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yourmidnightlover · 2 months

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forever?

pairing: mob!bucky x reader

summary: after being forced into a marriage you didn’t want, you become very cautious of your new husband out of fear of what he’s capable of when one of his employees makes a move at a dinner meeting.

warnings: anxious reader, threat of domestic violence (reader is just worried abt it), groping, please let me know if i missed something or need to add anything!

a/n: reader is very timid in this. i know a lot of people like a reader who doesn’t take shit and stands up for herself, but i often find myself in situations where i just shut down and don’t know how to respond… so this is kinda inspired by that feeling

two months out of forever.

two months of what seemed like wedded bliss from the outside.

in reality, that “bliss” included sleeping in separate rooms, never even seeing each other unless necessary to make appearances for either of your parents.

the ones who arranged for this to happen in the first place.

you were just glad you were able to have your time for yourself. you thought you would use the time to continue writing for your book, but you’ve hit a serious case of writers block. so lovely.

on the bright side, he wasn’t as controlling as your few friends had made it seem he would be.

they had painted this picture of a monster in your head. a man who would loom over your presence during every waking second. a man who was controlling and wouldn’t let you have a personal life or secrets.

so far, he’s been the opposite.

for some reason, that still leaves you unsteady.

because they also painted him in a very violent, angry, red light.

but maybe he had a mistress. if that were the case, he truly didn’t respect you or your family. it didn’t seem like bucky to do that, though. he wouldn’t ruin a business deal that benefitted him so much.

the reason you married him was because your father’s finance business was going under, drowned in debts while the only options were to sell to the barnes’ or the rumlow’s. the barnes’ seemed the lesser of two evils.

the only way to smoothly transition your father’s business to be under the barnes’ control without raising any question of your father’s capability was to marry. if any questions were asked about why your father sold his company, the not so good side of the finance industry would trample after your entire family. the barnes’ would get a new company and their many clients, while your family wouldn’t become entirely blacklisted by the entire country, would be putting your family under the barnes’ protection, and there would be less questions asked as to why the company had been merged.

you had a few months of “leaking” images of you and bucky together into the tabloids to prepare the public for the news of such a big marriage. some were photos of you and bucky holding hands while walking. a couple of you at a restaurant smiling. a few staged kissing photos… those may or may not have been your favorite.

those times spent with him, in all honesty, weren’t bad at all. going for walks together at sunset, dinner dates, feeling his lips against yours…

you had gotten to know more about his childhood that the tabloids didn’t feel was important to cover. his favorite subject in school and how he actually lost his arm so many years ago. you learned each others’ fears and worries in life. your favorite thing to learn about him, however, was what he truly wanted in life.

peace.

a couple weeks after the wedding, a few photos of the reception were once again “leaked” in order to sell the “too in love to wait” bit that everyone had started assuming upon seeing the first few photos of you and bucky together.

but all of your history with him flew to the back of your mind as bucky knocked on your office door.

“come in,” you replied hesitantly, not sure what he wanted from you for the first time since your wedding. he stepped through the threshold and stood at the doorframe.

“there’s a work meeting tomorrow,” his hand remained on the doorknob, so stiff you’d think he might rip it off the precious white wood in seconds. “the men are meeting at the house. i wanted to let you know. the men in this business, they expect marriages to be of the… traditional values.”

you nodded with understanding, turning to face him with a forced grin. “so i should play the part of the doting housewife, huh?” no smile in return, so you bit back your humor in turn for matching his serious tone. “what food should i prepare, then? and uh, how many guests will we be expecting?”

“whatever’s easiest for you,” he shrugged lightly. “there will be 9 of us there.” with one final look in your direction, he left the office and didn’t return to say goodnight.

the next morning you got to work setting the house up for the 6pm meeting your loving husband was hosting.

you had decided to set up a buffet-style table outside of the main dining room where the meeting would take place. for the menu, you settled on simple grilled chicken with quite a few side options. roast potatoes, asparagus, sauteed carrots, green beans, and rolls.

you were putting the rolls in the oven when bucky got home, seemingly entranced by the smell of all the food, heading straight to the kitchen.

“it smells amazing in here,” bucky called from the archway of the kitchen. you jumped slightly from the surprise, but swallowed down the shock and another weak smile.

“thanks,” you nodded to the edge of the island where a large chalkboard sat, your handwriting neatly displayed on the board that listed all the food to be had. “the menu. i figured a variety would be nice, and who doesn’t like chicken, right?”

“vegetarians,” if you didn’t know any better, you’d think he was telling a joke. but you knew better than that. “the men are coming in a little less than an hour. do you maybe want to change before they get here?”

you looked down at what you were wearing, a pair of blue jeans and a loose t-shirt clearly not worthy of someone who had married a barnes man. “right, of course. i’m sorry,” you finished setting the timer on the oven and ran upstairs to get yourself put together before bucky saw the tears trying to seep past your waterline.

you settled on a black cocktail dress you had worn to one of your dad’s company events before the downfall… quickly swiping some makeup on to cover the exhaustion in your eyes and pulling your hair up to a more respectable updo rather than your typical messy bun.

luckily you had become an expert at quickly getting ready from your time in university, as you were back in time to pull the rolls from the oven, but not before pulling on your apron. you’d be dammed if you got this stunning dress dirty right before this prestigious meeting.

t-5 minutes before the meeting was supposed to begin and you could already hear lots of rustling from the formal dining room. you knocked on the closed doors before bucky opened the door for you.

the men went silent as their gaze rested on you in the doorway.

“the foods ready. buffet style?” your eyes didn’t leave bucky’s pretty blues, too scared to do anything wrong in front of his men.

“that’s perfect, my love,” his hands gravitated to your waist before pulling your body taut against his, one hand moving a stray hair behind your ear before leaning in to whisper. “you look ravishing…”

as he pulled back, you were sure your blush was evident across your cheeks. you tried to hide it behind a smile, shrugging with a shy ‘thanks’ leaving your lips.

“what do you say to my stunning wife, boys?” his hand squeezed your waist once more before turning to the other men, ‘thank you’s being echoed throughout the room as they stood and made their way to the kitchen to make their plates.

in a matter of minutes, all the food was gone. you figured it was best they liked the food, even if you didn’t get to try any of it yourself like you had planned.

you got started on cleaning everything up with earbuds in your ears, starting with the dishes already in the sink from when you were cooking. then, you were sure to place the dishes that the food was in inside the sink for you to clean before starting on wiping the counters, then sweeping, then mopping, and then back to the dishes.

you didn’t realize that bucky had called for a break in the meeting, however. you were in for quite the rude awakening when you felt a pair of hands on your waist, but not the ones you were semi-familiar with.

you turned around with a gasp, shock evident on your face as you tried to piece together whoever this man was. blond hair, blue eyes… definitely not steve though. you knew steve well and had seen him often.

you pulled your earbuds from your ears in attempt to better understand what was going on. his hands were still gripping your sides, but you couldn’t necessarily escape his touch. you were backed against the sink. even if you could fight him, you’d likely lose to his strong grip.

“is the meeting-is it over already?” your voice was so much more cowardly than you’d ever expected yourself to be.

“no, no,” he shook his head. “just a little break, some of the guys were getting antsy.” you leaned back further, trying to create some semblance of space between you. “i figured i’d say a special thank you, on behalf of all of us guys in there.” he let one hand cup the side of your face and neck, his other hand trailing down from your waist, firmly grasping your ass with a sqeeze before you jumped at the invasion.

“i don’t-i’ve got it…”

“john,” he smiled grossly, as if he could convince you to go to bed with him.

“no need for a thanks,” you tried to remind him. “i did this for bucky. for my husband.” your eyebrows rose, trying to emphasize that his boss was also your husband.

“i’m sure he won’t mind you getting a little bit of extra special attention, don’t you?”

then, a growling voice cut through the fear running through your veins.

“i think he might mind.”

you turned to face bucky with wide eyes before facing john, wishing the tears welling in your eyes would just go away.

his hands slowly retracted, stepping back with a chuckle.

“sorry, sir,” he smiled before turning to face your husband. “she was just telling me how she wanted some extra attention, weren’t you, toots?” he tilted his head expectantly.

your mouth opened, nothing leaving in spite of your brain screaming at you. what would bucky do? would he take his side? would he believe you? would he hurt you?

you’ve embarrassed him now… humiliated him in his own home. surely he’ll take action against you for this.

your mind replayed stories your old friends had told you about him. how he would lash out at men that betrayed him. how he never took shit from anyone who showed him any disrespect. how he was the kind of man to shoot first and ask quesitons later.

and now, in a way, you’ve both betrayed and disrespected him. or at least, that’s what he’ll think.

you didn’t even realize tears were flowing down your face until your sobs were interrupted.

“enough!” you finally looked at bucky before his eyes softened for a second before walking closer to you. “go to the room.” he ordered sternly.

“but the dish-”

“i’ll take care of it,” he interrupted gravely, “go. to. the. room.”

“yes, sir,” you nodded and swiftly left the room entirely, collapsing against the door once you had shut it, sobs wracking your body. you held your knees against your chest before trying to regulate your breathing.

he won’t hurt you.

he has to protect his image.

you’ve embarrassed him.

you’re his wife.

you’re his business deal.

you’ve humiliated him.

he’ll hurt you.

you didn’t know how long it had been since the incident.

your sobs had subsided. you had, at some point, moved to your bed. you were still rocking your body back and forth, trying to self sooth.

and then there was a knock at the door.

your body instinctively jumped at the sudden noise, although it wasn’t harsh in any manner, at least not one that you were expecting.

he twisted the knob, slowly opening the door with slow movements.

“i-i’m so sorry,” you began apologizing as soon as he stepped through the threshold into your room. “i swear-i swear i didn’t tell him that. i didn’t even realize he was there, i promise. i wouldn’t lie to you. i’m so sorry, i’m so sorry. please believe me.” your body was still rocking and you didn’t even notice he was as close to you as he was until you saw his hand moving by your head.

automatically, you assumed the absolute worst, your head ducking into your body like a fucking turtle, the meekest squeal leaving your lips mixed with a sob. your arms went over your head protectively, as if a bomb were about to go off.

“sweetheart,” his voice sounded so broken, so torn, so unexpectedly soft.

you finally looked at him for the first time since he came in your room. his flesh hand was holding his metal one as if it were something that could kill. in ways, it was.

“you-there’s no need to…” after looking at him for a second longer, you noticed that his eyes had tears that almost mirrored your own. “i would never, ever lay a hand on you. i’m so sorry for scaring you. i can’t…” he sighed. “i can’t believe i made you believe i’d ever hurt you.”

“i’m sorry,” you pleaded with him once again.

“you have nothing to apologize for,” he hesitated to reach for your hands before settling on simply grabbing a spare pillow. “i came up here to apologize. for my tone earlier… i know john. he never knows his boundaries. i should’ve… you never should’ve been put in that situation. that’s my fault. that’s on me. and i will spend the rest of forever to make it up to you.”

“you don’t have to-”

“no, my love,” he shook his head. “can i-can i hold your hands? please?” you, without hesitation, grabbed his hands yourself. “i need to make it up to you. you’re mine. you’re my wife. it’s my job to protect you, to keep you safe. and to have someone ruin that? to touch what’s mine in my own home? i’m so sorry.” he brought your hands to his lips, pressing at least ten kisses to each hand. he was so gentle and careful it was a good thing you knew better than to think it actually meant anything.

you were surprised, to say the least, at how tender he was being with you.

how could you have ever thought he would hurt you? that he would raise his hand and swing? that he would cause you harm? he was here declaring that he would make up this incident for the rest of eternity when it wasn’t even his doing…

“will you stay with me tonight?” his eyes lit up at the request.

“are you sure you want that?” he became a touch more reserved. “i don’t know if it’s a good idea since you were worried i would…” his voice trailed off.

“i’m sure,” you nodded before scooting over in the bed.

sure, your marriage was arranged and didn’t stem from true love. you may not have talked outside of when absolutely necessary. you might have even been terrified of him at one point.

but now, the thought of forever with bucky barnes didn’t seem half bad.

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veganineden · 9 months

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On the Evolution of “Happily Ever After” and Why “Nothing Lasts Forever”

A reflection inspired by Good Omens 2

One of my favorite Tumblr posts on the second season of Good Omens 2 was actually not about the series at all, but our reaction to it, primarily the ending. @zehwulf wrote, “I think a lot of us—myself included—got a little too comfortable with assuming [Aziraphale and Crowley would] work on their issues right away post-Armageddon.” We did the work for them through meta, fanfiction, fanart, and building a plethora of headcanons. Who among us AO3-surfing fans didn’t read and love Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach by Nnm?

In the 4 long years since season one was released, we did more than seek to understand and repair rifts between two fictional beings: we were forced to reckon with ourselves too. We faced a global pandemic, suffered traumatizing losses and isolation, and were forced to really and truly look into the face of our atrocities-ridden and capitalistic world. The mainstream rise of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice work, and our participation in this work, showed us that the systems in place were built to oppress and harm most of us, and they are.

So, what does this have to do with the evolution of “happily ever after”?

My friend put it best in a conversation we had following the season finale, when she pointed out a shift in media focus. The “happy end” in old stories about wars and kingdoms used to be “we killed the evil old king and put a noble young king in his place and now citizens can live in peace” and we’re transitioning into a period of “we tore down the whole fucking monarchy.”

If we look at season one, written to follow the beats of a love story, it comforted us by offering a pretty traditional happy ending pattern: you get your fancy dinner with your special someone, the romantic music plays, and you have a place to call your own. Season one’s finale provided a temporary freedom for Aziraphale and Crowley, the “breathing room,” but it didn't solve the problem that was Heaven and Hell, or the agendas belonging to those systems of oppression.

Is it good enough to keep our heads down, pretend the bad stuff isn’t happening, and live our own personal happy endings until we die? Moral quandaries aside, if you don't die (or if you care about the generations after you), then, like Aziraphale said, it “can’t last forever.” There’s a clear unpleasant end to the “happily ever after” that’s based on ignoring our problems– it’s the destruction of our relationships, and humanity.

Ineffable Bureaucracy can go off into the stars because they do not care about humanity.

You know who does?

Aziraphale.

And Aziraphale knows that Crowley cares about humanity too. (He knows because Crowley was the one who proposed sabotaging Armageddon in the first place, who only invited him to the stars when he thought all was lost, because Crowley would save humanity if he thought it was possible, and Aziraphale knows Crowley has survived losing Everything before, and he will do all in his power so that Crowley does not need to experience that again.)

In season one and two, we see how much they care about humanity, beyond their orders, to the point The Systems begin to frown at them. Aziraphale hears Crowley’s offer to run away together in the final episode of season two, to leave Earth behind, and just like the first time that offer was made in season one, he declines. He knows choosing only “us” is not a choice either of them can live with for the rest of eternity.

I believe season 3 will provide an opportunity to “dismantle the system,” but I don’t know how it will play out. I worry that Aziraphale has put himself in the now-dead trope of the “young noble king.” (I wish Crowley had told him why Gabriel was dismissed from his duties.) I worry that he would martyr himself as a sole agent for change. I worry that he doesn’t actually know how to dismantle anything by himself: because you can’t. He needs Crowley. He DOES. He needs Crowley, and Muriel, and other angels and demons and humans without fixed mindsets to help him. Only by learning to listen and making room at the table for all can they (and we) move past personal satisfaction to collective liberation.

Crowley was right when he said that Aziraphale had discovered his “civic obligations.”

So, I think we will get our modern-day happy ending– and it’s going to involve a lot of pain and discomfort, communication, healing and teamwork– and in the end, it’ll all be okay. There will be a time for rest and a time for “us.”

And most likely a cottage.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

- Maya Angelou

Support the SAG-AFTRA strike and other unions. Trust @neil-gaiman. Register to vote if you haven’t yet. Hold yourself and others accountable with compassion. Read books. Keep doing the work. Rest. Then watch Good Omens 2 again.

#good omens 2 #good omens #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #good omens meta #good omens 2 meta #ineffable advocacy #ineffable partners #neil gaiman #terry pratchett #gos2 spoilers #good omens 2 spoilers #nothing lasts forever #liked by Neil Gaiman

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ugh-yoongi · 2 months

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the very last thing i decide | pjm

(or, the one in which a love exists that's easy and instinctual as much as it is painful and self-destructive.)

✘ PAIRING jimin x f. reader ✘ SUMMARY you learn what it means to love with blood on your hands. ✘ GENRE hitman/assassin au; angst, smut ✘ RATING explicit. minors dni. ✘ WARNINGS they are both hitmen (hitpeople?) so there's all the content that goes along with that: violence, death, mentions of blood (a lot) and weapons, murder, but no explicit gore. everyone is morally grey at best and downright psychotic at worst (especially yoongi). reader gets stabbed. no one knows how to be a functional human being. swearing, smoking, light smut (penetrative & oral sex), miscommunication and unrequited love but not really, i drop a classic tumblr meme in a line of dialogue. ambiguous/hopeful ending!! some of the themes here are kinda heavy and i am not entirely sure how to tag them so if you have any questions pls don’t hesitate to ask! ✘ WORDCOUNT 12k ✘ LISTEN TO manchester orchestra - telepath ✘ THANK YOU i cannot remember everyone i’ve showed this to over the years. @the-boy-meets-evil for looking this over and brainstorming with me today. @hot-soop for always being a help. @effortandmore because you told me an embarrassingly long time ago this was worth finishing. and i’m pretty sure i also sent this to @jihopesjoint at some point too. i did a quick edit of this on my own, but after nearly three years i just wanted it posted and out of my wips so i'm sure i missed things. pls ignore them. ✘ AUTHOR'S NOTE fic drops two days in a row?? who am i?? i started this in may 2021 and it was supposed to be a simple pegging fic. i abandoned it bc i was convinced no one would want to read it. between today and yesterday i have written thousands of words and made it across the finish line. i hope you like it. the violence is a metaphor for love or whatever.

[37.5665° N, 126.9780° E | Seoul, SOUTH KOREA]

Jimin’s hair had been red the first time he met you.

How fitting, he thinks, considering he’s currently bleeding out on a table.

Well, there’s still a bit of fight left in him. He hasn’t lost consciousness yet, which he assumes is a good sign; he can still hear Hoseok barking out orders quite clearly. The edges of his vision are fuzzy and the pain in his abdomen is sharp and unrelenting, but he still has enough brain power left to wish he’d died instead.

Because you’d saved his life. And now he’s further indebted to you.

(Jimin never leaves a debt unpaid, but he’s not sure how to make even on something like this.)

Jungkook and Taehyung are fetching supplies faster than Hoseok can ask for them. Two pairs of frazzled, spaced-out eyes. Four sets of trembling limbs. Namjoon’s wearing burn marks into the floor, his cuticles bloody and nearly worried to the bone since he can’t keep them out of his mouth.

And then there’s you.

Sitting cross-legged in a chair as you scroll through your phone. Jimin’s blood is still drying on your hands, leaving smears as you drag your thumb back and forth across the screen, and this doesn’t seem to faze you one bit.

Behind you, Yoongi takes a seat at the piano and starts playing Toccata and Fugue in D minor, and Jimin simply cannot die like this. He can’t die on a wooden table in a room with a piano on which Min Yoongi is playing Baroque organ pieces.

“What is this, a fucking funeral?” Hoseok snaps, though there’s a desperation creeping into his tone that Jimin does not like, does not want to hear. “Cut it out, Yoongi.”

Said man staunchly ignores the doctor, transitioning flawlessly into the fugue. Jimin barely hears the tinkle of your laughter but he hears it all the same, and he wants to pretend it doesn’t calm him, bring him back down to earth when he starts drifting too far away. But you do, and it does, and all he can think about is: will you miss him if he dies? Will it take you long to wash his blood from your hands?

Hoseok’s absolutely incensed, pushed to the limits of his stress at the thought of not being able to save Jimin’s life, and Jimin appreciates this, really, but not when Hoseok pushes two gloved fingers deep into the wound in his stomach so hard all he can do is cry. “Yoongi—”

You snort. You don’t even look up from your phone.

Namjoon, for all his leadership and stoicism and poise under pressure, is just as frantic and panicked as the rest. It’s not everyday one of his people is inches from death ten feet away from him. Most people usually die in the shadows. Kim Namjoon has faced down death more times than most, yet watching the life slowly fade from Jimin’s eyes is too much even for him. “Yoongi, please—”

But the fugue keeps going, tempo change after tempo change, the two pillars of this organization spiraling completely by the time the coda starts, unfocused and sweating and praying. To gods they don’t believe in, to hope, to chance—whatever and whoever might be listening. Jimin usually loves hearing Yoongi play. It’s the only thing that humanizes him, and Jimin had spent so many restless nights shoulder to shoulder with him on that exact bench in the blue hours of the early morning, hypnotized by the way the older man’s knobby fingers moved across the keys.

This is it, he thinks.

Jimin’s going to die with Toccata and Fugue in D minor playing in the background.

He’s imagined his death so many times. Stupid not to in this line of work. Violent, quick and painless, in his sleep, drawn out and gory, a message. And in all of those scenarios, it’s either jarringly silent or there’s someone screaming. Usually him, sounding much like he is now, two fingers stuck in his gut. In all of those scenarios, Min Yoongi is never playing Bach as everything fades to black.

You sigh. “Shut the fuck up, Yoongi,” you say, your tone as blasé and inconvenienced as ever.

Shocked at your audacity, one of Yoongi’s fingers slips and hits the wrong key, something dissonant and metallic as it rings out. But the music stops all the same, the silence nearly giving Jimin whiplash. Now he can hear the clinkof Hoseok’s tools, the squelching of his wound, Jungkook’s desperate pleading for him to just be alright, please God, just hang on. He wants the music back. He doesn’t want Jungkook’s crying to be the last thing he hears. Doesn’t want the sound of his own organs imprinted into his memory.

“What’d you say?” Yoongi asks, because no one talks to him that way. They wouldn’t dare. Most people try not to talk to him at all.

But you do.

And, inexplicably, Yoongi listens.

You roll your eyes. “You go deaf in your old age? I said shut the fuck up. Hoseok’s two knuckles deep in Jimin’s fucking stomach and you’re over there having your little Amadeus moment.”

He bristles. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” Yoongi repeats, and Jimin can’t see him, but he knows his eyes are narrowed, lips pulled back in a snarl, fists clenched at his side.

“Oh, princess,” you coo, and Yoongi’s fury is palpable, permeates every inch of this place, overrides all the fear and anguish. “I’m talking to you, baby. I know Jiminie’s busy trying not to die and that’s stressful for all of us, but please do try to keep up.”

Jimin hears the flick of Yoongi’s switchblade. Then he hears him say, “Please let me fucking kill her,” in that lazy Daegu drawl of his, like forming full words are beneath him. Not worth the effort when they’re directed at you.

Still seated, you uncross your legs and, through blurred vision, Jimin watches you grab Yoongi by his belt loops to tug him closer, grab the wrist that holds his knife and press it to your own throat. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, Yoongi. Be a good boy and make it hurt.”

Jungkook’s near hysterics at Jimin’s side. “What the fuck is wrong with you two? He’s dying!”

Jimin tries to say I’m not, Kookie, I’m okay but the pressure on his abdomen is too intense. He can barely breathe, and Hoseok’s still digging around, still looking for that stupid fucking bullet, had to do something and do it quick so there’d been very little anesthetic and finesse, and he’s silently screaming for someone to just comfort Jungkook, tell him everything’s going to be okay, but instead—

“Serves him right for being a fucking idiot,” you say, words muffled by the knife still pressed to your throat. “What a painful, permanentlesson in not forgetting your fucking vest.”

“Stop it!” Jungkook sobs, fingers ghosting along Jimin’s matted fringe.

Yoongi’s still scowling. “Just say the word, Joon-ah. I’ll make it quick.”

You actually laugh at that. The kind of full-belly laugh Jimin would kill to be able to produce. “You wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid.”

Someone snarls. Probably Yoongi. “You’d look so good gutted on the floor like a fish,” he replies, and if Jimin knows him at all, he knows he’s got that dreamy, faraway look in his eyes. The one he always gets when he’s about to kill—the one that makes him so unhinged and dangerous. “Left there to bleed out and die all alone like the trash you are.”

No one’s survived that look before, but you just grin, as if being on the receiving end of it is nothing more than another simple inconvenience. “Do it, then,” you prompt. “You’re so big and bad, yet here you are, waiting for Namjoon’s permission like some kind of pathetic fucking dog.”

“I’m no one’s dog.”

Your eyes slowly flick over to Namjoon. “No?” you ask, smile widening as Jimin watches you drag your heeled foot up the inside of Yoongi’s calf, his thigh, stiletto coming to rest in the center of his sternum. “That’s a shame, princess. That pretty neck of yours was just made for a collar.”

There’s no doubt in Jimin’s mind now that he actually died back in that penthouse and is now residing in whatever level of hell is watching you give his associate a semi despite him being a millisecond away from murdering you.

Yoongi would do it, too. No hesitation. You’ve been on his shit list for as long as Jimin can remember, and you’ve been daring him to put his money where his mouth is and just kill you already for just as long.

Taehyung groans. “Can you two just fuck already so the rest of us can be spared of this?”

You click your tongue, tone melting like butter. You’re fond of Taehyung, soft on him. “No can do, angel. Yoongi here knows I only have eyes for our Jiminie, and god does that hurt his little feelings.”

Your wicked smile gives away nothing—whether you’re telling a bold truth or just unnecessarily needling Yoongi further—but Jimin’s caught off guard and chokes on your words nonetheless.

Hoseok’s forceps still digging around in his stomach, there’s a quiet hurrah of triumph as he finally locates the bullet. Jimin feels nothing as he retrieves it and plucks it out, a reverberated clank! as he drops it into a kidney dish, your words the anesthetic he’s needed as they play on a loop in his head.

When he finally blacks out, either from the pain or the adrenaline or both, it’s your face that greets him. He never gets the chance to tell you why he forgot his vest.

[64.1466° N, 21.9426° W | Reykjavík, ICELAND]

Jimin’s hair is blue when it happens the first time.

It’s November. Namjoon has sent the two of you to Reykjavik and it’s dark all the time, the midnight hue of his hair blending into the impenetrable nighttime that surrounds you. Jimin works best like this—out of sight, part of the shadows. He’s light on his feet, lithe in ways no one else is, not even you, and he’s impossible to anticipate under the cover of darkness.

That’s why Jimin always takes care of the appetizers.

It’s your job to clean up the main course.

The two of you are two halves of the same lethal coin, working together flawlessly after years of carefully honed practice. Jimin slams an unsuspecting man’s head into a wall and you’re right behind him to put a bullet in it.

It’s just how it goes.

And he trusts you. He has to, otherwise he would’ve gotten taken out years ago. You’re not always in his line of sight, but he always feels you, senses your movements before you’re even on your feet. The times it’s gone wrong—and it’s gone wrong so many fucking times, despite how cautious and skilled the two of you are—you’re always right there to catch him before he even hits the ground. Just like a ghost, as if your only purpose in life is keeping Jimin safe and alive.

(It isn’t, but it sure feels that way.)

Tonight it’s another hit carried out in an overpriced penthouse overlooking the northern shore. You’re in and out, don’t waste a second more than you need to. Jimin doesn’t spare a glance at the carnage left behind. Nothing he hasn’t seen a hundred times before. All blood bleeds the same, but he still wonders, foolishly, if his looks different to you. If it feels wrong when it stains your hands and seeps into your clothes.

Jimin has never been covered in your blood before, but he likes to think it would.

The two of you don’t speak until you’re in the quiet safety of yet another hotel room, chain lock thrown across the door, deadbolt secured. A small arsenal of weapons is retrieved from ankles and waistbands and cleaned and packed away meticulously. Jimin’s the one who makes the call to Namjoon, tells him in code that the job’s done. You’ve barely broken a sweat, but under the fluorescent light of the bathroom, Jimin can see a small smattering of blood just along your temple when he closes the distance between you.

Someone else’s, of course.

Anyone who made you bleed your own blood wouldn’t be a quick, clean kill. Jimin would make sure of that.

There’s less to be done about the half-inch scar in the hollow of your throat—a pearlescent reminder of the twin scar he has just below his navel; a callback to the day your devilish mouth said the words Jimin can’t stop thinking about.

“No can do, angel. Yoongi here knows I only have eyes for our Jiminie.”

Maybe it’s stupidity. Maybe it’s the feral, years-long build up that’s been simmering between the two of you—low enough to keep warm, contained enough to never evolve into a rapid boil. Maybe Jimin’s just finally desperate enough to go seeking out answers to questions he’s far too scared to put a voice to.

(Really, Jimin knows it’s adrenaline. Nothing more than chemicals. The two of you high on it, heads floating above the clouds. Powerless; or, at the very least, indifferent to stop the very clear path that’s unfolding on the ground below.)

But, god, he needs to know.

Needs answers.

Needs to know if there’s even a chance you feel it, too: the magnetic ebb and flow the two of you have been dancing around for years. If you see how fondly he looks at you. If you have any idea how easy it is for him to get lost in you. If you know he’d let someone put a bullet between his eyes before he placed his life in the hands of anyone else.

Jimin knows he loves you. He’s known it for a long time, just like he knows all those other things that are second nature to him. Loving you is easy and instinctual as much as it is painful and self-destructive.

At least that’s what he’d thought. Until your devilish mouth said those devilish words and sent him into a tailspin he’s yet to recover from.

You have to feel it. God, can’t you? The way the air crackles between you. The way his skin ignites with a simple look from you. The trembling of his fingers at his sides, desperate to just reach out and touch you—fingers that have been bathed in blood, that have taken life. Fingers that now just want to graze softly across your cheekbones, catch on your bottom lip. Fingers that want to hand you the world on a silver platter. Jimin would do anything for you, give you whatever you wanted. You wouldn’t even have to ask.

Can’t you feel that?

He needs to know.

Jimin is composed, elegant. He kills with grace and still maintains as much of his softness as he can. Isn’t ruled by emotion the way Yoongi and Jungkook are. But now, as he teeters on the edge of the unknown, all he wants to do is jump. Wants to buck all his training, all his resolve and forethought, and jump.

“Did you mean it?” he asks, voice thick. Fingers curl into the expensive silk of his shirt just so they have something to do—something to keep them from reaching out and touching you. “Back in Seoul.”

You’re the smartest person Jimin knows. When you ask, “Did I mean what, Chim?” he knows you’re fucking with him. Dragging this out. You know exactly what he’s asking and he knows you’ll never give anything away so easily.

“What you said to Taehyung,” he answers.

You tsk, eyebrows raising in intrigue. As much as Jimin trusts you, as well as you know him, know all those dirty, dirty secrets he’d never tell anyone else, he’s never been so bold with you. “That those long fingers of his would look good wrapped around my throat? Yeah, I meant that.”

Jimin’s jaw clenches at your taunt. “Don’t play games with me.”

A smirk graces your lips. “Trust me, sweetheart,” you say, voice sickly-sweet as the affection starts popping at the last seams holding him together, “if I wanted to play with you, there’s nothing you could do to stop it.”

With Jimin pressed into the wall behind you, you turn to meet his eye in the mirror. Another smile, teeth bared as you run your tongue across your lips, and this one is his undoing. Makes his cock twitch in his dress pants. Makes him bold. “Do you want to, then?” He takes a step forward—close enough to smell the gunpowder stuck to your clothes, your hair. Close enough for the sulfur and metal to sting his nostrils each time he breathes you in. “Do you want to play with me?”

You love Jimin. Maybe it’s a trauma bond or the implicit, unwavering trust the two of you have in one another, but you know you love him limitlessly. But you also know you can’t love him the way he loves you, the way he deserves to be loved by someone, which is why your mask slips as you say, “I can’t give you what you want, Jimin.”

You try to make him understand that. Really, you do—because Jimin is the smartest person you know, and you know he’s thought about every possible consequence down to the most minute detail and has decided this is worth it anyway. You want to believe in something the way Jimin believes in you, even though he’s wrong. You want something worth throwing all of this away for.

Maybe it’s Jimin, maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s just been so fucking long since someone has looked at you with any gentleness in their eyes at all that when Jimin meets your gaze and says, “I don’t want anything more than you’re willing to give,” you take his hand and jump, too.

And there’s nothing gentle about the first time.

It’s all raw, urgent need, Jimin trying desperately to convince himself it’s more than it is while you convince yourself it’s less.

It’s the two of you finally giving up and giving in, letting yourselves be pulled taut by that invisible string tying you together.

It’s Jimin’s sharp intake of breath when you fully step out of your clothes, the sight rendering him immobile. Whatever plans he’d had before seeing the curves of your body, all the scars from years of working by his side, the mottled yellow-greens and purples from the bruises lining your skin—he has no plans now. Can barely think. Wouldn’t be able to tear his eyes away from you with a gun to his head.

It’s the final bricks of the wall he’d built around himself—around his heart, around all those words and feelings he’d never put a voice to—crumbling into ash at his feet. Now he knows he can’t go back. Can’t return to a reality where this isn’t his truth. Where there’s no you and him, him and you. Where it’s just a physical exchange, a give-and-take, tit for tat.

And god, he knows he shouldn’t think like this; knows he’s keeping the truth buried somewhere deep behind lock and key.

…But now that he knows how it feels to move inside you, what else is he supposed to do?

You’re everywhere. Clenched around him. Your taste on his tongue. The feel of you on the pads of his fingers. The smell of you making a mockery of all logical thought. No—no, he can’t do a goddamn thing to stop the avalanche now it’s started.

“Fuck,” he whines, fingers digging into your hips. The soft skin he finds purchase in such a contrast from your hardened exterior, but Jimin knows. He knows you, knows the person behind the mask, sees straight through you each time it slips.

What stared back at him had always been just out of reach.

Taunting him.

Screaming come and get me, come make me yours, come and fucking take what you want.

Until now.

Now it’s tangible. Now it’s breathy, fractured moans that echo off tile walls. Now it’s the sound of his name thatleaves your lips like a prayer. Now it’s the sheen of sweat that covers both of you. Now it’s nails scraping down his back, tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck.

(And Jimin won’t tell you this, but those red welts are proof that this is real, this happened, and later on when he’s alone, when his mind is working overtime, he’ll look at them and he’ll smile. Because they’re real. Because this happened.)

Now, it’s the way blue becomes his favorite color. Because he can see his reflection in the mirror as he unravels and comes to his own demise as he spills inside of you; can see the fluorescent lights reflecting off the hue of his hair.

Jimin’s hair is blue when he realizes he’s in love with you.

[34.6037° S, 58.3816° W | Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA]

Jimin is blond when Namjoon sends you to South America.

The details had been scarce: a diplomatic advisor with a rap sheet of human rights violations that have been continuously swept under the rug and his equally-corrupt lawyer. A candid photograph paperclipped to another manila folder, Namjoon a fan of all those old cliches. Likes being a little cheeky that way when he can get away with it, because god knows he can’t get away with much, doesn’t have much of a sense of humor.

It’s a simple job. You and Jimin will have it dealt with in a matter of hours. Less if you’re lucky and the universe is agreeable. But the humidity sticks to your skin, has sweat seeping into your clothes and rolling down your temples, and if there’s one thing you can’t stand it’s the heat. Makes it hard to think. And Namjoon—Namjoon, who makes sure all of his agents want for nothing—is a cheap bastard. Rarely approves nice lodging, says it’s too risky despite your arguments to the contrary, that people don’t care what you do when you have money, so you’re stuck in some shithole motel room with an aircon unit that keeps blowing out stale, warm air.

And maybe you shouldn’t, maybe you should be more cognizant of Jimin and all his feelings, but it’s fucking hot, so you peel your shirt over your head and undo the button of your pants. Sit on the edge of the bed and try to think about anything other than the temperature, how it’s starting to prick uncomfortably at your skin.

Jimin clears his throat, keeps his eyes glued to the disgusting carpet. “Got a text from Seokjin-ssi,” he says, words strained. “Looks like they’ll be solo jobs.”

You groan. Leave it to Seokjin to change the plan at the last minute. “Tell Kim Seokjin he’s a useless piece of shit.”

“Done. Anything else?”

“Tell Kim Namjoon if he ever sends us to South America in the summer again I’ll kill him myself.”

Jimin has a laugh like an anodyne. A laugh that takes all those broken, bleeding parts of you and soothes over them like a balm. “Seokjin-ssi says he’s not passing along that particular message.”

“Tell him he’s a bitch, then.”

“He’ll kill me if I say that.”

“He hasn’t done field work in years and he’s probably too vitamin D deficient to leave the basement. He couldn’t even kill a fucking rat.”

There’s another laugh. More forced, less tinkling. You recognize it right away, the sound of anxiety. Solo jobs aren’t common for the two of you. For Yoongi and Taehyung, sure, but not you and Jimin. You’re a team for a reason, and though you’re more than capable of getting this done and out of the way, it doesn’t feel right. Settles in your gut like something rotten, knowing you’ll be without Jimin.

And you know he’s thinking it, too. How he turns the burner over and over in his hands, as if there’s some combination of words he can send back to Seoul to get Seokjin and Namjoon to reconsider. Plans don’t change often; not like this, anyway. These have been declared solos for a reason, and that’s a thought you can’t linger on too long.

“Are they leaving it up to us?” Jimin nods, still not meeting your eye. “Do you have a preference?”

He shrugs, tossing the phone on the small table in the corner. Nothing else to be done. “Not really. What do you think?”

“Nah, don’t care, either. Just toss me one.”

Santiago Aguirre… 47 years old… Resides in a high-rise luxury apartment in Retiro…

Your eyes skim the file, study the black and white photograph of the lawyer. Read over the list of all his high-profile, degenerate clients and all their high-profile crimes. You read about the previous attempts on his life, the seemingly never-ending list of people who want him dead. Your eyes go back to his photograph, frowning at the smug look on his face. What stares back at you is a man who thinks he’s invincible, who thinks a penthouse apartment on the top floor and a security team in the lobby means he’s impervious to harm. A man who has made money off people just like him: dirty, corrupt, hands stained red.

“Okay?” Jimin asks, looking up from his own file.

He’s so striking. So safe. And you know what he’s done, giving you the hit he thinks is easier, willing to risk himself on a solo mission to ensure you make it out. There’s no guarantees in this line of work, in life in general, but Jimin’s brand of selfless love is certainly one.

So you just nod, knowing someone slimy like this can quickly go sideways, and decide you can do the same.

“I’m gonna get ready,” you say. “The plan is the same as all the other solo jobs. Get in, get it done, get out as quickly as possible. Lay low. Don’t come straight back here.”

Jimin rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “Anything else?”

You exhale. Try to quiet the nerves roiling in your stomach. Barely resist the urge to press a lingering kiss to Jimin’s forehead before you swallow hard and say, “Yeah. Stay alive.”

It comes out more like a plea.

—

You’re good at your job.

Rarely feel much guilt over it, either, which—well, you’re not sure what that means. That something is permanently broken in your psyche, probably. Being able to take life so easily and without remorse. It’s not natural.

Kim Namjoon is a man who plays God, is the one who decides who gets to live and who has to die. His word is the only law you adhere to. And that’s… that’s something. Makes it less burdensome, takes some weight off, because Kim Namjoon wouldn’t accept a morally-ambiguous job. He wouldn’t ask you to put your life on the line for some petty bullshit.

This is how you’ve lived for the last four years. Four years of blindly following Namjoon’s word, of being a good little soldier and doing whatever is asked of you. Four years of being responsible for not only your own life, but Jimin’s as well, just as he is for yours. Four years that have served you well, all things considered.

Until now.

Something about this job hits you hard. Doesn’t settle quite as quickly as the ones that have come before. For the first time, you’d looked down at the lifeless body at your feet and couldn’t stop the trembling, could barely quell the nausea. Thought what the fuck am I doing, what kind of life is this for the first time. Thought back to that day four years ago when Kim Namjoon saved your life and offered you a job and wondered, for the first time, what would’ve happened if you’d said no.

Now, as you suck on a cigarette, legs dangling off the roof of a building looking not far from collapse, a new thought:

Would Namjoon let you go if you asked?

He’s taken care of you. For four years you’ve wanted for nothing. Have socked away more money than you’ll ever be able to spend, even if you live to a thousand. You could go anywhere, become anyone, and no one would suspect a thing. There’d just be you and a million lifetimes’ worth of transgressions, alone under the weight of all that burden; alone, except for all the ghosts that come to greet you every time you close your eyes.

Doesn’t matter. Namjoon might be willing to let you go, give you the chance to salvage something from this life in the name of normalcy, but Yoongi would gladly put a bullet in your head before he let you disappear with all his secrets.

Doesn’t matter.

You stub out the cigarette and put the butt in your pocket. Make your way down to the street. Stay under the shadows—just visible enough to redirect any suspicion shot your way. You pretend to take a call, flawless Argentinian Spanish falling from your lips as you tell the imaginary person on the other end all about your fucked up day at work. How your manager never gets off your ass, doesn’t trust you, thinks you’re too fucking stupid to run a simple executable.

No one spares you a second glance.

Not here, on this nondescript street in a nondescript Argentinian neighborhood, and not when you stumble into the tiny lobby of your shithole motel. The poor kid behind the desk doesn’t even glance up, just mutters a good evening, miss under his breath that you return in a voice far too high-pitched to be your own.

Better to be seen and be unremarkable than draw attention to yourself trying to stay invisible, you figure.

The cameras in the stairwell are broken so you take the steps two at a time. Pull the room key from its place inside your boot, happy to no longer have it digging into your skin. Pause just long enough to make sure you don’t hear anything on the other side of the door before you’re unlocking it with your free hand wrapped around the trigger of your gun.

It’s empty.

Of course it is.

Jimin stashed the burner in a place no one but you would think to look. You text one simple word to Seokjin—Hey!—and you get two in return: Who’s this?

You know who it is, you fucking dickhead.

It takes a few seconds, but the reply is a simple—

Sorry.

Then you toss aside the phone and float in the darkness of the room. There’s nothing to do but wait, because you don’t dare to do anything alone. There’s sweat and blood and fuck knows what else stuck to your skin, your hair, but you can’t risk taking a shower. Can’t risk the water dampening your senses. Can’t risk being cornered in a moldy bathroom, only one way out. Can’t risk doing anything alone. Can’t take a fucking shower.

It’s this thought, more than anything else, that has your body flushing with rage.

What kind of life is this?

Namjoon had never mentioned repaying your debt. He’d never insinuated you owed him anything at all for saving your life, but you know something like that never comes for free. Namjoon doesn’t do anything just because. Has no goodness in his heart to do anything in the name of it. Watching Jimin nearly die in front of him had been the exception to his usual nature; a rare slip-up by an otherwise detached, uncaring man.

Still, whatever you owe him has surely been repaid by now. Tenfold, if the bloodstains along your collar are anything to go by.

It’s time for Namjoon to let you go.

—

Something is wrong.

Two hours have ticked by and there’s no word from Jimin. No word from Namjoon or Seokjin, either, which is the only reason you’re still in this nauseating motel room and not out on the streets searching for him. Solo jobs don’t go like this. The two of you are always in and out, tragically efficient. Back to where you started and then back on a plane, nothing left behind except a singular bullet hole and another fragmented piece of your conscience.

You’ve had a lot of jobs go wrong, but never two hours.

You’re about three minutes from coming out of your skin. Sick to your stomach with worry, anxiety weighing you down like an anchor. You wouldn’t be able to go out searching for Jimin like this even if you could, and there’s no point in dwelling on that, examining it further. All you can do is wait.

It’s another hour before you hear the click of the lock. You’re nearly on your knees in relief, but you stay rooted to the flimsy mattress. Try not to think about how you’ll have to sleep on it, even though you’ll be up half the night with residual worry. All those lingering ghosts.

Jimin doesn’t say anything, so neither do you.

[55.6761° N, 12.5683° E | Copenhagen, DENMARK]

Jimin’s hair is orange when you go to Copenhagen.

Not for a job, just to breathe. You wanted to see the city at Christmastime; Jimin’s never been.

You crack a joke. Point out buildings of similar color, have him stand in front of one as you take a picture. Everyone smiles when they pass the two of you on the street, Jimin’s eyes fond even though he rolls them as you pose him how you want. Still stands against an apricot-colored wall and flashes a smile and a peace sign, cheeks pink from the cold. Does a good job of pretending the two of you aren’t here just for fun, that this is something more.

It’s not.

The two of you fucked in a hotel room in Reykjavik and haven’t spoken a word of it since.

You nearly lost your mind over him in Buenos Aires and haven’t spoken a word of that, either.

Instead, his hand finds yours as the two of you walk around Tivoli Gardens. You marvel at the lights and Jimin marvels at you. You share mulled wine and spiced doughnuts. Jimin tries to drag you on the swings but you plant your feet and refuse, laughing through your refusals. As dangerous as your lives are, motion sickness might be the most. He gets his revenge and poses you in front of a giant nutcracker, then again in front of one of the endless Christmas trees.

Jimin pays for the two of you to decorate honey cakes. You’re surrounded by families with shrieking children and palpable adoration, and it’s all you can do not to wonder if anyone you’ve taken out had ever had something like this. Something that makes your soul warm; something that still lingers in your bones years later.

The two of you take a selfie when it starts to snow. It stings when you have no one to send it to, so it just lives in your phone. Maybe it’s enough.

On another day, Jimin holds your hand through Torvehallerne. This time you marvel at him while he marvels at all the food, eyes wide each time he turns to ask if he should buy something. You always say yes and he always shares, and it’s all you can do not to think about why you don’t have to budget yourselves. Why you’re able to walk through the market and buy whatever you want; how you could buy every item for sale and it wouldn’t make a dent.

(You pick up small trinkets for Taehyung and Jungkook. Not because you want to, but because it feels nicer than remembering that you have no one to buy gifts for. Not really. Not anymore.)

Jimin wants to ice skate, so you do. He holds your hand then, too. More out of necessity than anything else, and he has none of his usual grace. Someone hands you a free cup of hot chocolate, just because. Jimin pouts and then it’s his hot chocolate. It’s all you can do not to kiss away the whipped cream on the corner of his mouth.

Back in your lavish hotel, after countless days have blurred together and Jimin’s fresh from a shower, skin flushed, you finally ask yourself if it’s worth putting up such a fight. If it’s really all that bad to care for Jimin and be cared for in return. If it’s all that bad to be someone else, just for a little while: someone with a normal life who makes a normal living and has a normal capability to love. Someone who isn’t damaged beyond repair.

That will never be you. Not fully, and certainly not in this lifetime, but maybe it could be, a little.

“Jimin,” you say, because you need to try. Jimin loves you in ways you’ll never understand, and you want to be better for him. “We should talk.”

Your voice is small and hesitant, and Jimin hates it. Sees trouble where there’s only vulnerability, so he misreads. Shakes his head. Takes a risk and stands between your legs at the edge of the bed—yours, because there’s two—as he tilts your head back, thumbs pressing into the contours of your cheeks. The scar still sits in the hollow of your throat, and that version of you feels so far away. That life feels so far away.

There’s no violence here. There’s no blood, no fugues. There’s just you and Jimin, whose voice is small like yours when he shakes his head and says, “You should kiss me instead.”

The second time is nothing like the first.

Jimin moves delicately. Feels like silk lace, tastes like spun sugar. Moves both his mouth and his body fluidly, no hesitation, yet he still takes his time. Still pauses to look at you with endless devotion; with awed reverence. Makes a map of your body and marks all his favorite places with his lips.

“Tell me what you want,” he says. Speaks the words against the skin just beneath your ear. “Anything. I’ll give you whatever you want, just have to ask.”

What you want isn’t tangible, isn’t possible, so you stay quiet. Thread your fingers through Jimin’s hair, gasp when he mouths along the column of your throat. Jimin reserves all his softness for you. Bathes you in it. Would kill anyone to keep it that way.

So you say, “Want your mouth,” and let slip a quiet moan when he gives you what you’ve asked for. When he situates himself between your thighs and sucks and licks until you’re writhing, making a mess, grasping fruitlessly at the sheets, his hair, his shoulders, only calming when his hands find yours and your fingers interlock.

Jimin mouths at you until you’re trembling. Until you’re needy and desperate, hips moving on their own, fucking yourself against his face. Until nothing exists except the heat in your belly, the stars behind your eyelids, the heady, fucked-out sound of Jimin’s voice as he talks you through it, murmurs praise against your cunt.

Jimin mouths at you until you forget.

This isn’t your life. This is not something you can have.

But, in the grand scheme of things, what does it matter? You’ve made peace with death, and there’s only one of two ways it’s going to come for you in the end: by Namjoon’s hand or someone else’s. So what does it matter?

This time, Jimin fucks you slow. Kisses you with your taste still in his mouth. Thumbs over a hardened nipple just to see what earns him a reaction, and what you truly want is more time—something else that’s impossible.

Jimin’s hair is orange when you think you might be in love with him.

[ 48.8566° N, 2.3522° E | Paris, FRANCE ]

Jimin’s hair is pink when—

“Sit,” he says, gesturing to the toilet.

Soaks a washcloth in warm water. Wrings it out. Stands in front of you, and there’s water dripping onto the floor and Jimin doesn’t care, doesn’t seem to see anything in this moment except for you, your hands covered in someone else’s blood, and he reaches out, gently grabs your wrist. Palm up. Someone else’s blood. Everything smells like copper and iron. Looks too surreal beneath the fluorescent lights of this hotel bathroom for your mind to make sense of it.

There is care in the way Jimin cleans your hands. There is tenderness in the way he both refuses to see what you really are and the way he’s the only one to ever see you so entirely, when you look down at the blood he’s washing away and all you can see is stigmata. When all you see is sin.

“I know you don’t love me,” he says, and there is a conviction in his words that stuns you into silence. “Not the way I love you, anyway.”

That tenderness is still there as he says this. As he presses the wet fabric into the meat of your palm, wipes the stains away, and the warmth is as calming as it is undeserved. It feels like something forbidden. It feels like salvation and condemnation all at once, like whatever sick depravity permeates you is contagious, will take over Jimin, too, just from touching you.

Jimin is close enough to reach out and touch. Close enough to see the violence that he exists in alongside you: the rips in his clothes, the scars that decorate his skin. Close enough to know he smells sickly-sweet, just like death. Your hand shakes as it reaches for him and never follows through. Doesn’t want to contaminate him.

“I do,” you finally say. Whatever is in your voice is not conviction. “I can’t.” You suck in a breath, try to steady your breathing. This is where it all comes crashing down, you think, because in all the years you’ve done Namjoon’s bidding, you’ve never cried. You can take life so freely and without thought, but you cannot love Jimin. “Someone like me isn’t capable of it.”

Jimin pauses, the washcloth stuck in the space between your ring and middle fingers. “And who is someone like you?”

Water is still dripping to the floor. Serosanguineous: blood tainting something untouched. Not something one thing or another but both, watery-pink. Looks like Jimin’s hair. “I’ve killed a lot of people,” you answer. “More than I can count. More than I can name. More than the ones that come to haunt me at night.” Your free hand moves to your chest, covers your heart. “There’s nothing here, Jimin. I’m not sure there ever was.”

The washcloth drops to the floor, and all that blood belonging to a man whose name you never bothered to learn before you put a bullet between his eyes finds a new place to rest. “I think,” he begins, clasping your unclean hand in his own, voice dropping to a whisper, “you forget, sometimes.” You gasp as he places your palm to his cheek, drags it across his face, smears a stranger’s blood across his skin. “That we’re the same.”

Jimin is always overwhelming, but the love he has for you is even more so. It consumes you entirely, embeds itself beneath your skin, makes a home, would tear you apart, body and soul, to return to him.

[ 47.4979° N, 19.0402° E | Budapest, HUNGARY ]

Jimin’s hair is lavender when it all goes to shit.

“You’re being followed.”

Seokjin’s voice is garbled through the earpiece, tinny and metallic, and you roll your eyes. Some things don’t need to be said, because you’ve known someone was following you for the last three blocks. Average height, black peacoat, close-cropped haircut. Not the kind of person that’d stand out here, and that’s exactly why you’d sent Jimin in the other direction.

“No shit,” you respond in Hungarian, because you already know the man following you doesn’t speak or understand it. “Give me somewhere to go.”

It takes Seokjin a few moments to run the translation. “There’s a side street up on your right,” he answers. “It’s tight, but there’s an alleyway at the end. You can buy some time if you’re quick.”

“Where’s Jimin?”

You pass a vendor selling lángos and duck into the street behind the stall. Just as Seokjin had said, there’s a small alleyway up on the left, and your footfall is near-silent as you break into a sprint to reach it. “Safe,” is all Seokjin says.

You take a second to steady your breathing, knowing you’re good on time—the man following you was close enough to know where you’d turned, but, if you’re lucky, not much after that. That plays on a loop: if you’re lucky, if you’re lucky, if you’re lucky. What is luck, what does it look like, in a life left entirely to chance? In a life with no guarantees?

You tuck yourself away, focus on Seokjin’s metallic breaths. Think about his basement in Seoul, why he’s in it. Ask, “What happened in Addis Ababa?” because it feels important to know.

There’s not much you know about Seokjin’s life. Whatever happened in Ethiopia had been before your time, reduced to hushed whispers and gossip fodder after your arrival. No one spoke of it, Seokjin especially, but every now and then something would slip in the same way weeds grow in sidewalk cracks.

A job gone wrong. A bombing at the consulate with Seokjin inside.

His reply is simple, words spoken carefully: “I loved someone once, too.”

He can’t see it, but you nod nonetheless; an answer that doesn’t require a response, because you know. It’s enough to fill in the rest. What Seokjin’s trauma looks like. Why he doesn’t do field work anymore. Why he prefers the solitude of the basement, rarely a sound beyond the electric thrum of the server racks.

Who had gone in to retrieve him, and why Yoongi has the scar over his eye.

“You loved someone,” you conclude, “and he would’ve been willing to die for you.”

“Yes,” Seokjin says, and it’s like the word’s been punched out of him. Sounds like something repressed, something left to rot in the darkest corner of the world.

Love, to Seokjin, looks and sounds the same as death.

“I think most people spend their entire lives searching for a love like that,” he continues, and if you could see him you think he might look dazed, off-kilter. You think he might be an avatar. Seokjin is prying his ribcage apart, unwrapping the barbed wire from his heart, saying I once was in love and this is all I know of it. “But, to me, in this life, it’s a prison. Once someone is willing to die for you, how do you keep them alive? How do you—I kissed that skin. I worshiped it. I pressed my lips to it with whatever softness was left in me. How do you look at that same skin and know you’re the reason it’s mangled?” He exhales, all tremor. “You can’t. You can’t.”

You know this all too well. You know what it feels like to look at Jimin and know, intrinsically and subconsciously, that you wouldn’t even hesitate. You’d take and give life to keep him alive and safe. You know that when you exit this world at someone else’s hand his face is the last thing you want to see.

You know it’s a liability.

You know it’s a target painted on your back. Between your eyes.

You know there’s nothing left to say, that this particular conversation has run its course. The two of you sit in an amicable silence, and you hope Seokjin can hear the life that surrounds you, however mundane. Hope he can hear the lángos vendor trying to hawk his goods; hope he can hear a city 8,000 kilometers away; hope he can hear these regular, everyday people going about their lives and remember there’s hope beyond his four walls.

I think you’d like it here, you think, but you don’t dare to say it aloud.

Time passes in a meaningless blur. Could be minutes, could be hours. No one’s come to kill you, so you reckon you’ve long since been in the clear. And maybe it speaks to Seokjin’s idea that love is a prison, because you know something’s happened to Jimin long before Seokjin speaks it into existence.

You’re up and out of the alleyway before you’re told to move. Have no idea where you’re going, but you’re racing through the streets of Budapest with a panic you haven’t ever felt in your life. Feels like quicksand; feels like molasses; feels like you have to wade through all the blood you’ve spilled, now congealed, to get to him.

“Where am I going?” you demand. Your lungs are on fire. In the split-second of silence it becomes a desperate scream. “Seokjin, tell me where the fuck I’m going!”

“The—fuck, the wa-warehouse up on your right.” You can’t think about why he’s crying. “I don’t—I don’t know wha-what’s there, you need to be careful. Please, you have to—”

Twenty seconds and you’ll be there, you’ll be with Jimin, you just need to keep running. You need to keep your head on straight. Remember your training. Remember you’ve built a life in a viper pit.

A man in a uniform is unloading a shipment around the back of the building. Faces away from you, bent at the waist. Takes very little effort to smash his head into the stone exterior and knock him unconscious, pocket his badge. You can’t get stupid now. Tell Seokjin to make sure all the cameras are cut, ask what floor when you shut yourself inside the freight elevator, unwilling to take the stairs and run into anyone who might be waiting. All the way to the top, he says, so all the way to the top you go.

—

Over the course of your life, you’ve made peace with death. Have stared it in the eye more times than you can count. Have dealt it out, evaded it, shook its hand.

You are wholly unprepared for the sight that greets you.

Red. Everything is red—the walls, the floor, what used to be a beautiful parquet pattern in the wood. In the center of the room: two bodies, maybe three. Not much that’d be able to identify them beyond a pile of teeth, no saying whose is whose. Slaughterhouse scraps.

And this is not—Jimin doesn’t work this way. Isn’t his MO. Jimin’s kills are elegant and neat, topped with a bow. What you see before you is ultraviolence. It is unhinged, it is fury, it is a complete loss of control. It’s what love looks like to Jimin, because he sits at the very edge of a rotted chair, legs crossed. Face streaked with blood, clothes covered in it.

“Jimin,” you say, because what else is there?

He tilts his head to the side, smirks a little, looks at you beneath his lashes. Eyes that used to find you across a room and calm you. Eyes that have locked onto you in the throes of pleasure. Eyes you’ve seen yourself reflected in, bathed in love and adoration.

Eyes that now contain nothing.

“Jimin, what the fuck happened?”

He removes his gloves with his teeth and doesn’t flinch away from the taste of iron. “They said they hurt you,” he states simply, “so I did what needed to be done.”

“What—” Nausea claws at your throat; for the first time, it’s all too much. This isn’t Jimin. This isn’t your Jimin, who smiled as you posed him against apricot walls in Copenhagen, who took a bullet to the stomach to protect you and never, ever told you. This is not the Jimin who wasted the last of his goodwill on loving you. “What did you do?” you whisper.

He rises to full height and it makes you flinch. You are scared of Jimin for the first time in your life: scared of who he is in this moment, what he’s capable of. And he sees it, lets that brand of anguish overtake him. Reaches for you before he decides against it and lets his hand drop to his side. Says, “I would never hurt you,” as if the words could brand themselves into your skin so you’d never forget.

“No, you’d just—” You squeeze your eyes shut. Don’t think about how one of the men nearly embedded into the floor was the one trailing you earlier.

Instead, you think about Seokjin: Once someone is willing to die for you, how do you keep them alive? You think about: How do you look at that same skin and know you’re the reason it’s mangled? You think about: In this life, it’s a prison.

You drop to your knees. Let the blood seep through your clothes and into your skin, undeserving of shying away from it.

Namjoon should’ve let you go.

You think about the men in front of you. Who they were, who they loved. The grief all of this is going to leave behind, and it becomes impossible to breathe. You grasp at your throat, think about all the times you’ve been strangled and who’d been there to cut the rope. There is no limit to Jimin’s devotion, and you understand now, how it drove Yoongi to madness. How he loved someone so much he would’ve retrieved their corpse from a building and how that same person can no longer bear to look at the damage they’d caused.

“This isn’t love, Jimin,” you choke out.

He stands in front of you. Stigmata. You’re worshiping at the altar of some kind of devil. At least his hands are clean when he places his fingers beneath your chin, forces you to look up at him. “What is it, then?”

“Destruction.”

A quiet huff of cruel laughter. “See, this is the difference between me and you, darling.” He takes back his hand, runs it through his blood-streaked hair, and your chin sags to your chest without his support. “Because I already knew that. Because I have destroyed myself every single day loving you.” He squats down, eye-level, and he says, “I need you to listen to me when I say this, sweetheart: you do not love me the way I love you, because I would do worse. When it comes to you, there is nothing on this earth I would not destroy to keep you safe.”

He clears his throat. Collects whatever’s in his mouth and spits onto one of the bodies. “If this is enough to have you tucking your fucking tail between your legs, then go, because this doesn’t even scratch the fucking surface.”

You can’t bring yourself to say anything, and sometimes that says it all.

Jimin presses a kiss to the top of your head. Makes a call. Cleaners will be here soon, he says, better get going.

You watch him go.

[ 37.5665° N, 126.9780° E | Seoul, SOUTH KOREA ]

Jimin’s hair is black when Namjoon calls the meeting.

He takes the seat across from Namjoon’s desk because they don’t meet like this often. Assignments are usually manila folders slipped under doors, hushed whispers in hallways confirmed with a nod or a text on a burner phone. Assignments are not last-minute assemblies in conference rooms and offices.

But the way Namjoon is looking at him, with his clenched jaw and a gaze that’s meant to look barbed to anyone who doesn’t actually know him—Jimin doesn’t need to ask what this is about.

Had he bothered to look, he would’ve known by the way you stood in the far corner of the room, face obscured by the mid-afternoon shadows. Yoongi’s close to you, for some reason: dressed head to toe in black, perched on a lateral file cabinet, using a metal corner to sharpen his switchblade. Just like a harbinger of death. Some sort of fucked up omen, a warning that’s come too late.

Didn’t I tell you this would end badly, he hears Yoongi taunt in his head. This is what happens when you lay with trash.

Easy for Yoongi to say when he doesn’t know what it means to be cared for by you. Doesn’t know how it feels to give in to the freefall and plummet at your feet, stripped back and laid bare. Doesn’t know how it feels to kiss secrets into your skin like constellations, to map his tongue along every unspoken confession.

Easy for Yoongi to say, because he doesn’t have to survive the aftermath. Doesn’t have to feel the heartbreak, the agony of having you and watching as you slip through his fingers. Yoongi doesn’t have to struggle just to breathe, doesn’t have to endure the nights staring at the ceiling, watching as the daylight creeps into the corners of his vision. Doesn’t have to watch you looking so unaffected.

“Jimin.” Namjoon’s tone is flat, needlelike.

Behind him, Yoongi chuckles lowly. “What?” Jimin asks, his gaze trained on the painting behind Namjoon’s head. Looks like one he’d seen in Berlin, the time the two of you had gone just because and spent an afternoon ducking in and out of museums to escape the rain.

When he closes his eyes, he still sees the raindrops stuck to your eyelashes. The beads of water rolling off the sleeves of your leather jacket. How blinding your smile had been. The laughter in your voice as you ordered beer after beer after beer for the two of you in flawless Berlinisch. A brief, fleeting glimpse at normalcy. At the kind of life the two of you could have if you were just… different. Lived different lives. Were different people.

“You’ve gotten sloppy.”

Namjoon’s words are a cold bucket of water. Snap him back to reality, yank him back to the present where he’s forced to leave those river-lined streets behind. You’re silent and Yoongi’s still snorting laughter. “Okay,” is all Jimin can bring himself to say.

Jin had gotten sloppy once, too, and Namjoon stuck him down in the basement to work logistics. Might not be so bad, Jimin reckons. He’d be away from you, spared of this fucking misery. “So you know that’s unacceptable.”

Jimin just shrugs, resigned to his fate, whatever it may be. “I’m reassigning the both of you,” Namjoon continues. “You’ll both have new partners for your next assignments, since you clearly can no longer be trusted together.”

“Who?” Jimin manages to choke out.

Namjoon raises an eyebrow, clearly having expected an argument. “You’re being sent to Shanghai with Jungkook. You,” he says, turning his attention to you, “are going to Moscow with Taehyung.”

She’s fond of Taehyung, Jimin wants to say. But you’d been fond of him too, once upon a time, and that’d only ended in heartbreak, so who fucking cares.

They’re cruel, the tricks Jimin’s mind plays on him. How he convinces himself you look pained. How his fingers wring together at the thought of entrusting his life in the hands of someone else, someone new. At your life being just as at stake; at Taehyung being tasked with keeping you alive. Would you die for him, too, the way you’d always told Jimin you would for him? Would Taehyung take a bullet to the stomach to keep you safe the way Jimin had?

Even more cruel is the way you scoff, pushing yourself off of the wall as you fold your arms across your chest and say, “That’s bullshit, Kim Namjoon.”

No one talks to Namjoon that way except you.

Yoongi’s knife stops twirling. Just like a bird sensing a storm, senses on high-alert as he flicks his gaze over to you. “I’m sorry?” Namjoon says. “What part of Jimin losing his mind and nearly outing all of us seems like bullshit to you?”

“Hm, let me think,” you retort, a manicured finger tapping against the hollow of your cheek. “The part where you’re reassigning me for someone else’s mistake?”

Which part was the mistake? Jimin wants to ask. Needs to know how much you regret. Was sleeping with you the mistake? Falling in love with you? Getting too caught up in all these daydreams and letting reality get away from him?

“This organization is more important than Park Jimin getting his goddamn dick wet,” Namjoon snaps. “Keeping all of you safe—keeping you alive—is more—”

You scoff. Take an entire container of gasoline and pour it right on top of Namjoon’s flammable ire. “Then perhaps you’d be so kind as to explain to me why Min fucking Yoongi can fuck damn near everyone in this establishment, yet I have to sit here and listen to your goddamn mouth—”

Jimin doesn’t think Yoongi even knows his arm is moving.

There’d just been the trading of barbed words. His own name being spoken into the ether. Yoongi’s arm moving away from his body, switchblade clasped tightly between his fingers as he plunges it into your flesh.

Jimin watches it puncture your arm in slow motion. Feels the bile in his throat, the heat in his belly. Looks first at Namjoon whose jaw has gone slack, skin pale, as he stammers over words that won’t come. Then he looks at Yoongi—expects to find shock or guilt but finds only a muted disinterest and flared nostrils.

Finally, he looks at you. Watches the white cotton sleeve of your shirt slowly turn red and sticky-wet. Watches as your lips move around syllables and vowels and consonants Jimin can’t decipher.

“—fucking piece of shit, this is my favorite shirt! I’ll never get all this goddamn blood out of it—”

Jimin thinks he hears Yoongi say you deserve it. But Jimin isn’t really thinking much as he clambers out of his chair and moves in Yoongi’s direction. Doesn’t think at all as he lets instinct take over, lets adrenaline steer him headfirst into yet another bad idea.

He’s always known there’d come a day he’d be face-to-face with the sight of your blood. Had always known it’d come from someone else’s hand. Had always promised himself that hurting you would be the last thing anyone ever did.

Jimin has his fingers wrapped around Yoongi’s throat and he finally understands it—the joy Yoongi finds in taking life.

“What’s the matter, Jimin-ah?” Yoongi taunts. Jimin tightens his grip. Suddenly hates that fucking scar across Yoongi’s eye. “You’re never on clean-up duty. Always make your girlfriend do the dirty work. Finally grew some fucking balls, huh?”

“Fuck you,” Jimin says stupidly. Can’t think of anything more to say. Not that he needs to. Wrapping your hands around someone’s throat sends enough of a message, he thinks.

Namjoon’s still tongue-tied as you yank Yoongi’s blade from your arm, immediately pressing your other hand over the wound to stem the bleeding. The sight of your blood is making Jimin dizzy; the smell of the iron hanging in the air. All he wants to do is choke the life out of the man in front of him, but more than that, he just wants to hold your hand. Wants to comfort you, even though he knows you don’t need it. Not from him, not from anyone, but he still wants to. Wants to press his lips to the sweat at your brow.

And Yoongi can see it, too, because he starts laughing. It’s an odd, fractured noise. Jimin isn’t sure if he’s ever heard him laugh before, decides he also hates the way it sounds. Feels all wrong watching it leave his crooked smirk. Makes Jimin’s stomach plummet to the ground.

“Oh, you’re fucked, aren’t you?” Yoongi teases around Jimin’s slackened grip. “You weren’t just fucking her, you’re in love with her.”

Weird how Jimin is the one with his hands around someone’s neck and feels like he’s the one suffocating.

[ 31.2304° N, 121.4737° E | Shanghai, CHINA ]

Jimin watches the life drain from an innocent woman’s face and feels nothing.

Jimin watches Jungkook cut a man down and feels even less.

When it’s over, he cleans up wordlessly and doesn’t eat for three days.

[ 37.5665° N, 126.9780° E | Seoul, SOUTH KOREA ]

Jimin’s hair has faded to brown by the time he returns from Shanghai.

The more complicated job had gone to you and Taehyung. Jimin had tried not to take it personally. The Russian hits are always unnecessarily violent and Jungkook still isn’t fully trained. There’s still a phantom pain in Jimin’s stomach that warns him of the consequences of taking on more than he can chew. So, sure, Shanghai had gone fine, but his mind had been nearly 7,000 kilometers away the entire time.

Good thing he’d returned to Seoul unscathed, too, because he’s sure Namjoon would’ve eliminated him without a moment’s hesitation if he’d fucked up again.

But Shanghai had only served to prove the leader right. Jimin can’t work with you anymore. Can’t focus, can’t stomach the violence, can’t keep his goddamn head on straight.

He sighs as he glances at Jungkook to his right. Jimin had watched him murder two men in cold blood not even thirty-six hours ago and now he’s doe-eyed and sucking down his third banana milk of the morning. It really makes his head spin, being paired with this grown-up infant of a man now instead of you, but for all of Jungkook’s apparent shortcomings, he’d kept Jimin alive. He isn’t dead.

And then you walk in with Taehyung and he wishes he was.

Because you’re laughing and Taehyung’s got his arm slung around your shoulder and you look happy. It’s the kind of happiness that should be contagious, bloom warmth in his chest, but it doesn’t. It just takes the last frayed strand of hope he has and sets flame to it.

You don’t look like you miss Jimin at all. Don’t look like you’ve lost sleep or skipped meals.

“Didn’t take you long, did it?” Jimin says, because he’s wounded and lashing out. Not because he means it.

You must know he doesn’t, too, because you don’t react. “Watch your mouth, Park Jimin,” Taehyung warns, because he doesn’t know, and this only sets Jimin off more. You don’t need defending. Or had you, and Jimin had simply thought it wasn’t his place to provide it? That you wouldn’t want it?

“Or what, Kim Taehyung?”

Taehyung is cherubic. It’s part of his charm, one of many reasons why he’s so effective. If you’re looking to die, you look for the guy who looks like Yoongi, not the one who smiles wide and warm like Taehyung. So when he sets his jaw and pokes his tongue into his cheek and says, “Or I’ll cut your fucking head off, you stupid fuck,” your attention is finally piqued.

“I’m so sick of this,” Jungkook wails, banana milk tossed carelessly in the trash. “All of you need to get your fucking shit together!”

Taehyung rolls his eyes at the same time you pretend to inspect your nails. “Is that why you’re so temperamental, Chim?” Taehyung prods, looking every bit the pretentious, murderous angel he is. “Because you got sent to China on a babysitting mission while the grownups did real work?”

“Fuck you,” Jungkook snaps, rising to full height. “I’m not a fucking child.”

“Oh? Could’ve fooled me.” Taehyung’s words are razor-sharp and smell like kerosene. “Tell me, then: were you on babysitting duty? Had to look after our precious little Jiminie while he nursed his broken heart?”

You sigh, full of faux-exasperation, and place a gentle hand on Taehyung’s forearm. Dig your nails in just enough to be a warning, and if Jimin hadn’t been looking he’d miss it: the way Taehyung deflates instantly, anger dissipating like smoke, back in control. Just because you’d touched him. Just because you were there. Jimin knows that touch, how it feels to be under your control, and it makes his chest ache. Makes everything feel like it’s sitting wrong in his stomach, and he’s either going to be sick all over Namjoon’s overpriced fucking rug or wrap his hands around Taehyung’s throat the way he’d done to Yoongi.

He’s out of his goddamned mind; he feels untethered. Helpless. Like it was always going to end like this, and maybe Jimin knew that and had just ignored it. Maybe now he’s paying the price—maybe he’s finally found something he can’t afford.

Jungkook’s still going off, nasty gaze set on Taehyung because he’s the only one playing along. They’re exchanging words Jimin can’t make heads nor tails of. Words he doesn’t care about. Words that ring empty and hollow because they sound nothing like the way you say his name. Shapeless, unlike the way your lips move around those syllables.

“Jimin,” you say, the sound finally registering and bringing him back down to earth. All he can do is stare. “Can we talk?” Taehyung and Jungkook are still trading barbs.

Wonders how he got here. Looks around the room and wonders if each and every one of them is destined for this same fate, this madness. Wants to tell you why he forgot his vest, why he was three hours late in Argentina. Wants to grovel and beg and leave this place and never look back.

More than anything, he wants to know what it feels like to actually be human.

So he shakes his head. Tries not to be haunted by the way your face falls at the rejection.

There is a scar on his abdomen and a scar on your arm that both tell the same story. There is a man in the basement who is in love with a man above ground and is too weighed down by guilt to do anything about it. There is a man here who plays god, has soldiers to do his bidding, and there is very little here that Jimin has only for himself.

The two of you will have that conversation, but he needs to be human, first.

[ 34.6901° N, 135.1956° E | Kobe, JAPAN ]

This is a waste of your fucking time.

Whatever Namjoon had thought would be here doesn’t seem to exist. Yoongi can barely tolerate you on a good day, threatens to stick a dagger in your neck at least twice an hour, but the more time the two of you waste chasing ghosts, the closer he comes to unraveling entirely.

“Stop fucking staring at me,” he snaps, blowing the smoke of his cigarette right in your face.

You tut. “But you’re so beautiful, Yoongi, I just can’t help it.”

He digs his switchblade from his boot. Makes a show of flipping it open. “I can cut your fuckin’ eyes out of your skull,” he intones. “Maybe that’ll help.”

In your ear, Jimin’s laughter rings like crystal.

Ricochets off of all the corners of Seokjin’s basement, makes the echo sound warped through the earpiece. “Please tell Yoongi-ssi to keep an eye on the man with the shaved head. In front of him, roughly sixty degrees to his right.”

You relay the message. Watch as Yoongi transforms—sharpened gaze, rigid posture, disappears into the shadows. More apex predator than man. “And me?” you ask.

“Backup,” comes Seokjin’s voice. “We haven’t found your mark yet.”

You hum. Pick up the cigarette Yoongi left behind and stick it between your lips. Smoke it nearly to the filter. “You got it, boss,” you tease, just because it flusters him.

“I’m—that’s not—knock it off.”

Exhale. Stub out the cigarette. Butt in your pocket. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Jimin says, and his voice is soft, sounds like spun sugar. “Stay alive, all right?”

Jimin’s hair isn’t dyed at all.

if you've read this far: thank you so, so much! i am more appreciative than i can put into words. this is very different from what i typically write, but i hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.

i would love to hear your thoughts if you have any. <3

#jimin x reader #jimin smut #bts x reader #bts smut #jimin imagine #jimin scenarios #jimin fanfic #jimin x you #jimin x y/n #bts imagines #bts scenarios #bts fanfic #bts x you #bts x y/n

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hoshifighting · 3 months

Text

Synopsis: In a place where good and evil, angels and demons are divided. The angel Joshua feels enchanted and attracted by the beauty outside of Paradise, governed by you, who is a rebellious angel who lives in worldly certainties.

Joshua! Celestial Angel X Reader! Shadow Angel

Word Count: 5.5k

Warnings: Smut, unprotected sex, oral (m. receiving), fingering (f. receiving), penetrative sex, wings, dark eyes, flying, partly innocent Joshua, sinners, disrespecting the heavenly order bc of love.

In this peculiar realm where opposing forces clashed, the angelic and demonic entities found themselves in a perpetual dance of contradiction. — Day and night, good and bad, right or wrong— You, a being demon with grand black wings and your body draped in silky obsidian fabric, had transitioned from the celestial paradise to the earthly abode. It was a place adorned with greenery, a paradise for humans, yet deemed a hell by the angelic standards.

Your eyes, once accustomed to the pristine skies, now adjusted to the vibrant chaos of this earthly haven. The scent of flowers, the rustle of leaves, and the myriad of colors all around became your new reality.

One day, as you wandered through the arborized paradise, you witnessed an angel sent by the gods, radiant in celestial grace, descend from the heavens. Their mission: to carry out acts of benevolence and rescue the flawed human race from the pitfalls of their own humanity.

Once, you were an angel too, soaring through the celestial expanse with wings as radiant as the morning sun. The rules of paradise, however, felt like constraints on your very essence. The mandate to help the helpless, devoid of personal desires and sensations, left you yearning for something more.

In the heavenly realm, your duties were clear. You mended broken spirits, offered solace to the suffering, and shielded humanity from unseen perils. Yet, as you carried out these acts of benevolence, a part of you longed for the tangible experiences that the gods had chosen to withhold.

In your descent from the celestial heights, the air crackled with the energy of rebellion. The moment your feet touched the earthly ground, you felt the soft embrace of grass beneath you, a stark departure from the ethereal firmament you once called home. The celestial light dimmed as you exchanged the radiant wings for the cloak of shadows, and you marveled at the newfound weight of your choices.

The earthly realm welcomed you with open arms, and you relished the sensations that had been denied to you for so long. The warmth of the sun, the cool breeze, and the fragrant whispers of nature surrounded you, each moment a symphony of earthly delights. As you walked through the arborized paradise, your senses were heightened, and the mundane took on a profound significance.

The angels above, oblivious to your departure, continued their celestial duties. you discovered a different kind of duty – a duty to experience, to explore, and to understand the complexities of existence, discovering uncharted territories of free will.

The wide green grass of the earthly realm spread beneath the azure sky, a canvas of vibrant colors. In this paradisiacal haven, you observed with both amusement and curiosity as angels, once bound by celestial rules, now embraced the newfound freedom, their wings cloaked in shades of darkness.

Among them was Joshua, the paragon of loyalty to the gods. His wings, a radiant expanse of white, glowed in stark contrast to the gathering shadows. As he moved gracefully through the earthly realm, his every action seemed guided by divine purpose.

One day, on the expansive grassy plains, you watched Joshua intervene with gentle precision, preventing a little boy from stumbling. The child, oblivious to the celestial forces at play, continued on his way, and Joshua stood there, a guardian of earthly innocence.

A subtle shiver coursed down Joshua's spine, and cold breezes swept over him as you approached. He turned, his white wings fluttering like a beacon of celestial purity, and met your gaze with a mixture of apprehension and recognition.

"If you're not here to help, I suggest you leave," Joshua declared, his voice unwavering but laced with a hint of tension.

You scoffed, the echoes of rebellion resounding in your words, "This place doesn't belong to you or your gods above. The rules of the celestial paradise have no power here. We're free to embrace the richness of earthly existence, to revel in the balance between light and shadow."

Joshua's eyes reflected the conflict within him, torn between the loyalty to divine orders and the allure of the newfound freedom. "You may have turned away from the gods, but I won't abandon my duty. The balance must be maintained, even if it means standing against those who have forsaken it."

"You defy the gods and abandon your celestial duties for what? The whims of the earthly realm?" he questioned, his wings twitching uncomfortably.

"Is it not clear?" you replied, your own wings casting shadows over the verdant ground. "To experience, to feel, to understand the very essence of existence that was denied to us above. The gods may have favored you, Joshua, but they also imprisoned you in a golden cage."

A moment of tense silence hung in the air before Joshua spoke again, his voice tinged with a mix of frustration and defiance. "You're playing with forces you cannot comprehend. The celestial order must be maintained, even if it means sacrificing personal desires."

The smirk on your face persisted as you nodded negatively, a silent defiance against the old rules that once dictated your every move. With a fluid motion, your wings unfurled, and you took to the air, flying in joyous circles above the lush forest. The freedom, the unrestricted movement, it was a sensation you had longed for, and now, you reveled in it.

Below, Joshua watched your aerial dance, his eyes betraying a longing for the unbridled freedom he had not yet embraced. The desire to soar with you, to feel the wind beneath his own transformed wings, was palpable.

In a playful moment, you pretended to fall, letting your wings come to a sudden stop. The earth rushed up to meet you, but just before impact, you felt gentle arms enveloping you.

As you both landed gracefully, he looked into your eyes, a mix of concern and curiosity reflecting in his gaze. "Why, after all this rebellion, do you persist in being alone?" Joshua asked, his voice carrying a soft undertone.

"I'm not alone. I am free." You tell him, and he lowers his head. "I wish you could feel this freedom too, Joshua," you said, your voice carrying a touch of genuine longing.

With those words, your wings began to work, creating a gust of wind that gently pushed against Joshua. As the currents separated you from his grasp, his once-protective arms now fell to his sides, and he watched as you ascended into the sky.

The verdant canopy of the forest below shrank as you soared higher, leaving Joshua behind. The cool air rushed past you, and the earthly realm unfolded beneath your wings. You glanced back, seeing Joshua below, a silhouette against the backdrop of the vibrant landscape.

His white wings, still pristine and shining, spoke of the loyalty he clung to. Yet, a flicker of yearning shimmered in his eyes, a desire to taste the forbidden freedom that now embraced you.

Days passed without a glimpse of Joshua, and an unusual presence lingered in the dark forest. The other demons tilted their heads in confusion as Joshua, with his glowing bright wings, ventured into the shadowy realm that was more accustomed to beings of darker nature. His desperate search for you seemed to defy the very essence of what angels were meant to be.

Meanwhile, from afar, you sensed Joshua's presence. His purity and celestial aura wafted through the air like an irresistible fragrance. The contrast of his untainted soul against the backdrop of the dark forest made his essence stand out. A voice, silky and enticing, echoed in his ear, "Searching for me?"

Joshua glanced around, his bright wings flickering anxiously in the dim light. The voice beckoned him, growing louder with each passing moment. He followed, seemingly uncoordinated, the sound pulling him deeper into the heart of the forest.

The voice, now clear and seductive, guided Joshua to a serene spot by a river, a cascade providing a soothing background melody. The dense forest closed in, creating a natural barrier around the secluded haven. Joshua hesitated, a mix of fear and anticipation coursing through his veins.

As he stood at the edge of the river, your voice ceased its alluring call. Joshua felt a shiver run down his spine as he turned to face the source of the voice. There, emerging from the river, was your figure, adorned in wet, glistening attire, your wings draped sensuously around your naked body.

Joshua's breath caught in his throat as he beheld your luscious presence, his glowing wings flickering nervously. A distinct gulp resonated in the stillness of the forest as he struggled to compose himself. Your question hung in the air, breaking the silence.

"Why are you here, Joshua?" you asked, your voice a velvet whisper that danced on the edge of the cascading waterfall. The shadows cast by the dense foliage played upon your figure, enhancing the mystery that surrounded you.

Joshua paused, his voice filled with both uncertainty and a deep yearning. "I came looking for answers," he admitted, his gaze meeting yours. "The celestial realms are in chaos, and I can't ignore the call pulling me back. But..." He hesitated, as if struggling to find the right words. "There's something about this, about being here with you, that I can't quite understand."

You tilted your head, your dark eyes locked onto Joshua's, as a mysterious air enveloped the forest. His chin quivered under the intensity of your gaze, and the vulnerability in his eyes revealed a tumultuous inner struggle.

With a graceful movement, you unfurled your wings, their shadowy expanse revealing a body that seemed to glow in the moonlight. The ethereal sight was enough to make Joshua turn away, covering his eyes as if he couldn't bear to witness such an intimate revelation. The celestial rules, the mysteries of the earthly realm, and the lack of answers all converged, leaving him in a state of overwhelming confusion.

You couldn't resist a sly smirk as you traced a hand along his back, your fingers leaving a cold touch that made his wings tremble.

"What answers are you seeking, Joshua?" you asked, your voice a gentle yet probing whisper that hung in the air. He remained turned away, as if the weight of the question and the complexity of the situation made it difficult for him to face you.

Joshua stammered, his words tumbling out in uncertainty. "I-I don't know exactly," he admitted, his voice wavering. "I've been feeling strange, and everything seems... hot."

A sly smirk played on your lips as you inquired further, "And why do you think you feel this way, Joshua?"

His hesitation lingered in the air before he finally confessed, "It's... it's when I think about you."

A soft hum escaped your lips, the sound carrying a mysterious melody. As Joshua turned around, attempting to fix his gaze on your eyes, he found it impossible. Your body, bathed in the moonlight, seemed like a forbidden fruit tempting him with its alluring glow.

He struggled to articulate his thoughts, caught in a web of conflicting emotions. "I... I can't understand it. It's like an allure, a pull that I can't resist. When I see you, when I think about you, everything becomes... different."

Your eyes held a knowing glint as you observed him, the dichotomy of his celestial purity and the earthly desires that now stirred within him unfolded in the charged atmosphere.

"And why are you seeking me?" you asked, your voice a seductive whisper that seemed to echo through the quiet forest.

"I don't know," he admitted, his voice a mixture of vulnerability and desire. "There's something about you, something I can't ignore. It's like you hold the answers to questions I didn't even know I had."

"You're risking more than you realize by searching for these answers," you warned, your voice carrying a note of caution. The forest seemed to hold its breath, as if echoing the weight of the choices that hung in the air.

Joshua nodded, a mixture of determination and desperation in his eyes. "I know," he admitted, his voice filled with a heavy acknowledgment of the stakes involved. "But I can't continue to listen to this voice in my head, this constant tug. I need to figure out what it means, why it leads me to you."

You stepped closer, the distance between you and Joshua narrowing as the air around you became charged with an undeniable energy. For the first time, Joshua didn't flinch; instead, he closed his eyes, feeling your breath against his skin. The atmosphere held a tantalizing mix of anticipation and uncertainty.

Your fingers gently entwined with his, and you guided his hands to trace a path along your neck, down to your breasts brushing your nipples and grabbing them tight, then your waist, and further to your hips. The warmth of your body seemed to seep into his very being, causing a subtle tremor to run through him.

Joshua's breaths came out defeated, without hesitation, you smashed your lips onto his, the kiss born from a fusion of celestial rebellion and earthly desire. Joshua, lost in the tumult of conflicting emotions, didn't even know what he was doing or why his body was growing hotter with each passing moment.

His tongue brushed gently against yours, in that stolen moment, he consumed your alluring lips with a hunger that seemed to emanate from the depths of his being. The forest, draped in shadows and moonlight, bore witness to the intimate exchange between an angel and a demon.

Joshua's hands explored the contours of your heated body, the mystery of your touch captivating him. As his fingers traced over your form, he sought to understand the allure that made your skin feel so intoxicatingly good beneath his touch.

With a firm grip on your waist, he pulled you closer, melding your bodies together in a desperate embrace. The collision of celestial and earthly energies sent shivers through both of you. A moan escaped your lips, a sound that reverberated through the charged air, resonating with the very essence of desire.

Joshua, startled by the unfamiliar sensations that surged within him, sharply inhaled, his breath mingling with yours. His cock twitches inside of his vest and he bites his lips, in confusion and arousal, as the boundaries between light and shadow blurred in the intensity of the moment. "It hurts."

"I'll help you, pretty angel."

As Joshua's vest found its way to the ground, pooling around his feet, you gently laid him on the grass. The vibrant flowers seemed to come alive, surrounding his figure with a lively burst of colors as if nature itself responded to his angelic presence.

He watched you with curious eyes, uncertainty and desire playing out in the depths of his gaze. The teachings of his god echoed in his mind, warning him against revealing his naked body to anyone. Yet, the dark allure in your eyes held a power he couldn't resist.

Your gaze lingered on his exposed form, and a subtle, wicked smile played on your lips. He felt a thrill as you licked your lips, looking at him with a hunger that he never saw before. His hard pink cock looks veiny, tearing precum, while his eyes keep locked on your movements, waiting for your next move curiously.

With parted lips, you let your breath brush his dick, making him quiver. Joshua didn't have an idea about what you were going to do, he just wanted to relieve that thing that kept him hard for so long.

As you press your tongue on his leaking slit, Joshua moans involuntary, you looked so sinful dragging his cock inside of your mouth, cheeks full of his pretty dick. He looks hypnotized, by the way you bob your head on his hard length, your eyes locked with him— that powerful gaze you hold making him blush hard.

You sucked his length hard, and the angel hisses, trying to control his hips as you dive his dick inside of your throat. His cock twitched with pleasure, and you could feel his orgasm approaching, with eyes shut, he moaned continuously, his abdomen trembling trying to hold that sensation that burned his body.

Joshua was the most angelical person below the gods that you ever knew. He walked around with those filled wings, his well structured body hidden by his white vest, and those heavenly eyes— But now he looked so perverse under your touch, his bottom lip bitten between his teeth, his hand holding the measure of your hair, while his cock was buried inside of your mouth.

"Cum inside of my mouth." You whimper, your tongue licking his hard veins.

"C-cum? Inside? C-can I?" He stuttered unsure, he was hearing right? He can actually cum inside of your pretty lips? How did he miss this opportunity for so long?

Beads of cum escape him before you could even answer. The sticky cum, filling your mouth and as a result, leaking by the sides of your mouth. He cries, cries, and cries proud moans of your name, the first pleasure experience running from his toes to his last strand of hair.

His dick stands proudly hard even after he just cummed, and you raise your eyebrow surprised. Joshua still with the remaining pleasure running through his body, raised to kiss you, his tongue fighting yours as he tasted himself on your lips, later, licking the little residue of his cum that lazed on the corner of your mouth.

After the kiss, a newfound determination glinted in Joshua's eyes. Eager to reciprocate the pleasure you had given him, he chewed his lip nervously, unsure of how to proceed. The angelic teachings he had followed never prepared him for sex, or to pleasure someone.

"What's on your mind, Joshua?" you inquired, your voice a sultry whisper that mingled with the rustling leaves.

"I want to pleasure you like you just did for me, but I don't know how," he admitted, the vulnerability in his voice echoing the complexities of his celestial nature.

You reached out, your fingers tracing a gentle path along his cheek.

He took a deep breath, his angelic features reflecting a blend of determination and curiosity. "Guide me, show me what you like," he whispered.

"I want you to do whatever you want''

Joshua, moved by a mixture of desire and uncertainty, took a step back to take a proper look at you. His eyes roamed over your figure, and you could feel the intensity of his gaze like a caress against your skin, laying your back on the ground, that feels soft since your wings made a nest for you to lay.

He spread your legs, his soft fingers finding their way to your sopping cunt, since he saw you naked, it was like he couldn't take his eyes from your pussy. The digits explore your wet folds, and he moans at the feeling of your arousal getting his fingers drenched.

Taking a look at his fingers, glistening with your slick, he shoves his own fingers inside of his mouth, tasting your arousal. You moan at his action, and he closes his eyes, the taste making his cock twitch.

As he opens his eyes, he guides his fingers again to your cunt, when his fingers rub at your clit, you whimper his name.

Joshua did this accidentally, but that beautiful sound you made, instincts Joshua to do the same movement against your bud, again, again and again. He was loving the view of your body squirming because of him.

The little hole under your clit caught his attention, so he slid his two fingers in, making your back arch. "Yes! Yes! Oh fuck."

Your hands grab his forearm, guiding him to pump his fingers in and out of your pussy, the wet sound echoing on Joshua's mind, making his cock ache 'cause he feels so hard. Your cunt leaks, and his fingers are buried inside of your spamming pussy, the delicate fingers making you drool, your eyes rolling back.

You squirmed under angel skillful touch, a sensation you hadn't anticipated after witnessing so much under the heavens. His fingers worked with a certain expertise, guided by your reactions. Amidst the pleasure that danced through the night, you found words caught between gasps and moans.

"You're far from being an angel," you admitted, the words escaping your lips in a breathy whisper.

As you watched Joshua, a flicker of something unusual caught your attention – a brief moment when his bright irises seemed to turn black, only to return to their angelic glow. His celestial face tilted with curiosity as your reaction unfolded before him. The subtle transformation left you momentarily unsettled.

His innocent gaze met yours, and he asked, "Did I do something wrong?" The innocence in his voice contrasted sharply with the skilled touch that pressed against the right spot, causing you to arch your back involuntarily.

You were far from composed, pleasure coursing through your veins, and you struggled to form a coherent response. Instead, a moan escaped your lips, and you found yourself unable to answer his question properly.

"Y-your eyes," you stuttered, the unexpected flicker of darkness lingering in your mind as a knot tightened in your stomach.

"What about my eyes?" he asked, attempting to talk to you while your pussy throbbed around his fingers, as your gasps and moans painted a different language. "Tell me," Joshua urged, his angelic face tilting with genuine concern. But your response was lost inside of your pornographic moans.

The words you intended to speak were lost as a powerful wave of pleasure engulfed you. Your body spasmed uncontrollably, and Joshua's fingers, now slick with your arousal, continued to fuck you. A low hum of satisfaction escaped him as he witnessed the intensity of your release.

The world around you faded into white for a moment as the orgasm overtook your senses, leaving you in a state of blissful surrender. Your lips parted, and your throat couldn't pour any song, only the wet sinful sounds that your pussy made, as Joshua continued non stop.

hold his forearm still, as oversensitivity lingered in the aftermath of pleasure. You took a deep breath, trying to regain composure, as Joshua's fingers withdrew, leaving you in the wake of the intense sensations.

"What was it about my eyes?"

"Your eyes... did they just... change?" The question hung in the air as Joshua's eyes flickered again, that momentary darkness replacing the celestial glow.

Joshua's eyes flickered again, as if in response to the conversation. "I don't know what you mean,"

"It's like, for a moment, they turn black, and then they're bright again,"

Joshua's eyes flickered once more, a subtle change that you keenly observed. "Did they do it again just now?" he asked, searching your face for any sign of confirmation.

The revelation about Joshua's changing eyes left you in a state of perplexity. Conflicting emotions swirled within you—fear mingled with an inexplicable arousal. As you nodded in acknowledgment, Joshua caught a glimpse of the mixture of emotions in your eyes.

Joshua, perceptive to the nuances of your emotions, caught a glimpse of the little scared eyes that betrayed the conflict within you.

"Are you scared?" Joshua asked, his voice gentle, a reflection of the concern in his eyes.

It wasn't because you were a demon in the midst of mundane certainties in the world, that you didn't feel afraid, you were like any other human being in relation to your emotions, just like angels. So you hesitated before nodding again, admitting to the mix of emotions that surged within you.

Your black dark wings created contrast with your eyes that shone with uncertainty, while the angel and you were naked in the middle of the enchanted forest, which welcomed your bodies.

Joshua, sensing your vulnerability, reached out and gently cupped your face in his hands. His touch was tender, a contrast to the intensity of the revelations that had unfolded in the enchanted forest.

"I didn't mean to scare you," he whispered, his eyes filled with a mix of regret and compassion. The glow of his celestial nature seemed to soften, as if trying to offer reassurance in the face of the unknown.

You leaned into his touch, the conflicting emotions within you slowly settling under the warmth of his hands. The fear and arousal still lingered, creating a complex emotional landscape that neither of you fully understood.

"I don't know what's happening," Joshua admitted, a hint of confusion in his voice. The mysterious flicker in his eyes remained an enigma.

"It's not just fear," you admitted, your voice barely above a whisper. "It's... something else too."

As Joshua held you close, his hands gently caressing your face, he asked with a soft intensity, "What is it, then? What else are you feeling?" his voice a soft murmur that blended with the rustle of leaves in the enchanted forest. The shadows played on his features as he awaited your response, the moonlight casting a gentle glow over the scene.

"I want to feel you so bad," you confessed, the honesty hanging in the air like a secret unveiled.

Joshua, meeting your gaze, didn't respond immediately. The flicker of darkness in his eyes seemed to intensify for a moment, as if in response to the shared desire. Then, with a quiet sincerity, he admitted, "I want that too."

He leaned in, his lips brushing against yours in a hungry kiss. As the kiss deepened, the world around you seemed to fade away, leaving only the sensations of lips meeting in a passionate union. Joshua's touch, once angelically pure, now held a fervor that almost burned your skin.

As Joshua aligned with your core, a moan escaped your lips, swallowed by the passionate kiss that bound you both. The slick, intimate contact left you unable to focus on the kiss, your breath hitching with each movement.

Joshua, feeling the wetness and heat, hissed at the intensity of the sensation. His celestial mind, guided by an instinct he didn't fully understand, urged him into uncharted territory.

In the heat of the moment, you found yourself begging, your voice breathless and filled with desire. "Please," you whispered, the word escaping in a desperate plea, "put it inside."

Joshua, caught in the whirlwind of sensations and your urgent request, felt his breath struggle. His angelic features reflected the internal struggle between celestial restraint and the willing to fuck you.

"I... I can't resist," he admitted, his voice strained. "I..." he hesitated, the conflict evident in his eyes. "I don't want to hurt you."

Teasingly, you whispered into Joshua's ear, "You're such a naughty angel, a sinner in this earth realm." Your words, laden with desire, seemed to stir something within him. His eyes flickered on and off, on and off, almost flashing, a subtle dance between the purity of an angel, and his alter ego.

"You like being a little sinner, don't you?" you continued, your voice a seductive murmur. "Indulging in desires you never knew you had."

"I can't..." he began, the struggle evident in his voice. "I shouldn't..."

His eyes flickered on and off, a rapid dance of light and darkness. You could sense the internal battle waging within him, the struggle between celestial obedience and the enticing allure of earthly desires.

As you continued to playfully provoke him, he closed his eyes, a deep breath escaping him. The conflict etched on his face reflected the dichotomy of an angel losing himself to the irresistible pull of the shadows.

"You're testing me," he murmured, his voice a mixture of vulnerability and desire.

"You want this, don't you?" you continued, cooing. "You want to fuck this pussy, and let go all of those fucking heavenly rules and just feel this pussy tight around your cock."

His eyes flickered on and off in response.

"I never thought I'd see an angel like you so... tempted," you continued, your voice a seductive whisper.

You wrap a hand around his cock, the tips leaking precum, as you begin to stroke his dick, you caress the pink head with your thumb, adding to the sensory overload that seemed to consume him.

"I'm just teasing you," you whispered, a sultry tone lingering in the air.

The playfulness in your voice was met with a warning from Joshua, his tone dropping into a more serious register, furrowing his brows and the clenching of his jaw.

"I don't know if you should be doing that," he warned, his voice carrying a sense of caution.

The sultry air seemed to vibrate with anticipation as you moaned, your voice carrying a hint of desire. You dared to ask Joshua, "So, what are you going to do?"

The flickering of his eyes intensified, a silent acknowledgment of the internal chaos. He struggled to find words, so Joshua took charge, seizing your hands and pinning them above your head, making your tits bounce. The sudden shift in dominance sent a jolt of electricity through your core.

He groaned between his teeth, a low, guttural sound that betrayed the depth of his internal struggle, his head lowers a bit, taking a mouthful part of your tit, his tongue playing with your nipple, taking the lil' but between his teeth, making you throw your head back.

Heaven and Hell collided when Joshua pushed his dick slowly inside of your wet pussy, was electrifying, stretching you out in a way that left you breathless. Joshua, meeting your gaze, moaned deliciously at the new and overwhelming feelings.

Your wet walls hug his dick, and his body trembles when his pelvis hits yours, signaling that his dick is already all inside of you. Joshua's hips moved in a rhythm that sent waves of pleasure through your body. His toned form towered over you, encouraging him to continue, your own body responded with a delicious rigidity to every stroke.

Joshua hides his face in the crook of your neck when you start to clench and unclench around his dick, his size making your pussy soak him.

As Joshua released your hands, you wasted no time in wrapping them around his shoulders, your nails digging into his skin, and he moaned in response to the added sensation.

You squeak when Joshua takes his length off, then slams hard inside, making you pathetically spasm, his name leaves your mouth in a scream.

"Oh?" His eyes widened with a mix of curiosity and satisfaction.

In the midst of your arching body and the heightened pleasure, he asked, "What is that?"

Joshua, after the surprising discovery, withdrew and then sheathed himself inside you again. The slow, deliberate movements created a rhythm that built steadily, each penetration sending waves of pleasure through your body as your abused g'spot it's hit every thrust.

He fucks your brains out with that angelical, innocent stupid face, while his big cock enters your gushing pussy so hard.

You cunt traps him so tight that his hips stutter, he moans suffered in your ear, and your eyes roll to the back of your skull while you shamelessly cry, your vision turns blank, and your body tenses so hard that you're afraid to break a bone.

Your pussy gushes cum like a waterfall. And Joshua continued to fuck you through your orgasm. In a final, primal act, Joshua growled, his hips slamming with unrelenting force until he reached the peak of his own ecstasy.

As he filled you up with his cum, his pearly white wings unfolded, embracing both of you in an ethereal warmth amidst the winds of the enchanted forest, hugging tightly and creating a shield that seemed to protect your entwined bodies.

His panting breaths whispered in your ear, and his arms, placed on each side of your head with his elbows anchored on the ground, provided a protective cradle.

As your vision gradually returned, the world around you took shape in the moonlit clearing. However, the celestial and earthly union had left its mark. When you looked up, expecting to see the pearly white wings of Joshua, you were met with a startling transformation.

The once pearly white wings of Joshua, symbols of celestial purity, had transformed into black and dark ones. The ethereal feathers now matched the shadows that draped his being, a visual manifestation of the departure from the celestial realm.

Your heart pounded in your chest as you placed a hand on Joshua's neck, attempting to gently coax his face from the crook of your neck. When he opened his eyes, the once bright orbs were now dark, devouring you with a gaze that held a different energy. As you looked at him in shock, a realization dawned upon you — he was now just like you.

As Joshua noticed the intensity of your gaze, he asked, "What's wrong?" The concern in his voice was genuine, his darkened eyes reflecting a new awareness of the change that had occurred. In response to his question, he took a moment to glance at himself, as if seeing the transformation for the first time.

The realization seemed to wash over him, and his features shifted in a subtle acknowledgment of the altered reality. Joshua, with a newfound dark aura, looked at you with a mischievous, shit-eating grin.

Joshua was now a fallen angel.

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mxtxfanatic · 4 months

Text

I’ve been stuck in 2ha fics for a minute and have seen a few metas and posts surrounding Mo Ran’s character, but something I don’t think comes across very well from the book to fanwork and (some) discussion is that Taxian-jun doesn’t exist without the long-hatred flower.

Like, I see a lot of modern au fics, for example, that tackle the Mo Ran 1.0 to 1.5 shift by having Mo Ran be disillusioned by Chu Wanning and that being his villain origin story, but what gets lost in that remix is that in canon, while Mo Ran was hurt by being whipped by his shizun, after he thought about it for a while, he decided to apologize to Chu Wanning to reconcile rather than hold a grudge. Because Mo Ran, at his core, is someone who is naturally good and would rather die than enact vengeance on others. That’s why both the timing and the effects of the flower are particularly evil: Mo Ran is cursed because he chose reconciliation over petty grudges and the curse forces him to go against his nature by holding onto said petty grudges to “repay” them to a ridiculous degree while erasing any good memory he has, which is what had previously fueled his will to live.

With that said, Mo Ran 1.0/Taxian-jun is able to transition to 1.5 and eventually 2.0 not because he realized that Chu Wanning loved him all along (as a disciple at this point), but because the Chu Wanning from the original universe nullified the effects of the flower, allowing him to finally see that Chu Wanning loved him all along and that he actually doesn’t want revenge. And we can see that effect of the nullification immediately! Taxian-jun becomes 16-year-old Mo Ran, finds out that Shi Mei, his “first love” is actually still alive at this point, and immediately decides to prioritize keeping Shi Mei alive over enacting revenge on Chu Wanning. Because at his core he’s motivated by love! And when Hua Binan brings Taxian-jun’s reanimated corpse into the new universe, his control is tenuous because Taxian-jun isn’t being motivated purely by spite anymore because the flower isn’t in effect anymore. This isn’t to say that Mo Ran was incapable of becoming Taxian-jun, but as the narrative proves, that is a version of him that only exists under mind-breaking abuse and duress, which only happened when he lived under the Mo family’s reign of abuse for years before finally snapping and then once again under the effects of a curse that rewrote his memories to convince him that he was living under mind-breaking abuse and duress. Without those conditions, Mo Ran always chooses hope and love, and even as he looks back on those moments where he reigned terror, he wishes he could have chosen/been afforded death instead (much to Chu Wanning’s upset). So all this to say that Mo Ran isn’t saved by realizing he was living under a misunderstanding; he is saved by having the thing leeching out all of the good in him destroyed.

(Also on a smaller note, Taxian-jun isn’t uneducated because he was on the street for so long and therefore “too old” to be properly educated. Taxian-jun is uneducated because all of his memories of learning were good memories tied to Chu Wanning, thus they got erased. Mo Ran 2.0 re-educates himself in his late teens/early 20s because the problem was always the flower, not some “inherent” inferiority he was stuck with from his upbringing or an unwillingness to learn.)

#2ha #i know i said i was gonna stay out of this one until maybe i reread it #but I’ve been in the 2ha fandom reading fics #and as much as i love the angst #there’s just no way to accurately translate the story into aus #without the existence of the flower #but i also think it cheapens mo ran’s character to run with ‘he was naturally jaded until romantic love hit him’#2ha spoilers

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looseratinthegarage · 2 years

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Yautja x human reader

Reader is really good with the pups (Yautja babies/ children) of Yautja prim, there soft but still hold there own. It’s not uncommon for at least 2 older ones ( to a human a 6 yer old) and a baby or 2 that you carry or they hold onto you. So when a rouge Xenomorphs comes onto the planet your s/o and the other yautja see what happens when someone messes with your little buddy’s.

An example how Linda from mitchell vs the machines when she sees them take her son, so instead of “I am Linda Mitchell, mother of 2, LOOK UPON ME WITH FEAR!!! I was thinking of it being

“ i am little blade, protector of children LOOK UPON ME WITH FEAR!!!

And after the mothers are even more willing to let the pups be around them. And when alone a vary existed s/o

Y/n pupsitter kicks xeno ass

*wheezes* I’ve done it!! Hahahaha!!!! This was super fun to write!! thank you for the request 😊

The transition to Yautja living was not an easy one. You had lost many day to day common conveniences humans take for granted. The supermarket for instance, fast food, video games, Spotify, etc. Since you were too weak to hunt or traverse yautja prime by yourself, they stick you with babysitting duty.

The mothers of the village were busy working hard along with the males. Children often run amuck due to ill supervision, bothering the adults as they kept the clan going. So why not stick the pathetic ooman with the rambunctious pups? At the very least it would be entertaining.

To say they had no faith in you was an understatement. Some didn’t want their pups near you, so you had a modest five pups to take care of. Two were children, the other two were toddlers, and the youngest was a baby. The toddlers and baby didn’t have a problem with you, they stuck to you like glue. They loved you and would hang onto you like little monkeys. The children however disliked you, parent-taught racism had already polluted their minds. It was difficult to watch them, but you managed.

You now walk through the woods next to the village. The pups were rather rowdy today and kept antagonizing the newly blooded. Teens and younglings don’t mix. You cradled the baby in one arm and held a toddler on your hip. A little clawed hand held onto your pant leg as you walked. The two kids ran up ahead. One of them picked up a stick and hit his brother in the face. In retaliation, his twin ripped a rather large branch off of the closest tree. He swung for his siblings legs, effectively putting him on his back.

“bpi-de h'ka-se!” You shouted.

They began laughing and ignored your warning. The bigger twin tackles his brother into the bushes. You shake your head and sigh. You hear them roaring and playing with each other, then the sound of them screaming raises your head in a flash. They stumbled out of the foliage.

“kiande amedha! kiande amedha!!” They screamed frantically.

Your heart dropped to your stomach. They had to be joking, it was a prank, a very bad prank. But to your dismay it was no prank. A xenomorph crawled out of the shadows and snarled. The toddlers started crying, it’s attention shifting to you. The twins ran into your legs and grabbed onto you desperately. The xeno began stalking towards you.

“Fuck!!” You yell and pick up the pups.

Now holding five heavy pups, you begin to run in the direction of camp.

“It’s okay! It’s okay!” You frantically chant trying to calm the crying children.

Then something hard and cold wraps around your legs. You land on your back to break the pups' fall. Looking down you see the xenos tail holding you tight. It picks you up, the children falling out of your arms, and throws you aside. Your back hits into a tree and you scream out in pain.

You shakily look up and see the beast approaching the crying children. Then something in you snapped. You were filled with one thing, pure rage. You stand to your feet with a groan, the xeno looking in your direction. You grab the nearest branch and charge at the evil incarnate. It rushes towards you and opens its mouth.

You use the stick to stop it from clamping down its jaw and reach into its mouth. With the help of your adrenaline boosted strength rip out its tiny mouth. It makes a shrill cry but before it had the chance to attack back, you shoved the stick down its throat. It gargled on its blood for a moment then fell over dead.

You look at the children but don’t only see them. Instead you see almost the entire village watching with wide eyes of disbelief. The scrawny twin held the baby and the toddlers by the bigger twin, they set the kids down and uncharacteristically run towards you.

“Ooman nan'ku!!” They yelled in unison and hugged your leg.

You shakily kneel down and go to pat their heads reassuringly but stop yourself. You look at your hand, it’s burned. Your adrenaline subsided and the pain hit you hard. You started to feel light headed and before you could process it you were falling over. Your mate rushes forward and catches you.

“My little sain’ja..” He proudly cooed to you and carried you bridal style.

The clan made way for you as your mate carried you back to the camp.

After a month of recovery you returned to the pups. Now, many more in your care. It seems you’ve impressed the mothers that didn’t trust you before. And the ones who did, trusted you even more with their younglings. The clan treated you with a new respect, even the elites and elders.

Word key:

bpi-de h'ka-se = end now

kiande amedha = hard meat/xenomorph

Ooman nan'ku = human alive

#slashers #horror #slasher community #slasher x reader #slashers x reader #yautja #predator #predator x reader #yautja x reader

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imagines--galore · 1 year

Note

Hey I was wondering if you could write a zuko x reader? Y/n is a water bender working for zuko while he travels(set in the first or second season) thank you !!!

Pairing: Zuko x Reader

Rating || Genres || Warnings: T. Romance. Mentions of injuries and such but nothing too extensive.

A/N: This is a separate entry from my other Zukoxoc fic The Thread of Fate. So please do not confuse them to be the same. Also you have to read between the lines to sense the romance. Like really between the lines. Thank you! Hope you enjoy!

You may have be on the ship because of a debt you owed General Iroh, but it didn't mean you had to like any of the occupants.

And by occupants you meant resident Prince Pouty - Zuko.

You had kept your distance at first, keeping your head down and going about your job, but it didn't take long for your patience to snap and you began to talk back to the Prince. All because he just had to be rude to you and everyone else on the ship.

Sure General Iroh had explained the reason behind his behavior, it still didn't excuse him from being so rude all the time. Not to mention brash.

Your skills as a waterbender came in handy whenever he or any of the other soldiers aboard the ship would return with injuries. The soldiers had been wary of your at first, and you them, but in time they had accepted you as one of their own, and would often joke around with you, or seek out your help with an injury or a bruise.

Prince Zuko, on the other hand, had been entirely too stubborn to allow the enemy, his words, to see to his injuries. It wasn't until he had very nearly collapsed from ignoring his injuries, after several run-ins with the Avatar, that he had allowed you to come close and heal him.

Afterwards he had been somewhat civil towards you, and you him. Though there were times when you would berate him for putting himself in unnecessary danger and only coming to you when the pain would be too much for him to handle. He would justify his actions, saying he could handle it. Iroh was usually the mediator between the two of you, always there to make sure neither of you accidentally harmed the other. You had threatened to toss the Prince overboard on more then one occasion.

Funnily enough, he had never ever mentioned hurting you with his firebending.

Your transition from hostile shipmates, to hostile companions was slow-going and took months for the both of you to actually admit that perhaps you both could get along.

Of course, when you had just come to that realization, Zhao had commandeered Zuko's soldiers and ship, to be used to take over the Northern Water Tribe. Iroh had instantly dismissed you from your post, saying your debt had been paid. He had no desire to see you in the hands of the evil man.

Which was why you were now staying at the small inn where Zuko's ship had made its final port. You had no idea where to go from there. You didn't have any family to go back to. You had been saved by General Iroh out of the goodness of his heart. Which was the reason you had stuck to him with the claim that you owned him a debt.

Truthfully you had just felt safe with him, and now?

Where would you go now?

You were so lost in your thoughts, staring at the small cup of tea in your hand that you very nearly jumped out of your skin when the door to your small room slammed open and General Iroh stumbled in, supporting an unconscious and injured figure at his side.

Your eyes widened at who it was. "Zuko!" Your cup clattered to the floor as you ran to help the General lay the Prince down on your bed. A sharp gasp left your lips as you assessed the damage to his body. Burns, cuts, scraps, bruises, gashes. There were so many of them.

"What happened?" You demanded, even as you quickly began to gather supplies. A bucket of water, an old blanket to rip up for bandages and the bag that contained your own salves and pastes to help with the bruising.

"The pirates. They were in league with Zhao and they blew up the ship with Zuko onboard." The man explained, worry for his nephew evident in his gaze as he watched you do you work. Taking a small knife, you quickly cut open the shirt Zuko wore to assess the damage there.

You worked the entire night.

The more serious injuries were healed with your healing abilities and once you had tired yourself out from that, you began to apply the healing salves to whatever small burns and cuts you could find. You were almost out when your patient began to stir.

"Wh-" You reached out to gently grasp his shoulder to keep him from getting up lest he aggravate his injuries.

"Shh....just lie still. You're alright. You're safe." You told him. Pouring the concoction you had steamed a few moments ago, you held the cup to his lips. "Drink this. It'll help with the pain."

For once Zuko made no complaint, as he raised his head just enough to drink the warm liquid. His face grimaced at the taste but you made sure he drank every last drop.

"Your Uncle has gone to get some food. It's nearly afternoon." Outside the sun was high in the sky. Sleep hung heavy in your eyes as your gaze ran over his face. "Does anything hurt? I was able to cure most of the injuries, but I don't know if I missed something." Worry laced your tone as you fussed over the bandages that were wrapped around his forearm.

He pulled back his arm, only to grasp her hand tightly with his own. You were surprised at the strength behind the grip but you met his gaze with your own as he stared at you with an intensity that had never been there before. At least not the kind where you felt your face growing hot and had you averting your gaze after awhile and clearing your throat. His grip softened, allowing you to slip your fingers from his grasp.

"Thank you Y/N." Well that came as a shock. He had never once thanked you for when you treated him. He must've hit his head really hard on something.

Still you didn't say anything, the blush along your cheeks only intensifying as you nodded and cleared your throat. "It was nothing." But it seemed to mean something to him.

Thankfully Iroh returned just then, with food and provisions, and with the way your stomach had been growling, you all but wolfed down the soup and dumplings.

Of course you couldn't ignore the feeling that someone was watching your every move.

You simply focused on the food, too afraid to meet those intense golden eyes again.

#zuko x reader #zuko x oc #zuko x y/n #atla imagine #avatar the last airbender imagine

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eddiemuonson · 7 months

Text

"Be Safe" - Anakin Skywalker x human f!Reader

Summary: You're an ordinary human fighting against the Sith alongside with Obi-Wan Kenobi. While being kept hostage by Anakin, you try to break down his armor of rage.

Notes: Crastyne is a fictional planet. I love the idea of energy and magnetic feelings 😭 Raging Anakin is so painful and making eye color transition is more painful!

Notes¹: Let me know if you all would like a part 2!!

Warning: Pretty much none, just a small fight scene, mention of injuries and a little fluff

Word count: 3.8k

next chapter

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There is something about not being a Jedi or even any sort of galactical person that makes you fear going to wars to defend your own.

Even the slightest usage of the blaster makes you feel uncomfortable when you're around them, even if they're willing to protect you, knowing you can't protect yourself.

There's also a reason why you don't become a Jedi yourself, because they're specifically being extinct and you're not going to sacrifice yourself that way.

You were rethinking your life when you came to the realization that being amongst troopers from your group, blasting against mostly the Sith. One of them being Anakin Skywalker, who not only was once Palpatine's apprentice, but also the one who as leading the attack.

Behind Obi-Wan, you could barely see the incoming, as he made sure none of them got through you. But you were surrounded by a few Jedi's and could hardly be discovered as some ordinary woman.

You sure can use your black belt perks, because usually that's what you come up with when you're facing someone stronger. But maybe you couldn't use that to your favor if you were ever to stand in front of Anakin. It's not like Obi-Wan would ever let that happen.

You've thought this through every single day, he made sure he would stand by you all the way through. You had extra blasters if you needed to, even.

But nothing prepared you for the moment Skywalker came behind you, just in time for a few of his own took Kenobi away from you. You were face to face to the evil himself, he seemed to be seven feet tall compared to your size.

He grabbed you by the neck and raised you from the floor, not squeezing your skin just yet. His dilated pupils and red eyes were just staring intensely at you, that frown holding his gaze against you.

"Pathetic woman", he said as he was still holding you up. "How dare you come to this war against us and defend the Jedi?".

He wasn't even himself anymore, he was already been taken to the dark side. His glowing red eyes made sure you recognized that. He was still a good-looking guy, with pretty curly hair and fading blue eyes.

But corrupted. Corrupted by the man he was supposed to fight against. His fear of losing someone made him angrier. He was selfish, greedy and aggressive.

He didn't even have to see you through your helmet to know you're a woman, and he can sense your fear, which you disguised with repulse.

"You're not gonna win this fight", you held him by his wrists, knowing he was too strong to let go of. When he tried squeezing your neck, you wrapped your legs around his torso, shaking him down suddenly.

He tripped on his foot and you got rid of his grip. You blasted against him, but Anakin used his metal hand to shield himself and it ricocheted.

You ran only for a few feet and he insisted on tackling you down on the floor. He could've used his force against you, but he was willing to knock you down. Obi-wan was nowhere to be seen.

"You're such a petulant person. Your confidence is disturbing", Skywalker pulled you against his grip as he dragged you out of the fight, leading you to somewhere else.

You've realized he was taking you to Coruscant, where you learned it was the capital of the Republic. He got rid of your Trooper outfit and left you cuffed on his ship while he was piloting.

For the entire trip he didn't even say a word to you, only staring at you at some point, through his rearview.

When he arrived at the planet, he managed to still hold you hostage, mostly because that way he knew Kenobi would find you and save you from him.

It was his way of telling the Jedi their best Master got himself into a definite war against his enemy.

He dropped you in a cell, watching as you retracted yourself into a corner. It was only then you realized he was feeling confrontation with himself. He was still in an anger phase, which was slowly turning him into Vader.

His cold way of showing attitude, the dark shadow flickering against his eyes, made you see how much he was actually in pain inside.

After a while, which you had no idea how much time had passed, you could hear Anakin speak in a low tone with someone, probably Palpatine.

He would just agree and not say too many words, when you would hear his footsteps getting closer, you'd brace yourself.

But he actually never got near you anymore since he left you in the cell. You were starving, you were tense, you were tired and sleepy. There was only one sheet and a very uncomfortable pillow to lie on.

You tried contacting Kenobi using your mind and your feelings, but you only annoyed the newly Sith, who showed up not a minute later after your first try.

"If you try that one more time, I'll slice you up", he demanded. His voice was husky and held a deepness you've never heard before.

"Then do it, you'll never find him again", you responded. It actually made him become feral, trying to choke you with his force.

The advantage of him being so powerful is that he didn't need to get closer to you. He would just stand there and have you around his force.

He dropped you on the floor and you gasped for air. Your airway was almost crushed and it was harder to breathe now.

Anakin pointed his index finger at you, his red-blue eyes were so desperate for power. At the same time, it was showing off pain. Too much pain.

"Let go of that anger, Skywalker. You're in pain", you said before he could speak first. "Whatever happened to you, just let that go".

"You don't know shit about me", he retorted. You just woke the beast inside him. Anakin could be worse than he really shows when he's mad.

How was he so sure of that when more than half of the Universe has heard about him before? The once great Jedi apprentice who gave up on his good side.

You scoffed, making him wrinkle his forehead in response. "You were Obi-Wan's best apprentice, you know that? I've worked with him thousands of times before you raged. You don't know shit about me".

Anakin just examined you from head to toe. "We're bringing him. You're gonna watch him die".

You know you had to take this into consideration, but you were sure it would be impossible for Kenobi to stop it from happening.

"I don't need a lecture from an ordinary woman", his voice was bitter. He was trying to spell like he was throwing knifes, but it had a different tone for you.

"You're gonna choke on your own words, Lord Vader", you mocked him. He knew better than this that you were only doing it on purpose.

But Anakin didn't take sarcasm, or jokes. He didn't take any words that would actually involve himself. When he opened the cell and rushed to you, you flinched.

You flinched so hard he almost faltered. He punched the wall so hard it broke down entirely. The pieces of it almost falling above your head as he started to pant.

It was that moment you saw the mistake you've made, he lit up his red saber, the sword swinging in front of your face.

"Anakin, please", you begged. Your frowned face almost making a scrunch from the fear.

He still held that terrible gaze and he just stared into your soul. He could hear your heart beating fast, racing against your ears. He knew better than anyone that feeling.

He was struggling with himself, with his awful transition he couldn't get rid of. He could beat itself.

One moment of distraction and you captured it from his hand, running away while holding it. It was the stupidest idea you could've had. But it only helped you get through one of his rooms, which you had no idea where it led to.

You were thrown against the wall, feeling that excruciating pain piercing through your back. Anakin didn't seem too impressed by your action, but he made sure you would learn a lesson.

It burned differently than anything else, the saber was burning your skin until it was completely raw and the sound coming off of your mouth almost made him deaf.

He was too sensitive to sounds, as well. But it didn't shake him. You were now more tired than before, trying to collect yourself, almost begging for Obi-Wan to actually show up before you were dead.

He crouched in front of you, his eyes burning from anger. "You move again and I swear I'll kill you".

"You've said that before and did nothing", you retorted.

"I'm trying to spare you. I want Obi-Wan. I don't care about your stupid body, I want his", Skywalker was never one to explain his tactics, but you were slowing him down.

As Anakin started walking left and right, he studied you. He watched the way you would confront him even when you knew he was the most dangerous person to be around at this point.

He saw you agonizing in pain from the burn of his saber, which he was still holding while walking. He never left that frown on his face, the flickering of his eyes was distressing, you could never really know what he was possibly feeling besides anger and pain.

"You don't have to do this", you started, your voice barely coming out. "You were like a brother to him, you know that. How do you think your mother would feel if she was here?".

And then, instead of stabbing you with his saber, he just broke down on his knees, begging you to stop. It hurt him, it was the most painful thing to hear about. His mother was everything to him.

"What would she do if she knew you've become something you weren't supposed to, Anakin? Stop while you can", your voice echoed in his room and he was panting again.

"Stop", his voice failed against his mouth. "Stop!"

You couldn't be more right about that, he felt inside his guts. But he wasn't going to admit it, he was deeply involved with the Sith and now his body was only a vessel.

"You don't get to talk about my mother. Don't you ever say that again", he looked at you and you almost gasped at the sight of his eyes becoming yellow.

He was about to break down in tears, he was one step closer to feeling like Anakin again.

"Anakin, you need to remember her. You need to remember who you were before. It's going to consume you".

"Shut up!", he shouted at you. He was still on his knees, his knuckles supporting his hands on the floor. "Just.. shut up".

You saw the man becoming more fragile than he ever was. You noticed he let his guard down, surprisingly putting down his shield he used to use around himself.

The tears streaming down his cheeks were burning his skin, it tasted too salty on his lips. The lump in his chest quickly rising in his throat, making it harder for him to actually breathe.

"Please, stop", you could barely hear him pleading. He was surrendering himself.

He slipped and he fell into your trap. You managed to cross his evil shield and you made him miserable. He didn't know how he could actually be able to feel like he was Anakin again.

Everything inside him felt dark, empty. His head was void, emotionless. He had too much anger inside him, it made him blind. He was too greedy for power. The more power the better.

You carefully approched him and wrapped your arms around his broad shoulders, they were shuddering. You felt his body give in and shiver.

He actually felt warmth, apart from his cold hands and cold sweat, he was warm. His tears felt like waterfalls.

"Just leave before I change my mind", he said after a while, the room was so silent before that, not a single noise could be heard.

"Can you feel this?", you ask as you grip his hand tightly, firmly, crossing your fingers against his. The energy between your veins circulating, transmitting him a sensation of peace.

"This is what it feels like to be free from pain, anger. This is how you were supposed to feel like".

Skywalker was shaking, he could feel a different wave of serenity between his fingers, feeling your energy. He was almost absorving it for himself. It felt light, weightless. It tickled his inside.

He spent too much time gripping your hand, enjoying your energy. His eyes were becoming blue after a moment, the yellow almost fading.

He flinched his face and closed his eyes. He let go of your hand, getting up and held your arm, getting you up along with him.

He didn't say another word as he took you to a medical room and demanded the droids to bandage your burnt skin and give you food.

As you rested in a bed you saw him walking with a stiffened attitude, his eyes wandering across the giant window.

You would give all your money to know what he was actually thinking about, you couldn't ever know what he was going through, besides the honest pain and struggle, and anger mostly.

You ended up falling asleep while being taken care of, you were too tired and your body was giving up on the pain as well.

Only when you woke up you felt like you were being watched, and you thought one of the droids was still there taking care of you. As you slowly opened one your eyes, you saw him staring at you.

He was holding his arms crossed against his pumped chest, his face still frowned while he was leaning against the wall. His eyes were meerely blue anymore, a yellow gaze watching you.

"You should leave this place before Obi-Wan gets here", he demanded. His voice had a low husky tone. "I can't promise I won't kill him".

You were sort of dozy from the painkiller. You were trying to gather his words as you slowly sat up on the bed.

"I'll get the droids to watch over you while you get back".

Were you honestly awake or was it some kind of messed up dream you were having? That didn't sound like him at all honestly.

"Anakin, you gotta take care of yourself", you stated as you slowly got up from the bed, looking at him.

He was much taller than you, you have to raise your head to look at him. His frown was almost loose.

"Don't tell me what I should or should not do. I've made that clear before", he responded. His tone sent a shiver down your spine.

"Anakin", you raised you hand as you tried to approach his scarred face, but he was much faster and held your wrist tightly.

"Don't call me that. Don't ever call me that".

He was too hard to soften, not even Padmé would have been able to do so. You didn't know how you could manage to make him vulnerable before.

But again he had built up his walls and he was ready to use his shield against you. Other than that, he didn't break eye contact, he didn't twist your wrist.

But he still was a Sith. He still had anger inside him. Your gaze was comforting, it transmitted peace. With your other hand you cupped his jawline, you traveled your finger against his biggest scar.

Your soft, warm hand felt like shockwaves on his skin. Your heard as he let out a heavy sigh, like he was fighting against his feelings.

Skywalker let go of your wrist, not touching you or getting away from your touch.

"I know there's good in you", you say as you make a trail with your fingertips on his cheek. He looked away from you, closing his eyes almost squinting them.

"No", he was too reluctant. He was feeling his blood boiling immediately. "No".

"Please, look at me", you tried to tame him. He didn't look at first.

When you locked your other fingers through his flesh hand, he almost gasped. It felt like heaven for a moment.

He gave in, and it first scared you. His eyes, as red as fire, his pupils were dilated and it was so intimidating. It was hard to look at him that way.

You must have gone mad, but when you pecked his trembling lips you felt your heart almost jump out of your throat. You felt his hand grip your waist so tight it was gonna leave a bruise.

You didn't move your lips, you didn't deepen that kiss. Hell, you didn't even move your body too scared he would back out. And it felt good like that.

He must have felt like that too, Anakin didn't push you away. He didn't flinch. When he felt your skin against his hand, he almost let out a groan, but he was holding himself off.

He was on the verge of snapping out of his mind. Skywalker felt his brain collapse and something inside him melted down. His veins were pumping his blood faster than ever.

You opened your eyes for a slight second, realizing he was looking intensively at you, his brows were furrowed. But what really shocked you was how deep blue his eyes were.

They were blue like the ocean, they were bright like the sky. They flickered with the sudden emotion washing over him. You broke from his lips and gave him an honest side smile.

He gave you nothing, because he was probably as shocked as you. He only then noticed what had happened to him when you tried to touch his face again and this time he backed out.

It pinched your heart, but it was actually expected. He moved away from you, looking tormented and stunned as he didn't even look at you when he left the medical room.

When he came back, he was holding folded clean clothes and left them at the bed. He warned the droids they were going to take you back to where you came from.

It didn't exactly make sense for you the way he reacted to your kiss, but you understood it. He was too conflicted to really know how to deal with it. And his self defense was to push you away.

"I'll let Obi-Wan know you're going back. Don't you try and make him come after me". Anakin was almost back to his normal self.

He managed to not make eye contact with you, but it slipped and he tried to look away. Your gaze at him burned his entire body.

It if keeps happening he's gonna lose it. And God, you wanted it to happen so bad.

You just nodded, getting ready to leave the building. It was making you feel so bad for leaving him alone but he wanted to be alone.

He like being by himself. He didn't want company. He didn't need company.

You didn't even have the chance to say a goodbye, because he made sure he was gone before you left. He just honestly didn't want to see you.

Inside the ship, you made sure you asked the droids to take care of him. If they obeyed and listened to him, maybe they could listen to you as well.

"Please, look after him. And if you need to, just let Obi-Wan know", your voice was almost desperate.

They seemed to agree and treated you nicely after all. Weirdly nice, to say the least. Usually their droids were built to kill people like you.

When you arrived at Crastyne, Obi-Wan was already there waiting for you and gave you the most desperate and the tightest hug. He almost crushed your bones.

It was so good to see him there, to actually feel his arms around you. He smelled like mud, but you weren't going to question.

"It's so good to see you alive, (Y/N)". He noticed your injury, and quickly changed his composure. "Are you hurt anywhere else?". You shook your head.

"He burned my skin with his saber, but that's all?", you tried to sound like it was a normal thing. But coming from Skywalker it was definitely not.

"He didn't try to kill you?". Kenobi was more confused than you were. And again you shook your head.

"He actually wanted to use me as bait, he wanted you to go there. He wanted to kill you there".

He was trying to gather your words. He wouldn't expect Anakin to actually do that, he should've seen that coming.

"But there was an overturn. I'll explain it later. I wanna take a shower, rest".

He nodded and you left with him, he was going to make sure you were safe for now. He was going to watch over you for the next few days.

But deep inside you weren't worried about yourself, you weren't worried about your safety. You were so hopelessly worried about him. You had no idea how he was going to deal with himself after that.

You weren't even sure he would be able to consider what happened between you two. You just hoped you could find him, meet him again.

Skywalker, on the other hand, couldn't make himself sleep. He was relentlessly playing your words and touch over and over in his head.

The sweat streaming down his spine was cold and harsh. His breath was out of rhythm, making it hard to come out of his throat.

What have you done to him, he thought as he couldn't wrap his mind around the mixed feelings surrounding him.

It was so hard for him to process how you reacted to his threatening, to his deep sharp gaze against you. And yet you didn't run away from him, you didn't fear him, you didn't flinch.

His metal hand crushed another wall, and he let out the most feral and loud groan. He was panting loudly, his vision was distorted.

He couldn't let you get through him like that. He couldn't let himself let you in like that. Either he keeps helping the Sith or he drops down his armor.

This energy thing is pretty intense, you think. You can't seem to sleep either, both of you connected by a feeling that keeps wandering through your veins.

It's like it's keeping you both magnetized, even through miles and miles apart.

"Be safe, Anakin", you wish while trying to calm your brain down.

Skywalker was still sitting on the corner of his bed, his arms resting against his knees while he was holding his head with both hands.

A fading voice echoing inside his brain woke him from his messed thoughts. "Be safe, Anakin".

#anakin skywalker x reader #anakin x reader #anakin skywalker x you #anakin skywalker fanfic #anakin skywalker fanfiction #anakin fanfic #anakin fanfiction #anakin skywalker imagine #anakin imagine #star wars fanfic #hayden christensen imagine #userjasmine #anakin skywalker fluff #anakin fluff #anakin skywalker

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