#'why do you want this job?' it's a fucking subway. i need the money
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Job hunting is an absolute nightmare because it's like I have a million reasons to need this job and the money from it and it's basically like telling the job that I'm pretty much their bitch because I need the money, and they'll just reject you because you didn't downright worship a company or bc you were honest on the application personality quiz
#simon says#like please I just wanna work at this subway I need to pay so many bills#'why do you want this job?' it's a fucking subway. i need the money#im not super passionate about making sandwiches in a walmart subway I just need money so so bad#like yeah my cat has asthma that I need to treat my other cat has meds that he needs I need medical care I want to get a car#i would like to go on hormones in this nightmare anti-trans state I would like to save up to move out of my parents house#i would like to be able to afford car payments for said car I would like to be able to afford insurance for my healthcare and my pets#and honestly??? i would like to make sandwiches#but ough I am not worshiping the ground subway stands on therefore I shant get the job :(#how dare I admit I need a job for money in this capitalist society
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WRETCHED THOUGHTS HAVE ME AT 3AMs
Soap surviving Makarov's shot, but the others thought he died so they left his body to be recovered, but then the recovery team went to get him his body wasn't there. They thought Makarov took his body for soem unthinkable reason.
But actually soap ended up regained consciousness, albeit disoriented and confused and alone. He staggere out of that tunnel himself, looking for anyone or anything familiar. But he was abandoned in a country that wasn't alone. And he was injured, and confused, and scared.
Eventually Eventually he does find help. And years later he's still dealing with the repercussions of taking a bullet to the head, but he's doing mostly okay, stayed in-country. He works a shady job as a private hire mercenary, it's definitely not within the law, but it's good money and he has the skills. Still hasn't contacted the 141. he could have, but they left him. What was he supposed to do with that information? Just forgive them? Oh, he thinks not.
One day the 141 has to return to the city that Makarov murdered soap, they're hunting down a new target. Soap has been hired to take out the same target (unbeknownst to them). They end up running into eachother(perhaps in the same tunnel?), maybe soap got shot or sum by the target (just work with me here bc I need it to work for this)
It's ghost that recognizes soap first.
"Johnny?" It gives soap pause, it takes a moment for his mind to dredge up this memory (it's not been the same since). "You- you're alive? Why didn't you call?" That illicits a wave of anger from somewhere deep inside him. There's blood dripping from his wounds. It splats onto the ground. He pays it no mind.
"Oh yeah, Simon, because that's my first thought when I wake up bleeding from my skull in a subway tunnel with nobody around." That makes Ghost flinch. He packs up his kit. He's still spilling blood. It's whatever, he'll live.
"You're just gonna let yourself bleed out?"
"Yeah. I am." His words come out clipped.
"You just let people hurt you all the time without doing anything about it?" Ghost accuses. As if he had any right to do so.
"You think I ask for it? I didn't ask for any of this shit!" He snaps, "I didn't ask to be shot in the head. I didn't ask to be abandoned in this fucking tunnel. And I certainly didn't ask to lose half my vision, or my hearing, or my goddamn memory. But it happened! And I had to save myself. And I did. Alone. So forgive me, Simon, if it's not 'up to your standard'. I can handle myself." Ghost flinches at the venom in his words, but he couldn't give less of a wee tattie scrap, he snaps the last buckle on his kit and leaves. Not a single glance back. He wants to, but after the shit he's survived? Simon's Johnny might have, but Soap cannot, so he doesn't.
#el rambles#john soap mactavish#simon ghost riley#ghostsoap#soapghost#ghoap#call of duty#cod#cod mw3#modern warfare 3
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thank you my friend for showing me all the things I can be. But one transformation just felt more right than the others. Please can you turn me back to a British chav working in ChavTF. This time I want it to be permanent and I want to become as chavy as possible. Just a dumb horny chav, who loves trainers, tracksuits, smoking, drinking and blowjobs
Alcohol gives you really stupid ideas, doesn't it? Even if the alcohol is an expensive 2020 Silvaner from a great vineyard on the Main in Franconia… Dude, you're a masterpiece! And you want to change that?
You're playing with your cell phone… There's the ChavTF online store. Hot tracksuit on special offer. The devil knows when you'd put it on… But you order it. They recommend a pair of socks, a pair of sneakers, a bracelet and a necklace. You think the necklace is stupid… But the rest looks cool. Everything goes into the shopping cart. Pay. And order. Everything should be here the day after tomorrow.
When you get home on Friday evening, the parcel is on your doorstep. Some friendly neighbor has accepted the package. The box has been used before. A bong was obviously packed in it before. It also smells like weed, but also like the plastic of cheap synthetic fibers. The tracksuit is no longer in its original packaging. It also smells a bit like sweat. And it looks like there are dried precum stains in the pants. You get a boner. And your precum forms another stain in your pants. The socks and sneakers look great with the tracksuit.
There are lots of notes in the box next to the bill. A voucher for a hairdresser. And a flyer looking for new employees for the online shop. Hehehe, the job certainly wouldn't make enough money for your Mayfair apartment. But somehow you feel like redeeming the voucher for the hairdresser. Shorter hair goes better with the tracksuit. Okay, the cab ride to the Eastend is probably almost as expensive as if you'd gone to your hairdresser. But that doesn't matter to you now.
You fit into the hairdressing salon about as well as the king fits into the subway. None of the customers are over 25 years old. No one feels as muscular in their tracksuit as you do. And everyone is either smoking a cigarette or a joint. And most of them have a can of beer. The hairdresser sees you and shouts "You're next. Would you like uh beer, mate?" You just say yes. And then the barber runs the long hair clippers through your hair. "Mate, should I shave off da beard? it makes you look like an old main?" You actually feel much younger. The beer is why and tastes like piss. But it feels good. Your forehead is wrinkle-free and smooth again. You look more like a young bouncer than an investment banker. "Nah, mate, da beard stays on. But do you have uh fag for me?" Damn, what's happened to your language.
You tip the barber a pound. You can hardly get enough of your reflection in the mirror. You need sex now. Quickly. It's still light and the cruising area in Victoria Park isn't far away. You don't have to stand by the tree for long before you disappear into the bushes with an old geezer. Phew, not really your level. But it feels right to get down on your knees and suck the unshaven, cheesy cock of this unkempt guy. And it also feels right when you pocket the ten pound note after the blowjob.
You take the subway home. Fuck, you're so horny, you could get fucked by every other guy here. But you need a pint of beer at least as badly. And it's not unlikely that you'll find something to fuck in the pub.
Fuck, you could clean up your mess and air it out. And you don't have anything clean to wear either. Shit, you had something planned for today… While you're pissing and smoking in your dirty little bathroom, you remember. You wanted to apply for the job. Warehouse worker at that cool clothes store in the East End. You spray some Axe under your armpits, put on your new tracksuit and take the bus to the East End.
You're already a little excited. After all, it's the first job you've done since you dropped out of your plumbing apprenticeship. And it's eight pounds an hour. A hell of a lot of money. But the guy in the store is cool. He thinks that all you need to be able to do for the job is organize weed for the other employees, give him the occasional blow job and tape up packages. Hehehe, hopefully you'll learn how to do the parcels, the rest you'll manage. And you can prove it right away. Starting with a blowjob.
Best job ever. In fact, you're more of a warehouse hustler than a warehouse worker. But there are good tips. And the dope you got is damn good. And hopefully no one will notice that you took the necklace with you. Your mother yells for you to come into the house, dinner is ready. You shout back that you only have a few more things to do. Hehehe, you can't stand dinner with your mother and her new stud without being stoned.
Pics found @my-gear-smoking-favourites, @lyon69007-blog and @scallysmoker2
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What kind of subs do you think the riddlers would be?
Riddlers as Subs (the kink and the uh...sandwich)
Riddler Headcanons
i knew in my heart of hearts you meant sub/dom, but a bigger part of me couldn't get past the idea of them being sandwiches, so i did both 💚
request info • prompt list • send me a request • kofi
minors DNI!! 🔞 cw for nsfw stuff: it's uh, it's just smut and suggestive things
arkham
he's a switch through and through. like there's no way he's not. he's too tough and strong to not let himself dom a little bit (projecting that onto him, sorry) and to be honest he likes it both ways. if he's feeling extra sensitive or tired, all he wants is to be controlled and fucked. however, catch him on his better days and he can flip it like a switch and rail you like he was a pro. as a switch though, he needs a fair bit of aftercare, the kind he dishes out to you. he also thinks it keeps things equal and varied if you both take turns being the subby one.
man is a blt with mayonnaise, on a seeded brown loaf, extra crispy bacon pls for the crunch and if you could remove the tomato seeds or he'll yell at you
batman unburied
an absolute princess/sugar baby since he enjoys it so much. he might as well get treated like the little angel he is before you pound him into a quivering mess. his preference is to lay there and be spoiled by you, getting well and truly fucked like he deserves. your aftercare better be of the highest order too. man needs to be soothed, told he's pretty, that he's a very good boy, have his hair played with, all that good stuff. laying on his back and taking it while he looks cute are his skills, top of his c.v.
he likes to mix it up every time he goes, just to make things difficult and annoying. and whatever he gets, he's ordering it with extra pickles
gotham
here i go insisting that this man wants to be a pet again. matching leather collar, leash and gloves? little name tag that says riddler? made to do his silly little tricks like he's at a crufts show before you even think about touching him. likes it if you make him howl when he comes, he's such a good doggy. he's so good at barking on command, and he'll stay down on all fours until someone tells him he can stand up. his only bad habit is slobbering over crotches...
tuna melt like you wouldn't believe, no pepper or salt please, extra mayonnaise, boy is as white as the bread he orders his sandwiches on
dano
oh ho ho. free use. something about someone wanting him and demanding him at any moment, it makes him feel desired. he'll bend over for you and work on his notes, his schemes, even his streams if you're feeling extra risky. he's so down bad for it, so ready to be dommed at the drop of a hat that he'll assume the position with his pants at his ankles if you so much as wink at him. he'll even beg for it if he's feeling confident enough.
meatball marinara, extra cheese, toasted, i promise i'm not just blindly projecting here. also he gets subway a lot, it's his only hot meal
young justice
very into master/servant play. he just wants to please you, and do exactly as you asked. holding back any praise drives him crazy, something about the knot in his chest that builds up as he waits to be told he's good which never comes. the suspense might kill him but that's what he's living for. that and knowing that even if you don't say anything, he knows he's doing a good job making you happy. why else would you have him on his knees in front of you for a solid hour? he considers at an honour to even be asked.
ham and cheese, not toasted, no veg or sauce. will make you go up to the counter to tell them he asked for no lettuce and tomatoes if they put them on.
capullo
total and utter brat for certain, like i'd put money on it. it would be too damaging to his ego for him to just outright admit that he's a sub, he needs to make it seem like he's annoyed you to the point where you have no other option but to bend him over, smack his ass, and fuck his face into whatever surface he's slammed down onto. hey, it works for him. he's pretty irritating on a regular basis, so he barely needs to try to get into the bratty mindset of "if you want me to behave you'll have to make me".
phillie cheesesteak or a hoagie, and whatever it is has so much hot sauce on it and is massive, like he thinks he's in some sort of competition
telltale
aw buddy is a masochist, whether he likes it or not. even when he's getting the shit beat out of him, he gets hard a little bit. choke him with his own cane, spank him with your bare hand or with his gloves on, step all over him with big old boots on, slap him, punch him, bite him, and then kick him while he's down. he's used to bleeding profusely and being bruised internally, so you really have to make an effort if you're going to attempt to make him cum
sourdough bread, lettuce, light mayo, one teaspoon of sweet chilli sauce and some shredded turkey and if anything else touches it, start over fresh.
#finnie writes#riddler#the riddler#batman#riddler imagine#the riddler imagine#riddler smut#fanfic#the riddler fanfic#riddler fanfic#riddler x reader#riddler x you#riddler headcanon#ridler scenario#the riddler headcanon#gotham riddler#gotham#the batman#arkham riddler#young justice riddler#dano riddler#zero year riddler#q#batman unburied riddler#bu riddler#telltale riddler
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EMBRYO
Chapter 5: Burger Fool
"No," the diner guy said.
"No?" Rose echoed.
"You heard me. No."
"No job, you mean? No...what? Why?"
"Yeah, no job." He ticked off on his meaty fingers. "...Yeah, no job, and 'cause we aren't hiring kids, Miss..." He glanced down at her application. "Uh...Winners?"
"Winters," Rose said. "Why the hell not?"
"You're sixteen. I ain't doing that whole teenage-drama song and dance again. Not after last time. Come back in two years or whatever." He looked her over doubtfully. "If you want to work here that bad, I guess."
Rose glanced around the diner, which was, non-encouragingly, called Vinnie's Meat Hut. A few exhausted-looking patrons slouched at booths and window tables, sadly munching plates of anemic fries and burgers that looked as if they might cause cardiac arrest on contact.
"Come on," she said under her breath. "I'm...young and hip. I could really...bring a fresh perspective into...you know, the day to day..."
"Fresh perspective," the manager said.
"Yeah. I could wash dishes, too, if you don't want me waitressing. Or I could...um...take out the trash."
"Take out the trash," the manager said.
"Please," Rose said.
"No."
"Please?"
"Kid, you need money that bad, go ask your mommy."
Rose blinked, then put on a sad face with big eyes. "I don't have a mommy," she whispered. "Or a daddy. They died when I was three."
"Cancer?"
"Brain."
"Both of 'em?"
"It was contagious."
"Get the fuck outta here."
Rose let out a huff, turned, and stomped out. She couldn't resist throwing up a middle finger before she went through the door.
The manager returned the gesture half-heartedly.
Rose stood on the diner's stoop, staring out at the rainy morning. Today was Friday, thank God. She needed the weekend badly. She hadn't gotten any homework done that week on account of the stuff with Sam and, of course, the monster.
The monster.
Heisenberg had said nothing about the previous night- not that Rose had given him a chance. She'd left before he even emerged from his room, stuffing handfuls of granola bars into her pockets so she didn't even have to stick around for breakfast. She'd barely slept- her second night in a row without much sleep- and now her eyes were itchy, her brain half-congealed concrete. Still, her ankle felt almost healed. One good thing about her power: she healed really, really fast. She'd never got worse than a broken bone, but even that had been better in a week. That had been tough to explain to the elementary school; Rose suspected Heisenberg had employed threats and intimidation to keep those concerned from looking into it too deeply.
Morning traffic rushed past, horns squabbling, pedestrians pushing by, on their way to work or school. The night before, this street had been ominous, dark and abandoned, but now in the gray daylight looked back to normal. Halloween decorations hung in shop windows, and a news-stand owner across the way was sat by his stand on a folding chair, portable radio by his side, listening to the reports.
Rose edged closer. She ambled across the street, ducked under the news-stand's awning, picked out a magazine, pretended to read. ...Light showers all across Regent City and the coast...looks like our October's only going to get colder, folks, better bundle up those kids for trick-or-treating...three-car pileup on I-60, no one badly hurt...Mt. Calyx hospital reports that...
Rose allowed herself a moment of relief. Maybe...maybe it had been chalked up as a fluke...maybe...
...More information on last night's subway attack...
Her spine went stiff.
...No casualties. A survivor and eyewitness to the perpetrator is currently in stable condition. While wild dogs are rare in Regent City, we do warn all our listeners that...
"Wild dogs?" Rose said, out loud.
The stand owner looked up sharply. "Hey," he said. "You gonna buy that?"
Rose glanced down at the magazine. Engines Quarterly. Heisenberg didn't have this edition yet. It had just come out.
"Yeah," she said. "Actually, I am."
Heading to school on the city bus, Rose hunched down in the seat, glanced around, then got out her phone. It was a super-shitty old one- Heisenberg had tried to juice it up too, but there was only so much he could do- and it took a long time for anything to load. Once it did, she scanned the breaking news articles one after another, trying to see if Mara or anyone else had mentioned her. Most of the articles agreed that it had been wild dogs. One posited that someone had gone psycho after snorting horse Viagra- apparently maulings were a common side effect of that activity- though judging from the comments section it wasn't a widely shared theory.
By the time Rose reached her stop the relief was enough to get her sluggish self off the bus and into school. Still, she tugged her knit hat down, like that would hide her face, and hunched into her coat, trying to get from class to class with as much speed as possible.
The conversation in her classes was a buzz on the edge of her awareness. Parties, Halloween events, weekend plans. Someone mentioned the subway incident, but it was more about how metal it was that there had been an animal attack in the middle of Regent City. No details. Rose's mind kept drifting to her ill-fated interview at Vinnie's Meat Hut. Ugh, she shouldn't have been such a brat. She needed money. She needed...
Just talk to Heisenberg.
Just talk.
She cut off her thoughts with a shake of her head. No. She had to do this herself. Besides, he was keeping things from her. Big things. If he was gonna know about what she was up to, he had to earn it.
When the bell rang for lunch, she didn't head with her friends to the lunchroom. Instead, she made a beeline for the library. The hush enfolded her, a few other students hunched over reading tables or sitting in the computer lab. Rose claimed a computer, logged in, and navigated to the search engine. Glancing to and fro, she hunched a little further forward before taking the metal disc from her pocket.
It gleamed in the light from the computer screen. She set it on the edge of the keyboard, then typed in
EMBRYO
Nothing, of course. Just the usual definition, wiki, et cetera. Embryo test and project embryo turned up even fewer results- just articles about artificial wombs, lab rats, in vitro shit. Rose stuck out her tongue as she scrolled through the image results, then, with a spike of frustration, shut down the search engine and left the computer lab for the library front desk.
The librarian looked up as she approached. It was the same one as the day before, a mid-thirties woman with a braid over her shoulder.
"'Scuse me," Rose said. She slapped the disc down on the desk. "Can I look up barcodes here?"
She looked up from her computer. "...What? Is this for a project?"
"Yeah. Research project. Big thing. Really important." Rose lifted her eyebrows. "So can I? Scan barcodes?"
"Um..." The librarian's eyes flicked to the disc. She smiled a little. "You're...Rosemary, right?"
"Rose."
"Rose, I think this...what is this? A dog tag?"
"Sort of."
"Well," she said, indulgently, "I think you'd need the database for whatever...whatever data is on this if you wanted the code to lead to anything. Right?" Her smile turned apologetic. "Sorry I can't be of more help."
"Sure. Yeah. No, it's okay," Rose began. Dumbass. Of course. "I, just, I-"
"Rose."
She went stiff. She stared down at the desk for a couple seconds, then turned.
Sam stood behind her, hands in her jean jacket pockets, staring down like Rose had just been staring. Dark circles cut under her eyes, her brows drawn together. She kind of looked like she'd been crying. Rose looked around, but none of Sam's friends were anywhere to be seen.
"What do you want?" Rose said.
"I...look..." Sam squeaked her boot along the ground. "I understand if...if you want to tell me to shove off, but..."
"A little bit, yeah."
Her eyes flicked up. She had been crying, Rose realized with a pang. Her eyes were red and puffy, the skin under them pearlescent.
"Can we talk?" Sam said. "Somewhere else?"
Rose opened her mouth. "Yeah," she said. Her voice was soft. "Yeah, of course."
They ended up in the alleyway. The same one as before. The dumpster was back upright, the dog monster's black blood entirely washed away by the rain. The air smelled crisp, clean. Rose sat on the steps, while Sam paced back and forth in front of her.
"So?" Rose said. "Talk."
"I..." Sam stopped. She let out her breath. Then she reached in her bag and brought out her phone. "I know Mara."
The air seemed to siphon from Rose's lungs. Her vision shocked white.
"What?" she said.
"Yeah. I mean...sort of. My friend, Necro, he's in band with me...they went to middle school together. She goes to East Regent High now, but...he knows her. And he was texting her in the hospital. And she said..." Sam scrolled through her phone. "She said...a girl saved her. A blonde girl. With black stuff that came out of her. Someone told her not to talk about it, but she couldn't keep quiet about who saved her. She said...this girl...drove the monster away."
"The monster," Rose whispered.
Sam nodded.
"It was you," she said. "Wasn't it?"
Rose looked at her hands. She drew in a slow breath. As she did, black veins twined through her skin, undulating slightly, like living things. She clenched her fists and they retracted. Sam didn't move. She stood there, watching her with dark, unreadable eyes.
Rose nodded.
"Monster attacked me last night," she said. "I took care of it."
Sam let out a laugh. The sound of it bordered on the hysterical. "Took care of it? You freaking hit it with a subway train, dude!"
She couldn't help but smirk. Heisenberg would be proud. "A little bit."
"That totally beats your goth hobo dad's stop sign maneuver, hands down."
"He's not my real dad," Rose confessed.
"...Huh?"
"He kind of saved me from, among other things, a draconic vampire lady's psychic nightmare dreamscape palace when I was a baby. He's been taking care of me ever since."
Sam took this all in with a blink, but all she said was "And he's...like you?"
"Pretty much."
"Good thing he's not your real dad," Sam said. "I'd hate to meet your mom."
Rose snorted. She doubled over with laughter; it kept coming, snorts and hiccups, uncontrollable; her eyes began to water. Sam started to laugh, too, one hand pressed to her mouth. She leaned against the far wall, her smooth brown throat open to the cool air. Warmth radiated in the pit of Rose's stomach, and despite her exhaustion, her aches and pains, the distance still between her and Sam, she couldn't help but be glad to be here, now, with her.
Their laughter died, and the silence came in once more.
"The way I talked to you..." Sam began.
"You were scared. I get it."
"Not just that." She looked down. "My aunt lived in Raccoon City."
"Oh."
"Yeah. She and my mom...they were super close. After...after what happened...after they just...never found her..." Sam shook her head, her gaze faraway. "My mom was apparently never the same. She's..."
She cut off.
"This stuff," she went on, "these...things. They've destroyed so many people's lives. They've taken so much away from so many. I was...I was scared, yeah. But...I didn't want to be scared of you...just of...of that."
The corner of Rose's mouth quirked in a tiny smile. "That?"
"You know." She wriggled her fingers. "That!"
"Are those my tentacles?" Rose said, letting her voice go sepulchral on the last word.
"Well, I can't summon them, so yeah."
Rose nodded.
"I get it," she said. "But, Sam...this power. These things I can do..." Her throat tightened. "They are me. Don't you understand? I can't put them down. I can't ever be apart from them. I...sometimes, I wish..."
She cut off, then began again. "They are me," she said again. "And. And you get all of me, or you don't get me at all."
Her face was hot, but her voice hadn't shook. Sam still stared at her. Her eyes were bright in the trace of weak sunlight from above. A momentary break in the clouds.
"Can you accept that?" Rose said.
Sam paused. Then-
She nodded.
"I think so," she said.
"Good," Rose said. "I need your help. You said Mara told you guys that someone told her not to talk?"
"Yeah."
"You have any money for flowers?" Rose said. "Because we've got a hospital to visit."
***
"Fuck school," Sam said, starting up her car.
"You're, like, a straight A student," Rose said.
"That's why I can say fuck school." She backed out of the school lot and they were off. "I've earned school-fucking privileges."
The drive to Mt. Calyx grew darker by the minute, the afternoon's brief respite from the rain over. Raindrops spattered Sam's windshield as they drew closer. Rose's hands were clammy; she tried not to fidget, but she picked at a hole in her jeans anyway. Sam glanced over, but said nothing. From the line between her eyebrows, she was a little leery, too.
Mt. Calyx rose above the surrounding buildings. It was built atop one of Regent City's hills, sloping up from the docks district to overlook the city below. The hospital was an imposing steel-and-glass structure with extensive, tree-lined grounds, its name done in bright teal lights across its front facade. After parking, Rose and Sam dawdled by the car, shivering in the chill wind, staring up at the building.
"Kind of creepy, don't you think?" Sam said. "Hospitals, I mean?"
"I've never really been inside a hospital before."
"You serious?"
Rose nodded. "Me and Heisenberg, we...kind of heal on our own. With him, there's some extra organs to deal with-"
"Extra- what, now?" She shook her head. "Long story, right?"
"They all are." In the long years of her child-and-tween-hood, Rose and Heisenberg had bounced from cheap apartment to cheap apartment, motel to abandoned warehouse, never staying for more than a couple years, tops. They'd watched a ton of television- together, sometimes, Heisenberg making constant observations and jokes at the expense of the characters, but mostly Rose alone, huddled under a blanket, staring at the screen, waiting for Heisenberg to come back. It was all kind of a mystery. With his powers, he could have done anything, made fuckloads of cash, become famous, but he never had. Back then, Rose hadn't questioned it- it was the two of them against the world, and no one else mattered- but now she wondered if it hadn't all been for her benefit, if he'd stayed under the radar to keep her under the radar in turn.
Once she would have chalked that up to pure love.
Now?
She couldn't think about that right now, couldn't think about him. Point was, they'd watched a lot of hospital dramas. A lot. Rose knew the procedure, even if she'd never experienced it.
"Come on," she said. "Let's not keep Mara waiting."
They made their way through the sliding doors and into the hospital proper. The lobby smelled subtly luxurious, paneled in wood, the lights kept tastefully low, but under the muffled murmur of conversations and the music played softly on hidden speakers, Rose detected a tang of something like disinfectant, chalky and stinging.
Her nerves prickled. She shoved her hands in her pockets in case her mold started to show. Sam went and spoke to the front desk person, who handed out clip-on visitor's badges and a hospital map.
"She's in the recovery wing," Sam said, returning to Rose. "Room D-6- oh! Look! A shop. Perfect."
She went to the gift shop and bought a bouquet of pink flowers. As she did, Rose's phone began to vibrate. An unknown number. That would probably be Heisenberg. She chewed her lip. Shit, had the school called Heisenberg or something? Usually he couldn't care less whether or not she skipped out on class. After last night had he decided to play responsible-parent after all?
She shoved it back into her pocket and hurried to Sam's side. This time of day, the hospital was quiet, a few nurses chatting in a break area, a doctor working at a computer in a glassed-in office. Rose kept glancing around, then reminding herself not to look suspicious.
"Don't look suspicious," Sam whispered.
"I know!"
"We're not doing anything wrong, we're just visiting a friend."
"I know," Rose said again. She stared down a hallway, pale green walls giving the light an underwater quality. "I just...weirds me out, is all. This place. I..."
She trailed away.
A memory. Suddenly. Like it had walked through a door in her mind. That smell. Chemicals and disinfectant, medical supplies and- mold. A woman's voice, singing her to sleep. Hush, now, child, the wolves are coming, hush, I pray you, hush, or they will make your worries their meal...
The language was unfamiliar, lulling and strange. But Rose recognized every word. She heard it, even now. Faraway, faraway. That song.
Her eyes- golden?
A place deep underground.
Pulse. The hallway was no longer a hospital, modern and clean, but the rocky, lightless cave passageway. The glitter of crystal, the rumble of something underfoot. Something deep, and old. Something sleeping.
Something waiting.
Another pulse. The memory left her. She was back in her body, but she was cold, still staring, white shocking into her vision with each heartbeat. She felt the slick squirm of her mold through her skin, tightening around her heart. Was this a panic attack? Heisenberg wasn't here. He wasn't here. Oh, shit, was she gonna freak out? She needed him bad. She needed-
A warm hand clasped hers. She jumped with a gasp. Sam stared up at her, concern bright in her eyes.
"Rose?" she said.
Her breathing sounded jagged, strangled.
"I..." she began. She and Sam shuffled to the side as a couple nurses walked past, barely giving them a second look. "I'm...I saw...I thought..."
She looked down the hallway, but it was no longer natural rock traced into form by a lantern held aloft, picking out the glitter of crystals growing from the walls, just a regular-ass hospital hallway. The panic slowly ebbed; warmth came back into her limbs.
Sam's grip on her helped.
She realized just how hard Sam was holding her hands, and heat rushed into her face so fast she was surprised her head didn't straight-up explode. She jerked her hands from Sam's. Sam's eyes widened a little, then dipped to her boot toes.
She stepped back.
"I..." Rose started- to apologize, maybe- holding your hands makes me feel way too much right now and I just can't- I'm sorry, Sam, I'm sorry, I don't want to hurt you again-
She didn't go on.
"It's okay," Sam said. She gave Rose a wry smile. "Hey, if you'd passed out or something at least we're already at the hospital."
"Funny," Rose told her. Still, she managed to return Sam's smile.
As they left, she glanced down the hall once more.
Empty.
An echo of singing traced her mind.
Hush now, child. The wolves are coming.
***
They found Mara's room on the next floor up.
The nurse on duty let them in. "She's been through a lot," she told them. "Take it easy, okay?"
"Don't worry." Sam gave her her most winning smile. "We're not gonna bite."
Rose dug her elbow into Sam's ribs as the nurse left.
"What?" Sam said, with a wheeze.
Inside, the lights were turned low, the room's single window washed by rain. The television was on, casting pale light over the hunched shape of a girl in the bed. Her long auburn hair hung loose around her shoulders; her eyes were bruised. She lay with one leg bandaged, tubes leading from the crook of her arm to the saline bag on a stand nearby, her gaze unfocused and lowered. When the door clicked shut, she gave a little gasp and whirled.
"Hi, Mara," Sam said, giving her a wave.
"Sam?"
"Yep. And look who I brought with me." Sam stood aside. Mara's eyes widened.
"Oh, my god," she breathed. "It's you."
"Again. Yeah. I didn't get to introduce myself before," Rose said. She ventured forward and sat by Mara's bedside. Behind her, Sam put the flowers into an empty mug on a counter. "I'm Rose. I'm glad you're okay."
"Thanks to you. I thought that thing was gonna eat me." She scrambled awkwardly forward and before Rose could react caught her up in a hug. Rose stiffened, then put her arms, slowly, around Mara. It's okay, she told herself. This is okay.
"Thank you," Mara whispered. She pulled back, her eyes bright. "What was it, anyway?" She gave her a quick glance-over. "...You're not another one, are you?"
"No! Not...uh. Not like that, anyway. That's kind of what I'm here to find out. To make sure you were all right, and to get more information."
"Sure. Anything."
"Is there anyone else here?"
"My mom's just stepped out to go grab some stuff from home-"
"No," Rose said. She looked back toward the windows that looked out to the corridor. Sam quickly whisked the blinds shut. "Not your mom. You said someone didn't want you talking about what really happened. All the papers say it was a wild dog attack, but that's bullshit. Tons of people saw the monster. No matter how scared you are you're not gonna confuse a six-foot strawberry jello monster for a pack of wild anything."
Mara stared at her as she talked, fiddling with her hospital gown. The rain cast eerie shadows over her face.
"They warned me to shut my mouth," she said. "They told me...they told me it would be...bad for the public if I didn't...that it wouldn't do anyone any good to talk about things I didn't understand..."
"Listen." Rose took the Embryo disc from her pocket and held it up. "I found this in the monster's remains. The monster was the fifth test. Don't you get it? Someone is sending these things out. Someone is making them. And if I don't stop it, more people are gonna get hurt."
Mara's eyes shone in the light from the television screen, the sound turned down to a low murmur nearly drowned out by the rain.
"She showed up right after the doctors finished with my leg," she whispered.
"She?" Rose asked. "Who's she?"
"I..." Mara began. "I thought she was part of the hospital staff...a therapist or something. She was wearing, like, nice clothes under a white coat but she wasn't one of the other doctors. She had this...thing? Like a phone but smaller, and it flashed, and it felt like everything I saw in the subway was getting sucked out of my head. And then she told me not to say anything about it."
"Do you remember anything else? What she looked like? Any kind of...symbols she was wearing? Anything?"
Mara shook her head. "When she flashed that thing her face went fuzzy. I could see it but not, you know? Like my eyes wouldn't focus but it was my brain."
Rose glanced at Sam. The other girl's face was paler than normal, her arms crossed over her stomach.
"Okay," Rose said. "I-"
Her phone began to buzz again. "Sorry," she muttered, and looked at the screen. Another unknown number. Jesus, would he keep calling her until she picked up?
"Hang on," she said. "It's my...just hang on..."
She went over to the window. "What?" she said into the phone.
"Kid? That you?"
"Yes. I'm...kind of busy right now."
"What's going on? You're not doing anything stupid, are you?"
"Would you be able to tell the difference?"
"Cool it, pipsqueak. This fucking-" Something clattered, and he yelled indistinctly at it for a few seconds before returning. "-Fuckin' school of yours said you were gone-"
"Yes, and now I'm busy, so if you don't mind-"
"Don't you hang up on me! You need to get your ass home, you hear me? Get it home, now, or tell me where you are and I'll come and get you, I swear to-"
His voice hissed into static. Rose looked at the phone.
"Heisenberg?" she said.
"-don't- dangerous- need-" More static. With a crackle, the signal dropped, the call lost.
"Everything okay?" Sam asked, still too-pale.
"I...I'm not sure-" Rose began.
Voices echoed down the corridor. Sam peered through the blinds, then looked back up. "Shit," she said.
"What?"
"We need to move," she said. "I think someone's coming."
#re8#re8 fanfiction#resident evil#resident evil village#rosemary winters#karl heisenberg#rosemary winters x oc#chapter 5
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A blessed new moon Scorpio
I have no god I thought
But I meant I have no man
And I’ve still yet to find out how I can
Still just be not a fraud
I learned 3 old friends started working for the state
What the fuck
When we gonna get some fucking allegiance
My life’s a whole pledge of allegiance now
To humanity I guess
Sometimes I pledge nothing
I just try to stay alive
Time is shrinking again and I start to feel a fondness for this year
Like oh I love myself
She did such a good job
Climbing all day then meeting a boy at the lake
Beautiful tahoe summer
I commemorate the beauty
And memorialize the fun
And try to let go of all the sadness
All that snow
And I try to think about the gold in the rocks
The orange powder of rock
The sweat of the rock and your hand
The ropes holding your life
The way you hold onto your life
And then let it go like sand
Alpine towns are so trendy this funny girl tells me
I thought she was going to be more like this other girl who I think hated me but I could never tell
But then she was actually more like a hilarious clown
This other girl says
Truckee is so bro-y
I like Nevada City more
Me too I agree
The best part of this town is how much we all hate it
I gotta really hang out more I thought
I get so worn out
Like old clothes
I watch my body age like old clothes
Do I really need a new place or am I freaking out
If I’m a freak isn’t that what I’m supposed to do anyways
Wouldn’t that be better if people freaked out more
Like in the office
Or on an escalator in a suburban mall
Or waiting in line for coffee
Or on the subway
But I guess that happens all the time on the subway now
People freaking out
It’s quite funny
When you’re happy
To think about freaking out
But when you’re sad it’s so scary
Mac Miller was on the play list
So I played him until I cried
I’m still happy
I’m only crying because he’s dead
For that sheer loss of genius so young
That effort in a boy
I’m so grateful for his music
and I probably needed to cry
Like Julian at the smoke shop said
I gotta soften up
My will is so strong
It’s true
I get everything i want
Don’t you
But what about the money
Two sides every time it’s so funny
Maybe why u always catch me running
I like to see a million sides
And live a million lives
Scorpio season starts and I immediately feel strong
Like all the cells in my body regenerated
All my breath is squeaky clean
I trust myself
And I also don’t care so much about myself
I just know I gotta do what I gotta do
Doesn’t matter if the worlds going to shit
We all have our own worlds anyways
I trip in the city
City people are just like townspeople
No different really at all
Still carrying community
We’re all family
But I get worried the new guy can’t build houses like the old guy can
What good would he be in a disaster
Hard to tell what he could do with all his money
But at least he’s not depressed and he’s very funny
#new guy#new moon#new moon Scorpio#Scorpio new moon#moon phase#astrology#power#Astro poems#writing#write#fall#fall2023#2023#writing 2023#writer#astrologist#november#literature#nonfiction#lit#travel#poetry#poems#truckee#Tahoe#Tahoe national forest#server#waitress#Deborah eisenberg#San Francisco
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6/29/23
Chunks, Mk’s cat, was rubbing his face on my phone wanting to be pet. Out of habit I almost said “Hi Mr. Bean”... I really miss him... I caught myself at the last second.
A part of me wants to be your friend. Forget everything. Just so I can laugh with you again and see the cats again.
But I need to remind myself of what happened. How you lead me on so many times. How a real friend wouldn’t do that.
Maybe in another life we could have been friends. Maybe in another life... none of this would have ever happened...
I miss you. But I’m still so mad at you... It’s hard for both of these to be existing at the same time... Because then I get mad at myself for missing you. But I do. I know I said I wouldn’t. I know I said I wouldn’t give you another thought... But the thing is, you’re always on my mind. Was I too harsh?
Perhaps not. You really did hurt me. So fucking much. But that doesn’t change the fact that I miss the good times. I think it’s possible to simultaneously miss you and hate myself for it.
I got a notification a few days ago that my Tumblr is five years old. When I first created it, I used to write on it about you. And then I would look up your old username in hopes that maybe you wrote to me, too. Even now, I find myself looking, checking, to see if there’s anything. But why would there be?
I have a job interview tomorrow. My August is filling up fast with weddings, baby showers, bridal showers, trips, and so much more. I can’t afford it on this one income. I need something else.
I don’t really want to work two jobs. But I want to be there in Alabama and North Carolina for my friends. I want to see them. I want to be there for them. I want to help Cheri and Mk. Mk still hasn’t gotten her disability for her back surgery. She’s been without income for almost a month and half now. Anthony was back to work. But then he went and got a second opinion and found out that his arm is still broken, even though Ant was cleared to go back. So he’s out of work now and waiting on disability, too.
I want to help them. I want to secretly put money in their mailbox and help them pay rent. I want to help them pay groceries and pay their vet bills. I want to be there for Mk because she’s been there for me through so much. Whether it was guy problems or girl problems or family problems or telling me what I needed to hear in the moment, or picking me up when my car died on the side of the highway and still driving me around so I could do the things I needed to, or helping me get through a break up, or helping me financially... She’s quite literally has been like a sister to me. I know I could never truly repay her for everything that she has done for me, but I want to try. I want to give her some kind of peace of mind throughout this terrible situation.
She’s one of the most loyal people I’ve ever met. She’s sent me money before without ever asking for a penny back. She’s always had my back. She’s always loved me, whether I was here in Maine, or living in Kentucky, she was there.
I’ve had so many people walk out on me. She never has once. I want to get a second job, not just because August is crazy busy and I won’t be able to afford it, but also because I want her to be able to afford the basic things she needs in life right now.
Her dad literally gave her money to fill her gas tank up so she could go to the gym this morning. Afterward, we went to Subway and before we went in, Ant and her were talking about how they were going to pay for it. She’s the kindest person ever. She didn’t deserve to be in that car accident. She didn’t deserve to be out of work since January. She deserves so much more and I want to be able to help her.
My plan is to work the morning shift at one job, the night shift at another job (which I just got promoted for, so I will be getting a nice pay raise; I’ve heard it was like $1.60 more an hour), and perhaps dog sitting for my uncle over the weekend.
I’m going to be exhausted. But it’ll be so much better than sitting here on my days off, trying to do fun things with her, trying to go try new restaurants like we always do and seeing and hearing her talk about being able to pay for it.
I know life isn’t just about money. I get that. I try my best to be there for here in other ways, too.
I went to go see her the day after she had back surgery. She was up in Bangor, and it was an hour away from my place. At the time I was just starting a new job after not having one for a month and a half, and I still had no money. She doesn’t know it, but I spent my last $8 to fill my tank up just enough to go see her. I didn’t want her to be alone on the day after. Sure, Ant was up there, and he was going to go see her. But I wanted to be there for her as her friend. I wanted her to know that no matter what I’m always there for her. She’s my best friend. I would do it over again. Even if it meant I didn’t have money for food. Just to be there... I know it must have meant a lot to her.
I want to be there for her now, too.
And another thing... My brother has a tendency to get drunk and call me. He gets all sentimental and it’s a little weird. Anyone who knows my brother knows that he is not the type to show his emotions. He’s said on multiple different phone calls that he wants to help me pay off my debt. When I was without a job, I used my credit cards to pay for groceries, Soba’s cat food (which is $80...wtf), and gas to get to interviews. But no one would hire me. They always said, “We’ll get back to you.” Then I didn’t have money to pay off my credit cards. But I still needed to use them to get gas and eat.
My credit score tanked, and I owe a bit on my credit cards. Not a whole lot. I think like just over $2000. I also owe my landlord $1200. That’s another reason I need a second job. I want to be out of debt. I hate having money in my bank account knowing that it’s not really mine because I owe money to others. I want financial freedom. My brother told me that once he becomes a journeyman and starts making money being an electrician, he’ll send me however much I need to pay it all off, and that he doesn’t expect anything in return. I already owe him $300 because he helped pay part of my rent earlier this year...
My mother used to always hold things over my head. She would do something, and you would think that it was very sweet, but then a week would go by, and she would shove it back in your face if you got into an argument. That taught me to never rely on anyone. And, if for some crappy reason, I did need someone’s help, I always paid them back or did something for them in return. My relationship with my mother was very much like a constant business transaction. Now, I hate asking for help. I hate asking for money. You want to give me money? Okay, but what can I clean to work for it? Can I babysit? Can I do something for you so you won’t hold it over my head later on?
I don’t want my brother to give me three grand in money. I don’t think he would hold it over my head, he said that he wouldn’t. But for the rest of my life, I would know that he helped me out tremendously and I never repaid him. I can’t do that. I can’t be needy. I can’t need help. I need to just put my ass into gear and work jobs and get the money I need. From me, myself, and I.
I’ve always been that way. I think ever since I was young. Mostly from my mom holding things over my head, but also because she was never there. She worked crazy ass hours. If I wanted to do something or needed something, I did it myself.
One time in college I had no money. Well, actually on multiple occasions, but this one time in particular it was really bad. We had laundry on campus; a dollar fifty for wash and a dollar fifty for dry. I had no money. My bank account was in the negative. I desperately needed to do laundry. Like, no clean clothes, taking out ones that don’t smell bad, need to do laundry. My friends wanted to help. But I wasn’t going to rely on them for something as simple as laundry. So, I washed all my clothes in the bathtub and hung them up to dry. I then blow-dried them and they were clean. I did the math, and it took about two days for them to be completely dried unless I just sat there for forever with the blow-dryer. I did that for almost two weeks before I finally got my check from my job. (I hate bi-weekly jobs.)
I’ve always done what I needed to do to get money. To make things work. I once baked cookies and sold them on campus and paid over half of my $710 room and board. It was mostly in quarters and on Cash App, which was kind of embarrassing, but I was also proud of myself that I didn’t have to ask anyone to lend me over three hundred dollars.
Maybe this makes me proud. Maybe I think I’m above everyone else, but I don’t believe that to be the case. I think that just with not having anyone in my childhood, and those who were there hanging things over my head, made me this way. Which I can be happy in one way, because it has made me strong and resilient. But sometimes I wouldn’t mind asking for help without feeling like a complete failure.
But maybe that’s good. Because maybe if I didn’t have the shitty things from my childhood I would have turned into a spoiled moocher.
I could ask the “what if” questions all night long about how I would have turned out if things were different. But things aren’t different. This is how things are. Mk got into a terrible accident. She can’t afford bills. I didn’t have a job for almost two months. I’m trying to catch up on my bills. Rowan was a jerk and yet, I still miss him. This is life. This is how it is. I can’t mope around and feel sorry for myself. Then I would be wasting this life. But I also know that I can’t work three jobs for the rest of my life, because I would also be wasting my life.
Life is about balance. The good and the bad. The hard and the easy. Sometimes we get a little bit of one or the other. Or so it seems. But that doesn’t mean that the other isn’t present.
For example, Rowan. There was good and bad. And the ending was really shitty and bad. But there’s still good. I had the privilege of meeting his wonderful cats. (Especially Bean, who may or may not have been my favorite.) I learned how to walk away from someone who wasn’t healthy for me. I learned how to deal with it without it ripping me apart. I’m like ninety percent sure I have BPD. I’m not diagnosed but I have a lot of the symptoms and I relate to the people that have it. I have the early childhood trauma to cause BPD. I’m just too poor to go to a therapist and get properly diagnosed. With the BPD, I tend to get overly emotionally attached to someone, and then when they leave, it’s like my entire world is falling apart. It happened when things ended with John and I. I quite literally felt like I didn’t know what to do and that everything sucked and nothing was worth it anymore. Just because of a guy I didn’t even date and hadn’t even known for a year yet. Looking back, I know it was way over exaggerative, but that’s how I get sometimes. My emotions are uncontrollable sometimes. I think it’s partly to do with the potential BPD and the PCOS.
I didn’t do that with Rowan. I don’t know if that was because I knew deep down in the beginning that things weren’t going to work out, or if I’m actually making some sort of progress. I’d like to think it’s the latter. I’d like to think I’m becoming more self-aware of my problems, what triggers them, and how to solve the issue. Would this be easier with a therapist? Perhaps. But I’m like three grand in the hole right now. Therapy is out of the question. That’s part of the reason I have this Tumblr. It allows me to let my thoughts escape out and be free. It’s my private little bubble. Is it public? Duh. But no one knows me on here. No one knows who Mk is or Rowan. No one knows who I am or what I do. I could be a 40 year old creepy guy making this all up. Or I could be a 13 year old girl who is creating a life to escape her reality. No one really knows.
I like having this little journal. My mother used to read all the journals I wrote in when I was younger. All of them. Everything. Even the things that I wrote about after I was 18, so she couldn’t use the whole “I’m worried about my young daughter.” I know I would have still been considered young, but I’d still be considered an adult and it was wrong. Either way, I think that it was wrong. I never talked to her because she was never there. And when she was there, she was either wrapped up in her cellphone or condescending me for the very thoughts I would have. Why would I want to tell her anything?
I like that no one personal to me knows about this. One person does. But I don’t really think they read these anymore. And even if they did, I don’t really care.
I like having a place to freely express myself. It’s nice to be able to read what used to go on in my head. Sometimes my head even clears up by then end of an entry and I can tell within my writing that I’m feeling better. I burned all my old journals. That way my mother could never read the again. Never use them against me again. I like that no one can use this against me, because no one knows about it. It’s nice hiding behind a username. Honestly, though, I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to find, if anyone in my personal life paid attention, they would find this. But I don’t think that they care that much. Which is totally fine with me.
I ought to go to bed. I have that interview in the morning and I’m kind of nervous that I’m going to accidentally sleep through it. I need another job. My cat might have some medical issues, too. Which is going to cost in vet bills and possibly in more medication for her. There’s a potential that the medicine she is on for her skin condition could lead her to diabetes and/or organ failure. So, the vet wants to talk about alternatives. Which is going to be an expensive vet visit and maybe even more expensive things for her. Did I mention that her cat food was $80? For an 8lb bag. It’s ridiculous. Also, my car is shitting the bed. It leaks oil and coolant, hardly starts most of the time, and died on me going down the highway about a month ago. And I do not have the credit to go buy another vehicle nor do I have the savings to buy a cash car. I’m screwed. I need money. I need another job. So, I have to make sure that I wake up for this interview.
Life is weird. Life is complicated and messy. Life is hard sometimes. But it’s also very nice and beautiful and full of amazing friends and family and people who become your family. Also, cats. I love my cat. I wouldn’t trade her for anything. I’m so thankful I adopted her.
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Call Out My Name
Bruce Wayne x Black Female Reader
Summary: A terrifying savior comes to your aide one night but it isn’t the last you see of each other
Warnings: 18+ ONLY, mentions of violence, mugging/assault, mentions of stitches/needles, smut: primal kink, rough sex, unprotected sex, dirty talk, fingering, biting/scratching, slight restraint play, light oral (male receiving), light mentions of pain play, manhandling, use of pet names - “bunny”, intense sex
Word Count: 6.5k
Note: Hoping the direction I took with this doesn’t feel too rushed, it’s all about getting completely caught up in someone. This is also based around this headcanon I wrote!
Panic was familiar to you, especially in this city. Gotham took no prisoners and didn’t afford room for recklessness at any turn.
The sun had long since set and you were anxiously tapping your foot against the marble floors at Bank of Gotham, cursing under your breath at your boss who was the reason you’d been forced to lock up the building tonight, an exceptionally uneasy task to be asked to do as a woman alone in this particular area of the city.
You weren’t even sure why you’d taken this job, you needed something to pay the bills. The strife and turmoil of working at one of the busiest hospitals in Gotham had taken its toll, two years in, and you were beaten down by the constant flow of violence and death and sickness and the consequences of poverty filling the emergency department each night.
Sometimes you wished you had been strong enough to keep going but for now, boring money transactions and computer busywork, and the occasional weekend shift down at the local medical clinic would have to cut it.
As much as you wanted to leave this city, it felt impossible. So you were taking your time to find some kind of hope and purpose here, a challenge considering there wasn’t much to look to for hope these days but you kept your eyes and ears open nonetheless.
Last minute checks and locking things up was done in record time, you were in the utmost hurry to get out of here and back home, praying that nobody would notice you out on the streets, anyone with any sense knew to retreat indoors when nighttime descended.
The walk to the subway stop took two minutes but it felt like an eternity, your steps quick but cautious, the strap of your bag across your chest clenched tightly in your fist, the noise of the city fading slightly as you descended below, more than relieved to see a subway car’s doors sliding open.
You began to jog, just three more steps and you’d be inside the car but something yanked you back, a scream bubbled but never left your throat as a pair of clammy hands snatched at your mouth and throat, another pair of hands tugging violently at your bag, your body jerking backward with it.
Shock took hold, your mind racing, trying to think, to move, to do anything before anything else happened.
The hand over your mouth was filthy, you could smell the dirt, the grime, your mind jumping to all the horrors these hands had probably committed and it terrified you, so much so you wanted to vomit but another violet yank at the bag miraculously still across your chest brought you back to the surface, and it made you angry.
It made you rageful to be a target and because of that no more than two seconds later you could taste blood, your teeth sinking into the man’s palm, your anger spreading, your teeth yanking at the piece of flesh you felt between it.
A scream filled the space but it wasn’t yours.
“What the fuck?! Grab her!” another voice snarled behind you as you spit out the blood and tissue in your mouth, he was clutching his hand, now on his knees, screaming and screaming.
You didn’t have time to relish in it, you weren’t safe yet, and you might even be worse off now than if you’d just let them have your bag.
Two other men circled you, one had a knife, the other bore a silver-toothed smile that brought the bile up in your stomach, each man seemingly seconds away from lunging at you and you weren’t sure you’d be able to do much damage at all this time, they had steadily backed you into a corner of the station.
The man with the knife stopped in his tracks, his eyes lifted away from you and towards the dark tunnel behind you to your right. You didn’t dare take your own off either of them but grew more confused by the second as a flash of terror came across his face and the silver-toothed man followed suit, you were no longer their concern.
“Oh god…no…” they both stumbled back, eyes wide, nothing about them seemed threatening now.
Your curiosity got the better of you and you tore yourself away from your attackers for a brief moment, your heart clamoring against your chest. What could possibly be so scary that they’d back off from scoring some cash off you or doing whatever it is they were set out to do?
The tunnel was dark, foreboding, something about looking at it made you uneasy. And then you saw it too.
A shadow cloaked in the darkness flit across your vision. You couldn’t be sure you had seen anything but you swore something had moved. Then you heard it. The heavy clank of a boot upon the concrete. Then another clank, and another, your body shaking with fear yet frozen in place.
Him. It was him.
You had heard stories, far off and hushed whispers of The Batman, the one in the shadows, the one who instilled fear in any criminal and frankly in anyone who’d seen or heard of the things he did to those who dared act so out of turn. You hadn’t paid much attention to the stories, unsure of whether this dark figure was something to trust but it seemed that you’d found yourself smack in the middle of one of those stories now.
As he emerged from the tunnel you turned away, hoping he wouldn’t notice you, that you’d just melt into the floor and wake up from this nightmare but you were too late, he glanced at you, his cold gaze settling upon your cowering self, and as shaken as you were you held his gaze for a moment, something, a feeling, seemed to reach you, he was speaking to you with his eyes, almost telling you to breathe, to steady yourself.
But as quick as the exchange happened, it was over, his attention returned to the two men trying to act tough at the other end of the platform. Stupid, they should have run like the third had done soon after you’d bit into his hand.
Better yet, you should have left already, that was the sensible thing to do, to try and put as much distance between yourself and whatever the fuck this was but something kept you rooted in place.
It all happened so fast after that.
Your attackers tried to stand their ground and made empty threats, you’d have laughed if you weren’t focused on trying to breathe. The Bat handled them better than you expected, his fists delivering blows that made you cringe. He knew how to fight, he was tactical but you could tell this was all personal for him.
His movements were filled with anger, especially after the man wielding the knife was able to land a few slashes in the weaker points of his suit.
He was brutal in every sense of the word, all those rumors and stories seemed to be true, he was a man to be feared, and yet when it was all over and the crumpled and broken bodies of your attackers were at his feet, you couldn’t help but be intrigued.
You were insane, you thought. He could very well take out some more of that anger on you, maybe that was his thing, hurting absolutely anyone who crossed his path, and you were a good target, a black woman alone, nobody would bat an eye. Maybe he thought everyone in this city was scum and that you were no different than those men, this was the mentality this city made people have, you’d seen it, not a drop of trust for anyone or anything.
Call it naïve but you didn’t believe that about him, not for a second.
His boots clanked against the concrete again, his tall frame coming towards you, the sound deafening in the eerily quiet subway station and you were still shaking but managed to spring to your feet.
“Are you hurt?” his voice was low and gruff, the whisper in it sending a shiver down your spine. You felt so exposed to him.
“No, just a little freaked out and uh, thank you for that…” you tried to hide the way your hands trembled but you knew he hadn’t missed a single detail.
There were no other words spoken, just a curt tilt of his head to acknowledge your words.
“You seem hurt, though. The bleeding,” you gestured to the dusky red streak across the metallic bat symbol on his chest, “I think he got you pretty deep in that shoulder, I…I was a medic, you’re probably gonna need stitches.”
In an effort not to think about how shaken you were you focused on him, trying to assess him, an instinct to you now. He had to be in pain but he didn’t show any signs of it. You wondered what he was thinking.
The silence was uncomfortable and you racked your brain for something else to say, for a reason to stick around but before you could find your voice again he was walking away, his footfalls eventually faded the more you stared into the black of the tunnel till your savior was nothing more than a shadow once more.
-----
The next morning you woke up in a cold sweat, bewildered at how you’d managed to get home after all that in one piece but you were safe in your bed in your dingy apartment, all the locks, and bolts fastened on your door.
You had called off work, which was evidently a conversation you needed an Advil for because your boss offered you no consolation when you explained what had happened and why you needed to take a day for yourself. This city made you want to tear your hair out more often than not.
But there was something else your mind was occupied with. The Bat.
You wondered if he was okay, especially with those stab wounds, you wondered where he was, how he had known that you were in need of help, what his reasons were.
He struck fear in many and you weren’t sure what to think of his methods but he sure had helped you, he was doing more than most actually tasked with caring for the city and its people, corruption had everything to do with that.
The encounter you had with him replayed again and again in your mind, it all felt so surreal.
He was there and then he wasn’t and you couldn’t get the image of him or the way he’d looked at you out of your head. Something in his eyes had registered yours, something that you couldn’t shake. But you forced yourself to put whatever that situation was aside and try and forget the nightmare that had taken place.
You wouldn’t let it take you down any further.
-----
Night had fallen again and you’d found yourself waking up in another cold sweat, and this time The Bat wasn’t just behind the darkness of your eyelids, he was at the window of your fire escape, the pointed ears of his cowl and the crouched frame of his body unmistakable against the rain and lightning crackling across the sky.
You shouldn’t have been so keen to open that damn window, you knew you shouldn’t but your hands had acted on their own despite how they shook when you slid the window upwards, the ends of his cape whisked up with the wind and then pooled back down around him.
“How did you find me?” you crossed your arms over your chest, a weird familiarity settling in.
“Last night. I followed you, had to make sure you got home safely, nothing more.”
There was that same sure but whispery tone to his voice albeit he sounded strained this time.
“Oh, well you should have just given me a ride, saved me the heart attack of trying to find a cab that late at night,” you let out a nervous sigh and took a step back, your heart leapt into your throat because you were going to invite him in and this was a textbook bad idea but nothing about this was logical and you weren’t trying to force it to be.
He obliged, and this time you watched him as he did you. Your eyes and ears caught his labored breathing and the wince and tick of his jaw as he moved. He was hurt and in need of your help. Figures.
“Sit.” you pointed to one of the rickety kitchen table chairs you had and turned away from him to shut the window and grab your bag of medical supplies.
There wasn’t any need to ask why he’d come here, you were curious and had a thousand different questions and thoughts but managed to keep them all in while you busied yourself with setting up a clean environment on the table, acutely aware of him watching you yet again.
Bruce was quiet as he always was when taking things in. And you were the subject of much of his thoughts the last 24 hours. He couldn’t say why he decided to come to you, Alfred had stitched him back together more nights than he could remember and would have done so again tonight, but there was just something about you he could see and feel that was so mirror-like to his own self and it terrified him but made him want to seek you out.
This was undoubtedly the most reckless thing he’d done tonight but he felt like you could be trusted.
To put it simply, you mesmerized him. The night you met you said you’d been a medic and it was clear by the array of supplies you carried, that you were no doubt seasoned. He could tell you’d seen horrors, that you woke from terrible nightmares like he did, that you were hurt and tired and angry like he was, and yet when he looked at you all he saw how much you cared.
You were honest and real amongst whatever brokenness this city had plagued you with and god did it make Bruce weak.
“It’s my shoulder. I’m sure I pulled the stitches,” Bruce grunted lowly when you pulled up another chair next to him.
“Probably, I’ll take a look and see what I can do. You’re gonna have to take off the top half of that though. I’ll turn around, I promise. Just tell me when you’re ready.”
You closed your eyes and turned your back to him, trying to steady your heartbeat. This was utterly insane. Inviting a violent vigilante into your home and offering to examine him and patch him up, real casual stuff.
It took him a minute to slip out of whatever protective layers he had on and when he signaled to you that he was ready you were surprised to find he had taken off the cowl too, a black cloth in its place over the lower half of his face.
Disheveled dark hair adorned his head, black paint of sorts smudged around his eyes and he was broad even out of the suit, his shoulders, his arms, his torso, all toned and littered in scars and various bruises, some healing, some fresh.
Sitting down in front of him you prepared your supplies on the table, leaning in close to examine where the wound was. You dared to look up at him for a second, finding his eyes fixed on you yet again and you weren’t sure how to wrestle with the fact that the eye contact made you squirm and not because you were uncomfortable.
Nevertheless, you focused on what you knew how to do, donning a pair of gloves and cleaning up the area as best you could, carefully removing the pulled suture lines before you opened a fresh package of the monocryl material, secured it on the needle holder and got to work.
Bruce grimaced under the mask as you pinched the edge of the wound with a pickup and then hooked the needle under his skin with the other hand, pulling it through until you liked the length of the tail.
Your hands were beautiful to watch as you tied down a knot and then another and another. You were skilled in this no doubt and something about having you so close to him, about the gentle firmness of your hands and how they touched him was what made him begin to relax.
Silence hung around you both like a blanket but neither of you felt like words needed to be said yet, it was just the proximity, and the click of the needle holder clamping before you threw another running stitch.
His skin was brought together in mere minutes, you dabbed a clean cloth at the edges of the wound and made sure there were no gaps in your suture line before you were satisfied and placed a bandage over the area.
“Try not to ruin my handiwork, ok?” you leaned back in your chair and crossed your arms, resisting the urge to squirm again when you realized how close your knee was to being pressed against his leg.
“I won’t promise you that but thank you for this. I’m sorry for scaring you too, I don’t…I don’t want you to be scared by me.”
Oh, this was a very dangerous game to be playing with a stranger like him but you couldn’t get off this train now that you were on it, too many unanswered questions to shut down now.
“I’m not. I figured if you wanted to hurt me you’d have done it by now. You’re gathering quite the reputation but…I guess I see something else there too. Why else would you allow me to see this much of you?”
You didn’t expect him to answer and he didn’t, see, you were already finding a rhythm.
But eventually, you got tired of the silence, offered him something to drink and he didn’t refuse so you just kept up the window of conversation, happy to find him answering back at times.
The rain outside had gotten worse, now an outright downpour and the rumbles of thunder had now turned into echoing booms, one of which interrupted the silent pause in your conversation, making you startle.
He wasn’t thinking when he did it, it was just pure instinct for Bruce as he reached his hand out to rest on your knee, drawing you back into your center a little bit to feel warmth there.
“They can’t hurt you here. I made sure they wouldn’t ever get that chance again,” he spoke to you so softly that you almost wanted to cry at the comfort it brought.
With your gaze fixed on his hand, you just nodded, trying to get rid of the memory; of all the bad memories haunting your life. Your leg began to tremble, remnants of reality had seeped into the moment but his hand remained on your knee to steady you further.
“Look at me. Please, look at me,” his voice lodged itself into your brain and you couldn’t fight it, you wanted to be swayed, wanted to get caught up in whatever the hell this was and you couldn’t fight it anymore.
So you did as had said and found his eyes to be a mirror of your feelings. You felt like he understood you in some odd way.
Seconds felt like minutes as you sat there with him and struggled to keep your breathing even and then the air seemed to evaporate from your lungs altogether when he pulled away the makeshift covering to reveal the rest of his face and it all clicked into place.
-----
It was strange, how gentle his hand had been on you when you’d see those same hands inflict so much violence the night before. But you understood why now. Everything made no sense at all but made complete sense at the same time.
Bruce Wayne. Batman. Pretending to be only one of those things. And he’d let you see it because you let him see you first.
Maybe that’s how it happened, how he ended up in your bed that night.
“Tell me to leave. You can tell me to leave.” you watched as Bruce stood up and you followed suit.
“Mr. Wayne, I don’t understand! Why reveal this to me? You’re fucking crazy, what if I decided to share your identity with someone who wants to hurt you?” The frustration in your voice was evident as you turned your back to pace the floor.
“Don’t call me that and you wouldn’t do that. You care too much and that’s why you have to tell me to get out because I feel like I know you when I don’t and I want to know more, I want to stay.”
“Yeah well, what if I refuse? You don’t get to hide from me now! Do you think I don’t want to know more too? Think again. Since last night you haven’t left my head and I don’t think you ever will now!”
You hadn’t meant to get loud but all of this was so strange and your heart raced and you couldn’t understand why your body wanted to be closer to him until you found yourself inches away from him.
“I don’t even know your name.” Bruce exhaled, his hands itched to touch you.
Without giving it a second thought you reached up to take his face in your hands and whispered your name to him, the tension between you snapping in two not long after when he closed the distance and pressed his lips to yours.
This was all so fucked but neither of you cared anymore.
Bruce placed his hands on your waist and squeezed when you relaxed in his hold, your hands grasping at his hair, he never wanted you to stop.
You could feel the strength he possessed as he backed you up against the wall closest to you, his body pressing up against yours. There were remnants of that aggressiveness you’d seen that night, the way he pinned your wrist to the wall to kiss down your shoulder freely, how he pushed your body back against the wall with his hips when you tried to push off it, it shouldn’t have turned you on so much but it did.
“We barely know each other, we shouldn’t...” you gasped against his lips as he lifted you up and your legs wrapped around his torso.
“Do you want to stop? I told you that you can tell me to leave. Tell me what you want, Y/N,” Bruce huffed against the column of your neck, content with the way you gripped his body while he held you up. Like you were fucking made for him. You fit so beautifully in his hands.
“No, I don’t want you to stop. I want this, I might kill you myself if you stop this,” you whined when you felt his teeth graze your neck.
That’s all he needed to hear as you breathily guided him to your bedroom, your body becoming a livewire when you both fell back on the bed and you could feel his weight on you, his hips beginning to grind ever so slightly.
You could barely process any of this, Bruce Wayne was kissing you right now and yet it was so much deeper than just that. You were connected now in a deeper way and he wasn’t the Bruce Wayne that you’d seen or heard him to be, this was the truth, the raw truth. And he’d chosen you to witness it.
There was a moment of pause where you were both breathing heavy, your legs still wrapped around his torso as he pushed himself up on his elbows.
For the first time since you’d met, he looked nervous and a little unsure of where to go and you sympathized. You didn’t expect him to have much experience with this given the life he was leading, so you gave him a little nudge in the right direction.
You sought out his lips again, welcoming them, your hand finding his and moving it down between both your bodies and he caught on, that boyish nervousness faded when he rubbed his fingers right over that spot that ached so much for his touch.
And then they slipped under the waistband of your pants with you pushing his hand down faster because you’d be so upset he all he did was tease. You knew things about him for better or for worse now, the least he could do was not toy with you.
“S’that all for me?” he all but growled against the shell of your ear as a finger teased your clit and then slid down to explore. You were soaked and it was all his fault.
How fucked up was it that you were this turned on by someone you barely even knew? How fucked was it that you liked the rough edge to him, he was respectful of you but not gentle and it lit a fire under you.
“And if it is it would be your fault, just…” you sighed, refusing to say please because you knew how needy it would sound.
“I told you to tell me what you want, so tell me. We both know you’re not innocent.” Bruce stilled the movement of his fingers much to your dismay and you realized he was just as stubborn as you were.
God you wanted to push back, to rile him up, to see what he would do but there was also the fact that beyond tonight you probably wouldn’t get that chance and if you were gonna do this with him, you wanted everything, nothing held back, and that meant from you too.
So you obliged, the words hard to form after your first “please” and his resumed rubbing of your clit, but you managed to do it, to tell him that you wanted him to touch you, wanted him to fuck you like you were his, you wanted him to fall apart with you, you wanted to fall apart for him.
And to Bruce, this confession was practically sacred. Yeah he’d fooled around with people before but it always felt like an act, like a game. He was always playing pretend, but with you, he couldn’t hide.
This was the first time he’d been intimate with someone and felt like his truest self and yes it was all so broken and filled with many decisions made without any caution but he didn’t care tonight, he only saw you, only wanted you, needed you in fact because without saying it, he knew you’d understand him in ways no one else could or had, because you just cared too damn much.
And that was always what got you in trouble.
“There she is, was that so hard to say?” a faint smirk and his lust filled eyes could be seen in the dim lighting of your room and you wanted to kick him so bad.
“Fuck, oh! Fuck you,” a gasp escaped your lips when he slid a finger inside your entrance, slow, careful, then another to join the first before he crooked them just slightly and stroked at your walls.
Bruce chuckled at that, increasing his pace to see what other pretty sounds and curses would come his way.
His other hand was pulling the cotton material of your shirt up when you took over and pulled the fabric over your head, tossing it somewhere off the bed.
He’d moved on to your pants and underwear in the meantime, shimmying them off you, not caring to stop what he was doing because now your breaths were labored and your short exhales at turned to whimpers.
You felt so exposed now, so vulnerable all bare for him even with half his clothes off. But you fought the urge to hide and instead, widened your legs, bringing your knees up a little more towards your chest, letting him see you in full.
“You’re beautiful…” The whisper was barely audible but you heard it and knew he wasn’t just saying it to say it.
Two fingers turned into three and you were reeling, your hands moving up over your head to grip the pillows, your arms instinctively covering your face the more you stretched around his digits until his free hand moved to your wrists and held them apart above you, away from your face.
“What did you tell me earlier, I can’t hide from you? Well you can’t either, bunny.”
What an asshole. Especially to use that pet name with you which you were determined not to give away how it made you feel and yet your pussy fluttered around his fingers and his smirk grew.
You were soaking his hand already and he really couldn’t wait to fuck you if you’d let him be so honored. You were divine. Dark, warm skin heated even further under his touch, your body seeming to unravel for him, to unfurl and call out to him.
Bruce Wayne wanted to make a mess out of you tonight and that’s exactly what happened.
The first time you came was from his hands, the one that had been holding down your wrists had eventually moved to put some light pressure on your lower abdomen and then to rub your clit again as he worked you open, curling his fingers and moving his arm just right when he found what spots made you keen.
When you were came down from that peak he bent down to kiss over your chest, practically burying his head there, some of the black paint around his eyes smudging onto your skin but you wore it proudly, turned on even more by the reminder of him on your skin.
“Fuck me, please. I want you, Bruce, please I need this,” you tested how his name sounded in your mouth, careful not to use anything formal because it was clear he hated being addressed so properly.
The way his name sounded coming from you nearly made him cringe from the way his heart ached for you to say it again and again.
He gave you a nod, not trusting himself to speak just yet and busied himself with stripping away the rest of the bat suit. You sat up and crawled to him at the foot of the bed, peppering kisses over his stomach, taking the opportunity to feel him up, your thighs pressing together as you discovered the toned muscles underneath your palms and the edges and ridges of the scars all over his body.
Then your gaze shifted from his face to look down at his dick, hard and pretty in front of you, your mouth watering. He was thick and you shuddered at the way he pulsed as you wrapped your hand around his shaft and tightened your grip.
Bruce was once again left rather speechless by you. Your head was tilted up now to look at him again as you stroked him up and down and he couldn’t help but hold your face in his hands and lean down to touch his forehead to the top of your head. You were going to end him and nothing was a sweeter relief than that.
When you finally wrapped your lips around the tip of him you didn’t anticipate how powerful you’d feel testing the self control of your big bad vigilante, “That’s it, bunny. There, right there.”
The kitten licks you gave him had him gripping your jaw so tight the pressure kind of hurt and that only encouraged you to tease him just a little more and he let you like you knew he would until you made eye contact with him again and he just couldn’t hold back anymore.
Your back hit the mattress and you smiled at the way he grabbed and pulled you into the position he wanted, to be handled that way was exactly what you wanted. Bruce had parted your legs once again, his palms pushing against the back of your knees before you took their place, holding yourself wide open for him.
The air felt so thick and you swore you could barely breathe when he laid his length on your abdomen letting you really see and understand that he was going to fill you to the brim before he coated as much of himself as he could in your slick and slowly pushed into you, his low groan filled the air the more your walls yielded to him.
And you were no better, mouth fallen open as he sheathed himself inside you all the way, the pressure making you whimper his name which seemed to ground him to reality a little more.
The two of you stayed like that for a moment, adjusting to being connected this way, Bruce taking in every second of the sensation of you molding around him, it was insane, how good this felt already, how sweet you looked clinging to his arms as he pressed himself against you, needing to feel your skin on his.
“Move, please, move. Give me it,” you pressed a kiss to his jaw that ticked at your words. Your eyes on his again as you lay your head back down and kept your legs folded close to his sides.
How could he refuse such an angelic request? You rendered him a weak man and for you, he’d get on his knees, he swore it to himself.
“Is this what you want so bad? Look at me, that’s it. I want your eyes on me when I fuck you.” the growl in his voice as he said it made it so hard to think or focus on anything else. You would cling to every damn word.
“I asked you a question.” were the words he spoke next that brought you out of the haze settling in your brain and cried out when he rolled his hips and a twinge of searing fullness spread across your tummy, bringing the haze right back.
“Y-yes, I-oh god, yes. Please, please I want it!” you wailed against his lips and didn’t care how much it would sting for him when you dug your nails into his arms.
He was breaking you down second by second, his thrusts getting rougher the more he noticed your body responding to him. He just couldn’t get over how much he was letting go, allowing himself to connect to you and to this moment fully, he was more present in himself than he’d ever been before, and it made him feel so protective of you, so possessive.
Something took hold of him and he wasn’t going to hold back, not with the way your glossy eyes pleaded for it. His strokes were hard and deep, his hips colliding with your body and producing the most obscene sounds from where you were connected and from your pretty little mouth.
“That’s so fucking good, oh my god, Bruce, please, fuck!” you moaned and didn’t care what you sounded like, your body completely wrapping around his. You could barely string together a coherent thought as your teeth came down playfully on his neck after a particularly deep stroke.
“Yeah? I know, bunny, shh that’s it, I know. It’s so fucking good cause you’re mine now aren’t you, I know what you need.” he grunted and ducked his head down to mouth at your nipples, your hands flying to his hair, tugging it hard, you wanted it to hurt just a little, a fucked out smile graced your lips when he pounded into you at a faster pace the second he registered the pain.
His hands were wrapped around you, a hand gripping your waist so hard you were sure you’d find bruises but you welcomed it, you wanted him to mark you, you wanted a reminder of how good this felt.
Your toes curled the more his length hit all the spots inside you that made the tightly spun coil in your core want to snap, especially when he pried himself away from your breasts and resumed the steamy eye contact he’d kept with you all night.
Lightning danced across the sky outside the walls of your apartment and across your body too, every part of you seemed touched by the white hot heat of pleasure, you were caged in by it, Bruce made sure of that, that you felt him everywhere, in every part of your body but most importantly in your head.
He wanted the pounding he was giving you to be at the forefront of your mind, he wanted you to crave it like he craved you now.
All the desire he ever felt was flowing throughout him, the way he fucked you and held you close to him like he was afraid you’d slip away if he let go, just a mirror of his desperation to connect, to be seen and touched and understood for once, for once. And you did, you held his gaze and touched him like you wanted to commit his body to memory, you saw him and that was that.
It was all so intense, the headboard was colliding with the wall, your hands had yanked at your sheets and thrown pillows off the bed, the two of you so inexplicably lost in each other body and mind, nothing else existed or mattered.
So when you came around his cock which wouldn’t be for the last time that night, he relished in seeing you break apart for him.
“So fucking pretty, let me have it, bunny. Keep cumming, come on, I wanna see you,” he cooed at you darkly, fucking you through your climax and holding your face so you couldn’t look away as you did. It was everything to him.
You couldn’t do much else but scream and shake underneath him, relying on him to keep you held together as you fell apart in his hands.
Somehow one of your legs ended up over his uninjured shoulder which allowed him to get even deeper, and you were truly beside yourself and Bruce fucking loved it.
To be able to bring you this much pleasure, to fuck you out, make you babble and plead and whimper over and over, it made him double down in his efforts.
He wasn’t a man who quit a challenge which was why you were beyond spent by the time you whimpered to him that you couldn’t handle any more orgasms, and even though you were reluctant for him to pull out as he found his own release it brought a smile to your face because he had to bury his head in your neck as he came from the sheer intensity of it and god could you listen to the sound he made forever.
You felt so vulnerable again both emotionally and physically and had never been happier for it as you both caught your breaths.
There was no need to fill the silence as you looked at one another, neither of you wanted to break the spell of what had just taken place. Not yet, it needed to linger, it needed to seep into your souls.
Bruce reached out to wipe a bead of sweat off your temple, his thumb just barely caressing your cheek and it kind of made you want to cry out of longing.
Come morning things would be different, you both knew that. Your life had changed tonight and you weren’t sure if you’d wake to find Bruce still in your bed, you’d understand if he wasn’t but part of you wanted him to be the first thing you laid eyes on.
You must have stayed like that for hours, a blanket of fatigue settled in your bodies and the silent animal of sleep dragging you both under swiftly.
Be it doomed, be it a disaster, from this point on you’d call out his name, and he yours.
———
A/N: I hope this is a great read! Battinson really just owns my heart and pussy at this point lmfao, thanks for coming along for the ride <3
#amalia writes#bruce wayne x black!reader#bruce wayne x reader#batman x reader#battinson x reader#battinson smut#battinson x black reader#batman smut#bruce wayne smut#batman x you#the batman#bruce wayne angst#bruce wayne fluff#bruce wayne fanfiction#batman fanfiction#batman fanfic
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harmless (i)
Summary: Bucky volunteers to go stop a small time villain, but nothing can prepare him for what exactly he has to deal with. (Bucky x villain!reader)
Warnings: cursing, nonsense writing
Word count: 1.5k
A/N: listen i just needed something to keep my mind busy and a perry the platypus!bucky and dr. doofenshmirtz!reader was the only thing i could think of. dont have any high expectations from this series, you will be sorely disappointed.
If you have any ideas for this series, lemme know!! it’d be cute to write!!
here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing <333
Series Masterlist
Bucky Barnes, for all intents and purposes, is edgy.
His SHIELD salary is definitely enough to afford him a simple beanie, gloves even if he’s that eager. His long hair, though a spectacle in itself, isn’t as good at keeping away the cold as he claims it to be.
It’s a personal choice, a fashion statement even, to be roaming the streets in a long flimsy t-shirt that does nothing to accentuate his broad shoulders, and tactical pants that look a little too comfortable.
It’s cold. He says he likes it, to appease his blond haired best friend who insisted that he wear a cardigan at least. He won’t like it in a while, but he would never admit it.
The bike ride to the other side of town for a minor mission takes longer than he expected. The wind rushing by gets his adrenaline racing.
Official missions are long and gruelling, and oftentimes not fun. But it gives him a purpose.
It’s easy, therefore, to find him brooding when he’s not on one.
No one wants their room to be on the receiving end of Bucky’s stress-cleaning sessions. His baking is more appreciated.
So when there’s news of a small time villain creating havoc again, it made sense that he volunteered to go sort it out. No one else wanted the job. They’d all been at it before.
SHIELD didn’t seem particularly bothered either.
“It’s not that serious, Barnes.”
“I’m going.”
“Just stop her from doing whatever dumb plan she has today. She seems to have a new one every week.”
“Can I-”
“This is not an assassination mission.”
“Fine. Can I-”
“No.”
“Fine.”
He didn’t know what to expect. He had an idea of how they should be. Smaller villains tended to be more aggressive, vicious to prove their point. They were here to stay.
He wears his regular gear. Enough knives to make a butcher look away in shame, and guns including, but not limited to, his biceps.
He finally pulls the bike to a stop a few metres away, leaving it out of reach in case things got too out of hand. He didn’t want to have to walk back to the Tower, and his friends, as much as they loved him, would never go out of their way to pick him up. Little shits.
The address is a dingy, plain concrete house near an old construction site. It was flat and felt more like an afterthought than an actual building. It looked more like an abandoned Walmart than an actual villain lair.
The only entrance is the door in the front. He counts to three, lifting his leg to kick it down.
It falls down ungracefully, loud and creaky like it was bound to the doorframe by rust.
The only light source inside is a green light. All the way at the other end on an elevated platform is a desk and a chair facing away from him. He can’t see much other than that.
Someone’s laughter comes back loud and booming. He raises his gun, feet apart in a defensive stance.
“I’ve been expecti-” the voice pauses mid-sentence- “Did you just kick down my door?”
He looks behind him to where the wooden piece is on the floor. He certainly did.
He can finally see you as you stand up, green light illuminating your face. You reach over to the side, pressing a few switches.
He squints when all the lights turn on, pulling the both of you from darkness.
“Dude!” you cry out, face twisting into what only could be described as a mix of horror and disdain. “What’d you do that for?”
He doesn’t say anything but he doesn’t lower his gun either.
“You’re an Avenger, just fuckin’ pick the lock or something. This is expensive!”
He only watches as you whine, looking beyond him at your now demolished entrance. You take a few steps closer, jumping down from the elevated platform.
“Insurance isn’t going to cover this.” You drag your palm across your fist before extending it towards him. “Pay up.”
He wasn’t sure if he heard you right.
“What?” he finally asked, voice gruff.
“All you superheroes go around, destroying walls and cars in the name of world peace like you own the damn thing. Not today, bitch boy. Pay up.”
He doesn’t have his wallet with him. He didn’t expect to need it.
“I’m supposed to be stopping you.”
“You can do that once you pay for my door.”
You sound resolute, unshaken. A little annoyed. There’s what appears to be a gun in your hand, although it’s unlike any weapon he’s seen before.
“What’s your plan?” Bucky looks at your hand. Your stare follows his. You lift the thing up and he tenses.
“I was going to freeze some jerk but now my plan is to get you cancelled on Twitter.”
“Why?” his eyebrows knit together in confusion.
“Local superhero destroys property of tax paying citizen for no good reason.”
“I mean-” he shakes his head, discarding what you’re saying, “-why were you going to freeze someone?”
“Because I wanted to. But you’ve ruined the mood now, so that won’t happen.”
He blinks, lowering his weapon when he realises you weren’t making any attempt to move. “What’s your ulterior motive?”
“Nothing! I just wanted to mildly inconvenience that stupid fuck for being such a prick.”
He doesn’t know what to say.
“Is that the freeze ray?” Bucky asks instead, raising his gun when he realises there’s a very real chance he could end up like his best friend.
“You got a problem with it?” You hold it up carelessly.
“I can’t let you use that.”
“That’s all you’re going to do?” you huff, “Is this what you call an intervention? This is so boring.”
“Give me the freeze ray and no one has to get hurt.”
“No one was going to get hurt in the first place, genius. All this does is slow him down for 5 minutes so he misses the subway.”
There’s nothing technically that evil about what you’re doing. He doesn’t even know how you ended up on SHIELD’s radar. He gets why no one was particularly driven to take this seriously.
“And for fuck’s sake put that gun away. You’re not scaring me.”
He doesn’t oblige, even though something tugs at him, telling him that you’re speaking the truth.
“Here, take the stupid thing.” You don’t bother waiting for his response, bending over and sliding the gun towards his feet. “I’ll find another way to get back at that dickhead.”
It hits his boot with a small thud. He looks down. Its design is ridiculously comical, like you ripped it straight out of a kid’s TV show.
“Next time, bring some drama. Wear a cape or something.” You wave him off. “Now get out of my lair. I need to fix the door.”
“You don’t have another one of these lying around, do you?”
“Why, do your friends want one too?” The glare you give him is dangerous. He doesn’t react to it. “No, it’s limited edition. I don’t build the same thing twice.”
“You have others?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy?” A smile grows on your face, dropping as quickly as it arrives. “SHIELD will tell you if I do. Now leave.”
Bucky looks at the freeze ray in his hand. He supposes his job is done. He was told to stop you, but you didn’t seem to have any inclination to go on with your plan.
“You can ask them if you want, they know about me.” You roll your eyes. “Go ahead, call them.”
He doesn’t want to take a chance. As odd as the situation is, it’s still novel and he isn’t quite sure how to deal with it.
He tucks your weapon under his arm, pressing his phone to his ear.
“Yes, Sergeant Barnes?” Maria’s voice is crisp as ever.
“I confiscated a... freeze ray.” He feels ridiculous even saying it. “But I’m going to bring her in to SHIELD headquarter-”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“But we can’t trust-”
“We’ve been keeping tabs on her for a while. She’s more or less harmless. You can take the rest of the night off, Sergeant.”
He cuts the call, not entirely at ease with the smug, expectant look on your face.
Still, he couldn’t disobey direct orders.
“I’m gonna... go.” He mentions towards the gaping hole in the wall.
“That would be ideal, yes.” You nod, crossing your arm over your chest.
“Okay.” He hesitates, but finally takes a step backwards. He peeks over his shoulder as he leaves, but finds you swivelled away from him again.
He steps back outside. The cold greets him again like an old friend. The weight of his weapons feels stupidly embarrassing now.
It’s a long drive back to the Tower. He keeps replaying the entire story in his mind. He’s unsure of whether he made the right call, but no one else really seemed to care.
He had seen weirder things. It came with the gig.
He leaves it at that.
“How’d it go?” Steve asks him when he walks into the living room.
“T’was fine,” he answers, toying with the stupid device he took from you. Maybe he would test it on Clint. He had been getting annoying lately. Breathing too much in Bucky’s general direction.
A part of him feels guilty for his carelessness towards your building. The other part is just bewildered.
That night he looks up the cost it takes to replace a door, making a mental note to draw some money from the ATM soon.
Next part
#bucky x reader#bucky barnes x reader#mcu fic#bucky fic#bucky barnes fic#bucky fluff#bucky barnes fluff#bucky angst#bucky barnes angst#harmless fic#winter soldier x reader#Winter Soldier#bucky barnes#bucky
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𝒆𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒔𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆
summary ─ walking away from you had never felt this painful before, bucky realized.
pairing ─ fuckboy!bucky barnes x reader
warnings ─ angst, angst, more angst, crying, conversations, confessions, goodbye scene without the sex in it, happens a couple months after the graduation
a/n ─ so. technically this is the last part, but there will be an epilogue (i’m not sure about this. i might write and post one). until i post an epilogue, accept this as the final part. i'm hoping to write that very soon. after that, we will be done with this series. i hope you like it! @babyboibucky you asked for "more angst" and you're receiving with this part. blame her :d please leave a comment if you like it! thank youuu <333
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Ever since the graduation, life was being really hard on Bucky.
He had been looking for a job and a place for himself for the last five months because he needed money and just couldn’t live with his parents: The house was too crowded, and they were too curious. It hadn’t been easy so far; Bucky had to dodge his mother’s ‘why are you still single’ questions all the while running from one job interview to another as well as meeting with a real estate agent for affordable apartments. He knew he couldn’t rent one until he got a job, but he wanted to cross it off his list.
Sighing, Bucky plopped on one of the first empty benches he saw.
The weather was hot as hell, and he was sweating like a pig in his suit. He could feel the shirt sticking to his back slowly. He was thirsty and hungry and tired; all he wanted to do was to go home, take a cold shower, eat something and sleep, but he couldn’t. He still had two interviews to get over.
“Fuck my life,” he whispered under his breath. Digging through the small bag he carried with him everywhere, he pulled out a bottle of water. It was half-empty, but it was better than nothing. He quickly drained it, wiped the slight sweat beading on his forehead and stood. If he stalled a bit longer, he was going to be late for his interview.
Just as he started walking, he felt his phone vibrate. Pulling it out, Bucky saw two messages from the interviewers. They were cancelled due to scheduling problems.
“Shit,” he hissed. He was both happy and sad; happy because he was going home instead of dragging himself all around New York, and sad because he was more likely to never hear for them again since those kinds of messages usually meant ‘we found someone already’. Cursing under his breath again, he changed his route. He had some money left, so he decided to get a sandwich from Subway. He really didn’t want to pass out on his way home, he couldn’t deal with that.
He was halfway to the nearest Subway when his phone vibrated again. It was a text from Sam.
we’re at lolly’s, it said. join us. been a while since i saw your ugly face. Bucky snorted as he shook his head. Lolly’s wasn’t so far away from where he was, probably as close as the Subway. He sent Sam a ‘on my way’ text and started walking.
Sam was right. It had been a while since he saw them. He was too busy chasing down job interviews that he couldn’t spare some time to his friends and night outs as much as he would like to. They were probably in the same rush since they didn’t reach out to him, and that was okay. Life was hard and messy and could get super busy super quick.
He sprinted as soon as he saw the diner. Using his long legs to run across the street, he walked inside panting lightly.
The place was buzzing. It wasn’t overly crowded, but it wasn’t empty either. There were families and students and friend groups all talking and eating at the same time. Laughter and chatting sounds were filling the small diner, and it was making the place look and sound all cozy.
His eyes danced on the people sitting in the booths until he found them. They were in their usual booth. Grinning, he made his way towards them.
“Oh, look it’s Barnes!” Sam grinned at Bucky. “Nice to see that you’re as ugly as before.” Bucky chuckled and hugged him.
“Shut up, Wilson, we both know you have a crush on me,” he said, making everyone on the table laugh. Bucky quickly hugged and greeted his other friends before he took a seat. “What are we having?” He asked, he was starving and was pretty sure that if he went without food a little bit longer, his stomach was going to go apeshit on him.
“We ordered greasy burgers as always,” Steve said, grinning. “Loki hates it.” Bucky saw Loki rolling his eyes, but he knew Loki was having fun. He smiled. “We ordered for you, too. It should be here any minute now.”
“Y’all are saints,” Bucky breathed in relief. The refusals and complaints immediately filled the small table, and Bucky laughed. He really missed his friends.
─
It was hours later when they left the diner with full bellies and laughter ringing in their ears. They ate and drunk and talked about what they have been doing since the graduation, how the life was treating them and all that jazz.
Bucky felt good when he heard that his friends, too, were going through the same things as he was. It felt nice to know that he wasn’t alone.
“I’m getting married,” Sam said as they stepped on the half-full sidewalk. All of them stopped suddenly, looking at each other with surprised etched on their faces.
“Are you kiddin’ me?” Bucky asked. “You’re─ Really?” Sam nodded, grinning widely. “Holy shit, man, I didn’t even know you were datin’ with someone.” The others chuckled.
“I didn’t either,” Loki said. Bucky heard Steve agreeing with him.
“Well, we kept it pretty low-key,” Sam explained. “We’ve been dating for three years? Almost?” He shrugged. “It got serious in the last year. I proposed to her already and we’re gonna tell our parents as soon as I hear back from one of the interviews I gave around.”
Bucky smiled. “Wow,” he said. “I’m proud of you man,” he added quickly because he was. He really was proud of Sam. “Congrats.” Bucky threw his arms around him and patted his back a couple times. Sam smiled and murmured his thanks. As he stepped back and let the others hug Sam, Bucky couldn’t help but imagine if this would happen to him if he were to treat you like you deserved.
Would you marry him? Would you mind keeping him forever? He wanted to know. He felt like he knew the answer already, but he wanted to hear it from you. He wanted to know if he ever stood a chance, if you’d ever accept him like that. He was too much of an asshole, he knew, thank you very much, but Bucky also knew that he’d get his shit together for you. Maybe he wouldn’t in the beginning of your… relationship, but he would now. It was too late, though.
“We planned a summer wedding, but it really depends on the time that I’ll be hearing back from anyone,” Sam sighed. “’s gonna be alright,” he said. “We both know that.” Bucky smiled sadly. He wished he could say that, too.
“I’m happy for you, Wilson,” he said instead. Sam sent him a soft smile. Placing his hand on Sam’s shoulder, Bucky pulled him against his side. “Let’s go home.” The others all agreed, and they started walk down the sidewalk.
They were crossing the street when Bucky saw you.
You were across the street where he was going with your own friend group. You were laughing and looked so beautiful in that white dress, Bucky wanted to sob. He missed your face, missed seeing you laugh, he realized, and his heart gave a painful thud in its cage.
Clearing his throat, he crossed the street when the light turned green for them. His eyes never left you; they watched how you joked and laughed and grabbed your friend’s arm while you giggled… Bucky missed you so fucking much.
“Barnes?” Sam nudged him when they stepped off the road. “You alright?” Bucky nodded absently.
“Yeah,” he murmured. The need to be near you, the want to talk to you was about to consume Bucky, and he was aware that he was going to make an ass of himself, but he didn’t care. “Hey, why don’t guys go ahead? I’ll catch up.” Sam frowned. “It’s fine. I saw someone and wanted to tell them something, that’s it.” It wasn’t so convincing, Bucky knew, but thankfully, Sam didn’t say anything. He just nodded and walked the opposite way.
Taking a deep breath, Bucky marched on where you were standing with your friends. He wasn’t about to jump into the conversation, that would be rude. He was going to see if he would be able to catch your attention. As he stepped into your sight, he waved his hand. You were too into the conversation, you didn’t see him at first, but then a movement caught your eyes. Lifting your head, you saw Bucky and froze for a second.
“Um,” you cleared your throat. “Can you give me a minute?” You said to your friends, and they nodded, going back to their conversation right away. You went up to him.
“Hi,” he said, a little breathless because you looked so beautiful. You smiled softly.
“Hi,” you breathed. “What are you doing here?” You couldn’t help but ask. He shrugged. Grabbing his bag tighter, he licked his lips.
“Was hanging out with the boys,” he said. You nodded slowly. “Then, I saw you and thought I could, y’know,” Bucky shrugged awkwardly. You nodded again. “You look beautiful,” he blurted.
You felt heat rushing to your cheeks. “Thank you, Bucky,” you murmured. Bucky’s heart made a flip as the oxygen got trapped in his throat.
You could have been together, Bucky thought. You could have been dating still, and this encounter wouldn’t be so awkward. Bucky wouldn’t feel like there were miles between you two while you were one of those people who knew him really well.
“Bucky?” You reached out and touched his arm. “Are you okay?”
“You told me you loved me,” Bucky blurted out. He couldn’t keep it in anymore. He wanted it out, out, out. He needed to get rid of it. He needed to tell you.
“ What?” You frowned.
“The night you got drunk and called me,” he explained. “You told me that you loved me, but you didn’t want to love me because it hurts you.” Bucky swallowed harshly. “You said you didn’t want to see me anymore because I just make you want to cry.” Sighing, Bucky tried to hold his tears back. “You─ You said that I never saw you as─ as a relationship material because you knew you weren’t enough.”
“Bucky─” You gasped.
“Please,” he begged. “Let me finish it. I─” Bucky took a deep breath. “I want you to know that you were enough,” he said, finally lifting his head up and looking at your eyes. They were full of tears already. “You were enough for me. You were more than enough. I was the one who wasn’t enough and didn’t deserve you. It─ It hurt like hell when I heard you say that you don’t want to love me anymore because it hurts you. I wanted to hurt myself for you because you didn’t deserve to be hurt.” He sniffed, trying to hold back tears was getting harder.
“Y/N,” Bucky said. “I want you to know that I love you. For real. This is no joke, there is no play, nothing. I just want you know that I love you so much. I told my friends about how I feel about you, and they didn’t believe. I don’t mind them not believing me, but I need you to believe me.” You felt tears rolling down on your cheeks gently as Bucky’s blue eyes bored into yours. The way he was looking at you felt like he was looking directly into your soul. You sobbed lightly.
“I treated you like shit,” Bucky murmured. “I know that. I’m so sorry. I made you feel like you weren’t enough when you were more than enough, and I hurt you. Because of me, you didn’t want to love, doesn’t matter who. You didn’t want to love, Y/N, because I was such a dick to you. I’m so sorry. I know no matter how many times I apologize, it’s not gonna undo all the damage, but I’m sorry. I truly am.” Bucky sighed deeply. “I should have told you that I love you long before. I shouldn’t have been such a coward about how I feel about you, I’m sorry for not acting on them before─”
With a sniff, you hugged him out of a sudden. Bucky backed a step and caught you immediately. Wrapping his arms around your waist, he hesitated only for a second before he pulled you in for a tight hug. You sobbed, face hidden in his neck as you held onto him. You missed him. You missed his body heat against yours, hearing his voice, feeling his arms around you… You missed him so much.
“Bucky,” you whispered when you pulled back just a little. You kissed him. Both of you had tears on your faces, but neither of you cared about it. Your tears-covered lips found each other. It wasn’t a filthy, passionate kiss, but a sweet, desperate and chaste one. You parted for oxygen and then leaned in to kiss him again. Pulling back, you rested your forehead against his, your eyes closed and lips close to his. “Bucky,” you whispered again, your hands were on each side of his face. “You knew how we were going to end up,” you murmured. You opened your eyes to look at his baby blue ones. “This is where we end.”
This was the first time you were seeing him this vulnerable, you thought as you watched his chin wobbled and tears spilling over his cheeks. He sniffed. He was nodding slowly.
He understood. He really did. He wasn’t good enough for you, he knew that, and he’d hate it if you were to settle down with someone who never truly deserved you. He loved you. You were his very first love, and everything was intense and strange to him, but he would get over it. He knew he had to. He just wanted you to be okay, wanted you to not hurt anymore, wanted you to love someone who was going to make you want to love.
So, he understood.
Nodding still, Bucky wrapped you up into another hug. He memorized how your body felt against his while hugging like this, how you held him, how you rested your head on his shoulder… He memorized all of it. With a sniff, he stepped back. He placed his hands on your cheeks and kissed one last time. He breathed in your sweet scent, felt your soft lips against his and pulled back.
“This is where we end,” he whispered, repeating your words. You nodded. “Okay,” he agreed. He kissed your forehead before he stepped back fully. “Take care of yourself, please?” He pleaded. “I want you to be happy, to love, just… Be happy, alright?” You nodded once.
“I promise,” you whispered back. “Only if you be gentle with yourself.” Bucky cracked a half-smile and nodded.
“I promise.” You smiled at him. Your hand reached to his hair, and you fixed the rebel strands. Bucky took your hand, placed a soft kiss into your palm and dropped it. “Goodbye, Y/N. Thank you for loving me.”
You felt fresh tears licking your face, but you didn’t care. “Goodbye, Bucky. Thank you for loving me back.” Bucky pressed his lips together, looked at your for a second longer and turned around.
Walking away from you had never felt this painful before, Bucky realized. His feet were taking him away from you, but his heart was beating with you. It was screaming at him to go back and beg you to try once, but he wasn’t going to do that. You didn’t deserve that.
Bucky sighed. Nothing was going to make him feel as real as you did, he thought to himself. He was okay with it. He had to be okay with it.
So, Bucky walked away from you.
Once and for all.
─
After that, after you, Bucky never loved anyone ever. His heart belonged only to you.
#bucky barnes x reader#fuckboy!bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes angst#bucky barnes imagines#bucky barnes au#bucky barnes fluff#bucky barnes smut#fuckboy!bucky#bucky barnes x you#bucky x you#echoes of silence
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Ok i physically need to write something because REASONS so please no hate (also I do not speak/write in English regularly, be kind)
Can you hear me say your name forever?
Doctor Octavius x Reader
Dr Octavius x Reader -> Part 1
somewhere in spiderman 2, I just like a chonky villain with actuators
(Ooc doc ock, sorry for the purists)
*~*~*~*
You hated your job. That was a fact. Every day you woke up, and because of your stupid little family drowning in debt, you left college and dragged your sorry ass down at the docks, because shipment didn't unload itself. Your back was always in pain, and the best highlight of the week was hearing someone on the streets complaining about his back. Preach, brother. Then, every night, you returned home, dragging your feet on every step of the subway, smelling like the river and knowing that every person in your five feet radius smelled that too. All because your mom was an addict, and your stupid little brother wanted to be The Big Hero and lost everything playing poker, and then disappearing on you. What a family, indeed.
That morning was particularly unpleasant; the subway was like a ring of Dante's inferno because half of the city was blocked. Apparently some dude with four metal arms had robbed a bank, and now you have to fight just to get on the train. You didn't even had the time to think about spiderman and his villains, today was salary day, and you cannot be late.
finally at the docks, the first two shipments arrived. your day has started. little did you know that this was your last day there.
during lunch you heard something, like a rumble. Dan, your colleague, stopped talking altogether. A slight rumble became an earthquake, and soon you begin to run with the others to the river.
your feet are hitting the soil with a dull noise, every step you feel it in your back like a stab. 'try not to think about the pain' you repeat in your mind, like a mantra, meanwhile the street starts craking, the noise has become almost unbearable. and then it happens.
a sharp sting of pain hits you in your lower back, and you miss a step, falling face down. you close your eyes, getting ready to feel the bite of the asphalt on your skin, hoping the hit knocks you out, but that's not the case. you painfully feel your cheek scratching the street, pebbles going under your skin. you want to cry so much, but with the tail of the eye you see something shining under the sun, some kind of metal arm. petrified, you look up.
someone is watching you, behind a pair of round black glasses. he tilts his head to the side, while one of the things attached to his body slowly approaches you. your face is on fire, you don't have any insurance and you just wanted to take the money and go the fuck home. but why this man is watching you?
"you did miss some classes"
the f-
and then, without a warning, he grabs you with that stupid metal arm, and two seconds later wind was running down your face, your legs dangling in the air and with no idea of what was going on. everything was blurry and therefore no idea about where he was taking you, but you were almost sure that you were going to puke your half eaten tuna sandwich.
by someone's grace, that walking ended in an abandoned shed. the man placed you down without a word, and you fell like a sack of potatoes.
"why did you miss so many classes?"
again?
you tried to answer, but you missed a few breaths earlier, and all you can master is a small noise. you raise your index, trying to breathe. he raises an eyebrow.
"i-i don't know what are you t-talking about"
you did go to college, months ago. you were finally able to get a loan, and for some time, you were happy, until your mom used it all on drugs. but why, for the love of god, this man was asking about classes?
you watch him, now seeing him without all the walking-in-hair induced blur. something was off, familiar even. then he removed his shades.
of course. of course it was him.
Otto Octavius.
doctor Octavius
you didn't even recognize the name on the news, everyone just called him doc ock or doctor octopus.
"P-professor.."
"you were bright, a long time ago"
what?
"you drag-dragged me here just to what" breath in "insulting me?" breath out. now you are sitting straight, but you don't want to risk getting up.
"no" he seems taken aback by your response.
he begins to walk, approaching you. instinctively, you try to draw back from him, from his metal arms, but you are still unable to get up. your legs just don't respond.
if you are going to die, at least you have to watch his face.
something is happening on his forehead. his eyebrows are up, almost... concerned. but why? he had removed his shades, so you can see his eyes, and something is definitely off. it's almost like he is ... caring about you?
you remember when you attended his classes, you remember the big, enormous crush you had on him, and how much he helped you understanding his class: nuclear physics was a pain in the ass, but you attended anyway, because you had discovered a talent for physics, and for making Dr Octavius smile when you understood a difficult problem. then life happened, and you had to seal everything in a small box inside your heart. family comes first, right? you let go of everything, because it hurt so much just thinking about those soft dark eyes of him.
and now, they were in front of you, but somehow different.
you lost yourself for a moment in memories, and Octavius is in front of you now, his figure dominates you. you look up, and a hand is coming down on your face. that's it. you close your eyes, ready for impact.
a gentle touch is the only thing you feel. you slowly open your eyes, and there he is, a giant of a man, kneeling down, observing your cheek. with his other four arms, he grabs the necessary things to help you clean the wound. he doesn't watch you in the eyes, he doesn't say anything, he just dabs a little cotton puff on your cheek, cleaning the scratches, and then some bandages are applied. the silence is deafening.
"i need someone who can understand and execute my directives, with nothing to lose" clear and concise.
also, ouch.
You looked at him, speechless. How were you supposed to react?
"Did you scrambled your little head of yours during that fall?" His voice hits like a punch, piercing the mist in your brain. You get immediately up, almost on autopilot, ready to execute, asking yourself if he would eventually kill you.
"Good girl"
That praise gives you the familiar heat in the stomach from pride, because you are a stupid people pleaser. Next, you just want to puke. You try to remember to yourself that you are nothing to him, a fly on the glass, waiting to be killed. Despite all of this, a little piece of your mind, the twisted one, is enjoying this: his steady voice commanding you.
You are sick. But you knew that already.
You spend all afternoon helping the doctor building a strange machine, you don't process any information, you just do without putting your mind to it, or you would've gone mad by now. Octavius speaks to you only to give you orders, so when your watch rings at six pm, both jump out of your skin. One of the actuators (he told you the technical name) grabs your arm, and you whimper, trying not to scream. That little fucker is digging into your skin.
"What is this?!" Octavius barked.
"It's-it's just my watch. I should've ended my shift" and suddenly you remember the money. The money you need to live, to literally have a roof over your head. All the color washes away from your face.
"Doctor Octavius?"
You are that desperate.
"I need to go"
The sound of metal dropped echoes in the shed. You had nothing to lose anyway, so you got up to face his wrath.
"We are not done" slowly, he turns around. "I say when you are finished. Your life is in the palm of my hand" you could feel the trembling in his voice. He was angry. Very.
"I'm sorry but I have to go, collect my money and pay rent. I can't stay here, doc"
You are officially screwed.
He approaches you, and in each step he's becoming more and more like a giant. You impose yourself not to step back, this time. An actuator reaches out, closing on your throat. It's not choking you, yet.
"Baby girl, I do not care about this mundane activities. We are done when I say that we are done. In the meantime, I don't know if you actually got this earlier, you are my prisoner. Understood?" He slightly lift up his chin, looking down to you, the metal hand starting to close his grip. You shake your head in affirmation, throat too dry to speak.
He lets you go, for now, and you feel your legs shaking. you must not fall, you must not be weak. in silence, you pick up the tools, and continue your orders.
it was dark outside, and you had worked for hours without saying a word. you feel your eyes closing, but you don't want to give doc the satisfaction to poke you with one of his arms. you can hear his low voice saying things, but your brain is in energy saving. 'i will not fall asleep, i will not' new mantra of the day. someone should've told you that mantras are also good to fall into meditation: your body relaxes, you feel the distant noise of objects falling, but after days, months even, you are at peace. you welcome the void.
+++
hearing noises, Octavius turns around, ready to scold again his prisoner. he wants to control her with fear, for now, but he already sent at her house someone to pick up her mother and place her in rehab, all paid, and a note about some job abroad. not because he actually cares about one of his brightest student, no, he is a villain: he doesn't want the public attention on this.
'yeah, right'
Flo's voice rumbles in his brain. he rolls his eyes behind black lenses, thinking very clearly all the steps to dismantle only Flo. the silence is welcomed with a sigh.
another noise, and this time Otto doesn't hesitate. in four moves is behind his prisoner ('pupil' 'SHUT UP WILL YA'), swearing under his breath: there is blood.
'for being a genius, your not a very bright one' Harry chirped
'good idea controlling her with fear' Larry weights in.
'she is not such a genius herself' Moe scroll their head, looking amused.
"you guys are picking up too much human characters" Otto picks you up, seeing a cut on your forehead. "make yourself useful and grab the first aid kit"
you are placed gently on the steel table, big hands of the doctor cupping your face and trying to stop the bleeding. you could feel something, even knocked out: something warm.
+++
Otto is sewing you up when your brain decides to be wide awake. the first thing you see are Otto's brown eyes, and for a second you just look into each other's eyes. and then, you scream, feeling all the pain in your head.
"shhh i'm almost done, try to think about anything else" Otto is sweating, but his hands are steady, precise, but the pain is making you cry. you whimper, trying not to scream.
"it's done, it's done, i'm sorry" he whispers, petting your hair. "you fell asleep and hit your head" his breaths are ragged "why didn't you say anything? you had complaints only for your stupid rent?!"
despite the pain, you can feel the anger growing inside you. you can no longer stay down.
"what the actual fisk!"
and you rose up, facing him.
just to falling down, him catching in his arms. pathetic.
"you don't get to bring me here, almost choke me, telling me i am a prisoner, and expect me to risk my life because i am tired. make peace with your mind!"
you were practically screaming in his ear, while him was stroking your back.
'say you're sorry, smartass'
'i swear to god, Flo..'
"you don't get to tell me what to do, you don't own me." now you were crying "i don't care if i have nothing to lose, you should've asked, and i would have said yes. my life is miserable"
"i'm sorry, i'm sorry. i'm not myself anymore" he lift you up, facing him "the man you knew is not the same that is watching you. yes, i have my memories, and my feelings, but my mind changed, now is fused with these actuators. it's not an excuse, i know"
he looks down, and all you want to do is stroking his hair. they must be very soft. and you must have a slight concussion.
"i already took care of your mom"
what?
"you..took.."
"i left her enough money to complete her rehab, and a letter from your new job. omitted some details" an half smile appeared.
wow.
"you really think i could be useful to you?"
he smiles. "i remember how bright you were. you always thought you were just average, because you don't think very high of yourself. i remember this" he sighs, eyes suddenly on the floor. "i am not an easy man to work with. my goal is my life, and if you will interfere with it, i would have to take care of you. understood?"
you nod, reassured. in the back of your head, your conscience was screaming something about loosing your mind, supervillains and morals. you just shush her, desperate to feel something again, after months of nothingness.
Otto smiles back at you, his actuators gently picking you up. "i'm gonna show you your room, ok?" you know it wasn't a real question, he was still in charge, but at this point you didn't mind. you desperately wanted this, all your feelings for him slowly returning and shaping. this new life wasn't perfect, wasn't a sane decision, but you didn't care.
you just wanted to feel alive one more time.
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[19 days] whiplash [ch. 365 after-shot]
The shop will be closing soon. He’s seen an attendant wandering around, who will probably ask him to leave in the next five minutes. There’s no one else here. His clothes are vivid against the neon glow of the tanks. The fish cast strange shadows on his shirt, living out a second life on his skin.
They swim in half-circles before sharply changing direction, never touching the glass. He wonders if they know it’s there, as if they can sense some immovable wall that holds them back.
He’s not getting deep about this. He could contemplate, quite extensively, about how their freedom must be bought by some higher power, and they would really only go from one tank to the next, slightly bigger, slightly richer. It’s all fake shit, and he remembers that in some ways he’s got it better than an animal. He can, at least, run away. Maybe he won’t get far. Just to the edges of the city villages where he’ll get a job earning less than before and lose his place in school.
Guan Shan puts a finger on the glass in front of him. There’s a label in the corner, peeling away from the glass. Veiltail goldfish. They have wispy, membrane-like tails. He could put his hand on the other side and see all the way through. Guan Shan watches the only black fish in the tank move placidly through the water.
Beneath the label, a smaller one: Black moor. For a minute he considers tugging the label off and putting it in his pocket, a little secret. He remembers that would be stealing, in some way, and someone in the shop would have to go to the effort of printing and laminating and reapplying the label just for one fish.
Guan Shan turns away.
He wanders for a few more minutes. He’s aware of his reflection in the glass. He worries about how long the attendant will let him stay there, and the thought that they will make him leave makes him feel slightly sick. He likes it here—the quiet, the muted hum of the tanks, the strange lights. They make him feel somewhere else.
His mother is working the night shift and won’t be home until just before he’s meant to go to school the next morning. They’ll have long enough together that he could tell her he got fired from the shop, but not long enough that he could reasonably pretend to have forgotten as he tugs on his uniform and slips out the front door.
She won’t be mad—she never is.
She can’t take on another shift.
Mentally, he has started taking stock. His Xbox is a few years old, but he’ll get something for it. He has a stack of old music magazines from his dad that could catch the eye of a collector. His computer, maybe.
The earrings.
His stomach twists.
Really, it’s not much. It’ll earn them a month, which could be just long enough for him to get another job, but what’s the likelihood of that in a city where most kids are just trying to bulk their CV’s for their college applications. Besides, his grades speak for themselves. He got lucky with the shop, and lightning doesn’t strike twice.
‘Hey, kid. We’re closing soon, so unless you wanna buy something…’
Guan Shan nods. His shoulders round.
For no logical reason, he says: ‘Can I take a goldfish?’
‘Sure. The black moor? Saw you had your eye on that one.’
‘No, one of the others.’
The attendant comes up next to him. ‘Just the one? They don’t like being on their own, you know.’
He presses his jaw tightly. A small sound comes out of him. He looks at the price tag and is somehow shocked and saddened to see the figure so low.
‘Fine,’ he says. ‘The black one, too, I guess.’
He pays, then leaves. It’s late enough that the streets are quieter than he expected. He’s usually home by now, his shift over, reheating leftovers while he works on his homework. He stands there while the shop attendant locks up behind him, holding the plastic bag with two fish in his hand. He feels stupid. Behind his eyes, he can feel a sort of stinging sensation.
He has the unnameable urge to grab one of the passing strangers and tell them how he’s feeling, what has happened, what could happen. On some level he knows that everyone has their own problems, and he’s not the type of person to overstep his bounds. Instead, he watches them pass, and after a few more minutes he goes to the nearest subway station and gets the train home.
/
He had half expected He Tian to find him on the street. He’d imagined it, He Tian catching his arm as he wandered from store to store, deliberating at large windows with thin mannequins and expensive jewellery without price tags. There is a part of him that’s disappointed that it didn’t play out like this, a part of him that is even angrier to find He Tian sitting in the stairwell of his apartment when he eventually does get home.
It’s close to midnight, and the stairwell is clinically quiet. Outside, the stars are dusty and covered in a thin layer of smog that is less noticeable in the day. He Tian looks exhausted. He’s the type of good looking where even the slightest imperfection somehow makes him even more attractive. Guan Shan hates it.
He stands when Guan Shan walks in, suddenly filling the space, and Guan Shan says, ‘Get outta my way.’
‘Where have you been?’
Guan Shan shoulders past him. There’s a moment where he thinks He Tian will grab him around the shoulders, the air around him simmering enough that Guan Shan is convinced it’s a near thing, choking with danger, but he lets him pass. He follows Guan Shan up the staircase, his footsteps silent, his body casting long shadows on the steps where Guan Shan sets his feet.
At the door, Guan Shan pockets the notice that’s taped there, knowing He Tian has already seen it. Less sharply, he picks up the notes in He Tian’s and Jian Yi’s writing and folds them into careful squares.
‘You’re not comin’ in,’ he says.
‘I called you, like, fifty times. Did you block me?’
Guan Shan thinks He Tian sounds angrier than he really has a right to be. He turns and presses his back to the door. He has his keys clenched tightly in a closed fist.
‘Yeah. I didn’t want to talk to you. I thought you would’ve gotten that.’
‘I can get you another job. Something better paid.’
‘You’re so fuckin’ clueless.’
He Tian’s eyes tighten.
‘You’re ruining my life,’ says Guan Shan.
‘That’s—that isn’t true. I’ve helped you. You would’ve been expelled if—’
‘Maybe I would’ve gotten expelled. But I wouldn’t have had She Li on my dick all the time, would I? Wouldn’t need you to get me a job ‘cause you made me lose my last one, would I? You’re just—stickin’ a bandage on shit when you hurt me first.’
‘It’s not always like that. Don’t make it sound like it’s always like that.’
Guan Shan shakes his head. ‘I want you to go. I told you I didn’t want to see you again. Fuck off.’
He Tian says, ‘Let me pay what was on the door.’
‘Fuck off.’
He Tian doesn’t move and Guan Shan squeezes his eyes shut. He’s going to cry again, the frustration bubbling sourly in the back of his throat. He doesn’t trust himself to open the door while He Tian is still here because he knows he’ll probably let him in.
‘Do I really make you feel like a failure?’
Guan Shan rubs at his eyes with his fist. His voice comes hoarse and thick: ‘I am a failure. Bein’ around you just makes it so much more fuckin’ obvious.’
He doesn’t want He Tian’s pity when he says this, or his reassurance. He’s just being honest. Saying it out loud is kind of breathlessly relieving. He couldn’t say something like that to his mother, or any of the teachers at school. He couldn’t say it to Grey, who he’s known for years. He Tian knows more about him than anyone. It’s a terrifying thought.
If they never see each other again, will He Tian tell everyone the things Guan Shan has told him? About the restaurant and his dad, or about She Li and the things Guan Shan has let him do to him? He feels vulnerable and sick thinking about it, completely powerless, as he does a lot of the time when he’s around He Tian.
He oscillates between that feeling of uselessness and the feeling of being so empowered that he thinks it must be what being high or drunk feels like. That latter has him trusting his own convictions, having an unadulterated faith in himself like jumping from a bridge and thinking he might just fly—so long as He Tian is with him. He doesn’t like how it’s one or the other, empowered or powerless, and rarely anything in between. He’s heard adults on TV talking about being codependent, pulled punishingly into each other's orbit, and he wonders if this is the same thing.
In the end he supposes it doesn’t really matter. So what if He Tian tells everyone? Probably, he won’t see the rest of the year out at school. He’ll get a job on a different side of the city and no one will hear from him ever again. The embarrassment will all be internal and will only last a week or two. Then life will move on. He wishes he were older and wiser and better at believing this. He wishes it didn’t feel like the universe might fall out from beneath him.
‘Doesn’t matter what I do, it turns to shit,’ he tells He Tian. ‘No matter how hard I work, I’m never gonna earn enough. I can spend three hours studyin’ for a test and still come last. If it isn’t She Li, then it’ll be someone else. I just—I can’t catch a fuckin’ break, He Tian. But you do somethin’ and you come first every time. Life’s so easy for you.’
He Tian shifts from side to side. ‘Do you think things wouldn’t feel so hard if you stopped focussing on what you think my life is like?’
‘You’re pissin’ me off.’
‘I don’t know how I’m meant to help you. You won’t let me give you money. It’s like pulling teeth from you just trying to know what’s going on with you. What are you so fucking afraid of?’
‘I never asked for your help.’
‘You shouldn’t have to—that’s why we’re friends.’
‘I never said I wanted to be your friend.’
He Tian frowns, his look very serious. He isn’t teasing tonight. Neither is Guan Shan. There is the sense that their interactions are always anything but teasing, really, some dark undercurrent that runs between the two of them like dark veins.
He Tian says, ‘Are those fish?’
For a moment Guan Shan thinks he’s joking, deflecting wildly to distract from the seriousness of what Guan Shan has just said. Then he feels the crinkle of a plastic bag in his hand and, remembering how he’d just spent the last few hours, nearly drops the two goldfish onto the floor.
‘Yeah,’ he says.
‘You don’t have a tank.’
‘Yeah, no. I don’t know why I bought them.’
He Tian hesitates. There is a curious, predictable gleam in his eyes. ‘Red and black?’
‘It’s all they had left at the store.’
He Tian is looking intently at the bag. ‘Do you remember when we went to the aquarium? And you said I wasn’t someone you could forget?’
‘I just meant that—’
‘I know what you meant. But I always pretend like you meant it the other way.’
Guan Shan thinks, Don’t you think things would be easier if you stopped focusing on what you want me to mean and what I actually mean?
Instead of saying anything, he looks down at his sneakers. They’re scuffed and starting to rip at the seams. The thought of having to buy new ones makes him panic and the thought of buying a pair of second-hand ones online makes him panic even more. There’s no shame in it, but the thought of wearing someone else’s clothes makes him feel strange, especially when he knows He Tian could buy fifty pairs without blinking.
Guan Shan considers that thought and replays what He Tian has just said about focusing on his life too much more than his own. Maybe part of that is true.
Before He Tian, did he always feel things so intensely? Did the bad always feel so fucking awful? He knows that things were mechanical, and he was mean and didn’t think much about other people in particularly nice ways. He knows he didn’t laugh much then, or have dinners and sleepovers with friends. He knows everything hurt on a distant, muted level that was easy to ignore. Not much time has passed since then, and he reasons that nothing about him has probably changed, just everything else around him.
‘I can’t understand why you won’t let me help you,’ says He Tian, when the silence has stretched too long.
‘Because I’ll get used to it.’
He Tian frowns, not understanding.
‘One day, you’re not gonna be around. And I’ll be fucked.’
‘I’ll always be there for you.’
‘You don’t know that. People say that a lot and then they disappear or get taken away, even if they didn’t want to.’
It’s obvious they’re talking about his dad, but it feels safer to talk about things in vague, subjective conversation. Maybe things would be easier if they talked openly about things and didn’t use metaphors and hypotheticals. As it is, Guan Shan doesn’t feel ready to try the alternative. He is conscious of the fact that this feels like a conversation. They are passing words back and forth that hold meaning and neither of them has touched the other yet. It feels new and fragile as an oil painting, still wet, and so he doesn’t let himself think about this for long.
‘I think you’re getting this wrong,’ says He Tian. ‘I’m not asking you to rely on me. Obviously, I’d kind of like that. I like the thought of you needing me, and I know that says something about me. But—I’m just asking you to let me help you. Just here and there, no strings.’
Guan Shan rubs his forehead with the back of his knuckles. His keys are starting to pinch his skin and he can feel a headache starting to surface.
‘I’m tired,’ he says. ‘I actually do want you to go.’
He Tian’s jaw clenches and he breathes out heavily through his nose. He’s probably thinking he’s wasted his time.
‘Okay,’ he says then. ‘But we’re not done.’
A new wave of exhaustion comes over Guan Shan, crippling and final. He wants to get into bed with his skin against cold sheets and sleep for twelve hours without waking once.
‘You’re not the only one that ever gets to decide that,’ he tells He Tian, a little sharply. ‘You’ve gotta learn to let people go.’
‘But what if I know I can help them?’ says He Tian. ‘If I don’t, I’ve just—failed.’
They look at each other.
A minute stretches into an eternity that could be seconds or hours, and everything has gone backwards. Everything is the same.
Guan Shan can’t put his finger on what has just happened, but he feels like laughing. Their fears are twinned, self-perpetuating, some kind of ouroboros chasing its tail. Who will get caught first?
They both seem to take in a breath at the same time, and He Tian takes a step back.
‘Goodnight,’ he says.
Guan Shan nods. He waits for He Tian’s retreating back to disappear a few flights down before opening the door to his apartment, and shuts it swiftly behind him.
/
There’s a knock at the door while he’s brushing his teeth. The fish are swimming placidly in their bag on the edge of the bathroom sink. It’s past one, and he keeps all the lights off because his eyes are feeling sore. He’s adjusted to the dim glow that comes from street lamps seeping through the curtains, the blink of the timer on the electric stove, his Xbox gleaming in his bedroom. His mother shouldn’t be home yet and she has her own set of keys.
With a sinking heart, Guan Shan pictures his landlord demanding payment.
Worse, he pictures He Tian. Before He Tian left, they’d resolved nothing. It feels like being back to square one, chasing each other around a chess board. It fills him with a vast emptiness that makes him feel like he’s existing outside of himself, waiting for someone else to take over.
He pads silently towards the front door, his toothbrush jammed into his cheek, and peers through the viewer. There’s toothpaste dripping down his chin. In the hall, there’s no one there. He’s half-convinced he imagined it. He counts to ten before he opens the door, steps out—and his foot connects with something hard. There is a cardboard box sitting on the welcome mat.
Guan Shan peers around. The light in the stairwell is artificially bright. He kneels down and opens the tabs on the box, which hasn’t been taped. He swallows.
For the fish, says the note on the second box, nestled inside the first. Careful, it’s fragile.
Guan Shan rubs the heel of a palm into his right eye. He sighs. Then he reaches out, braces himself, and picks up the tank. He carries it into his apartment, and the door locks behind him.
/
thank you for reading! if you’d like to support me on my ko-fi/request a short drabble, you can do so here: https://ko-fi.com/agapaic 💞
#19 days#tianshan#old xian#he tian#mo guan shan#my fanfic#sorry for errors - it's late but i couldn't get this out my head
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ain't it fun?
summary: reader just needs an NA meeting before they have a meltdown, they end up with the best friend they could ever make.
warnings: Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Drug Addiction, Trauma Bonding, narcotics anonymous meetings, Strangers to Lovers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, meet-cute,
word count: 3.3K
a/n: this is completely self-indulgent and overly personal but i def recommend writing why spencer would love you as a form of therapy
read on ao3
In the blink of an eye, she was up and racing around her apartment. Her mental health was like a teeter-totter, and right now she was on her way to the top. Mania was creeping in; changing from just anxiety-induced butterflied to the feeling that she could jump off a building and survive.
That was never a good time. All she wanted was to either spend all her money, fuck a stranger or get high as shit. It made her legs jumpy and her ears ring and she couldn’t take it anymore. It was all too much.
She threw on a sweater and jeans, her hair was up in a butterfly clip and she hastily threw on her fanny pack full of everything she needed as well as a big coat, and she then left her apartment. She got to the stairs before realizing she actually needed to lock the door.
Her hands shook and she tried to slide the key into the lock, dropping them as her neighbour rushed out of the room and startled her. “Sorry,” she heard him say.
She picked up her keys and turned to look at him, “can you help me? I can’t seem to stop shaking,” she asked as she held her keys towards him.
“yes, sure,” he rushed the words out as he walked towards her, only looking at the keys, never in her eyes. But that was okay, she was never a big fan of eye contact.
He placed her keys back in her hand and took a step back, “are you alright?” he asked.
“No,” she said honestly. “I’m going to find an NA meeting.”
“Do you have one in the area? I haven’t seen you around before?”
She shook her head, surprised that he was also an addict, he didn’t look like he’s ever even smoked weed.
“No, I moved in only a little while ago on a whim, but I think it’s time I got some support,” she said as they started to walk down the hallway together. “I’m Y/N, by the way.”
“Spencer,” he smiled softly. “I’m going to a meeting right now, actually, if you’d like to come? I won’t exactly be anonymous to you, but it’s a good one to go to if you just need one to fill the void until you find your preferred group.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I need.” She smiled at him this time as he held the door open for her. “So, have you lived around here for long?”
“For about a few years now.”
“The building is good then? I was a little hesitant but I needed to get away,” she said, this time holding the door for them to leave the building and turn down the street towards where she knew the subway was.
The moon should be out, she looked up but only sees buildings. It was the one thing she missed the most about not being in the country; seeing the stars and feeling like there was a reason to it all.
“Are you running from someone?” He asks as they start the walk down to the meeting.
“Myself,” she said softly. “I’m on disability and don’t drive and I lived in the middle of nowhere with my parents, well into my 20’s, and I needed a change so my parents surprised me by saving up money for a few month's rent and told me to follow my heart.”
“And you picked Virginia?”
“I stayed in Virginia, just moved into the city. I watch a lot of murder documentaries in my free time, I thought being near Quantico would introduce me to some interesting people, but I have yet to meet anyone from the FBI at all.”
She laughed to herself at how dumb it was that she wanted to meet a profiler like Holden Ford from Mindhunter, “either they are all very good at keeping their jobs secret or Virginia is a very large and densely populated area with a low percentage of FBI agents.”
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“How long have you lived here?” he asked, slowing as he walked so he could look at her.
“2 months.”
“It took you two months to meet the FBI agent across the hall from you.”
“You’re kidding?” she said, stopping on the sidewalk abruptly. “I knew that apartment was calling me for a reason.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but, are you really just coincidentally my neighbour or are you secretly spying on me because you have an evil plan to kill me and my co-workers?” he's completely serious, it's almost scary.
“No offence, Spence, but for a supposed FBI agent that’s a dumb question to ask,” she said, pointing finger guns at him, “you don’t think I’ll give up my cover that easily? Do you?”
He points a finger gun back at her, “technically, I’m a doctor.”
The two of them narrow their eyes at each other, slowly walking in a circle, still facing each other with their make-believe guns trying to hold back smirks. She lowered her ‘weapon’ first. “It’s okay, doctor, don’t worry. I’m not a spy just an idiot with an imagination.”
He giggled softly, “I’ve never felt this comfortable with someone this fast.”
“Well, you are with criminals a lot, right? That would be alarming if you bonded with them,” she said, bumping her shoulder into his as they walked. “But I feel the same. I actually haven’t talked to someone in person in forever.”
“No?”
“I do most of my work and socializing online,” She felt embarrassed, but in today’s day and age, it wasn’t that weird. “I’m not very good outside or with people.”
“If it wasn’t for my job, I don’t think I would go outside very often either. My co-workers are my only friends, they’re more like my family actually.”
“That’s so wonderful to hear, found family is very important,” her smile disappeared as she thought about how alone she was. “Um, can I ask what it is you do at the FBI?”
“Behavioural Analysis.”
“Holy shit," she gasps, knowing way too much about that unit thanks to fucking Netflix, "that’s what the BSU became right? Do you work with the really fucked up shit?” she asked softly.
He laughed, “oh yeah, I really do.”
“Do you share a lot at NA?”
“Kinda, I tend to ramble about facts when I’m nervous so sometimes my short talk becomes more like a ted talk and what was supposed to be just me saying I haven’t relapsed on Dilaudid becomes a lesson on how the human brain works,” he explained, rambling just like he said he would.
She nodded along as he spoke, “funny, that was also my drug of choice.”
“Liquid or oral?”
“Oral. I was given it after I had my appendix out when I was 17. They get you started real young now, big pharma has its hand in everyone's pocket,” she presses her lips together awkwardly, “it was rough.”
He hummed in agreement. “I was held captive by an unsub with multiple personalities. One personality drugged me till I died and the other one brought me back.”
“Spencer, Holy fuck?” she stopped and stared at him so incredibly concerned for someone who just met him. She reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder and looked him in the eyes, “I know I barely know you, but if you need someone to talk I’m literally always across the hall.”
“Thank you,” he smiled softly as he looked back into her eyes. “The meeting is right there across the street, do you want a coffee first? The place beside it is amazing.”
She nodded and he took her hand, looking both ways before J-walking across the street with her to buy her a coffee and a snack. Maybe that would help her stop shaking, he looked like he worried about her and she wasn't used to that at all.
He didn’t talk at this meeting, he sat in the chair beside the group leader, she sat down across from him in the circle so she could focus. When the floor was opened up to new members, Y/N stood at the first chance she got.
“Hi I’m Y/N,” she said, to which she was welcomed by the crowd.
“I’m new to the city and looking for a new home group, not sure if I’ll stay here because I know Spencer outside of here but I really just needed to come today.”
She takes a deep breath as she thinks of how to start it, opting to just explain it and let the rant go where it may.
“I’ve never lived alone before and it’s incredibly hard to occupy my time without drugs. I still smoke weed to help me sleep at night but my addiction is with Dilaudid and then Benadryl a little after having surgery in high school. I don’t know if it’s my trauma, my disability or my Autism, maybe it’s my OCD, I really don’t know, but I just feel so useless and alone and boring and lonely, the drugs used to help but they don’t anymore and I really just don’t want to feel this way anymore.”
They all looked like they understood, small smiles grew all around the circle as she took a lookout at the crowd, “Thank you for letting me get that out.”
Everyone clapped as she sat back down and wiped a tear off her cheek.
The meeting ended shortly after that, Spencer walked from his seat in the circle to where she was sitting, reaching a hand out to help her to her feet. “For the record, I think you’re funny, smart, kind and pretty. And you don’t have to be alone anymore if you don’t want to be.”
She slapped her hand into his and stood up with purpose, “Did we just become best friends?”
“I believe we did.”
The walk home was much like the walk there. They traded facts, they flirted, they laughed, she pushed him into a pole at one point, by accident as they laughed. The two of them stopping to sit at a bus bench, laughing so hard she felt like she would pee her pants right then and there.
By the time they were back on their floor, it was well after midnight. “I don’t think I’ll be able to go back to meetings with you.”
“Oh, why?” he looked disappointed.
“Isn’t rule 13 that you’re not supposed to want to sleep with your group members when you’re healing?”
“Wanting to and doing it are two very different things,” he corrected her as he waited at his own door.
She smirked, “you’re right. Still don’t think I can go back with you, however.”
“I’ll probably have a case tomorrow, they normally take me out of town for at least a week, but when I get back, can I see you?” he asked lightly.
“Knock on my door when you get back,” she said before standing on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. “See you.”
“Bye.”
They waved from their doors before departing, excited by something that felt better than drugs.
—
120 hours later there was a light knock at her door, she knows exactly how long it’s been because she’s been counting and looking out the door at every noise for the whole time he’s been gone. Waiting for him like a wife whose husband went off to war, not knowing when their next correspondence would be.
“Coming,” she called, stopping to fluff her hair and straighten her glasses before she opened the door.
“Spencer!”
“Hi,” he said softly.
She took a moment to look him over, a little in shock at what she saw. He was in a plain t-shirt and track pants, he had not one, but two black eyes, bandages on his brow bone and scrapes all along his arms.
“Are you okay?”
“You should see the other guy,” he giggled softly, rolling his eyes.
“Come in, let’s sit you down.” She worried, taking him by the elbow and helping him inside.
“I’m fine, really, I’m used to this.”
“Well I’m not,” she reminded him with a nervous pout, “am I allowed to ask about it or is it classified stuff?”
He sat on the couch and patted a seat beside himself so she would join him. He rested his arm against the back of the chair so that she could slide in beside him.
“Did you hear about the child abduction in Tampa?”
“Yeah? The two boys?”
“I was trying to talk the unsub down and he dropped the gun but he grabbed me as I turned him around and punched me in the face and we fell into the ditch and I luckily managed to flip over him and get his hands behind his back and cuffed faster than I ever have before.”
“You’re amazing,” she whispered.
He laughed, “if I really was, I would have waited for backup before talking to the guy.”
“I’ve always wanted to help other people get justice but not being able to go to school makes it hard to get a job doing anything meaningful,” she whispered, ashamed of the fact she wasn’t successful like most people her age.
“Our technical analyst was hired because she was an amazing hacker, they will hire anyone who is valuable.” He shrugs and watches her face light up at the idea.
“You know what, we have meetings all this week unless there’s an emergency, if you want I can show you around the office?” he offered. “It’s not illegal for you to pass by what I’m working on and notice something I missed.”
“Spencer, I don’t even know your last name and you’re inviting me to your government job? When just last week you asked, not so jokingly, if I was a secret agent trying to kill you and that you’ve been kidnapped before?”
“Doctor Spencer Reid, and what can I say?” he said shyly, “I’m trying to find excuses to see you smile all the time.”
She placed her hand on his cheek, the tips of her fingers lightly resting on his purple and yellow bruised eyes. She leaned in slowly and kissed him on the lips, so gently as if she’s afraid he’ll break or turn into a frog… he was too good to be true.
“You can see me whenever you want, Doctor Spencer Reid…”
He kissed her again, letting his hands roam her back and she trailed her free hand down his chest. She pulled back slightly to throw a leg over him carefully and sit in his lap. Holding his face in her hands now, she peppered kisses over his bruised face.
She stopped to look at him, still holding his face in her hands as his hands now rested on her hips. “I really like you, Spencer.”
“Really?”
She looks at him carefully, analyzing his response and seeing the hurt that rested deep inside of him, “I take it you’re like me?”
“What does that mean?”
“You try to not get too involved with people because no one has ever shown you true genuine interest or love, and you never think you’ll find it anyway so you push away all small acts of kindness, thinking it’s friendly because then you can’t get your hope up, just to have that person drop them?” she explained herself in a whisper.
He nodded, “you get it.”
She kissed his lips again, and then over his cheek and up to his ear, “I do.”
He looked extra sad when she pulled away, she just held his face gently as she mirrored his puppy dog eyes. Communicating with their eyes, she knew he was okay and he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, so she smiled.
“Want to watch a movie?” She asks softly.
He nods, looking behind her to see she doesn’t have a tv in the living room. “How?”
“In my room, the TV is on my dresser if you don’t mind sitting in my bed?”
He shakes his head in a simple no, picking her up and taking her to her room. He knew where it was purely because her apartment was just his but backwards. She laughs, holding onto him tight as she rests her head on his shoulder.
He sets her down gently, watching her move up to the headboard and wait for him. They got under the blankets and she found the remote in the sheet before she cuddled into him.
“You’re really cuddly,” she complimented him as he wrapped an arm around her and held her close. He kissed the top of her head as a thank you.
“I think I’m going to end up falling in love with you, Spencer Reid,” she whispers the words, afraid of them more than his response.
“I beat you to it,” he whispers right back.
She shoots up, turning to look at him with surprise. “How?”
He looks at her like she grew two heads, “what do you mean how?”
“How did you fall in love with me? You don’t even know me?” She’s so confused, no one has ever loved her before and it’s a lot to take in.
“Y/N…” his face drops, his heart physically breaks in front of her. “I don’t know you, you're right. Not all of you, at least. I’m sure you have your hidden doors and locked cupboards but from the outside, I see you’re so beautiful, you’re radiant… your mind is lovely. You’re so kind, you’re so brave, you’re everything I wish I could be as charismatically as you are.”
She’s just swallowing over and over as she shakes her head and breathes through her nose, processing it. She’s breathing deeply then, staring off and she feels like she’s having a new kind of panic attack. A happier one, somehow?
“I don’t like myself, but if you like me I guess I must be pretty nice,” she smiles, accepting his praise and believing him. “Yeah. Thank you, Spencer.”
He smiles then, it’s cute and press-lipped and she swears he almost has dimples. His eyes are like honey and his lips are like roses. She leans in, kissing him and reaching a hand back to cup the nape of his neck.
He doesn’t know it, but he’s the first person she’s kissed in a few years. They’re soft, peck after peck as they hold each other softly, eyes open as they watch each other experience the happiness of finding someone good, finally.
“I uh, I wanted to tell you I’m almost exactly everything you described yourself as in the meeting,” he whispers against her lips, the air touching her skin gently as she absorbs the words.
“What part? My diagnosis or my self-hatred?” She smiles, okay with either really.
“Almost both, I’m pretty hard to be around.”
She shakes her head, “I invited you in for a movie, not a pity party. You can tell me everything you hate right now and then we should just share the good parts okay? Brag about yourself. Tell me what you’re proud of.”
She was really serious, keeping a stern look on her face as she spoke. He nodded, “I’m anxious all the time, I’m always worried because I’ve never had anyone to worry about me. I don’t know how to be a real person really, all I do is drink coffee and solve crimes and I barely sleep. And the only time I was relaxed and okay is when I was on drugs.”
She nodded, “it fucking sucks, doesn’t it? Like why did we get stuck like this, I don't care about peaking in high school but didn’t we deserve some kind of love and support? I’ve never understood if souls and shit are real, why did mine pick this terrible meat suit and awful traumatic path?”
She’s crying because she’s angry and because she’s never said it to anyone before. He cries because she understands. She truly knows.
“I love you,” he announces. “Just because of that.”
Taglist: @blanchardsbk @shemarmooresfedora @spencers-dria @spookyspence @reidsfish @manuosorioh @mochionly @samuel-de-champagne-problems @jswessie187 @k-k0129 @calm-and-doctor
#spencer reid#spencer reid smut#spencer reid fanfiction#spencer reid fanfic#spencer reid imagine#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid x y/n#spencer reid x you#spencer reid self insert#spencer reid request#criminal minds smut#criminal minds imagine
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midas | jjk
summary: jeon jungkook was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and the power to turn whatever he wants into pure gold. you were born with healing and invisibility powers but without a cent to your name. so when you’re plucked off of the streets for pickpocketing and assigned to be his minder as punishment, you realize you’re going to have to overcome a lot more than class differences if either of you are going to get what you want.
{enemies to lovers!au, ceo!au, magical realism!au}
pairing: jeon jungkook x female reader
genre: fluff, comedy, angst
word count: 32k (my hand slipped)
warnings: alcohol consumption (brief), mentions of bruising and injuries, characters being emotionally constipated and afraid of commitment, your usual guyi e2l lineup
a/n: finally!! oh god this fic took forever to write and just kept getting longer and longer. remember when i overestimated the wc by saying 25k-30k? yikes. anyway, i hope you all enjoy this monster! nothing says gukyi like a jk e2l fic, am i right?
The best time to be on the streets is just past noon on weekdays and eleven o’clock on Sunday mornings. When every working professional is out on their lunch break or weekend brunch, basking in the nice weather by choosing to fill up every outdoor dining area available to them. When they plop their bags, their purses and totes, on the chairs opposite them or onto the pavement beside them, thinking that the plastic fence that guards them will be enough to deter pickpockets and thieves.
Unluckily for them, they usually fail to consider the prospect of someone invisible swooping in to steal the bills from their wallets, a nondescript force reaching into their purse as they stare down at their phones while they eat, forkfuls of to-go salads and pasta dishes stuffed into their mouths.
Pickpocketing is a skill that the most desperate learn and the shameless master. Normally, people work in teams, one person to distract and the other to fish for the wallet, grabbing the cash and credit cards before tossing it onto the sidewalk and disappearing without a trace. If you wanted to be especially good at it, you would have to be able to complete the entire thing in less than thirty seconds, in the time it takes for people to switch trains in the subway stations.
But when you work alone, you don’t get that luxury.
But you suppose that the higher powers above, whatever they may be, are relatively benevolent, because in exchange for your prickly personality, you were blessed with the gift of being invisible.
Unfortunately, that’s something that you don’t need magic to feel.
The truth is that it’s always been easy to ignore a girl who has no family, no friends, and no money. Living isn’t the hard part, living with purpose is. Nobody wants to pay any attention to someone who has nothing, literally nothing, to offer in return. At least, nobody interesting.
The only times when you ever feel truly at peace are when you’re sleeping, and when you’re walking down the streets of the city, letting the rest of the world pass you by without sparing you a second glance. You’ve never been one desperate to stick out, to make an impression. Never been someone that people stop to do a double take at when they walk past you. Strange as it sounds, you love the feeling of being insignificant. It is, in a way, liberating.
So far today you’ve hauled eighty dollars and a subway card from the wallet of some poor tourist standing outside of a bakery looking at a map the size of Jupiter. Some people you feel particularly bad about robbing, but a bald man with dad sunglasses and a fanny pack isn’t one of them. Besides, being pickpocketed is a classic tourist experience. You’re actually doing him a favor. Something to check off of his bucket list.
You stow away the money and the card into your pocket, bills folded neatly into your raggedy jeans, rips and holes lining the fabric not for fashion, but from wear alone. You’ll make a mental note to buy yourself a croissant or something later. A treat to reward yourself for all of the hard work you’re putting in today. You’ll be able to pay off your phone bill for the next month with this money.
When the lunch breaks are over, you’ll probably retire to your bed and wallow in self-pity for a little before returning for the dinner rush. Having no life is a constant job, and you don’t even get any legally-mandated breaks to keep you going. Every moment you aren’t on the streets is another moment you aren’t making any money. It’s sort of like being a salesman, which, if you think about it, is just a legal way to rob people. When have salespeople ever sold something of real value?
With the eighty dollars on your mind, you start to scope out nice bakeries on your route, coffee shop signs and pastries on display in the window, looking for a nice place to settle down and buy yourself something sweet. Seeing as you live off of Campbell’s soups and bread from dollar stores, anything is an upgrade.
You walk a couple more blocks before stumbling upon one of those picture-perfect bakeries, with pristinely decorated cupcakes and cakes lining the window display. You can tell that this place is good because there’s a line out the door and a little seating area that is packed to the brim. However, you are currently invisible, which doesn’t accommodate purchasing goods particularly well, but you make a mental note to return to the bakery a little later when people can actually see you. As if you’d ever turn right here, in front of all of these people.
While you’re here, you decide to snoop around the line and the outdoor seating area to see if anybody strikes your fancy. Everyone standing either has their bag on their shoulder or their wallets gripped tightly between their fingers, so that’s off the table. But, there is one woman wearing a massive wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses as she chows down on a pink strawberry cupcake, her Louis Vuitton tote bag sitting a good two inches away from her, possibly even out of her periphery.
Bullseye.
There’s never a need to be stealthy when you’re already invisible, so you trot over, eyeing the woman to make sure that she can’t see anything in front of her. She doesn’t seem to be paying any attention, so you quickly reach down into her bag, a close watch on her gaze, hand fishing around amongst the receipts and the lipsticks and hand sanitizer until you feel her leather wallet. Nimble fingers fumble with the zipper until the tips come into contact with the crisp dollar bills, which you quickly nick and stuff into your pocket, bounding off without a trace.
Halfway down the block, you surreptitiously glance at your haul—two hundred dollars!
That’ll be enough to last you and your phone bill for the next three months, at least.
You’re so busy mentally applauding yourself for your pickpocketing skills that you don’t notice someone standing right in front of you. At least, you don’t notice until you crash into them, the surprise forcing you to turn.
You sputter out an apology, hoping that whoever it is you’ve nearly run over isn’t observant enough to notice that the currently-visible thing they bumped into was previously invisible, and that’s when you notice exactly who it is that you’ve collided with.
It’s the woman from the bakery, Louis Vuitton bag and everything. And she’s staring you down like there’s no tomorrow, arms crossed over her middle-aged chest as she sends daggers at you. Oh, you’re so fucked.
“Sorry?” You say unhelpfully, already knowing the direction of this conversation. This woman wouldn’t be sending you a death glare if she didn’t already know who you are. They definitely did this just to trap you, set you up like a mouse and a cheese trap.
“Don’t play stupid, Y/N,” she orders. “You must already know why I’m here.”
“I was hoping you’d let me off the hook?” You say guiltily, her hand already wrapping tightly around your wrists as she handcuffs you, sharp metal pressing against your wrists. One wriggle and you know that there’s no magicking yourself out of these. They think of everything, they do.
“Tell that to the courts,” she snaps, effectively shutting you up as she drags you away, money digging a hole in your pocket as you begin to envision yourself six feet under. You’re as good as dead, caught red-handed.
Well, life was good while it lasted. At least you might never have to have Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup anymore.
There’s no such thing as an attorney in the Realm. No such thing as a fair trial (even if they say there is), no such thing as defense and prosecution. No grand juries, no crowds, no sketch artist. Just a judge with a stick up his ass and a punishment to be delivered. You’re either guilty or a liar.
And you’re rather good at being both.
“The charge is as follows,” says the burly man at the head of the makeshift courtroom, reading off of a piece of parchment like it’s 1433 and the printing press hasn’t been invented yet. “Burglary, possession of illegally-gained goods, and petty theft.” Because charging you for burglary alone wasn’t enough, apparently. You have a sneaking suspicion that they invented the other two charges just so they could have more to punish you for. “Does the defendant have anything they wish to say?”
“Don’t you guys have anything better to do with your lives?” You ask with a dramatic sigh, having already resigned yourself to your fate. “Like, you could be playing golf round after golf round instead of sitting here, charging an orphan girl with no money.”
“This is my job,” says the burly man. Clearly he has never done anything fun in his entire life.
“Also, stealing is my only crime, right? So do you really need to punish me like I’ve murdered someone?”
“You burglarized a Realm Leader,” he deadpans. As if Realm Leaders really wear wide-brimmed hats, sunglasses, and carry around a three-thousand dollar Louis Vuitton bag on their days off.
“You set me up,” you accuse. Might as well go out swinging. “What if I charge you for lying, huh? How will you be punished?”
“Anything else?”
“Fuck you,” you spit.
The burly man sighs, thinks about the potential verdict for approximately two seconds, and says, “The court finds the defendant guilty of all three charges. Sentencing will now be arranged.”
Big whoop. You could sniff out your ’guilty’ verdict from three miles away, knowing that the Realm takes plenty of pride in charging its constituents for whatever crime that they can invent. You slouch back in your chair as the judge and his heartless buddies discuss your punishment. You suppose that being jailed might not be too bad—you’d always have meals and a place to sleep, even if you would have to give up magic in return. And community service would also be alright. You’d be fine with cleaning up the expressway that runs through the city, though knowing the Realm, they’d probably put you up to some stupidly dangerous magical task. And at this point, death seems rather inviting, and would solve everybody’s problems because they wouldn’t have to deal with you and you wouldn’t have to deal with them anymore.
The judge coughs, summoning the bare minimum of your attention. “The court has reached a sentencing decision for the convicted. We are offering you two options, of which you may choose one.”
Right, like you’d willingly volunteer for both punishments.
“You may either be sentenced to serve time in the Realm Penitentiary for six months with the possibility of parole after four, or conduct supervised community service until the task at hand has been completed. Please select which option you would like.”
It’s like asking you to choose between being given one hundred dollars or having to pay one hundred dollars. What does the Realm think people will pick? Do they really think anyone in their right mind would choose to be jailed, forbidden to use their magic, and then let the Realm trick them into thinking parole is really an option, over some measly community service?
“Community service,” you say gruffly.
“Excellent,” the judge says, writing something with a quill and ink because apparently, ballpoint pens are too complicated. “Your community service will be supervised by a Realm Leader with visionary powers, so you will not need to meet with them in order to discuss your progress, nor will they watch you in person.” And they said that crystal balls aren’t real.
“What do I have to do?” You ask. Knowing them, it’ll probably be something like scrubbing all of the toilets in the Penitentiary, or going deep into the Amazonian forest to collect some magical sap or fighting off a magical beast. Something that could serve as a death sentence, or at least be extremely unpleasant, in the hopes that it’ll get you off of their backs.
“The court will be assigning you as a minder to correct the ways of another mage,” the judge states.
A minder?
So, your community service is that you have to be a glorified magickal babysitter?
Well. It could be worse.
“Alright, fine,” you say, though it’s not like you have a choice one way or another. Where was your minder? Why weren’t you assigned one, instead of just being hauled off by an undercover Realm leader to be sentenced for the same crime three times over? “Who will I be assigned to?”
The judge looks down at the parchment in front of him through his tiny old man glasses, and says, “Jeon Jungkook.”
Huh?
Jeon Jungkook lives on the top floor of an apartment complex the size of the Empire State Building and worth more than your entire life. There are ceiling-to-floor windows that span the entire perimeter of the penthouse, a whole security team in the lobby vetting every single person that walks through the automatic glass doors, and an elevator with a touch-screen instead of buttons. It sickens you, the fact that some people can live like this. The fact that some people have known only this world as their entire life, and have not once glanced the other way.
Getting to Jeon Jungkook’s front door isn’t the hard part. The Realm gave you succinct instructions and permission to use your powers whenever necessary throughout the whole thing, two things more than you thought they would. It’s easy to slide by the big buff security guards when they can’t see you. Easy to turn in the comfort and privacy of the elevator, easy to figure out which door is his when he’s the only person who lives on the top floor.
The hard part is getting there without feeling like you’re way in over your head. Getting Jeon Jungkook to stop abusing his powers will be no easy feat. He’s rich, powerful, and spits on people like you, people who are not either of those things. Not to mention the fact that if he really wanted to, he could just turn you to gold and set you up in his penthouse like a statue, frozen in time.
For once, the only thing that makes you feel a little bit better is the Realm. They’ve handed you a strict order that neither you nor he can magic your way out of, lined with stipulations and regulations and requirements that both of you will follow or so help you God. If Jeon Jungkook doesn’t comply, he, his company, and his reputation are done for.
So at least there’s that.
Jeon Jungkook’s front door is made of a deep mahogany brown and about thirteen feet tall, towering over you just to serve as a reminder that he can pretty much afford to buy out the entire city if necessary. You feel like an ant in comparison, an insignificant little thing, no money, no power, no nothing.
A fluorescent doorbell light flashes beside the door frame.
The sound echoes throughout the hallway you’re standing in, a classic ding-dong noise that reverberates across the walls.
“Coming!” A voice from inside calls. Is Jungkook expecting someone?
You quickly make any last minute efforts to look as presentable as possible—well, as presentable as someone who lives in a dilapidated, abandoned house at the edge of the city can be—before the door opens.
For someone who’s got money to burn, Jeon Jungkook sure as hell doesn’t look like it. He’s wearing an oversized button down that hangs loose by his thighs, ripped jeans, and a pair of charcoal grey socks, like he got home from work five hours ago and decided to change into whatever feels most comfortable.
“Oh, good, I called and they said that you would be another twenty minutes,” Jungkook says, breathing out a sigh of relief. “Let me go grab my wallet, you can just set the pizza down on the counter.”
“Uh, I’m not—”
Jungkook rushes off down one of the fifteen different hallways that branch off of the main living room, leaving you stranded as you wander into his massive abode. Windows line the walls, giving you a perfect view of the city below you, twinkling lights of skyscrapers as people slowly leave their offices and return home. His kitchen alone is double the size of where you live. How can one person possibly take up all of this space? Doesn’t it ever get lonely?
You wait awkwardly besides the counter, which is pizza-less, until Jungkook returns, a shiny black wallet between his fingers as he fumbles for some cash. And normally, you have zero qualms stealing from the rich and giving to the poor (aka, yourself), but seeing as he thinks you’re providing a service, you have the compassion to feel at least a little bit bad.
Jungkook stops when he notices the bare countertop. “Uh,” he begins with a frown, “where’s the pizza?”
“I’m not the pizza delivery guy,” you explain hesitantly. You don’t suppose Jungkook would have opened the door otherwise.
“Then where is the pizza delivery guy?” He asks, like you somehow know.
“I don’t know,” you tell him. Was an interrogation supposed to be a part of this?
“Who are you?”
“I’m Y/N,” you say, hesitant to touch anything except the floor for fear that you will either dirty or break something and then spend the rest of your life trying to pay back the damages. “I’m your minder.”
“What?” Jungkook scrunches up his nose in disgust. “I never asked for a minder.”
“Well, you’ve been assigned one anyway,” you say with a frown. To be fair, it’s not like you expected this to be easy.
“That’s ridiculous,” Jungkook dismisses, already making his way to the door to shoo you off into the night, like he probably does with all of his problems. “I don’t need a minder. I’m fine.”
You look over his shoulder, noticing the flecks of golden accents that line his house, the golden teapots on shelves, picture frames hung up on the wall. Even the rods that hold up the massive satin curtains are gold. There isn’t so much gold to be garish and kitschy, like a teenager who can’t control what he touches, but enough to assert that he’s either wealthy or gifted, or in his case: both.
“That really sucks, because I’m still your minder,” you tell him, refusing to budge. Jungkook can’t possibly imagine he’ll somehow be able to get out of this. Not when the law is working against him.
“Says who?” Jungkook spits back.
“The Realm,” you tell him rudely, manifesting the agreement the Realm had given you to force Jungkook into accepting. The parchment is laid out on the countertop, curling up at the edges, black ink written neatly on top of it. He glares at it suspiciously, as if he’s suspected that you forged it. When you make no efforts to explain yourself further, he takes a hesitant step forward, eyes narrowing in on the parchment sitting in front of the both of you. In pitch black ink, loopy calligraphy, it says this:
As recommended and required by the Realm, its leaders, and its government, the recipient, Jeon Jungkook is to be assigned a minder, whose duty is to watch over him, regulate his use of magic, and work towards decreasing his magical activity.
This minder is being assigned as a result of misuse of magic by the recipient, either by abuse or from the intent to inflict harm upon mages or non-magic users. The Realm decrees that all mages who disobey the laws that govern society either be reformed or punished.
This minder must ensure that the recipient makes progress towards decreasing his magical activity by indefinitely accompanying and supervising him for every hour of the day. This minder’s term will expire once they have achieved their goal of decreasing the recipient’s use of magic and ensuring that abuse of it does not reoccur.
Should the recipient disobey this proclamation in any form, including vandalism, ignorance, or rejection, he will be brought to court and sentenced to jail accordingly.
Jungkook seems to read the parchment for about five seconds before crumpling it up in his hands and tossing it into the trash bin by the edge of the counter.
“Absolutely not,” he scoffs. “I do not need a minder. I don’t know what The Realm told you but I have no problem with my powers and your services are not required. There was probably some sort of mistake.”
As if. The paper says his name. Jungkook’s almost as bad at violating the rules of the Realm as you are.
“Uh—” you begin again, but Jungkook is already shooing you out of his penthouse, flicking you away like an animal that’s gotten too close. You find yourself backing up furiously in a desperate attempt to not be trampled by him and his oversized button-down and intimidating death glare, until you’re a foot out of his apartment.
“Maybe you can go bother someone else instead,” he suggests unhelpfully, before slamming the door in your face.
You stand there for a few more seconds, face to face with the dark mahogany wood. The bright side is that, even if Jungkook only read the first paragraph of the decree and then tossed it into his recycling bin, there’s no escaping the Realm. You have half a mind to just bugger off and let him face the consequences of his own actions. You can picture it in your head: Realm officers barging into his place of work and arresting him on the spot for consciously disregarding an order of the Realm. That might satiate you for a while.
Resigning yourself to the fact that if you knock on Jungkook’s door and politely suggest that he pull the parchment out from the trash and read the whole thing will probably not go down particularly well, you turn, letting your body vanish before you, before making your way back to the elevator. The pizza delivery guy arrives just as you reach it, letting you easily slide past him as he goes to make Jungkook’s day a little better by being an expected guest rather than an unwarranted visitor.
Jungkook may not have agreed to this today (not that he has a choice in the matter), but there’s always tomorrow.
Passing by the security, who spare no second glance at the fact that the automatic glass doors have just opened seemingly by themselves, you turn left when you reach the sidewalk and head home.
Home is a janky abandoned house at the very edge of the city, where the buildings meet train tracks and old highways, graffiti decorating every open surface within a five-mile radius. It’s not so much a house as it is a shack, old and rickety and forgotten. You think that the locals and the nons believe the place is haunted, since no one ever comes within one hundred feet of the entrance, the broken glass in the windows and big red spray-painted X on the door deterring most folks.
People who invite you into their houses and say, “it’s not much, but it’s home,” are such liars. For as long as you have lived here, this place has never felt like home. You never come back from a long day and think, ah, home sweet home. You will never dream of wasting away within these walls. That’s a death sentence.
You enter through the back door, ducking your head low to avoid hitting it on the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling by a wire or two. You’re not electrically-proficient enough to know how to fix it yourself so it’s less of a fire hazard, and you don’t have nearly enough money to call anyone to come repair it, so there it stays. It still works, though, and you use it in a pinch when you can’t see where you’re stepping.
There’s a small pile of folded clothing on the floor by the mattress, the remnants of a past life that feels more like an alternate universe than it does part of your history. The fridge doesn’t work, nor do most of the utilities, but the little stack of Campbell’s soup cans on the countertop is reliable and unchanging. As is the fact that you will probably never get out of this dump, so long as you shall live.
When you were little, you used to dream of living in a big castle, and wanting for nothing. You would have people to cook for you, clean for you, dress you, bathe you, entertain you. All of these stories about being a little princess, doted on and loved by all, innocent and pure and beautiful. All of these stories about finding Prince Charming, meeting the love of your life as waltzes into your life on a gorgeous white horse, getting married, having kids, and growing old together. You dreamed of a perfect life, a perfect love, where you never have to worry about anything, where no one is ever mean or rude, no government to dictate what you do.
It’s no wonder all of those stories were simply fairy tales.
It makes you even angrier when you think about Jeon Jungkook. He’s lived a life as close to perfection as possible, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and a silver platter placed in front of him. He’s grown up with people adoring him, telling him he can do no wrong, rewarding him with a brand new toy when he gets in trouble, teaching him that his powers are for himself first and for other people next to you. Not much is fair in the world, but especially not the fact that he was bestowed with the gift of being able to turn whatever he wishes into gold.
He is everybody’s Prince Charming: wealthy, handsome, powerful. Too bad you aren’t a princess anymore.
Strangely enough, even after a long day, you aren’t feeling at all hungry. The scent of the pizza Jungkook had ordered to his door was enough to satisfy you, a warm feeling settling in the pit of your stomach. Normally, this late at night, you might even be daring (or sleep-deprived) enough to break into one of your precious ramen packs, but instead you collapse onto the mattress, heavy heart willing you fast asleep, the light flickering above your head.
The next day you are faced with a choice: leave Jungkook alone and let him deal with the repercussions of his actions on his own (much to your delight), or go back and continue pestering him until he agrees to having a minder (much to your chagrin).
A new parchment has manifested itself on the counter, words copied from the one Jungkook threw out before your eyes. It shimmers, almost as if there’s a golden halo that surrounds it, another trick that the Realm has up its sleeve. You have a feeling that this one won’t be as easily ripped, crumpled up to be tossed into the nearest trash bin. It terrifies you—how closely they watch. You suppose that it was only a matter of time before they caught you.
Quite frankly, you’re shocked it took them this long to realize you were a serial pickpocketer in the first place.
As much as you’d love to see Jungkook get arrested and tried for defying the rules of the Realm, see his face plastered all over the newspapers and tabloids with stupid headlines like JEON JUNGKOOK: CRIMINAL? and ARRESTED FOR HAVING TOO MUCH MONEY?, and count it as a personal win, letting that happen would mean that you would have failed to do your court-ordered community service, which is a one-way ticket to prison.
So even if Jeon Jungkook was the grouchiest, greediest, cockiest person in the entire world (which, judging by what you know about him, he probably is), and even though you would happily let his career and reputation plummet, you don’t have a choice. The two of you will either go down together or not at all.
Resigning yourself to the fact that you will have to be within close proximity to Jeon Jungkook for the foreseeable future, you rally yourself out of bed, tugging on what you deem to be your nicest clothes and splashing your face clean. The rags you have on are probably worth a cent of what Jungkook wears on a daily basis, crisp suits and silver watches and golden earrings. He could spit on you and that would increase your net worth. But surprisingly enough, there is something empowering about the fact that Jeon Jungkook will no longer be able to ignore the plight of those in a lower class than him. Not when he, a person who has everything, will be forced to reckon with you, someone who has nothing.
It’s easy to find your way to Jungkook’s place of employment. It’s this enormous skyscraper with his name in a golden serif font above the entryway, marking the entire building as his own. It isn’t garish and ugly, per se, but it definitely makes a statement. This, combined with the cool, chic design of his penthouse apartment, redeems him a little. At least he has taste for someone with money to burn like fireworks.
There are two massive security guards and a whole squad of receptionists standing guard inside the building’s lobby, dressed pristinely and narrowing their eyes at anybody who dares enter. You wait across the street for a few minutes, loitering outside of a coffee shop and trying to avoid having people bump into you, watching. The only people that seem to be worthy of entering are wearing suits and dresses that cost more than what your abandoned house could sell for on the market after being restored, nodding their hellos to the security guards and receptionists as they press the elevator buttons and disappear into the building. You and your thrifted blouse would be laughed out in an instant.
Lucky for you, you happen to have a rather foolproof method of getting yourself through those doors, and it mostly involves the fact that nobody can even see you.
You rush across the road at the next green light and wait until you see someone heading in, the grand glass doors automatically opening when they register someone’s presence. It’s easy to slip in undetected, and you hang around in the lobby, secretly judging every single person that walks in after you. You could, quite honestly, spend all day in here, watching the receptionists tap away at their keyboards with robotic efficiency, answering calls left and right and fielding all sorts of questions from folks entering. It’s a world you have never dared step into, a world filled with wealth and power and class hierarchy, with Jeon Jungkook sitting on a pile of money at the very top of the pyramid.
Some of the people that work in this building will never in their entire lifetime get the chance to speak with him. They will come in, day after day, working for someone who they have no personal relationship to, someone that they will never be afforded the chance to meet.
Those people are, in your opinion, dodging a bullet.
If only your life was as kind to you.
A nervous young man walks in, clearly more out-of-place than anyone else. He seems to have barely bypassed security, flashing some sort of pass that lets him through the doors, but if a breeze came blowing through the lobby, he’d topple right over. He stumbles towards the receptionist desk, all of whom have phones to their ears as they furiously type on their keyboards. One woman holds up a hand, making him freeze in place. If he grinds his teeth any more they’ll all fall out before he even gets a chance to speak.
It’s another two minutes before the lady puts the phone down and says, “How can I help you?”
“I’m—I’m, uh—I’m here for a meeting,” the man fumbles out. You’re embarrassed for him.
“With who?” The woman asks, peering over the glasses resting on her pointy nose. She begins to look over the list of people who have meetings. It must be a rather extensive list.
“Mr—Mr. Jeon, ma’am,” the man sputters.
She looks doubtful. “Your name?”
“K-Kim…” he begins, staring down at his feet, “Kim Taehyung.”
“And your business with Mr. Jeon is?”
“I’m—uh, well, I’m a photographer for… for an article being written about him by F-Forbes,” he explains rather helplessly. He must have superb photography skills to make up for his extreme nervousness. You’ll be surprised if he makes it all the way to Jeon Jungkook’s office without wetting his pants out of fear.
The lady hums to herself, looking suspicious until she finds the man’s name on her list. “Mr. Jeon’s office is on the top floor. Make two lefts and then a right. You will have to wait to be called.”
“Thank you v-very much.” He scurries towards the elevator, and you strike while the iron is hot.
Rushing over, you manage to squeeze into the elevator right before the doors close, waiting patiently in the corner as the man tries to calm himself down, doing some sort of breathing exercise. Well, he’s got plenty of time to put his nerves aside, seeing as this building has seventy floors and Jeon Jungkook is apparently at the very top of them all. You feel bad for him, in a way. Jeon Jungkook was rude and unapologetically uncouth when you spoke to him, even if an aura of professionalism and extremely good social skills surrounds him at all times, and you don’t cower in fear at the sight of him.
There’s no telling what he’ll be like when Taehyung walks into his office.
One tense elevator ride later, the both of you arrive at the seventy-fifth floor, the silver doors opening to reveal a busy office space filled with people near the very top of the building’s pyramid. People like his secretary and accountants and managers, people who come into direct contact with Jeon Jungkook every day from nine to five. In a way, you pity these people for having to deal with him, but it’s not like you’ll be any different.
Taehyung rushes out and you make sure to follow before the elevator doors crush you, following the receptionist’s instructions. Two lefts and a right.
Jungkook’s office, much like his apartment, is not hard to miss. His name is written on a plaque on the door, and a guard stands outside with a clipboard, regulating everybody who passes in and out of the room. The walls that surround him are glass but he keeps the blinds drawn permanently, so that no one has the pleasure of seeing his face while they work tirelessly to impress him. Taehyung gives his name to the man, who checks him off on the paper on his clipboard before entering the room.
“Sir, your 12:30 is here,” the guard says.
Taehyung looks about ready to pass out.
“Let them in,” Jungkook’s voice bellows in response. The man nods to Taehyung, who trembles where he stands, twiddling his thumbs like there’s no tomorrow. He shuffles in awkwardly and the door shuts behind him. Luckily, the walls are sound-proof.
The thirty minutes of waiting is agony. You have nothing to do but rehearse in your head how this next conversation is going to go down, the scroll burning a hole in your back pocket. If Jungkook was displeased at best to see you in his apartment, you can only imagine the horror on his face when he sees you’ve infiltrated his workplace as well. Especially since you don’t have even a fraction of the money and power needed to enter the building on more professional terms.
The good news is that, no matter what Jungkook says, no matter how many times he kicks you out of his penthouse and his skyscraper, he has no choice but to accept the deal, regardless of how long it will take for him to realize this. You never thought you’d ever be relying on the Realm to carry you through a predicament, and nor did you ever think you’d be doing their bidding, and yet, here you are.
The door opens at one o’clock on the dot.
“Th-thank you so much for your time again, Mr. Jeon,” Taehyung says, bowing profusely as he heads out. “I really appreciate it, you—you won’t regret it, I promise, thank you again!” You quickly rush towards the door, even making to hold it slightly open for Taehyung as he heaps his thanks on top of Jungkook. In the split second it takes for Taehyung to let the door go and for it to shut, you slip inside.
“Finally,” Jungkook huffs out to himself, hand rubbing against his forehead. He’s not wearing a suit like you had expected, rather, a silken button-down shirt and tailored slacks. He doesn’t even have a tie.
Well, you suppose that being your own boss has its perks.
Jungkook’s stomach growls. “Fuck, I’m hungry.” He presses a button on the phone in his office. “I’m taking my hour lunch break now,” Jungkook informs the person on the other end. “Put all of my meetings on hold until two o’clock and not a moment earlier.”
He hangs up the phone and runs his hands through his hair, neatly straightened and styled. You hate to admit it, but there’s no wonder the man has captured the hearts of people all over the city. He’s rather good looking, the flecks of gold scattered around his office complementing his swirling brown eyes, making them look like caramel instead of cocoa. You have a hunch that, in the eyes of the general public, unattractive people instantly become good-looking the moment that they acquire wealth, power, fame, or all three, but Jeon Jungkook doesn’t need any of those things for people to think he’s beautiful. To him, they’re just bonuses.
He turns around for a moment to look for something, probably to fish his phone out of the pocket of his jacket, and you turn. Nothing says hello like magically manifesting yourself in his office.
“Jesus fu—!” Jungkook practically jumps out of his skin when he sees you. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I’m your minder,” you explain again.
“I told you I don’t need a goddamn minder,” Jungkook spits out, turning around again just so he doesn’t have to see your face. “Get out.”
“Sorry, no can do,” you say, rocking back and forth on your feet. “Realm’s orders.”
“Fuck the Realm,” Jungkook says. “I don’t need a minder. Your services are unnecessary. Now get out, before I call security.”
You purse your lips. “You may want to think twice about that.” With a flourish, you whip out the scroll, a golden yellow glow still surrounding the parchment, handing it to Jungkook like a Christmas cracker. He snatches it out of your hand and unfurls it. “You should probably read the whole thing this time. It won’t rip like the last one.”
Jungkook glares at the paper like it’s ruined his life—which, judging by his attitude, it probably has—as he scans over the words, scowl worsening with every second that passes.
“You shouldn’t frown like that, it’s not a good look on you,” you chide. At least Jungkook knows that there’s no bribing his way out of this one.
“I told you I don’t need a minder,” he says again like it hasn’t already been made abundantly clear.
“Well, I didn’t want to be assigned to you, but unfortunately, it looks like neither of us are going to get what we want,” you retort. “It’s this or prison, Jeon. You pick.”
“Why the fuck were you assigned to me, then?” Jungkook asks, rounding on you. “What are your powers?”
“Healing and invisibility,” you spit out. Not nearly as glamorous or lucrative as his own, but they come with their own benefits. For example, the ability to infiltrate high-level, upper class places of employment. “Maybe they thought I’d make a good babysitter since those are two skills often used with children,” you tell him pointedly.
“I don’t need a minder,” Jungkook repeats for the umpteenth time. “I don’t misuse my magic or abuse my powers.”
“Uh,” you point out, an eyebrow raised skeptically, “I think I’d like to beg to differ.” There’s more gold in this room than miners probably found in San Francisco in the nineteenth century. The fact that nons haven’t noticed the abundance of it in his office is outrageous to you. How else do they think he and his family built up this empire?
“Please,” Jungkook says with a frown. “As if we don’t all use our powers for our own benefit. Huh? What did you do that was so terrible that you had to be assigned as my minder?”
“I pickpocket,” you explain economically. No point in sugar-coating it. Jungkook has probably already figured out you don’t come from nearly as much money as he does. “And I got caught.”
“Sucks,” Jungkook comments callously.
“Sucks for you, too,” you fire back. “You got caught as well. Agree to the terms or go to jail, Jeon Jungkook. I don’t care. But don’t say I didn’t try to help.”
You stand there in silence for a few more seconds, letting your words dissipate into the air, sinking into the ground. Jeon Jungkook seems to have this furious battle within himself, brows furrowing as he rubs at his chin, pacing back and forth behind his desk. He knows he doesn’t have a choice. He goes to jail and his reputation is soiled. The Realm repossesses all that he has made of himself and he must start from scratch under their ruthlessly watchful eye. There will be no recovery. Only survival.
Or, he deals with you for a couple of months until the Realm is satisfied with the both of you, and you both go on your merry way, never having to see each other again.
You know what you’d pick if you were in his shoes.
“Fine,” Jungkook spits out, pointing an accusing finger your way. “But you are to be invisible whenever we are in public, and that includes here.”
“Done. But you have to decrease your turning otherwise we’ll be stuck with each other forever,” you negotiate. “I’ll also have to come and live with you. Can you handle that, or are you too ashamed to have someone else inside your home?”
Jungkook scoffs. “I live in a penthouse the size of a museum. Pick whatever bedroom you fucking want. I doubt we’ll even see each other.” At least there’s one upside to having to stay with him in his massive residence.
“Fine,” you spit out, just for good measure.
“Fine,” he counters back. Like anything about this conversation, this agreement, this goddamn life you have to live, is fine.
Yeah, right.
Jungkook’s penthouse is much more magnificent when you are more than two steps in the door. From where you had stood before, barely just past the door frame as he crumpled the parchment in his hand and tossed it into the trash bin, you hadn’t been able to see it in half its glory, let alone in full. When you can stand in the center of it all, eyes darting from the hallways and archways and spiral staircases leading to a rooftop pool or gym or both, it is overwhelming. Suffocating.
His living room alone is larger than anything you have ever lived in, anything you have ever had the pleasure of calling your own. The ceiling is sky high and completely glass, streaks of sun shooting down and casting its rays on his chic furniture, deep hardwood floors. You’re so busy looking up that you nearly trip on a white rug laid out on the floor.
“There are four bedrooms down that hallway and two down that one,” Jungkook says gruffly, flinging his keys into a bowl resting on a shelf and shrugging off his jacket, letting it hang over his forearm. How could one person possibly take up all of this space?
“Where do you sleep?” You ask.
“That’s none of your business,” Jungkook says with a frown.
“There’s no point in not telling me,” you remind him helpfully, “there’s only so many places you can be.”
Jungkook sighs. “It’s upstairs. But you can just sleep in any of the empty ones down here.”
“Thanks,” you deadpan.
“Is that all you brought?” Jungkook asks with a raised eyebrow, looking at the backpack hanging loose off your shoulder. The zipper’s broken, so the outer flap is in a constant state of being folded over, but it works.
“What, did you expect a moving truck?” You retort.
“Ugh, forget I asked,” Jungkook says, shrugging his shoulders as he turns away from you. He begins to point around the room. “There should be some ready meals in the fridge if you’re hungry. TV’s always set to the news, but feel free to change it. Volume shouldn’t ever be over forty. Books are alphabetized by the author’s last name. No parties, though I don’t imagine you frequent those.”
You can’t tell if that’s a jab or just him being observant, but either way, it’s true. You don’t even have any friends.
“Fine, anything else?”
“Every bedroom has an ensuite bathroom,” Jungkook informs you. “So use that one. Don’t come into my bedroom. There’s more than enough space here for the both of us to go without seeing each other, so let’s keep it that way.”
“Aw, you mean I’m not allowed to wake up to your handsome face and infectious attitude every day?” You pout sarcastically, making Jungkook scrunch up his nose and frown. “Don’t forget that the only way you’re gonna get me out of here is if you listen to the Realm and follow my rules.”
“Yeah, which are?”
“You’re not allowed to turn at all when I’m around, whether or not you can physically see me. Every time you do is a strike. Three strikes—because I’m generous and forgiving—and I’ll report you to the Realm. The whole point of me being here is to make you stop using your powers all of the time.”
“It’s not like I’m doing any harm to people,” Jungkook defends. “You steal, what’s your excuse?”
“You use your power to add onto your already-enormous bank account,” you point out crudely. “I use mine to survive. It’s different.” Jungkook isn’t convinced. “But it doesn’t matter anyway, because I got caught and so did you and now we both have to deal with the consequences.”
He huffs to himself.
“So do we have a deal?” You ask, glaring up at him, unrelenting. Jungkook’s chocolate brown eyes flicker as the gold around his house reflects off of his irises, like he’s trying desperately to find a way to get himself out of this before it’s too late.
What he doesn’t realize is that the very first moment he ever turned something to gold, the very first time the object began to shimmer and spark, he was already too far gone.
You suppose that in a way, so were you.
“Fine,” Jungkook gruffs out, a veiny hand held out towards you. It’s stiff and cold, much in the same way that his penthouse is, that he is. This is not an agreement birthed from choice. It came from necessity, out of self-preservation. He is doing this to protect his reputation. You are doing it to protect your freedom. If all goes well, after a couple of months the two of you will never have to cross paths again. Oh, doesn’t that sound lovely? “Deal?”
You grab his hand in your own, squeezing tightly. There is no going back from this.
“Deal.”
On the bright side, being a minder has finally given you something to do instead of stalking the streets and wasting away on your mattress on the floor. Granted, office life isn’t that much more entertaining, but at least you don’t have to be out in the summer heat anymore.
As per your side of the deal, you remain invisible whenever Jungkook is out in public, which, quite frankly, is less frequently than you had originally anticipated. His entire life seems to go back and forth from home to work then work to home, an endless cycle, a Newton’s cradle on repeat. Maybe that’s why he’s such a prickly asshole—he doesn’t ever make time for things he enjoys.
You thought he would at least have business dinners or fundraising events or company galas to attend. Isn’t that what most CEOs do? Flaunt their wealth to other wealthy people? Jungkook has so much money that he could easily entertain himself by one-upping all of his fellow CEO friends at every event he goes to, flashing the Rolex watch on his wrist or the fancy Italian shoes he always wears.
But no. He wakes up, gets dressed, eats a meal from the ready-made ones wrapped in foil in his fridge, and goes to work. When he comes home, he takes off his suit jacket and shoes, eats dinner, and lounges around his penthouse. Works out sometimes, maybe watches a movie.
Being rich always seemed to be a lot more fun than what Jungkook makes it out to be. Maybe it’s because everything in modern media is completely fake and wholly unrealistic. Or maybe he’s just purposefully making his life boring because you’re here now.
But even if the only two places Jungkook ever goes are work and home, his personality doesn’t seem to change no matter what location he’s at. All of his employees are simultaneously frightened of him and desperate to please him, lowering their heads when he passes by their cubicle but placing finished report files and completed tasks at the edges of their desks for him to glance over as he does. You follow him like a wearied assistant (of which he actually has three, and you are just the annoying invisible one) and he acts like you aren’t even there. When Jungkook returns home with you carelessly traipsing in after him, turning visible the moment he closes the door, he shrugs off his outerwear and goes back to doing his very favorite thing in the whole world: pretending you don’t exist.
At least that hasn’t changed since you moved in.
The bright side is that Jungkook hasn’t turned at all since you’ve shown up. Not in his penthouse and not at work, though he is usually far too busy dealing with real-world issues to dwell on whether or not he’s got enough gold to his name. The answer is that he does, but he doesn’t give a shit about that. Too much is apparently never enough.
Even if you are invisible, being in an office setting is somewhat unsettling to you. From a people-watching perspective, you love it, because you get an entire building of people to observe and judge, but from a personal perspective, it’s just another reminder of a life that you are not meant to live.
All of these people in their ties and pencil skirts and uncomfortable leather shoes, fighting to beat each other out for the next promotion and desperate to please their absolutely unpleasable boss. A nine-to-five job, day in and day out. A fat check in their bank account every month. These are things that are both undesirable and unattainable to you. A glimpse into their lives doesn’t spur you to pursue a career path like theirs, it tells you that no matter what, you won’t ever be able to do what they do.
“Sir, here are the finished analysis reports on the Lee Corporation joint stockholdings,” a proud young man says, plopping it down on Jungkook’s desk as you watch on in silence. The not-speaking part has been rather difficult, but you do get to whisper annoying things into Jungkook’s ear whenever nobody’s around.
“They are completed?” Jungkook asks without even looking up at the man, scribbling furiously on a piece of paper.
“Yes, sir.”
“Did I not ask for them to be completed by Friday?”
The man goes white in the face.
“Uh—” he begins, immediately losing all confidence he had when he entered Jungkook’s office. “Well, I—”
“I don’t appreciate belated work,” Jungkook spits out. “Make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
The man nods and scurries out of the office before Jungkook can say anything else. He doesn’t even seem to care.
“Wow, couldn’t even say a ’thank you’?” You chide. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you manners?”
“Late work is unacceptable,” Jungkook says. You’re lucky that his blinds are always drawn, or everyone would see him talking to apparently nobody. “There are no exceptions.”
“He was a day late,” you point out.
“Three, if you include weekends.”
“That doesn’t make a difference; he wouldn’t have been able to turn them in over the weekend,” you tell him.
“Don’t tell me how to do my job,” Jungkook orders sternly. He looks angry, but also foolish, because even though he can judge where you’re standing from the sound of your voice, he still can’t meet your eyes. He’s staring holes into the succulent plant on the shelf to your right.
“I’m not,” you defend, annoyed. “I’m telling you how to be a nice person.”
“I don’t need lessons on that, either.” Jungkook frowns. “He turned in work late and was reprimanded. It’s not any different than what happens in school.”
“But you didn’t even thank him for his time or for showing up to your office, or for the fact that he did the work!” You cry out.
“What should I be thanking him for? For making the thirty-feet trip from his desk to my office? For turning in work that he was obligated to do late?” Jungkook challenges. “He had to do those. He wasn’t doing me any favors.”
“Except he was, because if he didn’t do that work, then you would’ve had to do it,” you remind him. “Everybody here is doing work because you aren’t able to do all of it yourself. And that’s not your fault—there are only twenty-four hours in a day and you are only one person. But you should be thanking them for their contributions. Even when they turn in something a little late. It’ll do wonders for other people.”
“Are you implying that people don’t like working here?” It’s like he wants to keep this fight going.
You sigh, loud enough for him to hear despite being a good few steps away from him. “I’m saying that everybody out there—” you say, opening the blinds that cover the walls ever so slightly, just enough for him to see out into the sea of people that sit outside, “—everybody wants so desperately for you to like them. Or at least outwardly display that you don’t hate them. And if you just said please and thank you every now and then, people wouldn’t be so afraid of you.”
Jungkook opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. Instead, he shuts it like a trap and sits back down. He probably doesn’t really appreciate the fact that you’re directing him on how he controls his office on top of how he uses his magic. But it’s the truth, and he had to hear it one way or another.
“I didn’t ask for suggestions on how to run this office,” he spits out. “Next time I think advice like this is warranted, I’ll ask.” Which will be never.
“I’m here whether you like it or not,” you stand your ground. Jungkook gets to put up with you no matter what! “So I’ll tell you whatever I feel is necessary.”
Jungkook scowls.
“Don’t frown, it ruins your pretty face,” you tease. You walk a couple of steps and lean over to stretch his lips into a smile. He stiffens up, clearly having lost a sense of humor alongside his patience. “That’s better, don’t you think?”
“I can’t wait to get rid of you,” he bites.
“You’ll have to get rid of that attitude, first,” you counter. “Or neither of us are going anywhere.” Entitlement and greed go hand in hand. There’s no way you’ll be able to get Jungkook to stop turning everything around him into gold without giving his personality a makeover as well. Somewhere in there is a decent human being.
You just aren’t sure if you’ll ever be able to find him.
The time spent at home is less eventful. Besides you, Jungkook has no one to shout at and be rude to, and in any case, he, for the most part, avoids you entirely. Which is understandable but totally counterproductive, because if you never interact, neither of you will ever get what you want.
Still, there is plenty to keep yourself busy inside of his penthouse. He’s subscribed to every streaming service under the sun and has a movie theater-esque surround sound system lining the walls. He has more books than some small town libraries. His internet is stupidly fast. Even if this setup is temporary, you sure as hell aren’t going to waste a second of it.
It is sort of weird to eat food with golden forks and knives, though. You always think you’re going to crack your teeth on your utensils.
You and Jungkook aren’t on speaking terms right now because an hour ago you caught him turning a vase in his office gold, the metal slowly wrapping around the base of the pot like pixie dust, sparkling and shimmering as the clay was overlaid with a deep, lustrous yellow. It increased the value of the vase tenfold and sent the both of you flying back to square one.
“Jungkook, what the hell?” You had shouted, storming into the room as Jungkook’s face turned beet red. “Just because I’m not sitting in the room with you doesn’t give you a free pass to do whatever you want.”
“It was just one pot!” Jungkook had defended himself. “I’m not even going to sell it or anything, it just looks nice. The room needed something extra.”
“I’ve upheld my side of the agreement, what’s so difficult about upholding yours?”
“Oh yeah, like telling me how to do my job even though you have no experience in business whatsoever?” He had challenged. “I don’t think I agreed to that part of the deal.”
“Strike one, Jeon Jungkook,” you had spat out at him. “Otherwise there’s no way in hell you’re ever going to get rid of me.”
Granted, the vase did look much better in gold than it did when it was made of clay, a glazed design of ferns and vines wrapping around the base. But even if Jungkook does have a particularly good eye for interior design, it doesn’t give him a free pass to turn things just to match his chic aesthetic. How many other things has he turned when you weren’t around to shout at him? You’ll have to go through his entire house every day, taking stock of every single item inside of it, making sure that nothing has inexplicably turned to gold.
Defeated, you had returned back to the main living room, flopping around like a beached whale on the leather. Jungkook always has the television set to the news, so you put it on in the background as you count the minutes until you’re finally free. Judging from what’s happened so far, you think you’ll be here forever.
There’s a knock on the door. You don’t recall Jungkook answering any buzzes to his home, but maybe he’s just ordered a pizza or something and it’s here. It’s nearly dinnertime, anyway.
You wait a few seconds to see if Jungkook’s going to make any attempts at answering the door himself. When the knock repeats itself and Jungkook still doesn’t appear, you hop off of the couch to get it yourself. You’re hungry, and pizza sounds delicious right now. A massive upgrade from Campbell’s soups.
When you open the door however, there is no pizza delivery guy behind the door. Instead, there is an extremely well-dressed couple who are smiling happily at you, albeit a little surprised to see you on the other side of the door.
“Hello?” You ask, polite but confused.
“Hello!” The man says happily, chortling to himself. “Who might you be?” One good look at the two of them tells you that they’re Jungkook’s parents. His dad has the same nose, and his mom has the same big, bright eyes. They would kick you to the curb if they knew who you were.
“I’m Y/N,” you explain unhelpfully.
“Well, Y/N, do you mind letting us inside? The air conditioning out in this hallway has always been too strong,” his dad asks. You nod awkwardly and step to the side, letting the two of them in. “Ah, looks the same as always. You must give Jungkookie that interior designer’s number, alright? He could do something much nicer with the place,” he tells his wife, who nods in agreement. She passes by the bowl that Jungkook always throws his keys into when he returns home and presses a finger to it, letting gold wrap around the edges until it’s transformed into the metal.
“Jungkook!” You shout down the hallway, desperately hoping that he isn’t going to leave you alone with his parents.
“What?” He shouts back.
“We have visitors!” You call.
Jungkook’s parents are already picking out all of the things about Jungkook’s living room layout that they would change, turning picture frames here and decorative sculptures there gold, careless and without reason. You’re standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, trying your best to look as unsurprised and as normal as possible. Luckily, you haven’t been interrogated yet, but there’s no telling what will happen if Jungkook doesn’t show up yet.
Two minutes later, Jungkook comes strolling down the hallway, clearly uninterested, but his eyes practically bulge out of his head when he sees who’s come to say hello.
“M-Mom! Dad!” He sputters out, terrified. “What—what are you doing here?” He asks, looking at you nervously. You shrug unhelpfully. All you did was answer the door.
“Came to pay our wonderful son a visit, of course!” His father says, guffawing loudly. He reaches an arm out and pulls Jungkook into a crushing hug. “How are you doing?”
“Fine, I mean—” Jungkook begins, speechless. “I wasn’t expecting you at all, you know.”
“I know!” His mother cries happily. “But you know that families must always stick together.”
“Yeah…” he trails off. “Listen, it’s really nice to see the both of you, but I’m kind of busy at the moment—”
“We should stay for dinner!” His mother suggests, a lightbulb going off above her head. “We haven’t seen you in so long—we have so much to catch up on! What do you say, honey?”
Jungkook’s father looks peachy keen. “Sounds like a great idea! And you can introduce us to Y/N too, hmm?”
“Okay…” Jungkook says. He turns to you and you’ve never seen him so caught off guard. With his big, wide eyes, he’s a deer in headlights. “Just, uh, give us a second, would you? Thanks.”
That’s the only warning you’re given before Jungkook is pulling you down the hallway and into the nearest bedroom, slamming the door shut behind the both of you. The sound of the wood hitting the frame makes you jump as Jungkook furrows his brows and turns to face you directly.
“Alright, here’s the deal,” he says, looking you dead in the eyes as you stare up at him, unimpressed. “My parents can’t know that I’ve been assigned a minder. They just can’t. They’ve trusted me to run this business and to be in control of my life and I don’t even want to think about what they’ll do if they find out why you’re really here.”
“Okay, so?” You say with a frown. “I’ll turn invisible. You don’t have to worry about it.”
“But they’ve already seen you, you opened the goddamn door,” Jungkook says with a sigh, clearly exasperated. He rubs his forehead before his hand makes its way through his hair, brushing through the long, dark strands.
“Well, sorry for not wanting to leave whoever was outside hanging,” you retort.
“No, it’s fine, whatever,” Jungkook says. He paces around the room slightly, eyes glossing over the still life painting hung up on the wall and the door to the walk-in closet. He pauses in front of it for a moment, thinking, before he rounds on you. “Can I trust you to pretend to be my girlfriend for just one night while they’re here?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Please? They seem to already be under the impression that we’re dating anyway, and I don’t want to have to think of a different explanation for you,” Jungkook pleads. He’s desperate.
“Let me get this straight: you want me, your minder, to fake being your girlfriend for your parents?” You ask, punctuating every word. This is worse than actually being his minder.
Jungkook nods. “Just while they’re here. And then we can go back to avoiding each other. Please?”
And for once, when you see Jeon Jungkook’s stupidly beautiful face, you don’t feel angry, or resentful, or envious. You feel… sympathy. It’s easy being rich and powerful, even easier when you don’t even need to work for your money, but parents are parents, no matter how much gold is in your pocket.
Besides, it’s not like you rejecting him will have much of an effect on the grand scheme of things, anyway. You do, and then Jungkook has to spend an awkward night with his parents and you won’t accomplish anything.
“Fine,” you say, begrudgingly so. “But only for tonight.”
“Oh God, thank you,” Jungkook says, and he actually means it. He dashes into the walk-in closet and pulls out a summery day dress, all flowy and floral, coming down to right above your knees. “Here, put this on. You know I don’t give a shit about what you wear but my parents will.”
“Why do you have this?” You ask, holding the hanger in your hand. One touch of the fabric and you can already feel the craftsmanship, the material sturdy and soft.
“An old hookup or something, probably.” Jungkook shrugs, nonchalant.
You decide not to question whether or not you are about to wear something that Jungkook has had sex with someone in and head into the closet to change. From inside, you can hear Jungkook pacing back and forth in the bedroom, no doubt trying to come up with a believable story as to why you’ve suddenly appeared in his life and where you had come from.
When you emerge, Jungkook stops dead in his tracks. This dress is easily the most expensive (and clean) thing you’ve ever put on your body, draping seamlessly along your hips and smoothing over all of the parts of your body you’ve never been too fond of. The sensation is pleasant but uncomfortable, as you have always vastly preferred your own clothes to other people’s, but wearing this at least doesn’t make you feel like you live in an abandoned house on the edge of town.
“Wow,” Jungkook says dumbly, looking at you with his lips parted like a fish, mouth agape. He scratches at the nape of his neck and coughs. “You look kinda good.”
“How thoughtful of you to say,” you chide, basking in the feeling of finally catching Jungkook off guard.
“Hopefully my parents won’t be here too long,” Jungkook says as he opens the door, letting you exit first. “Normally, they stick around just long enough to tell me about all of the things in my life that I’m currently doing wrong or should improve upon, and then they leave.”
“Fun.” It doesn’t sound very fun at all.
“At least this time they won’t be grilling me about a girlfriend,” Jungkook says, offering you a grateful smile as you return to the main living space, where Jungkook’s parents are in the middle of turning some of the decorative trinkets on his shelves gold. “Sorry,” he begins, catching his parents’ attention. “We were just talking. Y/N had to change.”
“She looks lovely in that dress, did you buy it for her?” His mother asks. You send a small smile of thanks.
“Yes, of course,” Jungkook lies. You think not knowing the origins of this dress is best for both you and him. He shuffles the both of you into the kitchen, an awkward hand on the small of your back. If you were a third party watching the two of you, you could sniff out the fake gestures and affection from a mile away. No two people in love are this stiff around each other.
His parents wait in the living space, blissfully ignorant, as the two of you fumble around in the kitchen in a last-minute attempt to scrounge up something resembling an acceptable meal. You, admittedly, do not use a kitchen fairly often, and stick to pouring the four of you some wine as Jungkook fishes through his fridge and cabinets. He eventually decides on heating up a pre-made pasta dish, filled with all sorts of vegetables you couldn’t name even if you tried. It smells good, at least.
For someone who seems to rely entirely on a personal chef to do most of his cooking, Jungkook knows his way around the kitchen fairly well, bouncing from one end to the other as if he’s running on a mental timer. Granted, he isn’t actually cooking anything, but compared to you, he may as well be a top chef at a five-star restaurant. Ten minutes later and he’s got a mouth-watering spaghetti dish, topped with vegetables and what looks to be an herb garnish, a side salad, and four glasses of wine that you so expertly poured.
Unfortunately, with his parents around, you and Jungkook don’t get to go through your usual meal ritual of sitting as far away from each other as physically possible and not talking whatsoever, sitting down next to each other in his fancy suede dining chairs as his parents take the two seats opposite you. Jungkook’s dining table only seats six, despite the sheer size of his actual dining room, and quite frankly, you have never seen him actually use it for what it’s meant for: dining.
“Delicious, did you make this?” His father asks, already reaching over to serve himself some.
“Y/N helped.” No you didn’t.
The serving utensils then move to Jungkook’s mother, who does not turn them into gold, instead opting for a baby tomato, which she places in her drink to serve as some sort of extremely niche ice cube. You can’t imagine how good that will taste. Jungkook’s father laughs at his mother, who is obviously proud of herself. Jungkook forces himself to chuckle ever so slightly, and you crack a very helpless smile. It doesn’t really take a genius to figure out where Jungkook got his turning habits from.
“So, Y/N,” Jungkook’s father begins, catching you right as you shove an entire forkful of pasta into your mouth, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk getting ready for the winter, “how long have you known our son?”
“Uh, a couple of—”
“A couple of months,” Jungkook interrupts, speaking louder than usual. “We met at the Park Gala that they hosted, do you remember?”
You kick Jungkook’s shin under the table, making him wince.
“Ah, yes.” His mother nods in recollection. “Unfortunately we were on that cruise through France, so we couldn’t make it. A shame, we would have loved to meet you then. Are you a friend of the Parks?”
“An associate,” Jungkook explains as vaguely as possible. “Y/N works in law.”
“Ah, law,” Jungkook’s father says romantically, twirling his fork around in the air. “The conscience of business.”
“Yeah,” you say, forcing out a small laugh. The less you say, the better. Though it is ironic that you now apparently work in law, considering your favorite activity is breaking it. You suppose that nobody knows the law better than its criminals.
“Where are you from, Y/N? Do we know your parents?” This is starting to sound less like a dinner conversation and more like an interrogation.
“Y/N actually built herself up,” Jungkook covers for you. Lord knows revealing your true background would send both of his parents storming out of the building. “She doesn’t like to talk about her parents very much.”
That’s one way of putting it.
“Ah, what a shame,” his mother tuts, shaking her head. “We’d love to meet them.”
“Yeah…” you agree distantly, making a mental note to give Jungkook a good shove when this is all over. Well, two can play at this game. “Jungkook is teaching me a lot about how you guys run your business.” You add pointedly, earning a leg kick in return. “It’s very interesting to see from a law perspective.” More like from a human perspective.
“Oh, you must be very impressed,” his father says proudly, adjusting the collar of his shirt. “We’ve all worked extremely hard to get where we are.” Because turning things to gold at the press of a finger is truly such a taxing job.
“I’m certainly surprised,” you say back, sending a patient but stiff smile their way. They return the favor easily. Maybe you’re more like these people than you thought. “It’s a big change from what I’m used to.” Jungkook smacks his leg against yours, and you retaliate not a moment afterwards.
“I’m sure,” his mother says, voice sickly sweet. “But you’ll be able to adjust in no time. It’s definitely a level up, is it not?”
Jungkook looks like a lost child in a grocery store aisle, eyes wide as they flit back and forth between you and his parents, hurling thinly-veiled insults at each other like it’s nobody’s business.
“It’s different,” you respond.
“Well, I’m sure that Jungkook is doing all that he can to accommodate you,” his father says. “Sometimes the people he chooses to date are… not ideal for this sort of lifestyle. We hope that you are able to adjust quickly. We understand that this is a lot.”
“I certainly hope that I’m a good match, then,” you finish, because something inside of you can’t bear to let Jungkook’s stuffy, elitist parents get the last word.
The rest of the meal is rather silent, save for a few mindless comments about how poorly Jungkook’s decorated his dining room. You and Jungkook have been warring underneath the dinner table all evening, your shins undoubtedly sporting bruises, because apparently everything the two of you are saying to his parents is wrong. Jungkook’s parents either don’t know or don’t care, because they don’t say anything about the tension that settled over the table like a cloud of fog, thick and potent.
When everyone’s finished eating, Jungkook’s parents head straight to the door, determining that their contributions to his evening and his penthouse are enough—for now. Who knows if or when they’ll return. You and Jungkook have no choice but to see them off, rounding out the night just as you started: fake, empty smiles.
“It was lovely to meet you, Y/N,” his mother tells you, hand clutching her purse. “I hope that we may see each other again sometime soon.”
“Yes, I am looking forward to it,” you say with glee, knowing that the chances of you never having to speak to her again are well in your favor.
“Nice work, son,” his father says, a heavy hand on Jungkook’s shoulder. “Just let us know if you ever need anything.”
“Will do,” Jungkook promises distantly. You can tell that Jungkook doesn’t ask his father for advice too often.
You bid your goodbyes and Jungkook shuts the door behind them, and it’s almost as the atmosphere immediately begins to clear, the air conditioning cycling out the tension, like a breath of fresh air.
“Ugh, thank God that’s over,” you huff out, already itching to get out of this dress and back into your own clothes. It was gorgeous at first, but now it’s just an ugly reminder.
“Come on, it wasn’t that bad,” Jungkook says.
“’Wasn’t that bad’?” You repeat. It’s as if the words went in through Jungkook’s one ear and right out the other. “Are you serious? It was unbearable. Your parents were judging me from the moment I opened the door. No wonder you’ve never had a lasting girlfriend. I couldn’t think of anyone who would want to deal with that.”
“Excuse me?” Jungkook says, rounding on you as fire burns in his eyes. “What do you mean, ’that’?”
“I mean that I don’t know how on Earth people just accept the fact that in other people’s eyes, they’ll never be good enough?” You tell him like it’s obvious, because it is. This sort of life has been so ingrained into Jungkook’s head that he doesn’t even recognize it as unwelcoming and stifling. “I couldn’t stand being your girlfriend. Your parents are judgy and rude, and you all act like people who don’t come from as much money and power as you have no business sitting where you sit.”
“So your best approach was to shade and insult my parents in return?” He combats. “I would hate to be your boyfriend. My parents get more aggressive when people fight them, but you shove me under the table when I try to get you to back down? Just so you can have the final word to two people you’ll probably never see again?”
“The fact that anyone has dated you astounds me,” you tell him.
“The fact that nobody’s dated you doesn’t astound me,” Jungkook spits back.
You frown, embers flaring in your boiling blood. What, did Jungkook think you were going to enjoy yourself tonight? By pretending to be some sort of ditzy, desperate-to-please girlfriend? “You’re welcome for doing you a favor and not just straight up telling your parents you’ve been assigned a minder because you can’t handle your own powers. Don’t expect me to do it again.”
“I’m not planning on it,” Jungkook mumbles to himself, just loud enough for you to hear.
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
You and Jungkook march down opposite hallways, desperate for this night to be over. You tear off the dress and let it sit at the foot of the bed, taunting you.
There is no way in hell you are ever leaving this place.
The time spent at work is allocated half towards following Jungkook around like an invisible puppy with a personal vendetta against him, making sure that he doesn’t turn, and half towards wishing that something actually interesting will happen. Jungkook runs so tight a ship that nobody ever seems to want to do anything fun or exciting, no doughnuts, no inside jokes, no pranks. Just an endless cycle of trying desperately to please the unpleasable.
Admittedly, nowadays, you don’t really mind being here as much as you used to, when you would mentally criticize every person that walked through the glass doors to Jungkook’s office, hands filled with stacks of paper and manila folders, plopped onto Jungkook’s desk one by one. Jungkook’s started to keep extra food up in his office, the mini-fridge by his bookshelves constantly filled with takeaway salads and fruit. Apples are a definite no-go because they’re too loud, and you can only ever risk eating salads when nobody’s around to hear you pop the plastic top off of the container, but other than that, it’s nice.
Jungkook has pretty good taste in food, too, which is an added bonus. Though anything is a leg up from what you normally eat.
And even though you’ve begun to start roaming around, exploring the nooks and crannies that line the clean-cut layout, your favorite place to be is Jungkook’s office. He’s got these magnificent floor-to-ceiling glass windows, with a view directly over the biggest park in the city, thousands of feet up in the air. From up here, it almost feels as though you’re looking down at a different world, a different universe. It’s difficult to imagine that everyone down there, every ant-sized person walking along the sidewalk or resting on a park bench or ordering from a food stand, has lives of their own.
Especially when they are but specks of dust in yours.
Jungkook looks at this view forty hours a week. You wonder if he ever gets sick of it.
The door to Jungkook’s office creaks open as you’re staring out of the windows, watching as the clouds pass overhead. They look like little white dogs, like cotton candy, like angel wings.
“Mr. Jeon?”
The owner of the voice is the same man you berated Jungkook for shouting at a few weeks ago, the one who had turned in an analysis report a day late. He seems just as frightened of Jungkook now as he did back then, and it makes you wonder if any of Jungkook’s employees aren’t afraid of him.
“Here’s the completed budget report for the Lee Corporation for last fiscal year,” the man says, reaching a trembling hand out to lay a manila folder on Jungkook’s desk. Jungkook only looks up once he sees it out of his periphery, hand pausing mid-write, pen still hovering over the papers on his desk.
He meets the man’s eyes, and when he does, he cracks a small smile, this sort of barely-there grin, lips curling upwards ever so slightly. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
It’s as if the man has won the lottery. He thanks Jungkook quickly before bouncing out of the room, steps much lighter, like a weight has been lifted off of his shoulders. You watch as he leaves the room, a smile etching itself onto your face. It’s rather incredible what a simple ‘thank you’ can do to people.
You don’t say anything to Jungkook, instead just turning back around to gaze out of the window. There’s an entire city below your feet, one that bustles around like bees in a hive, everyone with a place to be and things to do. There is this strange but comforting feeling of insignificance, one where you feel as though you could disappear and nobody would notice a thing. The rest of the world can and will move on without you. But that doesn’t mean that your life means nothing. It means that your life can be whatever you want to make of it, because in the grand scheme of things, nobody else will know what you have done.
History is like that, too. You must be remarkable to be remembered. But that doesn’t mean the unremarkable people were forgotten. They touched lives, too.
Staring out the window as the clouds swim over the sun, a light grey shadow casting itself over the park, you feel at peace.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?”
You jump at the voice, Jungkook’s presence next to you having gone totally unnoticed. You didn’t even hear him get up from his chair.
“How did you know I was here?” You ask.
“I could sense it," Jungkook says with a grin, making you raise an eyebrow. You’re invisible. “I’m kidding, I saw you come over here a bunch last week when you first got into my office and I figured you’d probably still be here.”
“You figured correctly,” you tell him.
“You know, I don’t spend enough time looking out these windows,” Jungkook admits, and you aren’t sure if it’s to you or himself. “I’m always staring at my computer or writing something at my desk with my head down. I’ve got the best view in the whole city and sometimes, I don’t even remember what it looks like.”
“You work hard,” you tell him, because that’s something that is undeniable about who he is and what he does. “But you deserve to give yourself a break, every now and then.”
“For lunch breaks, the first thing I do is get out of my office. I spend all day in there and when it’s finally time for me to put work on pause, I rush out of the room like it’s on fire,” Jungkook comments. “Maybe I should stay up here every once in a while instead.”
“It’s not like I’ll be going anywhere,” you joke.
“You can, you know,” Jungkook tells you. “You don’t have to stay up here all day.”
“I know,” you say. “But I don’t really mind it. I like being here. It’s calming, in a way.” In a way that you can’t explain. Like you’re stuck in freeze frame while everyone else moves around you. Like you’re watching a movie about everybody’s lives but your own. Like you’re a spectator in your own body. “Plus, the view is gorgeous.”
“It is,” Jungkook agrees.
You stand there in silence for a few more moments, the only sounds filling the room your inhales and exhales, soft and slow, your hearts beating in time. Jungkook is more than a foot away from you but here, in his office, looking out over the world, he has never felt closer.
“Thank you,” you whisper, letting the words hang in the air in front of you.
“For what?” Jungkook asks.
“For listening to me.”
You feel Jungkook turn to you, and when you dare to look up at him, you meet his hazy brown eyes, warm and sparkly. He looks like a goddamn celebrity, like a magazine cover come to life, crisp shirt collars and fancy Italian shoes, glossy brown hair and perfect skin. He smiles at you, this homey sort of thing that makes you feel like summer is running through your veins, like the rays of the sun are pressing against your skin.
“Of course,” he tells you.
Jungkook is a lot of things. He’s unabashedly gorgeous and outrageously wealthy. He walks around like he owns everything that he touches. His house is clean and chic and minimalist, almost like nobody lives there at all. He’s determined and a workaholic, and hates admitting when he’s wrong.
But maybe, just maybe, in the white afternoon light of his office, the rest of the world underneath his feet, standing next to you as the two of you stare out in a city you call your own, he’s not that bad.
Being alone in Jungkook’s penthouse is, to put it lightly, absolutely terrifying.
It’s hard to believe that Jungkook--and maybe a girlfriend for a brief period--has occupied this entire space on his own, no one else to talk to, no one else to spend time with, no one to occupy his massive couches or fill up the chairs in his dining room.
You’ve always wondered why rich people buy the biggest houses. Sure, it’s because they’re rich, and because they can afford it, but it’s impossible for one person, or even two, to make the entire place feel like their own. You leave countless rooms untouched, meant for guests that you never have and parties that you never host. It’s like you’ve moved into half of a house, a quarter of a mansion. What’s the point of having so much space if you don’t ever have anyone to fill it up?
Normally you wouldn’t leave Jungkook’s side, following him around the city whenever he has errands to run or needs to dash back to work to pick up something he had forgotten. But Jungkook hasn’t been turning anything lately, even when you sleep in four hours later than he does, even when he stays up into the early hours of the morning while you pass out before it’s midnight. It’s like he’s somehow lost the will for his magic entirely, like it’s vanished from his body.
Well, you’re not complaining. That just means you’re one step closer to finishing your sentence.
Jungkook’s penthouse feels bigger when he’s not around. Even though you hardly ever see each other while you’re at home, the mere knowledge of his presence makes you feel like you’re not alone. Makes you feel like there is someone else in this little corner of the world.
Everything in here has always looked untouched. Like it doesn’t belong to anybody, like a house listing come to life. His marble counters are always empty, his cabinets always closed and organized. His books are always alphabetized and the stack of art books on his coffee table has never been touched. All of the bedrooms look like they belong in a hotel. The bathrooms look like they belong in a museum.
Jungkook’s house has never felt like a home but then again, neither has yours.
Still, if you had to choose between living in your abandoned shack at the edge of town or living in an enormous penthouse in the center of the city, you would never look back at that old, dilapidated building. The difference between you and Jungkook is that Jungkook chooses to live in this tragically empty place.
You don’t think you’ll ever be able to understand Jungkook’s life. Not just the technicalities of the company he runs, the economics and business that he has spent his whole life mastering, but also the way he sees the world in terms of money and power, how everything has some sort of value, even people. Even you. His biggest concern has always been himself. How much money he has matters, how many investments his company owns matters, how the public views him matters. He has spent so long crafting this perfect image of himself that he’s willing to spend as much money as necessary to maintain it.
Jungkook doesn’t even look at the total on the card reader when he purchases things. He simply tugs his silver card out of a sleek black wallet and swipes, crumpling the receipt up in his hand before shoving it into the pocket of his jeans. He comes back home to a gigantic penthouse with a gym and his pool and more bedrooms than he can count on both hands, to a personal chef in his kitchen making him five-star meals to last him the rest of the week.
Money is never on his mind, but it is always on yours.
When will you get enough to pay off your phone bill, will you ever be able to afford a repairman to fix the broken, exposed lightbulb above the back door, how many Campbell’s soups can you buy and still have enough funds to last you until the next day? What if, God forbid, the city comes knocking on your door and either evicts you or orders you to pay up for the three years you’ve been living in that house, rent-free? What will you do then?
Life is by no means easy for either of you, but Jeon Jungkook has never had to want for anything. If it isn’t handed to him, he works for it himself. If he can’t buy it, he’ll just make more money. If he doesn’t already own it, what’s stopping him?
People dream of having Jungkook’s life. People fear having yours.
Alone in Jungkook’s apartment, the differences between the two of you have never been clearer.
Your greatest fear is the fact that, in the past few weeks you have spent here, you are already becoming used to it. You are dreading going back to where you were before, stealing money from people off of the streets and living in a house in such disrepair that local nons think that it’s haunted. You fear that you will never want to leave.
It’s such a terrifying feeling, isn’t it? Becoming attached to something. Feeling as though your life will be worse without it. Knowing that your life will be worse without it.
There are parts of you that make you wish that life wasn’t so unfair.
The living room is three times the size of the dining room but you hate eating there, sitting at an empty table with no one to talk to but suede chairs, reminding you that you don’t even have any friends to invite anyway. At least in the living room you can sit on the couch and watch television and pretend that you have at least some semblance of a life.
You pick at a pre-made salad that has too much lettuce and not enough everything else—Jungkook needs a new chef, you decide, plucking out all of the croutons and slices of cheddar cheese, when the front door swings open, slamming against the wall adjacent to it as Jungkook storms inside.
“Oh my God, what happened to you?” You exclaim, eyes practically bulging out of your head as you jump off of the couch. Even from here, you can see the dark bruising around Jungkook’s eye, purple and blue, the busted up knuckles clenched around the bag he’s carrying. There’s even a small streak of blood on his upper left cheek, already beginning to scab.
“Nothing, I’m fine,” he says, wiping away the blood on his lip with the back of his hand.
“No, you’re not,” you tell him, rushing up to meet him in the middle of the foyer, standing in front of him as you look up at his face with wide eyes. He waits there patiently, avoiding your gaze, steely eyes looking elsewhere, as you reach up to hold his head in your hands, tilting it from side to side. “What happened to you?”
“Some dudes jumped me in the parking lot on the way back,” Jungkook says casually. You’d almost believe he didn’t feel anything if he doesn’t wince when you press a gentle fingertip along the bruise on his jawline. He meets your frightened expression and smirks wickedly, something glinting in his eyes. “Don’t worry, I got ‘em good.”
“Are you alright?” You ask him, even though it’s obvious he’s not. “You aren’t seriously injured or anything, are you?”
“Don’t worry about it, Y/N,” Jungkook says with a sigh, even as he obeys your movements and moves his body pliantly to the feeling of your hands pressing against his skin. Most of the visible damage seems to be to his face and hands, and quite frankly, you’re not exactly sure if you want to see what’s underneath his dress shirt. “I’m strong. I work out and eat healthy and everything. I’ll be better in no time.”
“No, are you kidding?” You say, reaching out to grab his hand without a second thought, pulling him towards the nearest bathroom. “You can’t just leave it like this. Here, let me heal you.”
“I don’t need you to patch me up or anything,” Jungkook resists, frowning as you sit him down on the edge of the bathtub and begin to fish through his bathroom cabinets. “First aid isn’t in that one.”
“No, you idiot,” you chide him. “I’m not gonna patch you up. Aren’t you forgetting that I’m a healer?”
“So what are you gonna do, then?”
You finally find the first aid kit and pull it out, revealing rolls of gauze and bottles of rubbing alcohol and disinfectant. There’s even a couple of rows of Ibuprofen. “Well, you should be patched up anyway,” you decide, turning back to look at Jungkook’s face as he waits obediently on the edge of the tub. “But I can heal you faster than what time and medicine can do on their own.”
“You don’t have to,” Jungkook says softly.
“Please, of course I do,” you reply instantly. You’re not gonna let Jungkook walk around like that. “We can’t have your pretty face all messed up, now can we?”
Jungkook cracks a small smile but it’s obvious that the simple gesture alone pains him, making him wince slightly as his lips turn upwards. You wet a face cloth with cold water and press it against Jungkook’s bruises, looking intently at his features as you move the cloth around, letting the cold water draw out the heat that sizzles beneath his skin. Jungkook watches you the whole time, his eyes never leaving yours, even as your brows furrow in concentration, determined to fix Jungkook back up so he’s brand new. Slowly, the bruises begin to fade, going from an angry violet to a light lavender, and then to a pink that could almost be mistaken for a heavy blush.
It feels weird, knowing that he’s right there. Knowing that he’s watching you, eyes following yours as they scan his face. His clean-cut jawline is a little swollen, perfect skin angry and marked, but his eyes are still the same. Still wide and bright, like a young child, like a baby deer learning to walk for the first time. They look almost caramel in the yellow light of the bathroom, flecks of gold to mirror the accents in the room.
There’s something about them that makes you not want to turn away.
When the bruises have faded, leaving only petal pink remnants along his skin, you move onto the small cut along his cheek. It’s rough and jagged, like the skin had been torn right through, a nick from a fingernail or a knuckle. It’s not long, but it is somewhat deep. You imagine it might scar permanently.
Kneeling down in front of him, you pull out some rubbing alcohol and a cotton pad, dabbing a gentle amount onto the round before moving closer, holding his head in your hand as you reach out.
“This might sting,” you say, like he doesn’t already know.
“That’s alright,” Jungkook tells you. “Fix me up, doctor.”
At his cue, you softly press the cotton pad against the scab, rubbing away at it until it comes off cleanly, leaving only fresh, exposed skin behind. For wounds like these, a cloth won’t do. Your mother used to tell you that healing didn’t come from your hands, it came from your heart. That even if your fingertips had the magic, it was your heart that had the power to wield it.
Slowly, you rest your palm against his cheek, rubbing your thumb along the cut. Jungkook blinks, big eyes shimmering, as you do so, and you feel trapped in his gaze. Like you couldn’t turn away even if you tried. Like you almost wouldn’t want to. His skin is baby soft, perfect, a far cry from the calloused pads of your fingertips, worn from so many days and nights out on the streets.
There is magic in your fingertips, surely, but there is something different in your heart. Something that you don’t think you have the words to explain.
The cut seals up instantly, the skin patching over itself until nothing is left but a mark, a little scar that will stay there forever. And yet, you stay there, locked in his magnetic pull, like tearing away will hurt you rather than him. The cut is healed, and his bruises are fading, and there is no reason to stay like this.
And yet.
“There,” you whisper, watching the words appear between the two of you, lingering like ghosts. “All better.”
Jungkook grins. It doesn’t hurt him, but something in you feels a sharp jolt, an ache. Like a spark in the pit of your belly. Like magic in your veins.
Jungkook has been tearing his hair out over this one manila folder in front of him for the past twenty minutes. Every ten seconds he writes something down before scribbling it out, the ink bleeding through the paper to the next one. He flips through the files relentlessly, carelessly, until they’re all out of order and splayed all over his desk. He’s instructed the guard outside not to let anyone in, even if it’s some sort of emergency.
You’ve seen Jungkook at work a lot, but you’ve never seen him like this. Even his anguished sighs are difficult to listen to.
Creeping over to the wall that overlooks the rest of the office, Venetian blinds shielding the both of you from view, you crack open a slat, peeking out at everyone else. None of them pay any attention to Jungkook’s office, too busy worrying about the next report they have to complete and all of the office meetings they have to attend, so you take it as a good opportunity to turn visible. Just for a little bit.
“You alright?” You ask, nearly making Jungkook fall out of his seat at the sound of your voice.
“What?” He asks, surprised. “Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”
“What’s the matter?” You ask, because you’ve never seen Jungkook as stressed out as he is now. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to organize this new collective to monitor our investing habits so we can assess where investments need to be divvied up into in order for clients to find us worth of their own investments as opposed to other companies,” Jungkook explains, though he sounds positively exhausted while doing so, like the very mention of what he’s slaving over is enough to send him over the edge. “But no one can agree on how we can use this information to promote this company to our clients and the public. People invest in both of us either way.”
“You want people to invest more money in your company, don’t you?” You ask with a raised eyebrow.
“Well, yeah.”
“How much money does this company give to small businesses? To nonprofits and charity?”
Jungkook frowns, scrunching up his nose as he thinks. He clicks around on his computer for a few seconds before saying, “About five percent.”
“And your investments are public, correct?”
“Yes.” Jungkook nods.
“You should be giving way more than five percent of this company’s investments to small, local businesses and charity,” you tell Jungkook, already worming your way behind his desk to look at what he’s looking at. You point to the numbers on his screen, single-digit percentages, some even less than one, being sent to local businesses, nonprofits, and charities. “Look at this. Ninety-five of your investments go right into stocks. If you invested more money into nonprofits and local businesses, people would see you taking the time to help boost the local economy and the organizations that serve it for free. Then, those businesses would invest in you in return, and clients would see that you’re investing in noble causes and give you more money as a thanks, which can then be funnelled back to small businesses and nonprofits.”
It’s a rather roundabout sort of proposal and you’re almost positive that it has no real footing anywhere in real economics and finance, but it makes sense to you. If you had money to invest in major companies, you would choose the ones that invest in the things that will benefit you, like local businesses and nonprofits. If you saw that the companies you were giving money to were simply giving it away to the stock market, you’d pull your money out.
You know that the stock market is nothing but the world’s biggest economic gamble, but that doesn’t mean that you have to gamble with it. Companies that stand for what you stand for are much more appealing than companies with a bigger investment bank behind them.
You turn to Jungkook, who is squinting at his computer screen as he fumbles around with the numbers, flicking from Excel sheet to Excel sheet, bouncing back and forth between the information online and the files on top of his desk.
“Is that stupid?” You ask, breaking the silence. It’s not as if people know you for your groundbreaking economic policies.
Jungkook spares one more glance over all of his files, and turns up to look at you. “No,” he tells you with a shake of his head. “It’s not.”
“Really?” You’re actually impressed with yourself.
“Yeah,” Jungkook agrees happily. “You’re right—I’d want to know that my investments were going to a company with good morals that lifts up local businesses. It would encourage me to invest more, too.”
“It’s not a very sound economic theory…” You admit. Jungkook’s probably seasoned in how investments and the stock markets work, charts upon charts of client behavior that shapes the way he organizes his company. And you? You don’t have enough money to even buy food some days.
“It doesn’t have to be,” Jungkook assures you. “Theory is total bullshit anyway, because nobody can predict what will happen with the economy. But human nature has always been reliably good. People like to know that their money is going to a good cause.”
“So, it helps?” You ask with a smile.
Jungkook nods. “It does. It’s actually a great idea, Y/N. You might have a future in business.”
You scoff. “Me? I don’t know the first thing about this stuff.”
Jungkook shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. You don’t need to. You’re a good person who thinks about everyone, Y/N. That’s why you’d be good at business. Because your clients can trust you, and you’ll actually put your money where your mouth is.”
“I guess,” you say unhelpfully. Just because you think about others doesn’t make you especially remarkable. It makes you human. Isn’t that how everyone’s supposed to be? “I just don’t think about clients and money like you do. Money’s always been really valuable to me, since I’ve never had much of it, but you guys see it as expendable. I need to know where my money goes, I don’t want to see it just vanish into the hands of someone else.” Jungkook’s nodding along, eyes looking intently at your own, like he’s committing the words you say to his memory. “I just think that people and companies with tons of money have a duty to give back to those who are less fortunate. That’s all.”
“That’s noble of you,” Jungkook says.
“It’s just common sense,” you explain. “Why wouldn’t you want to do something like that?”
Jungkook heaves a sigh, a long, winded sort of one, like there’s a whole conversation behind it that he wishes he could have with you. But instead, he just shakes his head, a fond smile lacing its way across his features. He chuckles to himself. “Maybe you aren’t cut out for business after all, Y/N,” he tells you softly. “You have too big a heart.”
And maybe that’s true. Maybe you’re too kind, too generous, to ever make it in business. To succeed without losing every penny to your name.
But if that’s the case, then where does Jungkook stand?
When Jungkook stays at work late, the two of you eat dinner together.
There’s just something so demoralizing about coming back to an empty house, letting the hollow sound of the door slamming shut echo throughout the room, and then marching off in different directions to spend the rest of the night alone. When it’s dark, and late, and you’re starving, it’s all you can do not to beg Jungkook to eat with you. Even if in silence.
By the time you get home, your stomach is just about ready to consume the art books sitting in a neat stack at the top right corner of the coffee table. You begin to clear off some space for the both of you to eat as Jungkook heads towards the refrigerator, when not three seconds after, you hear him swear, “Oh, shit.”
“What’s the matter?” You call out.
“We’re out of premade meals!” Jungkook shouts back. What? You could have sworn there were at least two full tupperwares still available. Actually, maybe you had eaten them for lunch…
“Really?” You get up from the coffee table and make your way into the kitchen, where Jungkook is standing in front of a refrigerator with the entire middle section wiped clean, empty shelves mocking the both of you as you glare at them. “Oh, wow. Really.”
“I didn’t know we ate that much,” Jungkook comments, shocked at the sight before him.
“What are we gonna do?” You ask. You’re hungry.
“What do you mean?” Jungkook says with a laugh. He kneels down and begins to pull vegetables from the drawers, plucking different bottles from inside the fridge door and plastic cartons from the top shelves, the ones that you never dare touch. “We’ll cook something, obviously.”
“Can’t we just order takeout?”
“You don’t wanna cook something with me?” Jungkook asks, eyes wide and pouty. You shake your head guiltily. Is ordering a pizza really so much to ask? Jungkook narrows his eyes at you suspiciously, a grin pulling at his lips, before he nods knowingly. “Oh, I get it.”
“Get what?” You challenge.
“You don’t know how to cook.”
“What? I know how to cook!” You cry out, aghast. True, your past meals have mostly involved warming food up in the microwave, but that counts, in your book. Jungkook frowns in disbelief. “I know how to use a microwave.”
Jungkook tosses his head back and laughs, this warm, hearty sound filling up the kitchen, before he starts placing all of the containers and bottles and vegetables he pulled out from the fridge onto the counter. “Okay, we’re going to make something together.”
“Seriously?” You say, borderline whining. “Can’t you just do it?”
“No,” Jungkook rolls his eyes, “because you have to help me. Kitchen’s orders.”
“You’re the kitchen!”
“Exactly,” Jungkook says, smiling to himself. He pulls out some more ingredients from the cabinets, hands deftly reaching for the exact ones he wants, until you have a collection of food, seasonings, and sauces on the countertop, and an apparent recipe to be made.
“What are we making?” You ask, looking down at everything on the counter. All of these things can’t go into one dish… can they?
“An old family recipe,” Jungkook says. “Kimchi jjigae. It’s kimchi stew.”
“Is it easy?”
Jungkook grins something wicked, something devilish. “It’s fun.”
He sets out to put a pot on the stove, turning the gas on, bouncing back and forth between the stovetop and the counter as you stand there like a floundering fish, waiting for him to either give you an instruction or do everything himself.
“Can you cut the green onions?” Jungkook asks as he adds water and what looks to be tiny little fish to the pot, reaching behind his back to gesture wildly at the ingredients sitting on the marble.
“Which are those?” You scan the countertop. Your familiarity with food and recipes extends about as far as anything non-perishable that comes in a tin can. Never in your life have you seen so much laid out in front of you, all meant to go into the same meal.
The metal lid clinks as Jungkook covers the pot to boil, turning around to join you at the counter, where you wait awkwardly in front of an unused chopping board, no knife in sight.
“These,” he says, reaching over you to pull up several stalks of something that looks similar to the wild onions that grow in your backyard. He fishes through the drawers before he pulls out a kitchen knife, gently placing it in your hand as he moves around to grab all of the other ingredients he needs for the boiling water on the stovetop.
Hesitantly, you line up the onions and begin to chop, carefully sawing through each one until it comes cleanly off of the stalk. It’s awfully time-consuming, especially since Jungkook seems to have already made the stock base in the time it’s taken you to cut one. Nevertheless, you persist, because Jungkook wants these to go in the pot, and you refuse to be seen as incompetent in the kitchen, especially when Jungkook seems to be rather proficient when it comes to cooking despite the fact that a chef makes the majority of his meals for him.
Old family recipes die hard, you suppose.
Jungkook turns around to check on you and grab a small red container of what looks to be some sort of spicy pepper paste. When he sees you carefully slicing through each onion stalk, he laughs.
“Hey, what are you laughing at?” You say, pouting. You don’t think you’re doing a terrible job, even if you are a bit slow.
“You,” Jungkook says with a grin, not even bothering to think of something else to say instead. “Here, let me show you.”
He comes to stand behind you, his torso pressing against your back, as he reaches his arms around you, hands gently resting atop your own. There is something in the way his breath hits your skin, tickles the part right behind your ear that’s always been sensitive, how he leans down to look over your shoulder. The rise and fall of his chest against you. Something strange and foreign and calming, like when you tense up right before you fall asleep.
Frozen, you watch with nervous eyes as he holds your hand in his own, grasping onto the knife. He stacks a few onion stalks next to each other on top of the cutting board and slowly begins to cut—thin, quick slices until he develops a rhythm, an imaginary beat to the drumming of his heart, to the pounding of your own.
The seconds seem to drag on for eternity, as if every cut through the vegetable is done in slow-motion, like time has slowed down just for the two of you. His breath tickles your skin, hot and tingly and filled with fire, lighting sparks everywhere it touches. You think that, if you concentrate hard enough, you can hear the way his heart thumps like a bass drum, ringing in your ears. Or maybe that’s just you.
When four green onion stalks have been cut down to their very tips, suddenly the world speeds up, like the breaths that have slowly been leaving your lips come out all at once, like your heart picks up time to a universal metronome, desperate to realign itself once more.
“There,” Jungkook murmurs from behind you. The words are soft and distant, almost like someone else had uttered them. “All done.”
You blame the tears welling in your eyes on the onions.
Thirty minutes and an overwhelming amount of slicing different ingredients later, there is a boiling pot of kimchi stew on the stove, steaming up the inside of the glass lid that Jungkook has placed on top to keep it warm. He’s big on optimizing the time spent in the kitchen, cleaning up everything before you eat, stuffing all of the used plates and bowls and knives into the sink as they come, wrapping up the vegetables in the thin plastic bags that they came in and putting them back into the fridge. Jungkook says it’s because he doesn’t like having to clean the kitchen up after he’s eaten. You think it’s because he thinks you’ll run off and leave him to do all the work.
You, admittedly, don’t make your own meals very often (or at all), but you can see the appeal. There’s something different about food that you make yourself, food that you turned from ingredients to a meal. Something rewarding.
Or maybe it’s just because Jungkook did most of the cooking, and he’s got this inexplicable magic touch.
“Good, right?” He asks when you’re finished, the both of you heading back to the kitchen to wash up the last of your dishes.
“It was okay,” you tease, even though your empty bowl says otherwise. There’s not a drop of soup, a scrap of food left inside of it, just an orange ring around the inside from the kimchi color.
“Okay, Miss ‘Okay’,” Jungkook says, placing his bowl gently into the sink. “Hand me your thing, I’ll finish washing up.”
“You sure?” You ask. You feel like you’ve contributed absolutely nothing to the making of this dish. Not cooking it, not putting away the ingredients or washing the pot, nothing. The least you could do is clean up a couple of your bowls. Or put them in the dishwasher.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Jungkook says, hand already latching onto it. “Takes two minutes.”
“Okay,” you tell him, watching the bowls fill with soap as his big hands scrub away the remnants of a very delicious meal.
You linger in the kitchen. Despite not really having anything else to do, you don’t want to go back to your room, or curl away in some corner of the apartment where Jungkook can’t find you. You’re finally spending time together. Isn’t that what you wanted?
“It was pretty good,” you add on belatedly, when Jungkook is just drying his hands on the dish towel. There’s a precarious stack of dishes, utensils, and pots on the drying rack, like adding one more chopstick will send the whole thing tumbling down, but Jungkook isn’t worried about it at all. Even though he likes cleaning stuff up, he doesn’t like putting it away.
“Aha!” Jungkook shouts, pointing at you accusingly. “I knew you would like it.”
“You’re a good chef,” you tell him. Maybe kimchi jjigae is the only thing he’s good at making, but rather be a master of one than a jack of all trades but master of none. Though, you have to admit that Jungkook is a master of several trades, none of which you think you could ever do. “You should cook more.”
“I wish,” Jungkook says with a sigh. The two of you have retired to the leather couch, the conversation drifting away from the kitchen and towards the sofas. When he collapses on the cushions, he relaxes, like the feeling is sucking out all of the tension in his body. “Every time I get back from work, I’m so drained and exhausted. I just want to go to sleep.”
“You weren’t tired tonight,” you point out.
“No,” Jungkook says. The words are distant and faintly register in his mind, almost like the realization has just dawned on him for the first time, “I wasn’t.”
“Is there something else you wanna do?” You ask, not feeling particularly lethargic either. Normally, you’d spend the rest of the night raiding the rest of Jungkook’s amenities, watching old shows on his television or taking a bath until your body looks like a raisin. Something you can do by yourself, something that you’d want to do by yourself to make up for the fact that Jungkook doesn’t ever want to do anything with you. Watching him at work is getting less boring, because you’re actually starting to interact, but at home, you go right back to square one. Or, you did. “Watch a movie, or anything?”
“Nah, I’m alright,” Jungkook shakes his head, scrunching up his nose. You watch him as he chews the inside of his cheek, finger tracing over the scar that’s been left from that night, the night you patched him up. You’re a healer, but some things are meant to leave marks. You almost think that Jungkook is going to up and leave, heave himself off of the floor and spend the rest of the night alone in his bedroom, but then, he turns to you and he asks, “How often do you heal people?”
“I haven’t in a while,” you admit. Not because the opportunity has never presented itself, but you never had anyone to heal. “I used to when I was a kid, a lot. You know, scraped knees and paper cuts.”
“What about you?” Jungkook asks. “Do you have to heal yourself as well?”
“No,” you explain, “healers’ bodies heal by themselves.” It’s why, whenever you get back to your shack after crashing into a tree on the sidewalk that you hadn’t spotted, or stubbed your toe on the leg of a table, or pulled a muscle from stretching too far, you let yourself rest, and your body does the work for you. “But healing isn’t… it isn’t something I do very often. I turn invisible much more.”
“I can tell,” Jungkook muses. “But you’ve been invisible around me so much that it feels like I can still see you.”
“That’s because I’m always in your office when I’m invisible,” you point out. Jungkook knows you’re there because you wouldn’t be anywhere else. Where would you even go, when the whole point is to watch him? “In a place like this, there is no way you would be able to find me.”
“You wanna bet?”
“You know what, yes, I do,” you say, because Jungkook can’t possibly think his human-snuffing skills are as good as yours. Especially when the only person he’s trying to find is invisible. “You think you’re such a hotshot, hmm? Try and find me, then.”
“First floor only,” Jungkook rules. “And, when I do, I get to turn something.”
“Fine,” you agree, only because you know that that’s not going to happen. “One thing. That’s strike two, though.”
“You won’t tell,” Jungkook chides, eyes narrowed.
“Will I?”
“Twenty seconds!” Jungkook says, already beginning to count down. “Nineteen, eighteen—!”
You turn invisible at once, not wasting a second, scurrying off down one of the hallways. There are plenty of places to hide in Jungkook’s house, from the walk-in closets in every bedroom to the one-foot-tall gap underneath every bed. But you won’t go for one of those, because Jungkook expects you to. He’s going to hunt around his entire house, looking in all of the nooks and crannies, the armoires and cabinets and cubbyholes, because he thinks that that’s where you’ll be hiding. But the truth is that there is no way that Jungkook will be able to find you when he can’t see you, because he doesn’t know what he’ll be looking for.
So, you pick the second-to-last bedroom down the hall, and you wait. You’d sit down on the mattress, but Jungkook easily be able to spot a dip in the comforter, so you stand, right next to the door, holding your breath. If Jungkook really does think he can sense your presence, or whatever psychic nonsense he’s on about, then he should have no problem finding you.
You hear Jungkook’s voice echoing down the hallway, a sickly sweet singsong as he walks into every room.
“Y/N…” He calls out, like a ghost in a horror movie. “Where are you?”
From your angle, you can peer down the corridor, watch as he trickles in and out of each room after five minutes, no doubt searching through every one with both of his arms out, desperate to crash into you. Good thing you’re standing, otherwise Jungkook might accidentally elbow you. Slowly, he makes his way out of the room right before yours, casually walking towards you. You suck in a quick breath, holding yourself perfectly still.
“Are you here?” Jungkook flips his head around the doorframe, a foot away from where you’re standing. He isn’t looking right at you, thank God, otherwise you think you might just burst into laughter. “Hmm, I think you are.”
He begins to walk around the room, one hand tracing over the quilted pattern on the comforter, the other reaching out, grabbing fistfuls of air. He looks like someone’s blocked his vision, wandering around aimlessly as he tries to find something to cling onto. You bite your lip, refusing to laugh and give yourself away as he makes his way into the bathroom, singing your name like a chant, a curse to be laid upon you. When he obviously has no luck, he returns to the bedroom, eyes narrowed, as if that will better help his vision.
You don’t think you’ve ever held your breath for this long, lungs about to burst, but you can’t let Jungkook find you. There’s more than just your powers on the line, and his reward. There’s your pride, and his massive ego that you refuse to stroke. The fact that he looks absolutely ridiculous is also doing nothing to aid you, but giving yourself up would be a metaphorical death sentence.
Jungkook has one foot out of the door, already heading towards the last bedroom in the hallway, when you crack. You sputter out a half-breath, this miniscule exhale, and he stops in his tracks, turning around. You freeze up, hoping that maybe Jungkook will just think it was a trick of his own ears.
“Y/N?” He taunts. He looks around the room again, trying to see if the wind is blowing a different way, if there is something different. He almost doesn’t notice you.
Almost.
You turn in shock when Jungkook reaches a hand out, his fingers pinching at your lower torso, shrieking as you practically topple over, Jungkook’s arms the only things that prevent you from diving head first onto the floor. He encases you in his hold as you sink to the floor in defeat, laughing as he follows you, one arm holding your waist as the other wraps around your back. He chuckles to himself while you curl up in shame, desperate not to meet your eyes. Your skin sizzles where his fingers had touched it, like oil in a pan after it’s been taken off of the stove, like the remnants of a flame, embers left to burn into ashes. It feels like your body is on fire.
“Found you,” Jungkook teases, but it’s soft and sweet and fond. “I told you, I just know.”
“You just heard me breathe,” you defend yourself, because the former is impossible to accept.
“Whatever you want to say to make yourself feel better.” He grins, cheeky and prideful, making you shove his head away with the palm of your hand.
“Fine, whatever,” you say, resigning yourself to the fact that you lost this round. “What do you want to turn? The bed frame? The door knob? That really ugly pot in the living room?”
“Hey, that pot isn’t ugly,” Jungkook exclaims. You frown at him. “Okay, it’s only a little bit ugly.”
“For someone with so much money, you sure don’t have the best taste,” you tell him, even though everything else in his house reads expensive like nothing else. That pot is just weirdly out-of-place. “Maybe the gold will make it look better.”
“What’s this?” Jungkook asks, reaching a hand out from behind you to toy at the bracelet on your wrist, this silver chain with a couple of charms dangling from it. It’s rusted beyond belief, from rain, from humidity, from wear, but you refuse to take it off, even when it loses what’s left of its shimmer, even when the silver fades to a scratchy red iron.
“An old bracelet,” you say, fingers instinctively making to play with it, rubbing away at the metal. “From my mom.”
“You wear it every day,” Jungkook notices.
“I never take it off,” you say.
“It’s pretty,” Jungkook tells you, and you know that he isn’t just saying that. That he means it, despite its abysmal condition. The years have not been kind to it, but then again, they haven’t been very kind to you either. “It must be really special.”
“It is.” You shuffle the bracelet around so that all five of the charms are in view. “She would buy a new charm every year for my birthday.”
“I like this one,” Jungkook says, pointing to the milk carton charm. “It’s cute.”
“Yeah…” you trail off. The bracelet isn’t much, but it’s all you have left of a childhood that you had been robbed of. You had to grow up too fast, that you know, but at least this bracelet reminds you that you are never too old for your memories.
“Can I turn it?” Jungkook asks. It’s as if you can see the words leave his lips, resting in front of you, waiting for your response.
You turn around to face him, eyes wide. Your hand goes to rest atop the bracelet protectively, the idea of letting someone else touch it almost unfathomable.
“You can say no,” Jungkook quickly stammers out, face beet red. “It was just—you wear it so much, and it looks like the silver is fading, so I was thinking maybe the gold would… fix it up a bit, or something. Make it look new again. Ignore me, you don’t have to say yes, it was just a suggestion.”
Your fingers drop into your lap as you look at him, expression softening. Here, in this unused guest bedroom, Jungkook looks nervous, lost, stumbling over his own words like he isn’t sure of himself anymore. He looks away from you, eyes already beginning to scan the room for something else to turn instead, doubtful you would even agree to such a wild request. It is your bracelet, after all. Why would he do something like that for you?
“You want to?” You ask him, hopeful and wishing.
Jungkook nods, a smile tugging at his lips. “I do.”
“Then you can,” you say, holding out your wrist to him, the charms dangling over your laps. “Please.”
Jungkook’s shocked that you even said yes, but he scrambles to twist you around, moving your bodies so you aren’t pressed against each other like two peas squished inside of a pod. In this new position, you’re facing each other, staring right at each other as Jungkook reaches out a tentative hand, delicate fingers padding against your wrist. He breathes, and so do you, because you’ve gotten so used to the way this bracelet has looked, so familiar with every rust and crack and dent, knowing that it has remained unchanged for years.
But this isn’t a change. It’s a rebirth. It’s something different, something fresh, something to remind you that not all is lost. That old memories can become new once more.
Slowly, as Jungkook presses soft fingertips against the metal, sparks fly. A golden sheen wraps around the bracelet, inch by inch, leaving behind this unmistakeable shimmer, glinting in the sunlight. You can’t tear your eyes away, watching the magic unfold in real time, the silver vanishing before you. The gold consumes it, erasing all of the rust, the wear and tear, until it looks brand new.
Your mother would have loved it.
“Is that strike two?” Jungkook asks, a cherry red blush decorating his cheeks.
“Thank you,” you breathe out, not caring if it’s strike two or strike two hundred. Your fingers press against the metal, smooth and shiny, the bumpy texture gone. It must be worth thousands, now. But to you, it is priceless. “It’s beautiful.”
Jungkook nods, and you can distantly feel the weight of his gaze on you.
“I know,” he says.
You can’t sleep.
You’ve slept better here than you have for the past three years of your life. At this point, sleeping on cement would be more comfortable than your bed back at your own house, but here, the soft, plush mattress takes away all of the exhaustion that manifests itself in you throughout the day. Not to mention the fact that for the first time in over a decade, you finally have a normal routine, an internal clock to direct your body, rather than the other way around. There is something soothing in knowing exactly what the next day will bring. Something that doesn’t keep you up with worry.
But tonight, you are wide awake.
The golden bracelet on your wrist clinks against itself as you sit up, rubbing at the gunk that’s collected in your eyes. You’ve been keenly aware of its existence on your wrist much more in the past several days, ever since Jungkook turned it from its previous faded silver, fingers instinctively toying with it whenever there’s nothing on your mind—and even when there is.
What you fear most is the fact that you feel as though you are relying on Jungkook to be there more and more, counting on the fact that you know he will be by your side no matter where you are, no matter what you do. You are relying on him to be there, on his house to be there, shaping the way that you run your life based on the belief that at the end of the day, he will be asleep under the same roof as you.
You pull yourself out of bed. Maybe a night spent alone will remind you of the days where you would watch the moon move across the sky, sitting underneath trees and counting the stars that you can see. Remind you that no matter what, the moon will always be there for you, too. Remind you that this, all of it, is temporary.
You know that you aren’t allowed to go up to the second floor of Jungkook’s apartment, and that you’ve never been solely because Jungkook requested that you stay downstairs, a promise you have kept throughout the weeks. But there must be some appeal to the rooftop, you think, because Jungkook never comes downstairs whenever he’s having a restless night. Besides, it’s not as if you have any plans to go into his bedroom.
Softly, you creep upstairs, hand dragging along the golden rail, feet leaving creases in the carpet. The top of the stairs opens up into a general hallway, a dark wooden door undoubtedly leading towards his bedroom, while the walls on the other side turn to glass, leading towards the pool. You tiptoe down the hallway, making sure to avoid making too much noise by Jungkook’s bedroom door, passing by the gym that Jungkook must use all of the time, whenever he’s not around to bother you. The glass door at the end of the hallway must exit out to the pool, so you twist the doorknob and push it open, the cool summer atmosphere hitting you like a breath of fresh air.
All of the lights are on outside, this soft white that reflects off of the metal railing and the pool water, crashing in waves against the tiled edges. You think it’s just for show, like how people leave their Christmas lights on twenty-four hours a day, visible through their windows, but then you round the corner and see him.
Jungkook sits along the edge of the water, legs swishing around in the pool, as he looks up at the sky. The summer breeze blows through his hair, messy and loose, the way it looks right when he gets out of the shower, before he puts any product into it. Whatever he’s playing with in his hand glints in the lights, that distinctive yellow glow. It must be a coin or something, something small, something to keep his fingers occupied.
“Are we considering that strike three?”
He whips around when he hears your voice, hears the way the pool water carries it across to him.
“I thought you promised never to come up here,” he muses back.
“Then I guess maybe both of us can be forgiven,” you suggest.
You amble over to him, crouching down to dip your feet in as well. You seat yourself along the edge of the pool beside him as the water sloshes around, the sensation sending shivers down your spine despite the humidity in the air.
“Can’t sleep?”
Jungkook shakes his head. “My body’s tired but my mind isn’t.”
“What’s that?” You ask, pointing at the coin in his hand. It isn’t a form of currency that you recognize, certainly nothing used here.
“A family heirloom,” Jungkook tells you, holding it out for you to see. It’s covered in a thin layer of cold but you think that you can make out some sort of crest, an emblem or insignia above the coat of arms. “Apparently it had been stolen from someone of royalty or high status back in the day. My family turned it into gold and made it ten times more valuable.”
“Oh, but I pickpocket a few people and suddenly I get sentenced by the Realm to be a minder, I see how it is,” you joke, rolling your eyes. Your eyes glaze over the crest, tracing the lines of a lion, a spear, a shield. It must mean something to someone, but to you and Jungkook, it could be anything.
“Hey, but being my minder hasn’t been terrible, has it?” Jungkook asks, mockingly offended. His lips curl down into a pout as he looks at you, a hand on his heart like it’s been punctured by your words.
“It’s…” You begin. You suppose that it hasn’t been terrible. In the beginning, it was positively nightmarish, left you feeling like there was no way you would ever complete your sentence. Now, there’s this weird, hidden part of you that doesn’t want to leave. The part of you that has become attached to this world, this lifestyle. The part of you that relies on there being another person in your life to be with. “It’s not that bad.”
“You know what, I’ll take it.” Jungkook grins. “Even though I know you secretly love me.”
You give Jungkook a shove, pushing him on his side. “You wish.”
He laughs, pulling himself back up off of the cement, knocking his shoulder into yours. “I know that we both kind of didn’t have a choice in any of this,” he tells you, looking up at the stars, watching their faint light, twinkling from millions of light years away. “But I think I really needed you here.”
“Oh, now he admits he needs a minder,” you say sarcastically, flinging your arms out in front of you.
Jungkook chuckles. “I didn’t realize I turned so much until you forced me to stop cold turkey.”
You nod. The truth is, you can’t blame Jungkook for his turning habits. You can’t blame him for living the way that he lives, when it’s the only thing he’s ever known. When the two most important adults in his life turn like wildfire, when they taught him everything he knows. But Jungkook is his own person, now, not a product of his parents, anymore. He has his own choices to make. He can become whoever he wants to be.
He has become someone he wants to be.
Jungkook’s magic habits aren’t any fault of his own as much as yours aren’t, either. They were born out of ignorance, out of necessity. Out of the fact that neither of you have ever known a world where you didn’t have powers, where you didn’t feel as though you needed to use them. You couldn’t imagine not having your magic. You know that Jungkook feels the same.
“Why did you?” It’s as if the words don’t even belong to you. Like someone else has spoken them—the moon, the sky, the stars.
Jungkook purses his lips, and sighs. “It was all I had ever known.”
Jungkook grew up drunk on his powers. You wonder if he’s sobered up now.
(You wonder if you had anything to do with it.)
“When I was little, my parents gave me that whole ‘you’re different, and that makes you special’ talk. They told me that my powers were valuable. A gift. And that people with gifts like mine must never waste them. That if we had been given this magic, we ought to use it, right? So that’s what I did. God, every day I would turn a new toy gold, and then I would get another one to replace it, and I would turn that one gold, too. My parents probably sold that to our banks, another hundred thousand dollars into their pockets,” Jungkook says, forcing out a laugh at the memory. The thought is rather endearing, when you think about it. Little Jungkook turning a stuffed bear gold, crying when it isn’t soft and fuzzy anymore.
“And my parents encouraged me. They told me that I was doing the right thing, that I wasn’t letting my gift go to waste. You saw them that evening that they came over. They were turning things gold left and right. Things that I had wanted to stay their natural material. Like that bowl for my keys. Do you know how easily gold is scratched?” He exclaims, gesturing frantically in front of him. “I purposefully kept that as the clay it was made out of. And now it’s gold.”
“A modern day crisis,” you joke.
“I guess…” Jungkook begins, but the words trail off and he pauses, almost like nothing he says will be correct. “I guess I just never knew the difference between not wanting my magic to be in vain, and not wanting to ever stop using it. Like you. You only heal when you need to. And even then, you don’t treat it like this precious gift. You treat it like something you owe to others.”
“That’s because without other people to heal, my power is useless,” you explain. Being able to heal others has no direct benefit for you. It doesn’t make you stronger, or faster, or better. It is a gift that is meant to be shared. “It’s different.”
“Every time I turn something, I feel like shit afterwards,” Jungkook admits to you. “Like I’ve turned so many things, that I don’t have the right to do it anymore. Like I’ve exhausted my magic.”
“You feel guilty,” you explain to him, resting a hand on top of his own, his fingers losing their grip on the coin he’s been tossing between them. “And that’s okay,” you tell him, meeting his eyes with your own. “Your parents are right—what you have, this power that you possess, it is a gift. It has made your life better in a way that nothing else could. But your fear of letting it go to waste, of not truly appreciating it for what it is, is a two-way street.”
Jungkook blinks at you, petal pink lips parted ever so slightly.
“Wasting a gift by never using it is the same as wasting it by overusing it, because it loses its specialness. When you turn things now, it doesn’t feel amazing or blessed or exciting, because it’s lost the ability to feel like that for you. It’s almost second-nature, at this point,” you say.
“Then what do I do?” He asks, feeling helpless. “How do I make it feel special again?”
You squeeze his hand in your own, making him look up at you, the pool water reflected in his big brown eyes, like a warm chocolate ocean. “You only use it on things that make you feel like a better person.” Things that make Jungkook feel special, as opposed to things that make his magic feel special. “Not just things that will put more money in your bank account, or things that will make your house decor nicer. Things that you really, truly care about.”
Jungkook’s eyes glance downward at something, but he nods. He breathes out this exhale, this heavy sort of breath, like he’s trying to reteach himself the things that make him tick. Things like alphabetized books, and homemade kimchi stew.
“Gifts like that only come once in a lifetime,” you say. “Remarkable things don’t happen to us all the time.” You know this, because it’s true. Because you’ve lived it.
Because in another life, in another universe, there is a you who can’t turn invisible, can’t heal people, and there is a Jungkook, too, one who can’t turn whatever he pleases into gold. And they would live their whole lives not knowing what it would be like to have these powers, to ease their way of life. And they would never meet each other, either. Too busy trapped on opposite sides of the world, too busy to worry about anybody but themselves.
“So we have to learn to treasure them.” It feels as though you’re drowning in him. Like you’re floundering, barely staying afloat. “We have to make sure that they always feel special to us.”
You curl your hand around his own, lacing your fingers together as your palms rest against each other’s. You watch as his gaze drifts down to where your hands are interlocked, a bridge between the two of you, a lifeline that connects the two lives you had lived without each other in them.
“Do you understand?” You ask. You can see the words as they appear, watch as they linger in between the two of you, hot summer breaths on a cool summer night.
He squeezes your hands together, and he smiles, warm and round and real. He looks at you, and he is there, he is sitting by your side. And he is beautiful and extraordinary and remarkable. And he says, “I’m starting to.”
You wake up the next morning to find a shimmering piece of parchment sitting on the dresser in your bedroom.
As declared by the Realm, its leaders, and its government, it reads,
The recipient, Y/N, has successfully completed her sentence of community service as mandated by the courts. She no longer needs to serve as the minder to Jeon Jungkook, and may return to her former residence.
Though the sentence has been carried out, The Realm, its leaders, and its government, reserves the right to re-charge the recipient for the crimes for which she had been originally tried should she commit them again. Should this instance occur, the option for community service will not be available.
We thank you for your service.
Oh.
Already?
It feels like you just started. Like it was only yesterday that you stormed up to the front door of Jungkook’s penthouse, watched as he crumpled up the parchment and tossed it into the bin. Like it was only yesterday you reappeared at his office, this time with a declaration that won’t be so easily destroyed.
You wonder why this one is all sparkly as well.
You don’t know exactly what prompted the end of your sentence, what duties you had somehow fulfilled to earn you your freedom. What is the Realm searching for? What data are they using to determine whether or not you have met your goal? It certainly couldn’t have just been the fact that Jungkook hasn’t turned in a while. Not turning is not the same as not wanting to turn.
So what changed?
You stare down at the parchment, each word leaving you more confused than the word before it.
It isn’t over already, is it?
Knowing that you are now free to return back to your own house means that your worst fear has been realized. You don’t want to.
You want to stay here, in Jungkook’s massive penthouse, relishing in the glory and wealth that comes alongside it. You want his chef to make pre-made meals for you and the extra kimchi stew he keeps in the fridge. You want Jungkook’s five thousand different streaming services and enough books to last you several lifetimes. You want the sense of normalcy that staying here has given you, the regular routine that you have so effortlessly fallen into. You want the late-night pool chats and rounds of hide-and-seek.
Why would you want to give up all that you have?
“You want fried or poached eggs?” Jungkook knocks on your closed bedroom door, tapping softly with his knuckles, already awake and ready to make breakfast.
“Either,” you tell him, glaring down at the parchment with furrowed brows. You’re too afraid to touch it, too afraid to even look at it any closer. Because that will make it real.
“Alright,” Jungkook calls. “It’ll be ready in ten! Got freshly-squeezed orange juice too!” You can hear his footsteps as he heads back down the corridor, the thump, thump, thump of his fuzzy slippers against the hardwood floor.
“Coming,” you say weakly, too focused on the glowing paper on the dresser.
Just because you can go back to your house doesn’t mean you have to. Just because you can go back to your old life, doesn’t mean you have to.
You grab the paper and stuff it in an old tote bag, covering it with old clothes, memories of the former world you lived in. Not anymore.
After all, isn’t this the life you’ve always dreamed of?
Kimchi stew is, as it stands, delicious, but it can’t be the only thing that the two of you ever cook together.
Jungkook does all of the grocery shopping, mostly because the both of you know that if you went out to the store with a list of ingredients, you would be lost for days searching for them. So when he returns home with three tote bags filled with ingredients, your mouth already starts to water.
“What are we making today, chef?” You ask, bounding into the kitchen as Jungkook begins to unpack.
“Another Korean recipe,” Jungkook says happily, pulling out a bright yellow pack of thin grey noodles. “Japchae!”
“Sounds delicious,” you say, though at this point he could make you microwave mac-and-cheese and you’d snarf it down like nothing else.
“You bet it is.” Jungkook grins, slowly dumping out the rest of the contents of the bags. They are filled to the brim with vegetables and seasonings, peppers and zucchini and everything in between, the makings of a colorful little homemade dish.
Jungkook seems to be making more time to actually cook things these days, fishing through the cabinets regularly to see what meals he can make with all of the ingredients in his kitchen. The chef only comes once every two weeks now, and usually brings with him any groceries that Jungkook has personally requested. He’ll ask you what you think of a new recipe that he wants to try, showing you the guide on his laptop screen, writing down whatever he needs to buy from the store.
And you thought that the chef’s meals were appetizing.
“Have you ever thought of meal-prepping?” You ask as Jungkook sets the noodles in a pot of boiling water, turning the heat on high.
“Why?” Jungkook says.
“I don’t know,” you tell him, washing the red pepper underneath the faucet, cutting board and knife ready and waiting on the counter. “So you don’t have to go through the process of cutting everything up and sauteing it, or whatever.”
Jungkook turns around, shakes his head. “No. Half the fun of cooking is making it.”
“But you could save yourself a lot of time when you come back from work,” you point out. Jungkook’s always so exhausted by the time he walks through the front door, keys scratching the golden bowl on the table on the way in.
“But then we wouldn’t get to cook together,” he says like it’s obvious, like it’s the thing that he thinks about the most when he comes back home. The two of you, filling up his kitchen, leaving oil stains on the countertops and burnt vegetables at the bottom of the pans. The scent of spices, of onions, of sizzling vegetables wafting through the air.
Another person to fill up this barren house.
You never eat in the dining room, because two people still isn’t enough to make that room feel like it’s full, like there are people that regularly use it. But now, there are grease stains on the leather of Jungkook’s couch, and a little bit of ketchup on the rug that he doesn’t know about, reminders that just because Jungkook’s house is big doesn’t mean it has to be empty as well.
“I’m a horrible chef,” you say, because you’re not quite sure what else to tell him. Up until a few weeks ago, you had never cut up an onion in your life. Things in the kitchen that take Jungkook five minutes to do take you twenty. You certainly aren’t any help, not when Jungkook has to pause whatever he’s doing to teach you something that you should already know. So what’s the appeal?
“You’re not that bad,” Jungkook assures you gently. “You just need to do it more.”
“Oh, so is that your mission? You don’t meal-prep because you want me to learn how to make my own food?” You ask, rounding on him.
“You got me.” He grins guiltily, pinching the part of your waist where he knows you’re the most ticklish, making you laugh as you turn invisible for a moment, a sort of gut reaction whenever you’re sensitive. “And because I like cooking with you.”
“Can’t imagine why,” you say with a roll of your eyes. “It must be my infectious personality, right?”
“That, and teaching you how to cook stuff is fun.” Jungkook smiles, reaching out as he begins to chop vegetables beside you. Standing here, in the middle of his kitchen, you wonder if this is how life is supposed to be. Someone you can cook with, someone you can eat with. Someone who will teach you the things that you don’t know, who will help you master the things that you do. Someone who doesn’t care where you came from, only that you’re here now, that you are right beside him.
Homemade meals make your insides warm and fuzzy, but having someone to spend the night with makes your heart feel comforted. Makes it feel like it’s been wrapped in a blanket, cradled in someone’s hands.
“What happens when I learn everything?” You ask. “What will you do then?”
Eventually, this routine must come to an end. Eventually, there will be nothing left for him to teach you, nothing left for you to learn. You know that your days are numbered, that there is only so much time that the two of you can spend together. What will happen when you reach the last day? When there will be no tomorrow for you to rely on?
Jungkook must know that you can’t stay here forever, even if the two of you try to keep it that way. But he doesn’t miss a beat when he says, “Then, I’ll find something new to teach you.”
This arrangement has always been temporary.
But for a moment, just a moment, an echo in time, he makes you believe otherwise.
There’s a golden glint on your chest of drawers when you walk into the room, the glare flashing in your eyes as the sun hits it.
You, admittedly, don’t go into your room very often, usually only to do the thing that bedrooms, at their most basic level, were meant to do: sleep. But Jungkook retired early to his room tonight, citing some ridiculous reason like he hadn’t worked out enough this week, and everything in the house suddenly becomes less inviting whenever he’s not around.
When you step closer, you can see it. See the thin chain that rests on the dresser, the key that hangs from it, a similar size to the charms on your bracelet. The gold is faded, shine erased, leaving behind this gentle matte texture, smooth but worn. It’s much more vintage than the sorts of things you would find in jewelry stores today—bright, sparkly necklaces and shiny, lustrous rings. It was made to look old, to look worn. It probably is.
There’s a little note next to the necklace, a torn piece of paper from a notepad, the edges rough and uneven.
To Y/N,
Found this in my mother’s old jewelry that she always leaves here when she decides it’s not her style anymore. Didn’t really think of anybody else that would make good use of it like you. I think it’ll match your bracelet well! I hope you like it.
Jungkook
You smile as you read the words, take in this meaningful little gesture that Jungkook has done for you. The bracelet from your mother has always been your most prized possession, but with its new golden makeover, it reminds you that you don’t always have to look to your past to be happy. That what you have, right here, right now, is enough. Now, your mother’s charm bracelet has a matching partner.
Standing in front of the mirror, you put the necklace on, fingers craning to attach the clasp to the chain, metal slipping from your grip. After a bit of a battle, you finally manage to connect the two ends, letting the key hang low past your collarbones, the gold resting gently against your skin. It doesn’t match your bracelet perfectly, but the two aren’t so much a matching set as they are a pair, two pieces that are meant to complement each other rather than complete.
You seriously doubt that Jungkook’s already asleep.
Sneaking up the stairs to the second story, you see that the door to Jungkook’s bedroom is wide open, revealing a little glimpse into the room he spends so much time in. It’s dark, empty, a signal that Jungkook is elsewhere on this floor. You don’t spend too much effort peering into Jungkook’s bedroom, not when it feels like you’re invading his space, his privacy. He’s already given up so much of his home for you. He deserves to keep his bedroom his own.
He’s not in the gym, you determine as you pass by, which means that there really is only one other place he could be found.
You push open the door to the rooftop, rounding the corner to the deck to find Jungkook doing laps in the pool, wearing nothing but his swimming trunks. The water sloshes around his body as he swims back and forth, kicking up splashes as he goes. You watch for a few moments as he works out, not wanting to interrupt him he burns away the calories in his body. This is the closest you’ve ever come to seeing Jungkook undressed, but you don’t really mind. At least he’s got shorts on.
When he stops, he stands up in the pool, sopping wet hands running through sopping wet hair, strands that frame the sides of his face, make his hair look longer than it actually is. He wipes away the water on his face, blinking the chlorine from his eyes, when he spots you.
“What are you doing up here?” He asks, not even caring to fight away the grin that has laced itself on his features.
“Came to say thank you,” you tell him, fingers toying with the key around your neck. “You didn’t have to do that for me.”
“I wanted to,” Jungkook says honestly. “Besides, my mother was never going to come back to get it, so I figured that it should go to someone who will actually wear it.”
“It’s beautiful,” you say, slowly sitting down along the edge of the pool, letting your legs dip into the water. Jungkook makes his way over to you, water splashing at his torso as he walks through the pool to stand before you. “Was it always gold?”
“It was, yes,” Jungkook says with a nod. “My mom liked to turn a lot of things, but she preferred her jewelry to be naturally gold. That’s why it’s pretty faded.”
“It looks nicer this way,” you say. “Shiny gold looks cheap.”
“Spend a couple of months in a mansion and suddenly you think gold looks cheap?” Jungkook jokes. “I think I’m rubbing off on you.”
“Can’t help that I’ve got an eye for nice things,” you tease, looking Jungkook up and down just to be dramatic. You have to admit that he’s got a rather attractive figure, fit, built, toned. You would be lying to yourself if you said that you weren’t eyeing him at least a little bit.
Jungkook pretends that he isn’t paying attention to the fact that you are blatantly ogling his body and laughs. “You swim?”
“I learned when I was little,” you tell him. “But I haven’t done it in a long time.”
“Oh, that’s a shame,” Jungkook says with a disapproving shake of his head.
“What? I like being dry,” you say, hands on your hips as you defend yourself. Besides, when you were little, swimming always meant showering afterwards, which sucked because then you had to waste water just to clean yourself of other water. Your mother always said that being able to swim would carry you far in life, would be an invaluable skill. You haven’t swum since she died.
“But, you wouldn’t mind if I… oh, never mind,” Jungkook dismisses, being purposefully vague just to capture your attention.
“What?” You demand.
“If I…” Jungkook begins, leaning back down in the pool until all but his head is submerged. He floats towards you, paddling until he’s right beneath your feet. “Did this—?”
Without a second of warning, Jungkook’s wet hands are grabbing onto your ankle, pulling you and your fully-clothed-self into the water with a splash, making you shriek as you feel your skin freeze up at the cold temperature. Luckily, it’s shallow enough here that you can stand rather easily, but now you’re soaked from head to toe, sopping fabric sticking to your figure.
You come up from beneath the water, positively accosted, hands wiping across your face as you clear your eyes so that they can narrow in on your target. “Okay, that was uncalled for,” you say, splashing Jungkook furiously, even as the two of you fight off the laughter that is bubbling up from your throats.
“Oh, but it’s such a nice night for swimming,” Jungkook grins devilishly, that cheeky sort of look reserved for when he knows he’s being a nuisance.
“Maybe for you!” You say, punctuating every word with a splash. Jungkook takes them all in good fun, accepting his punishment for pulling you into the pool. “I’ve been betrayed.”
“Admit it,” Jungkook coaxes, “you love me.”
You refuse.
When the rage has died down and the water begins to feel less like an icy death trap and more like a pleasant dip, you and Jungkook paddle around each other, swimming in circles like two fish in a school. Looking up, it is a nice night, clear skies as a crescent moon hangs above your heads. There are seldom any stars in the middle of the city, but the especially bright ones still shine, flickers of white in an otherwise deep blue ocean. You wonder how many times Jungkook has come out here, spent the night underneath the sky when he cannot sleep away the hours in bed.
You wonder how many times you missed the opportunity to spend the night with him.
“I sort of wish that we could stay like this forever, don’t you?” Jungkook asks, the two of you floating on top of the water like light against the sea.
There’s a lot of things in your life that you wish would never change. This is just another bullet point added to the list.
“Yeah,” you breathe out, because out there somewhere is a timer, counting down the moments until you have to say goodbye. “I do.”
“You didn’t have to do this, you know,” you say, looking at Jungkook.
He sits across from you in the booth, face lit up in a warm yellow from the rustic exposed light bulb above your heads, this soft, homey glow to his features, sharp jawline but rounded cheeks. He’s cleaned up well, in a different way than how he gets ready for work, when he has to make sure his collars are crisp and his hair is sleek and straight. Here, his dark brown hair is bouncy, loose, like he had blown it out after jumping out of the shower and then immediately ran his hand through it a couple of times to mess it up. He wears a plain button down, nothing fancy or chic, no tie, no suit jacket. The beauty of how he looks is that it’s so simple, so timeless, like he doesn’t need to put any effort into how he looks because he is just naturally perfect. Like the cover of a magazine. Like a sculpture come to life.
“I wanted to,” Jungkook says happily, fork twirling around the pasta in the dish in front of him. “We can’t just eat premade meals and leftover Korean food forever.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t complain if we did…” You reason, because you’ve been better fed in the few months you’ve lived with Jungkook than in the years you have spent on your own. Not to mention the fact that everything Jungkook makes tastes eons better than the meals the professional chef whips up, for some odd reason. “But you’re right, a night out is fun.”
“Sometimes food tastes better when you don’t make it yourself,” Jungkook points out, motioning to the dishes before you, these high-class servings of fish and pasta and vegetables that look like they belong on a cooking show rather than on the table in front of you. You and Jungkook may have mastered (or at least… gotten better at) cooking, but presentation is a whole other battlefield. Besides, it’s all going to the same place, so why bother?
“Mmm,” you murmur in agreement, savoring the flavor of the meal in front of you. A year ago you wouldn’t have dared step foot in a restaurant like this one, would have probably gotten kicked out after you walked through the door, so being here feels like a real treat. One that you think you could definitely get used to.
“Thanks, by the way,” Jungkook pipes up, as if suddenly remembering something.
“For what?”
“For your idea about the investment management,” Jungkook says, sending the both of you back to that day in his office, where Jungkook was on the verge of flipping his desk over because he couldn’t figure out a solution.
“Oh, is it working out?” You ask, curious to know if your suggestion is truly paying off or if you just had too much faith in the goodness of humanity.
“It is.” Jungkook nods happily. He seems very proud of himself. “It was slow going at first, because a lot of clients were starting to wonder why we weren’t investing in other stocks that would guarantee us a higher payout, but then they saw where the money was going. We aren’t bigger than our rival companies, but this levelled the playing field.”
“I’m glad,” you say, because it’s one thing for Jungkook to tell you you had a good idea, and it’s another for him to actually implement it. “That makes me happy to hear.”
“You’re not as bad at business or economics as you think you are, Y/N,” Jungkook informs you, waving around a nonchalant hand. “All they are is an in-depth study of human nature. Some economists assume that everyone in the world is selfish and cares only about themselves, but you’re different. You see the good in everyone, you believe that people can be honest, and selfless, and giving.”
Like Jungkook.
Like Jungkook, who has given up his home, his work, his life just to deal with another person hovering around him. Who gifts you gorgeous pieces of jewelry and takes you out to fancy meals, who lets you screw up a recipe in the kitchen and obligingly eats peppers that have been charred beyond recognition. Who is so much more honest, so much more selfless, so much more giving, than you could ever be, sticking around because to not do so would cost you your freedom, because you would rather stay here than be anywhere else.
“I don’t know what I’ll do when you’re gone,” Jungkook says, cracking this weak, terrible smile. He shakes his head as if to banish the thought from his mind, to exist only in this very moment, choosing to ignore both the past and the future. “I think I’m starting to rely on you being there.”
“Yeah,” you say softly, distantly. Something weighs heavy on your chest, pressing your heart down, slowing its temperate rhythm. The truth is that your heart stopped a long time ago, it stopped when you realized that there’s more to Jungkook that you want to know, when you realized that you can’t bear to imagine a life different than the one that the two of you share, no matter how temporary it is. But this weight, this burden on you, it serves as nothing but a reminder that without Jungkook, your heart cannot count in time. “Me too.”
You return home with plastic tupperwares in your hands, leftovers from the enormous meal that the two of you couldn’t have finished even if you tried. Jungkook takes the container from your hands as you excuse yourself to the bathroom, desperate to wash away the thoughts that rest heavy in your heart, cleanse yourself of the lies you can’t seem to stop telling. There’s this naive part of you that thinks, when you wash off the makeup, change back into your raggedy old clothes, all of the secrets you carry with you will vanish as well.
You know you’ll have to come clean eventually. Eventually, Jungkook will get suspicious as to why you’ve hung around so long even though he is no longer turning. He’ll begin to wonder why you haven’t dashed out of the penthouse you once used to disparage, desperate to return to your old life, where you didn’t have to know him the way that you do now. When you didn’t feel like there was something else trapping you here.
When all is said and done, though, it feels like here is where you were always meant to end up.
You head back out into the living room, ready to settle down and wrap up the night by watching a movie or something, when you see Jungkook standing by the couch, your old tote bag sitting on the cushions from a laundry trip earlier today, a shimmering piece of parchment in his hands.
“Jungkook—”
“How long?” He asks, voice cracking. He’s clenching the paper so hard that his knuckles are turning white, like he can’t believe the words that he’s reading. “How long have you been free to go?”
“Listen, I can explain—”
“A week? A month? When were you going to tell me?” He pleads. When you can’t even muster up the dignity to look at him, he shouts. “When?”
“A month,” you tell him weakly, desperately.
“A month? You’ve been staying here for a month when you didn’t even need to?” He asks, and he isn’t angry, or furious, or full of rage. He looks helpless, like there is no longer light behind his eyes, twinkles in his irises. Like he’s in pain, like he’s hurt. Exposed, his walls broken down and nothing left to repair them. “When were you going to tell me? Were you ever going to say anything?”
“Yes, Jungkook, but I—”
“All this time,” he says, more to himself than to you, like he can’t believe how foolish he’s been. “All this time you’ve been using me? Using my money?”
“No, Jungkook, it’s not like that.” You are desperate, desperate to salvage what you can from this broken arrangement, desperate to start anew.
“Then what is it like?” He demands. “If you weren’t using me for my house, or my money, or my personal chef, then what is it? What did you want from me that you couldn’t get on your own?”
You stop. Why did you stay? Normalcy? Opportunity? Company? All things that you never dreamed of having in a million years. And while being with Jungkook did provide you with all three, none of them feel quite right.
“I don’t know, I just—” You begin, scrambling for the right words and feeling like nothing you say will be correct. “I didn’t want to go back just yet.” It’s a pitiful excuse.
“So you just decided to stay? To play along with me, with all of the things that I was doing with you, for you?” Jungkook shakes where he stands in front of you, blindsided. “Let me teach you how to cook and give you expensive jewelry and take you out to fancy dinners? Just for fun?”
“I never asked for you to do those things for me,” you remind him firmly. It’s not like you were scrounging for money from his pockets, selling insignificant gold sculptures on the black market to buff up your empty bank account. “You wanted to.”
“Because I thought we had something special, Y/N,” Jungkook admits helplessly, collapsing back on the couch. “I did those things because I felt it, Y/N. What you were talking about, that night at the pool, where you saw me sitting at the edge of the water. I felt it. With you,” he begs, hopeless and anguished. “I didn’t understand what it meant to make the magic feel special again until I did it for you. I turned your bracelet and it made me feel like I had something to give to others.”
“You know that that’s not what I meant,” you say, shaking your head. “I was talking about your gift, not us.”
“Aren’t they all the same, though? Magic? Powers? Love? Don’t they all make us feel like we have something special beneath our fingertips?” He asks, to you, to himself, to the moon and the stars, searching for an answer that none of you can give him.
“Love? You don’t mean that,” you say, refusing to admit it. You have no explanation as to why Jungkook did the things he did, just as much as you don’t have an explanation as to why you did the things you did. They just happened.
“I thought we had something,” Jungkook admits sadly, unable to even bring his head up to look at you, at the tears that are welling in your eyes, the ones you refuse to let fall. “And I thought the reason that you wanted to do all of those things with me was because you felt it, too.”
“Jungkook, you know that—”
“What?” He erupts. “What do I know? I know that you’ve been using me all of this time, that you did those things with me because you were getting freebies out of it. I know that I was foolish and—and stupid to think that maybe it was because you were falling in love with me just like I was falling in love with you.”
“Jungkook…” You reach out a trembling hand, wanting to feel the warmth of his body once more, the weight of his head in your palm.
“Don’t,” he says, swatting it away and standing up. “I get it, Y/N. I was stupid and I thought that we had something, when we don’t.” He turns back to look at you, and you don’t think you’ll ever be able to get the image out of your head, the sight of him, broken and beaten and empty, a shell of the beautiful, vibrant man you had become so attached to. “There’s nothing left for you here. Your services are no longer required.”
He disappears down the hallway, leaving you with nothing but a tote bag, a necklace, and a bracelet left for you to remember him.
When you step into your house for the first time in months, it feels even less inviting than it normally does. Which is, as far as you’re concerned, rather impressive, considering you’ve always dreaded coming back regardless of what happened throughout the day.
But now, you can name no place you would rather not be than in this graffiti-laden house, a dangling light bulb above the back entrance and dirt and dust all along the walls. You’ve never had time to fix up this place and make it look even the slightest bit presentable, never had the money to paint over the walls and get rid of the big red X on the front door. Day in and day out, this would just be a place where you could sleep, a mattress on the floor and Campbell’s soups on the cracked kitchen counters. The first thing you’d do every morning is get out. The last thing you’d want to do every night is come back.
No place has felt like home in a long time. Not since your mother died, when you lost how her smile would light up a room, how she would spin you in circles and kiss your forehead when you got scared that you were going too fast. You had almost forgotten what it meant to have a home, to have a place that felt sacred, like coming home to a warm hug and a steaming cup of tea. To have a place that you didn’t dread returning to, a place that you could gladly waste away in.
The bracelet that dangles from your wrist is the closest thing that you have left to the feeling of home, of comfort and warmth and solace, of something that makes you feel truly happy. But now, the bracelet has been tinted with the memories of another, of the only other person you can think of that has brought you that same feeling of joy, of these rose-stained memories that rest deep within your heart’s attic. They have always been there, hidden, buried beneath the bad, but when there is nothing left they surface. To remind you of what good life can bring you.
To remind you of the magic inside you.
You hate living here. And for a time, you hated living with Jungkook, too. Hated how extravagant his house was, hated how he refused to even speak to you. How there were so many unused rooms, so many empty spaces. But what changed, there, and what hasn’t changed, here, is how people, and not things, are what fill up rooms.
Living with Jungkook made you feel like coming back after a long day was worth it. Planted the knowledge inside you that you would always have him there, could always rely on another’s presence within the apartment. He’s only one person, but he fills up the room like nothing else, lights it up like New Year’s Eve. He’s funny, and witty, and gorgeous. He’s caring and honest and cheeky, just cocky enough for it to be charming as opposed to egotistical. He cooks like nothing else and spends his sleepless nights beneath the stars, looking at the same moon and sky as everyone else.
You don’t hate living here because it’s shit. You hate living here because it’s lonely.
There was a space in your heart that you didn’t even realize was empty. It had been overtaken by the part of you determined to make it to the next day, determined to stick it to the Realm, to its leaders, to all of the people that look down on you because you aren’t made of money.
But when you left Jungkook’s house, you realized that that space had slowly been filled up with him. That over time, bit by bit, moment by moment, Jungkook returned what you had lost, revived what you thought had long been dead.
The truth is that you wanted to stay with Jungkook because you couldn’t stomach the thought of being alone again. Of being forced to fend for yourself, forced to come home to an empty house with no one to waste away the night with. Of being forced to live like every day is a threat rather than a gift.
Jungkook has magic in his fingertips and his heart. It was only a matter of time before it spread to you as well.
Being hurt by someone you love feels like an arrow to the chest. Like a puncture wound, deep and piercing, but too painful to even want to pull it out, patch up the hole. You had already experienced it once. You didn’t have any plans on experiencing it again.
But losing the opportunity to love someone feels like an ache throughout your whole body, this crippling sort of pain that spreads through your bloodstream, setting every organ it passes on fire. It feels like there is something tearing you apart from the inside out, like every piece of you is slowly crumbling.
Jungkook’s biggest mistake wasn't falling in love with you. It was thinking that you were still falling in love with him, when the truth is, you had already fallen. It was letting you leave when both of you wanted nothing more than for you to stay.
Loving someone is a gamble. It’s a risk, a toe in the water, a spark from your fingers.
But not loving someone? That is magic, wasted.
Who knew twenty dollars could get you one large pizza and extra garlic rolls? Certainly not you.
The smell wafts through the hallway to Jungkook’s apartment, filling it with the scent of warm, fresh bread, of a hot meal waiting to be devoured. If you don’t knock soon, the pizza will go cold and you’ll probably eat all of it before you can even say hello to him. You have more food in your hands now than you have the past week you’ve been back at your old place.
You ring the doorbell.
“Coming!” Jungkook shouts. Oh, is he expecting someone?
Ten seconds later the door opens to reveal someone you hardly even recognize. Gone are the soft loose strands of hair and oversized button down shirts. Jungkook opens the door still wearing his suit jacket, tie tight around his neck, like he hasn’t bothered to change since he got home from work over two hours ago. His hair is sleek and straight, a little shorter than you last remember it. He looks the way he did when you first met him, this rigid, workaholic guy that doesn’t care about anybody except himself. He looks like he’s done nothing but work for a week. Not even sleep.
“Hi,” you begin, a short, quick intake of breath. “Did you order a pizza?”
“No.” Jungkook shakes his head, already starting to close the door. “I think you have the wrong apartment.”
“Wait, Jungkook, please? I need to talk to you,” you plead, a hand going out to stop him from shutting you out completely. All that you can see through the crack of space between the door and its frame are his piercing brown eyes, absolutely unreadable. He doesn’t budge. “Also, did you just get back from work? You must be starving. And as it so happens, I have an entire large pizza that I won’t be able to finish all by myself.”
Jungkook budges a little bit.
“Please?”
“Fine,” he says reluctantly, opening the door. “I hope you aren’t planning on staying here too long, this time.”
The words are biting cold, send angry shivers down your spine.
“Just enough for you to hear me out,” you say, placing the pizza box on the coffee table as Jungkook rummages through his kitchen for plates. He eventually manifests two paper ones—you didn’t even know he had those!—and returns, taking a seat on the carpet as he inhales the cheesy, greasy scent.
Your stomach grumbles, but you can’t eat just yet. First, you have to explain yourself.
“What did you want to talk about?” Jungkook asks, cold and distant, the same way he spoke to all of his employees before you encouraged him to do otherwise. “If it’s about my company, we can compensate you as necessary for your contribution. It won’t be much, though.”
“No, no, it’s not about that,” you say with a shake of your head. “It’s about us.”
“What ‘us’ is there to talk about?” He asks economically.
“The ‘us’ that I left behind that day,” you say softly, a gentle reminder. “The ‘us’ I should have realized existed before I let the door shut behind me.”
“If you’re just here to tell me that you’re sorry for not loving me back, don’t,” Jungkook says bitterly. “I don’t expect you to love me back or anything. You can’t change how you feel about people.”
“You still love me?” You ask, a spark, a flash, a ray of light.
Jungkook grumbles. “Yes. It doesn’t go away that easily.”
“You aren’t stupid, or foolish, or idiotic for thinking that I was falling in love with you at the same time that you were falling in love with me,” you tell him, the words light and airy, like weights plucked off of your chest, like butterflies released from a jar. “You were stupid for thinking that I wasn’t already in love with you.”
Jungkook’s head jerks up, eyes blinking wildly. You can see the way that they glisten, with hope, with tears, with desperation. With the possibility that not all is lost.
That old memories can become new once more.
“You were right,” you muse, more to yourself than to anyone else. Even Jungkook. “Magic, powers, love, they’re all the same thing. They are meant to be treasured. Cherished. Protected. They are meant to make us feel special.” You breathe, reaching out next to you, an open hand for Jungkook to take. “But most importantly, they are meant to be shared.”
A small smile. A lip half-turned up, this gentle little grin.
“I stayed because I wanted to keep sharing my life with you, Jeon Jungkook,” you tell him honestly, because it’s real and it’s true. Because, at this point, you can imagine nothing else. “And I’m here again because I can’t stand living without you anymore. I never want to stop sharing my life with you.”
“You make me feel like my heart is made of magic,” Jungkook admits, finally, finally, finally. “You make me want to use it just for you.”
“You don’t need to,” you say, pressing yourself into him, letting your lips hover above his own. He reaches a hand out, lets it rest on your waist, waiting desperately for you to close the last inch between the two of you. “You’re already made of it.”
With that, you close the gap, pressing your lips against his, the soft sweet cherry taste of his lip balm filling up your senses, leaving you gasping for air. It’s just a kiss, just a press of lips, this simple gesture, but it takes your breath away nevertheless. It makes you feel like magic swirls inside of you, like your heart is sparking, catching fire, sending it sizzling through your veins. Jungkook has taught you what it means for a house to become a home. You have taught him that magic is only special if he has someone to share it with.
It’s hard to think about the lessons you would have never learned without the other.
It’s hard to think about how different life would be, had you never even met.
Jungkook kisses you and it feels like you’re finally whole. It feels like what has been missing in your life has returned. What you have kept locked up, in the dusty, cobwebbed corners of your heart, in the spaces between your bones, has finally been remembered.
Jungkook takes your old memories and turns them new. He is the only thing you ever want to remember.
“I love you,” he whispers, watching as the words sink into your skin, leaving embers in their wake. “You are my most precious gift.”
“You are my home, Jeon Jungkook,” you murmur. “I love you, too.”
Pizza is good and all, but nothing beats homemade kimchi stew.
You made it all by yourself for the first time last night to celebrate Jungkook donating over a million dollars to various different animal rescues and human rights organizations, taking the kindness that he has been given and paying it forward. Besides, he can make money at the touch of a finger whenever he wants, so he might as well, right?
You also don’t accompany Jungkook at his work anymore, because you’ve gotten enough of a taste of office life and have declared it not your ideal profession, but the nice thing about that is getting the whole house to yourself while he’s gone. Not that you want to do very much without him, but napping in different bedrooms is always exciting.
You never realized how good love makes you feel. How it lifts you up from the inside out, brightens up every day no matter how dull it is to begin with. You had forgotten. What love can do to a person.
Jungkook always comes home and tells you about how happy his employees make him whenever they’re happy. Good feelings like joy, like laughter, like love, they are contagious. It’s a wonder that neither you nor Jungkook figured that out before you met each other.
Well, you suppose that there’s a first for everything.
Jungkook comes home and you can hear the door slam, even from where you’re hiding. You listen as he stops at the door, picks up the note that you left for him.
Loser washes the dishes! ♡
You hear his keys clink in the bowl, metal on metal. He pauses for a moment, for dramatic effect.
And then he shouts,
“You’re on!”
↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!
#jungkook fluff#jungkook angst#bts fluff#bts angst#bts scenario#jungkook scenario#bts imagine#jungkook imagine#bts au#jungkook au#w: midas#FINALLYYYY#this fic gave me a hernia!
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Gilded: Chapter 1: To Bride or Not to Bride
Mob! Steve x Reader
Summary: Your life is a mess and you need a little help from time to time. But, when somebody proposes a plan to rid you of all your problems all the way to the far future, you’re suddenly not so sure it is worth it. Especially since the plan is proposed to you by the most notorious gangster America has seen since Al Capone: Steve fucking Rogers.
Warnings: mafia AU, swearing (like, a lot this time), angst, struggles with money, loan-shark, sleazy men, harassing
Word Count: 7969
A/N: It’s finally here! It only took me around 6 months to bring it, and I apologise for the delay, but I hope I will make up for it with introductory this chapter :) Share your thoughts, let me know what you thought and what do you think will happen next :) xx
Series Masterlist __ Masterlist
“Just, wait a second,” you said, your brows knitting together as you tried to piece together all the information the man in front of you had just given you. He was gorgeous, there was no question about that, but that wasn’t the issue here. There were many gorgeous people in New York, and you didn’t marry any of them. Yet, that was.
“You want to marry me. But you still haven’t told me why, so?” You asked for what felt like the hundredth time that evening, and the man just smirked again, playing with his cuffs, never answering to your satisfaction.
“I told you, honey, what I want, I get, and I decided that I wanted you, so, what is going to be? Are you gonna be a good girl for me or am I gonna have to force you, hm?” He smiled sweetly, but even you knew better. Behind that oh-very-sweet smile, there was venom and a ton of it. You rubbed your temples and plopped down on the nice-looking couch, thinking about what he was proposing.
2 weeks ago
“Coming!” You yelled through the loud music at the guests seated by the table number 5 where a group of guys was seated, hollering at you every two seconds as if you didn’t hear them the first time. You rolled your eyes at your colleague, who just laughed under her breath as you strode towards the clients. You put on your best fake smile as you approached them, and from the whistles, you assumed they appreciated it.
“Thank God you came, sweets. We thought you were getting tired of us,” the loudest of them laughed, and the group followed his suit, making your clench your jaw even more. Oh, how you hated this type of men, who had nothing better to do than calling a woman pet-names, making her feel uncomfortable just so his friends could have a laugh and a story to tell.
“What can I get you, gentleman? Another round of the same?” You asked as sweetly as you could, but it was getting harder by the second as they all eyed you like a piece of raw meat, ready to be devoured.
“I mean, that would be nice, and could you serve us a piece of that sweet ass of course as well? We’d really appreciate it, pretty face,” the loud guy smirked sleazily, and you fought the urge to vomit in your face. One of the guys made the mistake of actually making a move to swat you across your butt, but your reflexes were quicker.
You took a step back and breathed in, trying to calm your beating heart. This was, however, nothing new in your line of work, and you just learned to ignore it, or, at best, politely turn them down. Because, as you learned very early on, the manager didn’t appreciate if his “girls” were nasty to his customers. He almost made it sound like you were to provide your bodies with the beers, but you told him straightforwardly that that wouldn’t happen, and if his pub was one of these, you wanted to have nothing to do with it. All you were there to do was to work the evening and night shift to get some extra money on top of your regular job, and that was it. He even made a few remarks how he wanted you all to himself, but you politely declined every time and just tried to ignore it altogether.
“This ass is not for sale, I’m sorry, boys. But, the vodka shots are coming right up,” you tried to give them your best wink but didn’t wait long enough to see if they accepted their loss or not. You genuinely didn’t care.
The night continued in a similar manner, some people being inappropriate and you just ignoring their behaviour, and some people actually nice, even leaving you a few tips which always made you smile. You were beat when it was 11, and your shift ended, and you were thrilled today wasn’t one of those days when you had to stay there till 4 AM. It was then that people got really disgusting and you even had to resolve to hit a guy this one time because otherwise, you were pretty sure he’d manage to rape you. You sighed at the memory as you continued on your way home, just now remembering you left the tips meant for you in your locker.
Sighing you turned around and walked back towards the bar, and when you were in, you noticed three men in black suits talking to your coworker, who looked stunned and scared at the same time. You cocked a brow at her, and she discreetly shook her head, telling you that you shouldn’t come nearer.
This time, you really frowned and looked around, but the rest of the pub looked exactly the way you left it, even with the assholes by the fifth table. But you listened to her and took a step back to one of the dark corners, watching what was going on by the bar. It didn’t take long, definitely not longer than 5 minutes before the men turned around and left the building.
Your coworker looked positively alarmed by now, and you almost ran to her to ask what the fuck did just happen.
“I have no idea, Y/N. I noticed them by table 10 like an hour ago, but I didn’t pay them any attention because that was Christy’s sector tonight and I had the veranda. And when you left they just came here asking about you,” she breathed out, and it was your turn to look alarmed.
“The fuck? Why would they ask about me when it was Christy who took care of them?” You screeched, your brain not really comprehending the situation.
“I have no fucking idea, Y/N. But, like, they asked your name and stuff, and like, if you were a regular waitress here or what. I didn’t want to tell them anything, I swear, but they didn’t take no for an answer. So I just told them your first name, I wouldn’t budge on your last, I promise, and told them that you sometimes worked here but that I didn’t know when was your next shift,” she finished, a little scared of your reaction now, but from the look of those guys, you knew they were bad news and that Anja did the best she could.
“Nah, it’s ok, An. I would do the same. I’m really grateful that you didn’t give them my last name, though, that was really thoughtful of you,” you smiled at her, and it obviously put her at ease as she hugged and hurried back to the veranda, where you both saw a few guests waving that they needed a refill.
The hell did just happen, and why would three mysterious men ask about you?
It couldn’t be that they found out, right? No… you made sure all the traces were hidden, forever, so, that wasn’t an option.
No, you told yourself, there must be another reason for them to ask about you. But you didn’t want to find out. It was a one-time thing, these men were just confused, or one of them liked you or something like that, and you would never see them again. This actually calmed you down enough to start functioning again, and you remembered that you came for something specific, took the money and went straight home.
“This can’t be happening,” you muttered as you looked over your bills. There was so much to pay and so little money on your account that you actually started to sweat. You worked two jobs and still wasn’t able to afford to live a life where you didn’t have to worry about money. What was more, with the high taxes, your rent, subway card and food you went into red numbers, and that was something you definitely didn’t want. Nobody told you that as an Arts Major, you could still be struggling to stay alive in the city of New York.
You went over the bills again even though you knew your math was correct and that you didn’t have enough to pay your landlord this month.
Fuck, you muttered again and considered your options. You could ask your friends, but you didn’t want to bother them since you knew they were struggling as much as you were. You shared your apartment with two of your best friends who you considered a family by now, Caroline and Aidan. And while you knew they would do anything to help you, neither of their jobs paid enough to be able to help you as much as you needed this month.
Your other option was asking your landlord to give you some more time before more money arrived, but just imagining the conversation gave you goosebumps because you could picture the kind of service he’d want from you, and you’d literally rather go and beg on the street than to sleep with that middle-aged pig.
So, as you summarised it, the only option remained the loan shark. Tony was actually a nice guy, once you got to know him, and he was nice to you because you always paid precisely what he told you to when he told you to, and never asked too many questions or begged for more time. You were smarter than that, and, besides, you’ve seen too many movies with loan sharks to know what could happen to you.
The first time you went to him was probably 2 years ago, straight from university when you still thought you could make it big in New York. Well, safe to say that you didn’t make it, and while you remained hopeful, you had bigger problems than becoming a renown painter, like not starving to death and other fun stuff like that.
You were awfully scared to go to Tony, he had a reputation of being kind of an ass, but people also said that, compared to the other guys in the business, he actually had the fairest demands, and as you had no other choice, you just went to him. And because life was a bitch, you ended up going there on more occasions. Tony was kind enough always to lend even small amounts of money because you really didn’t need 100K. No, you always need like 1 or 2 thousand, and while the other loan sharks turned people like you down, Tony didn’t, and he never wanted more than like 400$ as a return, which seemed quite fair as the other guys always wanted 100% or more.
Well, Tony, it was, as you sighed looking around your room, thinking how you even got where you were. But there was no time to waste pitying yourself, and so you shot Tony a quick message, as you always did, and to no surprise, he was very quick to respond that you should come by later that afternoon.
You were just getting ready when Aidan burst through your door. He stopped mid-step, looking at you confusedly because you didn’t tell him you were going somewhere.
“Got a date or what? You never go out on Saturday afternoon, not if you can help it,” he said sceptically, looking around the room as his eyes landed on the fumbled papers on your table, and the look of realisation hit him.
“You going to Tony again? Y/N, we told you, we can help you, babe! Let us help just this once, please?” He pleaded with you even though he knew it was useless.
“C’mon, babe, you know you and Caroline are not making much either, and you’re both glad to get by another month. Tony is like an old friend by now, really. I don’t mind it that much, and it’s definitely a better option than burying you two with me under this pile of shit,” you huffed as you finished applying mascara, but you didn’t even check yourself in the mirror, really not caring that much how you looked. You went to Manhattan just to meet Tony and would go straight back, quick mission, in and out.
“You need to find a better job, Y/N,” Aidan smirked at you, and you just laughed because you both knew it was pretty much impossible, especially since you loved your day job with the only issue that it paid like shit.
“You know this is my chance to be close to art and I really want it. I mean, it could happen that they promote me from being a receptionist to like, I dunno, being a secretary to one of the curators of the gallery, right?”
He just huffed and kissed the top of your head, striding towards the door. It was only then that you noticed he was dressed to go out as well.
“And where are you going, mister?” You asked with a mother-like tone, and he just laughed, turning around as if he was caught in the act.
“So, you remember John?” He asked, sitting on your bed, and you actually laughed out loud at him.
“Which one? I mean, there has been so many Johns and Peters that I swear to God I’m starting to think there are only men called John and Peter in the whole fucking New York. So, more info, babe, please,” you scooted to him and listened to which John it actually was he was meeting and was pretty excited about this. This was John the Ballet dancer, and he looked really nice, so far.
John the Fake Mobster was a lying bastard, John the Hairdresser wanted Aidan for just that one thing but would never admit it, and then you didn’t even have John-the for the guys because they were all just idiots who didn’t see your best friend for what he was: an amazing, although a little extra person with a very good heart, great sense of humour and amazing hair.
“Alright, well, you know the drill. Keep your phone on data so we can use Find your Friend if needed, keep your eyes open for anything sketchy going on, but, most importantly, enjoy yourself, babe. I’ll see you tonight,” you hugged him tightly and walked out of the apartment and into the busy streets.
If it were all up to you, you’d live in a secluded place, somewhere in the north probably, like outside Seattle, where you’d have a lovely little house, maybe by a river or by the ocean or something, where you’d have enough inspiration for your art and where you wouldn’t be annoyed by the little things, like the car horns blaring all the way to the night, people shouting underneath your bedroom’s window, and little things like that.
But life was not a factory for fulfilled wishes, and you had to endure another day trying to make it in New York. You thought about all of this as you walked down the street to where you knew you could find Tony. You weren’t happy that you had to go to him, again, but you also knew that you didn’t need to worry anymore. You would have the money for your landlord by the end of the week, and when the gallery paid you, you would pay Tony back. Again.
“If it isn’t my favourite girl!” You heard a familiar voice hollering from the shop, and you laughed lightly as you walked into the pawnshop Tony had set up in the lower Manhattan.
“Hello to you too, Tony. Today a yellow day, or what?” You greeted him as you looked at his outfit, which was just a canary yellow tracksuit and a matching hat. He looked like a character from a bad movie, but you knew better than to say anything like that.
“Yellow is very classy and trendy, thank you very much! Yesterday I wore this really nice green velvet tracksuit, and you should have seen some ladies walking by, they almost ate me with their eyes! I swear!” He added as he saw you stifling a laugh, but you just nodded in fake understanding, and both of you shared a relaxed laugh.
“So, what can I do for you today, sweetheart?” He drawled, and you shuffled on the spot, always feeling slightly uncomfortable when it came to this part.
“I need a thousand this week. Ton. I’ve been working my ass off, but the bills keep building up, and every time I think I’m out of it and I can live normally, there is always something holding me back,” you sighed, scratching your arms which was a nervous habit of yours that Tony grew quite fond of.
He was almost sorry for saying the next thing, but this was way above his pay grade, and while he really did take some liking to you, and he would always give you enough time to pay him off, he knew who he couldn’t piss off.
“Listen, Y/N, I have a proposal for you,” Tony started, and you frowned, not really knowing where this was going, but from the look on Tony’s face, you could tell it was nothing good.
“There is somebody who would like to get to know you, and he has a proposal for you that he believes you can’t refuse. I don’t know any specifics, I just know he is willing to pay you a lot of money, and I’m talking thousands and thousands, Y/N. He said that nothing sexual would be involved because I told him that if he was looking for a one night stand, you weren’t his girl, but he assured me that this wasn’t it. He would like to meet with you and tell you all the details if you let him. And before you say no, Y/N, think about it. All you gotta do now is to meet him and listen to him, and he is one of those guys who don’t take no for an answer,” Tony finished, and while you saw it pained him to give you the message, you were too stunned to care.
“What the hell are you talking about, Tony? Is this some kind of a sick joke? Like, did this guy tell you he wanted to talk to me specifically or just a girl desperate enough to come here?” You blurted, still not getting what he was about.
“He asked for you, sweetie. I don’t know how, but he knew you’d come and told me when you did to give you the message and give you his address. Which is here,” he said, handing you a piece of paper with an address and a date with the time written on it, “and he told me that if you came and agreed to his plan, you wouldn’t have to worry about money this week or any other week. It could be your chance, Y/N. Look, the guy is extremely powerful, so, please, just go and meet him, and you’ll see, ok?” He was scared, and it made you scoff out loud.
Great, so a loan shark was giving you a message to meet some mysterious, powerful asshole who wouldn’t take no for an answer and who probably stalked you as he knew you would be coming to Tony sooner or later. Just great, really.
“It seems I don’t really have a choice, do I? Sheesh, Tony, at least tell me who this guy is and like how scared I should be. You gotta give me something because I can’t just go to some random house and be totally ok with it. Nobody can’t expect me to do so,” you pointed out, and Tony nodded in understanding.
“Totally, yeah. I even asked if I should come with you, but I was told you should be alone. You should be alert, let’s put it that way. If I were you, I’d really think before I speak, because this guy doesn’t take anything lightly. And I think it would be best if you didn’t know his name, Y/N. Just… he doesn’t want to hurt you, all he wants to do is speak to you, so please, just do it,” Tony finished just as some customer came into the shop.
You waited patiently because the conversation was far from over, but you knew better than to start shit in front of some stranger. Tony was evidently scared shitless of the guy, and it only fuelled your already growing anxiety. Tony was determined not to share too much information with you, but you didn’t understand why. Why could you not at least know the guy’s name? Who could it be?
Your brain took a detour to a few nights ago back at the pub where you saw the men asking about you, and a cold sweat broke on your skin. It must have been connected, there was no doubt in your mind about that, and it filled you with so much dread you actually had to catch your right hand with your left to stop yourself from shaking violently.
The doorbell rang signalling the customer left, and your eyes gazed at Tony, who was already staring at you apologetically.
“And what about the money, Tony? It’s Saturday, and I need to pay my rent by Friday next week. Nice of the guy, whoever the fuck he is, that he wants to see me, but he won’t if I’m on a fucking street next weekend,” you seethed, and Tony was quick to walk around the counter behind which he was standing this whole time and walked closer to you.
“He wants to see you on Wednesday, Y/N, and he specifically told me not to lend you any money, that he would take care of it. Whatever the fuck it means.”
“The fuck? I don’t even know his fucking name, and he will stop me from getting money to survive? What the actual hell, Tony? You can’t be serious right now,” you cried out in utter desperation because none of this was supposed to happen. You were supposed to come, chat a little with the goatee man, get the money and walk back home, where you’d watch some stupid TV show and drink shitty wine.
But no, of all the people living in New York this shit must be happening to you. As you didn’t have enough on your fucking plate as was, some mysterious fucker had to be interested in you for whatever reason, and he wouldn’t let you live without talking to him first.
“Can’t you just call him and tell him that I want to have nothing to do with him?” You asked when you felt calm enough to talk again. You didn’t even know whether you were scared or desperate or angry, but at best, you were feeling a mix of all these and some more, that was for sure.
“No can do, sweetie, but I promise it will be alright, ok? You’re a strong one, I know that and whatever he wants from you, you can either give or can talk to him,” Tony smiled sweetly, and while you knew he was full of bullshit you let it slide because you just didn’t have it in you to fight with him when he was clearly just the messenger. Whoever wanted to speak to you, however, he would hear it from you because where were we that a guy just asks for a girl and the whole of New York delivers her to him on a silver platter?
Wednesday
“You gotta be kidding me, Y/N. Are you seriously considering going there? For all you know it might be some elaborate trap and somebody’s gonna jump you and kill you in some dark alley,” Caroline screeched at you as she saw you getting ready after you came home from work.
You had to ask for a night off from the pub since mister nobody wanted to meet you on your night of work. But you knew you couldn’t say no. Whoever it was, Tony was afraid of him, and Tony was a tough guy. And not that you wouldn’t be brave, but your bravery was mostly concentrated on being able to throw a spider out of the apartment or walk the corridor with the lights out, not really crossing some powerful guy who could do God-knows-what to you if you didn’t come.
“C’mon, guys. You know I gotta do it. And I honestly think if they wanted to kill me, they would have already done it,” you muttered, trying to pick something to wear, that wasn’t too revealing, but you also didn’t want to go wherever you were going in a pair of baggy sweatpants you were currently rocking.
“But like, what if they want to make a personal slave out of you, huh? Like, cuff you to a ceiling and serve them with your body, like a personal kind of slave, you know what I mean? You were not made to be strapped to a ceiling, babe,” Aidan panicked, and you actually had to laugh.
“Your imagination never ceases to astonish me, Aid. Or are you speaking from personal experience?” You smirked as both you and Caroline laughed out loud at Aidan’s expression of utter disgust.
“You two are disgusting, and I hate you, but that doesn’t change the fact you still don’t know where the fuck you’re going,” Aidan countered and you rolled your eyes at him.
“I’ll keep my data on so you can see me this whole time, and if I don’t call you by 9 PM you can send the cops there, deal?”
They both nodded in agreement, knowing this was the best they were getting. You were glad you had them in your life and that you had people caring enough to try and stop you from doing something stupid, but something in your told you that your life would be even worse if you didn’t go. At least this way you’d know the whole story, and you would be able to make an educated decision based on all the variables.
“A’ight, but if anything sketchy happens, you run, ok? We can figure out the money, but we can’t figure out shit if you’re not here with us,” Caroline reminded you, and you nodded solemnly.
God, you just hoped you weren’t making a mistake by listening to Tony. He even shot you a message in the afternoon, reminding you to go there because if you didn’t, it could end up badly for both of you. And it was actually one of the decisive arguments in the whole thing, surprisingly. You didn’t want anything happening to Tony, especially not because of you and your decisions, and so you just told yourself to suck it and prepared for the evening.
You really couldn’t afford the cab, so you had to leave super early to be at the given address at precisely 7 PM. You also grabbed the book you were currently reading, Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140, so that the ride to Manhattan wouldn’t be as dull and dreadful. You could think of the utopian future he depicts rather than thinking of your journey to the lion’s den, and that was the most promising image you created in your head about the place where you were headed.
Not that you didn’t try to find the place on Google maps, but all the buildings on the address looked the same, and, actually, quite nice, so you had no idea what you were getting yourself into.
Meanwhile, Tony texted you again since you didn’t reply to his previous text, and this time you took the time to craft a message telling him that yes, you were indeed headed to the manor and he didn’t need to worry about his own neck because you wouldn’t let others be hurt because of your incompetence or your cowardice.
You knew you were getting off on Chambers St station and you actually took the time to think how many people living in Tribeca had to take the subway. The answer was, very obviously, zero, as the majority of the people in the subway were either passing or were clothed in a way you knew they worked in either one of the restaurants there or as a help. And you felt like one of them, because you too didn’t live in the wealthiest village in New York, and you too were going there mainly for business. Well, at least you hope you did.
Checking every house number when you got to the street you were supposed to meet the mysterious guy at, you tried to find where exactly was the bat cave, and when you saw the number 112, you knew you found it.
Your breath came in ragged huffs as you tried to gather the last remnants of your bravery as you walked up the stairs and buzzed on the door. Your head was spinning lightly, and you actually had to lean against the wall beside you to regain your composure.
The door soon revealed a massive man dressed in a black turtleneck and a pair of black jeans, and you were actually quite surprised not to see him with sunglasses and an earpiece. If the situation weren’t so tense, you’d probably joke about it, but as it was, you just followed his lead as he beckoned you inside.
“Miss Y/L/N, I presume? I need to see your phone and your belongings, ma’am,” he stated, and you raised a brow at him.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s a standard procedure, ma’am. Everybody here to see the boss needs to be checked, just in case,” he stated, leaving no room for discussion, and while you sighed exasperatedly, you still handed him your bag and made a point by fishing out the phone and shoving it in his outstretched hand. He took a quick look through your belongings, pushing it against what you assumed was some kind of a metal detector before he pulled out another device. This looked like a big phone, and he scanned your bag once again.
“What is that?” You asked, unable to stop your curiosity.
“Checking if you’re not bugged,” he answered matter-of-factly as he continued before he put the device down, clearly not finding anything. Where would you even get a bug, and why would you do it? You rolled your eyes inwardly but kept a straight face in front of the man, just in case he was watching. Which he was, as you found out by him waving in front of your face and showing you to follow him.
You braced yourself for whatever was awaiting upstairs and obediently walked behind him.
As you walked through the house, you got the impression that whoever lived there was wealthy, but that kind that didn’t really put on a flashy show. There were no chandeliers, no heavy curtains and stuff you pretty much imagined this place would look like and that image had nothing to do with the Beast and the Beauty dance room, nothing at all.
But this was… modest. Everything was very contemporary, some prominent brick here and there with mostly grey floors and the furniture was most definitely customary but, again, it was plain yet luxurious. You assumed that’s how the really rich people lived. They knew they had the money, and the people around them knew it as well, so there was no need for diamond stairs and a golden toilet.
A few names surged from memory as you heard your coworkers discuss the wealthy New Yorkers, but you didn’t want to assume anything before you actually saw the person, so you just walked by the halls before the man stopped in front one of the rooms and quietly knocked.
It was not surprising when another man dressed exactly like the guy leading you appeared from the room and took a quick look at you before he said something to whoever was behind him. When the affirmative came that you could indeed go in there, they shoved the door open and what you assumed was a living room appeared in front of you. It corresponded with the whole house, but your attention was caught by one specific thing. Your brain had its own world, and when you saw one of Tunji Adeniyi-Jones’s paintings from his last year’s exhibit, you almost fainted. He was your favourite contemporary artist. And seeing his work outside of the gallery was practically an otherworldly feeling. You gaped at the beautiful play of colours, and your heart swooned at the perfection of the brush strokes.
“Ehm,” you heard somebody cough beside you, and it startled you so much you actually jumped to the side, your hand flying to your chest in a feeble attempt to will your heart to stay calm.
You took the intruder in and found out that unlike every other man in the room (and there were a few, as you noticed) this guy wasn’t wearing all-black attire. He was in a comfortable-looking creme sweater and a pair of dark blue jeans, everything fitting him as if the clothes were sawn to his body.
Which, as far as you could tell, was the body of a Greek God.
“See something you like, honey?” The man interrupted thoughts, and it just crossed your mind that he was really rude, not letting you breathe even for a second before he had to make his presence known.
“Yes, actually. I’m quite a big fan of the artist whose painting you have there, so I admired that. And you are?” You trailed at the end, signalling that while he was very handsome, you had no idea who he was and why it was that you needed to come to him this evening.
“Straight to business, huh? I like that. I’m quite surprised Tony didn’t tell you who I was. Was he scared you wouldn’t have come if you knew?” He didn’t wait for your answer, however. “Well, honey, I’m Steve Rogers, and I am very pleased to meet you,” he smirked at your stomach dropped.
Steve Rogers? That Steve Rogers? It wasn’t possible.
“You gotta be kidding me,” you muttered as you scratched your arms nervously.
“Oh no, on the contrary. I’m all too real, Miss Y/L/N, and from the looks of it, I’m glad Tony didn’t tell you, you look like you might faint. Are you feeling alright?” He asked like the smug asshole he was, and you just turned away from him, taking a deep breath before you finally turned back around to face him with a pokerface.
“I’m alright, thank you. So now, can I know what it is you want from me so much you stalked me and made me come here, pretty much by force?”
He scoffed but showed you to follow him to the sofa. When you didn’t budge, he simply took you by your elbow and pretty much shoved you down to the plump sofa.
“Force, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I simply asked you to come visit me, is it so wrong? But yes, you are right, we should talk about why I invited you here. You see, Y/N, I’m in need of a wife, and after long calculations, I came to the conclusion you would be perfect for the job,” he said straightforwardly, and it was now that you felt like you’d faint.
“Marry me? Are you fucking insane?” You couldn’t hold it in any longer. Form the pissed off expression on his face, you could see it was not the right move, but he couldn’t expect any other reaction, really.
“Easy, honey or I might have to use the said force to shut that smart mouth of yours,” Steve mumbled dangerously, and you swallowed harshly.
“Right, you’re a notorious mobster, and I’m literally nobody, and if you killed me, nobody would miss me. Good, now that’s out of the table, why do you want to marry me? And what does it mean you are in need of a wife? I mean… you are notorious for dating a different girl every week, can’t you just marry one of them if you’re in such a great hurry?”
“No, honey, I can’t. All you need to know right now is my proposal. So, here it is. You will marry me, we will stay married for a year and then get a divorce. You will have everything every girl ever wanted: loads of clothes, all the time in the world to do whatever the fuck you want, you won’t have to work, and I will pay for everything and more. You will live here so you won’t have to worry about your rent money, and I will also pay your student loan, on top of which you will be paid 20.000$ every month for playing your role. And when the year is over, you will walk away rich, without any debts slowing you down and you will be able to do anything you want. How does that sound?”
“It sounds like it’s not a proposal but a directive,” you smiled sweetly and stood up, pacing the room and scratching your hands like crazy. This was not happening, no, no, no!
You needed the money, you really did, and getting rid of the debt from your student loan that would have been sweet too, but at what price? On the other hand, you thought, how bad could it be to just be somebody’s wife for a year? He did make it sound pretty easy.
“What would be expected of me?”
“Well, you would go with me to every event and pretty much listen to everything I say,” he shrugged as if it was the most natural thing to say to another human being.
“Like, you’d ask me to spread my legs for you here, and I would do it?” You asked, suddenly very angry that the man just assumed what kind of a person you were. You were desperate, but not that desperate.
“Oh, no, honey. That is one of the reasons why I chose you: I’m not attracted to you, so no, I wouldn’t ask you for any sexual favours. We could even put that to our contract if you’d feel better, but, really, you have nothing to worry from me,” he again said with ease, and you didn’t know if you were glad he just told you this or really pissed and ashamed.
Not that you thought you were some kind of a beauty, far from it, but he also didn’t have to be so upfront about it. And now you understood it even less why the hell he chose you.
“Just, wait a second,” you said, your brows knitting together as you tried to piece together all the information the man in front of you had just given you. He was gorgeous, there was no question about that, but that wasn’t the issue here. There were many gorgeous people in New York, and you didn’t marry any of them. Yet, that was.
“You want to marry me. But you still haven’t told me why, so?” You asked for like the hundredth time that evening, and the man just smirked again, playing with his cuffs, never answering to your satisfaction.
“Honey, what I want, I get, and I decided that I wanted you, so, what is going to be? Are you gonna be a good girl for me or am I gonna have to force you, hm?” He smiled sweetly, but even you knew better. Behind that oh-very-sweet smile, there was venom and a ton of it. You rubbed your temples and plopped down on the nice-looking couch, thinking about what he was proposing.
“Then why choosing me if you don’t find me attractive? Not that it’s an issue, I’m just really trying to understand the situation here,” you said, totally ignoring the threat in his voice as you needed some much valuable answers.
“Right, well, first of all, as I already mentioned, what I want, I get, honey, and you should always remember that. Secondly, it was your ability to keep a straight face, even though I can see the ability is not endless. I need somebody who will be sickly sweet to both my friends and enemies alike, who won’t mind a few sleazy comments from the old fuckers, and who will look like an obedient wife. I need somebody who will blend in and who will look trustworthy, and not like she was to stay only for a week. And when I saw you in that pub where you used to work, I could see you had what it took to be in this life, even if only for a year,” he finished, and you were glad you were right at least about the guy, Steve, also sending the people to sniff around your workplace. But then it hit you.
“Where I used to work? I still work there,” you said dumbfounded, and Steve chuckled humorously.
“Oh no, you don’t. You see, I need my wife free all the time and I need her here with me. Look, Y/N, this is getting tiring, and I really need an answer now. What is it gonna be, huh?”
“Like I even have a choice. You just said you would use force if I said no, so, what am I supposed to say, huh? I don’t want to get married, but I don’t have any money and your snoopy ass is getting in the way of my life, and you ended one of my jobs, and before you say you terminated my contract in the gallery, please think about it again. That job is very important to me, it has always been my dream to be in a gallery surrounded by beautiful art, and, by chance, having my art there as well.
I don’t know Steve, your offer is very generous, it really is, but I don’t think I’m the right one,” you sighed finally and looked around the room, ignoring the boring looks from Steve. Then you saw the clock and you almost panicked, it was two minutes before 9.
“Oh my God, I need to call my friends, or they’re gonna call the cops,” you said quickly already dialling Caroline’s number. You told her you were fine and that no, you weren’t a personal slave yet, but that you’d tell them everything when you got home. When the call ended, the venom was back in Steve’s eyes.
“If you think you can talk to people about anything I have just said, you are terribly wrong, doll,” he seethed, and you were taken aback, but you didn’t want him to think he intimidated you.
“Well, if you think I’m not gonna tell my family about this, then it’s you who is terribly wrong, Steve. We tell each other everything, and if I considered this proposal of yours, it would mean Aidan and Caroline would know about this, at least that I’m marrying you for more than my undying love for you,” you spat back, and Steve saw the determination in your eyes. He knew he had to compromise with you, even if only a little bit.
He already found out everything about you, he knew your whole life, your past, everything his people could find on the internet. And what he got from the search was that you and the people you lived with were extremely close. He considered getting rid of them but realised it would only push you away from what he needed from you. And he needed a wife ASAP.
The mafia was still very conservative, and as he was the only boss without a constant woman by his side, he was sometimes excluded from important meetings that happened on “family retreats.” And he needed all the info there was if he wanted to be the best of the best. Or, the worst of the worst, if we were being literal.
“Fine, but they will need to sign a contract saying that they will keep their mouths shut,” Steve smiled back, and you nodded, your head already spinning.
Were you really considering it? But was there any other option? You needed the money, and it would’ve be great if you didn’t have to care about your student loan for the rest of your life. You would see the world, just like you wanted, you would have time for your art, and you would be free after only a year. That didn’t sound that bad. Sure, you’d be affiliated with a known mafia boss, but that was nothing you couldn’t handle. But there was still a question Steve didn’t answer.
“What about my job at the gallery? If you made them fire me and I’m gonna find out tomorrow, I can’t even begin to consider this. I want that job, I want to work at that gallery, Steve.”
“Fucking hell, I could buy you the gallery if you agreed!” He shouted, exasperated that it was taking so long. He really didn’t get it. He was proposing a life in luxury, and he knew that the majority of women in New York would be more than happy to be seen by his side. But you? You had to be difficult and even demand stuff. Fucking hell…
“But whatever, you wanna work there, fine. Whatever, I don’t give a fuck. Do we have a deal or not? I have better things to do with my evening than just bargain with you, honey,” he accentuated the pet name that you already hated.
Well, this wasn’t how you imagined your proposal to go. Not that you were too keen on the whole idea of a marriage, but still, a girl could dream. Yet, here you were, actually considering getting tied up with a mobster for a year just because he offered you enough money and a life that you felt like could be interesting, if only for a year and with a man who blatantly told you he wasn’t interested in you in that way. This was the only reason you didn’t feel as dirty as you expected because you knew he would never touch you and never want you to do something sexual against your will.
You were used to lying through your teeth ever since you were little, your parents made sure you knew how important it was to keep your secret, and dangerous life wasn’t something you only heard of on TV. All this made the decision slightly easier, as you finally made up your mind.
“Fine, but we still have a lot to talk about, Mr Rogers,” you set your jaw and outstretched your hand to shake on it with him.
“Whatever, Mrs Rogers. Consider your rent paid and I’ll see you on Friday when we discuss our matter in greater detail. Now, if you excuse me,” he kissed the top of your hand and walked away.
Well, this would be fun, you told yourself as you watched the man you would soon call your husband walk away from you, and contemplated whether you made the right choice. But your life wasn’t great as was, as much as you tried to fill it with laughter and happiness, and, in a sense, Steve offered you an out, even if only for a little bit.
Here was to nothing, you hollered at yourself in your mind and followed one of the turtleneck-guys out of the manor and into the chilly air of evening New York.
/ Next Chapter >
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oh, captain, my captain
pairing: professor!steve rogers x reader
word count: 2,090
summary: Steve Rogers got bored in his retirement, so he picked up the hobby of teaching art. But he still feels restless until his missing piece comes along.
warnings: swearing, little bit of smutty smut, dub-con, drinking, manipulation, steve is a little dark but reader is into it in the end
a/n: This is... a little darker than what most people expect from me. But I wrote this for a dear friend, so I really, really hope you all enjoy it!! Also, please read the warnings. I'm not responsible for your media consumption <3
Life after the Avengers was mundane.
Not that Steve didn’t like the quiet days, where he knew he wasn’t going to be running off and risking his life at any moment, mind you. In fact, he was finding that retirement rather suited him.
Except for the fact that he was bored.
Bucky and Sam were always busy on some kind of mission together, saving the world and splitting their time between Brooklyn, Washington D.C., and New Orleans. Or NOLA, as Buck liked to call it now.
Perhaps the boredom was why he took up art again. He did go to art school, after all, and had even graduated. It was after his first official professional art show that the university contacted him.
They wanted him to teach young minds how to make art.
It was the perfect solution to his boredom problem.
Of course, he should’ve realized that getting a new job wouldn’t make him feel complete. No, unfortunately, he hasn’t found the missing piece in his hundred years.
At least until you walked into his classroom on the first day.
Steve’s eyes focused on you immediately, enamored by the curve of your legs and the Cupid’s bow of your upper lip. “Hello, you,” he mumbled softly under his breath as he watched you sit down to what appeared to be a friend of yours. He scrolled through his attendance on the school supplied computer in front of him, raising his brows as he found the name next to your university ID picture.
A perfect name for a perfect girl.
Suddenly he felt the need to have a few figure drawing classes. Privately. With you. With your clothes off.
And maybe his clothes would be off, too.
He stood up as the clock finally hit one in the afternoon, holding his laptop. “Alright, please let me know if you’re here as I call your names,” he said, before going through the roster quickly.
When he called your name, and you responded with a soft, “Here!” he almost fucking came in his pants.
“Alright. In this class, as with many art classes, we’re going to get very… personal,” he said as he started to walk through the easels and those sitting in front of them. “So on the first day, rather than reading through the syllabus that’s readily available on your phone, I like to do some ice breakers.” He couldn’t help but grin at the collective groan that rang through the class. “I know, I know. But like I said, this class is going to get very personal. So come on, let’s all get in a little closer.”
“Do you mind?” You asked quietly as you scooted her stool in between two others that he couldn’t remember the names of. You gave them a blinding smile as they made room, perching in your seat like a little angel.
His little angel.
Everything seemed to be a blur as he led them in a series of questions, but he barely retained any information from anyone except you. At least he had his phone secretly recording in his pocket so he could go back and relisten later (even if it was mostly just to hear your voice.)
Favorite color?
“Green.”
Favorite holiday?
“New Year’s Eve.”
Favorite artist?
“Marilyn Minter.”
That was interesting to him. That showed that you had a naughty side.
A side he so desperately wanted to get to know.
The only issue was that he needed to find a way to get you alone, and that was going to take trust built up over time.
He was truthfully, absolutely amazed that it only took a few weeks before you were coming to him with wonder-filled eyes, asking him if you could please schedule some time during his office hours to go over some of your portfolio.
Abso-fucking-lutely.
“Hey, you made it,” he said when you walked in after a light knock on the door, your portfolio in hand. Steve stood and immediately pulled out the chair for you like a proper gentleman. Subtly, he took in a deep breath as the cloud of your perfume enveloped him like a warm hug.
It was something classy. Something you had clearly splurged on.
Perhaps Gucci or Valentino or something.
“I’m sorry for being late,” you said as Steve glanced at the clock.
You were maybe three minutes late at the most.
“The subway was delayed, and unfortunately, I can’t control when the subway stops and goes,” you continued, letting out a nervous laugh as you opened up your portfolio. “Did you get my email with my previous pieces?”
“Yes, I did!” He said as he sat back down at his desk. “And honestly, I haven’t been this impressed in a long, long time. I would love to possibly mentor you? Of course, that means a lot more hours spent with an old man like me.” Eyes crinkling, he couldn’t help but laugh when you laughed.
He was sure that he almost had you right where he wanted you. The corner you were backing yourself into was almost too perfect.
You seemed… amazed. Absolutely flabbergasted by his offer. “Really?” You breathed out, leaning closer, elbows resting on your knees. “You’d really do that? That would be… I… Thank you.” Shaking your head, you scooted your chair a little closer. “How much should I pay you? I’ve never had a personal mentor before.”
And there it was. The corner he wanted you in.
“Oh, sweetheart, don’t worry about money,” he insisted as he looked deep into your eyes. It would be so easy to just get lost in them… “But, I do need assistance with something.”
“Of course!” You were like a doe-eyed little fawn, chasing him—the magnificent stag—through a field of wildflowers. “Whatever you want!”
Steve put on the most bashful, boy next door look he could muster. “Well… I’ve been trying to get back into figure drawing, but you’d be surprised at how hard it is finding a class to take that won’t freak out that I’m… you know. Steve Rogers.”
The look on you face let him know immediately there was no way you were going to say no. Hell, you were looking at him like he was the last puppy on the side of the road in a box that had ‘FREE’ written on the side.
In the rain.
“When do we start?”
Steve got everything set up in his home studio that night, only to sit until Friday night, when he’d planned for you to come over. Admittedly, he may have gone a little overboard with the mood lighting and the bottle of red wine that he’d left open on the counter to breathe, two crystal wine glasses resting next to it.
The good crystal.
He practically ran to the door when he heard the doorbell. “Hey, I was a little worried you would have trouble finding it,” he said as he guided you inside, a large hand coming to rest on the small of your back.
“Oh, I just Ubered,” you said, ducking your head as you let him lead you into his large home. “I don’t have a car. It’s too expensive and there’s no point when I live in the city. Though, the drive out here was absolutely gorgeous. I can see why you got a place a little bit upstate.”
Steve grinned, fighting the urge to say that it could also be your place. But that was for the future. “Yeah, the views and the quiet is worth the forty-five minutes or so I commute everyday.” He opened up the door to his home studio, all the windows wide open.
You wandered around the room, looking at the various art supplies and canvases scattered haphazardly around the room. In the very center was a chaise lounge with a blanket draped across it. “This is amazing… God, if I had my own art studio at home, I don’t think I’d ever leave.”
He poured out two glasses of wine, gently pressing one into your hands. “Well, you can always use this one. I have more space than I could probably ever use.” He sipped at his own wine, watching the way the glass pressed to your lips, watching the way you swallowed down the sweet liquid.
He couldn’t get drunk, but you certainly could.
It was around your third glass that he finally got to the point of why you were there. “So, I really want to paint you lying on this chaise,” he said as he guided you back. “But… Would it be possible for you to pose in the nude? You have just… the most natural beauty. I want to be able to only focus on that.”
“Oh my god, yeah!” You said as you set your glass of wine on the little table. With your inhibitions lowered, there was no hesitation as you stripped out of your clothing, tossing it all to the side. “You just move me how you want me.”
Oh, he would.
His own wine glass was set to the side before he moved closer, his eyes locked on yours. “Yeah?” He guided you to lie down on the bed, letting his fingers drift over your soft skin. “God, you’re so fucking gorgeous… Could just look at you forever…” His thumb brushed over one of your hard nipples, teasing the little peak as his cock ached inside his sweats. “I could never paint anything else except for you… and I’d die the happiest man in the world.” Carefully, gently, he moved your legs so one of your knees was bent, your legs spread wide for him.
Your eyes fluttered shut, your skin feeling flushed from the wine and the excitement of this god-like man touching you. “Mmm… Professor…”
Steve’s eyes were locked in on the prize, that blooming flower between your thighs, glistening with sweet nectar. “I always love a hands on approach,” he cooed as he ran a single finger through your folds, gathering up your slick.
The taste was exquisite.
Pretty moans fell from your lips, your back arching as your legs instinctively spread wider for him. “Please…”
He knew you wanted him just as much as he wanted you. It was fate, you walking into his class.
“Do you want me to touch you, baby girl?” He asked, loving the purr that rumbled in your chest as he found your swollen clit. “So needy… When’s the last time your pretty little kitty got so much attention, angel? You’ve been neglecting her, haven’t you?”
At your nod, you tried sitting up a bit, lip caught between your teeth. “Y-Yes. Please… Please.”
Steve quickly realized you didn’t even know what you were asking for.
“So innocent. So sweet,” he said as he wrapped his hands around your waist to pull you to the edge of the chaise. He leaned in and took in a deep breath, groaning. “I wanna be able to smell you for days.” At the first lick of his tongue, he knew he had you wrapped around his fingers.
And when you finally orgasmed, soaking his beard with your juices? Fuck. He was even more of a goner than he was before.
Steve loved the way that you laid limbless on the chaise, foot lazily bouncing as you dozed. It was easily a sight that he could get very, very used to very quickly. This was going to be so much easier than he thought it was going to be.
While he knew he was the right one for you, being able to know that you weren’t going to fight him gave him an amazing sense of relief.
The next week, he stood at his desk, making notes on his laptop. At five minutes to one, the door opened as the first student to arrive entered.
Immediately looking up, his heart sank. It wasn’t you.
Did you panic after you left his place the next morning? Nothing more had happened that night. Surely getting an orgasm wouldn’t freak you out, right?
His hands were starting to tremble when the door opened again, and he felt someone standing right next to him.
“Professor Rogers?”
His head snapped up, relief flooding him when he saw you. “H-Hello. How can I help you?”
A mischievous smile spread across your face, even though you were clearly trying to contain it. “Is there any possible way you have some free time during your office hours for me to swing by? I’d love to schedule our next figure painting session.”
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