be?”

He’s right. You don’t answer the question. But you do flash him an enigmatic smile, and for some reason it reminds him of lightning.

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