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snackhobi · 4 years

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pairing: taehyung x reader / word count: 13.3k / genre: fluff, friends to lovers, smut (NSFW, 18+)

summary: you’re used to being in love with taehyung. you’ve had a lot of time to get good at it, after all—by this point you’re the world’s expert at keeping your less-than-platonic feelings hidden from him, what with the amount of practice you’ve had.

but then he signs up for a massage therapy course, because apparently you can never catch a break.

or: the one where taehyung gives you a full body massage and then some.

warnings: sexually explicit content, massage with a happy ending (literally 🤧), cursing, edible massage oil/lube, fingering (f), unprotected sex (be safe when you have sex please), multiple orgasms (f), oral sex (m), cum swallowing, pet names, body worship?, brief mention of shower sex

a/n: I swear this was meant to be pwp. this was literally meant to just be pwp with some massage shenanigans. and then I blinked and it had become a soft 13k fic which honestly… kicked my ass quite a bit. but I hope you enjoy it!! thank you as always to @hobi-gif for beta reading this and encouraging me and putting up with me changing this multiple times, what would I do without your support miss hope?

Taehyung goes through a lot of different phases.

He just finds so many things interesting. Photography, art, art history, music, fashion, thrift shopping; heck, there was even the time he got weirdly into making tea and became some sort of connoisseur, going through the whole rigmarole of buying the loose leaves and weighing them out, checking the temperature of the water, brewing for a precisely measured amount of time.

You still remember the look on his face when you said it all tasted like hot leaf water to you.

Because, of course, as one of Taehyung’s best friends and his roommate, you’re inevitably swept up in everything he does. You’re used to the weirdly acrid smell of photo development fluid and how cold dark rooms can get. You use phrases like chiaroscuro and sfumato to describe the simplest things after listening to Taehyung do the same for so long. You’ve lost count of the amount of times you’ve tripped over his saxophone case when he leaves it lying around the apartment. You regularly wear the baggy t-shirt with the face that Taehyung had painted on it—even if you still refer to it as the Squidward-House-Shirt despite the fact you know he was inspired by Basquiet and Schiele and not the Easter Island themed stone head that Squidward lives in.

You don’t mind getting dragged along with whatever he does, honestly; you don’t have time to attend every class, but go with him when you can. It’s always good to expand your horizons. You also love watching Tae’s face whenever he learns something new, the various expressions that flit across his features—from wide eyed excitement and eyebrow raising astonishment to the more solemn side that appears whenever he’s taking something in and thinking deeply about it, turning it over in his mind, mulling on it.

(You love watching Tae’s face all the time, actually, but that’s a whole other can of worms you’d rather keep shut.)

However, the latest course he’s signed up for is not one you’d been expecting.

“Massage therapy?” Your face twists in equal parts confusion and surprise.

Taehyung’s dropped this latest nugget of information while you’re cooking, trying to fry some rice while also peering at the phone screen that’s been thrust into your face. You’re not bad at multitasking, per se, but Taehyung’s iPhone is drifting so close that you’re almost cross-eyed and it’s blocking you from seeing what’s going on in the pan.

“I had a coupon,” he says, as if that explains everything. (It doesn’t.)

“Scooch,” you say, and he immediately moves so you can turn the gas off.

“Jiminie and Jungkookie say that my massages help with dance, and that's just from Youtube tutorials.” Taehyung continues to talk as you bustle around the tiny kitchen. He’s already set the table so now he’s free to watch you finish doing the rest of the work. “And Joon-hyung says I have the perfect hands for it.”

You fumble with the pan as you’re scooping the steaming rice into a large bowl, only just managing to save food from scattering everywhere. You’ve thought about Taehyung’s hands a lot, about how large and long fingered and beautiful they are, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“Really? Huh. That’s nice.” You stare at the pan, fixated on getting every grain of rice so you can avoid looking at Taehyung’s face. And hands. Which are still cupped around his phone. Which looks so small in his big, pretty grip.

Jesus Christ.

“It means I can give you massages if you ever start to get tense.” Taehyung sounds pleased, lovely grin on his face at the prospect of being able to rub his hands over you. As if that isn’t going to make every single one of your muscles lock up and turn you into some sort of coiled rope of a human being, which is the complete opposite of what a massage is supposed to achieve.

“Great.” Despite your inner turmoil, your voice is level and steady as you meticulously scrape the last grain of rice into the bowl, chasing the tiny fleck of white around the huge pan. Scrape, scrape, scrape. “Sounds fabulous. Can’t wait.”

Of course Taehyung would sign up to learn something that he could use to help his friends. He’s so big-hearted and loving. Big-hearted and loving and kind and funny and affectionate and beautiful and deep-voiced and so entirely overwhelming in every single way imaginable.

You do what you always do when confronted yet again with your all-consuming crush—you bottle that shit the fuck up until he’s not in the room.

And then you have a miniature breakdown at Pickles.

“I am going to die,” you whisper-scream. “He’s going to offer to massage me and he’s going to get a bottle of massage oil out and he’s going drizzle it onto his massive hands and I am going to fucking die.”

The bearded dragon cocks his head as he stares at you. Taehyung had come home with the reptile one day, tank and all, saying that someone on Facebook had been giving him away because they were moving house and could they just look after him for a little while, please, pretty please? Until they found a good home for him? Please?

That was over a year ago. (You’ve always been bad at saying no to Taehyung.)

“I hate my life,” you lament to the lizard, but then you hear the noisy flush of the toilet and know that Taehyung is going to emerge from the bathroom soon, so you have to wrap this miniature meltdown up pronto. “I wish I was a bearded dragon too, you know. All you do is get fed and sit under the heat bulb. Your life is so easy. You don’t even know what capitalism is.”

The silence you get from Pickles is far more support than you get from your human friends once you tell them. Yoongi just raises his eyebrows while Seokjin and Hoseok laugh outright in your face, just like they always do when you cry to them about Taehyung.

You need new friends. These ones are defective. (If only you’d kept the receipt so you could return them.)

“We learned how to do neck and shoulder massages today!” Taehyung says brightly after the first session.

You hum in response. You’re rewatching Pacific Rim together, cuddled up against Taehyung’s side, and you don’t have to turn your head to know what expression is on his face. There’ll be that little upturn to his lips, happiness at learning something new. That warmth in his eyes at being able to share it with you, even if you couldn't be there with him. Those little freckles on his face, under his eye, his nose, his lip; the one you’ve imagined kissing more times than you can count.

“My teacher says I have a natural talent with my hands,” he adds, and you’re so grateful that you can blame your sudden intake of breath on the scene that’s playing on the screen, as high stakes as it is.

“That’s nice,” you say, and mentally pat yourself on the back at keeping the strain out of your voice. You've had a lot of practice at this. “I’m not surprised, though. You’ve always been good at doing things with them.”

That’s not a euphemism. Taehyung’s always so careful when he makes things; you’d learned how to fold different origami patterns together, matching crane for crane, lotus for lotus, and he’d always been so delicate with his fingers. He’s always so careful and considerate with you, too, fingers splayed wide across your shoulder as he squeezes you closer to his side, leaving you breathless.

“I wish you could come too.” Taehyung sounds disappointed. “We always have so much fun together.”

For the first time in your life you’re grateful that your manager at Olive Chicken is such a hardass and won’t let you swap shifts, so you’d had to miss signing up for the massage course with Taehyung—because you know there’s no way you’d be able to keep it together if there was some sort of tandem practice in class or whatever. Your crush on him is filled with equal parts of tenderness and lust and you’re well aware of that. You’d rest your hands on the soft skin of Taehyung’s shoulders and back, the lust would overwhelm you, and you’d immediately burst into flames like some sort of demon stepping over the threshold of a church.

Why oh why did God have to make Kim Taehyung so hot?

Why oh why did God have to make you so… not?

You know Taehyung doesn’t see you in a romantic light at all. You’re grateful for this deep, platonic relationship you have, and you love him to pieces, but holy hell is it hard to walk around with Kim Taehyung looking the way he does and wanting to jump his bones while simultaneously being aware that it’s never going to happen. Whenever he smiles at you, or touches you, or holds you, it’s in exactly the same way as he treats any of his friends—and as happy as you are to be one of those friends, it also kind of kills you inside.

(Because you know you don’t have a chance, have never had a chance, and will never have a chance.)

The idea of offering to massage Taehyung is one that makes you want to melt into a puddle of horny goo. But when he offers to massage you, it’s because you’re a convenient practice partner who he’s comfortable with. It’s no big deal. You could strip naked and slather yourself up in oil and stand in front of him with your bosoms heaving and say ‘Have at me, big boy’ and Taehyung would say: ‘Sweet! A chance to practice deep tissue massage! Gee, thanks for being such a great pal!’

The kind of deep tissue you want Taehyung to massage is very different to whatever he’s talking about.

… Anyway.

You manage to avoid Taehyung using his apparently magic fingers on you for a surprising amount of time, though you’re kept up to date with his progress, because he shares everything with you and tells you about everything and you always, always listen. Because, more than being your crush, he’s one of your best friends and you love him.

Which is why you try your best to be gentle, graciously refusing his offer of a shoulder massage after he sees you wincing, even if with anyone else you’d just tell them to back off with zero hesitation.

“It’s fine,” you say, flapping a hand at him. “I just slept on it funny.”

“A massage would help! It won’t take long, I promise. Five minutes? Please?”

Taehyung’s looking at you with those big puppy eyes of his, pleading. You waver. You’re torn between being steadfast and avoiding a situation you’ve literally had nightmares about (Taehyung had offered to massage you, and you’d said yes, but then you’d fallen over as you were walking to him and suddenly a lasagne had appeared in your hands and you’d spilled it all down your shirt and he’d pointed and laughed and laughed and you’d felt so embarrassed that you’d woken up, cheeks burning), but then he pouts and you give in like the spineless and lovesick fool that you are.

“Five minutes,” you say, and Taehyung nods emphatically, looking pleased.

(You have the backbone of a chocolate éclair.)

You send quiet thanks to whatever God is listening when he doesn’t ask you to take your top off and doesn’t break out a bottle of scented oil. Instead he just asks for you to straddle a chair, clutching a plushie against your chest to cushion where it leans against the backrest, and tells you to get comfy.

“Just relax,” he says, as you desperately try to remember how your body works and coax it to relax like Taehyung wants you to. You fail miserably. You feel like a ball of rubber bands, each muscle a layer of tighter and tighter elastic that’s circled around you. “Lean forwards a little?”

At least Taehyung can’t see your face from this angle. You have no idea what sort of expression is twisting your features; consternation and horrified anticipation, probably. You're basically throttling your plushie, taking out your tension and frustration on the poor thing, Rilakkuma's placid face morphing into a twisted expression of sympathy under your grasping fingers.

“Perfect,” Taehyung says. The sound of praise in his deep voice has your insides turning into overheated syrup, hot and thick, dripping down and pooling between your legs. You hate yourself. Getting turned on by the most innocuous words from your best friend, really? Get it together.

The second you feel Taehyung's warm hands touch the back of your neck, your shoulders hunch up faster than a whiplash, a turtle sucking its head into its shell. Your friend laughs.

“This is the opposite of relaxing,” he says, voice warm with amusement.

“You surprised me.” You dig your nails into Rilakkuma's soft brown fur. Taehyung just thinks you're not used to being massaged, not that you're being weird because it's him that's touching you. Because he touches you a lot. He’s just never done it like this. “Sorry.”

“It's fine,” he replies, unruffled and oblivious. “Let me try again?”

You bite your lip, desperately trying to quell the mix of arousal and tension that’s churning in your stomach, begging your muscles to unwind. You’ve kept your crush a secret from him for this long, you can keep that energy up. (You have to keep that energy up.) “Um. Okay.”

You’re still tense when Taehyung puts his hands on you again. The touch is warm through your clothes, firm but careful, digging into the sharp line of tension laid across your shoulders; despite the way your heart is threatening to launch itself out of your chest, you start to loosen up, because holy shit that feels nice, actually.

You melt against Rilakkuma and smother the bear's face in your chest. “Your teacher wasn’t kidding when they said that you’re good with your hands,” you mumble.

You’ve never gotten a proper massage before but it feels so damn good that you can’t help but unwind, turning to jelly at the confident presses of Taehyung’s fingers and palms into the soft skin between your neck and shoulder. A little sigh spills past your lips when Taehyung starts to work at the part that’s been twinging after you lay crookedly on it, limbs akimbo in your sleep after a long night at work. “Oh, right there, Tae.”

Taehyung goes still for just a second before continuing, trailing his fingers over your shirt. “Here?”

Your eyes have drifted shut so you can focus on the sensation of that tension being pulled out of your body. “Yeah, right there,” you repeat, massaged into a state of lazy euphoria. The breath you let out is long and deep, catching in the back of your throat at a particularly firm rub of Taehyung’s hands; if you weren’t so blissed out you might be embarrassed at how much the noise you make is like a moan, but as it is, you don’t even notice. You just let out a little sound of discontent when Taehyung’s fingers stutter in their motions, displeased that he’s stopped even for a second.

By the time the massage is over, you’re so relaxed that you feel like you could melt into the floor, a wobbly puddle of unwound muscles and loose limbs. It’s official. You’re a massage convert.

“Holy shit.” Your eyes flutter open as you lean away from Rilakkuma so you can turn around. They’re the first coherent words you’ve spoken for a while; small sighs and sounds have been dripping from your lips and it’s only now that you’re able to regain your breath. “Tae, that was amazin—”

You’re met with the sight of Taehyung’s back as he power walks away, steps rapid, a little shaky, awkward. Before you can ask what’s wrong, he’s stepping into the bathroom.

“I need to wash my hands,” he says without looking at you, before the door slams shut.

You don’t remember Tae telling you about how quickly you have to wash your hands after finishing a massage. But, thinking about it, you suppose it makes sense—you know, with massaging multiple clients or whatever—even if it’s surprising exactly how fast he’d hoofed it away from you. It sounds like he’s switched both taps on full blast as well, noisy even through the wooden door, and judging from how long he’s in there, he’s being very thorough. Hand washing must be a lot more important than you’d realised.

Once Taehyung emerges, his face is a little flushed, cheeks a soft red. You wonder if the hot water tap is playing up again and filling your dinky bathroom with hot steam, and make a mental note to look into it. You smile at Taehyung from your perch on the sofa, Rilakkuma plopped on your lap, smile spread across your features; one that Taehyung returns, as pink-faced as he is.

“How’s your shoulder feeling?”

“So much better, honestly,” you admit. It’s incredible. He hasn’t even finished the course yet and he's already this good. He really does have magic hands.

“I’ll have to give you massages more often,” Taehyung says, though the end of the sentence trembles a little. He must be light-headed after all the steam in the bathroom.

The thought of more massages doesn’t fill you with as much mind-numbing trepidation as it might have earlier, utterly languid as you flop across the sofa, muscles uncoiled after the lovely touch of Taehyung’s even lovelier hands. No wonder people rave about spa days if they leave you feeling like this. Maybe if you’d been staring at Taehyung in the eye when he’d been touching you, then you’d feel a lot more awkward—as it is, it’s no worse than usual. Your crush is still all-encompassing but you also got a massage out of it, so.

“Sounds great.” This time you don’t even have to fake your excitement. “Now come sit your butt down so we can order some takeout and decide what to watch.”

When you bend down to speak to Pickles later, the bearded dragon is lolling on his favourite branch. “There’s still a high chance that I’m going to die,” you say in a low voice, before you flick the lights off so the lizard can sleep. “But he hasn’t broken out the oils yet, so I think I’ll be okay for now.”

Your luck doesn’t last.

“Strawberry and champagne, lychee martini, mint mojito, white chocolate, or tropical coconut?”

You look up from where you’re painting your toenails. “Huh?”

Taehyung bundles into the room and throws himself onto your bed, flopping on his belly and ignoring the way the mattress is jostled. You, of course, are used to his antics, which is why you’d swept your open bottle of nail polish up before he could spill it everywhere.

“What do you think sounds best?”

“Well, that depends,” you say, squinting at your toes and carefully sweeping the polish over the freshly buffed nails. “For candles, I think they sound pretty nice. For sauces to pour over a steak, I’d say I’d give them all a hard pass. What’s it for?”

“Massage oils,” Taehyung says blithely, too busy staring at his phone to see you muffle a curse when your hand slips and you paint your entire little toe blue. “I was wondering which you think sounds best.”

“Oh. Uh.” You fumble to clean your toe and salvage the now-terrible pedicure you’re trying to give yourself. It was only a matter of time before massage oils were going to become part of your life. Taehyung never goes into things half-hearted, so of course he’s going to invest in oils, too. God’s sake. You can never catch a break, can you? “Why these ones in particular?”

Taehyung pauses for a suspiciously long time, but it gives you the chance to furiously rub at your toe while he’s distracted. “We get a free bottle from the course,” he says eventually.

Huh. Okay. “That’s pretty neat. What was the last one? Coconut? Stick with the basics, can’t go wrong with that, right?”

“Coconut is always tasty,” Taehyung comments absently, and you glance up from your Smurf toe.

“Agreed, but it’s not like you’re about to eat massage oil, are you?”

Taehyung pauses, and then buries his face into his phone screen—suddenly very intent on rereading the list of ingredients in each bottle, it seems. “No, of course not, you’re right,” he mumbles.

He’s almost finished the course. He’s not going to be an accredited masseuse or anything, but you definitely think he could be, if he wanted to—you’ve never had less tension in your shoulders and neck in your life. Taehyung always eases his way into your personal space anyway, casual and effortless after years of friendship, but now you’re used to his fingers sliding over the back of your neck, a gliding touch, sending tense little goosebumps over your skin while simultaneously making you melt.

“It’s pretty cool that you get free stuff, though.” Your toe is clean, thankfully, no longer blue. “And not just, like, a generic bottle of oil or something. They all sound really fancy. I didn’t realise that you could get massage oils that were scented like that?”

Taehyung makes a non-committal noise, which is uncharacteristic of him, but you’re too focused on repainting your final nail to pay it too much mind, letting out a loud huff of triumph when you’re done.

“Get me a bag of shrimp crackers, please?” You have a sudden craving but you don’t want to penguin waddle to the kitchen and risk getting anything on your wet nails. “Ya girl is hungry.”

“Got it.” Taehyung rolls off the bed without protest. You’re used to his antics, and he’s used to yours, indulging you whenever you feel lazy or want him to do something for you. “You need me to feed you?”

“I wasn’t going to use my toes to feed myself,” you laugh, but Taehyung ends up feeding them to you anyway.

When you recount the list to Seokjin later, his face crumples in a way that’s equal parts offended and disgusted. “They all sound terrible,” he says. “White chocolate should stay in chocolate form and not be turned into an oil. Why does massage oil even have to smell like anything?”

You’re both holed up in the tiny smoking nook behind Olive Chicken; neither of you smoke, but it’s a good excuse to go outside and get fresh air during longer shifts.

“Hey, don’t ask me, I’m not the one who’s taking the course. I think lychee martini sounds interesting, though.”

“Agree to disagree.” Seokjin unwraps one of the complimentary chocolates the restaurant gives to diners with their bill, swallowing it whole. “Besides, we all know Taehyung could approach you with dirty, used fryer oil and you’d let him dip you in it.”

You slap the next chocolate out of his hand before it reaches his mouth. He’s unmoved and simply plucks another from his pocket, which is apparently bulging with them.

“Yoongichi,” Jin says, calling to the delivery boy, who’s just appeared from the dark like some tired-eyed spectre of fried chicken. “Tell me this. If I were to ask you what smell of massage oil you’d prefer, what—”

“I would say that I really could not care less.” Yoongi flops down on one of the rickety fold-out chairs before silently accepting a chocolate from Seokjin’s stash. “And then I’d ask why you’re asking me in the first place, seeing as you’re the one using it, not me. If Taehyung’s asking what massage oil you’d prefer, Y/n, it’s because he wants to rub it all over you specifically.” Yoongi munches on the chocolate, already filling in the blanks without needing to be told the context. You really are that transparent, huh. “Please, we’ve been over this.”

Jin pouts. “You ruined my set up. I had a whole speech prepared.”

“Oh no.” Yoongi remains blank-faced. “How terrible.”

“I hate both of you,” you say. “I’m going to tell Pickles how mean you are.”

“I bet if that lizard could talk, he’d tell you how tired he was of you two dancing around each other, just like the rest of us,” Yoongi says.

There’s no dancing around, though, no matter what your friends say. Well. Not on Taehyung’s end anyway. You’re out here doing the fandango, castanets and all, while Taehyung just stands stock still, oblivious.

You let out an incredibly long sigh. Seokjin hands you a sympathetic chocolate.

The massage oil doesn’t make an appearance in your life for a little while, though. The end of the course comes and goes, Taehyung proudly flapping the laminated certificate at you, wobble-wobble-wobble, filling the apartment with the sound of rippling plastic. But no coconut oil.

The scent of ‘tropical coconut’ has started to haunt your dreams, in a way that’s both good and bad; when you wake up in a sweat, heart pounding, it’s not because you’re having nightmares, let’s just put it like that. It’s like there’s an invisible countdown that you can’t trace and it’s only a matter of time before it ticks over and the shoulder massages (that you’ve gotten very comfortable with) edge into something different. Taehyung’s going to innocently offer to give you a backrub and uncap that bottle of scented oil and you’re going to explode into a mess of putty under his hands.

Well… then again… you had been worried about that with all the shoulder rubs. Now look at you. You weather those like a champ. Sure, your skin tingles and you run hot and you think about the sensation of Taehyung’s hands gliding over you whenever you’re alone, but you’re basically fine. Your friend who just so happens to also be the great love of your life remains none the wiser.

You bet a full back rub would feel great after a long week.

Which is why when Taehyung steps into the apartment with a look on his face that you immediately recognise as tiredness, you sort of wish you knew how to massage people, too.

He falls into your arms with little fanfare. It’s been one of those days, one of those ones that everyone gets, even Taehyung—he’s usually so Switched On and Exuberant and Alive, and people don’t seem to realise that even he feels exhausted, sometimes.

“You alright, bubs?” You can’t massage him but you can rub his back soothingly, let him snuffle against your neck. Sometimes you think about that little space between your chin and collarbones as Taehyung’s, a hollow that’s perfect for him to press his face into, hair tickling your chin as he curls up into you. His and his alone. “Did something happen?”

He just shakes his head.

“Okay,” you say.

(Close proximity and skin on skin with Taehyung doesn’t always have your pulse rising and your heart racing. Sometimes it’s just this: quiet and soft, your heart bright with fierce affection for this boy, the only thought in your mind that you want him to be happy, forever.)

The long silence is broken by the sound of Taehyung heaving in a breath before letting out a long, exhausted sigh.

“Thank you.” His voice is quiet and low, far less energetic than his usual self.

“Nothing to thank me for, Tae,” you reply. “Always here for you. You know that, right?”

He doesn’t respond straight away. He just burrows closer, draped over you, until he murmurs, barely audible. “Why?”

Your face twists. “Why, what? Why am I always here for you?”

“Yeah.” Taehyung squeezes himself impossibly closer, skin warm against yours, forehead pressed to the skin of your neck. You can’t see his expression from this angle.

“Because you’re one of my best friends and I love you,” you answer, immediately. You don’t even have to think about it. “Because you’re important to me and if there’s anything I can do for you, I will. I’ll celebrate the good things in your life with you, and I’ll be at your side during the bad times, just like you are with me. Please don’t ever forget how much I love you, okay?”

There’s a pause, and then it feels like all the tension leaves Taehyung’s body, slumping his whole body weight against you. “Okay,” he murmurs. “I love you too. Thank you,” he says again. You just reply by squeezing his shoulders.

He’s a little quieter for a few days after that. You’re not sure why, because he’d perked up after a lazy evening of lying around and eating too many snacks, flopped against you like an oversized, clinging starfish—but you’re gentle with him nonetheless.

(Well. You’re always gentle with him. It just takes you half a second to fold in the face of his whims, rather than a whole, full second.)

So when the dreaded bottle of oil finally appears, you’re far less ready to fight off Taehyung’s insistence on a full body massage, caught off guard after days of indulging him. Fuck.

“You’ve had a long week!” Taehyung insists as you scrabble your way over the sofa’s backrest so you can hide behind it, clutching a cushion to your chest. “You need to relax!”

Without looking you fling the cushion over the sofa. Judging from the fact that Taehyung doesn’t make a sound, you’ve missed. “I was feeling perfectly relaxed until you started yelling at me about it! Why are you so obsessed with the idea of me being relaxed?”

Taehyung doesn’t respond. Oh, crap. Maybe you did hit him with the cushion?

You pop up from behind the sofa. Nope. It's an embarrassing distance away from Taehyung, who’s got that surprisingly large bottle of oil held loosely in his hands. There’s an expression on his face that you can’t decipher; a little crestfallen, a little unsure, but there’s something else there, too, something you can’t put a name to.

“Taehyung?”

“I just… wanted to help,” he says. “You’re always there for me when I’m not feeling great, and you calm me down, and I wanted to do the same for you.”

You immediately feel like the worst human being alive. Take the feeling you get whenever you accidentally step on an animal’s tail, multiply it by infinity, and that’s only just a drop in the ocean of awful, awful guilt that you’re drowning in.

“Oh, Tae,” you say. Your voice comes out so much softer and sweeter than you mean it to, but you can't help it. “I’m sorry. I was just joking. It’s really nice of you to be so concerned. You just surprised me. You do help me relax and your massages are great.” (You tell him that often enough that he should know it, but it never hurts to repeat a compliment.)

His face lifts. It’s like the sun bursting forth from the clouds after heavy rain, and you have to resist the urge to shield your eyes, blinded by the brightness and beauty. Kim Taehyung is so unfairly gorgeous (but what else is new?). “So I can give you a massage?”

Despite the fact the prospect makes you want to fling yourself into space, when you’re faced with Taehyung’s dark eyes and wide smile and large, warm hands, you cave, because of course you do. If, way back when you’d first been frying up that kimchi rice and letting Taehyung thrust his phone into your face, you’d been told you’d end up in this position, you would have laughed outright. Haha, yeah, sure, like you’d be stupid enough to let yourself be wrangled into such a vulnerable state in front of Taehyung, nowhere to run, helpless under his fingers. Not.

But here you are. Whipped for Kim Taehyung, forever and always.

The pastel blue towels under your stomach and chest are soft as they shield you from the cold, hard floor. You’re incredibly aware of how chilly the apartment feels, air prickling against your bare skin; you shift to try and get comfortable, glancing over your shoulder to fiddle with the towel that’s draped over your hips and ass, making sure it’s covering everything. Taehyung insists on authenticity (as if you’re not lying on the floor of your apartment rather than on a massage table) and he says that it’s normal to be completely naked for a full-body massage, even underneath any towels that are covering you up.

Authenticity is also why he’s in the other room, warming up the massage oil, because that’s apparently a thing?

(You’re going to die.)

It doesn’t matter that Taehyung will only be able to see the back of your head, your shoulder blades, the small of your back, a slip of your thighs, your calves. None of these things are especially scandalous; all the parts of your body that someone might find more interesting are out of sight, pressed against the floor or hidden under a layer of Egyptian cotton microfibres.

And yet you can’t help but be hyperaware of how you’re entirely unclothed. Even if it doesn’t bother Taehyung—what with, you know, the fact he’s not interested in you like that and doesn’t find you attractive at all (sigh)—embarrassment creeps hot and uncomfortable under your skin.

It just feels so crazy intimate to be laid out like this, even if people do this all the time, happily strip down to let professionals rub the tension out of their body.

(Then again, most people aren’t best friends with their masseuses and haven’t harboured long, one-sided crushes on them, either.)

Just breathe. You can do this. You love the shoulder massages that Taehyung’s been giving you; just think of this as a shoulder massage.

… A shoulder massage that involves warm oil, near-nakedness, and Taehyung’s hands sliding all over you.

… You are going to have a very long venting session with Pickles after all this.

You’re so distracted by your own self pity and distress that you don’t register the sound of Taehyung entering the room; the little pause when he steps over the threshold, feet stuttering, just for a moment. It’s only when he’s kneeling down that you notice his presence, body jolting from surprise before you let out a slip of high laughter.

“Jesus, Tae,” you say. In any other circumstance, you’d be clutching your chest. “You scared me.”

“Sorry.” He sounds genuinely apologetic.

Your cheek is pillowed on your arms. When you turn to look at your best friend you immediately regret it; he’s settled back on his ankles, knees spread wide, and you come eye-to-eye with his crotch.

In an effort to look away from his clothed dick, your gaze flies up to his face, which might be even worse. He has this intense look in his eyes, and wow, alright, you’ve never been able to see Taehyung’s face as he’s been massaging you, but you never realised exactly how seriously he seems to take it, judging from his expression.

(Do all massage therapists look like that when they work?)

“That’s alright.” You’re a little breathless, but you’re going to blame that on how your boobs are smooshed into the floor, and not on anything else, nuh uh. Shoulder massage. It’s a shoulder massage. It’s just like a full bodied shoulder massage. (Maybe if you repeat it to yourself often enough then you’ll actually start to believe it.) “Uh. Do you need me to… do anything? Or do I just lie here?”

Taehyung’s expression lightens a little at the uncertainty in your tone, smile curling up the corners of his mouth. “You’re perfect right where you are,” he says, and then he reaches for the bottle of oil.

You turn your head away again, cheeks burning. There’s no way you’ll be able to handle the visual of him slicking his fingers and palms up. “Cool,” you say, voice only a little strained. “Coolcoolcoolcool.”

(It’s not cool.)

You don’t have a visual, but you do get the auditory experience thanks to the relative silence in the apartment. Goosebumps ripple down the back of your neck and trail down your spine at the sound of Tae’s hands sliding against each other, thoroughly coated in the warmed oil, and you’re so glad that you can blame it on the chill in the air.

At first, it’s okay. Taehyung starts at the parts of your body that are used to receiving his attention, though it’s different without the barrier of clothing in the way, not to mention how easily his palms glide over you, the air full of the light scent of coconut. It’s different, but manageable, and you think you just might be okay; as always, his touches are firm but careful, and your body is used to this by now, relaxing.

But. The second you feel Taehyung’s touch between your shoulder blades, you stiffen with a shiver. The oil is the perfect temperature against your skin, but you’ve always had a sensitive back; you can’t help but clench your fists, digging your fingers into your palms. Relax. Just breathe.

“You’ve got a lot of tension here.” Taehyung’s voice is low as he digs the heel of his palm into the dip of your spine.

It’s because you’re touching me there, you think to yourself, but just let out a non-committal hum of agreement instead.

You feel Taehyung's hands, a repeated sliding motion between your shoulder blades; the tension starts to leak out of you again, but your breath hitches in your throat at how you're pressed downwards and into the cotton towels beneath you, nipples hardening against them.

Thank God you're on your front so Tae can't see what effect he's having on you.

“Better?”

Taehyung's voice is always deep, but you'd swear it was even deeper in this moment, pitched low. Maybe that’s because the sound of blood pumping is filling your ears so it’s hard to discern. At this point, who even knows? Not you, that’s for sure.

“Yep.” Why are you so breathless? You haven’t moved at all, but you sound like you’ve just run the 100m sprint, winded and weak. “So much better.”

You regret agreeing to this. You are so out of your depth and there’s no way you’re going to be able to hide exactly how much this is affecting you and you want to collapse in on yourself and shrivel up like a sundried tomato, tiny and wrinkly and underwhelming.

Taehyung shifts to reach more of you and you squeeze your eyes shut so you don’t come face first with his crotch again, shielding yourself from the view of his loose linen trousers stretched almost taut with how wide his knees are. It’s both a blessing and a curse—a blessing because you’re saved from aforementioned view, but a curse because your sensation of touch is heightened, and all you’re aware of is his hands sliding down your sides. You’d swear those fingers were so long he could circle your waist with ease.

(Massages are meant to relax you and yet you’ve never felt so tense in your life.)

Taehyung clicks his tongue against the back of his teeth. “I can’t get a good angle like this,” he mutters.

Before you can think anything or say anything, you become aware of the sound of moving and shifting and—

Your eyes fly open. Taehyung’s straddling your thighs, heavy and warm, and you suck in a breath so sharp and fast you can feel your chest expand, brain full of the screaming clang of warning bells. There’s no way this is a normal masseuse thing. There’s no way. It’s intimate and entirely too physical and there’s absolutely no way that this is something Taehyung learned in class.

(What is he doing?)

But then any coherent thought in your brain slips when his hands settle on you again.

They so, so lightly brush the hem of the towel that preserves your modesty, and you can’t help the full-body shiver that wracks through you. You suck your lips into your mouth, swallowing down the noise that threatens to bubble up in your throat. There’s the sensation of fingers trailing up the line of your spine, feather light, smoothed by the slide of oil, and you feel like molten lava, burning hot and bright.

“Taehyung.” Your voice is high and faint.

His fingers splay down your ribcage and run down your sides, confident and smooth, warm with that coconut-scented oil, and you’re dying, you’re living; you want to disappear, you never want this to end.

“Taehyung,” you repeat. Your voice shakes.

He hums, low and indulgent. “Yes?”

“M-my thighs,” you stammer, unable to articulate yourself. Why are you on my thighs, oh God, you’re so warm and heavy on top of me, oh God oh God oh God.

Taehyung completely misunderstands you. “Oh? Of course.” He sounds nonchalant. “I’ll massage those next.”

You can feel the drag of his linen trousers against your skin as he moves down to rest on your calves, and hear the bottle open as Taehyung drizzles more oil over his hands, far more than he could possibly need. His palms feel so broad and warm against the smoothness of your thighs, touches firm and confident as he digs his fingers into the muscle, and, oh, fuck, this is, this is too much—

Your legs jump when Taehyung hitches the towel up, just a little, baring more of your body.

“Fuck.” You can't keep quiet any longer. “Tae, I’m fine, I’m feeling way less tense now.”

He’s still, for a moment, before his hands slide up the back of your thighs. “Are you sure? You want me to stop?”

It’s only then that you realise how deeply Taehyung is breathing, fast and low, voice rough and gravelled. His fingers rest in wait, warm and slick with oil; you’re so close to losing any modicum of modesty, only one motion away from that towel being rucked high enough that there’s nothing protecting you from Taehyung’s touch and eyes.

“I haven’t finished yet, though,” he continues, digging his thumbs into your skin as he pulls his hands down your thighs, mindlessly following the motions he’s been taught. “There’s still more to go.”

You could twist around to look at him but you’re almost afraid to look at his face, afraid of what you’d find there. He sounds as affected as you are, but there’s absolutely no way. There’s no way.

“You don’t need to do the whole massage if I’m feeling relaxed, right?”

(Because you’re feeling so relaxed right now, of course, and not like you’re about to go supernova and burst into heat and light. Absolutely.)

(But.)

(But. Taehyung’s hands settle at the back of your knees, swiping the sensitive skin with his thumbs. You can’t see his face, but you can feel something in that touch, something more than skin deep, like it’s sinking into you, through skin and muscle and bone, in in in, settling inside you, a flicker of—of—)

“Want to do this perfectly for you,” he murmurs. You clench your hands at the husky note in his voice, nails digging so hard into your palms it hurts. “You deserve the best. I want you to feel good.”

He must be able to see your back rise and fall as you breathe in sharply.

“Taehyung.” Almost pleading.

“Yes, love?”

You suck in another sharp breath. The pet name sounds so soft and sweet in his mouth, somehow, even with the heated edge to his voice. One that’s definitely there. You’re not imagining it.

(You’re not.)

“Do you want me to make you feel good?” he continues.

Before you can think, you nod.

“Yes,” you whisper. “Please.”

You’re trembling. Taehyung’s still heavy and warm across the back of your calves, sliding one hand to the inside of a knee and up the soft skin of your inner thighs. You instinctively shift them apart, as far as you can with Taehyung trapping your legs, and, oh, his hand is going higher, oh—

His hand is so big, cupping your overheated sex. It’s hard to tell where the oil ends and your own arousal begins, flushed wet and hot; when he dips his middle finger between your lower lips, long and gentle and firm, you let out a noise you didn’t realise you were capable of. The angle is off, a little awkward, the motions of Taehyung’s fingers stifled by how you’re lying flush to the ground, but God, you’re so turned on it barely matters.

You’re hyperaware of everything. The soft touch of air on the cooling oil across your skin. The fall of the towel, bunched around your waist, slowly slipping to one side. Taehyung’s hand, his fingertips easing through the heat of you, sliding over your clit, over your entrance, slow and soft and amazing.

“Again,” you plead. “Again, Tae, please.”

“Feels good?” He asks, and you squeeze your eyes shut as you nod, cheek still pillowed against your arm.

“So good,” you say. “But I want more, please, Tae.”

“Anything you want,” he murmurs.

Taehyung’s hand shifts between your legs again, so hot, so big, so reverent. The slide is smooth as his fingers press into your folds, practically gliding. You twist beneath him, letting out a noise of displeasure when he draws his hand away, but then he lifts off your calves. You let him thrust your legs apart before he resettles between them.

Just as you’re distracted with the towel being tugged away from your hips, baring you entirely, Taehyung slides a finger into your weeping cunt.

You whine. It's so long. Now that your calves aren’t trapped, there’s nothing to stop you from rutting back against his fingers. He splays his other hand over the soft flesh of your ass, encouraging the rolling motion of your hips, and you’re gasping, wanton in your noises of desire and pleasure. One finger becomes two, and then three, Taehyung’s voice a low undercurrent to your stuttered moans as he presses them as deep as he can.

“Just like that, angel,” he breathes. “Want you to feel good, keep making those pretty noises, let me know how good it is—”

“Taehyung,” you whine, dragging the syllables of his name out when he curls his fingers inside you, so amazing, hitting you in all the right places.

“Baby.” He sounds wrecked, words sliding together, and you haven’t even touched him yet. “You’re so hot n’ wet, fuck. So perfect. Just like that, keep moving like that.”

You can hear the slick sounds of his thrusts into you. He’s already learned what you like, twisting his fingers in a way that leaves you breathless; they’re so fucking long, sliding into your greedy cunt with ease, reaching so much deeper than your own can. His pretty lovely hands are on you, inside you, and you’re heady at the thought.

“There, Tae, don’t stop, please, p-please.” The coil twists tighter in between your legs, a taut thread that’s ready to snap. He listens, repeating the motion that’s pulling you closer to the edge, eyes wide, staring at the way you’re writhing underneath him; the way the oil on your back and legs shimmers in the light, the evidence of his touch all over you, shining. “Tae, oh, God, right there, yes, yes, yes—”

Your entire body goes tense and then you’re cumming around Taehyung’s fingers, clenching your thighs together, trapping him inside as you buck your hips. You grind back against his hand, a loud moan falling from your lips, drowning out the noise of awe that Taehyung makes when he feels your walls pulsate around him. You're warm and tight and wet, arousal flooding thick against his skin, and he lets out a stuttered groan, fingers buried knuckle deep inside you, feeling every wave of pleasure that rocks through your core.

You’re panting by the time you settle back down and barely make a sound when Taehyung drags his fingers out of you. When he leans down the oil on your skin feels tacky against his clothes, material sticking to you, chest to back, hips to ass. You can feel the hot curve of him through his trousers, his cock heavy, getting harder—and it feels sososo good.

Taehyung’s face is so close, now, chin hooked over your shoulder. Even though you can feel the hardness of his cock pressed against you, the smile on his face is so gentle. Your heart thrums in your chest.

“So cute n' pretty,” he says, and presses his nose to the soft curve of your cheek. Rather than coconut, all you can smell is his shampoo, familiar and homely and heady. “All over. God, I can’t believe you’d let me touch you like this. I’m so lucky. Was that good, baby?”

“Yes,” you say, and then, because you’re still floating in a light haze of disbelief: “I’m the lucky one.”

Taehyung laughs, low and quiet. It’s a honeyed moment, dripping slow and sweet, even sweeter when he tilts his head forward. His lips are soft against your cheekbone, your jaw, and when you turn towards him, they’re even softer against your mouth. You can feel the shape of his smile, and it tastes so bright, small kisses that turn open mouthed, so perfect. Because you’re kissing Kim Taehyung, your Taehyung, something you’ve been dreaming about for so long, now—even if this entire situation is pretty unbelievable, honestly.

When you pull back, his eyes spark with unadulterated joy. He’s warm and heavy, pinning you down against the towels that are soft against your front; arching your spine, you lean back against the weight of Taehyung’s body, his cock fattening up through the layers of clothes that separate you. He lets out a breath of surprise before he grinds down, pressing that hard heat against you, and your cunt clenches.

“Can I finish the massage?” He asks, sounding almost eager, even with the rasp of lust in his voice. You can’t help but laugh, an affectionate giggle that has you knocking your foreheads together.

“Of course,” you say, and he catches your lips again, swallowing the last of your laughter, sweeping his tongue over your lips, inside your mouth, wet and hot and a little messy, but good.

“You need to be on your back,” Taehyung continues, slow after the kiss is broken, and, oh, okay, that has you shivering. “If you want to?”

Of course you want to.

“Okay,” you whisper. “Let me move.”

He shifts to give you room, but not before pressing a kiss to the back of your neck, the bump of the top of your spine, lips sliding against the oil that he’d rubbed there earlier, goosebumps erupting over your skin.

“So good to me,” he whispers. You don’t think he even means for you to hear it.

(It’s said without thought; not thoughtless, no, but a soft little thing that says so much. A thought that’s slipped across his mind and fallen from his lips, warm and tender. Like you’re always good to him, and he sees it, he knows it, he feels it, he thinks it, and he’s almost in disbelief about it, because you’re so good to him.)

You feel warm and languid after cumming, loose-limbed as you flop onto your back. There’s no going back now. There’s no going back from this moment, naked and vulnerable under Taehyung, nothing hidden away any more—the soft fall of your breasts, your stomach, the lines of your hips, your fingers tightening in the towels spread beneath you as Taehyung’s eyes drink you in, wide and overawed at the sight of your flushed cunt, ripe and slick and ready for him.

(There's no more hiding how much you want Taehyung to have you, body and heart alike.)

You can see the shape of your body silhouetted on his clothes, where the oil has seeped into the material from how close he’d been pressed against you. You can see just how affected he is, cock straining against the loose linen of his white trousers, and you bite your lip to try and stifle the sound you make.

“Look at you,” Taehyung breathes, kneeling between your legs. “You’re so perfect.”

Your cheeks burn. “Taehyung, please,” you say, embarrassed. You really aren’t, especially in comparison to model-gorgeous Kim Taehyung, eyes dark and full of heated lust, hair falling in his eyes, effortlessly beautiful, always.

“You are,” he insists. “You have no idea how perfect you are.”

Before he reaches for the massage oil, he sucks the taste of you off his fingers, sloppy and messy. Your pussy throbs at the sight. And—you were also right about the visual being too much to handle, breath catching in your throat as you watch it drip into his broad hands. His palms shine as he rubs them together, interlacing his fingers, so graceful in their motions. You’re so wet from your orgasm, only getting wetter as you stare back at Taehyung, whose gaze has been heavy on you the whole time.

He starts at your collarbones. It’s even slower than before, and you ease underneath him, revelling in the softness of his touch. He sweeps his hands over your shoulders, down your arms, circling his long fingers around your wrists before lifting one of your hands. Your eyelashes flutter as he presses a kiss to your palm, a motion so full of adoration and tenderness it steals your breath away, and you squirm, shy.

“Tae,” you whine. “You can’t just do that.”

Of course he doubles down, lifting your other hand and repeating the motion, letting his lips linger between your head line and your heart line. “I can,” he says, words warm in your cupped palm.

“I hope you didn’t do this in class.” Your voice is too weak for it to come out as the joke you mean it to be.

Taehyung just shakes his head, mouth brushing over the tips of your fingers. “Only for you,” he says. “Did the whole class for you. I wanted—wanted an excuse to touch you more,” he admits, and your heart feels like it’s going to launch itself out of your throat.

“Then touch me,” you say, trying to sound confident even if your cheeks burn.

And he does. He lets your hands drop, gliding his touch back up your arms, down your body, over your legs; he massages your thighs and calves, digs his thumbs into the arches of your feet, circling his fingers around your ankles, shackles you don’t want to escape from. You feel so relaxed and lax, somehow, even if every touch has you biting your lip, anticipation roiling in your stomach for what’s to come, Taehyung laying your legs down softly before he shifts back up, hands held out towards you—

—then he cups your breasts in his big, big hands and your back arches, fingers sliding over your nipples, glistening with coconut oil, circling them with the pads of his thumbs. You let out an embarrassing whine.

“Oh, Tae,” you beg. “More, please.”

“Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

You smile at another soft, unexpected pet name, flustered, but then your eyes slide shut when Taehyung bends down to kiss your neck as he continues to run his hands over the swell of your breasts. He trails his lips over your oiled skin, shifts down, drawing a line from your neck to the valley of your chest, the hard line at the center of your ribcage.

“Tae,” you murmur, and then, feeling bold under the heat of Taehyung’s dark eyes— “Baby.”

He hums before laying another sloppy kiss against your sensitive skin. You can feel the curve of his smile in the kiss. “Yes, love?”

“Is it really okay for you to… you know… get that oil in your mouth? I don’t want you to get sick,” you say, concerned, even through the haze of your arousal. His lips shine with it, at how he’s been trailing his mouth over all the parts of your body that he’s touched.

There’s a short beat, and then Taehyung buries his head against your neck—in that little hollow that’s his, in a motion he’s done dozens of times. Except this time you’re naked and he still has fingers splayed across the soft skin of your chest, nipples dragging underneath his palms.

“You’re always so considerate.” His words are muffled against your skin. “It’s fine. It’s edible.”

“You got edible massage oil from your course?”

Taehyung hesitates. “No,” he admits. “I bought it. It’s edible and, uh. Safe for intimate use.”

You’re silent, just for a moment, and then you can’t help it. You start to laugh.

“Kim Taehyung,” you say, body shaking with amusement. “Did you buy edible massage oil that you can also use as lube?”

Taehyung pulls his face away from your neck and glances up. You’re giggling at him, and he feels so full of love and affection; he can’t help but join in, both laughing at him, loud and carefree.

“It’s why I asked which one you liked,” he confesses, once he can catch his breath.

“I can’t believe you lied to me,” you say, but you don’t mind, really, and he knows it. You lift a hand to push hair out of his face, running your fingers down his scalp. He leans into your touch with a smile, bright and lovely, before he abruptly shifts one of his hands down so he can lick a hot, wet stripe across the skin of your breast.

That stops your laughter pretty fast, surprised hiccup shifting into a broken moan when he engulfs your nipple in the heat of his mouth. “O-oh,” you gasp. “Oh, Taehyung—”

“Been thinking about this for so long.” Taehyung’s eyes are lidded and dark as he leans back, watching the way you react to his touch, arching up towards him. “Wanted to touch you like this so much.”

“Wanted it too,” you breathe. “Wanted—oh, God, Tae, fuck—”

It’s overwhelming. Not just the way Taehyung is flicking his tongue over each of your nipples, pressing his lips against your skin, no—but the idea that he’s been hoping for this, too. Each wet motion of his tongue over your pebbled skin drags pulls out of you; Taehyung’s cock twitches at a loud keen that’s drawn from your lips, a wet patch of precum seeping through his boxers and trousers, darkening the fabric, even though you haven’t touched him yet.

When you reach out to grasp him through his clothes, his hips jolt forward and he bites off a surprised gasp, cutting through the sound with his teeth. He feels long and heavy as you stroke him, thumbing over the wet patch at his tip, hot, even through all those layers between your skin and his.

“I want to feel you, Tae,” you say, staring at him. “Inside me. Please.”

His breath hitches when you tighten your fingers around his shaft and drag your hand upwards, slow and intent.

“The oil isn’t condom friendly,” he admits, abashed.

“Then you can cum in my mouth,” you reply. No hesitation.

Taehyung’s eyes are so wide, but then he smiles, eyes squeezing into crescents, mouth turning up into that lovely, broad grin of his. He looks so sweet and sincere, and you feel like you could explode, stuffed overfull with love for him.

“You really are perfect,” he says.

“Only for you,” you reply, your smile just as bright.

He lays one final kiss to your chest, above your beating heart, before he starts to strip. The oil has obviously soaked through his shirt and onto his skin because it sticks when he peels it off and carelessly throws it aside.

Just like his heart, Taehyung’s body is soft and lovely. You sit up so you can touch him properly, catching him off guard when you pull him in for a kiss—one he eagerly leans into, and without the shirt in the way you can feel the way your skin slides against his, softened with oil.

There really is no one as beautiful as Kim Taehyung. You drag your hands over him, so warm and wonderful under your palms; his chest, his cute tummy, his waist, his hips, the soft skin above his red, neglected cock. He’s radiant in his nakedness, every easing line of his body so perfect as he kneels in front of you, the flush of his skin, the heavy weight of his arousal, head shining with precum, so wet it’s practically dripping.

You lean in to kiss his neck and nip at his Adam's apple as his hands slide over your shoulder blades and down your back, the parts that make you shudder.

“Want you, Tae.” You whisper into his mouth, a soft secret that isn’t really a secret at all, not any more. “All of you.”

“Going to give you everything you want.” The words flow out of him with ease. “Everything you want.”

His chest and stomach shine with the massage oil that’s rubbed off from your own skin. You run your hands across him, and when you finally grasp his cock without the barrier of cloth in the way, he’s almost burning under your grasp, thick, his entire body shuddering when you pump his length. So sensitive to your touch.

“I’m goin’ to make you cum again,” he promises, and you love it, the way he talks when he’s losing himself. “Bet you’ll feel so good around my cock, so perfect.”

A shiver skates through your body. Taehyung’s fingers dig into your skin when he feels you trembling under his hands, and all you can think about is how you want him in you.

“Please,” you say. “Please, wanna make you feel good too—”

“Hands and knees, angel,” he rasps, and, God, yes, those words cut straight through you, sharp and electric.

Maybe you should feel embarrassed at how quickly you obey. The towels underneath you, so carefully placed at the start, perfectly flat, become rumpled as you shift into position; you arch your back, wanting to look as good as possible, and glance over your shoulder to see if it works.

Judging from the look on Taehyung’s face, it does. He looks like he’s never seen anything more awe-inspiring, eyes wide and mouth a little slack, dumbstruck. But then his jaw snaps shut and he splays his hands over the soft skin of your hips, your waist, your ass, shuffling closer to you; you feel the curve of his cock slide against your skin and you bite back a noise of need.

“Fuck, so beautiful.” He ruts forward, and you can feel the wetness of his precum slicking against you, a beaded line drawn across the sheen of massage oil. “My beautiful, perfect girl.”

“Tae,” you plead, already overwhelmed with need, heart squeezing at his words.

“Just one more thing, angel, I promise.”

It’s a good thing that the bottle of massage oil is so big, considering how liberal Taehyung is with it. You gasp when he uses one hand to spread your ass and before you can react there’s a drizzle of oil falling onto your skin, down-down-down, over your cunt, dripping over your inner thighs; Taehyung catches the excess with his palms before he slicks himself up, spreading that sweet coconut over his throbbing cock.

(You wonder what it’ll taste like when you lick it off him.)

When you feel the blunt head of his cock nudging at your pussy, your entire body lights up in anticipation, nerve endings on fire, every inch of your body singing under Taehyung’s touch—and when he finally sinks in, it’s almost effortless. He’s thick and long but everything slides so easy; you gasp and he moans, both lost in how your body opens up for him, hot and wet. By the time he’s bottomed out you're a quivering mess, collapsed onto your elbows. You’re so full. You feel split open in all the best ways, wanting to draw him in impossibly deeper even so.

Taehyung is gripping your sides, hands unmoving even with the slick oil underneath them, fingers digging into your skin. He’s breathing so loud, and when you experimentally shift your hips, he bites back a noise that cuts through that breath.

“How’s it feel, love?” His words slur together in arousal, but the hand that strokes your back is slow, thoughtful. “Feel good?”

“Fuck me, Tae, baby, please,” you beg. It’s so, so so much, so good, amazing, hotter and bigger and harder than anything you’d let yourself imagine, your entire body taking Taehyung and holding him in, in, in. “Please, I need it, it feels good but I want more, please.”

When he pulls away it’s slow and torturous and he goes so far he almost slips out, cock nearly sliding out of your folds. You whine, a little shameless, mostly needy, but then—

The snap of his hips drives you forwards, towels shifting underneath as you scrabble for a hold on something. Each sharp motion of Taehyung’s body has you choking for air and letting out whimpers and gasps, drowned out by the slap of skin on skin; his hipbones meet the soft flesh of your ass, again and again, but all you can focus on is the thick heat of his cock inside you, in-out-in-out, the press of his balls against your clit, everything so wet and smooth and slick.

You can feel how you’re losing yourself to that heady place that’s golden bright with feeling, lust and sex, the rest of the world gone, unimportant. There’s nothing but this—Taehyung touching you, filling your body so well, so perfect, helping you chase that high that’s growing faster and faster, that precipice of pleasure that he’s going to throw you over again, intent on it.

One of his hands trails up your back, between that sensitive dip of your shoulder blades and into your hair, locks tangling with coconut oil before he urges you up. He doesn’t yank or pull but his hold is firm and you end up back on your hands, arms trembling as you try to keep your balance, back bowed, overwhelmed.

“Baby,” he rasps. “Oh, you’re so tight n’ hot, so pretty, fuck. You feel so good, do you feel good?”

Your answer is almost a wail, so overcome with pleasure, sensation, the glide of his hands over your shining skin, the mix of oil and arousal that drips out of you, only getting wetter with each thrust of his hips into you. “So good, o-oh God, Tae, baby, fuck, oh, theretherethere—”

“Here?”

He punctuates this with a roll of his hips, using the hand still on your hip to pull you back onto his cock as he fills you up once more, throbbing heat. He bends over you, and this time, there’s nothing stopping the skin on skin contact, the slide of his chest against your back as he kisses the soft skin behind your ear, nipping at your lobe, and that’s it, you’re gone. Your eyes slide shut and your mouth falls open as another orgasm crashes through you, legs shaking as you cum around Taehyung’s cock, grinding back against him to drag out that pleasure; the only thing holding you up is the hand still in your hair, the lips trailing up the side of your bared neck, the hard cock inside you, keeping you against him, so many points of connection with Taehyung.

(His chest pressed against your back, heart beating so hard you can feel it, your own heart moving in tandem, matching him.)

He’s been whispering filth to you, heated praise and love, how good you feel, how beautiful you are, what it’s like to see you like this, touch you like this, have you like this. Lovely, pretty, perfect, gorgeous, hot n’ wet n’ tight, fuck, love, oh.

You’re still shivering, the final pulses of your orgasm curling through you with each unintentional shift of Taehyung’s hips, the drag of his length inside your inner walls. You can feel something dripping out of you; oil, cum, you don't know, but fuck, it feels so so good.

“Oh, God,” you say. Breathless. “Oh, Taehyung, oh.”

“Pretty darling,” he murmurs. He swivels his hips, grinding against you, and your entire body jolts with oversensitivity, clit swollen where his balls press against it. You tighten around him and groan at how hot and big he still feels inside, even as you still shiver from the come down of your second orgasm. “Gonna roll you over so I can see that perfect face.”

And when you’re on your back again, fucked out and mussed and wrecked, he just stares at you. You’ve watched his face for so long, seen so many expressions flit across his features, but never something like this—it’s a mix of amazement and awe and tenderness and lust and love, a lift to his brows and a spark in his eyes and a set to his lips.

And when he leans down to kiss you, that look doesn’t leave. It melts and softens around the edges as you catch each other's mouths, as you kiss and kiss, small tender things interspersed with longer, deeper touches, lips and teeth and tongue—his eyes darken and his mouth flushes darker pink, kiss swollen and so beautiful, but that expression stays. It stays for you.

Kim Taehyung is beautiful and lovely and unique. Kim Taehyung is so far out of your reach it’s kind of stunning, actually. And yet, here you are, existence of his touch over every part of you, in every part of you, lust driven, love full; the carefully balanced weight of his body splayed over you, pinning you down, keeping you close.

“I wanna see you cum, Tae,” you say. “Please?”

And just like he always does, Taehyung indulges you, just like you indulge him. He presses back inside you, cunt opening up for him so easy, so smooth, like his touch has already been etched into the memory of your body, perfect for him. He stays pressed close, face so near as he rolls into each thrust, sweat and coconut oil painted across your skin as your bodies shift together.

He’s been covering you in his words, both heated and sweet, and now you return the favour. You tell him how good he feels, how beautiful he is, so good, so perfect, so considerate, how much you’ve wanted this. So good, so long and thick, oh, Tae, feels so good, ah-ah-ah, baby, you’re unreal, fuck.

You can see the exact moment he starts to reach his high, the way he sucks in air, the way he lifts his chin, starts to thrust a little harder, a little faster, chasing that thread of pleasure that’s spiralling through him, and you urge him on. You lift your hips and clench so tight it has him gasping, hips stuttering, and you press your nose against his jaw, saying give it to me give it to me give it to me, wanting him to feel the same pleasure he’s given you.

When he pulls out, you’re too busy moving to pay attention to how empty you feel, settling between his legs and swallowing down his shining cock almost desperately. There’s no coconut. You can only taste yourself and when you lave your tongue across his slit it’s all Taehyung-Taehyung-Taehyung, hot and salt and bitter; he gasps and his hips jump and you take it all, lowering your head as far as you can, the head of his cock at the back of your throat before you pull up, dragging your tongue over the pulsing vein at the underside, messy and wet. You drink down the wetness of his cock, your own arousal, mixed with his, the precum that beads at his head, staring up at him, your hands sliding over the sheen of his stomach, his thighs, cupping his balls, everything slick with oil and sweat.

“Oh, God.” Taehyung’s eyes are blown and his hair is a mess and his mouth is wide open as he pants for air, watching. “Baby, baby, I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum.”

You suck hard, dragging your lips up from the base of the cock to the rounded tip, swirling your tongue, bobbing your head faster—

“Oh, fuck—”

—and you swallow down each wave of cum, swallow down the way his cock twitches as he spills the evidence of pleasure into your mouth, swallow down the lovely noises that shudder out of him, watching him the whole time, never wanting to look away.

When you take your mouth off his softening cock, you draw a line of kisses with your mouth, up the soft skin of his body, stomach to chest to neck to mouth. He licks the taste of coconut oil off your lips, the taste of himself off your tongue; you curl up in his lap, settled against him, the apartment’s cool air even sharper against your skin, magnified by the oil that still lingers.

(Even without the oil painted across him, Taehyung would still shine, even under the weak light from the cheap lightbulb that hangs above you.)

You feel soft and warm and small in the circle of Taehyung’s arms, pulled close, and you can hear the words in his chest as he speaks, a resonance that touches against your skin.

“‘M sorry,” he murmurs.

You pause.

“Baby, love, darling.” The endearments are sugar sweet in your mouth, soft against his skin before you pull back to look at him, confused, concerned. “Sorry for what?”

“I really—I really was just planning to do a massage, but you’re so…”

You let out a slip of laughter. The room smells of coconut and sex, but when you lay your head against Taehyung’s collarbone all you can smell is the light tinge of his sweat. You breathe in, deep, like you can hold onto that ephemeral part of him. “Oh, Tae. I’m so what?”

“You’re so good,” he says. “So good and kind and lovely and—and so beautiful. I was going to do the massage to make you happy and then… tell you. About how happy you make me.”

You burrow your head into the hollow of his neck, the way he does to you, shy. “I’m not as beautiful as you,” you reply. “Tae, you are literally the most beautiful person alive, and—God, I’ve. I’ve been. So head over heels for you.”

There’s a pause. “Really?”

When you pull back to fix Taehyung with all the surprise in your gaze, you can see that he’s surprised, too. His hair hangs into his eyes, and he looks a little unsure, like he believes you, but finds it impossible to fathom.

You leave massage oil on his cheeks when you cup his face in your hands, staring at him with wide eyes. “Kim Taehyung, I have had daily breakdowns about the intensity of my love for you to Pickles ever since we got him. You’re the first person I think about each morning—usually because we wake each other up—and the last thing I think about at night—well, usually because you end up climbing into my bed more often than not, but, it still counts,” you say. You’re both tangled together in so many ways already. “You’ve had my heart for a long time, you know. I just never thought I had a chance?”

When Taehyung kisses you, it’s brief, a hard press of his lips before he rests his forehead against yours. “You really, really have no idea how perfect you are,” he murmurs. “I’ve wanted—I want to do everything for you to show you how grateful I am for everything you do for me.”

“You don’t have to,” you protest, but he just smiles.

“I don’t have to, but I want to,” he says. “Like you don’t have to look after me, but you do.”

“That’s because I love you,” you say. “Like, capital L love you.”

You’ve been so afraid of confessing, so convinced that it was an unattainable dream; that Kim Taehyung would never, could never, has never seen you as more than a friend. But the way he’s looking at you now, the way he’s touched you, the way your body still echoes with the feeling of him inside you: you’re not scared, any more. You don’t need to be.

Taehyung’s eyes are so dark and warm when he replies, easy and effortless. “I love you, too.”

Your relationship has always been a give and take, is the thing. When you climb in the shower together, he washes the oil from your back while you massage shampoo into his scalp, laughing when he makes devil horns in his hair. He catches you by surprise when he presses you against the tiles, swallowing your moans when he coaxes one final orgasm from your tired body, rubbing tight circles over your clit as you buck against his hand and water cascades over you both. His cock hardens in your hands, sliding between your legs when you press them together, tight-tight-tight, his length rubbing against your cunt as he fucks your thighs until he’s moaning and shaking and cumming again.

(The water’s cold by the time you finally climb out, but that’s okay. You giggle and kiss as you dry yourselves, each other, excuses to keep touching and feeling, driven by affection, not lust.)

When you’re both clean, and dry, Taehyung’s leg thrown over your hip as he tugs you in, flush with his body under the covers, you press your lips against the line of his jaw.

“Taehyung?”

“Yes, angel?”

You smile and hunch up even closer to him, scrunching yourself up as small as you can to plaster yourself against his side. “Thank you for the wonderful massage. Definitely the best massage I’ve ever been given, ten out of ten, would do again.”

Taehyung laughs, pressing his rectangular smile into the kiss he lays against your lips, and you think that nothing tastes better than the happiness curling his mouth.

“Love you,” he murmurs. Always romantic. “I love you love you love you.”

“Tae-honey-hyung.” And it feels so nice to not have to filter your words, to bite back that second layer of meaning, to try and keep things platonic and chaste when you speak. “I love you.”

And it feels so nice to have your Taehyung beside you, your body still aching with the press of him inside you, a good ache, a nice ache. A physical ache from good love, rather than a heartache from a love you didn’t think was reciprocated. But it is, somehow, each of you so bowled over by each other.

(“Hey, Pickles.”

The bearded dragon looks up at you, placid as he lounges in his tank.

“Well, you’ll be happy to hear that you won’t have to put up with me ranting at you any more,” you say. “Taehyung did break out the massage oil but it’s all good. I didn’t spontaneously combust or anything, like I thought I would.”

Pickles’ tongue flicks out as he shifts, and you smile.

“Okay, that’s it, I’m done,” you finish. “Thanks, Pickles. You’re a real pal.”

Taehyung nuzzles into your neck. His arms are a tight circle around your waist, chin resting on your shoulder as he looks down at the reptile, too. He’s warm and solid against your back, and you lean into him, happiness tingling through you.

“I wonder how much longer we would have taken if you didn’t get that coupon for a massage therapy course,” you muse, and Taehyung chuckles, warm and lovely.

“We would have gotten there eventually. And we would have had each other until we did, anyway. Right, angel?”

Pickles stays quiet as you both kiss, but you can tell he approves.)

taglist: @beyoncesdragon

#magicshopnet #btswritingcafe #taehyung smut #taehyung oneshot #taehyung x reader #bts #bts smut #v smut #v oneshot #v x reader #taehyung #taehyung fluff #bts oneshot #kim taehyung #taehyung imagine #taehyung scenario #bts fic #bts fanfic #joy.masterlist

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anbudrky2021 · 3 years

Text

Ch 5: Three Days

The 𝔇𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔠𝔞𝔱𝔢 Sound of 𝒯𝒽𝓊𝓃𝒹𝑒𝓇 │ 𝕋𝕙𝕠𝕣 𝕆𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕤𝕠𝕟

No smut warning in this one. Next one there will be :) Please click here for series description and TWs. 💕

I woke up to the sound of Nat at my door. She let herself in and sat down comfortably on the edge of my bed. “Hey sleepyhead, you missed breakfast..” she handed me a muffin.

“Oh,” I sat up, groggy and confused. “I must have slept through the alarm,” I noted, looking at my phone.

“That’s ok. Wanda is waiting in the lab with Shuri when you’re ready.” She gave me a kind smile. I smiled back. More tests. Like a lab rat.

“You’re not a rat,” Natasha laughed. “You’re a human going through something strange. We’ll figure it out.”

I laughed as well, “Ok. I am going to get up.” I said, finishing my muffin and moving the bedding. I got up and around, brushing my hair and teeth; I changed into some leggings and a t-shirt. I slid on my sneakers and sighed. “Alright. I’m ready.” I noticed Natasha was looking at her phone, confused. “Everything ok?” I asked observantly.

“Yeah, just a message from Tony I don’t understand.” She rolled her eyes and placed her phone in her pocket.

I bet it’s about Thor’s mission to observe Bucky. I scoffed at my own thought.

“No it’s about something else,” Nat replied, smiling softly.

“I really need to get this fixed,” I groaned.

We reached the lab in time to run into Thor wandering out of the wing. “Ladies,” he nodded his head in politeness, but continued walking without stopping. I blushed.

I counted his steps as he walked away, hoping it would keep me from projecting any thought I might have.

We entered the main area and saw Shuri in another room, through the glass. She waved at us to come to her. We walked together to the room and sat down in the chairs provided.

“So I was up...all night,” she began, looking somewhat exhausted but excited at the same time. “I have some ideas and Wanda volunteered to be like...”

“The control group,” Wanda interjected. I jumped at her voice, not realizing she had been in the room.

“So I am the experimental group?” I said, a little nervous.

“Yes, but you knew that already.” Shuri rolled her eyes and continued. “I have some tests I have already started with Wanda and would like to conduct with you, to see the difference in the firing of neurons, etc.”

“Ok...” I stared at her.

“Basically we’re going to compare her brain activity to yours, since she’s the closest example of someone who can use your same powers.” She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s another place to start..” she sighed.

I don’t want to be compared to Wanda. I do that myself enough. As soon as I thought it, I regretted it; I didn’t need Wanda and Nat to go on their ‘you’re beautiful as you are’ crusade. But nobody responded. Either I was being ignored or I hadn’t projected.

After about 15 minutes of setting up, a few projections, and some frustration, we were ready to start the first test.

Shuri had created a slideshow of different scenes, people, and words. Each of them had a purpose, according to her, and could hopefully help her figure out triggers or stressors within me and Wanda. Wanda had already completed hers.

“Ready?” Shuri asked. “Remember, some of these may be...upsetting or emotionally jarring. So let me or Nat know if we need to stop.”

Nat was beside me in the room, whereas Wanda and Shuri were on the other side of the glass, next to the computer.

“Ready as ever I guess...” I took a deep breath and watched the screen change.

The first few were almost funny; a cow, a dog, basic things.

The next few were more interesting; the compound, a field, the jet, knives

The knives made me uncomfortable but I tried to stay calm.

“The knives set off a different part of your brain,” Wanda said through the glass. Shuri shot her a look. “I wasn’t supposed to say that; sorry!” Her eyes were wide and animated. She was adorable sometimes.

Scott Lang, Tony, Bruce, T’Challa, Shuri scrolled on the screen, one at a time.

Wanda, Natasha, Clint, Thor

My heart was starting to race and I was not comfortable.

Steve, Pietro, Vis, Bucky

I didn’t move, I didn’t think, I didn’t say anything. Bucky wasn’t on the screen; he was in the next room with Wanda and Shuri.

“Can you leave,” I heard Shuri say, “Thor was looking for you anyway. Go find him.” She wafted him away. He made a point to look at me and smile. I didn’t smile back, only turned my head back to the screen.

Peter

“Can I take a break please?” I asked immediately.

“Uh, sure...” Shuri looked at Nat and nodded. Nat helped me remove the different testing measures and I left the room quickly. I took deep breaths but I felt like I was dying.

Wanda came out of her room and walked toward me. “Hey, you did a great job...” she soothed me, taking me into her arms. “You were so good.” She rocked me a little, allowing for me to calm down more. I was able to take a deep breath and collect myself.

“Sorry. I know the point is to identify brain...stuff...but that was a lot for me.” I shook my head with disappointment in myself.

“It’s understandable, Y/N, you’ve been through a lot and you haven’t necessarily had closure...” she rubbed my arm. “Are you ready to come back?” She pointed at the door.

“Yeah.” I took another breath. Ready to leave is more like it.

“Quitting isn’t an option today,” Wanda retorted.

I laughed but knew she was right.

We did some more tests for a few hours. Some emotional, some physical, some logic-based. By noon, Wanda and I were exhausted in every aspect of the word. Shuri let us leave but Nat stayed behind to help her work on the test results to find any patterns or relevance.

Wanda and I chose to take a walk on the Palace grounds to get some fresh air and sunshine.

“That was...a lot...” she said softly. It was hard on her, too. After losing her brother and her mom and dad... “I didn’t realize how much I missed Pietro..” she sniffled, wiping her face on her sleeve.

“Yeah, it was...” I rubbed her back as we walked.

We walked in silence for a while. We got to see some kids playing, a dog wandering around, and Steve down in a field with Bucky, sparring we supposed.

I did not mention the tight feeling in my chest when I saw Bucky fighting; I just walked and counted my steps.

“Y/N, why have you been projecting numbers?” She asked as we reentered the Palace.

“What?”

“Well it’s always a different pace, but it’s always numbers.” She looked at me quizzically.

“Oh, well I am trying to count footsteps instead of letting my thoughts project. I guess I am projecting the counting...” I laughed a little.

She smiled. “You’re so creative, you know that?” I smiled back at her as we parted ways. I headed for my room.

By dinner time, I was starving. I walked out of my room and headed to the dinning area.

“Y/N, wait up!” Steve called after me. I turned and waited for him. “How did today go?” He asked, thoughtfully.

“It was tough but hopefully worth something.” I gave him a forced smile.

“Bucky told me he walked in on you guys working. He felt bad about it, you know...” he looked at me wearily.

“I don’t care,” I smiled at him, pretending to not care even though I wanted to punch him for mentioning Bucky.

“Hey! Please don’t punch me,” he feigned fright by putting his hands up in surrender.

“Steve. I just-” I inhaled deeply. “I think about Bucky every day. I think about what happened all the time. I don’t want to think about him or it any more than I need to...” I trailed off. “Thank you for relaying that, but I don’t have the capacity to care about what Bucky feels.”

Steve nodded with understanding. “I gotcha.”

We walked into the dining room. Where, of course, Bucky was seated.

Goddamn it. This mother fucker.

Everyone looked at me. I blushed. Of course I projected that. I counted my steps as I walked to my seat, between Steve and Wanda.

Natasha sat across from me, next to Thor and Shuri. Bucky was on the other side of Steve, out of my sight at least.

As I ate, I counted my bites of food. I counted the number of rolls on the table. I counted the number of freckles on Steve’s arm. Anything to distract myself.

“Jesus Christ, Y/N. Quit with the counting!” Bucky sat his fork down harshly. “Just tell me what you’re thinking so you don’t have to distract yourself and annoy everyone!” He looked around and past Steve, right at me.

Everyone was staring at us. “Buck, I didn’t hear anything...” Steve whispered to Bucky.

“Neither did I...” Nat interjected.

“So only Bucky heard the projection?” Shuri asked, interested.

“No,” Thor’s voice now echoed above theirs. “I heard it, too. I just assumed everyone did and I’m not as ass.” He glared at Bucky.

I was blushing and completely confused. I stood up and walked off without a word.

I heard large steps behind me but ignored them until my wrist was caught by a large hand.

“Y/N, are you ok? That was futile. Bucky was out of line.” Thor looked concerned.

“I’m fine. Please let me go. I’m just so tired.” I started to tear up. My mind was overwhelmed and my emotions were completely out of sorts. I needed my mommy. Thor let go of my wrist and nodded. “Do you want company? I can sit and talk or-“

“No. Thank you. I just need time. I’m going to go...Um, I’m going visit my mom..” I turned on my heel and left him behind.

I walked for about 30 minutes in one direction before approaching the cemetery. I took a deep breath for calmness and then entered the lot.

I walked among the rows, feeling more and more nauseous the closer I got to her. Finally, I saw her stone.

T’Challa had a special marble figurine commissioned for her. It was on top of her headstone. It was beautiful and exuded her brilliance tenfold. I smiled as I fell to my knees in front of it.

The sobs that left me the moment my knees hit the grass were earth-moving. I could feel my body tensing and writhing as my tears fell. My shoulders heaved with every cry. I slowly drifted closer to the ground until I was laying completely on top of her grave. My tears watered her grass.

I don’t know how much time passed, but I had fallen asleep on my mother’s grave. When I awoke, my head was pounding and my eyes felt like stinging, melting glass shards. I sniffled and sat up, looking around. It was dark. I sighed and looked again at her figurine.

“Mom what do I do? Everything is worse. It’s all getting worse. I’m projecting in the wrong ways or not at all. I feel so exhausted. I’m being triggered by everything. I need you, mom...” I listened to the wind in between the graves and stones. The breeze passing through crevasses.

I laid down on my back and looked up at the sky. It was beautiful. I smiled and remembered a moment with my mom in which we went star grazing in Wakanda. He laughed for hours and had the greatest conversations.

I wish Thor was here. He’d love this. I bet he would say something about the Asgard sky and then horribly describe it. But he’d be smiling and that smile...

I blushed thinking about his smile. But then I caught myself. But what about Peter. I groaned.

I looked more at the stars and continued to fight back and forth between thinking of Thor and Peter. I was so engulfed in my thoughts I didn’t hear the gate to the cemetery open and close.

“Y/n.” Thor voice was soft and respectful.

“WHAT THE FUCK!?” I screamed and jolted upright. “You scared me to death!!!” I fell back onto the ground.

He laughed and said “this would be a good place to drop dead..”

I chuckled. “I suppose so...how’d you find me?”

“Earlier you said you were visiting your mom. You’ve been gone for hours...and then...” he looked at me strangely. “I started...seeing what you’re seeing. Like I’m you...” he sat beside me, elbows on his crooked knees.

“And then...Peter called me. He was freaking out asking if you were ok. Because he was seeing the same thing I was...” he looked down at me.

I looked at him, feeling nauseous again. Immediately, without warning I turned my head and vomited just out of moms burial site.

“Woah!” Thor held my hair back and soothed me the best he could. “Are you ok?”

“I-no-I don’t think-“ and I was done. I passed out in Thor’s arms and didn’t wake for three days.

#avengers smut #thor smut #mcu #bucky barnes #thor x y/n #thor #angst #present day au #canon divergent au #modern au

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mo-nighean-rouge · 5 years

Text

Where You Lead- XII

Canon Divergence AU: Faith survived and stayed at Lallybroch when Claire returned through the stones before Culloden. An accidental trip to Craigh Na Dun turns life upside down for the Frasers once again.

Chapter 1 and Chapter 10 artwork by the wonderful @cantrixgrisea

Chapter 1/ Chapter 2/ Chapter 3/ Chapter 4/ Chapter 5/ Chapter 6/ Chapter 7/ Chapter 8/ Chapter 9/ Chapter 10/ Chapter 11

AO3

Shout out to my brilliant betas, @whiskynottea and @isitgintimeyet for helping me figure out what I was even trying to say here.

Thanks to all who have continued to ask about this one.

Chapter 12

Claire wrestled the dripping bed sheet – fresh from the hot, soapy water of the wash basin – into the wicker basket to hang dry in her small yard. Momentarily, she regretted declining Mrs. Graham’s offer to use the new machine at the manse, wearily purchased by the Reverend after a slew of hints from the persistent housekeeper.

Still, at-home handwashing was more convenient than dragging the entire load to the steamie in town. Especially today, with Jamie spending the day at his job-training (Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!) and unavailable to lug the wet things back home for her.

Claire had returned to work in the past few weeks, starting with just a few days to give Jamie a trial run of keeping the girls and house in check. While the stove’s modern controls still baffled him a bit, he could manage a few of Claire’s simple emergency recipes for lunch.

“Ye keep calling it ‘SOS,’ Sassenach,” Jamie had mused as he hesitantly flipped one more piece of toast in the pan. “What about it minds ye of saving ships?”

Claire pursed her lips in amusement, impressed that he had remembered that particular call signal from her stories about the war.

“Actually.” She smirked. “In this case, it stands for ‘shit on a shingle.’”

Jamie blanched as he stared down at the browning meat in the other pan. “Christ,” he muttered.

“The Americans taught me that expression, and later showed me the ‘speedy’ recipe.”

“Weel, I mind Mrs. Crook creaming beef a time or two, but I dinna recall hearing such crass language cross her lips.” He leaned down to kiss the offending feature and blinked at her slowly, expertly switching the burner off.

“Mama?”

Claire startled, turning around to find Faith’s blue eyes searching for hers, bare feet shuffling across the kitchen floor. It had been weeks already with her daughter back in her arms, and yet she still wasn’t reacquainted with Faith’s light footsteps and silent approach. While Bree babbled to her pile of blocks on the quilt spread across the floor, Faith had kept herself studiously occupied at the kitchen table with one of her sister’s books, worn out after ‘helping’ – which had amounted to her splashing the bubbles around in the basin.

“Yes, Lovey?” she knelt down to her daughter’s level, pausing to admire the flush that had come back to the girl’s cheeks along with the gradual return of her figure, belly promising to become a delightful pooch.

“Could I… hold the bairn?” Faith’s eyes were wide and hopeful, anxious of a request not previously made.

Claire’s chest swelled, another abundant occurrence in the last month. She stroked downward from Faith’s shoulder, then offered her hand. “I think she’d really like that.”

Claire knelt to greet her 10-month-old with a sloppy kiss as she lifted her into the air. They walked through the house together, laundry postponed at present.

Claire directed Faith to sit up against the arm of the sofa, then lowered Bree into her waiting arms. Nerves wound tight, Claire scooted close to her eldest, ready to intervene should disaster or conflict occur.

Bree squirmed in Faith’s hold, hips twisting as if she would throw herself onto the floor.

Claire registered Faith’s heart-wrenching little intake of air as she watched with bated breath.

Brianna must have heard it too, as she pivoted her upper body once more to study Faith, who stared back with frozen features. Suddenly, Bree pitched back into Faith’s middle, damp fist seeking Faith’s closest curl.

Faith sighed in relief, meeting Claire’s eye before stroking her sister’s back tentatively.

Claire lost herself in the sight, her daughters closer than they’d ever been, something she’d only expected to see in her imagination.

“A nighean ruaidh,” Faith whispered, the words rolling off her tongue effortlessly, drawing Claire out of her own thoughts.

“What was that, Baby?”

“Just something I’ve heard Da say to her,” Faith shrugged. “Almost like he calls us.”

Claire’s lips twitched into a smile, overcome. “I suppose you’re right.”

“I dinna have enough Gaelic yet,” Faith continued, brow scrunched in contemplation. “But I think it means that he loves us.” She paused in thought, then lifted her chin to meet Claire’s eye. “Mama, will ye have more bairns verra soon?”

Claire felt her cheeks flush. From the mouths of babes, indeed. While she and Jamie hadn’t discussed the idea of more children, she knew it was a surer possibility in their hopeful future. Meanwhile, they’d plenty of practice of late. The temptation was hard to resist when every morning they woke tangled together from the previous night.

She shrugged as she stood to cross the room, keeping a careful eye on the pair. “I think we’ll have to see what God has in mind, my love,” she said gently.

Reaching the corner desk, Claire easily found what she had in mind. She brought the large format Rolleiflex to life, pointing it toward her girls. She captured one shot just as they were – studying each other curiously. “Smile,” she called before snapping the second photograph. Bree looked up at the sound of her voice, while Faith looked startled before baring her teeth in an awkward grimace in response to the command. While the camera had been present in many of their daily moments of late, both were still becoming accustomed to the expected behavior in front of the device.

As soon as she had clicked the shutter, their pose shifted at the scratch of a newly minted key in the front door.

Claire glanced down at her watch. Five o’clock on the dot meant that she still had a number of chores to complete, but at least one more willing helper to get them under way.

________________________________________

Faith leapt from the sofa as soon as Mama had lifted the baby from her lap, bounding to the door.

She’d been greeting her mother every day when she came back to the house from seeing her patients. Faith wasn’t allowed to go with Mama when she made calls to the sick tenants anymore. She still didn’t quite understand her parents’ explanation that these patients could be sicker and more gravely injured than Faith was used to seeing. What could have happened to them that was more dangerous than at Lallybroch?

Either way, she was always excited and a bit relieved when Mama got home in the afternoon. After all their time apart, it was hard when she left even for the day. Mama didn’t usually notice, but Faith always woke to the sound of the creaking door when her mother tiptoed in and kissed her cheek in farewell. She didn’t want to miss those moments together.

But this was the first day that Da had gone anywhere by himself in a while, so Faith thought he must have been nervous. She knew how hard it could be to meet new people and learn new things, especially in this strange place where they had found Mama. So she wanted to be sure to welcome him back just in case he hadn’t had a good day.

Faith jumped high as Da closed the door behind him. He noticed just in time to kneel and catch her in the air, like she knew he would. He laughed, his voice deep with joy.

“Good even’ to ye, a leannan.” Da drew her close to him, a big hand grasping her back. “Have ye been helpin’ yer mam today?” They crossed the room in only a few large steps.

Faith was glad that he seemed happy, so his day must have been better than she thought.

“Aye, we did the laundry. ‘Twas verra heavy, Da.” Faith sighed, remembering the mess she’d made as she pulled her new dresses out of the wash basin. But Mama’s thankful smile and compliments had made it worthwhile.

Mama chuckled as Da gestured for her to pass Brianna to him, as well. “And to think there’s still more of it left!” she teased.

Bree grabbed for the collar of Da’s new shirt as she settled in his arms and made wee noises to him. He nodded back to her as if she was using real words, something Faith remembered him doing with Michael and Janet, not long ago.

Da sat on the couch, making room in his lap for both Faith and Bree.

Faith remembered something from earlier. “Mama, Da, I knew all the letters in the book I read today!”

They spoke at the same time, then chuckled together. “Show us!”

As Faith ran down the hall to retrieve her book, she turned just in time to see Da place Brianna in her swing and stand up to face Mama, whispering to her. Mama chuckled deeply as they reached for each other.

She couldn’t help but notice Mama’s silly little smile as their faces came together, nor Da’s hand finding its favorite place on Mama’s bum.

________________________________________

Jamie exited the lavatory wearing his new pyjama bottoms, steam from the hot bath following him into the bedroom. He paused to watch Claire as she sat at her dressing table, wrapped in her dressing gown and combing through her still-damp locks. The scene was so reminiscent of their everyday life in his time – at Leoch, followed by Lallybroch and everywhere else his duty had taken them.

She startled as they made eye contact in the mirror before her face slipped into a wide smile.

His breath caught. He’d surely just witnessed her remember their reunion for the hundredth time, each ever sweeter than before.

Jamie crossed the room in only a few steps, reaching for the comb to take over her task.

Claire’s head lolled back and her eyes slipped shut as his hands worked into her curls, squeezing out a few more water droplets. “So, how was the first…” she paused her inquiry to make a breathy wee noise that nearly drove him to distraction. “… day?”

“I must say it was a bit overwhelming at first, Sassenach,” he muttered. “I’m grateful once again that ye drove me in, though I almost couldna find my way inside the hospital itself.”

She hummed. “You’ll figure out the way of it by the end of the week, at least. But the job itself?”

Jamie smiled. “The director and the other lads I met were all verra kind, and if I did anything out o’ the ordinary they didna point it out.” He hummed to himself. “Felt a bit braw to recognize all the wee defense tactics they showed me, even if they were a bit tamer than one might actually find in the face of battle.”

Claire nodded, but quickly stopped when the motion pulled the comb too tight against the last knot in her hair. “Well, I am proud of you.” Their eyes met in the mirror again, connected.

He kissed the top of her head and offered his hand to let her know he was done. She stood up to face him, but then arched a brow as she took him in. She guided him down to the stool by his shoulders and took up the comb again, pulling it gently through his towel-dried waves.

Jamie was glad that his hair didn’t take as long, since his wife’s gentle motions pulled him into a pleasant drowsiness. And that was hardly what he had in mind for their night.

As soon as he heard the slap of the comb hitting the table in front of him, he turned to face Claire. As he prepared to stand, he put his hands behind her thighs to lift her.

“Wait, I wanted to show you something!” Claire shimmied out his grasp and reached for the table behind him before taking a seat next to him, hip snug against his.

She presented an envelope to him, identical to the one she’d brought home just the week before.

“More photographs?” he asked, settling his arm over her shoulders.

“I stopped to pick up the new packet on the way home today,” she told him, cheeks flushed with excitement.

She unwound the seal gently and slid the portraits into his open palm.

It still gave him a bit of a shock to see his likeness printed so neatly on the surface of the first sheet. He grinned to see the tenderness on his face as he gazed down at Bree while building a lazy tower out of her blocks. Faith could be seen climbing onto his back to look over his shoulder in the black and white shot.

Jamie flipped through, starting to notice a pattern. Nearly every picture was a combination of himself, the lasses, or all of them together. There was naught of Claire to be found. Come to think of it, the only likeness of her he recalled seeing was hanging on the wall in Bree’s nursery – the blurry shot taken moments after the bairn’s delivery.

“You’ll have to teach me to use this wee thing,” he said determinedly. “I’d like to see your bonnie face in one of these photographs.”

She blushed prettily. “It’s a deal.” She kissed his chin sweetly. “Come to think of it, I’ve hoped to get us into town for a portrait sitting one of these days when we’re both off. We’ve no pictures of us together, either.”

“If you’ll lead the way, my lady.” He stood and stretched, then bent once more to gather her into his arms.

Claire smirked. “You don’t always have to carry me, you know.” Nevertheless, she tightened her arms behind his neck as her legs twisted around him like vines.

“Perhaps no’,” he leaned in to kiss her once, leaving a smacking noise as he did so. “But you’ll find that I will as often as you’ll let me.” He hesitated as he lowered her to the end of their mattress, then knelt in front of her. He placed a hand over her belly gingerly. “Until it’s mebbe a wee bit too difficult?”

She startled, eyes leaping to his, then harrumphed. “Watch it, lad.”

Jamie grinned at her cheekily but didn’t let her stray from his implication.

Claire’s hand gripped the back of his neck, then slipped under the collar of his shirt. “Your daughter asked a strikingly similar question earlier today.”

“Mmphm,” he uttered. “And did ye have an answer for her?”

“There was only so much I could think of to say.” Her blunt fingernails scratched his shoulder.

Jamie swallowed deeply as he looked into her eyes, searching her glass face as he crossed his arms over her knees.

“Maybe after the divorce process is complete,” she whispered.

He took her hand and nodded, remembering the thick envelope on their kitchen table, still unopened amid their adjusting routine. “Aye, of course.” He kissed her smooth palm.

“Besides,” she chuckled. “Bree isn’t even a year old yet.”

“That may be so, Sassenach.” Jamie rose to his feet before her. “But we’ll have to put in some extra effort for that even dozen.”

Claire’s mouth fell open, several moments lapsing before her body shook with laughter. “You’re ridiculous.”

He struggled to speak through his own snickers, his voice not quite sounding like his own. “But in the meantime?” His eyebrows rose.

“Please.” She laid back as he crawled over her, easing the robe over her shoulders.

________________________________________

[Several weeks later]

Claire felt like cackling in delight as she took in the details of the postcard in her hands. Their family portrait had arrived in the post just that afternoon, but she had delayed opening it until the girls were asleep. She hadn’t been sure of the results of their outing, and wanted to keep it to herself until she was. She would show them when they were older, of course, preferably once they’d gotten the hang of a portrait sitting.

So the Frasers had gone through their evening ritual together, a joint bath for the girls – quicker when it wasn’t made to be more chaotic – then she’d combed the tangles from Faith’s curls while the nebuliser ran, and cuddled her to sleep as had become customary.

Jamie had just slipped out of the sitting room with a freshly burped and rocked Bree, and would be back any second. She still wasn’t sure when she’d show him the family memorabilia, as his reaction seemed to have tipped the scale for the most priceless.

It had been a drizzling afternoon as the Frasers had filed from Claire’s auto and into a corner shop in Inverness. Campbell Portraits boasted a proud lineage, their circulars advertising their establishment in the 1880s. The family-owned business had serviced the highlands amid the changing technology of photography, evidenced by the display in the waiting room.

Claire had gone to great lengths to make everyone look presentable after lunch that day – teasing curls, straightening collars and pressing skirts until she finally resolved to leave well enough alone and herd everyone into town.

As she had signed them in for their appointment time, she had felt a tug on her skirt. She had smiled at the receptionist, taken Faith’s hand, and walked them back to sit with Jamie, whose free hand had tapped a rhythm against his thigh. He had bounced a fussy Bree, who had been teething once again, in his opposite arm.

“Yes, lovey?” Claire had asked as Faith patted her hand.

“Ye said you would go with me again, aye?” Faith had asked.

Claire had pasted on a smile and answered patiently, for the third time. “Yes, darling, we’ll all be together.”

Her eldest daughter seemed to have conflated the foreign concept of the studio with her recent experiences at the hospital, unsure of her role in this new environment.

Almost as soon as they had settled down, their name had been called. Claire had led the way into the little room, Faith’s hand tight in hers. She had noticed both Jamie and Faith eyeing the surroundings of the dark room suspiciously.

Claire had wondered at what they might be able to compare the tight quarters and dim lighting to from their own experiences. The priest hole at Lallybroch? Damn it.

An almost too-cheery man had greeted them at the door.

“Welcome, Frasers,” he had declared. “My last appointment of the day.”

The short man – Archie, as he had introduced himself – had quickly displayed his frustration as he tried to arrange the Frasers in a posed position. Jamie had begun to show his full range of stubbornness at Campbell’s brisk directions, while Faith had become drawn into herself.

At last, they had settled into an arrangement with Jamie and Claire side by side, angled diagonally. Faith had been seated on a platform just in front of them, while Bree had been propped up on Jamie’s lap.

The frustrations of the afternoon were clear in the final product. Claire’s curls were frizzed from the rain, while Jamie had adapted a complacent glare from trying to sit still for so long. Faith looked plainly startled from the bright flashbulb, her teeth bared unnaturally. And poor Bree’s fingers were in her mouth, Claire’s earlier pain-relieving methods worn off.

Chuckling over the image once more, Claire rose to tuck it away in an album at the back of her bedroom closet for now.

________________________________________

Christ, but it had been a long first official shift, Jamie thought as he re-entered the sitting room. He hadn’t expected for a large part of his job to involve fielding questions from incoming patients and visitors as they entered the hospital. He’d found himself running back and forth to get answers to those questions just as often as he’d stood at his post.

His supervisor, a man named Duncan, had assured him once again that this was one more aspect he’d grow accustomed to, soon memorizing the answers just as well as his other duties.

Come to think of it, Duncan had mentioned that he still needed to add a few of Jamie’s records to his employee file. He dragged himself up again and to Claire’s desk, where he had last seen the documents before they were sorted away. He scratched his head as he wondered which drawer Claire might have slipped them into.

Jamie hadn’t heard her moving through the house while he’d put Brianna abed, but perhaps she would be back soon to help him locate the documents that the Reverend had procured for him.

Taking a cursory glance over the desk’s surface, he noticed that their collection of printed photographs had grown. There was a third envelope, that appeared not to have been opened.

He looked back toward the doorway of the sitting room. He assumed Claire was planning to show him this set when she returned, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a wee keek at them. He’d practiced taking a few shots of her in the last week or so, and was anxious to see how they’d turned out.

Jamie slid the stack out carefully, but then nearly dropped the entire set at the first image he encountered.

Taken on a bright day, the portrait proudly displayed Leoch. Or, at least he could still recognize a few features of the castle. Stones were missing from its great walls, while several windows were broken and overbearing vegetation grew up its sides.

But most startling was the man stood in front of Jamie’s ancestral home. Randall – not Black Jack, as he’d originally feared – but Frank, dressed in a proper three-piece suit and matching hat.

Jamie swallowed deeply, stunned at the juxtaposition of this part of Claire’s history and his – theirs -- unexpectedly converging.

With shaking hands, he flipped through the next photographs. The castle by itself, an auto in front of the castle, then like a shock to his system, Claire in front of the auto, Leoch in the background.

He ghosted his finger over the likeness of Claire’s apple cheeks in the photograph, careful to heed her previous warning about smudging the surface.

Examining the image, Jamie recalled the other-worldly, shivering lass that had tended him on a cold and damp night, then compared her to the fearsome woman he’d since shared two lives with.

She’d been more slender then, her present curves having filled in as she carried each of their wee miracles. But there was something he couldn’t quite put into words, as if the last vestiges of her innocence still existed in this single captured moment. All that they’d faced together had honed her into the unstoppable force that continued to surprise and challenge him every day.

“I found one more undeveloped roll, tucked away in a drawer.” Claire’s voice carried softly.

Jamie looked up to find her studying him from the doorway, a wistful smile on her face.

His cheeks burned. “I didna mean to– “

She shook her head, then offered her hand, head tilted toward the sofa. “Let’s look together?”

Jamie took a seat cautiously, perspiration slickening his palms.

Claire followed close behind him, footsteps soft on the carpet. She lifted the stack from his hands, then arranged herself in his lap, her back braced against his sturdy arm.

“What do you think?”

He drummed his fingers against her hip. “’Twas a shock, to see him there.” He paused. “But ye… Lookin’ so happy.”

She sighed. “Getting there, perhaps. I didn’t want to acknowledge it at the time, but things weren’t quite the same.” Her fingertips caressed his neck. “We both knew it.”

Jamie breathed out. “Suppose things did no’ turn out quite like ye expected?”

“No.” Claire twisted to face him, forehead pressing against his. “Better.”

They flipped through the small batch of photos from the unfinished roll, Claire giving him space for any questions or clarifications.

While shots of the clan markers and open spaces of Culloden Field robbed him of breath, what truly puzzled him was a portrait of a village square in Inverness.

“I don’t think you and I have been back that way,” Claire insisted when he asked. “That’s in front of the inn where we – Frank and I – stayed during our trip.”

But something about the location struck Jamie as familiar, sending a shiver through his very bones. “Suppose it doesna help to dwell on it. We’ll be busy making new memories, you and –"

Claire’s lips swallowed the end of his question as she twisted in his lap to straddle him, her calf-length skirt gathering between them. She guided him in a subtle rocking motion, her eyes never leaving his. One hand gripped his jaw, thumb sweeping over his bottom lip. The other lost itself in his hair.

Jamie’s hands slid from her knees to her arse and held on. “Dhia,” he panted into the gooseflesh of her neck. He quickly forgot about Frank and any other bloody Randall.

Perhaps not exact, but this is pretty close to my mother’s SOS recipe, credited to my grandfather’s time in the U.S. Army in the 1950s.

#Jamie Fraser #claire beauchamp #faith fraser #brianna fraser #Outlander #canon divergence au #Where You Lead #Outlander fanfic #My fic

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jack-andthestalk · 6 years

Text

Our Son, A date, Chapter 22.

I was like a giddy teenager waiting on Jamie to come home two nights later, we had a small positive step with Brian that day, after a reduction in sedation he had opened his eyes, he hadn’t spoken but he looked around making eye contact with Ellen before he fell back under. I had explained to Ellen that as the swelling decreases that both blood flow and brain chemistry improve, his brain function would improve but it would be gradual, nevertheless this was a progressive step. I had spoken to Jamie briefly over the phone to explain, but I could sense his apprehension too, I knew no matter what I had advised, Brian’s family had half expected him to wake up speaking immediately.

The day Jamie was due home, I cleaned the cottage, bought groceries and planned on putting together a nice dinner for him. I was stood over a cook book trying to decipher European measurements versus what I was used to in Boston when I heard knocking at Jamie’s front door.

Laoghaire was standing on the doorstep, a broad smile on her face which instantly fell away on sight of me. She was holding some sort of tray or dish. I had forgotten I should be well back in the US by now, I was the last thing she was expecting.

“Can I help you?” I asked in my most prim voice. She swung a lock of her hair behind her shoulder. “I…em well I was looking for ye ... is Jamie here?” She was trying to look over my shoulder. “I heard about his Da and I made some food” she illustrated the tray in her hand by lifting it slightly. “Oh well he won’t be back until later, I can leave it for him if you like?”. I offered helpfully. “I thought ye were only here for a week?” She asked while handing me the tray begrudgingly. “My departure has been delayed” I replied in a clipped tone and a tight smile.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?”, she hesitated for a moment deciding whether to speak or not and finally settled on “Tell Jamie I am thinking of him and his family.”, “I will off course”, I had closed the door in her face before she had time to walk away.

Willie coerced me into making a cake for Jamie ‘Da loves cake’ he told me solemnly, not mentioning that Willie adored cake. Willie was sat on the counter top pouring pre measured cups of ingredients into a big mixing bowl, I heard the cottage door open and close, I couldn’t look around as Willie was gone free reign with his pouring and I was struggling to control the cake batter.

I didn’t hear any sound of movement and I eventually turned around to see who had come in, Jamie was leaning against the closed door, arms folded and scrutinising the scene in front of him, an amused smile across his face. “What are you smiling at?” I said narrowing my eyes.

“Nothing Sassenach”.

“Well why are you loitering there at the door with that look on your face then?”, my cheeks were blushing but I couldn’t exactly say why, probably just the way he was looking at me so intently.

Willie spotted him and jumped into my arms for a lift to the floor, running up into Jamie’s arms. “Da, we missed ye! Mama is making a cake for you and I can have a wee bit” Willie blurted out excitedly. “Oh is she now” Jamie asked curiously looking over Willie’s shoulder to have a look at my baking attempt, “aye” Willie continued “and she made ye dinner, I had mine already though cause I was hungry…and unca Ian brought me out to check on the moo cows and I cut my knee but mama put a plaster on it” “Well, ye have been busy a bhalaich” Jamie said kissing Willie on his cheek and jostling his hair. Willie having emptied his mind of all he wanted to tell Jamie, sat back down at the kitchen table where I had put out some colouring for him. Jamie approached me slowly, like a bird stalking his prey, “I dinna ken ye could cook Sassenach”, his eyes were sparkling, as he glanced around the kitchen taking in the scene before him. “Off course I can cook!” my eyes narrowed and I folded my arms in defence. “How do you think I feed your son, he doesn’t get his insatiable appetite from me!”

“Does he not…” smug smirk now in place and he bent over to view a large stone based pan that held part of the dinner I had cooked. “this doesna look half bad, maybe I underestimated yer talents Sassenach.”

“Maybe you did!” I retorted attempting to sulk.

“Now here you go” I said pouring him a glass of wine. “You can have this and a shower while I throw the bloody cake in the oven,” He took the glass and nodded, he had the sexiest smile spread across his face. “mmm I could get used to this” he said inching closer to me. Glass of wine in one hand and the other resting on my hip bone. I glanced over his shoulder to see Willie bent over the colouring book.

“I think that was one of the nicest sights I have ever come home to Claire…” his voice was husky.

“You are making fun of me” I said tilting my head to smile at him.

“I certainly am not.”

“ye all domesticated in my kitchen, its done things to me Claire…”

“Stop it you are teasing now”

“I canna wait to eat your food…mo ghraidh his voice was full of innuendo, he came close enough so that I could feel his breath on my neck. Without realising it I was slowly edging towards the kitchen counter, his body looming over me, he was looking attentively at my mouth.

“Jamie” I said cautiously -----------------------“I was thinking about something while you were away…” He looked down at me suddenly intrigued. “Aye, go on” a dip in his head to continue.

“Well”, I started smiling suddenly feeling silly at the idea I was about to present. “As you are aware we share a child, .... we have talked about crossing the Atlantic to be closer to each other, we have been to bed numerous times now…”

“Not always in bed” he corrected.

I nodded “Ok, we have been intimate on several occasions….”

“I’d say more than intimate Sassenach” he corrected further.

“Ok fine whatever…more than intimate.”

He nodded approval smiling at me.

“But yet we have never been on a date, nor have we ever cooked for the other or sat down and just got to know the little intricacies about each other…we have had none of that first kind of stuff…you know normal dating behaviour” I finished lamely.

His mouth quirked slightly. “Ye want me to date ye?” he asked teasingly.

I raised my eyes at him “you are asking that as if it’s a chore Jamie!”

His hands instantly went up and a look of alarm filled his eyes. “No no god no, I dinna have a problem with it Claire! A deep breath “it’s just that we seem a bit far in to start dating…ye are the mother of my child ya ken?” he took one of my hands and a warm smile lit his face.

“yes I know but we need a foundation…other than Willie, Jamie to know if this” I gestured my hands from me to him “if this will work…we have no problem jumping into bed with each other…and there are clearly deep feelings involved…but shouldn’t we start at the beginning to be sure?”

His hand raised cupping my cheek, his fingers circling along my jawline “ok then Claire Beauchamp what do ye have in mind?”

“Well” I said sighing slightly at his touch, secretly wondering if it would be ok to put out on the first date.

“we can start tonight, I have cooked dinner, there is wine …and after we put Willie to bed, you may begin dating me!” I said smiling.

“I vera much look forward to that Claire” he said attempting to wink.

It was rare for Willie that he had both of us to put him to bed, so he made the most of it. Jamie and I were lay down either side of him, while I stroked his head, Jamie read him his third and final story.

I had never heard Jamie read to Willie before, he had his arm wrapped around Willie, his strong arms holding Willie towards his chest. The sight alone enough to make my heart burst, but when he read to him, I wanted to take Jamie’s face in my hands and kiss the breath out of him.

He was just so endearing, full attention given to his son, he used different accents for each of the characters, and he bent tenderly to answer Willie on his millionth question about the book.

I watched Jamie and thought it was probably normal in some way to love the father of your child, after all he had given me one of the most special gifts, but I realised watching him that part of why I had fallen so deeply in love with him was because of how he was with our son, I couldn’t have picked a better father for Willie.

By the time we got back out to the kitchen, Jamie poured us two glasses of wine and I served out our dinner.I had cooked a well-rehearsed prawn thai curry that always went down well when I had friends over in Boston, I had made my own spring rolls and I tried to hide my smile when Jamie took his first bite and said “Christ Sassenach ye actually can cook.”

We chatted a little nervously at first, I think Jamie thought there was a first date script he should be sticking to and was on the verge of asking me what I did for a living. I reached my hand across to him, using the tips of my fingers to run lightly over the back of his hand, I could feel his body relax at my touch, a reminder that we shared something, he wasn’t talking to a stranger.

“Do you do this often?”, I asked looking into his eyes.

“is that meant to be a version of do I come here often Sassenach, cause ya ken fine well I live here”, smirk in place on his lips and his tongue running along just under his top lip.

“No, I mean do you date as in the whole nine yards, dinner…movie or whatever? You didn’t look very comfortable when we started off…you’re only beginning to relax now” I pointed out

“mmm…I don’t suppose I do” he replied honestly. “Well I do…just not often” a little pinkness running up his cheeks.

“I dinna think that is why I was nervous though” he was looking into his wine glass playing with the rim of it, I couldn’t see his eyes.

“No? Why then?”

“Its more to do with the date…I think”

“The location you mean?” I asked smiling mischievously at him.

“Ya ken fine, I dinna mean the location…I mean the person”

“Do I make you nervous Jamie?” I ran my toes lightly up his leg.

“Aye ya do!”

I leaned across the table, before standing slowly, my breast grazing his arm “I better clear these if you want cake.

I heard him mutter.

“Is it any wonder?”

We chatted over our cake, it was easy and flirty and if we really were on a first date, I would be crying out for a second.

Eventually Jamie rose and said do ye want to finish yer wine on the couch, to which I replied “smooth Fraser.”

Once we got comfortable on the couch, with my leg slung slightly across his knee, and his hand resting gently on my upper thigh.

“so then Sassenach what about you?” his eyes intent on mine.

“What about me?” I creased my eyebrows in confusion.

“You asked me if I did this often ye know ...date” he explained, “So I am asking you, if ye date often?” He rolled his shoulders a little and scooted further down the couch, as if preparing for a bedtime story.

“Oh” I said my eyes growing a little wider, heat warming my face. “Well I suppose I do date yes, I don’t know if I’d say often ... more like sporadically, I haven’t really introduced any guy to Willie in that way if that's what you mean ... I would have checked with you first.”

“I ken that Claire... that’s no why I’m ask’n.”

“Why then?”

“I just wondered if there was maybe someone ye were still seeing in Boston...maybe that was another reason for ye to stay there.”

I opened my mouth to speak but Jamie just raised his hand to continue. “I dinna mean ye are playing me false or that... I’m sure ye dinna plan on coming to Scotland and jumping into bed with me ... it’s just I knew ye we’re seeing that doctor fella and I just wondered if ye still were?” His hand had entwined in mine and he was staring intently at our caressing fingers.

I was trying to think what bloody doctor he was on about. “Doctor?” I asked confused ... I amn’t seeing any doctor...”

Squinting my eyes in concentration I continued.

“I dated a doctor called Michael... maybe a year ago or more but I can’t think of any other ...”

“Aye that’s the fella” Jamie said gruffly, “are ye still seeing him?”

“No” i shook my head vehemently. “I’m not seeing anyone ...” he lifted his head to look at me and my heart almost broke when I saw the relief in his face. He honestly thought there was someone else, someone that was bringing me back to Boston, “good.” He said a boyish smile on his face.

“Actually..” I whispered, I ran my hands up his arms to loop around his neck. “I have just started dating this guy” biting my bottom lip. “Oh aye” a sexy smile back on his face. “Mmm... we have a bit of history together ...we met about 4 years ago but it didn’t work out then.”

“Tsk that’s a pity, what happened then?” His eyes were open and earnest but I could tell his cheeks hurt from holding in the smile.

I moved closer, my lips grazing over his. “Well ... we had this one night... and let’s just say he left me with a permanent reminder of him”

“That’s nice” Jamie said smirking.

“Lovely” I agreed.

“What about this night ye shared then? Was it memorable?” His hand slid down my thigh and cupped my arse.

“Very” I nodded biting my lip.

“Did he bed ye?” Jamie continued his line of questioning.

“Yes, lots of times” I answered solemnly.

“Jesus in one night ye say? He must be some man ... I wouldna let him get away again.”

I made a squeaking sound as his hand ran down beneath my jeans and cupped the flesh of my arse now.

“Was he good in bed... this man?” Jamie’s tongue ran along my lower lip.

“Reasonable” I giggled out.

“Well ye must have liked it ye went back for more ... several times ye said!” His hands had moved up now and were unbuttoning the front of my jeans.

“I was trying to teach him” I breathed into his mouth but couldn’t stop the laugh building inside of me.

Jamie just burst out laughing “Why ye wee hellion il show ye about teaching”

With that he put his mouth firmly to mine, and threw himself on top of me as we grabbed and tore clothes from each other.

Just when he had me down to my underwear. I stopped his hand from pulling at the elastic on my panties, my breathing erratic and hips still moving in tandem with Jamie’s “stop Janie, I really shouldn’t put out on the first date.”

He looked at me as if I was gone mad and then we both burst out laughing, resulting in us falling off the couch and continuing our exploration on the floor.

After a time we had to bite into each other’s shoulders to stifle our groans of pleasure. Afraid we would wake our son.

I fell into a contended stupor, lying on Jamie’s naked sweaty body. Suddenly I realising why I was so puzzled about Jamie asking about Michael.

“Jamie how did you know about Michael, Willie didn’t know about him and I never told Jenny he was a doctor?”

Jamie was stroking my back looking up at the ceiling.

“I met him” he said quietly,

“you met him?” I repeated confused.

“Aye I went to Boston to see ye, and when I went to the hospital to ask for ye, this Michael guy said he was yer boyfriend and ye we’re with a patient, that I should call back later.”

My mind was whirling “when did you come? Were you bringing Willie back?”

“No I wasna bringing Willie back... I came to see ye... I came to ask ye... if ye would maybe give you and me a chance, it doesna matter now.. it was ages ago Claire...I met that fella and I turned and went back to the airport.”

The ring.

“Jamie!” I said tears burning my eyes, “ you should have told me... he wasn’t important...I would have...”

“Dinna trouble yerself about it Sassenach” He replied kissing me softly. “The main thing is yer in my arms now.”

#Jamie Fraser #claire beauchamp #the lallybroch library #ourson

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modern-sybil · 5 years

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This last episode had such a great scene of Quentin confronting the monster that I had to write it from Julia’s POV. Slight canon divergence at the end. Please let me know if you like it, this is the first fic I’ve written in literal years!

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Q yelled, rushing forward. Julia hurried behind him. Seeing the monster with the pain meds, the glint of an addict in his eyes.

“Stop it, Jesus” Quentin muttered, smacking the bottle away, almost as though he couldn’t stop himself. Julia couldn’t believe it, she gasped as the meds flew out of the monster’s hands. It was too aggressive, he was the one who told her how you had to move slowly and carefully around the Monster, especially now, when they didn’t have a real way to fight back.

She felt useless, powerless, flexing her fingers as the monster batted Q into the side table with a casual wave. Not caring that her feet were bare she rushed to just touch him, trying to offer a bit of comfort, to check on him- hoping that she could get him to calm down, even just a little.

Quentin was upset, more upset than she had thought he would be. Crumpled down, unable to even make himself look at the monster, but still trying to get the point through “THOSE PILLS CAN KILL YOU!” he shouted, desperation tingeing his voice.

“I’ll take a new body, I’m bored” the monster muttered, pawing at the floor, collecting scattered pills with hands that almost seemed to be shaking.

“You kill Eliot, and you can forget about us helping you” Quentin bit out. Wincing in pain, he forced himself up, staggered forward. Julia froze, shocked. But then she started to understand, at least she thought she did. He was fixated, he needed a reason to go on, and he loved his friends. Loved them recklessly and foolishly and wholly. If he didn’t have this to hold on to, to work towards, then he felt like he had nothing.

He faced off with the monster so desperately, but with so much strength, his bravery mixed with a high level of just not giving a fuck anymore.

Slowly starting to stand and move forward, gait as sinuous and tense as a predator, the monster dropped the pills. “Eliot, Eliot, Eliot. Why do you care about him so much?” the monster growled, an undertone of jealousy behind each word.

Q moved forward, mirroring the monster’s aggression “Because I do. You kill him, and we are done” he said, trying to keep his voice steady, but Julia heard it break. She heard the pain, and it was like her best friend’s heart was coming into focus in her mind.

“I swear to God, I am serious. I will abandon you. And I will die trying to burn you to the ground.” Quentin’s voice got stronger with every word, rage making him vibrate where he stood.

“Jesus Christ, he’s not fucking around” Julia thought “he really doesn’t care beyond getting Eliot free”. No one would be able to doubt that he meant every word, down to the core of his being.

“That’s cute. But I’m strong. And you’re weak.” the monster said as he got up in Q’s space, a glimmer of a smile appearing, wrapping his hands around Q’s throat. Applying just a bit of pressure. Julia started to panic, not knowing what she could do. “Mutant powers my ass," she thought "I’m pretty sure if he ripped me apart no lingering goddess juju would put me back together” She had never felt less powerful, and her chest started to ache.

“Break my bones. Strangle me. I’m too tired to care anymore.” Q stated, staring directly into the eyes of the monster. Anger and honesty dripped out of every word, even as Q gasped at the tightening of the monster’s hands around his throat, not fighting at all against the pressure.

“Q” Julia breathed out, everything stilling in and around her. She knew that tone of voice, she knew what those words meant, what had happened before when he was in this place.

“You hurt him- you take one more pill- and you can build your body on your own.” Rage, desperation, bravery, they all mixed in Quentin’s voice, but when Julia looked down she saw how his clenched fists were trembling.

Everything stopped as the monster started to growl, low in the back of his throat. Tightening his grip and getting louder and louder. Julia tried with everything in her to just will him to not call Q’s bluff, because she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Q was not lying. He was done.

“Fine. I’ll take better care of the meat suit. But you don’t have to be such a baby about it.” The monster muttered, letting Q go before turning and stalking away.

Quentin paused and then folded in on himself. He looked so vulnerable, his eyes darting everywhere but at Jules, because he knew that now he had exposed the piece that would make the puzzle complete. He knew that now she saw. And she did.

Suddenly it all made sense. Flashing back over the past few weeks everything he had been saying fell into place- Julia had always known that Q felt a connection to Eliot, that’s why she made sure to gently remind him about the consequences of dousing the monster with the stone’s blood. She remembered the hopelessness in his eyes when he resignedly said “Eliot’s dead” back to her.

Then the tentative joy mixed with pain when he blurted out “Eliot’s alive” the minute the monster left them with Shoshanna and Iris’s bodies in the park. The nod, the shaking breath he took before having to say it again. “He’s alive” Almost as if to reassure himself.

The sudden energy Q had now that had been missing, but that bordered on manic at times.

“I’m team Eliot” he had stated to Alice, thinking she hadn’t heard, but she had. She wasn’t about to leave him completely out of both eyesight and earshot when that unbalanced narcissist was around.

“It’s Eliot” was all he had said to every doubt she had voiced, every reason she came up with why what he was saying wasn't smart.

So now she knew. Maybe not every detail, but she knew how deeply and truly Quentin was in love with Eliot. Way more than his long-gone crush on her, and different than the bond he shared with Alice, but just as strong, if not more so.

Reaching out, she grabbed one of his clenched fists, eased the fingers open and slid her own hand in-between. Providing the limited form of comfort she could without magic and with the monster just outside the door. With her other hand she touched his cheek and turned his face until he was looking at her. Until his darting eyes had to look at her.

“Because you do” is all she said, all she needed to say. Wrapping her arms around him she pressed her head to his chest.

“Because I do” Quentin choked out, breaking down. He cried in his best friend’s embrace as he hadn’t let himself do in as long as he could seem to remember. As he hadn’t when his dad died, when he thought Eliot was dead, when Brian saw the monster kill person after person. It reminded him of how he had cried in Eliot’s arms when Alice was gone. But this wasn’t the same, she wasn’t Eliot. And neither was that thing in the other room. So he just got swept up in the many emotions that were swirling around his troubled head, and he let go. Feeling a tremble he looked down and saw that Julia was crying, too.

She knew that they would have to talk about it, that Q needed to get shaken out of this passively suicidal head space. He couldn’t just go around playing chicken with monsters the gods fled from, not if they were going to end this, not if they were going to bring his Eliot back. She knew that he hadn’t wanted anyone to know, but she was still glad that it was her. Because she knew him, knew what all of this truly meant. So she would talk to him about it, and soon. But for now, for her best friend who was finally mourning something he felt he had lost, she could just stand there, his tears falling into her hair as hers soaked into his shirt.

#queliot #quentin x eliot #julia wicker #quentin coldwater #eliot waugh #the magicians #4x06 #the monster

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pamphletstoinspire · 5 years

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A HERMIT AT PRAYER: PART 15 MINI-COURSE ON PRAYER BY DAVID TORKINGTON

In the following example of a hermit at prayer you can see how traditional meditation comes to its high point in silence. It is here when contemplating some of the most profound texts in the Gospels that a person is led on beyond words to savour something of the height and depth, the length and breadth of God's love that surpasses the understanding. But let us listen to the hermit himself as he answers the questions of a young novice.

“How do you advise people to use the scriptures for meditation?” a young novice asked the hermit.

The hermit replied. “I advise them to turn to St John’s Gospel and most particularly to the discourse at the Last Supper, reading some of the texts several times, pausing over them, repeating them and asking God’s help to enable them to penetrate their meaning to allow the impact of that meaning to burst into their consciousness.”

His Words Had a Hypnotic Effect

The hermit stopped talking, sat back in his chair and closed his eyes remaining silent and quite motionless for a good thirty seconds before he began to speak. He began by drawing together several texts, repeating them slowly, unconsciously injecting into them a meaning born of long years of personal prayer.

“No one can come to the Father except through me. If you know me, you know my Father too. Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? Anyone who loves me will be loved by my Father and I shall love him and reveal myself to him. Make your home in me, as I make mine in you. Separated from me, you have no power to do anything.”

The hermit was able to put such depth of meaning into the words that it had an almost hypnotic effect on the novice who closed his eyes and a deep stillness came over him. The hermit paused before repeating the texts again, more slowly this time. When he repeated them for the third time the novice no longer noticed the way in which he delivered them, but their meaning bore in upon him with an impact that he had never before experienced. Somehow he needed the long pause that the hermit left after the final repetition to mull over the content of the texts. They had come alive for him in a new way. Then the hermit began to pray in words which were in complete accord with the novice's own feelings. “Lord, I believe,” he prayed. “Help my unbelief.”

He made this prayer three times, lapsing again into silence. When he spoke again it was to use words of praise, thanks, and adoration. After another lengthy pause, he began to repeat individual phrases from the texts that he initially quoted.

“Make your home in me, as I make my home in you.” Then, after a short pause, “Separated from me, you have no power to do anything.” He repeated these two phrases several times, once again punctuated by pauses of varying lengths. A profound inner recollection came over the novice during the experience and it remained with him for the rest of the day.

The trouble is, we have to learn to listen. One of our problems is that we are bombarded with literature from all sides every day of our lives so that we have acquired a habit of reading at a breathtaking pace just to keep abreast of what is happening. Our only concern is to glean the relevant facts from what we are reading and to move on to something else. If we apply the same techniques to the way we read the Scriptures, then we will never come to know Christ more deeply. We should read the Scriptures as we would read good poetry, endlessly going over it to penetrate its content. People with an artistic temperament may like to use their imagination more fully in prayer, and they should be encouraged to do so.

Scene Setting

The novice asked the hermit to explain what he meant by saying that people with an artistic temperament may wish to use their imagination more fully in prayer. He explained how the imagination can be used to set the scene in detail before starting to listen to the words of Christ.

“For instance, for the short meditation we have just shared together, you may find it helpful to begin by recreating the scene of the Last Supper in your mind, picturing the Apostles preparing the table, seeing Jesus coming into the room, watching him move, looking at his face when he speaks, noting the expression. The same sort of scene-setting could be used to recreate the atmosphere before meditating on other Gospel texts. The Passion of Christ, for instance would lend itself to this method of praying. Do not just think of what Christ went through. Go back in your imagination and place yourself in the event. You are amongst the soldiers at the scourging, one of the crowd during the carrying of the Cross, an onlooker at the actual Crucifixion. You see everything as it happens; you open your ears and hear what is said, and then you open your mouth and begin to pray.”

“But isn’t that emotional approach out of date nowadays?” the novice asked.

“There is no such thing as an out-of-date method of prayer if it helps to recreate the profound meaning of the Gospels, and leads a person to come to know and love Christ more deeply,” said the hermit emphatically. “I know many people who could have made great headway with prayer if they had not rejected certain traditional methods of meditation because they thought they were old-fashioned. I do however know what you mean. Many meditation manuals, particularly in the last century made a nonsense out of this particular approach to prayer by writing oceans of pious sentimentality that made one feel ill at ease in their company. Certainly, this approach does not appeal to everybody, but it can be very helpful to some, and they should not be put off because it is not the ‘in fashion'.

The Passion is a Primary Source for Meditation

The Word was made Flesh so that people of flesh and blood could understand and see God’s love made tangible. Christ’s death was a brutal, bloody and painful event through which the ‘Word made Flesh' speaks of love in a way that is intelligible to all. To neglect the Passion as a primary source of Christian meditation and prayer is to neglect the most important manifestation of God’s love that ever happened. We are not blocks, we are not stones, we are not senseless things. If we are afraid to be moved emotionally because it is not in fashion or not trendy, then we better start by praying for a little of the humility of the child, if we ever hope to enter into the Kingdom.

In addition to using the scriptures to read slowly and prayerfully to set our hearts alight with the love that leads to contemplation, turn to other sources too that have themselves been inspired by the scriptures. There are many profound and beautiful hymns that we only glance at briefly every now and then when we sing them in church; Hymns like ‘Lead, Kindly Light', ‘Abide with Me', ‘Rock of Ages' or ‘Come, Holy Spirit'. The hymnal can be a rich source of material for us to use for meditation reading them slowly and prayerfully as we would read the scriptures The Liturgy itself is an endless source of food for meditation for us to use in this way. The ‘Gloria' is an excellent example. I always recommend it to people because meditating on it a verse at a time immediately takes them out of themselves. The focal point of the prayer is God and his Glory, and this is the end of all prayer, and of our very existence. Use the Eucharistic prayers too in the same way. Read them slowly, meditate on the meaning of every sentence, every word, making a spiritual communion at the words of consecration. In this way you can, not only unite yourself with the community with whom you usually take part in the liturgy, but with every community taking part in the sacred mysteries all over the world. The Desert Fathers said that every hermitage should have only three walls. The third is like a window that is open to the world for whom hermits are called to pray in their solitude.

In the next article the novice asks the hermit about the emotional paralysis, that for him, like so many, prevents us from penetrating the profound mysteries of the faith as we would wish.

These ideas are developed further in my two major works on prayer – Wisdom from the Western Isles and Wisdom from the Christian Mystics, and Wisdom from Franciscan Italy that shows how deep contemplative prayer grows to perfection in the Life of St Francis of Assisi.

#daily prayer

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galfridus1 · 6 years

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CONGRATULATION for your 500 followers and taking all the time for all the requests (I love your writing style)^-^ Can you please write about Zeldris/Gelda in the modern au with number 6

Thank you so much! Really appreciate the ask and I hope you like this. Sorry it’s been a long time coming.

This is an attempt to recreate the river scene from Dorothy Sayers’ ‘Gaudy Night’. It doesn’t do it justice, but hopefully it’s an enjoyable read anyway. @maybeishouldwait has written a follow-on fic so do give that read too. Thanks Beth :)

***

Exams were over. Gelda knew she should be happy about this but she just felt deflated. All that effort, all the build up and for what? An uncertain future, oppressive summer heat and too much time to do nothing.

“Enjoy yourself!” her friend Ren had said. “Just relax!” But how could she? Results would not be out for several weeks and it was impossible until then to think of anything else. So she had taken to sitting in her room, back pressed to the sun shining through the window, playing endless rounds of Tetris and watching Netflix on a loop in a bid to forget as she counted down the days until her impending doom.

That is until he had knocked on the door.

“You’ll turn into a vampire at this rate! You need the sun. Come on, let’s go on the river!”

“Why?” Gelda asked, one eyebrow raised as she looked closely at Zeldris. Did the man never give up? It had been nearly three years since they had first met, and a similar amount of time since she had first declined his romantic advances, and yet here he was, eyes bright and expectant as ever. Obviously rejection did not dampen his spirits.

“This is Oxford! It’s tradition,” he insisted, a slight smile curving his lips. “Everyone has to do this at least once before they graduate. You are about to graduate. Ergo, you should give this a try.”

“If we’re talking tradition, I don’t see you wearing a boater,” Gelda complained, reluctantly allowing her own smile to show.

“Perish the thought!” Zeldris replied in mock horror. ��A straw hat really wouldn’t suit the aesthetic. Anyway, say you’ll come. You can’t stay in here until results are out. Whether or not you get you a first has been decided and nothing will change it. So you might as well forget your degree for a bit.”

“Easy for you to say,” Gelda muttered. There was no way Zeldris would walk away with anything other than a first class degree, and the cocky bastard knew it. In their second year they had been tutorial partners and Gelda had got to experience how brilliant a scholar he was for herself. It had been good for her really; refusing to let him and his all-knowing smirk get the upper hand she had worked her socks off, eventually becoming as impressive as he, at least in the field of Cold War politics and culture.

“Oh alright!” she relented, “but I’m not punting or we’ll end up stuck in the bank.”

“Of course not!” He looked shocked. “I would never have expected you to. The idea is for you to look decorous while I do the work.”

“And of course that’s not the slightest bit sexist…” Gelda said smoothly, enjoying the look of discomfort that crossed his face in response. “Fine, but if you fall in I warn you now I will laugh out loud.”

“Understood. Shall we?” With a slight sigh, Gelda followed Zeldris out of the house she shared with Ren, down the few crumbling stone stairs which led to the road and so towards the river. It was scorching hot, the air fetid and still with no sign of breeze, the sweet smell of the roses from the neighbouring college gardens almost overpowering. People were lounging around or eating melting ice creams, practically wilting in the heat of the sun but Zeldris didn’t seem to care. He strode on at a determined pace, eyes fixed forwards.

At last they reached the boathouse. Gelda had expected the place to be bustling, but to her surprise there were plenty of the narrow wooden punts ready for hire and not too many people in the queue ahead of them. Too hot, she supposed; the river was on the exposed side and Gelda wished she had brought some sunscreen. She watched a few beginners slowly edging their way downstream, bumping into the banks and giggling like crazy as they grappled with the pole used to steer and push the boats forwards. She didn’t even notice as Zeldris made the necessary arrangements, negotiating their own vehicle to the bank and then helping her in.

Lying back against the soft, red cushions, Gelda trailed her hand in the water as she watched Zeldris steer, the angle as he stood at the prow of the boat more than sufficient to show off his lithe form. With a shock she realised how adept at it he was at punting; he made it look effortless as he carefully moved the pole along the riverbed, easily navigating the boat downstream.

“Have you been practicing this?” she asked as she looked up at him, noting the line of his chest though the thin cotton shirt he wore. She smiled as his eyes flicked away from hers in obvious embarrassment. “But of course you have. Why would you do that, you idiot?”

“Only a bit,” Zeldris protested, his dark eyes cast on the shining surface of the water. He always did look adorable when he was flustered.

If we had met under different circumstances maybe we would be here now as a couple. Gelda nearly gasped out loud as the unbidden thought washed over her, and she quickly turned her head as if to observe the Botanical Gardens as they glided past, hoping sincerely that Zeldris had not caught her expression. It was maddening in a way, to find someone with whom she was so obviously compatible and for them to be off limits.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he asked softly and Gelda’s eyes snapped back towards him, the quizzical look on his face reminded her forcefully of just why they could not be. How could she? She still had her pride and she was not going to relinquish it now.

She paused before answering. “The first time we met actually,” she finally admitted.

“I was a cad,” he said quickly, almost too quickly, as if it were rehearsed and Gelda smiled inwardly knowing that it probably was. “I should never have asked you… I should never have presumed…”

“It’s fine. I’ll give you a pass. I probably wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for you.”

“I hope that’s not true. If the college had done its job properly your innocence would have been clear from the start.” He sounded angry now, more like his usual self as he allowed his temper to show.

Gelda felt her heart beating faster and her hands clench involuntarily as she remembered the stares and the accusations. It was over an essay of all things. She had submitted her paper, hand-written as per the archaic professor’s instructions, only to be told that she was being investigated for cheating. Mael had handed it in first, a version that was practically the same as hers, almost word for word. And Mael was the college pet, his celebrated brother having completed his degree there some years before. So naturally the assumption was that she had committed the heinous sin of plagiarism.

“How did you know it wasn’t me?” she asked quietly, “before you started investigating I mean.”

Zeldris looked uncomfortable. “You… I just didn’t think you were,” he muttered his eyes staring ahead as he steered the boat around some water weeds. “And I never liked Mael. I was at school with him remember, I know he’s a sneaky…”

“But it could have been me, and yet you were so certain,” Gelda said softly. She had never asked him this before, forcing herself not to show her curiosity. But now, somehow, something felt like it had come undone, like her tongue was unlocked. She was determined at any rate to get her answer.

“Just… you don’t look like a cheater,” he spluttered and Gelda laughed out loud.

“You mean you fancied me,” she said bluntly, enjoying the blush that crept over his cheeks.

“Yes, if you like,” he replied, his eyes meeting hers briefly before he fixed them back on the river. “I indicated as much at the time and I think you said something along the lines of me being a crass idiot for trying to leverage a good turn in that way. And you were right - I should have left you alone.

“It’s taken me a while to accept that I blew it,” he added more softly, “and that you will never care for me. But I’ve got there now. I won’t bother you with any of that again.” Gelda felt suddenly cold at this, the sun’s warmth bouncing off her skin rather than penetrating it as her heart squeezed unexpectedly in her chest. Now that the prospect was not on the table she perversely found she wanted it, a little bit. Breath held, she waited for him to continue, but he did not. He did not even look at her, though she could see the tension in the line of his jaw.

“Well, thank you,” she murmured, her own eyes now on the river. The bright sunlight shone on the surface, forming shifting white patterns as the boat sent slight waves forwards from the bow. “If you hadn’t thought to do that text analysis to prove I wrote the damn thing, I don’t think anyone would have believed me.”

“I’m sure it would have got sorted out eventually. I just sped things up I hope.” This was said with finality and Gelda reluctantly let the subject drop. Having avoided the subject for years, she now wanted to keep talking, wanted to hammer it home to him and herself just how cross he had made her.

After she had received an apology from the college, he had asked her out and she had obviously declined. How anyone could think that was the moment to spring that kind of proposal on someone still made her clench her teeth with frustration. She had been deeply upset by the whole experience, feeling vulnerable and exposed, her instinct to hide away from the world. The last thing she had wanted at the time was a relationship, especially with someone to whom she felt indebted and who seemed to have given no thought to the strain such an imbalance of position would have on her sanity.

They travelled in silence, through the verdant green of Christ Church Meadows, the low-hanging branches of oak near brushing their boat bringing a welcome cover of shade. It was hotter now if anything, the sun having risen in the clear blue sky and the air smelled of damp grass, the usual tang of petrol from the city streets completely absent. Much as Gelda hated to admit it he had been right; this was better than being indoors.

“This is a good place to stop for a bit,” Zeldris said cheerfully, guiding their vessel to the side of the bank before fishing about in the bag he had stowed. He handed her a bottle of water, condensation beading the dimpled plastic and Gelda drank the cool liquid gratefully, watching a few fluttering butterflies as they danced over the meadow.

“You always think of everything,” she murmured and Zeldris chuckled as he carefully lowered himself into the boat.

“I’d be a pretty poor host if I hadn’t. I brought sandwiches too,” he added passing Gelda a silver-wrapped parcel. “Watch out for the ducks though, they get a bit enthusiastic.” As if on cue, a small raft of ducks swam up to the boat, glaring up at Gelda expectantly with beady eyes. She laughed, tossing them a few bits of crust which they set to in an instant, the quacks and splashes as they fought each other for the spoils punctuating the peace.

She looked up to see Zeldris settling down with a book, noting for the first time the way his dark lashes curled slightly as his eyes scanned the page. She let her eyes follow the sharp line of his cheekbones towards the snub nose and, with a start, she realised she had needed to suppress the urge to reach out for him. Cursing herself for her stupidity, she tried to ignore the way her heart raced in her chest and her face flushed with heat. But it was no use. Gelda had always been honest, with herself at least, and there was no way she could deny how she was feeling.

Really, had this not been coming on for some time? It was he she had gone to when her application to continue her studies had been successful, conditional on this damn first class degree of course. He was the one who shared her sorrow and anger when her father had, without warning, cut off her allowance all because she had told him she wished to pursue an academic career instead of joining the family business. Terrible parents was something they had in common.

“I’m sorry too,” she whispered and Zeldris looked up in surprise, the book he was holding falling into lap. “I was too harsh with you. I have been for years. Can we… can we maybe start over?” It felt as if time had frozen as they stared at one another, and Gelda was just beginning to curse her impetuousness (how could she possibly think he would still want something more after all this time) when to her absolute relief she saw the grin that spread over his face. Tentatively, he reached out a hand towards her and Gelda took it gratefully, feeling the warmth of his fingers as they laced through her own.

#nnt #prompt collab #fanfiction #gelda #zeldris #geldris

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anavoliselenu · 7 years

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Heart of stone chapter 6

I paced back and forth in my office like a caged animal, trying to figure out what had come over me. Yes, I wanted Selena Cole. I wanted her from the first moment I saw her. But that was no excuse. I wasn’t some horny kid that couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.

I raked my hands through my hair, disturbed over the fact that I had lost my head. It had been so unlike me. I understood the value of finesse, the importance of patience and diligence to achieve the desired end result. And I never failed. Yet, Selena Cole’s stamp was imprinted into my brain, causing me to carelessly push aside any sort of self-restraint, and taking what I wanted without any regard of the consequence.

I brought a hand up to rub my temple, trying to will away the images of her, but my efforts were in vain. I could still smell the soft scent of her hair. It was like strawberries and cream. The feel of her pulse racing as I held her slight hand in mine. The way her breath hitched when I touched her neck. Her lips, parting ever so slightly, just waiting. Waiting for me to devour her.

And the look of confusion on her face when I so rudely dismissed her…

I’m an asshole.

I needed a do-over. A mulligan.

Intent on rectifying the situation, I quickly strode towards the office door, hoping to catch her before she left. However, when I stepped through the doorway, a very angry Justine Andrews was blocking my path.

“Justin! I’ve been trying to reach you for days!” Justine snapped. Her eyes flashed angrily as she quickly closed the distance between us. My back went ramrod straight, ready to jump on the defense. I braced for the worst, knowing that she had a valid reason for being so irate.

Here it comes. The wrath of Justine. Apparently, I have pissed off more than just one woman this morning.

But before I could even think to utter an explanation as to why I hadn’t returned her calls, she threw her arms around my neck, softening my defenses.

That’s when I saw Selena.

At first she looked shocked, but then her expression changed to one of angry betrayal. I felt like I had just taken a solid blow to the head. I couldn’t react if I tried. It was if time was literally standing still.

It wasn’t until the elevator doors closed, that I realized what the scene must have looked like to her. I disentangled myself from Justine’s hold.

“Christ, what has gotten into you? You have no patience! And your timing sucks,” I bit out irritably, turning to go back into my office. Justine followed me and I closed the door behind her, sparing the office staff from a screaming match. I could tell that she was itching for a fight.

“Come on, Justin! You wanted your secretary to reschedule me – me of all people! And I think it’s terrible that I had to make an appointment to see you in the first place,” she whined.

“Sorry. It’s been a busy week,” I muttered, taking a seat behind my desk. Justine gracefully sat down in the seat across from me and folded her arms in a pout.

I fired up my computer and opened my inbox. I started sifting through emails, deleting what wasn’t needed and sending off quick responses. I wasn’t going to put much consideration into Justine’s petulant attitude. She would get to her point eventually, and I didn’t want to have some long, drawn out brawl in the meantime. It was a waste of time – time that should be spent chasing down Selena.

I came across the email from Stephen that had Selena’s information in it. I opened the file to reread it for the fourth time that day, hoping to find some piece of information that might help me to defuse the time bomb that I had unintentionally set.

“So what have you been so busy with? That pretty little thing that just ran out of here?” Justine taunted.

“That’s enough,” I said impatiently, silencing her with my hand. I closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. When I opened them, I looked pointedly at her, warning her not to challenge me. “That woman was an interview. A very important interview that you interrupted. Believe it or not, I do have a company to run.”

I didn’t elaborate on what else she interrupted. Justine would go ape shit if she knew that I had practically sexually assaulted a potential employee. Her interruption was most likely the best thing that could have happened, as much as I begrudged her for it.

“I know that you’re busy, and I’m so sorry to come barging in like this. It’s just that…this is important and I didn’t know what else to do!”

The anguish in her voice caught my attention, forcing me to take a closer look at her. As always, she looked impeccable, which I’ve come to expect nothing less of her. The allowance I gave her every month was more than enough to purchase her designer cloths, high-end cosmetics, and perfectly manicured nails. However, I was among the few people in her life that could see through the smokescreen. And her makeup.

Although she did a good job of covering it, I could still see the subtle puffiness under her eyes, and the faint redness around their rims. She had been crying before coming to see me.

“What is it, Justine?” I asked, adapting a gentler tone, even though I already had suspicions about what might really be upsetting her. This wasn’t about a few unreturned phone calls.

It’s probably her scumbag ex-husband again.

“It’s Charlie,” she told me, her eyes welling up with tears. She tried to blink them back.

I called that one right…

“What’s the bottom feeder up to?” I asked irritably. I had zero tolerance for the gambling addict that used to be Justine’s husband. He was a despicable waste of a human being.

“It’s bad, Justin. He’s been making threats.”

“What do you mean? What threats?” I hissed through my teeth, instantly fueled with rage at the thought of him hurting her again. She had already been through enough. “I’ll kill the fucking bastard if he touched you again!”

Justine winced. My tone was menacing, which I knew she hated, but I couldn’t help it. She brought out every protective instinct that I possessed.

“No, he didn’t hurt me – at least not in the physical sense. He’s been calling… a lot. I thought about just having his number blocked, but I was afraid to because of what he’s been threatening. It affects both me and you,” she told me.

Fear shone through her tears and she started to shake, the tremble causing her legs to visibly bounce. I hurried over to her side and pulled her up into my arms. I held her tight and stroked her long hair.

“It’s alright. It doesn’t matter what his threats are. He can’t do anything to me. And I already told you – I won’t let him hurt you anymore,” I tried to assure her.

“No, no! You have to listen to me, Justin!” she shouted, shoving me away. She inhaled deeply, attempting to regain some of her composure. “Damn it! This is why I’ve been blowing up your phone. He’s threatening to expose us – our past!”

I felt all the blood drain from my face, a pit settling in the depths of my stomach.

“And how would he know about our past, Justine?” I asked, my voice low.

“Because…cause I told him!” she hiccupped, a fresh wave of sobs making her lose it all over again. “I had to tell him. It was part of my therapy a long time ago. And now, all these years later, I’ve barely made peace with everything myself. The last thing I want is a media circus. I couldn’t handle it, Justin. I just couldn’t.”

My hands tightened into fists. It took every ounce of will power I had not to smash something in the room.

“Fucking shrinks,” I cursed under my breath. I never could understand why she put so much faith in those head nutters. I moved around to the backside of my desk to get her a linen handkerchief from my desk drawer. “Is it safe to assume that Charlie wants you to buy his silence?”

She took the handkerchief, and hesitated for a second or two before answering me. Guilt briefly clouded her features.

“Of course, what else would he want? He probably just came off of a bad run on the craps table. But, you know how it is…just a little extra cash will put him on top again. I’m sure he has one of his hunches again,” she sarcastically remarked.

Justine was bitter, and I didn’t blame her for being that way. However, I did blame her for the handouts that she’d been giving him, despite their recent divorce. Justine didn’t spend every penny that I gave her on herself, but saved a part of it to keep the leach off her back. I never told her that I knew about it, but often wondered why she did it. He must have been reaching deeper into her pockets than I had assumed.

It needs to end. Now.

“I’ll handle it.”

“But how? You know him, Justin. He won’t stop. He’ll just come back again when he’s down.”

“I don’t now what I’m going to do just yet. Let me make some calls, talk to my lawyer. Stephen will know what we can do about this legally. In the meantime, I don’t want you to be upset about it. And if he calls again, direct him to me. That should stall him for a bit. He’s always been a chicken-shit when it comes to me.”

“I’m sorry, Justin. I never thought he’d stoop this low.”

“You didn’t? Seriously,” I said, disgusted with her naivety even after all this time. “The man has no conscience. You should have learned that the first time he slammed your head into the kitchen wall.”

“Yeah, well…I never was one to learn from my mistakes,” she emitted spitefully. Her voice cracked and fresh tears filled her eyes. I was instantly overcome with shame.

What the fuck is wrong with me today?

“Look, I’m sorry. That was a low blow. I know you did what you thought was best at the time. As for all of this other bullshit, I told you that I’d handle it, and I will.”

“I hope you can, Justin. He’s asking for an awful lot of money,” she said, voice full of disbelief, shaking her head back and forth.

I didn’t bother to ask how much. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t getting another dime from her or me.

“I’ve got this. Go home, Justine. Call Suzanne. Plan a lunch date or a spa day. Something.”

She easily agreed to the suggestion and I hoped that an afternoon of doing whatever it was girls did together would distract her. At the very least, she seemed calmer when she kissed me good-bye.

“Thanks. I owe you for this,” she vowed.

I cast her a grim smile, knowing that I’d never cash in on the favor.

As soon as I was able to shoo her out the door, I picked up the phone to get my lawyer on the line. When it came to someone like Charlie Andrews, it wouldn’t matter how much wealth or power I possessed. He wasn’t easily put off by intimidation. He was driven by his addiction, lacking all common sense. It was time to take a more drastic approach.

“Stephen, I want you and Hale in here ASAP. I have a problem that needs to be dealt with.”

I slammed the receiver down without waiting for a response. Charlie was the last person I wanted to deal with at that moment. I had a full schedule ahead of me, with two important meetings later in the afternoon that I needed to prepare for. And then there was the most pressing matter of all – finding a way to apologize to Selena.

Her expression before she left my building was singed into my brain like I had been branded – her face so beautiful, yet full of wounded indignation. I felt a stab of guilt.

Why do I feel guilty? She’s just a girl.

A very pretty girl.

A girl whose alluring face appears in my mind without warning, disrupting all other rational thoughts. The fact that rectifying the situation with Selena was first and foremost was unsettling.

This is ridiculous. I’ll just find a way to offer an apology and move on.

But despite what I told myself, I knew that erasing Selena Cole from my mind wouldn’t be that easy.

I sat at the kitchen table stirring a spoon in a bowl of cereal. It had been three days since my interview with Justin Stone. I wasn’t naïve. I knew that he wasn’t going to call me to reschedule. It didn’t really matter. I never wanted to hear from him again anyway. I was a fool for dropping my guard, even for a moment. I was smarter than that.

During the first few days after the interview, my jealousy had kicked into over drive. Why I was jealous, I didn’t know. I certainly had no right to stake claims on the man. Yet, I had come home that day in an absolute rage and used Allyson as my sounding board. Being the best friend that she was, she shared my anger and swore profusely over and over again, calling him every name in the book.

But then, like all great friends do, she listened while I cried. I cried over a lost job opportunity and I cried over my stupidity. And the worst part of it all, I cried over him. I knew that my tears were misguided. After all, I barely knew the guy. But the simple fact was, Justin Stone stirred up emotions that I managed to keep buried for so long. He had made me feel alive again and put a little crack in the walls that I had so carefully built around myself.

And I hated him for it.

After my ordeal with Trevor, I had vowed to myself that I would never again show that kind of weakness, and I had since mastered the ability to ignore the opposite sex as much as humanly possible.

How could I have been so dumb?

My thoughts drifted back to the time with my ex-boyfriend and I couldn’t stop the bitterness from creeping up inside me. I had met Trevor Hamilton my freshman year of college. We were the stereotypical couple that you read about in books. He was the wealthy, popular boy on campus and I was the new girl, struggling to find my place in the vast city of New York. I had fallen for him practically overnight.

However, unlike the storybooks, we didn’t have a fairytale ending. Trevor was a different man behind closed doors. He was controlling to the point of obsession. He told me what to wear, how to style my hair, and where to shop. He even went so far as to write down a schedule for me, planning my time and activities down to the minute. He took charge of every aspect of my life, slowly forcing me away from my friends and family. Sometimes it felt like I couldn’t even breathe without his approval.

When I looked back, I knew that I was partly to blame. I allowed Trevor to do it. I ignored the warnings from my friends. I assured my troubled conscience that he was a perfectionist, and that was why he was so controlling. I told myself that he loved me and only wanted what was best for me. I became a victim to the old adage – the one that talks about love making people lose their sight, oblivious to the realities surrounding them.

I had been as blind as a bat.

At least I was until that fateful spring day, when he had called me to cancel our plans for that evening. He had said that he was sick. I figured that he must have been feeling pretty bad to cancel out on me, especially since Trevor never allowed any deviation of my schedule. I thought that it would be nice to surprise him with homemade chicken soup.

As it turned out, Trevor wasn’t really that sick at all. I ended up walking in on him doing the horizontal tango with some scrawny-assed blond.

In an instant, my whole world shattered. As hard as I tried to forget that day and the terrible weeks that followed, I could remember it like it was only yesterday. The yelling, the screaming, and the violence would forever be burned into the deep recesses of my brain. It had altered my opinion of the world and all the people in it, and ultimately ended up changing who I was.

It was the day that made my heart turn to stone.

Allyson, the only friend that I had left, was there to pick up the pieces. She came home to find me a crumpled up mess on the floor and worked tirelessly for months to make me see things for what they really were. It took me a while to come around, but eventually I was able to see that I didn’t really love Trevor and that what had happened wasn’t my fault.

I knew now that I was just in love with the idea that society jams down everyone’s throat – that companionship wrapped in a white picket fence was the key to happiness. I couldn’t think of a bigger lie.

All men are bastards. I don’t need that headache.

I went to the sink to dump my now mushy cereal into the garbage disposal. I was dwelling too much on my disastrous history and had lost my appetite. I needed to remember my restraint and not give into a small moment of weakness. I had given up on fairytales and pipedreams for a good reason. I’d be damned before I would let history repeat its self.

I just needed to get rid of one little problem – Justin Stone. He was consuming my every waking thought. I fought to extinguish all thoughts of that extraordinary and complex man from my mind, but Allyson’s words at Murphy’s rang in my head.

Every guy isn’t like Trevor.

But my hardened heart said that Allyson was wrong. They were all like Trevor, every last one of them.

Assholes.

Justin had only proved himself to be the same as the rest. I never should have let him get to me. It was time to toughen my resolve. I did it once before, I could certainly do it again. I just needed to find a distraction.

I glanced over at the pile of bills on the kitchen counter, my first student loan payment sitting amongst them. A review of my finances and a job search would certainly be enough of a distraction, and it was long overdue.

I went over to the counter and began sorting through the overwhelming pile, trying to figure out how I would make ends meet with my salary at Wally’s.

After an hour of crunching numbers, panic began to set in as I stared at the homemade spreadsheet in front of me.

I was severely in the red.

I reworked the math three more times just to make sure that my figures were correct, but the result was the same. I was going to have to make some major cut backs if I didn’t find a better paying job soon, and I knew that selling my car was inevitable.

It doesn’t matter – I hardly use the beat up old Ford anyway.

Parking in this city was so damned expensive and difficult to come by, that public transportation had just ended up being easier. However, a prickle of tears began to sting my eyes, as a wave of nostalgia came over me at the thought of giving up my first car.

I’m being stupid – it’s just a car. I’ll sell it if I have to.

A knock on the door disrupted my thoughts. I went to the door, opened it and found a FedEx package at my feet. I figured Allyson must have ordered something online, but then I saw that it was addressed to me.

I brought the package into the kitchen and rummaged through one of the kitchen drawers for a pair of scissors. Placing the box on the kitchen counter, I cut through the packaging tape. A new smart phone was inside.

What the hell?

I never did end up making it to the cell phone store. When I picked up the phone, I noticed a note in the bottom of the box.

Waiting for you to reschedule. Thought this might help.

My contact info has already been programmed, along with some music to help persuade you. Listen to it.

The note wasn’t signed, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who sent it. I powered on the phone and pulled up the contact list. Justin Stone’s name, email address, and three different contact numbers were already programed into it, as well as all of my other contacts.

I fought the urge to smash the phone against the kitchen wall.

This has to be some sort of sick joke! Of all the nerve!

The cell phone rang loudly through the silent apartment, practically making me jump out of my skin. My mother’s name showed on the caller ID.

Why are my calls going to this phone?

I warily slid my finger along the smooth touch screen to answer the call.

“Hello?”

“There you are!” my mother’s voice exclaimed on the other end of the line. “I’ve been calling all morning, but your phone was sending me straight to voicemail.”

I looked at my broken cell phone that was on the coffee table in the living room.

That’s strange. The phone was turned on.

But the thought was fleeting, as an idea of a completely impossible scenario came to mind.

There’s no way…he couldn’t have.

I hurried to the table to inspect the old phone, and my jaw hit the floor.

Oh my god – that son of a bitch deactivated it.

I pulled the new phone away from my ear to look at it and felt my blood begin to simmer at his audacity.

I don’t care if he’s some mega ultra-powerful zillionaire! He has no right! This must be illegal somehow. Of all the sneaky, controlling, and underhanded things…

“Selena? Are you there?” asked my mother, her voice sounding faint as I continued to hold the expensive device out in front of me.

“Hi, mom. Yeah, I’m here,” I said, bringing the phone back to my ear. I rubbed my forehead, feeling a headache coming on.

“How are you, love? I haven’t talked to you in weeks.”

“I’m good. Busy, but good.”

“Busy finding a job I hope. You insisted on spending all of that money going to college in New York, you should have something to show for it by now.”

I closed my eyes and let out a sigh.

Here we go.

“No, Mom. Not yet. In fact, I was just about to pull out my laptop and start another job hunt. You sort of caught me at a bad time.”

“Honey, I don’t know why you just don’t move home. You know that Frank could get you a job anywhere in Albany. I really wish you would stop being so stubborn about staying in New York.”

“Mom, we’ve been through this a thousand times. I like living in New York.”

“I know, but –.”

“I have to go, mom. I really need to concentrate on finding a job.”

I found that sometimes it was better to just talk over her. She never listened otherwise and I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture.

“If you would only –.”

“I’m hanging up now, Mom,” I told her, my impatience coming out loud and clear.

“Okay, fine. I get it. You don’t want to talk about it. I’ll stop. That’s not why I called anyhow. The reason I called was to tell you that Frank and I are coming to New York in a few weeks. I’m long overdue for a visit and I want to get a jump start on my holiday shopping.”

I groaned inwardly. As nice as it would be to see them, a visit from my mother and stepfather took a lot of energy – energy that I wasn’t really feeling at the moment.

“Sounds good. I’ll look forward to it,” I lied.

“Alright, honey. I’ll let you know which weekend we are coming once we finalize our plans. Good luck job hunting! Love you!”

“Love you too, Mom. Bye.”

I hit the end button on the touchscreen. Rage returned with a vengeance as I stared down at Justin Stone’s gift, if one would even call it that.

It’s more like a hostile takeover of my personal means of communication!

On impulse, I decided to send him a text, my fingers typing feverishly in anger.

Today

10:32 AM, Me: Who do you think you are?

The seconds ticked by, my fingernails clicking impatiently on the kitchen counter, as I waited for his response. After a few minutes, I was ready to ditch the phone in the trash, but then it chimed with a notification of a new message.

10:38 AM, Justin: Good. You received the phone.

I could almost see his smug expression as I read his response. That fueled my fury even more. I responded back in such a rush, that I misspelled everything.

If the prick could take the time to have all of my contacts reprogrammed, he should have at least turned on the auto spelling correct!

I started over, this time typing more slowly.

10:41 AM, Me: Yes, I received it – and you can take it right back too!

10:42 AM, Justin: It’s yours. Keep it.

Ugh! Is he really that dense!

He was starting to push me over the edge. I wanted no ties to Justin whatsoever and I had no intention of keeping the stupid cell phone, as it would only be a constant reminder of him.

10:44 AM, Me: I don’t want it.

10:45 AM, Justin: You could always go back to your broken one.

10:45 AM, Me: You deactivated it!

10:47 AM, Justin: And your point is?

10:48 AM, Me: Normal people don’t DO things like that!

10:51 AM, Justin: I’m not normal people Selena.

You can say that again!

10:54 AM, Me: How did you do it?

10:56 AM, Justin: Do what?

10:57 AM, Me: Deactivate my phone???

10:59 AM, Justin: I know people.

11:00 AM, Me: Then tell your PEOPLE to change it back!

11:04 AM, Justin: No.

11:04 AM, Me: YES!

11:09 AM, Justin: I’ve rescheduled your interview for this afternoon.

11:10 AM, Me: Then you’re going to be awfully bored this afternoon.

11:13 AM, Justin: Why is that?

11:14 AM, Me: Because I won’t be there.

11:17 AM, Justin: Yes you will. 2pm. My office.

11:18 AM, Me: I will NOT be there! And I want you to fix my phone!

No response.

Fine. I’ll take care of it myself!

I hurried to my bedroom to get dressed. I hastily threw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and then rummaged around in my closet for a pair of sneakers. I located them quickly and tied the shoelaces with expert speed, all while thinking about the vicious things I would say to the clerk at the cell phone counter.

Someone is going to get his or her ass chewed off for this!

And HIM…rescheduling my interview…HA!

I headed back out to the kitchen, but stopped short when I saw the Fed-Ex box sitting on the counter. I forced myself to see reason. It wouldn’t do me much good if I stormed into the wireless communications store and went off half-cocked on some poor defenseless sales clerk. I would probably end up getting myself arrested for acting like a crazed lunatic.

It’s not their fault that Stone is an assuming jerk.

Knowing that I had to get a handle on my emotions before I did anything rash, I took a deep breath to try and calm my mounting temper. Going to the store in my current frame of mind would only lead to a total catastrophe, and I tried to form a more sensible plan – one that didn’t involve any jail time.

La Biga first. A caffeine fix will do me good. Plus, it will buy me some time to screw my head back on straight.

I eyed up my laptop that was sitting on the coffee table.

Yes! I can look for a job online while I’m at the coffee shop, too.

After an hour or so of doing an employment search, I assumed that a sufficient amount of time would have passed and I’d be a bit calmer when I went to return the phone.

Satisfied with my plan of action, I grabbed everything I would need, including Justin’s asinine phone, and dashed out of the apartment to catch the Redline.

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