#should i get a tag system going for this? it feels too soon :")
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Inspiration Saturday/ Several Sentence Sunday
I started a new wip. No one look at me.
The inspiration from this shamelessly comes the fact that I've been working in labour and delivery for the whole month of May and there's an obstetrician/pediatrician couple here that always see each other in the OR and I instantly thought of Buddie. So please enjoy the first (long) snippet of Doctors AU, featuring Obstetrician!Eddie and Pediatrician!Buck. The rest of the 118 will also feature in the obstetrics/pediatrics field, although roles are yet to be confirmed. I'm not 100% sure about this and a little nervous about sharing it cause sharing words has felt weird lately, so I'm sorry if it's not great!
Tagged for Inspiration Saturday by @inell @hippolotamus (eventually smh) @cal-daisies-and-briars @dangerpronebuddie and @daffi-990 (I will be getting to all your snippets so soon!) Snippet under the cut to save your dash.
Eddie pushes through the doors of the NICU, his chest heaving. He doesn’t do this; he doesn’t let patients get to him. He’s a professional. He performs a surgery, delivers a baby, stitches up the mother and moves on to the next one.
Except today, he can’t.
Eddie strides down the corridor until he’s in the nurses’ station and begins to scour the brightly lit electronic board with all the patient’s names.
He can’t shake the feeling that he’s fucked up, that he should have called it sooner and rushed the mother to surgery the second he’d been asked to see her. She’d been labouring for hours, and she was tiring when they called him in to review her. One look at the monitor by her bed had told him all he’d needed to know – that her and her baby were in distress, and something needed to be done.
But, she’d clutched his hand and begged him to let her try just a bit longer.
Eddie squeezes his eyes shut and takes a shaky breath as he tries to rid his mind of the memory of hearing the baby’s heart rate drop on the monitor. Even after being an obstetrician for 10 years, nothing will ever prepare him for the gut-wrenching fear that comes during an emergency. The way you hold your breath and will it to increase, counting in your head as you wonder how much longer you let it go before you dive for the emergency button. He’d done an examination when it was clear the heart rate wasn’t going to recover, to see if there was any chance she could push the baby out, and his heart had sunk into his shoes when he’d felt the umbilical cord before he was even up to his second knuckle.
Taking some deep breaths through his nose, Eddie opens his eyes and scans the board, trying to find the name. It’s possible it’ll be too early – the nurses might not have admitted the baby on the system yet, but the pit in his stomach grows with each passing second that he doesn’t find it.
There’s a noise behind him – someone clearing their throat – and Eddie spins around as a deep, calming voice speaks.
“Hey man, can I help you with something?”
Eddie is instantly taken aback by the man in front of him. He must be new, because Eddie’s certain he’d remember if he’d seen this guy in the OR, and he’s looking at Eddie with concern, his eyebrows furrowed and blue eyes piercing into Eddie’s. He’s tall and muscular – obscenely so for (Eddie assumes) a pediatrician, with dark blond hair that’s been plastered with a criminal amount of hair product. He’s in a pair of delicate pink scrubs, with a white lab coat over the front. There’s a small, rainbow watch hanging from the breast pocket of his coat, and a name badge on his chest, with two tiny feet drawn just beside his name.
Evan Buckley.
“Hey, I’m Dr. Diaz – uh – Eddie,” Eddie says, awkwardly extending a hand towards the man. His grip is firm but warm, and his hands are soft, although Eddie’s not sure exactly why he’s noticing that.
“Dr. Buckley,” the guy replies with a friendly smile that makes the corners of his eyes crinkle. “Everyone calls me Buck. You looking for someone in particular?”
Eddie turns back to the board with a frown, folding his arms, and Buck sidles up next to him, mirroring his stance. Their shoulders brush, and Eddie notices how the guy is just a couple of inches taller than him. Interesting.
“Yeah I’m – uh – I’m looking for baby McKinnon? Born about an hour ago via emergency caesarean due to cord prolapse and obstructed labour, resuscitated immediately after birth and bought here.”
Buck frowns and pulls out a list from the pocket of his scrubs.
“Is everything okay with the mother?” he asks as he scans his list, “You’re an obstetrician, right?”
“Yeah, she’s fine, pulled through surgery and is in recovery now. Just wanted to check up on the baby – he looked pretty rough.”
Buck lets out a deep sigh next to him and Eddie whips his head around, doing a double take when he sees Buck’s expression.
God, no, please no, let him be okay, let him have survived, he’s just mixed up with someone else.
“I’m sorry, man,” Buck says gently, resting a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “We couldn’t stabilise him. He was so hypoxic and they couldn’t intubate him and we – I’m sorry.”
Eddie must make a noise because the hand on his shoulder tightens. His chest feels tight, like he’s not getting enough air, the world is beginning to spin. He take deep, gulping breaths of air as he tries to regulate himself, but it’s not use.
It’s too close. Too much like Christopher. His son, his perfect, 7-year-old boy, looked just like that kid when he was born. Eddie’s too close to this. He’s gotta get out.
“Hey, are you okay?”
Eddie shakes himself from Buck’s grip, blinking furiously as tears threaten to spill down his cheeks.
“I’m sorry, I’ve gotta – I need to go,” he says hurriedly, his voice cracking, and he turns on his heel. He doesn’t run from the room, but it’s a close one. He barely even registers Dr. Buckley calling after him as he briskly walks down the corridor, practically throwing his swipe pass at the door, and then he’s in the stairwell before he knows it, drinking in the crisp, cool air as he slides down the wall and comes to a rest on a step.
Fuck.
No pressure tagging @theotherbuckley @watchyourbuck @bidisasterevankinard @neverevan @babybibuck
@aroeddiediaz @spotsandsocks @bibuckbuckgoose @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove @nmcggg
@jesuisici33 @wikiangela @loveyouanyway @exhuastedpigeon @houseofevanbuckley
@epicbuddieficrecs @kitteneddiediaz @hermscat @worriedbisexual @thekristen999
@slightlyobsessedwitheverything @actuallyitsellie @idealuk @simpingforhotfictionalcharacters @loserdiaz
@elvensorceress @underwaterninja13 @rainbow-nerdss @smilingbuckley @steadfastsaturnsrings
@spagheddiediaz @thewolvesof1998 @fortheloveofbuddie
#james writes#yeah yeah i know#I really need to focus on my actual wips#but I wrote 1k of this in one dump so who knows#buddie wip#buddie#911 abc#eddie diaz#evan buckley#911 buddie#911#911verse#911 fanfic#eddie x buck#eventual buddie
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So I REALLY wanna do the first Iron Chef (I have an idea in mind!!) and I was going to sit down and do it today but I had like, a major mental health episode last night and I feel like I'm not really all "there" today so I was wondering if there's a time limit here??? I feel dumb doing it a week late but I thought the prompt was adorable <3
firstly, a big soft hug for you penny for having a rough time of it last night. please be kind to you today 💖
and secondly, no. there is no time limit on when you do it. obviously the sooner you do it the more in keeping it is with the theme of the challenge, since you'll have had less time to have thought about the idea. BUT i don't care if people leave it a week, a month, a whatever. it's supposed to be a fun challenge and i want you to enjoy doing it. if you don't feel up to writing don't make yourself. and if you don't like a prompt don't make yourself.
talk to me 🌙 + lissie's iron chef, prompt 1
#whataperfectwasteoftime#lissie's iron chef#but thank you for letting me know you want to be involved#should i get a tag system going for this? it feels too soon :")
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🌞 Just Hanging Out 🌞
Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female Reader
Genre: Fluff, suggestive MINORS DNI 18+
WC: 3k
Summary: To kick off your vacation, you find yourself at Rossi's mansion with your team for a big summer barbeque. A hammock in the garden catches your eye, and you enlist Reid to help you have some fun in the sun.
Warnings: reader is a tease, shy Spencer, sexual arousal (M and F) no physical smut (god I wish we still used the citrus system).
A/N: Here's my second entry to @imagining-in-the-margins CM Summer Sunshine Fic Challenge! Thanks to everyone who helped my pick the plot for this one :) I was also intending for this to be a reply to one of my requests for more BAU reader, but unfortunately tumblr deleted that request so 🤡 I'm tagging the account below anyways, and I have three more BAU reader fics coming in the next two weeks-ish, including my new series That's What You Get, so I hope you like this fic and be sure to look out for the others! Enjoy~
Here's my masterlist and my requests are open!
It was mid-August, and thankfully, the serial killers of America had given up crime for one week of the year to allow you to enjoy some much needed vacation time. The entire team had been put on annual leave, and you were determined to enjoy it to the absolute capacity of your ability.
Despite being together year-round, you actually enjoyed the company of your coworkers, so when Rossi announced he was planning a summer barbeque at his place to kick off your vacation time, you were ecstatic. If Rossi’s barbecuing skills were anything like his pasta making skills, you were expecting to eat yourself into a food coma and not wake up for the next seven days.
“Not a single one of you will touch this grill, stand within a 1 foot radius of this grill or even dare to look at this grill, so help me God, are we understood?” Rossi announced as soon as you arrived, the last of the BAU team to gather in his self-proclaimed mansion. The gardens were beautiful, and the kids were already running riot on the slip and slide that he had set up for them, screaming and giggling in delight.
“Trust me, you’re not getting me near that thing today, Rossi,” you laugh as you pour yourself a glass of wine from the refreshments table. “Last time I was anywhere near a grill I almost died.”
“I don’t remember encountering any unsubs who used grills as their weapon of choice,” JJ laughed at you as she held out her own glass and you gladly filled it for her.
“That’s because it wasn’t on a case, it was a family barbeque when I was 17 and my grandfather thought I should learn some ‘practical skills,’” you shot a grin at her as she rolled her eyes at you and walked away.
You grabbed your glass and looked for somewhere to perch yourself while you took in the sun. Morgan and Prentiss had already grabbed the two sun-loungers on the patio and were both sitting shirtless (with a bikini top on in Prentiss’s case) taking in as much sun as they could. Garcia was similarly sprawled on the deck sofa, and JJ joined her their after grabbing her refreshment, Will stood by the edge of the deck watching over the kids. Hotch had the amazing foresight to bring his own camping chair, and was set up similarly with one eye on Jack and the other on a book in his hand.
And just where you were expecting him, Spencer Reid was stood awkwardly at the edge of the house, in the only spot of shade he could find, leaning slightly against the door, and squinting into the sun.
“Rossi, you got any other chairs I can grab for me and Reid?” you called out to your host.
“There should be some over by the shed, they might need a bit of a dusting down though.”
“Come on pretty boy, you can’t just be standing all day, you’re going to make me feel tired just watching you,” you laughed up at him and caught the flush of his cheeks as he finally caught that you meant him to follow you.
“I’m really fine here over in the shade, I don’t do too great in the sun, anyways. More of an autumnal person, really…”
“I’d feel bad seeing you stand all day, and besides, what if I need a big, strong man to help me carry my chair over?” As he gaped his mouth open and closed looking for a retort, you felt the small flash of victory spread warm your chest. It wasn’t that you liked messing with Reid, it’s that he was an easy target and actually you loved it.
Having joined the team only the year prior, you’d quickly found the genius incredibly endearing, loving to listen to his little monologues about whatever topic had popped into his head that day, often earning groans from your other colleagues as you encouraged him to keep going.
You’d discovered your love of making him squirm a few months into the job, when you had to interrogate a submissive partner of an unsub together. After theorising that the submissive personality had a thing for women who looked like you, especially ones that were pretty dominant and controlling, you’d decided to give him what he wanted. You’d popped the top button, walked into the room and given him your best shot before having to re-strategize.
“What if we send Reid in there with her?” Morgan was the one to suggest, “Have him act a bit touchy, show him something he’s missing out on. We already tried giving him what he wanted, let’s see how he reacts to someone he doesn’t view as a threat getting everything he thinks he’s entitled to.”
It was a good guess, and it worked. You’d walked into the room, and let Reid start asking the questions. He’d gently laid a hand on your thigh, just high enough for the suspect to notice, and you’d done nothing but quietly whisper directly into his ear, watching the entire time to see how the man in front of you would react. He’d cracked in ten minutes and started spewing misogynistic drivel, so angry that he accidentally confessed to the crime and gave away his partner’s location.
It seemed Reid had cracked just a bit too. He’d avoided eye-contact with you for an entire week after that, and whenever he talked to you in that time, it was like his brain short-circuited. You’d bought a genius with an IQ of 187 and an eidetic memory to his knees with a few whispers in his ear, and you loved the rush of power you felt remembering it. The memory of his strong hand on your thigh did nothing to quell your growing attraction towards the man.
“If you wanted someone big and strong, you should’ve asked Morgan,” Reid snapped you out of your thoughts as he diligently followed you in the direction Rossi had pointed. It was a pretty secluded spot in the garden, a little bit away from the action and you were glad to be out of earshot so you could begin your teasing of the Good Doctor.
“I’m sure you’re big and strong in certain places, Spencer,” you smiled at him, and began looking at the chairs.
You spotted it in the corner, then, the perfect tool for your torment. It seemed relatively new, barely used but still pretty sturdy, and you knew this was it.
“Hey, Rossi, what about this hammock in the corner, can I set this up, too?” you shouted back over to the group and grinned up at Reid.
“Do you have a death wish? Because if so, go ahead and tangle with that devil.” Rossi shouted back, not even looking up from the miriad of sausages and burgers he was working on.
“That sounds like a challenge to me, Doc.” You say and you start pulling it out into the sunlight, Reid steps behind you sighing in defeat. He knew that once you had your mind set on something, you were pretty stubborn about completing it.
“Okay, can you give me a boost?” The bed of the hammock fell to about your chest height, and whilst you knew you were probably able to climb in by yourself, you were wearing a particularly short sundress, and as much as you teased Reid, you didn’t exactly want to give the rest of your team and their families an eyeful.
“You want me to try to lift you into this thing?” Reid squeaked out, a look of confusion passing over his features.
“Yeah, just grab my hips and give me a boost and I’ll swing my legs over and straddle it. Then we can see what’s it's like.” He moved cautiously up behind you, letting his hands graze your waist.
“Reid, you’re going to have to hold me a bit tighter than that if we’re actually going to get anywhere.” You placed your hands over his and pushed his grip down stronger; you could practically hear him gulp from behind you. He pushed you up, and you almost had it, but you couldn’t quite pull yourself up and into it.
After a few attempts, you realised it wasn’t going to work. Reluctantly pulling yourself out of Reid’s grip, you turned to face him.
“New plan, you get in first and pull me up.”
“What? I don’t want to go anywhere near that thing, didn’t you hear what Rossi said?”
“Come on Reid, just this once, for me? We have to try at least!” you pouted up at him now with pleading eyes, hoping that you wouldn’t have to resort to batting your eyelashes at him to get him to agree.
“One attempt, and then I’m grabbing a normal chair and leaving, okay?” He negotiated, but you didn’t care and excitedly wrapped your arms around his neck pulling him in for a hug.
“Yay, thank you! I love you, Reid, you know that?” you pulled back slightly to deliver that last line, your arms still around his neck, watching the redness spread upto his cheeks.
He mumbled a quick whatever and pulled away to begin his attempts.
Perhaps it was his few extra inches of height or spindly frame, but Reid managed to climb up quite easily, not even rocking the hammock that much in his ascent.
He sat up pretty steadily, and you lifted your arms to him, and that’s when it all started going wrong. You’re combined weight wasn’t enough to break the hammock, but it was enough to set it off into an unsteady rocking that made your stomach lurch slightly. You swung your leg as best you could over Reid’s, already in the hammock, and as soon as you found some purchase there, he lowered one hand to pull your lower body up as well.
It was just unfortunate that the place his hand landed was directly over your ass, and you let out a sharp gasp as he grabbed it tightly and hauled you up to sit directly over him, chest to chest, practically straddling his entire body in the cramped space of the hammock bed.
“Shit, I’m sorry, I meant to grab your hip.” He tried to let go of you and push his hands up where you could see them, but the sudden movement made the hammock lurch dangerously so you snapped your hand over his and forced them back to their previous position.
“No sudden movements, Spencer, I don’t particularly want to be the butt of all jokes for the next year if we fall out of this thing.” You panicked slightly and squirmed a little in your position, trying to explore your range of movement.
“How are we going to get out of this if we can’t move?” he shot back at you, a look of mild discomfort on his face, and an I-told-you-so begging to escape his lips.
“If you just give me a minute to explore our options, maybe I would be able to figure that out.”
“If you keep squirming like that we’re going to have more problems than just how to get down,” he huffed under his breath, but he was so close that it was impossible for you to miss it.
It was your turn to blush now, as you caught his insinuation. With his hand firmly on your ass, and your legs either side of his, you could feel the entire length of his body below you. Each squirm you made the dampness between your legs pool a little bit more and then you in-turn squirmed even more in a vicious cycle.
After a few minutes, there was no denying that the thing prodding your core was Spencer’s sizable… appendage.
“Shit, Y/N, I’m sorry, it’s just a natural reaction,” he groaned out from below you when he realised you could feel it too, and you’d never heard anything so beautiful as the moans he was accidentally vocalising.
“It’s my fault, I’m sorry for being so stubborn about this. Let me see if I can figure something else out,” you cautiously slid your hands up his chest, and he screwed his eyes shut. Pushing against his shoulders, you slowly pulled yourself up to a seated position, doing your best to not rock the hammock too much. The new position did nothing to dampen the friction the two of you were feeling, and you knew that you were a few seconds away from a point of no return. Your hips bucked slightly against him against your will, and you really hoped he hadn’t noticed that was totally not to the benefit of you getting out of the hammock.
You looked down to the ground so you could see how far the descent would be, and if you’d have to call for backup anytime soon. Luckily you thought you’d be able to make it if you just swung your legs over the side and got out as quickly as possible, but fate had other plans.
“Spencer, Y/N what are you two doing over here?” came Emily’s voice from behind you. Spencer’s eyes shot open and he pulled his head up slightly to look at her. However, his movement had rocked the hammock a little bit harder than before, so he had to grab your hip to steady the two of you, pushing you further down into him. You did your best to stifle the moan, biting down hard on your tongue as you did so.
“Oh you know, just hanging out,” he managed to get out in reply, his voice notably higher than it usually was.
“You sure you guys don’t need any help? That doesn’t look like the safest of chairs.” Emily’s questioning stare never lifted and you knew that if she caught wind of what was actually going on, you wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye for an entire year. You couldn’t accept the help.
“Yeah, we were just going to climb down in a second, we’re just checking to see how… sturdy it is right now.”
“Sturdy. Right. Well, Rossi said the food would be ready to start serving in a few minutes and asked me to call you guys over.”
“We’ll be right there, thanks Emily.” You smiled at her and she made to walk away, a suspicious look still on her face.
“What do you mean we’ll be right there, I can’t go over there like this!” Spencer whisper yelled into your ears.
“What else was I supposed to say to get her to go away,” you whisper yelled back. You ran a free hand through your hair, and shifted again, your legs beginning to cramp up a little in the awkward position.
“Okay you get down, I’ll make a break for the bathroom, say all this moving around made me need to pee or something, and then we meet up again on the patio and pretend this never happened?” he said and you nodded quickly.
You began to lift your body weight up and remove your legs from the tangle you were stuck in, and that’s when the hammock reared it’s ugly head for the final time. As you lifted your leg slowly, you accidedntally got your foot stuck in the side of the fabric, and pinned there but still moving, the hammock toppled and spat both of you out unceremoniously.
Reid landed ontop of you with a hard thud. You let out a sweet curse, just as Reid pushed his body weight onto his hands, taking some of the pressure off of you after the fall. You stared up into his eyes as you realised you’d found yourself in yet another compromising situation and you deepeded to a scarlet red as you realised your sundress had blown up completely in your descent, and he was now neatly nestled in between your legs, with your damp underwear on display for him.
Looking down at you, he took a beat too long to react, and you squirmed under his gaze, feeling appropriately trapped, before he sprung up and offered you a hand up.
You took his hand and rearranged your dress, thankful that the smell of the food had distracted everyone from your embarrassing fall.
“Okay, we’re out.” You were flustered and you didn’t know what else to say.
“Yep, that was certainly one way to do it,” Reid replied, as you avoided his gaze. You wrapped your arms around yourself, and he made to do so similarly, trying his best to rearrange himself so the bulge in his pants wasn’t so noticeable.
“You should get to the bathroom.”
“You should get to the food.” He retorted and you finally made to move, but stopped yourself turning around quickly to face the man again.
“Before I go,” you said and you pushed yourself up on your tiptoes and pressed a kiss into his mouth, feeling as giddy as a teenager braving her first kiss. You turned away just as fast and made your way back to the party, leaving a flustered and spluttering Reid behind as you made a beeline for the food.
“So, what’d you think of the hammock?” Rossi asked you as you began loading your plate up. You put on your best poker face and begged noone had noticed anything out of the ordinary.
“You were right. That thing is dangerous,” was your only response, and you retreated into the corner to finish your food. You sat there waiting eagerly for Reid to return, not just so you could be in his presence again and see how he was reacting to your kiss, but also so you could get the image of him dealing with his situation out of your mind.
It seemed that being a tease and working him up hadn’t quite ended so well for you that day.
You blamed the hammock.
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#mentioningmargins#spencer reid#criminal minds#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid fanfic#spencer reid smut#mgg#criminal minds fanfiction#criminal minds fandom#spencer reid x self insert#maturereiding#spencer reid fandom#spencer reid fluff#spencer reid x fem!reader#spencer reid x you#spencer reid x y/n#spencer reid x oc#criminal minds fluff#criminal minds smut#criminal minds family#criminal minds fic
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Part I
High Infidelity | Joel Miller X Female Reader
Rating: Mature/Explicit
Summary: Tommy gets himself into more trouble than he can get out of.
Tags: Tommy x Reader, Joel x Reader, Tommy's Wife Reader, infidelity, emotional affair, slow burn (as much as you can get for 5 chapters), Tommy goes to jail, Reader has had a child
Warnings: US justice system (it don't work, probably bad understanding of how it operates), mention of drugs & weapons, alcohol consumption, let me know if I missed anything
Notes: when I planned this out, I didn’t realize I’d scheduled the first chapter to drop on Pedro’s birthday! So happy birthday to him!
Shout out to @janaispunkfor beta reading and @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin for letting me scream about this endlessly and shaping this world. Finally, @saradika-graphics for sustaining our fic writers with an endless supply of dividers!
Words: 4396
Series Masterlist | Author Masterlist | Daily Clicks for Palestine & Other resources
You’re asleep, or at least you should be except the phone is ringing and the bed is cold next to you. That’s a bad sign. It always is.
A small grunt echoes from your gut as bare feet hit the cool hardwood floor. You can’t find the phone before it stops, buried under clothes you haven’t folded, scribbled crayon drawings, and bleary eyes. It starts back almost immediately.
“Tommy?”
“He called me.” Joel’s voice echoes through the line. “It’s bad this time.”
“How bad?”
“He asked for a lawyer.”
You press your palm to your forehead. “Shit!”
“The sitter is on her way to yours. I’m getting Sarah up now. We’ll be there in 10.”
“Thank you, Joel.”
“Of course. See you soon.” Joel hangs up.
You roam through the laundry basket for a clean pair of jeans and an acceptable t-shirt. You run a toothbrush through your mouth to freshen your breath. You do your best to push back all the possibilities running through your brain.
You crack open the door to Nathaniel’s room. Your two-year-old son sleeps tightly, his mop of black curls spread out on the pillow. You want to run your hand through his curls and kiss his cheek, but he’s the world’s lightest sleeper, just like his daddy.
The sitter is there 5 minutes later, all too familiar with this routine for your liking. Joel ushers in a bleary-eyed minutes later. He tucks her into the spare room bed. Sarah doesn’t ask questions. She’s asleep before he can kiss her head.
You move like the well-oiled machine that you are. He grabs your purse, ensuring the checkbook is there while you say a few words to the sitter. Joel hands you the small black bag and a light jacket.
Doors open before you and close without you touching them. You and Joel are riding down the highway. The windows are cracked, the breeze playing through your hair as street lights play off the windows, growing bigger and brighter as your eyes fill with tears. You chew on your thumb as the thoughts finally begin to take over.
You’ve felt Tommy slipping these past few months. You’ve tried to ignore it, excuse it. He’s had a hard time adjusting. This is hardly the first time he’s been in jail. It feels like a weekly occurrence at this point, but he’s never needed a lawyer. He’s never been held longer than overnight.
“Did he say what they got him for?”
“No… he asked me to come alone.”
“Fucking hell.” You run a hand over your face. Tommy’s antics are aging you prematurely.
“He’s going to be okay.”
“Says who?” You snap. “We’ve been doing this dance for months, Joel! I know he’s having a hard time adjusting, but maybe we’ve been giving him too much room.”
Joel sighs, letting silence fall over the truck cabin. His blinker clicks as you turn into the familiar station. You wonder if the night shift is actually going to fulfill their punch card offer this time.
Joel has barely pushed the truck into park before you’re out of the vehicle, flying through the front doors. Joel is hot on your heels, not bothering to lock his beat-up pickup.
Your ID is already on the desk, you don’t even have to say a name. The officer at the front desk doesn’t need your license. He barely looks at it. It’s all a raging formality. They escort you to a room, not a holding cell as you’re used to.
Tommy sits at a table talking to a tired-looking public defender. His head snaps up, eyes jumping from your face to Joel’s behind you. “I told you to come alone.”
“The fuck you did Thomas James Miller!” You say before Joel can defend himself.
Tommy stands to his feet, the chair skidding back. “You’re not supposed to be here for this!”
“I’m your wife! You call me!”
“Or maybe you should be home with your child!”
“Oh, I should be home with our son? And what about you?”
“I’m not having this fight with you right now.” Tommy throws his hands in the air moving his attention to Joel who leans against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. “You were supposed to come alone!”
“What’re you in for?” You ask, not giving Joel a chance to answer. Not that he was going to. He knows not to let Tommy deflect to him when you are around.
Tommy sighs falling into the chair like a rag dog. Stress lines engrave themselves deep into his forehead.
“Tommy…” A pit drops in your stomach. “What did they get you with?”
“A gun-“
“Without a permit.” The Lawyer speaks for the first time. There’s a roll to Tommy’s eyes.
“And?”
Tommy can’t meet your eyes. He shuffles in his seat.
“Tommy,” Joel says, voice low and gruff. It’s automatic, parental even.
“A couple grams of coke.”
“Fucking hell, Tommy.” Joel hits his head against the wall.
“I didn’t- I never took it. I promise.”
You take a shaking breath, trying to calm your worn nerves. “So what are we looking at here?” You ask, eyes trained on the lawyer.
You see Tommy out of your peripheral vision using his pleading puppy dog eyes on you. You square your shoulders determined not to fall for it. They’re the reason you’re in this boat in the first place.
“Babe-“
You hold up a hand cutting him off, eyes trained on the lawyer. “What are we looking at?”
“Probably Jail time. DA’s office has been cracking down on these kinds of cases the past few months.”
“Is he getting out tonight?”
The lawyer shakes his head. “We have to wait until tomorrow for arraignment and bail.”
“Then, I’ll see you two tomorrow.” You give them a firm nod, exiting the room in a flash.
The Texas air wraps around you as you exit the stale police station. Joel’s pick-up is cool under your fingers, anchoring you to something.
This can’t be happening. You’ve felt him slipping through your fingertips for months, but you wonder if this is it if this is the moment you lose Tommy for good.
Firm arms wrap around your waist. It’s a warmth you’ve become way too familiar with over the last couple of years. You turn around, letting your tears soak Joel’s shirt as they have so many times before. You twist his shirt in your fists as he cradles your head against his chest. There’s a slight sway in his movements, soothing your wrenching soul.
“We’re going to get through this.”
“He had cocaine!”
Joel sighs. “I know.”
“I can’t keep doing this. It’s going to kill me.”
“Let’s get you home. Get some sleep.” Joel squeezes you and then guides you into the passenger side seat. “We have a long day tomorrow.”
“What time is-“
“Lawyer said about 11. Wants us to meet them at the courthouse at 10.”
You nod, clearing the tears. “Okay.”
The drive home is quiet. You’re used to Tommy throwing out every excuse in the book, promising he’s going to change. The silence makes you want to scream. How do you go forward? How do you explain to Nathaniel that Daddy won’t be home for a long time? Jail Time. It bounces off the walls of your brain like a gong over and over.
You’ve done this before. Raise your son alone. Tommy was overseas when Nathaniel was born. You did the first 3 months on your own- or sort of alone. Joel and Sarah spent many nights at your and Tommy’s home those first few months helping you through the learning curve of being a new parent. If you’re completely honest, you’re still doing it alone, but now with a shell of a man to look after as well.
Joel hands the sitter cash and she’s gone without a word. Your purse and jacket are forgotten on the chair as you collapse onto the couch, holding your head in your hands. The weight of the night threatens to finally break you.
“Here.” The cool weight of a bottle presses against your jeans.
“Thank you.” You take it, tipping the bottle back in unison with Joel in a quiet ritual.
“I think I’m just gonna crash on the couch tonight.”
You nod, a humorless huff leaving your chest. “Just like the good ole days, I guess.”
Joel looks over your profile, catches the wear in your frame, the silent tears slipping from your eyes. The rattle in your chest changes from sarcastic to sorrow and then a sob slips from your lips.
Joel sets his beer on the coffee table, arm slipping around your shoulders. He pulls your loose body into his side. For the second time that night, your face burrows into his chest.
“Shhh, I’ve got you, Darlin’. We’ll get through this.” His voice is soft and soothing. His fingers brush softly over your head down to the back of your neck. You fall asleep like that, lulled by the steady beat of his heart.
You wake up to the morning sun, your body stiff from sleeping on the couch against Joel. He’s up, the smell of coffee wafting toward you. You hear him talking to Sarah and Nathaniel in the kitchen.
You stand, stretching out your sore muscles in wrinkled clothing following the promise of caffeine. Sarah and Nathaniel sit at the kitchen table with syrupy smiles.
“Mommy!” Nathaniel yells.
You force a sleepy smile, kissing his sticky cheek. “Morning, sweet cheeks.” You dip your finger in the syrup on his plate, licking it off your fingertip making him and Sarah laugh. “Morning, Sarah Bear.”
“Morning, Auntie,” She says. “Your clothes are wrinkled.”
Joel’s hand lands on your back and a cup of coffee lands in your hands, sending warmth through your body. The hum in your body is automatic. “Thank you.”
Joel only nods, returning his attention to the pancakes sizzling on the stovetop. You sip on the hot coffee. Joel prepared it exactly how you like it, just like he always does.
“You hate pancakes.”
“Yeah, but the gremlins love them.”
“That they do.” You grin, sipping on the coffee again. “Ugh, it’s infuriating the way you come into my home and make better coffee than I do.”
Joel chuckles, flipping two fluffy pancakes onto a plate. He tops them with cut-up strawberries and whipped cream handing them to you with the biggest shit-eating grin. “And pancakes.”
For a minute you forget it all, the impending arraignment, your husband in jail for unregistered weapons and drug possession, the two children sitting mere feet away. It’s just you and Joel and a stack of whipped cream-covered pancakes. Joel who held your hand through labor and helped you with midnight feedings. The man who got you through Tommy’s deployment. The one who always calls the sitter and drives you to the police station when Tommy gets himself in trouble. You and your rock.
The shattering of glass echoes through the kitchen. “Uh-oh!”
You spin around, taking in the broken glass on the floor. Orange juice leaks over the table, dripping over the edge. You and Joel spring into action, pancakes forgotten. “Both of you stay in your seats,” You say.
Joel grabs the broom before you, sweeping up the shards, his feet already protected in his boots. You turn off the stove, keeping an eye on both children to ensure you don’t add bloodied feet to your morning agenda.
“Sorry, Daddy,” Sarah says, keeping her feet crisscrossed beneath her. She looked up at you. “Sorry about your glass, Aunt Bonnie.”
You smile at her, handing Joel a towel to soak up the spilled juice. “It’s okay, Sarah bear. I just want you to be okay.”
She nods back, curls bouncing around her face. “I’m okay.”
You sigh, staring at the pancakes on the counter. The whipped cream has melted into a lopsided mound, half of it turned back into cream that soaks through the pancakes. You take a bite, the flavors settling nicely over your tongue even if the texture of the pancakes is slightly off. For a man who claims not to like them, Joel Miller sure knows how to make a mean pancake.
Your mind plays back to the nickname. Not many people call you Bonnie anymore. Just a few years ago, it had been a constant. Stemming from Tommy’s group of army buddies, they declared you Bonnie for always stealing Tommy away from their group cookouts and whatnot, and Tommy was Clyde due to his propensity for getting into trouble. For whatever reason, probably just to annoy you, Tommy had introduced you to Sarah as “His Bonnie.” So that’s what she calls you.
Joel empties the remaining shards into the trash can. Several high-pitched clinks sound off until the shards settle. Your fork stirs the whipped cream and syrup together.
“Pancakes are usually best eaten, not played with.” Joel teases, picking his coffee up to take a sip. His fingers graze your arm as he sets it back down, returning the broom back to its rightful place.
”You don’t even like pancakes.” You furrowed your brow, taking another bite. Whipped cream marks your upper lip. You take another bite. “God, one day you have to tell me your secret.”
Joel chuckles. He leans across the counter, elbows resting against the granite much like yours. He sips on his coffee, eyes watching as you stuff another bite into your mouth. “I’ve got many secrets, Darlin.”
You laugh, mouth full of fruit and cream. “You’re an open fucking book, Miller.”
”I think I could surprise you several times over.” He chuckles. Something sparks behind his eyes like he’s actually keeping something from you. You’ll figure it out. You always do.
“These are delicious, Joel, but if I take another bite, I’m gonna be sick.”
Joel frowns. “You feeling okay? You don’t have a fever do you?” He presses his fingers to your forehead before you can roll your eyes.
“Anxiety.”
Joel nods. “You’ve got a little-“ He motions to his mouth.
You cock your head to the side brain not picking up on the obvious signals. He sighs in mock exasperation. Reaching forward, he wipes the whipped cream from your lip with his thumb, pressing the excess to his mouth. The moment catches you off guard, something stirring in the back of your mind as you zero in on the thumb pressed to his lips.
“You should go get ready.” He says as if nothing happened, taking your plate. “We need to leave in an hour.”
You nod, pushing back from the counter. The weight of the day at hand keeps that moment from playing over and over again on a loop.
”Daddy,” Sarah says. “Isn’t it time for school?”
”You’re going to stay here with Nathaniel and Miss Lacy today. Your aunt and I have some things we have to do.”
”Oh,” Sarah nodded. “Uncle Tommy things?”
You stop, sharing a look with Joel. You’ve tried your best to keep Tommy’s troubles from the kids, but it’s inevitable. Sarah is almost 6 after all. She’s always been incredibly perceptive and observant.
“Daddy?” Nathaniel asks, looking around. Your heart breaks a little bit.
Your mind wanders. When will he get to see Tommy again?
Joel takes the lead when you arrive at the courthouse for which you’re grateful. You’re both dressed in nice clothing. High heels clack beneath you. A tie reaches around Joel’s neck. You hold Tommy’s suit in a garment bag as a guard leads you to an office-like room. Tommy sits at a table with his layer from last night and another man you don’t recognize. They seem to be deep in a serious conversation.
All three men turn as you enter, making you feel like you’re in the wrong place. You can’t tell if Tommy is relieved to see you or not. A pit forms in your stomach, like you’re not going to like the outcome of this meeting.
“What’s going on?” You ask.
The door clicks shut behind you as Joel’s scent creeps around you.
”We’re talking.” Tommy says.
“About?” You press.
Tommy sighs, unable to meet your eyes. “A plea deal.”
You bite your lip, tears threatening to spill from your eyes. This is easier. It’s probably better in the long run, but you’re not ready to face the music. You prepared for court, not a plea deal. Not for Tommy to admit guilt with a stroke of a pen, not a judge in sight.
“What’s in it?”
”Baby…” Tommy pleads like he wants to make amends right now.
“What are you signing us up for, Tommy?”
“Two years and a half years. Probation after that.”
You inhale sharply.
“It’s a good deal,” The man you’ve never seen says. “He’s looking at at least twice that if this goes to court, and he will be convicted if this goes to court.”
You look to Tommy’s lawyer for confirmation. He doesn’t make it obvious but gives you a solid nod.
“You were about to sign it.” You look at your husband. It’s not a question.
“Yeah.”
”I’d have appreciated it if you had talked to me first,” you say.
“You’d have told me to sign it.”
You nod, barely keeping the tears at bay. “Yeah.”
The DA holds a pen out to Tommy. Tommy looks back at you for final permission. You give it, watching that expensive ass pen glides across the paper with Tommy’s chicken scratch of a signature. Your heart breaks with each stroke, crumbling a little more as he dots the I and crosses the T.
Joel places a hand on your shoulder. The heat spreads, anchoring you to the moment, keeping you afloat as you stare down the barrel of being a single mother yet again.
Tommy slides the paper back to the DA. He looks them over, tapping them against the table with a satisfied nod as if a family hadn’t been torn apart.
“You have about 30 minutes before they come to get him.”
”That’s it?” You ask. “We can’t even take him ourselves?”
The DA shrugs like he’s being generous, igniting a deep hatred of him inside you. You don’t even know his name. He holds up the papers before sliding them into his briefcase. “Terms of the plea deal.”
You clutch your fists as he walks out of the room. Tommy’s lawyer slips out with him, and then Joel, leaving just you and Tommy.
He stands and you finally realize it’s all happening again. You’ll be alone, worrying about your husband though this time for different reasons.
“Baby, I-” He steps towards you. You don’t move offering zero indication that you register Tommy’s movements.
He reaches for your hands, but you pull them back. “You weren’t supposed to take the Bonnie and Clyde thing seriously.”
You fight back tears, turning so he can’t see them. “Pretty sure they both died.”
A humorless laugh leaves your body as you collapse onto a couch, holding your head in your hands.
Tommy kneels in front of you, slowly peeling your hands from your face, taking them into his. Despite it all, you feel yourself melting into his familiar touch. It only confirms what you are beginning to fear. It doesn’t matter what Tommy does, you’ll always be here waiting for him. He is the love of your life and you would burn the world down to look into his sweet brown eyes and feel his skin against yours.
You look at him through blurry eyes, sniffing back the congestion gathering in your sinuses. He gives you that crooked smile you love so much, and you feel better despite the weight bearing on your shoulders. The past three years have aged him ten. You suppose time has done the same to you.
Slowly, he presses his lips to your hands. “I know I fucked up. If-” He pauses, swallowing. His thumb plays with the thin gold band on your left hand. “If you’re not waiting for me when I get out I understand.”
You squeeze his hand. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
Tommy snorts. “Easily? Just last week you were yelling at me for putting you through hell.”
“Yeah, well…” You run your fingers through his black curls as you sniff back your tears. “You kinda hold my heart in your hands, Tommy Miller. I don’t think I could get it back if I tried.”
He smiles at you. You lean forward, pressing your lips to his. His hands creep up your thighs as he rises to his feet. Your back collides with the plush back of the couch as your fingers tangle in his long hair. Tommy presses his tongue into your mouth, a smile growing across your face. This is the first taste of your Tommy you’ve had in months, the one you fell in love with.
The door opens, and before Tommy can pull away, Joel’s gruff voice echoes through the room. “Prospect of going to jail really puts you two in the mood, huh?”
Heat surges to your cheeks. You’re not sure why. You and Tommy had been caught in much more compromising positions throughout your relationship.
“Gotta get what I can while I’m still a free man.” Tommy grins at his big brother, pressing another exaggerated kiss to your lips. Joel’s eyes move to the corner of the room. Your smile feels a little more forced after that.
Your thirty minutes fly at lightning speed. They take Tommy before you’re ready. Any energy you gain from Tommy’s affection is drained the moment he’s led out of sight. You barely catch the look he gives Joel.
”Take care of them.”
Joel nods, gripping his brother’s shoulder. There’s a silent exchange between them. “Take care of yourself.”
A clerk goes over everything with you and Joel. You’re given a strict list of items you can drop off for Tommy at the prison. You don’t process a word, the weight of it all falling on top of you. You came to the courthouse today expecting an arraignment and bail, not to be kissing your husband goodbye for the next year and change. It feels unfair like something was taken from you.
Joel is the one who keeps it together. He always keeps it together. He asks the questions and makes note of the important things. He secures the horde of important documents held limply in your hands.
When the clerk says your name for a second time, or maybe a third, you’re not sure, it snaps you out of the fog. Joel’s eyes are sympathetic as he holds out a pen. His single nod tells you he has all the information in his head. You can sign. You don’t have to think. You sign as flashes of Tommy doing the same filter through your vision.
The pen drops to the table as you push back headed straight for the nearest exit. You feel like you’re in a dream. Joel catches up, tucking everything you forgot under his arm. He grabs your elbow, steering your aimless body in the right direction. He doesn’t ask if you’re okay. He knows the answer.
You feel like a toddler, wandering and lost, relying on Joel’s firm grip to get anywhere. He opens doors and boots you into his pickup, patting the door once it’s closed. The car is warm from the sun. You fumble with the seat belt, but Joel’s calloused hands are there, guiding your weary bones.
The ride is silent. You basket in the warm sun, head pressed to the window with your eyes closed. The world feels so far away, but you’re extremely tuned into the heat of the sun, the rumble of the truck on the shitty roads, the blinking indicator light, and Joel’s listless tapping on the steering wheel when the vehicle draws to a stop from time to time, toeing the line between consciousness.
This is just a dream, right? You’ll wake up soon and Tommy will be behind you, drawing random patterns around your stomach hip, or thigh. The past year of your life and the past 12 hours have just been the world’s longest nightmare. That’s all.
The truck lurches to a stop. The engine turns off with a distinct click. Your eyes blink open slowly. Your stretch out, toes curling in your dress shoes. Joel’s tie lays haphazardly on the dash. His cuffs are unbuttoned, pushed to his elbows, and the top couple of buttons of his dress shirt are undone. He still looks out of place in his dress attire, but a little more like himself. He hadn’t dressed this nicely for your and Tommy’s courthouse wedding.
Your eyes drift out the windshield. A neon light reflects off your irises. This isn’t home. You look at Joel. “Why are we here?”
His seat belt comes undone with a click, snapping back. “We’re going to go in there and get drunk off our asses.”
”It’s the middle of the day.”
Joel raises an eyebrow at you.
”Can we just go home?”
”No.”
”Why the fuck not?”
“Because we have a sitter all day, and you deserve a night before the weight of the world falls back on your shoulders.”
”Joel.” You want to go home and crawl in bed.
”This is three times longer than his deployment.” The statement hits you square in the chest. “You need this. Give yourself today. If you don’t do it now, you never will.”
You sigh, staring down the flickering neon in front of you. He’s right. You know he is. You might be exhausted, but it’s tempting. When was the last time you let go? Maybe that one good month you had after Tommy got back? When it was all making up for lost time and shit.
“We’ve got a sitter for the whole day,” Joel says. “My treat.”
You inhale deeply, allowing the memories of drunken nights past to fill your brain. You can feel the thrum of alcohol already. You haven’t cut loose in a long time unless you count the nights spent at home alone drowning away the world after you’d tucked your son in for the night.
Your fingers press the red release button of your seat belt. The metal buckle hits the window. “Fuck it. Let’s go.”
Joel smiles, dragging you inside.
Taglist: @pamasaur @alltheotps @rizzraa @moel-jiller @misstokyo7love @justagalwhowrites @pedritosgfreal
#the last of us#joel miller#tommy miller#tlou hbo#tlou#tlou fanfiction#tommy miller x reader#joel miller x reader#pedro boys#ppcu fanfiction#pedrostories#pedro stories#high infidelity (joel miller)
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behind the screen
◇ characters ◇ zhongli
◇ tags ◇ yandere, sagau
◇ a/n ◇ ok ok ok story time liSTEN-
i was showing a friend genshin for the first time few weekends ago, and ofc i had zhongli out (she wasn't interested in him tho, sad) to walk around and basically show her around the world. and then we stopped a bit while i explained the whole thing about the usual party composition & the concept of gacha, and ofc zhongli starts talking about osmanthus wine-
so i rolled my eyes (cause i was in the middle of an explanation) and said "zhongli shush" and you know what happened? he. fucking. stopped. talking. the idle animation canceled. i almost pissed myself until i remembered the controller was in my friend's hand and she had moved the joystick. THAT ALMOST SCARED ME TO DEATH SLFJSLJFLS LMAO
so yeah have a drabble 'inspired' by that. toodles~
𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 ⬙ 𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡
he knows you love his voice.
it's something you always tell him, both directly and indirectly. you would drop in his voiceover menu every now and then, purposefully put him on idle so you can listen to his musings, and whenever he appears on scenes you would visibly deflate if the dialogues involving him are muted from your side. at such times, he takes one step closer to the idea of breaking this world's laws entirely, because if you wish to hear him then you should be able to - you should always get whatever you want, the deity that you are in his eyes.
like now, when you're gushing about him to what seems to be your friend. he's never heard of her before, but you seem close, and he feels the familiar twitch of his fingers, itching to reach out to you, to pull you close and smother you with his presence instead.
from the way you had to explain the basics of his world, he assumes your friend is a complete beginner entirely. but surprisingly she doesn't seem to be too impressed with him, despite the excitement that's filling your voice, and he can sense how agitated it made you. true enough, when he stealthily sneaks a glance, you're pouting a little before you launch into an explanation of how necessary of an addition he is to the team, and the workings behind the gacha system.
adorable.
... but your attention is slipping away from him. now that- he can't have that. he sighs and triggers the idle function with your favorite audio file that he frequently abuses, feeling his body and lips move as per the scripted codes.
"osmanthus wine-"
"zhongli, shush!"
...... what?
it was a reflex. a force of habit, you could say. no one likes to be talked over by someone else when they're talking, right?
"sorry, he's a little-"
you stop talking because suddenly, it's silent. the hair on the back of your neck rises.
"did you move the joystick?" you ask your friend, eyeing the now-still 3d model of your favorite character on the big tv screen.
"huh? no?" she answered, waving the gadget by its handle with one hand, "uh- didn't you say it has drifting problems? maybe it's that?"
".... yeah........ yeah, that's got to be it. anyway, as i was saying-"
zhongli is needlessly quiet for the rest of your little showcase. you continue to talk with your friend happily, the little event pushed to the back of your mind as you enjoy spending time with one of your favorite people, throwing jokes, laughs, and eventually turning off genshin to move on to celebrity crushes and a cute looking singer that's going to have his little concert in the city soon.
zhongli lets you.
for it would be the last time you could enjoy the such activity before he forcefully pulls you into their side.
to his side, where you rightfully belong to.
© zhongrin | 2022 ◆ no repost. reblogs much appreciated. feel free to reach out to submit suggestions, feedback, comments, or if you just want to talk!
◇ taglist ◇ @paintingsofdragonspine | @genshinparty | @abyssmal-skies | @hamdehlesmis | @depressivecomforts | @sophiethewitch1 | @why-am-i-here-someone-save-me | @sunnshineflxwer | @heartonthemoon | @yuutasbabe | @percyval-archives | @carbs-need-more-lovee | @rebeccka | @queen-belial | @stygianoir | @niverine | @silentmoths
ps. if you want to be removed/added from the taglist, just send an ask!
#genshin impact#genshin x reader#genshin impact x reader#zhongli#zhongli x reader#yandere#sagau#rin writes
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ghost in the machine
s.coups x reader
synopsis: Secrets can only be kept as secrets for so long, everyone knows this. Yet when 5.C0UP5 came in contact with someone he never should have even known existed this notion seemed as foreign as his own name. Perhaps there exists another way of life even for him, or maybe it was all a dream too big to dream of.
word count: 20k
genre/contains: sci-fi au, AI-idol au, automaton!seungcheol, angst, smut, fluff, hurt/comfort, found family, afab and gn!reader, general smut warnings for oral and penetrative sex, nothing kinky except being eaten out while talking on the intercoms and some almost being caught moments, big fight
rating: 18+
a/n: this has taken a long time to finish, but it also turned out to be my longest fic to date and I'm a bit proud that i managed to actually complete what i had in mind :> thank you @idyllic-ghost for proof reading and for the banner !!
collab link to read the other amazing fics from @idyllic-ghosts genius collab!
Network tagging: @svthub @cultofdionysusnet @k-labels @kvanity-main
[navigation post!]
“100 years ago it was thought that the Earth, as we know it, would disintegrate. That the sun would implode and leave everything in darkness. Miraculously, it didn’t. Due to some external force, human scientists still haven’t agreed upon what it exactly was, none of the planets in our former solar system were ever destroyed. The Earth, along with the other planets, were pushed away from each other and ended up in different parts of the universe. Earth just happened to come to a solar system with alien life. At first, we were cautious, and people were prepared to fight. However, the aliens were welcoming to our planet. Those of us who didn’t die from ‘The Great Journey’ or from trying to fight the aliens, were welcomed into the new solar system. Soon enough, we had integrated completely, and we received materials and assistance from our sister planets in exchange for human labor. What humans knew of technology was very limited, but with the resources of the aliens we created artificial life forms. We named these robots Automaton, and they served as workers when humans couldn’t. Eventually, there was no need for human labor at all. To pay back for the help the aliens gave us, we used Automatons. With the extensive development of these robots, we eventually managed to create artificial sentient life. These Automatons were human-like in looks and had human consciousness, but they could not bleed and were stronger than we ever could be. At the present time, there are even different levels of Automatons. Level 3 robots are the workers, level 2 robots are the caretakers, and level 1 robots are the celebrities. The Automaton music group 53V3NT33N (SEVENTEEN) is made up of 13 members, all very talented, and all representing two human states of mind.”
Pride. It was one side of 5.C0UP5 state of mind, and he felt it often. He felt it whenever he looked at his members, he felt it whenever he performed on stage in front of blinding lights and roaring crowds, and he felt it when he looked at you.
Yet, the other side of the coin of his pre-programmed personality was what crushed him every single day. Everything he took pride in having accomplished, was completely tarnished by a single thought about your lips on his skin. The shame was unbearable.
You had never been meant to get close to him, he was not supposed to be close to anyone. He knew this better than anyone. As the leader of 53V3NT33N he was the one to keep everyone in check. He was meant to set a good example and be the perfect level 1 automaton at all times. For years he kept his promise to everyone, he continued to avoid all things that could ruin his reputation and go against his lifelong contract which he had become bound to the moment he had been created. It hadn’t been easy, but he had taken pride in being the perfect and flawless leader for his members.
That guilty feeling in his gut came back once again as he left the dorm with his manager. “Lookin’ good,” he heard the voice of one of his members play in his ear. J30NGHΛN stood, next to some of his staff members across the lobby, curiously looking at 5.C0UP5. “Going somewhere fun today?” he said and pushed the communication device on his chest, letting 5.C0UP5 hear his every word.
“You’re too curious J30NGHΛN,” he said with a smile, “We’re just gonna get some pictures at a café for this week’s posts.” It was one of the few things he did a couple of times a year, even under the strict surveillance of his company and its staff. No matter what, he had to sell the fantasy of himself to millions of people all around the universe.
“Oh, I see… have fun,” J30NGHΛN said with a tone that made 5.C0UP5 feel his fingers, the chirping sound of his voice making him conscious of his own existence in a way he despised. the damn wink didn’t help. It was as if he knew something. Maybe everyone knew? 5.C0UP5 shook his head and began walking towards the exit along with his manager. He felt his members’ curious gaze following him as he left. Maybe the secrets were beginning to take their toll on his mind. He knew he was supposed to keep his emotions in check, the overpowering of one of his programmed human states of mind would be his demise. They had told him that much. Yet again, he told himself the same words he had spent so many days and nights telling himself. Nobody knows.
Luckily, the café that had been chosen for today was only a couple blocks away. The cold sweat that ran down his back went unnoticed by the staff accompanying him in the shuttle used by the members whenever they needed to go to filming locations and individual shoots.
“Let’s order some smaller stuff and get the shoot over with, we don’t have all day,” one of the managers announced, making 5.C0UP5 nod with a forced smile before he went back to looking out the window. His hand fell to his side, feeling the hard outline of his phone in his pocket.
Entrusted to him by the company, he had been allowed to have a small flip phone. It was ancient. They used to have them in the old world, but even by the start of “The Great Journey” the technology was seen as outdated. By the current standards, however, the phone he had been granted was not worth much more than the shoelace on his sneakers. To him though, it was priceless.
He was nervous now, his hands felt clammy, and his shoulders were tense as he walked into the café along with the staff members. One of them hurried off to the counter and placed your orders while 5.C0UP5 and two others made their way towards the corner table. The young couple currently sitting at the table were quickly removed by the staff members. It was routine, nothing more than a sentence informing the couple of why they needed to get up was given before they were chased off by the staff members threatening presence.
He would never get used to that, the way others were treated around him as he stood by, powerless to intervene. Every time he felt ashamed of being the reason the rest of the population had to accommodate whatever his company, his owners, deemed profitable. It didn’t matter if it was evacuating an entire city block to film a music video where the buildings crumbled around the members, or something as insignificant as taking over a table at a popular café. The guilt was always there.
The young couple hastily gathered their belongings and one of the waiters came over and cleaned up the table, apologies for the mess constantly pouring from their lips. Level 3 automatons could get fired for something like this, but at the same time, 5.C0UP5 couldn’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy as he watched the worker get back to his place behind the counter. Maybe life would be better if he too was a lower-level automaton, he found himself thinking as he sat down and was served the beverage and piece of dessert that the staff had ordered for him. He would be freer in a way…
“5.C0UP5, let’s go.”
He picked up the drink in his hand, the cold from the iced drink bringing his mind away from his thoughts and back into reality where a staff member had just fixed the collar of his shirt and fixed his hair which had been ruffled by the wind. “Look over there,” the staff said as another one snapped hundreds of pictures as he moved around on his chair. The rehearsed smiles, the sip of the drink, and the way he leaned toward the camera all satisfied the staff it seemed. He was good at his job, and acting like a down-to-earth boyfriend at a café was just another part of his job.
What wasn’t part of his job, however, was when he felt a buzz in his pocket and without a second thought spilled half his drink across his thighs, the fabric covering his knees now the color of his drink. “Oh!” he shouted, “I’m sorry. I’ll go clean up real fast and we can continue like nothing happened, I’m so sorry, I’ll fix it!” he hurried to say before any of the staff members could even comprehend the situation he had just created. Hastily, 5.C0UP5 rose from the chair and left his staff confused and shocked at the table. “Fuck- someone go watch the door, no one else can be in there at the same time he is.” he heard them say behind his back as he hurried off towards the door to the bathroom.
There were multiple doors inside the bathroom, each leading to a small bathroom. He didn’t know where to go, he didn’t know where he was supposed to be. He didn’t need to look very far because as he approached the second door to the right it opened for only a moment and a hand pulled him forcefully through the opening. “Finally,” a person said with a smile before they kissed him passionately in the low light of the lightbulb attached to the dark mosaic tiles above the sink. 5.C0UP5 entire body heated up from within as his lips pressed against those familiar soft lips he knew belonged to you.
He had dreamed of those very lips every night since he first got to kiss them all those months ago. “Hi,” he whispered and let the corners of his mouth turn up in the most genuine smile he had had all day.
“Hi…” you answered and giggled softly, feeling his warm hands on your cheeks as he held you and kissed you once again, softly and as if to make you feel how much he had missed you as he held your lips locked against his.
“Are you meeting up with that secret fuck buddy of yours?” Lana joked as you scrambled to grab your phone and keys on your way out for lunch break.
The office supply store was empty at this hour, and you had thirty minutes until you had to be back again; the perfect amount of time for a quick meetup with Cheol. You had to be back in time to release Lana, your co-worker, and close friend, from her shift and let her take her own lunch break since your boss had deemed it necessary to have the store manned at all hours of the day.
Or, well, 5.C0UP5 if you were fussy about things like that. That was his real name, his legal name. To you, however, he was Seungcheol. It had been months since you had called the wrong number in your hurry to order a pizza after work, starving and sleep-deprived as you were at the time you hadn’t been looking too closely at the numbers you were putting into the keypad on your phone. Luckily for you, the craving for pizza that night had led you to discover something new that you soon began craving much more and much more often - him.
His enchanting voice had caught you off guard that first night, and his confused and cautious “Who is this?” had, incredibly enough, been the starting point of you two talking every chance you got since then. Late nights chatting away on, what you have to admit were very sketchy websites, and the occasional call which was made with hushed voices and both of your hearts pounding away, had been most of your relationship. It sometimes felt like an imaginary relationship, since no one could know who he was, and even more importantly - know who you were to him.
“He’s not my fuck buddy, he’s…” you retorted.
“See, do you even know what he thinks you two are? You won’t even show me any pictures of him, is he super ugly or something?” Lana shouted as you hurried towards the back door.
“Shut up! I’ll see you later!” you yelled and the door slammed shut behind you. The back alley was filled with trash and scrap metal. The teenage boy from the large family who lived atop the store was smoking as he kicked bolts around on the ground. He looked up as you passed, and an uncomfortable feeling in your gut appeared as you felt him watch you while you exited the back alley and went onto the bustling street. Your phone buzzed in your back pocket and you fished it up.
Unknown. 12.31.
“I’ll be there in 10, leaving now.”
It was from Cheol. You wouldn't be getting any more updates from him until tonight, at least he had confirmed that he would be coming. Quickly you deleted the text from your phone and put the phone back into your pocket as a strange sense of being watched made the skin on your neck prickle. You looked around, moving your shoulders as if to shake the feeling away.
You hurried away and towards the café, the uncomfortable feeling still haunting you as you entered the café and headed straight to the restroom.
Would he come this time?
You could never be certain. He always did his best to keep his promises, but if the circumstances wouldn’t allow him to leave the group of managers that always circled him whenever he stepped outside the shiny company doors, keeping you a secret was more important. It didn’t hurt any less whenever he stood you up though.
Knowing that his reasons for acting as he did were because of his status as a level 1 automaton had shaken you to the core at first, but it had also been a relief. He had told you who he was after a couple of weeks when you had become convinced you had accidentally begun an affair with a married man, he had been forced to confess his real identity. At least you weren’t a home wrecker, was the thought that helped you reconcile with the fact that he would never be free to live a normal life with you.
Now you were seated on the toilet seat cover, your ear pressed to the door, your hand on the handle ready to pull it open. Time moved slower than usual, but your heartbeat was racing along with your mind.
Then you heard him, it was undeniably his voice that made its way past the music, chatting, and the coffee machines. He was coming to you. You could barely hear when he opened the first door into the restrooms over the sound of your blood rushing in your ears. Without a second thought, you opened the door enough to register the man you had thought about all too often lately and pulled him by the arm inside the small bathroom you had occupied. His biceps tensed as you pulled him and your body lit on fire because of it. God, he was so wonderfully big. Everything from his biceps to his cock was just so perfectly huge, and you went mad any time you thought about it. You kissed him in a passionate kiss, pressing your entire body against his. You fit so well together, his hands on your face and yours wrapped around his body.
You wanted more, you wanted all of him, all the time. You wanted to cry because you knew you couldn't have him. With tears pricking your eyes you let Seungcheol pull back to look into your eyes.
“Hi,” he whispered and smiled. You said hi back softly before the excitement and the giggles overtook your lips. You kissed him again, this time he saw to it that it was a soft and gentle kiss. A small wince left your throat, making Seungcheol quickly turn on the faucet, hoping it would drown out any noises. “Sorry,” you mumbled against his plush lips.
“Don’t worry, it’s partially my fault,” he said pridefully.
You were about to laugh, but instead, you pushed up his shirt, exposing his perfectly sculpted upper body to your touch. “Fuck you,” you said under your breath.
“‘Fuck me please’ is what you meant, yeah?” he cockily corrected you without missing a beat, flipping you both so you stood with your back against the wall he had been facing away from. You gasped as he lifted you off the ground with the wall helping to pin you between his stiff cock and the cold and hard wall.
He was right, even though you hadn’t allowed yourself to get your hopes up, you had been feeling unusually needy lately. The thoughts of him filling you up in any way constantly on your mind, you were already turned on as you entered the café with the small promise of him setting foot in there to meet you later.
“Please, fuck me,” you gasped out, feeling your arousal soak your underwear at the thought of his girthy cock inside of you. “I need you to be quiet,” he mumbled against your lips.
At this, you nodded fervently. Finally, you would feel him stretching you open again, bruising your insides with the force of his strokes like you had dreamt of after every single time you had managed to get together like this before. The moments were rare, but you made the most of the short time you had, to say the least.
His tongue quickly found yours as he ground you on his erection, eliciting a low moan and making you open your mouth for him to enter. Warm hands wandered your body, his gentle touch making you swoon as he held you with so much love, while the promise of him fucking you like the slut you were hung in the air.
A knock on the door, and both of you froze up, his bulge pressing right on your clit making it unbearable not to move. You winced only slightly as Seungcheol’s lips left yours, deciding to put your now lonely lips to use, kissing down his jaw and neck with soft little pecks and nibbles. “What?” Seungcheol asked over the sound of the water running, his tone a bit more agitated than he had intended. Not that he was at fault, he had a soaking cunt begging to be fucked right above his cock, and lips that made him go insane on his neck; someone disturbing him right now was not what he needed.
“How much longer do you need? We don’t have all day to wait around for a pair of pants to dry up.” the staff member on the other side of the door said, earning a sigh from Seungcheol.
After a moment of silence, he groaned and shouted towards the locked door. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right, I’ll be right out.”
No, you thought, your limbs holding onto the man who you had just only gotten a taste of even harder than before. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“I need you to be patient for me until next time, can you be good for me and wait?” he mumbled against your hair, your lips still attached to the skin right below Seungcheol’s collar. “Yes,” you said against his neck, letting go of his skin in favor of burying your face in the warmth of his chest. He put you down on the floor, his arms releasing the back of your thighs and instead wrapping around your body. For just a moment he held you close until the buzzing of the dryer died out and he loosened his hold on you.
You pressed your body against the wall as Seungcheol unlocked the door and disappeared through it just as quickly as he had been pulled in through it.
“Sorry, it didn’t come off.” you heard him say through the doors.
“We can’t get the shots if you’re all messed up like this, let’s tell the crew that we’re going back instead. Come on 5.C0UP5.” The staff member who had been just a few steps away from you two while they waited outside the restroom door responded as the voices got fainter and blended into the sounds of the café.
You sat in silence with your hand on the door handle as his voice disappeared completely. In the beginning, you had enjoyed the thrill and noncommitment of him not being able to be there to be an actual boyfriend because of his work and position in life, you recalled as you felt all the emotions in your body dissolve into nothing.
A small pain in your chest was the only thing left. The late-night thoughts you whispered in the dark, and the messages you had sent each other that contained your deepest yearnings and your worst fears. They had gotten to you, and it didn’t help that whenever you got a taste of having him physically there with you, you rarely- never- wanted to let go. But you always had to.
“Enough wallowing, this isn’t changing anything,” you mumbled as you wiped your face from the wetness that had seeped from your eyes without you noticing. You needed to hurry back to relieve Lana from her shift you realized as you checked your watch, seeing that you were already supposed to be back at the store.
You didn’t waste much more time after that, hastily making your way out of the bathroom, checking behind you as you left the café to make sure nobody had paid any attention to you. Like a punch in the gut, the feeling of being watched returned as your eyes landed on a dark-clad figure staring at you through the shop window. He had no reason to follow you with his gaze as you hurried across the street, away from the café, away from the gut-wrenching feeling that something was awry.
He wasn’t looking at you, right? You were just getting too paranoid, that’s all, right?
5.C0UP5 had been daydreaming the entire way back to the company, his mind taking him back to the moments he could hold you in his arms. His body couldn’t ache for you, but his mind almost had him believing that he did. Some days, he almost believed himself to have a heart. A heart that broke each time he had to leave you behind.
It wasn’t until he got back to the dorms where he got a glimpse of his members, and friends since he had been put into this world, that he finally felt himself come down back to reality. They were everywhere, some he saw in the lobby along with their hoards of staff members just like his own. Some were in the dorms, sleeping, or at least in a state of being that looked like sleeping as they charged.
Others were nowhere to be found, not that he went looking. They could mind themselves, he knew they would never do anything to make him less proud of them. To 5.C0UP5, he was the bigger worry.
He was just about to let himself rest and recharge, to try and forget the pain in the back of his mind, haunting him even as he saw his members wandering the dormitories and the company hallways. You were always in the back of his mind, no matter what he did to try and forget. Somehow, he had accidentally let you in, and now you were half his world. The hidden side of the moon, the side which should always remain in darkness, no matter how closely you look.
A staff member who had left him just minutes ago as they entered the guarded company building came back, not even bothering to knock before they entered the room in which 5.C0UP5 sat on his bed. “5.C0UP5, you need to follow me, the CEO has something to talk to you about.”
It had happened before, he met with the CEO every once in a while. After all, he was the spokesperson for the group, even if they didn’t have many (any) rights, they still needed to have someone to be their voice. This time, however, the meeting wasn’t scheduled. The CEO wanted to have an impromptu meeting with him… his hand unconsciously fell against his left side pocket, worry filling his mind even though he tried to make sense of why he had been called in to talk to the management.
Even as he entered the large office of the CEO he had been in more times than he could count, something felt off. People he had never met sat in chairs all around the walls. Guards stood at the door, looking more tense than he had ever seen them before, and the CEO himself had the strangest expression he had ever worn. 5.C0UP5 waited until he was spoken to, as he had been instructed so many times before. Honoring the one who made sure he had the comfortable life he currently had was something he had been taught from the very first day he had opened his eyes.
“Hello 5.C0UP5.” the suit-clad man in the dark chair said. He spoke calmly, but not kindly. 5.C0UP5 picked up on his tone immediately.
“Hello, Sir,” he answered and bowed his head ever so slightly, his eyes never leaving the man in front of him. The room was dark, but the photos splayed out on the desk in front of the CEO finally caught 5.C0UP5’s eye. He could recognize them even at this distance and brightness. His head worked ceaselessly to find the moment it had begun, the moment they had found out. Because in front of the CEO, he could spot hundreds of pictures of the one person he wished they would never even see: you.
All that went through 5.C0UP5’s mind when he realized what had finally happened was fuck.
“I understand that you have been seeing this human for a while… did you think we wouldn’t find out?” the CEO said, almost laughing at him as he sat in his chair looking over the pictures, each one containing your face, at work, at the café from earlier that day, at home. They had you right under their nail, ready to remove you from the planet at any second. He wanted to scream.
The CEO cleared his throat before he threw the photo he held in his hand on the glass desk in front of him. “Now, unless you want us to eliminate this problem of yours, you will be rebooted first thing tomorrow.”
5.C0UP5 knew he wasn’t supposed to protest, he wasn’t even supposed to think anything other than “Yes, Sir,” but before he could stop himself he spoke his mind.
“Please, no… Why would you do that? It doesn’t make any sense. If I’m found breaking the rules, I’m to be demoted, not- not this!”
“Seventeen is currently the galaxy’s top band 5.C0UP5, and you are their leader, you have an image to uphold. And since you failed at doing this, we want to reboot your system, that way you will be able to stay and your group members' reputations won’t be tarnished, and most importantly. This little issue will be resolved because you won’t even remember this little human.”
The CEO wasn’t smiling as he had thought before, the CEO had never once smiled. His eyes were dead, nothing more than a ghost of a human left inside of him. At least 5.C0UP5 felt something, at least he could smile, at least he could love…
He could love. He had felt it. So why was he about to get punished for something his management swore he couldn’t feel? Hoped he couldn’t, might be more accurate, 5.C0UP5 realized.
“How did you know?” he asked, the glare he received was enough that the management had begun running out of patience for him already.
“Does it matter? We know everything about you.” the CEO answered curtly.
Just like that the pieces fell into place, they had known all along. He felt the piece of metal that clung to his chest like a stone, stuck in his body and destroying him from within. They had known all along… The upcoming release of their new comeback was what they were worried about, he soon realized. They had hoped he would stop of his own free will, after all, he had the personality trait of shame. He should’ve already ended whatever he had with you.
However, he hadn’t. And now it would become an issue if they didn’t handle it quickly and quietly.
Despite that, the thought that overpowered all others at that moment wasn’t about how small he felt as he realized the true power the company had over him, or how much he loathed the people who thought they had a right to control him. He could love. That was the loudest, and he wanted to scream it, make everyone hear him just this once. It made him proud, he could do something this human was incapable of, and now they wanted to take that away from him. No. There was no way he was going to let them do that to him as well. He clenched his fist at his side, should he fight?
“You can return to your rooms, they will come to get you soon,” the CEO declared and pushed the photos on his desk off the table, straight into the trash can underneath. 5.C0UP5 fists relaxed a bit, a new plan forming as he turned to leave the room with the stern guards following along. “Oh,” he heard the CEO say, “and leave the phone, you are no longer trusted to keep it with you even in case of emergencies. I hope you understand… you won’t need to understand in a bit.”
His jaw was frozen in place as he took the phone from his pocket and threw it towards the CEO. The guards jumped forward to grab his arms as the phone crashed into the table and tipped over a cup of metal pens that scattered all across the floor. “Leave us,” said the CEO without even flinching.
5.C0UP5 didn’t feel any shame as he was dragged out from the dark office, suit-clad strangers watching him with cold eyes as the doors slammed shut behind him. He was dragged until they were in the hallway where the crossroad between freedom and forever forgetting you were. “I can walk by myself,” he said with a growl he had never heard in his voice before. The guards let him stand alone, watchful eyes on him as they began walking again, one in front of him and one behind him now. It’s now or never, he thought, taking the shot as he saw it arise in front of him.
His mind barely registered the hands that tried to grab onto him, all his focus lay on the doors in the lobby and on getting there. He ran with all his might until he crashed into the doors that were too slow to open. The crack widened and he pushed himself out of the glass doors that opened just in time for him to keep staying ahead of the guards. Bright lights in all the colors of the rainbow lit up before him as he began running down the crowded streets. His eyes watered because of the wind, and the lights blurred into a kaleidoscope of light.
His body was designed to be agile and strong, he was designed to keep moving. Right now that felt like the biggest blessing he had ever received in his cursed life.
From the back of his mind, two things arose. The first was your apartment, he had only heard about it, you had described exactly how to get there in one of the late-night calls you had whispered to each other weeks ago. The second was those twelve faces which were all he had known for so long; his members would be left to deal with it all when he was gone. He knew them so well, and yet, none of them had even had a chance to become someone to get to know. He wanted to give them a chance. As he ran he shouted out the word “Run!”, pressed that button he had used so many times before in the middle of the device connected to his chest, and began tearing the peace of metal from his body. It took him a few tries before he managed to rip the entire thing off of his skin. It hurt more than he had imagined, the pain was brain-numbing and overwhelming. He almost had to stop, the pain making it hard to focus on making his legs move forward.
Nevertheless, he was free, the tracker was gone from his body, and with it was his only connection to the only family he had ever known.
He ran, and he didn’t stop running until he arrived at your apartment. They would know he was here, they knew everything. He needed to be quick. He ran up the stairs to your apartment, knocking aggressively on your door, shouting as loudly as he dared for you to open the door. It wasn’t long until the door swung open and he was close to tears as he saw your very shocked face looking back at his panicked state. The thing you had imagined, but since you had found out his true identity, always known would never happen, had happened. 5.C0UP5 was tired, but he needed to get away, and he wanted you to come with him.
“We need to leave, they’re coming for me. Please come with me,” he pleaded, his eyes begging you as his hands held your arms desperately.
“What did you do?” you said breathlessly.
“They were going to make me forget, make you… erase the issue… I couldn’t let them take this away from me too.”
You were speechless. “You ran.” He nodded. You didn’t even bother to say a word as you ran into your apartment, leaving 5.C0UP5 at the door. He had no idea if you were trying to find somewhere to hide or looking for something as he heard crashes and your voice shouting curses from further inside your small place. He needed to get out of there, but maybe… holding out hope was worthwhile it turned out. Minutes later, which felt like hours for 5.C0UP5, you reappeared at the door, backpack in hand and sweat gracing your hairline. You were running with him.
It wasn’t a hard decision, you weren’t close to your parents, and Lana would understand eventually… at least you hoped your coworker, and only close friend at this moment of your life, would understand if you ever survived to tell her and apologize for leaving without a word.
A small pain stabbed at your heart, leaving everything for an automaton on the run. Everything you had ever known for this man… It felt insane at the moment, and it felt even more insane as you felt Cheol squeeze your hand which you had been holding since you took it, and began running towards the docks. You sat in the cold of the night on a hard bench next to Cheol. In a bit, a ship would arrive. Crowded places felt like a good idea at first, but now, the paranoia set in. Was that old man over there looking a bit too long at Cheol? Didn’t those surveillance cameras follow them as they walked onto the docks?
The hand in yours pressed gently against your skin, helping you stay at least a bit sane as the weight of what you were doing was already beginning to tug at your strength. You thought it best to focus on the plan instead.
“Let’s get on this ship, hop off at the airport, and get on another ship there. That way we can get off this planet because the sooner the better right?”
“Yeah, but don’t you think they will be looking for me at all the docks and airports?” Cheol said quietly.
He was right of course, they would be looking for the escaped automaton at all the exits of this world they could think of.
“Maybe if we…” You tried, but you didn’t know how you would get away if his company's staff members were to hunt them down anywhere on the planet. “Damn. Do you know that it’s incredibly difficult to go on a trip with you?” you deadpanned. The moment was horrible, but also perfect. It made Cheol smile, something you hadn’t seen the entire way from the moment you opened the door until now.
It helped keep your mind off of the horrible situation and the impending doom.
“It is,” he chuckled, “I never thought it would become an issue though.”
“But here we are,” you said and sighed. Cheol leaned against you, his large arm pushing against your side, making a smile split across your face.
“I don’t think we should get on one of the commercial airlines… we need something more private,” Cheol mumbled.
“How would we get a hold of a ship of our own? We don’t have the money for that…”
“We’ll figure it out…”
“We have a lot to figure out from now on, Cheol,” you said and let your head fall against his shoulder, resting your heavy mind on his strong frame. He hummed, the sound comforting you even while you thought about all the ways you could get killed while on the run.
The submarine came soon enough, and you both got on without a hitch. If you were being followed, they weren’t coming out of the shadows just yet. The cold light from inside the ship lit up the dark water around the underwater tracks that held the boat in place as it brought commuters across the sea each day and night. Under the high waves had turned out to be much easier than above them, especially nowadays. The storms had become worse in the last couple of centuries. Every other day there was another tropical storm on the seas. A side-effect of the universes coming closer together was what the scientists had concluded when it first began happening hundreds of years ago after the end of The Great Journey.
You looked out the blurry window into the empty waters. Cheol and you were sitting by the back of the ship, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. You had managed to throw a cap into your backpack, which now helped hide Cheol’s face from any surveillance cameras while you used the hood of your sweatshirt to somewhat hide your face. Being a petty thief seemed like the least of your current issues.
Neither of you spoke the entire ride, only communicating and comforting each other through a hand in the other or on their thigh. If you weren’t panicking you would probably be craving his touch in other places. That would have to wait though. A safe place was probably the priority, you decided in the back of your mind. You noticed his other hand, the one which wasn’t holding onto you like his life depended on it, continued reaching towards his neck. He seemed to be in pain. Did he get hurt? You hadn't had the time to even think about asking him how he was feeling or if he had gotten hurt by the guards or even the staff. You made a mental note to ask him later, placing your head against the rest behind you instead of his shoulder. You didn’t want to cause any more pain by resting against him.
It was getting rather late as you left the submarine station you had gotten off at. Your heart wasn’t calming down anytime soon, you weren’t equipped to handle this kind of stress. Day-to-day, normal life stress was enough, this was something else entirely.
“I want to live out the rest of my life in a very peaceful manner, far away from all of this crap,” you whispered as you walked the short walk from the submarine station to the spaceport welcoming hall. You wanted to be on a warm couch, not thinking about how to run away without being arrested. Right now, the idea of a living room seemed too far out of reach. All around you were tiny shops, suitcases, and the cold and unnatural light that lit up the entire spaceport’s welcoming hall. Ships that were boarding sounded out through the air, the comfy couch was as far from reality as you could get.
Cheol scoffed, “I agree, wholeheartedly. I am never running away again after this, it’s too much work.”
You tried to hold your laugh in, “Yeah, too much sneaking around for my taste. Let’s just run away this once, and then stay put and become that old couple on the hill that no one dares to visit.” Cheol nodded. “I would do anything for that…” Suddenly you noticed a small melancholy feeling in his words. You were just about to ask what was on his mind when he stopped your walk into the large welcoming hall, ushering you both into a small tourist shop. All you saw were miniature Earths, mugs with stupid prints, and keychains with different tourist attractions. You did not like it. For a second you were worried that he wanted to do some last-minute shopping, but your worries changed as you saw his terrified face. He had seen someone he knew.
“I’ve seen that woman over there by the kiosk before, she usually helps backstage at our concerts. Fuck, that means they really managed to send people out to the exits,” he grumbled. This was bad. You felt your blood rushing in your veins, panic filling your mind. Had you been alone, you would’ve been frozen right about now.
“Let’s just go,” he whispered hurriedly, panic visible on his face. “The faster we’re out of here the better, right? Are you with me?”
“Always. Let’s go,” you whispered, the reassurance being all Cheol needed to grab your hand in his even firmer than before and head right out of the welcoming hall and out the nearest exit leading to the departing spaceships. You were unbelievably lucky as you ended up in the middle of a large swarm of travelers who were just about to board the large ship. Most were workers it turned out, the ship being part commuting area and half cargo space. The both of you managed to sneak onto the ship along with the workers, keeping your heads down as you hoped to anything that would listen that you would be able to sneak onboard undetected.
It was unplanned, you barely even knew where the ship was headed. It wasn’t until you heard the voice that called out that the ship heading to Specus would depart that you both realized where you were heading. Specus was the mining planet, all the minerals needed for this universe to continue expanding its empire, and for life to continue as it has been until now, were found on this planet. All the people on this ship were workers there, probably coming back from their biannual leave which was granted to all humans and other living beings working there. Automatons was not included in the group of people who got any leave. The laws were clear about that, automatons were not human and didn’t need any form of vacation.
The laws were bullshit.
“Specus… I mean it could be worse, right?” you whispered. Cheol nodded, caught up in his thoughts. “Should we look for somewhere else to hide until we’re there?” you asked, trying to catch his attention again. Once again he only nodded, his senses all focused on his surroundings, making sure you two weren’t being followed or watched as he pulled you away from the area with rows of seating for the workers traveling with the ship. You went past the cots, knowing there was no way you could manage to stay hidden the entire way if you tried to stay in there. Instead, you made your way to the lower parts of the deck, the part of the ship where travelers didn’t wander. Here, you would only find crew members, cleaners, servers, and mechanics. The hallways were darker here, the LED lights being used more sparsely on the lower decks. You had a hard time seeing in the low light, but Cheol had your hand in his, a relaxed feeling managing to find its way into your body despite the circumstances.
You had only managed to get a little way past the third deck when you met another person for the first time since you had left the seating area. “Are you two lost?” the man asked, making you jump and making Cheol whirl around to where the sound was coming from. You hadn’t noticed him in the dark until he spoke.
“No, we’re just… looking for the bathroom,” you stuttered out.
It was the dumbest excuse in the book. You knew you didn’t have the man fooled when he began laughing. It was a wonderful laugh, high-pitched and genuine. The figure stepped out of the dark, revealing a handsome man, dressed in a simple gray overall. Over his breast pocket, it said maintenance. You felt yourself growing a bit anxious as to what the laughing man would do next. Would he turn you in?
“No, but seriously, why are you all the way down here? You two certainly don’t look like the new hires we were supposed to get this week,” the man, who you realized was holding a mop which he was now leaning on, said with a curious tone as he scanned the both of you from head to toe. “You look like a fucking idol, you know. If I didn’t know better I would think you were on the run,” he said with a smirk.
“I’m Cheol, this is Y/N,” Cheol said finally as he nodded his head in your direction. Even in this light, you could tell he was staring at the stranger with that intense gaze that could make anyone either break down or swoon.
The maintenance man sighed, “Alright, I’m Wooyoung. Come with me,” he said without explanation. You didn’t follow him right away. He looked back at you, the “Coming?” visible on his face.
“Do we trust him?” you whispered to Cheol, who was still watching the man waiting for you.
“I don’t know about trust, but honestly what choice do we have? It’s not like we can go anywhere now, and it’s a long journey to Specus…”
You nodded, nervousness made your hand clammy in Cheol’s firm grip.
This was a risk you needed to take. If he was going to turn you in, it was probably better to just get it over with. At least you wouldn’t have to starve or something if you were locked up until you got to Specus.
He led you to the lower decks, and surprisingly began introducing you both as the new temps that would help around on your way to Specus. The other crew members nodded, a few glancing rather suspiciously at you both but accepting the half-truth that Wooyoung told them. They hadn’t heard anything about any new temps, but it was none of their business it seemed. Who, and why you were there to help around didn’t matter to them.
Wooyoung led you around the lower decks, being strangely chatty with you two. You hadn’t expected someone so friendly to simply appear in your lives just as you needed it. Was he somehow your savior or was he something entirely else? You hoped he was good news because the alternative was so much worse.
“Okay, this guy is great, you’re gonna love him. He’s not… too talkative, but he’s very good!” Wooyoung said as he took you down a flight of very narrow stairs.
“Good at what?” You asked, minding your step so you wouldn’t fall as you descended. Wooyoung didn’t answer, instead flinging a thick metal door open and skipping inside.
“Sannie!” Wooyoung suddenly shouted as you and Cheol entered a room after him. The room was filled from floor to ceiling with electronics. Screws, bolts, and different tools were everywhere. It looked like a mix of a car workshop and a dentist. The second part was mainly because of the chair in the middle of the room. The only time you had seen one of those was when you had gone to the dentist. By a table, a man sat on a high stool, engrossed in whatever he was doing. A bright lamp shone down on, what looked to you like, a bunch of chords in different colors.
“What Woo? Did you get hurt again? Or are you just here because you’re bored…” San said as he was turned away from the door where you and Cheol stood, unsure of what to say and do just as you had been for the past couple of minutes. Would this man scrutinize you and Cheol as well, like the other staff members Wooyoung had introduced you to? It seemed you had managed to bump into the most friendly maintenance member on the entire crew, and you thanked the universe for that because it seemed as if he was the solution to a lot of your current issues. He seemed to know everyone on this ship, and you hoped the friendship between him and the others would somehow be your and Cheol’s way of being allowed into the crew.
“No… or well, yes, I am always a bit bored when you’re not around,” Wooyoung chirped, “But I’m here to see what you can do for these two.”
Wooyoung gestured towards the door, finally bringing the new strangers’ attention to where you and Cheol stood. “Well, I’ll be damned. You brought a level 1 down here along with a human?” San said and looked between you both and Wooyoung who smiled brightly at his friend. “Yup!”
San nodded, “Well, I can guess what happened with you two since you’re here after all… Can you work?” he asked after a moment. You nodded. “Yes,” you heard Cheol say.
“Great. I’m San, I’m the mechanic around here. Since I’m human, and apparently that means something even in space, these fuckers also put me in charge when we leave the dock. I’ll get you what you need, food for you,” he said and looked at you, he then turned to Cheol, “A charger for you, and enough work to make sure you sleep soundly when you get off your shifts,” San declared.
“Yay!” Wooyoung shouted gleefully, his cheerful claps making you crack a smile - despite the situation you found yourselves in.
Cheol wasn’t smiling, but he seemed more relaxed. “How did you know I was a level 1?” was all he asked. You hadn’t reflected on it, but it was strange that he had been able to realize the difference between Cheol and you so quickly.
San smirked, “It’s my job to know. If I couldn’t tell the difference between you and one of the workers here, I’d really be in trouble as a mechanic.” He was about to return to the mess of chords on his desk, but he looked back at Cheol, pointing towards his neck. “Also, come back here tomorrow and I’ll get that fixed for you.” Cheol’s hand reached for his neck again, the pain from touching the place his tracker had been made him flinch in agony. His shirt had fallen a bit lower while you had wandered after Wooyoung, he had opened his jacket, and now you finally spotted the area he had been protecting this entire time. The piece of metal you had avoided in your secret rendezvous was gone. He had ripped it out, you shuddered at the thought of the strength it must’ve taken to rip something like that from your own skin. You squeezed his hand to comfort and distract him, you didn’t know what else to do.
Wooyoung came towards you, happily walking away from San who was already immersed in his work, and made it clear that you were to follow him.
“Thank you,” you said before you left, San looking over his shoulder to give you a small smile and a ‘no worries’ expression in return. But worry was exactly what you had begun feeling, more than anything else.
You and Cheol got a gray overall each, both saying maintenance over the breast pocket and the back, just like the one Wooyoung was wearing. “Stay in here for tonight, and when I wake you I’ll let you know what you will be doing for the next couple of weeks,” Wooyoung explained, giving you a small room in a long hallway to stay in. Everything was in the same cool metallic shade, and you realized that all you had to sleep on tonight would be a lonely pillow and a blanket that looked like it had seen better days.
“It’s not ideal…” you stated, looking around in the small space you had been assigned as your room. “But we can make it work, right?”
“It could be a lot better,” Cheol nodded and looked at you. You had had an affair with a famous level 1 automaton, been found out by some really powerful people, threatened to be disposed of, illegally left Earth, and had just been offered safe passage to another planet by some unexpectedly friendly people. But the room was a bit small and dark. Cheol looked at you, a smile creeping onto his face. You began laughing at the absurdity, “We should probably be more grateful,” he gasped out between laughs. “But it’s so ugly!” You shouted, your laughs getting more and more manic.
“This is probably the stupidest thing we have ever done,” you gasped out.
Your eyes welled, which tears that were a result of your laughing, and which were your exhaustion finally setting in was impossible to tell. All your emotions just came out all at once. You were gasping for air, tears running down your cheeks, and all the weight of your decisions crashing right into you.
“It was, but I can’t make myself regret anything,” Cheol said, emotion welling underneath his words. But he didn’t cry. Instead, he just held you. He let you cry your eyes out, staining his dark hoodie with your tears as you sobbed.
“Did we make the right decision?” you whispered against his chest, strong arms holding you safe as you questioned what you had done.
“I hope so,” you heard Cheol say, the sound of his voice echoing in his body. You fell asleep in his arms for the first time that day. Having him to yourself in this way was a privilege, you realized. It was a privilege you had lived without for your entire life. You didn’t even know that you had been missing out on it until you woke up the next day, your head in his lap and his hands holding the blanket to your waist. You looked up at his handsome face, wondering if he had been able to rest where he sat against the hard wall.
It didn’t take long until you had both caught on to what you needed to do around the ship. It turned out that Wooyoung was a great instructor. During your shifts you both ran around, cleaning, and helping the regular crew members when needed. Wooyoung quickly made sure you felt at least a bit more comfortable on the ship by giving you tours around the decks and introducing you to even more of the crew members.
The best part, however, was when you, after an exhausting day working around the large ship, got to lay down in Cheol’s lap while he charged and slept for a few hours, just feeling the heat that his body generated as you let yourself be swept away from reality. The weeks passed, and you learned the routines of the ship rather quickly.
You barely had any time to think, let alone feel, how physically and emotionally exhausted you were. Leaving everything on Earth and trying to survive day by day on this ship in the middle of the vast universe was more work than you had hoped when you impulsively decided to leave. Some days you managed to take a moment to yourself, stopping in the middle of your step, and just staring out the small windows on the sides of the ship. The space outside was both so full of life and so empty of anything at all that you found yourself floating away in your thoughts into nothingness for just a moment.
After a few weeks of almost nothing but work and sleep, the crew began preparing for the landing. Soon you would be on Specus, with absolutely nothing planned for what was to come. This soon changed, however, as you sat down with San to eat dinner. Cheol sat next to you, not wanting to spend unnecessary time apart from you just because he didn’t need to consume any food.
“But, like, did you like the dancing and all that?” Wooyoung asked, the conversation had ended up being about your professions.
“I think I did, yeah,” Cheol answered honestly.
“I always thought I’d be a pretty good idol. If I wasn’t designated my level, I would've given it a shot for sure!” Wooyoung said, “Or well, maybe not under your company… they don’t seem that great from what I’ve heard, with the whole rebooting thing and all… that…” he trailed off. You were all staring at him. The silence was deafening, none of you truly knew what Cheol had been through. He had told you bits and pieces, but not nearly enough to know how he’d react to this.
San and Wooyoung had become your friends since you had been sharing your meals every day. Most of the time the conversations flowed naturally, and the topics ranged from everything from San’s latest way to fix up bolts that had begun unscrewing themselves to childhood memories. Wooyoung and Cheol had a hard time joining in on those conversations, but they shared their fair share of memories from when they first gained consciousness.
It was strange to think about it in that way, your boyfriend never had a childhood. Well, you still didn’t have a name for what you two were, and calling him your boyfriend in your mind might be jumping to conclusions, you were simply on the run with each other and had a romantic and sexual relationship with one another, but boyfriend might be going too far- Nevertheless, he had been created just as he was right now. Out of all the parts about AI that you had grown up to accept, the no-childhood part was the one you never quite could get past. He had missed something that was so fundamental to you and all other people who had been born instead of created in a factory. It made you really think about the fact that someone had created him intentionally - not just anyone, but him.
The silence was still pressing around you as you all waited to see how Cheol would react to Wooyoung’s lighthearted comment about the idol life. Your thoughts were wandering away from you, maybe in a way of escaping reality until Cheol saved the conversation.
“I think you would've been a great performer. You have the right energy about you,” Cheol said with a straight face making Wooyoung crack a smile.
You were happy that he seemed okay talking about his experiences. And you were equally happy that the mood hadn’t been completely ruined because of Wooyoung’s thoughtless comment.
After some time, the conversations died out and San picked up a new one, asking something neither you nor Cheol had any good answers to: “What will you do next?”
You looked at Cheol. He looked just as clueless as you felt. Neither of you had a plan. “They don’t have any clue,” Wooyoung pitched in with his laugh, that you would remember for the rest of your life. You looked down, nodding slightly. It was true.
“Where do you want to go? You don’t have any idea of where you would like to be in the future?” San asked, surprised that you didn’t have at least the semblance of a plan.
“I don’t know much about the universe… but I want to go somewhere safe. I want to spend my life where I won’t be found and won’t be constantly watched,” Cheol answered before looking at you, “…somewhere we can be alone.”
Your heart fluttered. You had forgotten that your life wasn’t just the endless days of work on the ship. It was beyond you how you could’ve forgotten it all so fast, but the intense look filled with love and pain that Cheol gave you made all the feelings stir up once again. You wanted that too, you wanted a place where you two could just be together.
You nodded, concurring with what Cheol had just said, “Is there somewhere like that? Where we can stay forever?”
Wooyoung stayed quiet but San looked at the both of you, something in his eyes telling you both that he did have an answer to what you were asking him. “Lumen. That’s where you want to go.”
“Lumen?” you asked, never having heard of the planet before.
San hummed, “It’s right beside galaxy 428B. They say it’s the ‘utopia of the universe’, but very few have ever managed to get there and even fewer have managed to get there and back to tell the story of it.”
“Why is that?” you continued asking, your curiosity piqued.
Lumen had been a planet much like Earth before the entire shift in the universe had happened. It was a sunny place, filled with forests and unexplored nature. There lived some type of people, San wasn’t sure what they were called. It was far away, and the solar systems that were close together had not deemed it worth the cost of travel to create a way to commute there. If you could get there, you wouldn’t have to worry about anything but creating a way of life, San told you. He had heard about the place from travelers he met in his childhood, people who had been on a journey of their own in search of a safe haven - much like you and Cheol.
“All I know is that you need to travel as far north from our solarsystem as possible,” he said and went quiet. “I’ve never seen those people after they left in search of Lumen, I don’t know if they ever made it.”
Cheol was deep in thought next to you. Neither of you responded to what San had told you except for a short: “Thanks, I think we should head to bed.” But even as you rested your head against his shoulder that night waiting for the exhaustion to overtake you, not a word came from the man you had spent weeks chatting within just this position.
If you were going to find out what he thought about your destination, you would need to take the initiative you thought that night.
“I wanna go, do you?” Your words lingered in the dark room. Silence. Soon you almost began falling asleep, your brain coming to accept that you were probably not going to get an answer out of him tonight. Your body jerked as you heard his deep voice say: “I want to come with you.” Grabbing his hand you nodded sleepily against his shoulder.
“I love you…” you mumbled before you dozed off, leaving Cheol alone and awake in the dark with your words ringing in his ears.
The next day Cheol still couldn’t get those three words out of his mind. Only for a moment did he think about trying to make up a plan for what you needed to do now that you had decided where you wanted to go. ‘I love you’… the thought of your sleepy voice whispering to him had him cleaning the same spot for at least twenty minutes.
You had said it first, but he didn’t even know if you meant it in the way he felt it. Did you just say it without thinking while half asleep? Were you thinking of someone else? What if you were mad that he hadn’t said it?
He was freaking out, rubbing harder with the mop on the laminated floors. He was sure that he had messed it all up. Maybe you didn’t want to go anymore. What if you had just followed him thinking it would be a quick trip and ended up with more than you had bargained for? God, why hadn’t he said it back last night? He felt it, so why did he freeze when he heard those three damn words?
He jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder, “Hey,” Wooyoung stood beside him, looking at the only wet spot on the ground around them. “How’s it going with the floor?”
Cheol looked down, only now realizing how caught up in his head he had been. “Shit, I’m sorry man.”
“No worries. Something wrong?” Wooyoung said, his hand still on Cheol’s shoulder in a reassuring manner.
He shook his head, “Just a lot on my mind…”
Wooyoung hummed, nodding understandingly. “Go talk to each other about whatever it is, don’t just stand here doing… I don’t even know what the hell you’re doing, to be honest.”
Cheol looked at him. He was weirdly intuitive, Cheol thought as he looked at the crooked smile Wooyoung was flashing him. He nodded, “It’s ok for me to go?”
“Dude, just go! I told you to do so, I decide who cleans the floors and you are definitely not helping me do it, so you’re off floor duty.”
Cheol let go of the mop, his legs quickly moving away from the upper decks and down to the lower ones, towards you. He quickly found you in the kitchen, removing plates from the large dishwasher as the servers stacked the hot plates in tall piles - it looked rather dangerous as he glanced at the piles that towered over him. “Cheol?” You blurted out, surprised to see him here when he wasn’t on duty in the kitchen that day.
“Hi, I… I wanted to see you, and Wooyong he- he said I could go and I needed to…” he paused, he didn’t actually know what he wanted or what he needed. Or well, he did know, he just didn’t know how to make it happen.
“Come on, let’s go talk then,” you simply responded, making Cheol look at you in awe. He wondered how it had been so easy for you to say what he had wanted to say all along. You on the other hand were wondering why Cheol stood entranced in the kitchen doorway looking at you as if the words ‘let’s talk’ had been revolutionary.
“Coming?”
Cheol nodded and followed you back to the small back room that had been yours for the past few weeks. It was dark, but there was enough light coming in from the hallway and the tiny lamp in the corner of the room to light up the piles of clothes in the other corner, the blanket he put over you every night, and the charger that was plugged into the wall next to where he slept with you in his lap.
The door closed heavily behind him as you leaned against a wall, wondering what it was that he felt the need to talk about, was it Lumen? “Did you change your mind?” You asked hesitantly.
“About what?” Cheol looked scared for some reason, you didn’t know why but it made your eyebrows knit together.
“It’s not about Lumen?”
“No, no I still wanna go to Lumen! It’s not about that… wait, do you… not want to anymore?”
You shook your head, “That’s not it!” You hurried to assure him. “I just thought, since that was our last conversation… you know.”
Cheol swallowed, he just needed to say what he felt.
That was easier said than done though. The words all got jumbled up in his brain, his thoughts making his throat go dry, he just wanted you to know without having to tell you. You couldn’t read his mind, but he wanted you to feel it. He wanted you to feel how much, how deeply he loved you. He took a step towards you, your arms wrapping around him without a second thought. You pulled him close, chuckling at the thought that he had just wanted some kisses.
His lips pressed against yours and his tongue quickly made its way into your mouth, the movements from his touch making you dizzy and tingly all over. Want was already pooling in your lower stomach. Arousal seeped through your folds, you hadn’t felt Cheol’s touch or mouth on you in so long. It kickstarted your system and had you wet after just a couple of minutes of making out.
“More please,” you mumbled against his lips.
Cheol’s hand moved down from your waist, below the gray pants you were wearing today. His large fingers quickly found their way through your folds, your pussy now soaked and leaking as he slipped his hand against your clit. His breath was hot against your face as he let go of your lips so he could hear your whimpers as he circled your clit.
It felt so good, his rough hands knew exactly what to do as they dipped into your cunt, only teasing you before he went back to press on your sensitive spot.
You were spreading your legs further apart the longer he teased your clit, you wanted to be filled, you wanted him to push his digits further into your body, you wanted to feel him inside of you as you gushed around his fingers. When he did you moaned out his name, the tension from the past few weeks all dissolving as he fucked you on his fingers.
A loud knock drew you both out of the moment, and an unsure voice came from behind the door. “Uhm, Cheol? I just wanted to tell you that you’re off for the rest of the day… I got both yours and y/ns shifts covered… so you could talk.”
Cheol cleared his throat, “Yeah, thanks Wooyoung!” he shouted back before pushing his fingers back deep inside your cunt. A moan escaped your lips as he hit the right spot within.
Wooyoung went silent, “Okay fine! Later then!”
Cheol didn’t bother to answer, and as Wooyoung left you could hear him talk to himself, “You do something nice for someone and all they do is wave you off so they can get their dick wet, assholes!”
He would’ve done the same, but none of you would ever argue about it with him. You both laughed for just a second before Cheol kissed you gently yet again, making you forget everything about what had just happened.
You soon came as he thrust his fingers deeper into you while the palm of his hand pressed on your entire pussy. It was heavenly, a white blur was all you could see, and relief swept through your body. Cheol kept you from falling onto the floor when he put down the leg he had helped hold up. You were holding onto his clothing with a firm grip as you came down from the first high you had felt in too long. Cheol was riding on a high of his own, not because he had been allowed to cum but because you had. He felt just as proud now as he did the first time he had managed to make you have an orgasm, and he let the words come as they wished, “I love you, more than anything in the universe.”
Your eyes fluttered open upon hearing those softly spoken words. The words that turned your world upside down, the words that terrified you, the words you had longed to hear.
“I love you too,” you said, pressing your forehead against Cheols.
“I know,” he chuckled.
“Wait what?” You said and pulled away your head to try and see his face, “How… oh!”
Your hand flew to slap over your mouth as you remembered what you had been thinking last night, remembering how the words had sat right at the tip of your tongue before you let yourself fall asleep last night. “I said it out loud, didn’t I?”
Cheol nodded, a smirk playing on his lips. “I hope you meant it because you’re gonna have to spend the rest of eternity with me once we get to our paradise.”
“Our paradise? You already think Lumen is ours?” You teased.
“Of course, with my handsome face and your gorgeous everything, how could we not find ourselves in charge?”
“You’re insane, and I meant it.”
His smile shone even in the darkness and it lit up your heart like the sky on New Year’s Eve. He held you that night just like all other nights, but your mind was calmer than most other ones. You were dragging your fingertips along Cheol’s chest, resting your chin on his pillowy arm.
“You know what’s funny?” he suddenly asked.
You looked at him curiously. “What?”
“My entire life, the people around me tried to convince me that I didn’t have a will of my own - that I didn’t have my own needs that they couldn’t fulfill.”
“...that’s funny?” you asked, shocked at his apparent sense of humor.
Cheol laughed, “No, no, I mean, it’s not really funny… but it’s funny how, as I had begun believing this myself after years of having been told this, it all just collapsed in front of me the moment I picked up the phone and heard this stranger with the most endearing voice ever try to order a pizza from me.”
You stayed quiet, “...again, that’s what you find funny?? I think we need to work on your humor mister.” He laughed more, your giggles joining his after a moment. Living wasn’t easy, but at least he had joined yours, and it was beginning to transform. Nothing was as it had been, and even an unsure future on the run seemed better than the life you had been living so far. At least you had one another now.
Time moved too fast after that day, the goal of somehow going to Lumen with Cheol made the days on the ship with San and Wooyoung fly past you. Soon you were preparing to land on Specus. San had told you that you could stick with him for a few days before he got back on the ship to make the journey back to Earth. You both accepted, grateful that you didn’t have to figure out where to go by yourselves on this new planet.
The day you stepped off the ship onto the giant spaceport on Specus you held onto Cheol’s hand, just as you had when you boarded it. Specus was an industrial planet, its main purpose was to mine minerals and metals from deep within the planet. It was visible the second you stepped off the ship that this planet wasn’t like Earth at all. Everything felt like it was a back alley, with pipes, and rust covering every building and vehicle you could see as you followed San through the rundown welcoming hall. There were no shops filled with books or souvenirs, only a ticket shop booth where a robotic arm was visible in the yellowish window. San led you through the hall, not looking at much and saying even less. It was colder here than on Earth.
“Stop.” San said suddenly, “Look up.”
Both you and Cheol let your eyes flash up, towards the ceiling, or at least towards what would’ve been the ceiling had there been one. Instead what you both saw was a dark violet sky, not the kind that you had both seen on Earth, but one that looked like it was exploding with tiny stars. “What is that?” You asked as you stood with your neck bent back completely so you could watch the stars moving around above you, faster than any stars you had ever seen before.
“Specus spins faster.” San explained, “Somehow that ended up meaning it’s always this one color of blue in the sky and the light from the stars in our galaxies all blend to create this kaleidoscope of color and stars.”
“It’s pretty,” you said, tears almost forming in your eyes at your first sight of something other than metal and the darkness of space you had seen in months. You had missed looking up at the sky, you realized, even if it wasn’t the same sky that you had at home.
Home, where was that? Earth wasn’t your home anymore. Did you not have one anymore?
Cheol’s hand squeezed around yours and you abandoned the thoughts. They would only hurt you in the end, it was better to focus on the now.
San got you all two rooms at a hostel, the only one on the entire planet it turned out. They didn’t get many visitors except for the few who worked on commuting ships like San, and now you two. It had been so long since you had slept in a real bed that you slept as long as you physically could bear before your stomach was growling at you to get breakfast. San had already retrieved some while Cheol stayed with you, refusing to leave you alone just yet. He didn’t trust the others in the hostel, it seemed, as he continued to be on guard as you both got ready to leave your hostel room.
That day San took you both on a tour around the town, it was small but busy. Automatons, aliens, and a few humans were wandering around; on their way to work, on their way to their temporary homes, or on their errands for the day. In that sense, it didn’t feel like you were very far away from Earth. But as you glanced up at the violet kaleidoscope sky you were reminded of just how different it all was.
As the days passed on Specus, you didn’t have a clue of what to do next or how to get to Lumen. San had done everything he could for the both of you, even teaching you some of the most basic routines for checking on Cheol’s health. It hadn’t been an issue you had spent a single thought on, his health being something you took for granted even now. San helped you realize that what you had gotten yourselves into was dangerous not just because of who was after you, but because of who you two were. You needed to know things in case Cheol couldn’t help with telling you what he needed, in case something bad happened. Nobody would be able to help once you were alone. You weren’t handling the realization well.
Cheol was the one to let you forget about it after you had gotten yourself stressed about what could end up hurting him. He felt guilty about having you worrying about him, and honestly, a little pissed at San for frightening you so much. He knew you needed to learn though, and opted for being your comfort instead.
He kissed you, gently and lovingly, and he held you close when you couldn’t let the thought of having to use the new skill San had taught you on the man you loved. Seeing the inside of someone in that way had become your new nightmare. Cheol held you each night, shushing you back to sleep if you ever woke up from it.
Two weeks ended up passing by just like that, nightmares and lessons on Automaton autonomy. You wanted to get off of Specus by the beginning of the third week. It didn’t matter that San and Wooyoung had become your friends, you wanted to leave. The sky was still beautiful but everything around you reminded you of what San had taught you, and you couldn’t think anymore, you didn’t want to think anymore.
“Let’s find a ship then,” Cheol simply said when you voiced how badly you wished to go somewhere else, to find your paradise sooner rather than later.
You laughed a bit at that, “Do you really think it’ll be that easy?”
“Of course, it’ll be easy!” He said with a casual shrug. You flashed him a smile in return for his suddenly carefree attitude.
“I don’t believe you, but I say we give it a shot!”
Before you left you said your goodbyes to San, just in case you ended up actually lucking out and finding a ship that was willing to take you both to Lumen. You hugged the mechanic who had helped you both so much during these months. Cheol did the same, with one small difference, he whispered something to San before he pulled away. Something that made San’s face go serious but he nodded in confirmation. What had he agreed on? What had Cheol told him? You tried asking him as you left towards the spaceport but he wouldn’t budge, telling you “You’ll notice if it worked later, I promise.”
The hours passed, and any ship that looked decent had declined you. Every captain had a destination already and none of them had Lumen on the maps.
You were tired and hungry. Cheol’s chipper attitude was long gone by now and you were both seemingly thinking about giving up for the day.
“You know what, what if we just steal that ship? If we’re gonna be on one for months or even years we should have a proper one,” you joked and pointed at a large ship by the end of the docks. Cheol looked at the ship, it was larger than the ones you had been asking all day, but not even close to as large as a cargo ship. It was the perfect size for going on a long trip with a few people.
“Alright,” Cheol said without a hint of sarcasm, which made you look at him surprised.
“Wait what? You want to steal that ship for real?” You wheezed out. He nodded, a playful smile showing you that he meant to try.
Fuck it, your mind decided - hunger and the need to leave Specus and all its minerals overtaking your rational mind. You boarded the ship, walking past any guards as if you owned the place. Nobody minded you two, the few people that far out the docks minding their own business. The ship was even more gorgeous inside, modern and so clean you were shocked at how long you had gone since you last saw a floor without mud or rust.
You walked into the cockpit of the ship. If someone were to arrest you right now you were happy to at least have seen this ship before rotting away in Phylaca forever. The prison planet was the one place you never wanted to see even if you weren’t going there for imprisonment. But going to Lumen was all that mattered, so you would need to steal this ship.
“I think this will do,” you said and smirked at Cheol.
“What are you two doing here?” The voice made you both jump, and you both looked towards the exit. A man, rather large in his stature, stood confused and agitated in the doorway. He had just stepped inside the ship, the door behind him still wide open with the ramp that led to the dock right below him. You were in shock one minute and the next you began running. But you weren’t running away from the large man, you ran right towards him. A look of panic flashed across the man’s face and then your body slammed into his. You were sure you were going to fall with him, but you never did. A strong grip holding onto your waist. When you opened your eyes to see if you were dead you saw the man on the ground. He wasn’t moving. People around him looked up from their own business to look at what had happened. Cheol pulled you inside, closing the door as you stared out into the void in front of you.
Had you killed that man? You ripped yourself from Cheol’s grip and looked out of the tiny window that faced the docks where more and more people were grouping around the man. Was he moving? You wanted to think he was moving. The people around him tried to lift his head, he was bleeding a little, but he was sitting, right? Your mind was a mess. You didn’t know if what you were seeing was real, or if it was your mind playing a terrible trick on you.
You gasped as you saw the docks moving. They were moving away from you just as the man seemed to turn and point at you. “He’s not dead! Cheol I’m not a murderer!!” You shouted.
But Cheol wasn’t there, he wasn’t where you had torn away from his grip anymore. He was by the cockpit, hands frantically trying everything he could to get the ship to do as he wished. The docks hadn’t moved, you realized, the ship had.
Cheol picked up how to steer the ship rather quickly, even understanding how to use the auto control so he could charge at the same time you slept instead of constantly doing shifts. You were happy about that since it meant you got to spend time together on the ship, your days becoming rather pleasant as you settled into a routine. There was plenty of fuel on the ship, both for the ship itself and for you and Cheol. Electricity was easy to come by and there was a rather large supply of food there as well. You had managed to snatch a ship that had just been restocked - it was hard to accept the amount of luck the two of you had been struck by.
But the best part of the ship was the fact that nobody else was on it. For the first time in forever, you two were alone. Alone with a bed and each other. There was nothing else to do but to let Cheol fuck you in every way he, or you, wanted. And my god you wanted to - all the time. The day had only just begun on your second week on board the ship and you hadn't had the chance to get dressed yet, breakfast in bed having become the norm as you let the ship steer away from everything, hoping it would lead you to Lumen if you just kept the course San had told you about. You simply steered away from — and hoped for the best. After all, you had better things to do that occupied your mind at the moment.
Cheol could taste the fruit you had just eaten for breakfast, you tasted like what he imagined summer would if he could consume it. In a way he was. He was drinking in the way you looked underneath him with his eyes, he was licking and kissing every inch of you that he saw, nibbling on your skin, making you moan and beg more and more for each day that he learned his way around your body.
Never before had you been undisturbed like this for days on end. It was pure bliss. He found out each spot you liked to feel his lips on your skin, each spot where he could make you arch your back off the bed, and each spot on the ship where he could drill into your cunt until your legs gave out and your juices leaked out of you. You made a mess of the large bed that had been meant for someone a lot more powerful than the two of you, but none other than you two would’ve been able to use it to its fullest like you had been while alone on the ship.
Cheol’s fingers smoothed over your thighs as his hot breath caused shivers to spread from your core, goosebumps prickling your skin in the air of the spaceship. You were grabbing fistfuls of his long hair, his gaze sultry and dripping with lust as his tongue flicked over your clit. He was burying his face in your puffy and glistening folds, reveling in your moans and how your entire body was writhing from his tongue exploring your wet pussy.
You had been at it for a while, but neither of you were finished, orgasms were still left to be had before you would be able to sleep.
The way he was making out with your cunt would soon send you over the edge if only the muffled sound of a voice hadn’t found its way through the corridors of the ship to pull you out of your pleasure.
“What the fuck is that?” You groaned, pushing on Cheol’s head a little as if you would be able to hear the voice clearer the further Cheol was from your cunt. This was true, but not enough of a reason to give up on chasing your orgasm, according to Cheol since he simply attached his lips to you again.
He hummed, meaning to get you to ignore whatever it was. The voice of a person, clearly in a rush, continued to echo in the large rooms from the cockpit. “Cheol I need to check on that. They sound worried, maybe they’re in danger.”
“Fucking hell!” He groaned out as you pushed on him again. “How is it possible for us to get interrupted right now?! We’re in the middle of the freaking space for goodness sake!” Cheol shouted, his lips leaving your body and his hands stilled.
“I’ll fix it. Gimme two seconds,” you said with a giggle. He had taken the words right out of your mouth, it was incredible how you could never have sex without someone interrupting you.
You rushed to the cockpit, only managing to throw on a simple T-shirt. “Hello?” The voice came screeching out of the sound system in the cockpit. You had never used it before, but with a simple push of a button that blinked in a bright shade of red, you were able to answer the person on the other end. “Hello! Can we help you?” You asked in your friendliest tone.
“Yes, hello, this is the spacecraft Marquise, 4210-CH378,” the voice stated, “We are on course for —- and have discovered your ship on our monitor. We are on a direct collision course with your ship if nothing is adjusted, and based on our estimation of your ship size we are afraid that any living beings on your ship will be crushed as a result of the impending collision.”
You were speechless, “I’m sorry? We’re about to crash into you?! And die?!” You shouted the friendly tone you had tried to access now long gone in favor of your pure panicked state.
“I’ll move our ship! Please don’t crush us!” You shouted as you pressed down on the button, hoping to the stars that your actions were the right ones to do at that moment as you simply smashed buttons at random on the control desk. Anything to make the ship away from the larger ship that was already visible in the far-off distance, a star that seemed to move twice as fast as any regular star could.
You hadn’t noticed Cheol when he entered the cockpit, only noticing him when you felt a kiss on your shoulder, which then became a row of small warm kisses down your back. A small chuckle came from behind you as your body reacted to him, forgetting what you were doing.
“If you intend to change the course of your ship, we would prefer it happen before you end up in front of us…” the person on the other side of the intercom reminded you.
You had forgotten, pushing the red button once again, bending forward as you did, giving Cheol the perfect opportunity to push his face back against your still dripping pussy.
“I’m so sOrry-” you winced, “I’m having some technical difficulti- ah!”
“Do you need some assistance?” a voice crackled over the intercom. You needed to get the ship on another course or you would soon be nothing but a bug on the windshield of the much larger ship coming right towards you. Cheol’s tongue on your soaking cunt had you trembling where you stood, bent over the control panel, the ship in sight and your mind working against the impulse to give in to Cheol’s magic touch and ignore all your issues.
You tried to momentarily pull away from his face, but he had you in his grip and you were too entranced by his grip to properly make the effort to get your heat away from his warm tongue. Instead, you pushed on the lever that you had seen Cheol use only once or twice, unsure of what it did but it was the best option. You pushed it as far as it went, and the ship began turning away from your intended course, and by extension, away from the collision course.
“Thank you. We wish you good luck on your further travels,” the voice from the larger ship sounded through the intercom once again. “No problem, you too!” you managed to say before turning away from the control panel, Cheol’s grip on you only losing for a second as he took his mouth off of you, only to sit you down in the pilot’s seat. This time you weren’t focused on staying on the course however, instead the chair was turned away from the panels and the vast universes outside the ship, instead, you had a very cocky Seungcheol on his knees in front of you. Your cunt was on display and dripping as you awaited his touch yet again.
“You seemed to be a little distracted just now,” he chuckled. You scowled, but not for long, your neediness taking control of you once again as you pushed Cheol’s face back to your arousal, which he lapped up with fervor, the stress of the moment gone just as it had come, the incident being largely forgotten by the both of you afterward.
This was one of the biggest mistakes you could have made on your journey. Forgetting where you were going, forgetting that your newly found safe haven on the ship would only last as long as nothing burst your fragile bubble.
Days passed, and your waking hours flew past you almost as fast as the space around you did.
A single blip showed up at the edge of one of the monitors in the cockpit. Blinking bright blue, your spacecraft flew closer with each day. Neither of you paid any attention to it. The both of you relied on the autopilot mode to guide you to Lumen, even if your initial direction was based on nothing more than what San had told you months ago.
The change of course hadn’t made a difference to your daily routine until you saw the desolate planet in front of you. When you had spotted it one morning in the distance, you had presumed it to be an optical illusion. There wasn’t supposed to be much of anything out here, but you could very clearly see a small planet, darker than the surrounding space, with only the lights of ships to reveal that it was anything other than space junk or a meteor.
Dark and wet, it lay lonely in the universe. Your fuel had begun emptying after weeks of nonstop flying, you would need to stop at one place or another sometime soon. Changing courses away from the prison planet now would only make suspicion arise from the watchtowers on the planet. There was no denying it: Phylaca would be your next stop.
“We need to put on our best act, we fucked up y/n, let’s make it quick…” Cheol tumbled as you both watched the planet becoming bigger and bigger from the cockpit’s large window. “As long as they don’t find out anything about who we are or why we’re here, everything will be fine,” you agreed, the doubt evident in your voice and the way you were biting your cheek to distract you from the sense of doom you were experiencing.
Docking at Phylaca’s spaceport was unexpectedly easy, the man who had answered the intercom had welcomed you to land on one of the less crowded docks before they could come to meet you. You had worried they would take you as pirates or something worse since you weren’t authorized to be there, but the man on the speaker had jokingly called you out on “not exactly looking like a pirate ship.” You weren’t sure how you should take that, but you were thankful that it had let you both safely land on the planet.
A guard was coming closer, he didn’t look like most guards you had seen before, he was rather short and his stature was on the smaller side. His presence, however, was enormous. The way he carried himself made you a bit nervous as he approached. You went out to meet him, hoping it wasn’t all a ploy to get you and Cheol arrested, he stayed behind inside the ship, having been convinced that it would be safer if nobody had seen him on Phylaca at all. San had recognized him as a level 1 automaton, even though most people can’t tell the difference at all, who was to say that nobody else would?
“Hey,” the man said and reached out a hand, “Welcome to Phylaca, the intergalactic prison.”
You had to swallow hard to not reveal how nervous that made you. “Hey, me and my crew were hoping that we could stay here for just a little while, just until we can restock on some supplies and fuel. We’ll be out of your hair before you can even count to 10!” You rambled, not much thought going into what you were saying even though your brain was running in circles trying not to say anything stupid.
His features were sharp, delicate in some way, he stared at you expressionless as he listened.
“That soon? On the run or something?” He said, the same expressionless eyes staring at you suspiciously.
Fuck, you had already fucked it all up. You would die in prison and they would probably send Cheol back to earth and he would forget everything and you would be left here all alone for all of eternity! You wanted to cry. The guard must’ve noticed, because as he saw the tears trying their hardest not to fall from your bottom lashes his expression let up, eyebrows knitting worriedly together and he reached out a hand, “No, shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry!”
The tears fell, and you wiped them off, pulling back from the hand the guard had reached out for you. “I was only kidding, okay? I’m gonna tell you a secret, yeah?”
Your tears were gone, you mind a huge question mark as the guard you had been speaking to for about two minutes had 1. Made you cry, 2. Guess your life’s story in two seconds, and 3. Wants to tell you a secret so you won’t cry??
Who was this man?
“You’re not the first person who has ended up here while on the run, and I’ll help if you are! That’s my secret…” he whispered, looking at you with a curious eye. Was he waiting for you to respond to him disclosing what was most likely highly restricted information to you just because you were tired and scared?
“Uhm…” you were speechless, “I’m y/n, I’d love help…”
“Oh wow, okay that was much easier than it usually is. Hi y/n, I’m Hongjoong,” he gave you a gentle smile now, somehow reassuring you that you would be okay, even if you had just been offered illegal help from what you figured was basically a corrupt guard.
“What? He just agreed to help us? A Phylaca guard agreed to restock our storage and fuel tank. Just like that?” Cheol was in disbelief, you nodded with big eyes, barely believing it yourself.
“I mean, it’s possible that he only said he would because I was crying and he wanted some time to get more guards to come and arrest us… but he seemed very nice!”
He was in shock, and he was scared, you could see it in his face before he hid it in his hands, rubbing away the worries as much as possible.
“He… did he not want anything in return?” He finally asked. You were silent for a moment. “Y/n. What did he ask you to do in return for this huge favor?”
His voice was stern, and you would need to tell him eventually anyhow.
“…he wants us to help one of his acquaintances get off of Phylaca…” you mumbled, a bit scared of how he would react to you agreeing to host strangers on your ship.
“You invited refugees from a prison to our ship?”
“…I did.”
He stared at you, his expression hard to read.
“Can we run before they get here?”
“I don’t think we should…”
“…Fine, let’s wait for them, whoever they are. But if it turns out they’re literal murderers or something, we should kick them off sooner rather than later,” he said before standing up. You were standing by the door, not having gotten much further into the room created for the kitchen staff on the ship, the room that you had deemed safe enough for Cheol to stay in while you went outside to meet Hongjoong.
He walked to you, taking your face in his hands, “Thank you for coming back safely, even if this deal might get us killed in the end.”
You chuckled but was interrupted when Cheol leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to your lips.
The ship was ready to lift, but the docks were even emptier than you had seen them during the entire time you had been on Phylaca. Hongjoong hadn’t talked to you much since that first day. He had sent notes along with the supplies he had sent over. It was terrifying each time a delivery was made, you never knew if this was the day you would be found out and arrested. But Hongjoong had turned out to be trustworthy, and you had kept your own promise of staying to help out his acquaintances in need too, at least so far.
“They haven’t shown yet?” Cheol asked when he came back to the cockpit where you sat, prepared to lift the moment your new passengers were on the ship.
“Nope, Hongjoong said that they would show up about now… should we leave if they don’t come?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they will come after us if we leave…we don’t know how much we should trust that guard if we break our deal.”
He was right, you needed to wait; you needed to keep your promise to make it off Phylaca safely. If you had done all this just to get arrested while leaving the planet, it would’ve all been in vain.
You waited, the silence of the empty-looking planet feeling increasingly eerie.
Then you spotted them, you gasped, they were running. Two people were running towards you. You couldn’t see them clearly, they were too far away at first. You recognized the jacket on one of them, it belonged to the guard on Phylaca. The other person was seemingly wearing matching clothes. Were they criminals? What had you gotten yourselves into?
You didn’t call for Cheol to come look, but he noticed the way you tensed up as you saw them coming closer and the way your breath hitched in your throat when you finally saw them. You recognized one of them from the big plasma screens. His face had been everywhere. Even though you hadn’t been looking much at any of the members standing beside the man you had found out was the idol you were talking to in secret, you could recall his face lit up with the cold blue lights in the evening. He was one of the 53V3NT33N members. D1N0. One of the members Cheol had been forced to leave behind when he ran. He was here, on Phylaca.
Cheol stood frozen beside you. They stopped just a couple hundred feet away, the other person blocking the view of D1N0’s face. Something was happening, you didn’t know what, but when you saw the guards you didn’t even care anymore. You weren’t going to get caught here, not like this. D1N0 had stayed behind. He pushed the other person forward, and simply watched as they ran toward the ship. They ran away from him, away from the guards, and towards you and Cheol.
They were the acquaintances Hongjoong had spoken of, they were supposed to leave with you. Both of them. But only one of them got on board. Cheol was still frozen, you weren’t sure if he was even there anymore. You couldn’t wait. The stranger that had run on board was safe.
You left the docks, hearing a faint, “No!” You knew it was Cheol, but the instinct to get you all to safety was greater than his shouts for you to turn back. He could’ve overpowered you and made you go back, but he didn’t even think that far. He ran to the doors that would’ve led him outside. A large bang echoed through the metal hallways of the spacecraft along with a pained sob. You didn’t know if it came from Cheol or your new passenger.
But there was nothing to step onto, only space. The view of D1N0 was soon lost, you didn’t want any of you to see what would happen to him as he stayed on Phylaca.
You didn’t want to know what you had done as you left without him.
Cheol was quiet. So quiet.
He said nothing, he barely looked at you. It felt like a stab in the back each time he looked away from you when you even looked his way or opened your mouth.
The bang had come from Cheol making a dent in the interior of the ship, wrecking his hand in the meantime. You had looked at his broken hand in horror, the sight of his skin cracked but without a single drop of blood or bone showing made you queasy.
The stillness of the ship continued for days. Your new passenger having shut themselves away from the both of you, it was different than Cheol, but the silence was crushing anyhow. There was nowhere to go, you were stuck right there, in the middle of the universe.
You used everything San had taught you back at Specus to help heal Cheol’s hand. With bandages and thread, you sewed and patched his cracked skin over the mechanical workings of his broken self. It didn’t help him deal with his real pain though, you knew that.
You couldn’t understand either of their pain completely, but you tried. He didn’t want you to try. He was hurt and he wanted you to feel as alone as he did, you knew he just didn’t want to be completely alone in his pain. So you let him stay as he was: quiet and angry.
He didn’t touch you anymore. He didn’t talk to you. He didn’t even care to respond to a single question you asked for over a week. You cried yourself to sleep each night, and did your best to create a new daily routine now that everything had changed into this still place of pain and dark glances thrown your way.
You had begun blaming yourself, you had made the choice, maybe you did deserve to be shut out by everyone.
You waited for days for him to take the first step, to tell you that he was ready to talk about it all, to tell you that he wasn’t mad about the choice you had made. He never did. He didn’t say a word. The solitude continues for all three of you on your lonely spacecraft on your way to a planet that didn’t exist…
It continued until you felt yourself going mad, the days had melted together in a bad way, the only emotion you had felt was gray and sticky and you hated it. You had begun hating yourself because of it.
“Cheol.” Was all you said to him, startling him where he sat staring into space from the cockpit. You stood a couple steps away from him, closer to the door than to the man who seemed like a shell of who he had been before Phylaca.
At first, he only responded with silence, but after a moment words formed. “Do you know why I had the phone you called in the first place?”
His voice sounded raspy and repressed as if he was choking on the syllables. You shook your head in response. He didn’t see you, but he continued.
“I convinced the management that I needed a phone that wasn’t connected to the network so that in case anything bad happened to me or the members, I would be able to contact help even when our communication devices didn’t work.”
His voice wasn’t more than a choked whisper. The words still felt like a slap to the face.
“Everything I have ever said, done, and felt has always been meant to help my members, they’re my family. Instead, I used what I had gained in the name of helping them, to ruin everything. I did it all for my own selfish desires. Can you understand how much shame and guilt is crushing me every day? Every minute I spend away from them. Not even knowing if they’re okay.”
You had nothing to say. What could you say? Could any of your words comfort him at all? Could you make him the slightest bit happier right now? Could you ever manage to keep him happy? Distracting him from all the disasters of the universe wasn’t possible, so what could you do?
Instead, you continued to say nothing. Your body fell back against the cold metal wall behind you. You couldn’t say a single word to help him, but you could let him say all the words he needed to say to help himself.
He stayed quiet for a while. Your shuffling as you slid down to the floor against the wall told him you were still there. His figure slumped back against the chair he sat in.
“I just, I can’t believe I actually left them all to fucking deal with all of this by themselves. I don’t even know if they made it out alive.” He began, voice still strained as he tried to hide everything that wished to rip him apart from within. “I was supposed to be there for them, to be their leader who stood by them no matter what. And you know what, I took pride in that, I was so proud to be the one to support those guys even in the situation we were in.”
You stayed quiet. Quiet tears streamed down your face as you listened.
“How could I just leave? What? Because I was scared of forgetting this? I could’ve stayed, I could’ve figured something out.” He was beginning to sound angry now.
“Cheol, no. You know you couldn’t have. This was the only way… wasn’t it?” You whispered, the tears clouding your eyes as you watched the back of his head.
“I- I don’t know anymore y/n. Maybe I wasn’t thinking clearly at all, maybe I was actually sick like they said…” he sighed.
Your heart was in your throat, swallowing hard you decided to say your peace as well. “So… because you loved someone- no, because you loved me, you’re gonna blame yourself for everything that has happened? That feels like you’re actually blaming me, you know?”
This made him turn around. His features were tired and his skin was dull. He hadn’t been taking care of himself at all.
“Y/n, stop it. You know this isn’t your fault.” He mumbled. Tired eyes looking at your tear-stained face.
“No, maybe it is. You would’ve never broken the rules, they would’ve never found out and you would’ve never been almost rebooted. And most importantly - if you had never loved me you wouldn’t have had to abandon your family.”
“Please, just stop that y/n.” He groaned and let his head fall back, eyes closed, he was in pain. You didn’t know if it was physical or mental. Nevertheless, you wanted him to listen as well. You were in pain too.
“What? Am I making you feel bad for thinking it’s me that’s the problem and not the goddamn company that put you through it all from the start? Am I making you feel like you’re making me feel with all of your talk of how ashamed you feel that you left that life behind? Because I know, I remember how out of everything horrible in your life back then, those boys were the only thing that made you happy while you were there… So please, stop beating yourself up, Cheol. The past has already happened, we managed to get out right? What makes you think the others weren’t as lucky as we were?”
He stayed quiet for a while. His silence made your heart drop. You needed to ask him straight up.
“Do you blame me? Do you hate me?” Your voice wasn’t more than a whisper, but he heard you. It was impossible for him not to.
“I-” he tried, but his voice broke. The tears welled in your eyes. You wanted to fight for what you two had, but if he blamed you… whatever you had might be too far from saving.
“It’s okay. I understand.”
You forced yourself to say it, you couldn’t walk away from him. Even if he hated you, you refused to be the one to leave.
“It’s not that I hate you, I just hate how it hurts. Because it really fucking hurts. I’m in pain every single second and I don’t know how to make it stop.” His voice was breaking as tears streamed down his face. “But, I… I can’t lose you too.”
You placed the back of your hand over your mouth, trying to somehow hold back the pain that wanted to consume you from the inside.
“We should’ve tried saving Dino…”
You got up from your corner, your arms finally letting your legs go, replacing your own arms around your body with Cheol’s. He hugged you. Tightly.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. It was relieving to say it. He had been in a shame spiral for the past few weeks. He just hadn’t noticed. Still, you stayed with him, waited for him, listened to him. He wanted to repay you for all of it.
Weeks passed yet again. Things got better, slowly but surely. You talked to each other. You were beginning to forgive each other for those weeks after Phylaca. It wasn’t easy.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner, sleep, and repeat. Small conversations, still trying not to start up another fight. It was exhausting.
The stranger still wasn’t speaking much, too wrapped up in their own mind to be able to share the pain they kept inside. Not that either of you were sharing your struggles with them anyhow. It was a mutual understanding that all three of you needed some space, even as you were trapped together in space. Galaxies passed you by, and you found yourself passing time by watching the tiny lights fly past the large windows from the cockpit.
Sometimes, Cheol sat with you. Holding your hand, comforting you without words just like he had been that day when this had all begun. That helped. It helped both of you; knowing that neither of you actually wanted to abandon what you had, even after everything.
When something finally showed up in front of your ship, only a small planet, not much bigger than the moon of the earth, you didn’t allow yourself to get your hopes up.
After so many months, this was probably only another uninhabited planet with a poisonous atmosphere.
“I don’t wanna get your hopes up, Cheol, but this planet looks so much like earth…” you shouted to Cheol who was trying to get your guest to eat some of the lunch from earlier, with very little success.
If this was Lumen, maybe everything would be okay.
Maybe the void of space you had been traveling through had an end after all, despite the overwhelming feeling of being trapped and that you would all end up wasting away inside the ship on your long journey.
But if this was it…
You let the ship continue straight ahead. Cheol and your guest joined you in the cockpit after hearing your shouts across the deck.
All three of you watched as the planet became bigger. You could see water, and green patches everywhere. Clouds! There were clouds and an atmosphere surrounding the small planet.
You had gone off autopilot, Cheol helping you steer the ship toward the planet. You circled it, trying to draw attention to yourselves through the intercom system. No sign of life was heard until a small voice came through, a child. “Hello! Are you aliens??” The child asked over the crackling of the coms.
You wanted to shout, there was life here!
“Hello? We’re outside of your airspace, our registration is BO883628K, and we are requesting permission to land!” You shouted back.
“What are you doing?!” Another voice could be heard, the small child squealed and the crackling disappeared. You were scared the last shot at landing somewhere had been lost forever, but the other voice came back after just a moment.
“Hey? Who is this?”
Your body was tense, nerves firing uncontrollably as you explained your errand yet again.
“Of course, welcome to Lumen, wanderers.”
You yelped, “Lumen?! We found it?” You were jumping up and down, laughing and shouting as you felt all your worries leaving your body. Your new home was right below you, welcoming you with a warm embrace and new hope.
“Yes, you found it,” the voice crackled, you could hear them chuckling a bit at your excited yelling. “There are bigger docks located northeast of your current location, go there to land safely.”
You found a house, outside one of the small towns near the docks. You had nothing to give in return for the hospitality the diverse population of Lumen offered you, Cheol, and your newest passenger.
They didn’t care, they told you that most of the people there had already been through the same suffering that you all had. Anyone who made it to Lumen was treated like family, nobody was to be left empty-handed just because they were strangers to the people.
“Is this really here? Am I dead or asleep or something?” You said in wonder, grasping at Seungcheol’s arm. You stood in your new kitchen, it was simple, but airy. The view from the kitchen showed the sunny forest lying just behind the garden and the porch.
“If you’re dreaming I’m dreaming with you.” He laughed hysterically. “But I think it might be real…”
You jumped into Cheol’s embrace, hugging and kissing him like the past few weeks had all been a bad dream, like this was your true reality and everything bad could be forgotten completely.
He seemed happy as well, looking around the large house with you, coming up with ways you could improve the place, and how you could make the vegetable garden prosper once again. It was overgrown and run down, everything had been left to its own devices. But it was vacant, and the townspeople had agreed that you two would be wonderful as the new owners of the house. It was a short forest walk back to the town, where you had parted from your quiet passenger, telling them that they were welcome any day and that you would always have a spare room and a shoulder to cry on. It made Cheol happy, somehow trying to make up for the fact that you had lost D1N0 on Phylaca through this person that he must’ve cared about more than his own life.
“Do you think they will be able to find their way here too? The members, I mean. Like we did?” You whispered, resting your head on Cheol’s shoulder, your hand in his. You watched the dark green leaves swaying in the summer breeze, the flowers following the sun that shone more than it was gone, and the grass on the ground scenting the air you breathed in.
“I hope so, I think they will know eventually.”
“Know what?” You said and looked at him.
“That we’re here.”
You tilted your head. “How would they know to find us here of all places?”
“Remember the secret I had with San on the first ship?” He said and smiled, embarrassed about something.
You nodded. Not quite understanding what he meant yet.
“I told him to tell anyone he met that might be related to us. Actually, I told him to let anyone like us know that if we got here, we would offer a home for them to rest at.”
Tears welled in your eyes, he had been thinking of everyone else this entire time. Not once had he let himself be entirely selfish, you squeezed his hand, bringing it up to your lips and pressing a thankful kiss to his soft skin.
“I think they will come, eventually.”
The years passed on Lumen. You and Cheol had made a home for yourselves. A home that would be open for any runaways, robot, alien, and human alike. It was safe, happy, and hopeful because one day everything might be absolutely perfect in your new home.
The spare rooms of your new house would exist for them if they could ever get to their leader. The thought helped him continue, to live life to the fullest until they could join him. It comforted you as well, knowing that he had some hope left and that maybe he could let go of some of the guilt you knew he carried with him each day, and instead let himself be proud of something once again.
Reblogging and commenting is highly appreciated!! Hearing what you thought is what makes writing and being here overall so much fun! Ty and ily 💕
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#svt sci-if collab#kwritersworldnet#sci-fi Seungcheol#Seungcheol smut#s.coups smut#Seungcheol angst#seventeen#kpop sci-fi#seventeen seungcheol#seventeen sci-fi#svt#choi seungcheol#svt smut#seventeen smut#seventeen angst
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summary: in which jungkook stumbles with his new pair of eyes.
> fluff (they’re just so cute okay) / wc: 2.8k
> warnings: jk mentions something about getting slapped in a sexy way he’s a menace that’s all
note: let me just get all my thoughts about jungkook in glasses out from my system please bear with me thank you T__T funny enough my eyes were hurting and watering like crazy while proofreading this srry
—
“wow! this is what i’ve been missing out on?” jungkook muses in wonder as he comes face-to-face with one of your books he snatched from the center table.
he widens his eyes when he lowers down his glasses, and then blinks excessively when he puts it back on.
“my feet hurt like hell.” you complain as you plop down next to him on the couch, all cozy in your pajamas.
you spent half the day killing time by exploring every inch of the mall because you had to wait for both of your glasses to be done. you had one of your glasses’ lens changed because the scratches have been too bothering you too much, while jungkook finally got his first prescription glasses.
he has been complaining about his blurry vision for quite a while now, and he agreed that he should get it checked when you told him that it might get worse if he doesn’t as soon as possible. however, despite reminding him many times, the plan kept getting put off and pushed to the back of his mind.
when you informed him about your plans of going to the store to get your glasses fixed, at last, the inescapable opportunity for him to tag along has come.
“how is it? you don’t feel dizzy or anything?”
you watch him flip through the book sitting over his crossed legs, observing that he can read the small characters from a considerable distance without squinting unlike before. he has tried on your glasses a few times in the past, but generally, you don’t let him wear it because it might not be suitable for his eyes.
“no, not anymore atleast.”
he grimaces as he recounts himself almost tripping on his own feet when he was asked to walk around wearing the fourth lens the doctor made him try on. it made everything look five times nearer, and a heavy headache weighed on him in a snap. if he wore those for a minute longer, he would’ve thrown up.
why you refuse to let him wear your glasses for longer than a minute— that’s when it fully dawned on him.
“baby, thank you for always protecting me.” he engulfed you in a tight hug as soon as he exited the small room.
“from what?” you squeaked in confusion, unsure hands rubbing his back. “do i need to fight someone for you?”
you chuckle at his displeased expression. “that’s good. you should always wear it so you get used to it, okay?”
“so i won’t be able to live without it like you?”
he smiles with his nose scrunched, turning his head to look at you. he gasps dramatically, and you tilt your head in question.
“i thought it was impossible for you to get even prettier in my eyes. but look at you!” he gently pinches your cheeks, and it takes everything in you to hold back a love drunk smile.
“i’m pretty?”
he leans in for a kiss, “divine. it’s like getting so near a painting you can see the brush strokes.” but then halts a few inches away from your lips. “guess we can’t do this when we’re both wearing glasses.”
it’s almost embarrassing; how you’ve shared about a million kisses with jungkook, and yet, you’re still holding your breath like this is about to be the first time you feel a man’s lips on yours.
“i’m not wearing mine, though?”
the thud of your book colliding with the table before it fell on carpeted floor would make you angry, but jungkook rudely interrupts before your train of thought could glide along the tracks, kissing off the anger from your mouth before you can nag at him.
frisky boy, trying to leave permanent marks on his glasses on the first day.
he pulls away with a pondering look, chewing on his bottom lip. “this is too big. i should get the same frame as yours. i’m already used to kissing with that between us.”
you sigh deeply, tucking his hair behind ears to get a good look at your boyfriend’s face. is jungkook wearing prescribed glasses one of your untold fantasies? maybe. not that you’re rejoicing that he fucked up his vision but . . . maybe.
in conclusion: men have their girlfriends walking fashion shows when shopping, and you have jungkook trying on thirty different pairs of glasses.
“hmm, not a bad idea. you do look good in those, too.”
he picks up his phone to check himself out through the front camera, messing around with his hair as an unshakable habit. “do you really like this one too?”
“i thought it was impossible for you to get even sexier in my eyes.”
“that much?” he unabashedly gives you a playful smirk, the familiar twinkle of his eyes lighting up the dim living room. he inches closer to wrap his arms around your waist, but his posture sags at your next words.
“nuh-uh.” you tut as your strict hands detain his forearms.
jungkook’s heart thunders upon seeing the expression you’re wearing, the kind that usually signals he’s about to hear excessive whining (said lovingly) and / or aggressive stomping against the floor (again, said lovingly). “before that, go pick up my book and pray to god that it didn’t get damaged.”
his head nervously cranes down to search for the book he thoughtlessly dropped earlier. he looks back at you with a guilty smile bordering on a wince, and everything that happens after that is a blur.
“please tell me there’s none-”
“a page got ripped! i’m sorry!”
he sprints towards your shared bedroom in a flash, and your hand that fails to pull him back drops to your side in exasperation when you hear the door slam shut. a click follows after several beats. flabbergasted, your jaw drops.
this man did not just . . .
“jungkook, you menace! you’re making me sleep on the couch?!”
“i love you! come to bed only if you want to slap me in a sexy way!”
you gasp, throwing a pillow at the door. you miss. miserably.
“are you into that now?!”
—
“how is yours not fogging up?” jungkook frowns at you from across the table, doe eyes hidden behind his fogged up glasses.
“your mask doesn’t fit perfectly. pinch the wire tighter around your nose bridge.” you chuckle, reaching over to help him out with his predicament. “like this much. that’s how you know you’re properly wearing it. if your glasses don’t fog up.”
the two of you watch as the fog gradually disappears from his lens.
“ohhhh. that was fun.” he takes the glasses off along with his face mask, satisfied that his problem was solved. “what if i’m wearing one that doesn’t have a nose wire, though?”
“you can still try pinching it around your nose, but usually it doesn’t work out well so you need to figure out wearing it in a certain angle.”
“should i just get contacts instead?” he looks at you with a hopeful smile, playfully teasing you with the idea you’ve disagreed with many times.
you raised the concern with jungkook constantly falling asleep wherever in the world he might be. yes, you love it when he falls asleep five minutes into cuddling you, be it you’re sitting or lying down. yes, he is an adorable sleeper. yes, you want him to get all the rest that he can. however, that becomes a problem if he starts using contact lens 24/7. especially if they’re clear or the same color as his eyes, you’re sure he’s bound to forget that he’s wearing them at some point.
“should we just get you new eyes instead?”
“come on now. that’d be too much money. you know how hard life is nowadays? the economy is going downhill!” he speaks with thick busan satoori, brazenly eyeing you up and down as if you just said the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard.
you pick up his glasses from the table to put it on him again. “that’s exactly why you should settle with what you have, mister.”
he laughs, and it’s the first time you see his bunny smile today. “alright, you got me.”
you thank the server after your food have been served on the table. these days, you and jungkook enjoy going out to eat instead of ordering in. it has been a mission to improve your food palate by exploring different dishes and cuisines. more than that, it seems that this is also a learning experience for your boyfriend. when he finds a new dish that he likes, he tries to make it in the kitchen himself when he finds the time. and well, you get to entertain yourself by poking around and acting like an assistant.
“baby, mine too. please.”
you shut off your eyewear case before reverting your attention to jungkook. alas, his glasses has fogged up again because of the spicy beef soup, which is still obviously piping hot. he is stuck in position, hand holding a spoon suspended in the air.
you never would’ve thought watching someone learn how to live with prescription glasses would be this engrossing. or maybe because it’s jungkook, and everything he does is endearing in your eyes.
you giggle at his cuteness, cautiously taking glasses off his face so he won’t spill the soup sitting on the curve of his spoon. you place it inside his case and keep it back inside your bag along with your own.
—
“baby! i feel blind! have you seen my glasses?” jungkook cries out as he enter the living room. “i even checked the car but it’s not there.”
you watch him walk nearer and nearer towards you, slowly chewing on the first bite off your hotteok. you’re sitting on the floor, and the task waiting to be accomplished on your laptop is left abandoned as you get distracted by a variety show on the television.
“which one?”
“our matching couple one.” he kneels beside you, a pout adorning his handsome face. “oh my god. maybe that’s mine you’re wearing?”
his gaze falls down on the pancake held by your hands, and it flickers back to your ingenuous eyes. this is an unspoken understanding between the two of you. and so, you take two bites in a row, twice as big as you normally would, mouth full and cheeks round. that’s when you offer the dessert to your boyfriend, nearly half eaten to expose the center, where most of the fillings would be.
he enthusiastically takes a bite from one side, moaning in satisfaction. “hmm, you can never go wrong with hotteok.”
you start pointing at the bedroom as you work your damn hardest to swallow the food.
“it’s at the-” you pause to take a sip from your glass of cold, turned room temperature, water. “the vanity drawer. i saw you put it there this morning while you were rushing.”
he scratches his head, fascinated with his own lack of thought. “should’ve asked you first before searching the entire building.”
“dummy-” you manage to utter before he’s guiding the hotteok back to your mouth. the sweetness of the brown sugar spreads in your mouth, balanced by the nuts and seeds.
“don’t say bad words, baby.”
you glare at him. “dummy.”
and he glares back. “brat.”
—
your attention returns to the television when jungkook leaves to pick up his glasses from the bedroom. the brightness of your laptop screen dims, signalling that the battery is dying soon. you click your tongue in annoyance. you reckon it’s understandable that it has been acting up since the device is already years old, but it annoys you nonetheless.
your boyfriend catches you in one of your not-so-finest moments. he looks straight at his front camera with a full grin while you furiously click ctrl and s on the keyboard over and over again, your glasses the original copy of his, sliding off your nose bridge. he has deemed it obligatory to take a selca every time you’re wearing the matching glasses together, and he still seems very much consistent with it two months later, so you just allow him to do it whether you’re aware or not. god knows how you’ve run out of poses.
a hotteok hanging from your lips? body language saying you’re about to throw away your laptop from the balcony? that’s new. that’s variety. that’s what makes jungkook unconsciously keep the smile on his face as he adds the photos to its designated folder, titled with the emoji wearing glasses and bunny teeth.
“is it just me or has that been for your lockscreen for more than a year now?”
he turns on his phone to take another look at his lockscreen, and he shrugs sheepishly. it’s a picture of the three of you on the couch: you, jungkook, and bam. it was a sunday afternoon. you fell asleep on your side, cuddling your boyfriend. baby bam, on the other hand, was cuddling your head. his paw resting on your cheek, head leaning on your ear. the only part of jungkook visible in the photo is his naked collarbones down to his tattoo sleeve, the rest of his torso being covered by a blanket.
“i know. i always end up coming back to it.”
this is one of your differences with him. you have a new lockscreen almost every week, immediately setting up whatever new photo you take of or with him.
jungkook, knowing this, asks: “what’s yours now?”
you pout your lips to point at the table. with your permission, he turns on your phone to see himself from yesterday— reversing the car with one hand on the wheel while looking over his shoulder.
he chuckles in amusement, raising his eyebrows. “this is the exact same picture as the last one you had.”
you stick out your tongue cheekily. “you’re wearing your glasses this time.”
—
magical pearls that grant wishes. you wished for an inflatable pool. the orange haired guy from slam dunk chasing you. running through the forest. scratches on your knee. a koala hanging on your arm. jungkook carrying you on his back to make a run for the bookstore. the signed book you wanted getting sold out twenty three seconds before you arrived. a tragedy.
you wake up with flashes of these broken up dreams lingering in your mind, lazily rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. you find that the clock says 4:17am. you climb off the bed, slipping onto your fuzzy slippers.
however, you pause on your journey to the bathroom when you notice an object shine from your peripheral vision. you sigh, and a yawn follows.
“this is what i was talking about.” you mutter softly, more to yourself, more to the airconditioner that sleeps during the day to keep you comfortable throughout the night.
you carefully remove the glasses off his face. before putting it away in the case, you inspect the temples to see if they became bent and uneven due to him lying on his side. thankfully, they survived just fine. you’re not quite sure if the back of his left ear did, though.
you step out of the bathroom, and it doesn’t come off as a surprise when you make eye contact with a half-asleep jungkook reaching out for you.
“come back.” he whines, voice small and scratched from sleep you almost don’t catch his words.
“on my way,” you respond in a sing-song voice. you slip back under the covers, caressing jungkook’s hair and tangling your limbs with his. you were apart for three minutes at most, but you almost moan in relief when his warmth envelopes you in once again.
you gotta do something about the bathroom being too cold. even sitting on the toilet is painful.
your heart flutters when he decompresses in your hold, making himself smaller to bury his face on your chest.
poor thing, you think to yourself when you brush his hair and notice that the back of his ear has turned red. you’ve definitely experienced this pain many times in the past. still does sometimes. and it stings. you tenderly trace the area with your fingertip, pressing a kiss on the top of his head because it’s the only place your lips can reach.
aside from his glasses, he also left the night lamp turned on, so you quickly take care of that as well before closing your eyes.
“sleep more, my love. it’s still early.”
jungkook’s mind malfunctions and mistranslates your words. he forces himself to reply before succumbing to yesterday’s persistent weariness.
“i love you, too.”
—
taglist! @alanniys @jjkeverlast @queenofdragonsandcats @yvesismywife @enhypenslay @cramseys @witchfqllen @virgogentlejk @rkie @jeonwiixard @monilyv @bermudaisy @ameliejeannelaurent @takochelle @the1921-monsters @investedreader @seagulljk @yeow6n @yoonqkiss @hopeworldjimin @lllucere @unnatae @zqynmlk @bxbyyyjocelyn @zkdlllin @koostarcandy @tswisal1 @fragmentof-indifference @laylasbunbunny @jjk-jeongirl + send an ask / dm if you want to be added (or removed) :D
#jungkook#jungkook fluff#jungkook drabble#jungkook imagine#jungkook scenario#jungkook one shot#jungkook x reader#jungkook x you#bts fluff#bts reaction#jungkook angst#jungkook smut
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24 asksss :}}} ⭐⭐⭐
@ardent-38
You are my favorite person
@wolfie-777
Cassie does not exist in my AU. But hypothetically-
If Roxanne found this lost child she would report it to Vanessa and have her help Cassie. As is the protocol for children that are found on the premises after hours.
If Roxy found her while she had the "bug" in her system? She would have attacked and maybe even killed Cassie :x
Had to google what that was, <XD It looks beautiful! And I image that he has seen it before yeah :)
As for their favorite songs, I'm not sure :0
That's.. actually a really good idea.
For a long time I never went back to the comic because the writing I did was awful. Everyone was acting out of character, it was SUPER dramatic. I wrote Peso's character all wrong. Uhg, awful awful awful.
And then I was kept away from going back because people would not stop asking me to finish it. "Why did you abandon this comic?" "Are you gonna finish it?" "Why did you stop drawing it" "Go back and finish the crab comic" Like, it was so frustrating.
...Buuuuutt,, rewriting it? Hmmm... I'm way too wrapped up with projects to start this anytime soon. But I wont lie this ask really got me thinking about it-
Also thank you so much! I'm glad you like my art!! :DDD
@smilegirl64 (Post in question)
Thank you! I'm so glad you noticed! That was my favorite detail to add XDDDD
@elegysonnet
I dug into the series a bit and took a look around the fanbase. And I decided that it just wasn't really my thing.
Although I did love the character designs and I think they'd be really fun to draw, I didn't think I'd get along with the fandom. I can see myself huddled in my own little corner with all my headcannons and stuff, and I wouldn't really want to interact with anyone else. :/
Also my favorite character is probably Julie or Howdy XDD
I use an XPPen Artist 13.3 Pro. Its a tablet with a screen! :))
As for my drawing program I use FireAlpaca. Its free and really good for beginners and pros! Highly recommend if you're just getting into digital art. Also thank you!! :D
@baokim80
@burningmusicfunnygiant
I disagree actually. The "bug" aside, they are in no way programed to hurt anyone. They are programmed to have full obedience to staff and Managers.
They could try to stop them, and they could physically stand in their way. But you wouldn't see Freddy straight up punching an employee to keep him away from Bonnie.
Now with the bug in their systems? mmm.. Okay yeah they would. BUT ONLY WHEN THEY'RE NOT IN THEIR RIGHT MINDS-
@cudlycorncornsworthcoberson
XDD Offended Bibi noises can be heard in the background
@curiousskelekitty
<XD I'll do my best!
I feel that my responsibility as an artist on this platform is to tag my art appropriately. Tag it for blood, gore, injuries, things like that. So that people who are disturbed by those subjects don't have to stumble upon it and have their day ruined. :(
What is NOT my responsibly is to prevent little kids from seeing my bloody Octonauts artwork. That's the parents job. XD THEY should be keeping an eye on their kids and making sure they're not browsing sites like Tumblr XDD
Tangle and Lolbit are not a part of my AU actually.
But Mangle? Just because she hasn't made an appearance of any kind yet, doesn't mean she wont in the future.. 👀
Thank you! :DD
Thank you! I'll try to not rush through my projects so much <XD
Thank you for respecting that! :D
Also uhg. I hate pinterest. I would rather people just never found out about me then find me through a pinterest post with my stolen artwork.
@whereismycupofcoffee
YEESSS!!! I always love it when people decide to give Octonauts a try :))) Its a really neat show!
THANK YOU SO MUCH!! :DDDD
XD My first thought was Peso or Shellington for some reason. They're just too polite to make a fuss XDDD
@kymbird
Wanna know a good place to start if you genuinely struggle with that? Make 1 character that is based off of you. And then make a second character that is based off of someone in your life that you have 0 romantic interest in what so ever. Like your Mom, or your Dad, siblings, Uncle, dog literally anyone. It should be impossible to twist those 2 characters together because they are modeled after you and ur mom. You should look at them and say "thats me and my mom" or "thats me and my brother" Those 2 should then be characters that are 100% protected from becoming a ship. :0
This actually reminded me of my transformer ocs. I modeled the characters after the drivers/owners. And people wanted to ship them together and I was like "for 1 they are my OCs so thats kind'a odd but 2 those two characters are based off of siblings. They absolutely should not- in ANY universe, be paired together"
Personally not a huge fan of the bright blue color he has. Seeing his Bonnie Bowl artwork everywhere I expected him to be his usual purple..
As for my Bonnie I think he'd get along pretty well with his Glamrock counterpart! But when it comes to the Bowling ally they'd be rivals. >:)
Also thank you! :DD
@trains-of-thought
aaaa thank you so much!! :DD I'm so glad to hear that you've liked my Mario artwork!! And that you read the info aaaa!! I spent a lot of time writing all that so I'm glad to hear that you read it! As for your questions,
1: Yes! My Peach, Daisy, Wario and Waluigi are all the same species, which is not human. They are this incredibly tall elf like species that closely resembles humans and has many biological similarities.. but ultimately they are very different species.
2: Its hard to say.. I've been known to change my mind a lot so maybe? Honestly I hope that someday these feelings towards fanart will vanish and I will be able to engage with my fans more. But for now,, noooo fanworks :(
OH MY GOSH I LOVE THAT FNAF VIDEO XDD Very well animated and funny! Here's the link in case anyone is interested!
I drew it myself! :)
#my response#fnaf security breach#fnaf security breach dlc#fnaf security breach dlc spoilers#octonauts#super mario bros
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Sacred Hearts Entwined
PT2 Faithful Whispers
Ellie Williams x Reader
Part 1 -> ✞
Part 3 -> ✞
What do you do when you’re falling hopelessly in love with your best friend.?
Summery: Ellie was supposed to be a friend, are the feelings that are corrupting you worth it? Why did you kiss her, why even risk it. Now you’re going to lose her.
Warnings -> A lot of Homophobia / arraigned marriage/ angst / Controlling parents / d slur is mentioned! / (lmk if I missed anything else!)
Tag list: @a-little-bit-of-everybody @bready101 @lenaloveslesbians
WC: 3.8k
(Not proofread)
(Ellie)
My mouth tastes like iron and everything is numb, it went from pure lust to rage and anger in a matter of seconds. I just keep thinking, “Could I have prevented it?”. Should I have pushed her back as soon as our lips met, tell her this is wrong, everything that my parents would have strongly preferred. Am I the one who fucked up in the end…? It’s not like it matters anyway, I can still hear the muffled yells coming from downstairs, he's arguing with my mom, she's against the boarding school idea, she believes I was corrupted or something, she fully believes they can fix me, no correction system needed. My dad on the other hand wants me gone, he can’t even bear to look me in my eyes. I’m like some foreign alien that just snuck inside our house and took its place as me, I know for a fact as of now he wishes he could just find the “Real me”.
(30 minutes previously)
As I heard the door swing open I quickly pushed Ellie back, wiping my lips, my eyes now meeting with her father. Shit. I step back looking at him wondering if he even saw us. He quickly talks, his voice strained, filled with anger “What were you guys doing?” Ellie looks at me, her eyes already filled with tears, all I wanted to really do was just hug her, he quickly yells “I SAID WHAT WERE YOU GUYS DOING!” I just shake my head and spit out “Nothing!” My voice is filled with nervousness and it feels like I just embarrassed myself. “I should have known, you guys were always too close, having sleepovers and sleeping in the same bed!” Ellie just spits out wiping her own tears “There’s nothing going on dad! We’re friends!” Then his attention fully shifts to me, he steps closer to the point where I need to step back in order to not make any contact. It’s like something just shifts, like he figured the “truth”.
“All those sleepovers, were you guys-” I almost immediately shut down what he was about to say, my voice now more stable. “No!” And as I finish my sentence he grabs my collar which makes tears instantly form in my eyes. “You ruined her. Ellie wasn’t like this before you.” I hated that argument, we met at six, nothing was even there, none of those feelings were even formed until almost 9 years later. It was bullshit, and for some stupid reason I spit that out “Thats fucking bullshit!”. I covered my mouth right after finishing the sentence, I just dug my own grave and that realization was becoming apparent. His grip on my collar tighten and he gets uncomfortably close to my face “You’re a fucking dyke, and you had to drag Ellie into that.” I can see Ellie step forward, her head peeking over his shoulder, tears still streaming down her face as her eyes get puffy and red “Dad let her go! Please” I can’t help but feel like I ruined Ellies life, I was the one who leaned in and kissed her and now- now we're both going to be sent away.
Unlucky for me Ellie's dad doesn't even pay attention to anything she's saying all his attention is fully focused on me “You’ll never see her again.” The way he says it sticks to the back of mind, because I know it's true, the chances of me and Ellie ever even being friends again is most likely over. So now I start crying. It feels like I just lost everything in less than an hour. Ellie grabs him and attempts to pull him back, but as soon as she even lays a finger on her he turns around slapping her with no hesitation.
Ellies nose starts bleeding and her cheek glows red, and once his attention isn't on me and his grip is loose I run over to Ellie as she cuffs her nose. I quickly rolled up my sleeve to wipe the blood from her nose. I talk stuttering over every word “fuck- are- Ellie are yo- are you okay?” I’m now starting to hyperventilate on the brink of a panic attack but Ellie just nods fast. Ellie’s dad immediately rushes over to us, and no not to help Ellie, he rushes over to grab me by the back of my shirt to pull me away from Ellie. “LEAVE” He yells at me, but this time I don’t budge, Ellie is still fucking bleeding and all his attention is still focused on me, he won’t even look at Ellie.
I push him back literally just trying to make sure Ellie is okay but before I even can, she spits out “Just leave..” her voice is quivering and cracking, I can tell she just doesn’t want me to get hurt. So I finally stepped back. I can tell just by the way she's looking at me this is goodbye, at least for a while..
(Present)
I get home and just by the way my parents are watching me I can tell Ellie's parents called them, I assumed they would, at the end of the day as soon as we got caught kissing I knew everything was fucked. “You and Ellie, you’re fucking sneaking around dating” My dad says stepping closer to me, my energy just completely gone and I sigh tiredly not being able to take this outdated homophobic shit. “Me and Ellie are frie-” My mom talks fast, not even allowing me to finish my sentence “YOU WERE KISSING HER, YOU. SNUCK. OUT.” She yells at me standing beside my dad, I can’t even defend myself. What do I even say “We were hugging!” I can’t do anything in this situation. My dad talks again “Pack your bags, we’re leaving in the morning” as my dad finishes my sentence I start tearing up once again. “Where am I even going!?” I yell at them, my respect is now gone, there’s zero point if I'm being sent away. Instead of answering my dad holds out his hand, his palm laying flat. “Phone” I look at him “What?” he now yells “PHONE” I pull it out of my pocket throwing it in his hand before going up the stairs quickly before slamming the door shut.
I open my closet finding the box with all the stuff I don't want my parents EVER finding, pods, weed, vapes, etc. The one thing that was genuinely the most important thing was my pink Ipod touch mini from when I was 8. I always had it in case I got grounded and wanted to talk to friends, the good thing was I knew Ellie had one too, a blue one she got to match me, so for that reason as soon as I unlock it, I disregard everything else and just start texting her.
You
4:17 - Ellie, are you good??
4:18 - Pls answer
Ellie
4:19 - Parents r arguing, i think i'm gonna go to a boarding school
You
4:19 - I’m being sent away
Ellie
4:20 - What?!
4:20 - Where??
You
4:20 - idfk they won't even tell me
4:21 - im so fucking sorry
Ellie
4:21 - why are you even sorry??
You
4:22 - because i started the whole thing
4:22 - If i didn’t kiss u we would be fine rn
Ellie
4:23 - dont fucking talk like that
4:23 - if u didn’t kiss me then i would have been overthinking everything rn
You
4:24 - well we’d still be able to hang out
Ellie
4:24 - well we can figure it out?
You
4:26 - Ellie I don't even know where the boarding school is
4:26 - chances r no service, and i wont be able to bring my phone theyre definitely gonna search my suitcase
Ellie
4:26 - then we’ll send fucking letters idfk
You
4:27 - send letters w no address?
Ellie
4:27 - js stop??
4:27 - we’ll figure something out dude???
You
4:29 - Ellie..
Ellie
4:29 - stop
4:29 - dont fucking add “…”
4:29 were gna be fine?
You
4:30 - u know love you
Ellie
4:30 - i know that
4:30 - i dont wanna lose u
You
4:31 - It’ll be alright, we’ll meet each other again and it will be fine
4:32 - promise.
Ellie
4:32 - I love you
Once you see that final message the gravity of the situation becomes way more tense, the last time you saw Ellie she was bleeding from her nose crying . You start packing your bags wiping tears trying to silently cry, not wanting your parents to come in. You caused this whole situation, you knew you did. If you never called her that word, you would have never snuck out, you wouldn't have kissed her, her dad wouldn’t have caught you, and chances are everything would be “perfect” at least to a degree..all you could do is stare around your room now just realizing how half of your room was covered in her
And not pictures, just resonances are her, pictures she drew of you, stuffed animals she bought, clothes you stole that still have her scent on it, everything around you had Ellie in it, she made you who you are. And as you look around your room, your eyes land on that polaroid picture. The picture was of you two, the sunset in the back and you’re just both smiling shoulder to shoulder.
(Summer, 15 years old)
The wind was blowing on your skin as your hair flew all around the back of your neck, Ellie was in front of you riding on her bike “Come on we're gonna miss it'' She yells trying to usher you to bike faster “The sun won’t set that fast relax!” You groan trying to push faster. “I don’t care! We’re going to miss it so push fucking faster!” She pushes faster than you so you now have to try and match her pace. “Holy shit! Can you slow down” She shakes her head and just goes faster until you guys finally make it. It’s actually really beautiful, the sun setting reflecting off the water as the pink sky illuminates all their surroundings. “Shit..” You sigh fully out of breath and Ellie just smiles at you barely watching the sunset, then you finally turn to look at her “I did not bike all the way here for you to stare at me Ellie” Her whole face turns red and she looks away “I’m not even looking at you, I just think you look gross when you’re all sweaty” The words were
slightly harsh but you try to laugh it off “Ha ha, when did you become such a comedian!” Ellie looks back at you “Oh fuck off” You smile and walk closer to the water “Wait- what are you doing??” she says looking at you quickly running up beside you “Well you said I look sweaty so i'm going to go into the water?” Ellie sorta nods at the response “Well we don’t have bathing suits” You smile at the response “Okay?” You say taking off your shirt leaving you in just a bra. Ellie quickly turns around not looking at you. “I-uh, people” Ellie says and you just shrug “No one comes here like ever, it’s backroads?” You take off your jeans throwing them on the sand and shortly after Ellie then does the same as you not turning around since it’s awkward. “Are you looking?” Ellie asks nervously unbuttoning her own jeans “Oh yeah, hardcore staring actually!” You joke not even batting an eye towards her.
Ellie walks into the water immediately saying “Holy shit! Dude its so fucking cold!!” You laugh and impulsively splash her, getting her whole face wet. “Fuck you!” Ellie laughs jumping forward in the water taking you down with her getting you and her both fully soaked “Stop!” You laugh trying to tackle her in the water when you grab her shoulders and you both just stop trying to fight, only focusing on each other. It’s filled with silence, not awkward silence though, just the sound of the waves splashing against the shore and the breathing coming from both of your mouths..neither of you even broken eye contact..
You move your hand on her face moving a loose strand of hair out of Ellie's eyes, her whole face turns red just by the touch of you plus the intense eye contact doesn’t help. Ellie slightly leans in, not enough for it to be deemed weird but enough so now your faces are closer. You basically naturally do the same, so now at this point you're just mere inches from each other's lips. The moment comes to a short end though when a loud honking comes from the street causing you to both flinch back. The honk leads you to talk to fill the now awkward silence “We should head back, suns basically down” You smile backing away from Ellie moving your hands off her shoulder, Ellie just nods not speaking. You didn’t know it but Ellie felt like a complete idiot that day, she just simply wished she leaned in closing the gap between your lips..
(Present)
You just fully start crying all over the polaroid, the memories flood back and you start to wonder why you guys didn’t just kiss. Let alone act like it happened, even though you guys didn’t talk about that moment you both had a mutual understanding that it would be weird to talk about it again? There was no point. You were always so dumb with your feelings, that's why it took so unbelievably long to finally start to accept that maybe you don’t think of Ellie as just some friend. Your mind is rightfully scattered and you start to think things like “If we kissed then would everything be different right now?” “Would we be together?”. You quickly shut down those thoughts, it’s not what matters right now, you don’t have a time machine and you can’t go back, plus right now you’re way too focused on the fact you have to somehow keep in contact with Ellie you guys talked almost everyday and now there’s a chance that there might be a forever absence of her presence..what are you even supposed to do?
Pack up the 10 years of friendship. Find a guy to marry just to get your parents approval, it’s not fair that way. You can’t just lose her..So found your mind was wondering the whole night thinking
of ways you could be together until you ultimately fell asleep, praying to wake up in an alternate universe where Ellie is holding you, a world where it’s just you and her.
You wake up feeling groggy and out of place, the sun shining on you through the sheer curtains hitting right on your left eyeball. You groan and sit up not even having a minute of peace before your mom comes into your room, not even knocking. “Get dressed, the taxi is going to be here in 20 minutes” You look at her, reality finally setting again. “Where am I going..?” You try again, looking at her when she finally answers “Boarding school in Europe.” Your heart immediately sinks..”Europe?” Your voice shakes, you make eye contact with her, you want your mom to see how this is hurting you, the tears settling in your eyes. “It’s furthest away from here, so yes.” She looks at you, not an ounce of pity in her voice, she doesn’t care what you think, and there's nothing you can say to change her mind.
“All this because I kissed Ellie..?” It’s the first time you’re actually saying it out loud and you hate yourself because it feels so wrong, and it's not because you don’t like Ellie, or you completely regret kissing her, it’s because of the look your mom gave you after you finished the sentence. It’s a look that has disgust and utter disappointment lingering all throughout it. It made you feel like you're some monster, who just wished death upon her or something. She replied her voice is still filled with disappointment. “There’s something wrong with you, and these people will fix you sweetie, I promise.” She takes a step forward and rubs your cheek yet you don’t hesitate to push her hand off. “Nothing is wrong with me!” Your mom steps back and looks at you trying to talk to you softly but realistically it was just some condescending tone that tried to convince you that you were in the wrong “Hun, Ellie and you, you guys are both sick, and it’s okay, once you both get help you’re going to understand where all of us are coming from.” You feel like you’re going to explode “Sick” she’s acting like this is some cold that will blow over and a fucking week.
“Can you get out.” You say no longer making eye contact with her, you can't bear to at this point. “What?” She says almost confused, probably thinking “I didn’t even do anything wrong”. So you talk again this time standing up “Well I need to get changed, so can you get out” You say looking at her. She just nods while walking out. You quickly get dressed and grab your suitcase, it hurts to know you won’t see this room for at least a year.
As you're walking downstairs your dad doesn't even look at you, he just holds open the door and grabs your suitcase, throwing it into the taxi. You look at both of your parents, your mom gives you a hug but you're pity so you obviously don’t hug back. Your dad will not even look at you, it’s like you’re a fucking disappointment in his eyes..
And as you get into your car and drive away, it can’t help but hurt leaving your childhood house, neighborhood, friends, but most importantly Ellie. All the memories would fade and be replaced with new ones. It all sucked, and what was worse was that you didn’t know it now but it would be 3 years till you went back.
I was sixteen then and now I'm nineteen. As soon as I saw “Welcome to Westborough” it almost felt eerie, my smile just instantly faded . “You okay?” My fiancé chuckles holding my hand. I quickly nod “Yeah of course” I give a simple smile. James. It was all my parents' idea. When you were 17 your parents came up with the golden Idea to get married. It would get you not so focused on her. So that's when that's where he came in. It was my moms friend's son. You’ve met him a few times. He was always nice but marrying him?! Marrying him felt so out of place. You didn’t even know him..so you just kept on denying him and it came to the point where my parents ended up forcing you, they said if you didn’t they would cut all contact, they would start telling your family the real reason why you went to Europe and you would end up losing everyone. So you agreed and at 18 he proposed and you two have been living in Europe for the time being. You felt like you just couldn’t go back to Westborough, too much has happened.
So when the ones who forced you out of Westborough wanted you to come back to have your wedding you were silently fuming. “Soo you’re going to show me your childhood home?” James asks, smiling lightly, kissing your neck. You just sorta smile “Guess so?” You say looking out the window as you guys pull up to your house with your parents already standing on the porch. You don't even want to get out, you know Ellie most definitely has her own life and it’s probably a low chance she still even lives here but everything about being back seems so scary.
You get out of the taxi and James goes to get your guy’s luggage as you walk up hugging your mom. You look at your dad and sorta smile, your guy's relationship has never been the same since the situation. You still believe he thinks of you as a completely different person. James walks up and shakes his hand “Hey son!” Your dad smiles at James. You walk into the house and James follows you “Where’s your room?” He smiles looking at you “Just upstairs i'll show you” He follows you upstairs walking in as he puts down your suitcase.
You look around yourself noticing they haven’t touched anything, it looks like your parents didn’t even go into your room once. James walks over to your desk noticing the polaroid flat on your desk, you turn over to look at him and he softly says “Who’s this?” You walk up to him looking at the polaroid of you and Ellie on the beach and you shrug. “Just an old friend” He looks at her “Were you two close?” You sorta hate yourself for what you're about to say “No not really, just friends for a few months.” You only say this simply because you don’t wanna say why you never told him about a friendship that lasted 10 years, it would be too much for him..and you..
It shortly faded into the night, James and your dad went out to bond or something? You don’t even really know they just said that they’re heading out for a little. You look at your watch rubbing your eyes while yawning “10:47pm” you mumble under your breath standing up..As you walk outside of your room you hear the tv going off from the first floor so you quietly go downstairs to see your mom passed out on the couch.
It sucks because you feel like you should hate her. Your whole life has constantly been controlled by your parents, they sent you away at 16 because you were “sick”. You just try to remind yourself her parents probably made her like this, so you grab a blanket and put it on your mom. You sigh walking to the front door and start putting on your jacket, you just need to walk. So that's what you do for the next 10 minutes until you make it into town, stuff has stayed the exact same, which works out in your favor because you know where the closet bar is! You open the door and there's only like 5 people in now 6 including you..And as you look over at the front bar you notice the bartender isn’t even there, you sorta just groan but reluctantly walk over and sit down. You're just looking down at the bar table when you hear the kitchen door open and a girl says “Sorry to keep you wait-” You wonder why she stopped so you decide to look up.
The girl is no other than Ellie..
A/N -> ts took so long for actually no reason 😭
again there will probably be another part since it ends on a cliffhanger, just lmk if u wanna be in the tag list and i’ll add u!!
I will also probably be making another story, i have a rough draft for it right now but i don’t rlly no what to do with the plot, that story will again also most likely have more then one part!
#loser!ellie#ellie x reader#ellie the last of us#cute#ellie williams#lgbtq#the last of us#the last of us two#wlw post#wlw love#homophobia#parents#ellie williams x reader#love#lovers#angst#sad#sad angst#friends#queer#lesbian
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curve upon the lips
⚘ ‹ featuring › alhaitham x gn!reader
⚘ ‹ tags › lighthearted, fluff, academic rivals, short-tempered reader, alhaitham is persistent, reader is in denial with a capital d, banter, academic purposed kissing, bad flirting if you squint, both are scholars
⚘ ‹ note › ooc alhaitham purely hc,, mhy i need more alhaitham content #copium,, x
You swore it was just a one-time thing, and that you would never succumb to whatever spell Alhaitham had on you again. You were an individual with morals, unlike him, who can simply throw away whatever belief system he had for the sake of rationality.
That rationality being… a kiss as a solution to your attraction to him—the words you still couldn’t believe came out of his mouth.
“Are you high on shrooms?” You blinked at him confusedly when your brain finally caught up to comprehend his words, before shutting down again. A kiss to answer your what towards him?
Your body felt warm all of a sudden as Haitham raised an eyebrow, glancing at the pretty flush on your cheeks, like it was enough proof for him to make an astute conclusion. You sent him a sharp glare.
“How arrogant can you get?” You hissed in indignation. “I don’t feel anything towards you!”
Haitham looked at you as if you were delusional, and you fumed under his gaze.
“I don’t mean to sound conceited,” he said, sounding apologetic in the most unapologetic tone you’ve heard. He eyed you with curiosity and a hint of mischief. “But I must say you’re looking quite… flustered, more than you were when you were inside the House of Daena.”
How he knew that, you had no idea. He leaned down to examine you closely, taking up your personal space, and you held your breath as he tilted your chin to meet his gaze. You prayed he wouldn’t notice, but the gods were cruel to you.
Alhaitham smirked. “That means the probability that my hypothesis is correct is almost absolute.”
You scowled. “Almost.”
He quirked an eyebrow, taking you up on your challenge. “Exactly. That’s why we should test it accordingly with a kiss.”
“A kiss is too soon, you know,” you argued as he cornered you against the wall, noting how attractive he truly was even when you despised him for being such a know-it-all and the bane of your existence in the Akademiya. “Some people would try to be friends first and go out on dates, but you probably already know that.”
“I do,” he replied, nodding. “But academic rivalry already seems like a pretty amicable relationship to me.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“You enjoy it,” he noted, and you rolled your eyes, “with displeasure.”
You sighed, letting your anger go, but you felt petty, so you held onto your annoyance instead. He was right in a way; the scholar in you wanted to try this hypothesis of his. For academic purposes.
“Fine.” You slid your hands around his neck, testing your boundaries. Alhaitham tensed under your touch, and you held a laugh inside. “Just one kiss.”
He nodded, and you would have missed the sparkle in his eyes if you weren’t so close already. His hand found its way to your waist, and he pulled you closer as he tenderly held your cheek. You closed your eyes, waiting.
“Oh, and to answer your question,” he delicately traced your jaw with his fingers. “I’m not high on shrooms,” he said, grinning, and placed his lips on yours.
#alhaitham x reader#alhaitham x you#alhaitham x y/n#genshin impact hc#genshin impact#genshin hc#alhaitham hc#ur girl is coping#al haitham#al haitham x reader#al haitham x you#ashe.writing
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Hey can I request something with judd birch I don't really have a prompt can you just make something fluffy and cute I need some soft love in my life lol
I literally had a dream about this last night, so here you go lol sorry it’s not like super soft, it’s just school hc’s
Tags: gn! Reader, kinda?, leaning towards fem, mentions of s e x 🫣, and alcohol, Judd’s driving, school should be an actual warning tbh
Summary: the one day a month when Judd show’s up to school.
Author’s note: I skipped my math class to write this,, 🤷🏻♀️ yk you gotta think like your characters when you write about them lmfao
Surviving a day in school with Judd
Word count; 1,1K
so, let’s say your boyfriend has one of those rare days where he decides to actually show up to school
He’s so, so tired in the morning
I’m talking slow blinking, yawning and constantly leaning his forehead on stuff to try and catch a quick nap in class or while standing up
He’s also constantly complaining, acts like it’s your fault he has to be there
He will be following you around the entire time too
No one will talk to you willingly the whole day because Judd is just always standing broodingly behind you
You’re getting something from your locker? Judd is standing there, scowling and leaning against the lockers besides yours so no one except you can get to their stuff
You’re talking to your friends? Judd will still just stand there a bit behind you, glaring at your friends or using his whole body weight to lean on you
Even if you’re talking to his friends, he’s not that talkative, he prefers just to let you lead the conversation
He does actually have those, friends I mean, like people he can hang out with if you’re not available, or people who host parties
You’re definitely getting initiated into his friend group as soon as you start dating, they’re all kinda like him anyways so you’d fit right in lol
But omg he’s so clingy at school
He just misses you between classes, yk? ),:
After the first classes, he’ll be more awake
You can’t tell if that’s good or bad tbh
It’s not like he actively goes out of his way to disturb classes or anything, but he’s definitely not an ideal student either
Like, he’s not one of those annoying kids who purposely talk really loudly or throw stuff or whatever
but he will sit with his feet up on his desk if he feels like it, doesn’t respond when he gets called on, will call the teacher a colourful variety of curse words and ends up getting kicked out and send to the office
Maybe just don’t call on him and he won’t insult you? 🤷🏻♀️
(He’s also literally the worst partner for assignments ever)
That’s in his own classes at least,, let’s say you share a PE class with him and it will very quickly turn into “hey let’s skip and go fuck in the bathroom”
The days were Judd shows up to school is definitely the days you get in trouble/ and/ or detention
Okay but that’s another thing, the other half of the day he will just show up outside of your classes
Either because he got kicked out of his or he has a break or something, he’ll just stand outside and wait for you to come out so he can drag you somewhere and yk,, get all the horny out of his system
Maury also straight up refuses to deal with Judd’s school, as soon as he enters he’s doing his best to convince Judd to find you and have sex or something instead
Omg,, the many, many, poor people you’ve traumatised in the school bathroom or parking lot
(He will also fuck you in his car in front of the school lmfao)
You usually eat lunch with Leah or your respective group of friends, but when Judd’s there you’ll eat with him
(You probably have to pay for his lunch🧍🏻)
Sometimes, though, he’ll drive you two out to get McDonald’s or something
Leah will sit with you at lunch too, so she can bully Judd for showing up or rant to him about something or whatever
Also if anyone’s bothering her, Judd is the best way for her to get out of talking to them
After lunch, you have a class with Leah so he’s once again left to his own devices
He reluctantly goes to his own class because he doesn’t have anything else to do lol
Unless it’s a teacher that’s really really nice, he gets kicked out again
The man literally spends the entire school day just roaming around because he keeps getting send to the office lmfao
He would probably try to get into the school’s vents as well? He’ll crawl over to where your class is and bother you by throwing paper or something through the vent
You’re just sitting in class, and suddenly a bunch of small paper scraps falls from the ceiling and lands in your hair
You look up, only to see your boyfriend grinning and gesturing with his head for you to leave the room
Leah sees it too and has to do her best not to burst out laughing 🫣
Surprisingly, he shows up to after school detention
Definitely not because you dragged him there and told him it was his fault for getting you roped into it as well—
You two sit in the back, and you try to do your homework while Judd naps
Sometimes you’ll share headphones or Judd will steal some of your notebook paper and draw on it
Judd is super distracting literally by just existing, he’s the loudest quiet person ever if that makes sense
When you’re finally out of school, Judd is by default expecting yet another rendezvous in the back of his van
It’s actually kinda fascinating how much the guy can go in just one day—
But anyways, he’ll drive you home or to his house or wherever you wanna go
Sometimes you come with him to pick up Nick from school
Okay so here’s one of Judd’s secrets
He can actually drive like a normal person 😮
I mean, sure he’s always a bit above the speed limit and a bit too close to hitting ppl walking close to the road, but he almost only drives like a race car driver when Nick’s in the car
Because he knows Nick hates it lol
You would have gotten used to it by now, because you know he isn’t actually gonna hit someone
But Nick doesn’t know that
Driving really, really fast is probably also a way for Judd to destress or wind down after a long, and boring, school day
He’ll pass the fuck out when he gets home from school
Well, he’ll knock back half a Jack daniels and raid the fridge and then pass out
You’re more than welcome to anything in the birches fridge yourself, so if you’re feeling particularly nice pls make him something sustainable
His idea of a proper meal is literally a bag of chips— I’m so stressed
Anyways, congrats. You made it through a whole school day with Judd lol
Don’t expect him to show up again tomorrow, though 🤷🏻♀️
I love doing Judd headcannons 🤭🤭
Tags: @dlfvrr , @bxbyyyjocelyn
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(. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) a fluffy fic with idw prowl, maybe (fem.reader) them having to share a habsuite because they're transferred to a different facility. so, one berth. prowl, after mass displacement, begrudingly sleeps next to the human and reluctantly submits to the cuddles (human is too soft not to cuddle.)
Heya! Hope you don't mind me using my Soul-Spark Airways idea in this! If you want, I can tag you in it!
Now, onto the one berth trope (my favorite tbh)
IDW Prowl sharing a berth with fem!reader:
"Are you serious?" Prowl glared at Optimus and Soul-Spark Airways maintenance manager. "What do you mean I have to share MY hab with (Y/n)?" He demanded an answer. He does not like the thought of sharing his space. He loved his space. Never once had he ever had a roommate, not in his personal quaters, at least. The war is over. Why should he share his space with a human?
"Prowl, it is only temporary. Unfortunately, her documents got mixed up, and someone at the badging office deactivated her badge by accident. She is not allowed to be alone on Cybertron until her badge is working again, and since it's not working, she can't be alone without an escort... You are the only one available with the authorization to escort her." Optimus explained apologetically. He knew he was asking for a lot with these terms. While he didn't want to force Prowl into this, he would hate for the woman to get stranded somewhere on Cybertron.
"We'll try to get her badge sorted as quick as we can and try to relocate her documents." The maintenance manager chimed in. He felt bad for both his mechanic and Prowl. Mainly for the mechanic, though, as this was sheer bad luck.
Prowl glared at the human who stood on the table before him. He glared down at the fragile yet resilient being. "Why not find the IDIOT who deactivated her badge and the IDIOT who lost her he documents?" He seethed.
"Well... The badging office is a different company-" The manager was soon cut off by an irritated groan.
Prowl has met (Y/n) before. She had done heavy maintenance on him after he had gotten into a pretty bad battle. At the time, she was the only mechanic available and performed emergency repairs on him. He hadn't seen her since then, though. But, he has spoken to her before through comms. She had always helped him with getting things delivered. "Fine. She can stay with me." He huffed. His optics narrowed at the two as they both seemed to have a look of relief on their faces.
"Thank you... We'll have someone pick her up."
"You better have someone alright." He grumbled.
A few hours went by. He figured (Y/n) was having to go through strict security protocol as she no longer had her badge.
Soon, he heard a knock on the door. He left his desk and went to open the door. There she was, in her mechanic uniform with a bag full of clothes and necessities. She gave him a smile, quite happy to see him again. "Long time no see." She smiled.
"Indeed." He moved himself out of the way to let her in.
Once she was in, he shut the door behind her. She seemed to be admiring the cleanliness of his hab. "Nice place." She complimented.
Prowl didn't respond. He only carefully moved past her to go back to his desk. (Y/n) tried to see what he was looking at on the datapad, but was too small to see. She heard him grumble in his language over something. She can understand Cybertronian somewhat, but only enough to greet someone or to excuse herself.
Little to her knowledge, Prowl was trying to locate her documents herself. But since he does not work for Soul-Spark Airways, he was denied access. He could manipulate the system... But he doesn't feel like facing the consequences of losing this company's trust.
So, he simply set the datapad down and looked down at them. "I'm going to lay down some rules. Do not touch my stuff, do not leave this hab unless I am with you, or until you have your badge back, and do not stick your nose into my business, and once you have your badge, you're out, understood?"
She nodded. She was warned that he was quite prickly. Although, it was go figure for her. He was always stern and prickly when he wanted certain things transported when the war was going on not too long ago.
Later that evening, after (Y/n) had her dinner, and Prowl had refueled. One got ready to turn in for the night while the other was looking at more data files. "So... Where will I sleep?" The woman asked.
Prowl sighed and looked over his shoulder as if she were disrupting him. She wasn't. He's just annoyed about sharing his space. "You can sleep on my berth."
"What about you, though?" She asked with confusion in her voice. There was only one berth here, where was he going to rest?
"I plan on staying up."
"Prowl, I've worked on your systems before. Your tanks don't have enough energy to pull off 24 hours. Not like an aircraft bot, they can do 24 to 48 hours." (Y/n) explained. This earned her quite the grimace from the autobot. He clearly didn't like being told that his body could not handle the 24-hour function.
"Rest." He ordered.
"You know I'm right-"
"And I don't care. Now sleep." He ordered once more.
The mechanic rolled her eyes some. He was still the same stubborn mech. So, she laid on his berth without another word. She tried to sleep, but it was proven difficult. She spent so much time being a Cargo-Runner that she had gotten used to the sound of a bots internal system running. She normally slept inside of her aircraft bot friend. Their system internal system was loud, but soothing to her. So the sudden silence with the only sound of tapping was a bit unsettling to her.
Prowl would tap away at the files. His systems started signifying that it was time to rest. He would defer the warning, but then it would come right back. This kept happening that he just tossed the datapad onto the desk. He turned his helm to look at the barely sleeping human. A part of him yearned for human touch. The plush and soft feeling of them was almost the equivalent of a human hugging a soft plushie, almost.
He carefully stood up from his desk and made his way over to the berth. He stared at her more. The soft hue of his optics glowed down on her figure. He went back and forth in his mind. A part of him says no, why in Primus's name would he cuddle someone, while the other part him wondered what's the harm in cuddling a human? This could help him relax, which is something he really needed. 'Oh, frag it.' He thought to himself. Prowl carefully laid next to (Y/n)
This startled her slightly, a little surprised to find herself being spooned by the grumpy bot. "Prowl?"
"Go to sleep." He mumbled. Prowl was not about to have this conversation now. He didn't want to, and he never will.
She could feel his firm hold on her. It didn't too tight, but firm enough to the point that she couldn't move, but she found a way to shift herself around some enough to face herself towards him. He surprisingly felt comfortable, he felt warm. He felt like something that came fresh out of the dryer.
So, she laid her head on his chassis. There was the sound she craved to hear, they running sound of the Cybertronian system. She could finally feel herself become sleepy.
Prowl was a bit surprised by this, but he accepted it nonetheless. He slowly rubbed her back and entangled his legs with hers. This felt good on his joints, not that he was that old, but it does feel good. He could see why a lot of bots made cuddle buddies out of the humans. Maybe he could make a cuddle buddy out of her? Well... Maybe not... He needs to give it some thought. For now, he'll enjoy this moment. He buried his face into the top of her head and sighed with satisfactory. Maybe this arrangement wasn't so bad after all.
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Emergency
Pairing: Rooster x Wife!Reader
Author’s Note: Based on this request from @thebeckyjolene. @itscheybaby, I know you also asked to be tagged in this one. Enjoy!
Warnings: Medical emergency, mentions of surgery, some angst, slight language.
- You’d woken up that morning not feeling great, but you hated the thought of canceling on Phoenix. She so rarely had a day off and the two of you so rarely got to have a girls’ day together. So despite the mild nausea and discomfort in your abdomen, you made the decision to forge ahead with your plans for the day. You and Phoenix were supposed to go shopping at the mall and then out for lunch.
- As you were getting ready, you tried to justify the increasingly painful cramps you were suddenly experiencing. Your period was coming soon and you were known to get uncomfortable menstrual cramps pretty frequently. That was it. That had to be it.
- But now that you’re at the mall with Phoenix, waiting for her to finish trying on a new pair of jeans, you’re starting to second guess if that’s really what it is. The cramps and abdominal pain have gotten increasingly worse, much worse than any menstrual cramps you’ve ever experienced. And the nausea is starting to get really bad. You run a clammy hand over your forehead, trying to mentally review where the nearest bathroom is in case you have to go vomit.
- “Okay,” Phoenix announces as she starts to open the dressing room door. “I think these are–Y/N, what’s wrong?” she asks in immediate concern, hurrying over to your side.
- “Nothing,” you lie, waving her off. “Those jeans look–” You cut yourself off suddenly as a shooting pain in your side causes you to cry out, dropping your purse to the floor as you clutch at your side.
- “Y/N!” Phoenix exclaims, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and helping you sit down. “Oh my God, you’re so pale,” she says, her calm aviator persona kicking into high gear as she assesses you carefully. She places a hand on your forehead and frowns. “But you’re burning up. Y/N, what the hell were you thinking? Why didn’t you say something?”
- “I’m sure it’s really nothing. But maybe I should–” You cry out again as another shooting pain courses through you. This time, however, the pain doesn’t fade and you find yourself gasping from the agony.
- “I’m calling an ambulance,” Phoenix declares, her voice brooking no argument as she whips out her cell phone.
- Before you know it, paramedics are bundling you onto a stretcher in the back of an ambulance, Phoenix accompanying you as she tries to get in touch with Bradley.
- “He’s…not going to answer,” you tell her through gritted teeth, sweat beading on your forehead. “He’s doing test runs with some of the new equipment today.”
- “Shit,” Phoenix mutters, ending the call and then dialing another number. “I’m calling Mav then.”
- “Don’t! He’ll just try to tell Bradley and then he’ll get himself all upset,” you tell her, trying to grab her arm, but she evades your grasp.
- “He still needs to know,” Phoenix insists, having a quick conversation with Maverick when he picks up.
- Like you’d told Phoenix, Rooster was flying that day, along with Hangman, Payback, and Fanboy. It was nothing too intense. They were just testing out some new equipment the Navy had just delivered to their base.
- Maverick is the one who radios Rooster, telling him that he needs to bring his jet back around immediately.
- “Shouldn’t be up here for too much longer, Mav,” Rooster responds, ever the dedicated airman. “I’ll be back with the others.”
- “That’s an order, Lieutenant,” Mav responds. Rooster can tell from the tone of his voice that something is off.
- “What is it?” Rooster demands, checking his systems. Everything seems clear.
- There’s a pause on the other end, then a sigh. “Phoenix called. It’s Y/N. They’re taking her to the hospital.”
- Panic-stricken, Rooster immediately signals that he’s coming in and begins flying at a lower altitude, preparing for landing. It’s a good thing he’s had such extensive training because at that moment, he can hardly concentrate on a single thing he’s doing.
- “How is she? What happened? Why is she going to the hospital?” Rooster demands the second he sees Mav, who’s already got Rooster’s car keys in hand.
- “I don’t know, but let’s go find out,” Maverick says calmly, opting to drive considering how frantic Rooster currently is.
- By the time they get to the hospital, Rooster is nearly out of his mind with worry and practically barrels his way into the waiting room. Despite the nurses who try to stop him, he hurries over to Phoenix, who’s sitting in the corner of the room. “Where is she?!” he demands.
- “Rooster, calm down,” Phoenix says, holding up her hands and speaking in a soothing tone. “She’s going to be okay. They took her into surgery.”
- “Surgery?! For what?” Rooster shouts, gaining the attention of everyone else in the waiting room. Mav appears at his side, patting his shoulder comfortingly.
- “Appendicitis,” Phoenix grimaces, hands on her hips. “The symptoms came on quickly. But the doctors said she’s lucky it hadn’t ruptured yet.”
- “Shit,” Rooster mutters, running his hands over his face as he collapses into one of the waiting room chairs.
- “Hey, she’s gonna be fine,” Phoenix assures him, sitting down beside him. “She was more worried about you than herself. And you know how badass she is.”
- The appendectomy only takes about an hour. Once you wake up from the anesthesia, you’re a bit groggy, but perfectly fine.
- As soon as he’s allowed in, Rooster is charging into your hospital room, Phoenix and Mav trailing not far behind.
- “God, baby, you scared the shit out of me,” he tells you, standing beside your bed and taking your hand in his. He lifts it to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to the back of your hand.
- “Sorry,” you reply tiredly, smiling despite the dull pain from the surgery. “Now you know how I feel 99% of the time,” you add teasingly.
- Shaking his head, Rooster bends down to press a kiss to your forehead. “I love you,” he whispers, brushing your hair away from your face.
- “I love you, too,” you whisper back, squeezing his hand gently.
- “We love you both, too,” Maverick adds with a sarcastic grin as he and Phoenix step up to the bed beside Rooster.
- “Shut up, Mav,” Rooster says with a good-natured smile.
- “We’re glad you’re okay, Y/N,” Phoenix tells you, squeezing your shoulder lightly.
- “Thanks for getting me here, Phoenix,” you reply, your eyes growing heavy from exhaustion.
- “That’s what a wingwoman’s for,” Phoenix says, smiling. “We should go so you can get some rest,” she adds, nudging Maverick.
- “See you soon, kiddo,” Mav says, chucking you under the chin and dropping a kiss on the top of your head.
- Once it’s just you and Bradley, he pulls up a chair beside you and takes hold of your hand again, not wanting to let it go.
- “I just had my appendix out, babe,” you laugh, squeezing his hand again. “It wasn’t brain surgery.”
- “Doesn’t matter. The thought of anything happening to you kills me,” he replies seriously.
- You think of all the loss he’s experienced in his life and it sobers you. “I know,” you nod slowly, reaching up to touch his cheek lightly. “But I’m okay. I promise.”
- “Get some rest,” he tells you, turning his head so that he can press a kiss to the inside of your palm. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
- Without fail, he is. You know you can always depend on him.
#bradley rooster bradshaw#rooster bradshaw#bradley bradshaw x reader#rooster x reader#x reader#x female reader#miles teller#top gun: maverick#request
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WIP Wednesday on a Thursday
Thanks for the tag @a-noble-dragon
I usually post stuff as soon as I write it, so don't participate in these often. However, I am working on something else right now even though I promised myself a break after finishing my 39 chapter fic.... This is way different than what I normally write and will probably never see the light of day. I've had the idea for awhile, but thought I probably wouldn't write it. But then I sat down yesterday and wrote 3K words just to get it out of my system. And it's not done. I honestly don't know if I'll ever post it. It's pretty personal and it's about religion, which tends to rile people up. Right now I'm just writing it as a bit of catharsis for myself.
“I haven’t said much to you about it because I didn’t know if I was making too big of a deal out of it.”
“I’d say you're not making it a big enough deal.”
“Really?”
“Yes. If you’re hurt, you should let them know how you feel, Patrick. They’re your parents, they’d want to know. Maybe they don’t realize what’s really going on, or see the bigger picture.”
“How could they not?!”
“Well, sometimes when you’re in it, you don’t see the red flags. Kind of like being in a bad relationship? Maybe they need an outside perspective.”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to tell them what to do. I can’t force them to leave a church they’ve been a part of for decades.”
“I’m not telling you to do that. I’m just saying that you should talk to them about it.”
There ya have it. It's a very rough draft at this point. I don't ever know who to tag in these things...so if you're reading this and want to join, you should ;)
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so. yknow how water-based lube can get all tacky pretty quick but you can make it slick again with a lil spit
got me thinking about billy being. billy lmao.
like, him and steve are jerking off together as platonic bro pals because it's fine if they don't make eye contact and they're watching heterosexual porn okay, it doesnt matter that steve is more focused on the breathy little grunts directly to his left than the ecstatic wailing crackling through his tv's shitty speakers, or that billy has spread his knees far enough that their thighs are touching, or that his elbow keeps brushing steve's side and it's a shock to his system every time. it's. it's fine. him and tommy used to do this all the time. and it only got weird like...once or twice.
but anyways. steve's been using some low-quality watery lube he pocketed at a pharmacy because he couldn't bear to look the cashier in the eye and pay actual money for this, and billy side-eyed him when he pulled it out of his nightstand. "too good to use vaseline like the rest of us, king steve?" because of course he did, but it's fine, it's whatever, he likes the way it feels okay?
except it gets sticky so fast and he keeps having to reapply which. is annoying. but. but then.
he's reaching blindly for the bottle when billy grabs his wrist, grabs him, with the hand that was just on his dick. stops him from picking up the bottle with an annoyed huff, like steve's the one who's done something here. and steve's got his mouth open, words on the tip of his tongue, incredulous words, anxious words, caught in his throat with his laboured breath when billy turns towards him—all flushed cheeks and dark eyes, sweat gleaming on his chest, his pants undone and, oh god steve shouldnt have looked—
and billy. spits. on his dick.
his fingers are a vice around steve's wrist, their knees brush, eyes locked, and the girl on screen moans, long and loud, as billy's saliva dribbles down the flushed, sensitive skin of steve's cock.
"try it now," billy says, unmoving, not looking away.
and steve. pauses. slowly, hesitantly, wraps a hand around himself. and.
he gives an experimental stroke, keenly aware of billy's eyes burning into him.
oh.
huh.
that's...
he keeps going, spurred on by the way billy's grip on his arm tightens, by the coiled heat in his gut, by the tingle at the base of his spine and the knowledge of what exactly he's feeling, wet and slick against his palm. his head falls back, eyes closed, he's closer than he should be, not a single coherent thought in his head beyond a burning need and the image of billy's tongue running slowly along his bottom lip.
he finishes, making a mess of his stomach with a pitiful little sound caught in his chest.
billy hasn't moved a muscle. and steve. steve thinks maybe they should make things weird more often.
tag list ppl i swear imma post something other than porny rambling soon (probably) lmfaofjfjdk @spreckle @growup-thatbeautiful @prettyboy-like-you @suddenlyinlove 💕
#stranger things#billy hargrove#harringrove#steve harrington#a raven's writing desk#they keep doing this for months and the rituals get increasingly intricate#to the point where steve will put his fingers in billy's mouth and call him a good boy but it's still not gay u guys#billy's just helping a bro out
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Snakes on a Thunderbird
For @godsliltippy for TAG MiniBang 2023 (@tagminibang)
Inspired by this adorable piece of Fishtank art here. (@tippystreasurebox)
Trigger warning for snakes. Also brief mention of animal neglect, plus some minor whump and peril.
As Virgil went through his post-flight checks, Gordon twisted and revelled in the several satisfying pops his back made.
“Oh god, that is so much better! Want me to crack yours for ya, Virg?”
There was a grumble of disapproval from his right.
“I’ll pass thanks. Hearing yours was an experience in itself. In fact…”
His brother reached over and snagged the small metal box Gordon had been carrying on his lap.
“...perhaps I’d better take that before you do yourself any more damage.”
Gordon rolled his eyes and snatched the box back with perhaps just a little too much snap.
“Right Virgil(!) ‘Cos hauling passengers and crates off of a sinking ship was fine, but this last hundred yards to the rescue centre is where things gets really tricky(!)”
The rescue hadn’t really been all that bad physically. The crates in question had been lighter than expected, though that was because apparently properly feeding the various animals inside had clearly not been much of a priority for the smugglers on board; about as high as safety and ship maintenance had been. And although Gordon’s back was definitely starting to twinge a bit now, he’d have been a lot happier to be a lot achier if it meant those poor creatures had been treated right.
Well, whatever. He’d stayed professional. …Mostly. That Johnny hadn’t mentioned his little brother's prolonged blue streak ricocheting over the comms was likely a sign that he’d felt the same way.
The fact the GDF were already briefed and waiting with an arrest warrant the second they’d touched down was probably another one.
A yellow light broke through his thoughts and dragged him back to the present. He batted the medi-scan away with a grunt.
“Would you quit it, Virg? I’m fine.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
Gordon opened his mouth, ready to deliver a witty yet devastating retort, but then thought wiser of it. Better to just let the big guy get it all out of his system. He'd only worry otherwise, and a worried Virgil was a pain in the backside, especially with the flight home and debrief to get through. He closed his mouth and submitted to the inevitable with a huff.
Virgil for his part stayed quiet too as he completed the scan; once it was done, he continued to look Gordon over with the practised eye of both a medic and a big brother.
“Well, Doctor Virgil? Are you done? Can we go now?”
Another moment of scrutiny. Then:
“You know today was a good day, right?”
Dammit. The big green angst-detector strikes again.
Gordon really didn’t want to talk about it now.
“Whatever you say, bro.”
“I mean it,” Virgil insisted. “You’ve said it yourself - this shelter is the best. They've got the facilities and the expertise; they’ll take good care of all these guys, big and small. And the GDF will make sure the people that did this get what's coming to them."
“Uh-huh.”
"Gordy, the good guys won. Take the win.”
Honestly it didn’t feel like a win. Not even a tiny one. The memory of all those sad little eyes was too raw. It was going to take a lot for it to fade into the background, and he just didn't have the energy right now. All he wanted was to get everything unloaded, go home, swim ‘til he couldn't think anymore and then crawl into bed and sleep for 12 hours.
"Virg, could we please do the pep talk another time? The shelter staff are waiting for us."
A little frown appeared on his brother's brow, but he sighed and nodded.
"Are they all okay in there?” Virgil asked instead, nodding at the box balancing on Gordon’s dashboard.
It was an obvious change of subject, but a welcome one. Gordon gave the portable incubator a protective little pat.
“Should be. I candled them earlier and they look good. Not pipped yet, but I think it should be soon.”
He blinked as a sudden thought occurred.
“Actually," he said as he opened the incubator lid and retrieved the covered tray inside, "I’m just gonna check they’ve not been turned mid-flight. I’ve been holding them steady the whole way over, but you never know.”
“I thought you were supposed to turn eggs?” said Virgil with a hint of confusion. He leaned across to watch what Gordon was doing. "Grandpa said it stopped the embryo getting stuck."
“That’s for birds. Snakes are different. All the little veins and stuff are fragile; you flip the egg, the umbilical cord tears away and they die.”
Gordon gingerly lifted the lid and peered inside.
"Of course, these guys are almost ready to hatch so I don’t know how much of that appli-”
But the rest of his thought died on his tongue as he lifted the lid and took a look inside.
A beat.
“What?”
“Erm, not sure. Hang on a sec…” Gordon gently slid the eggs to one side of the tray and running his gloved hands very carefully in the sandy substrate below.
"Where are you?" he muttered softly.
"Where's what?" Virgil quickly jumped to his feet, unease radiating from every pore.
"One of the eggs must have hatched in transit," explained Gordon, still rifling through the soft gravel, looking for any flash of movement. "Once the shell breaks they usually take a few hours to come out, but I guess with all the jiggling…"
"Okay, so presumably there should be a snake in there then. Where’s the snake, Gordon?!"
Gordon kept digging, slightly more urgently.
"Some snakes bury themselves down into the substrate after hatching - it’s a kinda protection thing. They wait there for their first shed, then they come out looking for food."
Virgil reached out gingerly over Gordon's shoulder and picked up the soft and clearly empty egg shell, complete with a neat split down the middle. He held it softly in his hands, turning it over and over as if he might find the wayward snake still clinging to it somewhere.
"Exactly what sort of snakes are these, Gordy?" he asked slowly, deliberately.
"Umm…”
“Gordon!”
“I don’t know! I’m not a snake expert, and you can only tell so much from just the eggshell anyway.”
He set the tray onto the dashboard and started checking inside the incubator itself, just in case. He could feel heat starting to rise across his cheeks.
“Gords, could it be… poisonous?”
Gordon swallowed back the sour taste in his mouth.
“I don’t know.”
There was a moment of horrible silence as those words sunk in. Of course, the chances of the snake being venomous were slim - only about 10-15% of known species were after all - and in any event their uniforms were designed to withstand pretty much anything, but there was still that tiny sliver of doubt in his mind. Was Brains far-sighted enough to have considered snake fangs as a variable during the testing phase?
Virgil took a step back, eyes darting everywhere, and tapped his wrist controller.
“I’m not picking anything up. John? Any chance you could run a sweep of the cockpit for… uh… unusual heat signatures?”
“Unusual?”
John’s projected image leapt out of the dashboard holo’ right in front of Gordon’s face, causing him to almost fall off his chair.
“What sort of unusual?”
Virgil cleared his throat in a far-too-obviously guilty way.
“We’ve kind of… misplaced something.”
“O-kaaay… What sort of something?”
Gordon opened his mouth to say… Actually he wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but in any case Virgil got there first.
“Can you just do it please, John?” he asked, brow furrowed. "Now?"
The look John shot them both could have stripped paint, but he turned away and started swiping.
“No unusual readings found,” he said after a few seconds. "Perhaps if I knew what I was looking for…”
Gordon caught Virgil’s eye. Despite his obvious concern about the situation, the big chonk was clearly still trying to cover for him.
He really was the softest marshmallow.
But as touched as he was, right now the most important thing wasn't avoiding blame; it was finding the snake before anyone got hurt, including the creature itself. There would be time to wriggle out of Scott and John’s inevitable lecture later.
“The signal’s likely very subtle,” he said, drawing John's attention. “He’s cold-blooded, so his core temperature’s gonna be mirroring the immediate environment. Look at components a little below body temperature and check for tiny, unexplained fluctuations.”
“Cold-bl… You lost a reptile?!”
“A snake,” clarified Virgil.
There was a moment while John processed this new information, then he closed his eyes and pinched the top of his nose.
“Of course it's a snake(!)” He sighed. “EOS? Did you catch all that?”
EOS’s voice rang through clear over the comms. “Yes, John. Checking now…”
“In the meantime,” said John, “I suggest you put your helmets back on, just to be safe. The less exposed skin you two have the better.”
The brothers nodded.
Gordon set the incubator down and grabbed his helmet from the dash in front of him, just as EOS brought up a schematic of the cockpit onto the screen in front of him.
“There’s a slight irregularity in temperature around the co-pilot’s control panel, but it’s too indistinct to pin down to a specific component.”
Gordon’s eyes darted all over the dashboard in front of him.
Where?
Scrabbling to push his chair back and get his helmet on, he vaguely heard Virgil say something about lifting the main cover off the console before he was suddenly distracted by a sharp, stabbing pain in his right cheek, just above the jaw.
“Yeow!”
Virgil was by his side immediately, mediscanner in hand. “What?! What is it?”
Gordon remained in his chair, sitting stock still.
"Don’ scan.”
"What?"
"Don' scan. Th' noise'll scare 'im."
Virgil's eyes went wide.
"Where is it?" he whispered, looking him up and down.
“I’z on m’ face."
“What?!?”
“On. M’. Face. W’z inside th’ helmet.”
Virgil and John exchanged a panicked look.
…Yep.
By rights, Gordon should have been scared. After all, there was a chance he could die here; the little danger-noodle might be pumping deadly venom into him by the second. But surprisingly he wasn’t overly worried about that possibility just now. In fact he felt strangely calm and clear-headed. What was done was done after all, and the priority now was to a) not do anything to make the snake strike again (him or Virgil); and b) get it secured.
“Ah’m gonna slowly r’move th’ helmet," he mumbled, trying not to move his mouth too much. "When y’ see ‘im, grab ‘im c’refully b’hind th’ head an’ unhook ‘im.”
Keeping his head stock still, he looked sidelong at his big brother to check he’d understood. Poor Virg looked pale, but he nodded and shifted into position in front of him, mouth set in a grim line. Behind him, John's face was a picture of worry.
“R'dy?” Gordon asked.
Virgil nodded, hands poised.
He gave a little blink in lieu of a smile. “Okay."
Deep breath.
"One. Two. ‘Hree.”
And slowly he took off his helmet.
Virgil reached forwards and closed his hand next to his face. Gordon's skin pulled painfully for a moment, then released, leaving a sharp echo across his cheek.
He exhaled in a big whoosh that seemed to come from his very soul, and raised his eyes to finally look on the thing that had bitten him.
“Scanning for a species match now,” said John urgently as Virgil stepped back, holding the offending creature out at arm’s length. “Cross-matching size, markings and-”
“It’s a Children’s Python!”
“A what?” Virgil asked roughly.
John took a massive breath in. “Oh thank god! Are you sure?”
“Certain,” replied Gordon, finding his feet and bouncing over to look a bit closer, all concern for his safety gone. “We had one as a class pet in 5th grade. Native to Northern Australia. Fantastic pets.”
“I can confirm the identification, John” said EOS. “The species is non-venomous.”
All the remaining colour drained from Virgil's face. He lowered himself down shakily into his chair, arm still outstretched. “Well in that case would someone please come and take this thing out of my hand before I have a heart attack?”
“Oops! Yep, give me one second…”
Gordon grabbed the tray of eggs and fished out a roll of electrical tape from one of his console drawers.
“This should keep the lid secure until we can get him into the shelter, at least.”
Gordon reached out and gently took hold of the little snake, who had stopped thrashing around and instead seemed content to curl its body gently around his hand. He took a second to admire its beautiful mottled markings in light and dark brown, and the gentle undulation of muscles pulsing as it moved.
"Hey, little guy."
The tiny snake flicked its tongue at him, tasting the air.
Slowly, gently, Gordon encouraged the snake back in the tray, extracted his hand, and then put the lid on and taped it down.
As soon as the tray was closed, John seemed to deflate like he was the one who’d been punctured.
“Please, for the love of god, don’t ever scare me like that again, okay guys? My cortisol levels can't take it."
"Take it easy John," soothed Virgil as he stumbled over to examine Gordon's cheek. "You sit back and have a float and we'll finish up here."
He took Gordon by the chin and turned his face to the side.
"...C'mon Blofeld, let's get you cleaned up."
…
Fifteen minutes later and sporting a natty Baby Shark band-aid on his cheek, Gordon skipped across the animal shelter car park towards the front desk. Alongside him, Virgil carried the now-definitely-sealed incubator. (Gordon had argued it was his privilege as 'the walking wounded’ not to have to carry stuff. Virgil had just rolled his eyes and agreed, muttering something about checking for himself to ensure no more 'jailbreaks'.)
Behind them, a dozen or so vets and other volunteers were unloading the various other crates of animals from Two's hold, checking them over and directing them to their respective enclosures.
Gordon grinned.
"Feeling better now?" asked Virgil, quirking a smile in reply.
He was, in more ways than one. Somehow, staring into the face of that tiny serpent had made him feel a lot more positive about everything. Nature really was amazing. If a baby creature, just out of its egg, could survive and protect itself in a hostile environment like that little one had today, then with a little bit of care he was sure the other animals they'd rescued would as well.
Life was good. He had his health, he had his family, and they’d done good today.
Suddenly overcome with happiness, he couldn’t help doing a little jumping air punch, earning a low chuckle from his left.
"You were right, Virg. Today really was a win.”
Virgil raised an eyebrow at him. "Not sure I'd quite describe it that way, but if you say so. You did still set a snake loose in my ‘bird, though.”
“Hey, don't blame me! I'm as much a victim as you are. Little Hissy Houdini's a force all of his own.”
A pause. “You named him?”
“Yep! Kinda fitting, don’t you think?”
Virgil’s eyes narrowed.
"You’re not keeping him.”
Gordon gasped dramatically.
“Virgil Tracy, I am shocked! I would never-”
“Sully the Gully, Puppy Longstocking, Razorbill Bob, the Swift Family Robinson…”
“...again. Never again.”
“Well that’s just as well then, because I don’t think Scott would appreciate finding this little escapologist in his sock drawer, do you?"
As Gordon contemplated all of the delicious trickster-y possibilities that that image brought up, he stretched and gave his back another series of cracks.
Virgil regarded him coolly. "You sound like a goddamn popcorn maker," he grumbled. "Speaking of, I wonder if the others'd be up for a movie night tonight? I feel like we've earned a bit of down time."
"Sounds good to me," said Gordon, flinging an arm around the big man's shoulders. "And I have the perfect one in mind… You like Samuel L Jackson films, right?"
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