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boizandgurlzinthehouse · 5 months

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𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐰𝐞 𝐝𝐨 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞.

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈𝐈. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐆𝐄.

pairing: coriolanus snow x toxic!fem!reader

summary: someone always throw a spanner in her works, to achieve her biggest dream —being coriolanus’ lover, wife and claiming power. luckily, y/n is not on the loser side when it comes to playing.

trigger warnings (overall): mastermind!reader, toxic!reader (for real, she’s doing nasty things), reader’s family is a bit fucked up, reader is obsessed with coriolanus snow, lying, swearing, blood, violence, killing people, hunger games stuff, i just love volumnia gaul, reader hates lucy gray and everybody who’s around coriolanus, mental health problems mentioned such as psychotism, domestic violence mentioned, drugs, mention of sexual fantasies.

trigger warnings (in this part): mastermind!reader, toxic!reader (for real, she’s doing nasty things), reader is obsessed with coriolanus snow, lying, swearing, drugs, mention of sexual fantasies, wet dreams, screaming out from anger, hate speech, hate-thoughts.

prologue. part 1.

her nose bleed.

looking into the mirror, everybody could wonder that it didn't break from the look on y/n’s face. nosebleeding happened a lot of the time with her, her brother, joked like “this is what happens when even your blood can’t stay near your thoughts.” well, only if he knew that sometimes, it was true.

standing up, blasting the vases and the dolls she had on her shelf with a scream, everything fell down to the floor, broken into pieces, some of it cutting up her foot. still screaming, crouching to the ground, tearing out the pages of the old plan, she split her stupidity into litter. her whole body shook as she drew out the white powder she got from festus, spreading some on the edge of her thumb, sniffing it up. waiting until the calming feeling crawled in her blood to his brain and every little corner of her body, she felt full for a moment. her whole body shook as she stood up, stepping over the shards and thorns of her vases, her dolls and her roses. stomping over a doll with black hair, sy/n sat back to the dressing table. swiping the mascara off her face, then her lipstick, with baggy eyes, smeared makeup, with the eyes of a madwoman, her lips like she just ate something raw, her blood mixing with black and red, she wanted to tear up that bitch.

but let’s not be so fast. let’s begin with the first things and signs, the signs that got y/n in this state.

to begin with the good news, clemensia finally got out of the picture. y/n began the day at volumnia gaul, as she wrote in y/n’s response letter that she should be there tomorrow morning, so she can begin as soon as it’s possible. wearing her best clothes, she stood at nine am before the doctor’s doors. drinking a tea with her, y/n only saw only now how intimidating she looked –one of her, the ice blue one, came from the devil itself.

“i’m not gonna lie miss y/l/n, but when i saw your application letter on my desk, i was surprised.”

“how so? i mean, dr. gaul, i knew only the best biologists and scientists work for you, and i wanted to be one of them.”

“really? oh, yeah, i remember about your assignment, dear. tell me, when you wrote those words and sentences, did you already think about working at the game?”

“i mean… dr. gaul, please don’t get it wrong, i’m not really interested in the outcome of the games. twenty three people die anyway, and it’s not the maker’s task to make the games more interesting. that task is for the marketing section. i only want to see how venom can be planted.”

“is the littlest, sweetest child of cyril y/l/n interested in venom?”

“venom can be useful in so many ways. it can heal, and it can make things more interesting. it can make a single dinner turn into a full-night drama.”

volumnia looked at y/n, then began to giggle. y/n never felt something like before; it crawled down into her veins, just like the drugs she used, scratching her brain, just like the day of the graduation.

“miss y/l/n, i’m sure you have some ideas. and it’s not only about mono– and dicotyledons. come with me, let me show you something.”

their heels clicked on the floor as the biologists looked at a big glass-cage in front them. at first she didn’t even realize what she saw, only a million scales crawling into each other, different metallic colors in every shade of the rainbow, never stopping, always slowly moving pressed to each other like shiny, long bowels. it was a glass cage, full of snakes. but what’s so special about it?

“they are venomous.” could dr. gaul read her mind? “it’s my newest invention. these snakes can poorly see or hear, but have better smell than any dog, and much more venom than any of their natural kindreds.” stepping closer, y/n placed her hand on the glass. only one knock, and they both could be dead at this very moment.

“it’s truly amazing, dr. gaul.” she answered.

as one of dr. gaul’s assistants led her around after her lunch –everybody wore white clothes, some of them had masks on their face–, in the early afternoon, coriolanus and clemensia came in. speaking of the devil, she was sitting at one of the tables in the big, white hall full of canned animals and organs, running through papers and listing the books she had to read as he stepped in. y/n completely forgot about the annoying girl beside her, thinking about their date, she sprayed a little perfume on herself when she saw them coming closer. at night, y/n had first so-called wet dream –she attended a sleepover at arachne’s house twice, and they were talking about these kinds of dreams, when girls dreamed about their ‘crush’. why call it ‘crush’ when you can call it lover? sooner or later, if you’re tenacious enough, they’re gonna be your lover. or was it just y/n? anyway, she knew what sex was and that it was good (although she never did it), but it was strange to wake up feeling hot like having a fever. feeling that her underwear was sticky, at first she thought that she had her period, but looking at it –nothing. she wasn’t a daydreamer, but when she thought back to the dream, reaching for coriolanus as he hovered ove her from above, holding his big hand, caging hers as he kept his other hand at the back of her neck, long fingers digging into the nape of her hair, stroking it with each jolt, burying his face into her neck, giving out grunts like an animal, moving his hips into hers while y/n held onto his broad, sculpted shoulders– it was a little bit weird that her mind wasn’t focused. she was… wandering. how weird!

“hey, y/n, you already here?” clemensia asked her, making her look up from the paper. stilted smile, wide eyes, looking like she was ready to get all the credit from coriolanus for herself… yeah, she’s still a certified, annoying bitch.

“hello, y/n.” corio said, making her look at him with a slight smile. just like she always did.

“hi to you too. yes, well, seems like dr. gaul isn’t a procrastinator. she’s really a professional.”

“aren’t you scared to work between stuff like this? these glasses are creeping me out…” clemensia muttered. these things are hiding in you too, honey. sadly, the brain is missing, maybe in you too.

“no, i’m not. it’s rather interesting, biology and science are the future.”

before they could speak any further, volumnia appeared.

“i see you two just found your little friend, already on the front.”

“yes, and we are so happy about it.” said clemensia, dr. gaul bidded y/n to go with them. of course you are happy, connections are everything. y/n couldn’t decide if clemensia really was this bootlicker by her nature, or that his father was in trouble.

“miss y/l/n already have seen my newest, beautiful babies, but i want you to see them too.”

“is there a point to a color?” clemensia asked as they stepped up on the stairs before y/n.

“there’s a point to everything, miss devcoat, or to nothing at all… which brings me to your proposal.” dr. gaul answered, leaning with one arm on the cage. “which one of you actually wrote it?”

looking at the snake cage, knowing the snakes had really good smelling affinitions, dr. gaul’s question… did she doubt it, too? sure there were cameras on the reception, and as coriolanus told her, he handed in the paper. did she doubt it? no. she knew that it was not her. after clemensia’s little speech, y/n slightly smirked, but when coriolanus looked back at her, she reassuringly smiled.

“...so miss devcoat, reach in it for us, won’t you? so we might all consider your inspired ideas. don’t worry, my little predators are perfectly docile with those who they know they can trust. so if they’re used to your scent, if you’ll handle their food, for example… or if they’ve inhaled the sweat of your palm on a page.”

the fear on clemensia’s face was satisfying. of course, y/n didn’t want her to die, she wasn’t a savage, but she needed to learn her lessons. and when she got bitten in a sudden moment, falling down… y/n almost couldn’t contain the honest smile on her face. coriolanus of course, was scared about what happened to her, and she tried to act like it, too.

“miss y/l/n read about them this morning, surely she can say something about what this was.” dr. gaul said, making coriolanus turn to her.

“i think that this is just the natural selection of humanity. i wouldn’t think that clemensia lied, but… these snakes proved it. by scent, of course, but judging and deciding is in every creature on this planet. they just went against it.”

“mr. snow, your dear friend sees it right. and god, your suggestions! i will recommend my team implement as many as possible tomorrow, spread it in front of my team.” however, coriolanus didn’t seem eased.

“will she die?”

“the pleasure in breaking ground in one’s research as one gets to find it out. you better keep miss dovecote’s faith between us. i don’t think her mother would be happy to learn how her daughter was caught in a sudden… flu.” coriolanus looked at y/n. she furrowed her eyebrows, but knew that dr. gaul wasn’t one to fuck with. but one was out from her list, if she goes with speed like that, she can bid her problems really soon goodbye.

eating lunch together again, coriolanus suddenly held her hand. although it made her excited, his face contained the same worry he had when he saw clemensia.

“y/n, you are one of her workers now. dr. gaul is… i have some precautions with her, did you see what she did with clemensia?”

y/n nodded, stroking his hand with her thumb.

“corio, dear, dr. gaul did that because she knew you were the one who wrote all those proposals and ideas. she just couldn’t stand the unfairness.”

“i know, but she could have done it in a more gentle way, couldn’t she?”

“she could, of course. dr. gaul just wanted her to learn a lesson, she was always on your back, coriolanus. i feel really sorry about her” no, of course i’m not. “, but you need to cut off the people who don't help you by their true being. i think casca highbottom’s goal was also this, for all of you to realize these things.” was it emotional and logical enough? she really hoped, and she eased up when coriolanus’ eyes lit up.

“you are right, y/n. i’m grateful to you for telling me the truth.”

“i’m never telling the truth, i am not a judge. or, only the times when it’s time. i’m just saying my thoughts as an outsider.”

“you may be an outsider by the games, but you’ll never be one in my life. thank you so much.”

“i’m always happy to hear your thoughts, corio.” enough from the bullshit, let’s get to the more important stuff. “by the way, the date… how am i supposed to dress? our chauffeur can drive us anywhere, i talked with my father and he can go with his administrative car, so…”

“i want to bring you to a little restaurant, where i ate with my family when i was a child. it’s not big, but i really hope you will like it. and you can wear anything you want, i’m not gonna be disappointed.”

y/n wanted to kiss him. so bad, to seal their whole life forever. despite that fact and her wants, she brushed one of her locks behind her ear.

“thank you, corio. i just want it to be perfect.”

after lunch, standing up, as y/n guided him out, he held her hand.

“what will you do for the rest of the day?” she asked coriolanus, hoping they can be together for more time than just a simple lunch. if the date goes well, and it will go well, will they have little, secret dates together? will he come for her family’s dinner? it was mandatory always in her family, and he didn’t need to be introduced, but still, it was tradition.

“i’m going to see if lucy gray is okay in the zoo. tomorrow we are planning on getting them food, would you go with me? the others will be there as well, and i’d like to introduce you to her.”

really? well, it can happen, only if the media isn’t there. but it will, because these actions are making history right now. and if y/n is on the side of coriolanus, it can help him. her family, mainly her father will make her a joke, but he was so cynical that it didn’t matter. and this way, she can check that lucy gray for herself.

“i’ll go with you, of course! it’s a wonderful idea.” she grabbed into his arms as they stepped out on the gates. she needed to go back of course, but she didn’t mind.

“thank you, y/n. after that, be there at the restaurant at seven in the evening.”

“i can’t wait for it, corio.” she smiled, looking up at him. brushing her hair, coriolanus bent down to kiss her cheek. it needed such a little move of her head to catch his lips, but she contained herself. today’s sacrifices are for tomorrow’s prizes. his lips were perfect, of course, including her dream from yesterday’s night, she held onto his arm to stroke it.

“then tomorrow, y/n. take care of yourself, okay?”

“just as always, please do the same, dear.” she muttered, making him smile. to kiss his lips, to dig her fingers into his hair, to lay into his arms as they watched that the majority of the votes called to him on the election of the presidency of panem… having dreams like this was the cause she didn’t get medicine through her veins.

well, maybe they needed it after the tv-show at night. laying on her bed as usual, smoking a cigarette while reading, thinking about the outfit she could wear tomorrow night, her sister knocked on her door.

“can i come in, y/n?” stubbing the butt of the cigarette, she stood up to open the door. as she laid back, morphia sat on her bed, putting her hand on her sister’s leg. “what’s up with you, little sister?”

“dr. gaul accepted my application, so i spent the day with her in her office. and you? how is the wedding?”

“well, i chose the taste of the cake yesterday, then spent the night with my old colleagues, the ones who i don’t invite to my wedding. it’s a shame, i know, but i only want my loved ones on my biggest, happiest day. and today, i spoke with timothé who said that the place by the hills is reserved, so we can have it to yourselves. it’s gonna be truly beautiful, isn’t it?”

“yes, it truly will be beautiful. do you want a cigarette?” y/n asked, showing her sister the package. morphia took one, y/n took out a new one and lit it for both of them. “are you sure that you love timothé? from what do you know you love him?”

morphia smiled, blowing out the smoke. it was strawberry flavored, her mother hated it. she only blew those skinny, bad tasting sticks. the only excuse was that sometimes she spiced up with some weed. although y/n didn’t like weed.

“well, i just know it. you have a strange feeling in your heart.” check. “a feeling you have with no one else, and that you feel like you want to be around him, always.” check. “and you would do anything, and i really mean anything for him, and to be with him.” check. “because this is love. why are you asking this?”

“i just… i think i love coriolanus, too. the way you love timothé.”

“so nothing new, little sister.” she giggled, making y/n roll her eyes. she trusted morphia, although her marriage was needed because the family got to guarantee and secure their ten percent income from the district. this way, they could see the papers. the only problem were the plinths, who opposed this, but her father’s hands reached too long to raise a voice against the deal. and y/n wanted sejanus to get out of the picture, and after that, without descendants, they could only hope they will have what they got now until their death.

“but there is news, morphy. coriolanus invited me on a date.” at her words, morphia covered her mouth, pulling up her eyebrows. holding y/n’s hand, morphia smiled at her.

“really, y/n? oh my, it’s so wonderful! invite him for the wedding, if you want, but know that he’s an appreciated guest.”

“i will, if he’ll have the time. but he’s at the games right now in his mind, i don’t want to disturb him.”

“if he loves you, you’ll always be in his mind, you know. but the deadline is in one month, so please, tell me till then.”

“i will, morphy. i will.” she ended her second cigarette, throwing it into the burgundy ashtray, her sister did the same.

“do you want to come down? this night is the game’s night, i heard that the tributes got thrown into the zoo.”

“i know, me and corio will go there tomorrow.”

“then he surely forgot to mention that… he went there, too.”

what? rising to sit on her bed, y/n was really, really surprised.

“how do you mean that?” she asked, trying to believe that her sister just babbled some shit together, but she seemed really certain about what she stated.

“the tributes got thrown into a cage in the zoo, and your coriolanus was there, too. the interview is gonna be on the telly tonight, might come down and watch with us?”

going down on the stairs with a buzz in her head, y/n saw that the show was already on. lucretius ‘lucky’ flickerman, a weathercaster who was now tapped to host the interviews from the 10th hunger games stood in front of the cameras.

“sit down, dear, sit down.” her mother pointed to the place beside her. y/n decided to knee on the pillow where her cat laid, getting persephone into her arms. minutes later, there he was. morphia didn’t joke, he seriously got into that fucking cage? what the fuck?

“is that your new lover, my sweet?” her father asked y/n, getting a giggle from her sister and her mother. “i can admit that he’s really ambitious about winning the prize.”

y/n didn’t say anything, listening to what he and lucy gray said. that fucking bitch had the audacity to smile and brag like she was the new star, but she wasn’t. she was just a poor, miserable wanderer who got into the games because she fucked around. how could a… thing like lucy gray hold onto a hand she held this afternoon, too? she wasn’t a princess or a noble or a singer or an actor to have a big mouth like this, to act like this.

and truly, it seems like she wanted to take away her lover. and it was something y/n could never accept, in any conditions, at any time, or in any situation. never.

“are you okay, y/n?” her mother asked. “your hand is shaking.”

brushing her hair, she looked at her mother, trying to nod with composed moves.

“everything’s fine, mommy. i just need to go upstairs to take a bath, and to take my medicine.”

and now, she was sitting at her dressing table. it wasn’t just unfair and rule-breaking how lucy gray played, but it was really, really degrading. her face burned in shame, and she wanted to claw down it all with her skin.

closing her eyes, she prayed for sanity. sanity to go through the next weeks, for sanity to handle situations well, for sanity for her plan. repeat after me, y/n. repeat after me, you stupid bitch.

i am y/n y/l/n, youngest member of the house y/l/n. we are noble, i am noble, and i deserve everything that i have now.

picking up the doll she stepped over only minutes ago, stroking its hair, it was just a plaything. all people were just playthings, playing. how could lucy gray be anything else?

i am beautiful, clever and nobody can ever drag me down. the people who hate me are only envious of my life, my body and my mind, but they’re all going to soil.

looking aside, the fireplace in her room was on. running her thumb through the doll’s porcelain face the last time, she threw it into the fire. long, skinny flames crawled up on the soft fabric of its dress, licking the wall as the fine china cracked. it was time to take a bath.

i love the life i have, and i will appreciate every single second of the life i will have when i achieve my goals. i have every tool i can use to win, and i will use them to be the woman i want to be. it’s not far away, and everyday is a chance to be closer to the woman i want to be.

“hortense, do you think a woman can make a man hers?” she asked from her maid as she sat in the hot water, hortense braid her hair to be curly for tomorrow, fasten it with silk ribbons.

“i think, miss y/l/n, that women have power. so probably, yes, but please, don’t make yourself hurt. your safety is the first.” hortense answered from behind her back, helping her wash her back. so probably, yes. if even a maid knew that, then why did lucy gray try to stand between her and coriolanus?

laying in her bed, ready to sleep, she stroked persephone’s fur.

“how could she do that, persy?” whispering in silence, only getting a meow back, y/n thought about the cage of the snakes dr. gaul showed her today. only a little crack, and everybody could die in unbearable pain, only under mere seconds. maybe she also had to be a cage full of snakes. only a crack on her mind she already had, and everybody could die into what she did.

maybe she was already.

a/n: thanks for the waiting babiez, i hope you liked this part too <3 also, wish me luck for my exams 😩

taglist: @champomiel @stelleduarte @diamondsbestie

(ask for taglist in comment, dm or here!!)

#coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus snow imagine #coriolanus snow fanfiction #coriolanus snow icons #coriolanus x reader #coriolanus snow #coriolanus x you #hunger games x reader #hunger games imagine #hunger games fic #hunger games fanfiction

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pleniloon · 2 years

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idk if I turned on anon so please use this request and delete the other one thank you

but yeah same anon who requested pt2, idm a continuation but I had more boys in mind initially :)

“You Called, Master?” (pt. 2)

part one / part one (cont.)

characters: baizhu, itto, thoma, xiao, zhongli

summary: maid!reader walks in on their master getting off.

genre: smut

warnings: afab!reader (no pronouns); pet names (love, dear/est, darling, babe), unprotected, minor breeding (xiao), master-maid dynamic; not proofread!!

note: apologies for the long wait!! i’ve been dealing with some mental and physical health issues these past few months, so i’m just now working on a bunch of requests! oh, and congrats to itto for getting his own section <3

your master was… eccentric, to say the least. you weren’t quite sure how he could afford to pay you, considering you rarely ever saw him taking on work. despite his repeated lateness in providing a paycheck, your master as a kind and lively man - he treated you more as an old friend than a servant. you were finishing up the last of your daily chores when you heard your master gasp in his room. believing him to be injured, you rushed inside, only to find your master sprawled out atop his bed with his dick in his hand.

— itto was in shambles, letting out low groans and sighs as his nails left crescent-shaped marks in your skin. he held your thighs in an iron grip as he fucked himself stupid between them, so selfishly refusing to bury himself inside you despite your whines and begs for him to do so. “not yet… don’ wanna spoil all the fun, right?” your master chuckled between labored breaths, your only respite being the sensation of his cock sliding against your pussy lips. you sobbed, “master, please” and the oni felt his resolve growing weak. “alright-alright babe…” he hushed you, spreading your thighs as he repositioned. “i’ll give you what you want, huh? just don’t come cryin’ to me when it’s too much…” he punctuated his warning with a snap of his hips, bottoming out in a single thrust. your master uttered string of low curses at the sheer tightness, even as you begged for more still. one shallow thrust was all it took for him to fall apart. “okay-okay– jus’ lemme know if i’m too rough. wouldn’t want to break you so soon…”

this was so inappropriate, he was well aware - you didn’t even belong to him. you were employed by another, a master who had no interest in taking you for themselves. he fantasized about you being his, calling him your master and surrendering yourself to him fully. what would you look like on your knees for him? smiling so sweetly, taking his cock between your lips and sucking him off like a good little maid? he didn’t realize that he let out a low groan of your name until he heard a gasp from the doorway.

— thoma was so sweet, so slow while sliding into your slick folds, sighing when he finally bottomed out. “you– hahh– you feel amazing…” he whined after the first thrust, his head spinning and cock twitching inside you. “so good… for your master, huh?” his voice cracked - it hadn’t even been a minute, and he was already broken. with your skirt bunched up and balled in his fists, he tried to control his growing urge to pound you into the futon. but, when you moaned “master thoma” oh so prettily… he inhaled slowly and mumbled a quick apology before pulling out and slamming back in balls deep. “never felt this good…” the room was filled with the lewd noise of skin against skin as he fucked all of his fantasies into you, caring little for the other servants who might hear. what were they going to do, remove the kamisato clan’s finest retainer for claiming what was his? thoma couldn’t recall the last time he felt so possessive. “gonna cum? please, please cum on my dick! c’mon, love, i want it so bad…”

— xiao didn’t know how to react when you laid yourself out for him. you, his pretty little mortal, all on display… he wasn’t gentle with his first thrust, his mind too preoccupied with thoughts of filling your cunt over and over again. “fuck– i should be your master, i should be the one takin’ care of you…” he had an iron grip on the sheets as he pounded into you relentlessly, savoring every moan and sob of his name that left your lips. “say you’re mine, mortal… say you belong to me…” he burrowed his face in the crook of your neck and groaned, rutting into you so forcefully that the headboard hit the wall every other thrust. xiao couldn’t get enough, he felt drunk every time your pussy sucked him back in. you thanked the divine that wangshu inn was in such a remote location; if there were any guests tonight, their slumbers would surely be disturbed by the adeptus staking his claim on you. “you better not have an early morning tomorrow, ‘cause i don’t plan on letting you rest until the sun is up…”

your master was always such a gentleman. never asking too much of you, never talking to you unkindly, always offering you fresh tea during your breaks… yes, you were very thankful to be employed by such a kind man. one can imagine your surprise when you entered his home office, expecting to see your master hard at work as per usual. instead, you were greeted with the sight of your master, with his head tilted back against his office chair and mouth agape as he sighed while stroking himself.

— zhongli was a traditional man in everything but payment - all of your paychecks were signed by his boss or a mysterious “friend.” you had to admit, there was nothing traditional about the way he held your head, his slender fingers using your hair to force you up and down his shaft. “apologies, dearest–” he groaned, the sound coming from somewhere deep in his chest. “i’ll make sure that you are compensated handsomely for this…” your master’s hips stuttered, a raspy sigh spilling from his lips. you soon learned that your “compensation” was sitting in your master’s lap with his cock stuffed impossibly deep, making you squirm and bite your lip to muffle the obscene noises you let out every time you dropped your hips. “there you go, ah– good, just like that…” his gloved hands dug into the flesh of your ass as he helped you lift yourself up, your legs already thoroughly spent due to your master’s demand that you cum twice for every time he does. “you’ve done so well for me, dear… i believe a raise will be in order after tonight.”

— baizhu was gentle as he pushed down against your shoulders, his eyes unmoving as you lowered to your knees. he was always kind, always attentive to your needs as you are to his. but, right now, your master was focused on chasing his own high rather than attending to you. “good, good… you’re doing so well, darling…” he cooed as you sucked him off, with one hand tangled in your hair and the other wiping away the drool at the side of your mouth. the slide of your warm tongue against his shaft was all it took for your master’s hips to buck up from his chair and a stuttering gasp to leave his parted lips. “oh– someone’s a fast learner, hm?” he let out a breathless chuckle and affectionately carded his fingers through your hair once more. “now, now… let’s take this slow,” his gentle grip tightened as he guided your head at a far more languid pace, drawing out his own orgasm - and by extension, yours. you let out a pathetic moan around his cock, a beg for him to pick up the pace. “we have all day to play, darling… no need to rush.”

taglist: @stygianoir , @plasmasimagination , @minimoniac

#genshin impact #genshin #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin impact headcanons #genshin headcanons #genshin impact smut #genshin smut #baizhu x reader #baizhu smut #itto x reader #itto smut #thoma x reader #thoma smut #xiao x reader #xiao smut #zhongli x reader #zhongli smut #pleni.writes

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sandinthemachine · 1 year

Text

Mortal Remains

König x f!reader

written for the request: "You know, if you wanted my attention, you didn't have to go to such extremes." With Either ghost or König? There's not enough fluff for my men.

I don't even know where to begin with this one. It's massive, the longest one I've ever written. I love it, and I hate it. It made me cry. I'm excited and terrified to see what everyone else thinks. I hope someone reading this feels at least one of those emotions while doing so (preferably not hate)

before I begin, thank you to @sprout-fics and @zwienzixes for being lovely beta readers, and a MASSIVE thank you to @itsagrimm for beta-reading, helping me work through ideas, giving me proper German translations, and all around being an amazing and supportive person. I would have given up on this without all the help.

Translations for the German will be at the bottom

Words: 12,450 (yeah...it's big just like him)

Warnings/tags: König is soft and pretends not to be, reader is afab but no pronouns used, canon-typical violence, piv sex, oral f!receiving, self-deprecation, lots of raw emotions, mental health is hard, fluffy ending

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It started easy enough, as so many things do.

A week-long joint training exercise. Mixed teams, both 141 and KorTac. Something something bonding before the real mission. You hadn’t been listening.

You remember being excited to be teamed with Soap. At least you could get along with someone, you mused. You barely noticed the hooded figure, tall and sticking to the corners, merging with the lengthening shadows. What’s another ghost haunting your footsteps? Nothing special, that’s for sure.

The first four days fly by. Early morning patrols, always in pairs, tracking for signs of the other team. Finding nothing, you move to a different shelter, secure the area, sleep. Rinse, repeat.

The fifth day is different. There are ragged clouds cloaking the sun while the rest of the sky is completely clear. You’re not sure why you noticed that, but you did.

It was an early morning patrol, as usual, you and your partner sweeping around a centerpoint like you were analyzing a single massive clock. Northeast quadrant clear. Southeast clear. Southwest…a scuff in the dirt. You lean down, fingers tracing the air just above it, a black fleck catching your eye. You grasp it, finding it much larger than you originally expected and partially buried. You pull at the rubbery texture, curious. Distracted.

The ambush comes quietly. Perfectly so. The weight lands on your back with an abruptness that flattens your lungs, dropping you directly onto your hands. You might have twisted your wrist, but the pain of that is overshadowed by the thought of the immense beratement you’ll get from your NCO for failing so fast.

Yet the weight from your back is lifted as quietly as it arrived. You turn, rolling to your feet to find that it had been Gaz on top of you only a second ago. Now he dangles like a ragdoll in the air. The shadow holding him draws a knife, taps it against his throat. You're out.

Gaz sighs as he’s set on the ground, giving you a nod before marching off. You don’t return it, too busy staring at the man next to him.

You’d never noticed his eyes before. You’re used to Ghost’s eyes, dark and unyielding, cavernous black holes reaching into a skull long dead. Like he was born to wear the mask.

This man’s eyes couldn’t be more different. They’re pale, washed out, windows into a sky perpetually on the verge of snowfall, slumbering clouds cold and waiting.

They curve down at the corners, lending an air of melancholy to the only part of his face you can see. You wonder how he really feels behind that gaze.

You’re staring.

You clear your throat awkwardly, aiming to thank him before pausing. “I…I’m sorry, I never caught your callsign?”

The head dips down, draped fabric falling down his chest slightly. A nod. “We need to keep moving.”

And he’s walking past you.

Two days later, the training exercise finally comes to a head in a fierce brawl over the fake weapons cache. Knives and fists only.

The fight takes only a few minutes. Ghost on the opposite team notices your attempted ambush immediately, throwing his men after you. Your team is outnumbered, stuck in a hallway. But it doesn’t matter.

Ghost and the hooded man roll on the ground, tousling like a pair of tomcats, Ghost landing on top for just a second, raising his knife-

You’re there. Arm wrapped around his shoulders. Blade tapping against his throat. You’re out.

With that, the fight is over. Ghost moves with a grumble at the man under him. It might have been a threat. But the man doesn’t hear it. He’s too busy staring at you with grey-sky eyes wide. A child dressed as a dirty sheet-ghost. “I…I don’t know your-”

You thrust your hand out, yanking him to his feet. “We’d better head back.”

You feel him at your back throughout the debriefing. Rolling thunder clouds looming over your head, ready to burst at any second. Your tongue is between your teeth, lungs heaving. Soap whispers a joke in your ear, something about Ghost getting chewed out by the NCO. You can barely muster a smile.

You stay still as the meeting finally ends, waiting for everyone to filter out before you finally turn around.

As you turn, your shoulder knocks into hard muscle and you look up, craning your neck to take in the hooded face and the way his pupils are blown wide into dark pits. A gale you should take shelter from lest you be blown away. But for a moment all you do is stand there, watching your own pupils expand in the turbulent reflection.

Your teeth are carving marks into your tongue by now, and it takes you far too long to draw in a shaky breath and push past him. You have more training tomorrow. It’s sleep your body needs. Not…whatever this is.

He doesn’t say a word as you depart, but his eyes track your every move before the door shuts behind you.

Of course this is a night where you can’t sleep. Of course. You flip and roll, hearing your bed frame smack against the wall every time you shift until you get so annoyed you shove it further into your room and flop down on it again. It doesn’t do anything, of course. Just makes your insomnia a little quieter.

It’s nearly midnight by the time you throw your legs over the side in frustration, shivering at the frigid air before throwing on enough clothes to look decent and marching down towards the shared kitchen.

He’s there. Your luck is just perfect tonight. You take a step backwards, planning to flee back to the darkness of the hallway, but he’s already turning his head, shoulders jumping just slightly as you enter his view.

You crumple a little as he notices you, but it’s too late to do anything about it now. “Can’t sleep either, huh?” Your voice is rough as you walk over to the counter next to him, yanking an expired box of cereal from the back of it. Your arm brushes his as you pull it out.

You spare him a glance as you pry the old box open, snorting at his narrowed eyelids. You bet he’s scrunching his nose through that silly hood, too. You reach in, hearing a series of crunches as you rifle around. “Ah, there it is.” You pull out the clear bottle, shaking it triumphantly in his face. “This’ll knock you right out. 50/50 chance you get back up tomorrow.” You trail off, eyes traveling up and down him. “Well, maybe a bit better odds for you.” You chuckle half-heartedly, but it dies a second later.

You puff your lips out in a shaky breath, running your tongue along your teeth before giving him an awkward smile and raising the bottle to him. With that you leave.

As soon as you take a sip you spit it right back out with a blech. You’d forgotten how nasty the stuff is. You toss it into the trash can and flop back down with an irritated groan. How hard is it to fall asleep? It’s literally laying there doing no-

Your thoughts are interrupted by a knock at the door, and upon swinging it open you find him, his looming shadow nearly blotting out the light from the hallway behind. It’s easy to forget how big he is when he’s not around. How strong he is. How…deadly.

But right now he’s leaning against your doorframe, hands tapping along his legs. “Have enough for two?”

You smirk a little at that, but as you step closer you feel the heat radiating from him, your shoulder blades clenching together as your mind begins to process something.

You’d sleep better for it. Perform better the next day. It would be good for you.

Your smirk deepens. “I have a better idea.”

As your hand tangles in his shirt you feel a tremble along his skin, but he doesn’t respond when you pull on him. “You’ve been drinking.”

“I haven’t had a drop. Shit’s disgusting.”

“Show me the bottle.”

Despite yourself, a smile tugs at the corner of your lips as you fish the full monstrosity out of the bin to show him. He nods but still doesn’t move, and you find yourself rushing to assure him as heat rushes up your neck. “If you actually just want to drink, we can. We don’t have to do anything-”

“No. That’s not it.” Finally he steps fully into the room, letting the door swing shut behind him before he stalks to you. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” you hiss, moving to hold onto him again, your mind swirling with exhaustion and old memories that you just need out, right now, and he’s right there and he needs it too, you just know it as he swoops down to grab you and toss you on the bed, both of you a mess to rip your clothes off now that the facade has finally fallen.

After the fog clears you find yourself panting on your stomach with him above you, caging you in with his forearms. Each of his stuttering inhales brings his burning chest and stomach against your back. Before the heat can become unbearable he pulls away, breaths still heaving as he tucks himself back into his pants.

Your eyes widen in surprise when he makes his way to your bathroom and comes back, washcloth in hand, to softly clean you up. As he finishes he pauses, thumb brushing the edge of an old knife scar running up your hip. “My callsign,” he murmurs, fingers tracing its length. “It’s König.”

And with that, he leaves.

You were content for that to be the end of it. You’d each gotten what you needed, after all. And as you stretch languidly across your mattress the following morning, an unfamiliar relaxation settles along your tense muscles. Yes, you would be more than happy to leave it at this.

But as the next training drill ends you find yourself faced with your cold barrack and the prospect of another sleepless night. Before you even realize what you’re doing your legs are moving, ready to go to the kitchen and-

He’s right there, startling as you nearly open your door into his face. He takes a step back, but you’re already holding your hand out and his eyes are burning into you as he takes it and lets you pull him in, lets you shut the door behind you before he’s lifting you with laughable ease and carrying you to bed.

You’re already burrowing your face into your pillow by the time he comes back to clean you up. This time his palm runs over a puckered mass on your thigh, a nasty burn scar from failing to dive for cover fast enough. It still hurts sometimes, but the pain is good. Reminds you not to be so careless again.

As you drift off completely to the feel of his warm hand taking in the old wound, you fail to notice the way his head has turned up, eyes running over your face. He contemplates brushing a finger over your hairline, tucking the wild flyaways behind your ear. But no. That would be too…friendly. That’s not what this is.

So instead he spreads your blankets over your now sleeping form, and with one last lingering gaze, leaves you to sleep peacefully.

You’re not surprised when you wake up to the empty room. It was what you wanted, after all. You had gotten another restful night out of it, and he got what he wanted. It was a fair trade. A great trade, even.

And as the training drills continue and you feel how naturally your body flows, how efficiently it executes your will when you’re actually well-rested, you find yourself seeking his company out more and more. Soon the pair of you have built your own kind of routine, him coming to you the evening after each debriefing when the leftover sparks of adrenaline are refusing to die out in you both.

He always lays you down on your stomach, opening you up with his fingers as he patiently works you through your first orgasm before letting himself take you. He’s always slow at first, but he finds you restless and impatient, urging him to go faster and harder, to knock you out for the night, to knock everything out of your mind that you never want to think about again.

You try to look back once only for your face to meet his hand. With gentle but firm fingers, he turns your head away.

Afterwards he’s even more delicate, wordlessly cleaning you up with a touch light enough to leave a butterfly unharmed. Although he rarely meets your eyes, his gaze and fingers take in your body, each time finding a new scar for his fingers to brush over like a chaste kiss.

You’re asleep by the time he leaves, and you like it that way. The two of you can crash against each other like blizzards raging and howling until you finally break into clear skies. And afterwards, you’re soldiers again. Well-rested, sure. But soldiers all the same. No hard feelings, either. You know he understands.

Soon you two find yourselves assigned to the same training team more and more. It’s natural, an unspoken communication flowing between you, and your superiors see it in the skyrocketing success rates. They pointedly ignore the way your stares burn holes into each other, keeping their eyes fixed on powerpoints and mission statistics. Not their business, they tell themselves. What matters is that you two do your jobs.

And then finally it’s time for the mission, a deployment in the middle of a remote and mountainous forest with terrible radio signal.

Like your first training, it starts easy enough. You’re divided into two teams on two separate mountains, and it’s just your luck that they put you on the team with no one you’re close to. Not even König. Maybe the higher-ups were finally sick of you two.

But you’re an adult. You handle it. You swallow the unease that comes with the teams not being able to contact each other. It’s simply too risky, and the signals are shoddy at best anyway. Base will come in for extraction if the other team succeeds.

With practiced ease you push yourself through two weeks of empty trails and summer-camp camaraderie as the talkative ones share jokes around the empty fireplace and the quiet ones listen from the shadows and chuckle their approval.

Week 3, everything goes to shit.

You should’ve known. You really should’ve known. The weather out here can change in an instant, clouds materializing from a clear sky’s empty expanse like an angry god throwing his rage down from above. You should’ve known the people here would be the same.

Before any of you knew the safehouse was surrounded, they were already through the doors.

You remember waking up to the creak of the old door with a groan, not ready to start your watch yet. The man on watch had been short and wiry, and you marveled at how shadows warp themselves against the light, twisting and turning to make one man look like another, tall and burly and carrying a-

CRASH!

The windows burst inwards in a crescendo of sparks and you’re scrambling backwards, reaching for your

BANG!

Dust from the roof is falling on your head, in your eyes and you’re blinking at the haze, the sting, your hands feeling the solid weight of your weapon and yanking it against you, and you’re stumbling backwards towards the

BANG!

and you’re stumbling forwards towards the

BANG!

And you’re on your knees crawling crawling

BANG! BANG BANG BANG!

crawling away from everything and your eardrums are hot iron seething in your skull and your eyes are being scratched by cats and there’s something warm on your face now and there’s something heavy thunking to the floor just next to you and everything is all dark, all the shadows are choking you and-

-grey. Not black. Not the black of the inside. Grey. A doorway. A hole in the wall. You’re on your knees, your hands are on the wall, you’re pushing yourself up, you’re running, and there are patters behind you and gurgling sounds and the volleys of automatic weaponry but your vision is finally starting to clear, you can see the treeline and all you need is to get there.

A roar surges behind you, and you spin into the sun. Heat slams into your body and you’re flung, a leaf in the wind, hard onto your back as yellows and reds surge in front of you or maybe it was behind you and now you’re a deer, eyeballs bulging out of your head and rolling in your skull as you run from a forest fire, angry and starving, only this fire has legs and they’re longer than yours and it’s following you, you just know it, you can’t hear it but you know.

You’re not a human anymore, you’re barely even an animal, you’re not thinking, you’re a scramble of limbs and an impulse. Run.

You try. You try so hard but there’s nothing carrying you, your legs don’t feel connected to each other anymore and they’re not even your legs you look down and they’re still there but you can’t…feel them?

Tilting. Tilting. Tilting.

Light. Burning light.

Fade to black.

No, wait. Not you. You’re still here. Your legs are wavy and jelly but still there.

You fling an arm out and feel something solid. Cold. Rough. Bark.

You made it to the trees.

There’s no time to celebrate. Behind you lights are still flaring, and with each passing second more bodies are falling to the ground, leaking out into the snow. You have to move.

The second safehouse is to the north. It’s your only way out, you know that. The rest of your team would be there.

Should be there.

Better be there.

Don’t think about it, don’t think. Just move.

The battle is fading behind you now and your blood is beginning to cool, settling heavy in your veins like the thick jam your mother used to make on warm summer mornings just as the sun’s rays flowed through your windows.

It would be nice to be there right now. Warm. Content. Full. Your stomach growls in agreement at the thought. You have some ration bars in your pocket, but you know it hasn’t been long enough to have one. You need to spread them out, make sure they can last.

Your stomach groans again, and you shake your head. To divert your attention, you take stock of the rest of your body.

You’re scraped and bruised, your head vibrating like…oh, what is it like? Like…your phone after you get added to a group chat you wanted nothing to do with. Hehe. You can barely remember the days when your problems were as simple as that.

You're letting yourself get too distracted. Anyways, as you were saying. You’re a bit battered and scraped up, alright. But no broken bones. No visible deadly wounds. And you still have your gun clamped to your chest with shaky arms. That’s all you need, really. Making it to the safehouse will be a breeze.

You’re halfway down the mountain as twilight begins to lighten to dawn, and there’s still no sign of anyone chasing you. It’s a bit warmer down here, and as you flex your fingers and toes you feel the sharp pins and needles radiate through them and force a smile. It’s good, you tell yourself. Means they’re all still there. You might just be in the clear now.

Then the sky darkens again, and it begins to rain.

Within a few minutes you can’t see your hand in front of your face in the downpour and you're forced to hide out. You find a fallen evergreen and burrow through its thick boughs, needles pricking your face and poking in your mouth with a sharp scent that settles behind your eyeballs as you force your way through, certain it will block out the worst of the rain. It doesn’t.

It’s past noon by the time the deluge finally lets up, and as you step out, cursing your shelter for all its faults, the slick earth shifts abruptly under you. With a cry, you are yanked off of your feet into a roll down the slope. You fling out your arms, grasping for anything solid, but the world is a mass of dirt and grey-brown snow-slush and you can’t stop yourself until your hip jams into a tree-stump. Hard.

You hiss, twisting your face upwards off the ground. Bad idea. The mud-slush runs down into your nose and you splutter, spasming and hacking up half the mountain. You move to wipe your eyes on your arm but only rub more dirt in them, gritting your teeth and hissing through them at the sting.

You push yourself onto your hands and knees with a whimper, gingerly feeling around your hip. Not broken. Just another bruise. What’s one more bruise? It’ll be fine.

You’ll be fine.

Your ankle is twisted. You’ve wrapped it as best as you can, but every time you put weight on it, you imagine a great big serpent with needles for scales is slithering under your skin, wrapping itself tight around the bones and squeezing.

Even worse, it's getting dark again. Fucking FUCK.

You should get yourself a thesaurus for Christmas. Fuck really doesn’t have much weight to it when you say it every other sentence.

Whatever. You’re fucking screwed.

Your clothes are soaked, you’re painted in dirt and runny snow and as soon as it gets dark temperatures are going to drop fast enough to freeze you right in place like a stupid fucking statue. Fuck this, fuck this so hard what do I do what do I do.

You bury your face into your hands, heels pressing hard into your eyes. It doesn’t matter that your hands have mud mittens anymore because your face is solid mud and you’ve had dark spots in your eyesight for hours and maybe if you rub them really hard this will all be a shitty dream your shitty brain made up and then you can wake up in your shitty cot with your blanket that’s too thin and it will be so fucking lumpy and uncomfortable and perfect. It would be perfect. Maybe König would be there.

What?

You’re breaking down and going to die in a few hours and you’re thinking of him? Some dude you fuck? What the hell is wrong with you?

He was really warm, though. And he was always so gentle afterwards. For hands that kill with such brutal precision, his fingers felt too delicate to be his when they ran along your body, mapping every scar and dimple like he was trying to memorize you. Like he was terrified that tomorrow he might wake up blind and never be able to see you again, so he needed to be able to recognize you by touch alone.

You didn’t even know what his face looked like, but you could get lost in those eyes, you think. You've learned that the skin above them stretches when he’s surprised, and the skin under them scrunches up when he laughs, so you think it must scrunch like that when he smiles, too. You’ve even seen the way his lids drift down to hide the way his eyes roll back when he’s bored.

What do they look like when he’s excited? When he’s angry? Sad?

You wonder what it would be like to look him in the eyes while you both fell apart. Would he look away and screw them shut? Would they water a little, as yours so often did?

Would he stay the night if you asked? Would he hold you? Would he…

No. This isn’t happening. No way in hell. You are not dying thinking of a random man you’ve barely spoken two words to. It’s ridiculous. It’s pathetic. You’re better than this.

You will not go out like this.

You yank yourself to a tree whose limbs burst forth in sprays of dark needles, your shoulders screaming at you as you pull yourself up on the branches, feeling like a toddler learning to walk for the first time. It’s pitiful. You swing your good leg up, grinding your teeth so hard your jaw pops as you pull yourself up to a thick fork and begin pulling down limbs above you, cutting through the ones around you, tying and weaving and undoing and redoing.

It is dark by the time you’ve finished, a thick nest of evergreen boughs settled under you and woven walls crushing you in. You have to curl into a tight ball to fit into it, but you can no longer feel the breezes from outside. You’ve stripped your clothes off and spread them along the walls as best you can, hoping they can dry just a little.

You thank the mud for clogging your nose. You don’t even want to imagine what you and your clothes must smell like by now.

Maybe by the time you meet up with the others you’ll smell so bad you’ll make one of the rookies vomit. Ghost did that last mission, and you and Soap nearly burst a lung as the poor guy emptied his guts over and over again.

You chuckle at that and try your best to fall asleep.

By the time you make it down the mountain the next day, your knees are knocking against each other with every step and your weapon is plastered with muddy slush that has frozen and melted and frozen all over again. The valley is even worse than the slope, with runoff from the rain congregating in a swampy mess that has you sinking up to your calves in some places. Lifting a leg in this feels like pulling yourself out of concrete, so you get really good at sliding each foot forward without raising it upwards at all.

You think the pressure from the mud is helping with the pain. You barely feel it when you move now.

Your jaw is clenched so hard you chip one of your molars.

You’re halfway through the valley when one of them finds you.

It’s funny how it happens. How you both stand in the mud staring at each other. How you both instinctively know who the other is through the curtain of earth camouflaging you both, yet each stand stock-still as statues anyway.

A second passes.

Two.

Three.

In an instant your guns are to your shoulders, fingers rushing to crush the-

Nothing happens. You squeeze. Squeeze again. The man shakes his gun and yells in frustration, the mud and ice having rendered your weapons unfireable.

But not unusable. The man’s head whips back to you with a growl and he lunges forward, his foot sinking into a deep patch and jerking him down face first. He throws himself up again, splatting forward another pace.

You slide backward, forcing yourself to slow down, to keep your feet under you as you move gut-wrenchingly slowly, searching for solid ground. He’s flailing and flinging himself towards you but the mud is slowing him down, and there’s a rocky patch right behind you. You’re going to make it.

He reaches you before you reach the edge, raising his gun and throwing his body behind a downwards blow. Yours is already coming up to deflect, but the blow sends you backwards, landing on your back with a splash. He’s on top of you, a hand shoving your face down as mud flows around it.

You thrash and wiggle, a scream cut off as your mouth fills with liquid dirt. Your hand is whirling all around and it catches something and you yank.

He howls as you pull his ear, sending him off-balance just enough to raise your head for a choking gasp before your palm is on his face, shoving him sideways. He rolls away from you, struggling to his feet as you’re on your hands and knees and your gun is in the mud but so is his. He tries to reach for it but he’s stuck, and in that precious heartbeat of time your legs are back under you, feet planted deep and wide.

He whirls towards you as you stand, throwing a punch at your torso that you know you can’t dodge, you can’t even move, so you throw your fist sideways, twisting, forcing all your strength into shoving from your rear leg so that when you catch his knuckles on your forearm they are savagely wrenched sideways with your momentum. His pinkie pops outwards with a crunch, and he falls back with a choked sob.

You grab your gun off the ground, throwing your whole body into a swing at his head, shattering through his palm as he tries to block it. You both fall sideways with the momentum but you find your feet faster, gripping the weapon through the slime coating it as you bring the stock straight down into his skull.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

Your grip slides, dirt scraping more of your skin off with each blow, but he’s not moving. You stumble backwards drunkenly, falling onto your forearms again and army-crawling, gun held tightly in each hand, all the way to the edge. You flop on your back then, one eye on the body, and heave great breaths, coughing again and again until your body has enough and you curl inwards, choking out mud and throwing up even more. You try to even your breathing, try to filter the adrenaline out of your system so you don’t crash. In, out. In, out. In out in out inoutinoutinoutinoutin-FUCCCCCKK. You shake your head violently, over and over.

You take one last look at the body, only seeing it because you know where to look. A mud-covered shoulder pokes out of the ground, the rest already lost.

You can’t balance on your feet anymore, so you crawl away.

You don’t even bother to make a shelter that night. You crawl under a rotting log, ripping your last ration bar from your pocket and devouring it, licking the crumbs from your stained and tainted fingers. You curl up and fall asleep just like that, bones chattering and muscles spasming.

Helicopter blades wake you up in the morning. You’re on your feet, falling and jumping and running and falling, flailing your arms because you know those blades, that’s your team and they’re here for you and you’re finally free, you did it you did it you’re so proud of yourself you can’t wait to have a warm bath and then maybe even afterwards you can see-

The helicopter passes over you and disappears around the mountain.

You stare at it, deathly still. It’s just sweeping the area, making sure it’s safe to land.

But the wingbeats have already faded into the distance, replaced by a vast and engulfing silence. Time stretches out before you, and you’re still staring at the mountain.

Your stomach breaks the silence with a gurgle.

You flop down, shoving your face into the ground, and scream.

You press the button on your radio, cracking the caked mud. It clicks, and you hear nothing. Not even static. You click it again. And again, this time just to hear the sound. Rapidly you click it again and again and again.

You start laughing, your abs clenching and strangling your organs as you guffaw, thrashing around like a headless chicken, and thinking about yourself as a headless chicken makes you laugh even louder. Everything is just so funny, none of this is real, you’re on the Truman Show, you’re the biggest comedy in the world. It’s even funny that your laughter only comes out in squeaky wheezes. It’s all just a big joke. Haha. You can’t wait to tell someone.

You fall asleep just like that, grinning up at the sky with dirt in your teeth.

You wake up, stare into the sun, and go back to sleep.

You feel lighter.

Is this what it feels like to leave your body?

It’s not as bad as you thought.

You wonder if König will remember you.

The ground beneath you is moving, sliding under you and scraping along you.

There's no ground underneath you at all now, and something is pressing, and you feel your legs dangling and swinging all around you, the world spinning a jig and you the unwilling passenger. You think you might tell it to stop, but it doesn't listen to you.

You're yanked back into consciousness by a thundering vibration setting every bone against itself. You jolt upwards, feeling heavy pressure on your shoulders as your eyes roll back into your head. The world is black. Black and blue and blurred. Through the haze you begin to make out a white visage and two black voids that pierce through you.

This must be hell. You don’t want to be awake for your judgement.

Your consciousness drifts away again, blocking out the rumbling flight of the helicopter, completely oblivious to the warm bodies pressed in around you, speaking rapidly through their headsets.

Any more? Sweep around again.

There's nothing else here.

Ok. Let's bring these ones back, then.

You are still asleep as your body is carried into a hospital room, completely unresponsive as the nurses strip and bathe you with clinical precision. You don’t wake until hours later, seeing only a single nurse checking your vitals and bandages. Each hand and foot has been carefully wrapped, the angry red battlefield of blisters and exposed flesh meticulously covered in pristine, unblemished white. The nurse offers a smile as you fight through the haze, imagining you are underwater and slowly floating to the surface, watching the sun jiggle and warp through the abyss above you. Just bad blisters, the nurse is telling you. Very lucky. Very lucky. You think you might nod back. She’s right, of course. You’re alive, aren’t you?

Ghost comes by as you’re released the next day. They’ve rewrapped your hands in a bandage that gives you a little more flexibility, and he finds you sitting on the edge of the bed, staring into the white fabric.

The mattress shifts as he settles beside you. He doesn’t say a word, but his eyes are trained on you. Black voids in a mask of white.

“You left me,” you finally whisper, eyes still on your hands.

“What?”

You look at him, trying to see something in the face to get mad at, but his eyes are just a little wider than before. Confused, maybe.

“The helicopter…” you begin, voice scratchy, and clear your throat. “The helicopter flew right over me.”

“That wasn’t our helicopter.”

“It was heading back from the safehouse.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Oh,” you huff, sinking into yourself. “I…”

You stop as he clears his throat, shoulders expanding in a loud breath. “It’s alright. You were knocked out pretty good by the time our boys found you. Happens to the best of us.”

You nod, swallowing again, and wish someone else was here to comfort you, literally anyone but Ghost. “Is…uh…is…umm…is Soap ok?”

Ghost grunts. “Johnny took one to the arm, but he’ll pull through. I was just going to visit him now.”

You push yourself to your feet, proud that you only sway a bit. “Can I-”

“No,” Ghost cuts you off. “You’ll have time to visit him later. For now you need to go and rest. That’s an order,” he cuts you off as you open your mouth to protest. Your jaw shuts. Call it obedience, call it cowardice, but you find you just don’t have it in you to argue the point. You promise yourself you’ll see Soap in the morning. Well, later in the morning, seeing as it’s somehow 0100 hours already.

When Ghost leaves you slump, any need for straight posture gone with the departure of your superior officer. Trying to keep your breathing even, you will your legs to carry your body down the medical corridor. Just a little longer, you promise them, then you’ll get the break you deserve. But your body has had enough of your unfulfilled promises, and you find yourself forced to sink onto one of the shitty metal chairs littering the hallway. Just a little rest, and then I’ll go back to my quarters.

You wake to the familiar sounds of agony. Before your body has the chance to disagree, instinct has you on your feet again, hands grabbing at the thin air where your sidearm should be. My holster, my holster, where the hell is-

Your eyes land on the white-washed walls. Too clean. Too smooth. And your hands aren’t moving like they should, strangled by white fabric. It finally sinks in that you’re far from the battlefield, far from any fight.

The sounds continue, drawing your eye to one of the many nondescript doors lining the corridor. Someone having a nightmare, probably. Or reacting badly to a procedure, maybe. Either way, a problem best left for the nurses with their iron wills and their tranquilizers. You have enough bruises already. Best not add a black eye to the list.

A pitiful whimper sounds through the door, one that has your heart twisting like a towel being wrung out, sending all the blood to your throat and stomach.

Fuck it. What’s one more bruise?

Your fingers curl the handle down, and you shrink in on yourself as the door swings open on its own with a creak. You catch it and hastily shut it behind you, trying not to make any more noise.

The room is small enough that even the military-issue cot feels too big for it. The room is made even smaller by the man lying in the cot, arms dangling off the sides as he thrashes, his feet hanging off the end. You can see the crumpled blanket on the floor and automatically avert your eyes. The hood is still on, but below it he’s wearing an undershirt and boxers, and you realize this is the most of him you’ve ever seen.

You press yourself to the wall as he spasms again, a leg kicking out and narrowly missing you, causing you to notice the thick white bandage wrapped around his thigh, and the dark line slowly being painted along it.

Hesitantly you flick the lights on, wincing at the burn that rushes through your eyeballs, but he doesn’t even react to it. You have no idea how to wake him up without breaking a bone, so you press your back to the wall, slowly skirting along the edge of the room and staying as far out of his reach as you can, praying to whatever old ghosts are listening that he doesn’t wake up and go straight into murder mode. Or, you know, default alert soldier setting. This is a stupid idea.

As you approach his head you lean over as far as you can, stretching one arm out until the socket pops in protest. You poke his shoulder and leap back.

Nothing.

You take a step closer and lean in again.

You’re immediately interrupted by the door swinging open with a much-louder creak. You and the nurse both pause and stare at each other for a moment, startled, and you sheepishly move to straighten and pull your arm back.

With viper-like speed an arm shoots out to grab your wrist, capturing it in a deadly grip and you yelp, whirling back to the man in the bed and raising your opposite arm.

You freeze when you see his eyes, so wide they’re more white than color. He’s stock-still, fixated on you like a mouse caught in a cat’s gaze. Paralyzed by fear, praying. Shaking.

His hand is…shaking. “Hey, hey,” you coax, hesitantly pulling your arm back in so you can place it over his fingers. “It’s just me, big guy. You’re safe.”

His chest heaves outwards, and you feel his hand relax a little before his head snaps towards the nurse as she takes a step closer, cradling something small and cylindrical in her hands. “It’s alright,” she speaks directly to you. “I can take it from here.”

König releases the breath he’s held, shoving himself backwards on the bed with a shake of his head, prompting the nurse to click her tongue at him before raising the needle. You realize it’s a lot bigger than you first thought. “You’ll be fine,” she’s assuring him. “It will hurt a lot less once it’s done.”

König’s head turns very slowly, back up to you, and for a second you’re confused at his gaze, wondering why he thinks you have enough knowledge to give him any medical advice. Then you notice the way his eyes seem just a little too shiny in the light, the way his other hand is clenching and unclenching around the bedsheet.

You’ve always known him as the perfect soldier, quick and to the point, pin-prick precise, a dancing whirlwind of death. More monster than man. You know him as the one who laughs with every good kill, mocking the reaper of death with a smile. Look at how slow you are. I got here first. He’s the one who dances on the precipice of fate and spits over the edge.

Even sprawled out like this, sweaty and trembling, you are well aware of every flex of his muscles, of the strength he holds back in his grip. Yet as you look into the eyes of the storm you find that for the first time you see no hint of the giddy killing machine looking back at you. The eyes staring back at you from this big soldier’s body are those of a fragile little kid. And he’s terrified.

You gulp, your tongue catching on the back of your throat. “Yeah…yeah, it’ll be ok. I’ll be right here.”

Finally he relaxes, slumping back into the bed, and the nurse takes the opportunity to give him the shot. You feel his flinch in a wave of pressure radiating up your wrist and forearm, but his gaze doesn’t move. He keeps looking into your eyes until his own begin to droop and he sinks even further into the mattress.

Before his hand drops from your wrist you catch it, the skin under your bandages protesting at the sudden flexion. You choose to ignore it, settling down on the floor next to his bed as your own eyes begin to follow his. Even as your head falls into your knees and your body finally gives itself completely over to darkness, you refuse to let go.

You’re woken by something warm trailing along your hairline. You jerk, smacking the back of your head into the wall with an irritated grunt. König’s arm hovers in the air just in front of your face, and you turn to see him pressed to the edge of the bed, looking a little guilty. “Sorry,” he murmurs.

You should be, startling me like that, you want to say. But when you open your mouth, what comes out instead is “No, it’s ok, I just…I wasn’t expecting it.”

König gulps audibly, and the cot creaks as he pulls his hand back, shifting his body even closer. “You stayed.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“Never,” he hisses, and you find yourself staring into his eyes again, only this time they’ve taken on their old torrential intensity.

Now it’s yours that are as wide as a child’s. You gulp, feeling the muscles of your jaw flex and unflex. “Ok,” you finally murmur. “I’ll stay.”

And you do. For two more nights König stays in the infirmary, weathering the steady rounds of nurses and bandage changes with a steely resolve even as his fists flex and twist into the sheets. You stay with him all the while, but he doesn’t reach for your hand again, not after noticing your own bandages.

The second night you sleep in the cot next to him at his insistence. You’re hurt too, he reasons. You need a real bed to rest in. He scoots himself to the back edge to give you room, and when you wake up he hasn’t moved.

After the third night you wake to his hand resting on your arm. It’s a small gesture. Innocent even. Yet still you find yourself contemplating it, barely saying a word as the nurses come to remove his bandages. You grind your jaw as you take in the puckered line of stitches running from his knee up to the edge of his boxers, looking away politely as the nurses help him into a pair of sweatpants.

You don’t even say anything when you let him lean on your shoulders, using your own aching body as a sacrificial lamb to transport him back to his barrack. Once you get him into bed you hover in the doorway, taking in the shadows of the walls, twisting your wrists back and forth, a habit you picked up to alleviate the pain from flexing your fingers. They’re in even thinner bandages now, but you’d rather be safe than sorry.

Maybe there’s nothing to say. You found him in a vulnerable situation where he needed a lifeline. It could have been anyone, he was barely lucid. Now he surely wanted to forget all of that vulnerability and go back to a time where he hadn’t needed help from anyone. Not even you. Especially not you. He was a soldier, after all. Fondness wasn’t in the job description.

Best not to say anything then. Just…leave and get this over with. Just like that. Yeah…easy. Really easy.

Your move to shut the door behind you is halted by him calling your name. Your real name. You didn’t even know he knew your name.

He calls it again, quieter this time, and you lean back in the door, eyes drifting across his room to him. He’s still sitting on the bed where you left him, only now he’s hunched over to rest a forearm on his good thigh. “Come back here,” he breathes, voice cracking, and it hits you right in your stomach, settling there like a wounded bird, flapping and screeching at you to stay away, you’re already in too deep, you don’t know how this will end.

But it’s too late. You’re walking forward, the door swinging shut behind you. Locked. You’re already reaching out for the hand he offers, only for him to reach past the bandages and grab your wrist. You pause at that, staring into the hazy depths of his eyes, pupils bursting for you again. Slowly, inch by excruciating inch, he straightens again, face coming closer to yours as another hand snakes around your neck to help guide you down to straddle his good thigh, moving your forearms to rest on each of his shoulders.

The bird in your stomach has moved to your chest, and you’re positive he can feel your heavy breathing even through his mask with how close you are. His eyes look down to your lips, and you wonder if he is going to lift his hood up and kiss you, your cheeks flushing in anticipation as he leans forward.

Only instead he rests his forehead against yours, eyes drifting closed. You feel your arms drift upwards with his inhale. “Stay with me,” he exhales. “One more night.”

You nod against his forehead, wrapping your arms around his neck and finally letting your own eyes close. Your breathing is slowed down now, and you find yourself enjoying the warmth you feel radiating from everywhere you touch him. One of his hands has spread against your thigh, while the other still rests along your neck, thumb tracing up and down your jaw. You know you could fall asleep just like this.

König, however, has other ideas. As you slump even further to him, both of his hands drift to your hips. You notice the movement, sighing at the pleasant sensation of his hands running over your body. You don’t notice the intention until he takes a deep breath, and in one smooth motion he has stood and twisted to lay you down on the bed, climbing on top of you. You gasp, feeling your heart stutter all over again, blood rushing to your core as you feel the fabric of his hood rub up your neck. His nose, you think.

Fuck, you want him. You want him just like this and any other way he’s willing to give, but you can’t, you shouldn’t, and you know you have to at least try to protest. You bite back a whimper as a hand drags up your inner thigh. “König, your leg.”

“I don’t care,” he growls. “Say my name again.”

You groan in protest and he pulls back, tilting your face up to his. “Is this not what you want?” He feels the way your jaw flexes and pulls away.

“Wait. No. I want this. You. I want you. Just…please be careful.”

He hears the last part, but he’s past giving a damn about his own body now. His hand is already undoing your belt and he’s leaning back to ease your pants and underwear off your legs, lazily tossing them to the side.

A harsh word escapes his throat as he looks down at you, but you don’t catch it through the blood rushing in your ears. “Close your eyes,” he orders, and unthinkingly you do, another growling swear reaching your ears. “So obedient for me.”

You hear the shuffling of fabric and feel a hand wrap around one of your knees, lifting it up for a warm tongue to swirl along the inside of it, for wet lips to place a sloppy kiss just above where his tongue had just been. His lips slide up again, and this time he sucks on the skin just slightly, and you feel your leg tremble as a tiny moan escapes you, but he’s already moving further up and this time sucking harder, and then further and harder and further and harder until he’s against your inner thigh and his teeth are sinking into you and you yelp his name, whining in frustration as he pulls back.

“No,” you pant, “don’t stop. Please.”

You feel a chuckle rumble in his throat and his nose presses into the bottom of your slit. You jolt, squeezing your eyes tighter as it slides up through you before pressing into your sensitive spot, and he inhales.

“Fuck,” you cry, tangling your hands in the sheets only to choke on a sound of pain.

König pulls back immediately and you shake your head at him, a sob on the edge of your quivering lips.

“Easy. Watch your hands.”

You grit your teeth and nod, relaxing your fingers and turning your palms up.

“Good,” he purrs as his hands hook under the backs of your knees, easily throwing your legs over his shoulders. As he settles back down you feel the muscles in his back flexing against your calves and moan before his mouth is even on you.

He hums contentedly at the sound, running his tongue along the length of you before swirling it around your clit. His lips pucker against it and he sucks, pulling away with a soft pop that has you clenching your legs around him. He moves in again, lazily altering between sucking and tracing his tongue just around your bud, feeling the way you flex against him, hearing the way you react to each movement, and committing all of it to memory before shifting his head so he can dip his tongue inside you. He groans at the taste, the vibration of it radiating up under your ribs and down through your legs. You’re quiet now, feeling how close you are settling heavy over you, drowning you in deliciously sweet honey.

He feels the shaking of your legs around him and returns to your clit as he slowly works a finger into you, curling it upwards to stroke at the spongy part inside of you.

You break quietly, choking on his name as the pleasure strangles your muscles and sets them briefly aflame, fresh sensations flowing through you as he continues to touch you just so, only pulling away when you sink into the mattress and your legs slip from his shoulders.

You hear the bed frame creak as he pulls back, running a hand up your thigh before the shifting sound of fabric hits your ears, and you feel the mattress sink down in different places as he shifts.

“Open your eyes.”

You do as he says, your disappointment at seeing the sniper’s hood obscuring his face immediately squashed by the realization that the rest of him is completely naked.

You’re seeing him for the first time.

Fucking hell, what a sight.

Your eyes rest on the delicious curve of his cock first, marveling at the pink tip and the thick veins running along it. You had felt his size on plenty of occasions, but seeing it for the first time is a new beast entirely, one that has you biting your lip and wiggling your hips like a teenager all over again.

But soon your eyes are taken in by the strong curves of muscle outlining his hips, and your eyes are traveling upwards to the delicious bulges of his chest, your own heaving at the sight. You find yourself wanting to trace the outline of each hill and valley of muscle that flows along his shoulders, down his arms, to the hands, wanting to run your tongue along the veins like raised rivers spreading down his forearm and across the back of each hand.

You wonder what his back looks like. You wonder how the muscles of his neck shift as he moves, what the outline of his jaw is shaped like. You are greedy and want to take everything he has, and at the same time you are desperate for anything he can give you. You’re a peasant kneeling at the feet of your king, ready to lick the crumbs he throws you off the floor.

His head tilts playfully, breaking you out of your reverie. “You like what you see?”

Your chuckle catches in your chest, only a tiny puff of air leaving your mouth. “Yes.”

His eyes scrunch a little, and you imagine he is grinning as he leans over, balancing himself above you. He moves back a bit, hand adjusting your hips as he positions himself. He looks back up at you, and you nod eagerly, your hands reaching up to grab his shoulders. He clicks his tongue, glancing at them, and with a groan you put your hands above your head. He moves one of his own to grasp your wrists, keeping them pinned as he sinks onto his forearms.

You feel the head of his cock running up and down your folds, and instinctively bend your back to give him a better angle, earning an approving hum that makes you even wetter. But as he braces himself and begins to drive into you, a strangled sound smashes through his gritted teeth.

Oh no. “Hey, hey, what’s wrong?”

He doesn’t answer, only pressing his face into your neck, inhaling heavily as you feel his entire body stiffening against you. “It’s…it’s fine,” he hisses, his hand strangling your wrists. “Just …” he heaves another breath. “Ah... Ich… I…need a…moment.”

You sigh, wiggling a hand out of his grip to push his chin up. He lets you move his face back, and even in the dim light you can see the way the skin around his eyes has gone even paler than normal. “Get off,” you murmur.

He slumps, twisting his face out of your grip and keeping his eyes on the wall. He stays like that for a second before giving a swift nod and pulling out, maneuvering backwards on the bed and moving to get off.

“Wait!” you burst out, and he freezes. “That’s not what I meant.”

After another moment he looks at you in bewilderment, so you sit up and shift to the side, patting the bed next to you. Awkwardly, he crawls to it, nearly dragging his bad leg, stiffening again when you place your wrists on his shoulders. “Let me?”

After a second of staring into your eyes, he nods again, allowing you to push on him, laying him on his back before you straddle him and finally take your shirt off. You see his chest rise with a shuddering breath and before you really think about it you’re leaning down to lick a stripe up his sternum. Seeing his pecs jerk upwards on either side of your tongue emboldens you and you shift your head, running your tongue back down to circle over one of his nipples before you suck.

Immediately the muscles flex again and he pushes up into you. “Like that,” he snarls, loud and vibrating through your skull. You’re aching down there again, but you’re not done yet. You release him with a squelch, watching the patch of saliva glisten before moving to give the other nipple the same treatment, your heart leaping at the sounds falling from his mouth as he quivers under you.

“König,” you croon. “Touch me.”

He whimpers as you flick your tongue over the sensitive bud. “Where?”

“Anywhere. Grab my hair, squeeze my tits, just put your hands on me.”

You groan as he obeys, long fingers tangling tightly in your hair as his other hand spreads along your ribcage, thumb sliding over your breast. You sigh, leaning down to bite into his pec, moaning as his grip on you tightens. You kiss the mark left by your teeth before leaning back. His hands move to cup both of your breasts as you raise yourself up and sink down onto his cock. You’re too excited and you go too fast, and a sharp pinch of pain seizes at your entrance. You gasp, instinctively leaning forward to brace yourself on your palms, but his hands move to your waist, catching you before you hurt them any further.

“I have you,” he whispers, voice scratchy, and despite the pain you clench at the sound of what you do to him. He chokes on his next words, a groan coming out instead. “Do you need to get off?”

“No!” You whisper-yell back so quickly that he laughs, and despite everything you laugh with him. He runs his hands up and down your sides, feeling you start to relax a little, but not enough yet. “Tell me what you need,” he murmurs.

“It’s fine.” You close your eyes and try to focus on your breathing. “Just need…a moment.”

“Hypocrite.”

You shoot your eyes open to glare at him, only to see his chest shake with another chuckle at your scrunched-up angry face. “Your leg is sliced open, it’s not the same,” you scoff.

His eyes glimmer with the start of a witty retort before one of his hands freezes over your bottom rib, drawing his lovely gaze away from yours. His thumb is circling around a tiny hairline of a scar, bone-white and soft. You’ve already forgotten how you got it.

“This one,” he murmurs. “It is new.”

“How…how did you notice?”

“It wasn’t there last time.” His tone was quiet and matter-of-fact, like the answer was obvious, and it takes you back to every time his hands ran over you as you drifted into sleep. How long did he stay there after you fell asleep? How long did it take him to commit you to memory so well that a patch of skin even you had forgotten was instantly recognized as something new?

Your body has always been a means to an end, a vehicle carrying you rather than a full part of you. Batter it, toss it around, whatever you need to do to get the job done. And when your body protests, you treat it like any other tool you can beat into submission. Like your first battered old car that revved to life with a well-placed kick.

But now all you can think of is his hands running over you with thorough determination, acknowledging each new mark with a gentle reverence that was more than you deserved. Getting to know you in the only way he knew how.

For the first time in a long time, you’re reminded to see this body as something more than a bruised vessel you’re obligated to carry around. He reminds you to see it as something more.

Fuck, you think you might love him.

“König?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.”

His head tilts a little, his hand still running along your rib, and your cheeks flush.

Before he can reply, you gulp a little. “I…I think I’m ready.”

He hums again, his hands moving back to rest on your hips. You stay still for another moment, looking into his eyes. You don’t think you can memorize his body, not like he has yours. But you have memorized his eyes, have burned them into your mind so clearly you saw them even as you were trapped on that damned mountain. Thinking about him.

And now you think he might've been thinking about you, too.

You feel him twitch inside of you, pulling you out of your thoughts. Taking a deep breath, you raise yourself up slowly, feeling his hands tighten and take some of your weight, following your lead as you sink into him again, this time with a sigh that echoes his own. Slowly, hesitantly, you raise yourself up and down, feeling how easily he stretches you, how easily he could break you.

But he never has. The only pain you’ve gotten from him was caused by your own impatience. As you keep going, finding an angle that has him dragging across your most sensitive parts and making you even wetter, you become confident that there’s no chance of pain, allowing yourself to speed up.

His hands are steady as ever, guiding you up and down, but beneath you his shoulders and chest begin to squirm and heave. His eyes wander all around, and his breaths are scattered and staccato.

And his sounds. You’d never known a man to be so loud, and now you know you’ve been missing out all these years. Every grunt, every groan, every moan and whimper goes straight through your core, winding you up faster and faster. As you get closer his sounds shift, and you realize he’s started to stutter out words.

His eyes are hazy and unfocused but you can still tell they’re trained on you, and you urge your body to calm down for just a minute longer, just long enough to hear what he’s saying.

You can’t make out any of the words, but his hands are even tighter on you now and the way his voice shifts from growling to whimpering settles into a melodic language that has you crying out for him anyway.

Beneath your trembling body, he keeps going. “Never..told you …du bist wie ein Traum,” another whimper leaves his lips. “Ich kann nicht glauben, dass du wirklich hier bist.” He gasps as you clench tighter around him. “Du bist…du…Du bist viel zu gut für mich…Dein Lächeln und …und…” His eyes are watering and you slow down only for his hands to dig into you, urging you to speed up again. “Ich weiß nicht wie ich dich loslassen soll aber du verdienst so viel mehr als …”

His mind is lapsing again, his determined confession faltering into a fervent prayer sent to the only god he’s ever believed in, to you - moving over him and taking everything he is giving you, making him wish he had more, so much more than the desert-dry heart of a killer whose hands can only ever pull things apart. His thumb is over the scar on your rib again and his blurry vision is taking in the white of the bandage wrapped around your hands and it has him wishing his own hands could build something instead of destroy it just so he could put you back together again. You’re coming apart around him, crying his name, and he’s thinking of flinging his body in front of you, taking every bullet and blade meant for you, because his body is all he has to give and he knows how to sacrifice it, he knows he’ll gladly lay it at your altar, bloody and broken, if it could only mean making sure he’d never be surprised by a new scar again. Maybe you’d even remember him a little when he was gone.

He’s trying to tell you all of that, the messy syllables punching through his throat. “Niemals, niemals, nie,…” but before he can finish he’s failing already, falling apart under you and screaming your name and emptying everything he has into you.

It’s not enough.

You’re laying on top of him now and he tries his best to be gentle but his entire body is shaking as he rolls you off and staggers to his bathroom, slamming the door behind him and sinking against it.

He shatters in a whole-body-wracking sob.

You’re never going to look at him again.

He tucks his legs in, squeezing his knees into his chest, squeezing even harder as a burn radiates out from the stitches, trying to rein in his ragged breathing in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, he can save this and cover up the fact that he’s crying.

It was just meant to be casual sex. He wasn’t supposed to start caring. That’s not what you wanted. It’s not fair to you. It’s not your fault he let himself get emotional. And now he’s ruined the only thing you two did have, he wanted to make you feel better and now he’s made you so uncomfortable and…and…

He slams his forehead into his knees and sobs again.

He’s pathetic. Pathetic to think this could be something more. Pathetic to think he could have something more.

Everything hurts.

That’s what he signed up for, isn’t it?

That’s what he deserves.

A knock on the door has his head jerking back up, hands clutching his knees hard enough the knuckles just might pop through the skin. “Go away!”

“No.” Your tone is flat as he hears a thunk against the other side of the door, imagining you leaning against it and sliding down, mirroring him perfectly. “Not until you talk to me.”

“No.”

You sigh. “That's how it’s gonna be? Well, in that case, to quote a man I…admire very much, I can make you talk.” You drop your voice, trying and failing to mimic his battle growl.

He snorts despite himself.

You take that as a cue to continue. “For one, I’m not leaving until you do. You’ll be stuck with my annoying-ass voice forever.”

“I like your voice.”

“Oh…umm…thank you. In that case I’ll…I’ll steal all your knives and I’ll draw a kangaroo on your door and-”

“You wouldn’t dare,” he growls.

“Guess you’ll never know if you keep that door closed. And that’s not all, I’ll…I’ll steal those cheap chocolates we get every supply drop. Don’t deny it, I know everyone joked it was Ghost but I saw you take them all. You love those.” You smile, laughing a little. “On the other hand, I’ll fly to Austria right now if that’s what it takes to get some chocolate you’d really like. I’d even get you some of those waffle things you were telling Soap about that one time I caught you both raiding the snack cabinets. Well, I’d probably eat some of those. But I promise to save most of them for you. Just…please talk to me. I’ll…I’ll…” you’re cut off by your own squeak as the door opens and you fall backwards.

His hands are already there to catch you, and once you sit back up he stays there, half-crouched and awkward, eyes anywhere but your own.

Slowly, you open your arms, watching his head turn back to you.

In an instant he’s lunged into you, burrowing his face into your neck with an awkward grunt as he stretches his bad leg out to the side. You try to change to a comfier position for him but the man is like a brick wall.

It’s nice.

So you let yourself stay there, wrapping around him as he wraps around you on the hard floor. It’s a softness unknown to you both, two soldiers carved razor-sharp from solid steel. But as you let yourself sink into him, you find yourself liking the strange tranquility of this moment, the way two bodies made for war can still drape over each other and feel peace instead. Against all better judgement, against any scrap of common sense you have left, you find yourself yearning for a few less battles if it can mean more of this. You let your eyes close, imagining it for just a little while.

After a while, he pulls back, moving to lean against the wall and pulling you so you can balance on his uninjured thigh. You let your head loll onto his shoulder, face turned into the hood. His chin rests on your temple.

“Are you cold?”

He grunts noncommittally, eyes half-closed. “Are you?”

“Nooo,” you mumble, burrowing into his neck. He shifts, maneuvering you off his lap, only to grunt when he tries to push on his leg.

“I got it.” You push yourself up, moving to the bed to retrieve one of the blankets there, carefully wrapping it around both of your torsos when you settle back onto his lap. Your legs stick out, but you don’t really care.

After a while you feel his heartbeat begin to pick up again and adjust yourself to look up at him. His eyes drift to you before he sighs. “Do you…still want me to talk?”

You nod.

“Alright then. I will talk. I do not think it is what you want to hear.”

You bite your lip and try to keep your breathing steady as he continues.

“Back in the med bay. No. Before that.” He shakes his head emphatically. “When we were assigned to two different groups…No…Scheiße, I…”

You run a shaky hand up and down his chest. “It’s okay. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”

His fingers dig into you for a fraction of a second, so quick you think you might have imagined it before his entire body is deflating, his head settling back against the wall. “They ambushed us. You weren’t there but…they hit us on patrol, hit us and ran before we could counter. I did not even see who hit me, I just look up one moment and down the next and the snow is all red and…” His voice drops to barely a whisper “Das war meines.” He trails off completely, a finger tracing circles on your shoulder. “I've been wounded before. I've accepted death before. This time...before I...while I was…” he exhales another irritated sigh. “I was on the ground and…wie sag ich das…ich hab versucht etwas zu tun, mich zu bewegen aber alles was ich tun konnte...I was thinking of you.”

He freezes, turning his head away and dropping his hands from you. But instead of moving away, you kiss a patch of skin just outside the hood, watching the muscle under it jump. “Is that all you want to tell me?”

He shakes his head.

“Do you think you can keep going?”

His head turns back to you briefly before he tilts it up to stare at the ceiling. “When I was in the med bay. Well, I…it went like this. I wake up and you are there and I think, König this is it, now you are finally dead. And then I feel the pain and I see the nurse and you were moving away and I couldn't…du warst da und dann warst du fast nicht mehr da und ich konnte nicht atmen. Ich…” he shakes his head back and forth, back and forth. “Ich konnte nicht ohne dich. Ich…needed you to stay.” His head jerks down again, eyes boring into yours with all the intensity of a tornado, arms wrapping around you once again. “I need you to stay.”

You nod, holding him tight, the weight of the words unspoken tangling in your chest and constricting your tongue. Stay. With me. He won't ask for more than tonight, not when neither of you can even risk asking for a tomorrow. Stay with me. For as long as you have. A day, maybe. A month. Maybe you'll get out of this mess someday and get years.

Stay with me for a lifetime. Whatever lifetime we get.

You nod, whispering a promise into his skin. Always. Your fingers drift down along his leg, tracing just outside the stitches, your eyes following the line of gooseprickles that rise in their wake.

You feel more than you hear your name being whispered into your hair, and as you look up fingers wrap around your wrist, guiding it up over his hip, his ribs, his chest. Sliding around the edge of the hood, pushing it up, up, up. Until the fabric slides off. You gaze in awe, watching his jaw flex as his lips part to form a word whose sound hides in the back of his throat. Always. You look back into his eyes before surging forward, hugging him tight, tight enough to strangle, you think, but he’s already wrapping himself around you with equal fervor.

“You know,” you murmur, breath ruffling his hair, “if you wanted my attention you didn’t have to go to such extremes.”

He huffs a laugh, the air catching in his lungs with a choking sound. His grip tightens.

When you wake you find you’ve been moved to the bed, but his face is still buried in your neck, unmoving despite the soft light filtering in your window. You smile a little, watching the early-morning sky, perfectly clear and pale blue.

It matches his eyes.

---

German Translations

du bist wie ein Traum: You are like a dream

Ich kann nicht glauben, dass du wirklich hier bist: I can’t believe you are here

Du bist viel zu gut für mich: You are too good to me

Dein Lächeln und…: You smile and…

Ich weiß nicht wie ich dich loslassen soll aber du verdienst so viel mehr als: I don't know how I am supposed to let go of you (eventually) but you (clearly) deserve so much more than me

Niemals, niemals, nie: never again, never again, never

Scheiße: shit

Das war meines: it was mine

wie sag ich das: how do I say this

ich hab versucht etwas zu tun, mich zu bewegen aber alles was ich tun konnte: I tried doing something, moving, but all I could do

du warst da und dann warst du fast nicht mehr da und ich konnte nicht atmen. Ich…: you were there and then you nearly weren’t there and I could not breathe. I…

Ich konnte nicht ohne dich. Ich…: I couldn’t without you. I…

#könig #könig call of duty #cod #cod mwii #könig x reader

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 8 months

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Comet Donati [Chapter 10: Through The Dark] [Series Finale]

Series Summary: Sex, drugs, boy bands. You are a kinda-therapist recruited (via nepotism) to help Comet Donati through a recent crisis. Things are casual with Aegon, very not-casual with Aemond. Loosely inspired by One Direction.

Chapter Warnings: Language, references to sexual content (+18), drugs, alcohol, smoking, mental health struggles, pregnancy, bodily injury, death, miscarriage, AND NO OTHER CLUES, HAPPY READING!!! 🥰

Selected Chapter Quote: “What made you want to be a therapist?”

Word count: 6.4k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: @doingfondue @catalina-howard @randomdragonfires @myspotofcraziness @arcielee @fan-goddess @talesofoldandnew @marvelescvpe @tinykryptonitewerewolf @mariahossain @chainsawsangel @darkenchantress @not-a-glad-gladiator @gemini-mama @trifoliumviridi @herfantasyworldd @babyblue711 @namelesslosers @thelittleswanao3 @daenysx @moonlightfoxx @libroparaiso @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @mizfortuna @florent1s @heimtathurs @bhanclegane @poohxlove @narwhal-swimmingintheocean @heavenly1927 @echos-muses @padfooteyes @minttea07 @queenofshinigamis @juliavilu1 @amiraisgoingthruit @lauraneedstochill @wintrr13 @r0segard3n @seabasscevans @tsujifreya @helaenaluvr @hiraethrhapsody

Thank you for loving the insane and incomparable Comet fam. I hope you enjoy the series finale. 💜

Night sky, string lights, reverberating bass, warm wet verdant air like the earth the dinosaurs knew, swampy and thick with beasts. With his lazy, dreamlike smile—a kind contagious glow, pink sunburned cheeks that match the clinking Salty Dog in his hand—Aegon says: “What made you want to be a therapist?”

You won’t tell him the whole truth. But you’ll tell him part of it. “Sigmund Freud.”

Aegon is intrigued, raised eyebrows and a crooked grin. “The guy who thinks everyone wants to fuck their mom?”

“You would have liked him. He did a lot of coke.” You take a swig of your Salty Dog: rosemary, grapefruit, the singeing bite of gin. “He was the founder of talk therapy. And, yeah, some of the things he wanted to talk about were…unorthodox. Misguided. But still…”

“He just wanted to talk,” Aegon says softly, understanding now.

“This was the turn of the century, okay? This was back in the days when they were pulling people’s teeth out, locking them up in asylums, injecting them with diseases, cutting off parts of women that made them unruly, ungovernable, immoral.” You shudder. “And Freud said no, just talk to them. Just figure out what demons they have chained up in their skulls, dark dusty corners buried way down deep, and help them figure out how to move forward. It’s not about having a cure, a pill or a scalpel. I mean, how ludicrous would that be, thinking I was walking around with some failproof silver bullet to make all the pain of existence vanish? That’s insane. It’s about listening to people, and caring about people, and shining a light on what part of them already knew was there. I don’t have a cure for anybody. Not a single goddamn person on this planet. But I can help them find their own.”

Aegon watches you, contemplates you, studies you like something rare and fleeting. “You are going to be one hell of a therapist.”

“I don’t know about that. But I hope so.”

“I’ll find you. Maybe when you’re done with school you can work on me. I’d keep you busy, I guarantee it. I’m like Disney’s Haunted Mansion. Ghosts everywhere you look.”

You laugh, shaking your head. “You are never going to remember me.” He is never going to remember this place, this time, the way he shared his light with me like a long-lost comet clipping by Earth.

“I might,” Aegon says. He sips his Salty Dog with his elbows propped on the table, his blond hair whipping in the indigo wind, grains of salt on his lips, reflections of string lights like stars in his eyes. “I really think I might.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Your arms thrown around his neck, your face buried in his black t-shirt, inhaling smoke and dust and the coppery sharpness of his spilled blood. You are sobbing uncontrollably, gasping, shivering, wild prideless tears and clawing fingers. Jace’s words circle in your skull like a moon around its planet: Nobody escapes the indignity of becoming a regret. Aemond is trying to calm you, to quiet you. His hands—large and dangerous and bloodstained and careful—are on your back, in your hair. You have to explain, to repent. You have to make him understand.

“I didn’t get pregnant on purpose,” you moan into him, a jagged rush like a hemorrhage. “I swear to God I didn’t. I wouldn’t do that to you. I wasn’t trying to trap you or fix you or use you. I’m in love with you, Aemond, I wanted you, and I still want you, and I thought you would hate me and I was terrified and I didn’t know how to tell you—”

“I don’t hate you, I could never hate you,” he’s saying, and more that you can’t catch; his words are a tide, flowing in and fading out. Now there is pain, deep and sharp and collapsing. Aegon is standing a few yards away, tears flooding down his sunburned face; they clear tracks in the dust that coats him, that coats everyone, that sticks to the blood on your legs. Cregan has pushed the others back, but still, you can hear their incorporeal voices: Jace asking what’s going on, Rhaena explaining, Baela shrieking, Criston shouting orders. Now Aegon has a rough hand on Aemond’s shoulder and is telling him something—insisting upon something—but you don’t know what. Language escapes you; language abandons you.

There are sirens and flashing lights the color of rubies, roses, tangled arteries. Aemond scoops you up and carries you towards them. There is only enough room for one person to ride in the ambulance with you; there is no discussion of who it will be. The rest of Comet has to wait for the Escalades to arrive at your parents’ farm. You do not try to steal a glimpse of the damage, felled trees and scattered fence posts, dead cattle and pillaged earth. You are filled with enough wreckage already; you are built of it, bones made out of bent nails, nerves of barbed wire.

Needles into your arms, chemicals into your bloodstream: something that deadens the pain and muddies your thoughts, makes them slow and heavy and unpanicked, like you are watching this happen to somebody else. In an exam room, nurses strip your clothes away and wipe the red from your skin, routinely, absentmindedly, as if it is of no consequence, as if the future you had taken for granted has not just been drowned, immolated, eradicated from existence like a dying star. They give you underwear fitted with a bulky postpartum pad—the same used by mothers of living children—and a hospital gown that Aemond marks with bloody fingerprints when he touches you. Then the nurses leave you to wait for the doctor with your IVs and your fogbank mind and your glazed eyes that stare blankly at the sterile white walls.

Aemond is smoothing back your hair from your face, and you are reminded of how he held Aegon when he was dying on your bedroom floor in the MGM Grand. You remember once thinking that Aemond is like storms and rogue waves, and that’s true; he turns lethal and then goes kind again, strikes and then soothes. He says once you are alone, each word painstakingly chosen: “I’m sorry that because of how I’ve acted, you felt you couldn’t tell me.”

“I’m sorry I lost the baby.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. I must have. I’m bleeding too much.” You can feel it, blood and clots that ooze, gush, drain away leaving you cold and hollow.

The exam room door opens, not a nurse or a doctor but a man in khaki cargo shorts and a filthy neon green tank top and matching Crocs, clop clop clop. “Hey, Stargirl,” Aegon says, sad and gentle. He holds up a venti-sized plastic cup. “I brought you a Double Chocolatey Chip Frappuccino.”

You blink groggily, not knowing what to do with it. Aegon puts the clear cup in your hands, the green straw between your lips. It’s sugary, cold, rich, topped with a swirl of whipped cream and chocolate syrup. It brings you back a little bit, a few unsteady steps towards the real world.

“Where the fuck is the doctor?” Aemond asks him.

“The nurse said she’s on her way. They’re understaffed.” Aegon shrugs apologetically: Missouri bullshit.

“You get somebody in here, right now.”

“What do you want me to do, threaten to stab medical professionals?! How about you punch some of their teeth out, I bet that would help.” Then Aegon sighs shakily and covers his own face with his hands. “It wasn’t…it wasn’t mine, you know?” Wasn’t, isn’t, will never be. “We haven’t…not since…it’s not…” He looks at Aemond with large, shining, ocean-blue eyes. “It’s not possible. You have to know that. You can’t be the way that you are sometimes. You don’t get a few weeks to come around to doing the decent thing. You have to believe her.”

And Aemond says softly: “I do.”

The door opens again and a doctor steps through it, mid-forties, thick black-rimmed glasses, dark hair secured in a businesslike low bun. Aegon ducks out of the room; the doctor gives him a brief quizzical glance before introducing herself to you. You can’t seem to latch onto her name. You answer the questions she asks you as she readies the ultrasound machine: ten weeks along, blunt force trauma to your back, where and how it hurt before the pain was drugged out of you. She unfastens a tie on the side of your hospital gown and opens it just enough to spread the cool gel across your belly and then glide the transducer through it. She peers at the grainy screen. She’s checking for a heartbeat; she’s checking to see if you’ll need a D&C to help expel a partial miscarriage so you don’t go septic.

“I lost it,” you sob, breaking down again. “Aemond, I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t. Please don’t.” He kisses your temple and then rests his forehead against yours, tears glittering in his river-clear right eye.

“Well,” the doctor says with practiced, vaguely sympathetic composure. “You lost one of them.”

You look to her, not understanding. “One of…?”

She angles the monitor so you and Aemond can see. “Fraternal twins often have separate amniotic sacs and placentas. So depending on the positioning of the fetuses, it is possible to miscarry one but not the other. This one on the left here…” She indicates it with her index finger. “It’s…it’s no longer viable, unfortunately. You’ve already passed most of it. But this one on the right…” She squints at the screen, repositioning the transducer. “From what I can tell, it seems to be holding on. Let me see if I can…” She moves the transducer around, pressing it into the yielding flesh of your belly. And then you hear it: a fierce defiant drumming, a whistling like wind through leaves. “I thought so,” the doctor pronounces, smiling. “There’s the heartbeat. The pulse is approximately 155 beats per minute, which is typical.”

One of them? I didn’t lose one of them? “Aemond…?”

When you turn back to him, he’s staring at the flickering black-and-white whirls of bones and blood flow on the ultrasound screen. And the expression on his face is one that you’ve never seen from him before, serene like when he’s with animals, awed like when he studies the galaxy, and something else too, a great shifting, a clicking into place, tectonic plates and ocean currents and storm clouds unraveling into clear skies. “It’s alright?” he says, not taking his eye from the screen.

“It is,” the doctor confirms. “Measuring a little bit small for ten weeks, but that’s to be expected for a twin. I don’t think you’ll be able to tell the sex for another month, but it’s alive and well.” She freezes the image on the screen, sets the transducer aside, and cleans the gel from your belly. “Based on my experience, in cases like this, I’d say there’s a better than 50/50 chance the surviving fetus can be carried to term.”

You say: “What can I do…? I mean…there must be something I can do to help it…to help it live…”

“We’ll give you medication to stop any residual uterine contractions and antibiotics to prevent infection. I’d like to admit you for observation, just for a day or two. And I would recommend bed rest for several weeks. Until you’ve reached your second trimester, at least.”

“Yes. Anything. I’ll do anything.”

“And sir, you’re…” The doctor peers at Aemond through her glasses, really scrutinizing him for the first time, his brutal scar and his blind left eye and his stillness and his wonder. “You’re the father?”

Aemond nods, still gazing at the screen like a constellation in the night sky, like a comet only glimpsed once in a lifetime. “I am.”

The doctor beams. “Congratulations,” she tells both of you. And then she leaves to arrange for you to be admitted to the hospital.

“I’ll stay,” Aemond says. “When the band flies to New Orleans tomorrow, I’ll stay here with you.”

“No, Aemond.”

“I’m staying. I’m not going to leave you. You need me, the baby needs me.”

“No,” you say again. “What we have now is wrong. It’s painful and volatile and doomed.” You lay your palm against his scarred face, and he doesn’t finch away. “You have to figure out who you are after Comet. And so do I.” Tears in your eyes, tears on your cheeks; but on your lips is a soft, patient smile. “Aemond, I don’t want me and the baby to be a distraction from the work that you still desperately need to do. I don’t want to be a temporary fix. I don’t want to be your life raft. I want to be…if I’m going to be anything to you…” Your thumbprint ghosts across his cheekbone, tender, reverent. “I want to be your home.”

He shakes his head, but he doesn’t speak; drops like rain spill down his right cheek, dyed pink by blood from the fresh lacerations that riddle him, new scars and ancient pain.

“What are you thinking?” you say.

“I’m thinking that you’re right. I fucking hate it, but you are.” He swipes away tears with one bloodstained hand, then he settles it on your not-yet-showing belly, a place of ruin, a place of hope. “When can I come back?”

“When you’re ready. And only you’ll know when that is.”

The exam room door opens again, and your parents rush in like water through a cracked dam. They are frantic and fretting, peering around bewilderedly.

“Lord almighty, what the hell happened?!” your dad booms; and your mom doesn’t even think to chastise him.

“I’m okay, Daddy.”

“You got hit by somethin’? Are they gonna do an x-ray? Your mother and I finally made it back home from church, trees and power lines down all over the place, and that boy was waitin’ on the front porch to tell us where you were. You know, the big one. The one with the godawful ponytail.”

“Cregan,” your mom offers.

“Cregan,” your dad says.

“It’s a man bun, Daddy. How’s the farm?”

“We ain’t too bad off. A couple cows dead, half the herd out wanderin’ since the pasture fence blew away. Me and the dogs gotta bring ‘em on back, but your mother and I had to see you first. Did they check you over good? Can you come home today?”

“Sweetheart, there’s…” Your mom’s voice is alarmed. “There’s blood on your gown, on your face, what happened?”

“Well, I, um, the thing is…” You try to tell them. You begin crying again instead. As you sniffle and avert your eyes—afraid, ashamed—Aemond stands and extends one large, scarlet-streaked hand. Your dad shakes it tentatively. And then Aemond explains for you: the child you’ve lost, the child you’ve kept, what has to happen next.

“I am responsible,” Aemond says as they gape at him, half-ecstatic and half-horrified. “And I know that this didn’t exactly happen in the traditional way, and I know that there is a lot of work left for me to do to prove myself worthy of your daughter. But I hope in time you’ll be able to forgive me. Because it seems that we’re going to be family.”

Your mom squeals and hugs Aemond. Your dad hugs you. They stay until you are settled in your own private room—small bed and clean sheets, drugs trickling into your veins—and only then do they listen to your insistence that you’ll be okay until morning, that they need to go home to take care of the farm. They leave with their arms around each other, exchanging murmurs like vows. Then Aemond asks if you feel well enough to see the band. They want to say goodbye.

“You’ll miss me,” Jace says confidently, then swoops in to smack a kiss on your forehead before anyone can stop him, bouncing dark curls and smirking mouth. Aegon jabs him in the ribs, Criston rolls his eyes, Aemond glowers like he’d enjoy putting Jace in need of another 28 dental implants. “If you ever get sick of mentally ill blonds, just let me know. The kid doesn’t change anything. I dig MILFs.”

“Thanks, Jace. I guess.”

“We’ll still see you around, right? You’ll visit us, we’ll visit you?”

“Yeah. I won’t disappear.”

“Good.” And then again, more somberly: “Good.”

Rhaena is dabbing at her gentle, doe-like eyes with a Kleenex, leaning into Luke for support. Criston is gallant. Daeron is optimistic. Baela is exasperated that you told Rhaena you were pregnant but not her.

“I didn’t tell Rhaena,” you counter. “She just happened to be the person who accompanied me on my ill-fated adventure to procure Plan B in Tokyo at like 2 a.m.”

“Which did not work,” Rhaena adds, sniffling into her Kleenex.

“A cautionary tale,” Jace says to everyone. “You hear that, fellas? When in doubt, wrap it before you tap it.”

Baela nods at you. “Luckily, she doesn’t seem too disappointed.” Her eyes flick reticently to Aemond where he sits in the chair closest to your bed, a presence in the room like skies that could turn in an instant, quiet, preoccupied, protective, dazed. “And neither does he.”

“I’m not,” Aemond confesses. He laces one hand through yours and brings his lips to your knuckles, willing the baby to live, willing himself to be better for you both.

“We’re going to talk later,” Cregan tells him sternly. Talk about what it means to be a father.

“Yes,” Aemond agrees.

And then Cregan says goodbye to you too, his cool greyish eyes growing peculiarly warm, his steely exterior chipping away like flecks of old paint.

Aegon is last, the only person left in the room with you and Aemond. Grinning beneath sad eyes, he presses a hand to his heart, and then to yours, and then to your belly. Starboy, Stargirl, Starbaby. Then he says: “Do you want me to hide under your bed so they can’t kick me out when visiting hours end?”

You smile tiredly, exhausted and in pain, pain of the body and pain of the soul. “You have to go, Aegon. Thousands of screaming fangirls will be waiting for you at Arrowhead Stadium.”

He is stunned. “I can’t perform tonight, obviously.”

“Yes you can.”

“No, I definitely can’t.”

“You can,” you say. “You have to. And more than that, you want to. You’ll regret it if you don’t. You live for being Comet’s disaster playboy. I’m not going to take that away from you.”

And then Aegon whimpers: “You can’t leave me.”

“You’re leaving me first.” You beam up at him, caressing his sunburned face, threading your fingers through his disheveled hair. Aemond observes this with curiosity but no suspicion. “This isn’t goodbye, Aegon. I’ll see you again. You can add me to the long list of girls you FaceTime.”

He laughs. “Okay, Stargirl. Okay. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“For more than a day, right?”

“For all of them. Forever.”

And then he’s gone, riding that elliptical orbit out into all the corners of the world that he will glow for: New Orleans, Miami, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Bogota, Buenos Ares, Lima, Santiago.

Aemond swears to you: “I’m coming back.”

“I hope so.”

And he tilts up your chin and kisses you, tasting like smoke and dust and blood and desire, and it takes every atom of you, every string of muscle and rusty speck of bone marrow, not to crumble and beg him to stay. You are still at war with the part of you that wants to surrender as he stands and walks out of the room. He does not look back; he can’t without losing his nerve.

In the night, he returns to you, long after visiting hours have ended. Perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars have a way of making formalities disappear. He is only a silhouette in shadows like dawn, dusk, midnight. Aemond climbs into the hospital bed and catches you as you fold into him, whispering to you that everything will be alright, telling you how sorry he is, lulling you into a fitful sleep against his chest, his warmth, his heartbeat. And in the morning when you wake up alone, you wonder if any of it was real.

Did I dream that he was here? Did I dream that I ever met him at all?

But no, he has left you proof, something tangible, permanent. On the nightstand is Aemond’s small square vintage lighter; Targaryen is etched into one side. And there is something else too, a single piece of black paper with two sentences of starlight-colored ink:

I’m coming back.

I love you.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s October, and the leaves are turning from emerald to topaz, garnet, tiger’s eye. You carve pumpkins with your parents on their front porch. You bake apple crisps and sweet potato pies. You feed the pigs, brush the Australian cattle dogs, buy baby supplies with Aegon’s Amex Black Card. You decide to let the grad student and her Giant Flemish rabbit keep your apartment downtown until your lease is up in the spring. You’d rather be here on the farm, even when you’re not on bed rest anymore. You’d rather be home.

You listen to Comet Donati, The Script, Coldplay, One Direction. Rhaena and Baela mail you boxes of crochet comets and stars and planets for the baby’s room. Aegon mails you boxes of Comet’s new donut-themed merch. Now your dad sometimes tends to the beef cattle in boy band t-shirts. Aegon FaceTimes you two or three times a week, sends WhatsApp messages nearly every day. But you rarely talk about Aemond. It’s too painful, it’s too much of a temptation. You cannot imagine others seeing him, hearing him, speaking to him without needing to do it yourself in the same way that you need oxygen and gravity.

The week before Halloween, you begin spotting. You sob hysterically as your mom drives you to the hospital, convinced that you’re losing this baby too, that everything you touch is damaged and defenseless and doomed. You’re fine, as it turns out, and the baby’s fine too, but even after you’re back at the farm you can’t stop shaking, can’t stop imaging the wet heat of blood on your thighs.

You break down and call Aemond. And you talk for five hours until the sun rises, you in a rocking chair on your parents’ front porch, Aemond on a hotel balcony in Santiago, Chile in the shadow of the Andes Mountains. He says he’s working on something, but he’ll come back now if you ask him to, he’ll board the jet and land in Kansas City in time for supper at the farm, and you can hear the backsliding desperation in his voice: Please ask me to come back. Please just fucking ask me.

But it’s not time yet. He’s not ready, and you both know it. You agree not to call each other again until Aemond returns to you. If he returns to me. Neither of you can sleep for days afterwards. Neither of you can open the door a crack without the other rushing through.

One morning you shuffle downstairs in your Cookie Monster pajama pants and oversized NSYNC t-shirt to find your dad eating a heap of homemade pumpkin waffles in front of the television in the den. All five Australian cattle dogs are perched expectantly at his feet. “Them boys of yours are on Good Morning America.”

“What? Really?”

Yes, they are; they’re celebrating the conclusion of their record-breaking world tour and teasing a new album with an interview and two songs. You catch the end of the first one, their new single called Magic, during which the boys run haphazardly around the neon-lit studio, Jace tears off his donut-themed tank top in protest, and Aegon flubs no less than three lyrics.

Robin Roberts is saying: “Now stay tuned for a very special performance coming up next after a commercial break. We’ll be moving to our outdoor stage in Times Square where a sizeable crowd has formed, and we’ve been told that Comet has a surprise in store for us! What do you think it could be, George?”

“I don’t know, Robin,” George Stephanopoulos replies gamely. “But no matter what it is, I’m sure it will have all those young ladies out there screaming!”

Lara Spencer chuckles. “And not just the young ladies either. I’ve been known to attend Comet concerts on occasion.”

Robin says: “Oh no, Lara, are you a Cregan girlie?”

“Okay, yes, I confess, I am kind of a Cregan girlie…”

You get yourself a plate of pumpkin waffles and return just in time to see the camera panning over the crowd outside: shouting, cheering, waving posters and showcasing their homemade t-shirts.

Robin Roberts announces: “And now, with a cover of One Direction’s Through The Dark, here is the illustrious, incomparable, incredible Comet Donati!”

“No way,” you murmur, staring rapturously at the screen.

“You like that one?” your dad asks, tossing pieces of waffles to the dogs.

“It’s my favorite.” And Aemond knows that. I told him in Singapore.

The stage is empty as the first acoustic notes ring out. Then Daeron trots into view—radiant and cheerful in his donut merch—to sing the first lines:

“You tell me that you’re sad and lost your way

You tell me that your tears are here to stay,

But I know you’re only hiding

And I just wanna see you…”

Aegon appears next, clopping in his sparkly pink Crocs. He flips his hair around and winks mischieviously into the camera as he sings:

“You tell me that you’re hurt and you’re in pain

And I can see your head is held in shame,

But I just wanna see you smile again

See you smile again…”

And now the crowd is not just loud but deafening, and you’re so shocked the plate of pumpkin waffles tumbles out of your hands and onto the floor for the Australian cattle dogs to devour, because who bolts out onto the stage next is not Cregan or Luke or Jace but Aemond Targaryen, wearing Aegon’s beloved donut merch and his Adidas sneakers and his scar and blind eye bare for the world to witness. They don’t seem to take any notice of his maiming at all. They screech and hyperventilate and reach for him, awed, ecstatic, touching his outstretched fingertips and his sneakers like the relics of a saint. He is focused, perhaps nervous, but he is smiling. His voice is velvet-smooth and pitch-perfect.

“But don’t burn out

Even if you scream and shout,

It’ll come back to you

And I’ll be here for you…”

The others arrive, and now all six of them are singing the chorus in harmony as they traverse the stage, dodging each other’s chaotic spins and leaps, waving to the crowd, checking on Aemond with encouraging furtive grins and squeezes of his shoulders. Luke is beaming. Jace shoves Aemond playfully and almost gets flung off the stage in return.

“Oh I will carry you over

Fire and water for your love,

And I will hold you closer

Hope your heart is strong enough,

When the night is coming down on you

We will find a way through the dark.”

“Huh,” your dad says. “They ain’t no Johnny Cash, but they’re pretty good, I reckon. I thought Aemond wasn’t on stage much anymore.”

“He’s not.” And you smile wistfully as you watch him, right here with you and yet a world away, real and yet intangible, facts and myths and faith. “But now he knows he has a choice.”

On warm nights, you sit on the wraparound front porch and flick Aemond’s square metal lighter to life, shut it, ignite it again, a lonely golden spark in an ocean of darkness, a star in the night sky. And voices circle in your mind like satellites:

I think history is important.

Whoever you are when you’re in high school…that’s sort of who you are forever, you know?

I’ve never met anyone like you.

Aemond would want to be involved.

What the hell do I know about being a decent father?

Our father never cared about us.

It’s not just for me. It’s never been just for me.

“Please come back,” you whisper to the infinite emptiness of the universe, so softly you can barely hear yourself.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s November, and you are finally showing more than you can hide beneath hoodies and sweaters. The attendees of your parents’ Southern Baptist church—who glimpse you at Walmart or McDonald’s or Freddy’s Frozen Custard or 7-Eleven—gossip about you ceaselessly, venomously, with pity but no compassion. And your parents, who have been politely ignoring jibes about you for a decade, do more than just ignore it this time. They clear out their church mailbox and walk out the front door together and never go back. They’ve been shopping around for a new place of worship. Your mom says they might get really experimental and try out the Methodists.

Rhaena sends you pictures from her and Luke’s trip to the Mammoth Site in South Dakota. Baela has you on speakerphone when she tells Jace she wants to take a break. She’s completed two ballet school auditions already, and has scheduled two more; at least one acceptance seems imminent. You call Cregan to ask him how to prepare for parenthood. You call Criston to ask if he’d be willing to serve as a reference. He writes you a five-page recommendation letter and tells you prospective employers can contact him any time, day or night. You are hired as a therapist by the University of Missouri. For now, to accommodate your high-risk pregnancy and copious doctor’s appointments, it is a part-time remote position. Your parents are at last forced to get internet for the farmhouse. Your dad starts watching beef cattle raising tutorials on YouTube. And oddly, when you begin taking appointments with college students struggling with breakups or parental pressure or substance abuse, you don’t feel nervous at all. You feel like you’re doing exactly what you were made for.

One morning, you receive a WhatsApp message from Aegon: I wonder if bumblefuck Kansas has the Rolling Stone…

Missouri, you reply, and then you go to Walmart to check. Sure enough, there are numerous copies in the magazine aisle, and that’s a good thing, because a plethora of teenage girls are scrambling for them. Aemond is on the front cover, smiling faintly; his scar and cloudy blind eye are neither centered nor hidden. And he isn’t wearing black. His suit is a deep, lush green like jade, summer grass, ivy. The title reads: Aemond Targaryen is Out of Hiding.

You begin reading. He talks about exactly what happened at the Budokan. He talks about the label’s unilateral decision to excise him from the band. He talks about feeling lost, humiliated, pitied, ignored, unlovable. And then he shares what changed him. He says that he met with other survivors of facial trauma: soldiers, professional athletes, people involved in car and motorcycle accidents. He says that he sat down with half a dozen different therapists until he found one that he really liked. He chronicles the process of finding purpose again in a way that is truthful and inspirational and yet—to you, anyway—conspicuously vague. He is still somewhat involved with Comet’s songwriting and will likely perform with them once or twice per year, he wants to advocate for people living with disabilities like his…but what else? What else?

I think what I want people to know is that progress isn’t instant, and that nobody can do it alone, Aemond writes. I’m only where I am today because of the support of a lot of extraordinary people. I want to thank Comet Donati—Luke, Cregan, Aegon, Daeron, and Jace—as well as our tour manager Criston Cole, who is like a father us. I am immensely grateful to my mother Alicent and my sister Helaena. I am indebted to the fans for the unconditional love they have shown me.

But most of all, I owe my recovery to a therapist from the American Midwest. She can be a little pretentious sometimes, but we don’t fault her for that. She’s earned it. Thank you, Stargirl. I hope this planet is treating you well.

Smiling, glowing, you close the magazine, take it to the checkout counter, purchase it along with five KitKat bars. The baby can’t seem to get enough of them.

Two days later, you have another ultrasound done—your fourth—and at last you are able to give Aegon the answer he’s been zealously hounding you for. You message him on WhatsApp: You’re going to have a niece!

!!!!! he replies almost immediately. And then: Name her Aegonella.

Probably not!

As if you have any better ideas??

You share a few from your list: Celeste, Luna, Aurora, Halley…

Aemond literally just said Halley, Aegon types back. Like right before you did. And then: He’s very excited, omg, omggggggg it’s so cute. Thirty seconds later: Wish you were here :(

“Me too, Starboy,” you murmur as you sit on the couch in the den with Belmont sprawled across your lap. Then you send: I’m scared he’s not coming back.

He is, Aegon replies. He’s working on something. You’ll like it.

And you have to believe this, blindly, faithfully, trusting that something is real even when you can’t see it. You have no other choice.

You beg your dad not to slaughter any of the pigs for ham, and he reluctantly agrees. At Thanksgiving dinner, half the dishes on the table are vegan. You’re trying out new recipes. You jot down the ones you like best in a notebook Luke sent you: black pages, white ink.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s December, and there are stockings hung by the fireplace and a blanket of snow on the ground. You and your parents pick out a Christmas tree at a local farm, and your dad chops it down and throws it in the back of the Ford F-150. Inside your mom’s CD player in the kitchen spins David Archuleta’s Christmas album. As your bump grows, you keep running out of clothes that fit; Aegon is always happy to mail you more donut-themed merch. Thanks to his persistence, they stock nearly every size known to humans. Baela gets her acceptance letters. Aegon gets to make out with Taylor Swift in the Colosseum. They are photographed together in Rome by paparazzi one day and then never again. A week later he’s with Selena Gomez in Ibiza. A week after that he’s spotted with Camila Cabello in New York City. The wheel keeps turning, his route through the solar system long and meandering.

Emergency! Aegon texts you one afternoon as you’re sipping hot apple cider at the dining room table and assembling a 500-piece puzzle depicting the sinking of the Titanic.

You know better than to take him too seriously. You reply, in no hurry: ?

Aemond says I can’t hang out with Starbaby unless I stop taking so many drugs?!!?! Fascist?!??!?!?!

Hang out. Like they’ll be going to clubs and Crocs stores together. You grin and reply: I mean yeah, that sounds accurate.

Well fuck, Aegon says. Guess I better start doing those substance abuse education modules again!

On Christmas Eve morning, your parents are at their slightly-less-judgmental replacement church. You are trying out a new recipe in the kitchen: vegan snickerdoodles. The whole house smells like cinnamon and vanilla. Beyond the window over the sink, snow falls in fluffy white bundles like rumpled bedsheets, like clouds. The Australian cattle dogs follow you around hoping for dropped cookies, their claws clicking on the hardwood floor. David Archuleta is singing O Come, All Ye Faithful. You keep bumping into things; you forget how big you are. Your belly seems to grow by the day.

Your iPhone buzzes. It’s a WhatsApp message from Aegon that puzzles you: Hey, I promised I wouldn’t bother you guys for the first few days but I really need the Netflix password and he’s not answering my texts, rude, so could you ask him for it please??? And then a few seconds later: Please. I just really want to watch Grey’s Anatomy.

You stare at his message, not understanding. You reply: Ask who…?

After a moment, Aegon sends back: …Never mind :)

“Really?” you gasp to yourself in the hushed peace of the kitchen, not wanting to believe, not wanting to be disappointed. You peek out the window. Nothing.

You open Google and search Aemond Targaryen. One of the first results is an article from the Kansas City Star published one hour ago. The headline reads: Comet Donati Heartthrob Opens Farm Animal Rescue Outside of Kansas City.

“Oh my God.” You scroll madly, skimming the text. “Oh my God, oh my God.”

One of Aemond’s quotes reads: I wanted to go where the need is. A sanctuary like this in San Francisco or Boston wouldn’t be anything special, wouldn’t be as necessary. But here in Missouri, at the epicenter of industrial animal agriculture in the United States? There’s a lot of important work to be done here. There are a lot of lives I hope to be able to save. We’ve been purchasing animals from auctions and taking in others that have been seized from situations where they were abused or neglected. In addition to our own efforts, I’d like to help launch similar rescues throughout the Midwest, and increase public access to vegan alternatives…

There are photos of him posing with animals: a towering, scarred, ancient mule named Vhagar, a three-legged goat called Sunfyre. In all the pictures, Aemond is smiling. And here in the kitchen of your parents’ farmhouse, so are you. Without thinking, you reach back to touch your fingertips to the black-ink words beneath your Comet Donati crewneck sweatshirt. You hear the lyrics— I’ll come back for you if it kills me, Comets clip by again after eons and so can I—and you know them to be true like space, time, gravity, love.

You look out the window again and he’s here, speeding down the winding path of the driveway, snow dust streaming out behind his Gold Star like the tail of a comet.

#aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond x you #aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #aegon ii #aegon targaryen ii #aemond x y/n #aemond one eye #aegon targaryen x reader #aemond x reader #aemond targaryen x you

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yourlocaltreesimp · 5 months

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Tears: My cold, dark, rotten heart feels no affection for anyone.

Y/N: *sneezes*

Tears: Are you sick? Where's your tunic?

۵♡۵

Yan!Tears headcannons

tw: yandarism, he goes a bit feral, obsession, spoilers for totk, kidnapping

My belief is that Tears joined the chain about midway through his journey. He was freshly abandoned by the princess and now has to defend an entirely new hyrule against entirely new threats. And he began to crack. Not readily noticeable, but certainly enough to wear down his sanity. He was already a little more in the untamed side at the end of his last journey, but he can only spiral further from there. He’s gotten horribly good at keeping up that public mask now people know who he is, good enough to fool those not willing to see the cracks.

This slow decline of his mental health is what made him crack the second he saw you. And that’s not an exaggeration either. He held no regard for the useless fools that surrounded you and cared little for their blades, you’d been returned to him. He could feel your skin against his, breathe you in wholly, sense your heart fluttering, He had you. Finally. He did not care if he needed to claw, kick, bite, rip or tear every single thing and person to keep you.

Once he’s able to barter his way into traveling alongside the chain, i’m sorry. Your fate is sealed. No god nor force of nature could stop him.

As a small side note, the gloom definitely affected him to further along his decent. It ate away at his inherently good qualities until all he’s left with is his base instincts and his desire. Any kind action has its alterier motive, every sweet word laced with his own type of venom. It’s left him so primal and yet so intelligent. He can reason without empathy for those that will be hurt getting in the way. He can swing the sword without caring for the repercussions. He’s the ‘Hero’. Not like anyone’s going to stop him.

Initially, his affection borders on innocent enough. Unhealthily attached? Yeah. Obsessive? Most definitely. But reaching its limit? No, not nearly. It begins slow enough, constantly vying to be by your side. He always has an arm around your waist or an hand entangled in your own, but he’s always near. Always.

It develops quick enough. Threats to those who get a little too close to you, at first as genuine protection, but it becomes his claim. Word spreads quick through the tiny villages that you are not to be preyed on. Not by them at least. He’s allowed to eye your neck, especially considering his endless gifts adorn it. You have everything short of a ring on your finger, he’s saving that until the others can’t interrupt.

He’d scare you into loving him. This world is a very dangerous place, but how convenient his arms are wide open to you. What a coincidence that the horrid world leaves you be when his arm is wrapped around your waist.

But don’t be a fool. Leave and this protection drops immediately. You’ll learn. You’ll learn when the yiga find you or when you stumble into some constructs or a mysterious patch of gloom hands appears.

The more he succumbs to the influence of the malice, the more the gloom eases to its will. The more cooperative he is to loosing himself, the more control he has.

Don’t leave him.

So many have already.

He can’t let you slip away too.

He’d kidnap you. There’s a basement just for you in that custom house of his. Or maybe down a well somewhere… or maybe the gerudo prison if you’re less accommodating to his demands. You’ll stay his. And you’ll learn to like it weather you want to or not.

#submission #linked universe #legend of zelda #linkeduniverse #yandere linked universe #linked universe x reader #link x reader #link x you #yandere linked universe x reader #x reader #yandere link x reader #fir’s library #lu tears #lu tears x reader #totk link

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favcharacterpoll · 8 months

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ROUND 3 MATCH 23: GARFIELD VS. C!WILBUR

Garfield from Garfield faces c!Wilbur from the DSMP. Who do you like more? garfield should win i think it would be funny

Garfield Propaganda:

"you know him you love him he most likely greatly influenced your humor as a child. its everyones favorite monday hating lasagna loving cat"

"HELL YEAH, MAKE SURE GARFIELD STAYS WINNING!!!!!!"

"garfield sweep please and thank you i appreciate it"

"to shreds you say"

c!Wilbur Propaganda:

"Accurate depiction of mental health and spiral, handled delicately and deliberately, every piece of his story was thought and planned and in the end he went home to Utah. Thank you lord."

"Please don’t let the name dream smp effect how you feel about this submission, this character is completely unrelated to dream and I’m pretty sure the person who played him has nothing to do with dream anymore. This man single handedly got me through a horrible patch filled with extreme paranoia by also being extremely paranoid. Genuinely really helped me feel seen and I coped a lot by getting invested in this character. I almost cried when he died :("

"He’s so fucking stupid. I could infodump for hours this man transed my gender. Everything has gone wrong in his life. He’s the definition of a bisexual disaster."

"I didn’t fail 10th grade math bc I was thinking about c!wilbur for him to lose round one"

"I mean look at him!! his Minecraft skin is adorable!!!"

"if you people vote for cwilbur i'll draw him in a bikini."

"A VOTE FOR C!WILBUR IS A VOTE FOR GIRLBOYS EVERYWHERE"

"i should not have underestimated minecraft fans they came together"

"Season 1 changed me. I didn’t know minecraft videos could have good acting, dramatic plots, etc. Wilbur was one of the best there. His plot was so interesting with the L’Manburg and the unfinished symphony arcs. He was funny, dramatic, sad… I fondly remember my dsmp days (though I only saw up to like part of Tommy’s exile)"

#polls #garfeild #garfield #garfield the cat #garf #jim davis #garfield comic #garfield cat #c!wilbur #c wilbur #cwilbur #wilbur soot #dsmp #dsmp wilbur #wilbur dsmp

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lyn-1225 · 1 year

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Tough days

Pairing: Carl Gallagher x fem!reader

Warnings: fluff, depression, self harm, anxiety (a little bit), blood, panic attack, sexual reference. I think that’s about it.

Word count: 2000-3000

A/n: I’ve been absolutely obsessed with shameless lately and Carl is my favorite by far. Of course I had to stay up till 2 AM to write this. I’m currently working on a request sent but if you have a request please don’t hesitate to let me know :) enjoy my bad writing.

⚠️ if you are sensitive to topics of mental health please don’t read this. Your safety and mental health is a top priority. ⚠️

This gif of Carl makes me want to scream 😆

——————————————————————

Your POV:

It was known that life wasn’t fair.

It never was and it never would be.

It seemed like I could never catch a break.

Once life actually seemed good, something would come and fuck it up.

This time depression decided to fuck it up.

I’ve always suffered with it, but this time it was different. It was always manageable and short before but now, it was longer and harder to deal with.

The overwhelming fear that I wasn’t good enough and that everyone around me hated me was way stronger than it’s ever been.

Normally reading, writing, painting, or listening to music would help but I was too in my head this time.

I couldn’t get out.

Thought after thought filled my head as I held the small cold razor in my right hand.

It wasn’t the first time unfortunately.

It was some sort of relief. At the time that is.

Small droplets of blood run down my left forearm, the pain allowing for a small relief that I’ve been needing.

That relief is short lived when the thoughts come swarming back to my head.

Oh no not again.

No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t manage to get rid of the nasty thoughts.

Just one more.

One turned into two which then turned into three.

At that point I gave up. Not on life but on that form of relief.

It was only harming me not helping me.

I stand up from the toilet seat washing off the razor and my arm being careful of the fresh cuts.

The sting makes me wince as the water runs over my skin.

I turn the water off heading back to my room to change and hide the razor.

Spotting a grey long sleeve shirt I swap it out for my current t- shirt. Finding a pair of black, pink sweatpants I put them on taking my shorts off beforehand.

The heat from the shirt and pants envelops me making me feel happy.

I was no longer cold due to the weather that somehow only happens at night around here.

Lately things at home haven’t been the best. My parents are almost never home anymore. They never really cared about me in the first place.

I pick up my phone checking the time that shows up in big font.

11:43 PM.

My mind still runs as I check my recent notifications hoping and praying that Carl texted.

He didn’t.

Carl and I have been best friends for years. We met in school of course.

To be honest I have no idea why he wanted to be friends with me. I’m the complete opposite of him.

He doesn’t seem to care though.

Yes he does he thinks you’re annoying that mean voice in my head sneers.

That’s not true.. right?

Those thoughts plague my mind sending me into a whirlwind of emotions. How pathetic am I to be easily persuaded by a single thought in my head?

The panic in my chest starts to rise signaling the worst thing that could be happening right now.

Fuck.

Immediately I find Carl’s contact, pressing the call button.

Placing the phone to my ear with a shaky hand, I try to take deep breaths.

After the fourth ring he picks up.

“Hello?” He says in a groggy voice.

Shit. I woke him up.

“Hi um” I start before stopping my sentence as I feel a lump form in my throat.

“Hey you okay?” Carl asks on the other side picking up on my hesitation.

“I um. I-is it okay if I um. Come over” I stutter pinching my eyes together trying not to break down.

“Yeah of course, I’ll wait for you outside” he says, shuffling being heard from his side of the phone.

“T-thank you” I say starting to head for my front door.

“I’ll be here” he reassures before hanging up.

I place my phone in my pocket opening the front door. Shutting the door behind me I start for the Gallagher house.

It’s probably a good thing I live a few houses down from him.

The dark cold outside fills around me. The cold somehow creeping through my warm clothes.

Walking fast down the sidewalk, the panic in my chest starts to worsen making my head fog up and my heart rate pick up.

Carls figure appears a few houses away. His body sitting on the steps to his house as he looks out at the road the street light illuminating his face just the right way.

Without even realizing it my pace quickens hoping that I wouldn’t start breaking down in the middle of the neighborhood.

As I get closer and closer the tightness in my lungs starts making it harder for me to breathe.

Shit.

Tears sting my eyes when I reach his calm yet slightly worried appearance.

He immediately gets up noticing me standing in front of him.

Without a word he leads me up the stairs and into his warm and cozy home.

Home.

This felt like home.

The tears in my eyes start to fall as the panic attack starts to take control. Normally I’d be able to stop an upcoming attack before it starts but this one was way to strong.

“Shit y/n” Carl whispers shocked at my sudden emotions. He quickly pulls my body towards the couch as tears run down my cheeks.

It was embarrassing to have him see me like this. Even though we’ve been friends for years, I’ve never been the type to express my feelings openly. I’ve never cried in front of him before.

There’s a first for everything right?

He holds my face in his hands, worry lacing over his beautiful features.

Sobs rack through my body as it gets harder and harder to breathe.

“I can’t b-breathe” I hiccup placing a shaky hand on my rapidly beating heart.

Fear starts to push into my mind.

Not the typical fears.

The tightness in my chest and the lack of air going into my lungs was starting to scare me.

Was I dying?

“Look at me” Carl says trying to get my focus on him. His hand taps my leg enough to get my attention but not enough to scare me.

Everything around me starts to spin making it extremely difficult to focus.

“Y/n look at me” he tries again this time moving my head in his direction griping my chin slightly.

My eyes lock with his, my entire body feeling like it’s gonna give out any second. “Follow my breathing” he says moving my hands to his stomach so that I could feel the rhythm of his breathing.

The rise and fall of his stomach underneath my hands calms me the slightest bit. It’s not enough to stop my internal and external freak out though.

He takes a few deep breaths keeping his hands on mine. His eyes hold contact with mine the entire time. Not in a creepy way of course but more in a concerned way.

Inhale

Exhale

I try to do what he’s doing, failing a few times.

Inhale

Exhale

My heart beats a mile per minute, my mind still racing.

Inhale

Exhale

My breathing starts to get better as I follow his lead.

Inhale

Exhale

I open my eyes for what felt like the first time. No more cloudy eyes filled with tears.

Inhale

Exhale

My heart beat starts to slow down the more I match my breathing.

Inhale

Exhale

The panic attack comes to a slow close, my body feeling drained of any stamina it originally had.

That was the worst panic attack I’ve ever had.

“Good” Carl comments making it known to me that he’s relieved that I’m no longer freaking out. Squeezing my hands in his slowly taking them away from his stomach he gives me a small yet sad smile.

I could tell he wanted to ask me about it but I know he didn’t want to push. Considering the fact that this was the first time I’ve cried in front of him, he was smart enough to know that I wouldn’t immediately talk about it.

My mind starts to clear giving me that much needed silence in my head. The silence I only seem to get with him.

I bow my head a few stray tears falling from my eyes.

“I’m sorry” I whisper, the embarrassment starting to show through.

Everything I’ve bottled up has presented itself to the one person I didn’t think would be there to see it.

“Hey, hey” he says lifting my head wiping the tears from my face.

“Don’t ever be sorry for something you can’t control” he frowned looking into my slightly glossy eyes.

His green eyes stare deeply into mine with an emotion I didn’t quite know. His face shows so many emotions that tell me exactly how he feels about the situation. He seems more shocked and worried than anything.

I nod my head silently saying okay even though I was gonna continue saying sorry even in times where I did nothing wrong. That’s just me though.

After a few seconds of us sitting in silence, he reaches over to the coffee table grabbing the remote before turning the tv on. He slightly lays down urging me to lay down as well.

Grateful that he decided to leave it, I lean down next to him making sure I don’t get in his way.

“Want to watch something specific?” He asks turning to me pointing the remote towards me.

“Um. I don’t know” I answer looking down at my arms. My left sleeve had risen to the point where the fresh cuts underneath where showing. I pull my sleeve further down my arm quickly enough to make sure Carl didn’t see.

I was to busy worrying about my sleeve that I didn’t notice the fact that Carl was starting at me the entire time. With him staring at me meant him also starting at my exposed arm.

I didn’t pull my sleeve down fast enough.

He saw my arm before I could even blink.

His expression changed when I turned back towards him. This time he was more sad and discouraged.

“Oh y/n/n” he sighed leaning up so that he was closer to me.

He takes my arms in his hands slowly lifting both my sleeves up.

The right arm only had a few scattered scars from a while ago, but the fresh cuts on my left arm show in full display, a few of them still slightly bleeding.

He runs the tips of his middle and pointer finger around the cuts focusing on the sight in front of him. The small action causes goosebumps to rise on my arms.

“Why?” He questions lightly going over the cuts now. He was hesitant when asking one of the questions that I’ve been dreading since my depression started.

I’ve been hiding my emotions and my thoughts for so long that everything that should be let out is bottling up in my mind.

I trusted Carl with everything in me. I’ve always been scared to share my thoughts in fear that no one would care or they’d say that I’m an attention seeker. All of this comes from past trauma that has kicked my ass in the past and still does now.

It was time for me to tell him. He’s come to me in the worst times of his life crying at my shoulder. It was time to allow myself to do the same.

“I needed a release” I start, clearing the silence in the air.

He looks up at me a mixture of surprise and sadness knowing that I was about to open up about everything going on.

“My mind won’t shut up. I have these overwhelming fears that everyone around me hates me. That you find me annoying. That I’m not good enough” I explain looking at him for his reaction.

“There’s a lot more shit that I still need to talk about but I think for right now this is a good start” I say showing a tight lipped smile.

His eyes soften at my explanation.

“I don’t find you annoying at all. You are the only person I like talking to other than my family” he says moving his hands back down to mine.

“Truth is. I’ve had a crush on you since we met. I just never had the guts to admit it” he says rubbing small circles into my hands.

Relief and delight fills my body at his sudden confession. Relief that he wasn’t judging me for my thoughts and delight because the crush I’ve had on him for years was reciprocated.

I smile at him squeezing his hand “I’ve had a crush on you too.”

A smile graces his face now at my confession. He wraps his arms around my upper body pulling me towards his chest.

I feel myself melt at his touch as the sensation of calm runs through my veins.

I wrap my arms around his neck, my head finding it way to his chest. Our heartbeats quickens a bit at the interaction.

He kisses the top of my head making sure that I know he’s sincere about his confession before pulling back from the embrace.

“Let’s get you cleaned up” he says standing up from the couch. He reaches his hand out to me wanting me to take it.

“Okay” I smile taking his hand, standing up with a little bit of his help.

My body is still shaky which means my legs feel like jelly underneath me. Exhaustion still evident within me.

He leads me to the kitchen taking his hand out from mine when we reach the counter top and the sink.

I clear a spot on the counter before I hop up on it, waving my legs back and forth like a child.

He grabs a cup filling it with water handing it to me.

“Drink this” he demands handing me the cup while trying to sound stern even though he’s gone soft for me.

“Don’t go acting all mean on me now” I chuckle taking a sip of the cool water.

“I’ll be back” he laughs shaking his head at my statement. He walks up the stairs and out of my sight leaving me to sit with my almost clear mind.

I take a few more sips of my drink as I wait for him to get back.

A few minutes later he walks back down the stairs holding a first aid kit.

“Sorry I took so long, I couldn’t find it at first. There’s so much shit in this house that everything I see is lost the next day” he snickers examining the box in his hands.

I laugh as he sets it on the counter to the left of my body. He opens the box searching through the contents to find the things he needed.

He grabs some ointment and some alcohol spray, placing them off to the side. He then grabs bandage wrap placing that to the side as well.

Walking over to the laundry he picks out a dish rag walking it back over to the sink. He runs the water over half the rag making sure that that water is rung out.

“Ready?” He asks moving to my left side.

“Your not doing surgery on me right?” I ask trying my best to sound concerned for my safety.

I laugh a little to try and lighten the mood considering the circumstances i got him involved in.

He laughs as well placing the cold wet rag on my forearm. Focusing on what he’s doing he gently runs the rag along my arm making sure to clean up any blood or dirt that has built up around the cuts.

The more he looks at it the more I can tell it’s starting to affect him. His once smiley face turned serious as time went on.

“Promise me you won’t do this again” he pleads taking his eyes off my arm. He looks up at me with pleading eyes.

“I promise” I say giving him a genuine reassuring look that both me and him need.

It’s hard to make a promise that you don’t know if you’ll keep, but I know that if I do break the promise he would understand. Of course I’m gonna do everything in my power to never do this again.

His eyes light up at my promise making him smile. Seeing him happy about my promise makes me even more determined to not break it.

Using the dry side of the rag he dries up my arm, placing the rag into the sink for someone else in the house to take care of it.

He grabs the spray from off the counter uncapping it and pointing it towards my arm.

“This is gonna sting” he says spraying it onto the fresh cuts. The stinging sensation flows through my arm making me wince slightly.

It wasn’t the worst pain in the world but you could definitely feel it.

He quickly finished up with the spray giving me a sympathetic look as he caps the spray and puts it back onto the counter.

He looks back down at my arm grabbing the ointment unscrewing the lid.

He applies small amounts on my arm before rubbing it over the cuts with a gentle touch I never thought he’d have.

That alone makes my heart flutter.

I stare at him with loving eyes as he cleans his fingers off and grabs the bandage wrap. He starts to wrap my arm with the bandage making sure that it’s tight enough that It won’t fall off but not tight enough for it to cut off my circulation.

“There, all done” he smiles placing everything back into the kit shutting it closed.

I smile before looking down at my bandage wrapped arm. The white wrap goes around almost my entire forearm. The sight makes it look like I belong in a psych ward.

That thought makes me frown knowing what I did to myself.

I didn’t deserve that.

He didn’t deserve that.

“Hey” Carl says gaining my attention. I look up in his direction as he moves in between my legs.

“It’s okay” he says placing his hands on my hips. He looks at me with soft eyes.

The tears in my eyes start to fall down my face again. I quickly wipe them away trying to make it seem like I wasn’t just crying in front of him.

Carl takes my face in his hands rubbing my cheeks with each of his thumbs. “I don’t want you to ever feel like you can’t open up to me” he says keeping his eyes trained on mine.

“I know you don’t like talking about your feelings but it’s obvious whatever’s going on is hurting you. I don’t want you feeling hurt” he whispers the last part tears of his own starting to form.

“Carl please don’t cry” I say lifting my hands to his face so that I could wipe underneath his eyes. He moves his hands from my face down to my hips again lightly squeezing the fat that is there.

“Things at home haven’t been the greatest” I start about to tell my whole life story to him.

He stares at me intently urging me to continue my words as he rubs my hip bones with his thumbs.

“My parents were never around. I practically raised myself my entire life. Anytime they were home they would constantly yell at each other” I say looking at him then looking around the room.

“I’ve been dealing with depression and anxiety ever since I was 9 or 10” I confess. His eyebrows furrow at the age I said. That was a year or so before me and him met.

“It hasn’t been to bad to deal with. I can deal with it on my own, but this time it was worse” I bow my head feeling slightly ashamed at the fact that I couldn’t control it.

“I didn’t think I could go through this one alone so I came here” i finish as I look around the house. The safe proximity helping me feel okay.

I look back to him waiting to hear a response. He looks at me with big eyes and a small sad smile.

Out of nowhere he leans his head forward capturing my lips in a passionate and sweet kiss.

The kiss is soft and filled with the emotions running through his head.

My stomach explodes with butterflies, our lips move in sync with each other.

He keeps his hands on my hips this time squeezing them a little bit more than before.

A little out of breath we pull away our foreheads leaning against each other.

“Im so sorry if I gave you a reason to not trust me with everything you’ve gone through” he whispers to me touching his nose to mine.

“Carl” I start looking into his eyes. “Please don’t let yourself think that I don’t trust you. I trust you more than I trust anyone else in my life” I say.

“From now on I will talk to you anytime something happens. I won’t bottle things up anymore” I promise him taking my forehead away from his.

He smiles at me before wrapping his arms around my shoulders while mine wrap around his waist.

“You don’t know how long I’ve been wanting to kiss you” he chuckles resting his head on top of mine.

“Trust me. Me too” I smile leaning my head up to kiss the side of his jaw. He looks down at me a huge smile crossing his face.

“This definitely isn’t the right time but is it wrong for me to say that you kissing my jaw is a huge turn on” he says pulling away from our hug.

“Oh really” I smirk purposefully moving my hands to his waist so that I could pull him closer.

“Want me to prove it” he asks maneuvering his hands along my thighs dangerously close to where he wanted to be the most.

I would be lying if I said this wasn’t turning me on as well but instead of giving in I decided to be a tease.

“Nah I’m good thanks though” I say nonchalantly jumping down from the counter grabbing my glass that previously had water in it.

“You son of a bitch” Carl says looking at me as if I spit at him. Putting my glass under the faucet I turn it on filling the glass back up with water.

I point my left middle finger at him while I take a large sip of the water.

He looks at me in disbelief his eyes slightly wide.

I’ve never been like this before but I guess now I’m gonna show every part of me that he never knew.

“So that’s how you want to play huh?” He asks moving closer to me. He has a smug look on his face like he’s about to pounce at any moment.

“Don’t you dare” I say placing my glass down before backing away from him slowly.

He continues moving forward trapping me in the corner of the sink and the refrigerator.

Suddenly running towards me he picks me up making me squeal.

I wrap my legs around his waist while my arms wrap around his neck trying to make sure I don’t fall.

He laughs placing his hands around my back. He spins me around in a circle keeping a strong grip around me.

“I like this position” he comments earning a slap to the side of the head from me. “Stop it” I laugh wrapping my arms around his neck again.

He walks us to the living room lightly throwing me down onto the couch before landing on top of me.

He leans up to place a short kiss to my lips before turning the tv back on to a random channel.

He switches through a few channels before giving up. There wasn’t anything good on since it was practically the middle of the night.

It was some sort of animal channel but we didn’t care.

We only cared about each other.

He cuddled up to my chest pulling my sleeves back down my arms to my hands knowing it was annoying me.

I play with his hair as both of us start to loose touch of reality and start to blink back sleep.

Tonight’s actions run through my head one last time before I fall asleep with him cuddled up to me.

I hope every day includes special moments like what we had tonight.

——————————————————————

A/n: Every imagine I see they say Carl has blue eyes. When I looked it up on google it said that he had green eyes. So that’s what I went with. Hope you liked the imagine :) I had a great time writing it.

#carl gallagher #imagine #carl gallagher x reader #shameless #mental health #sh trigger warning #fluff

556 notes · View notes

darkestcorners · 2 years

Text

polarity | 05 yandere!jungkook au

pairing: yandere!jungkook x (f) reader

genre: yandere

warnings: 18+ , toxic relationships, unhealthy and obsessive behavior , mentions of mental health, manipulation, blackmail, cheating,

word count: 13.1k

summary: Your best friend’s new boyfriend becomes infatuated with you…

Parts: 01 | 02 | 03 | CS | 03 JK | 04 | 05

A/N: So sorry for the delay but my wifi was doing me dirty again. Hope you guys enjoy !:) ALSO this is not edited yet so forgive me .

—

Neither of you said anything at first, not a single greeting or question was uttered. You both stood there, letting your eyes wander over each other in curiosity for god knows how long.

There was still one thing that stood out though. How the woman’s gaze kept returning to your necklace.

“I’m sorry, you are?…” She was the first one to speak, you were yet to form the appropriate response to acknowledge her and explain what you were doing in her son’s apartment.

You debated what you should tell her. The truth? It was out of the question, you were naive but not that naive. The first time meeting her and you immediately jump to accuse her son of blackmail and tell her everything wrong with him? Those were dangerous waters, you still didn’t know if what Jungkook told you about his family was true or not.

There was so much left unclear and so much yet you didn’t know.

“I-,” You take a step back, further widening the door open. “I’m Jungkook’s girlfriend.”

The lie sat surprisingly well on your tongue, as if that’s exactly what you truly were now. You supposed it was, not willingly but that’s the title he would undeniably give you.

His mother doesn’t seem as shocked as you expected her to be despite the way her eyes widened momentarily, and her mouth opened slightly as a gasp left her.

“Oh!” She told you, her face relaxing as realization slowly seemed to hit her. “Yes, of course. He told me about you.”

He had?

You can’t help to be taken aback, not expecting Jungkook to actually mention you to his mother. How long had she known about you? Was it a recent thing? You wondered if Jungkook had already fed her too many lies , convincing her that he had formed a normal relationship with you.

The thought made you uneasy, how far had Jungkook planned this exactly?

“O-oh, really? I’m sorry I wasn’t expecting you.” You glance behind you, awkwardly shifting your gaze as you try to figure out what to do next. It felt unnatural and you weren’t sure how to go about any of this.

Had Jungkook been so confident that he didn’t expect you to tell his mother any bit of the truth or about his demented actions? Or did he simply not care?

“Please, come in.” Feeling like the outsider , you moved to the side as the woman gave you a smile and slipped past you. Her heels clicked against the floor and echoed throughout the entire apartment. You shut the door gently before taking unsure steps behind her.

The food she had brought in the tupperware filled the air in no time, overpowering the scent of the breakfast that Jungkook had placed for you on the counter. She set the container next to your food before flashing another smile, a tight lipped one that was arguably weaker and more hesitant.

“I apologize , I didn’t want to meet you this way. “ She tells you as she takes a look around. “ I assumed Jungkook would bring you over for dinner to our house eventually..”

You wanted to ask her so much, your curiosity was threatening to overflow but you had to force yourself to reel it back in.

“U-Uh yeah, I’m sorry. I just, I didn’t even know Jungkook had said much about me to you.” You explain as you cross your arms over your chest and stand awkwardly on the other side of the counter. “ He left to go run an errand, he won’t be long.”

She nods in understanding. You begin to wonder how often his mother visited him, he gave the impression that he wasn’t close to her anymore for obvious reasons but if they truly had that bad of a relationship, you assumed she wouldn’t be showing up at his apartment with a home cooked meal for him.

You could feel Jungkook's mother stare at you again, her eyes going downwards as she took in your attire. A bubble of embarrassment took over you, not only because you probably looked like a literal mess but because you somehow thought she just knew of the activities you had been up to all night. It almost made you feel shameful.

“He actually hasn’t told me much about you, he’s only mentioned you occasionally but I had no idea you two were that serious.” His mother says to you and when you don’t immediately reply, she quickly voiced her regret.

“Unless you aren’t that serious, I apologiz-“

“No! No it’s okay, we are.” You confirm, just finishing up digging your grave.

Her face relaxes, giving you a sympathetic look.

“I’m glad. My son is a bit private, even with me, so I don’t really know what goes on much in his life.” She adds as she stares down at the tupperware container.

“There’s plenty in here for you too by the way. don’t be shy.” She motions down to the food as you take a seat, realizing that standing still like a statue isn’t going to help the tension.

“Thank you,” You force out a smile. “You two are close, then?”

As soon as the words leave you, they feel rude and invasive which makes you stumble over your next sentence.

“I-I don’t mean to intrude, he just hasn’t told me much about his family.”

Her face doesn’t give away any discomfort by the question.

“Don’t worry, you’re not.” She assured you as she fixed her gaze on you. “ I don't know what my son has told you exactly but no, we aren’t as close as I would hope.”

At least that part was true, your thoughts whispered to you.

Perhaps Jungkook wasn’t a complete liar but you couldn’t yet be convinced , there were certain doubts still in place. What you had found in his bathroom was just one of the many hidden parts of him.

“Jungkook can be difficult but I suppose I can’t blame him. “ She continues as she turns, her eyes landing on the upper cabinets.

You listen intently, her words catching your attention as you watch her pull out a plate.

“It was my fault, I spoiled him too much. I gave him everything he wanted until I noticed how much I was ruining him so I stopped.” Her words remind you of what Jungkook had told you on Christmas, now it seemed like you were finally hearing his mother’s side of the story.

“The change was drastic but our family therapist urged me to fix my bad habits with Jungkook so he wouldn’t end up with bad behavioral issues. “ She states nonchalantly, as if she wasn’t discussing some intensely private matters with you. You wondered if she probably assumed Jungkook had already told you this.

She takes the lid off the tupperware and scoops up some of the hot food onto the plate. You can’t help but notice the way her hands slightly tremble as she does so.

“He really was the sweetest boy, he was so clingy to me always. I had quit my job completely since the moment he was born so I spent all my time with him. “ Once she finishes pouring a good amount of food on your plate, she clicks the lid back on.

“But as he grew older, I noticed he had formed some pretty bad separation anxiety.”

Separation anxiety.

You took the plate she handed over to you, distractingly picking up the chopsticks as you nodded along to her words. She took a long pause, leaning over the counter and rested her chin on the palm of her hands.

“It was normal, you know? The therapist told me it happened to lots of kids. Especially since he was an only child, he had all my attention.” His mother smiled fondly as she said it, her eyes were sincere and twinkly at the memory.

“But our therapist told us that we needed to fix that, Jungkook was an angel with us but he started having some behavior issues at school. Not listening to the teachers and having tantrums about wanting to go home, he hated leaving my side.” She chuckled breathlessly, rubbing her temples.

“So I did what the therapist said, I stopped giving him everything he wanted. I also went back to work and that helped me balance the attention with my own life.”

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary with her words, you thought. To you, it sounded like a normal parent doing the best for their child and some regular family issues but then you wondered why Jungkook had such a more negative and dramatic view of it, had it impacted him a lot more than his mother realized?

“My husband hated the idea, he wanted me to stay home and give all my attention to Jungkook. “ You took a bite out of the delicious food she had given you, trying not to seem too put off by what she was telling you.

“He had an old fashioned mindset. He still blames me for Jungkook resenting me until now but he doesn’t understand, the therapist told me Jungkook had an almost unhealthy attachment to me and that it would cause problems later in his life if I didn’t try to fix it then.” She sighs, looking genuinely upset but she quickly masks it with a sad smile.

“But I feel like Jungkook is finally letting go of the past, you know?” His mother tilting her head at you as her fingers played with the ends of a paper towel in front of her.

They even shared similar mannerisms, you thought to yourself in dark fascination.

“ Lately, he’s been visiting more often and I do wonder if it’s because of you.”

You nearly choke on the food in your mouth when she says that. You let out a cough, swallowing down the last bits of rice.

“Me?” You ask her with an evident confused expression.

She nods, her eyes lingering on your neckline again.

“That necklace. My son gave it to you, didn’t he?” Her tone is inquisitive but light. There is no doubt she’s an attorney, she held that intimidating yet persuasive stance to her.

You can’t hide your shock as you peer down at the dainty butterfly pendant.

“Yes…how did-“

“It was mine, well it used to be mine.” She gives you another long stare and a smile tugs on her lips. “ My husband gave it to me when we first started dating. I told Jungkook I’d pass it down to him for him to give to the love of his life.”

“Granted, I told him that when he was only about 13 so he laughed in my face and told me I should just keep it instead because he’d never love someone as much as he loved me.”

You could practically feel the blood draining from your face. The food in your stomach threatened to come right back up.

“Of course this was before we had gone to those therapy sessions and he ended up resenting me completely not long after that so I thought he had forgotten about it.” She laughed, looking a bit stunned at her son’s erratic behavior and how he managed to remember something so seemingly insignificant.

“It gives me so much hope, you know?” His mother beams suddenly, her expression fully morphing into one of pure happiness. “My son finally is starting to talk to me more, little by little. It must be this positive change in his life.”

She was referring to you.

She thought you were the positive change in her son’s life that was causing him to finally start to rekindle his relationship with her. You wanted to laugh at the thought but you couldn’t even completely deny it with full confidence. Could that be partly true? You supposed it was strange that Jungkook had a strained relationship with her all these years and suddenly starts talking to her more and visiting her more often the moment he formed this sick relationship with you.

Or was it just a coincidence? You didn’t know what to think anymore.

Why you would have any sort of impact on him bettering his relationship with his mother was beyond you.

“You…you think that’s because of me?” You had set the chopsticks down, giving his mother your full attention.

“I mean, yes.” She nodded, knitting her eyebrows. “ You seem like a sweet girl, it could be that he’s simply needed that love and encouragement from someone in his life to push him to get close with his family again.”

You didn’t know what to say to that, your mouth hung open slightly .

“I apologize, I didn’t mean to put this amount of weight on your or anything but I’m just so glad my son is happy with you.” His mother rushes out the words, standing straighter. “In return, he’s probably just naturally been wanting to change and get close to me again.”

“Love does that to people, you know.” Her eyes meet yours and you can’t see any deception in them, she truly meant what she was saying to you.

Love.

You don’t know why you would doubt it, his mother seemed so heartbroken when she was explaining how much Jungkook had turned against her when she thought she had been doing the best for him. It seemed as if she was desperate to finally have some of her son’s love back and for them to be close again.

It wasn’t as if you were a mother so you couldn’t exactly judge her. You knew it must have been hard for her, she clearly seemed to want the best for her son, as any mother would.

It made you feel bad for him, and you knew you were nearing dangerous waters with those types of feelings surfacing inside you. But somehow the image of a young Jungkook being left so confused by the drastic decision of his mother’s attention being taken away was slightly heart shattering. From what his mother said, this likely happened when he was thirteen so just at the start of his preteen stage, it had probably made things even more difficult for him to cope. He was only a young boy.

Vulnerable and helpless.

You pushed the pitiful image away, scolding yourself.

It was concerning how much you were willing to sympathize with Jungkook, no matter how sad some parts of his childhood were. This was the person who had you blackmailed and cornered into being his girlfriend. This was still the guy who came in and shattered your relationship with your best friend .

He also showed you the true colors of your best friend, your thoughts reminded you bitterly.

“I really hope I didn’t scare you off with that, I just got too caught up in the moment.” His mother’s voice brings you out of your inner turmoil.

“No no, it’s okay. I understand.” You reply to her with a reassuring smile. “ I’m glad to know more about him.”

She nodded at that, a new expression taking over her soft features.

“You’re pretty quiet, I always thought my son would go for the opposite.”

Her comment sits uncomfortably with you, not knowing exactly what she meant.

“Really?” You reply instead.

“My son is just really strong minded at times, he's a lot to handle so I just imagined he’d go for someone that would keep him in line. More outgoing or bold perhaps.”

You can’t help but wonder what she would’ve thought if Eunji was in your place. She seemed to fit the description better, no matter how much Jungkook denied ever liking her you couldn’t deny that they looked like they fit each other. You also can’t help but wonder that if maybe Jungkook would have given Eunji more of a chance, he would have actually fallen for her instead.

That scenario would have been a dream come true for you a few weeks ago, it would have been your saving grace, even if it meant you’d have to completely resign to Eunji’s love forever and watch her be in love with someone that wasn’t you.

Now though, that scenario made your stomach turn for a completely different reason.

You found yourself scared at the realization that you didn’t like the thought of Jungkook preferring Eunji.

It made a familiar burning sensation bubble inside you, a feeling you thought you could only ever feel in regards to Eunji in the past when you saw her kissing and flirting with anyone.

Now, that ugly feeling of jealousy was not for her but for Jungkook.

“But I like you,” His mother added in a whisper, almost playfully as she raised an eyebrow. “ You kinda remind me of myself when I was your age.”

That made you feel even more bewildered, a mix of emotions ran through you , each one too contradicting to dissect.

“Jungkook told me you used to suffer from anxiety, “ You comment gently, swallowing thickly. “ I do too.”

“Is that so?” She seemed a little surprised by the sudden reveal, but she processed it fairly quickly. “ Well, it looks like we are quite similar.”

“I bet my son takes good care of you then, he was also so sweet to me when I used to have panic attacks.” She comments and you don’t why that brings you comfort.

Deep down, you were afraid Jungkook had possibly lied about that just to feed into your weaknesses.

“Yeah, he does.”

He does.

You weren’t as reluctant to admit that to yourself as you should’ve been because it was simply true. He did provide comfort to you in those moments of terror and uneasiness. But he was also the one who caused so much of those feelings. He was the one who had cornered you, the one to push you into his life without asking or caring for your willingness.

Was it fair to say Jungkook knew how to give you the sensation of safeness you longed for while also being the one to so easily rip it away?

He could be two things at once, you supposed.

Two things could be true at once. No matter how contradicting they were.

——

You were left staring at the wall in silence for far too long after Jungkook’s mother left with a chaste excuse of being late to a meeting and you reassured her you would tell her son that she came by. Picking at your nails, your eyes danced across the living room, the silence would’ve been uncomfortable if your thoughts could let you rest but they never did. You soon came to realize that you were never truly alone but your mind always proved to be bad company.

The dishes were washed and you tried to tidy up the room to kill some time, not to mention you felt the responsibility to do something while you were staying here.

Glancing behind you, you eyed the plastic container. The food his mother had brought was sitting on the counter, and you were tempted to warm it up before Jungkook came home. It would surely be cold by now.

You untangled yourself from the curled up position you had been in on the sofa and crossed over to the kitchen. A part of you felt like you were intruding and that you shouldn’t touch any of his stuff but the other part of you felt ridiculous for even thinking that. Jungkook had practically forced you into his home, the least you could try to do was get comfortable in it.

It wasn’t as if he would mind you heating up food for him, would he?

You put the container in the microwave and your fingers twitched over the buttons until you clicked on the desired time.

Wandering off to the side, you turned your head down the hallway. Curiosity seems to get the best of you, that or your restlessness that you couldn’t put a stop to. You walked a few steps forward until you came across a room you had not yet explored. The door wasn’t fully closed and it only took a slight push of your fingertips to crack it open. The first thing you saw was a monitor planted onto a wide L-shaped desk that wasn’t occupied with much. It was organized with regular stationery. The room wasn’t as spacious as the others and you quickly realized this must’ve been Jungkook’s office where he got most of his work done.

Much like the rest of his apartment, nothing stood out much. The walls were blank here, no pictures hung up and it was minimalist in its appearance. You eyed the couple of folders on the desk, with some papers sticking out at the end and a coffee cup right beside them. You let yourself walk fully into the room, with your arms tightly crossed over your chest.

It was apparent that you didn’t exactly know what you were looking for, or why you were even looking for something. But after finding those pills in Jungkook’s bathroom, you couldn’t help but feel that you really didn’t know him at all. It wasn’t as if a certain medical condition was something he was obligated to tell you but you found it strange how he didn’t bring it up when he was so open about your anxiety disorder. Did he simply not find it important for you to know? You supposed it didn’t change anything but you felt a bit paranoid about him even more now.

It made you wonder what else Jungkook had not told you about. Was there more to him that you should know? After meeting his mother, it was clear to you that Jungkook had technically not lied to you but had simply given his side of the story. Was it possible that he was genuine in his feelings and that not everything he told you had an ulterior motive?

Was it possible that you may have made a misjudgment on his overall character?

But of course, you couldn’t forget the obvious. Your eyes met the corners of the walls, searching for a little red dot that resembled the one of the night you first spent with him. To your surprise, there was none. Craning your neck, you inspected every inch of the room with alert eyes.

You let out a sigh as you mindlessly near his desk, your hand landing on the mouse. The movement caused the monitor screen to light up, a dark background popped up with a white bar that demanded the password to unlock it. Biting your lip, your fingers hovered over the keyboard. It took you a while to remember it but you did, you had recalled Eunji mentioning Jungkook’s birthday a few times and despite your unreliable memory at times , you managed to track it down.

Typing it out, you shakily clicked the arrow but it didn’t go through.

“Obviously..” You let out a dry laugh at your stupidity. Jungkook was not dumb enough to have his birthday as a password.

Why were you even doing this? What were you hoping to find on Jungkook’s work computer?

You didn’t know but for some reason you felt the urge to explore every area of his life. It felt unfair to you how he seemed to know everything about you, to know how even your own brain worked but yet you didn’t seem to know some mindless details about him.

A door slamming shut broke you out of your daze and you flinched, quickly pressing the backspace button.

“Shit.” You cursed, not even wanting to risk Jungkook catching you snooping through his things. Backing away, you quickly slipped out the room and made your way back down the hallway.

Turning the corner, you saw Jungkook’s familiar figure next to the kitchen counter, he let his keys drop and turned his head to you with impeccable timing as you were just emerging from the entryway.

“Hi.” You say in a higher pitched tone than usual, you clear your throat almost immediately and watch his eyes trace behind you for a mere moment before he gives you a smile.

“Hey baby,” He drawls, holding his smile. A dark folder is held in his hands.

“Good news, everything is fixed.”

He hands it over to you and your hands greedily open it, feeling your heart hammer against your chest as you look over your transcript and a paper that holds the name of another university that isn’t your own.

“Your record will stay clean, they forgave your plagiarism accusation with no issues. Now all that is left to do is for you to apply to this new university.” He runs a hand through his hair, casually walking back over to the kitchen counter.

“God, I’ve been starving all day.” You hear him grumble, from the corner of your eye you watch as he picks up an apple but then just tosses it back over into the pile of fruit.

Your eyes return to the letters on the papers, eyebrows knitting together as you read what seems to be enrollment information of a college you wouldn’t even dream of ever attending. Jungkook nods over to the paper in your hands, tapping it with his index finger.

“Much better upgrade if you ask me. You can apply online today, I already told them to email your transcript over with a few….extra recommendations.” He explains with a knowing look, a sly smirk playing on his lips.

“But…if they forgave my scandal,” You begin, confused. “ Why must I transfer schools?”

Jungkook’s shrugs, “ I figured you wouldn't keep attending a place where there’s likely rumors spreading about you already. “

Rumors?

You had thought about that when they told you about the accusation, you remember thinking everyone already knew and would treat you badly because of it. I mean, who would want to befriend a student accused of plagiarism? It filled you with embarrassment.

“I’m sure nobody knows though.” You reasoned, not fully believing they could’ve figured it out so quickly. Besides, how would they possibly know?

Jungkook tilts his head, seeming to consider your words.

“You’d be surprised how quickly gossip spreads.” He tells you instead with a tone that entailed he already knew all about the college experience.

“I also figured you wouldn’t want to deal with Eunji anymore.”

You look up at him in surprise, eyes widening despite your attempt to keep your expression neutral. It’s a rookie mistake because Jungkook evidently takes notice,his dark eyes studying you.

You’re reminded of his threatening words this morning before left.

I never want to hear you even mention her name.

If Jungkook still felt so threatened by Eunji still, why was he the one bringing her up now?

“I mean, she likely has spread rumors about you sleeping with her boyfriend already. “ He frowns, a distasteful look morphing on his face. “ and it’s not as if you can deny them.”

His words hit you harder than you would’ve preferred and they answer the mental question. It was nothing new, you had already tormented yourself with the same thoughts since the night you first slept together. It’s not as if you expected Eunji to keep her mouth shut either, not with the way things had ended.

Yet hearing the words out loud from him was almost like confirmation of the less than ideal reality you faced. It made you feel sleazy, gross and like some type of home wrecker. If it made you feel like this now, you couldn’t imagine how you would feel having complete strangers talking about it, much less if they threw insults about it your way.

It was like you could already hear the taunting whispers of gossip.

What a slut.

I can’t believe she did that to her best friend.

Trash.

They were so close, I wouldn’t have expected that from her.

You knew it shouldn’t matter to you as much as it did because it would simply be a fleeing moment in your experience there. Your peers would forget about it in a few weeks, the only people who would truly remember it would be Eunji’s friend group that you had not even interacted much with before. But your stomach still churned at the thought of those stares filled with judgment, those well-deserved dirty looks from left and right.

“She’s a bitch but she has a big circle of friends, she’s pretty and likable. “ Jungkook continued, not breaking his stare. “And you have to admit she’s in the right, at least from an outside perspective. “

A burning feeling thunders inside you.

“A-Are you taking her side or something?” You can’t believe the words that leave you but you can’t help but feel defensive.

You didn’t like the way he seemed to be implying she was right, that she wasn’t the bad guy here and that it could be you instead.

His eyebrows scrunch together, a low chuckle leaving him.

“What?” He asks in disbelief. “Of course not baby. “

You swallow, “Well, that’s what it sounded like…”.

His fingers trace below your jaw and you keep your gaze down.

“I’m just saying she will make your life hell there.” The words don’t comfort you but they do make you recoil at the possibility of him being completely right.

“Can’t be worse than what she already has done to me.” You shake your head, crumbling the papers in your hands.” She’s such a fake person, I can’t believe I never saw it.”

I can’t believe how blinded I was by love, you think to yourself.

Jungkook doesn’t respond, he merely stares at you with an unreadable expression. His eyes slowly trailing down your face.

“Don’t you agree?” You can’t help but ask, not knowing how to feel about the look he was giving you.

Maybe it was your own paranoia but he always seemed to be eager to insult Eunji, his silence now made you want to shout at him for some reason. Just this morning , he was evidently pissed at the thought of you possibly texting Eunji and having any lingering feelings . You figured that he’d take this moment to jump at attacking her again, to take as another opportunity to rub in your face how much of a bad friend she had been.

It was ludicrous really, you didn’t know why your emotions were running so erratic. Even worse, you didn’t know why you felt such a need for him to agree with you.

He raises an eyebrow, a few seconds pass before his lips tilt upwards.

“I can’t believe it…” He states, mouth forming into a full grin as his thumb caressed your cheek.

You frown.

“You’re jealous.” Any little space between you two disappears in an instant, his free hand lands on your hands that had curled into fists clenching your papers.

His eyes peak down.

“You’re actually jealous.” He whispers down at you with a beaming glint in his eyes.

“What?” You reply. “No I’m not.”

You’re not, you deny to yourself.

It wasn’t jealousy, right? That was impossible. Those feelings were not meant for Jungkook and they never could be. Not for someone like him. But it was if he could see right through your hesitance, through your bluff. Your eyes lock on his lips as he shakes his head.

“No?” His hand wraps around your waist, pulling you into his chest despite your frustration.

“Then I guess you wouldn’t mind me raving about how beautiful Eunji is, how interesting she was…how sexy she looked on top of me everytime we fuc-“

“Shut up!” You hiss at him, pulling yourself away from him instantly.

The image of them together sneaks its way into your head and you absolutely loathe it. It makes you feel sick for all the wrong reasons.

“You’re disgusting.” Jungkook doesn’t seem bothered by your jab at him, in fact, he seemed to be having the best time of his life watching how upset you were.

He feigns a pout, grabbing you by your waist again and this time you try your best to push against him but you fail . His grip is strong around you as you hit his chest.

“Here I was thinking you were still stuck on some pathetic puppy love for her but it’s the opposite isn’t it? You want me to hate her as much as you do now.” His nose touches yours and you can’t escape his gaze, you can’t free yourself from the heavy truth in his statement.

“You’re too cute baby but you should know by now that I don’t give a fuck about anyone else but you.” He breaths, his eyes darkening and you don’t have time to react before his lips press against yours.

Against your better judgment, you relax against his hold and let his mouth claim yours.

By the time he pulls away, you’re out of breath.

“I think you’ll love a fresh new start at a new university,” He tells you as your eyes flutter open.

Your stomach dips, the pitter patter of your heart intensifies.

“With no Eunji and no reminders of her betrayal…” A stray piece of hair is tucked behind your ear, a habit of his that you have just become aware of. “ or yours.”

Jungkook was so confusing to you, that's one thing that never seemed to change. Sometimes he said the sweetest and most reassuring things to you, sometimes you felt like you could see his controlled demeanor crack. In very rare moments that his vulnerability shined through, he seemed like just a scared boy.

Other times, it seemed like he enjoyed placing so many doubts inside your head, like he took pride in being able to install so much insecurity and fear in you. His words didn’t sound intentionally malicious but why did they feel it?

“Unless I’m wrong?” His lower pitched tone made you look back up at him. His hand had stilled on your hair, his lips a straight line.

“Unless you really want to see the person who said so many horrible things behind your back everyday.” He cocked his head, eyes drifting away from you.

“And who knows? Maybe your presence will upset her enough to leak that tape herself.”

You bite your lip, shaking your head at the thought.

“I couldn’t save you then baby, no matter how much you begged me. It would be out of my control.” Jungkook states firmly, giving you a warning look as he taps your cheek.

Another habit of his.

You blink away your tears brimming at your eyes. “ I’ll transfer.”

Perhaps it was cowardly of you to give into him, to give into the doubts and insecurity but all you wanted was a bit of peace. You were exhausted, so incredibly exhausted with the panic that ran through you, with not knowing what to expect next and feeling so out of place. You didn’t want to return to school, yearning for some normality just so Eunji could take out her anger and vengefulness on you.

If anything , you should be the one seeking revenge . But you suppose you already had, you took the love of her life away from her.

That would have stirred up some guilt in you before, it should’ve now but you felt hollow. Numb. Eunji didn’t seem to evoke any of the deep feelings you spent years feeling for her anymore. It was starting to feel like you actually managed to rip her out of your heart completely, replacing the love for her with pure emptiness.

Thinking about her feels draining now.

The satisfied look on Jungkook’s face is momentarily disrupted by the loud beeping sound of the microwave which makes him flinch his head towards it.

“Are you cooking something?” He asks, letting go of you and crossing over around the counter.

“No,” You respond warily. “Uh, your mother stopped by earlier.”

He pauses in his steps, glancing back at you with a questioning look. You follow behind him like a lost puppy, awkwardly shifting to his side.

“ My mother?”

He didn’t sound upset.

That was good, wasn’t it? You felt like you were walking on eggshells again. Was his mother still a touchy subject? She had given the impression that their relationship wasn’t as bad as it used to be but you weren’t sure how much of that was true on Jungkook’s end.

You nod at him, giving him a nervous smile.

“She brought you food , I was warming it up for you.”

He opens the microwave, taking a look at the heated food before glancing back down at you.

“For me?” He placed a kiss on your forehead, pinching your cheek with his thumb and to your surprise, it feels like it’s the first time you don’t shiver at his touch. “That’s so sweet of you baby.”

It seemed like he was mildly shocked at your small act of kindness. You supposed it was a tad out of character after all. It wasn’t like you ever went out of your way to show him kindness except for when you had been trying to fool him.

The thought of him thinking you were being disingenuous crossed your mind immediately.

“I wanted to.” You inch closer towards the counter. “ I mean, you’re letting me stay here so that’s the least I could do, I guess.”

“I also washed the dishes and tidied up a bit, I hope you don’t mind.”

He closes the microwave after placing the food in front of you both and gives you a perplexed look.

“I don’t mind at all.” He frowns. “I want you to feel at home here, just like I want you to stay here. This is your house as much as it is mine now.”

His eyes are on you again as he leans forward, the dark curls tickling his forehead.

“You know it bothers me when you say stuff like that, as if I physically forced you into my house.” His fingers play with the lid of the tupperware. “ Like you’re some charity case to me… because you’re not. The only reason I had to say those things to you is because of how blind you’re being.”

“So your solution to everything is blackmailing me?” You lift your gaze to see his eyes sharpening.

He bites the inside of his cheek, obviously not liking the truth being thrown back at his face.

“Yes,” The lid is thrown to the side, the smell of the spices filling your nostrils again. “ At least until you realize how much you need me like I need you.”

You blink at him in awe of the audacity he always manages to have.

“Jungkook-“

“What did you and my mother talk about?” He cuts you off with another glare.

The question evokes a few seconds of uncomfortable silence and it leaves room for the inevitable tension to make its way through. Your fingers start to twitch, the flighting feeling that is a regular guest in your body makes its hourly appearance.

“N-Not much, she talked about you mostly.” You say, making sure your voice didn’ waver and he catches your hand when you attempt to move away from his side.

He keeps you in place, fingers wrapping against your own.

“What about me?” He didn’t sound curious but he didn’t sound interrogative either.

You think over how much to tell him, what if his mother didn’t want him to know about your conversation? Would she mind? What she has said was personal, very personal. She had revealed a big chunk of Jungkook’s past and his traumas, how his childhood had impacted him. Would he find offense to her saying that to you? Your head hurts with the endless possibilities of ways this could go wrong for you.

“About how much she misses you…how you guys seem to be getting closer now.” You say with a tight-lipped smile and watch him simply study you, awaiting more details.

“S-She thinks it’s because of me. That I’ve been a …positive influence.”

“Really?” He hums, looking down at the food in front of him that he still hadn’t touched. “ I suppose she’s right, you know? Ever since I met you, I’ve been in a far better mood.”

His eyes twinkle, a more upbeat playful look taking over him and you feel the atmosphere slowly shift. The tension lingered but it seemed like a distant cloud now, making its way out of your vicinity.

“I didn’t realize you had told her about me.”

He nods, sending you a relaxed grin.

“Why wouldn’t I? I figured I’d at least have to tell her about finding the love of my life. She’s still my mother after all, whether she acts like it or not.”

The love of my life.

You swear your heart stops momentarily hearing him say those words. You couldn’t get used to them and you’re afraid for the day that you might.

You want to tell him that he shouldn’t throw that word around, that he couldn’t possibly love you. But if you knew Jungkook even a little, you knew it was unwise to deny his love for you. Or more so his obsession.

“She also said she was kinda surprised that I was with you..” You rambled on causing him to raise an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Was she rude to you-“

“No! No..It’s just, I think she was shocked because we seem so different.” It was taking a lot of strength to withhold so much information, you wanted to ask him so much. You wanted to confirm what she was saying, to ask Jungkook himself what was his fascination with you, to deny what you were already brewing inside your mind.

You wanted him to deny your doubts, to tell you that what you had concluded wasn’t true and to bring some sanity back into you. Because if what you suspected was true, his feelings for you truly did run much deeper than you already feared. It scared you that it could all be connected to his mother. It was something you didn’t want to come to terms with, your entire body squirmed with the possibility of him attaching himself to you to the point of no return, to the point where he could turn against you if you made even the slightest mistake his mother had once made.

It was more concerning how you didn’t want to be like his mother, you didn’t want him to think you would abandon him.

The fleeing thought left as quickly as it came and your entire body squirmed at what you had just admitted.

No.

Something was wrong with you.

He was starting to get inside your head, mess with your perception of him. It was a known manipulation tactic, right? These feelings couldn’t be good, and they couldn’t be real. You couldn’t let yourself start to make room for him in your heart but it was as if he was forcing himself in without any warning.

“Really?” He bites his lip. “ I guess we are but that’s what I like about it. None of my exes compare to you.”

Exes.

That sparks another storm of curiosity.

“Were they all like Eunji?” Or were they all like you?

Jungkook paused, fingers playing with yours as they traced the skin of your palm.

“More or less, I don't really remember. “ He tells you. “Why does it matter?”

“I just feel like I don’t know much about you.”

He cocked his head to the side, eyes squinting slightly.

“What’s with the newfound curiosity, baby?” He rasps. “ Did my mother already fill your head with my sob story about how traumatic my childhood was because of her?”

You’re thrown off by his bluntness and his spot on prediction. Your fingers tremble restlessly under him as your breath hitches.

A smirk tugs at his lips.

“Seems like she did.” He brings your hand to his mouth, leaving a firm kiss. “Having a change of heart?”

You want to scoff, hating how his words cut right through you because he’s not completely wrong.

“I-It was just a question.” You pull your hand away, stepping away from him.

He looks amused as if he’s holding back a laugh and turns his attention back to the container.

“Did you eat?” He swiftly changes the subject and you nod as you make your way towards the other side of the counter, opposite of him.

You watch as he picks up the pair of chopsticks, motioning the food over to you.

“You should eat more, you probably spent days eating only ramen at that motel.” He comments as he picks up some of the meat and holds it to your mouth.

A little taken aback, you hesitate before taking the bite.

“I’m already full.” You manage to say between chews.

He ignored you, pushing the food towards you as he walked over to your side with lazy steps. A sigh leaves him as he brushes up against you, his arm coming to wrap around your waist.

You’re pushed against his chest, his chin resting on your inner shoulder. The action sends a shiver through you but you undeniably enjoy the warmth of his body. Part of you wondered why he still had that type of effect on you despite being with him in the most intimate way possible already.

“Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?” He mumbled against you, his breath hot on your ear.

The image of his pills you found in the bathroom flash through your head, painting an unfortunate picture. Suspicion makes its way through you.

Did he know? He couldn’t possibly know and you decided against bringing that up right now.

Was he referring to something else? Your thoughts wandered off to the texts on your phone. Hoseok. You were positive he didn’t know about that either, he hadn’t looked through it and he had thought it was Eunji.

You shake your head, fingers tapping against the counter in rapid motions.

“No..I don’t think so.” You made it clear to sound confused.

He hums against you, his other arm sneaking around you and hugging you tightly.

“No?” He repeats, laying soft kisses on your neck.

Falling silent, you crane your neck, allowing him more room for his lips to explore your neck and your eyes shut tightly. The feeling of his mouth against your skin was making you feel hot all over, the pleasure seeping through every inch of you. Your breath quickened and you let out a gasp when his teeth grazed your earlobe, his hand sneaking to palm the swell of your left breast.

He pulls away abruptly, his fingers lingering on your lower waist as he moves back.

“Finish eating, I have some work to finish.” He whispers gently, sending you a smile before he fixes your hair over your shoulder.

You swallow thickly, he doesn’t give you a chance to reply as he turns on his heel and makes his way down the hallway. You’re left a little shaken up, with a familiar feeling pooling at your core. Scolding yourself again, you bring your nails back to your mouth, biting away the nerves.

You let your head fall, your free hand touching the spots where he kissed you and your fingers slowly slip to wrap around the necklace on your neck.

What should be over is still drilled under your skin, you could feel him all over you even when he was nowhere near you anymore.

Glancing down, you stared at the container in front of you, boring holes into it as another observation crossed your mind. One that you weren’t sure held any significance.

“God, I’ve been starving all day.”

Yet Jungkook had not touched his mother’s meal for him at all. Not even one bite.

—-

The days went by rather quickly and not as dragged out as you initially expected them to be. Despite spending the week mostly inside Jungkook’s room reading and preparing yourself for the transfer of schools , you found yourself almost falling into a routine. The mornings were filled with that anxiousness that had gotten gradually worse every day. You tried to ignore it at first but it was impossible . It would resurface every other hour at the most random times. The panic attacks were becoming a more regular occurrence and you knew exactly why.

You had run out of your meds days ago but you still had not mentioned it to Jungkook. You weren’t sure why you were holding onto that small piece of dignity you had left. Making him purchase your prescription just made you feel like you were going to fully be depending on him and it would rip away all little control you had left.

But yet he was the person that comforted you every morning. He was the one to calm you down, whisper that you were okay over and over again until you believed it. He was the one to bring you the tea that always made you sleepy. He was the one to hold to his chest, turning on the TV and switching through the shows until he found one that peaked your interest.

You were right in thinking that Jungkook noticed every small detail, he proved it more to you everyday. He was so attentive , clingy almost but not the point where he suffocated you. He had let you have your moments alone during the day, leaving to go work at his office or at times you would see him just lounging around in the living room.

You were waiting to get sick of him, to feel so overwhelmed and cornered like you thought you had felt every time you had been with him before. You were waiting to feel that same uneasiness and fear you always had but that seemed to be diminishing as the days and nights went by.

The girl in the mirror that stared back at you felt foreign, not only because she looked drained beyond belief but because of the flaky bumps on your face. You had a tendency to pick at your skin whenever you felt incredibly anxious which happened to be nearly everyday now. Your meds had helped with that but ever since you stopped, the habit came back stronger than ever and last night had been your tipping point.

Not enough air.

That’s what your brain kept repeating to you. The bathroom walls seemed to be closing in on you, the tiles were blinding and you swore your vision felt blurry. You didn’t know where it came from but you supposed you never did. You had been brushing your teeth, just finished texting Hoseok another excuse as to why you had to postpone your cafe meeting to another day yet again. To your luck, he was rather persistent and it would’ve been cute if you had not been blatantly lying to him in the first place.

Before you knew it, your toothbrush fell out of your shaking hand and your heartbeat skyrocketed. The reflection in the mirror didn’t even feel real, nothing did when you were in this state.

“No no.” You mumbled to yourself, backing up against the door as your hands shook uncontrollably. Convincing yourself you were okay was the goal but unfortunately you were rarely ever successful.

Your mouth dried as you tried to swallow repeatedly. Running your fingers through your hair, you let out a sob and let yourself slide down the door. This was going to pass but it would take a while.

A long while.

You brought your knees up to your chest, your breaths came out uneven and hurried.

The knock on the door only made your heart beat even faster, as if that was even possible.

“Baby?” Jungkook’s voice rang through the other side of the door.

You didn’t reply, you only scooted over when you heard him rattle the doorknob and eventually swing it open. It took him a second to process the scene, his doe eyes widened before he sprung into action.

“Hey hey, what’s wrong?” He demanded kneeling down immediately, concern washing over this face as you flinched at his touch on your shoulder.

“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe!” The sobs left your mouth and each one seemed to shatter his heart because he shook his head and placed both his hands on your shoulders.

“Baby, you’re fine. You’re okay, I promise.” He said but his voice sounded distant as you continued to rapidly shake your head in denial.

“No! I can’t! I-I can’t.” You wheezed, taking another deep breath that didn’t feel like it was allowing enough air inside your lungs.

“Yes you can.” He firmly stated, his grip tightened around your shoulders, face lowering to yours as he met your teary gaze.

“You’re breathing just fine, if you couldn’t breathe you’d not be as conscious as you are right now.” More tears left you as you nodded your head at his words despite your mind still convincing you that he was wrong.

“But it feels like I can’t!” Your hands moved over to your face, your body in need of releasing the unwanted energy so you went to pick at your face, nails scratching down a part of your cheek until Jungkook’s hands yanked them away from you. He held both your wrists in one hand while he used the other to wipe away your tears.

“Stop that, I said you’re fine. You need to take deep breaths.” He instructed and just like last time, he imitated the action, breathing in and out as you copied him.

However, this time it didn’t seem to be working.

“No! N-No.” Your breaths quickened again despite how much he assured you that you were doing good.

“Baby, stop it. Stop it.” Jungkook ordered as you tried to escape his grasp but he only pulled you towards him. You let out a scream as you gave him another tug in your desperate state and managed to free one hand from his strong grip. You used that hand to throw a hit at his chest, it didn’t do much to waver him so you went up a bit further but he shifted, causing you to throw a punch directly at the side of his jaw.

He shut his eyes at the impact but didn’t flinch back, barely reacting to the blow.

“S-Sorry, I didn’t mean that!” You whispered, voice breaking slightly. “Just let me go! Let me go!”

His nostrils flared and for a moment you think he'd lash out at you but he doesn’t. He lets out a sigh instead and catches your hand again, tugging it forward.

“Shh it’s okay, baby.”

“I-I didn’t mean to hit you I swear! I’m sorry.” You swallow in another hurried whisper as you start to taste the tears on your lips.

“You didn’t hurt me, I’m fine. See?” He leans down to meet your eyes again, craning his neck so you can see his cheek. “I’m all fine.”

You nod, another whimper leaving you as you shut your eyes tightly. You hated feeling like this.

“You need to breathe with me, okay?” He stated. “You need to listen or else I’ll have to take you to the hospital.”

That made another wave of sheer panic run through you.

“The hospital? N-no, why? I’m okay, “ You said with pleading eyes, you relaxed in his grip a bit, your fingers curling around his white t-shirt instead. His hair was still damp from the shower and you felt a few droplets of water hit the top of your head.

“I’ll breathe, I’ll breathe.” You reassured as you started taking deep breaths again, your hands still trembling against him.

The last thing you wanted was to be at the hospital. You couldn’t fathom that, you knew what they would think, where they would likely recommend you heading to.

“Good, breathe with me. You’re going to be fine baby, you’re just fine.” Jungkook nods, wrapping both hands around you and laying your head against his chest.

You stay in that position for what seems like hours, breathing in and out until you finally feel the air return to your lungs. Your heart still pounds against your chest but it slows with every new breath and you feel like you might actually pass out this time but not from panic, from pure exhaustion.

The tears dry on your cheek and you're left with nothing but a runny nose that stains Jungkook’s shirt. He continues to run his fingers through your hair, shushing you everytime he feels your breath quickening again and forcing you to listen to him talk about the day he first met you, everything he liked about you, every little detail he had noticed ever since you moved in with him.

He cracks jokes even, ones you try to not find funny but fail to. It earns a smug smirk from him when he looks down to see you breaking into the slightest grin.

The memory slips away as you turn the faucet on and rinse your toothbrush. You felt incredibly vulnerable, more than you ever had been. Last night made you realize how much of yourself you had revealed to Jungkook, it felt even more intimate than sex. Not that you hadn’t indulged in plenty of that with him as well.

“The tea is ready,” The sudden voice makes you jump back, turning your head to see Jungkook leaning against the door frame with a mug in his hands.

“Jumpy?” He mumbled as he handed you over the mug with a grin.

You take it from his hands, hoping to wash away some of the exhaustion from last night.

His grin drops when he notices the marks on your face, a frown taking over his handsome features.

“We need to buy an ointment for these. ” His eyebrows furrow as he runs a long finger along your cheek, inspecting them further.

Embarrassment bubbles inside you as you pull away and take a long sip of the tea.

“They’re fine.” You swallow down the sweetness. His eyes follow your movements .

“You’re too pretty to be marking up your face.” He says in a scolding tone, glancing down at your hands. “We need to work on how you manage your anxiety.”

It was almost insulting that he sounded like a therapist in this situation given the ironic circumstances. That made you remember what you had been avoiding bringing up the past two weeks.

“I wanted to ask you about something…” You start, drifting your gaze from him. There was something about him that always seemed to carry an intensity when he looked at you that you couldn’t stand to look at for long.

He raised an eyebrow, urging you to continue.

“I…I saw some pills in the medicine cabinet,” You point behind you casually, chewing on your lip. “I’ve heard they can be used to treat…certain conditions like bipolar disorder or BPD.

His eyes shifted over behind you, towards the medicine cabinet and if you were expecting his face to give away something , it didn’t. His expression remained relaxed, no signs of being upset by you snooping through his things.

“Yeah, I have BPD.” He nods.” I have been diagnosed since I was a kid.”

You can’t help but be surprised at his calm demeanor . You expected him to be upset at you for looking through his things and prying into his health because who wouldn’t be? The more you knew about him, the more contradicting he seemed. When you thought you had him a part of him figured out, he proved you wrong again. Were you just never truly aware of his actual personality? Jungkook had not seemed to lash out once the entire time he was with you but yet you had made a complete villain out of him already.

“Oh.” You reply , eyeing him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to go through your things.”

He gives you a tight-lipped smile in response, leaning against the doorframe again.

“It’s fine,” He replied nonchalantly before he glanced behind him.

“I made breakfast, we should go eat before it gets cold.”

“Right, yeah.” You nod, walking past him and making your way out the bathroom. He followed behind you as you both walked out the room and into the hallway.

You passed his office as always and as always, your eyes lingered on the half creaked open door. Eyes boring into the little glimpse of his monitor. It was killing you to not be able to go through it, you didn't know why you felt such a need , a pull towards the room. It almost made you feel like some insane crazy girlfriend who threw her boyfriend’s things but you couldn’t help the itch.

It made you feel even crazier that Eunji’s words rang through your head every time you passed by it.

There’s something seriously wrong with him.

You thought you knew what she had meant but now you weren’t so sure you did. If Jungkook was capable of acting like a complete saint around you, making you even question if what he had done to you had even happened in the first place then you could only imagine how convincing he was towards Eunji, to someone he didn’t even like.

What had Eunji had been referring to? There was no way she knew of what Jungkook had put you through. Of how he had blackmailed you, how he formed you into making the worst betrayal.

Or had she? Had she suspected? Had he made some sort of slip up?

Was there more to this that you didn’t know? Those thoughts kept you up every night, they ran through your brain over and over again. They were almost as infuriating as Hoseok’s texts, asking you how you were , what you ate and how your day was going. You knew the best thing you could do was to block him, you would be doing him a favor but for some reason, you couldn’t let yourself do it. The guilt would eat you up alive every night too if you did that.

You broke your stare from the door and finally entered the kitchen, seeing a plate of bacon and eggs at the counter. Without a second thought, you poured a glass of orange juice in an empty cup and turned to give it to Jungkook.

The action was small, simple and domestic. But you saw the bright glint in his eyes, a smile quickly taking over him as he grabbed the cup and gave you a kiss on the cheek in return.

“This is how I always wanted it to be, you know?” He tells you as you lean over the counter to grab his plate and put it beside him.

“Hm?” You reply distractedly.

“You at my side, always. It’s how I always want it to be, I want us to be happy.” His voice is closer now, and you realize he’s right next to you. You look up to see his soft gaze, a rare look of vulnerability flashing through his features. . “You make me happy.”

You wonder how he’s capable of saying these things after what he saw last night, a complete meltdown like that would send almost any young guy his age questioning the entire relationship but Jungkook didn’t seem to mind at all. It was like he didn’t see any flaws with you, as if even your flaws made you perfect in his eyes.

It was concerning and you knew it wasn’t healthy but why was it so comforting?

“I’ll make you happy too, I promise.” He stared at you with that same pained look he had the first night you spent together ever since you moved in, the night when he asked you if you thought you could ever love him. It was the look that made every instinct in you want to hug him and tell him he didn't need to feel that way.

You blinked at him, eyes wide at his entire confession.

“I’ll make it so that you never even think about somebody else,” He whispered slowly, voice dropping an octave.

You were afraid that was already happening but perhaps not in the exact way he expected.

You started to back away but he stopped you, hand landing on your waist as he peaked down at you.

His lips tilted upwards as he took notice of your attire.

“Have I told you how much I love these little skirts of yours baby?” His hands tugs at the ends of it , making you let out a yelp at the exposed skin he caused by his wandering hands.

He chuckled, a playful yet mischievous look drowning his eyes. His half lidded gaze continued to completely eye fuck you as your thoughts ran off to a completely different route that promised a horrid ending for both of you.

You felt his arms wrapping around your waist, the familiar hot feeling returning to your face as one of his hands snaked under the skirt and palmed your inner thigh.

However, in the midst of your undeniable pleasure you couldn’t help but glance back at the hallway, your mind unable to escape Eunji’s haunting last words to you.

“W-Wait,” You tug his arms away from you.

He lets you go and shifts next to you. His overgrown dark curls messily brush up against his forehead and he pushes them away as he tilts his head down at you with a questioning stare.

“Not now.” You say and you realize it’s the first time you have actually rejected him since you moved in.

It seems to shock him as much as it shocked you, his eyebrows knitting together as a few seconds of silence pass. But then his face returns to the familiar neutral expression you’re used to, a smile plastering on his lips instead.

“Okay,” He simply says with a quick nod, sitting next to you as he hands over a fork to you.

You let out a shaky sigh, not liking the tension you unknowingly created because it’s obvious that Jungkook noticed a shift in you in that second.

——

It was a mistake. You knew deep down that you shouldn’t even be thinking about this.

While you got dressed, you kept telling yourself to back out of the idea. Sometimes you wondered if you had a thing for self sabotage because every decision you made only seemed to dig you into a deeper hole than the last.

Despite that, you threw your bag over your shoulder and took one last look in the mirror before heading out of the bedroom. It was weird how much this place was starting to feel like an actual home to you. Your mark on it had been placed on it without much thought, it started with tiny things like suggesting your preferred candle scents to Jungkook and now it ended in you picking out certain decorations that you thought fit the apartment better.

In a way, you thought the flowers in the kitchen and living room added some life to the dull interior. The pictures of your parent’s on Jungkook’s nightstand made it feel more homely. Your makeup in his bathroom added a more feminine touch maybe, your scent all over his sheets made you feel like you were in your own house back with your parents. You suppose you didn’t mind his scent either though, his cologne lingered on your clothes as well so perhaps you weren’t the only one leaving a mark.

You gripped your bag tightly as you emerged into the living room, shivering at the cool temperature that Jungkook always insisted on having.

He was sitting on the couch, a laptop in his lap as he deeply concentrated on whatever was on the screen. But once he noticed you, his head immediately turned your way and scanned the bag around your shoulder.

“Hey,” You give him a small smile and watch his gaze still glued on your bag until he slowly meets your eyes at last.

“Going somewhere?” He asks, ignoring your greeting.

Things had not been awkward like you had suspected they would be after that scene you pulled on him the other day. You thought that he had noticed something in you , that he may be suspecting something off with your behavior but everything had gone back to normal.

Well, as normal as it could get.

“Um yeah,” You glance towards the door. “I, uh, just thought I’d get some fresh air. I haven’t been out in nearly two weeks.”

The lie felt natural. It was partly true after all, you were always the type to prefer staying inside so with the lack of college classes, you had not felt the urge to leave the apartment much at all. That with the added anxiety you always tended to feel in public didn’t help either. However, you would start classes at your new university in a few days so it was best to start to get used to people again.

What better way to do that than to visit Eunji.

You almost laughed at your idiotic self, the last person you should be meeting is her and if Jungkook found out where you were headed, you were afraid that eerily calm demeanor he had exhibited this entire time would break in that second.

Jungkook’s eyes darkened slightly, his once soft gaze sharpening at your words. You could see the clear mistrust in them.

“You haven’t mentioned wanting to go out, we could’ve planned something.” He tells you, closing the laptop in his lap as he sits up straighter. He was dressed in his usual work attire, which you didn’t tend to see him much in since he preferred more casual clothing.

But earlier today he had a meeting at his father’s company and he was dressed in a button up black shirt with equally dark dress pants with a belt that hugged his waist.

“N-No, it’s fine. I just want some alone time, it’s no big deal.” You keep your voice steady, trying to sound as casual as possible.

“Right,” He nods, licking his lips. “Where are you planning on going?”

“Um, just around the park. I’ll probably just sit there and read a book for a while.” You start making your way towards the door and hear him lift himself off the couch behind you.

“Don’t be long, I don’t want you being out late at a park alone.” His words are firmer this time, no room for gentleness.

You turn back at him, “Yeah I know, I’ll be back soon.”

“Baby.” His voice causes you to halt in your steps again.

You expect him to call out your lie. Your heart drops for a moment, anticipating his next words being a direct insult of a condescending reminder of how stupid you were for trying to fool him.

But instead he simply reminds you of the obvious.

“Make sure to answer your phone.”

——

You have to admit you felt a lot more sane and in control this time around. It didn’t take any hesitation to knock on Eunji’s door despite how terrible of an idea this was. The warning signs kept blaring inside your head, demanding you to turn on your heel and leave.

Glancing down at your phone, you make sure that there is no possible way of Jungkook seeing your location. You turned it off immediately after leaving the apartment and you had never shared it with him in the first place but to be sure, you double checked that you weren’t sharing it on any social media platforms or with anyone in your contacts. While you tapped to exit out of an application, it was taking longer than necessary for it to close and you frowned. Your phone had been freezing up lately and acting slower than usual.

You sighed as you placed it back into your pocket. Despite how much you felt compelled to leave by your better judgment, you couldn’t let things go unfinished. It felt wrong to let things end like they did. It felt wrong to let things go like they did. In a way, you feel like you didn’t do yourself justice in the way you handled the situation.

The door in front of you swung open and you braced yourself for the wrath that you were about to be faced with.

Eunji looked as good as ever, you should’ve expected nothing less. It was clear that what had happened impacted you far more. Her long hair sat beautifully below her waist and her skin practically glowed, you’re remembered why you had been so infatuated with her for so long in that moment but you’re also remembered that you felt absolutely nothing now.

Seeing her should’ve made your heart face again but you’re glad to find yourself simply observing her instead of admiring her.

Her eyes immediately glared at your presence, her stunning face twisting in annoyance.

“What the hell are you doing here?” There was the tiniest bit of surprise layered underneath all that anger.

“I’m not here to fight with you,” You made it clear despite the bubble of anger inside you growing. Instantly you are cruelly faced with the reminder of betrayal and her lack of remorse.

“I need to talk to you about Jungkook.”

Eunji’s eyes darken further and a scoff leaves her lips.

“Are you serious right now? What made you think I’d even want to see your face again?”

Her words aim to cut you deep but you feel hollow. Empty. It reassured you that your love for her no longer took up a place inside your heart.

“I don’t care what you want,” You say through gritted teeth. “This is important, I need you to tell me what you meant when you said there was something wrong with him.”

You watch as her eyebrows furrow, her fingers tightly gripping the edges of the door.

“What happened? Did you realize your Prince Charming isn’t all that great?” She sneers, inching closer to you. “ Are you regretting fucking my boyfriend?”

You want to scream the truth to her, to tell her that you were the one who knew all along how demented her supposed perfect boyfriend was. It enraged you that she still had the audacity to blame you for this, to see you as the bad guy when all she had done was ruin your friendship and ignore you when you had warned her.

If only you knew how much I regret, Eunji.

“No.” You smile at her. “ That’s the part I’d never regret.”

Pain flashes through her eyes, and you watch as she tries to blink away the tears forming in them. Her lips are set in a straight line as she watches you with the most resentful look you had ever seen on her face. You can’t lie and say it didn’t tug something inside you. That was the type of look that nobody with a beating heart was immune to.

“Fuck you, Y/n.” She whispers to you, her face now only inches away from you. “ I hope he really does ruin your life.”

You ignore the dread that fills you with her words. “ Tell me what you meant.”

“What did you see in Jungkook that made you say that?” What did she know?

A spiteful smirk tugged at her lips, knowing how much it was eating you up brought her some satisfaction. It made the experience a little less horrible for her.

“And why would I tell you that?” She asks, feigning a look of obliviousness. “I think it’d be much better for you to figure it out yourself.”

You felt like ripping out your hair and for a second you considered throwing your promise out the window and completely lunging at her. This time there was nobody holding the either of you back.

“God damn it Eunji! Tell me what you meant!” You raise your voice, the clear frustration making its appearance in your crazed expression.

Eunji’s eyes scan your face, looking a bit alarmed by your lash out. You didn’t blame her, she had never seen you this way and you couldn’t even say you recognized yourself either. You let out a loud sigh as you run your hands over your face.

“Forget it, I should’ve never fucking come here.” You snap at her and turn on your heel, hating how belittle you felt even when you were meant to have the upper hand.

Was this how it was always going to be? You tried to have a backbone for once and she managed to throw you down beneath her once again. It resembled your relationship with Jungkook , with how he mentally always seemed to be ahead of you and no matter how much you would try to one up him, he came out as the winner time and time again.

“Y/n!” You groan as you hear Eunji call out your name, turning to look back at her.

You sent the dirtiest look her way as she peeks out the doorway and gives you a look full of pity.

“Ask your little boyfriend what he was doing walking into Professor Clark’s classroom a few weeks ago.”

——

The walk to the apartment was nightmarish. You feel your throat closing up before the elevator even reaches the desired floor and you’re seeing nothing but red as you make your way through the extravagant corridors.

Eunji’s words were not what you were expecting at all. For a second, you didn’t know if you should’ve believed them but you knew better.

Life was truly playing a sick game with you at this point. Why did everything feel like it was a plot to specifically ruin your life? Why did the people who were meant to care for you turn into your worst enemies? It felt unfair, so incredibly unfair.

What had Jungkook been doing with Professor Clark?

In his classroom? Eunji couldn’t have been referring to what you had initially thought. That she may have seen him when he went to go sort out your accusation. No. She knew what she was saying to you. What she was implying.

What had he been doing at your college in the first place?

And most importantly, why did you keep asking yourself these questions like you didn’t know the answer already? You think back to your plagiarism accusation, to how you remembered how vital it was to never plagiarize and that you had never once done it in your life. You think about how the entire situation played out, how odd it all had been. How you ran to Jungkook for help.

How easily he offered a solution, how easily he had fixed the situation.

It couldn’t be a coincidence, could it?

Was Jungkook really willing to go this far? Had what he had done not been enough?

You felt sick to your stomach as you neared the apartment door, your key card sliding with ease as you swung it open. Your legs felt wobbly as you made your way inside, not even knowing how you were going to go about this.

“Baby, you’re home.” Jungkook’s voice greets you as you walk further inside, the door shutting loudly behind you.

His figure appears before you, a hard look on his face as he presses his lips onto yours in a quick firm kiss. Your jaw clenched as he pulled away.

“We have a guest.” He informs you roughly, eyes boring into yours as he flashes you a forced sickly smile that you had not seen on him in what feels like ages.

It throws you off completely that you physically stumble to the side a bit.

Your entire body stiffens at his expression and your eyes trail over behind him to see the person sitting at the kitchen counter.

Hoseok.

—-

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